stand to reason the matter nor greatly cared for any testimonies of the Scripture but said it was at the Kings discretion to abrogate that which was in use and appoint new He said the King might forbid Priests Marriage the King might bar the people from the Cup in the Lords Supper the King might determine this or that in his Kingdom And why forsooth the King had Supream Power This Sacriledge hath taken hold on us whilst Princes think they cannot reign except they abolish all the Authority of the Church and be themselves supream Judges as well in Doctrine as in all Spiritual Regiment To which he subjoyns This was the sense which Calvin affirmed to be sacrilegious and blasphemous for Princes to profess themselves to be Supream Judges of Doctrine and Discipline and indeed it is the blasphemy which all godly hearts reject and abomine in the Bishop of Rome Neither did King Henry take any such thing on him for ought that we can learn but this was Gardiners Stratagem to convey the reproach and shame of the Six Articles from himself and his fellows that were the Authors of them and to cast it on the Kings Supream Power Had Calvin been told that Supream was first received to declare the Prince to be Superiour to the Prelates which exempted themselves from the Kings Authority by their Church Liberties and Immunities as well as to the Lay men of this Realm and not to be subject to the Pope the Word would never have offended him Thus far he and if these Controversies be any farther disputed it is probable the next defence of what is here pleaded will be in the express words of the Principal Prelates of this Realm since the Reformation until their Authority be peremptorily rejected Upon my first design to take a brief Survey of this Discourse I had not the least intention to undertake the examination of any particular Assertions or Reasonings that might fall under Controversie but meerly to examine the general Principles whereon it doth proceed But passing through these things Currente calamo I find my self engaged beyond my thoughts and resolutions I shall therefore here put an end to the consideration of this Chapter although I see sundry things as yet remaining in it that might immediately be discussed with case and advantage as shall be manifest if we are called again to a review of them I have neither desire nor design Serram reciprocare or to engage in any Controversial Discourses with this Author And I presume himself will not take it amiss that I do at present examine those Principles whose Novelty justifies a Disquisition into them and whose Tendency as applyed by him is pernicious and destructive to so many quiet and peaceable persons who dissent from him And yet I will not deny but that I have that Valuation and esteem for that sparkling of Wit Eloquence and sundry other Abilities of mind which appear in his Writing that if he would lay aside the manner of his treating those from whom he dissents with Revilings contemptuous Reproaches personal Reflections Sarcasms and Satyrical expressions and would candidly and perspicuously state any matter in difference I should think that what he hath to offer may deserve the consideration of them who have leisure for such a purpose If he be otherwise minded and resolve to proceed in the way and after the manner here engaged in as I shall in the close of this Discourse absolutely give him my Salve aeternumque vale so I hope he will never meet with any one who shall be willing to deal with him at his own weapons A Survey of the Second Chapter THE Summary of this Chapter must needs give the Reader a great expectation and the Chapter it self no less of satisfaction if what is in the one briefly proposed be in the other as firmly established For amongst other things a Scheme of Religion is promised reducing all its branches either to Moral Vertues or Instruments of Morality which being spoken of Christian Religion is as far as I know an undertaking new and peculiar unto this Author in whose mannagement all that read him must needs weigh and consider how dextrously he hath acquitted himself For as all men grant that Morality hath a great place in Religion so that all Religion is nothing but Morality many are now to learn The Villany of those Mens Religion that are wont to distinguish between Grace and Vertue that is Moral Vertue is nextly traduced and inveighed against I had rather I confess that he had affixed the term of Villany to the men themselves whom he intended to reflect on than to their Religion because as yet it seems to me that it will fall on Christianity and no other Real or pretended Religion that is or ever was in the world For if the Prosessors of it have in all Ages according to its avowed Principles never before contradicted made a distinction between Moral Vertues since these terms were known in the Church and Evangelical Graces if they do so at this day what Religion else can be here branded with this Infamous and horrible reproach I know not A farther enquiry into the Chapter it self may possibly give us farther satisfaction wherein we shall deal as impartially as we are able with a diligent watchfulness against all prejudicate Affections that we may discover what there is of Sense and Truth in the Discourse being ready to receive what ever shall be manifested to have an interest in them The Civil Magistrate we are also here informed amongst many other things that he may do may command any thing in the Worship of God that doth not tend to debauch Mens practices or to disgrace the Deity And that all subordinate Duties both of Morality and Religious Worship such as elsewhere we are told the Sacraments are are equally subject to the determination of Humane Authority These things and sundry others represented in this Summary being new yea some of them as far as I know unheard of amongst Christians untill within a few years last past any Reader may justifie himself in the expectation of full and demonstrative Arguments to be produced in their proof and confirmation What the issue will be some discovery may be made by the ensuing enquiry as was said into the body of the Chapter it self The design of this Chapter in general is to confirm the power of the Magistrate over Religion and the Consciences of men ascribed unto him in the former and to add unto it some enlargements not therein insisted on The Argument used to this purpose is taken from the power of the Magistrate over the Consciences of men in matters of morality or with respect unto moral Vertue whence it is supposed the conclusion is so evident unto his power over their Consciences in matters of Religious Worship that it strikes our Author with wonder and amazement that it should not be received an acknowledged Wherefore to further the conviction of all men in
on this of our Author as the rudest most imperfect and weakest Scheme of Christian Religion that ever yet I saw so far from comprising an induction of all particulars belonging to it that there is nothing in it that is constitutive of Christian Religion as such at all I wish he had given us a summary of the Credenda of it as he hath done of its Agenda that we might have had a prospect of the body of his Divinity The ten Commandments would in my mind have done twice as well on this present occasion with the addition of the Explication of them given us in the Church Cateehism But I am afraid that very Catechism may ere long be esteemed Phanatical also One I confess I have read of before who was of this Opinion that all Religion consisted in Morality alone But withall he was so Ingenious as to follow the conduct of his Judgement in this matter unto a full Renunciation of the Gospel which is certainly inconsistent with it This was one Martin Sidelius a Seilesian who gave the ensuing account of his Faith unto Faustus Socinus and his Society at Cracovia Caeterum ut sciatis cujus sim religionis quamvis id scripto meo quod habetis ostenderim tamen hic breviter repetam Et primum quidem doctrina de Messia seu Rege illo promisso ad meam religionem nihil pertinet nam Rex elle tantum Judaeis promissus erat sicut bona illa Canaan Sic etiam circumcisio sacrificia reliquae cerimoniae Mosis ad me non pertinent sed tantum populo Judaico promissa data mandata sunt Neque ista fuerunt cultus Dei apud Judaeos sed inserviebant cultui divino ad cultum deducebant Judaeos Verus autem cultus Dei quem meam religionem appello est Decalogus qui est aeterna Dei voluntas qui Decalogus ideo ad me pertinet quia etiam mihi à Deo datus est non quidem per vocems sonantem de coelo sicut populo Judaico at per creationem insita est menti meae quia autem insitus Decalogus per corruptionem naturae humanae pravis consuetudinibus aliqua ex parte obscuratus est ideo ad illustrandum cum adhibeo vocalem Decalogum qui vocalis Decalogus ideo etiam ad me ad omnes populos pertinet quia cum insito nobis Decalogo consentit imo idem ille Decalogus est Haec est mea sententia de Messia seu rege illo promisso haec est mea religio quam coram vobis ingenue profiteor Martin Seidelius Olavensis Silesius That is But that you may know of what Religion I am although it is expressed in that Writing which you have already yet I will here briefly repeat it And first of all the Doctrine of the Messiah or King that was promised doth not belong to my Religion for that King was promised to the Jews only as was the good Land of Câ—nâ—an So in like manner circumcision Sacrifices and the rest of the Ceremonies of Moses belong not to me but were promised given and granted unto the people of the Jews alone Neither were they the Worship of God among the Jews but were only subservient unto Divine Worship and lead the Jews unto it the same Opinion is maintained by our Author concerning all exterior Worship but the true Worship which I call my Religion is the Decalogue which is the Eternal and immutable Will of God And here also he hath the consent and concurrence of our Author which Decalogue doth therefore belong unto me because it is given by God to me also not indeed by a voice sounding from Heaven as he gave it to the people of the Jews but it is implanted in my mind by nature But because this implanted Decalogue by reason of the corruption of humane nature and through depraved Customs is in some measure obscured for the illustration of it I make use of the vocal Decalogue which therefore also belongs unto me and all people because it consenteth with the Decalogue written in our hearts yea is the same Law with it This is my opinion concerning the Messiah or the promised King and this is my Religion which I freely acknowledge before ye So he This is plain dealing He saw clearly that if all Religion and the Worship of God consisted in Morality only there was neither need nor use of Christ nor the Gospel And accordingly having no outward advantage by them discarded them But setting aside his bold renunciation of Christ as promised I see not any material difference between the Religion of this man and that now contended for The poor deluded souls among our selves who leaving the Scripture pretend that they are guided by the Light within them are upon the matter of the same Religion For that light being nothing but the Dictates of Reason and a natural Conscience it extends not it self beyond Morality which some of them understanding we know what thoughts and apprehensions they have had of Christ and of his Gospel and the Worship of God instituted therein For hence it is and not as our Author pretends with a strange incogitancy concerning them and the Gnosticks that they assert the Scripture to be the only Rule of Religious Worship that they are fallen into these fond imaginations And these are the effects which this Principle doth naturally lead unto I confess then that I do not agree with our Author in and about this Scheme of Christian Religion which I shall therefore first briefly put in my exceptions unto and then offer him another in lieu of it First Then this Scheme seems to represent Religion unto us as suited to the state of Innocency and that very imperfectly also For it is composed to answer the former assertions of confining Religion to Moral Vertues which are granted to consist in our conformity unto and expression of the Dictates of Reason and the Law of Nature Again the whole duty of man is said to refer either to his Creator or his Neighbour or himself Had it been said to God absolutely another interpretation might have been put upon the words But being restrained unto him as our Creator all Duties referring to our Redeemer are excluded or not included which certainly have some place in Christian Religion Our Obedience therein is the Obedience of Faith and must answer the special objects of it And we are taught in the Church Catechism to believe in God the Father who made us and all the world and in God the Son who redeemed us and all Mankind and in God the Holy Ghost who sanctifies us and all the Elect people of God Now these distinct acts of Faith have distinct acts of Obedience attending them whereas none here are admitted or at least required but those which fall under the first head It is also very imperfect as a description of natural Religion or the Duties of the Law of Nature For the
Testimonies of the writings given by divine inspiration We have here the full substance of what is pleaded for and might the Advice of this Noble Emperour be admitted we should have a readier way to expedite all our present Differences than as yet seems to be provided for us The great Basil speaks yet more expresly than Constantine the great lib. de confes fid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. It hath the manifest guilt of infidelity and pride to reject any thing that is written or to add or introduce any thing that is not written which is the summ of all that in this matter is contended for To the same purpose he discourseth Epist. 80. ad Eustath where moreover he rejects all pretences of Customs and usages of any sorts of men and will have all differences to be brought for their Determination to the Scripture Christstome in his Homily on Psalm 95. speaks the same sense saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Who is it that promiseth these things Paul For we are not to say any thing without Testimony nor upon our meer Reasonings For if any thing be spoken without Scripture Testimony the mind of the hearers fluctuates now assenting anon hesitating sometimes rejecting what is spoken as frivolous sometimes receiving it as probable But where the Testimonies of the Divine Voice comes forth from the Scripture it confirmeth the word of the Speaker and the mind of the Hearer It is even so whilest things relating to Religion and the Worship of God are debated and disputed by the reasonings of men or on any other principles besides the express Authority of the Scriptures no certainty or full perswasion of mind can be attained about them Men under such actings are as Lucian in his Menippus says He was between the Disputations of the Philosophers sometimes he nodded one way sometimes another and seemed to give his assent backwards and forwards to express contradiction It is in the Testimony of the Scripture alone about the things of God that the Consciences of those that fear him can acquiesce and find satisfaction The same Author as in many other places so in his 13 Homily on the 2 Epist. to the Corinth expresly sends us to the Scripture to enquire after all things as that which is the exact Canon ballance and Rule of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Among the Latines Tertullian is express to the same purpose In his Book against Hermogenes Adoro said he plenitudinem Scripturum quae mihi factorem manifestat facta again Scriptum esse hoc doceat Hermogenis officina aut timeat rae illud adjicientibus aut detrahentibus destinatum I Adore the fulness of the Scripture And let Hermogenes prove what he saith to be written or fear the Woe denounced against them who add to or take from the Word And again in his Book de Carne Christi Non recipio quod extra Scriptuream de tuo infers I do not receive what you bring of your own without Scripture So also in his Book de Praescriptionibus Nobis nihil ex nostro arbitrio indulgere licet sed nec eligere quod aliquis de arbitrio suo induxerit Apostoles Domini habemus authores qui nec ipsi quicquam ex suo arbitrio quod inducerent elegerunt sed acceptam a Christo disciplain ani deliter Nationibus assignaverunt It is â— lawful for us in these things to indâ—â— unto our own choice nor to choose what â— one brings in of his choosing We have Apostles of our Lord for our Exampâ—â— who brought in nothing of their own minâ— or choice But having received the Disciplâ— of Christian Religion from Chrsit tâ—â— faithfully communicated it to the Nation â— Hierome is plain to the same purpose iâ— sundry places So Comment in 23 Mattâ— Quod de Scripturis authoritatem non habet eaâ—dem facilitate contemnitur qua probatur Thâ—â— which hath not Authority from the Scriptureâ— is as easily despised as asserted Comm. iâ— Hagg. cap. 1. Sed alia quae absque authoâ—â—ritate testimoniis scripturarum quasi traditione Apostolica sponte reperiunt atque confingunt percutit gladius Dei But those other things which without Authority or Testimony of the Scriptures they find out or faign of their own accord as of Apostolical Tradition the sword of God smites through It were easie to produce twenty other Testimonies out of the Ancient Writers of the church giving sufficient countenance to the Assertion contended about What account our Author gives of this Principle is now very briefly to be considered First therefore pag. 174 175. he reâ—es it as a pretence wild and humoursome â—ich men must be absurd if they believe â— impudent if they do not seeing it hath â—t the least shaddow or foundation either â—m Scripture or Reason though it be exâ—â—esly asserted either in its own terms or â—onfirmed by direct deductions in and â—om above forty places of Scripture â—nd so much for that part of the asâ—ault The next chargeth it with infinite follies â—nd mischiefs in those which allow it And 't is said that there can never be an end of alterations and disturbances in the Church whilest it is maintained The contrary whereof is true confirmed by Experience and Evidence of the thing it self The admittance of it would put an End to all disturbances For let any man judge whether if there be matters in difference as in all these things there are and ever were the bringing them to an issue and a setled stability be not likelier to be effected by all mean consenting unto one common Rule whereby they may be tryed and examined than that every party should be left at liberty to indulge to their own Affections and Imaginations about them And yet we are told p. 178. that all the pious Villanies that ever have disturbed the Christian World have sheltered themselves in this grand Maxime that Jesus Christ is the only Law-maker to his Church I confess I could heartily desire that such expressions might be forborn For let what pretence men please be given to them and colour put upon them they are full of scandal to Christian Religion The Mixime it self here traduced is as true as any part of the Gospel And it cannot be pretended that it is not the Maxime it self but the abuse of it as all the Principles of the Gospel through the Blindness and Lusts of men have been abused that is reflected on seeing the design of the whole Discourse is to evert the Maxime it self Now whatever Apprehensions our Author may have of his own Abilities I am satisfied that they are no way competent to disprove this Principle of the Gospel as will be evident on the first attempt he shall make to that purpose let him begin the tryal as soon as he pleaseth In the third Section we have an heap of instances raked together to confront the Principle in its proper sense before declared and vindicated in no one whereof it is at all concerned
Causes and probable Reasons are to be considered and examined about them and how all rational determinations are guided and influenced by unforeseen emergencies and occasions will not be over-forward to pronounce absolutely and peremptorily about the disposal of important affairs But as the same Author informs us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Young men suppose that they know all things and are vehement in their Asseverations from which frame proceed all those Dogmatical Assertions of what is Politick and Impolitick in Princes of what will establish or ruine Governments with the contempt of the Conceptions of others about things conducing to publick peace and tranquility which so frequently occur in our Author This makes him smile at as serious Consultations for the furtherance of the welfare and prosperity of this Nation as it may be in any age or juncture of time have been upon the Wheel Preface p. 48. These Considerations made it seem to me that in an ordinary course he hath time enough before him to improve the notions he hath here blessed the World with a discovery of if upon second thoughts he be equally enamoured of them unto what now he seems to be I could indeed have desired that he had given us a more clear account of that Religion which in his judgement he doth most approve His commendation of the Church of England sufficiently manifesteth his interest to lye therein and that in pursuit of his own principles he doth outwardly observe the Institutions and prescriptions of it But the Scheme he hath given us of Religion or Religious duties wherein there is mention neither of Sin nor a Redeemer without which no man can entertain any one true notion of Christian Religion would rather bespeak him a Philosopher than a Christian. It is not unlikely but that he will pretend he was treating of Religion as Religion in general without an Application of it to this or that in particular but to speak of Religion as it is among men in this world or ever was since the fall of Adam without a supposition of sin and the way of a relief from the Event of it mentioned is to talk of Chimaera's things that neither are ever were or will be On the other hand the profit and advantage of his Design falls clearly on the Papal Interest For whereas it is framed and contrived for the advantage security and unquestionableness of absolute Complyers with the present Possessors of Power it is evident that in the States of Europe the advantage lyes incomparably on that hand But these things are not our Concernment The design which he manageth in his Discourse the subject matter of it the manner how he treats those with whom he hath to do and deports himself therein are by himself exposed to the judgement of all and are here to be taken into some Examination Now because we have in his Preface a perfect Representation of the things last mentioned throughout the whole I shall in the first place take a general view and Prospect of it And here I must have regard to the Judgement of others I confess for my own part I do not find my self at all concerned in those Invectives tart and upbraiding Expressions those sharp and twinging Satyrs against his Adversaries which he avoweth or rather boasteth himself to have used If this unparalleld heap of Revilings Scoffings despightful Reproaches Sarcasms Scornful contemptuous Expressions false Criminations with frequent Intimations of Sanguinary affections towards them do please his Fancy and express his Morality to his own Satisfaction I shall never complain that he hath used his Liberty and do presume that he judgeth it not meet that it should be restrained It is far from my purpose to return him any Answer in the like manner to these things to do it opus est Mangone perito Qui Smithfieldenst polleat Eloquio Yet some Instances of Prodigious excesses in this Kind will in our Process be reflected on And it may be the Repetition of them may make an appearance unto some less considerate Readers of a little Harshness in some passages of this return But as nothing of that nature in the least is intended nothing that might provoke the Author in his own spirit were he capable of any hot impressions nothing to disadvantage him in his Reputation or esteem so what is spoken being duly weighed will be found to have nothing sharp or unpleasant in it but what is unavoidably infused into it from the discourse it self in its approach unto it to make a representation of it It is of more Concernment to consider with what frame and temper of Spirit he manageth his whole Cause and Debate and this is such as that a man who knows nothing of him but what he learns from this Discourse would suppose that he hath been some great Commander In Campis Gurgustidoniis Vbi Bombamachides Cluninstaridys archides Erat Imperator Summus Neptuni nepos Associate unto him who with his breath blew away and scattered all the Legions of his Enemies as the wind doth leaves in Autumn Such Confidence in himself and his own strength such contempt of all his Adversaries as persons Silly Ignorant Illiterate such boastings of his Atchievments with such a face and appearance of scorning all that shall rise up against him such expressions animi gladiatorii doth he march withall as no man sure will be willing to stand in his way unless he think himself to have lived at least quietly long enough Only some things there are which I cannot but admire in his undertaking and management of it as first that such a Man of Arms and Art as he is should harness himself with so much preparation and enter the Lists with so much pomp and glory to combat such pittiful poor baffled Ignoramus's as he hath chosen to contend withall especially conâ—idering that he knew he had them bound hand and foot and cast under his strokes at his pleasure Methinks it had more become him to have sought out some Giant in Reason and Learning that might have given him at least par animo periculum as Alexander said in his conflict with Porus a danger big enough to exercise his Courage though through mistake it should in the issue have proved but a Wind-mill Again I know not whence it is nor by what Rules of Errantry it may be warranted that being to conflict such pittiful trifles he should before he come near to touch them thunder out such terrible words and load them with so many reproaches and contemptuous Revilings as if he designed to scare them out of the Lists that there might be no tryal of his strength nor exercise of his skill But leaving him to his own choice and liberty in these matters I am yet perswaded that if he knew how little his Adversaries esteem themselves concerned in or worsted by his Revilings how small advantage he hath brought unto the cause managed by him with what severity of Censures that I say not Indignation
principal Duties of it such as fear love trust affiance of and in God are wholly omitted nor will they be reduced unto either of the heads which all Religion is here distributed unto For Gratitude unto God hath respect formally and directly to the benefits we our selves are made partakers of But these Duties are eternally necessary on the consideration of the nature of God himself antecedent unto the consideration of his communicating of himself unto us by his benefits Prayer proceeds from them and it is an odd Method to reduce the Cause under the head of its effect And Prayer it self is made at length not to be so much a Moral Vertue as somewhat instrumental to the vertues of Morality Secondly I cannot think we have here a compleat Representation of Christian Religion nor an induction of all its particulars because we have neither Supposition nor Assertion of Sin or a Redeemer or of any Duty with respect unto them Gratitude and Prayer I confess are two heads whereunto sundry Duties of Natural Religion without respect unto these things may be reduced But since the fall of Adam there was never any Religion in the world accepted with God that was not built and founded on the supposition of them and whose principal Duties towards God did not respect them To prescribe now unto us a Religion as it respects God without those Duties which arise from the consideration of sin and a Redeemer is to perswade us to throw away our Bibles Sin and the condition of all men on the account thereof their Duty in that condition what God requires of them with reference thereunto the way that God hath found out proposed and requires of us to make use of that we may be delivered from that condition with the duties necessary to that end do even constitute and make up that Religion which the Scripture teacheth us and which as it summarily expresseth it self consists in Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ neither of which nor scarce any thing that belongs unto them appears in this Scheme so that Thirdly The most important duties of Christian Religion are here not only omitted but excluded Where shall we find any place here to introduce Repentance and as belonging thereunto Conviction of Sin Humiliation Godly Sorrow Conversion it self to God For my part I will never be of that Religion where these duties towards God have no place Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ with all that is necessary to it preparatory for it included in it and consequentiall on it are in like manner cast out of the verge of Religious duties here schematized An endeavour to fly from the wrath to come to receive Jesus Christ to accept of the attonement to seek after the forgiveness of sins by him that we may cant a little and to give up our souls in universal Obedience to all his commands belong also to the duties of that Religion towards God which the Scripture prescribeth unto us but here they appear not in the least intimation of them No more do the duties which though generally included in the Law of loving God above all yet are prescribed and determined in the Gospel alone Such are self-denyal readiness to take up the Cross and the like Besides all the duties wherein our Christian conflict against our Spiritual Adversaries doth consist and in especial the whole of our duty towards God in the mortification of sin can be of no consideration there where no supposition of sin is made or allowed But there would be no end if all exceptions of this nature that readily offer themselves might here have admittance If this be the Religion of our Adversaries in these things if this be a perfect Scheme of its Duties towards God and induction of all its particulars let our Author insult over and reproach them whilst he pleaseth who blame it as insufficient without Grace and Godliness I would not be in the condition of them who trust their eternal concernments to meer Observance of it as knowing that there is no name under Heaven given unto men whereby they may be saved but only the name of Jesus Christ. It will be in vain pretended that it is not a description of Christian Religion but of Religion as Religion in general that is here attempted For besides that it is Christian Religion and that as used and practised by Christians which is alone under consideration and an Introduction of Religion here under any other notion would be grievously inconsistent and incoherent with the whole Discourse It is acknowledged by our Author in the progress of his Disputation as was before observed when he gives a Reason why Moral Vertue is stiled Grace which is peculiar and appropriate to Christian Religion alone Besides to talk now of a Religion in the World which either hath been or may be since the fall of Adam without respect unto sin is to build Castles in the air All the Religion that God now requires prescribes accepts that is or can be is the Religion of Sinners or of those who are such and of them as such though also under other qualifications On many accounts therefore this scheme of Religion or Religious Duties towards God is exceedingly insufficient and imperfect To lay it therefore as a Foundation whereon to stand and revile them who plead for a superaddition unto it of Grace and Godliness is an undertaking from whence no great success is to be expected I can easily supply another Scheme of Religion in the room of this which though it have not any such contexture of method nor is set out with such gaudy words as those which our Author hath at his disposal yet I am confident in the confession of all Christians shall give a better account than what is here offered unto us both of the Religion we profess and of the Duties that God requires therein and this taken out of one Epistle of St. Paul namely that to the Romans And I shall do it as things come to mind in the haste wherein I am writing He then gives us his Scheme to this purpose As First That all Men sinned in Adam came short of the Glory of God and rendred themselves liable to death and the whole curse of the Law Then that they do all as left to themselves accumulate their Original Sin and Transgression with a world of actual sins and provocations of God That against Men in this condition God testifies his wrath and displeasure both in his works and by his word Hence it necessarily follows that the first Duty of Man towards God is to be sensible of this condition of the guilt of sin with a fear of the wrath and judgement due to them Then he informs us that neither the Jews by the Law nor the Gentiles by the light of Nature could disentangle themselves from this state or do that which is pleasing unto God so as they might obtain forgiveness of Sin and acceptation with him
Tranquility for the future and maintaining love quietness and mutual usefulness at present amongst men Two ways are proposed to this purpose the one is to exercise mutual forbearance to each other whilst we are inevitably under the power of different perswasions in these things producing no practices that are either injurious unto private men in their rights or hurtful unto the State as to publick Peace endeavouring in the mean time by the evidence of Truth and a conversation suited unto it to win upon each other to a consent and Agreement in the things wherein we differ The other is by Severe Laws Penalties outward force as Imprisonments Mulcts Fines Banishments or Capital punishments to compell all men out of hand to an uniformity of practice whatever their judgements be to the contrary Now as the state of things is amongst us which of these wayes is most suitable to the Law of our Being and Creation the best Principles of the nature of man and those which have the most evident Resemblance of Divine Perfections the Gospel the Spirit and Letter of it with the mind of its Author our Lord Jesus Christ which is most conducing to attain the end aimed at in wayes of a natural and genuine complyance with the things themselves of Religion Conscience and Divine Worship is left unto the judgement of God and all good men In the mean time if men will make Declamations upon their own surmises jealousies and suspitions of things which are either so indeed that is really surmized or pretended to be so for some private interests or advantages of their own which no man can answer or remove if they may fancy at their pleasure Ghosts Goblins Fiends walking Sprights Seditions Drums Trumpets Armies Bears and Tigers Every difference in Religion be it never so small be the agreement amongst them that differ never so great be it the visible known open interest of them that dissent from what is established to live quietly and peaceably and to promote the good of the Commonwealth wherein they live do they profess that it is their duty their Principle their Faith and Doctrine to obey constantly their Rulers and Governours in all things not contrary to the mind of God and pretend no such commands of his as should interfere in the least with their power in order to publick tranquility do they offer all the security of their Adherence to such declared Principles as mankind is necessitated to be contented and satisfied with in things of their highest concernment do they avow an especial sense of the Obligation that is put upon them by their Rulers when they are protected in peace have they no concernment in any such Political Societies Combinations Interests as might alone give countenance unto any such disturbance all is one every different Opinion is Press-money and every Sect is an Army although they be all and every one of them Protestants of whom alone we do discourse Other answer therefore I shall not return unto this part of our Authors arguing than what he gave of old Ne admittam culpam ego meo sum promus pectori Suspicio est in pectore alieno sita Nam nunc ego te si surripuisse suspicer Jovi coronam de capite e capitolio Quod in culmine astat summo st non id feceris Atque id tamen mihi lubeat suspicarier Qui tu id prohibere me potes ne suspicer Only I may add that sundry of the Instances our Author makes use of are false and unduly alledged For what is here charged on differences in and about Religion in reference unto publick Tranquility might have been yea and was charged on Christian Religion for three hundred years and is so by many still on Protestancy as such and that it were a very easie and facile task to set out the pernicious evills of a compelled Agreement in the practice of Religion and those not fancied only or feigned but such as do follow it have followed it and will follow it in the world An enquiry in this Invective tending to evince its reasonableness is offered in pag. 158. namely Where there are divided Interests in Religion in the same Kingdom it is asked how shall the Prince behave himself towards them The answer thereunto is not I confess easie because it is not easie to be understood what is intended by divided Interests in Religion We will therefore lay that aside and consider what really is amongst us or may be according to what we understand by these expressions Suppose then that in the same profession of Protestant Religion some different way and Observances in the outward Worship of God should be allowed and the Persons concerned herein have no other cannot be proved to have any other interest with respect unto Religion but to fear God and honour the King it is a very easie thing to return an Answer to this enquiry For not entring into the profound Political Speculation of our Author about ballancing of Parties or siding with this or that Party where the differences themselves constitute no distinct Parties in reference to Civil Government and publick Tranquility let the Prince openly avow by the declaration of his judgement his constant practice his establishing of Legal Rights disposing of publick favours in places and preferments that way of Religion which himself owns and approves and let him indulge and protect others of the same Religion for the substance of it with what himself professeth in the quiet and peaceable exercise of their Consciences in the Worship of God keeping all Dissenters within the bounds allotted to them that none transgress them to the invasion of the Rights of others and he may have both the Reality and Glory of Religion Righteousness Justice and all other Royal Vertues which will render him like to him whose Vice-gerent he is and will undoubtedly reap the blessed fruits of them in the industry peaceableness and Loyalty of all his Subjects whatever There are sundry things in the close of this Chapter objected against such a course of proceedure but those such as are all of them resolved into a supposition that they who in any place or part of the world desire Liberty of Conscience for the Worship of God have indeed no Conscience at all For it is thereon supposed without further evidence that they will thence fall into all wicked and unconscientious practices I shall make as I said no reply to such surmises Christianity suffered under them for many Ages Protestancy hath done so in sundry places for many years And those who now may do so must as they did bear the effects of them as well as they are able Only I shall say First Whatever is of real inconvenience in this pretension on the supposition of Liberty of Conscience is no way removed by taking away all different practices unless ye could also obliterate all different perswasions out of the minds of men which although in one place tells us ought to
Worship of God to be necessarily and for a continuance observed among them but what they had express Warrant and Authority and command of our Lord Christ for Counsel they gave in particular cases that depended upon present emergencies Directions for the regular and due observation of Institutions and the Application of general Rules in particular practice They also taught a due and sanctified use of Civil customes and the proper use of Moral or Natural Symbols But to impose any Religious Rites on the constant practice of the Church in the Worship of God making them necessary to be alwaies observed by that imposition they did not once attempt to do or assume power for it to themselves Yea when upon an important difficulty and to prevent a ruining scandal they were enforced to declare their judgement to the Churches in some points wherein they were to abridge the practice of their Christian liberty for a season they would do it only in things made necessary by the state of things then among the Churches in reference to the great end of edification whereby all practices are to be regulated before the declaration of their judgement for the restriction mentioned Acts 15. So remote were they from assuming unto themselves a Dominion over the Religion Consciences or faith of the Disciples of Christ or requiring any thing in the constant Worship of the Church but what was according to the Will Appointment and Command of their Lord and Master Little countenance therefore is our Author like to obtain unto his sentiments from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament or the Example either of the Jews or Christians mentioned in them The Instances he gives from the Church of the Jewes or that may be given are either Civil Observances as the feast of Purim or Moral conveniencies directed by general Rules as the building of Synagogues or customary signes suited to the nature of things as wearing of Sackcloth or such as have no proof of their being approved As the feast of Dedication and some monethly Fasts taken up in the Captivity from none of which any objection can be taken against the position before laid down Those from the Church of the new Testament had either a perpetual binding institution from the Authority of Christ as the Lords day Sabbath or contain only a direction to use Civil Customes and Observances in an holy and sanctified manner as the Love Feasts and Kiss of Charity or such as were never heard of in the New Testament at all as the observation of Lent and Easter He that out of these instances can draw a warranty for the power of the Civil Magistrate over Religion and the Consciences of men to institnte new duties in Religion when he pleaseth so these do not countenance Vice nor disgrace the Deity which all his Christian Subjects shall be bound in conscience to observe or otherwise make good any of those particulat conclusions that therefore Christ is not the ouly Law giver to his Church or that Divinâ— Revelation is not the adequate rule of Divinâ— Worship or that men may add any thing to the Worship of God to be observed in it constantly and indispensiely by the whole Church will manifest himself to have an Excellency in Argumentation beyond what I have ever yet met withal A removal of the Argument taken from the perfection of the Scripture and its sufficiency to instruct us in the whole Counsel and Will of God concerning his Worship and our Obedience unto him is nextly attempted but with no Engines but what have been discovered to be insufficient to that purpose an hundred times It is alledged That what the Scripture commands in the Worship of God is to be observed that what it forbids is to be avoided Which if really acknowledged and a concernment of the Consciences of men be granted therein is sufficiently destructive of the principal Design of our Author But moreover I say that it commands and foâ—â—bids things by general Rules as well by particular Precepts and Inhibition and that if what is so commanded be dâ—served and what is so forbidden be avoided there is a direct-Rule remaining in for the whole worship of God But this is said here to be of substanâ—â— duties but not of external circumstance and if it be so even of substantial dutâ—â— it perfectly overthrows all that our Authoâ— hath been pleading in the three first Chaâ—ters of his Discourse For external circumstances of what nature those are whâ—â— are disposable by humane Authority anâ— Prudence hath been now often declare and needs not here to be repeated The summ of his Apprehensions in thâ— matter about the perfection and sufficiâ—ency of the Scripture in reference to thâ— Worship of God our Author gives us pag. 189. Anything saith he is lawful thâ—â— is in the Worship of God that is noâ— made unlawful by some prohibition for things become evil not upon the scors of there being not commanded but upon that of their being forbidden And what the Scripture forbids not it allows and what it allows is not unlawful and what is not unlawful may lawfully be done This tale I confess we have been told many and many a time but it hath been as often answered that the whole of It as to any thing of reasoning is captious and sophistical Once more therefore what is commanded in the Worship of God is lawful yea is our duty to observe All particular Instances of this sort that are to have actual place in the Worship of God were easily enumerated and so expresly commanded And why among sundry things that might equally belong thereunto one should be commanded and another left at liberty without any Institution no man can divine Of particular things not to be observed there is not the same reason It is morally impossible that all instances of mens Inventions all that they can find out to introduce into the Worship of God at any time in any Age and please themselves therein should be before hand enumerated and prohibited in their particular instances And if because they are not so forbidden they may lawfully be introduced into Divine Worship and imposed upon the practices of men ten thousand things may be made lawful and be so imposed But the truth is although a particular prohibition be needful to render a thing evil in it self a general prohibition is enough to render any thing unlawful in the Worship of God So we grant that what is not forbidden is lawful but withal say that every thing is forbidden that should be esteemed as any part of Divine Worship that is not commanded and if it were not yet for want of such a command or Divine Institution it can have neither use nor efficacy with respect to the end of all Religious Worship Our Author speaks with his wonted confidence in this matter yea it seems to rise to its highest pitch as also doth his contempt of his Adversaries or whatever is or may be offered by
the Treatise we have had under consideration and it is that given by a King unto those that should pertake of the like Royal Authority with himself Psalm 2. 10 11 12. Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be instructed ye Judges of the earth Serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce with trembling Kiss the Son left he be angry and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little blessed are all they that put their trust in him And he who can inform me how they can render themselves more like unto God more acceptable unto him and more the Concern and Delight of mankind than by relieving peaceable and innocent persons from their Fears Cares and Solicitousness about undeserved evils or from the suffering of such things which no mortal man can convince them that they have merited to undergo or suffer he shall have my thanks for his discovery And what is it that we treat about What is it that a little Truce and Peace is desired unto and pleaded for What are the concerns of publick good therein Let a little sedate consideration be exercised about these things and the causelesness of all the Wrath we have been conversing withall will quickly appear That there is a sad degeneracy of Christianity in the world amongst the Professors of Christian Religion from the Rule Spirit Worship and Conversation of the first Christians who in all things observed and expressed the Nature Vertue and Power of the Gospel all must acknowledge and many do complain Whatever of this kind comes to pass and by what means soever it is the interest and design of them who are present gainers by it in the world to keep all things in the posture that yields them their advantage Hence upon every Appearance of an Alteration or Apprehension that any will desert the Wayes of Worship wherein they have been engaged they are cast into a storm of passion and outrage like Demetrius and the rest of the Silver-smiths pretending divisions present settlement ancient veneration and the like when their gain and advantage whether known or unknown to themselves is that which both influenceth them with such a frame of Spirit and animates them to actings suitable thereunto Thus in the Ages past there was so great and universal an Apostacy long before fore-told overspreading Christianity that by innumerable sober persons it was judged intolerable and that if men had any regard to the Gospel of Christ their own freedom in the world or everlasting blessedness there was a necessity of a Reformation and the reduction of the profession of Christian Religion unto some nearer conformity to the Primitive times and pattern Into this design sundry Kings Princes and whole Nations engaged themselves namely what lay in them and according to the sentiments of Truth they had received to reduce Religion unto its pristine Glory What Wrath Clamours Fury Indignation Revenge Malice this occasioned in them whose Subsistence Wealth Advantages Honour and Reputation all lay in preserving things in their state of defection and Apostacy is known to all the world Hence therefore arose bloody persecutions in all and fierce Wars in many Nations where this thing was attempted stirred up by the craft and cruelty of them who had mastered and managed the former declensions of Religion to their own use and advantage The guilt of which mischiefs and miseries unto mankind is by a late Writer amongst our selves contrary to all the monuments of times past and confessions of the Adversaries themselves endeavoured to be cast on the Reformers However a work of Reformation was carried on in the world and succeeded in many places in none more eminently than in this Nation wherein we live That the end aimed at which was professedly the Reduction of Religion to its antient Beauty and Glory in Truth and Worship is attained amongst us some perhaps do judge and absolutely acquiesce therein and for my part I wish we had more did so For be it spoken as I hope without offence on the part of others so without fear of giving it or having it taken on my own there are among many such evident Declensions from the first established Reformation towards the old or a new and it may be worse Apostacy such an apparent weariness of the principal Doctrines and practices which enlivened the Reformation as I cannot but be troubled at and wherewith many are offended For although I do own a dissent from some present establishments in the Church of England yet I have that honour for the first Reformers of it and Reformation it self that love to the Truth declared and established in it that respect to the Work and Grace of God in the conversion of the souls of thousands by the Ministry of the word in these Nations that I cannot but grieve continually to see the acknowledged Doctrines of it deserted its ancient principles and practices derided its pristine zeal despised by some who make advantage of its outward constitution inheriting the profits emoluments and wealth which the bounty of our Kings have endowed it withal but not its Spirit its Love its stedfastness in owning the Protestant Truth and Cause But to return for these things may better elsewhere be complained of seeing they relate only to particular persons That what is done in Reformation be established that any farther publick work of the same nature be attempted or the retrivement of what is done to its original condition and estate belongs to the determination of the Supream Magistrate and to that alone Private persons have no Call no Warrant to attempt any thing unto those purposes However many there are who dislike some Ecclestastical Constitutions and Modes of outward Worship which have been the matter of great contests from the first Reformation but much more dislike the degeneracy from the Spirit way and principles of the first Reformers before mentioned which in some at present they apprehend And therefore though many seem to be at a great distance from the present established Forms of the Church of England yet certainly all who are humble and peaceable when they shall see the Ministry of the Church as in former dayes in some measure acted rightly and zealously towards the known ends of it and such as are undeniably by all acknowledged namely the Conviction of the World the Conversion of Souls and Edification of them that do believe and the discipline of it exercised in a conformily at least to the Rule of the Discipline of the secular powers of the earth not to be a terrour to the good but to them that do evil and in these things a demonstration of the Meekness Humility Patience forbearance condescension to the weakness mistakes errings and wandrings of others which the Gospel doth as plainly and evidently require of us as it doth that we should believe in Jesus Christ will continually pray for its prosperity though they cannot themselves joyn with it in sundry of its practices and wayes In the
TRUTH AND INNOCENCE VINDICATED IN A SURVEY OF A DISCOURSE Concerning Ecclesiastical Polity And the Authority of the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Subjects in Matters of Religion Non Partum studiis agimur sed sumsimus arma Consiliis innimica tuis Discordia Vaecors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clemens Alexand. London Printed 1669. REVIEW OF THE PREFACE AMong the many Disadvantages which those who plead in any sense for Liberty of Conscience are exposed unto it is not the least that in their arguings and Pleas they are enforced to admit a Supposition That those whom they plead for are indeed really mistaken in their Apprehensions about the matters concerning which they yet desire to be indulged in their practice For unless they will give place to such a supposition or if they will rigidly contend that what they plead in the behalf of is absolutely the Truth and that obedience thereunto is the direct Will and Command of God there remains no proper field for the Debate about Indulgence to be mannaged in For things acknowledged to be such are not capable of an Indulgence properly so called because the utmost Liberty that is necessary unto them is their Right and Due in strict Justice and Law Men therefore in such Discourses speak not to the nature of the things themselves but to the Apprehensions of them with whom they have to do But yet against this Disadvantage every Party which plead for themselves are relieved by that secret reserve that they have in the perswasion of the Truth and Goodness of what they profess and desire to be indulged in the practice of And this also as occasion doth offer it self and in the defence of themselves from the charge of their Adversaries they openly contend and avow Neither was it judged formerly that there was any way to deprive them of this Reserve and Relief but by a direct and particular Debate of the matters specially in difference carried on unto their Conviction by evidence of Truth managed from the Common Principles of it But after Tryal made this way to convince men of their errors and mistakes who stand in need of Indulgence with respect unto the outward Administration of the powers that they are under is found as it should seem tedious unreasonable and ineffectual A new way therefore to this purpose is fixed on and it is earnestly pleaded That there needs no other Argument or Medium to prove men to be mistaken in their Apprehensions and to miscarry in their practice of Religious duties than that at any time or in any place they stand in need of Indulgence To Dissent at all adventures is a crime and he whom others persecute tacitly at least confesseth himself guilty For it is said That the Law of the Magistrate being the sole Rule of Obedience in Religious Worship their Non-complyance with any Law by him established evidencing it self in their desire of Exemption is a sufficient conviction yea a self-acknowledgement not only of their Errors and Mistakes in what they apprehend of their Duty in these things and of their Miscarriages in what they practise but also that themselves are persons Turbulent and Seditious in withdrawing Obedience from the Laws which are justly imposed on them With what Restrictions and Limitations or whether with any or no these Assertions are maintained we shall afterward enquire The Management of this Plea if I greatly mistake him not is one of the principal Designs of the Author of that Discourse a brief Survey whereof is here proposed The Principle which he proceeds herein upon himself it seems knew to be Novel and Uncouth and therefore thought it incumbent on him that both the manner of its handling and the other Principles that he judged meet to associate with it or annex unto it should be of the same kind and complexion This Design hath at length produced us this Discourse which of what use it may prove to the Church of God what tendency it may have to retrive or promote Love and Peace among Christians I know not This I know that it hath filled many persons of all sorts with manifold surprizals and some with amazement I have therefore on sundry Considerations prevailed with my self much against my inclinations for the sake of Truth and Peace to spend a few hours in the examination of the principal parts and seeming pillars of the whole Fabrick And this I was in my own mind the more easily indueed unto because there is no concernment either of the Church or State in the things here under debate unless it be that they should be vindicated from having any concern in the things and opinions here pleaded and argued For as to the present Church if the Principles and reasonings here maintained and managed are agreeable unto her Sentiments and allowed by her yet there can be no offence given in their Examination because she hath no where yet declared them so to be And the truth is if they are once owned and espoused by her to the ends for which they are asserted as the Christians of old triumphed in the thoughts of him who first engaged in wayes of violence against them among the Nations in the world so the Non-Conformists will have no small relief to their minds in their sufferings when they understand these to be the avowed Principles and Grounds on which they are to be persecuted and destroyed And for the power of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction belonging to the Kings of this Nation as it hath been claimed and exercised by them in all ages since the establishment of Christian Religion among us as it is declared in the Laws Statutes and Customs of the Kingdom and prescribed unto an Acknowledgement in the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy it and steddiness of expression which we shall be farther accustomed unto But in what here he avers of himself he seems to have the advantage of our Lord Jesus Christ who upon less provocations than he hath undertaken the consideration of for the Pharisees with whom he had to deal were Gentlemen be tells us unto those with whom himself hath to do as he saith fell into an hot fit of Zeal yea into an height of Impatience which made him act with a seeming fury and transport of passion pag. 7. And if that be indeed his temper which he commends in himself he seems to me to be obliged for it unto his Constitution and Complexion as he speaks and not to his Age seeing his juvenile expressions and confidence will not allow us to think that he suffers under any defervescency of spirit by his years The Philosopher tells us that old men in matters dubious and weighty are not over-forward to be Positive but ready to cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps and it may be so and this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they have experience of the uncertainty of things in this world As indeed those who know what entanglements all humane Affairs are attended withal what appearing
Scripture smutty passages weak impertinent Discourses yea profane scurrilities which some others whom for their Honors sake and other Reasons I shall not name have in their Sermons and Discourses about sacred things been guilty of he might provide matter enough for a score of such Dialogues as the Friendly Debates are composed of But to return That the Advantages mentioned are somewhat peculiar unto Dialogues we have a sufficient evidence in this that our Author having another special design he chose another way of writing suited thereunto He professeth that he hath neither hope nor expectation to convince his Adversaries of their Crimes or Mistakes nor doth endeavour any such thing Nor did he meerly project to render them contemptible and ridiculous which to have effected the writing of Dialogues in his mannagement would have been most accommodate But his purpose was to expose them to persecution or to the severity of Penal Laws from the Magistrate and if possible it may be to popular Rage and Fury The voice of his whole Discourse is the same with that of the Jews concerning St. Paul Away with such fellows from the earth for it is not meet they should live Such an account of his thoughts he gives us pag. 253. saith he The only cause of all our Troubles and Disturbances which what they are he knows not nor can declare is the inflexible perverfeness of about an hundred proud ignorant and seditious Preachers against whom if the severity of the Laws were particularly levelled how easie would it be c. Macte nova virtute puer sic itur ad astra But I hope it will appear before the close of this Discourse that our Author is far from deserving the reputation of Infallible in his Politicks whatever he may be thought to do in his Divinity It is sufficiently known how he is mistaken in his Calculation of the numbers of those whom he designs to brand with the blackest marks of Infamy and whom he exposeth in his Desires to the severities of Law for their Ruine I am sure it is probable that there are more than an hundred of those whom he intends who may say unto him as Gregory of Nazianzen introduceth his Father speaking to himself Nondum tot sunt anni tui quot jam in sacris Nobis sunt peracti victimis Who have been longer in the Ministry than He in the World But suppose there were but an hundred of them he knows or may know when there was such a disparity in the numbers of them that contested about Religion that it was said of them All the World against Athanasius and Athanasius against the World who yet was in the right against them all as they must acknowledge who frequently say or sing his Quicunque vult But how came he so well acquainted with them all and every one as to pronounce of them that they are Proud Ignorant and seditious allow him the Liberty which I see he will take whether we allow it him or no to call whom he pleaseth Seditious upon the account of reall or supposed principles not complyant with his thoughts and apprehensions yet that men are Proud and Ignorant how he can prove but by particular Instances from his own acquaintance with them I know not And if he should be allowed to be a competent judge of Knowledge and Ignorance in the whole compass of Wisdom and Science which it may be some will except against yet unless he had personally conversed with them all or were able to give sufficient instances of their ignorance from Actings Writings or Expressions of their own he would scarce be able to give a Tolerable account of the Honesty of this his pâ—remptory censure And surely this must needs be looked on as a lovely gentle and Philosophick Humour to judge all men Proud and Ignorant who are not of our minds in all things and on that ground alone But yet let them be as ignorant as can be fancied this will not determine the Difference between them and their Adversaries One unlearned Paphnutius in the Council of Nice stopped all the learned Fathers when they were precipitately casting the Church into a snare And others as unlearned as He may Honestly attempt the same at any time And for our Authors Projection for the obtaining of Quiet by severe dealings with these men in an especial manner one of the same nature failed in the instance mentioned For when Athanasius stood almost by himself in the Eastern Empire for a Profession in Religion which the supream Magistrate and the generality of the Clergy condemned it was thought the Levelling of severity in particular against Him would bring all to a Composure To this purpose after they had again and again charged him to be Proud and Seditious they vigorously engaged in his Prosecution according to the Projection here proposed and sought him neer all the World over but to no purpose at all as the event discovered For the Truth which he professed having left its root in the hearts of multitudes of the people on the first opportunity they returned again to the open avowing of it But to return from this Digression this being the Design of our Author not so much to expose his Adversaries to common Contempt and Laughter as to Ruine and Destruction he diverted from the beaten path of Dialogues and betook himself unto that of Rhetorical Invective Declamations which is peculiarly suited to carry on and promote such a Design I shall therefore here leave him for the present following the Triumphant Chariot of his Friend singing io triumphe and casting Reflections upon the Captives that he draggs after him at his chariot wheels which will doubtless supply his Imagination with a pleasing entertainment untill he shall awake out of his dream and find all the Pageantry that his Fancy hath erected round about him to vanish and disappear His next attempt is upon Atheists wherein I have no concern nor his principal Adversaries the Non-Conformists For my part I have had this Advantage by my own Obscurity and small Consideration in the World as never to converse with any persons that did or durst Question the Being or Providence of God either really or in pretence By common reports and published discourses I find that there are not a few in these dayes who either out of pride and ostentation or in a real complyance with their own darkness and Ignorance do boldly venture to dispute the things which we adore and if I am not greatly mis-informed a charge of this prodigious Licentiousness and Impiety may from pregnant instances be brought neer the doors of some who on other occasions declaim against it For Practical Atheism the matter seems to be unquestionable many live as though they believed neither God nor Devil in the world but Themselves With neither sort am I concerned to treat at present nor shall I examine the Invectives of our Author against them though I greatly doubt whether ever such a kind
of Defence of the Being of God was written by any man before him If a man would make a judgement upon the genius and way of his Discourse he might possibly be tempted to fear that it is persons rather than Things that are the object of his Indignation and it may be the fate of some to suffer under the Infamy of Atheism as it is thought Diagoras did of old not for denying the Deity nor for any absurd conceptions of mind concerning it but for deriding and contemning them who without any interest in or sense of Religion did foolishly in Idoliatrous Instances make a pretence of it in the world But whatever wickedness or miscarriages of this nature our Author hath observed his zeal against them were greatly to be commended but that it is not in that only Instance wherein he allows of the exercise of that vertue Let it then be his Anger or Indignation or what he pleases that he may not miss of his due praises and commendation Only I must say that I question whether to charge persons enclined to Atheism with profaning Johnson and Fletcher as well as the Holy Scriptures be a way of proceeding probably suited to their Conviction or Reduction It seems also that those who are here chastised do vent their Atheism in Scossing and Drollery jesting and such like contemptible efforts of Wit that may take for a while amongst little and unlearned people and immediately evaporate I am afraid more of those who under pretences of sober Reason do vent and maintain opinions and principles that have a direct tendency to give an open admission unto Atheism in the minds of men than of such fooleries When others fury and raving cruelties succeeded not he alone prevailed qui solus accessit sobrius ad perdendam Remp. One principle contended for as Rational and true which if admitted will insensibly seduce the mind unto and justifie a practice ending in Atheism is more to be feared than ten thousand jests and scoffs against Religion which methinks amongst men of any tolerable Sobriety should easily be buried under Contempt and Scorn And our Author may do well to consider whether he hath not unwittingly I presume in some instances so expressed and demeaned himself as to give no small Advantage to those corrupt Inclinations unto Atheism which abound in the hearts of men Are not men taught here to keep the Liberty of their Minds and Judgements to themselves whilest they practise that which they approve not nor can do so which is directly to act against the light and conviction of Conscience And yet an associate of his in his present design in a modest and free Conference tells us that there is not awider step to Atheism than to do any thing against Conscience and enforms his Friend that Dissent out of grounds that appear to any founded on the will of God is Conscience but against such a Conscience the Light Judgement and Conviction of it are men here taught to practise and thereby in the judgement of that Author are instructed unto Atheism And indeed if once men find themselves at Liberty to practise contrary to what is prescribed unto them in the name and authority of God as all things are which Conscience requires it is not long that they will retain any regard of him or Reverence unto Him It hath hitherto been the Judgement of all who have enquired into these things that the great concern of the Glory of God in the world the interest of Kings and Rulers of all Governments whatever the good and welfare of private persons lyes in nothing more than in preserving Conscience from being debauched in the conducting principles of it and in keeping up its due Respect to the immediate Soveraignty of God over it in all things Neither ever was there a more horrid attempt upon the Truth of the Gospel all common Morality and the good of Mankind than that which some of late years or Ages have been engaged in by suggesting in their Casuistical Writings such principles for the guidance of the Consciences of men as in sundry particular instances might set them free as to practice from the direct and immedsately influencing Authority of God in his Word And yet I doubt not but it may be made evident that all their principleâ— in conjunction are scarce of so pernicious a tendency as this one general Theorem That men may lawfully act in the Worship of God or otherwise against the Light Dictates or Convictions of their own Consciences Exempt Conscience from an absolute immediate entire universal dependance on the Authority Will and Judgement of God according to what Conceptions it hath of them and you disturb the whole harmony of divine Providence in the Government of the World and break the first link of that great chain whereon all Religion and Government in the world do depend Teach men to be like Naaman the Syrian to believe only in the God of Israel and to Worship Him according to his Appointment by his own Choice and from a sense of duty yet also to bow in the house of Rimmon contrary to his Light and Conviction out of Complyance with his Master or with the men of Samaria to fear the Lord but to worship their Idols and they will not fail at one time or other rather to seek after Rest in restless Atheism than to live in a perpetual conflict with themselves or to cherish an everlasting Sedition in their own bosomes I shall not much reflect upon those Expressions which our Author is pleased to vent his Indignation by such as Religious rage and fury Religious villany religious lunacies serious and Consciencious Villanies wildness of godly madness men lead by the Spirit of God to disturb the publick peace the world filled with a buzze and noise of the divine Spirit sanctified fury sanctified barbarism pious villanies godly disobedience sullen and cross-grained godliness with innumerable others of the like kind which although perhaps he may countenance himself in the use of from the tacite respect that he hath to the persons whom he intends to vilifie and reproach yet in themselves and to others who have not the same apprehensions of their occasion they tend to nothing but to beget a scorn and derision of all Religion and the profession of it an humour which will not find where to rest or fix it self untill it comes to be swallowed up in the Abysse of Atheism We are at length arrived at the last Act of this Tragical Preface and as in our progress we have rather heard a great Noise and Bluster than really encountred either true difficulty or danger so now I confess that Weariness of conversing with so many various sounds of the same signification the summ of all being Knaves Villains Fools will carry me through the remainder of it with some more than ordinary precipitation as grudging an Addition in this kind of employment to those few minutes wherein the preceding Remarques were written
Tranquility in this world the great end of His Authority So he asserts also that there are things of God which are to be observed and practised even all and every one of his own commands in a neglect whereof on any pretence or account we give not unto God that which is His. And he doubted not but that these things these distinct respects to God and man were exceedingly well consistent and together directive to the same end of publick good Wherefore passing through the flourishes of this Frontispiece with the highest inconcernment we may enter the Fabrick it self where possibly we may find him declaring directly what it is that he asserts in this matter and contendeth for and this he doth pag. 10. And therefore it is the design of this Discourse by a fair and impartial Debate to compose all these differences and adjust all these quarrells and contentions and settle things upon their true and proper foundations first by proving it to be absolutely necessary to the peace and Government of the World that the Supream Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion I am sure our Author will not be surprized if after he hath reported the whole Party whom he opposeth as a Company of silly foolish illiterate Persons one of them should so far acknowledge his own stupidity as to profess that after the Consideration of this Declaration of his Intention and mind he is yet to seek for the Direct and determinate sense of his Words and for the Principle that he designes the Confirmation of I doubt not but that the Magistrate hath all that power which is absolutely necessary for the preservation of publick Peace and Tranquility in the world But if men may be allowed to fancy what they please to be necessary unto that end and thence to make their own measures of that power which is to be ascribed unto Him no man knows what bounds will be fixed unto that Ocean wherein the Leviathans they have framed in their Imagination may sport themselves Some will perhaps think it necessary to this purpose that the Magistrate should have power to declare and determine whether there be a God or no whether if there be it be necessary He should be worshipped or no whether any Religion be needful in or usefull to the World and if there be then to determine what all subjects shall believe and practise from first to last in the whole of it And our Author hopes that some are of this mind Others may confine it to lesser things according as their own Interest doth call upon them so to do though they are not able to assign a clear distinction between what is subjected unto Him and what may plead an exemption from his Authority He indeed who is the Fountain and Original of all Power hath both assigned its proper end and fully suited it to the attainment thereof And if the noise of mens Lusts Passions and Interests were but a little silenced we should quickly hear the harmonious consenting voice of Humane nature it self declaring the just proportion that is between the Grant of power and its end and undeniably express it in all the instances of it For as the Principle of Rule and Subjection is natural to us concreated with us and indispensably necessary to Humane Society in all the distinctions it is capable of and Relations whence those Distinctions arise so Nature it self duly attended unto will not fail by the Reason of things to direct us unto all that is essential unto it and necessary unto its end Arbitrary Fictions of Ends of Government and what is necessary thereunto influenced by present Interest and arising from circumstances confined to one Place Time or Nation are not to be imposed on the Nature of Government it self which hath nothing belonging unto it but what inseparably accompanieth mankind as Sociable But to let this pass The Authority here particularly asserted is a Power in the supream Magistrate to govern and guide the Consciences of his Subjects in affairs of Religion Let any man duly consider these expressions and if he be satisfied by them as to the sense of the Controversie under debate I shall acknowledge that he is wiser than I which is very easie for any one to be What are the Affairs of Religion here intended all or some Whether in Religion or about it what are the Consciences of men and how exercised about these things what it is to govern and conduct them with what power by what means this may be done I am at a loss for ought that yet is here declared There is a Guidance Conduct yea Government of the Consciences of men by Instructions and Directions in a due proposal of rational and spiritual motives for those ends such as is that which is vested in and exercised by the Guides of the Church and that in subjection to and dependance on Christ alone as hath been hitherto apprehended though some now seem to have a mind to change their Master and to take up praesente Numine who may be of more Advantage to them That the Magistrate hath also power so to govern and conduct the Consciences of his Subjects in his way of Administration that is by ordering them to be taught instructed and guided in their duty I know none that doth deny So did Jehosophat 2 Chron. 17 7 8 9. But it seems to be a Government and Guidance of another nature that is here intended To deliver our selves therefore from the Deceit and Intanglement of these general expressions and that we may know what to speak unto we must seek for a Declaration of their sense and Importance from what is elsewhere in their pursuit affirmed and explained by their Author His general Assertion is as was observed that the Magistrate hath power over the Consciences of his Subjects in Religion as appears in the Title of his Book Here p. 10. that power is said to be to govern and conduct their Consciences in Religious Affairs pag. 13. that Religion is subject to his dominion as well as all other affairs of State pag. 27. it is a Soveraignty over mens Consciences in matters of Religion and this Universal Absolute and Uncontrollable Matters of Religion are as uncontrollably subject to the supream power as all other Civil Concerns He may if he please reserve the Exercise of the Priesthood to Himself p. 32. that is what now in Religion corresponds unto the ancient Priesthood as the Ordering Bishops and Priests Administring Sacraments and the like as the Papists in Q. Elizabeth 's time did commonly report in their usual manner that it was done by a Woman amongst us by a fiction of such principles as begin it seems now to be owned That if this power of the Government of Religion be not Universal and Unlimited it is useless p. 35. that this power is not derived from Christ nor any grant of
God and shews himself to be God As we formerly said Non-Conformists who are unacquainted with the Mysteries of things of this Nature must needs desire to know whether these be the avowed Principles of the Church of England or whether they are only Inventions to serve a present Turn of the pursuit of some mens designs Are all the old Pleas of the Jus Divinum of Episcopacy of Example and Direction Apostolical of a Parity of reason between the Condition of the Church whilst under extraordinary Officers and whilst under ordinary of the power of the Church to appoint Ceremonies for Decency and Order of the Consistency of Christian Liberty with the necessary practice of indifferent things of the pattern of the Churches of old which whether duly or otherwise we do not now determine have been insisted on in this cause swallowed all up in this Abysse of Magistratical Omnipotency which plainly renders them useless and unprofitable How unhappy hath it been that the Christian World was not sooner blessed with this great Discovery of the only way and means of putting a final end unto all Religious contests That he should not until now appear Qui genus humanum ingenio Superavit omnes Praestrinxit stellas exortus at aetherius sol But every Age produceth not a Columbus Many indeed have been the Disputes of Learned men about the power of Magistrates in and concerning Religion With us it is stated in the recorded Actings of our Soveraign Princes in the Oath of Supremacy and the Acts of Parliament concerning it with other Authentick Writings explanatory thereof Some have denyed him any concern herein our Author is none of them but rather like the Phrenetick Gentleman who when he was accused in former dayes for denying the Corporal presence of Christ in the Sacrament replyed in his own defence that he believed him to be present booted and spurred as he rode to Capernaum He hath brought him in booted and spurred yea armed cap-a-pie into the Church of God and given all power into his hands to dispose of the Worship of God according to his own will and pleasure And that not with respect unto outward Order only but with direct obligation upon the Consciences of men But doubtless it is the Wisdom of Soveraign Princes to beware of this sort of Enemies Persons who to promote their own Interest make Ascriptions of such things unto them as they cannot accept of without the utmost hazzard of the displeasure of God Is it meet that to satisfie the desires of any they should invade the Prerogative of God or set themselves down at his right Hand in the Throne of his only begotten Son I confess they are no way concerned in what others for their advantage sake as they suppose will ascribe unto them which they may sufficiently disown by scorn and silence Nor can their sin involve them in any guilt It was not the vain Acclamation of the multitude unto Herod the voice of God and not of man but his own arrogant satisfaction in that blasphemous Assignation of divine glory to him that exposed him to the judgements and vengeance of God When the Princes of Israel found by the Answer of the Reubenites that they had not transgressed against the Law of Gods Worship in adding unto it or altering of it which they knew would have been a provocation not to have been passed over without a recompence of Revenge They replyed unto them Now have you delivered the Children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord and it is to be desired that all the Princes of the Israel of God in the world all Christian Potentates would diligently watch against giving admission unto any such Insinuations as would deliver them into the hand of the Lord. For my own part such is my Ignorance that I know not that any Magistrate from the foundation of the world unless it were Nebuchadnezzar Caiâ—s Caligula Domitian and Persons like to them ever claimed or pretended to exercise the power here assigned unto them The Instances of the Laws and Edicts of Constantine in the matters of Religion and the Worship of God of Theodosius and Gratian Arcadius Martian and other Emperours of the East remaining in the Code and Novels the Capitular of the Western Emperours and Laws of Gothish Kings the Right of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction inherent in the Imperial Crown of this Nation and occasionally exercised in all Ages are of no concernment in this matter For no man denyes but that it is the duty of the Supream Magistrate to protect and further the true Religion and right Worship of God by all wayes and means suited and appointed of God thereunto To encourage the Professors thereof to protect them from wrong and violence to secure them in the performance of their duties is doubtless incumbent on them Whatever under pretence of Religion brings actual disturbance unto the peace of mankind they may coerce and restrain When Religion as established in any Nation by Law doth or may interest the Professors of it or Guides in it in any Priviledges Advantages or Secular Emoluments which are subject and lyable as all humane concerns to doubts controversies and litigious contests in their security and disposal all these things depend meerly and solely on the power of the Magistrate by whose Authority they are originally grantted and by whose Jurisdictive Power both the Persons vested with them and themselves are disposable But for an Absolute Power over the Consciences of men to bind or oblige them formally thereby to do whatever they shall require in the Worship of God so as to make it their sin deserving eternal damnation not so to do without any consideration whether the things are true or false according to the mind of God or otherwise yea though they are apprehended by them who are so obliged to practise them to be contrary to the Will of God that this hath hitherto been claimed by any Magistrate unless such as those before mentioned I am yet to seek And the case is the same with respect unto them who are not satisâ—ied that what is so prescribed unto them will be accepted with God For whereas in all that men do in the Worship of God they ought to be fully perswaded of its acceptableness to God in their own minds seeing whatever is not of faith is sin he that doubteth is in a very little better Capacity to serve God on such injunctions then he who apprehendeth them to be directly contrary to his mind If an Edict were drawn up for the settlement of Religion and Religious Worship in any Christian Nation according to the Principles and Directions before laid down it may be there would be no great strife in the world by whom it should be first owned and espoused For it must be of this Importance Whereas We have an Vniversal and Absolute Power over the Consciences of all our Subjects in things appertaining to the Worship of God so that if We please We
and Rest such as our Author excellently displayes in all their hideous colours and appearances and which are really pernicious to Humane Policy and Society Were it not much better that all these inconveniencies had been prevented in the first Instance by taking care that the Faith Thoughts Perswasions and Judgements of all Subjects about the things of God should be absolutely bound up unto the declared conceptions of their Rulers in these matters Let it not be pretended that this is impossible and contrary to the natural liberty of the minds of men as rational creatures guiding and determining themselves according to their own reason of things and understandings For do but fix the declared Will of the Ruler in the room and place of Divine Revelation which is no hard matter to do which some actually do universally and our Author as to a great share and proportion and the obligation sought after to prevent all Inconvencies in Government falls as full and directly upon the minds thoughts and judgements of men as upon any of their outward Actions And this for the substance of it is now pleaded for seeing it is pretended that in all things dubious where men cannot satisfie themselves that it is the Will of God that they should do a thing or no the Declaration of the Magistrate determines not only their Practice but their Judgement also and gives them that full perswasion of their minds which is indispensably required unto their acting in such things and that faith which frees them from sin For he that doubteth is damned if he eat But it will be said that there will be no need hereof For let men think and judge what they please whilst they are convinced and satisfied that it is their duty not to practise any thing outwardly in Religion but what is prescribed by their Rulers it is not possible that any publick evil should ensue upon their mental conceptions only We observed before that the condition described is exceedingly uneasie which I suppose will not be denyed by men who have seriously considered what it is either to judge or practise any thing that lyes before them with reference unto the judgment of God And that which should tye men up to rest perpetually in such a restless state is as it seems a meer conviction of their duty They ought to be and are supposed to be convinced that it is their duty to maintain the liberty of their minds and judgements but to submit in their outward practice universally to the Laws of men that are over them And this sense and conviction of duty is a sufficient security unto publick tranquility in all that contrariety and opposition of Sentiments unto Established Religion and Forms of Worship that may be imagined But if this be so why will not the same conviction and sense of duty restrain them who do peaceably exercise the Worship of God according to the Light and Dictates of their Consciences from any actings whatever that may tend to the disturbance of the Publick Peace Duty nakedly considered is even as such the greatest obligation on the minds of men and the great security of others in their Actings ariseth from theâ—c◠〈◊〉 more it is influenced and advantaged by outward considerations the less it is assaulted and opposed by things grievous and perplexing in the way of the Discharge of it the more efficacious will be its operations on the minds of men and the firmer will be the security unto others that thence ariseth Now these Advantages lye absolutely on the part of them who practise or are allowed so to do according to their own Light and Perswasion in the Worship of God wherein they are at rest and full satisfaction of mind and not on theirs who all their dayes are bound up to a perverse distorted posture of mind and soul in judging one thing to be best and most pleasing unto God and practising of the contrary Such an one is the man that of all others Rulers have need I think to be most jealous of For what security can be had of him who hath inured himself unto a continual contradiction between his Faith and his practice For my part I should either expect no other measure from him in any other thing nor ever judge that his profession and wayes of Actings are any sufficient Indications of his mind which takes away all security from mankind or fear that his Convictions of Light and Knowledge as he apprehends would at one time or other precipitate him into attempts of Irregularity and violence for his own relief Hic nigâ—r est hunc tu Romane caveto It will be said perhaps that we need not look farther for the Disturbance of publick peace from them who practise outwardly any thing in the Worship of God but what is prescribed established and enjoyned seeing that every such practice is such a disturbance it self I say this pretence is miserably ridiculous and contemptible and contrary to the common experience of mankind If this were so the whole World for 300 years lived in one continual disturbance and tumult upon the account of Christian Religion whose Professors constantly practised and performed that in the Worship of God which was so far from being established or approved by Publick Authority that it was proscribed and condemned under penalties of all sorts pecuniary corporal and sanguinary or capital But we see no such matter ensued nor the least disquietment unto the World but what was given unto it by the rage of bloody persecutors that introduced the first Convulsions into the Roman Empire which were never well quieted but ended in its dissolution The experience also of the present and next preceding Ages casts this frivolous exception out of consideration And as such a practice even against Legal Prohibitions though it be by the transgression of a penal Law is yet in it self and just consequence remote enough from any disturbance of Government unless we should suppose that every Non-observance of a penal Statute invalidates the Government of a Nation which were to fix it upon such a Foundation as will not afford it the steddiness of a Weathercok so being allowed by way of exemption it contains no invasion upon or intrusion into the rights of others but being accompanied with the Abridgement of the priviledges of none or the neglect of any duty required to the good of the Common-Wealth it is as consistent with and may be as conducing to publick good and Tranquility as any order of Religious things in the World as shall be elsewhere demonstrated It remains therefore that the only answer to this consideration is that men who plead for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in the Worship God according to his Word and the Light which He hath given them therein have indeed no conscience at all and so are not to be believed as to what they profess against sinister and evil Practises This Flaile I know no fence against but this only that they
have as good and better grounds to suspect him to have no conscience at all who upon unjust surmises shall so injuriously charge them as finding him in a direct transgression of the principal Rules that Conscience is to be guided and directed by than he hath to pronounce such a judgement concerning them and their sincerity in what they prosess And whether such mutual censures tend not to the utter overthrow of all peace love and security amongst mankind is easie to determine Certainly it is the worst game in the World for the Publick to have men bandying suspicions one against another and thereon managing mutual charges of all that they do surmise or what else they please to give the countenance of surmise unto I acknowledge the notion insisted on namely that mhilest men reserve to themselves the freedom and liberty of judging what they please or what seems good unto them in matters of Religion and the Worship of God they ought to esteem it their duty to practise in all things according to the prescription of their Rulers though every may contrary unto and inconsistent with their own judgements and perswasions unless it be in things that countenance Vice or disgrace the Deity where of yet it may be it will not be thought meet that they themselves should judge for themselves and their own practise seeing they may extend their conceptions about what doth so unto such minute Instances as would frustrate the whole design is exceedingly accommodated to the corrupt lusts and affections of men and suited to make provision for their security in this world by an exemption from the indispensable command of professing the truth communicated and known unto them a sense of the obligation where of hath hitherto exposed innumerable persons in all Ages to great difficulties dangers and sufferings yea to death the height and summ of all For whereas men have been perswaded that with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness and with the mouth Confession is made unto Salvation the latter clause is in many cases hereby sufficiently superseded and the troublesome duty seeming to be required in it is removed out of the way It will not it may be be so easie to prove that in the Religion of the Mahumetans there is any thing enjoyned in practise that will directly fall under the limitations assigned unto the complyance with the commands of Supeperiours contended for And therefore let a man but retain his own apprehensions concerning Jesus Christ and the Gospel it may be lawful for him yea be his duty to observe the worship enjoyned by the Law of Mahomet if his lot fall to live under the power of the Grand Seignior or any Soveraign Prince of the same perswasion But the case is clear in the Religion of the Papists which is under the protection of the greatest number of supream Magistrates in Europe It will not be pretended I suppose by our Author that there is any thing in the confession of the Church of Rome or imposed by it on the practices of men that directly gives countenance unto any Immorality especially as the sense of that term is by him stated and it is no easie matter for ordinary men to prove and satisfie themselves that there is ought in their Modes of Worship of such a tendency as to cast disgrace upon the Deity especially considering with how much learning and diligence the charge of any such miscarriage is endeavoured to be answered and removed all which pleas ought to be satisfied before a man can make sedately a determinate judgement of the contrary Let then men's judgements be what they will in the matters of difference between Protestants and Papists it is on this Hypothesis the duty of all that live under the Dominion of Soveraign Popish Princes outwardly to comply with and practise that Religious Worship that is commanded by them and enjoyned The case is the same also as to the Religion of the Jews Now as this casts a Reflection of incredible folly and unexpiable guilt upon all Protestant Martyrs in casting away their own lives and disobeying the Commands of their lawful Soveraigns so it exposeth all the Protestants in the World who are still in the same condition of subjection to the severe censures of Impiety and Rebellion and must needs exasperate their Rulers to pursue them to destruction under pretence of unwarrantable obstinacy in them For if we wholly take off the protection of Conscience in this matter and its subjection to the Authority of God alone there is no plea left to excuse dissenting Protestants from the guilt of such crimes as may make men justly cry out against them as the Jews did against St. Paul Away with them away with them it is not meet that such Fellows should live or Frotestantes ad Leones according to the old cry of the Pagans against the Primitive Christians But if this should prove to be a way of teaching and justifying the grossest Hypocrisie and Dissimulation that the nature of man is capable of a means to cast off all regard unto the Authority of God over the wayes and lives of men all the Rhetorick in the World shall never perswade me that God hath so moulded and framed the order and state of humane affairs that it should be any way needful to the preservation of publick peace and tranquility Openness plainness of heart Sincerity in our Actions and Professions Generous honesty and an universal respect in all things to the supream Rector of all the great Possessour of Heaven and Earth with an endeavour to comply with His present revealed mind and future judgement are far better Foundations for and ligaments of publick peace and quietness To make this the Foundation of our Political Superstructure that Divisum Imperium Cum Jove Caesar habet God hath immediate and sole power over the minds and inward thoughts of men but the Magistrate over the Exercise of those thoughts in things especially belonging to the Worship of God and in the same Instances seems not to prognosticate a stable or durable building The Prophet was not of that mind of old who in the name of God blamed the people for willingly walking after the Commandment of their Ruler in concerns of Worship not warranted by Divine appointment nor was Daniel so who notwithstanding the severe prohibition made against his praying in his house continued to do so three times a day But besides all this I do not see how this Hypothesis is necessarily subservient to the principal design of the Author but it may be as well improved to quite distant yea contrary ends and purposes His design plainly is to have one Fabrick of Religion erected one Form of External Worship enacted and prescribed which all men should be compelled by penalties to the outward profession and observance of these penalties he would have to be such as should not fail of their end namely of taking away all professed Dissent from his Religious establishment which if
run into Principles and practices inconsistent with the safety of Humane Society and such as will lead them to Seditions and Tumults And hence if I understand him a matter I am continually jealous about from the loosness of his expressions though I am satisfied I constantly take his words in the words in the sense which is received of them by most intelligent persons he educeth all his reasonings and not from a meer dissent from the Magistrates Injuctions without the entertainment of such Principles or an engagement into such practices I cannot I say find the Arguments that arise from a meer supposition that men in some things relating to the worship of God will or do practise otherwise than the Magistrate commands which are used to prove the inconsistency of such a posture of things with publick Tranquility which yet alone was the Province our Author ought to have managed But there is another supposition added that where Conscience is in any thing left unto its own liberty to choose or refuse in the Worship of God there it will embrace sure enough such wicked debauched and seditious principles as shall dispose men unto commotions rebellions and all such evils as will actually evert all rule order and policy amongst men But now this supposition will not be granted him in reference unto them who profess to take up all their Profession of Religion from the command of God or the Revelation of his Will in the Scripture wherein all such Principles and Practices as those mentioned are utterly condemned and the whole Profession of Christianity being left for 300 years without the Rule Guidance and conduct of Conscience now contended for did not once give the least disturbance unto the Civil Governments of the World Disturbances indeed there were and dreadful Revolutions of Government in those dayes and places when and where the Professors of it lived but no concerns of Religion being then involved in or with the Civil Rights and Interests of men as the Professors of it had no Engagements in them so from those Alterations and Troubles no reflection could be made on their profession And the like Peace the like Innocency of Religion the like freedom from all possibility of such imputations as are now cast upon it occasioned meerly by its intertexture with the Affairs Rights and Laws of the Nations and the Interests of its professours as such therein will ensue when it shall be separated from that Relation wherein it stands to this world and left as the pure naked tendency of the souls of men to another and not before But what sayes our Author If for the present the minds of men happen to be tainted with such furious and boysterous conceptions of Religion as incline them to stubbornness and sedition and make them unmanageable to the laws of Government shall not a Prince be allowed to give check to such unruly and dangerous perswasions I answer That such Principles which being professed and avowed are in their own Nature and just Consequence destructive to publick peace and humane Society are all of them directly opposite to the Light of humane nature that common Reason and consent of Mankind wherein and whereon all Government is founded with the prime Fundamental Laws and dictates of the Scripture and so may and ought to be restrained in the practises of the persons that profess them and with reference unto them the Magistrate beareth not the sword in Vain For humane Society being inseparably consequent unto and and an effect of the Law of our Nature or concreated principles of it which hath subdued the whole race of Mankind in all times and places unto its observance Opinions perswasions principles opposite unto it or destructive of it manifesting themselves by any sufficient evidence or in overt Acts ought to be no more allowed than such as profess an Enmity to the Being and Providence of God himself For mens Inclinations indeed as in themselves considered there is no competent Judge of them amongst the Sons of men but as to all outward Actions that are of the tendency described they are under publick Inspection to be dealt withall according to their Demerit I shall only add that the Mormo here made use of is not now first composed or erected it hath for the substance of it been flourished by the Papists ever since the beginning of the Reformation Neither did they use to please themselves more in or to dance more merrily about any thing than this Calf Let private men have their Consciences exempted from a necessary obedience to the Prescriptions of the Church and they will quickly run into all pernicious fancies and perswasions It is known how this Scare-crow hath been cast to the ground and this Calf stamped to powder by Divines of the Church of England It is no pleasant thing I confess to see this plea revived now with respect to the Magistrates Authority and not the Popes for I fear that when it shall be manifested and that by the consent of all parties that there is no pleadable Argument to botom this pretension for the power of the Magistrate upon some rather then forego it will not be unwilling to recur to the fountain from whence it first sprang and admit the Popes plea as meet to be revived in this case And indeed if we must come at length for the security of publick peace to deprive all private persons of the Liberty of judging what is Right and Wrong in Religion in reference to their own practice or what is their duty towards God about his Worship and what is not there are innumerable advantages attending the design of devolving the absolute determination of these things upon the Pope above that of committing it to each supream Magistrate in his own Dominions For besides the plea of at least better security in his determinations than in that of any Magistrates if not his Infallibility which he hath so long talked of and so sturdily defended as to get it a great reputation in the world the delivering up of the Faith and Consciences of all men unto him will produce a seeming agreement at least of incomparably a larger extent then the remitting of all things of this nature to the pleasure of every supream Magistrate which may probably establish as many different Religions in the World as there are different Nations Kingdoms or Commonwealths That which alone remains seeming to give countenance to the Assertions before laid down is our Authors assignation of the Priesthood by natural Right unto the supream Magistrate which in no alteration of Religion he can be devested of but by vertue of some positive Law of God as it was for a season in the Mosaical Institution and Government But these things seem to be of no force For it never belonged to the Priesthood to govern or to rule the Consciences of men with an absolute uncontrollable power but only in their name and for them to administer the holy things which by
common consent were admitted and received amongst them Besides our Author by his Discourse seems not to be much acquainted with the rise of the office of the Priesthood amongst men as shall be demonstrated if farther occasion be given thereunto However by the way we may observe what is his judgement in this matter The Magistrate we are told hath not his Ecclesiastical Authority from Christ and yet this is such as that the power of the Priesthood is included therein the exercise whereof as he is pleased to transfer to others so he may if he please reserve it to himself p. 32. whence it follows not only that it cannot be given by Christ unto any other for it is part of the Magistrates power which he hath not limited nor confined by any subsequent Law nor can there be 〈◊〉 Coordinate Subject of the same power of several kinds so that all the Interest or Right any man or men have in or unto the exercise of it is but transfer'd to them by the Magistrate and therefore they act therein in his name and by his Authority only and hence the Bishops as such are said to be Ministers of State p. 49. Neither can it be pretended that this was indeed in the power of the Magistrate before the coming of Christ but not since For he hath as we are told all that he ever had unless there be a Restraint put upon Him by some express prohibition of our Saviour p. 41. which will hardly be found in this matter I cannot therefore see how in the exercise of the Christian Priesthood there is on these principles any the least respect unto Jesus Christ or his Authority for men have only the exercise of it transferred to them by the Magistrate by vertue of a power inherent in him antecedent unto any concessions of Christ and therefore in his name and Authority they must act in all the sacred offices of their Functions It is well if men be so far awake as to consider the tendency of these things At length Scripture proofs for the confirmation of these opinions are produced p. 35 36. And the first pleaded is that promise that Kings shall be nursings Fathers unto the Church It is true this is promised and God accomplish it more and more But yet we do not desire such Nurses as beget the Children they nurse The proposing prescribing commanding binding Religion on the Consciences of men is rather the begetting of it than its nursing To take care of the Church and Religion that it receive no detriment by all the wayes and means appointed by God and useful thereunto is the duty of Magistrates but it is so also antecedently to their actings unto this purpose to discern aright which is the Church whereunto this promise is made without which they cannot duly discharge their Trust nor fulfill the Promise it self The very Words by the rules of the Metaphor do imply that the Church and its Religion and the worship of God observed therein is constituted fixed and regulated by God himself antecedently unto the Magistrates duty and power about it They are to Nurse that which is committed to them and not what Themselves have framed or begotten And we contend for no more but a Rule concerning Religion and the Worship of God antecedent unto the Magistrates interposing about it whereby both his Actings in his place and those of Subjects in theirs are to be regulated Mistakes herein have engaged many Soveraign Princes in pursuit of their Trust as Nursing Fathers to the Church to lay out their strength and power for the utter ruine of it as may be evidenced in instances too many of those who in a subserviency to and by the direction of the Papal Interest have endeavoured to extirpate true Religion out of the World Such a Nursing Mother we had sometimes in England who in pursuit of her care burned so many Bishops and other Holy men to Ashes He asks farther what doth the Scripture mean when it stiles our Saviour the King of Kings and maketh Princes his Vicegerents here on earth I confess according to this Gentleman's principles I know not what it means in so doing Kings he tells us have not their Authority in and over Religion and the Consciences of men from him and therefore in the exercise of it cannot be his Vicegerents for none is the Vicegerent of another in the exercise of any power or Authority if he have not received that power and Authority from him Otherwise the words have a proper sense but nothing to our Authors purpose It is his power over them and not theirs over the Consciences of their Subjects that is intended in the words Of no more use in this controversie is the direction of the Apostle that we should pray for Kings that under them we may lead a quiet and peaceable life for no more is intended therein but that under their peaceable and righteous administration of humane Affairs we may live in that Godliness and honesty which is required of us Wherefore then are these weak attempts made to confirm and prove what is not Those or the most of them whom our Author in this Discourse treats with so much severity do plead that it is the duty of all supream Magistrates to find out receive imbrace promote the Truths of the Gospel with the Worship of God appointed therein confirming protecting and desending them and those that embrace them by their Power and Authority And in the discharge of this duty they are to use the liberty of their own judgements enformed by the wayes that God hath appointed independently on the dictates and determinations of any other persons whatever They affirm also that to this end they are entrusted with supream power over all persons in their respective Dominions who on no pretence can be exempted from the exercise of that power as occasion in their judgements shall require it to be exercised as also that all causes wherein the profession of Religion in their Dominions is concerned which are determinable in foro Civili by coercive Vmpirage or Authority are subject unto their cognizance and power The Soveraign power over the Consciences of men to institute appoint and prescribe Religion and the Worship of God they affirm to belong unto him alone who is the Author and Finisher of our Faith who is the head over all things to the Church The Administration of things meerly Spiritual in the Worship of God is they judge derived immediately from him to the Ministers and Administrators of the Gospel possessed of their Offices by his Command and according to his institution as to the external practice of Religion and Religious Worship as such it is they say in the power of the Magistrate to regulate all the outward civil concernments of it with reference unto the preservation of publick peace and Tranquillity and the prosperity of his subjects And herein also they judge that such respect is to be had to the
and common Acceptation which strikes no small stroke in the regulating of the conceptions of the wisest Men about the signification of words nothing else is intended by Moral vertues or Duties of Morality but the observation of the Precepts of the second Table Nor is any thing else designed by those Divines who in their writings so frequently declare that it is not morality alone that will render men acceptable to God Others do extend these things further and fix the denomination of moral firstly upon the Law or Rule of all those Habits of the Mind and its Operations which afterwards thence they call moral Now this Moral Law is nothing but the Law of Nature or the Law of our Creation which the Apostle affirms to lye equally obligatory on all men even all the Gentiles themselves Rom. 2. 14 15. and whereof the Decalogue is summarily expressive This Moral Law is therefore the Law written in the hearts of all men by Nature which is resolved partly into the Nature of God himself which cannot but require most of the things of it from Rational Creatures partly into that state and condition of the nature of things and their mutual Relations wherein God was pleased to create and set them These things might be easily instanced and exemplified but that we must not too much divert from our present occasion And herein lyes the largest sense and Acceptation of the Law Moral and consequently of Moral Vertues which have their Form and Being from their Relation and conformity thereunto Let it be then that Moral Vertues consist in the universal observance of the requisites and Precepts of the law of our Creation and dependance on God thereby And this description as we shall see for the substance of it is allowed by our Author Now these Vertues or this conformity of our minds and actions unto the Law of our Creation may be in the light and reason of Christian Religion considered two wayes First as with respect unto the substance or Essence of the Duties themselves they may be performed by men in their own strength under the conduct of their own Reason without any special assistance from the Spirit or Sanctifying Grace of Christ. In this sense they still bare the name of Vertues and for the substance of them deserve so to do Good they are in themselves useful to Mankind and seldome in the Providence of God go without their reward in this World I grant I say that they may be obtained and acted without special assistance of Grace Evangelical though the wiser Heathens acknowledged something Divine in the communication of them to Men. Papinius speaks to that purpose Diva Jovis solio juxta comes undeper Orbem Rara dari TerrÃsque solet contingere virtus Seu Pater Omnipotens tribuit sive ipsa capaces Elegit penetrare Viros But old Homer put it absolutely in the will of his God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thus we grant moral vertue to have been in the Heathen of old For this is that alone whereby they were distinguished amongst themselves And he that would exclude them all from any interest in moral vertue takes away all difference between Cato and Nero Aristides and Tiberius Titus and Domitian and overthrows all natural difference between good and evil which besides other abominations that it would plentifully spawn in the World would inevitably destroy all humane Society But now these moral vertues thus performed whatever our Author thinks are distinct from Grace may be without it and in their present description which is not imaginary but real are supposed so to be And if he pleases he may exercise himself in the longsome disputes of Bellarmin Gregory de Valentia and others to this purpose innumerable not to mention Reformed Divines lest they should be scornfully rejected as Systematical And this is enough I am sure to free their Religion from Villany who make a distinction between Moral Vertue and Grace And if our Author is otherwise minded and both believe that there is Grace Evangelical â—â—â—â—ever there is Moral Vertue or that Moral Vertues may be so obtained and exercised without the special assistance of Grace as to become a part of our Religion and accepted with God and will maintain his Opinion in Writing I will promise him if I live to return him an answer on one only condition which is that he will first answer what Augustine hath written against the Pelagians on this Subject Again these moral Vertues this observance of the Precepts of the Law of our Creation in a consonancy whereunto originally the Image of God in us did consist may now under the Gospel be considered as men are principled assisted and enabled to and in their performance by the Grace of God and as they are directed unto the especial end of living unto him in and by Jesus Christ. What is particularly required hereunto shall be afterwards declared Now in this sense no man living ever distinguished between Grace and Vertue any otherwise than the cause and the effect are to be or may be distinguished much less was any Person ever so Bruitish as to fancy an inconsistency between them For take Grace in one sense and it is the efficient cause of this Vertue or of these Vertues which are the effects of it and in another they are all Graces themselves For that which is wrought in us by Grace is Grace as that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit To this purpose something may be spoken concerning Grace also the other term whose ambiguity renders the Discourse under consideration somewhat intricate and perplexed Now as the former term of Moral Vertue owed its Original to the Schools of Philosophy and its use was borrowed from them So this of Grace is purely Scriptural and Evangelical The World knows nothing of it but what is declared in the Word of God especially in the Gospel for the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. All the Books of the Ancient Philosophers will not give us the least light into that notion of Grace which the Scripture declares unto us As then we allowed the sense of the former term given unto it by its first coyners and users so we cannot but think it equal that men be precisely tyed up in their conceptions about Grace unto what is delivered in the Scripture concerning it as having no other Rule either to frame them or judge of them And this We shall attend unto Not that I here design to treat of the nature of Gospel Grace in general but whereas all the Divines that ever I have read on these things whether Ancient or Modern and I have not troubled my self to consider whether they were Systematical ones only or otherwise qualified allow some distinctions of this term to be necessary for the right understanding of those passages of Scripture wherein it is made use of I shall mention that or those only which are
so unto the right apprehension of what is at present under Debate First therefore Grace in the Scripture is taken for the free Grace or favour of God towards sinners by Jesus Christ. By this he freely pardoneth them their sins Justifieth and accepteth them or makes them accepted in the Beloved This certainly is distinct from Moral Vertue Secondly It is taken for the effectual working of the Spirit of God in and upon the minds and souls of Believers thereby quickning them when they were dead in trespasses and sins Regenerating of them Creating a new heart in them implanting his Image upon them neither I presume will this be called Moral Vertue Thirdly For the actual supplies of Assistance and Ability given to Believers so to enable them unto every Duty in particular which in the Gospel is required of them for he works in them both to Will and to Do of his own good pleasure As yet the former distinction will appear necessary Fourthly For the effects wrought and produced by this Operation of God and his Grace in the hearts and minds of them that believe which are either habitual in the spiritual disposition of their minds or actual in their operations all which are called Grace It may be our Author will be apt to think that I Cant use Phrases or fulsome Metaphors But besides that I can confirm these distinctions and the necessity of them and the words wherein they are expressed from the Scriptures and Ancient Fathers I can give them him for the substance of them out of very Learned Divines whether Systematical or no I know not but this I know they were not long since Bishops of the Church of England We are now in the next place to inquire into the mind of our Author in these things for from his apprehensions about them he frames a mighty difference between himself and those whom he opposeth and from thence takes occasion and advantage afresh to revile and reproach them First Therefore he declares his judgement that the Moral Vertues which he treats of do consist in Mens observance of the Law of Nature of the Dictates of Reason and Precepts thereof Secondly That the Substance yea the whole of Religion consists in these Vertues or Duties So that by the observation of them Men may attain Everlasting Happiness Thirdly That there is no actual concurrence of present Grace enabling Men to perform these Duties or to exercise these Vertues but they are called Grace on another account Fourthly That his Adversaries are so far from making Vertue and Grace to be the same that they make them inconsistent And these things shall we take into a brief examination according as indeed they do deserve The first of them he plainly and more than once affirms nor shall I contend with him about it So he speaks pag. 68. The practice of Vertue consists in living suitably to the dictates of Reason and nature and this is the substance and main design of all the Laws of Religion to oblige mankind to behave themselves in all their actions as becomes creatures endowed with Reason and understanding and in wayes suitable to Rational beings to prepare and qualifie themselves for the State of Glory and immortality This is a plain description both of the Rule of moral Vertues and of the nature of them The Law of Reason and nature is the Rule and their own nature as acting or acted consists in a suitableness unto Rational Beings acting to prepare themselves for the state of immortality and Glory The first end of all vertue no doubt We need not therefore make any farther inquiry into this matter wherein we are agreed Secondly That the Substance yea the whole of Religion consists in these Moral Vertues he fully also declares pag. 69. Moral Vertue having the strongest and most necessary influence upon the end of all Religion viz. mans Happiness it is not only its most material and useful part but the ultimate end of all its other Duties though I know not how the practice of Vertue in this life can be the Vltimate End of other Duties and all true Religion can consist in nothing else but either the practice of Vertue it self or the use of those means and instruments that contribute unto it So also p. 70. All Duties of Devotion excepting only our returns of Gratitude are not essential parts of Religion but are only in order to it as they tend to the practice of Vertue and Moral Goodness and their goodness is derived upon them from the Moral Vertues to which they contribute and in the same proportion they are conducive to the ends of Vertue they are to be valued among the Ministeries of Religion So then the whole Duty of Man consists in being vertuous and all that is injoyned him beside is in order thereunto Hence We are told elsewhere that outward Worship is no part of Religion again pag. 76. All Religion must of necessity be resolved into Enthusiasm or Morality the former is meer imposture and therefore all that is true must be reduced to the latter But we need not insist on particulars seeing he promoteth this to confirmation by the best of Demonstrations i. e. an induction of all particulars which he calls a Scheme of Religion wherein yet if any thing necessary be left out or omitted this best of Demonstrations is quickly turned into one of the worst of Sophismes Therefore we have here no doubt a just and full Representation of all that belongs to Christian Religion and it is as follows pag. 69. The whole Duty of Man referrs either to his Creator or his Neighbour or Himself All that concerns the two last is confessedly of a moral nature and all that concerns the first consists either in Praising of God or Praying to him The former is a branch of the Vertue of Gratitude and is nothing but a thankful and Humble temper of mind arising from a sense of Gods greatness in Himself and his Goodness to us So that this part of Devotion issues from the same vertuous quality that is the Principle of all other resentments and expressions of Gratitude only those acts of it that are terminated on God as their Object are stiled Religious and therefore Gratitude and Devotion are not divers things but only differing names of the same thing Devotion being nothing else but the Vertue of Gratitude towards God The latter viz. Prayer is either put up in our own or other mens behalf if for others it is an act of that Vertue we call kindness or Charity if for our selves the things we pray for unless they be the comforts and enjoyments of this life are some or other vertuous qualities and therefore the proper and direct use of Prayer is to be instrumental to the Vertues of Morality It is of Christian Religion that this Author treats as is manifest from his ensuing Discourse and the Reason he gives why Moral Vertues are stiled Graces Now I must needs say that I look
This bespeaks unto all the great Duty towards God of their acknowledgement unto him of their miserable and helpless condition with all those Affections and subordinate Duties wherewith it is attended In this state he declares that God himself in his Infinite Wisdome Goodness and Grace provided a Remedy a way of relief on which he hath put such an impression of his Glorious Excellencies as may stirr up the hearts of his Creatures to endeavour a return unto him from their Apostasie and that this remedy consists in his setting forth Jesus Christ to be a propitiation through Faith in his blood to declare his Righteousness for the forgiveness of Sin which he proposeth unto Men for their receiving and acceptance This renders it the greatest duty of mankind towards God to believe in the Son of God so set forth to seek after an Interest in him or being made partaker of him for this is the great work that God requires namely that we believe on him whom he hath sent Again he declares that God justifieth them who so believe pardoning their sins and imputing Righteousness unto them whereon innumerable Duties do depend even all the Obedience that Christ requires of us seeing in our believing in him we accept him to be our King to rule govern and conduct our souls to God And all these are Religious duties towards God He declares moreover that whereas Men are by Nature dead in trespasses and sins and stand in need of a new spiritual life to be born again that they may live unto God that God in Jesus Christ doth by his spirit quicken them and regenerate them and work in them a new principle of spiritual life whence it is their great Duty towards God in this Religion of St. Paul to comply with and to yield obedience unto all the wayes and methods that God is pleased to use in the accomplishment of this work upon them the especial Duties whereof are too many to be instanced in But he further manifests that notwithstanding the Regeneration of Men by the Spirit and their Conversion to God there yet continues in them a remainder of the Principle of corrupted nature which he calls the flesh and Indwelling Sin that is of it self wholly enmity against God and as far it abides in any inclines the heart and mind unto sin which is to be watched against and opposed And on this head he introduceth the great Religious Duty towards God of our spiritual conflict against sin and of the mortification of it wherein those that believe are to be exercised all the dayes of their lives and wherein their principal duty towards God doth consist and without which they can perform no other in a due manner Moreover he farther adds the great Gospel-Priviledge of the Communication of the Spirit of Christ unto Believers for their Sanctification Consolation and Edification with the Duties of Thankfulness towards God Joy and Rejoycing in him Cheerfulness under Tryals Afflictions and Persecutions and sundry others that on that account are required of us all Religious Duties towards God in the Religion by him proposed unto us Having laid these foundations and manifested how they all proceed from the Eternal Counsel and free Grace of God in which it is our Duty to admire adore and praise him he declareth how hereby and on the account of these things we are bound unto all Holiness Righteousness Godliness Honesty and Usefulness in this world in all Relations and Conditions whatsoever declaring our Duties in Churches according to our especial interest in them towards Believers and towards all Men in the World in our several Relations in Obedience to Magistrates and all superiors in a word in universal observance of the whole will and all the commands of God Now whither any one will call this a Scheme or no or allow it to have any thing of Method in it or no I neither know nor care but am perswaded that it makes a better more plain and intelligible Representation of the Religious Duties towards God which Christian Religion requires of us unto all that suppose this whole Religion to depend on Divine Revelation than that of our Author But I find my self in a digression the end of this Discourse was only to manifest the Sentiments of our Author on the second head before laid down which I think are sufficiently evinced The third is That there is no actual work of present Grace either to sit the Persons of whom these Duties of Moral Vertues are required unto the performance of them or to work and effect them in them For although they are called Graces and the Graces of the Spirit in the Scripture yet that is upon another account as he declares himself pag. 72. All that the Scripture intends by the Graces of the Spirit are only Vertuous qualities of the Soul that are therefore stiled Graces because they are derived purely from God's free-Grace and Goodness in that in the first Ages of Christianity he was pleased out of his infinite concern for its propagation in a miraculous manner to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue Vertuous Qualities of the soul is a very ambigious expression Take these Vertuous Qualities for a new principle of Spiritual life consisting in the habitual Disposition Inclination and Ability of mind unto the things required of us in the will of God or unto the Acts of Religious Obedience and it may express the Graces of the Spirit which yet are far enough from being so called upon the account here mentioned But these Vertuous Qualities are to be interpreted according to the tenour of the preceding Discourses that have already passed under Examination Let now our Author produce any one Writer of the Church of God from first to last of any repute or Acceptation from the day that the name of Christian was known in the World unto this wherein we live giving us this account why the fruits of the Spirit the Vertuous or Gracious qualities of the minds of Believers are called Graces that here he gives and I will give him my thanks publickly for his discovery For if this be the only Reason why any thing in Believers is called Grace why Vertues are Graces namely because God was pleased in the first Ages of Christianity miraculously to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue then there is â—o Communication of Grace unto any no work of Grace in and upon any in an ordinary way through the Ministry of the Gospel in these latter Ages The whole Being and efficacy of Grace according to this notion is to be confined unto the miraculous Operations of God in Gospel concernments in the first Ages whence a denomination in the Scripture is cast upon our Vertues when obtained and exercised by and in our own strength Now this plainly overthrows the whole Gospel and contains a Pelagianisme that Pelagius himself never did nor durst avow Are these things then so indeed that God did from his free Grace and
of the Divine Attributes which I suppose they are not whose Rules and formes are alterable upon accidents and occasions And we are taught also pag. 68. that the practice of Vertue consists in living suitable to the dictates of Reason and Nature which are Rules not variable and Changeable There must be some new distinction to reconcile these things which I cannot at present think of That which I would enquire from hence is whether the Magistrates have power over the Consciences of men in reference unto those things in Morality whose Rules of good and evil are of an Eternal obligation That he hath not is evidently implyed in this place And I shall not enter into the confusion of the ensuing Discourse where the latter sort of Rules for Vertue the other member of the distinction are turned into various Methods of executing Laws about outward acts of Vertue or Vice and the Vertues themselves into outward expressions and significations of Duty for I have at present no contest with this Author about his manner of writing nor do intend to have It is enough that here at once all the principal and most important Vertues are vindicated to their own unalterable Rules as such and the Consciences of Men in reference unto them put under another jurisdiction And what then becomes of this Argument That the Magistrate must have power over the Consciences of Men in matters of Divine Worship because he hath so in things Moral which are of greater importance when what is so of importance is exempted from his power Hence it sufficiently appears that the Authority of the Magistrate over men with reference unto Moral Vertue and Duty doth not respect Vertue as Vertue but hath some other consideration Now what this is is evident unto all How Moral Vertues do belong unto Religion and are parts of it hath been before declared But God who hath ordered all things in weight and measure hath fore-designed them also to another end and purpose For preparing mankind for Political Society in the world among themselves for a time as well as for Religious Obedience unto himself he inlayed his nature and composition with principles suited to both those ends and appointed them to be acted with different respects unto them Hence Moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar tendency unto him are appointed to be the instrument and ligament of humane Society also As the Law of Moses had in it a typical end use and signification with respect to Christ and the Gospel and a political use as the instrument of the Government of the Nation of the Jews Now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use namely as they relate to humane policy which is concerned in the outward actings of them This therefore is granted and we shall enquire farther whether any more be proved namely that the Magistrate hath power over the outward actings of Vertue and Vice so far as humane Society or publick Tranquility is concerned in them and on that account Secondly It may be enquired what is the Power and Authority over Moral Vertues which is here ascribed unto the Civil Magistrate and over the Consciences of men with respect unto them Is it such as to make that to be Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice and oblige men in Conscience to practise it as Vertue This would go a great way indeed and answer somewhat of what is or as it is said may be done in the Worship of God when that is made a part of it which was not so before But what name shall these new Vertues be called by A new Vertue both as to its Acts and Objects will as much fly the imaginations of men as a sixth sense doth It may be our Author will satisfie us as to this enquiry for he tells us pag. 80. That he hath power to make that a particular of the Divine Law that God hath not made so I wish he had declared himself how and wherein for I am afraid this expression as here it lyes is offensive The Divine Law is Divine and so is every particular of itâ— and how a man can make a thing Divine that is not so of it self nor by Divine Institution is hard to find out It may be that only the subject matter of the Law and not the Law it self formally is intended and to make a thing a particular of the Divine Law is no more but to make the Divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before But this Particular referrs to the Nature Essence and Being of the thing or to the acting and occasion of it in particular And if it be taken in the latter sense here is no more ascribed unto the Magistrate than is common with him to every man in the World For every one that puts himself into new circumstances or new Relations doth so make that unto him to be a particular of the Divine Law which was not so before for he is bound and obliged unto the actual performance of many Duties which as so circumstantiated he was not boâ—â—â— unto before But somewhat else seems to be intendâ—â— from the ensuing discourse they are fully empowred to declare new instances of Vertue and Vice and to introduce new duties in thâ— most important parts of Religion And yâ—â— I am still at the same loss For by his declaring new Instances of Vertue and Vice suppose he intends an Authoritative declaration such as that they have no other foundation nor need none to make them what they are They are new Instances of Vertue and Vice because so declared And this suits unto the introducing of new Duties in the most important parts of Religion made Duties by that introduction I wish I could yet learn what these new Instances of Vertue and Vice are or mean Whether they are new as Vertues and Vices or as Instances For the first would I could see a new practice of old Virtues but to tell you the truth I care not for any of the new Vertues that I have lately observed in the World nor do I hope ever to see any better new ones If it be the Instances that are new I wish again I knew what were more in them than the actual and occasional exercise of old Duties Pag. 79 80. conduce most to extricate us out of these ambiguities There we are informed that the Laws of every Nation do distinguish and settle mens rights and properties and that distinctly with respect whereunto Justice that prime Natural Vertue is in particular Instances to be exercised And pag. 84. It is further declared that in the administration of Justice there may be great difference in the constitution of penalties and execution of men This it seems is that which is aimed at the Magistrate by his Laws determines whteher Titius have set his hedge upon Caius's ground and whether Sempronius hath rightly conveyed his Land or
confusion in all government But what is this to the present enquiry whether Conscience lay an Obligation on men as regulated by the word of God and respecting Him to practise according to its dictates It is true enough that if any of its practices do not please or satisfy the Magistrate their Authors must for ought I know stand to what will follow or ensue on them to their prejudice but this frees them not from the Obligation that is upon them in Conscience unto what is their duty This is that which must be here proved if any thing be intended unto the purpose of this Author namely that notwithstanding the judgment of Conscience concerning any duty by the interposition of the Authority of the Magistrate to the contrary there is no Obligation ensues for the performance of that duty This is the Answer that ought plainly to be returned and not a suggestion that outward Actions must fall under the Cognizance of the Magistrate which none ever doubted of and which is nothing to the present purpose unless he would have them to fall under the Magistrates Cognizance as that his will should be the supream Rule of them which I think he cannot prove But what sense the Magistrate will have of the outward Actions wherein the discharge of mans duty doth consist is of another consideration This therefore is the state of the present case applied unto Religious Worship Suppose the Magistrate command such things in Religion as a man in his Conscience guided by the Word and respecting God doth look upon as Vnlawful and such as are Evil and Sin unto him if he should perform them and forbid such things in the Worship of God as he esteems himself obliged in Conscience to observe as commands of Christ If he may practise the things so commanded and omit the things so forbidden I fear he will find himself within doors continually at confession saying with trouble enough I have done those things which I ought not to have done and I have left undone those things which I ought to have done and there is no health in me unless this Author can prove that the Commands of God respect only the minds of men but not their outward actions which are left unto the Authority of the Magistrate alone If no more be here intended but that whatever Conscience may require of any it will not secure them but that when they come to act outwardly according to it the Civil Magistrate may and will consider their Actions and allow them or forbid them according to his own judgement it were surely a madness to deny it as great as to say the Sun shineth not at noon day If Conscience to God be confined to Thoughts and Opinions and Speculations about the general Notions and Notices of things about True and False and unto a liberty of judging and determining upon them what they are whether they are so or no 〈◊〉 the whole nature and being of Conscience and that to the Reason sense and experience of every man is utterly overthrown If Conscience be allowed to make its judgement of what is good or evil what is Duty or sin and no obligation be allowed to ensue from thence unto a suitable practice a wide door is opened unto Atheism and thereby the subversion of all Religion and Government in the world This therefore is the summ of what is asserted in this matter Conscience according to that Apprehension which it hath of the will of God about His worship whereunto we confine our discourse obligeth men to act or forbear accordingly if their Apprehensions are right and true just and equal what the Scripture the great Rule of Conscience doth declare and require I hope none upon second thoughts will deny but that such things are attended with a right unto a Liberty to be practised whilst the Lord Jesus Christ is esteemed the Lord of Lords and King of Kings and is thought to have power to command the observance of his own Institutions Suppose these Apprehensions to be such as may in some things be they more or less be judged not to correspond exactly with the great Rule of Conscience yet supposing them also to contain nothing inconsistent with or of a disturbing nature to civil Society and publick Tranquillity nothing that gives countenance to any Vice or Evil or is opposite to the principal Truths and main Duties of Religion wherein the minds of men in a Nation do coalesce nor carry any politick entangleâ—ments along with them and add thereunto the peaceableness of the persons possesâ— with those Apprehensions and the impossibility they are under to devest themselves of them and I say Natural Right Justice Equity Religion Conscience God himself in all and His Voice in the hearts of all unprejudiced persons do require that neither the persons themselves on the account of their Consciences have violence offered unto them nor their practices in pursuit of their Apprehensions be restrained by severe prohibitions and penalties But whereas the Magistrate is allowed to judge and dispose of all outward Actions in reference to publick tranquility if any shall assert Principles as of Conscience tending or obliging unto the practice of Vice Immorality or Sin or to the disturbance of publick society such principles being all notoriously judged by Scripture Nature the common consent of Mankind and inconsistent with the fundamental principles of Humane Polity may be in all instances of their discovery and practice coerced and restrained But plainly as to the commands of Conscience they are of the same extent with the commands of God If these respect only the inward man or the mind Conscience doth no more if they respect outward Actions Conscience doth so also From the Liberty of Conscience a Proceed is made to Christian Liberty which is said to be a Duty or priviledg founded upon the chimaerical Liberty of Conscience before granted But these things stand not in the Relation imagined Liberty of Conscience is of natural Right Christian Liberty is a Gospel-priviledge though both may be pleaded in bar of unwarrantable Impositions on Conscience But these things are so described by our Author as to be confounded For the Christian Liberty described in this Paragraph is either restrained to matters of pure Speculation wherein the mind of man is left entirely free to judge of the Truth and falsehood of things or as it regards things that fall under Laws and Impositions wherein men are left intirely free to judge of them as they are objects of meer Opinion Now how this differs from the Liberty of Conscience granted before I know not And that there is some mistake in this description of Christian Liberty need no other Consideration to evince but this namely that Christian Liberty as our Author tells us is a Priviledge but this is not so being that which is equally common unto all mankind This Liberty is necessary unto Humane Nature nor can it be divested of it and so it is not
on the Minds Consciences or judgements of men to think or judge otherwise of what is imposed on them than as their nature is and doth require only they are obliged unto their Usage Observance and Practice which is to put us into a thousand times worse condition than the Jews if Instances of them should be multiplyed as they may lawfully 〈◊〉 every year seeing it much more quiet◠the mind to be able to resolve its thought◠immediately into the Authority of Go◠under its Yoke than into that of man I◠therefore we are freed from the one by our Christian Liberty we are so much more from the other so as that being made free by Christ we should not be the servants of men in things belonging to his Service and Worship From this discovery here made of the nature of Christian Liberty our Author makes some deductions p. 98 99. concerning the nature of Religious Worship wherein he tells us that the whole substance of Religious Worship is transacted within the mind of man and dwells in the heart and thoughts the soul being its proper Seat and Temple where men may Worship their God as they please without offending their Prince and that External Worship is no part of Religion it self I wish he had more clearly and distinctly expressed his mind in this matter for his Assertions in the sense the words seem to bear are prodigiously false and such as will open a door to Atheism with all Villany and Confusion in the World For who would not think this to be his intention Let men keep their minds and inward thoughts and apprehensious right for God and then they may practise outwardly in Religion what they please one thing one day another another be Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians yea Mahometans and Christians any thing every thing after the manner of the Country and Laws of the Prince where they are and live the Rule that Ecebolius walked by of old I think there is no man that owns the Scripture but will confess that this is at least if not a direct yet an interpretative rejection of the whole Authority of God And may not this Rule be quickly extended unto Oaths themselves the bonds and Ligaments of humane Society For whereas in their own formal nature they belong to the Worship of God why may not men pretend to keep up their Reverence unto God in the internal part of them or their esteem of Him in their Invocation of His Name but as to the outward part accommodate it unto what by their Interest is required of them so swearing with their Tongues but keeping their Mind at Liberty If the Principles laid down be capable of any other more tolerable sense and such as may be exclusive of these Inferences I shall gladly admit it at present what is here deduced from them seems to be evidently included in them It is true indeed that Natural Moral or Internal Worship consisting in Faith Love Fear Thankfulness Submission Dependance and the like hath its constant Seat and Residence in the Souls and Minds of men but that the wayes whereby these Principles of it are to be outwardly exercised and expressed by Gods Command and Appointment are not also indispensably necessary unto us and parts of his Worship is utterly false That which principally in the Scripture comes under the notion of the Worship of God is the due observance of his outward Institutions which Divines have upon unquestionable grounds contended to be commanded and appointed in general in the second Commandment of the Decalogue whence all particular Institutions in the several seasons of the Church are educed and resolved into the Authority of God therein expressed And that account which we have here given us of outward Worship namely that it is no part of Religion it self but only an Instrument to express the inward Veneration of the mind by some outward action or posture of the body as it is very difficultly to be accommodated unto the sacrifices of old or the present Sacraments of the Church which were and are parts of outward Worship and as I take it of Religion so the being an instrument unto the purpose mentioned doth not exclude any thing from being also a part of Religion and Worship it self if it be commanded by God to be performed in His Service unto His Glory It is pretended that all Outward Worship is only an exteriour signification of Honour but yet all the parts of it in their performance are Acts of Obedience unto God and are the proper Actings of Faith Love and Submission of Soul unto God which if they are not His Worship and parts of Religion I know not what may be so esteemed Let then Outward Worship stand In what Relation it will to Inward Spiritual Honour where God requires it and commands it it is no less necessary and in dispensably to be performed than any part of Inward Worship it self and is a no less important duty of Religion For any thing comes to be a part of Religious Worship outwardly to be performed not from its own nature but from its respect unto the command of God and the End whereunto it is by him designed So the Apostle tells us that with the heart man believeth unto Righteousness and with the Mouth Confession is made un◠Salvation Rom. 10. Confession is but the exteriour signification of the Faith that is i◠our hearts but yet it is no less necessary to Salvation than Faith it self is to Righteousness And those who regulate their Obedience and Religious Worship by the Commands of God knowing that which way ever they are signified by inbred Light or superadded Revelation it is they which give their Obedience its formal nature making it Religious will not allow that place and use of the outward Worship required by God Himself which should exclude it from being Religious or a part of their Religion But upon the whole matter our Author affirms that in all Ages of the World God hath left the Management of His Outward Worship unto the Discretion of Men unless when to determine some particulars hath been usefull to some other purpose pag. 100. The management of Outward Worship may signifie no more but the due performance of it and so I acknowledge that though it be not left unto mens discretion to observe or not observe it yet it is too their Duty and Obedience which are their Discretion and their Wisdom But the management here understood is opposed to Gods own determination of particular Forms that is His especial Institutions and hereof I shall make bold to say that it was never in any Age so left to the Discretion of men To prove this Assertion Sacrifices are singled out as an Instance It is known and granted that these were the most solemn part of the Outward Worship of God for many Ages and that there was a general consent of Mankind unto the use of them so that however the greatest part of the
World apostatized from the true only and proper object of all Religious Worship Worship yet they retained this Mode and Medium of it These Sacrifices we are told p. 101. did not owe their Original unto any Divine Institution but were made choice of by good men as a fit way of imitating the gratefull resentments of their minds The Argument alone as far as I can find fixed on to firm this Assertion is that those who teach the contrary and say that this Mode of Worship was commanded do say so without proof or evidence Our Author for the most part sets off his Assertions at no less rate than as such without whose admittance all Order and Government and almost every thing that is Good amongst mankind would be ruined and destroyed But he hath the unhappiness to found them ordinarily not only on Principles and Oâ—â—nions dubious and uncertain but on suâ—â— Paradoxes as have been by sober and learâ—â—ed men generally decried Such is this 〈◊〉 the Original of Sacrifices here insisted oâ— The Divines of the Church of Rome do gâ—â—nerally contend that Religion and Sacrificâ— are so related that the one cannot be withâ—out the other Hence they teach Goâ— would have required Sacriâ—ices in the Stâ— of Innocency had mankind continued therein And though the Instance be ill laid and not proved yet the general Rule applyed unto the Religion of Sinners is noâ— easily to be evicted For as in Christian Religion we have a Sacrifice that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to its Efficacy alwayes newly offered and living so before the Personal Offering of it in the body of Chirst there was no season or Age without a due Representation of it in Sacrifices Typical and of Mystical signification And although there be no express mention in the Scripture of their Institution for these are ancient things yet there is as good warrant for it as for Offering and burning Incense only with Sacred fire taken from the Altar which was of an Heavenly traduction for a neglect whereof the Priests were consumed with fire from before the Lord that is though an express command be not recorded for their Institution and Observation yet enough may be collected from the Scripture that they were of a Divine Extract and Original And if they were arbitrary Inventions of some men I desire to have a rational account given me of their Catholicism in the World and one Instance more of any thing not Natural or Divine that ever prevailed to such an absolute universal acceptance amongst Mankind It is not so safe I suppose to assign an arbitrary Original unto any thing that hath obtained an universal Consent and Suffrage lest men be thought to set their own houses on fire on purpose to consume their Neighbours Besides no tolerable colour can be given to the Assertion that they were the invention of good men The first notice we have of them is in those of Cain and Abel whereof one was a bad man and of the Evil One and yet must be looked on as the principal Inventor of Sacrifices if this fiction be allowed Some of the Antients indeed thought that Adam Sacrificed the Beasts to God whose Skins his first Garments were made of and if so he was very pregnant and sudden in his invention if he had no direction from God But more than all this bloody Sacrifices were Types of Christ from the Foundation of the World and Socinus himself who and his followers are the principal Assertors of this paradox grants that Christ is called the Lamb of God with respect unto the Sacrifices of old even before the Law As He is termed A Lamb slain from the Foundation of the World not only with respect unto the Efficacy of his Sacrifice but to the Typical Representation of it And he that shall deny that the Patriarchs in their Sacrifices had respect unto the promised Seed will endeavour the shaking of a Pillar of the Churches Creed Now I desire to know how men by their own Invention or Authority could assign such an end unto their Sacrifices if they were not of Divine Prescription if not designed of God thereunto Again the Apostle tells us Abel offered his Sacrifice by Faith Heb. 11. 4. And Faith hath respect unto the Testimony or God revealing commanding and promising to accept our duty Wherever any thing is done in Faith there an Assent is included to this that God is True Joh. 3. 33. And what it doth is thereby distinguished from Will-Worship that is resolved into the Commandments and Doctrines of men which whoso rest on make void the Commandment of God Matth. 15. 3 6. And the Faith of Abel as to its general Nature was the Evidence of things not seen and the Substance of things hoped for Heb. 11. 1. which in this matter it could not be if it had neither Divine Command nor Promise to rest upon It is evident therefore that Sacrifices were of a divine Original and the Instance in them to prove that the Outward Worship of God hath in all Ages been left unto the Prudence and Management of men is feeble and such as will give no countenance unto what it is produced in the Justification of And herewith the whole Discourse of our Author on this Subject falls to the ground where I shall at present let it lye though it might in sundry Particulars be easily crumbled into useless Asseverations and some express Contradictions In the close of this Chapter an Application is made of what hath been before argued or rather dictated unto a particular Controversie about significant Ceremonies I am not willing to engage in any Contests of that Nature seeing to the due handling of them a greater length of Discourse would be necessary than I think meet at present to draw forth this Survey unto Only seeing a very few words may serve to manifest the loosness of what is here Discoursed to that purpose I shall venter on the Patience of the Reader witâ— an addition of them We have therefore in the first place a Reflection on the prodigious Impertinency of the clamour against thâ— Institution of significant Ceremonies when iâ— is the only use of Ceremonies as all other outward Expressions of Religion to be Significanâ— I do somewhat admire at the Temper of this Author who cannot express his disserâ—â— from others in Controverted Points of the Meanest and Lowest concernment but with crying out Prodigies Clamours Impertinencies and the like Expressions of Astonishment in himself and Contempt of others He might reserve some of these great Words for more important occasions But yet I joyn with him thus faâ— in what he pleads that Ceremonies instituted in the Worship of God that art not significant are things very insignificant and such as deserve not the least contention about them He truly also in the next words tells us that all outward Worship is a sign of inward Honour It is so both in Civil things and Sacred All our Questionis How these
exempts them from a Subjection to the Soveraign power in all things but it is purely Gods right of governing his own Creatures that Magistrates then invade when they make Edicts to violate or controll His Laws It is about Religion and the Worship of God that we are discoursing Now in these things no man ever thought that it was originally a right of Subjects as Subjects abstracting from the Consideration of the Authority of God that should exempt them from a subjection to the Soveraign Power For though some of the Antients discourse at large that it is of natural Right and Equity that every one should Worship God as he would himself yet they founded this Equity in the nature of God and the Authority of his Commands This Exemption then ariseth merely as our Author observes because they are subject to a Superiour Power in Heaven which excuseth them from the Duty of Obedience to their Superiours on Earth when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God whence it undeniably follows that that Supream Power in Heaven hath exempted these things from all inferiour Powers on earth Extend this now unto all things wherein men have and ought to have a regard unto that Superiour Power in Heaven as it must be extended or the whole is ridiculous for that heavenly Supremacy is made the formall reason of the exemption here granted and all that our Author hath been so earnestly contending for in the preceeding Chapters falls to the ground For no man pleads exemption from subjection unto yea from giving active obedience unto the Authority and Commands of the Magistrate even in things Religious but merely on the account of his subjection to the Authority of God Heaven and where this is so he is setâ— Liberty by our Author from all contraâ— commands of men This is Bellarmine's 〈◊〉 tissimum est which as King James obseâ—ved overthrows all that he had contened for in his five Books de Justificatione A Survey of the Fifth Chapter THe fifth Chapter is at such variance with it self and what is elsewhere dictated in the Treatise that it would require no small labour to make any tollerable composition of things between them This I shall not engage in as not being of my present concernment What seems to tend unto the carrying on of the design of the whole may be called unto some account In the beginning of it he tells us that a belief of the indifferency or rather imposture of all Religions is made the most effectual not to say the most fashionable argument for liberty of Conscience For my part I never read I never heard of this pretence or Argument to be used to that purpose It wants no such defence Nay the principle it self seems to me to be suited directly to oppose and overthrow it For if there be no such thing in reality as Religion in the World it is certainly a very foolish thing to have differences perpetuated amongst men upon the account of Conscience which without a supposition of Religion is nothing but a vain and empty name But hence our Author takes occasion to discourse of the use of Religion and Conscience in the Government of Affairs in the World and proves in many words that Conscience unto God with a regard to future eternal rewards or punishments is the great ligament of humane Society the security of Government the strongest bond of Laws and only support of Rule without which every man would first and last be guided by mere self Interest which would reduce all power and Authority to meer force and violence To this purpose doth he discourse at large in one section of this Chapter And in another with no less earnestness and Elegancy of Words and Repetition of various Expressions of the same signification that the use and exercise of conscience will certainly overthrow all Government and fill the world with confusion In like manner whereas we have been hitherâ— throughly instructed as I thought thaâ— men may think what they will in the matters of Religion and be of what perswaiâ—â— they please no man can or ought to controlâ— them therein here we are told that 〈◊〉 power nor policy can keep men peaceable untill some perswasions are rooted out of theiâ— minds by severity of Laws and Penalties pagâ— 145. And whereas heretofore we werâ— informed that men might believe what theâ— would Princes were concerned only iâ— their outward practice now are we assured that above all things it concerns Princes to look to the Doctrines and Articles of menâ— belief p. 147. But these things as was before intimated are not of our concern Nor can I find much of that Importanceâ— in the third and fourth paragraphs of this Declamatory Invective It is evident whom he regards and reflects upon and with what false unmanly unchristian revilings he indeavours to traduce them He would have the world believe that there is a Generation of men whose principles of Religion teach them to be proud peevish malicious spightful envious turbulent boysterous seditious and what ever is evil in the world when others are all for candour moderation and ingenuity amongst whom no doubt he reckons himself for one and gives in this Discourse in evidence thereof But what are these Doctrines and Articles of mens belief which dispose them inevitably to all the villanies that our Author could find names for A catalogue of them he gives us pag. 147 148. Saith he what if they believe that Princes are but the Executioners of the decrces of the presbitery and that in case of disobedience to their Spiritual Governours they may be excommunicated and by consequence deposed What if they believe that dominion is founded in Grace and therefore all wicked Kings forfeit their Crowns and that it is in the power of the People of God to bestow them where they please And what if others believe that to pursue their successes in Villany and Rebellion is to follow Providence All the World knows what it is that hath given him the Advantage of providing a covering for these monstrous fictions and an account thereof hath been given elsewhere And what now if those intended do not believe these things nor any one of them What if they do openly disavow every one of them as for ought I ever heard or know they do and as I do my self What if some of them are ridiculously framed into Articles of faith from the supposed practices of some individual Persons And what if men be of never so vileâ— opinions about the pursuit of their successes so they have none to countenance them iâ— any unlawful Enterprises which I think must go before successes What if only the Papists be concerned in these Articles of faith and they only in one of them about the Excommunication and Deposition of Princes and that only some of them and not one of those have any concern in them whom he intends to reproach I say if these things are so we need look no farther
for the principles of that Religion which hath furnished him with all this candor moderation and ingenuity and hath wrought him to such a quiet and peaceable temper by teaching him that Humility Charity and Meekness which here bewray themselves Let it be granted as it must and ought to be that all Principles of the minds of men pretended to be from Apprehensions of Religion that are in themselves inconsistent with any Lawful Government in any place what ever ought to be coerced and restrained For our Lord Jesus Christ sending his Gospel to be preached and published in all Nations and Kingdoms of the World then and at all times under various sorts of Governments all for the same end of publick Tranquility and Prosperity did propose nothing in it but what a Submission and Obedience unto might be consistent with the Government it self of what sort soever it were He came as they used to sing of old to give men an Heavenly Kingdom and not to deprive them or take from them their earthly temporal dominions There is therefore nothing more certain than that there is no principle of the Religion taught by Jesus Christ which either in it self or in the practice of it is inconsistent with any Righteous Government on the Earth And if any opinions can truly and really be manifested so to be I will be no Advocate for them nor their Abettors But such as these our Author shall never be able justly to affix on them whom he opposeth nor the least umbrage of them if he do but allow the Gospel and the power of Christ to institute those Spiritual Ordinances and requiring their Administration which do not which cannot extend unto any thing wherein a Magistrate as such hath the least concernment in point of prejudice For if on a false or undue practice of them any thing should be done that is not purely spiritual or that being done should be esteemed to operate upon any of outward Concerns Relations Interestâ— Occasions of men they may be restrain by the power of him who presides oâ— publick good But besides these pretences our Aâ—thor I know not how chargeth also the â—â—mours inclinations and passions of some meâ— as inconsistent with Government and aâ—wayes disposing men to Phanaticisme and â—â—dition and on occasion thereof falls out to an excess of intemperance in reproaâ—â—ing them whom he opposetâ— such as 〈◊〉 have not above once or twice before 〈◊〉 with the like And in particular he raâ— about that Zeal as he calls it for the Gâ—â—ry of God which hath turned whole Natioâ— into Shambles filled the World with Buteâ—ries and Massacres and fleshed it self wiâ—â— slaughters of miriads of mankind Noâ— omitting all other Controversies I shaâ—â— undertake to maintain this against any mâ—â— in the World that the effects here so trâ—gically expressed have been produced 〈◊〉 the Leal our Author pleads for in coâ—pelling all unto the same sentiments and prâ—â—ctices in Religion incomparably aboâ— what hath ensued upon any other pretencâ— in or about Religion what ever This neel require I shall evince with such Inâ—stances from the entring of Christianity into the World to this very day as will admit of no Competition with all those together which on any account or pretence have produced the like effects This it was and is that hath soaked the Earth with blood depopulated Nations ruined Families Countrys Kingdoms and at length made innumerable Christians rejoyce in the yoke of Turkish Tyranny to free themselves from their perpetual persecutions on the account of their dissent from the Worship publickly established in the places of their Nativity And as for the Humours Inclinations and passions of men when our Author will give such Rules and directions as whereby the Magistrate may know how to make a true and legal judgement of who are fit on their account to live in his Territories and who are not I suppose there will not be any contest about them until then we may leave them as here displayed and set up by our Author for every one to cast a cudgel at them that hath a mind thereunto For to what purpose is it to consider the frequent Occasions he takes to diseourse about the ill tempers and humours of men or of enveighing against them for being morose and ungentile unsociable peevish censorious with many other terms of reproach that do not at present occur to my memory nor are doubtless worth the searching after Suppose he hath the Advantage of a better natural temper have more sedate affections a more complyant humour be more remote from giving or receiving provocations and have learned the wayes of Courtly deportment only was pleased to vail them all and every one in the writing of this Discourse is it meet that they should be persecuted and destroyed be esteemed Seditious and I know not what because they are of a natural temper not so disposed to Affability and sweetness of Conversation as some others are For my part I dislike the humour and temper of mind characterised by our Author it may be as much as he I am sure I think as much as I ought But to make it a matter of such huge importance as solemnly to introduce it into a Discourse about Religion and publick Tranquility will not it may be on second thoughts be esteemed over considerately done And it is not unlikely but that our Author seems of as untoward a Composition and peevish an Humour to them whom he reflects upon as they do to him and that they satisfie themselves as much in their disposition and deportment as he doth himself in his Nimirum idem omnes fallimur neque est quisquam Quem non in aliqua re videre Suffenum Possis Sect. 5. pag. 155 156. He inveighs against the Events that attend the permission of different Sects of Religion in a Common-wealth And it is not denyed but that some inconveniencies may ensue thereon But as himself hath well observed in another place we do not in these things enquire what is absolutely best and what hath no inconvenience attending it but what is the best which in our present condition we can attain unto and what in that state answers the Duty that God requireth of us Questionless it were best that we should be all of one mind in these things of God and it is no doubt also our Duty on all hands to endeavour so to be But seeing de facto this is not so nor is it in the power of men when and how they wil to depose those perswasions of their minds and dictates of their Consciences from whence it is not so on the one part or the other although in some parts of our differences some may do so and will not namely in things acknowledged to be of no necessity antecedent to their imposition and some would do so and cannot It is now enquired what is the best way to be steer'd in for the Accomplishment of the desired end of peace and
vest it with a power of countermanding the decrees of Princes if no more be intended by countermanding but a refusal to observe their decrees and yield Obedience to them in things against their Consciences which is all can be pretended if it fall not on this Author himself as in some cases it doth and which by the certain conduct of right reason must be extended to all wherein the Consciences of mâ—n are affected with the Authority of God yet it doth on all Christians in the World that I know of besides himself For adding to the Law of God it is not charged on any that they add to his commands as though they made their own divine or part of his word and law but only that they add in his Worship to the things commanded by him which being forbidden in the Scripture when they can free themselves from it I shall rejoyce but as yet see not how they can so do Nor are there any that I koâ—â— of who set up any prohibitions of their owâ— in or about the Worship of God or as thing thereunto pertaining as is unduly and unrighteously pretended There 〈◊〉 be indeed some things injoyned by meâ— which they do and must abstain from 〈◊〉 they would do from any other sin whateveâ— But their consciences are regulated by â— prohibitions but those of God himselâ—â— And things are prohibited and made sinfâ—â— unto them not only when in particular and by a specification of their instances they are forbidden but also when therâ— lye general prohibitions against them â— any account whatever Some men indeeâ— think that if a particular prohibition of any thing might be produced they would aâ— quiesce in it whilst they plead an exâ—emption of sundry things from being inâ—cluded in general prohibitions althougâ— they have the direct formal Reason attending them on which those prohibitionâ— are founded But it is to be feared thaâ— this also is but a pretence For let any thing be particularly forbidden yet iâ— mens interest and superstition induce them to observe or retain it they will find out distinctions to evade the prohibition and retain the practice What can be more directly forbidden than the making or useâ—â—g of graven Images in or about Religious Worship and yet we know how little â—ome men do acquiesce in that prohibiâ—â—on And it was the Observation of a â—earned Prelate of this Nation in his reâ—ection of the distinctions whereby they â—ndeavoured to countenance themselves in their Idolatry that the particular instances of things forbidden in the second Commandment are not principally intended â—ut the general Rule of not adding any thing in the Worship of God without his Institution Non imago saith he non simulachrum prohibetur sed non facies tibi What way therefore any thing becomes a sin unto any be it by a particular or general prohibition be it from the scandal that may attend its practice unto him it is a sin And it is a wild notion that when any persons abstain from the practice of that in the Worship of God which to them is sinful as so practised they add prohibitions of their own to the commands of God The same is to be said concerning Christian Liberty No man that I know of makes things indifferent to be sinful as is pretended nor can any man in his right wits do so For none can entertain contradictory notions of the same things at the same time as those are that the faâ—â— things are indifferent that is not sinâ—â—â— and sinful But this some say that this in their own nature indifferent that 〈◊〉 absolutely so may be yet relatively 〈◊〉 lawful because with respect unto that â—â—â—â—lation forbidden of God To set up Altar of old for a Civil memorial in a place was a thing indifferent but to 〈◊〉 up an Altar to offer Sacrifices on who the Tabernacle was not was a sin Itâ— indifferent for a man that understands thâ— Language to read the Scripture in Laâ—â—â— or in English but to read it in Latine uâ— a Congregation that understands it 〈◊〉 as a part of Gods Worship would be 〈◊〉 Nor doth our Christian Liberty consist alâ—â— in our judgement of the indifferency things in their own nature made necâ—â—â—sary to practice by commands as hath bâ— shewed And if it doth so the Jews hâ— that priviledge as much as Christians Aâ— they are easily offended who complainâ— that their Christian Liberty in the Pâ—â—ctice of what they think meet in the Wâ—â—ship of God is intrenched on by such leaving them to their pleasure because their Apprehension of the will of God the contrary cannot comply with them their practice The close of this Chapter is designed to the removal of an Objection pretended to be weighty and difficult but indeed made so meerly by the Novel Opinions advanced by this Author For laying aside all respect unto some uncouth Principles broached in this Discourse there is scarce a Christian Child of ten years old but can resolve the difficulty pretended and that according to the mind of God For it is supposed that the Magistrate may establish a Worship that is Idolatrous and Superstitious and an enquiry is made thereon what the subject shall do in that case why where lyes the difficulty why saith he in this case they must be either Rebels or Idolaters If they obey they sin against God if they disobey they sin against their Soveraign According to the Principles hither to received in Christian Religion any one would Reply and say no for it is certain that men must obey God and not contract the guilt of such horrible sins as Idolatry and Superstition but in so doing they are neither Rebels against their Ruler nor do sin against him It is true they must quieily and patiently submit to what they may suffer from him but they are in so doing guilty of no Rebellion nor sin against him Did ever any Christian yet so much as call it into question whether the Primitive Christians were Rebels and sinned against their Rulers because they would not obey those Edicts whereby they established Idolatrous Worship or did any one ever think that they had a difficult case of Conscience to resolve in that matter They were indeed accused by the Pagans as Rebels against the Emperours but no Christian every yet thought their case to have been doubtful But all this difficulty ariseth from the making of two Gods where there ought to be but one And this renders the case so perplexed that for my part I cannot see directly how it is determined by our Author Sometimes he speaks as though it were the duty of Subjects to comply with the establishment of Idolatry supposed as pag. 214 215. for with respect as I suppose it is to the case as by him stated that he sayes men must not withdraw their obedience and better submit unto the unreasonable impositions of Nero or Caligula than to hazard the dissolution of the State Sometimes he seems not to oblige them
in Conscience to practise according to the publick prescription but only pleads that the Magistrate may punish them if they do not and sain would have it thought that he may do so justly But these things are certain unto us in this matter and are so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Christian Religion that if the supream Magistrate command any thing in the Worship of God that is Idolatrous we are not to practise it accordingly because we must obey God rather than men Nextly that in our refusal of complyance with the Magistrates commands we do neither rebel nor sin against him For God hath not doth not at any time shut us up in any condition unto a necessity of sinning Thirdly that in case the Magistrate shall think meet through his own mistakes and misapprehensions to punish destroy and burn them alive who shall not comply with his Edicts as did Nebuchadnezzar or as they did in England in times of Popery after all honest and Lawful private wayes of self-preservation used which we are obliged unto we are quietly and patiently to submit to the Will of God in our sufferings without opposing or resisting by force or stirring up seditions or tumults to the disturbance of publick peace But our Author hath elsewhere provided a full Solution of this difficulty Chap. 8. p. 308. Where he tells us that in cases and disputes of a publick concern Private men are not properly sui juris they have no power over thiâ— actions they are not to be directed by theiâ— own judgements or determined by their ouâ— wills but by the commands and determinaâ—â—ons of the publick Conscience And if theâ— be any sin in the command he that imposed iâ— shall answer for it and not I whose Duty it iâ— to obey The commands of Authority will warrant my Obedience my Obedience will hallâ—â— or at least excuse my action and so secure 〈◊〉 from sin if not from errour because I folleâ— the best guide and most probable direction 〈◊〉 am capable of and though I may mistake my integrity shall preserve my innocence and in all doubtfull and disputable cases it is better to err with Authority than to be in the right against it When he shall produce any oâ—â— Divine Writer Any of the Ancient Fathers any sober Schoolmen or Casuists any Learned modern Divines speaking at this rate or giving countenance unto this direction given to men for the regulating of their moral actions it shall be farther attended unto I know some such thing is muttered amongst the pleaders for blind Obedience upon Vowes voluntarily engaged into for that purpose But as it is acknowledged by themselves that by those Vowes they deprive themselves of that Right and Liberty which naturally belongs unto them as unto all other men wherein they place much of the merit of them so by others those Vowes themselves with all the pretended bruitish Obedience that proceeds from them are sufficiently evidenced to be an horrible Abomination and such as make a ready way for the perpetration of all villanies in the world to which purpose that kind of Obedience hath been principally made use of But these things are extreamly fond and not only as applyed unto the Worship of God repugnant to the Gospel but also in themselves to the Law of our Creation and that Moral dependance on God which is indispensible unto all individuals of mankind We are told in the Gospel that every one is to be fully perswaded in his own mind that whatever is not of faith is sin that we are not to be in such things the Servants of men that other mens leading of us amiss whoever they are will not excuse us for if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch and he that followeth is as sure to perish as he that leadeth The next Guids of the souls and Consciences of men are doubtless those who speak unto them in the name of God or Preachers of the Gospel Yet are all the Disciples of Christ frequently warned to take heed that they be not deceived by any under that pretence but diligently examining what is proposed unto them they discern in themselves what is good and evil Nor doth the great Apostle himself require us to be followers of him any further than he was a follower of Christ. They will find small relief who at the last day shall charge their sins on the commands of others whatever hope to the contrary they are put into by our Author Neither will it be any excuse that we have done according to the Precepts of men if we have done contrary to those of God Ephraim of old was broken in judgement because he willingly walked after the commandment Hos. 5. 14 But would not his Obedience hallow or at least excuse his action And would not the Authority of the King warrant his Obedience Or must Ephraim now answer for the sin and not be only that imposed the command But it seems that when Jeroboam sinned who at that time had this goodly Creature of the publick Conscience in keeping he made Israel sin also who obeyed him It is moreover a brave attempt to assert that Private men with respect to any of their Moral Actions are not properly sui juris have no power over their actions are not to be directed by their own judgements or determined by their own wills This is Circes Rod one stroke whereof turned men into Hoggs For to what purpose serve their Understandings their Judgements their Wills if not to guide and determine them in their Actions I think he would find hard work that should go about to perswade men to put out their own eyes or blind themselves that they might see all by one publick Eye And I am sure it is no less unreasonable to desire them to reject their own Wills Understandings and Judgements to be lead and determined by a publick Conscience considering especially that that publick Conscience it self is a meer Tragelaphus which never had Existence in Rerum natura Besides suppose men should be willing to accept of this condition of renouncing their own Understandings and Judgements from being their Guides as to their Moral actions I fear it will be found that indeed they are not able so to do Mens Understandings and their Consciences are placed in them by him who made them to rule in them and over their actions in his name and with respect unto their dependance on him And let men endeavour it whilest they please they shall never be able utterly to cast of this Yoke of God and destroy this order of things which by him inlaid in the Principles of all Rational Beings Men whilest they are meâ— in things that have a Moral Good or Eâ—â— in them or adhering to them must be guided and determined by their own Understandings whether they will or no. Aâ— if by any means they stisle the actings 〈◊〉 them at present they will not avoid the Judgement which according to
them shiâ— pass upon them at the last day But theâ— things may elsewhere be farther pursue In the mean time the Reader may take thiâ— Case as it is determined by the Learned Pâ—â—late before mentioned in his Dialogue abouâ— Subjection and Obedience against the Pâ—pists whose words are as follow Par. 3 pag. 297. Philand If the Prince establish any Religion whatever it be you must by youâ— oath obey it Theoph. We must not rebelâ— and take arms against the Prince but will Reverence and Humility serve God before the Prince and that is nothing against our Oath Philand Then is not the Prince Supream Theoph Why so Philand Your selves are superiour when you serve whom you list Theoph. As thought to serve God according to his will were to serve whom we list and not whom Princes and all others ought to serve Philand But you will be Judges when God is well served and when not Theoph. If you can excuse us before God when you mistead us we will serve him as you shall appoint us otherwise if every man shall answer for himself good reason he be Master of his own Conscience in that which toucheth him so near and no man shall excuse him for Philand This is to make every man Supream Judge of Religion Theoph. The poorest wretch that is may be Supreme Governour of his own heart Princes rule the publick and external actions of their Countreyes but not the Consciences of men This in his dayes was the Doctrine of the Church of England and as was observed before no Person who then lived in it knew better what was so The sole enquiry remaining is whether the Magistrate having established such a Religion as is Idolatrous or Superstitious may justly and lawfully punish and destroy his Subjects for their non-complyance therewithall This is that which if I understand him our Author would give countenance unto contrary to the common sense of all Christians yea of common sense it self For wherereas he interweaves his Discourse with suppositions that men may mistake in Religion and abuse it all such Interpositions are purely sophistical seeing the Case proposed to Resolution which ought in the whole to be precisely attended unto is about the refusal to observe and practise a Religion Idolatrous or Superstitious Of the like nature is that Argument which alone he makes use of here and elsewhere to justifie his Principles namely the necessity of Government and how much better the worst Government is and the most depraved in its administration than Anarchy or Confusion For as this by all mankind is unquestioned so I do not think there is any one among them who can tell how to use this concession to our Authors purpose Doth it follow that because Magistrates cannot justly nor Righteously prescribe an Idolatrous Religion and compel their Subjects to the Profession and Obedience of it and because the Subjects cannot nor ought to yield Obedience therein because of the antecedent and superiour power of God over them that therefore Anarchy or Confusion must be preferred before such an Administration of Government Let the Magistrate command what he will in Religion yet whilest he attends unto the ends of all Civil Government that Government must needs be every way better than none and is by private Christians to be born with and submitted unto untill God in his Providence shall provide relief The primitive Christians lived some Ages in the condition described refusing to observe the Religion required by Law and exercising themselves in the Worship of God which was strictly forbidden And yet neither Anarchy nor Confusion nor any disturbance of publick Tranquility did ensue thereon So did the Protestants here in England in the dayes of Queen Mary and sometime before The Argument which he endeavours in these Discourses to give an Answer unto is only of this importance If the supream Magistrate may command what Religion he pleaseth and enact the observation of it under destructive penalties whereas the greatest part of Magistrates in the World will and do prescribe such Religions and wayes of Divine Worship as are Idolatrous or Superstitious which their Subjects are indispensibly bound in Conscience not to comply withall then is the Magistrate justified in the punishing of men for their serving of God as they ought and they may suffer as evil doers in what they suffer as Christians This all the World over will justifie them that are uppermost and have power in their hands on no other ground but because they are so and have so in this Oppressions and destructions of them thâ— being under them in Civil respects dâ— dissent from them in things Religious Noâ— whether this be according to the mind 〈◊〉 God or no is left unto the judgement 〈◊〉 all indifferent men We have I confesâ—â— I know not how many expressions inteâ—posed in this Discourse as was observed about sedition troubling of publick peace men being turbulent against prescribe Rules of Worship whereof if he pretend that every peaceable dissenter and dissent from what is publickly established in Religious Worship are guilty he is a pleasaâ—â—â— man in a disputation and if he do any thing he determines his case proposed oâ— the part of complyance with Idolatroâ— and Superstitious Worship If he do not so the mention of them in this place it very importune and unseasonable All men acknowledge that such miscarriages and practices may be justly coerced and punished But what is this to a bare refusal to comply in any Idolatrous Worship and peacable Practice of what God doth require as that which he will accept and own But our Author proceeds to find out many pretences on the account whereof Persons whom he acknowledgeth to be innocent and guiltless may be punished And though their Apprehensions in Religion be not as he saith so much their crime as their infelicity yet there is no remedy but it must expose them to the publick Rods and Axes pag. 219. I have heard of some wise and Righteous Princes who have affirmed that they had rather let twenty nocent persons go free than punish or destroy one that is innocent This seems to render them more like him whose Vice-gerents they are than to seek out colourable reasons for the punishment of them whom they know to be innocent which course is here suggested unto them Such advice might be welcome to him whom men called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clay mingled and leavened with blood others no doubt will abhor it and detest it But what spirit of meekness and mercy our Author is acted by he discovereth in the close of this Chapter pag. 223. for saith he it is easily imaginable how an honest and well-meaning man may through meer ignorance fall into such errours which though God will pardon yet governours must punish His integrity may expiate the crime but cannot prevent the mischief of his errour Nay so easie is it for men to deserve to be punished for their Consciences that there is no Nation
in the World in which were government rightly understood and duty managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the gallies with vastly greater numbers than Villany There is no doubt but that if Phaeton get into the Chariot of the Sun the world will be sufficiently fired And if every Absalom who thinks he understands government and the due management of it better than its present possessours were enthroned there would be havock enough made among mankind But blessed be God who in many places hath disposed it into such hands as under whom those who desire to fear and serve him according to his Will may yet enjoy a more tolerable condition than such Adversaries are pleased withall That honest and well-meaning men falling into errours about the Worship of God through their ownignorance wherein their integrity may expiate their crime must be punished must not be pardoned looks methinks with an appearance of more severity than it is the Will of God that the World should be Governed by seeing one end of his instituting and appointing Government among men is to represent himself in his Power Goodness and Wisdom unto them And he that shall conjoyn another assertion of our Author namely that it is better and more eligible to tolerate debaucheries and immoralities in conversation than liberty of conscience for men to worship God according to those apprehensions which they have of his will with the close of this Chapter that it is so easie for men to deserve to be punished for their consciences that there is no Nation in the world in which were Government rightly understood and duly managed mistakes and abuses of Religion would not supply the Gallies with vastly greater numbers than Villany will easily judge with what Spirit from what principles and with what design this whole Discourse was composed But I find my self utterly besides and beyond my intention engaged in particular controversies and finding by the prospect I have taken of what remains in the Treatise under consideration that it is of the same nature and importance with what is past and a full continuation of those opprobrious reproaches of them whom he opposeth and open discoveries of earnest desires after their trouble and ruine which we have now sufficiently been inured unto I shall choose rather here to break off this Discourse than further to pursue the ventilation of those differences wherein I shall not willingly or of choice at any time engage Besides what is in the whole Discourse of especial and particular controversie may be better handled apart by it self as probably ere long it will be if this new Representation of old pretences quickned by invectives and improved beyond all bounds and measures formerly fixt or given unto them be judged to deserve a particular consideration In the mean time this Author is more concerned than I to consider whether those bold incursions that he hath made upon the antient boundaries and rules of Religion and the consciences of men those contemptuous revilings of his Adversaries which he hath almost fill'd the Pages of his Book withal those discoveries he hath made of the want of a due sense of the weaknesses and infirmities of men which himself wants not and of fierce implacable sanguinary thoughts against them who appeal to the Judgement Seat of God that they do not in any thing dissent from him or others but out of a Reverence of the Authority of God and for fear of provoking his holy Majesty his incompassionate insulting overmen in distresses and sufferings will add to the comfort of that account which he must shortly make before his Lord and ours To close up this Discourse The principal design of the Treatise thus far surveyed is to perswade or seduce Soveraign Princes or Supream Magistrates unto two evils that are indeed inseparable and equally pernicious to themselves and others The one of these is to invade or usurp the Throne of God and the other to behave themselves therein unlike him And where the one leads the way the other will assuredly follow The Empire over Religion the souls and consciences of men in the Worship of God hath hitherto been esteemed to belong unto God alone to be a peculiar Jewel in his glorious Diadem Neither can it spring from any other fountain but absolute and infinite Supremacy such as belongs to him as he hath alone who is the first cause and last end of all All attempts to educe it from or to resolve it into any other principle are vain and will prove abortive But here the Sons of men are enticed to say with him of old We will ascend into Heaven we will exalt our Throne above the Stars of God we will sit upon the Mount of the Congregation in the sides of the North we will ascend above the heights of the clouds we will be like the Most High For wherein can this be effected What Ladders have men to climb personally into Heaven and who shall attend them in their attempt It is an assuming of a dominion over the souls and consciences of men in the Worship of God wherein and whereby this may be pretended and therein alone And all this description of the invasion of the Throne of God whence he who did so is compared to Lucifer who sought Supremacy in Heaven is but the setting up of his power in and over the Church in its Worship which was performed in the Temple the Mount of the Congregation and in Sion on the North of the City of Jerusalem Isaiah 14. This now Princes are perswaded unto and can scarce escape without reproaches where they refuse or omit the attempting of it Suppose they be prevailed with to run the hazzard and adventure of such an undertaking what is it that they are thereon perswaded unto How are they directed to behave themselves after they have assumed a likeness unto the Most High and exalted themselves to his Throne Plainly that which is now expected from them is nothing but wrath fury indignation persecution destructions banishments ruine of the persons and families of men innocent peaceable fearing God and useful in their several stations to satisfie their own wills or to serve the interests of other men Is this to act like God whose power and authority they have assumed or like to his greatest Adversary Doth God deal thus in this world in his Rule over the souls of men or is not this that which is set out in the Fable of Phaeton that he who takes the Chariot of the Sun will cast the whole world into a combustion So he who of old is supposed to have affected the Throne of God hath ever since acted that cruelty to his power which manifests what was his design therein and what would have been the end of his coveted Soveraignty And whoever at any time shall take to himself that power that is peculiar to God will find himself left in the exercise of it to act utterly unlike him yea contrary unto
the Principles here asserted and contended for either express or represent the supremacy of the Kings of this Nation in matters Ecclesiastical as it is stated and determined by themselves in Parliament but rather so as to give great offence and scandal to the Religion here professed and advantage to the Adversaries thereof for after there appeared some ambiguity in those words of the Oath enacted 1 Eliz. of testifying the Queen to be supream Governour as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or Causes as in Temporal and many doubts and scruples ensued thereon as though there were assigned to her a power over the Consciences of her Subjects in spiritual things or that she had a power Her self to order and administer spiritual things In quinto Elizab. it is enacted by way of Explanation that the Oaths aforesaid shall be expounded in such form as is set forth in the Admonition annexed to the Queens Injunctions published in the first year of Her Reign where disclaiming the power of the Ministry of divine offices in the Church or the power of the Priesthood here by our Author affixed to the supream Magistrate her power and Authority is declared to be a Soveraignty over all manner of persons born within this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal so that no foraign power hath or ought to have any superiority over them And so is this supremacy stated in the Articles Anno 1562. namely an Authoâ—ity to Rule all Estates and Degrees committed to the charge of the supream Magistrate by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and to restrain the stubborn or evil-doers Of the things contended for by our Author the Authority of the Priesthood and power over the Consciences of men in matters of Religion there is not one word in our Laws but rather they are both of them rejected and condemned I have yet laid the least part of that Load upon this Principle which if it be farther pressed it must expect to be burdened withal and that from the Common Suffrage of Christians in all Ages But yet that I may not transgress against the design of this short and hasty Discourse I shall proceed no farther in the pursuit of it but take a little Survey of what is here pleaded in its defence Now this is undertaken and pursued in the first Chapter with the two next ensuing where an end is put to this Plea For if I understand any thing of his words and expressions our Author in the beginning of his fourth Chapter cuts down all those Gourds and Wild Vines that he had been planting in the three preceding for he not only grants but disputes also for an obligation on the Consciences of men antecedent and superiour unto all humane Laws and their obligation his words are as followeth pag. 115. It is not because Subjects are in any thing free from the Authority of the Supream Power on earth but because they are subject to a Superiour in Heaven and they are only then excused from the duty of Obedience to their Soveraign when they cannot give it without Rebellion against God So that it is not originally any Right of their own that exempts them from a subjection to the Soveraign Power in all things but it is purely Gods right of Governing his own Creatures that Magistrates then invade when they make Edicts to violate or controll his Laws and those who will take off from the Consciences of men all obligations antecedent to those of Humane Laws instead of making the Power of Princes Supream absolute and uncontrollable they utterly enervate all their Authority and set their Subjects at perfect Liberty from all their Commands I know no men that pretend to Exemption from the Obligation of Humane Laws but only on this Plea that God by his Law requires them to do otherwise and if this be so the Authority of such Laws as to the Consciences of men is superseded by the confession of this Author Allow therefore but the Principles here expressed namely that men have a Superiour Power over them in Heaven whose Laws and the Revelation of whose Will concerning them is the Supream Rule of their duty whence an Obligation is laid upon their Consciences of doing whatever is commanded or not doing what is forbidden by him which is superiour unto and actually supersedes all Humane Commands and Laws that interfere therewith and I see neither use of nor place for that Power of Magistrates over the Consciences of men which is so earnestly contended for And our Author also in his ensuing Discourse in that Chapter placeth all the security of Government in the Respect that the Consciences of men have to the Will and Command of God and which they profess to have which in all these Chapters he pleads to be a Principle of all Confusion But it is the first Chapter which alone we are now taking a view of The only Argument therein insisted on to to make good the Ascription unto the Magistrate of the power over Religion and the Consciences of men before described is the absolute and indispensable necessity of it unto publick Tranquility which is the principal and most important End of Government In the pursuit of this Argument sometimes yea often such expressions are used concerning the Magistrates power as in a tolerable Construction declare it to be what no man denyes nor will contend about But it is necessary that they be interpreted according to the Genius and tenor of the Opinion contended for and accordingly we will consider them This alone I say is that which is here pleaded or is given in as the subject of the ensuing Discourse But after all I think that he who shall set himself seriously to find out how any thing here spoken hath a direct and rational cogency towards the establishment of the conclusion before laid down will find himself engaged in no easie an undertakeing We were told I confess at the entrance so as that we may not complain of a surprizal that we must expect to have Invectives twisted with Arguments and some such thing seems here to be aimed at but if a Logical Chymist come and make a separation of the Elements of this Composition he will find if I mistake not an heap of the drossy Invective and scarce the least appearance of any argument Ore Instead of sober rational arguing crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis great Aggravations of mens miscarriages in the pursuit of the Dictates of their Consciences either real or feigned edged against and fiercely reflected upon those whom he makes his Adversaries and these the same for substance repeated over and over in a great variety of well placed words take up the greatest part of his Plea in this Chapter especially the beginning of it wherein alone the Controversie as by himself stated is concerned But if the Power and Authority over Religion and the Consciences of men here ascribed unto Supream Magistrates be so indispensably necessary to
the preservation of publick Tranquility as is pretended a man cannot but wonder how the world hath been in any Age past kept in any tolerable peace and quietness and how it is any where blessed with those ends of Government at this day For it will not be an easie task for our Author or any one else to demonstrate that the Power mentioned hath ever been either claimed or exercised by any Supream Magistrate in Christendom or that it is so at this day The Experience of past and present Ages is therefore abundantly sufficient to defeat this pretence which is sufficiently asserted without the least appearance of proof or Argument to give it countenance or confirmation or they must be very charitable to him or ignorant in themselves who will mistake Invectives for Arguments The remembrance indeed of these Severities I would willingly lay aside especially because the very mention of them seems to express an higher sense of and regret concerning them then I am in the least subject unto or something that looks like a design of Retaliation but as these things are far from my mind so the continual returns that almost in every Page I meet with of high and contemptuous Reproaches will not allow that they be alwayes passed by without any notice or remark It is indeed indispensably necessary that publick Peace and Tranquility be preserved but that there is any thing in point of Government necessary hereunto but that God have all spiritual power over the Consciences of men and Rulers Political power over their Actings wherein publick Peace and Tranquility are concerned the World hath not hitherto esteemed nor do I expect to find it proved by this Author If these things will not preserve the publick peace it will not be kept if one should rise from the dead to perswade men unto their duty The Power of God over the Consciences of men I suppose is acknowledged by all who own any such thing as Conscience or believe there is a God over all That also in the exercise of this Authority he requires of men all that obedience unto Rulers that is any way needfull or expedient unto the preservation of the ends of their Rule is a Truth standing firm on the same Foundation of Universal consent derived from the Law of Creation and his positive Commands to that purpose have an evidence of his Will in this matter not liable to exception or controll This Conscience unto God our Author confesseth as we have observed in his fourth Chapter to be the great preservation and security of Goverment and Governours with respect unto the ends mentioned And if so what becomes of all the pretences of disorder and confusion that will ensue unless this power over mens Consciences be given to the Magistrate and taken as it were out of the hands of God Nor is it to be supposed that men will be more true to their Consciences supposing the Reiglement of them in the hand of men than when they are granted to be in the hand and power of God for both at present are supposed to require the same things Certainly where Conscience respects Authority as it always doth the more Absolute and Soveraign it apprehends the Authority by which it is obliged the greater and more firm will be the impressions of the obligation upon it And in that Capacity of preheminence it must look upon the Authority of God compared with the Authority of man Here then lyes the security of publick peace and tranquility as it is backed by the Authority of the Magistrate to see that all outward Actions are suitable unto what Conscience toward God doth in this matter openly and unquestionably require The pretence indeed is that the placing of this Authority over the Consciences of men in the Supream Ruler doth obviate and take away all grounds and occasions of any such Actings on the Account of Religion as may tend unto publick disturbance For suppose Conscience in things concerning Religion and the Worship of God subject to God alone and the Magistrate require such things to be observed in the one or the other as God hath not required at least in the Judgements and Consciences of them of whom the things prescribed are required and to forbid the things that God requires to be observed and done in this case it is said they cannot or will not comply in Active Obedience with the Commands of the Magistrate But what if it so fall out Doth it thence follow that such persons must needs Rebell and be Seditious and disturb the publick peace of the Society whereof they are Members Wherefore is it that they do not do or observe what is required of them by the Magistrate in Religion or the Worship of God or that they do what he forbids Is it not because of the Authority of God over their minds and Consciences in these things And why should it be supposed that men will answer the Obligations laid by God on their Consciences in one thing and not in another in the things of his Worship and not of obedience unto Civil Power concerning which his Commands are as express and evident as they can be pretended to be in the things which they avow their obligation unto Experience is pretended to the contrary It is said again and again that men under pretence of their Consciences unto God in Religion have raised Wars and Tumults and brought all things into confusion in this Kingdom and Nation especially and what will words avail against the evidence of so open an experience to the contrary But what if this also should prove a false and futilous pretence Fierce and long Wars have been in this Nation of old upon the various Titles of persons pleading their Right unto Supream Government in the Kingdom against one another so also have there been about the Civil Rights and the Priviledges of the Subjects in the Confusions commonly called the Barons Wars The late Troubles Disorders and Wars amongst us must bear the weight of this whole charge But if any one will take the pains to review the publick Writings Declarations Treaties whereby those Tumults and Wars were begun and carried on he will easily discern that Liberty of Conscience in practice or the exemption of it from the power of the Magistrate as to the Rule and Conduct of it now ascribed unto him in the latitude by sober persons defended or pleaded for had neither place in nor influence into the Beginnings of those troubles And when such confusions are begun no man can give assurance or conjecture where they shall end Authority Laws Priviledges and I know not what things wherein private men of whom alone we treat have no pretence of Interest were pleaded in those Affairs He that would judge aright of these things must set aside all other Considerations and give his instance of the Tumults and Seditions that have ensued on the account of menskeeping their Consciences entire for God alone without any