what a cross-grain'd thing is it to restrain things only because they are matters of liberty and first to forbid Princes to command them because they are lawful and then Subjects to do them only because they are commanded But to expose the absurdity of this Principle by some more particular considerations §2 First The follies and mischiefs that issue from it are so infinite that there can be no setled Frame of things in the World that it will not overturn and if it be admitted to all intents and purposes there can never be an end of disturbances and alterations in the Church in that there never was nor ever can be any Form of Worship in the World that is to all circumstances prescribed in the World of God and therefore if this Exception be thought sufficient to destroy one there is no remedy but it may as occasion requires serve as well to cashier all and by consequence take away all possibility of settlement Thus when upon this Principle the Disciplinarians separated from the Church of England the Independents upon the same ground separated from them the Anabaptists from the Independents the Familists from the Anabaptists and the Quakers from the Familists and every Faction divided and subdivided among themselves into innumerable Sects and Undersects and as long as men act up to it there is no remedy but Innovations must be endless If it be urged against Lord-Bishops 't is as severe against Lay-Presbyters if against Musick in Churches then farewel singing of Psalms in Rhime if against the Cross why not against sprinkling in Baptism and if against Cathedral Churches then down go all Steeple-Houses If against one thing then against every thing and there is nothing in the exteriour parts of Religion but the two Sacraments that can possibly escape its impeachment All the pious Villanies that have ever disturbed the Christian World have shelter'd themselves in this grand Maxime that Iesus Christ is the only Law-maker to his Church and whoever takes upon himself to prescribe any thing in Religion invades his Kingly Office The Gnosticks of old so abused this pretence to justifie any seditious and licentious practices that they made Heathen Princes look upon Christianity as an Enemy to Government and the Fanaticks of late have so vex'd and embroil'd Christendom with the same Principle that Christian Princes themselves begin to be of the same perswasion 'T is become the only Patron and Pretext of Sedition and when any Subjects have a mind to set themselves free from the Laws of their Prince they can never want this pretence to warrant their disobedience Seeing there is no Nation in the World that has not divers Laws that are not recorded by the four Evangelists and therefore if all humane Institutions intrench upon our Saviours Kingly Prerogative they are and ever must be provided with matters of quarrel to disturb Government and justifie Rebellion § 3. Secondly Nay further this fond pretence if made use of to all the ends for which it might as wisely serve would cancel all humane Laws and make most of the divine Laws useless which have only described the general Lines of Duty but left their particular determinations to the Wisdom of humane Laws Now the Laws of God cannot be put in practice but in particular Cases and Circumstances these cannot be determin'd but by the Laws of man therefore if he can command nothing but what is already prescribed to us in the Word of God he can have no power to see the Divine Laws put in Execution For where are described all the Rules of Justice and Honesty Where are determined all doubts and questions of Conscience Where are decided all Controversies of Right and Wrong Where are recorded all the Laws of Government and Policy Why therefore should humane Authority be allowed to interpose in these great affairs and yet be denied it in the Customs of Churches and Rules of Decency There is no possible reason to be assign'd but their own humour and fond opinion they are resolved to believe it and that is Argument enough for 't is unanswerable How comes this Proposition to be now limited to matters of meer Religion but only because this serves their turn for otherwise Why are not the Holy Scriptures as perfect a Rule of Civil as of Ecclesiastical Policy Why should they not be as complete a System of Ethicks as they are a Canon of Worship Why do not these men require from the Scriptures express Commands for every Action they do in common life How dare they take any Physick but what is prescribed in the Word of God How dare they commence a Suit at Law without Warranty from Scripture How dare they do any natural action without particular advice and direction of Holy Writ § 4. Thirdly But as foolish as this Opinion is its mischief equals its folly for 't is impossible but that these Sons of strife and singularity must have been troublesom and seditious in all Churches and Common-wealths Had they lived under the Jewish Church why then Where has Moses commanded the Feast of Purim the Feast of the Dedication the Fasts of the fourth the fifth the seventh and the tenth months What Warrant for the building of Synagogues and what Command for that significant Ceremony of wearing sack-cloth and ashes in token of Humiliation If in the primitive Ages of Christianity why then where did our Saviour appoint the Love-Feasts Where has he instituted the Kiss of Charity Where has he commanded the observations of Lent and Easter Where the Lords-Day Sabbath and where all their other Commemorative Festivals Vide Tertull de Coronâ c. 3. Will they retreat to the Lutheran Churches they will there meet with not only all the same but many more Antichristian and superstitious Ceremonies to offend their tender Consciences and will find themselves subject to the same Discipline and Government saving that their Superintendents want the Antichristian Honours and Revenues of the English Bishops partly through the poverty of the Country partly through the injury of Sacriledge but mainly because the Church Revenues are in the possession of Romish Bishops Will they to France there notwithstanding the unsetled state of the Protestants of that Nation through want of the assistance of the Civil Power they shall meet with their Liturgies and establisht Forms of Prayer and Change of Apparel for Divine Service as well as at home If they will to Geneva there Mr. Calvin's Common-Prayer-Book is as much imposed as the Liturgy of the Church of England there they are enjoyn'd the use of Wafer-Cakes the Custom of Godfathers and Godmothers bidding of Prayer proper Psalms not only for days but for hours of the day with divers other Rites and Ceremonies that are no where recorded in the Word of God In a word What Church in the World can affirm these were the only Customs of the Apostolical Age and that the Primitive Church never used more or less than these So that these men
Religion as in Affairs of State They alone restrain'd and punish'd whatever tended to the subversion of the Publick and establish'd Religion they suppress'd Innovations reform'd Corruptions ordered the Decencies and Solemnities of publick Worship instituted new Laws and Ceremonies and conducted all the concerns of Religion by their own Power and Authority Now there is nothing that can be pretended against the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Christian Magistrates that might not with as great a shew of Reason have been urged against these Jewish Kings § 13. And thus were the Affairs of Religion in all Nations govern'd by the Supreme Power till our blessed Saviour's birth who came into the world to establish new Laws of Religion and not to set up any new Models of Politie He came not to unsettle the Foundations of Government or to diminish the natural Rights of Princes and settle the conduct of humane affairs upon new Principles but left the Government of the world in the same condition he found it All his Discourses were directed to private persons and such whose duty it was to Obey and not Command and therefore though we find him every where highly solicitous to press men to Obedience in general and perhaps it would be no easie task to find out any Professors of the Art of Policy either ancient or modern that have carried the Doctrine of Obedience so high as the Sermons of our Saviour and the Writings of his Apostles yet no where he takes upon him to settle much less to limit the Prerogatives of Princes and therefore the Government of Religion being vested in them by an antecedent and natural Right must without all controversie belong to them till it is derogated from them by some Superiour Authority so that unless our Saviour had expresly disrobed the Royal Power of its Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction nothing else can alienate it from their Prerogative And therefore 't is no wonder if he left no Commands to the Civil Magistrate for the right Government of Religion for to what purpose should he give them a new Commission to exercise that Power that was already so firmly establish'd in the world by the unalterable dictates of Natural Reason and Universal Practice and Consent of Nations it being so clearly inseparable from the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth that it loses both its Supremacy and its usefulness unless it be universal and unlimited In that the end of all Government is to secure the Peace and Tranquillity of the Publick and therefore it must have Power to manage and order every thing that is serviceable to that end So that it being so clearly evident from the experience of mankind and from the nature of the thing it self that nothing has a stronger influence upon the publick Interests of a Nation than the well or ill management of Religion its conduct must needs be as certain and inseparable a Right of the Supreme Power in every Common-wealth as the Legislative Authority it self without which 't is utterly impossible there should be any Government at all And therefore the Scripture seems rather to suppose than assert the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Princes What else means that Promise That Kings shall be nursing Fathers to the Church of God unless by their Power they may cherish and defend the true Religion and protect it from being destroyed by Hereticks and Seducers What does the Scripture mean when it styles our Saviour King of Kings and makes Princes his Vicegerents here on earth What means the Apostle when he says Kings are appointed to this end That under them we may live a quiet and peaceable life not only in all honesty but in all godliness too Where we see that the propagation of Godliness is as much the Duty of Governours as the preservation of Justice neither of which can a Prince as such effectually promote but by the proper effects of his Power Laws and Penalties Besides all which all the Power of the Common-wealth our Saviour lived in was fall'n into such mens hands that would be so far from concerning themselves in the defence protection and propagation of Christianity that he knew they would exert the utmost of their force to suppress and destroy it Now to what purpose should he entrust them with a Commission to govern his Church when he knew they would labour its utter ruine and destruction And hence was there no other peaceable method to propagate the Christian Faith in the world but by the patience and sufferings of its Professors and therefore our Saviour to secure his Religion from the reproach of being Factious and Seditious against the State was sollicitous above all things to arm them with Meekness and Patience and to this purpose he gave them glorious promises to encourage their submission to their unhappy Fate and severe Injunctions to secure their Obedience to all the Commands of lawful Superiours except when they run directly cross to the Interest of the Gospel which as the posture of Affairs then stood was incomparably the most effectual as well as most innocent way of its propagation § 14. And therefore 't is but an idle and impertinent Plea that some men make for Liberty of Conscience when they would restrain the Magistrates Power so as to make use of no other means than what our Saviour and his Apostles used to convince and convert men An Argument that much resembles that which they urge with so much popular noise and confidence against that little Grandeur Authority that is left to the Governours of our Church because forsooth the Apostles by reason of the unhappy juncture of Affairs in their times lived in a mean and persecuted condition and therefore what was their Calamity these men would make our Duty but it were to be wished they would pursue their Argument to all the purposes for which it may as rationally serve and so they must sell their Lands and bring the money and lay it at the Bishops Feet they must pass away all their Proprieties and have all things in common and part them to all men as every man has need because the Primitive Christians did so At so prodigious a rate of impertinency do men talk when their Passions dictate their Discourses and to so fine a pass would the Affairs of Christendom be brought by this trifling pretence of reducing the state of the Church to its Primitive Practice in all accidents and circumstances of things But yet I suppose these men themselves would scarce imitate the practice of our Saviour and his Apostles in this particular for if the Scribes and Pharisees were now in being I hope they would not allow them the liberty openly to blaspheme the Name of Iesus and to persecute all that would not believe him an Impostor which though they did familiarly in his own time yet he never went about to restrain their Blasphemies by Laws and Punishments and therefore I only demand Whether the Civil Magistrate may make penal Laws against Swearing and Blasphemy
they fool and trifle with the Almighty if true then I could easily tell them the fittest place to say their Prayers in But however 't is pity to abridge them the liberty all men have to abuse themselves but if they will extend this their Priviledge so far as to attaint other mens Reputations I shall only admonish them as a Friend before-hand that there is somebody in the world that will not fail to requite their slanders and false aspersions with their own true Character And so I take my leave of them to address my self to those for whom this Discourse was intended And though I dare not be so sawcy as to teach my Superiours how to Govern the Kingdom out of Ezekiel or the Revelations yet I will presume to put up this single Petition in order to the security of our Publick Peace and Settlement That whatsoever Freedom they may think good to Indulge to Religion they would not suffer Irreligion to share in the Favour nor permit Atheism to appear openly as it begins to do under the Protection of Liberty of Conscience I am not so utterly unacquainted with the Experience of former Ages as to be over-apt to complain of the degeneracy of our own the World I know has ever had its Vicissitudes and Periods of Vertue and Wickedness and all Common-wealths have advanced themselves to their Power and Grandeur by Sobriety and Wisdom and a tender Regard of Religion and from thence have declined again by Softness and Effeminacy by Sacrilege and Prophaneness and a proud Contempt of God and his Worship This is the Circle of Humane Affairs and on these constant Turns depend the Periods and certain Fates of Empires So that though Atheism reigns and prevails more in the present age than in some that went immediately before it yet there have been seasons when it was mounted up to a greater height of Power and Reputation than 't is yet advanced to but then those have always been black and fatal Times and have certainly brought on Changes and Dissolutions of States For the Principles of Irreligion unjoynt the Sinews and blow up the very Foundations of Government This turns all sense of Loyalty into Folly this sets men at Liberty from all the effectual Obligations to Obedience and makes Rebellion as vertuous when ever it either is or is thought as advantageous And therefore it imports Authority to nip this wanton humour in the Bud and to crush it whilst 't is young and tender for as yet it has found but slender entertainment with wise and sober Persons and is only propagated among little and unlearned People discreet men that have not more Religion have yet at least more wit and manners The only Zelots in the Cause are the young Nurslings and small Infantry of the Wits the wild and hair-brain'd Youths of the Town A sort of Creatures that study nothing but Sloth and Idleness that design nothing but Folly and Extravagance that aspire to no higher Accomplishments than fine Phrases terse Oaths and gay Plumes that pretend to no other stock of Learning but a few shavings of Wit gathered out of Plays and Comedies and these they abuse too and labour to pervert their chaste Expressions to Obscene and Irreligious Purposes and Johnson and Fletcher are prophaned as well as the Holy Scriptures They measure the Wit of their Discourse by its Prophaneness and Ribaldry and nothing sets it off so handsomly as neat and fashionable Oaths and the only thing that makes them appear more Witty then other Folk is their daring to be more wicked Their Iests are remarkable for nothing but their Presumption and the picquancy of their Conceit lies in their Boldness Men laugh not so much at the Wit as the Sawciness of their Discourse and because they dare vent such things as a discreet or civil man would scorn to say though he were an Atheist But these shallow fools are proud and ambitious to gain a Name and Reputation for Debauchery they slander themselves with false Impieties and usurp the Wickedness they were never guilty of only to get a Renown in Villany 'T is these Apes of Wit and Pedants of Gentility that would make Atheism the fashion forsooth and Prophaneness the Character of a Gentleman that think it a piece of Gallantry to scoff at Religion droll upon God and make sport with his Laws that account it an Argument of Iudgment and Ingenuity to be above the Follies of Conscience and a height of Courage and Magnanimity at all adventure to brave and defie Heaven and out-dare the Almighty and the noblest part of a gentile Behaviour to counterfeit an Haughty and Supercilious Disdain of Religious Sneeks and to beg all men that are respective to their Consciences for soft and cowardly Fools that are scared with Phantastick and Invisible Powers and easily abused with Tricks and Juglings and Publick Tales Now certainly these Phantastick Changelings must needs be wonderfully qualified to judge of the most serious and most difficult Enquiries in the world Are they not likely think you to search into the deepest Foundations of Religion to weigh and examine all the Arguments for the Being of God and Immortality of the Soul to enquire into the Grounds of the Christian Faith and to take an account of the Truth and Credibility of the Scriptures And when they have so utterly emasculated their Vnderstandings with Softness and Luxury are not they prodigiously able to examine what Agrees or Quarrels with the Dictates of Pure and Impartial Reason Are they not likely to determine what is truely Great and Generous that never heard of any other Maxims of Philosophy but what they have pick'd up at Plays out of the stiff Disputes of Love and Honour And are they not likely to give a wonderful Account of the Record of Ancient Times without which they are utterly unable to judg of the Truth or Falshood of any Religion that were never acquainted with any History unless perhaps that of the Follies and Amours of the French Court And yet how briskly do these giddy Youths determine these and a thousand other Difficult Theories that they never had Learning or Patience enough to understand much less to make an exact and satisfying search into their Truth and Evidence Alas young men you are too rash and forward your confidence swells above your Vnderstandings 'T is not for you to pretend to Atheism 't is too great a Priviledge for Boys and Novices 'T is sawsiness for you to be Prophane and to censure Religion Impudence and ill Manners and whatsoever Rational Pleas Atheism may admit of 't is not for such as you to pretend to Wit and Learning enough to understand them And therefore take heed of exposing your Vanity and Weakness and if you will not be Wise yet at least be Modest Be advised not to set up before your time and better to furnish your Vnderstandings before you vent your wit Consider what a fulsome thing it is that when the
ineffectual instruments of Uniformity because they have either been weakned through want of execution or in a manner cancell'd by the oppositions of Civil Constitutions For when Laws are bound under severe penalties and when the Persons who are to take cognisance of the Crime have not Power enough to punish it or are perpetually check'd and controul'd by a stronger Power no wonder if the Laws be affronted and despised and if instead of bringing mens minds to compliance and subjection they exasperate them into open contumacy Restraint provokes their stubbornness and yet redresses not the mischief And therefore it were better to grant an uncontroul'd Liberty by declaring for it than after having declared against it to grant it by silence and impunity The Prohibition disobliges Dissenters and that is one evil and the impunity allows them Toleration and that is a greater and where Governours permit what their Laws forbid there the Common-wealth must at once lose all the advantages of restraint and suffers all the inconveniences of Liberty So that as they would expect Peace and Settlement they must be sure at first to bind on their Ecclesiastical Laws with the streightest knot and afterward to keep them in force and countenance by the severest Execution in that wild and Fanatick Consciences are too headstrong to be curb'd with an ordinary severity therefore their restraints must be proportion'd to their unruliness and they must be managed with so much a greater care and strictness than all other principles of publick disturbance by how much they are more dangerous unruly § 8. For if Conscience be ever able to break down the restraints of Government and all men have Licence to follow their own perswasions the mischief is infinite and the folly endless and they seldom cease to wander from folly to folly till they have run themselves into all the whimsies and enormities that can debauch Religion or annoy the publick Peace The giddy Multitude are of a restless and stragling humour and yet withalso ignorant and injudicious that there is nothing so strange and uncouth which they will not take up with Zeal and Confidence Insomuch that there never yet was any Common-wealth that gave a real liberty to mens Imaginations that was not suddenly over-run with numberless divisions and subdivisions of Sects as was notorious in the late Confusions when Liberty of Conscience was laid as the Foundation of Settlement How was Sect built upon Sect and Church upon Church till they were advanced to such a height of Folly that the Usurpers themselves could find no other way to work their subversion and put an end to their extravagancies but by overturning their own Foundations and checking their growth by Laws and Penalties The humour of Fanaticising is a boundless folly it knows no restraints and if it be not kept down by the severity of Governours it grows and encreases without end or limit and never ceases to swell it self till it has broke down all the banks and restraints of Government Thus when the Disciplinarians had in pursuit of their own peevish and unreasonable Principles divided from the Church of England others upon a farther improvement of the same principles subdivided from them every new opinion was enough to found a new Church and Sect was spawn'd out of Sect till there were almost as many Churches as Families For when they were once parted from the order sobriety of the Church they lived in nothing could set bounds to their wild and violent Imaginations § 9. Schismaticks always run themselves into the same excess in the Church as Rebels and Seditious Persons do in the State who out of a hatred to Tyranny are restless till they have dissolved the Common-wealth into Anarchy Confusion and because some Kingly Governments have proved Tyrannical will allow no free States but under Republicks As was notorious in all the Apologies for the late Usurpers who took it for granted in general That all Government under a single Person was slavish and oppressive without respect to its particular Constitutions and that the very name of a Common-wealth was a sufficient preservation of the Peoples Liberties notwithstanding that those who managed it were never so Imperious and Arbitrary in the exercise of their Power And in the same manner our Church Dissenters out of abhorrency to the Papal Tyranny and Usurpation upon mens understandings never think the liberty of their Consciences sufficiently secured till they have shaken off all subjection to Humane Authority and because the Church of Rome by her unreasonable Impositions has invaded the Fundamental Liberties of mankind they presently conclude all restraints upon licentious Practices and Perswasions about Religion under the hated name of Popery And some Theological Empericks have so possess'd the peoples heads with this fond conceit that they will see no middle way between spiritual Tyranny and spiritual Anarchy and so brand all restraint of Government in Affairs of Religion as if it were Antichristian and never think themselves far enough from Rome till they are wandred as far as Munster Whereas the Church of England in her first Reformation was not so wild as to abolish all Ecclesiastical Authority but only removed it from those who had unjustly usurp'd it to its proper seat and restrain'd it within its due bounds and limits And because the Church of Rome had clogg'd Christianity with too many garish and burdensome Ceremonies they did not immediately strip her naked of all modest and decent Ornaments out of an over-hot opposition to their too flanting Pomp and Vanity but only cloathed her in such a Dress as became the Gravity and Sobriety of Religion And this is the Wisdom and Moderation of our Church to preserve us sober between two such unreasonable Extremes § 10. But not to run too hastily into particular disputes 't is enough at present to have proved in general the absolute necessity that Affairs of Religion should be subject to Government and then if they be exempt from the Jurisdiction of the Civil Power I shall demand Whether they are subject to any other Power or to none at all If the former then the Supreme Power is not Supreme but is subject to a Superiour in all matters of Religion or rather what is equally absurd there would be two Supreme Powers in every Common-wealth for it the Princes Jurisdiction be limited to Civil Affairs and the concerns of Religion be subject to another Government then may Subjects be obliged to what is impossible contradictory Commands and at the same time the Civil Magistrate requires him to defend his Country against an Invasion the Ecclesiastical Governour may command him to abandon its defence for the carrying on an Holy War in the Holy Land in order to the recovery of our Saviour's Sepulchre from the Possession of the Turks and Saracens But seeing no man can be subject to contradictory obligations 't is by consequence utterly impossible he should be subject to two Supreme Powers
and such other Irreligious Debaucheries If he may why then they are matters that as directly and immediately relate to Religion as any Rites and Ceremonies of Worship whatsoever and for the Government of which they are as utterly to seek for any Precedent of our Saviour and his Apostles Nay more if this Argument were of any force it would equally deprive the Magistrate of any Power to compel his Subjects to obedience to any of the moral Precepts of the Gospel by secular Laws and Punishments because our Saviour and his Apostles never did it especially when all matters of Morality do as really belong to our spiritual concerns as any thing that relates immediately to Divine Worship and Affairs of meer Religion and therefore if the Civil Magistrate may not compel his Subjects to a right way of Worship with the Civil Sword because this is of a spiritual concernment as is pretended upon the same ground neither may he make use of the same force to compel men to Duties of Morality because they also equally relate to their spiritual Interests Besides the Magistrates Authority in both is founded upon the same Principle viz. The absolute necessity of their due Management in order to the Peace and Preservation of the Common-wealth We derive not therefore his Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from any grant of our Saviours but from an antecedent right wherewith all Sovereign Power was indued before ever he was born into the world forasmuch as the same Providence that intrusted Princes with the Government of Humane Affairs must of necessity have vested them in at least as much Power as was absolutely necessary to the nature and ends of Government § 15. But further yet all the ways our Saviour has appointed in the Gospel for the advancement and propagation of Religion were prescribed to Subjects not to Governours and this indeed is certain that no private person can have any power to compel men to any part of the Doctrine Worship or Discipline of the Gospel for if he had he would upon that very account cease to be a Private person and be vested with a Civil Power But that no Magistrate may do this will remain to be proved till they can produce some express prohibition of our Saviour to restrain him and till that be done 't is but a strange rate of arguing when they would prove that Magistrates may not use any coercive Power to promote the Interests of Religion because this is forbidden to their Subjects especially when 't is to be considered that Christ and his Apostles acted themselves in the capacity of Subjects to the Common-wealth they lived in and so could neither use themselves nor impart to others any coercive Power for the advancement and propagation of their Doctrine but were confined to such prudent and peaceable Methods as were lawful for persons in their condition to make use of i. e. humble Intreaties and Perswasions Our Saviour never took any part of the Civil Power upon himself and upon that score could not make penal and coercive Laws the power of Coertion being so certainly inseparable from the Supreme Civil Power But though he back'd not his Commandments with temporal punishments because his Kingdom was not of this world yet he enforced them with the threatnings of Eternity which carry with them more compulsion upon mens Consciences than any Civil Sanctions can For the only reason why Punishments are annex'd to Laws is because they are strong Motives to Obedience and therefore when our Savour tied his Laws upon mankind under Eternal Penalties he used as much force to drive us to obedience as if he had abetted them with temporal Inflictions So that the only reason why he bound not the Precepts of the Gospel upon our Consciences by any secular Compulsories was not because Compulsion was an improper way to put his Laws in execution for then he had never established them with more enforcing sanctions but only because himself was not invested with any secular Power and so could not use those methods of Government that are proper to its Jurisdiction § 16. And therefore the Power wherewith Christ intrusted the Governours of his Church in the Apostolical Age was purely spiritual they had no Authority to inflict temporal Punishments or to force men to submit to their Canons Laws and Penalties they only declared the Laws of God and denounced the threatnings annexed to them having no Coercive Power to inflict the Judgments they declared and leaving the event of their Censures to the Divine Jurisdiction Though alas all this was too weak to attain the ends of Discipline viz. to reclaim the offending Person and by example of his Censure to awe others into Obedience and could have but little influence upon the most stubborn and notorious Offenders For to what purpose should they drive one from the Communion of the Church that has already renounced it To what purpose should they deny him the Instruments and Ministries of Religion that cares not for them To what purpose should they turn him out of their Society that has already prevented them by forsaking it How should offenders be reclaim'd by being condemn'd to what they chuse How should they be scared by threatnings that they neither fear nor believe And if they will turn Apostates how can they be awed back into their Faith by being told they are so And therefore because of the weakness of this spiritual Government to attain the ends of Discipline and because that the Governours of the Church being subject to those of the Common-wealth they were not capable of any coercive Power 't is wonderfully remarkable how God himself was pleased to supply their want of Civil Jurisdiction by his own immediate Providence and in a miraculous manner to inflict the Judgments they denounced that if their Censures could not affright refractory Offenders into Obedience his Dreadful execution of them might For 't is notoriously evident from the best Records of the Primitive and Apostolical Ages that the Divine Providence was pleased to abet the Censures of the Church by immediate and Miraculous inflictions from Heaven In those times torments and diseases of the Body were the usual consequents of Excommunication and this was as effectual to awe men into subjection to the Ecclesiastical Government as if it had been endued with coercive Iurisdiction For this consists only in a power of inflicting temporal punishments and therefore when the Anathema's of the Church were attended with such Inflictions Criminals must have as much reason to dread the Rod of the Apostles as the Sword of the Civil Magistrate in that it carried with it a power of inflicting temporal Penalties either of Death as on Ananias and Sapphira or of Diseases as on Elymas the Sorcerer And this is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith St. Paul so often threatens to lash the factious Corinthians into a more quiet and peaceable temper Thus 1 Cor. 4. 21. What will ye shall I come unto you with a
above one viz. the fourth that has not divers Laws relating to Church Affairs And as for the Capitulars of Charles the Great together with the Additions of Lewis the Godly his Son and Successour they contain little else but Ecclesiastical Constitutions as may be seen in Lindembrogius his Collection of Ancient Laws together with divers other Laws of Theodorick and other Gothish Kings § 18. And next to the Divine Providence we owe the Settlement and Preservation of Christian Religion in the World to the Conduct of Christian Princes For by the time of Constantine the Primitive Spirit and Genius of Christianity was wearing out of fashion and the Meekness and Humility of its first Professours began to give place to a furious and tumultuary Zeal and no sooner did the heats of Persecution begin to abate but the Church was presently shattered into swarms of Factions by the violent Passions and Animosities of its Members about bare Speculations or useless Practices And of all the quarrels that ever disturbed the World there were never any perhaps so excuseless or so irregular as those of Christendom of which 't is hard to determine whether they were commenced with more folly and indiscretion or pursued with more passion and frowardness The rage and fierceness of Christians had kindled such a Fire in the Church that it must unavoidably have been consumed by its own Combustions had not the Christian Emperours employed all their Power to suppress the Fury of the Flames And though in spight of all their Prudence and Industry Christianity was sadly impaired by its own Tumults and Seditions yet had it not been for the care of Christian Princes it had in all humane probability been utterly destroyed and the Flames that had once caught its Superstructures must without remedy have burnt up its very Foundations And if we look into the Records and Histories of the first Christian Emperours we shall find that the most dangerous Disturbances that threatned the State had their beginnings in the Church and that the Empire was more shaken by the intestine Commotions that arose from Religion than by Foreign Wars and Invasions And upon this account is it that we find them so highly concern'd to reconcile all the Discords and allay all the Heats about Religion by silencing needless and unprofitable Controversies determining certain necessary Truths prescribing decent Rites Ceremonies of Publick Worship and all other wise and prudent Expedients to bring the minds and practices of men to Sobriety and Moderation § 19. And by this means was the outward Polity of the Church tolerably well established and the Affairs of Religion competently well grounded though better or worse according to the wisdom and vigilance of the several Emperours till the Bishops of Rome usurp'd one half of the Imperial Power and annexed the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Supremacy to their own See For taking advantage of the Distractions occasioned partly by the Incursions of the Northern Nations on the West partly by the Invasions of the Turkish Power on the East but mainly by the Division of the Empire it self they gain'd either by force or fraud the whole Dominion of Religion to themselves and by pretending to the Spirit of Infallibility usurp'd an absolute and uncontroulable Empire over the Faiths and Consciences of mankind And whilst they at first pretended no other Title to their Sovereignty but what they derived from Religion they were constrain'd to scrue up their Power to an unmeasurable Tyranny thereby to secure themselves in those Insolencies and Indignities wherewith they perpetually affronted the Princes of Christendom And knowing the Free-born Reason of men would never tamely brook to be enslaved to so ignoble a Tyranny they proclaim'd it a Traytour or what is the same a Heretick to the Catholick Faith and by their lowd noises and menaces frighted it out of Christendom In which design they at length advanced so far till Rome Christian became little less fond and superstitious than Rome Heathen and Christianity it self was almost debauched to the lowest guise of Paganism and Europe the Seat of the most refined and politest part of mankind was involved in a more than African Ignorance and Barbarity And thus did they easily usher in the grand departure and Apostasie from Religion by the falling away from Reason and founded the Roman Faith as well as Empire upon the Ruines of Humane Liberty § 20. In which sad posture continued the Affairs of Christendom till the Reformation which though it has wrought wonderful Alterations in the Christian World yet has it not been able to resettle Princes in their full natural Rights in reference to the Concerns of Religion For although the Supremacy of the Civil Power in Religious matters be expresly asserted in all the Publick Confessions of the Reformed Churches but especially in that of the Church of England which is not content barely to affirm it but denounces the Sentence of Excommunication against all that deny it Yet by reason of the exorbitant Power that some pert and pragmatical Divines have gain'd over the minds of the People this great Article has found little or no entertainment in their Practices there starting up a race of proud and imperious men about the beginning of the Reformation who not regarding the Princes Power took upon themselves to frame precise Hypotheses of Orthodoxy and to set up their own Pedantick Systems and Institutions for the Standards of Divine Truth and wanting what the other had the Authority of Prescription they pretended to the Spirit of God and this pretence not only excused but justified any wild Theorems they could not prove by sober Reason and those that would be awed with it they embraced for Orthodox and those that would not they branded for Hereticks by which little device they decoyed the silly and ignorant rabble into their own party The effect of all which has been nothing but a Brutish and Fanatick Ignorance making men to talk of little else but Raptures and Extasies and filling the World with a buzze and noise of the Divine Spirit whereby they are only impregnably possess'd with their own wild and extravagant Fansies become saucy and impudent for Religion confound Order and despise Government and will be guided by nothing but the whimsies and humours of an unaccountable Conscience § 21. And hence it comes to pass that most Protestant Princes have been frighted not to say Hector'd out of the Exercise of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction by the Clamours of giddy and distemper'd Zealots Superstition and Enthusiasm have out-fac'd the Laws and put Government out of Countenance by the boldness of their Pretensions Confident men have talked so lowdly of the Inviolable Sacredness and Authority of their Consciences that Governours not throughly instructed in the nature and extent of their Power so lately restored to them have been almost scared from intermedling with any thing that could upon this score plead its Priviledge and Exemption from their Commands And how
free Grace and Goodness in that in the first Ages of Christianity he was pleased out of his infinite concern for its Propagation in a miraculous manner to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue Wherefore the Apostle St. Paul when he compiles a complete Catologue of the Fruits of the Spirit reckons up only Moral Vertues Gal. 5. 22. Love Joy or Chearfulness Peaceableness Patience Gentleness Goodness Faithfulness Meekness and Temperance and elsewhere Titus 2. 11. the same Apostle plainly makes the Grace of God to consist in gratitude towards God Temperance towards our selves and Justice towards our Neighbours For the Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Where the whole Duty of Man is comprehended in living Godlily which is the Vertue of humble Gratitude towards God Soberly which contains the Vertues of Temperance Chastity Modesty and all others that consist in the dominion of Reason over our sensual Appetites Righteously which implies all the Vertues of Justice and Charity as Affability Courtesie Meekness Candour and Ingenuity § 3. So destructive of all true and real Goodness is the very Religion of those Men that are wont to set Grace at odds with Vertue and are so far from making them the same that they make them inconsistent and though a man be exact in all the Duties of Moral Goodness yet if he be a Graceless Person i. e. void of I know not what Imaginary Godliness he is but in a cleaner way to Hell and his Conversion is more hopeless than the vilest and most notorious Sinners and the Morally Righteous Man is at a greater distance from Grace than the Profane and better be lewd and debauch'd than live an honest and vertuous life if you are not of the Godly Party Bona Opera sunt perniciosa ad salutem says Flaccus Illiricus Moral Goodness is the greatest Let to Conversion and the prophanest wretches make better Saints than your Moral Formalists And by this means they have brought into fashion a Godliness without Religion Zeal without Humanity and Grace without good Nature or good Manners have found out in lieu of Moral Virtue a Spiritual Divinity that is made up of nothing else but certain Trains and Schemes of Effeminate Follies and illiterate Enthusiasms and instead of a sober Devotion a more spiritual and intimate way of Communion with God that in truth consists in little else but meeting together in private to prate Phrases make Faces and rail at Carnal Reason i. e. in their sense all sober and sincere use of our Understandings in spiritual Matters whereby they have effectually turn'd all Religion into unaccountable Fansies and Enthusiasms drest it up with pompous and empty Schemes of Speech and so embrace a few gawdy Metaphors and Allegories instead of the substance of true and real Righteousness And herein lies the most material difference between the sober Christians of the Church of England and our modern Sectaries That we express the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel in plain and intelligible Terms whilst they trifle them away by childish Metaphors and Allegories and will not talk of Religion but in barbarous and uncouth Similitudes and what is more the different Subdivisions among the Sects themselves are not so much distinguish'd by any real diversity of Opinions as by variety of Phrases and Forms of Speech that are the peculiar Shibboleths of each Tribe One party affect to lard their Discourses with clownish and slovenly Similitudes another delights to roul in wanton and lascivious Allegories and a third is best pleased with odd unusual unitelligible and sometimes blasphemous Expressions And whoever among them can invent any new Language presently sets up for a man of new Discoveries and he that lights upon the prettiest Nonsense is thought by the ignorant Rabble to unfold new Gospel-Mysteries And thus is the Nation shattered into infinite Factions with sensless and phantastick Phrases and the most fatal miscarriage of them all lies in abusing Scripture-Expressions not only without but in contradiction to their sense So that had we but an Act of Parliament to abridge Preachers the use of fulsom and luscious Metaphors it might perhaps be an effectual Cure of all our present Distempers Let not the Reader smile at the odness of the Proposal For were men obliged to speak Sense as well as Truth all the swelling Mysteries of Fanaticism would immediately sink into flat and empty Nonsense and they would be ashamed of such jejune and ridiculous Stuff as their admired and most profound Notions would appear to be when they want the Varnish of fine Metaphors and glittering Allusions In brief were this a proper place to unravel all their affected Phrases and Forms of Speech which they have learn'd like Parrots to prate by Rote without having any Notion of the Things they signifie it would be no unpleasant Task to demonstrate That by them they either mean nothing at all or some Part or Instrument of Moral Vertue So that all Religion must of necessity be resolv'd into Enthusiasm or Morality The former is meer Imposture and therefore all that is true must be reduced to the latter and what-ever besides appertains to it must be subservient to the Ends of Vertue such are Prayer Hearing Sermons and all manner of Religious Ordinances that have directly no other place in Religion than as they are instrumental to a vertuous life § 4. 'T is certain then That the Duties of Morality are the most weighty and material concerns of Religion and 't is as certain That the Civil Magistrate has Power to bind Laws concerning them upon the Consciences of Subjects So that every mans Conscience is and must be subject to the Commands of lawful Superiours in the most important matters of Religion And therefore is it not strange that when the main Ends and designs of all Religion are avowedly subject to the Supreme Power that yet men should be so impatient to exempt its means and subordinate Instruments from the same Authority What reason can the Wit of man assign to restrain it from one that will not much more restrain it from both Is not the right practice of Moral Duties as necessary a part of Religion as any outward Form of Worship in the World Are not wrong Notions of the Divine Worship as destructive of the Peace and settlement of Common-wealths as the most vicious and licentious Debaucheries Are not the rude multitude more inclined to disturb Government by Superstition than by Licentiousness And is there not vastly greater danger of the Magistrates erring in matters of Morality than in Forms and Ceremonies of Worship in that those are the main essential and ultimate Duties of Religion whereas these are at highest but their Instruments and can challenge no other place in Religion than as they are subservient to the purposes of Morality Nay is it not still more
to be Rogues as soon as they can § 6. So that according to this Hypothesis Mankind is left in as ill a condition after they have by Pacts and Covenants united into Societies and a State of Peace as they were in their natural State of War For all Covenants of mutual Trust are according to its own Rules in the State of Nature invalid because under that men are under no obligations of Justice and Honesty to one another and have no other measure of their actions but their interest and therefore as that might invite them in some circumstances to enter into Bonds and Contracts so it may in others to break them So that in the State of Government all their Promises Oaths and Contracts will prove as ineffectual as in the State of Nature Partly because the force of all Contracts made in the State of Government ariseth from the validity of the first Compact that was made in the State of Nature that is in that state in which it could have no validity partly Because they have no other tye but that of self-interest and so can lay no other obligation upon us to observe them than they might have done before And therefore if Mankind be once supposed in this natural state of War they can never be delivered from it and after they have enter'd into Covenants of Peace they would remain as much as before in a posture of War and be subject to all the same dangers and miseries that would have annoyed them if they had continued in their natural state For if Justice and fidelity be not supposed to be the Law and Duty of our Natures no Covenants are of power enough to bring us under any obligation to them Now having thus clearly blown up the foundations of this Hypothesis 't were but labour in vain to make particular enquiries into all the flaws and follies of its Superstructures seeing they must of necessity stand and fall together for if its subsequent Propositions be coherently deduced from these Fundamental Principles all the evidence and certainty they can pretend to depends on them and therefore the Premisses being once convicted of falshood all pretences to truth in the conclusions must necessarily vanish And if any of them happen to be true and rational 't is not by vertue of these but other Principles Thus though the Laws of Nature he assigns may be useful to the ends of Government and Happiness of Mankind yet because upon those grounds on which he assigns them they would be no Laws that alone is sufficient evidence of the errour and vanity of his whole Hypothesis seeing how good soever they may be in themselves yet upon the Principles and in the Method in which he proposes them they are of no force In that self-interest being the only reason of their obligation the Interests of Civil Society come thereby to be no better secured with than without them because if they were not in force by vertue of any Compact all men would chuse to act according to them when they thought it advantageous and when they have the utmost force his Principles can give them no man would think they obliged him when ever he apprehended them disadvantageous So that this malignant Principle of meer self-interest running through the whole Systeme and twisting it self with every branch of his Morality it does not only eat out and enervate its native life and vigour but withal envenoms their natural truth and soundness with its own malignity Which Principle being removed and that influence it hath on other parts of this Hypothesis being prevented and withal the Foundation on which it stands ruin'd viz. his absurd and imaginary State of Nature we have perhaps cashier'd all that is either base or peculiar in it and restored the true accounts of natural Justice and right Reason viz. That all men have a natural Right to Happiness from the very design of their creation that this cannot be acquired without mutual aids and friendships and therefore right reason dictates that every man should have some concern for his Neighbour as well as himself because this is made necessary to the welfare of the World by the natural state of things and by this mutual exchange of love and kindness men support one another in the comforts of humane life CHAP. V. A Confutation of the Consequences that some men draw from Mr. Hobs's Principles in behalf of Liberty of Conscience The Contents HOw a belief of the Imposture of all Religions is become the most powerful and fashionable Argument for the Toleration of all Though Religion were a Cheat yet because the World cannot be Govern'd without it they are the most mischievous Enemies to Government that tell the World it is so Religion is useful or dangerous in a State as the temper of mind it breeds is peaceable or turbulent The dread of Invisible Powers is not of it self sufficient to awe people into subjection but tends more probably to Tumults and Seditions This largely proved by the ungovernableness of the Principles and Tempers of some Sects Fanaticism is as natural to the Common people as folly and ignorance and yet is more mischievous to Government than Vice and Debauchery How the Fanaticks of all Nations and Religions agree in the same Principles of Sedition To permit different Sects of Religion in a Common-wealth is only to keep up so many incurable pretences and occasions of publick disturbance The corrupt passions and humours of men make Toleration infinitely unsafe Toleration only cried up by opprest Parties because it gives them opportunity to overturn the settled frame of things Every man that desires indulgence is engaged by his Principles to endeavour Changes and Alterations A bare indulgence of men in any Religion different from the establish'd way of Worship does but exasperate them against the State § 1. AND now the Reason why I have thus far pursued this Principle is because 't is become the most powerful Patron of the Fanatick Interest and a Belief of the indifferency or rather Imposture of all Religion is now made the most effectual not to say most fashionable Argument for Liberty of Conscience For when men have once swallowed this Principle That Mankind is free from all obligations antecedent to the Laws of the Common-wealth and that the Will of the Sovereign Power is the only measure of Good and Evil they proceed suitably to its Consequences to believe That no Religion can obtain the force of a Law till 't is establish'd for such by Supreme Authority that the Holy Scriptures were not Laws to any man till they were enjoyned by the Christian Magistrate that no man is under any obligation to assent to their Truth unless the Governours of the Common-wealth require it and that setting aside their Commands 't is no sin to believe our Blessed Saviour a villanous and lewd Impostor and that if the Sovereign Power would declare the Alcoran to be Canonical Scripture it would be as much the
Enemies to the Faith Besides that all men are naturally more zealous about the Principles in which they differ than about those in which they agree Opposition whets and sharpens their zeal because it endangers the truths they contend for whereas those that are not opposed are secure and out of hazard of being stifled by the adverse Party that is concern'd equally with themselves for their preservation And hence we see by daily Experience that men who are tame and cool enough in the Fundamentals of Religion are yet utterly impatient about their own unlearned and impertinent Wranglings and lay a greater stress upon the Speculations of their own Sect than upon the Duties of an absolute and indispensable necessity only because those are contradicted by their Adversaries and these are not Well then seeing all dissenting Parties are possess'd with a furious and passionate zeal to promote their own perswasions and seeing they are perswaded that their zeal is in God's Cause and against the Enemies of God's Truths How vain is it to expect Peace and Settlement in a Common-wealth where their Religion keeps men in a state of War where zeal is arm'd against zeal and Conscience encounters Conscience where the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls lies at stake and where Curse ye Meroz is the Word of both Parties So that whatsoever projects fansiful men may propose to themselves if we consider the passions of humane Nature as long as Differences and Competitions in Religion are kept up it will be impossible to keep down mutual hatreds jealousies and animosities and so many divided Churches as there are in a State there will ever be so many different Armies who though they are not always in actual fighting are always in a disposition to it Beside where there are divided Interests of Religion in the same Kingdom how shall the Prince behave himself towards them If he go about to ballance them against one another this is the ready way to forfeit his Interest in them all and whilst he seems concern'd for no Party no Party will be really concern'd for him every one having so much esteem for it self as to think it ought to enjoy more of his favour and countenance than any other And withal 't is an infinite trouble and difficulty to poise them so equally but that one Party shall grow more strong and numerous than the rest and then there is no appeasing their zeal till it has destroyed and swallowed up all the weaker Interests But suppose he be able to manage them so prudently as always to keep the ballance equal he does thereby but keep up so many Parties that are ready form'd to joyn with any emergent Quarrels of State and whenever the Grandees fall out 't is but heading one of these and there is an Army And let men but reflect upon all the late Civil Wars and Rebellions of Christendom and then tell me which way they could either have been commenced or continued had it not been for different Factions of Religion If he side with one Party and by his favour mount it above the rest that not only discontents but combines all the other dissenting Factions into an united opposition against his own and it becomes their common Interest to work and contrive its ruine its prosperity does but exasperate the competition of all its Rivals into rage and indignation and as success makes it self more secure in its settlement so it makes them more restless and industrious to overturn it No Party can ever be quiet or content as long as 't is under any other but will ever be heaving and struggling to dismount the Power that keeps it down and therefore we find that all Dissenters from the establish'd frame of things are always assaulting it with open violence or undermining it by secret practices and will hazard the State and all to free themselves from oppression and oppress'd they are as long as they are the weaker Party And therefore we never find this way of Toleration put in practice under any Government but where other Exigences of State required and kept up a standing Army and by this means 't is not so difficult to prevent the Broils and Contentions of Zeal but this is only a more violent way of governing mens Consciences and instead of restraining them by Laws Penalties it does the same thing with Forts and Cittadels So that unless we are willing to put our selves to the expence and hazard of keeping up standing Forces indulgence to dissenting Zealots does but expose the State to the perpetual squabbles and Wars of Religion And we may as well suppose all men to be wise and honest and upon that account cancel all the Laws of Justice and Civil Government as imagine where there are divided Factions in Religion that men will be temperate and peaceable in the enjoyment of their own conceits and not disturb the publick Peace to promote and establish them when 't is so well known from the experience of all Ages that nothing has ever been a more effectual Engine to work popular Commotions than Changes and Reformations in Religion Sect. 6. So that though the State think it self unconcern'd to restrain mens Perswasions and Opinions yet methinks they should be a little concern'd to prevent the Tumults and Disturbances that naturally arise from their propagation And could it be secured That if all men were indulged their liberty they would use it modestly and be satisfied with their own freedom then I confess Toleration of all Opinions would not be of so fatal and dangerous consequence as if all men were as wise and honest as Socrates they might as well as he be their own Law and left entirely to their own Liberty as to all the entercourses and transactions of Humane life But alas this is made infinitely impossible from the corrupt Passions and Humours of Men All Sects ever were and ever will be fierce and unruly to inlarge their own Interests invading or supplanting whatever opposes their increase and will all certainly conspire the Ruine of that Party that prevails and triumphs over the rest every Faction ever apprehending it its due to be Supreme and there will ever be a necessity of Reformation as long as all Factions are not uppermost and it will be crime enough in any one Party to be superiour to another So that if all our dissenting Sectaries were allowed their entire liberty nothing can be expected especially from people of their complexion but that they should all plot together against the present Establishment of the Church every Combination being fully perswaded of its worthlesness in comparison to it self for unless they had apprehended their own way more excellent they had never divided from ours Beside that 't is a fundamental Principle that runs through all their Sects That they are bound under pain of Eternal Damnation to labour their utmost to establish the Worship of God in in its greatest Purity and Perfection and withal
apprehending that way now established by Law defective and superstitious they cannot but be bound in Conscience to endeavour its utter ruine and subversion which Design when they have once compassed they entertaining the same Opinion of each other as they do of us they will turn their Weapons upon themselves and with as much Zeal contrive each others destruction as they did ours and the result of all will be That the Common-wealth will be eternally torn with intestine Quarrels and Commotions till it grow so wise again as to suppress all Parties but one that is till it return to that wisdom and Prudence from whence it parted by Toleration And therefore nothing can be more vulgarly observable than that though all Parties whilst under the Power of a more prevailing interest have cried up Toleration as the most effectual instrument to shake and dissettle the present frame of things yet have they no sooner effected their Design than they have immediately put in to scramble for the Supremacy themselves which if they once obtain they have ever used with as much rigour and severity upon all Dissenters as they ever felt themselves So that this Principle of Liberty of Conscience much resembles that of community of Goods for as those men cry up equality of Estates as a most reasonable piece of Justice that have but a small share themselves yet whenever their Pretence succeeds and they have advanced their own Fortunes and served their own turns they are the first that shall then cry it down and oppress their inferiours with more cruelty than ever themselves felt whilst in a lower Station so do those whose private perswasions happen to cross the publick Laws easily pretend to Liberty of Conscience One must yield and because their stubborn Zeal scorns to bend to the Commands of Authority these must be forced to give place to that So that when Conscience and Authority happen to encounter all the Dispute is Which shall have most force in Publick Laws whether my own or my Princes opinion But how plausibly soever this Notion may be pleaded by men out of Power 't is ever laid aside as soon as ever they come into it and the greatest pretenders to it when oppress'd are always the greatest Zealots against it as soon as it has mounted themselves into Power as well knowing it to be the most effectual Engine to overturn any settled Frame of things In brief 'T is Reformation men would have and not Indulgence which they only seek to gain ground for the working of their Mines and planting of their Engines to subvert the established state of things For if we demand wherefore they would be born with in their Dissentions from our way of Worship They answer Because they cannot conform to it in Conscience i. e. because they apprehend it sinful for otherwise they must think themselves guilty of the most intollerable Schism and Rebellion to create Factions and Divisions in a Common-wealth when they may avoid it without any violence to their Consciences But if they apprehend our way of Worship upon any account sinful then are they plainly obliged in Conscience to root it out as displeasing to Almighty God and in its stead to plant and establish their own And now if this be the Issue of this Principle let Magistrates consider how fatal and hazardous alterations in Religion have ever been to the Common-wealth They cannot pluck a Pin out of the Church but the State immediately shakes and totters and if they will allow their Subjects the liberty of changing and innovating in Religion as it is apparent from the Premisses they must if they allow them their pretences to liberty of Conscience they do but give them advantages for Eternal Popular Commotions and Disturbances Sect. 7. Fourthly A bare Indulgence of Men in the free exercise of any Religion different from the publick profession can lay no obligation upon the Party Perhaps when the rigour of a Law under which they have smarted a while is at first relaxed this indeed they may at present take for a kindness because 't is really a favour in comparison to their former Condition and therefore as long as the memory of that remains fresh upon their minds it may possibly affect them with some grateful Resentments But alas these affections quickly vanish and then what before was Favour is now become Iustice and their Prince did but restore them to their just and lawful rights when he took off his Tyrannical Laws and Impositions from the Consciences of his best Subjects While those unjust Laws were in force he oppress'd and persecuted the People of God and therefore when he cancels them all the kindness he is guilty of is only to repent of his Tyranny and Persecution which is no favour and by consequence no Obligation And what is more considerable all the dissenting Parties he permits and does not countenance he disobliges Is this all the kindness say they he can afford the Godly not to persecute them by Law and force to their utter ruine Are we beholden to him barely for suffering us to live in our native Soil and enjoy only our fundamental Priviledges Is this all the reward and encouragement we deserve Are not we the praying and serious People of the Nation for whose sakes only the Lord is pleased to stay among us And were it not for us would he not perfectly forsake and abandon it And is this all our requital to be thus slighted and thus despised only for our zeal to God and serviceableness to the Publick by that power and interest we have in him to keep him among us whilst vain and useless persons are countenanced and encouraged with all places of Office and Employment These are the natural results of the minds of men who think themselves scorn'd and disrespected especially when flush'd with any conceit and high opinion of their own Godliness And 't is an eternal Truth That for the godly Party not to be uppermost is and ever will be Persecution For nothing more certain than that all men entertain the best opinion of their own Party otherwise they had never enrolled themselves in it and therefore if the State value them not at as high a rate as they do themselves they are scorn'd and injured because they have not that favour and countenance they deserve And so unless they have Publick encouragement as well as indulgence they have reason to be discontented because they have not their due And if the Prince do not espouse their Party he undervalues and consequently disgusts them and if he joyn himself to any other as there is a necessity of his owning some Profession he does not only disoblige but alienate their Affections by embracing an Interest they both hate and scorn For where-ever there is difference of Religion there is opposition too because men would never divide from one another but upon grounds of real dislike and therefore they are always contrary in those Differences
any Precept in the Word of God that neither has nor indeed can determine all particular Modes and Circumstances of Worship they are so various and so changeable And men may with as much reason search the holy Records for the Methods of Legal Proceedings in our Common Law Courts as for particular Rubricks and Prescriptions of all outward Forms and Circumstances of Publick Worship So that what these men demand is so unreasonable that considering the nature of things 't is impossible Sect. 8. And this may suffice to demonstrate the unparallel'd follies and mischiefs of this Principle Which being all I intend at present I suppose it needless to engage in any further Scholastick Disputes about the nature of indifferent Actions and some other less material Controversies that depend upon this partly because this Principle on which alone they stand being removed they become utterly groundless and so by its Confutation are sufficiently confuted and partly because all this has been so often so fully and so infinitely performed already And of all the Controversies that have ever been started in the world it will be hard to find any that have been more fairly pursued and satisfactorily decided than this of the Church of England against its Puritan Adversaries that has all along been nothing else but a Dispute between Rational Learning and Unreasonable Zeal And it has been no less an unhappiness than it was a Condescension in the Defenders of our Church that they have been forced to waste their time and their parts in baffling the idle Cavils of a few hot-headed and Brain-sick People And there is scarce a greater Instance of the unreasonableness of Mankind than these mens Folly in persisting so obstinately in their old and pitiful Clamours after they have been so convincingly answered and so demonstratively confuted And indeed how is it possible to satisfie such unreasonable men when their greatest Exception against the Constitutions of the Church has ever been no other than That they were the Churches Constitutions Insomuch that if Authority should think good out of compliance with their cross Demands to command what they now think necessary that must then according to their Principles become unlawful because forsooth where they take away the liberty of an Action they destroy its lawfulness Now what possibly could have betrayed men into so absurd a Perswasion but a stubborn Resolution to be refractory to all Authority and to be subject to nothing but their own insolent Humours And as long as they lie under the power of this Perswasion that they are obliged in Conscience to act contrary to whatever their Superiours command them in the Worship of God the Magistrate has no other way left to decoy them into Obedience but by forbidding what he would have them do and commanding what he would have them forbear and then if he will accept to be obeyed by disobedience he shall find them good men the most obedient Subjects in the world Sect. 9. But to return to what I was saying instead of troubling my self with any further Confutation of so baffled a Cause I shall rather chuse to do it more briefly and yet perhaps more effectually by uybraiding them with their shameful Overthrows and daring them but to look those Enemies in the face that have so lamentably cowed them by so many absolute Triumphs and Victories And not to mention divers other Learned and Excellent Persons I shall only single out that famous Champion of our Church Mr. Hooker upon him let them try their Courage though by so safe a Challenge I do but give proof of my own Cowardise How long has his incomparable Book of Ecclesiastical Polity bid shameful defiance to the whole Party and yet never found any so hardy as to venture upon an Encounter Now this Author being confessedly a Person of so much Learning Candour Judgment and Ingenuity and withal so highly prized and insisted upon by the regular and obedient Sons of the Church that they have in a manner cast the issue of the whole Cause upon his performance What is the Reason he was never vouchsafed so much as the attempt of a just Reply 'T is apparent enough both by their Writings and their Actions that they have not wanted Zeal and therefore that he has escaped so long free from all contradiction 't is not for want of good will but ability not because they would not but because they were convinced they could not confute him So that the Book it self is as full and demonstrative a Confutation of their Cause as the matters contained in it i. e. 't is Unanswerable and I know nothing can do it more effectually unless perhaps a Reply to it and shall live an eternal shame and reproach to their Cause when that is dead and would probably have been buried in utter forgetfulness were it not for this Trophy of success against them And therefore until they can at least pretend to have returned some satisfactory Answer to that Discourse they prove nothing but their own impudence whilst they continually pelt us with their Pamphlets and such little Exceptions that have been so long since so shamefully and demonstratively baffled Sect. 10. And whereas they are wont in order to the making their Principles look more plausibly to stuff their Discourses with frequent and tragical Declamations against Popery Will-worship Superstition c. I cannot perswade my self 't is worth the labour to wipe off such idle reproaches by solemnly discoursing these matters both because this has been so frequently and fully performed already and because though these outcries have been made use of to affright silly People yet few if any of their Ring-leaders are still so fond either to own this Charge against us or to plead it in their own Justification Only I cannot but observe of all these and the like Pretences that we need not any stronger Arguments against themselves than their own Objections against us For if in this Case there be any Superstition 't is they that are guilty of it For this Vice consists not so much in the nature of things as in the apprehensions of men when their minds are possessed with weak and unworthy conceits of God Now he that conforms to the received Customs and Ceremonies of a Church does it not so much upon the account of any intrinsick value of the things themselves as out of a sense of the necessity of Order and of the Duty of Obedience whereas he that scrupulously refuses to Use and Practise them takes a wrong estimate of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness and imagines that God judges his Creatures by nice and pettish Laws and lays a greater stress upon a doubtful or indifferent Ceremony than upon the great Duty of Obedience and the peace and tranquillity of the Church So that the Principles upon which we proceed are no other than That as the Divine Law has prescribed the Substantial Duties of Religion so it has left its Modes and Circumstances
and the certainty not the suspition of sin is to be objected that is presumption enough for any modest and sober man to conclude their innocence and still to retain the scruple is folly and peevishness and then the Conscience is not doubtful but obstinate and peremptory The man is resolved to cherish his scruple and persist in his folly and if he will not be satisfied it is not because he is weak and timorous but because he is stubborn and dis-ingenuous And then he pretends Conscience only to vouch his humour and his insolence i. e. he is a villain and an hypocrite and is so far from deserving pity especially from Authority that no offenders can more need or provoke their severity in that such men resolve to tire out their Governors by their inflexible stubbornness and to affront their Laws with trifles and contemptuous Exceptions At the first setlement of a Church or new Religion then indeed mens old follies prejudices and weaknesses ought to be charitably considered and they are not to be forced into new Customs and Usages by too much rigor and severity but ought to be gently and tenderly treated till time and better information may wear off their scruples and little exceptions And this was the case of the Iews in the first Ages of Christianity who were at first indulged in their weak and trifling conceits because then they might reasonably be presumed to arise from a pitiable ignorance and dissetlement of Conscience But as soon as the Abrogation of the Mosaick Institution was fully declared and acknowledged in the Church they were brought under the common yoke of Discipline and were not permitted to plead their Doubts and Scruples against publick Laws and Constitutions And this too is our present case men labour to support an old Schism by out-worn scruples and jealousies and will persevere in their doubts because they are resolved never to be satisfied for otherwise it were impossible that after so much time and so much satisfaction they could still remain unresolved And if whole Armies of Reason have not been sufficient to chase away all their little and imaginary fears Yet methinks so long time and so much experience might be sufficient to convince them that they are but shadows and illusions of their own melancholy Fancies for had they been real and substantial things it is impossible they should ever have escaped the discovery of so long and so severe a scrutiny But if nor time nor reason can disabuse them it is not their ignorance but their obstinacy that is invincible Thus v. g. when to kneel at the Communion is in it self an handsom and decent action in that this Sacrament is the most solemn piece of gratitude or worship in the Christian Religion and a peculiar acknowledgment of our vast and unspeakable obligations to our Redeemer and therefore to be performed with the profoundest Reverence and Humility And when these men themselves are not only ready to observe but also to enjoyn the same posture in their ordinary Prayers and other less solemn expressions of Devotion and when the power of the Church has actually determined and required this reverent posture to stamp a peculiar sacredness and solemnity upon this Duty no man can possibly now scruple its practice without affected contempt and wilful disobedience because they cannot but be convinced unless they are resolved against it of the vanity and dis-ingenuity of their old pretence Namely lest they should be interpreted to give religious Worship to the Elements and by lying prostrate before the Bread and Wine they should become guilty of Idolatry in giving Divine Worship to a sensless piece of matter For when they plead this excuse for their disobedience they cannot but be conscious to themselves that by it they do not only despise but slander and reproach the Laws that they out-face and traduce Authority and would force their Governours to believe and confess that they favour what they expresly abhor seeing the very same Law that enjoyns this Ceremony provides so expresly against this abuse and declares so industriously That it is so far from designing any reverence to the Creatures themselves that it abhors it but only requires it as it is used in all other Religious addresses to Heaven And if notwithstanding all this men will dread it as a piece of Idolatry because forsooth it has been or may be abused to that purpose I say no more than that if such thin and frivolous scruples may out-weigh the Laws and evacuate our obligations to obedience there are none in the World that are not as apparently liable to as dis-ingenuous surmises and they may as rationally forbear looking up towards Heaven in their prayers lest they should worship the Clouds or the Sun Moon and Stars But the truth of it is some men study for impertinent scruples to ensnare themselves and labour to raise great doubts from little reasons and cannot be satisfied because they will not they have enslaved themselves to their follies and boared their ears to their scruples and are resolved to grow old in a voluntary bondage to trifles and fooleries Now it is necessary for people of this humour to streighten the Laws till they have made them too severe and rigorous to be obeyed to draw their knot till it becomes troublesom and uneasie to put them upon the Wrack and stretch them beyond or beside their own intention by rare and extraordinary cases by harsh and unkind Interpretations and by far-fetch'd and disingenuous suspicions and under the shelter of such precarious pretences as no Law can possibly avoid they refuse the Liberty that is given them to obey the Laws only that they may take the Licence to disobey them In brief the main Mystery of all this niceness though themselves have not wit enough to observe its first causes is for the most part nothing but a little pride and vain-glory It is a glorious thing to suffer for a tender Conscience and therefore it is easie and natural for some people to affect some little scruples against the Commands of Authority thereby to make themselves obnoxious to some little Penalties and then what godly men are they that are so ready to be punished for a good Conscience How do such men hug and nurse their dear scruple All the reason and all the perswasion in the World shall never be able to wrest it from them It is their Ephod and their Teraphim the only mark of their Godliness and symbol of their Religion and if you rob them of that you take away their gods And what have they more Sect. 3. If my Conscience be really weak and tender What can become it more than humble obedience and submission to Authority Weakness of Conscience always proceeds in some measure from want of wit and therefore to make this the pretence of disobedience is in effect to say I will controul the wisdom of my Superiours because I have little or none my self Certainly where
his Governours with nice and curious disputes the Authority of the Law stifles all scruples and trifling objections And thus where there was no apparent repugnancy to the Law of God we find none more compliant and conformable in all other things than the Apostles freely using any Customs of the Synagogue or Iewish Church that were not expresly cancelled by some Divine Prohibition But further this their Apology is as forcible a Plea in concerns of Civil Justice and common honesty as in Matters of Religion it holds equally in both in cases of a certain and essential injustice and fails equally in both in doubtful and less material cases and was as fairly urged by that famous Lawyer Papinian who upon this account when the Emperor commanded him to defend and justifie the lawfulness of Parricide chose rather to die than to Patronize so monstrous a villany Here the wickedness was great and palpable But in matters more doubtful and less material where the case is nice and curious and not capable of any great Interest or great reason there Obedience out-weighs and evacuates all Doubts Jealousies and suspicions And what wise or honest man will offend or provoke his Superiours upon thin pretences and for little regards And if every man that can raise doubts and scruples and nice Exceptions against a Law shall therefore set himself free from its obligation then farewel all Peace and all Government For what more easie to any man that understands the Fundamental Grounds and Reasons of Moral Equity than to pick more material quarrels against the Civil Laws of any Common-wealth than our Adversaries can pretend to against our Ecclesiastical Constitutions And now shall a Philosopher be excused from obedience to the Laws of his Country because he thinks himself able to make exceptions to their Prudence and Convenience and to prove them not so useful to the Publick nor so agreeable to the Fundamental Rules of natural Justice and Equity as himself could have contrived What if I am really perswaded that I can raise much more considerable objections against Littletons Tenures than ever these men have or shall be able to produce against our Ceremonial Constitutions Though it be easie to be mistaken in my conceit yet whether I am or am not it is all one if I am confident And now it would be mightily conducive to the interests of Justice and Publick Peace for me and all others of my Fond Perswasion in this particular to make Remonstrances to the Laws of the Land to Petition the King and Parliament to leave us at the liberty of our own Conscience and Discretion to follow the best Light God has given us for the setlement of our own estates because we think we can do it more exactly according to the Laws of Natural Iustice than if we are tied up to the positive Laws of the Land Thus that groundless and arbitrary maxim of the Law That inheritances may lineally descend but not lineally ascend whereby the Father is made uncapable of being immediate Heir to the Son would be thought by a Philosopher prejudicial to one of the most equal and most ingenuous Laws of Nature viz. The gratitude of Children to Parents which this Law seems in a great measure to hinder by alienating those things from them whereby we are best able to express it What if I have been happy in a loving and tender Father that has been strangely solicitous to leave me furnished with all the comforts and conveniences of life that declined not to forego any share of his own ease and happiness to procure mine that has spent the greatest part of his care and industry to bless me according to the proportion of his abilities with a good fortune and a good education and has perhaps out of an over-tender solicitude for my welfare reduc'd himself to great streights and exigences How monstrous unnatural must the contrivance of this Law appear to me that when the bounty of Providence has blest me with a fortune answerable to the good old Mans desires and endeavours if I should happen to be cut off before him by an untimely death all that whereby I am able to recompence his Fatherly tenderness should in the common and ordinary course of Law be conveyed from him to another person the stream of whose affections was confined to another Channel and who being much concerned for his own Family could in all probability be but little concerned for me What an unnatural and unjust Law is this that designs as far as it can to cut off the streams of our natural Affections and disposes of our possessions contrary to the very first tendencies and obligations of Nature So easie a thing is it to talk little Plausibilities against any Laws whose obligation is positive and not of a prime and absolute necessity And yet down-right Rebellion it would be if I or any man else should refuse subjection to these and the like Laws upon these the like pretences And thus we see is the case all the way equal between Laws Civil and Laws Ecclesiastical In all matters greatly and notoriously wicked the nature of the action out-weighs the duty of Obedience but in all cases less certain and less material the duty of Obedience out-weighs the nature of the action And this may suffice to shew from the Subject Matters of all doubts and scruples That they are not of consideration great enough to be opposed to the commands of Authority And this leads me from the matter of a scrupulous Conscience to consider its Authority And therefore Sect. 5. As the objects of a scrupulous Conscience are of too mean importance to weigh against the mischiefs of Disobedience so are its obligations too weak to prevail against the commands of Publick Authority For when two contradictory obligations happen to encounter the greater ever cancels the less because if all good be eligible then so are all the degrees of goodness too And therefore to that side on which the greater good stands our duty must ever incline otherwise we despise all those degrees of goodness it contains in it above the other For in all the Rules of Goodness there is great inequality and variety of degrees some are prescribed for their own native excellency usefulness and others purely for their subserviency to these Now when a greater a lesser virtue happen to clash as it frequently falls out in the transaction of Humane Affairs there the less always gives place to the greater because it is good only in order to it and therefore where its subordination ceases there its goodness ceases and by consequence its obligation For no subordinate or instrumental dutys are absolutly commanded or commended but become good or evil by their Accidental Relations their goodness is not intrinsick but depends upon the goodness of their end and their being directed to a good end if they are not intrinsically evil makes them virtuous because their Morality is entirely relative and
affected and new-fangled singularity And from hence it is that it is so absolutely necessary that Governors injoin matters of no great moment and consequence in themselves thereby to avoid the evils that would naturally attend upon their being not injoined so that when they are determined though perhaps they are not of any great use to the Commonwealth in themselves yet they have at least this considerable usefulness as to prevent many great mischiefs that would probably follow from their being not determined And therefore the goodness of all such Laws is to be valued not so much by the nature of the things that the Law commands as by the mischiefs and evil effects that it prevents or redresses And thus the main decency of Order and Uniformity in Divine Worship lies not so properly in the positive use of the Rites themselves as in the prevention of all the indecencies of Confusion which could never be avoided if there were not some peculiar Rites positively determined So that the Law we see may be absolutely necessary when the thing it commands is but meerly indifferent because some things necessary cannot be obtained but by some things indifferent As in our present case there is an absolute necessity there should be Order and Decency in Publick Worship but Order and Decency there cannot be without the determination of some indifferent particular Circumstances because if every man were left to his own fancy and humor there could be no remedy against eternal Follies and Confusions So that it is in general necessary that some circumstances be determined though perhaps no one particular circumstance can be necessary yet when any one is singled out by Authority it gains as absolute a necessity as if it were so antecedently because though the thing it self be indifferent yet the Order and Decency of Publick Worship is not Which yet can never be provided for but by determining either this or some other Ceremony as perfectly indifferent and arbitrary And now upon the result of these particulars I leave it first to Publick Authority to consider whether it be not a wonderfully wise piece of good nature to be tender indulgent to these poor tender Consciences And then I leave it to all the World to judge Whether ever any Church or Nation in the World has been so wofully disturbed upon such slender and frivolous pretences as ours And thus have I at length finished what I designed and undertook i. e. I have proved the absolute necessity of governing mens Consciences and Perswasions in Matters of Religion the unavoidable dangers of tolerating or keeping up Religious Differences have shewn that there is not the least possibility of setling a Nation but by Uniformity in Religious Worship that Religion may and must be governed by the same Rules as all other Affairs Transactions of Humane life and that nothing can do it but severe Laws nor they neither unless severely executed And so I submit it to the consideration of Publick Authority and am but little doubtful of the Approbation of all that are friends to Peace and Government But whatever the event may prove to others it is not a little satisfaction that I reap to my self in reflecting upon that Candor and Integrity I have used through the whole Discourse In that as I have freely and impartially represented the most serious result of mine own thoughts so withal have I been not a little solicitous not to baulk any thing material in the Controversie have encountred all their most weighty and considerable Objections have prevented all manner of escapes and subterfuges and have not waved any thing because it was too hard to be answered though some things I have because too easie And upon review of the whole I have confidence perhaps it may be boldness enough to challenge the Reader if he will but be as ingenuous as he ought to be as severe as he will and in defiance to all Enemies of Peace and Government of what Name or Sect soever to conclude all in the words of Pilate to the turbulent Iews What I have written I have written FINIS * Vide Continuation of the Friendly Debate pag. 120 c. Socr. l. 5. Praes Lib. 3.