Loyalty than to Write or Preach against Rebellion or cry up the Doctrine of a meer external Non-resistance always believing that Men may be guilty of high Disloyal Acts even to the introducing of a Rebellion while themselves declare they abhor it This I learn'd from the Writing of King Charles the First Vide Page 18.30 as you will meet with in its place If any think I have written more favourably of the Roman Catholick Religion than becomes a Protestant I must reply to him I have written nothing at all either for or against one way of Religion or other but rather Refer as I said just now to such matters of Fact relating to the Three perswasions of the R. Catholicks The Church of England and Protestant Dissenters as were necessary to carry on what I intended and if in doing so and in comparing some things or practices of the Church of England with the Church of Rome I find that the Church of England hath upon its Protestant Principles made Laws for the punishing her Protestant Dissenters producing as bad Effects as those of the Church of Rome and thereupon say that the Protestants Sufferings from the Church of the England were in their Extent harder upon them since the last Settlement of their Uniformity than they can be said to have been under Queen Mary it doth not follow from hence that I Write for her Religion but rather that I am one that desire to Write impartially Or if while I see the Church of England Ministers either in their Printed Books or Sermons exposing as they have done of late some Doctrines or Practices of the other Church more to a Popular Contempt than for an Edifying Information of the People as they formerly dealt by the Dissenters and take occasion from thence to shew them in some particulars how very many of their own Practices and Doctrines may be in the same manner exposed I hope I may not be the worst Protestant for so doing If I reverence that Divine Principle viz. That Conscience in the matter of Gods Worship is not o the forced I am not to be blamed until I be otherwise convinced no nor if I Write against those who oppose His Majesty in settling the Kingdom upon that Principle in a Freedom from those Distractions which the practices of many upon the contrary Principles have ever since the Reformation brought upon it The principle is such as I cannot but value and love with all my Heart because I know it to be so agreeable to the Sence of every Mans mind That no Man who knows what belongs to the Sincere worshipping of God dare allow himself to be unwilling in any part of his Life to live otherwise than under its Benefit when I am otherwise convinced I may recal much of what I have Written but until then I am like to go on in the same way I am in If my Stile or way of writing be offensive to you as any whit too sharp I must crave your remission of that if you judge it to be a fault and for my excuse must say I unhappily learn'd it from the Church of Englands chiefest Doctors He that shall Read their Controversal Books and Sermons as I have done written against the Roman Catholicks and Protestant Dissenters will tell you it is next to an impossibility not to imbibe the Faculty of their way of Writing Gentlemen I have no more to say here but wish your Citty all imaginable happiness and each of your Selves and Families the Blessings of this World and that which is to come Some necessary Disquisitions and Close EXPOSTULATIONS WITH THE Clergy and People OF THE Church of England c. HOW highly the Church of England hath valued Her Self both upon the account of Her Loyalty and the super excellency of Her Constitution and Administrations is so well known among us as no Man needs my telling him any thing about it This is that Her Preachers and Members have so much boasted of as if in the point of Loyalty they were the only choice Persons in all his Majesties Dominions and in the case of Church Excellency they were the best and purest of all Churches in the World If all this were true it is pity they should have ever done any thing that might in the least wise lose or darken the Glory of such Excellencies or to make any Persons think otherwise of them than they think of themselves But I am in great doubt that if the People of England were divided into four Parts more then three of the four would be found to be of another Mind not only as to the excelling goodness of their Church but from some things they have lately done as to their Loyalty too In the former it is apparent for why else have such a Multitude of intelligent and well disposed Persons as to Religion with-drawn themselves from Her choosing father to bear all sorts of Afflictions then to be held in its Communion Not only a great number of Catholicks for so we commonly in compliance with their own phrase call those who hold to the Religion of the Chruch of Rome but even among Protestants also far greater numbers are found Zealous Dissenters from Her which surely must be from something they both of them find to give them great Dissatisfaction And as to their Loyalty I could likewise with that they had given no occasion to considerate Men to find as much defect in that as the other being such as in many Mens Opinions hath drawn upon it so great a Blemish as will not easily be wiped off especially while they cannot but take notice of two things The one is for so many of Her Clergy Mens Vehement Preaching against the Kings Religion The other is of the Irreverent Speeches and Censures many of Her Members have been found to express against His late Declaration I must acknowledge they have had the Advantages heretofore of tendring their Loyalty very specious when as all the Kings after the Reformation were wholly of their Perswasion and yielded themselves very much to be led by them but now when we have a King from whose Religion they considerably differ their Loyalty seems to be like that of those Mens which they formerly Condemned I do not say they take up Arms but as some Men have ordered the matter they have done that themselves which heretofore did in others too much lead the way unto such bad practises When I first observed that strain of Preaching in which many of them run immediately upon his Majesties coming to his Throne I must confess my self amazed at it for I saw him no sooner proclaimed King but all on a sudden we had such ratling Sermons both in City and Country against his Religion as if the Preachers had seen in a Vision that the Religion of Rome had been to be set up here in the first Month of his Reign Their hearers also and among them some of the chiefest ranck as to external
Chap. 15. Touching the jealousies raised against him who hath these Words The worst effects of an open Hostility come short of these designes this was the opinion he had of the Loyalty of such kind of dealing Thirdly much what of the same Nature and also to the Effect is that way of Preaching when Men exert the utmost of their skill to Wyer-draw out of Texts such thing againsts that Religion those Texts in their prime aspects and genuine sence to have little of any such things in them This can shew nothing else but a vement intention to the management of this opposition this an eminent Person who I care not to name hath lately done when Preaching upon Psalm 47.5 God is gone up with a Shout c. takes occasion on from thence to argue against the Popes Supremacy and the Roman Catholick notion of the real presence as an ingenuous Person who in Print animadverted on the Sermon hath observed whatsoever ground he may have for the first because the Text speaks of an Eminent Exaltation of God as he had shewn his Power and Glory to the Church in those daies and from whence those Believers might in some measure conclude the Supremacy of Christ in his spiritual Kingdom I will not dispute Though I believe our Doctors do not think this Supream Dignity of Christ exclusive to the Supremacy of Arch-Bishops or Bishops in England for then they would destroy their own Hierarchie only they would have no one that should be universal but keep the Principality to themselves I say whatever ground he had for the first the other was drawn out of it no other wise than by Head and Shoulders for there is not the least semblance of any such thing in the Text. Another I have met with and that is of a certain Person who finds Arguments from a Text before Noahs Flood against some Catholick Practices he Preacht upon those words And Enoch walked with God and because it was said of him that he begat Sons and Daughters the Dostor for that was the degree under which the Preacher stood applyed it to rebuke the R. Clergies abstinence from Marriage but I think it had been better spared because the R. Catholick Church Men if I understand them aright do not decline Marriage for that they hold it inconsistent with Purity and Piety but are guided rather by that Maxim of St. Paul 2 Tim. 2.4 No Man that Warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this Life and though we affect not their inforced abstinence that way yet certainly the freer any Man is from the care of providing for a Wife and Children the more he is at Liberty for the Ministerial Function That which I would say is that all such distorted Applications of Texts seem to me to be more of a kind of Peevishness than intended for Edification for it states not the Case fairly unless the R. Catholick Doctors had declared themselves in the same Manner so that I know not what all these odd Applications of things mean unless it be for fitting the People with matter for their tongues to talk of and filling their minds with fears and jealousies that something is coming upon them more than in their own reason they can any wise apprehend And what indeed as I said before is like to be a more natural issue of such Sermons then to draw the Peoples thoughts into a Multitude of Musings and fill their Mouthes with as much discourse to know what all these things Mean and where they will Center for to come to plain English either they must think these Preachers to Preach very Impertinently and as an exercise of Wit when they see them thus fetch things about and about that they may at every turn have a blow against the Catliolick Religion or they must think them under some profound Discoveries of the Catholicks doing or tending some strange things which no body else can find out or imagine For surely say the People among themselves our Ministers would never thus lay about them if something more than Ordinary were not in the Case Oh! saies one soon after such Sermons are ended how notably did our Doctor pay off the Papists to Day Ah! saies a second and is he not a Man of rare Parts that can find such matter against them out of such a Text which I never understood before Oh! saies a third they would not be so much upon this Subject but they fear we shall be over-run with Popery we little think adds he what Sad Times are a coming Thus and ten times degrees worse do the People Banter among themselves upon their hearing such kind of Sermons In the midst of all this talk let me I pray put in a word or two among the rest and ask according to the purport of my Question how these things consist with the Church of Englands Loyalty and the Passive Obedience they have formerly urged against the Dissenters and whether they believe the People by all this talk are like to Honor their King while they are suggested to believe that he is suffering such hard times to come upon them as they are hinting at 4. And which is as bad as bad can be and as much against true Loyalty if not Piety also as any course that can be used this is when they so order their expressions in these Preachings as to turn any of the parts of that Religion into Redicule or expose them in a way of contempt Those that know any thing very well know that this hath been a Common way taken up by the Church of England Divines wherein they have not only many Masters in the Art but very Famous Doctors also that study to make a Merriment of that way of Religion which hath been different from theirs Witness the beloved Books of our old Friendly Debates and Doctor Sherlocks knowledge of Christ wherein he so notably abuses and derides the Notion of our Primitive Reformers in the Doctrines of our Vnion with Christ Justification Perseverance c. which were afterwards generally held by the Church of England Bishops and Preachers until some few years before our last new Vniformity Act some of which together with the friendly debate it self as also the designs of such undertakings may possibly before another year go about be re-debated in a new Friendly Debate like his own But I must now proceed to my instance under this head as I have done before wherein I shall bring only two The first is from a Sermon Printed the other is from a Sermon Preacht and that in the City by a Lecturer there sometime the last Spring The Printed Sermon is that of Doctor Tennisons before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen c. at an Aniversary Meeting to Commemorate the Eminent Charity of the City Hospitals I confess the Sermon was Preacht before his present Majesty came to the Crown however I shall make use of it first because it is a Publick Testimony of the Strain and Vain of
be afraid their own People of all others should like the Original better than the imperfect Copy To come then to their own Church are they the Gentry or the Commonalty and among them are they those that are most intelligent and sincere or those who are more indifferent and remiss in the true parts of practical Piety that have given them this Extraordinary fear Which of these ranks of Persons in their Church they aim at in these Preachings is to me unknown though under such a Division the quality of their Members may be considered If I may guess by likely Circumstances I must needs say I should think it were the Gentry First because Three of our chief Inns of Court Doctors whose Auditors are generally Gentlemen are as I hear much addicted this way so also are many of those Preachers in whose Parishes the Gentry most inhabit and to whose Churches or Lectures the Coaches chiefly throng But Secondly that which strengthens me in these Conjectures as much as any thing else is because I am told also these kind of Sermons are managed with many Arguments Inferences and Distinctions too Subtile and Sublime for most of the Commonalty to understand but whether it be the one or the other I think we need not much inquire since there are good grounds to induce a rational Man to believe there is no reason for the fearing of either especially to that degree as to require all that Preaching we meet with in that kind For the Gentry I see not why they should be questioned I shall not say any thing how many of them being concerned in the Old Church Lands have thereby their secular interests to strengthen their Religious Sentiments for I believe them to proceed upon higher and better Principles That which to me seems to be a kind of indissolvable tye to hold them firmly where they are is what I observe of most Men in all Religions who when they do first understandingly believe such or such a way of Religion to be best for them to chuse those former satisfactions which they may be supposed to have then received do so keep them to it as they seldom admit of any future thoughts to call it in question not caring to engage themselves in any new Controversies in things wherein they judge that they have long ago been satisfied but are rather improving themselves I speak now of the most serious sort of the Gentry in those pious practices which their Religion directs them to wherein divers of our Gentry are very Eminent And this I take to be the true Natural Reason why we find so few changing their Religion after a good maturity in Years and Judgment but those whose designs leads them to do it either in Hypocrisie or Policy And besides all this I look upon our Gentry in England to be Persons of that Ingenuity and Learning as that many of them understand the grounds upon which they are Protestants as well as any of the Clergy can Teach them so that I should think these fresh and often repeated arguings and pressing them against the R. Catholick Religion now used by our Church-Men are rather a kind of Impeaching them of weakness in their Profession then any necessary support the Gentry stand in need of Multiplyed cautions and directions being only needful for them that are weak As for those others of the Gentry and so also of the Commonalty who carelesly take up their Religion and are more relax in their Piety they may be the least feared of all Those strict observances that are used in the R. Catholick Chappels as also the Abstinencies solemn Confessions and Penances that must be submited to by such as are of that Religion will keep these Men more from it then all the florid Sermons they can hear Preach against it Nay to speak a bold Truth Persons indifferently disposed to the Mortifications Donations and self Denials which the Christian institution directs and are withal told by their Consciences that they must be of some Religion or other have scarce any Church else so accommodated for them to take shelter in as the Church of England the Reins of whose Discipline and Castigation are left so loose as Men may therein injoy several of their sensual gratifications yea and be in a fair or rather very foul degree prophane too without being called to any account or fall under the censures of the Church for it which neither in the R. Catholick Church nor in the Dissenters Churchs will be allowed them wherefore there is no fear of them neither The Commonalty which are indeed the greater Bulk of the People may I confess come under some other Consideration as they are not so Learned as we may judge the Gentry to be but then we must know that vast Numbers of them are Protestant Dissenters others are loose and remiss in their lives both which stand upon the same points I have mentioned before and as for those who keeping to the Church of England are Serious and Sober in their Lives though not so intelligent as the Gentry are it will appear to any that shall observe things as I have done that the very Manner and Principles of their Education wrought in them so great an Aversion to the R. Catholick Religion as that though it may be they understand little of the Difference between the one Religion and the other they yet carry on their opposition equally with those who presume themselves the chief Masters of Knowledge and need no Preaching to increase their prejudice And for those of the Commonalty that are more intelligent I may say they stand upon the same terms with the intelligent Gentry Upon the whole therefore I must say I see no kind of Necessity why so much of many Mens Sermons which ought to be chiefly intended to promote Practical Duties and true Devotions should be spent this way against the R. Catholicks unless it be to Prejudice the People against their Soveraign which is the most natural effect it is like to have for if the People be already thus prejudiced against his Religion this superabundant Preaching and Haranguing against it in the Pulpit is like to produce little betterfruit upon the Minds of such Men then the overcharging their Stomacks with meat doth upon their Bodies though the meat of it self be never so good yet it most commonly begetteth more Crudities and sower Belchings then good Nourishment nor can I see any better event liklier to proceed from many of these Sermons then the raising an abundance of popular Talk prejudice and dissatisfactions against the King for all People will be Discoursing of what they hear Preacht especially when the Subject Preach'd upon hath any relation to Persons in a supream Station who they think and look upon to be chiefly pointed at in such Sermons and the higher these Persons are in Dignity whose Religion is thus levelled at the more busie will the People be in their Censures and Reflections and how the
King is like to be Honored by all this I leave to all these Preachers to Judge Secondly Preaching against the Kings Religion must then be inconsistent with the Loyalty as before described when it is so managed as to beget in Men those Jealousies Censures and Suspicions as shall in any wise alienate their Hearts and Affections from him and their service of him When I consider this well and call to mind what a kind of influence irresistable I have observed in such kind of Preaching where the Kings Religion or the Government is any wise concerned to have had on the minds of Men. I cannot but pray our Doctors to consider well with themselves what prejudice they may do the King before they are aware and perhaps repent when it is too late As those London Preachers did Anno. 1641. 1642. who then extravagantly Preacht against the Liturgy Bishops and their Injunctions as our Church-Men have lately done against the R. Catholicks and I pray what followed but that fatal War whose sad effects we all to this day deplore The prejudices raised in Persons upon the account of difference in Religion are hardly possible to be related let me instance in Protestants only where the distance is not so great even according to the Church of Englands own acknowledgments as it is between the R. Catholicks and the Protestants and yet how have they carryed it one towards another as they have gotten power successively into their hands where let the Church of England come in for as great an Example as any of the rest have not they thought so hardly of their Non-conforming Brethren in the Ministry that could not comply with them in things which themselves say are but indifferent as that those that refused to wear a Surplice must be kept so poor as not to be able to buy a Shirt Ay! I might go yet a great deal higher did not the prejudice of many and those some of them zealous enough for the Church of England influence them so far as to conceive that because his Majesty was of the R. Catholick Religion he was not fit to be their King Church-Men may think of these things as they please but I am sure our wisest sort of States Men were of another Opinion as appears pears by what was enacted in the Parliament Anno. 13. Car. 2d who sensible of the ill effects such prejudices may produce where the King is the object of them made a Law That whosoever should publish or affirm the King to be an Heritick or a Papist or that he endeavoured to introduce Popery they should be disinabled to hold any Office or promotion Ecclesiastical or Civil making equal provision against either Catholicks or Protestants that might offend this way And the reason of this may be collected from the words of the Act it self which was because they knew the representing of the Religion of a King in a way of odium to the People was a thing tending to excite them to the hatred or dislike of his Person and Government Among other things I hear of as to this Preaching there is one dislikes me Exceedingly as having in it the most potent influence of any thing I know tending to the setting of the People in opposition to the King and that is those Sermons especially that intimate to them as if a time of PERSECVTION were coming on and the Obligation that lies upon all Persons to suffer whatsoever Persecution they meet with rather than to renounce any part of their Religion A Doctrine of excellent goodness in it self but I suppose now much mistimed unless we fear that Millions of Jews will invade us and set up the Mosaical Sacrifices again for I know not from whence Persecution can otherwise come if his Majesties Declaration as he desires be turned into an establish'd Law which I conceive none but the Church of England will endeavour to hinder While some Considering Men think with themselves how little this of Doctrine they have heard Preacht upon for twenty years before and now to be taken up since the King is come to the Crown and made the Common Theam of the Pulpit they know not how to interpret it otherwise than that the Preachers would have the people believe that their Religion is like to be denyed them and if they will stand to it they must expect to Suffer which that they may the better do it is necessary that they learn before hand how to behave themselves under such Providences And here again it would make a Man Smile to see how the World turns round I well remember that when the Dissenting Ministers were first displaced at St. Bartholomews 1662. Divers of them took their leave of their People the Sunday before in some Farewel Sermons divers of which were Printed by a good token that some of my acquaintance were soundly Punished for Printing them In these Sermons such Texts were chosen as from a Moral Prognostication they then made from the Conventicle Act they thought fittest to induce the People of a Patient Bearing of what was coming upon them I shall name only that of Heb. 10.14 about taking joyfully the spoiling of their Goods which was pertinent to the manner of their Sufferings since by that Act all their Moveables lay liable to the informers distresses The same course is now taking by Divers Church of England Doctors they have their particular Texts also fitted to what their Opinions are of the Times One Preaches upon taking up the Cross as if a new Persecution were indeed coming on Another calls upon us by his Text to contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints as if a new Creed were to be immediately introduced A third forewarns us of the Apostacy of which St. Paul speaks and this is applyed to the R. Catholick Religion I mention these but as Specimens by which we may judge of the rest but here they would do well to take notice what some Men say of themselves viz. that they do the same things which they before condemned in others and for which they caused them to be punished which is so much the worse in them than in the Dissenters for the latter had some shadow of reason to Preach as they did when they saw a sharp Law newly made against them but for the Doctors of the Church of England to Preach thus who have all the Laws on their side and the Kings Declaration to protect them for them to do this and no other ground to proceed upon but their Misbelieving the Kings Word what else is it but a Disingenious Disloyalty and that of the highest kind Or what would they have the People think under all these things And how can they do otherwise than produce most desperate Jealousies The fatal Consequences whereof and the Resentments that a Royal Breast cannot but have of such Treatment I shall refer to the Judgment of King Charles the First to be informed of who in his Meditations
of England doth of Hers which he ought to have told People if he had designed in a Christian way to have to reprehended them but his not doing this and jumbling and jingling all of them together as he doth is equally Unrighteous as it is Scurrulous but let 's go to the next The other is a Sermon Preacht upon that Text Mat. 16.6 When ye fast not as the Hypocrites from whence the Preacher would needs have a fling against Catholicks keeping Lent for it was in that time that the Sermon was Preacht whereby a subtile way he had found out he would have them guilty of the Hypocrifie here intended because while they abstain all that time from Flesh yet said he they make full Meals of other food I never yet heard any Man twitted or told of his full Meals or great Eating but it was either to deride him or break a jest upon him and so I look upon this to be and by the smiling of some of the People I was told of that heard the Expressâ—â—â— I suppose they thought so too Now I shall neither take upon me to justifie the Observation of Lent nor the manner of Fasting used in the Church of Rome yet this I cannot but say if what the Gentleman speaks of be Hypocrisie in them what is it in the Church of England who keep it as a Religious Fast but yet teach their People no abstinence at all but leave them to seed on all sorts of Flesh and well pallated Sauces as often and to as full meals as they please That the Church of England keep Lent as a Religious Fast their Commissioners at the Savoy Meeting with the Non-conforming Ministers shall speak for them for when the Non-conformists opposed the keeping it a Religious Fast they answered them That their Fasting of 40 daies may be in imitation of our Saviour for all that had been said to the Contrary for tho' we cannot arrive to his perfection abstaining wholly from Meat so long yet we may fast forty Daies together either as Cornelius his Fast till three of the Clock in the Afternoon or St. Peters Fast till Noon or Daniels Fast abstaining from Meats and Drinks of Delights and thus far we imitate our Lord. Thus they setled their Lent as a Religious Fast but by what has followed it seems they never intended to injoyn their People any of those abstinencies in which that Fast ought be kept if it be kept at all so that I may ask where is the Hipocrisie now But while I am thus Writing I call to mind two great Reasons as they are esteem'd which I hear alledged in justification of their present Preachings First they say all Ministers are to declare to the People the whole Council of God and by vertue of their Ministerial Office they have a power of Preaching what they think most fit Secondly they tell us that there are a great number of R. Catholick Priests up and down the City privately Alluring and Perswading the People to embrace that Religion which tenders their Preaching against it at this time absolutely Necessary Unto both these I shall give a distinct answer First I shall not dispute their Power in Preaching upon what Subjects they please nor do I know so much as one Man that would deprive them of that Liberty so that it be alwaies exercised and kept within the bounds of those things which the People may assuredly know are indeed the absolute Counsel of God but in controversial matters I know not how this can be for the People must needs know that one part in all such Sermons must not be the Counsel of God but against it for though both parties Preach upon that pretence yet there is but one Truth which hath alwaies made me think that Controversies were not fit for Sermons but rather Books or private Conferences for while a controversial point is handled in a Sermon the hearer may start some Objection in his thoughts which it may be the Preacher never so much as toucheth at whereby the whole matter is left in doubt which as often as it happens such hearers cannot receive those things as the Counsel of God though they should really be so and there all the labour that way is lost Again it may be questioned that supposing those Doctrines against which our Clergy Men are so frequently Preaching should not be the Councel of God it may yet be considered whether or no it be according to the Councel of his will they should just at this time above all others shew their opposition to them when they can hardly manage it without endangering the People from falling off from a very great Duty towards their King in which we are sure it is the counsel of God they should in no wise be defective It was the Councel of God that Circumcision an Ordinance which himself had made for the Jewish Church should not be continued in the Christian Church and St. Paul so Vehemently Preached against it to some Churches as that he told them if they were circumcised Christ should profit them nothing yet upon another Consideration he Circumcised Timotheus at Lestria It is a weighty point I leave it to our Doctors to consider how far the Councel of God is to be Preached with respect to the different Circumstances both of Time and of different Cases Again do not all Men know what great prophanness there is among Multitudes of those who profess themselves Members only of their Sanctuary some are great Drunkards others as great Oppressors some common Swearers and that also of those horrible Oaths or Expressions which ought not to be Named and not a few most desperate Whorers too many also Sabbath Breakers whereof divers to my knowledg come frequently to Church and very often receive the Sacrament Now I should think there are no Councels of God more necessary to be Preach'd to such Sinners than those that should convince them of the Evil of these desperate Courses and set them right in their Morals before their Heads are filled with Disputations in the Controversal parts of Religion and yet who but such Men as these after a Sermon Preach'd against the Catholick Religion talk more of it than they I hope the Church of England Doctors do not think that the only Capital Sins in England are the Worshipping of God without their Liturgy and Ceremonies as the Dissenters do or to be of the R. Catholick Religion and yet many wise Men of my acquaintance have been tempted to believe so by the Cursory Sermons we have had this Twenty Years wherein we have had Preaching against these two Ranks of the Christian profession than can be heard aaginst all those gross Impieties I have named To the Second Objection that supposes a Multitude of Persons in holy orders of the Catholick Religion to be privately inticing the Protestant People to leave their Religion I thus Answer That whether this be true or no I cannot tell but if it be
then I say our Church of England Priests and Doctors may be as busie and careful if they please to Counter-work them by the like private Conferences with their Parishoners and by inquiring who have been with them upon any such occasion which no Body that I know of will be against but greatly commend it as a most excellent way to secure their People from the Dangers they fear them to be in as to their being drawn to the R. Catholicks and prevent much of that Preaching which is now so much doubted to be consistent with their Loyalty I would suppose that every Pastor should know all of his own Flock or if he doth not or hath taken a bigger charge upon him than himself can overlook he ought in such cases to take in those that may assist him to hold up so good a Work so much to the advantage of their Ministry as such a Knowledge of the particulars of their Flock would do for every Soul is to be looked after by those that take the Charge thereof and are well paid for it too By this means they may come to know all that the Catholick Priests do and apply proper and pertinent Discourses to the particular Cases of their People as they find most needful and thereby Stablish them in those points wherein they find them most Wavering which indeed cannot be well known but by such private Conferences and therefore much more profitable than Preaching at Randum sometimes against this point and sometimes against that when they know not at what joint particularly any of the People Stumble and in so doing they would not only Letter secure their People but better testifie also their Honor of the King To watch is their Work as well as to Preach and they are denominated as much by the one as by the other Watching of the Flock includes the Knowledge of all Individuals I sear it is not so with us because many of our Parochialists have gotten their Parishes so large as to render this Knowledge and the Execution of this part of their office impracticable and perhaps some will plead their Inability from thence of doing that I recommend to them but I must answer that that they go ill to work that will justifie one Irregularly with another and to make the King suffer for their disorder How they will approve of this Expedient I now propose I do not well know but since the Catholick Religion is the Kings Religion I am certain something ought to be done by them in a Prudential way how to behave themselves under the present Circumstances as they are in a different way of Religion from him otherwise than I yet hear many of them have done let the Religion be what it will doth not the King's profession of it alter the Cale in no manner as to our behaviour When. John according to Gods command had Executed Judgment upon Jezebel by ordering her to be thrown out of a Window he would not have her Body left to be exposed to all Spectators but orders her to be Buried upon this very reason because she was a Kings Daughter When the Apostles planted the Christian Religion first in the World they setled most of their Churches under Princes who were wholly Strangers to the Christian Faith and as things were represented to those Princes by what the Jews had done in putting our Saviour to Death as one that had made Mutinies by stirring up the People Luke 23.3 those Princes according to humane Pollicies had little reason to receive any of those who were his Followers which I believe was one great Reason of their Persecutions and yet we find the Ap stles fearing it may be that the Christians because of that and their gross Idolatries might dispise those Princes do as carefully injoyn them to keep their Loyalty as to abstain from their Idol Worship St. Paul most earnestly presseth them to give all due subjection and St. Peter commands to Honor them and this while they were not so much as Believers of the Christian Faith sutable to what our Soviour had done before by his own Example to the Jewish Magistracy when he was condemned to Death by them He opened not his Mouth He answered them nothing as three of the Evangelists observe he could not approve of what they did yet would he not reproach them in the thing they were about and by this passive obedience gave Honor to those that wickedly put him to Death I do very much question whether the Preachers in the first Age of Christianity under the Pagan Roman Emperors did Preach against the Religion and Worship of those Princes as our Divines now do against the Religion of Rome by what I find upon Scripture record it appears to me that they did not but had other ways such as Conferences Epistolary Writings to secure the People in the Christian Faith When St. Paul Preach'd in the midst of Mars-Hill at ATHENS among a Company of Heathen Philosophers and common People it is observable how gently he touch'd upon their Idolatrous Religion He told them indeed that they were too Superstitious but he made not any Goodly Inventory of the particulars as Doctor Tenison did for the Catholicks but falls presently upon declaring to them the Doctrine of the only true God and his Creating the World His sending of Christ The Eternal Judgment and the Resurrection choosing rather to fix them in the Great Articles of the Christian Faith and the Sutable Practices of a Holy Life to which such Doctrines would lead them than to be Crying out against their Idolatries as knowing if once they come to embrace the Christian Doctrines their Heathenish Worship would fall of its own accord If after all this nothing will prevail but our Church-men will be still Preaching in this way I have one thing to say more which is to wish them to follow the Example of those Apostles who when they wrote to the Churches against a Religion so gross as that of the Pagan Idolatry did withal give the Christians positive Commands to keep up their Subjection and Honour to their Kings The like would I have our Preachers do at all such times as they Preach against any part of the Kings Religion viz. to teach the People at the very same time in some special manner how they should preserve in themselves the Honour and Loyalty they owe to his Person nevertheless their differing from him in their Religion If they do not put in some special Caveats of this kind as often as they Preach upon such Subjects which hitherto I cannot hear they have done I must for my self say they will hardly ever be able to vindicate the Loyalty they have so much boasted of in the World I have done with the Preaching I would proceed now to say something tho but a little about theirs and the Peoples Speaking more especially their Speaking against his Majesties Proceedings by his Declaration and the odd Carriages of them both
quality too much influenced it may be by such kind of Preaching have not been wanting to express themselves at the same rate of Ill Reflections against his Declaration touching which I have heard such hard Speeches as I could not possibly have thought could have ever come from Persons in Membership with that Church To be plain and short they have not only in the general suggested that there would be an Alteration in the National Religion but they stick not to say that the present Liberty granted for the free Worshipping of God is purposly to introduce Popery and contemptuously compare the Liberty granted by the Declaration to a Scaffold set up for that intent which must be so much the worse said of them as that the Declaration it self assures them the Protection of their own Religion as it is now Established I shall not Expatiate on the Occasions Grounds and Methods of our English Reformation either in Doctrinals or Discipline but only observe that after some beginnings in K. H. 8ths time and further progress made under K. E. 6th all turned Retrograde by Q. Mary In the Reign of Q. Elizabeth things were brought again to some seeming Consistency and then that which we now term the Church of England by a Sanction of State received its full Estabishtment The Constitution and Nature of which Church is now become to be an Independent National Hierarchy of Arch Bishops Bishops Deans Arch-Decons Prebendarys c. whose chief Worship was at first made to be with a Liturgy but such an one as wherein it was in Vnity with no other Church upon the face of the Earth tho by this time there were divers other Protestant Churches in being Yet was this set up and setled with as much absoluteness as if it had been all indited by the Apostles or our Saviour Himself Unto this Worship whosoever came not or absented by the space of a Month was to be punished in the forfeiture of twenty pounds successively for every Month so offending This was the beginning of the Penal Laws for the support of the Reformation after which others were made more severe especially against those who were in Church Orders of the Catholick Religion for Death was to be inflicted upon any of them that were but so much as found to be within the Kingdom This Reformation had not long continued before divers Protestants themselves began to find it faulty it was much wondred on all hands when it was observed how all was pretended to be done in it according to the Rule of the Scripture while that Rule and their whole constitution did so much disagree That they should keep up among themselves a Superiority of Pastors and reject the having one to be universal That they should with great violence inforce a few Ceremonies singled out for some unknown use and yet cast off others used in the Church from whence they reformed no less inviting and significant There were also great Exceptions against their Liturgy the R. Catholicks complain'd that tho' indeed it was taken almost all out of their Service yet it was so mingled and mangled as that they had made it utterly defective to the ends of a compleat rule of Worship for them to joyn with Many Protestants who liked well enough to see a Reformation begun yet thought the first undertakers went but half way but above all other things it was greatly misliked that such new things and so different from all others Churches should be so severely imposed These things as Cambden writes presently bred great distraction 'T is incredible saies he what Controversies and Disputations arose upon this which he speaks in relation to Queen Elizabeths time and the new impositions that followed the first Setlement and the prosecutions to inforce that uniformity for he gives us an Account how about the Year 1583. Bishop Witgift who was advanced from the See of Worcester to that of Canterbury propounded to the Ministers three new Articles for their Subscribing which set on foot those differences But more to my purpose is the Lord Treasurer Burleghs Letter to the Arch-Bishop himself upon these Commotions dated July 5th 1584. Wherein he complains of the Arch Bishops proceeding and the ill effects thy were like to have upon the Queens Safety May it please your Grace saith he I am sorry to trouble you so often as I do but I am more troubled my self not only with many private Petitions of Sundry Ministers recommended from Persons of Credit for peaceable Persons yet greatly troubled but also I am dayly now charged by Councellors and publick Persons to neglect my Duty in not staying these your Graces proceedings so Vehement and so General against Ministers and Preachers as thereby evil disposed Persons are animated and the Queens Majesty endangered It seems from hence that this has been an Old Trade among our Episcopal Clergy first to make very uncouth Impositions and then perplex peaceable Ministers that cannot Conscienciously subscribe them And a little while after he tells His Grace again how these proceedings were rather a device to seek for offenders than to reform any I wish we had not as much occasion to say the same thing now in reference to some of our late Contrivances as this grate State Man did then however from the premises the conclusion may be fairly made how unsutable a thing it appears to have been then judged for the Reformation to think to settle it self and its Princes in peace by such Methods Nor did these Distractions cease with the Death of that Queen for though the Non-conformists might not have been dealt with so severely upon Kings James the firsts coming to the Crown in regard the manner of the Church of Scotlands worship differed much from the Liturgy and Ceremonies of England by which means things might continue in the more quietness and peace for a while yet in some competent time the Clergy who were always working both with him and King Charles the first to keep the Reigns of their Church Discipline as strait and hard upon them as may be prevail'd much upon both those Kings to countenance them in divers of their new injunctions until all things broke our into a most woful Confusion I know the Church of England are unwilling to own that the rigorous Imposing and Prosecuting their new Articles Oaths and Subscriptions brought on the War in 1641. but those that will give themselves the trouble to look into the Printed Speeches still remaining with us spoke then in the House of Commons may there be satisfied how they improved were to bring an Odium upon the Kings Government and inflame the Spirits of the People into a War which ever since may justly be called Bellum Episcopale What deplorable miseries this War produced to the Royal Family first to the Nobility and Gentry next yea and to the Clergy themselves at last How their Liturgy was trod under foot their Bishops and whole Hierarchie rooted up their Church Lands sold and
a second Reformation proclaimed to correct the first are all things fresh in Memory to those who are still living and saw them and all the world has wondered how the Church of England did so soon forget them as it appears She did for She was no sooner out of the Fiery Furnance of her Afflictions by the Restoration of King Charles the 2d but down right she falls upon her old pollicies of effecting an uniformity by vertue of Penal Laws when they had seen before the event of them in their Predecstors to have given them so much discredit and when they might have sufficiently learned how impossible it is upon Protestants Principles to erect and enforce a National uniformity in Religion to any one way of Worship but that there would still be Dissenters who upon their own Principles may plead an Exemption from it However they resolved to make a second Experiment and once more to try if they could make the whole People in England to be in their Religion all of one Complexion to which purpose a new Act of Uniformity is made more strict than that which went before with a new Test of Assent and Consent annexed thereto for bare Conformity in the use of the Liturgy will not now do there must be Swearing also All other waies of Religious publick Worship are made Conventicles and the Act of 20 l. a Month for not coming to Church revived and tho' it was alwaies thought to have been made directly against R. Catholicks it must now be made a sharp Scourge equally to all Dissenters What Confusions and Troubles these things brought upon His Majesties Subjects may be understood something from those who have given a publick Account of them a Printed Catalogue has informed us of neer 2000 Ministers turned out of their Livings by the Uniformity Act which was soon followed by another made at Oxford that turned them also out of their Houses to seek their Bread where they were no wise like to find it Another who was well able to make the Estimation informs us of fifteen thousand Families ruined by the Conventicle Act by proceedings against their Estates and Imprisonment of their Persons among whom he saies five thousand dyed under their bonds And if we suppose but three Children a peice to belong to those Families one with another we must compute no less than forty five thousand sufferers in their Estates by these Penal Laws for if the Parents be ruined their Children cannot but be deep Sufferers with them Do we talk of Queen Maries daies as times of sharp Persecutions Alas they were little to this Doctor Burnet gives an account but of 284. that suffered death in Her time and what is this to 5000. that have dyed under this Church of Englands Persecution nor doth he say any thing of loosing their Estates or the Childrens being deprived of what their Parents had I know a great matter is made by punishing Persons with Death but for my part I see little difference between suffering by the present Execution of Death and being stifled or starved to Death by the necessities and hardships of a Prison and supposing it lawful to make such a choice in case I must necessarily suffer by one of the two I should choose to suffer by the former rather then by the latter and I know many more to be of my mind How those of the Church of England can defend Her from being the only procuring cause of all these Miseries to those Multitude of afflicted Persons and Families I can no waies apprehend let them that can do it begin their Work as soon as they please in the mean time I hope they will not be angry if I endeavour to shew them how much all their proceedings this way was against the mind of King Charles the second who all along endeavoured to put a stop to their Severities from the desires he had that his Subjects might have injoyed the Liberties in Religion which they now do and this before he came into England as well as afterwards so soon as he saw what work was like to be made by the Execution of those Laws they had got him to sign chosing other more pious and peaceable Methods for his Subjects Ease Let us hear some of his own Words viz. His Declaration from Breda April 4th 1660. gives the first assurance of this We declare a Liberty to tender Consciences and that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences in Opinion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom Then again Feb. 10th 1667. Speaking to the Parliament one thing saies he I hold my self obliged to recommend to you at this present which is that you would seriously think of some course to beget a better Vnion and Composure in the Minds of my Protestant Subjects in matters of Religion c. Which undoubtedly must be intended towards the mitigation of the Penal Laws for in his Declaration March 5th 1671. He complains again of the severities then in use saying That it was evident by the sad experience of 12 years that there was little fruit of all those forcible courses and many frequent waies of Co-ertion that we have used for the reducing of all erring and dissenting Persons Again in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament 1678. I meet you here with the most earnest desire that a Man can have to Vnite the Minds of my Subjects both to me and one another and resolve it should be your fault if the success be not sutable to my desires Thus for neer twenty years together was this King labouring against the Violences of the Church of England towards those his Subjects whose Worshipping of God differed from theirs and who were the Men but themselves that then opposed Him in it And at whose door but theirs must all these deplorable Calamities be laid that have happened by the want of that Indulgence that King would have given and is now granted by his Royal Brother and Successor they may if they please consider it more fully at their Leisure His Majesty that now is by a Gracious and most Wise Retrospection upon all that had been Transacted in these Affairs during the four last Kings Reigns and from a God-like compassion towards his Oppressed Subjects in the midst of their Calamities sends out his most refreshing Declaration suspending the Execution of all those Penal Statutes that had been but very little before so fiercely Executed Upon this many thousands of the Protestant Dissenters of all perswasions through out the Kingdom who had been formerly by the Church of England represented to the late King as a sort of Humoursome Fanatical Disobedient Persons and Enemies to Monarchy and every thing else that looked that way come in with their Humble Acknowledgments First of Gods goodness to them as believing such a publick Mercy could not be but by immediate his guidance of the Kings Heart in the thing after this they declare their Joy and Thanks
to His Majesty as far as Honest and Dutiful Words can express assuring him of their Loyalty and Prayers for his long and prosperous Reign They humbly tell Him also that to his Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland he hath now established to himself a fourth Kingdom in the Hearts of those his formerly oppressed Subjects which as I believe to be true so was it modestly spoken inasmuch as the Dissenters are known to be far exceeding the quantity of a fourth part of the People of the three Kingdoms Several others testify their joy in that so good an opportunity is given them to express the truth of their Loyalty which the Church of England had hitherto presumed to have been entailed wholly on themselves A great many engage to Live and Die with him to the utmost of their lives and fortunes But passing by all others I would especially mark those who in the Capacity of a Grand Jury thank the King for his Declaration as it has prevented honest Neighbours from indicting one another in the things of Religion which to many Consciencious Men was a very great burthen and to the whole Kingdom a greater vexation then I can now stand to speak of begiting ill will and irreconsitable differences between one and the other of his Majesties Subjects which being by this means now taken away it is hoped their old Correspondency will be henceforth renewed in a true love of each Man to his Neighbour In the midst of this happy Union between His Majesty and his Dissenting Protestant Subjects the Church of England like the Churlish Elder Brother mentioned by our Saviour in the Parable of the Prodigal stand at a distance and Grumble They will neither thank their Princely Parent for the Favour He vouchsafeth to themselves nor will they come in to rejoyce with their Younger Brethren upon their Dutiful return and the Kings kind reception of them a thing so much the more culpable since none of the fatted Calfs I mean the Church Revenues are in the least killed for them but are as they were before wholly in the Church of Englands own Possession 'T is almost beyond rehearsals the dislike they shew of this Vnion as if they delighted to keep up the same or raise other and worse Confusions during his present Majesties Reign as they begot in the time of his four last Predecessors The bond of this Vnion which I may say is His Majesties Gracious Declaration many of them can scarce hear named but they are ready to fly back like Men that had trod on a Serpent One shakes the Head another bites the Lip a third Scouls and Frowns with as many other Evidences of their dislike as Bodily Gestures can shew And it would have been well could they have contented themselves within the Bounds of those tacite Intimations of their displeasure but this they could not do they must also break into Words and open Censures such as I have named before I do not charge all with this but I must say I daily find and meet with an abundance too many that are so doing insomuch as I think it highly necessary for every Man in his place to put a Stop as far as he can to the further progress of it For my self I know no better way that I can take then to mind them of the Inconsistency of such deportment with their boasted of Loyalty a thing of which they have seemed to be as tender as of the Aple of their Eye And if they are still so serious therein as they would be esteemed they should as I conceive judge themselves not a little concerned in a Question I have here to propose to them and the rather because I undertake to maintain the Negative The question is plainly this viz. Whether it be Consistent with that high degree of Loyalty so much boasted of by the Church of England for their Preachers in the manner they have done to Preach against their Kings Religion and both them and their Church Members to speak as they too frequently do against His Proceeding by his late Declaration This question is the bottom of all my following Expostulations wherein that I may proceed with the more perspecuity I shall do no more then make inquiry into two things First I shall examine wherein the highest degree of Loyalty according to the sence of the Scriptures may be said to consist Secondly I shall inquire how the present Behaviour of many of the Church of England both Clergy and Layety agrees with that Loyalty which I shall discribe In the first I am guided by two Texts of Scripture from whence I may argue as much as I shall need to my purpose the one is that of Rom. 13 1 2. Let every Soul be Subject to the higher Power where Subjection is required to be given for Conscience sake which makes it become a Religious Act. To give Subjection only because we cannot avoid it or because we are compelled is the Subjection of an Infidel or a Turk rather than a Christian The opposite to this is Resistance which is twofold First That which is by open Violence to the Person of him that is our Soveraign or to his Subordinate Ministers The second is when we Disobey or Speak against His Precepts Edicts or the Declaration of His Will which be sends forth in the Execution of His Government for not to Submit or to Speak against what he Directs is to resist So Luke 21.15 To gain-say and resist are made the same thing a Man may make resistance as well by his Tongue as his Sword from whence I infer that one part of the highest degree of Loyalty is a cheerful and willing compliance with the declared will of the King in all things without gain-saying not contrary to the Law of God The other Passage is that of St. Peter where we are bid to Honour the King This is a degree much higher than a bare forbaring of Resistance or disputing his Commands for a Man may give Obedience and be outwardly Silent towards Him who in his Heart he Slighteth To Honour the King contains in it many Acts both Internal and External our Internal Honouring Him lyeth chiefly in that reverential Esteem we have of His Person as he hath the stamp of Gods Authority on him the valuation we give to His Vertues The Faith we have in his Words and Promises the Acquiessence of out Minds in the Administrations of His Government and judging the Best of His Actions the contrary to these are Jealousies Prejudices all bad wishes and evil surmisings and judging of His Actions in the worst sence The External way of Honouring Him consists likewise of several parts as when we are in his Presence to use those bodily Gestures as may best and most decently express our inward reverence and sence of his Dignity the giving him his Honourable Titles To speak Reverently of him in the hearing and presence of others and prevent what we can all others
from doing the contrary that thereby those we Converse with may Honour Him as we our selves do And to come more closs to the present Circumstances of the times I must say that I judge one great part of our Honouring the King to consist in Addressing our selves to him in waies of publick and greatful acknowledgment of what special savours we receive from him for I cannot believe otherwise but that our Honouring the King must bear a great similitude to our Honouring of God and if so then I am sure Addressing when we would Honor Him must not be left out as often as he gives occasion For Men to talk of Loyalty where these things are wanting is but to abuse the King and themselves too These things I shall illustrate further by two Examples When King Saul delired Samuel to Honor him wherein did he place that Honor was it not by something the Prophet should do that was to support his Credit among the People 1 Sam. 15.30 Honor me now I pray thee before the Elders of my People Saul was to be laid aside and put out of the Government and he knew as much but it is like he thought it not convenient to his present Condition that the People should know it which they might have done in all likely hood had Samuel denyed his Request But what doth Samuel in the case Doth he not readily and openly shew his complyance So Samuel turned again after Saul and Saul Worshipped the Lord for that was the thing requested of Samuel viz. that he would go with the King to Worship God before the Elders of the People I hope no body Imagins that I extend this example so far as to oblige all Subjects to Worship as their King doth what Religion soever he professeth it proves my Argument better another way viz. As it is an instance of the Obligation that lyeth upon Men in sacred Office as Samuel was to maintain the Kings Honor in as publick a manner as their Place and Station give them Oppertunity and forbiding them doing any thing that may render him mean in the eyes of the People though they be not satisfied in all the King doth Samuel thus honoured the King when he knew that God had rejected him in the Government how then ought we to act towards a King who we all know God by most remarkable Deliverances hath set upon the Throne The like we have in the instance of King Ahasuerus mentioned in the Book of Esther who when he asked Haman what should be done to the Man the King delighteth to Honor was thus directed viz. Let there be put on him the Royal Apparel and bring him on Horseback through the streets of the City and proclaim before him Thus shall it be done to the Man whom the King delighteth to Honor. Wherein tho Haman mistook the Person at whom the King aimed as thinking it had been himself he did yet hit right in the Notion of the thing how that honor the King intended was to be effected and what other thing was it that he directed but such an act as should render that Person to be great and worthy in the eyes of the Peopl This being the true Notion of Loyalty as it may be considered in its highest degree The question will now come more easie to a resolution I see no need of explaining any of its Terms those upon which the whole stress of it depends are only concerning the manner of many of their Ministers Preaching and of their and the Peoples Speaking for I am not going about to tie-up either the People or any sort of Preachers from asserting the Religion they profess but when it so falls out that there is any difference between theirs and their Kings Religion I would not have it done in any way not consistent with their Loyalty Now what that manner and method is which divers of the Church of England have taken up in these things both by their Ministers in Preaching and by their People in Speaking about the Kings Declaration and his late proceedings in those affairs which I conceive to be very inconsiestnt with those high degrees of Loyalty they pretend to and these Texts lay before us I shall mention in the particulars following and first of the Preaching 1. When there is more Preaching this way than there seems to be need for or the supposed danger of the People requires which seems to be much our present case For I can no waies understand what necessity there is or hath been for all the Preaching we have had of late against the Catholick Doctrines Surely our Preachers must think the People to be in great Danger of their Faith but then how comes it about to be so Have they so much neglected them all the time before as that now when a R. Catholick King comes to the Crown they must be all new taught Or what is the Ground of all this fear For certainly some most Lamentable Apprehensions must have struck even to their very Souls or else they who have stood so mightily upon their Loyalty would not run upon such Methods as now to make it be called in Question I confess Men in a Panick fear may do strange things but then I must still be asking them What is it they Fear or what is that which thus excites them unto this Preaching Do they fear the People will all on a sudden become R. Catholicks By many Mens Sermons indeed some are apt to think so and that these Methods of the Pulpit are taken up as the only means to prevent it Well! but then I would know again of whom it is and of what rank of People are they most afraid For to speak my own thoughts Freely this seems to me to be a needless fear and more imaginary than real and could I suppose that the imparting such Observations as I have made of these things would in any wise obviate our Church-Mens Fears in this matter I would then particularize the Case as to the People and say The Protestant Dissenters I think need not be Doubted for they are a People so Anti-ceremonial in their Worship and so much against any kind of Liturgies or imposed Prayers as that they upon that reason are many of them withdrawn from the Church of England and therefore very unlikely to go to any Mass And among those that go to the Parish Churches there are divers Serious People who so approve of the Dissenters Worship as that they steal oftner to it than their Ministers are aware of and these may be supposed upon the same reason to be in as little danger as the other There being then no great ground of fear for these it must follow that those they are most afraid of are such as are of their own Church and here the Dissenters cannot refrain Smiling to see that after the Church of England hath so fairly Coppied out Her Liturgy Ceremonies and Hierarchie from the Church of Rome they should now
these Mens Preaching against any way of Religion which themselves oppose 2. Because the Passage I am to take out of it shews how sharply they have rediculed upon the Kings Religion To this grave Auditory he Preaches upon the Text Psalm 112.5 Where after he had handled all things very well and sutable to the occasion of exciting Men prudently to give Alms he falls upon scoffing the R. Catholick Charity and especially touching the Scope and Event of it which he most strangely reprensents The best way will be to recite his own Words The Scope saies he they too often vainly aim at is the blessing of a presumed Saint who is ignorant of them Security from the External force of evil Spirits by the Charms and Spells of Monkish Conjuration a sort of Ecclesiastical Magick which these very Spirits invent and incourage Avoidance of those Causeless Curses and Anathamas which are with terror denounced from their seven hill'd counterfeit Sinai preservation from or deliverance out of the Imaginary Flames of Purgatory blown on purpose by Jesuitick Breath for the melting of the Treasures of the Credulous People The Event is the Alienation of Alms from their proper uses the increase of Superstition and the maintaining of an Universal Usurper for the pence of St. Peter conducted to the buying of such a Yoak as neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The things we purchased conducive to those ends are the wares of dark Impostures namely such as these viz. Shrines Images Lamps Incense Holy Water Agnus Dei's Blessed Grains Roses Peebles Rings Beads Reliques Pardons c. after all which he concludes with an Ironical Jeer. The goodly Inventory of Superstition If the Church of England think these Expressions to become the Gravity of a Doctor or be like the form of sound Words in which Timothy was advised to Preach or Words of â—â—â—erness in which St. Paul Preached to Festus or meet to be spoken in the greatest and most Honourable Audience of the City of London or fit to agree with the Solemnity of a Divine Institution I must then bid farewell to all reverence in their Religious Assemblies such stuff I might have expected in the Comedy called the Spanish Curate written I think to abuse the Catholicks but never expected them in a Church of England Doctors Sermon These Passages are so Notorious as that another Writer hath Published some of them before my self which made me think once to have left them out but then I found that either the Doctor or some body for him had made Exceptions against the Writer for leaving out the Word frequently while he represented him saying That the Scope of their Charity did vainly Aim at the Blessing of a presumed Saint c. Well! since he hath left it out I have placed it in but I know not what good it will do him unless it be that he intends thereby to take shelter under the common Proverb Almost and hard by saves many a Lie And so when his design is to render the R. Catholick Charity wholly Ridiculous he would think to hide it by saying that frequently or too often they make those vain Aims but this will not serve his turn since all the Charity they shew towards any poor Protestants is not capable of such an Aim as he mentions and therefore I must never the less his complaining affirm two things to be very soul in these Passages viz. The Unrighteousness of his dealing and the Scurrulity of his terms There are I believe many hundred Protestants in England who from their own experience of the R. Catholicks Charity towards them will have occasion to oppose him in saying that the Scope and Event of their Charity too often aimed at was to have them prayed out of Purgatory or buy Lamps Beads Incense c. Because the R. Catholicks in all the Charity they have bestowed on Protestants knew before-hand that those Protestants they Liberally reliev'd were never wont to make any such purchases or use any such Prayers and therefore could have none of those ends in the doing of it I have in my own knowledge this 50 years understood it to have been the standing Characters of the English Catholick Gentry to have been Exceeding Liberal in all the Eminent parts of Charity such as Relieving the Sick giving Money freely to those that have wanted Bread Lending as freely to others that only came to Borrow Cloathed such as have been Naked putting out the Children of many to be Apprentiees whose Parents could not do it themselves all which have been so great towards Protestants as in divers places the Catholicks have been esteemed to have out done those of the Church of England in the same things taking the like number in any County of the one as of the other therefore this must needs be an Unrighteous Aspersion The scurrulity is such as to find it in a Sermon exceeds all I have met with what kind of words hath he here pickt up Monkish Conjurations Jesuitick Breath the seven hill'd Counterfeit Sinai the Goodly Inventory of Superstition Ecclesiastical Magick c. he talks also of Spirits and Charms and Spells but certainly all this Language must be minted in some infernal Cell among such Spirits where God is seldom named unless it be very vainly I hope he did not conclude his Sermon with the Prayer that many of them do viz. That all these Words which we have heard with our outward Ears may be ingrafted in our hearts for I take him to be the happiest Man that could first forget such Words as these are and be delivered from the snare of following his bad Example in getting a habit of such ill Language I shall only tell him again of another part of his Unrighteousness and that is in his Inventorying as he calls it of the several things he names without giving his Auditory an account of the R. Catholicks use of those things supposing they have so many things in use in their Religion as he speaks of for this in honesty he ought to have done that so his Auditors might have judged whether they did not give as good a Rational for them as the Church of England gives for her use of the Surplice the Ring in Marriage Prayers over the Dead and repeating such words as these in putting the body of every deceased Person into the Grave as a part of their worship For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God to take to himself the Soul of our Brother c. We commit his Body to the Ground c. in sure and certain hope of Resurrection to Eternal Life when they often know not how they liv'd or dyed I may mention also together with these their standing up at reading the Gospel in the Communion Service and sitting when the same Scripture is read in a second Lesson c. I am of Opinion the R. Catholick Doctors do give reasons for what they do in their Ceremonies as well as the Church
The conclusion then is this not to believe him is to censure him and to censure him is to do evil against him and every evil thing done against him is against our Loyalty Now this consuring must be so much the worse in as much as while Men follow the consequences of their own Reasonings they can see no grounds to believe that the Protestant Religion can receive any prejudice by any thing that can arise by the Declaration without offering a kind of violence to their own reason There are some persons who have given very great Reasons against the likely-hood of the Catholicks Religion overthrowing or suppressing Protestantism none of which I shall repeat I shall only take notice of two other things which I perceive to be much overlookt which to me seem of very great force in giving Protestants a full assurance as to this Case The first is in that the Declaration indulgeth those of the Protestant Religion which are at the remotest distance from his Majesties own Way for so I must repute the Protestant Dissenters in England to be as using no kind of Liturgy or Ceremonies in their Worship nor so much as acknowledging the office of a Protestant Diocessan Bishop which is indeed the great Protestancy of Christendom whereas the Church of England rigidly imposing the one and stilly maintaining the other together with their Symbolizing in both these respects with the R. Catholick Church and Worship Yea and in many Doctrines too of late which the first Reformation opposed have been thought to have been so near them as the effecting of an union to the extirpation of the Dissenters was the only thing feared and this not without ground while those Dissenters saw the Church of England upon the Death of his late Majesty to renew their prosecutions somewhat sharper than before But these fears are now abundantly removed which truly I must say could hardly have been done by any other means than that which his Majesty hath taken by his Declaration which must be to all Men of understanding an evidence on his behalf that he can have no designs against the Protestant interest nevertheless the Church of England judging otherwise 2. The Admission of the French Protestants in such Multitudes as are come over hither doth also confirm me in the same belief They are a kind of Presbiterians who because they would not become Papists are fled hither where they have not only the Exercise of their Religion but also very large Relief raised for their Necessities and that too by his Majesties own order What greater Testimonies than these can be given of his readiness to support Protestanisme And that He Acts in the highest degree of Sincerity to that Principle upon which he Grounds his Declaration viz. that Conscience is not to be forced from which we that are Protestants cannot but repute our selves exceeding safe and may conclude the Exercise of our Religion to be constantly continued to us and that because the Protestant Interest from all these things is more and more strengthened and allowed to make its utmost advantage to maintain it self in his Majesties Kingdoms all which may be so pleaded against the Censoriousness I here condemn as to make it appear to be every whit as irrational as it is disloyalty The utmost that can be said as to the benefit designed to the Catholicks by the Declaration is only that his Majesty would have those of his own Religion enjoy the same Liberty of Worship he hath given to the Protestant Dissenters and that they may be capable of serving him in Publique Employments as Protestants do which as it is all that is allowed them so as far as I perceive it is as much as they desire To the First I would ask how can the King well do otherwise according to that Divine Principle upon which he proceeds and how can Protestants deny it that hold the same Principle with him which I find none of them oppose when the case is put home and they have been pinch'd upon the point for even our Church of England Divines themselves choose rather to plead the obligation men are under to obey the Laws of the Land whereby their Liturgy and Ceremonies are setled than to insist upon the denying this principle and most generally justifie all their compulsions and penal inflictions from the Authority of our humane Laws telling the people that the Dissenters were not punished for their disobeying the Law a fine way indeed to turn the odium of those things upon the Parliament which themselves are ashamed to own and yet procured and so much struggle to have continued To the Second I would ask also how we shall object against it when we consider that His Majesty must needs in Equity have the same right to the service of all his Subjects as any Parents have to the Service of all their Children or any men have to that which they call their Property Tell me I pray why we should insist upon holding our own property and deny the King His I would be glad to see our Doctors who lately preach'd up Morality so much in the Socinian way as if they would make the whole Institution of Christianity and of Christ's coming into the World to be only a subservient thing to the Establishment of the Primitive Moral Religion to shew upon what principles of Moral right a King shall be denied the choice of those that shall Serve him more than a Noble Man the choice of his Steward or the Master of a Family his own Servants As yet I would never understand that human Laws could supercede any Moral Right fixt in the Original Divine Constitution of things I am no States Man but judging naturally according to the ancient usages of the Kingdom the King is not to be imposed upon in this particular when a King dyeth all publick Commissions formerly granted to his respective Officers become void Nay which is more if a Parliament be then in being his Death dissolves them the reason whereof I could never hear to be Grounded upon any other bottom but that a King was not to be imposed upon or bound up as to his Publick Ministers and Officers by any Act of his Predecessors There is 〈◊〉 thing more I would take notice of at this time which I have not 〈◊〉 so much 〈…〉 to which I would say something here if I knew how to 〈◊〉 it in and this only what I observe from many of the Church of England who when they have little to 〈◊〉 against that excellent Principle his Majesty proceeds upon in granting 〈◊〉 for Gods free worship nor the Moral Justice we owe him in choosing his own Officers they would fain pick a Quarrel with his Power and 〈◊〉 these things should 〈◊〉 come to us in a Parliamentary way I must confess the Power of a King is a thing so sacred and so strongly Lodged and Seated in himself as I have not 〈…〉 the least to peep into it Only
what has been done this way before and universally approved of without being any wise called in question may I 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 of without offence to any That which I aim at in this is only to note how when something of the same nature was passed by the late King Charles the Second dispensing by his Proclamation with two distinct particulars enjoyned by Act of Parliament as firmly as any of our Penal Laws about Religion can be not a word was ever objected against it as that it could not be done without a Parliament The one was for prohibiting of Spices from being brought into England otherwise than in English Bottoms and the place of their growth The other about the form of Cart and Waggon Carriages for the preservation of the Roads in both which Statures his late Majesty made a suspention and yet was never questioned in any Session of that or future Parliaments or by any of the Judges or Lawyers of the Kingdom which to this day continues still without any mans making the least noise about it Though no Parliament ever since gave that proceeding any confirmation as being Judged to have been done firm enough by the power that made the alteration This quarrel therefore is very unhandsome as it denies this King that Power in matters of Religion which they allowed the former King in things civil and is so much the worse in this Case as it questions His Majesties Prerogative in Ecclesiastical affairs which the Laws of the Kingdom have ever acknowleged to him in a peculiar manner In that very Act which was last made against Conventicles A Clause was put in as a special proviso c. That nothing in that Act shall make void his Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs but His Majesty his Heirs c. shall injoy the same amply as himself or any of his predecessors have done nevertheless the said Act. Undoubtedly when this proviso was made the Parliament did acknowledg that the King was not bound up by that Act so as that he could not grant any Liberty against its injuctions or suspend the Execution of the Law it self when it was wholly made upon an Ecclesiastical Account It must certainly be so also with the Vniformity Act for his Prerogative is not less in that because the like proviso is not made there no nor to the Test about Capacitating Men for holding of publick Offices since the matter of it relates chiefly to propositions that concern matters of Religion Of all Men in the World a Man would think our Clergy Men should forbear so much as to have the least thought of Questioning His Majesties Power touching what he has done by His Declaration when as Praying for him in their Pulpits they constantly present him to God as being over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil Supream Governor and Moderator For them therefore upon this small and first instance of his Moderatorship to call in question this his Supremacy either by preaching or speaking against what he hath done must give the People very strange Suggestions for while they do so what will the giving these Titles to Him be looked upon otherwise but as Hypocrisie towards God or a kind of Mock-Complement to the Kings Supremacy let them therefore either acknowledg the Power he hath exercised or else I know not how they will be able sincerely to say Amen to their own Prayers There are divers other things I had thought to have added to these Discourses but I fear what is writen already is more than many Mens leisure will allow them to read therefore I shall now forbear going any further and rather because it is like I may meet with some answerers or at least some better opportunity than I have at present which may draw them forth until which time I shall bid my Reader heartily Farewel FINIS