men altogether unletter'd men called from mending nets to preach the Gospell If this were so That God according to his good pleasure without any consideration of study or height of parts chose simple unlearned unstudied men to be Prophets and Apostles and Teachers then why should any thinke he hath so confined or entailed his free Spirit or vocation of men upon great parts and studies that he may not if he please call the like unstudied simple men from the Plough or Fisher-boat or Stall or Shop-board to be Ministers of his Gospel and Teachers of his people now My Brethren you see I have not prevaricated or diminished ought of the strength of the Argument which is urged in favour of Lay-mens preaching In answer to which laying aside all partiality to my selfe and prejudice against them I shall with the same spirit of meekness and Candour with which Saint Paul here in this Text bespoke his Corinthians beseech you who heare me this day to observe and weigh and consider well this which I shall say for a Reply First Far far be it from me so to flatter the place of my Education or so to biass my beleef by any false ovevarluing of humane Industry or great parts that I should pinion as it were or put limits to the power of the Almighty Or should be so irreligiously bold as to gain-say that piece of his Gospell which compares his holy Spirit to the Wind which bloweth where it listeth If they who thus pretend to a private Inspiration doe meane that whatever God did in the times heretofore he is able to doe now I shall easily grant it And here in the presence of you all confesse my selfe to be of their opinion Nor shall I make any doubt or scruple at all to say that if we looke upon what God is able to doe by the same power by which he was able to raise up Children to Abraham out of stones or to speake yet more neerly to the Argument in hand by the same power that hee was able to make a Herd-man a Prophet or a Fisher-man an Apostle he is able in our times also if he please to make the meanest Tradesman one of the greatest Luminaries of his Church Since to an Omnipotent Agent whose gifts are meerly Arbitrary and depend wholly upon the pleasure of his owne will the greatest endowments of men and the least are alike easie But though he be able to doe this and in the ancient times of the Scripture have imparted his Gifts without respect of Persons yet whether he now will or whether in our times hee doth still thus extraordinarily raise up Teachers to himselfe is extreamly to be doubted For here with all the Christian gentleness and reason which may possibly conduce to the clearing of this doubt were I to argue this Controversie with one of those men who invade our function and from gathering of Sycamore fruit step up into the Pulpit I would onely aske him this question What Commission he hath thus to usurp upon our Office Or who signed him his patent Since the Apostle tells us in the fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes at the fourth Verse A place well worth your marking my Brethren That no man taketh this honour of a Priest to himselfe But he who is called of God as was Aaron I know his common answer will bee that God hath called him to this Office by the secret Instinct and Motion of his Holy Spirit But then he must not take it ill if I yet farther aske him by what signes or markes or testimonies or tokens he can either maâ—… it reasonably appeare to himselfe or others that God hath dealt with him as he dealt with some of the Prophets or Apostles called him from his Trade by such a motion of his Spirit Elisha we know made Iron swim and knew mens Closet-discourses in a farre Countrey which was a sure and certaine signe that God had called him to be a Prophet The Apostles also we know wrought many of Christs miracles which was a most infallible signe that God had chosen them to be Apostles If any of these men who derive their warrant from the same sacred spring can make Iron swim or like Elisha remaining here in their owne Israel can tell us what the King of Syria saies in his Bed-chamber Or if like Saint Peter they can cure fevers and diseases by their bare shadowes passing over them Or if like the rest of the Apostles having never before knowne Letters they can of a sudden speake all Languages the Controversie is at an end It would bee a very great sinne against the Spirit of God to deny that hee is in them of a Truth But if all the proofe and signe they can give us that they have him be onely a strong perswasion of themselves Nay if by an infallible Illumination they could assure themselves that they have him yet as many as have not the like infallible Illumination to assure them so too will not be guilty of an unpardonable offence if they suspect they have him not For here I must once more repeat my former Question and aske by what effects or signes of the Spirit men shall know them to be called By what will some man say why Doe you not heare them preach expound Scripture unfold Prophecies interpret Parables nay plucke the veile and cloud from the Booke of Mysteries it selfe the very Revelation Can any of you great Schollers with all your study of Philosophers Fathers Councells Schoole-men Historians Oratours Poets either hold your Congregations longer or send them away more edified And will you yet ask Questions Or doubt of the certainty of their vocation I must not dissemble with you if I could meet with an unlearned Handicraft-man who without study can doe this to the same height and measure of Truth as those unjustly-cryed downe learned and well-studied men doe I should begin to alter my opinion And should reckon him as hee deserves in the number of the inspired But alas my Brethren as I am not come hither to disparage the guifts of the Holy Ghost in what person soever I finde them or to perswade that Scripture rightly expounded is not one and the same from the mouth of a Priest or an inspired Lay-man so this I must freely say to you That as many of those strange Teachers as I have heard have expounded Scripture indeed and have ventured upon some of the hardest places of the Prophets But then if all my studies of the Bible assisted with all those holy uncorrupted learned helps which might enable mee to understand it aright have not deceived me their expositions and Sermons how passionately delivered or how long soever are evident proofes to mee that they have not the Spirit If they had they would never certainely expound Scripture so directly contrary to his meaning Or make the writings of the Prophets or Apostles weare only that present shape not which the holy Ghost hath
distractions of their minds they have dealt with them as cunning Anglers do with silly fishes troubled the stream and blinded them and then made them their prey The way to do this was to affront and disgrace clamour down all the primitive Truths for some Generations taught among them and to recall from their sepulchres and dust all the old intricate long since buried Opinions which were the madnesse of their own times and the Civill Warre of ours With which opinions they have dealt as the Witch of Endor dealt with her Familiar raised them up to the people clothed in a long mantle and speaking to them in the shape and voyce of a Prophet Hence come those severall acceptions and interpretations among you even in your ordinary discourses of one and the same plaine but sinisterly understood places of Scripture One following the practice of all the purest ages of the Church thinkes the Sacrament of Baptisme is to be administred to Infants Others who would certainly be a strange fight to the Congregation if they should appear the second time at the Font of late are taught to thinke that none are to be baptized but such as are old enough to be their owne Godfathers and can enter into Covenant with God and promise for themselves Some because it hath beene called a binding of the spirit to fetter their devotions in a set forme of Prayer have banisht that Prayer which Christ prescribed to his Apostles out of their Closets as well as Temples Others of as rectified a piety think no Prayer so likely to finde acceptance with God as that which was conceived and put into forme by his Sonne I should tire your patience too much to give you an exact Catalogue of all the rotten opinions which at this present swarm among us One who hath computed the Heresies which have sprung up in this Kingdome within these five years sayes they have doubled the number of those which were in Saint Austins time and then they were very neer fourscore One is a Chiliast and holds the personall Reigne of Christ upon Earth Another is a Corporealist and holds the death of the Soul with the Body Nay as 't is said in Africke a Lyon will couple with a Tyger from whence will spring a Libbard so certain strange unheard-of double-sex't Heresies are sprung up among us not able to understand what he would hold himselfe You shall have an Arrian and Sabellian lodged together in the same person Nay which is yet worse whatever Celsus spoke in scorn and Origen in vindication of our Redeemer Christ and his Mother hath of late trodden the Stage again and appeared to disturbe the World One I tremble to speak it hath called the Virgin Maryes chastity into question And others have spoken of the Saviour of the World so suspiciously as if he had been a thing of a stoln unlawfull Birth In short there want only some of those Munster men among us of whom Sleydan writes where one calleth himselfe God the Father another God the Sonne A third Paraclete or God the holy Ghost to make our Babel and confusion of wilde opinions at the height In this miserable distraction then where Heresie and Errour hath almost eaten up the true Religion And where all the light of the Gospel which shines among us is but like that imperfect light at the Creation which shined before the Sunne was placed in the firmament A light creeping forth of a dark Chaos and blind masse and strifefull heape of jarring Elements In this thick fogge of strange Doctrines I say which hath condenst it selfe into a cloud which hath almost overspread this whole Kingdome from which Truth seemes to have taken flight and made way for Ignorance to stile it selfe once more the Mother of devotion what way is there left to reconcile our minds or to beget one right knowledge and understanding of the wayes of God among us Truly I know none but that which Saint Paul here prescribes in the Text which is that we endeavour as near as we can to be of one mind and of one judgment But how shall this be brought to pass unless all judgments were alike clear and unbiassed Or unless laying apart all partiality and affection to their own side and all prejudice and hatred against those from whom they differ men would submit themselves to him who is best able to instruct them Or who can bring with him the most saving Truths into the Pulpit Besides may some one say if people should bring minds prepared to entertain the Truth where is that instructor so infallible or so opinionated of the strength of his own gifts and knowledg that another pretending to the same Truth may not challenge to himself the like infallibility who shall be the Judg of Controversies or who shall present Truth to us with such known marks and notes about it that as soon as t is presented every congregation of what mean capacities soever shall presently acknowledg and entertain it Wil you Sir who have all this while thus bemoaningly pitied our divisions we are bound to thank you for your charity to us and should be desirous enough to imbrace a truth of your description But you are a Scholar whose parts and abilities lye in the humane modell and building of your own secular studies We are therefore bid to doubt very much whether you have the Spirit and are told by some who profess themselves inspired that all your Readings and Studyings and tyrings of your self over a difficult piece of Scripture at midnight perhaps when all others sleep by a lone solitary dumb candle are but so many labours in vain Since t is impossible for any to understand the Scripture aright but such only who have it revealed to them by the same holy Spirit that wrote it My Brethren what shall I say to you Modesty and the knowledg I have of my own imperfections wil not allow me to say peremptorily that I have the Spirit of God Or if I could distinguish his secret influences and assistances from the operations of my own soul or could certainly say I have him which S Paul himself durst not say definitively yet 't would not become me so to confine him to my frail narrow parts as to deny him to all others more learned then my self For the setling therefore and composing of your divided minds I will not take upon me to be the Judge of Controversies but you your selves shall be Onely the better to enable you to peforme this charitable office to your selves and for your better direction how not to be out in your judgement as a sure clue to guide you through the perplext windings of that labyrinth into which some of you are falne so falne that they seem to me quite lost in a wood of mistakes where every path is a guide and every guide is an error give me leave to commend to you that seasonable advice of Saint Iohn which he delivers in the fourth
obtaine pardon for them I doe professe that I cannot thinke the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many yeares beheld a Church more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it or better establisht for the Government and Discipline of it then ours was And therefore if I were presently to enter into dispute with the greatest Patriarch among these Prophets who even against the Testimony of sense it selfe will yet perversely strive to prove that our Church stood in such need of Reformation that the growing Superstitions of it could not possibly be expiated but by so much Civill Warre I should not doubt with modesty enough to prove back again to him that all such weak irrationall Arguments as have onely his zeale for their Logick are not onely composed of untempered Morter But that in seeing those spots and blemishes in our Church which no good Protestants else could ever see 't will be no unreasonable inference to conclude him in the number of those erroneous Prophets here in the Text. Who to the great Scandall and abuse of their Office and Function did not onely palliate and gild over the publique sins of their times but did it like Prophets and saw Vanity too Which is the next part of the Text And is next to succeed in your attentions If the Philâ—…sophers rule be true that things admit of definitions according to their essences and that the nearer they approach to nothing the nearer they dâ—…aw to no Description to goe about to give you an exact definition of a thing impossible to be defined or to endeavour to describe a thing to you which hath been so much disputed whether it be a thing were to be like those Prophets here in the Text first to see Vanity my selfe and then to perswade you that there is a Reality and Substance in it Yet to let you see by the best lights I can what is here meant by Vanity I will joyne an inspired to a Heathen Philosopher Solomon whose whole Book of Ecclesiastes is but a Tract of Vanity as we may gather from the instances there set downe places vanity in mutability and change And because all things of this lower world consist in vicissitude change so farre that as Seneca said of Rivers Bis in idem flumen non descendimus we cannot step twice into the same stream so we may say of most Sublunarie things whose very beings do so resemble streams ut vix idem bis conspiciamus that we can scarce behold some things twice that wisest among the sonnes of men whose Philosophy was as spacious as there were things in nature to bee knowne calls all things under the Sunne vanity because all things under the Sunne are so lyable to inconstancy and change that they fleet away and vanish whilst they are considered and hasten to their decay whilst we are in the Contemplation of them Aristotle desines vanity to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing which hath not some reasonable end or purpose belonging to it For this reason he calls emptinesse and vacuity vanity Because there is so little use of it in nature that to expell it things have an inclination placed in them to performe actions against their kinde Earth to shut out a vacuity is taught to flie up like fire and fire to destroy emptinesse is taught to fall downe like earth And for this reason another Philosopher hath said that colours had there not been made eyes to see them and sounds had there not beene eares made to heare them had been vanities and to no purpose And what they said of sounds and colours we may say of all things else not onely all things under the Sun but the Sun it selfe who is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eye of the world without another eye to behold him or to know him to be so had been one of Aristotles vanities As then in Nature those things have deserved the name of vanities which either have no reasonable end or purpose belonging to them or else are altogether subject to Mutability and change so 't is in policy and Religion too To doe things by weake unreasonable inconstant principles principles altogether unable to support and upold the weight and structure of publique businesse built upon them or to doe things with no true substantiall solid usefull but a meere imaginary good end belonging to them As for example to alter the whole frame and Government of a State not that things may be mended but that they may run in another course then they did before or to change the universally received Government of a Church meerely for change sake and that things may be new not that they may bee better is a vanity of which I know not whether these Prophets here in the Text were guilty but when I consider the unreasonable changes already procured and the yet farther endlesse changes as unreasonably still pursued by the Prophets of our times I finde so much vacuity and emptinesse in their desires so much interested zeale and so little dis-interested reason so much novelty mistaken for reformation and withall so much confusion preferred before so much decency and order that I cannot but apply the Wise mans Ingemination to them and call their proceedings Vanity of vanities For if we may call weak groundlesse improbable surmises and conjectures vanities have not these Prophets dealt with the mindes of vuâ—…gar people as Melancholy men use to deale with the clouds raised monstrous formes and shapes to fright them where no feare was Have they not presented strange visions to them Idolatrie in a Church window Superstition in a white Surplice Masse in our Common-prayer Booke and Antichrist in our Bishops Have they not also to make things seem hideous in the State cast them into strange fantasticall Chymera figures And have they not like the fabulous walking Spirits wee read of created imaginary Apparitions to the people from such things flight unsolid melting Bodies as Ayre And for all this if you enquire upon what true stable principle or ground either taken from reason which is now preacht to be a saecular prophane heathen thing or from Scripture which is now made to submit to the more unerring rule of fancy they have proceeded or what hath been the true cause of their so vaine imaginations you will finde that contrary to all the rules of right judgement either common to men or Christians they have been guided meerely by that Causa per accidens that fallible erroneous accidentall cause which hath alwayes been the mother of mistakes Socrate ambulante coruscavit Because it lightned when Socrates took the Ayre one in the company thought that his walking was the occasion of the flash this certainly was a very vaine and foolish inference yet not more vaine and foolish then theirs who have â—…right people to conclude that all pictures in Church-windowes are â—…dols because some out of a misguided devotion have worshipt â—…hem or that
which are first capable to be seen and then to be transcribed into a picture But why that part of Christ which after his Resurrection when it began to cease to be any longer a part of this visible World was seen of above five hundred brethren at once may not be painted Nay why the figure of a Dove or of cloven Tongues of fire wherein the third person in the glorious Trinity appeared when he descended upon our Mediator Christ and sate upon the heads of the Apostles may not be brought into imagery I must confess to you I am not sharp-witted enough to perceive Though this I shal freely say to you and pray do not call it Poetry That to maintain that Christ thus in picture may be worshipt is such a peece of Supeâ—…stition as not only teaches the simple to commit Idolatry but endeavours to verifie upon him in colours the reproach which the calumniating Jews stuck upon his person and to make him thus painted a Seducer of people As for your fourth paragraph which assaults me the second time with an Argument without an Edge which is that the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of comparison in point of fitness to be preserved having in my former Letter already answered you I shal not put my self to the needless trouble the second time to confute it For answer to your Fifth pray Sir read that part of my Sermon which you have corrupted into a quibble And there you shal find that what I say of clean linnen is not as you say a shifting Fallacy But I there say that which you wil never be able to controule which is That by the same reason that you make Surplices to be superstitious because papists wear them you may make Linnen also to be superstitious because papists shift And so conclude cleanliness to be as unlawful as Surplices or Copes Sir this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I confess the same Answer twice served in to you not out of scarcity or barrenness or for want of another Reply but because much of your Letter is but crambe repetita a carret twice boyled Your sixth paragraph is a faggot bound up with more sticks in it then you without poetical Licence can possibly gather from my Letter where Sir I only promise you when ever you shal cal upon me to derive to you all the ancient parts of our English Liturgy from Liturgy's which were in the Church before popery was born Of which if any part be to be found in the Rubricks of the Church of Rome your logick wil never be able to prove that therefore 't is to be rejected as trash and trumpery in ours Good things Sir lose not their goodness because they are in some places mingled with superstitious Nor as I told you before do Davids Psalms cease to be a piece of Canonical Scripture because they are to be found bound up in the volumn with the Mass. Sir if what ever is made use of by the Pope or touches upon Rome should be superstitious the River Tiber would be the most blameable river in the World What you mean by a prelatical Faction here in England or what they borrowed from the Rituals or pontifical of Rome is exprest to me in such a mist of words which sound big to the common people and signifie nothing to the wise that I must confess my dulness I do not understand you If you mean that they inserted any new peeces into the old garment of our CoÌ„mon-prayer-book and those borrowed from the Missal or Breviary of Rome I beleeve Sir abstracting from those alterations made in the prayers for the King Queen and Royal issue which the Death of Princes exacted unless for constancy sake you would have them allow of prayers for the dead and in King Charls and Queen Mary's days to pray still for King Iames and Queen Anne which would be a piece of popery equal to the invocations of saints you will find nothing modern or of such new contrivance as past not Bucers Examen in the raign of Edward the sixth And was confirmed by Act of Parliament in the raign of Queen Elâ—…zabeth In saying this in their defence who had the ordering of such changes I hope Sir you will not so uncharitably think me imbark't in their Faction which truly to me stil presented it self like the conceal'd Horses under ground a fiction made to walk the streets to terrifie the people as to perswade your self after my so many professions to fall a sacrifice to the Protestant Religion that it can be either in the power of the Church or court of Rome to tempt me from my Resolution Which is to go out of the world in the same Religion I came in Sir I gave warning in my last letter not to venture your writings upon the Argument which deceives none but very vulgar understandings and which I in my Sermon cal the Mother of mistakes which is from an accidental concurrence in some things to infer an outright similitude and agreement in all Because Bellarmine says tradition is a better medium to prove somethings by then a private spirit and because I in this particular have said so too you tacitely infer that I and Bellarmine are of the same Religion which is the same as if a Turk and a Christian saying that the Sun shines you should infer that the Christian is a Mahumetan and for saying so a Turk I confess you do not say we are both of the same Religion but that I in preferring Tradition which you your self in your seventh paragraph tllow to be the Constant and universal Report of the Church before he Testimony of the Spirit speaking in the Word to the Consciences of private men am more profane than he Heer sir you must not take it ill if I expose you to the censure of being deservedly thought guilty of a double mistake The one is that if Bellarmine in this particular were in an Errour and if I had out-spoken him in his Errour yet the Laws of speech will not allow you to say That in an unprofane subject either of us is profane more heretical or mistaken you might perhaps have said and this though a false Assertion might yet have past for right Expression But to call him positively and me comparatively more profane because we both hold That a Drop is more liable to corruption then the Ocean or the testimony of al ages of the Church is a fuller proof of the meaning of a text in Scripture then the solitary Exposition of a man who can perswade none but himself is as incongruous as if you should say that because Bellarmine wrote but three Volumns and Abulensis twelve therefore Abulensis was a greater Adulterer then He. Your other mistake is That you confound the Spirit of God speaking in the Scripture with the private Spirit that is Reason Humour or Fancie of the person spoken to Sir let that blessed Spirit decide this controversie between us
He sayes that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of private Interpretation That is so calculated or Meridianized to some select minds understandings that it shall hold the candle to them only and leave All others in the Darke But if you will consent to the Comment of the most primitive Fathers on that Text The meaning of it is That as God by his Spirit did at first dictate the scripture so he dictated it in those thingswhich are necessary to Salvation intelligible to all the world of Men who will addict their minds to read it It being therefore a Rule held out to all mankind for them to order their lives and actions by and therefore universally intelligible to them it should else cease to be either Revelation or a Rule for you to hold that it cannot be understood without a second Revelation made by the same Spirit that wrote it to the private spirit of you the more-Cabinet Reader is as if you should inclose and impale to your self the Ayre or Sun-beames And should maintain that God hath placed the Sun in the firmament and given you only eyes to see him In short sir 't is to make his word which was ordained to give light to all the World a Dark Lanthorn In which a candle shines to the use of none but him that bears it Your Eighth Paragraph being the third of your eleven Questions as also the close of your ninth shall receive a latine Answer from me in the Divinity School Your next Paragraph is againe the Hydra with repullulating Heads Where first you put me to prove the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England Which being managed by a Prelaticall faction whom you say I call the Church was not excellent if I reckon from the yeare 1630. to 1640. As for the Doctrine Sir I told you before that the Primitive Church it selfe was not free from Heresies If therefore I should grant you which I never shall till you particularly tell me what those erroneous doctrines were that some men in our Church were heterodox nay hereticall in their opinions yet I conceive it to be a very neere neighbour to heresie in you to charge the doctrines of persons upon the Kingdome or Church Such Doctrines might be in England as you whether out of Choice or Luck have said yet not by the Tenets or Doctrines of the Land No more then if you should say that because M. Yerbury and some few oâ—…hers hold the Equâ—…lity of the Saints with Christ the whole Kingdome is a blasphemer and was by you confuted at S. Maries The publick doctrine of the Church of England I call none but that which was allowed to be so by an Act of Paâ—…liament of England and that Sir was contained in the 39. Articles If any Prelate or inferiour Priest for the Cicle of yeares you speak of either held or taught any thing contrary to thâ—…se as it will be hard I beleeve for you to instance in any of that side who did you shall have my consent in that particular to count them no part of our Church In the meane time Sir I beseech you be favourable to this Island and think not that for ten yeares space 't was hereticall in all the parts of it on this side Berwick Withall Sir I desire since you have assigned me an Epocha to reckon from that you will compare the worst doctrines which wore the date of the Trojan Warre among us with those which have since broke loose in the space of a Warre not halfe so long and you will find that our Church for those ten yeares you speak of wore a garment I will not say as seamless and undivided as Christs coat But since the Soldiers did cast lots upon it so much heresie as well as schisme hath torne it asunder that 't is now become like Iosephs coat imbrued in bloud where no one piece carryes colour or resemblance to another As for the Discipline and Government of our Church if you would speak your conscience and not your gall you would confess that the frame and structure of it was raised from the most Primitive Modell that any Moderne Church under the Sunne was governed by A Government so well sized and fitted to the Civill Government of the Kingdome that till the insurrection of some false Prophets who presumed to offer strange fire before the Lord and reduced a Land which flowed with milk and honey into a wildernesse they agreed together like the two Scripture-brothers Moses and Aaron and were the two banks which shut up schisme within its channell and suffered not heresie or sedition to overflow their bounds In short Sir I know not into what new forme this Kingdome may be moulded or what new creation may creep forth from the strife-full heap of things into which as into a second Chaos we are fallen But if the Civill State doe ever returne to its former selfe againe your Presbyterian Government which was brought forth at Geneva and was since nursed up in Scotland mingled with it if I be not deceived in the principles of that Government will be but a wild Vine ingrafted into a true Vpon which unequall disproportioned Incorporation we may as well expect to gather Figs of Thistles or grapes of thornes as that the one should grow so Southerne the other so Northerne that one harmonious musicall Body should arise from them thus joyned What Errors in Government or Discipline were committed by the Prelates I know not neither have you proved them hitherto chargeable with any unless this were an error that they laid an Ostracisme as you say upon those that opposed your Government I beleeve Sir when Presbytery is set up and you placed in your Consistory with your Spirituall and Lay-Brethren you will not be so negligent or so much asleep in your place as not to find an Ostracisme for those who shall oppose you in your office In the meane time Sir to call them or those who submitted to their Government A Prelaticall faction because the then wheels of their Government moved with an unanimous undisturbance is I beleeve a calumny which you would faine fasten upon them provoked I suppose by the description which I have made of the conspiracy of the False Prophets of Ierusalem in my Sermon I must deal freely with you Sir do but probably make it appear to me that this Faction in your letter was like the Conspiracy in my Sermon Do but prove to me that the Prelates devoured soules That they took to themselves the Treasure and precious things of the Land That to effect this they kindled the first spark towards a CivilWar then blew it into such a flame as could not be quencht but with the bloud of Husbands ravisht from their Wives and the slaughter of parents prest and ravisht from their children Doe but prove to me that they made one widdow or built their Honours upon the ruine or calamity of one Orphane Lastly do
and the denyall of providence doe destroy is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one nay one of the firmest Bonds of Society and supporters oâ—… Lawes yet I have not met with any demonstrative Argument which hath proved to me that there is such a necessary dependance of Humane society upon Religion that the Absence of the One must inevitably be the Destruction of the other If it be this is most likely to come to passe in the State or Commonwealth which is of this opinion among themselves Not in a forraigne State or Common-wealth which is not But since 't is possible that a Countrey of Atheists may yet have so much Morality among them seconded by Lawes made by common agreement among themselves as to be a People and to hold the society of Citizens among themselves And as 't is possible for them without Religion so farre for meere utility and safeties sake to observe the â—…aw of Nations as not to wrong or injure a People different from themselves so where no civill wrong or injury is offered by them to another People but where the morall Bonds of Society and commerce though not the Religious of Opinion and Worship are unbroken by them for the People not injured to make Warre upon them for a feard imaginary consequence or because being Atheists 't is possiâ—…l that their example may spread is an Act of Hostility which I confesse I am not able to defend For thirdly Sir such a Warre must either have for it's end their punishment or their Correction Their punishment can be no true warrantable end because towards those who shall thus make Warre upon them they have not offended Nor can their Correction Legitimate such a Warre Because all Correction as well as Punishment requires Iurisdiction in the Correctors and Inflictors of the punishment Which one People cannot reasonably be presumed to have over another People independent and no way subject to them unlesse we will allow with that Author that because Naturall reason doth dictate that Atheisme is punishable therefore they who are not Atheists have a right to punish those that are which Covarruvtas 〈◊〉 Spaniard who hath learnedly disputed this poynt and others as learned as he have not thought fit to grant It hath been a Questionâ—…k't â—…k't whether Idolatry be not a Crime of this punishable nature in one People by another who are not guilty of that Crime To which the best Divines which 〈◊〉 hâ—… yet read upon that Subject doe answer negatively that it is not For though it be to be granted that anâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and kinds of Idolatry One is more Ignoble and irrationall then Another A 〈◊〉 so tâ—… eâ—…nce towards God is greater or lesse as the Objects to which men terminate their Idolatry are more vile or honourable As in those old Heathens 't was a more faulty Idolatry to worship a Dogge or Crocodile or Serpent then to worship things of a Sublimer kinde namely the Sunne or heavenly bodies or Soules of famous men departed And though all such Idolatries have deservedly been thought to be so many Affronts and Robberies of the true God whose worship is thereby misplaced and spent upon false yet having left behind him in his whole Globe of Creation no exact figure or Character of Himselfe to be known or distinguisht by nor any plaine Teacher but his Scripture to informe men of vulgar understandings that there is but one God and that that one God is only an Intelligible spirit and no part of this grosse materiall World which we see wherever the Scripture hath not been heard of if men unable by the sight of a Naturall discourse to apprehend him as He is have fancied to themselves a plurality of False Gods or made to themselves false representations of the true S. Paul tells us that God connived at it as a piece of unaffected ignorance which can never be a cause meritorious of a Warre to correct it First because being only an Offence against God and the Offendors being as I said before free and no waâ—… subject to any People but themselves Any forraigne Nation unlesse they can show the like Commission from God to punish them as the Iewes had to punish and root out the Canaanites will want Iurisdiction and Authority to their Armes Next because Idolatry though it be a false Religion is yet as conservant of Society which distinguishes it very much from Atheisme and the deniall of Providence as if'twere true Nor can I see why He who worships many Gods if he believe them to be Gods should lesse feare punishment for his perjuries or other Crimes then He who only worships and believes there is but one Lastly because though Idolatry be an Errour in men yet being an Errour without the light of Scripture to rectify it hardly vincible in themselves and no way criminall towards others of a more rectified Reason 'T is to be reformed by Argument and perswasion not violence or force Since a Warre made upon the Errours or mens mindes is as unreasonable as a Warre made upon the Freedome or their Wills And for this â—…ast reason I conceive that the propagation of Christian Religion cannot be a just cause for a Warre upon those who will refuse to imbrace it First because such a Refusall may possibly spring from an Errour in the understanding which even in a Preaching and perswasive way would scarce be in the power of S. Paul himselfe if he were on earth againe unless he would joyne Miracles to his Sermons to dislodge For though some parts of the New Law doe carry such a Musick and consent to the Law of Nature that they answer one another like two strings wound up to the same tune yet there be other parts which though they doe not contradict it are yet so unillustrable from the principles of Reason that they cannot in a naturall way of Argumentation force assent And you know Sir 't would be unreasonable to make Warre upon mens persons for the reception of a Doctrine which cannot convince their Minds I must needs confesse to you should Christ now live in our daies and Preach much harder Doctrines then those in the Gospell and should confirme every Doctrine with a Miracle as he did then 't would be an inexcusable peece of Infidelity in all those who should see his Miracles not presently to consent and yeeld beliefe to his Sermons But somethings in his Doctrine appearing new and strange to the World and depending for the probability of their Truth upon the Authority of his Miracles And those Miracles being Matters of Fact wrought so many Ages since and therefore not possibly able to represent themselves to our times upon gâ—…eater Authority anâ—… proofe then the Faith and generall Report of Tradition and story If any shall think they have reason not to believe such a report they may also thinke they have no reason to believe such Miracles and by consequence the Doctrine 〈◊〉 be confirmed by them In short