A DISCOURSE CONCERNING LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE In which are Contain'd PROPOSALLS About what Liberty in this kind is now Politically Expedient to be given and severall Reasons to shew how much the Peace and Welfare of the Nation is concern'd therein By R. T. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Brook and are to be sold at his shop at the Angel in Cornhill 1661. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Liberty of Conscience c. I Am not ignorant that it is the fate of those who propound modells concerning Affaires of State or Religion to be usually look'd on as knaves or fools and as such who either do not know the incurable defects of humane nature or by pretending to cure them would only mend their own fortunes Leaving therefore the makers of plat-forms about morall things to such censures as attend them I shall not here in this following discourse of Liberty of Conscience so much resemble him that draws the modell of an house as one that applies an Engin to quench one a fire And indeed the security of the Nation is so concerned in the granting of this Liberty that any who shall by the contrary practice pretend to promote that will most truly deserve the name of a projector Moreover I know that in nothing more then about Liberty of Conscience querulous persons have shewn a childishness in their complaints without telling what the very thing is that troubles them and how far they would have it removed and so complaining for want of Liberty of Conscience in generall have been as ridiculous as a Plaintiff would be that brought his Action about anothers owing him money in generall or a Judge that accordingly order'd some money in generall to be paid When therefore any subjects have exprest the due Liberty their Consciences need then is a King in a capacity to shew a God-like benignity and power in granting the things they ask as far as they conduce to his honour and the peoples good Nor is it rationall that this Liberty should be granted on other termes For a King that gives to all men all the Liberty of Conscience they beg from Him this day will be forced to beg it from them the next As I shall therefore decline such an offer of the ways of securing Liberty to the Consciences of the severall parties among us as might amount to the exactness of a modell and seem to impose upon the Magistrate and tempt other men into an opposition of those methods whereof they were not the Inventors so shall I likewise avoid the error of those who cry out for want of Liberty before they know their own minds fully in this affaire or take care that the Magistrate shall know them otherwise then by inspiration Nor shall I at all in these papers consider what Liberty to the Consciences of others Religion but purely what politicall interest prompts us to give It is I confess none of the most renowned principles for Nations to preserve a fair entercourse with one another and with their respective Members because 't is their interest so to do but 't is a thing much more shamefull for a people to be so infatuated as not to see their interest when it is most obvious to them as in this case of the due Liberty of Conscience it so eminently is that it can be the reall Concernment of none but Souldiers of fortune to oppose it 'T is pity but those miseries which some mens pedantick incivilities to the Consciences of others have formerly overwhelm'd the Nation with should be so instructive to us as to convince us of the necessity of setting out the true bounds of Liberty of Conscience as the Egyptians of old by the overflowing of their Nile were forc'd upon the study of Geometry that so the certain bounds and proprieties of Lands might afterward be retrived I shall therefore without any more Prefatory words addresse my self to the proposalls about the freedom that is now fit to be given to the severall Protestant parties differing in lesser matters of Religion among us whose perswasions being different from those own'd by the Reverend Divines of our old Hierarchy do put them in a present necessity of having some liberty granted to them First then I shall propound that if there be not a coalition of those that are call'd the Presbyterians and the Assertors of the former Hierarchy among us into the same form of Church-Government and thereby the Presbyterians so call'd be put in a capacity to divide the highest preferments of the Church with others however no Ministers may be devested of their present Livings or be made uncapable of being presented to other meerly because they have been ordain'd by Presbyters without Bishops Secondly that any publick Preachers of the Independent perswasion may not meerly because of that discriminating opinion of theirs be render'd uncapable of being Lecturers in any Parish where the major part of the Parish and the Minister shall desire them so to be More liberty is not desired in their behalf because according to their principles it is not lawfull for them to take Tithes and to do the usuall Offices of a Minister in a Parish The Reasons why I judge it convenient that the Pastors and Teachers of Independent Churches should thus if nothing be alledged against them but their particular opinion be permitted to preach publickly are because as to the Doctrinall part of Religion they concur with the 39. Articles of the Church of England and they are generally men of strict lives and are such as have been bred up in the Universities and if they have not the liberty allow'd them to preach publickly it will necessarily occasion their preaching to their Churches in private meetings which may be of worse consequence to the Magistrate then their publick preaching can be And again their opinions about Church-Government though possibly not true are not unworthy of good and Learned men for by such they have been own'd as namely by Ames Ainsworth and Cotton of New-England Thirdly that those of these perswasions that are not Ministers I mean Gentlemen and Tradesmen Presbyterian or Independent may not for their opinions sake as to Church-Government be debar'd of any civil employment in the Nation they are otherwise capable of Fourthly that Anabaptists may not be punish'd meerly for their opinion of Administring Baptism as they do and their meeting to pray and preach and take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper together For though those of that perswasion were in Germany as so many fire-ships among the States of the Empire it doth not follow that others here must necessarily prove incendiaries in the same manner 〈◊〉 the acts of reasonable creatures may much more vary in severall places then Lightning and Thunder happen to be more hurtfull in some Countreys then other and some plants more or less poysonous in severall places Fifthly that the Quakers may for a while be tolerated till we have seen what effects their light within them will produce A present
and a speedy punishing so numerous a party would not be prudent because the persecution of one party would alarme all the others and make them fear that their turnes would be next This is a party that none have reason to fear as long-liv'd according to the course of nature for it doth not cherish the hopes of its followers by any sensuall pleasures in this World nor can its principles assure men of any reward in the World to come because the Quakers having degenerated from the light of the Scripture to that within them they can have no grounded assurance of any good terms in another World Those of them that are idle and go from Town to Town neglecting their callings may without any injury or provocation to the rest of the parties he compell'd to work And I am confident that these poor Enthusiastick people by hard labour and diligence in their callings might be at once curd of their melancholy and errours and be thus induced no longer to call a bad spleen a good Conscience Undoubtedly any Enthusiast that had been tired in some Mechanicall Trade by very hard labour in the day would find little gusto in reading Iacob Behmon's works at night Sixthly that those who professe the belief of a fifth Monarchy that is of Christs Reigning personally on the Earth a thousand yeares and draw no consequences from thence about their duty in promoting that fifth Kingdom by being active in dethroning any Magistrates or devesting Bishops and Ministers of their places because they are said to be of the fourth may not for that opinion be liable to any punishment For as ill uses as this opinion hath been put to in our dayes it was believed by almost all the Fathers of the Church before the first Nicene Councell And therefore I do so state this sixth proposall that only those now that believe a Millennium and draw no more consequences of Rebellion and Sedition from it then its Primitive assertors did may have the benefit of liberty As for those who by this innocent opinion would occasionally disturb civil Societies it is fit they should be dealt with as enemies of mankind and as such who would found the fifth Monarchy in a colluvies of more vile people then Romulus did the fourth and would multiply Confusions and Disorders in the World by destroying propriety and producing innumerable swarmes of Hypocrites in so much that if the Devil were to reign personally on the Earth he would not fill the World with more prodigious impieties For 't is likely that he would not take away more mens lives then they but rather be willing that severall generations of men should still succeed one another and that he would account the most provoking indignities that could be offer'd God in the World were only to be shewn by those men who would advance their temporall designes by Religion it being a greater affront to a King to be put to servile and ignominious uses in his Kingdom then to be banish'd from it Till any factious assertors of the fifth Monarchy can shew Gods warrant for their having Donations from him of our Estates as the Israelites could for their seising on those of the Egyptians we have reason to look on them as the Nations exterminated by Ioshuah out of their Countries did on him who as Procopius saith in the second book of his Vandalics caus'd Pillars to be erected with words on them in the Phanician Language which he thus renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i.e. We fly from the face of Ioshuah the thief the Son of Nun. But without doubt these mens design is not to claim our goods by such a right as Gods people the Israelites who yet were weary of the Theocracy they liv'd under did the Egyptians first of all but as the Mammelucs did since whose Government is the true example of theirs who would rule us by a Nation within a Nation And indeed those men may be asham'd to ask Liberty of Conscience who in their principles proclaim they will never give it from whom all the favour such as are not of their opinions can hope is to be kept so well in heart as to be able to hew their wood and draw their water for them Moreover their abusing those words of the Saints inheriting the Earth or which is all one founding dominion in grace would leave us still in a state of war For every man pretending to have grace nothing can decide the controversie but the Sword where there is no infallible judge Among the Papists there is a pretended one and so the opinion of giving the ballance of Land to the party preponderating in grace where there is a steady hand to hold the scales is not among them so mischievous as here it would be Seventhly that neither the old Discipline nor the Ceremonies of the Church of England nor an acknowledgment of the lawfulness or expediency therof be obtruded on any of the fore-mention'd parties nor that any censures from Ecclesiasticall Courts by Fines or Excommunication may be extended against them for Non-conformity For though Excommunication from a Church which a man doth not own as true or having Authority over him doth terrifie him no more then predictions of Thunder from Almanacks yet it makes that tremendous punishment of the the Gospel that judgement precursory of the last cease to be formidable But truly according to the Custom of our Church and much more according to the Church of Scoland an Excommunicate person is some way obnoxious to outward punishments And as our barbarous custom is for the Lord of a mannor to seize upon all the goods of any shipwrack'd persons that were thrown up by the Sea on his ground so in Scotland often the goods of those men who fall as wrecks on the shore of the Church accrue to it And thus accidentally trouble is created to the Magistrate about tempering the rigour of the Church by his power As one not many yeares since Excommunicated in Scotland procur'd his Excommunication to be taken off by a Counsell of War and so it was revers'd errante gladio as laid on possibly errante clave Having thus presented the proposalls to be considered and therein occasionally given some Reasons for Liberty of Conscience as it concerns some of the respective parties among us it remains now that more generall Reasons be produced and such as are comprehensive of the concernments of all or most of the parties differing in lesser matters of Religion To prove how much a due liberty granted to them will conduce to the peace and safety of the Nation and what publick inconveniences will follow from the contrary The first Reason shall be taken from the necessary connexion between Civil liberty and that which is Spiritual and therefore they that would devest any of their spirituall liberties do alarm them with just causes of fear about their losing civil liberties by the same hands For first it must necessarily be presumed that such
do not wonder at Trading persons who hate Ceremonies that they thus think God in respect of this hatred altogether such as themselves And therefore Almighty God designing his Worship from the Jewish Church to be full of Ceremonies and such as were Typical of his Son did divert that Nation from the utmost promoting of Trade To this end they were not planted except a few of them by the Sea-side but in In-land places and thereby were the better enabled to advance shepherdry and the multiplying of various kinds of Cattel in order to their Sacrifices They were forbid to take use money of one another not that there was any reall evil or Injustice in Usury but that it would have drawn them on to the advancement of Trade and consequently have interrupted the course of their solemn Rites and Ceremonies Religion would then have suffer'd by Trade whereas the contrary thing hath since happen'd from it For beside those Vices that are concomitant of Idleness which Trade repels the increase of Navigation must necessarily propagate the knowledg of Christian Religion as well as humane Arts and Sciences Thus Multi pertransibunt augebitur Scientia If in opposition to what hath been said about Trading persons being generally disaffected to Ceremonies in Religion any shall urge that in the Popish Republicks Trade and Ceremonies are both us'd It may be answer d that the many Ceremonies there are rather endured then loved and that if mens understandings were not there mis-guided by a belief of their being necessary to salvation the practice of them would quickly be abated just as we see the motion of a lock to be alter'd when the hand is removed that held back the spring Let but the Protestant Religion get ground there and so consequently the Tributes of their time be no more demanded for their present Ceremonies and we shall soon find how unwilling they will be to pay them I shall now briefly speak of the other parties as the Independents c. and take notice of their considerableness and hopes of bidding fair for an interest in the hearts of any of the people And here I shall observe that if these Sects had got no ground in the Nation that yet they want not their likelyhoods of doing it and that first by reason of the ready inclination of many among us to mutability in nothing more then their opinions about controverted things in Religion For opinions held by the English are held by Islanders And therefore Bodin in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem and fifth chapter of it doth very judiciously shew how people are to be moderated by different Laws according to their Climates and Situations which he confirmes by mentioning the severall Vices and Vertues of Countries remotely distant from one another saying how that Ventosa loca ferociores homines mobiliores reddunt quieta verò humaniores constantiores i. e. Countries disturb'd with frequent winds make men more fierce and mutable but Countries that are free from such do make men more civil and constant And secondly because the Protestant Religion doth indemnifie us in the Court of Conscience for believing in matters of Religion according to the Dictates of our private Judgements or rather oblige us to it Doubtless if it be not lawful for every man to be guided by his private judgement in things of Religion t' will be hardly possible to acquit our separation from the Romish Church from the guilt of schism The Genius of the Protestant Religion doth make it as naturall to us to weigh and consider any notions though recommended to us by our Ministers as 't is to tell money after our spiritual Fathers which we shall be as ready to do as after our naturall Nor can the decisions of Synods and Generall Councils terminate our inquiries in Religion or keep single Divines from recommending notions de fide And therefore as any Judge is concern'd to be wary how he gives sentence in a cause or inforceth the Execution of it when there lie appeales from his to severall other Judicatories so doth it likewise import Synods or Conventions of Divines to be cautious in their deciding matters of Faith since every such cause is to be carryed from their Bar to the examination of more then ten thousand Chancellours as many being Judges of the cause as there are rational men It hath been long since observ'd by many that Christian Religion hath moderated the extremity of servitude as to civil things in the places where it hath been receiv'd And certainly it is much more consonant to that Religion and especially that form of it which hath asserted its spirituall freedom from the impositions of others to allow spiritual liberty to others Nor doth it seem worthy of Christ who hath left us a Religion full of Mysteries and not any visible Judge of them to have design'd about those any visible Executioners If any man thinks otherwise let him say so I might further shew how these Sects caresse the vulgar in giving the power of the keys to the people in their gather'd Churches and how likely 't is that many busie men and of good natural parts who have not Learning enough to procure any good Church-preferment from the old or modern Episcopall men and it may be any such Learned men as have been repuls'd by them as to preferment will be gathering Churches But this present inquiry concerning the interest the severall Sects among us have in the hearts of many needs no further prosecution We find too many places swarming with them And such is the peculiar temper and complexion of most people of these perswasions and the melancholy of them more fix'd and sharp then that of any other party that this concurring with Religion of which I doubt not but very many of them have a true sense will incline them to persist in their present practises Of the heighth and setledness of these mens discontents we had experience in their voluntary removal out of the Nation carrying their Estates with them some to Holland and others to New England when the other more sagacious party of non-Conformists since call'd Presbyterians chose to weather out the storm at home and to get for themselves as good terms as they could THE FOURTH REASON that I shall urge to prove how much the peace and security of the Nation will be advanc'd by the liberty propounded may be taken from the inclinations of Orders and Degrees of other men among us and such as are not much engaged in these parties who account it their interest to be free from any religious impositions of the Clergy and to have the power of Bishops so moderated as that they may not be able to make any suffer for not being of their opinions in lesser matters of Religion And here I shall observe first how the Judges of the Land and the Lawyers generally have been ready to curb the excess of power in any Bishops The Bishops
judging of Ecclesiastical causes according to the Canon Law a Law of which Albericus Gentilis that renown'd Civilian saith in the 19th chap. of his second Book De Nuptiis Sed hoc jus brutumque barbarum sane est natum in tenebris seculorum spississimis productum a monacho tenebrione c. was an occasion of our Lawyers contrasts with them And what may well create suspicions that the Bishops keeping of Courts as they did was not according to Law may be had from those words of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in his Epistle Dedicatory to the King before his Speech in the Star-chamber I do humbly in the Churches name desire of Your Majesty that it may be resolv'd by all the Reverend Iudges of England and then Publish d by Your Majesty that our keeping Courts and Issuing Processe in our own Names and the like Exceptions formerly taken and now renew'd are not against the Law of the Realm c. And how ready the Lawyers have been to check the severity of Ecclesiastical Courts their innumerable prohibitions shew In the dayes of Popery the Prelates could awe the Judges with Excommunication for such crimes as the Church call'd so But how little of terrour the application of that censure hath had since appears from the frequent denouncing of it against the same man And therefore that Learned Lawyer Judge Ienkins in the second part of his Works saith that for opposing the excesses of one of the Bishops he lay under three Excommunications Secondly the substantial body of the Gentry heretofore was and is still likely to be for the moderating the exercise of Episcopal power and for the opposing its extravagance The oath ex officio and commuting for penance and other such kind of things cannot but be thought troublesome to them But that which I shall here chiefly take notice of is how a considerable part of the Gentry of England is grown more inquisitive in matters of Religion within these late yeares then formerly Where this inquiring temper is not no opinion so horrid but may be universally believ'd Thus the Turks may be induced to think that there is a Devil in the juyce of Grapes and the Papists that there may be a God therein But when men are neither by Religion or temper restrain'd from searching into the causes of things they will not in civility to other mens understandings believe propositions to be true or false And that which makes me beside my own observation to conclude that many of the Gentry of late are grown more inquisitive in Religious things then formerly and are likely so to continue is because they are more then heretofore inquisitive in civil things As when the polish'd knowledg of Philologie had obtain'd a conquest over the insignificant Learning of the School-men no man was thought worthy the name of a Scholar but he who understood the Greek Tongue so since the late introduction of reall Learning into the World by Galilaus Tycho Brahe my Lord Bacon Gassendus Des Cartes neither the knowledg of elegant words or nice Speculations wil yield any man the Reputation of being Learn'd that is altogether rude in Mathematicks which as they were formerly counted the Black Art and their Professors such as Roger Bacon Conjurers so may possibly School-Divinity and School-Divines hereafter be Having thus asserted the present searching disposition of a great part of our ingenious Gentry it may well be hence inferr'd that liberty of conscience may be of high use to them and that if any Ecclesiasticall persons determine any thing contrary to their reasons they will not believe them or if against their safety not obey them I think therefore by the way it was very politickly done of the Consistory of Cardinalls to imprison Galilaeus for affirming the motion of the Earth since that notion of his might fill the world with several new debates and inquiries and so Ignorance the mother of Devotion be destroy'd To prevent which effectuall care is taken by the Iesuites as appeares by the instructions given them in the Directory of their order call'd Directorium exercit spirit Ignatii Loyolae part 2. p. 172. Where there are Regulae aliquae tenendae ut cum Orthodoxâ Ecclesiâ sentiamus And the first Rule is Vt sublato proprio omni judicio teneamus semper promptum paratumque animum ad obediendum Catholicae Hierarchicae Ecclesiae It followes p. 176. Reg. 13. Ut Ecclesiae conformes simus si quid quod oculis nostris appareat album nigrum illa definiverit debemus itidem quod nigrum sit pronuntiare This is in the Edition of that Book at Tholou Anno 1593. and confirm'd by the Bull of Pope Paul the third In short he that hath had but any conversation with that ingenious part of the Gentry who have concern'd themselves in the consideration of Church-Government cannot but take notice of these two assertions being in vogue among them which whether true or no 't is not here pertinent to determine The first that 't is possible for Monarchy to subsist here without that high power our Bishops formerly had and so that Maxim No Bishop no King hath been disbelieved This Maxim seems to them true concerning Turky No Mufti no Grand Signior because the Mufti can with the Screen of Religion as he pleases hide the ugliness of those actions the Grandeur of the Turkish Empire is supported by But our Kings govern according to Law and so the Engin of Superstition is not here of use for the amusing people into slavery I confess any party of men that wil not own the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes as well as Civil is not fit to be allow'd as the State-Religion But that Supremacy of the Kings in Ecclesiastical matters and in Civil is acknowledged by the Divines that are for the Lord Primates form of Episcopacy as much as by any other A second assertion very much receiv'd among them is that no particular form of Church-Government is of Divine right Of this opinion my Lord Bacon shews himself to be expresly in his Considerations touching the Edification and Pacification of the Church of England and so my Lord Falkland in one of his printed Speeches where speaking of Bishops he saith I do not believe them to be jure divino nay I believe them to be not jure divino but neither do I believe them to be injuria humana So that it is no wonder that among our ordinary enquirers after knowledg this notion is believed which was so by those two incomparably Learned persons And it may seem much more to gratifie the power of Princes then the Maxim No Bishop no King can do The Author of the History of the Council of Trent makes mention how Laymez Generall of the Jesuits spent a whole Congregation in proving that Bishops are jure pontificio and not jure divino and said that the power of Iurisdiction was given wholly to the Bishop of Rome and that none in
under that notion find many to own it now in this Kingdom Yet are the Non-Conformists likely still to increase as from Edward the sixths time to this they have gradually done And some that are weary of our former Presbytery may yet be willing to return to it if they find Episcopacy Afflictive to them though thereby they onely shift their pain For nothing so much as Persecution makes men set up Altare contra altare every man choosing rather to be a Sacrificer on his own Altar then a Sacrifice upon anothers If any Ecclesiastical persons therefore shall design to gratifie the Peace and Welfare of the Nation without the allowance of a due Liberty of Conscience I shall think their onely aime hereby is to confirm the truth of their Doctrine and Discipline by a miracle I cannot but judge them too sagacious to believe that they can convince mens understandings of the truth of any Assertions by Torturing their bodies For men by the rage of passion to conduct knowledg into the World is as unlikely as the lighting of a candle with Gun-powder How ridiculous is it to think that Truth got any thing by the writings that pass'd between Luther and Henry the eight There are severall erroneous opinions that if we wish the world well rid of we shall find to die away of their own accord if we do not exasperate the maintainers of them just as nature makes us amends for the ugliness of Monsters in their being short-lived Yet even in the case of naturall unhandsomenesse I have seen the vulgar vary from their common Rule of judging it when a deform'd Malefactor hath been going to Execution Nor do the words of Cheaters that die on Gibbets want belief among the Rabble And if the common people are alwaies so ready to believe what is affirm'd by infamous persons because they are dying we may well suppose they will give credit to the words of such as liv'd demurely when they are to die because such and such thing were affirm'd by them I believe that hardly more Priests have been cut off by the Law then Papists thereby made That Faith hath been given to the Assertors of Popish opinions because they have been dying which they could just have drawn from me by raising the dead Nor is it a thing unobserv'd by any lookers into Antiquity that the Christian Religion hath still got ground in the World not by persecuting but being persecuted But that which I cannot without horror observe is that the not allowing a due Liberty of Conscience hath instead of advancing the cause of Truth propagated Atheism in this Nation This doth but too clearly appear from that Irreligion many of our Gentry have been infected with by the Reverend Divines of the Church of England not having had freedom to Worship God in publick according to their Consciences For severall persons of the Gentry not being able to hear a Liturgy a way of Prayer which every Church in the Christian World but ours then had and Sermons from such Divines as were not Puritans chose rather not to go to Church at all then be there present at the Worship they disgusted and no marvell that thus neglecting Gods publick service they at last grew unconcern'd in any Religion The like temptations to Atheism would be incident to many that are not of the Gentry if Liberty as has been propounded should not be given to the Non-conformist Divines For though severall of this sort of men would exercise their Devotion in private meetings and some would joyn with such publick Worship as was to be had yet many would hear no Sermons at all as possibly not likeing that which looks like a Conventicle and more disliking the way of praying and preaching us'd by very many Divines that adhere to the former Episcopacy Now t' were pity that this disease of Speculative Irreligion should infect the Commonalty as well as others and that by the persecution of Ministers who differed from us in lesser things we should as it were naile those Canons that might be employ'd in battering the Atheism of the Age because they are not all of the same length and shape Which Atheism I fear hath occasionally been not a little advanced by the disagreements of Ministers about the Divine Right of severall forms of Church-Government For things to be believed and done in order to salvation can have no more then a Divine Right and their opinions of Discipline have claim'd so much and by this means they have made some foolish men apt to think that the Trumpet of Religion giveth an uncertain sound and that nothing at all is of any Divine Right I account the body politick of the Nation to be as well concern'd in the upholding Religion as the Souls of men the Majesty whereof would be sufficiently kept up if the Teachers of it did either agree in all points about it or else in this one thing that the dissenters in lesser Controversies of Religion are obliged to allow a mutuall toleration And indeed when I consider what opinions men call one another Hereticks for not agreeing in it seems to me the same thing as if after the Pope had pronounced Virgilius the Bishop of Saltsburg Heretick for saying there were Antipodes he should have call'd the Pope Heretick too for saying there were none These parties that differ so in the circumstantial points of Religion are equally Antipodes to one another and alike near Heaven and in the Revolution of a few houres they see the same fun though not the same stars I mean they have the same Fundamentall though not lesse considerable Truths The Popish Religion among all the different Ritualls our fore-Fathers used was accounted the same some Worshipping God Secundum usum Sarum and others Secundum usum Bangor c. Why then may not the Protestant Religion be so esteem'd here among our little varyings Though possibly some very few Divines of all parties here for want of Prudence and Goodnesse of nature may endeavour the rigorous imposing of things not necessary that is such as we may be without and which all Protestant Churches but ours are without yet will the Laiety probably and I hope a great part of the Clergy of severall perswasions be far from concurring with them as Abettors of such an odious work as may produce further mischiefes to Church and State meerly to gratifie the blind zeal or unpurged choler of a few If Gods Ambassadors have a mind to quarrell about Precedency or Ceremonies in Religious things pretendding that it is necessary to observe them most strictly the people are now grown so wise as not to think it necessary for themselves to encounter hazards to make some of these Legats of Heaven submit to the Punctilio's of others just as severall Ambassadours from one Prince falling out in a strange Countrey about Ceremonies in Civil things which one of them being of a loftier humour would reduce the rest to practice would hardly find any
is lawfull for the Communalties themselves to present or such as have not the right of presentation they shall have the right to name fit school-masters and Ministers of the Churches to be examined by the publick Consistory or Ministry if they be of the same Religion with the Commuâ—alties which nominate and present or if they be not of the same Religion they shall be examined in the place which the Communalties shall chuse whom the Prince or Lord shall afterwards without any denial confirm This Statute-law of the Empire is the ground of all that freedome which the Reformed or the Lutheran party can lay claim to when they fall under Magistrates of a different profession As for the observation of this Law it is found that the Reformed Magistrate is almost every where more equitable towards Lutherans then these are unto those for in the Palatinate at Heidelberg and other places in Hessen at Smalcalden and at Marpurg and in some places of Anhalt in all the Territories of the Elector of Brandenburg and in the Principalities of Nassaw where the Reformed have the supreme power the Lutherans have their full liberty without interruption but where the Lutherans have the supreme Authority in Germanie I know no places where they permit the free exercise of the Reformed profession but in the places named heretofore in Holstein at Fridericksburg and Altena and in Hamburg the English have their freedome within the City but none else nor doe I know any Imperiall City where the Magistrate is Lutheran which permits the Reformed party to have the liberty of publick profession within their walls there is one of the Lutheran Earls of Hanaw who hath given of late years to the Reformed party dwelling in Strasburg the liberty to build a Church upon his Territory and to have their publick meetings therein and one of the Lutheran Marquesses of Brandenburg hath done the like a year or two ago to the Reformed inhabitants of Noimberg At Bremen where the Magistrate is wholly reformed within the City the Lutherans have the possession of the Cathedrall Church where they exercise their Religious Worship in publick but there are complaints made of the late King of Sweden that in the Territory under his Jurisdiction he hath suffered the Statute of the Empire touching the freedom of Religion to be violated by casting out the Reformed Ministers and imposing Lutherans upon the Reformed Professors depriving them of the Liberty which they have enjoyed ever since the first Reformation of these places from Popery In the Low Countries of the united Provinces the Lutherans the Remonstrants and the Anabaptists have a freedom to meet in a publick way others of all sorts do meet in private and the difference which is made between the Professors of severall parties is chiefly this that the Reformed party which doth own the National Confession and are owned to be Members of the National Congregations have only the Priviledge and Preeminence of being admitted to places of Trust in the State from which all others are excluded And this Liberty of Religion which the united Provinces have yielded and maintained unto all sorts hath made that little spot of ground to be the Centre of the Trade of Europe having onely three Sea-Ports the Wicling the Mase and the Texel and these Ports are not easie neither but difficult to be entred In the Cantons of Switzerland and Geneva there is no different Profession publickly tolerated although in the Circumstantial way of the Administration of Ordinances and in the particular order of Discipline and Government each Canton is different from another yet they fell not out about their differences but correspond in a friendly manner in matters of common concernment In France the Protestant Churches are to be considered within themselves for the Liberty which they enjoy under their Popish Magistrate is not under our consideration but the liberty which their Nationall Synod doth give to particular men to protesse different opinions without bleach of unity in the Church is that which is to be observed and may be a president to teach others Moderation for in the late Controversies between Monsieur du Moulin and Monsieur Amyraut concerning Predestination wherein many others were engaged on both sides although some hears did begin to break forth yet the Nationall Synod hath allayed the distemper and preserved Peace and Unity in the Churches notwithstanding the difference of judgment which was found amongst them The freedome which the particular Churches have to depute some of their members from their Consistories to the Colloques and Provinciall Synods is the means to preserve their Unity and Peace In Switzerland the freedome which the Churches enjoy doth wholly depend upon the Constitution of their order as ratified by the Civil Magistrate who in each canton is Sovereign and upon the correspondency between the Churches which is ordinarily managed by those of Zurich towards all the rest for as the Canton of Zurich hath the precedency and direction in all Civil matters of common concernment so hath the Antistes and Consistory of Zurich in matters Ecclesiasticall a kind of trust put upon them to communicate to the rest by way of correspondency matters to be advised on for mutuall concurrence In Germany there is no such correspondency between the Churches but their freedome in the exercise of Discipline and Government depends wholly upon the Sanction which the Prince and his Ecclesiasticall Senate or Consistory doth make concerning the order and way of administring all things In the Low-countries the freedome of meeting in Classes and in Synods in Classes every Month or oftner if need be according as the Classes are divided in Synods Provinciall every year once is the preservation of these Churches in unity for the six Provinces viz. Gelderland Holland Ulrecht Friesland Groning and Overyssell hold their Synods so consecutively that they can send from each Synod Deputies to another to correspond with them and to communicate matters of Deliberation that there may be no causes of breaches between them the Province of Zeeland hath no setled time of Synodicall meeting but the Classes of Middelburg upon all Emergencies doth give notice to the other Classes of the adjacent Islands of matters to be taken into consideration So that in the Low-Countries the Liberty to meet for the ordering of all things within themselves which preserves the Churches in France and the Liberty to correspond and to communicate one with another the things which they settle by order which preserves the Churches in Switzerland is more complete then any where else and because the Deputies or rather Commissioners from the Civil Magistrate are always present at the Provinciall Synods therefore their decrees are more valid and yet altogether free in matters of spirituall concernment This is the Liberty which I have observed to be in use amongst Protestants within themselves in the exercise of their profession by publick meetings by the administration of Government within themselves by Classes