baggage Then they are forced to express their wants very politely in the universal Language and like Vagabond Polanders here they beg formâ pauperis Scholastici at some Convent or Monastery where as the case now stands the matter a hundred to one comes to a bargain they prove Converts and so having in time imbibed pernicious Principles as well as learned the art of putting them in practice fraught with mischievous Machinations and seditious designs they are delegated hither But I fear the Air of old England doth not reduce one of twenty at their arrival to such an happy reconversion as by especial Influence it did the good Dr. But a Maladie beyond all redress is the near dependance our Clergy have for the most part upon Lay-Patrons and Benefactours The servile awe and confusion that possesses the young Divine whilst he Preaches before them is altogether inconsistent with that modest boldness and temperate Assurance that ought of necessity to attend the Word whether we inform or reprove For if by chance our youth touch never so little upon what thwarts the private opinion or gauls any one irregular practice of his Patron though in never so general and distant a way he shall be sure of such a sowre look and correcting regard from his Worship at Dinner as shall quite dash the Countenance and turn the stomack of our new dignifié maugre the comfortable accession of the late Benefice In this Case I wish all men were as happy as my self in bearing relation to a most Orthodox Loyal and pious honourable good Gentleman c. To conclude all this our own Souldiers for want of due pay and encouragement turn often Renegadoes and by deserting us become so many fresh supplies to our sworn Enemies the Pyrates of Rome and Geneva This advantage superadded to the force of the old Pique enables them not only to fight at distance but makes them so hardy as to board our torn and leaky vessel the poor Church of England and 't is all she can do with invincible courage to clear her decks of these furious Assailants I look upon the Romish Religion as the exactest piece of State-Policie and the best contrived Mysterie of infallible Rule and Dominion that ever yet appeared in the world I always considered it under this notion without any other regard or relation whatever Its subtletenets and deep Maximes speak it such its ways and methods to preserve and continue itself where 't is already planted and of propagating itself where not do plainly shew that the true design of it is merely Secular contrived wholly for Temporal ends and purposes of Dominion Avarice Lust and in a word of Universal Tyranny over the Souls and Bodies of Men and Women I verily believe its greatest and most Learned Ecclesiastick Assertours see and know the trick well enough though they keep the Mysterie as safe in the Conclave as the Trojans did the Palladium in Minerva's Temple No Cabalists of State could e're trepan With such firm subtlety as Rome's Divan saith one And thus the main System of their Religion being wholly relative to Political practicks no wonder that all our Disputes ablest Writings and truest Remonstrances against them do so little good They may indeed debar them from proselyting men so easily as before but the two Poles shall sooner meet than the strongest Truths and Demonstrations shall reduce one of the great Churchmen of Rome Alas the Case is quite of another nature nor do they themselves think it worth while to enter the Lists of publick Disputation or answer the repeated oppositions of our Learned Churchmen unless as our chief Dissenters it be to comply with the Expectations of their own Herd and then too the main design is not to argue impartially and solidly but still more and more to amuse and intangle the poor ignorant Admirers of An Answer to Dr. c. Si Pergama dextrâ defendi possent c. comes always in my mind when I consider that the present posture of affairs is rather worse than better and at the same time think on the Writings of Bishop Jewel Laud and those other Heroe's that did and said all that was possible almost to little purpose alas and pray what can we do more They will not so much as argue to satisfie any scruple of their own Disciples the device of Implicite Faith supersedes their trouble as to that And if by chance among them a gaul'd Conscience offer to kick though never so sorely pinch'd one sharp word or frown of the Inquisition silences the poor Soul better to their purpose than a thousand Syllogisms And thus these men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil How quite contrary to all this is the proceed of our Church how different is her Carriage how frequent earnest and tender are her applications to the Dissenting Brethren With what reluctancie and force to herself after all means fail are restraints and penalties gently apply'd as the Ratio ultima rerum which she is far from making the Inscription of loud and infallible Artillery And yet what Seditious Murmurs do these men return to her soft passionate Invitations What Innovations Changes do they not secretly attempt What evil Representations of Church and Government do they not scatter What shuffling peevish returns do they make to the Writings and Sermons of good and wise Men in vindication of regular Piety and true Loyalty And they are so bold too as to press Gods holy Word for the justification of all this obstinacy but 't is not the first time that Holy Scripture hath been the Argument when the destruction of the Allegatour hath proved the consequence 2 Pet. 3. 16. Our Church by applying the soft and gentle Remedies of Statutable punishments and legal Mulcts never intended to force gross blindness or impose the Tyranny of Implicite Faith on any man but rather the quite contrary she carefully and wisely considered that a little smarting might make the scales peel off from their Eyes by some little bitterness she designed no more harm to them than Tobias did to his Father by throwing Gall in his Eyes to make him see And here I 'll presume to insert the words of a Learned Reverend Gentleman now among us We saith he that are Ministers of the Church of England may be content nay we may really wish that all our Laity had as much true solid understanding in Religion as our Clergy We can get no advantage by your want of knowledge no more than you can do by ours We have no Spiritual Cheat with which to delude you for the representing of which we should stand in need either of darkness or of a false light We have nothing in our publick Profession which the wisest men the most pious Christians may not outwardly practice nothing in our Faith which they ought not inwardly to believe We know and are well assured that the onely reason why our Church is
the like such monstrous Medlies and odd Landskips of Opinions as in another kind the most extravagant Conceptions of Poets and Painters have never equal'd And truly I think one and the other have some grounds much alike for their Whimsies I am sure they have each of them had too much of one priviledge and that is the Quidlibet audendi Horat. de art Poet. Potestas Christianity I say is now almost 1700 years old and though it as its Author is ever one and the same yet what by the Supineness of its true and what by the devices of its pretended Professours it is at this day so overgrown with thorns and briars and the mossy Excrescences of rotten and Corrupted Skulls that had not our God been very gracious we should hardly distinguish and discern its genuine beauty and Native Lustre through the Rubbish and Barricade of Schism and Heresie I always thought Gods holy word so plain that to invent an Heterodox Doctrine we must do a violence to that and our own Reason too And yet what nice diffections have been made of these Scriptures by too bold and curious Inspectours into the Secrets of God How many Texts have they set upon the Rack and endeavoured by cruel and unnatural distortions to make them say as they would have them and confess what they never knew from whence have followed such rents and dislocations in some Members of our Religion as I fear are almost become past Cure I would fain know what one thing material hath been discovered by the noise and bustle of all these busie and subtle Pates that was not as well or better known in the very first Centurie I believe that in all the whole prodigious Catalogue of Voluminous Tracts and laboured Controversies enough at this day to make Joh. Chap. last v. last good St. John's Hyperbole you cannot find one new Truth of any import or significancie to our Religion which was not known 1500 years ago On the contrary I am sure they have together with a thousand falsities invented perplexities and empty trifles without number which the purest ages of Christianity never dreamt of Some have stretcht their brains to grasp Mysteries beyond their reach and would crowd the Infinite Essence and Ineffable Attributes of that great God into the senceless rules terms of their Schools whom the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain What horrid Heresies have men run into by presuming to fathome the Mysterie of the blessed Trinity and whilst they have forcibly prest Reason on to take as large a step as Faith they have stumbled and fell to their utter confusion My humble yet stedfast Faith in the hidden Things of God can rest fully satisfied in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without presuming to no purpose so far as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay and my Reason too if it must needs be medling doth here most justly acquiesce without farther scrutiny in this conclusion 'T is certainly so because God hath said it And thus I can easily believe that the Godhead consists of Three Persons without the help of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 persona or suppositum and the Incarnation of my Saviour is a Mystery indeed in Divinity but none in Philosophy to me for that tells me 't was as easie to speak more humano for the Almighty to set Nature at work in Holy Maries Womb to frame a man of her Seed as to make a Woman out of the side of Adam But 't is my opinion that the truest Faith supersedes all arguing about the Mysteries of our Religion and when St. Peter bids us be ready to give a reasonable account 't is not of fathomless Secrets but of our Hope and 1 Pet. 3. 15. Faith in Jesus Yet that Faith I am perswaded was always most acceptable with our Saviour that acknowledged him with a plain and simple sincerity without a why or wherefore And I believe the nimble Confession of Nathaniel Joh. 1. 49 50. though upon a slight occasion was better approved of by Christ than the cautious proceed and deliberate advances of Judicious Nichodemus 3 Joh. 9. However I like not that high flight of the Father neither Certum est quia impossibile est nor his who said there were not Impossibilities enow in Religion for an active Faith such Hyperbolick strains do Christianity no kindness I am sure especially in the Mahometan and Pagan world For were Socrates Cicero or Seneca now alive I might with far better success attempt their Conversion by the rehearsal of Christs Sermon on the Mount or St. Pauls Epistles than by assaulting rashly their unprepared Reason with the difficulties and seeming contradictions of the Athanasian Creed It can no ways properly be said that there is any one Impossibility in the Bible For if the Letter and matter of fact be true as it may on that score justly claim a stronger title to verity than any Book of longer or later date which yet we own without scruple then the Concession that 't was of Divine Inspiration easily follows and then the consequence is as necessary That whatever it contains must be of infallible truth and certainty And what if we cannot solve its Mysteries Their first design was to be objects of Christian Faith and humble acquiescence not of Pert and Curious Argumentation If we will believe nothing but what we can make out and clear of doubts ay and strong ones too even in things obvious and familiar and with which we converse every day we must shut the whole Visible World out of doors and sit down content with absolute Scepticism I declare I have as even a notion of Spirit as of Body and understand Cogitation fully as well as Extension I am no more privy to the Mechanism of my own hearts Motion than I am to the Mysterie and feats of Memory and Imagination or to the way how my Soul by a detachment of nimble Emissaries commands my foot to move in an instant In a word I understand nothing of this kind by adequate and Commensurate Science but by Philosophick guess or Allegorick representations 11 Eccle. 5. I remember that a now Reverend and most Learned Prelate at whose private Lectures I had the honour long ago to attend amongst other most excellent notices told us that Immaterial Infinite and the like were Negatives indeed in words for the barrenness of Language and our own weakness and ignorance but properly and in themselves they were absolute Positivities and again that their Contraries Finite and Material were pure Negations in respect of the other Descartes who opened the way to his Philosophy by stopping his Ears and closing his Eyes and stripping himself naked to bare Cogitation found out one Original Truth as he thought viz. Cogito Ergo Sum what a prodigious fallacie past upon this acute man he might as well in that case have argued Curro Ergo Sum the argument had been as good though it lay at a little farther distance
Intercession for the People when God's Judgments are abroad 't is we that must with Faith and Courage stand in the gap when Wrath is gone out from the Lord and the Plague is begun Numb 16. 48. 'T is we that must be always ready to give a reasonable account of our Hope and with undaunted arguings urge the Doctrine and Faith of Christ to some now a days a Stumbling-block to others Foolishness 1 Pet. 3. 15. against the growing oppositions of Atheism Heresie and Prophaneness 'T is we that must Preach plain practical Truths to the people with the Rules and Fundamental Reasons of Obedience Justice Sobriety Charity and all this in easie and familiar yet powerful Applications not in Rhetorical Harangue or Affectation of Speech and Gesture which doth but make the ignorant gape and tickles the Ears of the more knowing producing perhaps a plausible perswasion in the one but scarce true Christian Edification in either and better becomes the old Roman Rostrum than the Christian Pulpit And since the unreasonable Prejudice of people seems now adays to make it almost necessary we should endeavour to obtain the Custom and Habit of talking to them in a familiar way of converse as it were salvâ majestate verbi and if it may be wholly without Book 'T is true that when the Preachers Eyes and Gestures are pointed directly to the Auditory they are the more likely to give their regards and attentions to him but again 't is strange to me that these silly Souls should fancy that the effects of a nimble Invention and unsteady cursory Effusion to be more the Word of God than the best of a mans sober thoughts squared exactly by the Holy Scripture in Methodick Writing Matters of Controversie we ought wholly to decline for besides that 't is easie to prate where there is none to oppose the people would be kept more obedient and safe if they could altogether be kept ignorant that there is any opposition in any kinde to the truth of our Doctrines besides what necessity is there of telling them to their dangerous amusement what is wrong as long as we continue them in the right Belief and practice of what we know to be true and right But now I better think on 't since our Schismatical Dissenters Compass Sea and Land to make one Proselyte Mat. 23. 15. and indefatigably take all opportunities by partial and detracting misrepresentations to tell their own Tale first to our no small disadvantage it might be perhaps of some good consequence if our Loyally-affected Ministers would take frequent Occasions not in their publick Pulpits but in their ordinary familiar Communications with their Parishioners to explain and enlarge upon such Points of Publick Duty and sound Belief as these few following that the good People might be disabused from the insinuating Cheats and Impostures of these deal-board Mountebanks and disswaded from giving their Money for that which is not Bread Isai 55. 2. I. That the Power and Authority of Kings is from God II. That Prerogative is accountable to none but God Psal 51. 4. But Property and Priviledge in many cases forfeitable to the Crown III. That to Depose Kings for fear of Arbitrary Government is as unjust as to suppose a man feloniously-affected and so hang him afore-hand lest he should Steal or Murder IV. That to draw Arguments from Precedents and conclude de facto ad jus is as unjust a proceeding in Politicks as 't is often in Law V. That to fear Arbitrary Government or its Tyrannical Effects in a King of Great Britain is to suppose a Moral Impossibility VI. That the Kingly Government of these Realms as 't is contemper'd with the Rights and Liberties of the Subject is the happiest Policy in the world VII That Major singulis minor universis is bad Logick and worse Divinity 2 Sam. 18. 3. VIII That 't is unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever for the Subject to take up Arms against the King IX That Rebellious Innovations always end in Confusion and Anarchy and redress of Grievances that way hath proved worse than the Disease X. That the Church of England as now by Law establish'd retains the true Catholick and Apostolick Faith XI That our Gracious Sovereign is in all Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal Supreme Governour XII That a Subjects wisest and surest way is to adhere to the Establish'd Religion in these Kingdoms without the least Cavil or Dispute if he believes he may be saved therein XIII That no pretence of scruple whatsoever without plain proofs and demonstration can excuse any Subject from the positive Commands to absolute Obedience in all things Lawful or Indifferent XIV That Separate Meetings and Fanatical Conventicles have been known lurking-holes and refuges of Romish Priests and Jesuits and of consequence Nurseries of Actors upon the Stage of Rebellion XV. That upon an exact review we have great reason to conclude our present divisions to belong to a Principle very different from that of Scruple and Tenderness XVI That Ambition and Avarice are the two great Wheels of the Devils Chariot XVII That when our grand Adversary designs most Mischief he always hangs out the white Flag of Religion XVIII That Liberty of Conscience commonly proves Licence to be Seditious XIX That our Dissenting Zealots who plead for it most have been observed to grant it least XX. That the People of this Nation are acquainted with much more than they should know and much less than they should practise XXI That we can never have peaceable days as long as Bulkers and Coblers are Preachers and Couranters XXII That Vox Populi is not always Vox Dei Mat. 27. 22. XXIII That the Stool of Repentance and illegal Impositions of Oaths on King and People is a greater piece of Arbitrary Tyranny than French Monarchy or Kissing of the Pope's Toe XXIV That the Kingly Government of this Nation is equally inconsistent with Popery and Presbytery XXV That the Power and Riches of the King is the Peace and Prosperity of the People XXVI That 't is impossible for Peace and Godliness to continue long in Church or State under a general Toleration of Schismatical and Factious Opinions in matters of Religion Mat. 12. 25. These short Aphorisms I presume to insert by way of Essay only and as imperfect Hints of what wiser Heads and abler Judgments may do in stronger and more suitable Applications to the good People of this distracted Kingdome But before I wholly leave this point it may be worth while to observe by what an ignorant silly Mistake the dull Teachers in our Separate Assemblies conclude of the Power and Prevalency of their Doctrine from the sullen cloudiness of Countenance and tumultuous disorder it causes in the Passions of their Female Anditory rather than from any Serenity and clearness of Minde and Understanding For I have very good grounds to believe that all this noise hath left the Intellect untoucht and that it hath not in any degree
Thus are we all weak and blind in Natural and Divine Secrets and Mysteries 8 Eccle. 17. The Canon of Holy Scripture is without doubt so plain as to Essentials of Faith and Practice that I cannot perswade my self to believe there was ever such a thing as Nuda Haeresis I am rather inclin'd to think that Secular Motives of pride discontent and avarice raised the boyling ferment in ambitious and restless heads as was most notoriously apparent in the business of Arrius This Spirit that agitated in the first Ages of Christianity worketh now still in the Children of disobedience And when good and Learned men offer at a Cure by publick writing or dispute the bad success and fruitless consequence shews that the wrong remedy is applyed the malady lying more in the perverseness of the Will than the mistake of the Intellect And by this means Demonstration itself often fails of Conviction and the strongest and plainest Truths urged home to Schismaticks stay not but are sent back daily in a faint retort stuft more with weak Evasion and peevish Cavil than Right or Reason Just thus 't is at this very Juncture and if in this case Inferences de facto are good consequences is like always to be I wonder that Constantine should so far countenance that damnable Heresie of Arrius as to allow it the dangerous scope of a free Debate in the Council of Nice Had not Royal Restraints and legal Penalties been a safer and more Orthodox way to repress an Errour so palpable that it carried its Confutation in its own face No doubt but some Plenipotentiaries of Heaven itself assisted at that Spiritual Treaty yet as far as I understand their strong and zealous Arguments could hardly reduce the contrary faction to an amicable and Christian complyance whom pride had fore-armed with resolution to demur at Demonstration and cavil at Conviction However with much ado after a tedious debate they composed the Catholick Creed that bears the name Disputes in Religion are often fruitless because improper Applications and serve but to increase the heat and feud of Opiniatours They may indeed confirm the Right but very rarely convince the Erroneous party I conceive the Emperour was in a manner forced to give this Heresie so much loose Line as a fair debate its Contagion began to rage in the Christian world and like the Jewish Idolatry it had seated itself in the high Places too besides its high pretences might incline him to think the occasion worthy the solemnity of that famous confluence for although the contest was comprized within the narrow compass of two Greek words yet the controverted point was of no less importance than the Divinity of our God and Saviour Yet that all this was the wrong remedy for that disease appears plainly from its breaking out with re-doubled heat and violence in the succeeding Reign of Constantius The edge and keenness of our present divisions we may chiefly date from the late Act of Toleration Such allowances proceed from Royal mercy and tenderness 't is true but the mischiefs that always ensue are innumerable and grow to a formidable stature by insensible degrees till at length they suck themselves into a state and habit strong enough for Rebellion even from the breasts of Royal Indulgence My opinion is in all deep humility that by such condescentions of Grace Princes act against their own power and elude their own Authority they give License to worship the righteous God a wrong way and establish Schism in Church and State by a Law Concessions of this kind Extorted as it were from Royal Clemency and pity may indeed confirm present Impunity but cannot give Innocence to Dissenters To whom we may boldly and justly rejoyn whenever they plead the Kings Grace in the words of our Saviour to 19 Matt. 8. the Pharisees Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you this to put away your Religion but from the beginning it was not so 'T is now a Solecism in Christianity to talk of a weak Brother and Liberty of Conscience is non-sence totidem verbis God forbid that at this day after 1600 years there should remain any doubts or scruples unresolved in our Religion when 't is openly displaied to the view of all men without shades or obscurities in most clear and lively colours If the good and wholsome Act for Uniformity had continued still in full force it had in time found mens Purses more tender than their Consciences At least it would have done so much good that the old Pique had been buried with this Generation and the next would have Conformed of course Whereas now I fear this new Liberty hath fixt the Contagion in the very Vitals of our dissenting brethren and their Children will be tainted Ex traduce Disputandi pruritus est scabies Ecclesiae said a Learned Countryman of ours It hath certainly been a great promoter of Schism and the fuel of Faction To see the Elaborate follies of the subtile Schoolmen and the quirks of Polemical Divinity what an odd word that is to affix to the plain and easie Religion of the meek and humble Jesus their curious niceties in researches of matters either altogether above or else not worth our knowledge their pretty Mazes and Labyrinths drawn by Art in puzled and bewildred Thought but above all their slippery evasions and nimble escapes like Hercules's Protean Antagonist when prest hard by close and solid reasoning this is all matter of as great diversion as it had been to have been present at the odd posture of Circumstances in the first confusion of Tongues at Babel 'T is pretty to observe their Schools in what order and awful silence non-Entities sit ranged into Classes according to their proficiency or quality and not one dares move till call'd out to Say and then they speak in the Language of Vtopia They can with strange dexterity make an apposite Answer to an unintelligible Question and will argue pro and con whole hours together about what was never seen felt heard or understood 'T is impossible to pose them for when they cannot enodate your Argument they serve you with a distinction the same trick that Alexander did the Gordian knot They can as readily describe the parts and proportions of a Chimaera as you can of a man or a horse But their masterpiece lies in this they can understand words that signifie nothing or which is much the same signifie they know not what and yet they have a slight to make the same words mean any thing But this you 'll say is very strange take any common ordinary truth or Proposition strip it naked of its plain English and send it to be drest in their Fire-room its Port and Garniture shall immediately become so majestick that though you were never so well acquainted with it before you shall gaze at it with as much Ignorance as the honest Countryman did at the Powder of Album-Graecum before he understood the