adoring and praising God and praying for the remission of their sins Your being so much a stranger to our Church Prayers has inclined me to give you this large account of them and of my own thoughts I might here undertake also to satisfie your scruples of kneeling at the Sacrament and the Ring in Marriage but there has been so many good reasons given of them in several small Treatises for the justification of them that I will decline that trouble both for yours and my own sake And offer unto you the few following observations and so put an end both of yours and my own trouble And in order to doing this I desire you to look back with me to the beginning of the late Long Parliament 1640. at which time we were the quietest and happiest people in the Christian World And praised be God we yet are so we had then a prudent and consciencious King whose life was a pattern of Temperance Patience Piety and indeed of all the Christian Graces He governed I think by the known Laws of the Nation Every man sate then under the shadow of his own Vine and did eat his own Grapes that is enjoy'd the benefit of his own labour and eat his own bread in peace We had then no need of a Court of guard to keep the discontented inferiour people from rising against Government We had then no need to raise those Monthly Taxes to pay those Courts of guard and other Charges that are now come to be of necessity to secure us from the yet unseen Commotions of a malicious restless discontented Party which were first made so by the example of the ill-natured Presbyterians And continue to be so by retaining the destructive Principles they then taught them and which do still threaten us with new Commotions thus happy we were then and he that considers the present miseries of Germany Poland France and indeed of all Christian Nations how many Cities lately were and at this time are besieged what devastations and ravishings and fears follow running Armies what terrours and wants those poor distressed people now groan under he that considers all this and compares our present condition with theirs ought to say that England is at this time the happiest Nation in the Christian world But our unhappiness is that peace and plenty will not suffer us to think so and study to be quiet and thankful This I beseech you to consider seriously and good Cosin let me advise you to be one of the thankful and quiet Party for it will bring peace at last Let neither your discourse or practice be to encourage or assist in making a Schism in that Church in which you were baptized and adopted a Christian for you may continue in it with safety to your soul you may in it study sanctification and practise it to what degree God by his grace shall enable you You may fast as much as you will be as humble as you will pray both publickly and privately as much as you will visit and comfort as many distressed and dejected Families as you will be as liberal and charitable to the poor as you think fit and are able These and all other of those undoubted Christian graces that accompany Salvation you may practise either publickly or privately as much and as often as you think fit and yet keep in the Communion of that Church of which you were made a Member at your Baptism These Graces you may practise and not be a busie-body in promoting Schism and Faction As God knows your Fathers Friends Hugh Peters and John Lilbourn did to the ruine of themselves and many of their Disciples Their turbulent lives and uncomfortable deaths are not I hope yet worn out of the memory of many He that compares them with the holy life and happy death of Mr. George Herbert as it is plainly and I hope truly writ by Mr. Isaac Walton may in it find a perfect pattern for an humble and devout Christian to imitate And he that considers the restless lives and uncomfortable deaths of the other two who always liv'd like the Solamander in the fire of contention and considers the dismal consequences of Schism and Sedition will if prejudice or a malicious Zeal have not so blinded him that he cannot see reason be so convinc'd as to beg of God to give him a meek and quiet spirit and that he may by his grace be prevented from being a busie body in what concerns him not The reasons that I have offered to your consideration have crouded so fast into my present memory that they have made my Letter more perplext and longer and indeed some expressions in it bitterer than I intended when I began it But I beg your pardon for both And supposing I have it I will close all with this friendly advice and caution Remember you and I are but Citizens and must take much that concerns our Religion and Salvation upon trust I will explain my meaning for what I say and have said by this following Parable There was a man that was and continued under so great a mistake that though he thought and granted his Neighbour to be strong enough to lift a hundred pound weight from the ground yet could not be brought to believe or grant that he was able to lift fifty pound weight from it which was doubtless a great mistake But if you will give me leave I will explain my self by a more proper Parable and then make my Application The same mistaking-man offered and was willing to lend his Neighbour a hundred pound though it were his whole Estate upon his single Bond but being desired to lend him fifty pound upon his Bond he durst not trust him with that lesser Sum lest the Borrower should not be able to repay him And so he the Lender prove to be undone by the Borrowers inability to repay him Before I make my Application of what I have told you give me leave to tell you the Papists would obtrude upon all Christians a belief that all those doubtful Books which the Church of England calls Apocryphal were certainly writ by Divine Inspiration and ought to be of equal Authority with those which we call Canonical Scripture and that the foundation for our faith and manners to God and man may and must be laid equally upon both But I think we agree with the Papists concerning all the Books of the New Testament that is that all were writ by Divine Inspiratione But the Lutherans deny some part of the New Testament which both the Papists and we believe and grant to be writ by Divine Inspiration And now for my Application let me ask you seriously Are not you like this mistaking-man that durst trust a greater but not trust the Borrower with a lesser Sum of money You have trusted the Bishops and a select Clergy in a Convocation to tell you These you shall take to be Canonical Books of Scripture and no other Upon the truth of those and only those that they declare to be the holy Scripture you lay the foundation of your Faith and hope of Salvation You have trusted the Bishops that is the Church of England first their Learning and Wisdom to know and then their Integrity to tell you truly which is the blessed and holy Scripture With these great and necessary concerns of your Faith and Salvation you have trusted them and yet like the mistaking man you dare not trust them with what is of less concern Namely you do not believe them when they tell you how the Primitive Christians did worship and praise and pray to God And though you have trusted them to translate the Scriptures into English as being best learned in the Original Languages yet you dare not or do not trust them with the explanation of many words which have in the Original an ambiguous or doubtful meaning especially to us of the Laity who cannot know the Customs and Phrases of those Nations where our Saviour and his Disciples preached the glad tidings of our common Salvation Cosin I hope I have in this made some unforc'd and so useful Observations as an humble and good Christian will not gainsay And doubtless a soul truly humble will both think and say Almighty God hath appointed me to live in an Age in which Contention increases and Charity decays and it is certain that variety of Opinions and Controversies in Religion declare difficulty to know them truly but my comfort is That without Controversie there is so much Religion without Controversie as by the true practice of what is so I may save my Soul And therefore to make sure of that I will first become an humble Christian and conclude that I will in all doubtful things obey my Governours for sure they see a reason which I neither can or need to know why they command them I will be sure to be humble to fast and pray to be Charitable to visit and comfort dejected Families to love my Neighbours to pardon my Enemies and to do good to all Mankind as far as God shall enable me For I am sure these be Sacrifices which please Almighty God and will bring peace at last And I am sure that by using these graces these graces and my faith in Christs Merits for my Salvation will be more and more confirmed and by still using them more and more new graces will be still added and all be still more and more confirmed so confirmed as to bear witness with me and be my comfort when I must make my last and great account to the Searcher of all hearts Almighty God give me grace to practise what I have commended to your consideration for this and this only can and will make my life quiet and comfortable and my death happy And my dear Cosin as I wish my own so I wish yours may be September 12 1679. Your Affectionate Kinsman R. W. THE END
and also by standing up at the profession of the Creed which contains the several Articles that I and all true Christians profess and believe and also by my standing up at giving Glory to the Father the Son and to the Holy Ghost and confessing them to be Three Persous and but one God And secondly I go to Church to praise my God for my Creation and Redemption and for his many deliverances of me from the many dangers of my Body and more especially of my Soul in sending me Redemption by the death of his Son my Saviour and for the constant assistance of his Holy Spirit a part of which Praise I perform frequently in the Psalms which are daily read in the Publick Congregation And thirdly I go to Church publickly to confess and bewail my sins and to beg pardon for them for his merits who died to reconcile me and all Mankind unto God who is both his and my Father and as for the Words in which I beg this mercy they be the Letany and Collects of the Church composed by those learned and devout men whom you and I have trusted to tell us which is and which is not the written Word of God and trusted also to translate those Scriptures into English And in these Collects you may note that I pray absolutely for pardon of sin and for grace to believe and serve God But I pray for health and peace and plenty conditionally even so far as they may tend to his Glory and the good of my Soul and not further And this confessing my sins and begging mercy and pardon for them I do in my adoring my God and by the humble posture of kneeling on my knees before Him And in this manner and by reverend sitting to hear some chosen parts of Gods Word read in the Publick Assembly I spend one hour of the Lords day every Forenoon and half so much time every Evening And since this uniform and devout custom of joyning together in Publick Confession and Praise and Prayer and Adoration of God and in one manner hath been neglected the power of Christianity and humble Piety is so much decayed that it ought not to be thought on but with sorrow and lamentation And I think especially by the Non-conformists And lastly for I am tedious beyond my intention whereas you and your Party would have the Bishops and Cathedral-Church Lands sold to supply the present necessities of the Nation I say first God prevent the Nation from such necessities as shall make them guilty of so many Curses as have been by the Doners of those Lands intailed with those Lands intailed with those Lands upon those men that alienate them to any other use than for the use of those that shall serve at God's Altar to which end the Priests Portion was kept with Care and Conscience till the days of King Henry the Eighth who is noted to make the first breach of those Oaths that were always taken and kept by his Predecessors and taken by himself too to preserve the Church-Lands and it is noted that he was the first Violator of those many Laws made also to preserve them out of which Lands he took at the dissolution of the Abbies a part for himself exchanged a part with others that thirsted to thrive by the dissolution and gave the rest to be shar'd amongst the Complying Nobility and other Families that then were in greatest power and favour with him concerning which if you desire a further information I refer you to a little Treatise written by the Learned Sir Henry Spelman called De non temerandis Ecclesiis and especially to the Presace before it in which you may find many sad Observations of the said King and find there also that more of the Nobility and those other Families and their Children that then shared the Church-Lands came to die by the Sword of Justice and other eminent misfortunes in twenty years than had suffered in four hundred years before the dissolution and for a proof of which he refers you to the Parliament Rolls of the twenty-seventh of that King And to me it seems fit that the Observations of the ruine and misfortune of the other Families that were sharers of the Church-Lands made by that pious and learned Knight since the said twenty years which he left written are not also made publick but possibly they may pare too near the quick and are therefore yet forborn I will say nothing of Queen Elizabeth but for King James I will say he did neither follow King Henry's nor her President and his Childrens Children sit this day upon his Throne And for his Son Charles the First who is justly called the Martyr for the Church He had also well considered the Oaths taken by all his Ancestors and by Himself too at his Coronation to preserve the Lands and Rights of the Church and therefore in his Book of Penitential Meditations and Vows made in his sad Solitude and Imprisonment at Holmby you may in that Chapter of the Covenant there find that at that time when he apprehended Himself in danger of death yet that this was then his Resolution The principal end of some men in this Covenant is the abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and of robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues But I thank God as no man lay more open to the sacrilegious temptation of usurping them which issuing chiefly from the Crown are held of it and can legally revert only to the Crown with my consent so I have always had such a perfect abhorrence of it in my Soul that I never found the least inclination to such sacrilegious reformings and yet no man hath a greater desire to have hishops and all Church-men so reformed that they may best deserve and use not only what the pious munificence of my Predecessors have given to God and the Church but all other additions of Christian bounty But no necessity shall ever I hope drive me or mine to invade or sell the Priests Lands which Pharaoh ' s Divinity and Joseph ' s true Piety abhorred to do I had rather live as my Predecessor Henry the Third sometimes did on the Churches Alms than violently to take the Bread out of the Bishops and Ministers mouths There are ways enough to repair the breaches of the state without the ruins of the Church as I would be a restorer of the one so I would not be an Oppressor of the other under the pretence of publick debts the occasions of contracting them were bad enough but such a discharging of them would be much worse I pray God neither I nor mine may be accessary of either Sir I have been longer than I intended for which I crave your pardon and beg of God that you may at last see and well consider the many errors that your indiscreet zeal hath led you into and that you and your Party may see also the many miseries it hath helpt to bring upon others and that for
it their great advantage and therefore many of them do encourage and assist you in this present disturbance and for no other end And therefore look about you in time and do not say when it is too late You meant not to bring in Popery But remember I once told you there was a Lawyer that was so ignorant that he thought he spoke against his Clients Adversary when he spoke for him and meant it not And after such a manner you act for the Church of Rome For let me tell you that if ever Popery or a standing Army be set up in this Nation which God giant I may never see it is the indiscreet zeal and restless activity of you and your Party that will bring both in though you mean it not Let me ask you seriously Can you think the powerful man that is now become of the Romish Church did love you so much or like your Principles so well as to get a Suspension of the Laws against Conventicles because he liked your Opinions or your Practices when the power was in your hands in the time of the late mischievous Long Parliament 1640 Or can you think he or his Party did hold a Correspondence with some of the Chief of your Party for any other end but to assist in the ruine of the English Church no doubtless for they know and you ought to consider that if that were but down there were no visible bank to stop the stream of Popery And then farewel the liberty and care of tender Consciences There would be an end of that cajouling and flattery And next let me ask you this friendly question Do you think there is such a sin as Heresie And if you think there be let me ask you Whether he that holds Heretical Opinions should be suffered to go up and down to poyson and persuade others to his belief And if you believe he ought not so to do then I ask Whether Heresie can be known to be Heresie or prevented or punisht but by some power trusted in the hands of some Person or Persons whom the highest Power hath chosen and trusted to judg what is Heresie And then prevent or suppress and punish it And if you grant this which no man of reason will deny I hope you will grant Clergy-men whose time hath been spent in such studies as have enabled them to know truth and falshood are the fittest to Judg what is Heresie And if you grant this then these judges must have some name to distinguish them from others of the inferiour Clergy And if by a name of distinction I hope the known name of Bishop or Church Governour which is so frequently used in Scripture and the Writings of all the Fathers of the Church and so well known in this and all Nations will not be by you excepted against And this is told you in order to remembring you that in the time of the late Long Parliament 1640. the common Citizens had been so madded by the discourse and Sermons of the Nonconforming Ministers which pretended tenderness of Conscience that they being possest with a furious zeal went by troops to the Parliament at Westminster clamoured and affronted the Bishops as they went thither and cried out No Bishops no Bishops that is to say No Judges of Heresie or Schism No punishing of these which you call sins but we know are not We know what is truth and resolve to do what is good in our own eyes And by such clamours and the malicious misguided and active Zeal that then possest those people and a minor part of the Parliament then sitting The major and more prudent part of it were so affronted and threatned that they appeared not and in their absence the Bishops voted as useless as the said Zealous and Ignorant Common people had desir'd And now the hedge of Government and punishment being broken down Dell the Arch-Heretick Printed his Book against the Holy Ghost and that and so many such other Haeresies and Blasphemies were then Vented Printed and Justifified as I am neither willing to remember or name My good Cousin this was the effect of that ignorant zeal then and to this it tends now again And to this it will come if God be not so good to this sinful Nation as to make the Women the Shop-keepers and the middle-witted People of it less busie and more humble and lowly in their own eyes and to think that they are neither called nor are fit to meddle with and judge of the most hidden and mysterious points in Divinity and Government of the Church and State And instead of being Busie bodies which St. Peter accounts to be a sin 1 Pet. 4. 15. to follow that counsel which St. Paul gives to his Thessalonians To study to be quiet and to do their own business 2 Thes 4. 11. I have told you how the major part of the Parliament and the Bishops were used by the minor part and those pretenders to Conscience that were of their Party Now give me leave to tell you how these zealous men having gotten into all power used the two Vniversities of this Nation and those of the Beneficed Clergy that would not violate those Oaths they had taken both when they took their degrees in the Vniversity and at their entring into Holy Orders at their being made Deacons and Priests As also their Oaths to the Bishop at their admission into their spiritual Livings and the care of Souls And first for the usage of the Universities Doubtless all rational and uninterested men cannot but think the Universities fittest to make or judge of all lawful or unlawful Oaths As also of obedience to Governours But it was so far otherwise that very unlearned and very unfit men were sent to Visit judge and reform them And by them was also sent the Covenant and other Oaths to be taken without disputing to be taken even by all from the lowest Graduate to the highest in Order or Power or to lose their subsistence by being expelled both their Colledges and the University And this was executed with very great strictness and as much cruelty by these pretenders to tenderness of Conscience And in like manner were all conformable Beneficed Ministers used by a Committee of cruel and ignorant Triers who were to examine and judge of their Learning and their measures of Grace And if they were by them judged defective in either then they were unfit to hold their good Livings And by this means and their imposing the Covenant and other Oaths and their refusing to take them those good Livings became void and fit for those Tryers themsevles or their Friends that had Learning and Grace and Gratitude too And they were quickly got into possession and the right Owners as quickly imprisoned for not taking the Covenant and other Oaths contrary both to their Consciences and the many Oaths they had formerly taken Solomon in his Book of Wisdom Chap. 2. makes the wickedness of the ungodly first
you unquestionable confirmation of it at our next meeting It has been longer than I intended and I beg your pardon and beg you also to consider with what inconsiderable zeal you and your Party rush into Schism and give just cause of Scandal by opposing Government and affronting that Church in which you were born and baptized and I hope confirmed by a Bishop I think the doing so requires your sad and serious consideration For if there be such sins as Schism and Scandal and if there were not they could not have names in Scripture then give me leave to tell you I cannot but wonder that you and the scruple-mongers of your Party should rush into them without any tenderness or scruple of Conscience And here let me tell you the Church of England which you oppose enjoyns nothing contrary to Gods Word and hath summed up in her Creeds and Catechism what is necessary for every Christian to know and to do And can you that are a Shop-keeper or private man think that you are fit to teach and judge the Church or the Church fit to teach and judge you Or can you think the safety or peace of the State or Church in which you live should depend upon the scruples and mistakes of a party of the Common People whose indiscreet and active zeal makes them like the restless Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 13. 15. who compass Sea and Land to get Parties to be of their opinions and by that means beget confusion in both No doubtless Common reason will not allow of this belief for a liberty to preach and persuade to your dangerous Principles would enflame the too hot and furious zeal of so many of your Party and beget so many more restless and dangerous contentions that there could be neither quiet or safety in a Nation but by keeping a standing Army * Witness the late murther of the Scotch Bishop which I know you detest and from the cause of which God deliver us I have told you often that Samuel says 1 Sam. 15. 23. Rebellion is like the sin of Witchcraft and I cannot tell you too often that Schism is too like that mysterious sin for when the fire of Schism and Rebellion is kindled no man knows where it will end Consider this and remember that St. Jude accounts them that make Sects to be fleshly and not to have the Spirit of God which too many of your Fraternity pretend to And now after so long seriousness give me liberty to be so pleasant as to tell you a Tale by which I intend not to provoke you but to explain my meaning There was a North-Country man that came young and poor to London to seek that which he call'd his fortune and it proved to be an Hostler in an Inn of good note in that City in which condition he continued some years and by diligence and frugality got and saved so much money that in time he became the Master of that Inn. And not long after his arrival to that happiness he sent for three of his Necces one to serve him in his Kitchin and the other two did serve for some years in a like condition in other houses 'till mine Host their Unkle died who at his death left to each of them a hundred pound to buy each of them a North-Country Husband and also to each of them ten pound to buy new Cloaths and bear their charges into the North to see their Mother The three Sisters resolved to go together and the day being appointed two of them bought very fantastical Cloaths and as gaudy Ribbands intending thereby to be noted and admired but the third was of a more frugal humour yet aimed at admiration too and said she would save her money wear her old Cloaths and yet be noted and get reputation at a cheaper rate For she would hold some singular new fantastical opinion in Religion and thereby get admirers and as many as they should and it proved so And doubtless this is the Ambition of many Women Shop-keepers and other of the Common People of very mean parts who would not be admired or noted if they did not trouble themselves and others by holding some odd impertinent singular opinions And tell me freely do not you think that silence would become our Cosin Mrs. B than to talk so much and so boldly against those Clergy-men and others that bow at the Altar she says to the Altar and use other like reverence in Churches where she and her Party are so familiar with God as to use none And concerning which let me tell you my thoughts and then leave you to judge Almighty God in the Second Commandment says he would have none to bow down or worship a graven Image Intimating as I suppose a Jealousie lest that reverence or worship which belongs only to him be ascribed or given to an Idol or Image But that reverence and worship does belong to him and was always paid to him is to me manifest by what the Prophet David says Psal 5. I will in thy fear worship towards thy holy Temple And again I will praise thy name and worship towards thy holy Temple And again Psal 132. 138. O let us worship and fall down and kneel before the Lord. These and many more might be urged out of the Old Testament And in the New you may see it is a duty to worship God First St. Paul says Heb. 13. 10. We have an Altar And you may note Rev. 22. 9. where the Angel that had shewed St. John a Vision forbad him to fall down to him but bad him fall down and worship God And again Chap. 14. 7. Worship him that made heaven and earth I omit more Testimonies which might be multiplied and shall tell you next that Churches are sacred and not to be used prophanely For you may note that our Saviour did with a divine indignation whip the money-changers out of the Temple for polluting it and said His house should be called the house of Prayer And let me tell you that in the Primitive times many of those humble and devout Christians whose sudden Journeys or businesses of present necessity were such as not to allow them time to attend the publick Worship and Prayers of the Church would yet express their devotion by going into a Church or Oratory and there bow at the Altar then kneel and beg of God to pardon their sins past and to be their director and protector that day and having again bowed toward the East at the Altar begin their Journey or business and they thought God well pleased with so short a Prayer and such a Sacrifice Much more might be said for bowing at the Altar and bowing toward the East But I forbear And now let me ask you seriously Do you think this which I think to be a duty ought to be forborn because our Cosin and her Party are scandalized at it Or do you think when I in a late discourse told her