several other passages of Scripture to the same purpose that Aphorism so frequently made use of by our Saviour upon several occasions will be very considerable I will have mercy and not sacrifice Particularly Matth. 12. when the Pharisees who were mighty curious of little things censured the Disciples of our Lord for violating the Sabbath in their rubbing the Ears of Corn as they went through the Fields and were hungry on that day our Saviour answers That David did also break one of the Ceremonial Precepts in eating the Shewbread and v. 7. tells them If they had known what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice they would not have condemned the innocent Where though it be sure enough that God did not repeal his Law of Sacrificing by enjoyning Mercy yet it is sufficiently intimated that God doth not only preser Moral acts before Ceremonial but also doth make great allowances limitations and exceptions in the one case and not in the other For it is as if our Saviour had said Had you Censorious Pharisees understood either God or Religion as ye might and ought to have done ye would have known that so long as there is not contumacy and contempt in the neglect of those rituals but the excuse of a just necessity or the rational consideration of a greater good to preponderate the omission God doth not impute it for a sin And if this was the case and condition of things in the Old Testament where God seemed so punctual in his Prescriptions so rigorous in his Animadversions and where the danger of erring capitally from the design of those institutions by the least deviation from the line of Divine Revelation was so great as I have shewed before Then certainly in the New Testament where the Divine Wisdom hath exprest far less concern for such little points may the minds of men be secure from such superstitious fears But I will give one Instance out of the New Testament also When Circumcision was abolished the distinction betwixt Jew and Gentile being taken away and all Believers become the children of Abraham And when the Apostle St. Paul had vehemently declaimed against the necessity and proclaimed the danger of Circumcision as is obvious to any one that reads his Epistles yet this same Apostle Acts 16. 1. circumcises Timothy to the intent that thereby he might render himself and his Ministry more acceptable to the Jews In which carriage of his he hath beyond all exception demonstrated to us that all Ceremonial appendages are perfectly subordinate and ought to yield to the designs of Peace Charity and Edification as the greater good I will conclude this Point with what the Apostle concludes his Discourse about eating or not eating of meats sacrificed to Idols Rom. 14. which created as much dispute and scruple amongst weak Christians then as Ceremonies do now V. 17. he sayes The Kingdom of God that is the Gospel is not meat and drink that is consists not or layes little stress upon those nice and perplexing matters but in righteousness peace and joy all the weight is laid upon the more substantial observances of a righteous and holy life and a peaceable spirit and conversation And adds a proof v. 18. For he that in these things serveth Christ is approved of God and accepted of men CHAP. VI. That the Magistrate hath Authority to determine such Externals of Religion as are the matters of our disputes and what deportment is due from Christians towards him HAving shewed in the former Chapters That God hath neither made any exact definition of Religious Circumstances nor is very curious about them further than to secure the great things of Christianity It follows that then either those lesser must be determined by men or not at all It will therefore now be seasonable to inquire what Authority and Interest the Magistrate hath in this affair And although there want not those that Chameleon like live upon the air of vulgar applause and get themselves a reputation of extraordinary zeal by daring to censure the actions and asperse the persons of Magistrates and with such persons he that shall vindicate the just Rights and Authority of his Superiours shall hardly escape the reproach of flattery and time-serving yet being conscious both of the truth and importance of what I am to say and of the sincerity of my intentions in so doing I will deliver my self freely in these two points 1. That the Magistrate exceeds not his Commission when he interposes for the determination of the Circumstantials of Religion 2. That common Prudence Christian Charity and Humility do all require of us to presume of the wisdom and reasonableness of such his determinations The result of which two things will be that it is much more our duty peaceably to comply with and obey them 1. The former of these hath been so fully and substantially proved by the incomparable Hugo Grotius in a just discourse and by a late eminent Divine of this Church that it is enough to refer the Reader to them yet because some person may perhaps read these Papers that will not take the pains or hath not opportunity to read those larger Discourses that yet would better compensate his labour I will therefore say these three things 1. It is certain the Magistrate had once a power in the Circumstantials of Religion and that in the Old Testament David as I have shewed before altered some things and instituted others even in the Temple-service it self Hezekiah without a Scripture for it broke the brazen Serpent to pieces though it was a symbolical Ceremony of Gods own institution but besides this he caused the Passeover to be kept by all Judah and Israel on the second Moneth though it was not according to divine institution but done by the advice of his Council upon pious and prudential considerations 2 Chron. 30. 5. He appointed also the Levites to kill the Passeover v. 17. which by Gods appointment was to have been performed by the people themselves And Chap. 29. v. 34. he prefers the Levites to assist the Priests in killing the other Sacrifices which never before they were admitted to Many other instances might be brought out of the Old Testament to this purpose but these sufficiently make it appear that the best Princes did not think they exceeded their own bounds or intrenched upon God when they prudently ordered such particulars and they are so far from having any blot laid upon their memories for these things that they are recorded to their immortal honour Now since Magistrates had once such a power how came they to lose it or be divested of it Is it that God is more curious and jealous of every punctilio in his Worship now than he was heretofore That would be the most absurd supposition in the world as we have sufficiently demonstrated And he that without evident proof shall go about to deny them what Christianity found them in possession of shall do very bad
the other side requires as great a condescension to our Brethren And if now the scales seem even then certainly the consideration of the Magistrate and Laws in being will be of weight enough to turn the balance and that Humility and Obedience our Religion teaches will prevail with us to leave it to publick Wisdom to decide between both Parties And then the result of all will be that instead of prescribing to the Magistrate what he shall determine or disputing what he hath concluded on we shall compose our minds and order our circumstances to the more easie and cheerful complyance therewith And call to mind the saying of Paulus Aemilius who when several of his Souldiers would be suggesting to him their several Models of management Vos gladios acuite bids them whet their swords and be ready to execute what should be commanded them but leave the management of affairs to him their General CHAP. VII Wherein Christian Liberty consists and that it doth not discharge us from Obedience to Laws ALL that we have hitherto discoursed of the Power of the Magistrate some think may be avoided by pleading the Magna Charta of Christian Liberty contained in the Gospel It will therefore be necessary in the next place to consider the true notion and extent of that That there is such a Charter is out of doubt the New Testament frequently making mention of it putting of us in mind of the gratitude we owe to him that purchased it for us of the price it cost him and requiring us to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Gal. 5. 1. But what are the Contents of it is not so well agreed on and indeed it is too evident that few of those that contend so much for it and plead it upon all occasions know what it is or wherein it consists It was a smart Answer of a Spartan Captive who being exposed to sale in the Market and there askt as the manner was by one that came to buy Slaves quid sciret what he was good for what business he understood answered Scio quid sit liberum esse I know what belongs to freedom Had Christian Liberty been all along as well understood as talked of the Religion had obtained more Reputation the Church more Peace States and Kingdoms more Security and more Souls had gone to Heaven but for want of this men have committed as gross errors as that Tully complains of Clodius for That he set up Simulacrum Meretricis Tanagraeae The Image of a famous Harlot for that of Liberty The Gnosticks about the Apostles times pleaded Christian Liberty both on the behalf of their cowardly Revolts from Christianity in times of Persecutition and of their sensual Debaucheries as if the knowledge of the Truth gave a priviledge neither to profess nor practise it when either the one proved too incommodious to their Secular Interests or the other too disgustful to their sensual inclinations Others and they also in the first times of Christianity thought Christian Liberty had been a Civil Infranchisement and had extended so far as to cancell all bonds of peoples subjection to their Princes or of Servants to their Masters and hereupon like the pretence of zeal amongst the Jews in their degenerate times Christian Liberty was the Passport of fugitive servants and the pretext for Outrages and Rebellions And this made it necessary for the Apostles almost in all their Writings to press Obedience to Superiours A third sort of men have mistaken this Gospel Liberty to be a discharge from the obligation of the Moral Law and have been so prodigiously absurd as to take the Gospel to contain nothing else properly but a publication of Gods Promises or Decrees rather and to require only a bare assent to them or belief of them and that those Promises are absolute and without any condition of our obedience save only as that should reciprocally become us by way of gratitude not that justification or salvation depended upon it This is the Doctrine of the Antinomians or modern Libertines and is a perswasion fit to debauch the whole world were it not that few men can be so unreasonable as to believe it though they would But it is so contrary to the very name and nature of a Covenant which the Gospel is styled to be so expresly contrary to the whole design of Christian Doctrine and goes so cross to the very sense of every honest mind that I shall not spend any more time or words about it There is a fourth mistake which though I will not say it is equally dangerous with any of the former yet is mischievous enough and equally false That though the bonds of Civil Subjection are not quite dissolved by the Gospel yet that all Christians are discharged from the interpositions of the Magistrate in affairs of Religion and that there he ought no further to intermeddle than he can produce express warrant from Scripture for his particular Injunctions But if notwithstanding the Governour shall arrogate to himself a larger sphere of Authority and make any definitions in Religion or especially the matters of the first Table It is then and in that case not only lawful for a good Christian to refuse Obedience but that it is his duty so to do to withstand an Invasion of his Christian Liberty and an incorachment upon the Prerogative of God This is the mistake that is most rife amongst us and which hath given occasion to much of the unhappiness of this Age. It is not my work laboriously to confute this opinion nor do I think many words necessary in the case yet of the many absurd consequences let us note these following 1. This opinion makes all Civil Government the most ticklish and uncertain and the condition of Magistrates the most servile and precarious that can well be imagined forasmuch as there is scarcely any thing can fall under their care and cognizance or capable to be made matter of Law or Injunction but hath such affinity to or connexion with Religion as to be sufficient upon this principle to raise a dispute of Jurisdiction So that the case between the Civil Laws and Religion will be like the condition of affairs that often happens in those places where the Supremacy of the Pope and Court of Rome is received there is a perpetual contention about bounds and limits of Jurisdiction between the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts for whilest the Civil Judge goes about to take cognizance of the cause the Ecclesiastical will it may be challenge the person as belonging to his Jurisdiction or if the person be Laick and alieni fort yet it will go hard but the cause shall be found to have some connexion with Religion and so the Ecclesiastical Court either directly or in ordine ad spiritualia draws all matters to it And not unlike was the state of affairs a long while together in the Kingdom and Church of Scotland by virtue of this very perswasion
Comparison as the Case in hand would admit of nor will I trouble the Reader with long stories of the admirable Conversation of those early Christians which whoso will take the pains may find in Justin Martyr A thenagoras Tertullian Origen and others And he that is willing to decline that trouble may find nearer hand in the Collections of a judicious and faithful Writer in his Book called Primitive Christianity But it may not be unuseful to remark some few particulars Of old to be a Christian was to be all that is holy just and good to be adorned with all those Virtues that can render a man acceptable to God or lovely amongst men Whereever this Religion came it was a Principle of Purity in mens Hearts of Honesty in their Lives and of Peace in Kingdoms and Societies It raised mens minds to a Contemplation and Pursuit of another World and inabled them both to despise the present and to be a blessing to it It did not teach men to speak great swelling words but to live to do and to suffer admirably that the very Pagans their mortal Enemies were astonished at them and some of them gave them this testimony Hi sunt qui vivunt ut loquuntur loquuntur ut vivunt These are the men that are as good as their word and live as high and generously as others talk The Christian Faith was not then a meer trick of Wit nor a bone of Contention but a Principle of sincere Honesty which guided men into the knowledge of their Duty and inspired them with courage and resolution to perform it Give me saith Lactantius a fierce and contentious man and if he will but apply himself to the Grace and Institutions of the Gospel he shall become as mild as a Lamb Give me a Drunkard or a Lascivious person with this Doctrine I will make him chaste and sober Let a Covetous man hearken to this Doctrine and he shall presently dispense his money as charitably as before he raked it together fordidly Give me a timorous and cowardly person this Religion shall presently make him valiant and despise death and danger And so he goes on In those dayes Believing was not an excuse for Disobedience or a commutation for a holy Life but a foundation of Obedience to all the Laws of God and man Then all the Professors of Christianity bad one heart and one lip and then they built towards Heaven in a good sense but since distraction of Mind alienation of Affections and confusion of Language hath made a Babel of a Church There was then but one division of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were the only Sects the World was divided by all good men were of one way and evil men of another But now there are almost as many Opinions as Men as many Parties as Opinions and as many Religions as either Time was when men sacrificed their Lives in testimony to their Faith as frankly as since they have done to their Passions Revenge or Ambition Then was Charity counted as essential a part of Religion as Censoriousness is now with too many Brotherly love and mutual dearness was a characteristical Note of those then that now may be as well known by their distractions and animosities St. Gregory Nazianzen said of those Times That if one Christian took notice of the error sin or failing of another it was to bewail it to heal it to cover his shame and cure his wound and prevent a scandal to his Profession but he observed that after-times made triumphs of mens weakness and follies and men learnt to justifie their own wickedness by the miscarriages of their Brethren and that he that would prove himself of the highest form of Christians set himself down in the seat of the scorner Nothing was then thought too good or costly for the service of God or Religion Men would not content themselves to serve God with that which cost them nothing It was only Julian or such another that envyed the costly Vessels wherewith Christ was served Works of Piety and Mercy and Charity cost them as much as Luxury and Contention now a dayes When the Gentiles in Tertullian's time upbraided the Christians that they made choice of a Cheap Religion and renounced the Pagan Sacrifices because they would not undergo the charge of them and complained that the Frugality of the Christian Worship caused a decay of Trade for the Eastern Gumms and Spices that used to be spent in the service of the Gods and that by this means the Customs of the Emperors were also diminished To all this he makes this answer We Christians spend more in the relief of the poor than you Gentiles do upon your Gods And though we use not Gumms and Spices for Incense yet we as much promote Trade by the vast proportions of those commodities we spend in the imbalming our dead And lastly if it should happen that the Emperors Exchequer should lose any thing either by the temperance of our Lives or the nature of our Religion yet we make it up another way for we make conscience of paying him his just dues whereas you cheat and defraud him of more than the proportion of your expences above ours would amount to In those early times the Christian Assemblies drained and emptied the Roman Theatres and the multitude thronged into the Church as earnestly as now they crowd out Coimus in coetum ut ad deum quasi manu factâ precationibus ambiamus orantes said the forementioned Tertullian The confluence to the publick Worship was in those dayes so great and the consent of heart and voice so universal that St. Jerome said The Hallelujahs of the Church was like the noise of many Waters and the Amen like Thunder Heaven and Earth then answered each other in a glorious Antiphone and made up one blessed Chorus There was joy in Heaven and peace on Earth The Hymn sung by the Angel at our Saviours Nativity was verified in those first Ages of his Religion Glory to God on High on Earth peace and Good-will amongst men The Holy men of those times that approached our Saviour had as it were some Rayes of his Divinity shed upon them and their faces shone like Moses's when he came down from the Holy Mount A Christian Church was a Colledge of holy and good men and the Glory of God filled the place where they assembled and Fire came down from Heaven too but not to set the World in combustion but to exhale and lift up the Odours of pious and devout Prayers But since those times Zeal hath decayed as if it had not been the intrinsick Excellency of Religion but the fires of Pagan Persecution that kindled that heat in the breasts of Christians And the Church so divided and broken in pieces as if it was not one Lord one Faith one Baptism that united them but a common enemy Dry Opinions have been taken for Faith and Zeal of a
Party hath gone for Holiness of Life Men have been busie in making new Creeds and have forgotten to practise the old one And since the Empire hath been divided into East and West Churches have been at defiance and as opposite to each other as those points are In short the once famous Greek Churches are now over-run with so squalid a Barbarism that little but the Name of Christianity is left amongst them And the Roman Church whose Faith was famous and spoken of through all the world is now as infamous for Usurpation Superstition and Cruelty and so deformed with Pagan Rites and mundane Policies that Christianity is the least part of her What shall we take to be the reason of this general Defection Was it only Novelty and not its intrinsick Goodness and Reasonableness that commended this Religion to the World that the longer it lasts the less it signifies Or are the Principles of Christianity effete like the Causes of the Gentile Oracles as Plutarch discourses that all the motives of Virtue and Holiness have now so little influence upon mens tempers and lives Or is it true that was said of old Religio peperit divitias filia devoravit matrem since Churches have been endowed men have espoused only the Fortune and not the Faith Or is the true reason that of old Christianity was deeply rooted in the Hearts of men and brought forth the fruits of good works in their Lives whereas now it is only a barren notion in mens Heads and is productive of nothing but leaves of Opinion and Profession Then it was the employment of mens hearts in meditation of their knees in devotion of their hands in distribution and beneficence now it is become the entertainment of mens ears in hearing novelty of their tongues and lips in censuring and disputing But whatever the causes have been such is the condition of Religion generally in the Greek and Latin Churches and I doubt if we come nearer home we shall not find things much better This Island of Britain had the glory not only to be the native Countrey of Constantine the first Christian Emperour but a far Greater that under Lucius it received the Christian Faith first of any great Kingdom in the world Britannorum loca Romanis inaccessa Christo verò subdita saith Tertullian The Cross made a more effectual as well as a more happy Conquest here than all the Roman Powers could do And this Northern Climate was not only thus early enlightned with the beams of the Sun of Righteousness but had life and warmth proportionably An evidence whereof we have in that we find British Bishops at the Council of Arles which was held before the Nicene And at the time of the Nicene Council Britian was counted one of the Six Dioceses of the Western Empire And for the Zeal of the British Christians the Martyrdom of St. Albane Amphilochius and others are great and glorious instances But to descend to lower times The Inhabitants of this Island have not been more famous for Martial Prowess against their enemies hospitality to strangers and good nature towards all mankind which three things have been and I hope are still their peculiar glories than for sincere piety and devotion Polydore Virgil an Italian and Erasmus a Dutchman both of the Roman Communion and competent Witnesses do affirm That there was more true Devotion and sincerity of Religion in this Church and Kingdom of England than in any one place of the world besides What was said of Sparta that ibi senes sunt maximè senes might be applyed to this purpose that here Christians were so the most heartily and truly of any people in the world The Universal Pastor as he would be called I mean the Bishop of Rome observed the Sheep of England to bear such good Fleeces and so patiently to submit to the Shearer that he kept a watchful eye over this Flock and his vigilancy was rewarded with the Golden Fleece He and his Emissaries found such large hearts and devout minds here that we are inabled to understand the reason of their great concern for our going astray since and their earnest and unwearied endeavours to reduce us back again to that fold Yet what by being oftner shorn than fed and then not with the best Pastures neither what by the ill examples of others but especially of their Guides and what by length of time corruption overspread this Church too But then as it happens in bodies of a strong and vivacious Constitution when they chance by ill Diet or other accident to be stuft with Crudities and bad humours they Critically evacuate them by meer strength of Nature So this Church gave certain proof that it had sana principia and a true sense of the reality of Christianity that one of the first in Christendom it returned to it self and a just temperament by a Reformation And the Reformation of this Church which the Romanists for their own ends so much detest and some others unreasonably slight was as much the Emulation of other Nations as Glorious in it self For 1. It was the most orderly and best becoming Christianity it was not brought in with Tumult and Sedition as most Changes are but by Laws and the Supream Magistrate There was no noise of Axes and Hammers in this Building but the several parts of this Fabrick fell in together with a kind of Harmony as the Jews say of the Temple of Salomon 2. It was the most moderate and temperate as being the result of Deliberation and Reason not of blind Passion or an humour of Innovation Our Reformers did not purge out the good because formerly it had been abused as the humour of some men is to do but vindicated what was useful from the abuse they neither countenanced what was evil by the good was to be found nor rejected the good for the casual adherence of evil They did not abolish a venerable Order or Office in the Church for the ill manners of some that had born it but took care to put better men in the rooms of such They were not of opinion that the Church could not arrive at primitive purity unless it was reduced to primitive poverty nor because they found some Ceremonies then used that were superstitious and dangerous and thought too many were but densome therefore concluded all decency in the service of God was Popish And in short they did not depart farther from the Church of Rome by Reformation than she had departed from the Truth and her self by degeneracy and corruption By all which they demonstrated that the change they made was not for the sake of humour and faction but necessity and publick good The Church of Rome reproaches us with the sinister ends of the Prince and several of those that sate at the helm of this great affair But who knows not that it is the usual method of Almighty God to bring about his own designs and accomplish the greatest benefits to
Mankind by making the sinister intentions of men co-operate towards them He made use of the unnatural cruelty of Joseph's brethren towards him to the preservation of the whole family of Jacob sending Joseph into Aegypt as an Harbinger and Nurse to provide for them in a famine And in respect hereof Joseph tells them it was not they but God sent him thither The Cruelty of Pharaoh who sought by severities to break and wear out the Israelites harden'd them and prepared them for all the difficulties they were afterwards to encounter The obstinacy and incredulity of the Jews proved to be the riches of the Gentiles The persecution of the Apostles at Jerusalem made way for the spreading of the Gospel into all other Countreys Instances of this kind are innumerable or if they were not yet were it very unsafe for those of the Church of Rome to make this objection lest they provoke us to say what cannot be either denyed or justified That the barbarous Tyrant and Usurper Phocas brought in the Universal Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome and that the most bloody and rapacious Princes have ordinarily been the great Patrons and Indowers of their Church thinking it seems to hallow their own Villanies and legitimate their unjust acquisitions by dividing the spoil with the Bishop and Church of Rome 3. The English Reformation was the most compleat and perfect in its kind as retaining the most antient Doctrine and soundest Confession of Faith founded upon the holy Scriptures and agreeable to the first General Councils the most Primitive Church-Government and a Liturgy the best accommodate to reconcile and unite mens Devotions Such a Liturgy as Mr. Fox the Author of the Martyrologie is not afraid to say was indited by the Holy Ghost but certainly had a great testimony in the unspeakable joy and contentment holy men took in it in King Edward the Sixths dayes their zeal for the maintenance of it longing for the restitution of it and sealing it with their blood in Queen Maries dayes and the universal triumphs and acclamations at the restoring of it in Queen Elizabeths Reign And admirable it is to consider how happy this Church and Nation then was in what Glory and Majesty the Prince reigned in what Peace and Concord the Subjects lived but especially it is remarkable how devout and pious an Age that was as is scarce perhaps to be parallel'd since the time that Christianity flourisht under Constantine the Great what reverence was then yielded to the Ministers of Religion What devotion to the publick worship How general an acquiescence of hearts and minds in it Which the greater it was the more just is our wonder and the more reasonable our inquiry what should be the Cause that in the same Church and amongst devout and honest-minded Englishmen such a zeal should terminate in so cold an indifferency as may now be observed or rather that such a blessed harmony should degenerate into so much discord as is now too discernable amongst us We read Ezra 3. that when the second Temple at Jerusalem was building the young men rejoyced at the reviving glory of their Nation and Religion but the old men that had beheld the far greater splendour and more stately Majesty of the former Temple built by Salomon they wept as contemplating how far this came short of that so that it was hard to say whether the shouts of the young men or the lamentations of the elder were the more loud And truly when we consider in how low a condition the Church of England was some few years since till it had a happy Resurrection with the return of our Gracious Soveraign will see cause to rejoyce and thank God that we are in no worse condition than we are But he that understands and considers what was the felicity of the first Age of our Reformation and compares it with the present condition of our affairs will have just cause to lament the difference For in those dayes so venerable was the Society of the Church that to be cast out of it by Excommunication was as dreadful as to be thunder-smitten that Sentence was like Proscription amongst the Romans which they counted a Civil death and dreaded as much as a Natural But now it is become a matter of Ambition with some and a piece of Glory And to be cast out of the Church is as good as Letters testimonial or recommendatory to other Assemblies There were few or none then that did not constantly frequent the Church now the Church is become the Conventicle in many places and the Conventicle the Church in respect of the fulness and frequency of the one and the unfrequentedness and destitution of the other Aristonicus came to a certain City in Greece where he observed many Temples but few Men that would hear him He therefore instead of the usual phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cryes out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hear O ye Stone-walls less hard than the hearts of men The Application is too easie in our case In that time we speak of the Liturgy and publick Prayers were counted a principal part of Gods worship now they are not only nothing without a Sermon but in danger to desecrate the Sermon too by their conjunction The Bible is scarce Canonical if it have the Prayers bound up in the same Cover and so extreamly offensive are they grown to some that they will rather totally neglect the publick Worship of God and never receive the Communion whilest they live than have to do with the Common Prayers Heretofore there were but few things scrupled in the establisht Religion and those were very few that made use of any such pretence or scruple but now it is become the great point of Sanctity to scruple every thing There was one indeed and he a great man that said there were tolerabiles ineptiae in our Liturgy and the most favourable return he met with was that he had his tolerabiles morositates Now the title of ineptiae is counted too mild an expression whatever suits not the present humour is either Jewish Popish or Superstitious This Change is sadly lamentable that good Laws should be thus trampled upon the best Church in the world thus despised and the best minded People thus abused Now my business is therefore in the first place to enquire from what Causes this hath come to pass PART I. An Enquiry into the Causes and Origin of the Separation from and Contempt of the English Reformed Church CHAP. I. Wherein are represented several things that are pretended but are not the true Causes of our distractions and dissatisfactions viz. 1. Corruption in Doctrine 2. The too near approach of this Church to the Roman 3. The Scandalousness of the Clergy All which are disproved WE have a Proverbial saying amongst us that Every one that is forty years old is either a Fool or a Physician But without a Proverb to justifie the undertaking there are but few that at
what age soever do not think themselves at years of discretion enough to pass a judgement upon and prescribe to the Body Politick whether Church or State Though it usually happens that such Empiricks either to shew their wit suspecting distempers where there are none make them or whilest they rashly adventure quiet a movere and like Englishmen will be alwayes mending they make work for better skill than their own or lastly if they discover some small matter amiss mistaking the cause of it not only lose their time and labour which would be easily pardonable but exhaust the spirits of the Patient with improper medicines and purge out the good and useful juices as noxious humours and so the Physician becomes far the greater disease of the two That our Church is of a sound and healthful constitution and might have continued so had it not met with this fortune I think I have sufficiently though briefly manifested in the foregoing Introduction But some men either loving to be alwayes reforming or having first separated from it that they may either commend their own skill or justifie their own fact must accuse the Church We read of Brutus that having killed Caesar he was alwayes after inveighing against him as a Tyrant Ità enim facto ejus expediebat saith the Historian It was expedient he should call Caesar Tyrant for otherwise himself must be a notorious Traytor So these men though the greatest disorders of the Church be but what themselves have made must find faults that they may not seem to have raised all the dust and withdrawn themselves and others from it without cause 1. And in the first place the Doctrine of this Church is blamed though thanks be to God there are but few that are of so little discretion as to bring in this charge and those that are will never be able to prove it The main if not the only thing excepted against in this kind is that the thirty nine Articles are not so punctual in defining the five points debated at the Synod of Dort as they could wish But this though it neither needs nor deserves an answer yet I shall reply these two things to it First That it is not so with the Doctrine of Christianity as with common Arts and Sciences which depend upon humane wit and invention and consequently are capable of daily improvements For the mind of man having not an intuitive knowledge but proceeding by way of discourse discovers one thing by another and infers things from one another so that there is not a Nè plus ultrà in those things but daily new discoveries dies diem docet Whereto accords the saying of wise men Antiquitas saeculi est juventus mundi That which we call the old World is but indeed the infancy of knowledge and the latter Times must needs have as much the advantage of truth as they have of deliberation and experiment But it is quite otherwise with Christianity for that depending solely upon Divine Revelation can admit of no new discoveries time may obscure it and the busie wit of man may perplex and confound it with its inventions but can never discover any thing new or bring to light any truth that was not so from the beginning For if we admit of new Revelations we lose the old and our Religion together we accuse our Saviour and his Apostles as if they had not sufficiently revealed Gods mind to the world and we incurr St. Paul's Anathema which he denounces against him whosoever it shall be nay if an Anger from Heaven that shall preach any other doctrine than what had been received And St. Jude hath told us the Faith was once that is either at once or once for all delivered to or by the Saints But if we shall pretend a private Spirit or Revelation to discover and interpret what was before delivered we do as bad we suppose Christ and his Apostles not to be able to deliver the mind of God and we open a Gap for all Impostures and delusions perpetually to infest and corrupt Christian Doctrine The consequence of these premises is that contrary to what I affirmed before of other Sciences the elder any Doctrine of Christianity can be proved to be it must needs be the truer and accordingly deserve the greater veneration from us as coming nearer the fountain of Evangelical Truth Divine Revelation and that he that talks of more clear Light of the latter times and clearer discoveries in Religion talks as foolishly as he that should affirm he could discern things better at a miles distance than the man that hath as good eyes as himself and yet stood close by the object This being so it must needs be the excellency and great commendation of this Church that her Articles of Doctrine agree better with the first Times of Christianity than the last Age and is an irrefragable Argument that she derived it not from any Lake or lower streams troubled and mudded with mens passions and disputes but from the Fountain of the holy Scripture and from those who certainly had best advantage of understanding it in its own simplicity the Primitive Church That no one Father or Writer of the Church whether Greek or Latin before St. Austin's time agreed in Doctrine with the determination of the Synod of Dort is so notoriously plain that it needs no proof nor can be denyed And if he I mean St. Austin agrees therewith yet it is certain that in so doing he disagrees as much with himself as he doth with us of the Church of England And what if St. Austin a devout good man but whose Piety was far more commendable than his Reason being hard put to it by the Manichees on one hand and the Pelagians on the other was not able to extricate himself who can help it Shall his Opinion and that which he was rather forced into by disputation than made choice of but especially shall the Determination of a few Divines at Dort vye with the constant Doctrine of the Primitive Church or make that an imputation upon our Church which is really amongst its Glories Must a novel Dutch Synod prescribe Doctrine to the Church of England and outweigh all Antiquity Shall those that knew not how God could be just unless he was cruel nor great unless he decreed to damn the greatest part of Mankind that could not tell how man should be kept humble unless they made him not a man but a stock or stone Shall I say such Men and such Opinions confront the Antient Catholick Apostolick Faith held forth in the Church of England Secondly The Articles of the Doctrine of this Church do with such admirable prudence and wariness handle these points we are now speaking of as if particular respect was had to these men and care taken that they might abundare suo sensu enjoy their own Judgements and yet without check subscribe to these Articles And accordingly it is well known that not many years since
the multitudes of Opinions that deform and trouble this Church are generally hatcht and nursed up in the Corporations Market-Towns and other great places whereas the lesser Countrey Villages are for the most part quiet and peaceably comply with Establish't Orders And if I should say that not only the Dissatisfaction with the Rites and Government of the Church but also the Convulsions and Confusions of State took their Origin from the bad humours of those greater Societies or Congregations of people I suppose I should say no more than what the observation of every considerative man will allow and confirm Now he that searching for a reason of this difference shall impute it either to the Ease Fulness and Luxury of the former whereby they have leisure and curiosity to excogitate Novelties and spirit and confidence to maintain and abett them whilest the latter tired with hard labour neither trouble themselves nor others but apply themselves to till the ground and earn their bread with the sweat of their brows or to the multitude and great concourse of people in the former amongst whom Notions are more easily started better protected and parties sooner formed for the defence and dissemination of them He I say that discourses thus gives a true account for so much but searches not far enough to the bottom For had there been an able Learned Orthodox Clergy setled in such places they by their wisdome and vigilance would in a great measure have obvated all beginnings of these disorders partly by principling the minds of men with sound Doctrine partly convincing Gain-sayers and especially rendring the Government of the Church lovely and venerable by their wise deportment In order therefore hereunto there ought to have been the most liberal Maintenance and ingenuous Encouragement setled upon such important places That where the work was greatest and the importance most considerable the motives to undertake it might be so too To the intent that the most able and judicious Clergy-men might have been invited to and setled upon those places that most needed them But contrariwise it is most visible that in those places where most Skill is to be exercised and most Labour to be undertaken there is little Revenue to encourage the Workman In a little obscure Parish or Country Village often-times there is a well endowed Church but in these great ones generally where the Flock is great the Fleece is shorn to the Shepherds hands and so pittiful a pittance left to the Curate or Minister that he can scarce afford himself Books to study nor perhaps Bread to eat without too servile a dependance upon the Benevolence of his richer Neighbours By which means either his Spirit is broken with Adversity or the Dignity of his Office obscured in the meanness of his condition or his Influence and Authority evacuated having neither wherewith to live charitably nor hospitably or all these together nay it is well if to help himself under these Pressures he is not tempted to a sordid Connivance at or Complyance with all those Follies and Irregularities he should correct and remedy And so like Esau sell his Birthright the Dignity of the Priesthood for a mess of Pottage Now how this comes to pass that the greatest Cures have generally the least Maintenance is easily found for it is well enough known that in those Times when the Popes had a Paramount Power in England a great part of the Tythes and Revenues of Churches were by their extravagant Authority ravisht from them and applyed to the Abbies and Monasteries and this like an Ostracisme fell commonly upon the greatest Parishes as having the best Revenues and consequently the more desirable Booty to those hungry Caterpillers and so the Issue was that the richest Churches were made the poorest in many such places little more than the Perquisites and Easter-Offerings being left to those that shall discharge the Cure And then though afterwards these superstitious Societies were dissolved yet the Tythes being not thought fit to be restored to their respective Churches the consequence is that those places which ought for the good both of Church and State to be well provided for are too often supplyed by the most inconsiderable Clergy-men or those men made so by the places they supply My meaning is that by reason of the incompetent Legal Maintenance provided for such Ministers the people have it in their power either to corrupt an easie and necessitous man or to starve out a worthy and inflexible one and so whatever the humour of the place shall be it is uncontroulable and incurable To remedy these inconveniencies it hath of late pleased His Majesty and the Parliament to make some provision so far as concerns the City of London and it is hoped the same wisdom will in time take like care of other great places in the same condition for till some such course be taken it will be in vain to expect that the Church of England or the best Laws of Religion that can be devised should either obtain just Veneration or due Effect 3. I account the late Wars another Cause of the bad estate of the Church and Religion amongst us Which may perhaps seem the more strange since when men put their Lives most in danger one would think they should then take the most care to put their Souls out of danger Besides it hath been the wisdom of most Nations to desire the countenance and incouragement of Religion in all their Martial undertakings The Romans made great scruple of enterprizing any thing of that nature till either their Priests from inspection of the Sacrifice or some other of their Pagan Oracles had given them the signal And the Turkish Mufti or High-Priest must give the Prime Visier his blessing before he enters upon the business Whether it be that men indeed believe God Almighty to be the Lord of Hosts and to give Victory to those that stand best approved with him or whether it be only that they apprehend that the opinion of being under Gods favour gives reputation to their Arms inspires their men with valour and resolution and disheartens their enemies or upon whatsoever consideration it is certain the matter of Fact is true and that Religion is of great efficacy in Warlike exploits It may I say therefore seem the more strange that War should be injurious to that which it seeks to for countenance and encouragement But most strange of all that Enemies abroad should make men quarrel with their Friends at home that Iron and Steel Wounds and Blows should make men tender-conscienced that those who can find in their hearts to shed the blood of Men of Christians and of their Brethren without remorse should be so queasie stomached as to scruple every punctilio and nicety in Ecclesiastick matters And yet he that narrowly considers the rise and progress of our Disorders will find that the distractions of the Church have kept pace with those of the State and as before the War our
Religious disputes and dissentions were but few to what they came to afterwards so by every War they have sensibly increased and grown upon us For the proof of which I will desire the Reader to look no further back than to either of the Wars between this Kingdom and the States of the Low Countreys and if he do not observe the contempt of Religion to be greater and the state of the Church worse at the end of each of them than at the beginning I will confess my self too servere an Interpreter of the effects of War How War should so much debauch the Spirit of a Nation is not my business to inquire yet these four things following seem to give some light into it 1. There are certain Doctrines and Opinions found to be very useful in War and to animate men in Encounters that are utterly contrary both to Truth and Peace Such as that of the Fatal Necessity of all things which in the natural consequence of it is destructive of all Virtue Yet however the Turks find it of great consequence in their Wars and it serve to animate their Janizaries to run desperately upon the very mouths of Canons And this same perswasion or one very like it was highly cryed up and found serviceable to all bad purposes of our late Civil Wars 2. Those that have occasion to use mens Courage are forced to be content to wink at their Debaucheries for fear they should emasculate the spirits of those they imploy and turn the edge of their mettle So Drunkenness Whoring Swearing and Blasphemy ordinarily pass under a very easie Censure amongst Souldiers Men whose hearts are eagerly set upon a War are apt to permit those whose hearts and hands they use in it to be afraid of nothing that so they may be fearless of the Enemy And when the War is over these Extravagancies are not laid down with their Arms For when Lewdness hath gotten a habit and mens Foreheads are brazen in their wickedness they will not receive a check from disarmed Religion but rather harden themselves against it and account that their Enemy which they are sure will not give countenance to the Vices they are now setled in In short War le ts loose the Reins and incourages men to sin And when the War is over these men are turned over to the Church for cure of their Souls as to the Hospital for their bodily wounds But no man will wonder if these men have no great kindness to the Church which forbids them the liberty and pleasure the Camp allowed them especially if it also prescribe them a severe course and make their Consciences smart for the sins they have formerly practised with pleasure and have yet a mind to 3. War hath its peculiar Laws different vastly from those of the Church and of every well ordered Common-wealth too The hazards and necessities of War make many things lawful there that are otherwise abominable as to make no difference betwixt things Sacred and Prophane to pull down Churches and do other such horrid things as nothing but War can palliate And from hence it is too ordinary for men to be led on by Custome so as in time they forget the Differences of things altogether and the Church and the Stable the Priest and the Peasant are all one to them 4. The meer disuse of Religion and its Offices antiquates the obligations of it with many When men have long heard the noise of Drums and Trumpets they are deaf to the still voice of the Gospel and after long conversation with Iron and Steel the Weapons of the Spiritual Warfare are of no force with them Then instead of Prayers men learn to curse and swear and by disuse of Religion grow to forget it and slight it and from not going to Church for a time upon necessity grow to plead a priviledge not to come at it at all Since then the Sword doth so much prejudice to the Gown and the Camp to the Church it is no wonder when we have been so often ingaged of late in the one that the other hath been and is in no better condition 4. I would in the next place might I do it without offence take the boldness to say that the vast increase of Trade doth usually reflect some inconvenience upon Ecclesiastical affairs I mean no hurt either to any mens Persons or Interest I envy no mens Prosperity and Wealth It is far from my thoughts to wish the Tide of Trade dammed up for I confess it is hugely advantageous to the publick as well as to private persons in many respects It much raises the parts and sharpens the wits of a Nation by foreign conversation to which some apply that passage of the Prophet Daniel Chap. 12. 4. Many shall pass to and fro and knowledge shall be increased It opens a passage to the discovery of other Countreys and of the works of God and Man of Nature and of Art It is the great Incentive and the great Instrument of humane Society it makes all Mankind of one body and by mutual intercourse to serve the occasions supply the needs and minister to the delight and entertainment one of another It inlarges the Minds of men as well as their Fortunes insomuch that any Nation is unpolite unbred and half barbarous without it It inures men to hardship and danger and instructs them in subtilty and all the Arts of living and self-security It adds much to the beauty power and strength of a Nation and to the riches and revenue of the Prince Yet all this notwithstanding I must crave leave to say that the Inlargement of Trade hath usually been attended with as much Latitude of Conscience and the heat of that with as much coldness and indifferency in Religion It is commonly observed to introduce great diversity of Opinions and consequently to abate of mens Zeal for and Reverence of an Uniformity in what was before establisht For men by conversing much abroad or with Strangers get a tincture of the Humours and Perswasions of the Customs and Sentiments of those Persons with whom and Places where they have to do And this is most remarkably true of the English whose temper is not so stubborn and inflexible as that of some other People nor so fastuose and contemptuous of other mens Opinions and Practices Their good nature prompts to look and think favourably upon such things as they see in request with others and from hence they proceed to admiration and at last to affect the novelty and then they bring over with them and set to sale at home many a new fangle amongst other vendible commodities The wise Law-giver of the Lacedemonians of whom I have had heretofore occasion to speak in contemplation of this danger and that the Laws and Government might not be disturbed with Novelty absolutely forbad Trade or Traffick and so much as travailing into other Countreys lest the Citizens should barter away their own Laws and Customs for
Christian Faith for the greatest difficulty Austin the Monk found here was to bring the Inhabitants from the observation of Easter and some other Rites according to the manner of the Jewish and Eastern Churches to that of the Roman and Western and the doing it as the Story tells us cost the lives of twelve hundred Monks who it seems stubbornly opposed his Innovation Which by the way is a good argument that this Church owes not its first Christianity to the Church of Rome or this Monastick Apostle as they would perswade us since it is plain by this passage that he made our Ancestors only Romanists but found them Christians before and perhaps of a better and more generous race of Religion than that he ingraffed upon the old stock But I will make no use of this for perhaps we may find the rise of this Judaism nearer hand if we observe that the great Patriarchs of the Non-conformity such as Cartwright Ainsworth H. Broughton and others were great Students of the Rabbinical Writings and the main of their Learning lay that way and as by this sort of Study which was rare in those dayes they got the reputation of great Rabbies so perhaps they might not only by this means be bewitched with the Jewish fancies themselves but propagate their unhappy Sentiments through their followers to this generation But howsoever it came to pass the matter of Fact will appear undeniably true That a vein of Judaism runs through the whole Body of the dissenters from the Church of England Of which I will give some Instances And the first shall be their grand Hypothesis That nothing is lawful in the service of God but what is expresly prescribed in Scripture This is the Characteristical Doctrine of that Party and in confidence of the truth of which they cry out of us for uncommanded Rites and humane Inventions and little less than Idolatry Now whosoever well considers this Tenet will find it so irrational in it self so servile and destructive of all Christian Liberty and making so ill reflections upon the Goodness of God as I shall have occasion to shew hereafter that it is not to be imagined how it should enter into the minds of men much less find such entertainment and so zealous patronage amongst so many honest and devout men were it not that they studied the Old Testament better than the New and graffed their Christianity upon the stock of Judaism And the case must be after this manner They considering and observing how punctually God prescribed some very little matters touching the Temple and National Worship of the Jews in the Law of Moses carry this notion along with them to the New Testament and thence infer That Christ Jesus must needs have also as punctually determined all the Rituals of the Christian Worship Otherwise he is not faithful in his house as Moses was in his for that Scripture is brought to prove it That all absolutely Necessaries are so determined by our Saviour we readily grant them and that all those Rites that are prescribed by him are necessary to be observed we will yield them but that nothing is lawful but what is to be found so prescribed we utterly deny and they will never be able to prove Nor indeed would they ever have been led by any principle of reason to think of or expect such a thing had it not been by the aforesaid prejudice But having gotten that notion into their heads they will fancy the New Testament to comply with it or writhe it to their sense though with never so much violence Of affinity with the former is another Notion of theirs That all Princes and Law-givers are bound to conform the Municipal Laws of their several Dominions to the Institutions of Moses and where this is not done sc where Princes make other Decisions of Cases or appoint other Punishments than that Law allows they are in danger to have their Constitutions declared null and themselves irreligious This is a mistake as wide as the former highly injurious to Soveraign Princes and dangerous to Kingdoms and States in a great measure disannulling the publick Laws and stripping the Governours of all proper Legislative power But that which I consider now in this mistake is not the consequence and Effects but the rise and Causes of it which seems to be no other than the fondness the Jews had to their Laws and which they express in their Writings as if those Laws God gave them by Moses were not only best for them but best in themselves also The foundation of which Error is both detected and confuted by this consideration That God was not only the God but the temporal Prince of the Jews in a peculiar manner so as he is not of any other people in the world he calls himself their King appoints his Lieutenants and Vicegerents divides his Subjects their Inheritance gives them Laws takes up a Residence amongst them appoints their way of Address to him for Judgement and resolution of weighty and extraordinary Cases and reserves many Cases to himself and sometimes inflicts Punishments by his own hand Any man that considers these things well will never go about to make those Laws oblige other Nations or require necessarily all Princes to conform their Policies to that of Judaea till he can perswade himself that every Nation hath the peculiar Priviledge of the Jews and its Government to be a Theocracy A third Instance shall be their notion of Excommunication which they hold must be denounced by a Synod or Presbytery and the Prince as well as the people must be subject to the sentence And this against all Rules of Government the Prerogatives of Princes and the Peace of Kingdoms But because it was thus amongst the Jews or at least some of the Writers of that Nation say so whether true or false is not well considered therefore this is the only Gospel way I must by no means omit their Superstition about the Lords Day which must be called a Sabbath too though such name is no where given it either in the New Testament or in any antient Writer that I know of but contrariwise alwayes opposed to it But that 's the least matter The Lords Day with these men must have all the nicety of observation that the Jewish Sabbath had and which is yet worse such observation thereof made one of the principal parts of Religion And because God appointed the Sabbath amongst the Jews to be a sign between him and them and to distinguish them from all other people therefore in the New Testament the superstitious observation of the Lords Day must be the principal Character of a godly man He that considers well this matter can find no original of it but perfect Judaism introduced into Christianity And methinks any unprejudiced man should be convinced of this by this one observation That this kind of observation of the Lords Day distinguishes this sort of English Protestants from all other Protestants
Livings like the Silver-smiths at Ephesus no wonder if Apostolical Doctrine and Government be cryed down and the Great Diana be cryed up The summ is this Some men were blindly led by their Education others by their Interest a third sort by their Reputation to make good what they had ingaged themselves and others in and these three things are able to form a great Party against the Church 4. The Fourth and Last Cause and I wish it be not the greatest of the Distractions and ill Estate of this Church is the want of true Christian Zeal and of a deep and serious sense of Piety in defect of which hath succeeded that wantonness curiosity novelty scrupulosity and contention we complain of What was it made the Primitive Church so unanimous that it was not crumbled into Parties nor mouldered away in Divisions nor quarrelled about Opinions nor separated one part from another upon occasion of little scruples How came it to pass as I observed in the Introduction to this Discourse that all good men were of one way and all evil men of another that those that travailed to the same City the heavenly Jerusalem kept the same Rode and parted not company It could not be that they should be without different apprehensions for mens Parts were no more alike nor their Educations more equal in those times than now There were then several Rites and Ceremonies that might have afforded matter of scruple if the Christians had been so disposed as well as now and I think both more in number and as lyable to exception as any thing now in use There was then bowing towards the East observation of Lent and other dayes distinction of Garments and innumerable other Observations in the early dayes of Tertullian and yet neither any Scripture brought to prove them nor any such proof thought necessary and yet they were observed without suspicion on one side or objection on the other Harum aliarum ejusmodi disciplinarum si legem expostules Scripturarum nullam invenies sed traditio praetenditur auctrix consuetudo conservatrix fides observatrix saith he in his Book De Corona militis St. Austin saith in his time the number and burden of Ceremonies was grown as great as under the Law of Moses and therefore wishes for a Reformation thereof in his Epistles to Januarius yet never thought these things a sufficient ground of Separation from the Church There was then some diversity of Expression in which the Governours and Pastors of several Churches delivered themselves yet did they not dispute themselves hereupon into Parties nor accuse one another of false Doctrine or either Side make the division of the Church the Evidence of its Orthodoxy or the Trophy of its Victory The true reason then of the different Event of the same Causes then and now seems to be this That in those dayes men were sincerely good and devout and set their hearts upon the main the huge Consequence and concern of which easily prevailed with those holy men to overlook their private satisfactions They were intent upon that wherein the Power of Godliness consisted and upon which the Salvation of Souls depended and so all that was secure they were not so superstitiously concerned for Rituals nor so unreasonably fond of Opinions as to play away the Peace of the Church and the Honour of Religion against trifles and meer tricks of wit and fancy They considered that they all had one God one Faith one Baptism one Lord Jesus Christ in which they all agreed and these great matters were able to unite them in lesser They Good men found enough to do to mortifie their Passions to their burdens of Affliction and Persecution to withstand the Temptations of the Devil and the contagion of evil Examples from the world and had not leisure for those little Disputes that now imploy the minds of men and vex the Church They spent their Heat and Zeal another way and so their Spirits were not easily inflammable with every petty Controversie But when men grow cold and indifferent about great things then they become servent about the lesser When they give over to mind a holy Life and heavenly Conversation then they grow great Disputers and mightily scrupulous about a Ceremony When they cease to study their own hearts then they become censorious of other men then they have both the leisure and the confidence to raise Sarmises and Jealousies and to find fault with their Superiours In short then and not till then do the little Appendages of Religion grow great and mighty matters in mens esteem when the Essentials the great and weighty matters are become little and inconsiderable And that this is the Case with us in this Nation is too evident to require further proof and too lamentable a subject for any good Christian to take pleasure in dilating upon I conclude therefore in this Point lyes a great part of the Unhappiness of this Church and Kingdom PART II. Wherein several serious Considerations are propounded tending to perswade all English Protestants to comply with and conform to the Religion and Government of this Church as it is established by Law CHAP. 1. A Reflection upon divers Wayes or Methods for the Prevention and Cure of Church-Divisions HAving in the former Part of this Discourse diligently enquired into and faithfully recited the principal Causes of the discontents with and secession from this Church It would now ill beseem Christian Charity to rest here for God knows neither the Evils nor the Causes afford any pleasant speculation It was a bad state of things at Rome which the Historian reports in these words Nec morbos nec remedia pati possumus That they were come to so ill a pass that they could neither indure their Distempers nor admit of the Remedies But I perswade my self though the condition of our affairs be bad enough yet that it is not so deplorable as to discourage all Endeavours of a cure And in this hope I take the courage to propound the following considerations wherein if I be deceived and miss of my aim I shall notwithstanding have that of Quintilian to comfort my self withal Prohabilis est cupiditas honestorum vel tutioris est audaciae tentare ea quibus est paratior venia It hath not been the single Unhappiness of this Church alone to be molested with Disputes loaden with Objections and dishonoured by Separation Nor can it be hoped that where the business is Religion and the concern Eternal Life that men should incuriously swallow every thing without moving any question or stirring any dispute And therefore all Churches must of necessity more or less have conflicted with the same difficulties we complain of And consequently the disease being so common it cannot be but that many and divers Remedies have been tryed and made use of And out of that store we will in this Chapter make election of such as seem best to fit the condition of the Patient and
Controversies saving that indeed they all agree in uno tertio the Supremacy of the Pope Therefore we say Medice cura teipsum Let us see all their own Difficulties decided and Disputes ended and then and to be sure not till then shall we be encouraged to make use of the Remedy 3. Thirdly They have another Remedy which I must needs confess hath done strange things and been very successful amongst themselves and I will transcribe the Receipt of it out of an ingenious Book called Europae speculum pag. 34. of the Edition at the Hague 1629. in these words The particular wayes they hold to ravish all affections and fit each humour are well nigh infinite there being not any thing either sacred or prophane no virtue nor vice almost nothing of how contrary condition soever which they make not in some sort to serve that turn that each phancy may be satisfied Whatever wealth can sway with the lovers or voluntary poverty with the despisers of the world what honour with the ambitious what obediene with the humble what great employment with stirring and active spirits what perpetual quiet with heavy and restive bodies what content the pleasant nature can take in pastimes and jollity what contrariwise the austere mind in discipline and rigour what love either chastity can raise in the pure or voluptuousness in the dissolute c. What change of vows with the rash or of estate with the unconstant what pardons with the faulty or supplyes with the defective what miracles with the credulous or visions with the phantastical what gorgeousness of shews with the vulgar and simple what multitude of Ceremonies with the superstitious what prayers with the devout And in summ whatsoever can prevail with any man either for himself to pursue or to love and reverence in another the same is found with them On the one side of the steet a Cloyster of Virgins on the other a Stye of Courtezans with publick toleration This day all in Masks with loosness and foolery to morrow all in Processions whipping themselves till the blood follow To conclude Never State never Government in the world so strangely compacted of infinite contrarieties all tending to the entertainment of the several humours of men Now no wonder that this course should keep them generally contented since it is in effect an universal Toleration a permitting men to be and do what they list so they cast but some garb of Religion or other over it In the United Provinces it is commonly said There is an allowance of all Opinions but the truth is no more but this That that State being made up of a combination of several Free Cities he that finds not his Opinion countenanced in one City so much as he desires may retire to another where it is publickly profest So in the Church of Rome he that likes not the debaucheries of the Court may enjoy severities in a Monastery he that is offended with one Order may make choice of another a man may be a good Catholick as they call it without being a good Christian he may perfectly accommodate his own humour if he have but the wit to make a right choice for himself he need not be at the Self-denyal to conform his humour to his Profession but may fit his inclination with a way of Religion if he have not prevented himself by an imprudent election He may almost do any thing provided as Erasmus observes He let but two things alone which are the only dangerous points that is to say that he meddle not with the Popes Crown nor the Monks Bellies But we of this Church are not of opinion that such a Tenet as this is is worth the prostitution of Religion and the debauching of mens minds and Consciences and have too much simplicity and sincerity of Devotion to make use of this Remedy to put an end to our Distractions 4. Fourthly But the great and infallible Remedy is yet to come and is that which others express by several words Axes Halters Racks Fire and Faggot but they by one word that signifies as much as all those viz. the Holy Inquisition This is that Engine that stretches all mens Intellectuals to the proportion of the Priests or cuts them off to the publick Standard this decides all Controversies silences all Disputes resolves all Scruples and makes perfect Peace where-ever it comes But Though we grant all this yet will not this down with Englishmen For besides that our Gospel is not like what they say of the Laws of Draco written in blood nor have we any Rubrick to kill men for quietness sake besides this I say the Genius of this Nation is both too couragious and too compassionate to be this way Governed No people in the world are less moved by the apprehension of death and danger than they and no people are more tender of the Lives of others than they For generally these two Virtues are inseparable and the most generous tempers are commonly the most merciful The English will be led like Men but not driven like Beasts They have great minds that will be moved by example and wrought upon by kindness and melted by good nature but will sooner suffer themselves to be broken in pieces than that cruelty shall force them or fear and danger prevail over them It is generally observable here that no Laws so soon grow in desuetude and are rendered unpracticable as those that are too severe It is counted a butcherly way of Chirurgerie with us for every slight wound to cut off the member And the exercise of so much Cruelty upon the account of Religion by those Blood-letters in Queen Maries time hath thanks be to God made that Profession detestable to this day and it looked so ill in the Romanists that we shall never be perswaded to practise it our selves Therefore none of the Romanists Expedients will work the Cure we desire in this Church Let us see then what other courses there are to be taken and there remain yet these three to be considered of 1. Universal Toleration 2. Comprehension 3. Instruction and Consideration 1. Universal Toleration This is highly commended by some as the most Christian Remedy to let all grow together till the harvest We are told That it was it made the Primitive Church so happy and we may observe that this the Christians pleaded for under persecuting Emperours affirming That it was every mans natural right to serve what God and use what Religion he thought good This the Great Constantine declared at his first entrance upon the Empire and they say that every Prince is bound to do so too Besides it is affirmed that this is the best way of propagating Truth and giving it Reputation and making its Triumphs conspicuous by setting it upon even ground and giving it no advantage in the encounter of Error And that the minds of men will be as open to truth as falshood when they are delivered from the prejudice That it is Power
and Interest make men of such or such Opinions That this is the only way to make a Learned Clergy when they shall have a necessity upon them to be able to prove substantially whatever they expect should be received and in fine That the only way to make peaceable Subjects a rich Countrey and a happy Prince is to open a Pantheon to give Liberty to all Religions But two things would be considered of in this point First That whatsoever fine things are said of this or whatever collateral advantage may be reaped by it they are of no other force than to incline the Magistrate prudentially in some cases to use Indulgence for it never was nor will be proved that it is the express duty of a Christian Magistrate to tolerate all Opinions whatsoever for some are such as destroy all Religion which he is to protect others subvert all Civil Societie which he is to maintain Therefore it can never be his duty to carry an indifferent hand in Religion And though it be true that the Primitive Christians used such general expressions as are above-specified and Constantine made such a declaration yet both he and they limited and interpreted themselves afterwards And indeed it cannot be shewn de facto that any Government in the whole Christian World doth tolerate all Opinions whatsoever For should they do so it must be supposed that the Magistrate is to have no Conscience or Religion himself that other men may have no check in theirs whatever it be 2. But if it were true that the Magistrate might if he would indulge all Sects and Opinions and also were disposed so to do yet besides the Inconveniencies that would follow This very thing would be very unacceptable to the people of this Nation amongst whom there is so much sincerity and heartiness in Religion It might go down perhaps amongst such as have a great Indifferency and Lukewarmness in Religion with such people whose God is their Gain and whose Religion is their Trade or Interest But devout and serious people had rather suffer some hardship themselves upon the account of their Consciences than buy their own quiet at the price of Gods dishonour And whatever kindness they may have to some dissenters or fondness to some by-path themselves yet rather than open so wide a Gap as that Popery and Atheism it self should enter in by it they would deny themselves and think it the duty of all other good Christians to do so too 2. Comprehension whereby I suppose is meant the making the terms of Communion more free and easie an opening the arms of the Church to receive more into her bosome thereby to enlarge both the Society and Interest of the Church This is highly recommended by some good men as the most proper expedient for a Protestant Church in our condition as by means whereof it may be both better strengthened and secured against its Enemies abroad and enjoy Peace and Contentment at home And truly for my part if such a course please our Governours I have no mind to oppose any thing to it but only I desire it may be considered that there are many things that look very probably in the general notion and speculation and that would flatter one into a great opinion of them and expectation from them which when they come to be tryed they are no wayes answerable to Many difficulties occurr in the reducing things of this nature to practice that were not foreseen in the theory and nothing more common than for mens minds to deceive them or their constancy to fail them so as that they shall take no great pleasure in the enjoyment of that which they languisht with desire of whilest it was sweetned to them by the poinant sauces of hope and fear Besides this is not yet done nor do we know when it will be set about and it's pity the wounds of the Church should bleed so long as till that can be effected especially if there be any Balm in Gilead any way of binding them up in the mean time And there seems to me to remain no other but that of the third Consideration which is the course I have pitched upon to recommend in the following Chapters By which I mean nothing else but an Endeavour of better informing the minds of men in the nature of those things which are the matter of our disputes and occasions of our disturbances together with the unhappy consequences of sin and danger in persevering in our present case Which if it can be done we may hope to see the Church recover its antient felicity and peace and shall not need for cure of our distempers to resort either to such severities as are abhorrent to all Englishmen or to such arts as deform Christianity in general or to be alwayes changing and altering to the great dishonour of Protestant Religion in particular And this I do not despair may be obtained if those Protestants of this Church and Kingdom that at present differ from the Church in some particulars will impartially consider the following Propositions CHAP. II. Of the true notion of Schism the sin and mischievous consequents of it THough the Will of man deservedly bear the blame of his miscarriages as being neither under Fatal necessity nor subject to violence and compulsion but that it may suspend its own act till it be rightly informed yet I have so much charity to humane nature as to think that most of its irregularities proceed not meerly from stubborn perversion but mistake of the object And that therefore Mankind is very pittyable in its errors having not that clearness of perception nor presence of mind that higher and more immaterial Spirits have And perhaps upon this account it pleased the Divine Goodness to afford men that which he denyed to the fallen Angels secundam tabulam postnaufragium and to open to them a door of hope by repentance and retrival of their faults And accordingly I observe that those that cruelly murdered our Saviour he prayes for them in this form Father forgive them they know not what they do And that it was not only the silly multitude that was so overseen but also the wisest of his Persecutors St. Peter bears witness Acts 3. 17. I wot that ye did it ignorantly as also did your Rulers So that I am neither destitute of reason nor example for my charity if I think in the present case concerning the greatest part of those that are guilty of the distractions of this Church that did they rightly understand the nature of Schism and wherein it consists or the guilt and mischiefs that attend it they would easily be induced to change their course This therefore I shall first offer to consideration Touching the sin of dividing the Church that it is of the deepest dye and greatest guilt I suppose we shall easily agree for indeed no body can well doubt of that who considers what care our Saviour took to prevent it what pains he took
fall in with their own humour For every peaceable man sees he must either go out of the world or set it all in flames if he will not subdue his own passion and castigate his heat That he must suffer shipwrack in the tempestuous Seas of dispute and contentions if he will not both take in his sails and lighten the ship by casting over-board the fardles of his private phancies and opinions He that will require all other men should assent to what he thinks and will conceal nothing he is perswaded of and yet expect to live in peace must either have very little wit or extraordinary fortune And he that will bear nothing that God hath not expresly imposed upon him nor part with any thing he may lawfully keep nor offer any Sacrifice to those touchy Deities received Custome and vulgar Opinion must expect often to feel the effects of their rage and power In summ he that will sacrifice nothing to publick tranquillity must be sure to live in perpetual flames here whatsoever become of him hereafter The Apostle was not certainly of this stubborn humour who declares of himself that he became all things to all men that he might gain some To the Jews he became as a Jew to gain the Jews to them that were without Law as without Law to them that were weak he became as weak too 1 Cor. 9. 20. He was now no longer a starcht inflexible Pharisee but a complaisant Christian or as some perhaps would have called him a Latitudinarian Apostle When a whole Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem Acts 15. which is a passage I have often occasion to mention and well deserves to be studied by every peaceable Christian when I say they decreed that the Gentiles should abstain from things strangled and from blood they deprived them of a great part of their Christian Liberty meerly to conciliate the Jews to them and required that to be done for peace that no Law of God otherwise required at their hands St. Greg. Nazianzen affirms of St. Basil that he dissembled the Coessentiality of the Holy Spirit and delivered himself in ambiguous terms on that great point lest he should offend and lose the weak which neither would that holy man have done nor much less his especial Friend and admirer have told of him if either of them had thought it to have been too great a price for the purchase But we need no other and can have no greater instance in this case than our Saviour himself who when he came into the world complyed with the Rites and Customs he found and condescended to the very humours of that stubborn people amongst whom he was he used their phrase in all his discourses he observed their Feasts he made his own institutions of Baptism and the Lords Supper as consonant to their Customs as it was possible to the end that he might not disturb them with Novelty but ingratiate himself and his Doctrine by these complyances When a certain Tribute was demanded of him he first proves that he was not obliged to pay it yet lest he should offend them determines to pay it and works a Miracle to make Peter to do it Mat. 17. 27. What shall we say to all this Are these Instances only to trace out an example of condescension in Magistrates and Governours to their Inferiours or are they not most certainly as Land-marks to all of what degree or condition soever to direct them how to steer their course and behave themselves in order to Peace Let me appeal to the Consciences of men Is it not plain from hence that although I be perswaded such a certain Rite is less commendable in it self yet if it appear to be an instrument of Accommodation that it is therefore in that case best upon that account And that such things as are indifferent or have no essential goodness of their own become not indifferent but good as they are useful or necessary to that end Or if I am perswaded that such an opinion is more true than that which is publickly received so long as the main Doctrine of Christianity is not in dispute I may not for all this conceal it rather than disturb the Church This was the counsel of the famous Constantine for the preventing and silencing disputes at the Council of Nice though the things in controversie there were of a higher nature than ours are But if any man be not satisfied with the Judgement of so great and good a Prince let him go and learn what that of St. Paul Rom. 14. 22. means Hast thou faith have it to thy self and that before God In short therefore it will be no hypocritical tergiversation no wrong either to our Religion or to our Consciences if when the case shall so require we change any phrase of speech how fit soever in our apprehension for one less fit but more acceptable and current any Rite or Ceremony that we have a great kindness for for one more grateful to others and that we may comply with the Laws in being so they be not palpably contrary to the Scriptures or common reason though we think better might be made in their room And that according to the saying of the Lord Bacon we may take counsel of the elder times what is best but of the present times for what as fittest And in a word that we part with all that which is no essential point of our Religion for Charity which is 3. Let us now for a Conclusion of this Chapter reflect back upon the aforementioned Catalogue of things in difference and see if they will not all appear to be of such a nature as we have hitherto supposed them that is such as may be fit to become a Peace-offering and sacrificed to the Magistrate the Laws and the Church And that we shall be easily able to resolve of by the help of these five following Remarques 1. That the things now scrupled in this Church are such as were heretofore submitted to by the most Leading men of those that now hereupon depart from it and if those things were in themselves lawful then they cannot change their nature by time and become unlawful now It will not be replyed That then they made no conscience of what they did lest it should be suspected they do but pretend it now for he that confesses a guilt of the same kind strengthens the suspicion of that whereof he is accused But if it be said they did it Ignorantly then and now having more light cannot outface it To this it will be as easie to answer That the ingagements of Interest and Prejudice are as lyable to be suspected now as Ignorance heretofore especially if we consider that there was no appearance of any extraordinary light breaking in when our troubles and divisions broke out but as soon as opportunity offered and occasion invited that is when Laws were laid asleep and Authority taken up with other cares then presently without further deliberation
The Prince or the State could enact nothing almost but the Kirk-men found themselves grieved and Religion concerned and Excommunication is denounced The Kirk on the other side make their Decrees and the Civil Power declares them null and grants Prohibitions c. He that will satisfie himself of the truth of these things and thereby convince himself of the mischief of the Principle we are speaking of let him read the Judicious History of the Church of Scotland written by the Most Reverend Arch-Bishop Spot swood And he shall find that this unhappy notion raised and maintained for many years a bellum limitaneum and that it is like the Marches or bateable ground betwixt two bordering Potentates a Scene of contention and a field of blood Whereas did we agree of certain Limits and make the Magistrates Power and Province extend to all that which God hath not taken in by express Law both Gods Glory and the Magistrates Authority would be kept entire and there would be neither cause nor room for Controversie 2. This opinion at once condemns all the States and Kingdoms in the whole world of Impiety and Irreligion forasmuch as there neither is nor ever hath been any such constitution as hath not had some Laws of Religion that could not be deduced particularly from the Scriptures And so he that is of this perswasion and will be true to it is bound in Conscience to be a Rebel where-ever he lives 3. It is an unreasonable Fear a meer Melancholy Jealousie and express Superstition instead of Religion to suspect that either the Magistrate can offend in making or the people in obeying such Laws as though they are not expresly warranted yet are no where forbidden by the Scripture For it is a supposition that a man may be a Sinner when yet he breaks no Law contrary to the express words of St. John 1 Ep. 3. 4. who defineth Sin to be a transgression of a Law And as is the usual Genius of all Superstition it mis-represents God as cruel and tyrannical that can condemn men ex post sacto for doing of that against which there was no Law in being But 4. Which is most observable this Doctrine instead of asserting Christian Liberty in truth subverts it and layes far more severe bonds upon the Consciences of men than the very Law of Moses did That was a yoke say the Apostles Acts 15. 10. which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear upon this account especially because it injoyned a great number of little Observances which by their multitude were hard to be remembred by their nicety difficult to be observed and by their meer positive nature and having no essential goodness in themselves had less power upon the Consciences of men to awaken their care and diligence about them It is manifest that Law contained no precept that was in it self impossible to be performed but because it is hard for the mind of man to attend to many things at once especially if also the things in which his care and obedience is required be such as are not enacted in his Conscience and when he can see no other reason of or advantage by his obedience but meerly his obedience therefore was that Law called impossible Now if a man were bound by the Gospel to avoid all those particulars that were commanded by Moses it is plain the servitude and the difficulty would be the same but if not only so but he be also bound to avoid all that which the Scripture is silent in his obligation is infinite and his servitude intolerable For Positives are determinate and definite and so fall more easily within our care and attention but Negatives are infinite and therefore such a yoke must be properly impossible These mistakes therefore being removed The true Notion of Christian Liberty will best be understood if we consider That in the times of the Old Testament the visible Church of God was inclosed within a narrow pale and none could be members of it without submission to Circumscision and the other Rites of Judaism Whence it came to pass that at the first publication of the Gospel it was a riddle and an astonishment to the very Apostles themselves that the Gentiles were to be taken into it And when the effecting this was taken in hand Acts 15. 1. the Jewish Christians stood upon their priviledge and would not admit the Gentile Converts into Society nor become of one body with them unless they would be circumcised and keep the Law Hereupon a Council is called and there the Apostles find out a temper and middle way for both parts to meet in for the present which was that the Gentile Converts should submit to the terms of Proselytism at large or the precepts given to the Sons of Noah as some understand the passage or as is indubitable that they should comply with the Jews in these three things of abstaining from fornication from things strangled and from blood And on the other side the Jewish Converts should abate of their rigor and not require of the Gentiles the strict terms of compleat Judaism At which decision the Gentile Christians were transported with Joy rejoyced at the consolation v. 31. For as I said till then none could be of the same body with the Jews in respect of visible Church Society without Circumcision and universal submission to the Law of Moses This therefore was an expedient for the present till the Jews should be by degrees better instructed in the liberty of that Christian Religion they had lately received But when the Gospel was fully published then the aforesaid Inclosure is laid open and all Nations invited into the Society of the Church upon equal terms neither party being bound to those nice Laws of Moses nor any other but those plain and reasonable ones contained in the Gospel and such other not contradictory to them as publick Wisdom Peace and Charity should dictate and recommend And to this purpose is the observation of Eusebius in his Praepaeratio Evangelica That Christianity is nothing else but the old Patriarchal Religion revived a restitution of that Primitive simplicity and liberty that was before the Law of Moses and that now there lyes no more bonds upon the Consciences of Christians than did upon the Antient Patriarchs saving those improvements our Saviour hath made upon the Law of Nature and those few positive Institutions of his expresly set down in the Gospel And that men obeying these are at liberty to conform to whatsoever common Reason and equity or publick Authority shall impose And this discourse of Eusebius is in effect the same with that of the Apostle Rom. 4. and Gal. 3. especially v. 19. where he puts this question Wherefore then served the Law he answers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was added c. it was a kind of interim or like a parenthesis which when it shall be left out the former and latter parts joyn together again without any interruption
of the sence That is when this interim or temporary provision of the Law shall be taken away the Primitive Patriarchal Religion and that brought in by our Saviour shall seem to be of one piece the latter beginning where the former ended The Contents then of the great Charter purchased for us and brought in by our Lord Jesus are these That beside the freeing of us from the power and dominion of sin which the Law of Moses could not do and from the Tyranny of Sathan which the Gentile world lay under till Christ came I say besides these which are no matters of our present dispute our Christian Infranchisement discharges us not only from a necessity of observing the Mosaick Law and Rites of Judaism but further and especially sets our Consciences at Liberty to pursue our own Reason and to obey any Laws of men that shall not contradict the express Laws of the Gospel That we are as perfectly free as those were that lived before any Scripture was written as to all those things that are not determined in those Scriptures and that within all that sphere we may without guilt or burden upon our Consciences serve all the interests of peace and order in the world And consequently that neither the Magistrate need to fetch a particular warrant from the Scripture to authorize his Prescriptions nor we an express licence thence to legitimate our respective obedience but the former may freely consult his own reason common prudence and the interest of his Government and the latter their own peace and tranquillity This is true and real Freedom when with a good and a quiet Conscience we may conform our selves to the Wisdom of our Superiours and the interests of Society when I have a power in utramque and may do or leave undone all those matters that are not defined in Scripture according as publick Laws and the ends of all Society shall require And that this is the true notion of Christian Liberty will appear further by this That the Apostle in several of his Epistles but especially that to the Romans injoyns the Christians in their scruples about Eating or not Eating of certain Meats and in the conduct of themselves in all such matters to consult charity towards their weak Brethren the peace of the Church and their own edification that is such principles of resolving scruples as before I described and bids them not to apply themselves to any Scripture or to expect a determination of such questions thence See Rom. 14. 3 5 13 14 15 19. and chap. 15. v. 2 c. From whence these two things follow 1. That Christian Liberty doth consist in a freedom in utramque that is that antecedently to the considerations of Prudence Peace and Charity it is equally in the power of a Christian to do or not do any or all those things that are not expresly forbidden by the holy Scriptures and that where the Scripture is silent the Conscience is free in the general and only to be determined by those considerations 2. That it is no infringement but an exercise of this liberty actually to be determined to that side towards which Prudence or Charity shall incline though in the mean time the other side be in the general as lawful as that Hence it is that we find liberty and condescension or self-denyal joyned together by St. Paul Gal. 5. 13. Ye have been called unto liberty only use not liberty as an occasion to the flesh but by love serve one another and by St. Peter 1 Ep. 2. 16. As free yet not using your liberty as a cloke of maliciousness but as the servants of God Which two places are so clear in themselves as no Commentary can make them more so and so full to our purpose that nothing further can reasonably be desired And so these two points thus gained will give abundant foundation for a third to be inferred from them viz. That whatsoever is so free to me that I may do it or not do it according as I shall be inclined by the consideration of Brotherly Charity and Compassion must of necessity be also as free to me to obey the Magistrate and serve publick Peace and Order in without either prostitution of my Liberty or violation of Gods right and Prerogative For whatsoever I may do in compassion to my Brothers infirmity surely that I may much more do in reverence to Gods Ordinance the Lawful Magistrate which is the point we have all this while drove at CHAP. VIII Of a Tender Conscience what it is and its Priviledges IF pleading our Charter of Christian Liberty will not give us a discharge from Obedience to our Superiours whether in things Sacred or Civil as I have proved it cannot yet possibly the plea of a Tender Conscience may This is thought to have not only a Priviledge but a kind of Prerogative to carry with it an exemption from all humane Laws whatsoever but especially Ecclesiastical It pretends to be Gods peculiar and exempt from any inferiour cognizance like the Monastick Orders in the Church of Rome which are immediately and only subject to the Pope so this to Gods Tribunal and none else Nay it looks like a Dictatorian Authority and seem to be legibus soluta This they would make us believe can limit the Magistrate null Laws forbid execution and which is yet more change the very nature of things and make that good and holy which was wicked and rebellious before This can canonize any Opinion legitimate any action warrant any extravagancy in the person that owns it The man of a Tender Conscience may pass all guards all mounds and barrs that are set to confine others must be open to him He is a righteous man and for him there is no Law no controllment no punishment The Tenderness of his Conscience is an inviolable Sanctuary and he that meddles with such a man is a fighter against God Make use of the best arguments to convince him discourse to him with the greatest evidence he is not bound to hear you his Conscience is his Priest Prophet and King too he hangs and draws and all within himself as we say whatsoever he thinks can be no heresie and whatsover he does can be no sin Unless therefore we can pull down this Usurper we must look for no Magistracy and except we discover the weakness and absurdity of this pretension all endeavours of restoring Uniformity in the Church will be vain and useless Let us 1. Therefore consider what Conscience is in general and then we shall better come to understand the grounds and strength of this mighty pretender 2. What a tender Conscience is 3. What priviledges or exemptions it may lay claim to 1. What Conscience is And indeed the original of the mistake in this matter seems to lye here some have given such pompous and Romantick descriptions of Conscience that they have beguiled men into an apprehension that it is far a Mightier Potentate than indeed
and is far from the humour of pretending Conscience to advance his Gain or excuse his Purse If such a man cannot conform to the Laws yet he can pay the penalty if he cannot go to Church he can pay his Tythes otherwise it is his Money he is tender of and not his Conscience his God is his Gain and his Profit his Conscience He that comes up to these five points of honesty may be heard in his plea of Tenderness and no man else And now I will in the last place shew what consideration is to be had of such a case and that in these three particulars 1. Every private Christian is bound in charity and compassion towards such a man to deny himself of some part of his liberty to please and to gain him That is in those things that are the matter of no Law but left free and undeterminate there the rule of the Apostle takes place Rom. 15. 1 2. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves And let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification I say in such things as are not the matter of any Law for I may not do evil that good may come of it I must not break either the Laws of God or man out of an humour of complaisance to my Brother for this were as we say to rob Peter to pay Paul or to commit Theft or Sacriledge that I may give Alms. But in such things as both the Laws of God and man have left me at liberty and at my own dispose I may then justly and ought in charity to consider his weakness rather than use my own strength and ought not to walk over Rocks and Precipices where I know the infirmity of others is such that they cannot follow me For though my own strength would bear me up yet it were very charitable to descend from that height which I know others cannot climb up to without giddiness To do all that I may do without danger to my self and not at all to regard what othes can comply with or to use my own liberty to the offence of others is to be unchristian and uncharitable It is to surfeit of my own abundance when my Brother is in want And in this sense only are we to understand all these discourses of the Apostle about Scandal and Offence In those times the Magistrate being Pagan took no care of the Church nor had passed any Laws concerning the manage of the Christian Religion therefore whatsoever God had left free and undetermined was so still so that the Christians had a great deal of scope and room for mutual condescension and accordingly the Apostle exhorts them that in all that materia libera they should by love serve one another And with great equity for he that will provoke his Brother to sin by doing that which he himself can omit without sin is guilty of sin in so doing But the case is quite otherwise when there is a Law in being for if my Brother will be offended unless I break a Law to comply with him in that case Charity begins at home as we say I must look to my self first and if he take offence he doth take it where it is not given for I do but my duty And as I may and must give Alms of what is my own and what I can spare from my own occasions but am neither bound to deprive my self of necessaries that I may serve any mans needs nor much less to rob another of his right that I may furnish him that wants so the same Charity requires that in all those cases where no Law of God or man hath restrained my liberty I there consider the infirmity of a another rather than the pleasing of my self And that this is it which St. Paul meant in all those passages appears by consideration of the instance he gives in himself and wherewith he concludes the argument 1 Cor. 8. 13. Wherefore if meat make my Brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world stands The eating of flesh was under no Law and consequently he should not offend if he forbore it therefore he resolves that he would abridge himself of his own liberty rather than offend another 2. It becomes the wisdom and compassion of a Christian Magistrate so far to consider the satisfaction of peoples Minds as well as the peace and safety of his Dominions as not to make those things the matter of his Laws which he foresees mens weakness will make them boggle at unless there be weighty reasons on the other hand to counterballance that consideration Such as that the things which some scruple are nevertheless necessary to Government or grateful to a greater or more considerable part of his Subjects If without these considerations he shall however constitute such Laws I will not say such Laws are therefore null for the weakness of people doth not take away his power but I will say they are unkind and ungracious But those considerations being supposed that is if such Constitutions as are apt to be scrupled by some be yet either necessary to Government or very grateful to the more considerable part of his Subjects he hath then no obligation upon him to consider the offence of a few but the good and safety of the whole Yet when those interests are secured there is great scope for his compassion and consequently it is the duty of a good Magistrate as of a good Shepherd to drive as the Cattle can go 3. If it shall be found necessary upon the considerations before intimated or any the like to make such things matter of Law that were before indifferent in themselves and which being so made are likely to be scrupled by those who ought to obey It becomes a Christian Magistrate who considers he governs Men and not Beasts to afford means of instruction to such weak and scrupulous persons and competent time for those instructions to take place and in the mean time to suspend rigorous executions For it is not in mens power to believe what they list much less what others would have them and it hath alwayes been found that force without instruction hath been prevalent only upon the worst of men and set the more conscientious farther off by prejudice But after such instruction afforded and time allowed if then such persons be not rightly informed and satisfied yet the Magistrate is unblameable for he commands but what is reasonable in it self and he hath done what lay in him that mens Judgements might be convinced and Conscience quieted It is very observable that in the Council held by the Apostles at Jerusalem Acts 15. of which I have sometimes made mention whilst there was hopes of gaining the Jews to Christianity and until they had time to be sufficiently instructed in it if they would for so long time the Apostles used them with great tenderness and as it appears made
that Decree in complyance with them whereby they abridged the Gentiles of the exercise of a considerable part of their Christian Liberty in meer condescension to the Jews but after such time as the Jews might have been sufficiently instructed but remained incurable and obstinate then this Indulgence grew into desuetude and the Gentiles resumed their due liberty From the same consideration was it that St. Paul as I also observed before practised Circumcision in the case of Timothy which he otherwise declared useless and dangerous And again upon the same grounds did the Apostolical Canons enjoyn the observation of the Jewish Sabbath as well as the Lords Day and several other things were both acted by private Christians and decreed by the Authority of Councils in favour of the Jews till they appeared no longer pittiably weak and ignorant but contumacious and intractable And as the Elder Christians did by the Jews so seems the Great Constantine to have done by the Pagans He considered that those that had beèn all their life-time kept in the darkness of Gentilism could not presently bear so great a light as Christianity Therefore though he zealously recommended it yet he did not presently make it penal not to be a Christian but for a time gave every one leave to be of what Religion he would to choose his own God and his own way of Worship In the mean time care was taken that all should have opportunity of understanding the truth if they would which when they had enjoyed for a competent time he then requires all the Roman Empire to imbrace Christianity This last instance I confess fits not the very matter we have in hand which is touching things in their own nature indifferent But it agrees with the general reason of proceeding which is sufficient to my purpose But now after all this if people will not be instructed but shall be so ridiculous as to pride themselves in their folly and glory to continue weak when they may be strong that is will affect Ignorance to countenance Disobedience I see no obligation upon the Magistrate either to forbear to make or execute such Laws as he apprehends for the good of his Government as I said before And so I hope I have cleared this point That though a Tender Conscience hath its Priviledges yet it hath not such a Prerogative as to null the Laws or suspend the Power of the Magistrate in the Sphere of Religion And therefore this pretence will be no longer an excuse for mens Non-conformity to the Laws and Church of England CHAP. IX The great dishonour that disobedience to Laws and Magistrates and the distractions of Government do to any Profession of Religion whatsoever HAving as I think sufficiently demonstrated the sin and mischiefs of Schism and evacuated all the excuses and palliations of it from the plea of Christian Liberty or the pretence of Tender Conscience I cannot see what should remain able to perpetuate our distractions unless it be a point of honour that some think themselves obliged to persevere because they have begun A humour like that Tull notes and taxes in the Stoicks That when Arguments failed them Constancy supplyed that defect and that they were not deserted of their Courage when they were destitute of Reason It is I confess too common with men to the intent that they may not seem to have had a bad and indefensible Cause at first they will indeavour to give it reputation by the courage and constancy of the Defendants whereby they hope to gain one of these points that either by Victory they shall have it adjudged to them or at least extort Honourable conditions to lay down Arms which is a kind of parting stakes Hereupon it is far more easie to convince men than to satisfie them because at last it comes to be a contention of Honour and Spirit and not a debate of Truth They say nothing subdues English Spirits but Cession and Condescension yield them a little and they will in Bravery and Generosity give you up all the rest but if you continue to contend they will fight not because it 's either hopeful or necessary neither because they can reasonably hope to obtain the victory nor because they must be ruined if they do not but because they cannot brook the dishonour of being vanquisht Honour is a kind of Gentile Conscience and tender like that too And I confess though it be a very virtuous yet it is no very easie thing to come about perfectly to change ones course and to proclaim ones self to have been in the wrong before to forgo a mans opinion and his reputation together wholly to yield up the cause we have long contended for without any conditions to salve our honour without abatement qualification or comprehension For though wise men will censure our obstinacy if we persist yet the multitude will reproach us with levity and cowardize if we retreat And though many a man could contentedly give up himself to the instruction of the few yet to be exposed to the contumelies of the vulgar is harsh and uneasie This consideration hath I acknowledge a great deal of Rhetorick and I doubt prevails with not a few in our present case I will therefore endeavour to shew the unreasonableness of it in these two points 1. I affirm That it is no real dishonour but a manly generosity and a Christian virtue to change our minds upon mature deliberation and the evidence of better reason Indeed to change we know not why or meerly because we are weary of old things is a vitious levity or upon new interests to espouse new perswasions is base and unworthy either of a Christian or a Man yet on the other side obstinately to maintain whatever we have asserted is as far from Christian stability and perseverance as it is from ingenuity That very temper which our Saviour requires in his Disciples and which is the preparatory disposition to the entertainment of Christianity especially consists in a simplicity of mind and an indifferency to comply with whatsoever shall best recommend it self to our faculties And whosoever is not of this disposition it was meerly by chance that he became a Christian or whatsoever opinions he hath better than any other man nothing is owing to his virtue but his fortune and he is not the better man but had the happier Education For since no man is infallible nor hath an intuitive knowledge of things he must either make himself a meer Machine to be filled and moved by others and receive without discrimination whatsoever is instilled into him by others that doth not think it becomes him to leave room for better reasons and further light in all such matters as we speak of and where Almighty God hath not once for all expresly delivered himself And those are not only the most ingenuous men but ordinarily the most useful also that are what they are not by Instinct and the prejudices of Education but by
Conviction and Argument In short he that resolves never to change his opinion nor hopes to be wiser than he is either will be alwayes a fool or hath the fortune of such an one or both Now then he that seeing Reason to incline him to take new measures shall yet upon Secular considerations think fit not to own a change may have the reputation of a cunning man but never of an honest and shall lose more in the Judgement of wise men than he shall gain with the vulgar 2. Epecially let it be considered how much the honour of our Religion is of more value than our Personal reputation and how much that is concerned in the peaceable and obedient temper of all those that pretend to it and withal what it suffers in defect of this And surely a due sense of these things will have such weight with all those that are sincerely Christian as to depress and keep down the turgency of our phancy and vain glory It was an effectual course Haman took Esther 3. 8. and he had wit in his malice when he designing to ruine the whole Church of the Jews first undermines the reputation of their Profession delates their Religion as not fit for the protection of the Prince and that it contained Laws contrary to all people and that they would not obey the Kings Laws There is nothing casts so indeleble a blemish upon Religion as when the Professors of it are turbulent unperswadable ungovernable When that which should strengthen the hands of the Magistrate shall weaken them when that which should ease his care and save the labour of his Animadversions shall it self awaken and raise his Jealousie when that which should enact his Laws in the very Consciences of men shall pretend to abrogate or dispense with them when men shall smite and break the two Tables one against another and put other limitations and conditions upon Princes than God hath and pretend a revocation of the Broad Seal of Civil Authority by the Privy Signet of Religion whereever this is done that Prince or Magistrate had need be a very devout man indeed that casts a benign aspect upon that Profession which hath so malignant an influence upon his Government And all considering men will with great reason doubt whether that Religion be of God that gives such trouble to his Vicegerent and whether that will carry men to Heaven hereafter that makes tumults confusions and a Hell upon earth But I have said so much to this business heretofore when I considered the mischiefs of Schism that I shall need to say the less now Only let me observe That the more raised and elevated any Religion pretends to be the more it professes a Contempt of this world the more it speaks of Patience Contentation Humility and the more it glories in the hopes of another world still the more horribly absurd and contradictious will it be that this should give countenance to disobedience and disturbance of Government I have also noted before that it was the great advantage Christianity had for the planting it self in the world that it disturbed no setled Form made no noise or commotion but fell like the dew of Heaven upon a Fleece of Wooll Our Saviour himself was so careful of giving offence that he not only gave no jealousie to those in possession of the Government but also abridged his own Liberty rather than he would seem to retrench their Power St. Paul when he was accused by an eloquent Orator Tertullus Acts 24. 5. as a mover of Sedition doth with equal eloquence disprove the charge and detest the Crime And that the generality of Christians were of the same temper and spirit Tertullian gives ample testimony Externi sumus vestra omnia implevimus urbes insulas castella municipia castra ipsa tribus decurias palatium senatum forum c. cui bello non idenei c. Apol. c. 37. We want saith he neither numbers nor Leaders nor Spirit to inable us for any attempt but that we have learnt to suffer ill and not to do it to obey and submit not to contend with our Rulers And Ammianus Marcellinus a Pagan Souldier in Julian's Army and therefore the more undeniable witness in the case gives this short description of the Christian Religion Nil nisi justum suadet lene It is saith he compounded of nothing but mildness and innocency It makes men just and honest it fills mens hearts with virtuous principles but not their heads with troublesome niceties It teaches men not to be troublers of the World but to go quietly and inoffensively through it with as little noise and provocation as is possible and so to arrive at eternal rest and peace in Heaven And as this is the known glory of Christianity in general so it was peculiarly of the English Reformation in particular as I shewed before It was brought in by the Prince not by the rout of people it was establisht orderly by Law did not force its way by popular tumult and was truly what it ought to be a revival of Primitive purity and simplicity And it is infinite pity that its glory should afterwards be stained by the insolence and impatience of those that pretend to it It is a great blot in the writings of Mr. Calvin that after he had discoursed rarely well of the power of Princes and the duty of Subjects in the last Chapter of his Institutions and the one and thirtieth Paragraph he undoes all again with an unhappy exception in these words de privatis hominibus semper loquor A passage of that ill aspect upon Government that it is suspected by some and not altogether without cause that most of the confusions of Kingdoms which have happened since and especially the troubles of this Nation have received incouragement if not taken rise from thence But whether that be so or no it is certain that it hath furnisht the Papists with a recrimination upon the Protestant Doctrine when we have charged theirs as blowing a Trumpet to Sedition and Rebellion And though the true Protestant Doctrine be as innocent as theirs is guilty in this kind yet if it can be objected against us that our Churches are alwayes infested with Divisions and the States under which we live imbroyled in troubles we have reason to be concerned forasmuch as we have no reason to expect that our Adversaries will be so just or charitable as to distinguish betwixt the faults of the Doctrine and the miscarriages of those that Profess it but will be sure to involve both in the dishonour For it cannot be but that either the Seed must be very bad that brings forth such Fruit or the Soil very corrupt that makes good Seed so degenerate that is either the Religion must be very faulty that fills men generally with so bad Principles or at least the Men must be extreamly evil that debauch good Doctrine And whether soever of these two things be concluded on as it
a great hand in this mischief also That not only the prodigious Faith but the monstrous Life of some great pretenders to Religion hath made men scorn and abhorr the very notion of it When not only mens ridiculous Follies but also their Vices their Pride and Passion and Rancour shall be father'd upon the Spirit of God as we know when and where such things have been done when men shall seek God for all the Villanies they are resolved to commit when they make long Prayers to devour Widows houses and proclaim a Fast that they may kill and take possession when Religion shall be prostituted to all bad designs and in nomine Domini incipit omne malum when I say the most specious Profession is a cloke for the vilest Knavery It cannot be much wondered if such men as I described before be inclined by these things to think there is no reality in any of the discourses of God and Religion For as if a man were to observe whether the Sun was risen upon the Hemisphere he would direct his eyes to the tops of Mountains expecting to see him displaying his beams first upon them that are nearest Heaven So a man would think if there were any such thing as Religion and a sense of Divinity amongst men it should be found amongst those that have alwayes God in their mouths and such a Garb of Religion upon them But if he find himself disappointed here and that these men that pretend so high have as great Sensualities Passions Covetousness Malice as other men he will despair of finding it any where and conclude with Brutus O virtus quaesivi te ut rem sed tantùm merum nomen es that there is no such thing at all 3. To the aforesaid Causes we may well add the perpetual Janglings and Disputes between Professors of Religion as not only making Religion unlovely but even calling it wholly into question When so many shall tell us there is such a place and state as Heaven and a World to come but every one tells us a several way thither witty men who know that all cannot be true but all may be false think it not comporting with their discretion to take the pains of the journey till the Guides shall be agreed of the way The disagreement of the two rank Elders in their testimony against Susannah's chastity whilest one said the fault was done under one kind of Tree and the other under another discovered her Innocency and their Hypocrisie It is true indeed there may and must be diversities of apprehensions in several points of Christianity whilest men are of different capacities and this need not nor if things be modestly carryed will give any just advantage to the Atheist But when every private opinion is made necessary to salvation and men pronounce damnation against one another upon every little diversity when they make as many Religions as there are Opinions and as many Wayes to Heaven as there are Notions amongst men it cannot be hoped but that the cold Sceptick should be incouraged in his Neutrality 4. But if to all these we consider with what rancour and malice the several Parties prosecute one another what odious and defamatory Libels and bitter Invectives they write one against another wherein all the secret follies of each party are blazed and published all the errors aggravated all the Opinions racked to confess blasphemy in their owners and defenders one party said to make God a Tyrant the other to deny his Wisdom or Soveraignty the one side accused of Idolatry the other of Rebellion he I say that considers how usual all this is and how ready all those that have no good mind to Religion are to catch up the darts that each of the parties cast at each other and make use of them against both and with what seeming Reason they conclude that the Confession of the Parties against each other and their mutual Impeachments of each other should argue the guilt of both and observes that all the defamatory Sermons and Libels that men write in heat and passion against each other wherein they charge folly blasphemy and nonsense upon each other reciprocally at last rebound or are retorted upon the wheel of Religion cannot be altogether to seek of the rise of the Atheism of this Age. But whether these be the principal causes of the great appearance which Atheism makes in this Age above the proportion of other times or whether there be other of a more latent and malignant influence I shall not further enquire at present since it is manifest that the matter of Fact is true and that being so the danger to Religion cannot be obscure We have reason therefore better to govern our passions and lay aside our animosities for the future and to unite our forces in an uniform order of Religion against this common enemy lest the gravity and piety of this Nation end in Buffoonry and our best heat and spirits being spent upon one another or against our Governours the mortal symptome of a cold clammy stupid Atheism succeed 2. Popery is another Hannibal ad portas an enemy that watches but till our Divisions shall open the Gates to him I hope I need not exaggerate the formidableness of Popery to those that remember either eighteen thousand souls dispatcht out of the World by the hands of the common Hangman in about three years time in the Low Countreyes under the Government of the Duke of Alva or the French Massacre or Queen Maries Reign in England or the Gunpowder Treason There was a clause in our Litany in Henry the Eighths and Edward the Sixths time From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and his detestable enormities Good Lord deliver us and upon what reasons soever it was since left out it was not certainly because either their Errors are less enormous or their Spirits less cruel but God forbid that because they at present hide their Teeth we should think they cannot or will not bite for if we should be so good natur'd as to warm this Snake in our bosomes that now pretends to have neither power nor will to hurt us I doubt we should quickly find it to resume its malice and poison together with its warmth and strength If any one shall be so hardy as to apprehend there is no danger of its return in this Nation I pray God his foresight be as great as his courage but he that considers the following Circumstances will think it adviseable not to be over secure For 1. It is not with this party as with any other Sect whatsoever these have a Forreign Head and great interests abroad the Pope and all the Popish Princes to unite to direct to animate and imploy them which must needs render them very dangerous to any State that is inclined to middle counsels that is that doth not either effectually please them or effectually disable them And upon this account the Turkish Sultan who hath scarcely any
need to learn reason of State from any body uses the Latin Christians with greater caution and severity under his Dominion than the Greek because he accounts the former alwayes dangerous upon account of their Forreign Head and Alliance 2. We cannot but observe how diligent they have been of late how full of projects and how erect their minds with expectation of some success They heretofore walked in Masquerade disguised themselves sometimes in the habit of one Sect and sometimes of another but of late they have had the confidence to lay off their disguise and play a more open game And such are the numbers of their Emissaries so desperate and daring are the Bigots of that party and so close and crafty are their Insinuations that we have little reason to think our selves out of danger especially whilest we have such Divisions and Distractions amongst our selves as at once both incourage them to attempt upon us and also furnish them with a very popular argument to use with soft-minded and weakly principled Protestants to draw them off from us namely the consideration of the Divisions in our Church and the perfect Unity in theirs For prevention of all which there seems no way so effectual as that we learn if not to submit our private quarrels to the publick Magistrate yet to publick safety lest whilest the Gamesters quarrell those that sit by sweep the stakes And certainly it's more adviseable to sacrifice our Opinions to our Safety than our Religion and Liberty to our Humours and Opinions And although blessed be God we have now a Prince to whom the Protestant Religion came sealed with his Fathers Blood and who in his own unhappy Exile had however this advantage to be well aware of the cheats and impostures as well as the designs of that Faction yet if ever it should be our fortune to have a Prince indifferent in Religion and who preferred his own quiet before the Civil or Spiritual Interests of his people the unreasonable petulancies we betray our untractableness by fair means and our endless disputes and unnecessary scrupulosities would tempt such a Prince growing weary of the burden of our unquietness and despairing otherwise of bringing us to obedience to put us under the insolence of that hard-hearted Pharaoh whose little Finger would prove heavier than the Loyns of all our present Governours and set Aegyptian Task-masters over us to break our Spirits by bitter bondage which Gods Mercy and our Wisdom for the future will I hope prevent But if we should escape both these dangers yet our Divisions and Distractions continuing there is a third danger that I do not see how it is avoidable And that is 3. Fanaticism For it is not imaginable but that the Church growing into contempt and Laws into daily neglect that things can long stand at this pass but some change or other must ensue and if Popery come not in to chastize our follies nor Atheism that damp of the bottomless Pit come over us and stifle all our life and warmth of Religion but that we must the aforesaid causes remaining and daily increasing fall into a Religious Phrensie or that raging Calenture I last named What that is and what the insufferable mischiefs of it are I need not represent It is in short instead of Church Government to have a Spiritual Anarchy where the hottest head is made the highest Governour where Pride and Impudence are the only qualifications of a Preacher where Humour is called Conscience and Novelty Religion This for ought I can see is like to be our condition if neither the Atheist nor Papist succeed in their projects But if any man shall be so fond as to hope we shall not fall thus low but may stay in Presbytery I shall say but this Let such person consider how few and inconsiderable that party is compared with the vast numbers of Quakers Ranters Fifth-Monarchy-men Anabaptists Antinomians c. and how little acceptable the Presbyterian way or interest is to any of those Factions and therefore how unlikly to be set up by their means But especially let it be remembred that when that Party had the Ball at their soot they were not able to keep it but lost it and the Goal too to those more numerous and adventurous Gamesters I therefore say again I cannot apprehend but that there must be a better union and complyance with the Church of England or I do not see it possible but we must fall into one or other of the aforesaid dangers And the calamity will then be so great which way soever we fall that I protest I think every honest minded Protestant ought to be inclined to bear with cheerfulness whatsoever burdens our Superiours can be suspected capable of imposing upon us rather than make experiment of the danger Conclusion I Have now adventured to stretch forth my hand to stay the tottering of the Ark and to cast in my Mite to the publick Treasury for the service of the Church which I hope God and Good men will accept of Of what efficacy the foregoing Considerations shall be is at the mercy of the Reader But if it please Almighty God to give him such candour and so unprejudicate a mind in the reading as I call him to witness I have been sensible of in the writing I do not then despair but they will prevail with all Englishmen that love the Protestant Religion better than their own humour to Conform to the Church and Laws establisht or at least that they shall seem of such weight as that a few scruples shall not be thought a counter-ballance to them Yet the more to assure this so desirable an Issue I will crave leave for a Conclusion humbly to recommend these following particulars 1. That all those that are zealous of the honour and interest of the Church of England will the more effectually to demonstrate the excellency of it and to stop the mouth of slander oblige themselves to a singular holiness of life Let us be ashamed that since we pretend to have and have really a better way of Religion not to have so much better Lives as we have better Principles Let us disdain that any petty Sect whatsoever should outgo us in that which is the great end of Church Society When those that bring prejudice to our publick Worship reproach it as a cold Service Let us labour to have our hearts invigorated with such a sense of Devotion by it as may not only consute the slander but maintain a spiritual heat and life of Godliness in all our conversation For let us assure our selves this is that the credit of any Profession depends upon when we have used all the Arguments and the best Vindications of our selves and our Church it is Holiness of life is the best and most prevalent Apology 2. That since for the bringing others to Conformity we must perswade them to for go some part of their natural Liberties forasmuch as otherwise they can come
and confound them those seem mighty-powerful-soul-saving-Preachers Who sees not that this must needs be a mighty disadvantage to the Church of England When Devotions shall be esteemed by their noise and not by their weight and Sermons tryed not by their light but heat But if to all this Truth and Falshood also and that in the most sublime points and which is more Expediency it self must be decided at Vulgar Tribunals so that there shall not be that Doctrine so profound or nice which every man will not take upon him to determine nor that Reason so subtle which the crassest minds shall not pretend to understand nor that Rule or Art of Government which shall not fall under vulgar cognizance if every mans Mind become the Standard and Touchstone of every Truth it is impossible upon the suppositions before laid but there must be dissentions disputes and distractions in such a Church and yet neither the Doctrine Discipline Liturgy nor Ministers thereof be to blame For unless the Reformers of such a Society be no wiser than the Vulgar and the Clergy and Governours and all Learned men have the same sentiments with the people unless I say all could be alike wise or alike weak where all will be alike Judges it is absolutely impossible it should be otherwise Those therefore of the Church of Rome have a cure for this They appropriate all Judgement to the Clergy and deal with the rest of Mankind as Sots and Ideots not permitting them to read the Scriptures in the Vulgar Tongue lest they should grow too wise to be governed nay they will not allow them to be masters of common sense but requre them to believe the most contradictory Propositions and make that an Article of Faith which a man may confute by his Fingers ends This is an admirable way to wean them from their own Understanding to unlearn them Disputes and to exercise them to believe in and obey their Rulers This way makes the people Sheep indeed but silly ones God-wot But the Church of England hath no such Antidote of Disputes and Divisions as this is She makes not her self the Mistris of mens Faith nor imposes upon their Understandings She teacheth that our Saviour hath delivered the Mind of God touching the points of necessary Belief or essential to Salvation fully and plainly to the capacity of every considering man that will use the means and in other lesser matters debatable amongst Christians she allows a judgement of Discretion Only since the Peace of the Church often depends upon such points as Salvation doth not and since in many of those every man is not a competent Judge but must either be in danger of being deceived himself and of troubling others or of necessity must trust some body else wiser than himself She recommends in such a case as the safer way for such private persons to comply with publick Determinations and in so advising she jointly consults the Peace of the Church and the quiet of mens Consciences So all that she challenges is a Reverence not a blind Obedience And if after all this some people will be foolish and proud and contentious she hath no further Remedy than to declare them guilty of Sin and Contumacy and that not sufficing to cast them out of her Communion But when all this is done men may be peevish and wilful and render the State of that Church unhappy whose Constitution is neither guilty of Tyranny nor Remisness Now if it shall be objected to this Discourse That this cause from the consideration of the Folly and Injudiciousness of men is too general and will equally extend to all other Reformed Churches as well as our own and especially that this might have brought forth all the Evil we complain of and impute to it in the former Age as well as now for as much as the generality of people were not much wiser then than now To this I answer in two points 1. If other Reformed Churches have not found the effects of Ignorance and Arrogance joyned together as well as we which doubtless they have done more or less it is not to be ascribed to the happiness of their Constitutions but to the unhappiness of their outward Circumstances Their Poverty Oppression Persecution or being surrounded with common Enemies hath probably prevailed upon them to lay aside or smother their private Opinions and to check their animosities more than our Gratitude to the Almighty for our Ease and Peace and Plenty and Liberty hath done upon us Who knoweth not that the Church of Corinth first needed the severe check of an Apostle for their wantonness and divisions that one was of Paul another of Apollos c. And who can give a more probable account of this their Luxuriancy than from the riches ease plenty and liberty of that City Or who hath not observed that whilest the Primitive Christians were in Adversity surrounded with Enemies and under Pagan persecuting Emperours so long they had one heart and mind they submitted their private phancies and peculiar sentiments to publick safety but the same constituted Churches quickly broke out into Quarrels and Factions as soon as a warm Sun of Prosperity shone upon them We have reason accordingly not to charge our unhappiness upon our Religion nor our troubles upon our Prosperity but to lay them at the right door of our Folly and Weakness 2. That these Evils broke not out in our Church sooner since the Seeds of them were sown long ago is due to the joy and contentment that men generally took at their first emerging out of the darkness and superstitions of the Church of Rome by the Reformation which was proportionable to the deliverance and so great that for a time it suffered them not to be very solicitous about little disputes or scrupulosities Like the people of Greece when the Romans at the Isthmian Games by a publick Herald pronounced them and their Countrey free they forgat the contentions they came together about and used to be infinitely taken with But when the novelty of this great Blessing was over Protestants forgat the great and intolerable burdens they had escaped and then began scrupulously to weigh every petty inconvenience and by the goodness of God not having a publick Enemy to unite them quarrel amongst themselves This therefore may be admitted as one cause of our unhappiness 2. That which I would assign as a second cause I know not well what name to give to it But for want of a better expression I will adventure to say That a great part of this Nation having been leavened with Jewish Superstition or Jewish Traditions hath thereby been indisposed to an uniform reception of and perseverance in the Reformation of Religion held forth by this Church How this sowre leaven should get in amongst us is not very easie to determine Some Stories would incline a man to think that it had been in the veins of this Countrey ever since it first received the
and Ideots to suspect they have no sense of their duty or to reproach their Sanctions as Tyrannical Superstitious or Antichristian If I must put the best construction the case will bear upon the Actions of my Equal or Inferiour will it become me to make the harshest interpretation of publick Laws and the Actions of my Superiours It was an unhappy slip of a great and worthy person whose name I will conceal for the reverence I bear to his profession and worth when reflecting upon the Statute of the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth concering the Jejunium Cecilianum or the Wednesday-Fast he calls it a Law and no Law a meer contradiction a piece of nonsence That it must bind the Conscience if it be a Law but the Law-makers saith he declare it shall not bind the Conscience and so it is no Law with a great deal more to that purpose Now the words of the Statute are these it is declared penal if any man shall say That this Fast is injoyned upon any necessity for the saving of the Soul or the service of God otherwise than other political Laws be Had that excellent person read and considered these words they would have afforded him no colour for the aforesaid imputation for the Law-makers do not declare that this Law shall not bind the Conscience but the contrary that it shall as other Political Laws do but they take care that the end and reason of the Law may be understood which was not Religious but Political for the maintenance of the Wars I say that clause in the Statute had not the least intention of limiting or declaring the obligation of the Law but only of preventing rumours of superstitious designs in the end and intentions of the Law-makers Nor is there any other the least passage in the Law that gives countenance to the reflections he makes either upon the Law it self or the Law-makers And I note it only for this end that we may observe how much more prone men are to pass censures than to consider to the bottom the true state of the things we pass sentence upon But to let pass that as a meer over-sight it is intolerable to hear the immodest clamours that are raised upon meer mistakes and surmises Men it seems think to recommend themselves as persons both of more than ordinary Sagacity and also of singular purity of Conscience by finding faults of this kind Whereas did they indeed consider either the divine Image born by Magistrates or the great consequence of publick Peace and well weighed how much that depends upon publick reputation and reverence they would certainly choose some other subject to serve those little ends by The Scripture calls the Magistrates Masters of restraint Judges 18. 7. See the Hebrew and as such they must needs be an eye-sore and grievance to all loose and exorbitant persons and consequently it is mightily to their wish that Authority should lose its force and Laws their veneration and thereby the sinews of all Society be loosened that so their Extravagancies may be uncontrolled and their Vices indemnified Therefore by how much it is the interest of all evil men to have Magistracy and Laws in contempt by so much is it the wisdom and concern of all sober and virtuous men to strengthen those hands that others would enfeeble and support that reputation they would infringe and violate And those that consider this will not out of levity wantonness or rashness controll Laws or dispute with Magistrates about smaller matters lest they thereby render them unable to protect them in their greater and more important concerns Nos ipsius dei imperium in Imperatoribus suspicimus said Tertullian in the name of the Christians in his time They then made their interpretation of Authority and Laws in favour of obedience and of the Governour they did not as St. James expresses it instead of being Doers of the Law make themselves Judges of the Law and Law-makers too Nor will it be either a foolish charity or a blind obedience to permit our selves to the conduct of our Superiours in those little matters we discourse of since we have great reason to perswade our selves that as those that stand higher than we may see further so those that are concerned for the whole may give a better judgement than those that respect but a part And that we our selves may as easily lye under prejudice as they and be as much transported with consideration of Ease and Liberty as they may probably be suspected to be with Ambition For why may not they have a reason for their actions which either we cannot reach or are not come to the knowledge of Especially since that may be best for the whole that is less commodious to us in particular and by being so it is not made unlawful for him that hath the charge and oversight of the whole to command nor warrantable for us to disobey Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus id modò quaeritur si majori parti in summum prodest said Cato in Livy Besides as I have intimated before There are no less different capacities of mind than constitutions of body and as great a difference in mens outward circumstances as in either of the former therefore neither can the reasons of Laws be equally understood nor the matter of Laws or the things imposed be equally easie and accommodate to the practice of all men And consequently those that would have the Laws exactly fitted to their own humour without respect to other men imitate the barbarous custome of the infamous Procrustes who is said to have either rackt all those persons that fell into his hands and stretcht them to his own size if they were too short or cut them off to his own proportion if they were too long So these men would exercise the same cruelty themselves which they forbid the Magistrate and lay down a principle of equal severity towards others as of fondness and indulgence to themselves Till we can reconcile the divers Constitutions I say of mind and body the several humours and contrary Interests of all men to one standard it will be impossible that the wisest Constitutions imaginable should prevent all scruple or be alike acceptable to all Parties Either therefore there must be no Laws made which must be the ruine of the whole or one of the Parties must be content upon the account of publick good that their private Interests or Opinions be less complyed with that is Since the Laws cannot be fitted to every man some men must fit and accommodate themselves to the Laws And this being resolved on the only question remaining will be on which of the Parties this shall fall that is which shall bend to the Law And the decision of this will be very easie for though on the one side Self-love and favour to our own Perswasion incline us to contend for the case and incouragement of our own way yet Christian Charity on
is certain one must and both may we ill consult either for our selves or our Profession that by our divisions disputes turbulencies and disobedience make the aforesaid dilemma inevitable And all the wit and courage we shew in defending our private opinions and maintaining our several parties when the common cause and interest is by this means rendred odious and contemptible is but like the foolish sollicitude of him that shall be adorning his private Cabin when the Ship is sinking And those men have little cause to triumph in their particular successes who lose to a common Enemy whatever they gain upon one another CHAP. X. The danger by our Distractions and Divisions IF neither the consideration of the sin of Schism nor of the dishonour to our Religion by our divisions will prevail to unite us yet perhaps the apprehension of Danger may It was observed of old that the Conquest of this Island by the Romans was facilitated by the Intestine divisions of the Inhabitants and said dum singuli pugnant universi vincuntur whereas had they consulted in common and made a joynt defence they had doubtless either preserved their liberty or at least sold it at a dearer rate And we have too great cause to fear the Religions interests of this Nation now may be endangered upon the same point that the Civil were lost then I mean that whilest we contend with one another and with our Rulers about little things we lose the main and by the opportunity of our Divisions and Subdivisions a common enemy break in upon us It is certain that no advantage can more encourage the attempt or befriend the designs of our Adversaries than the present condition of our affairs and therefore unless we could be so fond as to perswade our selves we have no enemies or so mad as to think them as secure and supine as our selves it must be unreasonable presumption to think our selves safe in this distracted condition But because it is observed of Englishmen that they generally as conscious to themselves of their own undaunted courage in encounting dangers are less vigilant against the approaches of them I shall therefore for a conclusion rather hazard the being accounted timorous my self than that others should be secure and so surprized and endeavour to unite the minds of all true Protestants of this Kingdom by representing the joynt danger by a threefold enemy ready to attacque them viz. Atheism Popery Fanaticism 1. Atheism He that hath not observed the prodigious growth and progress of this Monster in this last Age and what confidence it is arrived at above the proportion of former times either hath lived to little purpose having made no observation of what hath past by him or is intolerably overweening to some private opinion Heretofore it was only the fool that said there was no God but now this name Atheist speaks a Wit and a man of more than ordinary sagacity And those that were either so foolish or so abandoned of all reason and goodness as to doubt whether there was a God or no yet were not so immodest as to profess their Infidelity as the Psalmist expresses it they said in their heart there was no God but made it not an Hypothesis or a profest Tenet Time was that only some hated villain some man of abject-spirit and desperate fortunes was thought capable of such black impressions and that nothing but the brawniness of mens consciences or the hopelesness of their condition could betray them to but the suspicious of such a thing and those that had any taint of it the light and were only to be found in Gaols and Brothel-houses Now the Atheist is become a Gallant an Hector and this uncircumcised Philistin appears armed and defies the Armies of Israel The general contempt that such men lay under was such that heretofore they were not thought fit to live in a Common-wealth but now they have gotten such heart as to think themselves the only fit persons to prescribe Laws and Models of Government It is not uneasie to unfold all the causes that have concurred to the unhappy growth of this extream evil nor is it necessary that I should now undertake it yet I presume I shall easily obtain the Readers pardon if I gratifie my own and his curiosity so far as to make a little digression to observe the motion of so unusual and prodigious a Phaenomenon And in the first place it is an Observation of the Lord Bacon's That Superstition in the foregoing Age usually becomes Atheism in the succeeding generation And so it is likely the seeds were sown in the late times though the unhappy fruit appears but now For when witty men shall observe that the generality of those that pretend to the highest pitch of Religion do either represent God Almighty so incredibly and contrary to the natural notions men have of him or Religion so apishly and ridiculously as is the Genius of Superstition to do It will be very ready and easie to them to conclude there is no reality either in the one or the other Especially if those happen to make the observation whose vicious and desperate courses have made it become their interest that there should be no such things When men shall see the most absurd Propositions and such as they are sure cannot be true received with the same credulity and recommended and contended for with the same zeal that the most certain and most essential points of Religion are or should be what can be more natural than to think those things alike true that are alike imbraced and have equal stress laid upon them And then the result is plain that seeing some are notoriously false therefore it seems more than probable to them that the rest are so too It is in this case as in the hearing of Civil Causes when it appears to the Judges that there is false play made use of and some suborned Witnesses brought to give evidence they are hereby prejudiced against the rest And which is further considerable it is very probable that those very men that were formerly sunk into the mire of the aforesaid Superstitions may afterwards when they happen to emerge out of their delusions make up a considerable part of the Atheists themselves For by the same reason we gave before these men finding themselves cheated and imposed upon even in these very points that they were as confident of as of the Articles of the Creed grow hence to suspect even them too forasmuch as with them it hath no better foundation than the things that now are apparently false And thus from too large and prodigious a Creed they come to have no Faith at all When they discover that they believed many things without ground they think now they have ground to believe nothing and from fierce and hot Bigots become cold Scepticks and Atheists In the second place I suspect the lewd practices that have gone under the cloak and countenance of Religion have had