from their first entrance into the Universities yet so heated are the fancies of many persons by the influence of those bad names that are given them by the Heads of the Faction that many times they meet with rude assaults and unprovoked accosts as they pass the streets nay even the Children who through the immaturity of their years can discern neither good nor evil are taught to point at such persons whose decent garbs declare them to be Clergy-men Now when I considered with my self how necessary this Order of men is not only upon the score of that Divine Authority by which it is established in Scripture but upon the account of policy and prudence without the influence of whom upon the Minds of men neither Governours shall keep their chairs nor governed their bounds but all things will be managed by heats and passions by pride and ambition by corrupt inclinations and fond desires by ways and methods that are directly opposite to the commands of true Religion and Reason to the Interest of States and Kingdomes why I must tell you this reflection did not a little encourage me to any just undertaking whereby I might abate the esteem these persons have and put them out of a capacity of doing so great a mischief as to settle prejudices in the minds of people against so necessary an Order of men as the Ministers are But because I have given some plain hints of this in the ensuing discourse I will proceed no further upon this head and therefore Further I considered many Doctrines and darling Notions of this party of men which are the common Theams and subjects of their discourse and which indeed they vent with such a zeal as if all Religion was concerned and wrapt up in them I say I considered them well and found them really prejudicial to the progress of Religion in the hearts and lives of men and upon that account I could not think myself injurious to religion nor evilly designed against Gods People by undertaking a work wherein these men now and then meet with such just Reproofs and seasonable rebukes as their deserts call for Why should men who have mixt their own inventions with Christs excellent Gospel and prass them with an equal necessity upon the belief of their easy hearers run away with the credit and reputation of being Gods Flect who hear his voice and keep close to his Ordinances without blending them with any corrupt mixtures of their own when in the mean time no men pester the World with newer notions and falser glosses upon the sacred Texts of Scripture than they give me leave though I might name many to instance in these two First That darling and serviceable Notion of praying by the Spirit by which little else is meant if their meaning may be gathered from their expressions or at least as it is understood and they content it should be so by the Common people but a bold and confident uttering of a mans self to God in variety of words with a readiness and fluency for some considerable time together And he that hath got to this perfection oh how gracious a man is he presently proclaimed what an intimate and familiar acquaintance with God How dear to Jesus Christ and it is ten to one but he is sent out by vote and suffrage to be a pillar to support the Cause and saluted by the wealthy Dames as their spiritual Guide and Pastor for upon him is made good the prophecy of Zechariah and the Spirit if Prayer and Supplication is poured out upon him Now what a vile and false account is this of the Spirit of Prayer which if rightly weighed consists in nothing else but in mens addressing to God with a deep and profound sense of his Majesty with a belief of his placability through the satisfaction that was made by Christs oblation of himself once for all upon the Cross with inward desires suitable to the Nature and Necessity of the things we want and petition for with resentment of mind agreeable to the sins and impieties we have wandred into and with Principles of gratitude for what we have enjoyed expressing and displaying themselves by thankful acknowledgments and publick returns And whether this be done with words chosen beforehand or otherways it is all one to God for words reach not him at all but are only necessary in prayer when we are embodyed and one man is the Mouth of others to him Now this being the true Notion of praying by the spirit or of the spirit of Prayer which is the more proper way of expressing it would not any man wonder that men pretending to so much Godliness should thus bring it from the heart the principal seat thereof and lay it all as it were upon the tip of the tongue would not any man admire these men should put such an advantage into the hypocrites hands to cheat and impose upon the unwary part of the world for let them be never so fond of this Notion yet they must know if they be impartial in their reflections upon the actions of the ages past that by this way numbers have been seduced into all manner of Heresies and Blasphemies and he that could utter himself as if he were transported and could talk of God as if he lay in his Breast let his opinions or designs be what they would yet he hath not wanted followers and admirers and this will be so long as so great a part of the World is filly and caught with shadows instead of substance Now when men once come which makes to my design in hand to make such things as these which are merely artificial and depend very much upon the temperature of body and confidence of mind to be the measure of Religion and signs of Grace alas they often fall off from that just respect and value they owe to moral goodness and essential righteussness which is the life and soul of true Religion and the whole stress of their zeal is laid out in little else but keeping of days of their own appointment wherein they may gratifie the pride and frothiness of their Spirits in making long harangues and thereby gaining the applanse of illiterate people as men inspired which faculty if but attained to by men of design as we know many times it hath been it is not to be imagined what tricks and cheats they are empowered thereby to put upon the Vulgar and how chearfully after they have by their melting expressions broken the peoples hearts they carry home the Pieces in their pockets I and laugh at them too for being se easily gulled and deluded But in the mean time I desire any man to tell me whether this prove not very destructive to Religion both as it swells and elevates the minds of those who are Masters of this ready and as they call it powerful utterance and then as the unwary and sometimes blasphemous expressions which hastily through the present heat of their Animal
those Institutions whereby Religion is instilled into their minds p. 98 99. 12. The Church proved to suffer inconvenience from the imprudent way of executing Justice by many of our subordinate Magistrates upon the Offenders of her Laws p. 103 104 105 106. Lastly The Churches loss considered by those mean and scanty Provisions that are made for her Children in many places especially in Corporation Towns p. 107. Three Inconveniences arising hence 1. As thereby Clergy-men are dispirited p. 111. 2. Or else debauched p. 113. 3. Or else discontented p. 115. Conclusion p. 116. An address 1. To the Nobility and Gentry p. 117 118 119 120. 2. To the Nonconformists p. 122 usque finem A MODEST PLEA FOR THE CHURCH of ENGLAND John VI. 68. Then Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life ALL Societies and incorporated Bodies Religious as well as Civil are preserved by Love and Union by being knit and keeping close together and whatsoever Principles they are that have any tendency to disperse and scatter to divide and separate men in their Judgments and Affections they ought to be shunned and abandoned as the underminers not only of mens peace and comfortable abode together but of their real safety and security and every man ought to fear the imbibing and sucking of them in as he does the most violent Poyson the least dram of which is enough to infect those vital parts which keep the body in good heart and plight For such principles they heat mens fancies and naturally make them proud and insolent and nothing can satisfie those who are commanded by them but Rule and Government Authority and Dominion and to curb and rein them in as to any thing they have placed their Passions on is to make them like the wild Bull entangled in a fast-knotted Net full of rage and fury overthrowing every thing with an impetuous violence that stands in their way to the enjoyment of their desire object and neither the Thrones of Princes nor the Stalls of Prelates shall escape their rude Tongues nor their ruder Hands but both the one and the other must be torn down on purpose to be a sacrifice to their Revenge and Lust to their Malice and evil Nature He that looks into History and by the advantage of his standing in the World can reflect upon the last thirty years Transactions in this Kingdom will quickly satisfie himself in this He will find by vertue of such Principles the best of Princes murthered and that which demonstrates the mischievous influence of these Principles indeed this horrid and unaccountable Action done with all the pretences of Law and Justice of Piety and Religion Further upon an easie search he will find the best of Churches framed with all advantages for the keeping up of the Purity of Religion and yet preserving that just honour and Grandeur that belongs both to its Service and its Officers this very Church first treated with scorn and reflected upon with the most bitter Sarcasmes and then robbed without the least Pity though I am sure with great Dishonesty with abundance of other spreading Evils which did these men take no more pleasure to act than I do to name they would not be so common in the world And therefore it being so it ought to be the care of every one of us to use our utmost diligence to discountenance and if possible to bury all those Principles from which we have experienced and do withal foresee so dreadful mischiefs and if we cannot do it by Arguments and Reason the force of which through Prejudice and interest is resisted why those with whom the execution of the Laws is entrusted the Civil Magistrates according to their Oaths ought to punish the Propagators and Spreaders of them And that they may be encouraged to so good a work and so very necessary at this time without which we must needs be involved in a certain if not speedy ruine these words are chosen to be treated upon at this time Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the words of eternal life The Sence of which words without any reflection upon the occasion of them in brief is this That so long as men can enjoy the clear Methods of Salvation and have all those necessary Means and Helps that the wants of their Souls require in order to eternal happiness so long as nothing is imposed upon them either in Belief or Practice that naturally tends to obstruct and hinder the progress of Holiness and Religion in mens Minds so long as men may under that Dispensation in which they were born and bred as easily nay sooner attain those divine Qualifications those excellent Dispositions those needful Graces and useful Vertues which the Gospel commands every mans endeavour after than they can under any other So long as the Society to which they are united is a true Society in which are all Administrations according to the injunction of him who is the Master of it why wither should we go from it in order to better and mend our selves Let us run into what Tents we please let us betake our selves to what numbers of men we can that magnifie themselves with the most glorious Titles and profess themselves the only Favourites and Intimadoes of the Holy Jesus why yet we can but attain to eternal Life and that I am sure to as good nay better purposes all things considered we may do where we are already and therefore Lord to whom shall we go for in that Church in which thou hast planted us and in that Church which thou hast for so many years watered with thy blessing we may have eternal Life and if men can honestly propound any other End in choosing either their Religion or their Opinions besides gaining this eternal Life why let them follow their own Fancies and be led by the wild fire of their own headlong imaginations And now I suppose by this time you may easily see into my Design which consists of these two things 1. To prove That we of this Church have all necessary Advantages for gaining of eternal Life and therefore have no just occasion to run away and separate from it 2. To inquire How it comes to pass that a Church in which we have all the Advantages for getting eternal Life should meet with such Contempt and Disregard should be in so sick and declining a Condition But before I enter upon either of these I must needs make this Protestation That I bless God I come not here to express mine own private Passions nor to act revenge for any particular injury I have received from those who by their Positions and their Practises do insinuate into the belief of the credulous World that we of this Church do shut men out of eternal Life No had it not been for an hearty zeal I have for the Church my Mother and for all your Interests as they are wrapt up in this Churches Happiness I could
A MODEST PLEA FOR THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND By Richard Hollingworth A. M. and Vicar of West-Ham near London Confusion in Religion will as certainly follow every mans turning Priest or Preacher as it will in the State where every one affects to rule as King King Charles the First his Life and Meditations Octavo page 275. LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to his most Sacred Majesty at the Angel in Amen-corner 1676. TO The Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON My Lord IT is observed that the Enemies of our Church notwithstanding in the memory of many now alive they acted such things as were impious and diabolical and but some few years ago were beholden to an act of Pardon to secure to them their Lives and Estates yet are so fond of themselves and their Opinions still that they lift up their heads with their former confidence and print and preach themselves the only People of God in opposition to that great Body of men who do orderly comply with the Kingdoms Laws And withal are at this time using all artifices whatsoever to pull us up both root and branch once again So very thankful are they for all his Majesties gracious condescensions to them But seeing they are so resolved and nothing can oblige them I think every true Son of the Church ought to use the Talent God hath given him to obviate their designs and to discover those wily methods by which they pursue the Churches ruine which I am sure is a more justifiable undertaking than theirs let their pretences be never so specious and taking amongst the more rash and inconsiderate part of Mankind And from this Principle of Love and Honour to the Churches peace and safety does this little Book make bold to appear abroad and particularly to fly into your Lordships Arms as the most proper Sanctuary for protection and defence from all those rude assaults which our Adversaries are too well acquainted with the practice of which if your Lordship will be pleased to condescend to it shall everlastingly be acknowledged as one of the greatest Honours done to Your Lordships Faithful and Obedient Servant Richard Hollingworth Imprimatur Tho. Tomkyns Ex Ed. Lambethan Jan. 15. 1674. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Am not ignorant by what slights and methods such honest and well designed Books as this are answered it is but telling the credulous vulgar that the man that writ it is unacquainted with the power of Godliness that the seed of Cain will be envying the seed of Seth and the Children of the bond-woman insulting over those of the free and the work is done and the book laid aside as not good enough for waste paper That I may therefore prevent this give me leave to aver thus much in mine own behalf that the Christian Religion is a thing so admirably wise in its contrivance so great an Instance of Divine Power in its production and so amply demonstrative of a never to be parallel'd love and goodness it is so every way fitted to the needs and necessities nay to the delight and entertainment of the minds of men and accommodates it self to them so fully in every condition that should a thought at any time crowd and thrust it self into my soul that invites me to any neglect or contempt of it I must either forsake my Principles or else I must throw it out with all becoming wrath and indignation And I pray God I may no longer make any abode in this house of clay than I may one way or other be instrumental to recommend it to the choice and liking of all men within my knowledge and acquaintance And though I dare not confidently boast of my self yet so fully am I satisfyed of the truth and Divinity of its Author of the excellency of its Doctrines and Principles of the advantages that naturally as well as those by promise flow from a severe and honest from an impartial and universal practice of its Rules and Methods that I think I could for its Honour and its further obtaining in the World part with all that is near and dear to me And therefore should I think that any thing in this small Treatise did tend in the least to lessen its esteem and to expose so excellent a Systeme to the scorn and laughter or to the contempt and disdain of any person I would by my own hands revenge my self upon it for being guilty of so bainous a piece of wickedness and out of a just resentment of its unworthiness to appear in the world either sacrifice it to the flames or bury it among the filth and ordure of an unsavoury dunghill No so lovely a thing is this excellent Religion in my eyes and I assure you this loveliness does not appear to me from bare sensible impressions or warm touches upon my fancy but from rational convictions of mind and understanding that I cannot forbear admiring and honouring any person upon whose soul I see any stroaks or lines of Religion drawn and who by his carriage and behaviour evidences himself devoted to its Interest and Service Yea though these persons differ from me in Judgment or any particular opinion yet if the difference issues merely from the weakness of their minds or the necessary impositions of their first education and there appears no mixture of the stubbornness and obstinacy of a resolved will which gives the formality to sin I do declare that I can cohabit with them as Brethren treat them as Intimates and Familiars and serve them with the affection of a real and uninterested Friend And those men whom God hath received and no otherways can I judge of such whom I find in a Zealous pursuit of essential holiness and goodness and more cool and careless in promoting remote opinions and needless theories and speculations I dare not judge but hope to meet them at the last day and with them to enter into a possession of those Glories which Christ is gone to prepare for all his Faithful Followers And therefore if any person enquire how it comes to pass that I have exposed a Book to publick view wherein so many whom it may be they greatly esteem for holiness and strict walking are so much concerned and so severely reprehended I reply 'T is none of their holiness I reprove God forbid but those ungodly practices and unseasonable divisions which many of them themselves once eagerly complained and petitioned against and which I am confident will in the end be bitter to them And further I do aver that it is no particular man I exercise my zeal in the following discourse against but formed bodies and united Factions of men who in companies and numbers flock together and publickly break those Laws the preservation of the honour of which is so necessary to us in all our capacities and circumstances whatsoever And when the same Authority that hath bound and reined them in shall think good by Laws to let
in such numbers from our Churches nor be so easily beguiled into a belief of things so every ways wanting a Foundation in Holy Writ nor would they make such vile and unworthy reflections upon a Church whose Foundation is laid and superstructure built by the Laws of Reason and rightly understood Religion in a word which imposes nothing upon our practice that is forbidden in Holy Scripture And I hope there is so much weight in this one Reason I have given for my zeal against the present Separation as may apologize for me and satisfy any modest man that it is not from any Principle of despight to God his Religion or his people that I have ventured upon such a work as this But I have yet more to say Further then I took notice that Non-conformity had a very evil aspect upon Governours and Government I found no men so ready to embrace any stories whereby their superiours were scornfully reflected upon or vilely represented as these man were nor any men more hasty in spreading these tales further abroad and wondring with my self that men pretending to so extreme a strictness and pleading that strictness as a sign of their being the best of Saints should fail in so known and obvious a duty as obedience to Authority is I looked back into Ages past and God knows found the same temper and spirit among those who were the authors and beginners of this desolating Separation I found one Goodman an Exile in Queen Maryes days and one of the Antesignani of the Nonconformists vindicating Wyat's rebellion asserting in Print that his cause was God's and that none but Traytors could accuse him of Treason and after this I find Queen Elizabeth maligned by White Rowland and Hawkins three of the Brotherhood and by no means must she be thought any other ways than an evil Princess spoiling God's people and extolling vanity and this averred before Grindall then Bishop of London And if I should quote what hath dropt from these mens pens since to the slandering of God's Anointed this Preface would swell into too great a bulk Now I must confess this thing very much troubled me and stirred my passions to see that in which our happiness is so apparently wrapt up and by vertue of which we safely possess the fruits of our own labours made the scorn of boys and raw servants and the wise and prudently enacted Laws brought to the Barr many times by a company of silly women who are led captive and laden with many lusts and according to their deep and profound judgment voted obligatory or else nulled and voided And in good earnest this appears to me the ready way to the Nations ruine as it naturally prepares men to serve their turn upon the established Government when ever opportunity is put into their hands And no man need blush in asserting this when he considers who they were that in the beginning of the late unnatural War readily took the Alarm and clothed themselves with courage and armour too in order to sight the Lord's battel against the Mighty but such persons as had been brought up under and disciplin'd by such Teachers as were known notoriously inclinable to the Principles of Separation And he that considens with what pleasure some men do reflect upon the Priviledges and enjoyments the late War gave them before his Majesties return and how ready they are to suggest to young and unimpressed minds that those were days wherein men might be as good as they would and wherein scandalous Ministers were turned out with many other things of the like nature he must needs infer from thence that many of these people are so far from repenting of what was then done that they could willingly wade through the same paths of bloud to be reinstated in their former priviledges again Now truly I must needs say that I cannot think the Kingdom safe so long as such things are propagated and propagated they will be so long as men believe their Prince an enemy to the pure Doctrines and Ordinances of Jesus Christ and themselves persecuted for complyance with Christ's Laws in opposition to the superstitious Impositions of their Governours For considering the weakness of men and the slender improvement the education of most give them how can we imagine Magistrates should have their due honour and esteem from such persons who are made to believe that they symbolize with Antichrist and are Friends to the cause and Interest of the Beast No alack such crafty insinuations as these waste all the Principles of Loyalty in easy and credulous mens breasts they imbitter and poyson their Spirits so that they spit nothing but fire in the face of all well regulated Constitutions and there is nothing but the fear of imprisonment or confiscation of Goods or the loss of life that keeps these men thus set on fire from offering violence to the Thrones of Princes It was this that made Henry the Third and the Fourth of France fall under the bloudy hands of two Assassinates and though our modern Enthusiasts and the Papists widely differ in many things yet in a mistaken furious zeal and resolute enterprizes for the mistaken cause of God and his Church they have been both very much to blame and incurred such a censure as thanks be to God the regular Sons of the Church of England can wash their hands from Now this being very plain and notorious I thought I could not do a better work one whereby I might better serve my Prince and Countrey than by endeavouring to reconcile men to a Church wherein they learn the duties of humility and meekness of modesty and candour of spirit of submission and obedience of jealousie and suspicion of their own private opinions when they stand in competition with the publick Judgment and Wisdom of the Nation For these are vertues hugely serviceable to the interest of Government and preserve such a peace amongst men as gives great encouragement to industry and labour These are Vertues that render Religion amiable and lovely and no doubt the more Professors are possessed of them the more do they engage standers by not only to an admiration of but an hearty complyance with that Religion that cancels no worthy Law that is made in pursuit of the ends of Government but on the other side lays obligations upon every man to keep his place denouncing severely against those who either curse their Princes in their hearts or speak evil of Dignities with their tongues And let me speak freely That I am very much mistaken if a return to so good a spirit as this is going to Egypt again is siding with the Beast against God and his Christ is renouncing the Kingship of Christ which words by whom made use of and to what purposes we can easily tell If this be a forsaking of Christ and giving up his cause and going into Babylon I pray God I may continue in this Babylon all the days of my life and then
wild fancies the World these latter days hath been too sadly acquainted withal And whether Religion get any ground by such things let any man judge or how those men deserve to be cryed up as the only spiritual Preachers who vent Doctrines so destructive to Religion I cannot tell And now Reader after I have begged thy pardon for this tedious preface though I must confess I did not design it much shorter when I first entred upon it I must tell thee that I am not alone in my high esteem for the Church of England No there are thousands in the Kingdom and those men too whose excellent and Regular lives and whose universal learning may justly be speak them a place amongst the most improved men who are ready to defend this Church with both their Tongues and Pens and of such I will only name two the one is that incomparable person Dr. Stillingfleet who in his Sermon upon Matth. 21.43 Pag. 158. calls this Church one of the best Churches in the Christian World and in the same place complains that it should puzzle the wisest of men to find out expedients to keep it from ruine The other is that excellent and no less laborious than learned Dr. Tillotson in a Sermon before the King where he tells us that he had been according to his opportunities not a negligent observer of the Genius and Humour of the several Sects and Professions in Religion and upon the whole matter that he does in his Conscience believe the Church of England to be the best constituted Church this day in the Christian World and that as to the main the Doctrine and Government and Worship of it are excellently framed to make men soberly religious securing men on the one hand from the wild freaks of Enthusiasm and on the other hand from the gross follies of superstition But if thou wilt neither believe them nor me for our bare saying so read the following discourse without prejudice and if through the strength of thy former received apprehensions thou wilt not wholly be drawn over to us yet I hope thou wilt be so far convinced as to believe that neither the Church nor her Officers and publick Dispensers are so had and obnoxious as some men through weakness and others through malice have represented them Farewell POSTSCRIPT Reader THe two first sheets of this small book were most of them preached before the Judges of Assize at Chelmsford in Essex and therefore if thou findest any thing in them as an Appeal to them I pray impute it to that Further Reader I must desire thee if thou meetest with the word why used improperly as sometimes I find upon a perusal of the sheets it is impute it to custome and a mode of speaking upon which score it dropt so unwarily from my Pen. Whatsoever other faults there are give me but the common allowance the ordinary miscarriages of a Press require and I will ask no more THE CONTENTS THE Design of the Treatise laid down 1. To prove that we of this Church have all necessary advantages for gaining eternal life 2. To enquire how it comes to pass such a Church is so generally disesteemed Pag. 5. The first of these proved at large by considering what is necessary to eternal life Two things laid down 1. A sound Belief of all things necessary and the Church found guilty of no defect in that particular p. 6 7. 2. An Holy practise is found necessary and the Church of England found abounding with every thing necessary to promote that p. 10 usque 28. 2. An enquiry how it comes to pass such a Church is despised p. 28. Two sorts of men found faulty p. 29. 1. Professed Enemies Those considered 1. As persons disaffected upon a worldly account p. 29. 2. Persons disaffected upon a pretence of Conscience and Religion p. 31 32 33 34. 2. A consideration of false Friends as Enemies to the Church and those ranked into two sorts 1. As Persons considered in their Political capacity and two ways the Church proved to suffer by them 1. By their vicious lives and conversations especially if they be men of Power and Authority p. 35. 2. By their neglecting the execution of those Laws that are made for the Churches Honour and Safety p. 38. 2. This Church proved to lose its esteem by false Friends considered as persons dedicated to an Holy Office p. 42. Thirteen Reasons more given of the present contempt of the Church of England 1. The misconstruing of Judgments and making every calamity the effect of Gods Anger for the Churches encroachments upon the Rights of Christ p. 46. Three useful and seasonable enquiries proposed to those who are so bold and forward in particularizing the Reasons of Gods Judgments p. 51 53 55. 2. Another Reason of the Churches suffering assigned from the jealousie of many of the Gentry especially those who have swallowed down the Principles of Mr. Hobbs lest the Clergy should encroach too much upon their power in those Countreys where they live p. 56. 3. The Churches loss considered by erecting Schools of Academick studies and thereby poysoning the youth of the Nation p. 62. 4. The Churches loss considered by idle tales against the Reverend Bishops and their regular Clergy p. 65. 5. Another account of the neglect of this Church from Simoniacal contracts p. 70. Two injuries proved and asserted from hence p. 71 72. With an expostulation with the Lay-Patrons in order to a more conscientious disposal of their livings p. 73. 6. The Churches damage by the careless and remiss attendance of many of her professed admirers upon her publick Devotions and Instructions p. 74 75. 7. The Churches Honour proved lost by a careless consideration of those confusions that followed her dissolution by the pretended Power of the Long Parliament p. 76. 8. This Church found a great loser by misinterpreting and misapplying of several Texts of Scripture Some of those Texts named and the unworthiness and falseness of those interpretations reflected upon p. 78 79 80 81. 9. The credulity and easiness of the Common people to take in whatsoever is suggested by men pretending to more than ordinary Sanctity and Holiness proved another cause of the Churches present ruine p. 82 83 84. 10. The Church proved a loser by the Common peoples stiff adherence to whatever they have heedlesly sucked in p. 85. 11. The ill success of the Church laid at the door of those Atheistical Principles that have spread so far and near in the Kingdom p. 87. An enquiry made after the Reason of the present growth of Atheism p. 88. Four Reasons of it assigned 1. The changeableness of many mens Principles pretending to more than ordinary Godliness p. 88 89 90 91 92. 2. The wicked and vile actions of many boasting of extraordinary piety p. 93 94. 3. Unworthy Scandals and Reflections fastened upon Church-men p. 96. 4. The Non-execution of such Laws which are made on purpose to command the People to wait upon
them as the Natures of such things will bear neither understands his Bible nor yet hath well studied those Articles of the Church that he hath formally subscribed unto to suppose which of any Person dedicated by an Holy Office to God I think is very uncharitable Well then cannot you of the Separation for to you I speak these things meet with as good Reasons for the Being of a God for the Truth of the Messiah for the Necessity of Internal Holiness for the carrying your selves suitably to that Creature-state in which you are and so for all other Requisites to be known in our Legal places of Worship and from Men invested with a Legal as well as Divine Authority as from others who take up this publick way of Preaching without the allowance nay against the Command of the Laws of their Countrey I tell you to deny this is to be prond and vain and to arrogate too much to your selves A fault too common amongst some men who would make others believe they are the most dead and mortified persons in the World and yet at the same time care not whose Reputation they waste and spoil so they may advance their own 2. The other way whereby we profit is by having our Affections raised suitably to the Nature and Excellency of things believed and known Now I must confess while we are in the Body and many Notices of things are conveyed into our Understanding through our Senses we have need of all agreeable helps to reconcile us wholly to Religion and the several Duties of it and he that hath the advantage of a mellow Voice of a taking Delivery of a Gesture not fantastical but winning upon the truly wise as well as others he ought to be esteemed and loved and the Church ought to judge her happiness the greater in having the aid and assistance of such a Man But alas this is not founded in every mans Temper and if some men would purchase it with all they do enjoy it is not to be bought And therefore where it is 't is to be prized and where 't is not men ought not to be undervalued for that is to be so unreasonable as to despise them for what they cannot help nay 't is to reflect upon him that made them Well but be it so that these things contribute very much to the raising of our Passions pray tell me have the Nonconformists engrossed this kind of Temperature of body to themselves can none but they speak with loud voices with a becoming Pathos with a smart Accent are all the dutiful Sons of the Church either troubled with Colds or weakned by Catarrhs or almost choaked as soon as they begin to speak with a defluxion of Rheum and all this a Judgment upon them for their Conforming No such matter let but these men lay aside their prejudices and attend our publick Churches and they shall quickly find out men whose Countenances are as grave and awful whose Voices are as melodious and sweet whose Expressions are as weighty and well chosen as any of the separated Brethrens are and consequently who are every way as well fitted by natural Gifts of Body to raise mens Affections as the others are I and these men are not sprinkled here and there but you shall find them in most Countreys and Cities And therefore no man can have any reason upon this account to leave our Church And if this thing was but searched to the bottom I believe we should find something else besides the Information of their Judgments and the raising of their Affections that these men place their profiting in but I list not to render any persons pretending to Religion ridiculous However before I leave this head I will venture at so much that when I consider abundance of these People that run into these holes and corners how peevish and wayward they are how proud and haughty disdaining every person that goes not along with them into the by-paths of Separation reflecting upon them as poor carnal and ignorant Creature further when I consider how ignorant and illiterate many of them are not understanding the common Reasons that may be given for Religion and those several Truths that make up the Body of it and how most of their skill and cunning chiefly consists in repeating and making use of some broken pieces of Scriptures and discoursing of Jesus Christ in a rude and nonsensical way Further when I consider how little they understand the Difference betwixt us and them and what slender Reasons they give for their leaving our publick Worship and how readily they follow any man that separates purely upon that score though his Principles do more widely differ from what they pretend are their own than theirs from ours Further when I consider the bitterness of their Spirits expressed by their very angry looks when they meet any of us in our accustomed Garbs and by those unchristian as well as ungentile and unmannerly Titles with which they load us Why these with many other things that might be named do perswade me that there is not so much profit reaped by hearing these men as they would make the World believe for I am sure these things argue much of the Leaven of the Pharisee but nothing at all of the Temper and Spirit of the Gospel and he that hath no better Evidences than these of his Saintship I am sure will find no other than the foolish Virgins entertainment at the last Day 3. Let us take a view of the Advantages we have for Eternal Life by a Holy Life as this Holiness is expressive of it self in those Duties that belong to man especially our Governours and Superiours And here I am sure the Members of our Church stand upon a better ground than any other sort or profession of men whatsoever and for the defence of this Truth I dare enter the Lists both with the Conclave and the Classis at the same time together Let any man though prejudiced to the utmost stand up and tell me where and when he hath met a man truly governed by the Principles of the Church of England that hath taken the Sword into his hands upon any pretence whatsoever against his Lawful Soveraign or that hath made it his trade and business to whisper things against his Governours and to insinuate Prejudices into the Minds of his Neighbours against the present management of Affairs Where can you find a man amongst us who contrary to the Commands of his Lawful Soveraign hath entred into an Oath framed and drawn up on purpose to overthrow the Fundamental Rights and Priviledges of the people as well as the Essential Prerogative of his Prince much less can you shew me a man managed by the Doctrine and declared Opinion of this Church who hath shut the door and kept close Guards upon the Chief Magistrate of his Countrey and after that hath barbarously embrued his hands in his Princes Blood No no you must go beyond the
Alpes and the Tweed to find out such as these The true Members of our Church are in this Particular untainted and so far as men are under the guidance of her Pastors and the influence of her Discipline so far they imitate the first Ages of Christianity wherein men knew how to advance the credit of their Religion by suffering but never by resisting for they knew that Government was an Ordinance of God 4. If we proceed further and take a view of those several Instances of Holiness which are expressed by an affable and modest Carriage to our Equals by an extensive Bounty to our inferiours whose straits and wants call for our relief certainly we have in this Church as great Advantages for the exercising of these as in any whatsoever We have Bibles in our Houses to read and are allowed the reading of them as well as they and I presume we can read as well as they for though some of them proudly do engross the Spirit yet sure they will leave the Letter to us and I think without pride we may say that we have Judgments and Understandings to receive those Notices of things the Word of God brings unto us and if so why may not we be in as good a Capacity to practise all those Vertues which these Relations call for and are so plainly laid down in the Holy Word Why may not we if we exercise our Natural Abilities and seriously weigh those pressing Arguments that are fetched from Hopes and Fears those great Foundations of a pious Life why I say may not we fix and establish in our Minds those Divine Graces the Gospel recommends unto us such as patience and Humility Charity and Self-denial Courage and Resolution Temperance and Chastity c. Especially considering we have the Spirit of God ready to help and cooperate with all our honest endeavours For when our Adversaries are cool and sober this they dare not deny which if they do as God knows in some of their heats they are so unwary as to assert why they are at the same time so monstrously uncharitable as to call in Question the Salvation of all those Worthies of the Church that have been ever since the first Reformation and our Judicious Morton our Devout and Pious Hall and our Learned Sanderson with vast Numbers of others must according to these mens Opinions that every Member of our Church barely by being so hath forfeited his Interest in Gods good Spirit 's assistance be adjudged to be now scorching in the Flames of Hell A Censure enough to stir the choler and ferment the Blood of any man who hath but the least spark of Humanity lest within him And though I know they plead for themselves that our Ordinances which should be the instruments to convey these Divine Principles and Graces into us are stained by impure mixtures by uncommanded Ceremonies Why when they can find out a Discipline without any Ceremony purely fetched out of the Word of God delivered in as plain and obvious terms as the Mosaick Dispensation was and declared by God that it was his will and pleasure in every Circumstance that that Government should be maintained and submitted unto when they can present us with a Model having nothing of Humane and Prudential Determination in it we will answer them and to do it before is at once to spend our Time and our Breath in vain Only I take leave upon this occasion to make this digression which I think is not unsuitable to the design I have in hand That I have been a very impartial Considerer of this Objection and by vertue of my first Converse in the World these and such like suggestions from men whom I was taught to believe were the only Children of God had a very fair hearing in my Breast and I was willing to incline to those Arguments proposed by them for the Defence of that noise and bustle they made in the World But when I came afterwards to consider the Authority wherewith Princes both upon Natural and Revealed Principles and Grounds are invested and the miserable confusions that are consequent upon slighting or resisting that Authority when I considered the great Reasons for making Laws and the necessity of keeping up their reputation and paying a constant Veneration to them if we would be preserved in any tolerable degrees of Peace and Safety further when I considered that the very Reasons why the Brethren of the Separation declare their dislike of our Ceremonies are disowned by our Church witness their declared Opinion of the Sign of the Cross and Kneeling at the Sacrament in the very Rubrick and that these men are forced to make new and unheard of distinctions to render them unlawful witness a Book printed some time since by one of the Chiefs of them against a Member of our Church Further when I considered that if there was any Reason to scruple the Lawfulness of these things yet it was not so great nor so apparent as the Reasons against Schism and Disobedience and that the complying with the one could not possibly be so dangerous to all Societies of men as the ingaging in the other These with many other considerations satisfied me not only in the Convenience but considering the present differences in the Kingdom in the Necessity of yielding Obedience to the established Orders of the Church and I could never yet get leave of my self to concur in Judgment with one now at this time much admired and followed in the City Mr. Jenkins That the laying aside the Ceremonies of the Church was a sufficient compensation for all that Blood and Treasure that had been spilt in the late unnatural and bloudy War but wish with all my heart that they had continued till the general conflagration of the world rather than such a war should have commenced for I am certain that the necessary results and consequences of the one are a thousand times more prejudicial to the honour and reputation of the Protestant Cause than the continuance of the other could have been had they been as had nay many degrees worse than our interested and zealous Adversaries have made them And we are able to answer all Arguments raised against a Cross or a Surplice when we cannot without steeled Brows and seared Consciences vindicate and defend the late Rebellion But in short this in my apprehension and I am sure I am not prejudiced is so baffled a Cause that I wonder men of Parts and Learning are not ashamed to offer at the Vindication of it and I do verily believe those men that now make themselves the Heads of these dividing Parties would not assume the confidence to fix such odious Names upon the so well defended Ceremonies of the Church and upon us for our peaceable and obedient using of them did not they meet with so many ignorant and uninstructed people who are prepared upon the account of those great pretences these men make to a more severe Holiness than
others to believe whatsoever they confidently bolt out without a suitable evidence and proof and who are pertinaciously resolved to drive on their Secular Interest by raising their own heights upon the spoils and ruines of other mens Godliness and Reputation And when things are looked in to the bottom we shall find that this is the Foundation of very much of our Nonconformity which is now so bold and daring for God forbid I should lay this Imputation at every mans door and if we once could arrive to that happiness as to make the Common People wise and the Leaders of them in these forbidden Tracks silent we should quickly find Obedience to our Laws a more general thing than God knows to the grief of all wise observers now it is And though I know this Opinion of mine is contradicted by many persons who upon other accounts do not want my just esteem yet so long as the Common People are heedless as to the several Notions they suck in and imposed upon in no things sooner than those which ought to be esteemed of greatest weight and moment I mean the Matters of Religion which have an immediate relation to the Interest and Happiness of their Souls so long as their Ignorance and more slender thoughts of things expose them to Pride and Self-conceitedness to such opinions of their own narrow and straitned Conceptions as for want of more mature considerations of things bear down all Arguments derived from the preservation of Humane Societies from the Dignity and Sacredness of Princes founded in being God's Vicegerents here on Earth so long as they cannot by reason of the dulness and uninstructedness of their Minds see into the ruines and desolations that do infallibly attend all Disobedience to Authority but are apt to sancy a better state of things were they all managed by the present little Models they have either framed themselves or else by the silly suggestions some illiterate and yet pretended Rabbi have lodged in their idle and unfurnished heads why so long I must crave any mans excuse if I do not assent to those mens Judgments who with no small degrees of confidence and with great pretensions to a more intimate acquaintance with State-Maxims assert an Universal Toleration the only way to recover the Church and to wrack Fanaticism and Sedition And had the late Author of the Discourse of Humane Reason lest his Books a while and walked about the Neighbouring Markets and made just Observations of the improvements of those men who make up those crouds and numbers there I am apt to believe he would have considered better before he had published a Book so destructive of all the Fundamental Notions of Government and Publick Communities a Book wherein things of the greatest Importance are lest to those who by all the pains we can take with them can be hardly brought to a right understanding of common sense and the most obvious and natural Duties of Religion And thus having proved and I hope to satisfaction that the Church of England is wanting in nothing that refers to our Belief or Practice and so consequently to the gaining of Eternal Life I will proceed to the next enquiry to wit 2. How it comes to pass that a Church thus furnished with all Advantages to Eternal Life should meet with such Contempt and Disregard And here upon enquiry we shall find this principally proceeds these ways 1. From professed Enemies 2. From false Friends both which very much hinder the Churches progress in the Hearts and Affections of its Members and spoil its deserved Reputation 1. We will consider the Churches professed Enemies and of them we shall find two sorts of persons pecking at her 1. Some upon a Worldly and Secular account 'T is too well known that in the late Combustions many men warmed their fingers at those fires they themselves had kindled and though splendid Pretences for Religion and Pure Worship were at the top yet a sordid aim at the Churches Patrimony and Revenue was at the bottom of their Designs and no sooner had success crowned their unworthy undertakings but they presently fell to sharing other mens Legal Portions and Spiritual Allotments And though they pretended a Spirit of Self-denial on purpose to put the fairer gloss upon their ungodly Quarrels and to allure the Common and easily mistaking People into their service yet we find no sooner did they apprehend themselves out of danger by the Fall and Ruine of the Royal Party but presently they forget the so much cried up Ordinance of Self-denyal and fall a voting considerable shares of this Worlds Blessings to one another and Church-Lands went at as easie a rate then as they did at the great Alienation of them and scarce a Man that had been active either in City or in Countrey for their Cause but he must have a feeling of those Spoils and Booties All which we know by an happy Restoration in course returned to their true Proprietaries again And can we think that those who felt the sweets of these enjoyments have lost their former Tasts and Relish No No to fancy this is to be guilty of too careless an Observation for if they had what makes them privately among themselves to this day buy and sell those very Estates which I think is no hard matter to make out A thing which if but looked in to the bottom would easily convince our Governours what confidence ought to be reposed in such mens Pretences to Loyalty and Obedience and withal the safe Condition their Estates and Liberties are in while these men have a full liberty to make their Parties and strengthen their Interest in the affections of people of all sorts and ranks whatsoever Well and how must these mens lingrings and desires after these Estates be fulfilled By what Methods can they hope to get into the Saddle and ride upon the High places of the Earth again Why the only way is through the ruine and downfall of the Church and how must this be accomplished why Slur it all the ways you can call it a Limb of Antichrist an encourager of the Beast that ascends out of the bottomless Pit a supporter of Ecclesiastical Tyranny and insinuate into the common peoples minds that she stands betwixt them and their Gospel priviledges and that there is as direct an opposition betwixt her and the Church God hath instituted as there was betwixt Dagon and the Ark with many other vile reflections of this Nature and then you have half done your work For these men know let their pretences be what they will that when the Church totters the State hath a fellow feeling with it that they live and die together and therefore they itch after its Ruine which they think they cannot better promote than by slandering of her and when that is done they fancy as well they may a quick possession of those far Lands they so cheaply bought and so deservedly have lost 2. This excellent Frame and
a Deportment whilest they are there significative of that Veneration they have for the Ordinance did they all in general lay restraints upon themselves and afterwards punish others for their usual and yet horrid Oaths and Curses were their Houses Schools of Discipline and good order did they speak of Religion as persons having a sense of it upon their Minds and as persons abhorring the new odious way of drolling upon it Oh! methinks then I see Faction and Sedition dread the Common Streets and Publick Houses and with shame creeping into holes and corners methinks I see this Church so fitted to all the Purposes of Religion lifting up its head above the Waters and no more heard complaining of her coarse and homely usage from those Children that were brought up under her Wings and Government And that this may prevail with the Gentry of the Kingdom to leave off any course of Life whereby this Church is prejudiced I will end this Head with this bold Assertion That so far as they have any hand either by their vitious Examples or any other way to the pulling down of this Church so far they lend their assistance to the ruine of their Posterity especially if their children prove but honest and conscientiously obedient to the established Laws And if any man will offer to gainsay me in this Particular I will only refer him to the account of the Compositions and Sequestrations which the Loyal Gentry of the Kingdom were forced to submit unto and the irrecoverable Entanglements of their Estates thereby after the sinking of the Royal Cause by the late Wars and if that will not convince him I will trouble myself with no other Methods of satisfaction but leave him as a Person pertinaciously resolved against the clearest Evidence 2. These men that are entrusted with Places of Authority are false Friends to the Church by neglecting the just Execution of those Laws that by the Wisdom of the Nation are framed on purpose to keep up the Honour and preserve the Safety of the Church For if there was a Reason for enacting those Laws and they were designed to fence the Church and to keep it from the rude assaults of every pragmatical and conceited Person who will be pleased with nothing but what is shaped and fashioned according to some raw Fancy of his own why then I think they ought not to be laid aside as Almanacks out of Date And if there be no such thing as a Reason for them why then in Gods Name let them be repealed though I think 't is a sign of a very bold and busie Spirit to declare them so before the wise Sages who upon great advice did make them adjudge them so and signifie their Opinion to us by as solemn and plain a Declaration as the Act it self was by which these things were commanded For if Laws and Constitutions which were made for the Good of the Body Politick must submit to every private Man's shallow Understanding and the Obligation of them cease or take place according to their Opinion of them Government will quickly lose its force and Princes will be in a worse Condition and have less Authority than Masters of the smallest Families And from disputes and Questions about the Rights of Princes in ordering Church affairs they will proceed to judge of those Laws that are made either for the Preservation of their Persons or supplying their necessary Charges with Revenues suitable to that state such a Trust does call for And though that the Execution of these Laws seems very grievous and full of cruelty to many men especially to those who are settled in their Commands over the Separating Bands yet when I consider that either it must be so provided the Laws continue as they are or else that a whole order and Body of men must be destroyed and brought under the Power of those whose Mercies we know by sad experience are Cruelties and who by a misguided Zeal fancy they do God good service in stripping us of all the Laws give us a Right unto I would appeal to any man whether the whole should suffer out of a womanish pity to a few and solid Constitutions truckle to groundless Passions and resolute discontents I am sure according to those Observations I have made I have always found that wise Governours in all Ages have made private Conveniencies or Advantages submit and lye prostrate before a publick good And accordingly we find the Late King that incomparable Person in his Letter of Advice to his present Majesty gives his sense of this in these words That he could not yet learn that Lesson nor he hoped ever would his Son That it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Laws in which is wrapt up the publick Interest and the Good of the Community And therefore it being so I would desire the Subordinate Magistrates of the Kingdom for to these only I make this Address with whom his Majesty hath entrusted the Execution of his Laws to consider whether they do not give away the Safety as well as the Reputation of the Church by suffering men before their doors as it were openly and with all the seeming Circumstances of a defying Confidence to break the Laws and violate these sacred Constitutions And though I know what some men put in by way of answer to all this yet when men can find out a Plea for Perjury I will return upon them and not till then only I dare assure them that it would be better for such men to decline the Publick Service than to take an Oath to do it and yet neglect it And though I have said more now upon this Head than I know many will con me thanks for yet let me conclude with this Protestation That I have not argued this out of any desire of other mens suffering either in their Liberties or Estates for I thank God my Natural Temper as well as my Religion obliges me to greater Moderation and it is not particular men I advise this against but mad Factions and embodyed Numbers whose Principles stand in a direct opposition to the present Settlement of the Church and the grand Reason why I conceive Laws ought to be executed is from a full satisfaction I have That no Kingdom can live in Peace and Honour where solemn Acts made for the regulating mens Lives and restraining their violent passions give way to private and more particular Interests And if all our several Adversaries would not say the same were any of the Governments and Disciplines they are so fond of as well established as ours is I will be their Bonds-man And therefore I hope no man will impeach me upon this account of a bitter and persecuting Spirit 2. As this our Church loses its Reputation and Esteem by false Friends consider'd in a Civil and Political sence so it loses very much and I wish there were no cause to say it by false Friends considered as
them to consider that when they come to take a view of what they have done they will find the money they received is the price of bloud and that they sell those for whom Christ died and must be accountable at the Last day not only for their own Sin but for that very Sin of Perjury the vicious Priest is guilty of for he that invites a man to a sin is reckoned as if he had committed the sin himself And further I offer to these mens considerations that unspeakable discouragement which by so doing they give to learning and those worthy improvements which render men really and indeed useful to the Church and the Interest of immortal Souls when Dunces who have more Money than Honesty or Learning shall climb into the best Preferments and men of Parts and Principles who by pains and study have run through and well digested all necessary Arts and Sciences must be forced to sit down contented with allowances every way disproportioned to and below their manifest deserts and worth And if there be not some further remedy found out against this distemper we may well expect in a short time to see the Church in a more forlorn and despicable condition than now it is which God of his goodness prevent For I cannot forbear reasserting this that the Church and State are so necessarily helpful to one another that they will live and die together 6. This Church receives no small injury from the careless and remiss attendance of many of her professed admirers upon her publick Devotions and Instructions And though I do not think that Religion lays any obligation upon her Children to hear a Sermon every day of the week nor to esteem that time lost and vainly spent in which we are not upon our knees in prayer yet this I am sure of that we are obliged to attend if not reasonably prevented upon all those Ordinances which the Church hath enjoyned us and to omit them is to violate our obligations to that Authority to which we have vowed and professed subjection And if we consider well we shall find that not only the necessity of our Souls which by often and dutiful approaches to God in publick prayer are preserved in a warm and vigorous sense of God and so consequently made more fearful of running into any course whereby he is offended requires this at our hands but the being useful to others by our good examples especially if we be men of power and authority for Examples with the common people are more prevalent usually than Arguments and Demonstrations And therefore he that either out of a vain notion that one Sermon a day is more than he can practise or from a lazy and slothful temper which too many are guilty of or because it is the best time he can spare from his other business to indulge himself and his Neighbours in excessive and intemperate drinking neglects not only the preaching but the publick prayers of the Church which he is bound to be present at Evening as well as Morning why I must tell him that he is an enemy to that Church of which he is a member and puts an argument into her Adversaries mouth whereby he renders her contemptible And is it not a shame tell me you who are the persons guilty of this crime I am now accusing to see men more zealous in breaking than you are in preserving the reputation of publick Laws and to behold Faction more eagerly supported and upheld than Loyalty and obedience And therefore I do in the name and behalf of the Church your Mother beg and intreat you all to render her and her publick Devotions more venerable in the eyes of the common people by your constant waiting upon all her Offices upon all those publick Ministeries wherein she dispenses wholsome food to all her Children for this will evidence that which many people are unwilling to believe to wit that Essential Righteousness and Goodness are as visible and conspicuous in the Members of our Church as in any other and that if her Counsels be but followed there are none that make nearer approaches to the Zeal and fervour to the Innocence and simplicity of the Primitive Christians than the Sons of the Church of England do 7. This Churches honour and due regard is lessened by a perfunctory and careless consideration of the confusions and disorders that followed her dissolution by the pretended power of a Parliament For he that truly weighs what monstrous Opinions presently brake in upon us such as were destructive of all our Civil as well as Religious Rights and Liberty he that reflects upon the impudence and boldness wherewith every private fancy was vented and spread abroad and how servants became our Masters and the Meanest of the people presumed to handle sacred things further he that considers the bloud was spilt and the treasure was exhausted and all this for a thing they could never agree what it was why certainly he cannot but maintain a value and just esteem for a Church which by her Doctrines and Canons puts every thing into its proper place and settles every person in his own office and prescribes him duties suitable to the sphere in which he moves giving a just power to Magistrates to enact and punishing Subjects for any wilful disobedience to those Laws so enacted enjoyning the Pastor of every flock to teach the people all necessary duties and commanding the people to such a submission to those Instructions as is neither prejudicial to their Judgment of discretion nor yet allows them pragmatically to scorn and censure whatsoever pleases not their own itching ears and over-curious palats And therefore let me here advise all men who are not perniciously resolved to take notice well of this one thing and I am confident it will go very far toward their cure Let them consider the violence after this Church was down offered to mens Estates for their conscientious adherence to their Prince the taking away the Lives of many of the good Subjects of the Kingdome purely for not siding with them against the known Fundamental Laws the divesting of many of the Nobility of their birth-right because they pursued his Interest from whom their Titles of Honour were immediately derived Let them consider further the strange Maxims of Policy by which they acted after the taking down the Churches Fences and every mans doing what was good in his own eyes let them consider the horrid and intolerable abuses put upon the Providence of God and at last the murther of the best of Kings and I will warrant them if they be cool and in their proper senses and not sworn to the Interest of a Faction they will keep alive in their breasts a greater veneration for the Church of England than they had before And though I am sorry we have any occasion to mention these things and rubb up these old sores yet so long as men stand ready with their former principles and
prejudices to act over the same part again I think every honest man ought to let the unwary Vulgar know what was the effect of these mens former undertakings that so they may be armed against all temptations thereunto for the time to come if ever opportunity which God forbid should serve them 8. The Church of England receives very considerable prejudice by misinterpreting and misapplying of several Texts of Scripture which are forcibly pressed contrary to their very grammatical sense to serve the ends and designs of her Adversaries and to draw off the common people from any good opinion of her The common people I say whose size of understanding is so little as to live wholly upon other mens Judgments and to believe what these busie Encroachers upon the Rights of Government say without any serious reflections or considerations at all and such sort of people making up the greatest body and upon that account being most useful for any wicked enterprize when opportunity shall serve they are those whom these men principally court and whom they make proud by insinuating into them a belief of their excellency above all the rest of the World and the peculiar esteem God hath had for them from all eternity without any consideration of their good or evil deeds And if any man shall urge me with a false accusation in this particular I only refer him to the several printed Sermons of these men in the Long Parliaments time and if he do not there find very wretched and dishonest perverting of Scripture in this particular I will acknowledge my self deserving the severest punishment so great a scandal calls for I list not to bring mens names upon the stage though I could swell this Treatise by such quotations if I pleased Only I will ask these men what agreement there is betwixt Egypt with her garlick and onyons and the Church of England and her Ceremonies For my part I can find none and I suppose all wise men are of my mind and therefore there can be nothing else designed by this comparison but an ugly insinuation into the Vulgar people that our King and Bishops are as great enemies to Gods people as Pharaoh was to the Seed of Abraham and that the Laws made for the preservation and honour of our Church are as great burthens as those the Israelites underwent by the cruelty of the Egyptian taskmasters Further I would fain know what affinity there is betwixt us and that Babylon that is made mention of in the Revelations and threatned with so great a ruine Yet Babylon being a word used to a very bad sense and to represent such a great Degeneracy why presently this poor innocent Church that imposes nothing upon the minds of men either in point of Belief or Practice but what is admirably serviceable to the ends and designs of Religion she must hand over head be called Babylon and upon this score the common people must be taught to run away from her because she is under that denomination the Mother of Harlots though many of those that upon such suggestions have forsaken her Discipline and Government God knows have run themselves out of breath and have setled no where till they have sunk either into Atheism or Popery Further when the Separatists invite the ignorant rabble to encrease their Numbers in order to affright Governours from interrupting them in their Spiritual enjoyments as they call them by such places of Scripture as that 2 Corinthians 6.17 Come out from among them and be you separate touch no unclean thing are they not very unworthy or else very ignorant in the application of it to our Church for upon a true consideration that place refers to nothing but the Idolatry of the Heathens and hath no Argument in it if they cannot prove us as truly Idolatrous as the Heathens were until the doing of which they ought by all the obligations of honesty to let our people live peaceably and quietly amongst us serving God according to the appointments and Institutions of our Church and if they will but give us rest and peace so long we need not fear their vying Numbers with us Again when they engage the credulous Multitude to withdraw from our publick Devotions by citing that place of the Apostle 2 Colos 20 21. Touch not taste not handle not which refers upon an impartial enquiry into the Apostles meaning so certain Impositions such as abstaining from Marriage and some sorts of meats as utterly unlawful which were not so and so became real encroachments and usurpations upon the Christian liberty why though this strikes at the Church of Rome which imposes upon the minds of men things as absolutely necessary which have no such necessity neither in their own nature nor by vertue of any command from God yet it reaches not at all any legal injunction of our Church which is recommended as indifferent and declared not to change its nature by being commanded by Authority and that it is alterable when it seems good to the same Authority which is all we say of our Ceremonies And now so long as the people by such slight artifices as these are to be deceived and that there are certain busie and needy persons who make a trade of imposing thus upon them so long we cannot expect to keep our Church in a flourishing state And to speak my mind freely when I take notice of the education of the greatest part of men and their natural jealousie of their superiours I rather wonder considering all things that we have so many continue in our Communion still Though I hope a time will come when the people will be better informed and warned against such evil designers as too many of these men are And these reflections necessarily inform me of another head under which I may bring the present misery of our Church and that is 9. The credulity and easiness of the common people to take in whatsoever is suggested to them by men pretetending more than ordinary sanctity and holiness Alas their Judgments being but weak and crazy and their improvements very small for which they stand engaged chiefly to a careless education and their affections being the chief Ringleaders of them into Belief as well as Action why let but a crafty fellow come and utter himself with a loud and Stentor-like voice let him open his throat till he be hoarse again and make several sorts of faces let him but pretend a more than ordinary pity and compassion for their Souls telling them God hath sent him on purpose to rescue them out of the jaws of misery and destruction and alas let it be what it will he utters though never so nonsensical and rude though never so heretical and blasphemous yet it is swallowed down as glib as a gilded pill and the subtle designer is taken into their Houses as an Angel newly dropt down from Heaven And Oh whas running and riding to hear this excellent and inspired person and
with what power and demonstration of the Spirit does he preach And the easie Multitude presently enroll themselves in God's eternal Register and cry up themselves as his elect and peculiar Vessels because God hath taken such care of them as to send so powerful a Messenger amongst them And though I could produce sufficient evidence of the truth of this from the Histories and Accounts of the late bad times yet I will be sparing and only for the confirmation of what I have here asserted refer the Reader to the story of Mrs. Hutchinson in New England We know very well that the people that first went over thither were such as had notoriously forsaken the Church of England and were therefore amongst one another cryed up as the most Godly and tender conscienced people in the world such as longed after nothing more than to bathe themselves in the pure streams and to breath in the clear air of Gospel Ordinances people who were inwardly acquainted with Gods will being his secret and hidden ones and manifesting themselves so by exposing their lives and fortunes in crossing the Seas and taking up their habitations in an howling desert and all this out of principles of Conscience and an earnest desire to worship God according to the pattern in the Mount And yet these very people who if you will believe the brags they made of themselves had an Unction from the holy one and were thereby impowered to know all things who were cryed up as wise sober and well-grounded Christians why no sooner did they hear the charming voice of this bold and daring woman though the things delivered by her had by their own confession the whole current of Scripture against them but they presently cryed her up as one raised up of God for some great work and amongst many other things the calling of the Jews was at hand and she was to be the Instrument of it And as the story says writ by themselves she had more resort to her for counsel and clearing up mens spiritual estates than any Minister nay than all the Elders in the Countrey And if this be not a sufficient evidence of the easiness and weakness of the common people I cannot tell what is And how far such people are to be trusted with liberty to hear any Deceiver that sets up for a Guide and Director of the people I leave the Governours of the Kingdom whose concernments are of greater weight and moment than mine own to judge Only this I will assert that had the Common people been wiser or the Deceivers of them fewer I am sure the Church had been in a better state than now it is 10. Again the stiffness of the common people and their pertinacious adherence to whatsoever they have heedlesly sucked in against the present Government under which they live is another ground of our Churches decay For let these men be but once prejudiced against any thing upon the least account and they become next to unalterable and it must be a great deal of time and a considerable addition of knowledge and understanding that can bring them off This is obvious to every observing man whatsoever And therefore we ought to take especial care that nothing be insinuated into them but what is wholsome and savoury but what tends to peace and quietness and to the preservation of those several societies they help to make up for you may as soon hope to remove a Mountain as to bring such people whose Reason is subjected to the Impressions of passion and fansie to a right understanding and a modest and hearty retractation of their formerly imbibed errors For though they can give no tolerable account of the grounds of their Opinions yet they have learned confidence enough to laugh at and despise all that can be offered for the conviction of their judgments and they will be in the Right though all the rest of the World and many of those much wiser than themselves be in the wrong And though they cannot argue yet they are taught to throw dirt in the face of him that attempts their reduction and to load him with all those Names by which both Idols and Idolaters are called and represented in Holy Scripture And therefore upon this very consideration I heartily recommend it both to Parents and Masters that they keep their Children and their Servants from resorting to such places where they are in danger of having their Judgments thus poysoned and infected for they cannot imagine the great trouble that may redound from thence as well to themselves as to their Governours for assuredly there is nothing makes men more proud and insolent more busie and headstrong more obstinate and stubborn than Principles of Schism and Separation and if any man shall judge me harsh and censorious for saying so I dare undertake to give such plain and late Instances of the truth of what I have said as I am certain will convince any person who does not resolvedly shut his eyes against the Light 11. We may further lay this present ill success of our Church at the door of those Atheistical principles that have spread so far and near in the Kingdom For the Church being made up of a number of persons linked together in the belief of such and such Articles of Faith and in Covenant and promise to worship God according to his will and pleasure why it is impossible when that which is the Foundation of all this is taken away but the superstructure should fall immediately And further the Censures of this Church being designed to punish men in this world in order to free them from the plagues of another why alas these Censures must needs be mocked at by those who have got up to the belief that there is no such thing at all as another world And that a man must by necessary consequence believe if he think there is no God for these great Fundamentals stand and fall together And upon this score where Atheism hath got any interest or credit you will find no men more loose to Government more severe in their reflections upon the Canons and Constitutions of the Church and who indeed make nothing else but a laughter at the whole Systeme of Religion And therefore Atheism and its principles being so vastly pernicious to all Churches whatsoever it will not be amiss to inquire into its Original that so the root from whence these poisonous branches grow may be stubb'd up and I am afraid we shall find many of those persons concerned in the present growth of this bad weed who would very willingly be looked upon as the chiefest dressers in Gods Vineyard 1. The Atheism that is at present so rife among us ows its growth to the changeableness of many mens principles who pretend to more than ordinary Godliness He that measures Religion as God knows the greatest part of Mankind do not by its intrinsick worth and that full and rational evidence that it brings along with
it nor by its genuine and proper influënces upon the minds of men where it is heartily received but by the actions of a great number of men in the World he must needs enter his protest against it and judge it as an Engine framed and made for nothing else but to serve turns and cheat the World and upon serious and impartial reflections upon things we shall find from hence have proceeded many mens odd conceits of this excellent thing called Religion For casting their eyes abroad and observing how common a thing it is for men to shift their Principles when their Interest lyes at stake and those too such men as are in vogue among the people for the most precious Saints why alas prompted by their lusts and seduced by Satan they have first questioned whether there be any such thing in reality and truth as Religion yea or no and then by degrees have laughed at it as the product either of knavery or melancholy And I wish our Brethren of the separation could wash their hands of the ruine that hath befaln Religion upon this account 'T is true no men more ready to complain of the present degeneracy of the age than they and so far as those complaints are the effects of sorrow for sin and not of design to misrepresent the Government so far they do well and are to be commended but I do heartily advise them to look from whence this degeneracy proceeds Was sin so bold-faced and notorious impieties so confident and open before these complainants invaded the Churches Rites and slackned the Reins of Government by which the heady multitude were kept in some good awe and order I desire them heartily to read the History of the times from the Reformation to the beginning of the late dreadful War and to tell me whether from the highest to the lowest there were such numbers of men that scoffed at Religion and lived in a neglect of all those Offices which are appointed for men to keep an intercourse with Heaven and a sense of a Divine Being upon their Souls No if they will be impartial they must needs confess that Religion met with better entertainment both in Churches and in Families than now it does And therefore whence must we fetch this strange Apostasie this horrid contempt of things that were handled with more reverence even among the Heathens who are only conducted by the glimmering Light of Nature Why in short one great Reason of it hath been these mens inconsistency with themselves and changing their principles upon every change of affairs At first many of them were modest and a regulation of some things in the Government as it then stood established was a blessing that would make the Nation happy but afterwards when a little success put a greater power into their hands why then the ancient Government of the Church must be stubb'd up both root and branch and forsooth we must have another Model founded in a Divine Right and nothing less than Scripture and Apostolical Example must patronize it and then the Kingdom of God was come down amongst us and Babylon was faln and the Beast smitten through the fifth rib But alas within a few years I had almost said moneths many of those who had cryed up the new Discipline and Covenant as the pattern in the Mount as the greatest bulwark against Romish incursions went away from it and by the help of a sorry distinction were found very busie in overthrowing all National Churches and now nothing must be Gospel Worship but what was after the Independent cut And 't is very well known what skirmishes there were betwixt the Presbiterians and Independents for their several Platforms what petitioning on one side for liberty of Conscience and what on the other against it with I know not how many Reasons tendered to the High Court of Parliament and yet after all this no sooner was the King come in and the Ecclesiastical Laws revived and many persons formerly unjustly thrown out restored to their properties and free-hold again but those very men who had with full cry and open mouth pursued the Congregational men proclaimed them Schismaticks and great enemies to the work of Reformation that was then upon the wheel I say those men contrary to their formerly avowed principles Declarations Remonstrances and Petitions Prayers and Preachments fall in with the same practises and gather Churches out of Churches And nothing is more frequent now than to meet with Books dedicated to the Flock of such a man and to the Congregation over whom such a man is overseer when God knows it may be those people that make up the body of these Flocks live in all the quarters and corners of the town and countrey Now whether this be adherence to principles or bespeak a man fixed and well grounded I leave any man to judge No no it looks like a design and as far as actions can speak it tells the world that 't is not Religion about which all this stir is made but Pride and Interest And now pray let us consider what judgment can some men make of Religion if they have no better conveyance of its worth into them than such Examples and Instances as these are Alas it makes them throw dirt in its face and to cry it down as a thing not worthy of that care that it hath met withal from several Laws and they are apt to conclude that were it grounded in any Reason or had any Demonstration on its side certainly men of education and generous breeding would not be so long before they understand it and after they seem to understand it so fickle and uncertain in their Notions of it And truly I think this is no small cause of our present Atheism and I wish with all my heart our Brethren would lay it close to heart and when they complain of the Iniquities of the times either publickly or privately amend at the same time that which hath been so great an occasion of it 2. Atheism makes room for it self by those unjust and wicked actions committed by men who pretend to more than ordinary sanctity What must some men think of Religion especially such as have met with a careless education who have not had their natural notions of Religion strengthened by wholsome documents and good Examples what I say must these men think of Religion when they behold a violent stickler for the Rights of the Lord Jesus as he pretends lift up his eyes to heaven and then thrust his hand into his Neighbours pocket when they hear him profess himself ready to deny himself of any thing though never so profitable or pleasurable provided the cause of God may flourish and at the same time busie in signing Orders for sequestring other mens Estates and turning their Wives and Children out of doors without any consideration of sex or age when they see him riding from place to place to help to settle Religion and at the same time
willingly contented with that employment still and their heavy thoughts ascend no higher And therefore to relax those Laws which enjoyn these leaden people under a penalty and such a one of which they are most sensible to wit that of the purse is at the same time to give them a commission to live in the neglect of all those publick Duties whereby the natural Notions of Religion are raised into some degree of life and kept so after they are raised and pray then what becomes of these people why they sink into all manner of Brutishness God is not in their thoughts at all and to talk to them of any thing that is Religious is to discourse perfectly out of their ken and knowledge they savour nothing but what belongs to the Cart and the Plow and God knows their Children are brought up in the same way and hear not a word of God nor of their Duties to him from one year to another and so are trained up as very Atheists as themselves and thereby prepared for little else but picking and stealing for every thing that is vile and wicked And this is a thing upon the score of which I cannot reflect upon the careless and indifferent execution of those Laws that are made purposely for the Churches peace and safety without some considerable proportions of grief and sorrow I find the inconvenience of it so sad in the Parish over which God hath set me that I wonder our Brethren of the separation should desire their liberty at so dear a rate and inveigh against those who desire the Laws might take place and serve the purposes for which they were intended For if things continue as they have done and Magistrates for the fake of some few pretending Religion and Conscience shall suffer so many hundreds in many Parishes to live in a neglect of all publick Worship whatsoever it is an easy matter to foresee what will become of Religion and civil Government together And thus I have given an account of that present and God knows too bold Atheism that is so common in the Nation and though I believe from my heart that these forementioned things have been the root from whence it hath sprung and to which it ows its principal original and rise yet I wish there be not something amongst us who profess our selves true friends to the Churches Discipline that gives further growth and nourishment to this poysonous plant I do therefore earnestly desire my Brethren to consider with themselves whether they do nothing that contributes to this unhappy alienation of mens Minds from the belief and sense of a Divine Majesty I am not willing to quarrel any man for what he does by the allowance of the Laws yet I must needs say thus much and I hope I shall offend no wise man in it that did our Church-men reside more in those places where the Churches provisions for them and their Families are plentiful and encouraging it would conduce very much to the honour of the Church of which they are Members and take away one main plea for some mens prophaneness and irreligion For as I have said before the Religion of the Common people depends very much upon the credit and esteem of their Spiritual Guides and Teachers and wherever that hath sink Religion hath accordingly been in the waine and therefore when Church-men instead of feeding their people with constant and wholsome Documents neglect them themselves or commit them to the charge of such whose neither piety nor learning commend them to their value why this is a sure way to insinuate little thoughts of their Ministers into them and they quickly cry them down as men who mind not them but theirs who provided they can but grow fat by Temporal accrewments care not how lean the Souls of their people are The truth is I have often heard such severe reflections made against such persons and those not by discontented schismaticks but by men heartily devoted to the Interest of the Church and many of those persons that have by their Princes favour the execution of Laws and publick Justice committed to them that I could not but wish all places especially those more populous or more rich than ordinary in such mens hands as would take care to prevent such scandals for the time to come For Fanaticism is so routed and baffled a cause that when we come to perswade any man to return to obedience to our Church he usually lets fall the old thredbare arguments upon which Disobedience and Separation at first were founded and recurs to the carelesness of many of our Preachers and by this would make the easie World believe that our Church that countenances such Droans is not of God And if I have offended any one by this plain dealing I do beg their pardon and I think 't is nothing but what is my due because I am certain 't is nothing but zeal for the Church my Mother that hath forced me to it Again if any thing to the prejudice of God and his Religion as it stands established by Law amongst us arises from the corruption of those Officers that belong to the Ecclesiastical Courts if Church Censures especially that of Excommunication be bought and sold and men sit there as in a Common Market not to punish evil Doers but to make merchandise and to enlarge their Fortunes though it be to the Churches ruine I hope our Reverend Prelates the Fathers of this poor despised Church will use all care and diligence to prevent the destruction both of Religion and the Church which is threatned by such vile and ungodly practises as these are 12. Further we are very much inconvenienced and our Church receives very considerable disadvantages from the imprudent way of executing Justice by many of our subordinate Magistrates upon the offenders of those Laws whereby the Churches Rights and Priviledges are secured The common people who usually take their measures of things falsely and judge them not by their essential properties or by their necessary habitude and relation to one another but by the practises of those who pretend a kindness to and veneration for them when they see Magistrates those to whom the sword of Justice is committed fall into bitter rage and expressing that rage by unsavoury words by countenances darting forth nothing but flames and fire-balls when they hear them ratling forth their horrid oaths and wishing such curses as carry with them the greatest ruine and desolation as well to soul as body further when they observe any of them to make unwary reflections upon Religion in general by reason of these mens miscarriages in the defence of any thing that looks like a particular limb or member of it why alas these bitter passions these ill timed and violent words presently beget in these people a great opinion of themselves and that because such persons are their Judges and they make no scruple to plead their Cause to be of God because such
they grow vext and impatient and straightways their thoughts are fixt upon revenge and from a quarrel with those who sit at the Helm they fall out with the Government it self and all their parts are bent upon finding out plausible Arguments and pretences to sink its reputation amongst the people and no stone is left unturned to carry on this wicked purpose and resolution It is an easie matter to make this assertion out from the accounts of every age of Christianity Heresies Schisms seditions and publick disturbances have most of them crept in at this back door and whosoever will give himself the leave to take a just account of the Apostasie of many from our Church some few years after the Reformation and ever since he will not be long before he find this its original and spring which thing though not altogether yet very much had been prevented if all the Spiritual allotments for Ministers had been comfortable and such as would have afforded wise men for I undertake not to be an advocate for Fools and Prodigals a convenient and creditable maintenance AND now having said thus much in the vindication of this excellent Church and withal given the Reasons of those many disparagements she hath in these late years met withal I cannot draw off my pen from paper till by it I have made my humble address to the Nobility and Gentry and all others who are concerned by vertue either of their Principles or Estates in the preservation of the Kingdoms peace and Nations welfare and are very unwilling to be sad spectators of those ruines and desolations that not many years ago many of them to their own as well as the Nations sorrow were too sadly acquainted withal till I say I have made my humble address to them and implored them by all that is near and dear to them to use that power God and the King hath entrusted them withal in stifling those Opinions in suppressing those dangerous Principles and Maxims in preventing those practises which have had so bad an influence upon the Body Politick and in using all methods by which they may be kept from the Common People whom we find by sad experience easily leavened and as easily afterwards wrought upon to enter into any Evil action whereby the peace and happiness of the Kingdom may be endangered And though it may be this address may be looked upon as the product of a malicions and revengeful spirit yet God that knows the hearts of men knows it flows from no such bitter Fountain but so far as I am in a capacity to serve any of these persons against whom I now complain in their personal capacity no man can I am sure be more ready and more forward Let them but live agreeable to the Laws under which they live and that but as far as their own avowed Principles will give them leave which I think is a very reasonable request and they shall not want that just esteem from my self and so I am sure from all men of my Principles that they do deserve Which if they will not do but continue resolute in widening our differences making our breaches greater forming men into parties and numbers in opposition to the injunction of all those prudent Laws that are enacted by the great Authority of the Nation and thereby strengthning and encouraging that deplorable Schism that is amongst us why truly I think he wants the Spirit and Courage of a Man who holds his tongue and by his silence gives the least spirit to such undertakings For alas what can we imagine all this will centre and bottom in and who will be the chief gainers by these divisions That certainly is no hard matter to determine And truly in my apprehension 't is very sad that the revenge of our Nonconforming Brethren should be so great against the Church of England that rather than she shall continue in any glory and be vested with any Authority they will use their utmost endeavours to pull her down though it be to the destruction of the Protestant Cause both at home and abroad and to the Introduction of Popery it self A good sign indeed of a Gospel Spirit and of that tenderness of Conscience these men profess upon all occasions when pressed to any necessary complyance with the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore seeing it is so that these men will play any game rather than that in which the safety of the Church as well as State is concerned truly I think all the true Patriots of the Countrey ought to look upon them accordingly and give them such fare as by those Oaths they take when they are admitted to their office they are obliged to And seeing they are resolved we shall fall though they know it must needs be accompanied with so great a ruine to that Cause and Interest which was purchased with the bloud of the Martyrs which hath been a Sanctuary to distressed and banished Foreigners and which indeed as it is here maintained by so many prudent Laws is the only stay and support of all the Protestant Churches abroad seeing I say they are resolved to have their wills of this Church notwithstanding these sad and too much to be feared effects and consequences of it I do declare I think all true hearted Magistrates in whose hands the execution of the Laws does lie ought to let them know that they owe more Regard to the present Government of the Kingdom and that if they will continue fixt in their Resolves to bear down all that stands in their way to the undermining the Churches safety and reputation so on the other hand they the Magistrates are as well resolved to hinder by all legal and worthy means so great and so unseasonable a violence to those Laws wherein mens Estates and Liberties mens Religion and consequently their Souls are so much concerned And I am certain nothing is a greater argument among the present Magistrates either of Cowardize or else of Ignorance and Non-observation than to suffer such assaults upon Government without a suitable resentment of them and to connive at such practises as are apparently tending to shuffle in a Religion once again amongst us by which the Prince loses half his Government and the people all their Reason and Sense together And therefore Worthy Sirs I beg of you to consider what is incumbent upon you at present do not you let Justice sleep while covetousness and ambition while Faction and discontent is devouring and eating up all those sober principles whereby your Estates as well as any thing else is secured to you and your Posterity after you Let not a Church that teaches all her Members to live contentedly in all those subordinations the Providence of God hath placed them and up to all those Duties which belong to those several places I say let not this Church be scorned and trampled under feet by rude and revengeful persons And if you think them people of meek and peaceable
spirits in whose publick Liberty there is no danger pray enquire after the treatments those Worthies whose Consciences obliged them to follow the Fortunes of that late incomparable King of blessed memory met withal from them and that will save me the labour of giving an account of the temper of a great part of them 'T is true were they all of that nature and disposition of that Learning and wisdome some of them are there might be some apology made for them but alas the common Followers I and many of their Teachers too are violent and headstrong quickly enflamed and over-heated and then for want of knowledge and due consideration of things with great difficulty managed and kept within any proper and allowed bounds a thing which some of their very Preachers have complained of to my self and others And therefore why you who are the Instruments of Justice out of pity to some few whose parts and piety may possibly recommend them to the esteem and love of all good men should suffer herds of men whose zeal outstrips their knowledge whose Passions surmount their Prudence whose Religion many times is more the result of the temper of the Body than the rational conviction of the soul why you I say should suffer the Laws to be violated when no other end can be proposed than shewing a compassion to some few who deserve a name among the wise and truly learned I profess I cannot tell Especially when at the same time the Honour of the Laws by a neglect of Justice is exposed to the contempt and scorn of such Numbers who must if we would follow those Maxims of Policy which all wise Governours ever since Communities of men were agreed upon have observed who must I say be kept in with bit and bridle And having thus addressed my self to the Ministers of Publick Justice I cannot obtain a Writ of Ease from my self until I have said something to those very persons whose designs I have in the foregoing Treatise exposed and whose Methods of ruine to the Church and Kingdom I have discovered And here I am not afraid to tell them that many of them are my Acquaintance in whose civil conversation I have and do take pleasure and to whom upon some scores I have stood engaged the piety and strictness of many of their Lives I admire and love these with some other things would reconcile me to them did not my zeal for the Nations happiness my duty to a Church by whom I and all the World may be sufficiently instructed in all things necessary to be believed and practised Further did not my Fears and God knows those too well grounded of the return of a Religion amongst us and that caused chiefly by these mens stubbornness the agreement with which must at the same time be to fall out with all those Faculties whereby we are in capacities to discern things that differ Did not these things with many others thus dispose of and command me I say I could wish these men all the happiness in this World that upon good Grounds they could desires And therefore pray Sirs let me entreat you to consider what you are a doing whilst so resolvedly you continue to separate from our Church why truly pardon me if I err I think I do not I cannot say you are doing the business of Religion for that I am sure may be as well nay all things considered better done by those under the Discipline and Government of our Church as I have shewed in the beginning of this Treatise In which I am the more satisfyed from the observations I have made of many of your admired Followers whose Lives as far as I can discern are spent most upon pitying Publick Magistrates and Ministers and shaking their heads at the times with many other popular and usual artifices of misrepresenting things or persons not just according to their Minds Again I cannot say you are doing the Business of your Governours setling the People in the notions of obedience and submission begetting in them venerable thoughts of those who are Gods Trustees on Earth no for we find no sooner do men wheel off from our Church and list themselves under your Banners but presently they grow jealous of the Powers of the Nation and are always furnished with idle tales and groundless whispers to lessen their Reputation among the Common People Nay further I cannot say you are doing your own business for alas throw us but once down and you know by old experience that you are all together by the ears and scarce ten of you can agree together upon any thing that may be the Foundation of a future settlement but all are striving to be the Greatest and every man hath such a fond opinion of his own way as to think nay to proclaim it deserving to be the Nations Standard yea and to pronounce bitter Curses against all those who will not concur in Judgment with him And truly for the satisfaction of a great many well meaning persons who at present are imposed upon I could wish were it but lawful to permit it and consistent with the Kingdoms and Churches safety that the Ball might lie at your feet for a few days methinks I see what animosities and heats what strifes and contentions would presently be in the midst of you and how quickly all you who now combine together against our poor despised Church would fall into a thousand parties and what variety of Churches we presently should have formed and the best of it is every one of them vogued to be according to the pattern in the Mount And therefore Brethren for Gods sake recollect your selves and do not sacrifice the Protestant Religion to your own lusts and passions comply with the Laws in imitation of the old Puritans as far as you can and then I do not doubt but our Governours will find out some way or other to let you understand their Resentments of your orderly complyance and certainly 't is better to build our hopes of future kindness from our Prince upon publick manifestations of peaceableness of Spirit than upon threats and menaces than upon bold and daring actions whereby we intimate unto him that if he will not give us according to our Wills and Pleasure we will snatch it from him and that by force too whether he will or no. One word more and I have done I beseech you do not say that this intimation of Popery in and through your disobedience to the Churches Laws is a popular plea invented on purpose to make you odious among the People I profess as it is mentioned here by me 't is no such thing but the result of a full satisfaction I have that nothing can make way for that Religion but the ruine of the Church of England And truly I am so far from rendring you odious that if you could agree among your selves upon any thing consistent with the Churches Peace and Safety I would give my Prayers and all honest endeavours whatsoever to contribute towards your contentment But till then pray give us leave to secure our selves from such desolations as will end in your destruction as well as ours by all agreeable ways and means whatsoever And now after all this if you will suffer your selves to be so provoked as one while to pity me and then again revile me I have no more to say but that I am fully satisfied in my own Conscience in what I have done and that for a requital I am resolved to make you the objects of my hearty pity and the subjects of my Prayers but not mine anger and revenge for that is not to follow our Masters command To love our enemies to bless them that curse to to do good to them that hate us to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us which may be done with Tongues as well as Hands which good and excellent advice I am resolved through the assistance of Gods Gracious Spirit to pursue and follow and therefore let those against whom this little Treatise is chiefly levelled deal with my person or good name as they please I am prepared for it THE END Lately Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Amen-Corner THE Estate of the EMPIRE or an Abridgment of the Laws and Government of Germany farther shewing what Condition the EMPIRE was in when the Peace was concluded at Munster Also the several Fights Battels and Desolation of Cities during the War in that EMPIRE And also of the GOLDEN BVLL In Octavo The Sycillian Tyrant Or The Life and Death of AGATHOCLES With some Reflections on our Modern Usurpers Octavo The ROYAL MARTYR and the Dutiful Subject In two Sermons By Gilbert Burnet In Quarto The Generosity of Christian Love Delivered in a Sermon by William Gould Quarto The Witnesses to Christanity By Sy. Patrick D. D. Octavo Ductor Dubitantium Or Bishop Taylors Cases of Conscience The Fourth Edition Folio The Life and Death of K. CHARLES the First By R. Perenchief D. D. Octavo