and Ceremonies what Reference have they Unless it be to amuse the mind and frame a beliefe in men that Religion quite contrary to the nature of it consists in externalls whereby to the destruction of Religion the mind shall be drawn forth into external appearances to cause it delight in that Pomp and Vanity which it should forsake and by this means it will be blinded so much as not once to look within it self but thinks all is well where there is nothing but rottenness and Corruption If you say that these externals are representations of the Internal work and serve to lead us to them I answer it is a Preposterous and indirect means for what is so near me as I am to my self And why cannont I descend into my own mind every moment without taking that for an advantage which brings ruine with it As Crosses Garments c. For Ceremonies are not only needless but mischeivous cheating and blinding the World whereby they let go the substance and embrace the shaddow 3. Ministers or Bishops have no concern in publick Affairs or in Secular Jurisdiction their business is to press Faith in Christ both in themselves and others to remove the Corruption fallen upon mens minds what duty then lyes upon them for Secular business or what claime have they to it The nature of their Profession and Doctrine does divest them thereof as much as is possible being quite opposite to it forbidding even too much concerne for their Private Affairs in the World which shews that it is their extravagancy and degeneracy when they thrust themselves into publick Imployment which has such tendency to overcharge their minds with that which they should be altogether cleansed from as we have before shewed 4. It is almost needless here to say there is no such Power of Excommunication as is now in use being made to uphold a lye and an unjust usurpation in Secular Affaires to lacky after Fees and to serve the Secular Interest of the Clergy which according to the Truth of their Imployment is none at all we have shewed before what this Excommunication is And certainly the true Church as well as the Government thereof being Internal and Spiritual not External and Secular all the Acts of its Jurisdiction must be agreeable thereto 5. That Method of Preaching is a prejudice to the Life and Power of Religion wherein men set forth themselves by Studied Discourses with Ornaments of History Rhetorick subtile Disputations nice Distinctions c. For by these things the mind is taken up with things that are Circumstantial and External and thereby le ts slip those things that are Internal and of nearer Concernment and therefore has a stamp of of the Beast upon it tending to inhance the value of all other External things which men ought to deny causing them to love and embrace what they should cast away to desire more earnestly such things as they should be mortified unto and consequently they will run more swiftly then before to the pit of Destruction where Antichrist and the false Prophet is So that at the end these men are worse then at the beginning they might have been had they not been trained up in such a Religion as this and it were better for them not to have known the way of Truth then having known it to make it the Instrument of more enlarged wickedness and of going yet farther from God then at first 6. The Minister or Bishop takes no honour to himself all that he is or hath he hath received it it is the purchase of the the blood of Christ exhibited according to the word in the second Covenant to all that belive he seeks not reward nor laboureth for gain having devested himself of Worldly and outward things He Governs the people â—e is set over not with force but meekness he useth no means of Compulsion but draweth them gently he pretends not power over their Wills but an Office to perswade but if men will destroy themselves he is guiltless doing what is suitable to his Office to reclaime them alwayes willing to help them alwayes with open Arms to receive such as come to the Church and restore such as are fallen Lamenting and Praying for such whose Miscarriages are from their own Wills and not in his power to help 7. The last thing we observe from what is said before is that it is impossible there should be any Difference or Sect in the Christian Religion and if you find any amongst them say assuredly Inimicus homo fecit hoc it is a stranger to the Truth aâ—d proceeds from some other cause The reason is plain for what occasion can be imagined of Division or Schisme amongst those who all conspire only in this to keep their minds Pure and clean from Corruption by Faith in Jesus Christ and in the power of that Holy Spirit which is one in all of them From which oneness divided through many members there must needs be unity But you will say the present time testifies the Division that is among Christians I answer that such as are Christians in pretence only may divise a hundred more Sects and Parties They are men that will inspite of the Scriptures serve two Masters God and Mammon the Lord and Baall Men who are Christians by the halfes that will serve the Lord yet not without a Babel of their own setting up In Briefe the Presbyterians Independants Anabaptists c. Will add to the Scriptures something that is meerly of their own fancies imagining the Scripture to sound according to their prejudice and preconception Now if one man will set up one thing and say this is according to Scripture another man with the same reason may set up another thing of his own hatching and framing and say the like and so we may go on in Infinitum If the Bishops say such and such Ceremonies are to be used in the Church seeming to them decent and according to Scripture The Presbyterians are not obliged to think as they do nor take the same measures of Decency as they do and therefore may claim Priviledge as well as the other of a second Constitution which perhaps will not so well agree with Independants and therefore with as much Right may they set up a third and so every man as his Fancy leads him In the mean time this difference is not in Religion it self but in the Braines and Fancies of men that love to cloth and dress Religion according to their own fashion and there cannot be a unity till men shall come to throw away all these their delightful Imaginations and return to the obedience of that Spirit of Life and Truth which proceedeth from the Father and the Son and is only able to make us wise unto Salvation There is no unity but in this the occasion of our divisions was by departing therefrom and our returning to it will be our advancement to our right minds to live in unity in love in Peace in
no Force to deliver Men from thence unless they were well paid in hand before they begun to work Also Confession and Extreme Unction were none of their meanest Engines to cheat the world For by virtue of these being near the Beds of departing Souls they made successful use of the opportunity either to Forge Wills and Donations or else by aggravating their sins and the torments of Purgatory get from them what men in despair and no more capable of enjoyments in this world and therefore prone enough to throw them away especially where there appeared hopes of a return in another were willing to part with Add to this that having locked up the pure Truth in an unknown language and few Bibles also to be got by reason of the unlearnedness of the age All their Devotions they comprehended in Rituals and Rosaries c. All their Religion was external Pomp Ceremony and Magnificence puzled and intricated with a thousand inventions and devices that had no relation to it otherwise than to destroy it from the Earth Now by these means they had got the Keys into their hands But what Keys even those of the bottomless Pit to sink men in Perdition But thus it was and by these evil arts they had made themselvs the oracles of the age through whose mouth all Religion and Devotion must proceed They call'd themselves the Church all their Constitutions Injunctions must now be irrefragable and they must needs pretend to be Infallible since they saw all matters of Religion depending upon them and nothing was seen or known but what was their pleasure to apoint and declare And who could convince them of Errour in the midst of darkness when all light of the Gospel and of Truth it self seemed to be extinguished Thus have they overthrown that pure and undefiled Religion denying the Lord that bought them and betraying him with Judas into the power of his Enemies But he riseth again to take vengeance of his Oppressors But these things consider'd it is no wonder that our Ancestors could not see through this mist and darkness of errour thicker than that of Aegypt which had by this time overspread the face of the whole earth But partly mistaking a generation of Deceivers for the true Church thought it Honourable to conferre what they could to its Greatness partly through fear of Purgatory and to deliver their Souls from that torment which they were taught to believe partly to save their souls For which purpose they were taught that these Donations were effectual settled upon them their Lands which were afterwards confirmed to them by Law upon the same account For in Magna Charta there is express mention made by the King of this end of his Grants viz. the saving of his Soul Now that they were deluded in these Donations we need go no farther than the universal consent of those Churches who have shaken off the Papal Usurpation who have all declared against Praying for the Dead as insignificant and do acknowledge that all Donations given to the Clergy could have no effect as was pretended to save mens Souls Add to this there is no colour for it in Scripture and was only then invented as a serviceable Engine to deceive men of their Estates and thereby to Benefit and Inrich that Idolatrous Church Which being consider'd that these Conditions on which they obtained their Lands were proposed dolo malo and farther that they are not kept according to the will of the Feoffor Those Customs being now abolished of Praying for Souls upon which account they held many considerable Lands Whether the Statute of Marlbridge or other Laws will extend to redeem those Lands I leave to the learned in the Law to judge If it be alledged that these Lands and their Priviledges have been confirmed to them all along under Protestant Princes and that the King takes an Oath at his Coronation to defend them It may be answer'd that such use and benefit of those Lands may be permitted them by those who were Proprietors thereof Not that the right of the Successor should be prejudic'd thereby Or perhaps they understood not so fully their condition in respect to that Right and therefore more justly accrues to us as the discoverers or else they had not the same necessity to re-assume it For our condition is such by Divine Providence appointed that there is no other meaâ—s to save us from Ruine I shall here add somthing much to this purpose out of Grotius Si Lex fundetur in praesumptione aliqua facti quod factum revera ita se non habeat tunc ea Lex non obliget Seneca says Demens est qui fidem praestat Errori Grotius also brings the opinion of Bodinus much to our purpose Bodinus censet iisdem ex causis Regem sive aliena fraude dolo sive errore circumventum sive metu restitui posse In another place the same Grotius Sed hoc quoque sciendum est posse subditis jus etiam quaesitum auferri per Regem duplici modo aut in Poenam aut ex vi super-eminentis Dominii Sed ut id fiat ex vi super eminentis Dominii primum requiritur utilitas publica Again Illud quoque à multis traditum beneficia principum quae liberaliter sunt concessa semper posse revocari As concerning the Kings Oath I shall only propose the words of the same Grotius Ut valeat Juramentum oportet ut obligatio sit licita Quare nullas vires habebit jurata promissio de re illicita aut naturaliter aut Divina interdictione aut etiam humana If this be not sufficient he adds farther Imo etiamsi res quae promittitur non sit illicita sed majus bonum morale impediens sic quoque non valebit Juramentum As for the Imputation of Sacriledge we have thus much to say 1. That the word has a very large signification and it is hard to be punctually decided what is Sacriledge and what not But 2. Of this we are certain that extreme necessity cannot be praescribed to by it For we find David made use of the Shew-Bread in this case And it is farther to be noted that I have not directed that they should be appropriate to any private use but to be preserved as a support of the Commonwealth in all degrees where there may be necessity and so to become the publick Endowment For it is not to be applyed to the use of any particular Man or Men so as to be appropriated to them It being like Judas's Mony the price of a Saviour with which the Jews bought the Potters Field to bury strangers in when it was returned by Judas So these Lands also ought to be converted to the benefit and relief of the Poor the Stranger and Necessitous which may very well consist with the method I have before mentioned But farther we may do well to consider how they have behaved themselves in the Fruition of these ample Priviledges they
against all assaults of our spiritual Enemies Religion then is an internal exercise to keep the soul pure and free from inordinate desires clean and immaculate from all pollution and so is the Mother of all moral duties It is an Internal life whereby it does deny an external life and abandons not only the enjoyments of the external life but even the desires of them which it only and principally aims at Now let us consider what is Antichristian or Antichrist The Name shews that it is opposite to Christ and somthing set up instead of him or against him And sure if he will answer his name he must overthrow that which Christ hath done and appointed and set up somthing else in the room thereof whatever he has a mind to or his pleasure is to set up that is contrary thereto which he has no other way to accomplish but by bringing this Internal exercise of the Mind to some External exercise and performance For thereby the Mind will forget the Internal work being amused and taken up with External duties Now that he may bring may bring Religion to an external performance he needs no more then with some shew of zeal to excogiâ—aâ—e certain Forms and Ceremonies to set aside such Persons such Places such Times for Religious Duties and when he has done this he may excogitate other things at pleasure and go on till he be able to trample upon the necks of Kings and pretend to dispose of the whole Eaâ—th at his command For from whaâ— we hove said Religion being an Internal Exercise and lying in every mans breast to Repent and Believe It will follow there is no necessity to set aside Men for Religions sake though perhaps it may be done But if Men shall make it necessary then these things will follow that there must be Places for them wherein to officiate necessarâ—ly and there â—s as much necessity that as these men encrease in number that these Places also encrease But these men being idle must have some outward Imployment where we have a foundation for Mâ—ssals Rosaries Prayings to Saints Purgatory c. Likewise they must have a mantainance and will look out to be Great and Glorious as other men and will perhaps as the nature of Men is use deceitful arts for this purpose There is now a necesâ—ity this purpose There is now a necessity that their Places of Officiating be adorned also with Rich and Magnificent Building with Gold and Silver Pictures and Images Their Worship must be suitable to their State and Pomp in other things Thus shall we have in that also a great deal of stateliness Ceremonious Intricacies to amuse mens minds And lastly the Doctrine must not be dissonant from all this but suited to uphold the Fabrick Likewise it will be highly necessary to appoint some days to appear more gloriously than others All men cannot attend every day an external Worship Therefore let some days be set apart wherein it may be cloathen in its best Robes Now in the truth of Religion no Chrâ—stian is free from the duty of keeping his mind pure in any day or time of the day nor in any Place much less ought we to think it is more tyed to one person than another Or that by studying in the Universitiy where foolish Philosophy does add to the corruption of mens minds Men should be freer from this Pollution or fitter to free others there-from and what will follow but that they endeavour to confirm their own Authority and Constitutions by all means possible and avenge the violation of a Crime against this external shew of Worship with the greatest punnishments and rigour But let every one contemn the Internal Worship as he will and be be guiltless So that all External Worship is in some degree or other Antichristian But the least evil is to be chosen in the Constitution of the Church and all things so appointed that there may be least occasion for the growth of this mischief and all things as nearly as may be so ordered as Religion may appear in its native beauty devested of the outward Man in its too much redundancy and thereby somwhat pressed and urg'd more fully to seek the Righteousness of Christ that inward power which worketh all in all These things being thus laid down we shall find what a Christian Church is even the Assembly of such Persons who denying the World and its corrupt Inclinations have believed in Christ and are Regenerate by his Spirit keeping their minds regular and pure from the inclinations to vanity Their Union is Internal through the Spirit of God They are of one mind and in perfect Love being all cemented together by that one Spirit built upon the Corner Stone which is Christ Their Government also must be according to that Spirit being nothing but Unity Love Peace Mutual Assistance and delighting to benefit each other in meekness submitting to each other every Man is Servant to his Brother for his good and he that is greatest is he that is most serviceable All things are done not only with Decency and order but with the greatest sweetness candour and integrity that may be Now because of humane infirmity there will be Lapses Charity will oblige that the offence be covered and the Person offending upon his Repentance privately manifested to any of the Company be restored But if after private and particular admonitions he continue pervicacious and impenitent he is to be secluded and cast off from the Company Here is no External Violence to be used no assistance from the secular arm no imployment for the Mastistrates Sword but a plain and simple shutting him out of the Society that will not be guided by the Laws of it and thereby it becomes his own act and not theirs But our Saviour hath given a greater Power with the Keys not External concerning Wills and Testamenâ—s c. but Internal by the operation of his Spirit whereby any Two of his Disciples agreeing together concerning any matter whatever they establish on Earth shall be confirmed in Heaven be it what it will So that if they ask in Faith of which we have not found any instances as yet we may hereafter The Word is sure and the Promise firm but requires Faith in them that ask it Thus it must needs be that all its Jurisdiction and Power must be Internal since the very design of Christian Religion is to deny outward things But we have been long trained up in a contrary Doctrine the Ministers still placing themselves in the room of Christ will be heads when they ought to be but Members and rule such whom they ought to serve seeking rather the Substance and Goods of the Flock than the good of their Souls This Society then being met together their Exercise and Worship will be as agreeable as may be to their Religion that is Internal I mean there will be not be need of any great pains or study to prepare for to