of continuing Ceremonies in the Worship of God Humbly proposed to the Present Convocation c. THat An English-man never knows when he is well is a Proverb which we use at home and wherewith we are reproach'd abroad and that too justly to be denyed applicable both to single Persons and conjunct Societies the tendency of Affairs in this Nation since the Year 1640. beyond all possibility of contradiction doth evince The Subjects of this Kingdom through the Grants of former Kings and by virtue of the good Laws by them enacted and made were better secured in their Rights Properties and Persons than any other Nation of the Universe Nor were they less happy as Christians living in the bosom of a Church whose Faith was Catholick Government Apostolical whose Publick Liturgy Constitutions and Canons in perfection excell'd those of any of the Reformed or any other then Visible Church whose Clergy were esteem'd the wonder of the World Hence the envy of the Roman and the admiration of the Reformed Churches Such was then the condition of the English Church and State that it was hard to imagine what could be thought wanting to compleat their happiness unless perhaps you will say their being sensible of it But not knowing when they were well they by God's just permission actuated by the Romish Emissaries who took advantage of the ambition and covetous Inclinations of some and of the discontented and restless Spirits of others involv'd the Nation in a most odious and unnatural Rebellion the Violences Cruelties and Murthers which accompany'd and the Oppressions Usurpations Tyrannies Plunderings and Miseries which follow'd it are too many to be numbred too woful to be rehearsed and such as any Man in his right Wits would for ever be caution'd by to avoid as the worst of evils any actions means or methods whereby the like may again be brought upon us And yet as if Men were led by destiny or guided by those ludicrous Spirits which our Author supposes play little tricks in disturb'd houses and others learned in those matters think set Men together by the ears as they do Cocks and Dogs for their own diversion they seem industriously to lay the Foundations of future troubles to return to 1640. and to be willing to react the same Tragedy and that before the Epilogue is ended and the Actors all gone off the Stage Hither tend most of our new Scriblers and their Pamphlets some devesting the King of all Inherent Sovereign Authority Supremacy and Prerogative c. Others representing our Monarchs of the last Race as the most Monstrous and Wicked Villains that ever liv'd and under the pretence of Secrets relating things not only incredible in themselves but if supposed yet impossible to be known to any but Pimps and Persons if any such there be of a more odious Character thereby endeavouring to possess the People with an ill opinion of the Persons of Kings in order to prepare them for the dissolution of the Monarchy Essays tending to the same purpose have been also made against the Church designing Men having unjustly slander'd her Divines as inclined to Popery and popishly affected till in King James's time to their no less glory than hazard they appeared the greatest if not the only Champions in the Cause of our Religion and the Laws and thereby made all future calumnies of that sort appear too unjust and malicious to be used How is it to be wished that our Enemies malice could have had an end But alass though they thus were forc'd to change the Object yet they have retained the Vice Nothing will please them they will never be quiet now our Rites and Ceremonies must be illegitimated our Liturgy circumcised our Subscriptions Constitutions and Canons all abolished to gratifie those who if all these things were done would be as little satisfy'd as now they are Our Author their Adversary betrays too much Passion before the things themselves and their consequences are well considered he is all upon the fret and out of all patience to be pulling down the whole Ancient and therefore venerable the well compact and firm Fabrick of the Church of England which having been of full proof against all the assaults of our Foreign Roman Foes must now be undermined by her domestick Enemies and what is yet more intolerable her own pretended Friends by an easie surrender of her outworks make her main strength less tenable and precipitate her ruin Our Author like a Man full of design or big with some conceit of his own or News heard from others breaks out and with abundance of concern and passion thus vents himself It is the wonder and grief of all good English Protestants Pag◠〈…〉 that such an unaccountable frenzie should possess and hurry some hot Clergy Men amongst us with a blind zeal against the good proposals of Peace prepared by the Kings Commissioners in the Jerusalem Chamber If by all good English Protestants he means the Men of the Church of England as by Law Established to whom that Name borrowed from the Lutherans who at Spire in the Year 1529. protested against the Corruptions and Usurpations of the Church of Rome whose Communion they then forsook more properly than to any other People in England belongs both because they are an Establish'd and Visible Church and because all Sectaries whatsoever among us hold more in common with the Papists than they do then his assertion is too general to be true Many and perhaps the most and wisest admire what an unaccountable frenzie should hurry some hot Church-Men amongst us with a blind Zeal against that Pious Good and above all extant the most Perfect Liturgy to which and all things therein contained and prescribed they have all once at the least declared as they then pretended their unfeigned assent and consent or against that Government in Church which as far as we can understand by the Scriptures was Instituted by our Saviour which the Ancients assure us was propagated together with the Christian Faith by the Apostles and their Successors and which the continual Succession of the Catholick Church of Christ for now more than 1600 Years hath delivered to us and those wholsome Constitutions which the Wisdom and Experience of the Learned and Grave Fathers of our own Church relation being had to those of elder times also have produced and the Civil Laws of the Land confirmed unto us As for His Majesties design in giving a Commission to some of our Reverend Fathers and Divines to prepare things for Peace and calling of a Convocation c. Who ever blamed it though as to the Method it must be supposed that the unseasonable precipitancy and preposterous Zeal of some in the Late House of Commons to gratifie their dissenting Friends by an Act of Toleration hath prevented even those few good Fruits which they who are acquainted with that sort of People expected from it but of this afterwards I shall here only add that this would be too
he is welcome he will do good service he needs not fear the Law is on his Side Criminals ought to be brought to Justice and he may expect a Reward however he hath malice enough towards Clergy-men and perhaps for their sakes to the Priest ridden Gentlemen to discover them if he knew them and therefore unless he doth so what he says ought in all reason to be esteemed as a notorious Calumny and Libel and our Author to be dealt with accordingly Who brought Ireland and Scotland into their late and present condition is very well known 〈◊〉 6. All the pious sober and moderate Clergy-men are for a Union I believe they are so but all the Question is how we shall attain it an abundance of Men have undertaken to dictate to the Convocation many whereof have like the Cobler in the Proverb who went beyond his Last judged of things beyond the Verge of their knowledge and prescrib'd Methods both unreasonable and impracticable Our Author cannot be thought to have contributed to the cure but must be accounted amongst those unskilful Operators who instead of lessening and removing have only increas'd our Maladies and made them more incurable for in lieu of Wine and Oyl he hath brought Gall and Vinegar to pour into the Churches Wounds The account he gives of the rest of the Clergy is such as can be called no less than an heap of malicious false suggestions and slanderous railing accusations and deserves and admits of no particular answer If I should say of his magnify'd Clients the Dissenting Teachers some are whimsical Enthusiasts and not worthy our regard some are ignorant Dunces and incompetent Judges some are Proud and Hypocritical Pharisees and separate as their Predecessors amongst the Jews to be thought more holy than others that their Glory and Triumph consists in leading filly Women captive that instead of the Solid and Practical Doctrins taught in the Church of England they entertain their seduc'd and beguil'd Disciples with useless canting and unintelligible Phrases that their separation from our Communion was not so much out of Conscience as out of Pride Peevishness and Love of opposition to their Superiors in Church and State that they study more to avoid the scandal than the vice and differ from the most profane but as he who wears a Vizor from him who goes bare-fac'd that they all drive on a Carnal and Worldly Interest and do but maintain a Faction to be maintained by it I should do violence to my inclinations and intentions and write with almost as little civility and shew of good breeding but with far more truth and modesty than he hath done concerning the Clergy of the Established Church Our Author for fear his successive cajoling and railing should not prevail with the Church of England to part with those ancient Rites and laudable Customs wherein she holds Communion with the Primitive and Catholick Churches whereby she justifies her separation from the Roman and performs the solemn Worship of God with decency and uniformity in her own Publick Assemblies which her Pious and Prudent Reformers and Fathers recommending unto Authority are secured unto us by Laws and Constitutions and he in contempt calls Ceremonies proceeds now at length to threatnings to frighten her Members into a compliance and to this purpose he tells our Clergy-men that in the next Rebellion the People viz. the Dissenters will be severely reveng'd on them Pag. 〈◊〉 make sure work with them I suppose he means by cutting their Throats for that is as secure a way as any I know and totally extirpate them Whether our Author speaks these things experimentally from what some suffered in the late Rebellion or prophetically by vertue of his talent that way let the learned judge however we may see what manner of Spirit he and his Clients are of and how fit he is to be a Peace-maker and what manner of stuff he hath proposed to the Convocation he might well have called his Pamphlet the second part of the Healing Attempt As for those dreadful Comminations who can deny their being probable What passed between the Years 1635. and 1660. is sufficient to teach us that the usage of Presbyterians and Papists to those in their Power is much alike and that when they shall have the same or the like opportunities an indissolvible House of Commons to protect them and the Rabble to fight for them and their Brethren of Scotland to assist them they may expect the same or a worse Persecution for what fair Quarter can they look for when Kings are beheaded c. But in the mean time what would he have them to do to pull down their Churches themselves for fear the Dissenters should do it This is but for a Man to hang himself for fear of dying In the next National Deluge of Rebellion and Bloodshed which our Author Prophesies to be at hand and our Friends the Dissenters true Lovers of Peace desirers of Union and upholders of Monarchy in pursuance of their Solemn League and Covenant and for the establishment of their Godly Discipline shall bring upon us and therein overwhelm our Church and State they do not expect to escape nor are covetous to survive them and yet at present are not willing either to be the Authors of or to anticipate their own misery 2. Our danger of losing all our lately recovered Rights 〈…〉 if by our Divisions we should again let in the Common Enemy That our Church's parting with all her Liturgy Rites Ceremonies and what else our Author hath confidence enough to ask would not re-unite the Dissenters to the Establish'd Church I shall elsewhere endeavour to make apparent I shall therefore here only observe that in this time of danger all the Dissenters even the most Potent Interests as well as the lesser Sects would do well and wisely since better Motives will not prevail with them to re-unite themselves with the Church of England but to exhort the Church of England to go over to any of them is not so proper or decent The Agreement of the Church of England with Scripture and the Primitive and Catholick Church both in Doctrin and Government the moderation of her Reformation Her Apologies Defences and Vindications of her self and practices from the Calumnies of the Church of Rome and Separatists her Orthodoxness of Principles Regularity of Constitutions and Legal Establishments to which I might add the Personal obligations a great part of the Nation is under not to endeavour any alterations in the Government of either Church or State as by Law established all prohibit it and make it unequal and unreasonable And farther that if the Church of England will not for these and other reasons part with any Rite Ceremony laudable Custom or Constitutions till the Dissenters shall prove them unlawful or shew her better motives so to do yet there is therefore nothing the more danger of losing all our lately recovered Rights by letting in again the Common
Russel Sydney Cornish c. A strange piece of Theology fathering that upon the just and merciful God which a Magistrate or Judge of but common honesty would not have said of himself were it but for shame I challenge the Author whoever he is to give any tolerable sense of that Expression at the peril of his Reputation In the mean time I shall pass them over adding only in the behalf of the Religion Laws and justice of the Nation That the Earl of Essex's death is to be lamented but to be made no other use of till it be better known how it was compassed if he died by his own hand we ought not to judg him but leave him to stand or fall to his own Master if by the hands of others Why do not they who long since pretended the Murther was detected bring the Murtherers to Justice hanging is too good for them And of the Lord Russel Mr. Sidney Alderman Cornish c. I am not willing to say much perhaps they had hard measure and suffered summum jus but the title of Glorious Champions for our Religion and Laws I cannot allow them for I think they neither designed nor used the proper or lawful means or Methods to be so It cannot properly be said of any Man who after a legal Trial is condemned by a Court of Justice legally authorized to take cognizance of the Crime whereof he is accused that he was murthered no though he was malitiously sworn against and not guilty of the Crime for which he suffered for then the fault is in the Evidence and not in the Court Some Credit certainly is to be given to the justice of any Nation as such much more of a Nation where Christianity is profess'd and every Man concerned in it upon his Oath When the Papists accuse this Nation of persecution for Religion and Sanguinary Laws and boast of their Martyrs as they call them and say they died for the Catholick Faith and a good Conscience We produce their Trials our Records and Chronicles to prove that those very Jesuits and Seminary Priests of which they speak were attainted of High Treason or Felony and executed for the same and expect belief 2. 〈◊〉 ◠4 It is a vain thing to attempt the continuance of Ceremonies Wise Men when they are earnest in the prosecution of any Affair aim at some end that may recompense their diligence The Men of the Church of England desire to be wise unto Sobriety to be taught by the observation of elder times and their own Reason They know that since Men living here have Bodies as well as Souls some external Rites Habits and Gestures must be used in the publick Worship of God that such due regard being had to their lawfulness in themselves their expediency in respect of Communion with the Catholick Church scandal of any particular Church concerned and the edification of our own Church 〈◊〉 are determinable by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Authority of this Kingdom That the said Authority having interposed accordingly and prescribed these now in use as few ancient 〈◊〉 inoffensive tending most to Uniformity Decency and Devotion and consequently best answering all the forementioned purposes and established them by as good Laws as any are made in the Kingdom they are not yet convinced by any solid Reasons hitherto appearing much less by the virulent Railing rather than Arguments of this Author who hath demonstrated nothing so much as his prepossession and prejudice his unruly Passion and the large liberty he takes in abusing every body but his Clients the Dissenters that any change or alteration is necessary to be made in the present Service of our Church They are already well aware that Innovations usually let in more and greater inconveniencies than they remove That proud peevish and ungovernable Spirits will object against every thing and be satisfied with nothing and that the designs interests and ambition of some the prejudice of education weakness of judgment and perversness of temper of others would make even a total abolition of Ceremonies as ineffectual for the producing of a reunion of the Dissenters to the Church as the attempts of others for the continuance of them As for the endeavours for a comprehension and the objections against it which our Author mentions it seems by the event that either the comprehension was judged not feasible or the objections of force enough to stop the endeavors after it And certainly the best way we have or can have to preserve the Members of our Church from turning Papists now the doors of liberty are set open to all Religions and Men may chuse which they please is to let them see that we have some regular constancy in our Worship and Devotion as well as the Papists for otherwise our giddiness and frequent changes in Religious Worship will confirm them in their belief that the being of an Infallible Judge is necessary since they may observe that we who reformed under pretence of a greater purity having forsaken that Principle of Unity can never be long at any certainty That the Doctrine Worship and Constitutions of our Church which our Martyrs maintained with the loss of their Lives in Q. Mary's Reign and we thought to be lately in so great danger were not so adhered to out of vain-glory or love of opposition but out of a well grounded choice proceeding from a conviction of Judgment and Testimony of Conscience and therefore we can as little be flattered out of them now as we could be frighten'd out of them then I might add that the strength of that objection being founded in the Laws and Rules of Justice Sincerity Charity and of not giving offence and laying a Stumbling-block before any of our Communion or theirs will never cease at least as long as any Papists remain in this or rather in the three Kingdoms neither will the appearance of Popery in its proper Colours take off the obligation but bind us not to retaliate injuries and to be careful that while we condemn them we do not run into the same or greater enormities I am afraid that our carriage of late Years will be no great inducement to them to come over to our Communion or otherwise to have any very good opinion of us or our Principles if they should judge of them by our Practices That passage which our Author quotes out of a Sermon 〈…〉 in these words God be thanked for it that there is an end put to all Persecution in matters of Conscience that the first and chief Right of humane nature 〈…〉 of following the dictates of Conscience in the Service of God is secured to all Men amongst us c. Wherein is included this Affirmative it is the first and chief Right of Humane Nature to follow the dictates of Conscience in the Service of God to the truth of which I cannot no not upon so great Authority give my Assent for if Humane Nature hath such a
Right God who is the Author of Humane Nature must be the giver of it but that he never gave any such Right to Mankind appears from Exod. 20.4 5 6. Because God who is the Author of the Law of Nature is none of those short-sighted Legislators which make a latter Law contrary to the former and the Moral Law hath always been expounded as explanatory but never as contradictory to the Law of Nature neither will it help to say that tho God might contradict the Law of Nature yet man cannot for both the Law in Deut. 13.6 c. and the approved practice of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18.4 c. quite overthrow that pretence nor will it avail to say that Idols are not Gods for besides that the Heathen did not Worship the Idol as the God it self but some as the Representation or Visible Resemblance and others as the Body or Vehicle of the God which they supposed to be present therein there is the same reason for the Dictates of Conscience to be free in the one Case as in the other and the whole Worship must be supposed agreeable to the Dictates of their Consciences since no other reason can be assigned for the Institution of it 2. If this were true then Hezekiah and Josiah for what they did 2 Kings 18.4 and 23.4 c. to 17. were most wicked Persecutors and unjust Invaders of that first and chief Right and yet they are both highly commended for what they did herein Ch. 18.3 c. 23. v. 24 25. 3. It would from hence follow that if any Men from Turkey the East or West-Indies should come hither and follow their Mahometan Pagan or Diabolical Worship or if this new Indulgence as the late Rebellion should cause a Resurrection of the Adamites and they should go naked through the Streets to their Conventicle which is as justifiable as their being naked at it they must not be hindred by the Magistrate for fear of Invading that first and chief Right of Humane Nature of following the Dictates of Conscience in the Service of God Lastly the Dictates of Conscience are by no Divines affirmed to be the Rule of it And if they are the first and chief Right of Humane Nature in the Service of God I see no reason why they should not be so as much or rather much more in all other actions of the life and then the Jews in killing the Apostles John 16.2 and St. Paul in Persecuting the Christians Acts 9.1 c. ought not to be hindred Or the Anabaptists in Germany the Presbyterians in Scotland the Dragoons in France all pretending Conscience for their several Barbarities to be interrupted and every thing must be allowed for which the Dictates of Conscience may be pretended for fear of abridging this first and chief Right of Humane Nature The Act of Indulgence sets all Men at liberty and it comes not long after a very fierce Persecution Our Author by virtue of an Act of Indulgence which sets all Men at liberty makes an unhandsome reflection upon K. Charles II. in his Grave and his two Houses of Parliament in calling the Late Legal Moderate Prosecution of the Dissenters unto which their Caballing Intriguing and Plotting provoked the Government a fierce a very fierce Persecution Not to mention that the Presbyterians were the first among the Reformed who taught and practised Persecution or the carriage of that people where ever they have gotten the Secular Power of their party or the concurrence of it and particularly here in England betwixt the Years 1640 and 1660. It is to be considered that during the pretended Persecution no Man was under any legal pressure for holding any Opinion or performing any religious exercise in his own Family but only for his external action not necessary to Religion and his publick frequenting of and joyning in such Assemblies as experience had taught to have been dangerous to the Government and therefore prohibited under a pecuniary penalty and farther that this prosecution was founded upon a Law invented and consented unto by the People's Representatives in whose Persons the whole Commons of the Kingdom are virtually interpretatively and determinatively comprehended So that by consequence if it was a Persecution the people persecuted themselves or at least the Representatives the persons represented which is not to be supposed they would do under that Notion Therefore in common Reason and Charity it must be supposed That the Parliament the grand Council of the Nation advised and consented to that as to all other Laws for the publick good and safety a moderate Coercion of such illegal Assemblies and a wholesom Statute to prevent a factious and dangerous Schism and establish an Uniformity in divine Worship though time and experience have proved it as ineffectual as the abolishing of Liturgies Ceremonies Church-Orders and Constitutions c. were any so senseless as to try the experiment would now be to reduce them to Unity Order Peace or Reason We can impose these things upon none but the Ministers and their Clerks Pag 〈…〉 Then all others being unconcerned may be satisfied And if nothing be imposed on them What is it they complain of or would be eased from Why doth our Author rage rave and be in such a mighty heat in the behalf of Dissenters for the pulling down such Ceremonies as are imposed on none but the Minister and Clerk cannot he let the Minister and his Parish-Clerk keep their Ceremonies if they please as well as let him have a May-pole who hath a mind to one Ibâ—â— As knowledg encreaseth Zeal for Ceremonies will grow more and more ridiculous That is a great mistake Had it been for his purpose he might more truly have said As Knowledg encreaseth opposition to Ceremonies will vanish For Scrupulosity the parent of Opposition if conscientious is the Child of Ignorance It is generally believed that there is no Rite Ceremony or Custom enjoined and practised in the Church of England but the same is fully and sufficiently explained maintained defended and vindicated by the Learned Mr. Hooker Dr. Falkener Dr. Comber c. to the satisfaction of all free indifferent and competent Judges whether Natives or Foreiners And as far as I could ever observe the more knowing discreet and pious Men are so much the more conformable to the established Church and accordingly it is in every Man's observation that the more learned and judicious Men of all persuasions Opinions and Sects are the most moderate and the vulgar and unthinking Herd the most violent and furious hence the Epithete of blind Zeal And that to be doubtful timorous and scrupulous in things indifferent of small moment and not essential to Religion are symptoms of little knowledg weak judgment and an erroneous Conscience appears sufficiently from the Apostles Discourse in the 14 and 15. Chapters of his Epistle to the Romans As to our Authors new Project of the Parliaments making a Law that the Members of both Houses shall
Mischiefs to the Church 2. To the State 3. To Souls 4. To Piety 5. Mischiefs in promoting a mighty increase of Prophaneness and all kind of wickedness 6. Hindring a world of good 1. Pag. 11. Mischiefs to the Church Zeal for Mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of Mind makes them such triflers in Religion that they disregard the great Interests of God and his Church in the World They are not sensible of the desolations of Gods Churches in France Orange Piedmont the Palatinate Ireland c. It might be answer enough for me to say that all this is nothing to the purpose both because the Persecutions and Massacres in these several places were not made upon the account of external Ceremonies but partly upon a secular account and partly upon a religious where then Communion and Doctrines of the Church and not Ceremonies were controverted and because the Church of England doth not impose Ceremonies or Mens devices upon any under penalty of Persecution But I add that these instances disprove what they are brought to confirm for the desolations of God's Churches in France Piedmont c. are so far from proving that Zeal for mens devices begets in people a strange Levity of mind and makes them such triflers in Religion c. That they evince nothing or else the quite contrary that such as raise Persecutions upon the account of Religion are not Men of light Minds or Triflers in it or disregard the Interests of God and his Church though perhaps they prosecute them the wrong way and by undue Mothods for it is evident they if without sinister design pursue what they think to be God's and his Church's Interest more than their own The Kings of Spain weakened their Kingdoms and exhausted their Treasures by Banishing the Moors and erecting the Inquisition and the French King cannot be supposed to gain by the Flight of his Subjects their ceasing to trade and withdrawing their effects neither was it trifling they fled from Do you Sir who in the behalf of the Dissenters clamorous enough without assistance with open jaws set up the Cry of Persecution here in England and call the French King the Duke of Savoy their Armies Officers and Dragoons Triflers What the Church of England-men which this Pamphleteer abusively calls Zealots for these things did in reference to a Popish Successor was agreeable to their Principles both of Loyalty and Honesty They remembred that tho to do evil that good may ensue be a Doctrine received in the Church of Rome yet it is not so in the Church of England They well knew that an Act for Exclusion notwithstanding any Infallibility or Omnipotency a Parliament can pretend to would be still in it self unjust as contrary to the Laws of God and nature and to the Rules of Equity and common Reason void in it self as being contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land and the very Constitutions of the Monarchy and mischievous in its Events as that which would most certainly have involved these three Kingdoms in a most Bloody Civil War and perhaps have brought an Invasion from abroad in upon us to boot But behold the tender Conscience of our Dissenters they cry out of Persecution upon the Levying a small pecuniary mulct for the frequenting an unnecessary and seditious Conventicle in pursuance of divers Laws made by their own Representatives but would exclude an Hereditary Prince from his undoubted Right and Inheritance by a Law they were no ways authorized to make and involve three Nations at the least in a Bloody War and all the miseries attending it that so they might again swallow up the Crown Lands to maintain the Grandeur of their Hogan-Mogan-Ships in a new Common-Wealth and all this under pretence of the Preservation of the Laws Liberties and the Protestant Religion the name of which it is probable will grow as odious to after Ages as that of Popery is to us by reason of such who shroud all their ill designs and crimes under that usurped affected and abused Notion The Scripture is our only guide of Unity 〈◊〉 Uniformity is deformity and confusion when Men appoint other terms of Ministerial Service and Church-Communion than are prescribed in Gods Word If the Scripture is the only guide of Unity let our Author tell me why his Clients the Presbyterians Independents Quakers c. are not guided into Unity by it since they all have it and pretend to follow it and yet are far enough from Unity The Scripture it is true prescribes and commands Unity but never actually effected it without the interposition of Ecclesiastical Authority as in the Primitive Church Ecclesiastical and Civil as in the Reformation of our Church or Civil as in Spain by the Inquisition in France by Edicts c. That Uniformity is or can be deformity and confusion I shall think to be a contradiction till our Author shews how it can be reconciled Those terms of Communion which he intimates to be prescribed in Gods Word he would do well to shew us or tell us where we may find them if he can They would do more if clearly discovered and demonstrated towards the Union of our differences than a Thousand such railing Pamphlets and the Intrigues and Politick Desings contrived by Male-contents and as hotly pursued by such Tools as he for the involving us into the same miseries that followed upon the last Rebellion 2. 〈◊〉 3. Mischiefs to the State Zeal for Ceremonies begets in Men a contempt of Publick Rights and Boundaries This is a very strange discovery which our Author hath made but it is so incredible that he could not in reason have supposed that we should take it merely upon his Word Therefore he would have done well to have inform'd us farther how a Zeal for Ceremonies begets a contempt of Publick Rights whether by an Univocal or Equivocal Generation If any Man should argue thus This Man is zealous for Ceremonies therefore he contemns Publick Rights and Boundaries would not all Men wonder at the Inference The Consequence will better follow on the contrary side thus This Man disturbs the Peace and Order of the Church and makes no conscience of breaking the Ecclesiastical Laws and Constitutions and therefore it is probable that out of the same Principle of disobedience and humour of opposition he will contemn Publick Rights and Boundaries and all obligations of the Conscience to obedience set by the Civil Law also But our Author proceeds When they dote so much upon vanities in Worship as to inslave their Consciences and to despise their Christian liberty it is no wonder if they sell at any rate their own and others Civil Rights and Privileges Surely this is spoken of the Inhabitants of the Moon or some Utopian Countries for most Men here have as little Zeal and as much contempt or at least neglect of the daily Service of the Church as our Author supposes them to have of the Publick Rights and Boundaries
To joyn in the Publick Worship of the Establish'd Church though it be supposed there are Ceremonies and what he hath no less maliciously than falsly insinuated vanities in it would not be to despise our Christian liberty but to make use of it Whereas he who scruples it either is weak and thinks he hath no liberty in that case or which is worse is sullen and will not use it But suppose Men despise their Christian Liberty though I understand not how the Members of the Church of England can be said to do so will they sell therefore their Civil Rights and Privileges at any Rate I wonder our Author is not ashamed of such gross non sequitur's As for any indirect means which may be supposed to have been used in Juries Elections Corporations c. I think the Dissenters both in modesty and justice ought to have held their tongues as having by far exceeded the Conformists for as far as I could ever see hear read observe or learn they were much more diligent and industrious used more indirect courses and underwent greater fatigues to uphold and carry on a Faction against the Government and Laws than these some whereof being not so designing they usually drew over to their Party were either to maintain the Right or countermine their attempts The best course which can be taken to recover God's blessing the Church's Union and the Kingdom 's Peace Riches Wealth Strength and Reputation is not the Parliaments or rather some few turbulent Spirits strugling as our Author says with the Prince nor the maintaining an unquiet and never to be satisfied Faction to confront the Government or extort Privileges or Liberties from the King by the diminution of his Prerogative the glorying in the Doctrin of Resistance under the pretence of Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the Laws or the encouraging of Dissenters to make the Schism greater for these do but make one Party jealous of another and neglect the Publick Good to oppose each other but a true practical Piety towards God a Loyalty and quiet Subjection to the Prince and a permission of him to manage his own Province a Charity and mutual Love and Unity without interessing our selves in much less hating and separating from one another for our respective private Opinions and an industrious following every one his own lawful Vocation and Employment 3. Mischief to Souls Pag. 1◠For trifles there hath been exercised a mad Tyranny over Mens faculties This is that which cannot be made good for all Men have and since the times of Popery every Man had liberty by the Laws of England to be of any Judgment or Opinion he should think most probable and freedom for his faculties and the exercise of them where they could claim any right to do so in their own Houses and Families nor if a Friend Stranger Traveller or a Neighbor or two happened to be present was there any danger or penalty thereby incurr'd But that every Man under pretence of Conscience should therefore have liberty for all his outward actions and be allowed for his own private advantage to make publick Harangues to disturb the Peace and seduce his Neighbors by the propagation of a Schism dangerous to both Church and State is that which doth not follow even the Dissenters themselves when they had power in their Hands being Judges as appears by their carriage to the Clergy of the Church of England in the late times That a pretence of Conscience where nothing evidently sinful in it self is positively enjoyned will not justifie a Man in Schism or exempt him from Penal Laws as having a Right by the Law of Nature to be tolerated therein I shall imagine my self to have proved till I see farther The little things imposed are a means of depriving the Church of the Service of many useful Ministers that are apt to teach 〈◊〉 16. and would be glad to give the Bread of Life to those Souls that are by the Drones left in the broad way to destruction The Church of England wants not Ministers that are apt to teach but in some places Persons that will be taught and in others maintenance for the Teachers No place where there is a competent visible subsistence needs to want a Preacher Our Universities can supply another Kigndom In the mean time this needs none of their assistance if the Usurping Ministers and Encroaching Pastors would return the straying Sheep home to their own rightful Pastors and proper Folds whence designedly they have drawn them for their own advantage they would thereby do better Service to God his Church the Kingdom their own and the seduced and deluded Mens Souls than possibly they can any other way If any are Drones let them be amended or removed they may well be spared Ibid. Christ commands his Ministers to Preach and qualifies them for that Service Christ commands none to Preach but those which he calls by his Church and he who intrudes into the Sacred Office without an Ordinary Mission unless he demonstrates by Miracles an extraordinary one can shew no tolerable reason why he should not be esteemed and used as either an Euthusiast or Impostor neither can any qualifications though exceeding those of other Men which yet never have been found in them be reasonably laid in the balance with the Peace Order and Unity of the Church and the Love and Charity of the Neighborhood Our Author says in Page 17th The Ruin of Souls may be for want of the Labours of those able Ministers whom we exclude for toys I know none are excluded but such who exclude themselves and the more shame for them if they will be so humoursome and pettish as to shut out themselves because they cannot in every thing have their Wills and the more trivial the things objected are the more evident it is that somewhat else besides and more than Conscience which is pretended is the true cause of their Non Conformity But yet I can see no such great danger of the ruin of Souls more than now there is if they were as silent as they are clamorous Salvation in another sense than that in which it is usually taken being the common end of at least a great part of that noise and disturbance which is made by that Party and I heartily wish that their Hearers laying aside that blind zeal out-side Piety and unreasonable opposition to the Government both of Church and State in which they please themselves and whereby they are distinguish'd from other Men they would by the regular Piety Loyalty Peace Humility Obedience and Charity of their Lives convince the World of the excellency and sincerity of their Teachers 〈◊〉 18. 4. Mischiefs to Piety The most Learned Divines and the Wisest States-men in the World are but bunglers when they take upon them to add unto Gods Worship what he hath not appointed If our Author either could or would tell us what Worship God hath particularly appointed