among us which God forbid who may we blame for it but your selves and your Fore-runners who could never endure that body of Canons wherein was one in Title and Doctrine against Socinianism It is the fourth Canon agreed on by the several Synods of London and York 1640. wherein Socinianism is called a damnable and cursed Heresie a complication of many antient Heresies condemn'd by the four first General Councils and lastly contrariant to the Articles of Religion now established in the Church of England I know on what Canon or Canons the burden of your clamour was laid and that the Lawyers helpt you to find out an irregularity in their making though the Composers had the King's Commission to impower them and the Canons the King's Declaration before them yet this Canon underwent the same fate as others though not so audibly complain'd against which I cannot think for all that but was as well as the rest secretly design'd against by the first Authors of our confusions in Religion For soon after the Ministers that exercised before the Lords and Commons at their Monthly Fasts complain'd against infinite Errors and Heresies and this by name of Socinianism and that the persons who were guilty of it were not the adherents to Episcopacie but such as were hearded among the Dissenters and joyn'd for a pretended Reformation The matter therefore well considered though you dislike Socinianism as well you may yet you may see whether directly or by accident I enquire not who unhappily ministred to its growth if not to its first Introduction Concerning the Discipline of the Church of England I have found nothing so boldly talkt against as the particular of Excommunications as if they were irregularly decreed and on light and unmeet occasions But these exceptions are so idle and vain that they argue either ignorance or unrighteousness in those who first made them For had they observ'd how and by whom men are Ecclesiastically censured they would not think the Keys usurp'd by Lay-men 'T is no news to hear Courts and their proceedings first misunderstood and then misrepresented by those who are obnoxious or have an itch to rule and are impatient of Government Now Government it self being sacred and necessary they that quarrel at it must begin with the suspected corruptions of it of which they are neither capable to judge or amend and so proceed to confusion but still keeping up to a noise of corruption till themselves are possess'd of it and then become abominable And as for the causes and occasions of Excommunications that are insisted on by you to be light and trivial it is manifest that those who so accuse are very heedless or very illiterate For let them but read the ordinary form of that Instrument and they will find the cause is renouncing to Government and contempt of the Court that is when men do not acknowledge the Jurisdiction or will not submit and acquiesce in its determinations and censures Having thus mentioned your Principle of Dissent and some Applications that you make thereof for your own pitiful defence against the Church of England let me further add something of the ways and manners you observe or at least are in use among your selves I have sometime considered your Worshipping of God and finde that though you have long handled that Text That God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth to serve you against those you oppose yet there is little assurance that there is more spirit or truth in your worship than in your slighted Neighbour's For if to worship God in spirit be to joyn the Soul with external performances in God's Worship what can you say for your selves more than those from whom you separate who acknowledg the Doctrine and profess the practise of the same beyond your disproof knowing herein they are to be tried by God and not you who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins But yet have not the Sons of the Church of England greater appearances that their Souls are joyn'd to the material parts of Gods worship than you when they readily use such Acts and Indications of reverence as you make Conscience to deny and a piece of Religion to contemn nay sometime become distinctly character'd from us by an obstinate and insolent refusal to use them The Congregations that worship God according to the Canons and Rubricks yf the Church of England do in Prayer and Communions kneel in hearing they are uncovered and in any other constant or contingent Office are decent orderly of which they are so far observant that to prevent any opportunity for confusion it is their Principle to submit and conform to a stated rule given them by their Superiours which is the only guard against indecencie and distraction But your Assemblies those of our County are otherwise managed Many profess to come with no other designe than to hear only and think themselves discharg'd to God and their own wish if they come time enough to hear a mystical Text pronounc'd as the warning to a Sermon This they believe to be the worship of God or else have knowledge of none And when they come there is no difference between them in the Market and in the Meeting-house and to say truth there needs none that their carriage may bear proportion to the nature of such unlawful Assemblies They have been taught that Preaching and Hearing are the principal Duties of Minister and People and for the one to preach plain Doctrine and the other to be uncovered are both superstitious and moreover that Superstition is so dangerous that rudeness is much safer with such-like whimsies that whenever they are reproved for it in our Assemblies especially in this point of the Hat they think they are abridged of their Christian Priviledges Neither is your Worship better for truth than spirit if to worship God in truth be to worship him after the manner that Christ hath revealed him who is the true God For concerning God nothing is more Emphatical in the Revelation of him by Christ than then that he spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all Rom. 8. 32. which Doctrine that it might be preserved fresh in the memories of Christians then was an holy Rite instituted by our Saviour that carried with it the most easie and familiar signification of the same viz. the Sacrament of the Lords-Supper which is to be celebrated with such words that do import the very Doctrine whereby is shewn not only our Saviour's care and faithfulness to continue an assertion of the Point but over and above that this is the most properly differing Character of the Christian Society But alas Of what little use is this among you your former setting up spiritual Rails by strange and unchristian Niceties hath made a desolation of this Table not yet to be repaired by the soundest Doctrines and vehementest exhortations to those that otherwise are governable people And as for your
A LETTER OF RELIGION TO THE PROTEST ANT-DISSENTERS FROM The Church of England of what denomination soever in the County of Kent wherein is reported the Ground of their Dissent their Worship way of Instruction and behaviour towards Laws and Government To which is added A perswasive to Conformity at least an acquiescence in the Religion established By a Curate of the same County LONDON Printed by F. Leach for Chr. Wilkinson over against St. Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1675. A LETTER c. IF I thought it would any thing contribute to the success of this Paper to set down particular Motives by which I became perswaded to write to you I would not have forgone the pains though it had cost me a long and distinct Paragraph I hope it may be enough to say that I am one of the meanest Clergy-men in the Church of England in whom there should be always a Conscience of its condition and a zeal to do any office that is but probable for its peace and establishment and moreover that I think there is something in the present guise of Affairs that may call you at this time to heed any man or any thing that means no worse than to awaken you after many to another consideration I have assigned my Paper to you of Kent because dwelling in the same County I have been more capable to observe you in such particulars as are here considered and not knowing but the dissenters of other Connties may not be such as you in all the Articles and practises of your dissent from the Church of England I therefore shall leave them to others who have greater abilities and better opportunities to deal with them And though in London for an hundred good Reasons the Heads of all dissenters may be presum'd to reside for that is the Mount from whence a long time you have had your various Patterns yet considering my own insufficiencie to manage any matter and withal that there are many in the same City of strength and warmth enough to take knowledge of and reprove too any thing contrary or prejudicial to the estabilihed Religion in their ablest Adversaries I betake my self to the weaker Country and leave them to convince and perswade at least to mind those Head-men of the City in what Opinions and Practises they will continue to live The beginning of my attempt on you shall be thus fair as first to lay together those grounds of dissent which either in Print or Discourse I have found owned by such among you who think they can give Reasons for their dissent Yet before I do this it is perhaps but very needful to interpose thus much and to tell you especially those among you who boast of number that there are many practical Dissenters from us and appear mostly at your Assemblies who cannot be suspected to have any grounds and indeed have none or no other but what are so apparently weak that themselves are ashamed to confess them notwithstanding they are wholly managed by them and when they are contested with are forc'd to say them in another dress or nothing For there are many conducted to your Societies and fill your Meeting-houses on no better score than Curiosity Discontent Designe Dependance and Obedience In which enumeration because there is one good word or two which you are wont to take presently for good Arguments give me leave to call them over again and annex unto them a small Paraphrase 1. Curiosity I know not whether old descriptions of Virtues or Vices will serve those of the present Age for 't is conceited our Virtues are greater but known I am sure that our Vices are not less and even in this particular of Curiosity which School-Divinity hath reckoned for a Vice for though more knowledge be the pretence yet the appetite may be inordinate perverse and vitious even after knowledge And such surely is That which shall engage men to leave their immediate places and duties to pursue an idle inspection and acquaintance with the Practises and Opinions of others and for love of this satisfaction only shall address themselves to every Meeting-house and place of Conventicle intending to make no more gain thereby either to themselves or others than to be able to become pleasant and talkative about divers manners matters and Persons over their Meat Wine and Coffee of this sort there are not a few among you and of whom you are not all ignorant for it needs no proof they are not careful to conceal themselves nor apprehensive of any injury done to them when they are censured as curious Not that I think you have all the curious ones among you or that this sort of Curiosity is all that is to be found among the Professors of Religion for indeed there is more as is evident by such Questions as are very familiar with us which though Fashion and Custome do now save from being condemn'd commonly yet nothing but Curiosity is in their birth and original For not to go further who can give any better account of this or the like Quest How doth Mr. A. B. preach or was it a good Sermon Supposing there was nothing preached but the common and invariable truths of the Gospel as is for the most part supposed by such Inquirers for the Questions and the designe of them that so ask rarely refer to truth or falshood which are Questions only material in instructing men to Salvation and therefore these Questions are made to know with what voice face gesture or perhaps method 't is preach'd which are all idle Curiosities in so weighty an affair as the Doctrine of Eternal Life But to say truth You above all others do invite the Curious and do not often suffer them to lose their labour in such a miserable quest For you are not contented with the general and plain Doctrines of Christianity either in preaching or hearing but betake your selves to odd and uncouth Subjects which do not concern the Substance of a Christian's faith or life but are devised and framed to the Hypothesis of your peculiar Saintship And when a Text containing wholesom and necessary Doctrine falls into your hand it is so shattered into niceties or smothered by your Phrases that though the Curious be gratified the plain man is little edified The Curious come not to you for truth or pertinacie but for that whatever it be they think they have not yet had any where else and as long as so much of your study is laid out to provide for them as you have been often told they will be your Customers And as a man presented with a fresh Nosegay at first will handle it gently and often scent it though he is sure 't will quickly grow flat and wither so do the Curious with your Phrases till their very thinking on them makes them sink in their esteem and so would desert you as well as them but that their Experiences make them hope you will next time provide them more
How many soever they be you procure to your selves by this trifling and how bad soever they are in themselves yet they are not so distress'd as to want a piece of Scripture to help them when by discourse they are reduced to that modesty as to be asham'd of a naked and profane Curiosity for then as you have taught them their Curiosity is Scriptural and holy and the Text is 1 Thes 5. 21. Prove all things c. As if a man was thereby obliged to peep into every corner and forsaking his own station to hunt after new matters to try his skill about and not to stay till they are offered to him as matters concerning and weighty for every matter offered to us is not worth searching into and by those too that we have some reason to think are affected with care and Conscience for the good of our Souls 2. Discontent is another thing that hath added to the number of Dissenters which I might call without taking extraordinary licence to my self spite and peevishness For some in whose thoughts it never entred to alter their Principles or so much as to question the usages of the Church of England have yet made too open shew of deserting the Church by a bold frequenting your Meetings when the only reason of so doing was some occasional heat they have lately had with their lawful Ministers For if a Minister either prest by a Conscience of his duty or by the necessity of his condition do venture to take a measuring-cast of the Tythes due to him from his Neighbours Farm and would thereby adjust some mistakes and ill customs to do himself justice if there be no Arts left for the Owner to continue the fraud he shall be sure to find this woful revenge ready for him viz. That his angry Neighbour will hear him no more And to carry on this hasty and unwarrantable resolution he for a while perhaps keeps at home afterwards hovers about some neighbour Parishes and at last settles upon a Conventicle where whatever his Motives were for so doing he is sure to be welcome And if you had leisure or did dare to ask such a one his reasons of departure from us and joyning with you which were but fair in such a change you would find the account very shameful For it is not his love and liking of you but his despite and revenge to his Minister and he commends your Exercises on no other reason but to disgrace his Sermons I know some of you have ways not only to salve the man's Conscience but even to sanctifie the very occasion of leaving us but the great Topick from whence your Methods are derived is Interest not Integrity 3. Designe hath helpt you much in this matter There being some who have such desires and Projects in their Heads distinct enough from Religion which can never be accomplished but by your Success and Prosperity You well remember I suppose when his Majesty was restor'd to the Throne of his Ancestors there were many with him returned to their own Estates that had long been under the hands and embezelments of men that knew how to make a good Market of an unnatural War These men enjoy'd what they had thus basely gotten long enough to make them in love with what they possessed and such love they have thereto still that they will not be out of the Designe for another embrace For there are many pleasant Meadows large Woods and goodly Houses which yet hang in their eyes though they do not stick in their fingers but these can never be compassed again by them without making a new Bead-roll of Delinquents repairing to Haberdashers-Hall and extirpating Episcopacie that is by bringing all things again into War and confusion Or if it be done peaceably yet cannot be done without laying Bishops aside and distributing their Lands Now how can any labouring with this designe of a re-investiture to such Lands more properly bestow himself and his ways than in a diligent attendence on your Conventicles wherein Bishops have been so often declar'd your utter Enemies and the rooting them out both your aims and prayers There is little in such Designers Consciences to byass them more to you than to Rome but dreading that Church is not their friend in this particular they continue with others but on worse Principles to cry out against her It may perhaps be Objected that all of you are not for Alienation of Church-Land but some are against it and are ready as some of your Brethren at first did to declare against it If this be true of which there is some suspicion you may please to make it known at your next meeting which will be well for us but I doubt not for your selves 4. Dependance hath given you some advantage which because it is various I will only instance in such common connexions as are every where observable to have a power to increase the bodies of any sort of men that shall think fit to separate themselves for a distinct Society The Dependances which I mean are those which have a strong relation to food and raiment such as the Shop-keeper hath on the good Customer and the Tenant on the hopeful Landlord which though they are not intrinsecally evil nor the arts of obliging one and the other to be condemned as universally dishonest yet if on such considerations men shall sort themselves to a Sect and distinguish out to themselves a meet Religion or Religious party they are wicked and unreasonable Neither will it help you to say that there are the same presumptions of such among us and though it were true as in this 't is probable what you say For whatever mens secret motives are in abiding with the Church of England they are besides under a known Law for obedience and conformity to it by which all men under the same Government are equally obliged the Seller as well as the Buyer the Tenant as well as the Landlord which is a motive more extrinsecally honest than the other can pretend unto But to see men take a fair place in your meetings not to see and hear best but to be seen and noted best to remove from thence timely to the door and there to abide the train of the Company in their departure and all this time to distribute glances smiles and cringes according to the hopefulness of the person going out and lastly to acknowledge to their private Friends that their Trades and livelihoods engage them so to do whatever profit it brings to them can be no great comfort to you unless you are wonderfully pleased with gang and multitude I will acknowledge that 't is not to be believed that you can easily discriminate those from others or if you could that you would exclude them but yet I know this to be a truth and is to be told only those of you who glory in your number and sincerity My intent is to speak to such that understand and own the
unreasonable request of mine to you who are engaged in this County to the way of dissention from us if I desire you to peruse that Author and to proceed moderately if you can in your Inconformity till you or yours have answered him Neither can I think the denying of this your Principle will argue an Opinion in those that oppose it that Christ was less faithful than Moses For if he hath made known unto us all things that he hath heard of his Father John 15. 15. as to that Errand about which his Father sent him as Moses did in respect of the promulgation of the Laws he received from God for the Instruction and Government of the Israelites and yet left some circumstances unmentionned he is not unfaithful nor his dispensation uncomplete nor fail'd any more than St. Paul to declare the whole Counsel of God though he hath said nothing of the Antipodes Motion of the Earth or World in the Moon no nor so much of God's Decrees as some others have and continue to do What Ceremonies and Circumstances are recorded in the New Testament as the issues of the Will of the Great Captain of our Salvation to be constantly and universally practised in his Church let him be anathematized that renounceth to them either in Opinion or Practice and let the Church of England stand charged of partiallity and falsehood If any children of her Family will not say Amen But if many Acts of Religion and Piety are commanded in their Substance only in Scripture and men cannot perform them without circumstance what should be the Reason not the pretence why lawful Authority which is judge of decencie and always aims at a blessed Uniformity and in pursuance thereof injoyns nothing contrary to the least Iota of the will of our Saviour should not determine them when de facto some circumstances will though variously be used and determined by every private person But should this very obnoxious Principle be allowed you yet I make a Question whether you have not exceeded in your modern cavil the fairest extension of it For under pretence of precisely standing to Scripture and therein often to words sounds and syllables you have rejected somethings that are Scriptural in sense and signification at least in the judgment of those that are as pious and learned as your selves and infinitely beyond you in number and Antiquity yet still within the acknowledged Church of Christ For what a daring rudeness was it in you to damn Episcopacie supposing such as obtains in England as Unscriptural if the Jus Divinum thereof which is equivalent to the obligation of Scripture be so fairly pleadable by men that are ever ready to go down with you into the Sand to defend it at any Weapon in the Spiritual Armory and are no near at a loss or short of you in Piety than Learning For not to remember your former rage against this Government on the account of the former Principle or none I ask whether ever any Society of men were unchurcht for being govern'd by Bishops but by you For to reckon our Episcopacie Antichristian is as much as to unchurch us And though the Long-Parliament-Sermons call'd it Prelacie yet thereby they meant nothing else but our Episcopacie both in sense and execution But the people must have the new word Prelacie as then used by you having something yet left in them of the antient reverence to Episcopacie But if the Divine right of Episcopacie be not demonstrable as I believe it is yet hath it not as fair pretence thereto as any of those Hebrew or Scotch Roots from whence your different Associations are derived For let it be shewn wherein it comes behind in evidence to your forming and predominant Theses viz. The Doctrine of Lay-Elders and purity of Ministers The Doctrine of the Church-Covenant and Independent-Pastors Or again That the Gospel hath so restrained the Subject of Baptism as to exclude Infants And that men may now expect the same degree of conduct and assistance from the Holy Ghost to guide them into all truth and even to prevent study and meditation as the Apostles had c. And as it is in Government so I go on to demand of you in the point of worship Who ever besides your selves ran away from an explicite Communion with a Church for having a form of Prayer for kneeling at the Lords-Supper for the use of the Cross after Baptism and for the Surplise when they were declared not essential to Religion nor substantial in Worship but recommended and enjoyned out of Reverence to Antiquity and zeal for Uniformity by those who had Authority over us yet never asserted any other Authority in such matters but for edification Concerning which Ceremonies there is no man among you who seems to have retained discretion or a faculty of judging but only hovers and makes slight reflections but never prove them to be directly sinful unless by the former weak and every where even among your selves contradicted Principle The Doctrines of the Church of England contained in the 39 Articles have of late obtained to some better respect among you and on a sudden grow into favour with many Dissenters which one would think were a good pledge of their farther conformity there being nothing as I know in our Government and Worship that is contradictory or abhorrent from those Articles But what the reason should be of your approbation or whether you be not real in it I know not but if you are then proceed to examine other matters and your selves by them I doubt if you were urged to subscribe to them you would again as heretofore have your exceptions and only acknowledge for truth in them those which be the great Commandments However it were but fair if you do own our Articles to let the rest of your Societies know from your own mouths that there are some good things among us that they may become more modest in their revilings who seldome rate us below the Idolatrous the Superstitious and Antichristian not only in one but in all matters that pertain to us as a Church Perhaps you lay hold on our Articles now as an Argument ad hominem and to beat us as you think with our own Weapon for there are great cries among you as if many that live in conformity to the Church of England are departed in their Opinion from the Catholick soundness of the 30 Articles by espousing Socinianism of which there is much suspition and dread express'd in some late Writers but then they charge such persons therewith that are so clearly not guilty of it as that they approve and use that Lyturgy wherein there is a particular Creed against the farce of Socinianism and are willing for ought I hear to give other assurance of their detestation of it notwithstanding those passages in some late Papers that they have with great confidence accused and condemned But if the Doctrine of Socinus and his followers hath gotten any credit