Loyalty than to Write or Preach against Rebellion or cry up the Doctrine of a meer external Non-resistance always believing that Men may be guilty of high Disloyal Acts even to the introducing of a Rebellion while themselves declare they abhor it This I learn'd from the Writing of King Charles the First Vide Page 18.30 as you will meet with in its place If any think I have written more favourably of the Roman Catholick Religion than becomes a Protestant I must reply to him I have written nothing at all either for or against one way of Religion or other but rather Refer as I said just now to such matters of Fact relating to the Three perswasions of the R. Catholicks The Church of England and Protestant Dissenters as were necessary to carry on what I intended and if in doing so and in comparing some things or practices of the Church of England with the Church of Rome I find that the Church of England hath upon its Protestant Principles made Laws for the punishing her Protestant Dissenters producing as bad Effects as those of the Church of Rome and thereupon say that the Protestants Sufferings from the Church of the England were in their Extent harder upon them since the last Settlement of their Uniformity than they can be said to have been under Queen Mary it doth not follow from hence that I Write for her Religion but rather that I am one that desire to Write impartially Or if while I see the Church of England Ministers either in their Printed Books or Sermons exposing as they have done of late some Doctrines or Practices of the other Church more to a Popular Contempt than for an Edifying Information of the People as they formerly dealt by the Dissenters and take occasion from thence to shew them in some particulars how very many of their own Practices and Doctrines may be in the same manner exposed I hope I may not be the worst Protestant for so doing If I reverence that Divine Principle viz. That Conscience in the matter of Gods Worship is not o the forced I am not to be blamed until I be otherwise convinced no nor if I Write against those who oppose His Majesty in settling the Kingdom upon that Principle in a Freedom from those Distractions which the practices of many upon the contrary Principles have ever since the Reformation brought upon it The principle is such as I cannot but value and love with all my Heart because I know it to be so agreeable to the Sence of every Mans mind That no Man who knows what belongs to the Sincere worshipping of God dare allow himself to be unwilling in any part of his Life to live otherwise than under its Benefit when I am otherwise convinced I may recal much of what I have Written but until then I am like to go on in the same way I am in If my Stile or way of writing be offensive to you as any whit too sharp I must crave your remission of that if you judge it to be a fault and for my excuse must say I unhappily learn'd it from the Church of Englands chiefest Doctors He that shall Read their Controversal Books and Sermons as I have done written against the Roman Catholicks and Protestant Dissenters will tell you it is next to an impossibility not to imbibe the Faculty of their way of Writing Gentlemen I have no more to say here but wish your Citty all imaginable happiness and each of your Selves and Families the Blessings of this World and that which is to come Some necessary Disquisitions and Close EXPOSTULATIONS WITH THE Clergy and People OF THE Church of England c. HOW highly the Church of England hath valued Her Self both upon the account of Her Loyalty and the super excellency of Her Constitution and Administrations is so well known among us as no Man needs my telling him any thing about it This is that Her Preachers and Members have so much boasted of as if in the point of Loyalty they were the only choice Persons in all his Majesties Dominions and in the case of Church Excellency they were the best and purest of all Churches in the World If all this were true it is pity they should have ever done any thing that might in the least wise lose or darken the Glory of such Excellencies or to make any Persons think otherwise of them than they think of themselves But I am in great doubt that if the People of England were divided into four Parts more then three of the four would be found to be of another Mind not only as to the excelling goodness of their Church but from some things they have lately done as to their Loyalty too In the former it is apparent for why else have such a Multitude of intelligent and well disposed Persons as to Religion with-drawn themselves from Her choosing father to bear all sorts of Afflictions then to be held in its Communion Not only a great number of Catholicks for so we commonly in compliance with their own phrase call those who hold to the Religion of the Chruch of Rome but even among Protestants also far greater numbers are found Zealous Dissenters from Her which surely must be from something they both of them find to give them great Dissatisfaction And as to their Loyalty I could likewise with that they had given no occasion to considerate Men to find as much defect in that as the other being such as in many Mens Opinions hath drawn upon it so great a Blemish as will not easily be wiped off especially while they cannot but take notice of two things The one is for so many of Her Clergy Mens Vehement Preaching against the Kings Religion The other is of the Irreverent Speeches and Censures many of Her Members have been found to express against His late Declaration I must acknowledge they have had the Advantages heretofore of tendring their Loyalty very specious when as all the Kings after the Reformation were wholly of their Perswasion and yielded themselves very much to be led by them but now when we have a King from whose Religion they considerably differ their Loyalty seems to be like that of those Mens which they formerly Condemned I do not say they take up Arms but as some Men have ordered the matter they have done that themselves which heretofore did in others too much lead the way unto such bad practises When I first observed that strain of Preaching in which many of them run immediately upon his Majesties coming to his Throne I must confess my self amazed at it for I saw him no sooner proclaimed King but all on a sudden we had such ratling Sermons both in City and Country against his Religion as if the Preachers had seen in a Vision that the Religion of Rome had been to be set up here in the first Month of his Reign Their hearers also and among them some of the chiefest ranck as to external
a second Reformation proclaimed to correct the first are all things fresh in Memory to those who are still living and saw them and all the world has wondered how the Church of England did so soon forget them as it appears She did for She was no sooner out of the Fiery Furnance of her Afflictions by the Restoration of King Charles the 2d but down right she falls upon her old pollicies of effecting an uniformity by vertue of Penal Laws when they had seen before the event of them in their Predecstors to have given them so much discredit and when they might have sufficiently learned how impossible it is upon Protestants Principles to erect and enforce a National uniformity in Religion to any one way of Worship but that there would still be Dissenters who upon their own Principles may plead an Exemption from it However they resolved to make a second Experiment and once more to try if they could make the whole People in England to be in their Religion all of one Complexion to which purpose a new Act of Uniformity is made more strict than that which went before with a new Test of Assent and Consent annexed thereto for bare Conformity in the use of the Liturgy will not now do there must be Swearing also All other waies of Religious publick Worship are made Conventicles and the Act of 20 l. a Month for not coming to Church revived and tho' it was alwaies thought to have been made directly against R. Catholicks it must now be made a sharp Scourge equally to all Dissenters What Confusions and Troubles these things brought upon His Majesties Subjects may be understood something from those who have given a publick Account of them a Printed Catalogue has informed us of neer 2000 Ministers turned out of their Livings by the Uniformity Act which was soon followed by another made at Oxford that turned them also out of their Houses to seek their Bread where they were no wise like to find it Another who was well able to make the Estimation informs us of fifteen thousand Families ruined by the Conventicle Act by proceedings against their Estates and Imprisonment of their Persons among whom he saies five thousand dyed under their bonds And if we suppose but three Children a peice to belong to those Families one with another we must compute no less than forty five thousand sufferers in their Estates by these Penal Laws for if the Parents be ruined their Children cannot but be deep Sufferers with them Do we talk of Queen Maries daies as times of sharp Persecutions Alas they were little to this Doctor Burnet gives an account but of 284. that suffered death in Her time and what is this to 5000. that have dyed under this Church of Englands Persecution nor doth he say any thing of loosing their Estates or the Childrens being deprived of what their Parents had I know a great matter is made by punishing Persons with Death but for my part I see little difference between suffering by the present Execution of Death and being stifled or starved to Death by the necessities and hardships of a Prison and supposing it lawful to make such a choice in case I must necessarily suffer by one of the two I should choose to suffer by the former rather then by the latter and I know many more to be of my mind How those of the Church of England can defend Her from being the only procuring cause of all these Miseries to those Multitude of afflicted Persons and Families I can no waies apprehend let them that can do it begin their Work as soon as they please in the mean time I hope they will not be angry if I endeavour to shew them how much all their proceedings this way was against the mind of King Charles the second who all along endeavoured to put a stop to their Severities from the desires he had that his Subjects might have injoyed the Liberties in Religion which they now do and this before he came into England as well as afterwards so soon as he saw what work was like to be made by the Execution of those Laws they had got him to sign chosing other more pious and peaceable Methods for his Subjects Ease Let us hear some of his own Words viz. His Declaration from Breda April 4th 1660. gives the first assurance of this We declare a Liberty to tender Consciences and that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences in Opinion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom Then again Feb. 10th 1667. Speaking to the Parliament one thing saies he I hold my self obliged to recommend to you at this present which is that you would seriously think of some course to beget a better Vnion and Composure in the Minds of my Protestant Subjects in matters of Religion c. Which undoubtedly must be intended towards the mitigation of the Penal Laws for in his Declaration March 5th 1671. He complains again of the severities then in use saying That it was evident by the sad experience of 12 years that there was little fruit of all those forcible courses and many frequent waies of Co-ertion that we have used for the reducing of all erring and dissenting Persons Again in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament 1678. I meet you here with the most earnest desire that a Man can have to Vnite the Minds of my Subjects both to me and one another and resolve it should be your fault if the success be not sutable to my desires Thus for neer twenty years together was this King labouring against the Violences of the Church of England towards those his Subjects whose Worshipping of God differed from theirs and who were the Men but themselves that then opposed Him in it And at whose door but theirs must all these deplorable Calamities be laid that have happened by the want of that Indulgence that King would have given and is now granted by his Royal Brother and Successor they may if they please consider it more fully at their Leisure His Majesty that now is by a Gracious and most Wise Retrospection upon all that had been Transacted in these Affairs during the four last Kings Reigns and from a God-like compassion towards his Oppressed Subjects in the midst of their Calamities sends out his most refreshing Declaration suspending the Execution of all those Penal Statutes that had been but very little before so fiercely Executed Upon this many thousands of the Protestant Dissenters of all perswasions through out the Kingdom who had been formerly by the Church of England represented to the late King as a sort of Humoursome Fanatical Disobedient Persons and Enemies to Monarchy and every thing else that looked that way come in with their Humble Acknowledgments First of Gods goodness to them as believing such a publick Mercy could not be but by immediate his guidance of the Kings Heart in the thing after this they declare their Joy and Thanks
be afraid their own People of all others should like the Original better than the imperfect Copy To come then to their own Church are they the Gentry or the Commonalty and among them are they those that are most intelligent and sincere or those who are more indifferent and remiss in the true parts of practical Piety that have given them this Extraordinary fear Which of these ranks of Persons in their Church they aim at in these Preachings is to me unknown though under such a Division the quality of their Members may be considered If I may guess by likely Circumstances I must needs say I should think it were the Gentry First because Three of our chief Inns of Court Doctors whose Auditors are generally Gentlemen are as I hear much addicted this way so also are many of those Preachers in whose Parishes the Gentry most inhabit and to whose Churches or Lectures the Coaches chiefly throng But Secondly that which strengthens me in these Conjectures as much as any thing else is because I am told also these kind of Sermons are managed with many Arguments Inferences and Distinctions too Subtile and Sublime for most of the Commonalty to understand but whether it be the one or the other I think we need not much inquire since there are good grounds to induce a rational Man to believe there is no reason for the fearing of either especially to that degree as to require all that Preaching we meet with in that kind For the Gentry I see not why they should be questioned I shall not say any thing how many of them being concerned in the Old Church Lands have thereby their secular interests to strengthen their Religious Sentiments for I believe them to proceed upon higher and better Principles That which to me seems to be a kind of indissolvable tye to hold them firmly where they are is what I observe of most Men in all Religions who when they do first understandingly believe such or such a way of Religion to be best for them to chuse those former satisfactions which they may be supposed to have then received do so keep them to it as they seldom admit of any future thoughts to call it in question not caring to engage themselves in any new Controversies in things wherein they judge that they have long ago been satisfied but are rather improving themselves I speak now of the most serious sort of the Gentry in those pious practices which their Religion directs them to wherein divers of our Gentry are very Eminent And this I take to be the true Natural Reason why we find so few changing their Religion after a good maturity in Years and Judgment but those whose designs leads them to do it either in Hypocrisie or Policy And besides all this I look upon our Gentry in England to be Persons of that Ingenuity and Learning as that many of them understand the grounds upon which they are Protestants as well as any of the Clergy can Teach them so that I should think these fresh and often repeated arguings and pressing them against the R. Catholick Religion now used by our Church-Men are rather a kind of Impeaching them of weakness in their Profession then any necessary support the Gentry stand in need of Multiplyed cautions and directions being only needful for them that are weak As for those others of the Gentry and so also of the Commonalty who carelesly take up their Religion and are more relax in their Piety they may be the least feared of all Those strict observances that are used in the R. Catholick Chappels as also the Abstinencies solemn Confessions and Penances that must be submited to by such as are of that Religion will keep these Men more from it then all the florid Sermons they can hear Preach against it Nay to speak a bold Truth Persons indifferently disposed to the Mortifications Donations and self Denials which the Christian institution directs and are withal told by their Consciences that they must be of some Religion or other have scarce any Church else so accommodated for them to take shelter in as the Church of England the Reins of whose Discipline and Castigation are left so loose as Men may therein injoy several of their sensual gratifications yea and be in a fair or rather very foul degree prophane too without being called to any account or fall under the censures of the Church for it which neither in the R. Catholick Church nor in the Dissenters Churchs will be allowed them wherefore there is no fear of them neither The Commonalty which are indeed the greater Bulk of the People may I confess come under some other Consideration as they are not so Learned as we may judge the Gentry to be but then we must know that vast Numbers of them are Protestant Dissenters others are loose and remiss in their lives both which stand upon the same points I have mentioned before and as for those who keeping to the Church of England are Serious and Sober in their Lives though not so intelligent as the Gentry are it will appear to any that shall observe things as I have done that the very Manner and Principles of their Education wrought in them so great an Aversion to the R. Catholick Religion as that though it may be they understand little of the Difference between the one Religion and the other they yet carry on their opposition equally with those who presume themselves the chief Masters of Knowledge and need no Preaching to increase their prejudice And for those of the Commonalty that are more intelligent I may say they stand upon the same terms with the intelligent Gentry Upon the whole therefore I must say I see no kind of Necessity why so much of many Mens Sermons which ought to be chiefly intended to promote Practical Duties and true Devotions should be spent this way against the R. Catholicks unless it be to Prejudice the People against their Soveraign which is the most natural effect it is like to have for if the People be already thus prejudiced against his Religion this superabundant Preaching and Haranguing against it in the Pulpit is like to produce little betterfruit upon the Minds of such Men then the overcharging their Stomacks with meat doth upon their Bodies though the meat of it self be never so good yet it most commonly begetteth more Crudities and sower Belchings then good Nourishment nor can I see any better event liklier to proceed from many of these Sermons then the raising an abundance of popular Talk prejudice and dissatisfactions against the King for all People will be Discoursing of what they hear Preacht especially when the Subject Preach'd upon hath any relation to Persons in a supream Station who they think and look upon to be chiefly pointed at in such Sermons and the higher these Persons are in Dignity whose Religion is thus levelled at the more busie will the People be in their Censures and Reflections and how the
of England doth of Hers which he ought to have told People if he had designed in a Christian way to have to reprehended them but his not doing this and jumbling and jingling all of them together as he doth is equally Unrighteous as it is Scurrulous but let 's go to the next The other is a Sermon Preacht upon that Text Mat. 16.6 When ye fast not as the Hypocrites from whence the Preacher would needs have a fling against Catholicks keeping Lent for it was in that time that the Sermon was Preacht whereby a subtile way he had found out he would have them guilty of the Hypocrifie here intended because while they abstain all that time from Flesh yet said he they make full Meals of other food I never yet heard any Man twitted or told of his full Meals or great Eating but it was either to deride him or break a jest upon him and so I look upon this to be and by the smiling of some of the People I was told of that heard the Expressâ—â—â— I suppose they thought so too Now I shall neither take upon me to justifie the Observation of Lent nor the manner of Fasting used in the Church of Rome yet this I cannot but say if what the Gentleman speaks of be Hypocrisie in them what is it in the Church of England who keep it as a Religious Fast but yet teach their People no abstinence at all but leave them to seed on all sorts of Flesh and well pallated Sauces as often and to as full meals as they please That the Church of England keep Lent as a Religious Fast their Commissioners at the Savoy Meeting with the Non-conforming Ministers shall speak for them for when the Non-conformists opposed the keeping it a Religious Fast they answered them That their Fasting of 40 daies may be in imitation of our Saviour for all that had been said to the Contrary for tho' we cannot arrive to his perfection abstaining wholly from Meat so long yet we may fast forty Daies together either as Cornelius his Fast till three of the Clock in the Afternoon or St. Peters Fast till Noon or Daniels Fast abstaining from Meats and Drinks of Delights and thus far we imitate our Lord. Thus they setled their Lent as a Religious Fast but by what has followed it seems they never intended to injoyn their People any of those abstinencies in which that Fast ought be kept if it be kept at all so that I may ask where is the Hipocrisie now But while I am thus Writing I call to mind two great Reasons as they are esteem'd which I hear alledged in justification of their present Preachings First they say all Ministers are to declare to the People the whole Council of God and by vertue of their Ministerial Office they have a power of Preaching what they think most fit Secondly they tell us that there are a great number of R. Catholick Priests up and down the City privately Alluring and Perswading the People to embrace that Religion which tenders their Preaching against it at this time absolutely Necessary Unto both these I shall give a distinct answer First I shall not dispute their Power in Preaching upon what Subjects they please nor do I know so much as one Man that would deprive them of that Liberty so that it be alwaies exercised and kept within the bounds of those things which the People may assuredly know are indeed the absolute Counsel of God but in controversial matters I know not how this can be for the People must needs know that one part in all such Sermons must not be the Counsel of God but against it for though both parties Preach upon that pretence yet there is but one Truth which hath alwaies made me think that Controversies were not fit for Sermons but rather Books or private Conferences for while a controversial point is handled in a Sermon the hearer may start some Objection in his thoughts which it may be the Preacher never so much as toucheth at whereby the whole matter is left in doubt which as often as it happens such hearers cannot receive those things as the Counsel of God though they should really be so and there all the labour that way is lost Again it may be questioned that supposing those Doctrines against which our Clergy Men are so frequently Preaching should not be the Councel of God it may yet be considered whether or no it be according to the Councel of his will they should just at this time above all others shew their opposition to them when they can hardly manage it without endangering the People from falling off from a very great Duty towards their King in which we are sure it is the counsel of God they should in no wise be defective It was the Councel of God that Circumcision an Ordinance which himself had made for the Jewish Church should not be continued in the Christian Church and St. Paul so Vehemently Preached against it to some Churches as that he told them if they were circumcised Christ should profit them nothing yet upon another Consideration he Circumcised Timotheus at Lestria It is a weighty point I leave it to our Doctors to consider how far the Councel of God is to be Preached with respect to the different Circumstances both of Time and of different Cases Again do not all Men know what great prophanness there is among Multitudes of those who profess themselves Members only of their Sanctuary some are great Drunkards others as great Oppressors some common Swearers and that also of those horrible Oaths or Expressions which ought not to be Named and not a few most desperate Whorers too many also Sabbath Breakers whereof divers to my knowledg come frequently to Church and very often receive the Sacrament Now I should think there are no Councels of God more necessary to be Preach'd to such Sinners than those that should convince them of the Evil of these desperate Courses and set them right in their Morals before their Heads are filled with Disputations in the Controversal parts of Religion and yet who but such Men as these after a Sermon Preach'd against the Catholick Religion talk more of it than they I hope the Church of England Doctors do not think that the only Capital Sins in England are the Worshipping of God without their Liturgy and Ceremonies as the Dissenters do or to be of the R. Catholick Religion and yet many wise Men of my acquaintance have been tempted to believe so by the Cursory Sermons we have had this Twenty Years wherein we have had Preaching against these two Ranks of the Christian profession than can be heard aaginst all those gross Impieties I have named To the Second Objection that supposes a Multitude of Persons in holy orders of the Catholick Religion to be privately inticing the Protestant People to leave their Religion I thus Answer That whether this be true or no I cannot tell but if it be
then I say our Church of England Priests and Doctors may be as busie and careful if they please to Counter-work them by the like private Conferences with their Parishoners and by inquiring who have been with them upon any such occasion which no Body that I know of will be against but greatly commend it as a most excellent way to secure their People from the Dangers they fear them to be in as to their being drawn to the R. Catholicks and prevent much of that Preaching which is now so much doubted to be consistent with their Loyalty I would suppose that every Pastor should know all of his own Flock or if he doth not or hath taken a bigger charge upon him than himself can overlook he ought in such cases to take in those that may assist him to hold up so good a Work so much to the advantage of their Ministry as such a Knowledge of the particulars of their Flock would do for every Soul is to be looked after by those that take the Charge thereof and are well paid for it too By this means they may come to know all that the Catholick Priests do and apply proper and pertinent Discourses to the particular Cases of their People as they find most needful and thereby Stablish them in those points wherein they find them most Wavering which indeed cannot be well known but by such private Conferences and therefore much more profitable than Preaching at Randum sometimes against this point and sometimes against that when they know not at what joint particularly any of the People Stumble and in so doing they would not only Letter secure their People but better testifie also their Honor of the King To watch is their Work as well as to Preach and they are denominated as much by the one as by the other Watching of the Flock includes the Knowledge of all Individuals I sear it is not so with us because many of our Parochialists have gotten their Parishes so large as to render this Knowledge and the Execution of this part of their office impracticable and perhaps some will plead their Inability from thence of doing that I recommend to them but I must answer that that they go ill to work that will justifie one Irregularly with another and to make the King suffer for their disorder How they will approve of this Expedient I now propose I do not well know but since the Catholick Religion is the Kings Religion I am certain something ought to be done by them in a Prudential way how to behave themselves under the present Circumstances as they are in a different way of Religion from him otherwise than I yet hear many of them have done let the Religion be what it will doth not the King's profession of it alter the Cale in no manner as to our behaviour When. John according to Gods command had Executed Judgment upon Jezebel by ordering her to be thrown out of a Window he would not have her Body left to be exposed to all Spectators but orders her to be Buried upon this very reason because she was a Kings Daughter When the Apostles planted the Christian Religion first in the World they setled most of their Churches under Princes who were wholly Strangers to the Christian Faith and as things were represented to those Princes by what the Jews had done in putting our Saviour to Death as one that had made Mutinies by stirring up the People Luke 23.3 those Princes according to humane Pollicies had little reason to receive any of those who were his Followers which I believe was one great Reason of their Persecutions and yet we find the Ap stles fearing it may be that the Christians because of that and their gross Idolatries might dispise those Princes do as carefully injoyn them to keep their Loyalty as to abstain from their Idol Worship St. Paul most earnestly presseth them to give all due subjection and St. Peter commands to Honor them and this while they were not so much as Believers of the Christian Faith sutable to what our Soviour had done before by his own Example to the Jewish Magistracy when he was condemned to Death by them He opened not his Mouth He answered them nothing as three of the Evangelists observe he could not approve of what they did yet would he not reproach them in the thing they were about and by this passive obedience gave Honor to those that wickedly put him to Death I do very much question whether the Preachers in the first Age of Christianity under the Pagan Roman Emperors did Preach against the Religion and Worship of those Princes as our Divines now do against the Religion of Rome by what I find upon Scripture record it appears to me that they did not but had other ways such as Conferences Epistolary Writings to secure the People in the Christian Faith When St. Paul Preach'd in the midst of Mars-Hill at ATHENS among a Company of Heathen Philosophers and common People it is observable how gently he touch'd upon their Idolatrous Religion He told them indeed that they were too Superstitious but he made not any Goodly Inventory of the particulars as Doctor Tenison did for the Catholicks but falls presently upon declaring to them the Doctrine of the only true God and his Creating the World His sending of Christ The Eternal Judgment and the Resurrection choosing rather to fix them in the Great Articles of the Christian Faith and the Sutable Practices of a Holy Life to which such Doctrines would lead them than to be Crying out against their Idolatries as knowing if once they come to embrace the Christian Doctrines their Heathenish Worship would fall of its own accord If after all this nothing will prevail but our Church-men will be still Preaching in this way I have one thing to say more which is to wish them to follow the Example of those Apostles who when they wrote to the Churches against a Religion so gross as that of the Pagan Idolatry did withal give the Christians positive Commands to keep up their Subjection and Honour to their Kings The like would I have our Preachers do at all such times as they Preach against any part of the Kings Religion viz. to teach the People at the very same time in some special manner how they should preserve in themselves the Honour and Loyalty they owe to his Person nevertheless their differing from him in their Religion If they do not put in some special Caveats of this kind as often as they Preach upon such Subjects which hitherto I cannot hear they have done I must for my self say they will hardly ever be able to vindicate the Loyalty they have so much boasted of in the World I have done with the Preaching I would proceed now to say something tho but a little about theirs and the Peoples Speaking more especially their Speaking against his Majesties Proceedings by his Declaration and the odd Carriages of them both