Erubescet But if he will not be ashamed I know no reason why any Man that would not be deceived should take Things upon Trust from such a shameless Writer whom an impenitent Conscience hath hardened against the Confusion of Remorse and Blushing and made one of the greatest Examples of Impudence that ever dishonoured the Lawn Sleeves I hope it is a just Indignation that forces this Reflexion from me but if it seems too severe I beg the Reader 's Patience till I lay before him another of this unhappy Man's Books intituled A Vindication of the Authority c. of the Church and State of Scotland Printed 1673. This Book is full of very many Doctrins Rules and Precepts to which the Author's Life and all his Books since the beginning of the Revolution have been an open Contradiction In the Entrance of his Preface to the Reader saith he How sad but how full a Commentary doth the Age we live in give of those Words of our Lord I am come to send Fire on Earth Suppose you that I am come to give Peace upon Earth I tell you nay but rather Division Do we not see the Father divided against the Son and the Son against the Father and engaging into such angry Heats and mortal Feuds upon Colours of Religion as if the Seed of the Word of God like Cadmus Teeth had spawned a Generation of Cruel and Blood thirsty Men But how surprizing is the Wonder when Religion becomes the Pretence And after this Among all the Heresies this Age hath spawned there is not one more contrary to the whole Design of Religion and more destructive of Mankind than is that bloody Opinion of defending Religion by Arms and of forceable Resistance upon the Colour of preserving Religion The Wisdom of this Policy is Earthly Sensual and Devillish savouring of a carnal unmortified and unpatient Mind that cannot bear the Cross nor trust to the Providence of God Religion then as well as since was the Civil Property of these Kingdoms but at the time of the Revolution (a) In his Enquiry into the Measures of Submission to the Supreme Authority he distinguished the Christian Religion from it self as Religion and as it was one of the principal Rights and Properties of the Subject and though as Religion it ought not to be defended by Arms yet he affirmed That as a Civil Right and Property it might Would any Man but such a Bishop have had the Confidence to say That it was Lawful to sight for Religion as a Civil Right and Property who had published the Book above-mentioned and I know not how many after it to prove it Unlawful for Subjects to take up Arms in defence or under pretence of defending any Right or Property whatsoever Let such a Man say of Things or Persons or of Persons Dead or Living what he pleases he shall never be believed by me farther than he brings Proof The Passages of his forecited Book which now stare him in the Face are very many and very Emphatical and there is scarce a Page in it which is not a Record against him I must take notice of some and recommend (b) P. 8. to p. 18. p 35. 39. 40. 41. 42. 46. 47. those in the Margent to the curious Reader 's perusal at his leasure that he may make the same use of them that I am going to do of those that follow In the 68th Page of that Book he makes it of more dangerous Consequence to place the Deposing Power in the People than in the Pope Less Disorder saith he may be apprehended from the Pretensions of the Roman Bishops than from those Maxims that put the Power of Judging and Controuling the Magistrate in the Peoples hands which opens a Door to endless Confusion and sets every private Person in the Throne These Consequences of placing the Deposing Power in the People we have seen verified by Experience and still shall be more convinced of the Truth of them but yet his Enquiry into the Measures of Submission and Obedience which he owns among his 18 Papers and the Enquiry into the present State of Affairs which is his though he does not own it were both written upon the Principles of the Resisting and Deposing Power For in the one he Exhorts the People to resist the King as having fallen from his Authority and in the other to take upon them the Power and Authority of Deposing of him And to encourage them the more to it he doth affirm That the Power of the People of Judging the King in Parliament is a part of the Law of England and goes about to prove it from the Sentence of Deposition against King Edward the Second and Richard the Second which contrary to the Truth of History and I am confident of his own Knowledge he saith were never annulled by any subsequent Parliaments and therefore remain part of our Law Such an impudent Assertion contrary to so many Acts of Parliament printed in the Statute Books and (a) In Pryn's Jurisdiction of the Lords elsewhere would as Monsieur le Grand saith of him upon another Occasion (b) J'avoue qu'en faisant ces remarquâ—s je suis dans une veritable Contrainte de ne pas appeller M. Burnet de tous les Noms quile merite Lettre de M. Burnet a M. Thavenot avec les remarques de MLG. p. 33. Provoke a Man to call him by all the Names that he deserves But I pass on to the second Thing I intended to note in that Book and it is his own Answer to the Arguments for Resistance which in the first Conference he puts in the Mouth of Isotimus the Presbyterian to justify taking up Arms against our Lawful Governors from the Example of the Maccabees rising up in Arms against Antiochus and of the Christians who under Constantine the Great made no difficulty of fighting against the other Emperour his Colleague Licinius These Arguments he there pursues as far as they will go in the Mouth of Isotimus and then Answers them fully in the Person of Basilius the Royalist by whom he represents himself yet he lately made use of the very same Arguments to perswade his Clergy of the Lawfulness of taking up Arms against the King to bring about the Revolution and of the Obligations they were under to submit to it and support it without either retracting the Answer which he had made to those Arguments and which he might suppose some of them had read or replying to them or so much as mentioning of them but tells them in his Preface to his four Discourses That they had heard him urge them with seeming Satisfaction which I suppose was one sort of Satisfaction and Admiration too in many of them which I had rather hint than Name The third great Instance of that Book in which he hath contradicted himself is his Arguing for the Duty of Nonresistance from the Example of the Thebean Legion p. 58. which I cannot forbear to
which I commiserate from my heart but am much more concerned that you do not leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace to the hindrance of your Eternal Happiness I heartily Pray for you and beseech your Lordship to believe that I am with the greatest Sincerity and Compassion in the World My Lord Your Lordships most Faithful and Afflicted Servant J. Tillotson Printed for R. Baldwin 1683. No. IV. To the KING' 's most Excellent Majesty James the Second c. The Humble Address of the Bishops and Clergy of the City of London WE your Majesties most humble and Dutiful Subjects do heartily condole your Majestie 's loss of so dear a Brother of Blessed Memory And do thankfully adore that Divine Providence which hath so Peaceably setled your Majesty our Rightful Sovereign Lord upon the Throne of your Ancestors to the joy of all your Majesties good Subjects And as the Principles of our Church have taught us our Duty to our Prince so we most humbly thank your Majesty for making our Duty so Easie and pleasant by your gracious assurance to defend our Religion established by Law which is dearer to us than our Lives In a deep sence whereof we acknowledg our selves for ever bound not only in Duty but gratitude to contribute all we can by our Prayers our Doctrine and Example to your Majesties happy and prosperous Reign And with our most sincere promises of all Faith and Allegiance do humbly implore the Divine goodness to preserve your Majesties Person and to establish your Throne in this World and when he shall be pleased to Translate you hence to bestow on you an Eternal Crown of Life and Glory No. V. IN the Name of God Amen Before the Lord Jesus Christ Judge of the Quick and Dead We long since became bound by Oath upon the sacred Evangelical Book unto our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England That we as long as we lived shall bear true Allegiance and fidelity towards him and his Heirs succeeding him in the Kingdom by just Title Right and Line according to the Statutes and Custom of this Realm have here taken unto us certain Articles subscribed in form following to be proponed heard and tryed before the just Judge Christ Jesus and the whole World But if which God forbid by force Fear or violence of wicked Persons we shall be cast in Prison or by violent Death be prevented so as in this world we shall not be able to prove the said Articles as we wish Then we do appeal to the high Celestial Judge that he may judge and discern the same in the day of his supream Judgment First we depose say and except and intend to prove against Henry Darby commonly called King of England himself pretending the same but without all Right and Title thereunto and against his adherents fautors Complices that they have ever been are and will be Traytors Invaders and Destroyers of God's Church and of our Sovereign Lord Richard late King of England his heirs his Kingdom and Common-wealth as shall hereafter manifestly appear In the Second Article they declare him Forsworn Prejured and Excommunicate for that he conspired against his Sovereign Lord King Richard In the Fourth they recite by what wrong illegall and false means he exalted himselfe into the Throne of of the Kingdom and then describing the miserable State of the Nation which followed after his Usurpation they again pronounce him Perjured and Excommunicate In the Fifth Article they set forth in what a Barbarous and inhuman manner Henry and his Accomplices Imprisoned and Murthered K. Richard and then cry out wherefore O England arise stand up and avenge the Cause the Death and injury of thy King and Prince If thou do not take this for certain that the Righteous God will Destroy thee by strange Invasions and foreign Power and avenge himself on thee for this so horrible an Act. In The Seventh they depose against him for putting to Death not only Lords Spiritual and other Religious Men but also divers of the Lords Temporal there Named for which they pronounce him Excommunicate In the Ninth they say and depose that the Realm of England never Flourished nor Prospered after he Tyrannically took upon him the Government of it And in the Last they Depose and protest for themselves and K. Richard and his Heirs the Clergy and Commonwealth of the whole Realm that they intended neither in word nor deed to offend any State of men in the Realm but to prevent the approaching Destruction of it and beseeching all men to favour them and their designs whereof the First was to Exalt to the Kingdom the true and lawful Heir and him to Crown in Kingly Throne with the Diadem of England No. VI. THat all Parliaments and Ambitious selfe seekers in them who under pretence of publick Reformation Liberty the Peoples ease or welfare have by indirect Surmise Policies Practices Force and new Devices most Usurped upon the Prerogatives of their Kings or the Persons Lives Offices or Estates of such Nobles great Officers and other Persons of a contrary Party whom they most dreaded maligned and which have imposed new Oaths upon the Members to secure perpetuate and make irrevocable their own Acts Judgments and unrighteous Proceedings have always proved most abortive successless pernicious to themselves and the activest Instruments in them The Parliaments themselves being commonly totally repealed null'd and the Grandees in them suppressed impeached condemned destroyed as Traytors and Enemies to the Publick in the very next succeeding Parliaments or not very long after That Kings Created and set up meerly by Parliaments and their own Power in them without any true Hereditary Title have seldom answer'd the Lords and Commons Expectations in the Preservation of their just Laws Liberties and Answers to their Petitions yea themselves at last branded for Tyrants Traytors Murderers Usurpers Their Posterities impeached of High-Treason and disinherited of the Crown by succeeding Kings and Parliaments of c. From these Three last Observations we may learn that as Parliaments are the best of all Courts and Councils when duly Summoned Convened Constituted Ordered and kept within their Legal Bounds So they become the greatest Mischiefs and Grievances to the Kingdom when like the Ocean they overflow their banks or degenerate and become through Sedition Malice Fear or Infatuation by Divine Justice promoters of corrupt sinister Ends or Accomplishers of the private Designs and ambitious Interests of particular Persons under the disguise of Publick Reformation Liberty Safety and Settlement No. VII ALtho' it can no way be doubted but that His Majesty's Right and Title to these Crowns and Kingdoms is and was every way Compleat by the Death of His most Royal Father of Glorious Memory without the Ceremony and Solemnity of a Proclamation Yet since Proclamations in such Cases have been always used to the end that all good Subjects might upon this Occasion testify their Duty and Respect And since the Armed Violence and
make a Cloak of Religion for Covetousness Ambition and Cruelty They will both Lye Murther Rob and Rebel for holy Church and Religion and there never yet was any Holy League Covenant or Association to begin or carry on Rebellion under the holy Pretence of Religion wherein the Ring-leaders were not Atheists or Enthusiasts and of the Two it is hard to tell which hath done most Mischief in any Kingdom and especially in ours But the Enthusiast makes the more plausible and taking Hypocrite of the Two he can sooner melt into Tears and more naturally counterfeit the Spiritual Man among the People and transform himself with a better Grace into an Angel of Light And one cannot but suppose that he had a great Dose of Enthusiasm in him when he undertook to perswade the late unhappy Princess to invade her Father's Kingdom against the Light of Nature and the Principles of her Education and that he season'd his Perswasives with the Salt of Pharisaical Tears pretended to be shed in Commiseration of the Church of England For it is well known that he hath Tears at Command as Enthusiasts of all Religions have He wept like any Crocodile at Mr. Napleton's Relation of the barbarous Usage which the King met with at Feversham And pray Mr. Napleton said he still wiping his Eyes carry my Duty to the King and let him know my Concern for him Which puts me in mind of a Story that I have heard of that Master-Enthusiast Cromwel who when a Gentleman came to entreat his Excellency That he would give leave that he might have a Lock of the Beheaded King's Hair for an honourable Lady Ah! no Sir saith he bursting into Tears that must not be for I swore to him when he was Living that not an Hair of his Head should Perish I beg my Reader 's Pardon for this Digression of Enthusiasm though I hope it is not altogether impertinent to my Undertaking and now return to shew by other Examples how apt our Preacher or Historian call him which you please is to write his Phansies and Inventions for true History and that he is very little if any Thing at all behind Varillas in this Fault which a Man of Letters especially a Divine that desires to have a lasting Reputation ought to avoid as much as a Tradesman that values his Credit ought to take care not to sell Counterfeit or Sophisticated Goods In his first Volume of his History of the Reformation p. 209. he tells us of Two original Letters the one in Italian and the other in English which the Lady Elizabeth not yet Four years of Age wrote to Queen Jane Seymour when she was with Child of King Edward and that they were both writ in the same hand that she wrote all the rest of her Life These are Two strange and incredible Things First That a Child not yet Four years old should have learned a foreign Language to such a Degree of Perfection as to be able to write Letters in it and Secondly That she should write then so well as never to mend or alter her hand after And to these Two I may add those pretty waggish Conceits in the English Letter which he hath there set down with this marginal Note Her Letter to the Queen not yet Four years of Age. In this Letter she Compliments her Highness upon the Pain it was to her to write her Grace being with Child and then after many other Passages which could not be the first Blossoms of a Child as he thinks these Words follow I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your Commendations in his Letter for he did it and although he had not yet I will not complain on him for that he shall be diligent to give me knowledg from time to time how his busy Child doth for if I were at his Birth no doubt I would see him beaten for the trouble he hath put you to Now I appeal to any considering Man whether those look like the Conceits of a Child not yet Four years old And none certainly but an Historian so rash and phanciful in his Writings as he is would for this Reason have thought that this Letter was written to the Queen And had he taken time enough to reflect and considered his (a) Q. Eliz. was born Sep. 7. 1533. Cath. Par died in Child-bed of her Daughter in the beginning of Sep. 1548. Record better he would have found that her Highness was not the Queen but Catherine Par and my Lord not the King but the Lord Admiral to whom she was married and by consequence that the Lady Elizabeth was then Fifteen years of Age. How many Lashes must poor Varillas have had without mercy if he had been guilty of such a Blunder I know saith he in his (b) P. 29. Reflections upon him There are a Sort of Men that are much more ashamed when their Ignorance is discovered than when their other Vices are laid open since degenerate Minds are more jealous of the Reputation of their Understandings than of their (c) I suppose he means Sincerity Honour And whether this Discovery touches the Reputation of his Understanding or his Honour most I leave him to judge From hence I pass to Bishop Bedel's Life of which he saith in the Preface That his Part in it was so small that he can scarce assume any Thing to himself but the Copying out of what was put into his Hands by Mr. Clogy And in the (d) P. 175. Book he saith again That Mr. Clogy is much more the Author of it than he is For this we have only his own Word which I profess signifies little with me But to know what was his and what Mr. Clogy's he hath left us to Conjecture though I think few that know his way of Writing will so much as doubt that the Romantick Passages which I am going to cite out of it and which are obtruded upon the World for true History are his own Inventions and not Mr. Clogy's But however though they were Mr. Clogy's he is answerable for them for letting them pass unobserved and unchastised into the World But if they are his own as I am confident they are then let Men of the greatest Candor judge what Censure is fit for a Man that would write his own Imaginations for truth though he had declared in the Preface That Lives were to be written with the Strictness of a severe Historian and not helped up with Invention and that those who do otherwise dress up Legends and make Lives rather than write them To deceive and at the same time to declare against deceiving is double Imposture and Imposition in an Historian But Bishop Bedel it seems was worthy for whom our Historian should dispense with the Laws of History as he (a) 13 Eli. 12. did with an Act of Parliament upon a certain Occasion for reading the 39 Articles It is manifest from the Bishops Letters That he was a Latitudinarian in some
been offered unto Idols would be scandalized thereby against Christianity and the later in like manner seeing them do so would be encourag'd to persist in their Demonolatry because they might presume that the Christians buying or eating wittingly and willingly what had been offered up in Sacrifice to their Gods did so out of respect to them as they themselves did I think this was very strict Divinity to forbid Christians the use and enjoyment of those things which otherwise they were free to use and enjoy both at home and abroad purely upon the account of other mens Consciences because they were to give no offence neither to the unbelieving Jew nor to the Idolatrous Gentiles nor to the weaker Members of the Church of God Had our Preacher lived in those days I am afraid he would have censured the Apostle as a man of narrow thoughts who was too much influenced by Jewish notions and superstition in these severe determinations but because he was to make a Parallel between the Apostle and his Latitudinarian Hero therefore right or wrong he was to take some occasion to let us know that the Apostle had his large thoughts too Another of his Phrases which he chose rather to use improperly than to omit is that of the †p. 9. just freedoms of Human Nature where he tells us that his Heroick Primate asserted the great Truths of Religion when he saw them struck at with an authority and zeal proportioned to the importance of them while in lesser matters he left men to the just freedoms of Human Nature but he should have said had he spoke properly to their Christian Liberty for the freedoms of Human Nature relate to men as they are considered in a civil or in their natural state if there ever had been or were any such But this being one of the golden Phrases of the Latitudinarians he was resolved to tip his Tongue and gild one Period with it for that sort of men have their Jargon and Cant as well as others and particularly affect to talk of the Rights Liberties or Freedoms of Mankind or of the Rights Liberties or Freedoms of Human Nature altho' every man in the World only hath such Rights and such Liberties as the Laws and Customs of the Country where he is born or whither he betake himself give him and no more Hence the * Inst Lib. 1. de jure persâ—narum Roman Law defineth Liberty to be a Natural Power or Faculty which every man hath to do what he pleaseth as far as he is not hindered by law or force This definition shews that mens natural liberty is restrained more or less according to the civil constitutions of different Countrys and this is so true that in some places the greatest part of Mankind have almost no Liberties and Slaves which were the greatest part of Mankind in the Roman Empire as now in some of our Plantations had none at all Yet notwithstanding this is so plain and obvious a Notion our Latitudinarians when it serves their turn as it did in former Reigns love to talk of the Rights and Liberties of Mankind or Human Nature because they are splendid Phrases which by seeming to have something great in them are apt to gull unthinking men tho' they signifie nothing at all Tell them of Passive Obedience or the unlawfulness of Resistance they will tell you again that it is a Doctrine against the Rights and Freedoms of Mankind I knew a Gentleman to whom an unfortunate Lord of our Preachers acquaintance said so and we may without making a bold inference guess from whom he had the deceitful insignificant Phrase which to serve ill purposes may be used against Laws and Constitutions that restrain mens Liberties in civil Societies in any other respect as well as in not resisting the Supream Power and would help to justifie insurrections not only of Slaves but of Subjects and more especially of the common People all the World over So the Dispensing Power under King James's Administration was against the just freedoms of Human Nature and the French Government was and is against the Rights and Liberties of Human Nature though some Governments harder than it and the exercise of them is not so in other places where Protestants as Conscientious and at least as Orthodox as those of France are ruined and undone for Conscience sake and as effectually Dragoon'd without Dragoons by Deprivation and double Taxes of which I am confident our Preacher would say if he suffered such Penalties that they were against the Rights of Human Nature and the Liberties of Mankind But for my own part as I always suspected such specious Phrases and those who used them so I know not to what purpose they serve but to beget false notions in the minds of men and incite them to subvert States and Kingdoms and level all Orders of Men in them and I have always observed that those who used them set up for Demagogues and were most forward when it was in their power to invade other mens Rights and abridge other mens Liberties especially those of their lawful Kings and their Loyal Fellow Subjects without any regard to the Laws of Nature the Laws of God or the Laws of the Land In the same place he tells us that while the Defunct asserted the great Truths of Religion he left men in lesser matters to be governed by those great measures of Discretion and Charity a care to avoid Scandal and to promote Edification and Peace and Decency and Order This in an Author so given to subtile and malicious insinuations looks like one upon the generality of the Clergy as if they did not so but were more zealous for the lesser than the greater matters of our Religion But not to mention the Great men among our present Clergy did not our Hookers Sandersons and Hammonds as well as those who have followed their example assert the great Truths of Religion as zealously as his Hero did and tho' they defended both the Authority and Wisdom of the Church in enjoyning Ceremonies and things in themselves indifferent to be observed which he means by lesser matters and also took care to inform the Consciences of the People what a great and weighty Duty Obedience and Submissions to the Orders of the Church was and that morally considered it was none of the lesser matters of Christianity yet in their just freedoms they left them to be governed as he saith his Archbishop did by the measures of Discretion and Charity and a care to avoid Scandal and to promote Edification and Peace and Decency and Order But in Truth this Character of leaving men to their Freedoms as Christians was so very true of Doctor Tillotson that he left them to their Freedoms where neither he nor they were free and to govern themselves by their own private Consciences and discretion when they neither promoted Charity nor Edification nor Peace Decency or Order but gave scandal in both Senses as it
quantam hic fenestram aperiemus in re omnibus communi cogitandi orientur hic fontes questionum opinionum ut tutius multo sit illos simpliciter manere in suo signo Cum nec ipsi suam nec nos nostram partem multo minus utrique totum orbem pertrahemus in eam sententiam sed potius irritabimus ad varias Cogitationes Ideo vellem potius ut sopitum maneret dissidium in duabus istis Sententiis quam ut occasio davetur infinitis quaestionibus ad Epicurisinum profuturis 3. Cum stent hic pro nostrâ sententia 1. textus ipse apertissimus Evangelii qui non sine causâ movet omnes homines non solum pios 2. Patrum decta quamplurima quae non tam facile possunt solvi nec tutâ conscientiâ aliter quam sonat intelligi cum bonâ Grammaticâ textui fortiter consentiant 3. Quia periculosum est statuere Ecclesiam tot annos per totum orbem caruisse vero sensu Sacramenti cum nos fateamur omnes mansisse Sacramenta verbum etsi obruta multis abominationibus 4. Dicta S. Aug. de signo quae contraria nostrae sententiae videntur non sunt firma satis contra ista jam tria dicta maximè cum ex Aug. scriptis clarè possit ostendi convinci Eum loqui de signo praesentis Corporis Vt illud contra Adamantum Non dubitavit Dominus appellare Corpus suum cum daret signum Corporis sui vel de signo corporis mystici in quo valde multus est praesertim in Johanne ubi copiose docet Manducare carnem Christi esse in corpore mystico seu ut ipse dicit in societate unitate charitate Ecclesiae istis enim verbis utitur 5. Ominium est fortissimum Augustinus quod dicit Non hoc Corpus quod videtis Manducaturi estis c. Et tamen conscientia memor apertorum verborum Christi Hoc est Corpus meum hoc dictum S. Aug. facile sic exponit quod de visibili corpore loquatur Aug. sicut sonant verba quod videtis Ita nihil pugnat Aug. cum claris verbis Christi Aug. infirmior est quam ut hoc uno dicto tam incerto imo satis consono nos moveat in contrarium Sensum 6. Ego S. Aug. non intelligo aliter sic ipse Patres ante se sorte intellexerit quam quod contra Judaeos Gentes docendum fuit apud Christianos non comedi Corpus Christi visibiliter more Corporali hac ratione fidem Sacramenti defenderunt Rursus contra Hypocritas Christianorum docendum fuit quod Sacramentum non esset salutare accipientibus nisi spiritualiter manducarent i. e. Ecclesiae essent uniti incorporati hac ratione Charitatem in Sacramento exegerunt ut ex Aug. clarè accipi potest qui absque dubio ex prioribus Patribus sui saeculi usu ista accepit 7. Istis salvis nihil est quod a me peti possit Nam ego hoc dissidium vellem testis est mihi Christus meus redemptum non uno Corpore sanguine meo Sed quid faciam Ipsi forte conscientiâ bonâ capti sunt in alteram sententiam Feramus igitur eos Si sinceri sunt liberabit eos Christus Dominus Ego contra captus sum bonâ certè conscientiâ nisi ipse mihi sim ignotus in meamsententiam ferant me si non possint mihi accedere Si vero illi sententiam suam sc de praesentiâ Corporis Christi cum pane tenere velint petierint Nos invicem tamen tolerari ego planè tolerabo in spe futurae communionis nam interim communicare Illis in fide sensu non possum Deinde si politica concordia quaeritur ea non impeditur diversitate Religionis sicut novimus posse conjugia commercia aliaque politica constare inter diversae religionis homines 1 Cor. 7. Christus faciat ut perfecte conteratur Satan sub nostris pedibus Amen Nostra autem sententia est Corpus ita cum pane seu in pane esse ut revera cum pane manducetur quemcunque motum vel actionem panis habet eandem Corpus Christi ut Corpus Christi verè dicatur ferri dari accipi manducari quando panis fertur datur accipitur manducatur Id est Hoc est Corpus meum No. III. A LETTER written to my Lord Russel in Newgate the Twentieth of July 1683. My Lord. I Was heartily glad to see your Lordship this Morning in that calm and devout temper at the Receiving of the Blessed Sacrament but Peace of mind unless it be well-grounded will avail little And because transient Discourse many times hath little effect for want of time to weigh and consider it therefore in tender compassion of your Lordships Case and from all the good will that one Man can bear to another I do humbly offer to your Lordships deliberate thoughts these following Considerations concerning the points of Resistance If our Religion and Rights should be invaded as your Lordship puts the Case concerning which I understand by Dr. B. that your Lordship had once received Satisfaction and am sorry to find a change First That the Christian Religion doth plainly forbid the Resistance of Authority Secondly That though our Religion be Established by Law which your Lordship urges as a difference between our Case and that of the Primitive Christians yet in the same Law which Establishes our Religion it is declared That it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms c. Besides that there is a particular Law declaring the Power of the Militia to be solely in the King And that ties the hands of Subjects though the Law of Nature and the General Rules of Scripture had left us at liberty which I believe they do not because the Government and Peace of Humane Society could not well subsist upon these Terms Thirdly Your Lordships opinion is contrary to the declared Doctrin of all Protestant Churches and though some particular Persons have taught otherwise yet they have been contradicted herein and condemned for it by the Generality of Protestants And I beg your Lordship to consider how it will agree with an avowed asserting of the Protestant Religion to go contrary to the General Doctrin of Protestants My end in this is to convince your Lordship that you are in a very Great and Dangerous Mistake and being so convinced that which before was a Sin of Ignorance will appear of much more heinous Nature as in Truth it is and call for a very particular and deep Repentance which if your Lordship sincerely exercise upon the sight of your Error by a Penitent Acknowledgment of it to God and Men you will not only obtain Forgiveness of God but prevent a mighty Scandal to the Reformed Religion I am very loath to give your Lordship any disquiet in the Distress you are in