the remainder of your days you and they may redeem the time past by repenting your indiscreet zeal and study to be quiet and to do your own business to this I shall encourage you and that done to live as unoffensively to others and as strictly to your self as you do intend and by God's grace added to your endeavours he shall make you able and I humbly beseech Almighty God that you and I may daily practise an humble and a peaceable piety so humble and peaceable a piety as may stop the mouths of all gain-sayers for it is certain such holy and quiet living will bring peace at the last And in this the Almighty God give me grace to be like you Study to be quiet and to do your own business 1 Thes 4. 11. February the 18. 1667. Your Affectionate Friend and Cosin R. W. THE SECOND LETTER Dear Cousin I Return you my unseigned thanks for your Letter of the 15. instant which I received three days past it was mixt with love and anger but I shall in this my answer observe what you so earnestly desire namely not to justifie the Errors or Irregularities of those that you call my Party or my Clergy And for some testimony that I will do what I profess I will begin with a Confession that I think as you say That when a Clergy-man appears in a long curled trim Periwig a large Tippet and a silk Cossock or the like vain and costly Cloathing If he preaches against Pride and for Mortification his Hearers are neither like to believe him or practise what he preaches either then or at other times though what he says be an undoubted truth Because Example is of greater power to incline men to Vice than Precepts have to persuade to Virtue And I wish as heartily as you do that all such Clergy-mens Wives as have silk Cloaths be-daubed with Lace and their heads hanged about with painted Ribands were enjoyned Penance for their pride And their Husbands punisht for being so tame or so lovingly-simple as to suffer them for by such Cloaths they proclaim their own Ambition and their Husbands folly And I say the like concerning their striving for Precedency and for the highest places in Church-Pews And I wish as heartily as you do that double Benefices were not dispensed with to such an inconvenience as is now too visible And that no Dispensations might be granted for any man to be Prebend or Canon-Residentiary of two Churches Such as Westminster and Durham or Windsor and Wells Because Residence and the other duties required in those places is not consistent with their distance from each other nor with the Donors intention And also because such a single Prebend is a fair support for an humble Clergy-man and if he be proud or covetous he deserves not so much And I confess also what you say of a Clergy-mans bidding to fast on the Eves of Holy-days in Lent and the Ember Weeks And I wish those biddings were forborn or better practised by themselves for it is too visible they do not what the Church for good reasons enjoyns them and they others in the Churches name And I wish as heartily as you can that they would not only read but pray the Common Prayer and not huddle it up so fast as too many do by getting into a middle of a second Collect before a devout Hearer can say Amen to the first But you ought to consider that there be Ten thousand Clergy-men in this Nation for there are Nine thousand Parish Churches in it besides Colledges and Chappels and the number of them that be thus faulty are not many when compared with those that be grave and regular And I could name many of the Episcopal Clergy whose lives are so Charitable Humble and Innocent that they might say to their Parishioners as St. Paul of himself to his Philippians Walk so as you have me for an Example But I must confess there are too many that do not live so and with whom I am as much offended as you express your self to be And now having unbowelled my very soul thus freely to you and I protest as sincerely and truly as I can express my self My hope is that I shall in what follows appear to be so uninterested in any Party that where I speak evident truth and reason you will assent unto it in which hope I will endeavour to lay before you in my plain way the many inconveniences that would I think follow if that liberty were granted which you and your Party have so long and do still so earnestly strive for the effects of which liberty would be Schism Heresie Rebellion and Misery from which God prevent us I did in a Letter writ now some years past endeavour to unbeguile your Brother And though it did not at that present wholly do what I designed yet it abated so much of that furious zeal that had prepossest him that he declared on his death-bed The remembrance of those hours spent in devotion and acts of Charity were then his comfort and those spent in disputes and opposition to Government were now a Corrosive or as Solomon says of ill-gotten riches like gravel in his teeth And my dear Cozen in hope of the like good success I shall in the following part of my Letter commend the same or like Arguments to your consideration in order to the undeceiving you And I shall not be so curious for words or method as diligent to speak reason and truth plainly and without provocation And first I will consider our happiness that were born baptized and do now live in the Church of England which is believed by the most learned of all Foreign Churches to be the most Orthodox and Apostolical both for Doctrine and Discipline of all those very many that have reformed from the corruptions of the Church of Rome And I think it is worthy your noting that those Bishops and Martyrs that assisted in this Reformation did not as Sir Henry Wotton said wisely think the farther they went from the Church of Rome the nearer they got to heaven for they might go too far but they did with prudent and deliberate consideration retain what was consistent with Gods Word and the practice of the most Apostolical Primitive and purest times as may appear by the many unanswerable reasons that have been given against both the Non-Conformists and Papists that have excepted against our Reformation The first for retaining too much and the latter for not enough For you ought to note that neither of them have ever writ against the Doctrine or Discipline of this Church but they have received answers to their damage And this being considered you ought to lay to heart the disturbance that many of you that pretend to tenderness of Conscience have formerly made and do still make in this Church and State even at this present time And you ought to consider that if this Church were overthrown the Church of Rome would make
it their great advantage and therefore many of them do encourage and assist you in this present disturbance and for no other end And therefore look about you in time and do not say when it is too late You meant not to bring in Popery But remember I once told you there was a Lawyer that was so ignorant that he thought he spoke against his Clients Adversary when he spoke for him and meant it not And after such a manner you act for the Church of Rome For let me tell you that if ever Popery or a standing Army be set up in this Nation which God giant I may never see it is the indiscreet zeal and restless activity of you and your Party that will bring both in though you mean it not Let me ask you seriously Can you think the powerful man that is now become of the Romish Church did love you so much or like your Principles so well as to get a Suspension of the Laws against Conventicles because he liked your Opinions or your Practices when the power was in your hands in the time of the late mischievous Long Parliament 1640 Or can you think he or his Party did hold a Correspondence with some of the Chief of your Party for any other end but to assist in the ruine of the English Church no doubtless for they know and you ought to consider that if that were but down there were no visible bank to stop the stream of Popery And then farewel the liberty and care of tender Consciences There would be an end of that cajouling and flattery And next let me ask you this friendly question Do you think there is such a sin as Heresie And if you think there be let me ask you Whether he that holds Heretical Opinions should be suffered to go up and down to poyson and persuade others to his belief And if you believe he ought not so to do then I ask Whether Heresie can be known to be Heresie or prevented or punisht but by some power trusted in the hands of some Person or Persons whom the highest Power hath chosen and trusted to judg what is Heresie And then prevent or suppress and punish it And if you grant this which no man of reason will deny I hope you will grant Clergy-men whose time hath been spent in such studies as have enabled them to know truth and falshood are the fittest to Judg what is Heresie And if you grant this then these judges must have some name to distinguish them from others of the inferiour Clergy And if by a name of distinction I hope the known name of Bishop or Church Governour which is so frequently used in Scripture and the Writings of all the Fathers of the Church and so well known in this and all Nations will not be by you excepted against And this is told you in order to remembring you that in the time of the late Long Parliament 1640. the common Citizens had been so madded by the discourse and Sermons of the Nonconforming Ministers which pretended tenderness of Conscience that they being possest with a furious zeal went by troops to the Parliament at Westminster clamoured and affronted the Bishops as they went thither and cried out No Bishops no Bishops that is to say No Judges of Heresie or Schism No punishing of these which you call sins but we know are not We know what is truth and resolve to do what is good in our own eyes And by such clamours and the malicious misguided and active Zeal that then possest those people and a minor part of the Parliament then sitting The major and more prudent part of it were so affronted and threatned that they appeared not and in their absence the Bishops voted as useless as the said Zealous and Ignorant Common people had desir'd And now the hedge of Government and punishment being broken down Dell the Arch-Heretick Printed his Book against the Holy Ghost and that and so many such other Haeresies and Blasphemies were then Vented Printed and Justifified as I am neither willing to remember or name My good Cousin this was the effect of that ignorant zeal then and to this it tends now again And to this it will come if God be not so good to this sinful Nation as to make the Women the Shop-keepers and the middle-witted People of it less busie and more humble and lowly in their own eyes and to think that they are neither called nor are fit to meddle with and judge of the most hidden and mysterious points in Divinity and Government of the Church and State And instead of being Busie bodies which St. Peter accounts to be a sin 1 Pet. 4. 15. to follow that counsel which St. Paul gives to his Thessalonians To study to be quiet and to do their own business 2 Thes 4. 11. I have told you how the major part of the Parliament and the Bishops were used by the minor part and those pretenders to Conscience that were of their Party Now give me leave to tell you how these zealous men having gotten into all power used the two Vniversities of this Nation and those of the Beneficed Clergy that would not violate those Oaths they had taken both when they took their degrees in the Vniversity and at their entring into Holy Orders at their being made Deacons and Priests As also their Oaths to the Bishop at their admission into their spiritual Livings and the care of Souls And first for the usage of the Universities Doubtless all rational and uninterested men cannot but think the Universities fittest to make or judge of all lawful or unlawful Oaths As also of obedience to Governours But it was so far otherwise that very unlearned and very unfit men were sent to Visit judge and reform them And by them was also sent the Covenant and other Oaths to be taken without disputing to be taken even by all from the lowest Graduate to the highest in Order or Power or to lose their subsistence by being expelled both their Colledges and the University And this was executed with very great strictness and as much cruelty by these pretenders to tenderness of Conscience And in like manner were all conformable Beneficed Ministers used by a Committee of cruel and ignorant Triers who were to examine and judge of their Learning and their measures of Grace And if they were by them judged defective in either then they were unfit to hold their good Livings And by this means and their imposing the Covenant and other Oaths and their refusing to take them those good Livings became void and fit for those Tryers themsevles or their Friends that had Learning and Grace and Gratitude too And they were quickly got into possession and the right Owners as quickly imprisoned for not taking the Covenant and other Oaths contrary both to their Consciences and the many Oaths they had formerly taken Solomon in his Book of Wisdom Chap. 2. makes the wickedness of the ungodly first
to blind them and then he makes them to say Our power is the Law of righteousness And such was the Power and Law of these Tryers and such was their cruel usage of that Power as was too sadly testified by the great suffering of the Conformable Clergy Many whose great poverty and other sufferings were such and undergone with so much patience and so calm a sortitude for many had Wives and many Children that I protest I heard a very considerable Papist say in those times That if their Clergy would have suffered half so much in the days of King Edward the Sixth the Religion of the Protestants had never prevailed in England Which saying seemed to me very considerable And I think this to be considerable also That those Tryers and their Brethren of the several Committees came by degrees to distinguish themselves from others by calling themselves The Godly Party And by degrees came to such a confidence that they only were so that they made God to be as cruel and ill natured a God as they were men Not allowing him to save any but themselves and their Party But I will urge this no farther lest the truth I write seem too bitter But I return to what may seem more considerable and probably less provoking I do observe that your Party that scruple many small things scruple not at the great sin of Schism I think they do scarce consider or think there is such a sin And this is the more to be wondred at because in all the Reformed Churches in Foreign Nations they think otherwise and punish it And they think the Doctrine and Discipline and Publick Worship of God in our Church to be most Apostolical and most agreeable to the Word of God And many of them wish theirs were like to ours And for a testimony of this I refer you to a view of their several approbations of it as they be collected and summed up and lately published by Dr. Durell sometimes Preacher of the Resormed French Church in the Savoy in London And for one testimony that the sin of Schism ought to be better considered and carefully avoided by all people I shall in what follows give you a relation that may prove I am not singular in this opinion Wishing most affectionately that it may proveas useful as-it is true and as I intend it In the late persecution of the Conformable Clergy there was Dr. Eleazer Duncon a Prebend I think of Ely or Durham a man of singular learning and of an unblemisht life but sequestred he was and you may guess why This good man being sequestred and so made useless as to the service of Gods Church publickly And being independent of the world as to Wife and Children and weary of beholding the ruine of so many sacred Structures the cruel usage contempt and poverty of the Conformable Clergy for many of them had Wives and Children resolved to spend some part of the remaining part of his life in travel And thereby to inform himself by conference and observation what the belief and publick Worship of God was both in the Greek and all the Latine Churches not only those that depend but those that be independent on the Church of Rome and he did so to his great satisfaction And after some years so spent in his return homeward which was in the year 1648. he took Venice in his way To which place he came indisposed as to his health and immediately fell into a dangerous Fever This good man was in his long Travel so noted for his learning and the sanctity of his life that the day after his arrival in Venice he was sent to by Father Fulgentio who had been the Pupil and was now the Successor to Father Paul in his Colledge of the Service Father Paul and Fulgentio are both so known and valued by all the learned of Italy and all other Christian Nations that they neither need my Character or Commendations to enquire his health and an offer of advice to procure it And in order to both he would wait on him next day if he pleased to allow it The last of which being thankfully accepted the Father did the next day at a seasonable hour make him a charitable visit And after a loving and quiet Conference the Father having treated him with words of Christian compassion offered him a supply of money if he needed and being ready to take his leave told the Doctor He and his Colledge should pray for him both day and night Which good office the Doctor most humbly accepted of and after giving thanks added this Father your Charity is the more perfect in that you will do this Christian office for one that your Church accounts an Heretick To which the Father's reply was But I do not I look upon you as a true Catholick yea as a Confessor forced out of your Native Country for the profession of the most true Religion for I look upon the Church of England as I know it by your Liturgy Articles and Canons I know not your practice to be the most Apostolical Church in the whole World and the Church of Rome to be at this time the most impure After which ingenuous profession the Father observing the Doctor to grow saint and uneasie left him for that time but after the Doctors recovery and during his stay in Venice the Father and he had many free and friendly discourses of the same subject in one of which the Doctor said Father your Confession of the impurity of the Roman Church and the 18. of your own Objections lately shew'd to me against it require an Apology for your continuing in that Communion To which the Fathers reply was A man may live in an infected City and not have the Plague My Judgment and publick Practice in Religion are both so well known here and at Rome and both to my danger and damage that I may continue in it with more safety than others And separation may be a sin in me who Judge the unity of the Church in which I was baptized and confirmed and the peace of the State in which I was born to be preferred before my private opinion interest or satisfaction and I think to commit a Schism and separate from that Church would make me guilty of the sin of a Scandal justly given and therefore live in it and die in it I must though it be the impurest of Christian Churches But let him that now is not of it never be of that Church which is so far departed from the Primitive purity and now maintained only by splendour and the maxims and practice of polity If you doubt the truth * The truth needs not be doubted by any that shall first know that Father Paul writ the History of the Council of Trent And then reads his Life as it is truly writ by his Disciple and Successour this Father Fulgentio and now Printed before the said History of this relation I will give
how restless and active her Vnkle and Father and the rest of the Presbyterian Party had been in promoting the late Confusions and placing all Power in that Parliament 1640. that murthered Dr. Laud the late religious Bishop of Canterbury the late good and pious King Charles and were the cause of spilling so much innocent bloud and ruine of so many harmless Families Can you think hers to be a reasonable excuse That God had determined or appointed this because we were a sinful Nation It shall be granted that we were God knows we still are a sinful Nation And deserved a heavy punishment and God did punish us justly but they had no appointment to be the executioners of that Justice They appointed themselves first to judge and then to be the Executioners of his will And before I pass further I pray observe it was Gods Will that his only Son our Saviour should be betrayed But who would be the Judas to do it Or the Souldiers that Crucified him Or could Judas look back with comfort that he was used in betraying him I hope it is far from your thought to think or say so Let me tell you that the learned Dr. Abbot the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury that was next before Dr. Laud whose head your Long Parliament cut off intended to kill a Buck 1621. but the Arrow did so glance that he kill'd the Keeper immediately The Church of England judges sudden death to be a punishment and therefore prays against it And though it is certain God would not have punished that Keeper with a sudden death if the Keeper had not deserved it and certain also that the good Bishop thought so yet he lamented to the last hour of his own life that his hand was used to bring sudden death upon another And he testified his sorrow by what I shall relate to you After that restless night which followed this sad accident he sent early in the morning for the Keepers Wife bemoan'd himself to her and begg'd her pardon which being obtained he setled upon her an annuity by which she was enabled to live with much more ease and plenty though probly with less comfort than if she had still enjoyed her Husband For her two Daughters he provided competent portions and a better education and settlement for her three Sons than the Father could probably have made if he had still lived This he did for them And as for himself this sad accident begot in him that which St. Paul rejoyced to find in his Corinthians 2 Cor. 7. 11. even a godly sorrow and revenge for he kept a severe Weekly Fast the day that this sad accident besel him during the remainder of his life and died lamenting it Let me stop here and tell you it is far otherways with you and your Presbyterian Party than with this penitent Bishop For though it is most certain you were the cause of the late Confusion in the Church and of the War and Bloud that followed it yet I do not find one of you that lays his hand upon his breast and says Lord what have I done Lord pardon me No you are far from that temper And he that considers the temper of the present times and your restless activity in it may conclude you are as willing to begin new Commotions as you are senseless of the old My meaning is not in saying this to upbraid or provoke you but rather to convince and unbeguile you And that I may the better do that I will in what follows answer some of the most material of your common objections You say the Bishops have great revenues and preach not for it to which I will answer you in love First you say that the Bishops revenues are much greater than indeed they are And you seem to repine because you do not consider how much must go out of them by First-Fruits Tenths and other payments of necessity And you ought to consider much must go out in Bounty and Charity and some in Hospitality and State I say in state and attendance For is it fit that the Judge of all the inferiour Clergy of his Diocess and of many of the Laity should not have a liberal Revenue and live in more plenty and splendour than the Common People do or can do Doubtless it is necessary For let him be never so prudent and diligent so inwardly humble and outwardly meek yet if he have not a Revenue to live above the Common People he must make himself a Companion for them and lose the reverence due to his Dignity and by that make himself both cheap and contemptible and he that will consider the necessity of a Bishop's living thus and the small Revenue that most of the Bishops have may turn his maligning them their Revenue into a wonder how they make their Revenue to do it and a pity it is no more There are indeed some few of them whose Revenues do abound and I think I shall not be mistaken if I say there have been by them more High-ways mended and more Hospitals Schools and Colledges built and endowed than by five times their number of Lay Lords or by all the Physcians and Lawyers of this Nation though very many of their employments turn to much more profit and yet theirs is not repined at And let me tell you also it is not often that any is made a Bishop till the age of sixty years and then he undertakes the Care and toyl of Government to prevent Heresie and Schisin or suppress and punish them and as occasion serves by his writing to defend this Church from the Clamours of the Church of Rome or the restless Sectaries of this And may not the Revenue of a Bishop be thought a just reward for his forty years past study and his present care though he preach not And yet many of them do preach often though not weekly And let me add this to what is said What if the King should give the Revenue to a Bishop only because he is learned and condition with him not to preach or make a Doctor of the Civil Law a Bishop who is not in Orders and should not preach but govern which I think he may do what is this to you or your Party You ought to consider this and that the Bishops Revenues was never theirs nor yours nor your Predecessors nor can any man now living claim it for his It is only and most certainly Gods given to him by our Kings Predecessors and our King appoints who shall govern the Church under him and have the Churches Revenue for their reward More might be added but I am as weary of saying this as you will be to read it Now for Preaching I praise God I understand my duty both to him and my neighbour the better by hearing of Sermons And though I be desective in the performance of both for which I beseech Almighty God to pardon me yet I had been a much worse Christian if I
had not frequented the blessed Ordinance of Preaching which has convinced me of my many sins past and begot such terrours of Conscience as have begot in me holy resolutions to amend my life and earnest Prayers to Almighty God the giver of all grace to enable me by his grace to perform those holy resolutions This benefit and many other like benefits I and other Christians have had by Preaching And God forbid we should ever use it so or so provoke him by our other sins as to withdraw this blessed Ordinance from us or turn it into a curse by preaching Heresie and Schism which too many have done in the late time of Rebellion and indeed now do in many Conventicles and their Auditors think such Preaching is serving God when God knows it is contrary For can you think to sit an hour in a warm Room upon an easie seat your head covered your mind at rest and your malicious humour pleased to hear your Governours scandalized and with their scandals some new needless Notions offered to your consideration and then their truth or falshood left for you to judge and determine Can you think you are at this time serving God or satisfying your own curiosity or malicious humour doubtless not serving God Nay let it be granted that you hear nothing but truth preach'd yet I question whether the direction how you should honour and serve God be honouring and serving him For example If a Master calls his Servant and gives him positive directions what he shall do the day following and the Servant hears him with good attention but neglects to do what he is directed Can you think the hearing his Masters direction is serving him No doubtless it is not it is granted he could not have known his Masters will without hearing it but he serves him not by hearing his direction but doing his Will And the like may be observed concerning your magnifying extemporary Prayer by gifted men in publick and contempt of the Church Liturgy The first of which you call praying by the Spirit but doubtless it was an evil Spirit that John Lilbourn Hugh Peters and many others of your Party prayed by in the days of Cromwel the Tyrant when they prayed to God to prolong his life to strengthen his Arm and inable him with zeal and courage to perfect what he had so happily begun and make a thorow Reformation in the Church and whole Nation And in the same Prayer to libel our late vertuous King by praying to God that if he had not wholly withdrawn his grace and given him over to a reprobate sense that he would at last bring him back from his present evil Council to his great Council the present godly Parliament Thus or to this purpose was that pious and prudent King libelled in your publick extemporary Prayers and the Tyrant magnified by those that were so shameless as to call themselves the godly Party And many well meaning people were so beguiled as to say Amen to what was thus prayed And by this means the Church Liturgy came to be abhorred by some and neglected by almost all And can you think praying thus and appointing God in their Prayers what he was to do for them and their Cause and when and by what manner and means he was to do it was honouring and serving him No doubtless God forbid that private Christians should be so tied to set Forms of Prayer as not in their retired and private devotions to make their private Confessions of their private sins to the searcher of all hearts and beg their pardon of him and pray extempore for such a measure of his assisting grace so to strengthen them that they may never relapse into those or the like sins This doubtless is to honour and serve God but this is but to honour and serve him privately And if I be mistaken in my private Prayers my mistakes concern only my self and end there But it is not so in your Publick extemporray Prayers the mischief is not ended when the Prayers are And that these should justle out the well-known and approyed Prayers of the Church which were composed and so pathetically and properly worded by the assistance of Gods Spirit in many of those blessed Martyrs and Confessors whom he made his Instruments to settle and reform the Church of England from the gross Corruptions of that of Rome I say that you and your Party should not when you consider this grieve to think it was done by you is to me a wonder and I praise God that he makes me look upon it with a thankful detestation And now good Cosin give me leave to tell you as I did your Brother in a Letter writ some years past what I do or ought in duty to do when I make my self a Member of any Christian Congregation assembled to pay reverence to Almighty God and pray and praise him according to the Injunction and Custom of our Church First We all do I am sure they that know best and are most devout do all kneel and as many as well may with their faces toward the East and in that order and humble posture and with one consent all make their general and humble Confession of their unworthiness to appear before God by reason of their many and grievous sins past And we beg pardon for them and his grace to serve him the remaining part of our lives with more purity and holiness And having confest and prayed thus if the Searcher of all hearts does bear witness with us that this Confession and these Prayers be sincere and that our purpose is to amend our lives and obey him better We do and may put on a modest confidence that he will assist us with his grace and be assured that he is at peace with us and loves us And this being done in an humble and ardent manner we proceed to laud and magnifie our God in a joynt repeating a part of the Psalms which are all composed of gratitude and mercy And then apply our selves to the hearing some part of Gods holy Word read for our information and comfort And then to a publick profession of our Christian Faith And then we again betake our selves to beg of God that by his preventing grace we may be that day delivered from the temptations and miseries that threaten our souls and bodies and beg for his assisting grace to strengthen us so that we may oppose and overcome both And having thus humbly confest our sins and thus profest our Christian Faith and thus begg'd his pardon and both his preventing and assisting grace for the time to come And all these in such a manner as they be all most pathetically exprest in the several Collects of our Church-prayers The Congregation is dissolv'd with the Priests blessing and all-betake themselves to their several employments And for my part I think God and his holy Angels look down with joy when they behold a Christian Congregation thus in one manner