possibly now in England be not only destructive to many thousands but very disadvantagious to the King and Kingdome to the Trade and Commerce of the Nation by opening a little Wicket of Royal Clemency only to some few and shutting the great Gate to many whose tender and unsatisfied or scrupulous Consciences do as much expect need and deserve it as those that have it in petty matters while all others scruples are driven to discontent and despair by denial of all indulgence to them in greater scruples There are but these four wayes of treating any party that dissents from the publick establishment of Religion and its Lawes in any Church and Kingdom 1. Either to impoverish imprison banish and destroy all Dissenters as the King of Castile did the Moores of Granada which is a very rough barbarous unwelcome and unchristian way disallowed by all wise men of all perswasions Or Secondly by rational convincing them of their errors which is a work of time and dexterity not to be done on the sudden no more then bodily cures without a miracle though very worthy to bear a part in the Discipline of the Church which should require of every one a reason why they differ from or forsake the established Religion and treat them according as their perswasion passion or pertinacy shall appeare to the Conservators of Religion Or Thirdly by changing established Laws for their sake which is not for the Piety Prudence Honour and Safety of a Nation and Church when it judgeth its Constitutions to be religious righteous and convenient Or Fourthly by way of discreet connivance and charitable indulgence so farre as the civil peace of the Nation will bear until Reason and Religion of whose prevalency wise and good men never despair have by calme and charitable methods recovered people from the error of their wayes by the sacred Doctrine and good examples of those who conforme to the established Lawes in Church and State This being first done will render Dissenters unexcusable and justifie any severity which shall be inflicted upon the extravagancies of those opinions and actions which do any way perturb the publick peace or affront the established Religion And in this particular case of the Quakers who refuse all legal Oathes upon scruples of Conscience and so threaten either to subvert our Laws or to obstruct all judicial proceedings pleading for their disobedience to mans Laws the express command of Christ and his Apostle Saint James no sober man can think by meer penalties to reduce them to a conformity with our Laws or to stop the spreading of their Opinions untill it be plainly shewed that it is not true Religion but onely Superstition in them a fear where no fear is a being righteous over-much by a mistake of Christs meaning a wresting of those Scriptures by their own unlearnedness and unstableness to their own destruction as well as to the publick perturbation Noble Sir this great work for so it is to convince weak and wilful men of the error of their wayes I have undertaken in this little Treatise by Gods blessing not unseasonably I hope as to our times nor unsuitably as to my profession If I may be happy to do any of them good who possibly may erre in this with no evil mind by redeeming them from their mistakes and so from the penalties of the Law I shall more rejoyce in that success then those Souldiers did who among the Ancients were rewarded with Civick Garlands for preserving any of their Countrey-men and fellow-Citizens which Honour you know the Roman valour esteemed more then any victorious Laurels for destroying their Enemies And in this charitable endeavour prospered by Gods grace I shall the more seriously triumph because I believe it most agreable as to my Saviours preoept and primitive examples of Christian Bishops so to your generous Soule whereby this piece may probably be fortified with the approbation of so pieus and judicious a person whose single suffrage is to me more valuable then the sequacious and vulgar votes of thousands whose empty brains and clamorous mouths like hollow places where Echo hides her self do commonly receive and report things not as the Truth is in them but as the noise and cry is lowdest I know you are as much above plebeian censures as titular Honours traditional Philosophy and popular Religion being every way judiciously devoted to God and his Truth full of Loyalty to the King and Laws also of sober Conformity to the established Religion of this Church whose royal Law is that of Charity the bond of perfection and centre of Peace In all which respects you deserve and have the love and honour of all worthy Persons and particularly of him who may without vanity own this as an instance of some worth in him that he is SIR Your most affectionate Friend and humble Servant JOH EXON March 20 1661. A DISCOURSE Concerning Publick Oaths and the Lawfulness of Swearing in Judicial Proceedings c. FInding lately in the most Honourable House of Peers that a Law was likely to pass in order to punish with great Penalties those English Subjects who under the name of Quakers shall refuse to take as other legal Oaths so those which are usually required in Judicial proceedings thereby to prevent either the alteration of the good Laws and Customs of England according to private mens fancies or the obstructions and violations of publick Justice the free course of which as that of the Blood and Spirits to the Natural is the preservation of the Life and Health the Peace and Honour the Happiness and very Being of the Body Politick which by the Laws and ancient Customs of this Kingdom of England cannot be duly administred but by those forms of solemn and religious Oaths in the Name of the true God which are the highest Obligations to Truth and Justice upon them that swear also the greatest satisfactions or assurances that can be given to others for the belief of what is so attested and for acquiescency in what is so decided I was hereupon bold thus far humbly to intercede with that Honourable House in the behalf of those poor people who are likely to fall under the Penalties of that Law That however I might consent to the passing of that Bill out of that justice and charity which I owe to the publick peace and welfare to which all private Parties Interests and Charities must submit yet I craved so far a respite for some time as to the execution of those Penalties upon any of them as Offenders until some such rational and religious course were taken as might best inform those men of the lawfulness by God's as well as Man's Law of imposing and taking such publick Oaths That so answering first their Scruples and fairly removing their difficulties either they might be brought to a chearful Obedience in that particular or else be left without excuse before God and man while the truth of the Law was justified against
their error and the severity of it only imputable to their own obstinacy I further recommended this previous method of Christian Charity or meekness of Wisdome as best becoming the Piety Humanity and Honour of that House 2. as most agreeable to the wonted Clemency of His Majesty to all His good Subjects 3. as the aptest means to reclaim such as were gone astray from their duty by the error of their fancy 4. and to stop for the future the spreading of this and other dangerous Opinions which are usually known under the name of Quakerisme the Cure of which is easilier done by rational applications then by only rigid inflictions upon those who pleading Conscience will by the Vulgar be thought Martyrs for their Sufferings their patience spreading a love and esteem of their Opinions by that pity and sympathy which people will be prone to have for their persons 5. I further asserted this humble motion as very sutable to my Profession as a Minister of the Gospel as the special care of the Bishops and Fathers of the Church relations which carry in them great obligations to Humanity Charity Ministerial Duty Episcopal Vigilancy and Paternal Compassion to any men specially Christians who are weak or ignorant erroneous in their judgement or dangerous in their actions 6. Lastly I urged the paterne of Divine Justice whose usual fore-runner is Mercy Vengeance rarely following but where Patience hath gone before instructing men of their duty warning them of the danger of their sins bearing with their manners for a time and calling them to repentance before the Decree come forth to execution To this purpose I am sure I spake how I worded my meaning I cannot exactly recollect confessing that I never found my self who am thought neither a barren nor a diffident speaker more surprised with an ingenuous horror in any Audience then when I adventured to speak in that most august and honourable Assembly of the Lords in Parliament where there are so many excellent Orators and accurate Censors among whom it is safer to hear then to speak and easier to admire then imitate their judicious Eloquence As the Motion seemed to have some favourable Acceptance in that Honourable House from many Lords Temporal and from some of my Brethren the Bishops so I presume it will not be displeasing to their Piety and Charity if I do that by a private and single hand which I perswade my self all of them would readily assist me in by their joint suffrages and consent if their leisure would permit them in common to consult and determine of this point Nor can I but believe that His Majesties Royal Clemency which hath sought in the gentlest way to convince and conquer all His Enemies whose Pride and Folly hath not made them desperate and so the severest punishers of themselves will graciously approve this my charitable endeavour to redeem many of his well-meaning Subjects from those mistakes in Opinion and mischiefs in Practise which must either expose His Majesty and his Kingdomes to great troubles and dangers if unpunished and permitted or else compel His Native Gentleness to use at last and it may be too late those Severities which not His own Benignity but the publick Necessity will require of a Wise and Just King whose Lenity to any party of his Subjects contrary to Law will soon become an injury to the Community which cannot be safe or happy but by an uniform obedience to the same Laws which must be the rules and measures of all mens publick Actions the tryers of their failings and the inflicters of their punishments This Office of Christian Charity I have undertaken for Christ his sake by whom I have received many mercies not bespoken or in the least sort obliged by any of that Sect called Quakers with whom I have so little correspondency that I have not any acquaintance not knowing any of that way by Face or Name or one hours conversation They being a Generation of people so supercilious or so shy that they are scarce sociable or accessible speaking much in their Conventicles behind mens backs but seldom arguing any thing in presence of those that are best able to answer or satisfie them seeming wiser in their own conceits then seven men that can render a reason I have seen indeed some of their Papers and received some of their Letters written to my self truely not very rudely nor malapertly yet with so abrupt and obscure a way so blindly censorious and boldly dictating that saving a few good words and godly phrases in them I found very little of rational or Scriptural demonstration many passages so far from the beauty and strength of Religion that they had not the ordinary symmetry of Reason or the lineaments of common sense in them at least in my apprehension who am wholly a stranger to any Canting or Chymical Divinity which bubbles forth many specious Notions fine Fancies and short-lived Conceptions floating a little in an airy and empty brain but not induring the firm touch or breath of any serious judgement Nor do I expect any thanks for my pains from any of that Faction while they continue in their morose Opinions in their surly rude and uncourteous Manners I do not hear that they are generally a people of so soft and ingenuous tempers as to take any thing kindly or thankfully from those that are not of their own Perswasion many of them seem to affect a ruserved and restical way of clownish yea scornful demeanour prone to censure despise and reproch not only their betters but even their Benefactors and Instructors Their rude and levelling humour denies to shew common courtesie and wonted tokens of civil respect to their Superiours contrary to the reverent gentle and humble behaviour of all God's people in all Ages Jews and Gentiles then whom none were more full of inward humility or of outward respect and civility according to the custom of their Countries Possibly these Quakers may in a fit fear and flatter some men in power but they do not seem much to regard any man with any true love or honour as to real worth unless they be of their Fraternity who pretending to a diviner spirit and higher lights then either Reason Law or Scripture afford to other men do think they have cause to glory in their own imaginations and to despise all those who are not yet arrived to the pitch of their presumption Some men I find look upon these Quakers with an eye of publick Fear and Jealousie lest the leaven of their Opinions and Practises spreading far among the meaner sort of people to whose humour that rude and confident way is very agreeable while in a moment all their defects of Reason Learning Education Religion Loyalty and Civility are made up by a presumed spirit and light within them lest I say it should after the pattern of other Sects both later and elder such as were the Montanists Manichees Circumcellians Euchites
Samosatenians Anabaptists Familists Presbyterians and Independents give occasion and confidence to common people to run to Tumults and Commottons under pretence of setting up God and Christ and the Spirit by the way of new Powers new Lights and new Models in Church and State Of which rare Fancies we have had of late so many Tragical Experiments in England under other Names Notions and Pretensions Certainly it will become the publick care and wisdom as not easily to permit the rise and spreading of any novel humors and wayes contrary to the good Constitutions and well-tried Laws of this Church and Kingdom so never to trust them though never so soft and seemingly innocent at first Hornes as in other Creatures grow out of mens heads and hands too as their Bones and Smews grow stronger as their strength and members increase Nothing but truly Christian and Evangelical Principles which are in the good and old way do secure Kings or sufficiently bind Subjects to their good behaviour Though Factions at first may seem but as a Cloud of an hand-breadth yet they will in time grow big and black covering the whole face of Heaven and pouring down showres of Civil troubles upon any Church and Nation if they be not dispelled by Authority Let them go never so soft and silently at first as Cats and Lions do on their Paws yet they have all of them sharp Fangs hidden and reserved Talons till they find a fit prey and opportunity for their designs then you shall see what cruel Clawes they have We see not only the greater Hornets of rigid Presbyterians but the lesser Wasps of Independents and the Gad-flies or muskeetos of Anabaptists with other Insects after their pious buzzing at first used their stings at last and in their season both jointly and severally they sought to sting to death this Church and Kingdom though at first like Serpents in Winter they seemed very tame and meek as to their principles and practises There is a Wolf under the Sheeps clothing of all Novelizing Humorists All of them did either begin or continue or increase our late Miseries and will renew them by their emulations and ambitions from which the miraculous mercies of God have delivered us The only advantage which these our late Tragedies can afford us is to learn wisdom by them to govern our hearts and affections with greater evenness and exactness also to look to the Peace of Church State with all possible circumspection and vigilancy never to trust the most innocent smiles and harmless simplicities of any Innovators dissenters and repugners against well-setled Laws and ancient Constitutions no way contrary to Reason or Scripture For my part though I have pity and charity for these silly Quakers as they may now appear wrapped up in a kind of clownish garb and ignorant plainness yet I should forfeit my prudence much to trust their Hands because I find the Tongues and Pens of some of them are full of bitterness scorn and reproch arguing much pride and presumption in their spirits not beseeming truly mortified Christians and least of all such as are for the most part but mean people for birth or breeding for reason and understanding as well as estates And for the pretended Inspirations or inward Lights of which they vapour I never yet saw any beams or effects of them that might give the least cause to think of them above other poor men who live by the more sure and sufficient light of the Scriptures and our Laws which raise them to much a higher pitch of knowledge and prudence sanctity and due obedience then ever yet I observed in any of this way who seem very much infected with affectation and self-conceit I never conversed with any of their persons and for their Writings private or publick in which I suppose they shew their best abilities I must profess there appears to me so nothing of an excellent or extraordinary spirit in them that there is much of silliness and never well-catechised ignorance â—et off with great confidence an odd way of folly dressed up with some Scripture-phrases like Sepulchres painted with sweet flowers and fair colours but void of any true life and beauty within either as convincing of sin and error or as vindicating any truth or necessary point of duty and morality They generally seem a busie petulant and pragmatick sort of people measuring themselves by themselves admiring each other even in their most ridiculous affectations and falsities a kind of Dreamers at once deceiving and being deceived doting and glorying in their rude and contemptuous carriage toward all men that do not either favour or flatter them in their rusticity and petulancy which hath in it a great seed of pride and ambition Nor do they seem wholly void of other evil principles which look very like Covetousness and Injustice while they deny to Ministers of the Gospel never so able and faithful that maintenance by Tithes which by the Laws of the Land are as much due to them as any mans Estate and by no Law of Christ forbidden but rather allowed yea ordained and proportioned by the Lord under the Gospel by a paritie of justice and gratitude in way of homage to Christ and of due wages and hire to Gods labourers as the livelihood of those that serve God and his Church in holy ministrations Nor is it a small insolence in them to endeavour in an age of so much light and learning to obtrude yea oppose the rudeness and silliness of their covetous and crude fancies against the Prudence Justice and Piety of this Church and Kingdom But my design in this place is not to ravel into all the pettie Opinions Enthusiastick Raptures and odd practises of the Quakers nor will I here severely perstringe them because I have a great pity for them upon a threefold account First because I perceive them to be so very unlearned and unstable people ever learning but never coming to any solid knowledge of Truth or any great improvement in Christian gifts men of low parts and small capacities as to any point of true wisdom or understanding in things Humane or Divine tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine easily seduced with specious pretensions and strange notions even to Raptures and Enthusiasmes which are presented to them as rare novelties by some that are Masters of that Art and Agitators for that Party for what design private or publick forraign or domestick God knows Some suspect Jesuitick Arts to be among them Indeed they seem so far to conspire with the craftiest Lotolists as they bear a most implacable hatred against the Church of England and under religious pretensions they may in time undermine the civil Peace as other Factions formerly have done The way to make them better Subjects is to make them wiser men and seberer Christians by some publick care to have them better instructed as well as justly restrained My Second ground of pity
Reason or true Scripture-demonstration is sufficient to make the man of God perfect to every good word and work without any additions or detractions which are but as the Wens or witherings the excrescencies or deficiencies of mens extravagant minds and actions so far from advancing the peace of Conscience or the honour of true Religion that they debase and deforme both of them As no Laws of men contrary to Gods Word are to be actively obeyed so Laws of men which are not contrary to right Reason and Scripture must not be disobeyed but conscientiously observed for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2. 13. Rom. 13. 5. in whose wisdom and authority such Laws are made and executed The contrary will not only trouble the publick Peace but that also of a mans own soul at least when after the vain flashes of light kindled from the sparks of their private fancies they shall lie down in darkness as to their comfort and reward from God whose judgment is according to righteousness and truth Secondly I cannot but commend the Quakers for their declared esteem in this of the authority of the holy Scripture as the rule of Faith and holy life For as by their instances alledged out of Scripture they profess a fear to sin against the commands there given by Christ against Swearing so I may charitably presume however they are by many suspected to slight the Scriptures and fly to Inspirations or Lights within them that they will be no less strict in doing what therein is required of them as to Truths to be believed Mysteries to be celebrated and Duties to be done to God and Man The only Caution that here must be given them is to take heed that they do not wrest the Scriptures 2 Pel. 3. 16. by their ignorant and unstable minds that they believe not every Spirit or seeming and partial Allegation of Scripture since the Devil oft feathers his temptations and fiery darts as against Christ Mat. 3. with Scriptural Citations partially and preposterously applied Not the Letter in its abruptness or nakedness of sense must be swallowed presently but the mind of God must be searched out in the scope and end also in the manner and emphasis of what is expressed Scripture is indeed sufficient for the substance of all necessary Truths to be believed and Duties to be done or left undone but it doth not stretch it selfe to the instances of every particular circumstance or ceremony which private Prudence or publick Laws may regulate according to order and decency to edification Nor is Scripture to be well understood in retaile that is by single places taken apart by themselves but in whole-sale by the proportion of Faith the analogous or concurrent sense which is made up or twisted from many places Many things in some Scriptures are expressed darkly metaphorically figuratively parabolically comparatively by way of allusion in Metonymies Synecdoches Ironies and Hyperboles in Vniversalities which are limited to the subject intended Many popular expressions have special regard to particular times places persons customs and usages and must be so taken as temporary and occasional These must have commodious interpretations consonant to that grand tenour of Gods word which as the life and spirit runs through all the parts of it but resides most eminently in some places as the Soul in the Brain or Heart which are as the essential vital integral and principal parts of Scripture the main standards and measure of all others and of true Religion both as to Morals and Evangelicals Mysteries to be believed and Duties to be performed Unless we observe these prudentials in searching the mind of God and taking the true meaning of the Scriptures we shall as Saint Austin observes draw poyson with Spiders from those sweet flowers which would afford us honey A depraved and private interpretation is the corruption wrack torture of Scripture whose every line is as the Sun-beams light and straight of it self but erroneous minds like Glasses of Refraction or false Mediums pervert them from their simplicity to their own destruction as S. Peter speaks It were endless to enumerate those places of Scripture which have either more or less or something other in their meaning and design then the Letter seems to hold forth in the bare words of it Extraordinary Commands as to Abraham for sacrificing his Son Isaac to the Israelites to rob by way of borrowing and recompense the Egyptians the heroick impulses and actions of others as Moses Phineas Elias and Sampson Commands to do things less comely and honest either in a reality or in a vision and representation as Hosea's marrying an Harlot the faults or failings of others which were holy men as to their integritie barely recorded but not there blamed as Rebecca's and Jacob's supplanting by a lye and fraud the officious lyes of the Midwives Rahab and others David's feigning himselfe mad the equivocations and dissimulations of others These and such like that have any thing in them which seems or is contrary to the constant rule of Morality Piety Sanctity Honesty and Veracity must be salved by such an interpretation and taken in such a sense as may no way bring them into an ordinary rule or imitable example contrary to the express and constant command of God in his Word which is never to be allayed by the mixtures of humane Passions Frailties and Infirmities So in things that are preceptive either enjoyning or forbidding by way of proverbial speaking the meaning must not be stretched on the tenter or rack of the Letter but as we gather some fruit that grow with thick shells only to gaine the small kernels in them so in these no more is to be collected from the Letter then what may have due regard to the design and scope of the speaker So in the fifth sixth and seventh Chapters of Saint Matthew Christs Sermon in the mount hath many such expressions as of anointing the Head Face in fasting pulling out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand giving to them that ask to sell all and give to the poor to turn the other Cheek to the smiters These do not run Christians upon maiming and deforming their Bodies or expose them to poverty and stupidity but only they teach them to bear with patience repeated injuries rather then be put beyond the bounds of Christian patience and charity and to sustain any outward difficulties rather then inward enormities of lust or covetousness and the like So not to lay up treasure on earth to take no thought for their life or care for to morrow Labour not for the meat that perisheth c. Joh. 6. 27. to call no man Father or Master on Earth Mat. 23.9 not to salute any man by the way Luk. 10. 4. not to put on costly Rayment or Jewels c. 1 Pet. 3. 3. So Hosea 6. 6. I will have mercy and not sacrifice So Rent your Hearts and