must at least acquiesce tho they are not Infallible there being still a sort of an Appeal to be made to the Soveraign or the Supream Legislative Body so the Church has a Subaltern Jurisdiction but as the Authority of inferior Judges is still regulated and none but the Legislators themselves have an Authority equal to the Law So it is not necessary for the Preservation of Peace and Order that the Decisions of the Church should be Infallible or of equal Authority with the Scriptures If Judges do so manifestly abuse their Authority that they fall into Rebellion and Treason the Subjects are no more bound to consider them but are obliged to resist them and to maintain their Obedience to their Soveraign tho in other matters their Judgment must take place till they are reversed by the Soveraign The case of Religion being then this That Jesus Christ is the Soveraign of the Church the Assembly of the Pastors is only a Subaltern Judg If they manifestly oppose themselves to the Scriptures which is the Law of Christians particular Persons may be supposed as competent Judges of that as in Civil Matters they may be of the Rebellion of the Judges and in that case they are bound still to maintain their Obedience to Jesus Christ in matters Indifferent Christians are bound for the Preservation of Peace and Unity to acquiesce in the Decision of the Church and in matters justly doubtful or of small Consequence tho they are convinced that the Pastors have erred yet they are obliged to be Silent and to bear tolerable things rather than make a Breach but if it is visible that the Pastors do Rebel against the Soveraign of the Church I mean Christ the People may put in their Appeal to that great Judg and there it must lie If the Church did use this Authority with due Discretion and the People followed the Rules that I have named with Humility and Modesty there would be no great danger of many Divisions but this is the great Secret of the Providence of God that men are still men and both Pastors and People mix their Passions and Interests so with matters of Religion that there is a great deal of Sin and Vice still in the World so that it appears in the Matters of Religion as well as in other things but the ill Consequences of this tho they are bad enough yet are not equal to the Effects that ignorant Superstition and obedient Zeal have produced in the World witness the Rebellions and Wars for establishing the Worship of Images the Croissades against the Saracens in which many Millions were lost those against Hereticks and Princes deposed by Popes which lasted for some Ages and the Massacre of Paris with the Butcheries of the Duke of Alva in the last Age and that of Ireland in this which are I suppose far greater Mischiefs than any that can be imagined to arise out of a small diversity of Opinion and the present State of this Church notwithstanding all those unhappy Rents that are in it is a much more desirable thing than the gross Ignorance and blind Superstition that reigns in Italy and Spain at this day IX All these reasonings concerning the Infallibility of the Church signify nothing unless we can certainly know whither we must go for this Decision for while one Party shews us that it must be in the Pope or is no where and another Party says it cannot be in the Pope because as many Popes have erred so this is a Doctrine that was not known in the Church for a thousand years and that has been disputed ever since it was first asserted we are in the right to believe both sides first that if it is not in the Pope it is no where and then that certainly it it not in the Pope and it is very Incongruous to say That there is an Infallible Authority in the Church and that yet it is not certain where one must seek for it for the one ought to be as clear as the other and it is also plain that what Primacy soever St. Peter may be supposed to have had the Scripture says not one word of his Successors at Rome so at least this is not so clear as a matter of this Consequence must have been if Christ had intended to have lodged such an Authority in that See. X. It is no less Incongruous to say that this Infallibility is in a General Council for it must be somewhere else otherwise it will return only to the Church by some Starts and after long Intervals and as it was not in the Church for the first 320 years so it has not been in the Church these last 120 years It is plain also that there is no Regulation given in the Scriptures concerning this great Assembly who have a right to come and Vote and what forfeits this Right and what numbers must concur in a Decision to assure us of the Infallibility of the Judgment It is certain there was never a General Council of all the Pastors of the Church for those of which we have the Acts were only the Councils of the Roman Empire but for those Churches that were in the South of Africk or the Eastern Parts of Asia beyond the bounds of the Roman Empire as they could not be summoned by the Emperor's Authority so it is certain none of them were present unless one or two of Persia at Nice which perhaps was a Corner of Persia belonging to the Empire and unless it can be proved that the Pope has an Absolute Authority to cut off whole Churches from their right of coming to Councils there has been no General Council these last 700. years in the World ever since the Bishops of Rome have excommunicated all the Greek Churches upon such trifling Reasons that their own Writers are now ashamed of them and I will ask no more of a Man of a competent Understanding to satisfy him that the Council of Trent was no General Council acting in that Freedom that became Bishops than that he will be at the pains to read Card. Pallavicin's History of that Council XI If it is said That this Infallibility is to be sought for in the Tradition of the Doctrine in all Ages and that every particular Person must examine this Here is a Sea before him and instead of examining the small Book of the New Testament he is involved in a Study that must cost a Man an Age to go thorow it and many of the Ages through which he carries this Enquiry are so dark and have produced so few Writers at least so few are preserved to our days that it is not possible to find out their belief We find also Traditions have varied so much that it is hard to say that there is much weight to be laid on this way of Conveyance A Tradition concerning Matters of Fact that all People see is less apt to fail than a Tradition of Points of Speculation and yet we see very
and the Act was so little acceptable to him whom he calls its Author that he spake of it then with Contempt as a Trick of the Court to lay the Nation too soon asleep The Negotiations beyond Sea were too evidently proved to be denied and which is not yet generally known Mr. Coleman when Examined by the Committee of the House of Commons said plain enough to them that the Late King was concerned in them but the Committee would not look into that matter and so Mr. Sacheverill that was their Chair-man did not report it yet the thing was not so secret but that one to whom it was trusted gave the late King an Account of it who said That he had not heard of it any other way and was so fully convinced that the Nation had cause given them to be jealous that he himself set forward the Act and the rather because he saw that the E. of S. did not much like it The Parliament as long as it was known that the Religion was safe in the King 's Negative had not taken any great care of its own Constitution but it seemed the best Expedient that could be found for laying the Jealousies of His late Majesty and the apprehensions of the Successor to take so much care of the two Houses that so the Dangers with which men were then allarm'd might seem the less formidable upon so effectual a security and thus all the stir that he keeps with Perjury and Imposture ought to make no other impression but to shew the wantonness of his own Temper that meddles so boldly with things of which he knew so little the true Secret For here was a Law passed of which all made great use that opposed the Bill of Exclusion to Demonstrate to the Nation that there could be no danger of Popery even under a Prince of that Religion but as he would turn the matter it amounts to this That that Law might be of good use in that season to lay the Jealousies of the Nation till there were a Prince on the Throne of that Communion and then when the turn is served it must be thrown away to open the only door that is now shut upon the Re-establishment of that Religion This is but one hint among a great many more of the state of Affairs at the time that this Act of the TEST was made to shew that the Evidence given by the Witnesses had no other share in that matter but that it gave a rise to the other Discoveries and a fair Opportunity to those who knew the secret of the late King's Religion and the Negotiation at Dover to provide such an effectual Security as might both save the Crown and secure the Religion and this I am sure some of the Bishops knew who to their Honour were faithful to both The third Reason he gives for Repealing the Act is the Incompetent Authority of those who Enacted it for it was of an Ecclesiastical nature and here he stretches out his Wings to a Top-flight and charges it with nothing less than the Deposing of Christ from his Throne the disowning neglecting and affronting his Commission to his Catholick Church and entrenching upon this sacred Prerogative of his Holy Catholick Church and then that he might have occasion to feed his spleen with railing at the whole Order he makes a ridiculous objection of the Bishops being present in the House of Lords that he might shew his respect to them by telling in a Parenthesis that to their shame they had consented to it But has this Scaramuchio no shame left him Did the Parliament pretend by this Act to make any Decision in those two Points of Transubstantiation and Idolatry Had not the Convocation defined them both for above an Age before In the 28th Article of our Church these words are to be found Transubstantiation or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ but it is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture overthrows the nature of a Sacrament and hath given occasion to many superstitions and for the Idolatry of the Church of Rome that was also declared very expresly in the same body of Articles since in the Article 35 the Homilies are declared to contain a godly and wholesom Doctrine necessary for those times and upon that it is judged that they should be read in the Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People And the Second of these which is against the Peril of Idolatry aggravates the Idolatry of that Church in so many particulars and with such severe Expressions that those who at first made those Articles and all those who do now sign them or oblige others to sign 'em must either believe the Church of Rome to be guilty of Idolatry or that the Church of England is the Impudentest Society that ever assumed the Name of a Church if she proposes such Homilies to the People in which this Charge is given so home and yet does not believe it her self A man must be of Bays's pitch to rise up to this degree of Impudence Upon the whole matter then these points have been already determined and were a part of our Doctrine enacted by Law All that the Parliament did was only to take these out of a great many more that by this Test it might appear whether they who came into either House were of that Religion or not and now let our Reasoner try what he can make out of this or how he can justify the Scandal that he so boldly throws upon his Order as if they had as much as in them lay destroyed the very being of a Christian Church and had profanely pawned the Bishop to the Lord and betrayed the Rights of the Church of England as by Law Established in particular as well as of the Church Catholick in general p. 8 9. All this shews to whom he has pawned both the Bishop and the Lord and something else too which is both Conscience and Honour if he has any left When one reflects on two of the Bishops that were of that Venerable Body while this Act passed whose Memory will be blessed in the present and following Ages those two great and good Men that filled the Sees of Chester and Oxford he must conclude that as the World was not worthy of them so certainly their Sees were nor worthy of them since they have been plagued with such Successors that because Bays delights in figures taken from the Roman Empire I must tell him that since Commodus succeeded to Marcus Aurillius I do not find a more incongrous Succession in History With what sensible regret must those who were so often edified with the Gravity the Piety the Generosity and Charity of the late Bishop of Oxford look on when they see such a Harleguin in his room His Fourth Reason is taken from the uncertainty and falsehood of the matters contained in
heaviest Imputations that they could give it They objected to them the believing a God that was born and that died and the Resurrection of the Dead and many lesser matters which seemed absurd to them they had malice enough to seek out every thing that could disgrace a Religion which grew too hard for them but they never once object this of making a God out of a piece of Bread and then eating him if this had been the Doctrine of those Ages the Heathens chiefly Celsus and Porphiry but above all Julian could not have been Ignorant of it Now it does not stand with common sense to think that those who insist much upon Inconsiderable things could have passed over this which is both so sensible and of such Importance if it had been the received belief of those Ages 3. It is also of weight that there were no disputes nor Heresies upon this point during the first Ages and that none of the Hereticks ever objected it to the Doctors of the Church We find they contended about all other Points now this has so many difficulties in it that it should seem a little strange that all mens understandings should have been then so easy and consenting that this was the single point of the whole Body of Divinity about which the Church had no dispute for the first Seven Centuries It therefore inclines a Man rather to think that because there was no disputes concerning it therefore it was not then broached since we see plainly that ever since it was broached in the West it has occasioned lasting Disputes both with those who could not be brought to believe it and with one another concerning the several ways of explaining and maintaining it 4. It is also a strong Prejudice against the Antiquity of this Doctrine that there were none of those rites in the first Ages which have crept in in the latter which were such natural consequences of it that the belief of the one making way for the other we may conclude that where the one were not practised the other was not believed I will not mention all the Pomp which the latter Ages have Invented to raise the lustre of this Doctrine with which the former Ages were unacquainted It is enough to observe that the Adoration of the Sacrament was such a necessary Consequence of this Doctrine that since the Primitive Times know nothing of it as the Greek Church does not to this day it is perhaps more than a Presumption that they believed it not 5. But now I come to more Positive and Convincing proofs and 1. The language of the whole Church is only to be found in the Liturgies which are more severely composed than Rhetorical Discourses and of all the parts of the Office the Prayer of Consecration is that in which we must hope to find most certainly the Doctrine of the Church we find them in the 4th Century that in the Prayer of Consecration the Elements were said to be the Types of the Body and Blood of Christ as St. Basil Informs us from the Greek Liturgies and the Figure of his Body and Blood as St. Ambrose Informs us from the Latine Liturgies The Prayer of Consecration that is now in the Canon of the Mass is in a great part the same with that which is cited by St. Ambrose but with this Important difference that instead of the words which is the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ that are in the former there is a petition added in the latter that the gifts may be to us the Body and Blood of Christ If we had so many of the Masses of the Ancient Liturgies left as to be able to find out the time in which the Prayer of Consecration was altered from what it was in St. Ambrose's days to what it is now this would be no small Article in the History of Transubstantiation but most of these are lost since then the Ancient Church could not believe otherwise of the Sacrament than as she expressed her self concerning it in the Prayer of Consecration It is plain that her first Doctrine concerning it was that the Bread and Wine were the Types and the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ 2. A second proof is from the Controversy that was began by the Apollinarists and carried on by the Eutichians whether Christ's humanity was swallowed up of his Divinity or not The Eutichians made use of the General Expressions by which the change in the Sacrament seemed to be carried so far that the Bread and Wine were swallowed up by it and from this they inferred that in like manner the human nature of Christ was swallowed up by his Divinity but in opposition to all this we find Chrysostome the Patriarch of Constantinople Ephraim the Patriarch of Antioch Gelasius the Pope Theodoret a Bishop in Asia the lesser and Facundus a Bishop in Africk all within the compass of little more than an Age agree almost in the same words in refuting all this asserting that as the human nature in Christ remained still the same that it was before notwithstanding its union with his Divine Nature even so the Bread and Wine retained still their former Nature Substance and Form and that they are only sanctified not by the change of their Nature but by adding Grace to Nature This they do in terms plain and beyond all exception and Theodoret goes over the matter again and again in two different Treatises so that no matter of fact can appear more plainly than that the whole Church East and West and South did in the fifth and sixth Centuries believe that the Sanctification of the Elements in the Sacrament did no more destroy their natures than the union of the two Natures in Christ did destroy his humane nature A Third proof is taken from a practice which I will not offer to justify how Ancient soever it may have been It appears indeed in the Ancientest Liturgies now extant and is a Prayer in which the Sacrament is said to be offered up in honour of the Saint of the day to which a petition is added that it may be accepted of God by the Intercession of the Saint This is yet in the Missal and is used upon most of the Saints days Now if the Sacrament was then believed to be the very Body and Blood of Christ there is nothing more crude not to say prophanc to offer this up to the honour of a Saint and to pray that the Sacrifice of Christ's Body may be accepted of God through the Intercession of a Saint Therefore to give any tollerable sense to these words we must conclude that tho these Prayers have been continued in the Roman Church since this Opinion prevailed yet they were never made in an Age in which it was received The only meaning that can be given to these words is that they made the Saints days days of Communion as well as the Sundays were and upon that they prayed that the Sacrament which
relate to the Doctrine of the Primitive Church the Doctrine of the Church of Rome and the Doctrine of the Church of England as well as of the other Reformed Churches I have not loaded this Paper with Quotations because I intended to be short but I am ready to make good all the matters of fact asserted in it under the highest pains of Infamy if I fail in the performance and besides the more Voluminous works that have been writ on this subject such as Albertine's Claud's Answer to Mr. Arnaud and F. Nonet Larrogue's History of the Eucharist there have been so many learned Discourses written of late on this Subject and in particular two Answers to the Bishops Book that if it had not been thought expedient that I should have cast the whole matter into a short Paper I should not have judged it necessary to trouble the world with more Discourses on a subject that seems exhausted I will add no more but that by the next I will give another Paper of the same Bulk upon the Idolatry of the Church of Rome A Continuation of the Second Part of the ENQUIRY into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for Abrogating the TEST Relating to the Idolatry of the Church of Rome THE words of the Test that belong to this Point are these The Invocation or Adoration of the Virgin Mary or any other Saint and the Sacrifice of the Mass as they are now used in the Church of Rome are Superstitious and Idolatrous Upon which our Author fastens this Censure That since by this the Church of Rome is charged with Idolatry which both forfeits Mens Lives here and their Salvation hereafter according to the express words of Scripture it is a damnable piece of Cruelty and Uncharitableness to load them with this Charge if they are not guilty of it and upon this he goes to clear them of it not only in the two Articles mentioned in the Test the Worship of Saints and the Sacrifice of the Mass but that his Apology might be compleat he takes in and indeed insists chiefly on the Worship of Images tho that is not at all mentioned in the Test He brings a great many Quotations out of the Old Testament to shew the Idolatry prohibited in it was the worshipping of the Sun Moon and Stars or the making an Image to resemble the Divine Essence upon which he produces also some other Authorities And in this consists the Substance of his Plea for the Church of Rome But upon all this he ought to have retracted both the License that himself gave some years ago to Dr. Stillingfleets Book Of the Idolatry of the Church of Rome and his own hasty Assertion in condemning both Turk and Papist as guilty of Idolatry the one for worshipping a leud Impostor and the other for worshipping a senseless piece of Matter Def. of his Eccl. Pol. p. 285 286 It seems he is now convinced that the latter part of this Charge that falls on Papists was as false as the former that falls on the Turks certianly is for they never worshipped Mahomet but hold him only in high Reverence as an extraordinary Prophet as the Jews do Moses It is very like that if the Turks had taken Vienna he would have retracted that as he has now in effect done the other for I believe he is in the same Disposition to reconcile himself to the Mufti and the Pope but the Ottoman Empire is now as low as Popery is high so he will brave the Turk still to his Teeth tho he did him wrong and will humble himself to the Papist tho he did him nothing but right but now I take leave of the Man and will confine my self severely to the matter that is before me And I. How guilty soever the Church of Rome is of Idolatry yet the Test does not plainly assert that for there is as great a difference between Idolatrous and Idolatry as there is in Law between what is Treasonable and what is Treason The one Imports only a worship that is conformable to Idolatry and that has a tendency to it whereas the other is the plain Sin it self there is also a great deal of difference between what is now used in that Church and the Explanations that some of their Doctors give of that usage We are to take the usage of the Church of Rome from her Publick Offices and her authorised Practices so that if these have a Conformity to Idolatry and a tendency to it then the words of the Test are justified what Sense soever some learned Men among them may put on these Offices and Practices therefore the Test may be well maintained even tho we should acknowledg that the Church of Rome was not guilty of Idolatry II. If Idolatry was a Crime punishable by Death under the Old Testament that does not at all concern us nor does the Charge of Idolatry authorise the People to kill all Idolaters unless our Author can prove that we believe our selves to be under all the Political and Judiciary Precepts of the Law of Moses and even among the Jews the Execution of that severe Law belonging either to the Magistrate or to some authorised and inspired Persona who as a Zealot might execute the Law when the Magistrate was wanting to his Duty So that this was writ invidiously only as it seems to inflame the Papists the more against us But the same Calvinist Prince that has expressed so just an Aversion to the repealing the Test has at the same time shewed so merciful an Inclination towards the Roman Catholicks that of all the Reproaches in the World one that intended to plead for that Religion ought to have avoided the mentioning of Blood or Cruelty with the greatest care III. It is true we cannot help believing that Idolatry is a damnable Sin that shuts Men out of the Kingdom of Heaven and if every Sin in which a Man dies without Repentance does it much more this which is one of the greatest of all Sins But yet after all there is Mercy for Sins of Ignorance upon Mens general Repentance and therefore since God alone knows the degrees of Mens Knowledg and of their Ignorance and how far it is either Affected on the one hand or Invincible on the other we do not take upon us to enter into Gods Secrets or to Judg of the Salvation or Damnation of particular Persons nor must we be byassed in our Enquiry into the nature of any Sin either by a fond regard to the State of our Ancestors or by the due respect that we owe to those who are over us in Civil Matters In this Case things are what God has declared them to be we can neither make them better nor worse than he has made them and we are only to Judg of things leaving Persons to the merciful as well as the just and dreadful Judgment of God. IV. All the stir that our Author keeps with the examining of the Idolatry committed by
I A. B. do acknowledge testifie and declare that JAMES the Seventh by the Grace of God King of Scotland England France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c is rightful King and Supream Governour of these Realms and over all Persons therein and that it is unlawful for Subjects on any pretence or for any cause whatsoever to rise in Arms against Him or any Commissionated by Him and that I shall never so rise in Arms nor assist any who shall so do and that I shall never resist His Power or Authority nor ever oppose his Authority to his Person as I shall answer to God but shall to the utmost of my Power Assist Defend and Maintain Him His Heirs and lawful Successors in the exercise of their ABSOLUTE POWER and Authority against all Deadly So help me God. And seeing many of Our good Subjects have before Our Pleasure in these Matters was made publick incurred the Guilt appointed by the Acts of Parliament above mentioned or others We by Our Authority and Absolute Power and Prerogative Royal above-mentioned of Our certain Knowledge and innate Mercy Give Our ample and full Indemnity to all those of the Roman Catholick or Popish Religion for all things by them done contrary to Our Laws or Acts of Parliament made in any time past relating to their Religion the Worship and Exercise thereof or for being Papists Jesuits or Traffickers for hearing or saying of Mass concealing of Priests or Jesuits breeding their Children Catholicks at home or abroad or any other thing Rite or Doctrine said performed or maintained by them or any of them And likewise for holding or taking of Places Employments or Offices contrary to any Law or Constitution Advices given to Us or Our Council Actions done or generally any thing performed or said against the known Laws of that Our Ancient Kingdom Excepting always from this Our Royal Indemnity all Murders Assassinations Thefts and such like other Crimes which never used to be comprehended in Our General Acts of Indemnity And we command and require all Our Judges or others concerned to explain this in the most Ample Sense and Meaning Acts of Indemnity at any time have contained Declaring this shall be as good to every one concerned as if they had Our Royal Pardon and Remission under Our Great Seal of that Kingdom And likewise indemnifying Our Protestant Subjects from all Pains and Penalties due for hearing or Preaching in Houses Providing there be no Treasonable Speeches uttered in the said Conventicles by them in which case the Law is only to take place against the Guilty and none other present Providing also that they Reveal to any of our Gouncil the Guilt so committed As also excepting all Fines or Effects of Sentences already given And likewise indemnifying fully and freely all Quakers for their Meetings and Worship in all time past preceding the Publication of these Presents And we doubt not but Our Protestant Subjects will give their Assistance and Concourse hereunto on all occasions in their respective Capacities In consideration whereof and the ease those of Our Religion and others may have hereby and for the Encouragement of Our Protestant Bishops and the Regular Clergy and such as have hitherto lived orderly We think fit to declare that it never was Our Principle nor will We ever suffer violence to be offered to any Mans Conscience nor will We use force or Invincible Necessity against any Man on the Account of his Perswasion nor the Protestant Religion but will protect Our Bishops and other Ministers in their Functions Rights and Properties and all Our Protestant Subjects in the free Exercise of their Protestant Religion in the Churches And that We will and hereby Promise on Our Royal Word to maintain the Possessors of Church Lands formerly belonging to Abbeys or other Churches of the Catholick Religion in their full and free Possession and Right according to Our Laws and Acts of Parliament in that behalf in all time coming And We will employ indifferently all our Subjects of all Perswasions so as none shall meet with any Discouragement on the account of his Religion but be advanced and esteemed by Us according to their several Capacities and Qualifications so long as we find Charity and Unity maintained And if any Animosities shall arise as We hope in God there will not We will shew the severest Effects of Our Royal Displeasure against the Beginners or Fomenters thereof seeing thereby Our Subjects may be deprived of this general Ease and Satisfaction We intend to all of them whose Happiness Prosperity Wealth and Safety is so much Our Royal Care that we will leave nothing undone which may procure these Blessings for them And lastly to the End all Our good Subjects may have Notice of this Our Royal Will and Pleasure we do hereby command Our Lyon King at Arms and his Brethren Heraulds Macers Pursevants and Messengers at Arms to make Proclamation thereof at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh And besides the Printing and Publishing of this Our Royal Proclamation it is Our express Will and Pleasure that the same be past under the great Seal of that Our Kingdom per saltum ☞ without passing any other Seal or Register In Order whereunto this shall be to the Directors of Our Chancellary and their Deputies for writing the same and to Our Chancellor for causing Our Great Seal aforesaid to be appended thereunto a sufficient Warrand Given at Our Court at Whitehal the twelfth day of Febr. 1686 / 7. And of Our Reign the third year By His Majesties Command MELFORT GOD SAVE THE KING A LETTER Containing some REFLECTIONS On His MAJESTY's DECLARATION FOR LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE Dated the Fourth of April 1687. SIR I. I Thank you for the Favour of sending me the late Declaration that His Majesty has granted for Liberty of Conscience I confess I longed for it with great Impatience and was surprised to find it so different from the Scotch Pattern for I imagined that it was to be set to the Second Part of the same Tune nor can I see why the Penners of this have sunk so much in their Style for I suppose the same Men penned both I expected to have seen the Imperial Language of Absolute Power to which all the Subjects are to obey without Reserve and of the cassing annulling the stopping and disabling of Laws set forth in the Preamble and Body of this Declaration whereas those dreadful Words are not to be found here for in stead of repealing the Laws His Majesty pretends by this only to suspend them and tho' in effect this amounts to a Repeal yet it must be confessed that the Words are softer Now since the Absolute Power to which His Majesty pretends in Scotland is not founded on such poor things as Law for that would look as if it were the Gift of the People but on the Divine Authority which is supposed to be delegated to His Majesty this may be as well claimed in England as it
forgotten among the rest for there is a scurvy Paragraph in it concerning Self-preservation that is capable of very unacceptable Glosses It is hard to tell what Section of the Law of Nature has mark'd out either such a Form of Government or such a Family for it And if his Majesty renounces his Pretensions to our Allegiance as founded on the Laws of England and betakes himself to this Law of Nature he will perhaps find the Counsel was a little too rash But to make the most of this that can be the Law of Nations or Nature does indeed allow the Governours of all Societies a Power to serve themselves of every Member of it in the cases of extream Danger but no Law of Nature that has been yet heard of will conclude that if by special Laws a sort of Men have been disabled from all Imployments that a Prince who at his Coronation swore to maintain those Laws may at his pleasure extinguish all these Disabilities X. At the end of the Declaration as in a Postscript His Majesty assures his Subjects that he will maintain them in their Properties as well in Church and Abby-Lands as other Lands But the Chief of all their Properties being the share that they have by their Representatives in the Legislative Power this Declaration which breaks thro' that is no great Evidence that the rest will be maintained And to speak plainly when a Coronation Oath is so little remembred other Promises must have a proportioned degree of Credit given to them As for the Abbey-Lands the keeping them from the Church is according to the Principles of that Religion Sacriledge and that is a Mortal Sin and there can no Absolution be given to any who continue in it And so this Promise being an Obligation to maintain men in a Mortal-Sin is null and void of it is self Church-Lands are also according to the Doctrine of their Canonists so immediately Gods Right that the Pope himself is only the Administrator and Dispenser but is not the Master of them he can indeed make a truck for God or let them so low that God shall be an easie Landlord but he cannot alter God's Property nor translate the Right that is in him to Sacrilegious Laymen and Hereticks XI One of the Effects of this Declaration will be the setting on foot a new run of Addresses over the Nation For there is nothing how impudent and base soever of which the abject Flattery of a slavish Spirit is not capable It must be confest to the Reproach of the Age that all those strains of Flattery among the Romans that Tacitus sets forth with so much just Scorn are modest things compared to what this Nation has produced within these seven Years only if our Flattery has come short of the Refinedness of the Romans it has exceeded theirs as much in its loathed Fulsomness The late King set out a Declaration in which he gave the most solemn Assurances possible of his adhering to the Church of England and to the Religion established by Law and of his Resolution to have frequent Parliaments upon which the whole Nation fell as it were into Raptures of Joy and Flattery But tho' he lived four Years after that he called no Parliament notwithstanding the Law for Triennial Parliaments and the manner of his Death and the Papers printed after his Death in his Name have sufficiently shewed that he was equally sincere in both those Assurances that he gave as well in that relating to Religion as in that other relating to frequent Parliaments yet upon his Death a new set of Addresses appeared in which all that Flattery could invent was brought forth in the Commendations of a Prince to whose Memory the greatest kindness can be done is to forget him And because his present Majesty upon his coming to the Throne gave some very general Promise of Maintaining the Church of England this was magnified in so extravagant a strain as if it had been a security greater than any that the Law could give tho' by the regard that the King has both to it and to the Laws it appears that he is resolved to maintain both equally Since then the Nation has already made it self sufficiently ridiculous both to the present and to all succeeding Ages it is time that at last men should grow weary and become ashamed of their Folly. XII The Nonconformists are now invited to set an Example to the rest and they who have valued themselves hitherto upon their Opposition to Popery and that have quarrelled with the Church of England for some small Approaches to it in a few Ceremonies are now sollicited to rejoyce because the Laws that secure us against it are all plucked up since they enjoy at present and during pleasure leave to meet together It is natural for all men to love to be set at ease especially in the matters of their Consciences but it is visible that those who allow them this favour do it with no other design but that under a pretence of a General Toleration they may introduce a Religion which must persecute all equally It is likewise apparent how much they are hated and how much they have been persecuted by the Instigation of those who now court them and who have now no Game that is more promising than the engaging them and the Church of England into new Quarrels And as for the Promises now made to them it cannot be supposed that they will be more lasting than those that were made some time ago to the Church of England who had both a better Title in Law and greater Merit upon the Crown to assure them that they should be well used than these can pretend to The Nation has scarce forgiven some of the Church of England the Persecution into which they have suffered themselves to be cousened tho' now that they see Popery barefac'd the Stand that they have made and the vigorous opposition that they have given to it is that which makes all men willing to forget what is past and raises again the Glory of a Church that was not a little stained by the Indiscretion and Weakness of those that were too apt to believe and hope and so suffered themselves to be made a Property to those who would now make them a Sacrifice The Sufferings of the Nonconformists and the Fury that the Popish Party expressed against them had recommended them so much to the Compassions of the Nation and had given them so just a Pretension to favour in a better time that it will look like a Curse of God upon them if a few men whom the Court has gained to betray them can have such an ill Influence upon them as to make them throw away all that Merit and those Compassions which their Sufferings have procured them and to go and court those who are only seemingly kind to them that they may destroy both them and us They must remember that as the Church of England is the only
that the Censures upon it are divided both fall heavy Some suspect their Sincerity others accuse them for want of a right Understanding For tho' all are not of the pitch of the Irish Priests Reflections on the Bishop of Bath and Wells his Sermon which was indeed Irish double refined yet both in your Books of Controversie and Policy and even in your Poems you seem to have entred into such an Intermixture with the Irish that the Thred all over is Linsie-woolsie You acknowledge that the Gentleman whom you answer has a Polite Pen and that his Letter is an ingenious Paper and made up of well-composed Sentences and Periods Yet I believe he will hardly return you your Complement If it was well writ your Party wants either Men or Judgment extremely in allowing you this Province of answering it If the Paper did you some hurt you had better have let the Town be a little pleased with it for a while and have hoped that a little Time or some new Paper tho' one of its force is scarce to be expected should have worn it out than to give it a new Lustre by such an Answer The Time of the Dissenters Sufferings which you lengthen out to Twenty seven Years will hardly amount to Seven For the long Intervals it had in the last Reign are not forgot and those who animated the latest and severest of their Sufferings are sueh that in good manners you ought not to reflect on their Conduct Opium is as certain a Poyson tho' not so violent as Sublimate and if more corrosive Medicines did not work the Design is the same when soporiferous ones are used since the Patient is to be killed both ways and it seems that all that is in debate is which is the safer The accepting a present Ease when the ill intent with which it is offered is visible is just as wise an Action as to take Opium to lay a small Distemper when one may conclude from the Dose that he will never come out of the Sleep So that after all it is plain on which side the Madness lies The Dissenters for a little present ease to be enjoyed at mercy must concur to break down all our Hedges and to lay us open to that devouring Power before which nothing can stand that will not worship it All that for which you reproach the Church of England amounts to this that a few good Words could not persuade her to destroy her self and to sacrifice her Religion and the Laws to a Party that never has done nor ever can do the King half the Service that She has rendred him There are some sorts of Propositions that a Man does not know how to answer nor would he be thought ingrateful who after he had received some Civilities from a Person to whom he had done great Service could not be prevailed with by these so far as to spare him his Wife or his Daughter It must argue a peculiar degree of Confidence to ask things that are above the being either ask'd or granted Our Religion and our Government are Matters that are not to be parted with to shew our good Breeding and of all Men living you ought not to pretend to Good Manners who talk as you do of the Oppression of the last Reign When the King's Obligations to his Brother and the share that he had in his Councils are considered the reproaching his Government has so ill a grace that you are as indecent in your Flatteries as injurious in your Reflections And by this Gratitude of yours to the Memory of the late King the Church of England may easily infer how long all her Services would be remembred even if she had done all that was desired of her I would fain know which of the Brethren of the Dissenters in Foreign Countries sought their Relief from Rebellion The Germans Reformed by the Authority of their Princes so did the Swedes the Danes and likewise the Switzers In France they maintained the Princes of the Blood against the League and in Holland the Quarrel was for Civil Liberties Protestant and Papist concurring equally in it You mention Holland as an Instance that Liberty and Infallibility can dwell together since Papists there shew that they can be friendly Neighbours to those whom they think in the wrong It is very like they would be still so in England if they were under the Lash of the Law and so were upon their Good-behaviour the Government being still against them And this has so good an effect in Holland that I hope we shall never depart from the Dutch Pattern Some can be very Humble Servants that would prove Imperious Masters You say that Force is our only Supporter but tho' there is no Force of our Side at present it does not appear that we are in such a tottering condition as if we had no Supporter left us God and Truth are of our side and the indiscreet use of Force when set on by our Enemies has rather undermined than supported us But you have taken pains to make us grow wiser and to let us see our Errors which is perhaps the only Obligation that we owe you and we are so sensible of it that without examining what your Intentions may have been in it we heartily thank you for it I do not comprehend what your Quarrel is at the squinting Term of the next Heir as you call it tho' I do not wonder that squinting comes in your mind whensoever you think of HER for all People look asquint at that which troubles them and Her being the next Heir is no less the Delight of all Good Men than it is your Affliction All the pains that you take to represent Her dreadful to the Dissenters must needs find that credit with them that is due to the Insinuations of an Enemy It is very true that as She was bred up in our Church She adheres to it so eminently as to make Her to be now our chief Ornament as we hope She will be once our main Defence If by the strictest Form of our Church you mean an Exemplary Piety and a shining Conversation you have given Her true Character But your Design lies another way to make the Dissenters form strange Ideas of Her as if She thought all Indulgence to them Criminal But as the Gentleness of her Nature is such that none but those who are so guilty that all Mercy to them would be a Crime can apprehend any thing that is terrible from Her so as for the Dissenters Her going so constantly to the Dutch and French Churches shews that She can very well endure their Assemblies at the same time that She prefers ours She has also too often expressed her dislike at the heats that have been kept up among us concerning such inconsiderable Differences to pass for a Bigot or Persecutor in such Matters and She sees both the Mischief that the Protestant Religion has received from their Subdivisions and the happiness of granting
now to treat the Men of the Church of England with the same Brutal Excesses that he bestowed so lately and so liberally on the Dissenters as if his Design were to render himself equally odious to all Mankind III. The Church of England may justly expostulate when she is treated as Seditious after she has rendred the highest Services to the Civil Authority that any Church now on Earth has done She has beaten down all the Principles of Rebellion with more Force and Learning than any Body of men has ever yet done and has run the hazard of enraging her Enemies and losing her Friends even for those from whom the more Learned of her Members knew well what they might expect And since our Author likes the figure of a Snake in ones Bosome so well I could tell him that according to the Apologue we took up and sheltered an Interest that was almost dead and by that warmth gave it life which yet now with the Snake in the Bosome is like to bite us to death We do not say we are the only Church that has Principles of Loyalty but this we may say That we are the Church in the World that carries them the highest as we know a Church that of all others sinks them them the lowest We do not pretend that we are Inerrable in this Point but acknowledge that some of our Clergy miscarried in it upon King Edward's Death Yet at the same time others of our Communion adhered more steadily to their Loyalty in favour of Queen Mary than She did to the Promises that she made to them Upon this Subject our Author by his false Quotation of History forces me to set the Reader right which if it proves to the disadvantage of his Cause his Friends may thank him for it I will not enter into so tedious a Digression as the justifying Queen Elizabeth's being Legitimate and the throwing the Bastardy on Queen Mary must carry me to this I will only say That it was made out that according to the best sort of Arguments used by the Church of Rome I mean the constant Tradition of all Ages King Henry the VIII marrying with Queen Katherine was Incestuous and by Consequence Queen Mary was the Bastard and Queen Elizabeth was the Legitimate Issue But our Author not satisfied with defaming Queen Elizabeth tells us that the Church of England was no sooner set up by her than She Enacted those Bloody Cannibal Laws to Hang Draw and Quarter the Priests of the living God. But since these Laws disturb him so much What does he think of the Laws of Burning the poor Servants of the living God because they cannot give Divine Worship to that which they believe to be only a Piece of Bread The Representation he gives of this part of our History is so false that tho' upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Crown there were many Complaints exhibited of the illegal Violences that Bonner and other Butchers had committed yet all these were stifled and no Penal Laws were enacted against those of that Religion The Popish Clergy were indeed turned out but they were well used and had Pensions assigned them so ready was the Queen and our Church to forgive what was past and to shew all Gentleness for the future During the first thirteen years of her Reign matters went on calmly without any sort of Severity on the account of Religion But then the restless Spirit of that Party began to throw the Nation into violent Convulsions The Pope deposed the Queen and and one of the Party had the Impudence to post up the Bull in London upon this followed several Rebellions both in England and Ireland and the Papists of both Kingdoms entred into Confederacies with the King of Spain and the Court of Rome The Priests disposed all the People that depended on them to submit to the Pope's Authority in that Deposition and to reject the Queen's These Endeavours besides open Rebellions produced many secret Practices against her Life All these things gave the rise to the severe Laws which began not to be enacted before the twentieth year of her Reign A War was formed by the Bull of Deposition between the Queen and the Court of Rome so it was a necessary piece of Precaution to declare all those to be Traitors who were the Missionaries of that Authority which had stript the Queen of hers Yet those Laws were not executed upon some Secular Priests who had the Honesty to condemn the Deposing Doctrine As for the Unhappy Death of the Queen of Scotland it was brought on by the wicked Practices of her own Party who fatally involved her in some of them She was but a Subject here in England and if the Queen took a more violent way than was decent for her own Security here was no Disloyalty nor Rebellion in the Church of England which owed her no sort of Allegiance IV. I do not pretend that the Church of England has any great cause to value her self upon her Fidelity to King Charles the First tho' our Author would have it pass for the only thing of which She can boast for I confess the cause of the Church was so twisted with the King 's that Interest and Duty went together tho' I will not go so far as our Author who says that the Law of Nature dictates to every Individual to fight in his own Defence This is too bold a thing to be delivered so crudely at this time The Laws of Nature are perpetual and can never be cancelled by any special Law So if these Gentlemen own so freely that this is a Law of Nature they had best take care not to provoke Nature too much lest She fly to the Relief that this Law may give her unless she is restrained by the Loyalty of our Church Our Author values his Party much upon their Loyalty to King Charles the First But I must take the liberty to ask him of what Religion were the Irish Rebels and what sort of Loyalty was it that they shewed either in the first Massacre or in the Progress of that Rebellion Their Messages to the Pope to the Court of France and to the Duke of Lorrain offering themselves to any of these that would have undertaken to protect them are Acts of Loyalty which the Church of England is no way inclined to follow and the authentical Proofs of these things are ready to be produced Nor need I add to this the hard terms they offered to the King and their ill usage of those whom he imployed I could likewise repress the Insolence of this Writer by telling him of the slavish Submissions that their Party made to Cromwel both Father and Son. As for their adhering to King Charles the First there is a peculiar boldness in our Author's Assertion who says That they had no Hope nor Interest in that cause The State of that Court is not so quite forgot but that we do well remember what Credit the Queen had
would suspect nothing But at the same time that the Church-Party that carried all before them in that Parliament were animated to press things so hard the Dissenters were secretly encouraged to stand out and were told that the King's Temper and Principle and the Consideration of Trade would certainly procure them a Toleration and ever since that Party that thus had set us together by the ears has shifted Sides dexterously enough but still they have carried on the main Design which was to keep up the Quarrel in the Intervals of Parliament Liberty of Conscience was in vogue but when a Session of Parliament came and the King wanted Money then a new severe Law against the Dissenters was offered to the angry Men of the Church-Party as the Price of it and this seldom failed to have its effect so that they were like the Jewels of the Crown pawned when the King needed Money but redeemed at the next Prorogation A Reflection then that arises naturally out of the Proceedings in the Year 1660. is That if a Parliament should come that would copy after that Pattern and repeal Laws and Tests the King's Offers of Liberty of Conscience as may indeed be supposed will bind him till after a short Session or two such a meritorious Parliament should be dissolved according to the Precedent in the Year 1660. and that a new one were brought together by the same Methods of changing Charters and making Returns and then the old Laws de Heretico comburendo might be again revived and it would be said that the King's Inclinations are for keeping his Promise and granting still a Liberty of Conscience yet he can deny nothing to a Loyal and Catholick Parliament III. We pay all possible respect to the King and have witnessed how much we depended on his Promises in so signal a manner that after such real Evidence all Words are superfluous But since the King has shewed so much Zeal not only for his Religion in general but in particular for that Society which of all the other Bodies in it we know is animated the most against us we must crave leave to speak a little freely and not suffer our selves to be destroyed by a Complement The Extirpation of Hereticks and the Breach of Faith to them have been decreed by two of their General Councils and by a Tradition of several Ages the Pope is possessed of a Power of dissolving all Promises Contracts and Oaths not to mention the private Doctrines of that Society that is so much in favour of doing Ill that Good may come of it of using Equivocations and Reservations and of ordering the Intention Now these Opinions as they have never been renounced by the Body of that Church so indeed they cannot be unless they renounce their Infallibility which is their Basis at the same time Therefore tho a Prince of that Communion may very sincerely resolve to maintain Liberty of Conscience and to keep his Word yet the blind Subjection into which he is brought by his Religion to his Church must force him to break thro' all that as soon as the Doctrine of his Church is opened to him and that Absolution is denied him or higher Threatnings are made him if he continues firm to his merciful Inclinations So that supposing His Majesty's Piety to be as great as the Jesuit's Sermon on the Thirtieth of January lately printed carries it to the uttermost possibility of Flesh and Blood then our Fears must still grow upon us who know what are the Decrees of that Church and by consequence we may infer to what his Piety must needs carry him as soon as those things are fully opened to him which in respect to him we are bound to believe are now hid from him IV. It will further appear that these are not unjust Inferences if we consider a little what has been the Observation of all the Promises made for Liberty of Conscience to Hereticks by Roman Catholick Princes ever since the Reformation The first was the Edict of Passaw in Germany procured chiefly by Ferdinand's means and maintained indeed religiously by his Son Maximilian the Second whose Inclinations to the Protestant Religion made him be suspected for one himself But the Jesuits insinuated themselves so far into his younger Brother's Court that was Archduke of Grats that this was not only broken by that Family in their Share but tho' Rodolph and Mathias were Princes of great Gentleness and the latter of these was the Protector of the States in the beginning of their War with King Philip the Second yet the Violence with which the House of Grats was possessed overturned all that so that the breaking of the Pacificatory Edicts was begun in Rodolph's time and was so far carried on in Mathias's time that they set both Bohemia and Hungary in a Flame and so begun that long War of Germany 2. The next Promise for Liberty of Conscience was made by Queen Mary of England but we know well enough how it was observed the Promises made by the Queen Regent of Scotland were observed with the same Fidelity After these came the Pacificatory Edicts in France which were scarce made when the Triumvirate was formed to break them The famous Massacre of Paris was an Instance never to be forgot of the Religious Observance of a Treaty made on purpose to lay the Party asleep and to bring the whole Heads of it into the Net this was a much more dreadful St. Bartholomew than that on which our Author bestows that Epithete pag. 15. and when all seemed setled by the famous Edict of Nantes we have seen how restless that Party and in particular the Society were till it was broken by a Prince that for thirty years together had shewed as great an aversion to the Shedding of Blood in his Government at home as any of his Neighbours can pretend to and who has done nothing in the whole Tragedy that he has acted but what is exactly conform to the Doctrine and Decrees of his Church so that is not himself but his Religion that we must blame for all that has fallen out in that Kingdom I cannot leave this without taking notice of our Author's Sincerity who pag. 18. tells us of the Protestants entring into their League in France when it is well known that it was a League of Papists against a Protestant Successor which was afterwards applied to a Popish King only because he was not zealous enough against Hereticks But to end this List of Instances at a Country to which our Author bears so particular a kindness when the Dutchess of Parma granted the Edict of Pacification by which all that was past was buried and the Exercise of the Protestant Religion was to be connived at for the future King Philip the Second did not only ratifie this but expressed himself so fully upon it to the Count of Egmont who had been sent over to him that the easie Count returned to Flanders so assured of the King's
so familiar to them that they can no more be put out of countenance But it seems very strange to us that some who if they are to be believed are strict to the severest Forms and Sub-divisions of the Reformed Religion and who some Years ago were jealous of the smallest steps that the Court made when the danger was more remote and who cried out Popery and Persecution when the design was so mask'd that some well-meaning Men could not miss being deceived by the Promises that were made and the Disguises that were put on that I say these very Persons who were formerly so distrustful should now when the Mask is laid off and the Design is avowed of a sudden grow to be so believing as to throw off all Distrust and be so gulled as to betray all and to expose us to the Rage of those who must needs give some good words till they have gone the round and tried how effectually they can divide and deceive us that so they may destroy us the more easily this is indeed somewhat extraordinary They are not so ignorant as not to know that Popery cannot change its Nature and that Cruelty and Breach of Faith to Hereticks are as necessary parts of that Religion as Transubstantiation and the Pope's Supremacy are If Papists were not Fools they must give good Words and fair Promises till by these they have so far deluded the poor credulous Hereticks that they may put themselves in a posture to execute the Decrees of their Church against them and though we accuse that Religion as guilty both of Cruelty and Treachery yet we do not think them Fools so till their Party is stronger than God be thanked it is at present they can take no other method than that they take The Church of England was the Word among them somst Years ago Liberty of Conscieece is the Word at present and we have all possible reason to assure us that the Promises for maintaining the one will be as religiously kept as we see those are which were lately made with so great a profusion of Protestations and shews of Friendship for the supporting of the other III. It were great Injustice to charge all the Dissenters with the Impertinencies that have appeared in many Addresses of late or to take our measures of them from the impudent strains of an Alsop or a Care or from the more important and now more visible steps that some among them of a higher form are every day making and yet after all this it cannot be denied but the several Bodies of the Dissenters have behaved themselves of late like Men that understand too well the true Interest of the Protestant Religion and of the English Government to sacrifice the whole and themselves in Conclusion to their private Resentments I hope the same Justice will be allowed me in stating the matter relating to the so much decried Persecution set on by the Church of England and that I may be suffered to distinguish the Heats of some angry and deluded Men from the Doctrine of the Church and the Practices that have been authorized in it that so I may shew that there is no reason to infer from past Errors that we are incurable or that new Opportunities inviting us again into the same Severities are like to prevail over us to commit the same Follies over again I will first state what is past with the Sincerity that becomes one that would not lie for God that is not afraid nor ashamed to confess Faults that will neither aggravate nor extenuate them beyond what is just and that yet will avoid the saying of any thing that may give any cause of Offence to any Party in the Nation IV. I am very sorry that I must confess that all the Parties among us have shewed that as their turn came to be uppermost they have forgot the same Principles of Moderation and Liberty which they all claimed when they were oppressed If it should shew too much ill nature to examine what the Presbytery did in Scotland when the Covenant was in Dominion or what the Independents have done in New-England why may not I claim the same priviledg with relation to the Church of England if Severities have been committed by her while she bore Rule yet it were as easy as it would be invidious to shew that both Presbyterians and Independents have carried the Principle of Rigor in the point of Conscience much higher and have acted more implacably upon it than ever the Church of England has done even in its angriest fits so that none of them can much reproach another for their Excesses in those matters And as of all the Religions in the World the Church of Rome is the most persecuting and the most bound by her Principles to be unalterably cruel so the Church of England is the least persecuting in her Principles and the least obliged to repeat any Errors to which the Intrigues of Courts or the Passions incident to all Parties may have engaged her of any National Church in Europe It cannot be said to be any part of our Doctrine when we came out of one of the blackest Persecutions that is in History I mean Queen Mary's we shewed how little we retained of the Cruelty of that Church which had provoked us so severely when not only no Inquiries were made into the illegal Acts of Fury that were committed in that persecuting Reign but even the Persecutors themselves lived among us at Ease and in Peace and no Penal Law was made except against the publick Exercise of that Religion till a great many Rebellions and Treasons extorted them from us for our own Preservation This is an Instance of the Clemency of our Church that perhaps cannot be matched in History and why should it not be supposed that if God should again put us in the state in which we were of late that we should rather imitate so noble a Patern than return to those Mistakes of which we are now ashamed V. It is to be considered that upon the late King's Restauration the remembrance of the former War the ill usage that our Clergy had met with in their Sequestrations the angry Resentments of the Cavalier Party who were ruined by the War the Interest of the Court to have all those Principles condemned that had occasioned it the heat that all Parties that have been ill-used are apt to fall into upon a Revolution but above all the Practices of those who have still blown the Coals and set us one against another that so they might not only have a divided Force to deal with but might by turns make the Divisions among us serve their Ends All these I say concurred to make us lose the happy Opportunity that was offered in the Year 1660 to have healed all our Divisions and to have triumphed over all the Dissenters not by ruining them but by overcoming them with a Spirit of Love and Gentleness which is the only Victory that
been among us and even to forget the Injuries that have been done us all that we do now one against another is to shorten the work of our Enemies by destroying one another which must in Conclusion turn to all our Ruin. It is a mad Man's Revenge to destroy our Friends that we may do a pleasure to our Enemies upon their giving us some good words and if the Dissenters can trust to Papists after the usage that the Church of England has met with at their Hands all the Comfort that they can promise themselves when Popery begins to act its natural part among us and to set Smithfield again in a Fire is that which befell some Quakers at Rome who were first put in the Inquisition but were afterwards removed to Bedlam so tho those false Brethren among the Dissenters who deceive them at present are certainly no Changlings but know well what they are doing yet those who can be cheated by them may well claim the priviledg of a Bedlam when their Folly has left them no other Retreat XI I will not digress too far from my present purpose nor enter into a discussion of the Dispensing Power which was so effectually overthrown the other day at the King's Bench Bar that I am sure all the Authority of the Bench it self is no more able to support it Yet some late Papers in favour of it give me occasion to add a little relating to that Point It is true the Assertor of the Dispensing Power who has lately appeared with Allowance pretends that it can only be applied to the Test for Publick Imployments for he owns that the Test for both Houses of Parliament is left entire as not within the compass of this extent of the Prerogative But another Writer whom by his Sense we must conclude an Irish Man by his Brow a Jesuit and by the bare designation in the Title Page of James Stewart's Letter a Quaker goes a strain higher and thinks the King is so absolutely the Sovereign as to the Legislative part of our Government that he may dissolve even the Parliament Test so nimbly has he leap'd from being a Secretary to a Rebellion to be an Advocate for Tyranny He fancies that because no Parliament can bind up another therefore they cannot limit the Preliminaries to a subsequen Parliament But upon what is it then that Counties have but two Knights and Burroughs as many that Men below such a value have no Vote that Sheriffs only receive Writs and return Elections besides many more necessary Requisites to the making a legal Parliament In short if Laws do not regulate the Election and Constitution of a Parliament all these things may be overthrown and the King may cast the whole Government in a new Mould as well as dissolve the Obligation that is on the Members of Parliament for taking the Test It is true that as soon as a Parliament is legally met and constituted it is tied by no Laws so far as not to repeal them But the Preliminaries to a Parliament are still Sacred as long as the Law stands that settled them for the Members are still in the quality of ordinary Subjects and not entred upon their share in the Legislative Power till they are constituted in a Parliament legally chosen and lawfully assembled that is having observed all the Requisites of the Law. But I leave that impudent Letter to return to the most modest Apology that has been yet writ for the Dispensing Power It yields that the King cannot abrogate Laws and pretends only that he can dispense with them And the distinction it puts between Abrogation and Dispensation is that the one is a total Repeal of the Law and that the other is only a slackning of its obligatory Force with Relation to a particular Man or to any Body of Men so that according to him a simple Abrogation or a total Repeal is beyond the compass of the Prerogative I desire then that this Doctrine may be applied to the following words of the Declaration from which the Reader may infer whether these do import a simple Abrogation or not and by Consequence if the Declaration is not Illegal We do hereby further declare that it is our Royal Will and Pleasure that the Oaths commonly called the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and also the several Tests and Declarations shall not at any time hereafter be required to be taken declared or subscribed by any Person or Persons whatsoever who is or shall be imployed in any Office or Place of Trust either Civil or Military under us or in our Government This is plain English and needs no Commentary That Paper offers likewise an Expedient for securing Liberty of Conscience by which it will be set beyond even the Dispensing Power and that is that by Act of Parliament all Persecution may be declared to be a thing Evil in it self and then the Prerogative cannot reach it But unless this Author fancies that a Parliament is that which those of the Church of Rome believe a General Council to be I mean Infallible I do not see that such an Act would signify any thing at all An Act of Parliament cannot change the Nature of Things which are sullen and will not alter because a hard Word is clap'd on them in an Act of Parliament nor can that make that which is not Evil of it self become Evil of self For can any Act of Parliament make the Clipping of Mony or the not Burying in Wollen evil of it self Such an Act were indeed null of it self and would sink with its own weight even without the burden of the Prerogative to press it down and yet upon such a Sandy Foundation would these Men have us build all our Hopes and our Securities Another Topick like this is that we ought to trust to the Truth of our Religion and the Providence and Protection of God and not lean so much to Laws and Tests All this were very pertinent if God had not already given us humane Assurances against the Rage of our Enemies which we are now desired to abandon that so we may fall an easy and cheap Sacrifice to those who wait for the favourable Moment to destroy us By the same Reason they may perswade us to take off all our Doors or at least all our Locks and Bolts and to sleep in this exposed Condition trusting to God's Protection The Simily may appear a little too high though it is really short of the Matter for we had better trust our selves to all the Thieves and Robbers of the Town who would be perhaps contented with a part of our Goods than to those whose Designs are equally against both Soul and Body and all that is dear to us XII I will only add another Reflection upon the renewing of the Declaration this Year which has occasioned the present Storm upon the Clergy It is repeated to us that so we may see that the King continues firm to the Promises he made
England it will be a very heavy Imputation on us if it appears that though we held those Opinions as long as the Court and Crown have favoured us yet as soon as the Court turns against us we change our Principles XIV Here is the true Difficulty of this whole Matter and therefore it ought to be exactly considered 1. All general Words how large soever are still supposed to have a tacit Exception and Reserve in them if the Matter seems to require it Children are commanded to obey their Parents in all things Wives are declared by the Scripture to be subject to their Husband in all things as the Church is unto Christ And yet how comprehensive soever these words may seem to be there is still a Reserve to be understood in them and though by our Form of Marriage the Parties swear to one another till Death them do part yet few doubt but that this Bond is dissolved by Adultery though it is not named for odious things ought not to be suspected and therefore not named upon such occasions But when they fall out they carry still their own force with them 2. When there sems to be a Contradiction between two Articles in the Constitution we ought to examine which of the two is the most Evident and the most Important and so we ought to fix upon it and then we must give such an accommodating sense to that which seems to contradict it that so we may reconcile those together Here then are two seeming Contradictions in our Constitution The one is the Publick Liberty of the Nation the other is the renouncing of all Resistance in case that were invaded It is plain that our Liberty is only a thing that we enjoy at the King's Discretion and during his Pleasure if the other against all Resistance is to be understood according to the utmost Extent of the Words Therefore since the chief Design of our whole Law and of all the several Rules of our Constitution is to secure and maintain our Liberty we ought to lay that down for a Conclusion that it is both the most plain and the most important of the two And therefore the other Article against Resistance ought to be so softned as that it do not destroy us 3. Since it is by a Law that Resistance is condemned we ought to understand it in such a sense as that it does not destroy all other Laws And therefore the intent of this Law must only relate to the Executive Power which is in the King and not to the Legislative in which we cannot suppose that our Legislators who made that Law intended to give up that which we plainly see they resolved still to preserve entire according to the Ancient Constitution So then the not resisting the King can only be applied to the Executive Power that so upon no pretence of ill Administrations in the Execution of the Law it should be lawful to resist him but this cannot with any reason be extended to an Invasion of the Legislative Power or to a total Subversion of the Government For it being plain that the Law did not design to lodg that Power in the King it is also plain that it did not intend to secure him in it in case he should set about it 4. The Law mentioning the King or those Commissioned by him shews plainly that it only designed to secure the King in the Executive Power for the word Commission necessarily importts this since if it is not according to Law it is no Commission and by Consequence those who act in virtue of it are not Commissionated by the King in the Sense of the Law. The King likewise imports a Prince clothed by Law with the Regal Prerogative but if he goes to subvert the whole Foundation of the Government he subverts that by which he himself has his Power and by consequence he annuls his own Power and then he ceases to be King having endeavoured to destroy that upon which his own Authority is founded XV. It is acknowledged by the greatest Assertors of Monarchial Power that in some Cases a King may fall from his Power and in other Cases that he may fall from the Exercise of it His Deserting his People his going about to enslave or sell them to any other or a furious going about to destroy them are in the opinion of the most Monarchical Lawyers such Abuses that they naturally divest those that are guilty of them of their whole Authority Infancy or Phrenzy do also put them under the Guardianship of others All the Crowned Heads of Europe have at least secretly approved of the putting the late King of Portugal under a Guardianship and the keeping him still a Prisoner for a few Acts of Rage that had been fatal to a very few Persons And even our Court gave the first countenance to it though of all others the late King had the least reason to have done it at least last of all since it justified a younger Brother's supplanting the Elder yet the Evidence of the Thing carried it even against Interest Therefore if a King goes about to subvert the Government and to overturn the whole Constitution he by this must be supposed either to fall from his Power or at least from the Exercise of it so far as that he ought to be put under Guardians and according to the Case of Portugal the next Heir falls naturally to be the Guardian XVI The next Thing to be considered is to see in Fact whether the Foundations of this Government have been struck at and whether those Errors that have been perhaps committed are only such Malversations as ought to be imputed only to humane Frailty and to the Ignorance Inadvertencies or Passions to which all Princes may be subject as well as other Men. But this will best appear if we consider what are the Fundamental Points of our Government and the chief Securities that we have for our Liberties The Authority of the Law is indeed all in one word so that if the King pretends to a Power to dispense with Laws there is nothing left upon which the Subject can depend and yet as if the Dispensing Power were not enough if Laws are wholly suspended for all Time coming this is plainly a repealing of them when likewise the Men in whose Hands the Administration of Justice is put by Law such as Judges and Sheriffs are allowed to tread all Laws under-foot even those that infer an Incapacity on themselves if they violate them this is such a breaking of the whole Constitution that we can no more have the Administration of Justice so that it is really a Dissolution of the Government since all Trials Sentences and the Executions of them are become so many unlawful Acts that are null and void of themselves The next Thing in our Constitution which secures to us our Laws and Liberties is a Free and Lawful Parliament Now not to mention the breach of the Law of Triennial Parliaments it
he gives to Church-men in his Epistles to Timotby and Titus reckon this of submitting to the directions of the Church for one which he could not have omitted if this be the true meaning of those disputed passages and yet he has not one word sounding that way which is very different from the directions which one possessed with the present view that the Church of Rome has of this matter must needs have given V. There are some things very expresly taught in the New Testament such as the rules of a Good Life the Use of the Sacraments the addressing our selves to God for Mercy and Grace through the Sacrifice that Christ offered for us on the Cross and the Worshipping him as God the Death Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ the Resurrection of our Bodies and Life Everlasting by which it is apparent that we are set beyond doubt in those matters if then there are other passages more obscure concerning other matters we must Conclude that these are not of that Consequence otherwise they would have been as plainly revealed as the others are but above all if the Authority of the Church is delivered to us in disputable terms that is a just prejudice against it since it is a thing of such Consequence that it ought to have been revealed in a way so very clear and past all dispute VI. If it is a presumption for particular persons to judge concerning Religion which must be still referred to the Priests and other Guides in sacred matters this is a good Argument to oblige all Nations to continue in the Established Religion whatever it may happen to be and above all others it was a convincing Argument in the mouths of the Jews against our Saviour He pretended to be the Messias and proved it both by the prophesies that were accomplished in him and by the Miracles that he wrought as for the Prophesies the Reasons urged by the Church of Rome will conclude much stronger that such dark Passages as those of the Prophets were ought not to be interpreted by Particular persons but that the Exposition of these must be referred to the Priests and Sanhedrin it being expresly provided in their law Deut. 17.8 That when controversies arose concerning any cause that was too intricate they were to go to the place which God should choose and to the Priests of the tribe of Levi and to the judge in those days and that they were to declare what was right and to their decision all were obliged to submit under pain of death so that by this it appears that the Priests in the Jewish Religion were authorized in so extraordinary a manner that I dare say the Church of Rome would not wish for a more formal Testimony on her behalf As for our Saviour's Miracles these were not sufficient neither unless his doctrine was first found to be good since Moses had expresly warned the People Deut. 13 1. That if a Prophet came and taught them to follow after other Gods they were not to obey him tho he wrought miracles to prove his Mission but were to put him to death So a Jew saying that Christ by making himself one with his father brought in the worship of another God might well pretend that he was not obliged to yield to the authority of our Saviour's Miracles without taking cognizance of his doctrine and of the Prophesies concerning the Messias and in a word of the whole matter So that if these Reasonings are now good against the Reformation they were as strong in the mouths of the Jews against our Saviour and from hence we see that the authority that seems to be given by Moses to the Priests must be understood with some Restrictions since we not only find the Prophets and Jeremy in particular opposing themselves to the whole body of them but we see likewise that for some considerable time before our Saviour's days not only many ill grounded traditions had got in among them by which the vigour of the moral law was much enervated but likewise they were also universally possessed with a false notion of their Messias so that even the Apostles themselves had not quite shaken off those Prejudices at the time of our Saviour's Ascension So that here a Church that was still the Church of God that had the appointed means of the Expiation of their sins by their Sacrifices and Washings as well as by their Circumcision was yet under great and fatal Errors from which particular persons had no way to extricate themselves but by examining the Doctrine and texts of Scripture and by judging of them according to the Evidence of Truth and the force and freedom of their Faculties VII It seems Evident that the passage Tell the Church belongs only to the Reconciling of Differences that of Binding and of Loosing according to the use of those terms among the Jews signifies only an Authority that was given to the Apostles of giving Precepts by which men were to be obliged to such Duties or set at liberty from them and the gates of Hell not prevailing against the Church J signifies only that the Christian Religion was never to come to an end or to perish and that of Christs being with the Apostles to the end of the world imports only a special Conduct and Protection which the Church may always expect but as the promise I will not leave thee nor forsake thee that belongs to every Christian does not import an infallibility no more does the other And for those passages concerning the spirit of God that searches all things it is plain that in them St. Paul is treating of the Divine inspiration by which the Christian Religion was then opened to the world which he sets in opposition to the wisdom or Philosophy of the Greeks so that as all those passages come far short of proving that for which they are alledged it must at least be acknowledged that they have not an evidence great enough to prove so important a truth as some would evince by them since 't is a matter of such vast consequence that the proofs for it must have an undeniable Evidence VIII In the matters of Religion two things are to be considered first The Account that we must give to God and the Rewards that we expect from him And in this every Man must answer for the sincerity of his Heart in examining Divine Matters and the following what upon the best enquiries that one could make appeared to be true and with Relation to this there is no need of a Judg for in that Great Day every one must answer to God according to the Talents that he had and all will be saved according to their Sincerity and with Relation to that Judgment there is no need of any other Judg but God. A second View of Religion is as it is a Body united together and by consequence brought under some Regulation And as in all States there are subaltern Judges in whose Decisions all
near the Age of the Apostles contrary Traditions touching the Observation of Easter from which we must conclude that either the Matter of Fact of one side or the other as it was handed down was not true or at least that it was not rightly understood A Tradition concerning the Use of the Sacraments being a visible thing is more likely to be exact than a Speculation concerning their Nature and yet we find a Tradition of giving Infants the Communion grounded on the indispensible necessity of the Sacrament continued a thousand years in the Church A Tradition on which the Christians founded their Joy and Hope is less like to be changed than a more remote Speculation and yet the first Writers of the Christian Religion had a Tradition handed down to them by those who saw the Apostles of the Reign of Christ for a thousand year upon Earth and if those who had Matters at the second hand from the Apostles could be thus mistaken it is more reasonable to apprehend greater Errors at such a distance A Tradition concerning the Book of the Scriptures is more like to be exact than the Exposition of some Passages in it and yet we find the Church did unanimously believe the Translation of the 70. Interpreters to have been the effect of a miraculous Inspiration till St. Jerome examined this Matter better and made a New Translation from the Hebrew Copies But which is more than all the rest it seems plain That the Fathers before the Council of Nice believed the Divinity of the Son of God to be in some sort Inferior to that of the Father and for some Ages after the Council of Nice they believed them indeed both equal but they consider these as two different Beings and only one in Essence as three Men have the same humane Nature in common among them and that as one Candle lights another so the one flowed from another and after the fifth Century the Doctrine of one individual Essence was received If you will be farther informed concerning this Father Petua will satisfy you as to the first Period before the Council of Nice and the Learned Dr. Cudworth as to the second In all which particulars it appears how variable a thing Tradition is And upon the whole Matter the examining Tradition thus is still a searching among Books and here is no living Judg. XII If then the Authority that must decide Controversies lies in the Body of the Pastors scattered over the World which is the last Retrenchment here as many and as great Scruples will arise as we found in any of the former Heads Two difficulties appear at first View the one is How can we be assured that the present Pastors of the Church are derived in a just Succession from the Apostles there are no Registers extant that prove this So that we have nothing for it but some Histories that are so carelesly writ that we find many mistakes in them in other Matters and they are so different in the very first links of that Chain that immediately succeded the Apostles that the utmost can be made of this is that here is a Historical Relation somewhat doubtful but here is nothing to found our Faith on So that if a Succession from the Apostles times is necessary to the Constitution of that Church to which we must submit our selves we know not where to find it besides that the Doctrine of the necessity of the Intention of the Minister to the Validity of a Sacrament throws us into inextricable difficulties I know they generally say That by the Intention they do not mean the inward Acts of the Minister of the Sacrament but only that it must appear by his outward Deportment that he is in earnest going about a Sacrament and not doing a thing in jest and this appeared so reasonable to me that I was sorry to find our Divines urge it too much till turning over the Rubricks that are at the beginning of the Missal I found upon the head of the Intention of the Minister that if a Priest has a number of Hosties before him to be consecrated and intends to Consecrate them all except one in that case that vagrant Exception falls upon them all it not being affixed to any one and it is defined that he Consecrates none at all Here it is plain that the secret Acts of a Priest can defeat the Sacrament so that this overthrows all certainty concerning a Succession But besides all this we are sure that the Greek Churches have a much more uncontested Succession than the Latins so that a Succession cannot direct us And if it is necessary to seek out the Doctrines that are universally received this is not possible for a private Man to know So that in ignorant Countries where there is little Study the People have no other certainty concerning their Religion but what they take from their Curate and Confessor since they cannot examine what is generally received So that it must be confessed that all the Arguments that are brought for the necessity of a constant Infallible Judg turn against all those of the Church of Rome that do not acknowledg the Infallibility of the Pope for if he is not Infallible they have no other Judg that can pretend to it It were also easy to shew That some Doctrines have been as universally received in some Ages as they have been rejected in others which shews that the Doctrine of the present Church is not always a sure measure For five Ages together the Doctrine of the Popes Power to depose Heretical Princes was received without the least Opposition and this cannot be doubted by any that knows what has been the State of the Church since the end of the Eleventh Century and yet I believe few Princes would allow this notwithstanding all the concurring Authority of so many Ages to fortify it I could carry this into a great many other Instances but I single out this because it is a Point in which Princes are naturally extream sensible Upon the whole Matter it can never enter into my mind that God who has made Man a Creature that naturally enquires and reasons and that feels as sensible a pleasure when he can give himself a good account of his Actions as one that sees does perceive in Comparison to a blind Man that is led about and that this God that has also made Religion on design to perfect this humane Nature and to raise it to the utmost height to which it can arrive has contrived it to be dark and to be so much beyond the Penetration of our Faculties that we cannot find out his mind in those things that are necessary for our Salvation and that the Scriptures that were writ by plain Men in a very familiar Stile and addrest without any Discrimination to the Vulgar should become such an unintelligible Book in these Ages that we must have an Infallible Judg to expound it and when I see not only Popes but even
was advanced for the Bishops and Divines were appointed to Examine all Points with much care and to bring every man his Opinion in Writing all which were compared very faithfully and upor these the Decisions were made There are many other Papers yet extant which by comparing the Hands shew these to be Originals and they were in the Salisbury Family probably ever since they were at first brought together Their Ancestor the Lord Burleigh who was Secretary of State in Edward the Sixth's time gathered them up and as appears in a Letter under his own Hand yet extant he had 6 or 7 Volumns of them of which Dr. Stillingfleet had only two but Dr. Burnet saw two more of these Volumes The History of the Reformation sells still so well that I do not believe Mr. Chiswell the Printer of it has made any Present to this Reasoner to raise its Price for to attack it with so much Malice and'yet not to offer one Reason to lessen its Credit is as effectual a Recommendation as this Author can give it He pretends that Dr. Burnet's design was to make Cranmer appear a meer Sacramentarian as to Doctrine as he had made him appear an Erastian as to Discipline and he thinks the vain Man was flattered into all the Pains he took that he might give Reputation to the Errours of his Patrons and that those two grand Forgeries are the grand Singularities of his History and the main things that gave it Popular Vogue and Reputation with his Party So that were these two blind Stories and the Reasons depending upon them retrenched it would be like the shaving off Samsons Hair and destroy all the strength peculiar to the History But to all this stuff I shall only say 1. That the Charge of Forgery falls back on the Reasoner since as to Cranmers opinion of the Sacrament his own Books and his Dispute at Oxford are such plain Evidences that none but Bays could have questioned it and for his being an Erastian Dr. Burnet had clearly proved that he had changed his Opinion in that Point so that tho he shewed that he had been indeed once engaged in those Opinions yet he proved that he had forsaken them Let the Reader judg to whom the charge of Forgery belongs 2. Dr. Burnet has indeed some temptations to Vanity now since he is ill used by Bays and put in such Company but I dare say if he goes to give him his Character he will never mention so slight a one as Vanity in which how excessive so ever he may be yet it is the smallest of all his Faults 3. These two Particulars here mentioned bear so inconsiderable a share in that History and have been so little minded that I dare say of an hundred that are pleased with that Work there is not one that will assign these as their Motives He censures Dr. Burnet for saying he had often heard it said that the Articles of our Church were framed by Cranmer and Ridley as if it were the meanest Trade of an Historian to stoop to hear-says p. 55. But the best of all the Roman Historians Salust in bello Catil does it and in this Dr. Burnet maintains the Character of a sincere Historian to say nothing that was not well grounded and since it has been often said by many Writers that these two Bishops prepared our Articles he finding no particular Evidence of that delivers it with its own doubtfulness It is very like Sa. Oxon would have been more positive upon half the grounds that Dr. Burnet had but the other chose to write exactly yet he adds That it is probable that they penned them and if either the Dignity of their Sees or of their Persons be considered the thing will appear reasonable enough But I do not wonder to see any thing that looks like a modesty of Stile offend our Author He is next so kind to Dr. Burnet as to offer him some Counsel p. 50. that he would be well advised to imploy his Pains in writing Lampoons upon the present Princes of Christendom especially his own which he delights in most because it is the worst thing that himself can do than collecting the Records of former times for the first will require time and Postage to pursue his Malice but the second is easily traced in the Chimney-corner One would think that this period was Writ by Mr. South it is so obscure and ill expressed that nothing is plain but the malice of it but he of all men should be the furthest from reproaching any for Writing Lampoons who has now given so rude a one on the late King and the Lords and Commons if bold Railing without either Wit or Decency deserves that Name I will only say this further That if one had the ill nature to write a Lampoon on the Government one of the severest Articles in it would be That it seems Writers are hard to be found when such a Baboon is made use of It is Lampoon enough upon the Age that he is a Bishop but it is downright Reproach that he is made the Champion of a Cause which if it is bad of it self must suffer extreamly by being in such Hands And thus I think enough is said in Answer to his impertinent digression upon Transubstantiation let him renounce the Article of our Church and all that he possesses in Consequence to his having signed it and then we will argue all the rest with him upon the square but as long as he owns that he is bound likewise to own the first Branch of the TEST which is the Renouncing of Transubstantiation In this Discourse he makes his old hatred to Calvin and the Calvinists return so often that it appears very Conspicuously I believe it is stronger now than ever and that for a particular reason when the Prince and Princess of Orange were Married he was perhaps the only Man in England that Expressed his uneasiness at that Happy Conjunction in so Clownish a manner that when their Highnesses past through Canterbury he would not go with the rest of that Body to which he was so long a Blemish to pay his Duty to them and when he was asked the Reason he said He could have no regard to a Calvinist Prince Now this Calvinist Prince has declared his mind so openly and fully against the Repeal of the TEST that no doubt this has encreased Bays's distemper and heightned his Choler against the whole Party The second Branch of the TEST is the Declaration made of the Idolatry committed in the Roman Church upon which he tells us p. 71 72. That Idolatry is a Stabbing and Cut-throat Word and that it is an Inviting and Warranting the Rabble whenever Opportunity favours to destroy the Roman Catholicks and here Bays will outdo himself since this was a Master-piece of Service therefore he makes the taxing the Church of Rome with Idolatry a piece of Inhumanity that outdoes the Savages of the Canibals themselves and damns at
once both body and Soul. He charges Dr. Stillingfleet as the great Founder of this and all other Anti-catholick and Anti-christian and uncharitable Principles among us and that the TEST is the Swearing to the Truth of his unlearned and Phanatick Notion of Idolatry pag. 130 135. and the result of all is That Idolatry made the Plot and then the Plot made Idolatry and that the same persons made both He has also troubled the Reader with a second impertinence to shew his second-hand Reading again upon the Notion of Idolatry but all this falls off with a very short Answer if he is of the Church of England and believes that the Homilies contain a Godly and Wholesom Doctrine all this Clamour against Idolatry turns against himself for he will find the Church of Rome charged with this almost an Age before Dr. Stillingfleet was Born and tho perhaps none has ever defended the Charge with so much Learning as he has done yet no malice less Impudent than his is could make him the Author of the Accusation It will be another strain of our Author's modesty if he will pretend that our Church is not bound to own the Doctrine that is contained in her Homilies he must by this make our Church as Treacherous to her Members as Sa. Oxon is to her for to deliver this Doctrine to the People if we believe it not our selves is to be as impudent as he himself can pretend to be A Church may believe a Doctrine which she does not think necessary to propose to all her Members but she were indeed a Society fit for such Pastors as he is if she could propose to the People a Doctrine chiefly one of so great Consequence as this is without she believed it her self So then he must either Renounce our Church and her Articles or he must Answer all his own Plea for clearing that Church of this Imputation which is so slight that it will be no hard matter even for such a trifling Writer as himself is to do it As for what he says of Stabbing and Cut-throat Words he may charge us with such words if he will but we know who we may charge with the Deeds I would gladly see the List of all that have been murder'd by these Words to try if they can be put in the Ballance either with the Massacre of Ireland or that of Paris upon which I must take notice of his flight way of mentioning Coligny and Faction and telling us in plain words pag. 45. That they were Rebels This is perhaps another instance of his kindness to the Calvinist Prince that is Descended from that Great Man. If Idolatry made our Plot it was not the first that it made but his malignity is still like himself his charging Dr. Stillingfleet who he says is the Author of the Imputation of Idolatry as if he had suborned the Evidence in our Plot. I should congratulate to the Doctor the Honour that is done him by the Malice of one who must needs be the object of the hatred of all good Men if I did not look upon him as so contemptible a person that his love and his hatred are equally insignificant If he thinks our Church worse than Canibals I wish he would be at the pains to go and make a trial and see whether these Salvages will use him as we have done I dare say they would not Eat him for they would find so much Gall and Choler in him that the first bit would quite disgust them A second Part of the ENQUIRY into the Reasons offered by Sa. Oxon for Abrogating the TEST Or an Answer to his Plea for Transubstantiation and for Acquitting the Church of Rome of IDOLATRY THE two seemingly contrary Advices of the Wise man of Answering a Fool according to his Folly and of not Answering him according to his Folly are founded on such Excellent Reasons that if a man can but rightly distinguish the Circumstances he has a good Warrant for using both upon different occasions The Reason for Answering a Fool according to his Folly is lest he be wise in his own eyes that so a haughty and petulant humour may be subdued and that a Man that is both blinded and swelled up with self-conceit may by so severe a Remedy be brought to know himself and to think as meanly of himself as every Body else does But the reason against Answering a Fool according to his Folly is lest one be also like unto him and so let both his mind and stile be corrupted by so Vicious a Pattern Since then in a former Paper I was wrought on to let our Author see what a severe Treatment he has justly drawn on himself and to write in a stile a little like his own I will now let him see that he is the Man in the World whom I desire the least to resemble and so if I writ before in a stile that I thought became him I will now change that into another which I am sure becomes my self In the former I examined his Arguments for abrogating the Test in a strain which I thought somewhat necessary for the Informing the Nation aright in a matter of such Consequence that the Preservation of our Religion is judged to depend upon it by the Presumptive Heir of the Crown but now that I am to argue a point which requires more of a Gravity than of an acrimony of stile I will no more consider the Man but the Matter in hand In a word He would persuade the World that Transubstantiation is but a Nicety of the Schools calculated to the Aristotelian Philosophy and not defined positively in the Church of Rome but that the Corporal and Real Presence of the substance of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament was the Doctrine of the Universal Church in the Primitive Times and that it is at this day the generally received Doctrine by all the different Parties in Europe not only the Ro. Catholicks and Lutherans but both by the Churches of Switzerland and France and more particularly by the Church of England so that since all that the Church of Rome means by Transubstantiation is the Real Presence and since the Real Presence is so Universally received it is a heinous thing to renounce Transubstantiation for that is in effect the renouncing the Real Presence This is the whole strength of his Argument which he fortifies by many Citations to prove that both the Ancient Fathers and the Modern Reformers believed the Real Presence and that the Church of Rome believes no more But to all this I shall offer a few Exceptions I. If Transubstantiation is only a Philosophical Nicety concerning the manner of the Presence where is the hurt of renouncing it and why are the Ro. Catholicks at so much pains to have the Test repealed for it contains nothing against the Real Presence indeed if this Argument has any force it should rather lead the Ro. Catholicks to take the Test since according to
they received that day to do the more honour to the Memory of the Saint might be recommended to the Divine Acceptance by the Intercession of the Saint so that this Superstitious practice shews plainly that the Church had not even when it began received the Doctrine of the change of the Elements into the Body and Blood of Christ I will not pursue the proof of this point further nor will I enter into a particular recital of the Sayings of the Fathers upon this subject which would carry me far And it is done so copiously by others that I had rather refer my Reader to them than offer him a lean abridgement of their labours I shall only add that the Presumptions and Proofs that I have offered are much more to be valued than the Pious and Rhetorical Figures by which many of the Fathers have set forth the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament One thing is plain that in most of them they represent Christ present in his dead and crucified state which appears most eminently in St Chrysostom so that this agreed with that notion of a Real Presence that was formerly explained Men that have at the same time all the heat in their Imaginations that Eloquence can raise and all the fervour in their heart which devotion can inspire are seldom so correct in their phrases and figures as not to need some allowances therefore one plain proof of their Opinions from their Reasonings when in cold blood ought to be of much more weight than all their Transports and Amplifications From this General view of the State of the Church during the first Centuries I come next to consider the steps of the change which was afterwards made I will not offer to trace out that History which Mr. Larrogue has done Copiously whom I the rather mention because he is put in English I shall only observe that by reason of the high expressions which were used upon the occasion of the Eutichean Controversy formerly mentioned by which the Sanctification of the Elements was compared to the Union of the humane nature of Christ with his Divinity a great step was made to all that followed during the Dispute concerning Images those who opposed the worship of them said according to all the Ancient Liturgies that they indeed acknowledged one Image of Christ which was the Sacrament those who promoted that piece of superstition for I refer the calling it Idolatry to its proper place had the Impudence to deny that it had ever been called the Image of Christ's Body and Blood and said that it was really his Body and Blood. We will not much Dispute concerning an Age in which the World seemed mad with a zeal for the Worship of Images and in which Rebellion and the Deposing of Princes upon the pretence of Heresy began to be put in practice such times as these we willingly yield up to our Adversaries Yet Damascene and the Greek Church after him carried this matter no further than to assert an Assumption of the Elements into an union with the Body and Blood of Christ But when the Monk of Corbie began to carry the matter yet further and to say that the Elements were changed into the very body of Christ that was born of the Virgin we find all the great men of that Age both in France Germany and England writ against him and he himself owns that he was looked upon as an Innovator Those who writ against him chiefly Rabanus Maurus and Bertram or Ratramne did so plainly assert the Ancient opinion of the Sacraments being the Figure of the Body and Blood of Christ that we cannot express our selves more formally than they did and from thence it was that our Saxon Homily on Easter Day was so express in this point Yet the War and the Northern Invasions that followed put the World into so much disorder that all Disputes were soon forgot and that in the Eleventh Century this Opinion which had so many Partisans in the Ninth was generally decried and much abandoned VI. But with relation to those Ages in which it was received some observations occur so readily to every one that knows History that it is only for the sake of the more Ignorant that I make them 1. They were times of so much Ignorance that it is scarce conceivable to any but to those who have laboured a little in reading the productions of those Ages which is the driest piece of study I know The stile in which they writ and their way of arguing and explaining Scripture are all of a piece both matter and form are equally barbarous Now in such times as the Ignorant populace were easily misled so there is somewhat in Incredible Stories and Opinions that makes them pass as easily as men are apt to fancy they see Sprights in the Night nay the more of Mystery and Darkness that there is in any Opinion such times are apt to cherish it the more for that very reason 2. Those were Ages in which the whole Ecclesiastical Order had entred into such Conspiracies against the State which were managed and set on by such vigour by the Popes that every Opinion which tended to render the persons of Churchmen Sacred and to raise their Character was likely to receive the best entertainment and the greatest encouragement possible Nothing could so secure the persons of Priests and render them so considerable as to believe that they made their God and in such Ages no Armour was of so sure a proof as for a Priest to take his God in his hands Now it is known that as P. Gregory the 7th who condemned Berengarius laid the foundations of the Ecclesiastical Empire by establishing the Deposing Power so P. Innocent the 3d. who got Transubstantiation to be decreed in the Fourth Council of the Lateran seemed to have compleated the project by the Addition made to the Deposing Power of transferring the Dominions of the Deposed Prince to whom he pleased Since before this the Dominions must have gone to the next Heirs of the Deposed Prince It is then so plain that the Doctrine of Transubstantiation was so suitable to the advancing of those ends that it had been a wonder indeed if it being once set on foot it had not been established in such times 3. Those Ages were so corrupt and more particularly the Clergy and chiefly the Popes were by the Confession of all Writers so excessively vicious that such men could have no regard to truth in any of their Decisions Interest must have carried all other things before it with such Popes who according to the Historians of their own Communion were perhaps the worst men that ever lived Their Vices were so crying that nothing but the credit that is due to the Writers of their own time and their own Church could determine us to believe them 4. As the Ignorance and Vices of those times derogate justly from all the credit that is due to them so the Cruelty which
all this that appears so fully in Celsus Porphyry and many others did not make the Fathers give over the Charge Dr. Stillingfleet has given such full Proofs of this that nothing can be made plainer than the matter of Fact is We know likewise that when the Controversy arose concerning the Godhead of Jesus Christ Athanasius and the other Fathers made use of the same Argument against the Arrians who worshipped him that they could not be excused from the Sin of Idolatry in worshipping and invocating him whom they believed to be only a Creature which shews that it was the Sense of the Christians of that Age that all Acts of Divine Worship and in particular all Prayers that were offered up to any that was not truly and by nature God and the Eternal God were so many Acts of Idolatry So that upon the whole matter it is clear that the Worshipping the true God under a Corporeal Representation and the worshipping or Invocating of Creatures tho in an inferior degree was taxed by the Apostles and by the Primitive Church as Idolatrous When they accuse them for those Corruptions of Divine Worship they did not consider the softning Excuses of more refined Men so much as the Acts that were done which to be sure do always carry the stupid Vulgar to the grossest degrees of Idolatry and therefore every step towards it is so severely forbid by God since upon one Step made in the publick Worship the People are sure to make a great many more in their Notions of things Therefore if we should accuse the Church of Rome for all the Excesses of the past Ages or of the more Ignorant Nations in the present Age such as Spain and Portugal even this might be in some degree well grounded because the publick and authorized Offices and Practices of that Church has given the rise to all those Disorders and even in this we should but Copy after the Fathers who always represent the Pagan Idolatry not as Cicero or Plutarch had done it but according to the grossest notions and practices of the Vulgar XIV All that our Author says concerning the Cherubims deserves not an answer for what use soever might be made of this to excuse the Lutherans for the use of Images without worshipping them tho after all the doing such a thing upon a Divine Command and the doing it without a Command are two very different things yet it cannot belong to the worship of Images since the Israelites payed no worship to the Cherubims They pay'd indeed a Divine worship to the Cloud of Glory which was between them and which is often in the Old Testament called God himself in all those expressions in which he is said to dwell between the Cherubims But this being a miraculous Symbole of the Divine presence from which they had answers in all extraordinary cases it was God himself without any Image or Representation that was worshipped in it As we Christians pay our Adorations to the Humane Nature of Christ by vertue of that more sublime and ineffable indwelling of the Godhead in Him in which case it is God only that we worship in the man Christ Even as the respect that we pay to a man terminates in his mind tho the outward expressions of it go to the body to which the mind is united So in that unconceivable Union between the Divine and Humane Natures in Christ we adore the Godhead only even when we worship the man. XV. The General part of this Discourse being thus stated the application of it to the Church of Rome will be no hard matter I will not insist much on the Article of Image Worship because it is not comprehended in the Test tho our Author dwells longest on it to let us see how carefully but to how little purpose he had read Dr. Spencer's Learned Book But if one considers the Ceremonies and Prayers with which Images and particularly Crosses are to be dedicated by the Roman Pontifical and the formal Adoration of the Cross on Good-Friday and the strange vertues that are not only believed to be in some Images by the rabble but that are authorized not only by the Books of Devotion publickly allowed among them but even by Papal Bulls and Indulgences he will be forced to confess that the old notions of the Teraphim are clearly revived among them This could be made out in an infinite Induction of particulars of which the Reader will find a large account in the Learned Dr. Brevint's Treatise entitled Saul and Samuel at Endor But I come now to the two Branches mentioned in the Test XVI One is the Sacrifice of the Mass in which if either our Senses that tell us it is now Bread and Wine or the New Testament in which it is called both Bread and the fruit of the Vine even after the Consecration or if the Opinion of the first seven Centuries or if the true principles of Philosophy concurring altogether are strong enough we are as certain as it is possible for us to be of any thing that they are still according to our Authors own phrase a senseless piece of matter VVhen therefore this has Divine Adoration offered to it when it is called the good God carried about in solemn Processions and receives as publick and as humble a Veneration as could be offered up to the Deity it self if it appeared visibly here the highest degree of Divine worship is offered up to a Creature nor will such worshippers believing this to be truely the Body of Christ save the matter if indeed it is not so This may no doubt go a great way to save themselves and to bring their sin into the Class of the sins of Ignorance but what large thought soever we may have of the mercies of God to their persons we can have no Indulgence for an act of Divine Adoration which is directed to an Object that we are either sure is Bread or we are sure of nothing else XVII As for the Invocation and Adoration of the Blessed Virgin and the Saints I shall offer only three Classes of Instances to prove it Idolatrous 1. In the Office of the Mass on many of the Saints days that Sacrifice which is no other than the Body and Blood of Christ according to them is offered up to the honour of the Saints and they pray to God to accept of it through the Saints Intercession One would think it were enough to offer up the Sacrifices of prayers and praises to them but here is a Sacrifice which carries in the plain words of it the most absurd Idolatry that is possible which is the offering up the Creator to the honour of a Creature 2. In the Prayers and Hymns that are in their publick Offices there are Petitions offered up to the Saints that in the plain sense of the words import their pardoning our sins and changing our hearts The dayly prayer to the Virgin goes far this way Tu nos ab hoste protege
hora mortis suscipe Do thou protect us from our Enemy and receive us in the hour of death Another goes yet further Culpas nostras ablue ut perennis sedem gloriae per te redempti valeamus scandere VVash thou away our sins that so being redeemed by thee we may ascend up to the mansions of glory That to the Angels is of the same nature Nostra diluant jam peccata praestando supernam Coeli gloriam May they wash away our sins and grant us the heavenly glory I shall to this add two Addresses to two of our English Saints the first is to St. Alban Te nunc petimus Patrone praeco sedule qui es nostra vera gloria solve precum votis servorum scelera We implore thee our Patron who art our true Glory do thou take away the crimes of thy Servants by thy Prayers And the other relates to Thomas Becket whom I believe our Author will not deny to have been as great a Rebel as either Coligny or his Faction and yet they pray thus to Christ Tu per Thomae sanguinem quem pro te effudit fac nos Christe scandere quo Thomas ascendit Do thou O Christ make us by the blood of Thomas which he shed for thee to ascend up whither he has ascended And the Hymn upon him is that Verse of the Eighth Psalm Thou hast crowned him with Glory and Honour and has set him over all the works of thy hands One would think it were no bold thing to pronounce all this and innumerable more Instances which might be brought to the same purpose to be Idolatrous If we are sent by our Author to the senses that may be put on these words I shall only say with relation to that that the Test condemns the Devotions as they are used in the Roman Church so this belongs to the plain sense of the words and if it is confessed that these are Idolatrous as ascribing to Creatures the right of pardoning sin and of opening the Kingdom of Heaven which are main parts of the Divine Glory then the matter of the Test is justified A Third sort of Instance is in the Prayer that comes after the Priest has pronounced the words of Absolution Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi merita B. Mariae Virginis omnium Sanctorum quicquid boni feceris vel mali sustinueris sint tibi in remissionem peccatorum augmentum gratiae premium vitae eternae May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ the Merits of the B. Virgin and all the Saints and all the good thou hast done or the evil that thou hast suffered be to thee effectual for the remission of thy sins the encrease of grace and the reward of Eternal life Absolution in its true and unsophisticated meaning being the declaration made to a Penitent of the Mercies of God in Christ according to the Gospel I would gladly know what milder censure is due to the mixing the merits of the Virgin and the Saints with the Passion of Christ in order to the obtaining this Gospel Pardon with all the effects of it than this of our Test that it is Idolatrous I have now examined the two points in which our Author thought fit to make an Apology for the Church of Rome without descending to the particulars of his Plea more minutely I have used him in this more gently than he deserves for as I examined his Reasonings I found all along both so much Ignorance and such gross disingenuity that I had some difficulty to restrain my self from flying out on many occasions But I resolved to pursue these two points with the gravity of stile which the matter required without entangling the discourse with such unpleasant digressions as the discovery of his Errors might have led me to And I thought it enough to free unwary Readers from the mistakes into which his Book might lead them without encreasing the contempt belonging to the Writer who has now enough upon him but I pray God grant him Repentance and a better mind FINIS BOOKS lately Published by Dr. BVRNET and Printed for John Starkey and Ric. Chiswell REflections on a Paper intituled His Majesties Reasons for withdrawing himself from Rochester An Enquiry into the Present State of Affairs and in particular whether We owe Allegiance to the King in those Circumstances And whether we are bound to Treat with him and Call him back again or not A Sermon Preached in St. James's Chappel before the Prince of Orange Decemb. 23. 1688. A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons January 31. 1688. being a Thanksgiving-day for a Deliverance of this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power A Letter to Mr. Thevenot containing a Censure of Mr. Le Grand's History of King Henry the Eighth's Divorce To which is added A Censure of Mr. de Meaux's History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches Together with some further Reflections on Mr. Le Grand
some Bodies that pass for General Councils have so expounded many Passages of it and have wrested them so visibly that none of the Modern Writers of that Church pretend to excuse it I say I must freely own to you that when I find I need a Commentary on dark Passages these will be the last Persons to whom I will address my self for it Thus you see how fully I have opened my mind to you in this matter I have gone over a great deal of Ground in as few Words as is possible because hints I know are enough for you I thank God these Considerations do fully satisfy me and I will be infinitely joyed if they have the same effect on you I am yours THis Letter came to London with the return of the first Post after his late Majesties Papers were sent into the Country some that saw it liked it well and wished to have it publick and the rather because the Writer did not so entirely confine himself to the Reasons that were in those Papers but took the whole Controversy to task in a little compass and yet with a great variety of Reflections And this way of examining the whole Matter without following those Papers word for word or the finding more fault than the common concern of this Cause required seemed more agreeing to the Respect that is due to the Dead and more particularly to the Memory of so great a Prince but other Considerations made it not so easy nor so adviseable to procure a License for the Printing this Letter it has been kept in private Hands till now those who have boasted much of the Shortness of the late Kings Papers and of the Length of the Answers that have been made to them will not find so great a Disproportion between them and this Answer to them An ENQUIRY into the Reasons for Abrogating the TEST imposed on all Members of Parliament Offered by Sa. Oxon. WHen the Cardinals in Rome go abroad without Fiocco's on their Horses heads it is understood that they will be then Incognito and they expect nothing of that Respect which is payed them on other Occasions So since there is no Fiocco at the Head of this Discourse no Name nor Designation it seems the Writer offers himself to be examined without those nice regards that may be due to the Dignity he bears and indeed when a Man forgets what he is himself it is very natural for others to do it likewise It is no wonder to see those of the Roman Communion bestir themselves so much as they do to be delivered from the Test and every thing else that is uneasy to them and tho others may find it very reasonable to oppose themselves in all the just and legal ways that agree with our Constitution to this Design yet it is so natural to all that are under any Pressure to desire to get free from it that at the same time that we cannot forbear to withstand them we cannot much condemn them but it raises nature a little to see a Man that has been so long fatned with the Spoils of our Church and who has now got up to a degree so disproportioned to his Merit to turn so treacherously upon it If he is already weary of his comfortable importance and will here give her into the Bargain and declare himself no Body will be surprized at the change of his Masque since he has taken much pains to convince the World that his Religion goes no deeper than his Habit yet tho his Confidence is of a piece with all his other Virtues few thought it could have carried him so far I confess I am not surprized but rather wonder to see that others should be so for he has given sufficient warning of what he is capable of he has told the World what is the worst thing that Dr. Burnet can do p. 50. But I am sure the Dr. cannot be quit with him to tell what is the worst thing that he can do it must needs be a very fruitful sancy that can find out all the degrees of wickedness to which he can go and tho this Pamphlet is a good Essay of his Talent that way yet that Terra Incognita is boundless In the title Page it is said that this was first writ for the Author 's own satisfaction and now published for the benefit of all others whom it may concern But the words are certainly wrong placed for the truth of the matter is That it was Written for the Author 's own benefit and that it is now published for the satisfaction of all others whom it may concern in some sense perhaps it was written for the Author 's own satisfaction for so petulant and so depraved a mind as His is capable of being delighted with His Treachery and a poor Bishoprick with the addition of a Presidentship being too low a prize for His Ambition and Avarice He resolved to assure Himself of the first great Bishoprick that falls the Liege Letter lets us see how far the Jesuits were assured of Him and how much courted by Him and that He said That none but Atheists supported the Protestant Religion now in England yet how many soever of these may be among us He is upon the point of lessening their number by one at least and he takes care to justifie the hopes which these Father 's conceived of Him. They are severe Masters and will not be put off with secret Civilities lewd Jests Entertainments and Healths drank to their good Success so now the Price of the Presidentship is to be pay'd so good a Morsel as this deserved that Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Dr. Burnet and some other Divines should be ill used and He to preserve the Character of Drawcansir which is as due to Him as that of Bays falls upon the Articles of the Church and upon both Houses of Parliament It is Reproach enough to the House of Lords that He is of it but it is somewhat new and a Character becoming Sa. Oxon to arraign that House with all the Insolence to which he can raise his wanton Pen. Laws that are in being are treated with respect even by those who move for their Repeal but our Drawcansir scorns that modest strain he is not contented to arraign the Law but calls it Barbarous and says That nothing can be more Barbarous and Prophane than to make the renouncing of a Mystery so unanimously received a State Test pag. 133. pag. 64. But he ought to have avoided the word Prophane since it leads men to remember that he had taxed the Praying for the King as under God and Christ as Crude not to say Prophane when in the Prospect he had then 36 of a Bishoprick he raised the King above Christ but now another Prospect will make him sink him beneath the Pope who is but at best Christ's Vicar But this is not all there comes another Flower that is worthy of him he tells us That the TEST was the