therefore they despise all Antient Doctors of the Primitive Church and I think in Tertullian's Words against Montanus we may say it to be the Socinians opinion Truth waited for their Coming without which it had been quite lost yet according to their Principles we must all be Scepticks and Pyrhonians always doubting of every thing and never sure of any then in the Word of God is no Truth that we can be certain of we know no Man hath dominion over the Faith of another nor ought to impose his Opinion upon others neither could they who went before us be Masters of our Faith nor we of the Faith of those who are to come after You see I make use of your own Expressions but withal I must tell you that if any one would in former or present times offer to force things of their own upon us to believe we would reject it by their own we mean any thing different from or contrary to the Word of God 't is not their offering to us or of us to others can bind the Consciences but the things offered do if they be the Word of God no human Authority doth per se and of it self tye my Conscience but God's Word doth therefore if any thing be proposed as an Article of Faith we must see whether it be contained in the Word of God which bears Record of it self and so stands in no need of the Testimony of Man 't is not the hand that gives Alms which can make Gold to be Gold or Silver to be Silver nor the Lawyers quoting the Law that can make it to be Law 't is so in it self so is Gospel Gospel in it self without any human help or else you make the Gloss and Interpretation more than the Text and as according to your Principles you may alter your Interpretation one to day and another different from it the next what a Confusion would you leave us in when you are so sickle and cannot agree with your own selves as indeed you make an Alteration in the Questions from what they were in Socinus's days By what they say of Doctrines which according to circumstance of times may be convenient or inconvenient I find them inclined to blame the times to excuse themselves but the Faults which too often are committed the Times are not to be accused of but the Malice or Weakness of Men there being no Season so troublesome as can keep a good Judge from doing Justice or a good Divine from giving a good Interpretation of Scripture so Mens Faults ought to be chastised and not the Times which are as Men govern themselves to be complained of but good and holy Laws ought to be enacted by those whom it belongs to having the Glory of God and the Good of the People before their Eyes new Distempers require new Remedies and new Laws are necessary against new Crimes wherefore I lay hold on this new occasion and once more make bold to both Houses of Parliament humbly to commend the Cause of God and of his Son the Lord Jesus according as I formerly besought them in my Epistle in earnest to mind it or else with David I say Arise O God plead thine own Cause However as to Faith and Practice they give a good Character of themselves as to the first they believe all the Articles of the Apostles Creed but still they reserve unto themselves to give what Interpretation they please but sure we are 't is not that contained in the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds Still there is a Jesuitical Jugling Equivocation and Mental Reservation Ask them which is the true sense of the Words in Jesus Christ his only Son they will not say 't is of his own Nature and Substance and from Eternity which Creed say they was heretofore thought a full and sufficient Summary of Faith till some Men perverted the true and Orthodox Meaning and brought false Glosses upon 't contrary to the plain and natural Interpretation received by the Universal Church then indeed to refute unsound and Anti-scriptural Expositions and wresting of the true Sense to explain and enlarge was found necessary 'T is their Principle thankfully to lay hold on the Message of Redemption by Jesus Christ This seems fair but is very defective for according to them Christ came into the World as a bare Messenger a meer Man to declare the Will of God unto us which others tho not so fully and plainly had done before to die only for our good but not in our stead nor to purchase us by the Merits of his Death So they say the Lord Jesus is God by Favour not by Nature robbing him thus of his Divinity When we seriously come to the matter they are full of Quiblings and Cavils As to the receiving the Message of Redemption 't is according to them by strength of Reason and not of Faith for no true Faith in Christ except Men believe him to be true God as well as true Man As to Practice this Character they give of themselves They fear God walk humbly before him hold no Correspondence with any known Sin c. This is well but not enough for the moral Virtues of the Heathen carryed some of them as far as this But a sound Knowledg in the Mind is required and no sound saving Knowledg of Christ except one knows him for such as he is that is God and Man or else he is but half a Christ an imperfect Mediatour whole Christ is the true Object of Faith These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God as well as the Son of Man I am glad to find something like the Matters in question in the first Letter we are told what ground they go upon concerning their Opinions Scripture they own to be the Rule of Faith but unto themselves they reserve the Interpretation which is as bad as what they condemn in Papists to depend upon the Authority of their own Interpretation and so can turn it which way they please so may every Socinian as well as every Quaker have their private Interpretation but to say that Protestants for the interpretation of Scripture do rely upon their own Reason is without warrant and doth not consist with Truth except by Protestants they mean Socinians if this were a fit place I could shew that they have not the same regard as we for Scriptures tho they assert it for they dispute the Truth and Authority thereof but I must come to human Reason which in one page is twice asserted to be the onely Guide God hath given us in matters of Religion for under that head I reduce the three he there mentioneth about Revelation but this is not the Judgment of true Protestants if a Man hath no other Guide but his own Reason 't is a blind one and very defective 't is but one part of three and the least too for to the end that human Reason may be a fit
great Thunder-claps which shall end like crackling of Thorns under the Pot. The ground of all this is my Humble Address to both Houses of Parliament that they would be pleased to take some care of the Cause of Christ and to put a curb upon his Enemies such I call those who would rob him of his Divine Nature and Attributes and attempt to overthrow the first Article of our Faith of One God in Three Persons There are some Men in the World that if one doth but look them in the Face they are apt to cry out Murther whether or not at that time a guilty Conscience flies into their Faces God knows That same may happen sometimes to disturb them so far as to make them grosly mistake in their Judgment as about Things so about Persons as they are very much in me who in my Heart and Opinion am as much against Persecution upon account of Religion and for a due regard to tender Consciences as any Man in the World When the Question is about indifferent and not very material things then for Peace and Charity 's sake Gentleness and Meekness ought to prevail but it must be otherwise when Fundamentals are not only shaken but overturned and when Religion it self is pulled up by the very root as 't is when humane Reason is made a standing Rule whereby to judge of Revelation when the Doctrines of the most Holy Trinity of the Satisfaction which the Lord Jesus hath by the Sacrifice of himself made for our Sins with other things thereupon depending and what Scriptures with the received Creeds of the Primitive Church do affirm about it and what our Church believes I say it ought to be otherwise when all these lie at stake and are blown up at oncâ— then or never 't is high time to speak out especially when we see how boldly and openly these things are carried on We use to say There is a difference between mad and stark staring mad People distemper'd in their Minds are dealt withal according unto the nature and degree of their Distemper some confin'd to their Chambers others to their Beds others bound and chained up The like we observe in the Distempers of the Politick Body he who rashly speaks ill of the Government deserves some Punishment but not so great as he who violently attempts to overthrow it or to destroy the Persons in whose hands God hath lodged the Power so it must be in spiritual Diseases which affect the Body of the Church and these several ways I mean when I speak of a true and proper Remedy whereof the applying depends upon the Skill of the Physician 't is not any effect of Cruelty to make Incisions and cut off dead Flesh out of a Wound to prevent a Gangrene nor to restrain People that have the Plague from coming among those that are free from it for fear of infecting them So 't is no Persecution to take care that Hereticks such all Orthodox Christian Churches take Socinians to be do not come in among those that are sound in the Faith This great Danger may in a due respect and humble way be represented to the superiour Power whose Office is to prevent and remedy Inconveniences This I humbly conceive to be a Branch of the Right of the Subject and it may not be called To prescribe them what to do they cannot be every where nor know every thing therefore stand in need of being informed this is the usual course of Justice for no Redress when no Complaint is made and I was so far from presuming to prescribe therein that in my Epistle pag. 18. I declare against it All that are no Socinians are agreed how their Tenets about the most holy Trinity are heretical and consequently contrary to the Doctrine of the Church as by Law established Now the Laws of the Land do forbid any thing to be published that is contrary to it it is known to all how Socinians do in Print and otherwise daily publish their blasphemous and heretical Opinions whereby they break the Law the Consequence is good to say they deserve to be punished as do all Law-Breakers and I hope they cannot pretend to come in within the Act of Indulgence tho they deny their Opinions to be heretical yet that 's not enough for them to be accounted innocent for 't is very rare to see a guilty Man when he is lyable to and sure of Punishment to confess his own Guilt yet his bare denyal doth not free him from it for if to deny was enough to clear no Man could be found guilty Both Authors of the Letters are very angry and much cry out against what I said about a Field of Honour which is in relation to the Cause to be defended against its Enemies and not to any capital Punishment which had been an imprudent thing of me and contrato my inclination to have suggested against Hereticks but these Gentlemen who often call me hot and fiery hastily skipp'd from the Second Page of my Epistle to the Seventeenth of the same to make the Field of Honour to be Smithfield These two things are written too far asunder to be joyned together as indeed there was in my thoughts nothing like Smithfield when I was insinuating that as God's Work is glorious so the occasion offer'd to promote it is as a Field of Honour as expressed in the place and what there I mentioned of one who for Socinianism suffered in Smithfield was not of my own but in consequence of a Citation out of Sir Thomas Ridley ' s View of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws where he saith Against such is provided Sentence of Death and there I gave two Instances how what he said had been executed Let any impartial Man peruse the places and they shall find it to be as I say and then may take notice how rash hasty and unjust are these Men who pretend to so much Calmness and Meekness of Spirit in making Reflections upon others who through God's Grace have a more Christian charitable frame of Spirit than themselves We indeed hate abominable Blasphemies and Heresies but neither Blasphemers nor Hereticks for some of them God if he pleases may shew Mercy and give Repentance unto their Conversion not their Ruin is wish'd for and also Endeavours are used to preserve others from being infected The true and short account of the business is this Things being in the state and condition as I represent in my Epistle and Preface I looked upon it as a Duty incumbent upon me as a Christian with what little strength God hath given me to lay it out in the Defence of the most just and best Cause in the World namely the due Honour of the most holy and adorable Trinity and the Divinity of our blessed Lord and Saviour and of the Holy Ghost which so many Legions of Martyrs have freely shed their Blood and gloriously laid down their Lives for I went not about to support it with enticing Words
Principles the Famine in David's days of three Years Year after Year came meerly according to a general course of Nature without a particular Cause and special Providence certainly when David inquired about it the Lord assigned the particul Cause and answered It is for Saul and his bloody House because he slew the Gibeonites The Sin with the Punishment and by whom inflicted were all named and expressed yet against all Right and Reason they would not have this Case to be a special Providence for they say there is no such thing in the World But why should I bring a Candle to light the Sun and in a thing which God's Word doth so plainly and fully demonstrate how to punish National Family and Personal Sins God sends the Plague Famine the Sword venomous Beasts the Locust the Canker-Worm the Catterpillar and the Palmer-Worm which the Lord calls his great Army which I sent among you Did the Plagues of Egypt come at a venture or were they inflicted by God to punish that Nation for their Sins God threatned the Children of Israel for their Disobedience to send upon them Cursing Vexation and Rebuke the Pestilence a Consumption a Fever an Inflamation an extreme Burning the Sword Blasting Mildew the both of Egypt the Emerods with Scabs and Itch Madness Blindness Astonishment of heart c. as expressed in Deut. 28. Are not all these Judgments of God upon Men for their Sins Have I then spoken any harm that you should Cavil at what I say that to the Toleration of Blasphemy and Idolatry we may chiefly attribute the cause of the Chastisments which make the Nation uneasie through losses by Sea by Land by Fire or any other way you named or can name Blasphemy and Idolatry 't is a sad truth do abound in the Land and a flood of all Evil in Doctrine and Practise hath overflowed it and tho' it be against Gospel and Law yet no visible effectual care is taken to suppress it Can we be unconcerned when we hear God by his Prophet speaking thus Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord shall not I be avenged on such a Nation as this Jer. 5. 29. With such a Warrant in my hand I am neither ashamed nor afraid openly to declare that winking at Blasphemy and Idolatry we may well reckon among the chief Causes which have drawn God's Rod upon the back of the Nation and the more because the Sins which there move God to speak by his Prophet are against Men but these we now complain against are directly against God And if God be angry for their not judging for Men will he not be so if Men neglect to Judge for him Do but read the last Verse of the same Chapter where mention is made of Distempers if not exactly the same in relation to Persons yet in Nature much like ours and take notice of God's Expostulation there What will ye do in the end thereof Now the Misdemeanour they would wrongfully charge me with I may justly retort upon them With all due Respect I addressed to both Houses and humbly represented things as 't is usual in points of Grievances whereof some are of a Spiritual as others of a Temporal nature I then said and now say it again that according to Divine and Humane Laws Blasphemy should be rooted out and Blasphemers punished To ask for Justice is not to prescribe the Judges any thing what they ought to do and there is nothing like this in my whole Epistle as these words of mine which the Author of the Letter hath taken notice of do evidence Thus having laid open the Disease I leave it for your Piety and Christian Wisdom to find out and apply the true and proper Remedy We know 't is for the Supreme Judges to do Justice in what manner and degree they please no Man of sense will deny it to be in the power of and to belong to the Magistrates Office to punish Delinquents against God as well as those against Men of the first as well as of the second Table Blasphemers Idolaters Profaners of God's Holy Name as well as Murtherers Adulterers and Thieves S. Paul was no sanguinary Man yet in one place after an enumeration of several things whereof some are less grievous than Blasphemy concludeth That they which commit such things are worthy of death For my part I neither in my Epistle nor in the Preface have said or designed to say so yet if I had without being a Sanguinary Man I here have a Warrant for it But having spoken of my self I now must come to you and say Ye both have been much wanting in your due respect for that Illustrious Assembly of Parliament For one humbly to Address or Petition the Supreme Judges to redress things which are amiss is no disrespect but to pretend to be their Apologist and make use of their Name in an Ironical way as ye I may say saucily have done in the Title of your Pamphlet is certainly to want a due respect and to deserve Punishment To call a Libel against the Doctrine of the Religion by Law established by the name of An Apology for the Parliament most humbly representing c. is a great Abuse and a piece of high Impudence in you which hangs together with your whole Carriage for contrary to the known Laws of the Land and in defiance of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions you do print publish and most insolently go about to Vindicate your Heretical and Blasphemous Opinions in opposition to and the disturbance of the Church by Law established And when ye are not able to defend your bad Cause to give the thing a wrong side the Superior Power to be your drudges must by you be brought in but 't is in you a high presumption to think you can impose upon them Now for my part I must tell you that when I am engaged in any Controversie I stick to the Point beg for no Foreign help and Answer not with Injuries but with good Arguments ye do the contrary But over and above what I have said to shew how with humbly Addressing my self to the Parliament to ask Justice against you and towards preventing the growth of Socinianism I did nothing but what is according to Law I here lay down an undeniable proof of it with a Copy of the Presentment of the Grand Jury of Middlesex on the last day of the last Easter Term 1697 and this according to directions given by the Judges who must know the Law The Names of the worthy Persons that were of it do for their Piety and Zeal deserve to be recorded in Letters of Gold and 't is hoped this may be a Precedent for others to do the like in other parts of the Kingdom A Copy of the Presentment of the Grand Jury of Middlesex the last day of the Term at Westminster viz. WE the Jurors sworn to enquire on the behalf of our Sovereign Lord the King