except this single one I will in requital freely grant him all his other Nine if that will do him any service though for what use he intends them in our present Enquiry I confess I am not able to divine however I am not at all concern'd in them and therefore if he can make any advantage of their service much good may they do him And now having driven the Nail thus home with hard Notions out of the School-men he clincheth it with Testimonies out of the Fathers and if I will not be born down by strength of Reason no nor Confidence he resolves to sweep me away with the Torrent of Authority But though he argues very ill yet he quotes much worse For you know it has been an old and beaten Controversie between us and the Church of Rome whether the written Word of God be the adequate Rule of Faith and in this both sides have hotly engaged with all sorts of Weapons viz. Reason Scripture and the Opinion of the Ancients to which last purpose many Protestant Writers have collected a vast variety of express Assertions out of their VVritings in behalf of the Protestant Opinion Now some of these our Author gravely transcribes for my Confutation and what they plainly affirm'd of necessary Articles of Faith he confidently applies to Ceremonies of outward VVorship Out of what particular Author he made bold to borrow them they are so common and trivial it is impossible to determine you may meet them all together with some other Company out of which he has cunningly drawn these to escape discovery in Chamier tom 1. Lib. 10. where he maintains the perfection and sufficiency of the Canon of Scripture for a Rule of Faith And the passages themselves do so plainly limit their own sense to this subject that they are utterly uncapable of any other Application and if you can prevail with your self barely to run them over that without any farther trouble will satisfie you of their wretched and palpable Impertinency for my own part I have neither leisure nor patience to waste precious time and good Paper upon such woful Trash Let him take his liberty in his own wild Rangings whilst he roves aloof off from my Concerns and therefore I am resolved without regard to his unnecessary digressions to confine my discourse only to those things that pretend a direct and immediate attempt upon my former Treatise § 9. In the Prosecution of this Argument I shewed this Principle to be so perpetually pregnant with mischiefs and disturbances that 't is impossible any Church should establish any Rules of Decency or Laws of Discipline or any setled frame of things appertaining to the Offices of external Religion that it will not of necessity contradict and abrogate in that there never was nor ever can be any Form of Worship as to all Circumstances prescribed in the Word of God because that has actually determined no exteriour parts of Religion beyond the two Sacraments and therefore as long as men lie under the power of a Principle so equally false and troublesom they can never want what themselves may apprehend a just Pretence to warrant Disturbance and Disobedience So that we found by experience that when once it was let loose upon the Institutions of the Church of England it worried every thing that stood in its way and turn'd its fury alike upon every Party that pretended to peace and setlement it was merciless as some bodies rage and lust and spared nothing that Sacriledge could devour And as by this the Puritans assaulted and ruin'd the Church of England so when they subdivided among themselves and mouldred into new Churches and Factions it was still the Offensive Weapon of every aspiring Party with it the Independents vanquish'd the Presbyterians with it the Anabaptists attempted the Independents and with it all the little Under-sects set up against the Anabaptists and with it as soon as they were born like the Dragons Teeth they fell foul upon each other and had they crumbled into a thousand farther divisions and subdivisions for nothing so endless as Phanatick Innovations it would equally have served both for and against all because whatever particular Customs and Rules of Decency they should have agreed upon in the Worship of God it was apparently enough impossible they should ever vouch and warrant their Prescription out of the Word of God the Reason is evident because that has prescribed and determined none at all And therefore after the Liturgy it sent the Directory with Church musick it silenced Sternholds Rhimes with the Cross it cashier'd sprinkling in Baptism and when it had at least in design pluckt down Cathedral Churches it fell upon Steeple-houses And what could ever stop the fury of so endless and so unreasonable a Principle for when it had wandred as far as Tom of Odcomb through a numberless variety of Changes and Reformations it would ever have been at as great a distance from its intended End as the foolish Traveller when he had compassed the Top of Olympus was from touching the Sun For how should men with all their search and travel be ever able to discover that in the Word of God which the Word of God has no where discover'd in it self But 't is no matter for that our Author appeals to all mankind whether an issue and setled stability be not likelier to be effected by all mens consenting unto one common Rule whereby these differences may be tried and examined than that every Party should be left at Liberty to indulge to their own Affections and Imaginations about them In plain troth Sir I must take some severer course with this man if nothing else will reclaim him from this lazy Trade of Begging I had taken pains to prove both from the Nature of the Thing and the Experience of the World that this Principle carries disquiet and disturbance in its bare supposition because it stands upon demands impossible to be satisfied But this man without taking any notice of my Arguments replies like himself i. e. boldly and impertinently to my Assertion and gravely supposes there is or ought to be a common Rule established in the World whereby differences concerning outward Worship may be tried and examined which is the very thing in Question between us and all my Proofs to which this is intended for a satisfactory Answer are directly levell'd against the very supposition it self in that it invites and engages men to remonstrate to any setled Form of Worship upon such unreasonable grounds of Exception as it is impossible for any Church in the World either to avoid or to redress If indeed there were any such common Rule prescribed in the Gospel it would no doubt be a certain and admirable way to determine Controversies but in the mean while to suppose it against flat experience because we apprehend it convenient for our own Ends and Interests is just such another way of arguing as the Romanists insist upon to prove the
mouth 't is but crying out The Cause of God and popular zeal is immediately in Arms and Mutiny do but tell them the Gospel lies at stake and the Rabble will die Martyrs to their own Credulity This sacred Imposture will as much secure their Obedience as the Roman Discipline and the Roman Legions could never be more forward for the glory of the Common-wealth then the Congregational Churches will be for the Beauty and Purity of Christs Ordinances And such has ever been the boldness of this man he scorns to vouch any less warrantable Commission for his own Dreams and Fancies than the express and immediate Commands of divine Authority all his singularities must be Gospellized and all his seditious Doctrines broach'd out of St. Paul The wisdom of God must be prostituted to his folly and boldness the Word of God prophaned to authorize his pride and zealous madness all his phanatick Pranks must be charged upon the Scriptures and he has a Text for every extravagant Attempt and whatever the Principles of Reason and common Honesty cannot account for the old Prophets shall not only foretel but sanctifie And perhaps never did all the Prophane Wits in the World make more bold with the Word of God than this daring man there is scarce any more remarkable Text in the whole Bible that he has not turn'd into Ridicule he can guard every thing he says and does with files of Chapter and Verse as it were with Pikes and Protestations and can draw up Remonstrances and Declarations as well as Primers out of the Word of God in brief with him every thing is Scripture Scripture is every thing And this is the true Mystery of all our Schisms and Divisions it is not their Contest about Ceremonies and things Indifferent but it is their Pulpit-talk about the Cause of God and the Gospel that transports the Peoples Zeal and there still things are so represented as if they alone were the People of God and we the professed Enemies of the Lord Christ and the least thing they will say when they are most cool and moderate is that we are revolted from the Purity of the Gospel to Superstition and Will-worship and that there is no Beauty and Purity of Ordinances but in their Meetings and Conventicles The Fox in the Fable says I. O. had a thousand wiles to save himself from the Hunters but the Cat knew unum magnum one great thing that would surely do it Earthly supports and contentments are but a thousand failing wiles which will all vanish in the time of need The Gospel and Christ in the Gospel is that unum magnum that unum necessarium which alone will stand us in any stea◠Our Adversaries may discourse like Politicians and make a thousand pretences for the necessity of Uniformity in order to the peace and security of Government but we will trust to one great pretence the Command of God and the Cause of the Gospel and that with the People will do our business more effectually than all their Stratagems of Policy § 6. And thus is it our Authors present design to enlarge and prolong the Controversie and to set up new Mormo's in our Churches to fray away the People from our Communion though they all run themselves into the same Principle that the VVord of God is the adequate Rule of the VVorship of God yet the very appearance of number is no little security to the Cause and satisfaction to the Proselytes and though they are but so many several Repetitions of the same thing yet that makes a shew that they have a great deal to say for themselves and that is enough And thus were our Author put upon the proof of these general Maxims here by him laid down he would and must wholly setle himself upon this bottom Let us briefly examine them the two first are 1. Whatever the Scripture has indeed prescribed and appointed to be done and observed in the Worship of God and the Government of the Church that is indeed to be done and observed 2. That nothing in conjunction with or addition unto what is so appointed ought to be admitted if it be contrary to the general Rules or particular preceptive Instructions of the Scripture VVhere you may observe that these Maxims are such as they will adhere unto and stand upon in the management of the Plea as to the differences between us So that their plain meaning as applied to their present contest with the Church of England is that the Nonconformists way of VVorship is prescribed and appointed in the VVord of God whereas our Additions to it are contrary either to the general Rules or particular Instructions of Scripture and if this be not the design of these Propositions they are no other way pertinent to the management of this Plea And now are not these admirable Principles to be pleaded in an Apology for Liberty of Conscience The Governours of the Nation are bound to indulge us in our different Practices and Perswasions about the VVorship of God because there is but one particular Form allowable only that which is prescribed and injoin'd in the VVord of God and that is ours and therefore are they and all the Princes of Christendom tied up to an exact Conformity to that Rule and not to endure any other Forms that deviate from its Prescription unless they will tolerate Men in an open and avowed violation of the Law of God So unhappy is this Man as still to turn his own VVeapons upon himself and stab his Cause in its own defence as desperate Men chuse to die by their own hands that they may escape their Enemies Swords He could not have invented a Principle more expresly destructive of his own Pretences for if nothing be lawful in the Worship of God but what is prescribed in the Word of God and if nothing that is unlawful may be tolerated by the Civil Magistrate and if there be but one particular Form appointed in the Word of God it cannot avoid to be concluded that all others are unlawful and by consequence intolerable And thus are the Tables turned and now the state of the Controversie is not whether both Parties may be safely and innocently tolerated no but whether they or we onely they says he because their way of Worship is indispensably prescribed and appointed by God himself not we because ours is contrary to his own Rules and Prescriptions and therefore the case is plain it ought to be abolish't without mercy or delay unless Men may be permitted by connivence of Publick Authority to contradict the express Will of God under pretence of his own Worship But if this be our case there is no remedy but we must hereafter play a new Game in our own defence They that declare they will give no Quarter have no reason to expect any And this is a mighty aggravation of these Mens former miscarriages and present impenitence that they can be so bold
take it ill in good earnest if we only deny them the Liberty and free Exercise of their Religion till they are willing to give us some security of their being governable § 12. The second part of Protestancy is the Reformation of Doctrine and here the design was to abolish the Corruptions and unwarrantable Innovations of the Church of Rome and to retrieve the pure and primitive Christianity It was not their aim to exchange Thomas Aquinas his Sums for Calvin's Institutions or Bodies of School-Divinity for Dutch Systems but to reduce Christianity to the prescript of the Word of God and the practice of the first and uncorrupted Ages of the Church to clear the Foundations of our Faith from all false and groundless Superstructures and once more recover into the Christian World a pure and Apostolical Religion And therefore the only Rule of our Churches Reformation were the Scriptures and four first general Councils She admits not of any upstart Doctrines and new Models of Orthodoxy but all the Articles of her Belief are ancient and Apostolical and if she her self should teach any other Propositions she protests against their being matters of Faith and of necessity to Salvation And for this reason she imposes not her own Articles as Articles of Faith but of Peace and Communion Nor does she censure other Churches for their different Confessions but allows them the Liberty she takes to establish more or less Conditions of Communion as the Governours of the Church shall deem most expedient for peace and unity And she only requires of such as are admitted to any Office Imployment in the Church subscription to them as certain Theological Verities not repugnant to the Word of God which she has particularly selected from among many other to be publickly taught and maintain'd within her Communion as necessary or highly conducive to the preservation of Truth and prevention of Schism and for this reason she passes no other censure upon the Impugners of her Articles than what she has provided against the Impugners of the Publick Liturgy Episcopal Government and the Rites Ceremonies of Worship because they are all intended to the same end the avoiding Disorders and Confusions These then are the conditional Articles of the Communion of the Church of England and they are necessary and excellent provisions for peace and unity For among all the Disputes and Divisions of Christendom it is but reasonable she should take security of those Mens Doctrines and Opinions whom she intrusts in publick Imployments to prevent her being embroil'd in perpetual Quarrels and Controversies So that Subscriptions to the Articles is required chiefly upon the same account as the Oath of Supremacy whose Penalty is That such who refuse it shall be excluded such places of Honour and Profit as they hold in the Church or Commonwealth And 't is very reasonable that Princes should be particularly secured of the Fidelity of those Subjects that they entrust with their publick Offices And thus all the punishment that the Church of England is willing to have inflicted upon Dissenters from her Articles is to deprive them of their Ecclesiastical Preferments as being unfit for Ecclesiastical Imployments For though she is not so careless of her own peace as to impower Men in the exercise of her publick Offices at all adventure so neither is she so rigorous as to make Inquisition into their private Thoughts And therefore we are not so harsh and unmerciful as somebody you wot of who would be thought a warm Bigot for Toleration and yet has sometime profest he would give his Vote to banish any Man the Kingdom that should refuse their Subscription But as for the absolute Articles of the Faith of the Church of England they are of a more ancient date they were not of her own contriving but such as she found establish't in the purest and most uncorrupted Ages of the Church and in the times nearest to the primitive and Apostolical simplicity That is the measure of her Faith and the standard of her Reformation here she fixes the bounds of her Belief and seals up the Symbol of her Creed to prevent the danger of endless Additions and Innovations But as for all other matters I say with the late Learned Archbishop as he discourses against Fisher If any Errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal And withal by virtue of this Fundamental Maxim may in due time and manner be redrest By the wisdom and moderation of this Principle the Church secures her self against the Prescription of Errour So that if she should at any time hereafter discover any defect in any particular instance of her Laws and Constitutions and in a work so great so various and so difficult 't is not impossible as the Archbishop observes for the greatest caution and prudence to be overseen in some smaller things she has reserved a just power in her self to reform and amend it This in brief is a true and honest account of the Protestancy of the Church of England But so it hapned that beyond the Seas there arose another Generation of pert and forward Men the vehemence of whose Zeal and Passion transported them from extream to extream so that they immediately began to measure Truth not by its agreement with the Scriptures and the purest Ages of the Church but by its distance from the See of Rome and the Apostacy of latter times whereby it so came to pass that they did but barter Errours in stead of reforming Corruptions and in lieu of the old Popish Tenets only set up some of their own new-fangled conceits But above all the rest there sprung up a mighty Bramble on the South-bank of the Lake Lemane that such is the rankness of the Soil spred and flourish't with such a sudden growth that in a few days partly by the industry of its Agents abroad and partly by its own indefatigable pains and pragmaticalness it quite over run the whole Reformation and in a short time the right Protestant Cause was almost irrecoverably lost under the more prevailing Power and Interest of Calvinism That proud and busie Man had erected a new Chair of Infallibility and enthroned himself in it and had he been acknowledged their Supreme Pastour he could not have obtruded his Decrees in a more peremptory and definitive way upon the Reformed Churches Nothing can be rightly done in any Foreign Church or State but by his Counsels and Directions He must thrust himself in for the Master-workman where-ever they were hammering Reformation He must be privy to all the Counsels
eagerness will the Capricious People flow into Cabals of Zeal and Musters of Reformation What Maxime in Policy is so fully ratified by the Histories of all Nations as that there is nothing equally dangerous to the Publick Tranquillity with the Zeal of the Multitude and 't is not easie to determine whether Mankind have smarted more deeply by the Ambition of Tyrants or the Impostures of Religion However 't is sufficiently verified by the experience of Ages that there is not any Passion so incident to Humane Nature as Popular Zeal nor any Madness so ungovernable as that of Religion and therefore what can more become or import the Wisdom of Governours than to keep a watchful eye upon all its designs and pretences But these things I have already represented in smarter and more elaborate Periods and therefore I will forbear to abate their evidence by these crude and hasty Suggestions But onely supposing it is not impossible what our Author has not gain-said nor indeed can without out-facing the experience of Mankind but that the Factions and Hypocrisies of Religion may create Publick Disturbances the deduction is easie and natural that to grant it a total exemption from the Soveraign Authority is at all times to expose the Commonwealth to great Disorders and oftentimes to unavoidable Dissolution And therefore seeing an unbounded Licence on one hand and an unlimited Power on the other are so pregnant with Mischiefs and intolerable Inconveniences the onely proper Determination that this Enquiry is capable of is to assign the just extent of a limited Jurisdiction and to state as distinctly as the Nature of the thing debated will admit how far in what cases and over what matters it may be safely exercised and within what Limits it ought to be restrained and he that prescribes the most useful and practicable Measures makes the fairest Essay at the Decision and Atonement of this Controversie This was the Attempt whatever was the Success of my Discourse and to say nothing of some more particular Rules and Directions the two great Lines wherein I have enclosed all matters of Humane Laws are of such a wide and comprehensive extent that in the midst of all the variety and intricacy of Humane Affairs 't is both easie to discern their lawful Bounds and unnecessary to transgress them For 1. let Authority beware of imposing things certainly and apparently evil and then there is no danger of their doing any violence to the Consciences of peaceable and sober Men or of their suffering any disturbance from them For the proper Office of Humane Power is to consult the Peace and Interest of Humane Society and the only immediate use of Publick Laws is to secure and provide for the Publick Good 'T is no part of their Concernment to institute Rules of Moral Good and Evil that is the Care and the Prerogative of a Superiour Lawgiver and therefore provided they do not cross with the express Declaration of his indispensable Will and Pleasure all other matters fall within the Verge of their Legislative Power For as nothing that carries with it an antecedent Irregularity can ever be supposed either necessary or advantageous to the Publick Good and therefore may without any danger of impairing the strength of its Power be lopt off from the Rights of Soveraign Jurisdiction so also many things left altogether indifferent and uncommanded by the Law of God may in all the various postures and turns and circumstances of Humane Affairs prove sometimes beneficial and sometimes pernicious to the Commonwealth and therefore the Supreme Magistrate being appointed the Supreme Judge of the Publick Good there is no remedy but they must fall under the Guidance of his Laws and Conduct of his Government Now 't is very easie for Christian Princes to move within so fair a compass and if any go beyond it as it is not for their Advantage so it is not of our Concernment For that Man must talk after a wild rate that should pretend to discover an evident Opposition in any of the Laws of our Kingdom to the plain and indispensable Duties of the Gospel or if they will be so precipitate as to pretend this we are very well content to devolve the issue of the Controversie upon that Undertaking and then are they brought under an engagement to prove a certain and undeniable repugnancy between the Laws of our Church and the Laws of God and to suspend their disobedience to them till they can warrant its necessity by some plain and express Text of Scripture And if they will but persevere in Conformity till they are indeed able thoroughly and satisfactorily to convince themselves of its evident unlawfulness that would for ever prevent all thoughts and attempts of Separation And this crosses me over to the opposite Bound of this Enquiry from the Power of the Magistrate to the Duty of the Subject Viz. That they would not scruple or deny Obedience to the Commands of lawful Superiours till they are sincerely not in pretence onely convinced of the certain and apparent unlawfulness of the Command § 6. And if we stop not the Subjects Liberty to remonstrate to the Commands of Authority at this Principle we shall be for ever at an utter loss to set any certain Bounds to the just and allowable Pretensions of Conscience For if they will not consent to have their Pleas of Exemption confined within the certain and evident Measures of Good and Evil but desire to be excused as to all other Pretexts and Perswasions of Conscience howsoever doubtful and uncertain then must every Conceit that may either be mistaken or pretended for a Conviction of Conscience be permitted to over-rule all the Power and baffle all the Wisdom of Government For be it never so wild or so extravagant if they are strongly or seriously possest with the Phantasm that and onely that shall ever exercise any Authority over their Thoughts and Actions and if Magistrates shall in any case think good to curb its heats and exorbitances they offer violence to the sacred and indispensable Obligations of Conscience and this unavoidably exposes the Peace of Kingdoms to all the Follies of Zeal and Impostures of Enthusiasm and prostitutes the Power of Princes to the stubbornness and insolence of Popular Folly Every one that is timorous or melancholy that has an indisposed Body or a troubled Mind that wants Sleep or wants Company that has an hard Spleen or a soft Head that has a strong Fancy or a weak Judgment a bold Ignorance or a conceited Knowledge an impertinent Opinion or a restless Humour a Whimsie in the Crown or a Vapour in the Hypocondria may upon that account exempt himself from all the Authority of the Laws and all the Obligations of Obedience For you know what a vulgar Phaenomenon it is for these and the like effects of folly and weakness to abuse the Consciences of well-meaning Men into Scruple and Irresolution and therefore if every Man that has or what is
more especially to abet this wild and unaccountable Principle That the Word of God is the onely adequate Rule of instituted Worship which they lay down in their Positive Divinity at which they are incomparably the greatest Doctors in the World as the onely unquestionable Postulatum of all their Discourses yet when they are urged to make it out by Rational Arguments and particular Instances they talk it and talk it but as for proof and evidence they never could nor ever will be brought to produce any other beside the Proleptick certainty of the Maxim it self and therefore I will for ever bar their general Pleas and Pretences drawn from this Principle That the New Testament is the adequate Rule of Instituted Worship to the Church of Christ unless in case of the two Sacraments though as to them too all the outward Circumstances and Postures of Celebration are wholly undetermined in the Scripture till they shall specifie some particular Instances there directed and prescribed under a standing Obligation however it is not to be attended to in our present Controversie when it is as I have proved as certain and complete a Rule of moral Vertue as they can suppose it to be of Instituted Worship and therefore that cannot be any ground of Exception that whilst the former is subject to the latter should be exempt from the disposal of the Civil Jurisdiction So lamentably absurd are the main and darling Principles of these men that 't is not in the Power of Logick or Sophistry to do them any kindness and the more they stir in their Defence the more they expose their Folly § 9. And now having so wofully hurt and prejudiced his own Cause by this rash and indiscreet Attempt upon my Inference in the next place he rushes with a fierce and angry Dilemma upon my Assertion viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of men in reference to moral Duties which are the principal Parts of Religion This Power says he is either over moral Vertue as Vertue and as a part of Religion or on some other Account as it relates to humane Society The former he gores through and through and that horn of the Dilemma is above two Pages long and here he has exactly observed the Rules and Customs of Scholastick Dispute that is always prodigal of Confutation where there is no need and niggardly where there is For when he proceeds to the latter which he knows is the only thing I all along asserted he freely grants all I can desire or demand For moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar Tendency unto God and Religion are appointed to be Instruments and Ligaments of humane Society also now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use Very good And the Case is absolutely the same as to all reasons and circumstances of things in matters of Religion for though they as well as moral Vertue chiefly relate to our future Concerns yet have they also a powerful Influence upon our present welfare and if rightly managed are the best and most effectual Instruments of publick Happiness and there lies the very strength and sinew of my Argument that if Magistrates are vested with so much Power over moral Vertues that are the most weighty and essential Parts of Religion as they shall judge it needful to the Peace of Societies and the security of Government how much more reasonable is it that they should be entrusted with the same Power over matters of external Worship that are but its subordinate Instruments and outward Circumstances whenever they are serviceable to the same ends and purposes And if there be any advantage and disparity of Reason 't is apparently on this side for it were an easie Task to prove that moral Vertue is much more necessary to procure the divine Acceptance and Religion much more likely to create publick Disturbance but that is not the subject matter of our present Enquiry 't is enough that both have in some measure a Relation to these different Ends and therefore that both must in some measure be subject to these different Powers You see how shamefully this man is repuls'd by his own Attempts and that there is nothing needful to beat back his Answers but the Arguments themselves against which they are directed And now having spent his main strength in this succesless shock 't is piteous to observe how he faints in his following Assays He inquires whether this Power of the Civil Magistrate over moral Vertue be such as to make that Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice 'T is of the same extent with his Authority over Affairs of Religion as I have already stated it But however to this Impertinent Enquiry he need not have sought far for a pertinent Answer it lay before his eyes when he objected it if he did not write blindfold viz. That in matters both of moral Vertue and divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an eternal and unchangeable Obligation and these can be never prejudiced or altered by any humane Power But then there are other Rules that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of humane life and in things of this Nature I asserted that the Magistrate has Power to make that a Particular of the divine Law which God has not made so In answer to which he wishes I had declared my self how and wherein So I have viz. in all the peculiar and positive Laws of Nations and gave him Instances in no less matters than of Murther Theft and Incest and produced several particular Cases in which the Civil Power superinduced new obligations upon the Divine Law Which 't is in vain to repeat to one that winks against the Light you know where to find them if you think it needful But is not this a bold man to challenge me with such a scornful Assurance to do what he could not but see I had already performed Some men are confident enough to put out the day in spite of the Sun He adds The divine Law is divine and so is every particular of it and therefore 't is impossible for a man to make new Particulars and yet in the same Breath grants my Assertion as an ordinary and familiar truth if I only intend by making a thing a Particular of the divine Law no more than to make the divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before Though that man must have a wild understanding that can mean any thing more or less There is a vast difference is there not between making a new Particular of the Divine Law and making the Divine Law require that in particular which it did not require before But says he these new particulars refer only to the acting and occasion of these things in particular 'T is no matter for that whatever they refer
such things would be But I say so such things would not be and so there is an end of our dispute and at this lock have we stood gazing at one another at least this hundred years here Cartwright begun the Objection and here he was immediately check't in his career by Whitgift who told him plainly He could not be ignorant that to the making of a Sacrament besides the external Element there is required a Commandment of God in his Word that it should be done and a Promise annexed unto it whereof the Sacrament is a seal Here they stopt and his Adversary never proceeded in his Argument but some that came after him resolved not to part so easily with so big an Exception though perhaps for no other reason than because Cartwright had started it and the truth is all his followers have done little more than lickt up the Vomit and Choler of that proud Schismatick and therefore they never pursued this new-fangled Cavil beyond his first Syllogism where himself was repuls't and rebuked and ever since this has been their post and they are resolved to keep it with unyielding and invincible confidence and their foreheads are so hardned that you may sooner beat out their brains than shame or convince them out of their Folly and though they have been so frequently and vehemently urged to a Proof and Prosecution of their Argument they could never be made to stir one foot backward or forward but here they stand like men enchanted and whatever Demands or Questions you propose to them they return you not one syllable of reply but Sacraments Sacraments And in this Posture do they continue to this day to haunt us with the stubbornness of unlaid Ghosts and 't is the only voice this Head of Modesty is able to utter upon this Subject He is resolved upon it that all significant Rites instituted in the Worship of God are real Sacraments and that so they shall be And that is stubborn and indisputable Proof and 't is not modest to bear up against so much Brass and Boldness and yet I am resolved for once to rub my forehead and not to be brow-beaten but to look him in the Face with the confidence of a Basilisk and upbraid him either to make good or to renounce his Argument and if he will neither yield nor proceed to scorn and affront and point him out of his intolerable Confidence Here then I fix my foot and dare him to his Teeth to prove that any thing can be capable of the Nature or Office of Sacraments that is not establish'd by divine Institution and upon Promise of divine Acceptance These are inseparable Conditions of all Sacramental Mysteries and whatsoever other Properties and Qualifications they may have beside these are always necessary and indispensable Ingredients of their Office so that without them nothing can lay claim to their Name or Dignity however any thing may happen to symbolize with them upon other Accounts and by other Circumstances For the Christian Sacraments are the inseparable Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith and are establish'd to that Intent by the Author of the Christian Institution and they are such outward Rites and Ceremonies whereby we openly own the Covenant and pass mutual Engagements to stand to its Terms and Conditions and therefore he alone that appointed the Religion is able to appoint by what outward Signs or Acts of stipulation we shall signifie and express our acknowledgment of and submission to his Institutions So that the meaning and intention of it is to assign some particular Act of Worship whereby we may express our Engagements and Resolutions of Obedience to the whole Religion and who then can declare and specifie what Rite he will accept as a full acknowledgment of our duty of Universal Obedience but he alone that requires it And therefore unless it pretend to his Institution there is no imaginable ground why it should be thought to pretend to the Office and Dignity of a Sacrament And certainly they have a very mean opinion of these sacred Mysteries that require nothing more to their Nature and Function but bare significancy and make every external sign capable of that holy and mysterious Office and what can more derogate from the Credit of those great Pledges of our Faith and Instruments of our Salvation As if they carried in them nothing of a more useful or spiritual Efficacy than what every common Rite and Ceremony may acquire or pretend to by Custom and humane Institution § 12. But 't is still more pleasant and more prodigious to see men that are so stiff and dogmatical in their Talk have so little regard to their own Pretences thus whereas they will admit no other Umpirage of our present Disputes about Divine Worship but what may be fetch'd from immediate Divine Authority yet in this grand Exception they take no notice of its Decrees and Determinations and though our Author will have every significant Circumstance of Devotion to partake of the Nature and Mystery of a Divine Sacrament yet he makes no attempt to prove it out of the Word of God No there is not a Text in the four Gospels that may be abused to that purpose And Paul for to allow him the Title of Saint is Popish and Idolatrous and our Author is as shy in all his Writings of bestowing it upon an Apostle as upon Cain or Iudas though he will vouchsafe the Title of Holy that is coincident with it to every Zealot of his own Brotherhood but by what name or title soever dignified or distinguish'd the Apostle Paul is utterly silent in the Case and now we have no higher Authority to vouch our Cause but the Schoolmen and Austin As for the former not to dispute the impertinency of the Quotation whenever they speak sense we are ready to subscribe to their Reason but their bare Authority is of no more force in the Church of England than the Decrees and Oracles of Mr. Calvin their Writings are no part of the Canon of Scripture or the four first General Councils and 't is well known what wise accounts they are forced to give of the Nature of Sacraments to justifie the unwarrantable Determinations of their own Church that had rashly and needlesly enough defined some things to be so that are in themselves infinitely uncapable of that sacred Name and Office And I know nothing for which any part of their coarse and frieze Discourses is more ridiculous in it self or more unanimously condemned by Protestant Writers of all Communions than their loose and groundless descriptions of the Nature and Office of Sacramental Pledges But this is one of their old ways of trifling when the pursuit of their Principles forces them upon an absurdity to father it upon the Schoolmen as if because these men sometimes talk absurdly that shall justifie their Impertinencies And as for his Citation out of St. Austin viz. Signa cum ad res divinas pertinent sunt
Infallibility of the Papal Chair because to appeal thither would quickly reconcile all the squabbles and Contentions of Christendom and so it would were there any competent evidence that his Holiness is really vested in any such absolute and uncontroulable sovereignty over Christian Princes but the mischief is there no where appears any Warrant or Commission to authorize any such mighty Judicature so that by agreeing to devolve the determination of all our Disputes upon their final Decrees we should only bring our selves under this desperate Inconvenience to embrace and submit to any thing that is or may be for the advantage of the See or the Court of Rome and be bound in Conscience to believe all the absurdities in the World by vertue of a counterfeit Infallibility and so be unavoidably obliged to swallow the grossest Errors and Impostures as Articles of Faith and Rules of Religion And this is the natural and necessary Result of this Pretence if indeed it were true it would do wonderful Feats towards appeasing all our Quarrels and Divisions but if it be false it will only serve to create and propagate them for ever and as long as men persist in its demand there can be no end of Eternal Changes and Dissetlements And it does not only leave men to the liberty of their own Fancies and Imaginations though 't is chiefly intended by our Author for the prevention of that Inconvenience but withal brings us under an unhappy Necessity of yielding to them as Impositions of the divine Law and with respect to a divine Authority For if the Scripture have left us no such Determinations then all those that they pretend to discover there are meerly Creatures of their own brain before which we must fall down and worship with as much devotion as before the divine Oracles And now what else can be the Issue of these Conceits but that the establish'd Laws and Discipline of every Church must be unravel'd to gratifie every Faction and advance every Fancy And therefore unless these men are resolved we shall accept their Confidence for Reason they should first make good this Principle by undeniable Proofs of Scripture before they venture to lay so much weight upon its admission and not tell us as our Author has done that he is able to prove it by an hundred Texts and yet never alledge one for till he has performed this he only demonstrates his Assertion by often repeating it but Beggars are a bold sort of People and will extort what they cannot challenge by Clamour and Importunity And thus whereas I added that all the pious villanies that ever disturbed the Christian World have ever sheltred themselves in this grand Maxim he solemnly replies the Maxim it self here traduced is as true as any part of the Gospel This is down-right hardiness and I confess resistless demonstration It must be a desperate Wight that dares cope with such a Giantlike Confidence that when it is not able to answer is able to brow-beat Arguments To what purpose does this young man here tell us stories of the Gnosticks of old and the Anabaptists of late how they either have or would have embroiled Kingdoms in pursuance of this Principle To what purpose does he tell us 't is an impregnable Sanctuary of disturbance and sedition To what purpose does he admonish us that if this pretence be allowed as sufficient to warrant Remonstrances to the publick Laws 't is such an unhappy ground of quarrel and exception that it is not in the Power of Government to provide against its disorders and enormities because the matter of its Demands is a thing utterly impossible I say pish to what purpose all this when I tell him that this Maxim whatever he may pretend or prove is as certainly true as any part of the Gospel And thus do I argue against a Wool-sack no Reasonings can make Impression upon his mind but fall and perish unregarded and when you have spent so much Ammunition to beat down this Principle it is all defeated with this goodly Answer 'T is true as the Gospel When against this very Answer lies the very Emphasis of all my Objections that they require such an impracticable Condition to the setlement of the Church under such a peremptory and indispensable Obligation And the greater their Confidence the more it aggravates the mischief and strengthens the Argument In that they make this impossible Fancy as necessary to Church-communion as the Apostles Creed so that if this pretence shall pass for a warrantable ground of Separation Schism will become the greatest Duty and confusion the most certain Character of a true Church because it will indifferently rise up against all setlements and implead all Forms of Discipline What think you would not this mans resolute blockishness even tempt a Stoick to beat Syllogisms into his head for you see nothing else will ever make him attend to the hardest Arguments But as for our Authors own private and reserved meaning as to the sense of this Principle 't is plainly this there cannot possibly be any true Church without the Beauty and Purity of Christian Ordinances this consists purely in the Congregational way of Worship and Discipline so that wherever that is not legally established there can be no true Church for all others have deviated from the Platform of the Gospel and therefore there can be no right setlement and due Reformation of things till that is once more re-enthroned in the Christian World And 't is this our Author means when he instructs us that the Worship of God is or ought to be the same at all times in all places and amongst all People in all Nations and the order of it is fixt and determin'd in all particulars that belong unto it So that by his Principles and good-will no other Form of Worship ought to be allowed in the Church of God but what himself apprehends particularly prescribed to all Ages and Nations of the World in the Word of God And this is excellent Doctrine for one that is pleading for Toleration and sutable to that of I. O. who tells us in his Romance of the distinct Communion I shall take leave to say what is upon my heart and what the Lord assisting I shall willingly endeavour to make good against all the World namely that that Principle that the Church hath Power to institute and appoint any thing or Ceremony belonging to the Worship of God either as to matter or to manner beyond the orderly observance of such Circumstances as necessarily attend such Ordinances as Christ himself has instituted which condition none but the Independents observe lies at the Bottom of all the horrible Superstition and Idolatry of all the Confusion Bloud Persecution and Wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over the face of the Christian World and that it is the design of a great Part of the Revelation to make a discovery of this Truth So that to
upon the Rights of Religion So that there is no other effectual Artifice to decoy Christian Subjects into Mutiny and Rebellion but the taking Pretences of Godliness and Reformation They are all agreed in the Belief of the necessity of subjection to their lawful Superiours in all things that concern their civil rights but where the Glory of God and Purity of his Worship lie at stake there they must whet and sharpen their Zeal in his Cause and not betray the true Religion by their neglect and stupidity And let but a few crafty men whisper abroad their suspicions of Popery or any other hated name and the Rabble are immediately alarm'd and they will raise a War and embroil the Nation against an Heretical Word And to this Purpose their Leaders are ever provided with such jugling and seditious Maxims as effectually over-rule all Oaths of Allegiance and all Obligations to Obedience as that all Good Subjects may with just Arms at least defend themselves if question'd or assaulted for the cause of Religion though when they send their Armies into the Field they are as well arm'd with Offensive Weapons as their Enemies and are furnish'd with Swords and Musquets to annoy them as well as Shields and Bucklers to defend themselves That the maintenance of pure Religion passes an Obligation upon their Consciences of force enough to evacuate all Oaths and Contracts whatsoever that may stand in the way of its advancement and then how naturally does this not only warrant but enforce their Resistance to their Lawful Prince in defence of the cause of God and to extort the Free exercise of Religion by force of Arms which if they should lay down at his Command that were to betray the Gospel to the Power of its profess'd and implacable Enemies by their own neglect and cowardize Not that they fight against the King himself God forbid their intention is nothing else then to rescue him out of the Power and Possession of evil Counsellors You must not believe them such disloyal Wretches as to rebel against his Sacred Majesty alas they design nothing but the discharge of their Duty and Allegiance and though they take up Arms against his Person yet 't is in defence of his Crown and they fight against him in his Personal Capacity only to serve him in his Political That in the management and Reformation of Religion there is no respect to be had to carnal and worldly Wisdom and therefore when the Propagation of the Gospel lies at stake 't is but a vain thing for men to tie themselves to the Laws of Policy and Discretion Civil Affairs are to be conducted by secular Artifices but matters of the Church are to be directed purely by the Will of God the Warrant of Scripture and the Guidance of Providence Now what exorbitances will not this wild principle excuse and qualifie In all their disorderly and irregular Proceedings they do but neglect the Rules of carnal Policy for the better carrying on of the work of the Lord where there is no place for moderation and complyance and nothing must satisfie or appease their Zeal but a full Ratification of all their demands Though these and infinite other as vulgar Artifices are as old as Rebellion it self and though wise men can easily wash off their false Colours yet the Common People will suffer themselves to be abused by them to the end of the World partly because they are rash and heady and apt to favour all Changes and Innovations partly because they are foolish and credulous and apt to believe all fair and plausible stories but mainly because they are proud and envious and apt to suspect the Actions of their Superiours So easie a thing is it for your crafty Achitophels to arm Faction with Zeal and to draw the Multitude into Tumults and Seditions under colour of Religion whilst themselves have their designs and projects apart and influence the great turns of Affairs for their own private Ends and so manage the zealous fools as to make them work Journey-work to their ambition and imploy seditious Preachers to Gospellize their Conspiracies and sanctifie their Rapines and Sacriledges to display the piety of their Intentions and cry up the Interest of a State-faction for the Cause of God and sound an Alarm to Rebellion with the Trumpet of the Sanctuary § 15. Thus to omit the known Arts of the Grandees and Junto-men in our late Confusions were the Confederate Lords of France that involved their Native Country in such a long and bloody War during the Reign of four or five Kings at first to seek for a plausible pretence to secure and justifie their Resolution of taking up Arms against their lawful Sovereign till the Admiral Coligny hit upon that unhappy counsel to make themselves Heads of the Hugonot Faction and then they had not only a strong party to assert but a fair pretence to warrant the Rebellion And the War that was first set on foot by the envy and ambition of some Male-contents in the State was prosecuted with greater rage and fury by Zeal for the true Religion In all their Manifests and Declarations they protested for nothing with so much seeming Resolution as their Demands of Liberty and Indulgence for tender Consciences And when either Party fortun'd to be worsted they re-inforced themselves and their Cause by Religious Leagues and Covenants and then the heady multitude flowed into the assistance of the different Factions according to their different Inclinations So that by degrees to use the words of the Historian the discords of great men were confounded with the dissentions of Religion and the Factions were no more called the discontented Princes and the Guisarts but more truly and by more significant Names one the Catholique and the other the Hugonot Party Factions which under colour of Piety administred such pernicious matter to all the following mischiefs and distractions Which how sad and how tedious they were I need not inform you only this both Parties being balanced and successively encouraged by the inconstancy of Government the change of Interests of State and the windings of an ambitious Woman the publick Broils and Disorders were kept up through so many Kings Reigns and might have been perpetuated till this day had not the equality quality of the Factions been broken and the power and interest of the Hugonot Party absolutely vanquish't So that though these two opposite Parties might if let alone to themselves have lived peaceably together in the same Commonwealth yet when headed and encouraged by great Men in the State they immediately became two fighting Armies and when they were once enraged against each other by Zeal and Religion it was not possible for all the Arts of Policy to allay the storm but by the utter ruine and overthrow of one of the contending Factions Dissembled Pacifications and plaister'd Reconcilements proved more bloody and mischievous in the event than the Prosecution of an open War This would have