signifies grieving our fellow Christians and by our Example occasioning others to sin I will instance in his giving the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to those who would receive it in no posture but that irreverent one of sitting This was his Practice at Lincoln's Inn Chappel whither a great Lady of Dr. Owen's Congregation and one of his Hearers too would sometimes resort to receive the Sacrament because as she told a Noble Lord of my acquaintance she could receive it theâ—e sitting And his Practice as a devout Gentlewoman who lived in that Neighbourhood assured me was first to walk about with the Elements to those in the Pews where the Sitters were and give it them first but in the last place to those who kneel'd at the Rail within which he would not go as decency would have directed another Man but coming behind them he gave it them in the Letter of the Proverb over the left Shouldier So the late Bishop of St. Asaph at Dr. Kidder's Church not long after the Revolution gave Dr. Bates and some others the Sacrament in the same irreverent posture to the great offence of some part of the Congregation that saw it and for ought he knew to the endangering of others to despise the Orders of the Church I could give other instances of this nature in the other Sacrament of Baptism wherein the defunct Hero hath acted without excuse against the Churches Orders to the great scandal of others who came to know it and violating the prescribed Rules of Decency and Edification which I suppose come under our Preacher's lesser Matters and when I consider how notoriously He and his Hero have acted in other instances against Justice Mercy Faith and Charity I cannot tell what he esteems the great Truths and Duties of Christianity or the weightier Matters of the Law But he * p. 15. tells us however that his UNBLEMISHED HERO saw with a deep regret the fatal Corruptions of this Age while the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former times disposed many to Atheism and Impiety But methinks he should have said nothing of the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former Times since they cannot but put men in mind of the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of these which for kind have been the same and for degree or Atrocity as great as those and have also as much disposed men to Atheism and Impiety Was it not rebelling under the Holy pretence of Religion Was it not for taking God's Holy Name in vain in Fasts and Thanksgivings to break his Holy Laws and Judgements with a Popular shew of Sanctimony that he means by the Hypocrisie of former Times and have not the same things been done over again in these And then as for the Extravagancies of those former Times does he not mean by them the proceeding so far under those hypocritical Pretences as first to rise up in Arms against Charles the I. then to abdicate him in the Vote of Non addresses then to murder him before his own Palace and last of all to defend those Extravagancies under the same hypocritical Pretences and magnifie those who did them as our Deliverers to whom we owed the conservation of our Religion Lives and Liberties And if this be his meaning as in appearance it must then I pray him to compare Times with Times Facts with Facts and Pretences with Pretences and then to tell me if as great Extravagancies have not been done in our days And lastly as to disposing men to Atheism and Impiety I appeal to the Consciences of all serious observing men if what hath been done in by and since the Revolution call it by what name you please hath not disposed many more to Atheism and Impiety than what he calls the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former Times I have heard that in one of his Visitation Speeches to the Clergy of Wiltshire he complained of the deluge of Atheism and Impiety that overflowed this Nation and would to God he would lay his hand upon his heart and consider whether He and his Hero and his Hero's Successor have not among some others helped to set open the Floudgates to that overflowing Deludge by what they have done under the irreligious Pretence of serving and preserving our Religion by acting not only against the plainest Precepts of it but the common notions of Justice Truth and Honesty and their own former Doctrines which now bear witness against them and will hereafter without Repentance rise up in Judgment against them and condemn them when our Lord shall say unto them and every one that hath acted like them out of thy Mouth out of thy Writings will I condemn thee thou wicked Servant In that day this will be the aggravation of their condemnation above the Marshalls the Calamies the Owens and the Goodwins of former Times that they acted the same Iniquities against their own avowed Doctrins and Principles and Subscriptions whereby they had most publickly frequently and solemnly Anathematiz'd the Practises of those men and I will take upon me to say that for any one Athiest He or his Hero converted before the Revolution they have made ten since and that if those men slew their thousands these have slain their ten thousands and I pray God He and some others who have time of Repentance yet left them may consider what I say before it is too late It is scarce worth my pains to examine what he hath said in the same page of the Design that was laid he means in the Reign of King Charles the II. to make us first Athiests that we might more easily be made Papists this seems to be an odd design at least an odd way of expressing it to make men Athiests that they may more easily be made Papists that is first to bring them to believe no Religion that they may believe the Popish and teach them to laugh at the three Creeds that they might believe all the Articles of Pope Pius the IV. with all the supernumerary Traditions of the Roman Church King Charles the II. indeed was not so careful as he should have been in the great Concern of Religion but that was to be imputed also to the Hypocrisies and Extravagancies of former Times which did with his Father as these have done with his Brother but to suggest that he laid a Design to make men Papists by first making of them Athiests is as ridiculous as to say it now when Atheism abounds much more than it did in his Reign One may as reasonably say that he laid a design to make us first Papists that he might more easily make us Rebels or Socinians as our Preacher hath been long made But if by making us Papists he means outward Professors of Popery I must tell him that King Charles the II. was too wise a Prince to think that Athiests could ever be brought to that in such a Nation and Government as this where no inquisition or force sufficient to bring that about could be set up
SOME DISCOURSES UPON Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson Occasioned by the Late FUNERAL SERMON OF THE Former upon the Later Remember how severely he that was Meekness it self treated the Scribes and Pharisees and he having charged his Followers to beware of their Leaven It is Obedience to his Command to search out that Leaven that it may leaven us no more And when any of a Party are so Exalted in their own Conceit as to despise and disparage all others the Love the Ministers of the Gospel owe the Souls of their Flocks obligeth them to Unmask them Dr. Burnet in his Vindication of the Authority Constitution and Laws of the Church of Scotland p. 4. Si quis est qui dictum in se inclementius Existimavit esse sic Existimet Responsum non dictum esse quia laesit prior desinat lacessere Habeo alia multa quae nunc condonabitur Quae proferentur post si perget laedere Terent. in Prolog ante Eunuchum LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCV THE PREFACE IF it surprize the Reader to see so large a Book written against Dr. B. and Dr. T. it will surprize him more to tell him That I could more easily have made it larger than have confined it within this Compass For those Two Gentlemen are not barren Subjects but furnish Matter in choice and plenty for History against themselves and though these Discourses which I have made upon them are not an History yet the Reader will find they are in part Historical and may in some respects serve to inform and entertain inquisitive Searchers after Truth till it may be convenient to publish a compleat History of the Things which some Men have done since the late Revolution in Church and State But besides the many Passages of Story which the Reader will meet with in the following Treatise he will also find I have had occasions to make several incidental Discourses some Theological some Moral and some of a Political Nature to confute or expose the loose Doctrines or Expressions of those Men against whom as I have been provoked to draw up Two several Charges or Informations which somewhat blemish their Honour so I hope I have proved them in every Part by very good Evidence And as some Tryals are longer than others according to the Number and Length of Depositions so if this Book of mine which contains as it were so many Depositions against them hath proved longer than I would have had it that is none of my Fault I know very well it will be called a Libel and a Defamatory Libel but I care not for that since many excellent Books were so miscalled in the Times of former Usurpations which detected the ill Men of those Times and their Hypocrisies and Iniquities to the World And besides to speak properly and justly of the Nature of a Libel all Books ought not to be so called which expose Men's Reputations but such only as expose them falsely injuriously and out of pure malice But this Book though in some Things it blemishes the Fame and Reputation of these Men yet it doth it truly justly and deservedly and so far am I from bearing the Person of the one or the Memory of the other any Malice That had I been acted by that evil Passion I could have written against them both much sooner and have been better provided to write against them now Men that do ill Things openly and with an high Hand though under never so splendid Pretences ought to hear of them especially when they go about to make Saints and Heroes of one another with a Design to cover their own Iniquities and deceive the People When this happens to be the Case Charity to the Peoples Souls and the Love of the Publick obliges all Lovers of Truth and Righteousness to unvizard such Men and expose them in their true Appearance before their credulous and deluded Admirers And as I have endeavoured in the following Discourses to do so by these two popular Divines so I assuâ—e the Reader I have done it purely upon these generous Motives wishing with all my Heart That neither of them had given so many and publick Provocations to undeceive any part of the World by writing such severe Truths I foresee very well what Sorts of Men will set themselves to inveigh against it and how it will ruffle our Funeral Orator and raise a Storm among the Men of his Latitude but I am not solicitous about the Entertainment it will meet with among them in hopes it will do good among some that are misled by them if they are not too far gone and hinder others both now and hereafter from being misled by that Sort of Men. For I have written it not only for the Times present but for Posterity and future Times when I doubt not but Books which do less good now shall then do much more when Libels so miscalled shall be curiously sought after and reprinted in greater Numbers and then inform the penitent World not only what unrighteous Things have then been lately acted among us but by what unrighteous Men and upon what unrighteous Principles they also have been done The Remarks on the late Funeral Sermons c. The Letter to the Author of the Funeral Sermon at Westminster Abby These Discourses not to mention others long since Printed will let Posterity see what kind of Men our Preacher and his Heroe and his Hero's Successor not to mention others were and what pernicious Doctrines were vented by them all and so help to convert the Lovers of Truth as those called Libels in former Times converted many and helped to bring the Nation to its Wits and the exil'd King back to his Throne I could name several of my Acquaintance who were converted by the Libels so called in the Long Usurpation one more particularly who by God's Blessing happen'd to be converted by the accidental Reading of one of the meanest of them and Bishop Hall's Answer to Smectymnuus which was reckoned a dangerous Libel And if these Discourses of mine happen by God's good Providence now or hereafter to disabuse but one mistaken Soul and occasion his Conversion I shall think all the unwilling Pains I have taken in Writing of them very well bestowed I find Mr. Altham in his late Recantation for Licensing Mr. Hill's Book sorrowfully confessing That Dr. Burnet's Honour and Function were much Blacken'd by it but if this Book of mine hath also Blacken'd his Honour it hath Blacken'd it with Matters of Truth and he must blame himself for it who hath given so many just Occasions and Provocations to all Sorts of Men to Blacken him in all Places * See the Character M. L. G. hath given of him in the Advertisement before his Letter to Mons Thavenot and afterwards p. 87 88. both at home and abroad But for his Sacred Function for which I have much more veneration than he hath himself that cannot suffer by what I have said of him because it
estimated and carried by the major Vote which as it can be an Argument to none but Fools so I dare say no honest and wise Man ever made use of it for the solid Proof of the Truth and Goodness of any Church or Religion If Multitude be an Argument that Men are in the Right in vain then hath the Scripture said Thou shalt not follow a Multitude to do Evil for if this Argument be of any force the greater Number never go wrong I have cited this as I have done all other Passages faithfully out of the Works of these two Authors in the following Discourses and whether the Reflections and Applications I have made upon them be just and right and the Consequences I have drawn from them upon themselves be true must be left to the Reader to judge betwixt me and them THE INTRODUCTION AS nothing of late hath more Entertain'd the World than Funeral Sermons So none of them hath had a more General Reception among Men of all Sorts than that preacht at the Funeral of the late Dean of Canterbury whom the Preacher stiles By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England It was sent abroad with its Fiocco by the R. R. Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum and Men were curious to see what he would say upon an Occasion so inviting to a Fruitful Invention while his Censors of the House were a Sitting I hapned to make a Visit to a Place where I found one Gentleman reading of it to three more who were very attentive to it I came in almost at the Beginning and having only beg'd the Favour of the Text made no other Interruption But though I said nothing upon hearing the Words I marvelled at his Choice of them That he should pitch upon a Place so emphatical for Suffering at the Funeral of a Man who never Suffered nor loved Sufferings but who on the contrary was of a Temper and Constitution that loved Ease and Indolency of which the Apostle enjoy'd little or nothing in the whole Course of his Apostleship But as he taught so was he always practising the Evangelical Doctrine of Sufferings of which he hath left us several short Accounts in his Epistles and sam'd them all up In fighting the good fight of Faith a little before his final Martyrdom when he was ready to be offered and the time of his Passion was at hand At the End of this private Lecture the Gentleman who read first began to Censure Saith he The little Knowledge I had of Dr. Tillotson makes it not proper for me to judge whether or no he deserv'd so great a Character as this Panegyrist hath given him but if he did it was very unfortunate for his Memory that he should have Bishop Burnet for his Funeral Orator A Man that how much soever he may think himself possessed of the Esteem of the World is very much lost in it both at Home and Abroad and upon whose Authority very few Men will believe Things that are true to be so without other very good proof Saith another I am well acquainted with the Writings of Dr. Tillotson and am not a perfect Stranger to his Conversation and I am sure the Character this Bishop has given him is much above his Merit Fy Fy That Men of this Order should so flatter in the Pulpit where Flattering is so abominable He was not (a) Serm. p. 2.28 an Example of Heroick Piety and Vertue his Life was not free from Blemishes and some great ones too and this the Panegyrist knows very well A third then began to argue against some particular Passages in his Sermon particularly against the Truth of what he (b) P. 22. saith of some of our Suffering Bishops and the Authority that displaced them which I shall hereafter recite And then the fourth after a little Silence said with a Critical Authority That his Sermon was a Boyish Piece of Rhetorick more becoming a Declamer than a Preacher and fitter for a Sophister's Desk than a Bishops Pulpit having too much the Air of a young Student's Declamation and also seem'd in some parts of it to have too much of Common Place in it and in others too much Art to be true Nay saith he his own (c) P. 10. 11. 60. Reflexions on Varillas are here true upon himself His Sermon hath too much the Air of a Romance 't is too Fine to be true He seems to write his own Inventions and sets abundance of Whipt Cream before his Reader And then he told us a Story of a bâ—ind Gentleman but a good natural Critick whose Custom was to repair very early to St. Martin's Church and to ask who preacht Saith he he hapned once to ask me the Question and when I told him Dr. Burnet was to preach then in truth saith he we shall have a Whipt Sillibub And I think said he Smiling Dr. Burnet's whipt Sillibub is as far from the Nature of strong and manly Meat as Monsieur Varillas's whipt Cream A Preacher especially at Funerals ought to avoid Strains and when he speaks of the Defunct to speak more like an Historian than an Orator But this Man's Eloquence to use his own Words of (a) Pref. to Lactantius Lactantius carries him often into Strains that become a young Orator better than an Historian for he hath a heat of Stile that ought not to be imitated by one that would write truth but it may be saith he Smiling again in his Words of Lactantius He design'd his Sermon for a mixt sort of Writing between a Declamation and a Funeral Sermon and so may think that the Figures which agree not to the one may be allow'd in the other (b) P. 1. WHILE NATURE FEELS SO GREAT A LOSS AND SINKS UNDER IT This and some more are the Figures of a young Declamer and the Super sublime of our Lawn-sleeve Orator who should not have been transported with the Heats of a vitious Rhetorick Send him to School to Longinus and Rapine to learn the Rules of true and manly Eloquence They will both tell him That what is not Just is not true Eloquence and that a Stile not fit for the Occasion or the Subject in hand always argues defect of Judgment and that no Speech or Treatise which sticks not with the Hearers after it is read though it tickle never so much in Reading can be a Piece of true Eloquence And speak Gentlemen saith he you have all heard this Panegyrick very many fine Things and Generals are said in it but after all I can scarce tell for what he commends his Metropolitan All his pompous Figures have raised in me no great Idea of the Man for after all my Attention I find very little Sticks behind nor do I think this Performance will do his Memory much Service or transmit it with Advantage to Posterity CHAP. I. THis is the Short of what passed in this little Court of Censure upon this Bishop's
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
Excellency of our holy Faith and in the (b) P. 7. Character of St. Paul whom he makes his Exemplar he insinuates his great Concern for the Truth and Honour of the Christian Religion and more particularly that he asserted the great (c) P. 31. Mystery of the Trinity when he was desired by some and provoked by others to do it with that Strength and Clearness which was peculiar to him As to the first I thought the Torments of Hell as well as the Joys of Heaven had been part of our holy Faith and taught as plainly by Christ the great Doctor of his Church and also as much implied in the Doctrine of the Resurrection and the last Judgment But how convincingly he hath proved the Truth of them appears from what I have said above And as to his great Concern for the Truth and Honour for the Christian Religion that appears in the same manner by his Apostacy in his Practice from that true and honourable Character he gave of it in his Fifth of November Sermon and as for the Strength and Clearness with which he hath proved the Mystery of the Trinity I refer the Reader to the Book in the * Entitled The Charge of Socinianism against Dr. Tillotson consider'd in Examination of some Sermons he hath lately published to clear himself from that Imputation by way of Dialogue To which are added some Reflections upon the Second of Dr. Burnet's Discourses delivered to the Clergy of Sarum concerning the Divinity and Death of Christ with a Supplement Margent which I hope will see the Light before these Discourses of mine There he will find that his Vindication of himself is but a shuffling Vindication which hath much of Arian Cunning and Reserve in it And that he never departed from his Moderation in this point as our Author saith he did not in another To this I shall add in the next place what he hath said of the heinousness of the Sin of Perjury in his Assize Sermon upon Heb. 6.16 But I shall not insist upon the Application of it as of some former Passages because it will apply it self nor make some severe and dangerous Reflections upon his heroical Piety because they are so obvious that the Reader may make them himself There he saith that all departure from the Simplicity of an Oath is Perjury and that a Man is never a whit the less forsworn because his Perjury is a little finer and more artificial than ordinary That he is guilty of Perjury who having a real Intention when he swears to perform what he promiseth yet afterwards neglects to do it not for want of Power but for want of Will and due Regard to his Oath That the primary and sole Intention of the Third Commandment is to forbid the great Sin of Perjury and that it is observable That there is no Threatning added to any other Commandment but to this and the Second which intimates to us that next to Idolatry and the Worship of a false God Perjury is one of the greatest Affronts that can be offered to the Divine Majesty This is one of those Sins that cries aloud to Heaven and quickens the pace of God's Judgments This Sin by the Secret Judgment of God undermines Estates and Families to the utter ruin of them and among the Heathens it was always reckoned one of the greatest Crimes and which they did believe God did not only punish upon the guilty Person himself but many times upon whole Nations as the Prophet also tells us That because of Oaths the Land mourns I need not use many Words to aggravate this Sin It is certainly a Crime of the highest Nature deliberate Perjury being directly against a Man's knowledge so that no Man can commit it without staring his Conscience in the Face which is one of the greatest Aggravations of any Crime and it is equally a Sin against both Tables being the highest Affront to God and of most injurious Consequence to Men. In respect of Men it is not only a Wrong to this or that particular Person who suffers by it but Treason to human Society subverting at once the Foundations of publick Peace and Justice This is just what our suffering Clergy and People say of Perjury and in consequence of it for their own Vindication Indeed they suffer like Men of heroick Piety because they could not outstare their Consciences as some other Men did and in their Opinion which they have so nobly defended commit Treason against Mankind and the King Dr. Sherlock told the Bishop of Killmore He would be sacrificed before he took the new Oath of Allegiance And Dr. Dove said He would give a Thousand Pound that he might not take it such Struglings they had to overcome the Dictates of their own Consciences which preached unto them the heinous Nature of Perjury And if those who took that Oath with so much Difficulty would but remember their own Case they would have more Compassion for those who could not take it at all more especially had that Tenderness which our Preacher saith his Heroe of Piety had for the Dissenters been genuin and the undesign'd Effect of his tender and extensive Charity he would have been as tender and compassionate to the Dissenters in this Reign as to those of the two former It was fear of Perjury the most heinous Sin of Perjury against which he preached so well that made them stand out and if they are under a Mistake he ought to have pitied and sympathiz'd with them more than other Men. Nay upon reading this excellent Passage against Perjury one would think he should have had more Tenderness and Pity for them than for the dissenting Parties but instead of that he was an early and vigorous Persecutor of them and so continued to his last Stroke though they had defended their Cause much better than the Dissenters were or ever will be able to defend theirs The Sunday after the First of February the day of Deprivation some of the Non-swearing Clergy preached in their Churches as I remember Dr. Sherlock was one and on Munday Morning following one of my Acquaintance going to this Man about some Business he inveighed severely against their Presumption and said Government was not to be so affronted At St. Laurence where he lies buried he preached often against them twice more especially at the beginning of Two several Sessions of Parliament and by degrees forgetting what he had preached against the heinous Sin of Perjury He thought Prisons and all the hard Usages of them which in former Reigns he was wont to call unchristian and inhuman Methods of converting Men not too bad for the best of them When others sometimes would pity them for being deprived and also dragoon'd by the new way of double Taxing he would say They brought their Sufferings upon themselves and which was yet more inhuman he endeavoured to rob them of the Glory of their suffering for Conscience and to bring yet more
Sufferings upon them As if indeed they had been what Mr. Dolben called them at the Sessions in Northampton The Vermin of the Nation which ought to be destroyed Yet our Preacher saith That (a) P. 26. 27. he had a Sweetness and Gentleness in his Nature that lean'd to Excess and that he he never did an ill Office or hard Thing to any Person whereas in his Thanksgiving Sermon at Whitehall for the Victory at Sea he represents his old suffering Brethren only as Pretenders to Conscience and in his sly way insinuates that the most likely and effectual way to reduce them was to load them yet with more Sufferings Saith he As bad an Argument as Success is of a good Cause I am sorry to say it but am afraid it is true it is like in the Conclusion to prove the best Argument of all others to convince those who have so long pretended Conscience against submission to the present Government One such Intimation at Court against the Dissenters and such a Character of them in the former Reigns would have been said to have proceeded from an unchristian Spirit of Persecution but for fear one Insinuation should not have been enough against our present Sufferers in the next Paragraph he saith it over again in other Words to the same purpose Meer Success is certainly one of the worst Arguments in the World of a good Cause and the most improper to satisfy Conscience and yet we find by Experience that in the Issue it is the most successful of all other Arguments and doth in a very odd but effectual way satisfy the Consciences of a great many Men by shewing them their Interests which is the true Purport Intent and English of that Latin Sentence of his dear Friend the Master of the Charter house whom he made Clerk of the Closet in the Dedication of his Archaeologia to K. W. Ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat ex nimia Caesarâ—s Clementia Oramus supplices From hence I proceed to make some Animadversions upon some Sayings of our Preacher concerning his Heroe which lie scatter'd about his Funeral Sermon (b) P. 29. He tells us he never affected pompous Severities by which we know very well he means the Austerities of Fasting and Abstinence which the Church not only recommends but enjoyns and that (a) P. 21. he complied with the ill Practice of having Pluralities in the former Reigns because it was common and (b) P. 27. intimates also plain enough That the ill Usage he met with by those Reflections which he describes as Calumnies and Reproaches help to break his Heart But now for God's sake how doth the Character of heroick Piety agree to a Man that practised no Austerities and that complied for his Advantage with the corrupt Customs of the Times For heroick is always severe Piety and full of Self-denial and addicted to observe the wholesom Rules and Doctrines of Mortification especially those that are prescribed by the Wisdom of the Church and it never complies with but resists the prevailing Corruptions of the Times like Abraham in Chaldea Lot in Sodom or Daniel in Babylon And with what Congruity did he set him forth for an Example of heroick Vertue who had so little Christian Courage or support from his own Innocency as to sink under the Calumnies of Men which Cato and Socrates and a Thousand brave Heathen Heroes would have despised Certainly this Character of heroick Piety and Vertue agrees much better with the deprived Clergy who are Men generally speaking of more austere Lives and bear not only Calumnies and Reproaches and cruel Mockings but the Loss of all they had with exemplary Patience Courage and Resignation to the Will of God by which they are conformed in their Sufferings to those Worthies which the Apostle proposes for our Imitation in the 11th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews and deserve now to be reverenced by all good Christians as Confessors who dare be Honest and Poor and prefer the Truth and Honour of their Religion before the Lands and Revenues of the Church More particularly it agrees much better with the late Archbishop Dr. Sancroft upon whom our Preacher thinks he neatly couched a Reflection when he told us that his Heroe who intruded upon him did not affect pompous Austerities Indeed he practised them but without Pomp or Ostentation And as for his Sufferings of all Sorts both in these and former Times he bore them with exemplary Courage and Chearfulness They had no influence on his Health but quite contrary He blessed God for them and told my Lord N. when his Lordship went to Lambeth to try his Constancy That he had rather suffer any Persecution under a Lawful Prince than be preferred under an Usurper He tells us again (a) P. 28. That few Men observed human Nature better than his Hero or could make larger Allowance for the Frailty of Mankind than he did And so it appears from the Character he gave his Master in his Thanksgiving Sermon for the Victory at Sea There he saith That he was a Prince who hath made it the great Study and Endeavour of his Life to imitate the Divine Perfections as far as the Imperfection of human Nature in this mortal State would admit Before I make any other Reflection upon this Passage I must here tell the World That in the former Reigns no Man could less endure any Thing spoken in the Pulpit though never so modestly and correctly in the Praises of our Kings It was his common Practice to censure it in others on all Occasions and to say That Flattery was so mean and despicable a Thing in it self and savour'd so strong of Interest and Design in the Pulpit that Clergy-men ought to avoid all appearance of it And yet behold how shamefully he flatters his King here and I doubt not (b) See the Remarks upon some late Sermons but it is owing to the ill Example he set the Clergy in this and some former Sermons that we have had of late so many fulsom and despicable Sermons of Flattery as no Age ever saw or will I hope see again But this of his Prince's imitating the Divine Perfections is the highest Strain of all and shews with a Witness what large Allowances he made for the Frailties and Imperfections of Men. For at this rate Abolishing and Abjuring of Episcopacy making War in the most (c) Hostes hi sunt qui Nobis aut quibus nos publicè Bellum Decrevimus Caeteri Latroâ—es aut praedones sunt F. de v. s. thievish and predonical Manner without first demanding Reparation slandering and robbing of Parents massacring in cold Blood Adultery or if there be any Thing worse than these may pass among Divines for human Frailties and the worst of Sinners with those Allowances for the best sort of Saints He tells us (d) P. 19 20. of the great Concourse of the Clergy-men to his Lecture which made People consider him as the
been offered unto Idols would be scandalized thereby against Christianity and the later in like manner seeing them do so would be encourag'd to persist in their Demonolatry because they might presume that the Christians buying or eating wittingly and willingly what had been offered up in Sacrifice to their Gods did so out of respect to them as they themselves did I think this was very strict Divinity to forbid Christians the use and enjoyment of those things which otherwise they were free to use and enjoy both at home and abroad purely upon the account of other mens Consciences because they were to give no offence neither to the unbelieving Jew nor to the Idolatrous Gentiles nor to the weaker Members of the Church of God Had our Preacher lived in those days I am afraid he would have censured the Apostle as a man of narrow thoughts who was too much influenced by Jewish notions and superstition in these severe determinations but because he was to make a Parallel between the Apostle and his Latitudinarian Hero therefore right or wrong he was to take some occasion to let us know that the Apostle had his large thoughts too Another of his Phrases which he chose rather to use improperly than to omit is that of the †p. 9. just freedoms of Human Nature where he tells us that his Heroick Primate asserted the great Truths of Religion when he saw them struck at with an authority and zeal proportioned to the importance of them while in lesser matters he left men to the just freedoms of Human Nature but he should have said had he spoke properly to their Christian Liberty for the freedoms of Human Nature relate to men as they are considered in a civil or in their natural state if there ever had been or were any such But this being one of the golden Phrases of the Latitudinarians he was resolved to tip his Tongue and gild one Period with it for that sort of men have their Jargon and Cant as well as others and particularly affect to talk of the Rights Liberties or Freedoms of Mankind or of the Rights Liberties or Freedoms of Human Nature altho' every man in the World only hath such Rights and such Liberties as the Laws and Customs of the Country where he is born or whither he betake himself give him and no more Hence the * Inst Lib. 1. de jure persâ—narum Roman Law defineth Liberty to be a Natural Power or Faculty which every man hath to do what he pleaseth as far as he is not hindered by law or force This definition shews that mens natural liberty is restrained more or less according to the civil constitutions of different Countrys and this is so true that in some places the greatest part of Mankind have almost no Liberties and Slaves which were the greatest part of Mankind in the Roman Empire as now in some of our Plantations had none at all Yet notwithstanding this is so plain and obvious a Notion our Latitudinarians when it serves their turn as it did in former Reigns love to talk of the Rights and Liberties of Mankind or Human Nature because they are splendid Phrases which by seeming to have something great in them are apt to gull unthinking men tho' they signifie nothing at all Tell them of Passive Obedience or the unlawfulness of Resistance they will tell you again that it is a Doctrine against the Rights and Freedoms of Mankind I knew a Gentleman to whom an unfortunate Lord of our Preachers acquaintance said so and we may without making a bold inference guess from whom he had the deceitful insignificant Phrase which to serve ill purposes may be used against Laws and Constitutions that restrain mens Liberties in civil Societies in any other respect as well as in not resisting the Supream Power and would help to justifie insurrections not only of Slaves but of Subjects and more especially of the common People all the World over So the Dispensing Power under King James's Administration was against the just freedoms of Human Nature and the French Government was and is against the Rights and Liberties of Human Nature though some Governments harder than it and the exercise of them is not so in other places where Protestants as Conscientious and at least as Orthodox as those of France are ruined and undone for Conscience sake and as effectually Dragoon'd without Dragoons by Deprivation and double Taxes of which I am confident our Preacher would say if he suffered such Penalties that they were against the Rights of Human Nature and the Liberties of Mankind But for my own part as I always suspected such specious Phrases and those who used them so I know not to what purpose they serve but to beget false notions in the minds of men and incite them to subvert States and Kingdoms and level all Orders of Men in them and I have always observed that those who used them set up for Demagogues and were most forward when it was in their power to invade other mens Rights and abridge other mens Liberties especially those of their lawful Kings and their Loyal Fellow Subjects without any regard to the Laws of Nature the Laws of God or the Laws of the Land In the same place he tells us that while the Defunct asserted the great Truths of Religion he left men in lesser matters to be governed by those great measures of Discretion and Charity a care to avoid Scandal and to promote Edification and Peace and Decency and Order This in an Author so given to subtile and malicious insinuations looks like one upon the generality of the Clergy as if they did not so but were more zealous for the lesser than the greater matters of our Religion But not to mention the Great men among our present Clergy did not our Hookers Sandersons and Hammonds as well as those who have followed their example assert the great Truths of Religion as zealously as his Hero did and tho' they defended both the Authority and Wisdom of the Church in enjoyning Ceremonies and things in themselves indifferent to be observed which he means by lesser matters and also took care to inform the Consciences of the People what a great and weighty Duty Obedience and Submissions to the Orders of the Church was and that morally considered it was none of the lesser matters of Christianity yet in their just freedoms they left them to be governed as he saith his Archbishop did by the measures of Discretion and Charity and a care to avoid Scandal and to promote Edification and Peace and Decency and Order But in Truth this Character of leaving men to their Freedoms as Christians was so very true of Doctor Tillotson that he left them to their Freedoms where neither he nor they were free and to govern themselves by their own private Consciences and discretion when they neither promoted Charity nor Edification nor Peace Decency or Order but gave scandal in both Senses as it