to be much wondered at among Heathens that know not God yea many of them that worship the Devil But for those that own the Christian Religion a Gospel of Peace to abound herein is the greatest scandal possible to our holy Christian Profession The Almighty calls therefore aloud to us all to return to the Primitive Purity and Integrity of our Religion and if so then there would be neither place for Papal pride Tyranny Uncharitableness and Cruelty on the one hand nor for Pride Peevishness ignorant Confidence Factions Divisions Hatred and Variance on the other hand Alas Quis non vita etiam sua redimat subrotum istuc infinitum dissidii scandalum was the saying as I have read of the worthy Martin Bucer It is therefore Gentlemen a work very well becoming you to set your selves against all Faction and Division earnestly to promote the peace of the Church and State that we may be all united at home And in the next place promote the Peace and Unity of Christendom a brave and noble work if it were possible to be effected to unite all Christians together in Christendom which wise and good men of all sides have thought possible but if in this respect you can do little yet let us all wish and pray for the peace happiness and unity of the Christian world in the Language of our Church That God would inspire continually the Vniversal Church with the Spirit of Truth Vnity and Concord and grant that all they that do confess his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word and live in Vnity and Godly love And however as to such who although they deny the Infalibility of the Papacy yet will every one claim it to himself that affirm they are every one guided by the Spirit and that adhere strongly to those tenents which are inconsistent with Government Order and Peace of the world if ever you would preserve peace and Unity these must be looked on as Religious Lunaticks and so to be dealt with kept from doing of mischief Consider our holy Profession enjoyns us nothing more than Unity and Peace to speak the same things to be all of one mind to study peace to keep the unity of the Spirit in the Bond of of Peace to love one another by which we should properly distinguish our selves to be the Disciples of Christ which our Fanaticks will nevertheless contradict and gainsay although it be to reproach God himself for they will confidently affirm that this which God requires of us is impossible and that it is as possible to make all faces alike as all Christians to speak one and the same thing and to be united And that to endeavour this is to do as Procrastes did with those that lay in his Bed with horrid cruelty to bring all men to the size thereof When in truth they herein plead but for their Lusts and Vices and because they be unwilling to bring their lives to the rule God hath given they would wickedly pervert the Rule and make it sute with their Lusts. For the great hinderance of this Unity Peace and Love arises from our Pride and Self confidences our Peevish Tempers our Lusts and Passions which we ought to mortify and subdue if we would be Christians as we profess our selves to be this excellent design of Unity and Peace among all Christians might meet with its desired effect I have read of St. Ambrose that he should say Si virtutem finis ille maximus sit qui plurimorum spectat profectum moderatio omnium pulcherima est if that end of Vertues be the greatest that looks at publick good moderation is of all the most beautiful And it is said of the Thebans that they made Harmonia a Goddess they accounted her the Defender of their City and surely she may be well accounted the Upholder of the Universe for by Order Agreement and Peace the whole world subsists and God in Scripture is styled the God of Order Therefore as one says well Harmonious Dispositions that are for Order and Government Unity and Peace have much of God in them there is a Nobleness in such hearts And doubtless those Principles Doctrines and Designs which most promote the great end and design of Christianity viz. The making men really good and vertuous and for the uniting us all together in mutual Love and Charity as Brethren all of one great Family of which Christ is the head will own God their Author So likewise all those that are of Dividing and Schismatical Principles and Practices whose very end and natural tendency is disturbance to order Government and Peace in the world are certainly from the Devil that Abaddon and Apollion the great Destroyer whatever their Pretences otherwise may be And now I think these truths which I have presented before you are worthy of our most serious thoughts and considerations and that it is high time when Gods dreadful Judgments are abroad that shake the Foundations of Christendom to leave off Jesting and Drolling with God and Religion Sharpness of Wit as a Learned Author hath observed hath commonly with it Pride and Levity two ill Companions therefore take heed and consider truly that wit and wisdom are far different things it is true that wit well improved by sound Study by time and experience improves into wisdom at last for wisdom is not born with us into the world yea wisdom is a solid and serious thing it teacheth us to consider truly and fully of all things to look beyond the surface or first representation and appearances of things and if Gentlemen and Scholars will not study and consider things truly if they become careless and lay aside consideration what use will all the Pious and Learned Books in the world be for any more but to be consumed and destroyed and the Religion of Mahomet to be speedily expected among us for that will best befit an inconsiderate age given up wholly to their sensualities to gratify their carnal appetites for nothing will certainly please more such sensualities than a Mahumetan Paradice But I hope better things and that Gentlemen will yet be like Gentlemen Knowing Learned and Wise and let every one of you argue with your selves thus What although I am descended of a Noble of a Gentile Family and am possest of a fair Estate enjoy the fulness of all earthly felicities have a numerous train and live in great Pomp and State yet hath not the wisest Mortal that ever lived even wise Solomon after he had experienced the fulness of all these things in a greater measure then ever any before or since hath done and being inspired with wisdom from God concluded thus that Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit And shall I be so unwise as to put any other value or esteem upon all these far less injoyments that possibly I may possess Is not that a prudent Saying Si tibi Pulchra Domus si splendida mensa quid inde
VOX CLAMANTIS OR AN ESSAY FOR THE Honour Happiness and Prosperity OF THE English Gentry And the whole Nation In the promoting Religion and Vertue and the Peace both of Church and State By P. A. Gent. Verbum sat ' Sapienti LONDON Printed by Iohn Playford in Little-Brittain for Benjamin Tooke at the Ship in St. Paul's Church Yard 1684. TO THE Honoured Sir Iohn Moore Kt. one of the Aldermen of the City of London Worthy Sir COnsidering that good and honest designs sute best with Good men and are most acceptable to them and that they are most worthy the countenance and protection of persons in power and authority I could not well propose to my self a fitter person to whom I might dedicate the ensuing Discourse than Sir John Moore the name of Moore hath been highly honoured heretofore in the famous Sir Thomas Moore sometime Lord Chancellor of England which now you have made more illustrions by your being the Grand Instrument in one of the best designs ever attempted and effected in our days next the Miraculous and Happy Restoration of his Sacred Majesty even the Suppression of Fanatiscism and Disloyalty that Pest and Plague of both Church and State by your seasonable and resolute steming that Tide and putting a stop to that Impetuous Current which threatened to overwhelm the Nation whereby you may well be reputed to be in truth not only Maleus Fanaticorum but also the happy instrument and means of preservation both of Church and State the Glory and Happiness of your anciently Renowned City and one of the Loyalist Subjects this Age hath produced May the best of Blessings ever attend the Royal Throne with all the Royal Family so long as the Sun and Moon endures And may their Enemies he be ever cloathed with shame and confusion Be pleased Sir to pardon my great boldness in this Dedication the goodness of the end must plead for the unworthiness of the performance and with my Prayers for all Health and Happiness to you and yours suffer me to subscribe my self Sir Your very Humble and devoted Servant P. A. Nov. 20th 1683. VOX CLAMANTIS CHAP. I. Of the Nature and Kinds of Drunkenness and Excess and the prevalency of it in the World c. AS the happiness and perfection of man principally consists in his being endowed by God with a rational Soul so in the use and exercise of that noble faculty of Reason must doubtless consist his Felicity and to follow the true and clear Dictates thereof and therefore he that makes the greatest use of Reason by sober and serious consideration is without doubt most like himself is most a man From whence it must needs follow therefore that all such things as prejudice clog or interrupt the Soul of Man in the Exercise and Use of his Reason ought as he tenders his own welfare to be shunned and avoided by him with all possible care and diligence as all Riot and Excess whatsoever But more especially when the Supream Wisdom the Divine Laws hath prohibited the same and under pain of Damnation Now Gluttony and Drunkenness and all Excess whatsoever being so frequently and so sharply reprehended by the holy Christian Doctrine and the Contraries thereto viz. Sobriety Temperance and Moderation being such indispensible and necessary duties of the excellent Religion of the ever blessed Jesus a man must be more than sottishly brutish if insensible of the unchristianness of Christians in the Age we live in in this respect when they that are drunk are not drunk in the night only but in the sight of the Sun And how can a man but stand amazed to consider that the Institutions of that Grand Imposter Mahomet should be more carefully and exactly observed and followed by his Disciples and Followers in abstinence from Wine than the holy Christian Laws and Institutes What can it be less than the greatest reproach imaginable to us Christians that this Swinish sin should be once named among us Much more when it is grown to that height and perfection as to become the Epidemical Sin of the Nation as it were at this day Now in short to describe what this sin is I humbly conceive it may be said at least that it is a Spontaneous and Voluntary Clogging or Indisposing the Soul and Mind by Excess in Eating and Drinking whereby it becomes unable to make use of its noble faculty of Reason and Understanding for the well government and regulation of the actions of the man or rather as the late Reverend Dr. Hammond hath described it more strictly when we eat or drink to the overcharging of the body the Sobriety contrary to which is the Eating and Drinking no more than agrees with the health and good temper of it there being also another excess in quality or delicacy of Meats and Drinks viz. A studied care and pursuit of such as are most delightful and the Sobriety contrary to this is when we content our selves with that Meat and Drink which is necessary and useful to the health and strength of our bodies and neglect and despise all other Delicacies But over and besides these there is also another sort of Excess and Drunkenness that men are many times guilty of and that is being inebriated by Passion Anger or the like that Brevis insania of the Soul as the Philosopher calls it or which is worse with Pride Self-conceitedness Envy Malice Revenge and Cruelty which must needs be the worse and of far greater danger to the Soul by how much the Sober Persons in the repute of the world may herein notwithstanding be intoxicated to Excess and to be little sensible of it but let the mind be discomposed or put out of due order and frame be it with what it will that which discomposeth it is the intoxicating Liquor And if it be of this later sort it is doubtless far the worse both in its own nature and in its effects it being to be drunk with the Wine of Hell in which the accursed Spirits solace themselves so far as God permits them in their Regions of darkness But this by the by only I shall recommend this more especially to the consideration of our Phanaticks the Sober and Godly part of the Nation as they would be thought It must be granted as a late Author hath observed that most Nations under the Sun have their intoxicating Liquors and that some rather than not be drunk will swallow Opium Dutroy and Tobacco or some other intoxicating thing so great an inclination hath Mankind to be exalted as the said Author calls it Pliny complains that drunkenness was the Study of his time and that the Romans and Parthians contended for the glory of excessive Wine-drinking Historians tell us as the said Author further hath it of one Novellius Torquatus that went through all the honourable degrees of dignity in Rome wherein the greatest glory and honour he obtained was for the drinking in the presence of Tiberius three Gallons of Wine at
stirred up to have great respect for the Clergy his Ministers that wait at his Altar if you contemn and despise them the whole world both Christians Pagans Turks and Infidels will condemn you and you know what our Saviour saith He that despiseth you despiseth me c. You cannot doubtless but esteem them highly for their works sake which hath been of old sometimes the imployment of Kings and Princes without question a noble and worthy imployment to attend the worship and service of the highest Lord who is the Sovereign of the whole world who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords It becomes your gentility to take them into your favour and protection that God may take you and yours into his Ecclus. 7.29 Fear the Lord Reverence his Priests Verse 30. Love him that made thee with all thy strength and forsake not his Ministers Abhor to slight and contemn them much less to attempt the corrupting and debauching of them Again Gentility consists in Loyalty to your Prince this is doubtless a principal part and duty of all Gentlemen strongly to endeavour to support the Crown and Government yea to to the utmost extent of your power to uphold him that is the best Gentleman of the Kingdom in whose veins runs Royal blood who is the Fountain of Honour and Gentility yours but derived from him consider therefore seriously what will be your Lot if your Prince and the Royal dignity should fall to the ground how can you and your Gentility possibly stand and subsist The splendor glory and prosperity of your Prince is yours take away the Sun out of the Firmament and what will become of the Stars Alas your lustre and light is but borrowed from him and therefore cannot consist without him if he fall your glory will certainly cease and you will be at last brought under the yoak of the meanest of the people Major Generals to Lord it over you as heretofore I need not put you in mind to be wise sober cereful and vigilant for you have sober and serious Adversaries if I may so call them who are your and your Princes implacable Enemies who are very demure and serious to do mischief and to work your and his ruin And I make no question you have heard how they triumph in the name of the Sober Party of the Nation and have it you may be assured of it in their design and intention if they can very soberly and devoutly with the face of Religion to raise up the Good old Cause again out of the dust and once more to dethrone Majesty and very soberly to set up their Common-wealth and overthrew both Church and State and cast your all with your Prince and Royal Family out as Dirt and Rubbish fit for nothing and to Lord it over you which is made now more apparent since the writing of this Discourse by the Discovery of the late horrid Plot wherefore doth it not think you very much concern you all to be wise and sober to be all firmly united among your selves and to adhere closely to your Gracious Prince and to endeavour to wipe off the stain of Intemperance and Debauchery from the English Gentry the Loyal Party which your Enemies would so earnestly fasten upon you Consider further wherein your Gentility consists that whereas you have a Wise Noble Mild Generous and Gracious Prince and Sovereign who is Wise and Gracious even to a Miracle who is Sober and Temperate who delights in Noble Just and Generous Actions who rules his people with Wisdom Moderation and Gentleness who designs our good and welfare Now therefore it will be harsh to you to say Regis ad Exemplum follow his Example of Wisdom Sobriety Temperance Patience and Goodness be you Wise Sober and Temperate Endeavour to promote the welfare of all under you seek the welfare of your poor Tenants and that they may not only subsist but thrive under you take heed of oppressing them consider that to Terrify and do wrong will waste Riches thus the house of Proud men shall be made desolate Ecclus. 21.4 To promote their welfare is your own interest and therefore I need to say little to perswade you to do good to your selves do not go about to vitiate and debauch them by Excess and Intemperance for to make them ill Husbands will be your loss in conclusion but do them good discountenance vice and prophaneness in them and all others under you and further let it be your design and care to do all the good that you are able in this consists Gentility for in this is your happiness and glory Let your mind be inlarged in some measure answerable to your fortunes be like the Sun who delights to to run his course and afford his benigne influence to the Earth and every Creature of the Universe So Honour the Lord with thy Substance and with the First Fruits of all thy Increase Prov. 3.9 In this also principally consists your Gentility that you abound in Charity towards the Poor they are eminently yours your Lot and Portion Cast thy Bread upon the Waters c. And Give therefore a Portion to Seven and to Eight for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the Earth as Solomon speaks Eccl. 11.1 2. And as to your direction in this great and necessary work let the Reverend and worthy Dr. Hammond be your guide who saith That as our Righteousness must exceed the Righteousness of the Iews so our Mercy their Mercy i. e. to be a Righteous Christian such a one as performs what the Law of Christ requires of him for Almsgiving it is necessary to set apart much more than a yearly thirtieth part of his Revenue or Increase and to be a merciful or benign or pious Christian much more again than that is necessary And whereas the Apostle in 2 Cor. 9.6 saith He that Soweth bountifully shall Reap bountifully by which the said worthy Author conceives is meant not only Gods abundant retributions of glory in another world but even his payments of temporal plenty and blessings here to those who have been willing to make that Christian use of that earthly Talent committed to their Stewarding And concludes with a Passage out of S. Hierom Non memini me legere mala morte mortuum qui liberaliter opera Charitatis exercuit He also further observes that Alms increaseth wealth because the giving Alms brings Gods blessings on wealth and further saith there is he conceives not any one thing temporal for which there are so many clear evident promises in the Scripture as this Therefore in the midst of those freedoms you take in the use of your abundance consider and remember the Poor and cut off at least somewhat of your Superfluities and Excesses and let the Poor Hungry and almost starved Families be refreshed therewith and let them rejoyce and drink your Healthy and bless you and pray for your Prosperity and Happiness for this is most certain it is the work of
doing good and benefiting Mankind O may our Gentlemen thus long live worthy Heroes Examples of Vertue Worth and Generosity to all men and leave their fair Estates to a Vertuous and Generous Off-spring Amen Next to the care of your Children you are attended suitable to your Grandure and Honour with a numerous Train of Attendents Officers and Servants who are under your Care and Charge and either mediately or immediately are under your inspection and oversight in which your care and burden is increased that they all behave themselves as they ought to do in their several Offices and Stations and be no trouble nor dishonour to you and certainly he may be truly said in our licentious age to be doubly blest who hath Diligent Faithful and Sober Servants to attend him and although this is your Honour and Dignity yet in respect of the increase of your burden of care this necessary grandure is but a kind of splendid infelicity according to that story of him who said if the Gods should have offered him two bodies to be animated by him he would have refused that favour because he should be troubled a double care for them both but if the care also of your Servants Souls be committed to you by God as well as their Bodies as I doubt Divines will resolve in the affirmative your burthen is very much increased and therefore it much concerneth Gentlemen at least to take care that they be well imployed according to that advice Ecclus. 33.27 Send thy Servant to labour that he be not idle for idleness teacheth much evil And also whereas many of you are called to be Magistrates you have an other great trust to undergo to be assistant to your Prince and under him helping to govern the great Family of the Kingdom in which not only by seeing the good Laws put in Execution and not to lye by as an Almanack out of date but that they may reach Malefactors and more especially that publick peace may be preserved you may also by reason of your eminency of Place and Office together with your Religious Vertuous and good Example be a great means of Reformation of mens manners you may easily frame them to Religion Honesty Peaceableness Loyalty and Subjection that being a true Maxim Nulla enim res multitudinem efficaciùs regit quà m Religio Yea even the Great Politician Machavil attests the truth of this if there were no true and intrinsick goodness and worth in Religion at all and among the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks they had this to signify that Piety was to be preferred to Impiety and Religion to Atheism and the Contempt of a Superior power they did Picture a Sceptre having on the top a Storks head and supported upon the hoof of a River horse the Stork being an Emblem of Piety which the Sceptre should maintain and support above the reach of prophaneness intimated by the hoof of the River Horse Now you would certainly by your eminency in Religion and goodness more effectually prevail upon the Common People to make them good than all the Sermons of your most Eloquent and Learned Doctors on whom you bestow for I hope I may not say unto whom you sell your Church-Livings I humbly present before you how much good you may be Instruments of if you please even regulate a whole Country as also on the other hand how by your Example in that which is evil you will inevitably corrupt if not damn thousands besides your selves therefore as you have any respect for your own Souls or any pity to the Souls of others beware of giving ill example of making other mens sins yours for the best of us all will have sins enough of our own to answer for we need no bring the guilt of others upon us I need not therefore caution you to take care of that greatest degree of wickedness in tempting men by perswasions and importunities to be dabauched and wicked and to contemn the Divine Laws especially to drown themselves their Reason their Souls in Drink Besides the care of your Families as aforesaid many of you Gentlemen may be chosen by your Countreys to assist in that great and most honourable Assembly the high Court of Parliament of this Kingdom I need not caution you I hope against Fanatiscism the Weakness the Disease the Plague of the Nation and certainly if so it can never consist with wisdom to animate and cherish our Disease Besides it is that Trojan Horse with his Belly filled with Treasonable and Seditious Principles destructive of all Government with horrid and Seditious and Treasonable Plots and Designs of Blood and Murder even of Princes your own woful experience many of you will make you very sensible of that great mischief which attends us in the growth of Fanatick Principles among us Of all Vice and Wickedness Fanatiscism or Religious Vice is the worst for our Blessed Saviour could better bear with the Publicans and Sinners the very Woman taken in Adultery than the Proud and Insolent Phanaticks of those times the Scribes and Pharisees I need not inform you that when in Parliament you are as much Subjects to your Prince and Sovereign as before and as much under the obligation of Loyalty and Allegiance And therefore it must needs ill become you there either to exercise any Arbitrary power over your fellow Subjects not under your Jurisdiction much less to make any attempts or assaults upon the Crown by endeavouring to encroach upon the unquestionable Prerogatives of your Prince although it be intended only to secure the peoples Liberties For I humbly conceive they are both well secured in the fundamental constitutions of our Government which constitutions ought to be as sacred to us as the Laws of the Meads and Persians Therefore all encroachments upon the Prerogatives of the Crown must needs weaken the Government as I humbly conceive by taking out as it were a Corner Stone of the Ancient Fabrick which must needs be destructive of the whole Building which I think plain experience the best Instructor hath sufficiently taught us What was the fatal consequences of those gross and abominable incroachments by the long Parliament in 1641 and 1642 upon the Prerogatives of the Prince in urging him to make themselves perpetual which at last they extorted from him and then further importuning him even by tumults and as it were forcing him against his conscience to consent to cut off one of the wisest heads he had in his Kingdom yea one of his faithful and resolute Councellors and that for an accumulative Treason a thing never heard of in the world before and ordered by themselves never after be drawn into president again And after their challenging and entering upon the Militia c. what was the of all which but many years War Confusion and Blood the ruin and devastation of the Kingdom the overthrow of the Government both in Church and State the destruction of their Prince So that those gross and absurd incursions
upon the Prerogative were so far freeing the Subject of their grievances that that Assembly was the greatest grievance this Nation ever lay under and had certainly by Gods just judgment ended in our everlasting slavery to Tyrants and Usurpers and a standing Army had not the Almighty in midst of judgment remembred mercy and miraculously delivered us from it by the happy restauration of his Majesty our present Sovereign and and can we so soon forget all this You well know Gentlemen that one String in an Instrument being scrued up too high spoileth the Harmony and Musick thereof as also that in equal distrubution of the humours in the body of man consisteth the health and welfare of it So doubtless it is in the Body Politick when Caesar without grudging enjoys what is Caesars and God the things that belong to him and his Church and the Subject what is theirs I suppose it preposterous to caution you to take care of securing the Peoples Liberties which would faintly imply that they were in some danger which I am sure we have no cause to fear while we enjoy our Gracious Prince who abhors to invade any one of them Therefore how happy might we be in this Nation if our Parliaments would meet as they used to do in Queen Elizabeths days full of Religion Love and Loyalty And why should it not rather be so now in our days when we have as mild and deserving a Prince as she was and I think as far off any incroachments upon his Subjects as she if not further And although it is well known she borrowed great Sums of Money of her Subjects upon her Privy Seals that she never repaid again yet she never met with any Parliament either to deny her a supply of Hers and the Kingdoms Exigencies much less to lay restraints upon her not to borrow any Money upon her own Revenue I beseech you Gentlemen consider why should the discovery of a late Popish Plot have those dreadful effects upon us as to intoxicate us and bereave us of our Wits and Reason make us turn Atheists Schismaticks and Rebels but rather make us more wise wary and united in Loyalty to our Prince and love to one another Why should it otherwise operate upon us than the discovery of those many Popish Plots and Designs did in her days And why should it be otherwise with us now I see no reason except it be out of design of some wicked Persons who resolve to make use of the said discovery and to the overthrow of the Government both in Church and State and so make the discovery of the Popish Plot to be a means to make it prove effectual upon us which hath been made too manifest of late by the discovery of the late Fanatick Plot and Association And therefore no wonder that Charles the Second I was going to say Charles the Great having lived to see and feel the dismal effects of unjust usurpations upon the just and undoubted Prerogatives of the Crown in his Fathers days as aforesaid that he is so wise and well instructed at present as to be very nice and tender upon any such new attempts and that he is so resolute and just to himself as when his Subjects by their disloyal and undutiful carriage and seditious murmuring against him make his Crown to shake with both his hands to lay hold of it and keep it steddy I hope Gentlemen I need not wish you to keep close to the true Christian Protestant Principles of the Church of England a Church famous for Loyalty never yet tainted in that kind to this day and that at your next meeting in Parliament leaving your animosities and prejudices behind you where there is any you will meet with your hearts full of Loyalty to your Gracious Prince and full of indignation against his and the Kingdoms Enemies all wicked and desperate Fanaticks and their Associations their horrid Plots and Conspiracies For you may please Gentlemen to see that when men yea wise men in repute cherish in themselves prejudices and discontents and suffer their passions to prevail and be uppermost whether presently they are hurried with a torrent to those horrid villanies not it may be thought of before And oh that St. Stephens Chappel might for ever hereafter be dedicated to the Goddess Harmonia that there might never be heard of in that place any differences in that Assembly there met either among themselves or with their Sovereign or any of the other Estates and then I may I think be so bold as to affirm that we in this Nation shall have great cause to rejoyce as being freed from the greatest grievance that of late years we in this Nation have layn under And I humbly beseech you to consider that Religion of all things ought to be well managed by Prudence Wisdom by Order and Government for else certainly it denerates into Madness Folly and Sedition that therefore the promoting of true and sound Religion and preserving it pure from corrupt wicked and Seditious Doctrines and opinions and promoting the honour of God thereby As it is doubtless the great interest and concern of Princes and Governours so it is also the great interest and happiness of their Subjects of us all from the highest to the lowest Why therefore we should not all of us make it our business strongly to promote and advance it being so excellent so advantageous I see no reason for none but Fools and Mad-men will act against their greatest interest and concern The Christian Religion was never brought into the world by the Prince of Peace to disturb States and Kingdoms for it is in its own nature peaceable as St. Iames speaks 5.12 A Gospel of Peace So that whereas it is truly said of men of Harmonious and Peaceable Spirits and Principles that there is much of God in such Persons So by the Rule of Contraries in men of Seditious Tenents and Opinions of Schismatical and Contentious Spirits may be truly said that there doubtless is much of the Devil whatever their Pretences be to Sobriety and Religion For herein without doubt the Devil is strangely in our days transformed into an Angel of Light and deceives many from which we may well pray that God would deliver us in this Nation And therefore Magistrates may safely suppress that Religion whose Principles and Doctrines are against Government against the peace and welfare of Mankind for such a debauched and corrupted Religion is not from God but from the Devil the Enemy of God and designer of mischief and ruin to Mankind besides when such Principles are incorporated into mens Religion it makes them most savagely cruel against all their Opposers when they have opportunity supposing them Gods Enemies and therefore their cruelty how inhumane soever will be accounted no other than their Vertue their Zeal for the Honour and Cause of God and his People Gentlemen take heed of Habits and Customs in sin Habits and Custom makes things easy and
converse with a Physitian about the health of our Bodies or an able Lawyer about our Estates Such a Reverend Learned and Pious Person may prove to you therefore a good Spiritual Physitian for as the said worthy Author aforesaid discourses there is no small safety in taking a good Guide by the hand at all times he will be as good as a Pilot to steer your Soul when you are tossed like a Ship in a dangerous Sea and dark night in the doubts and waverings of your mind yea in your best Estate he may be of singular use to you to keep you within the bounds of Prudence a Ship needs a Pilot in fair weather as well as in a Storm to whom when you have committed your self look upon him as your Genius or Tutelary Angel It is too much presumption and careless confidence to rely upon your own Counsel alone in the settlement of your everlasting State or in the cure of those disorders and distempers in your mind which threaten danger we ought to take good advice and for fear of mistake have the judgment of some more skilful Person to secure us as well as our own as the said Author observes And as the Reverend the Dean of Canterbury hath lately told us This practice is the taking the best means of Instruction and guidance which God hath vouchsafed to us it was the appointment of God himself under the Law The Priests Lips shall preserve knowledge and thou shalt seek the Law at his mouth which duty is still obligatory to us under the Gospel it being the Ministers of the Gospel their proper Province to be Instructors and Guides to you Yea although they may sometimes fail in their Conversations as our blessed Saviour commanded his Followers to hearken to the Scribes and Pharisees that sat in Moses his seat and to do what they preached although they did say and not do we are to follow our Guides as they are Followers of Christ. And without question it was never the intentions off our first Reformers to discourage advising with our Spiritual Guides when they cast of Auricular confession as it was then customarily and corruptly used yea much abused in the Church of Rome but thought it very expedient for Christians often to converse with their Ministers and Spiritual Guides about the State of their Souls and therefore directed the use of it in preparation to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and it is much to be lamented in our days to see men so eagerly and often to run to their Physitians about their healths and to their Lawyers about the concerns of their Estates and yet never in all their lives conversed with a skilful and learned Divine about the welfare of their immortal Souls or to make use of that question of the honest Jaylor What shall I do to be saved or of the young man to our blessed Saviour What must I do to do the works of God Having good Company make use of lawful Diversions and Recreations but make not Recreations your business but your divertisement and that you may be more fitted for the greater business of your lives but be sure to abhor to recreate your selves in sin Rejoyce not in iniquity for Ve illis cujus gaudium crimen habet Let it be your choice and earnest desire to converse as much as you can with those that are vertuous and good both the dead and living often read the Lives and Actions of Famous Pious and Renowned men that have lived in the several Ages of the world by often conversing with them it may in time make you like them for with such as you most converse with you will pertake somewhat of their Temper and Manners and by conversing with the good you will be great gainers by the bargain and as for the bad and vicious I need not again caution you to avoid the Plague Let the Royal Martyr your late Sovereign of blessed memory by an example continually before you of Religion Vertue and Goodness view the Picture of his pious Soul that it may inkindle holy flames in your Breasts and to your Martyred Sovereign Charles the first may I add the example of Lewis the Thirteenth of France Contemporary with him both Pious Princes and exercised with great troubles It is related of him by our own Country-man Mr. Iames Howel who hath wrote a History of his Life and Reign First as to his troubles that he supprest thirteen several Civil-wars or Rebellions two of which when he was but Thirteen years of age Then as to his Piety and Vertue the said Historian relates that he was pious to an intense degree for though he was not known to be subject to any vice yet would be on his Knees to his Ghostly Father every week rather to refresh as one said then to cleanse his conscience by confession nor in his Prayers had he as much cause to ask pardon as perseverance defects he had but scarce any faults those rays which inlightened his brain descended to his heart and became Fire so fervently used he to be in his way of Devotion and when he had passed his nonage he said I am now a Major to all the world except my Mother to whom I shall still be a Minor At his entrance to a Town called Pan when but a Youth the Inhabitants bringing a Canopy to carry over his head he asked whether there was ever a Church in the Town Being answered no he said he would receive no honour where God Almighty had no House to be honoured in And into all other Towns where he entered as Conquerour he would give express command that none should cry Vive le Roy during the time of Procession And he put out sundry Proclamations against Swearers against Pride in Apparel for he went usually very plain as also against Duels And the last was so strict that both the Appellant and Defendent whosoever did survive should suffer death without mercy and be deprived of Christian burial but both rot upon the Gallows with their heels upwards To which I may also add not unfitly the Vertuous and Christian life of Monsieur de Renty a Noble-man of France who also was contemporary with the said Prince and was one of his Counsel which is translated into English and printed divers years past a tract worthy the perusal of all Gentlemen And it is found by daily experience that things of all sorts which come from France are mightily taking with our English Gentry I hope therefore these worthy Presidents of Religion and Vertue will be acceptabie to you where you may meet with solid Piety and Vertue and that A la mode de France which therefore may the rather find acceptance with you And if you should object that these last mentioned were Papists I answer as for what you find savouring of Superstition you may please in Charity to pass it by but I beseech you not to misunderstand my intention I propose these examples not to
ancient times that there was in the Air certain surly and malevolent Spirits and Demons who were endeavouring to do all the mischief possible to Mankind on Earth How much therefore doth it concern us that we do not by our sins and wicked lives forfeit our interest in the protection of the Almighty and his blessed Angels his Ministring Spirits who as the Learned Sir Thomas Brown observes have a friendly respect and good will to man and do many courteous Offices for us his words are these That having therefore no certain knowledge of their nature 't is no bad method of the Schools whatsoever perfection we find obscurely in our selves in a more compleat and absolute way to ascribe unto them He further goes on I could easily believe that not only whole Countries but particular persons have their Tutelary and Guardian Angels which is not a new opinion of the Church of Rome but an old one of Pythagoras and Plato that those Noble essences in Heaven bear a friendly regard unto their fellow nature on Earth and therefore he believes that those many prodigies and ominous prognosticks which forerun the ruins of State Princes and Persons are the charitable promonitions of good Angels which more careless enquiries term but the effects of chance Now God hath made a gracious promise That he will give his Angels charge over them that fear him it therefore doth not a little concern us to keep our selves from all pollution of sin that is so contrary to God and to their pure and holy natures and which will estrange them from us and as it were force them from our protection and will consequently invite to us the society of those Surly Wicked and Malevolent Spirits and Demons who design nothing but mischief and ruin to mankind both to tempt and further us in sin and then to afflict and hurt us so far as they are permitted to do by God for this is very much to be feared that where the Carcase of Debauchery and Wickedness is thither these Eagles will be gathered together What great cause have we to pray as our Church well directs us in the Collect upon Michaelmas day O everlasting God who hast Ordained and Constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order mercifully grant that as thy holy Angels alway do thee service in Heaven so by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Vertue and true Goodness would not only render you truly Rich Honourable and Happy in the injoyment of that full satisfaction in the serenity calmness and quiet of Mind that tranquility of Soul that Proemium ante Proemium in which mans happiness and welfare in this life principally consists as the Son of Syrach witnesseth Ecclus. 2.26 For God giveth to a man that is good in his sight Wisdom and Knowledge and Ioy but would certainly place you under the protection of God and his holy Angels and at last will Crown you with Honour Glory and Immortality for ever in the highest Heavens CHAP. V. A word by the by to the Reverend Clergy of the Church of England as now by Law Establish'd MAy I add a word or two without offence as a digression to our Reverend and Worthy Clergy whom I hope I may place with Gentlemen being Scholars he that is a Scholar having one principal part if not the best part of a Gentleman their calling and imployment also high excellent and sacred if the service of the highest Lord be the highest and best service in the world having been sometimes as I intimated before the imployment of Kings and Princes who were both Kings and Priests which sacredness and dignity of Office will ever be acknowledged in the world while there is a God acknowledged and worshipped therein which will be without question to the end thereof in despight of all the Atheists and Debauchers with their great Patrons Pope Leo 10 th Ochinus with our English Leviathan I hope the Excellency Dignity Sacredness of their Office yea their very Vestures betokenning Purity and Innocency will put them in mind what they should be in their Conversations I hope therefore I need not mind any of them to have a special care of being carried away by the impetuous current of intemperance and excess so abounding in our days I hope I need not caution them to be resolute in vertue and goodness for as one said very well in honest Principles it is good to be Vir rigidae innocentiae which I have read Livy should say of Cato Debere inesse quandam moribus contumaciam to be pertinacious in goodness is commendable in them I need not wish them to endeavour to stop the tide or that they of all others would however add no fuel to these Flames but have a great care and watchfulness that they do not transgress the Divine Laws and offend God in any kind and thereby open the mouths of theirs and the Churches Enemies Oh that they if it were possible might be all great examples of Justice Righteousness Tempeperance and Moderation and all other Christian Graces that their Conversations might be ever Holy and Heavenly and their affections above earthly things that they would Ventri bellum indicere For they of all others should not forget that Rule of the Father Quantò facilùs illicita timebit qui etiam licita verebitur It is wisdom some times even to shun things that are lawful that we may not run into the unlawful And let that excellent and worthy saying of the famous Dr. Reynolds be ever in your hearts and minds who being too much intent upon his Studies to the prejudice of his Health as was thought and being advised by a friend Non perdere substantiam propter accidentia he presently replyed Nec propter vivendi vitam perdere Causam I hope you will be all as resolute for God and his Laws at least as wicked men are for the Devil and his works of darkness and that at all times with Wisdom and Courage you will own your Lord and Master the ever blessed Jesus and do your duties in Exhortation Admonition Reproof in Christian Advice and Counsel but more especially by your Conversations your constant deportment according to the holy Christian Religion discountenancing of all sin but more especially this Epidemical this growing sin of Swinish Drunkenness so much abounding among us in this Nation that so it may be truly said of every one of you Planxit ruinas animarum God requires this of you as you well know that you should be the Salt of the earth seasoning all places and all companies where you come with Religion and Goodness And although it will be your lot to converse sometimes with Publicans and Sinners as your Lord and Master did yet let it be always to reclaim them to do them good and more especially to give them good Example as he did but by no means to incourage them in their Sins by ill