upon the World by the Institution of Christianity that they should ever lose it § 9. The last thing pleaded by our Author for the Divine Institution of Sacrifices is the words of St. Paul By Faith Abel offered Sacrifice And faith hath respect unto the Testimony of God revealing commanding and promising to accept our Duty And therefore this was not done by his own Choice but by warrant of a divine Command This Argument indeed is often insisted upon by some sort of Writers out of whom our Author whose custom it is to pour forth his crude Dictate rather from his Memory than his Reason transcribes it in haste without weighing its Force and Validity But it bottoms upon such a short and narrow account of the nature of Faith as would make wild work with the Phaenomena of Providence in the World And therefore to be brief the proper and last Resolution of this vertue as I have already intimated is into the Goodness and not the bare Testimony of God and we therefore trust the truth of divine Revelation because we believe him so essentially good that he nor can nor will deceive his Creatures So that our Belief of the Testimony of God is not the full and adequate Notion of Faith but 't is one particular Instance of our Confidence in his essential goodness and therefore there may be acts of this Duty without any supposal of divine Revelation and such was the Faith of Abel as the Apostle there describes it For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him This upright man therefore being so amply satisfied of the Existence and goodness of his heavenly Father and conscious of his own Integrity in the offering of his Sacrifice rested secure from the Testimony of his own Conscience of Gods gracious acceptance However might not the Faith ascribed to Abel relate to the discharge of his Duty and not to the manner of its Performance And though he worshipped God in obedience to his Command which was an Act of Faith yet that is no more proof that he had any more divine warrant for the manner of his Worship than for the kind of his Sacrifice yet it was indifferent as to divine acceptance whether he had offered the Fruits of his Tillage or the Products of his Flock for the Sacrifice of Cain was not rejected because not of the same kind with that of Abel but had it been presented with the same Qualifications it had been rewarded with the same acceptance And thus does our Authors way of Arguing multiply difficulties upon himself for if it be of any force it will infer a necessity of a divine Command to determine the kind of Sacrifice as well as the manner of Worship and then is he obliged not only to produce a Law for Sacrifices but one to Cain to offer the Fruits of the Field and another to Abel to offer Living Creatures and this is competent evidence that God never prescribed their patticular mode of Worship but left it to the choice of their own Convenience and Discretion and therefore they both chose that which was most proper sutable to their respective conditions of life God entail'd his acceptance not upon the outward Expressions of their worship but the inward Qualifications of their minds To conclude this Argument is utterly impertinent unless upon supposition of this Principle that men have not any Rational Ground to expect that God should accept the faithful discharge of their Duty unless himself have prescribed all particular ways and circumstances of the manner of its Performance but this is to betake themselves to the lazy trade of Begging and this man is bold enough for this shameless employment And though he is not so confident as to take up his Bush so near home yet when he gets aloof off into my sixth Chapter he grows as bold and sturdy as the Gentlemen Cripples of Southwark are in Lincolns-Inn Fields For there to secure the Fundamental Mystery of Puritanism against all opposition viz. that nothing ought to be practised in the Worship of God but what is warranted in the Word of God he lays down certain Proleptick and self-evident Principles the first whereof is That wherever in the Scripture we meet with any Religious Duty that had a preceding Institution although we find not expresly a consequent Approbation we take it for granted that it was approved and so on the contrary where an Approbation appears and Institution is conceal'd And in another Theorem in the same Chapter to the same purpose for People of that Trade and Way of Life are much given to Repetitions he gives in this very Instance of Sacrifices for proof viz. Whatever they the Patriarchs did they had especial warranty from God for which is the case of the great Institution of Sacrifices it self It is a sufficient Argument that they were divinely instituted because they were graciously accepted What figure this is called in his Pedling Logick I know not but in ours 't is yâ—lep'd begging the Question A singular way of dispute this is it not First to take the Conclusion for granted and then challenge it for a Principle to prove it self and to lay down the main matter in debate for a truth so certain that a man is obliged by the Laws of Reasoning to grant it before he is capable of any right to dispute it Who would ever contradict this Author in these Enquiries that would admit those Postulata for self-evident Propositions But this man is so bold and obnoxious a Beggar that if he will continue to follow this Trade 't is impossible he should long escape the Beadles watchful eye but more cruel hand I know no Refuge he has to protect his Back against this severe Executioner unless by listing himself into some Society of Gypsies for whom he is admirably qualified as to the two great Offices of Canting and Begging and wants not above one accomplishment more to compleat him at all points for that Imployment and 't is more noble and generous than to beg after this stragling rate After this Discourse of the Original of Sacrifices and after another to give an account of the reason of Gods prescribing every particular Rite and Ceremony of his Worship under the Mosaick Pedagogy I proceeded to shew that the main design of the Christian Institution was to establish the great Duties of Vertue and real Righteousness and not to determine Rites and Ceremonies of external Worship in so much that we find none prescribed in the New Testament save only the two Sacraments and upon this I challenged the unpeaceableness of these Men that upon their Principle must be Rebels and Schismaticks to all Churches in Christendom as well as the Church of England But to this hush not one syllable of reply 't is close and immediate to my purpose and therefore of no concern to his he cares not
they not indifferently serviceable to that end whether they are design'd to deter the Person himself by his own Experience or any other by his Example from the like Practices Temporal Inflictions are but accessional strengths to the Obligations of Conscience that Men may be concern'd to avoid the Punishment as well as the Crime and therefore though it be punishable to affright others from the same Enormities what hinders but that Men may be obliged in Conscience to forbear them under the Sanction of an higher Penalty The pure Reason of all Humane Punishments is nothing but the Publick Interest and therefore their measure is ever proportion'd to the influence that the Crimes have upon the Concerns of the Community and Malefactors are executed not to revenge their Injuries but to prevent those Mischiefs the Publick would sustain by their Impunity And if this be any reason why Humane Laws should not pass any Obligation upon the Conscience because their Penalties are inflicted for the sake of others then no Capital Laws can ever bind the Conscience because all Capital Inflictions neither have nor can have any other end but what relates to others What else can this Man design by such crude and blundring Cavils but meerly to amuse or what is the same with them satisfie the People They run over these Lines and because they cannot find where the Crisis of the Exception lies they pass it by for a deep and Scholastick Subtilty Though all the Mystery lies in the palpable folly and the onely difficulty that amazes the common Reader is its having none at all This was an Essay of his Skill but his next attempt is a proof of his Courage for it is no doubt an Heroick Act of Boldness to dare to impose upon the Publick with meer and ungrounded Forgeries and such is that Assertion he would fasten upon me as a further proof of the inconsistency of my Thoughts viz. That I confine the whole Work and Duty of Conscience to the inward Thoughts and Perswasions of the Mind This in down-right English is a shameless Lye Sir you must pardon my rudeness for I will assure you after long meditation I could not devise a more pertinent Answer to so bold an one as this I confess 't is no extraordinary conceit but 't is the best Repartee my barren Fancy was able to suggest to me upon so rude an occasion Suppose it were your own case that you could be so ill-advised as to print Books should any Person be so bold and disingenuous as not onely to pervert your meaning and disturb your method but what is base without allay fasten upon you Assertions equally false and wicked without any reference to Page or Section and without any imaginable foundation of his mistake what other return would you vouchsafe to make to such an unmannerly attempt than what I have made Meer Calumny as it deserves no more serious Resentment than utter neglect so it is capable of no more civil Confutation than flat denial I could take occasion from this falshood to add some Reflections of another Nature but it is so utterly groundless that it needs and so grosly disingenuous that it deserves no other Baffle but pure disdain Perhaps a Scotch-man would only have told him as the Bishop of Derry tells a Man of as lavish a Pen as my Author that he is very good Company but I am a blunt English-man and hate a Lye as I do Idolatry or Witchcraft and therefore you must pardon my plainness if I call a Fable a Fable Now beside this Argument drawn from a Topick so vile that you see I am almost ashamed to name it the sum of all the other Exceptions amounts to this That I do not define when I argue nor distinctly state my own Determinations when I remonstrate to other Mens That I do not propound and solve Difficulties in the same Words and that my Answers contradict my Objections That every Paragraph does not discharge the Undertaking of my whole Book That the Reasonings of each Chapter are not fully and distinctly express't in its short and general Contents and that all the particular Notions and Determinations of the Discourse are not comprized in the Title-Page In brief that I have fail'd of the Glory to dispatch all Difficulties and decide all Controversies in one breath Woful Misadventures these It were easie to present you with vast heaps of Instances to the same purpose but I have neither leisure nor patience to reckon up more particularities to spare harder Expressions of his folly 'T is enough that his whole Book is nothing but a Treasury of Cavils and that he draws his Arguments not from any Principles of sincere Reason but from the Topicks of prating and vulgar Talk You cannot dip into a Page but you will light upon some such lank and windy Exceptions as I have above recited and yet I must not stay to glance at them they are so innumerable these that I have already represented lay first in my way and in the very entrance and upon the very threshold of his Book and they may suffice for a short Specimen of that singular Logick he pretends to And if the Reader will be at the pains as I fear he will not to compare his Cavils with my Replys that will infinitely satisfie him of the impertinency of this Mans way of scribling but if he will not I shall be ashamed of entertaining him so long with such poor and unedifying Remarks And therefore I shall not waste more time in pursuing such slender Trifles but shall rather to prevent him hereafter from abusing the People with these and the like mean Artifices set down a short Model of the Parts the Coherence the Design of my former Treatise for few vulgar Readers I perceive have either Patience or Ability to carry along with them the Method and Connexion of a large Discourse § 4. In the first place then I begun with a more general account of the absolute necessity of investing Soveraign Princes with an Ecclesiastical Power and Jurisdiction over the Consciences of Men in Matters of Religion and this I proved at large by representing what mighty and powerful influence it casts upon all the most important Ends and Interests of Government so that to exempt its due Conduct and Management from the Authority of the Supreme Civil Power is apparently to strip it of its greatest security to disable it from a right discharge of its Office and Jurisdiction and to expose the Publick Setlement to the Whimsies and Exorbitances of every crazy Zealot And having laid this large Foundation upon the firmest Principles of Reason and the most undeniable Experience of Mankind I proceeded in the next place to erect a more particular Hypothesis of the Nature and Extent of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction where I run a Parallel between the Affairs immediately relating to Religious Worship and the Duties and Offices of Morality proving Moral Vertues to be more
and all other Determinations there is no possible way to avoid making the last Appeal to different Judgments because that is absolutely unavoidable in the natural Constitution of Humane Affairs And therefore I never attempted as some Men have done to devolve the entire Power of judging upon the Judgment of one Party but onely supposing our different Respects and Obligations to these different Judgments to propound the safest and most moderate Principles upon which to setle and accommodate the Government of Humane Affairs and to adjust all matters capable of debate between them by such fair Proposals and upon such reasonable Principles that if the Parties concern'd will be ingenuous in their respective Capacities will effectually enough secure the common Peace and Happiness of Mankind if they will not the Publick Miseries and Calamities that ensue upon the default of either Party will be proportion'd to the degrees of their respective Transgressions and against them 't is not in my power to provide unless I could devest the Minds of Men of all Liberty of Judgment and Freedom of Will for whilst they remain 't is at their own choice whether they will follow the best and wisest advice in the World § 9. Thus if Magistrates fail on their part and Enact any Laws in defiance of the certain and apparent Laws of God from thence arise the Calamities of Tyranny and Persecution and against this evil there is no remedy but Patience and Prayers Divine Providence is Superiour to the Power of Soveraign Princes and superintends their Government of the World and therefore to God alone must we address our Complaints for relief against Cruelty and Oppression and if he judge it convenient for the interests of his Church and the purposes of Religion he will so order the Circumstances of Things and the Management of Affairs as to rescue them out of their Streights and Exigences The Hearts and the Scepters of Kings are subject to his Almighty Wisdom and he so disposes them as to make them comply with the Decrees of his uncontroulable Will and therefore whatever inconveniences may befal Good Men through the Folly or the Wickedness of Governours they must be patiently endured as certain Issues and unsearchable Designs of Divine Providence and we have no recourse for Succour or Deliverance but to his infinite Mercy and Goodness this is our only Support and Sanctuary and who can desire greater Safety than to be under his immediate Care and Protection And therefore there is nothing more unbecoming the Faith and the Profession of a Christian than to betake himself to violent and irregular Courses against the Inconveniences of Government 't is a direct and open affront to the Superintendency of Providence that has reserved this Prerogative to it self 't is our Duty to obey cheerfully or to suffer patiently and to leave all other Events of Things to his All-comprehensive Wisdom Mankind must be subject to Government no Government can be effectual unless it be Supreme and Absolute and therefore God has been pleased to enjoin us a full and entire Subjection to our lawful Superiours and as for what may ensue thereon we must leave to his wise and unerring Disposal and then certainly we may rest secure of a good Issue of Things So that if the Magistrate erre in his Judgment of the extent of his Authority and act beyond the Bounds of his lawful Jurisdiction 't is not in the Power of Subjects to redress or to remove the Mischiefs that must ensue upon his Government they must discharge their Duty and submit to their Fate and as for the Reformation of any Publick Miscarriages they must leave it entirely to the Will and the Wisdom of the Soveraign Power So that the material thing of which Princes ought to be careful is that their Laws cross not with the express Laws of God and this they may easily avoid if they will be upright and ingenuous and this if they will do they may as easily avoid all the Mischiefs and Inconveniences that may befal Men of peaceable Spirits through their default But as 't is their Duty not to transgress their own Bounds so on the other side 't is as much their Interest to restrain their Subjects from transgressing theirs and not suffer them to remonstrate to the Equity of their Laws unless when they can plead a clear undoubted pre-engagement to an higher Authority and they must not prostitute the Interests of the Republique and the Reverence of Government to the Niceties of every curious Imagination or the Cavils of every peevish Humour There is no end of trifling and unreasonable Pretences if once the common People are permitted to put in their Exceptions against the Publick Laws and what a weak and impertinent thing were the Power of Princes if it might be over-ruled by the Folly of the Multitude And how bravely would the World be govern'd if the Authority and Obligation of Laws must be left arbitrary to the Opinion of every vain and foolish Fellow And therefore in such cases the Allegation of a tender Conscience confutes it self and 't is but a soft and plausible word to qualifie a stubborn and contentious Humour and did not something else bear Men up against the force of Authority a weak Conscience has not boldness enough to oppose its own Power and Judgment against the Will of Superiours and the Wisdom of Publick Laws 't is not so imperious and impatient in its Pretensions but 't is if it really is what it pretends to be of a yielding a modest and a governable Temper apt and easie to receive any competent Satisfaction willing to comply with the Necessities of Government and the Interests of Publick Order and therefore when Men are zealous and confident in their disobedience to Authority and are forward upon all occasions to take offence at the Publick Laws whatever they fancy to themselves or pretend to others 't is a proud a malapert and an insolent Humour that affects to affront Authority and to raise Trophees to its Zeal and Courage by controuling the Decrees of Princes and trampling upon the Laws of Discipline And therefore nothing more imports the Publick Peace than to take down such bold and daring Spirits and their high Stomachs must be broken before they can be made fit Subjects of Civil Societies and fit Members of Bodies Politick Disorder and Disturbance is the natural Result of their Complexion and they cannot forbear to fret and annoy Authority with every peevish and unreasonable Conceit So that the bare Pretence of Tenderness of Conscience in defiance to the Commands of Authority is at once a bold Attempt and an impregnable Principle of Sedition for unless Men have lost their due sense of reverence and submission to Government they will not pretend it and when they do if their Pretence be admitted they are but encouraged to continue refractory in their disobedience and to make all the Laws of Discipline and Publick Order yield up their
Objection upon the Truth and Reality of my Perswasion To what purpose does he tell us in the close of this Enquiry that we can give no other imaginable answer to it than that Men who plead for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in the Worship of God according to his Word and the Light which he has given them therein have indeed no Conscience at all When this answer is so infinitely silly that we can scarce suppose any Man in his wits so extravagant as to pretend it and when there are other very pertinent Replys so easie and so obvious viz. That they may possibly have no Conscience at all whatever they pretend or at least such an one as is abused with foolish or debauch't with wicked Principles and so may plot or practise Sedition against the State under pretence or mistake of Conscience and for that reason ought not to be allowed to plead its Authority against the Commands of lawful Superiours In fine to what purpose does he so briskly taunt me for thwarting my own Principles because I have censured the impertinency of a needless Provision in an Act of Parliament I may obey the Law though I may be of a different Perswasion from the Lawgivers in an Opinion remote and impertinent to the matter of the Law it self nay I may condemn the wisdom of Enacting it and yet at the same time think my self to lie under an indispensable Obligation to obey it for the formal reason of its Obligatory Power as any Casuist will inform him is not the Judgment and Opinion of the Lawgiver but the Declaration of his Will and Pleasure There is abundance more of this slender stuff wherewith as himself brags he has loaded this Principle though alas were its Foundations never so weak and trembling it might securely enough support so light a Burthen and though it were really bottom'd upon the Sands there is but little danger that such a shallow Stream of Talk should overturn it so that though I stand upon such advantageous ground if I should descend to a strict and particular examination of all the Flaws and Follies of his Tattle yet they are so apparently false or impertinent or both and afford so little occasion for useful and material Discourse that I had rather chuse to forego my own advantage than spoil my Book and tire my Reader by insisting too tediously upon such empty trifles and dreams of shadows To conclude this Author is so accustomed to popular impertinency that he seems to hate severe Discourse as much as carnal Reason and both as much as Idolatry so that he onely prates when he should argue and inveighs when he should confute Give him what advantage you will he regards it not but jogs on in his road of talking and 't is no matter whether you take the right or wrong handle of the Question it may be either for any thing material that he has to except against it Nay you may suffer him to Limetwig you with Ink and Paper and gagg you with a Quill and put what words he pleases into your mouth and yet easily defend your self against all his faint assaults and impertinent Objections In so much that I durst undertake the defence of the thickest and most defenceless Impostures in the World against his weak and miserable way of Confutation And I doubt not but I could produce as strong and enforcing evidence for the Divine Original and Authority of the Alcoran as some body has for the Self-evidencing light and power of the holy Scriptures CHAP. IV. The Contents NO difference among the Ancients between Moral Vertue and Evangelical Grace The Vanity and Novelty of our late Spiritual Divinity Our Authors fond Tittle-tattle against my Scheme of Religion Religion is now the same for design and substance as it was in the state of Innocence The Gospel is chiefly design'd as a Restitution of the Law of Nature Our Duty to God best described by Gratitude Repentance Conversion Humiliation Self-denial Mortification Faith and other Duties of the Gospel proved to be Moral Vertues Our Author after his rate of cavilling would have quarrell'd our Saviour for his short account of the Duty of Man His intolerable slander in charging me of confining the Influence of the Spirit of God to the first Ages of the Church His prodigious impudence in ascribing all his own Follies to the Spirit of God The extraordinary concurrence of the Spirit proved it self by some evident Miracle the ordinary works in the same manner as if it were performed purely by the strength of our own Reason Our Author himself is not able to assign any real difference between Grace and Vertue Their meer distinguishing between them is destructive of the practice of all real goodness An account of the Mechanical Enthusiasm of their Spiritual Divinity Our Authors own account of their Spiritual Godliness is a clear instance of its Folly Moral Vertue is so far from being any hindrance that 't is the best preparative to Conversion It was not Moral Goodness but Immoral Godliness that kept off the Pharisees from closing with the Terms of the Gospel The Argument from the Magistrates Power over Moral Duties to his Power over Religious Worship clear'd and vindicated The difference assign'd for this purpose between the Laws of Nature and Revelation false and impertinent Their vain Resolution to find out particular Rules of instituted Worship in the Word of God is the Original of all their folly Religious Worship is subject to the Authority of Earthly Powers for the same Reason as Moral Vertue is A short account of some of our Authors fainter Essays § 1. HAving in the former Chapter given an account large enough of our Authors way of Confutation by shuffling Cavils and bold Calumnies I shall hereafter forbear to cloy the Reader or tire my self with any farther regard to such trifling Exceptions as are not capable of more useful and edifying Discourse and shall onely insist upon such particulars as may be considerable enough to recompence the pains of our Enquiry My design then in the next Chapter which our wise Objector excepts against was to draw a Parallel between matters of Religious Worship and Duties of Morality and to remonstrate to the World how they were equally subject to the Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate And for a more ample Confirmation of this Argument I gave such an intelligible account of the Nature and Design of Religion as reduced all its parts and branches either to the Vertues or the Instruments of Moral Goodness From whence I concluded as I thought fairly enough That seeing Princes are allowed by the avowed Principles of all Mankind a Soveraign Power in reference to Moral Vertues that are the most material Duties of Religion 't is but reasonable they should be allowed at least the same Authority over the outward matters of Religious Worship that are but Circumstances of Religion or Instruments of Morality But our Author startles at the strangeness
positive Precepts because they are in themselves so essentially serviceable to the design of our Creation And therefore our Saviour came not into the world to give any new Precepts of moral goodness but only to retrive the old Rules of Nature from the evil Customs of the World and to reinforce their Obligation by endearing our duty with better Promises and urging our Obedience upon severer Penalties And as the Gospel is nothing but a Restitution of the Religion of Nature so are all its positive Commands and instituted duties either mediately or immediately subservient to that end Thus the Sacraments though they are matters of pure Institution yet are they of a subordinate Usefulness and design'd only for the greater advantage and Improvement of moral Righteousness For as the Gospel is the Restitution of the Law of Nature so are these outward Rites and Solemnities a great security of the Gospel they are solemn engagements and stipulations of obedience to all its Commands and are appointed to express and signifie our grateful sense of Gods goodness in the Redemption of the World and our serious Resolutions of performing the Conditions of this new Contract and Entercourse with mankind So that though they are duties of a prime importance in the Christian Religion 't is not because they are in themselves matters of any Essential Goodness but because of that peculiar Relation they have to the very being and the whole design of its Institution Forasmuch as he that establish'd this Covenant requires of all that are willing to own and submit to its Conditions to profess and avow their Assent to it by these Rites and Instruments of stipulation so that to refuse their Use is interpreted the same thing as to reject the whole Religion But if the entire Usefulness of these and any other instituted Mysteries consists in their great subserviency to the designs of the Gospel and if the great design of the Gospel consists in the Restitution of the Law of Nature and the advancement of all kinds of Moral Goodness then does it naturally resolve it self into that short Analysis I have given of Religion and whether we suppose the Apostasie of Mankind or suppose it not every thing that appertains to it will in the last issue of things prove either a part or an instrument of Moral Vertue § 3. But we must proceed to particulars In the first place Gratitude is a very imperfect description of Natural Religion for says he it has respect onely to Gods Benefits and not to his Nature and therefore omits all those Duties that are eternally necessary upon the Consideration of himself such as fear love trust affiance Perhaps this word may not in its rigorous acceptation express all the distinct parts and duties of Religion yet the Definition that I immediately subjoin'd to explain its meaning might abundantly have prevented this Cavil were not our Author resolved to draw his saw upon words viz. A thankful and humble temper of Mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us And the truth is I know not any one Term that so fully expresses that Duty and Homage we owe to God as this of Gratitude For by what other Name soever we may call it this will be its main and most Fundamental Ingredient and therefore 't is more pertinent to describe its Nature by that than by any other Property that is more remote and less material Because the Divine Bounty is the first Reason of our Obligation to Divine Worship in that natural Justice obliges every Man to a grateful and ingenuous sense of Favours and Benefits and therefore God being the sole Author of our Beings and our Happiness that ought without any farther regard to affect our Minds with worthy resentments of his love and kindness and this is all that which is properly exprest by the word Piety which in its genuine acceptation denotes a grateful and observant temper and behaviour towards Benefactors and for that cause it was made use of as the most proper Expression of that Duty that is owing from Children to Parents but because God by reason of the eminency of his Bounty more peculiarly deserves our Respect and Observation 't is in a more signal and remarkable sense appropriated to him so that Gratitude is the first property and radical Ingredient of Religion and all its other Acts and Offices are but secondary and consequential and that Veneration we give the Divine Majesty for the excellency of his Nature and Attributes follows that Gratitude we owe him for the Communication of his Bounty and Goodness 'T is this that brings us to a knowledge of all his other Endowments 't is this that endears his Nature to us and from this result all those Duties we owe him upon the account of his own Perfections and by that experience we have of his Bounty and by that knowledge we have of his other Attributes into which we are led by this experience come we to be obliged to trust and affiance in him so that Gratitude expresly implies all the Acts and Offices of Religion and though it chiefly denotes its prime and most essential Duty yet in that it fully expresses the Reason and Original Obligation of all other parts of Religious Worship But in the next place he reckons up Repentance Conversion Conviction of Sin Humiliation Godly Sorrow as deficient Graces in my Scheme and Duties peculiar to the Gospel Though as for Repentance what is it but an exchange of vicious customs of Life for an habitual course of Vertue I will allow it to be a new species of Duty in the Christian Religion when he can inform me what Men repent of beside their Vices and what they reform in their Repentance beside their Moral Iniquities it has neither end nor object but Moral Vertue and is onely another word peculiarly appropriated to signifie its first beginnings And as for Conversion the next deficient 't is co-incident with Repentance and he will find it no less difficult to discover any difference between them than between Grace and Vertue And as for the other remaining Graces of the Gospel Conviction Humiliation Godly Sorrow and he might as well have added Compunction Self-abhorrency Self-despair and threescore words more that are frequent in their mouths they are all but different Expressions of the same thing and are either parts or concomitant Circumstances of Repentance After so crude and careless a rate does this Man of Words pour forth his talk In the next rank comes in Self-denial a Readiness to bear the Cross and Mortification as new Laws of Religion But as for Self-denial 't is nothing else than to restrain our appetites within the limits of Nature and to sacrifice our brutish Pleasures to the interests of Vertue As for a Readiness to bear the Cross 't is nothing but a constant and generous Loyalty to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a Resolution to suffer any thing
to they are new Acts and distinct Duties or Crimes of their respective species of vertue or vice Thus though to slay a deprehended Adulteress which is murther in England though it be Justice in Spain relates to the manner of Execution yet 't is a new and distinct Instance of that Sin made by a Civil Constitution and not determined by the divine Law But then here is no more ascribed to the Magistrate than is common with him to every man in the World So much the firmer my Argument For 't is not reasonable to deny so much Power to publick Authority as every private man may claim and exercise nor just to forbid Magistrates to command that to their Subjects which their Subjects may lawfully command to themselves But after all this trifling he leaps to a fresh Enquiry for he is old excellent at asking Questions when he should be making Answers viz. if Magistrates are impower'd to declare new Instances of Vertue and Vice he demands Whether they are new as Vertues and Vices or as Instances This is a captious Question and though I suspect some subtle plot yet I have not sagacity enough to find out either its design or its Sophistry and therefore I shall only answer like a plain and cautious man that they are new neither as Instances nor as Vertues and Vices but as Instances of Vertue and Vice and then what becomes of this Metaphysical Dilemma But however it follows if they are new as Vertues would he could see a new Practice of old Vertues but alas this neither proves nor confutes and yet because 't is said it must be answered therefore I will only demand of him what are the old Vertues he intends whether those that were in fashion in the days of King Arthur or those that were so in the days of King Oliver But to tell you the truth he cares not for any of the new Vertues that he has lately observed in the World Likely enough for Loyalty is one of the chiefest but they were fine days when Rebellion and Sacriledge were signs of Grace and men could keep up a dear and intimate Communion with God in ways of plunder and perjury ah those were precious and Gospel-times You see I must either trifle with this man or altogether hold my Peace his Objections are not capable of solid Answers But he concludes If it be the Instances that are new they are but actual and occasional exercises of old Duties This is trifling too and neither objects nor proves however 't is already answered and though I have been so idly employed as to follow him in his Trifles yet I will not in his Tautologies CHAP. V. The Contents OVr Authors wretched perverting and falsifying even the Contents of the Chapter Another notorious Forgery that I have confined the Power of Conscience purely to inward Thoughts Christian Liberty proved to be a Branch of the Natural Freedom of our Minds The Discourses of the Apostles concerning Christian Liberty are onely Disputes against the Eternal Obligation of the Law of Moses So that nothing can restrain it but Gods own immediate and explicite Commands This proved from the Practice and Precepts of St. Paul Our Adversaries are the most guilty of any Men in the World of intrenching upon our Christian Liberty It is as much infringed by the Common Law as by Ecclesiastical Canons Their Notion of Christian Liberty cannot but be a perpetual Nursery of Schisms and Divisions This mystery of Libertinism began first to work among the Gnosticks and was checkt by the Apostles A ridiculous Calumny that from my Notion of Christian Liberty charges me of asserting the indifferency of all Religions A farther account of the Original of Sacrifices they that derive them from the Law of Nature relie purely upon the testimony of some ancient Grecians The ground of their mistake who refer them to Divine Institution is their not attending to the difference between Eucharistical Oblations and Expiatory Sacrifices An account how the Religion of Sacrifices might acquire a Catholique Practice without any Obligation of Nature or Warranty of Divine Institution How Abel's Sacrifice might be offered in Faith without any revealed Command to require it A shameful instance of our Authors way of begging the Question And another of his Tergiversation A farther account of the prodigious Impertinency of their Clamours against significant Ceremonies The blockishness of their excepting against them upon the score of their being Sacraments The impossibility of making this good out of Scripture and the folly of attempting its proof any other way The vanity of distinguishing between Customary and Instituted Symbols Our Authors ridiculous state and determination of this Debate The Impertinency of that difference he endeavours to assign between the signification of Words and Ceremonies § 1. NOw our Authors Invention begins to grow dry and his Fancy to run low he is forced to flie to his old Magazines for Arms and Ammunition and to muster up his former Cavils for fresh Arguments and his former Calumnies for fresh Objections and to stuff up his following Pages with meer Tautologies and Repetitions of his former shifts and juglings He cannot forbear to argue from his own Topicks and in his own Method but still he pretends first to be at a loss for my meaning and then he perverts it and then he confutes it And 't is observable how careful he is always to usher in his Falsifications with complaints of my Obscurity that so if he should fail to justifie them he may at least be able to excuse them and when he is beaten out of his Cause he may under this reserve secure his Honour and discharge the perverseness and disingenuity of his own labour'd Mistakes upon the perplexity of my Stile and the looseness of my Expressions The first thing he takes to task and to correction is the Contents of the Chapter for he has now done with confuting my Title-Page where I represented the scope and short design of my first Paragraph in these words Mankind have a Liberty of Conscience over all their Actions whether moral or strictly religious as far as it concerns their Iudgments but not their Practices And here I could have been content had he dealt no worse with me than they are wont to deal with the Holy Scriptures when they interpret the Chapter by the English Contents and so expound the sense of the Word of God as if that were onely the Gloss but these the Canon Otherwise I am sure I. O. could never have made good his deep Conceit of the Saints distinct Communion with each Person of the blessed Trinity out of the Parable of the Canticles But this Author has as well he may made more bold with me and has mangled my single Assertion into two distinct Propositions viz. That Mankind has a Liberty of Conscience over all their Actions whether moral or strictly religious And this he closes up with a full Period as if
such things would be But I say so such things would not be and so there is an end of our dispute and at this lock have we stood gazing at one another at least this hundred years here Cartwright begun the Objection and here he was immediately check't in his career by Whitgift who told him plainly He could not be ignorant that to the making of a Sacrament besides the external Element there is required a Commandment of God in his Word that it should be done and a Promise annexed unto it whereof the Sacrament is a seal Here they stopt and his Adversary never proceeded in his Argument but some that came after him resolved not to part so easily with so big an Exception though perhaps for no other reason than because Cartwright had started it and the truth is all his followers have done little more than lickt up the Vomit and Choler of that proud Schismatick and therefore they never pursued this new-fangled Cavil beyond his first Syllogism where himself was repuls't and rebuked and ever since this has been their post and they are resolved to keep it with unyielding and invincible confidence and their foreheads are so hardned that you may sooner beat out their brains than shame or convince them out of their Folly and though they have been so frequently and vehemently urged to a Proof and Prosecution of their Argument they could never be made to stir one foot backward or forward but here they stand like men enchanted and whatever Demands or Questions you propose to them they return you not one syllable of reply but Sacraments Sacraments And in this Posture do they continue to this day to haunt us with the stubbornness of unlaid Ghosts and 't is the only voice this Head of Modesty is able to utter upon this Subject He is resolved upon it that all significant Rites instituted in the Worship of God are real Sacraments and that so they shall be And that is stubborn and indisputable Proof and 't is not modest to bear up against so much Brass and Boldness and yet I am resolved for once to rub my forehead and not to be brow-beaten but to look him in the Face with the confidence of a Basilisk and upbraid him either to make good or to renounce his Argument and if he will neither yield nor proceed to scorn and affront and point him out of his intolerable Confidence Here then I fix my foot and dare him to his Teeth to prove that any thing can be capable of the Nature or Office of Sacraments that is not establish'd by divine Institution and upon Promise of divine Acceptance These are inseparable Conditions of all Sacramental Mysteries and whatsoever other Properties and Qualifications they may have beside these are always necessary and indispensable Ingredients of their Office so that without them nothing can lay claim to their Name or Dignity however any thing may happen to symbolize with them upon other Accounts and by other Circumstances For the Christian Sacraments are the inseparable Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith and are establish'd to that Intent by the Author of the Christian Institution and they are such outward Rites and Ceremonies whereby we openly own the Covenant and pass mutual Engagements to stand to its Terms and Conditions and therefore he alone that appointed the Religion is able to appoint by what outward Signs or Acts of stipulation we shall signifie and express our acknowledgment of and submission to his Institutions So that the meaning and intention of it is to assign some particular Act of Worship whereby we may express our Engagements and Resolutions of Obedience to the whole Religion and who then can declare and specifie what Rite he will accept as a full acknowledgment of our duty of Universal Obedience but he alone that requires it And therefore unless it pretend to his Institution there is no imaginable ground why it should be thought to pretend to the Office and Dignity of a Sacrament And certainly they have a very mean opinion of these sacred Mysteries that require nothing more to their Nature and Function but bare significancy and make every external sign capable of that holy and mysterious Office and what can more derogate from the Credit of those great Pledges of our Faith and Instruments of our Salvation As if they carried in them nothing of a more useful or spiritual Efficacy than what every common Rite and Ceremony may acquire or pretend to by Custom and humane Institution § 12. But 't is still more pleasant and more prodigious to see men that are so stiff and dogmatical in their Talk have so little regard to their own Pretences thus whereas they will admit no other Umpirage of our present Disputes about Divine Worship but what may be fetch'd from immediate Divine Authority yet in this grand Exception they take no notice of its Decrees and Determinations and though our Author will have every significant Circumstance of Devotion to partake of the Nature and Mystery of a Divine Sacrament yet he makes no attempt to prove it out of the Word of God No there is not a Text in the four Gospels that may be abused to that purpose And Paul for to allow him the Title of Saint is Popish and Idolatrous and our Author is as shy in all his Writings of bestowing it upon an Apostle as upon Cain or Iudas though he will vouchsafe the Title of Holy that is coincident with it to every Zealot of his own Brotherhood but by what name or title soever dignified or distinguish'd the Apostle Paul is utterly silent in the Case and now we have no higher Authority to vouch our Cause but the Schoolmen and Austin As for the former not to dispute the impertinency of the Quotation whenever they speak sense we are ready to subscribe to their Reason but their bare Authority is of no more force in the Church of England than the Decrees and Oracles of Mr. Calvin their Writings are no part of the Canon of Scripture or the four first General Councils and 't is well known what wise accounts they are forced to give of the Nature of Sacraments to justifie the unwarrantable Determinations of their own Church that had rashly and needlesly enough defined some things to be so that are in themselves infinitely uncapable of that sacred Name and Office And I know nothing for which any part of their coarse and frieze Discourses is more ridiculous in it self or more unanimously condemned by Protestant Writers of all Communions than their loose and groundless descriptions of the Nature and Office of Sacramental Pledges But this is one of their old ways of trifling when the pursuit of their Principles forces them upon an absurdity to father it upon the Schoolmen as if because these men sometimes talk absurdly that shall justifie their Impertinencies And as for his Citation out of St. Austin viz. Signa cum ad res divinas pertinent sunt
days in all the three Nations in the times of our greatest hazards give me leave I say to remember you that the Publick Declarations of those imployed in the Affairs of this Nation in the face of the Enemies their Addresses unto God among themselves their Prayers night and day their private Discourses one with another were that the Preservation of the Interest of Christ in and with his People was the great thing that lay in their eyes c. I must not detain you with Observations upon these passages and they are so plain I need not this is enough to send him to School to his own dumb-speaking Egyptian Hieroglyphick with which he once thought he could stop the mouths of the malignant Infidels that would not be brought to believe the Success at Celchester an ample Testimony of the continuance of Gods Presence with the Army 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men of all sorts know that God hateth Impudence § 8. But how ill soever the People of God may have behaved themselves in time of yore they are now resolved to learn better manners for says our Author and who will not take his word Do they profess 't is their Duty their Principle their Faith and Doctrine to be obedient to their Rulers and Governours Do they offer all the security of their adherence to such declared Principles as Mankind is necessitated to be satisfied with in things of their highest Concernment c. All is one every different Opinion is Press-money and every Sect is an Army although they be all and every one of them Protestants of whom alone we do discourse You offer Security for your Allegiance You that have violated all the Obligations of Oaths Covenants and Protestations Shall Bankrupts of all Faith and Honesty expect to be trusted upon their bare words that have so often proved perfidious to their Oaths Men whose coy and crazy Consciences have sworn and swallowed naked and undisguised Contradictions are capable no doubt of giving wonderful assurance and satisfaction for their future Fidelity First give us some competent Tokens of your Repentance before you presume to tender us any Security of your Allegiance Men that own the peculiar and distinguishing Principle of your Party are not fit to be trusted or endured in any Commonwealth viz. That Sovereign Princes may forfeit their Title to their Crowns and that 't is in the power of Subjects to depose them for the ill Administration of Government By this pretence you justified all your late Disloyal practices by it you adjudged his late Majesty to death by it you banish't the undoubted Heir of the Crown by it you proceeded to subvert the old and erect a new Form of Government and by it you all along confirm'd your selves in your Zeal and Opposition to the Royal Interest Now what signs have you given us of your having renounced this Principle of Rebellion And till you have what assurance can you give us of your Return to Loyalty seeing 't is not possible for any Oaths to bind you to your Duty whenever you have a mind to pick Quarrels against the management of publick Affairs Come come Sir shuffle no longer with us nor with your own Consciences Either your proceedings in the late Confusions were great and enormous Crimes or they were not if they were not nothing can restrain you whenever you gain the advantage of power and opportunity from acting such things over again as you seriously believe to be just and innocent if they were why have you not all this while given us some competent and reasonable assurance of your Conversion Your Crimes if Crimes at all were heinous and publick and enhansed with all the Aggravations of guilt and wickedness a flourishing Kingdom was embroil'd in Wars and Desolations a pious and vertuous Prince was villanously murther'd his Children banish't to preserve their Lives his Friends undone with Rapine and Sequestration and adjudged to death for their Zeal and Fidelity to his Service thousands of his Subjects lost and sacrificed in the Quarrel with innumerable other mischiefs and enormities and all this carried on with mighty shews and confident brags of Zeal and Piety These are sins with a witness and so full of horrour and amazement that they are not to be repented of with an ordinary Contrition and 't is not possible that any Man should be seriously convinced of his own guilt in such prodigious Crimes without the deepest Accents and Agonies of remorse or that he should appease his Conscience with any less satisfaction than publick Acknowledgment much less that he should expect other Men should trust the sincerity of his Repentance without some visible Indications of his amendment But alas so far are you from affording us any tolerable grounds to expect your change that you give us nothing but symptoms of reprobate hardness and instead of open and ingenuous Confessions either wholly blaunch the matter or extenuate the Crime or which is unpardonable Insolence discharge the guilt of all your practices upon our heads hereafter therefore forbear to think us such Sots unless you imagine our Skulls are stuft with wet Straw as to accept of any Security you can offer till you have first satisfied us of your hearty and unfeigned return to Principles of Loyalty and Allegiance And till then it were a shameful forfeiture of common discretion if we do not still suppose you the same Men we have ever found you Wolves they say may change their hairs but not their hearts and 't is an easie matter for Men so exercised in the Arts of Hypocrisie to cast their outward pretences without ever altering their thoughts and inward designs And yet they avoid the very appearances of alteration insomuch that nothing is more cried up among themselves than an undaunted adherence to their old Principles and their old Cause and if any of the Party chance to be so ingenuous as to confess the Errour and Crime of his Rebellion he is sure to be loaded with all the Reproaches of Apostasie and branded with all the dishonour of a Renegado And 't is well known into what deep Arrears of their Anger and Displeasure one has lately run himself by a few gentle and friendly reproofs of their Schismatical Behaviour What if he had exhorted them to repent of the Sins of Disloyalty and Rebellion and had charged it upon their Ingenuity to give some remarkable Evidences and Engagements of their better Resolutions as a worthy Requital of his Majesties Favour and Indempnifying the Outrage of all their former Proceedings If he had he would have been pelted with more dirty Language than the Pope of Rome or the Apocalyptick Beast They are stubborn and implacable in their old Principles their Minds are still possessed with the same accursed Rage and Bitterness of Spirit as ran them upon their late Rebellions and they are so little affected with any sense or sorrow for their Disloyalty that like men given up to a reprobate sense
more especially to abet this wild and unaccountable Principle That the Word of God is the onely adequate Rule of instituted Worship which they lay down in their Positive Divinity at which they are incomparably the greatest Doctors in the World as the onely unquestionable Postulatum of all their Discourses yet when they are urged to make it out by Rational Arguments and particular Instances they talk it and talk it but as for proof and evidence they never could nor ever will be brought to produce any other beside the Proleptick certainty of the Maxim it self and therefore I will for ever bar their general Pleas and Pretences drawn from this Principle That the New Testament is the adequate Rule of Instituted Worship to the Church of Christ unless in case of the two Sacraments though as to them too all the outward Circumstances and Postures of Celebration are wholly undetermined in the Scripture till they shall specifie some particular Instances there directed and prescribed under a standing Obligation however it is not to be attended to in our present Controversie when it is as I have proved as certain and complete a Rule of moral Vertue as they can suppose it to be of Instituted Worship and therefore that cannot be any ground of Exception that whilst the former is subject to the latter should be exempt from the disposal of the Civil Jurisdiction So lamentably absurd are the main and darling Principles of these men that 't is not in the Power of Logick or Sophistry to do them any kindness and the more they stir in their Defence the more they expose their Folly § 9. And now having so wofully hurt and prejudiced his own Cause by this rash and indiscreet Attempt upon my Inference in the next place he rushes with a fierce and angry Dilemma upon my Assertion viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of men in reference to moral Duties which are the principal Parts of Religion This Power says he is either over moral Vertue as Vertue and as a part of Religion or on some other Account as it relates to humane Society The former he gores through and through and that horn of the Dilemma is above two Pages long and here he has exactly observed the Rules and Customs of Scholastick Dispute that is always prodigal of Confutation where there is no need and niggardly where there is For when he proceeds to the latter which he knows is the only thing I all along asserted he freely grants all I can desire or demand For moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar Tendency unto God and Religion are appointed to be Instruments and Ligaments of humane Society also now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use Very good And the Case is absolutely the same as to all reasons and circumstances of things in matters of Religion for though they as well as moral Vertue chiefly relate to our future Concerns yet have they also a powerful Influence upon our present welfare and if rightly managed are the best and most effectual Instruments of publick Happiness and there lies the very strength and sinew of my Argument that if Magistrates are vested with so much Power over moral Vertues that are the most weighty and essential Parts of Religion as they shall judge it needful to the Peace of Societies and the security of Government how much more reasonable is it that they should be entrusted with the same Power over matters of external Worship that are but its subordinate Instruments and outward Circumstances whenever they are serviceable to the same ends and purposes And if there be any advantage and disparity of Reason 't is apparently on this side for it were an easie Task to prove that moral Vertue is much more necessary to procure the divine Acceptance and Religion much more likely to create publick Disturbance but that is not the subject matter of our present Enquiry 't is enough that both have in some measure a Relation to these different Ends and therefore that both must in some measure be subject to these different Powers You see how shamefully this man is repuls'd by his own Attempts and that there is nothing needful to beat back his Answers but the Arguments themselves against which they are directed And now having spent his main strength in this succesless shock 't is piteous to observe how he faints in his following Assays He inquires whether this Power of the Civil Magistrate over moral Vertue be such as to make that Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice 'T is of the same extent with his Authority over Affairs of Religion as I have already stated it But however to this Impertinent Enquiry he need not have sought far for a pertinent Answer it lay before his eyes when he objected it if he did not write blindfold viz. That in matters both of moral Vertue and divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an eternal and unchangeable Obligation and these can be never prejudiced or altered by any humane Power But then there are other Rules that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of humane life and in things of this Nature I asserted that the Magistrate has Power to make that a Particular of the divine Law which God has not made so In answer to which he wishes I had declared my self how and wherein So I have viz. in all the peculiar and positive Laws of Nations and gave him Instances in no less matters than of Murther Theft and Incest and produced several particular Cases in which the Civil Power superinduced new obligations upon the Divine Law Which 't is in vain to repeat to one that winks against the Light you know where to find them if you think it needful But is not this a bold man to challenge me with such a scornful Assurance to do what he could not but see I had already performed Some men are confident enough to put out the day in spite of the Sun He adds The divine Law is divine and so is every particular of it and therefore 't is impossible for a man to make new Particulars and yet in the same Breath grants my Assertion as an ordinary and familiar truth if I only intend by making a thing a Particular of the divine Law no more than to make the divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before Though that man must have a wild understanding that can mean any thing more or less There is a vast difference is there not between making a new Particular of the Divine Law and making the Divine Law require that in particular which it did not require before But says he these new particulars refer only to the acting and occasion of these things in particular 'T is no matter for that whatever they refer