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
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
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
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
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
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