A DISCOURSE OF Ecclesiastical Politie WHEREIN The Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of External Religion is Asserted The Mischiefs and Inconveniences OF Toleration are Represented And all Pretenses Pleaded in Behalf of Liberty of Conscience are fully Answered The Third Edition LONDON Printed for Iohn Martyn at the Bell in S t Paul's Church-yard 1671. The PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Cannot Imagine any thing that our Dissenting Zealots will be able to object against this Ensuing Treatise unless perhaps in some Places the Vehemence and Severity of its Style for cavil I know they must and if they can raise no Tolerable Exceptions against the Reasonableness of the Discourse it self it shall suffice to pick quarrels with Words and Phrases But I will assure thee the Author is a Person of such a tame and softly humour and so cold a Complexion that he thinks himself scarce capable of hot and passionate Impressions and therefore if he has sometimes twisted Invectives with his Arguments it proceeded not from Temper but from Choice and if there be any Tart and Vpbraiding Expressions they were not the Dictates of Anger or Passion but of the Iust and Pious Resentments of his Mind And I appeal to any Man who knows upon what sober Grounds and Principles the Reformation of the Church of England stands and how that its Forms and Institutions are not only countenanced by the best and purest times of Christianity but establisht by the Fundamental Laws of the Land whether he can so perfectly Charm and Stupifie his Passions as not to be chafed into some heat briskness when he seriously considers that this Church so rightly constituted and so duely authorised should be so savagely worried by a Wild and Fanatique Rabble that this Church so soberly modelled so warrantably reformed and so handsomly settled should have been so perpetually beleaguered and be yet not out of all danger of being rifled if not utterly demolisht by Folly and Ignorance that the publick Peace and Settlement of a Nation should be so wofully discomposed upon such slender and frivolous Pretenses and that after they have been so often and so shamefully baffled that both Church and State should be so lamentably embroyl'd by the Pride and Insolence of a few peevish ignorant and malepert Preachers And lastly that these Brain-sick People if not prevented by some speedy and effectual Remedy may in a little time grow to that Power and Confidence as to be able to use their own Language to shut the Heavens that they shall not rain i. e. to restrain the Highest Powers of Church and State from their wonted Influence and to have Power over the Waters to turn them into Blood i. e. to turn the still People of a State or Nation into War and Blood or to speak in our own plain English to tye the Hands of Authority to instigate the people of God to Rebellion and once more involve the Kingdom in Blood and Confusion Let the Reader consider all this as throughly and seriously as I have done and then be a Stoick if he can But besides this let any man that is acquainted with the Wisdom and Sobriety of True Religion tell me how 't is possible not to be provoked to scorn and indignation against such proud ignorant and supercilious Hypocrites who though they utterly defeat all the main Designs of Religion yet boast themselves its only Friends and Patrons signalize their Party by distinctive Titles and Characters of Godliness and brand all others howsoever Pious and Peaceable with bad Names and worse Suspicions who I say that loves and adores the Spirit of true Religion can forbear to be sharp and severe to such thick and fulsom abuses In that there is not any thing can so much expose or traduce true Piety as this sort of Hypocrisie because whilst Folly and Phantastry appears in the Vizour of Holiness it makes that seem as ridiculous as it self And hence the greatest Friends of true Goodness have always been the severest Satyrists upon False Godliness and our Blessed Saviour scarce seemed more concern'd to plant and propagate Christianity than to explode the Pharisaick Hypocrisie i. e. Religious Pride and Insolence I know but one single Instance in which Zeal or a high Indignation is just and warrantable and that is when it vents it self against the Arrogance of haughty peevish and sullen Religionists that under higher pretences to Godliness supplant all Principles of Civility and good Nature that strip Religion of its outside to make it a covering for Spight and Malice that adorn their peevishness with the Mask of Piety and shroud their Ill Nature under the demure pretences of Godly Zeal And stroak and applaud themselves as the only Darlings and Favourites of Heaven and with a scornful pride disdain all the Residue of Mankind as a Rout of worthless and unregenerate Reprobates Thus the only hot fit of Zeal we find our Saviour in was kindled by an Indignation against the Pride and Insolence of the Iews when he whipt the Buyers and Sellers out of the outward Court of the Temple For though they bore a blind and superstitious Reverence towards that part of it that was peculiar to their own Worship yet as for the outward Court the place where the Gentiles and Proselytes worship't that was so unclean unhallowed that they thought it could not be prophaned by being turn'd into an Exchange of Vsury Now this Insolent Contempt of the Gentiles and impudent conceit of their own holiness provoked the mild Spirit of our Blessed Saviour to such an height of Impatience and Indignation as made him with a seeming fury and transport of passion whip the Tradesmen thence and overthrow the Tables So hateful is all proud testy and factious Zeal to a loving and Divine Temper of mind And indeed what can we imagine more odious or mischievous than a spirit of Pride Peevishness and Animosity adopted into the Service of God This divides Religion into Factions and Parties engenders a sullen and unsociable Niceness towards all that herd not with themselves breeds nothing but rancour malice and envy and every thing that is destructive of the Common Peace and Amity of Mankind And when People Separate and Rendevouz themselves into distinct Sects and Parties they always confine all their kind Influences to their own Faction and look with a scornful and malignant Aspect upon all the rest of Mankind become Enemies and Outlaws to Humane Society and shatter in pieces that natural Peace and common Love that preserves the Welfare and Tranquillity of Humane Nature Their minds like the savage Americans are as contracted as their Herds and all that are not within the Fold of their Church are without the Sphere of their Charity this is entirely swallowed up within their own combination and 't is no part of their duty to commiserate or supply the Wants of the Vnregenerate As the Poet describes the Jewish Bigots Non
If the latter then the former Argument returns and as to one half of the concerns of the Common-wealth there must be a perfect Anarchy and no Government at all And there is no Provision to be made against all those publick mischiefs and disturbances that may arise from Errors and Enormities in Religion the Common-wealth must for ever be exposed to the follies of Enthusiasts and villanies of Impostors and any man that can but pretend Conscience may whenever he pleases endeavour its Ruine So that if Princes should forego their sovereignty over mens Consciences in matters of Religion they leave themselves less Power than is absolutely necessary to the Peace Defence of the Common-wealths they govern In brief the Supreme Government of every Common-wealth wherever it is lodged must of necessity be universal absolute and uncontroulable in all Afairs whatsoever that concern the Interests of mankind and the ends of Government For if it be limited it may be controul'd but 't is a thick and palpable Contradiction to call such a Power Supreme in that whatever controuls it must as to that case be its Superiour And therefore Affairs of Religion being so strongly influential upon Affairs of State and having so great a power either to advance or hinder the publick felicity of the Common-wealth they must be as uncontroulably subject to the Supreme Power as all other Civil Concerns because otherwise it will not have Authority enough to secure the Publick Interest of the Society to attain the necessary and most important ends of its Institution § 11. Now from these Premisses we may observe That all Supreme Power both in Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs issues from the same Original and is founded upon the same Reason of things namely the indispensable necessity of Society to the preservation of Humane Nature and of Government to the preservation of Humane Society a Supreme Power being absolutely necessary to the decision of all those Quarrels and Controversies that are naturally consequent upon the Passions Appetites and Follies of men there being no other way of ending their Differences but by the Decrees of a final unappealable Judicature For if every man were to be his own Judge mens Determinations would be as contradictory as their Judgments their Judgments as their Humours or Interests and so must their Dissentions of necessity be endless And therefore to avoid these and all other Inconveniences that would naturally follow upon a state of War it was necessary there should be one Supreme and Publick Judgment to whose Determinations the private Judgment of every single person should be obliged to submit it self And hence the Wisdom of Providence knowing to what passions and irregularities mankind is obnoxious never suffered them to live without the restraints of Government but in the beginning of things so ordered affairs that no man could be born into the world without being subject to some Superior every father being by nature vested with a right to govern his children And the first governments in the world were established purely upon the natural Rights of paternal Authority which afterward grew up to a Kingly Power by the increase of posterity and he that was at first but Father of a Family in process of time as that multiplied became Father of a City or Province and hence it came to pass that in the first Ages of the World Monarchy was its only Government necessarily arising out of the Constitution of humane Nature it being so natural for Families to enlarge themselves into Cities by uniting into a body according to their several Kindreds whence by consequence the Supreme Head of those Families must become Prince and Governour of a larger more diffused Society And therefore Cedrenus makes Adam the first Monarch in the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus afterwards in the division of the Earth among the Posterity of Noah the heads of Families became Kings and Monarchs of the Nations of which they were Founders from whence were propagated the several Kingdoms of the first and elder times as appears not only from the Mosaick History but also from all other the best and most ancient Records of the first Ages of the World But as for Common-wealths they are comparatively of a very late discovery being first contriv'd among the Grecians whose Democracies and Optimacies were made out of the Ruines of Monarchick Government which was but sutable to the proud factious and capricious humour of that Nation where scarce any one could pretend to a little skill in Poetry or Wrestling their two greatest accomplishments but he must immediately be an Vndertaker for new modelling the Common-wealth which doubtless was one of the main causes of their perpetual Confusions and frequent Charges in Government § 12. Having thus firmly founded all Civil Government upon Paternal Authority I may now proceed to shew That all Ecclesiastical Power bottoms upon the same Foundation For as in the first Ages of the world the Fathers of Families were vested with a Kingly Power over their own Posterity so also were they with the Priestly Office executing all the Holy Functions of Priesthood in their own Persons as appears from the unanimous testimony of Histories both Sacred and Prophane Thus we find all the Ancient Patriarchs Priests to their own Families which Office descended together with the Royal Dignity to the first-born of each Family And this custom of investing the Sovereign Power with the Supreme Priesthood was as divers Authors both Ancient and Modern observe universally practis'd over all Kingdoms of the world for well nigh 2500 years without any one president to the contrary In that among all Societies of men there is as great a necessity of publick Worship as of publick Justice the power whereof because it must be seated somewhere can properly belong to him alone in whom the Supreme Power resides in that he alone having authority to assign to every subject his proper function and among others this of the Priesthood the exercise whereof as he has power to transfer to another so may he if he please reserve it to himself And therefore this the wisdom of the elder Ages always practised in order to the better security of their Government as well knowing the tendency of Superstition and false notions of the divine worship to Tumults and Seditions and therfore to prevent the disturbances that might spring from Factions in Religion they were sollicitous to keep its management in their own immediate disposal And though in the Jewish Common-wealth the Priestly Office was upon reasons peculiar to that State separated by a divine positive command from the Kingly Power yet the Power and Jurisdiction of the Priest remained still subject to the Sovereign Prince their King always exercising a Supremacy over all persons and in all Causes Ecclesiastical Nothing can be more unquestionable than the precedents of David Solomon Hezekiah Iehu Iehosaphat Iosiah c. who exercised as full a Legislative Power in Affairs of
rod or in love and in the spirit of meekness i. e. Consider with your selves that seeing I have determined to visit the Church of Corinth whether when I come you had rather I should chastise you with the Apostolical Rod by exercising my Power of inflicting punishments and by consigning the refractory to those sharp and grievous Diseases that are wont immediately to follow Apostolical Censures or whether I should come with a more gentle and merciful design without being forced by your stubborness upon a necessity of using this severity among you As you behave your selves so may you expect to find me at my coming And thus again 2 Cor. 10. 6. He threatens them with his being in a readiness if he should come among them to revenge all their disobedience And upon this account he immediately professes himself not ashamed to boast of his Power and Authority in the Church And in the 13. Chapter of the same Epistle he again shakes the same Rod over them threatning that if their refractoriness force him to strike them with some Judgment that it should be a sharp and severe one If I come again I will not spare since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in me These extraordinary inflictions were signs and evidences of his Apostleship And he would make them know that he was Commissioned by Christ to teach and govern their Church by making them to feel the sad effects of his Miraculous Power if nothing else would satisfie them about the right of his Authority And to the same purpose is the same Apostles command to the same Church concerning the incestuous Corinthian 1 Cor. 5. 5. that they should deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh i. e. that they should denounce the sentence of Excommunication against him which would amount to no smaller a Punishment than his being resign'd up to the power and possession of some evil spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost. in 1. ad Cor. Hom. 15. to be tormented with Ulcers or some other bodily Diseases and Inflictions which was then the usual consequent of Excommunication The end of all which is as immediately follows The destruction of the flesh that the Spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Iesus i. e. that being humbled and brought to a due sense of his Sin by the sadness of his Condition and the heavy strokes of this cruel Executioner of the Divine Justice this might be a means of working him to Repentance and Reformation And to the same end did the same Apostle deliver Hymeneus and Alexander unto Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme that being vexed and tormented by some evil spirit this might take down their proud and haughty stomachs and make them cease to traduce and disparage his Apostolical Authority when they had smarted so severely for contradicting it And thus was the Divine Providence pleased in the first Ages of the Church when it wanted the assistance of the Civil Magistrate to supply that defect by his own Almighty Power so necessary is a coercive Jurisdiction to the due Government and Discipline of the Church that God himself was fain to bestow it on the Apostles in a miraculous manner And thus was the Primitive Discipline maintain'd by Miracles of severity as long as it wanted the Sword of the Civil Power But when Christianity had once prevail'd and triumphed over all the oppositions of Pagan Superstition and had gain'd the Empire of the world into its own possession and was become the Imperial Religion then began its Government to re-settle where nature had placed it and the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was annexed to the Civil Power For as soon as the Emperours thought themselves concern'd to look to its Government and Protection and were willing to abet the Spiritual Power of the Clergy with their Secular Authority then began the Divine Providence to withdraw the miraculous Power of the Church in the same manner as he did by degrees all the other extraordinary Gifts of the Apostolical Age as their necessity ceased as being now as well supplied by the natural ordinary Power of the Prince So that though the Exercise of the Ministerial Function still continued in the Persons that were thereunto Originally Commissioned by our Saviour the Exercise of its Authority and Jurisdiction was restored to the Imperial Diadem and the Bishops became then as they are now Ministers of State as well as Religion and challenged not any Secular Power but what they derived from the Prince who supposing them best able to understand and manage the Interests of Religion granted them Commissions for the Government of the Church under himself and vested them with as much Coercive Power as was necessary for the Execution of their Office and Jurisdiction In the same manner as Judges are deputed by the Supreme Authority of every Common-wealth to govern the Affairs of Justice and to inflict the Penalties of the Law upon Delinquents So that Bishops neither have nor ever had any Temporal Authority but only as they are the Kings Ecclesiastical Judges appointed by him to govern Affairs of Religion as Civil or Secular Judges are to govern Affairs of Justice § 17. And now that the Government of all the Affairs of the Church devolved upon the Royal Authority assoon as it became Christian is undeniably evident from all the Laws and Records of the Empire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the time that the Emperors became Christian the Disposal and Government of Church Affairs depended entirely on their Authority Constantine was no sooner settled in his Imperial Throne but he took the settlement of all Ecclesiastical matters into his own Cognizance He called Synods and Councils in order to the Peace and Government of the Church he ratified their Canons into Laws he prohibited the Conventicles of the Donatists and demolish'd their Meeting-Houses he made Edicts concerning Festivals the Rites of Sepulture the Immunities of Churches the Authority of Bishops the Priviledges of the Clergy and divers other things appertaining to the outward Polity of the Church In the exercise of which Jurisdiction he was carefully followed by all his Successours which cannot but be known to every man that is not as utterly ignorant of the Civil Law as he in the Comedy who supposed Corpus Iuris Civilis to be a Dutchman The Code the Authenticks the French Capitulars are full of Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions The first Book of the Code treats of nothing but Religion and the Rites and Ceremonies of Publick Worship the Priviledges of Ecclesiastical Men and Things the distinct Offices and Functions of the several degrees in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and the Power and Jurisdiction of Bishops both in Civil and Religious Affairs and infinite other things that immediately concern the Interests of Religion And then as for the Authenticks Ecclesiastical Laws are every where scattered up and down through the whole Volume which being divided into nine Collations has not
and by consequence the good of mankind And all I would perswade men to is only that they would do as much out of duty as St. Paul did out of civility that as he complied with the apprehensions of the Jews retaining his own private judgment to himself for the greater advantage of Religion so they would whatever their own perswasions are of some things not clearly and absolutely sinful comply with the determinations of their Governours when it is conducive to the nobler ends of Publick Peace and Tranquillity A thing in it self so good and so necessary that there are very few actions that it will not render virtuous whatever they are in themselves whenever they happen to be useful and instrumental to its attainment And therefore in all matters that are no indispensable duties of Religion he that acts cross to the commands of Authority has no sense either of the great ends of Order and Government or great duties of Humanity Modest Peaceableness Meekness and Civility i. e. He is a proud and factious person and has no other motive so to do but the pleasure of being peevish and disobedient In fine there is a vast difference between Liberty and Authority of Conscience the former consists in the Freedom of a mans own judgment and of this no Magistrate can deprive us in that he cannot tie up any mans understanding from judging of things as himself pleaseth But as for the latter that consists in the power over mens outward actions and this as far as it concerns all publick affairs every man does and of necessity must pass away to the Rulers of that Society he lives in Because though I have said it often enough already yet too often I cannot say it in that it is the main Key of the Controversie and yet but little if at all regarded by our Adversaries the very nature of Government consists in nothing else but a power of command over mens actions and therefore unless all men grant it away to their Governours they live not under Government but in a state of Anarchy Every man will be Prince and Monarch to himself and as free from all commands as if he lived out of all Society seeing only himself shall have any real Dominion over his own actions and his Governours shall not have power to command him any thing but what himself first thinks fit to do And I hope I need not to prove that this is a plain dissolution of all Government So that when men will be the absolute Masters of their own actions it is not the freedom of Conscience but its power and sovereignty for which they contend they will endure none to rule over them but themselves and force Princes to submit their Laws to their saucy and imperious humour And it is this they mean by their pretence to a tender Conscience i. e. A Conscience that scruples to be subject to Government that will in spight of all Publick Laws be entirely at its own Liberty that will not submit it self to any Rule but its own private perswasions that affects to be nice and squeamish against all the commands of its Superiours and loves to censure them upon the lightest and most slender presumptions and that will not yield up any thing of its own phantastick humour to its Princes will or the Churches Peace i. e. in effect the tenderness of their Consciences for which forsooth they must be born with consists in nothing else but their being the greatest and most Notorious Hereticks For the rankest sort of Heresie is nothing but the product of a peevish and contentious Spirit and an Heretick is one that delights in Quarrels and Factions whence Erasmus renders S. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sectarum Author a man that loves to be the Leader of a Party It is peevishness and obstinacy of will that turns small Errors into great Heresies Pride and Passion and whatsoever can make an opinion vicious are its Fundamental Ingredients and give it its essential Formality This vice lies not so much in the Opinions as in the tempers of men it is a stubborn and refractory disposition of mind or a peremptoriness in a mans own conceptions and therefore it is by Saint Paul reckon'd among the Fruits of the Flesh as being a kind of brutish peevishness that is directly opposed to that lenity and yieldingness of mind that is one of the choicest Fruits of the Spirit whence he advises not to confute but to admonish such an one i. e. That is quarrelsome and boisterous for every trifle and every fancy because through Pride and Perversness he is uncapable of instruction and therefore can only be advised and not disputed into Sobriety Or to use the phrase of Saint Paul he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow that is troublesome and contentious especially about the external Rites and Usages of the Church And such a malapert Non-Conformist he supposes disputing in the Church of Corinth that their Women ought contrary to their received Custom to be uncovered at Divine Service But he takes him up with this short and peremptory answer If any man seem to be contentious we have no such custom neither the Churches of God i. e. In things neither morally good nor evil as few external Rites are the practice of the Church is the warrant of their lawfulness and reason of their decency and that is satisfaction enough to any sober and peaceable mind And he that shall refractorily persist to controul it must be treated as a disturber of the Peace i. e. pitied and punished as are all other turbulent and seditious Persons When mens Consciences are so squeamish or so humorsome as that they will rise against the Customs and Injunctions of the Church they live in she must scourge them into order and chastise them not so much for their fond perswasion as for their troublesome peevishness And this use of the Churches Rods and Censures is so absolutely necessary that it is the only effectual way to preserve her from Factions and Contentions not only because upon this sort of men softer methods can make no impressions but also because if we remove the limits and boundaries of Discipline there will be no end of the follies and frenzies of brain-sick People And when they are once let loose who then can set bounds to the wildnesses of Godly Madness For this we have too clear a proof in the frantick practices of our Modern Sectaries who when they had inflamed their little Zeal against the Ceremonial Constitutions of our Church ran themselves into all manner of wild and extravagant gestures They measured the simplicity of Christs Worship by its opposition to all the Rules of Decency all Institutions of Order were unwarrantable Inventions and Traditions of Men all Custom was Superstition and all Discipline was Popish and Antichristian Novelty how uncouth and fantastick soever was their only Rule of Decency and every Sect distinguished it self from all others by some
ineffectual instruments of Uniformity because they have either been weakned through want of execution or in a manner cancell'd by the oppositions of Civil Constitutions For when Laws are bound under severe penalties and when the Persons who are to take cognisance of the Crime have not Power enough to punish it or are perpetually check'd and controul'd by a stronger Power no wonder if the Laws be affronted and despised and if instead of bringing mens minds to compliance and subjection they exasperate them into open contumacy Restraint provokes their stubbornness and yet redresses not the mischief And therefore it were better to grant an uncontroul'd Liberty by declaring for it than after having declared against it to grant it by silence and impunity The Prohibition disobliges Dissenters and that is one evil and the impunity allows them Toleration and that is a greater and where Governours permit what their Laws forbid there the Common-wealth must at once lose all the advantages of restraint and suffers all the inconveniences of Liberty So that as they would expect Peace and Settlement they must be sure at first to bind on their Ecclesiastical Laws with the streightest knot and afterward to keep them in force and countenance by the severest Execution in that wild and Fanatick Consciences are too headstrong to be curb'd with an ordinary severity therefore their restraints must be proportion'd to their unruliness and they must be managed with so much a greater care and strictness than all other principles of publick disturbance by how much they are more dangerous unruly § 8. For if Conscience be ever able to break down the restraints of Government and all men have Licence to follow their own perswasions the mischief is infinite and the folly endless and they seldom cease to wander from folly to folly till they have run themselves into all the whimsies and enormities that can debauch Religion or annoy the publick Peace The giddy Multitude are of a restless and stragling humour and yet withalso ignorant and injudicious that there is nothing so strange and uncouth which they will not take up with Zeal and Confidence Insomuch that there never yet was any Common-wealth that gave a real liberty to mens Imaginations that was not suddenly over-run with numberless divisions and subdivisions of Sects as was notorious in the late Confusions when Liberty of Conscience was laid as the Foundation of Settlement How was Sect built upon Sect and Church upon Church till they were advanced to such a height of Folly that the Usurpers themselves could find no other way to work their subversion and put an end to their extravagancies but by overturning their own Foundations and checking their growth by Laws and Penalties The humour of Fanaticising is a boundless folly it knows no restraints and if it be not kept down by the severity of Governours it grows and encreases without end or limit and never ceases to swell it self till it has broke down all the banks and restraints of Government Thus when the Disciplinarians had in pursuit of their own peevish and unreasonable Principles divided from the Church of England others upon a farther improvement of the same principles subdivided from them every new opinion was enough to found a new Church and Sect was spawn'd out of Sect till there were almost as many Churches as Families For when they were once parted from the order sobriety of the Church they lived in nothing could set bounds to their wild and violent Imaginations § 9. Schismaticks always run themselves into the same excess in the Church as Rebels and Seditious Persons do in the State who out of a hatred to Tyranny are restless till they have dissolved the Common-wealth into Anarchy Confusion and because some Kingly Governments have proved Tyrannical will allow no free States but under Republicks As was notorious in all the Apologies for the late Usurpers who took it for granted in general That all Government under a single Person was slavish and oppressive without respect to its particular Constitutions and that the very name of a Common-wealth was a sufficient preservation of the Peoples Liberties notwithstanding that those who managed it were never so Imperious and Arbitrary in the exercise of their Power And in the same manner our Church Dissenters out of abhorrency to the Papal Tyranny and Usurpation upon mens understandings never think the liberty of their Consciences sufficiently secured till they have shaken off all subjection to Humane Authority and because the Church of Rome by her unreasonable Impositions has invaded the Fundamental Liberties of mankind they presently conclude all restraints upon licentious Practices and Perswasions about Religion under the hated name of Popery And some Theological Empericks have so possess'd the peoples heads with this fond conceit that they will see no middle way between spiritual Tyranny and spiritual Anarchy and so brand all restraint of Government in Affairs of Religion as if it were Antichristian and never think themselves far enough from Rome till they are wandred as far as Munster Whereas the Church of England in her first Reformation was not so wild as to abolish all Ecclesiastical Authority but only removed it from those who had unjustly usurp'd it to its proper seat and restrain'd it within its due bounds and limits And because the Church of Rome had clogg'd Christianity with too many garish and burdensome Ceremonies they did not immediately strip her naked of all modest and decent Ornaments out of an over-hot opposition to their too flanting Pomp and Vanity but only cloathed her in such a Dress as became the Gravity and Sobriety of Religion And this is the Wisdom and Moderation of our Church to preserve us sober between two such unreasonable Extremes § 10. But not to run too hastily into particular disputes 't is enough at present to have proved in general the absolute necessity that Affairs of Religion should be subject to Government and then if they be exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Civil Power I shall demand Whether they are subject to any other Power or to none at all If the former then the Supreme Power is not Supreme but is subject to a Superiour in all matters of Religion or rather what is equally absurd there would be two Supreme Powers in every Common-wealth for it the Princes Jurisdiction be limited to Civil Affairs and the concerns of Religion be subject to another Government then may Subjects be obliged to what is impossible contradictory Commands and at the same time the Civil Magistrate requires him to defend his Country against an Invasion the Ecclesiastical Governour may command him to abandon its defence for the carrying on an Holy War in the Holy Land in order to the recovery of our Saviour's Sepulchre from the Possession of the Turks and Saracens But seeing no man can be subject to contradictory obligations 't is by consequence utterly impossible he should be subject to two Supreme Powers
peremptory soever some of them have been in asserting the Rights of their Supreme Power in Civil Affairs they have been forced to seem modest and diffident in the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and dare scarce own their Legislative Power in Religious Affairs only to comply with the saucy pretences of ungovernable and Tumultuary Zeal One notorious Instance whereof in our own Nation is the Iejunium Cecilianum the Wednesday Fast that was injoin'd with this clause of Exception That if any person should affirm it to be imposed with an Intention to bind the Conscience he should be punished like the spreaders of false News Which is plainly to them that understand it as a late Learned Prelate of our own observes a direct Artifice to evacuate the whole Law for as he excellently argues all Humane Power being derived from God and bound upon our Consciences by his Power not by Man he that says it shall not bind the Conscience says it shall be no Law it shall have no Authority from God and then it has none at all and if it be not tied upon the Conscience then to break it is no Sin and then to keep it is no Duty So that a Law without such an intention is a Contradiction it is a Law which binds only if we please and we may obey when we have a mind to it and to so much we are tied before the Constitution But then if by such a Declaration it was meant That to keep such Fasting-days was no part of a direct Commandment from God that is God had not required them by himself immediately and so it was abstracting from that Law no Duty Evangelical it had been below the wisdom of the Contrivers of it for no man pretends it no man says it no man thinks it and they might as well have declar'd That the Law was none of the Ten Commandments The matter indeed of this Law was not of any great moment but the Declaration annexed to it proved of a fatal and mischievous consequence for when once the unruly Consciences of the Puritans were got loose from the restraints of Authority nothing could give check to their giddy and furious Zeal but they soon broke out into the most impudent Affronts and Indignities against the Laws and ran themselves into all manner of disloyal Outrages against the State As is notoriously evident in the Writings and Practices of Cartwright Goodman Whittingham Gilby Whitehead Travers and other leading Rabbies of the Holy Faction whose Treatises are stuffed with as railing spightful and malicious Speeches both against their Prince the Clergy the Lords of the Council the Judges the Magistrates and the Laws as were ever publickly vented by the worst of Traytors in any Society in the world And as for the method of their Polity it was plainly no more than this first to reproach the Church with infamous and Abusive Dialogues and then to Libel the State with bitter and Scurrilous Pamphlets to possess mens minds with dislikes and jealousies about Publick Affairs whisper about reproachful and slanderous Reports inveigle the people with a thousand little and malicious Stories enter into secret Leagues and Confederacies foment Discontents and Seditions and in every streight and exigence of State threaten and beleaguer Authority In fine the scope of all their Sermons and Discourses was to perswade their Party that if Princes refuse to reform Religion 't is lawful for the People with Direction of their Godly Ministers i. e. themselves to do it and that by violent and forcible courses And whither this Principle in process of time led them the Story is too long too sad and too well known to be here repeated 't is sufficient that it improved it self into the greatest Villanies concluded in the blackest Tragedy that was ever acted upon this Island § 22. Well then to sum up the result of this Discourse 't is evident we see both from Reason and Experience what a powerful influence Religion has upon the peace and quiet of Kingdoms that nothing so effectually secures the publick Peace or so easily works its disturbance and ruine as it s well or ill Administration and therefore that there is an absolute necessity that there be some Supreme Power in every Common-wealth to take care of its due Conduct and Settlement that this must be the Civil Magistrate whose Office it is to secure the publick Peace which because he cannot sufficiently provide for unless he have the Power and Conduct of Religion its Government must of necessity be seated in him and none else So that those persons who would exempt Conscience and all Religious Matters from the Princes Power must make him either a Tyrant or an impotent Prince for if he take upon him to tye Laws of Religion upon their Consciences then according to their Principles he usurps an unlawful Dominion violates the Fundamental Rights and Priviledges of Mankind and invades the Throne and Authority of God himself But if he confess that he cannot then does he clearly pass away the bigest Security of his Government and lay himself open to all the Plots and Villanies that can put on the Mask of Religion And therefore should any Prince through unhappy miscarriages in the State be brought into such streights and exigences of Affairs as that he cannot restrain the head-strong Inclinations of his Subjects without the hazard of raising such Commotions and Disturbances as perhaps he can never be able to allay and so should be forced in spight of himself to indulge them their Liberty in their Fansies and Perswasions about Religion yet unless he will devest himself of a more material and more necessary part of his Authority than if he should grant away his Power of the Militia or his Prerogative of ratifying all Civil Laws unless I say he will thus hazard his Crown and make himself too weak for Government by renouncing the best part of his Supremacy he must lay an Obligation upon all Persons to whom he grants this their Religious freedom to profess that 't is matter of meer favour and indulgence and that he has as much Power to govern all the publick Affairs of Religion as any other matters that are either conducive or prejudicial to the publick Peace and Quiet of the Common-wealth And if they be brought to this Declaration they will but confess themselves to say no worse Turbulent and Seditious persons by acknowledging That they refuse their Obedience to those Laws which the Supreme Authority has just Power to impose CHAP. II. A more Particular Account of the Nature and Necessity of a Sovereign Power in Affairs of Religion The Contents THE Parallel between matters relating to Religious Worship and the Duties of Morality Moral Vertues the most material Parts of Religion This proved 1. from the Nature of Morality and the Design of Religion 2. By a particular Induction of all the Duties of Mankind A Scheme of Religion reducing all its Branches either to the Vertues or
Instruments of Morality Of the Villany of those mens Religion that are wont to distinguish between Grace and Virtue They exchange the substance of true Goodness for meer Metaphors and Allegories Metaphors the only cause of our present Schism and the only ground of the different Subdivisions among the Schismaticks themselves The Vnaccountableness of Mens Conceits That when the main Ends and Designs of Religion are undoubtedly subject to the Supreme Power they should be so eager to exempt its Means and Circumstances from the same Authority The Civil Magistrate may determine new Instances of Virtue how much more new Circumstances of Worship As he may enjoyn any thing in Morality that contradicts not the ends of Morality so may be in Religious Worship if he oppose not its design He may command any thing in the Worship of God that does not tend to debauch Mens practices or their conceptions of the Deity All the subordinate Duties both of Morality and Religious Worship are equally subject to the Determinations of Humane Authority § 1. HAving in the former Chapter sufficiently made out my first Proposition viz. That 't is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion I now proceed to the proof of the second thing proposed viz. That those who would deprive the Supreme Civil Power of its Authority in reference to the Conduct of the Worship of God are forced to allow it in other more material parts of Religion though they are both liable to the same Inconveniences and Objections Where I shall have a fair opportunity to state the true extent of the Magistrates Power over Conscience in reference to Divine Worship by shewing it to be the same with his Power over Conscience in matters of Morality and all other Affairs of Religion And here it strikes me with wonder and amazement to consider That men should be so shy of granting the Supreme Magistrate a Power over their Consciences in the Rituals and External Circumstances of Religious Worship and yet be so free of forcing it upon him in the Essential Duties of Morality which are at least as great and material Parts of Religion as pleasing to God and as indispensably necessary to Salvation as any way of Worship in the World The Precepts of the Moral Law are both perfective of our own Natures and conducive to the Happiness of others and the Practice of Vertue consists in living suitably to the Dictates of Reason Nature And this is the substance and main Design of all the Laws of Religion to oblige Mankind to behave themselvs in all their actions as becomes Creatures endued with Reason and Understanding and in ways suitable to Rational Beings to prepare and qualifie themselves for the state of Glory and Immortality And as this is the proper End of all Religion That Mankind might live happily here and happily hereafter so to this end nothing contributes more than the practice of all Moral Vertues which will effectually preserve the Peace and Happiness of Humane Societies and advance the Mind of Man to a nearer approach to the Perfection of the Divine Nature every particular Vertue being therefore such because 't is a Resemblance and Imitation of some of the Divine Attributes So that Moral Vertue having the strongest and most necessary influence upon the End of all Religion viz. Mans Happiness 't is not only its most material and useful Part but the ultimate End of all its other Duties And all true Religion can consist in nothing else but either the Practice of Vertue it self or the use of those Means and Instruments that contribute to it § 2. And this beside the Rational Account of the thing it self appears with an undeniable evidence from the best of Demonstrations i. e. an Induction of all Particulars The whole Duty of Man refers either to his Creator or his Neighbour or himself All that concerns the two last is confessedly of a Moral Nature and all that concerns the first consists either in Praising of God or Praying to him The former is a Branch of the Vertue of Gratitude and is nothing but a thankful and humble temper of mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us so that this part of Devotion issues from the same virtuous quality that is the Principle of all other Resentments and Expressions of Gratitude only those Acts of it that are terminated on God as their Object are styled Religious and therefore Gratitude and Devotion are not divers Things but only different Names of the same Thing Devotion being nothing else but the Virtue of Gratitude towards God The latter viz. Prayer is either put up in our own or other mens behalfs If for others 't is an Act of that Virtue we call Kindness or Charity If for our selves the things we pray for unless they be the Comforts and Enjoyments of this life are some or other virtuous Qualities and therefore the proper and direct use of Prayer is to be instrumental to the Virtues of Morality So that all Duties of Devotion excepting only our returns of Gratitude are not Essential parts of Religion but are only in order to it as they tend to the Practice of Virtue and moral Goodness and their Goodness is derived upon them from the moral Virtues to which they contribute and in the same proportion they are conducive to the ends of Virtue they are to be valued among the Ministeries of Religion All Religion then I mean the Practical Part is either Virtue it self or some of its Instruments and the whole Duty of man consists in being Virtuous and all that is enjoin'd him beside is in order to it And what else do we find enforc'd and recommended in our Saviour's Sermons beside heights of Morality What does St. Paul discourse of to Felix but moral matters Righteousness and Temperance and Iudgment to come And what is it that men set up against Morality but a few figurative Expressions of it self that without it are utterly insignificant 'T is not enough say they to be completely Virtuous unless we have Grace too But when we have set aside all manner of Virtue let them tell me what remains to be call'd Grace and give me any Notion of it distinct from all Morality that consists in the right order and government of our Actions in all our Relations and so comprehends all our Duty and therefore if Grace be not included in it 't is but a Phantasm and an Imaginary thing So that if we strip those Definitions that some men of late have bestowed upon it of Metaphors and Allegories it will plainly signifie nothing but a vertuous temper of mind and all that the Scripture intends by the Graces of the Spirit are only Vertuous Qualities of the Soul that are therefore styled Graces because they were derived purely from Gods
Common-wealths they could not want Prudence to Judge what Circumstances were conducive to Order and Decency in Publick Worship And if we take a Survey of all the Forms of Divine Service practised in the Christian Church there is not any of them can so much as pretend to be appointed in the Word of God but depend on the Authority of the Civil Power in the same manner as all Customs and Laws of Civil Government do And therefore to quarrel with those Forms of Publick Worship that are established by Authority only because they are Humane Institutions is at once notorious Schism and Rebellion For where a Religion is Establish'd by the Laws whoever openly refuses Obedience plainly rebels against the Government Rebellion being properly nothing else but an open denial of Obedience to the Civil Power Nor can Men of this Principle live Peaceably in any Church in Christendom in that there is not a Church in the World that has not peculiar Rites and Customs and Laws of Government and Discipline § 7. But of this I shall have occasion to account elsewhere and shall rather chuse to observe here from what I have discoursed of the Use and Nature of Outward Worship the Prodigious Impertinency of that clamour some men have for so many years kept up against the Institution of Significant Ceremonies when 't is the only Use of Ceremonies as well as all other outward Expressions of Religion to be significant In that all Worship is only an Outward Sign of Inward Honour and is indifferently perform'd either by Words or Actions for respect may as well be signified by Deeds and Postures and Visible Solemnities as by Solemn Expressions Thus to approach the Divine Majesty with such Gestures as are wont to betoken Reverence and Humility is as proper a Piece of Worship as to Celebrate his Greatness by Solemn Praises And to offer Sacrifices and Oblations was among the Ancients the same sort of Worship as to return Thanksgivings they being both equally outward Signs of Inward Love and Gratitude And therefore there can be no more Exception against the Signification of Ceremonies than of Words seeing this is the proper Office of both in the Worship of God And as all Forms and Ceremonies and Outward Actions of External Worship are in a manner equally Significant so are they equally Arbitrary only some happen to be more Universally Practised and others to be Confined to some particular Times and Places Kneeling lying Prostrate being Bare-headed Lifting up the Hands or Eyes are not more naturally Significant of Worship and Adoration than putting off the Shoes bowing the Head or bending the Body and if some are more generally used than others that proceeds not from their Natural Significancy but from Custom and Casual Prescriptions and to Bow the Body when we mention the Name of Iesus is as much a natural signification of Honour to his Person as Kneeling or being Bare-headed or lifting up the Hands or Eyes when we offer up our Prayers to him But if all Outward Actions become to betoken Honour by Institution then whatsoever Outward Signs are appointed by the Common-wealth unless they are Customary Marks of Contempt and so carry in them some Antecedent Vndecency are proper Signs of Worship for if Actions are made Significant by Agreement those are most so whose signification is ratified by Publick Consent § 8. So that all the Magistrates Power of instituting Significant Ceremonies amounts to no more than a Power of Determining what shall or shall not be Visible Signs of Honour and this certainly can be no more Usurpation upon the Consciences of men than if the Sovereign Authority should take upon it self as some Princes have done to define the Signification of Words For as Words do not naturally denote those things which they are used to represent but have their Import Stampt upon them by consent and Institution and and may if Men would agree to it among themselves be made Marks of Things quite contrary to what they now signifie So the same Gestures and Actions are indifferently capable of signifying either Honour or Contumely and therefore that they may have a certain and setled meaning 't is necessary their Signification should be Determined and unless this be done either by some Positive Command or Publick Consent or some other way there can be no such thing as Publick Worship in the World in that its proper End and Usefulness is to express Mens Agreement in giving Honour to the Divine Majesty and therefore unless the Signs by which this Honour is signified be Publick and Uniform 't is not Publick Worship because there is no Publick Signification of Honour So far is it from being unlawful for Governours to define Significant Ceremonies in Divine Worship that it is rather Necessary in that unless they were defined it would cease to be Publick Worship And when different men worship God by different Actions according to their different Fansies 't is not Publick but Private Worship in that they are not Publick but Private Signs of Honour So that Uniformity in the Outward Actions of Religious Worship is of the same Use as certainty in the Signification of Words because otherwise they were no Publick Expressions of Honour And therefore to sum up the whole Result of this Discourse If all Internal Actions of the Soul are beyond the Jurisdiction of Humane Power if by them the substance of Religious Worship be perform'd if all Outward Forms of Worship have no other Use than only to be Instruments to express Inward Religion and if the Signification of Actions be of the same Nature with that of Words then when the Civil Magistrate takes upon him to determine any particular Forms of Outward Worship 't is after all that hideous and ridiculous Noise that is raised against it of no worse Consequence than if he should go about to define the Signification of all Words used in the Worship of God CHAP. IV. Of the Nature of all Actions Intrinsecally Evil and their Exemption from the Authority of Humane Laws against Mr. Hobs with a full confutation of his whole Hypothesis of Government The Contents NO Magistrate can Command Actions Internally Evil. The Reason hereof is not because Men are in any thing free from the Supreme Authority in Earth but because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven To take off all Obligations antecedent to Humane Laws is utterly to destroy all Government Mr. Hobs his Hypothesis concerning the Nature and Original of Government proposed It s Absurdity demonstrated from its Inconsistency with the Natural Constitution of Things The Principles of Government are to be Adapted not to an Imaginary but to the Real State of Nature This Hypothesis apparently denies either the Being of God or the Goodness and Wisdom of Providence It irrecoverably destroys the Safety of all Societies of Mankind in the World It leaves us in as miserable Condition under the State of Government as we were in his supposed Natural State of
to go about to confute the Phantastick Theory of things only by demonstrating the Groundlesness of the Conceit it being the fashion and humour of those men I have to do with to embrace any Hypothesis how precarious soever if it do but serve the purposes of Baseness and Irreligion and therefore I shall not content my self with barely proving the weakness of its Foundation but shall confute and shame it too by shewing it to be palpably false absurd and mischievous from these ensuing Considerations § 3. First then the Hypothesis which he lays as the Basis of all his Discourse is infinitely false and absurd For what can be more incongruous than to proceed upon the supposal of such a state of Nature as never was nor ever shall be and is so far from being sutable to the natural frame of things that 't is absolutely inconsistent with it And though Philosophers are so civil among themselves with how much reason I now determine not as to allow one another the Liberty when they frame Theories and Hypotheses of things to suppose some precarious Principles yet are they never so fond as to grant such Fundamental Suppositions as are apparently false and incongruous and repugnant to the Real State of things or if any will take upon them that unwarrantable liberty of Invention yet however it would be monstrously impertinent to lay down their own lamentable Fictions as the fundamental Reasons of the Truth and reality of things And yet with this gross and inexcusable absurdity is this Hypothesis most notoriously chargeable For when it has once supposed without ever attempting to prove it that the State of Nature is a State of War and that by Nature all men have a right to all things and come into the World without any Obligations to mutual Justice and Honesty it from thence concludes That in a bare State of Nature there can be no right and wrong That what mischiefs soever men may do to each other they can do no injuries That the first Reason and Foundation of all Natural Right is Self-preservation and that in pursuance of this Principle men enter into Societies bind themselves to an observance of the Laws of Justice and natural Equity by mutual Bonds and Covenants and think themselves engaged to observe them only in order to self-interest So that if we remove this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this fundamental Falshood that the state of Nature is a state of War and Anarchy all the subsequent Propositions will immediately appear to be as Groundless as they are Unreasonable and there will not remain the least shadow of Reason to believe private Interest the only Reason of right and wrong or the first and fundamental Law of Nature and this Authors City will appear to stand upon no firmer Foundation than a Fable and a Falshood and his Hypothesis so grosly absurd and incongruous as would be highly blameable in the contrivance of a Dramatick Plot. But if instead of conforming the Principles of Justice and Government to this false and imaginary state of the World we take a serious view of the true and real posture of the Nature of things the dictates of Reason that must naturally result from thence will be as contrary to some of those this Author hath assign'd as the Natural State of things is to this imaginary one Namely that there was a first Cause of Humane Kind and that this First Cause is a Being endued with Goodness and Equity and therefore that when he made Mankind he design'd their Welfare and felicity and by consequence created them in such a condition in which they might acquire it All men therefore having by the Divine Appointment a common Right and Title to Happiness which cannot be obtain'd without Society nor Society subsist without mutual Aids of Love and Friendship because we are not self-sufficient but stand in need of mutual assistances from hence it follows That as every man is obliged to act for his own good so also to aim at the common good of Mankind because without this the natural Right that every individual man has to happiness cannot possibly be obtain'd so that there will plainly arise from the Constitution of Humane Nature an Essential Iustice that demands of every man Offices of love and kindness to others as well as to himself in that without this that Common welfare and happiness which Nature or rather that Divine Providence that made it design'd for all and every individual of Mankind must become utterly unattainable And hence the sole Fountain of all the Mischiefs and Miseries in the World is excess of unreasonable self-love and neglect of all other interests but our own and all such as separate their own Concerns from the Common Interest are the profess'd Enemies of Mankind and therefore 't is the only aim of all the just Laws and wise Philosophy in the world to assign reasonable allowances between Self-love and Society And if all men would be just and impartial between themselves and the Publick i. e. all others there would be no use of Laws nor Judges this being the only Office of Publick Justice to balance every mans private interest Well then because there is an absolute necessity that the Government of the World must be suited to and established upon the Natural Condition of Humane Nature hence it is that it is made as natural to the Being as 't is necessary to the preservation of Mankind and that as we cannot subsist so neither can we be born out of Society he that made us having made this our natural Condition that we could not possibly come into the World but under a state of Government all Children being actually as soon as born under the Power and Authority of their Parents and therefore as Mankind cannot continue without Propagation so neither can Propagation without Government and to be a Subject is as natural upon being born as to be a Man Now 't is certain that that only can be accounted the State of Nature that was made and design'd by the Author of Nature for if it be not suitable to that Order and Condition of things that he has establish'd 't is preternatural And therefore seeing he did not create Multitudes of men together out of each others Power and in a State of War and Hostility but begun the Race of Humane Kind in a Single Person by whom the Community of Men was to be Propagated that must be the State of Nature in which it was at first founded and by which it is still continued But if men will feign such an imaginary State of Nature as is utterly contradictory to the Real and then upon such an unnatural Frame of Affairs establish our natural Rights 't is no wonder if they prove contrary to our Common Interests seeing they are suited to a contrary State of things § 4. Secondly No man can seriously embrace this Hypothesis that does not firmly believe either 1. That there never was any Author
of Humane Nature but that a multitude of men hapned by chance to arise like Mushromes out of the Earth altogether who out of diffidence and jealousie one of another for want of acquaintance shun'd Society and withdrew like all other Beasts of Prey into Dens and secret retirements where they lived poor and solitary as Bats and Owls and subsisted like Vermine by robbing and filching from one another till finding this way of living lamentably unsafe and uneasie every man being always upon the guard against every man and in continual fear and danger from the whole Community they grew weary of this forlorn and comfortless way of living and thence some that were more wise or more cowardly than others when they chanced to meet in their wild rangings after Prey instead of belabouring one another with Snagsticks and beating out each others brains made signs of Parley and so began to treat of Terms of mutual Peace and Assistance and so by degrees to win others into their Party till they hearded together in small Rendezvouses like the little Common-wealths of the savage Americans which in process of time grew up into larger Societies from whence at length came the different Nations and Governments of the World But if this fortuitous Original of humane Nature be too absurd and ridiculous to be asserted then 2. It must be supposed that there was a first Author and Creator of Mankind and if there were then whoever believes this Hypothesis must withal believe that he contrived things so ill that unless his Creatures had by chance been more provident than himself they must of necessity have perish'd as soon as they were made and therefore that the Well-being of the World is to be entirely attributed to mans Wit and not to Gods Providence who sent his Creatures into it in such a condition as should oblige them to seek their own mutual ruine and destruction so that had they continued in that state of War he left them in they must have lived and died like Gladiators and have unavoidably perish'd at one time or other by one anothers Swords and therefore that Mankind owe the comfort of their lives not at all to their Creator but entirely to themselves forasmuch as the very Laws of Nature whereby according to this Hypothesis the World is preserved were not establish'd by the Divine Providence but are only so many Rules of Art being as all other Maximes of Prudence and Policy are Inventions of humane Wit and suppose man not in the natural state and posture of War in which God left him but in a preternatural one of his own contriving But certainly the Deity that made us if we suppose him good made us not to be miserable for so we must unavoidably have been in a perpetual state of War and therefore to suppose he both made and left us in that condition is directly to deny our Creators goodness And then if we suppose him wise we cannot imagine he would frame a Creation to destroy it self unless we can believe his only design was to sport himself in the folly and madness of his Creatures by beholding them by all the ways of force and fraud to conspire their own mutual destruction and therefore if the Creation of man were a product of the Divine Wisdom or Goodness his natural State must have been a condition of Peace and not such a State of War that should naturally tend to his misery ruine and utter destruction § 5. 3. This Hypothesis irrecoverably destroys the safety of all Societies of Mankind in the World for if personal safety and private interest be the only Foundation of all the Laws of Nature or Principles of Equity i. e. If men endeavour Peace and enter into Contracts of mutual Trust if they invade not the Proprieties of others if they think themselves obliged to promote the good of the Society if they submit themselves to the Laws of the Common-wealth if they practise Justice Equity Mercy and all other Virtues if they refrain from Cruelty Pride Revenge and all other Vices only to secure their own personal safety and interest then whenever this Obligation ceases all the Ties to Justice and Equity that derive all their Force and Reason from it must also cease and when any single Person can hope to advance his own private Interest by the ruine of the Publick it will be lawful for him to effect it and War Rebellion and injuries will be at least as innocent as Faith Justice and Obedience because these are good only in order to private Interest and therefore when those chance to be as conducive to it they will then be as just and lawful So that this single Principle does as effectually work the subversion of all Government as if men were taught the most professed Principles of Rebellion as that all Government is Tyranny and Usurpation that his Majesties possession of the Crown is his best Title that whoever has wit or strength enough to wrest his Scepter from him has right to hold it For as men of these and the like perswasions will never act them but when opportunity invites and will be obedient to any Government till they can destroy it So will those other rebel as soon as they think it their Interest For when ever they can hope to mend their Fortunes by Rebellion the same obligation that restrain'd them from it does now as forcibly invite them to it that is self-interest i. e. they cannot but think Rebellion lawful as oft as they think it safe And there are no Villains so mad or foolish as to attempt it upon other grounds So that though this Author has assign'd us some not unuseful Laws of Nature yet has he effectually enervated their force and usefulness by resolving the reason of their obligation into self-interest and so laying the Fundamental Principles of all Injustice as the only Foundation of all the Rules of Justice For as 't is the Nature and Office of Justice to maintain the Common Right of all and to secure my Neighbours happiness as well as my own so the formal obliquity of all Injustice lies in pursuing of a private Interest without regard to the Common good of all and every member of the Society And therefore if private Interest be the only reason and enforcement of the Laws of Nature men will have no other Motive to obey their Constitutions than what will as strongly oblige to break them i. e. if men are just and honest for no other reason than because 't is their Interest then when 't is their Interest they may and if they are wise will be unjust and dishonest And so men that owne the Laws of 〈…〉 this Principle may be Villains 〈…〉 of all their restraints and the most lewd and profligate Wretches will as well as they be just or unjust as it serves their turns For this Principle that engages men to be honest only as long as they must will as effectually oblige them
Enemies to the Faith Besides that all men are naturally more zealous about the Principles in which they differ than about those in which they agree Opposition whets and sharpens their zeal because it endangers the truths they contend for whereas those that are not opposed are secure and out of hazard of being stifled by the adverse Party that is concern'd equally with themselves for their preservation And hence we see by daily Experience that men who are tame and cool enough in the Fundamentals of Religion are yet utterly impatient about their own unlearned and impertinent Wranglings and lay a greater stress upon the Speculations of their own Sect than upon the Duties of an absolute and indispensable necessity only because those are contradicted by their Adversaries and these are not Well then seeing all dissenting Parties are possess'd with a furious and passionate zeal to promote their own perswasions and seeing they are perswaded that their zeal is in God's Cause and against the Enemies of God's Truths How vain is it to expect Peace and Settlement in a Common-wealth where their Religion keeps men in a state of War where zeal is arm'd against zeal and Conscience encounters Conscience where the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls lies at stake and where Curse ye Meroz is the Word of both Parties So that whatsoever projects fansiful men may propose to themselves if we consider the passions of humane Nature as long as Differences and Competitions in Religion are kept up it will be impossible to keep down mutual hatreds jealousies and animosities and so many divided Churches as there are in a State there will ever be so many different Armies who though they are not always in actual fighting are always in a disposition to it Beside where there are divided Interests of Religion in the same Kingdom how shall the Prince behave himself towards them If he go about to ballance them against one another this is the ready way to forfeit his Interest in them all and whilst he seems concern'd for no Party no Party will be really concern'd for him every one having so much esteem for it self as to think it ought to enjoy more of his favour and countenance than any other And withal 't is an infinite trouble and difficulty to poise them so equally but that one Party shall grow more strong and numerous than the rest and then there is no appeasing their zeal till it has destroyed and swallowed up all the weaker Interests But suppose he be able to manage them so prudently as always to keep the ballance equal he does thereby but keep up so many Parties that are ready form'd to joyn with any emergent Quarrels of State and whenever the Grandees fall out 't is but heading one of these and there is an Army And let men but reflect upon all the late Civil Wars and Rebellions of Christendom and then tell me which way they could either have been commenced or continued had it not been for different Factions of Religion If he side with one Party and by his favour mount it above the rest that not only discontents but combines all the other dissenting Factions into an united opposition against his own and it becomes their common Interest to work and contrive its ruine its prosperity does but exasperate the competition of all its Rivals into rage and indignation and as success makes it self more secure in its settlement so it makes them more restless and industrious to overturn it No Party can ever be quiet or content as long as 't is under any other but will ever be heaving and struggling to dismount the Power that keeps it down and therefore we find that all Dissenters from the establish'd frame of things are always assaulting it with open violence or undermining it by secret practices and will hazard the State and all to free themselves from oppression and oppress'd they are as long as they are the weaker Party And therefore we never find this way of Toleration put in practice under any Government but where other Exigences of State required and kept up a standing Army and by this means 't is not so difficult to prevent the Broils and Contentions of Zeal but this is only a more violent way of governing mens Consciences and instead of restraining them by Laws Penalties it does the same thing with Forts and Cittadels So that unless we are willing to put our selves to the expence and hazard of keeping up standing Forces indulgence to dissenting Zealots does but expose the State to the perpetual squabbles and Wars of Religion And we may as well suppose all men to be wise and honest and upon that account cancel all the Laws of Justice and Civil Government as imagine where there are divided Factions in Religion that men will be temperate and peaceable in the enjoyment of their own conceits and not disturb the publick Peace to promote and establish them when 't is so well known from the experience of all Ages that nothing has ever been a more effectual Engine to work popular Commotions than Changes and Reformations in Religion Sect. 6. So that though the State think it self unconcern'd to restrain mens Perswasions and Opinions yet methinks they should be a little concern'd to prevent the Tumults and Disturbances that naturally arise from their propagation And could it be secured That if all men were indulged their liberty they would use it modestly and be satisfied with their own freedom then I confess Toleration of all Opinions would not be of so fatal and dangerous consequence as if all men were as wise and honest as Socrates they might as well as he be their own Law and left entirely to their own Liberty as to all the entercourses and transactions of Humane life But alas this is made infinitely impossible from the corrupt Passions and Humours of Men All Sects ever were and ever will be fierce and unruly to inlarge their own Interests invading or supplanting whatever opposes their increase and will all certainly conspire the Ruine of that Party that prevails and triumphs over the rest every Faction ever apprehending it its due to be Supreme and there will ever be a necessity of Reformation as long as all Factions are not uppermost and it will be crime enough in any one Party to be superiour to another So that if all our dissenting Sectaries were allowed their entire liberty nothing can be expected especially from people of their complexion but that they should all plot together against the present Establishment of the Church every Combination being fully perswaded of its worthlesness in comparison to it self for unless they had apprehended their own way more excellent they had never divided from ours Beside that 't is a fundamental Principle that runs through all their Sects That they are bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to labour their utmost to establish the Worship of God in in its greatest Purity and Perfection and withal
apprehending that way now established by Law defective and superstitious they cannot but be bound in Conscience to endeavour its utter ruine and subversion which Design when they have once compassed they entertaining the same Opinion of each other as they do of us they will turn their Weapons upon themselves and with as much Zeal contrive each others destruction as they did ours and the result of all will be That the Common-wealth will be eternally torn with intestine Quarrels and Commotions till it grow so wise again as to suppress all Parties but one that is till it return to that wisdom and Prudence from whence it parted by Toleration And therefore nothing can be more vulgarly observable than that though all Parties whilst under the Power of a more prevailing interest have cried up Toleration as the most effectual instrument to shake and dissettle the present frame of things yet have they no sooner effected their Design than they have immediately put in to scramble for the Supremacy themselves which if they once obtain they have ever used with as much rigour and severity upon all Dissenters as they ever felt themselves So that this Principle of Liberty of Conscience much resembles that of community of Goods for as those men cry up equality of Estates as a most reasonable piece of Justice that have but a small share themselves yet whenever their Pretence succeeds and they have advanced their own Fortunes and served their own turns they are the first that shall then cry it down and oppress their inferiours with more cruelty than ever themselves felt whilst in a lower Station so do those whose private perswasions happen to cross the publick Laws easily pretend to Liberty of Conscience One must yield and because their stubborn Zeal scorns to bend to the Commands of Authority these must be forced to give place to that So that when Conscience and Authority happen to encounter all the Dispute is Which shall have most force in Publick Laws whether my own or my Princes opinion But how plausibly soever this Notion may be pleaded by men out of Power 't is ever laid aside as soon as ever they come into it and the greatest pretenders to it when oppress'd are always the greatest Zealots against it as soon as it has mounted themselves into Power as well knowing it to be the most effectual Engine to overturn any settled Frame of things In brief 'T is Reformation men would have and not Indulgence which they only seek to gain ground for the working of their Mines and planting of their Engines to subvert the established state of things For if we demand wherefore they would be born with in their Dissentions from our way of Worship They answer Because they cannot conform to it in Conscience i. e. because they apprehend it sinful for otherwise they must think themselves guilty of the most intollerable Schism and Rebellion to create Factions and Divisions in a Common-wealth when they may avoid it without any violence to their Consciences But if they apprehend our way of Worship upon any account sinful then are they plainly obliged in Conscience to root it out as displeasing to Almighty God and in its stead to plant and establish their own And now if this be the Issue of this Principle let Magistrates consider how fatal and hazardous alterations in Religion have ever been to the Common-wealth They cannot pluck a Pin out of the Church but the State immediately shakes and totters and if they will allow their Subjects the liberty of changing and innovating in Religion as it is apparent from the Premisses they must if they allow them their pretences to liberty of Conscience they do but give them advantages for Eternal Popular Commotions and Disturbances Sect. 7. Fourthly A bare Indulgence of Men in the free exercise of any Religion different from the publick profession can lay no obligation upon the Party Perhaps when the rigour of a Law under which they have smarted a while is at first relaxed this indeed they may at present take for a kindness because 't is really a favour in comparison to their former Condition and therefore as long as the memory of that remains fresh upon their minds it may possibly affect them with some grateful Resentments But alas these affections quickly vanish and then what before was Favour is now become Iustice and their Prince did but restore them to their just and lawful rights when he took off his Tyrannical Laws and Impositions from the Consciences of his best Subjects While those unjust Laws were in force he oppress'd and persecuted the People of God and therefore when he cancels them all the kindness he is guilty of is only to repent of his Tyranny and Persecution which is no favour and by consequence no Obligation And what is more considerable all the dissenting Parties he permits and does not countenance he disobliges Is this all the kindness say they he can afford the Godly not to persecute them by Law and force to their utter ruine Are we beholden to him barely for suffering us to live in our native Soil and enjoy only our fundamental Priviledges Is this all the reward and encouragement we deserve Are not we the praying and serious People of the Nation for whose sakes only the Lord is pleased to stay among us And were it not for us would he not perfectly forsake and abandon it And is this all our requital to be thus slighted and thus despised only for our zeal to God and serviceableness to the Publick by that power and interest we have in him to keep him among us whilst vain and useless persons are countenanced and encouraged with all places of Office and Employment These are the natural results of the minds of men who think themselves scorn'd and disrespected especially when flush'd with any conceit and high opinion of their own Godliness And 't is an eternal Truth That for the godly Party not to be uppermost is and ever will be Persecution For nothing more certain than that all men entertain the best opinion of their own Party otherwise they had never enrolled themselves in it and therefore if the State value them not at as high a rate as they do themselves they are scorn'd and injured because they have not that favour and countenance they deserve And so unless they have Publick encouragement as well as indulgence they have reason to be discontented because they have not their due And if the Prince do not espouse their Party he undervalues and consequently disgusts them and if he joyn himself to any other as there is a necessity of his owning some Profession he does not only disoblige but alienate their Affections by embracing an Interest they both hate and scorn For where-ever there is difference of Religion there is opposition too because men would never divide from one another but upon grounds of real dislike and therefore they are always contrary in those Differences
what a cross-grain'd thing is it to restrain things only because they are matters of liberty and first to forbid Princes to command them because they are lawful and then Subjects to do them only because they are commanded But to expose the absurdity of this Principle by some more particular considerations §2 First The follies and mischiefs that issue from it are so infinite that there can be no setled Frame of things in the World that it will not overturn and if it be admitted to all intents and purposes there can never be an end of disturbances and alterations in the Church in that there never was nor ever can be any Form of Worship in the World that is to all circumstances prescribed in the World of God and therefore if this Exception be thought sufficient to destroy one there is no remedy but it may as occasion requires serve as well to cashier all and by consequence take away all possibility of settlement Thus when upon this Principle the Disciplinarians separated from the Church of England the Independents upon the same ground separated from them the Anabaptists from the Independents the Familists from the Anabaptists and the Quakers from the Familists and every Faction divided and subdivided among themselves into innumerable Sects and Undersects and as long as men act up to it there is no remedy but Innovations must be endless If it be urged against Lord-Bishops 't is as severe against Lay-Presbyters if against Musick in Churches then farewel singing of Psalms in Rhime if against the Cross why not against sprinkling in Baptism and if against Cathedral Churches then down go all Steeple-Houses If against one thing then against every thing and there is nothing in the exteriour parts of Religion but the two Sacraments that can possibly escape its impeachment All the pious Villanies that have ever disturbed the Christian World have shelter'd themselves in this grand Maxime that Iesus Christ is the only Law-maker to his Church and whoever takes upon himself to prescribe any thing in Religion invades his Kingly Office The Gnosticks of old so abused this pretence to justifie any seditious and licentious practices that they made Heathen Princes look upon Christianity as an Enemy to Government and the Fanaticks of late have so vex'd and embroil'd Christendom with the same Principle that Christian Princes themselves begin to be of the same perswasion 'T is become the only Patron and Pretext of Sedition and when any Subjects have a mind to set themselves free from the Laws of their Prince they can never want this pretence to warrant their disobedience Seeing there is no Nation in the World that has not divers Laws that are not recorded by the four Evangelists and therefore if all humane Institutions intrench upon our Saviours Kingly Prerogative they are and ever must be provided with matters of quarrel to disturb Government and justifie Rebellion § 3. Secondly Nay further this fond pretence if made use of to all the ends for which it might as wisely serve would cancel all humane Laws and make most of the divine Laws useless which have only described the general Lines of Duty but left their particular determinations to the Wisdom of humane Laws Now the Laws of God cannot be put in practice but in particular Cases and Circumstances these cannot be determin'd but by the Laws of man therefore if he can command nothing but what is already prescribed to us in the Word of God he can have no power to see the Divine Laws put in Execution For where are described all the Rules of Justice and Honesty Where are determined all doubts and questions of Conscience Where are decided all Controversies of Right and Wrong Where are recorded all the Laws of Government and Policy Why therefore should humane Authority be allowed to interpose in these great affairs and yet be denied it in the Customs of Churches and Rules of Decency There is no possible reason to be assign'd but their own humour and fond opinion they are resolved to believe it and that is Argument enough for 't is unanswerable How comes this Proposition to be now limited to matters of meer Religion but only because this serves their turn for otherwise Why are not the Holy Scriptures as perfect a Rule of Civil as of Ecclesiastical Policy Why should they not be as complete a System of Ethicks as they are a Canon of Worship Why do not these men require from the Scriptures express Commands for every Action they do in common life How dare they take any Physick but what is prescribed in the Word of God How dare they commence a Suit at Law without Warranty from Scripture How dare they do any natural action without particular advice and direction of Holy Writ § 4. Thirdly But as foolish as this Opinion is its mischief equals its folly for 't is impossible but that these Sons of strife and singularity must have been troublesom and seditious in all Churches and Common-wealths Had they lived under the Jewish Church why then Where has Moses commanded the Feast of Purim the Feast of the Dedication the Fasts of the fourth the fifth the seventh and the tenth months What Warrant for the building of Synagogues and what Command for that significant Ceremony of wearing sack-cloth and ashes in token of Humiliation If in the primitive Ages of Christianity why then where did our Saviour appoint the Love-Feasts Where has he instituted the Kiss of Charity Where has he commanded the observations of Lent and Easter Where the Lords-Day Sabbath and where all their other Commemorative Festivals Vide Tertull de Coronâ c. 3. Will they retreat to the Lutheran Churches they will there meet with not only all the same but many more Antichristian and superstitious Ceremonies to offend their tender Consciences and will find themselves subject to the same Discipline and Government saving that their Superintendents want the Antichristian Honours and Revenues of the English Bishops partly through the poverty of the Country partly through the injury of Sacriledge but mainly because the Church Revenues are in the possession of Romish Bishops Will they to France there notwithstanding the unsetled state of the Protestants of that Nation through want of the assistance of the Civil Power they shall meet with their Liturgies and establisht Forms of Prayer and Change of Apparel for Divine Service as well as at home If they will to Geneva there Mr. Calvin's Common-Prayer-Book is as much imposed as the Liturgy of the Church of England there they are enjoyn'd the use of Wafer-Cakes the Custom of Godfathers and Godmothers bidding of Prayer proper Psalms not only for days but for hours of the day with divers other Rites and Ceremonies that are no where recorded in the Word of God In a word What Church in the World can affirm these were the only Customs of the Apostolical Age and that the Primitive Church never used more or less than these So that these men
changeable and so alters its colours of good and evil by its several aspects and postures to various and different ends And therefore they never carry any Obligation in them when they interfere with higher more useful Duties And hence it comes to pass that it is absolutely impossible for any man to be reduced into a necessity of sinning because though two inferiour and subordinate Duties may sometimes happen to be inconsistent with each other or with some duty of an absolute and unalterable goodness yet the nature of things is so handsomly contrived that it is utterly impossible that things should ever happen so crosly as to make two essential and indispensable Duties stand at mutual opposit on And therefore no man can ever be forc'd to act against one out of compliance with the other And if there be any contrariety between a natural and instrumental Duty there the case is plain that the greater evacuates the less if between two instrumental Duties it can scarce so fall out but that some emergent circumstances shall make one of them the more necessary but if they are both equally eligible there is no difficulty and a man may do as he pleases It is indeed possible for any man by his own voluntary choice to entangle himself in this sad perplexity but there is no culpable Error that is unavoidable and every sinfully erroneous Conscience is voluntary and vincible And if men will not part with their sinful Errors it is not because they cannot but because they will not avoid them And if they resolve to abuse themselves no wonder if their sin be unavoidable but then the necessity is the effect of their own choice And so all sin is inevitable when the peremptory determination of the will has made it necessary But as for the nature of all the Laws of Goodness in themselves they are so wisely contrived that it is absolutely impossible any circumstances should ever fall out so awkardly as to make one sin the only way to escape another or a necessary passage to a necessary Duty Now to apply this general Rule of Conscience to our particular case there is not any Precept in the Gospel set down in more positive and unlimited expressions or urged with more vehement motives and perswasions than obedience to Government because there are but few if any Duties of a weightier and more important necessity than this And for this reason is it that God has injoined it with such an absolute and unrestrained severity thereby to intimate that nothing can restrain the universality of its obligatory power but evident unquestionable disobedience to himself The duty of Obedience is the original and Fundamental Law of Humane Societies and the only advantage that distinguishes Government from Anarchy This takes away all dissentions by reducing every mans private will and judgment to the determination of Publick Authority Whereas without it every single person is his own Governour and no man else has any power or command over his actions i. e. He is out of the state of Government and Society And for this reason is obedience and condescension to the wisdom of Publick Authority one of the most absolute and indispensable duties of mankind as being so indispensably necessary to the peace and preservation of Humane Societies Now a Conscience that will not stand to the Decrees and Determinations of its Governors subverts the very Foundations of all Civil Society that subsists upon no other principle but mens submitting their own judgments to the decisions of Authority in order to the publick peace and setlement without which there must of necessity be eternal disorders and confusions And therefore where the Dictates of a private Conscience happen to thwart the determinations of the publick Laws they in that case lose their binding power because if in that case they should oblige it would unavoidably involve all Societies in perpetual tumults and disorders Whereas the main end of all Divine as well as Humane Laws is the prosperity and preservation of Humane Society So that where any thing tends to the dissolution of Government and undermining of Humane happiness though in other circumstances it were virtuous yet in this it becomes criminal as destroying a thing of greater goodness than it self And hence though a doubtful and scrupulous Conscience should oblige in all other cases yet when its commands run counter to the commands of Authority there its obligatory power immediately ceases because to act against it is useful to vastly more noble and excellent purposes than to comply with it In that every man that thwarts and disobeys the Laws of the Common-wealth does his part to disturb its Publick Peace that is maintained by nothing else but obedience and submission to its Laws Now this is manifestly a bigger mischief and inconvenience than the foregoing of any doubts and scruples can amount to And therefore unless Authority impose upon me something that carries with it more evil and mischief than there is convenience in the peace and happiness of the whole Society I am indispensably bound to yield obedience to his commands And though I scrupulously fear lest the Magistrates injunctions should be superstitious yet because I am not sure they are so and because a little irregularity in the external expressions of Divine Worship carries with it less mischief and enormity than the disturbance of the Peace of Kingdoms I am absolutely obliged to lay aside my doubt rather than disobey the Law because to preserve it naturally tends to vast mischiefs and confusion whereas the inconvenience of my acting against it is but doubtful and though it were certain yet it is small and comparatively inconsiderable And therefore to act against the inclinations of our own doubts and scruples is so far from being criminal that it is an eminent instance of Virtue and implies in it besides its subserviency to the welfare of mankind the great duties of Modesty Peaceableness and Humility And as for what some are forward enough to object that this is To do evil that good may come of it it is a vain and frivolous exception and prevented in what I have already discoursed in that that Rule is concerned only in things absolutely and essentially evil whose nature no case can alter no circumstance can extenuate and no end can sanctifie But things that are only subserviently good or evil derive all their Virtue from the greater Virtue they wait upon and therefore where a meaner or an instrumental duty stands in competition with an essential Virtue its contrariety destroys its goodness and instead of being less virtuous becomes altogether sinful for though it have abstractedly some degrees of goodness yet when it chances to oppose any duty that has more and more excellent degrees it becomes evil and unreasonable by as many degrees as that excels it And one would think this case should be past dispute as to the matters of our present Controversie that are of so vast a
any Wars are commenced upon just and warrantable grounds And yet how few are they that take upon them to judge their lawfulness All men here think their Princes command a sufficient warrant to serve him and satisfie themselves in this that in case the cause prove to be unjust the fault liesentirely upon him that commands and not at all on him who has nothing to do but obey And if it were otherwise that no Subject were bound to take up Arms till himself had approved the justness of the cause Commonwealths must be bravely secured and their safety must lie at the mercy of every humorsome and pragmatical Fellow And yet to this piece of arrogance do men tempt themselves when they affect to be thought more godly than their Neighbors It is a gallant thing to understand Religion better than their Superiors and to pity their ignorance in the great Mysteries of the Gospel and by seeming to compassionate their weakness to despise their Authority But if Princes will suffer themselves to be controul'd by the pride and insolence of these contentious Zealots they do but tempt them to slight both their persons and their Government and if they will endure to be checked in their Laws Spiritual and Government of the Church by every Systematical Theologue and most not to say the best of our Adversaries are little better they may as well bear to see themselves affronted in their Laws Civil and Government of the State by every Village-Attorney and Solicitor Well then all men that are in a state of Government are bound in all matters doubtful and disputable to submit the dictates of Private Conscience to the determinations of Publick Authority Nor does this oblige any man to act against the dictates of his own Conscience but only by altering the case alters his perswasions i.e. though every man considered absolutely and by himself be bound to follow his own private judgment yet when he is considered as the member of a Society then must be govern'd then he must of necessity be bound to submit his own private thoughts to publick determinations And it is the dictate of every mans Conscience that is not turbulent and seditious that it ought in all things that are not of a great apparent necessity whatever its own private judgment of them is to acquiesce in the determinations of its Governors in order to publick peace and unity For unless this be done there can be nothing but eternal disorders and confusions in the Church in that it is utterly impossible that all men should have the same apprehensions of things and considering the tempers and passions of mankind as impossible that they should not pursue their differences and controversies with too much heat vehemence And therefore unless whatever their own judgments and apprehensions be they are bound in all such cases to acquiesce in the decisions and determinations of the Governors of the Church or Common-wealth in order to its peace and setlement there can be no possible way of avoiding endless squabbles and confusions And unless this be a fundamental Rule dictate of every mans Conscience that as he is bound in all doubtful cases to follow the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the best result of his own private perswasions where he neither has nor is obliged to have any other guide or rule of his actions so he is bound to forego them all provided his plain and necessary duty be secured out of obedience to Authority and in order to the due Government of the Society there never can be any peace or setlement in any Church or Common-wealth in the world And every Conscience that is not thus perswaded is upon that account to be reckoned as seditious and unpeaceable and so to be treated accordingly Sect. 7. He that with an implicite Faith and confidence resigns up his own Reason to any Superior on earth in all things is a Fool and he is as great a Fool to say no worse that will do it in nothing For as all men are immediately subject to God alone in matters of indispensable duty that are not at all concern'd in our present dispute so are they in all other things to condescend to the Decrees and determinations of their lawful Superiors Neither is this to put men upon that supream Folly of renouncing the use and guidance of their own Reasons out of obedience to any mans infallibility For by Reason we mean nothing but the mind of man making use of the wisest and most prudential methods to guid it self in all its actions and therefore it is not confined to any sort of Maxims and Principles in Philosophy but it extends it self to any knowledge that may be gained by Prudence Experience and Observation And hence right Reason when it is imploy'd about the actions of men is nothing else but Prudence and Discretion Now the Reason of any wise and sober man will tell him that it is most Prudent Discreet and Reasonable to forego his own private perswasions in things doubtful and disputable out of obedience to his lawful Superiours because without this the World can never be governed And supposing mens judgments and understandings to be never so much above the Iurisdiction of all Humane Authority and that no man can be bound to submit his Reason to any thing but the Commands of God yet every man ows at least so much civility to the will of his Prince and the peace of his Country as to bring himself to a compliance and submission to the Publick Judgment rather than to disturb the Publick Peace for the gratification of his own Fancy and Opinion Which is no enslaving of his Reason to any mans usurpation over his Faith and Conscience but only a bringing it to a modest compliance in order to the common interests of Humane Society And if it be not a duty of subjection yet it is one of peaceableness and if it be not grounded upon our obligations to the Authority it self yet it is most clearly derived from an higher Obligation that all men are under to advance the welfare of mankind and more particularly of that Society they live in that is antecedent to those of Government which is instituted only in order to the common good And therefore though our duty in such cases could not be deduced from our obligation to any humane Authority yet it clearly arises from that duty of Charity we owe to our Fellow Creatures And though we are not to submit our Vnderstandings to any Humane Power yet we are to the first and Fundamental Laws of Charity which being one of the greatest duties of mankind it is but reasonable to forego all more private and inferior obligations when they stand in competition with it And thus St. Paul notwithstanding he declaimed with so much vehemence against the observation of the Judaical Rites and Ceremonies never scrupled to use them as oft as it was serviceable to the advancement of the Christian Religion