People should be told and made to know the great Excellency of Christianity and the most solid and undeniable Evidences upon which we have received it For if they do not competently understand these things they can neither praise God for the great blessing of the Gospel of his Grace nor are they like to continue constant in the Exercise and Profession of our Holy Religion if they be not taught how far it excels all others and what solid Foundations it is built upon But what an easie matter is it to question the Prudence of the very best of any Man's actions If I were desirous to find fault with this Sermon the first thing I would do should be to say that it was not Prudently written that it argued not a more than common Sagacity and Judgment to join with the adverse Party in accusing his Brethren and to put Arms into their hands when there are so many Enemies of several sorts that wait but an opportunity to ruine the Church Others might be apt to pretend that in this Discourse concerning Ambassadors his design was either to shew his own skill in the Mysteries of State or to advise his Majesty how those he employed abroad ought to be qualified or to tell those Reverend Persons that might chance to hear him what subjects were most proper to be treated of or to remind the rest of his Auditors when their Preachers were to be blamed And they might be like enough to say that it was altogether as Prudently done to shew an ordinary Congregation the true grounds of their Belief as for any one to vaunt himself for being a great Politician or to teach his Majesty how to chuse his Foreign Ministers or to instruct the Clergy how to Preach or to acquaint the People how to pick quarrels with their spiritual Guides As for that particular with which he seems not to be satisfied I have heard many as good weighty and solid Discourses upon it as this of his is but I never knew any Man that was wont to preach of nothing else Or if there be any such as this reproof that is given them seems to imply I think it may be altogether as Prudent and to as good purpose to be continually magnifying of our Religion as to be frequently sowing of groundless jealousies in the Minds of Men to the great scandal and dishonour of our Christian Profession The other place that I shall take notice of is where he says he cannot but animadvert a while upon those false Apostles and deceitful Workers who instead of building are ever pecking at the Foundation of our Faith with their Axes and Hammers in great Blasphemies and lesser Criticisms to change the old sound word of Reconciliation for new Ideas and devices of their own and other mens brains I am not able to conceive whom he describes by this Character he gives But he goes on That would supplant Christian Religion with Natural Theologie And who these should be too I cannot conjecture There is undoubtedly a Reverence of our Maker that is required by those Principles and common Notions that are imprinted upon our Souls And we are no more absolved from the obligation that lyes upon us to worship him on this account than we are from Justice and Temperance or any other Duty which the same Law of Nature does most strictly enjoin And I do not apprehend how this should be so much a supplanting as a confirmation of the Christian Religion when it shall be made appear to be extremely consonant and agreeable to the Dictates of our own minds and that in very many Instances of our obedience to Almighty God we have a double tye by which we are bound that of Nature and that of his written and most Holy Word But it follows And turn the Grace of God into a wanton Notion of Morality I know of no Offenders in this kind But there are many Duties of the Gospel which may methinks without any scandal be called moral Virtues in respect of the matter of them and Graces with reference to the Divine Power by which we are inabled to perform them And this I take to be as much as any Man amongst us will contend for But let Men call things by what Names they please if they be but conscientious to practise as they should I shall move no controversie about a word But he proceeds to the heaviest part of the charge That impiously deny both the Lord that bought them and his Holy Spirit that should seal them to the day of Redemption This is as much as can be said unless he will accuse us of professed Atheism And if he know of any such as he mentions let him discover them let them be openly branded for the worst of Hereticks and let them suffer the utmost rigour and severity of the Law But if he be not able to convince us of the truth of what he has said how will he answer it to his own Conscience and what Recompence will he make to the Church of God that has been highly scandalized by this bold affront that he has offered unto it But let us see how he goes on Making Reason Reason Reason their only Trinity This is as much as to say that they are Socinians and utterly deny the Doctrine of the blessed Trinity This is a thing that I have spoken of before and I need say no more of it here But what if I should say that some Men make Applause Applause Applause their only Trinity there are more I fear that would be found guilty of this error than of the other and it is not Reason but a vain-glorious humour and a desire of being admired that is wont to destroy Mens Principles and to incline them to Heretical Opinions All considerative Men of all Perswasions do grant us a sober use of our Reason in matters of Religion but I have not been acquainted with any that do Idolize and adore it in such a manner as is pretended I have yet heard of none in this Church who do not firmly believe that it is necessary to have our Understandings illuminated by Divine Revelation and to have all our Faculties strengthened by the efficacious Assistances of the Holy Ghost Which is far enough sure from preaching up Natural and Moral Religion without the Grace of God and Faith in Christ as this Gentleman tells us they do After this amongst other things he has a good saying of Socrates and he might have gathered a great many of other Mens to the same purpose but then he brings in his cutting Epiphonema so far do they outstrip a very Heathen that teach a good life will carry men to Heaven though they be Jews Turks Antichristians or never such damnable Hereticks in point of Faith This is strange Doctrine indeed but the best of it is I never knew any Man so bold that durst maintain it Then he tells us what need there is of a Test for such as
unconcernedness as the Rock breaks the Waves that dash against it But that you may see that there are hot-brain'd Men of all parties some of their own Robe will needs suspect them to be shrewdly inclined to Non-Conformity because they are not always railing at the Fanaticks Others hold them to be Soeinians presently because they are able to confute them without running into an unseemly passion Others look upon them as well affected to the Church of Rome because though possibly they believe it yet they do not make it a fundamental Article that the Pope is Antichrist Others imagine they can prove them Heathens because they are not continually passing sentence upon the Souls of Socrates and Cato And thus if you examine them all through you will find that it is nothing but their sober and modest behaviour in Disputes and the greatness of their Charity that can be charged with Heresie or any disaffection to the Church of England For their Opinions cannot be accused of this they are perfectly agreeable to the Nine and thirty Articles as I told you before though not to the false and spurious Glosses that some have been pleased to put upon them I will just mention some few things they hold which may be sufficient to clear them of the grossest of those imputations they have suffered under They hold the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God They hold that the Eternal and only begotten Son of God was in the fulness of Time incarnate of the blessed Virgin and that he suffered Death upon the Cross for our Redemption and made there by his own Oblation of himself once offered a full perfect sufficient Sacrifice Oblation and Satisfaction for the Sins of the whole World They hold that we are justified by Faith but not that this Faith excludes the other Conditions of Salvation that are indispensably required in the Gospel I might alledge other Instances but these are enough to take away the scandal of Socinianism at least And thus have I given you my Opinion freely what I conceive to be the Causes of the great Apprehensions that some have entertained as if the Conforming Clergie were turning Hereticks and I can find them to be no other than that there is need enough of some New Pretences for Separation and that many of the Conformists are of more mild and peaceable Dispositions and treat their Adversaries with more Civility and Respect than others do As you know they that have a good Cause and are able to defend it are not troubled but rather pleased to have their Opinions enquired into But those that are conscious of their own Weakness or distrust the Truth of what they maintain cannot endure to have it questioned and are extremely impatient of any Contradiction But it is time to return to Mr. Jenkyn and to make a Reply to some of those reproachful words which he uses against us I shall confine my self chiefly to that part of the Sermon where he shews the insufficiency of his Dwarfish endeavours to reach the height of Dr. Seaman 's worth Where I shall not in the least detract from the Doctor for I observe that Mr. Jenkyn himself however he like them whilst they are living seems to have a special kindness for dead Bishops as appears by divers Instances in this Sermon and some others And I shall not be more uncivil to his departed Friend than he is to ours I had thought had it been possible to have put his Extravagances into some order and to have digested my Answers into the same method But because I find that very difficult I shall content my self to take them generally as they lye Only whereas he usually mingles his Invective and his Panegyrick together I shall take the boldness to part them and first consider some of the things for which he commends the Doctor and then take notice of those matters for which he does inveigh at us And he praises the Doctor for his excellency in the Theological School in his Pastoral Employment and in his Christian Capacity And I shall not question any thing of all this let him be a most acute Disputant a profound Casuist a skilful Interpreter an Orthodox Divine an able Preacher and which is more than all a good Christian I am as glad to hear it as any man is and I could wish for the Doctor 's sake that Mr. Jenkyn had deserved so much credit that we might believe it all upon his authority But yet I am resolved to hope the best But towards the very beginning of this large Encomium he brings in a kind of an unlucky Apology for ill-nature Now if the Doctor had any such defect in his temper as he seems to suppose yet I hope it was corrected in good measure and Mr. Jenkyn might have spared him there But I believe he intended to speak one good word for the Doctor and two for himself for he has as little Reason as any Man I know to be much in love with natural sweetness But let that pass There is something else more material that must be considered And he tells us that when the Doctor kept his Divinity Act The design of his Position which therein he maintained was to assert the Providence of God in disposing of Political Governments a thing which no sober man ever deny'd and yet he says that it was a Point till that time little studied That 's strange did he never hear of the Disputations the Platonists and Stoicks and Epicureans had concerning this And some of these 't is thought were a little before the Doctor 's time But it was not so well understood till the Doctor made this most happy discovery though since that time several have received light therein from this burning and shining light 'T is very well if they have And I believe he could tell us too if he pleases who they are that have been thus illuminated and amongst the rest no doubt he himself has had a very signal advantage by it and has the most Reason of any man living always to admire and magnifie the Doctor 's Opinion 'T is a most excellent prefervative against Tower-Hill But what was this famed Position of the Doctor 's As far as I can learn it was laid down in these very words or to this purpose Regimen Politicum fundatur in Providentiâ Dei Extraordinariâ This Mr. Jenkyn calls his asserting Providential Disposal Though one might conjecture what this means yet it had not been so clear without the Comment which he has made upon it in the beginning of his Humble Petition to the Supreme Authority the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England and in short it is this that whoever they be that get the Power into their hands the Providence of God evidently appears in removing others and investing them with the Government And he looks upon it as his duty to yield to this
the Jest absolutely ruined by the shift What shall we do now Why then though it should be confessed that he were a silken Diotrephes yet he was not one of that sort that would debauch his Conscience for a Preferment No sure And indeed I have not heard that ever he had a Bishoprick offered him to try it whether he would or no. And for Mr. Jenkyn too if he will but promise for the future that he will never more do it by Preaching and Printing of false and slanderous things which he cannot pretend to prove I dare almost pass my word for him that he shall never have his Conscience debauched with a Preferment There is but one thing more in his Panegyrick of the Doctor which I shall take notice of and that is that he says that he did both fluently and yet rationally deliver his Notions without the least impedition or hesitation Here I believe he is almost singular in his opinion concerning the Doctor What Without the least impedition or hesitation That 's a mighty matter But what should be the Reason then that when he had the liberty to preach in a Church his Congregation was usually so very thin as I have heard it was Mr. Jenkyn knows by his own Experience that a Man that has not one quarter of the Parts and Learning that he says the Doctor had yet if he can but speak fluently 't is no matter whether it be rationally or no and deliver his Notions without the least impedition or hesitation though he be otherwise as empty and unaccomplished a Predicant as any Conformist can be yet the place where he preaches shall scarce fail to be crowded especially if it be a Funeral Sermon for a great Doctor then they will be clambring up at the very Windows and justling one another and all that they may hear the brave Man that speaks any thing he cares not what without the least impedition or hesitation This he knows well enough and then what was the matter I say that the Doctor was wont heretofore to have such a slender Auditory Why the Reason was that what Mr. Jenkyn affirms of him in this particular at least is almost as false as any of those black Forgeries he has made of us This every one that has ever heard the Doctor knows to be true And I admire with what brow the Man was able to talk at this rate amongst those that were acquainted with the Doctors natural imperfection well enough But you may see by this how far you may trust this eloquent Encomiaster But he that is so Eagle-ey'd at discovering of Excellencies and Faults too where there are none is able no doubt if he pleases to outstare the Sun I have not been forward to pick holes in the Doctor 's Mantle that I mean of his sweet memorial but this I must be forced to confess that when he supplyed the place of a Master of a College in Cambridge his great abilities in all kinds were not so well discovered there but I will not disparage my self so far as to say that Mr. Jenkyn's single opinion may not outweigh the judgment of a whole University Therefore I shall not question his Panegyrick any farther I come now to consider the other part of his Declamation the Invective that he occasionally makes against us And though I have been much surprised that so great an Artist as this is could not sufficiently commend a Person of such known Abilities as he says the Doctor was without rifling the very Oyster-Boats and Dust-Carts for the chief Flowers of his Rhetorick yet I should not have been so much concerned if he had done it in any kind of handsome way But he assaults us in such a clownish and lubberly fashion that I can resemble him to nothing better than some hasty Country Fellow in Leather Breeches that snatches up his Flail in a mighty rage and flyes amongst us and threshes us most unmercifully without either fear or wit as the Proverb is It may be he may complain that I play with him sometimes and I acknowledge I do And I cannot imagine when he printed this Sermon that he could expect any thing else but only to be laughed at I knew Mr. Jenkyn's Talent too well ever to hope to compare with him at downright Railing if I could have allowed my self in it And there is no way in the World to be serious with him though if it could have been I should have liked it far better than this kind of trifling that I am now constrained to use sometimes contrary to my own Temper and Judgment in most cases But in this it could not always be avoided It was necessary that so much scorn and arrogance and so many Slanders and Calumnies as this man loads us withall should not be passed over without any notice And if I had gone about gravely to prove that we were not a company of Vncatechised Vpstarts c. I should have made my self almost as ridiculous as He. It would have given too much reputation to his Rudeness as if it could be thought that any sober Man did believe him when he sputters and raves and foams at mouth in such a manner that 't is hard to guess what the matter should be And if after all his Provocations I can still make my self merry with him without running into choler as he does I think I am not much to be blamed I have frequent occasion to speak a little Ironically of him and truly I judge there was never more cause to use that scheme of speech than when I see Mr. Jenkyns most monstrous and Gigantick conceit of himself marching forwards with a most stately and majestick gate and the pretty little puling insufficiency of his Dwarfish Endeavours tripping lightly away before it like one of the Great Mogols Dwarfs leading an Elephant along in Triumph If I seem at any time to slight him too much it has been his own most unsufferable contempt and unworthy vilifying of others that has given the occasion But it is time to come up nearer to this mighty Man and to see what it is that he charges us with And the first thing is where he thus speaks Though the usefulness of Casuitical Divines be as great as their rarity both for the directing and easing of Conscience a thing little regarded in these days of Latitudinarianism And as soon as ever he had got out that he starts back and makes a most lamentable outcry as if the Town were on fire O uncouth and till of late unheard of word how it sounds horrid to the ears of Pious Grammarians I wonder what 's the matter with the Man would any one ever think that Mr. Jenkyn should be so grievously frighted with one ill favoured word If he be I must tell him that Lying and Slandering and the basest detraction in the mouth of one that would be thought a great Divine is more Vncouth and sounds worse and more horrid