at all though I speak with the tongue of men and Angels saith he and have not charity I am become as sounding brass or a tinckling Cymbal and though I have the gift of prophecie and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity I am nothing nay though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth me nothing And if to the Testimony of St. Paul you will add the greater Authority of our Saviour himself he makes reciprocal Charity and Love to be the distinguishing mark and character of his Disciples By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye love one another If therefore this Charity which is so essential to a Disciple of Christ that he cannot be so without it if the Vnion of the spirit in the bond of peace can be preserved under differing denominations of different Sects and Parties notwithstanding the different external forms and circumstances of Divine Worship if all or any of those pious and learned Exhortations which have been made to persuade you to this Christian temper can have that good effect which is intended by them notwithstanding the various forms of Church Government and the diversity of all other outward appendages and ceremonies of publick Worship if we can fear God and honour the King and love one another as well and as heartily in the midst of these differences as if there were no such things to be found among us then by my consent let all the Ecclesiastical Enclosures be laid open and let every man worship God so he do but worship him in spirit and in truth and believe aright as to the fundamental Articles of the Christian Faith according to his own particular humour and fancie because by gratifying such an harmless though unaccountable humour there can no inconvenience follow but by disturbing and crossing it there may and therefore the ends of Religion will be better served by a diversity in Worship than by an uniformity of it But now on the contrary if it should prove true as it will most certainly if either Experience or Reason can be heard amongst us that the onely way to Unity and Peace is by an Uniformity of Discipline and Obedience as to the external circumstances of Divine Worship then this great end being so necessary as it is for the procuring us all that Happiness which either this World or the next can afford us will justifie all the necessary means that can be used in order to the obtaining it Wherefore Uniformity being necessary as a means to Peace and yet being impracticable unless the Church be supposed to be invested with a Power of prescribing the external modes and circumstances of Obedience it follows plainly that the Church is actually invested with such a Power and that all its members are bound to obey its Prescriptions For the Topick of Experience it is not without some unwillingness that I mention it much less do I think it proper at this time and place to lay open the wounds of our late unhappy times or present you with a mournfull Scene of those Miseries and Distractions which neither can nor ought to be remembred without Amazement and Horrour But if you will every one of you retire into your own thoughts and ask your selves the question What it was that brought those dreadfull Calamities upon us that involved three flourishing and powerfull Kingdoms in Bloud and Slaughter and Confusion that made the Gods to dye like men and fall like one of the Princes while Slaves were set over us to be our Masters and Frogs were heard croaking in the Chambers of our Kings then you your selves will answer for me It was the tender Conscience dissolved into rebellious Pretences that carryed Order and Government before it and overflow'd all things with a resistless Stream it was a Cry against Discipline and Ceremonies and humane Institutions it was a Clamor for Liberty against Will-worship and the Ordinances of men it was a Spirit of Sedition a Thirst after Innovation an insatiable Humour of being dissatisfied with all the wholesome Establishments of Unity and Peace it was an Itch of new-modelling both Church and State it was a Pharisaical Pretence to farther Improvements of Purity and Holiness it was Discontent and Jealousie and godly Fear lin'd with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation that reduced our Beauty and Order into Ashes that laid the magnificent and comely Fabricks of the British Church and Empire the Amazement of themselves and the Envy of their neighbours equal with the ground and instead of one firm and well-compacted Building rais'd paper Tenements of crumbling Sects and Factions which instead of being able to support themselves betray'd us in a manner into that Security which we now enjoy While we forgetfull of those Miseries under which our Fathers and our selves have groan'd unthankfull for those Blessings which under the shade and protection of a wise and happy Government we receive ungratefull to Almighty God who out of that Chaos of Confusion has rear'd this new world of Establishment and Order displeas'd with the fatness of the Olive and the sweetness of the Figg-tree and quarrelling with the friendly and sociable Vine that cheareth God and Man are calling again for the Bramble to reign over us and for the Thornes and Briars to protect us or like the Israelites in the Wilderness surfeited with Miracles with Manna and with Quailes with the dew of Heaven and with the fatness of the Earth with liberty and ease and plenty we are looking back for Slavery from our old Taskmasters in the Land of Ham and longing for the Garlick and the Onyons of Egypt But because an instance taken from our late Confusions may but exasperate whenit should convince Let us avoid the mention of that Crying Guilt for which this Land of our Nativity has wept in tears of Bloud and should for ever mourn in Sack-cloth and humble her self before the Lord in Ashes and let us trace the footsteps of Antiquity and search the Records of the more innocent and early Ages What was the reason in the Mosaick Dispensation why all the external niceties of divine Worship in their Feasts and in their Sacrifices and in their Lustrations were so carefully adjusted by the particular designation and appointment of God himself It is true indeed that most of those Ceremonies were of a symbolicall nature and were designed to shadow out unto the Jewes either that purity simplicity and innocence of mind which God expects from all his worshippers and servants or else they were figurative and emblematicall Representations of the life and death and sufferings of the Messias and of that more perfect Dispensation which was to be introduced into the World by him But yet notwithstanding it must not be deny'd that there are many Ceremonies to be found in the Law of Moses
impossible that there should because of necessity the several manners customes and other circumstances of several Nations will introduce a diversity of external Formalitie into Religious Worship which may be done without any breach of Charity or Friendship among men because there is no interest to be served by promoting Feuds and Animosities between them and it will be all one to the peace and happiness of this Kingdome what rites or usages soever the Greek or Armenian Churches shall embrace We do not much trouble our heads though by reason of their near Neighbourhood we have some reason to do it about the French saying Mass or adoring Reliques or Images or praying for Dead or worshipping the Host Nay you shall hardly ever see a man in a passion when he hears the Tragicall stories of those horrible persecutions against the professours of the Reformed Religion but though he may relieve and pity them so far as a small temporary Contribution will go yet in truth and reality he is not much concerned whereas at home we can make a shift to fall out about much smaller matters the reason is because we are not embarked in the same bottom with them and so being able to do neither good nor hurt by being angry or displeas'd we scarce ever trouble our selves But at home the pretences of Religion and Liberty which are always stirring when ever there is any prospect of publique Disorders likely to ensue upon them will never fail to excite the ambitious the discontented and the needy to embroyle the State out of principles either of Interest or Revenge while the passions of men that dayly converse together and are engaged by interest or prejudice or duty in the respective parties do but serve to blow the cole and improve the sparks of Animosity into a flame of War The consequence of all which is That there may be differences in the universal Church consisting of many Kingdomes and Provinces without dissention and that all that whatever it is which is requisite to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace may be consistent enough with differences in smaller matters but that in the same Kingdome or Dominion this can never be But secondly By the Church we may understand a National Congregation of Christian People divided into many partitions or particular assemblies united together by an unity of Faith and Discipline and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and this is that which I affirm to be necessary in every Kingdome or State that would avoid all occasions of publique Tumults and Disorders and would be as happy either as themselves can wish or as Christianity designs to make them And therefore this is that unity which is by every Good Christian good Citizen or good Subject above all things which this world can afford the most earnestly to be desired for the obtaining of which he is to submit to every thing that shall be required of him and he is to abstain from every thing which is forbidden him if all things considered it may lawfully be done or avoided Thirdly In compliance with those of the Congregationall way I am content to allow a third sense of the word Church to be a particular and independent Congregation governed by Laws and measures of its own and acknowledging no Jurisdiction Forreign to it self and this is a Form of Church Government which in a Christian Kingdome or Common-wealth I affirm to be naturally unlawfull And here there are two cases to be considered First Either the whole body of the People is divided into such particular and independent Congregations or there is a nationall Establishment from which these particular Congregations have separated themselves The first of these is Babel in Effigie the very Emblem and Landskip of Confusion subject to inconveniences that cannot be thought of till they are felt and capable of such infinite sub-divisions as will at length reduce the comely Form of Government by so many particular interests and factions into a State of publick Hostility and Rapine for the reason why men separate from one another is always out of some reall or some pretended dislike which dislikes by actuall separation are so far from being composed that they are manifestly improved and heightned by it and from hence arise so many several Interests as there are Sects or denominations of Parties in a Common-wealth For it is natural to all men to desire to gain Proselytes to their own Opinion for men to love themselves and those of their own way and to think of other men who are not enroll'd in the same list with themselves if not with a reall hatred yet with a less esteem and a comparative Aversation which whenever a Ball of Interest is thrown between them will be improved into all the sad effects of the most desperate Malice and Revenge But here to make all sure as I go along I must repeat again That by Indâ—â—endent Congregations I mean such as own no Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction externall to themselves from whence it is easie to perceive that every such Congregation may be a new Sect and Party by it self as it was in a manner in the late Times when the Sects were spawned in such increadible abundance that the Alphabet began to complain of want of Letters to furnish so many different and disagreeing Parties with names Neither is it to be supposed that so many several Factions notwithstanding their differences in matters of Religion shall yet conspire in an uniform Obedience to the Civil Power because to be uppermost is that which they all desire and since the very same persons are members of the Commonwealth and of a particular Sect or Party it is ridiculous to hope that the State can ever be quiet till all these parties can agree together to be of the same mind which is to make them cease to be what they are In the United Provinces where the greatest Liberty is given and taken of any other Territory in the Christian World the peace of the publick could not be secured if it were not for the Overballance of the Calviâ—isticall Party above the rest for the Calvinists as Sir Willian Temple in his Observations upon the United Provinces takes notice p. 204. make up the body of the People and are possessed of all the publick Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the onely Ministers or Pastours who are maintained by the publick who have no other Salaries than what they receive from the State upon whom they wholly depend and for that reason they will be sure to preach obedience and submission to the People But yet notwithstanding this so great has the power and interest of the Louvestane or Arminian Party alwaies been that it has been the occasion of great revolutions among them and as it was probably one of the main causes of their so sudden fall from the height of envy into the lowest region of pity and despair within the compass of a very few years
than by an uniform and regular Discipline of the Church then is it abundantly manifest that such â—eparate Congregations as tending plainly to the disturbance of the World are unlawfull that they may and that they ought to be suppressed and that all the Favourers and Abettors of such unlawfull Assemblies are Promoters Aiders Comforters and Assisters of Rebellion and Disobedience both against God and Man Neither is it at all material in this case that many of those who frequent these separate Assemblies nay to give them their due the infinitely greatest part of them are not conscious to themselves of any such bad Design but they doe it onely out of a religious prejudice which they have conceived against the Establishment of the Church of England and out of an opinion which they have of the greater Sanctity of their Teachers and Purity of those Ordinances of which they are made partakers by their ministration out of a real and an hearty zeal for God although that zeal be not accordâ—ng to knowledge yet we are not to consider so much what it is they design as what the natural tendencie of all Separation is which because by experience it is found to bring so great and so horrid inconveniences and mischiefs upon the World unless it be timely restrained it may and it must of necessity have very bad effects and this is enough to make men guilty of the consequences of their Separation though at first they did not intend them He that commits a fault through want of consideration is not altogether so guilty as he that knowing it to be a fault does yet notwithstanding commit it on set purpose but yet he is guilty in his proportion and degree as well as the other because it was his duty to consider better and still the more easie it is too for a man to inform himself and what is or can be more manifest than the Prejudice arising from mens embodying themselves into particular and independent Societies So much the greater is the guilt arising from the want of due heed and consideration because a very little attention would have served the turne when there is so much reason in the thing and so much experience to improve that reason into all the certainty of demonstration But secondly It will be said That a bare difference in the externals of Religion in matters of meer Discipline and Ceremonie will not produce those bad effects that are pretended and I wish with all my heart that there were as much truth in this Exception as they that make it would have it seem to have but by Experience which is the great Judge in this Controversie to which we must apply our selves for the discovery of the truth the contrary does but too manifestly appear For what is it that has been the true source and fountain of all our pablick Calamities that has made so dreadfull and so terrible Convulsions both in Church and State but an over-heated zeal against Ceremonies and publick Order which sort of zeal if it be tolerated the strength and beauty of the Church is lost by every man's pursuing fancies of his own or siding with a new modell of a particular Party instead of joining in the regular and uniform Worship of the publick which is at once an instance of our Obedience to the Divine and Humane Laws and a certain expedient of Unity and Peace with one another but if this zeal instead of being tolerated shall be restrained and opposed then it immediately complains of Persecution and would have its sufferings thought as meritorious for raising unreasonable insatiable and eternal Scruples as if the Cause of Christianity it self were at stake as if it were the being of a God or the immortality of the Souls of men that were deny'd by us and asserted onely by the Dissenters from the publick Order and Rule So that either way the inconvenience is in a manner equal a Toleration has a manifest tendencie to the subversion of the Government both in Church and State and in that there is no question to be made but it will certainly end when once it has been suffered to have its full scope and swinge and yet a vigorous Prosecution of the Laws against the Disturbers of the Peace is branded with the odious name of Persecution and they that suffer by it for being Incendiaries are termed Saints and because it is natural for a distressed Cause to find a friendship and pity from the common People whether it be reasonable or no Suffering being a very sensible and a very affecting thing when the Causes of those Sufferings are not so plain and obvious to every common understanding especially when blinded by prejudice or concern for the persons of those that suffer from hence it comes to pass that a just and necessary Prosecution of the Laws if it be not managed with abundance of temper and prudence so as it may appear it is not done out of hatred to a Party but out of a real tenderness to the common good may sometimes prove the occasion of great and fatal disorders in a State and may in its conâ—equence be attended with all those confusions to which a boundless Toleration is exposed This was the great reason of the revolt of the Vnited Provinces from under the Spanish Yoak who if they had been treated with less severity might probably by gentler methods have been reduced to Obedience but by the Cruelty of the Spanish Governours and Souldiery who pursued them especially under the Government of the Duke D'Alva with all the symptoms of the most mortal hatred they were so far alienated in their affections from a Government that used them so ill they had such a dread of those unheard of Cruelties and such a deserved aversation for that Religion that delights to propagate it self by Bloud that being assisted by the Hugonots from France whose interest it was to stand by the Reformation and by Supplies from England which was glad at that time to find an opportunity to reduce the Spanish greatness to a juster ballance with the rest of the European Princes they were at length perfectly severed from the body of the Spanish Empire and united in a common Alliance among themselves for the mutual support and main tenance of each other which though it gave beginning to the most powerfull Republick that has ever appeared since the Roman yet as a Republick in its nature and constitution is more exposed to the ambition or animositie of bad men than a Kingdom or Monarchie is or can well be so in the midst of its greatness it alwaies carried in its bowells the undoubted symptoms and causes of its ruine which it is to be feared what with the Factions at home and the daily encreasing Power of its enemies from abroad is not far off at this time But yet though Cruelty be that for which all mankind but they that exercise it upon others have a just and mortal aversation yet a
of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take
biat to the insatiable avarice of successfull treason yet the courage constancy and integrity of the one will even by the greatest adversaries themselves be remembred with honour and spoken of with signs of inward veneration when the pusillanimity and faintness of the other who can be friends to no body but themselves shall bring an unavoidable contempt upon their persons and make them reflect upon themselves with shame as well as be slighted and disesteem'd by others But of all men in the world a Clergy-man that is of so cold a composition is certainly the least excusable because he is under the greatest obligation to confess God and his truth openly before men he is not to gratifie any party by a tame compliance to the prejudice of the publick nor to purchase his own peace with the loss of that of the Church which can onely be maintained by wholesom discipline and an establisht order and therefore of such an one it is still more true what follows immediately of the unsavory salt that he is the most contemptible and whatever high opinion he may have of his own wisedom and prudence the most really despicable creature in the world he is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out with disgrace and to be trodden under foot of men And therefore whatever becomes of my pretensions concerning which I am not immoderately solicitous but refer my self wholly to the wise disposal and goodness of almighty God I shall be very glad if those Gentlemen in whom the Title shall appear to be shall pitch upon one that is at least no M tonian that is no Deserter for it would be very incongruous in those of this fraternity especially to chuse an insipid Priest when God himself would not accept of a Sacrifice that was not salted And let the result of that assair be as it will yet I shall always be very proud as I am very thankfull for it of the great favour and kindness Your Lordship hath been pleased to doe me by appointing me to officiate at that Parish during the sequestration of the living and allowing me so fair a competence out of the profits of it May it please Your Lordship I am not insensible how much I trespass upon your great affairs by so prolix an address but yet I am humbly of opinion that I have said nothing which the necessity of this occasion and of my circumstances did not almost indispensably oblige me to doe and now having given Your Lordship an account of my self as Cato was used to say Etiam otii rationem reddendam esse and to whom am I more accountable than to Your Lordship my Diocesan a Person to whom I am so very much obliged and one that hath the most undoubted right to exact an account of me having acquainted Your Lordship as faithfully as I can with the true reasons that moved me to defer the edition of this busie trifle that hath made so great a noise so long as well as to defer it no longer but to publish it at this juncture of time there are two things still remaining for which I do humbly beg a little more of Your Lordship's patience while I insist with all imaginable brevity upon them the one concerns chiefly an objection which the friends of the present establishment may raise and the other is an exception which I know for certain its enemies will make The friends of the Church perhaps will object against me that my discourse being chiefly levelled as it is all along against the Independency whose name is Legion being a thousand different Heresies and Sects under one title and denomination this may be interpreted as a supposed allowance of the Presbyterian model but as for that I think I have already satisfied the world what my opinion is at the latter end of my discourse concerning the Laws of Nature and if I were to give a definition or rather a description of Presbytery it should be this that it is a device of ambitious and unruly Presbyters broken loose from the government of their Bishop and which though it be not indepency it self yet it is certainly the mother of it for the same restless and unquiet humour which could not submit it self to the Episcopal constitution will incline them in their Synods and Ecclesiastical assemblies to contend for superiority over one another for where all are equal and there is no tye of obedience from the one to the other nor any common visitour or inspectour indued with a power of discipline over them all there it is natural for men that have passions and designs about them to squabble there it will unavoidably come to pass that many will take it ill if they be not chiefly regarded and if their opinion or determination be not the law and rule of the assembly every man will be forward to speak and desirous to govern but loath to hear and unwilling to obey The consequence of which will be that it will occasion parties and factions while some take part with one and some with another and this cuts the reins of discipline in sunder and does as naturally terminate in Schism and Separation as the day is concluded by the night or as fair and foul weather succeed one another besides that when men have once tasted the forbidden fruit of disobedience which it is so natural for all mankind to hanker after they seldom or never end where they begin but go on farther and farther in pernicious attempts upon the good order and government of the world till they have brought all things into absolute confusion A subordination and dependence of one part upon another is as necessary in one sort of government as another for though the Ecclesiastical and civil Society be in some sense distinct from one another yet in a Christian Commonwealth they consist both of them of the same persons and the nature of a society is in both cases the same wherefore because the State and the Church the body politick and the body ecclesiastick are both of them made up of the same members because every man hath both a civil and an ecclesiastical capacity it is impossible there should be any disorder in the Church which will not sensibly affect the state and the division of a Commonwealth or Kingdom into infinite sects and parties is a dissolution of the civil body as well as of the sacred and every thing that hath a tendency to such a dissolution is in its proportion pernicious and consequently unlawfull So that if there were nothing more in the Episcopal government than what St. Jerome the great but very much mistaken patron of the Presbytery hath allowed namely that the ancient government of the Church was by a parity of Presbyters though no body knows when or where nor is it possible to assign any age or place when and where it was not govern'd by Bishops but that in process of time this parity proving inconvenient by being the
occasion of Schism and contention in the Church then in toto orbe decretum est ut unus de Presbyteris electus superponeretur caeteris ad quem omnis Ecclesiae cura pertineret I say if there were nothing more but this in the business yet this is sufficient to assert the necessity and by consequence the jus divinum of Episcopal Superiority in the Church of God for the nature of things is owing to the authour of nature and that which is best fitted to preserve the World must needs be most agreeable to him that made it and this is so true that let this sort of Government be never so ancient as I shall prove to Your Lordship and the World that it was certainly the government of the Jewish Church and the government to which Christ and his Apostles did themselves submit yet its antiquity would be as old things usually are too weak and infirm to be able to defend it did not its usefulness and manifest expedience to the good of society and of humane life give it a perpetual youth and vigour by which it is rendred strong in its own defence and will be too hard for its enemies to the end of the world otherwise if any man can shew me fairly that either the Presbytery or the Independency are more exactly calculated for the quiet of the world notwithstanding that the experience of our late times added to the reason of the thing and the opinion of Saint Jerome which was founded upon it do seem at present to demonstrate the contrary I must beg Your Lordship's pardon if I withdraw my Canonical obedience for I must and will be either Presbyterian or Independent as the nature of things would have me I speak it with all imaginable deference and profound submission to Your Lordship's exact judgment and that of my Superiours I have considered of this matter with all the care and attention I am able and I am certain if I can be certain of any thing that I have discovered the Philosopher's Stone the true Elixir of Government and of humane life which it must be our own fault in rejecting so great a blessing or by our disobedience not answering the design of it if it do not turn all things it touches into Gold and make the whole earth as happy as the Paradise of God The true state of the question is in short this the end of government is obedience and peace and therefore all sorts of government upon supposition that they are equally fitted for the bringing of this end to pass would have an equal Jus divinum an equal Jus naturale an equal right of obtaining and continuing as they are in the several places and territories where they are in use because in this case nothing could make a disturbance but an alteration and therefore it would be with governments as it is with proprietours in the state of nature antecedently to any bargain or compact the undoubted right would be primi occupantis because to deprive him of his possession who was already seized of it might occasion an embroilment might be the cause of bloudshed and of war but if every man would let his neighbour alone then all the world would be happy and upon supposition that every man would be quiet and peaceable without it that men could be so friendly so happy and so secure without government as with it there would be no need of government at all but since man is by nature an ambitious a necessitous and consequently a disobedient turbulent and encroaching creature since he wants many things and expects more than he wants for this reason that form of government is certainly the best which is the best fitted to command and force obedience and this I affirm from the nature of things for men do not willingly obey their equals much less their inferiours this I affirm from the consent of mankind and the experience of all ages to be the Episcopal Government or the Subordinate Politie both in Church and State and if any man will undertake to prove the contrary and will be as good as his word then I shall be for levelling as well as he but till I see this substantially proved which I have a strong fancy I shall never do so long as humane faculties or humane passions continue as they are I desire to continue in my old post and be content to move though in the lowest sphere of this subordinate and comely frame rather than by the perpetual jarring of equal powers and motions against each other to go stooping like a Goose under a barn door and be in perpetual fear nè fractus illabatur orbis It was either the experienced or the foreseen mischiefs of equality and independence that first introduced order and good government into the world and it is the natural desire of power in man who is a needy restless and ambitious creature that endeavours to break this order and dependence for reasons of its own without considering the interest of the publick lastly it is the unspeakable confusion mischief and calamity with which the breach of this order is attended that usually makes all parties weary of those miseries which by strife and disobedience they have brought upon themselves return again into some orderly establishment that may defend and shield them from the same calamities in the time to come but there is no safety no security no quiet enjoyment of a man's self his friend or his possession to be had but under the shade and protection of such a subordinate state of things in which the very life and being of society consists The other exception which I am infallibly certain will be made against me by the dissenting party is this that in the management of the subject I have undertaken I have discovered too much violence and heat of temper and this accusation will consist of two parts the first will concern my style and way of expression the other that I have so openly and so zealously declared for a vigorous execution of the penal statutes upon the dissenting parties With Your Lordship's good leave I will speak a little to each of these particulars And as to the first of them I might here conjure up the Ghost of an old story that hath been so often disturbed by men that first pillage antiquity for a smart repartie and then steal as it were by consent from one another of Croesus and his son the dumb Prince of Lydia whose dutifull apprehension of his Father's danger broke through the obstacles and impediments of nature and taught him to speak as plain at half a minutes warning as if the most ingenious and learned Dr. H. had had him in tuition for seven years together and there is a scrap of Virgil too if the often use of it had not made it so cheap that it will hardly pass so much as in capping of verses where any thing goes as far as from Ennius or Lucilius to
play and from him no favour or if instead of Satyr he have a mind to be more innocently wity let him but mix a little seriousness with his wit and let that seriousness be such as is not dull and then I promise him like Hippocrates his twins a very old comparison but it will be older before it is quite out of date we will be wonderfull friends in the midst of the fray and we will laugh and cry together and I will follow him with a complement at the same time when I make a pass at the very heart of his cause as the Retiarii in the Roman Theatres were used to doe by their Antagonists the Mirmillones who had a fish graven or painted upon their shield Piscem peto Non te peto Quid me fugis Galle But I had much rather that they whoever they are that shall think it for their own credit for otherwise I am sure they will hardly doe it for the interest of their cause to concern themselves with such an unfledg'd authour whom they may catch with chaff as well as bird-lime as they please themselves I say I had much rather that they would betake themselves to a serious and close way of writing which notwithstanding all the sharpness of the following discourse which to be sure will be represented much greater than it is I have very carefully observed in it neither is there any thing which I should more hate in my self or more despise in another than for a man to lose his argument in an impertinent wilderness either of wit or anger Therefore if any of that party be dissatisfied or hath a mind to pretend that he is so with what I have said already upon the three following questions in which all the matters in difference are contained First Concerning Episcopal Government Secondly Concerning humane impositions in religious matters in the general and Thirdly Concerning the particular impositions that are the occasion or pretence of Separation from the Church of England Let him then enter the lists as soon as he pleases and I promise Your Lordship I will not fail to answer him in defence of the establish'd Religion and for the quieting the minds of his Majestie 's good subjects against either the tricks or the mistakes of inconsiderate or designing men not that I pretend to be able to say much more upon these subjects than I have done already but some men will not be convinced by any thing at the first hearing let it be never so plain but they must have it over and over in other words and in a new appearance till by degrees the truth is rendred so familiar to them as to subdue the prejudices they have imbibed against it or the mistake so palpable that obstinacy begins to blush and be ashamed And the better to prevent all artifice and cant which do but perplex the cause and make all controversies endless and cheat the world of their money and their time to prevent all squabbling about authorities which is an incompetent way of arguing in this case because men that are not able to search into these things themselves will be sure to believe the quotations of their own side whether true of false or whether they be rightly applied or not For this reason I propose that we lay all arguments but those of nature aside For if it be found upon principles that are universally acknowledged and such as make their appeal to every common understanding that Episcopacy that is a superiority on the one hand and a dependence on the other is the most perfect form of Government both in Church and State or indeed that there can be no lasting government without it that in the Church it secures the greatest reverence to the Clergy by which they are the better enabled to influence the people and by consequence to answer the end of their institution and separation to the ministerial office if it give the greatest incouragement to learning if it strengthen the hands of discipline as well with respect to the inferiour Clergy as the Layety and if this be a natural means to secure the publick peace then here is all that can be expected to justifie this form of government in the Church and though the testimonies of antiquity may receive strength and advantage from the nature of things which is the onely true immutable antiquity to which we must appeal yet those very testimonies let them be never so numerous unanimous and positive when they have nature against them what are they but so many confessions of ignorance or design of want of honesty or want of skill So also in the second enquiry if it shall be found that humane impositions in religious matters are of absolute and indispensable necessity for the keeping any ecclesiastical society together for the preservation of peace and unity among men if it follow plainly from the consideration of humane nature and humane passions as well as from the experience of our own and former times that without such impositions we must crumble into sects as numerous as the motes that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that infinity of crowding stars by which the Celestial Galaxy is adorned this is abundantly sufficient from the necessity of such humane institutions to justifie their lawfulness and to prove their obligation and it is so far from being true that there can be no external circumstance of religious worship appointed and ordained by men which is not expresly revealed and set down in some place or other of the New Testament that if on the contrary our Saviour and his Apostles had expresly told us that we must not so much as move an hand or a foot in any religious assembly or affair without express licence and authority from them which they have no where done and yet at the same time had not adjusted the particular instances of our behaviour in these matters which they have not done neither all the inference that could have been made from this would be that we must not worship God at all which is a very odd sort of divine revelatition Besides that nothing can be more foolish than to perswade to charity to talk perpetually of peace and love and such like luscious and delicious things onely to make our mouths water while at the same time we are deny'd the necessary means of securing so desirable blessings to our selves It would be true at this rate not onely in the event but in the design too that our Saviour came not to bring peace but a sword and the end of his coming if he had any at all being onely to set the world together by the ears as it must be if he deny the civil or ecclesiastical magistrate a power of determining those indifferent matters which he hath not any where determined himself this would be a plain argument that he was a gross impostour instead of being
and undoubted truth of those principles which I have formerly laid down to be the square and measure of obligation and which being applied to any particular case will in every thing resolve what is true or false Plenius melius Chrysippo Crantore Principles that will obtain to the confusion of Popery enthusiasm and every evill work when the envy of this age is under ground and when the heads of two or three Metaphysical Opiniatours are cold whatever they may doe at present of which I am not solicitous but am content to take men and things as I find them with as little disturbance and trouble as I can to my self Et mihi res non me rebus submittere conor And as I have intimated already nature and experience cannot deceive us though antiquity may it does not follow because such a polity or such a form of Government was in use among the ancients whether in church or state that therefore the example of antiquity lays any manner of obligation upon us which is extrinsique to the reason of the thing but as Livy saith of History in general hoc illud est praecipuè in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum omnis te exempli documenta in illustri posita monumento intueri inde tibi tuaeque Reip. quod imitere capias inde foedum inceptu foedum exitu quod vites I say what he saith of History in general the same is true of ecclesiastical history in particular and though it does not follow that the Episcopal government is therefore of necessity the best because antiquity submitted to it who possibly in this as well as many other things may very well be mistaken for the ancients were but men no more than we yet when the history of all the several ages of the Church shall not onely recommend this government to us by its perpetual and uninterrupted example but shall also inform us over and above how usefull and expedient this government hath always been to the preservation of the peace and unity of the Church and how fatal the disobedience of Presbyters to their Bishop hath been found by being the occasion of great calamities and disorders in it as well of old time as now of late in the experience of our own age and nation in this case antiquity backed by experience gives us all the assurance which it is possible for us to receive in a matter of this nature that the Episcopal constitution as being found by experience to be the most wholsome for the preservation of the Churches health and for the preventing all those maladies and diseases to which the body Ecclesiastick would otherwise be exposed is therefore unquestionably the best that can be thought of and hath besides a right of immemorial prescription the advantage of long experience which in matters of this nature is the most powerfull reason to recommend it to us It is with government in the body politick as it is with medicines in the natural the end of medicine is health and the end of government is obedience and peace and therefore though it does not follow because Hippocrates or Galen in a case proposed made such or such a recipe consisting of such ingredients and compounded in such proportions together that therefore the Physicians of our times whenever the same case occurs must of necessity prescribe after the same manner for we must examine not onely into the prescription it self but also into the success of it with respect to the patient we must compare patient and patient and then patient and prescription together we must allow for the difference of climate constitution and diet betwixt one patient and another and if when all these things have been considered such a course of physick or such a method of cure in such a case proposed shall be found to have been successfull in the time of those old Physicians and ever since here is an Empirical demonstration which cannot easily deceive us what we are to doe at this time of the day and in this case antiquity joined to success is a very powerfull argument in behalf of the prescription or the method given and look how much greater the antiquity is and how much more frequent the cases that have occurred and the good success that hath all along attended them have been so much the stronger is the argument which is drawn from antiquity in their behalf not so much for the sake of the antiquity it self as for the success and good fortune of the course that hath been taken Wherefore the end of physick being health as the end of government is good order and obedience and the fitness of means being to be measured by their suitableness to that end to which they are directed it is manifest that experience must determine the controversie in both cases and as that physick or that diet or that air is certainly the best which hath the most wholsome and salutary effects upon the natural body so is that sort of establishment or polity whether in Church or State undoubtedly the best which hath always been found to be most productive of peace most powerfully influential upon obedience and good order and the best fitted to prevent the inconveniences with which the want or absence of government would be attended Therefore the question is this what sort of government is that which is most for the Churches health and peace and safety is it a co-ordinate administration or will it be better for the obtaining of these ends that its government as it is in the body natural and in all other political bodies whatsoever do not consist of parts that are all of them of equal dignity or power but that one part be dependent upon another and that the whole be knit together by a steady and regular subordination Let us put the case in an army can that army be well governed all whose officers have equal power and dignity with one another or did not the rebels themselves in the late unhappy times when they raised an army and levied an unnatural war against their king did not they make this difference in the commissions which they gave that some were to be Generals others Major and Lieutenant Generals others commanders of Tertia's or Brigades Colonels of Regiments and so down to Captains Lieutenants and Ensigns now either this depended upon the nature of government in the general or it did not if it did as what is an army but an armed commonwealth or city submitting to certain rules of discipline and obedience within themselves then the nature of government is in both cases the same and consequently a subordination in the church militant is every whit as necessary for the preservation of its unity and peace as it was in the schism either militant or triumphant But if it do not depend upon the nature of government and society considered in the general then there is no reason why an army may not be managed by a
so passionate exhortations to the Presbyters to pay that duty and obedience which they owed to their Bishop as the messenger of God and the vicegerent of Christ in that particular diocese wherein he was placed but when all these endeavours of good and holy men proved ineffectual as all exhortation is ineffectual with the generality of mankind where there is not a power sufficient to force obedience it seemed good at last to the wisedom of the Church to remove the occasions of such evils for the future by enlarging the power of the Bishop and to curb the insolence of the Presbytery by removing its cause which was their meeting together with him in the diocesan convocation upon any occasional emergence that might happen but yet the Bishop was not by this means rendred absolute neither but there lay an appeal from him to the Metropolitan or Patriarch to a provincial or oecumenical dyet and to the standing canons and constitutions of the church which it was not in his power to violate or alter and in which all the great lines of obedience were contained And this alteration in the government of the church depended upon the same reason with the disanulling popular elections either of Bishops or particular pastours which being found by long and wofull experience to be the occasion of perpetual tumult and disorder in the church the fruitfull parent of everlasting feuds animosities and factions to the unspeakable detriment both of church and state was in process of time partly disused of it self by the peoples being weary of so troublesome a right and partly by the interposition of imperial rescripts and by the authority of the civil laws of our own and other nations It was very natural in the beginnings of the church to allow some what more to the Presbyters in consultation with their Bishop and to the people in the choice of both than was consistent with the policy of after-times because Pueris dant crustula blandi Doctores elementa velint ut discere prima when churches and ecclesiastical societies were first to be gathered men were to be allured by privileges and to be enticed by power a thing of which all mankind are naturally very fond as well as to be convinced by arguments to espouse the cause and interest of Christianity but when the religion of Christ had taken deep root in the world when the temptations of honour and preferment and the dangers of persecution from the Pagan powers were now utterly removed and extinguished and when at the same time the world being turned Christian the dangers and inconveniences of popular elections increased with the number of the electours and the Presbytery by reason of their number began to be formidable to the Bishop as well as troublesome and tumultuous among one another which must of necessity have been the occasion of very great calamities and very sad as well as frequent revolutions if a timely stop were not put this made it necessary upon the same principle of convenience to abrogate this power upon which it seems first to have been introduced if indeed it were introduced upon any reason at all but onely a gradual and insensible encroachment in both cases and upon the supinity in or neglect of the governours of the church who did not possibly foresee those horrid inconveniences with which this way of management would afterwards be attended For my part I am so firmly of opinion that the great design of religion is charity good-will and peace that I take it to be a certain argument of an institution or custome essentially bad when it is directly calculated for the disturbance of the world and whatever becomes of the antiquity of the business which is used to afford matter of specious discourse on both sides of the question in several important cases and particularly in these which I have so lately mentioned yet if it could be proved that antiquity and interest were fallen out with one another it is in this case but reasonable to consider that the longer we and our fore-fathers have laboured under the painfull and prejudicial consequences of errour the more it would behove us to think of a reformation which if it be not allowed to be a good argument in behalf of truth the Protestant Religion will be utterly unable to defend it self and we should consider likewise that even in point of antiquity nature and the standing interest of the world are much ancienter things than any the oldest custome can pretend to be and therefore if antiquity be the measure by which we are resolved to proceed it will follow that nature and interest must prescribe to custome and not custome to them Nay if it could be never so demonstrably proved that our Saviour did by his example or by his institution recommend to posterity the presbyterian modell or the congregational way though it can hardly be supposed that he who was God as well as man could be guilty of so great a mistake in the true art and mystery of government yet these being found afterwards by experience to be very inconsistent with the great end of the Gospel which is charity and peace it is manifest that the means having onely a relative or conditional nature and being to be either used or rejected in proportion to their fitness or unsuitableness to their end the end of the Gospel which is peace would have obliged posterity to alter that institution though of Christ himself which was found by experience to be inconsistent with it or rather since the declared design of our Saviour's coming into the world was to reconcile God to men and men to one another and since the causeless feuds and animosities of men do set them at enmity with God as well as among themselves since they extinguish that calm serene and charitable spirit without which neither our persons nor our sacrifices can be accepted since it is impossible in the language of St. John to love God whom we have not seen unless we can also love our brother whom we have seen this would have been a plain argument when he preached peace and yet established such a form of government as had a direct or a comparative tendency to confusion one of which is the case of the Independent churches and the other of the Presbyterian form with relation to the more perfect and compleat establishment of the Episcopal subordination I say it would have been a plain argument either that he had war in his heart notwithstanding that his words were smoother than oyle and that though he talked of peace yet he designed contention or else if he were sincere in what he did that he did not understand the message he came about and in either of those cases he must be acknowledged to be a gross impostour when he pretended to be sent from God for God sends no man to disturb the world unless it be for our sins as other great plagues and calamities are inflicted but
Precepts of obedience whose persons are and ought to be inviolable by the laws of nature and by the unalterable constitutions upon which all humane society is founded which can never be at peace within it self if the sovereign be accountable to any power but of God And though I do not think there can be such a thing in nature as an universal Bishop any more than there can be an oecumenical Monarch whom all mankind shall obey it being an unmanageable and unwieldy charge which no one man can possibly undergo with so much care and vigilance as is intrinsick and essential to the duty of a Bishop yet thus much I believe that let a temporal dominion be as large as it will it is necessary to the ends of an ecclesiastical society which is to provide for the peace and unity of all its members that as there is one King or Monarch over the whole so there should also be one Patriarch or Metropolite to whom all the rest of the Bishops should be in some sort accountable and upon whom they should have a dependence as their respective dioceses are accountable to themselves and as the particular flocks are likewise to pay a spiritual obedience to the several pastours or presbyters that are placed over them because by this means it comes to pass that the government is all of a piece and the unity of the church which is Christ's body is preserved by the members being fitly framed together as well with respect to one another as to their head Without this it is impossible to prevent schisms and contentions in the church and by consequence troubles and revolutions in the state or at least there is not all the care taken to prevent them which humane prudence and foresight might have used and for the same reason that there are such differences and inequalities in power there ought also to be a like disparity in the outward formalities of secular appearance and greatness otherwise the establishment of such a subordinate power will be a design that will not take effect an establishment that can neither be so strong nor so lasting as it is intended to be For as obedience is the cause of peace so are respect and reverence the most natural and the most lasting causes of obedience and it is that which they call the Typhus secularis the pomp and vanity of this wicked world as vain and as wicked as it is it is a shew of grandeur an appearance of power a plentifull table a numerous dependance and a long train of moenical servants belonging to a wise man who knows how to make use of these things for the good of the world that is the most certainly productive cause of reverence and respect it is that which bating the terrours of the rods and axes and setting the fears of punishment aside hath a magnetick nature to attract obedience and a power of persuasion to make it an easie and a voluntary thing Whereas though it be true that no society can subsist without fear yet it is true likewise that it can never possibly be strong and lasting unless that fear be tempered by esteem and love and as the latter of these without the former would be every whit as unconstant and uncertain as the changeable humour of a fickle mistress so would the former divorc'd and separated from the latter be in its subject the vassallage of slaves and in its object the barbarity and fierceness of a cruel tyrant which will not be endured any longer than needs must For man is naturally a disobedient creature and therefore when he feels himself abused and opprest there is his interest added to his natural inclination to prompt him to rebell but when a government proceeds by wise and sober measures though every man would be glad to be uppermost himself yet when he sees a moral impossibility lying in his way that ever he should arrive to the top of his desires and when he can propose greater and more certain advantages to himself by obeying his superiours than by conspiring or murmuring against them this creates in him an artificial or a secondary inclination to be content with his condition and to obey the authority that is placed over him and still the wiser any man is the more he considers the mischiefs of contention the sad effects of confusion the greater likelyhood that there is of losing his own fortune in the publick scramble than of getting another man's besides the tenderness that all men have for life and the folly of encountring with the most dreadfull dangers upon an improbable prospect of advantage and this makes him the more willing and ready to acquiesce in present things and to propose to himself no other than such advantages as may be acquired with the good leave of the government and with consistence to his duty But where the mold and frame of the constitution it self is such that men are in a manner upon a levell with their governours and do by consequence universally despise them here is a conspiracy ready formed without the White-horse consults or the Wild-house caballs to resist and overthrow it and the general disposition which is in all to disobey makes the government it self precarious and uncertain which was the great fault of the Presbyterian establishment for besides that equality is the parent of disorder the eternal source of strife animosity and contention and breaks out unavoidably into independency anarchy and confusion I say besides this men do not so easily submit themselves to the discipline in Cuerpo as to the solemnity of the present constitution and to the grave and fatherly reproofs or censures of a wise and learned Bishop so that what they wanted of the natural causes of obedience they were forced to supply by severity and rigour or rather every thing seems like rigour and severity where we have a mean or no opinion of the persons that command for every thing they enjoin hath the force and appearance of tyranny and usurpation and arbitrary government when the governours placed upon the levell with our selves do not look as if they had a natural right to challenge any duty or obedience from us The contrivers of this modell were very sensible of this disadvantage and therefore the better to reconcile the people to it they very wisely called their lay-neighbours in to come and take upon them a share of the administration the lay-elders were to rule the Parishes and to fill the consistories and the people which is without question a very fine sort of government were to be governed by themselves not considering that as lay-men neither are nor can be fit judges in ecclesiastical matters so in the general they do not understand sufficiently the nature of laws and the design of punishment they have not sufficiently considered the wise proportions and temperaments of mercy and justice they have not for the most part such a sense of humanity or such a comprehenfive prospect
to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a
to a permission of Eating the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we Translate things Strangled and to the Repealment of the prohibition of Blood as to the Idolothyta or things Offered up in Sacrifice upon the Table of Idols For they could not eat whatsoever was sold in the Shambles without eating many times such meat as was not killed with that exquisite Accuracy for the draining of the Blood which was peculiar to the Jews and derived afterwards to the Christians from them A particular Instance of this exceeding Care and Sollicitude of theirs we have 1 Sam. 14. v. 32. And the people flew upon the Spoil and took Sheep and Oxen and Calves and slew them on the ground and the people did eat them with the blood that is lying upon the ground the Blood could not so easily be drained out of the Orifice that was made and besides the Blood flowing about them polluted and the ground where they lay and defiled the Skins of the Beasts that were killed which put the whole Animal in a state of Levitical Uncleanness and that which made the touching of Blood to contract a Defilement was this that by the Levitical Sanctions the Blood was of an Expiatory nature and was always Offered up by the express Command of God before the door of the Tabernacle as long as the Israelites sojourned in the Wilderness and so being spilt by way of Expiation it was supposed to be Defiled with the Guilt of the Owner and his Family who were afterwards to partake of the Flesh and therefore was Unclean as all Expiatory Sacrifices were as is manifest not only from the reason of the thing Expiation being a Translation of Guilt and Guilt the cause of Uncleanness but also from the Rites of the Sin and the Trespass Offering which in some cases were by reason of their uncleanness to be burnt without the Camp and the Skins of these Sacrifices did not belong to the Priest as in some other cases because they were unclean Now though it is true that after the Children of Israel were settled in the Land of Canaan this Custome of bringing all Animals to be slain at the door of the Tabernacle was omitted and indeed was utterly Impracticable by reason of the great distance of many parts of Judea from the Temple and Tabernacle yet notwithstanding God did not by this lose that Right which he had appropriated to himself in the Blood but it was in the nature of a tacit or supposed Sacrifice in behalf of the Owner and those that partook with him of the Flesh though it were not sprinkled by the Priest before the Lord as the Law of Moses if by reason of Distance it had not been impossible would have required By this it appears how the Beasts that were killed in this place of Samuel came to be defiled and unlawfull to be eaten Let us now see which was the thing I first intended what care was taken by Saul for the redress of this neglect or at least to make some amends for it v. 33 34. Then they told Saul saying Behold the people sin against the Lord in that they eat with the blood And he said ye have transgressed roul a great stone unto me this day And Saul said disperse your selves among the people and say unto them bring me hither every man his Ox and every man his Sheep and slay them here and sin not against the Lord in eating with the Blood And all the people brought every man his Ox with him that night and slew them there Nay it is probable that the Blood was also sprinkled from the hands of the Priests for it follows in the next Verse And Saul built an Altar unto the Lord the same was the first Altar that he built unto the Lord. Now the reason of that Command of his of rouling a Stone to the place where the Beasts were to be killed was this That they were to be laid athwart it with their Nâ—â—ks hanging down that so the blood might flow with the greater freedom out of the Orifice which was made and might fall upon the ground without defiling the Bodies of the Animals themselves as I have already taken notice in another Discourse upon a very different Occasion from this and in another Language The Jews continue Obstinate to this day in a Religious abstinence from Blood notwithstanding their Temple be demolished and they do not so much as pretend to any thing of Sacrifice till it be rebuilt and I know a Learned Jew with whom I had for some years a particular acquaintance who was so scrupulous in this point that he would never eat any kind of Flesh which he had not killed himself But before I pass any further I will take notice of one cause of Saint Paul's Condescention as to the business of Abstinence from Blood which I did not think of before And that is That besides what I have said of its Levitical Pollution which it seems they that were the Patrons of this Opinion did not apprehend to be abolished by the fulfilling of all those legall Sacrifices in and by the Sacrifice of Christ they considered further that God having appropriated the Blood to himself which Property and Right of his they did not conceive him ever to have relinquisht they looked upon it as a kind of Sacrilege to seed upon Blood and therefore abstained from it upon the same Pious principle upon which they would have abstained from Robbing of Hospitals or Colleges or from Pilfering the Ornaments of Churches and seizing the Revenues of the Ecclesiastical State a sort of Piety so necessary to the honour of God and to the prosperity and happiness of the Church that it ought by no means to be discouraged though in a mistaken Instance much more if Saint Paul himself foresaw which we cannot tell but he might that Sacrilegious humour of the Saints which our times have experienced when the Church was swallowed up at one Morsel and the Kingdome at another when all that was Sacred and Devoted to the service of Almighty God was converted to profane uses by Thieves and Robbers in the disguise of Saints with as little reason as that for which Dionysius of Syracuse divested Apollo of his Golden Ornaments upon Pretence that they were too heavy and too hot for Summer and that in Winter they would not keep him warm We see therefore that it was not a bare Infirmity without any colour or pretext of Reason that was dispensed with in these cases for such Dispensations if they be once allowed there can be no end but Confusion and the utter Subversion of all manner of Government and Order We see upon what reasons and prejudices these Scruples were founded and how necessary it was at that time to Comply with them We see likewise that they were not matters of small Weight and Moment they were not things looked upon on both sides to be of an indifferent nture they were not Controversiae de Nugis
Siculis Gerris Germanis de foliis Farfari aut Noevill Butubatis de umbrâ Asini aut de lanà Caprinâ they were not matters of meer Ceremony and Show matters of External Discipline and Form that exercised the tenderness and infirmity of those times Those Babes in Christ that were but newly initiated into the Christian Faith and had as yet tasted only the sincere milk of the Word without adventuring upon stronger meats were yet better fed and better taught than to quarrel about Indifferent Matters or to Controul their Governours in things of Publique-Decency and Order But the instances of their Scrupulosity were founded in such things as they looked upon to be in themselves Offences of the highest nature against the express Commands of God against the honour of his Name against the entire and incommunicable respect which is due from all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth to his Adorable Majesty and Greatness and against the indispensable duties of natural Reason and Religion in which though they were never so much mistaken yet these were Scruples not of small Concernment but of the highest Consequence and Importance and St. Paul did therefore comply with the Infirmity and with the mistakes of those Good Men not barely to gratify a squeemish Fancy which is out of love with things for no reaâ—on and without any end but lest by opposing Prejudices so deeply rooted in matters of so extraordinary a nature as these were they might be tempted to an Apostacy from the Christian Faith which did impose burthens upon them which their Consciences not â—eing yet sufficiently informed of the true extent of that liberty which Christ had purchas'd for them could not possibly bear for this reason it was Saint Paul's rule to become all things to all men that he might save the more and he despensed with them in some cases out of meer necessity that his Brother for whom Christ dyed might not be destroyed by Relapsing to Judaism on the one hand or Idolatry on the other As our Learned Mr. Thorndike and out of him the Accurate and Industrious Doctor Falkner have observed And this latter case of Idolatry was therefore the more tenderly to be regarded because the Authour to the Hebrews speaking of this very business tells us c. 6. v. 4 5 6. It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And St. John in his first Epistle c. 5. v. 16. tells us there is a sin unto death I do not say that he that is our Brother shall pray for it that is there is great danger that his Prayers will never be heard in behalf of such a person and what that Sin is he afterwards explains v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols And this is likewise very suitable to the practice of the Church in the Primitive times who upon any such Relapse to Idolatry were not used to receive the Apostate though giving all imaginable demonstrations of Repentance into the bosom of that Church which he had forsaken by Sacramental Absolution sometimes at the very instant of Death and sometimes not till then as is manifest from the case of Serapio and others However since Peace is the thing above all others the most to be prized and valued and with the greatest passion and earnestness to be desired since no kind of discipline or external Form is any further necessary or so much as lawful than it shall be found to Contribute to this blessed end since Rites and Ceremonies establisht in the Church are in themselves of a changeable nature and since our Church her self hath openly and expresly declar'd that she is no longer desirous to retain all or any of them than they shall be found expedient for Edification I should not be against closing with any Proposition let it be almost what it will by which a lasting Peace and Settlement might be obtained And because I think there are but three ways to be thought of in order to this end The first of which is a Toleration of those that differ from us in their several differences and distinctions The second an Alteration of those Customs and Usages which are excepted against for others in their stead And the third an Abatement or Abolition of those Ceremonies which are scrupled without any Reparation by the Substitution of others in their room Therefore I shall speak very briesly to each of these particulars And first A Toleration as it is commonly understood is a Liberty from the Government for every man to say and do as he pleases in Religious matters for Conscience sake or upon account of a tender Conscience which cannot submit it self to the publique Rule and such a Toleration as this is I affirm to be directly and positively unlawfull because it cuts the sinews of Government in pieces and lets the Rains loose to all manner of misrule and disorder For the truth of which I need only appeal to the Experience of former times when by such an unbounded Toleration the Kingdome was put into such a floating and uncertain Posture that we had almost as many alterations in Government as there were Sects and Parties that were to obey The Presbyterians when time was having shaken off the Episcopal Yoak as they were pleased if not to think yet at least to pretend it to be were as much for Uniformity as other men and urged the very same Arguments with great Judgment and Reason against the Independency which may now with irresistable Force be retorted upon themselves as the Most Reverend and Incomparably Learned the Excellent Dean of Saint Pauls a singular Ornament and strong Support of the English Church and State against their Enemies of both kinds hath very Wisely and like himself Observed Nay to what excess of Riot a Toleration in its utmost Latitude will proceed the extravagancies either in Opinion or Practice or both of the Antinomians the Seekers the Quakers the Ranters the Sweet-Singers and the Family of Love are a sufficient witness most of whose Opinions as they proceed only from Ignorance or Melancholy or a worse cause a Life ill spent or a desire to spend it amiss for the future so the Debaucheries and the Obscenities of some of these Sects which I have named under a pretence of I know not what Liberty are so great and so horrid that I should not have believed it if I had received it from any other information than that of some who pretended with abundance of asseveration and in a Company not easily to be imposed upon to speak their own certain knowledge and who I have great reason to believe would not goe about to deceive either
worship called Chazan and the Greeks sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is evident from the words of Epiphanius in the Heresie of the Aebionites who calls the Hebrew Chazanim by an Hellenistical word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and interprets it in Greek by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very word used in St. Luke's Gospel and it is plain from that place of St. Luke and from the interpretation of Epiphanius and the place above cited out of the Tractate Succa that no more was meant by it than an ordinary Reader in one of our Parish-Churches whereas Esdras was not only a Priest but a Priest of greatest note and dignity among the Jews at that time as appears sufficiently as well by the sacred Story as by the testimony of Josephus who calls him Antiq. L. XI c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Priest of the people that is of that part of them who returned out of Babylon into Judea which all the Jews did not the High Priest of the whole nation properly so called remaining still behind whose name in the time of Esdras was Joakim and was succeeded after his death by his son Eliasim remaining still in Babylon as Josephus reports which is still a new argument to invalidate those testimonies of the ancient Fathers whereby they would make Esdras to have recovered the law after it was perfectly lost by a divine inspiration for certainly it is not very likely that the High Priest himself who was chiefly concerned to understand the law was any whit less knowing in it than Esdras much less that all the succession during that Interval which consisted of three several persons according to Josephus that is Jesus and Joakim and Eliasim were all of them so utterly unacquainted with the law and with their office as they must be if this opinion of the Fathers be admitted for truth besides that what Josephus saith of Esdras that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficiently or competently skilled in the law of Moses is very short of a divine inspiration It being therefore thus clear from so many irrefragable arguments that the reading of the law till after the translation of the seventy was not permitted the commonalty of the Jews which if it had it would have been impossible that both the law and language during this interval should have been so utterly lost It being certain that they were kept in this ignorance and darkness even in the time of their best Kings of David and Solomon and Josiah and that it was so far from being disallowed by God himself that it seems expresly approved by him in those words of the Prophet Malachi which I have produced Lastly It being no less evident that such a concealment of the Law from the knowledge of the common people could not be without great inconveniences attending it by exposing them to the cheats and impostures of the Priests as it is at this day in the Church of Rome in a great measure and by being in all probability the occasion of their so frequently relapsing into the Idolatrous worship of the Nations round about them From hence we have another pregnant instance how strict and religious care was had to the preservation of peace and unity in the Jewish Church and this example pursued into its consequences is still a stronger argument for all those humane means of unity and publique peace which if quietly submitted to and obeyed will bring to pass that blessed end they aim at without exposing us to any of those dangers and inconveniences with which this Jewish prohibition was attended If it were lawfull or warrantable among the ancient Jews to prohibit the reading of the Scriptures or so much as to permit them not to be read because the reading of them would be attended with this fatal consequence that it would infallibly through the perversness of bad or the unskilfulness of ignorant men have been the occasion of great schisms and disorders in the Jewish Church and State as I have demonstrated it must needs have proved notwithstanding the great danger and inconvenience to which the prohibition it self was exposed then certainly all those humane institutions which tend to the same end without the same or any like inconvenience are undoubtedly lawfull and fit to be commanded and consequently both fit and necessary to be obey'd The great design of Religion is the peace and happiness of Mankind and therefore whatever does in its own nature or in its direct and necessary consequence tend to the disquiet and disturbance of the world is naturally forbidden to men considered as members of a civil society such was the promiscuous use of the Law and Prophets among the ancient Jews and for that reason it was with equal justice and necessity forbidden and if it be the same case in the permission of things indifferent or in the publique allowance of every man's private fancy and humour as to the circumstances and external Modifications of Divine worship if this be always found by experience to be a means of crumbling men into Factions and Parties of alienating mens affections and disuniting their interests and setting the several Parties at a perpetual strife and variance with one another then it follows plainly that a prohibition of such liberty under legal penalties which is the only remedy against such disorders is because necessary to a necessary end the peace and welfare of Mankind lawfull and a duty incumbent on the Civil Magistrate to whom the care of the publique peace and safety is committed which if he shall neglect he is answerable to God for the greatest breach of trust of which any publique administration is capable and it being confessedly at every man 's own choice not considering him as a Member of a Society what indifferent posture or circumstance he will make use of in divine worship otherwise there could be no indifferent things in nature it is as necessary when he enters into or engages himself in a society that he resign up this liberty to the publique Will of the Supreme Civil Power as any other privilege or power of acting with which antecedently to all bargain or compact he is by nature invested For this plain reason because otherwise the society can either not subsist at all or not without perpetual trouble and disorder which because it is in all its degrees a proportionable tendency to an actual dissolution it may and must be restrained with the same care with which Rebellion or Anarchy should be avoided which being the direct contrariety to Government or the return of Society into a state of nature is that in whose prevention by all necessary means the Magistrate is chiefly concerned We find in Scripture that even divine Laws themselves are sometimes of no force or obligation when a particular act of Charity or Mercy either to man or beast is concerned as when David and his followers ate the shew-bread which could not