A DIALOGUE BETWEEN Timotheus and Judas Concerning a Pamphlet called The Growth of DEISM in England A DIALOGUE Between Timotheus Judas Concerning a PAMPHLET CALLED The Growth of Deism in England LONDON Printed for S. Manship at the Ship in Cornhil near the Royal-Exchange MDCXCVI TO THE READER ABout the middle of June last a Gentleman put into my Hands a Pamphlet called The Growth of Deism in England but withall told me that he had borrowed it upon promise to restore it with speed and therefore could allow me just time to peruse it and so I did and that was all My Curiosity leading me to a further and more ferious perusal of it I sent with what speed I could to London for one of those Pamphlets but could not get one till July the 18th Assoon as I had received it and read it once or twice I believed that the Author's Travels in his Youth had spoiled him and so much corrupted his Christianity as not to leave him the Morals of an Honest Infidel What his Modesty his Truth and Charity are his Pamphlet tells us plainly enough What his Religion is I wish he himself could tell If we should allow him to be a poor deformed By-blow of Socinus we do him great Honour But who can guess what or who he is He has more Disguises on than Father Grey-beard had on the Scaffold in 48. Jan. 30. Whether that Man be still living or no who can tell But however that be the Author of the Growth of Deism has undertaken the like Jobb of Journey-work again excepting only that his Master has enlarged his Commission to the Execution of the whole Body of Christianity with its Prince or as he calls him Page 17. its Patron I had sent this abroad a little sooner to beg the Honour of its being admitted into his Numerous Acquaintance but I feared being upon his Travels in making his Summer-Visits it might not find him But the Season of the Year approaching now that will call him to his Winter-Quarters in London I thought it good Manners to send this forth a little before-hand to wait him there and Congratulate his Return A DIALOGUE BETWEEN Timotheus Judas Concerning a Pamphlet called the Growth of Deism in England Judas SIR next paying my Respects to you after your Return Home the chief of my business is to have your Judgment of a Pamphlet lately written called The Growth of Deism in England Tim. I just saw and heard of it Sir in my Journey and that was all Judas Bless me Sir It has been abroad several months and written with that smartness of Stile and quickness of Wit that I am amazed to hear you say you did not hear of it before Tim. If you could have added Evidence of Truth and Strength of Argument it had been never the worse But you know Sir that I live a Retired Life and that I have neither Time nor Mony like that Author to Contract a Numerous Acquaintance to spend the Winter in Town and the Summer in Country Visits There may be a thousand Books Printed and I never hear of One of them And it was meer chance only that ever I heard of this Judas But pray Sir what is your Judgment of it for I presume you have read it since your Return Tim. Once or twice I have Sir enough in Conscience to see through the Authors both Honesty and Argument But because I do not much trust to my own Judgment in any thing I will if you please Sir wave mine a while and give you an honest Gentleman's Opinion of it who was with me lately and who had scanned it narrowly Judas With all my Heart Sir Tim. Asking then his Judgment Sir of it he told me that it was ominous to stumble in the Threshold When I read Sir said he the Title of that Pamphlet of the Growth of Deism I expected to have heard of Arguments to invalidate all Revelation I expected to have heard of Sampson's Locks and Balaam's Ass in the Old Testament and of as many Absurdities in Matters of Faith and Falshoods in Matters of Fact in the New I believed he would have proved its inconsistency with the Chronology and History of those Times in which it was written of its prescribing Mysteries to be believed which were contradictory to common Understanding and of matters of Practice which were so to common Morals I expected to have heard that the Apostles were no proper Judges of the Matters of Fact they delivered that they were corrupted either through Interest or Design or rendered Incompetent through Ignorance or Profligate Lives and by consequence that their Testimony could not be supposed to pass in any Court of Judicature in the World and that for the same Reasons we might reject the Validity of it too This I say I lookt for at least from this Man when I read the Title to his Pamphlet for I expected Pertinence and not Design but instead thereof out comes a Mouse at last and tells me that there are a parcel of Men amongst the Clergy of England that do not live so good Lives as they should do as if said he there were any Body of Men in the World that did and that our Saviour had not expresly foretold that to the End thereof there would be Tares mixed with the Wheat Sir said I methinks there cannot be a weaker and more Ridiculous Argument brought against the truth of any Doctrine than the ill Lives of some of its Professors For if there be any Force in it there is with Christianity an End of all Religion in the World for none are without some Men of bad Lives and all Mankind if this Argument be good must with one dead weight sink into downright Atheism To which my Friend replyed and who knows Sir saith he what hidden Reserve this Man had when he made use of it But Sir said I it may be if this Author's Life were narrowly inspected into that it might be found no very good Argument for the Truth of that Religion whatever it be that he himself professes To which my Friend returned We ought Sir to have better grounds to believe it is than he has given us in this Pamphlet for Diabolical Slanders and Malice said he are but poor Arguments of a Good Life But when all is done said my Friend if the bad Lives of some of the Clergy of England are an Argument against the Truth of Revelation the Lives of those that are good must by a Parity of Reason be an Argument for it and except said he that this Man is lost to all Shame and Modesty he cannot deny but that there are abundance of the Clergy of England that live answerably to their Faith Upon this I interposed a little and said you seem Sir to me to be much mistaken For this Gentleman does not say that these Arguments have made him a Deist but some of his Acquaintance To which he replied The Monky Sir you know
pulled the Nut out of the Fire with the Cats Foot but both the Action and Design was wholly the Monky's and not the Cat 's and this Gentleman makes so many ugly Grimaces through his whole Pamphlet against all Christian Churches as well as that of England that it is an easie Matter to see who was Master of this Movement 'T is true said he he does sometimes seem to boggle a little at the Deists Arguments brought against the Truth and in Scandal of the Christian Religion but he does it after such a yawning rate that you would believe he were more than half a-sleep when he did it But however it be as to that matter yet all they bring against the Church of England he swallows whole and does not only allow but improve them So that whatver Disguises he would appear under in other Respects yet all that is said against the Church of England is plainly his own and ought to be so esteemed And therefore said he let him put on as many Skins as he will we see his Ears still as the Man knew well enough who it was that stunk though the Woman said 't was her Dog But pray Sir said I how can this be When Page the 8th we are told that he belongs to the Church of England and that it was well for him he was of the Bishop's Church for without a dutiful Allegiance to the Bishops he could not hold the Place he now enjoys I am glad Sir said my Friend to hear that some Men may hold Places under the Church of England that are not of the De Facto-ship And this is the only Instance I think though I believe much against his Will and Knowledge that he has confuted the Objections he made by the Deists against the Church of England For by this Instance he hath let the World see that a Man may hold a Place and yet pay very small Duty to the Bishops Not that I doubt said he but that he is old enough to hold a Place under any Church whatever and be their Shiboleth the Jure Divino or De Facto or any other Title he is wise enough to hold fast what he has only it may be he had rather their Shiboleth were the Title of the People that so the King might hold his Place under him And as for his belonging to the Church of England he may Sir said he for all as I know if you will allow Judas to belong to Jesus and the twelve or Ascarides to belong to the Body of a Man After he had said this Sir said I we will have done if you please with the Title and I will beg the Favour of you to give me your Judgment of the Body of the Discourse Judas It is what I have been long a waiting for Tim. I tell you then Sir said he that if you will believe all this Author says you may believe enough if only what he proves you can believe nothing For if you will not take his Word for his Stories there 's an End of them and I dare boldly say that take ten Pages together through his whole Book and there is hardly one Word of Truth in them or if there be it may honestly be said of him what he colourably says of the Deists Page the 14th that he stretches his Conclusion beyond his Premises The main of his Building is raised on the Shiboleths as he calls them of the Church of England The Doctrine of Non-resistance and the De Facto Title there is a little Colour of Truth in the First in the last there is none at all So that if you do but rightly state the former and barely deny the latter his whole Structure falls about his Ears and he is buried in its Ruins The rest of his Book is most of it Personal Calumniations just said and never proved and for the greatest Part as false as the Foundations of his Building are rotten In short Sir said he it is a Discourse written with that little Truth and less Argument with that incomparable Malice against all settled Churches particularly that of England against Christianity it self in all its holy Mysteries more especially that of the Divinity of our Blessed Saviour that I cannot think those Papers can deserve any better Fate than to expire in a like Place where the Authour 's famous Ancestor Arius did and Sir said he I honestly confess to you that those I had of them have sometimes since given up the Ghost Thus Sir you have heard in part the Thoughts of my Friend upon this Pamphlet pray now before we go any further what are your Thoughts of him Judas Why truly Sir to deal plainly with you I think him a Priest-ridden Ass one that has more Ears than Brains that hears and receives whatsoever the Priests please to put into his Head and has no Judgment to distinguish of things But as for my Friend the Author of this Pamphlet so I call him for so he is I think him next the Honourable S. R. H. the best Distinguisher in the World He had that Acumen Ingenii from his Infancy that he was used to slit Motes in the Sun when he was but four Years old and now he is above threescore he can he says slit a Hair without Spectacles In short Sir I believe that you cannot but see that he has distinguished so nicely between Religion and Priest-Craft that he has made all Ambitious Priests to stink even from Aaron down to this Day And has turned the Edge of the Church of England's Caution to young Travellers Page 5th so sharply against their own Throats that he has distinguished them forever out of their Gains that way by making it plainly appear that there are as many holy Cheats amongst the Clergy of the Church of England as amongst those of Rome And now Sir since you have had my Judgment so freely of your Friend pray let me have yours so of mine and of his Discourse Tim. I will Sir as far as concerns the Church of England but no farther let others answer for themselves And I will do it only on this Supposition too that when I charge this Author with what is said against the Church of England you do not reply that it was said by this or t'other Deist and not by him For besides that this would breed an endless Confusion in our Discourse if the Charge that is made against the Church of England be answered it matters not under whose Name it be done But I cannot think of a juster Way than doing it under this Authors for the Cause and Quarrel is wholly his though like a Coward he hides his own Head and thrusts other Men forward to fight it for him Do not think therefore Sir that in the Judgment I shall give of and Answer I shall make to this Pamphlet that like a Gladiator I will go to fencing with half a dozen Men at once when 't is obvious that all the Thrusts they
all these divisions amongst the Deists he says he does still believe there is a God And if so Sir pray why may not the Christians believe there is a Trinity though some of them may differ in what we must believe concerning it I remember Tully says somewhere That nothing can be a more weak and ridiculous Charge than such a One which by Changing the Name only a Man may turn upon His Adversary Thus changing the word Christianity into Deism I may say to the Author of that Letter shall I set my self to seek out a system of Deism amongst their endless Disputes Let them first agree upon it amongst themselves when that is done it will be time enough for me to consider what they say And truly it will not be good Manners for us to go before Them considering what a strong Palpitation of Heart the Clergy's desire of Precedency caused in your Friend the Author of the Growth of Deism Page the 19. I confess because we are naturally most jealous of that we most love I do not much blame your Friend for being angry with the Clergy if they do Rival his Mistress But however Sir if one sawcy Fellow of them had once in his Life it may be stept before Him yet he ought not methinks like an Italian to carry his Revenge down to the whole Body to which he stands related for his sake only Judas But pray Sir was not that pertinently alledged to prove the Pride and Insolence of the Clergy and could he give a better Instance of it than that A. one of his Majesties Chaplains did in the Pulpit at Whitehall abuse the Author 's Honourable Friend S. R. H. for writing a Treatise wherein with great Learning and Acurate Judgment he distinguish'd between Religion and Priestcraft For to tell you the truth Sir once more I think the Honorable Sir R. H. and my Friend to be the best Distinguishers in the World So that 't is great Pity but that Sir H. R. at least having like an Old Roman fought so stoutly in the Defence of the Liberty of his Country and his Gods and wholly vanquish'd the Priests of this Nation it is Great Pity I say but that he like them should have his Honorable Cognomen and as they had their stiles of Scipio Africanus Pompeius Magnus c. So he also should have of H-us Discriminator Tim. With all my Heart Sir I am no more a Rivaller of Titles than I am of Sovereignty But to return to our business I remember Sir that Pages the 18th and 19th this Charge you mention of Love of precedency in the Clergy with a great deal more is said and laid against them by this Author Particularly that they do not allow of Sir Matthew Hales his Notions nor will they suffer us to take any thing for Religion that is distinguished from their particular Interest And Page the 19th That a Man's Churchmanship will not appear by any Mark so well as by the Hatred he bears to all Dissenters and in Conjunction with a deep aversion to all the Ancient Rights and Just Liberties of his Native Country Judas And what Answer Sir can you make to this Charge Tim. No more than this Sir that it is so grosly and scandalously false that this Author gives us thereby undoubted Reason to believe that the Accomplish'd Traveller he mentions Page the 6th was none Other than Himself who having got an ugly Habit when he was Young could never leave it since For he might with the same Truth and Charity have charged the inhumane and bloody Barbarities committed by his Forefathers in Dr. Cave's Seculum Arianum upon the Church of England or have brought in the other Arm of Arsenius and have Sworn that he was murdered again by the present Archbishop of Canterbury as have laid those things as he has done to the Charge of that Church However Sir this I must needs say in his Honour that I think no Man living ever kept closer to his Text than this Author I think he ought to have Precedency in that Respect of all the Clergy of England For for uncharitable Censures idle and loose Consequences unchristian Leasings joyned with incomparable Spite and Malice he ought not only to have Preference of the Church of England but of all Mankind Living I never heard of his Peer Shimei was an Ass to him He could only Rail and Curse but he had never Travelled and so was unacquainted with the great Accomplishment of impudent Lying He was ignorant of that Noble Maxim Fortiter calumniare aliquid adhaerebit Judas But pray what can you say to A's abusing the Honourable Sir R. H. for his Excellent Treatise Tim. Who this A. is or wherein he has abused this Honourable Person I cannot tell but I presume he is of Age and can Answer for himself And as for the Honourable Sir R. H. his Book whoever he be also for I am no Cunning Man at Cyphers I have not seen it and so can give no Account of it But I am apt to think that the Niceness of these Mens distinguishing Faculties lies more in their Pockets than it does in their Heads and that the Bishops deadly Sin of Priestcraft lies chiefly in this That they have a little Mony in their Purses and a little Land belonging to their Bishopricks But truly Sir I cannot but say to you first of all That if these Bishops could use their Mony to no better purposes than some of these Honourable Distinguishers have done it were great Pity they should ever have any Secondly I say Sir that if this Author would have had us believe that his Friends are such nice Distinguishers in other folks Matters he ought in order thereunto to have given us good Proof of their Distinguishing with a little more Honour than some of them are said to have done in their own And lastly Sir pray give me leave to tell you that sometimes through an inveterate Wont or Habit a Man may wholly lose his Distinguishing Faculty Thus there was an Honourable Knight in or near the last Age so wonted to Errantry that at last he could not Distinguish between a Wind-mill and a Gyant and there may be Another for all as I know in this that may have been so long accustomed to the Stage that he may think the Priesthood Religion and all things else to be Counterfeit and may not be able to Distinguish between the New Testament and a Play Therefore Sir let these Men put what Value and Estimate they please upon their Distinguishing Faculty yet I do not intend they shall measure my Opinion of it by theirs Judas Stay Pray Sir You are Riding on the wrong side of the Post and must turn back again I am afraid you do not care to hear what I mentioned before of the Church of Englands prevarication in the Matter of Non-Resistance which was formerly as my Friend tells you Page the 12th the Shiboleth of their Church as the De
or our Scorn This Prodigal has left his Father's House and spent his Substance and would be eating Husks abroad with Swine rather than the fatted Calf with his Father It had been enough for Mr. Lock to have preferred him as he does to Grotius for I known no Man of that mind but himself but to esteem of his Abilities beyond those of our blessed Saviour and all his Apostles put together betrays a Judgment more bewildred than the Fancies of Bedlamites are in Dreams But the Author of that Letter knew very well that this Request would undervalue both the Perfection and Authority of the Scriptures and he had his Cue set him I doubt not as well as his Forerunner the Author of the Growth of Deism It was not fit for that Author who was sent out first by the Party to try the ways to Ride at all Adventures and therefore he glased a little in the Acknowledgment of the Truth of Christianity The Author of the Letter that comes after him now the Road is beaten Rides somewhat brisker up against Revelation with his If 's and And 's as If the History of the Gospel be true And if the Pretences of Christianity be well grounded c. And if this comes off as well as the former I doubt not but in a little time we shall have a Third spur up full speed in the face of the Christian Religion and tell us plainty That 't is a meer Forgery and a piece of Priest craft and that the Romans did but Right when they punished Jesus Christ the Patron of it with the Punishment of a Slave For let them pretend what they will of their belief of Christianity this is their design and the Morals of Plutarch or Tully or Seneca or Mahomet are altogether of as good Authority with them as the Scriptures For if once you come to talk with them of the mysterious Efficacy of the Sacraments of the great Ends of our Saviour's Manifestation in his Birth Life Death Resurrection and Ascension which are the great Characteristicks of the Christian Religion they take their leave of the Scriptures there and you had as good tell them a Tale out of the Legend of the Sleepers and they will believe it as soon These they cry out upon as unintelligable Mysteries not that they are so but are obvious to the Capacity of any Honest and Ordinary Christian but they do not fall within their Scheme and what they will not believe they will not understand Sir said I what you have said puts me in mind of what the Author of the Growth of Deism saith Page 28. That he cannot frame to himself an Idea How the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed received in the Sacrament when we say there is no other Body there but that of the Bread The Men of the Church of England tell me indeed says he that they mean it in a spiritual sense but he had tried he said and found it impossible to form an Idea of a Body verily and indeed in a spiritual sense 'T is true replied my Friend he does so and with Ignorance enough of the Doctrine of the Church of England and the great Ends of our Saviour's Sufferings For by these words That the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken by the Faithful is meant no more than that all those Blessings and Benefits which were purchased for us by the Body and Blood of Christ are communicated to all Faithful Receivers in and by those Elements of Bread and Wine which are the Real but Mystical Body of Christ Now however this Man for want of a right Faith of the great Ends of our Saviour's Death cannot said he form to himself an Idea thereof yet as there is no Christian of common capacity but may frame to himself a very congruous and familiar Notion of what the Church of England means in this Point so is there of Faithful Receiver but from the Real Presence of the Invisibe Power of Christ's Spirit quickning and enlivening his Soul by his spiritual Graces and Workings in and by the faithful Reception of those Elements but can give an Experimental Testimony to the truth of it Upon what my Friend had said I told him I was verily satisfied now that these men did intend to reduce all Religion to Deism but pray Sir how do you make it appear that without a standing Revealed Rule Mankind will quickly sink into Atheism or Idolatry To which he replyed Easily enough and in a few words The best way Sir says he to judge what would be if such things should happen is by reflecting on what has been when they did happen Now Sir said he if ever there were any True Deism in the world it was in Adam's time yet if we will believe Maimonides he tells us in the beginning of his first Book of Idolatry that Idolatry began in the days of Enos which was but two hundred and thirty five years after the Creation scarce in those days the Infancy of a man After the General deluge a Judgment on all Mankind for this their scandalous Apostacy to the days of Abraham are not reckoned quite three hundred years in which time the Infancy also of this second World Idolatry had not only prevailed amongst the Ignorant sort of people but amongst the wisest and learnedst of Men. For Historians make Zoroaster contemporary with Abraham who first started the Worship of two Beginnings And if Zoroaster lived in Abraham's Time we may reckon him but a third Generation from Adam Abraham being born threescore years before the Death of Noah Noah above five hundred before the death of Methusalem and Methusalem two hundred and forty before the Death of Adam Now if a Man of those great Parts Wisdom and Learning which Zoroaster is said to be of and who could doubtless write as good a Moral as our Author was so ridiculously imposed upon by the Devil as to believe and worship two Beginnings what gross Idolatry must the more Ignorant of Mankind lye under think you in those Days Thus Sir said my Friend I have in a few words shewn you the speedy Apostacy of those Original Deists from Almighty God in the very Infancy of Times after the Creation and after the Flood and yet those Primitive Deists had several great advantages which the Deists of these later Ages cannot pretend to As first of all Sir said he They had the advantage of Tradition and thereby an easie means of a right Information and themselves in the knowledge of God and his Worship from Adam the Patriarchs and their own Fathers 2ly They had the advantage of Angelical Messengers and Messages which God vouchsafed them in those days before he had given them a standing revealed Rule for the better discovery of himself and his Will to them And lastly They had this advantage also that besides those Heavenly Annunciators of his Will God did constantly in all Ages raise up a Noah a