it was the greater temptation to me to send it to the Press as I did and have added so much to what I had written at the College that it requires but very little to put a conclusion to it In this Discourse as I have considered all the cases and circumstances of that Law with much more exactness than any have done before me so I have particularly levell'd a considerable part of it against one Chapter of Mr. Selden in his Book De Successionibus and have very largely exposed the vanity of the Rabbinical Learning and the manifest unskilfulness of that sort of men in the Antiquities of their own Nation and if I have not found out a new Key to open and interpret the Mosaick Law yet thus much at least I have done I have applied it to several Laws to which it hath not been applied before and have abundantly discovered the extreme impudence as well as ignorance of the Aegyptian Moses and other celebrated Masters of the Jewish Learning I have likewise in an occasional Essay upon that subject demonstrated the Antiquity of Episcopal and Diocesan government in the Jewish Church the dependence of the inferiour Clergy upon the Bishop of the Diocess and the subjection of all the Bishops of the Province of Judaea to the Arch-Bishop or High-Priest at Jerusalem I have shewn that this was the Government to which our Saviour and his Apostles being members of the Jewish Church submitted and not onely so but that the Jews had among them a Patriarchal dignity likewise that is such Bishops as having their usual residence in Jerusalem or in Judaea had the care and inspection of the Churches in the dispersion which was likewise imitated by our Saviour in his modell of the Christian Church and certainly if their be no such harm in a Patriarch that is a foreign visitour or inspectour if this were imitated and approved by our Saviour himself then much â—â—ss can there lie any exception against a domestick and residing Bishop to whose authority likewise our Saviour submitted and consequently approved of that sort of Government which I will grant in its first original to have been of humane institution if that will please our Dissenters for all they will get by it will be this that our Saviour himself did allow of humane institutions in the Christian Church and did submit to them and that this not being a part of the Mosaick Law so far as that Law consisted of types and shadows which were to be done away as being fulfilled and answered by their antitype in the person and dispensation and sacrifice of Christ the reasons of convenience upon which this government was founded remain still the same and therefore that there is no reason why it should be altered though it had not been recommended to us by our Saviour's example which may justly be thought to give it a jus divinum though it had none before for he was by no means a Presbyterian and much less an Independent And yet if this business be examined into the bottom though the granting it to be of humane institution will doe the Separatists no manner of service it will be found that this government was instituted by Moses and establish'd by Joshua both of which acted by divine appointment and by consequence it having nothing which was properly Judaical that is which was of a Typical or Symbolical nature nothing that had any necessary dependence upon or conexion with their Sacrifices and lustrations and other Ceremonies of that Vmbratick dispensation there is the same reason why it should last after those shadows were done away as well as when they were lookt upon to be in full force and were esteemed the most indispensably sacred I have also in the same treatise demonstrated the antiquity and the reason of the Priestly maintenance by tithes and I have shewn upon what account it was that the tenth of all the fruits of the Earth and the encrease of Cattel was offered to God and that the reason holds every whit as good to this day as it was either in the Levitical times or in those that went before them And upon this occasion I have considered very briefly the question so much controverted concerning usury I have demonstrated its lawfulness to all but the ancient Jews and by the same clue I have opened a way to a better understanding of the Chronology of the times before the Floud and so long after it as the age of man was reckoned to be an hundred and twenty years and have besides made it evidently appear what was the true meaning of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the computation of the ancient Chaldeans and what it was that gave both name and notion to the Kalendae and the Idus among the Romans things that are as yet a secret to the World But it being so ordered by divine providence that while I was employed in this kind of meditations there fell a living void in this City in the gift of the worshipfull Company of Salters I laid my antiquities aside to try what interest I could make among them for the obtaining their favour in the disposal of it and I was so successfull thanks to my good friends who appeared very zealous and very numerous for me that had the business poceeded to a Poll when the first Court was called which was a common hall consisting of the whole freedom I have reason to believe my circumstances at that time would have carried it against any of my Competitours although my merit were very short of some And now having laid aside my new designs compell'd by a welcome necessity of my affairs as I had done my old ones for another reason I began as I had leisure from that continual hurry in which my competition had engaged me to sit down and consider seriously with my self which I could not doe without a mixture of pleasure and melancholy together in what a labyrinth of different and disagreeing undertakings I had entangled my self and being returned again from a remote corner of the Town into the neighbourhood of Decency and Order I had as it is usual with old friends a very great desire notwithstanding the late unkindness that had past between us to see them once more and renew our our old acquaintance and try if it were possible in the midst of such confusion to reduce them to a better agreement with themselves as well as with me and make them answer to their own names instead of those of Chaos Rhapsodie and Cento by which they now began to be much better known And the best expedient I could think of to save my self harmless from the censures of men with as little injury to the Book-seller as might be for I would have no man suffer upon my account if I could help it was after a retrenchment of several sheets which are now wholly lost and indeed were
and undoubted truth of those principles which I have formerly laid down to be the square and measure of obligation and which being applied to any particular case will in every thing resolve what is true or false Plenius melius Chrysippo Crantore Principles that will obtain to the confusion of Popery enthusiasm and every evill work when the envy of this age is under ground and when the heads of two or three Metaphysical Opiniatours are cold whatever they may doe at present of which I am not solicitous but am content to take men and things as I find them with as little disturbance and trouble as I can to my self Et mihi res non me rebus submittere conor And as I have intimated already nature and experience cannot deceive us though antiquity may it does not follow because such a polity or such a form of Government was in use among the ancients whether in church or state that therefore the example of antiquity lays any manner of obligation upon us which is extrinsique to the reason of the thing but as Livy saith of History in general hoc illud est praecipuè in cognitione rerum salubre ac frugiferum omnis te exempli documenta in illustri posita monumento intueri inde tibi tuaeque Reip. quod imitere capias inde foedum inceptu foedum exitu quod vites I say what he saith of History in general the same is true of ecclesiastical history in particular and though it does not follow that the Episcopal government is therefore of necessity the best because antiquity submitted to it who possibly in this as well as many other things may very well be mistaken for the ancients were but men no more than we yet when the history of all the several ages of the Church shall not onely recommend this government to us by its perpetual and uninterrupted example but shall also inform us over and above how usefull and expedient this government hath always been to the preservation of the peace and unity of the Church and how fatal the disobedience of Presbyters to their Bishop hath been found by being the occasion of great calamities and disorders in it as well of old time as now of late in the experience of our own age and nation in this case antiquity backed by experience gives us all the assurance which it is possible for us to receive in a matter of this nature that the Episcopal constitution as being found by experience to be the most wholsome for the preservation of the Churches health and for the preventing all those maladies and diseases to which the body Ecclesiastick would otherwise be exposed is therefore unquestionably the best that can be thought of and hath besides a right of immemorial prescription the advantage of long experience which in matters of this nature is the most powerfull reason to recommend it to us It is with government in the body politick as it is with medicines in the natural the end of medicine is health and the end of government is obedience and peace and therefore though it does not follow because Hippocrates or Galen in a case proposed made such or such a recipe consisting of such ingredients and compounded in such proportions together that therefore the Physicians of our times whenever the same case occurs must of necessity prescribe after the same manner for we must examine not onely into the prescription it self but also into the success of it with respect to the patient we must compare patient and patient and then patient and prescription together we must allow for the difference of climate constitution and diet betwixt one patient and another and if when all these things have been considered such a course of physick or such a method of cure in such a case proposed shall be found to have been successfull in the time of those old Physicians and ever since here is an Empirical demonstration which cannot easily deceive us what we are to doe at this time of the day and in this case antiquity joined to success is a very powerfull argument in behalf of the prescription or the method given and look how much greater the antiquity is and how much more frequent the cases that have occurred and the good success that hath all along attended them have been so much the stronger is the argument which is drawn from antiquity in their behalf not so much for the sake of the antiquity it self as for the success and good fortune of the course that hath been taken Wherefore the end of physick being health as the end of government is good order and obedience and the fitness of means being to be measured by their suitableness to that end to which they are directed it is manifest that experience must determine the controversie in both cases and as that physick or that diet or that air is certainly the best which hath the most wholsome and salutary effects upon the natural body so is that sort of establishment or polity whether in Church or State undoubtedly the best which hath always been found to be most productive of peace most powerfully influential upon obedience and good order and the best fitted to prevent the inconveniences with which the want or absence of government would be attended Therefore the question is this what sort of government is that which is most for the Churches health and peace and safety is it a co-ordinate administration or will it be better for the obtaining of these ends that its government as it is in the body natural and in all other political bodies whatsoever do not consist of parts that are all of them of equal dignity or power but that one part be dependent upon another and that the whole be knit together by a steady and regular subordination Let us put the case in an army can that army be well governed all whose officers have equal power and dignity with one another or did not the rebels themselves in the late unhappy times when they raised an army and levied an unnatural war against their king did not they make this difference in the commissions which they gave that some were to be Generals others Major and Lieutenant Generals others commanders of Tertia's or Brigades Colonels of Regiments and so down to Captains Lieutenants and Ensigns now either this depended upon the nature of government in the general or it did not if it did as what is an army but an armed commonwealth or city submitting to certain rules of discipline and obedience within themselves then the nature of government is in both cases the same and consequently a subordination in the church militant is every whit as necessary for the preservation of its unity and peace as it was in the schism either militant or triumphant But if it do not depend upon the nature of government and society considered in the general then there is no reason why an army may not be managed by a
so passionate exhortations to the Presbyters to pay that duty and obedience which they owed to their Bishop as the messenger of God and the vicegerent of Christ in that particular diocese wherein he was placed but when all these endeavours of good and holy men proved ineffectual as all exhortation is ineffectual with the generality of mankind where there is not a power sufficient to force obedience it seemed good at last to the wisedom of the Church to remove the occasions of such evils for the future by enlarging the power of the Bishop and to curb the insolence of the Presbytery by removing its cause which was their meeting together with him in the diocesan convocation upon any occasional emergence that might happen but yet the Bishop was not by this means rendred absolute neither but there lay an appeal from him to the Metropolitan or Patriarch to a provincial or oecumenical dyet and to the standing canons and constitutions of the church which it was not in his power to violate or alter and in which all the great lines of obedience were contained And this alteration in the government of the church depended upon the same reason with the disanulling popular elections either of Bishops or particular pastours which being found by long and wofull experience to be the occasion of perpetual tumult and disorder in the church the fruitfull parent of everlasting feuds animosities and factions to the unspeakable detriment both of church and state was in process of time partly disused of it self by the peoples being weary of so troublesome a right and partly by the interposition of imperial rescripts and by the authority of the civil laws of our own and other nations It was very natural in the beginnings of the church to allow some what more to the Presbyters in consultation with their Bishop and to the people in the choice of both than was consistent with the policy of after-times because Pueris dant crustula blandi Doctores elementa velint ut discere prima when churches and ecclesiastical societies were first to be gathered men were to be allured by privileges and to be enticed by power a thing of which all mankind are naturally very fond as well as to be convinced by arguments to espouse the cause and interest of Christianity but when the religion of Christ had taken deep root in the world when the temptations of honour and preferment and the dangers of persecution from the Pagan powers were now utterly removed and extinguished and when at the same time the world being turned Christian the dangers and inconveniences of popular elections increased with the number of the electours and the Presbytery by reason of their number began to be formidable to the Bishop as well as troublesome and tumultuous among one another which must of necessity have been the occasion of very great calamities and very sad as well as frequent revolutions if a timely stop were not put this made it necessary upon the same principle of convenience to abrogate this power upon which it seems first to have been introduced if indeed it were introduced upon any reason at all but onely a gradual and insensible encroachment in both cases and upon the supinity in or neglect of the governours of the church who did not possibly foresee those horrid inconveniences with which this way of management would afterwards be attended For my part I am so firmly of opinion that the great design of religion is charity good-will and peace that I take it to be a certain argument of an institution or custome essentially bad when it is directly calculated for the disturbance of the world and whatever becomes of the antiquity of the business which is used to afford matter of specious discourse on both sides of the question in several important cases and particularly in these which I have so lately mentioned yet if it could be proved that antiquity and interest were fallen out with one another it is in this case but reasonable to consider that the longer we and our fore-fathers have laboured under the painfull and prejudicial consequences of errour the more it would behove us to think of a reformation which if it be not allowed to be a good argument in behalf of truth the Protestant Religion will be utterly unable to defend it self and we should consider likewise that even in point of antiquity nature and the standing interest of the world are much ancienter things than any the oldest custome can pretend to be and therefore if antiquity be the measure by which we are resolved to proceed it will follow that nature and interest must prescribe to custome and not custome to them Nay if it could be never so demonstrably proved that our Saviour did by his example or by his institution recommend to posterity the presbyterian modell or the congregational way though it can hardly be supposed that he who was God as well as man could be guilty of so great a mistake in the true art and mystery of government yet these being found afterwards by experience to be very inconsistent with the great end of the Gospel which is charity and peace it is manifest that the means having onely a relative or conditional nature and being to be either used or rejected in proportion to their fitness or unsuitableness to their end the end of the Gospel which is peace would have obliged posterity to alter that institution though of Christ himself which was found by experience to be inconsistent with it or rather since the declared design of our Saviour's coming into the world was to reconcile God to men and men to one another and since the causeless feuds and animosities of men do set them at enmity with God as well as among themselves since they extinguish that calm serene and charitable spirit without which neither our persons nor our sacrifices can be accepted since it is impossible in the language of St. John to love God whom we have not seen unless we can also love our brother whom we have seen this would have been a plain argument when he preached peace and yet established such a form of government as had a direct or a comparative tendency to confusion one of which is the case of the Independent churches and the other of the Presbyterian form with relation to the more perfect and compleat establishment of the Episcopal subordination I say it would have been a plain argument either that he had war in his heart notwithstanding that his words were smoother than oyle and that though he talked of peace yet he designed contention or else if he were sincere in what he did that he did not understand the message he came about and in either of those cases he must be acknowledged to be a gross impostour when he pretended to be sent from God for God sends no man to disturb the world unless it be for our sins as other great plagues and calamities are inflicted but
they had not used to put them off which was therefore done because every meal among the Jews but more especially their solemn Feasts was in the nature of a Feast upon a Sacrifice as I could prove more largely if it would not be a digression and therefore being about an act of religious Worship they were used to put their shoes off as the custom of those Countries was in like cases For this reason the Turks at this day do alwaies goe barefoot into their Moschs and it was a Precept of Pythagoras recorded by Iamblichus in his Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sacrifice and worship God with your shoes off The Romans also did the same at their Feasts as is evident from several places of Martial and others Joshua is likewise commanded by the Angel of the Lord to doe as Moses had done before him Josh 5. 15. Loose thy shoe from off thy foot for the place whereon thou standest is holy and Joshua did so Marinus relates of Proclus that he being about to worship God made use of this Ceremony in the performance of his Devotions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And because the Servants as I conceive were used to attend their Masters to Divine Service as Naaman the Syrian was used to goe along with his Master to the Temple of Rimmon and there to take off their shoes or sandals for them from thence is that proverbial Speech of John the Baptist concerning our Saviour whose Fore runner and Harbinger he was Joh. 1. 27. He it is who coming after me is preferred before me whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose Lastly in allusion to this custom is that passage of Juvenal in his sixth Satyr deinde adamas notissimus Berenices In digito factus pretiosior hunc dedit olim Barbarus incestoe dedit hunc Agrippa sorori Observant ubi festa mero pede sabbata reges Et vetus indulget senibus clementia porcis So that here we have two plain Instances of Institutions in matters of an indifferent nature approved by God but commanded onely by men for an immemorial custome whose original or legislative sanction cannot be traced and perhaps it never had any but crept in by degrees is as much an humane Institution as a possitive Command of whose Author we can give never so clear an account as the Common Law of England is every whit as much of humane institution as the Statute and those Tenures which hold onely by Custom or Prescription are to all intents and purposes as good as those which have Deeds and Charters to produce Wherefore if Custom may be comply'd with in these cases then so may any other humane Institution and if Custom may not then is it unlawfull for us to goe to our Devotions at those times when our Neighbours and Country-men are used to frequent them because this is an Imposition upon our Liberty which is not ty'd up either to place or time any more than to any other indifferent circumstance of action But if the places and times of Divine Worship may be lawfully determined by the Authority of the Church and if they may not then the Church has no power to see that God be worshipped at all for he must be worshipped at some place or time or other then I see no reason why the same Authority may not equally extend to all other indifferent circumstances of action As for the use of Liturgies and Set-forms of Prayer in the Christian Church there is nothing more plain than that as far as we can trace Antiquity they have been constantly used several of the ancient Liturgies are at this day extant among us and the Service both of the Church of Rome and our's is in a great measure taken from thence nay so ancient and in such constant use have they alwaies been in the Christian Church that we have unquestionable Instances of them in the Apostolical times themselves as hath been learnedly observed by a Dr. Lloyd Bishop of St. Asaph Reverend Prelate of our own from Justin Martyr in his second Apology who calls the Prayers of the Christians in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Common Prayers and from Pliny in an Epistle to Trajan very often cited by Learned men in defence of the Christians of the primitive times who being examined by him concerning their Manners and Religion affirmabant hanc fuisse summam vel culpoe suoe vel erroris quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carménque Christo quasi Deo dicere sécum invicem c. The Learned Prelate whom I have newly mentioned understands this place of Verses answering one another by turns as we speak the reading Psalms and I know not saith he how he cou'd better express it And indeed this must be allow'd to be a very proper and a no less acute and ingenious Interpretation for the Psalms themselves were many of them nothing else but Hymns of Praise and Thanksgiving which were composed for the Service of the Temple and this ancient way of worshipping God by Hymns as well in the heathen World as among Jews and Christians is evident from the Hymns of Homer Orpheus Callimachus and others among the Greeks from Hymns of a like nature to be met with in the Interludes of the ancient Dramatick Poesie in the Odes of Horace and in the Writings of Statius Catullus and others And in allusion to this it is that the same Pliny saies in a Complyment to Trajan Animadverto etiam deos ipsos non tam accuratis adorantium precibus quà m innocentiâ sanctitate loetari gratiorémque existimari qui delubris eorum puram castámque mentem quà m qui meditatum carnem intulerit Among the Christians to be sure the singing of Psalms and Hymns in honour of God and Christ and for the mutual benefit and edification of one another was alwaies looked upon as a special Duty and we have several places of Scripture which do not onely vouch and justifie but also enjoyn this Practice If therefore Hymns and Psalms in which many are to bear their parts cannot possibly be sung but by a Form if they must be composed before they can be sung if this be a true and proper exercise of Devotion and Divine Worship if Praise and Thanksgiving be essential parts of Prayer as is manifest from that Petition in our Saviour's own Form Hallowed be thy Name nay if it be the most exalted and sublime exercise of a devout mind and if all this may be done and in many cases must be done by a Set-form then why may not the same be true of all other parts of Prayer and why may we not from hence conclude that a Form of Prayer as it is alwaies lawfull so it is in some cases necessary to be used it is necessary because Psalms and Hymns cannot be sung without it and it is necessary because in some cases we are enjoyned to sing Psalms or Hymns by
I cannot imagine but I shall do in all so as notwithstanding the conceptions which are uttered may be materially different from one another yet they will all bear their part in the harmonious consort of our common design which is to perswade to communion and to peace this ought in reason to be looked upon since we have not at any time compared notes together nor have ever had any private conference at Sevill or Valadolid or any other place to be not so much the voice of prejudice as of nature which is every where uniform and like her self and being attentively and heedfully consulted will be sure to pronounce the same sentence where the cases themselves are not different from one another But though all other considerations and motives should desert me when I pretend to give a reason of publishing these papers yet this I am sure will not that if by the usefulness of my performance I cannot doe an immediate service to the cause it self yet that cannot possibly suffer any disparagement from so obscure a Champion for it and I shall at least doe a collateral service by giving an advantage to others upon the comparison and therefore I beg of Your Lordship if I am not so happy to make a succesfull attaque upon the enemies of our Church who hold out obstinately notwithstanding all their arguments are answered their trenches filled up and their bastions beat about their ears yet that at least I may be suffered to be a foil to its friends and to appear in the company of those for whom I have so great an honour and esteem Velut Hedera serpens inter victrices lauros But that which was the chief inducement to me to come abroad at this time or rather a provocation which I could not resist was that to frustrate the design of my competition when I appeared a candidate for the Salters favour the memory of this Sermon was by mine enemies made use of as an objection against me and though this stratageme was far from having that malevolent influence upon the success of my affairs which was intended it appearing after all that I had a very powerfull interest in that Loyal body yet I had reason to take it very ill that that which was an instance of my Loyalty and affection to the government and the Religion established and therefore ought in justice to have been an argument in my behalf should be made an article of impeachment against me And for that reason I was resolved to publish what I had written partly to vindicate my self and partly that being challenged at so bold a rate with that which was my duty and was indeed mine honour as if it had been an unpardonable fault not to publish it at such a critical juncture might be interpreted a disowning of what I had done which I abhor to think of and have taken this course to purge and vindicate my self in the best manner I can as well from the suspicion of so detestable a baseness as from the guilt and blackness of the crime it self And as I was firmly bent upon this honest resolution those words of our Saviour came into my mind which he spake to his Disciples in his Sermon on the mount and which have a particular reference to the Clergy in all ages Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost its savour wherewith shall it be salted I considered that salt by naturallists was looked upon as the great principle of fixation and rest that by the ancients it was accounted a symbol of friendship and a token of peace and upon such accounts as these thought I within my self it cannot be that the Salters who are a Loyal body firm to the King and the Religion established who are desirous to promote that peace and good correspondence among men which is the very life of trade and the greatest blessing of life and by consequence are zealous for that uniformity of divine worship without which experience tells us there is no peace to be had it cannot be that they who are thus disposed should be displeased with me for being like themselves so that instead of losing any thing of my interest among them I did rather promise my self abundance of advantage from the honesty of this action which if it be not otherwise rewarded will sit down contented in the enjoyment of it self and will abundantly make up with inward satisfaction whatever it wants of any outward reward If the salt have lost its savour in the original it is if we may call the Greek the original of St. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Your Lordship knows to be a Latinism as there are many such in the New Testament si sal infatuetur for this is the meaning of fatuus in Latin it signifies a pall'd and phlegmy substance that hath no taste nor relish no savour life or spirit in it it is a floating sediment and a liquid Caput mortuum and therefore it is very fitly applied in the metaphorical way to insignificant and useless persons the men of latitude and moderation that have not the courage nor the honesty to declare themselves but live in a Commonwealth with the same listless and unconcerned indifference as if they were not members of it which if it have any effect at all it must needs be a very bad one by keeping the disagreeing parties at a bay by casting a tacit and supposed reflexion upon such as dare stand up in defence of the Government and the Laws as if they were not so good or at least not so wise as they should be and by giving at the same time a secret encouragement to the disaffected interest and party as if their cause were such that all the moderate and sober sort would side with them if they durst but dare not in Conscience take part with the Laws against them And yet after all this is fatuum in both senses it is not onely insipid but it is foolish too and certainly for any man to sit still with his armes folded and his eyes dropping into a forgetfull slumber pretending neither to see nor feel any thing about him when his own interest which is involved in that of the publick lies at stake and when by declaring for his Country against a Faction he may ensure himself and get a great deal of deserved honour and reputation into the bargain is at once a most prodigious wickedness and a most despicable folly together for though they doe a present service to the Faction by it yet it is true with them as it is with us he that is not with us is against us and so it will be seen if ever they get the day that the indifferent standers by shall fare no better than he that made a stout and resolute resistence onely there will indeed be this difference between them that though the estates of the one and of the other are an equally tempting and inviting
play and from him no favour or if instead of Satyr he have a mind to be more innocently wity let him but mix a little seriousness with his wit and let that seriousness be such as is not dull and then I promise him like Hippocrates his twins a very old comparison but it will be older before it is quite out of date we will be wonderfull friends in the midst of the fray and we will laugh and cry together and I will follow him with a complement at the same time when I make a pass at the very heart of his cause as the Retiarii in the Roman Theatres were used to doe by their Antagonists the Mirmillones who had a fish graven or painted upon their shield Piscem peto Non te peto Quid me fugis Galle But I had much rather that they whoever they are that shall think it for their own credit for otherwise I am sure they will hardly doe it for the interest of their cause to concern themselves with such an unfledg'd authour whom they may catch with chaff as well as bird-lime as they please themselves I say I had much rather that they would betake themselves to a serious and close way of writing which notwithstanding all the sharpness of the following discourse which to be sure will be represented much greater than it is I have very carefully observed in it neither is there any thing which I should more hate in my self or more despise in another than for a man to lose his argument in an impertinent wilderness either of wit or anger Therefore if any of that party be dissatisfied or hath a mind to pretend that he is so with what I have said already upon the three following questions in which all the matters in difference are contained First Concerning Episcopal Government Secondly Concerning humane impositions in religious matters in the general and Thirdly Concerning the particular impositions that are the occasion or pretence of Separation from the Church of England Let him then enter the lists as soon as he pleases and I promise Your Lordship I will not fail to answer him in defence of the establish'd Religion and for the quieting the minds of his Majestie 's good subjects against either the tricks or the mistakes of inconsiderate or designing men not that I pretend to be able to say much more upon these subjects than I have done already but some men will not be convinced by any thing at the first hearing let it be never so plain but they must have it over and over in other words and in a new appearance till by degrees the truth is rendred so familiar to them as to subdue the prejudices they have imbibed against it or the mistake so palpable that obstinacy begins to blush and be ashamed And the better to prevent all artifice and cant which do but perplex the cause and make all controversies endless and cheat the world of their money and their time to prevent all squabbling about authorities which is an incompetent way of arguing in this case because men that are not able to search into these things themselves will be sure to believe the quotations of their own side whether true of false or whether they be rightly applied or not For this reason I propose that we lay all arguments but those of nature aside For if it be found upon principles that are universally acknowledged and such as make their appeal to every common understanding that Episcopacy that is a superiority on the one hand and a dependence on the other is the most perfect form of Government both in Church and State or indeed that there can be no lasting government without it that in the Church it secures the greatest reverence to the Clergy by which they are the better enabled to influence the people and by consequence to answer the end of their institution and separation to the ministerial office if it give the greatest incouragement to learning if it strengthen the hands of discipline as well with respect to the inferiour Clergy as the Layety and if this be a natural means to secure the publick peace then here is all that can be expected to justifie this form of government in the Church and though the testimonies of antiquity may receive strength and advantage from the nature of things which is the onely true immutable antiquity to which we must appeal yet those very testimonies let them be never so numerous unanimous and positive when they have nature against them what are they but so many confessions of ignorance or design of want of honesty or want of skill So also in the second enquiry if it shall be found that humane impositions in religious matters are of absolute and indispensable necessity for the keeping any ecclesiastical society together for the preservation of peace and unity among men if it follow plainly from the consideration of humane nature and humane passions as well as from the experience of our own and former times that without such impositions we must crumble into sects as numerous as the motes that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that infinity of crowding stars by which the Celestial Galaxy is adorned this is abundantly sufficient from the necessity of such humane institutions to justifie their lawfulness and to prove their obligation and it is so far from being true that there can be no external circumstance of religious worship appointed and ordained by men which is not expresly revealed and set down in some place or other of the New Testament that if on the contrary our Saviour and his Apostles had expresly told us that we must not so much as move an hand or a foot in any religious assembly or affair without express licence and authority from them which they have no where done and yet at the same time had not adjusted the particular instances of our behaviour in these matters which they have not done neither all the inference that could have been made from this would be that we must not worship God at all which is a very odd sort of divine revelatition Besides that nothing can be more foolish than to perswade to charity to talk perpetually of peace and love and such like luscious and delicious things onely to make our mouths water while at the same time we are deny'd the necessary means of securing so desirable blessings to our selves It would be true at this rate not onely in the event but in the design too that our Saviour came not to bring peace but a sword and the end of his coming if he had any at all being onely to set the world together by the ears as it must be if he deny the civil or ecclesiastical magistrate a power of determining those indifferent matters which he hath not any where determined himself this would be a plain argument that he was a gross impostour instead of being
to whom they are prescribed they look upon as yokes that are not to be born and will be sure to break them as if they were so To which it is to be added that where so many are concerned in the dispatch of an affair besides the feuds and contentions which different humours interests and designs would create it would occasion infinite delays and difficulties in their proceedings which would often times prove fatal to their designs and utterly disappoint the end of their coming together And what hath been said of the whole Clergy's meeting in one or in the two several and distinct convocations of Canterbury and York the same inconveniences would in proportion attend the diocesan assemblies if any such were practised wherein the Bishop had no greater power than onely to be as it were the Chairman or Prolocutour of the Synod but could not move one foot himself without the consent of a majority of the members of which it was composed especially in so populous a diocese as Your Lordship's is where the power and interest of a factious Clergy-man may be of such dismal consequence to the peace of the church but such is Your Lordship's paternal condescention mixt with an exact judgment and profound wisedom that You have found out an happy temperament betwixt the authority of the Bishop on the one hand and the dangerous power of the Presbyters on the other by admitting your Clergy to so frequent conferences and familiar debates concerning the common interest of the church and the respective good and advantage of their particular charges yet so as not to admit them to a liberty of controlling their Bishop or invest them with a power which may be employed to bad purposes as well as be made usefull and serviceable to good ones of which though at present there can be no danger in a diocese so well stored with men equally conspicuous for integrity prudence and learning for loyalty to the King and obedience to their Bishop and love to one another and care of their particular charges and flocks yet that may be pernicious and destructive in its example which is not so in it self and power when it is once given to the best of men is not so easily taken away from worse that may happen to succeed them as it may be employed to purposes very contrary and opposite to those for which it was intended otherwise there is no question but it is the indispensible duty of every Bishop to maintain a constant intercourse and correspondence with his Clergy that he may the better understand as well them as the diocese which he is to govern and may be the better enabled to make a judgment of both and accordingly to proportion the expedients of publick peace and safety with a wise and skilfull hand and that he may conciliate that love and reverence to his person by the affability and obliging sweetness of his conversation without which all power is tyranny and force and will not onely be resisted but overcome Wherefore I pray God that the church may always be blest as long as time shall endure with such faithfull vigilant and prudent Bishops as Your Lordship and with so pious learned and obedient a Clergy as that in which this diocese in particular and the whole nation in general is at present happy But what it is that they mean who would extend the power of the Presbyters with relation to their Bishop any farther than this or who declaim so loudly for the peoples right in the election of their pastours I cannot possibly conceive unless it be that they do seriously design and purposely intend to bring us all into confusion which it is not much to be doubted but there are some that do or that being engaged in an interest they are ashamed to retract their errour and therefore grasp at all arguments how weak soever to defend it which it is very natural for mankind to doe or lastly that they are not so wise men as they would be thought to be and that they do not see into the pernicious consequences of so mischievous a doctrine which stands condemned by the unalterable decrees of nature and by the fundamental maximes upon which cities are built and by which humane society is supported I should be sorry to perceive my self thus insensibly engaged in so long a disquisition concerning the natural grounds upon which the episcopal government relies very much contrary to my first intention which was far from any thought of treating so distinctly and as it were ex professo at this time upon this subject did I not hope to doe some service to the church by giving an account of my sentiments upon it and were I not possessed with a very great inward assurance that this way of procedure in the matter under debate that is by an appeal to the Principles of nature and to the fundamental maximes of society whether it be civil or ecclesiastical or of what kind soever is that which is liable to the least exception and is by consequence the most certain and infallible expedient of bringing those with whom we have to doe to a sense of their duty and an acknowledgment of their mistake which if it could be done it would be happy for us all and therefore with Your Lordship's good leave I will proceed to what remains referring my self humbly to the things that have been or shall be spoken upon a question of so great importance to intercede with Your Lordship and all that shall reade this Preface in my behalf if by my too great length I have offended Wherefore to improve the comparison of an army that is an armed city or society yet a little farther for it is not yet stretched out to its full length since it appears so plainly by the consent of all ages and by the constant practice of the world that such a body of men cannot be managed by a parity of officers the next thing to be considered is whether the imparity or superiority of one officer over another be consistent with an equality of salary or revenue and for this we have the same universal experience and consent that the pay of the greater officers is proportionably larger according to their respective dignity and place and the same is to be seen in civil as well as military employments that the great officers of state the Judges of the law and ministers of publick justice according to their respective dignity and superiority over one another so are the pensions and advantages annext to their employments for the most part proportionably greater and if the church so far as concerns the general nature of a society be the same and do as naturally require an imparity of officers as either the civil or military subordination so do the several imparities of dignity and power as unavoidably call for an inequality of revenue the reason of which in all the three cases is this that mankind are used
generous ambition and Mr. Hobs saith somewhere excellently well nisi qui laudem amant pauci faciunt laudabilia so we may say with equal truth nisi qui ambiunt honores pauci faciunt quae sunt honoribus digna The Scripture it self bids us look to the recompence of reward and press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling and it is certain that no man will or can doe any thing with a steady purpose of mind wherein he does not propose some interest to himself The prospect of such advantages in future makes a man obedient as well as industrious for the present and by setting an example of submission to his superiours and of diligence in his station and emploiment he is in both respects an instrument of great honour and great service to the Church he is in the ready way to make a wise and excellent person and will be the more readily obeyed when he comes to govern for having shewed an example of obedience before But if there were not such honours and advantages to be met with in the Clergy then there would certainly these two notoririous inconveniences follow first that the governours of the church would lose very much of their authority and power which they cannot do without prejudice to the government it self and secondly that the want of due encouragement would produce in the inferiour Clergy a scorbutick idleness and inactivity a want of due concern either for the peace of the Church or for the honour of it it would subject them to the humours of the people from whose kindness they might in this case expect as great or greater secular advantages than they could propose to themselves in any other course so that instead of being the instruments of obedience they would by this means become the speaking trumpets of faction and so it was seen in the late disorderly times when the Episcopacy was demolisht and the dignitary lands were all of them confiscate men preach'd up rebellion for lecture contributions and I doubt not but many of them acted much against their consciences for no other reason but to please the rabble It is an old saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not to be denied but there are some instances of very gallant men to be found in the reformed churches abroad and that too where they have not the benefit of episcopal government but I dare appeal to the dissenters themselves if they will speak their consciences whether ever there was so plentifull an harvest of wise and excellently learned men as are to be found at this day among the Clergy of the church of England and whether among themselves there be any such thing as learning to be met with whether both city and country are not now better furnished than in the late times with excellent preachers and men that can speak sense which is more than they can doe or whether the Universities are not better stored with men of great attainments on the one hand and great hopes on the other than in the days when humane learning and that abominable idol carnal reason were for the most part banish'd with the King and the Bishops the reason of which cannot possibly be referred to any other cause but onely the more ingenuous Principles that are now abroad and the greater encouragements men have now before them to study and take pains and deserve well of the world This is certain that the wisedom of Princes hath always been so sensible of the usefulness of ecclesiasticks to the service of the publick for the security honour and safety of their governments for the composing and calming the minds of their people into a peaceable and obedient temper that they have thought no honours and advantages too great to bestow upon them as a reward of their merit and to make their authority still greater in the eyes of the people and it was very wisely provided by our ancestours in such a government as this is where the people have so great a share in the making of those laws by which they are afterwards to be obliged that the Bishops should have a place allotted them in Parliament as well as the nobility or the commons have and that for their greater honour and to give them a right of suffrage in the house of Lords they should have Baronies annext to their respective sees For where the people have so great an interest in the enacting of their own laws there if the Clergy be totally excluded if there be none admitted into the assembly to look after the interest of the ecclesiastical state it will most certainly and unavoidably come to pass that by the envy or the ill designs of men the Clergy will be deprest and trampled on at some time or other which it can never be without detriment to the state upon supposition that they are at all advantagious or serviceable to it Nay if it be granted that they are of any use it must be granted likewise that they are the most usefull persons that do or can belong to a society and therefore ought to be the most highly honoured and esteemed for what greater blessing can there be than peace or what greater plague or calamity can befall a nation than to be embroiled in sedition enflamed with strife raging with opposite and eager passions what better instruments can there be in any state or kingdom than they whose business and whose study it is to exhort to peace and charity and obedience to submission to the government and love to one another Certainly if the Lawyers get so much and are so highly caressed and rewarded sometimes for ending controversies and sometimes for making them endless sometimes for setting men together by the ears and at others for parting the fray to the disadvantage of the true pretender the Divines are much more worthy to be honoured and rewarded whose business it is to prevent all strife and contention and who have perhaps determined as many controversies in a cheap and amicable way at home as ever the other decided at the bar to the ruine sometimes of both the parties concerned and always to the signal detriment and disadvantage of one I do not speak this to disparage or undervalue the learned Gentlemen of the long robe whose profession I acknowledge in every state to be not onely usefull but necessary to its peace and welfare so far as it is not abused by ill men or by tedious delays and by traversing of courts and actions to the infinite vexation and oppression of the subject But I say the prevention of all strife is a much more noble excellent and usefull thing than the deciding of controversies after they are actually begun as it is better to prevent an ague by a wholesome diet or by a regular course of life or by preventive medicaments before hand than to remove the fit or by degrees perhaps the disease it self by many repeated doses of the Jesuites powder which
the express command of Scripture And here before I pass by farther let me ask our dissenting Brethren one Question they in their Congregations are used to sing together the Psalms of David converted into English Rhimes some of them of one man's composing and some of another now though the words of the Psalms themselves especially as they are in the original were divinely inspired and therefore they may pretend though it be a Form yet it is not a Form of humane Institution yet the words of him that puts them into Meeter are not David's words any more than a Paraphrase and the Text are the same the same sense may be expressed in different words and those different words are so many different forms to them that reade them from whence it is manifest that they do not pray by David's Form which was inspired but by the Translator's which is of humane Institution and why then do they declaim so loudly against a Form of Prayer Why they will tell us the Scripture has no where enjoyned it but I have proved the contrary and they themselves confute their own Pretences by their Practice But suppose the Scripture did not enjoyn it what then if we must neither pray with a Form nor without unless the Scripture bid us doe one or the other then we must not pray at all for the Scripture does not any where command either of these unless it be in the use of the Lord's Prayer and yet at the same time enjoyns us to pray without ceasing But these Gentlemen if they were half so good Philosophers as they are bad Divines would have understood before now that all Prayer is a Form and that without a Form it is impossible to pray at all for the sense at the bottom of all Prayer is the same it is either a devout acknowledgment and admiration of the Divine Excellence and Perfection or it is a thanksgiving for his Mercies or an humbling our selves before him for our Sins or entring into new engagements and resolutions of a new Life by offering up the Sacrifice of a broken and a contrite Heart or lastly it is a deprecating those Judgments which hang over our heads for our Sins and an entreating his Goodness for those Blessings which the necessities of our nature or the circumstances of our fortune and condition do require and let these things be expressed with never so much variation of phrase yet it is not that variation in which the true nature of the Prayer consists but it is the sense which is at the bottom which is alwaies the same as a tune is the same though it be pricked down by never such variety of marks and a sentence the same express'd by several cyphers It is not the words that God regards but it is the inward Ardency and Devotion of the mind which may be the same with a Form as without it â—ay in trutâ— it may be greater with a Form than it can be without it because then he that officiates not being to seek for what he is to say and his fancie and invention not being perpetually upon the rack his mind is the more intent and fixt upon the Object of his Devotion and upon a sober and considerate reflexion upon those things which make up the entire theme and subject of his Prayer he is not apt to dishonour God nor to expose himself and Religion to contempt by rash and inconsiderate expressions uttered in the heat of a distempered and inconsiderate Zeal which we find by experience I speak without reflecting upon any particular person many of our non-conforming Brethren doe as well in their Prayers as Sermons for want of duly considering what they have to say before-hand which shows plainly what extream Presumption and â—olly they are guilty of when they pretend to utter such contemptible stuff by the assistence of the Spirit It is true indeed there was in the first ages of the Church such a thing as the Gift of utterance but it was when men of mean parts and education were sent forth to preach the Gospel by our Saviour himself who without this could not have delivered themselves as became the Embassadors of so great a King it was at a time when the World could not be converted without Miracles when the Fears of Death and Torments and Persecution would have put all their natural faculties to silence had they not been assisted and encouraged by an extraordinary influence of Divine Grace from above It was at a time when they were to be carry'd before Magistrates and Rulers to give an account of themselves and of that Gospel which they preached and then it was necessary indeed that a particular assistence of the Divine Spirit should overpower the fears of death and remove all apprehensions of danger out of their way and that the words which they were to speak should be given them and put into their mouths at that very instant lest otherwise for want of ability or courage they should expose and betray themselves and the Gospel But at this time of day there is no necessity of any such supernatural assistence and that it is not actually afforded appears partly from the experience which we have of those that pretend to it and partly from this that Saint Paul expresly tells us that the Gift of Prophecie of Tongues and of Knowledge were in time to fail and if they be not failed already as well as those other miraculous Powers of Healing Diseases and of Casting out Devils we have little or no reason to believe that ever they will besides that the Gift of Tongues being manifestly ceased and these three being mentioned together we have abundant reason to conclude that those of Prophecie and Knowledge are ceased together with it But after all we have no Promise in Scripture that God though by his Spirit he will furnish us with affection and zeal to the end of the World will ever put the very expressions into our mouths the Spirit it self helpeth our infirmities saith Saint Paul speaking of this very business of Prayer but it is not with a Gift of utterance but with Groans that cannot be uttered let our words be what they will so our hearts be but right God is well pleased Compositum jus fasque animo sanctosque recessus Mentis incoctum generoso pectus honesto Hoec cedo ut admoveam templis farre litabo It is true indeed such is the nature of style that the same sense clothed in different expressions shall either extort respect or laughter the reason is because all speech is either proper or metaphorical in proper speech where the words are the real and immediate marks of the things they express there we are affected with the sentence according to the opinion we have of those things which are contained under it but in metaphorical we are differently affected as the Metaphors are taken from things of a contemptible or a serious and usefull nature Now nothing
is more plain than that in religious Discourses whether in Prayer or Sermon nothing ought to be said after such a manner as to move laughter or contempt instead of exciting Devotion and serious attention but whether this end be more likely to be attained by an extempore or well-considered and premeditated Prayer let any man of common sense and understanding judge And though such rash and inconsiderate expressions may be well enough approved where they are uttered among people that are affected by noise rather than by sober and judicious expressions by a sound and wholesome Form of words yet it ought to be considered one would think how unbecoming such things are to the gravity of one that pretends to teach and instruct the World or to the Majesty of that Person whose Character he sustains what scandal it gives to understanding men and what advantages to the profane and lastly how unsuitable it is to the design of Religion which is to make men happy by creating in them a calm and sedate temper not so much to move their Passions as to inform their Judgments and to prepare them for Happiness by wisedom and instruction But if there be any who by the strength of natural parts by the quickness of their fancie or the volubility of their tongues by long custom or acquired habits by art and study by ringing the changes and by shuffling the same expressions at several times into a several order and method shall from thence seem either to themselves or others to be possessed of this Gift of Prayer yet they are in truth and reallity very much mistaken and it will appear they are so in that they generally use these whether talents or acquirements or artifices and devices of theirs rather in a way of ostentation than use by spinning out their Devotions to an unusual length and by endeavouring to captivate the ears and hearts of inconsiderate people by that much speaking which our Saviviour condemns Thus it appears plainly that a sober and well-considered Form of Prayer is a manifest advantage both to the Speaker and the Hearer and to the latter it is an advantage in a respect which I have not yet mentioned If I pray in an unknown tongue saith the Apostle my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitfull 1 Cor. c. 14. v. 14. And again v. 16. how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen From whence it follows plainly that in this age especially when the miraculous effusions of the Spirit are in a manner wholly ceased those Prayers are the best to which we are best prepared to say Amen but those are manifestly Forms of Prayer because in those we goe along with the Minister himself nay we understand beforehand what it is he is about to ask and so are the better prepared to joyn withhim and to say Amen heartily devoutly and preparedly to all his Petitions And the same Chapter will likewise furnish us with another argument against these extempore Effusions when they are truly and properly and not onely pretendedly so which is but to put a cheat upon the People namely that they are subject either to the heats of Enthusiasm on the one hand or to the coldness of Non plus and Drawling on the other both of which expose Religion to contempt in the opinion or at least in the practice of those whose design and interest it is to make it contemptible and cheap and serves to alienate the affections of much wiser men than ever they are like to gain over to themselves If the whole Church be come together to speak with Tongues and there come in those that are unlearned and Vnbelievers will they not say that ye are mad and if the same or a like advantage may and will be taken from the indiseretion of every extempore Pretender there is the same reason why he should lay by his pretences and give way to a sound and sober Form of words The truth is a premeditated and an extempore Prayer have each of them their inconveniences the latter cannot be without them and the first if it be not done by â— man of some judgment and experience he does usually endeavour onely to shew his parts as if his design were to recommend himself to the good opinion of God Almighty for a man of Eloquence and Wit the premeditated man does oftentimes talk so fulsomely as if his design â—ere to cajole and cokes the great God of Heaven and Earth while the man of gifts and graces as â—e thinks himself does by ridiculous or rash expressions by mimical gestures and affected alterations of his voice by speaking sometimes so high as if he would prevail with him by clamor and sometimes so low as if he had a secret to communicate to his Maker openly affront and abuse him to his face and in the face of a numerous Assembly Bâ—t both these Inconveniences are happily avoided by the wise provision which the Church has made If then the use of Forms of Prayer in the publick Assemblies of Christians be not onely lawfull in it self and justified by the practice of all ages before the Reformation but also manifestly tending to Edification and freed from very many and very great inconveniences to which extempore Addresses are exposed and therefore necessary to be allow'd And if though Forms of Prayer be necessary in the general yet this or that particular Form be not otherwise the Liturgy of all Churches and all Ages must be exactly the same Lastly If no Formulary of Divine Service can be introduced into the common use and practice of the Church but by the publick Sanction whether sacred or civil or both then we have here a plain instance of a lawfull humane Imposition in indifferent matters for though a Form of Prayer be necessary yet this or that Form is not from whence it follows beyond all possibility of contradiction that an humane Imposition in indifferent matters or a Determination of those indifferent things by the authority of men to one part of the indifference is not in it self unlawfull and whatsoever may be lawfully commanded is of necessity to be obey'd unless we will renounce all obedience whatsoever However thus much will certainly be granted by the most avow'd Assertors of the Separation that we have every one of us a right and power of determining our selves in those indifferent matters for otherwise the nature of their indifference is destroy'd and yet if thus much be but allow'd they will find themselves driven to an absolute necessity either to contradict themseves and to affirm contradictions in a breath to say that the same things are and are not indifferent at the same time or else they must bid adiew to their beloved Cause and give submission to the Authority of the Church For whatever natural Liberty men have in themselves when once they become members of a Society they are supposed to give it up to the legislative or governing power
of that Society so far as is necessary to the peace and quiet of it for otherwise a Society and no Society would be exactly the same that is every man would still remain his own Master and at liberty to doe as much as ever he could before For example in that which Mr. Hobbs is pleased to call the State of Nature when a man is not a member of a Body politick but a distinct and perfectly independent person by himself he is naturally invested with a right and power of defending his person or his possession by force of Arms he may lawfully revenge his own injuries and he is the onely Judge when he is wronged or injur'd because without all this power he cannot live in the World or continue in that Being which God and Nature have given him But if having listed themselves by mutual covenant and agreement into a Body politick or Commonwealth for the mutual defence and preservation of every particular person and of the whole Society men shall notwithstanding after this assume the same liberty to themselves of personal Revenges and of being their own Judges in controverted cases without referring themselves to the decision of the Law which is the civil Umpire betwixt man and man it is manifest this Society cannot be of long continuance or rather so long as this Liberty is taken it can never be a Society properly so called from whence it follows plainly that it is necessary if men will be members of a Society that they give up this private power into the hands of the publick If therefore the Church be a Society truly and properly so called if it be that mystical Body of which Christ is the Head if the members of this Body cannot be knit and well compacted together without external rules of discipline and order in which the very nature of a Society consists if the publick Orders of the Church and every man's prescribing rules to himself be inconsistent together and if the observing no rule or method at all either in Divine Worship or civil conversation be rather like a man in Bedlam than a Denison of a sober Corporation if charity good-will and love if mutual helpfulness and reciprocal usefulness to one another if peace with God and peace with men and peace within our selves be the great design and business of the Christian life if a man cannot be at peace with God while he is at enmity with his neighbour if a man can neither love nor fear nor know nor worship God aright at the same time when his thoughts are taken up and filled with envy uncharitableness detraction and revenge if no man can be happy in himself when he is displeas'd and angry with other men if the controversies raised about matters confessedly indifferent have been when and where-ever they have happened a perpetual bane and disquiet to the Church if they alwaies heighten mens Passions against and alienate their affections from one another if they are alwaies attended with a disturbance of the publick peace and have de facto proceeded to the utter subversion both of Church and State if all these Animosities and Contensions would immediately cease by a quiet and dutifull submission to the Authority of the Church if by giving up this Power the Church as a Body politick or Society of men is actually dissolved a Society or Aggregate of several persons being no otherwise one than as they submit to the same Laws and are governed by the same external Rules of discipline and obedience if Place and Time notwithstanding they be indifferent in themselves as to this or that particular determination yet is it necessary in the general that they should be determined otherwise there can be no publick Worship of God lastly when men are met together in a religious Assembly if every man shall follow his own particular fancie if almost every single person shall be seen in a different posture and if this be more like to make men look upon one another than to attend to the Minister or to mind themselves if it be more like to excite laughter than devotion if it be a natural obstruction to the solemnity and seriousness of religious Worship if done by chance it be a sign of too great negligence and remisness and if done on set purpose it be a sign of conceitedness and spiritual pride while every man prefers his own way and despises that of another if it be a ground of censure and may be a cause of uncharitableness and by degrees of separation then is it plain upon all these accounts which I have mentioned because it would be better if it were so and because it is necessary that it should be so because the Church can neither preserve it self in reputation nor so much as in being because it is for its undoubted and its perpetual interest and because it is necessary to its preservation that it should be invested with an Authority of adjusting the most indifferent circumstances of Divine Worship without which the blessed ends of Unity and Peace can never be obtained I say it is plain from all this that the Church is actually invested with this Power and that Ecclesiastical Constitutions may for the same reason determine indifferent matters for which the Civil forbid Adultery and Murther namely because it is necessary to the publick Peace which reason if it be not sufficient the Civil Laws do all of them become immediately null and void as being founded upon no other basis but the consideration of the publick good but if it be a solid and substantial reason I would fain know if any of the Dissenters be at leisure to inform me why it may not equally extend to defend the necessity and consequently justice of Ecclesiastical whether Laws or Censures Especially if we consider that as the case of the Christian world now stands the same persons with the same interests prejudices and passions are members both of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State so that it is as impossible there should be a disturbance in the one in which the other shall be unconcerned as that the same man should be divided from himself and it is every whit as clear that either it is not lawfull to use all necessary means for the preservation of the Civil Peace or it is lawfull for the Church to concern her self in the determination of indifferent matters which Determinations and Constitutions of hers may be lawfully confirmed and ratified by the State If men could differ without falling-out something might be pretended in behalf of an innocent though unbecoming Liberty but since the greatest feuds and animosities do sometimes take their rise from the smallest beginnings since the religious differences are of all others the greatest and the most fatal to the publick Peace since there is nothing so infinitely scrupulous as an unreasonably tender Conscience and since there is no pretence so inconsiderable from whence either indigent or ambitious men will not take
to be submitted to which are inconsistent with Salvation And that Church whatever she is let her pretences to Infallibility and Truth be never so great which imposes those either Opinions or Practices as the terms of Communion which are directly contrary to the word of God or to the light of Nature and the impartial dictates of right Reason is by no means to be communicated with any longer but we must immediately come out from Her and separate in our own desence lest we be made partakers of Her sins and of Her plagues and in this case it is she who is guilty of the Schism by necessitating a Separation not we who separate when we cannot avoid it As to matter of Doctrine I presume there is no man who calls himself a Protestant of what Denomination or Party soever he be who will charge our Church with any damnable Errour but on the contrary there are many of our Dissenting Brethren who when they are tax'd with the unpleasant imputation of propagating very absurd and very unreasonable Opinions are used to take Sanctuary in the Articles of the Church of England of whose Authority as to some points they will pretend themselves to be the only Assertors with what Justice I think I have in part discovered in some other Papers As to Ceremonies there are three Restrictions chiefly to be considered which if they be all carefully observed in the discipline of any Church there is no manner of pretence or ground for Separation upon a Ceremonial account and those three Restrictions are these which follow First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number Secondly They must not be Superstitious in their use Thirdly They must not be Idolatrous in their direction First They must not be too cumbersome and heavy by their number for this is that which eats out the very heart and root of Religion and takes it off from being a Devotional exercise of the mind by turning it into outward Pomp and Show which can neither make us better men for the future nor appease the wrath of God or apply to us the merit and satisfaction of Christ for what is past This was that of which St. Austin in his time complained but yet he did not think it Lawfull to make any breach or distrubance in the Church upon this account but rather to take this occasion for the exercise of those two excellent vertues of Patience and Humility and expect the good time when this burthen should be remov'd by the same regular Authority that had impos'd it This was the case of the Mosaick Bondage especially as that Bondage was afterwards increased by the Pharisical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by the traditionary Rites and Usages of the Jewish Church and this is at this day and was at the time of the Reformation and for many Ages before the case of the Roman Yoak from which the Wisdome and Piety of our Ancestours has with no less Justice than Necessity freed us and plac'd us in that state of Christian Liberty which does not consist of such an exemption from all Ceremonies as some men seem to desire which is absurd and impossible in the nature of the thing it self but in the choice of such as are best fitted to the ends for which all Ceremonies ought to be designed and have the greatest tendency to Edification There were other causes upon account of the Ceremonies imposed by the Church of Rome which might be sufficient to justify a Separation of which I shall speak in the two following Heads And though a National or Provincial Church have a Right and Power within it self of retrenching the supersluities of the Ceremonial part of their Divine Service which may very well be done without any Schism or Separation from the body of the Church abroad either on the one part or the other Yet for private men to separate from the National Establishment upon pretence that the Ceremonies are too burthensome or too many is manifestly unlawfull The reason is because this will be lyable to the same Inconveniences to which a separation upon pretence of greater Purity is expos'd and in both cases if every private man shall be allow'd to judge for himself and to proceed to a Separation in pursuance of that judgment so infinite are the humours the sancies the prejudices the perversities of some men so fond are they of Novelty and Change so apt to controul Authority and so desirous to be govern'd only by their own Measures that there can be no lasting Establishment in the World but the Discipline of the Church will be alwaies reeling like a Drunken Man and driven to and fro like a Wave of the Sea by every Capricious wind of Innovation We will suppose for the present in favour of the Dissenters because they cannot prove it that there are too many Ceremonies in our Church yet I presume it will be granted that there are not above four or five or half a dozen too many or if you will to make it a plump number and to put the Objection into better shape let them be half a score which I believe upon an exact computation will go a great way in the Ceremonies of the Church of England and let all these be imposed as indispensable conditions of Communion 'T is pretty severe I confess to lay so great a stress upon Indifferent Matters but yet certainly no man in his wits will ever pretend that this is such an intollerable burthen as that he must needs separate rather than comply but if there be any that are so hardy to do it though I will not discommend them for their courage a vertue of which in this contentious Age we have a great deal of need yet in my opinion they deserve rather to be soundly Laught at than seriously Confuted What hath been said of the Churches Power in retrenching the number of her Ceremonies the same is likewise true as to the Ceremonies themselves that they may from time to time be altered and changed for others in their stead by the Authority of the Church as shall seem most Expedient to that publique Wisdome for the great Purpose of Edification but for every private person to challenge this Right to himself is unlawfull because liable to the same inconveniences with separating under colour of Ceremonious Superfluities or of purer Ordinances and purer Ordinances and purer Worship which are therefore justly to be suspected to proceed out of a bad design because they never can have any end Saint Paul in several places of his Epistles expresses great tenderness for the infirmity of the weak Brother but yet if the Instances of such his condescention be examined they will be sound to be of a quite different nature from those which make up the pretences of our daies as consisting first in the eating of things sacrificed to Idols which as looking like a participation of the table of Devils and as being expresly prohibited by a
Siculis Gerris Germanis de foliis Farfari aut Noevill Butubatis de umbrâ Asini aut de lanà Caprinâ they were not matters of meer Ceremony and Show matters of External Discipline and Form that exercised the tenderness and infirmity of those times Those Babes in Christ that were but newly initiated into the Christian Faith and had as yet tasted only the sincere milk of the Word without adventuring upon stronger meats were yet better fed and better taught than to quarrel about Indifferent Matters or to Controul their Governours in things of Publique-Decency and Order But the instances of their Scrupulosity were founded in such things as they looked upon to be in themselves Offences of the highest nature against the express Commands of God against the honour of his Name against the entire and incommunicable respect which is due from all Creatures both in Heaven and Earth to his Adorable Majesty and Greatness and against the indispensable duties of natural Reason and Religion in which though they were never so much mistaken yet these were Scruples not of small Concernment but of the highest Consequence and Importance and St. Paul did therefore comply with the Infirmity and with the mistakes of those Good Men not barely to gratify a squeemish Fancy which is out of love with things for no reaâ—on and without any end but lest by opposing Prejudices so deeply rooted in matters of so extraordinary a nature as these were they might be tempted to an Apostacy from the Christian Faith which did impose burthens upon them which their Consciences not â—eing yet sufficiently informed of the true extent of that liberty which Christ had purchas'd for them could not possibly bear for this reason it was Saint Paul's rule to become all things to all men that he might save the more and he despensed with them in some cases out of meer necessity that his Brother for whom Christ dyed might not be destroyed by Relapsing to Judaism on the one hand or Idolatry on the other As our Learned Mr. Thorndike and out of him the Accurate and Industrious Doctor Falkner have observed And this latter case of Idolatry was therefore the more tenderly to be regarded because the Authour to the Hebrews speaking of this very business tells us c. 6. v. 4 5 6. It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly Gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the World to come if they shall fall away to renew them again unto repentance seeing they Crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame And St. John in his first Epistle c. 5. v. 16. tells us there is a sin unto death I do not say that he that is our Brother shall pray for it that is there is great danger that his Prayers will never be heard in behalf of such a person and what that Sin is he afterwards explains v. 21. Little Children keep your selves from Idols And this is likewise very suitable to the practice of the Church in the Primitive times who upon any such Relapse to Idolatry were not used to receive the Apostate though giving all imaginable demonstrations of Repentance into the bosom of that Church which he had forsaken by Sacramental Absolution sometimes at the very instant of Death and sometimes not till then as is manifest from the case of Serapio and others However since Peace is the thing above all others the most to be prized and valued and with the greatest passion and earnestness to be desired since no kind of discipline or external Form is any further necessary or so much as lawful than it shall be found to Contribute to this blessed end since Rites and Ceremonies establisht in the Church are in themselves of a changeable nature and since our Church her self hath openly and expresly declar'd that she is no longer desirous to retain all or any of them than they shall be found expedient for Edification I should not be against closing with any Proposition let it be almost what it will by which a lasting Peace and Settlement might be obtained And because I think there are but three ways to be thought of in order to this end The first of which is a Toleration of those that differ from us in their several differences and distinctions The second an Alteration of those Customs and Usages which are excepted against for others in their stead And the third an Abatement or Abolition of those Ceremonies which are scrupled without any Reparation by the Substitution of others in their room Therefore I shall speak very briesly to each of these particulars And first A Toleration as it is commonly understood is a Liberty from the Government for every man to say and do as he pleases in Religious matters for Conscience sake or upon account of a tender Conscience which cannot submit it self to the publique Rule and such a Toleration as this is I affirm to be directly and positively unlawfull because it cuts the sinews of Government in pieces and lets the Rains loose to all manner of misrule and disorder For the truth of which I need only appeal to the Experience of former times when by such an unbounded Toleration the Kingdome was put into such a floating and uncertain Posture that we had almost as many alterations in Government as there were Sects and Parties that were to obey The Presbyterians when time was having shaken off the Episcopal Yoak as they were pleased if not to think yet at least to pretend it to be were as much for Uniformity as other men and urged the very same Arguments with great Judgment and Reason against the Independency which may now with irresistable Force be retorted upon themselves as the Most Reverend and Incomparably Learned the Excellent Dean of Saint Pauls a singular Ornament and strong Support of the English Church and State against their Enemies of both kinds hath very Wisely and like himself Observed Nay to what excess of Riot a Toleration in its utmost Latitude will proceed the extravagancies either in Opinion or Practice or both of the Antinomians the Seekers the Quakers the Ranters the Sweet-Singers and the Family of Love are a sufficient witness most of whose Opinions as they proceed only from Ignorance or Melancholy or a worse cause a Life ill spent or a desire to spend it amiss for the future so the Debaucheries and the Obscenities of some of these Sects which I have named under a pretence of I know not what Liberty are so great and so horrid that I should not have believed it if I had received it from any other information than that of some who pretended with abundance of asseveration and in a Company not easily to be imposed upon to speak their own certain knowledge and who I have great reason to believe would not goe about to deceive either
than by an uniform and regular Discipline of the Church then is it abundantly manifest that such â—eparate Congregations as tending plainly to the disturbance of the World are unlawfull that they may and that they ought to be suppressed and that all the Favourers and Abettors of such unlawfull Assemblies are Promoters Aiders Comforters and Assisters of Rebellion and Disobedience both against God and Man Neither is it at all material in this case that many of those who frequent these separate Assemblies nay to give them their due the infinitely greatest part of them are not conscious to themselves of any such bad Design but they doe it onely out of a religious prejudice which they have conceived against the Establishment of the Church of England and out of an opinion which they have of the greater Sanctity of their Teachers and Purity of those Ordinances of which they are made partakers by their ministration out of a real and an hearty zeal for God although that zeal be not accordâ—ng to knowledge yet we are not to consider so much what it is they design as what the natural tendencie of all Separation is which because by experience it is found to bring so great and so horrid inconveniences and mischiefs upon the World unless it be timely restrained it may and it must of necessity have very bad effects and this is enough to make men guilty of the consequences of their Separation though at first they did not intend them He that commits a fault through want of consideration is not altogether so guilty as he that knowing it to be a fault does yet notwithstanding commit it on set purpose but yet he is guilty in his proportion and degree as well as the other because it was his duty to consider better and still the more easie it is too for a man to inform himself and what is or can be more manifest than the Prejudice arising from mens embodying themselves into particular and independent Societies So much the greater is the guilt arising from the want of due heed and consideration because a very little attention would have served the turne when there is so much reason in the thing and so much experience to improve that reason into all the certainty of demonstration But secondly It will be said That a bare difference in the externals of Religion in matters of meer Discipline and Ceremonie will not produce those bad effects that are pretended and I wish with all my heart that there were as much truth in this Exception as they that make it would have it seem to have but by Experience which is the great Judge in this Controversie to which we must apply our selves for the discovery of the truth the contrary does but too manifestly appear For what is it that has been the true source and fountain of all our pablick Calamities that has made so dreadfull and so terrible Convulsions both in Church and State but an over-heated zeal against Ceremonies and publick Order which sort of zeal if it be tolerated the strength and beauty of the Church is lost by every man's pursuing fancies of his own or siding with a new modell of a particular Party instead of joining in the regular and uniform Worship of the publick which is at once an instance of our Obedience to the Divine and Humane Laws and a certain expedient of Unity and Peace with one another but if this zeal instead of being tolerated shall be restrained and opposed then it immediately complains of Persecution and would have its sufferings thought as meritorious for raising unreasonable insatiable and eternal Scruples as if the Cause of Christianity it self were at stake as if it were the being of a God or the immortality of the Souls of men that were deny'd by us and asserted onely by the Dissenters from the publick Order and Rule So that either way the inconvenience is in a manner equal a Toleration has a manifest tendencie to the subversion of the Government both in Church and State and in that there is no question to be made but it will certainly end when once it has been suffered to have its full scope and swinge and yet a vigorous Prosecution of the Laws against the Disturbers of the Peace is branded with the odious name of Persecution and they that suffer by it for being Incendiaries are termed Saints and because it is natural for a distressed Cause to find a friendship and pity from the common People whether it be reasonable or no Suffering being a very sensible and a very affecting thing when the Causes of those Sufferings are not so plain and obvious to every common understanding especially when blinded by prejudice or concern for the persons of those that suffer from hence it comes to pass that a just and necessary Prosecution of the Laws if it be not managed with abundance of temper and prudence so as it may appear it is not done out of hatred to a Party but out of a real tenderness to the common good may sometimes prove the occasion of great and fatal disorders in a State and may in its conâ—equence be attended with all those confusions to which a boundless Toleration is exposed This was the great reason of the revolt of the Vnited Provinces from under the Spanish Yoak who if they had been treated with less severity might probably by gentler methods have been reduced to Obedience but by the Cruelty of the Spanish Governours and Souldiery who pursued them especially under the Government of the Duke D'Alva with all the symptoms of the most mortal hatred they were so far alienated in their affections from a Government that used them so ill they had such a dread of those unheard of Cruelties and such a deserved aversation for that Religion that delights to propagate it self by Bloud that being assisted by the Hugonots from France whose interest it was to stand by the Reformation and by Supplies from England which was glad at that time to find an opportunity to reduce the Spanish greatness to a juster ballance with the rest of the European Princes they were at length perfectly severed from the body of the Spanish Empire and united in a common Alliance among themselves for the mutual support and main tenance of each other which though it gave beginning to the most powerfull Republick that has ever appeared since the Roman yet as a Republick in its nature and constitution is more exposed to the ambition or animositie of bad men than a Kingdom or Monarchie is or can well be so in the midst of its greatness it alwaies carried in its bowells the undoubted symptoms and causes of its ruine which it is to be feared what with the Factions at home and the daily encreasing Power of its enemies from abroad is not far off at this time But yet though Cruelty be that for which all mankind but they that exercise it upon others have a just and mortal aversation yet a
because all other pretences are infinite and at that rate there can be no end of Dissention among men especially if we consider farther what is not perhaps so usually regarded or at least not mentioned among the reasons which prove a Separation unlawfull men do not onely by this means divide from one another as to their religious concerns but even in their temporal affairs they care not to deal or have to doe with one another and thus they trade and marry and converse generally with the men of their own way and are almost to all intents and purposes as many distinct Societies as there are parties or factions in that unhappy Church whose misfortune it is to be so miserably divided the consideration of which cannot chuse but affright every man who has any regard either of his own peace or to that of his Countrey by presenting him with a dismal Scene of a Church divided and mangled into several disagreeing bodies separated in all respects from one another and as it were drawn up in Battalia and expecting onely the Signal of opportunity or advantage on any side to begin a bloudy encounter which they that complain so heavily of Persecution themselves when they have so little reason and when they at the same time persecute the Government and all that favour it with calumny and detraction which is a very grievous sort of persecution will certainly doe whenever it shall lie in their power They having not onely given us a sufficient spice of their temper in the late times to teach us not to trust them any more or any farther than needs must but it is scarce longer ago than yesterday that the tender Consciences were indulged so long till they grew too hard for the Government and it is but too â—vident by their words and actions in that critical juncture that if they had gained their point which was the subversion of the present establishment disguised under specious pretences of uniting Protestants who cannot be united by any thing but a publick Form and Ritual of Divine Service they would soon have shewn us what opinion they have of their pretended Diana Toleration a Goddess never worshipt in the publick Temples and a word that never sounds pleasantly but to those that want the thing So that an universal Toleration of all parties and opinions being manifestly proved to be naturally unlawfull to be attended with infinite inconvenience and mischief both to the publick and particular persons of which the body politick it self is made up as the whole is but an aggregate of several parts considered as one and summed up together there remains now nothing farther to be considered under the topick of concession but that either we alter some ceremonies which have afforded matter or pretence of scruple for others in their stead or that we do totally abolish whatever is excepted against without any supplement or reparation For the first of these it is granted by such as shall desire it that an imposition in the general is lawfull otherwise it would be ridiculous to talk of substituting other Ceremonies in the stead of those that are abolish'd when the very substitution it self is made an exception against them it behoves those persons therefore who are desirous of such an alteration since by the desire it self they do imply an acknowledgment that a substitution that is a new imposition may lawfully be made and by consequence that an imposition in the general considered is not unlawfull I say it concerns them to shew some particular reason besides the imposition of their dislike of the Ceremonies which are already in use for otherwise if we must alter them for no reason we can have no certainty that this innovating humour will ever have an end neither is it possible to make any other construction of it but that it proceeds out of a design to give an endless disturbance to the publick peace notwithstanding it pretends to establish and secure it And as for those in the second place that are for abolishing without a reparation the case will be the same again for either they are against those Ceremonies which they would have abolished merely for that reason because they are imposed and then it is manifest they ought not to be heard because this like Sampson with an honest perhaps but yet a blind fury and a mistaken zeal pulls up the very Pillars of Government from their natural basis and destroys the onely expedient under Heaven of publick safety security and peace it makes the very worship of God it self precarious and uncertain and exposes it at every turn to the design of Knaves the destructive zeal of Madmen and Enthusiasts the libertinism of Epicures and voluptuary persons to the scorn of Atheists and the contempt of all wise considerate and sober men there must therefore still be another reason assigned why the Ceremonies that are boggled at should be abolished and those reasons can be none but one of those three that have been mentioned already either they are too cumbersome by reason of their number or they are superstitious in their use or they are idolatrous in their direction The first of these particulars hath been already considered and as to the second a Ceremony may be said to be superstitiously used when we ascribe to it some Physical virtue or efficacy or some supernatural effect which it hath not or when we say that by or together with it grace is conferred as in the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper but we do not affirm this of any of our Ceremonies and our Church hath expresly declared that she intends nothing by them but onely peace and decency and edification and for the use of the Cross in Baptism which is the great thing scrupled under this head of Superstition she does expresly declare that it doth not at all belong to the Essence of it that the Baptism is compleat without and before it that it is onely a declarative rite of the persons being listed under Christ's Banner of our being dedicated to his service who for our sakes underwent so painfull and so ignominious a death of our not being ashamed of that Cross which the Son of God himself underwent and of our willingness if occasion be to take up our Cross and follow him through much tribulation and sufferings into the glory of the Father So that here there are but two things to be considered either this Rite is unlawfull because it hath been superstitiously abused by those in the Romish Communion and then upon the same account kneeling at our Prayers will be unlawfull because the Papists kneel to the host which yet I presume none of the Dissenters will be so hardy to say or else secondly it will be said as some of them do that it is therefore unlawfull because it is a Ceremony of a symbolical or significative nature which is very strange as if a Ceremony could be unlawfull onely for that reason because it
thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where the calling of assemblies is rendered by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great or high day which in other places is termed an holy convocation by which is meant the first and last day of the three great Feasts which were kept for seven days together in the first and last of which there was a more extraordinary concourse of the People and besides a Sabbath or day of Rest from all manner of secular imploiment which notion if Boâ—â—artus had understood so thoroughly as he should have done if he had known that the seventh day of a Feast was as well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great or high day as the first though it was not equally so for by this time most of those that lived at any distance from Jerusalem were gon home he would not have uttered these words Quin apud Jadaeos nullum fuit Festum in quod non quadret hoc nomen that there was no Feast-day among the Jews which might not properly enough be called a great or high day for which he cites that Text of Joh. c. 7. v. 37. speaking of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the last day that great day of the Feast neither is this any more than what is usual in our own Age as Bochartus could not chuse but know for what day or night is so guilty of excess and riot as that which is the last of the Carnival in Popish Countries and here among our selves the Solemnities of Twelftide and Candlemass are in a manner equal to that of Christmass day Procopius himself whose Authority is produced by Bochartus may be sufficient to put him to silence his words are these expresly asserting a great or high day to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is every day which is termed an holy convocation as the first and seventh day of Vnleavened-bread the day of Pentecost the tenth day of the 〈◊〉 Tisri and in one word every more remarkable â—â— extraordinary Feast-day But you see he expresly tells â—â— as to the Feast of the Passover that onely the first and seventh were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great or high days â—â—â— the same is to be understood of the Feast of Pentecâ—â— or Weeks and of the Feast of Tabernacles for the latter of which we have the express Authority of Saint Joâ—â— it being absurd to call the seventh day of the Feast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great or high day of the feast if all the seven daies were so as well as that so that Bechartus his darling Testimony does sufficiently conâ—â—â—â— that opinion which he endeavours to establish upon it for that which he designs to prove is that the second day of Vnleavened bread upon the approach of which he supposes our Saviour to have suffered was a great or 〈◊〉 day which this Testimony will by no means doe nor that of Procopius neither Since therefore it is agreed â—â— all hands that our Saviour did not suffer upon the seventh day of Vnleavened-bread or upon the approach of it what can be more plain than that he underwent his Passion upon the approach of the Feast at that very time when the Paschal-lamb was to be slain and from hence it is though I did not intend to have betray'd that Secret now that Easter sunday by the ancient 〈◊〉 Church was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great or 〈◊〉 Sunday as I have seen it in their Liturgies both in Manuscript and printed For although the Tessarescaidecatitâ— so called from their following the Jewish account celebrated their Easter upon any day of the week indifferently as Eusebius Epiphanius Saint Austin Theodoret and Philastrius assure us yet it was the general way of the Church which we retain to celebrate it upon the Sunday after the anniversary of the Passion which being coincident with an ordinary or weekly commemoration of 〈◊〉 Resurrection which every Sunday is was called the 〈◊〉 or high Sunday as well because of the concurrence 〈◊〉 it were of two Holydaies in one as for that this being our Christian Passover it answers to the first day of Unleavened bread which was an Holy Convocation among the Jews The last place mentioned by Bochartus is Matt. 26. 5. But they said Not on the Feast day lest there be an uprore 〈◊〉 the people Which place to speak truly proves nothing either way For thus much is certain that the Jews were wont to put to death notorious Malefactours and such some of them looked upon our Saviour and others would have had him thought to be upon the Preparation of their solemn Feast-days when there was a general conslux of the People that so the Punishment might be of greater example but at this time because of the great reputation and esteem which our Blessed Lord had gained among the People it was resolved among the Chief-priests and Scribes that his Crucifixion should not be on the Feast-day lest the Concern of the People for him might occasion a Tumult but now it being clear that the Concourse would be in a manner equal either on the first day of Unleavened-bread or on the day before it when all that were to partake of the Passover were actually come to Jerusalem to prepare themselves in order to it we must refer it wholly to the Providence of God who put it into the hearts of the Chief-priests and Scribes upon occasion of Judas his betraying him to doe what they designed at a time when they did not design it that so he might approve himself to be Christ our Passover as Saint Paul calls him and the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world in the Divine Decree but not to be brought actually to the Slaughter untill this fulness of time For this reason it was that not a bone of him was â—â—â—ken when the Theives who were crucify'd together with him not being yet actually dead were dispated this way because a bone of the Passover was not tâ— be broken for this reason he expired at the ninth hour that is about three in the afternoon the very time whâ—â— the Passover was to be killed for this reason he cameâ— Jerusalem as Bochartus himself ingeniously and learâ—ly observes upon the tenth of Nisan the time whâ— the Passovers according to the Law of Moses were 〈◊〉 be set by for Sacrifices on the fourteenth and for the same reason it was as the same Learned man conjectures that he began to preach in the thirtieth year of his age which being the perfect age of a man in his full strength and vigour answers to the Passover of a year old and â—â— continued preaching till his thirty fourth year where if you take years for daies in the Prophetick style 〈◊〉 entring upon his Preaching in his thirtieth year will 〈◊〉 as it were his setting apart in order to his being a Saâ—â—â—fice in the thirty fourth Lastly Our Saviour himself expresly saies Matt. 26. v. 2. Ye know that
worship called Chazan and the Greeks sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is evident from the words of Epiphanius in the Heresie of the Aebionites who calls the Hebrew Chazanim by an Hellenistical word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and interprets it in Greek by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the very word used in St. Luke's Gospel and it is plain from that place of St. Luke and from the interpretation of Epiphanius and the place above cited out of the Tractate Succa that no more was meant by it than an ordinary Reader in one of our parish-Parish-Churches whereas Esdras was not only a Priest but a Priest of greatest note and dignity among the Jews at that time as appears sufficiently as well by the sacred Story as by the testimony of Josephus who calls him Antiq. L. XI c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief Priest of the people that is of that part of them who returned out of Babylon into Judea which all the Jews did not the High Priest of the whole nation properly so called remaining still behind whose name in the time of Esdras was Joakim and was succeeded after his death by his son Eliasim remaining still in Babylon as Josephus reports which is still a new argument to invalidate those testimonies of the ancient Fathers whereby they would make Esdras to have recovered the law after it was perfectly lost by a divine inspiration for certainly it is not very likely that the High Priest himself who was chiefly concerned to understand the law was any whit less knowing in it than Esdras much less that all the succession during that Interval which consisted of three several persons according to Josephus that is Jesus and Joakim and Eliasim were all of them so utterly unacquainted with the law and with their office as they must be if this opinion of the Fathers be admitted for truth besides that what Josephus saith of Esdras that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficiently or competently skilled in the law of Moses is very short of a divine inspiration It being therefore thus clear from so many irrefragable arguments that the reading of the law till after the translation of the seventy was not permitted the commonalty of the Jews which if it had it would have been impossible that both the law and language during this interval should have been so utterly lost It being certain that they were kept in this ignorance and darkness even in the time of their best Kings of David and Solomon and Josiah and that it was so far from being disallowed by God himself that it seems expresly approved by him in those words of the Prophet Malachi which I have produced Lastly It being no less evident that such a concealment of the Law from the knowledge of the common people could not be without great inconveniences attending it by exposing them to the cheats and impostures of the Priests as it is at this day in the Church of Rome in a great measure and by being in all probability the occasion of their so frequently relapsing into the Idolatrous worship of the Nations round about them From hence we have another pregnant instance how strict and religious care was had to the preservation of peace and unity in the Jewish Church and this example pursued into its consequences is still a stronger argument for all those humane means of unity and publique peace which if quietly submitted to and obeyed will bring to pass that blessed end they aim at without exposing us to any of those dangers and inconveniences with which this Jewish prohibition was attended If it were lawfull or warrantable among the ancient Jews to prohibit the reading of the Scriptures or so much as to permit them not to be read because the reading of them would be attended with this fatal consequence that it would infallibly through the perversness of bad or the unskilfulness of ignorant men have been the occasion of great schisms and disorders in the Jewish Church and State as I have demonstrated it must needs have proved notwithstanding the great danger and inconvenience to which the prohibition it self was exposed then certainly all those humane institutions which tend to the same end without the same or any like inconvenience are undoubtedly lawfull and fit to be commanded and consequently both fit and necessary to be obey'd The great design of Religion is the peace and happiness of Mankind and therefore whatever does in its own nature or in its direct and necessary consequence tend to the disquiet and disturbance of the world is naturally forbidden to men considered as members of a civil society such was the promiscuous use of the Law and Prophets among the ancient Jews and for that reason it was with equal justice and necessity forbidden and if it be the same case in the permission of things indifferent or in the publique allowance of every man's private fancy and humour as to the circumstances and external Modifications of Divine worship if this be always found by experience to be a means of crumbling men into Factions and Parties of alienating mens affections and disuniting their interests and setting the several Parties at a perpetual strife and variance with one another then it follows plainly that a prohibition of such liberty under legal penalties which is the only remedy against such disorders is because necessary to a necessary end the peace and welfare of Mankind lawfull and a duty incumbent on the Civil Magistrate to whom the care of the publique peace and safety is committed which if he shall neglect he is answerable to God for the greatest breach of trust of which any publique administration is capable and it being confessedly at every man 's own choice not considering him as a Member of a Society what indifferent posture or circumstance he will make use of in divine worship otherwise there could be no indifferent things in nature it is as necessary when he enters into or engages himself in a society that he resign up this liberty to the publique Will of the Supreme Civil Power as any other privilege or power of acting with which antecedently to all bargain or compact he is by nature invested For this plain reason because otherwise the society can either not subsist at all or not without perpetual trouble and disorder which because it is in all its degrees a proportionable tendency to an actual dissolution it may and must be restrained with the same care with which Rebellion or Anarchy should be avoided which being the direct contrariety to Government or the return of Society into a state of nature is that in whose prevention by all necessary means the Magistrate is chiefly concerned We find in Scripture that even divine Laws themselves are sometimes of no force or obligation when a particular act of Charity or Mercy either to man or beast is concerned as when David and his followers ate the shew-bread which could not