against those that did but sit down at their ease just after their Prayers Eo apponitur irreverentiae crimen c. To this saies he may be added that it is such a criminal irreverence as may easily be understood even by the Heathens themselves if they have any sense about them for sure 't is irreverend to sit down under the view and plac'd as it were over-right the view of that Person for whom you have the highest Reverence and Veneration how much more is it not most irreligious to do so in view of the Living God while the Angel that attended at the Prayers is yet standing by unless we have a mind to upbraid God that our prayers have tired us But if we pray with Modesty and Humility we shall so much the more commend our Prayers to God Now let Heaven and Earth judg whether the primitive Christians sate at receiving the Sacrament or no I shall make one Observation more upon this whole matter that although comprehension be the only thing he pretends yet there must needs be Toleration at the bottom of it 'T is true indeed that p. 23. though he desires such a form of Service such Ceremonies also to be establisht as may give most general satisfaction yet he desires what is establisht may be generally observ'd and not a liberty left as some do propose to add or detract Ceremonies or Prayers according to the various Opinions and Humours of Men for certainly this would cause great Faction and Division c. I suppose he means well here but quite contrary to his own Principle p. 19. where he treats about kneeling or sitting at the Eucharist and concludes that in these things no man ought to obey till we can rectifie his judgment Now suppose the Injunctions for kneeling were taken away are we sure that all they and we should have such rectified judgments on the sudden as to agree together about Receiving either sitting or standing or all in any one posture Nay are we not morally certain of the contrary that there could be no such agreement therefore he does well in adjuring us to admit them in any posture which is Toleration Now consider pray in this one point what a Confusion would ensue when in the same assembly One might Receive the Communion decently kneeling A second believing that to be Superstition demands it sitting A third because 't is reported the Pope himself sometimes receives it sitting judges that as much better he may to be Popery therefore he will have it leaning or lying along as he thinks the Apostles had it A fourth would be better pleas'd with a running Banquet because the Jews eat the Passover in haste and because they have it so in some places beyond Sea every one en Passant Would not as St. Paul concludes in another case any that should come into such a Congregation think they were all mad Oh! but if they come in sincerity of heart c. He may well make an If of it But if they are never so sincere yet alas what 's their or our heart in comparison of Christ's heart and yet he kneel'd in several places we read and lifted up his Eyes and lifted up his hands towards Heaven And yet 't is Superstition in us to kneel at receiving the Body and Blood of Christ But let us be tender and compassionate to our weak Brethren If any tender Consciences that is as he explains the word weak Judgments and I am not so uncharitable as to doubt but there are many such be seriously troubled at kneeling we are heartily troubled too at their Discontents We kneel to God and pray for their Conversion and Satisfaction We could even kneel to them that trouble them with vain Scruples and pray them with St. Paul to study to be quiet We readily offer our selves either to answer their Reason would they bring those could speak it or rather write it in strict form of Argument which yet they would never do but only make these Orations or else if we could not answer it then we would quit our Opinion and embrace their's But if they have nothing to oppose to us but only this and if this suffices that they are offended at it at this rate there can be no settlement in the World either of Church or State For they may deliver themselves from all its Injunctions if they please but to take a Caprice against them This is assuming to themselves a perfect Negative Vote against any Law without giving any reason against it If such a Spirit as this be not destructive of Christianity nay of all Civil Society and the ready way to set the Heels above the Head we understand not any thing He huddles up the rest concerning other Ceremonies Cross in Baptism Ring in Marriage c. slighting them all and giving them up without the least shadow of an Argument Except this be one Wherefore I conclude says he this point of Ceremonies with St. Paul He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it c. So he that kneeleth kneeleth unto the Lord and he that kneeleth not to the Lord he kneeleth not Now do but examine this Conclusion and whence he draws it Consider pray that regarding or not regarding these days that is the old Jewâ—sh Holy-days as presently I shall make it appear was neither commanded nor forbidden by the Christian Church but left indifferent Is kneeling at the Blessed Sacrament left as indifferent is it not commanded by the Church do not they that refuse to kneel disobey the Church So then his Argument in the Parallel runs thus He that regardeth the day regardeth it unto the Lord and he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it c. So he that kneeleth kneeleth to the Lord and he that kneeleth not to the Lord he kneeleth not that is to the Lord he disobeys the Church and refuses to kneel But I must needs take notice of his next passage because 't is a pleasant one and because he desires us to observe it how St. Paul in this place Rom. 14. calls the zealous Observer of Ceremonial matters the weak Brother and commands the strong not to despise him So that now the Tables are turn'd and we of the Church of England our poor weak Mother as this Author would make her are the weak Brethren But what I pray were those Ceremonies which the Apostle thought it a weakness in some to Opiniator Is it not evident they were the Jewish out-dated Ceremonies which the Apostle allowed them to Bury honourably and therefore was conâ—ented they should fall gently and sink by degrees Yet he was discontented at their untimely Zeal that urg'd them still as necessary and obligatory upon the Christians He permitted them to have some regard to a day viz. an old Jewish Holiday and if they were over-fond of it he charged those that
consequence and admirably serving the turn of the rankest Sectaries Who not being able to keep up their Congregations any longer or to keep their Disciples from ours by trivially declaiming against our Ceremonies They ferment them now by instilling into them new fears and jealousies of our Doctrines Warning them away from our Churches as if there was some strange Fury working or some Innovations contriving in the Church of England and as if we were allowed to preach and maintain even in our City-Pulpits new Articles of Faith Socinian or Pelagian in opposition to the Catholick and truly Primitive How unsufferably J. O. for one has reflected not only upon some particular Persons but upon the whole Church of England and its Governers upon this account any one may read that does but run over his Survey of a discourse concerning Ecclesiastical Polity No wonder then if now they are transported with joy when an Author appears as one dropt down from heaven to plead their Cause vouching himself a Son of the Church of England teaching as one having Authority like a Father venturing at first dash upon the tenderest Point in the World concerning Articles of Faith implying and supposing all along that some are extremely to blame for improving the Faith not by confirming but enlarging it asking whether the state of Salvation be alter'd ' and what need any other Articles In what Church does he ask these Questions and how monstrous impertinent are they here if we do nothing like it Well! to begin with him and follow him step by step through his many turnings and windings and sometimes nothing but a rope of Sand to guide me He makes a discovery to us in the first place that That which we commonly call the Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith And again that the Primitive Church received this as the sum total of Faith necessary to salvation Why not now I answer it is so now and all true Sons of our Church hold it so now Then why this Question Why that which follows Is the state of Salvation alter'd No doubt the terms of Belief on which Salvation is ordinarily attainable are never changeable but like God himself who establisht them fixt and immoveable But still he follows his blow though he fights with the Air If it be compleat saies he what need any other Articles There may have been needful heretofore not only other Articles but other Creeds for the farther explication of those Articles in the Apostles Creed and yet in those new Creeds not one new Article The Apostles Creed is the sum of Christian Faith True yet I hope he will not think the Nicene the Constantinopolitan and the Athanasian Creeds were superfluous and unnecessary And in his Chapter about preaching he seems concerned for this last the Athanasian and yet his censure is so bold upon Constantine the Emperour and some godly Bishops he conceives more zealous than discreet and so do some godly Bishops conceive of this Author and his pique at the new word Homoousios carries such an ugly reflection upon that Creed that I scarce dare understand him But we shall have more of this hereafter He would have men improve in Faith but rather Intensivè than Extensivè to Confirm it rather than Enlarge it And yet 't is certain that all formal and mortal Hereticks that are not Atheists are justly condemn'd for want of due extension in their Faith He prays us to remember the Treasurer to Candace Queen of Aethiopia whom Philip instructed in the Faith His time of Catechizing was very short and soon proceeded to Baptism This is soon pronounc'd as he uses to do but not prov'd It does not appear how long or how short was the time of his Catechizing or how many Leagues they travelled together before they proceeded to Baptism 'T is true there needs no great length of time to propose and demonstrate Christianity as St. Peter and the Apostles did it in few words and especially out of the Prophesies of the Old Testament which the Eunuch was then reading But then a great deal must and may be learnt in a little time as the prime Articles of Faith are so strongly and rationally knit together that 't is indeed impossible to teach or learn any one of them without teaching or learning them all Whereas then our Author proceeds thus But Philip first required a confession of his Faith and the Eunuch made it and I beseech you observe it I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and straightway he was baptized How no more than this no more What! nothing of the Holy Ghost till he heard of him in the Baptismal form What does he mean then by that which immediately follows This little grain of Faith being sound believed with all his heart purchased the kingdom of Heaven Had he believed the whole Gospel with half his heart it had been of less value in the sight of God 'T is not the quantity but the quality of our Faith God requireth I answer the true and full notion of Saving Faith is embracing from the whole heart the whole Fundamental truth of the Gospel Why does he talk then of the whole Heart and yet supposes but half or a part of this Fundamental truth Does he dream that St. Philip the Evangelist Christen'd the Eunuch after Christ's Ascension into Heaven only as St. John the Baptist brought men to his Baptism before Christ appeared in his Ministry upon earth and made him such a Disciple as those whom St. Paul found in Ephesus that had not so much as heard whether there were any Holy Ghost to whom thereupon St. Paul proved Christianity from their Master the Baptist's Testimony and to make them perfect Christians which they were not before but only a sort of Disciples Baptized them in the Name of the Lord Jesus Acts 19. Yet this Author will not let go his hold and will needs be thus objecting against himself But sure the Eunuch was more fully instructed It may be you are sure of it but I could never yet meet with any assurance of it nor any great probability of it Yes I am sure of it if he means by more fully instructed taught other Fundamental Articles beside this one that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And I will give him one demonstration of what I say which is more than a Probability out of the story it self and he might have met with this demonstration in it himself if he could have seen but an inch before him for we find in the story that the Eunuch himself made the motion to the Evangelist and reminded him of baptizing him Therefore 't is evident they had discourst before even of this particular though we are told no more in express words but that St. Philip preacht to him Jesus the Faith of Jesus Yet he had brancht out this Faith into all its Fundamental Articles and had declar'd to him even the necessity of Baptism which he understood
And again in the same page Can you drive Faith like a Nail into his head or heart with a hammer Nay 't is not in a mans own power to make himself Believe any thing farther than his Reason shews him much less Divine things Put this together and there 's a great deal more of it and see whether it does not lead us into the very dregs of Mr. Hobbs's Divinity i. e. Fatality For if it be not in any man's power to discern Fundamental truths of which we are treating in this Chapter when they are laid before his eyes Then I am sure it is none of his fault of which the result is this that whereas our Saviour has pronounc'd that He that believes shall be saved and he that believes not that is he that disbelieves after a sufficient proposal shall be damned This Author will have it that He who does not believe even after such Evidence cannot believe and therefore cannot be saved and so cannot avoid being damned Only this Author is better natur'd indeed than Mr. Hobbs who allows the Civil Magistrate to correct and even to cut off those that are thus necessitated to do evil as men kill Vermin or noxious Creatures Whereas this Author as much in the other extreme dares go no farther than that a Christian Magistrate should punish or banish those that trouble the Church of Christ with Doctrines apparently contrary to the clear Text and such as are destructive to Christianity But who will judge what is clear or what is thus destructive the Party accused or the Civil Magistrate For as for the Ecclesiastick he makes the Church all along in this discourse a party and we shall see anon that he will not allow her even in a General Council for a competent Judg to be rely'd upon by both Parties no not in points of Faith But if he dares go no farther than this I dare not go so far I am very far from thinking as he does that it was any part of S. Pauls meaning in this place I wish they were even cut off that trouble you to wish there were a fitting Power that is a Christian Magistrate to punish or banish them and his Reason is nothing why St. Paul should not mean here a cutting off from the Church by way of Excommunication for that saies he was in his power to do Why then should he wish it It might be in his Power i. e. he wanted not authority but yet he might justly apprehend it a perillous thing formally to cut off and excommunicate so numerous and powerful a Faction for fear of some great apostasie from Christianity from which these men by his favour had not cut off themselves though they ran into Schisms or Haeresies Therefore he might well consider it as a thing rather to be wisht than executed and if this were no wish of St. Paul's making that the Troublers of the Church might be punisht or banisht then I cannot find in my heart to go along with this Author in making it my wish that they should either be banisht or more severely punisht for the present than by forcing them into our Churches whence they have indeed banisht themselves that they may hear our defences of an honest Cause And if it wring their Consciences to come thither to Prayers I cannot chuse but make another wish that they might first be satisfied either in our publick or private Conferences with their Leaders The notable effect of such Conferences he that does not believe let him but read what my Lord Bishop of Winchester then of Worcester printed of what pass't in that short one at Worcester-house or the Savoy where as soon as ever it came to writing in Syllogism which this Author so despises here and every where the adverse Party was driven immediately to that wild Assertion that whatsoever may be the occasion of sin to any must be taken away But this Author without making any such provision for their Souls as has any thing in it of constraint is for leaving them to their fate As for those saies he who keep their erroneous opinions to themselves who neither publish nor practice any thing to the disturbance of the Church or State as if to set up Altar against Altar were no disturbance but only refuse to conform to the Churches establisht Doctrine or Discipline pardon me if I say I cannot find any warrant or so much as hint from the Gospel to excuse any force to compel them No! let all such live like Pagans and go to no Churches at all if they have a mind to it But he knows full well there is a common Objection about the Magistrates using any compulsion taken from S. Augustine Some Hereticks Donatists came to him in his later daies and gave thanks that the Civil Power was made use of to restrain them Confessing that was the means which brought them to consider more calmly their own former extravagant Opinions and so brought them home to the true Church To this he answers First the Donatists are well known to have been a Sect not only erroneous in judgment but very turbulent in behaviour always in seditious practices in that case he tells us he shew'd before how the Civil Magistrate may proceed to Punishment But he says our case is not in repressing seditious practices but enforcing a confession of Faith quite of another nature Though I could easily and justly retort him a sharper answer I say only this the very Act against them calls them Seditious Conventicles and openly to break so many known Laws of the land after so many reinforcements is not this to be turbulent And was it not ever understood so in all Religions even in heathen Rome The most learned P. Aerodius tells us when a sort of Innovators kept their Conventicles in opposition to the way receiv'd among them of worshipping their Gods the Senate made an Act there should be no such Meetings as tending to the disturbance of the State and the publique Peace Et si quis tale Sacrum solemne necessarium duceret and if any one judged such a Sacrifice to be necessary and a Solemnity not to be omitted without a Crime he was to repair to the Praetor and the Praetor was to consult the Senate when there were at least a hundred Senators present so that the Rump of Parliament would not do neither And if the Senate gave him leave it must be with this condition That when he performed his offices of Religion his own way ita id sacrum faceret dum ne plures quam quinque sacrificio interessent there should not be above five persons allow'd to be present at the Meeting The self same number besides the Dissenter's own Family is so far forth endur'd by an Act of this present Parliament that there must be more then five to make it a Conventicle But what are 5 to 500 as commonly they meet And are not such Meetings formidable and whatever is formidable
to the Church and the State is not that also Turbulent And if they were thus solicitous to preserve and establish as a sacred inviolable thing the Idolatrous worship of their false Gods what care of ours can be great enough to secure the Godly worship of the only True God when it is shaken by such Divisions But to return to St. Austin how did the Civil Magistrate proceed to punish the Donatists for their sedition even by laying his Commands upon them at that good Father's Request That they should come to Church A severe punishment and very likely indeed to be inflicted upon them as Traytors to the Imperial Crown But secondly says he to answer more particularly this story I suppose says he there is no man such a stranger to the world as to be ignorant that there are Hypocrites in it and such for ought we know these seeming converted Donatists might be who for love of this World more than for love of the Truth forsoâ—k their heretical Profession though not their Opinion c. Incomparable for ought he knows they were Hypocrites So for ought we know This Author is all this while a Jesuite and writes this Pamphlet only to embroyl us Protestants But he goes on unless it can be evidenc't that these Donatists hearts were changed as well as their Profession a thing impossible to prove all this proves nothing Very good So unless it can be evidenc't that he writes all this Pamphlet from his Heart which is impossible to be prov'd it all signifies just nothing But thirdly says he put the case their hearts were really chang'd as to matter of belief 't is evident their hearts were very worldly still groveling on the earth not one step nearer Heaven A horrible charitable saying we may forgive him any thing after this as his supposing in this next sentence that the pruning of the Tree by the Magistrate's Sword is doing evil As for his putting the Case Malchus had been converted by St. Peter 's cutting off his ear and saying this would not have excus'd St. Peter 's act which our Saviour so sharply reprov'd and threatned by perishing with the sword In the first place I humbly conceive St. Peter was no Civil Magistrate unless he that will not allow him to draw oâ—e Sword here as a private Person will admit the fine Monkish conceit of Ecce duo Gladii behold here are two Swords the Spiritual and the Temporal for St. Peter and his Successors And secondly for his cutting of Malchus's ear I suppose there is some difference between the Magistrat's giving one an ear to hear with or compelling one to hearken and listen to reason and cutting off ones ear or setting one in the Pillory But all this he says in reference to compelling men to believe or conform still reserving to the Magistrate power according to Scripture to punish evil doers not evil believers not who think but do publish or do practise something to subvert the Fundamentals of Religion or disturb the Peace of the State or injure their Neighbour God the only searcher of hearts reserves to himself the punishment of evil thoughts of evil belief which man can never have a right cognizance of And does he take all this pains only to put a fallacy upon us and only to prove the truth of an old Adage that Thought is free And that no body can be punisht in this world for his Thoughts only or that it is all one for a thing not to be and not to appear to be But for all this evil believers if they profess their evil belief plainly appear evil doers and are to be treated accordingly Though I speak nothing more against them or their greatest Speakers than that they may be brought to our Churches and give us a fair hearing Animadversions upon his Appendix to the former Subject HIS Appendix to the former Subject begins with censuring the modesty of our first Reformers for their deference to the Ancient Fathers and Councils We thank him for this reproach Hereby says he they were reduc't to great straits in their Disputations He shall find himself reduc't into much greater before we have done with him for thus aspersing and deserting both the Ancients and the Modern Fathers as I may style them of this Church and the Reformation His reason for thus rejecting Antiquity is because some Popish Errors were crept very early into the Church The Superstition of the Cross and Chrism were in use in the second Century They were in use but none were then allowed in any superstitious abuse of them As for the Millenary Error and the Necessity of Infants receiving the Blessed Sacrament Errors indeed but no Heresies and common Errors but by no means to be charged on the Church Universal of those Ages which is but a Vulgar Error since the Papists he confesses reject them both I hope these do not prove the Fathers Papists nor yet Heretiques that the Reformers should balk them on these Surmises However this Reformer urges them where he thinks they serve his turn St. Cyprian tells us that every Praepositus which we call Bishop is to be guided by his own Reason and Conscience and is responsible to God only for his Doctrine St. Cyprian only says in the place which he means though he is not pleas'd to quote it that a Bishop was Praepositus and responsible to no other that is to no other Bishop and particularly not responsible to the Bishop of Rome But St. Cyprian never says that a Bishop is not responsible to the Church or a Council of Bishops which without any usurpation have always taken to themselves the authority of calling even Patriarchs to an account for their Doctrine as that General Council held at Constantinople by the Emperour Constantinus Pogonatus judg'd and condemn'd five Patriarchs at once and Honorius the Pope of Rome for one of them But St. Augustine believed it a direct Heresie to hold there were any Antipodes 'T is true he held there were none and rally'd those that held there was any such thing This was for want of understanding the System of the World which in those Ages few understood before the late Discoveries But St. Augustine is so little guilty of believing it either a Direct or an Indirect Heresie that he scarce makes Religion at all concern'd in it And if he touch it only as a point of Philosophy then his Reputation of Wit is as safe as that of Herodotus and Lucretius and many of the greatest Wits that made as fine Burlesques as he upon this opinion of Antipodes But if so great a Divine as St. Augustine and so great a Scholar as Lactantius were liable to such mistakes for want of skill in the Mathematiques Then why does this Author inveigh against that part of Learning for a Divine in his preaching Chapter p. 27. 28 He can't but wonder that men of any brains or modesty should so grosly abuse this saying of our Saviour He