from them by a Council of Officers and tossed from one to another at the pleasure of an unruly rabble of Souldiers The Crown has not been fixed on the point of the Sword but all things have gon on in a regular and legal way And if our own knowledge did not sufficiently assure us of this we have the testimony of one that has lately written a kind of Politital Dialogue very full of pretty fancyful speculations who tells us That as we have as Loyal Subjects as are any where to be found so we have as gracious and good a Prince I never says he having yet heard that he did or attempted to do any the least Act of Arbitrary Power in any publick concern nor did ever take or endeavour to take from any particular person the benefit of the Law This is honest and plain dealing and we have no cause to question the truth of these expressions For if this Author were not a person of known Integrity and a true Protestant it would yet be too great an absurdity for the English Gentleman to impose so grosly upon the Noble Venetian and he does not seem so mighty partial to our present form of Government that he would be guilty of such an indecorum to save the credit of all the Monarchs in Europe But that is a thing that needs no proof the moderation and equity of his Majesties Reign is well enough known to all the World And why should any one think that he can ever desire to alter the temper of the Government when it cannot be done without offering a very great violence to his own But if such an attempt should be made and succeed too which are both very unlikely it would be a great diminution of the Soveraign Power For the Prince is the loser when the Subject is inslaved and he is in truth far more Absolute that has the hearts of his People at his devotion than he that treads upon their Backs And how can it be thought that a good King that has the methods of Governing already laid out by wise and excellent Laws and that has Authority enough for the securing his own dignity and the necessary defence of his dominions should forfeit the affections of his Subjects and hazard all by a vain indeavour to overturn the whole frame of the received Establishment and set up his own will instead of it when the most unlimited Powers are forced to prescribe some Laws to themselves and necessitated to govern by certain Rules It is almost impossible that he that has a legal Right should ever be Arbitrary but he that is an Usurper must needs be so For he that is not supported by the Law can be maintained by nothing but a standing force But after all the stir we have had about it it might be worth the considering whether Arbitrary Obedience be not every whit as dangerous as Arbitrary Government For my part I look upon them as the same thing only that one is but just springing up and the other is come to its full growth I am sure those that have made the greatest clutter about Liberty and have been the most backward to Obey as soon as ever they have gotten any Power into their hands have commonly proved the most mercyless Tyrants And all wise men will be very careful that they be not wheedled into slavery by the threadbare pretences of preserving those Liberties that are not invaded and removing of grievances where there are none The Government we live under is so excellently tempered that nothing can be more prudently fitted to the mutual happiness and satisfaction of Prince and People unless there should happen a misunderstanding betwixt them which they that aim at the ruine of both will be very studious to foment But they that injoy the benefit of such a Constitution have all the reason imaginable to be contented But it is the highest injustice to accuse the Clergy for favouring an unknown Arbitrary Power when they desire to be always governed by the Laws and such Laws as have the greatest regard to the Subjects freedom of any in the World SECT XVI There is one objection more which is sometimes brought out upon special occasions and that is when they cannot be prevailed with to join themselves with any number of Malecontents then the Clergy must be complained of for being overbusy in medling with State Affairs if they do but dare to speak any thing that may tend to the quieting of mens minds And if they were indeed something guilty of what they are taxed with they might hope to escape in a crowd of offenders who are as little concerned and yet will be offering at publick Business This is not so much their peculiar blame as it is the common fault of the times Heretofore amongst the wisest nations it was esteemed a matter of some dfficulty to make a compleat Statesmen it was thought to require a good natural capacity great industry diligent observation and some competent age and experience But of late these Northern parts have been most wonderfully inspired with Politicks We have a sort of Statesmen that are shot up like Mushromes after a thunder-shower some that never saw twenty yet and others as good as they that can scarce write or read Some that have pickt up all their skill at the Theatre and the Tavern and some that have learnt as much at the Plowtail You can hardly meet with a man that is not able at least to entertain you with the News of the times and make most notable remarques upon it Every pert fellow can give his judgement of the whole State of the Kingdom more readily and confidently a great deal than those that have taken some pains to consider it 'T is a dull-pated Mechanick indeed that can't correct the mistakes of the Council Table and tell how every thing ought to be ordered and talk shrewdly about it whether he understand it or not This would have been looked on as a Prodigy amongst the old heavy-headed Senators of Rome If their City and Country had bred but one of such monstrous parts we should have had it recorded in Livy and no doubt there had been sacrifices appointed to avert the Omen But I do not think that this strange crop of Politicians that is sprung out of the ground in our days can portend any Ill unless by degrees they should happen to grow too wise to be governed But in the mean time the Clergy may be well excused if they have gotten a spice of the common disease where it is become Epidemical it is hard to escape without something of infection But for all this I have not observed that they have been so mighty busy in State Affairs as has been pretended Many of those that accuse them for this may be proved more faulty themselves And if any one will be pleased to take the pains to turn over most of the Sermons that were preached by another sort of men
of ordaining Elders and other matters relating to the better regulation of Church affairs And he was not chosen to this Office by the people but appointed unto it by St Paul and when he had thus received this Authority from him we cannot think that he was to depend upon the People in the exercise of it For he alone is commissioned to ordain Elders without any mention of the suffrages of the multitude And there cannot be the least shadow of a conjecture framed to the contrary from the nice consideration of the word For that which is here translated Ordain is not the same with that which is used in the other place for it signifies plainly to constitute place or set up without any intimation of lifting up of hands or any way of popular Election whatsoever So that we have neither precept not Example in the Scripture for the Peoples right to the choice of their Pastors But if it should be still urged against us that the Church of England is to be condemned for want of such a free choice as may be always pretended but I believe will never be proved necessary then to this we do reply that this freedom of choice is in some sort retained in our Church for all the Ministers in it are appointed according to the known Laws of this Land and to these every one of us by our representatives have at least virtually given our consent and a virtual consent in this case is allowed to be sufficient by some of the ablest Patrons of the People's right of Election SECT VI. But it is objected farther that the want of Discipline in our parochial Churches is a very great and unsufferable defect But there is no cause given for such an exception for every Minister has the approbation of those that are to be admitted and is impowered to reject scandalous offenders from the Holy Communion And these are certainly parts of Discipline which with the other acts of the Ministerial office shew that there is some order and Government in our parochial Assemblies If this should not be esteemed enough because in them we cannot inflict the highest kind of Ecclesiastical censures we do not conceive that there is any necessity that such a power should be granted unto them since it is abundantly supplyed by the Authority of the Diocesan which reaches every particular Church in the whole Jurisdiction And it would be as unreasonable to think that there is no Discipline in a Parish because there are some acts of it which cannot be there performed as it would be for the inhabitants of a village or hamlet to complain that they were under no Government because they had not the Power of life and death amongst themselves for the defects of the one are made up by the power of the Diocesan Church and those of the other by that of the Commonwealth whereof they are respective parts I do not find that our Saviour or his Apostles have made it necessary that all offences should be finally censured by the sole Power of that Congregation where they were committed This were to set up an uncontroulable Authority in every private Assembly and every twenty or thirty men or it may be fewer that should be pleased to enter into Covenant together and call themselves a Church as some contend they may would be ipso facto invested with a Power of determining all matters of Ecclesiastical cognizance without Appeal which is more than most Papists will allow to the Bishop of Rome What foundation there is for the erecting such a boundless power I cannot tell neither can I guess what good use is ever like to be made of it if it should be granted but this I know that the Church of England which is a society of Christians imbodied under certain Laws and Governours cannot be accused for want of Discipline if she does not permit the full exercise of it in our parochial Churches For in all Communities every member is influenced and directed by the good Constitution of the whole Body and what cannot be legally judged in a lower may be reserved for the decision of a superiour Court SECT VII But some are still dissatisfied with the Church of England because they imagine it is not a pure Church and if they have an opportunity of joining with another which they can suppose to be purer they think themselves obliged to do it For the resolution of this doubt these few things may be considered What it is that makes a pure Church Whether the Church of England be such a one Whether we are always bound to join with that Church which we conceive to be the most pure Now that Church questionless may be said to be pure whose doctrine is consonant to the word of God where the Sacraments are duly administred where all the fundamental Articles of our Faith are publickly imbraced where men are not required to profess or to do any thing that is contrary to the Rule of the Holy Gospel Such a Church cannot be denyed to be Pure For here is not the mixture of any unclean thing that can taint it with the least imaginable impurity or impress any blot or stain upon it Then that the Church of England is thus pure it will not be difficult to shew before any impartial Judge For what Doctrine does she teach that is not to be found in the Holy Scriptures What Sacrament does she deprive the people of either in the whole or in part What Article of our Belief is it that she rejects What is it that is repugnant to the Laws of Christ which she obliges us either to believe or practise Does she tell us that the Elements in the Holy Encharist are transubstantiated by a few Syllables pronounced by him that Officiates Does she teach us to adore Saints and Images and to pray for the Dead Does she cheat the people with forged Miracles and impose upon their credulity with foppish Legends Does she kindle an imaginary Purgatory fire in the other world that she may set up a thriving trade for Indulgences in this Can she be accused of these corruptions or a hundred more that might be named Is not her Doctrine confessed to be pure And is not her Discipline such at least as is not forbidden And if she be sound in both these I do not discern from what other fountains any Impurity can be derived upon Her And for what has been commonly excepted concerning the use of some external and Indifferent things she cannot possibly contract any thing of pollution from these for if they do not defile a man much less will they be able to corrupt a Church But though the Church of England should be proved and granted to be a pure Church yet we are still to inquire Whether if we can find some other which we esteem to be more pure we are not bound to join with that And to this it may be answered that when a Church is so
to reproach us with it and I esteem it rather to be the effect of fondness and partiality to their own men than a just and equitable censure of Ours For from whence they may receive their information I cannot tell but those that attend more constantly at our publick assemblies can assure them that they shall not often hear so mean a Sermon there from which by the grace of God they may not reap some Spiritual advantage if they come rightly disposed ready to be informed or reminded of their Duty and not as the fashion of too many is meerly to sit as judges while they are at Church and give their opinion of the Preacher when they come home But this is but a slight and cavilling objection and if we pleased might be easily retorted upon many of them that are the forwardest to make it SECT XII The next is far more considerable for we are told that great numbers of our Clergy are men of debauched and scandalous lives which is a thing that the very meanest may freely judge of and if true is indeed a very great and real offence But before I endeavour to give any answer to this I must needs take notice of a piece of injustice which if I mistake not has been pretty common Many there are that will be exceeding severe in censuring the least miscarriages of the Clergy which can overlook grosser faults in other men Nay some I have heard of that can indulge themselves in riot and intemperance who will pretend to be mightily scandalized if they hear of a Minister that may possibly be taxed with the like excess They seem to imagine that a loose and careless way of living is the unquestionable right of the Lay-man and if any of us presume to tread in their steps they grow very angry as if we invaded their Property and intended to share with them in their patrimonial estate They talk as if they believed it lawful for others to behave themselves as they pleased and that the sobriety of the Clergy were to make an attonement for the sins and licentiousness of all the People They tell us indeed very truly that we are to be Examples to the flock but then they do not remember that they are to be followers of us as we are of Christ Except the faithful discharge of their particular calling which is required of others too in their several stations I cannot tell of any thing that Ministers are bound to which is not the duty of every other private Christian It is true that their faults do admit of very great aggravations but that does only inhance the degree not alter the nature of the guilt And these aggravations it may be are no greater in them than they would be in others of eminent place and quality either Civil or Military whose vitious lives may have as bad an influence upon the world as theirs But of this there can be no doubt that they that do pass such a rigorous sentence upon their failings and can so easily excuse themselves and others for the same or more heynous crimes do make it appear that they are no great enemies to the sin but that they are something displeased at the men Gregory Nazianzen reflecting sadly upon the unhappy dissentions of those times and the want of charity contempt of the Ministry and the bold pretences to knowledge and the Spirit that arose amongst them complains that things were brought to that pass that all their Piety consisted in nothing else but in condemning the Impiety of others He acquaints us farther that they were very busie in hunting after one anothers faults not to lament but to upbraid them not to heal but to hurt and that they might salve their own credit by wounding their neighbours and that it was not the Life but the being friends or enemies that gave men the character of good or bad These and more such observations were made by that excellent person upon the Christians that were then of different perswasions and where the like prejudice is conceived it may incline men to the like censoriousness and partiality in any age We are often told of the debauchery of Conformists and it is our great grief that there should be any just cause for such an accusation and I hope that those that make the complaint will join their hearty endeavours to take away the occasion of it But let them make a diligent inquiry whether they may not have some such among themselves and whether there were none of that stamp remaining after the Church had been purged of so many Centuries of pretended scandalous Ministers I will not be curious in making such a search we need not recriminate for the defence of a good Cause we have been always backward to do this after many provocations given and I wish that our Brethren would forbear such insinuations in their controversial writings For as the same great Author says Wicked men do build upon our backs and what we invent one of mother they make use of against us all Those he speaks of were exposed to the hatred and scorn of the Heathens for vilifying and disparaging one another and we may be laid open by the same means not only to the contempt of the Papists but of those too that make a mock of all Religion who are many degrees worse than any Heathens But after all the clamours about licentious Clergy-men it may be likely enough that they that make them may be overhasty and credulous in receiving reports and not judge with that candour and charity with which we should examine other mens actions For allowing some exceptions which I hope considering our numbers will not be many I do not see but that the Conforming Clergy in the general are of as circumspect sober inoffensive a conversation as any of their accusers It will not be adviseable for either side to make comparisons of this nature But he that knows of any one in Holy Orders that is really guilty of such vices as make him scandalous let him not presently strive to defame him but be careful to pay him the love and respect that is due to the Character he bears not for his own but for his Lord's sake St Chrysostome discourses pretty largely to this purpose and for our incouragement to do so he tells us Though the Priest should be a debauched one God seeing that by reason of the honour thou hast for him thou dost honour one that is unworthy of it he himself will give thee a reward But this is only a good intimation to others how they should behave themselves towards them and not any thing that can palliate or excuse any mans loosness and intemperance Where any of the Clergy can be convicted of such sins as do openly disparage his calling let him suffer the severity of the Law to the utmost rigour And if those Laws that are already in force be too gentle to
reclaim him I could wish that others might be made for the infliction of some greater punishment provided they were such as might tend effectually to the Reformation of notorious offenders without exposing the innocent to be continually molested by the vexatious prosecutions of restless and malicious men If this may be avoided nothing can be too severe For there is no greater publick mischief than a scandalous Clergy it is the highest affront and dishonour to Almighty God and will certainly prove the inevitable ruine of any Church where they are suffered to increase If these papers should happen to fall into the hands of any one that is conscious to himself of some guilt in that kind I would beseech him for the sake of his dearest Saviour who died for him and whose professed Servant he is that if he have any regard to his own eternal happiness or any compassion for the wounds of a bleeding Church he would seriously repent of all his former follies and endeavour for the future to behave himself answerably to those many obligations that lye upon him to a holy and blameless life There was an antient Law at Athens that no man that could be proved guilty of any gross immoralities should presume to make a speech to the people upon pain of death though he were the most eloquent and taking Orator in the whole City That restraint which was thought necessary by the wisdom of a heathen Republick would not be unworthy the imitation of a Christian Kingdom though by this means we might be now and then in danger of losing a very fine harangue But at least in the Church this prudent caution of theirs deserves to be proposed as an Example for us If it were a Crime amongst them no less than capital for men of debauched lives to speak sometimes in publick about secular affairs what penalty can be severe enough for such profligate wretches when they shall dare adventure to undertake the constant ministry of the Gospel If they escape a sentence here it shall fall the more heavily upon them at the last day when the Holy Office they have prophaned and every Sermon they have delivered shall rise up in Judgement against them What lamentable gashes must they give what violence must they continually offer to their Consciences whose unsanctified lives are a direct contradiction to that heavenly Doctrine they profess to teach How do they mock the Almighty to his very face that put themselves into his immediate service and talk much of Repentance and Mortification and yet trample upon all God's holy commandments and go on obstinately in their disobedience and lye down and wallow in sensuality How can they preach Christ crucified that are not afraid to crucifie him to themselves afresh and put him to an open shame that pretend to be his Disciples and of his family and do not only most perfidiously betray their Master but revile him and spit upon him and nail him to the Cross which is more than Judas did These and the like considerations if they are not already sunk into perfect Atheism should make them tremble at the apprehensions of the divine vengeance that unless they amend betimes will be poured out in the largest measures upon such impudent and horrible impieties I have heard that some of those that are the most obnoxious have expressed an extraordinary zeal for the Church of England and inveighed very passionately against the Dissenters I would advise them hereafter to spare their pains we do not desire nor stand in need of their help their examples drive more away than their arguments will ever be able to bring back Such false friends do our cause more hurt than our open enemies for these only make a breach in our Walls which has been hitherto sufficiently defended but they carry the Plague into our bowels that may destroy thousands But I hope there are but few of them amongst us I am sure the infection God be praised has not been universal And for those that have been tainted after they have repented heartily for the Scandal they have given let them apply themselves diligently to their studies and learn to take delight in their imployment it will be the only way to prevent a relapse For Idleness and a certain kind of aversation for a man 's own business may be generally observed to be one of the most fruitful Parents of debauchery And for those that may be offended with the lives of any of our Clergy I would intreat them rather to be sorrowfully affected with their failings and labour for their amendment than to behave themselves as if they would insult over us for that which is our greatest trouble and were glad of any pretence to derive an odium upon us This I would desire them severally to consider SECT XIII We are told farther by some that our Clergy are many of them Proud and Ambitious of a scornful and fastidious humour This is a most foolish and hateful quality and very unbecoming for any man especially a Christian that serves a Lord that was himself the most stupendious pattern of humility and condescension But it is most improper of all for those that are the Embassadours of this Lord that act in their places by his special Commission that are to advance the interest of his Kingdom and take care of the meanest of his Subjects and are bound to despise nothing but the allurements and vanities of the World Pride that looks every where very ugly receives some additional deformities when it is found in them And I cannot tell but that some of them may deserve to be taxed for it but I do not believe that they are so many that it should justly reflect upon the whole Order But there are some faults that men easily fancy where-ever they please to take a dislike And this is one of those The inferiour sort when they are angry will think every one Proud whose cloaths are a little better than theirs others will be of the same opinion if they are not always treated with flattery and submission and the most servile complyance And the Clergy may lye under this imputation too because they may be forced sometimes to vindicate the honour of their Calling in an age that loves to have it despised they may be thought to assume too much to themselves when they will not yield it to be so contemptible as they would make it whose glory and interest it is to lay it low But the remedy that is prescribed for this supposed distemper is an excellent good one It has been imagined by some Projectors that if the Bishops were reduced to such a mediocrity as they should be pleased to allow them and Deans and Chapters Lands and some other superfluities were taken away the Clergy then might be humble enough A very wise and honest contrivance As if Poverty were a certain cure for Pride when they themselves can tell that discontent which may be occasioned by
the loss of what they legally possessed will make men more arrogant haughty and self-willed than a very fair Estate when it is peaceably injoyed This expedient signifies no more but that there may be some very modest self-denying men that long to be fingering the revenues of the Church The incouragements that have been left the Clergy by the Piety of former times are not now so very great as to be the object of any man's envy other Professions make far more considerable advantages which are not so much repined at by some of their neighbours But whatever they be they have as good a title in law and as much property in them as any other Freeholders have in those Estates they account their own and the same power that can deprive them of their Ecclesiastical preferments may devest any man else of his paternal Inheritance They that have any thing to lose will be very cautious how they shake the foundations upon which the Right to all they have is built If a Property by Law be disregarded in one instance it may be quickly extended to as many more as some men's malice or necessities shall have occasion for Clergy and Lay-Malignants may be easily jumbled together by an honest confiding Sequestrator Injustice seldom stops where it begins Make a cut in the bank of the Thames and let out the water and then stand by and perswade it if you can to run over none but the Churches Lands I believe there may be more modern Examples but I remember in the intended Reformation of Watt Tyler and Jack Straw they were the same men that resolved to have none but Mendicants for their Priests and to dispossess and destroy all other rich and landed men as well as the Bishops and dignifyed Clergy Some that could be contented to see these last a little humbled by a retrenchment of their income do scarce consider whither that Principle does naturally lead them for if it should be thorowly followed the best Nobility and Gentry in the Nation may soon be mated again and overtop'd too by Coblers and Draymen But this is a way of bringing down the Pride of the Clergy that is never like to be approved of by any but men of desperate fortunes or very large and plyable Consciences There is another thing which the Clergy have been vulgarly charged with and that is Covetousness and some that love mony well enough themselves cannot indure to think that a Clergyman should be guilty of such a thriving sin And indeed if he be I have nothing to say in his excuse But it is hard to judge who are really Covetous unless it be those that will do an unjust action for their own gain and those that refuse to bestow something of what they have upon the poor These may be censured by us without breach of charity but for others we must leave them to the searcher of hearts But a Clergyman is commonly esteemed to be Covetous when he will not be tamely cheated of what is apparently his due to the impoverishment of himself and family and all that shall succeed him Other men would be unwilling to be tryed by these measures I cannot tell what occasion any of the Clergy may have given for these complaints that have been brought against them but I think I know many of them that are so far from inriching themselves by unwarrantable means that they would readily part with whatever they injoy if the Peace and Unity of the Church might be purchased with all that they have But I take these two last objections of Pride and Covetousness to be nothing else but spightful words thrown abroad by those that are desirous to revile us upon any pretence and therefore I do not think them worthy to be farther considered SECT XIV I shall proceed now to matters of greater concernment to the publick than these Of late especially we have been very much alarmed with a mighty noise of no body knows how many of the Conforming Clergy that are Popishly affected and we are made to believe that they wait but a fair opportunity to declare themselves openly for the Church of Rome And besides a great many other pretty names that have been invented by ingenious men to distinguish these from the true Protestants there is one above all that has had the luck to hit the fancy of the better sort of the refined wits It is that happy expression of Papist in Masquerade some charitable man or other stumbled upon it I know not how but it has flown about like lightning It was such a quaint Phrase and so exactly fit for the purpose that every body had it in his mouth immediately And I confess I do not wonder that it took so strangely it pleases me so that I can never think of it but I am ready to smile Well but since it is concluded that there must be such things as Papists in Masquerade it were worth the while to know where they are Sometimes we are told how many there are in and about the City of London how many in each University and other places Sometimes we hear sad lamentations of the greatness of the danger because these ambiguous animals cannot be discovered They are next to invisible like the Chamelion they put on the colour of every thing they touch Sometimes because it is very hard to discern who these Masqueraders be some very jealous people suspect us all and they are half afraid if the truth were known that there are scarce any of us but that do walk in the same disguise Some of the most shrewd and judicious observers if they do but meet us in the street will look so wishtly at us as if they would see whether we had not something pasted on upon our faces It is a very pleasant invention this to pretend to imagine that there are considerable numbers amongst us that appear for the present to be Protestants but when the time shall serve they will pluck osf their vizards and shew what they are By this device there is hardly any of the Church of England that can escape being suspected by some or other and so many well meaning people of an honest and hearty zeal may be frighted out of our Communion by their great fear and hatred of Popery for which they are perswaded that divers of us have a secret kindness And I could not blame them if there were the least occasion for such a jealousy But I do not understand what grounds they have for that surmize who either do or else would be thought to believe it The English Clergy have been always esteemed very sound Protestants they have still made a very vigorous opposition against the innovations and incroachments of Rome Many of the most eminent of them suffered Martyrdom in the days of Queen Mary besore the name of separation was heard amongst us Many from the beginning of the Reformation down to our own times have continually incountred the