upon the Rights of Religion So that there is no other effectual Artifice to decoy Christian Subjects into Mutiny and Rebellion but the taking Pretences of Godliness and Reformation They are all agreed in the Belief of the necessity of subjection to their lawful Superiours in all things that concern their civil rights but where the Glory of God and Purity of his Worship lie at stake there they must whet and sharpen their Zeal in his Cause and not betray the true Religion by their neglect and stupidity And let but a few crafty men whisper abroad their suspicions of Popery or any other hated name and the Rabble are immediately alarm'd and they will raise a War and embroil the Nation against an Heretical Word And to this Purpose their Leaders are ever provided with such jugling and seditious Maxims as effectually over-rule all Oaths of Allegiance and all Obligations to Obedience as that all Good Subjects may with just Arms at least defend themselves if question'd or assaulted for the cause of Religion though when they send their Armies into the Field they are as well arm'd with Offensive Weapons as their Enemies and are furnish'd with Swords and Musquets to annoy them as well as Shields and Bucklers to defend themselves That the maintenance of pure Religion passes an Obligation upon their Consciences of force enough to evacuate all Oaths and Contracts whatsoever that may stand in the way of its advancement and then how naturally does this not only warrant but enforce their Resistance to their Lawful Prince in defence of the cause of God and to extort the Free exercise of Religion by force of Arms which if they should lay down at his Command that were to betray the Gospel to the Power of its profess'd and implacable Enemies by their own neglect and cowardize Not that they fight against the King himself God forbid their intention is nothing else then to rescue him out of the Power and Possession of evil Counsellors You must not believe them such disloyal Wretches as to rebel against his Sacred Majesty alas they design nothing but the discharge of their Duty and Allegiance and though they take up Arms against his Person yet 't is in defence of his Crown and they fight against him in his Personal Capacity only to serve him in his Political That in the management and Reformation of Religion there is no respect to be had to carnal and worldly Wisdom and therefore when the Propagation of the Gospel lies at stake 't is but a vain thing for men to tie themselves to the Laws of Policy and Discretion Civil Affairs are to be conducted by secular Artifices but matters of the Church are to be directed purely by the Will of God the Warrant of Scripture and the Guidance of Providence Now what exorbitances will not this wild principle excuse and qualifie In all their disorderly and irregular Proceedings they do but neglect the Rules of carnal Policy for the better carrying on of the work of the Lord where there is no place for moderation and complyance and nothing must satisfie or appease their Zeal but a full Ratification of all their demands Though these and infinite other as vulgar Artifices are as old as Rebellion it self and though wise men can easily wash off their false Colours yet the Common People will suffer themselves to be abused by them to the end of the World partly because they are rash and heady and apt to favour all Changes and Innovations partly because they are foolish and credulous and apt to believe all fair and plausible stories but mainly because they are proud and envious and apt to suspect the Actions of their Superiours So easie a thing is it for your crafty Achitophels to arm Faction with Zeal and to draw the Multitude into Tumults and Seditions under colour of Religion whilst themselves have their designs and projects apart and influence the great turns of Affairs for their own private Ends and so manage the zealous fools as to make them work Journey-work to their ambition and imploy seditious Preachers to Gospellize their Conspiracies and sanctifie their Rapines and Sacriledges to display the piety of their Intentions and cry up the Interest of a State-faction for the Cause of God and sound an Alarm to Rebellion with the Trumpet of the Sanctuary § 15. Thus to omit the known Arts of the Grandees and Junto-men in our late Confusions were the Confederate Lords of France that involved their Native Country in such a long and bloody War during the Reign of four or five Kings at first to seek for a plausible pretence to secure and justifie their Resolution of taking up Arms against their lawful Sovereign till the Admiral Coligny hit upon that unhappy counsel to make themselves Heads of the Hugonot Faction and then they had not only a strong party to assert but a fair pretence to warrant the Rebellion And the War that was first set on foot by the envy and ambition of some Male-contents in the State was prosecuted with greater rage and fury by Zeal for the true Religion In all their Manifests and Declarations they protested for nothing with so much seeming Resolution as their Demands of Liberty and Indulgence for tender Consciences And when either Party fortun'd to be worsted they re-inforced themselves and their Cause by Religious Leagues and Covenants and then the heady multitude flowed into the assistance of the different Factions according to their different Inclinations So that by degrees to use the words of the Historian the discords of great men were confounded with the dissentions of Religion and the Factions were no more called the discontented Princes and the Guisarts but more truly and by more significant Names one the Catholique and the other the Hugonot Party Factions which under colour of Piety administred such pernicious matter to all the following mischiefs and distractions Which how sad and how tedious they were I need not inform you only this both Parties being balanced and successively encouraged by the inconstancy of Government the change of Interests of State and the windings of an ambitious Woman the publick Broils and Disorders were kept up through so many Kings Reigns and might have been perpetuated till this day had not the equality quality of the Factions been broken and the power and interest of the Hugonot Party absolutely vanquish't So that though these two opposite Parties might if let alone to themselves have lived peaceably together in the same Commonwealth yet when headed and encouraged by great Men in the State they immediately became two fighting Armies and when they were once enraged against each other by Zeal and Religion it was not possible for all the Arts of Policy to allay the storm but by the utter ruine and overthrow of one of the contending Factions Dissembled Pacifications and plaister'd Reconcilements proved more bloody and mischievous in the event than the Prosecution of an open War This would have
and when it has conveyed it self into all the Recesses of their Souls seised on all their Powers infected their best and purest Thoughts and swoln up even their Zeal into vanity and ostentation 't is a less wonder they should be so insensible of their distemper when this Vice works like other poisons it stupifies whilst it infects and what in Nature so difficult as to convince a man of this inward Leprosie 'T is not like common diseases that discover themselves by outward spots and blemishes but 't is a Plague that lodges in the heart and vital Powers and sooner destroys than it appears The proudest man on Earth is insensible of this Illusion and though he is ready to burst with his own inward swellings yet he defies and disclaims this hated vice with as much confidence as the meekest Saint in Heaven and all the world knows his folly except himself But above all Pride Spiritual Pride is the most dangerous and incurable 't is an Apoplexy that dazzles the Judgment infatuates the Mind and intercepts all the passages of light and conviction and confounds all pure and impartial Reasonings and disables men from making any ingenuous Reflections upon their own Actions it makes them confident in their own Impostures and self-illusions and bears them up against all Reproofs by Zeal and Conscience and Religion Their Faith their Zeal their Prayers their Fastings their constant Communion with God their diligent Attendance upon Ordinances their Love of the Lord Jesus their hatred of Antichrist or their spleen against the Pope are impregnable Fences against all Assaults and Answers to all Arguments They are so dotingly enamoured of themselves for these signs of Grace and characters of God's People that you may more easily induce them to suspect the Truth of all things than their own Godliness And nothing in Nature so impossible as that such strict and serious Professors such humble melting and broken-hearted Christians should in the issue prove no better than Proud and Pharisaick Hypocrites And though their Pride discover it self in their opinionative Confidence in their bitter Censoriousness in their impatience of Affronts and Reproofs in their Rage and Revenge against all that undervalue them in their haughty and disdainful Comparisons and in their inflexible Waywardness especially to the Will of Superiours and Commands of Authority And though these are the most natural Results and most obvious Symptoms of this inward Plague yet are they not able to discern such certain appearances of them in themselves because they are aforehand from other accounts so abundantly satisfied in their own Humility and Broken-heartedness and the strength of this conceit so blinds their minds that they cannot see the clearest and most palpable Indications of this Vice But they are all adorn'd with soft and gentle Titles and those excesses and irregularities that in an unregenerate man must have been accounted Eruptions of Pride and Passion are now to be ascribed to the warmness and vehemence of holy Zeal § 3. In brief sad is the condition of those men that abuse themselves with this naughty Godliness 't is this and not moral Goodness that is the greatest lett to Conversion not only because it seals men up in impenitence by false prejudices and bars up their minds against all thoughts of Reformation by perswading them they are good enough already But besides that it prevents the efficacy of the means of Grace it does withal what is more mischievous directly oppose and contradict them It rots and putrifies the soul in its whole constitution it gangrenes all its faculties it breeds a base and caitive temper of mind it introduces a direct contrariety to all worthy and ingenuous inclinations and delivers the man over to the power and possession of the blackest and most accursed sins 't is detraction 't is spite 't is rancour 't is a malicious contempt to all wise and honest Counsels 't is a wilful frowardness to all sober and rational convictions and in a word 't is all spiritual wickedness And for this Reason it was that I profess't to despair of any success upon this sort of men I was assured that as long as Pride over-ruled their Consciences all Reproofs would certainly exasperate but could never correct the Fanatique humour and therefore what hopes could I conceive to make any breach upon their prejudices whilst they were guarded by such a sturdy and unyielding Principle For if it be so difficult either to convince men of this Vice or whilst this remains of any other it were a vain thing to expect that all the Reasonings and Attempts of conviction in the world should ever make any impressions upon such unapproachable minds And as long as Professors will continue regardless and insensible of this leading sin I shall never hope to see them reformed to a more calm and more governable temper But if instead of amusing themselves with experiences and phantastick observations about the unaccountable workings of the Spirit of Grace about the difference between the Convictions of the Spirit and those of natural Conscience about the degrees and due measures of Humiliation with innumerable other wise conceits of their modern Theology if I say instead of attending to these dreams and crazy fancies they would be at leisure to observe the risings and workings of this deceitful vice to study its symptoms and indications and to keep a constant and habitual restraint upon its motions and attempts we should quickly see the lovely fruits and effects of true Religion in the world instead of the unruly blusters and juglings of Enthusiasm But till men will be induced in good earnest to set themselves with a parcicular concern against the Inclinations of this Lust and till they will be careful to lay humility at the bottom of all their goodness instead of their yielding to the power of truth conviction shall only enrage their malice and all the requital they shall give you for disabusing them shall be to abuse you with incivility and foul language And here Sir give me leave to present you with a short account of their deportment towards my self and all that ever yet opposed or endeavoured to undeceive them which you may peruse as a further Character of their modesty and good humour § 4. I. Reproach and contumely is their first reply to all Arguments and to revile the Author the first Confutation of his Book whoever dares to despise or discover their wretched delusions is immediately answer'd with volleys of slanders and Calumnies and utterly oppressed with multitude of lyes and detracting stories Their dissolute and unruly tongues are let loose to tear in pieces his good name What abusive Tales and Legends do they invent With what bold and audacious slanders do they assail his Innocence and with what crafty and oblique ways of detraction do they undermine his Reputation with what eagerness do they listen to any spiteful and mischievous report With what zeal do they spread and propagate and improve
Vanity of his Attempt who would demonstrate out of the Canticles that the Saints enjoy distinct Communion with the three Persons of the Trinity it exasperates some bold and confident Men that are fond of their own thin and crazy Conceits as much as if we should pervert the first Chapter of St. Iohn's Gospel And we scoff at Justification by Faith if we despise a Thousand vain and empty Speculations wherewith they have involved that Article As whether Faith justifies from any peculiar Excellency of its own nature or barely from the Divine Appointment whether it be an instrumental Cause of Justification or onely a Procatarctick Cause if instrumental whether an active or a passive Instrument if Procatarctick whether Procatarctick formal or Procatarctick objective with a multitude more of the like wise and important Enquiries that could never have enter'd into the most curious and whimsical Understanding had not some idle people loved to amuse themselves with inventing profound and curious Nothings and had not one Keckerman and some other dull Fellows been at leisure to write foolish Books of Logick and Metaphysicks whose Theorems must be blended with the Doctrines and Propositions of St. Paul and then Mens little Quarrels about this Motley-Divinity must make new Sects and Opinions in Religion and they must measure the Orthodoxy of their Faith by their subtilty in wrangling and their power in disputing by their skill and dexterity in Terms of Art and by their being able to understand the precise and Orthodox Notion of a Procatarctick Cause These are the useful and wonderful Profundities to which the disputing Men of this Age are such zealous Votaries they value their Learning by their skill in these dry and sapless Enquiries and their Agility in the Combats of Disputation and a Disputant with them signifies the same thing as a great Scholar To this purpose they furnish their Memories with abundance of notional Querks and Subtilties to keep up their pert and talkative Humour and spend all their time in learning Distinctions that may maintain and reconcile palpable Contradictions With what fetches of Wit will they distinguish themselves round about till they come at last to affirm what at first they denied And with what severity of Judgment will they spin out a long train of wary Aphorisms and subtile Propositions to prove that 't is Faith alone that justifies and yet so explain the Notion of justifying Faith as to make it imply and include in it all other parts of the Condition of the New Covenant i. e. Good Works and those that are able Divines can write whole Volumes of Problems and Disputations to make out this important Mystery That Faith alone justifies i. e. as 't is not alone And now if you compare the vanity of the Opinions with the talkative Humour of the Opiniators you will cease to wonder at their rude Carriage toward persons that profess to pursue more useful and less difficult Studies they are brim-full of talk and no Man that pretends to Learning can come in their way but they immediately engage him in Disputation and if he with some Railery expose their learned and studied Ignorance and confute the silliness of their Systematick Notions 't is a bold affront to the Orthodox Faith and he drolls upon the most Fundamental Articles of Divinity for they lay no less weight upon their own Subtilties and singular Conceits then on the plain and practical Precepts of the Gospel so that you cannot sweep away their Cobwebs but down drops the whole Fabrick of Religion Neither does this pragmatical Humour run onely among the Pretenders to Learning but the Infection spreads among the People every sage Trades-man sets up for a deep and an able Divine and talks as confidently of Predestination as if he had served his Apprenticeship to a Dutch Professour Every zealous Shop-keeper understands the management of Ecclesiastical Discipline as well as the Nicene Fathers and a Jury of Button-sellers shall determine a Controversie of Faith with more assurance then a General Council These of all others are the fiercest and most implacable Assertors because their Zeal is proportion'd to their Ignorance and therefore you cannot make your self pleasant with their pert and conceited Pedantry and 't is a piece of Railery that is hardly to be forborn but you draw upon your self whole Volleys of Anathema's and hard Names they can endure any Indignity rather then an affront to their Clerkship and you may with more safety play with a Spaniard's Beard then sport with their grave Ignorance That is an Insolence that can never pass unrevenged but your Reputation is immediately stabbed with some ugly word or poisoned with some malicious Report and it becomes the great business of their Zeal to brand you with foul imputations and in all places and upon all occasions to blazon abroad your gross Errours and your horrid Blasphemies This short Character of their Humour may serve for a satisfactory account of their dirty and disingenuous Demeanour towards such persons as pretend to so much knowledge as to despise the Ignorance of their Learning I design it not for an Apology either for my self or any of my Friends I know none so poor-spirited as to stand in awe of such petty Arts the most pertinent Reply to such a poor and beggarly Malice is Neglect and Disdain though in truth such Wretches as stick not upon every slight occasion to sacrifice not onely our Good-Names but our Livelyhoods for that is our Case to their own Childish Picks deserve to be answered by the Pillory and the Whipping-Post § 8. Many other ugly Insinuations he has as if I were prompted to this Undertaking by lewd and naughty Intentions or as if he knew some Stories that he can but out of Tenderness and Civility to my Reputation will not vent I will not so much assist his Malice as to transcribe all his white-liver'd Suggestions to this purpose but whether in this way of proceeding he has discover'd more Boldness or more Imprudence is hard to determine when he knows himself to lie under such vast disadvantages at this Weapon by lying open to so many stabbing and inevitable Hits But this is one of their Topicks and comes in by the Rules of their Method and Ingenuity and all the Defenders and Champions of the Church of England have ever been thus accosted by their civil and unpassionate Adversaries And never did any Man give them a smart and severe Blow but immediately they threatned to tell Tales And where Men have not the advantage of Truth Calumny is their best and surest Weapon For though its Wounds do not always fester yet they usually leave a scar behind them at least he gains the Advantage of his Enemy that gives him the diversion to wipe off Reproaches and all Apologies in defence of a Man 's own Innocence leave behind them through the common Ill-nature of Mankind some ill-contrived suspicion of Guilt in the Minds of Men. And therefore I
of this nature I will undertake in his behalf he shall make them publick satisfaction But when Aristophanes is exemplified to make good the surmise that is plausible and taking with the Common People for they imagine all who write Greek and Latin to be grave and serious Men and therefore if Aristophanes could by the smartness of his Drolling and Satyrical Wit cast Contempt upon the brightest Example of Vertue that ever appear'd in the Heathen World why may not the Author of the Friendly Debate by the same Arts and Advantages expose Nonconformists and the Profession of the Gospel for they are always ventured in the same Bottom to the same popular Scorn and Abuse But any one that is acquainted with the Genius of the Grecian Comedy in general and with the Humour of Aristophanes in particular will be ashamed to compare such wild Satyrs and extravagant Farces with the Friendly Debate That Poet never defign'd any appearance of Truth he represents not Socrates his Opinions nor confutes them by sober and Philosophick Reasonings he intended nothing but onely to abuse him by Buffoonry and Apish Tricks and the most taking piece of Wit in the whole Farce was to bring the grave Philosopher upon the Stage dancing in a Sieve But as for the Friendly Debate if it has represented any of them ridiculous it has onely painted them in their own real Colours There is no Poetick Invention nor Comical Extravagance and it takes no advantage but from Truth and Reason so that if he make any of their Opinions appear ridiculous he does it not by the unluckiness of his Wit as Aristophanes did but by the strength of his Arguments Our Author adds indeed to strengthen this faint Exception That 't is a facile thing to take the wisest Man living after he is lime-twigged with Ink and Paper and gagg'd with a Quill so that he can neither move nor speak to clap a Fools Coat on his back and turn him out to be laughed at in the streets This is lofty and Comical but yet neither true nor witty For the wisest Men will never be lime-twigged with Ink and Paper nor gagg themselves with Quills or if they should be so rash and unadvised yet I see not how the strong Metaphor can restrain them either from opening their Mouths or moving their Hands For the plain English of all this lofty rumbling of Lime-twigs and Gaggs is no more then to be in Print and how can that hinder any Man from justifying his own Writings For if Men Publish Sense all the World can never make them ridiculous if Non-sense they make themselves so And no Gaggs nor Lime-twigs can disable them from defending their Books against any Adversary but either a bad Cause or an ill Management or what is their case both so that if they are lime-twigged with Ink and Paper 't is with Rods of their own laying and if they are exposed in a Fools Coat 't is with one of their own making § 13. His last Remark upon the case of Socrates is extraordinary when he insinuates as if the Crime for which he suffered was Nonconformity to and Separation from the National Church of Athens as if he were the Proto-Martyr of Independency And the People are wonderfully taken with these sly and oblique Strokes and as wofully impertinent as this is they admire it for a notable Essay of Wit And yet if this trifling were of any importance the advantage would run vastly on our side so easie is it to make it appear that Socrates suffered not so much as a Nonconformist as an Enemy to Fanaticks and that his Offence was no other then an Endeavour to perswade the Men of Athens that Grace and Vertue were the same thing The Story is briefly this All the former Ages of Greece were led rather by a giddy and ignorant Enthusiasm then the sober Dictates of a wary and well-advised Reason And though some of the more ancient Vertuosi seem'd to have made some handsome use of their intellectual Faculties in Physiological Enquiries yet as for matters of Religion they either altogether neglected their Speculations or treated of them with as much wildness and vanity as their Poets who pretended to derive their Theological Theories from Enthusiasm and Prophetick Frenzies imagining Reason and Devotion to be things incompetent and that Religion consisted barely in Enthusiastick Raptures and Prophetick Heats and therefore they depended more upon the Information of their Dreams and Fancies then their consistent and waking Faculties and the best Visionist was the ablest Divine Their most celebrated Professors of Divinity who pretended to the more inward practical and experimental Mysteries of Religion were a sort of silly fanatick and illiterate Poets who being Men of giddy and over-heated Imaginations pretended to derive all their Knowledge as others do their Ignorance from Inspirations and Divine Illapses and thereby so entirely engross't the Profession of Divinity that they gain'd an absolute Soveraignty over the Faith not onely of the rude and Vulgar sort of Mankind but also of the Sages and Professors of Wisdom the Philosophers themselves howsoever otherwise Men of eminent Parts and Ingenuity resigning up their own Reasons to the Authority of these Fellows Whimsies and Inspirations Then comes Socrates and preaches down all their pretended Mysteries for raw and lamentable Impostures and endeavours to draw them off from the Pageantry of their Superstition to the habitual Practice of Vertuous Actions And to this purpose he teaches his Fellow-Citizens that they must gain an Interest in the favour of the Gods not by their diligent Attendance upon the Eleusinian Ordinances but by a Life of Vertue and Goodness and that Love Humility Meekness Obedience Chastity and Temperance are more acceptable to the Eternal Deity then all their Mysterious Solemnities in honour of the Mother of the Gods This alarms the Zealots and hot Spirits of the City and the Good Man is immediately cited before the Consistory of the Areopagitical Elders and is by them condemn'd as an Heretick to their Orthodox Faith for setting up Carnal Reason against the Spirit of God and for presuming to fathom the sacred Depths of their Eleusinian Mysteries with the Line of his short and shallow Understanding for how exorbitant soever they might appear to his Fleshly Reasonings they were derived from the Off-spring of the Gods and own'd by the most Practical and Spiritual Preachers of their Religion And though his private and depraved Reason might judge them the brutishest and most licentious Practices in the World for so they really were yet in spight of all their seeming Beastliness they were the highest strains of Godliness and Spiritual Devotion This was represented to the zealous and giddy Multitude and then the Cry is Crucifie him crucifie him And thus fell this great Man a Sacrifice to the Zeal and Fury of a Fanatick Rabble You see with what vain and succesless Attempts they fasten upon those Discourses and the truth is in so
no other determination than the choice of natural Reason So that though it be necessary to Instituted Worship that it should be appointed yet 't is not necessary to divine Worship that it should be instituted And now though Attendance to this Distinction would have avoided all Ambiguity and Confusion in this Enquiry yet our Author stifly over-looks it and solemnly confutes my Assertion concerning Eucharistical Offerings by Instances of Expiatory Sacrifices which I had before proved to his hand must rely upon positive appointment from their peculiar Use and Nature and not because this was necessary to the Being and Design of Religion it self But if we will confine our Talk to the subject matter of my Assertion viz. Eucharistical Oblations or any other outward significations of the natural Worship of God in the first Ages of the World I before affirmed and do still maintain that they who say they were enjoyn'd and warranted by divine Command take the Liberty of saying any thing without proof or evidence § 8. But if they are Arbitrary Inventions of men our Author desires to have a Rational Account of their Catholicism in the World and one Instance more of any thing not natural or divine that ever prevail'd to such an absolute universal acceptance amongst mankind As for the latter part of his demand I think festival solemnities may challenge as great Antiquity and Universality as Sacrifices There being no Nation in the World that ever was known to be altogether destitute of set and publick Festivals in honour of their Gods and as I before observed the Anniversary Sacrifices of their First-fruits was the most ancient and most universal solemnity of Worship in the World And some learned men conjecture with as much Probability as the nature of the thing will bear that such were the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and that from the Propriety of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of days which say they implies some set and solemn season of the year and there is no Idiom more frequent in the holy Scriptures than to express set and anniversary seasons by Days To omit innumerable other Texts 1 Sam. 2.9 The Yearly Sacrifice is called Sacrificium Dierum so that the End of Days implies the Revolution of the Year when Abel offer'd the First-born of his Flocks and Cain the First-fruits of his Fields But however this may be 't is attested by all the best Records of ancient Times that Harvest Sacrifices and Festivals of First-fruits were the most Ancient most Catholick and perhaps only Publick Solemnities of Religion And yet it will be as impossible to discover any Obligation from Nature or any Warranty from divine Institution for their Practice as for the Original of Idolatry which yet had universally prevail'd over the Religion of mankind and for ought I know might have done so still had not divine Providence been pleased to disabuse the wretched World by so many Revelations and miraculous discoveries of himself so that it is possible some things may acquire to themselves a Catholick Credit and Reputation that never had it bestowed upon them by God or by Nature especially if they chance to have any near Relation or Connexion with universal and unabolishable Truths But seeing our Author desires a particular account of the Catholicism of Sacrifices thus it hapned The first Ages of Mankind having a full and certain knowledge of the Being of God and a strong sense of the necessity of his Worship in that they had the same assurance then of the first cause of their Beings as we have now of our Fore-fathers and Progenitors From hence they became obliged from the instinct of Nature and the dictates of Right Reason to acknowledge and celebrate their Creators Bounty and to return some Expressions of Gratitude to him for his Favours and Benefits Divine Worship then being so clear a dictate of Humane Nature it was but agreeable to the Reason of Mankind to express their sense of this Duty by outward Rites and Significations Now what Symbol could be more natural and obvious to the Minds of Men whereby to signifie their homage and thankfulness to the Author of all their Happiness than by presenting him with some of the choicest Portions of his own Gifts for they had nothing else to present in acknowledgment of that Bounty and Providence that had bestowed them And this was so far from arguing any pregnancy of Invention that to have missed it would in my conceit have been flat stupidity For though all sensible signs derive their significancy from positive Institution yet the ground and reason of their Institution is usually unless they are inept and irregular some natural suitableness they have in them to denote the thing signified Now I will challenge our Authors wit to pitch upon any thing in Nature that could be so easie and proper to express by way of outward action their thankfulness to God as these Eucharistical Oblations so easie a thing is it to fetch their beginning from Humane Agreement without recourse to the Authority of Nature or Divine Prescription The Religion of Sacrifices then being the most conspicuous Symbol and Signification of the Worship of God among the first Fathers of Mankind it descended to their Posterity together with their natural sense of Religion of which these were the onely visible signs and indications and therefore without them it could have had no outward and sensible appearance in the World because these were its onely practical way of conveyance and by continuing to observe the Rites and Customs of their Ancestors they kept up their dictates of Religion And thus the Idea of God and the use of Sacrifices were propagated together into all Societies of Mankind by their observance of the Customs and Traditions of their Progenitors Now so easie and unforced is the probability of this account of their Catholicism though they owe their original purely to the Choice and Institution of men that as long as their Off-spring kept up any belief of the Notion of a Deity or any Reverence for the wisdom of their Fore-fathers it was morally impossible in the ordinary course of humane Affairs the Tradition of Sacrifices should ever be lost in the World And this may suffice to shew how it came to pass that they found such a Catholick entertainment in all Societies of Mankind and it was all one as to that whether they had their first beginning from humane invention or divine Institution for when once they had acquired the Esteem and Reverence of Religion Use and Custom would ever after keep up their Practice and Reputation in the World So that though it was impossible they should ever obtain such an universal use and credit by their own strength and upon their own account yet when they had once obtain'd such an inseparable Connexion with mens natural indelible sense of Religion it was then as impossible without such an extraordinary change of things as was brought
Doctrines and Sermons of his Prophets he would so alter their condition as to give them reason to institute even upon those days of deepest sadness the most memorable Festivals and Solemnities of Rejoycing And then as for the last instance alledged out of the Old Testament viz. wearing Sackcloth in token of Humiliation That says he was only a customary sign suited to the nature of the thing i. e. it had a natural aptness to represent the thing it signified and therefore might perchance have been made use of to that purpose in ancient time But how came it first to gain the Authority of Prescription If by chance and accidental usage why may not the Civil Magistrate be allowed as much Power to warrant their lawful Significancy as Popular Custom For if it be antecedently unlawful to create this relation between them nothing can do it if it be not where lies the ground of exception rather against the Commands of Governours than the casual consent of the People But if on the contrary Sackcloth was made choice of to this purpose by design and institution then its case is the same to all intents and purposes with our Symbolical Rites and Usages against which yet they except for that only reason however it would be a notable subtlety to discover any such remarkable difference as to the concerns of Morality between the Institutions of Law and of Custom so as to make one though for no other reason apparently unlawful and the other just and warrantable These Mens Consciences are so strangely nice and subtle that nothing will satisfie the exactness of their curiosity unless they may divide an hair into all points of the Compass But besides as for what is here pretended as to the natural suitableness of Sackcloth to the nature of grief and sorrow if the Symbolical use of a Surplice be not so curiously adapted to express what it is design'd to signifie as is that Emblem of Humiliation that at worst is no defect of Morality but meerly of fancy and dexterous invention in fixing upon less proper Resemblances than possibly a more curious Wit might have pitched upon so that though perhaps the Representation be not altogether so neat and pretty as some fanciful Men might have contrived yet to make that any ground of exception is but a contest of Wit and not of Conscience And yet after all this I know not any Symbol in the Nature of things more obvious or more Catholick than the significancy of a white Vestment in so much that it has in all Nations ever been accepted and used as a proper sign of purity and innocence unless among the Blacks where they paint the Devil white And therefore if that be their grievance its signification was not first stampt upon it by the meer arbitrary Institution of Authority but was first ratified by Custom and Prescription and for that reason was it afterward appointed to be used as a customary sign suited to the nature of the thing in the same manner as was wearing Sackcloth among the Jews in token of Humiliation § 11. These among many others were the Precedents I pitch't upon in the Jewish Church and then as for those of the Primitive Christians the first instance I specified was the Lords-day Sabboth To this our Author is so confident as to tell us It had a perpetual binding Institution from the Authority of Christ himself though he is so wise too as not to tell us where Perhaps 't is possible he may discover some such thing described in the Canticles or foretold by the old Prophets but if he will appeal to the four Evangelists they are as silent as to any Record or Account of our Saviours translating the Sabboth from the last to the first day of the week as they are of the Anniversary Observation of the Fifth of November and it was as much unknown and as little observed during his Conversation in the World But this Man is bold enough to bear down the truth of story and the evidence of fact and by down-right affirmation to vouch his own Dreams and Fancies into certain and undoubted Realities But perhaps by this gay and careless way of talking our Author may affect the humour and conversation of Gentlemen when they are disposed to be pleasant and satisfie themselves with any Repartee that strikes the present Fancy without regard to its truth or concern for its proof And he may be waggish and complaisant if he please but as for my part I am now resolved to be serious sullen and Scholastick and therefore tell him plainly to his Beard that there is not one tittle or Iota concerning Saint Sabboth among all the twelve Apostles and if he think himself able to discover the new Institution of this Festival among our Saviours Precepts he may hope after the same rate to find out a particular appointment of all the Margaret Fasts and Thanksgivings in the Revelations My two next Instances were the Love-Feasts and the Kiss of Charity But in these he replies there was only a Direction to use civil Customs and Observances in an holy and sanctified manner Dictum factum they were purely civil Customs and had no relation to Religious Worship and therefore Sir this is an impertinent Allegation This is short but yet however I have learn't by long Conversation with this Man at length to look Confidence in the face and not to be put off with slight and positive Assertions And therefore in the first place what if I should gall him with the precariousness of this distinction and still challenge him to shew where the Word of God impowers or permits the Church or the Civil Magistrate to institute new Civil Rites and where it retrenches the exercise of the same Jurisdiction as to Ecclesiastical Customs This single Querie is such a Choak-pear as he will never be able either to chew or to swallow Beside there is no such mighty difference between Civil and Religious Ceremonies but that they may be frequently coincident outward Solemnities of Religion may be sometime used for Ornament of State and some of the more grave and serious Ornaments of State may be sometime borrowed to set off the more pompous Solemnities of Religion And to what purpose soever they may be intended they are still no more than Ceremonies of Grandeur or Decency and their Nature unless perchance it be appropriated by some particular Limitation always is of such a common and indifferent use that they are of themselves equally capable of being applied either to the services of Religion or to the actions of Civil Life and are denominated either this or that according to their present Office and Imployment But yet farther to direct Civil Usages to be observed in an holy and sanctified manner is to adopt them into acts and exercises of Religion for so they are as far as they are observed in an holy and sanctified manner for so far they have an holy
These Slanders that he has so often and so familiarly hurl'd at me upon all occasions are as big as Steeples and had they faln where they were aim'd had for ever quash't me to death and nothing But the censures he now spits are not discharged with that impetuous fury but that they may be received without danger of being kill'd and buried at once And the mistakes he invents are so vulgar and ordinary that they might have been contrived by Sancho his Scribe But thus it happens that the greatest Flowers of Chivalry have in their declining Age flag'd and wither'd and their last Performances have faln so much short of the Miracles of their first Atchievments that their new Conquests have not so much increas't the number as eclips't the glory of the old And that matchless Wight that in his youthful days scorn'd to accept of any Adventures unless upon Wind-mills Painim Giants and Infernal Necromancers yet when Age had slaked the rage of his blood and folly was content to spend his last Exploits upon Goat-herds Lackeys and Plow-men of his own Parish And such pitiful attempts are our Authors Remarks upon the passages of this Chapter so pitiful that they would sooner raise an Adversaries Compassion than Choler and are so far from the appearance of a just Reply that they will not amount to a competent Denial The whole drift of my Discourse is neglected my four Fundamental Assertions of which and their Proofs the main Body of the Chapter consists are slipped over only a few subordinate and dependant Propositions glanced at with slight mistakes and positive censures without so much as attempting to defeat any of my Arguments or in their stead to suggest any of his own 'T is such lank and slender talk and so apparently unequal to the small reason of the Discourse it would oppose that I should never have deign'd it a Rejoinder in my own defence but that it gives occasion to gratifie the Reader with some farther proofs of our Authors Candour and Ingenuity and some more not unuseful Considerations upon the matters of our present debate though what I have already remarked has evidence more than enough without the help of new Lights to scatter all his thin and vanishing Exceptions And should I represent to the Reader what material things he has gently passed over I must transcribe almost the whole Chapter And our Author himself seems so conscious of the meanness of his Exploits in this part of his Adventures that he concludes the whole Performance with a new Challenge and turns me over Coward as he is to a new Champion that has already poor Man been rebuked to purpose But let him take his Fortune I am resolved to keep my Man In the first place then he informs us this Chapter is inconsistent with it self and other parts of the Treatise but that is none of his Concernment No doubt of it he is only concern'd to defame and disparage other Mens Writings and not at all to make good his slanders and incivilities No Man that had not laid waste all sense of modesty and ingenuity would so easily sputter abroad his rude and abusive censures without thinking himself somewhat concern'd to justifie the matters of his charge though it were only to clear the Reputation of his good manners For all Men are apt enough to suspect ill-nature in detracting suggestions and therefore no discreet or civil Man would venture to dart them without apparent proof and would not accept the favour of being credited till he has produced evidence at least equal to the Indictment So that our Author would more consult the credit of his discretion if he would not be so free of his censures but when he is at leisure to warrant their truth There are vast multitudes of them scatter'd up and down in all parts of his Surveigh that I have purposely waved because they are so wretchedly insignificant This one friendly check upon this particular occasion may serve for a sufficient correction to all the rest That is the first impertinence the second for here they are very thick sown is this In the beginning of this Chapter I represented how a belief of the indifferency or rather Imposture of all Religion is of late become among some persons the most effectual and most fashionable Argument for Liberty of Conscience Away says our Author it is impossible this pretence could ever be made use of to that purpose It is suited directly to oppose and overthrow it for if there be no such thing as Religion in the World it is certainly a very foolish thing to have differences perpetuated amongst Men upon account of Conscience This he says because he is resolved to say something no matter whether to or beside the purpose For what is this to a Man that defies and laughs at the silliness of an upright Conscience and looks upon all Stories of Religion as the tales and tricks of covetous Priests contrived to awe the People and to inrich themselves He will say that 't is indeed a very foolish thing to perpetuate differences in the World about Conscience and Religion but seeing it is so full of softly and conscientious Fops that will be impatient for their own follies and Impostures what in this case is the best method to govern such zealous Sots Not by severity for 't is pity to punish silly People for their ignorance and credulity and 't is more generous to humour them in their several Frenzies and Fairy-imaginations and as long as they are willing to be abused with the belief of invisible Powers and the dread of Infernal Goblins that shall after death torment wicked and disloyal Subjects in burning Vaults below 't is unbecoming the wisdom of a Prince that understands the Juggle to vex or punish such weak and deluded people for any of their other fond and little conceits but rather to allow them the Liberty of gratifying their childish fancies with what phantasms shall most please affect their folly Now what Discourse can be more suited to the Principles of these young Cubs of the Leviathan than not to punish credulous and unreflecting People for being cheated and abused And therefore though they believe all the different Religions in the World to be in reality but so many different Impostures yet they may judge it the wisest course for Government to permit such differences as Fools are resolved to perpetuate rather than to exasperate their zealous madness by attempting to restrain their phantastick mistakes with violence and force of Penalties so that supposing these Mens perswasions nothing could be more agreeable to their small Politicks than this Principle of the indifferency of all Religions in behalf of Liberty of Conscience And of this our Author could not be ignorant both by what I had discoursed in that Paragraph and in several others but he was resolved to cavil and 't is his way as I have often told you to overlook Arguments and then
declared by what they have done and what they are desirous to do That the true state of the Cause and Quarrel is Religion in Reformation whereof they are so forward and zealous that there is nothing expressed in the Scots Declarations former or later which they have not seriously taken to heart and endeavoured to effect c. And in a Letter from the Assembly of Divines to them by order of the House of Commons they call it twice The Cause of Religion And the Assembly in answer to the Parliament desire it may be more and more cleared Religion to be the true state of the differences in England and to be uncessantly prosecuted first above all things giving no sleep to their eyes or slumber to their eye-lids until it be setled In their Declaration and Protestation to the whole World Octob. 22. 1642. They are fully convinced that the Kings Resolutions are so engaged to the Popish Party for the suppression and extirpation of the true Religion that all hopes of peace and protection are excluded that it is fully intended to give satisfaction to the Papists by alteration of Religion c. That great means are made to take up the differences betwixt some Princes of the Roman Religion that so they might unite their strength to the extirpation of the Protestant Cause wherein principally this Kingdom and the Kingdom of Scotland are concerned as making the greatest Body of the Reformed Religion in Christendom c. For all which Reasons we are resolved to enter into a Solemn Oath and Covenant with God to give up our Selves our Lives and Fortunes into his hands and that we will to the utmost of our Power and Judgment maintain his Truth and conform our selves to his Will And in the Declaration upon the Votes of no further Address to be made to the King by themselves or any one else Feb. 17. 1647. the Lords and Commons make Religion one of the great Motives upon which they proceeded for say they the torture of our Bodies by most cruel Whippings slitting of Noses c. might be the sooner forgotten had not our Souls been Lorded over led captive into Superstition and Idolatry triumphed over by Oaths ex Officio Excommunications Ceremonious Articles new Canons Canon-Oaths c. p. 19. And in the last Paper to the Scotch Commissioners Feb. 24. 1648. they declare that the Army of the Houses of Parliament were raised for maintenance of the true Religion and that they invited them to come to their assistance and declared the true state of the Quarrel to be Religion and they earnestly desire the General Assembly to further and expedite the assistance desired from the Kingdom of Scotland upon this ground and motive that thereby they shall do great service to God and great honour may redound to themselves by becoming Instruments of a Glorious Reformation c. This was the stile of all their Papers from 42 to 48 till some of the Grandees of the Independent Faction had by their hypocritical Prayers malicious Preachings counterfeit Tears unmanly Whinings false Protestations and execrable Perjuries scrued themselves up into a Supremacy of Power and Interest and then they alter'd the stile of their Pretences with the change of their Affairs and suited their Remonstrances to their Fortunes and so stopt not at their old demands of Reformation and purity of Ordinances these Pretexts were too low for the greatness of their Attempts and Resolutions and were not sufficient to warrant the Murther of their lawful Sovereign and therefore it was necessary for them to take up with new Pleas suitable to the wickedness of their new Purposes and then nothing was big enough to Arreign or Condemn their Prince but the Charge of Treason and Tyranny and the Sentence of Death was passed and executed upon him as a publick Enemy to the Commonwealth So that though Pretences of Secular and Political Interest were necessary to cut off his Head yet it was purely Zeal and Reformation that brought him to the Block To these Declarations from the Press I might add their Declarations from the Pulpit their Preachers incessantly encouraging the People to fight against the King as the most acceptable service to God and the People accordingly fought against him because they were perswaded that he was a Papist and would bring in Popery that the Common-Prayer was the Mass in English Organs were Idolatry and Episcopacy Antichristian It was nothing but the purity of the Gospel to which they so cheerfully sacrificed their Thimbles and Bodkins And though here it were easie to collect vast Volumes there being scarce a Parliament-exercise for which the Preacher had the Thanks of the House in which some sands and sweat were not wasted in crying up the piety of their Intentions for the Reformation of Gospel-Ordinances But because this would prove a Work too Voluminous I will therefore put off my Reader and satisfie my Adversary too with two or three passages out of the inspired Homilies of I. O. in his several Dispensations In his Sermon preached before the Parliament April 29. 1646. he thus bespeaks them From the beginning of these Troubles Right Honourable you have held forth Religion and the Gospel as whose Preservation and Restauration was principally in your Aims and I presume malice it self is not able to discover any insincerity in this the fruits we behold proclaim to all the Conformity of your Words and Hearts Now the God of Heaven grant that the same mind be in you still in every particular Member of this Honourable Assembly in the whole Nation especially in the Magistracy and Ministry of it that we be not like the Boat-men look one way and row another cry Gospel and mean the other thing Lord Lord and advance our own ends that the Lord may not stir up the staff of his anger and the rod of his indignation against us as an hypocritical People And Feb. 28. 1649. he tells them again Gods Work whereunto ye are ingaged is the propagating of the Kingdom of Christ and the setting up of the Standard of the Gospel And Octob. 13. 1652. From the beginning of the Contests in this Nation when God had caused your Spirits to resolve that the Liberties Priviledges and Rights of this Nation wherewith you were intrusted should not by his assistance be wrested out of your hands by Violence Oppression and Injustice this he also put upon your hearts to vindicate and assert the Gospel of Jesus Christ his Ways and his Ordinances against all Opposition though you were but inquiring the way to Sion for then they were little better than Presbyterians with your faces thitherwardâ— God secretly entwining the Interest of Christ with yours wrapt up with you the whole Generation of them that seek his face and prosper'd your Affairs on that account And lastly Feb. 4. 1658. Give me leave to remember you as one that had opportunity to make Observations of the passages of Providence in those