Reason of the Zeal of a certain Party therein and nor a Consciencious Regard to the Act of Uniformity is further Evident because Bowing at the Name of Jesus and toward the Altar tho' contrary to the Act of Uniformity but signifying an inclination towards Popery are as much practised and defended by that Party as any Ceremonies establish'd by that Law The Occasional Conformist therefore thinks himself bound in Conscience to make a Remarkable Difference in his Practise between the regard he shews to the Commandments of God and to the Inventions of Men especially when those Inventions are manifestly defended with the utmost Vigor to keep a Correspondence with France and Rome I might here name many Things which may be amended in the Church of England But I had rather Convince you that you are in a great Mistake when you affirm That there is no way to heal Divisions but by such a Bill as that against Occasional Conformity And because Her most Sacred and most Excellent Majesty is I trust raised up by Almighty God to perfect that Reformation both at Home and Abroad which was so much advanc'd by Her Predecessor Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory and because I take Her Reign to be a more proper Season for such a Work than that of the late King William tho' of Glorious Memory for Reasons easily Occurring to Men of Thought and some of which shall be hereafter mentioned I will venture to propose another Means to put an End to Faction to secure the Publick Peace in Church and State to remove the Causes of all our Fears and of all our Divisions which is worth Ten Thousand such Bills as that against Occasional Conformity and which the Promoters of that Bill cannot refuse to approve of if they be hearty Lovers of her Majesty and the Church of England It were easie to prove what has been before mentioned that the Primitive Rule of Reformation and the Rule universally used at the Reformation was That the Terms of Christian Communion ought to be only such as are found in the Scripture And perhaps in another Discourse the World may see a full Evidence That all the Mischiefs that have happen'd to the Christian Church have been occasioned by departing from that Principle and an account may be given of the gradual Growth of Priestcraft from the days of Diotrephes to the time of Cardinal Woolsey at least But before I mention the said Means of putting an End to Faction I will only observe that notwithstanding by Stat. 31. H. 8. c. 14. Transubstantiation Communion in one Kind Prohibition of Marriage to the Clergy Monkish Vows Private Masses and Auricular Confession are also Establish'd by Act of Parliament yet some time before viz. 25 H. 8. cap. 21. the King and Parliament did declare That they did not intend to decline or vary from the Congregation of Christ's Church in any thing concerning the very Articles of the Faith of Christendom or in any other things declared by Holy Scripture and the Word of God necâ—ssary for their Salvation and that this continued to be the Opinion even of the Popish Church of England appears from Stat. 1. Mar. Ses 2. c. 1. Wherein the Marriage of Queen Katherin to Henry the 8th is declared Lawful and all Sentences of Divorce between them Repealed And lest the Queen and Parliament should seem to enact any thing herein contrary to the aforesaid Principle It is thereby Enacted That the said Marriage had and solemnized between the Queen 's most Noble Father King Henry and her most Noble Mother Queen Katherine should be definitively clearly and absolutely declared deemed and adjudged to be and stand with God's Law and his most Holy Word So sensible were the Parliament in those times that God's Law and his most Holy Word ought to be the Rule of all things relating to Christian Religion And tho' an Act of Parliament will not make that stand with God's Law and his most Holy Word which does not stand therewith yet the Wisdom of the Nation at that time and the Wisdom of all Nations and of all Pretenders to Establish a Revealed Religion such as Numa Mahomet and others have thought it necessary to pretend Divine Authority for all Matters relating to Revealed Religion And had that seemed Good to the Governors of Church and State in Christian Countries which seemed Good to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles Elders or Presbyters and Brethren met in the first Council of the Christian Church at Jerusalem viz. To impose nothing but necessary things Had they taken the Prophet's Advice Isai 55.14 Take up the stumbling Block out of the Way of my People instead of forcing them to use it Popery had never risen but the Church had continued Pure to the Worlds end But this being premised I desire you to remember that when the Supremacy of the Pope was thrown off by the Church of England and the Crown restored to its Ancient Rights it was by Stat. 25. H. 8. c. 19. Enacted That the Convocation should be Assembled by the King's Writs and should not Enact any Constitutions or Ordinances without the King's Assent And it was further Enacted as follows And for as much as such Canons Constitutions and Ordinances as heretofore have been made by the Clergy of this Realm cannot now at the Session of this present Parliament by reason of shortness of Time be viewed examined and determined by the King's Highness and Thirty Two Persons to be chosen and appointed according to the Petition of the said Clergy in form above rehearsed Be it therefore Enacted by the Authority abovesaid That the King's Highness shall have Power and Authority to nominate and assign at his pleasure the said Two and Thirty Persons of his Subject whereof Sixteen to be of the Clergy and Sixteen to be of the Temporalty of the Upper and Nether House of the Parliament And if any of the said Two and Thirty Persons so chosen shall happen to die before their full Determination then His Highness to nominate other from time to time of the said Two Houses of the Parliament to supply the Number of the said Two and Thirty and that the same Two and Thirty by his Highness so to be named shall have Power and Authority to view search and examine the said Canons Constitutions and Ordinances Provincial and Synodal heretofore made And such of them as the King's Highness and the said Two and Thirty or the more part of them shall deem an adjudge worthy to be continued kept obeyed and executed within this Realm so that the King 's most Royal Assent be first had to the same And the residue of the said Canons Constitutions and Ordinances Provincial which the said King's Highness and the said Two and Thirty Persons or the more part of them shall not approve or deem and adjudge worthy to be abolish'd abrogate and made frustrate shall from thenceforth be void and of none effect and never be put in Execution within
the High-Church Party in England or the High-Kirk Party or Cameronians in Scotland can make a Man otherwise honest to tear the Government in pieces Indeed Popery is inconsistent with Allegiance to all Protestant Kings and States For as Antonius de Dominis Arch-bishop of Spolato acknowledged above 80 years ago The Church under the Bishop of Rome is no more a Church but a human Government under the Monarchy of the Pope which is wholly Temporal And this Assertion of his may be easily justified out of the Lateran and other Councils and their most celebrated Writers So Thomas Aquinas tells us That the Pope is as much above Bishops as Bishops are above Kings and Princes that the Secular Power is subjected to the Spiritual as the Body to the Soul and that therefore 't is no Usurpation when a Prelate meddles with Temporal Matters So Bonaventure his Contemporary about the Year 1274 affirms That the Pope may depose Princes and this after Edwardus Salburgensis in his Oration to the Diet at Ratisbon about the Year 1248 had thus express'd himself There are now 175 Years elasps'd since Gregory the 7th laid the Foundations of an Empire under the shew of Religion which in the same Oration he calls the Empire of Antichrist But this is a matter so plain that it cannot be denied by any learned Protestant and I wish that none who bear the Protestant Name were of the Mind of Salmero who teaches that as well the Priestly as the Kingly Power is placed in the Pastors of the Church that so Christ may reign for ever For 't is not long since the Judges of England were solemuly told in a Sermon that St. Paul was a mix'd Person Alas these and such as these are the Principles which work Confusion and tear the Government in pieces whether they got into the Heads of Prelatists or Presbyterians or of Men of any other denomination But altho' the Christian Profession with a suitable Conversation ought to be look't upon as an excellent Qualisication for an Imployment where the Person has other Qualifications proper for such an Imployment and such a Man is certainly preferable to another of equal Skill who either makes no Profession of Religion or lives not according to his Profession Yet the antient Roman Honesty with the Roman Courage Loyalty and Love to his Country and largeness of Soul may render a Man more sit for an Imployment than a Selfish Persecuting Cowardly Arbitrary narrow Soul Fellow that oves none but his own Party tho' he believed his Creed never so firmly and roar'd for the Church never so boisterously and much more if all the noise he makes be for humane Inventions and Ceremonies The Priests are now competently ashamed of the pretended Jus Divinum of absolute Monarchy and when they have been scouted out of all their Pretences under all Forms to any Jus Divinum not to be found in the Scriptures Then and not till then will the Princes and States of Christendom be secure and quiet The proof hereof would be too prolix but I can't forbear to present you with a small sample The Pope in the 13th Century sent the Christian Princes a Pilgrimage to recover the Holy Land which was in truth only to take an Opportunity to usurp upon their Rights in their Absence and to set up his pretended Jus Divinum to be Monarch of the World Thus after Gregory the 9th had by Excommunication forc'd the Emperor Frederick the Second to an Expedition into the Holy Land he invaded Naples and other parts of the Emperor's Dominions and stirred up Henry the Emperor's Son to Rebellion and called a Council to depose him Nor would he make Peace with him tho' he sued to the Pope for it and tho' the Tartars carried all before them the Emperor could not obtain Liberty to assist the Christians but was forc'd to fight it out with the Pope till the Anti-christian Monster having the worst on 't broke his Heart Some time after Pope Innocent the 4th blessed the French King Lewis about the Year 1248 and sent him on the same Errand but gathered a Council at Lyons against Frederick and thereby hindred him from assisting Lewis who sought to make Peace between the Emperor and the Pope that he might be assisted but the barbarous Pope and his pretended Jus Divinum left the poor King and his two Brothers Captives to the Saracens and the whole Christian Army to be cut off Some time after Pope Gregory the 10th engaged the Emperor Rodulph to send an Army into Asia and after the Ruin of that Army and the Captivity of the Prince of Meckleburg who commanded it being the 7th Army in this Century that was sent on the Pope's Errand It happen'd that Cassianus Prince of Tartary turned Christian and conquered Syria from the Saracens and left Governors in it with express Orders that they should enter into a Confederacy with the Christian Princes of the West But Pope Bonisuce the Eighth to whom this Offer was made was so busy in maintaining his pretended Jus Divinum against the French King Philip whom he Excommunicated and his Posterity to the Fourth Generation that he wholly slighted this Offer which occasioned oned the loss of Syria made Capeacus who governed in Damascus for Cassianus to revolt to the Soldan of Egypt and gave occasion to the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the next Age. Alass Sir were there no Princes in the Seventeenth Century ruined by Contests about those Jus Divinums I pray God the Eighteenth Century may afford no instances of any Prince undone by believing the Jus Divinum of Priestcraft These things considered it is not strange that the National Synod or Council of Gap Anno 1604 just 100 Years ago for the Reasons in their Acts mentioned and among others for that the Bishop of Rome with relation to Civil Affairs tramples on the lawful Authority of Magistrates giving taking away transferring Kingdoms thus resolve We Believe and Assert that he is the true and proper Antichrist the Son of Perdition foretold in the Word of God the Purple Whore that sits on the Seven Mountains in the Great City that has obtained Dominion over the Kings of the Earth and we wait till God as he hath promis'd and already begun to do shall break and conquer him by the Spirit of his Mouth and destroy him utterly by the brightness of his Coming But we are assured by a more infallible Authority that the Kings of the Earth shall hate the Whore and make her Desolate and Naked Rev. 17.12 16. and eat her Flesh and burn her with Fire The Kings and not the Priests are to work this Reformation and therefore tho' they had given their Power Strength Verse 13. and Kingdom to the Beast which the Kings of the Earth never gave to any but the Pope and his Church yet by re-assuming their respective Rights and asserting their just Supremacy God will some time or other
because he hath not Five Nay he that hath but one may improve it to Salvation though he never understood School-Divinity nor the Power of the Church in Decreeing Ceremonies But though I might I will not presume to name those Truths or Terms of Union the Moderate of all the aforesaid Persuasions will easily agree therein And to the Consideration of the Sons of Peace I leave the Particulars though I think I may say That the Articles of the Church to which the Dissenters do Subscribe contain them all But it will still be Objected That though an Assent to those Doctrinal Articles to which the Dissenters have Subscribed and which include Scripture as the Rule of Faith and Manners and thence Collect Rules of Faith Practice and Devotion were made the Terms of Admission into the Church of England yet there remain many things in Point of Practice which keep up Differences and divide us into Parties as I. Forms of Prayers II. Habits of the Clergy III. Presentations IV. The Cross in Baptism V. Kneeling at the Sacrament VI. God-fathers and Godmothers VII Holy-Days VIII Ordination of Ministers Subscription and Oaths on one Hand Objections Antipathy and Prejudices against all these things and some Indecencies on the other hand And I will shortly touch on all these Heads when I have premis'd First Indifferent Things used in Religion or by Religious Men and suffer'd to remain according to their Nature were never the occasion of Division and Indifferent Things enforc'd by Laws have ever caused Divisions in the Christian World To instance in the Church of England kneeling at the Sacrament is impos'd and keeps out Thousands of Good Christians out of the Establish'd part of the Church whereas sitting when we sing Psalms is not commanded but the Posture has obtained in all Assemblies as well of the Church as of the Dissenters We have had abundance of Paper spoil'd in Writing for and against Kneeling at the Sacrament but not a Page for or against Sitting when Psalms are Sung And yet we may Argue as strongly against Sitting when we Praise God as against Kneeling at the Sacrament abstracted from the Imposition We do not pretend to an Uniformity in Time but in some Churches the Parish meet at Nine in some at Ten in others not till Eleven yet the Church of England never received any prejudice by the want of Uniformity therein The Surplice has even divided the Martyrs among themselves being an indifferent thing impos'd wearing black Cloaths is used by Conformable Men and the Teachers among all the Dissenters indifferently and yet one may prove the Unlawfulness of the Clergy's wearing Black with as strong Arguments as any Man can use against wearing White But when Men will be giving Religious Significations to Insignificant Things we see what comes on 't Imposition is warring against the Nature of Man Adam in Innocency fell by the Breach of a Positive Law concerning a Matter in it self indifferent abstracted from the Sanction of the Law although it receiv'd the Sanction from GOD Himself And it must be highly unreasonable for Men to expect from fallen Man that Obedience which was not paid by Adam to GOD Himself except at least their Power to Command were as Evident as His. The Right Reverend Prelate Doctor Jeremy Taylor tells us in his Liberty of Prophecying That he that makes an Article of Faith or a Term of Church-Communion without a Divine Authority chalks out a new way to the Devil The Incomparable Chillingworth and the Excellent Hale of Eaton have fix'd the Name of Schismaticks on the Imposers of unnecessary things And certainly he that in Matters of Religion makes indifferent things necessary Usurps Power Superiour to Christ and his Apostles yea to GOD Himself for they thought fit to leave them indifferent Job 40.12 And shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct Him If it was not well done he that reproveth GOD let him answer it As for the Appointing of Churches and Places and Times for Assembling and Circumstances of the like nature Reason makes such Appointments necessary but still without Restraint as to other Places or Times and such Appointments fall not under the Notion of Indifferent Things 'T is an absurd way of Arguing That the Church may command Indifferent Things because Things Good are Commanded and Evil Forbid by God and they have no other way of Exerting their Power Would they be Greater or Wiser than their Master Our Saviour died to bear witness to the Truth and the single Truth that he immediately died to bear witness unto was That He was a King And I know no Man or Church that has any thing to do to mend our Saviour's Institutions Their Power in Religious Matters is to enforce what He has commanded and to restrain from what he has forbidden and accordingly to Administer Rewards and Punishments This is Power and Work enough for Souls that are sincere and wherever any Power on Earth hath been found making such Additions they have also been found entirely negligent of what is commanded or forbid by God and their whole Zeal hath been employ'd in enforcing their own Innovations Christians as well as Jews have made void the Commandments of GOD through Mens Traditions But to Reflect a little upon the several Particulars above-mentioned Form of Prayer I. I am of Opinion That a Set Form of Prayer appointed to be read in all Churches which receive Maintenance from the Government The beginning of the Preaching of John the Baptist was the beginning of the Gospel and yet John taught his disciples and our Saviour his a Form of Prayer is not only lawful but desirable yet so as no Man be compell'd to use it against his Judgment or Conscience For a Form of Prayer Compos'd in Scripture Language or according to the Sense of Scripture is certainly Dictated by the Spirit and is according to the mind thereof and he who joins in that Prayer hath two Advantages which he that joins with an Extempore Prayer hath not First He is not bound to Reflection upon the Expressions of the Minister which is necessary in the other Case 1. To understand his Meaning 2. To judge whether it be sit to join with him in what he says And Secondly He that joins with a Scriptural Form hath consequently greater Liberty of Thought and may while the Prayer is Reading enlarge in his own Meditations and receive with greater freedom whatsoever immediate Influences the Holy Spirit may please to afford But there are Multitudes who cann't use a Form of Prayer without Formality And really the variety that is in the Temper and Genius of Men makes all unnecessary Impositions grievances to the World Nitimur invetitum is a great Truth though it be not an Article of Faith but the continual Fluctuation of Humane Affairs makes it necessary that the Minister use himself to a readiness of applying Extempore to the Throne of Grace upon extraordinary occasions which is a Liberty not
utterly root out Priestcraft Revel 11.15 the Kingdoms of this World must become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ not by turning Kingdoms into Churches and Kings into Priests or setting up Imperium in Imperio Our Saviour at first indeed appeared to St. John in the Habit of a Priest and his Sword went out of his Mouth a plain Representation how his Gospel should at first prevail But after that Anthropos and Ecclesia had set up Antichrist and the Kings of the Earth had been a long time committing Fornication with the Great Whore Revel 18.3 and the inhabiters of the Earth had been made drunk with the Wine of her Fornication when Babylon is to fall when the Marriage of the Lamb is come and his Wife hath made her self ready and the Heavens open for the utter destruction of the Beast and false Prophet Revel 19.11 he then appears as a General in the Head of an Army and tho' the Sword still comes out of his Mouth and his Name is called the Word of God Verse 15. that we may be sure to know Him Verse 13. and the true means of Reformation yet his Name written on his Vesture and on his Thigh is not Bishop of Bishops Verse 16. or chief Priest of Priests but King of Kings and Lord of Lords that we may know also who they are whom He will use as Instruments of Reformation And I dare appeal to the Reason of Mankind whether it does not agree with this Prophecy that the Civil Powers must interpose or the Priests will be quarrelling about their pretended Jus Divinum and tearing Christendom to pieces till the Day of Judgment And here I rid my hands of all the lamentable Stories that the abovementioned Woolf tells of the Presbyterian Tyranny in Scotland I have not one word to say for it if it be true which he relates and others deny I hope the Civil Power will keep them in Order as well as his Party in England The Apologetick Declaration annex'd to that Discourse says That they cannot own Princess Ann as their lawful chosen covenanted Princess such as they ought to have nor can they have any Prince or Princess but a Covenanted one Why says another Party no Prince or Princess without they maintain the Jus Divinum of Absolute Monarchy and maintain the Jus Divinum of Prelacy is not this fine work Sir Humphrey and has not our most Religious and most excellent Queen whom may the everlasting Arms support to the Age of her Predecessor Queen Elizabeth at least and with greater Glory Happiness a sine time of it amongst them for my part I most heartily wish that now Re assumptions are in fashion all Princes and States in Christendom would enter into a solema League and Covenant to re-aslume the just Rights of the Civil Power and to hold the Noses of all the Priests in Christendom to the Bible and to give them all the Honour and Respect Authority and Maintenance which is their due as the Stewards of the Mysteries of God and as the Ambassadors of Christ and to continue or derive to them by express Laws all such share of the Civil Power as the Wisdom of the Legislature shall see convenient in all Places and that all we Laymen as they call us would enter into the same solemn League and Covenant to support the Queen and all other Sovereigns therein that so the Christian World may be quiet then the Priests may enjoy the Blessing of our Saviour's Presence which is annex'd to their teaching all things whatsoever he has commanded and we may have the Benefit of being so taught otherwise many a good Christian will be ready to say with poor Melancton at his Death I desire to depart out of this Life for two Causes that I may enjoy the desired sight of the Son of God and the Church Triumphant and that I may be delivered from the most barbarous and implacable hatred of Divines and to believe that Eneas Sylvius was more infallible when he pronounc'd That all the Evil in the World either arose from Ecclesiastical Persons Omne malum in Mundo out exortum aviris Ecclesiasticis aut ab illis patratum or had been perpetrated by them than he was afterwards when about the Year 1458 he became Pope Pius the Second Those therefore who are Papists or who desire a Reunion with Popery and those that have got the same Principles tho' in an Aristocratical or Democratical form are dangerous to the Civil Government but what is this to most of the English Dissenters and to all the Occasional-Conformists who look not Abroad for any Sovereign of any sort Ecclesiastical or Temporal but Acknowledge Her Majesty to be Rightful and Lawful Queen who rejoice in the Laws Establishing the Protestant Succession and have no Interest to serve by Embroiling the Government Fourthly Whether it is sit that the Corporation and Test Acts should be enforc'd or Repealed Now as to so much of this Question as relates to the Test Act I shall choose to refer you to the Plea annext to this Discourse No. 1. only adding that since the Writing thereof your Oracle in the same Place where he Advises to the late Bill against Occasional-Conformity seems to give up the Point as to that Part of the Test that enjoins the actual Receiving of the Lords Supper for Case of the Regale Pag. 179. He sinds Faults with Bribing Men to Prophane the Holy Sacrament for an Office that an Action should be against the Minister who should refuse it to them tho' he Knows Sees and Hears them in their Conversations and Principles to be never so much Unqualified And as to the Corporation Act 't is plain that there have been vast Alterations made in the Constitution of the Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil since the making of that Act which may justly Occasion a Review of that Act without any Danger to the Government especially if made by such Persons as Her most Excellent Majesty shall Commissionate for that Purpose and in hope of living to see such an Act of Parliament as I have before mentioned and such a Commission I will say no more on that Subject And now methinks the Fifth Question is sufficiently considered already that Part of It which relates to the Practice of other wise Nations has been Effectually answered by other Hands in the Examples of most Wise Nations Heathen and Christian and I don't find any Reply is offered except a dry Discourse just come to Hand at the Writing of these Lines Indeed Sir Humphry I was comforting my Self with the thoughts of Subscribing your humble Servant when I was Interrupted by the Noise of one J S. who seems to be John at Style in whose Name we Lawyers use to put Cases from whom I expected some mighty Matter for Peace and Union are Excellent Things But alas 't is a poor Creature and I shall consider him in a few Words