he will enable me to suffer whatever may be necessary for those great Ends and that he will incline you to publish your Reasons or Repentance The Gentleman who wrote this Letter to Dr. T. is a Person of great Candour and Integrity and was once a great Admirer of him and from his Example we may see what a mighty Scandal the Doctor 's Apostacy hath been to the very Notion of all Religion as well as that professed in the Church of England And I have heard him say since Dr. Tillotson's Death that he thinks he was an Atheist as much as a Man could be though the gravest said he certainly that ever was and this Opinion which this Gentleman and many others have of him is owing to that great and scandalous Blemish of his Life his Apostacy from his own Doctrines about Non-resistance and the Nature of Religion and this foul Blemish which hath tempted that serious and worthy Gentleman and others to question Religion it self upon his Account is like to be an everlasting Blot upon his Memory unless his Funeral Preacher or Dr. Sherlock or Dr. Pain who have mentioned him in their Sermons with so much Respect will please to write a Discourse on purpose to reconcile the Contradiction between his late Practice and former Principles and Precepts which he himself though called on in so solemn a manner had not the Hardiness to do I beg Mr. Manningham's who is one of his Doctors Pardon for not mentioning of him among the others for he perhaps hath found out a way to reconcile them because he Sainted him in his Prayer before the Sermon which he preached to the Sons of the Clergy-men at Bow But if he is pleased to undertake a Discourse of that Nature he must take care not to forget himself who in a Sermon at the Rolls while the Convention was a sitting said That a Convention of English Subjects could no more make a King than a Convention of Atoms make the World That which gave the great Offence to the Gentleman whose Letter I have cited was the Inconsistency of the Doctor 's Practices with his Principles since the Revolution to which I must further add That his Practices long before it were not well reconcilable with them nor they with his Practices And of this I will give one Instance and that was his great Intimacy with the late Lord Shaftsbury and particularly about that time when he preached on the Fifth of November 1678. and his Acting in consort with him then in upholding the Pretensions of the Duke of Monmouth to be the King 's Legitimate Son and giving credit to those innumerable Lyes which were invented at Thanet House to support the Credit of the Popish Plot. I question very much whether more Lyes and Calumnies against the King and the Government were then dispersed from his or my Lord Shaftsbury's House I have particular Reason for what I say for I was then well acquainted with a Person who was very intimate with one of his Favourite Acquaintance to whom he used to go very often in great kindness to disabuse his Credulity and confute those Stories which he used to hear in Amen Corner often to his disturbance He was pleased to call that Gentleman his Sive because he was wont to separate the Tares from the Wheat and the Bran from the Flour of his Stories and by conversing with him I came to know more of the great Intercourse and Correspondency there was between my Lord Shaftsbury and the Dean of Canterbury than was commonly known The Dean used to go in those Days Three or Four times a Week to my Lord's House but very privately and there often met among others one of his Relations a great Lord of the Court whom I think not fit to Name My Lord D. who was then committed to the Tower by the Malice of his Enemies knew well how much the Dean was in their Interests and particularly the great Esteem he was in among those who were the Confidents at Thanet House This obliged his Lordship to write to him to entreat him to do him all the good Offices he could among that Party The Dean upon this went to wait upon his Lordship in the Tower but how far he engaged in that Negotiation for my Lord's Service I cannot now remember but the Event shew'd that there was little Effect of it Remembering these Stories and the many slanderous Reports that had come from his House and used to be told upon his Authority against the King and Government I was curious to see his Sermon against Evil Speaking upon Tit. 3.2 which was occasioned by some ill Reports and Reflections that went abroad of himself and this Government more especially in the unlicensed Prints of the Times There I was very much pleased to find him condemning Evil Speaking as a detestable Vice whether it were by being the first Authors of ill Reports or by relating them from others by speaking before a Man's Face or behind his Back directly or obscurely by way of Insinuation by down-right Reproach or with a Preface of Commendation c. More especially was I pleased and astonished withal to find him setting forth the heinous Nature of reviling those whom God hath placed in Authority and to slander the Footsteps of the Lord 's Anointed I could not but admire the Power of Conscience and of Divine Truth to extort this from a Man who had been so guilty of it as you shall find by the following Story King Charles the Second taking Notice of the false and scandalous Report of his Marriage with the Duke of Monmouth's Mother made a Declaration on the Sixth of January 1679. written with his own Hand in these Words following I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never was Married nor gave any Contract to any Woman whatsoever but to my Wife Queen Catherine to whom I am now Married This Declaration was made in the Presence of W. Cant. H. Finch C. H. Coventry J. Williamson In March following his Majesty made a more publick Declaration in the Privy Council to strengthen the former in these Words For the avoiding any Dispute which may happen in time to come concerning the Succession to the Crown I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never made nor gave any Contract of Marriage nor was Married to any Woman whatsoever but to my present Wife Queen Catherine now Living Whitehall the Third of March 1679. This Declaration attested by Sixteen Privy Counsellers was entered in the Council Book and Copies of it quickly got abroad and as it came to Dr. Tillotson's Hands sooner we may be sure than most Men's so he had the Ingenuity to note it for an Equivocal Declaration As if the King contrary to the Punctation of it and the common Usage of English Speech had meant it in this Sense I do here declare in the Presence of Almighty God that I never made nor gave any Contract
will remain Sacred and Venerable whatever I have proved him to be nor lose any more of the respect which is due to it because he is a Bishop than human Nature can lose of the Honour and Dignity which is due to it because he is a Man Though Bishops turn Rebels and make Rebels and Outlaws Bishops yet I must reverence the Function by reason I think it of Divine Institution But notwithstanding all my Reverence for it I think it ought not to be a Cover and Protection for ill Men who pervert whole Nations and Churches especially for insolent and cruel Men who persecute their Brethren for no other Reason but because they profess and practise the same Doctrines which they themselves formerly taught the People and because they have endeavoured to convince the World by their Books That these Men are Apostates and have done both our Church and Religion much more harm than they can do it good These are the Traytors to that very Order which some of them have Usurped and seem ready to give up the uninterrupted Succession upon which the Priesthood depends if they may but by gaining one Sort of Dissenters better secure their Baronies and Revenues which they mind more than the Honour of their Order or the Catholick Rights of the Church What else means their Courting at such a fulsom Rate those in one Kingdom who have destroyed it in another Why else are they so ready to treat it away under a Pretence of Union with Dissenters and in Complement to Foreign Churches Why contrary to former Times do they suffer some French Ministers who have not had Episcopal Ordination to Preach and Administer the Sacraments at the Church in the Savoy and its Dependences which by the Act of Uniformity is a Member of the Church of England What means this new Discovery of Comprehension in so many of the late Funeral Sermons which the Convocation rejected Why do they exhort Lay-men to support and Clergy-men to comply with Presbytery in Scotland as I have shewed our Preacher and his Heroe did Or lastly What means the new Hypothesis of * See the Book of the Revelation paraphrased with Annotations on each Chapter Lond. printed by Rich. Wellington at the Lute in St. Paul's Churchyard 1694. Witnessing Churches That because the Churches in Savoy and France which have no Bishops have born their Testimony against Popery therefore Bishops by uninterrupted Succession and Priests of Episcopal Ordination which have been the signal Blessing of the Church of England are not necessary to the Church At the Rate that Annotator writes in very many Places of his Book and Preface we must blend our pure Orders and Priesthood not only with Ministers who derive their Mission from Presbyters but with Ministers who derive them ultimately from meer Lay-men as many of the first Reformers both in France and Savoy were Nay at this rate of talking I know not what is necessary to Christianity either as a Sect professing Doctrines or a Society which Antiquity so much undervalued by him called the Catholick Church For Anabaptists Quakers and Socinians have born their Testimony against Popery and will bear it and therefore in his wild way of Writing not only Bishops but Priests nor Episcopal Orders only but all Orders with Infant Baptism and the Lord's Supper may be parted with as Temporary Ordinances for comprehension of all Sects that pretend to be Christian and witnesses against the Church of Rome Nay this dangerous Hypothesis of the witnessing Churches may for any Thing I see to the contrary be improved to the Advantage of the Jews to prove them to be the Church of God For they have born and will bear their Testimony against Popery and great Numbers of them have died Martyrs against it in the Inquisition I need but mention the Mahumetans who abhor Popery for its Image-Worship and the Invocation of Saints as much as the Witnessing Churches And therefore it is a mad way of arguing to cure us of our Fondness as he is pleased to call it for our uninterrupted Episcopal Succession because the Witnessing Churches have the Misfortune to want it This is the Argument of the Fox in the Fable who had lost his Tail and had Men argued in this manner in the Primitive Times they might have laid aside both the Sacraments in the Church because great Numbers of Catechumens died Martyrs or Witnesses against the Idolatry of Rome Pagan which notwithstanding all the Comments and Annotations of some Men I believe was much more Abominable than that of the modern Papal Rome This Annotator I take to be one of those Men who drive on for Comprehension and with those Latitudinarians it was and more particularly Dr. Tillotson that Dr. Sherlock (a) Temple Serm. upon the Death of the Queen p. 16 17. saith Their Majesties and more particularly the Queen who had more leisure for such Thoughts were inspired with great and pious Designs to serve the Church of England whatever some Men might suspect though it may be not perfectly in their own way But why does he not tell us what this way was And whether it was consistent with his Queries his Book of Union and Communion and his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's unreasonableness of Separation from the Church of England Dr. Bates the Non-conformist tells us (b) Sermon upon the Death of the Queen p. 20. It was to unite Christians in Things essential to Christianity but he doth not tell us what those Essential Things were or whether they were Things Essential to Christianity as a Society as well as a Sect. But I desire plainly to know what those Things were which they thought Essential to Christianity and in which they were to be United For I am afraid they had a Design to form an Union against the Catholick Church and in order to it give up some Things as not Essential which many as learned and good Men as Dr. T. and these Doctors would have thought Essential to Christianity and that their parting with them would have involved in it a parting with the Lord's Day and Infant Baptism nay all Baptism and the Lord's Supper with the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and have done no good Office to the Power of the Keys nor to the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures which depends so much upon Tradition That they themselves alone are not alone sufficient to prove it without the Testimony of the Church It was my Design in writing these Discourses to aim at all the Men of this broad Way of Union as well as against those Two whom I have detected and thereby to warn the rest of the Clergy against them For God be thanked the main Body of our Clergy are Men of quite different Spirits they do not persecute their old Brethren for their strict Doctrines but pity and help to support them They know by Experience how hard it was for Conscience to overcome the Difficulties of the new Oath and therefore
are in a Capacity And I appeal to your Conscience whether it be a likelier way to advance Religion by Fighting or Suffering since a carnal Man can do the one and not the other This is a further Proof of that part of the Charge I have drawn up against him in the beginning of the first Chapter of his being a Man of Contradictions to himself and I will beg the Reader 's leave to prove it with a later Testimony In his Funeral Sermon on Dr. Tillotson he censures the deprived Bishops but as I have shewed very unjustly for leaving their Authority with their Chancellors and tendering Oaths by them which they thought unlawful One would think he should not do that himself which he had so publickly objected to them yet having lately declared to a Clergy-man I could name That his Hand should rot off before he gave him Institution at last to prevent an Inconvenience which otherwise must have come upon him he left his Authority with his Chancellor to do it and by him gave him that Institution which he had said with a solemn Imprecation he would never do This Story also shews him to be a Man of great Passions which often hinder him from Writing as well as Speaking cooly and this unhappy Temper of his which is another part of my Charge against him will appear from what he said in a Conference he had with that Clergy-man of whom I here declare I think no worse because he thought so ill of him He began with telling him that he was a Church-robber and that he came over the Wall and not in at the Door Then he proceeded to call him Villain and said he had been guilty of a base and villanous Action worse by much than robbing on the High-way and that he would use his utmost endeavour to keep him out of the Church He further called him Simonaical and Sacrilegious Rascal and said he knew he must give Money to the Bishop of London's Servants to obtain his Orders Then he proceeded to Reflections on the Bishop of London and fell very fouly on the Doctors Commons saying he had procured a Faculty of those Rogues To which when the Gentleman replied That he obtained it from the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury he passionately answered It was the same Thing for that they only granted it for the sake of Money He further told him It should be his continual Business to expose him as long as he lived to his Clergy and that he would render him as black as he was in his Gown and Cassock and take all Opportunities to do it Yet after all this Storm of Fury against him as the worst of Men in his Esteem he gave him Institution by his Chancellor when if he was convinced of his Mistake he ought to have condemned himself for his rash Imprecation and made the Gentleman an honorary Satisfaction for the Injury he had done him by giving him Institution himself But if he persisted in his ill Opinion of him then by his own Rule he ought not to have devolved his Authority upon his Chancellor who did that in his Name and by his Commission and Order which he thought a Sin to do himself The Account the learned Mr. Hill hath given of his Printing his Discourse on the Divinity and Death of Christ much changed and otherwise than he spoke it before his Clergy proves another part of my Charge of his playing Tricks with his own Writings The like I have been assured he did with a Sermon which he preached somewhere in London in which he gave the People an Account what the Convocation was to do And were it not to make a Book of my Preface I could further shew his partial and biassed way of Writing and his proness to write his own Inventions for Truth from some Observations upon his Book of Travels which I have heard a Gentleman of great Reputation lately come from Travelling make upon several Passages in it And when I consider how apt he is to write Lives and to write his own Imaginations and Opinions in them I could not but bewail the Fate of the late honourable Mr. Boyle after that of Bishop Bedel should he also write his Life as Report saith he Designs to do And I cannot but wish for the Honour of that great Man's Memory that his honourable Relations would oblige some Person of unblemished Reputation to write it whom the World hath no reason to suspect even when he writes Truth Having mentioned Bishop Bedel's Life in which I think it is plain our Author had but too great a Part I am obliged to let the World know That I had the remarkable Observations upon it which I have put in my following Discourses out of a M. S. entitled OBSERVATIONS UPON BISHOP BEDEL'S LIFE The first Ground of which were some Observations formerly made upon it by the late learned Mr. Fulman who as I am informed sent them to Dr. Burnet though he was never pleased to take Notice of them and the Reason I think is pretty plain why he did not I must also acknowledge That I had that Account of his foul Dealing with a M. S. in Bennet College from a Learned hand who compared the Printed Copy and the Original together And in truth when one considers what Monsâ—…le Grand Antony Harmar Mr. Fulman and others have animadverted upon our Author 's Historical Works one need not wonder That he who must needs be Conscious to himself of their Discoveries and it may be of more such should speak so much in derogation of History as he lately did to a young Student who hath since given the World (a) Noticia Monastica an excellent Proof of his mighty Genius for Historical Studies and Antiquity Indeed if all Men had written Histories as Dr. Burnet knows he hath done he might well speak against the Study of it as a Thing which is in it self so uncertain and not to be depended upon If he measured other Historians by himself he might well think that all Histories are full of the same Vices that his are and all Historians as little to be trusted upon their own bare Authority as he really is But to pass from his greater to his lesser Works I cannot but here call to mind the Speech which he made for my Lord Russel When he was examined about it as I remember at Council Board he confessed he gave his Lordship the Minutes of it but one is bound in Charity and Respect to his Lordship's Memory to believe that the Doctor made it all and that his Lordship never considered it because it is so like the Doctor in the whole Texture of it having in it something very impertinent something questionable as to the Truth of it and something which looks very like contradicting himself I refer the Reader for what I say to the (b) Entitled the Lord Russel's Speech vindicated London printed for W. Crooke 1683. Paper mentioned in the Margent and
contrary to every part of it as I shall shew in some signal Instances which were blemishes in his Life and will remain such Blots upon his Memory as no Apology will ever be able to wash out My first Instance shall be in his Apostacy from his own avowed Principle and Doctrine of the Church of England the once venerable Doctrine of Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience in which our Church hath taught her Children how they should behave themselves towards Men and approve themselves towards God if she and they should come to be persecuted for the Tryal of their Faith as the purest Churches and best Christians have been in former Ages He did not only (a) In his Subscription to the Book of Homilies subscribe to the Truth of this Doctrine and in the Profession of the Truth of it declare it unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever but pressed it upon the Consciences of Living and Dying Men And when he preached against Popery he asserted it not only in the most serious manner that good Divines use to do the most important matters of Christiany but with that Strength and Clearness which our Preacher saith is his peculiar Talent In his Letter to my Lord Russel in Nâ—wgate which the Reader will find in the (b) N. 3. Appendix he told his Lordship who did not believe that Doctrine what a great and dangerous Mistake he was in and that his disbelief of it which was but a Sin of ignorance before he was Convinced of the Truth of it became a Sin of a more heinous Nature after his Conviction and called for a more deep and particular Repentance and that if he dyed in a disbelief of it he was like to leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace and pursuant to this in his last Prayer with his Lordship on the Scaffold he said Grant Lord that all we who survive by this and other Instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King What could a Man have said more in behalf of any Doctrine of the Christian Religion Or what could he have done more to convince the World he was in good Earnest than to publish it after he said it And yet in his Thanksgiving Sermon (c) Jan. 31. 1688. preached at Lincolns Inn he tells us That our Deliverance then the Phrase of the Revolution was the Lord's doing although it was brought about by the utter Violation of that Doctrine and the whole Duty of Subjects which results from it and then reciting the Strange means by which it was brought about We must not saith he here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the Preservation of our Religion and the Asserting our Ancient Laws and Liberties Behold the Preacher at Lincolns Inn and the Confessor in Lincolns Inn Fields contradicting one another The Confessor told my Lord Russell That the Christian Religion plainly forbids the Resistance of Authority and that the same Law which established our Religion declares it not lawful to take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever But the Preacher now turned Apostate from the Confessor commends the many Worthies as he calls the Traytors and Rebels of our Country for soliciting a Foreign Prince and the Creature of another State to invade their own Sovereign's Dominions and assisting of him in the Undertaking till they had driven him out of his Kingdoms He saith It was generously done of them to run all hazards of Life and Fortune and he might have added of their Salvation too for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties although he had told the World before that our Laws forbid the Preservation of them by those means nay that the Laws of Nature and the Rules of Scripture had not left us at Liberty to use them which was in effect to say That neither our Laws would have our Religion nor our Religion have it self preserved by the Means those Worthies used for its Preservation The Belief of the Lawfulness of Resisting when our Rights and Liberties should be invaded was a Sin of a dangerous and heinous Nature in my Lord Russel but the Practice of it was laudable in I know not how many Lords and Gentlemen more for preserving our Religion Laws and Liberties by it and if any of them since are gone out of the World in a Delusion and false Peace he is one of those Divines who more especially must Answer to God for it For it was after a close Consult with him and one or two more that a Motion was made in the House of Lords for Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving to God for having made his Highness P. O. the glorious Instrument of delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power And then it was that our English Worthies as well as the Heroe under whom they acted were applauded in the Pulpits for the Success of that Glorious Enterprize which to think or speak of in a slighting manner was in his Opinion to be guilty of the foulest and blackest Ingratitude both to God and them One would wonder how any Christâ—an Man but more especially how a Christian Preacher should so plainly contradict himself and his most serious Doctrines and yet have the Confidence since to Reprint them as if he had never said nor done any Thing inconsistent with them Hear therefore what he saith of Religion our dear and holy Religion which the Worthies of our Nation run such an Hazard to preserve (a) Serm. preached on the Fifth of Nov. 1678. and Reprinted 1691. As for Religion the very Heathens always spoke of it as the great Band of human Society and the Foundation of Truth and Fidelity and Justice among Men. But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach Men the absurdest Things in the World to Lye for the Truth and to Kill Men for God's sake when it serves to no other Purpose but to be a Bond of Conspiracy to inflame the Tempers of Men to a greater Fierceness and to set a keener Edge upon their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they were by Nature then surely it loses its Nature and ceases to be Religion For let any Man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the Manners and Dispositions of Men to restrain human Nature from Violence and Cruelty from Falshood and Treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that human Nature were left to the Conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations then to be acted by a Religion which inspires Men with so wild a Fury and prompts them to commit such Outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the Welfare of Mankind In short such a Religion that teaches Men to propagate and advance and he might have
added preserve its self by means so evidently contrary to the very Nature and End of Religion This is Dr. Tillotson's fam'd Character of Religion and not to descant in long Applications upon it I desire my Reader to consider if it is not as applicable to the New as to the Old Fifth of November and the Worthies of the Protestants as well as the Popish Religion who conspired against James the Second as these did against James the First Tell me O ye Worthies of the Church of England who have hazarded your Lives and Fortunes to preserve our Religion Is it more lawful to Plot and Rebel for holy Church of England than for holy Church of Rome And is it not as much Priestcraft in our Divines to applaud you as Worthies for so doing as it was in the Pope to compare the Duke of Guise and his Partizans to those Jewish Worthies Jephtha Gideon and the Maccabees and do you not despise them for their sordid Flattery of you in open Contradiction to their own Doctrines and the Principles of that Religion which they pretend still to profess May I not say with Dr. Till against himself (a) Serm. Vol. 3. p. 77. That a Miracle is not enough to give Credit to a Man who teaches Things so contrary to the Nature of Religion and that (b) P. 20. the Heathen Philosophers are better Casuists than he This he said of the Jesuists and the Casuists of the Church of Rome for maintaining the Lawfulness of deposing Kings and subverting Government and yet without Blushing he maintained the Lawfulness of this in commending you But this is but one Instance of acting in contradiction to his own Doctrine when the appointed time of tryal came there are many more so well known that I need not mention them For indeed his whole Practice since the Revolution hath been one Series of Apostacy and by which he hath not only dishonoured his Memory and made all his other Good be evil spoken of but been a Scandal to our holy Church and Religion to which our Preacher saith he was such an Honour given the Enemies of them great occasion to Triumph their best and most stedfast Friends great occasion of Grief and Shame And lastly tempted loose and unprincipled Men to turn Atheists and ridicule our Priesthood and Religion and this he hath been told of in such different manners that I do not wonder (c) Fun. Serm. p. 27. it sank deep into him and had such influence upon his Health I cannot imagine but that one Letter which was sent to his Lady for him superscribed for Dr. Tillotson must needs disquiet him very much if he received it and read it It is written throughout with a serious Air and every Line of it speaks to his Conscience and because I know the worthy Gentleman who wrote it and that it is a full and clear Proof of what I have said I present my Reader but more especially the Preacher of his Funeral Sermon with a few Paragraphs of it if he will have the Patience to read them It begins thus (d) Letter p. 2. Sir I shall preface what I am about to say with an Assurance That I have formerly had the greatest Veneration for you as well for your Piety as good Sense and Learning that my Notions of Government are so large that the first Thing I ever doubtfully Examined that had your Name affixed to it was your Letter to my Lord Russel But your Actions since do less quadrate with that Opinion and seriously make me address my self to you to know how you reconcile your present Actings to the Principles either of Natural or Revealed Religion especially how you reconcile them with the Positions and Intentions of that Letter and consequently whether you have a Belief of God and the World to come (a) P. 5. But to come to your more particular Case I beseech you to publish some Discourse if you can clear Things to demonstrate either your Repentance of what you wrote to my Lord Russel or the Reasons that make that and what you now do consistent and that you with the usual Solidity with which you treat upon other Subjects justify the Proceedings and explain the Title of K. W. I know no Body hath a stronger and clearer Head and if you have Truth on your Side you can write unanswerably God's Glory and the Reputation of the Protestant Religion is at Stake Your own good Name calls for it and more especially because you have accepted a most Reverend and Devout Man's Archbishoprick A Man who hath given Evidence how unalterably he is a Protestant A Sufferer formerly for the Laws and Church of England and a Sufferer for those very Principles upon which that Letter to my Lord was written for those very Principles which you disputed for when he had so short a time to Live Nay which you remember'd him of even upon the Scaffold with the dreadful Commination of eternal Woe Really Sir if there be any Truth if there be any Vertue if there be any Religion what shall we say to these Things What will you say to them You must be at the Pains to clear this matter that we may not believe the Boundaries of Right and Wrong the Measures of Violence and Justice quite taken away that we may not be tempted to (b) P. 7. speculative and from thence to practical Atheism This Change has made many sober Men sceptical and gone further towards the eradicating all the Notions of a Deity than all the Labours of Hobs and your part in it hath I confess more stagger'd me than any one Thing else I have been ready to suspect That Religion it self was a Cheat and that it was a Defect in my Un-Understanding that I could not look through it For I think if I can know my Right-hand from my Left our present Government stands upon Foundations that contradict all those Discourses which you as well as others have lent to Passive Obedience The excessive Value I have for you for your Knowledg your Judgment your largeness of Spirit your Moderation and many other great Qualities that have signaliz'd your Name once made you one of the greatest Ornaments of the Christian Church Apostacy from what you preached and wrote pretended to believe and would have others believe shake me so violently in the first Credenda of Religion That I beseech you if you think it necessary upon no other Account that you will publish such a Discourse at least for the Satisfaction of mine and other Men's Consciences who I can assure you of my own Knowledg lie under the same Scruples with my self have the same Scruples in relaion to the Government and the same Temptations to question Religion it self upon your Account (a) P. 8. I beg of God Almighty to lay an happy constraint upon me â—o do what may be most for his Glory and the Good of these Nations and I earnestly supplicate him that
Head of that Learned Body But the Concourse of the Clergy to that Lecture hath continued since and yet no Man looks on the ingenious Person that succeeds him as the Head of them And how far he was considered from being the Head of the Clergy did appear in the Convocation where to his great Disappointment and the Astonishment of our Preacher another was chosen Prolocutor who for Learning and Orthodoxy was much fitter for the Chair than he He tells us also (a) P. 18. That he turn'd the greatest Part of this vast City to an hearty Love of the Church So that all the rest of the London Clergy turned not half so many to the Love of the Church as he alone did But I could name some of them who turn'd Two for his One to an hearty Love of it and to such an hearty Love of it as they endured Persecution for adhering to it But as for his Converts to the Church they were generally speaking but imperfect Conformists to the Church such as did not live in the full or sole Communion of it and such as rather bore with it than lov'd it because he preached and perswaded them to it as a tolerable but not as a laudable and excellent Constitution And hence it came to pass that so many of them did not love the Worship of it with a Love of Delight and Complacency which is the Love of the Heart but were content to use it for want of better as the common Proverb saith of nice and curious Palats That they can make a Shift with brown Bread till they can get white I have known many of his constant Followers and have found by Experience what I say to be true and I appeal to the Clergy of London if they have not made the same Observation and particularly I knew one venerable Clergy-man now with God to whom one of his and our Preacher's Admirers too I mean my Lord Russel made no difficulty to acknowledge That he took not such Delight in the Common Prayers as others and had rather have had others in his Chappel if he might than those He also tells us That he had a superiour Judgment to most Men But how doth that appear from one whole Sermon and some Passages out of others which I have observed Had he not been so unhappy as to set himself his own Patern but followed some Paterns of former Times particularly the Judicious Sanderson's he had never preached so many dangerous false and inconsiderate Things nor given Dr. Sherlock when he preached against his Sermon of Hell Torments at St. Dunstan's occasion to say That he had no cause to think himself a greater Master of Reason than other Men or that he had more of it than they And that he was not always attended with this superiour Judgment even in his most deliberate Composures appears from a Passage in his (a) P. 103. Third Sermon of Education where he saith That the Duty of nursing Children being a natural Duty of Women is of more necessary and indispensible Obligation than any positive Precept of Religion Good God! Is it of more necessary and indispensible Obligation than to believe in Christ which is but a positive Duty Or is the Neglect of it in a Mother that hath no Excuse for neglecting of it a more crying Sin than to live in the constant Neglect of the Sacrament or Prophanation of the Lord's Day or utter Contempt of the Ministry or to run into wilful Heresy and Schism Our Preacher also (b) P. 14. tell us That we shall have more Essays of his Preaching but I hope we shall have no more such Essays of his superiour Judgment but unless some Judgment superior to his review them after him I fear we shall have more Although we are told That (c) P. 25. he was reviewing them at his Minutes of leisure and given them his last Touches He tells (d) P. 22. That he rejoyced in our happy Deliverance and observed the amazing Steps of Providence in it So did his Uncle Cromwel too and will you hear him speak upon this Subject of Providence in his Declaration which he put forth in his own and his Council of Officers Names after they had turned the Commons out of Doors the 23 of April 1653. (e) Flagellum or the Life of O. Cromwel Printed for L. R. 1663. p. 138. Nor to mind in this Declaration the various Dispensations through which Divine Providence has led us or the witness the Lord hath born and the many signal Testimonies of Acceptance which he hath given to the sincere Endeavours of his most unworthy Servants After it had pleased God not only to reduce Ireland and give in Scotland but so marvelously to appear for the People at Worcester but on the contrary there more and more appeared among them the Parliament so called an Aversion to the Things themselves with much bitterness and opposition to the People of God and his Spirit working in them Lest this Cause which the Lord hath so greatly blessed and bore witness to should languish under our hands It seemeth to be a Duty incumbent upon us who had seen so much of the Power and Presence of God going along with us That as we have been led by Necessity and Providence to act as we have done even beyond and above our own Thoughts and Desires so we shall and do in that of this great Work which is behind put our selves wholy upon the Lord for a Blessing That all Men as they would not provoke the Lord to their own Destruction would wait for such an Issue as he shall bring forth And to know that the late great and glorious Dispensations wherein the Lord hath so wonderfully appeared in bringing forth these Things by the Travel and Blood of his Children ought to oblige them We see by this Extract out of Cromwel's Declaration how great and stupendious Steps of Providence went along with him in all his Enterprizes and what a Series of Successes attended him in his most execrable Undertakings And therefore I hope we shall hear no more of the amazing Steps of Providence which were observable in the late Revolution since that Usurper saith he was led by Providence to act beyond and above his Thoughts and Desires And all this shews That as Divines say we must try Miracles by Doctrines as well as Doctrines by Miracles so if we would not be led into fatal Mistakes we must consider the Justice of any Cause as well as the miraculous Providences that attend it Since God for our Tryal suffers Providences and Successes equally stupendious to attend Causes Good and Bad as he makes the Sun to shine upon the Just and Unjust He saith That their Majesties (a) P. 23. made choice of him for the Archbishoprick as the fittest Person and I agree with him That he was as fit a Person for that Turn as they could have pitched upon And further he tells us That
though he was unwilling to accept it yet their persisting in their Intentions made him think it was the Call and Voice of God and so he submitted To which I shall say no more but that in judging of a Call we are to consider not only who Calls us but to what we are Called and that Kings may call and tempt and importune us to commit deadly Sins as well as other Men. Furthermore by the Example of the Lord Protector Cromwel we may see that when Kings call us we are to consider well what kind of Kings they are or else we may sometimes be in danger to mistake the Temptations of the Devil and our own wicked Hearts for the Call of God He tell us also (a) P. 3. That he would speak with great Reserves of him and so he hath For how often was he wont to declare his Resolution that he would never be a Bishop I have often heard him admir'd upon the Account of that self-denying Resolution and also observed how venerable his Refusal of some Bishopricks would render his Name to Posterity But when Men make such Resolutions they make them it seems with a tacit Reserve to the persisting Call of a King For I can name two Persons now in the Places of deprived Bishops and one of them to my certain knowledg who vehemently declared against taking of the Places of any of the deprived Bishops But I suppose their Majesties made choice of them too as the fittest Persons and that they looked upon their persisting in their Intentions as the Call and Voice of God dispensing not only with their former most deliberate Resolutions but also with all the Fundamental Laws of Ecclesiastical Unity to the contrary the Examples of the best and purest Ages and the Canons of the Church He also tells us (b) P. 10 11. That his first Education was among the Puritans but of the best Sort and that he was soon free'd from his first Impressions and Prejudices or rather that he was never mastered with them But I have reason to think that they were not the best sort of Puritans under whom he had his first Education First Because his Father very early turned Anabaptist which gave some Occasion to call his Baptism into question And Secondly Because the best sort of Puritans as hath been often shewed were far from the Principles of Resistance and Rebellion but under whomsoever he had his first Education he came seasoned to the University of Cambridge with those Principles For not long after he came thither King Charles the First was brought by Cambridge to Hampton Court and Lodging at Sir John Cuts his House at Childerly near that University the Scholars went thither to kiss his Hand But he and some few more had so signaliz'd themselves for those they then called Round-heads that they were not admitted to that Honour with the rest of the Scholars Within a Year or two after he went out Midsummer-Batchelor of Arts by which having locally qualified himself for a Fellowship he got the Rump's Mandamus for Dr. Gunning's which I think one of his own Gang enjoyed a little before him as a Reward for his good affection to the Cause From that time to his discontinuance he governed the College the Senior Fellows not daring to oppose him because of the Interest he had with his great Masters And so zealous was he for them That the Corner of the College which he and his Pupils took up in the new Building was called the Round-head Corner And when King Charles the Second was beaten at Worcester he sent for the Tables in which the College Grace was written and after the Passage of Thanksgiving for their Benefactors Te Laudamus pro Benefactoribus nostris c. he added with his own Hand and of his own Head Praesertim pro nupera Victoria contra Carolum Stuartum in Agro Wigorniensi reportata or to that effect In the Year 1656. or the Beginning of 1657. he discontinued from the College being invited by Prideaux Cromwel's Attorney General to teach his Son and do the Office of a Chaplain in his Family and the Reader may please to take notice That his Son was the same Mr. Prideaux who was in the Duke of Monmouth's Rebellion I have related all this upon very good Authority to shew that Dr. Tillotson had not his first Education under the best Puritans and that he was not so soon free'd from the Prejudices and Impressions of it but that hitherto he was perfectly master'd by them And whether or no they had not some influence over him all his Life long I leave the Reader from what I have said of him in this Chapter to judge He tell us again (a) P. 11. That though ha was soon free'd from the first Prejudices of his Puritanical Education yet he stuck to the Strictness of Life to which he was bred under them This is one of our Preacher's side-wind Reflections upon the true Sons and Daughters of the Church of England as if they were not wont to breed up their Children in as strict an Exercise of true Piety and Vertue as the Puritans did He also saith (b) P. 20. That his extraordinary Worth forced some who had no Kindness for him to advance him THE SOME he means is only King Charles the Second who plainly perceived that he was not quite free'd from the Prejudices of his first Education for when he officiated in the Closet instead of Bowing at the Name of Jesus or rather to Jesus at the mentioning of his saving Name that he might seem to do something and yet not do the thing it self he used to step and bend backwards casting up his Eyes to Heaven which the King observing said He Bowed the wrong way as the Quakers do when they salute their Friends And yet though his Majesty who was a great Discerner of Men perfectly knew him he preferred him to gratify the Heads of a Party And may all Princes who for Politick Ends prefer those for whom they have no Kindness and who have not true Kindness for them be requited as he was He tells us (a) P. 13. That he studied all the Ancient Philosophers and Books of Morality But bate me an Ace of that quoth Bolton for I will be bold to say He was so far from Reading them all that he scarce Saw them all or had the curiosity to read them especially those in the Greek Language Then he tells us That among the Fathers St. Basil and St. Chrysostom were those he chiefly read But how came he who had such a superior Judgment to read so many Philosophers and so few Fathers and to take up with Two of Five more which our Preacher saith (b) See his Pref. before Bedel's Life were the Beauties of the Silver Age of the Church Methinks one that desired to be a consummat Divine should have been as willing to read the great Athanasius the Gregorys St. Jerom
which I commiserate from my heart but am much more concerned that you do not leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace to the hindrance of your Eternal Happiness I heartily Pray for you and beseech your Lordship to believe that I am with the greatest Sincerity and Compassion in the World My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and Afflicted Servant J. Tillotson Printed for R. Baldwin 1683. No. IV. To the KING' 's most Excellent Majesty James the Second c. The Humble Address of the Bishops and Clergy of the City of London WE your Majesties most humble and Dutiful Subjects do heartily condole your Majestie 's loss of so dear a Brother of Blessed Memory And do thankfully adore that Divine Providence which hath so Peaceably setled your Majesty our Rightful Sovereign Lord upon the Throne of your Ancestors to the joy of all your Majesties good Subjects And as the Principles of our Church have taught us our Duty to our Prince so we most humbly thank your Majesty for making our Duty so Easie and pleasant by your gracious assurance to defend our Religion established by Law which is dearer to us than our Lives In a deep sence whereof we acknowledg our selves for ever bound not only in Duty but gratitude to contribute all we can by our Prayers our Doctrine and Example to your Majesties happy and prosperous Reign And with our most sincere promises of all Faith and Allegiance do humbly implore the Divine goodness to preserve your Majesties Person and to establish your Throne in this World and when he shall be pleased to Translate you hence to bestow on you an Eternal Crown of Life and Glory No. V. IN the Name of God Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the Quick and Dead We long since became bound by Oath upon the sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England That we as long as we lived shall bear true Allegiance and fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and Custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tryed before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World But if which God forbid by force Fear or violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent Death be prevented so as in this world we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish Then we do appeal to the high Celestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his supream Judgment First we depose say and except and intend to prove against Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his adherents fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traytors Invaders and Destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his heirs his Kingdom and Common-wealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the Second Article they declare him Forsworn Prejured and Excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the Fourth they recite by what wrong illegall and false means he exalted himselfe into the Throne of of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the Fifth Article they set forth in what a Barbarous and inhuman manner Henry and his Accomplices Imprisoned and Murthered K. Richard and then cry out wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and injury of thy King and Prince If thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will Destroy thee by strange Invasions and foreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In The Seventh they depose against him for putting to Death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the Ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never Flourished nor Prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the Last they Depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy and Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in word nor deed to offend any State of men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all men to favour them and their designs whereof the First was to Exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawful Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England No. VI. THat all Parliaments and Ambitious selfe seekers in them who under pretence of publick Reformation Liberty the Peoples ease or welfare have by indirect Surmise Policies Practices Force and new Devices most Usurped upon the Prerogatives of their Kings or the Persons Lives Offices or Estates of such Nobles great Officers and other Persons of a contrary Party whom they most dreaded maligned and which have imposed new Oaths upon the Members to secure perpetuate and make irrevocable their own Acts Judgments and unrighteous Proceedings have always proved most abortive successless pernicious to themselves and the activest Instruments in them The Parliaments themselves being commonly totally repealed null'd and the Grandees in them suppressed impeached condemned destroyed as Traytors and Enemies to the Publick in the very next succeeding Parliaments or not very long after That Kings Created and set up meerly by Parliaments and their own Power in them without any true Hereditary Title have seldom answer'd the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Laws Liberties and Answers to their Petitions yea themselves at last branded for Tyrants Traytors Murderers Usurpers Their Posterities impeached of High-Treason and disinherited of the Crown by succeeding Kings and Parliaments of c. From these Three last Observations we may learn that as Parliaments are the best of all Courts and Councils when duly Summoned Convened Constituted Ordered and kept within their Legal Bounds So they become the greatest Mischiefs and Grievances to the Kingdom when like the Ocean they overflow their banks or degenerate and become through Sedition Malice Fear or Infatuation by Divine Justice promoters of corrupt sinister Ends or Accomplishers of the private Designs and ambitious Interests of particular Persons under the disguise of Publick Reformation Liberty Safety and Settlement No. VII ALtho' it can no way be doubted but that His Majesty's Right and Title to these Crowns and Kingdoms is and was every way Compleat by the Death of His most Royal Father of Glorious Memory without the Ceremony and Solemnity of a Proclamation Yet since Proclamations in such Cases have been always used to the end that all good Subjects might upon this Occasion testify their Duty and Respect And since the Armed Violence and