draw us into civil War just as by the Spanish Counsells formerly the Kings of France have been excited to persecute the Huguenots sometimes and the Huguenots been fed with money and advice to resist their persecutors and as in like manner Richelieu is thought to have encouraged the last Arch-bishop of Canterbury to increase his severity toward the Puritans and to have animated the Scotch and English Puritans to do as they did I grant that in respect of forreign invasion it is somewhat dangerous for a Prince to tolerate any Religion in His Countrey that his neighbours are of and those potent and likely to invade him For then such an invader would expect assistance from those of his opinion in Religion who would promise to themselves the advantage of having their opinions the Paramount State-Religion upon the invaders success And for this reason we are obliged to be wary in the toleration we allow Papists We have no reason to be afraid of the toleration of Calvinists because the united Provinces in the Low Countries are of that perswasion for they are not a Common-wealth of increase by Armes but Trade Nor would they take our Countrey if we should offer it them for they would not know what to do with it as their affaires at present are and likely to be In this second reason I consider that as there is hardly a possibility of a civill War arising on the account of Religion if there be a fair Liberty of Conscience established so there is danger in this particular from the severall parties if there be no such liberty I grant that 't is the principle and practice of some of these parties and especially those call'd Presbyterian by far the most considerable of them to suffer for Religion rather then to resist meerly for it and therefore we have no reason to charge them with taking up of Armes purely for Religion But yet I think had it not been for Religions sake and for the greater freedom of their Consciences they would not formerly have pretended that necessity or lawfulnesse to take up Arms on a civil account as they did For though their right in civil things was as they pretended the Constituent cause of the War yet Religion was the impulsive or that which inclined them to make use of the other of which though they thought lawfully they could yet but for this impulsive cause they would not have made use And truly any man that considers the addictednesse of the English Nation to Religion in generall will not wonder at mens being stimulated thereby to do what in civill things they think they lawfully may Of this propension of the English not onely to Religion but vehemence in it Barclay doth well take notice who saith of them Nec quicquam in numinis cultu modicum possunt and afterward speaking how ridiculously narrow in their principles our severall Sects were saith they thought unos se coelestium rerum participes exortes caeteros omnes esse i. e. Nor can they in the worship of God do any thing without excesse they think themselves the only sharers of Heavenly things and all other persons to be no way concern'd in partaking of them Nor is the strong and passionate inclination of this Kingdom to Religion a humour bred lately among us since the introduction of Protestancy for the greatest part of the Decretal Epistles in the books of the Canon-Law were sent to the English as rescripts occasioned by their addresses to the Pope for his determination in several matters of Religion Besides it may be attributed much to the efficacy of Religion in general among us that no Epidemical vice is charged upon our Nation as upon others But that which is most important in the confirmation of the tendency that the liberty propounded hath to promote the safety and peace of the Nation is the consideration of the prevalent interest these severall parties have therein and consequently ability to do harm or good which I shall make use of as a THIRD REASON of the above-mentioned assertion Now here I shall begin with the sort of Divines call'd Presbyterian though more truly meriting to be styled those that are for moderate Episcopacy and shall consider their interest and strength And first the whole Kingdom of Scotland is united in a solemn League with them Nor is the federall union likely to be dissolved between that Nation and them because they have submitted to the form of Primitive Episcopacy described by the Bishop of Armagh their Covenant binding them only against that high Prelacy formerly in use among us Secondly the way of their preaching being very practicall and accompanied with zeal and vehemence doth leave generally deep impressions on the minds of men and consequently creates among the people a reverentiall esteem for their persons And indeed so many Preachers as there are of the moderate Episcopall or Presbyterian way there are so many Orators whereby they influence the people more then if they were so many Postillers Every one of them almost doth as Tully saith aculeos relinquere in animis audientium Their way of Preaching is not whining like that of the Sectaries and though far from being in most of them conformable to the Rules of Rhetorick yet I count it suitable to Oratory because it doth perswade 'T is beyond dispute that this way of Puritanicall preaching hath insinuated it self much into the affections of many by that civility and emendation of manners it hath proselyted them into and so hath obtain'd respect both from them and their relations Nor can it but be supposed that the common sort of men I mean such as live by Trade whose being either rich or beggers depends much on the honesty of their servants should like that sort of Preachers best who are most passionate and loud against Vice and the appearances of it And the impressions of this practicall way of Preaching are the more permanent in their hearers because these Preachers do propagate the belief of the morality of the Sabbath and do oblige their hearers to discourse on that day chiefly of Religious things and to pass their time in Prayer and Repetition of the Sermons then preach'd Thirdly they are highly esteem'd by a great part of the people for the strictnesse and austority of their lives And by nothing more then unstain'd lives can Ministers attract reverence for their persons and Doctrines How much mens affections cool toward a Religion many of the Teachers whereof are debauch'd appeares by that common observation of Travellers that the people who live at a great distance from Rome are more superstitious then those who live in Rome where they see so much prophanenesse among the Grandees of the Church Fourthly being for the most part of them not much immerst in the Studies of School-Divinity and indeed more Polite Literature as Philology c. they are enabled to preach oftner and have more Sermons of Practicall Divinity to Print then the Reverend Divines
of the old Hierarchy and by this means to adde to their repute and credit with the people Fifthly they converse more generally with one another and with the common people then the Reverend Divines that are for the former Prelacy do And indeed men that are resolved Students and habitually Bookish have regrets against conversation especially that of those men they can gain no knowledg by Nor indeed is the company of illiterate Lay-men ordinarily acceptable to any Scholars but such as pursue knowledg in mechanicks Now so great and generall is the conversation of the Divines call'd Presbyterian with one another that not one of them can come to live in any Countrey but in a few weeks is known to all the Ministers of that party there whom he meets at Lectures or publick Fasts On the other side it is usuall for the Divines of the former Prelatical perswasion to admit only those to a freedom of converse with them that are in Ecclesiastical or Civil Dignity equal to them Moreover the Divines call'd Presbyterian do more then the others converse with their hearers and by this means have the interest of Confessors among Lay-people from whom they hear related the most secret passages of their Lives and Consciences and of the spiritual Maladies and Desertions they languish under And here it may be observ'd how the non-conforming Divines were heretofore necessarily more then the other obliged to be much in the company of their Lay-hearers for by being so most of them got those Church-preferments they had Their opinions causing them to be put by from Fellowships of Colledges in the Universities they betook themselves for shelter to the Lay-Puritans in several parts of the Nation and so compass'd the being Lecturers in Corporations and Market-Townes And hereby they became of more active tempers saw more of the World were more harden'd either for the resisting what troubles they could and bearing what they could not resist then others that in quest of knowledg and the highest dignities of the Church had been long in Universities accustom'd to private and sedentary lives Sixthly by their dis-esteem of Ceremonies and external pomp in the Worship of God they are the more endear'd to Corporations and the greater part of persons engaged in Trade and Traffick who hate Ceremonies in generall that is forms and set behaviours that are not necessary as being not at leisure for them and as they are expenceful and as contrary to their Genius and Education And indeed men that live amidst the continual dispatches of business in a way of Trade do naturally grow into a hatred of what doth unnecessarily take up time We see therefore in Holland that Funerals the last solemn Offices the dead can have paid them and of which the observation in less Trading Countries doth with its Ceremonies devoure so much time are there to be celebrated before two i' th' afternoon and for every houre that a Herse is kept in a house after that time somewhat what is paid to the State Nor can it otherwise be but that the same persons who nauseate Ceremonies in Civil things will loath them likewise in Religious Just as a man that hath an antipathy against Muskadine in his Parlour cannot love it at the Sacrament The Fathers upon whose writings those that would now recommend Ceremonies to the Church do build their assertions of them were such as did live in the Southern parts of the World where Ceremonies are more lov'd in Civil and Religious things then by us Northern people they are And besides the people there being of sharper wits then among us they are the Artifices of Ceremonies are requisite to raise mists before their understanding faculties and to detain them from as much knowledg as they can by admiration lest they should become the less obedient by being the more knowing The eminency of the Southern wits above the Northern appeares to us from the constant and just complaints of Northern Nations that the Southern have still over-reach'd them in Treaties after they had defeated their Armies in the field And what I here observe concerning these Nations is attested by Bodin in his fifth Book De Republicâ Where he shews what his observation of the Genius and subtle understandings of Southern people was and how it was fit they should be awed into the doing of things by a solemn and pompous managery of Religion 'T is further observable concerning Northern Nations that they are more addicted to Trade then Southern which they are necessitated to be because the things that of their own accord that is without industry grow out of the Earth are fewer among them then Southern and because they are more populous and while they are more then the other Nations addicted to Trade they must needs be less addicted to Ceremonies The Hollanders may serve as an instance to evince the truth of this who having scarce any native commodities being a populous Countrey for their quantity of ground and being forced to advance Trade can hardly abstain from Markets on the Lords Day and do account it a piece of Devotion to cover their Wares in Sermon time Much less could they or indeed any Trading Countrey admit so many Holy-days as our Church of England did abound with The Lutheran Religion being profest chiefly in Countries that subsist by Trade though it owns an Episcopall form of Church-Government hath annex'd to it but few Ceremonies and I think except bowing at the name of Iesus and standing up at the Creed none considerable Nor are there in any Church of Calvin's perswasion Responsalls to be used by the people in their Liturgies as in ours Nor in the Lutheran Churches do any but the Chatechis'd boys mind them much And in Holland the Lutheran Church doth admit men to the Sacrament without private Confession and Absolution which in less Trading places it strictly requires While I am now inquiring into the disposition of Trading Countries I shall by the way observe that the interest which the Protestant Religion hath in them is its greatest visible security and defence For though Princes of the Popish Religion do command a greater quantity of ground then Protestant Princes yet they have not an interest in Maritime Townes and Trading places equall to them And and as the present State of Christendom is he that commands the Sea commands the shore and the Dominion of the Sea through Gods mercy is in Protestant hands But to return from whence I digrest If we reflect on those that did most love Ceremonies heretofore in our Nation we shall find them to have been persons of the greatest Rank and Quality among us who did affect Ceremonies in Civil things or of the poorest sort who did get their daily bread by the Charity of the other The midling sort of men and especially the substantial Trades-men of Corporations did generally disgust them So natural is it for men to paint God in colours suitable to their own fancies that I
A DISCOURSE CONCERNING LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE In which are Contain'd PROPOSALLS About what Liberty in this kind is now Politically Expedient to be given and severall Reasons to shew how much the Peace and Welfare of the Nation is concern'd therein By R. T. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Brook and are to be sold at his shop at the Angel in Cornhill 1661. A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Liberty of Conscience c. I Am not ignorant that it is the fate of those who propound modells concerning Affaires of State or Religion to be usually look'd on as knaves or fools and as such who either do not know the incurable defects of humane nature or by pretending to cure them would only mend their own fortunes Leaving therefore the makers of plat-forms about morall things to such censures as attend them I shall not here in this following discourse of Liberty of Conscience so much resemble him that draws the modell of an house as one that applies an Engin to quench one a fire And indeed the security of the Nation is so concerned in the granting of this Liberty that any who shall by the contrary practice pretend to promote that will most truly deserve the name of a projector Moreover I know that in nothing more then about Liberty of Conscience querulous persons have shewn a childishness in their complaints without telling what the very thing is that troubles them and how far they would have it removed and so complaining for want of Liberty of Conscience in generall have been as ridiculous as a Plaintiff would be that brought his Action about anothers owing him money in generall or a Judge that accordingly order'd some money in generall to be paid When therefore any subjects have exprest the due Liberty their Consciences need then is a King in a capacity to shew a God-like benignity and power in granting the things they ask as far as they conduce to his honour and the peoples good Nor is it rationall that this Liberty should be granted on other termes For a King that gives to all men all the Liberty of Conscience they beg from Him this day will be forced to beg it from them the next As I shall therefore decline such an offer of the ways of securing Liberty to the Consciences of the severall parties among us as might amount to the exactness of a modell and seem to impose upon the Magistrate and tempt other men into an opposition of those methods whereof they were not the Inventors so shall I likewise avoid the error of those who cry out for want of Liberty before they know their own minds fully in this affaire or take care that the Magistrate shall know them otherwise then by inspiration Nor shall I at all in these papers consider what Liberty to the Consciences of others Religion but purely what politicall interest prompts us to give It is I confess none of the most renowned principles for Nations to preserve a fair entercourse with one another and with their respective Members because 't is their interest so to do but 't is a thing much more shamefull for a people to be so infatuated as not to see their interest when it is most obvious to them as in this case of the due Liberty of Conscience it so eminently is that it can be the reall Concernment of none but Souldiers of fortune to oppose it 'T is pity but those miseries which some mens pedantick incivilities to the Consciences of others have formerly overwhelm'd the Nation with should be so instructive to us as to convince us of the necessity of setting out the true bounds of Liberty of Conscience as the Egyptians of old by the overflowing of their Nile were forc'd upon the study of Geometry that so the certain bounds and proprieties of Lands might afterward be retrived I shall therefore without any more Prefatory words addresse my self to the proposalls about the freedom that is now fit to be given to the severall Protestant parties differing in lesser matters of Religion among us whose perswasions being different from those own'd by the Reverend Divines of our old Hierarchy do put them in a present necessity of having some liberty granted to them First then I shall propound that if there be not a coalition of those that are call'd the Presbyterians and the Assertors of the former Hierarchy among us into the same form of Church-Government and thereby the Presbyterians so call'd be put in a capacity to divide the highest preferments of the Church with others however no Ministers may be devested of their present Livings or be made uncapable of being presented to other meerly because they have been ordain'd by Presbyters without Bishops Secondly that any publick Preachers of the Independent perswasion may not meerly because of that discriminating opinion of theirs be render'd uncapable of being Lecturers in any Parish where the major part of the Parish and the Minister shall desire them so to be More liberty is not desired in their behalf because according to their principles it is not lawfull for them to take Tithes and to do the usuall Offices of a Minister in a Parish The Reasons why I judge it convenient that the Pastors and Teachers of Independent Churches should thus if nothing be alledged against them but their particular opinion be permitted to preach publickly are because as to the Doctrinall part of Religion they concur with the 39. Articles of the Church of England and they are generally men of strict lives and are such as have been bred up in the Universities and if they have not the liberty allow'd them to preach publickly it will necessarily occasion their preaching to their Churches in private meetings which may be of worse consequence to the Magistrate then their publick preaching can be And again their opinions about Church-Government though possibly not true are not unworthy of good and Learned men for by such they have been own'd as namely by Ames Ainsworth and Cotton of New-England Thirdly that those of these perswasions that are not Ministers I mean Gentlemen and Tradesmen Presbyterian or Independent may not for their opinions sake as to Church-Government be debar'd of any civil employment in the Nation they are otherwise capable of Fourthly that Anabaptists may not be punish'd meerly for their opinion of Administring Baptism as they do and their meeting to pray and preach and take the Sacrament of the Lords Supper together For though those of that perswasion were in Germany as so many fire-ships among the States of the Empire it doth not follow that others here must necessarily prove incendiaries in the same manner 〈◊〉 the acts of reasonable creatures may much more vary in severall places then Lightning and Thunder happen to be more hurtfull in some Countreys then other and some plants more or less poysonous in severall places Fifthly that the Quakers may for a while be tolerated till we have seen what effects their light within them will produce A present
persons intend to be judges how far mens civil and spirituall liberties reach and what are the frontires of both Nothing we see is more common among the Romish Priests then to pick the pockets of the people in ordine ad spiritualla And 't is most certain that he who doth impose any thing upon the people under the species of Religion would not leave them a power to judge whether it be in order to it or no. For if they are the Judges of it they will say that any thing in Religion which displeaseth them opposeth their civil liberty and so nothing at all will therein be enjoyned Secondly those that take away from others their spirituall liberties shew that they can take away part of their civill at least or else the whole of them accordingly as they valued their spirituall liberty If it be said that mens civil liberties are thought more important then their spirituall yet it may be replyed that in the thoughts of very many men their spirituall liberties are as considerable as part of their civill So that the totall destroyers of spirituall liberty shew that part of the civill is at their mercy And if they are able to take away one part of mens civill liberties they are by that means in a better capacity to take away another just as he that is able to take away one limb from a mans body is the more able to take away another because by the losse of that a man hath the less strength to defend himself against a further assault But although in some parts of the World men have not the same high esteem for spirituall liberty as for civil just as the par or proportion of Silver to Gold in severall Countries doth differ it may be affirm'd that in this Nation generally they have 'T is true that broken-fortun'd men do not value civil liberty nor men of debauch'd Consciences spirituall but neither of these qualifications hath produced a generall undervaluing of either sort of liberty among us As to what may be objected concerning some Popish Countries as Venice c. where they have not a proportion of esteem for spirituall liberty equall to their civil I answer that their Religion obligeth them to perform a servile obedience to the Bishop of Rome in things sacred and they looking on him as infallible have no reason to prize a liberty of not obeying him Yet even in those places obedience to the Roman Catholick Religion is not maintain'd by the severe Discipline of an Inquisition The policy of the French Nation is in this respect exactly good the liberty of the Gallican Church being so cautiously asserted in order to the liberty of the Gallican Kingdom where their Courts of Parliament in case of Appeals do declare void and null the Popes Bulls and Excommunications and forbid the execution of them when they are found contrary to the liberty of the French Church and the Kings Prerogative Nor without cause were the severall European Princes jealous of the Popes designs to invade their civil liberties when as Mr. Selden observes in his Dissertatio ad Fletam Innocent the second being very earnest with them to admit the Canon Law into their Territories they received the Civil Law to keep out the Canon In which Law the Bishops of Rome have severall Titles De emptione venditione De locato conducto and severall other Titles that concern Temporall affaires between man and man Thirdly they engage themselves to be in readiness by Temporall power to maintain their conquests over mens spiritual liberties For he that takes away a feather out of a mans hat is obliged in interest to take away his sword from his side If it be said that a man may think himself bound in Conscience to oppresse people in spiritual things but not in civil I answer most certainly then his Conscience will lead him to put them out of a condition to assert their spiritual liberties so opprest It is with restraining the freedom of Conscience as the denying a mare liberum to neigbouring nations which any Prince that doth must not trust to prescription of long time or imaginary lines in the heavens whereby the compasse of his dominion of the Sea may be determined but to powerfull Fleets Fourthly they give men just cause to think that they will be willing to invade their civil liberties whenever their Consciences or their interests shall prompt them to it From what hath been said in this first Reason about the connexion of civil and spiritual liberty and mens concernednesse in the valuation of both I shall occasionally affirm that the next best way to Liberty of Conscience for the preservation of the publick peace of a Country where spirituall liberty is regarded in any high measure by the people is an Inquisition But he hath much to learn in Politicks who thinks that an Inquisition is practicable among us as 't is in Spain where one Religion hath had quiet possession in the Countrey so many yeares The second Reason to prove that the Peace and Safety of the Nation will be very considerably advanced by the allowance of freedom to mens Consciences shall be this As long as there is such a due Liberty of Conscience granted 't is hardly possible for any civil Wars to happen on the account of Religion which for want of this freedom may If there are but two parties in a Nation that differ from one another in Religion 't is not unlikely but that a civil War may arise on the account of Religion though the one doth tolerate the other because either of them that thinks its share in the chief Magistrates savour least may for that reason attempt a forcible suppression of the other But any such War can hardly be where the parties differing in Religion are many For they are not likely to know the exact strength of one another and their severall animosities will keep them from joyning together against any one that doth not invade their liberty in generall Nothing but extreme necessity can bring them to meet amicably and consult together For the nearer they seem to one another in opinion the sharper their mutuall hatreds are just as people of severall Countreys that live in the frontires of each do hate one another with a greater vehemence then those more remotely situated do Besides 't is probable that if any one of the parties tolerated should go about to make it self uppermost which design only could make it fly out into a civil War the rest would immediately Joyne to suppresse it For they are not sure they shall have that from the conquering party after all the horrors of War which they already possesse to wit a fair liberty Which if it be competently allow'd to the severall parties seditious persons at home and the Ministers of State to our enemies abroad will be deprived of their old benefit from our Divisions in Religion which they accidentally made use of as a handle to
do not wonder at Trading persons who hate Ceremonies that they thus think God in respect of this hatred altogether such as themselves And therefore Almighty God designing his Worship from the Jewish Church to be full of Ceremonies and such as were Typical of his Son did divert that Nation from the utmost promoting of Trade To this end they were not planted except a few of them by the Sea-side but in In-land places and thereby were the better enabled to advance shepherdry and the multiplying of various kinds of Cattel in order to their Sacrifices They were forbid to take use money of one another not that there was any reall evil or Injustice in Usury but that it would have drawn them on to the advancement of Trade and consequently have interrupted the course of their solemn Rites and Ceremonies Religion would then have suffer'd by Trade whereas the contrary thing hath since happen'd from it For beside those Vices that are concomitant of Idleness which Trade repels the increase of Navigation must necessarily propagate the knowledg of Christian Religion as well as humane Arts and Sciences Thus Multi pertransibunt augebitur Scientia If in opposition to what hath been said about Trading persons being generally disaffected to Ceremonies in Religion any shall urge that in the Popish Republicks Trade and Ceremonies are both us'd It may be answer d that the many Ceremonies there are rather endured then loved and that if mens understandings were not there mis-guided by a belief of their being necessary to salvation the practice of them would quickly be abated just as we see the motion of a lock to be alter'd when the hand is removed that held back the spring Let but the Protestant Religion get ground there and so consequently the Tributes of their time be no more demanded for their present Ceremonies and we shall soon find how unwilling they will be to pay them I shall now briefly speak of the other parties as the Independents c. and take notice of their considerableness and hopes of bidding fair for an interest in the hearts of any of the people And here I shall observe that if these Sects had got no ground in the Nation that yet they want not their likelyhoods of doing it and that first by reason of the ready inclination of many among us to mutability in nothing more then their opinions about controverted things in Religion For opinions held by the English are held by Islanders And therefore Bodin in his Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem and fifth chapter of it doth very judiciously shew how people are to be moderated by different Laws according to their Climates and Situations which he confirmes by mentioning the severall Vices and Vertues of Countries remotely distant from one another saying how that Ventosa loca ferociores homines mobiliores reddunt quieta verò humaniores constantiores i. e. Countries disturb'd with frequent winds make men more fierce and mutable but Countries that are free from such do make men more civil and constant And secondly because the Protestant Religion doth indemnifie us in the Court of Conscience for believing in matters of Religion according to the Dictates of our private Judgements or rather oblige us to it Doubtless if it be not lawful for every man to be guided by his private judgement in things of Religion t' will be hardly possible to acquit our separation from the Romish Church from the guilt of schism The Genius of the Protestant Religion doth make it as naturall to us to weigh and consider any notions though recommended to us by our Ministers as 't is to tell money after our spiritual Fathers which we shall be as ready to do as after our naturall Nor can the decisions of Synods and Generall Councils terminate our inquiries in Religion or keep single Divines from recommending notions de fide And therefore as any Judge is concern'd to be wary how he gives sentence in a cause or inforceth the Execution of it when there lie appeales from his to severall other Judicatories so doth it likewise import Synods or Conventions of Divines to be cautious in their deciding matters of Faith since every such cause is to be carryed from their Bar to the examination of more then ten thousand Chancellours as many being Judges of the cause as there are rational men It hath been long since observ'd by many that Christian Religion hath moderated the extremity of servitude as to civil things in the places where it hath been receiv'd And certainly it is much more consonant to that Religion and especially that form of it which hath asserted its spirituall freedom from the impositions of others to allow spiritual liberty to others Nor doth it seem worthy of Christ who hath left us a Religion full of Mysteries and not any visible Judge of them to have design'd about those any visible Executioners If any man thinks otherwise let him say so I might further shew how these Sects caresse the vulgar in giving the power of the keys to the people in their gather'd Churches and how likely 't is that many busie men and of good natural parts who have not Learning enough to procure any good Church-preferment from the old or modern Episcopall men and it may be any such Learned men as have been repuls'd by them as to preferment will be gathering Churches But this present inquiry concerning the interest the severall Sects among us have in the hearts of many needs no further prosecution We find too many places swarming with them And such is the peculiar temper and complexion of most people of these perswasions and the melancholy of them more fix'd and sharp then that of any other party that this concurring with Religion of which I doubt not but very many of them have a true sense will incline them to persist in their present practises Of the heighth and setledness of these mens discontents we had experience in their voluntary removal out of the Nation carrying their Estates with them some to Holland and others to New England when the other more sagacious party of non-Conformists since call'd Presbyterians chose to weather out the storm at home and to get for themselves as good terms as they could THE FOURTH REASON that I shall urge to prove how much the peace and security of the Nation will be advanc'd by the liberty propounded may be taken from the inclinations of Orders and Degrees of other men among us and such as are not much engaged in these parties who account it their interest to be free from any religious impositions of the Clergy and to have the power of Bishops so moderated as that they may not be able to make any suffer for not being of their opinions in lesser matters of Religion And here I shall observe first how the Judges of the Land and the Lawyers generally have been ready to curb the excess of power in any Bishops The Bishops
the Clergy or Laiety of this Land or either of them Which Vote of that House may seem to be grounded on this consideration that a Legislative power is inseparable from the King and Parliament and that if a Parliament would transmit their interest in the Legislative Power to any other order of men they cannot do it more then a Judge can delegate his Authority to his Clerks or any be a Deputies Deputy I shall onely here further observe that the Lawyers whose Obligations on the account of interest to moderate the power of Bishops I have before spoke of are still likely to be a great part of the House of Commons and to have the conduct of Parliamentary Affaires much in their hands and to concur with any party against the Bishops if they should invade the due Liberty of mens Consciences or endeavour to make themselves formidable in the Nation The LAST REASON I shall urge to prove what advantages will redound to the Nation from the allowance of a due Liberty of Conscience is that it will necessarily produce an advancement of our Trade and Traffick the hinderance whereof must needs follow from the contrary practice The largenesse of Trade in any Countrey is most certainly founded in the populousnesse of it 'T is onely in populous Countries that the wages of work-men are cheap whereby a greater store of Manufactures is prepared for Exportation In populous Countries onely they fell their own Commodities dear and buy foreign cheap 'T is there that Land is worth twice as many yeares purchase as elsewhere And in such Countries onely is the fishing Trade carryed on which none will employ themselves in that can live upon the shore reasonably well and which in populous Countries enough will not be able to do This then being laid down as a principle that the wealth of any Nation depends on its populousnesse I may confidently affirm that the populousnesse of a Countrey doth much depend upon the Liberty of Conscience that is there granted The Kingdom of Spain may here serve for this to be Exemplified in where there are not men enough to Manufacture their own Wooll and where there is more black mony Brass or Copper Coin used then in other Nations notwithstanding all the Silver that comes thither from the West-Indies It was the rigour of the Inquisition that brought that Monarch who would have been an universall one to send Ambassadours to his high and mighty subjects But we need not look out of our own Countrey for instances of Trades suffering together with Freedom of Conscience For by reason of the former severity exercised on those that would not conform to the Ceremonies imposed many thousands of people bred up in a way of Trade and Traffick left the Kingdom going some of them to America and others to Holland where our Countrey-men did compensate to the Hollanders for severall Manufactures which they directed us to when the Rage of Duke Alva's persecution occasion'd their residence among us And what could more prejudice the Trade of our Countrey I know not then the peopleing other Countries with our Artificers and the teaching them our Arts and Manufactures And it is considerable that the sort of Trading men on whom the shock of persecution did seem to light most heavily was that of those whose Trades did lie chiefly in advancing our staple-Commodity of Wooll and preparing our Old and New Draperies for Exportation to which Trades the ordinary sort of Puritan Non-Conformists were rather inclined then to ploughing and digging because in these Trades of theirs as namely Weaving Spinning Dressing c. Their Children might read Chapters to them as they were at work and they might think or speak of Religious things or sing Psalmes and yet pursue their Trades Besides these Trades were more suitable to their Constitutions which were generally not so Robust as of others and to the melancholy of their tempers Now these men being frequently disturb'd by Apparitors and summon'd to Ecclesiasticall Courts for working on Holy-Days perhaps or going on a Sunday to some Neighbouring Parish when they had no Sermon in their own or for some such causes were so hinder'd in the course of their Trades that they were necessitated to remove out of the Kingdom They could not expect that Merchants or other Trading persons would imploy them and take their work unlesse they could bring it in at such a set time that it might be as occasion required Exported and sent to Faires and Markets abroad at punctuall times likewise which Merchants are concern'd in taking care of lest their Commodities be undersold Now these Puritan Traders were not in a capacity to dispatch the sending in of their Manufactures to others at the time agreed on by reason of their frequent Citations to and Delays at the Bishops Courts And since other Nations have now the way of making Cloath as namely France Holland and Flanders if we do not sell it cheaper then they we shall hardly have any abroad sold at all To conclude the Examination of this particular affaire not any that hath search'd at all into the nature of the Trade of this Nation but believes that the best way to advance it would be to call in and invite any Protestant strangers to come and live among us and to encourage Artists of all Nations to come and plant themselves here which cannot be done without the giving them a due Liberty of Conscience and if it be our interest to encourage strangers and give them this Liberty this dealing may much more be expected by our own natives But 't is needlesse to insist longer in giving plain reasons for a plain proposition I shall onely therefore before I now draw this discourse about the due Liberty of Conscience that is fit to be practised in this Nation toward an end shew that thereby the Reverend Fathers of the Churche the Bishops will find their interâ—st advanc'd in particular as well as the interest of the Nation in generall If any man shall say that the Government of the Church by Bishops is the most pure and Apostolicall I am firmly of his opinion yet as No Bishop no King is now no uncontradicted Maxim so is it lesse unquestion'd that no force in matters of Religion no Bishop But notwithstanding the severity that hath been exercised on mens Consciences by former Prelats such is the prudence of some of the present Fathers of the Church that they will I believe see it to be as much their interest to give Liberty of Conscience as it can be the interest of any men to receive it And indeed if this were but in a fair manner distributed among the severall Sects I have spoken of they would no more endeavour the destruction of the Episcopall Clergy then the Iews at Rome tolerated do design the ruine of the Pope Nay further these Sects having liberty under their Government would serve them as a ballance against popular envy I have often wish'd that our Nobility
under that notion find many to own it now in this Kingdom Yet are the Non-Conformists likely still to increase as from Edward the sixths time to this they have gradually done And some that are weary of our former Presbytery may yet be willing to return to it if they find Episcopacy Afflictive to them though thereby they onely shift their pain For nothing so much as Persecution makes men set up Altare contra altare every man choosing rather to be a Sacrificer on his own Altar then a Sacrifice upon anothers If any Ecclesiastical persons therefore shall design to gratifie the Peace and Welfare of the Nation without the allowance of a due Liberty of Conscience I shall think their onely aime hereby is to confirm the truth of their Doctrine and Discipline by a miracle I cannot but judge them too sagacious to believe that they can convince mens understandings of the truth of any Assertions by Torturing their bodies For men by the rage of passion to conduct knowledg into the World is as unlikely as the lighting of a candle with Gun-powder How ridiculous is it to think that Truth got any thing by the writings that pass'd between Luther and Henry the eight There are severall erroneous opinions that if we wish the world well rid of we shall find to die away of their own accord if we do not exasperate the maintainers of them just as nature makes us amends for the ugliness of Monsters in their being short-lived Yet even in the case of naturall unhandsomenesse I have seen the vulgar vary from their common Rule of judging it when a deform'd Malefactor hath been going to Execution Nor do the words of Cheaters that die on Gibbets want belief among the Rabble And if the common people are alwaies so ready to believe what is affirm'd by infamous persons because they are dying we may well suppose they will give credit to the words of such as liv'd demurely when they are to die because such and such thing were affirm'd by them I believe that hardly more Priests have been cut off by the Law then Papists thereby made That Faith hath been given to the Assertors of Popish opinions because they have been dying which they could just have drawn from me by raising the dead Nor is it a thing unobserv'd by any lookers into Antiquity that the Christian Religion hath still got ground in the World not by persecuting but being persecuted But that which I cannot without horror observe is that the not allowing a due Liberty of Conscience hath instead of advancing the cause of Truth propagated Atheism in this Nation This doth but too clearly appear from that Irreligion many of our Gentry have been infected with by the Reverend Divines of the Church of England not having had freedom to Worship God in publick according to their Consciences For severall persons of the Gentry not being able to hear a Liturgy a way of Prayer which every Church in the Christian World but ours then had and Sermons from such Divines as were not Puritans chose rather not to go to Church at all then be there present at the Worship they disgusted and no marvell that thus neglecting Gods publick service they at last grew unconcern'd in any Religion The like temptations to Atheism would be incident to many that are not of the Gentry if Liberty as has been propounded should not be given to the Non-conformist Divines For though severall of this sort of men would exercise their Devotion in private meetings and some would joyn with such publick Worship as was to be had yet many would hear no Sermons at all as possibly not likeing that which looks like a Conventicle and more disliking the way of praying and preaching us'd by very many Divines that adhere to the former Episcopacy Now t' were pity that this disease of Speculative Irreligion should infect the Commonalty as well as others and that by the persecution of Ministers who differed from us in lesser things we should as it were naile those Canons that might be employ'd in battering the Atheism of the Age because they are not all of the same length and shape Which Atheism I fear hath occasionally been not a little advanced by the disagreements of Ministers about the Divine Right of severall forms of Church-Government For things to be believed and done in order to salvation can have no more then a Divine Right and their opinions of Discipline have claim'd so much and by this means they have made some foolish men apt to think that the Trumpet of Religion giveth an uncertain sound and that nothing at all is of any Divine Right I account the body politick of the Nation to be as well concern'd in the upholding Religion as the Souls of men the Majesty whereof would be sufficiently kept up if the Teachers of it did either agree in all points about it or else in this one thing that the dissenters in lesser Controversies of Religion are obliged to allow a mutuall toleration And indeed when I consider what opinions men call one another Hereticks for not agreeing in it seems to me the same thing as if after the Pope had pronounced Virgilius the Bishop of Saltsburg Heretick for saying there were Antipodes he should have call'd the Pope Heretick too for saying there were none These parties that differ so in the circumstantial points of Religion are equally Antipodes to one another and alike near Heaven and in the Revolution of a few houres they see the same fun though not the same stars I mean they have the same Fundamentall though not lesse considerable Truths The Popish Religion among all the different Ritualls our fore-Fathers used was accounted the same some Worshipping God Secundum usum Sarum and others Secundum usum Bangor c. Why then may not the Protestant Religion be so esteem'd here among our little varyings Though possibly some very few Divines of all parties here for want of Prudence and Goodnesse of nature may endeavour the rigorous imposing of things not necessary that is such as we may be without and which all Protestant Churches but ours are without yet will the Laiety probably and I hope a great part of the Clergy of severall perswasions be far from concurring with them as Abettors of such an odious work as may produce further mischiefes to Church and State meerly to gratifie the blind zeal or unpurged choler of a few If Gods Ambassadors have a mind to quarrell about Precedency or Ceremonies in Religious things pretendding that it is necessary to observe them most strictly the people are now grown so wise as not to think it necessary for themselves to encounter hazards to make some of these Legats of Heaven submit to the Punctilio's of others just as severall Ambassadours from one Prince falling out in a strange Countrey about Ceremonies in Civil things which one of them being of a loftier humour would reduce the rest to practice would hardly find any
of the Natives of the place concern'd in their debate whatever love they bore to their Master FINIS A DISCOURSE REPRESENTING THE LIBERTY of CONSCIENCE That is Practised in FORREIGN PARTS By N.Y. LONDON Printed for Nathaniel Brook and are to be sold at his shop at the Angel in Cornhill 1661. THE LIBERTY of RELIGION Which is in use amongst PROTESTANTS T Is first inquir'd what Liberty the States which profess the Protestant Religion give to different opinions within their Dominions To this I shall briefly answer and begin with the Northern Climate going along and relating what I have observed in every different Jurisdiction When I was in Sweden I found the Administrators of that Kingdom very much inclined to Moderation towards the Reformed party for they suffered them not only to have School-masters of their own to teach their Children but also they permitted them to have private meetings in their distinct Colonies wherein they had the free use of holy Ordinances in their own way without disturbance And although the Clergy of the Nation did not willingly allow this yet whiles the King Gustavus and his Daughter the Queen Christina ruled their Liberty was not abridged but when Charles came to the Crown by the Resignation of Christina the old Chancellour Oxenstiern in favour of the Clergy caused the King to take an Oath at his Coronation whereby he was obliged not only to restrain all publick exercise different from the Lutheran but also to abridg the Reformed party of the Liberty which they had formerly enjoyed which hath had some operation upon their freedom but how far they are abridged of it now I am uncertain In Denmark there is no Liberty granted to any that differs in judgment so far as I have been acquainted with that State only in Holstein when the Remonstrants after the Synod of Dort had not that Liberty which they desired in Holland they planted themselves in Eidersh at Fridericksburg where they and others also obtained the prviledg of the exercise of their profession without control which is continued unto them still Moreover in Holstein at Altena the High and the Low Dutch and the French Reformed Churches have the Liberty of publick meetings in their profession who dwelling in Hamburg and not obtaining that Liberty within the City have procured it within a little English mile from the Gates thereof In Dantzick the three Professions viz. Reformed Lutherans and Papists have or rather had an equall liberty in the time of Keckermannus The Reformed party had the preeminence of the Government and then they did in a friendly manner admit of some Lutherans to share with them in it for in Religious concernments all were alike but since they have been admitted to partake with them in the Government they have found a way to worm the Reformed party out of power by which means they have abridged them of their ancient Priviledges and Liberties so that before these late troubles they were forced to appeal to the King of Poland who made decrees in favour of the Reformed party but in these late troubles the waies of redress have been obstructed And at Elbing when I was there the chief of the Magistrates and the regents of the School also being of the Reformed Religion the Liberty was so equal that no party had any perceptible power over the other but all was carried with that moderation that no offence was either taken or given whiles I was there but since I fear it is fallen out otherwise a fierce Lutheran Minister succeeding in the room of him that then was there who by dividing practises and distinguishing forms hath disturbed their Peace In Poland there was an absolute freedom for the exercise of all professions and the venting of all opinions the Papists the Protestant Calvinists Lutherans Anabaptists Socinians c. all had an equal Liberty and because the Protestants in former time found that by their Divisions and distance in Communion from each other they were much weakned therefore in the year 1570 they agreed at Sendoâ—â—ire in a Synod of the three parties viz. the confession of Helvetia of Bohemia and of Ausburg to unite and make up but one body to which effect they established afterward at many National Synods severall Orders to remove and prevent scandalls and disorderliness from amongst themselves and to confirm their unity by the means of mutual Edification In Transylvania both the Reformed and the Lutheran profession are equally free and in Nationall Synods they meet together and consult in common concerning the means of mutual edification whereof I have a large proofe in the business of Peace and Unity concerning which they have done more then any of the Churches in Europe by answering all the doubts which were proposed unto them as Cases of Conscience to be resolved In Germany heretofore the reformed party did freely exercise their Religion under the Protection of the Princes of their own profession but the Lutherans did always make it a matter of Dispute whether that Liberty did belong unto them yea or no yet now the Treaty of Peace lately concluded at Munster and Osnabrugge hath decided fully that controversy for by a Statute-law it is determined that the reformed party shall have the same right and priviledge of free exercise which Lutheranes and Papists have and this is thus determined by the 7 th Article of the Instrument of Peace Quoniam verò controversiae Religionis c. Now because the controversies of Religion which are in agitation at this time amongst the forenamed Protestants have not been hitherto reconciled but have been referred to a further endeavour of agreement so that they still make two parties therefore concerning the right of reforming it is thus agreed between them That if any Prince or other Lord of the Territorie or Patron of any Church shall hereafter change his Religion or obtain or recover a Principality or Dominion either by the right of succession or by vertue of this present Treaty or by any other Title whatsoever where the publick exercise of Religion of the other party is at present in use it shall be free to him to have his Court-chaplains of his own Confession about him in the place of his Residence without any burden or prejudice to his Subjects â— but it shall not be lawfull for him to change the publick exercise of Religion or the Laws or Ecclesiasticall Constitutions which have been there hitherto in use or take from these that formerly were there their Churches their Schooles their Hospitals or the revenues persians and stipends belonging thereunto or apply them to the men of their own profession or obtrude Ministers of another Confession unto their subjects under the pretence of a Territoriall Episcopal or Patronall right or under any other pretext whatsoever or bring about any other hinderance or prejudice directly or indirectly to the Religion of the other party And that this agreement may be the more firm in the Case of such a change it
is lawfull for the Communalties themselves to present or such as have not the right of presentation they shall have the right to name fit school-masters and Ministers of the Churches to be examined by the publick Consistory or Ministry if they be of the same Religion with the Commuâ—alties which nominate and present or if they be not of the same Religion they shall be examined in the place which the Communalties shall chuse whom the Prince or Lord shall afterwards without any denial confirm This Statute-law of the Empire is the ground of all that freedome which the Reformed or the Lutheran party can lay claim to when they fall under Magistrates of a different profession As for the observation of this Law it is found that the Reformed Magistrate is almost every where more equitable towards Lutherans then these are unto those for in the Palatinate at Heidelberg and other places in Hessen at Smalcalden and at Marpurg and in some places of Anhalt in all the Territories of the Elector of Brandenburg and in the Principalities of Nassaw where the Reformed have the supreme power the Lutherans have their full liberty without interruption but where the Lutherans have the supreme Authority in Germanie I know no places where they permit the free exercise of the Reformed profession but in the places named heretofore in Holstein at Fridericksburg and Altena and in Hamburg the English have their freedome within the City but none else nor doe I know any Imperiall City where the Magistrate is Lutheran which permits the Reformed party to have the liberty of publick profession within their walls there is one of the Lutheran Earls of Hanaw who hath given of late years to the Reformed party dwelling in Strasburg the liberty to build a Church upon his Territory and to have their publick meetings therein and one of the Lutheran Marquesses of Brandenburg hath done the like a year or two ago to the Reformed inhabitants of Noimberg At Bremen where the Magistrate is wholly reformed within the City the Lutherans have the possession of the Cathedrall Church where they exercise their Religious Worship in publick but there are complaints made of the late King of Sweden that in the Territory under his Jurisdiction he hath suffered the Statute of the Empire touching the freedom of Religion to be violated by casting out the Reformed Ministers and imposing Lutherans upon the Reformed Professors depriving them of the Liberty which they have enjoyed ever since the first Reformation of these places from Popery In the Low Countries of the united Provinces the Lutherans the Remonstrants and the Anabaptists have a freedom to meet in a publick way others of all sorts do meet in private and the difference which is made between the Professors of severall parties is chiefly this that the Reformed party which doth own the National Confession and are owned to be Members of the National Congregations have only the Priviledge and Preeminence of being admitted to places of Trust in the State from which all others are excluded And this Liberty of Religion which the united Provinces have yielded and maintained unto all sorts hath made that little spot of ground to be the Centre of the Trade of Europe having onely three Sea-Ports the Wicling the Mase and the Texel and these Ports are not easie neither but difficult to be entred In the Cantons of Switzerland and Geneva there is no different Profession publickly tolerated although in the Circumstantial way of the Administration of Ordinances and in the particular order of Discipline and Government each Canton is different from another yet they fell not out about their differences but correspond in a friendly manner in matters of common concernment In France the Protestant Churches are to be considered within themselves for the Liberty which they enjoy under their Popish Magistrate is not under our consideration but the liberty which their Nationall Synod doth give to particular men to protesse different opinions without bleach of unity in the Church is that which is to be observed and may be a president to teach others Moderation for in the late Controversies between Monsieur du Moulin and Monsieur Amyraut concerning Predestination wherein many others were engaged on both sides although some hears did begin to break forth yet the Nationall Synod hath allayed the distemper and preserved Peace and Unity in the Churches notwithstanding the difference of judgment which was found amongst them The freedome which the particular Churches have to depute some of their members from their Consistories to the Colloques and Provinciall Synods is the means to preserve their Unity and Peace In Switzerland the freedome which the Churches enjoy doth wholly depend upon the Constitution of their order as ratified by the Civil Magistrate who in each canton is Sovereign and upon the correspondency between the Churches which is ordinarily managed by those of Zurich towards all the rest for as the Canton of Zurich hath the precedency and direction in all Civil matters of common concernment so hath the Antistes and Consistory of Zurich in matters Ecclesiasticall a kind of trust put upon them to communicate to the rest by way of correspondency matters to be advised on for mutuall concurrence In Germany there is no such correspondency between the Churches but their freedome in the exercise of Discipline and Government depends wholly upon the Sanction which the Prince and his Ecclesiasticall Senate or Consistory doth make concerning the order and way of administring all things In the Low-countries the freedome of meeting in Classes and in Synods in Classes every Month or oftner if need be according as the Classes are divided in Synods Provinciall every year once is the preservation of these Churches in unity for the six Provinces viz. Gelderland Holland Ulrecht Friesland Groning and Overyssell hold their Synods so consecutively that they can send from each Synod Deputies to another to correspond with them and to communicate matters of Deliberation that there may be no causes of breaches between them the Province of Zeeland hath no setled time of Synodicall meeting but the Classes of Middelburg upon all Emergencies doth give notice to the other Classes of the adjacent Islands of matters to be taken into consideration So that in the Low-Countries the Liberty to meet for the ordering of all things within themselves which preserves the Churches in France and the Liberty to correspond and to communicate one with another the things which they settle by order which preserves the Churches in Switzerland is more complete then any where else and because the Deputies or rather Commissioners from the Civil Magistrate are always present at the Provinciall Synods therefore their decrees are more valid and yet altogether free in matters of spirituall concernment This is the Liberty which I have observed to be in use amongst Protestants within themselves in the exercise of their profession by publick meetings by the administration of Government within themselves by Classes