Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A43674
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Some discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson occasioned by the late funeral sermon of the former upon the later.
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Hickes, George, 1642-1715.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing H1868; ESTC R20635
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107,634
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116
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contrary to every part of it as I shall shew in some signal Instances which were blemishes in his Life and will remain such Blots upon his Memory as no Apology will ever be able to wash out My first Instance shall be in his Apostacy from his own avowed Principle and Doctrine of the Church of England the once venerable Doctrine of Non-Resistance or Passive Obedience in which our Church hath taught her Children how they should behave themselves towards Men and approve themselves towards God if she and they should come to be persecuted for the Tryal of their Faith as the purest Churches and best Christians have been in former Ages He did not only (a) In his Subscription to the Book of Homilies subscribe to the Truth of this Doctrine and in the Profession of the Truth of it declare it unlawful to take up Arms against the King upon any Pretence whatsoever but pressed it upon the Consciences of Living and Dying Men And when he preached against Popery he asserted it not only in the most serious manner that good Divines use to do the most important matters of Christiany but with that Strength and Clearness which our Preacher saith is his peculiar Talent In his Letter to my Lord Russel in Nâ—wgate which the Reader will find in the (b) N. 3. Appendix he told his Lordship who did not believe that Doctrine what a great and dangerous Mistake he was in and that his disbelief of it which was but a Sin of ignorance before he was Convinced of the Truth of it became a Sin of a more heinous Nature after his Conviction and called for a more deep and particular Repentance and that if he dyed in a disbelief of it he was like to leave the World in a Delusion and false Peace and pursuant to this in his last Prayer with his Lordship on the Scaffold he said Grant Lord that all we who survive by this and other Instances of thy Providence may learn our Duty to God and the King What could a Man have said more in behalf of any Doctrine of the Christian Religion Or what could he have done more to convince the World he was in good Earnest than to publish it after he said it And yet in his Thanksgiving Sermon (c) Jan. 31. 1688. preached at Lincolns Inn he tells us That our Deliverance then the Phrase of the Revolution was the Lord's doing although it was brought about by the utter Violation of that Doctrine and the whole Duty of Subjects which results from it and then reciting the Strange means by which it was brought about We must not saith he here forget the many Worthies of our Nation who did so generously run all hazards of Life and Fortune for the Preservation of our Religion and the Asserting our Ancient Laws and Liberties Behold the Preacher at Lincolns Inn and the Confessor in Lincolns Inn Fields contradicting one another The Confessor told my Lord Russell That the Christian Religion plainly forbids the Resistance of Authority and that the same Law which established our Religion declares it not lawful to take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever But the Preacher now turned Apostate from the Confessor commends the many Worthies as he calls the Traytors and Rebels of our Country for soliciting a Foreign Prince and the Creature of another State to invade their own Sovereign's Dominions and assisting of him in the Undertaking till they had driven him out of his Kingdoms He saith It was generously done of them to run all hazards of Life and Fortune and he might have added of their Salvation too for the Preservation of our Religion and Liberties although he had told the World before that our Laws forbid the Preservation of them by those means nay that the Laws of Nature and the Rules of Scripture had not left us at Liberty to use them which was in effect to say That neither our Laws would have our Religion nor our Religion have it self preserved by the Means those Worthies used for its Preservation The Belief of the Lawfulness of Resisting when our Rights and Liberties should be invaded was a Sin of a dangerous and heinous Nature in my Lord Russel but the Practice of it was laudable in I know not how many Lords and Gentlemen more for preserving our Religion Laws and Liberties by it and if any of them since are gone out of the World in a Delusion and false Peace he is one of those Divines who more especially must Answer to God for it For it was after a close Consult with him and one or two more that a Motion was made in the House of Lords for Appointing a Day of Thanksgiving to God for having made his Highness P. O. the glorious Instrument of delivering this Kingdom from Popery and Arbitrary Power And then it was that our English Worthies as well as the Heroe under whom they acted were applauded in the Pulpits for the Success of that Glorious Enterprize which to think or speak of in a slighting manner was in his Opinion to be guilty of the foulest and blackest Ingratitude both to God and them One would wonder how any Christâ—an Man but more especially how a Christian Preacher should so plainly contradict himself and his most serious Doctrines and yet have the Confidence since to Reprint them as if he had never said nor done any Thing inconsistent with them Hear therefore what he saith of Religion our dear and holy Religion which the Worthies of our Nation run such an Hazard to preserve (a) Serm. preached on the Fifth of Nov. 1678. and Reprinted 1691. As for Religion the very Heathens always spoke of it as the great Band of human Society and the Foundation of Truth and Fidelity and Justice among Men. But when Religion once comes to supplant moral Righteousness and to teach Men the absurdest Things in the World to Lye for the Truth and to Kill Men for God's sake when it serves to no other Purpose but to be a Bond of Conspiracy to inflame the Tempers of Men to a greater Fierceness and to set a keener Edge upon their Spirits and to make them ten times more the Children of Wrath and Cruelty than they were by Nature then surely it loses its Nature and ceases to be Religion For let any Man say worse of Atheism and Infidelity if he can And for God's sake what is Religion good for but to reform the Manners and Dispositions of Men to restrain human Nature from Violence and Cruelty from Falshood and Treachery from Sedition and Rebellion Better it were there were no revealed Religion and that human Nature were left to the Conduct of its own Principles and Inclinations then to be acted by a Religion which inspires Men with so wild a Fury and prompts them to commit such Outrages and is continually supplanting Government and undermining the Welfare of Mankind In short such a Religion that teaches Men to propagate and advance and he might have
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