I Have been according to my Opportunities not a negligent Observer of the Genius and Humour of the several Sects and Professions in Religion and upon the whole matter I do in my Conscience believe the Church of England to be the best constituted Church this day in the Christian World and that as to the main the Doctrine and Government and Worship of it are excellently framed to make men soberly Religious securing men on the one hand from the wild Freaks of Enthusiasm and on the other hand from the gross Follies of Superstition Dr. Tillotson in a Sermon before King CHARLES the Second A VINDICATION OF THEIR MAJESTIES Wisdom In the late NOMINATION of some Reverend Persons To the Vacant Arch-Bishopricks AND BISHOPRICKS Occasioned by the Scandalous Reflections OF UNREASONABLE MEN. By a Minister of London LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Randal Taylor near Stationers-Hall 1691. AN ADVERTISEMENT TO THE READER READER THere are three sorts of Persons whose Spirits I know so well that I am very well satisfied before-hand I shall not want their unseemly as well as unkind Reflections for several things said in these few sheets The first is the man so resolute for the late King James that he cares not if the whole Kingdom was nothing but a Common Slaughter-house and the Inhabitants thereof were involved in an utter ruine together with our Religion and Liberties provided King James was at the Helm again The other is the very High flown Church-man who rather than part with something that is but like the pairings of his Nails will venture the whole Constitution of the Church The last is the loose Whigg who notwithstanding all his former Professions of satisfaction if he might enjoy the Liberty of his Conscience without molestation yet still is very uneasie as if nothing would content him but the Power of a Committee-man or Sequestrator and is daily extolling the Justice of the late Civil War and where he dares justifying the Murder of that Incomparable Prince King CHARLES the First Now Reader to be plain with thee as I expect bad words from these persons so I will promise thee to be Easie under them because I think it much more for a mans Credit to be spoke Ill than Well of by men of such Kidneys for such spirited men have been the Bane of all sorts of Society Religious as well as Civil in most Ages of the World And therefore if thou findest any thing that cuts with too keen an Edge and looks too sharp in the following Treatise I must begg thee to believe it is intended only against such Bigots as these and not against any good man whatever For I am not afraid to tell the World that wherever I meet with a good and modest man let him be of any Opinion or Perswasion never so different from my own yet I love him as a Friend and according to my power will treat him as a Brother Farewell A VINDICATION OF THEIR Majesties Wisdom In the NOMINATION of some BISHOPS TO THE Vacant Sees THere is nothing in all the Ages of Christianity hath done more Mischief to the Church of God than violent Prejudices and Passionate Resolutions to adhere to those Prejudices tho' never so hastily and groundlessly taken up either against Things or Persons for through the influence of these Men have been deaf to all Argument and Reason to all wise and cool Thoughts and Discourses and you can as well almost remove a Mountain as stir these Men from their fixed and determined Opinions and Perswasions so hastily taken up It is no doubt but this is the main Reason of so many Mens otherwise Men of Consideration in the World both for Learning and other Qualities standing out and declaring against the late Revolution and whispering nay the more is the pity publickly abusing the Government as it is in the Hands of their present Majesties whom God grant long to live and to succeed in all their Just and Pious Undertakings and impeaching all those Conscientious Persons that having taken the easie Oaths imposed by Authority upon them as Men that have forsaken the Principles of the Church of England and turned their backs upon their former Obligations to the late King James and withall in gratification of these Principles of Prejudice are now full of nothing but Rage and Fury which they vent by all manner of unseemly Words and Speeches upon their Majesties late Nomination of those worthy Men to fill up the Sees of the Bishopricks vacant by their Predecessors denying to take the Oaths enjoyned them by the Supreme Power of the Kingdom Alas you cannot come into the Company of some sort of Men but your Ears are filled and dinned with nothing but the Church the Church Oh the Church is utterly destroyed put into the hands of false Loons who will betray her Rites break down her Fences set up Presbytery or else countenance Anarchy and Confusion and give up the Order of Bishops together with the grave and solemn and therefore necessary way of publick Worshipping of God by a stated Liturgy and that is not all but they must be cryed down too as Men of no Honour nor Conscience in taking the Places of Men so good and deserving And what particular brands of Infamy and Reproach are fixed upon the Reverend Learned and Pious Dean of St. Pauls whom their Majesties have Nominated to the See of Canterbury things which as he is altogether unworthy of so thanks be to God he is a Man of that Christian Courage and of that great Prudence that he knows how to do his Duty to God and to their Majesties Persons and Government without being ruffled or discomposed by such unmannerly and base Reflections which have no Original but from the corrupt and disingenuous malicious and revengeful minds of those who have been all along Enemies to him because he hath been a steady Friend to Truth and Christian Moderation and hath lived bewailing but no wayes countenancing or encouraging those Passions of all Sides and Parties which have been the Bane of Religion it self as well as of the Safety and Honour of the Church of England And therefore because the Clamour is so great and runs so high and the effects of it may be of so very destructive Consequence to their Majesties Government both in Church and State I will endeavour to do Right to those Reverend Persons who have so greatly Merited by their learned Pens and Pious Lives as well as to their Majesties Wisdom at this time in pitching upon Men to succeed those who have voluntarily quitted their Stations in the Church and I do not doubt but to make it plain that the Church of England is so far from being in danger of ruine by these worthy Men that she will gather strength more and more and look with a more acceptable Countenance amongst the general part of the Nation yea even Dissenters themselves who are but tolerably wise and thoughtfull It is very
well known to those who have been impartial Readers of the History of the Church since the Reformation by what means she hath lost ground and upon what score the Non-conformists grew up in Interest against her To pass by the Reign of King Edward the sixth because it was a Reign of great Factions amongst Men of different Interests and who too many of them rather sought to serve themselves of the Reformation than to serve the Reformation it self we will begin with Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Crown who though she was certainly always a Protestant after she came to some Years of discerning in her Inclination yet was forced to comply when Popery was upermost so as to keep her self out of danger For without doubt had she professed her self an open Enemy to Popery and used any other Publick Devotions than what were then in fashion and established by Law she had fallen a Sacrifice to the Biggottry of her Sister and to Gardiner's Rage and Revenge but however when she came to the Crown her self she presently after a very little Temporizing which we ought to believe Necessity of State was the only Reason of she fell to reforming the Church and it may be advanced a Number of as good Men to the Vacant Bishopricks both for Learning and Piety as any of her four Successors have done since And here was the first false step by which the Church hath rather lost than got ground ever since for though she preferred Men of so great Worth Men of such signal Holiness and who upon the account of either their Banishment or other Sufferings in Queen Mary's dayes were very acceptabe to all the Men of the Kingdom who were then Protestants and who by vertue of their exemplary Conversations were very well fitted to stop the Mouths of gain sayers and by degrees to win over the Papists especially those who were only so by the strength of their Education yet at the same time she would not suffer these Men though of her own raising to influence her into any little Alterations or Changes which might at that time have settled the Church upon a larger bottom and prevented that after Schism which was made by some Men who by their Travels in Germany and another place had sucked in some very narrow stingy Principles which by a little Condescention they certainly had been shamed out of or else put out of Capacity of deluding the common People as they afterwards did to the great detriment of the Church She had been brought up in the pompous gawdy way of Popish Worship and therefore notwithstanding all the modest Applications of her Pious Bishops who valued substantial Religion above all other things she continued her Zeal for Ceremonies and supported and maintained them all her Reign which thô she might lawfully do and there was no moral Evil in them as hath been sufficiently made out by many learned Pens ever since yet some wise Men think that an Abatement of one or two Ceremonies and changeing four or five Phrases in the Common-Prayer-Book would have enlarged the Churches Pale and prevented all the Puritans designs against her for to give those early Malecontents their just due and I am not afraid to speak it they never got into the good Opinion and Affection of the People by any strength of Argument by any real and solid Proofs of Scripture but by popular Harangues and odious Names fixt upon the Ceremonies and the Common-Prayer-Book and they wrought more upon the unthinking and yet zealously-inclin'd Vulgar by calling a thing a Rag of Rome a Mark of the Beast and an Antichristian Usage than ever they did by rational and well-weighed Exceptions to any thing enjoyned by the Laws of the Land all which Occasions of Mischief had been prevented as very wise Men think if the Bishops at that time could have had their Will of the Queen and got her to Condescend to those Abatements in which they thought the Church so little concerned as to her Being or Well-being that they did believe they could thereby stifle the Faction and have left them to be the Heads of an inconsiderable Party which would quickly have dwindled into nothing But however Queen Elizabeth kept to her Point resolvedly and by her prudent and unwavering Government kept the Party down for forty four Years together upon whose Death and King James the first 's just Accession to the Crown the Party hoping some advantage from his Education under Buchanan a Friend of theirs Petitioned for Relief and he to settle the Minds of his Subjects commands a Conference at Hampton Court where certainly had there not been too stiff an adherence to some few things which might without danger have been altered had not the Bishops then though very good Men yet not able to foresee the effects of these Mens Pretences upon the Common People in future times and trusting to the Zeal of the then King to stand by and assist them I say had not the Bishops then had such an Ascendant throughout the whole Conference over the King which he was well pleased withall having by the contrary Party in Scotland been so roughly handled all his time I say certainly that Conference had terminated in a great advantage to the Church of England for the Puritan Party was not so numerous nor consequently strong as afterwards nor yet their Dissatisfactions so great as they have been since a very little and easie Condescention had spoiled the Market of the Designing men both Gentry and Ministers too and we had not heard of nor felt those Miseries in the Nation that God knows both our Ancestors and we have done ever since And so this Opportunity was lost and the Party grew stronger and stronger all King James his time and talked as loud as they durst against Will-worship and beggerly Elements as they were pleased to call our Prayers and Ceremonies by which they continued to captivate abundance of easie People and to insinuate a Belief into them that they only Worshipped God and Administred Ordinances according to the Pattern in the Mount as they Phrased it and that which gave them a great advantage over and above their Pretences to a more Pure way of Worship was the Spanish Match and upon the Failure of that the French Marriage for then they easily made the credulous World believe that nothing but Popery was at the door and that it was impossible when a Papist lay in a King's Bosom but that he must be influenced by her Charms to Favour her Religion as well as to Love her Person and the truth of it is this was too great an advantage to be put into a restless and designing Party's Hand and they made use of it accordingly for by this means they got a great Power in most of the Counties and Corporations of England whereby were returned a major part of Men affected to them to the House of Commons and what the Effects of their Counsels were and what Spirits
had not wheedled and seduced the more easie Gentlemen and the Common People by Pretences that the Cause of God and Jesus Christ lay at stake and that if they did not come in to help the Lord against the Mighty Popish Tyranny would over-run them in a Moment and the pure Ordinances of Christ would be mixt and blended with humane Inventions and superstitious Observations And thus we lost through the Pride and Folly of some Men I scarce ever think of it without horrour and trouble of mind one of the best Opportunities that was ever put into Mens hands to have set things right in the Church and to have united almost all the Kingdom in one way of Worship which would have been such a Blessing as is beyond my poor Rhetorick to express And what followed after let those who have a mind to be informed read the History of the Civil Wars for I take no pleasure to write it only thus much I will say that it ended in the Murder of one of the best Princes that ever sat upon a Throne A Prince whom nothing but black Malice and devilish Revenge dare venture to blot and defame and whose bright and excellent Virtues do so upbraid his Murderers and those who are so ready to abet them that by Lyes and Forgeries they are always endeavouring to lessen or else flatly to deny them A Prince whose Name and Memory ought to be as no doubt it will precious to all impartial and unprejudiced Men who have any sense of Truth Honour or Religion And this I speak the rather because I find abundance of New Royalists who would make the World believe they are the only Friends to King William and Queen Mary or as they Phrase it to the present Government and yet at the same time heap all the Calumnies and Reproaches upon their glorious Grandfather they can and applaud and vindicate that villanous High Court of Justice which brought him to such an untimely end and at this time some of them have reprinted to give an undoubted Testimony to his Royal Grand children of their Dutifulness and Loyalty that false and scandalous Answer of Milton to his Unparallel'd Book with a vile insinuation as if it was not his own But these Men notwithstanding all their Pretences of Loyalty must give me leave to tell them there is a Snake in the Grass and that we know them better than to believe they purpose any Duty to their present Majesties than as it serves their turns and helps forward those Designs which a Man of half an Eye may see into especially if he hath but read over the History of the late War Well things being at this pass in the Nation for want of an early accommodation when the Parliament sat down in Forty all things running into nothing but disorder and confusion all sorts of Parties striving to get uppermost the Nation wearied with their various Changes and hankering after their old Constitution of Church and State by the help of a great General invited their Natural Prince after twelve Years Banishment home again and having been tossed and tumbled up and down by cross Winds longed for a Calm which they found could not be obtained but by a return to their Duties to their lawfull Sovereign and building upon their old Foundations And now every Mans Heart was easie unless it were some particular deep-dyed Criminals whom the Justice of the Nation for its own Honour sake must needs overtake I say every Mans Heart almost was easie and the two great differing Parties of the Kingdom seem to be inclinable to a Conjunction of Interest and nothing was talked of but a Comprehension founded in such Abatements as would bring in all the wise and sober Men of the Kingdom into one way of Worship and Communion and in pursuance of this a Commission was issued out and some of both Parties met and many Debates they had but alas after all the old spirit which hath defeated the best and most profitable Designs in the World I mean the spirit of Revenge and Retaliation sprung up with all fierceness and cruelty and the Sufferers were not mortified enough to forgive thole who had been the occasion of their Miseries and therefore instead of bringing them into the same Body with themselves and thereby strengthning the Interest of the Church they made harder Terms of Communion than there were before the War and imposed a New Declaration to be subscribed and read afterwards in publick Churches which neither the Pride of some nor the Tenderness of others would or could submit to And here again we lost as fair an Oppertunity of Union as could be desired and what have been the effects of it there is no Man that converses with Books or himself must or can be ignorant of there were some hundreds of Men that afterwards became the Heads of discontented Parties and those considerable for Wealth and Numbers who would certainly have staid in the Church upon some very few Abatements and have served God and the Necessities of the Souls of the People very faithfully but are now so imbittered that it is not an easie thing to bring them back and to reconcile them to any Terms of Union whatsoever Good God! that a Nation should be so blinded as thus at all times to consult their own Passions against the common good of Christianity as well as the Safety and Honour of the best Constituted Church in the World What hand the Papists had in keeping up these Divisions and what advantage they have made of them ever since is apparent to any Man of but very mean Observation of things We were by this means within a very little of utter ruine both of our Church and State and the late King James to carry on his Designs against the Protestant Religion sweetned these sort of Men took them into his Bosom and gave them such verbal Assurances of a Magna Charta for Liberty of Conscience that however they talk against him now they then slavishly lay at his Feet with fulsome Addresses of Thanks and with Promises of Lifes and Fortunes to stand by him by whose help and assistance had not our present Gracious and Noble King stept in to our rescue the Church of England had certainly been born down by those two Parties of Papists and Dissenters and sacrificed to the rage and cruel resentments of them both though by the way I am sure it is no part of the goodness or that singular Piety they pretend to of too many of our Dissenters for all were not guilty to run so violently and against all reason and common experience into such an Interest as was never true to any Promises or Oaths that crossed and thwarted their own Ambition and secular Designs Well the then Prince of Orange coming over as a Sovereign Prince to vindicate the Hereditary Rights of his Noble Lady as well as his own and succeeding and the States of the Realm Recognizing and Declaring
him and his Princess King and Queen of England which by the way I verily believe was the only way things being in such a Posture as they were to settle the Nation notwithstanding all the talk of a Regency or any other Expedient Pray now upon this great Change of Affairs was there no steps made by both Parties to an Accommodation surely now if ever Mens Eyes might be opened in order to see the Cause of their former Miseries and to provide Remedies against them for the future yea to give a great many good Men their due and in particular our excellent King and Queen they with abundance of other Men shewed their Inclination to bring the Nation to a due Temper a thing we all know our Reverend Bishops in the day of their Afflictions and Fears promised and in order to this a Commission was issued out by the King in which were named a great many extraordinary Persons both for Religion and Learning and who for the greatest part of them as I am well assured had with great Harmony and Agreement prepared things for the Convocation which the wise and well disposed part of the Nation did not doubt would have had a very good effect to bring in many of the Clergy and I am very well satisfyed great Numbers of the Laity too into our Communion and by that means would have weakened the hands of Division and much laid that scurvy Spirit which hath been so mischievous to so many of the Churches of Christ ever since the Apostles dayes What was done upon this I will rather with grief of mind pass over in silence than bring fresh upon the Stage because it will tend to nothing but exasperation And therefore seeing all these Opportunities have been so lost which I have named truly I know no way to keep the Church in a state of Life to preserve her from the rough and barbarous hands of her resolved and stubborn Enemies than to put such Men into Places of Trust and Command of Authority and Power whose Religion as well as Learning whose Christian Spirits as well as great Understandings may endear the Church to the People and make them see that a Man may be a true and zealous Member of the Church of England and yet be a Pious and a good Man a thing which the Dissenters too many of them God knows the more is their ignorance or their impudence have endeavoured to perswade the People against as if no Man could be a Child of God and in a State of Regeneration that thinks honourably of a Bishop or serves God as he ought to do if he would serve him wisely by well digested Forms of Prayer And were such Pious and Holy Men in most of the Places of the Church of low as well as high degree I am very certain that Separation would lose ground every day and our Posterity would not be leavened with such sowr and narrow Principles as we have cause to fear they will be if Fanaticism does not lose its reputation more than it hath done a few Years last past And to this end I dare say it is that our excellent King and Queen have Chosen and Nominated such Persons to the several Vacant Sees I am no Flatterer but speak what I know from Personal Acquaintance that they are Men of Prudence and Learning of Integrity and Honour who highly value and also live up to that which we call deservedly Substantial Religion and yet at the same time know how to defend and encourage the honest Observation of the legal and established Rites of the Church and who by Vertue of these good Qualities will and cannot but promote the true Interest of the Church both by being Examples of and also by zealous recommending Holy Living to all under their Charge and Care And notwithstanding all the Clamours against the present Arch-Bishop of Canterbury notwithstanding all those false as well as vile Reproaches they have attempted to fasten upon him which can proceed from no other than a Diabolical Spirit I do not doubt but he will prove one of the greatest Blessings to the Church this Age hath produced for it is such a Temper as he hath always manifested throughout his whole Life and Conversation that must heal our Breaches and restore us Paths to dwell quietly and safely in and they who accuse him for not being a true Church-man I must tell them have framed false Notions and Idea's of the Church and have made it a little Fold fit to hold none but a Company of hot-headed and violent spirited Men A Notion which at this time of the day ought to be laid aside and without doing of which the Church England will be but a small Party of Men and lose every day her Strength and her Reputation and at last will be devoured by those greedy Cormorants that long for her Lands and Possessions again and those Men that have the Confidence as well as Sillyness to call no Men true Church men but such as are stretched out to just such a length must excuse me if I tell them that under pretence of Friendship and Love to her they smite her through the fifth Rib and throw out of her Communion the best and most pious Members she can and ought to glory in I know I shall anger abundance of Men by these just though too short Characters I have given of these Worthy and Reverend Persons and some may think that it looks like a design to lessen the deserved value of those who have forsaken their Bishopricks because they could not take the Oaths but I must begg their Pardon I am I thank God for it a Person of more Manners and Justice as well as of more Candour and Temper than rudely to fly in the Face of or by any voluntary Act to disparage those whom all observing Men must needs acknowledge to have merited highly at the Nations hands I thank God I never think of some of these great Mens stout Defence of the Nations Religion and Laws by Petitioning King James against reading the Declaration by an undaunted Appearance at the Council Table and going in that unconcerned manner to the Tower with the Spirits of Noble and Brave Patriots and Heroes by standing a Tryal at Westminster-Hall Further I never reflect upon that Noble and almost unparallel'd Act of the late Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Sandcroft with others of his Brethren Addressing to King James and telling him to his Face though with all modesty and becomingness yet with more than a Roman Courage all those Faults of his whereby he had violated the Laws and incensed his Subjects against him with an humble desire to rectifie those Errors of his Government for the time to come I say I never think of these things without thoughts of great honour and admiration and I heartily wish for the Churches sake and their own they could have complyed with what was required at theirs and all other Mens hands who were in publick Places but since they cannot God forbid but they should have a share in our Charity as well as others and that they should be no more severely reflected upon than others whose Consciences and Principles are so widely different from the established Church And those Men we know what stamp they are of and what they design who thô they lay at King James's Feet with Lives and Fortunes even at that very time when these great Men suffered for their Religion and Laws and ventured their all I say those Men God knows there are too many of them who now when they hear these Mens Names cry Hang Damn Sink them Saint like terms indeed and Drink Healths of Confusion to them I must begg their Pardon if I tell them they are so far from understanding the Commands of Christianity that they are strangers to the Laws of Nature such as the very Heathens think themselves obliged by and reproach themselves if they do not in some sort live up to One thing more and I have done if any Man shall think and suggest to others the Commendation I have given these Learned Men reflects upon those Eminent Persons who were in Episcopal Chairs before I must crave leave to tell them I scorn the thoughts of it for there were some of those as great and good Men as we can desire to fill a See for the Churches Honour and the Comfort and Satisfaction of those both Clergy and Laity who are Members of her Communion amongst whom I must tell the World I mean our own Honourable and Right Reverend Diocesan whose Name and Vertues will find a room in future Annals and Records when the Memory of his implacable Enemies on both sides will perish And now therefore for a Conclusion let us Bless God for such a King and Queen who make it their Business to Consult and Study the Nations good by promoting worthy Men themselves and countenancing all those Worthy Persons whom they found fixed in the upper Preferments of the Church before they came to the Throne May they Prosper in all their just and righteous Undertakings May they live long to Reign over and to preserve us against all the Designs of Priests and Jesuites and all other wicked Men who either Envy or are ready to Plot the ruine of the Nations Happiness and present Settlement and may God cover our great Kings Head in the Day of Battel give him Victory over all his Enemies and bring him home again with Triumph to an Obedient and Rejoycing People to which I do not doubt but all good Men who love their Religion and their Laws will say Amen FINIS