well serve their Interest and cannot be Godliness unless it brings in Gain and should this Doctrine once appear unlawful down goes their Dagon and loses both his Head and Hands and will be an useless Trunk a mere Stump and no longer a God The setting up the two Golden Calves was not the least Policy of Jeroboam the Son of Nebat 1 Kings 12 26. to vers 31. who is rarely mentioned without that infamous Remarque that he made Israel sin and that Sin was Separation from the Church and Rebellion against his lawful Soveraign To go up to Jerufalem to Worship will in time bring the Kingdom back again to the House of David and therefore the Calves must be erected at Dan and Bethel Not that Jeroboam was so sottish that he did not know that Idolatry and Schism Revolting and Rebellion were unlawful but something was necessary to be done to preserve his ill-gotten Crown and the People had formerly been strangely fond of a Calf and two he thought would please them better I fear Jeroboams Policy is one end and the chief one of their Separation even to nurse the People up in Disloyalty against their lawful Prince and disobedience against the Holy Church For should the People go to the Church to Worship to hear Divine Service and receive the Holy Sacrament should they hear their lawful Ministers preach their Duty press them to Fear God and Honour the King they might in time be convinc'd of their Errors and Mistakes and then all 's lost CHAP. XIV Of their Exaltation of Preaching and the Reason why they do so Of the great Veneration people have for the Pulpit The advantages they make of it to gain the love of People for being so painful Labourers dispersing their Doctrines and procuring Benevolences Hereby they bring the Prayers of the Church to be nauseous accustom People to variety and novelty and have opportunities of displaying their Gifts and Abilities as well as in Extempore-Prayer The Abuse they put upon the Church that it is against Preaching A vindication of the Church from this aspersion Of the Primitive and Modern Preaching It is against preaching themselves and their own Interests and wicked Designs that the Church declares it self NOW to the end that they may have the better opportunity to disperse and divulge their Doctrines there is no place that can be so subservient as the Pulpit a Discourse from thence having gained the mighty Reputation of being Authentique and the generally received Opinion being that from that place men speak as the Oracles of God and that every Word that comes from their mouths is as true as the Gospel as in truth it ought to be There is therefore a Necessity that they should exalt Preaching as the chiefly necessary most excellent Christian Duty and give it the preheminence above all other Ordinances And this is the third Doctrine which for the same Design with the other with so much vehemence and earnestness they press upon the People And to satisfie you how strangely the present Age is enamoured of the Pulpit and how great an Opinion People have of what is spoken there I will relate a passage which happened to a Reverend Divine in the County of Essex Every Lords Day as he thought it was his Duty in the Afternoon he Expounded upon some part of the Nine and thirty Articles to instruct his Parishioners what was the Doctrine of the Church of England judging it a good expedient to remove the Scandal that lies upon our Religion and to prevent their falling into Sects and Factions with which that County does abound and this he did in the Reading Desk without the formality of a Prayer to usher it in or make it look like a Sermon but never met with any thing but the discouragement of a thin Audience whereby ghessing at the true Reason he gave them notice that for the future he would Preach in the Afternoons being determined to try if the same Matter would take better from the Pulpit than it had done from the Reading Desk he chose such Texts as were suitable to the Doctrines he intended to Expound upon and from them delivered the very same Words he was resolved to use in his Exposition Nor did the success at all deceive his expectation The Church is now throng'd and crowded whereas before it used to look as if the Stones and Pillars must have said Amen as 't is said they once did to the Prayers of our Venerable Bede The Discourses are extreamly approved of and the People wonderfully pleased The plain truth on 't is the Commons of England by the Disorders of the late Times and the many tickling Promises which were made them That the Burthen of Tithes should be taken away and a more Evangelical Way for the maintenance of the Clergy should be found out have lost the true sense of payment of Tithes and do not do it out of a Principle of Conscience nor consider that they are a just Right which in all Alienations passes as a reserved Rent to the use of Almighty God and it may be are one of the best Tenures in Capite of their Estates from the Great Landlord of the Vniverse and from hence it is that if they had no such esteem for Preaching yet they look upon it as a Debt their Minister ows them for what they pay him and though several of them care not how little he has yet they would be sure to have enough for their Money which makes them many times come to Church to see that the Parson does his Duty rather than from him to learn their own or perform what they know by joyning with him in humble and devout Prayers and Praises But they think they have not their Penniworths for their Penny and that a man takes no pains for what he does not speak in the Pulpit or if he does not Preach twice in a day Besides Curiosity and the desire and love of novelties and mighty Natural and the Athenian humour does but too universally prevail a certain pleasure in hearing or telling some New thing So that a Sermon though never so good and useful which was preached in the Morning would be Crambe bis costa nauseous if repeated in the Afternoon and with this humour of the World these men are so well acquainted that it is variety that makes the Feast that usually they have one Text for the Morning and another for the Evening Sermon and neither the same Prayer exactly before or after either though it is but putting Almighty before Eternal or Eternal before Almighty and it will please And I am perswaded if any man would give himself the trouble in Short-hand to write down one of their Prayers for three or four Days together he would find the great Secret of Extempore-Praying to consist in this neat and cunning transposition turning the inside outward and the foreside backward more than in any thing of New Invention at which for all
Jealousies and that they have another Design in dispersing them abroad than the use which they constantly employ them in And that is this THEY find by certain Experience that to accuse any Persons or any parts of our Worship of Superstition or Popery is an Expedient that never yet fail'd to render them contemptible and hated to the Multitude which is a clear Demonstration that the Universal Genius of these Nations is an Enemy to that Perswasion Nor will the Romish Religion ever recover any tolerable credit so long as the Cruelties of Queen Mary's Reign the Spanish Invasion in Eighty Eight and those threatned Inhumanities the Powder-Treason the Inquisition or the late horrid Rebellion and Massacre in Ireland which influenced that in England are either remembred or feared All which makes it strongly improbable That any Prince or Government either in Church or State who must of necessity consult their own interest in the quiet and welfare of their People should attempt to introduce that Religion to which the People their Subjects of all Degrees and Conditions discover such a general aversion and universal detestation and which therefore must create infinite troubles and most desperate Inconveniences AND if it be well considered we shall find that the Jesuites and all the Romish Factors have not been able for this last Century Some persons are strangely mistaken if the Concilium de propaganda fide at Rome has not been very helpful in setting those Divisions amongst us for they know well enough what that means Divide Impera which employment these Dissenters take out of their hands as being the greater Artists in this Mystery of Iniquity so effectually to serve the interest of their own Affairs as these Persons have done and if the Papists have made many or considerable Proselytes possibly they owe them to those Divisions which these men have made in our Church and not to any strength of Arguments they are able to produce to convince them of any Errouts either in our Doctrine or Discipline And though he must be a great Stranger in the Romish Transactions who is ignorant how great Dissentions Heats and Animosities are amongst the Religious of their several Orders and how great differences even about their main Question of Transubstantiation there are amongst their Doctors nay how great Dissentions have been amongst the Popes themselves notwithstanding their pretended Infallibility yet the great Motive they make use of to induce any person to return to the Faith and Obedience of the Church of Rome is the strange Discords and Divisions which are amongst us and the great Unity which is as they falsly boast only to be found amongst them which Unity they urge as an infallible Mark of the true Church BUT as I believe the Presbyterian or any other Dissenter has no real Design or Intention to oblige the Church of Rome though there is no doubt to be made but that by their Divisions they do extremely advance the Roman Interest and Affairs so I am satisfied that their aim is only to amuse us and please the People till such time as they have made their Party strong enough against the Church of England of which they are in reality more afraid than they are either of the Pope or Turk and could they but once come to be uppermost and have the power of the Sword they would be so far from being afraid of St. Peter's double Dagger that if the Pope did not civilly leave them to the management of their own Affairs they would hazard to make the triple Diadem shake and I know they have strong hopes to destroy the Kingdom of Antichrist which when they had finished at home they might have a temptation having an easier passage through the Streights than Hannibal had over the Alps to invade Peter's Patrimony and burn the great Whore of Babylon with fire and fulfil all the Prophecies in the Revelations without the assistance of Kings though there 't is said that they shall do it NOW if any persons will be so adventurous to follow me I will endeavour to lead them through their subterranean Passages and shew their Contrivances and their secret Mines and Magazines of that white Powder which though it makes no noise yet is not a whit less dangerous than that for which we celebrate the fifth day of November and which will at one blow overturn all Root and Branch of Liturgy Episcopacy Monarchy and Liberty CHAP. III. An Account of the Heads of these Factions amongst us from whence we may conjecture what their Intentions are Of their way of Education in the Times of the late Rebellion in the Vniversities or in the Army Of their Lay-Teachers and Shop-Doctors how they came by their Gifts and Talent in Preaching the Advantages they made of Religion in their Trades the Employments they had under the Vsurping Governments the Incouragement they had to invade the Pulpit The desire they have of an alteration in the present Government to recover their former Power and Profit The great unfitness of these men to officiate in the Church who are guilty of Sacriledg Murder and Perjury LET us come therefore to take a survey of their Persons from thence we will proceed to their Principles which will quickly lead us to the consideration of their Practices AS to their Persons we must consider them as that pleasant fellow divided the World into two parts one of which was born to cheat the other or according to the more customary and familiar method we must divide them into the Heads and Body for by the Way I must tell you that these Factions have one remarkable Qualification of a Monster that to one Body there are many Heads all challenging Equality though at the same time every one of them aimes at Priority The Body being for the most composed of those who are deceived I shall not concern my self with them as the Principal Subjects of this Discourse for if at any time one of this Body advances so far as to be able to deceive others that Member presently starts up to be a Head 'T is these Heads and their Hands that we have just reason to suspect and to be afraid of and with these therefore I chiefly intend to deal THESE Heads must likewise be subdivided which is natural to them into two Classes which Word will please some of them though it may be the distinction will not They are either Scholasticks or Laicks Literate or Ignorant Heads The Scholasticks are such as either had their Education in one of the Universities or in the Army-Colledge during the late precious times when the Saints bore the sway and rul'd these Nations with a Rod of Iron viz. the Sword and with that Iron-Scepter broke their Enemies in pieces like a Potters Vessel IF they are such as suckt the Breasts of either of the Universities 't is odds but they are some of those who were nurst up immediately after their poor Mothers had most outragiously
openly avow if not by their Doctrine yet by their Practice and justifie the blackest of all Crimes Rebellion which is as the sin of Witchcraft and that stubbornness which is as Iniquity and Idolatry of which they so vehemently accuse others yet all this is done for Conscience sake and that pretence can by a strange Chymistry turn the greatest Sinners into golden Saints and the most horrid Impieties Sacriledg and Murder as they would make us believe into acceptable services to God Almighty THOUGH in reality after all this they have made no greater advance and it may be are not yet better than the Pharisees of old Acts 26.5 whose Sect was the strictest among the Jews they were as strongly perswaded of their own sanctity they would make as long Prayers Mat. 23.14 15. and devour Widows Houses too They were as industrious to save Souls nay would do more than most of these will adventure at compass Sea as well as Land to make a Proselite and I fear with the same success as these men do I say they are not yet gotten altogether so far nor are quite so innocent For amongst all the Crimes our blessed Saviour accuses them of and condemns them for and for which he denounces so many fearful Woes against them I do not find that ever he charges them with the Guilt or so much as suspicion of Rebellion against Caesar or any of his Prefects or yet with Disobedience to the High-Priest who was then their Ecclesiastical Superior Nay further we may well suppose that as in their Tithing Mint Annise and Cummin so they were exact in their Duty to all these by the design they had to entrap the Holy Jesus with that Question whether it was lawful to give Tribute to Caesar or not they being beforehand satisfied in themselves that it was and resolved if he should deny it to accuse him of a Crime which they were well assured would condemn him NOR in truth are they arrived to any higher Pitch than it is very possible for a Heathen by the meer strength of Nature to perform and some of them went as far in Morality if we may believe the Histories of their Lives as it is possible for Humane Nature to go BUT further to discover how great Masters they are in the Art of Converting every thing to their advantage and by all ways to gain love both to their Persons and Perswasions Even Punishment the original design of which is to make all Crimes odious as they handle the matter it adds a Lustre unto theirs They never fear or feel the deserved Penalties of the Laws but both in publick and private they cry out as men upon the Rack and if for their commiting a spoil in Gods Harvest Justice does but take them by the Ears with their hideous out-cryes they call all the compassionate Herd to condole with their sufferings and this must be call'd a Time of Persecution and the suffering-days of the Saints Now the very Word Persecution sounds so heathenish and unlawful that it is impossible but they should meet with abundance of Pity and that we know is both the Parent and the Child of Love And it is no wonder if they glory in these Tribulations and patiently take the spoiling of their Goods if they can be found which they are sure will be restored by the Bountiful Pity of their Congregations sevenfold in this Life and in the World to come God knows what THAT great constancy of Mind with which they appear to suffer they may well shew when one hair of their Heads is not toucht Their frequent talking of resisting unto Blood which I much question whether they would in Suffering as for Doing we may from former Experience take their Word and their many and vehement Exhortations to Constancy begets in their followers an opinion that they are not at all inferior to the Martyrs of the Primitive Times or those of later Days and that therefore they are in the right Way because they are persecuted by the Wicked for such are all those who are not new-cast in their Mould And this makes the People redouble their Love and their Bounty knowing that if he that gives but a Cup of cold Water shall not lose his Reward theirs shall be exceeding great and full of Glory Hereby they are sure they are not of the World because the World hates them for they make what they call Persecution an infallible sign of the true Church which is so great an Error and Mistake that if it be admitted there can be none False for undoubtedly Philosophy has not been without its Martyrs and there is no Religion of Pagan Jew Turk as well as Christian but has in their sense suffered Persecution that is have been opposed condemned and punished by the Laws of some Times and Places BUT they have another Design and the Project does but too commonly succeed according to their Wishes and Intentions for they do not only hereby purchase to themselves Love Riches Pity and Reputation but they likewise inspire a secret Hatred into the People against all Magistrates from the Commissary and Official to his most Reverend Grace from the Countrey-Justice of the Peace to Sacred Majesty it self AND I am the apter to believe this because in common Discourse from the Highest to the Lowest of them I could never yet hear any one of them speak kindly either of the late Blessed King CHARLES the Martyr or of His present Majesty excepting for the Act of Indemnity or the last Indulgence and Toleration Whatever Reason they had for the one I am sure they had sufficient cause for the other and had they any Remainders of good Nature Ingenuity or Generosity they would think all their Duty and Service too little to express their sensibleness and gratitude for that one Gracious Act whereby they enjoy their Lives Liberties and Estates all which they had so absolutely forfeited And though they dare not call the Master of the House Beelzebub yet for certain his Domestiques shall meet with far coarser treatment if they are not such as are visibly inclined to be favourable unto them but discharge their Duty by putting the Law in execution against them presently they are Persecutors Blood-Suckers Neros Enemies to God and all Good Men which all must be restrained to those of their Party who only are Good and Godly FROM hence the People come to a dislike of their Governors and Government from thence they proceed to wish it were otherways and by degrees grow at last familiarly to entertain those dreadful and desperate Resolutions if they have Opportunity and Ability to make what Alterations they think good not only in Religious but Civil Affairs not only to depose but murther Kings and extirpate Episcopacy Root and Branch and indeed to commit all Villanies and Disorders Nor will they stick at any thing which they are pleased to varnish over with the pretence and only the name of Reformation THAT
or even as this superstitious Idolatrous Church of England Man who for all that with his devout Litany and humble Lord have mercy upon me miserable Sinner is in the judgment of him who shall be Judg of the quick and the dead like to go up to his House justified sooner than the boasting Pharisaical Presbyterian Separatist notwithstanding the large self-justifying Inventory of his own Perfections and Performances There are few but would be of my judgment in this particular that these men are strangely puft up with this wind-Tympany of Pride if they had but convers'd with them and seen how big and swell'd they look with self-conceit or if they had but heard them vilifie lessen and despise all others upon whom the best their Charily can bestow is a little scornful Pity Alas poor Souls they are in blindness Errour and Ignorance and do not see those saving Truths which concern their precious and immortal Souls or their everlasting Peace and Welfare CHAP. X. Of the ill Consequences this Doctrine has upon the private Communities where it comes From hence proceeds a certain breach of Vnity No People so addicted to Debates Envyings Strife Backbitings Whisperings Slanders condemning censuring all who are not of their Way to be Reprobate as are the Separatists Vncharitableness and Atheism hereby extremely propagated they separate the dearest Eriends and by creeping into Houses and beguiling silly Women divide those whom God had joined together they are curious busie-bodies in espying out the faults of all others which they publish to make themselves appear the Elect and all others Reprobates All this is done to fit them to act upon the publick Theatre of the World which they practise in private Villages or where ever they dwell FROM Themselves let us pass to their Neighbours and there we shall see the ill consequences this Doctrine has upon them as they are Members of any Community or private Society of Men. Hereby the Unity of the Spirit Eph. 4.3 which is the Bond of Peace and Perfection is utterly destroyed and wheresoever this Doctrine once enters there does immediately follow as St. Paul says to his Corinthians Debates Envyings Wrath 2 Cor. 12 20. Strifes Back-bitings Whisperings Swellings Tumults innumerable Disputes great heats in discourse and coolings in Charity strong arguings though weak Arguments from these men of perverse minds condemning censuring judging reproving and reproaching all their Neighbours who will not join with them and by running into the same Excess of Spiritual Riots unlawful Meetings Conventicles or Assemblies under pretence of serving God become new Men as they believe and speak themselves to be all those who look not through their Opticks are blind the Wicked and Reprobates If for this talkative and troublesome humours any of their Neighbours reprove or rebuke them presently it is because they know nothing of God or of goodness If hereby they purchase the aversion of the Sober or more Judicious the Prudent and Ancient who will tell them it was not so in their time but there was more true love faith and honesty when there was less disputing about Religion when men went all one way to the Church and Heaven and that it was never a good world since they came into it Oh! these are your formal Moral men who are setled upon the Lees and hereby they fortifie themselves in their Errors because they know the world must hate them which Hatred they make another infallible Sign of the true Church and which is just such another as the former Mark of Persecution and if one or both of these are true all manner of Thieves Robbers Murderers and combined Villains must undoubtedly be of their true Church because they are hated of all men except their Confederates and justly persecuted for their contempt and breaking of the Laws as these men are who for all their fine pretences are no less Malefactors nor less dangerous to the publick welfare of the State than the other and I am sure far more in one sense because they are more numerous and of worse design And whatever they may say it is for that danger which the natural Principle of Self-preservation teaches all men it is for their doing so many ill Offices setting Families and whole Towns together by the ears disturbing the peace and quiet of all their Neighbours it is for these and such like uncharitable practices that they deservedly pull those aversions upon themselves and not as they vainly please themselves for their being Religious which those that see through them and their Form of Godliness to their wicked Intentions say they cannot see any true Religion in them at all and cannot hate them for what they are not guilty of NOR does this a little advance the encrease of Atheism amongst us and it may be we need not seek much further for the true Reason of the great and sensible Decay of Christian Piety in the present Age. I have known in some places those who were of no particular Faction nor had listed themselves under the Standards of any Party who yet forsook the assembling of themselves together at the Church the Prayers and Sacraments for which I could never hear them give any other account but that it was impossible to know which was the right Way to Heaven or the true Religion whilst so many different Opinions pretend with an equal Confidence that they are in the Right and all others wrong and this sort of People wanting both Will and Abilities to judg are easily perswaded to dispence with all Religious Performances their natural inclinations having never very strongly bent them that Way and should the succeeding Age make but as considerable a step towards Heathenism as the present has done we should stand in need of a Second Joseph of Arimathea to convert our Posterity to the Christian Faith as 't is said the first did our Ancestors NEITHER has this Infection seized only upon the vulgar but even those persons who have been able to fly from other Plagues have been surprized by this Contagion and possibly Leviathan who is so much accused for debauching green heads has not made so many Proselytes to Atheistical Principles amongst the tender and unsettled Minds of young Gentlemen as the many Disputes and Uncertainties which of late have by our Dissenters been occasioned about which is the true Religion where whilest every one boldly challenges the sole acquaintance with Truth they come all at last to be suspected of Falshood and amongst so many glistering and well-set Counterfeits and Pebles the true and inestimable Diamond by the difficulty of discovery is in danger to be mistaken if not absolutely lost And the young Gallant whilest he makes it his Pastime as much as Cock-fighting to set the Doctor of his Parish as he calls him and a Quaker Anabaptist or Presbyterian into a dispute about Religion though he fancies the Rencounter very pleasant and thereby gets a fine Scene of Divertisement yet he certainly loses
are driven about with every new Wind of Doctrine and truly let them but alone and they want neither Skill nor Will to accomplish these and far more difficult Enterprises In General therefore they perswade all Men every where that the present visible Church is Antichristian and Popish a thing strangely made up of outward Pomp and Splendor Formality Ceremonies and Will-worship the Inventions Traditions and Commandments of Men not at all agreeable to the Word of God or the naked and Primitive Purity and simplicity of the Gospel and the Truth as it is in Jesus These Controversies have been so learnedly debated and they have been so often baffled in all they could say for themselves that I know no Plea that has been left them except Conscience which they will not part with though most people from their Actions Judge if they have any it is an Evil conscience and of the largest size in the World Though the plain truth is the thing which they call Conscience is commonly known and called by the name of Wilfulness in Opinion And is just like the Mother Viper which when her young Brood are hunted and in Danger opens her mouth and there secures them and it may be mortally stings the pursuers I will not therefore repeat the Combate since they can never be so often thrown to the ground but like the Gyant Antaens they rise again and gather strength by their frequent foils And though I would not have any one think I have an intention by what I say to put my self into the number of those Worthies I am perswaded by the repeated victories which the Champions of Truth have so often gained over them these vanquished become victors and the great Condescensions of so many Famous and Learned Cheiftians as have undertaken to confute them and have really done it has rendred them more considerable amongst the Vulgar than all their own Abilities put together could have done For Ignorant and credulous People must of necessity believe that they are some body and that there is something more than Ordinary of truth in their Opinions which emboldens them to affront Authority and to have the Courage to measure their Weapons with the most Famous and Learned Persons of the Age. And by these Comabtes these Triflers purchase a real Victory Honour and Reputation and triumph in their being defeated by such glorious Armes And here it will not be amiss to inform all people of one of their Stratagems which never fails them Vide their Reports of the Conferences at Hampton Court before King James nor they to make use of it amongst the credulous Company of their fiends Followers and Disciples they alwayes boast themselves Invincible and tell them that such and such with whom they disputed were not able to resist the Wisdome and Spirit by which they spake and though they will own their Weaknesses yet will they glory in the pretended Victory of the Truth And by disclaiming their own Interest in these great Atchievements and ascribing it all to God who hath chosen the Weak and contemptible things to confound the Great and Wise they still advance their Reputation as being the particular Favourites of Heaven and the only Instruments which God is pleased to make use of to carry on his Work his great Work which appears so much the more his own wonderful doing by how much the Means he imployes in it are despicable and unlikely to Effect it And hereby they insinuate and wind themselves into the esteem and admiration of their Party though others who observe them thus cunningly crawling upon their bellies with a seeming humility think it discovers in them more of the subtile Serpent than of the innocent Dove But to go on they will not be contented with Generals but their attempts descend to particulars and therefore as if they meant to fulfill the prediction of our Saviour against the Jewish Temple upon the present Church there is not one stone from the Foundation to the highest Pinacle which they would leave upon another or do not endeavour to throw down Not the Porch that is called Beautiful nor the Altar sacred in all places Ages and amongst all Nations and Religions except the Turks can escape their Zealous Rage and Holy fury Their secret practices and aims are levell'd at All Root and Branch is the Word of Ecclesiastical Places Persons and Performances As to their dislike of Places that is not so General and I question not but if they and their Appennages were converted to their use and sanctified by the Word and Prayer for they must not be Consecrated because that is a Popish word and Ceremony they could dispense with any of them except the Cathedrals which so long as they stand will put the World in mind of Bishops their true and Ancient Possessors But yet some Dissenters who are no Steeple-house Quakers will speak most contemptuously of the Church of God which is the House of God 1 Tim. 3.15 Nor indeed do any of them believe there is any such thing in them as a Relative Holiness though God tells them there is when he commanded Moses to put off his Shoes from off his Feet Ex. 3 5. for the Place whereon he stood was Holy Ground And many Ornaments and Vestments dedicated to his service are called Holy Ex. 29.6 As the Holy Crown or Mitre for the High-Priest Lev 16.4 Ezech. 4.14 the holy Linnen Coat and holy Chambers where they laid these Holy things But these Men are not under Law but under Grace As if the great Obligations of the Gospel were intended to set us free from that respect we owe unto Almighty God Whereas common reason will tell us they ought rather to increase and augment it And I know not what is if this be not as St. Peter sayes an abusing of Christian freedom 1 St. Pet. 2. Chap. 13.14 15 16. and using it for a Cloak of Maliciousness As all those persons do who will not submit themselves to Government and by Obedience Honour the King which is the way to shew that they fear God How little fear or respect they have for either is but too plain What will they say to you of the houses of God are they any more than other Places Heaps of Wood and Stones they are sorry that they are not heaps of Rubbish too Were they not all built by Papists in the times of Superstition Blindness and Ignorance But some of them will yet go further and can afford them no better Title they are the High Places the * A pretty witty new name for a Church it is to be thought from the Publicans and Sinners that resort to it Oh the happy Inventions of some Men Publick and the Places of Idolatry One of these Venerable Men riding not long ago near a Cathedral of this Nation took occasion at the next Meeting whither he was going to hold forth to speak to this Effect if not these Words
Sence of our Ecclesiastical Performances for which we shall find they have as little kindness or Charity as for the former All the Ceremonies of the Church which they tell tell the People are with us the greatest part if not the All of our Worship are far from that Spirit and Truth which God seeks for in all those Worshippers that he approves That they are no where Warranted in the Word of God and therefore unlawful The Surplice and other Vestments badges of Innocence and distinctions of Degrees or Office are Rags of Rome Bowing at the Name of Jesus flat Idolatry kneeling at the Sacrament the same The Cross after Baptism a vain and foolish piece of Superstition and a Relique of the Popish Crossing In short the whole Book of Common Prayer c. a dull dead Letter formal having not the Power or Spirit of Devotion nothing but a translation of the Mass-book into English Full of Thank Calvin for his Tolerabiles ineptiae frivolous stuff mere Porredge and I know not what for there is nothing that may render the Service of the Church contemptible or Odious which they will stick to say of it and in so doing perswade us they do their Duty and God good Service How far they have successfully advanced in this Wicked Design is but too Evident by the General neglect of People in repairing to the Church on the Holy Fasts and Festival Dayes Though they are enjoyned by the Statute Laws of the Land to be kept Holy Ann. quarto quinto Ed. Sexti st 3. as well as by the Command of the Church And by which all people are enjoyned to resort to their Parish-Churches to hear Divine Service Anno. 1. Eliz. st 2. and to joyn in an unanimous and Vniform Worship of God Anno 23. Eliz. st 1. Nor will they come to Church on the Lords Day in the afternoons when they have no pretence of the hindrance of their Secular Affairs if there be only Prayers and Catechizing but not a Sermon which as hereafter shall be shewn is made the Essential part of all Religion Now all these Waters of Marah spring from the same Fountain The Doctrine of their being the Elect and only people of God For if they be theirs is the right way of worship and all others false and vain But that they are the Elect you have already heard and what infallible Marks their Teachers have given them and more than all that have told them that undoubtedly they are which likewise has been confirmed unto them by the Testimony of the Spirit helping them to pray and filling them with Love and Joy in believing And if ours be false wayes and Will-worship such as keep men in Error and Ignorance Blindness Formality and Superstition such as will certainly bring them to Hell ought they not think you to promote Gods Glory and their own by pulling down the Kingdom of Antichrist and destroying the Brazen Serpent when it is abused to Idolatry Undoubtedly they think it is their Duty and not only theirs but the Duty of all Magistrates Kings and Princes of the Earth who are bound to endeavour it to hate the great Whore of Babylon and to burn her with fire and if they will not be so wise to receive this Instruction from them and so learned as to put this in Execution the people may if they can get power nay must endeavour it with or against their Wills for the Work is the Lords and Cursed be he that doth the Work of the Lord negligently Jer. 48.10 and Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from Blood which is the true Chain of their desperate Opinions and Practices A most admirable Sorites to prove Rebellions not only Lawful but Necessary and which you see is forcibly back't with abused Scripture Thus one Error in the Foundation multiplies into a thousand and contrary to the Rules of Architecture is like an inverted Pyramid the higher it rises the wider it spreads and one mistake in a Principle is the Parent of innumerable in the Practice I will conclude this particular with the following Apologue and leave the Application of it to every mans pleasure A certain Husbandman having in his Plantation a Vine it grew wonderfully and did produce great plenty of incomparable Clusters and of a most delicate tast some of his wise neighbours coming to see his Plantation and perceiving the Shoots and Branches so Luxuriant they gave him advice to crop and prune it and to take off most of the largest and fairest leaves telling him that the Plant spent it self too much that way and that all the good they did was but to make a little unnecessary Flourish which might well be spared that they Beauty or Shade could not make a recompence for the injury they did in drawing away such abundance of the sapp and moisture from the Root whereby they hindred its Fruit robbing it in great measure of they juicy nourishment Upon tryal the Experiment does not succede the Fruit proves neither so fair plentiful nor of that greateful flavour as formerly it used to do But to give him assistance in his design the following Yeaâ— he spies upon one of the Branches a fine wrought webb charged only with a few little tender Eggs his Curiosity and Ignorance of what it was tempted him to let them alone and to see what they would come to The heat of the Sun in a short time discloses a brood of most curiously variegated Catterpillers the honest man finds them still lodged in their cunning inclosure admires their Beauty and many-colour'd nature Ammel and thus argues with himselfe Sure these Worms can do my Vine no hurt they look so finely and feel so soft which arguments prevail with him not to disturb much Iess destroy them Before he thought any more of them or look't again they had overspread his Vine and devoured all the Leaves and had left the tender fruit naked and bare which being thereby exposed to the scorching Sun the unkindness of the Winds and Weather in a little time parch'd and dwindled quite away and if he had not used much industry he had utterly lost his delicate Plant. Which for all his care and pains did not yet in several Years recover the damage it had sustained by these pretty silken Guests You need make no Question but for ever after he knew them again at first sight and assoon as ever he spied a Webb but beginning to be spun upon his Vine he gave it a speedy Dispatch CHAP. XII Of the Desperate influences this Doctrine has upon the State and Civil Government This Amazon Fury bred in Rebellion and ever since nurst up with blood proved from our own and all Europe's sad Experience This Doctrine inclines men to Aristocracy or the Government of a Common-wealth Of the little kindness they have for Monarchy Salus populi Suprema Lex their fundamental Principle of Government abused to perswade Men. that the
I promise you in some Company where he thought he might be bold lamenting the looseness and vitiousness of the Times and the blame being laid at the Door of the Inferiour Magistrates who were so remiss in putting the Laws in Execution Pray says he how can it be otherwise when there are none in Authority but the God-damm'ees and though no former Prince has so highly obliged them as his present Majesty by the Act of Oblivion and a General Pardon since though possibly a better Temper and milder Inclinations are not to be found amongst all Mankind yet for all that I believe the Guards about White-hall at which they grumble so oft calling them a standing Army are a greater Security for him than their Love or Allegiance And I make no dispute but if they had Power proportionable to their Desires if he would not consent to their unreasonable Demands and in Effect depose himself they would make bold in plain English to un-King him and it may be something more as well as his Glorious Father whose Caution I think therefore ought never to be forgotten * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lady Elizabeth's Relation of what the King said to her immediately before his Death To Forgive them but never Trust them For what is a King to them if he be not one of the Elect and that he can never be unless he be of their Church and resolve to Establish their true and Evangelical Ways from which he must therefore be very far so long as he suffers the Laws and his subordinate Ministers of Justice to persecute these People who are the Elect the undoubted Children of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sect. 16. upon the Ordinance against the Common-Prayer-Book And as his late Majesty of blessed memory does in the forementioned Book not improbably Conjecture Possibly that aversion they all have for the Publique Litturgy of the Church is because it does so frequently pray for the King and the Royal Family to which in their Hearts they cannot say Amen and that the Conjecture is not wide of the Mark this following Instance will in some measure make apparent One of this Gang being amongst other Company entertain'd as a neighbour at a friends house immediately as soon as Dinner was done he steps out of the Room into a by Entry and a Clergy-man who was present returning thanks and as is customary and commendable closing his Grace with a short Prayer for the Kings Majesty the Queen and Royal Family this impudent Fellow was by those who stood next the Door heard scornfully and maliciously to say when he came to that Passage Oh! by all Means if it were not for that all were worth nothing and indeed it makes me apt to think that this is one if not the only Reason why they account all the Prayers of the Church worth nothing for they are not yet arrived to that Perfection in Christian Religion to love or pray for their Enemies in which number they never fail to put all Crowned and Mitred Heads How directly contrary this Doctrine is to the Divine Philanthropy the infinite Love of God to all Mankind and indeed to the whole Current and Consent of the Sacred Scriptures how dishonourable to God and disadvantageous to Christian Religion are Subjects already largely and learnedly treated of by other Pens And if as they fell in my Way I have lightly touched upon any of them it is only so far as they were necessary to shew how pernicious this Doctrine of theirs is to themselves and the salvation of their Souls how troublesome unquiet uncharitable and unchristian it is amongst their Neighbours How destructive it is to the Church and Ecclesiastical Government Places Persons and Performances and how irreconcileable and desperately dangerous it is to the State of the present Royal Dignity and Government CHAP. XIII Of their Doctrine of the necessity of Separation from the Wicked which they teach in Private and by their Example in Publick These uses they make of it to know their strength and numbers which they always boast of if possible to bring Authority to comply with their Desires hereby they engross a Trade amongst themselves Of their undermining Authority by making it contemptible by their daily affronting it Of the unlawfulness of Separation from the example of our Saviour and from Scripture Separation by St. Jude made a mark of Reprobation Jeroboams Policy the End of their Separation LET us now proceed to a second Doctrine which is he Spawn of the first and the Daughter of such a beautiful Mother cannot chuse but must be most admirable fair Being the Elect People of God those whom from all Eternity he has out of his infinite Love predestinated to Holiness and Happiness though they are in the World yet they are not of the World and therefore they must Separate from Sinners and be a peculiar People without which they think they are not sufficiently zealous of Good Works which in plain English is That whosoever will be of the Number of the Elect People of God must have no religious commerce with the rest of the World for all other he may and that a true Title to Heaven is only to be hoped for and had in their Church and Communion and by this means they advance the so necessary Point of Separation or Distinction of a Party without which Instruments their Spiritual Carnes and Engines to draw up the Stones after they have hew'd and fitted them by the former Doctrine they cannot go on with or ever hope to finish the New Model of their Church so as to set up the Corner-Stone and with joy and shouting cry Grace Grace unto it for they would only change his Grace of Canterbury into his Grace of Presbytery And this they manage with as little noise as possible and with the same Secrecy and Subtilty as the rest though some people say they can plainly hear the Axes and Hammers go perpetually Psal 77.6 which they lift up to break down the Carved Work of all the Houses of God in the Land in order to their setting up the Synagogues of Satan in the room of them If you discourse with them and put the Question Whether the Church of England is a true Church and whether Salvation may not be obtained in Communion with it They will do all they can to decline the Question and will certainly dissemble their Opinion by telling you They dare not judge every man must stand or fall to his own Master That they forbid or hinder none from coming to our Church whose Consciences will give them leave All which is only to avoid the Pinch of the Controversie and is neither better nor worse but what the Apostle S. Paul calls Speaking Lyes in Hypocrisie 1 Tim. 4.2 For it is evident that they think it unlawful because they abstain from our Church and refuse Communion with us themselves and should they speak never a Word to their
the Pasture and not permitted to make all Common or range into the Corn-Fields Though after all these brags I have not met with any person whose observation has found Money more plentiful or Trading a Farthing better even in the time of the Toleration But lastly By this Separation they are sure to undermine the foundation of all Government which is the principal thing they always aim at both in Church and State for by their departing from one and Disobedience to both they bring their Power into question and contempt and whilest they endeavour to render them odious tyrannical heathenish and persecuting superstitious and unlawful and yet escape unpunished by the hopes of the like impunity they encourage others to follow their example and insult over the Laws and to esteem of all Power as the Frogs in the Fable did of their Wooden King And this is all in order to the accomplishment of their ultimate Design which is the subversion of the present Government both Civil and Ecclesiastical in order to the setting up a new one according to their own Phancies and Humours Now to demonstrate the unlawfulness of this Doctrine it were enough to shew that in Publick they will rarely own it themselves and will never charge the reason of their Separation upon any of these ends but upon the Ceremonies of the Church to which they pretend their Consciences will not give them leave to submit I think we shall cut the Sinews of this pretence and shew how feeble and lame an Excuse it is If we consider That these Ceremonies by their own confession are acknowledged to be indifferent in their own Natures and the reason they give why they are unlawful is because they are Imposed the Liberty of Conscience being thereby taken away Now this is a most certain truth that an indifferent thing when commanded by a Lawful Authority ceases to be indifferent and becomes necessary for all the Authority of the Church to command or impose is only exercised upon indifferent things What is absolutely necessary is commanded by God whatever is unlawful is forbidden by him so that they must of necessity either take away all Liberty from the Church to impose indifferent things that so they may have their Liberty which is unreasonable to desire and if granted them would destroy that Liberty which they would have or they must deny the lawfulness of the Authority that commands and determines indifferent things otherwise let them confess that they seek for a knot in a Rush to maintain the Quarrel But the plain Truth is the Vse they have for this Engine of Separation is to shew by their Example that they believe the Authority which commands these things is no Lawful Authority that therefore the impositions are not necessary or Obedience to them a Duty for rtherwise I cannot think them so sottish but they know it is and I am satisfied if they were in Power they would use the same Arguments to persuade to Obedience which now we do though they have stronger in their Budget upon occasion than have been yet employed to make them obey But for a further manifestation of this Error we will bring it to the Doctrine of our Blessed Lord S. Mat 13.29 in the Parable of the Tares The zealous Servants were for a present Separation and Extirpation of the Tares from among the Wheat But the Wise Master was of another judgment Not so lest they should root up the Wheat also and certainly as before was shewn this Separation of theirs has not fail'd of that effect but has already rooted up much of the good fruits of Charity Peace and Vnity out of the Church and has left us the Tares of Dissention in their room of which we may well say an Enemy hath done this And whether this Doctrine is pursued to the uttermost would not lead them to Extripation of the Tares let their Holy League witness For they all hold that Dominium fundatur in gratiâ and the Wicked have only a borrowed Right to whatever they have of Life and Fortune And how easie it is for religious Covetousness to perswade them when in Power to invade the Rights of Sinners and spoil the Egyptians will appear if we call to mind former things which though the Gracious Act of Oblivion has pardon'd them for they will never pardon the forced Restitution of the Kings Bishops Dean and Chapter-Lands But this being only a Parable may not be sufficiently convictive Let us look therefore for Example St. Joh 13.15 Now the Blessed Jesus who tells us he was to be our Example was so far from Separation or making Communion with Sinners a Crime that it was one of the greatest Objections against him S. Matt. 2.10 11 12 13. that he familiarly converst eat and drank with them and was a Friend to Publicans and Sinners S. Matt. 11 19 which accusation he did not excuse himself of but justifie from the good designs of thereby calling Sinners to repentance Nor do we find that ever he separated Himself or his Disciples from the Communion of the Jewish Church though full of such Types and Ceremonies as he came by fulfilling to abrogate but as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath-Days went up to Jerusalem to celebrate all the commanded Festivals even to the last Passeover at which he was betray'd And further to shew us that we ought not to break Vnity or Communion with those who continue in the Visible Church he was as conversant with Judas as with the rest of the Apostles and yet he knew from the beginning who it was that should betray him knew Judas to be a covetous Hypocrite and worse than that a Devil and it is more than probable that he himself at the first Institution gave the Holy Communion to Judas as will appear to any that reads that place of St. Luke Chap. 22. from the thirteenth Verse to the two and twentieth And for the lawfulness of Separation let us hear St. Jude who having given us such a Character as I shall hereafter shew exactly fits these men lest their fair pretences should still endanger our mistake he concludes it with this distinctive Note of Separation These are they if you know them by nothing else you shall be sure to discover them by this These are they that Separate themselves S. Jude 19 Sensual or Animal having not the Spirit for all their great pretences to it unless Sedition Faction and Rebellion be Fruits and Effects of it as before has fully been made appear Could they prove us guilty of Idolatry or that we erre in any Substantial Fundamental point of Religion then their Separation would not only be lawful but necessary but till they can do this and convince us that we are not a true Church their Separation from us is unchristian and unlawful condemned by Christ and his holy Apostles But all this is nothing Their Religion must be such as
their pretended Gifts and Parts few of these Men have been observed to be very ready or excellent And this is one great Reason and the Reason why they use it why the People do so much nauseate the Publique Prayers of the Church and prefer these Enthusiastick Raptures before them Just thus did the People of Israel despise that Angelical Food the Heavenly Manna of which 't is said that it had Omnimodum Saporem a particular taste to please every palate and yet those murmuring Tribes were not contented with it but their Souls were dried up Num. 11.6 because there was nothing for them besides this Manna and they would linger after the Eleshpots and the Quails though they came with a Tempest and went away with a Plague Many Persons I doubt not resort to the Church to satisfie the itching of their Ears and to hear what the Minister can say and if he be an Apollos and Eloquent Man it happens to him as it did to the Prophet Ezekiel and he is unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant Voice and can play well on an Instrument for they love to Hear his Words but they Do them not With this gilded Fly it is that these cunning Anglers bait the Hook with which they first tickle and afterwards take so many Trouts Having first set abroad this Doctrine they do with all vehement earnestness promote it amongst the People and in so doing kill a great many Birds with one Stone for they do thereby extreamly please the Vulgar to whom nothing of Religious Duties is so pleasing as Preaching and at the same time mightily advance their own Designs Hereby also they add not a little to their own Veneration and Fame and something to that which has some Savour The dear Benevolences And they are always careful to tell them how willing they are to spend and be spent for the good of their Souls for their sakes and the Gospels and thereby ingratiate themselves into the Love and insinuate their Opinions into the liking of many who are won upon by these Considerations first to hear them after a while to approve of them and become their followers and Disciples which when once they are they cry up and Trumpet out the Praises of their Teacher for an able painful godly man in all Companies and Places where they come and thus roul the Snow-ball as big as they can Now the advantages which they expect and receive by this are not a few for first as before was said they infinitely oblige the People and gain upon their Love pretending to do all this freely and out of pure Love and tenderness to their Souls knowing well enough that Magnes amoris amor the great Loadstone of Love is Love and therefore they demand nothing but are contented with what they will freely bestow upon them for their pains which by this Wheedle comes many times to be more than otherwise they could ever have expected or than some of their Followers can honestly or conveniently spare of whom some what with this Liberality to their Teachers and what by their frequent gadding abroad to hear Sermons and in the mean time neglecting the affairs and concerns of their Families at home or which is as bad trusting them wholly to Servants come to be in a condition fit to be relieved themselves and to my particular knowledge some of them are not in a little Danger of burthening the Parishes where they live by wasting what should be for a future Provision for their Families in this Godly way of Gossiping and though by this great Zeal and travailing about they may think themselves or be flatter'd by their Treachers into an Opinion that they are excellent Christians yet St. Paul thinks and pronounces them worse than Heathens for if any man provide not for his own especially those of his own Family he hath denied the Faith and is worse than an Infidel And if the Disciples be such what are the Doctors Sure I am if this be not the Effect it very well may and if more People be not possessed with this rambling and vagrant Religion it is not for want of Exhortation or encouragement to forsake all and follow Christ and to go from City to City to hear the Word of the Lord in this great Famine and scarcity that there is of it as with those abused places of Scripture they perswade People there is and spur them forward in this Wild and travailing Religion Should now a whole Family be all at once possessed with this humour and in the heat of Summer in Hay-time and Harvest for Conscience sake lock up the doors or if the Servants were more careful of Heavenly than of Earthly things leave them open and jaunt ten or twelve Miles to an Exercise and it may betwice or thrice in a Week besides Sunday what must become of them they might like the Grashopper sing in Summer but like her they must either die and starve or steal in the Winter unless the Neighbourhood were more Charitable to them than they are to themselves and none of all this is either impossible or improbable But what a brave time should we have if a whole Town or many Towns together should be bitten with this Gad-Fly The old People and Children who could not march over the Threshold would be bravely nurs't at home I have known something like this and where a poor Child has been left at home by the tender Parents for all whole natural affection if some of the Neighbours had not been more charitable and compassionate Nurses it might have perish't and that it is not generally thus it is not the fault of these Godly Teachers as they call them And if it does not by this way increase the Poor of the Nation of which there is so general a complaint in all Places I am sure their absenting themselves from their Parish Churches and giving incouragement to those who have no Religion to do the same gives opportunity to many loose and idle People to creep into Parishes where they lurk till the time for removing them is expired whereas did all people resort to Church a new Face would soon be taken notice of and care would be taken to remedy the inconvenience A second advantage is that hereby they do gradually accustome the People by following their pleasing Novelties to dislike neglect and contemn the Church and her Ministers Prayers and Sacraments which last especially the Holy Eucharist I have known them willing to receive at the hands of a meer Lay-man though to say Truth few of their Teachers are any other rather than they would repair to their Parish-Church to receive it of their lawful Priest because there they must be obliged to hear the Antichristian Prayers superstitiously or idolatrously kneel and have Communion with the Wicked all which are an abomination unto them and absolutely unlawful And are not these blessed fruits of these mens being Instant in
think those Meats unlawful at other Times and only enjoyns abstinence that our Flesh being subdued tot the Spirit we may the better be enabled to obey the Godly Motions of Righteousness and true Holiness as the Collect for the first Sunday in Lent teaches us to Pray which therefore all they who quarrel at or will not pray for must declare themselves Enemies to and that they are against those Means which the Church of God has ever in and since the Primitive Times thought so conducive to those great ends of Religion NOW to shew the invalidity of this Plea we must consider That the intention of the Apostles was to mark out all false Prophets of what Perswasion Name or Distinction soever And If none are false Teachers or Prophets but such to whom every thing they mention does agree then would the Character of Discovery and those Marks of Distinction which they give us to know them by be altogether in significant impracticable and useless for it is impossible to find all those Devilish Qualifications combined in one Person or Sect no not in Mahomet himself who certainly was the greatest Impostor and it may be The False Prophet that ever was or will be in the World And therefore these signs are promiscuously laid down hut are particularly to be applied some of them to one sort or Sect and some to another as they will suit and agree to their Doctrines and Actions and he is as certainly a False Teacher though not so great a one who is wilfully guilty of one or more of these signs by which we must discover the false Prophets from the True as he would be who could really be charged with them all And if these Men do not grant the Truth of this Preliminary Assertion it must be because they dare not joyn Issue with us in the Tryal but being satisfied before-hand of their Guilt are as the Apostle says of Hereticks Tit. 3.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 convicted and condemned of theselves CHAP. XIX A further pursuance of the discovery and that these Men are False Prophets from the Description of St. Paul and St. Peter St. Peter's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and St. Judes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 considered as particularly designed to shew their Infectious Contagious Doctrines Of their despising Dominions querulous unsatisfied and complaining Humour A short vindication of the Church from their malicious Aspersion of being Guilty of Idolatry LET us now come to a further and particular Examination of them by the Description which St. Paul gives of them who are false Prophets 2 Tim. 3.1 and who were to come in the last and perillous Times God forbid we should lay all that is there said to their Charge But I fear they will not escape unconcerned in a great Measure of it and if nothing else would take hold of them yet the Sin of Pride there mentioned will I doubt pull them by the Cloak of which they are so fond The wisest of Mortal Men tells us Only by Pride cometh Contention Pro. 13.10 so that it seems there can be no Contention without it nor would be any but for it There is a strange Temptation in being a Head though but of a Faction Ambition is a Vice as natural as Self-love and Men take a secret pleasure to be taken notice of which they think adds much to that esteem which all men desire and would perswade themselves they deserve from others That a Man cannot walk the Streets but he shall over-hear an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is the famous Mr. is the sweetest and softest Musick to all Ambitious Ears digito monstrari dicier hic est to have the Porter or Tankard-bearer or honest Trades-man as you pass by his Shop point you out with his finger There goes the precious godly conscientious Mr. HAD they been truly good and obedient Sons of the Church for any thing I know of Parts of Excellencies abâ—â—â— other Men they must have gone 〈…〉 the Common Crowd and it may be never have been taken notice of or at best have been contented with some small Vicaridge or Parsonage as many Orthodox men eminent for Parts Piety and Learning are who many time the more is the pity are buried alive in some obscure Country Village where partly by the narrowness of their Fortune partly by their religious voluntary and unambitious contentment and humility they are confined to the knowledge of a few Rusticks and the next Market Town For Haud rarò emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res augusta Domi Whilest in the mean time some of these empty Boasts fill a whole City and Country with their noise and by that and the liberality of their Disciples who barter ready money with them for infected breath swelling pompous Words of Vanity promises of Liberty c. with which feigned words they make a real Merchandize of their Hearers they arrive at such revenues as otherwise they could never have hoped for And how far even one of these Considerations may transport Ambitious Spirits let that eternal young Ephesian Villain testifie Herostratus who merely for Fame burnt that stupendious Temple of Diana justly accounted one of the Worlds seven Wonders and in a few hours laid those lofty Turrets in Ashes which all Asia had been * They who write most modestly say it was 220 Years Pliny affirms it to have been 400 Years in building by all Asia and several Kings of other Countreys so long in rearing It were well if the same madness and a far greater Impiety did not possess these Men who throw the Flames of Dissention into the Church and Temple of the Living God of which his only Son laid the Foundation with his most precious Blood and of which he himself is the glorious Top and Corner-stone BUT to go on Are they not false Accusers as 't is in the Margin of the Bible Make-bates in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Common Barretors in Religious affairs do they not falsly accuse us and our worship of Idolatry Superstition Blasphemy a thousand other forgeries and calumnies as feigned as they are frequent Are they not Traytors to their Prince whilst like Absalom with fine words and fair Speeches they steal away the Hearts of his Subjects from him 2 Sam. 15.1 to 7. and render him only a King of their Bodies but not of their affections which is his most glorious Prerogative the fairest Jewel and the surest Guard of his Imperial Diadem and without which he is but a King of Brutes and those not over tame and manageable It is the common Character of the King of Great Britain amongst Foreign Nations that he is Rex Diabolorum a piece of Wit which we may thank the Papists for first inventing and this sort of People by the horrid transactions of the late times for continuing and in a great measure justifying BUT further Are they not heady as well as high-minded wilfully wedded to their own