insinuate but they often cast off the Souldiers Coat to wear the Livery of their Saviour and deliver'd up their own Swords to the Use and Service of their Executioners I must not be thought by the tendency of my discourse to enervate the Minds and Spirits of Christians and to recommend Cowardize as an Article of Faith I desire no such interpretation may be made of my Words for I know that we must not only suffer but also plead for rightousness sake for as every Man is obliged by vertue of his being in a Society whether it relates to the Church or the the State not to consent to any thing which tends to the apparent ruine of it but to refuse all such Acts for the sake and general end of the Society so would a compliance with a sinful Command be in effect a disobedience to the Power that Commands and to the Authority it self when stated and considered And therefore if the Magistrate Commands any thing contrary to natural and revealed Religion or destructive of the Fundamental Laws of the State or Church we may rescribere Principi we may calmly advise him of the irreconcilable difference between his Precept and our Duty between his pleasure and voice of our conscience between his Will and the more indispensable obligation of Gods Word or the dictates of morality And if he is not satisfied with such Remonstrations we may Petition Address and humbly entreat him to supersede his Resolutions but if he yet remain peremptory in his Demands we must obey him by suffering and apply our selves to the Christian warfare of Prayers and Tears God in such a case hath reserv'd all Remedies to be expected by an Appeal to his own judgment Seat for he has said that vengeance is his and that he will repay it and as he is jealous of his Honor so will he not suffer any to go unpunished who Usurp upon his Province and presume to forestal his final retribution By these considerations were our suspended Bishops led under their Afflictions in the last Reign and God who is the rewarder of Innocence was pleased to Crown their constancy with a success far above our languishing hopes and the prospect of a faint Expectation I cannot therefore but strangely wonder why some Persons who speak irreverently of the same Prelates and write invectives against them do at this time accuse them because they are passively obedient and resolve not to resist Are they desirous the good Fathers should encourage their many Friends to rise in Arms on their Account Would this be for the Security of the Nation Or is this the way to establish Peace and Union among us I may assure those troublers of our Israel that our Bishops know not how to blow the Trumpet for such an Alarm longe aliud sonat tuba Evangelica aliud concha Panis aut cornu Alectûs If his Majesty with respect to their modesty and moderation would be pleased in a Parliament way to reinstate them in their former Capacities he would not hazard the Security of his Throne or the Glory of his Name I am certain he would purchase as much Honor by this one Act of Piety as he has gained by the Atchievment of his Arms when he passed the Boyn and waded through the other difficulties of War But if they must be still chained to a suspension they will be also chained to Passive-Obedience and Non-Resistance let the World cast what censures it please upon them I confess many others and those the great Enemies of this avowed Principle of the Bishops have formerly on many occasions taken the liberty to disturb the Peace of our Government and yet Mercy has been passively obedient to them but I leave them and their Party to another Tribunal where the proudest and most incorrigible Spirits must in a more dreadful Sense pay a Passive-Obedience to the scourge of infinite Justice In the mean time it is our comfort that the good hand of Providence doth over-rule the Affairs of this World and that these furious and Antichristian Men have not the Effect of their Clamors granted them but that the Sober and the Religious Gentlemen of our Nation do neither joyn with their interests nor expect their success to these therefore I shall seriously apply my self in a few Words I would desire them to consider with me the apparent Advantages our Enemies reap from the present Suspension How joyfully was the News entertain'd in the Popes Palace and in the Colledge of Cardinals with what triumph and surprizing Pleasure did the General of the Jesuits receive the Express how do they deride the fickle instability of our People who were so fond of the Bishops under the last Reign and seem now as violent against them The Subtil Missionary who loves to breath in the midst of Tempests and Whirlwinds takes occasion from hence to perswade the Friends of our Church that our Hierarchy is endanger'd and that the Suspended Bishops must expect little Relief since their very order is not altogether pleasing What is become crys he of the old plausible Text of Liberty of Priviledges and of Conscience Where is the comfortable and long expected Amnesty or at least the equal and just Administration when scandalous Sinners are exalted to a degree of of Eminence when Out-laws Pedlers of Perjury and Mountebanks of Treason are favoured with a Pardon and the holy the Orthodox and Learned are discharg'd the hopes and benefit of that Grace On the other hand the same Underminer of our Peace does insinuate to the Dissenter whose readiness to comply with his late proposed Equivalent renders him an apt Subject for his further delusions that now is the time to appear rampant to cry strongly against Episcopal Grandeur and to beat down the Fabric of our Church our Doctors and Prelates being so variously divided in their present Sentiments To some he suggests that our Church doth suffer too much by this procedure and that the whole Kingdom ought to be violent in their Demands for the Bishops Honour but he assures others that our Church suffers too little and must be yet chastised after the dreadful Model of the Scorish Reformation Thus we see with what Topics the Ignatian Order is furnish'd to widen the Differences among Protestants and to blow up the flame of our wretched Discontents and Passions for as it is their sport and pleasure to embroil us so is it their Interest carefully to maintain those Heats and Animosities which feed their own hopes and forward our destruction and I know no better Method to disappoint the Artifice then to dare for once to be Christians and to love one another with true Charity and Compassion which we cannot be said to do unless we renounce all savage and brutish Malice If we seriously study this peaceable Temper the Suspended Bishops will not be long bereav'd of their Places but may be admitted to a share in that common Concern and Benefit of English Men as will render
be profitable which is also good The Wisdom of the best Statesmen has still entertained this Moral Doctrine for a just Principle and certainly it doth afford the best interpretation to that memorable Expression of Vlpianus which he deliver'd as a great Law of Politics to the Romans In Rebus novis constituendis evidens utilitas esse debet ne recedatur ab eo quod diu aequum visum est and I cannot but believe it was also introductive as of the late Practices so of the present Sentiments of the Bishops who are not govern'd by a Peevish or Supercilious humor but mourn in Spirit for the Miseries of the Protestant Church and pray for the Prosperity of the English Canaan thô like Moses they are not permitted to enjoy an Inheritance in it This which some call Obstinacy Pride and Prejudice the three grand Enemies of prudential deliberations will appear as I hope no such dangerous and wicked temper when we have modestly considered it and charitably interpreted it I am confident the World need not be advertis'd under what a dreadful Hurricane our Nation hath lately laboured I shall not make a sorrowful research after a like Example into the Confusions of former Centuries when the Pagan or Popish Religion did bare a Regency in the Land It is most certain we have had nothing that Challenges the Affinity of an exact Parallel to those Troubles since our Blessed Reformation Our Bishops therefore who are professedly studious as of the Peace so of the Glory of that Establishment were loath immediately to admit the sharp and extreme Remedies which were recommended to them as necessary for their own Securities Many others and among them not a few who Flatter'd and Addrest the Abdicated Monarch into his Ruine did rejoyce and triumph in the Afflictions of that calamitous Prince but our Prelates scorn'd such an Unchristian Revenge for if in the Council of Arles under Leo the First it was condemned for an heathenish Barbarity to use Mirth in the House of Mourning and to sport in the view of the melancholy Incentives how could our Holy Primate and his Brethren be suppos'd to Laugh and Sing in the Agony of our Church and State as Samuel mourned for Saul's Abjection so did they lament the late Kings Misery and forgot his rigid Severities exercised on them They have in the great pangs of Spirit and in the anguish of their Soul often wept for their avowed Enemy and endeavoured with their holy Tears like the Sovereign Balm Tree to cure his Wounds who cut and mangled them In short they were Bishops of the best reform'd Church and were cautious how they intermedled in tumult and secular Tragedy And are they not now of the like unspotted Fame for their quiet resignation and peaceable deport under the present Settlement Are they not Sacred in their Majesties Register belov'd and pittyed by Men of exact Piety and highly admired by their greatest Enemies Let us not then furiously pursue them nor deride the loss of their former Stations for thô during their present Eclypse they are not crowned with the brightest Beams yet like the languishing Aecolampadius they clap their hands on their Breasts and say hic sat lucis hic sat radiorum To conclude let them be accounted worthy of the best usage now who were so unworthy of the harsh Treatment in the last Reign we well remember how religiously they then conform'd to the dictates of their Consciences and we are bound in Charity to believe they are not at this time directed by a different Rule The Obligations of Oaths and particularly those in which the Government doth concern its own immediate Interest and Security hath been in all Nations attended with Veneration and Respect The Romans stiled it their Sacrament the violation of which drew after it such a dreadful Chain of Infamy that exceeded the most heavy Penalties Hierocles speaking as from the Chair of Pythagoras pronounces that a great part of Religious Worship is contain'd in it and does plainly affirm that the unstable or timorous ought not to engage in the Solemnity of so Sacred an Act. Philo Judaeus doth admonish every one to whom an Oath is propos'd that he carefully consider all Circumstances and whether he hath a right Notion of what he is doing otherwise saith he the great God is blasphemed The Books of Christians and surely the Bishops have carefully perused them are full of the same Doctrine for they tell us that to avoid all Abuses in this Holy Service we ought to take Three Companions with us viz. Truth Justice and Judgment so that we must no◠oblige our selves to a thing we know is false or evil in its Nature nor to that of which we entertain a dubious thought nor to what is unworthy the Majesty of the Holy God into whose more especial presence we do approach No Person who hath ever treated of the nature of Oaths and their Obligation doth on any account advise or allow the engaging in an Oath which doth raise an unanswerable scruple in the Mind and to which a Man thinks he cannot be exactly conformable without hazarding his Salvation Conscience is a Mark beyond the stretch of Human Power and bares a Sovereign Authority above the Arrests of Parliaments and the Edicts of Princes Nec per Senatum saith Lactantius nec per populum solvi hac lege possumus On this account all Earthly Potentates are excused their Exercise of Jurisdiction the King of Kings having by his Apostle published as the Statute Law of Heaven that whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin Nor do I think that any Monarch can be secure in the Fidelity of those Persons who have first broken their Allegiance with their God since therefore the Suspended Bishops are not yet satisfied in the perplexity of their doubt which so much affects them I suppose that for this Reason they refuse to Swear But truly when I consider the just Merit of these Prelates with the divine Spirit that reigns in their Breasts and the memorable Experience we have had of their former Gallantry I humbly conceive without any violence to the Rules of common Reason Religion and Policy or derogation from the Sacred Proceedings of the two honourable Houses of Parliament that their Parol of Honor to conform with Obedience to the present Government which they are studiously enclin'd to do might have been at first accepted by the Legislative Power as a sufficient Tye upon them without any more solemn Obligation We have Cases even in Pagan story which favor the Merit of Vertue for the Ephesian Judges in consideration of the sincerity of Hermodorus would not for a time permit him to give testimony nor be otherwised obliged by Oath And Cicero in his Oration for Cornelius Balbus reports of an honest Athenian how that when he approach'd to the Altars on the like performance the great Council did reclamare and would not suffer him to be sworn of whose Faith and Veracity the Gods
our Laws the Prerogative of our Prince and the true Liberty of the Subject We could address no other Person we could gain Relief from no other Place the King alone could grant our Request who might have been sensible of the Desires of his faithful People had not evil Men slandered us and mis-represented our Design but to proceed As many of those Gentlemen who disparage the Conduct of our Zeal challenge us for an Insult upon the Laws so others scruple not with open Mouth to tell us that we should not on any Account have petitioned for Bishops that Title being as odious to them as was Hannibals Name to the Roman Matrons In this Hatred they are fix'd by the prevailing Authority of Education and Prejudice and their spiritual Directors carefully improve those Maxims with which their early Judgments were possest Among them Lewis du Moulin hath furnished his Disciples with Invectives against the sacred Function out of the Writings of a learned Man whom he calls one of the sincerest Persons in the World though he confesses if Mr. Baxter be in an Error he is the greatest of Lyars * Moulin's short and true Account of the Advances of the Church of England towards Rome P. 64. c. The Episcopacy of the Church of England saith he is absolutely contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the Practice of the Primitive Church It is not compatible with the Peace of the Church nor with the Civil State It is the Cause of all the Sects all the Heresies and of all the Schisms and Divisions which have rent and torn and infected England for above this hundred Years banishing all likelihood of Reformation in Religion and good Manners That it shuts the Door against the Entrance of the Doctrine and Discipline of Jesus Christ letting loose the Reins to all Debaucheries Intemperance Luxury and Idleness making the Pastors lazy in the Discharge of their Ministry fomenting Ignorance hatred of Piety Plurality of Benefices That it is a Government that divests the Pastors of Parishes of the Authority to exercise the Discipline of Jesus Christ to invest the secular Persons with it breaking the Union of the Churches of England with those beyond Sea and gratifying the Enemy of our Salvation and Persons of a sensual and depraved Life This is the Language of the Man whom our Author calls the sincere and he does well deserve that Character for he hath delivered the true Idaea of his Thoughts to us And indeed if Episcopacy were of such a monstrous and Antichristian Composure and did it carry such a Wolf in its Back as this old Angry Divine would perswade us an Address in Favor of the Bishops had entituled us to a severe Chastisement I need not intermeddle with the Merit of those Allegations with which that luxurious Writer bespatters the Order and Succession of our Church but I beg leave to follow Monsieur Moulin himself in the full Stretch of his own Argument and shame his Party by giving them a Repetition of his Words The Reader therefore is to be informed that in the Judgment of this unerring * Idem p. 63. 65. Rabbin Dr. Tillotson is a Reverend and Learned Man that Dr. Floyd and the Canon of the Chapiter of which Dr. Tillotson is the Dean have done good Service by their Labours against Popery That all the Three are every where extreamly valued and honored by the best Judges and the holiest Men and that they live in the high Reputation of being eminently Learned and pious These are the Expressions of the double fac'd Janus in one place of his Book but in the reverse Page he seems much afflicted that these Doctors have vindicated our Bishops and the Frame of our Discipline and for this Reason he compares them to those who made Panegirics on the Bloody Busiris the Tyrant Nero and the Tertian Ague That it is with these three great Divines as with Anselm Ives and John of Salisbury who by the Reputation of their extraordinary piety have established more strongly the Perpetuity of the Popes Empire then all the Diabolical Instruments of Gregory the Seventh Innocentius the Third and Fourth and Boniface the Eighth The Monsieur is justly allowed his Pretence to an Insight in the Affairs of Church History for he managed his Conduct by the Authority of a great and leading Example treating our Doctors in the same Stile with which the primitive Christians were entertain'd at Rome Caius Scius as the old learned Apologist Writes was esteem'd as good and as rightous a Man as any in that City but he was therefore declared wicked by a pubilc Out-cry because he professed Christianity And by the same Analogy Dr. Tillotson and his Reverend Brethren after they had been acknowledged to be Angels of light were soon transform'd into Instruments of darkness because they asserted the Power and Jurisdiction of Christian Prelacy and if our Doctors are thus sentenced by the ill natur'd Minister what mercy can our Bishops expect from the Tongues of his violent Party Our Diocesan hath been often allowed to have done glorious Exploits and his expence of Labor and Gold in the ransom of Christian Slaves and his hazards in the Rescue of others from Turkish Tyranny speak him a great Man but yet he is no Christian in the New Catalogue because he is a Bishop Our holy Primate and this his loudest Enemies confess is a Person of stupendious Gifts and admirable Piety and is most Serpahic in the Austerities of his Life but he is therefore thought unworthy his Majesty's Grace because he is a Bishop In this Current and Chanel doth Lewis du Moulin lead us and it is no wonder his Votaries will not subscribe to a Pardon for our Prelates who were the times answerable to their Wishes would blot out the Names of their Persons and pull down the Establishment of their Order I have often wished that those who assume the name of Protestants and by their great English Patriarch are Stiled the Sober and Self-denying Men had not in their Practice maintained what he the sincere Person has deliver'd in Thesi It would have conduced much to their Reputation had they been led by the sweet and Angelic Spirit of Calvin to which though they do in a large Sense pretend yet they never studied that part of Christian Imitation I am sure they have lost their Credit among all good Protestants nor has their Conduct been pleasing to the Lutheran Hugonot and the Evangelical Churches for when our Dissenting Brethren enjoy'd a full swinge of Liberty by the Toleration in the late Reign many of them could not bare the equal prosperity of our Church and of our Bishops but rather then not ruin both they could for once allow Satan their help to raise the Superstructure of his Kingdom I am unwilling to enlarge on what I before purposely avoided or at least but lightly touched but their unpardonable iniquity cannot be concealed in this place I suppose they remember the