purely involuntary for nothing is properly Error farther than it is so 't is to be lookt on rather as the disease than crime of the Person and since we use not to exclaim against men for being sick but compassionately to endeavour their recovery why should we here use so much a contrary method 'T is true indeed 't is necessary sometimes in order to the Cure and sometimes for preventing the infection of others to do some things uneasie to the Patient and what tends regularly to either of these Ends may in this case also be Charitably done by those that have Authority but that differs as far from our usual severities as the lancings of a Physician do from the wounds of an Adversary or publick Discipline from private Spleen So that notwithstanding this we may resume our conclusion and infer from the Errableness of our Nature the reasonableness of compassion to the seduced And as it thus prompts us to look gently upon others so also to reflect impartially upon our selves and consider how possible it is that even whilest we condemn others we may indeed be in the wrong and then all the Invectives we make at their supposed Errors fall back with a rebounded force upon our own real ones If this possibility were but adverted to it would make us less positive and Dogmatical in our opinions and so consequently take away one main ground of contention for though we often quarrel about matters which are indeed but conjectural yet not till we esteem them otherwise and when we consider how many men have vehemently believed apparent falshoods it may well allay our confidences in all those cases where we have not some firmer ground than our own or indeed any humane judgment to build it on AS for those who have the surest grounds of Perswasion and by their security of being themselves in the Truth have the more reason to be earnest in propagating it to others let them in the second place consider how necessary 't is to chuse appropriate means to that good end without which they do but undermine themselves and defeat their own aims Indeed Prudence is not only a Moral but Christian Vertue and such as is necessary to the constituting of all others without it Devotion degenerates into Superstition Liberality into Profuseness and this of Zeal becomes only a Pious kind of Phrensie And of Persons so possest God may say as Achish did of David 1 Sam. 21. 15. have I need of mad men no sure the defence of Truth is too noble a cause to be so managed its Champions are not like men in a fray to make every thing a weapon that they can first snatch up and lay on as chance or fury guides but are deliberately to consult the properest expedients use not only force but Stratagem against the Enemy and yet withall to take care that while they oppose one another gain not advantage For alas 't is indifferent to our grand Adversary by which of his temptations we fall and if by subverting the faith of some he shipwrack the charity of others he has his End and triumphs at once both over the speculative and practick part of our Religion AND this may induce a farther consideration and prompt us to examine what degree of guilt lies on those who either out of a blind or rash zeal have given him this advantage And here though I cannot doubt but God makes great allowances to the Miscarriages of sincere intentions yet perhaps we have carv'd more liberally to our selves than he designs us and presume our Security greater than in truth it is For how innocent soever a good purpose may make our Error yet 't is a priviledge beyond all possibility of grant that our sins should be so also therefore if our Misperswasions beget wicked practice we may be accountable for the one though not for the other We find indeed S. Paul alledges his ignorance as the Cause of his finding mercy for his persecuting the Church but we are to remember what that mercy he there refers to is not that of absolution but conversion and had he resisted the later though with never so full a perswasion of his doing well in it I much doubt whether his good meaning would have secur'd him the former so that all the Encouragement that Example can afford it that God may probably do more for the reducing an Erring than a malicious Persecutor And when 't is considered that all the odds that Christ makes between him that does ill knowingly and ignorantly is in the number of Stripes we must resolve our mistakes are no such Amulets as totally to secure us And then whether our guilts shall not swell in proportion to the ills we do is a question that sure can never be resolved in the negative for if a good intention cannot alter the nature of Sin sure it can as little change their degree or make that of two Persons equally mistaken the Murder of the one shall not be a greater Crime than an intemperate speech of the other And upon this measure the accounts of erring zeal are like to rise very high with many unless we can think Rebellion and Bloudshed Sacriledge and Sachism with all that train of zealous Enormities to be light and trivial NOR will it at all legitimate these or any other Crimes though they should happen to be committed in the defence of Truth Of this St. Peter is a ready instance who when to guard Him who was Truth its self he had violated the Authority of the Magistrate in wounding an Officer Christ apprehends his rashness and instead of applauding his zeal upbraids his absurdity that could think his mean aids considerable to him who could command Legions of Angels to his rescue And sure he is not so much more impotent in his glory than he was in his exinanition as now to need our Sins to secure any of his concerns and if St. Peter were thus check'd for using that Sword which he was a little before warn'd to buy it must sure set an ill Character upon those tumultuous reformations which have so much employed the zeal of later ages to which there can never want a concurrence of several great sins the guilt whereof will scarce be wiped off by their design'd subserviency to Truth what Degree of extenuation it may afford is hard to pronounce since we have no rule to measure it by But whatsoever it is we are to remember that it can belong only to such a Zeal as is purely religious that mixes not with our Passions or Interests and therefore before men be too forward to appropriate any Indulgence of that kind 't will be necessary to Examine whether no sinister Adherent have vitiated that integrity of their purpose to which alone it can even by their own award and sentence appertain I HAVE insisted the more on this because many are apt to ascribe too unlimitedly to the Force of a good meaning to think that is able
that we have all reason to expect a return and that not upon the former frustrated design of refining but upon that more infallible and fatal one of consuming us This is so dreadful but withal so just an expectation that if there be any Iacobs among us any who can wrestle and prevail with God there never was so pressing need of their intercession O let all that are thus fitted for it vigorously undertake this pious work let no Moses's hands ever wax heavy but be always held up in a devout importunity let them transcribe that holy Oratory which he so often effectually used plead to God his own cause with a what wilt thou do to thy great Name and when there is nothing in us that can pretend to any thing but vengeance ransack Gods bosom rifle his bowels for arguments of compassion repeat to him his own titles that he is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Numb 14. 18. And by these solicite yea conjure him to pity And how great an ardency is required to this intercession What strong cries must they be that shall drown so loud a clamor of impieties And how does it reproach the slightness of our sleepy heartless addresses Can we hope to bind Gods hands with Wit hs and Straws To arrest his vengeance with such faint and feeble assaults And when nature and danger suggest to Heathen Nineveh not only to cry but cry mightily to God shall the superaddition of our Religion damp ours into a whisper a soft unaudible sound A storm will teach the profane Mariner to pray in earnest and alas we have not wanted that discipline 'T is not long since we might have said with those Acts 27. No small tempest has long lain on us neither Sun nor Stars in many days nay in many years appearing nothing but black and dismal portents of a final wreck to a poor weather-beaten Church and then sure 't was time to be importunate to learn so much of instruction from the waves that tossed us as to make our prayers keep pace with them in swift uninterrupted succession in loud and not to be resisted violence That we did so then I dare not affirm but sure I am the necessity of it is not yet out-dated for though the Sky however black with clouds carry no thunder in it though the impetuous winds that blow from every quarter should not break out in tempest and bring shipwrack to us yet we too fully exemplifie the truth of the Prophets Axiome That the wicked are like the troubled Sea that cannot rest we have within us a principle of ruine which can operate though nothing from without excite it A tempest is not always necessary to sink a Ship one treacherous leak may do it in the greatest calm and what security can there then be to our torn Vessel whose rents our continued divisions do still keep open Indeed our preservation must be as our restoration was the work of Omnipotence thither therefore let us address with St. Peters pathetick Prayer Save Lord or we perish O that all who are concern'd in the grant of that Petition would qualifie themselves to present it Lift up such pure hands that God who hears not sinners Io. 9. may yet hear them afford a gracious ear and give an answer of Peace CHAP. III. A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Inconsideration THE last Section having defeated all the promising hopes of the former by shewing us how sadly we have frustrated all the designs and engagements of our profession enervated all those apt and powerful methods and how perfectly contrary our practices are to our rules mere curiosity would more prompt us to enquire what are the hidden causes of those so strange effects what unhappy propriety there is in the soil that after so much culture and husbandry it should produce nothing but wild Grapes and by what arts and wiles Satan has not only evaded but even retorted those blows which were aim'd at him But as in diseases the pains and languishings are obvious to the grossest sense but the springs and originals of them most frequently lye deep and are so complicated and interwoven that they require much art to search and to distinguish them nay do often mock the most subtile inquisitor and send him back with meer conjectures and uncertain guesses so in this Epidemick Spiritual distemper the malady is notorious and visible but the causes of it not so easily determin'd yet that not so much from the darkness as the number of them so many do pretend and that with very good colour to this unhappy this monstrous birth that a Solomon himself must have made the proposal of dividing it as not being able to have assign'd it entire to any one Mother INDEED so many are the concurrents towards it that it would far exceed the limits of this little Tract but to point at them I shall not therefore undertake any such exact enumeration but shall only take notice of those which either for the generality or degree of their efficacy appear the most eminent AND first the great and stupid Inconsideration which most men have concerning their Religion may well pass for a main cause of its frustration Christianity may make Archimedes his challenge give it but where it may set its foot allow but a sober advertence to its proposals and it will move the whole world it comes with most invincible and controuling arguments but still they are arguments and those must first obtain attention before they can force assent they will most infallibly weigh down the scales though the whole world were the counter-balance but then that must presuppose their being put into those Scales being entertain'd with so much of deliberation as may try and examine their weight In a word they address to us as men that is creatures endued by God with rational Souls and discursive faculties but if we will suppress these and set up only the brute to give audience we must not expect Balaams prodigy shall be every day repeated that the beast should be wiser than the rider and consequently cannot wonder if the Success vary with the Auditors AND 't is to be fear'd this is the state of most of us that all the convincing Logick that demonstration of the Spirit as St. Paul calls it and all the perswasive Rhetorick of the Gospel find us so stupid and unconcern'd that they can make no impression all the avenues are so blockt up that they can find no way of approaching us We are like the Indian Serpents Phylostratus mentions proof against all charms but such as with their glittering splendor assault our Eyes nothing moves us but what courts our Senses and what is not gross enough to be seen we think too nice to be consider'd The form and name of Christianity men find ready to their hands and it costs them no labour to put it on but should they be interrogated of the import and significancy
divine Nature by the proportions of their own Phancies and indeed such temerity as this is too like to confute its self and feel that Justice it will not believe yet as great and daring a crime as it is I fear there are few that can totally acquit themselves of it for though all avow it yet he that shall narrowly search his own heart will scarce find it clear from all degrees of it We are all apt to cherish a flattering hope that God is not so severe as he is represented or that if in respect of his Justice he be a consuming fire yet that Mercy will be sure to snatch us out of the burning like the Angels to Lot assist our Escapes and provide us a Zoar that our souls may live and this Hope though founded only in our wishes is very apt to slide into our faith and make us believe what we would have by which means this becomes a kind of Epidemick Heresie the most frequent and common misperswasion that occurs concerning the divine Attributes IT would be a work more long than useful to recite the several errors that have sprung from this one That of Origen that the Devils should finally be saved is a noted and pregnant Instance which could be deriv'd from nothing but this unequal apprehension of Gods Justice and Mercy And besides all other ancient we have many branches of a later growth that spring from the same root a set of plausible falsities which would quench the unquenchable Fire and kill the never dying Worm I mean those allaying softning descriptions some of this age have made of Hell some changing the kind others abating the intensness or at least the duration of those Torments each substracting so much from this Tophet that they have left Atheism an easie task to take away the rest and may give suspicion they mean to visit that place which they are so industrious to make easie BUT whatever they do themselves 't is sure this is the way to send others thither to take off their fears of it to make them think it not so dreadful a place as they once suppos'd and consequently less careful to decline the ways that lead to it 'T is indeed too obvious that such perswasions do mightily impugn Christian practice and embolden men in sin and God knows we need no such encouragement the more general fallacious hopes of Mercy being too sufficient for that purpose without these supernumerary deceits but between the one and the other Libertinism is like to outgrow all restraints and the Opinion of Gods goodness instead of leading men to repentance will slacken those reigns wherewith our bruitish Nature should be bridled and restrain'd and we thus left unto the sway of lust and passion must run headlong upon ruine as the Horse rusheth into the Battel For alass we are not so generous as to do well for Vertues sake nay nor so provident as to do it for Reward 't is our fear that is the most prevalent incentive and accordingly we find religion generally makes her first impressions there They are the terrors of the Lord that do most usually and most effectually perswade men 2 Cor. 5. 11. our Hearts must be pricked and at those Orifices piety enters Now when all these terrors shall be superseded by the opinion of an overwhelming mercy when Hell shall either be annihilated or suppos'd so to annihilate us that we shall lose our passiveness with our being and be as uncapable of suffering as even Heaven its self can make us what will be left to engage us to vertue or deter us from vice Alas do we not often see a daring Lust bid battel to all the artillery of Heaven meet God in his loudest Thunder and venture on damnation in its dreadfullest form and can we think it will be more modest when it shall be told that they are only edgeless weapons it hath to encounter that Gods Thunder amidst all its noise carries no bolt and that the Flames of the bottomless pit are but a painted fire that at a distance may fright but not hurt us or at least so hurt us that we shall not feel it When those rubs which fear interpos'd are thus removed there is nothing to stay the course of headlong riot but precipiciously it will on where ever strong desire shall drive or flattering lust allure he that loved his sin even when it threatned him ruine serv'd it assiduously when it promised no other wages than death Rom. 6. 23. how will he hug this viper when he thinks 't is stingless and give up his ear to be bored by that Master which affords him present pleasures without future stripes we see even in Civil matters the presumption of Impunity is the great nurse of Disorders and if it were not for the coercive power of Laws we should soon see how little the directive would signifie and doubtless 't is the same in spiritual or rather worse by how much we are more bent upon the breaking of Gods Laws than mens and consequently will be the more apprehensive of any Encouragement OF the truth hereof our experience gives too sad proof none rushing so boldly upon Gods justice as those who have most fortified themselves against the dread of it as if they meant their practice should experiment the truth of their speculation and make the utmost trial whether God can be provoked or no. Indeed men use mercy as amaz'd Passengers sometimes do a plank in a shipwrack lay so much weight upon it as sinks both it and themselves so perishing by too great a confidence of their rescue and finding a Gulph where they expected an Ark not that I suppose Mercy unable to support the weight of all the Persons nay and of all the sins in the world which have not the one ponderous adherent of Impenitence superadded but that is a burthen which even the divine Clemency sinks under refuses to plead such a cause and refers it to Iustice as its proper Court And therefore to sin on in hope of mercy is to undermine our selves and commit a folly as absurd as ruinous I wish I could say 't were not also as frequent but God knows 't is every where too apparent men openly avow it so that 't is become the vulgar Answer to every convicting Reproof that God is merciful And surely they that observe the growth of vice since our new descriptions of Hell came abroad will have cause to think the one has had no small influence on the other and that while some have made it borrow the uneasiness of our humane state to make up its torments they have taken care it should be just and lend us back sins of a greater magnitude This miserable traffique have these Factors setled between the present world and the infernal region that Hell should have Earths pains and Earth Hells wickedness the later alas we are too fully possest of which is like to send too many souls to discover the
contrives more compendious methods of destruction Frames such Engines as take off whole ranks nay troops compounds such active Poyson as like a Pestilence kills multitudes at once It is too trivial a Mischief to annoy the outward parts it is his Mastery to spread an unseen venome in the Bowels thence to diffuse its self through 't mix with the vital spirit and convert that kindly heat which should animate into those wild irregular flames which ravine and consume And this is done by that Pestilential spirit of division that heat of disputation which has for so many ages possest and wasted the Catholick Church and by an unhappy kind of Magick transform'd the zeal of Christian practice into an itch of unchristian Dispute made the questions about our Creed more numerous than the letters of it and by multitudes and contrariety of Paraphrases so confounded and obscur'd the Text that what was anciently the badge and tessera of Christian Communion serves us for no other purpose but as an occasion of breaking it SO long as the Church retain'd the simplicity of Christian doctrine lookt on her faith as the Foundation of her obedience and endeavour'd to propagate to her Children such an understanding of the one as was most apt to promote the other She happily made good the title Christ gives her Can. 6. of his love his dove his undefil'd one but when the Serpent had once got into this Paradise infus'd his subtilties and nice intricacies into mens Brains and least that should not be ruinous enough his venome also into their Hearts Then began all those unhappy Metamorphoses in comparison of which those of the Poets are as trivial as they are Fabulous then that faith which was once inseparably joyn'd with the patience of the Saints forsook that tame company and linkt its self with the most contrary qualities of wrath and bitterness and those whose Profession it was to resist unto blood striving against sin pursued to blood those that resisted them in any of their speculations Then that passive Valour which had rendred them so venerable to their Heathen Enemies converted some tired out others and amaz'd all sadly degenerated into that active malice which from persecuted Christians entituled them to that monstrous style of Christian persecutors And that ardent love which had offered up so many Holocausts to God was supplanted by that fiery hatred that made no less acceptable oblations to Satan THIS miserable and destructive change was so much the interest of the Enemy of Souls that we cannot wonder he should so studiously promote it and indeed never did he at once so approve his malice and subtilty I would I could not say success also as in this design in comparison whereof all his other Projects speak him but a Puny this is his one Goliah Stratagem which has serv'd him not only to defie but even defeat the Armies of the living God NOR is his Sagacity more observable in the choice and main drift of the Design than in the ways of Effecting it had he brought into the Primitive Church those large scrolls of disputable points wherewith he has fill'd the Modern that more charitable Age must needs have startled and discern'd that that seeming Iealousie for Truth was indeed nothing but a real design against Peace and would surely never have parted with that sacred depositum that precious legacy so lately bequeath'd by Christ for those vain janglings those School subtilties which now entertain the world But as he that would divert a man from the guard of some important Treasure alarms him in some other of his greatest interests so he at first raises up Heresies of the greatest magnitude whose blasphemous consequencies so shook the whole Fabrick of Religion that what was Uzzahs Rashness seemed then every man 's advised Duty to put his hand to the upholding of the tottering Ark. How could those who had been baptiz'd into the faith of the Blessed Trinity suffer the Arians to rob them of the Second Person the Macedonians of the Third the Valentinians and Manichees so to despise the First as to set up against him a Rival principle of being How could those who had so solemnly renounc'd the World the Flesh and the Devil see them all bowed to by the temporizing unclean idolatrous Gnosticks these were such invasions as seemed to commissionate all that could weild the sword of the Spirit to take it up and engage in this Warfare But all this while 't was a sad Dilemma to which the Church was driven if she gave countenance to these seducers she betrayed her faith if she entred the contest she violated her unity the one would undermine her foundation the other would make a breach in her walls AND the Devil was too old an Artist to lose the advantage he knew well that even a just and necessary defence does by giving men acquaintance with War take off somewhat from the abhorrence of it and insensibly dispose them to farther Hostilities and therefore he fail'd not to provide sparks for that matter which was now grown so combustible nor did he always send them from the bottomless pit but sometimes borrowed fire from the Altar to consume the Votaries and by the mutual collision of well meant zeal set even Orthodox Christian in flame A memorable instance of this was the dispute about Easter wherein while the veneration they had of the glorious Resurrection of Christ prompted them to commemorate it in the exactest manner they could the Serpent creeps into this Paradise and though they had the same common end yet on occasion of some little dissenting in the way the heat of devotion insensibly degenerated into that of contention and by being very tenacious of a circumstance of that celebration they lost the more essential requisite that of Charity kept the Feast indeed but with the leven of malice and absurdly commemorate the redintegration of his Natural Body by mutilating and dividing his Mystical So likewise in the business of Rebaptization while one side in a pious abhorrence of Heresie thought the stain like that of Original Sin could not be done away by any Purgation less solemn than that of Baptism and the other in a just reverence of ancient custom and jealousie of innovation opposed it the Dispute lasted till the Scene was changed and those who deliberated of the manner of receiving Hereticks into the Church were themselves as such turn'd out of it No less well meant were the Originals of the Novatian and Donatist Heresies as equally unhappy were their issues For in them all when bitter Zeal was once fermented through its aptitude to receive and the Devils vigilance to administer occasions the Orthodoxy or Heresie of lives soon became terms out-dated and men were measur'd only by opinions That sword of the spirit which was at first design'd against vicious practices had its edge turn'd against speculative notions in so much that at last like that of Ioab 2 Sam. 28. 8. it had
private quarrels that all such foreign designs are forgot For as in Civil so in Ecclesiastical concerns every one is more industrious to advance his peculiar interest than that of the community accordingly we find innumerable promulgers of every new Opinion No Sect wants its Apostles to propagate and diffuse it but where are there any that have the like care for the main Root of Christian Religion which they have for these little Twigs and Offesets which they have planted in their own Gardens how many ages must we look back to find a man that has made it his business to convert Infidels to the Faith 'T is true indeed there are some very magnificent relations of modern attempts this way of great industry some have us'd to bring the most savage nations to the obedience of Christ but if we examine 't will be obvious the main design was to subject them to themselves 'T was not so much their Heathenism as their territories they invaded and such Apostles as these are ill qualified to make S. Paul's profession 2 Cor. 12. 16. I seek not yours but you And the success of such Essays have been answerable to the motive they have won riches but not Souls The Gospel in one hand and a sword in the other has made many slaves but I fear few Christians Indeed what encouragement had those poor creatures to receive a Religion from their Oppressors why should they think that those who tortured and kill'd their bodies were really concern'd to save their Souls or that those who would not permit them to enjoy what was their own meant to help them to any thing better And while the felicities of another world were recommended to them only by such as had deprived them of all in this we cannot wonder at their little appetite to embrace them or to find the opprest Indians protest against that heaven where the Spaniards are to be their cohabitants In short this is sure such a method of Evangelizing as too widely differs from that which first planted the Church to be likely to advance its growth so that notwithstanding all pretences of this kind we may resume our assertion and conclude that our intestine discords perhaps not those alone have diverted the Zeal of this more Christian undertaking and left a great part of the world under that invincible Ignorance S. Paul mentions Rom. 10. 14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher and God knows whether we have not herein provided better for their Excuse than our own THERE is yet another way by which our divisions impede their conversion and that is by giving them prejudice to that Doctrine about which our selves cannot agree 'T is an universal Maxim that truth is alwaies consonant to its self and therefore where they see so little unity they have too much temptation to doubt of Truth He that wandring should meet a Company that offer to conduct him to his journeys end might reasonably incline to deliver himself up to their guidance but if he find them unagreed upon the way one Disputing for this and another for that and every one protesting against all but his own he would sure retract his confidence and think they offer'd him only more variety of mistakes resolve it as safe to trust himself to his own Errors as other mens And this alas seems to be too exact a parallel of the present case we Christians do so mutually damn one another that a poor Turk or Heathen will think he rather multiplies than ends his Danger by associating himself with us for there being so many parties which soever he joyns himself to there will be abundant odds against him so that if he could be secur'd the truth were among us yet the great difficulty of finding it out would be a very disheartning consideration Besides men love in transactions of great Importance to have as many and as credible Vouchers as may be and upon that score 't will sure be but a cold inducement to any to turn Christian to foresee that when he has done so he shall be disown'd by far the greater part of that number and that at his entrance into the Church he shall be met with almost as many Anathemas as when he was an Infidel Nay I scarce know whether I may call it an entrance into the Church or rather into a Conventicle or particular Congregation our Schisms and Separations having hardly left a possibility of external communion with the universal Church since the Communicating with one part of it does infallibly Excommunicate from another Thus have we placed our flaming Sword though God knows no Cherubim at the gate of our Paradise and when God calls all men to the waters of life our Contentions have made them like those of Marah so bitter and unpleasant as deters and averts men from them Which as it is in the highest degree injurious to them so is it contumelious to him whose invitations are by this means frustrated 't is in some degree the evacuating one of the main purposes of Christs coming into the World which was to call men out of darkness into his marvellous light and as He was thus sent by his Father so also were the Apostles solemnly commissionated by him to preach to the Gentile world who with indefatigable industry and resolute sufferings pursued the charge and sure this is competent evidence that the design was of the greatest and most weighty importance and such as can never be out-dated till there cease to be objects of it unbelievers to convert And by that let us measure the guilt of obstructing it which if we would impartially do I assure my self the most passionate Bigot of any Party must confess that it infinitely out-weighs all the Piety his doctrine can pretend to that his peculiar Church gains not so much as the Catholick loses And that how confidently soever he have Canoniz'd his quarrels they are indeed but the worst sort of Heathens and serve to keep out the better Yet besides the mischief they do in relation to those that are without they are extremely pernicious to those that are within and that not only to some one Sect but like an universal poyson that is equally deadly to the most contrary complections they operate on the most distant ranks of Professors the tender and the obdurate the scrupulous and the profane And first for the tender tremulous Christian 't is easie to discern how much he must be distracted and amaz'd by them for while he hears each Sect thunder out Damnation against each other he cannot but be startled at the danger of adhering to the wrong and though that may a while excite his diligence to discover the right yet when he comes to that inquisition he will meet with so many Polemick intricacies to entangle him that after many turns first to
own not its proper native dictates but such as are presented to it by the prejudicate Phancy And as it thus lays restraint upon the superior part of the Mind keeps the understanding in fetters so to complete the inversion it takes off all ties from the inferior Gives not only licence but incitation to the other Passions to take their freest range to act with the utmost impetuosity And sure there can nothing more be requir'd to render it a most apt instrument of Tumult and Confusion For when every opinion that is taken up shall instead of reason and argument arm its self with heat and violence there can be no end of contending And the truth of this is God knows too sadly discernible in our Church-controversies which derive a great deal of their warmth and bitterness from this Fountain OF this prepossession there are two Sorts the one relating to Doctrine the other to Persons by the first I mean not a sober constancy to those principles which being first imbibed by education are afterwards retain'd upon Iudgment but an eager tenacity of Opinions not so much upon Truth or Evidence as upon a confus'd irrational kindness a Platonick love of some Doctrine meerly for themselves and then making them the standards by which all others are to be measured And this kind of Prepossession is no Stranger in the world there being multitudes of men who assert opinions with all imaginable vehemence who can give no better ground of it but because they like them And as the wiser sort chuse a Tenet because 't is right so these conclude 't is right because they have chosen it And having thus enamour'd themselves of their Helena they expect all should adore nor can he scape the note of Profaneness that refuses By this absurd partiality it is that some doctrines which would themselves ill abide the Test are become the Touch-stone both of Doctrines and Men and no Opinion or Person sanctified which bears not this impress I need not stand to give instances either of the Doctrines or the unhappy influence this espousing of them has had on our dissentions but indeed this kind of Prepossession is oftentimes the consequent of another and this great veneration of some Opinions is founded in the reverence of their Authors Men take up a confidence of the learning or sanctity of a Person and then all his notions are received implicitly strictly embraced but not so much as slightly examin'd and this admiration of mens Persons has in all ages been of huge mischief to the Church has nurst up private Phancies into solemn publick Errors and given an unhappy perpetuity to many Heterodox opinions which would else have expired with their first Propugners This seems to have been foreseen by St. Paul when he so earnestly exhorts the Corinthians against the ascribing their Faith to their several respective Teachers But sure I am 't was sadly experimented by the succeeding Christians who owed many of their divisions to it A pregnant instance hereof was the Millennium which in spight of its improbability prevail'd long and almost universally against the Truth upon the strength of Authority Papias a holy man and Scholar of St. Iohn having delivered it the esteem of his Person canoniz'd his mistake and men chose rather to admit a doctrine whose unagreeableness to the Gospel Oeconomy rendred it suspicious than think an Apostolick man could seduce them And the force of this is yet more considerable when 't is remembred that it found Proselytes not only among the Vulgar who are commonly flexible to any new Impression but among those of a higher rank men that were lights in their generation Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus having own'd the Opinion and intimated it to have been received by many others no less Orthodox and if such a seduction could prevail so early in those purer times before mens interests or spleen were adopted into their Religion and begot voluntary errors if I say the meer reputation of a Teacher was then singly so operative we cannot wonder at its efficacy in conjunction with those auxiliaries which worse times have brought in What concurrence of those there was in the several Heresies which after infested the Church I shall not now examine but 't is visible that many of them grew considerable chiefly from the fame of their Authors thus Tatianus upon the credit of being Iustin Martyr's disciple had an advantage to disseminate his errors and not only his but those of Origen Apollinaris and Novatus gain'd abettors from the reputed Orthodoxy of the Persons that propos'd them who having asserted the Faith in some points were qualified the more prosperously to appose it in others NOR has it been only the mishap of elder times to have felt the mischiefs of such praepossession the disease has still advanced and every day improved in worse effect by how much men have more degenerated from primitive integrity so that the easie Proselyte is now in danger not only from the blindness but the treachery of his guide and is often led out of the common road as thieves draw passengers into by-ways for the better opportunity of robbing them But 't is not my present business to send Hue and cry after them to examine what the intentions of those leaders are who misguide their tractable admiring followers 't is enough for my purpose to observe that those who so deliver up themselves in a blind assent to the dictates of any man are in his power to be abused by him if he pleases I shall leave it to others to estimate the probability that they shall not be actually so But certainly this may be said that these later ages have beyond all the former given Opportunities of seducing to any that will use them The one establisht Doctrine of infallibility among the Romanists is eminent for its propriety that way while under pretence of submission to something they call Infallible 't is evident that the faith of the ignorant Vulgar resolves its self into that which they acknowledge most fallible the Doctrine of their immediate Teachers But indeed take it at the best such a perswasion is not only an error in its self and an apt foundation for innumerable others but it necessarily renders them incorrigible the least retractation of a mistake being so inconsistent with the claim of infallibility that while they retain the one they must never attempt the other nor can they cease to Erre till they confess it possible they may do so How much more than possible that has been the many Innovations of that Church sufficiently witness and consequently the danger of presuming upon the unerrableness of a guide But would all that upbraid it there were themselves secure from it and that many did not in their practice transcribe that decried doctrine and that too with the improvement of worse circumstances I must call them worse by how much the probabilities of Erring are greater under the extemporary conduct of a Private
their particular rancors But this is a Subject neither grateful nor necessary to be more distinctly spoken to One may however in the general say that where these private Animosities are any thing violent they usually beat down all Consideration of publick good Historians observe of Themistocles that he always thwarted the Councils of Aristides not that he thought it the Interest of the Common-wealth but his own to keep down the growing reputation of his Competitor And I fear that envious artifice has been too often transcrib'd as well in Ecclesiastick as in Civil Transactions No detriment is thought so formidable to a malicious mind as the prosperity of his Adversary and publick Ruptures shall still be allowed to widen till they swallow up the whole rather than he will close with his Antagonist The History of the Scottish Church gives an apposite Example of this in a ruling Presbyter who being by King Iames advis'd with about the readmitting Marquess Huntley and prest with the present exigencies of Church and State which requir'd it gave his final answer in these terms Well Sir I see you resolve to take Huntley in favour if you do I will oppose it chuse whether you will lose him or me for both you cannot have Some may think the greatest propriety of this instance lies to shew the insolence of that Tribe towards Majesty but however 't is not impertinent to the matter in hand also and shews how light the greatest publick concerns are when malice is the counterpoize And indeed the Naturalists experiment that flame will not mingle with flame never justifies its self better than when applied to minds thus accended which however they may meet in mutual flashes can never unite and incorporate The sadness of it is that they should only conspire to common vastation and make the Church its self a burnt-offering THUS fatal have our several sorts of prepossions been to our Religion for as if that were the common Enemy our most distant contrary Affections our love and our hate equally annoy it those brutish parts of us our Passions which like the beasts under the Law were never to be brought into the Temple but for sacrifice are now found there upon a far differing account not to be slain but ador'd like the Aegyptian Isis and Osyris enshrin'd to receive our Devotions for that the Zeal we pretend elsewhere is really paid to them is alas too manifest CHAP. XVII A survey of the Causes of Disputes Fifthly Zeal TO these several causes of our distractions we my add another which though in its original it may seem more innocent yet is in its consequents no less pernicious and that is a mistaken Zeal which as it is fire to all about it so is it wind to its self fans and irritates its own flames and by a confidence that it does well gathers still fresh vigour to do more How great the force of such an Erroneous perswasion is we may collect from our Saviours premonition to his Disciples when he tells them that those who kill'd them should think they did God service and if Murder and that of Apostles too could by the Magick of blind Zeal be so transform'd we must not wonder to find other Crimes so too And what Christ thus foretold was after eminently exemplified in St. Paul whom the Holy Writ represents under all the Phrases that may denote a virulent persecutor as breathing out threatnings and slaughter making havock of the Church and in his own words Persecuting that way unto the Death and being exceedingly mad against them and all this he did being Zealous towards God and out of a perswasion that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Iesus as we find in his Apology to his countrey-men and King Agrippa Act. 22. 2. 26. 9. AND of the abettors of those Novel doctrines which after times produced we have reason to think many were of this Sort especially in those Heresies which though they carried secret venome in them had yet a plausible appearance of Sanctity and Devotion such was that of the Encratites which seem'd to be founded in the veneration of two great Vertues Continence and Temperance though by extending them beyond the due limits they lost that Sobriety they too strictly embraced and became inordinate in their Continence and excessive in their Abstinence Such again were the Euchitae or Massalians who made the whole business not only of religion but even of life to consist in praying and though by it they evacuated all other ends of both yet having the letter of a Precept and the pretence of Devotion on their side 't was a proper bait for those who had much Zeal and little Knowledge In like manner the Novatians Heresie had so glorious an inscription of Purity as was very apt to attract well meaning Souls who seeing it bid such express defiance to Apostacy could not suspect that it was its self any defection from the faith and accordingly some of that Sect approved their constancy in times both of Heathen and Arian persecutions Nor must we be so uncharitable to the modern times as not to believe many have acted upon the like Principles and meant truth and piety even while they actually promoted the contrary But how sincere soever the purposes of such seduced Persons were yet 't is evident the Church has suffer'd no less by them than by the more crafty designers their misguided piety has made as great and incurable Ruptures as the most flagitious blasphemies of others And when a rent is once made it matters little whether it were done by error or malice nay perhaps as to the hopes of repairing the former may be the more desperate for whereas he that knowingly commits an Ill has the Upbraidings of his own Conscience towards his reducing these on the other side have its Cherishings and Encouragements to confirm and animate them And doubtless they are great advantages which Satan has in all ages made of Such Persons whom he seems to have deluded in the same manner that Medea is said to have done the daughters of Peleas whom she perswaded to hack their aged Father in pieces in hope that by her Magick he should not only recover life but youth so these rend and tear their Mother the Church out of a hope no less delusive of restoring her pristine beauty and vigor how far the Event parallels it also the dying state of Christianity does too sadly testifie NOR has it only been the Heat of Erring persons that has been thus mischievous but sometimes men of right judgments have too much contributed to the breach of Unity and the intemperate and imprudent Zeal of these hath serv'd to exasperate the mistaking earnestness of the other this happens sometimes for want of distinguishing between the Essentials and Circumstantials of Religion and so looking upon a mistake in the later with the detestation proper only to the perverting of the former by this means those who
have entirely embraced the same faith have yet violated charity and broken communion such slight minute differences when managed by eager Spirits being easily blown up into solemn and lasting contentions so that the Disputes rais'd about some pin or nail of the Temple have sometimes shaken and endanger'd the whole Fabrick robbed the Church of that fraternal unity which was its fastest cement and surest support Of this we need no more apt instance from antiquity than that which has been already mentioned upon another occasion I mean Victors unbrother-like Heat towards the Eastern Churches in the controversie about Easter which had fomented that Difference into a Schism which the meeker Piety of his Predecessors thought no ground of unkindness much less of Separation as Irenaeus more at large tells him And probably had men in all the succeeding Ages deliberately poiz'd the Errors they oppos'd and proportion'd their Displeasure but to the just weight of them many of our disputes would have been so calm'd that they should never have become quarrels But many in this particular have only us'd the Touchstone not the Scales and of Opinions that are erroneous consider not which are more or less pernicious but with an equal violence fly at all as if the Stoical opinion concerning Sins had prevail'd in Errors also and that all were resolv'd to be of the same size BUT even in those of the highest kind it may perhaps be doubted whether too eager an opposition have not sometimes done hurt especially in those Doctrines which relate to the mysterious parts of Religion wherein a novelty is at first lookt upon with some horror and many are willing rather to condemn in gross than nicely to examine Who yet when they find this done for them by Orthodox persons they think they may with such a guide venture to wade into the question where many times the insinuations of Error are so subtile that all their Antidotes secure them not from infection but they are themselves captivated where they expected only to triumph Neither want there those of the Vulgar that are of a more insolent temper and out of a vanity of making themselves Umpires between learned men greedily read the writings of both Parties who yet are able to make no solid judgment of either and when 't is remembred how many popular artifices there are to byasse such persons we must confess that Truth hath many to one Odds against her Besides publick arguing oft serves not only to exasperate the minds but to whet the Wits of Hereticks and by shewing them the weak parts of their Doctrines prompts them to rally all their Sophistry to fortifie them that what they want of truth and reason may be supplied with fallacy and little colours and Experience shews how fitly that kind of Logick is accommodated to the greatest part of the World In short it seems not improbable that many Heresies owe much of their growth to the improper means of eradicating them and have acquir'd a reputation from the stir that was made about them Thus Socrates tells us that Alexanders letters about the Arian Heresie serv'd to scatter that pestilent infection the more abroad and combin'd men into parties so that the whole world became the Scene of that long Tragoedy which possibly might have had a shorter and better issue had not the notice of the Controversie been so early disperst BUT if the Attempts of the Pen have often proved so unfit it may be consider'd whether those of the sword are not more so and fighting be not a worse expedient than disputing and certainly we have great reason to conclude in the affirmative if we weigh either the Injustice or Unreasonableness of it I know there want not those who have thought the propagating Religion by Arms not only lawful but meritorious and that in order to the planting it in a Nation the soil may be mellowed with the bloud of the Inhabitants nay the old extirpated and new Colonies planted But we are to remember that as God is the universal Monarch of the World so We have all the relation of fellow subjects to him and can pretend no farther jurisdiction over each other than what he has delegated to us and sure 't would be hard to produce any commission from him for the invading a Nation only because 't is not of our Faith 'T is sure those to whom he first entrusted the promulgating of the Gospel had far different instructions and 't were fit our new Evangelists should shew their later authority for this sanguinary Method in order to which though some have made use of the Opinion of some Schoolmen that dominion is founded in Grace yet as that is but an Opinion so were it admitted as the most certain Truth it could never warrant any enterprize of this kind for supposing that a people by wanting spiritual Blessings did lose all their right to temporal yet that Forfeiture must devolve only to the Supreme Lord and when as God in another case asks where is the bill of divorce Esay 50. 1. so we may demand of these zealous Invaders where is the bill of assignment by which that right was transferr'd to them In short peace is the most valuable blessing of humane life and we cannot without injustice deprive man of it though we could as we pretend give them truth in lieu of it for maugre the Proverb that Exchange will still be robbery where the parties are compell'd to make it But alas 't is a vain imagination to think that Religion can be thus impos'd or that we can bind the understandings and wills of men with the same fetters we do their bodies 't is true indeed the Apostle tells us there is a way of bringing every thought into Captivity to the obedience of Christ but he tells us withall that the weapons by which that Victory is atchieved are not carnal 2 Cor. 10. 4. Indeed did Religion consist only in some external conformities external force might bear some proportion to it which perhaps is the cause that the one is most us'd by those whose religion is most eminent for the other but 't is seated in those faculties to which outward violence can have no access Alas 't is not whole Armies can besiege my reason nor Canons batter my will 't is conviction not force that must induce Assent and sure the Logick of a conquering Sword has no great propriety that way Silence indeed it may but convince it cannot Its efficacy rather lies on the other side breeds aversion and abhorrence of that Religion whose first address is in bloud and rapine nor do such attempts gain any thing to the Cause but the infamy of those rigors which are us'd to promote it And sure since this piece of Mahumetan Zeal has been transplanted into Christendom it has been much more mischievous than in its native soil Christianity having been infinitely more oppressed by those that thus fought for it than those that were in Arms