in his Church yet he never gave any Authority to Ecclesiastical Persons to controul the commanding Power of Princes in lawful and indifferent Matters But left all such things intirely to their Disposal and Determination And we never read That the Apostles or Primitive Christians ever claim'd such a Power or suffer'd for disobeying in such Things There is but one Limitation assign'd of our Obedience and that is To obey God rather than Man If the Commands of God and the Prince clash and contradict each other there the Prince hath no Right to be obey'd because his Will is counter-manded by a Superiour Authority And therefore we find Christ and his Apostles who were very tender of giving the least Offence to Secular Powers in lawful and indifferent Things would yet yield no Obedience in things forbidden by the Express Will of God This is evident in Matters between God and the King And 't is no less so in the Case between the King and his Subjects where if the Spiritual Power of the one clash with the Temporal Power of the other 't is manifest which must yield the Inferiour Power being to give place to the Higher Powers For St. Peter stiles Kings and Emperors Supream in their Dominions And a Supream you know can have no Superiour Power upon Earth to controul or over-rule him But tho' the King say some be Supream in Temporal Affairs yet there may be and is a Superiour Power to him in Church-matters This is the Power that is claim'd and usurp'd by the Pope over Christian Kings and Emperors And there are others who are great Enemies to the Pope that put in their Claim to the same Power in these Matters and would fain take it out of his Hands to put it into their own But St. Peter from whom the first claim as his Successors expresly asserts Kings to be Supream in their Dominions without Limitation or Exception of Spiritual Matters And what Authority have any to except where the Spirit of God makes no Exception And our Saviour Christ from whom the latter claim hath no where limited or circumscrib'd the Sovereign Power of Princes in these Things So that Kings had need look well to the Rights of their Crown to preserve them from the unjust Pretensions and Encroachments of both Besides what mad work must two Co-ordinate Supremacies make in the same Kingdom For since Sacred and Civil Matters are many times so closesly twisted and inter-woven together that they can hardly be separated or distinguish'd what sharp and unavoidable Contests must frequently arise about them And if these two Rival-Supreams differ about the extent and limits of their Power what shall the Subject do who cannot possibly obey or please both For since no Man can serve two Masters the serving of the One will be the despising of the Other which may draw on him the Displeasure of both And can it be conceived that the Great Sovereign of the World who hath styl'd himself A God of Order and not of Confusion should lay such a Stumbling-block in our way and leave so weighty a Matter upon which the Peace and Welfare of Kingdoms depend to such great Uncertainties Again if these two Rival-powers fall at variance who shall reconcile them or what shall decide this great Controversie Why nothing upon Earth is able to do it but the Sword with which the Spiritual Power hath nothing to do for that hath no other Weapons but the Censures of the Church and can only strike with the Thunder of Excommunication and if these be dis-regarded as they too often are it hath nothing left to preserve or maintain a Supremacy So that if the Sword be the only Weapon to defend it he who is of right intrusted with that is thereby design'd and constituted Supream But those Scriptures you say that require Obedience and Subjection to the Higher Powers respect Church-governours 300 Years before the Christian Magistrate appeared in the World Sir If you consult Expositors or the History of those Times you will find those Scriptures to respect the Roman Governors who then sway'd the Imperial Sceptre To whom our Saviour would have all due Submission and Obedience paid For he commanded To render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar 's He acknowledg'd Pilate's Power to be given him from above And the Apostles and Primitive Christians demean'd themselves towards them accordingly Indeed for the first 300 Years after Christ when the Roman Power not only persecuted but sought to root out Christianity the Church was govern'd by its own Laws and by its own Legislative Power provided the best it could for its own Safety and Edification but when the Roman Emperors embrac'd Christianity to the great Joy of the Christian World they took the Church into their Care and Protection which by that means got out of that heavy Storm of Persecution under which it had long labour'd and began to flourish in Peace and Prosperity For Constantine and other Christian Emperors built Churches for publick Worship and provided for the decent Celebration of it They conven'd General Councils and often presided in them ratifying their Canons with their Imperial Edicts and enforcing them with Temporal Sanctions and Penalties By which means the Church is derived down in that happy and flourishing State in which it now continues Thus Sir you see who those Rulers and Superiors are that may enjoin an Invariable Form And I hope I have in some measure satisfy'd your Demands and remov'd your Exceptions against the Authority that enjoins them But when you have nothing to say against the Authority of Superiors you are wont to complain of the Injustice and Severity of their Laws and to cry out of Persecution when you suffer for the Breach of them how justly this is done must be examin'd in the next I am SIR Yours to serve you M. H. August 10th 1697. LETTER VI. SIR I Shew'd in my Last what that Authority is that lawfully may and hath enjoin'd Forms of Prayer together with the Equity and Obligation of those Laws that require them My next Task must be to inquire into the Reasonableness and Justice of those Penalties that are annext to the Violation of them And this must be the rather done because I find you talking much of Goals and Imprisonments and other Hardships which you have endur'd upon the account of them You complain most bitterly and frequently of Persecution as if you lived under Nero or Dioclesian and felt all the Tortures that were inflicted on the Primitive Christians and that for the same or as good a Cause too All which is done merely to derive an Odium upon the Laws and Lawgivers and to procure the greater Pity and Liberty for your selves And here I must observe a double Artifice which I find you making use of the one to evade the Duty the other the Penalty of these Laws To effect the First you are wont to call the Injunctions of Superiors not by the Style of
LETTERS WRITTEN TO J. M. a Nonconformist Teacher Concerning the Gift and Forms OF PRAYER The Second PART By MATTHEW HOLE B. D. sometime Fellow of Exeter College Oxon. now Vicar of Stoke-gursey in Somersetshire LONDON Printed for and are to be sold by J. Taylor and T. Bever Book sellers in London H. Clements in Oxen and J. Miller in Sherborn Dorset 1699. THE PREFACE THE Occasion of this Second Part of Letters was briefly this When the Author had withstood the first Assault of the Adversaries Papers hoping to have clos'd up and rested there he was set upon afresh by another Packet the Adversary designing either to weary him with Work or to worry him with Cavils and so to make him drop the Cause to be rid of the Labour and Trouble of defending it Hereupon the Author knowing the Wiles and Artifices of the Party and how apt they are to triumph without a Victory found it necessary to take this Second Packet into Consideration And the better to bring this Matter to some good Issue began to treat with the Adversary upon his own Concessions which if stood to seem'd to bid fair for a Reconciliation But he fearing a Snake in the Grass and doubting lest by yielding one Thing after another he might be drawn in to give up the whole Cause abruptly broke off the Treaty return'd the Authors Letters and would hear no more of an Accommodation That the World therefore might see the inexcusable Obstinacy and Perversness of the Man the Author was desir'd to Publish this Second Part in which not only the trifling Exceptions of the Adversary but all the material Objections of the whole Party are briefly discuss'd and that with as much Mildness and Gentleness too as the Cause could well admit of For the Reader will find that nothing bites but Truth and all the Salt and Smartness in it is design'd meerly to season the Discourse and not to fret the Party I know the Adversaries Complaint is hard Vsage which is wont to be the last Refuge of a bad Cause and this hath betray'd him into an indecent Passion and many unseemly Expressions which are to be pass'd by as the Follies and Frailties of depraved Nature But how little Reason there is for this Complaint any wise Reader may easily discern for he hath been rather gently stroak'd than roughly handled and Corrosives have been never us'd but where Lenitives could work no Effect A necessary and seasonable Rebuke hath been ever reckon'd among the good Offices of a Friend not the Wounds of an Enemy And I think upon the right understanding of the whole Matter the Adversary may see greater Cause to commend the Faithfulness than to complain of the Hardship of such Vsage After this Second Part was gone out of my Hands to the Press there comes forth a Book Entituled A Contract Answer to my Correct Copy of Letters In which besides some Cavils and rude Calumnies the usual Effects of Choler and the feeble Supports of a sinking Cause the Reader will find nothing material that is not replied to in the following Letters In the Preface he tells us That a Civil Peace being restor'd 't is greatly desir'd that the Ceremonial War were at an end Now are not these Peaceable Men to continue a War with their Superiors upon Matters of meer Ceremony Or can they be thought to desire Peace who resolve to differ and contend about such indifferent Things But how would they have this Ceremonial War ended Must Governors submit to them or they to Governors For this is the great Question If they would but know their Station and pay the Duty they owe to the Lawful Commands of those that are set over them this Ceremonial War would soon cease but if nothing will please them but to over-rule Authority and do as they list 't is plain they are Enemies to Peace and whilst they speak thereof are but making ready for Battel So that themselves are plainly the Persons he speaks of in the following Words who instead of allaying inflame the Differences and Animosities at home For are not Conventicles the Nurseries of Discord and Division And do not all the Flames of Contention and Animosity arise and break out from thence This all Men see but Themselves who are too wise to be in an Error and too holy to be in a Fault 'T is with great Reluctance he saith that he bears any part in this present Controversy Though himself began it by reviling the Doctrin and Discipline of the Church and still continues it by abusing the People with false Notions of Both without any Reluctance However being engag'd Necessity he saith extorted an Answer to my Letters Now what was this Necessity Why there was a double Necessity in the Case the one to answer the Importunity of the Party that would not be satisfied without it The other to keep up the Ceremonial War which else would soon come to a happy end To prevent which he hath revok'd or at least omitted some Concessions in the Print which were granted in his Original Papers beside other gross Prevarications too many to be here recited In the next place To excuse his Excursions he complains of my Rambling which is the old way of shifting a Fault by charging it on another In proving of which he falls into this evident Mistake viz. That I discours'd in my Sermon not of Prayer in general but only of Vocal or as he calls it Ministerial Prayer which is a notorious Falsity and the rotten Foundation of his whole Book For my Design was to Treat of the Gift of Prayer in general Mental as well as Vocal Both which agree in the Nature of Prayer and differ only in the manner of performing it the one being done with Silence and the other with the Voice which are only Cicumstances of the Duty and therefore I plac'd the Gift of Prayer as it should be in something that was Common and Necessary to both these to wit not in an ability of Expressions which is nothing else but the Gift of Speech applied to the Matter of Prayer and is peculiar only to vocal Prayer but in an ability of lifting up the Heart in Holy Desires and Devotion unto God which is common to mental and vocal Prayer and necessary to the right performance of both Again To exclude mental Prayer out of the Controversy he would exclude it out of the Devotions of the Church Whereas if we search into the Devotions of the antient Christians we shall find the silent Breathings of mental Prayer made up a great part of them Their publick Service was performed partly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Silence and partly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the use of the Voice And we read of secret mental Prayers us'd by Christians in the publick Assemblies in the Intervals between the publick Offices when all the Congregation kept Silence and these were made and offer'd up as St. Cyprian tells us Tacite Modeste
them do but walk on still in Darkness and sit in the very Regions of the Shadow of Death One would think the bare mentioning of these things should fill you with blushing and make you asham'd of such unparallel'd Pride and Folly But you have a worse Charge than all this against Liturgies and that is That they breed nothing but Loosness and Laziness in those that use them and give your Reasons for it too which must be consider'd in my next I am SIR Yours M. H. Aug. 25th 1697. LETTER XIII To J. M. SIR I Have been endeavouring of late to Compromise Matters in difference between us shewing how we agree in the Main and rectifying some few Mistakes that create and continue the difference Hoping by this means to bring things to some good Issue But I am sorry to find that you are inclin'd to break off the Treaty and whilst we retain our Liturgy will hear nothing of an Accommodation For in your Letter of July the 1st you tell me that Liturgies and Laziness setled together and in the same Letter you have these Words sc That which I have affirm'd and will stand to is this That the establishing Forms for Universal Use particularly our Liturgy or the Imposition of them on all Ministers to be used in publick Prayer and none other does open a Door for a lazy I might venture to say a loose Ministry to enter in and that in the present lapsed State of Discipline many such in the Ministry must be expected yea are Now this is a bold Stroke indeed in which you act the part not of a puny Slanderer to cast a little Dirt here and there but like a Whole-sale Calumniator strike home and fall foul upon the whole Christian Church in all Ages which ever since she hath retain'd Liturgies which is from the beginning hath cherished only a pack of loose and idle Drones This you say you have affirm'd and like an undaunted Champion that scorns to flinch you will stand to it and prove it too And that First From the very Nature of the thing which will make it appear that this Loosness and Laziness are not any accidental Faults occasioned by the Neligence of some Persons but the natural and necessary Effects of Liturgies and whosoever useth them must unavoidably fall into these Enormities Bravely charg'd And if you pursue this well you must necessarily rout all Liturgies out of the World Well but how is this made good Why thus The Mind of Man is naturally sluggish and will take its Ease and remit the Reins if it be not urg'd by some Necessity or attracted by Delight and Complacency and the best of Men had need of all Obligations to keep it to its Duty Very true but is there no way to employ the Mind or to cure this Sluggishness but by making new Prayers Must the Mind necessarily remit the Reins if the Tongue be kept in with Bit and Bridle Does the great Work and Business of the Soul lie in studying new Expressions And must the Prayer be dull and the Effect of Laziness if the Phrases are not varied May not the Mind be well imploy'd in a hearty and devout use of pious and well compos'd Forms No say you a Musician will be weary if he have constantly the same Instrument and Tunes Variety pleases in Diet Novelty affects in Recreations and Commonness dulls c. So that the Mind must be entertain'd as much with Varieties in Religion as the Fancy of a Fidler with new Tunes and we must have as much Change and Novelty in our Prayers as in our Diet and Recreations or else we shall grow weary of them And is not this an admirable way think you to keep Men firm and stable in their Religion to be daily ringing Changes and putting the Matter of their Prayers every Day into new Phrases Hath not this Variety of Prayers already begot a Variety of Opinions Does not Mr. Baxter tell you that this is apt to breed Giddiness and Hypocrisy And have we not found Confusion enough already from this Principle but you must needs cherish it to breed more But must all Men necessarily be lazy that use a Liturgy Then what a parcel of idle lazy Persons have all former Christians been through every Age that have spent their time only in the old Mumpsimus of Forms without taking any Pains to invent or make any new Prayers of their own This Sir is a Calumny sharper than a two-edged Sword that wounds the whole Catholick Church and cuts through all Generations But is there no taking Pains in Prayer without the Invention and study of new Words Does not the principal Work of it lie in taking Pains with the Heart to keep that close and intent upon the Duty which is much better pains-taking than pumping for new Phrases this being for the most part but Labour in vain and such as may very well be let alone For since the whole Matter of publick Prayers may be and is compriz'd in well-digested Forms what need can there be to cloath it in a daily Change and Diversity of Expressions Yea this is not only needless but hurtful Labour for it takes of the Heart from the main Work and hinders it from minding the great Business of Prayer And will you charge them with Laziness who only decline such lost Labour and in the mean time employ themselves to much better purpose Besides Sir There is no such great Labour in this Extempore way of Praying as you would have the World believe 'T is a Knack that is easily learn'd and easily perform'd a Teeming Imagination and a ready Tongue will pour out Words enough without any great pains or difficulty and he that hath gotten any dexterity this way may as easily impose upon the People with this slight of the Tongue as Juglers do with the slight of Hand And I think if all things were well known this will be found a more loose and lazy way of Praying than that which you charge with it But you have Secondly Another way of proving this Charge and that is by appealing to the Experience of Mankind whether such an Imposition does not tend to let in a lazy Ministry And here I think the Experience of the best and wisest part of Mankind will be clearly against you for they see and know that keeping to a Form of sound Words in Prayer will help to keep Men more steady and sound in their Religion more serious and diligent in the sober Exercise and Practice of true Devotion than your changeable Method and Study of Variations But May not a Child of Ten Years Old say you read the Prayers and Homilies as distinctly and laudably as a learned Divine I think very hardly And he must be a very forward Child that can arrive to that at those Years But if this may be done 't is rather a Commendation than Disparagement of our Liturgy and Homilies that all things in them are brought down to
Finger of Presbytery heavier than the Loins of Episcopacy Further more 7thly When I told you of the false Glosses of the Pharisees you own them to be loose Expositors of the Law and give an Instance of it in their not making it to extend to the Internals of Religion but to reach only the Outward Man and to rest in the External Observance of your Ceremonies and Traditions This is intended for a Fling to the Ceremonies as mere outside formal things that are inconsistent with the inward Life and Power of Godliness But Sir Is the Worship of God to be perform'd without any Ceremonies If not is it not much more comely to behold Men joining and agreeing together in the same humble Postures of Devotion than to see them clash and using different Words and Gestures Does not the Decency and Order requir'd by the Apostles chiefly respect these things Does not an Uniform and Regular way of serving God add a Grace and Solemnity to Divine Worship And is it not much better to serve him in the Beauty than Deformity of Holiness The Pharisees Fault here again was to observe their Ceremonies and Traditions with an Opinion of Holiness and Necessity to look upon them as things as much commanded by God as the great and weightier Matters of the Law And yours likewise is to abstain from innocent Ceremonies with an Opinion of Sinfulness in them and to esteem them as things as much forbidden as the greatest Breaches and Violations of God's Law Now this is Superstition both ways and 't is as much Will-worship in you to say eat not taste not handle not the Holy Sacrament kneeling as it was in the Pharisees to say eat not taste not handle not God's Creatures with unwashen Hands Whereas the Church of England looking on these Ceremonies as merely indifferent and alterable Circumstances of publick Worship as you may see at large in the Preface before the Common-prayer and appointing them only for external Order and Decency hath carefully avoided the Superstition of both And yet to keep up your Party you tell the People that we make them necessary and essential Parts of Worship and that you abstain from them for the same Reason that Christ and his Apostles abstain'd from the Ceremonies and Traditions of the Pharisees because we place Holiness and Religion in them This Sir is very foul play at once to traduce the Church and seduce the People but to carry on your own Designs you care not what false Game you play or by what evil Arts and Accusations you compass them But you go on and say The Pharisees impos'd their Traditions and Ceremonies as Laws on Christ's Dissenting Disciples and were ever accusing and complaining of those that would not observe them Here after you had Aspers'd the Church you come to claw and flatter the Dissenters by seeking to draw in Christ and his Disciples into the Number of them and would make them as much Non-conformists and Separatists from the Jewish Church as you are from the Church of England But with how little Truth and Sincerity this is affirm'd we may easily learn from the History of the Four Evangelists where we read That Christ and his Apostles liv'd in the Communion and comply'd with the Ceremonies and Customs of the Jewish Church from which the Pharisees were but a Sect or Excrescence As for our Blessed Saviour he was by Birth and Circumcision a Member of the Church of the Jews in both which Senses Gal. 4.4 he is said to be made under the Law And being thereby a Debtor to keep the whole Law he accordingly paid an exact Duty and Conformity to it In his Infancy he was not only circumcis'd the Eighth Day according to the Law given to Abraham but was soon after presented in the Temple and his Mother purified according to the Rites and Ceremonies of Moses's Law When he was grown up we read that he frequented the Synagogues of the Jews every Sabbath Day Luke 4.16 For St. Luke tells us That as his Custom was he went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath Day and stood up for to read Upon which Words a very Learned Author tells us Dr. Lightfoot vol. 1. page 1040. That 't was his constant Custom to go to that Synagogue of Nazareth as his Parish Church every Sabbath Day where he sometimes read himself and withal join'd with the Congregation as a Member of it in the other Parts of the Divine Service adding That he punctually observ'd all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Synagogue Worship Yea though the People of Nazareth were none of the best as appears by that proverbial Speech Can any Good come out of Nazareth Yet he made no Separation but continued a Member with them till the Fear of his Life and other Business of his Function call'd him thence In his departing thence having heal'd a Leper of a dangerous Leprosie Matth. 8.4 he bid him go and shew himself to the Priest and offer the Gift due by the Law of Moses upon such occasions But to shew the exact Conformity of Christ and his Apostles to the Jewish Church we must note That God Almighty appointed three great and memorable Feasts viz. the Passover Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles to be observ'd of all the Members of that Church And lest they should think it sufficient to do it by themselves at home in the particular Places of their abode they were commanded to repair to Jerusalem and that not severally and at different times but to go up at the same times and meet there together at the Celebration of those great Festivals which was done to tie them the faster together in one Communion Now the Evangelists frequently acquaint us with Christ's resorting to those Feasts And the forecited Learned Author after his recounting some of the many Ceremonies us'd at them tells us That Our Blessed Saviour was a punctual Observer of them all And of the Apostles we read that They were continually in the Temple Blessing and Praising God Luke 24.53 Again we find our Saviour present at the Feast of the Dedication And we read of the Feast of Purim which were not of God's immediate Appointment as the three former but injoyn'd by Civil and Ecclesiastical Governors in their several Ages In short we find Our Lord in the Night in which he was Betrayed taking the Passover with his Disciples and observing the Rites of it Matth. 26.19 20. So that 't is plain that he both Liv'd and Dyed in constant Communion with the Jewish Church After his Resurrection when he had fulfilled all Righteousness and all the Types and Prophecies of the Old Law were accomplish'd in him by which he abundantly shew'd himself the true promis'd Messiah he put an end to the Jewish Oeconomy and Instituted the Christian Church which he gave a Commission to his Apostles to plant and propagate every where and furnish'd them with extraordinary Assistances and Gifts of the Holy Ghost to