Religion as in Affairs of State They alone restrain'd and punish'd whatever tended to the subversion of the Publick and establish'd Religion they suppress'd Innovations reform'd Corruptions ordered the Decencies and Solemnities of publick Worship instituted new Laws and Ceremonies and conducted all the concerns of Religion by their own Power and Authority Now there is nothing that can be pretended against the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Christian Magistrates that might not with as great a shew of Reason have been urged against these Jewish Kings § 13. And thus were the Affairs of Religion in all Nations govern'd by the Supreme Power till our blessed Saviour's birth who came into the world to establish new Laws of Religion and not to set up any new Models of Politie He came not to unsettle the Foundations of Government or to diminish the natural Rights of Princes and settle the conduct of humane affairs upon new Principles but left the Government of the world in the same condition he found it All his Discourses were directed to private persons and such whose duty it was to Obey and not Command and therefore though we find him every where highly solicitous to press men to Obedience in general and perhaps it would be no easie task to find out any Professors of the Art of Policy either ancient or modern that have carried the Doctrine of Obedience so high as the Sermons of our Saviour and the Writings of his Apostles yet no where he takes upon him to settle much less to limit the Prerogatives of Princes and therefore the Government of Religion being vested in them by an antecedent and natural Right must without all controversie belong to them till it is derogated from them by some Superiour Authority so that unless our Saviour had expresly disrobed the Royal Power of its Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction nothing else can alienate it from their Prerogative And therefore 't is no wonder if he left no Commands to the Civil Magistrate for the right Government of Religion for to what purpose should he give them a new Commission to exercise that Power that was already so firmly establish'd in the world by the unalterable dictates of Natural Reason and Universal Practice and Consent of Nations it being so clearly inseparable from the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth that it loses both its Supremacy and its usefulness unless it be universal and unlimited In that the end of all Government is to secure the Peace and Tranquillity of the Publick and therefore it must have Power to manage and order every thing that is serviceable to that end So that it being so clearly evident from the experience of mankind and from the nature of the thing it self that nothing has a stronger influence upon the publick Interests of a Nation than the well or ill management of Religion its conduct must needs be as certain and inseparable a Right of the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth as the Legislative Authority it self without which 't is utterly impossible there should be any Government at all And therefore the Scripture seems rather to suppose than assert the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Princes What else means that Promise That Kings shall be nursing Fathers to the Church of God unless by their Power they may cherish and defend the true Religion and protect it from being destroyed by Hereticks and Seducers What does the Scripture mean when it styles our Saviour King of Kings and makes Princes his Vicegerents here on earth What means the Apostle when he says Kings are appointed to this end That under them we may live a quiet and peaceable life not only in all honesty but in all godliness too Where we see that the propagation of Godliness is as much the Duty of Governours as the preservation of Justice neither of which can a Prince as such effectually promote but by the proper effects of his Power Laws and Penalties Besides all which all the Power of the Common-wealth our Saviour lived in was fall'n into such mens hands that would be so far from concerning themselves in the defence protection and propagation of Christianity that he knew they would exert the utmost of their force to suppress and destroy it Now to what purpose should he entrust them with a Commission to govern his Church when he knew they would labour its utter ruine and destruction And hence was there no other peaceable method to propagate the Christian Faith in the world but by the patience and sufferings of its Professors and therefore our Saviour to secure his Religion from the reproach of being Factious and Seditious against the State was sollicitous above all things to arm them with Meekness and Patience and to this purpose he gave them glorious promises to encourage their submission to their unhappy Fate and severe Injunctions to secure their Obedience to all the Commands of lawful Superiours except when they run directly cross to the Interest of the Gospel which as the posture of Affairs then stood was incomparably the most effectual as well as most innocent way of its propagation § 14. And therefore 't is but an idle and impertinent Plea that some men make for Liberty of Conscience when they would restrain the Magistrates Power so as to make use of no other means than what our Saviour and his Apostles used to convince and convert men An Argument that much resembles that which they urge with so much popular noise and confidence against that little Grandeur Authority that is left to the Governours of our Church because forsooth the Apostles by reason of the unhappy juncture of Affairs in their times lived in a mean and persecuted condition and therefore what was their Calamity these men would make our Duty but it were to be wished they would pursue their Argument to all the purposes for which it may as rationally serve and so they must sell their Lands and bring the money and lay it at the Bishops Feet they must pass away all their Proprieties and have all things in common and part them to all men as every man has need because the Primitive Christians did so At so prodigious a rate of impertinency do men talk when their Passions dictate their Discourses and to so fine a pass would the Affairs of Christendom be brought by this trifling pretence of reducing the state of the Church to its Primitive Practice in all accidents and circumstances of things But yet I suppose these men themselves would scarce imitate the practice of our Saviour and his Apostles in this particular for if the Scribes and Pharisees were now in being I hope they would not allow them the liberty openly to blaspheme the Name of Iesus and to persecute all that would not believe him an Impostor which though they did familiarly in his own time yet he never went about to restrain their Blasphemies by Laws and Punishments and therefore I only demand Whether the Civil Magistrate may make penal Laws against Swearing and Blasphemy
excuse or justifie them in their Separation This thing has no relation to the Divine Service and therefore however it may restrain men from something else 't is no motive to drive them from that Now what can be more apparent than that these men are resolved to comply with and encourage the people in a wicked and rebellious Schism for so it must be if it be groundless and unwarrantable by herding them into Conventicles for their own private ends and that in spight of Authority Whereas had they any true sense of Conscience and ingenuity they would labor to dispossess the people of their mistakes and to reconcile them to a fair and candid opinion of the Church when she requires nothing of them but what they themselves are convinced in Conscience is lawful and innocent For if they valued the Peace of the Church the Commands of Authority and the setlement of the Nation before their own selfish ends instead of keeping up Divisions as 't is evident they do by their Conventicles they would be as zealous as he that is most so to remove the grounds of Schism and Faction and to reunite their Party to the Church by perswading them to an orderly and peaceable Conformity Which if it be innocent as themselves believe it is it must in the present Circumstances of Affairs be necessary if it be any mans Duty to be peaceable in the Church and obedient to lawful Authority Sect. 6. Secondly How came the people to be scandalized by whom were they betrayed and affrighted into their mistakes Who buzzed their scruples and jealousies into their heads And Who taught them to call our Ceremonies Popish Superstitious and Antichristian What other inducement have they to dislike the Churches Constitutions but meerly the example of their Leaders Their practice is the only Foundation of the peoples opinion and when their flocks straggle from our Churches 't is only to follow their Pastors They first lead the people into an Errour and then this must be an Apology for themselves to follow them And thus whilst they dance in a Circle 't is no wonder if at the same time their Preachers follow their people and the people follow their Preachers And therefore if the Godly Ministers who dare not conform for fear of scandalizing the weak Brethren would but venture to do it the weak Brethren would cease to be scandalized So that these men first lay the stumbling-block in the peoples way and then because it scares silly and timorous Souls this serves for a pretence to startle be astonish'd at it themselves and withal to increase the childish fears of the multitude by their own seeming counterfeit horror Now with what a shameless Brow do these men prevaricate with publick Authority They have deceived the people into a publick Errour and then will not undeceive them for fear of their displeasure And when they have possess'd their minds with unworthy scruples and jealousies against the commands of their Superiors then must this weakness of the people be made the Formal Excuse of their own disobedience And by this Artifice they prostitute the Reverence of all Government to the fortuitous humor and peevishness of their own Disciples and so by making the publick Laws submit to the pleasure of those whom they govern they put it in their own power to enact or repeal them as they please and no Law shall have any force to bind the Subject without their approbation Because 't is in their own power when they please to work prejudices in the people against it and therefore if their being offended be sufficient to take off their obligation 't is or 't is not a Law only as themselves shall think good And thus they first govern the Common people then sooth and flatter their pride by inveigling them into a conceit that they are govern'd by them and by this stratagem they govern all But however from whomsoever these good people learn'd their idle imaginary scruples the offence they have taken against the Customs and Prescriptions of the Church is either just and reasonable or it is not If the former then they have rational grounds for their dislike separation and if they have then these men that think themselves bound to comply with them even against the commands of Authority ought to plead those Reasons and not meerly Scandal to justifie their disobedience because they must carry in them an obligation antecedent to that of Scandal in that they are supposed sufficient to warrant and patronize it and therefore 't is not that but the grounds on which their dislike is founded that are to be pleaded in their defence and justification But if the latter then is their dislike groundless and unreasonable And if so 't is easie to determine that they ought rather to undeceive them by discovering their mistake than to encourage them in their sinful disobedience for so it must be if it be groundless by compliance with them And by this means they will fairly discharge themselves from all danger of any criminal offence For however scandal groundlesly taken and so it is always because there is never any reason to be offended at an indifferent thing may possibly lay a restraint upon my liberty till I have informed the person of his Error and disavowed those ill consequences he would draw from my example and when I have so done I have prevented the danger of Scandal which always supposes errour weakness or mistake of Conscience and therefore when the Errour is discovered and the weakness removed so is the scandal too And if he shall still pretend to be scandalized 't is not because he is weak but peevish and if after this I comply with them and that against the commands of my lawful Superiors I shall disobey Authority only because my Neighbour is unreasonable i. e. for no reason at all And this further discovers how shamelesly these men shuffle and prevaricate with the world in that when most of them have declared in their private Discourses that they are not so fond as to imagine our Ceremonies unlawful or Antichristian and when their Grandees and Representatives have profess'd to publick Authority in Solemn Conferences that they scruple not these things upon their own account but only for fear of giving offence to some well-meaning people that were unhappily possess'd with some odd and groundless jealousies against them For if so Then why are not these good people that follow them better informed Why do they not instruct them in the truth and disabuse them out of their false and absurd conceits Why do they connive at their pride and presumption Or at least Why do they not more smartly reprove them for their rashness to censure the actions of their Neighbours to condemn and revile the Wisdom of their Superiors and to scorn the Knowledge of their Spiritual Instructors Why do they not chide them out of their malepart peevish and impatient confidence and by
peremptory soever some of them have been in asserting the Rights of their Supreme Power in Civil Affairs they have been forced to seem modest and diffident in the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Supremacy and dare scarce own their Legislative Power in Religious Affairs only to comply with the saucy pretences of ungovernable and Tumultuary Zeal One notorious Instance whereof in our own Nation is the Iejunium Cecilianum the Wednesday Fast that was injoin'd with this clause of Exception That if any person should affirm it to be imposed with an Intention to bind the Conscience he should be punished like the spreaders of false News Which is plainly to them that understand it as a late Learned Prelate of our own observes a direct Artifice to evacuate the whole Law for as he excellently argues all Humane Power being derived from God and bound upon our Consciences by his Power not by Man he that says it shall not bind the Conscience says it shall be no Law it shall have no Authority from God and then it has none at all and if it be not tied upon the Conscience then to break it is no Sin and then to keep it is no Duty So that a Law without such an intention is a Contradiction it is a Law which binds only if we please and we may obey when we have a mind to it and to so much we are tied before the Constitution But then if by such a Declaration it was meant That to keep such Fasting-days was no part of a direct Commandment from God that is God had not required them by himself immediately and so it was abstracting from that Law no Duty Evangelical it had been below the wisdom of the Contrivers of it for no man pretends it no man says it no man thinks it and they might as well have declar'd That the Law was none of the Ten Commandments The matter indeed of this Law was not of any great moment but the Declaration annexed to it proved of a fatal and mischievous consequence for when once the unruly Consciences of the Puritans were got loose from the restraints of Authority nothing could give check to their giddy and furious Zeal but they soon broke out into the most impudent Affronts and Indignities against the Laws and ran themselves into all manner of disloyal Outrages against the State As is notoriously evident in the Writings and Practices of Cartwright Goodman Whittingham Gilby Whitehead Travers and other leading Rabbies of the Holy Faction whose Treatises are stuffed with as railing spightful and malicious Speeches both against their Prince the Clergy the Lords of the Council the Judges the Magistrates and the Laws as were ever publickly vented by the worst of Traytors in any Society in the world And as for the method of their Polity it was plainly no more than this first to reproach the Church with infamous and Abusive Dialogues and then to Libel the State with bitter and Scurrilous Pamphlets to possess mens minds with dislikes and jealousies about Publick Affairs whisper about reproachful and slanderous Reports inveigle the people with a thousand little and malicious Stories enter into secret Leagues and Confederacies foment Discontents and Seditions and in every streight and exigence of State threaten and beleaguer Authority In fine the scope of all their Sermons and Discourses was to perswade their Party that if Princes refuse to reform Religion 't is lawful for the People with Direction of their Godly Ministers i. e. themselves to do it and that by violent and forcible courses And whither this Principle in process of time led them the Story is too long too sad and too well known to be here repeated 't is sufficient that it improved it self into the greatest Villanies concluded in the blackest Tragedy that was ever acted upon this Island § 22. Well then to sum up the result of this Discourse 't is evident we see both from Reason and Experience what a powerful influence Religion has upon the peace and quiet of Kingdoms that nothing so effectually secures the publick Peace or so easily works its disturbance and ruine as it s well or ill Administration and therefore that there is an absolute necessity that there be some Supreme Power in every Common-wealth to take care of its due Conduct and Settlement that this must be the Civil Magistrate whose Office it is to secure the publick Peace which because he cannot sufficiently provide for unless he have the Power and Conduct of Religion its Government must of necessity be seated in him and none else So that those persons who would exempt Conscience and all Religious Matters from the Princes Power must make him either a Tyrant or an impotent Prince for if he take upon him to tye Laws of Religion upon their Consciences then according to their Principles he usurps an unlawful Dominion violates the Fundamental Rights and Priviledges of Mankind and invades the Throne and Authority of God himself But if he confess that he cannot then does he clearly pass away the bigest Security of his Government and lay himself open to all the Plots and Villanies that can put on the Mask of Religion And therefore should any Prince through unhappy miscarriages in the State be brought into such streights and exigences of Affairs as that he cannot restrain the head-strong Inclinations of his Subjects without the hazard of raising such Commotions and Disturbances as perhaps he can never be able to allay and so should be forced in spight of himself to indulge them their Liberty in their Fansies and Perswasions about Religion yet unless he will devest himself of a more material and more necessary part of his Authority than if he should grant away his Power of the Militia or his Prerogative of ratifying all Civil Laws unless I say he will thus hazard his Crown and make himself too weak for Government by renouncing the best part of his Supremacy he must lay an Obligation upon all Persons to whom he grants this their Religious freedom to profess that 't is matter of meer favour and indulgence and that he has as much Power to govern all the publick Affairs of Religion as any other matters that are either conducive or prejudicial to the publick Peace and Quiet of the Common-wealth And if they be brought to this Declaration they will but confess themselves to say no worse Turbulent and Seditious persons by acknowledging That they refuse their Obedience to those Laws which the Supreme Authority has just Power to impose CHAP. II. A more Particular Account of the Nature and Necessity of a Sovereign Power in Affairs of Religion The Contents THE Parallel between matters relating to Religious Worship and the Duties of Morality Moral Vertues the most material Parts of Religion This proved 1. from the Nature of Morality and the Design of Religion 2. By a particular Induction of all the Duties of Mankind A Scheme of Religion reducing all its Branches either to the Vertues or
free Grace and Goodness in that in the first Ages of Christianity he was pleased out of his infinite concern for its Propagation in a miraculous manner to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue Wherefore the Apostle St. Paul when he compiles a complete Catologue of the Fruits of the Spirit reckons up only Moral Vertues Gal. 5. 22. Love Joy or Chearfulness Peaceableness Patience Gentleness Goodness Faithfulness Meekness and Temperance and elsewhere Titus 2. 11. the same Apostle plainly makes the Grace of God to consist in gratitude towards God Temperance towards our selves and Justice towards our Neighbours For the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Where the whole Duty of Man is comprehended in living Godlily which is the Vertue of humble Gratitude towards God Soberly which contains the Vertues of Temperance Chastity Modesty and all others that consist in the dominion of Reason over our sensual Appetites Righteously which implies all the Vertues of Justice and Charity as Affability Courtesie Meekness Candour and Ingenuity § 3. So destructive of all true and real Goodness is the very Religion of those Men that are wont to set Grace at odds with Vertue and are so far from making them the same that they make them inconsistent and though a man be exact in all the Duties of Moral Goodness yet if he be a Graceless Person i. e. void of I know not what Imaginary Godliness he is but in a cleaner way to Hell and his Conversion is more hopeless than the vilest and most notorious Sinners and the Morally Righteous Man is at a greater distance from Grace than the Profane and better be lewd and debauch'd than live an honest and vertuous life if you are not of the Godly Party Bona Opera sunt perniciosa ad salutem says Flaccus Illiricus Moral Goodness is the greatest Let to Conversion and the prophanest wretches make better Saints than your Moral Formalists And by this means they have brought into fashion a Godliness without Religion Zeal without Humanity and Grace without good Nature or good Manners have found out in lieu of Moral Virtue a Spiritual Divinity that is made up of nothing else but certain Trains and Schemes of Effeminate Follies and illiterate Enthusiasms and instead of a sober Devotion a more spiritual and intimate way of Communion with God that in truth consists in little else but meeting together in private to prate Phrases make Faces and rail at Carnal Reason i. e. in their sense all sober and sincere use of our Understandings in spiritual Matters whereby they have effectually turn'd all Religion into unaccountable Fansies and Enthusiasms drest it up with pompous and empty Schemes of Speech and so embrace a few gawdy Metaphors and Allegories instead of the substance of true and real Righteousness And herein lies the most material difference between the sober Christians of the Church of England and our modern Sectaries That we express the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel in plain and intelligible Terms whilst they trifle them away by childish Metaphors and Allegories and will not talk of Religion but in barbarous and uncouth Similitudes and what is more the different Subdivisions among the Sects themselves are not so much distinguish'd by any real diversity of Opinions as by variety of Phrases and Forms of Speech that are the peculiar Shibboleths of each Tribe One party affect to lard their Discourses with clownish and slovenly Similitudes another delights to roul in wanton and lascivious Allegories and a third is best pleased with odd unusual unitelligible and sometimes blasphemous Expressions And whoever among them can invent any new Language presently sets up for a man of new Discoveries and he that lights upon the prettiest Nonsense is thought by the ignorant Rabble to unfold new Gospel-Mysteries And thus is the Nation shattered into infinite Factions with sensless and phantastick Phrases and the most fatal miscarriage of them all lies in abusing Scripture-Expressions not only without but in contradiction to their sense So that had we but an Act of Parliament to abridge Preachers the use of fulsom and luscious Metaphors it might perhaps be an effectual Cure of all our present Distempers Let not the Reader smile at the odness of the Proposal For were men obliged to speak Sense as well as Truth all the swelling Mysteries of Fanaticism would immediately sink into flat and empty Nonsense and they would be ashamed of such jejune and ridiculous Stuff as their admired and most profound Notions would appear to be when they want the Varnish of fine Metaphors and glittering Allusions In brief were this a proper place to unravel all their affected Phrases and Forms of Speech which they have learn'd like Parrots to prate by Rote without having any Notion of the Things they signifie it would be no unpleasant Task to demonstrate That by them they either mean nothing at all or some Part or Instrument of Moral Vertue So that all Religion must of necessity be resolv'd into Enthusiasm or Morality The former is meer Imposture and therefore all that is true must be reduced to the latter and what-ever besides appertains to it must be subservient to the Ends of Vertue such are Prayer Hearing Sermons and all manner of Religious Ordinances that have directly no other place in Religion than as they are instrumental to a vertuous life § 4. 'T is certain then That the Duties of Morality are the most weighty and material concerns of Religion and 't is as certain That the Civil Magistrate has Power to bind Laws concerning them upon the Consciences of Subjects So that every mans Conscience is and must be subject to the Commands of lawful Superiours in the most important matters of Religion And therefore is it not strange that when the main Ends and designs of all Religion are avowedly subject to the Supreme Power that yet men should be so impatient to exempt its means and subordinate Instruments from the same Authority What reason can the Wit of man assign to restrain it from one that will not much more restrain it from both Is not the right practice of Moral Duties as necessary a part of Religion as any outward Form of Worship in the World Are not wrong Notions of the Divine Worship as destructive of the Peace and settlement of Common-wealths as the most vicious and licentious Debaucheries Are not the rude multitude more inclined to disturb Government by Superstition than by Licentiousness And is there not vastly greater danger of the Magistrates erring in matters of Morality than in Forms and Ceremonies of Worship in that those are the main essential and ultimate Duties of Religion whereas these are at highest but their Instruments and can challenge no other place in Religion than as they are subservient to the purposes of Morality Nay is it not still more
unaccountable that the Supreme Magistrate may not be permitted to determine the Circumstances and Appendages of the subordinate Ministeries to Moral Virtue and yet should be allowed in all Common-wealths to determine the particular Acts and Instances of these Virtues themselves For Example Justice is a prime and natural Virtue and yet its particular Cases depend upon humane Laws that determine the bounds of Meum and Tuum The Divine Law restrains Titius from invading Caius's Right and Propriety but what that is and when it is invaded only the Laws of the Society they live in can determine And there are some Cases that are Acts of Injustice in England that are not so in Italy otherwise all Places must be govern'd by the same Laws and what is a Law to one Nation must be so to all the World Whereas 't is undeniably evident That neither the Law of God nor of Nature determine the particular Instances of most Virtues but for the most part leave that to the Constitutions of National Laws They in general forbid Theft Incest Murther and Adultery but what these Crimes are they determine not in all Cases but is in most particulars to be explained by the Civil Constitutions and whatsoever the Law of the Land reckons among these Crimes that the Law of God and of Nature forbids And now is it not strangely humoursome to say That Magistrates are instrusted with so great a Power over mens Conscience in these great and weighty Designs of Religion and yet should not be trusted to govern the indifferent or at least less material Circumstances of those things that can pretend to no other Goodness than as they are Means serviceable to Moral Purposes That they should have Power to make that a Particular of the Divine Law that God has not made so and yet not be able to determine the use of an indifferent Circumstance because forsooth God has not determin'd it In a word That they should be fully impowered to declare new Instances of Vertue and Vice and to introduce new Duties in the most important parts of Religion and yet should not have Authority enough to declare the Use and decency of a few Circumstances in its subservient and less material Concerns § 5. The whole State of Affairs is briefly this Man is sent into the World to live happily here and prepare himself for happiness hereafter this is attain'd by the practice of Moral Vertues and Pious Devotions and wherein these mainly consist Almighty Goodness has declared by the Laws of Nature and Revelation but because in both there are changeable Cases and Circumstances of things therefore has God appointed his Trustees and Officials here on Earth to Act and Determine in both according to all Accidents and Emergencies of Affairs to assign new Particulars of the Divine Law to declare new Bounds of right and wrong which the Law of God neither does nor can limit because of necessity they must in a great measure depend upon the Customs and Constitutions of every Common-wealth And in the same manner are the Circumstances and outward Expressions of Divine Worship because they are variable according to the Accidents of Time and Place entrusted with less danger of Errour with the same Authority And what Ceremonies this appoints unless they are apparently repugnant to their Prime end become Religious Rites as what particular Actions it constitutes in any Species of Virtue become new Instances of that Virtue unless they apparently contradict its Nature and Tendency Now the two Primary Designs of all Religion are either to express our honourable Opinion of the Deity or to advance the Interests of Vertue and Moral Goodness so that no Rites or Ceremonies can be esteemed unlawful in the Worship of God unless they tend to debauch men either in their Practices or their Conceptions of the Deity And 't is upon one or both of these Accounts that any Rites and Forms of Worship become criminally superstitious and such were the Lupercalia the Eleusinian Mysteries the Feasts of Bacchus Flora and Venus because they were but so many Festivals of Lust and Debauchery and such were the Salvage and Bloody Sacrifices to Saturn Bellona Moloch Baal-Peor and all other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Antient Paganism because they supposed the Divine Being to take pleasure in the Miseries and Tortures of its Creatures And such is all Idolatry in that it either gives right Worship to a wrong Object or wrong Worship to a right one or at least represents an infinite Majesty by Images and Resemblances of finite things and so reflects disparagement upon some of the Divine Attributes by fastning dishonourable Weaknesses and Imperfections upon the Divine Nature As for these and the like Rites and Ceremonies of Worship no Humane Power can command them because they are directly contradictory to the Ends of Religion but as for all others that are not so any lawful Authority may as well enjoyn them as it may adopt any Actions whatsoever into the Duties of Morality that are not contrary to the Ends of Morality § 6. But a little farther to illustrate this we may observe 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 never be prejudiced or altered by any Humane Power because the Reason of their Obligation arises from a necessity and constitution of Nature and therefore must be as Perpetual as that But then there are other Rules of Duty that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of Humane Life and depend chiefly upon Contracts and Positive Laws of Kingdoms these suffer Variety because their Matter and their Reason does so Thus in the matter of Murther there are some Instances of an unalterable Nature and others that are changeable according to the various Provisions of Positive Laws and Constitutions To take away the life of an innocent Person is forbidden by such an indispensable Law of Nature that no Humane Power can any way directly or indirectly make it become lawful in that no Positive Laws can so alter the Constitution of Nature as to make this Instance of Villany cease to be mischievous to Mankind and therefore 't is Capital in all Nations of the World But then there are other particular Cases of this Crime that depend upon Positive Laws and so by consequence are liable to change according to the different Constitutions of the Common-wealths men live in Thus though in England 't is Murther for an injured Husband to kill an Adulteress taken in the Act of Uncleanness because 't is forbidden by the Laws of this Kingdom yet in Spain and among the old Romans it was not because their Laws permitted it and if the Magistrate himself may punish the Crime with Death he may appoint whom he pleases to be his Executioner And the Case is the same in reference to Divine Worship in which there are some things of
Conscience in matters of Religious Worship as in Affairs of Justice and Honesty i. e. a Liberty of Iudgment but not of practice they have an inviolable freedom to examine the Goodness of all Laws Moral and Ecclesiastical and to judge of them by their suitableness to the natural Reasons of Good and Evil but as for the Practice and all outward Actions either of Virtue or Devotion they are equally governable by the Laws and Constitutions of Common-wealths and men may with the same pretences of Reason challenge an Exemption from all Humane Laws in Matters of common Honesty upon the score of the Freedom of their Consciences as they plead a liberty from all Authority in Duties of Religious Worship upon the same account because they have a freedom of Judgment in both but of Practice in neither § 2. And upon the reasonableness of this Principle is founded the Duty or rather Priviledge of Christian Liberty viz. To assert the Freedom of the Mind of Man as far as 't is not inconsistent with the Government of the World in that a sincere and impartial use of our own Understandings is the first and Fundamental Duty of Humane Nature Hence it is that the Divine Providence is so highly solicitous not to have it farther restrained than needs must and therefore in all matters of pure Speculation it leaves the mind of Man entirely free to judge of the Truth and Falshood of things and will not suffer it to be usurp'd upon by any Authority whatsoever And whatsoever Opinion any man entertains of things of this Nature he injures no man by it and therefore no man can have any reason to commence any Quarrel with him for it Every man here judges for himself and not for others and matters of meer Opinion having no reference to the Publick there is no need of any Publick Judgment to determine them But as for those Actions that are capable of having any Influence upon the Publick Good or ill of Mankind though they are liable to the Determinations of the Publick Laws yet the Law of God will not suffer them to be determin'd farther than is requisite to the Ends of Government And in those very things in which it has granted the Civil Magistrate a Power over the Practices of men it permits them not to exercise any Authority over their Judgments but leaves them utterly free to judge of them as far as they are Objects of meer Opinion and relate not to the Common Interest of mankind And hence though the Commands of our Lawful Superiours may change Indifferent things into Necessary Duties yet they cannot restrain the Liberty of our Minds from judging things thus determin'd to remain in their own Nature Indifferent and the Reason of our Obligation to do them is not fetcht from any Antecedent Necessity in themselves but from the Supervening Commands of Authority to which Obedience in all things Lawful is a Necessary Duty So that Christian Liberty or the Inward Freedom of our Judgments may be preserved inviolable under the Restraints of the Civil Magistrate which are Outward and concern only the Actions not Judgments of men because the Outward Determination to one Particular rather than another does not abrogate the Inward Indifferency of the thing it self and the Duty of our Acting according to the Laws arises not from any Opinion of the Necessity of the thing it self but either from some Emergent and Changeable Circumstances of Order and Decency or from a sense of the Absolute Indispensableness of the Duty of Obedience Therefore the whole Affair of Christian Liberty relates only to our Inward Judgment of things and provided this be kept inviolate it matters not as to that Concern what Restraints are laid upon our Cutward Actions In that though the Gospel has freed our Consciences from the Power of things yet it has not from that of Government we are free from the matter but not from the Authority of Humane Laws and as long as we obey the Determinations of our Superiours with an Opinion of the Indifferency of the things themselves we retain the Power of our Christian Liberty and are still free as to the matter of the Law though not as to the Duty of Obedience § 3. Neither is this Prerogative of our Christian Liberty so much any new Favour granted in the Gospel as the Restauration of the mind of Man to its Natural Priviledge by Exempting us from the Yoke of the Ceremonial Law whereby things in themselves indifferent were tied upon the Conscience with as indispensable an Obligation as the Rules of Essential Goodness Equity during the whole Period of the Mosaick Dispensation which being Cancell'd by the Gospel those Indifferent things that had been made necessary by a Divine positive Command return'd to their own Nature to be used or omitted only as occasion should direct And upon this Account was it that St. Paul though he were so earnest an Assertor of his Christian Liberty against the Doctrine of the Necessity of Jewish Ceremonies never scrupled to use them when ever he thought it serviceable to the Interests of Christianity as is apparent in his Circumcision of Timothy to which he would never have condescended out of Observation of the Mosaick Law and yet did not in the least scruple to do it for other Purposes as Prudence and Discretion should direct him And though in his Discourses of Christian Liberty he Instances only in Circumcision Meats and Drinks and other Ceremonial Ordinances which were then the Particulars most in Dispute between the Christians and the Jews yet by the clearest Analogy of Reason the Case is the same as to the Judicial Law and all other things commanded by Moses that were not either Rules of Eternal Goodness or expresly establish'd in the Gospel This being its clearest and most important Design to reprieve Mankind from all the burdensome and Arbitrary Impositions of Moses that were scarce capable of any other Goodness than their being Instances of Obedience and to restore us to such a Religion as was most suitable to the perfection of Humane Nature and to tye no other Laws upon us than such whose Natural and Intrinsick Goodness should carry with them their own Eternal Obligation And therefore whatsoever our Superiours impose upon us whether in Matters of Religious Worship or any other Duties of Morality it neither is nor can be any entrenchment upon our Christian Liberty provided it be not imposed with an Opinion of the Antecedent Necessity of the thing it self § 4. Now the Design of what I have discoursed upon this Article of Christian Liberty is not barely to shew the manifest Impertinency of all those little Objections men force from it against the Civil Magistrates Jurisdiction over the outward Concerns of Religion whereas this relates entirely to things of a quite different Nature and is only concern'd in the inward Actions of the Mind but withal my purpose is mainly by exempting all internal Acts of the Soul from
War It Enervates all its own Laws of Nature by Founding the Reason of their Obligation upon meer Self-Interest Which false and absurd Principle being removed all that is Base or peculiar in the whole Hypothesis is utterly Cashier'd § 1. WHen any thing that is Apparently and Intrinsecally Evil is the Matter of an Humane Law whether it be of a Civil or Ecclesiastical Concern here God is to be obeyed rather than Man No Circumstances can alter the Rules of Prime and Essential Rectitude their goodness is Eternal and Unchangeable And therefore in all such Actions Disobedience to Humane Laws is so far from being a Sin that it becomes an indispensable Duty Where the good or evil of an Action is determined by the Law of Nature no Positive Humane Law can take off its Morality because 't is in it self repugnant to the principles of right Reason by consequence as unchangeable as that And therefore if the Supreme Magistrate should make a Law not to believe the Being of God or Providence the Truth of the Gospel the Immortality of the Soul that Law can no more bind than if a Prince should command a man to murther his Father or to ravish his Mother because the Obligatory Power of all such Laws is antecedently rescinded by a stronger and more Indispensable Obligation And thus has every Man a natural right to be Virtuous and no Authority whatsoever can deny him the liberty of acting Virtuously without being guilty of the foulest Tyranny and Injustice Not so much because Subjects are in any thing free from the Authority of the Supreme Power on Earth as because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven and they are only then excused from the duty of obedience to their Sovereign when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God So that it is not originally any right of their own that exempts them from a subjection to the Sovereign Power in all things but 't is purely Gods right of governing his own Creatures that Magistrates then invade when they make Edicts to violate or controul his Laws And those who would take off from the Consciences of men all obligations antecedent to those of humane Laws instead of making the Power of Princes supreme absolute and uncontroulable they utterly enervate all their Authority and set their Subjects at perfect liberty from all their Commands For if we once remove all the antecedent obligations of Conscience and Religion men will be no further bound to submit to their Laws than only as themselves shall see convenient and if they are under no other restraint it will be their wisdom to rebel as oft as it is their Interest In that the Laws of Superiours passing no Obligation upon the Consciences of Subjects they neither are nor can be under any stronger Engagements to Subjection than to preserve themselves from the Penalties and Inflictions of the Law and so by consequence may despise its Obligation whenever they can hope to escape its punishment Now how must this weaken the Power and supplant the Thrones of Princes if every Subject may despise their Laws or invade their Sovereignty whenever he can hope to build his own Fortune upon their Ruines How would it expose their Scepters to the continual Attempts of Rebels and Usurpers when every one that has strength enough to wrest it out of his Princes hands has Right and Title enough to hold it What security could Princes have of their Subjects Loyalty that will own their Power as long as it shall be their interest and when it ceases to be so call it Tyranny How shall they ever be secured by any Promises Oaths and Covenants of Allegiance that have no other band but self-security or hope of Exemption from the Penalties of the Law Will not the most sacred Bonds and Compacts leave them in as insecure a condition as they found them in In that Self-advantage would have kept their Subjects loyal and obedient without Oaths and nothing else will do it with them and therefore they can add no new Obligations to that of Interest For if to perform their Covenants be advantageous they are bound to perform them by the Laws of prudence and discretion without the Oath as much as with it if disadvantageous no Oath can oblige them in that Interest and Self-preservation is the only enforcement of all their Covenants and therefore when that Tye happens to cease their Obligation becomes Null and Void and they may observe them if they please and if they please break them § 2. But the vanity and groundlesness of this opinion will more fully appear by discovering the lamentable Foundation on which it stands and that is a late wild Hypothesis concerning the Nature and Original of Government which is briefly this That the natural condition of Mankind is a State and Posture of War of every man against every man in that all men being born in a condition of equality they have all an equal right to all things and because all cannot enjoy all hence every man becomes an Enemy to every man in which State of Hostility there is no way for any man to secure himself so reasonable as Anticipation that is by Force or Wiles to master the persons of all men he can till he see no other Power great enough to endanger himself so that there is no remedy but that in the State of Nature all men must be obliged to seek and contrive in order to their own security one anothers Destruction But because in this Condition Mankind must for ever groan under all the miseries and calamities of War therefore they have wisely chosen by mutual consent to enter into Contracts and Covenants of mutual trust in which every man has in order to his own Security been content to relinquish his natural and unlimited right to every thing and hereby they enter into a state of Peace and Government in which every man engages by solemn Oath and Covenant to submit himself to the Publick Laws in order to his own private safety So that according to this Hypothesis there are no Rules of Right or Wrong antecedent to the Laws of the Common-wealth but all men are at absolute liberty to do as they please and how cruel soever they may be to one another they can never be injurious there being nothing just or unjust but what is made so by the Laws of the Society to which all its Members covenant to submit when they enter into it This Hypothesis as odde as it is is become the Standard of our Modern Politicks by which men that pretend to understand the real Laws of Wisdom and Subtlety must square their Actions and therefore is swallowed down with as much greediness as an Article of Faith by the Wild and Giddy People of the Age. And of the reality of it none can doubt but Fops and raw-brain'd Fellows that understand nothing of the World or the Complexion of Humane Nature Now 't is but labour in vain
of scruple that renounce Communion with the Church of England must do the same with all Churches in the World in that there is not any one Church in Christendom whose Laws and Customs are not apparently liable either to the same or as great exceptions Now Magistrates must needs be obligd to deal wonderful gently with such tender Consciences as these that are acted by such nice and unhappy Principles as must force them to be troublesom and unpeaceable in any Common-wealth in the World Nay what is more notorious than all this these men have all along in pursuit of this Principle run directly counter to their own practices and perswasions For not to puzzle them to discover in which of the Gospels is injoyn'd the form of Publick Penance in the Kirk of Scotland or to find out the Stool of Repentance either among the works of Bezaleel or the Furniture of the Temple We read indeed of Beesoms and Flesh-forks and Pots and Shovels and Candlesticks but not one syllable of Joynt-stools Let them tell me What Precept or Example they have in the Holy Scriptures for singing Psalms in Meeter Where has our Saviour or his Apostles enjoyn'd a Directory for publick Worship And that which themselves imposed What Divine Authority can it challenge beside that of an Ordinance of Lords and Commons What Precept in the Word of God can they produce for the significant Form of swearing by laying their hand upon the Bible which yet they never scrupled What Scripture Command have they for the three significant Ceremonies of the solemn League and Covenant viz. That the whole Congregation should take it 1. Uncovered 2. Standing 3. with their right hand lift up bare Now What a prodigious piece of impudence was this that when they had not only written so many Books with so much vehemence against three innocent Ceremonies of the Church only because they were significant but had also involved the Nation in a civil War in a great measure for their removal and had arm'd themselves and their Party against their Sovereign with this Holy League of Rebellion that even then they should impose three others so grosly and so apparently liable to all their own Objections What clearer evidence can we possibly have That it is not Conscience but humour and peevishness that dictates their scruples And What instance have we in any Nation of the World of any Schism and Faction so unreasonably begun and continued The Rebellion of Corah indeed may resemble but nothing can equal it And from hence we may discover how vain a thing it is to make Proposals and Condescensions to such unreasonable men when 't is so impossible to satisfie all their demands and suppose we should yield and deliver up to their zeal those harmless Ceremonies they have so long worried with so much fury and impatience it would only cherish them in their restless and ungovernable perswasions For whilst their peevish tempers are acted by this exorbitant Principle the Affairs of Religion can never be so setled as to take away all occasions and pretences of Quarrel in that there never can be any Circumstances of Religious Worship against which this Principle may not as rationally be urged and 't is impossible to perform Religious Worship without some Circumstance or other and if all men make not use of it against all particulars 't is because they are humoursom as well as seditious and so allow one thing upon the same Principle they disavow another For certainly otherwise it were impossible that any men should when they pray refuse to wear a Surplice and yet when they swear which is but another sort of Divine Worship never scruple to kiss the Gospel So that whoever seriously imbibes this perswasion and upon that account withdraws himself from the Communion of the Church he understands not the consequences of his Opinion if it does not lead him down to the lowest folly of Quakerism which after divers gradual exorbitances of other less extravagant Sects was but the last and utmost improvement of this Principle And therefore whilst men are possess'd with such a restless and untoward perswasion What can be more apparently vain than to talk of Accommodations or to hope for any possibility of quiet and setlement till Authority shall see it necessary as it will first or last to scourge them into better manners and wiser opinions So that we see the weight of the Controversie lies not so much in the particular matters in debate as in the Principles upon which 't is managed and for this very reason though we are not so fond as to believe the Constitutions of the Church unalterable yet we deem it apparently absurd to forego any of her establish'd Ceremonies out of compliance with these mens unreasonable demands which as it would be coarsly impolitick upon divers other accounts so mainly by yielding up her Laws and by consequence submitting her Authority to such Principles as must be eternal and invincible hindrances of Peace and Setlement This let them consider whom it most concerns § 5. Fourthly As for their Principle of the perfection and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures 't is undeniably certain as to the fundamental Truths and substantial Duties of Christian Religion but when this Rule that is suited only to things necessary is as confidently applied to things accessory it lays in the minds of men impregnable Principles of Folly and Superstition For confounding them in their different apprehensions between the substantial Duties and external Circumstances of Religion and making them of equal value and necessity it makes the doing or not doing of a thing necessary to procure the Divine acceptance which God himself has not made so and places a Religion in things that are not religious and possesseth the minds of men with false and groundless fears of God wherein consisteth the very Essence and Formality of Superstition Whereas were they duly instructed in the great difference between things absolutely necessary and things meerly decent and circumstantial this would not only preserve them in the right Notions of good and evil but also keep up the Purity of Religion Decency of Worship and due Reverence of Authority And therefore when these men would punctually tye up the Magistrate to add nothing to the Worship of God but what is enjoyn'd in the Word of God if their meaning be of new Articles of Belief 't is notoriously impertinent because to this no Civil Magistrate pretends But if their meaning be that the Magistrate has no Authority to determine the particular circumstances of Religion that are left undetermined by the Divine Law 't is then indeed to the purpose but as notoriously false in that we are certainly bound to obey him in all things lawful and every thing is so that is not made unlawful by some prohibition for things become evil not upon the score of their being not commanded but upon that of their being forbidden and what the Scripture forbids not it
undetermined but because every action must be done some way or other and be vested with some Circumstances or other and because the generality of men are not so apt to be abused with fantastick and ridiculous conceits in any thing as in matters of Religion therefore we think it necessary for the prevention of all the follies indecencies that ignorance and superstitious Zeal would introduce into the Worship of God That the Publick Laws should determine some Circumstances of Order and Decency which have at least this Advantage that they provide against the mischiefs of Disorder and Confusion and therefore we place no antecedent necessity in any of the particular Rites and Ceremonies of our Church but only think it highly convenient if not absolutely necessary that some be prescribed that there is an handsomness and beauty in these that are prescribed and therefore because 't is necessary that some be determined and because these are rather than divers others already settled we think they have an indispensable necessity superinduced upon them consequent to the determinations of Authority No man affirms That we cannot serve God acceptably without a Surplice but yet because 't is but requisite that Publick Worship should be performed with beauty and solemnity and because the use of this Vestment is but handsom and beautiful and prevents slovenliness and indecency 't is but agreeable that it should be injoin'd as any other decent Habit might have been and when this is singled out by Authority it then becomes consequentially necessary Whereas those who forbid things indifferent as sinful and lay obligations upon mens Consciences to abstain from what is innocent and make that necessary not to be done which God has left at liberty and made lawful to be done usurp upon mens Consciences by imposing Fetters on them where God has left them free and become guilty of the most palpable piece of Superstition by teaching their own Prohibitions for Doctrines and so making it a necessary Duty and part of Divine Worship to abstain from what God has no where forbidden and making it a mortal and damnable Sin to do what is innocent and supposing that God will or at least justly may inflict eternal Torments upon men for making their Addresses to him rather in a cleanly White Vestment than in a Taylors Cloak or perhaps in Mechanical Querpo Sect. II. And then as for their out-cry against Will-worship 't is the very same with that against Superstition for 't is one sort of it and is criminal no farther than 't is superstitious Now when they exclaim against Superstition they mean only that part of it that consists in Will-worship and when against Will-worship 't is only as 't is a Branch of Superstition So that these two impertinent Clamours signifie but the same thing under different Denominations and so amount but to one But however this is 't is certain that Will-worship consists in nothing else than in mens making their own fancies and inventions necessary parts of Religion whereby they make that requisite to procure the Divine acceptance that God has no where required and 't is the same thing whether this be done by Injunctions or Prohibitions and they that affirm the doing or not doing of an Action which God has no where either commanded or forbidden to be necessary Duties are equally guilty of this Crime And therefore if these men make it necessary to forbear what God has no where forbidden they teach their own fancies for Doctrines and impose something as a part of the service of God on their own and other mens Consciences that the Law of God has not imposed and withal so unworthily mis-represent the Divine Wisdom and Goodness as to labour to make the world believe That God has such an abhorrency to a thing so innocent as a White Garment That to worship him in it is sufficient to bring us under his everlasting Wrath and Displeasure for every thing that is sinful is as well in their as our esteem mortal damnable But then as for our own parts they cannot be more apparently guilty of this piece of folly then we are clear and innocent from its very suspicion because all Rituals and Ceremonies and Postures and manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion are not in their own nature capable of being parts of Religion and therefore unless we used and imposed them as such 't is lamentably precarious to charge the determination of them with Will-worship because that consists in making those things Parts of Religion that God has not made so So that when the Church expresly declares against this use of them and only injoins them as meer Circumstances of Religious Worship 't is apparent that it cannot by imposing them make any additions to the Worship of God but only provides That what God has required be performed in a decent and orderly manner Sect. 12. And then as for Christian Liberty Why should we suffer them so far to invade ours as to renounce those things as criminal which we believe to be innocent And if things indifferent when injoin'd lose not only their liberty but their lawfulness then why not when forbidden and that by an incompetent Authority when our Superiours impose Rules of Decency and Law of Discipline they do not infringe our Christian Liberty because they do not abolish the indifferency of things themselves wherein alone it consisteth and though they become thereby necessary Duties 't is not from the nature and necessity of the thing it self but from the Obligations of Obedience or some emergent Reasons of Order and Decency whereas nothing can be more plain than that these men do not only abridge our Liberty but also lay insolent confinements upon the Supreme Power by making things indifferent so absolutely unlawful that they will not allow the just Commands of lawful Authority sufficient to make them cease to be sinful How oft and how plainly have they been told that when Authority injoins things left indifferent and undetermined by the Word of God 't is so far from incroaching upon our Christian Liberty that it rather confirms it In that this supposes that the things themselves may or may not be either done or enjoined according to the dictates of Prudence and Discretion but when they are once determined by publick Laws though the matter of the Law be indifferent yet Obedience to it is not Whereas when they will not permit their Governours to injoin these things and if they do will not obey their injunctions do they not apparently intrench upon our Liberty by making what Christ has left indifferent necessary and under pretences of asserting their Christian Liberty take upon them to confine the rights of Authority But to all this as evident as it is nothing can make them attend but they still deafly proceed in their old Clamours which is too clear an Argument that 't is not Reason that dictates their Exceptions but humour prejudice and peevishness Sect. 13.
proud ignorant and seditious Preachers against whom if the severity of the Laws were particularly levelled How easie would it be in some competent time to reduce the people to a quiet and peaceable temper and to make all our present Schisms that may otherwise prove eternal expire with or before the present Age The want or neglect of which method is the only thing that has given them so much strength so long a continuance § 8. Fourthly No man is bound to take notice of or give place to old and inveterate scandals but rather ought in defence of his Christian liberty to oppose them with a publick defiance and to shame those that pretend them out of their confidence For the only ground of compliance and condescension in these Cases is tenderness and compassion to some mens infirmities and as long as I have reason to think this the only cause of their being scandalized so long am I bound by charity and good nature to condescend to their weaknesses and no longer For after they have had a competent time and means of better information I have reason enough to presume that 't is not ignorance that is the gound of their taking offence but pride or peevishness or something worse So that all that is to be done in this case is to disabuse the weak by rectifying his judgment removing his scruples declaring the innocence of my action clearing it of all sinister suspicions and protesting against all those abuses he would put upon the lawful use of my Christian liberty And when I have so done I have cleared my self from all his ill-natured jealousies and surmises and discharged all the offices and obligations of Charity And if after all this my offended Neighbor shall still persevere in his perverse mis-interpretation of my actions and pretend that they still gaul and ensnare his tender Conscience the man is peevish and refractory and only makes use of this precarious pretence to justifie his uncharitable censures of my innocent liberty and then am I so far from being under any obligation to comply with the peevishness and insolence of his humour that I am strongly bound to thwart and oppose it For otherwise I should but betray my Christian liberty to the Tyranny of his wilful and imperious ignorance and give superstitious folly the advantage and Authority of Prescription For if that prevail in the practice of the World and I must yield and condescend to it because 't is stubborn and obstinate it must in process of time gain the reputation of being the custom and received opinion of the Church and when it can plead that then it becomes necessary Inveterate Errours are ever sacred and venerable and what prescription warrants it always imposes Custom ever did and ever will rule and preside in the practices of men because 't is popular and being ever attended with a numerous train of Followers it grows proud and confident and is not ashamed to upbraid free reason with singularity and Innovation So that all I could gain by an absolute resignation of my own liberty to another mans folly would be only to give him a plausible pretence to claim a right of command and dominion over me and to make my self subject to his humour by my own civility And thus though the Jews were in the beginning of Christianity for a time permitted the Rites and Customs of their Nation yet afterward when the Nature of the Christian Religion was or might be better understood the Church did not think it owed them so much civility And if the Primitive Christians had not given check to their stubborn perswasions they had given them Authority and by too long a compliance would have vouched and abetted their Errours and adopted Judaism into Christianity and Circumcision not only might but of necessity must have been conveyed down to us from age to age by as firm and uninterrupted a Tradition as Baptism And this shews us how way-ward and unreasonable those men are who still persevere to object Scandal against the Churches Constitutions after she has so often protested against this Exception by so many solemn Declarations When at first it was pretended it might perhaps for a while excuse or alleviate their disobedience but after Authority has so sufficiently satisfied their scruples and removed their suspicions and so amply cleared the innocence of its own intentions if men will still continue jealous and quarrelsom they may thank themselves if they smart for their own presumption and folly And Princes have no reason to abridge themselves in the exercise of their lawful Power only because some of their Subjects will not learn to be modest and ingenuous And if his Majesty should think good to condescend so far to these mens peevishness as to reverse his Laws against them out of compliance with them this would but feed and cherish their insolence and only encourage them to proceed if that be possible to more unreasonable demands for upon the same reason they insist upon these they may when they are granted them go on to make new remonstrances i. e. upon no reason at all And beside this would but give the countenance of Authority to their scruples and superstitious pretences and leave the Church of England under all those Calumnies to Posterity with which themselves or their followers labour to charge it and oblige future Ages to admire and celebrate these peevish and seditious persons as the Founders of a more godly and thorow Reformation Not to mention how much Princes have ever gain'd by their concessions to the demands of Fanatick Zealots they may easily embolden but hardly satisfie them and if they yield up but one Jewel of their Imperial Diadem to their importunity 't is not usual for them to rest till they have gain'd Crown and all and perhaps the head that wears it too for there is no end of the madness of unreasonable men How happy would the world be if wise men were but wise enough to be instructed by the Mistress of Fools But every Age lives as much at all adventure as if it were the first without any regard to the warnings and experiences of all former Ages Sect. 9. Fifthly The Commands of Authority and the Obligations of Obedience infinitely outweigh and utterly evacuate all the pretences of scandal For the matters wherein scandal is concern'd are only things indifferent but nothing that is not antecedently sinful remains so after the commands of lawful Authority are superinduced upon it these change things indifferent as to their Nature into necessary Duties as to their Vse and therefore place them beyond the reach of the obligations of scandal that may in many cases extend to the restraint of our Liberty but never to the prejudice and hinderance of our Duty so that no Obedience how offensive soever unless it be upon some other account faulty is capable of being made Criminal upon the score of scandal the obligations whereof are but accidental
and occasional whereas those of Obedience are of a prime absolute and eternal necessity Princes are Gods Deputies and Lieutenants here on earth he vests them with their power and by his own Law binds us to obey theirs and though their Decrees pass no direct Obligation upon the Consciences of men yet the Divine laws directly and immediately bind their Consciences to obey them and God has annex'd the same Penalties to Disobedience to their Laws as to his own So that obedience to all the lawful Commands of our Superiours is one part of our Duty to God because our obligation to it is tied upon us by his own immediate Command aud therefore if the duty of avoiding scandal that is of Compliance with my neighbours weakness be sufficient to excuse that of Obedience to Authority 't is so too to take off the immediate Obligations of God himself So that when these two the publick commands of a lawful Superiour and the private Offence of an honest Neighbour countermand each other if the latter prevail then may it forbid what God has made a necessary Duty and oblige us to disobey him out of Compliance with the folly and ignorance of men How few are there of the Divine Laws more severe and peremptory than those that command Obedience to Authority And therefore if we may decline this duty only to avoid scandal Why not any Why not all This then is our Duty and must be done and as for all its casual and equivocal events no mans Conscience is concern'd to provide against them And if other men will be offended because I do my Duty that is their fault and not mine and better be the occasion of another mans sin than the Author of mine own No mans folly or ignorance can cancel my obligations to God or God's Vicegerent and in all cases where there is any competition between scandal and a Command of God or any other lawful Authority there is no other difficulty to be resolved than whether I shall disobey God or displease my foolish Neighbour And 't is one would think past all dispute that when any thing is positively determin'd as a matter of Duty the obligations to Obedience in that particular are not for that very reason left to any man's Choice and Prudence as all matters of Scandal are but it must become in all Cases and Circumstances whatsoever a Duty of a precise absolute and indispensable Necessity And certainly God had made but odd provision for the Government of the World if he should allow one Subject for the pleasure of another to derogate from the Authority of lawful Superiours and permit them the liberty to disobey the Commands of Governours rather than displease one another for this must unavoidably end in an utter dissolution of all Government devolve the Supremacy entirely upon every private man that either has or can pretend to have a weak and a tender Conscience For if scandal to weak and tender Consciences be of sufficient force to rescind the obligatory Power of the Commands of Authority then whoever either has or can pretend to a weak Conscience gains thereby an absolute Sovereignty over all his Superiours and vests himself with a power to dispense with or evacuate their Commands So that in the issue of all this pretence puts it in the power of any peevish or malevolent person to cancel all the Decrees of Princes and make his own humour the Rule of all their Polity and Laws of Government and become Superior to his own Superiours only by being ignorant or peevish How is it possible to make Authority more cheap and contemptible if men would study to weaken and disgrace it than by making its Commands of less force than the folly or perverseness of every arrogant Mechanick And what can be more destructive of all manner of Government than to make all the Rules of Order and Discipline less sacred than the whimsies of every phantastick Zealot In brief the peace and quiet of honest men is likely to be mighty well secured when disobedience shall be thought the product of a more exact and tender Conscience When to pick quarrels with the Laws and make scruple of obeying them shall be made the specifick Character of the Godly Party and when giddy and humorous Zeal shall not only excuse but hallow Disobedience when every one that has pride enough to fancy himself a Child of God shall have Licence to despise Authority and do as he list What an irresistible temptation is this to proud and zealous Enthusiasts to affect being troublesome to Government and disobedient to all the Laws of Discipline when it shall pass for the result of a more extraordinary tenderness of Conscience What encouragement could men have to obey their Superiours when to dispute and dislike their Laws shall be thought to proceed from a greater holiness and a more exact integrity And what a resistless inducement is this to all proud and phantastick Zealots to remonstrate to the Wisdom of Authority if thereby they may gain the Renown and Glory of a more conspicuous godliness If men would but consider the natural Consequences of this and the like Pretences they could not but see how fatally and unavoidably they lead to Anarchy and an utter dissolution of all Government Which mischief as is notoriously apparent from the Premisses all the World can never prevent if the scandal of Private men may ever dispence with the Obligation of Publick Laws CHAP. VIII Of the Pretence of a Tender and unsatisfied Conscience the Absurdity of Pleading it in Opposition to the Commands of Publick Authority The Contents THis pretence is but an after-game of Conscience 'T is a certain and unavoidable dissolution of Government 'T is a superannuated Pretence and is become its own Confutation Old Scruples proceed not from Tenderness but Stubborness of Conscience This particularly shewn in their scruple of kneeling at the Communion They affect their Scruples out of Pride and Vain-glory. Tenderness of Conscience is so far from being the reason of Disobedience that it lays upon us the strongest Obligations to Obedience A Tender Conscience is ever of a yielding and pliable temper When 't is otherwise 't is nothing but humour or insolence and is usually hardy enough not to scruple the greatest Villanies The Commands of Publick Authority abrogate all doubts and scruples and determine all irresolution of Conscience The matter of all scruples is too small to weigh against the Sin and Mischief of Disobedience The Apostles Apology viz. We ought to obey God rather than men holds only in matters of great and apparent Duty but not in doubtful and disputable Cases Nothing more easie than to raise scruples No Law can escape them this particularly shewn in our own Laws When two Obligations interfere the greater always cancels the less Hence 't is impossible for any man to be reduced into a necessity of Sinning Obedience to Publick Authority is one of the greatest and most
persons have any serious sense of their own ignorance they can scarce have a stronger obligation to obedience And they can never be so confident in any action as when they obey because then they have the Publick Wisdom to warrant them and their own Folly to excuse them That is they follow the best guide men are capable of in their Circumstances And a Subject that is Conscious of his own weakness when he resigns up himself to the Wisdom of his Superiours in matters doubtful and disputable is in effect governed by the best and safest Dictates of his own Conscience which unless it be hardned with pride and insolence cannot but perswade him that he ought to presume them more competent Judges of the fitness and expediency of Publick Laws whose work and office it is to understand them than himself who is wholly ignorant of the management and transaction of Publick Affairs This is the most common Principle of humane life and all men practise by it in all their concerns but those of Religion And that is the reason it has ever been debauched with so many follies and frenzies because silly people will not submit their Consciences to any thing but their own giddy Imaginations Whereas if they would but condescend to the same Rules of Government in matters of Religion as they do in all their other affairs obedience to Authority might be secured without any violence to Conscience seeing no Conscience that is acted by wise and sober perswasions will ever be stiff in doubtful and uncertain Cases against the determinations of the Publick Wisdom Because such men being sensible how unable they are to govern themselves they know they can never act more safely than when they are governed by their Superiors And being they cannot pretend to trust confidently enough to their own conduct how can they proceed upon wiser and more reasonable grounds than by committing themselves to the Publick Wisdom In which though possibly they might be misguided yet they may secure themselves that God who values integrity more than subtilty will pardon their weakness and reward their meekness and humility But for a man to plead weakness of Conscience for disobedience to Government is just as if a Child in Minority should reject the advice of his Guardians because he has not wit enough to know when he is well advised or as if a Fool should refuse to be governed because he has not reason enough to discern when he is well managed or as if a Blind Man should not trust to the conduct of a Guide because he is not able to judge when he is misled Humility and Condescension are the most proper duties of weakness and ignorance and meekness and simplicity the only ornaments of a tender Conscience And one would think that men whose confidence exceeds not their wit should be strangely wary of censuring the wisdom of Authority And therefore it is but a very odd pretence to weakness of Conscience when it appears in nothing but being too strong for Government and that man that pretends to it does not seriously believe himself if he presumes he is wise enough to govern his Governors And so does every one that thinks the perswasions of his own mind of sufficient force to cancel the obligations of their commands It is an handsom piece of modesty for one who pretends to weakness of Conscience when his Prince requires his obedience to give him counsel to advise him how to govern the Kingdom to blame and correct the Laws and to tell him how this and the other might be mended And What can be more fulsom than to see men under pretences of great strictness and severity of Conscience to cherish stubbornness and vanity and to endure neither Laws nor Superiours because they are proud enough to think themselves more Holy than their Neighbours What a malapert and insolent piece of pride is it for every Prating Gossip and illiterate Mechanick that can mark themselves with some distinctive names and Characters of Godliness to scoff and jibe at the wisdom of publick Authority to affront the Laws and Constitutions of a Church to pity and disdain the lamentable ignorance of Learned Men and to Libel all sorts of people that are not of their own Rendez-vous especially their Superiors with slanders and idle stories What strange effects are these of a diffident and timorous Conscience A Conscience that knows it self to be acted by certain and infallible Principles how could it be more head-strong and confident And therefore if we compare these mens practices with their pretences What can be more evident than that it is not Tenderness of Conscience that emboldens them to fall out with all the World but pride and vanity and insolence For nothing else could possibly drive them on with so peremptory a sail against so strong and so united a torrent For a Conscience that is only weak and tender is of a yielding and pliable temper it is soft and innocent modest and teachable apt to comply with the Commands of its Superiours and easily capable of all impressions tending to Peace and Charity but when it is stubborn and confident in its own apprehensions then it is not tender but hardy and humoursom And as queasie as it is in reference to its Superiours Commands it is usually strong enough to digest Rebellion and Villany and whilst it rises against a poor innocent Ceremony it is scarce ever stirred with Schism Faction and Cruelty Now to permit these men their liberty who mistake insolence for tenderness of Conscience than which nothing more easie or more natural for people that are both proud and simple is to suffer ignorance to ride in Triumph because it is proud and confident and to indulge zealous Idiots in their folly because they threaten Authority to be peevish and scrupulous to their Laws and to infest their Government with a sullen and cross-grain'd Godliness an Artifice not much unlike the tricks of some froward Children and therefore such untoward and humoursom Saints must be lashed out of their sullenness as Children are into compliance and better manners otherwise they will be an eternal annoyance to all Government with the childish and whining pretences of a weak and crasie Conscience In brief I appeal to all mankind that have but any tolerable conception of the nature and design of Religion Whether it be not much more becoming the temper of a Christian Spirit to comply with the commands of their Superiors that are not apparently sinful in order to the Peace and Setlement of the Church than to disturb its quiet by a stubborn and peremptory adherence to our own Doubts and Scruples For What is there in Christianity of greater importance than the vertues of meekness peaceableness and humility And in what can these great duties more discover themselves than in the offices and civilities of humble Obedience that contains in it all that is most amiable and most useful in the Christian Religion 'T
is modesty 't is meekness 't is humility 't is love 't is peacebleness 't is ingenuity 'T is a duty so pregnant with Vertue in it self and of such absolute necessity to the happiness of mankind That there is scarce anything can come in competition with it whose obligation it will not at the first appearance utterly cancel and evacuate as I shall more fully demonstrate in the ensuing Propositions In the mean while we see what is to be done in the case of tender Consciences If they are acted by calm and peaceable Principles they will not desire liberty if they are not they will not deserve it For if they are humble and modest they will chuse to submit to the will of their Superiors rather than by thwarting them do what in themselves lies to discompose the publick Peace And therefore if they will rather venture to embroil the Common-wealth and contradict Authority than forego their own peremptory Determinations and make their Superiors comply and bend to their confidence it is because they are criminally bold and imperious in their own conceits and are of a temper too stubborn insolent and presumptuous to be endured in any Society of men Sect. 4. Doubts and Scruples are so far from being sufficient Warranty of disobedience that they are outweighed by the Obligations of the Law For if I doubt concerning the injustice of my action I must also of necessity doubt of the injustice of my disobedience and unless I am absolutely certain that the Law is evil I am sure disobedience to it is And therefore I am always as forcibly bound to obey a scrupled Law for fear of the sin of disobedience as to disobey it for fear it commands an essential evil So that a doubting Conscience must always at least as much fright us from disobeying as from obeying any Humane Law Though indeed if we would speak properly the commands of Authority perfectly determine and evacuate all doubtfulness and irresolution of Conscience For if it before hung in suspence concerning the lawfulness of the action and unresolved Whether it were good or evil as not having competent reason to incline to one side rather than to the other yet when Authority casts its commands into the Scale if in some mens Consciences they weigh any thing they cannot but add weight more than enough to determine the Judgment and incline the Balance For if the Reasons on both sides were equal before than thet side that gains this accession has most reason now So that Laws do not force us to obey them with a doubting Conscience but remove our doubts at the same time they require our obedience because they destroy the equal probability of the two opinions and determine the Conscience to a confidence of acting by directing it to follow the safest and most probable perswasion In that no practice or opinion that is capable of doubt or uncertainty can be of equal importance with the prime Duties of obedience and humility and the matter of all doubts and scruples is ever of too small and inconsiderable a consequence to be laid in the Balance against the great and weighty mischiefs of disobedience If indeed the commands of Authority enjoyned any thing absolutely and apparently evil and against the great and unalterable Rules of truth and goodness in such exigents Da veniam Imperator would be a fair and civil excuse But matters of a less importance will not pay the charges of a persecution it is not worth the while to suffer for little things and that man has but the just reward of his own folly that would suffer Martyrdom in the cause of an indifferent Ceremony or for the truth of a Metaphysical Notion And the suggestion of Optatus to the Donatists who were so forward to cast away their lives in defence of their little Schism was smart and severe Nulli dictum est nega Deum nulli dictum est incende Testamentum nulli dictum est aut thus pone aut Basilicas dirue Istae enim res solent Martyria generare Matters wherein the Being of Religion and the Truth of Christianity were directly concerned were worth the dying for and would quit the costs of Martyrdom but no indifferent Rites or Ceremonies were of value enough to pay for the lives of men And the Zealots of the Pars Donati who were so ambitious to suffer Imprisonment Confiscation of Goods Banishment and Death it self out of a pertinacious resolution against some established customs and usages of the Church could never be rewarded in any other Heaven but the Paradise of Fools Things that are essentially evil no change or variety of Circumstances can make good and therefore no commands of any Superior can ever warrant or legitimate their practice But then these are always matters of the greatest and most weighty importance and of an apparent and palpable obliquity such as Blasphemy Murther Injustice Cruelty Ingratitude c. that are so clearly and intrinsically evil that no end how good or great soever can ever carry with it goodness enough to abate or evacuate their Malice But as for all matters that are not so apparently good or evil but are capable of doubt and uncertainty their Morality is of so small importance that it can never stand in competition with the obligations and conveniences of the great Duty of obedience And thus when the Apostles were forbidden by the Jewish Sanhedrim to Preach the Name of Iesus Acts 5. 29. they desired to be excused upon no other account but of an express command from God himself in a matter of great importance and apparent necessity Our Blessed Saviour coming into the World with a Commission from its Supream Governour to make Laws and the Holy Apostles having an infallible assurance of his Divine Authority from his great manifest and undeniable Miracles the most certain and unquestionable credentials that Heaven can send to the Sons of Men they could not but lie under an indispensable obligation to give assent to his Message and obedience to his Commands and that out of duty to the Supream Governour of the Universe from whose unquestionable Laws no other Authority can ever derogate because it is all of an inferiour nature But to apply this Rule which the Apostles never made use of but in a case of certain absolute and notorious injustice to matters of a small doubtful and uncertain nature is absolutely inconsistent with the quiet of Government and infinitely distant from the intention of the Apostles Their Plea was in a case of great evident and unquestionable necessity But what warrant is that for my disobedience when I only fear or fancy the Law to be unjust Which if it were so is not of moment enough to weigh against the mischiefs and enormities that follow upon disobedience And therefore in all doubtful and less considerable cases that side on which obedience stands must ever carry it and no man that is either wise or good will ever trouble
his Governours with nice and curious disputes the Authority of the Law stifles all scruples and trifling objections And thus where there was no apparent repugnancy to the Law of God we find none more compliant and conformable in all other things than the Apostles freely using any Customs of the Synagogue or Iewish Church that were not expresly cancelled by some Divine Prohibition But further this their Apology is as forcible a Plea in concerns of Civil Justice and common honesty as in Matters of Religion it holds equally in both in cases of a certain and essential injustice and fails equally in both in doubtful and less material cases and was as fairly urged by that famous Lawyer Papinian who upon this account when the Emperor commanded him to defend and justifie the lawfulness of Parricide chose rather to die than to Patronize so monstrous a villany Here the wickedness was great and palpable But in matters more doubtful and less material where the case is nice and curious and not capable of any great Interest or great reason there Obedience out-weighs and evacuates all Doubts Jealousies and suspicions And what wise or honest man will offend or provoke his Superiours upon thin pretences and for little regards And if every man that can raise doubts and scruples and nice Exceptions against a Law shall therefore set himself free from its obligation then farewel all Peace and all Government For what more easie to any man that understands the Fundamental Grounds and Reasons of Moral Equity than to pick more material quarrels against the Civil Laws of any Common-wealth than our Adversaries can pretend to against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions And now shall a Philosopher be excused from obedience to the Laws of his Country because he thinks himself able to make exceptions to their Prudence and Convenience and to prove them not so useful to the Publick nor so agreeable to the Fundamental Rules of natural Justice and Equity as himself could have contrived What if I am really perswaded that I can raise much more considerable objections against Littletons Tenures than ever these men have or shall be able to produce against our Ceremonial Constitutions Though it be easie to be mistaken in my conceit yet whether I am or am not it is all one if I am confident And now it would be mightily conducive to the interests of Justice and Publick Peace for me and all others of my Fond Perswasion in this particular to make Remonstrances to the Laws of the Land to Petition the King and Parliament to leave us at the liberty of our own Conscience and Discretion to follow the best Light God has given us for the setlement of our own estates because we think we can do it more exactly according to the Laws of Natural Iustice than if we are tied up to the positive Laws of the Land Thus that groundless and arbitrary maxim of the Law That inheritances may lineally descend but not lineally ascend whereby the Father is made uncapable of being immediate Heir to the Son would be thought by a Philosopher prejudicial to one of the most equal and most ingenuous Laws of Nature viz. The gratitude of Children to Parents which this Law seems in a great measure to hinder by alienating those things from them whereby we are best able to express it What if I have been happy in a loving and tender Father that has been strangely solicitous to leave me furnished with all the comforts and conveniences of life that declined not to forego any share of his own ease and happiness to procure mine that has spent the greatest part of his care and industry to bless me according to the proportion of his abilities with a good fortune and a good education and has perhaps out of an over-tender solicitude for my welfare reduc'd himself to great streights and exigences How monstrous unnatural must the contrivance of this Law appear to me that when the bounty of Providence has blest me with a fortune answerable to the good old Mans desires and endeavours if I should happen to be cut off before him by an untimely death all that whereby I am able to recompence his Fatherly tenderness should in the common and ordinary course of Law be conveyed from him to another person the stream of whose affections was confined to another Channel and who being much concerned for his own Family could in all probability be but little concerned for me What an unnatural and unjust Law is this that designs as far as it can to cut off the streams of our natural Affections and disposes of our possessions contrary to the very first tendencies and obligations of Nature So easie a thing is it to talk little Plausibilities against any Laws whose obligation is positive and not of a prime and absolute necessity And yet down-right Rebellion it would be if I or any man else should refuse subjection to these and the like Laws upon these the like pretences And thus we see is the case all the way equal between Laws Civil and Laws Ecclesiastical In all matters greatly and notoriously wicked the nature of the action out-weighs the duty of Obedience but in all cases less certain and less material the duty of Obedience out-weighs the nature of the action And this may suffice to shew from the Subject Matters of all doubts and scruples That they are not of consideration great enough to be opposed to the commands of Authority And this leads me from the matter of a scrupulous Conscience to consider its Authority And therefore Sect. 5. As the objects of a scrupulous Conscience are of too mean importance to weigh against the mischiefs of Disobedience so are its obligations too weak to prevail against the commands of Publick Authority For when two contradictory obligations happen to encounter the greater ever cancels the less because if all good be eligible then so are all the degrees of goodness too And therefore to that side on which the greater good stands our duty must ever incline otherwise we despise all those degrees of goodness it contains in it above the other For in all the Rules of Goodness there is great inequality and variety of degrees some are prescribed for their own native excellency usefulness and others purely for their subserviency to these Now when a greater a lesser virtue happen to clash as it frequently falls out in the transaction of Humane Affairs there the less always gives place to the greater because it is good only in order to it and therefore where its subordination ceases there its goodness ceases and by consequence its obligation For no subordinate or instrumental dutys are absolutly commanded or commended but become good or evil by their Accidental Relations their goodness is not intrinsick but depends upon the goodness of their end and their being directed to a good end if they are not intrinsically evil makes them virtuous because their Morality is entirely relative and
changeable and so alters its colours of good and evil by its several aspects and postures to various and different ends And therefore they never carry any Obligation in them when they interfere with higher more useful Duties And hence it comes to pass that it is absolutely impossible for any man to be reduced into a necessity of sinning because though two inferiour and subordinate Duties may sometimes happen to be inconsistent with each other or with some duty of an absolute and unalterable goodness yet the nature of things is so handsomly contrived that it is utterly impossible that things should ever happen so crosly as to make two essential and indispensable Duties stand at mutual opposit on And therefore no man can ever be forc'd to act against one out of compliance with the other And if there be any contrariety between a natural and instrumental Duty there the case is plain that the greater evacuates the less if between two instrumental Duties it can scarce so fall out but that some emergent circumstances shall make one of them the more necessary but if they are both equally eligible there is no difficulty and a man may do as he pleases It is indeed possible for any man by his own voluntary choice to entangle himself in this sad perplexity but there is no culpable Error that is unavoidable and every sinfully erroneous Conscience is voluntary and vincible And if men will not part with their sinful Errors it is not because they cannot but because they will not avoid them And if they resolve to abuse themselves no wonder if their sin be unavoidable but then the necessity is the effect of their own choice And so all sin is inevitable when the peremptory determination of the will has made it necessary But as for the nature of all the Laws of Goodness in themselves they are so wisely contrived that it is absolutely impossible any circumstances should ever fall out so awkardly as to make one sin the only way to escape another or a necessary passage to a necessary Duty Now to apply this general Rule of Conscience to our particular case there is not any Precept in the Gospel set down in more positive and unlimited expressions or urged with more vehement motives and perswasions than obedience to Government because there are but few if any Duties of a weightier and more important necessity than this And for this reason is it that God has injoined it with such an absolute and unrestrained severity thereby to intimate that nothing can restrain the universality of its obligatory power but evident unquestionable disobedience to himself The duty of Obedience is the original and Fundamental Law of Humane Societies and the only advantage that distinguishes Government from Anarchy This takes away all dissentions by reducing every mans private will and judgment to the determination of Publick Authority Whereas without it every single person is his own Governour and no man else has any power or command over his actions i. e. He is out of the state of Government and Society And for this reason is obedience and condescension to the wisdom of Publick Authority one of the most absolute and indispensable duties of mankind as being so indispensably necessary to the peace and preservation of Humane Societies Now a Conscience that will not stand to the Decrees and Determinations of its Governors subverts the very Foundations of all Civil Society that subsists upon no other principle but mens submitting their own judgments to the decisions of Authority in order to the publick peace and setlement without which there must of necessity be eternal disorders and confusions And therefore where the Dictates of a private Conscience happen to thwart the determinations of the publick Laws they in that case lose their binding power because if in that case they should oblige it would unavoidably involve all Societies in perpetual tumults and disorders Whereas the main end of all Divine as well as Humane Laws is the prosperity and preservation of Humane Society So that where any thing tends to the dissolution of Government and undermining of Humane happiness though in other circumstances it were virtuous yet in this it becomes criminal as destroying a thing of greater goodness than it self And hence though a doubtful and scrupulous Conscience should oblige in all other cases yet when its commands run counter to the commands of Authority there its obligatory power immediately ceases because to act against it is useful to vastly more noble and excellent purposes than to comply with it In that every man that thwarts and disobeys the Laws of the Common-wealth does his part to disturb its Publick Peace that is maintained by nothing else but obedience and submission to its Laws Now this is manifestly a bigger mischief and inconvenience than the foregoing of any doubts and scruples can amount to And therefore unless Authority impose upon me something that carries with it more evil and mischief than there is convenience in the peace and happiness of the whole Society I am indispensably bound to yield obedience to his commands And though I scrupulously fear lest the Magistrates injunctions should be superstitious yet because I am not sure they are so and because a little irregularity in the external expressions of Divine Worship carries with it less mischief and enormity than the disturbance of the Peace of Kingdoms I am absolutely obliged to lay aside my doubt rather than disobey the Law because to preserve it naturally tends to vast mischiefs and confusion whereas the inconvenience of my acting against it is but doubtful and though it were certain yet it is small and comparatively inconsiderable And therefore to act against the inclinations of our own doubts and scruples is so far from being criminal that it is an eminent instance of Virtue and implies in it besides its subserviency to the welfare of mankind the great duties of Modesty Peaceableness and Humility And as for what some are forward enough to object that this is To do evil that good may come of it it is a vain and frivolous exception and prevented in what I have already discoursed in that that Rule is concerned only in things absolutely and essentially evil whose nature no case can alter no circumstance can extenuate and no end can sanctifie But things that are only subserviently good or evil derive all their Virtue from the greater Virtue they wait upon and therefore where a meaner or an instrumental duty stands in competition with an essential Virtue its contrariety destroys its goodness and instead of being less virtuous becomes altogether sinful for though it have abstractedly some degrees of goodness yet when it chances to oppose any duty that has more and more excellent degrees it becomes evil and unreasonable by as many degrees as that excels it And one would think this case should be past dispute as to the matters of our present Controversie that are of so vast a
distance and disproportion forasmuch as obedience is a virtue of so absolute necessity and so diffusive usefulness whereas the goodness of those little things they oppose to it is so small that it is confessedly scarce discernable and their Consciences as nice and curious as they are not able to determine positively whether they are good or evil And therefore what a prodigious madness is it to weigh such trifling and contemptible things against the vast mischiefs and inconveniences of disobedience The voice of the publick Laws cannot but drown the uncertain whispers of a tender Conscience all its scruples are hushed and silenced by the commands of Authority It dares not whimper when that forbids and the nod of a Prince aws it into silence and submission But if they dare to murmur and their proud stomachs will swell against the rebukes of their Superiors then there is no remedy but the rod and correction They must be chastised out of their peevishness and lashed into obedience In a word though Religion so highly consults the interests of Common-wealths and is the greatest instrument of the peace happiness of Kingdoms yet so monstrously has it been abused by the folly of some and wickedness of others that nothing in the world has been the mother of more mischief to Government The main cause of which has been mens not observing the due scale and subordination of duties and that in case of competition the greater always destroys the less For hence have they opposed the Laws and by consequence the peace of the Society for an Opinion or a Ceremony or a subordinate instrumental duty whereas had they soberly considered the important necessity of their obedience they would scarce have found any duty of moment enough to weigh against it For seeing almost all virtues are injoined us in order to the felicity of man and seeing there is nothing more conducive to it than that which tends to the Publick weal and good of all and seeing this is the design and natural tendency of the Publick Laws and our obedience to them that had need be hugely certainly and absolutely evil that cancels their obligation and dispences with our obedience and not a Form or a Ceremony or an outward expression or any other instrumental part of Religion But some menthink it better to be disputative than peaceable and that there is more godliness in being captious and talkative than in being humble and obedient It is a pleasure to them to be troublesome to Authority they beat about and search into every little corner for doubts exceptions against their commands And how do they triumph when they can but start a scruple They labour to stumble at Atoms to boggle at straws and shadows and cherish their scruples till they become as big as they are unreasonable and lay so much stress upon them as to make them out-weigh the greatest and most weighty things of the Law And it is prodigiously strange and yet as common too to consider how most men who pretend and that perhaps sincerely to great tenderness of Conscience and scruple postures and innocent ceremonies are so hardy as to digest the most wicked and most mischievous villanies They can dispence with spightfulness malice disobedience schism and disturbance of the Publick Peace and all to nourish a weak and an impotent scruple and in pursuit of any little conceit they will run themselves into the greatest and most palpable enormities and will cherish it till it weighs down the peace of Kingdoms and Fundamental Principles of common honesty Find me a man that is obstinately scrupulous and I will shew you one that is incurably seditious and whoever will prefer his scruples before the great duties of obedience peace quietness and humility cannot avoid being often betrayed into tumults and seditions But if we will resolve to be tender of our obedience to the great undoubted and unalterable commands of the Gospel that will defend our Consciences against the vexation of scruples and little inadvertencies protect the publick from all the disturbances of a peevish and wayward godliness and secure our acceptance with God without being so punctual and exact in the Offerings of Mint and Cummin Sect. 6. In cases and disputes of a publick concern private men are not properly sui Iuris they have no power over their own actions they are not to be directed by their own judgments or determined by their own wills but by the commands and determinations of the Publick Conscience And if there be any sin in the command he that imposed it shall answer for it and not I whose whole Duty it is to obey The commands of Authority will warrant my obedience my obedience will hallow or at least excuse my action and so secure me from sin if not from error because I follow the best guide and most probable direction I am capable of And though I may mistake my integrity shall preserve my innocence And in all doubtful and disputable cases it is better to erre with Authority than be in the right against it not only because the danger of a little error and so it is if it be disputable is out-weighed by the importance of the great duty of obedience that is more serviceable to the main ends of Religion than a more nice and exact way of acting in opposition to Government but also because they are to be supposed the fittest Judges of what tends to the Publick Good whose business it is to understand Publick Affairs And therefore in all such matters their commands are the supream Rule of Conscience as being more competent Judges of Publick Concerns than mens own private perswasions and so must have a Superior Authority over them and bind them to yield and submit to their determinations And if we take away this Condescension of our Private Consciences to Publick Authority we immediately dissolve all Government for in case of dissention unless we submit our perswasions to their commands their commands must submit to our perswasions And then let any man tell me Wherein consists the power of Princes when it may be controlled by every Subjects opinion and what can follow but perfect disorder and confusion when every man will be governed by nothing but his own conceits And if Subjects may be allowed to dispute the prudence and convenience of all Laws Government would be but a weak and helpless thing and Princes would command at the will and pleasure of their Subjects And therefore people are never curious in their exceptions against any Publick Laws unless in matters of Religion and in that case they study for Reasons to disobey because it gratifies their pride vanity to seem more knowing than their Governours in that part of wisdom that they think most valuable Self-conceit and Spiritual Pride are strange Temptations to Disobedience and were there not something of this in it men would find out other commands more liable to their exceptions For how seldom is it that
any Wars are commenced upon just and warrantable grounds And yet how few are they that take upon them to judge their lawfulness All men here think their Princes command a sufficient warrant to serve him and satisfie themselves in this that in case the cause prove to be unjust the fault liesentirely upon him that commands and not at all on him who has nothing to do but obey And if it were otherwise that no Subject were bound to take up Arms till himself had approved the justness of the cause Commonwealths must be bravely secured and their safety must lie at the mercy of every humorsome and pragmatical Fellow And yet to this piece of arrogance do men tempt themselves when they affect to be thought more godly than their Neighbors It is a gallant thing to understand Religion better than their Superiors and to pity their ignorance in the great Mysteries of the Gospel and by seeming to compassionate their weakness to despise their Authority But if Princes will suffer themselves to be controul'd by the pride and insolence of these contentious Zealots they do but tempt them to slight both their persons and their Government and if they will endure to be checked in their Laws Spiritual and Government of the Church by every Systematical Theologue and most not to say the best of our Adversaries are little better they may as well bear to see themselves affronted in their Laws Civil and Government of the State by every Village-Attorney and Solicitor Well then all men that are in a state of Government are bound in all matters doubtful and disputable to submit the dictates of Private Conscience to the determinations of Publick Authority Nor does this oblige any man to act against the dictates of his own Conscience but only by altering the case alters his perswasions i.e. though every man considered absolutely and by himself be bound to follow his own private judgment yet when he is considered as the member of a Society then must be govern'd then he must of necessity be bound to submit his own private thoughts to publick determinations And it is the dictate of every mans Conscience that is not turbulent and seditious that it ought in all things that are not of a great apparent necessity whatever its own private judgment of them is to acquiesce in the determinations of its Governors in order to publick peace and unity For unless this be done there can be nothing but eternal disorders and confusions in the Church in that it is utterly impossible that all men should have the same apprehensions of things and considering the tempers and passions of mankind as impossible that they should not pursue their differences and controversies with too much heat vehemence And therefore unless whatever their own judgments and apprehensions be they are bound in all such cases to acquiesce in the decisions and determinations of the Governors of the Church or Common-wealth in order to its peace and setlement there can be no possible way of avoiding endless squabbles and confusions And unless this be a fundamental Rule dictate of every mans Conscience that as he is bound in all doubtful cases to follow the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the best result of his own private perswasions where he neither has nor is obliged to have any other guide or rule of his actions so he is bound to forego them all provided his plain and necessary duty be secured out of obedience to Authority and in order to the due Government of the Society there never can be any peace or setlement in any Church or Common-wealth in the world And every Conscience that is not thus perswaded is upon that account to be reckoned as seditious and unpeaceable and so to be treated accordingly Sect. 7. He that with an implicite Faith and confidence resigns up his own Reason to any Superior on earth in all things is a Fool and he is as great a Fool to say no worse that will do it in nothing For as all men are immediately subject to God alone in matters of indispensable duty that are not at all concern'd in our present dispute so are they in all other things to condescend to the Decrees and determinations of their lawful Superiors Neither is this to put men upon that supream Folly of renouncing the use and guidance of their own Reasons out of obedience to any mans infallibility For by Reason we mean nothing but the mind of man making use of the wisest and most prudential methods to guid it self in all its actions and therefore it is not confined to any sort of Maxims and Principles in Philosophy but it extends it self to any knowledge that may be gained by Prudence Experience and Observation And hence right Reason when it is imploy'd about the actions of men is nothing else but Prudence and Discretion Now the Reason of any wise and sober man will tell him that it is most Prudent Discreet and Reasonable to forego his own private perswasions in things doubtful and disputable out of obedience to his lawful Superiours because without this the World can never be governed And supposing mens judgments and understandings to be never so much above the Iurisdiction of all Humane Authority and that no man can be bound to submit his Reason to any thing but the Commands of God yet every man ows at least so much civility to the will of his Prince and the peace of his Country as to bring himself to a compliance and submission to the Publick Judgment rather than to disturb the Publick Peace for the gratification of his own Fancy and Opinion Which is no enslaving of his Reason to any mans usurpation over his Faith and Conscience but only a bringing it to a modest compliance in order to the common interests of Humane Society And if it be not a duty of subjection yet it is one of peaceableness and if it be not grounded upon our obligations to the Authority it self yet it is most clearly derived from an higher Obligation that all men are under to advance the welfare of mankind and more particularly of that Society they live in that is antecedent to those of Government which is instituted only in order to the common good And therefore though our duty in such cases could not be deduced from our obligation to any humane Authority yet it clearly arises from that duty of Charity we owe to our Fellow Creatures And though we are not to submit our Vnderstandings to any Humane Power yet we are to the first and Fundamental Laws of Charity which being one of the greatest duties of mankind it is but reasonable to forego all more private and inferior obligations when they stand in competition with it And thus St. Paul notwithstanding he declaimed with so much vehemence against the observation of the Judaical Rites and Ceremonies never scrupled to use them as oft as it was serviceable to the advancement of the Christian Religion
and by consequence the good of mankind And all I would perswade men to is only that they would do as much out of duty as St. Paul did out of civility that as he complied with the apprehensions of the Jews retaining his own private judgment to himself for the greater advantage of Religion so they would whatever their own perswasions are of some things not clearly and absolutely sinful comply with the determinations of their Governours when it is conducive to the nobler ends of Publick Peace and Tranquillity A thing in it self so good and so necessary that there are very few actions that it will not render virtuous whatever they are in themselves whenever they happen to be useful and instrumental to its attainment And therefore in all matters that are no indispensable duties of Religion he that acts cross to the commands of Authority has no sense either of the great ends of Order and Government or great duties of Humanity Modest Peaceableness Meekness and Civility i. e. He is a proud and factious person and has no other motive so to do but the pleasure of being peevish and disobedient In fine there is a vast difference between Liberty and Authority of Conscience the former consists in the Freedom of a mans own judgment and of this no Magistrate can deprive us in that he cannot tie up any mans understanding from judging of things as himself pleaseth But as for the latter that consists in the power over mens outward actions and this as far as it concerns all publick affairs every man does and of necessity must pass away to the Rulers of that Society he lives in Because though I have said it often enough already yet too often I cannot say it in that it is the main Key of the Controversie and yet but little if at all regarded by our Adversaries the very nature of Government consists in nothing else but a power of command over mens actions and therefore unless all men grant it away to their Governours they live not under Government but in a state of Anarchy Every man will be Prince and Monarch to himself and as free from all commands as if he lived out of all Society seeing only himself shall have any real Dominion over his own actions and his Governours shall not have power to command him any thing but what himself first thinks fit to do And I hope I need not to prove that this is a plain dissolution of all Government So that when men will be the absolute Masters of their own actions it is not the freedom of Conscience but its power and sovereignty for which they contend they will endure none to rule over them but themselves and force Princes to submit their Laws to their saucy and imperious humour And it is this they mean by their pretence to a tender Conscience i. e. A Conscience that scruples to be subject to Government that will in spight of all Publick Laws be entirely at its own Liberty that will not submit it self to any Rule but its own private perswasions that affects to be nice and squeamish against all the commands of its Superiours and loves to censure them upon the lightest and most slender presumptions and that will not yield up any thing of its own phantastick humour to its Princes will or the Churches Peace i. e. in effect the tenderness of their Consciences for which forsooth they must be born with consists in nothing else but their being the greatest and most Notorious Hereticks For the rankest sort of Heresie is nothing but the product of a peevish and contentious Spirit and an Heretick is one that delights in Quarrels and Factions whence Erasmus renders S. Pauls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sectarum Author a man that loves to be the Leader of a Party It is peevishness and obstinacy of will that turns small Errors into great Heresies Pride and Passion and whatsoever can make an opinion vicious are its Fundamental Ingredients and give it its essential Formality This vice lies not so much in the Opinions as in the tempers of men it is a stubborn and refractory disposition of mind or a peremptoriness in a mans own conceptions and therefore it is by Saint Paul reckon'd among the Fruits of the Flesh as being a kind of brutish peevishness that is directly opposed to that lenity and yieldingness of mind that is one of the choicest Fruits of the Spirit whence he advises not to confute but to admonish such an one i. e. That is quarrelsome and boisterous for every trifle and every fancy because through Pride and Perversness he is uncapable of instruction and therefore can only be advised and not disputed into Sobriety Or to use the phrase of Saint Paul he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fellow that is troublesome and contentious especially about the external Rites and Usages of the Church And such a malapert Non-Conformist he supposes disputing in the Church of Corinth that their Women ought contrary to their received Custom to be uncovered at Divine Service But he takes him up with this short and peremptory answer If any man seem to be contentious we have no such custom neither the Churches of God i. e. In things neither morally good nor evil as few external Rites are the practice of the Church is the warrant of their lawfulness and reason of their decency and that is satisfaction enough to any sober and peaceable mind And he that shall refractorily persist to controul it must be treated as a disturber of the Peace i. e. pitied and punished as are all other turbulent and seditious Persons When mens Consciences are so squeamish or so humorsome as that they will rise against the Customs and Injunctions of the Church they live in she must scourge them into order and chastise them not so much for their fond perswasion as for their troublesome peevishness And this use of the Churches Rods and Censures is so absolutely necessary that it is the only effectual way to preserve her from Factions and Contentions not only because upon this sort of men softer methods can make no impressions but also because if we remove the limits and boundaries of Discipline there will be no end of the follies and frenzies of brain-sick People And when they are once let loose who then can set bounds to the wildnesses of Godly Madness For this we have too clear a proof in the frantick practices of our Modern Sectaries who when they had inflamed their little Zeal against the Ceremonial Constitutions of our Church ran themselves into all manner of wild and extravagant gestures They measured the simplicity of Christs Worship by its opposition to all the Rules of Decency all Institutions of Order were unwarrantable Inventions and Traditions of Men all Custom was Superstition and all Discipline was Popish and Antichristian Novelty how uncouth and fantastick soever was their only Rule of Decency and every Sect distinguished it self from all others by some
indispensable Duties of Mankind because most necessary to their well-being To act against our own scruples out of obedience to Authority is an eminent instance of virtue In cases of a Publick Concern men are to be govern'd not by their own private but by the publick Iudgment In these matters the Commands of Publick Authority are the Supreme Rules of Conscience There is a vast difference between Liberty and Authority of Conscience The Puritans tenderness of Conscience is one of the rankest sort of Heresies Wherefore 't is absolutely necessary for Authority to command things indifferent The Conclusion of all Sect. 1. THE last refuge for Godly Disobedience is the pretence of a poubtful scrupulous unsatisfied conscience for say they though we cannot positively condemn the Ceremonial Constitutions of the Church as things in themselves unlawful yet unlawful they are to us whose Consciences are not sufficiently satisfied concerning them because whatsoever is done with a doubting Conscience i. e. without Faith or a full perswasion of mind is done against it according to that clear and unquestionable Maxim of St. Paul Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin But this precarious pretence as well as that of scandal is but an after-game of Conscience they first resolved to quarrel our Constitutions and then 't is an easie matter to want satisfaction about them and when mens Arguments depend upon their Wills 't is in their own power only to repeal them and all the Reason in the world can never cure willful and artificial Scruples However if the obligation of Laws must yield to that of a weak and tender Conscience how impregnably is every man that has a mind to disobey arm'd against all the Commands of his Superiours No Authority shall be able to govern him farther than himself pleases and if he dislike the Law he is sufficiently excused from all obligations to Obedience and no Laws shall ever be able to oblige any man that either has or can pretend to a weak Conscience for seeing no man can discern the reality of mens pretensions 't is all one to the Concernments of Government whether the tenderness of Conscience that men plead to excuse their disobedience be serious or counterfeit For whether it be so or so 't is directly contrary to all the ends and interests of Government And if it be admitted for a sufficient excuse to disobey 't is an effectual and incurable dissolution of all the force of Laws and makes them obligatory then only when every man pleases and he that will may obey and he that will not may chuse seeing 't is so easie for any man that has no inclination to the Law to claim the inviolable Priviledge of a tender Conscience So that to make Proviso's for tender Consciences is to abate the whole Law seeing it gives every man liberty to exempt himself and if he dislike the Law he is under no Obligation to obey it But suppose this pretence to be serious without design or disguise is it fit the Laws of the Common-wealth should ask leave of every Ignorant and Well-meaning man whether they shall be Laws or no A weak Conscience is the product of a weak Understanding and he is a very subtil man that can find the difference between a tender Head and a tender Conscience and therefore if Princes must consult their Subjects Consciences in all their Laws this would make all the Wisdom of Government submit to the power of folly and ignorance And when any person pleads weakness or tenderness of Conscience against the obligation of any Law his meaning is that he is not of the same Judgment and Opinion with his Governours and 't is wise and handsom and becoming the Grandeur or Authority in all its Laws to comply with the learned apprehensions of every honest and illiterate Peasant who if he be not satisfied in their determinations may cancel their obligations as to himself and if they offer to force this honest man to submission they invade the sacred and inviolable liberty of a tender Conscience So full of Anarchy are all these mens pretences And therefore Governours must look to the Publick and let tender Consciences look to themselves Laws must be of an unyielding and inflexible temper and not such soft and easie things as to bend to every mans humour that they ought to command And unless Government be managed by some setled Principles it must for ever remain weak and unfixed Princes must not be diffident in their Rules and Maxims of Policy but as they must set down some to themselves so they must act up roundly to them For all Changes of the Publick Laws and Methods of Policy sadly weaken if they do not utterly unsettle the Common-wealth in that Prescription is at least in the practice of the World the greatest strength and security of Government 't is indeed the Fountain of Authority and the thing that vests Princes with their Prerogatives and no Power what right or title soever it may plead can ever be firmly establish'd till it can plead the Warrant and Authority of Prescription And therefore if Princes will be resolute and if they will Govern so they must be they may easily make the most stubborn Consciences bend to their Commands but if they will not they must submit themselves and their Power to all the follies and passions of their Subjects For there are no conceits so extravagant or so pernicious that may not pass for Principles of Conscience In brief there is nothing so ungovernable as a tender Conscience or so restive and inflexible as folly or wickedness when hardned with Religion and therefore instead of being complyed with they must be restrain'd with a more peremptory and unyielding rigour than naked and unsanctified Villany else will they quickly discover themselves to be pregnant with greater and more fatal dangers Sect. 2. This stale pretence comes now too late and is so ancient that 't is long since superannuated old Doubts and scruples are like old scandals worn out of date by time and experience They are the natural products of ignorance weakness is their Parent and folly their Nurse and if they improve not into Confidence they never survive their Infancy but of themselves vanish and dissolve into nothing And therefore this pretence having out-lived it self is become its own Answer and Confutation Because men ought not nay they cannot remain so long under Vncertainties and 't is impossible but they should before this time be competently determined as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of the things themselves For if in so long a time they have not been able to discover that sinfulness in them they suspected that is sufficient evidence of their being Innocent because their scruples have occasioned them to be so throughly sifted and examined And if after all that hot and vehement contention that has been raised about them it appears not yet wherein they are criminal and chargeable for if it does then the doubt ceases