Brethren in Iniquity OR THE CONFEDERACY OF PAPISTS with SECTARIES For the Destroying of the True Religion as by Law Establish'd plainly detected WHEREIN Is shewed a farther Account of the Romish Snares and Intrigues for the Destroying the True Reformed Religion as Professed in the Church of England and Established by Law and for the Introducing of Popery or Atheism among us clearly shewing from very Authentick Writers and Testimonies That the principal Ways and Methods whereby the Papists have sought the Ruine of our Religion and Church from the Beginning of our Reformation to the present Times and by which they are still in hopes of compassing it are by promoting of Toleration or pretended Liberty of Conscience and that for above these Sixscore Years the Papists have so craftily Influenced our Dissenters as to make them the unhappy Instruments of effecting their most pernitious Designs which they contrived for the Subverting our Church and State Every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every City or House divided against it self cannot stand Matth. xij 25. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. xvi 17.18 These be they which separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit Jude i. 19. LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall MDCXC THE CONTENTS TWO very remarkable Letters the one from Sir Will. Boswell the other from Archbishop Bramhall shewing how much the Sectaries were Influenc'd by Papists to take off the Life of King Charles I. and to Embroil the Church c. pag. 1 3. Dr. Peter du Moulin's Narrative which confirms the Papists contriving the Death of King Charles and their putting Phanaticks upon the Execution pag. 6 Part of Father Sibthorp's a Jesuit Letter shewing their Intrigues with the Sectaries for the raising of Broils in Church and State pag. 12 Mr. Richard Baxter's Discovery and Confession of the Papists insinuating themselves among the Sectaries for the restoring of Popery pag. 14 Several material Collections to the same purpose out of the Writings of the Learned Dr. Stillingfleet now the Right Reverend Bishop of W. pag. 17 Archbishop Whitgift's Opinion That the Papist's befriend the Puritans pag. 19 Archbishop Grindall's fear of Popery and Atheism being promoted by them pag. 20 Campanella's and Father Young's Advice of bringing in Popery by means of Toleration and help of Phanaticks pag. 22 Coleman's and the Lord Viscount Stafford's Confession of bringing in Popery by Toleration and the Phanaticks help pag. 23 Bishop Saunderson's Opinion how and in what Phanaticks befriend Papists pag. 26 Some Verses to the same purpose ibid. The Judgment of Nine Learned Presbyterian Divines of Toleration pag. 31 The Votes and Reasons of the House of Commons in 1662. against it pag. 43 The Letter of the Presbyterian Ministers to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster against Toleration pag. 46 Sir Francis Walsingham's Letter concerning Severities used against Papists pag. 53 Lord Keeper Puckering's Speech to the Parliament concerning the Puritans preparing the way to the Spanish Invasion 1588. pag. 59 What good Effects the Penal Laws wronght and the Acts of Vniformity in bringing People to Church when duly executed pag. 60 Bishop Burnet's Reason why the Penal Law 's wrought no more good in making People generally conformable to the Church pag. 62 Arshbishop Whitgift's Character of the Puritans turbulent Spirits ibid. King Charles I. his Memorial of the great Numbers of Papists in the Parliaments Army and of the Papists and Phanaticks Confederating pag. 63 An Ingenuous and very true Account of the Dissenters combining with the Popish Party in the late Reign of King James II. against the Church of England pag. 64 Brethren in Iniquity OR The Confederacy of Papists with Sectaries for the destroying of the True Religion as by Law Established plainly detected A Letter from Sir William Boswell to the most Reverend William Laud late Arch-bishop of Canterbury remaining with Sir Robert Cotton's choice Papers Most Reverend AS I am here employed by our Soveraign Lord the King your Grace can testifie that I have left no stone unturned for his Majesty's Advancement neither can I omit whenever I meet with Treacheries or Conspiracies against the Church and State of England the sending your Grace an account in General I fear Matters will not answer your Expectations if your Grace do but seriously weigh them with deliberation For be you assured the Romish Clergy have gull'd the misled party of our English Nation and that under a Puritanical Dress for which the several Fraternities of that Church have lately received Indulgence from the See of Rome and Council of Cardinals or to Educate several of the young Friars of the Church of Rome who be Natives of His Majesty's Realms and Dominions and instruct them in all manner of Principles and Tenents contrary to the Episcopacy of the Church of England There be in the Town of Hague to my certain knowledge two dangerous Impostors of whom I have given notice to the Prince of Orange who have large Indulgences granted them and known to be of the Church of Rome although they seem Puritans and do converse with several of our English Factors The one James Murray a Scotch-man and the other John Napper a York-shire Blade The main drift of these Intentions is to pull down the English Episcopacy as being the chief Support of the Imperial Crown of our Nation for which purpose above sixty Romish Clergy-men are gone within these two Years out of the Monesteries of the French King's Dominions to Preach up the Scotch Covenant and Mr. Knox his Discipline and Rules within that Kirk and to spread the same about the Northern Coasts of England Let therefore His Majesty have an inkling of these Crotchets that he might be perswaded whenever Matters of the Church come before you to reserr them to your Grace and the Episcopal Party of the Realm for there be great Preparations making ready against the Liturgy and Ceremonies of the Church of England And all evil Contrivances here and in France and in other Protestant Holdings to make your Grace and the Episcopacy odious to all Reformed Protestants abroad it has wrought so much on divers of the Foreign Ministers of the Protestants that they esteem our Clergy little better than Papists The main things that they hit in our Teeth are our Bishops being called Lords the Service of the Church the Cross in Baptism Confirmation Bowing at the Name of Jesus the Communion-Table placed Altar-ways our manner of Consecrations and several other Matters which be of late buzz'd into the Heads of the Foreign Clergy to make your Grievances the less regarded in case of a change which is aimed at if not speedily prevented Your Grace's Letter is carefully
that concerns the eternal Salvation of the Soul wherein to erre cannot but be most dangerous and destructive Diversity of Religion disjoints and distracts the minds of Men and is the seminary of perpetual Hatreds Jealousies Seditions Wars if any thing in the World be and in a little time either a Schism in the State begets a Schism in the Church or a Schism in the Church begets a Schism in the State that is either Religion and the Church is prejudiced by civil Contentions or Church Controversies and Disputes about Opinions break out into Civil Wars Men will at last take up Swords and Spears instead of Pens and defend by Arms what they cannot do by Arguments Once for all It is the preservation of Religion and Reformation of it which you have covenanted to endeavour and not a Liberty of Opinion that will consist with neither It is the Extirpation of Heresie and Schism that you have covenanted which if it be connived at why doth the Apostle reprove the Corinthians for their Schism so much and why doth the Lord Jesus commend the Angel of the Church of Ephesus for trying those which said they were Apostles and were not And why is the Angel of the Church of Thyatira reproved for suffering that Woman jezebel who called her self a Prophetess to teach and seduce If once we come to this that any Man be suffered to teach what he pleaseth to seduce whom he list to be of what Faith or Religion seems good in his own Eyes farewel Covenant farewel reformed Religion farewel the Peace and Glory of England if that day once come It is not usual nay it is not possible that they which love God sincerely should desire to cherish differing Religions For it is most certain He that admits contrary Religions believes neither of them In another Sermon at Paul's Feb. 8. 1645. p. 12. Mr. Newcomen saith If it be lawful for every Man to entertain and hold what Opinion he pleaseth how differing soever from the Opinion and Judgment of the rest of the Church yet because this is his Opinion and his Judgment is perswaded of it he must follow his own Judgment and that this Liberty of practising his Judgment be as some say Liberty of Conscience part of the Liberty purchased by Jesus and to restrain it is in their Language Persecution Tyranny c. If this were true surely Paul did very ill to charge the Corinthians with so much Authority to be of the same mind and of the same Judgment 2 Cor. 13.11 Might not some among the Corinthians have said to Paul This is a hard usage this is to rack a low Man to the same length with a taller and to cut a tall Man to the stature of one that is low as Procrustes did by his Guests to suit his Bed What the same Judgment and the same Mind Will not Paul allow difference of Lights and Sights Might not some one among the Corinthians have said What if I am of Opinion that there is no Resurrection what hath Paul or any Man to do with that It is my Conscience and it is my Liberty what hath any Man to do with my Conscience more than I with his Might not Hymeneus have said What if it be my Opinion That the Resurrection is past already 2 Tim. 2.18 what hath Paul to doe with that Yes saith Paul If ye persist obstinate I will Excommunicate you I will deliver you up to Satan that you may learn not to blaspheme 1 Tim. 1.20 Certainly this shelter this Asylum of Error falsly called Liberty of Conscience was not thought of in former Times See more of the sinfulness and very mischievous Consequences of Toleration in the Book of the Learned Presbyterian Minister Mr. Thomas Edwards entitled The casting down of the last and strongest hold of Satan or a Treatise against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience wherein by Scripture sound Reason Fathers Schoolmen Casuists Protestants Divines of all Nations Confessions of Faith of the reformed Churches Ecclesiastical Histories and constant Practice of the most pious and wisest Emperors Princes States the best Writers of Politicks the Experience of all Ages yea by divers Principles and Proceedings of Sectaries themselves as Donatists Anabaptists Brownists and Independants the unlawfulness and mischief in a Christian State or Kingdom both of an universal Toleration of all Religions and of a limited or bounded of some Sects only are clearly proved and demonstrated with all the material Grounds and Reasons brought for such Tolerations fully answered Printed 1647. Mr. Edmund Calamy his Opinion concerning the Sinfulness of Separating from the publick Assemblies Take heed of separating from the Publick Assemblies of the Saints I have found by experience that all our Church Calamities have sprung from this Root He that separates from the publick Worship is like a man tumbling down a Hill and never leaving till he comes to the bottom of it I could relate many sad Stories of persons professing Godliness who out of dislike to our Church-meetings began at first to separate from them and after many Changes and Alterations were turned some of them Ranters some Quakers some Anabaptists some direct Atheists But I forbear you must hold Communion with all those Churches with which Christ holds Communion you must separate from the Sins of Christians but not from the Ordinances of Christ Take heed of Unchurching the Churches of Christ least you prove Schismaticks instead of being true Christians Mr. Edmund Calamy 's Godly Man's Ark Epist. Dedic to the Parish of Aldermanbury Direction Fourteenth A Sentence of Mr. Richard Baxter concerning the evils and great danger of leaving Parish Churches Consider this 'T is the Judgment of some That thousands are gone to Hell and ten thousands upon their march thither that in all probability had never come there if they had not been tempted from the Parish Churches for the enjoyment of Communion in a purer Church Mr. Richard Baxter 's Epist to separate Congregations Mr. Baxter his Sence of the Evils of different Rites and Opinions and of the necessity of Vniformity to preserve the Church From diversity in Opinion and external Rites resulteth Dislike thence Enmity thence Opposition thence Schism in Church and Sedition in State the State not standing secure without the Church nor the Church without Unity nor Unity without Uniformity Votes of the Honourable House of Commons Feb. 5. 1662. upon reading his Majesty's gracious Declaration and Speech c. Die Mercurii 25. Feb. Regni Car. 2. Regis 15o. Resolved nemine contradicente THAT the humble Thanks of this House be returned to his Majesty for his Resolution to maintain the Act of Uniformity Resolved also That it be presented to the King's Majesty as the humble Advice of the House That no Indulgence be granted to the Dissenters from the Act of Uniformity Part of their Address which contains their Reasons against Toleration is as followeth After all this we most humbly beseech your Majesty to
Lord Viscount Stafford That they designed to bring in Popery by Toleration as may be seen in his Trial. And now let any impartial Person judge who did most effectually serve the Papist Designs those who kept to the Communion of the Church of England or those who fell into a course of Separation I will allow what Mr. Baxter saith That they might use their Endeavours to exasperate the several Parties against each other and might sometimes press the more rigorous Execution of Laws against them but then it was to set them at a greater distance from us and to make them more pliable to a General Toleration And they sometimes complained That those who were most averse to this found themselves under the Severity of the Law when more Tractable Men escaped which they have weakly imputed to the Bishops when they might easily understand the true causo of such a Discrimination But from the whole it appears That the grand Design of the Papists for many Years was to break in pieces the Constitution of the Church of England which being done they flattered themselves with the hopes of great Accessions to their Strength and Party and in order to this they inflamed the Differences among us to the utmost height on purpise to make all the dissenting Parties to join with them for a General Toleration which they did not question would destroy this Church and advance their Interest And it is a most unfortunate Condition our Church is in That those who design to bring in Popery and the Dissenters who made so great bustles in the late King's Reign to keep it out should now both conspire towards the Destruction of our Church and use all their Art and Industry to undermine and blow up this strongest Bullwork of the Protestant Religion This Reverend and most Learned Person hath also well observ'd how subtilly the Romanists have managed our indiscreet Dissenters Zeal against the Church of England under a pretence of opposing Popery to be one of the more likely ways to bring it in Many Instruments and Engines they made use of in this Design many ways and times they set about it and although they met with several Disappointments yet they never gave it over And is it not very strange that when they can scarce appear for themselves others out of meer Zeal against Popery should carry on their Work for them This seems to be a great Paradox to unthinking People who are carried away with meer Noise and Pretences and hope those will secure them most against the fears of Popery who talk with most Passion and least Understanding against it whereas no persons do really give them greater Advantages than these do For where they meet with intemperate Railings and gross Understandings of the State of the Controversies between them and us the more subtle Romanists will let such alone to spend their Rage and Fury and when the heat is over they will calmly endeavour to let them see how grosly they have been deceived in some things and so will the more easily make them believe they are as much deceived in all the rest And thus the East and West may meet at last and the most furious Dissenters who would be looked upon as the greatest Adversaries to Popery become the easiest Converts This I do really fear will be the case of many Thousands amongst us who now pass for the most zealous Protestants if ever which God forbid that Religion should come to be uppermost in England It is therefore of mighty Consequence for preventing the return of Popery that people rightly understand what it is for when they are as much afraid of an innocent Ceremony as of real Idolatry and think they can Worship and Adore the Host on the same grounds that they may use the Sign of the Cross or Kneel at the Communion when they are brought to see their mistake in one Case they will suspect themselves deceived in the other also For they who took that to be Popery which is not will be apt to think Popery it self not so bad as it was represented and so for want of right Vnderstanding the Differences between us may be carried from one extream to the other For when they find the undoubted Practices of the Ancient Church condemned as Popish and Antichristian by their Teachers they must conclude Popery to be of much greater Antiquity than really it is and when they can trace it so very near the Apostles times they will soon believe it setled by the Apostles themselves For it will be very hard to perswade any considering Men that the Christian Church should degenerate so soon so universally as it must do if Epsscopal Government and the use of some significant Ceremonies were any parts of that Apostacy Will it not seem strange to them that when some humane Polities have preserved their first Constitution so long without any considerable alteration that the Government instituted by Christ and settled by his Apostles should so soon after be changed into another kind and that so easily so insensibly that all the Christian Churches believed they had still the very same Government which the Apostles left them Which is a matter so incredible that those who can believe such a part of Popery could prevail so soon in the Christian Church may be brought upon the like Grounds to belives that many others did so mighty a prejudice doth the Principles of our Church's Enemies bring upon the Cause of the Reformation And those who forego the Testimony of Antiquity as all the Opposers of the Church of England must do must unavoidably run with the Papists which the Principles of our Church do lead us through For we can justly charge Popery as an unreasonable innovation when we allow the undoubted Practices and Government of the Church for many Ages after Christ And the Excellent Learned and most pious Prelate Bishop Saunderson hath observ'd That those who reject the usages of our Church as Popish and Antichristian when assaulted by Papists will be apt to conclude Popery the old Religion which in the purest and primitive Times was professed in all Christian Churches throughout the World whereas the sober Church of England Protestant is able by the Grace of God with clear Evidence of Truth to justifie the Church of England from all imputation of Heresie or Schism and the Religion thereof as it stood by Law established from the like imputation of Novelty And in this he professes to lay open the inmost thoughts of his Heart in this sad Business before God and the World And he further saith The Dissenting Brethren were great promoters of the Roman Interest among us in the late Times of Usurpation by putting their helping hand to the pulling down of Episcopacy And saith he 't is very well known to many what rejoicing that Vote brought to the Romish Party how even in Rome it self they sung their Io-Paeans upon the tidings thereof and said triumphantly Now the Day
liberty by drawing Members out of it to weaken and diminish it till so far as lies in them they have brought it to nothing this we think to be plainly unlawful yet this we understand is their present design and endeavour Wherefore Reverend Brethren having bad such large experience of your Zeal of God's Glory your care of his afflicted Church your earnest endeavours to promote the compleat Reformation of it and of your ready concurrence with us in the improvement of any means that might be found conducible to this end we are bold to hint unto you these our ensuing Reasons against the Toleration of Independency in this Church I. The desires and endeavours of Independents for a Toleration are at this time extreamly unseasonable and preproperous for 1. The Reformation of Religion is not yet perfected and setled among us according to our Covenant And why may not the Reformation be raised up at last to such purity and perfection that truly tender Consciences may receive abundant satisfaction for ought that yet appears 2. It is not yet known what the Government of the Independents is neither would they ever yet vouchsafe to let the World know what they hold in that point though some of their party have been too forward to challenge the London Petitioners as led with blind Obedience and pinning their Souls upon the Priest's sleeve for desiring an establishment of the Government of Christ before there was any model of it extant 3. We can hardly be perswaded That the Independents themselves after all the stirs they have made amongst us are as yet fully resolved about their own way wherewith they would be concluded seeing they publish not their model though they are nimble enough in publishing other things and they profess Reserves and new Lights for which they will no doubt expect the like Toleration and so in insinitum It were more seasonable to move for Toleration when once they are positively determined how far they mean to go and where they mean to stay II. Their desires and endeavours are unreasonable and unequal in divers regards 1. Partly because no such Toleration hath hitherto been established so far as we know in any Christian State by the Civil Magistrate 2. Partly because some of them have solemnly profess'd That they cannot suffer Presbytery and answerable hereunto is their practice in thoses places where Independency prevails 3. And partly because to grant to them and not to other Sectaries who are free born as well as they and have done as good service as they to the Publick as they used to plead will be counted Injustice and great Partiality but to grant it unto all will scarce be cleared from great Impiety III. Independency is a Schism for 1. Independents do depart from our Churches being true Churches and so acknowledged by themselves 2. They draw and seduce our Members from our Congregations 3. They erect separate Congregations under a separate and undiscovered Government 4. They refuse Communion with our Churches in the Sacraments 5. Their Ministers refuse to Preach among us as Officers 6. Their Members if at any time they join with us in hearing the Word and Prayer yet they do it not as with the ministerial Word and Prayer not as Acts of Church Communion Now we judge that no Schism is to be tolerated in the Church †Schisms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 1.10 1 Cor. 12.25 * Divisions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 6.17 with 1 Cor. 3.3 Gal. 5.20 IV. Many mischiefs will inevitably follow upon this Toleration and that both to Church and Common-wealth First To the Church as 1. Causeless and unjust revolts from our Ministry and Congregations 2. Our Peoples minds will be troubled and in danger to be subverted as Acts 15.24 3. Bitter heart-burnings among brethren will be fomented and perpetuated to posterity 4. The godly painful and Orthodox Ministry will be discouraged and despised 5. The life and power of Godliness will be eaten out by frivolous disputes and vain janglings 6. The whole course of Religion in private families will be interrupted and undermined 7. Reciprocal duties between persons of nearest and dearest relations will be extreamly violated 8. The whole work of Reformation especially in Discipline and Government will be retarded disturbed and in danger of being made utterly frustrate and void whilst every person shall have liberty upon every trivial discontent at Presbyterial Government and Churches to revolt from us and list themselves in separated Congregations 9. All other Sects and Heresies in the Kingdom will be encouraged to endeavour the like Toleration 10. All other Sects and Heresies in the Kingdom will safeguard and shelter themselves under the wings of Independency and some of the Independents in their Books have openly avowed that they plead for Liberty of Conscience as well for others as themselves 11. And the whole Church of England in short time will be swallowed up with destraction and confusion And God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace 1 Cor. 14.33 Secondly To the Common-wealth For 1. All these mischiefs in the Church will have their proportionable influence upon the Common-wealth 2. The Kingdom will be wofully weakned by scandals and Divisions so that the enemies of it both Domestical and Foreign will be encouraged to plot and practise against it 3. It is much to be doubted lest the power of the Magistrate should not onely be weakned but even utterly overthrown considering the principles and practices of Independents together with their compliance with other Sectaries sufficiently known to be Anti-Magistratical V. Such a Toleration is utterly repugnant and inconsistent with that solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religion which not only both Houses of Parliament but also persons of all sorts in both Kingdoms of England and Scotland have subscribed and with hands lifted up to the most high God have sworn Which Covenant likewise both you and we and those that most earnestly pursue the establishment of this Toleration have made or should have made in the presence of Almighty God the searcher of all hearts with a true intention to perform the same as we shall answer at that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed For 1. This is opposite to the Reformation of Religion according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches Article 1. 2. It is destructive to the three Kingdoms nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion and Government which might lead us and our Posterity after us as brethren to live in Faith and Love Art 1. 3. It is plainly contrary to that extirpation of Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness which we have sworn sincerely really and constantly to endeavour without respect of persons Art 2. 4. Hereby we shall be involved in the guilt of other mens sins and thereby be endangered to receive of their plagues Art 2.
to plead in their behalf yet would not her Majesty be prevail'd upon in favour or out of fear of them to doe the true Religion and the Church so much wrong as to grant them any Indulgence She did not like the Hobbian Politicks of the present age nor would she adventure upon the displeasing of God and the making him her enemy to gratifie them and gain their Friendship by establishing so great a sin as Schism or Toleration is but having a good Cause and trusting in God for a Blessing on it she was so far from giving them any Indulgence out of fear of their great numbers of which they boasted not a little that she proceeded against them with greater courage and resolution and immediately before the Spainish Invasion she moved the Parliament against them and gave order to the then Lord Keeper Puckering to warn the Parliament not to hearken to them which accordingly he did in his speech in the house of Lords in the following words Especially you are commanded by her Majesty to take heed that no ear be given nor time afforded to the wearisome Sollicitations of those that are commonly called Puritans wherewithal the late Parliaments have been exceedingly importun'd which sort of men while in the giddiness of their Spirits they labour and strive to advance a new Eldership they do nothing else but disturb the good repose of the Church and the Common-wealth which is as well grounded for the Body of Religion it self and as well guided for the discipline as any Realm that professeth the Truth And as the present case standeth it may be doubted whether they or the Jesuits do offer more danger or be more speedily to be repressed For albeit the Jesuits do empoison the hearts of her Majesty's Subjects under a pretext of Conscience yet they do it but closely and only in privy corners but these men do both publish in their printed Books and teach in all their Conventicles sundry opinions not only dangerous to the well setled State and Policy of the Realm by putting a Pique between the Clergy and the Laity but also much derogatory to her sacred Majesty and her Crown as well by the diminution of her antient and lawful revenues and by denying her highness Prerogative and Supremacy as by offering peril to her Majesty's safety in her own Kingdom In all which things however in many other points they pretend to be at War with the popish Jesuits yet by the Separation of themselves from the unity of their fellow Subjects and by abusing the sacred Authority and Majesty of their Prince they do both join and concur with the Jesuits in opening the door and preparing the way to the Spanish Invasion that is threatned against the Realm And 't is worth the observation says Dr. Heylin in his History of the Preshyterians pag. 280. That the Puritans were then most busie as well in setting up their Discipline as in publishing railing and seditious Pamphlets when the Spaniards were hovering on the Seas with their terrible Navy at what time they conceived and not improbably that the Queen and Council would be otherwise busied than to take notice of their practices or suppress their doings or rather that they durst not call them into question for their words or actions for fear of alienating the affections of so strong a party as they had raised unto themselves The serious apprehension of which mischievous counsels prevail'd so far on Leicester and Walsingham that they did absolutely renounce any farther intercession for them professing that they had been horribly abused with their Hypocrisie And it is as observable that their so much boasted of great numbers immediately did abate when the Laws were executed upon them and they presently submitted as soon as they did perceive that the Government would no longer trifle with them and endure their insolencies So likewise as Dr. Tompkins observes in his Pleas for Toleration discuss'd It happened in King James I. his days their loud clamours were presently silenced as soon as ever the King declared himself resolute at the Conference at Hampton-Court Nor would the Act of Uniformity made in the Year 1662 have had any less effect if it had not been accompanied with a general discourse at the same time of a Toleration to follow immediately upon it the hopes of which hinder'd many Nonconformists from conforming However the awe of this Act and the levying sometimes a Shilling for absenting from the Church wrought ry good effects insomuch that in most places where Fanaticks did greatly abound they were reduced to conformity and in a great City of this Nation containing fourteen Parish Churches as a Divine of good note that lived in it hath publish'd to the World there were not above six or seven that absented from the Church till the Popish and Fanatick interest in Conjunction together procured a Toleration in 1672 which drew them away from the Church again but upon the cancelling of that mischievous Indulgence and the using of a little severity in levying from some few of them their Shillings for absenting from Church they repair'd as formerly to their Parish Churches and a Dissenter was very rarely to be found So that although King Charles the second in his Indulgence declared that in twelve Years the Severities of the Laws had not work'd the desired end in bringing Dissenters to close with the Church of England and that King James the second in his Declartion for Toleration asserts That all the endeavours that have been used in the last four reigns for bringing this Kingdom to an Vnity in Religion have been ineffectual it was not because the means were defective or insufficient for the working this design but because the Laws which were enacted for this purpose were so much neglected or so often intermitted which if they had been steadily or constantly put in execution would have thoroughly cured the Nation of Divisions but when they were only upon some short and sudden fit put in execution and such frequent Connivences and Indulgences given afterwards to countenance and impower the Ring-leaders of the several Sectaries to seduce from the Church and to propagate and increase their Parties it could not be expected that the dissenting Parties should close with the Church And as the Learned Dr. Burnet now the Right Reverend Bishop of Sarum well notes in his reflections on the Declaration for Liberty of Conscience pag. 3. We can see no reason to induce us to believe that a Toleration of Religion was proposed with any other design but either to divide us or to lay us asleep for the destroying us The Popish Party as he rightly says Since Queen Elizabeth's gentle reign has been ever restless and has had credit enough at Court during the three last reigns not onely to support it self but to distract and divert us by somenting of our differences and by setting on Toleration c. and as he further judiciously observes while such intermitting Methods were
Jew and gave the Anabaptists the glory of his conversion and rebaptizing who was afterwards discovered at New-castle is published and commonly known and too many others have more neatly play'd their game And though many of the more sober Anabaptists would not be so usefull to the Papists as they have expected Yet multitudes of them too far answered their expectations I shall tell you next of some of those Heresies or Parties among us that are the Papists own spawn or progeny either they laid the egg or hatch'd it or both And it is most certain that Libertinism or Freedom for all Religions was spawned by the Jesuits who hate it in Spain Italy and France but love it in England I have met with the masked Papists my self that have been very zealous and busie to promote this Liberty of Conscience as they deceitfully call it for by this means they may have liberty for themselves and liberty to break us in pieces by Sects and also liberty under the vizour of a Sectary of any tolarated sort to oppose the Ministry and Doctrine of Truth There are also some juggling Papists especially in our Councils Civil and Ecclesiastick that play their game by over-doing and making everything to be Popish and Antichristian to drive us into extreams and into opinions in which we may be easily baffled and it s not a little that they have won of us at this game In this book of Mr. Baxter a great deal more to this purpose may be seen how much the Papists work their designs by the means of our Sectaries whom they decoy And farther Mr. Baxter in 1671. a little before the Indulgence then came forth was so sensible of the mischief of Separation that he saith in his Preface to the defence of the cure of Church Divisions p. 17. That our Divisions gratify the Papists and greatly hazard the Protestant Religion and that more than most of you seemeth to believe or regard where he speaks to the separating people and among other great inconveniences which he mentions this is one That Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazard us all and we may lose that which the several Parties do contend about And p. 52. c. He saith that two ways Popery will grow out of our divisions First By the odium and scorn of our disagrements in consistency and multiplied Sects they will perswade people that we must come for unity to them or else run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already and I am perswaded that confirmed in it by this argument already and I am perswaded that all the arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of Sects among our selves yea some Professours of Religious strictness or great esteem for Godliness have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings and when they had run from Sect to Sect and found no consistency in any Secondly Either the Papists by increasing the divisions would make them be accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace or else when so many parties are constrain'd to beg and wait for Liberty the Papists may not be shut out alone but have toleration with the rest And saith he shall they use our hands to doe their works and pull their freedom out of the sire We have already unspeakably served them both in this and in abating the Odium of the Gunpowder-plot and their otehr Treasons Insurrections and Spanish-invasion Thus freely did Mr. Baxter write at that time and even after that Indulgence he hath these remarkable passages concerning the separating and dividing humour of their people in his sacrilegious desertion c. Pag. 103. It shameth and grieveth us to see and hear from England and New-England this common cry We are indangered by Divisions because the self-conceited part of the Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastours but must have their way and will needs be Rulers of the Church and them And soon after he saith to them You have made more Papists than ever you or we are like to recover Nothing is any whit considerable that a Papist hath to say till he cometh to your case and saith Doth not experience tell you that without papal Unity and Force these people will never be ruled or united It is you that tempt them to use Fire and Faggot that will not be ruled nor kept in concord And must you even you that should be our confort become our shame and break our hearts and make men Papists by your Temptation Woe to the World because of offences and woe to some by whom they come To shew yet farther what Insluence the Jesuitical Counsels have had upon some people as to the course of Separation I shall produce the Testimony of a very considerable Man among them who understood these affairs as well as any Man viz. Mr. Philip Nye who not long before his Death foreseeing the mischievous Consequence of these extravagant heats the people were running into wrote a Discourse on purpose to prove it lawful to hear the Conforming Ministers and answers all the Objections against it and towards the Conclusion he wonders how the differing Parties come to be so agreed in thinking it unlawful to hear us preach but he saith He is perswaded it is one constant design of Satan in the v ariety of ways of Religion he hath set on foot by Jesuits among us let us therefore be more aware of whatsoever tends that way Here we have a plain Confession of a very leading Man among the Dissenters that the Jesuits were very busie among them and that they and the Devil joined together in setting them at the greatest distance possible from the Church of England and that those who would countermine the Jesuits must avoid whatever tends to that height of Separation the People were run into And as the Reverend and Learned Doctor Stilling fleet in the Preface to his excellent Book Entituled The unreasonableness of Separation saith If we trace the foot-steps of our Separation we shall sind the Jesuitical Party had a great insluence on the very first beginnings of it for which we must consider that when the Church of England was restored in Queen Elizabeth's Reign there was no open Separation from the Communion of it for several years neither by Papists nor Nonconformists At last the more zealous Party of the Foreign Priests and Jesuits finding this compliance would in the end utterly destroy the Popish interest in England they began to draw off the secret Papists from all Conformity with our Church which the old Queen Mary's Priests allow'd them in This raised some heat among themselves but at last the way of Separation prevail'd as the more pure and perfect way But this was not thought sufficient bu these busie Factors for the
Pope the enemy of Christendom by these means c. the enemies of our Religion gain this That nothing can be established by Law in the Protestant Religion whose every part is not opposed by one or other of her own Professours So that things continuing loose and confused the Papists have their opportunity to urge their way which is attended with Order and Government And our Religion continuing thus distracted and divided some vile wretches lay hold on the Argument on one side to confute the other and so hope at last to destroy all See this Letter in Fair Warning second part printed 1663. Dr. Sutcliff Dean of Exon said also long ago that wise men apprehended these unhappy questions about indifferent things to be managed by the subtle Jesuits thereby to disturb the peace and settlement of our Church untill at last they enjoy their long expected opportunity to set up themselves and restore the exploded Tyranny and Idolatry of the Church of Rome Among Mr. Selden's Manuscripts there is mention'd an odd prophecy that Popery should decay about the Year 1500 and be restored about the Year 1700 which is there said to be most likely by means of our Divifions which threaten the Reformation upon the Interest of Religion and open advantages to the enemies of it and nothing is there said more likely to prevent it than a sirm establishment of sound Doctrine Discipline and Worship in this Church And had not some misguided Zealots out of a too great Affection to those models they had seen abroad run into unreasonable Oppositions at home which are still as unreasonably continued by obstinate headstrong People the Church of England would now be the most flourishing as it is the most primitive and pure Church in the World Who was it but a St. Omer's Priest that confessed as we are credibly informed in Foxes and Firebrands part 1. p. 7. That they were Twenty Years in hammering out the Sect of the Quakers And indeed as a very learned and good Man obseryes the principle they go upon to refuse all Oaths is a neat Contrivance for Priests and Jesuits to avoid the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy without a possibility of being discovered King Charles I. in the very first breaking out of the Wars observed rightly that the Fanaticks proceeded upon Popish Principles against him Their Maxims saith he are the same with the Jesuits Their Preachers Sermons have been deliver'd in the very Phrase and Stile of Becanus Scioppius and Eudaemon Johannis Their poor Arguments Printed or Written are taken almost verbatim out of Bellarmine and Suarez and the means which they have used to induce a Credit of their Conclusions with their Proselytes are purely and merely Jesuitical Fables false Reports false Prophecies pretended Inspirations and Divinations of the weaker Sex as if Herod and Pilate were once again reconciled for the Ruine of Christ and of his true Religion and Worship See the King 's large Declaration about the Scotch Troubles p. 3 4. and his Declaration after the Battel of Edgehill in the King's Works Part II. p. 213. And it is as observable that the Arguments which President Bradshaw made use of for the calling to an Account Sovereign Princes and subjecting of them to the People were borrowed from Parsons and other Jesuits who laid down these republican and treasonous Principles Considerable Directions for the Introducing Popery in Protestant Countries taken out of the Jesuit Contzen's Politic lib. 2. cap. 8. §. 6. and out of Campanella 1. THAT it be done under a Pretence of Ease to tender Consciences which will gain a Reputation to the Prince as done out of Kindness to his People 2. That when liberty is granted then the Parties be forbid to contend with or Preach against each other for that will make way the more easily for one side to prevail and the Prince will be commended for his Love of Peace 3. That such as suspect the Design and Preach against it be traduced as Men that Preach very Unseasonable Doctrine that they are Proud Self-opiniators and Enemies to Peace and Union 4. Let no Prince that is willing despait it being an easie thing for him to change Religion for when the Common People are a-while taken with Novelties and Diversities of Religion they will sit down and be weary and give up themselves to their Rulers Wills But the special Advice he gives to a Catholick Prince is 5. To make as much use of the Divisions of the Enemies as of the Agreement of his Friends How much the Popish Party hero hath followed these Counsels will easily appear by reflecting upon their Behaviour these last Twenty-six Years and how far the same Policies have kept up our Divisions and do still promote them is now no longer a Mystery But that which more particularly reaches to our own Case is the Letter of Advice given to Father Young by Seignior Ballarini concerning the best way of managing the Popish Interest in England upon his Majesty's Restauration wherein are several remarkable Things This Letter was found in Father Young's Study after his Death and was translated out of Italian and Printed in the Collection above-mentioned 1. The first Advice is to make the Obstruction of Settlement their great Design especially upon the fundamental Coustitutions of the Kingdom whereunto if things should fall they would be more firm than ever 2. To remove the Jealousies raised by Pryn Baxter c. of their design upon the late Factions and to set up the prosperous way of Fears and Jealousies of the King and Bishops 3. To make it appear underhand how near the Doctrine Worship and discipline of the Church of England comes to us at how little distance their Common Prayer is from our Mass and that the wisest and ablest Men of that way are so moderate that they would willingly come over to us or at least meet us half way Hereby the more staid Men will become more Odious and others will run out of all Religion for fear of Popery 4. Let there be an Indulgence promoted by the Factious and seconded by you 5. That the Trade and Treasure of the Nation may be Engrossed between themselves and other Discontented Parties 6. That the Bishops and Ministers of the Church of England be aspersed as either worldly and careless on the one hand or so factious on the other that it were well they were removed These are some of those excellent Advices then given and how well they have been followed we all know for according to this Counsel when they could not hinder the Settlement then the great thing they aimed at for many Years was the breaking in pieces the Constitution of our Churhc by a General Toleration This Coleman owned at his Trial and after Sentence declared He was of Opinion that Popery might come in if Liberty of Conscience had been granted And in several of his Letters it is to be seen how earnest the Papists were for Liberty of Conscience And the
33. c. saith Liberty of Conscience falsly so called may in good time improve it self into Liberty of Estates Liberty of Houses and Liberty of Wives and in a word Liberty of Perdition of Souls and Bodies This only would I know of you are Idolaters Hereticks Blasphemers and Seducers Evil-doers If so then look to your charge Rom. 13.4 Rulers must be a terrour to Evil-doers unless you mean to bear the Sword in vain And if you will God will not and if God take the Sword into his own hand once he will smite to purpose and execute vengeance throughly both upon the Evil-doers and upon you that have not been a terrour to them Oh therefore up and be doing that you may deliver the Kingdom out of the hand of the Lord for it is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the Living God O let not your Patience be interpreted a Connivence and your Connivence be taken for a Toleration it may be the Kingdom 's ruine but it will be your Sin Also in his Sermon before the Commons February 19. 1645. pag. 25. he thus addresseth to them Fathers and Brethren how will you call this keeping of Covenant with God had we a Parliament of Apostate Julians of whom it is reported that at what time he opened the Temples of the Heathenish Gods he set open the Christian Churches called home all the Christians that were banished both Orthodox and Heretick and gave them as we call it Liberty of Conscience but as Austin more truly phraseth it Libertatem perditionis Liberty to destroy themselves for that was his policy and end namely by Liberty of all Religions to destroy the true and the Professours of it too If we had a Parliament of careless Gallio's we should not wonder c. Mr. George Hughes late Minister of Plymouth in his Sermon before the Commons May 26. 1647. p. 34 preached thus I must say that Toleration must be a destructive Principle to the State or Church where-ever it be allowed experience hath shew'd us no less in Kingdoms and Churches called by God's name Ye Servants of Christ take heed of yielding to the pretences of Conscience The Devil and not Christ hath his throne there and no stronger hold for him than Conscience if he once takeit Christ will not suffer him to shelter there therefore you may not so much as in you lieth Object Do not other States and some of the united Provinces tolerate all these Heresies and protect them and yet they prosper who more Answ I desire not to meddle with other States unless I might do them good But 1. Can any Man say that Prosperity is a sign peculiar to Truth then let Rome come in and speak more than any for outward Prosperity 2. Are not spiritual Wickednesses as odious to God as carnal and are not these Heresies such which God condemns as works of the Flesh inconsistent with Christ's Kingdom 3. Hath God made an end of visiting Nations for the Sins of them when God hath done judging were a better time to urge this Example than now I pray God the evil day may not overtake these States the good God cause the cup of trembling to pass by them and purge their inquities peaceably but I am pressed in Spirit to say God hath not spared such State polities which have sought their own rise by the ruine of God's Truth Witness Jeroboam the Son of Nebat who made Israel to sin and as Seneca saith Qui non vetat peccare cum potest jubet he bids sin that doth not hinder it when he can God's Truth my beloved and not Man's example must be the Rule If Heresies yet must be let us mourn for what we cannot help It is a miserable Necessity when not allowed It will be rejoicing in Iniquity either for Church or State wilfully to tolerate Mr. Edmund Calamy in his Sermon before the Lord Mayor January 14. 1645. pag. 3. makes this Lamentation The Churches of Christ lie desolate Church-reformation is obstructed Church-discipline unsetled and Church-divisions increased The famous City of London is become an Amsterdam Separation from our Churches is countenanc'd Toleration is cried up Authority lieth asleep And pag. 4. Divisions whether they be Ecclesiastical or Political in Kingdoms Cities or Families are infallible causes of ruine to them See Mark 3.24 25. Again pag. 14. Hereby the hearts of people are mightily distracted many are hindred from Conversion and even the Godly themselves have lost much of the power of Godliness in their lives I say the hearts of people are mightily disturbed while one Minister preacheth one thing as a Truth of the Gospel and another Minister preacheth the quite contrary with as much considence as the former Pag. 17. If Divisions be so destructive to Kingdoms Cities and Families this reproveth those that are the Authors and Fomenters of these Divisions that are now among us These are the Iincendiaries of England If he that sets one house a fire deserveth hanging much more they that set a whole Kingdom on fire If he that murders one Man must be put to death much more he that murders three Kingdoms mark them saith the Apostle Rom. 16.17 that cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them avoid them as the greatest enemies of England these are like the Salamander that cannot live but in the fire of Contention These are of a Jesuitical Spirit and no doubt the heads and hands of the Jesuits are in all our Divisions Pag. 33. Take heed of the Land-destroying opinion of those that plead for an unlimited Toleration of all Religions even of Turcism Judaism c. the Lord keep us from being poison'd with such an Errour Our Saviour's saying in Matth. 12.25 riseth up against it Every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation for it will divide Kingdoms against it self it will rend it in a thousand pieces it is a Doctrine that overthroweth all Church-Government bringeth in confusion and openeth a wide door unto all Irreligion and Atheism For at the same door that all false Religions came in the true Religion-will quickly get out and if it be as good for a Man to live where nothing is lawful as where all things are lawful surely it is every way as uncomfortable to live where there are all Religions as where there is no Religion at all Pag. 37. It is your Duty right Honourable whom God hath intrusted with great Power to suppress these Divisions and Differences in Religion by your Civil Authority as far as you are able least you are accessary unto them For God hath made you Custodes utriusque Tabulae Keepers not of the Second Table only as some fondly imagine but of the First Table also and not only Keepers but Vindices utriusque Tabulae Punishers also of those that transgress against either of them For you are the Ministers of God for good and Revengers to execute wrath upon him that doth
believe that it is with extream unwillingness and reluctancy of Heart that we are brought to differ from any thing which your Majesty hath thought sit to propose And though we do no way doubt but that the unreasonable Distempers of Mens Spirits and the many Mutinies and Conspiracies which were carried on during the late intervals of Parliament did reasonably incline your Majesty to endeavour by your Declaration to give some allay to those ill Humours till the Parliament assembled and the hopes of Indulgence if the Parliament should consent to it especially seeing the Pretenders to this Indulgence did seem to make some Titles to it by virtue of your Majesty's Declaration from Breda Nevertheless we your Majesty's most Dutiful and Loyal Subjects who are now returned to serve in Parliament from those several Parts and Places of your Kingdom for which we are chosen do humbly offer to your Majesty's great Wisdom That it is in no sort advisable that there be any Indulgence to such Persons who presume to dissent from the Act of Uniformity and the Religion establish'd We have also considered the Nature of the Indulgence proposed with reference to these Consequences which must necessarily attend it It will establish Schism by a Law and make the whole Government of the Church precarious and the Censures of it of no moment or consideration at all It will expose your Majesty to the restless importunity of every Sect or Opinion and of every single Person also who shall presume to dissent from the Church of England It will be a cause of increasing Sects and Sectaries whose numbers will weaken the true Protestant Profession so far that it will at least be dissicult for it to defend it self against them And which is yet farther considerable Those numbers which by being troublesome to the Government find they can arrive to an Indulgence will as their numbers increase be yet more troublesome that so at length they may arrive to a general Toleration and in time some prevalent Sect will at last contend for an Establishment which for ought can be foreseen may end in Popery It is a thing altogether without precedent and will take away all means of convicting recusants and be inconsistent with the method and proceedings of the Laws of England Lastly it is humbly conceived that the Indulgence proposed will be so far from tending to the peace of the Kingdom that it is rather likely to occasion great disturbance And on the contrary that the asserting of the Laws and the Religion established according to the act of Vniformity is the most probable means to produce a setled Peace and Obedience throughout the Kingdom Because variety of professions in Religion when openly divulg'd doth directly distinguish men into Parties and withal gives them opportunity to count their numbers which considering the Animosities that out of a Religious Pride will be kept on foot by the several Factions doth tend directly and inevitably to open Disturbance Nor can your Majesty have any security that the Doctrine or Worship of the several Factions which are all governed by a several Rule shall be consistent with the Peace of the Kingdom And if any Persons shall presume to disturb the Peace of the Kingdom we do in all humility declare That we will for ever and in all occasions be ready with our utmost endeavour and assistance to adhere to and serve your Majesty according to our bounden Duty and Allegiance These impregnable and unanswerable Reasons did the excellent Members of that House alledge against Toleration Reasons full and clear carrying with them all the advantages of strength and evidence and as Dr. Tompkins said deservedly of them in his Pleas for Toleration discussed These renowned Gentlemen did then shew that they were able with their Pens to give an account of that Cause for which very many of themselves and Fathers did honourably draw their Swords and knew very well how to assert that Church by all the Rules of Christian Prudence as well as they did formerly set inimitable patterns of Christian Courage in suffering for it In these we may see and admire how those glorious Worthies came up to the Greatness of themselves and of the Argument and indeed they were both worthy of one another they to defend and that to be defended And as nothing was ever better penn'd than those Reasons so there was scarce ever a better occasion The best Church in Europe was then bore witness to by the best House of Commons which ever sat in this Nation And these Votes shall ever remain as a lasting Monument not only of their Zeal and Religion but of the incomparable Endowments and Abilities of those who drew them up A LETTER OF THE MINISTERS Of the CITY of LONDON Presented the First of January 1645. to the Reverend Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminister by Authority of Parliament against TOLERATION To our Reverend Learned and Religious Brethren the Prolocutor and the rest of the Divines assembled and now sitting at Westminster by Authority of Parliament these present Reverend and beloved Brethren WE are exceedingly apprehensive of the desirableness of the Church's Peace and of the pleasantness of Brethrens Vnity knowing that when Peace is set upon its proper basis viz. Righteousness and Truth it is one of the best possessions both delectable and profitable like Aaron's Ointment and the Dew of Hermon It is true by reason of different lights and different sights among Brethren there may be dissenting in opinion yet why should there be any separating from Church Communion The Church's Coat may be of divers colours yet why should there be any rent in it Have we not a touchstone of Truth the good word of God and when all things are examined by that word then that which is best may be held fast but first they must be known and then examined afterward If our dissenting Brethren after so many importunate Entreaties would have been perswaded either in zeal to the Truth or in sincere love to the Church's Peace and Vnity among Brethren or in respect to their own reputation by fair and ingenuous dealing or in conscience to their promise made with the Ministers of London now five years since or any such like reasonable consideration at last to have given us a full Narrative of their Opinions and grounds of their Separation we are perswaded they would not have slood at such a distance from us as now they do But they chose rather to walk by their own private lights than to unbosom themselves to us their most affectionate Brethren and to set themselves in an untrodden way of their own rather than to wait what our covenanted Reformation according to the Word of God and Examples of the best Reformed Churches would bring forth But the offence doth not end here it is much that our Brethren should separate from the Church but that they should endeavour to get a warrant to authorize their separation from it and to have
Person and that by the Poison which they spread the Humours of most Papists were altered and that they were no more Papist in Conscience and of Softness but Papist in Faction Then were there new Laws made for the Punishment of such as should submit themselves to such reconcilements or renunciation of Obedience And because it was a Treason carried in the Clouds and in wonderful Secrecy and come seldom to light and that there was no presuspicion thereof so great as the Recusancy to come to Divine Service because it was set down by their Decrees that to come to Church before Reconciliation was to live in Schism but to come to Church after Reconcilement was absolutely Heretical and Damnable Therefore there were added Laws containing punishment Pecuniary viz. such as might not enforce Consciences but to infeeble and impoverish the means of those about whom it resteth indifferent and ambiguous whether they were reconciled or not And when notwithstanding all this provision the Poison was dispersed so secretly as that there was no means to stay it but by restraining the Merchants that brought it in Then lastly there was added a Law whereby such seditious Priests of new Erection were exiled and those that were at that time within the Land shipped over and so commanded to keep hence upon pain of Treason This hath been the proceeding though intermingled not only with sundry Examples of her Majesty's Grace towards such as in her Wisdom she knew to be Papist in Conscience and not Faction and Singularity but also with extraordinary mitigation towards the Offenders in the highest degree committed by Law if they would but protest that if in Case this Realm should be invaded with a Foreign Army by the Pope's Authority for the Catholick Cause as they term it they would take part with her Majesty and not adhere to her Enemies For the other Party which have been offensive to the State though in another Degree which named themselves Reformers and we commonly call Puritans this hath been the proceeding towards them A great while when they inveighed against such abuses in the Church as Pluralities Non-residence and the like their Zeal was not Condemned only their Violence was sometimes Censured When they refused the use of some Ceremonies and Rites as Superstitious they were tolerated with much Connivency and Gentleness yea when they called in Question the Superiority of Bishops and pretended to a Democrary in the Church yet their Propositions were here considered and by contrary Writings debated and discussed yet all this while it was perceived that their Course was dangerous and very popular As because Papistry was odious therefore it was ever in their Mouths That they sought to Purge the Church from the Reliques of Papistry a thing acceptable to the People who love ever to run from one extream to another Because multitudes of Rogues and Poverty was an Eye-sore and a dislike to every Man therefore they put into the Peoples head That if Discipline were planted there should be no Vagabonds nor Beggars a thing very plausible And in like manner they promised the People many of the impossible wonders of their Discipline besides they opened to the People a way to Government by their Consistory and Presbytery a thing though in consequence no less prejudicial to the Liberties of private Men than to the Soveraignty of Princes yet in first shew very Popular Nevertheless this except it were some few that entered into extream contempt was born with because they pretended in dutiful manner to make Propositions and to leave it to the Providence of God and the Authority of the Magistrate But now of late Years when there issued from them that affirmed the consent of the Magistrate was not to be attended when under pretence of a Confession to avoid Slander and Imputations they combined themselves by Classes and Subscriptions when they descended into that vile and base means of defaming the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquils when they began to make many Subjects in doubt to take Oaths which is one of the fundamental Parts of Justice in this Land and in all places when they began both to vaunt of their strength and number of their Partizans and Followers and to use Comminations that their Cause would prevail through Vproar and Violence then it appeared to be no more Zeal no more Conscience but meer Faction and Division And therefore though the State were compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before yet was it with as great moderation as the Peace of the State or Church could permit And therefore Sir to conclude consider uprightly of these matters and you shall see Her Majesty is no more a Temporizer in Religion It is not the success Abroad nor the Change of Servants here at Home can alter her only as the things themselves alter She applied her Religious Wisdom to Methods correspondent unto them still retaining the Two Rules before mentioned in dealing tenderly with Consciences and yet in discovering Faction from Conscience and Softness from Singularity Farewel Your loving Friend Fr. Walsingham The Learned Dr. Burnet now the Right Reverend Bishop of Sarum first published this Letter in the second Part of his History of the Reformation Pag. 418. and had he joined it to his Preface of Persecution before Lactantius his Book of the Death of Persecutors it would have vindicated the Proceedings against Dissenters in the Reign of King Charles II. from the odium of Persecution when the Laws were so justly and deservedly Executed against them for their insolent provocations This Sir Francis Walsingham was sometime before a Friend and Favourer of the Puritanical Party and therefore he is not in the least to be suspected of doing them wrong in the Account which he hath given of their unruly boisterous Carriage to the Government The Lord Keeper Puckering gave the like Account of their ungovernable Temper and how dangerous they were to the Government in his Speech to the House of Lords by Queen Elizabeth 's Command which you have in the following Page Lord Keeper Puckering's Speech IN the day of Queen Elizabeth the Puritans as well as Papists persecuted her Majesty so vigorously that they thereby open'd the door and prepared the way to the Spanish Invasion and although they were very troublesome and made a noise with their great numbers which would arise by disobliging them which were implicite threatnings to awe her Majesty into a favourable compliance with their insolent demands yet even in that critical time when she was inviron'd about with potent Enemies from abroad she was nothing terrified with the impetuous clamours of these domestick Foes nor would she stoop so much beneath the Honour and Dignity of the Government as to condescend even in that juncture of time to their unreasonable as well as ungodly desires And though they had also great favourers of them at Court as the Earl of Leicester Sir Francis Walsingham and others that were ready
used and the Government as in an ague divided between hot and cold sits no wonder if Laws so unsteadily executed have failed of their effect But if the Government shall think it sit to imitate that prudent excellent Princess and in instead of shewing any fear of the Dissenters put the Laws moderately in execution against them we shall no doubt in a short time find the good effects of it in the happy uniting them to the Church of England to the great disappointment and grief of the Papists And till this be done we can expect no other than Confusion and disorder in the Church and Distraction in the State And the Book that was written in the Oliverian days by a learned Presbyterian intituled Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty licenced by Ja. Cranford will justifie such a proceeding against the several sorts of Dissenters and vindicate it from the odious Imputation of Persecution In which Book there is this memorable sentence That Liberty of Horesie and Schism is no part of the Liberty of Conscience which Christ hath purchased for us but that under these fair colours and handsome pretexts Sectaries infuse their poison their pernitious God-provoking Truth-defacing Church-ruinating and State-shaking Toleration The Character which the Great and good Arch-bishop Whitgift gave of the turbulent Spirits of the Puritans is very considerable in a Letter of his to the Privy Council which was occasion'd by a Paper of some Suffolk Ministers True it is saith he they are no Jesuits neither are they charged to be so but notwithstanding they are contentious in the Church of England and by their Contentions they minister occasion of offence to those which are seduced by Jesuits and give the Sacraments against the Form of publick Prayer us'd in this Church and by Law establish'd and thereby increase the number of them and consirm them in their willfulness They also make a Schism in the Church and draw many other of her Majesty's Subjects to the misliking of her Laws and Government in Causes Ecclesiastical so far are they from perswading Men to Obedience or at least if they perswade them to it in the one part of her Authority in Causes Civil they disswade them from it as much in the other in Causes Ecclesiastical so that indeed they pluck down with the one hand that which they seem to build with the other And is is truly observed by Doctor Tompkins in his Pleas c. Pag. 141. That notwithstanding all the Zeal which the Non-consormists doe declare against Popery it is well known that they have and as their Interest leads them can still join both Counsels and Arms together The leading Men of both Parties in Ireland were wonderfully great together all the while that the Design was managing against the Earl of Strafford And here in England in the Declaration which King Charles I. set forth concerning the Success of the Battel at Edgehill on October 23. 1643. he hath left this Memorial to all Posterity All Men know the great member of Papists which serve in their Armies Commanders and others the great Industry to corrupt the Loyalty and Affection of all our loving Subjects of that Religion the private Promises and Vndertakings that they have made to them That if they would assist them against us all the Laws made in their prejudice should be repealed The Popish Party also used the same perswasive methods in the late Days of King James the Second to allure the Dissenters to join with them for the pulling down the Established true Religion and how effectually this Bait was swallowed by them and into what a hellish Confederacy these two Brethren in Iniquity enter'd together for the Destruction of the Church of England their many scandalous Addresses and other their libellous Invectives against the Church of England which were stuffed with the most inveterate Hatred Rancour and Malice that Hell could devise against it do abundantly testifie nor can I better express suitably to their deserts how foolishly as well as criminally they acted in those Days inconsistent with Prudence Honesty and their former Clamours against Popery and Arbitrary Government Then in the Words of a late Author their Friend and Favourer who professes a great deal of kindness for them in many Pages of his Book Entitled A Representation of the threatning Dangers impending over Protestants in Great Britain before the coming of his Highness the Prince of Orange In this Book notwithstanding the good will he shews to the Dissenters and his undeserved Censures and Reproaches of the Church of England which very spitefully do abound in it yet when he came to consider the Dissenters siding so much with the Papists and the brave opposition the Members of the Church of England made against Popery it drew from him smart reflections on the one and very high Commendations of the other according to the just Merits insomuch that by reason of the Dissenters many flattering Addresses and their countenancing and defending the King 's Arbitrary unjustifiable Proceedings he says of them Pag. 44. The World has just ground to say That the Phanaticks are not governed by Principles but that the measures they walk by are what conduceth to the private and personal Benefit or what lies in a tendency to their loss and prejudice and that it was not King Charles II. his Vsurping an Arbitrary and Illegal Power that offended them but that they were not the Objects in whose favour it was Exercised And Pag. 46. he saith this of them Notwithstanding all the danger from Popery that the Nation was exposed unto and all the hazard that the Souls of Men were in of being poisoned with Romish Principles yet instead of Preaching or Writing against any of the Doctrines of the Church of Rome they agreed among themselves and with such of their Congregations as approved of their procedure not so much as to mention them but to leave the Province of defending our Religion and of detecting the falshood of Papal Tenets to the Pastors and Gentlemen of the Church of England And being asked as he knew of some that were why they did not preach against Antichrist and confute the Papal Doctrines they very gravely replied That by preaching Christ they did preach against Antichrist and that by teaching the Gospel they refuted Popery which is such a piece of fraudulent and guileful Subterfuge that I want words bad enough to express the Knavery and Criminalness of it It was but the other Day that the conformable Clergy were represented by some of the Dissenters not only as favourers of Popery but as endeavouring to hale it in upon us by all the methods and ways that lay within their Circles and yet now the whole Defence of the reformed Religion must be entirely divolved into their Hands And when all the sluces were pulled up that had been made to hinder Popery from overflowing the Nation they were left alone to stem the Inundation and prevent the Deluge They among
the Phanaticks that boasted to be the most avowed and irreconcilable Enemies of the Church of Rome were not only become altogether silent when they saw the Kingdom pestered with a swarm of busie and seducing Emissaries but were turned Advocates for that Arbitrary Paper whereby we were surrendered as a prey unto them and did make it their Business to detract from the Reputation of the National Ministers The Members of the Church of England wrote then above 220. Books against Popery when there were not above one or two writ by the Non-conformists as is to be seen in the late Lift or Accompt that was published of them who with a Zeal becoming their Office and a Learning which deserves to be admired did set themselves in opposition to that croaking fry and did enough by their excellent and unimitable writings to save People from being deluded and perverted if either unanswerable Confutations of Popery or demonstrative Desences of the Articles and Doctrines of the Reformed Religion can have any efficacy upon the minds of Men. And this Author farther saith Among other fulsome Flatteries made to his Majesty by an addressing Dissenter he found this hypocritical and shameful Adulation namely That if there should remain any Seeds of Disloyalty in any of his Subjects the transcendant Goodness exerted in his Declaratian would mortifie and kill them To which he might have added with more Truth That the same transcendant Goodness had admost destroy'd all the Seeds of their Honesty and mortified all their Care and Concernment for the Interest of Jesus Christ and for the Reformed Religion Their old strain of zealous Preaching against the Idolatry of Rome and concerning the coming out of Babylon my People were grown out of Fashion with them And whosoever should come into their Assemblies would think for any thing that he there heard delivered from their Pulpits that she which was the Whore of Babylon a few Years ago were now become a Chaste Spouse and that what were heretofore the damnable Doctrines of Popery were of late turned innocent and harmless Opinions And as they are already arrived to believe a Roman Catholick the best King so they may in a little time come to esteem Papists for the best Christians This and a great deal more to the same purpose you may find in this Book of smart reflections upon the Dissenters scandalous and abominable wicked Confederacy with the Papists for the subverting the true reformed Religon The Troublers of our Israel being thus plainly manifested to the World and a true Discovery made in the several Collections from whence the Evils and Miseries did principally arise that have befallen our Church and State since the days of Queen Elizabeth unto these present times and which will undoubtedly bring Ruine Confusion and Disorder on both if not seasonably and effectually redressed for so the Fountain of Truth and Wisdom tells us Matth. 12.25 That a Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every City or House divided against it self cannot stand The foregoing accounts are therefore humbly offer'd to the serious perusal of our Church and State-Physicians the Parliament and Convocation to find out and apply proper means and remedies for the preventing the farther growth of these mischiefs which not only threaten but genuinely tend and hasten to the destruction of the true establish'd Religion and of our Nation And that they may zealously go about this good work and effectually finish it it is the Interest and Duty of all good Christians to pray for them both as we are taught in that excellent Form in our Liturgy That God would be pleased to direct and prosper all their Consultations to the Advancement of his Glory the good of his Church and the Safety Honour and Well-fare of their Majesties and Kingdoms That all things may be so ordered and setled by their endeavours upon the best and surest Foundations that Peace and Happiness Truth and Justice Religion and Piety may be establish'd among us for all Generations And it is no less the Duty of all that profess themselves Members of our Church to be sincerely minded and not to be mockers with God but earnestly to seek and endeavour after the freeing us from those evils which we pray to be delivered from in our Litany viz. From all Sedition privy Conspiracy and Rebellion from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism from hardness of Heart and contempt of God's Word and Commandments and that after the putting up these Petitions in the Church to the Throne of Grace that all who profess and call themselves Christians may be led into the way of Truth and hold the Faith in Unity of Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness of Life and that God would give to us and all Nations Unity Peace and Concord and bring into the way of Truth all such as have erred and are deceived none of us may be found such wretched self-condemners in our Practice and wicked Prevaricators with God and the Church as to act directly contrary to what we pray for in the promoting of a Connivence Toleration or Libertinism which will establish Schism propagate and multiply Heresies breed Discord and Divisions and will also impower and commission Satan to sow his tares and to seduce multitudes from the ways of Truth Peace Unity and Righteousness and when people are left at Liberty in matters of Religion to do what seemeth good in their own eyes they seldom do what is good in the Lord's eyes but are laid open to great Temptations of being drawn away into the paths of the most dangerous errors Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth Rom. 14.22 Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap Gal. 6.7 St. Paul's Prophecy of the Downfal and Suppression of seducing Separatists or Dividers 2 Tim. 3.8 9. Now as Jannes and Jambres Aegyptian Magicians withstood Moses so do these also resist the Truth men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the Faith But they shall proceed no further for their folly shall be manifested as theirs also was FINIS
is ours now is the fatal blow given to the Protestant Religion in England See this in Bishop Saunderson's Preface to his first Volume of Sermons A great deal more to this purpose may be seen in Dr. Stillingfleet's Preface to his Excellent Book entitled The Vnreasonableness of Separation And though he Printed this Book in the Year 1681. yet as if he had on him the Spirit of Prophecy when he wrote it he hath fully discovered the Popish Intrigues and exposed to publick View their Designs and ways of proceeding as they are now managed against our Church in Concurrence with the several Dissenting Parties who have been made from the Infancy of the Reformation the Instruments to effect their Contrivings The Advice that the late Earl of Sh ry and the Lord Cl d gave the late King in Company with the Grand Cabal in the Year 1671. which Cabal were Bu m Sh ry Ar ton L dale H is and Cl d taken out of the Dream or Gambol WHilst a confused Chat in the Cabal Had many mov'd none heard but speak did all A little Bobtail'd Lord Vrchin of State A Praise-God-bare-bones Peer whom all Men hate Amphibious Animal half Fool half Knave Begg'd Silence and this pur-blind Counsel gave Blest and best Monarch that e'er Sceptre bore Renown'd for Honour but for Vertue more The Lord spake last hath well and wisely shown That Parliaments nor new nor old nor none Can well be trusted longer for your State And Glory of your Crown hates all Check-mate That Monarchy may from his Child-hood grow To Man's Estate France hath us shown You know Monarchy is Divine Divinity it shows That he goes backward that not forward goes Therefore go on let other Kingdoms see Your Wit 's their Law that absolute Monarchy A mixt hodge-podge will now no longer bear Caesar or nothing you are now brought here Strike then Great Sir for these Debates take Wind Remember that Occasion 's bald behind For Gain is sure in this if wisely play'd And sacred Votes to the Vulgar not betray'd But if the rumour once should get on Wing That we consult to make you absolute King The Plebeians Head the Gentry forsooth Would streightway snore and have an aching tooth Least they I say should your great Secret scent And you expose in nulling Parliament I think it safer and a better skill To obviate than overcome an ill For those that head the Herd are full as rude When the humour takes as th' following Multitude Wherefore be quick in your resolves and when You have resolv'd execute quicker then Remember your Great Father lost the Game By slow procedure mayn't you do the same An unexpected unregarded Blow Wounds more than ten made by an open Foe Delays do danger breed the Sword is your's By Law declar'd what need you other powers We may Impolitick be judg'd or worse If we cann't make the Sword command the purse No Art nor Courtship can your Rule so shape Without a force it must be done by Rape And when 't is done to say they cannot help Will satisfie enough the gentle Whelp Phanaticks they 'll to Providence impute Their Thraldom and immediately grow mute For they poor silly Souls think the Decree From Heaven on them although from Hell it be Wherefore to gull them do their hopes fulfil With Liberty they are halter'd at your Will Give them but Conventicle room and they Will let you steal their English Man away And heedless be till you your Nets have spread And pull'd down Conventicles on their Head Militia then and Parliaments Casheer A formidable standing Army rear To mount you up and up you soon will be They 'll fear who ne'er would love your Monarchy And if they fear no matter for their hate To Rule by Love becomes a sneaking State Lay by all Fears care not what People say Regard to these will your Designs betray When bite they cann't what hurt can barking do And in short time we 'll spoil their barking too Make Coffee-Clubs talk more of humble things Than State Affairs and Interest of Kings Thus spake that ridgling Peer when one more grave That had much less of Fool but more of Knave Cl d. Began Great Sir it gives no small content To hear such Zeal from you ' gainst Parliament Wherefore though I an Enemy no less To Parliaments than they my self profess Yet let me tell you 't is a harder thing Than they suggest to make you absolute King Old Building to pluck down believe it true More danger in it hath than building new And what shall prop your Superstructure till Another you have raised to suit your Will An Army shall say they content but stay From whence shall this new Army have its Pay For easie and gentle Government awhile Appear must to this Kingdom to beguile The Peoples Minds and so to make them free For raising old and making better new For Taxes with new Government all will blame And put the Kingdom sure into a Flame For Tyranny hath no such lovely look To take Men with unless you hide the Hook And no Bait better bides than present Ease Ease but their Taxes and do what you please Wherefore all wild debates laid by from whence Shall Money rise to do this vast Expence Call our first thoughts thus well resolved we In other things much better shall agree Join then with Mother-Church whose Bosom stands Ope to receive you stretching both her Hands Close but this Breach and they will let you see Her Purse as open as her Armes shall be For Sacred Sir by guess I do not speak Of poor she 'll make you rich and strong of weak At Home Abroad no Money no nor Men She 'll let you lack turn but to her agen And let me add Great Sir you know its Season Salts all the Notions that we make in Reason And now a Season is afforded us The best e'er came and most propitious Besides the Summs the Catholicks will advance You know what offers you are made by France And to have Money and no Parliament Most fully Answers your design'd intent And thus without tumultuous bruit or huff Of Parliaments you 'll Money have enough Which if neglected now there 's none knows when Like opportunity may be again For to Extirpate what combined be Both Civil and Religious Liberty There 's Money enough you 'll have to exalt the Crown Not stooping Majesty to the Country Clown The triple League I know will be objected As if that ought to be by us respected But who to Heretick or Rebel pay'th The Truth engag'd by solemn Faith Debaucheth Vertue by those sacred things The Church profaneth and abuseth Kings Faith Justice Truth Plebeian Vertues be Look well in them but not in Majesty For publick Faith is but a publick Thief The greatest Cheat in Nature's vain Belief The Judgment of several eminent Presbyterian Divines concerning the usefulness of an established Vniformity in the Church for the Preservation of the
Protestant Religion and touching the Evils of Toleration how pernitious it is to the true Religion DOctor Cornelius Burgess in a Sermon before the Commons Nov. 5. 1641. p. 63 c. thus Preach'd I beseech you in the Name of the Great God whom you serve to resume and pursue your first thoughts of setting up God and his Ordinances as becomes you in a regular way that our Church and the Government thereof may be no longer laid waste and exposed to Confusion under the plansible pretence Of not forcing Mens Consciences To put all Men into a course of Order and Uniformity in God's way is not to force the Conscience but to set up God is his due place and to bring all his People into the path of Righteousness and Life Also in a Sermon before the Commons at a publick Fast March 30. 1642. p. 35. he thus speaks his mind Be there none of you that foresee the fatal Mischief of leaving all Men to their Liberties in the things of God and yet want Hearts to use your Skill and Interest to make haste to settle Matters of Religion lest you come too late with a Remedy when the Disease is grown incurable and the Kingdom grown to that pass as the grave Historian Livy noted of Rome that it cannot bear the Malady nor endure the Cure p. 46. Do you not see or hear daily of the Disorders Sects Rents and Schisms that every where bud forth already and threaten all Order Unity and Government Give the Water but a passage without speedy making up the Banks and you know how soon whole Seas will break in upon us and render all irrecoverable and incurable If one difficulty occurr to day it will be doubled yea multiplied to morrow There is no Hydra so fertile of heads as Errour and Schism grown to some strength and maturity It will ask but a short time of Connivence afterwards there will be no curbing nor shaming of it Nothing is so confident as Ignorance impudent as Falshood and catching as Errour In another Sermon before the Commons at a Publick Fast April 30. 1645. pag. 51 52. he exhorts them thus Take heed of those spirits of Errour who with fair specious words make Merchandice of you beguiling unstable Souls Beware of those Compliances with and Indulgences to all sorts of Sects and Schisms now pleaded for both by word and writing as if it were part of Christ's Legacy and his peoples Liberty to be of what Religion they will To be tolerated in any Opinions never so erroneous and pernicious untill farther light that it is the Magistrates duty to protect them in that Liberty and that the contrary thereunto is to persecute Christ Hath God inserted this as one main branch of his grand Covenant with his people under the Gospel I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever Jer. 32.39 that is That they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent Zeph. 3.9 Did Christ ascend up on high and give Gifts unto men and gave some Apostles and some Prophets some Evangelists and some Teachers for the perfecting of Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all come into the unity of the Faith and is it Persecution and Antichristianism to engage all to Unity and Uniformity Doth Paul bid the Philippians to beware of the Concision Phil. 3.2 Doth he beseech the Romans to mark those which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which they had received and avoid them and that upon this ground that they who are such serve not the Lord Jesus but their own bellies however by good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16.17 18. Doth he writing to the Galatians wish I would they were cut off that trouble you Gal. 5.12 And is it such an hanious Offence now for the faithfull Servants of Christ to advise you to the same course O Heavens be astonish'd at this and blush for the Ignorance of some and Ignorance of others that dare so boldly press for such a Toleration which none but vain destructive Thoughts of Carnal men can look upon without indignation and horrour Beware how you hearken to these Empyricks and Syrens who seek to charm the World into a deep sleep by presenting their Considence of a Necessity of compliance with all sorts of Sectaries yea of trusting the sword in their hands for fear of losing the godly Party as too many proudly stile themselves by way of difference from all that are not of their Opinions and Ways What is this but to teach God a new Form of Politicks to proclaim that it is not always safe to hold out the Truth of the Gospel and to command all men to embrace it but much safer to halt between two Opinions Belike King Josiah went beyond his bounds when after himself had sworn a solemn Covenant to the Lord He made all Judah and Benjamin to stand to it and made all that were present in Israel to serve the Lord their God 2 Chron. 34.32 33. And Asa much more when he drew all the people into a Covenant That whosoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel should be put to death whether small or great man or woman 2 Chron. 15.13 But the ample and transcendant Commendations which the Lord gives unto these pious Kings especially in reference to their Sincerity and Zeal of reforming and setling of Religion in one uniform way may sufficiently warrant and encourage all Religious Magistrates to take care That all under their Goverment should serve the Lord with one shoulder this being not a Tyranny over men but the Privilege of the Gospel Settle this in your hearts God's truth the true Worship and Discipline of Christ set up and established in one uniform way never prejudic'd any Nation or State where it had free passage in any the least degree but hath ever been their Safety Happiness and Honour It is errour how much soever cried up not Truth how much soever cried down and blasphemed that makes and foments Factions and Rents Let people enjoy their just Privileges and Liberties wherewith Christ hath made them free not such Licentiousness as is abused for a cloak of Naughtiness Dr. William Good in a Sermon before the Commons March 26. 1645 declares his mind thus I doubt not but your Souls abhorr that bloody tenet to the Souls of men That it is the duty of the Magistrate to tolerate all Religions What is it that shall be unlawful if this be lawful for every Man to make a Law and Religion for himself Such allowance would prove destructive to Holiness both Personal and Domestical Omnis Religio nulla Religio a Toleration of all Religions would soon dwindle into no Religion Much more to this purpose may be seen in this Sermon Mr. Thomas Case in his Sermon before the Commons May. 26. 1647. pag.