of our apprehensions and reason we know together with God and this Act is called Conscience Ald. Then it seems that is only Conscience when our apprehensions and opinions of things fully accord with Gods Word Vic. Your Notion of it Sir is in this fully expressed sutable to my meaning and indeed it is no more than a practical understanding and opinion of things as they really are for it can be no other than the application of our knowledge gained from God's revealed will to the things which we think speak or do Ald. But how can this Doctrine of Conscience accord with those various Titles that Divines usually bestow upon it of Witness Judge and the like Vic. That Sir proceeds only from the various application of our knowledge As first when we remember and reflect upon what we have or have not done so Conscience is stiled a Witness Secondly When in our retirements we judge something fit to be done or not to be done and hence Conscience is said to oblige or bind to instigate or provoke Lastly When we pass Sentence upon our Actions arraigning them at our own internal Bar and conclude them either good or evil here Conscience acts the part of a Judge whilst it passes a Sentence of condemnation or acquittance and from hence arise all those troublesome convulsions that proceed from the Arrainment and Sentence and those ravishing joyes that spring from the benefit of an absolution Ald. I need not enquire now for the inference designed that those who plead the outcries of Conscience against Publick Authority and the Laws of the Land by this making their very vices consciencious that they have I say no conscience at all because their disobedience to the higher Powers in assembling in Numbers larger than what the Laws allow does not proceed from God's Word at which the Candle of their knowledge ought alwaies to be lighted if they intend to plead Conscience for their Actions And therefore for the future I shall not permit so frivolous an Objection to scare me from my duty into the horrid and damning sin of Perjury Vic. Really Sir I have made it my business to cast away some of my vacant hours in Society with these men on purpose to understand their humours and I have not only found that when times were to them prosperous they were as inclinable to those Vices which are now admired as most of those which now run to the utmost extremity only ours do it in the face of the Sun and they were wont to secure themselves by the silence of their company or secresie of the place for that may be done in a private Conventicle which is not to be enterprised in the open Market and there is no iniquity in a Tribe of Israel though the same Actions are to be condemned in the Canaanites But I have observed most of their Religion to proceed from the defects of their disposition and the accomplishments of their minds to be for the most part the diseases of their bodies Unless where sometimes interest or malice summons their abilities to uphold a Party Thus will they account that man's heart humbled for his sins whose head is disturbed to lunacy and madness when Passion and Fury boiles over in scurrilous and railing Phrases and Expressions 't is nothing but the godly heat of Zeal which fire was brought from heaven to enkindle when a Preacher has an unusual dulness and is fain to groan to make a Parenthesis to fill a wide Chasm in his discourse this is called Preaching feelingly and when want of matter or barrenness of Phrase forces them to many pauses in their Prayers and Lord Lord must stop gaps and fence inclosures this must proceed from holy Admiration and divine Extasie When they begin their Prayers soft and whispering as if they would keep God Almighty to themselves with one eye open and the other shut and now and then a wise shrug with the shoulders or a white and innocent goggle with the eye this proceeds from awe and dread whilest they are beginning to be familiar with their Maker some of them wink fast in their Prayers as if that Spirit they pretend then to be so full of would steal out at their eyes or else those Spunges would not effectually yield tears unless they should be well squeezed Have you not seen one of those dull fellows make wry faces like one that has had an hard stoole and drawn his Sparrow mouth to his ears as if he expected a fresh prompter Ald. You seem to make all their Religion nothing but a cheat Vic. Truly if their Religion consists in such actions I can assure you these are no better God deliver me from such Juglers in Divinity that can disgorge nothing but inkle and fillets that have more length in them than breadth or thickness Shall flegme and melancholy be any longer accounted Communion with God and Dens of Thieves become the only Houses of Prayer I could wish them all at the Isle of Pines where gendering with the Air they might both mind Generation-work and get fleet Coursers for Itinerants that might be very acceptable to those new-spawn'd Zealots Ald. But why Mr. Vicar do you so strangely conclude that most of the Fanaticks Religion is founded in the temperament of their bodies Vic. Because every man may find by his own experience that when in a melancholy fit he takes one of their Authors and reads a little the Book presently suits with his temper and he is pleased then with those Gourds and Mushrooms that a bright Sun presently withers Ald. But 't will certainly be a false Inference to make a general Conclusion from a man 's own particular temper and inclination Vic. And yet this is what they alwaies did when they posted their dreams for certain Visions and made their own experiences as they called them when they were but the effects of their present temper and disposition of body signs of trial and marks of sacred scrutiny and examination Ald. But you that it seems have more than ordinarily enquired into their waies and methods espying their folly should not be caught in the same snare nor make your particular experience a sufficient indictment upon which you may arraign and condemn so many as if their different dispositions were the greatest cause of their different opinions Vic. I do not make an universal conclusion nor is any Rule so general but that it admits of some Exception yet it is a shrewd Character by which you may discern those of that Party which believe what they hold and are serious as well as zealous in their perswasion And to render this conjecture something probable view the Multitudes and as Towns have their greatest proportions and numbers where the Air is not so clear and wholsome so even amongst those you have besides women whom Affection and Passion sway more than Argument and Reason remarked that in such places the greater number consists of those that have sedentary Trades
upon you or any other of his Majesties Subjects to observe all or part of either by vertue of any of those impositions Ald. Truly Sir you never found me an enemy unto Reason though I know in these things of divine concernment it has been looked upon as carnal Vic. Reason was so carnal that spiritual men made as much use of it as their parts and Enthusiasm would permit only because for most of their attempts and actions they had little or no reason at all we cannot well blame them for decrying that which they saw became so great an obstructor of their procedure However I shall adventure to give you some Argument why a former Oath legally taken whose matter was also just and lawful must of necessity vacat the Obligation of any that shall through Impiety or Surreption be future and succeed which bears any opposition to the former Ald. Pray do that Sir and then the application to the matter in hand will not be difficult Vic. Really Sir this debt is so easily acquitted that your Worship shall demand it no more For the Case is plain at the first proposal and needs no more than its own Explication If the former Oath be in all things lawful and fails neither in matter nor Circumstances whatever is admitted opposite to this is eo nomine unlawful and consequently has no force or Obligation Ald. Though I have no great reason to complain of my want of understanding yet really Sir I do not perfectly apprehend your Argument Vic. That seems to me to be very strange and yet I have no more reason to be concerned for that you apprehend not my way of arguing than I have to disturbe my self for that many times I understand not your way of Justice But that I may leave no obscurity in my Phrase I must still insist that a subsequent Oath contradicting a former which was lawfully imposed and good both in matter and circumstances must either be unlawful or else the two terms of a contradiction may be both true and so lawful and unlawful become reconciled or if this be still to you a demonstration of ignotum per ignotius I can otherwise enforce the Proposition Ald. But before you do that let me remember you of one thing that I am sure is omitted that must a little limit your assertion which seems to me to be too general Vic. Pray Sir what is that Ald. It is most certain that an Oath may be taken that is contrary to a former and yet be Obligatory As for Example There was an Act you know made against the Fanaticks whose power was to expire at three years end now all those that by their Oaths or Office were obliged to execute that Law if at the three years end a Law should have been made opposite to the former they might lawfully swear to the execution of this opposite Law and this latter Oath would oblige Vic. Your Worships discourse is now fallacious and I hope you will pardon the Expression because it is a term of Art were the Laws both running together and the former not limited by a time that took off the Obligation of the former Oath the latter Oath would have been so far from accomplishing that end that it must therefore have been unlawful because repugnant to the former Obligation but now the former Obligation being ceased because the matter of it was already vacated and the Bond was but for a certain time and the same Power that by Enacting the Law brought it within the limits of the Executors Oath did now void it by the expiration of its Authority and consequently vacated so much of the general Oath as related to that particular Law Ald. Well Sir I apprehend the resolution of this doubt but as to your general Proposition that a latter Oath cannot make void the Obligation to a former if the former were lawful and has the reason of its Bond still remaining I cannot yet apprehend your proof but must expect some Argument that may evince it to mine own capacity Vic. I heartily thank your Worship that you will not permit any promise of mine to remain unpaid and I hope I shall have the same Act of Justice performed to me The reason to be added then was this Because a latter Oath opposite and repugnant to a former binds me to what is de jure impossible For having obliged my self by my former Bond that must in equity be discharged now to bind my self by a subsequent Oath to what is destructive of this former Bond obstructs and hinders nay should it be obligatory for ever prohibits the performance of my precedent promise and consequently brings upon me the guilt of Perjury for not discharging my antecedent Obligations Thus Sir the taking an Oath contrary to a former is the same with those that enter into Oaths for the performance of those things in respect of which they are subject to another and so are not within their own power which all reason at first Audit will proclaim and publish both null and void Ald. In my Judgment you have in this an unfortunate way of explaining your self or else long audience and discourse have dulled my judgment and apprehension Methinks hitherto I have understood you well but in this you seem too obscure Vic. I have more charity and confidence in your Worship than to conjecture that you shelter something of strange design under the pretense of ignorance and defect of satisfaction will you be pleased to exercise your patience in a little more attention to this thing Ald. I shall hearken to you very chearfully and as much as my business will permit me without distraction Vic. Then Sir be pleased to observe that a former Oath therefore Obligatory because Legal does bind a person so much to a discharge that 'till he has performed he is not within his own power but has deprived himself of his own freedom either to discharge his promise or not to discharge it by vertue of that Oath and Obligation and therefore can neither in Justice nor Reason enter into a contrary Bond. Ald. You are sometime Mr. Vicar good at a comparison cannot you make me apprehensive of your meaning by a similitude Vic. Yes Sir that I can Suppose I owed to your Worship an hundred pounds which I promised you to pay at such a time and after this I engaged to another not to pay you your money which of these promises do you think I were obliged to perform Ald. The former without doubt to pay me my money Vic. And do you think the latter promise could at all disoblige me from my former to you Ald. No by no means for then any man may lawfully play the knave Vic. Apply this then to the Case in hand and you will find that in a Promissory Oath there is not only the Obligation of a promise but it becomes a solemn as the strongest Engagement can make it For you not only call God to witness the
are the Canon and Rule of Life but because the Spirit of God has given its Testimony not only by inspiring their first Publishers but by Miracles that are without the power of Natures attempts and by this Testimony out-dated the Law which was before established by the same Sanction therefore if other Doctrines might have the same Testimony I see no reason but they must become Canonical and of the same Authority with the Scriptures themselves since those were but the Doctrines and Writings of men inspired to the truth and confirmation of which the holy Spirit gave its Divine Testimony and thus passed them into Canons and Rules Ald. I apprehend the strength of this Consequence and methinks it should be sufficient to baffle all their bold pretensions We should then be rarely governed indeed if each of them might speak Canons Vic. Although your Worship cannot but know that their mouths are of sufficient bore and big enough to cast Canons yet their Metall is not equally tempered for such work which was the cause why their Pieces flew about their own ears not only striking off the Tips of some but filling their heads with such an unusual noise that they have ever since been troublesome to Mankind and run about like so many Knight Errants encountring not only flocks of Sheep insteed of Armies but sight with Windmils instead of Giants when the Champions are only entia rationis wrapped about in Logick breeches gendered by the wind that lodges in the Caverns of their Authors brains Ald. It seems then by your discourse if a man would draw the Picture of one of their Itinerants it must be Don Quixot riding upon Rosinante Vic. I did not think your Worship had so excellent a phansie for Limning there is not only colour in your similitude but proportion too only you forgot to have a Regiment of Sancho's attending on him Ald. Well Sir be the Picture what it will it cannot as far as I perceive by your discourse be worse than the Pattern But let not our intermediate mirth steal away that little time which remains so far as to give too much interruption to our more serious discourse Pray inform me of some other absurdity that follows our wild mens pretensions to the testimony of the Spirit Vic. If their Testimony of the Spirit were true then the most just Precepts of the Gospel would be cancelled for the latter Law repeals the former which is opposite to it and they establishing their own Doctrine which we both acknowledge to be repugnant to the Gospel and the Injunctions and Commands of persons then sufficiently inspired the Doctrine of Christ and his blessed Apostles will lose both its force and obligation if Heaven should seal the Doctines of these men by that sacred testimony which they pretend to Ald. God deliver me from such impostors these indeed have a fine way to set up new Christs and new Gospels or whatever they please to establish Vic. 'T is very true Sir however if some had the hearing of our discourse it would sound harsh and they would look upon us as reprobates and castawaies Ald. Surely none but such as you were speaking of but now who having lost their ears might have their hearing so far impaired that their sense being frighted into the brain it may be so much inwards that they understand little besides what themselves speak Such ears can only be grated with our discourse that are either raw or else newly skinn'd over Vic Alas Sir you are not I perceive acquainted with the Gentlemen we are speaking of though by the Picture you shewed me just now I am convinced you are well seen in their faces Some of their ears are as tender as their Consciences being cut into just shape and form Ald. I le warrant these are busie men Vic. As busie as a Spider when he is making his Web to catch Flies they walk like Footmen And there are some of them that now Nature has beat out all their teeth gnash at the Bishops with their gums that would reduce them to beggery to teach them humility and make them poor that they may use Hospitality As if the whole Nation were grown so bankrupt that they could not pay their debts on Earth unless they forced Heaven to a surrender and we could not sufficiently abhor Idolls unless we committed Sacriledge Ald. Methinks such persons whose brains are like the restless Sea in a perpetual motion not only when driven by a storm but also when the heavens are serene should out of policy be set about some imployments that should be so laborious as to keep them in business without any interruption that so they might not have sufficient time to shake Foundations and undermine Government Vic. I wish they were locked up with the Records of the Tower or put upon inventing a way to pay off all the Sea-forces of France without the sale of Cathedral Lands I verily perswade my self that these men will be angry at death when it comes and go to their very graves murmuring nay will mutiny also in the other world if misery and torment does not restrain them Ald. Indeed we have for a long time exercised lenity and mercy towards them and as far as I perceive it does but make them the more rude and insolent prone alwaies not only to speak evil of dignities but to actual Rebellion and Insurrections and therefore I verily believe that Sathan himself will have no way to tame them but by fire and faggot Vic. Methinks if they had but any grains of modesty if they would according to St. Pauls Rule have their faith to themselves and not meet together in such vast numbers as if they were resolved to affront Authority and make the best part of the Nation continually full of dreads and fears I could be contented because we would not have so much to do with them as at all to acquaint them how hell will hereafter restrain their Mutinies that they should be undisturbed Ald. Why As far as I understand no body endeavours or ever did attempt in the Protestant Religion to compell any mans understanding or faith Vic. In this Sir we are all for that Catholick Charity so much voted for by those Consciences that have the largest dimensions for we know that it is impossible to impose upon the understandings of men which must be perswaded first of the truth of those things which they will be induced to credit and believe But then only do our Canons and Laws begin to be severe and punish persons of different perswasions from the established Creed when their belief produces such actions as are prohibited and repugnant to the known Laws of the Realm And truly if that great Wheel of Humane Policy that turns round the Affairs of Mankind should ever prove a rack to that Religion which we now profess I should heartily thank God and those Rulers that my Obligation subjected me to if I might but enjoy what our discontented
a Vine fenced in not only by an immediate Providence but it s own Laws and Authority to enforce them are not only that which supports the branches but also defends the very root Now withdraw but the Obligation and sense of obedience and all the branches will desert the root the Foxes will devour their present fruit and the wild Bore will dig up the root and thus shall the whole languish and decay Ald. But cannot you prove some other way than from the nature of Government in the general that obedience is due to the Churches Laws This seems only to be composed of good words without significancy of an Obligation Vic. I had thought to discourse from Principles of Policy had been the surest way to convince you because your Age and Wisdom have called you to the degree of an Alderman by which sharing in Authority and Government you would from the view of your own experience collect the misery and destroying fate of the least disorder much more when disobedience dares put off her Mask and come abroad with open face hurling all into an Ataxy and Confusion when an embodied Society have agreed upon certain Laws and Principles by which they have both constituted and impowered a part of the whole to take care of the rest wherein particular interests are alwaies to submit to the preservation of the general commerce and universal welfare If the actings of particulars shall not only appear disorderly and mutinous but the very Magna Charta the foundation of the Government shall be undermined by a flat denial of any Obedience or Homage due it must needs dissolve the very Principles make the Empire crack with its weight and burden and reduce this Community into an universal Chaos Ald. But since your Office is Divinity and you are not called to any place of trust in the Government of the State it will as seems to me best become you to keep within your own Confines and tread only upon holy ground Vic. Why I hope your Worship does not think your Office prophane Ald. No Friend but I think you will prophane my Authority if you dare not withstanding all my advice be skill'd in the Principles of Policy and Government and lay down Rules of Confinement to your Superiours I must not suffer my sage ears so far to disparage my head as to endure to hear one to teach me mine own Trade Pray prove obedience to your Church some other way than from Rules of Policy for by this you seem to encroach upon us so far as not only to take away our Priviledges and Prerogative but defraud us of the very Arguments to defend us Vic. If your Worship please but to keep one eye open for the Churches Cause and let your other sleep to your own Interest I suppose I may in mine own habit without any damage at all to your Ears in a few words evince my duty of submission and obedience to the Church even from the second Topick mentioned that Obedience to it is our duty Ald. That I would have not only promised but performed for I have sometimes seen Reasons where the Stems have weighed more than the fruit Vic. Now your Worship seems to be pleasant a man would scarce expect such light wit from so grave an head but experience is that which makes men rich in all things And yet that I may remember your Worship of some thing which you already know I shall not trouble you with the ready submission though uneasie obedience by reason of those raging and persecuting thorns from Jewish Malice and Heathen Fury which continually like the Souldiers Spear in our Saviours Side tormented and grieved them unto the Christian Church in its Bishops and Representatives in its first plantation though not without the publick assaults of open Hereticks no more than free from the secret thrusts of those that seemed bosome Friends But I know you expect Scripture should be judge and prove what it seems you account a Problem For the Jews submission to their Sanhedrim I hope you will not trouble your self so much as to doubt Nor for the Apostles subjection to our Saviour as to him who had the Government upon his shoulders who received his Jurisdiction and Authority from the Father and was anointed from above Nor will you question I suppose the submission of the Christian Church to the Discipline as well as Doctrine of the Apostles whom Christ invested with the same Authority that he had received from his Father in relation to their Presidency and Jurisdiction over the Church in that Consecration of His As my Father sent me so send I you Only perhaps you may still doubt whether this Rule and Authority requiring submission and subjection to its Decrees was conveighed from the Apostles to others But you will have no cause to mistrust that neither when you shall seriously reflect upon the Epistles of the Apostles to the several Churches and more especially to those Angels and Bishops who were there intrusted with the Discipline and Government as well as feeding the Flock of Christ which he had purchased with his bloud Or if you will observe matter of fact and from thence draw the certainty of our Conclusion You may read St. Paul sending his Orders to Timothy and Titus giving them directions how to govern the Diocesses of Crete and Ephesus And it would be endless to enumerate all the Exhortations and Commands to obey our Church Rulers Obey them saies the Apostle that have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls as they that must give an account This last Clause plainly restrains it to the Bishops of Judea and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saies St. Chrysostome But in the fifteenth of the Acts you have enough to silence all doubts of this nature and bring your Worship not only to Reverence but to a resignation of your self as to your Souls direction and guidance into the Churches hands and then you will the easier dispense with us for obeying that so chearfully and fideliously which we earnestly perswade others to a submission to Ald. I like this discourse indifferently well only have a care that your Church does not intrench upon the Authority of our Town and compel the Corporation to come and bow to your Altar Vic. I le warrant your Worship by the grace of God if you can but defend your selves from the Womens Tongues you shall not be offended with Church Musick nor knock your shins when you bow towards the Altar Ald. Come on then pleasant Mr. Vicar let us hear the conclusion of this matter you promised me something out of the fifteenth of the Acts. Vic. I did so Sir and by Gods help I shall perform it we find there that there was a great difference arose at Antioch about Circumcision for it seems there had come down men from Judea who taught the Brethren that except they were Circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not
to observe those things that even amongst the Learned in the Law are so controverted that they become so doubtful as to be rendred altogether uncertain and 't is not yet determined in which part duty and obedience is expected Yet a Subject ought alwaies to have his will so ready for Submission that as soon as these doubts shall be taken away to subject himself according as Law shall direct his Duty and a full determination regulate his Practice But as to the particular Laws and Customs of a Town because Omissions of some inconsiderable Customs do neither derogate from the honour of the Place nor at all tend to the destruction of the Community there must a Latitude be allowed First Because many of them may be not only frivolous but vicious and no man can be obliged to sin Secondly Because some may now be burdensome and insupportable in the present condition of a Town or Corporation which when established might very well be supported and no man can be bound to be injurious and unjust to that Society which he is sworn to preserve And lastly Many Customs of a Town may either after the Oath be abrogated or by a general Omission nullified and withdrawn and no man can be obliged to support that which has no being or is voided by the same Authority which gave it its first being for it is an old Rule that What institutes may abolish To render the Case therefore plain and practicable we must distinguish of those Priviledges and Customs that are Fundamental and those that are only Accidental and Circumstantial Those that are absolutely necessary to the support of the Corporation and whole Body in their Honour and Power that is essential to preserve the whole Community for the ends and designs for which it was at first instituted you are necessarily obliged to the strict observation of because these being withdrawn the Society will be ruined and fall But secondly there are some By-Laws and Customs that either may be less Fundamental or only tend to the External Pompe and Grandeur of the Community and no way necessary for the Actions of Justice or Execution of Law For the principal end of embodying Towns into Corporations was for the better Government of those Numbers that there usually swarm together not only for their own advantage that they might be capable of protecting themselves having Laws and Justice to defend themselves from malice and violence but that for their ease and convenience they might have Justice speedily executed upon Offendors Now this may be done with an Iron Rod as well as a Golden Mace as well with a Sword as a Gold Chain and in ordinary habit as well as Scarlet but yet because External Pompe and Splendour of Magistrates usually casts a dread upon the People and makes them timerous to offend these things proportionable to the Wealth and Dignity or Populousness of a Town must be had a special respect to lest the Building decay with the Pompe and Ornament and in this Observation common Custom and present Practice of the general body ought to regulate each particular Now even these also must be distinguished into what are for the present practised having already either by decree or usage received their Sanction and what shall for the future be established Those that are present are to be observed no further than by probable tokens you can conclude their first Sanction and establishment did intend so Laws are frequently interpreted according to the intention of them where the sense in the Expression becomes dubious Those that are future to your Oath which you are obliged to the observation of if confirmed by sufficient Authority must alwaies be attended with these Conditions that they are possible that they are honest that they are just for no Oath can oblige either to impossible dishonest or unjust And lastly they must not interfere with any of the Statutes of the Realm For every particular Society is subordinate to a Power that is more general and supreme Thus though your Town is immediately governed by a Mayor and Aldermen yet they themselves are bounded and limited not only by their Charter but also by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and consequently whatever they act contrary to these is not only ipso facto void but they become responsible for their deportment before a Superiour and more general Tribunal So that any Custom or By-law that contradicts any Publick Statute cannot oblige you to the observation of it by vertue of your Oath not only because your Oath cannot oblige beyond the intention of the first Imposer but because such a Custom or By-law becomes evil and unjust it being opposite to what you were before obliged to a discharge of But yet finally to close this Case which would have taken up too much time had I fully opened it lest you should yet think this Obligation which most Aldermen that are past the servitude and slavery of a Corporation are fond of too much unbended and loose You must have a care lest in any doubtful or confident omission the circumstance of contempt or scandal attends it that is lest in your withdrawing from what others think an Obligation you do act with contempt of that general Society of which you are a particular Member or when you are convinced that your omission is such a prevalent example to others not being fully possessed of the lawfulness of your forbearance that they are thereby induced to practise the same thing with your self not having the same belief and so it becomes a snare to their Souls and a torment to their Consciences To conclude this then He that does faithfully as much as in him lies and without scandal or just offence to others endeavour to observe the Laws and Customs of that Society of which he is a Member so that he will not refractorily and with his full consent violate any thing that tends to the support either of the Being Justice or Honour of his Corporation which he is convinced is his duty to perform in that Place and Station which he possesses and endeavours also to use his utmost diligence to be acquainted with the particulars of his duty does without doubt discharge a good conscience in disburdening himself of that Obligation that lies upon him from his Oath to observe the Customs and Constitutions of his Town and Corporation to which he relates Ald. I thank you Mr. Vicar for stating this duty not only for that I plainly perceive that the failure in some little Punctilio does not make me violate my Oath but also because you seem to be tender not only of the being of the Corporation but of its Pompe and Honour too so that I do not find but that this may be fit to communicate to every Member of our Society and will as well oblige Inferiours to their distance with their Superiours and the dutiful observance of their just Commands as engage Superiours to be content with their
other Graces but also for the perpetual remembrance of his Death and Passion and that 'till he comes to sit upon his Throne and pass an equitable sentence upon the whole World Ald. Without doubt I must not approach those mysteries with sins upon my Conscience unrepented of Vic. Nor are you invited by the Priest in the words of the Church unless you both repent of your sins and are in charity with the World and intend to lead a new life Ald. Why then should you blame me Vic. Because these qualifications are within the compass of your own attempts assisted by the grace of Almighty God which is never wanting to persons of a sincere endeavour Ald. What would you then advise me to that I may prepare my self against the next Sacrament Vic. Your Worship I presume for the most part are able to give advice to me but since you give leave it will be accounted no unpardonable boldness I hope if I give you some directions and it will be no disparagement to entertain them since they shall be the Churches Rules Ald. But let them reach the particular case in hand that so your resolution may not be more tedious than the canting and length of a Fanaticks Prayer Vic. All my fear has hitherto been that my words have been too quick and short If you find then that Perjury has been your crying sin let repentance attended with faith in Christ's bloud wash away the guilt of your former falshood and omissions be in charity with their persons against whom your Oath obliges you to execute the Law and be resolved for the time to come to be more sedulous and frequent in the discharge of your duty Ald. This indeed is like your self Mr. Vicar short and sweet Vic. It has the greater probability to keep your justice waking and I am sorry the advice is no more like your Worship Ald. But all this while I have led you in a cloud Vic. Let your face Sir then that proportionable to your Estate is bright and rich dispel and scatter it with your beams and raies that so I may have a Rubrick to direct me Ald. You are marvelous witty good Mr Vicar thus to reflect upon my very face Vic. I must confess your Worships Face needs no reflections yet 't is but gratitude to return those raies that before were darted upon mine own body I touched only upon your Face because I would not make a bridge of your nose Ald. You think now you have hit that place where there may be matter enough for discourse Vic. Truly Sir you led me to it and yet I must beg your pardon if I refuse thus to defile my Language Thus 't is alwaies you see when gall and passion begins to stir Ald. Really Sir I am so much sensible of mine own infirmities as not to be altogether averse to the pardoning yours Vic. I thank you heartily for your candour and ingenuity and shall be more obliged to you for your forbearance if you please to antidote your own passion the better to prevent mine Ald. I did not intend any other than a trivial Jest when I seemed to reflect upon the stature of your body Vic. And I intend none other than earnest when I reflect upon the proportions of your mind Ald. But stay Mr. Vicar your late discourse supposes me guilty of Perjury and so I must needs confess I am as far as the case has hitherto been stated but are you sure I can plead nothing for my self in bar of your Accusation and defence of mine Innocency Vic. I shall by no means accuse you lest you brand me with Sathan's Title and call me the Accuser of the Brethren But I cannot imagine how you can excuse or acquit your self from swearing falsly when you do not put in execution the King's Laws that belong to you as a Justice of the Peace Ald. Yes I can exhibite London it self the Metropolis of the Nation for an example of omissions here Vic. London cannot possibly be looked upon as a pattern and exemplar for smaller Towns for because of the populousness and largeness of that City it is impossible the Magistrates can be able to discover those misdemeanours and breach of Laws that are there daily acted and committed Great Cities will be alwaies full of unclean birds but the Cage is so big that the Magistrate knows not how to catch them Ald. But do you think that those unlawful Assemblies as the Statute calls them do never make noise enough to come to the Justice of Peace's ears Vic. I do not at all question that no doubt the meetings are tumultuous enough not only to reach the ears of those but sometimes approach so near them as to leave the guilt at their very doors unless there they have a trick of restraining their Families better than we have in this Town But our question now is matter of right not of fact and we are to follow Precept before Example What ease can it be to any particular mans torment to have a great many more roaring with him And since we are enjoyned in Sacred Writ to perform unto the Lord God our Oaths it will not at all detract from that just misery I must be possessed of for the wilful and constant breach of mine though all the World were also involved in the same guilt Ald. What you say indeed are great truths nor were the Example at all Argumentative unless their forbearance of rigour and execution did perswade us that there was a supreme connivence Vic. I hope Supreme Authority may not only have liberty to wink but sleep when he has both Commissioned and Commanded others and bound them with the Oath of God upon them to look to the general performance of duty and to punish those that play the Truant and violate Laws in contempt of Authority Thus does the Shepherd go to sleep when as he supposes he has with safety folded his sheep Thus does also the Superiour Commander quietly take his rest and repose when he has set his guards and appointed to his Army Quarters The Pilot has given forth his Orders and the Ship may be in danger unless the inferiour Officers in their several Watches steer right and keep the Seamen from mutiny or disorder But you cannot say there is so much as a Supreme Connivence since the same Laws are still in force and the Royal Proclamations have sufficiently been sounded through the whole Nation and the Oath of a Justice is still the same attended with the same force and Obligation Ald But notwithstanding all your reply it 's thought by persons both of interest and parts that there is some countenance given Vic. You are easily made to believe these things that perhaps you may be willing should be accomplished but can you conjecture that God Almighty who has declared to the World that he will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain will be satisfied for the breach of your Oath
with such slight Arguments with which you seem to silence the outcries of Conscience when the Authority of his Law and honour of his most glorious name so deeply challenge the vindication of his justice Ald. We know that mercy is an Attribute our Maker so much glories in that meekness and kindness unto others here making us to partake of the Divine Nature he is then most pleased when this is most exercised Vic. Though Charity is the great virtue of the Gospel not only in uniting the whole World under one Religion but because it is so frequently enjoyned us yet this is never either justly limited or exercised when it thus interferes with justice or a due discharge of our Obligations and trust for you are not to bear the Sword in vain but you are appointed as well for the punishment of evil doers as for the praise of them that do well Therefore to punish offenders does well accord with the Law of Charity Ald. But Non-conformists for the most part will scarce acknowledge that they come within the compass of Offenders however are very hardly ranked amongst evil doers which the Sword of Justice does properly reach Vic. I do not affirm that these are the only Offendors nor that all wickedness rests with them But you seem to conjecture that a mortified face and a meager look or a sober twang upon a well-strung Nose is enough to make a Saint in querpo Ald. Truly if once I set about the execution of Laws I shall not have respect of persons Vic. In that Sir your Justice will best resemble him who is our most perfect Pattern whose Equity admits no spots and your resolution against Vice will be the more sincere by how much the more it becomes Universal but never let a demure face be received as a character of an innocent heart Let the Drunkard and the Swearer in common discourse as well feel the stroke of your Arm as the Rebel and the Schismatick for your omission will as well be attended with forswearing if others information or your own senses become the accuser when you inflict not the Penalties upon both or either I cannot conjecture Fanaticks to be the only Criminals whom the Laws you are sworn to execute reach no more than those were the only sinners whose bloud Pilate mixed with their Sacrifice or those on whom the Tower of Siloe fell But yet I think they are as great as any almost within the compass of Christianity For I cannot but conclude Rebellion and Treason to be as black crimes as Rioting and Luxury Spiritual Pride and a lofty Saintship to be altogether as vain and more impious than external Pomp attended with Superfluities and a small Cottage swelled into a Lordship Till you can assure me that Usurpation and Violence Murder and Rapine Oppression and Robbery Perjury and False-witness Lying and Slander can be admitted into the Chain of Piety and become the Advancers of true Religion that a supercilious morosity and defect of Urbanity are good Morals and contracted narrow and base souls that alwaies plead the Jewish Corban whose Avarice is as insatiable as the Sea and their Lust as incurable as the barren wombe 'till these I say become the only vessels of honour noble and capacious for the Master's use and the Second Table of the Moral Law becomes either lost or its Obligation cancelled I shall never account those persons so loudly clamoured for by mad men and women to be pious or good So little Justice have they for their separation because they account themselves more righteous than their neighbours But because it is not my present business as a thing which I alwaies abhor to lay more burden of sin upon their backs who are already pressed as a Cart with Sheaves and an excellent similitude indeed is this where both the burden and the sense is equal I deem my discourse then only congruous with my present design when it tends to perswade you courageously and universally to execute the Laws against all Offendors that not only Peace may be kept in the Streets but preserved also in peoples Consciences Though as I plainly discern you cannot but conclude the Fanaticks present insolency and rudeness and apparent method to a future rebellion cannot but a little enflame my Zeal and I hope our Adversaries will not dislike that in me which they so much applaud in themselves Ald. Really I have been many times not only upon your discourses but being begg'd and entreated by many persons both of worth and quality who well agree with you both in fears and motives and who have also in the late times more than ordinarily for their Loyalty and Religion felt the weight of usurping fingers inclined to execute the Laws against those persons that regardless of the Law do not only abstain from a just submission to the Commands of Authority but also in their Conventions and Meetings exercise a quite contrary power and as those Gentlemen would suggest prepare their Auditors and number their strength that they may be fit for another encounter And then consulting with mine own thoughts I considered that they pleaded Conscience for their Actions which being tender I cannot methinks endure to touch it and being a little God in the soul I am loath to offer any violence to it Vic. I should not at all blame your tenderness did not their numerous assemblies daily alarm you their Spight and Malice continually caution those amongst whom they live and the Obligation of your Oath endanger the eternal ruine of your soul And you know death hastens towards you and will be a bold intruder at a rich Aldermans Gate as well as a poor Vicars Wicket Ald. 'T is true indeed we are all mortal and I should be extreme loath to depart this World with so great a sin as Perjury upon my Conscience unrepented of which as you well informed us the last Sunday includes a new state of life and must as well consist in a future amendment as in a cordial sorrow for what is past Vic. Say not Sir you would be sorry only to be arrested by death with so great a debt to God as Perjury does contract but rather resolve upon a sudden alteration both of your mind and practice For be assured if you should chance to die with such a seared Conscience that although pricked will not bleed you will part with your beloved Corporation here only to be possessed of the Torments of Hell and Companions of Devils And I were better deal so plainly with you though it may seem strange when compared with that wonted Complement which my dependent maintenance tempted me to than to build you a Funeral Pile perfum'd with rich Odours and Spices in which not only your aged body but your very soul too shall burn Ald. I have heard Fanaticks sometimes styled fire and brimstone men but I think your Zeal is more hot than theirs that is able to kindle such flames You strangely startle me with
or Handicrafts men that keep close to their Houses and Shops and have not often either the diversion or benefit of society and company Hence came the Weavers Tailors Clothiers Combers Shoomakers and Coblers and the like to advance from the Loom and Stall to the Pulpit and become persons of such eminent gifts because they living obscure and retired where they had converse only with themselves melancholy gaining the predominancy in their humours they gave themselves over like drunken men to discourse only of Policy and Religion and because they could not be Rulers on the one hand they endeavoured to be accounted something on the other and espouse that which most suited with their melancholy and retirement Ald. But I have seen some of that party as merry souls as ever I would desire to accompany with Vic. I shall readily grant that from mine own observation but then if you observe they are such as are leading men in their Society and espouse that interest only for their own honour and wealth Or else they are some Covenanting Parsons that relinquished their Benefices upon the Act of Uniformity because they were ashamed to conform who had been so violent in the late times or perhaps persons of such mean learning that they knew they should have no preferment in our Church or lastly those that being either by surprisal or through hopes of some toleration and allowance or finally who by the familiarity and combination of some leading men of that Party for companies sake deserted their Livings and so perhaps might unwarily be Ejected who now being vexed for their unadvised losses envy those that were more prudent and wise and out of hate and malice to the present possessours propagate opinions to the detriment of our Church and for supporting the Schism Ald. Have you found any then that by the example of others forsaking their Livings do now repent of their rash action Vic. Yes I know those that were alwaies in the worst of times not only repugnant to those loose devotions but alwaies seemed inclinable to the ancient that yet by the example of others and the great interest they had in them were pittifully fooled out of their Benefices that were but little concerned in the support of that Party who now being irrecoverably lost are great Zealots against Common Prayer who before that black St. Bartholomews day did not only afford their presence and devotion to the Liturgy of the Church but also read it themselves before its imposition Ald. Well Sir you have fully satisfied me in this particular concerning the Conscience of those men against whom my Oath as a Justice of the Peace obliges me to put the Laws in execution for I am satisfied that their deportment is not according to the Scripture Rule and therefore they cannot in reason plead Conscience for their actions since a mans opinion or judgment of things is not an Argument convictive enough to justifie his Principles or his Actions and Deportment that flow from such a corrupted Fountain But they pretend to the Spirit of God and that they have a secret testimony for the unlawfulness of our present devotions and service and the legality and justice of their own Vic. I am very joyful that your Worship is apprehensive of the reasonableness of the former Point and that your Conscience is satisfied concerning it self as also the vanity of their Consciences that pretend most to this Principle And indeed for the most part a Fanaticks Conscience if a Tradesman is his Custom and Gain if a Teacher honour and maintenance and a satisfaction of his eager humour of Passion and Malice And as this Plea of theirs will to the reasonable part of mankind appear empty and insufficient So from the very same grounds upon which their Conscience is refuted shall I also manifest that their pretenses to the Spirit and that ever blessed and sacred testimony is no less a cheat also Ald. If you can do that too certainly you will perswade me to be resolute in the discharging the duties of mine Office and Trust against all opposition whatsoever Nor shall either present fear or a melancholy praevision of future danger ever be able to divert mine intentions from a full execution of the Kings Laws Vic. That I may attempt that task then which I perceive your Worship thinks almost impossible to be accomplished I shall shew you an absurdity or two that will follow from their supposal of the testimony of the Spirit But before I do that give me leave to invalidate this pretended testimony of theirs unto you from what you have before granted Ald. Pray do so for I shall not prescribe your method of conviction Vic. You believe Sir that neither their Principles nor Actions that make up their cause of Schism and difference from us are to be proved from Scripture Ald. No surely For if I did I were both impious and irrational if I were not wholly of their opinion and practice Vic. Then trouble your self no further for they cannot have the testimony of the Spirit Ald. I do not see the necessity of this consequence nor how your Argument can possibly confute them Vic. No It is strange to me that you who have shewed your self throughout this Discourse so sagacious and subtil in your judgment and apprehension should not perceive the consequence here Ald. Truly methinks I am a stranger to it Vic. I will endeavour to make this Conclusion well acquainted with your Worships Premisses Since the Fanaticks Principles and apparent Schism according to your own confession are not to be proved by the Word of God The Spirit of God cannot give its testimony to those Principles because it never witnesses contrary to the revealed Word for that were to contradict it self since the Scripture was given forth by the inspiration of the Spirit Ald. I now very well apprehend this reason and indeed by all Laws and Methods of arguing should as I have heard desist from prosecuting this Objection any further But because you promised to discover some absurdities necessarily arising from their Affirmation that they have the testimony of the Spirit that I may be able to refute their bold and strange Opinions I must urge you further to produce them Vic. The first is then if they have the testimony of the Holy Spirit for the Doctrines that they deliver and the Actions which they practise then their Sermons had been Canonical and their Actions infallible and thus might not only the Deity it self be made a Liar and men be metamorphosed into all these strange and monstrous shapes by a Law that has Heavens Seal for its authority and inforcement but Rebellion and Treason would become Canonical too and the foundations of the Earth would be out of course Peace and Charity be perpetually disturbed and an Eternal Schism and Separation maintained from inspired President and Bible Examples Ald. How so Vic. Because Sir we have no other assurance of the truth of Scriptures which
that discourse exceedingly upon your last absurdity from Fanatical Pretensions to the Testimony of the Spirit Have you nothing more that may without violence to that little time we have left be added against that confidence of theirs Vic. Yes Sir if you please I will conclude with this that through this delusion the temptations and directions of the Devil himself may be entertained for the whisperings and motions of God's holy Spirit For I would gladly know where impulses are made Rules and Guides how the owners of such uncertainties will be able to discern the difference betwixt the motions and suggestions And it would not be unpleasant sport to hear such critical persons exhibite their inward marks and criteria He would certainly prove a most exact Enthusiast fit to endoctrinate Mankind that were able to discern different impulses made upon the same soul to cause it to understand or believe since according to the apprehension of one that pretends no more skill in these matters than I do there can be but one sort of action at least not divers enough for the Patient to distinguish in the Spirits of a man the same convulsions and percussions on the Nerves by which the soul is enabled to understand or believe and as to this both the action and mode of apprehension is the same whether it be truth or falshood under the notion of truth that is presented to the Soul a truth of God or a Diabolical suggestion If an Object seems true it is embraced with the same passion and affection as if it were a real truth And it is impossible to make distinction there where there is no difference What internal signs they have who are best skill'd in such melancholy Arts I cannot well conjecture but sure I am that by such uncouth and unreasonable pretensions they may as well receive the similitude of an Angel of light as the Angel it self Ald. But surely they would not so far desert their reason and interest together as to be led blindfold by such uncertainties if such dangers and precipices lay in their way they must have some tokens or other that must guide them out of this strange Labyrinth Vic. I know they are good both at signs and wonders and yet I cannot well discern what clue they can have to guide them For you see all the various Sects as numerous as the Grashoppers of Aegypt and as great a torment as all their Plagues all pretend with an equal confidence to the same testimony and they never yet could as I have heard attempt with success the conviction of each other from any inward marks and tokens that one was deluded with a pretence only of what the other truly had Nay Sir inform your self well from the wisest of these persons what they mean when they say that they have the Testimony of the Spirit and you shall unless you have the better fortune have no other return than this that they are assured themselves of what they are not able to evidence unto others Ald. That is sufficient reason for their own belief and action Vic. Were there indeed no Paralogism upon their own Consciences and cheat put by their misapprehensions upon themselves this were sufficient ground to themselves for Faith and Action because what the Spirit commands we may safely obey but they cannot reasonably from this Topick perswade another to the same belief because they are not able to exhibite this Testimony to others or to give signs and external tokens that may be potent to a conviction Ald. Methinks now Mr. Vicar you yield the thing you have been for some time arguing against Vic. I believe Sir you will percieve the contrary when you remember that this last supposition was attended with condition that this Testimony was no cheat But I intend to make another use of this to your self Ald. Pray let me hear it Vic. Suppose then for a little moment that they had this Testimony of the Spirit assured to themselves but they could not give an external sign and demonstration unto others of what themselves were possessed of This could not excuse you as a Magistrate from executing the Laws upon them Ald. That is strange Vic. Sir it is not more strange than true For you not knowing their pretended testimony none having sufficient means of conviction of it and the Doctrines and Actions of the Pretenders being according to your present judgment repugnant not only to the Law of the Land which you are sworn to execute but to that Law of God which is to remain Obligatory unto you 'till you have sufficient means of knowledge that another Law is established by the same Authority to repeal what has a present Sanction you are still engaged to look upon them as Impostors and punish them accordingly Ald. Then the Jews did not amiss in Crucifying our Saviour nor the Primitive Persecutors in depriving the Apostles and Martyrs of their lives Vic. I did indeed expect this Objection and foresee the storm and therefore am provided of shelter under it The great Saviour of Mankind had not only assured evidence of his own Mission he coming from God to reconcile fallen Man to his Maker and to abolish what prefigured him by the delivery and establishment of the Gospel of Peace But the Father and Holy Ghost gave visible Tokens and audible Voices to attest this great truth to the Inquisitive and then unbelieving World sealing the truth of our Saviours great though to Mankind new Commission together with the Doctrines he then delivered to be the Director not only to the present Generation but future Ages by Signs and Wonders that arrived at the very height of true Miracles which being the Broad Seal of Heaven were sufficient to establish the truth of what they were annexed to and might reasonably create a belief in those who either saw or were certainly informed of the truth of them And therefore the butchery and murder nay the hard usage of this glorious as well as most gracious Messenger cannot by all the Art and Reason of Mankind admit of any Plea or Excuse And then for his Apostles and those Primitive Martyrs that sacrificed their lives to give testimony to their Master's Divinity and Doctrine and sealed the truth of their Profession and Religion with their own bloud since the Apostles received our Saviours Commission so well established by his own Actions of power and astonishment which was further confirmed by God's Almighty Arm accompanying their Prayers and Benedictions in Signs almost as great as those of their Lord and Master necessary at the first plantation of the new Oeconomy that came to rend the Veil of the Temple and abolish those representative Ceremonies that had so solemn and so long a Sanction And the Martyrs dying in the same Cause our present Pretenders that boldly affirm only what is a cheat to themselves and cannot any way be evidenced to others cannot at all be parallell'd with those ancient Martyrs and Primitive
it then become impossible since Ald. Yes that it is because of the encrease of their numbers and the boldnes and courage they have acquired Vic. Your Worship and your Brethren are to have thanks given to you for that for giving them encouragement by your lenity and forbearance when the Laws were sufficiently valid and you under the greatest obligation to enforce and execute them It is a sad thing that men will make so many excuses now who to my knowledge in the late times were sufficiently active to execute the Impositions of tyrannical Usurpers notwithstanding the numbers of those that wished the King well bore a greater proportion to those Army Myrmidons than the Fanaticks do to us now But what are these formidable numbers 'T is true they make them appear as dreadful as they can for every one of them has his mouth full of fire and brimstone that they blow forth continually upon us and both in their Writings and Conventicles make as great a shew as possibly they are able But you may see by this that their numbers are not so formidable as they would endeavour to make us believe for their Teachers were not so very many that refused Conformity and yet you have to every little sneaking Conventicle no less than five or six waiting Chaplains that are maintained for the most part from what the good women steal from their Husbands besides several of them had Temporal Estates and are wary enough to keep close to their own Families for fear the Law may reach them when the others poverty makes them venturous We were best after a while run away from a nest of Snakes because they put out their tongues or be afraid of a flock of Geese because they hold out their necks and hiss at us Would you that are in Authority but a little discountenance these insinuating Companions and discharge your Oath upon the Leaders of the Factions you would find the Multitude melt and dissolve like Snow against the Sun and we need no longer be afraid of Tumults and Insurrections But admitting their numbers to be great and insolent I cannot imagine how the execution of the Laws becomes impossible Are they become so spiritual that they are invisible too Or do not their bold Pragmaticks often enough walk the Streets Or is not a Serjeant in Divinity sufficiently known when he has alwaies the Formality of his Coife on Is not the Law still the same that it was have you not the same Authority and way to execute it the same Officers and Power to attend you Had you ever yet a prohibition from your Superiours that might discharge the Obligation of your Oath Did not the House of Commons with their Speaker before them petition his Majesty to set forth his Royal Proclamation to command you to execute the Laws in force against these Meetings and unlawful Assemblies And does not your Oath that is so sacred and solemn that when wilfully neglected and openly violated must inevitably bring eternal vengeance upon the contemners head yet remain obligatory in the highest Though no man can be obliged to an impossibility yet a Promissory Oath must bind him to the utmost of his power and ability And can you say that you have acted to the utmost of your strength or according to those seasons and opportunities that are daily put into your hands If not never conjecture your Plea of Impossibility will be sufficient to excuse your negligence and indifferency Ald. Well Mr. Vicar you have argued this last point home not only to my Capacity but Conscience and though I must confess my self sufficiently galled yet I shall not wince at my conviction You have a strange faculty in perswasion I never thought to have been brought to this trouble Vic. Trouble Sir It should be your delight to be strict and diligent in the performance of your duty and your greatest trouble must be that you have been no less troubled for the breach of your Oath You cannot say what I perswade you to is impossible to be done without a stain and blot upon your Oath and consequently your honour as a Justice of the Peace for you know you are always new sworn in this Corporation as well as chosen once a year and surely the putting the Laws in execution is no more impossible at this time than it was last Michaelmass either then your Oath was unlawful it binding you to what was impossible when you took it or else it is still most severely obligatory notwithstanding all your pretended impossibility Let courage therefore and a pious resolution shine like Jewels in the midst of your titles and let not the breach and violation of an Oath make your Bed sometime or other prove your Grave and your Grave a worser torment But duly execute his Majesties most pious and just Laws that are as well the Pales of the Church as the Bulwarks of the Kingdom Ald. But you know we are Justices of the Peace and the design of mine Office is only for the peace and welfare of this place and consequently as a part of the whole Kingdom Now when my judgment tells me that the execution of the Laws will more tend to the ruine and destruction of our peace and quietness by the provocation and disturbance of these persons than the forbearance certainly I am excused from the Obligation of mine Oath in that respect Vic. I am not Sir of your opinion in relation to what you now propose nor do I conjecture that the executing the Laws against Conventicles and unlawful Assemblies will at all disturbe but very much settle the peace and tranquillity of the Kingdom For their numbers are not yet so great but that they may with facility be suppressed without any breach upon our present quiet would the Justices of Peace lend their assistance and Command their Constables and inferiour Officers to seize and apprehend the principal Actors that they may be brought to the Bar of Justice to receive their Sentence and condign punishment For substract but the number of women and children that are uncapable of resistance from the total sum of these bold Usurpers and Violaters of the Law and abate for the want of ability of some by reason of their Age and the defect of courage and resolution in others and we need not fear the power of the rest there will remain so inconsiderable a number to be encountred with Finally add to all this that they are for the most part persons who are inconsiderable in their interest being Tradesmen and Handicrafts so that if their Drum should beat and their Trumpets sound sedition and tumult it could be none other than a Prologue to their final destruction But if none of these Pleas could possibly with any reason be made you are not in your Office to be a Judge of what is a mean to promote or continue the Publick Peace for your Sentence is not proper in this cause unless you were a Privie Counsellor but
Apostles who though by reason of interest and the hardness of mens hearts they could not convince either the Rulers of the Jews or the powers of the Gentiles yet gave such reason and confirmation of their Testimony of the Spirit and inspiration from Heaven that their Commission was legible to the whole World though mens eyes by reason of their stubbornness or inadvertency were so blind that they would not see it Ald. But the fews still thought these as great Impostors as we can possibly pretend ours to be and under that notion only punished them as you would now perswade us to deal with ours Vic. Could ours indeed prove their testimony for what they speak and do to the disturbance both of Church and State opposite unto Law as well as the Apostles did their Inspiration and confirm their Doctrines by Miracle we had sufficient reason to believe them and should certainly sin in offering violence to the Spirit of God should they be punished for their Belief or Actions But because not only their pretensions are vain and frivolous and they cannot give a rational evidence to Mankind of their inspiration and their Doctrines which they would endeavour to establish under this pretence do not only tend to the undermining Government and unsettling Foundations but in most of their differences from us both in Faith and Discipline nay to the very Phrase and all has by the ingenious Author of the forementioned Dialogues the Books I sent you the other day been proved not only to be canting and childish but impious and different from that Doctrine of the Gospel which is to endure 'till the general Flames and universal Period and consequently supercedes all expectations of a future Law or new discoveries of what is not contained within the compass of its bounds and limits they cannot admit of that Plea Ald. But what if now they should at last produce Miracles for the confirmation of what you so earnestly contend against what an horrid guilt should we bring upon our selves by the punishment of such sacred Apostles Vic. Truly if they should pretend any such thing as I know not what their boldness is not confident enough either to expect or affirm we must endeavour an acquaintance with Hocus Pocus's for fear one of their tricks should cheat us and make also Philosophical enquiries into the strength and power of natural causes and take time to consider the matter well with all its attending Circumstances both of the person and means of accomplishment whether the Power were lasting and permanent always ready to seal his pretence and the like But to prevent all trouble by this objection I will give you one invincible Argument why you need never fear the confirmation of these mens Doctrines by Miracles and consequently if you are satisfied of their present error and deviation from the sacred truths of the Gospel you may give them the trouble of the Law Ald. Pray Sir what 's that For I do not love to have any scruples remaining that shall gall my Conscience for punishing these men according to my Oath Vic. In that your Worship does exceeding well For if you act doubtingly it will not only be injurious to your self but your fear will make you too remiss and you will want that courage and resolution that at all times becomes a Magistrate but more especially when he is to deal with such a Crue as these The reason then which may satisfie you is this That the Gospel having its perpetual Sanction if Miracles should confirm any Doctrine or Action opposite to this the whole Trinity would be impeached of falshood and lies which the most holy God for ever abhors And therefore St. Paul's Anathema may very well silence this doubt Though we or an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than what we have preached let him be accursed Which he repeats again in the very next Verse to testifie the perpetuity of the Gospel as well as the vanity and impudence of those that would have perverted the Gospel of Christ and not only so but to prevent all future expectations and eternally to stop the mouths of those that should perchance be given to change Ald. This indeed reaches my present case and I hope for the future I shall not be frightned from the discharge of mine Obligation by any such frivolous and vain pretences Vic. In that Sir you will not only shew your self both a Friend to Church and State but you will keep a good Conscience void of just scruple to it self and offence to others Especially when you shall well consider that this boldness of our Adversaries so inevitably cheats their own souls as well as becomes an occasion of delusion to their acquaintance and brethren For their pretence to this divine testimony can be nothing else but an heightning of their perswasions and making their belief bold and strong and consequently their Resolutions and Actions to maintain it confident and zealous And since we find but little difference in these effects viewed and considered in persons of a divers faith and apprehensions whose Principles are as opposite to each other as repugnant to our common belief as reason and observation certainly informing those that are more inquisitive and ingenious that Perswasion Resolution Confidence and Zeal receive their various Elevations and gradual Assurgencies as well by those Evidences and Arguments which we conjecture to be certainty of Demonstration as by any impulse or motion they can be imagined to have How can they discover the truth of that testimony which they pretend to and discern what the holy Spirit seals from what is but phansie and opinion or perhaps a malicious suggestion from him who is the greatest Adversary to Mankind and perpetually envies those hopes of bliss that yet remain to Adam's Off-spring Ald. I must needs acknowledge the strength and prevalence of your Arguments and reason and I heartily thank you from that joy and content I hope to have in the discharge of my too much neglected duty for your great pains that you have now taken to measure both mine own and our Adversaries errors by the Standard of truth and reason But yet though I am convinced that the Fanaticks have no just Plea of their own yet methinks there may be some circumstances attending the present season and straite that we seem to be brought into that may remit the rigour of my Oaths Obligation to execute the Laws against these persons Will not compulsion think you make them hypocrites Vic. I do not conjecture that Swords and Violence were ever intended as a rational mean to enforce Christianity or to bring men to a belief of what they cannot by motive and argument be perswaded to yield the truth of nor yet can I conjecture that the smartest Scourges can make these persons greater hypocrites than what for the most part they already are and therefore as I hinted before our present Laws do not compell mens belief but
only take Cognizance of their Actions Your Authority is supplicated and humbly begg'd to be made use of only to restrain their open affronts to Law and Government and to give a check to their bold Assemblies and numerous Meetings for fear lest their discerning their strength they may at last attempt by force what your Oath obliges you to endeavour to prevent and obviate And by this they will only pay a Tribute at the most by Mulcts and Punishments for what they are so willing to enjoy and they need not be forced to a Faith in that which Reason does not perswade them to believe Thus the Rod punishing and restraining the unlimited propagation of Error and Schism they will by this be put upon enquiry after the Truth and upon a sufficient view of what they have not yet made a through inspection into they may at last embrace with cordial affection what they now prosecute and offer violence to with the greatest transports of passion and malignity Ald. But their Party seems so very much lately encreased that they will turn the edge of the Magistrates Sword and weary Justice with the execution of them Vic. You may therefore cut your work far shorter and Justice may act with the less noise but greater success if you only prosecute the Heads of them and execute the Laws only upon those who lead the innocent sheep astray Ald. And are you contented that the rest should still run into disorder Vic. You will find the rest in time to run themselves into the fold when the Bell-weathers are gone which they were wont to follow Ald. But methinks this should be the Office of the Bishops and their Ecclesiastical Judges Vic. First Sir all that the Law permits them to act punishes nothing but the soul and conscience and those persons that we have to deal with have their Consciences feared with an hot iron so that these wounds will not make them bleed for the utmost a Bishops Court can do is but to excommunicate the Offendor Ald. And is not that exceeding severe Vic. It is Sir a most dreadful Sentence and made such gashes and wounds formerly that no Medicine but an Absolution could heal far more deep than the severest stroke from the sharpest Sword set on by the hand of the most potent Emperour But now since Atheism and Impiety has grown to a height under the pretense and shelter of Reformation and Religion heavens thunder and lightening too proves to men but like Squibs and Rockets make only a great noise and a pleasant flash but scarce singe so much as the Garment Ald. Methinks Mr. Vicar you make light of that which was went to be esteemed a serious matter and awed the minds and consciences of men before Christianity could gain either the favour or assistance of the Civil Magistrate Vic. I only now gave you the Conjectures of those persons we have to deal with when Order and Religion are almost banished by the boldness and Rebellion of wicked men but if you would have mine own judgment I cannot but tremble at the very thoughts of an Excommunication which being attended with its due circumstances does not only cut off Communion here but also from Fellowship with the blessed Angels and Saints hereafter and what is thus bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Ald. And why cannot this then have the same effects that it had heretofore to restrain men from vice and disobedience Vic. Your Worship need not enquire a reason of this when you shall consider that those for the most part that will be concerned in this Sentence have other Notions not only of the Sentence it self but also of the Persons that pronounce it than the Primitive Christians formerly had they think the Sentence is not of such force as we believe it is and however that those persons that now pronounce it are not sufficiently authorized to do it Ald. Why They are Commissioned by the King himself and enabled by the Laws of the Land Vic. The wisest of them will not question I suppose but that they have a Civil Sanction and that the Ecclesiastical are the Kings Courts but this is so far from being Argumentative to produce fear that it is the only reason why they scorn it and the chief motive that I would make use of to crave assistance from the Civil Sword Ald. How can that possibly be Methinks you relate Riddles to me Vic. I shall presently then unriddle the Mystery because I am not willing to hold you in suspense You must know then that our Non-conformists are much of the Papists humour in particular nor can they think that the Civil Power should give a Sanction to the Kirks Laws and therefore if they can but satisfie themselves that the present Church is without Power derived from Heaven the Statutes made to confirm our Courts or to make the Sentences of these valid they conclude to be of no greater concernment than the other Laws made against themselves and may be equally violated without sin or danger To tell you the truth Sir they look upon our Church as none at all our Bishops only as Popish Prelates our Ministers as nothing but Baals Priests and all our maintenance as nothing but food for the God Bell. Al. Not so surely Vic. Why do they then separate from us And not only look upon our Prayers as deficient but our very Sermons without Authority and Power nay our very Communion and Sacraments as abomination and pollution Ald. These men indeed must be looked to for I see if they are permitted thus to run on without controul they will not only bring us to confusion but kill and stay that they may take possession Vic. That was you know their former Doctrine and though they then made as one would think sufficient use yet acording to their usual Method they are yet upon the Application Ald. But if these men reject our Church and deny our Bishops to be at least Ministers how will they make out their own Call and evidence their own Ordination lawful since their Primitive Reformers the Authors of their Succession received Orders from the Bishops hands by virtue of which they presumed to impose upon others Vic. They have a way to deny Succession to be necessary to a Church and besides they have changed their Principles as your Dialogue will inform you that the Presbyterian might the better associate with the Independent and unite their Forces to vanquish ours But if you would have your doubt at large resolved I know you are sufficiently acquainted and have familiarity with persons of all Perswasions and I desire you would put your Objection close to them that so they may give you a resolution of what I profess my self unable to do nor will I attempt it since neither my Judgment nor Obligation leads me to it Ald. I see no reason indeed why you should be put upon the defense of them But an Excommunication makes men liable to Temporal