Enemy unless we suppose the always peevish Fanaticks should now take the Pet because they are not humour'd in every thing and all turn Papists and going over into Ireland should doing in earnest what they in jest promised him stand by King James with their Lives and Fortunes As to our Author 's long excursion on the cruelties of the Papists it cannot be denyed even by him who would Advocate their Cause that they have used wrong unchristian and cruel Methods to preserve the Unity of their Church of which I hope they are now ashamed God forbid that the like should ever be used again or the same repeated Neither is it any more than truth that the Calvinists though they want their Opinion of merit to actuate them and that of the Damnation of all but those of their own Church to excuse them have yet so well improved the rest of their Principles and prosecuted them under a pretence of duty and the Obligations of Publick Conjurations with as great an industry as if they rival'd them and scorn'd to come short of their Example Popery under the Vizor of Zeal for the Extirpation of Heresie was the first Enemy the Reformed Church of England had to encounter and attempted to strangle it in it's Infancy but being overcome by the sincere practice of her Primitive Doctrine of Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance it vanish'd and left it in the possession of a most Glorious Victory which it enjoyed for a while but alass our seemingly vanquish'd Adversary by an equivocal Generation unfortunately became the Parent of a less affrightning but far more fatal Enemy Fanaticism not so professedly opposite to the Doctrine but in the event more destructive to the Polity Peace Order Decency Unity and Uniformity of our Church these two have both by open and secret Attempts successively made against her exercis'd our Churches Patience and persecuted her upon contrary accounts one because she will not and the other because she will use as is pretended a Ceremonious Worship O happy though unfortunate Church of England which for the best of Choices the Golden Meane of safety and moderation art thus persecuted on the Right Hand and on the Left by both the opposite Parties who like Herod and Pontius Pilate in their enmity to thy Lord agree in nothing but their continued Hostilities against thee I shall not recount the pretences made the means used by either of them for their so doing nor the event probably following but only note that Popery seeming to have made or at least designed the last assault Fanaticism may rationally be expected to make the next And that it may prove as much destructive as it is a foolish and unprofitable policy to run so far from the advances of one Enemy that we never stop till we are within the quarters of another Our Author might have remembred that Men of other Religions besides Popery can enter into Plots and Conspiracies strike at the Foundations of Government Resist Depose Assassinate and Murther Kings absolve Subjects from their Allegiance and dispense with the most horrid Wickednesses and consequently are as little to be trusted 3. Our danger in respect of God's Judgments which we may bring upon our Heads Though Popery should never be able to lift up its Head again in this Land yet if we continue in the same course that provoked God to cast us into the late confusions he can find other Plagues to inflict upon us I shall readily enough believe that Popery which seems to be withdrawn from us for a while is not that great Enemy this Church and State have now to conflict with and also that if the Men of this Nation will yet continue in their Sins and Follies which provoke Almighty God to wrath and subject us to his Punishments he can find other Plagues of the contrary extreme no less fatal to inflict upon us I wish we do not prevent his Judgments by finding out Plagues to afflict our selves and so become our own Executioners and Martyrs to our own lusts which God in anger and judgment suffers us to enjoy Are not Gods People now in Spiritual Captivity when they must not enjoy his Ordinances with us but upon terms they cannot conform to and he never appointed Our Author in his Fanatick Cant calls the Dissenters Gods People which must be understood either exclusively or eminently but they have no title to that Appellation in either sense But how is this reconcilable with what he hath told us before The Meetings of Dissenters are as Legal as ours and afterwards the Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty What then needs this whining and impertinent complaint of spiritual Captivity in times of too great liberty As for the Ordinances who ever hindred their enjoyment of them but they voluntarily refused to communicate with us made a perverse Schism and then complain of it and now they have what they wish'd for are no more satisfied than they were before are so unjust now when they have leave to use their own novel inventions and homely postures that they will not let us quietly enjoy our Ancient Catholick Decent and Legal Customs and so unreasonable that they will needs have us merely to humour them recede from our own approved and regular Constitutions and joyn in their Confusions and use their Customs though they are such as we cannot conform to and God never appointed If People did look before them and consider the Providence of God and tendency of things they would be more indifferent towards indifferent things Gods Providence is beyond our comprehension and his Precepts and not that should be the Rule of our Lives What our Author means by Peoples looking before them or the tendency of things I know not but think if Men would look behind them to the practice of the Primitive and Catholick Church for 1500 Years and not condemn all the Generations of God's Children certainly they would not separate from a Church which both in Doctrine and Discipline is so agreeable to the Primitive that they thereby do consequentially grant that there never was a Christian Church Visible in the World with which had they lived contemporary they would have held Communion or would look before them and consider whither these unreasonable and unnecessary Schisms tend and the lamentable mischiefs that will in time befall this unhappy Church and State as the effects and fruits thereof if they had either conscience or prudence they would cease making such violent and humoursom opposition against the Establish'd Order consult their own and the Churches Peace and be more wise and indifferent towards indifferent things As for Mr. Charnock's abusing of the Devil 〈…〉 in calling him Fool c. he being otherwise represented to us in Scripture perhaps it may be the result of his false Principles however I shall not much concern my self since it is impertinent to my purpose and I am no ways obliged to vindicate his reputation 2. 〈…〉
concurr'd to the granting of them a Parliamentary Indulgence neither did her kindness end there but she entertained thoughts of making farther attempts to re-unite them to her Communion till their own carriage and ill returns made her pursue those Methods more coldly which by the outward Symptoms appear already to be without any hopes of the design'd success Therefore Pa◠〈…〉 as to the many Dissenters living in the confines of our Church the bringing them back to her Communion and thereby the Restauration of a mutual tranquillity peace and charity among all her Members and the recalling of that Christian Love which seems now to have forsaken us as well as the rest of Europe would be the greatest and most valuable blessing both to our Church and State can be attained on this side Heaven and he doth not deserve to be reckon'd in the number of good Christians who would not part with all his temporal enjoyments or even his Life it self were it at his own disposal to purchase it God forbid that any Clergy-men of the Church of England should hold any Rites or Ceremonies the two Sacraments often so called only excepted Church-Constitutions Canons Customs Benefices or Preferments whatsoever so dear unto them but that they would most gladly Sacrifice any or all of them to the Peace and Unity of the Church were it thereby attainable this Peace and Union are that which every one wishes and desires though few find solid ground whereon to fix their hopes while we mistake the means and methods to obtain them The Dissenters being unwilling to own the real Motives of their Separation from our Church have for a pretence cavell'd and excepted against some few Passages in our Liturgy some of our legal Constitutions and Establishments our Subscriptions Ceremonies Church Customs c. Wherefore several have thought that the alteration and removal of them would effect a Re-union but that this is at the best but a great mistake I shall think my self to have sufficiently proved when I have produced such Reasons as shall be effectual for the proving the following Position viz. Any alterations how many or great soever that can be made in our present Liturgy the utter abolishing all the Ceremonies prescribed or used in our Publick Worship and any alterationâ— that can be made in our Book of Constitutions and Canons or all these together should they be accomplished would never heal the Schisms that are amongst us and reâ—unite the Dissenters to the Church of England For 1. If the Liturgy Ceremonies and Constitutions in use in the Church of England were the causes of these Schisms and Separations then where these are not in use there would be no Schisms but we see the contrary In the United Provinces what a great and formal Schism did the Calvinists make upon the account of Five disputable Articles neither way accounted Heresie and what a severe Persecution did they raise against the Remonstrants which they could neither confute nor convince of error because they would not say as they would have them In Scotland the Church there by Law Established in the Reign of King Charles II. used no Liturgy no Cross after Baptism nor any other Ceremony that ever I could learn and yet the Dissenters there behaved themselves far worse to the Conformists than ever the Jews did to the Samaritans nay so barbarously as undeniably to evince that the true Presbyterian Spirit is no less full of rancour malice spleen hatred and when let loose from fear of Laws of Robberies Persecution and Bloodshed than the Papal If any fay this is nothing to us the English Presbyterians are not like the Scotch I answer God forbid they should but yet that any alterations in our Liturgy c. Abolishing of all our Ceremonies c. would never make an Union in our Church is apparent from hence that some few Years after 1640. and thence till 1661. When the Supreme Authority lodged as was pretended in the House of Commons with the assistance of the Rabble had disowned the King's Authority in Church and State and thrown all our Laws thereunto relating out of doors and our Liturgy Rites Ceremonies Church-customs Constitutions and Canons were all abolished and discharged so that if the cause of the Con-conformity Schism and Separation lay in any or all of them it must necessarily have been removed The Dissenters were so far from an Union among themselves 〈◊〉 â— by â— Mr. 〈…〉 that on the contrary they subdivided themselves into many minute Sects and Opinions and gave birth or revival to about forty more than our Church was formerly troubled with some whereof neither Amsterdam nor the World it self had ever seen before And this is so convincing an Argument being taught us by experience the School Mistress of Fools that I need add no more for the proof of my Assertion but I subjoin ex abundanti If our Liturgy should be altered our Ceremonies abolished and our Constitutions and Canons till they became insignificant so that one or two of the gravest wisest and most moderate of the Dissenting Preachers for the love of Peace and Union having Episcopal Ordination should come over to our Church and conform unto it yet the main Body of the Presbyterians who being unacquainted with Antiquity have credulously embraced the opinion of Lay Elders believe the Ordination of Presbyters by Presbyters to be valid and are too wise in their own Eyes to be informed The Independents who before separated from the Presbyterians and were numerous and powerful enough in Anno 1647. to supplant and displace them The Anabaptists and Quakers whose opinion of Liberty of Prophesying makes them uncapable of being united in Church Polity And all the other subdivisions and lesser Sects and Relicks of Schisms having the same Reasons must be supposed to continue in the same Separation as formerly and consequently by these means would never be reunited to our Communion and Church Some of their Teachers would be conscious to themselves of their own Ignorance and that their whining Tones useful impletives of Hums Huh's spittings Coughings c. Canting Phrases affected and unintelligible expressions so melting and ravishing to the Apron-proselytes would not meet with that applause and Admiration in a more judicious Auditory and a Congregation used to the more pertinent solid and rational Discourses made by the learned Clergy in the Conformable Churches and therefore will think it prudence rather to stay where they imagine themselves highly in esteem than to go where their defects will render them only tolerable Others since our Church is abundantly supply'd with learned and deserving Divines which will and may with good reason expect the best Benefices and their qualifications being none of the greatest they consulting their own interest perhaps will judge the Mens present gratuities together with their Wives superadded and secret kindnesses more eligible than the probability of being provided after a considerable long expectation with a small One Others as if
from them both And if all other pretences for the continuance of a Schism were removed perhaps this founded in the difference of Opinion would be made a new one by our Dissenters for many of them reproach as they imagine some eminent Divines of the Church of England by imposing on them the name of Arminians Their Doctrines of Solifidianism Imputative Righteousness the Instruments of Justification c. though founded in mistakes and wrong acceptations of words were by many of them imbib'd and receiv'd with that confidence and assurance that they had not patience to hear them explain'd much less doubted of and if there were no Schisms occasioned by them in those times of their Reformation for it would puzzle even a good Ramist to Analyze the several subdivided Sects and their Opinions which that great confusion produc'd Yet how they aspers'd revil'd and persecuted one another upon that account is well known if not Mr. B. can inform any Man who desires it more fully 4. Not only difference of Opinion in matters of Religion but also in the Civil Government is sufficient to make a separation and division in the Church especially if any Authority in Ecclesiastical Affairs be assigned to the supreme Magistrate for that neither the Papists nor Presbyterians will allow him It hath been often observed that Rebellion in the State is usually attended with a Schism in the Church Jeroboam of old introduc'd Idolatry to continue his Revolt lest Union in one Religion and Communion in one Church should restore Loyalty in the Kingdom The Feuds betwixt particular Families arising from the ambitious Emulation of the Prince's favour The Faction between the Covenanters and the Anti-Covenanters in Scotland The Attempts of the Anabaptists in Germany and the Fifth Monarchy-men here in England to omit the most famous Faction between the Guelphes and Gibellines both Parties of the same Religion and other ancient and forreign Instances I shall give you one Example sufficient alone to prove my Assertion The Mountain Conventiclers in Scotland who having under pretence of Conscience separated themselves from the establish'd Episcopal Church and also subdivided themselves from the Presbyterian Dissenters followed select Teachers of their own which being prosecuted according to the Laws of that Country King Charles the Merciful indulged some of them and licensed them to Preach which when he had done and they accepted they who before could by no Authority Laws and Penalties be restrained from flocking to them in multitudes quite deserted them and refused to hear them Preach Such was their pretense of Conscience but indeed Zeal for the Covenant aversion to the King 's Monarchical Authority and Supremacy c. So that if there were not one Rite Ceremony Vestment Gesture c. if it were possible retained or used in our Church nor even the Liturgy it self nor any Constitutions and Canons in force Yet the Old Kirk and Common-wealth Principles beginning to be revived again and the Question being not as some short-sighted Clergy-men imagine about Rites Ceremonies Liturgy Vestments Constitutions and such like small and inconsiderable things but whether a King or Common-wealth if a King from whence shall his Power be derived how limited c There needs no more than that Opinion of the King's Supremacy and that Adherence and Loyalty to Monarchy which the Church of England was formerly renowned for to cause the Dissenters all which are against the King's Supremacy and many of them Men of Common-wealth Principles whose Fingers itch after the Crown and Church-Revenues to separate and continue their Schism from the Church the Quarrel being really and truly more Political than Religious and of this the War against and Execution of King Charles the First the Fanatick-Plot against the Life of King Charles the Second which perhaps they will say was the Action of but some few particular Persons and the Carriage Conversation Writings and Actings of the N. Cs. in general in those times ever since especially this and the last year the transactions lately in Scotland and their precipitate abolishing of the King's Supremacy there are sufficient evidences to any Man who is in his right Senses 5. Different persuasions concerning Ecclesiastical Discipline See◠〈◊〉 Enâ—â—â—â— Noâ—â—â— forâ—â—â— undâ—â—â— K. Câ— c. The Advocate of the Non-conformists as a reason of their Recusancy objects against Lay-Civilian's decreeing Persons to be excommunicated which he calls the exercising the Power of the Keys though this objection is absurdly urged by any Man who asserts the Presbyterian Model by Lay-governing Elders but the removal of this would do little to their satisfaction Neither would what the Author of the Healing Attempt proposes viz. In 〈◊〉 A condescending to settle the Power of Orders and Jurisdiction on Presbyters as well as Bishops according to the Learned Archbishop Usher 's Model c. satisfie them so long as there remain any Persons in our Church superior to them in degree the Power of Ordination and the exercise of Jurisdiction for that is not only inconsistent with their affected Parity but irreconcileable with that Vice gerency which they pretend as well as the Pope to derive from and hold under Christ as the Supreme Head of the Church Thus the Author of the Survey of Discipline tells them pag. 440 441. See 〈◊〉 Doâ—â—ame'â—â— fenceâ— the Sâ—â—â— c. 〈◊〉 6. p. 〈◊〉 They had said that your Discipline is the Kingdom of Christ wherein your Presbyters hold as it were Christ's Sceptre That the Question between the Bishops and You is about no less matter than this whether Jesus Christ shall be King or no c. Or more truly and plainly whether they shall be his Vice-Roys and as Popes over several Parishes Lord it over their Flocks As for Lay-Chancellors tho it is some deviation from the Primitive Times when Bishops with the assistance of their Colleges of Presbyters managed all Affairs yet the Christian Magistrate afterwards committing many Causes to Episcopal Audience Silvanus the Famous Bishop of Troas delegated them with approbation Soc. 〈◊〉 cap. 〈◊〉 to the hearing of Lay-Men However I believe all the Clergy and Lay-Men living in the Communion of the Church of England would be glad the Reverend Fathers of it by a personal execution of the Episcopal Office with their Cathedral College in all cases of Conscience Heresie Schism Crime and Scandal for their own sakes if not for their Church's would remove that Objection As for the Learned Archbishop Usher's Model every body knows it was not his judgment but invented as an expedient to prevent things from coming to the utmost extremities that it doth not settle any Power of Orders as is insinuated upon Presbyters or of Jurisdiction but what they have already and may exercise as to the substance of it by vertue of their Order our Rubricks confirm'd by Statute and our Canon besides that Model excludes the lately invented Lay-Elders and is as little reconcileable to the Congregational way into which most
oppositions of the Civil Magistrate's Authority and exclaiming against his Government their industrious spreading of false and malicious reports to undermine it by possessing others with prejudice against it are all sufficient nay undeniable evidences that their actions are not directed to the preservation of a pure and undefiled Conscience as is pretended for that is void of offence towards God and Man but to the encreasing and upholding a Faction in the State to confront the Government I might add hereunto the practice of our Dissenting Brethren in New-England in their combinations conspiracies against and oppositions to their Governors and the Royal Authority their Penal Laws made against those of the Communion of the Church of England their Sanguinary ones against the Quakers c. their Persecutions of the former and Executions of the latter and their injurious and unchristian dealings with all Men not of their new Church fellowship are such plain instances that their Principles and Practices are such as for which no Conscience or Conviction of judgment can with any shew of reason be pretended or with any appearance of discretion be allowed 4. To alledge the Immorality of the Dissenters Lives in general as an Argument that their Schism was not caused by the conviction of their Consciences since he who lives in the wilful Commission of any one known sin hath forfeited his right to the Plea of Conscience in any other case though a probable Inference yet I am sensible would be to insist upon an harsh and unpleasing Topick to others as well as my self having therefore in the last Paragraph intimated it in relation to their carriage to their Governors in Church and State Here in Scotland and New-England from the beginning of the Rebellion against King Charles I. and often since observing only here that the Scripture Histories Reason and Experience have taught us sufficiently that no actions can be more immoral than the conspiring beginning and carrying on of Oppositions Insurrections and Rebellions and those things which precede accompany and follow them which when made under pretence of Religion are thereby yet aggravated by the dishonour done to the Profession of it the scandal given to others and the addition of their own Hypocrisie I shall pursue it no farther but only give you a Character which one who knew them very well by his own woful experience hath left us gathered by his personal observation and confirm'd with a solemn Protestation It is that of King James I. to his Son Prince Charles Take heed therefore My Son of such Puritanes very Pests in the Church and Common-wealth whom no deserts can oblige neither Oaths or Promises bind breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies aspiring without measure railing without reason and making their own imaginations without any warrant of the word the square of their Conscience I protest before the great God and since I am here as upon my Testament it is no place for me to lie in that ye shall never find with any High-land or Border-Thieves greater ingratitude and more lyes and vile perjuries than with these Fanatick Spirits c. Basil Dor. l. 2. p. 160. This is a Testimony too great to be disputed much more to be denyed it commands belief and needs no confirmation and is large and wants no addition Lastly This Schism themselves being judges is unnecessary for upon supposition that either the Presbyterian or Independent in the difference betwixt the Church of England and them is in the right tho the Institution of our Saviour the Writings and Practices of the Apostles the Universal Government of the whole Catholick Church being against them both it is scarcely to be supposed yet since neither of them can deny a true Christian Church wherein are all things necessary to Salvation to have subsisted under the Episcopal Government unless he will assert that there never was such a true Christian Church in the World till Mr. John Calvin erected one at Geneva Anno Dom. 1541. which I think neither of them will affirm what can be imagined should hinder but that they may both live in Communion with the Church of England which they cannot deny to be such an one It is evident enough by the Writings of the Presbyterians Printed between the Years 1640. and 1660. part of which time the Government was in their own or a Friends hand that they insisted upon this as a sufficient argument against the Independents Separation That they allowed their Churches to be true Christian Churches and therefore they condemned them and all others separating from them as guilty of Schism and declared against a Toleration of them as appearas by their Covenant Letter to the Assembly Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ and others too many to be named So that it is evident that they themselves since they cannot deny our Churches to be true Christian Churches are now such Persons as when they had power in their hands they judged to be inexcusable and not to be tolerated in their Schism because unnecessary and therefore unlawful being made from that which the Separatists themselves confess to be a true Christian Church and consequently that their then judgment condemns their present practice This might be a sufficient argument for us if we had no other to conclude that the prepossessions and prejudices education custom relation interest temporal advantage fear of being accompted fickle unstable c. if conforming and not any conviction of Judgment obligation of Conscience sense of Duty impartially considered or objection against our Liturgy Rites or Ceremonies rightly understood and duely pondered are the true though concealed causes of their renewing and continuing this which when time was at least by parity of reason they themselves judged unnecessary and unlawful Schism Whether it be no reflection on these pretended Teachers to act so contrary to their own Principles and former practises let their Consciences and the World judge In what guilt they involve themselves and their deluded Proselytes for their own temporal gain interest reputation and advantage deserves their most serious Examination In the mean time to all those who desire to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of Peace it must needs be a very sad spectacle to see prejudic'd ignorant unstable and inadvertent Men not considering the relation they stand in to their own proper Pastors the hazards they run of their own Souls by the guilt of Schism they incur and the scandal they lay before others nor the invalid Ordination of these new intruding Teachers 〈◊〉 10.1 their want of Mission or their designing Schism nor the Obligations of their own Consciences to promote and preserve the Peace Order Unity and Communion of the Church or the many and great mischiefs attending an unnecessary and therefore a criminal separation should contemn those spiritual advantages of Church Ordinances celebrated in the most Decent Pious and Apostolick manner and needlesly make a childish and perverse Schism from the
Mischiefs to the Church 2. To the State 3. To Souls 4. To Piety 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of Prophaneness and all kind of wickedness 6. Hindring a world of good 1. Pag. 11. Mischiefs to the Church Zeal for Mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of Mind makes them such triflers in Religion that they disregard the great Interests of God and his Church in the World They are not sensible of the desolations of Gods Churches in France Orange Piedmont the Palatinate Ireland c. It might be answer enough for me to say that all this is nothing to the purpose both because the Persecutions and Massacres in these several places were not made upon the account of external Ceremonies but partly upon a secular account and partly upon a religious where then Communion and Doctrines of the Church and not Ceremonies were controverted and because the Church of England doth not impose Ceremonies or Mens devices upon any under penalty of Persecution But I add that these instances disprove what they are brought to confirm for the desolations of God's Churches in France Piedmont c. are so far from proving that Zeal for mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of mind and makes them such triflers in Religion c. That they evince nothing or else the quite contrary that such as raise Persecutions upon the account of Religion are not Men of light Minds or Triflers in it or disregard the Interests of God and his Church though perhaps they prosecute them the wrong way and by undue Mothods for it is evident they if without sinister design pursue what they think to be God's and his Church's Interest more than their own The Kings of Spain weakened their Kingdoms and exhausted their Treasures by Banishing the Moors and erecting the Inquisition and the French King cannot be supposed to gain by the Flight of his Subjects their ceasing to trade and withdrawing their effects neither was it trifling they fled from Do you Sir who in the behalf of the Dissenters clamorous enough without assistance with open jaws set up the Cry of Persecution here in England and call the French King the Duke of Savoy their Armies Officers and Dragoons Triflers What the Church of England-men which this Pamphleteer abusively calls Zealots for these things did in reference to a Popish Successor was agreeable to their Principles both of Loyalty and Honesty They remembred that tho to do evil that good may ensue be a Doctrine received in the Church of Rome yet it is not so in the Church of England They well knew that an Act for Exclusion notwithstanding any Infallibility or Omnipotency a Parliament can pretend to would be still in it self unjust as contrary to the Laws of God and nature and to the Rules of Equity and common Reason void in it self as being contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land and the very Constitutions of the Monarchy and mischievous in its Events as that which would most certainly have involved these three Kingdoms in a most Bloody Civil War and perhaps have brought an Invasion from abroad in upon us to boot But behold the tender Conscience of our Dissenters they cry out of Persecution upon the Levying a small pecuniary mulct for the frequenting an unnecessary and seditious Conventicle in pursuance of divers Laws made by their own Representatives but would exclude an Hereditary Prince from his undoubted Right and Inheritance by a Law they were no ways authorized to make and involve three Nations at the least in a Bloody War and all the miseries attending it that so they might again swallow up the Crown Lands to maintain the Grandeur of their Hogan-Mogan-Ships in a new Common-Wealth and all this under pretence of the Preservation of the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion the name of which it is probable will grow as odious to after Ages as that of Popery is to us by reason of such who shroud all their ill designs and crimes under that usurped affected and abused Notion The Scripture is our only guide of Unity 〈◊〉 Uniformity is deformity and confusion when Men appoint other terms of Ministerial Service and Church-Communion than are prescribed in Gods Word If the Scripture is the only guide of Unity let our Author tell me why his Clients the Presbyterians Independents Quakers c. are not guided into Unity by it since they all have it and pretend to follow it and yet are far enough from Unity The Scripture it is true prescribes and commands Unity but never actually effected it without the interposition of Ecclesiastical Authority as in the Primitive Church Ecclesiastical and Civil as in the Reformation of our Church or Civil as in Spain by the Inquisition in France by Edicts c. That Uniformity is or can be deformity and confusion I shall think to be a contradiction till our Author shews how it can be reconciled Those terms of Communion which he intimates to be prescribed in Gods Word he would do well to shew us or tell us where we may find them if he can They would do more if clearly discovered and demonstrated towards the Union of our differences than a Thousand such railing Pamphlets and the Intrigues and Politick Desings contrived by Male-contents and as hotly pursued by such Tools as he for the involving us into the same miseries that followed upon the last Rebellion 2. 〈◊〉 3. Mischiefs to the State Zeal for Ceremonies begets in Men a contempt of Publick Rights and Boundaries This is a very strange discovery which our Author hath made but it is so incredible that he could not in reason have supposed that we should take it merely upon his Word Therefore he would have done well to have inform'd us farther how a Zeal for Ceremonies begets a contempt of Publick Rights whether by an Univocal or Equivocal Generation If any Man should argue thus This Man is zealous for Ceremonies therefore he contemns Publick Rights and Boundaries would not all Men wonder at the Inference The Consequence will better follow on the contrary side thus This Man disturbs the Peace and Order of the Church and makes no conscience of breaking the Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions and therefore it is probable that out of the same Principle of disobedience and humour of opposition he will contemn Publick Rights and Boundaries and all obligations of the Conscience to obedience set by the Civil Law also But our Author proceeds When they dote so much upon vanities in Worship as to inslave their Consciences and to despise their Christian liberty it is no wonder if they sell at any rate their own and others Civil Rights and Privileges Surely this is spoken of the Inhabitants of the Moon or some Utopian Countries for most Men here have as little Zeal and as much contempt or at least neglect of the daily Service of the Church as our Author supposes them to have of the Publick Rights and Boundaries
Laws of the Land have placed them and which they might and ought if any doubts and scruples had arose in their minds to have had recourse to and consulted And indeed the frequenters of Consenticles consisting of Petty-coat Proselytes the vulgar sort of Men who are illiterate ignorant and unstable and some few Men of better quality that sometimes grace those Meetings with a fair out-side and the attendance of a Coach and Lacquey whose infirmities and defects made it necessary or convenient for them to give up themselves fortunes and Religions to the conduct and choice of their Wives for all such Persons it is more fit and necessary to be well instructed in the Church Catechism by their own proper Pastors than to take upon them to judge of or determine controversies in Religion of which they are no more qualified to be Judges than blind Men of colours So that being no competent Judges of such matters they can have no right to plead that the conviction of their judgments that such and such things in our Church are unlawful is the cause of their separation because it presupposes them to have judged and determined in a case in which no Wise Man much less any Church or Synod ever allowed them to have any right so to do But the truth is some suck in Fanaticism with their Mothers Milk are initiated with the Principles of it in their Infancy continue under the prejudices of that education and inherit their Parents Schism and have no more reason for it than the ignorant Papists Jews and Mahometans have for their Religions Some are Dissenters upon Worldly accompts and for temporal advantages as the promotion and encrease of Trade gaining of Custom advance of Fortune conveniencies of Marriage pleasing of Relations friendship of Favourites c. Others are Persons of a fickle and unstable temper affect novelties and as if the Religion of our Parents Age and our Infancy as well as their Houses and our last Years Clothes were out of fashion and unsuitable for us think to recommend their judgments to the World by their singularity and new Choice and alledge the Apostles Precept of proving all things for their justification Others being Persons of strong passions but weak judgments are of a ductile temper and wrought upon by the whining tone affected cant fustian Language stuff and unintelligible Phrases of their Holders forth not discerning that all these are but the designed artifices and cunning craft whereby they lye in wait to deceive sacrifice to their own nets and enhaunse their Glory by leading silly Women Captive Others well inclin'd without any persuasion of the unlawfulness of any thing in our Church's Doctrin Discipline or Constitutions or so much as doubting of it hearing these Venders of the Geneva Discipline make such large boasts of more than ordinary purity of Worship strictness of Discipline and holiness of life as if they were entail'd upon that Sect since so Pharisaical a confidence without something to support it would be monstrous and absurd are apt to think that some parts of them are true and not aware that all this is done to draw the more Customers together and get the better Market for their spiritual Wares blindly give up themselves by a Faith more implicite and inexcusable than that in the Romish Church to be taught and guided by them Thus ordinary People being Men of great inadvertency and small judgment become their cheap and easie prey and as for the richer sort whose Wealth may be useful to the supporting of the cause they usually imitate the Method of the first deceiver and so make their Addresses that the Men are made Disciples by the mediation and assistance of their Wives I might add hereunto the evil arts those designing Persons use to decry others to recommend themselves such are their traducing both Persons and Things the envious detractions and calumnies the unjust aspersions and slanders which they used to insinuate and spread abroad amongst their hearers with a purpose to put them out of conceit with and make them disaffected to the Government of both Church and State in general and the Persons of our Governors and Clergy in particular hence arose that malice censoriousness want of Christian Charity and bitterness of Spirit which they are leaven'd withal more than and above other Men this makes them turbulent and unquiet disobedient to the Government and like S. J. strugling with it contriving caballing and plotting against it factious in the State Schismatical in the Church proud and peevish in their dispositions morose unsociable and unneighbourly to all but themselves and banishes that Christian Charity and Brotherly Kindness which would qualifie them more for a re-union with our Church and conduce more to it than our abolishing all our Rites Ceremonies Church constitutions and Customs can or ever will do for it is not any evil in them or any of them but the evil designs of Men that caused these unchristian breaches and divisions 3. If the Dissenters had really made their Schism upon the accompt of Conscience the same Principles of Conscience would have influenc'd their other actions as well as it and they would certainly have behaved themselves very differently from what they have done and have carried themselves humbly modestly quietly and obediently to the Monarchy as God's Ordinance as the Primitive Christians did to even the Heathen Emperors Pro-consuls and Governors But alass we find them of a quite contrary temper to omit what Men of the same Principles have done in Germany France Bohemia Holland Switzerland Geneva c. The Murmurings Tumults Covenanting Conspiracy Insurrection and open Rebellion of the Scots against King Charles I. and their Invasion of England being promoted both by the Instruments of Cardinal Richelieu who aimed at furthering the French Kings designs against the Hugonots and Flanders by diverting King Charles's Forces and Attempts design'd against France and by the Missionary Jesuits who to ruine the Church of England exclaimed against the King and his Government the Archbishop and evil Counsellors Arbitrary Power and Popery c. blew the coals fomented differences pretended grievances aggravated miscarriages exasperated Parties both here and there and excited the Fanatick Party here to encourage their Brethren in Scotland first by secret and then open assurances of their assistance to invade this Kingdom cannot be imputed to the obligations of their Consciences unless the Cardinal and Jesuits are allowed the Guides and Directors of them The two several open Rebellions raised in Scotland against King Charles II. the Fanatick Plot against his Life here the continued carriage of the Dissenters in general and of the Presbyterian Party tin particular since his Restauration their malicious and bitter Speeches against him and his Government in ordinary conversation and discourses the slanderous Libels railing Pamphlets written and dispersed by them their intriguing caballing and plotting their pragmatical and indirect interposing in all Publick Elections Places and Offices their perverse
who is dumb and deaf or a Natural who cannot be instructed being born of Believing Parents and baptized may be saved and he who being many Years sick cannot go to Church and yet it is lawful to appoint publick Prayers Catechizing and Preaching A Man born in the Country of a Mahometan or Pagan Prince of Christian Parents may want both the preaching of the Word and administration of the Sacraments and yet be instructed sufficiently to his Salvation and we here not only may but also must use them God himself required other and more perfect Service in the Land of Canaan than he accepted in the Wilderness And accordingly the Christian Church hath practised otherwise in times and places of Danger and Persecution than of Peace and Security Those famous Men of our Reformation mentioned in Pag. 8. being perhaps prepossessed with a good opinion of what they had been used to in their Pilgrimage or exasperated against Popery that being the cause of it by Persecution or perhaps being too far transported by a well-meaning Zeal might approve of the abolishing of innocent and decent Vestments whilst other good Men might think there was too much abolish'd before since the abolishing of any lawful Thing or Custom might by giving offence to the Papists as being the effect of Passion and a perverse Humour and not of conviction of Judgment be an obstacle to the Reformation Every good Man's opinion and judgment cannot nor is fit to be made the Standard of a National Reformation and therefore herein certainly the wise Queen was directed by Providence or at the least more in the right than those good Men for the preserving and continuing the use of them was far more agreeable to that excellent temper and moderation which that great Man Iren. pag 121 c. the then Dr. Stillingfleet so justly commended and all good and wise Men do the same both in our English Liturgy and the French Prayers and indeed it behoved them to act like the Reformers of the Old Church and not the Founders of a New and what was corrupt only needed Reformation and not what was pure It may be observed that those excellent Bishops judged the use of those Vestments a thing in it self indifferent and so complyed with the continuance and injunction of them and if all others had imitated their Piety Peace and Prudence this unhappy strife about them had never been The Apostles did not at all favour the imposing humour Pag. 9. The Holy Ghost and the Apostles were only for requiring necessary things Acts 15 28. Here our Author catches at the word Necessary without any regard to the sense wherein it is used The next Verse enumerates those necessary things That ye abstain from meats offered to Idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication Where of these four things necessary three of them are so only in respect of the Jews which they were obliged not to offend as being a probable course to hinder their conversion but rather to abstain from the lawful use of indifferent things Rom. 14.14 for that the first of them is lawful appears from 1 Cor. 8. and that the two next are Moses's Ceremonial Law being understood as a temporary positive Law obligatory only to the Jewish Nation and that only till our Saviour's Crucifixion is evident by common Reason and Custom I might observe for my purpose against our Author That the same Holy Ghost who enjoined the Gentile Converts to forbear the use of some iudifferent things for fear of giving offence to Jews yet zealous for the Law of Moses amongst which they conversed being always consonant to himself by this Text commands us to continue the use of other indifferent things lest we should scandalize the Papists not only in these three Kingdoms but in all the Western Churches by a wilful perverse and unnecessary secession and departure from them in the use or disuse of lawful and indifferent Things Customs and Ceremonies for where there is the same Reason there is the same Law So that this inconsiderate Author could scarcely have cited a Text more fatal to his Cause This precedent the Apostle's practice 1 Cor. 9.19 c. and the Scripture Canon 1 Cor. 14.40 had they been duly imitated observed and obeyed the greatest part of the Schisms and Divisions which have unhappily rent and distracted the Christian Church had either been prevented or soon reunited 4. The manifold mischiefs of these Impositions Pag. 1â— No Man can shew any good they have done c. I know no other Impositions upon our Congregations but those I have already mentioned and let our Author tell us either which of them is unnecessary and hurtful and he would have abolished or what else he means by Impositions that so we may know whether they are so mischievous as he talks of The good they were designed to do was to testifie our reverence to Antiquity and our holding Communion with the Catholick Church of Christ to justifie our Reformation and prevent giving any scandal to the Papists and to cause all things in our own Church to be done decently and in order of which if they have fallen short we may thank some Men who have been turbulent and unquiet proud peevish and schismatical and troubled with the humor and spirit of contradiction What follows in our Author assigned as the mischief of Impositions is neither true nor of Date ancient enough to be so nor is an Argument fit for a Divine to use in Church-matters but seems to be the passionate resentment of some covetous ambitious Person lately candidate for some Civil or Military Employment and discontented for the missing of it the venting the spleen of some well-willed to the Good Old Cause or the shallow and mistaken observation of some small pretender to Politicks who usually prognosticates the Prosperity or Fate of the Kingdom according to the measures of the Elevation or Depression of his own Sect tho the most factious and seditions in it and of Principles the most destructive to its Government As for that which is cited out of a great Man in our Church Ibid. Or. Stilingfleet â—ren Pref. 9. in these words Without all controversie the main Inlet of all the distractions confusions and divisions in the Christian World hath been by adding other Conditions of Church-Communion than Christ hath made When that Learned Man shall be at leisure to reconcile these words with his own in the two following Pages of the same Preface and 122 c. of his following Book and shall be farther pleased to tell us which are the conditions of Church-Communion that Christ hath made it will be easie to determine whether the adding other hath been the main Inlet of all the distractions confusions and divisions in the Christian World but nothing can be inferred from such general expressions The mischiefs I am speaking of are innumerable some of them are reduceable to these six Heads 1.