in Effigie the very Emblem and Landskip of Confusion subject to inconveniences that cannot be thought of till they are felt and capable of such infinite sub-divisions as will at length reduce the comely Form of Government by so many particular interests and factions into a State of publick Hostility and Rapine for the reason why men separate from one another is always out of some reall or some pretended dislike which dislikes by actuall separation are so far from being composed that they are manifestly improved and heightned by it and from hence arise so many several Interests as there are Sects or denominations of Parties in a Common-wealth For it is natural to all men to desire to gain Proselytes to their own Opinion for men to love themselves and those of their own way and to think of other men who are not enroll'd in the same list with themselves if not with a reall hatred yet with a less esteem and a comparative Aversation which whenever a Ball of Interest is thrown between them will be improved into all the sad effects of the most desperate Malice and Revenge But here to make all sure as I go along I must repeat again That by Independent Congregations I mean such as own no Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction externall to themselves from whence it is easie to perceive that every such Congregation may be a new Sect and Party by it self as it was in a manner in the late Times when the Sects were spawned in such incredible abundance that the Alphabet began to complain of want of Letters to furnish so many different and disagreeing Parties with names Neither is it to be supposed that so many several Factions notwithstanding their differences in matters of Religion shall yet conspire in an uniform Obedience to the Civil Power because to be uppermost is that which they all desire and since the very same persons are members of the Commonwealth and of a particular Sect or Party it is ridiculous to hope that the State can ever be quiet till all these parties can agree together to be of the same mind which is to make them cease to be what they are In the United Provinces where the greatest Liberty is given and taken of any other Territory in the Christian World the peace of the publick could not be secured if it were not for the Overballance of the Calvinisticall Party above the rest for the Calvinists as Sir William Temple in his Observations upon the United Provinces takes notice p. 204. make up the body of the People and are possessed of all the publick Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the onely Ministers or Pastours who are maintained by the publick who have no other Salaries than what they receive from the State upon whom they wholly depend and for that reason they will be sure to preach obedience and submission to the People But yet notwithstanding this so great has the power and interest of the Louvestane or Arminian Party alwaies been that it has been the occasion of great revolutions among them and as it was probably one of the main causes of their so sudden fall from the height of envy into the lowest region of pity and despair within the compass of a very few years so it is to be feared that in not many more the animosities between a Calvinist and whoever differs from him being irreconcileable and everlasting it will prove the ruin of that once powerfull but now declining State Neither was there any thing in the late unhappy times next to the Title of an incomparable Prince to whom the Sceptre of these Kingdoms did of right belong and the Affections of a loyal Party which all the republican Cruelties were not able to extinguish that contributed so much to put a period to the Usurpation which was never establish'd upon any certain bottom as the bandying of the several Factions against one another which made it both necessary for the Usurpers to support their power by the Sword and that Sword it self not being all of it of the same metal and the Army that was to wield it being it self canton'd into Sects and Factions they began at length not to understand one anothers language but were forced to leave working any longer and to desist from building that Babel of Religion cemented with bloud instead of mortar which is inconsistent with the quiet of the Earth and by which men in vain expect to climbe to Heaven It is a prodigious thing for a man to consider what irreconcileable feuds the smallest differences in Religion have created and still the smaller those differences are the higher usually are those animosities that are produced by them as if it were the nature and genius of mankind to make up in passion what they want in reason as the Turks and Persians though agreeing in all other parts of the Mahometan Superstition yet about a very small Punctilio they are at mortal jars with one another and being so near neighbours as they are they never want an opportunity of expressing their resentments by the frequent and bloudy Wars betwixt those two formidable Empires The Calvinists pursue the Lutherans and Arminians who on their own parts are not wanting to retaliate the kindness with every whit as great if not greater hatred than those who do toto coelo errare the Popish I mean the Mahometan and the Pagan World nay so apt are men to fall out with one another that the most inconsiderable niceties of difference that can be conceived when they are used as marks of distinction when men shall obstinately persist in such discriminations and when they shall place an opinion or affectation in them will produce in them a dislike and aversation for one another and let the difference be never so small yet it will alwaies be true to the World's end that Birds of a feather will flock together so many distinctions as there are bating those distinctions which Trade and Functions and the Necessities of humane life have made for the mutual support and maintenance of each other so many several Parties and Factions you shall have in that Common-wealth or Kingdom where those distinctions are found Though in this case it will alwaies happen that the smaller Fishes will associate and unite together against the Leviathan or prevailing Party that overballances the rest but when that King of the Waters is destroy'd they will then begin to prey upon one another and contend which of them shall ingross the Dominion of the Seas which is the case of all the Republican Factions against the Church of England at this day though as well reason as former sad experience may instruct us when they have obtained their end if ever they do obtain it which God forbid what miserable work they will make of it among themselves It is to be confess'd indeed that there are abroad very great heats and contentions to be found which are not of such dangerous consequence to
being of a God or the immortality of the Souls of men that were deny'd by us and asserted onely by the Dissenters from the publick Order and Rule So that either way the inconvenience is in a manner equal a Toleration has a manifest tendencie to the subversion of the Government both in Church and State and in that there is no question to be made but it will certainly end when once it has been suffered to have its full scope and swinge and yet a vigorous Prosecution of the Laws against the Disturbers of the Peace is branded with the odious name of Persecution and they that suffer by it for being Incendiaries are termed Saints and because it is natural for a distressed Cause to find a friendship and pity from the common People whether it be reasonable or no Suffering being a very sensible and a very affecting thing when the Causes of those Sufferings are not so plain and obvious to every common understanding especially when blinded by prejudice or concern for the persons of those that suffer from hence it comes to pass that a just and necessary Prosecution of the Laws if it be not managed with abundance of temper and prudence so as it may appear it is not done out of hatred to a Party but out of a real tenderness to the common good may sometimes prove the occasion of great and fatal disorders in a State and may in its consequence be attended with all those confusions to which a boundless Toleration is exposed This was the great reason of the revolt of the Vnited Provinces from under the Spanish Yoak who if they had been treated with less severity might probably by gentler methods have been reduced to Obedience but by the Cruelty of the Spanish Governours and Souldiery who pursued them especially under the Government of the Duke D' Alva with all the symptoms of the most mortal hatred they were so far alienated in their affections from a Government that used them so ill they had such a dread of those unheard of Cruelties and such a deserved aversation for that Religion that delights to propagate it self by Bloud that being assisted by the Hugonots from France whose interest it was to stand by the Reformation and by Supplies from England which was glad at that time to find an opportunity to reduce the Spanish greatness to a juster ballance with the rest of the European Princes they were at length perfectly severed from the body of the Spanish Empire and united in a common Alliance among themselves for the mutual support and maintenance of each other which though it gave beginning to the most powerfull Republick that has ever appeared since the Roman yet as a Republick in its nature and constitution is more exposed to the ambition or animositie of bad men than a Kingdom or Monarchie is or can well be so in the midst of its greatness it alwaies carried in its bowells the undoubted symptoms and causes of its ruine which it is to be feared what with the Factions at home and the daily encreasing Power of its enemies from abroad is not far off at this time But yet though Cruelty be that for which all mankind but they that exercise it upon others have a just and mortal aversation yet a Prosecution of all Penal Laws cannot be called Cruelty unless it be Cruelty to govern or to use the necessary and the onely means to keep the World in order all Punishment is Cruelty or at least Injustice which is inflicted in defence of a bad cause or a bad religion but when the Penalties themseves are not so severe as to deserve the name of Cruel and when they are inflicted for the Preservation of a sound and orthodox Religion which I persuade my self most of the Dissenters will acknowledge that of the Church of England to be when they are inflicted for the preservation of Unity and Friendship among men when this is the onely Expedient by which an universal Friendship and Charity can be maintained by which the Government can be rendred safe in it self and easie to those that are to obey by which we can be rendred quiet and secure at home or considerable abroad by which we can be put in the best capacity to resist an Enemy or to succour an Ally or to transmit the Profession of the Gospel in its native purity and beauty down to our own Children and to their posterity through all generations as long as time shall endure whereas without this course we shall be subject to infinite changes and vicissitudes in our Secular and in our Ecclesiastical Concerns and shall be more dangerously exposed when our strength by a Toleration is disunited and broken in pieces to the incursions of Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Debauchery Prophaneness and of all manner of Evil whatsoever it be this is sufficient to justifie a lawfull Power in the use of the onely means by which these Inconveniences may be avoided and if it shall so happen through the evil disposition of men that a Prosecution of the Laws which is the onely possible expedient of Peace and Safety shall yet notwithstanding produce the same mischiefs and disorders which a Toleration would have done yet in this case the Magistrate will have the satisfaction in his own Conscience and before God of having discharged his duty and of not having betray'd that trust which is reposed in him which in the other as being a natural means to bring us all to confusion I do not see how he can ever have or expect The Contentions about matters of Discipline are therefore manifestly of the highest importance because they occasion a Separation which is the fruitfull mother of all those fatal mischiefs both to Church and Kingdom that have been mentioned already and can never be too often repeated or too seriously reflected upon I would very willingly know of our Dissenters what they think themselves upon supposition that the whole Nation were divided and parcell'd out into separate and independent Congregations which is that which an unlimited Toleration would produce whether or no its strength wou'd be so firm and so compacted as it is now To say it would is to say that a divided interest can be as strong as that whose parts are never so well compacted and knit to one another and it is besides this absurdity in the reason of the thing to contradict the experience of our own Age and of all that have gone before it to maintain the lawfulness of such separate Congregations notwithstanding those many and dismal inconveniences to which they are exposed is to affirm that it is lawfull to endeavour the subversion of the Government which in this case will never be able to maintain it self without a standing Army no more than in the times of usurpation and it will be very hard if not impossible besides other incommodities and pressures to which this way of administration is exposed that instead of desending the Laws they shall
us to be our Masters and Frogs were heard croaking in the Chambers of our Kings then you your selves will answer for me It was the tender Conscience dissolved into rebellious Pretences that carryed Order and Government before it and overflow'd all things with a resistless Stream it was a Cry against Discipline and Ceremonies and humane Institutions it was a Clamor for Liberty against Will-worship and the Ordinances of men it was a Spirit of Sedition a Thirst after Innovation an insatiable Humour of being dissatisfied with all the wholesome Establishments of Unity and Peace it was an Itch of new-modelling both Church and State it was a Pharisaical Pretence to farther Improvements of Purity and Holiness it was Discontent and Jealousie and godly Fear lin'd with Hypocrisie and Dissimulation that reduced our Beauty and Order into Ashes that laid the magnificent and comely Fabricks of the British Church and Empire the Amazement of themselves and the Envy of their neighbours equal with the ground and instead of one firm and well-compacted Building rais'd paper Tenements of crumbling Sects and Factions which instead of being able to support themselves betray'd us in a manner into that Security which we now enjoy While we forgetfull of those Miseries under which our Fathers and our selves have groan'd unthankfull for those Blessings which under the shade and protection of a wise and happy Government we receive ungratefull to Almighty God who out of that Chaos of Confusion has rear'd this new world of Establishment and Order displeas'd with the fatness of the Olive and the sweetness of the Figg-tree and quarrelling with the friendly and sociable Vine that cheareth God and Man are calling again for the Bramble to reign over us and for the Thornes and Briars to protect us or like the Israelites in the Wilderness surfeited with Miracles with Manna and with Quailes with the dew of Heaven and with the fatness of the Earth with liberty and ease and plenty we are looking back for Slavery from our old Taskmasters in the Land of Ham and longing for the Garlick and the Onyons of Egypt But because an instance taken from our late Confusions may but exasperate whenit should convince Let us avoid the mention of that Crying Guilt for which this Land of our Nativity has wept in tears of Bloud and should for ever mourn in Sack-cloth and humble her self before the Lord in Ashes and let us trace the footsteps of Antiquity and search the Records of the more innocent and early Ages What was the reason in the Mosaick Dispensation why all the external niceties of divine Worship in their Feasts and in their Sacrifices and in their Lustrations were so carefully adjusted by the particular designation and appointment of God himself It is true indeed that most of those Ceremonies were of a symbolicall nature and were designed to shadow out unto the Jewes either that purity simplicity and innocence of mind which God expects from all his worshippers and servants or else they were figurative and emblematicall Representations of the life and death and sufferings of the Messias and of that more perfect Dispensation which was to be introduced into the World by him But yet notwithstanding it must not be deny'd that there are many Ceremonies to be found in the Law of Moses which being equally commanded by God himself were of equall obligation as to their performance with any of the rest of which no such Typicall account can be given And therefore the reason of their Institution can only be this That since every thing must of necessity be done with some Ceremony in some Place or Time or Order or Gesture or Manner and Circumstance or other it pleased God for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preservation of an uniform and orderly way of Worship which would otherwise be exposed to perpetual change disturbance and alteration to adjust and determine the particular circumstances of those indifferent matters because considering the perverseness of some mens minds and the diversity of their several fancies and humours such changes and alterations could never happen without a considerable breach of Charity and Friendship among men which must needs be a wonderfull Obstruction as well to the interest of the Civil State as to all the religious Performances and Duties both as to their devotion in themselves and as to their acceptance with Almighty God If therefore the nature of Mankind be still the same under the Gospel that it was under the Law if the reasons for the necessity of Uniformity be the same now that ever they were in former ages if the method of this Uniformity be not adjusted by God himself under the Gospel as it was under the Law and if this Uniformity cannot be obtained unless the Church be invested with a right and power of prescribing the terms of it than it follows plainly as hath been already observed that the Church must be invested with such a power because else it would want the necessary means of its own unity and preservation which every Society must be supposed by the Laws of nature and reason to be invested with and if the Church be invested with such a power then all its Members are under an indispensable obligation to obey it because that Power which may be lawfully disobey'd is no Power at all And this is sufficient to vindicate the exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures And if you demand further Whether it be lawfull for the civil Sanction to interpose in behalf of the Church to see that its Orders and Injunctions be duly and faithfully executed and obey'd I answer that it is for this plain reason because the Civil Power has a right of exacting all kinds of lawfull Obedience from its subjects and this obedience if it were not Lawfull could not be enjoyned by the Church it self But besides the express provisions of the Law of Moses it self there were also several pretended traditions of Moses from Mount Sinai there were likewise the determinations of their Wise men in controverted cases the Decisions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and of the Schools of Hillel and of Schammai the two so much celebrated but disagreeing Founders of the Pharisaick Order For which Traditions and Determinations of their famous Masters the Jewes had usually as great if not greater Veneration than for the Law it self and they were at length swell'd into so vast a bulk that like the Missals and the Rituals of the Romish Church at this day which are so full of Ceremonies burthensom in their number frivolous and superstitious in their use they ate out the very life and heart of true Religion as our Saviour himself in several places of his Gospel with no less Justice than severity complains The Heathen World had also their Sacred Offices prescribed by a certain Form as well before as under the Law And the same is the case with the Mahometan and Pagan Idolaters at this day which Ceremonies of theirs though for their
number they be intollerable to a devout Soul which cannot suffer it's self to be so far taken off from the more inward and substantial part of Religion though in their nature they be mostly foolish and in their use Superstitious and in their design Idolatrous as being directed to a false object yet as well these as the Jewish Formalities do prove thus much by the common consent of Mankind that an Uniformity in the outward circumstances of Divine Service is necessary to the more due and solemn performance of Religious Worship and to the publique peace and quiet of the World What is the reason that at this day the French Persecution against the reformed Religion and its Professors rages with so much violence and fury thorough all the spatious Territories and Dominions of that mighty Monarch Shall we think it is a Zeal for the Catholique Religion as they are pleased to call it that is for a Fardle of absur'd ridiculous and blasphemous Superstitions that inspires so wise and powerfull a Prince with so mean thoughts of Cruelty and Revenge Shall we think he acts upon a principle of Conscience who has sufficiently discover'd to the world by his insatiable thirst after Empire which cannot be purchas'd without the price of Bloud that he has no other principle of action than that of a boundless appetite of Rule and Greatness Shall he be thought to act upon a principle of Duty and Religion who makes destructive and depopulating Wars without giving a reason and violates the faith of Peace by arbitrary Dependances and unwarrantable Claimes Who conquers more by the peremptory Decrees of his late erected Chambers than by the conduct of his Generals or by the numbers discipline and valour of his Armies What therefore can be the true cause and motive why he that glories in the blessed title of the Most Christian King should yet notwithstanding persecute Christianity it self What else can be the true reason of all this Cruelty and seeming Madness but that he wisely considers that the true way to Empire abroad is by unity and peace at home that a Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and that these differences of Religion as they have done already in the experience of that Kingdome as well as ours will some time or other prove the occasions of great disorders and commotions in the State And shall we not then make use of the same wisdome for the support of Christianity which is with so much diligence and zeal made use of by others for its Extirpation For Popery is either no Christianity at all or it is Christianity wrapt up and hid in such an heap of Ceremonies and Superstitions that it can hardly be discerned Is it worth our while to contend about Ceremonies when we are losing the Substance to squabble and fall out about indifferent things when our Religion and our Liberty our temporall and eternall Interest lye at stake If the things prescribed be indifferent and consequently lawfull why do we not show that they are so by complying with them If the quarrells raised about indifferent matters do yet notwithstanding rise as high as those which are agitated between the Papists and us about matters of a necessary and unalterable nature why do we not cement and compose these unhappy breaches by adding Humility to Obedience and by submitting to every ordinance of man so far as we may without any violation of the Laws of God or right reason All our publique feuds and animosities are comprehended in our Religious Disputes and if they were but once composed we should be an happy Nation The King would be glorious and his People secure We should be safe at home and formidable abroad We should be in a condition to succor our Allyes to relieve the distressed Protestants to keep the ballance even betwixt our neighbour Princes and to stop the progress of the Arms of France which threaten to involve all Europe in Slavery and Superstition together Whereas now all we are able to do is to give protection for a while to persecuted Religion when it flies hither for shelter But what will become of us when the same torrent of Ambition having overflown what ever stood in its way shall at length beat upon the Brittish Shore Shall we suffer our selves to be devoured by our own intestine Divisions when the Enemy from without is battering our Walls and throwing in his Bombes among us or shall we not rather unite together for our common safety and shall we not severely repent that we did not sooner do it before it was too late that we did not take sweet counsell together and go into the house of God as friends Certainly this one consideration if it were but powerfully and frequently impress'd upon our minds must needs have a wonderfull influence upon us and must even fright men and compell them by arguments both of fear and love into a thorough Reconcilement with the best of Churches before it be too late as well out of a principle of Interest as Duty for besides the considerations of this World it ought to afford matter of very sad reflexion to us or at least to so many of us as have been active either in causing or someting the Differences that are among us that we must one day give a dreadfull account before the Judgment-seat of God for a great part of that Bloud which has been spilt and of those Spoiles Rapines and Depredations which have been made by the ambition or injustice of our Neighbours We must be accountable for the oppression of our persecuted Brethren beyond the Seas and for ought we know if these destructive Animosities be not soon composed for the removall of the Candlestick from among our selves and for the small extirpation of the Protestant Religion The Jewes had their Ritual and the Christians their Liturgies or set forms of Divine Service the one before Christianity and the other long before Popery were known in the World And first As to the Jewish Ritual which cannot be deny'd to have been a thing of humane Institution it was so little disapproved by our Saviour or rather so highly approved that he has been observed by Scaliger and Buxtorf and Camero and Hugo Grotius and other learned men to have borrow'd most of those expressions which he makes use of in the Institution of the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Bloud from thence and that Hymn which after the Celebration of that blessed Feast he and his Disciples went out to sing together on the Mount of Olives was by Paulus Burgensis a Converted Jew and a learned Bishop of the Christian Church and out of him by Buxtorf Drusius and others conjectured to be the same which the Jews are used to call the Hallel hagadol being a Song of Praise and Thanksgiving consisting of several Psalms and used to be sung in consort at the Feast of the Passover and other solemn occasions And that God Almighty has actually approved those
ye are mad and if the same or a like advantage may and will be taken from the indiscretion of every extempore Pretender there is the same reason why he should lay by his pretences and give way to a sound and sober Form of words The truth is a premeditated and an extempore Prayer have each of them their inconveniences the latter cannot be without them and the first if it be not done by a man of some judgment and experience he does usually endeavour onely to shew his parts as if his design were to recommend himself to the good opinion of God Almighty for a man of Eloquence and Wit the premeditated man does oftentimes talk so fulsomely as if his design were to cajole and cokes the great God of Heaven and Earth while the man of gifts and graces as he thinks himself does by ridiculous or rash expressions by mimical gestures and affected alterations of his voice by speaking sometimes so high as if he would prevail with him by clamor and sometimes so low as if he had a secret to communicate to his Maker openly affront and abuse him to his face and in the face of a numerous Assembly But both these Inconveniences are happily avoided by the wise provision which the Church has made If then the use of Forms of Prayer in the publick Assemblies of Christians be not onely lawfull in it self and justified by the practice of all ages before the Reformation but also manifestly tending to Edification and freed from very many and very great inconveniences to which extempore Addresses are exposed and therefore necessary to be allow'd And if though Forms of Prayer be necessary in the general yet this or that particular Form be not otherwise the Liturgy of all Churches and all Ages must be exactly the same Lastly If no Formulary of Divine Service can be introduced into the common use and practice of the Church but by the publick Sanction whether sacred or civil or both then we have here a plain instance of a lawfull humane Imposition in indifferent matters for though a Form of Prayer be necessary yet this or that Form is not from whence it follows beyond all possibility of contradiction that an humane Imposition in indifferent matters or a Determination of those indifferent things by the authority of men to one part of the indifference is not in it self unlawfull and whatsoever may be lawfully commanded is of necessity to be obey'd unless we will renounce all obedience whatsoever However thus much will certainly be granted by the most avow'd Assertors of the Separation that we have every one of us a right and power of determining our selves in those indifferent matters for otherwise the nature of their indifference is destroy'd and yet if thus much be but allow'd they will find themselves driven to an absolute necessity either to contradict themseves and to affirm contradictions in a breath to say that the same things are and are not indifferent at the same time or else they must bid adiew to their beloved Cause and give submission to the Authority of the Church For whatever natural Liberty men have in themselves when once they become members of a Society they are supposed to give it up to the legislative or governing power of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise
there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take occasions to advance their secular designs under the specious covert of a Concern for Liberty or a Zeal for Religion it behoves those in publick Authority as they tender the reputation of their own wisedom and justice or the quiet of the World to cut off all occasions of disturbance by seeing that all things be done decently and in order which rule of the Apostle's is founded upon the same reason upon which all Laws whether humane or divine are founded and from whence alone they can and do receive their obligation namely the common Interest of mankind and the particular Happiness of private persons it depends upon the same reason and the same necessity for which Injustice and Robbery are forbidden or upon which Industry Sobriety and usefull Arts are encouraged which is nothing else but the consideration of the publick Good which if it be as plainly concerned in this as in any other case this is sufficient to defend the Authority of the Church and to make its Sanctions in indifferent matters so long as they are steered by principles of undoubted Interest to be of perpetual force and obligation Those actions are properly said to be indifferent which may either be done or let alone without inconvenience or advantage to the publick or to the interest of any private person but if any prejudice or advantage will accrue then there is a plain reason why they should be done or omitted and consequently they cease to be indifferent and become necessary in proportion to the weight of those reasons upon which their performance or omission is founded So for example we will suppose it for the present indifferent in what posture we say our Prayers in a publick Congregation yet if we say them at all thus much is of absolute necessity that we say them in some posture or other but now if the Civil or Ecclesiastical Magistrate for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preventing of those Piques and Animosities which frequently happen among men about things of little or no value in themselves especially when Religion is concerned shall ordain that all men shall say their Prayers in one and the same posture and shall determine and assign what that particular posture shall be then here is a reason of Interest for the good of the World and for the quiet of that Society of which we are members why this posture should be used rather than any other and consequently this posture though indifferent before does now derive a necessity from that reason of State and interest upon which it's imposition is founded To be sure men of common sense and understanding if they have but common honesty joyned together with it will take their measures of obligation as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of what is commanded from it's design and tendency to promote or obstruct the interest of the Publique and the happiness of particular Persons and if either the pretended or the real Scruples of any might be sufficient to stop the course of Law against the common interest there could be no such thing as Order or Government in the World There are many Laws enacted by the sublime Wisdome of the King and his three Estates in Parliament assembled which though they be for the interest of the whole Kingdome all things considered yet they manifestly tend to the Prejudice of particular persons but yet those very persons are as much obliged by these Laws as they who reap the benefit and advantage of them because the obligation of these Laws is to be taken from the fundamentall Constitution of all Societies that a greater Interest be preferred before a less and that when the publique advantage shall interfere with a
the publick Peace such as are those feuds which will never be extinguish'd betwixt the Seculars and the Regulars and betwixt the regular Fraternities with one another and I believe there are but very few monastick Societies will be found that are at peace within themselves of which and of the causes of it which I have well considered I could say more if it would not be a digression but whether it be that common obedience which they pay their Holy Father the Pope which keeps them in somewhat better order or that being men of a single life not encumbred with any secular interest or concern their animosities cannot so easily embroile the State as those who have a greater interest in it and who may with a better countenance pursue secular designs than they can doe or whether it be that the Laiety think it not worth their while any further than it is matter of common entertainment and discourse to take any part in the quarrels of Beadesmen and of Beggars or whether it be that their contentions are not of such a popular nature as to have an influence upon any but themselves who make them or that the perpetual austerities of their respective rules which are a constant emploiment to them hinder them from being capable of prosecuting any dangorous design with that address and diligence which is requisite to its success or that all the heat of these contentions is spent by men that know better how to use their tongues than swords in complaints to the Pope and in writing against and censuring one another or lastly whether it be that their way of life in the retirement of their cloysters and in the little formalitie of their cells and convents renders them unexperienc'd in affairs listless and unactive in business and unfit to doe any great good or mischief in the World or whatever the true reason be there is no question but they are found by long experience by giving an example of poverty and contentment and by the reputation of their sanctity and holyness of life to be rather an advantage than detriment to the places where they are suffered and they make sufficient amends for their intestine divisions by their being united together in the Papal Interest and in the support of the Romish Tyranny over the Consciences of men But let the reason be what it will it is certain that no reason can justifie the lawfullness of separate and independent Congregations in a Christian Commonwealth or Kingdome which are in their own nature and have been found so by experience to be so destructive to the welfare and happiness of the World which are so big with inconveniences not to be foreseen till they are felt which are surrounded on every side with infinite and unspeakable dangers to which no possible remedy can be apply'd but by the removal of their necessary cause and by destroying the Independencie it self that I make no scruple to pronounce it as a self-evident Maxim that an aggregate of separate and disunited Congregations unaccountable to one another or to any superior temporal Head invested with a power of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Censure is contrary to the Law of Nature destructive of the Peace of the World and of the design of Christianity it self which is to engage men in closer obligations of unity and friendship with one another and therefore ought not to be tolerated in a Christian State no more than Atheism or Infidelity themselves it being the extremity of Non-sense and religious Folly to allow that Charity Good will and Peace are the indispensable duties of a Christian nay the characteristick indications of his being Christ's Disciple that God is Love and that whosoever loveth not his brother whom he hath seen cannot possibly love God whom he hath not seen and yet that that Form of Church Government is I will not say of divine Institution but of divine Permission which is in its very nature and essential constitution so exactly fitted to bring the World into Confusion and Disorder And so I have done with the first Case which supposes the whole Body of a People to be parcell'd out into many distinct and independent Congregations Give me leave now to speak a very little to the second which presumes onely a Separation of one or more Congregations from the Body of the National Church setting up a new Authority of its own and disowning the Jurisdiction of the publick which second Case differs onely in proportion from the first and will of necessity labour with all those ill consequences in its degree and measure with which the first is incumbred and it being much easier for small things to encrease than to begin the consequences at the long run will be exactly the same if the Government by a wise temperament of Care and Courage do not put a timely stop to the progress of such ill boding beginnings Into such separate Assemblies as these all the ill humors of the Body politick will naturally flow thither the unfortunate the discontented the covetous and the ambitious will betake themselves to seek revenge against reall or imaginary wrongs to repair the decaies and ruines of a broken fortune to satisfie the craving circumstances of poverty and want and to fill up the wide capacity of immodest unreasonable and unjust desires at the expence of the publick welfare security and quiet Neither are such Conventicles as these dangerous onely to the Civil Peace by being the natural causes of embroilment and disturbance the very sinks and common-shores into which all bad humors disembogue themselves and find a welcome entertainment while the simplicity of some suffers it self under the specious pretences of an extraordinary zeal to be misled and carry'd away captive by the designing Hypocrisie of others but which is still worse they have a no less pleasing aspect upon Religion it self which either by the infinite pretences to greater purity a most absurd and foolish cause of Separation which knows no Law and will admit no bounds they refine so long till they have utterly lost it or by a most impious and unreasonable claim to I know not what Gospel Liberty they get at last to be Libertines indeed and are placed as far above the reach of Ordinances as those Ordinances themselves by their design and use for the preservation of Love and Unity in the Church by their Divine institution and appointment and by the supernatural Grace which is exhibited and convey'd by a due and worthy participation of them are plac'd above the blasphemous contempt of such profane and dissolute Wretches But I would by no means be so far misunderstood as if I were so uncharitable as to think that all or so much as the greatest part of those that separate doe it out of any bad design for I am not onely morally certain of the contrary as to the much greater number of the People but as to the Pastors themselves if that be any credit for them I