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
another as all the several barbarous and distant Nations of which the Ottoman forces are composed who though they are all engaged upon a common design yet they understand not one anothers Language I say whatever were the true occasion of such an irregular composure or whether Your Lordship will referr it besides the two causes I have lately mentioned to some decay of mind which my misfortunes may have brought upon me yet thus much I know that when I came to consider and compare the sheets which I had written together I was very much ashamed of what I had done and very angry with my self insomuch that I saw no hopes of being reconciled but by throwing those papers that had made the difference aside to try if that way it were possible the business might be forgotten that so Richard and Baxter who were at Mortal jarrs might be brought to a better understanding with one another for it is a very painfull and uneasie thing for a man to be fallen out with himself and if there be any torment more exquisite than another a thing of which all the Philosophers but the Scepticks are agreed I am clearly of opinion that the shame and confusion resulting from a foolish and imprudent action is the worst punishment belonging to humane nature Therefore I did as it very nearly concerned me use all the expedients I could think of or devise and made all the friends I could possibly to my self that the business might be timely made up and as the last remedy I was resolved to forget it and to employ my meditations upon subjects of another and a very different nature In this interval I writ that Discourse concerning the Laws of Nature and their obligation which is now abroad as the second part of it lies by me ready for the Press onely it wants transcribing for it is written after so confused a manner that no Compositor can deal with it at present I writ also that Epistle which followed concerning the Marriage of Cousin Germans which hath suffered great variety of censures not onely from the different capacity of its readers but from their different interests likewise for it is generally the nature of Mankind that they will have nothing to be true which does not sute with the circumstances they are or would be in albeit when things are impartially considered I can scarce believe there are twenty men in the King's dominions that are concerned in point of interest or honour to believe what I have written to be false and I have some reason to believe that the most considerable objection that lies against that short Essay is that it will be very long before any man who understands himself will be so hardy to undertake to answer it There was one indeed who had a design of that nature and though I know not the person yet his character I do and so will Your Lordship likewise when I shall have told you that it was the loyal learned and ingenious writer of Constantius the Apostate an adversary whom though for his known ability I had reason to dread yet having Nature and Antiquity so clearly on my side I would have chosen such an Antagonist before any other both because in his advocation and defence of Cousin Germans the utmost strength of that cause would have been brought into the Field which would have brought the matter on one side or other to a speedy issue and because he was pleased to express himself in a Letter of his which had no name at the bottom with so much candour and ingenuity towards me and indeed so far above any thing which I pretend to deserve that I was well assured that the controversie would be managed on both sides without any heat of words with mutual kindness and civility toward each other as becomes those that know how to defend the truth without insolence and how to yield to it without shame and that have joined the courtesie of Gentlemen and the charity of Christians to the learning judgment and ability of Scholars but upon what reason I know not he afterwards desisted as it seems from his design and I do not speak this as if I would be thought to send him a challenge by Your Lordship which it would be very rude in me to doe but I would rather make it my humble request to him that he would suspend his engaging in the controversie against me till he have heard all I have to say for my self and then if my arguments will not demonstrate what they pretend to do I will as freely recant my opinion as ever I maintained it and give the World the reasons why I have altered my mind in the mean time I look upon my self as bound in gratitude and justice to let Your Lordship and the World understand how much I think my self obliged to so ingenious a man for his favourable opinion of me and that I should be glad to be as well acquainted with his person as I am with his unquestionable loyalty and learning My Lord I am very sensible that by what I writ upon that subject I did incur the displeasure of some for whom I have so great an honour that I am very uneasie under the sense and apprehension of it though I have done nothing but what I thought my duty at that time when I did it and I see no reason yet to alter my mind but these are the common inconveniences of humane life to which every wise and good man ought with a Philosophical patience and equality to submit as I do and am very perfect in that Lesson which by long practice I have taught my self of bearing with patience as well the affronts and indignities of mine enemies as the misconstructions and misinterpretations of my friends for such I call all those who are friends to our common freinds the King the Church and the Religion established and that I might give no farther occasion of offence I have suspended for a while the publication of what remains upon the same subject till the controversie not yet decided by my Lords the Delegates have received its final period and issue by their judicious honourable and wise determination And besides these papers which have been either publish'd or are ready for the Press and were some of them begun and others finish'd during that time of my retirement from my former studies and to another end of the Town there was another discourse which lay by me imperfect being an exercitatation upon that Law of Moses whereby the Brother or the next of kin was obliged to raise up seed to his deceased and childless Brother or Kinsman a great part of which was written by me at Cambridge as a preparatory to that other Treatise of the Marriage of Cousin Germans which it is now a long time that my thoughts and studies have been conversant about and being so much of it as was then done transcribed in a very fair and legible hand
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
impossible that there should because of necessity the several manners customes and other circumstances of several Nations will introduce a diversity of external Formalitie into Religious Worship which may be done without any breach of Charity or Friendship among men because there is no interest to be served by promoting Feuds and Animosities between them and it will be all one to the peace and happiness of this Kingdome what rites or usages soever the Greek or Armenian Churches shall embrace We do not much trouble our heads though by reason of their near Neighbourhood we have some reason to do it about the French saying Mass or adoring Reliques or Images or praying for Dead or worshipping the Host Nay you shall hardly ever see a man in a passion when he hears the Tragicall stories of those horrible persecutions against the professours of the Reformed Religion but though he may relieve and pity them so far as a small temporary Contribution will go yet in truth and reality he is not much concerned whereas at home we can make a shift to fall out about much smaller matters the reason is because we are not embarked in the same bottom with them and so being able to do neither good nor hurt by being angry or displeas'd we scarce ever trouble our selves But at home the pretences of Religion and Liberty which are always stirring when ever there is any prospect of publique Disorders likely to ensue upon them will never fail to excite the ambitious the discontented and the needy to embroyle the State out of principles either of Interest or Revenge while the passions of men that dayly converse together and are engaged by interest or prejudice or duty in the respective parties do but serve to blow the cole and improve the sparks of Animosity into a flame of War The consequence of all which is That there may be differences in the universal Church consisting of many Kingdomes and Provinces without dissention and that all that whatever it is which is requisite to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace may be consistent enough with differences in smaller matters but that in the same Kingdome or Dominion this can never be But secondly By the Church we may understand a National Congregation of Christian People divided into many partitions or particular assemblies united together by an unity of Faith and Discipline and Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction and this is that which I affirm to be necessary in every Kingdome or State that would avoid all occasions of publique Tumults and Disorders and would be as happy either as themselves can wish or as Christianity designs to make them And therefore this is that unity which is by every Good Christian good Citizen or good Subject above all things which this world can afford the most earnestly to be desired for the obtaining of which he is to submit to every thing that shall be required of him and he is to abstain from every thing which is forbidden him if all things considered it may lawfully be done or avoided Thirdly In compliance with those of the Congregationall way I am content to allow a third sense of the word Church to be a particular and independent Congregation governed by Laws and measures of its own and acknowledging no Jurisdiction Forreign to it self and this is a Form of Church Government which in a Christian Kingdome or Common-wealth I affirm to be naturally unlawfull And here there are two cases to be considered First Either the whole body of the People is divided into such particular and independent Congregations or there is a nationall Establishment from which these particular Congregations have separated themselves The first of these is Babel in Effigie the very Emblem and Landskip of Confusion subject to inconveniences that cannot be thought of till they are felt and capable of such infinite sub-divisions as will at length reduce the comely Form of Government by so many particular interests and factions into a State of publick Hostility and Rapine for the reason why men separate from one another is always out of some reall or some pretended dislike which dislikes by actuall separation are so far from being composed that they are manifestly improved and heightned by it and from hence arise so many several Interests as there are Sects or denominations of Parties in a Common-wealth For it is natural to all men to desire to gain Proselytes to their own Opinion for men to love themselves and those of their own way and to think of other men who are not enroll'd in the same list with themselves if not with a reall hatred yet with a less esteem and a comparative Aversation which whenever a Ball of Interest is thrown between them will be improved into all the sad effects of the most desperate Malice and Revenge But here to make all sure as I go along I must repeat again That by Indâ—â—endent Congregations I mean such as own no Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction externall to themselves from whence it is easie to perceive that every such Congregation may be a new Sect and Party by it self as it was in a manner in the late Times when the Sects were spawned in such increadible abundance that the Alphabet began to complain of want of Letters to furnish so many different and disagreeing Parties with names Neither is it to be supposed that so many several Factions notwithstanding their differences in matters of Religion shall yet conspire in an uniform Obedience to the Civil Power because to be uppermost is that which they all desire and since the very same persons are members of the Commonwealth and of a particular Sect or Party it is ridiculous to hope that the State can ever be quiet till all these parties can agree together to be of the same mind which is to make them cease to be what they are In the United Provinces where the greatest Liberty is given and taken of any other Territory in the Christian World the peace of the publick could not be secured if it were not for the Overballance of the Calviâ—isticall Party above the rest for the Calvinists as Sir Willian Temple in his Observations upon the United Provinces takes notice p. 204. make up the body of the People and are possessed of all the publick Churches in the Dominions of the State as well as of the onely Ministers or Pastours who are maintained by the publick who have no other Salaries than what they receive from the State upon whom they wholly depend and for that reason they will be sure to preach obedience and submission to the People But yet notwithstanding this so great has the power and interest of the Louvestane or Arminian Party alwaies been that it has been the occasion of great revolutions among them and as it was probably one of the main causes of their so sudden fall from the height of envy into the lowest region of pity and despair within the compass of a very few years
it self which is to engage men in closer obligations of unity and friendship with one another and therefore ought not to be tolerated in a Christian State no more than Atheism or Infidelity themselves it being the extremity of Non-sense and religious Folly to allow that Charity Good-will and Peace are the indispensable duties of a Christian nay the characteristick indications of his being Christ's Disciple that God is Love and that whosoever loveth not his brother whom he hath seen cannot possibly love God whom be hath not seen and yet that that Form of Church Government is I will not say of divine Institution but of divine Permission which is in its very nature and essential constitution so exactly fitted to bring the World into Confusion and Disorder And so I have done with the first Case which supposes the whole Body of a People to be parcell'd out into many distinct and independent Congregations Give me leave now to speak a very little to the second which presumes onely a Separation of one or more Congregations from the Body of the National Church setting up a new Authority of its own and disowning the Jurisdiction of the publick which second Case differs onely in proportion from the first and will of necessity labour with all those ill consequences in its degree and measure with which the first is incumbred and it being much easier for small things to encrease than to begin the consequences at the long run will be exactly the same if the Government by a wise temperament of Care and Courage do not put a timely stop to the progress of such ill boding beginnings Into such separate Assemblies as these all the ill humorâ— of the Body politick will naturally flow thither the unfortunate the discontented the covetous and the ambitious will betake themselves to seek revenge against reall or imaginary wrongs to repair the decaies and ruines of a broken fortune to satisfie the craving circumstances of poverty and want and to fill up the wide capacity of immodest unreasonable and unjust desires at the expence of the publick welfare security and quiet Neither are such Conventicles as these dangerous onely to the Civil Peace by being the natural causes of embroilment and disturbance the very sinks and common-shores into which all bad humors disembogue themselves and find a welcome entertainment while the simplicity of some suffers it self under the specious pretences of an extraordinary zeal to be misled and carry'd away captive by the designing Hypocrisie of others but which is still worse they have a no less pleasing aspect upon Religion it self which either by the infinite pretences to greater purity a most absurd and foolish cause of Separation which knows no Law and will admit no bounds they refine so long till they have utterly lost it or by a most impious and unreasonable claim to I know not what Gospel Liberty they get at last to be Libertines indeed and are placed as far above the reach of Ordinances as those Ordinances themselves by their design and use for the preservation of Love and Unity in the Church by their Divine institution and appointment and by the supernatural Grace which is exhibited and convey'd by a due and worthy participation of them are plac'd above the blasphemous contempt of such profane and dissolute Wâ—etches But I would by no means be so far misunderstood as if I were so uncharitable as to think that all or so much as the greatest part of those that separate doe it out of any bad design for I am not onely morally certain of the contrary as to the much greater number of the People but as to the Pastors themselves if that be any credit for them I dare be confident in very many instances that the blind lead the blind and that they are not sensible of those dismal inconveniences to which their Separation is naturally exposed but in what I have just now said I chiefly reflect upon the sad experience of former times which is sufficient to convince us what the genuine tendencie of these new models is and I do no more question that the same causes if suffered to operate with the same freedom will have the same effect than I do whether humane nature and humane passions be the same now that they were twenty or thirty years ago which Consideration if all well-meaning but misguided Christians would seriously lay to heart I cannot doubt but it would soon have a very wonderfull effect upon the Peace and Settlement of these distracted Kingdoms by persuading all that heartily wish the Prosperity of Sion and pray for the Peace of this our spiritual Jerusalem to leave their separate Assemblies and betake themselves into the bosom of the Church which cannot behold so much goodness and sincerity so miserably misled and gon astray without all the concern that is natural to a distressed forsaken Mother and stands alwaies ready with her arms wide open and with an entreating voice and mind to receive them into her most tender and passionate embraces Some sort of Unity as to external Discipline is necessary to the consistence even of those lesser bodies nay the Quakers themselves who are much the most exorbitant of all Parties to be found among us yet they differ from others and agree with one another in nothing more than in a certain Formality peculiar to themselves And how much more desirable would it be that all Parties laying aside their respective heats and animosities which under such diversity of outward forms they so dangerously foment and carry on against each other should unite together under one common rule in such a blessed band of Peace and Love as would remove all our Jealousies and prevent all our Fears and make every man in the Streets in an unknown Face to meet his Guide his Companion and his own familiar Friend This is my first Answer to the Objection taken from the pretence of a Tender Conscience That an Uniformity of one sort or other is of absolute necessity to the peace of the Church which Uniformity since it cannot be obtained unless men could all jump into the same mind of themselves and continue in it when they had done it follows unavoidably that there is and must always be in the Church a standing Authority from whence the Sanctions of Discipline and Order shall receive their obligation I come now to give a more particular Answer to the Objection proposed and in that I shall consider in the general what the terms of this Uniformity must be or rather what kind of terms they are to which all Christian People are obliged to submit It must be granted therefore That though an Uniformity in Religious Worship be that which is above all things in this World the most passionately to be desired yet this being only in order to that great End to which all our endeavours and counsels ought to be directed the Eternal happiness and salvation of our Souls no terms of Uniformity ought
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
tends to edification as it is the nature of a significant Ceremony to do And here indeed is a great and common mistake concerning indifferent things as we do usually but falsely call them for though we do not say that any one Ceremony hath any superstitious efficacy or virtue in it or that it can never upon any consideration be changed or omitted or that it is of absolute necessity in order to salvation yet this must be confessed at the last that many things are not so indifferent as they are usually esteemed It is very fit and consequently a duty that the Clergy should go attired in black rather than in colours that they should wear long robes rather than short and rather short hair than long because it will always be that the latter of these will in the minds of all men create a sense of levity a disposition to contempt an opinion of luxury and effeminate softness whereas the former in the common interpretation of Mankind will always have a grave and a majestick appearance they will reslect authority credit and an opinion of sobriety and staidness upon him that wears them and if the person be unlike what he appears his habit which was designed among other things for a mark of distinction will be the greater and the more deserved reproach to him The Nonconformists themselves are so sensible of this that they themselves wear black for no good reason but what is symbolical though they condemn that account of any thing we doe in us and they wear long cloaks too though Gowns and Cassocks they have nothing to doe with and therefore they do still remain in a state of superstition and uncleanness onely for that reason because they are longer that is more grave more becoming more authoritative because they preach better and perswade more effectually than short ones The Surplice a thing so much decryed and talked against by some what is it to the Layety or how come they so deeply to scruple it in others who are not obliged to wear it themselves if they scruple it for no reason but onely because they are not that is they will not be satisfied a man can as little tell where such an unaccountable scrupulosity will end as from whence it begins or upon what reason it is founded when it is confessed to be founded upon no reason at all besides that it is intolerable that they that talk so much of liberty themselves should not leave us at our liberty to act as our Oaths and as the Laws oblige us when they can assign no reason why we should not and when the dispute is about a matter in which they are not personally concerned if there be any reason why it is scrupled it is onely because it is a symbolical thing which hath been already answered besides that it stands perfectly upon the same bottom with their own putting on clean cloaths and change of raiment on a Sunday which that that day of the week is chose above all the rest to doe it in it must be confessed to be done upon a religious account and a symbolical reason out of respect to that day and to intimate that purity and innocence of mind which is expected from them in the worship of God For the Communion Tables being railed in and separated in that manner which it is from the rest of the Church it is declared in the Canons of 1640. Article 7. that it is onely to avoid that irreverence and prosanation which would otherwise bring a contempt upon all holy things and upon the consecrated Elements themselves It is rather necessary than otherwise that I should be uncovered at Church as being at that time more especially in the presence of God and that I should kneel or stand rather than sit at my Prayers because these are Natural postures of humility and reverence and have been esteemed so in all Ages and Nations whereas sitting or leaning or lying along do betoken a comparative carelesness and disregard of God and of his worship and will without question produce that bad effect upon the minds of men whereever they are put in practice as on the contrary a devout and submissive gesture and deportment of our selves at the times and places of religious worship is of real benefit and advantage to our selves and is of good example to others and for the edification of all which things are so plain and so undoubted a justification of all significant Ceremonies that I need say no more concerning them Lastly there is no Ceremony in our Church which is or is pretended to be Idolatrous in its direction for as to the bowing towards the Altar or Communion-Table placed at the East end of the Church it is left to every man's liberty by the Canons of 1640. to behave himself in that matter as he pleases so that here is nothing imposed and yet because this hath been formerly so highly censured and perhaps with some more tolerable pretence than any of the other exceptions that are made I should not use it since I am not enjoined where it may give offence or be an occasion of scandal to the weak but in Cathedral or Collegiate Churches where the Congregations usually are better informed there is no reason why it may not be done for it is not pretended that we bow to any carved Image or to the likeness of any living Creature whether in Heaven or Earth which was the thing expresly forbidden by the second Commandment that we worship the Railes or the Table it self or at any time the consecrated Elements upon it which is likewise included in the meaning of that Commandment all which our Church does expresly declare against in as plain Language as words are capable of speaking And in the second place it is to be considered that the Israelites long before Christianity was thought of did always worship toward Jerusalem that is towards a certain quarter of the Heavens without any the least suspicion of Idolatry and that for ought appears onely by humane institution lastly I hope it will not be denied that God is in all times and places a very true and proper object of adoration and that there is no quarter of the Heavens besides the symbolical reasons upon which this practice depends towards which we may not worship him without Idolatry As for our kneeling at the Sacrament our Church hath sufficiently declared her self in this point that she intends no worship but to God onely to God the Father who sent his onely begotten Son into the World to die for our sins to God the Son who is then spiritually received and dies afresh for us in the merit and virtue and efficacy of his passion as often as we do worthily partake of those holy mysteries and to God the Holy Ghost whose Grace is then implored and received by us Because the Papists worship their Breaden God shall it therefore be unlawfull for us to kneel at our Prayers to