contrary to every part of it as I shall shew in some signal Instances which were blemishes in his Life and will remain such Blots upon his Memory as no Apology will ever be able to wash out My first Instance shall be in his Apostacy from his own avowed Principle and Doctrine of the Church of England the once venerable Doctrine of Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience in which our Church hath taught her Children how they should behave themselves towards Men and approve themselves towards God if she and they should come to be persecuted for the Tryal of their Faith as the purest Churches and best Christians have been in former Ages He did not only (a) In his Subscription to the Book of Homilies subscribe to the Truth of this Doctrine and in the Profession of the Truth of it declare it unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever but pressed it upon the Consciences of Living and Dying Men And when he preached against Popery he asserted it not only in the most serious manner that good Divines use to do the most important matters of Christiany but with that Strength and Clearness which our Preacher saith is his peculiar Talent In his Letter to my Lord Russel in Nâ—wgate which the Reader will find in the (b) N. 3. Appendix he told his Lordship who did not believe that Doctrine what a great and dangerous Mistake he was in and that his disbelief of it which was but a Sin of ignorance before he was Convinced of the Truth of it became a Sin of a more heinous Nature after his Conviction and called for a more deep and particular Repentance and that if he dyed in a disbelief of it he was like to leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace and pursuant to this in his last Prayer with his Lordship on the Scaffold he said Grant Lord that all we who survive by this and other Instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King What could a Man have said more in behalf of any Doctrine of the Christian Religion Or what could he have done more to convince the World he was in good Earnest than to publish it after he said it And yet in his Thanksgiving Sermon (c) Jan. 31. 1688. preached at Lincolns Inn he tells us That our Deliverance then the Phrase of the Revolution was the Lord's doing although it was brought about by the utter Violation of that Doctrine and the whole Duty of Subjects which results from it and then reciting the Strange means by which it was brought about We must not saith he here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the Preservation of our Religion and the Asserting our Ancient Laws and Liberties Behold the Preacher at Lincolns Inn and the Confessor in Lincolns Inn Fields contradicting one another The Confessor told my Lord Russell That the Christian Religion plainly forbids the Resistance of Authority and that the same Law which established our Religion declares it not lawful to take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever But the Preacher now turned Apostate from the Confessor commends the many Worthies as he calls the Traytors and Rebels of our Country for soliciting a Foreign Prince and the Creature of another State to invade their own Sovereign's Dominions and assisting of him in the Undertaking till they had driven him out of his Kingdoms He saith It was generously done of them to run all hazards of Life and Fortune and he might have added of their Salvation too for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties although he had told the World before that our Laws forbid the Preservation of them by those means nay that the Laws of Nature and the Rules of Scripture had not left us at Liberty to use them which was in effect to say That neither our Laws would have our Religion nor our Religion have it self preserved by the Means those Worthies used for its Preservation The Belief of the Lawfulness of Resisting when our Rights and Liberties should be invaded was a Sin of a dangerous and heinous Nature in my Lord Russel but the Practice of it was laudable in I know not how many Lords and Gentlemen more for preserving our Religion Laws and Liberties by it and if any of them since are gone out of the World in a Delusion and false Peace he is one of those Divines who more especially must Answer to God for it For it was after a close Consult with him and one or two more that a Motion was made in the House of Lords for Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving to God for having made his Highness P. O. the glorious Instrument of delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power And then it was that our English Worthies as well as the Heroe under whom they acted were applauded in the Pulpits for the Success of that Glorious Enterprize which to think or speak of in a slighting manner was in his Opinion to be guilty of the foulest and blackest Ingratitude both to God and them One would wonder how any Christâ—an Man but more especially how a Christian Preacher should so plainly contradict himself and his most serious Doctrines and yet have the Confidence since to Reprint them as if he had never said nor done any Thing inconsistent with them Hear therefore what he saith of Religion our dear and holy Religion which the Worthies of our Nation run such an Hazard to preserve (a) Serm. preached on the Fifth of Nov. 1678. and Reprinted 1691. As for Religion the very Heathens always spoke of it as the great Band of human Society and the Foundation of Truth and Fidelity and Justice among Men. But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach Men the absurdest Things in the World to Lye for the Truth and to Kill Men for God's sake when it serves to no other Purpose but to be a Bond of Conspiracy to inflame the Tempers of Men to a greater Fierceness and to set a keener Edge upon their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they were by Nature then surely it loses its Nature and ceases to be Religion For let any Man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the Manners and Dispositions of Men to restrain human Nature from Violence and Cruelty from Falshood and Treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that human Nature were left to the Conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations then to be acted by a Religion which inspires Men with so wild a Fury and prompts them to commit such Outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the Welfare of Mankind In short such a Religion that teaches Men to propagate and advance and he might have
Excellency of our holy Faith and in the (b) P. 7. Character of St. Paul whom he makes his Exemplar he insinuates his great Concern for the Truth and Honour of the Christian Religion and more particularly that he asserted the great (c) P. 31. Mystery of the Trinity when he was desired by some and provoked by others to do it with that Strength and Clearness which was peculiar to him As to the first I thought the Torments of Hell as well as the Joys of Heaven had been part of our holy Faith and taught as plainly by Christ the great Doctor of his Church and also as much implied in the Doctrine of the Resurrection and the last Judgment But how convincingly he hath proved the Truth of them appears from what I have said above And as to his great Concern for the Truth and Honour for the Christian Religion that appears in the same manner by his Apostacy in his Practice from that true and honourable Character he gave of it in his Fifth of November Sermon and as for the Strength and Clearness with which he hath proved the Mystery of the Trinity I refer the Reader to the Book in the * Entitled The Charge of Socinianism against Dr. Tillotson consider'd in Examination of some Sermons he hath lately published to clear himself from that Imputation by way of Dialogue To which are added some Reflections upon the Second of Dr. Burnet's Discourses delivered to the Clergy of Sarum concerning the Divinity and Death of Christ with a Supplement Margent which I hope will see the Light before these Discourses of mine There he will find that his Vindication of himself is but a shuffling Vindication which hath much of Arian Cunning and Reserve in it And that he never departed from his Moderation in this point as our Author saith he did not in another To this I shall add in the next place what he hath said of the heinousness of the Sin of Perjury in his Assize Sermon upon Heb. 6.16 But I shall not insist upon the Application of it as of some former Passages because it will apply it self nor make some severe and dangerous Reflections upon his heroical Piety because they are so obvious that the Reader may make them himself There he saith that all departure from the Simplicity of an Oath is Perjury and that a Man is never a whit the less forsworn because his Perjury is a little finer and more artificial than ordinary That he is guilty of Perjury who having a real Intention when he swears to perform what he promiseth yet afterwards neglects to do it not for want of Power but for want of Will and due Regard to his Oath That the primary and sole Intention of the Third Commandment is to forbid the great Sin of Perjury and that it is observable That there is no Threatning added to any other Commandment but to this and the Second which intimates to us that next to Idolatry and the Worship of a false God Perjury is one of the greatest Affronts that can be offered to the Divine Majesty This is one of those Sins that cries aloud to Heaven and quickens the pace of God's Judgments This Sin by the Secret Judgment of God undermines Estates and Families to the utter ruin of them and among the Heathens it was always reckoned one of the greatest Crimes and which they did believe God did not only punish upon the guilty Person himself but many times upon whole Nations as the Prophet also tells us That because of Oaths the Land mourns I need not use many Words to aggravate this Sin It is certainly a Crime of the highest Nature deliberate Perjury being directly against a Man's knowledge so that no Man can commit it without staring his Conscience in the Face which is one of the greatest Aggravations of any Crime and it is equally a Sin against both Tables being the highest Affront to God and of most injurious Consequence to Men. In respect of Men it is not only a Wrong to this or that particular Person who suffers by it but Treason to human Society subverting at once the Foundations of publick Peace and Justice This is just what our suffering Clergy and People say of Perjury and in consequence of it for their own Vindication Indeed they suffer like Men of heroick Piety because they could not outstare their Consciences as some other Men did and in their Opinion which they have so nobly defended commit Treason against Mankind and the King Dr. Sherlock told the Bishop of Killmore He would be sacrificed before he took the new Oath of Allegiance And Dr. Dove said He would give a Thousand Pound that he might not take it such Struglings they had to overcome the Dictates of their own Consciences which preached unto them the heinous Nature of Perjury And if those who took that Oath with so much Difficulty would but remember their own Case they would have more Compassion for those who could not take it at all more especially had that Tenderness which our Preacher saith his Heroe of Piety had for the Dissenters been genuin and the undesign'd Effect of his tender and extensive Charity he would have been as tender and compassionate to the Dissenters in this Reign as to those of the two former It was fear of Perjury the most heinous Sin of Perjury against which he preached so well that made them stand out and if they are under a Mistake he ought to have pitied and sympathiz'd with them more than other Men. Nay upon reading this excellent Passage against Perjury one would think he should have had more Tenderness and Pity for them than for the dissenting Parties but instead of that he was an early and vigorous Persecutor of them and so continued to his last Stroke though they had defended their Cause much better than the Dissenters were or ever will be able to defend theirs The Sunday after the First of February the day of Deprivation some of the Non-swearing Clergy preached in their Churches as I remember Dr. Sherlock was one and on Munday Morning following one of my Acquaintance going to this Man about some Business he inveighed severely against their Presumption and said Government was not to be so affronted At St. Laurence where he lies buried he preached often against them twice more especially at the beginning of Two several Sessions of Parliament and by degrees forgetting what he had preached against the heinous Sin of Perjury He thought Prisons and all the hard Usages of them which in former Reigns he was wont to call unchristian and inhuman Methods of converting Men not too bad for the best of them When others sometimes would pity them for being deprived and also dragoon'd by the new way of double Taxing he would say They brought their Sufferings upon themselves and which was yet more inhuman he endeavoured to rob them of the Glory of their suffering for Conscience and to bring yet more
to say no more of it the Doctor so trinketed in that Affair with his Lordship That Dr. Tillotson was obliged to write that Famous Letter to him a little before his Death and afterwards carried it to the Secretary of State and my Lord Hallifax then the Favourite Minister for his Vindication and so offended he pretended to be at him for something he did to my Lord that he said to a Person of great Reputation of my Acquaintance He would never trust a Scotch-man more for his sake I know no Reason he had to reflect upon his Country which hath been so fruitful in brave Men and Persons of the greatest Honour but however he trusted him after that Resolution and not only trusted him but let himself be too much influenced by him since the Revolution To my Account of this Speech I may add his most unjust exaggerating Character of the Prosecution of the Dissenters in London at the later end of Charles II's Reign He describes it in Terms big enough for the Decian or Dioclesian Persecution * At the later end of his Pref. to Lactantius For he saith it was reasonable to think it contributed not a little to fill up the Measures of the Sins of the Church and to bring down severe Strokes upon the Members of it that they let themselves loose to all the Rages of a mad Persecution to gratify their own Revenges And that they ought seriously to profess their Repentance of this their Fury in Instances that might be as visible as their Rage hath been publick and destructive Hear O ye furious mad raging revengeful Archdeacons Commissaries Officials Church-wardens and Parish Priests within the Liberties of London Give an Account of the Blood you have shed and the Families you have ruined But who can believe a Writer of Story at a greater distance that to gratify Passions and serve Turns will misrepresent such late Transactions and at such an impudent Rate as this I have shewed out of his Reflections on Varillas that he counts it but a small and venial Fault in an Historian if he departs from the exact Laws of History in setting out the best Side of his own Party and the worst of his Adversary and in slightly touching the Failures of the one and severely aggravating those of the other This he hath done throughout his Funeral Sermon of Dr. Tillotson and given me occasion to undeceive the World in the Heroick Character he hath given of him by noting some of his Failings which bring him down to the mediocrity of other Men. Had he been a more private Person or acted in a more private Sphere I should not have called his Canonization of him into question nor taken the Glory from the Picture which he drew of him in his Sermon and sent in numerous Copies about the World But being a Person of great and dangerous Example both to present Times and Posterity and having acted such a Part as he hath had the Misfoâ—tune to do both in Church and State I thought I should do the Christian World good Service in observing some of his Errours Weaknesses and Misdoings lest Men now or hereafter taking of him indeed for a Man of unblemished and heroick Piety should think him imitable in every Thing and follow his dangerous Example where he did ill as well as where he did well One thing I have taken notice of was the unfortunate Part he had in slandering and wronging the Two Kings and since I have concluded my Book I have heard that after the Revolution he did again revive the Report of the Legitimacy of the Duke of Monmouth which being false whatever Opinion he had of it is one of the greatest Slanders to the Memory of one of the Royal Brothers and Injuries to the other that a Man could be guilty of It is well known among the Clergy that one of his most intimate Acquaintance was very zealous after the Revolution in going about to Bishops and other Church-men to try if he could make them believe this old Story to be true and thence to perswade them to take the Oath of Allegiance to King W. because King J. never had any Right to the Crown I know the idle Hear-says he told them to create belief in them of this Stale Fiction and am able to disprove them all and I would here tell them and disprove them but that the great Honour and Respect I have for that Duke 's illustrious Family will nâ—t let me say some Things in Confutation of them which I think would be unacceptable to them to hear But if that second Self of Dr. Tillotson will publish his Hear-say Stories which I always suspected he had from him I will undertake to shew the falseness of them provided he will do it quickly while my Witnesses are alive Another Thing in which Dr. Tillotson fell short of his own Doctrine and was wont to act contrary to it was in noting like many of his Brethren the small Number of the non-complying Clergy upon all Occasions and despising of them and their Cause for that they were so few I thought to have observed this in its proper Place in my second Chapter but having forgot it I will here shew in his own Words what a vain and unmanly Thing it is to argue for or against any Church or Cause from Number and I am the more willing to set them down That neither his Funeral Orator nor any other of his side hereafter may boast of their Numbers or despise any Suffering Cause especially because it is embraced but by a Few * The Protestant Religion vindicated from the Charge of Singularity and Novelty in a Sermon preached before the King at Whitehall Ap. 2. 1680. But we will not stand upon this Advantage with them Suppose we were by much the Fewer So hath the Church of God often been without any the least Prejudice to the Truth of their Religion What think we of the Church in Abraham's Time which for ought we know was consined to one Family and one small Kingdom that of Melchisedeck King of Salem What think we of it in Moses's Time when it was confined to one People wandering in a Wildnerness What of it in Elijah's Time when besides the Two Tribes that worshiped at Jerusalem there were in the other Ten but Seven thousand that had not bowed the Knee to Baal What in our Saviour's Time when the whole Christian Church consisted of Twelve Apostles and Seventy Disciples and some few Followers beside How would Bellarmin have despised this little Flock because it wanted one or two of his goodliest Marks of the true Church Universality and Splendor And what think we of the Christian Church in the Height of Arianism and Pelagianism when a great part of Christendom was over-run with these Errours and the Number of the Orthodox was inconsiderable in comparison of Hereticks But what need I urge these Instances As if the truth of Religion were to be
estimated and carried by the major Vote which as it can be an Argument to none but Fools so I dare say no honest and wise Man ever made use of it for the solid Proof of the Truth and Goodness of any Church or Religion If Multitude be an Argument that Men are in the Right in vain then hath the Scripture said Thou shalt not follow a Multitude to do Evil for if this Argument be of any force the greater Number never go wrong I have cited this as I have done all other Passages faithfully out of the Works of these two Authors in the following Discourses and whether the Reflections and Applications I have made upon them be just and right and the Consequences I have drawn from them upon themselves be true must be left to the Reader to judge betwixt me and them THE INTRODUCTION AS nothing of late hath more Entertain'd the World than Funeral Sermons So none of them hath had a more General Reception among Men of all Sorts than that preacht at the Funeral of the late Dean of Canterbury whom the Preacher stiles By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate and Metropolitan of all England It was sent abroad with its Fiocco by the R. R. Father in God Gilbert Lord Bishop of Sarum and Men were curious to see what he would say upon an Occasion so inviting to a Fruitful Invention while his Censors of the House were a Sitting I hapned to make a Visit to a Place where I found one Gentleman reading of it to three more who were very attentive to it I came in almost at the Beginning and having only beg'd the Favour of the Text made no other Interruption But though I said nothing upon hearing the Words I marvelled at his Choice of them That he should pitch upon a Place so emphatical for Suffering at the Funeral of a Man who never Suffered nor loved Sufferings but who on the contrary was of a Temper and Constitution that loved Ease and Indolency of which the Apostle enjoy'd little or nothing in the whole Course of his Apostleship But as he taught so was he always practising the Evangelical Doctrine of Sufferings of which he hath left us several short Accounts in his Epistles and sam'd them all up In fighting the good fight of Faith a little before his final Martyrdom when he was ready to be offered and the time of his Passion was at hand At the End of this private Lecture the Gentleman who read first began to Censure Saith he The little Knowledge I had of Dr. Tillotson makes it not proper for me to judge whether or no he deserv'd so great a Character as this Panegyrist hath given him but if he did it was very unfortunate for his Memory that he should have Bishop Burnet for his Funeral Orator A Man that how much soever he may think himself possessed of the Esteem of the World is very much lost in it both at Home and Abroad and upon whose Authority very few Men will believe Things that are true to be so without other very good proof Saith another I am well acquainted with the Writings of Dr. Tillotson and am not a perfect Stranger to his Conversation and I am sure the Character this Bishop has given him is much above his Merit Fy Fy That Men of this Order should so flatter in the Pulpit where Flattering is so abominable He was not (a) Serm. p. 2.28 an Example of Heroick Piety and Vertue his Life was not free from Blemishes and some great ones too and this the Panegyrist knows very well A third then began to argue against some particular Passages in his Sermon particularly against the Truth of what he (b) P. 22. saith of some of our Suffering Bishops and the Authority that displaced them which I shall hereafter recite And then the fourth after a little Silence said with a Critical Authority That his Sermon was a Boyish Piece of Rhetorick more becoming a Declamer than a Preacher and fitter for a Sophister's Desk than a Bishops Pulpit having too much the Air of a young Student's Declamation and also seem'd in some parts of it to have too much of Common Place in it and in others too much Art to be true Nay saith he his own (c) P. 10. 11. 60. Reflexions on Varillas are here true upon himself His Sermon hath too much the Air of a Romance 't is too Fine to be true He seems to write his own Inventions and sets abundance of Whipt Cream before his Reader And then he told us a Story of a bâ—ind Gentleman but a good natural Critick whose Custom was to repair very early to St. Martin's Church and to ask who preacht Saith he he hapned once to ask me the Question and when I told him Dr. Burnet was to preach then in truth saith he we shall have a Whipt Sillibub And I think said he Smiling Dr. Burnet's whipt Sillibub is as far from the Nature of strong and manly Meat as Monsieur Varillas's whipt Cream A Preacher especially at Funerals ought to avoid Strains and when he speaks of the Defunct to speak more like an Historian than an Orator But this Man's Eloquence to use his own Words of (a) Pref. to Lactantius Lactantius carries him often into Strains that become a young Orator better than an Historian for he hath a heat of Stile that ought not to be imitated by one that would write truth but it may be saith he Smiling again in his Words of Lactantius He design'd his Sermon for a mixt sort of Writing between a Declamation and a Funeral Sermon and so may think that the Figures which agree not to the one may be allow'd in the other (b) P. 1. WHILE NATURE FEELS SO GREAT A LOSS AND SINKS UNDER IT This and some more are the Figures of a young Declamer and the Super sublime of our Lawn-sleeve Orator who should not have been transported with the Heats of a vitious Rhetorick Send him to School to Longinus and Rapine to learn the Rules of true and manly Eloquence They will both tell him That what is not Just is not true Eloquence and that a Stile not fit for the Occasion or the Subject in hand always argues defect of Judgment and that no Speech or Treatise which sticks not with the Hearers after it is read though it tickle never so much in Reading can be a Piece of true Eloquence And speak Gentlemen saith he you have all heard this Panegyrick very many fine Things and Generals are said in it but after all I can scarce tell for what he commends his Metropolitan All his pompous Figures have raised in me no great Idea of the Man for after all my Attention I find very little Sticks behind nor do I think this Performance will do his Memory much Service or transmit it with Advantage to Posterity CHAP. I. THis is the Short of what passed in this little Court of Censure upon this Bishop's