wickedness of the Nation they live in and supplicating God for pardon and more especially pouring forth their Souls in fervent and frequent Devotions both publick and private in Reading Meditation and good Conference in renewing of their Vows and Covenants with God resigning themselves up to their Lord and Master the ever Blessed Jesus and participating of that Blessed Feast the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of their Crucified Saviour there receiving the Pledge Seal and Assurance of the pardon of their Sins the Favor and Love of God and from that Blessed Feast of Easter that time of Jubile run with Alacrity and Chearfulness of Heart like the Sun in his Course that Blessed Christian Race the end whereof will be an eternal weight of Glory which will as far exceed all our Thoughts and Hearts as it now exceeds our Deserts Now when these things are duly considered none I hope will cry out with Judas What means this Wast for can we take too much of wise sober serious Consideration about our eternal Concernments the principal Business of our Lives And although good Christians do this at other times also especially before they approach the Holy Sacrament yet why not now also more solemnly and seriously together with holy Abstinence and Fasting joyned to it which adds advantage to our Prayers as it did to the Prayers of Cornelius And some Men may possibly be possest by long custom in Sin such a stubborn Devil who will not out without Prayer and Fasting as our Saviour speaks Mark 9. 29. And by this means make this time highly Advantageous to us for the promoting of Piety in our Souls and making Religion not only our Profession but especially at this time our Trade which indeed ought to be the great Business of our Lives our greatest end and design we drive in the World Let us all now consider That God Almighty by his extraordinary Providences calls upon us to be serious when the Cedars fall and those who are his Vicegerents and are Stiled by him Gods on Earth do dye like Men when he hath signified his Displeasure against us for our great Sins and Provocations and hath bereft us as it were of the Light of our Eyes and the Breath of our Nostrils deprived us of our late Gracious Sovereign the best of Princes But yet nevertheless in midst of Judgment remembring Mercy hath richly again supplyed that great Loss unto us which nothing but the furnishing us with such a Just and Gracious Prince we now have upon the Throne could have made up to us a Prince who hath often when a Subject hazarded his Life for our Honor and Defence and hath freely of his own good Will and Pleasure given us such great Assurance of Confirming to us the present Establishments both in Church and State such a Prince as I have read Plato discribes Under whom we may expect true Quietness and Remedy from all Evil in whom by Divine Ordinance from above there meeteth in one Person the Right Majesty of a King and the Mind of a Wise Philosopher to make Vertue Governess and Ruler over Vice for Men as he speaks seeing the true Image of Vertue in their Prince and in the Example of his Life do willingly grow to be wise of themselves and do fall in love liking and friendship unto it and do use all temperance and just dealing And thus the Divine Goodness by the intermixing of Judgment and Mercy designs to break our stony Hearts and seems to speak to us as he did once to the People of Israel Oh! that there were such a Heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my Comandments always that it might be well with them and with their Children for ever Deut. 5. 29. And therefore have we not great Reason now to be serious and to consider our Ways and Doings all our great Sins and Provocations and to abhor our selves in Dust and Ashes for the same especially in consideration of that national Guilt that we lie under which cries aloud against us to Heaven Let us seriously consider that general great Contempt of God and Religion which so much abounds in the Nation as if we had lost that natural instinct of a Deity if I may so call it that Sense of God which the Law of Nature hath imprest upon the Minds of all Men. Oh! the Atheistical Discourse of wicked Men which we meet with in every place their prophane Merriment drolling upon God and Religion the Sacred Scriptures as if Men were resolved to defie their Creator and to hunt and chase God and all Religion out of the World What a general most audacious Contempt of the Divine Laws with a high hand as if we had no dependance on him and were not his Creatures and our breath in our Nostrils the great Contempt of his Ministers and Messengers the Reverend and Worthy Clergy of the Church of England although our Saviour saith He that despiseth you despiseth me The great Contempt of his publick Worship and Service among us as if he were an Idol and not the Living God Alas if we look into our Churches may we not see nay how can we but see in most of them the Abomination of Desolation as I may call it either horrid irreverence in our Gestures and Behaviour there in those Sacred places rather many times like people at a play than at their Devotions trifling with the things of God and Religion or may we not see many times the publick Worship and Service of God in the Churches Celebrated and Performed almost to the very bare walls of the Church attended by the Poor the Halt the Blind and the Lame a few of the meanest of the People especially if there be no Sermon to Attend and Sanctifie the Solemnity and yet there being so many people among us who have their time lying so upon their hands that they know not well how to dispose of it But this mischief was I conceive much occasioned from erroneous and wicked Principles and Opinions of our late times of Usurpation as that we were not obliged to give God the worship of the Body as well as of the Heart and that it was very scarce if at all the Worship of God without a Sermon to attend it Let us consider seriously those horrid Sins of Murmuring against our Governors speaking evil of Dignities our Seditions and Rebellions against our Sovereign Prince and the sad and dismal Consequences of the same in the late times of Usurpation the Deposing Dethroning and Murdering of the Lord 's Anointed and exposing the Royal Family to infinite Dangers and Hazards the Destruction of thousands the Devastations Misery and Ruine of the whole Kingdom Let us consider with Horror and Amazement the Insolence and Wickedness of those Rebel Saints whose very best pretences were a more desperate Affront both to Government and Religion than perhaps any Age or Historian can parallel but whose worst Practices were villainous not only
beyond Example but Belief as a late worthy Author hath observed which Crimes it is much to be feared are not yet expiated although forgot but cry aloud to Heaven for Vengeance especially considering how many there have been among us in this Nation who were so far from Repenting of the said horrid Villainies that they owned and avowed those very Principles of Sedition and Disloyalty which promoted and were the cause of the same and with audacious Impudence proceeding many steps onwards in the same Path of Disloyalty and towards the perpetrating of the same Wickedness again Let us consider also of our Pride and Wantonness in Religion our running greedily into Errors Heresies and Schisms with the Consequences of them Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Sedition Envyings Murthers the loss of true Religion Peace and Unity and how we have by this means cloathed Religion and that which some would call the Protestant Religion in a deformed Dress in a Fools Coat made it Ridiculous yea Loathsom to all sober and considering Persons in the World And therefore now to make us sensible of the Wickedness of the late times and especially considering there is a generation risen up since who are many of them ignorant of the same I shall make a short Scheme Draught and Representation of the Rise Progress Fruit and Effect of Fanaticism and Schism We may understand That there was a happy Reformation of Religion perfected and compleated in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory by the Wisdom Moderation and Judgment of our Wise Reformers the Reverend Learned and Pious Divines the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England in Convocation Assembled who proposed to themselves the keeping of the Golden Mean Reforming no farther from Rome than was fit necessary and commendable and indeed no farther receding from Rome than she had receded from her self and from Antiquity and therein doing no more than what had been the desires of many others famous and worthy Men who nevertheless lived and died in Communion of that Church and what was thought upon good grounds That other Parts of Christendom would have attempted and effected if they could have had a lawful Oppertunity and Authority for the doing thereof as we had in England In short as the Worthy Dr. Fearn truly states the Case of our Reformation in England We said he had just Cause to Reform and so had our Adversaries the Romanists We in Reforming did what we ought if they had done what they ought and had cause to do no breach or division had followed And further We in doing what we ought preserved the Faith entire together with Charity they would neither cast off their Errors which clogged and corrupted the Faith nor retain Charity but cut us off as much as in them lay from the Catholick Church So that it is clear saith that Worthy Author to whom the Division must be imputed Now we must understand presently after the compleating of this happy Reformation of Religion in Queen Elizabeth's Reign there arose a discontented and dissatisfied Faction although curb'd and kept under by her called a while after Puritans which were like Mothes in a Cloth eating and fretting the same continually murmuring against the said excellent Reformation finding great fault with Government Liturgy and the Reverend Bishops and Governors of the Church instead of being thankful to God for the same and of their ready and chearful Subjection as good Christians ought to this Excellent Constitution Yea the said Faction did proceed to repine and complain against the same refusing to Conform to it and so continued to do all King Jame's Reign abusing the Favor and Indulgence of that good Prince granted to them in the Conference at Hampton-Court increasing and growing more numerous by their pretences to Piety and Purity of Religion with their frequent Sermons and Lectures then superstitiously accounted the Main if not the All of Religion and then also very much perverted and abused to promote Faction and Discontents against the Ecclesiastical Government until at last growing to a Head about the middle of the Reign of King Charles the First they then arrived to the height of Boldness and Insolence and by the means of that black Parliament 1640. in the Choice of whose Members of the House of Commons that Faction had a great hand together with the Rebellion of their Brethren the Scots they became like an impetuous and overflowing Flood and carried and bore down all before them in the Nation And as the only pious and godly People and true Protestants fit to Rule and Govern the Kingdom that Parliament having by importunity and specious Pretences obtained of their Sovereign a Confirmation for their sitting as long as they pleased boldly then managed a War and Rebellion against their Sovereign and when by this means this Nation not to mention Ireland had lain divers years weltering in Blood God in just Judgment upon the Nation suffering them to prosper in their Wickedness they then seized into their hands all the Royal Prerogatives the Revenues and Lands the Jewels and Goods of the Crown the Supports of the Royal Dignity deposing and most barbarously Imprisoning their Liege Lord and Sovereign Charles the First of ever Blessed Memory who then flying to his own Country-men the Scots for Protection was sold and Betrayed by them and retaining Him in Prison in Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight not suffering Him to enjoy so much as one of his Servants or Chaplains to Attend Him Then also forcing into Banishment the Royal Family to live upon the Charity of Roman Catholicks and what some Loyal Subjects in England secretly conveyed over to them with the peril of their Lives That Faction then further proceeded on to overthrow the Government of the Church to cast out Prelacy as a piece of Popery totally dissolved all Church-Government sacrilegiously sold all Church-Lands and Revenues also casting off as Popish and Antichristian the Holy Feasts and Fasts of the Church as Christmas Easter c. turned Churches into Stables also in the mean time all-a-long miserably debauching and corrupting the Christian Sound Doctrine as that wise Prelate Arch-Bishop Bancroft charged them with long before in his Survey of the Holy discipline His words are these That the Puritans did pervert the true meaning both of Scripture and Fathers to serve their own turn especially in these particulars following Not to mention that Opinion of God's designing from all Eternity the greatest part of Mankind to destruction merely from the good pleasure of his Will a Doctrine highly dishonourable to the Divine Majesty First That we are saved by Faith alone when yet they saw this was so interpreted as if they did define Righteousness by the sole Opinion or Perswasion of the Mind and did seclude good Works That we are justified by the imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us as if we had fulfilled the whole Law our selves and that we are cloathed with this Garment of our Elder
Foundation all Natural Moral Justice and Honesty and in place thereof to set up a New Body of Carneades his Philosophy instead of the old Heathen dry Principles of Integrity and Uprightness that one Law of Interest and Passion and Self-Preservation So that as Machiavel thought Religion would emasculate and enfeeble Common-wealths We have more reason to complain saith he That it hath debauched and corrupted Lives That Christian Men are the impurest Part of the World That Sathan's after-game hath proved more lucky and prosperous to him than his first Designment did That his Night-walks hath brought him more Proselytes than his unlimited Range of going up and down to and fro over the Face of the Earth That as Sin by the Law so Sathan by the Faith of Christ hath taken occasion and so deceived and ruined us more desperately more universally than by all the National Idolatrous Customs of Heathenism he hath been able to do And let us seriously consider That all this complicated Mass of Wickedness not to be parallel'd under the Sun was committed and done in the Face of the World by those who stiled themselves and would needs be accounted the only Protestants of the Kingdom Things being brought to this Conclusion and upshot What an easie Perswasion might prevail with sober and considering Honest-hearted Men in Exile forthwith to abandon and renounce this Protestant Religion as a Religion to be abhorred by all Men as being as opposite to the true Christian Religion and what likewise in truth was professed by the Church of England as Darkness was to Light And a great part if not all this Mischief arose and was carried on as I humbly conceive with submission to better Judgments from a furious and mad Antipathy and Averseness against Popery and Papists which made them to imagine they never could run far enough from Rome until they came to Munster Where I will leave them with their Fellow Protestants if all such who are opposite to Rome must be Protestants as of late many in England would have made them and that by a Law also But Alas these abominable and horrid Impieties what honest and pious Heart can seriously consider of and not dissolve into Tears and humbly and affectionately beg of God not to lay these Sins to England's Charge but to wipe out the Guilt thereof from the Nation More especially considering what a loud Cry innocent Blood yea the Blood of The Lord 's Anointed hath to Heaven for Vengeance especially upon Fanaticks and such as retain the fore-said wicked Tenents and Principles which were productive of all the said Villainies Let them further seriously consider Mr. Baxter's own Words in his last Answer to Bagshaw pag. 30. cited by a Worthy Author Nothing saith Mr. Baxter that I know of in the World doth so strongly tempt some sober Consciencious Men to think Popery necessary for the Concord of Churches and a violent Church-Government necessary to our Peace as the woful Experience of the Errors and Schism the mad and manifold Sects that arise among those that are most against them To which purpose the Worthy Dr. Parker speaking of the Phanaticks endangering Religion several ways saith thus I know no other grounds of Fear or Danger from them unless this may prove one at last That by their wanton and unreasonable Peevishness to the Ingenious and Moderate Discipline of the Church of England they give their Governours too much Reason to suspect That they are never to be kept in order by a milder and more gentle Government than that of the Church of Rome and force them at last to scourge them into better manners with the Bryars and Thorns of their Discipline Let us further consider seriously the abounding of Debauchery and Wickedness among us at this Day which can portend nothing but Mischief to us the horrid Oaths Blasphemies and Curses that continually fly about our Ears almost in all Companies and in every Place more or less yea as we pass along the Streets enough to amaze us What abounding in Swinish Drunkenness and Excess How have our Times curiously studied to find out variety of Liquors to make an Acceptable Sacrifice thereof to Bacchus What Fulness of Bread and Idleness what Intemperance Gaming Uncleanness and Lasciviousness and the Consequents of these Quarrelling and Duelling having as it were lost the Sense of Good and Evil our very Natural Modesty and Shame we are become impudent and exquisite in Sin And which is most sad to consider these are those Rotten Bones as one hath well observed which would lie hid under the Painted Sepulchre of Honor These some would make the Accomplishments of a Gentleman The Learned Doctor Hammond observes That many irrational Sins through some Local custom have gotten the Reputation not only of sinless and lawful but of laudable also as Duelling and in favour of Sins of Uncleanness whereby it is become a more creditable thing among us To have been guilty of defiling and invading another Man's Bed than to be the Innocent Person which hath been thus robb'd by the Adulterer Now Let us consider seriously of these things as a Divine of our own hath well observed How that Atheism and Enthusiasm are apart and by themselves the most desperate and dangerous Causes of Misery and Calamity and Ruin to Mankind And that when ever they should combine Interests and joyn Forces what Government can withstand their Fury in that there is no Wickedness that is necessary to the carrying on the Cause that they will not undertake Do we not therefore stand in great need of Sober and Serious Consideration and of humbling our Souls before God in Dust and Ashes for all these before-mentioned Abominations and making our Peace with an offended Majesty and by frequent and fervent Devotions imploring his Mercies and in the Language of our Church upon Ash-Wednesday say Almighty and EverlastingGod who hatest nothing that Thou hast made and dost forgive the Sins of all them that are Penitent Create and make in us new and contrite Hearts that we worthily lamenting our Sins and acknowledging our Wretchedness may obtain of Thee the God of all Mercy perfect Remission and Forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Lord And further to enlarge our Devotions to God That He would please to bless and prosper our Gracious Sovereign Lord the King's Majesty and his Gracious Consort and all the Royal Family That He would furnish his Majesty's Royal Heart with Wisdom to go in and out before this great People committed to his Charge by the Supreme Lord of all the Kings of the Earth That God would support and strengthen him under that great Weight of Government that now lies upon his Shoulders in the Governing of a Licencious People very much tainted with with Schismatical Seditious and Wicked Principles which can be no pleasing Task for any Prince to undergo ThatGod would be pleased to direct and guide his Counsels and cloath his Enemies with Shame and Confusion and That upon his Head
Doctrine Worship and Government and so to degenerate from its primitive Purity and Integrity and was made use of as a Means and Instrument of acquiring Honor Splendor and Riches and of promoting those great Vices of Pride Covetousness Idleness and Luxury and this instead of making Men Virtuous and Good and rectifying their Lives and Directing them in the Ways of Holiness and Peace conducting them to Heaven Thus I humbly conceive from the Pope's Primacy of Order arose the Supremacy of Jurisdiction and from thence Papal Tyranny packing of General Councils corruption in Doctrine and Practice with innumerable other Mischiefs to the Church the great dividing and endangering Christendom and laying it many times in War and Blood And on the other hand how this Holy Religion of JESVS Christ hath been miserably corrupted and abased by Sectaries and Fanaticks how hath it been made absurd and ridiculous to all the World by their Pride and Folly their ignorant Confidences Peevishness and Animosities Who out of a mad blind Zeal against Popery never could think themselves safe and far enough separated from Rome until they fell into Religious Frensy yet would then notwithstanding account themselves Protestants yea the best of Protestants and what a long train of dismal Consequences there followed the same the World can witness and more especially of late Years we in England as you have heard before Oh! may I therefore exhort us again to bewail our Follies and abandon them to Renounce all Schism Contention Fanaticism that Plague of the Reformation and living vertuous and good Lives and in Conformity and Subjection to our Mother the Church of England her wholesom and Excellent Constitutions Oh! Let us learn this most commendable Duty from our Adversaries the Romanists who are very Respectful towards their Ecclesiastical Governors and very Conformable to the Constitutions of their Church and abhor to do any thing that may prejudice the Order Peace and Welfare of the same in any kind for which I cannot but have a great respect for them and in which I shall endeavour to follow their Example in the Church of England wherein I was born and for so doing they cannot I hope justly blame me And although they are possibly led by a blind Obedience or Impicit Faith as we call it and are thereby many times misled yet their fault arising from a diffidence of themselves and obedience to their Superiors will be very pardonable especially of such as are born and bred in that Communion it being a fault on the Right-hand and far less than what our Fanaticks and Sectaries are guilty of who out of Pride Ignorance and Presumption refuse Subjection to the Spiritual Governors which God hath set over them and thereby break the Unity and Peace of the Church Let us therefore heartily pray as our Mother the Church teaches us Almighty God who shewest to them that be in Error the Light of thy Truth to the intent that they must return into the Way of Righteousness Grant unto all them that are admitted into the Fellowship of Christs Religion that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen I shall conclude and say sufficit tentasse Let it suffice I have done my Endeavour in a good Cause For certainly if the Promotion of the Honour of God the Advancement of True Religion and Vertue if the Promoting of Loyalty and Fidelity the Honour and Happiness of my Gracious Sovereign if the Detestation of Errours of Atheism and Prophaneness Vice and Wickedness of Fanaticism Hypocrisie Schism and Rebellion and representing them in their proper colours if promoting the Peace and Happiness of the Church of England as now by Law Establish'd the best Christian Church in the World of Piety and Unity amongst all her Members if promoting the Peace of Christendom and more especially the Honour Happiness and Prosperity of this Nation yea of all his Majesties Dominions I say if the honest endeavours of the same be a commendable and worthy Design it is all I intend in the Writing and now making Publick these although sudden yet serious Thoughts Therefore I hope I may meet with a pardon for the meanness and unworthiness of the performance to so good an end And as for any one that shall find fault with my weak and unworthy management of so worthy so good a Cause it is no more than what I do my self Let him but be pleased to undertake the Cause and manage it better and I assure him I shall be so far from being offended with him That I shall be infinitely well pleased and rejoyce therein and return him my thanks And it is yet my Hopes this Essay may animate and encourage eminent and able Champions in so worthy a Cause which without doubt is the most excellent most honourable most worthy the best in the World and merits the assistance of the ablest Heads Pens and Tongues that are extant among us FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Luke Meredith at the King's Head at the West End of St. Paul's Church-Yard AN Introduction to the Old English History comprehended in Three several Tracts The First An Answer to Mr. Petyt's Rights of the Commons Asserted and to a Book Entituled Jani Anglorum Facies Nova The Second Edition very much enlarged The Second An Answer to a Book Entituled Argumentum Antinormanicum much upon the same Subject Never before Published The Third The Exact History of the Succession of the Crown of England The Second Edition also very much enlarged Together with an Appendix containing several Records and a Series of Great Councils and Parliaments Before and After the Conquest unto the End of the Reign of Henry the Third And a Glossary expounding many Words used frequently in our Antient Records Laws and Historians Published for the Vindication of Truth and the Assistance of such as desire with Satisfaction to read and truly understand the Antient English Historians and other Pieces of Antiquity By Robert Brady Doctor in Physick A Loyal Tear dropt on the Vault of the High and Mighty Prince Charles the Second of Gorious and Happy Memory By Henry Anderson M. A. Vicar of Kingsumborne in Hampshire The Songs of Moses and Deborah Paraphras'd with Poems on several Occasions Never before Published To which is added A Pindarick on Mr. L'Estrange A Dialogue between a Pastor and his Parishioner touching the Lord's Supper Wherein the most material Doubts and Scruples about Receiving that Holy Sacrament are removed and the Way thereto discovered to be both plain and pleasant Very useful for Private Christians in these scrupulous Times By Michael Altham The Second Edition To which is added Some short Prayers fitted for that Occasion and a Morning and Evening Prayer for the Use of Private Families Two Treatises The First Concerning Reproaching and Censure The Second An Answer to Mr. Serjeant's Sure-Footing To which are annexed Three Sermons Preached upon several Occasions and very useful for these Times By the late Learned and Reverend William Faulkner D. D. Rhetoricae Libri Duo Quorum Prior de Tropis Figuris Posterior de Voce Gestu praecipit In usum Scholarum postremo recogniti infinitisque poene mendis expurgati Autore Carolo Butlero Magd. Artium Magistro Sir Edwin Sands in his Europae Speculum