affronted either slighted by the ingratitude of some or justled or perhaps assaulted by the perverseness of others or betrayed by her own goodness if she were not sometimes attended and guarded by severity Without this how easily might she be stroakt and softned into a cruel and dangerous impunity by indulging not the weaklings or fearful ones but the stout and stubborn the obstinate and malitious the designing and incorrigible offenders such as corrupt themselves with goodness and turn the flat of indulgence into the edge of presumption and at the next turn into the point of direct enmity The Prince sees all this and more than this when he considers his Purple of so pure a dye that the smallest soil will spot it and the least spot will discolour it his Crown of so fine a make so eminent a site such a transparent splendour that even a mote of imperfection may be seen in it much more would any cloud be notorious which besides what it gathered of its own from any noxious morbifick exhalations would not fail of some malevolent aspects to thicken it into the darkness and then spread it into the inauspiciousness of some strange and prodigious Eclipse Prognosticated by the conjunction caused by the inter-op-position and harangued into the defection of some great bodies So much need and use has the Prince of this true glass to see himself when so many false ones are made by others to see him with Hitherto we have beheld the Prince viewing himself impartially and looking graciously upon all his Subjects that are or should be such and they again beholding their Prince in the same glass but not with the same eyes some with an eye of reverence or religious fear and love some with an eye of jealousie or fear designed for hate as that for destruction and these because they look not like those directly from God to the command and from that to the duty but asquint or across from God obliquely or in pretence but then most directly to the Party or Interest and from that cross again upon the prescribed duty we cannot see them sufficiently who look so many several ways at one view Sometimes they amuse us with close and warm insinuations of fears and jealousies and so scatter the seeds of discontent thus by a pretended Tyranny they make way for Anarchy and by fictitious for real Popery the Devil and shame together teaching them to colour Schism with Zeal and to sute their mediums of suggestions or accusations with their ends of ruin and destruction Sometimes like Tumblers they see best with one of their eyes their left eye sharp-sighted enough when their right eye is full of darkness thus they obtrude upon us worldly wisdom which we see they have for divine light which we know they have not Thus they teach humor and confidence instead of Conscience and act accordingly through thick and thin they 'l boggle or stop at nothing when the devil rides them i. e. as they love to mistake it when conscience overacts them then shew them if you can those impieties which they dare not act to make them sure of their Election In this carier they have done such feats in our memory so black and execrable exploits so exactly Theatrical and infernal that their own Father might learn to act after them that charity it self could do them no greater kindness than to make them if not penitently innocent less nocent unavoidably that so if they will not chuse the honour or comfort they might be mercifully compelled to enjoy the common benefits of obedience so that however they will perish by other sins they might not be able to damn themselves by Rebellion Popish Schismaticks Some of them that have traded longer than the rest and set up for whole-sale have ingrost that most comprehensive falshood Infallibility as the surest staple error to advance trade and help off the rest 't is odds but some of them heretofore were near choaking for I think they eat bones and all with their Transubstantiation and this infallible crust was first prepared to cure them and ever since administred to all for prevention of the like danger surely a most soveraign remedy for by keeping the gullet thus at stretch and the swallow wide enough open it makes all safe Pope Pius the IV. in Counc of Trent Since that they have been able to take down XII Articles more than ever the Apostles took up into their Creed prescribed by one of their infallible Doctors and prepared by his trusty Trojans his Apothecaries of Trent they can swallow the whole 24 together at one gulp without check or chewing and can we think now they should stick or strain at a Bolus of one man the man Jesus Christ they are foully wrong'd if they be not now endeavouring to do as much by St. George for England and his horse too Some of them look cross upon the whole Law of Moses Antinomians as if our freedom from the rigour of that were our exemption from the bond of all humane Laws and licentiousness of life were the true Christian liberty or as if that liberty were not a manumission from the bondage and dominion of sin and Satan but from the yoke of Christ and the precepts of Christianity and from the not only Positive but Moral Law of Moses which we know is the Law of Nature and of Christ too as if they were free to regulate the Laws by their own humours and not these by those as if no errours of judgment no not blaspheming or denying God were to be corrected or restrained by Laws as if it were not the sin but the duty of the Magistrate when he beareth the sword in vain Some look upward with such bold and fixed staring upon the decrees of God as such absolute irrespective and irreversible things Predestinarians as do eternally determine both the end and the means and necessitate both our sins and our punishments and therefore warrant us to live as we were born without care for that our vices cannot hurt us if Elect nor our vertues help us if Reprobate for that either we cannot repent if we would or that we must repent do what we can that whatever comes to pass was antecedently unavoidable and we thereby fully discharged of any farther care or solicitude concerning our actions or our ends and may therefore as our complexions dispose us go merrily or despairingly to hell but go however whereas would they but consider themselves as bound in duty not to think or speak any thing unworthy of God or any thing which they would be ashamed should be thought or spoken of themselves they could not but conceive and acknowledge that God's promises and threats are general and conditional that his decrees are just and so inclusive of his dealing with all men according to their deeds and exclusive of any respect of persons and therefore that justification doth not precede Repentance nor repentance avail
no incorporeal substance for that it would be a contradiction and so impossible there should be any as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were nothing akin to Entity Leviathan p. 214. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to which we all know 't is nearer allied than to matter or corporeity but as we also know they are some kind of deformities in our bodies which make us most asham'd of being stript so it must be some such cause that makes us so afraid of a separate existence If I should say as I need not the disciple of the Leviathan is mad the Reader knows what I mean and I speak intelligibly or if I say he is besides himself I am allowed to speak pertinently and he could he come to himself again would grant me to speak as truly that he was not himself and that he was when he was not so how then can he confess the lesser Separation which is in Lunacy whilst he cannot so much as conceive that greater Divorce which is in Ecstacy whenas it is manifestly repugnant to know any thing in kind which we cannot also apprehend in degree to know any thing to be actually at a lesser which we cannot imagine to be possibly at a greater distance So then 't is not any contradiction in the terms of incorporeal substance that can be the cause why there is none such What then why truly this or nothing and this less and worse than nothing because if there were such a substance then there must be a Spirit and that would put the hook into this Leviathan for then there will be a God whereas otherwise the Monster were free to take his pleasure and pass time for there could be no God and so no Religion and then no good or evil but as forc't and made such by our selves For that supposing God is or may be he must be infinite and indivisible and therefore also must be incorporeal because otherwise he must have parts and so be divisible and so finite Diogenes Laertius reports of Pyrrho In vita ejus that he denyed any difference between good and evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 other than what Positive law or custom had made and I think Seneca tells as much of Epicurus Besides these two I am not presently aware of any third till Mr. Hobbs will needs be teaching ubi nulla respublica p. 72. de Cive c. 12. c. nullum injustum c. nihil absolute bonum aut malum c. Natura est ad mandatum relativa omnis actio suâ naturâ adiaphora c. that there 's nothing good or evil in it self or naturally just or unjust but all so or so in reference to the Magistrate being otherwise and in themselves indifferent c. But this Gentleman hath forgot what yet he must needs have learnt from one of his great Masters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is an Eternal Law every way inclining us to that which is just and equal Aristot de mundo c. 16. and that as the Being of God must needs be infinite as we have shewn already so must it by the like necessity of his Nature be infinitely holy because the perfections of God are not Adjuncts but Essential to his Nature wherefore he cannot act but agreeably to them he cannot approve or disapprove any thing but suitably to these so that to imagine one thing to be as congruous to him as another good as evil must needs be Blasphemy and contradiction to boot and make God both to be and cease to be what he is because that God abhors evil is rather from the Sanctity of his Nature and Essence than from the determination of his Will and therefore whatever is properly and essentially good must rather be so by its resultanco from this Holy Being than by any positive Sanction or precept of Law and therefore also 't is in respect of its Sanctity rather than Soveraignty that the Will of God becomes the measure of good and evil which is not such because his Will is Arbitrary but because it must be agreeable to his Holiness Though we are not born with congenit Notions of good and evil yet we are born with such Faculties as duely exercised between acts and objects will make us necessarily apprehensive of congruity or incongruity in this or that whilst yet this apprehension ows it self not only to the moral but to the connate and essential rectitude of those Faculties which shew us by consideration such a manifest proportion between some and disproportion between other acts and their objects that without repugnancy and doing violence to those powers we cannot judge otherwise of them than that they are right or wrong equal or unequal from that proportion or disproportion we thus perceive in them and have thereby as certain rational Principles of Moral practice as any we can have of Science and know as well that we are to give every one their due as that two and two make four and therefore two taken from four leave two still and those certain determinations which the Soul makes in this rational exercise of comparing acts and objects are those very issues which Philosophers call common Notions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the Rudimental innate or ingrafted Principles of Rational nature whereby we find our Intellectual Faculties to be as much affected with moral evil as our Sensatories are by the most incongruous or ingrateful Objects Rhet. l. 1. c. 14. Rom. 12.17 Thus we find some things as Aristotle observes right or wrong by nature or in St. Pauls language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just or honest in the sight or esteem of all men q. d. no rational creature can possibly esteem them other than such because the faculties wherewith he judgeth are created by God who hath made man with such Faculties as make him necessarily judge so and so and therefore this judgment of his must be Gods too and so must be a Law from God given to man which man as rational cannot depart from it being the Law written in his heart or wrought into the essential frame or composition of his reasonable nature What imaginable account can there be given how the Gentiles who had not the Law could be a Law unto themselves or do by nature the things contained in the Law c. if there were not a Law in and to that nature abstracted from and antecedent to all other Sanctions and Precepts whatsoever They had not the Law written or revealed to them what Law had they then but this in their nature which was born with them They could have nothing but that Natural light or the dictates of right reason by whose conduct notwithstanding they did those things which were also commanded in the Law of God or as the Poet words it sponte suâ sine lege fidem rectumque colebant This was that Lex scripta in cordibus hominum quam
ne ipsa delet iniquitas as St. Aust speaks that Law written in mens hearts which sin it self could not blot out This was that Law to which a penalty was annext in case of Transgression to be taken upon the verdict or testimony of Conscience i. e. that reflection the Soul makes Conscience what and the judgment which by that reflection it passes upon it self according to Law without which Law as there could be no guilt so without guilt there could be no Conscience Therefore if the Law makes not distinctively good or evil we can neither do well or ill or have either comfort or regret in the sense of one or other Conscience can never act without respect to a Law and to the Maker and Judge of that Law Its reflexion would be an useless and idle thing if all other things were indifferent because the sense of guilt would be incompossible with the praeclusion of Law and therefore every mans experience as it feels the one so it proves the other Witness the perplexity that haunts the Soul of the most cautious and closest sinner Witness the lashes that the Monarch feels from the hand of Conscience though freed from the touch of any other patiturque suos mens conscia manes Witness the fears and horrors of dying men who are then most afraid of this when they are nighest out of the reach of all other punishment But besides the testimony of Conscience we have the universal consent of Mankind there having never yet been any Nation so barbarous that believed every thing naturally alike or that had not some Principles and Practices too of Morality And indeed were it not thus were not good and evil made such by nature distinctly and antecedently to humane Laws these Laws could signifie nothing for were there no antecedent obligation to obey those Laws Rebellion would presently be as lawful as obedience is necessary Vain names of Oaths of Allegiance or Promises of Fidelity if it be not first a duty in it self to keep ones word I wonder who would then be a Subject that could hope to better himself by being otherwise Besides were it not thus how should humane Laws bind as we see they do in those places where Revelation has not yet been if the Obligation of Conscience to Obedience in such places be not resolv'd into the Law of Nature enjoyning Obedience as due to Governours Yea precluding the Law of Nature I speak now with becoming reverence how could God himself bind us to obedience by any Positive Law for unless it be first my duty to believe God because of his Veracity I am after the clearest Revelation left at my liberty to believe whether the Law be from God or no and if I should be so kind as to believe him yet if nothing be good or bad in it self then to despise the authority of God cannot be evil and therefore I may chuse as an indifferent thing whether I will obey him or not Yea why may not men if they please invert the very frame of all moral things and turn Vice into the place of Virtue So absurd as we have seen is this false and dangerous Hypothesis so directly thwart to the first Principles of Reason and to the common sence of mankind so plainly effective and introductive of all the evil and misery that can be done or suffer'd in the world that if it could be reasonably believed that the Author a man I doubt not eminently Learned should not be aware of what so follows thereupon it might also be charitably hop't that he would have denyed himself upon the first sight of such mischievous consequents were it not that we see many other and some not unlearned men who while they abhor the Principles in terms yet embrace those inferences which must needs come from them in course Tell the Schismatick there is no God oh Abominable that 't is abominable and the Atheist shall feel his arm but tell him Kings are not or obedience due to them is not Gods and you may shake his hand Suum euique tribuaere Tell him there is a natural or original Law of justice c. out upon these Atheists he 'l say so too tell him right reason is that instrument by which we discern this Law to be given to our natures still he 's content but tell him that therefore Obedience is both rational and natural and he begins to start what do you mean Sir Tell him that therefore it is due to man as Governour i. e. as the Ordinance of God you amaze him what though he be a Papist where by the way we cannot but acknowledge this same though Modern Papist or Infidel c. to be so much the more considerable as it carries with it an Emphasis of the loudest and harshest sound Papist in our English Reformed Translation being in a manner the same reading with Infidel or Mahometan but whilst I think it the severest I may also suspect it for the unjustest too as being a supposition however made at first God knows not I yet since that time manifestly as enviously urg'd and improved by some to such a popular height that it now seems more than probable they had rather suppose it though false than truly not suppose it and that they would not quit their advantage or exchange the pleasure of fixing the guilt and odium for my comfort in or my hope of the improbability of that imputation Their busie floating upon the top or surface of common fame will not let them sink to the depth and bottom of such humble reflexions as supposing what they suppose would certainly help us more and become us better for whether is more Evangelical think we the language of Ashdod or the speech of Canaan that roaring clamour he is Popishly affected and shall never Reign c. or that still remorseful voice righteous art thou O Lord and thy judgments are true and as we sin'd by thrusting out as we did a Protestant King and Nursing Father so shouldst thou punish us by bringing in the contrary yet still righteous art thou O Lord c. But besides that we may be jealous of this jealousie as seeing no more sufficient ground than we think they have good cause for it and that we are not to suspect rashly without such ground or tumultuously and irreverently with it methinks we have this good reason against it that it got no higher than a Supposition there where we doubt not it would if it could have been lifted up to an Assertion and I know some very near the subject of this praedicate that know no more of it than I do and I now thank God that thus I do not know it and thence may infer my duty not to believe it my duty I say and the rather because I believe verily such a Supposition can hardly be well made of any man or Christian without making another of the ignorance or unsincerity of the same man
nay it seems next to a contradiction or moral impossibility that it should be otherwise for how can his knowledge admit such doctrines as are pointblank opposite to the sence and reason of Mankind or how can that be Faith which embraceth such as are inconsistent with the nature and rule of Faith Besides that the Supposition as first made would fitly serve which can never be thought of without horror to justifie the Effusion or stain the Innocence or elicit an Ominous Ebullition of the yet fresh and purest bloud of that ROYAL MARTYR But to return from this unacceptable digression Tell him therefore the lawful King must be obeyed whatever he is otherwise and you confound him away he cry's I see you are a disguised Protestant Tell another Schismatick God has given us a Natural Law distinctive of good and evil and such Faculties as duely exercis'd are sufficient to discern it c. he readily agrees to the words only he must reserve a sence for his own practice He is ashamed not to say as you do whilst resolved never to do what you say and the next news you hear of him he has transverst those very Faculties he is either Transubstantiating Bodies or Gelding Oaths or Deposing Kings or a sad pretty thing Absolving Subjects from the Law of their own Natures or to say all in a word he is Covenanting against his own Vows and so breaking the bonds blasting the dignities and consuming the persons of all men and things Sacred or Civil by the breath of that Fiery-flying-Serpent Good God! what Babels of Opinion and practice does the pride and ignorance of men erect against Thee every man is building like mad and every man will be a master and lay his own foundation One makes it of the smallest sifted particles of Atomical dust which he found by that same good luck that they had to meet there Another lays it only with dry loose stones thrown together by the withered and tremulous hands of some decrepit and uncertain Traditions doating enough to be thought old and old enough to be found rotten Another works it with hewn and squar'd and polish'd stone but joynted with the most untemper'd mortar of perverse reasoning and vain Philosophy a deal of good stuff spoil'd and worse than lost Another that saith he sees the vanity of these foundations yet builds such an irregular Superstructure as is only fit to stand upon these and worthy for whose sake these foundations themselves should be razed and overthrown Such mad work is there made by the lusts and interests of men with the most holy Religion and laws of God! But 't is well for us that in these confusions and against these extreams we are sufficiently directed and forewarn'd not to believe every spirit Joh. 4.1 therefore we are sure there are Spirits and that some are true and many are false and all must be try'd and that they may be tryed we have given us from God the Spirit Cor. 12. â— 10 the gift of discerning Spirits or distinguishing those glisterings among us which are not gold which pretend the Commission or Inspiration of God for the impulse or impetus of lust which make good and evil true and false to be but empty names or words that signifie nothing or nothing but the Will of the Supreme Magistrate and so necessarily infer this contradiction that the same things in several places are true and false and our Lord Christ must have been a false Prophet â—â—viathan 250. because condemned by the Roman Governour and Mahomet a true Prophet because allowed by the chief Sultan which teach us that the Soveraign power beyond whatever hath yet been arrogated by any Pope may null the old Ibid. and make a new Canon of Scripture or none at all Now for these and a thousand more the like Spirits of error we may if we will find a plain rule of tryal in the word of truth where we see the genuine characteristick properties of the Spirit of God It is a Spirit of Truth therefore a good life with an erroneous judgment in Essential and Fundamental points necessary for Faith or Practice as in the great doctrine of Obedience to Governours which runs through the whole body of the Gospel if he allows or abets resistance in any case or if he ascribes infallibility to frail and sinful man or priviledgeth a Priest to do a greater Miracle than ever Christ did by Transubstantiating a piece of bread to make and eat his Saviour he must needs be led by a Spirit of error It is a Spirit of Holiness therefore to be Orthodox and yet immoral to have good opinions with bad practices to think right and to do wrong is to be led by the unclean spirit It is a Spirit of Vnity therefore to Reform by Schism to dissolve the Bond of Peace wherein the Vnity of the Spirit is to be preserv'd to separate or Absolve Subjects from their Obedience to teach them to swear to be forsworn or to lye for Gods sake is to be led by the Spirit of division whose name is Legion It is a Spirit of meekness and order therefore to despise dominions to excommunicate Kings or subvert Kingdoms is to be led by the Spirit Abaddon or Apollyon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rev. 9.11 the Spirit of mischief or destruction always working in the children of disobedience It is a Spirit of Sincerity working in us simplicity and singleness of heart therefore to lift up the Left hand to God and the Right against his Vice-gerent to hate Idols and love Sacriledge to declaim against the Prelacy of Conforming and Vote up the Papacy of Nonconforming Ministers is to be acted by the Spirit of Hypocrisie or the father of Lyes It is a Spirit of Knowledge or understanding therefore to level the Canon of Scripture with the Apocrypha to make the Word of God truckle under Tradition to advance Jesus against Christ or to propagate Religion by the Sword is to be led by the Spirit of Slumber the God of this world that blindeth the minds of men Thus let us Try the Spirits and by the fruits of Love Joy Peace Gal. 5.22.19 Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness c. or of hatred variance wrath strife seditions heresies c. we shall easily know them Yet because Vice borders close upon Vertue and is never without some colour or probability to set it off we are not to make our last judgment upon the Acts till we be first acquainted with the habits of men till we know the general current of their lives as well as the particular conduct of their designs and the means they use as well as the end they pretend to and when this is done let the Forms of godliness be never so artificially drawn the fire of Zeal and the light of Sanctity never so well painted let the Colours be never so fine ground and laid on with never so delicate a Pencil we shall see the
The name of Jesus adorable The Bowing at the Name of Jesus is none of those things and the offence they take therefore is not given for admitting what they object that the practice is neither warranted nor intended by the Apostle in that common Text yet certainly those mighty peculiar Emphases which we find put by the Spirit of Truth upon that all-adored and salvifick name must needs enforce it Have the Angels in their more exalted nature have they knees for this hyperhypsistous Immanuel and can the Christian man have none for the same superexcelling and most exalted Jesus do they bow inquisitively shall the mountains and rocks bow litterally and can I not bow Religiously must my understanding bow or break to the Faith of the incarnation and can my body in this state of Vnion not bow at the Name or which is all one at the mention or memory of God incarnate Versus c. Typical And for the like reason though bowing towards the Temple Hierusalem were Typical then yet bowing in the Temple or house of Prayer even by the practice of the Antitype it self must be pious still and that place as separated and consecrated by Christ so hallowed and esteemed by us Arist The Philosopher can tell us that a lye is malum in se a sin against the Law of our Nature therefore to make a lye quod efficit tale must be so and more and to violence or captivate a profitable truth can be little less the good which I do against my mind is so far hypocrisie as the evil which I so do is infirmity and there is crimen falsi in both when I bow my body to the person I had rather stab or kiss the hand that I wish cut off does not my soul make my body lye so when my soul bows in Adoration of God can it so exclude the body in this state of conjunction as either to deny the right or interdict the use of its assistance would not such exclusion be an injurious restraint and oppression of that truth which I am always bound to own and assert by a reasonable service of God with my whole man my soul and body together We grant 't is the Loyalty of the soul that makes a true Christian subject yet we know this never is or can be unattended by the hand and knee too Voluptas animae anima voluptatis We grant that as the pleasure of the Soul is the soul of pleasure so the worship of the Soul or Spirit is the soul of worship but then this soul is in the body still and acts not but ecstatically without it and it acts as distinctly as grosly bodily in any determinate position of the hand or eye as in the flex on of the back or knee all are alike bodily worship and equally lyable to exception though their fortune has not been alike if there be any difference in the notoriety of the gestures then we say the more visible if decent and Analogous the more honorary we think it impossible for any soul seriously militant to think it adviseable to throw away his arms or give them up to his enemy to give that bow or worship to any creature which upon the oath and fidelity of a souldier he must give to and only to his Creator he must bow as spiritually and litterally too as he must not bow yea he must bow as naturally and necessarily whilst he is in the body as he must not he cannot enter the house or begin the work of Prayer without bowing forth his Domine non sum dignus nor make any solemn religious address without the Soul of a Christian and the body of a man together the negative precept both directs and confirms the positive duty and by being commanded not we are instructed how to bow look what share he knows his body must have in the violation he gives it the same in the performance of his duty and is so well perswaded of the reasonableness of this service that without doing open violence to the express command by hacking out a piece as some of our Schismaticks acquaintance have cut off the whole and restively stopping at thou shalt not bow he cannot conceive the least colourable objection against this or in favour of the contrary practice unless either it should be said here as we have heard before that it must not be done because commanded which God forbid or that it could be thought argumentative or not Sarcastical which I remember to have seen somewhere produced by a person of Honour as the only Text that can piece up the rent of that mutilate Communion in the Church of Rome viz. Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me c. But it may be the pinch is not so much here and they are more offended as English men than as Christians Where the pinch lyes as abridged of those priviledges which their interest in Magna Charta claims for them that they are not admitted to places of trust and office c. Truly we might willingly endure the envy of this objection upon condition it were but as true in Thesi as it would be absurd in Hypothesi For besides that we know by sad and memorable experience were Schismaticks Legislators they would certainly inforce such a Conformity as they will now neither comply with themselves nor forgive in others they have made themselves even by their own Principles incapable of being what they complain they are not for if indifferent things are not properly the matter of humane Laws as humane is contradistinct to divine there 's nothing in the world besides that can be so because all necessary things are already sufficiently commanded and all unlawful things as evidently forbidden in the Word of God in which respect they are altogether divine and in no wise humane Laws so that there could be but one Law precisely humane which the Schismatick Legislator could possibly enact The Schismaticks Law viz. that every Christian should be a law unto himself or the same in other words that every mans reason should be his guide and every mans will should be his Law and consequently that all should be rulers as much as any May we not now appeal unto themselves whether they be not of all Recusants the most unexcusable more than those that are tossed about with every wind of false doctrine when not our Doctrines true or false but our bare Surplices can skare them or our Organs blow them out of the Church whether it had not been better for them never to have been the members of Christ than being such to out themselves off from his Body which is the Church whether it were not fitter seeing common safety cannot always subsist without publick peace nor publick peace without compliance on one side or other whether I say it were not fitter that the Inferiours the fewer and the more ignorant should yield to the Superiours the many and the
more learned and this so much the rather if it be well considered that however Christians ought to serve one another in love yet obedience to inferiours is grievous and not without some excuse for being so whereas that of Superiours as of Christ who according to his humane nature was a subject to Caesar is a most noble natural and necessary duty as that which supports the whole Fabrick of the Church and of all the Kingdoms upon earth and in Heaven too that which is so equally essential to Policy and Religion that 't is plainly impossible either for Saints to be Schismaticks or Rebels or for such to be Saints without making our Faith our Scriptures our Religion vain without a downright welcome to Anarchy and farewel to all Society The contempt of Authority linked with an obstinate contumacious and seditious humour is so very a monster that it makes an error of judgment which might otherwise have been venial in it self a diabolical and damning quality So that if Schism were no such sin as it is yet it were worth the parting with for the purchase of publick peace of which rightly improved piety and prosperity strength and safety are the genuine and precious fruits It was for this that our Lord himself complyed in some things both with Jews and Gentiles that he might gain both It was for this that we find the like complyances of St. Paul of whom we should all be followers as he was of Christ yielding to circumcise Timothy Act. 15.28 29. and refusing again to circumcise Titus To gain the Jews he denyed himself the use of his Christian liberty and resum'd it again to gain the Gentiles It was for peace and to unite dissenters that the Apostles made that conciliar establishment of things indifferent by a Law whereby they induced a necessity à parte post upon things indifferent à parte antè And this Apostolical practice as it plainly informs our judgments in the true subject matter of humane Laws and whereabout they are properly conversant and as plainly directs our practice of obedience in such cases so will it never be made to serve their purposes who by binding the whole force and weight of it upon their Governours shoulders so as they themselves may not touch it so much as with one of their own fingers would make it a ground of exception from the general rule of submission and a warrant to dispute at least and as it constantly follows to deny at last that obedience which they pretend according to this practice should not have been commanded as if the condescension and indulgence of Governours were not to the ignorance or frowardness to the intellectual or moral infirmities of dissenters as if the Jews had not been culpable in their tenaciousness of the Law of Moses when St. Paul purposely stoopt to them and approved its observance by his own practice as if the bowels and forbearings of any injur'd and incens'd Parent did not make it more the childs duty to love and honour him and should not make it more his shame and grief to displease him more his sin and guilt to disobey him as if not presently to take the forfeiture were reasonably to avoid the debt or cancel the debtors obligation or as if it were equally of duty as it is of power in the Prince to suspend the execution of a known Law for some weighty reasons of State and upon the prospect of publick benefit and to tolerate a practice against Law and without hope of any common good and not without just apprehensions of the greatest experience of the contrary and therefore against all the reason in the world but that of his own courtesie and meer pity 'T is true indeed when Kings are said to be Gods we best understand how they are such when they are said also to be nursing Fathers and therefore without fear either of contradiction to sense or of courtship against reason we can say they are humane Gods their deity best asserted by their humanity and both by a joynt supremacy of power and goodness and we cannot chuse but wonder at the Anti-supremacy of Schism that our ready obedience should not confess the one as irresistible as our rebellions have prov'd the other 'T is as true that there is no such mirrour so clear and true to look in no such optick or perspicil to see with as is the Crystal of the Word of God a glass of such virtue that it not only most perfectly discovers the object but also disposes the medium and directs the faculty a glass that will never suffer us to behold any thing with or through prejudice or base interest or without Christian charity and meekness a glass that never shews us the spots of others but by reflexion upon our own in this glass we can neither behold the virtues or vices of our fellow-subjects with envy or without pity nor the blemishes or beauties of our Governours without a reverence becoming both a reverence I say as being a mixt affection of fear and love by which I fear the power whilst I love not the fault of the person and love the person whilst I fear the evil whether sin or punishment of the fault In this glass we see what we must piously bewail yet may not proudly censure in our Superiors what we must reprove with caution and without arrogance in our equals and what we must judge and condemn impartially positively absolutely and irrespectively to any though more scandalous sins of others in our selves St. Paul was the greatest of sinners with the greatest assurance of Salvation and the Publican was a sinner with more comfort than the Pharisee was not a Publican In this glass the most absolute Soveraign Prince may best see himself in the fullest proportion he sees by and for whom he reigns absolutely and without whom he reigns not independently he sees that his Government is arbitrary as that is supream and unquestionable by man but not as any way unaccountable but as every way most strictly and most especially accountable to God for he sees him that is properly and originally King of Kings under whose most supreme and comprehensive Title and by vertue of whom he sees himself constituted and authorized and accordingly to which he is to be directed limited and subordinate and therefore by no means to intrench upon the Prerogatives Royal of his Lord Paramount and therefore not to govern by his own Will which is Gods peculiar a rule to himself and a Law to the Sons of men the root and source of all Government which so spreads and runs it self through the whole nature of man that it makes Government not more divine in it self than connatural to us and as effective of our well-beings in Societies as of our social and conjugal propensions and therefore as old as Paternity it self or the First of the First-born making every man naturally sociable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Supremum medium
without amendment that sin is not forgiven before committed or before repented and that therefore repentance must be in time and justification which follows it as well as pardon must be so too Some look down so brutishly upon one extreme The Separatist and Debaucher or Anti-hypocrite that they never can advert to the other one is so wholly intent upon his jealousies of Tyranny and Popery that he never sees or fears Rebellion and disobedience whilst another in avoidance of this Hypocrisie rushes into a worse extream of Debauchery and is so resolv'd an anti-hypocrite that he will not endure so much as a form of godliness but rather than seem religious will proclaim his sin as Sodom rather than hypocritically abstain from the appearance of evil and not from the evil it self as the other doth he will abstain impudently both from good and from its appearance and though a Professor of Christianity will vye with the effronteries of the most shameless Heathens in disclosing those pudendous enormities which he hath done and that he may not be out-done in boasting of more than he ever had the appetite or if that yet possibly the strength to perpetrate thus he hates hypocrisie worse than the other loves it and by glorying in his impiety not only displeaseth but as the more horrid Devil of the two even despiseth God It would be endless to remark upon the numberless divisions and subdivisions of Sectaries yet all equally pretending to be and how ill soever or awry they look to be lookt upon by us as our reformers all equally dissenters from Reformers without and Vsurpers against authority all equally admirers of themselves and despisers of their Superiors Now what a monster think we were that Church like to be whose formation or reformation were thus effected that were to be lickt into shape and feature by the poysonous slavering tongues of all these or what can we imagine would look liker the abomination of desolation All this while the Holy Humble Sincere-hearted man that trembles at the word of God and is afraid of his judgments or in other words the truly Loyal and Christian subject he looks directly with ease and pleasure into the perfect Law of liberty his magna charta indeed where he finds his priviledge in his duty and his liberty in his obedience his fear is not taught him by the Traditions or practices the policies or prosperities of men He has learnt whom to fear and for whom the Lord for his own sake and the King for the Lord's sake both or neither He measures his whole Religion by his adequate obedience to God and man and his whole obedience by the Law of God whether bidding him semper obey his Rulers c. or forbidding him ad semper to worship Idols c. Both are alike his duty alike conducible to his Salvation alike when transgrest threatned with Damnation and therefore reckons that he must needs be subject not only for fear of wrath or hope of profit for fear of hell or hope of Heaven but for Conscience towards God and our selves for that this precept of obedience is not only consequentially good as every positive Law is but simply good and so antecedently obliging as a part of the Law of Nature without any relation to the written Law which here serves only to make disobedience more unexcusable and under a greater condemnation Wherefore he still reckons on that no form of godliness can be more than so without common honesty no common honesty without giving all their dues nothing more due than what the subject owes to the Soveraign whereupon he concludes that dishonesty as such is ungodliness and disobedience as scandalous as drunkenness or adultery Thus the good subject has review'd himself but cannot go from the glass without a dutious filial reflection upon his Prince let us attend him in this posture also and mark what he reports from his own eyes He tells us he once saw in this glass that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that exemplar and ornament of Royalty the First CHARLES of England so like as only not equal to his Prince and Saviour in his Solitudes a Prophet in his Sufferings both King and Priest or according to that new name receiv'd at his second Baptism the ROYAL MARTYR in the circumstances of his Apprehension and Arraignment in the matter of his Charge and Defence the manner of his Death and Burial in the glorious Resurrection of his Name and Memory a name embalm'd with spices of its own in his living to do good and dying to do more yea in dying expresly to save his Peoples Liberties and Properties he hath so reviv'd the history of the Cross that he can see Christ in this his Principal member Crucified again He can point to the Council to the Souldiers to the Judas to the Pilate to the Golgotha c. He bids us remember we had Alas that we had such a Prince of Piety to that degree as was alone sufficient to add the excess to our iniquity and fascination to the Rebellion of his people and were not Oblivion enacted into duty he could never forget Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus So dy'd that worst of Tyrants and last of Kings that ingrain as engraven Inscription of our Antiplastical Protector Exeo Martyr Populi Behold I dye the Martyr of the People that innocent and Heroick expiration of the Royal Sufferer However he 'l be sure to remember to pray that Ne sit Martyr in populum his bloud might not be a witness against these Nations might not be upon us and upon our children may at last be the merciful sentence of the supreme Avenger Amen Amen He now sees in the same glass by a providence as full of mercy as wonder another CHARLES a Second from the First there 's a specialty of mercy and a Second to that First there 's the wonder Such a Second to such a First must needs demonstrate the wisdom and goodness of God to be alike infinite For what but a most unparallel'd and stupendous clemency in such a Son could ever have qualified him to forgive did I say nay to forget a like impiety against such a Father what but such a Miracle of Magnanimity or Christian patience in the one could have pardoned even to Oblivion the guilt of those who so eminently were self-condemned by the Piety and Innocency of the other A Royal temper indeed enough at once to put us out of doubt why or how 't is said that Kings are gods and into doubt again whether there be not a better medium of Government than Fear whether the * Tacitè permittitur quod sine ultione prohibetur Tertul. Fathers Assertion that what is not congruously punished is tacitly allowed might not now be put to Problem in its own defence And indeed were there as much force as there is reason in goodness to oblige the doubt were over there being nothing in the world that should so reasonably