persons dedicated to an Holy Office and sworn to do her faithful service the Idleness of some and the Viciousness of others who wear the outward Robes of Innocency have opened as many nay more mouths against our Church than any thing else I know Had not our Enemies stood upon this place of defence and made it their chiefest Sanctuary we had muzzled Faction long ago and seditious principles had been quite beat out of Countenance we had chased Separation into its proper Den and sent it back to inhabit those lower Regions where it was first invented For when all Arguments have failed our Adversaries and we have silenced all their unreasonable Clamours why yet an Arrow fetched out of this Quiver hath shot us through and through and we must never hope to see the Church ascendant till we recollect our selves and return in some good degree to the Innocence of Primitive Christianity Let but Gravity and Prudence attend us in the Streets and in our ordinary Converse let but Diligence and a well-proportioned Zeal await us in the Desk and pulpit let us fight our Enemies with their own weapons and be as often preaching Conformity and Obedience to wholsome Laws as they are stirring up their hearers to dissatisfactions and discontents and then I am sure we shall not need many more Laws to reduce the Generality of the people to a Submission I will not meddle with the Right or the Religion of Preaching often yet this I will dare to say Considering our present Circumstances 't is very politick and would prevent much of that Faction which otherways will necessarily grow and enlarge it self And upon this account I would heartily desire those men who are not satisfyed in the publick Convenience of it themselves not to laugh at and deride those who do it for I am certain this hath contributed to the Churches loss and hath put an Argument into our Adversaries hands that hath not wanted its force and power amongst the giddy multitude Well therefore if we have any desire to see the Prosperity of this Church if we have any hearty good wishes for the unalterable Settlement of it pray let us be diligent in our Calling for Diligence makes the Church rich both in Members and in Graces too Let us not grudge any pains whereby we may draw people into that Fold Christ himself does keep and bring them into those direct ways and paths that lead to Eternal Life But there is another false Friend amongst the Clergy too and that is he that inveighs privately against what publickly he hath sworn to and in his Visits sighs and mourns for those Impositions which under his own hand he hath declared his full satisfaction in This is the Man indeed that nurses Faction and strengthens the Common People in the belief of their wrong and ungrounded perswasions of the Discipline of the Church and truly is fit for nothing else but to be given up to the utmost Justice and Rigour of the Law and to be dealt withal as a perjured person for what hold can be taken of such a person and what security can he give of his good Behaviour whom Oaths and voluntary Subscriptions will not oblige and tye This Man ought to be looked upon as an Enemy in our own Quarters standing ready upon every Siege to open the Gates and to break down the Walls in order to the entrance of our Enemies upon us and if such Fellows as these be not taught better Manners and more Honesty why we must expect a return of our former Gonfusions upon us again For here it was they begun before and most of those that cursed Meroz and invited the Common People to help the Lord against the Mighty were persons whose several Hands to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church might have been found in those several Bishops Offices from whom they received those Instruments whereby they were empowered to exercise their Publick Ministery And alas that which shows there is much of the same Spirit amongst these men still and that the Interest of Morality and Honesty must be waved when their Game is to be plaid is this that there is scarce any man in Publick and Legal Employment can have a good word or be represented under any fair character by the Brethren of the Separation but such false Loones as these are these must be cryed up as having something of the Power of Godliness for to allow as much as themselves pretend to would spoil the market these must be vogued by them as men having some tolerable acquaintance with the gracious Influences of God's Spirit and as men whose Hearts are good let their outward Practices be what they will and if advice be asked what publick Ministers are fittest to be heard why if they will allow it Lawful to hear any for I promise you at this time as the price of things go it is a very great favour be sure they be sent to these mens Churches But Good God! that men should be so notoriously wicked on both sides the one to entertain a good opinion of and look upon the other as a Saint purely for his Knavery and Dishonesty and the other that he should believe himself the better Christian because he plays tricks with Government and solemnly swears to that which privately he complains of as his greatest burthen and makes ridiculous reflections upon certainly if any thing be an Argument of a wasted Mind and spoiled Conscience it is this And thus having given an account of those main Engines whereby the Honour and Safety of this excellent Church is battered down I thought to have consulted the Readers as well as mine own ease and to have gone no further But upon fresh and second thoughts I find other things whereby our Church suffers an Eclipse which though not so obvious to every view as the others yet I am certain very pernicious and in their way very much conducing to the Churches Ruine and to the encreasing of those thick Clouds that are now so fast gathering about us and which if not laid aside by those who have hitherto been the evil Instruments to make use of them will in time lay waste this Garden though never so well enclosed Give me leave to name them First This Church suffers by mens misconstruing of Judgments and making every Calamity and Desolation that befalls the Kingdom to be the Effect of Gods anger for the Churches encroachments upon the Rights of Christ whose Scepter they would perswade the World is by us taken out of his hands and given to the Civil Magistrate who hath no share nor portion in it And this is a mighty prevailing thing amongst the Vulgar whose sense of Secular losses such as they have a present feeling of is very great and must needs influence them accordingly What can provoke such people more than a perswasion that upon such and such accounts their endeared Children are swept away by a spreading and contagious Plague or
from their first entrance into the Universities yet so heated are the fancies of many persons by the influence of those bad names that are given them by the Heads of the Faction that many times they meet with rude assaults and unprovoked accosts as they pass the streets nay even the Children who through the immaturity of their years can discern neither good nor evil are taught to point at such persons whose decent garbs declare them to be Clergy-men Now when I considered with my self how necessary this Order of men is not only upon the score of that Divine Authority by which it is established in Scripture but upon the account of policy and prudence without the influence of whom upon the Minds of men neither Governours shall keep their chairs nor governed their bounds but all things will be managed by heats and passions by pride and ambition by corrupt inclinations and fond desires by ways and methods that are directly opposite to the commands of true Religion and Reason to the Interest of States and Kingdomes why I must tell you this reflection did not a little encourage me to any just undertaking whereby I might abate the esteem these persons have and put them out of a capacity of doing so great a mischief as to settle prejudices in the minds of people against so necessary an Order of men as the Ministers are But because I have given some plain hints of this in the ensuing discourse I will proceed no further upon this head and therefore Further I considered many Doctrines and darling Notions of this party of men which are the common Theams and subjects of their discourse and which indeed they vent with such a zeal as if all Religion was concerned and wrapt up in them I say I considered them well and found them really prejudicial to the progress of Religion in the hearts and lives of men and upon that account I could not think myself injurious to religion nor evilly designed against Gods People by undertaking a work wherein these men now and then meet with such just Reproofs and seasonable rebukes as their deserts call for Why should men who have mixt their own inventions with Christs excellent Gospel and prass them with an equal necessity upon the belief of their easy hearers run away with the credit and reputation of being Gods Flect who hear his voice and keep close to his Ordinances without blending them with any corrupt mixtures of their own when in the mean time no men pester the World with newer notions and falser glosses upon the sacred Texts of Scripture than they give me leave though I might name many to instance in these two First That darling and serviceable Notion of praying by the Spirit by which little else is meant if their meaning may be gathered from their expressions or at least as it is understood and they content it should be so by the Common people but a bold and confident uttering of a mans self to God in variety of words with a readiness and fluency for some considerable time together And he that hath got to this perfection oh how gracious a man is he presently proclaimed what an intimate and familiar acquaintance with God How dear to Jesus Christ and it is ten to one but he is sent out by vote and suffrage to be a pillar to support the Cause and saluted by the wealthy Dames as their spiritual Guide and Pastor for upon him is made good the prophecy of Zechariah and the Spirit if Prayer and Supplication is poured out upon him Now what a vile and false account is this of the Spirit of Prayer which if rightly weighed consists in nothing else but in mens addressing to God with a deep and profound sense of his Majesty with a belief of his placability through the satisfaction that was made by Christs oblation of himself once for all upon the Cross with inward desires suitable to the Nature and Necessity of the things we want and petition for with resentment of mind agreeable to the sins and impieties we have wandred into and with Principles of gratitude for what we have enjoyed expressing and displaying themselves by thankful acknowledgments and publick returns And whether this be done with words chosen beforehand or otherways it is all one to God for words reach not him at all but are only necessary in prayer when we are embodyed and one man is the Mouth of others to him Now this being the true Notion of praying by the spirit or of the spirit of Prayer which is the more proper way of expressing it would not any man wonder that men pretending to so much Godliness should thus bring it from the heart the principal seat thereof and lay it all as it were upon the tip of the tongue would not any man admire these men should put such an advantage into the hypocrites hands to cheat and impose upon the unwary part of the world for let them be never so fond of this Notion yet they must know if they be impartial in their reflections upon the actions of the ages past that by this way numbers have been seduced into all manner of Heresies and Blasphemies and he that could utter himself as if he were transported and could talk of God as if he lay in his Breast let his opinions or designs be what they would yet he hath not wanted followers and admirers and this will be so long as so great a part of the World is filly and caught with shadows instead of substance Now when men once come which makes to my design in hand to make such things as these which are merely artificial and depend very much upon the temperature of body and confidence of mind to be the measure of Religion and signs of Grace alas they often fall off from that just respect and value they owe to moral goodness and essential righteussness which is the life and soul of true Religion and the whole stress of their zeal is laid out in little else but keeping of days of their own appointment wherein they may gratifie the pride and frothiness of their Spirits in making long harangues and thereby gaining the applanse of illiterate people as men inspired which faculty if but attained to by men of design as we know many times it hath been it is not to be imagined what tricks and cheats they are empowered thereby to put upon the Vulgar and how chearfully after they have by their melting expressions broken the peoples hearts they carry home the Pieces in their pockets I and laugh at them too for being se easily gulled and deluded But in the mean time I desire any man to tell me whether this prove not very destructive to Religion both as it swells and elevates the minds of those who are Masters of this ready and as they call it powerful utterance and then as the unwary and sometimes blasphemous expressions which hastily through the present heat of their Animal
ungodly men are so ready to punish them for their defence and propagation of it And upon this very account they clap one the other upon the back and resolve unanimously to go on with what they have begun notwithstanding all the opposition they shall meet withal for who would not suffer the loss of Estate Liberty or Life itself in a cause against which such ungodly men are severe and bitter and who would not expect Heaven for a reward hereafter who meet with such harsh and cruel dealings from men who do too much by their oaths and curses betray themselves to be the Agents and Instruments of Hell And though this is but a popular plea and will not hold water when it comes to be thoroughly searched and tryed though laws are never the worse for the wickedness of those to whom the execution of them is committed and though Justice is the same thing when done by a wicked as a Godly Magistrate yet for our Sions sake I could wish with all mine Heart that our Magistrates when such Malefactors are brought before them would execute publick Justice like men who do not appear to sacrifice to their own revenge but who design a publick good to wit the reducing people to those Principles of subjection and obedience without which we must needs be exposed to continual dangers and hazards It is not to be imagined how these refractory persons are silenced when they appear before Magistrates of Prudence and Discretion such as treat them with all tenderness and pity representing to them the evil of their doing and gravely admonishing them against such doings for the time to come executing the Laws upon them with all the symptomes of grief and trouble with all the demonstrations of a Spirit that carries in it true compassion for those who ignorantly err and a readiness heartily to pray for those who are obstinate and wilful this is to follow the Apostles advice to restore our sain Brethren with the spirit of meekness and this is the only way to beget in them a belief that as truly pious tender and gracious spirits may lodge in the Breasts of men every ways obedient to those Laws they by their wily Preachers are made to believe are destructive of the Rights of the Lord Jesus as in any men of any other yea of their own particular perswasion Nay for ought I know this prudent and compassionate carriage may be the occasion of their recovery from their present separation For certainly nothing more pacifies Wrath and Anger from which we all know Nonconformity receives no inconsiderable strength and addition than a word in season a soit word a wise carriage even to Delinquents themselves especially when all this is done by men of Authority and Reputation in their Neighbourhood And therefore I do here put up my hearty Prayers to Almighty God for all our Chiefs and Worthies in whose hands the defence and safety of our excellent and yet despised Church is lodged that as Judgment may run down like water and Righteousness like a mighty stream so That Righteousness may meet with Peace and love and they may kiss each other and as I do not wish the suspension of any Laws wherein the welfare of Societies is wrapt so I do wish that whensoever they are put in execution it may be in such a way as may convince gainsayers and stop the mouths of all those who lye at catch to take advantage from the haltings either of Magistrates or Ministers Lastly This Church loses very much of its deserved reputation by those mean and seamy provisions and supplies that are made for many of her Children whose educations and improvements entitle them to greater encouragements than most of the Vicaridges in England are endowed withal and till this be remedied as I hinted somewhat before we must never have things so prosperous and successful on the Churches side as she does indeed deserve For 't is impossible considering how things go and are apprehended by the major part of the World for Clergy-Men to conciliate a just respect to themselves and thereby to recommend the Government to the love and liking of the Vulgar without such Incomes as are agreeable to their Function and will enable them to be of the giving as well as receiving hand And truly when I have sate down sometimes and considered with my self the several reasons and occasions of the late cruel and blondy War I could not but resolve both it and the dreadful consequences of it amongst some other things into this of which I am now complaining and I have often thought that it had not been possible for the people of England to have been drawn into such a combination and confederacy against so excellent a Prince had they not been strangely perverted and abused by some discontented and self-seeking knaves And who they were 't is no hard matter to conjecture for if you had gone before the War into Cities and incorporated Towns where usually the spiritual Livings are made up of few and petty Tythes there you should have found a Male-contented Gentleman had fixt his habitation making some tolerable snow of Hospitality especially to the Mayor or Aldermen and their Brethren and by his advice and means a factious Preacher brought in depending upon voluntary subscriptions for his livelihood who by tones and gestures by shrugs and winks by all popular artifices was continually suggesting suspicions of the Government to the people the Dames especially who they say in those places and in those times governed the Right Worshipful themselves and the great Themes of their Discourses were the Wickedness of the times the encroachments of the Bishops upon the Rights of the Lord Jesus the stinting of the spirit by Forms of Prayer the severe dealing with the people of God that was themselves but withal which was a great cordial to their oppressed spirits the great Reasons of the Saints joyful expectation of better times fetched out of Daniel or Revelations places admirably fitted to the Dames apprehensions and understandings with an hundred such like popular insinuations as these and by this means the people were taught to suspect their Governours as Enemies to the cause of God and from thence brought to an hatred of them and so by degrees fitted for any undertaking these cunning Leaders should in the name of God and the Lord Jesus animate them unto And by these ways were the people of England seduced into the most unnatural rebellion which ended in the most horrid Murther that History can parallel Whereas had these Great Towns been furnished with such Encouragements as might have invited men of integrity and learning to have sate down amongst them the People had been better taught and consequently disposed to nothing but what was expressive of Loyalty and Obedience of their hearty affection and esteem for him to whose care and Government the providence of God had committed them For let but the common people hear nothing but what is
in such numbers from our Churches nor be so easily beguiled into a belief of things so every ways wanting a Foundation in Holy Writ nor would they make such vile and unworthy reflections upon a Church whose Foundation is laid and superstructure built by the Laws of Reason and rightly understood Religion in a word which imposes nothing upon our practice that is forbidden in Holy Scripture And I hope there is so much weight in this one Reason I have given for my zeal against the present Separation as may apologize for me and satisfy any modest man that it is not from any Principle of despight to God his Religion or his people that I have ventured upon such a work as this But I have yet more to say Further then I took notice that Non-conformity had a very evil aspect upon Governours and Government I found no men so ready to embrace any stories whereby their superiours were scornfully reflected upon or vilely represented as these man were nor any men more hasty in spreading these tales further abroad and wondring with my self that men pretending to so extreme a strictness and pleading that strictness as a sign of their being the best of Saints should fail in so known and obvious a duty as obedience to Authority is I looked back into Ages past and God knows found the same temper and spirit among those who were the authors and beginners of this desolating Separation I found one Goodman an Exile in Queen Maryes days and one of the Antesignani of the Nonconformists vindicating Wyat's rebellion asserting in Print that his cause was God's and that none but Traytors could accuse him of Treason and after this I find Queen Elizabeth maligned by White Rowland and Hawkins three of the Brotherhood and by no means must she be thought any other ways than an evil Princess spoiling God's people and extolling vanity and this averred before Grindall then Bishop of London And if I should quote what hath dropt from these mens pens since to the slandering of God's Anointed this Preface would swell into too great a bulk Now I must confess this thing very much troubled me and stirred my passions to see that in which our happiness is so apparently wrapt up and by vertue of which we safely possess the fruits of our own labours made the scorn of boys and raw servants and the wise and prudently enacted Laws brought to the Barr many times by a company of silly women who are led captive and laden with many lusts and according to their deep and profound judgment voted obligatory or else nulled and voided And in good earnest this appears to me the ready way to the Nations ruine as it naturally prepares men to serve their turn upon the established Government when ever opportunity is put into their hands And no man need blush in asserting this when he considers who they were that in the beginning of the late unnatural War readily took the Alarm and clothed themselves with courage and armour too in order to sight the Lord's battel against the Mighty but such persons as had been brought up under and disciplin'd by such Teachers as were known notoriously inclinable to the Principles of Separation And he that considens with what pleasure some men do reflect upon the Priviledges and enjoyments the late War gave them before his Majesties return and how ready they are to suggest to young and unimpressed minds that those were days wherein men might be as good as they would and wherein scandalous Ministers were turned out with many other things of the like nature he must needs infer from thence that many of these people are so far from repenting of what was then done that they could willingly wade through the same paths of bloud to be reinstated in their former priviledges again Now truly I must needs say that I cannot think the Kingdom safe so long as such things are propagated and propagated they will be so long as men believe their Prince an enemy to the pure Doctrines and Ordinances of Jesus Christ and themselves persecuted for complyance with Christ's Laws in opposition to the superstitious Impositions of their Governours For considering the weakness of men and the slender improvement the education of most give them how can we imagine Magistrates should have their due honour and esteem from such persons who are made to believe that they symbolize with Antichrist and are Friends to the cause and Interest of the Beast No alack such crafty insinuations as these waste all the Principles of Loyalty in easy and credulous mens breasts they imbitter and poyson their Spirits so that they spit nothing but fire in the face of all well regulated Constitutions and there is nothing but the fear of imprisonment or confiscation of Goods or the loss of life that keeps these men thus set on fire from offering violence to the Thrones of Princes It was this that made Henry the Third and the Fourth of France fall under the bloudy hands of two Assassinates and though our modern Enthusiasts and the Papists widely differ in many things yet in a mistaken furious zeal and resolute enterprizes for the mistaken cause of God and his Church they have been both very much to blame and incurred such a censure as thanks be to God the regular Sons of the Church of England can wash their hands from Now this being very plain and notorious I thought I could not do a better work one whereby I might better serve my Prince and Countrey than by endeavouring to reconcile men to a Church wherein they learn the duties of humility and meekness of modesty and candour of spirit of submission and obedience of jealousie and suspicion of their own private opinions when they stand in competition with the publick Judgment and Wisdom of the Nation For these are vertues hugely serviceable to the interest of Government and preserve such a peace amongst men as gives great encouragement to industry and labour These are Vertues that render Religion amiable and lovely and no doubt the more Professors are possessed of them the more do they engage standers by not only to an admiration of but an hearty complyance with that Religion that cancels no worthy Law that is made in pursuit of the ends of Government but on the other side lays obligations upon every man to keep his place denouncing severely against those who either curse their Princes in their hearts or speak evil of Dignities with their tongues And let me speak freely That I am very much mistaken if a return to so good a spirit as this is going to Egypt again is siding with the Beast against God and his Christ is renouncing the Kingship of Christ which words by whom made use of and to what purposes we can easily tell If this be a forsaking of Christ and giving up his cause and going into Babylon I pray God I may continue in this Babylon all the days of my life and then
Alpes and the Tweed to find out such as these The true Members of our Church are in this Particular untainted and so far as men are under the guidance of her Pastors and the influence of her Discipline so far they imitate the first Ages of Christianity wherein men knew how to advance the credit of their Religion by suffering but never by resisting for they knew that Government was an Ordinance of God 4. If we proceed further and take a view of those several Instances of Holiness which are expressed by an affable and modest Carriage to our Equals by an extensive Bounty to our inferiours whose straits and wants call for our relief certainly we have in this Church as great Advantages for the exercising of these as in any whatsoever We have Bibles in our Houses to read and are allowed the reading of them as well as they and I presume we can read as well as they for though some of them proudly do engross the Spirit yet sure they will leave the Letter to us and I think without pride we may say that we have Judgments and Understandings to receive those Notices of things the Word of God brings unto us and if so why may not we be in as good a Capacity to practise all those Vertues which these Relations call for and are so plainly laid down in the Holy Word Why may not we if we exercise our Natural Abilities and seriously weigh those pressing Arguments that are fetched from Hopes and Fears those great Foundations of a pious Life why I say may not we fix and establish in our Minds those Divine Graces the Gospel recommends unto us such as patience and Humility Charity and Self-denial Courage and Resolution Temperance and Chastity c. Especially considering we have the Spirit of God ready to help and cooperate with all our honest endeavours For when our Adversaries are cool and sober this they dare not deny which if they do as God knows in some of their heats they are so unwary as to assert why they are at the same time so monstrously uncharitable as to call in Question the Salvation of all those Worthies of the Church that have been ever since the first Reformation and our Judicious Morton our Devout and Pious Hall and our Learned Sanderson with vast Numbers of others must according to these mens Opinions that every Member of our Church barely by being so hath forfeited his Interest in Gods good Spirit 's assistance be adjudged to be now scorching in the Flames of Hell A Censure enough to stir the choler and ferment the Blood of any man who hath but the least spark of Humanity lest within him And though I know they plead for themselves that our Ordinances which should be the instruments to convey these Divine Principles and Graces into us are stained by impure mixtures by uncommanded Ceremonies Why when they can find out a Discipline without any Ceremony purely fetched out of the Word of God delivered in as plain and obvious terms as the Mosaick Dispensation was and declared by God that it was his will and pleasure in every Circumstance that that Government should be maintained and submitted unto when they can present us with a Model having nothing of Humane and Prudential Determination in it we will answer them and to do it before is at once to spend our Time and our Breath in vain Only I take leave upon this occasion to make this digression which I think is not unsuitable to the design I have in hand That I have been a very impartial Considerer of this Objection and by vertue of my first Converse in the World these and such like suggestions from men whom I was taught to believe were the only Children of God had a very fair hearing in my Breast and I was willing to incline to those Arguments proposed by them for the Defence of that noise and bustle they made in the World But when I came afterwards to consider the Authority wherewith Princes both upon Natural and Revealed Principles and Grounds are invested and the miserable confusions that are consequent upon slighting or resisting that Authority when I considered the great Reasons for making Laws and the necessity of keeping up their reputation and paying a constant Veneration to them if we would be preserved in any tolerable degrees of Peace and Safety further when I considered that the very Reasons why the Brethren of the Separation declare their dislike of our Ceremonies are disowned by our Church witness their declared Opinion of the Sign of the Cross and Kneeling at the Sacrament in the very Rubrick and that these men are forced to make new and unheard of distinctions to render them unlawful witness a Book printed some time since by one of the Chiefs of them against a Member of our Church Further when I considered that if there was any Reason to scruple the Lawfulness of these things yet it was not so great nor so apparent as the Reasons against Schism and Disobedience and that the complying with the one could not possibly be so dangerous to all Societies of men as the ingaging in the other These with many other considerations satisfied me not only in the Convenience but considering the present differences in the Kingdom in the Necessity of yielding Obedience to the established Orders of the Church and I could never yet get leave of my self to concur in Judgment with one now at this time much admired and followed in the City Mr. Jenkins That the laying aside the Ceremonies of the Church was a sufficient compensation for all that Blood and Treasure that had been spilt in the late unnatural and bloudy War but wish with all my heart that they had continued till the general conflagration of the world rather than such a war should have commenced for I am certain that the necessary results and consequences of the one are a thousand times more prejudicial to the honour and reputation of the Protestant Cause than the continuance of the other could have been had they been as had nay many degrees worse than our interested and zealous Adversaries have made them And we are able to answer all Arguments raised against a Cross or a Surplice when we cannot without steeled Brows and seared Consciences vindicate and defend the late Rebellion But in short this in my apprehension and I am sure I am not prejudiced is so baffled a Cause that I wonder men of Parts and Learning are not ashamed to offer at the Vindication of it and I do verily believe those men that now make themselves the Heads of these dividing Parties would not assume the confidence to fix such odious Names upon the so well defended Ceremonies of the Church and upon us for our peaceable and obedient using of them did not they meet with so many ignorant and uninstructed people who are prepared upon the account of those great pretences these men make to a more severe Holiness than
out against their future Governours as they themselves have done against his present Majesty and his Father and by this means are entailing miseries and confusions upon the Nation Alas I at this rate the Church of England will never want its Enemies and a Generation of Vipers will be at hand upon all occasions to sting her if possible to death and if this be suffered and our Governours lie asleep whilest the Enemy thus sowes Tares why then the Lord have mercy upon us we cannot sooner or later escape a ruine and 't is impossible but either Popery or Enthusiasm should like a Deluge overflow us both of which we know make mens Spirits turbulent and unquiet and aiming at nothing less than the enthroning of themselves though it be by pulling down with the hands of violence and rudeness any thing that stands in their way This is a Mine made to blow us up withal the very thoughts of which is enough to provoke the Patience and raise the Passions of any man though mortified in never so considerable a degree And if the Youth of the Nation must be suffered to suck in with their Mothers Milk the Fathers Antipathy against the Church of England we may premise our selves if we please Halcyon-days when this generation is wrought off but alas we shall find them like the Hydra's Head one springing up in the room of the other And though I know these Reflections upon these new Schools will seem very grievous and that I must incur a very severe Ceusure for it yet I profess I cannot help it for my sense of it is so sad and according to that foresight I have it seems to me so very ruinous to the future Peace and Quietness of the Nation that I am afraid the Children unborn will rise up and call them cursed who were the first Promoters and Undertakers of it and though I would be charitable yet methinks it looks too like a Design to entail that Revenge they cannot act themselves upon their Children to act for them in succeeding Times which is a spirit as directly opposite to the Meekness of an honest Christian as Light is to Darkness Oh if some of the old Puritans who heedlesly vented some of those Principles from which our present Nonconformity took its Original and Rise were but alive for some few days and had a just Relation of their Successors actings methinks I see with what indignation they would declare against these practices and how easily they would be perswaded to quit those Opinions they now find by sad experience make men so busie and so restless What! cannot these men be content to break Laws themselves and be winked at but they must plant Schools of Sedition and dissatisfaction in the several parts both of City and Countrey Oh all you that have any regard to Religion and zeal for the propagating the Graces of the Gospel in the hearts of men divulge not this in every company for 't is enough to encrease that Atheistical Spirit that is now too rise amongst us and to force less considering men whether they will or no to look upon Religion as a politick Engine fitted for any Design mens Lusts and Passions mens Interest and Advantage shall suggest unto them To see men deliberately training up Youth in a direct opposition to those Laws in the preservation of which the safety both of King and Kingdom are concerned 't is an unaccountable piece of confidence to see men expressing no other Resentments of his Majesties Clemency and Forbearance than what consists in weakning the hands of Government and multiplying parties to withstand and fight against its Laws 't is an Ingratitude not easily to be parallel'd From this bold Contrivance we may justly expect if not timely discouraged the inevitable Ruine both of Church and State and therefore from the thing it self and its miserable Effects let us all say Good Lord deliver us 4. This excellent Church receives very considerable damage from those idle tales that are carried up and down against the Reverend Bishops and their Regular Clergy whereby they are rendred either impious or ridiculous A thing which hath been all along used by our Adversaries although its being so I am sure is not for their credit And if they can but get any thing by the end whereby the may disparage the prudence or blot the Temperance and Sobriety of their Minister why presently one hot-headed fellow or other posts from one company to another and with all the ridicuculous circumstances in the World tells his pleasant story And Oh how do the zealots hug themselves at such an advantage to advance their cause again and with what seeming pleasure do the tatling Gossips spread this news abroad at the next meeting of the Sisterhood where the poor priest one while is laughed at and another while with deep fetch'd sighs pittyed and lamented as a poor carnal wretch and where at the same time from him they presume to take their measures of all the rest of the same profession and every one that is canonical must presently be arraigned and then condemned as a person wholly ignorant of the Mysteries of the Gospel And that such idle Stories may not want their full advantage the Members of this Church must at the same time be bewailed as lost men as persons given over by God to a vile and reprobate sense otherwise according to the profound judgment of these wise ones it is impossible they should sit so contentedly under the Ministery of such blind Guides and submit to such beggerly elements which are so abhorred by all who are acquainted with those new lights that in these latter days have sprung up in the World And though upon the supposal that any of these idle stories are true yet if the same thing befall any of their own gang who we know are not without their faults why presently shifts and excuses are made and either God sees no Fault in Israel or else the Flesh was weak though the Spirit was strong but for a a member of the Church to fall into any errour is presently an argument of a Reprobate mind of a soul forsaken by God and he must not be admitted to any possibility of Reconciliation with Heaven unless he renounce his former obligations to Authority and Laws and herd himself amongst these refined and spiritualized persons And now by this artifice the Church sinks in the esteem of many unwary persons and they stand ready upon such sinister representations of her Members to do or say any thing whereby they may soil her beauty or eclipse her glory But is this fair dealing is it like the Spirit of the Gospel which thinketh no evil much less with a tickling pleasure speaketh evil of others Is this any argument that they are better and more experienced Christians than their Neighbours Can they upon this account vindicate and challenge to themselves the right of being God's Children and do they entail their Saintship
spirits in whose publick Liberty there is no danger pray enquire after the treatments those Worthies whose Consciences obliged them to follow the Fortunes of that late incomparable King of blessed memory met withal from them and that will save me the labour of giving an account of the temper of a great part of them 'T is true were they all of that nature and disposition of that Learning and wisdome some of them are there might be some apology made for them but alas the common Followers I and many of their Teachers too are violent and headstrong quickly enflamed and over-heated and then for want of knowledge and due consideration of things with great difficulty managed and kept within any proper and allowed bounds a thing which some of their very Preachers have complained of to my self and others And therefore why you who are the Instruments of Justice out of pity to some few whose parts and piety may possibly recommend them to the esteem and love of all good men should suffer herds of men whose zeal outstrips their knowledge whose Passions surmount their Prudence whose Religion many times is more the result of the temper of the Body than the rational conviction of the soul why you I say should suffer the Laws to be violated when no other end can be proposed than shewing a compassion to some few who deserve a name among the wise and truly learned I profess I cannot tell Especially when at the same time the Honour of the Laws by a neglect of Justice is exposed to the contempt and scorn of such Numbers who must if we would follow those Maxims of Policy which all wise Governours ever since Communities of men were agreed upon have observed who must I say be kept in with bit and bridle And having thus addressed my self to the Ministers of Publick Justice I cannot obtain a Writ of Ease from my self until I have said something to those very persons whose designs I have in the foregoing Treatise exposed and whose Methods of ruine to the Church and Kingdom I have discovered And here I am not afraid to tell them that many of them are my Acquaintance in whose civil conversation I have and do take pleasure and to whom upon some scores I have stood engaged the piety and strictness of many of their Lives I admire and love these with some other things would reconcile me to them did not my zeal for the Nations happiness my duty to a Church by whom I and all the World may be sufficiently instructed in all things necessary to be believed and practised Further did not my Fears and God knows those too well grounded of the return of a Religion amongst us and that caused chiefly by these mens stubbornness the agreement with which must at the same time be to fall out with all those Faculties whereby we are in capacities to discern things that differ Did not these things with many others thus dispose of and command me I say I could wish these men all the happiness in this World that upon good Grounds they could desires And therefore pray Sirs let me entreat you to consider what you are a doing whilst so resolvedly you continue to separate from our Church why truly pardon me if I err I think I do not I cannot say you are doing the business of Religion for that I am sure may be as well nay all things considered better done by those under the Discipline and Government of our Church as I have shewed in the beginning of this Treatise In which I am the more satisfyed from the observations I have made of many of your admired Followers whose Lives as far as I can discern are spent most upon pitying Publick Magistrates and Ministers and shaking their heads at the times with many other popular and usual artifices of misrepresenting things or persons not just according to their Minds Again I cannot say you are doing the Business of your Governours setling the People in the notions of obedience and submission begetting in them venerable thoughts of those who are Gods Trustees on Earth no for we find no sooner do men wheel off from our Church and list themselves under your Banners but presently they grow jealous of the Powers of the Nation and are always furnished with idle tales and groundless whispers to lessen their Reputation among the Common People Nay further I cannot say you are doing your own business for alas throw us but once down and you know by old experience that you are all together by the ears and scarce ten of you can agree together upon any thing that may be the Foundation of a future settlement but all are striving to be the Greatest and every man hath such a fond opinion of his own way as to think nay to proclaim it deserving to be the Nations Standard yea and to pronounce bitter Curses against all those who will not concur in Judgment with him And truly for the satisfaction of a great many well meaning persons who at present are imposed upon I could wish were it but lawful to permit it and consistent with the Kingdoms and Churches safety that the Ball might lie at your feet for a few days methinks I see what animosities and heats what strifes and contentions would presently be in the midst of you and how quickly all you who now combine together against our poor despised Church would fall into a thousand parties and what variety of Churches we presently should have formed and the best of it is every one of them vogued to be according to the pattern in the Mount And therefore Brethren for Gods sake recollect your selves and do not sacrifice the Protestant Religion to your own lusts and passions comply with the Laws in imitation of the old Puritans as far as you can and then I do not doubt but our Governours will find out some way or other to let you understand their Resentments of your orderly complyance and certainly 't is better to build our hopes of future kindness from our Prince upon publick manifestations of peaceableness of Spirit than upon threats and menaces than upon bold and daring actions whereby we intimate unto him that if he will not give us according to our Wills and Pleasure we will snatch it from him and that by force too whether he will or no. One word more and I have done I beseech you do not say that this intimation of Popery in and through your disobedience to the Churches Laws is a popular plea invented on purpose to make you odious among the People I profess as it is mentioned here by me 't is no such thing but the result of a full satisfaction I have that nothing can make way for that Religion but the ruine of the Church of England And truly I am so far from rendring you odious that if you could agree among your selves upon any thing consistent with the Churches Peace and Safety I would give my Prayers and all honest endeavours whatsoever to contribute towards your contentment But till then pray give us leave to secure our selves from such desolations as will end in your destruction as well as ours by all agreeable ways and means whatsoever And now after all this if you will suffer your selves to be so provoked as one while to pity me and then again revile me I have no more to say but that I am fully satisfied in my own Conscience in what I have done and that for a requital I am resolved to make you the objects of my hearty pity and the subjects of my Prayers but not mine anger and revenge for that is not to follow our Masters command To love our enemies to bless them that curse to to do good to them that hate us to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us which may be done with Tongues as well as Hands which good and excellent advice I am resolved through the assistance of Gods Gracious Spirit to pursue and follow and therefore let those against whom this little Treatise is chiefly levelled deal with my person or good name as they please I am prepared for it THE END Lately Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner THE Estate of the EMPIRE or an Abridgment of the Laws and Government of Germany farther shewing what Condition the EMPIRE was in when the Peace was concluded at Munster Also the several Fights Battels and Desolation of Cities during the War in that EMPIRE And also of the GOLDEN BVLL In Octavo The Sycillian Tyrant Or The Life and Death of AGATHOCLES With some Reflections on our Modern Usurpers Octavo The ROYAL MARTYR and the Dutiful Subject In two Sermons By Gilbert Burnet In Quarto The Generosity of Christian Love Delivered in a Sermon by William Gould Quarto The Witnesses to Christanity By Sy. Patrick D. D. Octavo Ductor Dubitantium Or Bishop Taylors Cases of Conscience The Fourth Edition Folio The Life and Death of K. CHARLES the First By R. Perenchief D. D. Octavo