censure of my Ignorance and I hope by this time he is satisfied 't is not absolutely impossible but that our Author may boldly affirm what he knows not how to prove and confidently undertake what he is not able to perform However a modest Man would either not have mentioned this Exception or would have made it good and not have presumed that the World should take his Brags for Arguments and take it for a reasonable Confutation of my Assertion because he says he can confute it aye that he can This is the most it amounts to and whether it be his Intention or no he might have said nothing to as much purpose as to say so much and no more But other Men would stand still as fast as this Man gallops and when he comes to the end of his career he is just where he was at the beginning § 12. And yet the next proof is just as wise and as wonderful as this viz. That this Power I have ascribed to the Civil Magistrate is not derived from Christ or any Grant of his but is antecedent to his coming or any Power given unto him or granted by him But what is all this to his Inference of the Magistrates absolute and immediate Power over Conscience That Power in which God vested Princes must be such as is compatible with his own Supremacy and that consists in his absolute and immediate Soveraignty over the Minds of his reasonable Creatures and therefore was in its own Nature uncapable of being granted away to any subordinate Authority But however you will conclude with him from this Principle that Magistrates owe no Allegiance and Subjection to the Scepter of Christ seeing they derive not their Authority from his Commission but were instated in its actual Possession before ever he was advanced to the Government of the Universe I say No for though they were vested in an ancient and original Right yet its Continuance ever since he commenced his Empire depends meerly upon his Confirmation in that whoever does not reverse a former Grant confirms it And therefore though they were impowered to govern the Church of God antecedent to our Saviours Supremacy yet that they are still intrusted with the same Authority they owe entirely to his Soveraign will and pleasure because 't is now in his Power to devest them of this or any other of their ancient Prerogatives so that seeing he has thought good to continue the Government of the World in the same state and posture he found it in Princes are not now less indebted to him for the Grant of their Imperial Power than if they had been at first instated in it by his immediate and and positive Commission And to this purpose did I discourse in that Paragraph out of which he has singled this Proposition viz. to shew how unreasonable it is for Men to demand an express Grant from our Saviour to Civil Magistrates for the Government of his Church when they were already establish't in the full exercise of this Jurisdiction by the right of Nature and the consent of Nations so that in stead of requiring this of us they are rather obliged to shew where he has expresly disrobed and aliened the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction from the Royal Prerogative for if he have not there is no pretence or exception but that it still continues as inseparable a Right of the Supreme Magistrate in every Nation as if he had setled it upon him by his own positive and immediate Institution His next Exception is down-right Jugling viz. That I assert That Magistrates have a Power to make that a particular of the Divine Law which God had not made so and to introduce new Duties in the most important parts of Religion He knows these words have no relation in the place where they stand to matters of meer Religion and immediate Worship but are spoken onely of the Duties and Offices of Morality which I had before proved to be the main Designs and most essential Parts of Religion and likewise shewn that the Civil Magistrate was impower'd to introduce upon the Divine Law new Duties and Instances of Moral Vertue from whence I thought it but reasonable to conclude his Power over the outward Expressions of Religious Worship that are but circumstances or at highest but subordinate and less material Duties if compared to the great and important Vertues of Morality Whether my Proposition or my Inference be reasonable or no concerns not our present Enquiry our Author in this place puts in no Exception against them but whether this Quotation be either honestly or pertinently alledged against me do you judge when he could not but know that these words whether true or false could have no imaginable reference to matters of Religious Worship properly so called but were expresly limited to the Instances of Moral Goodness that yet he should produce them in this feat shuffling and uncertain manner of Expression onely that the common People might not understand them as they relate to my account and Notion of Religion i. e. as it takes in Duties of Morality but in the Vulgar sense of the word as it signifies Religious Worship This you see is wretched Troth but that which follows is glorious and undaunted Slander when he immediately subjoins to the former words So that there is a publick Conscience which Men are in things of a publick Concern relating to the Worship of God to attend unto and not to their own And if there be any sin in the Command he that imposed it shall answer for it and not I whose whole duty it is to obey This Inference being so immediately tack't to the former Proposition its unavoidable result must be this at least That as to the most important parts of Religion there is a publick Conscience to which Men are to attend and not to their own This is somewhat rank Doctrine and favours not a little of the Leviathan But yet how can I avoid it are not these my own words Though that I might deny yet am I content to confess that I have said something not much unlike them in the sixth Section of my last Chapter where in answer to the Pretence of a tender a scrupulous and an unsatisfied Conscience among many other things I have shewn that in doubtful and disputable Cases of a publick Concernment private Men are not properly sui Iuris and are not to be directed by their own Judgments nor determined by their own Wills but by the Commands and Determinations of the Publick Conscience Now does it not admirably become our Authors modesty to take this Assertion concerning such nice and petty things as are liable to doubt scruple and Disputation and couple it with another sentence above two hundred Pages distance that speaks of the most important parts of Religion as if they had been spoken upon the same occasion and related to the same matter thereby to abuse his vulgar and unwary Reader into a round
will not so far submit my self to the power of his Malice as to make Protestations to the World or Appeals to Heaven as some tender Constitutions would have done But I defie all the weak Attempts of malevolent Tongues False Slanders as they spread so they vanish like Lightning and to Men wise and honest the flash appears and dis-appears at once and he that is concerned for the good Opinion of such as are neither puts himself upon an harder Game then I am willing to play or able to manage And though in three Lines I could not onely answer but shame his base and proofless Surmises of the Unworthiness of my Aims by making it appear that so far I was from having any ill design that I was not in a Capacity of having any at all yet I will rather chuse utterly to neglect this and all his other mean and unworthy Arts of Malice as being satisfied that when Men would discredit their Adversaries by such unhandsom Reflections upon their Persons and private Affairs as are altogether impertinent to the Matters in debate they prove nothing but the strength of their Malice and weakness of their Cause Nay so outragious is our Author that when he comes to reflect upon my Satyr against Atheism he blows upon it with as much scorn and rancour as upon the sharpest and most pointed Invectives against themselves As if no Man could write against their Party but he must immediately be stricken with a Spirit of Infatuation and forfeit all use of his Reason and his Understanding and were not able to discourse pertinently upon the most pregnant and most noble Argument in the World But so it is though you speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels and though you understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge yet if you have not Charity for them you are no better then sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbal And yet had he onely slighted and scorn'd my weak Essay upon this Theme it would have been none of the most remarkable Instances of his Incivility but to spit his rankest Venom at it is unexemplified Candour and Ingenuity And among all the ugly Suggestions he has darted at me he has not aimed any with more malice and bitterness of spirit then those he has bolted upon this occasion but whatsoever foul Language I may deserve upon other accounts I appeal to the hottest Zealot of his own Dispensation whether it were discreetly or civilly done to cast Reproaches at me whilst I was exposing Prophaneness and Irreligion to publick shame A man that had not been utterly transported with Rage and Envy would have had the discretion to have vented his Choler upon more seasonable opportunities for now alas he effectually defeats his own Malice by treating me with the same rudeness when I deserve well as when I deserve ill from which way of procedure what else can the World conclude but that the Man raves and cares not what he says so he may abuse and defame me But upon this occasion he has intimated a considerable Truth viz. That there is less danger in this kind of Atheism that vents its self in little Efforts of Wit and Drollery then in those Attempts that under Pretences of sober Reason propagate such Opinions and Principles as have a direct Tendency to the Subversion of the Grounds of Religion It is well advised and they would do well to consider it that invalidate the Rational Accounts of the Christian Faith and destroy all sober Grounds of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures that undermine the Evidence of Miracles and Universal Tradition and resolve the Motives of its Credibility into vain and frivolous Pretences What greater Advantage can any Man give to the Enemies of Religion then to inform them That the Alcoran may vie Miracles and Traditions with the Scripture and then in their stead produce no other proof of its Divine Authority then what the Alcoran may as well plead without their concurrence and such is the Testimony of the Spirit if it convince not in a rational way and by the use of Motives and Arguments for remove their Evidence and then all pretences to Inspiration become uncertain and unaccountable and there remains no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish between a true and a false Testimony And what greater disservice can any man do to the Interest of Religion then to draw bold and horrid Consequences in behalf of Atheists Papists and Antiscripturists from every petty Controversie Does not he effectually invite Men to a neglect of the holy Scriptures that tells them they can have neither Truth nor Certainty if there be various Readings in the Original Texts and yet confesseth that Ocular Inspection makes it manifest that there are various Readings both in the Old Testament and the New and it 's confessed there have been failings in the Transcribers who have often mistaken and that it is impossible it should be otherwise I must acknowledge my self a little surprised to hear our Author question whether there be such a thing as speculative Atheism in the World and yet himself can discover a wide door to it in every Proposition even in the Lords Prayer it self It is somewhat prodigious that when so many Men in all Ages have made so many Attempts to enter at this Door they should never be able to light upon such an easie and such an open passage § 9. Another passage that he chides and cavils at is the account I gave why I instill'd so much tartness and severity into some Expressions from the Example of our Saviours behaviour in the Temple where I observed that there was but one single instance in which Zeal or an high Indignation might be just and warrantable and that is when it vents its self against the Arrogance of haughty peevish and sullen Religionists The Rashness of this Assertion he checks and controuls with authentick Precedents and Examples out of the old Testament though every illiterate Peasant could have inform'd him of the vast difference between the Jewish and the Christian Oeconomy theirs was a more harsh and severe institution the temper of their Zeal was more fierce and warlike and in some Cases to kill a Brother out of hatred to Idolatry was a commendable Action and at some times Swords and Daggers were the means of Grace as they lately were of Reformation Their Zealots were priviledged to execute any more notorious Offender without the Forms and Solemnities of Legal Process But their Examples are no warrantable Precedents for our Practice and our Author might as pertinently have prescribed to my imitation the Act of Elias for a blameless and a justifiable instance of Zeal as that of Phinehas And as for the Example of our blessed Saviour he pretends grievous Resentments for the Irreverence of my Expressions towards him such as hot fit of Zeal seeming Fury and transport of Passion though I know not how I could have expressed my self in more
that an useful one too yet so far is it from being the main drift much less the onely one as our Author intimates of those Composures that 't is least of any thing pursued and the Bulk of those Treatises is taken up with discovering as I before observed the feebleness of their beloved Notions the wildness of their Practices the unwarrantableness of their Schism the prevarication of their Pretences and the inconsistency of their Principles This was his Theme and had it been his Title his Performance would not onely have justified but exceeded his Undertaking But all this is obstinately overlook't and the whole business is every where represented by our Author as if all that Ink and Paper had been wasted onely to carp at uncouth Phrases and Expressions With such Confidence and Dexterity can these Men slight what they cannot answer But upon this occasion you may observe the Reasonableness of a Motion I made That Preachers might be obliged to speak Sense as well as Truth Because these Men cajole and amaze the simple Multitude with palpable Non-sense and when they pour forth a senseless Jargon of Kitchen-Metaphors and Rascal Similitudes the People admire the preciousness of the Mystery and they talk like Men encircled with Glories and dictate their Cant with the Raptures of an Angel and the Authority of an Apostle and 't is they onely that understand the secrets of the Gospel and the spirituality of the Covenant of Grace and this betrays them unavoidably into a Fanatick Enthusiasm fills their little Heads with wild Frenzies and infatuating Conceits and the whole business of Religion is transacted in their Imaginations And they take it for a special work of Conversion to be affected with precious Mr. Such-an-one's Doctrine and to profit under his Ministry i. e. to sigh at his Sermons and look demurely half an hour after And what can be more obvious to any Mans Observation then that all the Change that appears in most of their Converts is That their Tongues-ends are tipt with a new set of Phrases that they talk by roat and by chance and under this demureness of Language they shelter their old Vices of Envy Peevishness Arrogance Spight Hatred Malice and Covetousness These Infirmities are not any where so gross and visible as among Professors they are the surest Marks and most distinctive Characters of the Godly Party and 't is hugely rare to meet with any of these new-fangled Saints that does not discover the clearest and most irksom appearances of some or all these Vices Their natural sense of Religion is not onely appeased but abundantly satisfied with this phantastick Godliness and this staves them off from all farther Thoughts of a Thorough and Effectual Reformation And now upon this account it is that I proposed to have Preachers obliged to speak Sense as well as Truth but is not this an uncouth Motion says our Author seeing hitherto it has been supposed that every Proposition that is either true or false has a proper determinate Sense and if Sense it have not it can be neither And is not this Eristically spoken and as becomes a Man puissant in Polemick Squabble Who could have nickt me with such a subtilty but one that knows all his Advantages and is thoroughly experienced in all the shifts of Cavil But yet by his leave because every Proposition that is either true or false must have a determinate Sense is it therefore necessary that what has no determinate Sense must be either true or false If it be not then Men may speak Non-sense and yet speak neither and then what becomes of this pert and doubty Exception And when these Men do as much dis-service to Religion by Non-sense as by false Doctrine what can be more seasonably proposed then that they should be as well obliged to speak Sense as they are to speak Truth and as well punish't for Canting as for Heresie seeing as they manage it 't is as pernicious to the Peace of the Church and the Interest of Religion § 11. But our Author proceeds Some of the Things reflected on and carped at are such as those who have used or asserted them dare modestly challenge him in their defence to make good his Charge in a Personal Conference This is somewhat pitiful and methinks his high Spirit stoops below it self for there is no such submissive Confession of a publick Overthrow as to demand private Conferences 't is the Refuge of all baffled People and all the Triflers in the World may shelter themselves in this Sanctuary though they can never recover it unless by flight And I doubt not but Philagathus himself can brag among his Neighbours and Acquaintance that the Author of the Friendly Debate dares not accept this Challenge and that if he could but talk with him he could easily revenge himself to purpose aye that he could And though never was poor Man more piteously bruised and havock't yet by this lamentable Cordial he makes shift to asswage the pain of his Disaster and to support the spruntness of his Humour But alas this is plain crossing the Cudgels when they perceive themselves overmatch't they are ashamed to confess a baffle and yet not able to bear up against the briskness of their Assailant and therefore to abate the publickness of the disgrace they desire to finish the Combat in a private Corner and then though they are beaten they can boast the Victory and can crow and strut and triumph when they flie the Pit But Men that can speak Reason can certainly pen what they speak and therefore if they cannot defend themselves by Writing they can never be able to do it by Talking And if W. B. can prove by word of mouth his Hoops and his Wallâ—ps and his Vermin to be Gospel-Mysteries 't is no great pains to dictate the same words to a Brachygrapher But our Author tells us That the wisest man living when he is gagg'd with a Quill is not able to speak and yet he may write for all that for Gaggs tie not Mens hands and therefore I see not how 't is possible W. B. should better clear himself by word of mouth then by Ink and Paper There is no way imaginable but by eating his Gagg and recanting what he has written However the Author of the Debate is not at leisure to attend to the Impertinencies of every Talking Man His design was to discover their lamentable Follies and Impostures to the World let them clear themselves to the Publick and he is satisfied but upon his own account he neither needs nor desires satisfaction So that in short these Demands of Personal Conferences are but a more cleanly way of yielding the Cause for no Men will ever sit down under a publick baffle that know how to help themselves But if nothing will stop our Mouths our Author thinks he can easily threaten us into better manners For if they would retort upon us and give in a Charge against
a praying People zealous for the Lord and his Sabboths they were for the Power of Godliness and spent the greatest part of their time in Communion with God and in attendance upon his Ordinances but as for the Heathen Vertues of Morality they scorn'd to trouble themselves about such low and beggarly Duties but left their practice to the common and prophane Herd of Mankind This was the way and spirit of the Men and the Ingredients of the Pharisaick Leven were false Godliness and Spiritual Pride They were highly conceited of their own extraordinary Attainments and this made them turn so deaf an ear to all our Saviours Doctrines and Reproofs and this was their Selfrighteousness as opposed to the Righteousness of the Gospel They had spun to themselves a motley-Motley-Religion partly out of the Corruptions of the Law of Moses and partly out of their own phantastick Traditions and upon its observance they valued themselves above other Men and challenged their acceptance with God so that it consisted not at all in trusting in their own real but in their own imaginary Righteousness neither is the Righteousness of Faith that was set up by our Saviour and his Apostles in its defiance opposed to true and inherent Goodness but to a false and imaginary Godliness And 't is so far from being any criminal Arrogance either in them or in us to trust in our own Righteousness that if men would suffer themselves to understand common sense in the last Issue of things we have nothing else to trust to For we have no other ground to expect the divine Acceptance but by performing the Conditions of the Evangelical Covenant i. e. a sincere and hearty Obedience to all the Laws of the Gospel and without this to rely upon our Saviours merits is intolerable Folly and Presumption A good Conscience is the only Ground of a Fiducial Recumbency for that is the word upon the Merits and Mercies of Christ for Salvation For though our Saviour died to expiate our Sins yet God knows he never intended to supply our Duties and 't is certain as the Gospel is true that all the Priviledges of his Death and Sufferings are Conditional and entail'd upon some peculiar Qualifications in the Persons to whom they belong otherwise wicked Men and Infidels might lay as fair a claim to the benefit as the holiest Man living and therefore 't is in vain for the boldest Faith to offer to lay hold upon them unless its Confidence be built upon a sincere Obedience so that our Right to Gods Promise and Christs Satisfaction for the pardon and forgiveness of our Sins is the purchase of an Holy Life and imputative Righteousness is part of the reward promised to inherent Righteousness And therefore 't is not Moral Goodness and a well-grounded Trust in it but Immoral Godliness and a proud Presumption upon it that keeps Men off from closing with the Terms and Doctrines of the Gospel 'T is the conceited and mistaken Professor or the vicious and immoral Saint that is of all Men the most desperate and incurable Sinner Spiritual Pride is the Carnal Confidence that hardens him into a final impenitency He thinks himself so full of Grace and Godliness that he needs no Vertue he is already a Child of God and in a state of Grace and then what need of any other Conversion And this was the Case of the Scribes and Pharisees and for this reason were those supercilious and self-confident Professors at a farther distance from the Kingdom of Heaven than the Publicans and Harlots These our Saviour could convince of their Lewdness and Debauchery from the notorious wickedness of their Lives and Conversations and could by his civil and gentle Reproofs soften them into a relenting and pliable temper but as for those their false and mistaken Piety only made them more obdurate and obstinate in sin fear'd their Consciences against the force of his sharpest Reproofs and Convictions and consign'd them up to an unyielding and inflexible peevishness § 7. As for his Animadversions upon the following Pages of this Chapter they are so lamentably feeble and impertinent that as there is not any necessity to encounter so there is no glory to vanquish them and withal the reason of that part of my Discourse is in it self so clearly firm and impregnable that methinks it seems to disdain any other fence and protection against his weak and womanish Talkings And therefore I had once determined to think of no other Reply than barely to request of the Reader what I may justly challenge viz. That he would compare and consider us together and if upon an attentive Perusal my Arguments do not discover themselves to be vastly above the reach and the danger of his vain Attempts I will for ever scorn and renounce such faint and defenceless Reasonings For alas there is nothing of any consequence objected that was not clearly foreseen and abundantly prevented insomuch that the Discourse it self is its own best guard and strongest defence And 't is not a little difficult to contrive Arguments more apposite to baffle his Answers than those very Reasonings against which they are levell'd 'T is not in my Power to keep off the Attempts of Noise and Clamour 't is enough if I can fend and secure my self against reasonable Exceptions as for Impertinencies they do but discover their own folly and weakness and the more bold and boisterous their Assault the greater is the Repulse they put upon themselves not unlike to a Rock which you have seen unconcern'd in the midst of Storms and Tempests it slights and regards not the fury of the Waves and onely suffers them to dash in pieces their rage and themselves together And thus has this Man no where more shamefully exposed the wretchedness of his folly and presumption than by the pertness and French-Confidence of this Attaque for as I know not where his Censures are more peremptory so neither do I remember where their Vanity is more transparent But this is a vulgar stratagem of some Men to make the greatest shew where they have the least strength and to set off what they want of Reason with big Looks and emphatical Confidence But to be short the strength of my present Argument was couched in this method Having first shewn Moral Duties to be the choicest most important Matters of Religion so as to reduce all its Branches either to the Vertues or to the Instruments of Morality I proceeded in the next place that seeing the Civil Magistrate was by the unanimous Suffrage and a vowed Principles of Mankind vested in a Soveraign Power over the main Ends and Designs of Religion to demand what imaginable Reason the Wit of Man could assign why matters of External Worship that cannot challenge any other Use or any higher Office in the Scale of Religion than of Ministeries or Circumstances should be exempt from the Conduct and Government of the same Authority And this I farther both improved and
before he comes to the main issue of the business and like a discreet and reserved Man seems to keep back the main thing that he could say the whole Secret is not to be unriddled at once No! the Reader must content himself with a transient tast at first and then feed his expectation with the gracious Promise of future Discoveries and Revelations never to be revealed But he has his Magazine of unanswerable Arguments and Objections that I am confident we shall never Answer though for no other reason then because we shall never hear them You have read the Memoirs of Tom Coriat whose custom it is to enlarge upon Toys and Trifles He is circumstantial in his Remarks upon his Hosts Beard and in his Description of his Sign-post but scarce takes notice of any thing great and glorious and passes by Princes Palaces Forts and Citadels and all the greatest Strengths and Ornaments of Kingdoms And to the same purpose has this Man spent his Travels through my Book where he lights upon any passage that is less important in it self and more remote from my main design he dwells and expatiates upon it with double diligence And so industrious is he to collect the smallest and least considerable passages as if he were resolved nothing in my Book should escape his Correction And how bravely does he amplifie upon Words and little Trifles as if he had determined not to spare the nicest Errour to expose my Ignorance but had engaged to sift me with such an exact and merciless disquisition that rather then any thing should escape him he would measure Atoms and weigh Grains But when he approaches my main design how slightly does he balk the weightiest Reasonings how nimbly does he frisk over the greatest Difficulties and how dexterously does he beat beside the main Questions and if he now and then stay to glance at any more enforcing proof 't is extraordinary But some Arguments he winks at and some he out-faces those he confutes with a Pish and these with a Vapour and heaps up every where I know not what general Censures and Exceptions but nothing is either proved or specified and he is so admirably accomplish't in all the arts of tediousness and impertinency that he can waste a whole Page of Words to no other purpose and with no more sense then to deny a Proposition or slight an Argument and yet not allow a Line to confute it He is fluent and runs over in Expressions where there is no need but where there is he immediately becomes dry in his Discourse and thrifty of his Words and has consumed more Pages in loose and precarious Censures then he has in making Premises and Conclusions And if such Talk may pass for pertinent Replys he may undertake the Defence of any Cause and 't is indifferent which side he abets his Answers will serve equally at all turns and to all purposes he may turn the same Declamations upon his own Castles in the Air and then they are all beaten down about his ears but if he would have allotted all that time and all those Pages to confute my Arguments that he has spent to rail and declaim against them his Book would not have been so much less as it must have been better Instances of this sort are innumerable and therefore I shall not here be so tedious as to accumulate particulars because it would be endless onely let me request you to reflect upon this suggestion as you travel through his dry and barren Pages and then your own Observation will too pregnantly confirm and justifie mine And therefore quitting this more general Consideration that is onely forcible upon impartial and ingenuous Minds I shall address my self to some more particular and convictive Remarks § 18. 2. One of his choicest Helps to swell up the Bulk of his Answer is to break out at every turn into Tragical Complaints against the tartness of my Invectives and Satyrical Expressions and this Topick he seems to keep for a reserve upon all occasions and whenever he runs himself out of breath and out of Argument here he recovers his wind and recruits his forces at this Post his Pen always both starts and stops his Career And he sallies forth so often into this Complaint that by Computation I judge it fills up above the fifth part of his Reply But all this is no more then Rubbish and serves to no Nobler use then to fill up void spaces and amounts to no higher purpose then impertinent Talk For whether I have incurred this Censure is not to be determined by any smartness of Expressions but by the Truth and Evidence of things for some tempers and principles there are that can never be exposed with too much sharpness and severity of stile and therefore if the tender Man in stead of declaiming against the unmerciful Carriage of my Pen had been at leisure to write pertinently he should have proved it was undeserved But if Evidence of Proof and Notoriety of Fact do justifie my utmost Charge my Expression must have come short of my Theme had I arraign'd such hateful Crimes in softer Language A Man may without offence represent Vice in its blackest Colours and expose the ugliness of Pride and Insolence with the roughest and most Satyrical Characters and for this no stile can be too churlish and vehement and 't is no Cruelty to lash a naked Crime with Scorpions and Whips of Steel yet when it puts on the Mask of Religion and gains its opportunities under the protection of a tender Conscience then we must court it with gentle and respectful Language to discover the Imposture is to expose Religion to inveigh against the foulness of the abuse is to rail at the power of Godliness to uncase the Hypocrite and to wash off his Varnish and false Colours is to lay open the Nakedness of Piety to the scorn of Atheists and Worldlings and therefore we must be tame and patient and suffer them to debauch Religion and disturb Government to affront Authority and trample upon Laws to spread their Infection and broach their seditious Doctrines to raise violent Schisms and Factions in the Church and mislead the People into a Rebellious Reformation and lastly toss us up and down in Eternal Dissetlements because they Pray and Fast often and enjoy Communion with God and attend upon his Ordinances and love the Lord Jesus and hate Antichrist So that though a Man may declaim against naked Villany with the severest Invectives yet it seems we must flatter Hypocrisie though it enhanse the foulness of the Crime by the falshood of its Pretences And because 't is bold and shameless we must suffer it to look Truth out of Countenance 'T is an holy and a precise Man and it looks demurely and then what if he be sawcy to his Superiours what if he scorn and trample upon his Betters what if he be peevish and impatient of Contradiction what if every Affront transport him
same design as they say Aristotle writ some of his Books onely to be understood by the Sons of Art and Mystery However by this Artifice they inveigle the silly and unwary People both to follow and admire them for when they are perswaded the outward Element of the Text is but the Cabinet to the Jewel and the precious Mystery they so manage the business as to possess them with an apprehension that no Key can open it but what is made at their own Forges And if any of us attempt to explain a Text by the Coherence of the Discourse by the Propriety of the Phrase and by the Idiom of the Language we are Moral Men and dull Literalists and utter strangers to the inwardness of the Spirit but 't is they that are the practical experimental Preachers and that see into the depths of the Mystery of the Covenant of Grace And by this means do they gain the advantage to obtrude upon the People whatever can neither be proved nor understood as Profound Divinity § 7. But whatsoever Truth Candor and Ingenuity there is in my Character of these Men of the Flock he knows how to revenge their wrongs by bold and confident Recriminations if Reproaches be the Weapon he understands his advantage and when Controversies come to be managed by mutual Accusations there they never want for Ammunition their Magazine is inexhaustible Thus our Author stands amazed that Heresie should complain of Schism Quis tulerit Gracchos c. Shall the Pot call the Pan Burnt And is it not strange that whilst one writes against Original Sin another preaches up Iustification by Works and scoffs at the imputation of the Righteousness of Christ to them that believe Yea whilst some can openly dispute against the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of Christ and the Holy Ghost Whilst Instances may be collected of some Mens impeaching all the Articles almost throughout there should be no reflection in the least on these things Some Mens guilt in this nature might rather mind them of pulling out the beam out of their own eyes then to act with such fury to pull out the eyes of others for the motes which they think they espy in them c. What a strain of Flattery is here There is questionless no Poison nor Calumny in these leering Suggestions it is an harmless Character and strikes at no Mans Reputation no doubt he nev'r intended to relieve himself and his Party from my foul Reproaches by false or fierce Recriminations nor to write any thing that might disadvantage me in my Reputation or Esteem But some Mens Tongues traduce by instinct and are so venomous that they cannot touch but they will poison your Reputation Their Throats are open Sepulchres and the poison of Asps is under their Lips and they cannot open their Mouths but out flie stings and blasting vapours So that I am now forced to confess my self a dull and trifling Satyrist that have charged them with nothing but their own avowed Principles and notorious Practices and never use tart Language but to express vile Things and go far about to convict them of their Guilt before I dare venture to lash and chastise them for their Folly and all my Satyrical Reflections are the natural Results and Inferences of some foregoing Reasonings But this Man strikes with more sure and deadly Blows he can stab with a doubtful Intimation and dispatch with an oblique Look 't is no matter for evidence of Argument and certainty of Fact this fending and proving is a tedious course 't is but dropping a Train of sly and malicious suspicions and that is enough to blow up your Reputation He knows all Men have a touch of Ill-nature and are apt enough to make the hardest surmises upon these ugly suggestions Nothing sets an handsomer Gloss upon a Lye then to shew it by these dark Lights and indirect Insinuations are the most artificial Schemes of Slandering they heighten and enrage Mens Curiosity and then leave it to their ill Humour to finish the Story and then it shall never be spoil'd for want of spiteful and ill contrived Suspicions And every Man has Wit enough to pick out the Categorical meaning of these oblique Reproaches and had he in direct terms charged me for impeaching the most Fundamental Articles of Christianity it had not been more familiar and intelligible English But as for my own part I am no more moved with the Charge then I am concern'd in the Crime I know none in the Church of England that publish any such false and Heretical Doctrines or if there be any that vent them in Corners and Conventicles I can onely say as one did that was treated as I am Let him be Anathema But the Ingenuity of these Men can dispose of other Mens Faith and Religion at their pleasure and they can with as much ease make Heretiques as they once could Witches and Malignants if a Neighbour incur their displeasure that is enough to make the Indictment and to be charged is enough to make it good Thus you know they dealt with the Ghost of the great Hugo Grotius one would needs have him a rank Socinian and another a thorough Papist though how he could be both can never be unriddled unless Hugo were one and Grotius the other though the evident reason why he might be either is no other then that he was no Calvinian and then he might be any thing what they pleased This way of aspersing has ever been the offensive Weapon of peevish and angry Disputers though never did any Man weild it with more Dexterity then our Author he never encountred Adversary that he did not transform either into Atheist or Papist or Socinian But it seems the Charge of Socinianism is become the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of our Age and many Men suffer under its imputation though as it always happens in Cases of Slander I know none more clear from the Infection then those that have been most suspected and avoided for it Of which Injustice I can conceive no other imaginable account then some Mens proud imperious Confidence that have adopted their own unlearned Wranglings into the Articles of Religion and put as great a weight upon their own novel Doctrines as upon the plain and easie Propositions of Scripture Now if a sober Man discard their wild and unwarrantable additions 't is all one as if he renounced the Article it self They will not endure a contradiction nor suffer you to suspect the infallible certainty of their Resolutions and if you doubt or dispute the Ius Divinum of a Systematick Subtilty you make them impatient and they make you an Heretick If we are not confident that our blessed Saviour suffered the extremity of Hell-torments at the hour of his Passion even to the Horrours of Despair 't is with some positive people the same thing as if we called in question the Merits of his Death and Sufferings If we smile at the
the best of Kings onely to carry on the puny Concernments of their own narrow and accursed Interest But we must proceed and in the last place I am catechised to give an account of my Thoughts of David's self-abasements that far exceed any thing that Nonconformists are able to express Truly I think the passionateness of his Repentance was but proportion'd to the horrour of his Sin he lay under the fresh Convictions of the most horrid Villanies of Murder Adultery and Drunkenness and his guilt was enhansed with the most shameful and dishonourable Circumstances and whilst he continued in this dismal Condition what Cries and Accents could be too doleful to express the Bitterness of his Grief and Horrour If they are in the same plight and condemnation I will not then upbraid them for cloathing their acknowledgments with the blackest of his Expressions for they will then have sad occasion to sing their penitential Psalm elsewhere if they are not then to use such mournful Ditties in their familiar Addresses to Heaven falls under my former censure of trifling and fooling with the Almighty But to despise Men for the deepest humblings of their Souls before God can arise from no other Principle but an utter unacquaintance with the holiness of God the accuracy of the Law and the deceitfulness of my own Heart As for the deceitfulness of my own Heart I confess my self a stranger to it and am not at all desirous of its acquaintance for I hate nothing more then a false Bosom-Friend But however my Heart and my Self are of the same Church and the same Religion there is no Schism between us that I know of nor do I remember when we parted Communion And I think we ever had the same Thoughts Designs and Resolutions and therefore as long as I am careful to preserve my own Integrity let my Heart prove false and treacherous if it can the Hearts indeed of all Hypocrites and wicked Men are deceitful because they themselves are so but we shall never understand how an upright Man should keep an hypocritical Heart unless we can divide himself from himself So that when the People of God make frequent and piteous moans of the hypocrisie of their own Hearts unless still they fool and trifle there is no remedy but the People of God must pass by their own Confessions for rank and self-convicted Hypocrites for it was never known that any Man was better than his own Heart or that a perfidious Heart was found in the breast of an honest Man As for the Purity and Holiness of God I am affected with such reverential apprehensions of it that I would have Men approach his presence with an awful and religious distance and not always present themselves before him in such a foul and unclean pickle and so full of Vermin I know not a bolder affront to his Purity than to presume he will vouchsafe Communion with such polluted Souls 'T is high Presumption for an habitual Sinner continuing such to expect the forgiveness of his sins nothing can reconcile us to the favor of God but an effectual and a persevering Repentance this is an absolute and indispensable condition of every acceptable Prayer and therefore Men that acknowledge any habitual disobedience to the Laws of Christ put in a bar against their own Petitions and do not onely stave off the Divine Pity by being unfit Objects for it but provoke the Divine Displeasure by presuming of his Favour to such unworthy Wretches And when Men tell the Almighty in good earnest for otherwise they do but trifle with him still Lord we offend daily against all thy Commandments in Thought Word and Deed sinning against thee with an high hand and a bold forehead against Knowledge and against Conviction all the Thoughts of our Hearts are evil onely evil and that continually working all uncleanness with greediness drawing Iniquity with Cords of Vanity and Sin as it were with Cart-ropes c. What other Answer to their Prayers can such debauch't Wretches expect but the utmost Severity of Wrath and Indignation and the Doom of the worst of Hypocrites and Unbelievers § 17. But Ministers who are the Mouths of the Congregation to God may and ought to acknowledge not onely the Sins whereof themselves are personally guilty but those also which they judge may be upon any of the Congregation I shall not urge him with the rash examples of some of their godly Ministers of greatest Fame and Reputation for Piety that have proclaimed themselves not only to the present Age but to all Posterity proud and selfish and hypocritical and desperately and mortally wicked Certainly these must of necessity be either very naughty Saints or most horrible Dissemblers However I am sure such ratling Confessions cannot but have a sad and woful Influence upon the Lives of their popular Admirers For what can they more naturally conclude from thence that if precious Mr. that eminent Servant of Jesus Christ in the work of the Gospel be so full of sin and wickedness in how many more and greater Infirmities may I be indulged that am but a private and an ordinary Professor But to let this pass What unclean Congregations are those that have such foul Mouths Methinks it becomes not such pure People to have their Mouths always full of such uncleanly Confessions And whether it be true or false what I. O. informs us That 't is the Duty and Priviledge of sincere Believers to unlade their Vnbelief in the bosom of their God I know not but this I know that 't is an unmannerly and horrid prophaneness whenever they make their Addresses to the Almighty to disgorge themselves of the most filthy and abominable Loads of Sin in his Presence The Prayers of wicked Men or habitual Sinners as I told you before are an abomination to the Lord and he loaths nothing more then the boldness and presumption of their Addresses And therefore if they can suppose any in their Congregations guilty of those heinous Enormities they are wont so familiarly to confess yet they ought not to suppose them to have any share in the Publick Worship For when Men meet together to join in the Duties of Devotion none ought to be supposed Members of the Society but what are qualified for the performance of the Duty because all that others can contribute is not to be reckoned a part of Divine Worship and therefore Ministers ought onely to represent such Persons as are supposed capable of the Duty and all that are not so to disclaim their company and refuse their assistance as much as if they stood excommunicate from the Congregation for so they are as to all the real designs and purposes of Religious Worship However Publick Offices ought to be so contrived as to suit Publick Ends and to serve the Needs of the whole Body and therefore is the Confession of our Publick Liturgy expressed in such general Terms as may comprehend the Concerns and
Consent of all Members of the Assembly For the peculiar end and usefulness of this part of Religion is no other than that Men should agree and join together in the Worship of God so that it is not so properly the Office of particular Persons as of the whole Communion and therefore ought so to be managed as to take in the joint Devotion of the whole Society And when it descends to the particular Regards of private Persons it is then no Office of publick Worship but private Prayer a Duty that is not proper for open Congregations but for Closets and private Retirements where if any Person have any blacker and more enormous Crimes in his Calendar he may be more particular in his Confessions without shame and scandal But it is an odd and preposterous course when Men associate themselves together to join in an Office of Devotion that they should divide into so many separate and distinct Parties or Congregations and every individual Member should pick and cull his share of the Duty and lie at catch for some particular passage to which he may be able to bob in his Amen But without this sleight they could never be able to keep up their affected Singularity of Pharisaick Length and Lowdness To conclude This is a New Light newly discovered by this Man of Revelations for I am confident it was never before heard of in the Christian World that when Men assemble together for the joint performance of Publick Worship every individual Person has his Oratory apart and joins not with the Community but casts in a distinct Symbol of his own in which the residue are not more concern'd then in the private Devotions of his own Closet However this faint Evasion were it to any purpose as I have shewn it is to none is a secret to the common People they are not wont to weigh and examine every Confession before they assent and seal to its Truth but swallow all that the Minister pours out with an implicite Confidence they will confess any thing that he puts into their Mouths and those that are serious and most in good earnest make the rufullest faces at the ugliest Crimes and groan most powerfully at the lowdest and most thwacking Confessions Now when the People are accustomed to such large and foul Catalogues of sin and when they hear such sad Stories from their own Mouths and when it is confessed in their Name that they have broken every Commandment of both Tables to which are reduced all the kinds and instances of Wickedness and when this vast heap of vile things is exaggerated with the heinousest and most emphatical circumstances of Baseness in brief when they are grown familiar with the Confessions of such lewd Offences as are not fit to be named any where but in an Indictment what will they more probably conclude with themselves but that 't is common for Gods People to fall into these foul Miscarriages and yet never fall from Grace Especially when these Confessions are generally clogged with some unlucky words that appropriate their guilt to the best and most holy Professors and when it is the most vulgar Scheme of their Eloquence to enhanse the heinousness of the Offences in that they were committed in the days of Regeneracy and Profession And if the Lives of the Regenerate be stained with so many faults and such foul blemishes what is the Conclusion but that the difference is not so wide between them and the wicked as is imagined Alas the righteousness of the holiest Men is as filthy rags 't is not for the Sons of Adam to think of performing a good Action and we deserve Eternal Wrath for the most Vertuous Work we were ever guilty of attempting What is Man that he should be clean or he that is born of a Woman that he should be righteous And now what remarkable difference remains there between the Infirmities of the Children of God and the Impieties of the Wicked and Unregenerate when it is the unavoidable fate of Humane Nature to be enslaved to a necessity as well as to a body of Sin and after we are brought into a state of Grace there remains a Law in our Members rebelling against the Law of our Minds bringing us into captivity to the Law of Sin so that even the Children of God are Slaves to their Lusts and Passions and by reason of the invincible power of indwelling Sin are as vehemently inclined and as frequently betrayed into actual and outward Transgressions as lewd and graceless Persons onely with this difference that they enter upon the commission of their Sins with more regret and reluctancy in that they do what they would not i. e. they act more boisterously against the Light of Reason and do greater violence to the Convictions of their own Conscience And now upon this Principle what plausible reason and title have Men to pretend to Grace and Saintship though they sin habitually frequently and easily upon every opportunity and every temptation 'T is but crying out against the weakness of Nature the body of Death and the invincibleness of indwelling Sin and to be sensible of that is the Character of Saints and true Believers CHAP. III. The Contents VArious Instances of our Authors pitiful and disingenuous way of Cavilling His Arts of darkning and perplexing the plain design of my Discourse in sundry notorious particulars A brief and plain Account of the Parts Coherence and Design of the former Treatise to prevent all future Mistakes and Pervertings My state of the Controversie provides against the Inconveniences of both Extreams an unlimited Power on one hand and an unbounded Licence on the other The bounds it sets to the Power of the Civil Magistrate are easie to be observed and unnecessary to be transgrest viz. That Governours take care not to impose things apparently evil and that Subjects be not allowed to plead Conscience for disobedience in any other case The Duty of Obedience surmounts the Obligation of Doubts and Scruples and in doubtful cases obliges to Action 'T is impossible to prevent all manner of Inconveniences that may follow upon any Hypothesis of Government My middle way lyable to the fewest and therefore most eligible The bare pretence of a tender Conscience against the Commands of Authority is an impregnable Principle of Sedition A cluster of our Author 's shameless Falsifications His forgery of my ascribing to the Civil Magistrate an universal and immediate Power over Conscience His impudent shuffling in applying what was affirm'd of a doubtful Conscience in particular to Conscience in general Another instance of this in applying what was affirm'd of the Rituals and External Circumstances of Worship to the Principles of Faith and Fundamentals of Religion His change of the state of the Question viz. Not whether Magistrates have any Power over Conscience but whether I have asserted it to be absolute and immediate Some short Glances upon some lesser Impertinencies § 1. HEre his first Attempt is to
spit his Gloom and cast darkness and ambiguity over the design of my Discourse How has he bestirred himself to raise Mists upon my clearest and most perspicuous Expressions And what Clouds of Words has he pour'd forth to involve the Evidence of my Arguments and the plainness of my Method How dexterously does he cull out a single Proposition to oppose to the scope and plain meaning of the coherent Discourse And when he has got the poor naked and defenceless Thing alone how unmercifully does he turn and tease it into a thousand postures and how wantonly does he tire himself with insulting over the feebleness of its supposed Escapes and Subterfuges But to give you some particular Instances of this woful way of trifling In the first place he quarrels my first Paragraph as obscure and ambiguous Why because it gives not any Definition of the Nature of Conscience nor any Account of the Bounds of its Liberty nor determines divers other great and weighty Difficulties relating to the present Enquiry What a monstrous fault is this Not to couch the sense of three hundred Pages in one single Section and what a fatal Misadventure not to decide a perplexed Controversie before 't is fairly proposed Pray Sir by what Rules of Art am I bound to determine the Right of the Cause when I onely undertake to represent the Pleas and Pretences of the different Parties If I have not accurately enough described the Competition between the Liberties of Conscience and the Prerogatives of Princes which is the onely thing I pretended to attempt in that Paragraph let him cavil at that but if I have it seems but an untoward humour to quarrel me for not crowding the Discourse of my whole Book into the compass of the Contents of one Chapter But Men resolved to be peevish are never to seek for Grounds of Contention Of the same nature and to as wise purpose is his Cavil at my first Proposition viz. That 't is absolutely necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Commonwealth should be vested with a Power to Govern and Conduct the Consciences of Subjects in Affairs of Religion And though I have at large proved this Assertion from that Powerful Influence that Religion has upon the Peace of Kingdoms and the Interests of Government yet as for Proofs he always scorns them as neither pertinent to his purpose nor worthy his Cognizance 'T is below his State to answer Arguments he can bear them down with scorn and confidence 't is the Work of his Generation to establish final Determinations of Controversies and he was born to put an everlasting Period to all Disputes and Scholastick Brawls And therefore having first pour'd forth above two Pages full of positive and rambling talk upon this occasion with what severity does he afterward school me for so crude and unlearned an Assertion For who says he understands what are the Affairs of Religion here intended all or some What are the Consciences of Men what it is to govern and conduct them c. What a strangely nice and delicate Confessor have I that will not allow me the Liberty to use any known and vulgar Word till I have first defined it with solid and Scholastick exactness Methinks 't is somewhat too severe this a Man had better hold his peace than be put to this penance for every word he speaks But the plain truth is I thought simple as I am every Swain that understands but Country English could not be ignorant of the literal meaning of those terms Affairs of Religion Conscience Government c. and therefore I did not dream it was necessary for avoiding ambiguity to guard every common Expression with rigorous and Logical Definitions But yet what if after all this I have distinctly accounted for these things and set restraints upon their signification as far as it might concern the matters of my Enquiry What if I have expresly declared what affairs of Religion they are that are subject to the Government of the Supreme Magistrate viz. not all but some i. e. matters of outward Worship and that are not in themselves apparently or essentially evil What then can be the importance of this mighty Cavil Nothing but this that I am a crude and unskilful Writer because I have not been so happy as to couch the whole state of an intricate Controversie nor to clear off all Difficulties and Objections relating to it in the compass of five Lines And if this be a Miscarrriage yet my Adversary has not stuff't his Words so full with Sense and Notion that he should object it as a defect to any Man for not being able to reduce the sense of an ordinary Volume into one single Proposition other Men have more Cry then Wool as well as my self And yet he is so unmerciful and unreasonable as to expose my Title Page for not expressing my particular Determinations of the whole Matter in Debate and often produces that as a shameful instance of my loose way of stating Controversies But this Man would snarl at the Title of the New Testament because it contains not every particular Story recorded in the four Gospels I am sure he might do it with as just reason as urge the Title of my Book for proof that I have not distinctly enough represented my particular Thoughts and Conceptions of the whole matter under debate Did ever Man burthen the Press with such slender stuff or present the World with such pitiful entertainment And yet he has vast stores of this Ammunition and he never charges upon me with more fierceness then when he shoots these Paper-Pellets § 2. Thus you find him in the same Page ratling my carelesness for calling Conscience sometimes every Mans Opinion sometimes an Imperious Faculty which surely are not the same Though I might with warrant from good Authorities have stiled it a Domestick God a Guardian Angel the Mirrour of the Divinity the Law of the Mind the Practical Understanding the Repository of Moral Principles a Book and a Table with innumerable other Appellations given to it as it bears Analogy and Resemblance to other Beings all which Names may agree to Conscience as vastly as they disagree among themselves and it is a very little proportion of likeness that you will find between a God and a Book and yet Conscience is both But however I discoursed not of this important matter in such fanciful and allusive Expressions and kept my self close to the rigour and propriety of Scholastick Terms and so I might warrantably call it both an Opinion and a Faculty upon the account of its several Acceptations For every Novice that has seen but a Dutch Systeme of Divinity knows that 't is sometime taken for the Faculty of the Practical Understanding sometime for an habitual Recourse to its Practical Principles and sometime for a single Action and Exercise of Conscience from which variety of Apprehension it is not
material Parts of Religion than any outward Expressions of Worship whatsoever And from hence I thought it but a very modest and reasonable Demand That Men would but yield to allow to Supreme Power the same Authority and Dominion over the Means and subordinate Instruments of Religion as they are ready enough to ascribe to it over its more important Ends and Designs and so agree to set the same Bounds and Measures to both Jurisdictions And now having reduced them to this Equality of Power I advanced to a more particular state of the whole Controversie by shewing to what Affairs in both kinds the Exercise of all Humane Authority is extended where it is limited and in what cases it is restrained And here I first exempted all the inward Actions of the Mind from the Cognizance and Jurisdiction of all Humane Authority and withal shewed how the substantial part of Religious Worship is performed within and so is in its own Nature beyond the reach of the Civil Magistrate and how all Expressions of External Worship as such are no Essential Parts of Religion and therefore that he is not in any capacity of doing direct and immediate Violence to Religion it self The Controversie being thus stated as to the inward Actions of the Mind the next Enquiry is concerning outward Practices and they are of two sorts either such as are apparently and antecedently evil and these are above the reach and beyond the Obligation of all Humane Laws their Morality is already so determined that no Humane Power can alter their Nature or rescind their Obligation but every thing forbidden becomes an intrinsecal and unalterable Sin and every thing commanded an eternal and unchangeable Duty Or else they are such as still remain in the state of indifferency and are left undetermined as to their Morality either by any certain Law of Nature or any clear positive Law of God and these are liable to the Commands and Determinations of Supreme Authority and are the proper Objects of Humane Laws in that there is no other restraint set to the extent of their Jurisdiction but the Countermand of a Superiour Power and therefore whatsoever Matters are left at Liberty by the Divine Law must be supposed determinable either way by the Commands of Soveraign Authority These are the most distinct Rules of Conscience in this Enquiry in reference to the Nature of the Actions themselves But besides these there are other accessional Reasons of Good and Evil that arise from the apprehensions of the Minds of Men concerning them and they also are of two sorts either such as relate to the Conceptions of other Men which may in some cases lay a restraint upon our Practices as in cases of meer scandal and this by some is pretended to excuse their disobedience to the Churches Constitutions and therefore I have distinctly examined the Nature and the Reasonableness of this Pretence and shewn how the Commands of Authority abolish all the Pretences and supersede all the Obligations of scandal Or else they are such as relate to a Man 's own apprehensions and this takes in the pretence of a doubtful and unsatisfied Conscience which is so zealously pleaded by most of our Separatists in justification of their Schism and therefore because I deem'd it was of more close and immediate Concernment to our present Affairs I have with greater exactness examined and stated the Obligatory Power of a weak and a tender Conscience and have largely proved the manifest absurdity of pleading Doubts and Scruples in opposition to the Commands of Authority and shewn that nothing can or ought to check with our Obligations to Obedience unless it cross with Matters of certain and apparent Duty and that all cases capable of Doubt and Uncertainty cannot be supposed of importance enough to weigh against the great Sin and Mischief of Disobedience So that the Result of my whole Discourse will at last run it self into this plain and easie Proposition That Obedience is indispensably due to all the Commands of Supreme Authority that are not certainly and apparently sinful And now tell me how I could have drawn up the state of this Controversie in a plainer or more familiar Method For the Propositions you see are distinct and comprehensive they take in all the particular Actions and Affairs of Humane Life and I cannot think of any imaginable Difficulty or Objection relating to the present matter in debate that does not apparently fall in under one of the forementioned Heads of Action Or how I could better have avoided the Inconveniences of both extreams and which way else I might have determined the matter by such easie and moderate Principles as may fairly satisfie all Mens Consciences that are ingenuous and condemn all that are not § 5. For 1. to vest the Supreme Magistrate in an unlimited and unaccountable Power is clearly to defeat the Efficacy and Obligatory Force of all his Laws that cannot possibly have any binding Vertue upon the Minds of Men when they have no other inducement to Obedience than barely to avoid the Penalty But if the Supreme Power be absolute and unlimited it does for that very Reason remove and evacuate all other Obligations for otherwise it is restrained and conditional and if Men lie under no other Impulsive than that of the Law it self they lie under no Obligation than that of Prudence and Self-interest and it remains entirely at the choice of their own discretion whether they shall or shall not obey and then there is neither Government nor Obligation to Obedience and the Principle of Mens Complyance with the Mind of Superiours is not the Declaration of their will and pleasure but purely the Determination of their own Judgments And therefore 't is necessary for the security of Government though for nothing else to set bounds to its Jurisdiction otherwise like the Roman Empire it sinks and dissolves by its own weight no Humane Power is able to support it self and the Thrones of Princes are establish't upon the Dominion of God remove his Authority and the force derived upon their Laws by vertue of his Commands and you untie all the Bands of Government and set Men at Liberty from all Obligations to the Duty of Obedience Or else 2. to grant Subjects a lawless and uncontroulable Liberty in all matters and pretences of Religion is to dissolve one half of the Government into to perfect Anarchy and yield up the Constitution of all Publick Affairs to the Humour and the Insolence of every wild Enthusiast and every pert Fellow that can abuse either himself or others with Fanatick Whimsies has it always in his own power to expose the setled frame of Government to the zealous folly of the Multitude If he have but a warm Brain and a bold Face with what ease may he fire the Rabble into Tumults and Godly Seditions 'T is but pouring forth dark Prophesies and Scripture-Allegories and declaiming against the Oppression of Earthly Powers and then with what
Authority to a proud and an insolent Humour This is the plain and real account of my state of the Controversie and if any Man can determine it upon more reasonable more moderate and more discernable Principles I am not so fond of my own Conceptions as to be unwilling to subscribe to wiser Proposals But these things I have accounted for more at large in the last Chapter of my former Treatise where I have in many particulars shewn the horrible vanity of pretending dissatisfaction of Conscience against the Commands of lawful Authority And had not our Author rather design'd to prolong than to determine this Dispute in stead of his wild rambling up and down without drift or method he would with a more particular Regard have faln upon that part of my Discourse but its Examination would have been of immediate Concern to his own Pretences and would have brought the Controversie to too speedy an Issue and perhaps too satisfactory a Decision and therefore he baulks that as too hazardous an Enterprize and is unwilling to venture the whole Cause upon one Engagement but keeps this back as a Reserve for a second Onset and for matter of new Cavil at present it suffices for his purpose which is not to satisfie but to shuffle with his Readers to load my more general Assertions with such loose and uncertain Cavils as are already prevented in my more particular Determinations of the Enquiry § 10. But though this way of abuse be one would think bold enough yet in the next attempt his Confidence improves and it were hard fortune if he should prove Bankrupt upon so fair a Stock before he did but overlook my plain meaning but now he proceeds to pervert and slander it and his peevishness becomes malice He is not content to abuse the People with dull mistakes and to defeat the efficacy of my Discourse upon the Minds of Men by disturbing its method and representing its whole design in such an awkard and disorderly manner as may utterly confound and perplex their thoughts as to my drift and meaning This alas is mean revenge and is not full enough of mischief to appease his wrath it onely calls my Understanding into question and exposes my Wit to the Cavils and Impertinencies of talking People and therefore he roundly charges me with the blackest and most horrid Tenets he aggravates and sets off their horrour with infinite Repetitions for that is the most lofty strain of their Eloquence and the Figure that moves the Passions of their Multitude and employs all the forces of slander and peevishness to raise popular rage and indignation The Result of his Indictment is that I assert such Opinions from whence it follows that whatever the Magistrate commands in Religion his Authority does so immediately affect the Consciences of Men that they are bound to observe it on pain of the greatest Sin and Punishment or as he expresses the same thing elsewhere that no Man must do or practise any thing in the Worship of God but what is prescribed appointed and commanded by the Magistrate upon pain of Sin Schism Rebellion and all that follows thereon These are big words indeed but if it shall appear that this Charge is not so loud and black as 't is false and disingenuous I will give him the Liberty of an Appeal to all Mankind for the clearing of his Integrity and when I have represented upon what slight grounds he raises this great and heinous Accusation I doubt not but his disingenuity will appear so palpable and notorious that it will expose him at least to the pity of the most Zealous She of his own Congregation And therefore let us see by what mighty Topicks and Testimonies he makes good so high a Charge In the first place my Title Page rises up in Judgment against me and never was poor Man so all-be-confuted with a Title Page as I have been viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of his Subjects in Religion and to strengthen this Testimony two other Propositions are join'd with it viz. That the Magistrate has Power to govern and conduct their Consciences in Religious Affairs and that Religion is subject to his Dominion as well as all other Affairs of State And now though these are none of my primary and Fundamental Assertions which an ingenuous Adversary would chiefly have pursued but honest and well-meaning Sayings that the Context would abundantly warrant and justifie yet will I for ever yield my self a baffled Fellow if from thence any Female or Independent Logick can infer either that the Magistrate has an unlimited Power over or passes an immediate Obligation upon the Consciences of Men or in our Authors own words That whatever the Magistrate commands in Religion his Authority does so immediately affect the Consciences of Men that they are bound to observe it on the pain of the greatest sin and punishment This trash neither needs nor deserves any further severity and therefore I will onely leave it to the Readers thoughts to consider by what Art and in what Method of Reasoning this Conclusion may be created out of these Premises an allmighty Confidence may attempt much and perhaps do it too but yet some things there are beyond the reach and power of Omnipotence it self and I know nothing more absolutely impossible than to produce Sense out of Non-sense or what is the same thing to make good the Reasonableness of false and unreasonable Inferences But from this great head of Impertinency he proceeds to his more serviceable Topick of Forgery and if he cannot bring the Mountain to Mahomet 't is no great difficulty to carry Mahomet to the Mountain and if his Conclusions will not suit with my Assertions he knows how to make my Assertions suit with his Conclusions and when he has charged me with a false Inference 't is an admirable way to justifie the Logick of his Calumny by forged Premises And thus to make good his former Inference of my ascribing to the Civil Magistrate an immediate and universal Power over the Consciences of Men he tells his believing Reader I have affirmed pag. 27. That 't is a Soveraignty over Mens Consciences in Matters of Religion and this universal absolute and uncontroulable Though this Calumny were true yet so injudicious is our Authors Invention 't is monstrously impertinent for there is no imaginable ground to conclude from hence That the Supreme Authority immediately affects the Consciences of Men For suppose the Civil Magistrate instated in an absolute and uncontroulable Power what necessity is there that their Commands should tie themselves upon our Consciences by vertue of their own immediate Authority Nay 't is impossible any thing should immediately affect the Conscience but the Authority of God and 't is by vertue of his Command that any other Commands can pass an Obligation upon it and therefore though the Commands of the Civil Magistrate should pass an universal Obligation upon the
Consciences of Men yet 't is an Inference like the rest of our Authors from thence to conclude that they therefore affect them by their own direct and immediate Sanction But this is not all 't is as false as foolish I have indeed asserted the absolute Power of the Civil Magistrate over Affairs of Religion in Opposition to the Pretences of a distinct Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction For having first asserted the necessity of a Soveraign Power over these matters from their Concernment in the Peace and Government of the World I thence proceeded to enquire where and in whom it ought to reside and having shewn the Inconsistency of erecting two Supreme Powers one over Civil the other over Ecclesiastical Affairs I concluded that the Supreme Government of every Commonwealth must of necessity be universal absolute and uncontroulable in that it extends its Jurisdiction as well to Affairs of Religion as to Affairs of State because they are so strongly influential upon the Interests of Mankind the Ends of Government And now is this to make the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Civil Magistrate absolutely paramount without regard to any other Jurisdiction of what nature soever when I onely maintain it in defiance to the Claims of any other Humane Power This was the subject of that Enquiry And when I asserted the Soveraign Power to be absolute and uncontroulable 't is apparent nothing else could be intended than that it ought not to be controul'd by any distinct Power whether of the Pope or the Presbytery and when I asserted it to be universal and unlimited it could be understood in no other sense than that it was not confined to matters purely Civil but extended its Jurisdiction to matters of an Ecclesiastical importance upon which account alone I determined it to be absolute universal and uncontroulable This is the main and the Fundamental Article of the Reformation and that which distinguishes the truly Orthodox and Catholick Protestant both from Popish and Presbyterian Recusants and is the onely fence to secure the Thrones of Princes against the dangerous Encroachments of those bold and daring Sects and therefore from so avowed a truth to charge me for ascribing in general Terms an absolute universal uncontroulable Power to the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of Men in matters of Religion argues more boldness than wit and discretion and gives us ground to suspect that these Men are not less forsaken of shame and modesty than they are of Providence for it must needs be a very bold Face and a very hard Forehead that could ever venture to obtrude such palpable and disingenuous Abuses upon the World § 11. But our Author proceeds in his Method and his Charge and his Confidence advance together and before you fin◠him at the end of this Paragraph you will find him bravely attempting the highest degree of boldness The next proof he singles out for his purpose is a passage of the twelfth Section of my first Chapter He the Magistrate may if he please reserve the exercise of the Priesthood to himself From whence it clearly follows as he dreams that Queen Elizabeth might if she pleased have exercised the Priestly Function in her own Person And he takes frequent occasion to insult over the weakness of this Assertion and triumph in the wit of this Inference But I shall not insist upon its woful impertinency to the Conclusion wherewith he confidently winds up this heap of Calumnies viz. That from hence it follows that whatever the Magistrate commands in Religion his Authority does so immediately affect the Consciences of Men that they are bound to observe it on the pain of the greatest sin and punishment For how is it possible for any Man to infer from his Right to the Priestly Office an unlimited and immediate Power over Religion unless it could be proved that this absolute Soveraignty is unalienable from the Priesthood and when that is pretended or performed we will farther consider the Validity of this Inference Nor shall I mind him what an ill piece of Policy it is for him to disavow the Authority of the Female Sex in the Conduct of Religion when the chief and most important Affairs of the separate Churches are transacted and govern'd by their Zeal and when the Apron-strings are the strongest Bond of the Congregational Union and when as they manage the business St. Peter's Keys are hang'd at their Girdles and every conceited Sister assumes to her self if not the Infallibility of Pope Ioan yet at least the Power and Authority of Donna Olympia Nor lastly shall I present the Salique Law of the Christian Church that devests that Sex of all right and pretence of Succession to the Priesthood by which they are restrain'd from intermedling with any Offices of the Sacred Function though it should descend by right of Inheritance to the Heirs Male of the Blood Royal. Such a trifling Objection is not worth so much pains 't is sufficient to inform you that in the Paragraph aforesaid I undertook to give an account of the true Original of all Civil and Ecclesiastical Government where I shewed how in the first Ages of the World they were vested in the same Person and founded upon the same Right of Paternal Authority and in this state of things antecedent to all superinduced Restraints and positive Institutions I asserted the Supreme Magistrate might if he pleased reserve the exercise of the Priesthood to himself though afterwards the Priestly Office was in the Jewish Commonwealth expresly derogated from the Kingly Power by being setled upon the Tribe of Levi and the Line of Aaron and so likewise in the Christian Church by being appropriated to the Apostles and their Successours that derive their Ministerial Office for that of Priesthood our Author will not admit of under the Gospel from our blessed Saviours express and immediate Commission Now what I affirm'd of things in the bare state of Nature without the guidance of Revelation for our Author to represent it as if I had applied it indifferently to all Ages and Periods of the Church by whatsoever positive Laws and different Institutions they may be govern'd is wonderfully suitable to the Genius of his own Wit and Ingenuity and sufficiently discovers who he is though we had no other evidence of the Man and his Humour 't is his way and method and betrays him as much as the word Entanglement that is the Shibboleth of all his Writings But I must not think to escape thus he is resolved to bear me down for an illiterate Dunce with Face and downright Confidence and to this purpose he tells the Reader that the Young Man as pert and peremptory as he is seems not much acquainted with the rise of the Office of the Priesthood amongst Men as shall be demonstrated if farther occasion be given thereunto This he affirms boldly and when it is proved it shall be granted but till then let me beg the Reader to suspend his
belief as if what I had asserted concerning the Subjection of a doubtful Conscience in less important matters to the Commands of Publick Authority were to be understood of all the Obligations of Conscience in the most important Duties of Religion Did I not forewarn you of what heights and depths of Ingenuity we should meet with before we arrived at the Conclusion of this Paragraph And now do you tell me whether you ever observed in any Writer more generous strains of Candour and Civility Did ever Man treat Adversary with fairer and more ingenuous Usage than I have met with from this candid Author Disputants of a more sullen Humour would have thrown more knotty Objections in my way that would have cost some pains and sweat to assoil their difficulty but he deals tenderly with me as a young beginner and will not dishearten my industry by setting too hard a Task to my raw and unimproved Abilities that by my Conquest and Triumph over such weak Opposition I might be encouraged to greater Undertakings § 13. And therefore he proceeds to tempt my weak and juvenile Essays upon so great a Master of Skill by seeming serious and eager in the farther pursuit of these vain and trifling advantages and raising more vehement slanders upon more unreasonable grounds and the next Article of his Charge to this purpose is that I maintain that the Supreme Magistrate in every Nation hath Power to order and appoint what Religion his Subjects shall profess and observe provided he enjoineth nothing that countenanceth Vice or disgraceth the Deity c. Our Author is old excellent at Cavil and Calumny but here he excels himself he gives in a brisk and ratling Indictment without any shadow of proof to justifie the Allegation 't is drawn up in his own terms and forms of Expression and onely one poor Line of mine bobb'd in to give countenance to such an horrid and shameless Falsification viz. provided that he injoineth nothing that either countenanceth Vice or disgraceth the Deity This I have and still do affirm concerning Rituals Ceremonies and Postures of outward Worship that they ought not to be censured as unlawful unless they tend to debauch Men either in their Practices or their Conceptions of the Deity and therefore if they are not chargeable with one or both of these nothing can hinder their being capable of being adopted into the Ministries of Divine Service or exempt them from being subject to the Determinations of Humane Power This is I think a chaste and a modest Truth but for our Author to apply this Power that I have ascribed to the Supreme Magistrate onely over the outward Forms and Ceremonial Expressions of Religious Worship to the appointment and institution of Religion it self so as to leave it entirely at his disposal to order and appoint what Religion his Subjects shall profess and observe is and I can say no worse but like himself and agreeable to that Character I have often suggested to you of his way of writing and ingenuity and 't is a falshood so coarsly lewd and barbarous that nothing but an incorrigible Brow could have ventured to obtrude it upon the World much less to persist in it so long and repeat it so often as he has done as if he were resolved to bear down the common sense and reason of Mankind by the unyielding Gallantry and Vigour of his Confidence But there is not any one passage in my whole Discourse that has been so serviceable to his purpose as this lame and imperfect Allegation it vouches every Clamour and every Impertinency and every Slander and false Report shrowds it self under its Protection and if he have a mind to forge and fasten any extravagant Conceit upon me 't is but devising some wild Proposition and twisting it with these words and then he may expatiate against the wickedness of so dangerous an errour with a grave and solemn invective and I am as confidently concluded Guilty as if it had been my own express and positive Assertion Thus this passage is produced against me That whilst Men reserve to themselves the freedom and liberty of judging what they please or what seems good unto them in matters of Religion and the Worship of God they ought to esteem it their Duty to practise in all things according to the Prescription of their Rulers though every way contrary unto and inconsistent with their own Iudgments and Perswasions unless it be in things that countenance Vice and disgrace the Deity These words are set down in a distinct Character and the Reader if he be courteous is not to doubt but they were faithfully transcribed out of my Book though you cannot find a syllable of it there except onely the last words of restriction But however 't is a lewd and ungodly Assertion and therefore away he flies with it What it defeats all effectual Obligations of Conscience it enervates all real sense of Religion and it casts off all serious regard to the Divine Authority and upon this Principle Men may profess what Religion they please and turn Mahumetans Papists and Apostates for their own convenience These indeed are sad and woful Inferences but let him look to that for the Premises are his as well as the Conclusions though in my Opinion it is a prodigious piece of boldness that he should so rashly so confidently and so groundlesly charge me with such knavish and dishonest Principles as are not fit for any Men to pretend to unless such crafty Artists as know how to sing their Songs upon Sigionoth and believe that God abets and owns every Interest that thrives and prospers in the World and when they Dance to the Tune of the Times have the face to look demurely and to profess they onely follow the Pipe of Providential Dispensations But now if we take this mangled and dismembred Sentence and restore it to its proper place there is neither harm nor Heresie i. e. if we affirm that no Rites and Ceremonies are in themselves unlawful for I here speak onely of things as considered in their own nature in the Worship of God unless they tend to countenance Vice or disgrace the Deity here is no danger of encouraging or making Apostates for the material and dividing differences of the establish't Religions in the World consist not in Rituals and Ceremonials but in Articles of Belief and Objects of Worship We condemn neither Turks nor Papists for their forms and postures of Adoration unless they fall under one or both of the Obliquities aforesaid but for giving Divine Worship to a lewd Impostor and to a sensless piece of matter let them but address the same Worship to its due and proper Object and we will never stand stiffly with them about the outward Rites and Ceremonies of its Expression but will freely allow them to conform to the significant Customs of their own Country as we do to those of ours Now 't is these things that are or at least
Objection upon the Truth and Reality of my Perswasion To what purpose does he tell us in the close of this Enquiry that we can give no other imaginable answer to it than that Men who plead for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in the Worship of God according to his Word and the Light which he has given them therein have indeed no Conscience at all When this answer is so infinitely silly that we can scarce suppose any Man in his wits so extravagant as to pretend it and when there are other very pertinent Replys so easie and so obvious viz. That they may possibly have no Conscience at all whatever they pretend or at least such an one as is abused with foolish or debauch't with wicked Principles and so may plot or practise Sedition against the State under pretence or mistake of Conscience and for that reason ought not to be allowed to plead its Authority against the Commands of lawful Superiours In fine to what purpose does he so briskly taunt me for thwarting my own Principles because I have censured the impertinency of a needless Provision in an Act of Parliament I may obey the Law though I may be of a different Perswasion from the Lawgivers in an Opinion remote and impertinent to the matter of the Law it self nay I may condemn the wisdom of Enacting it and yet at the same time think my self to lie under an indispensable Obligation to obey it for the formal reason of its Obligatory Power as any Casuist will inform him is not the Judgment and Opinion of the Lawgiver but the Declaration of his Will and Pleasure There is abundance more of this slender stuff wherewith as himself brags he has loaded this Principle though alas were its Foundations never so weak and trembling it might securely enough support so light a Burthen and though it were really bottom'd upon the Sands there is but little danger that such a shallow Stream of Talk should overturn it so that though I stand upon such advantageous ground if I should descend to a strict and particular examination of all the Flaws and Follies of his Tattle yet they are so apparently false or impertinent or both and afford so little occasion for useful and material Discourse that I had rather chuse to forego my own advantage than spoil my Book and tire my Reader by insisting too tediously upon such empty trifles and dreams of shadows To conclude this Author is so accustomed to popular impertinency that he seems to hate severe Discourse as much as carnal Reason and both as much as Idolatry so that he onely prates when he should argue and inveighs when he should confute Give him what advantage you will he regards it not but jogs on in his road of talking and 't is no matter whether you take the right or wrong handle of the Question it may be either for any thing material that he has to except against it Nay you may suffer him to Limetwig you with Ink and Paper and gagg you with a Quill and put what words he pleases into your mouth and yet easily defend your self against all his faint assaults and impertinent Objections In so much that I durst undertake the defence of the thickest and most defenceless Impostures in the World against his weak and miserable way of Confutation And I doubt not but I could produce as strong and enforcing evidence for the Divine Original and Authority of the Alcoran as some body has for the Self-evidencing light and power of the holy Scriptures CHAP. IV. The Contents NO difference among the Ancients between Moral Vertue and Evangelical Grace The Vanity and Novelty of our late Spiritual Divinity Our Authors fond Tittle-tattle against my Scheme of Religion Religion is now the same for design and substance as it was in the state of Innocence The Gospel is chiefly design'd as a Restitution of the Law of Nature Our Duty to God best described by Gratitude Repentance Conversion Humiliation Self-denial Mortification Faith and other Duties of the Gospel proved to be Moral Vertues Our Author after his rate of cavilling would have quarrell'd our Saviour for his short account of the Duty of Man His intolerable slander in charging me of confining the Influence of the Spirit of God to the first Ages of the Church His prodigious impudence in ascribing all his own Follies to the Spirit of God The extraordinary concurrence of the Spirit proved it self by some evident Miracle the ordinary works in the same manner as if it were performed purely by the strength of our own Reason Our Author himself is not able to assign any real difference between Grace and Vertue Their meer distinguishing between them is destructive of the practice of all real goodness An account of the Mechanical Enthusiasm of their Spiritual Divinity Our Authors own account of their Spiritual Godliness is a clear instance of its Folly Moral Vertue is so far from being any hindrance that 't is the best preparative to Conversion It was not Moral Goodness but Immoral Godliness that kept off the Pharisees from closing with the Terms of the Gospel The Argument from the Magistrates Power over Moral Duties to his Power over Religious Worship clear'd and vindicated The difference assign'd for this purpose between the Laws of Nature and Revelation false and impertinent Their vain Resolution to find out particular Rules of instituted Worship in the Word of God is the Original of all their folly Religious Worship is subject to the Authority of Earthly Powers for the same Reason as Moral Vertue is A short account of some of our Authors fainter Essays § 1. HAving in the former Chapter given an account large enough of our Authors way of Confutation by shuffling Cavils and bold Calumnies I shall hereafter forbear to cloy the Reader or tire my self with any farther regard to such trifling Exceptions as are not capable of more useful and edifying Discourse and shall onely insist upon such particulars as may be considerable enough to recompence the pains of our Enquiry My design then in the next Chapter which our wise Objector excepts against was to draw a Parallel between matters of Religious Worship and Duties of Morality and to remonstrate to the World how they were equally subject to the Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate And for a more ample Confirmation of this Argument I gave such an intelligible account of the Nature and Design of Religion as reduced all its parts and branches either to the Vertues or the Instruments of Moral Goodness From whence I concluded as I thought fairly enough That seeing Princes are allowed by the avowed Principles of all Mankind a Soveraign Power in reference to Moral Vertues that are the most material Duties of Religion 't is but reasonable they should be allowed at least the same Authority over the outward matters of Religious Worship that are but Circumstances of Religion or Instruments of Morality But our Author startles at the strangeness
positive Precepts because they are in themselves so essentially serviceable to the design of our Creation And therefore our Saviour came not into the world to give any new Precepts of moral goodness but only to retrive the old Rules of Nature from the evil Customs of the World and to reinforce their Obligation by endearing our duty with better Promises and urging our Obedience upon severer Penalties And as the Gospel is nothing but a Restitution of the Religion of Nature so are all its positive Commands and instituted duties either mediately or immediately subservient to that end Thus the Sacraments though they are matters of pure Institution yet are they of a subordinate Usefulness and design'd only for the greater advantage and Improvement of moral Righteousness For as the Gospel is the Restitution of the Law of Nature so are these outward Rites and Solemnities a great security of the Gospel they are solemn engagements and stipulations of obedience to all its Commands and are appointed to express and signifie our grateful sense of Gods goodness in the Redemption of the World and our serious Resolutions of performing the Conditions of this new Contract and Entercourse with mankind So that though they are duties of a prime importance in the Christian Religion 't is not because they are in themselves matters of any Essential Goodness but because of that peculiar Relation they have to the very being and the whole design of its Institution Forasmuch as he that establish'd this Covenant requires of all that are willing to own and submit to its Conditions to profess and avow their Assent to it by these Rites and Instruments of stipulation so that to refuse their Use is interpreted the same thing as to reject the whole Religion But if the entire Usefulness of these and any other instituted Mysteries consists in their great subserviency to the designs of the Gospel and if the great design of the Gospel consists in the Restitution of the Law of Nature and the advancement of all kinds of Moral Goodness then does it naturally resolve it self into that short Analysis I have given of Religion and whether we suppose the Apostasie of Mankind or suppose it not every thing that appertains to it will in the last issue of things prove either a part or an instrument of Moral Vertue § 3. But we must proceed to particulars In the first place Gratitude is a very imperfect description of Natural Religion for says he it has respect onely to Gods Benefits and not to his Nature and therefore omits all those Duties that are eternally necessary upon the Consideration of himself such as fear love trust affiance Perhaps this word may not in its rigorous acceptation express all the distinct parts and duties of Religion yet the Definition that I immediately subjoin'd to explain its meaning might abundantly have prevented this Cavil were not our Author resolved to draw his saw upon words viz. A thankful and humble temper of Mind arising from a sense of Gods Greatness in himself and his Goodness to us And the truth is I know not any one Term that so fully expresses that Duty and Homage we owe to God as this of Gratitude For by what other Name soever we may call it this will be its main and most Fundamental Ingredient and therefore 't is more pertinent to describe its Nature by that than by any other Property that is more remote and less material Because the Divine Bounty is the first Reason of our Obligation to Divine Worship in that natural Justice obliges every Man to a grateful and ingenuous sense of Favours and Benefits and therefore God being the sole Author of our Beings and our Happiness that ought without any farther regard to affect our Minds with worthy resentments of his love and kindness and this is all that which is properly exprest by the word Piety which in its genuine acceptation denotes a grateful and observant temper and behaviour towards Benefactors and for that cause it was made use of as the most proper Expression of that Duty that is owing from Children to Parents but because God by reason of the eminency of his Bounty more peculiarly deserves our Respect and Observation 't is in a more signal and remarkable sense appropriated to him so that Gratitude is the first property and radical Ingredient of Religion and all its other Acts and Offices are but secondary and consequential and that Veneration we give the Divine Majesty for the excellency of his Nature and Attributes follows that Gratitude we owe him for the Communication of his Bounty and Goodness 'T is this that brings us to a knowledge of all his other Endowments 't is this that endears his Nature to us and from this result all those Duties we owe him upon the account of his own Perfections and by that experience we have of his Bounty and by that knowledge we have of his other Attributes into which we are led by this experience come we to be obliged to trust and affiance in him so that Gratitude expresly implies all the Acts and Offices of Religion and though it chiefly denotes its prime and most essential Duty yet in that it fully expresses the Reason and Original Obligation of all other parts of Religious Worship But in the next place he reckons up Repentance Conversion Conviction of Sin Humiliation Godly Sorrow as deficient Graces in my Scheme and Duties peculiar to the Gospel Though as for Repentance what is it but an exchange of vicious customs of Life for an habitual course of Vertue I will allow it to be a new species of Duty in the Christian Religion when he can inform me what Men repent of beside their Vices and what they reform in their Repentance beside their Moral Iniquities it has neither end nor object but Moral Vertue and is onely another word peculiarly appropriated to signifie its first beginnings And as for Conversion the next deficient 't is co-incident with Repentance and he will find it no less difficult to discover any difference between them than between Grace and Vertue And as for the other remaining Graces of the Gospel Conviction Humiliation Godly Sorrow and he might as well have added Compunction Self-abhorrency Self-despair and threescore words more that are frequent in their mouths they are all but different Expressions of the same thing and are either parts or concomitant Circumstances of Repentance After so crude and careless a rate does this Man of Words pour forth his talk In the next rank comes in Self-denial a Readiness to bear the Cross and Mortification as new Laws of Religion But as for Self-denial 't is nothing else than to restrain our appetites within the limits of Nature and to sacrifice our brutish Pleasures to the interests of Vertue As for a Readiness to bear the Cross 't is nothing but a constant and generous Loyalty to the Doctrine of the Gospel and a Resolution to suffer any thing
exemplified by a particular Comparison of the Conveniences and Inconveniences that would probably ensue upon the exercise of these respective Jurisdictions shewing how in every Instance the advantage was still on the side of Morality as to the Plea of Exemption and that there was vastly less danger in yielding to its Pretences for Liberty from the Determinations of Humane Laws than in granting the same measure of Indulgence as to the Concerns of outward Religion most of which our Author has gently slipt over according to his prudent and laudable Custom of overlooking what he cannot answer And then lastly to improve the evidence of this Discourse beyond the Attempts of Cavil and Exception I explain'd as well as argued its Reasonableness by running a general Parallel between the Nature of Divine Worship and of Moral Vertue where I have more at large represented their Agreement in reference to the Power of the Civil Magistrate and shewn how the Exercise of his Dominion over both is extended to and restrain'd within the same Bounds and Limits viz. That in both there are some Instances of Goodness of an universal Necessity and unchangeable Usefulness and these God himself has bound upon our Consciences by his own immediate Laws of Nature and Revelation And that there are others whose Goodness is or may be alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Emergencies of Humane Life and therefore the Government of these he has entrusted with his Deputies and Lieutenants here on Earth to setle and determine as the Circumstances of Affairs shall require and the Dictates of their own Discretion shall direct by which means he has admirably provided both for the peaceable Government of Mankind and for the inviolable security of Vertue and Religion in the World This is the scope and Contexture of my Argument to all which what is replyed by our Author Why in the first place he represents its sum and substance in his own words and then complains of the ambiguity of the Terms and this fills above half a Page full of Triumph to insult over the absurdity of his own Expressions In the next place he excepts against the Validity of the Consequence That because the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of his Subjects in Morals that therefore he has so also in matters of instituted Worship Though this Objection was so pregnantly answer'd to his hand For did I not in that very Paragraph demand of him or any Man else to assign any tolerable Reason that should restrain the Authority of the Civil Magistrate from medling with one that should not much more restrain it from medling with both Did I not enquire whether the right practice of Moral Duties were as necessary a piece of Religion as any part of outward or instituted Worship in the World Whether wrong Notions of the Divine Worship are not as destructive of the peace and setlement of Commonwealths as the most vicious and licentious Debaucheries Whether the rude Multitude are not more inclined to disturb Government by Superstition than by Licentiousness And whether there is 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 means and instruments and can challenge no other place in Religion than as they are subservient to the purposes of Morality What then should the reason be that God should be so much more tender of things of meer positive Institution than of the matters of natural and essential Goodness That whilst he trusts these great and indispensable Duties to the Disposal and Discretion of the Civil Power in order to the peace and security of the Common-wealth why should he not for the same regard commit the management of the less weighty Affairs of External Worship to the Wisdom and Jurisdiction of the same Authority To all which is it not think you a wise and satisfactory Answer to tell us there is or at least there may be a difference between matters of moral and positive Obligation without attempting to assign any particular Reason of it in reference to the Power of the Civil Magistrate For suppose it granted that there is some difference between the Nature of the things themselves yet what is that to our purpose unless it carries in it a special Relation to the matters in Controversie between us which is not of the Natures of the things themselves but of their Subjection to the Royal Supremacy So that supposing the difference of their Natures the demand of the Argument is what 't is in the Nature of instituted Worship that should exempt it from the Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate that is not as much or more discernable in the Nature of Moral Vertue And till this be assign'd the Argument stands firm as the Foundations of the Earth whatever other difference Metaphysick Wit may be able to descry between them But our Author adds in answer to one of the forementioned Enquiries viz. Whether there is not more danger of the Magistrates erring or mistakes about moral Vertue than about Rites of Worship that there is an especial and formal difference between them in that one depends as to their Being and Discovery on the Light of Nature which is certain and common to all the other on pure Revelation which may be and is variously apprehended But § 8.1 'T is certain that by what way soever God has reveal'd his Will to Mankind the Revelation is sufficiently clear and evident so that the Rules of Instituted Worship are after their Institution no less certain than the Laws of Nature 'T is the Wisdom and the Glory of a Law-giver to express his Laws with as much Fulness and as little Ambiguity as is possible and therefore 't is but an unmannerly Reflection upon the Divine Wisdom to conceive he has not declared any of his Commands with all the plainness imaginable so that all the Laws of God by what way soever discovered are after their discovery equally bright and evident as to the purposes of Life and Practice and the Precepts of the Gospel are as fully declared to the Consciences of men as the Laws of Nature And therefore the force and sense of this Answer if it have any at all resolves it self into that Popish Tenet of the darkness and obscurity of the holy Scriptures For this forsooth is the only Reason why Duties instituted in the Gospel should be exempt from the Power of the Civil Magistrate rather than those of a moral and natural Obligation because one is perspicuous and the other is not and if this be not his Intention he talks he knows not what and that is not impossible But grant all this that the Laws of Revelation are not so discernable as the Laws of Nature I understand not where the force of the Reason lies that therefore mens Perswasions about them should not be
more especially to abet this wild and unaccountable Principle That the Word of God is the onely adequate Rule of instituted Worship which they lay down in their Positive Divinity at which they are incomparably the greatest Doctors in the World as the onely unquestionable Postulatum of all their Discourses yet when they are urged to make it out by Rational Arguments and particular Instances they talk it and talk it but as for proof and evidence they never could nor ever will be brought to produce any other beside the Proleptick certainty of the Maxim it self and therefore I will for ever bar their general Pleas and Pretences drawn from this Principle That the New Testament is the adequate Rule of Instituted Worship to the Church of Christ unless in case of the two Sacraments though as to them too all the outward Circumstances and Postures of Celebration are wholly undetermined in the Scripture till they shall specifie some particular Instances there directed and prescribed under a standing Obligation however it is not to be attended to in our present Controversie when it is as I have proved as certain and complete a Rule of moral Vertue as they can suppose it to be of Instituted Worship and therefore that cannot be any ground of Exception that whilst the former is subject to the latter should be exempt from the disposal of the Civil Jurisdiction So lamentably absurd are the main and darling Principles of these men that 't is not in the Power of Logick or Sophistry to do them any kindness and the more they stir in their Defence the more they expose their Folly § 9. And now having so wofully hurt and prejudiced his own Cause by this rash and indiscreet Attempt upon my Inference in the next place he rushes with a fierce and angry Dilemma upon my Assertion viz. That the Magistrate has Power over the Consciences of men in reference to moral Duties which are the principal Parts of Religion This Power says he is either over moral Vertue as Vertue and as a part of Religion or on some other Account as it relates to humane Society The former he gores through and through and that horn of the Dilemma is above two Pages long and here he has exactly observed the Rules and Customs of Scholastick Dispute that is always prodigal of Confutation where there is no need and niggardly where there is For when he proceeds to the latter which he knows is the only thing I all along asserted he freely grants all I can desire or demand For moral Vertues notwithstanding their peculiar Tendency unto God and Religion are appointed to be Instruments and Ligaments of humane Society also now the Power of the Magistrate in respect of Moral Vertues is in their latter use Very good And the Case is absolutely the same as to all reasons and circumstances of things in matters of Religion for though they as well as moral Vertue chiefly relate to our future Concerns yet have they also a powerful Influence upon our present welfare and if rightly managed are the best and most effectual Instruments of publick Happiness and there lies the very strength and sinew of my Argument that if Magistrates are vested with so much Power over moral Vertues that are the most weighty and essential Parts of Religion as they shall judge it needful to the Peace of Societies and the security of Government how much more reasonable is it that they should be entrusted with the same Power over matters of external Worship that are but its subordinate Instruments and outward Circumstances whenever they are serviceable to the same ends and purposes And if there be any advantage and disparity of Reason 't is apparently on this side for it were an easie Task to prove that moral Vertue is much more necessary to procure the divine Acceptance and Religion much more likely to create publick Disturbance but that is not the subject matter of our present Enquiry 't is enough that both have in some measure a Relation to these different Ends and therefore that both must in some measure be subject to these different Powers You see how shamefully this man is repuls'd by his own Attempts and that there is nothing needful to beat back his Answers but the Arguments themselves against which they are directed And now having spent his main strength in this succesless shock 't is piteous to observe how he faints in his following Assays He inquires whether this Power of the Civil Magistrate over moral Vertue be such as to make that Vertue which was not Vertue before or which was Vice 'T is of the same extent with his Authority over Affairs of Religion as I have already stated it But however to this Impertinent Enquiry he need not have sought far for a pertinent Answer it lay before his eyes when he objected it if he did not write blindfold viz. That in matters both of moral Vertue and divine Worship there are some Rules of Good and Evil that are of an eternal and unchangeable Obligation and these can be never prejudiced or altered by any humane Power But then there are other Rules that are alterable according to the various Accidents Changes and Conditions of humane life and in things of this Nature I asserted that the Magistrate has Power to make that a Particular of the divine Law which God has not made so In answer to which he wishes I had declared my self how and wherein So I have viz. in all the peculiar and positive Laws of Nations and gave him Instances in no less matters than of Murther Theft and Incest and produced several particular Cases in which the Civil Power superinduced new obligations upon the Divine Law Which 't is in vain to repeat to one that winks against the Light you know where to find them if you think it needful But is not this a bold man to challenge me with such a scornful Assurance to do what he could not but see I had already performed Some men are confident enough to put out the day in spite of the Sun He adds The divine Law is divine and so is every particular of it and therefore 't is impossible for a man to make new Particulars and yet in the same Breath grants my Assertion as an ordinary and familiar truth if I only intend by making a thing a Particular of the divine Law no more than to make the divine Law require that in particular of a man which it did not require of him before Though that man must have a wild understanding that can mean any thing more or less There is a vast difference is there not between making a new Particular of the Divine Law and making the Divine Law require that in particular which it did not require before But says he these new particulars refer only to the acting and occasion of these things in particular 'T is no matter for that whatever they refer
and Villanies And now our Author for want of new Invention falls to chewing the Cud upon an old Slander for from my account of Christian Liberty I concluded that all Internal Acts of the Mind of Man are exempt from the Empire of Humane Laws that the substance of Religious Worship is transacted by them and that its exteriour Significations are not absolutely necessary to its performance and therefore whatever restraints the Civil Magistrate might lay upon their outward Actions in reference to Divine Worship yet notwithstanding that they might perform all that is necessary to the discharge and the acceptance of the Duty How says our Author This is an open door to Atheism for he is still knocking at that upon every slight occasion for who would not think this to be his Intention Let Men keep their Minds and inward Thoughts and Apprehensions right for God and then they may practise outwardly in Religion what they please one thing one day another another be Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians yea Mahometans and Christians I see this Man is resolved never to lose any advantage for want of confidence and if ill-natur'd Inferences can do his business who can withstand the Power of his Logick Who would not think this to be my intention say you I say Who would unless one that thinks himself able to face me out of my plain meaning and bear me down out of countenance and common sense Does the difference between Papists and Protestants Arians and Homousians Mahometans and Christians consist in Rites and Ceremonies of external Worship Who then beside your confidence from the indifferency of the outward forms and fashions of Worship would conclude the indifferency of all Religions Their real differences arise from something else and lie not in Rites and Ceremonies but in Principles of Faith and Rules of Life Bate these and we will never quarrel Turks or Papists for any of their outward signs and expressions of Divine Worship according to the Laws and Customs of their own Country provided they are not faulty upon one or both of the forementioned accounts that they tend to debauch Men either in their practices or their conceptions of the Deity and therefore to apply what was affirm'd onely of Ceremonies of Worship to Articles of Belief is such a way of dealing with Arguments as only becomes our Authors Logick and Ingenuity But upon this occasion let me mind him that publick and visible Worship is no such necessary and indispensable Duty but that it may in some circumstances be lawfully omitted for suppose this Man were in the Dominions of the Grand Signior he would not I presume think himself absolutely obliged in Conscience to set up open Meetings and Conventicles without leave of the Government but would for the security of his Life be content to enjoy his Religion to himself without climbing up to the top of a Mosque to proclaim their Prophet a lewd Jugler unless he were actually required to renounce the Christian Faith and turn Apostate to the Mahumetan Imposture And therefore I would willingly know why the same Liberty will not satisfie them here as to the Obligations of Conscience that they would be content with there there is no other reason assignable than that they will do more for Fear than for Obedience and this is undeniable evidence that 't is something else and not Conscience as is pretended that lies at the bottom of all their present Schisms and Disturbances § 6. But now having given this brief account of the use of External Worship from the Nature and Properties of the thing it self I proceeded for a farther Confirmation of my former Assertions to an Historical Report to shew that God had in all Ages of the World left its management to the discretion of Men unless when to determine some particular forms hapned to be useful to some other purposes Where in the first place I instanced in the Religion of the old World and attempted to prove that Sacrifices which were the most ancient if not the onely Expressions of Divine Worship were purely of Humane Institution Now the first murmur our Author raises against this is That I should for the most part set off my Assertions at so high a rate and yet found them not onely upon uncertain Principles but upon such Paradoxes as are generally decried by Learned Men Such is this of the Original of Sacrifices here insisted on Certainly it would be present death for this Man to speak to the purpose he avoids and dreads all Pertinency as he would poison or Rats-bane For where do I lay any such mighty stress upon this Assertion In what great strains do I urge the necessity of its admittance To what purpose then does he upon this occasion upbraid me with the briskness and vehemence of any Expressions that were spoken upon other subjects and to other purposes I have indeed loaded some other Principles with their proper mischiefs and inconveniences I have shewn that the Pleas of the Nonconformists from the natural right of Mankind from the Obligations of scandal and from the pretences of a tender and unsatisfied Conscience for exemption from the Commands of lawful Authority tend to a direct and inevitable dissolution of all Governments and all Societies There the weightiness of the matter and the Argument required some suitable eagerness of expression but why should I be minded of those warm passages in this place The matter of this Enquiry is neither of that evidence nor that importance as to need or deserve any grandeur and vehemence of stile 'T is indeed pertinent but not at all necessary to the drift of my Discourse for without its assistance I am able to prove the Power of Christian Magistrates over the outward Concerns of Religious Worship in Christian Commonwealths Neither do I at all bottom my Discourse upon its admission but onely use it as an accessional reflection to my main Argument and cast it in as a particular instance to give check to the Adversaries confidence thereby to shew 't is not absolutely necessary as is pretended to the acceptableness of Religious Worship that it should be warranted by Divine Institution when 't is so contrary to experience for any thing that appears upon Record as to the Religion of the old World But seeing 't is a pretty subject let us a little farther examine whether the Assertion be not evident enough to bear all the weight I have laid upon it Many Learned Men have indeed stretch't their Parts to make out wise accounts of the Nature and Original of Sacrifices and because they were in the first Ages of the World the most remarkable perhaps the onely visible signs and expressions of Religious Worship nothing will satisfie their curiosity unless they may derive them either from the Obligation of the Law of Nature or some express Institution of God himself But when we come to weigh the Grounds and Principles of their Discourse we find
no other determination than the choice of natural Reason So that though it be necessary to Instituted Worship that it should be appointed yet 't is not necessary to divine Worship that it should be instituted And now though Attendance to this Distinction would have avoided all Ambiguity and Confusion in this Enquiry yet our Author stifly over-looks it and solemnly confutes my Assertion concerning Eucharistical Offerings by Instances of Expiatory Sacrifices which I had before proved to his hand must rely upon positive appointment from their peculiar Use and Nature and not because this was necessary to the Being and Design of Religion it self But if we will confine our Talk to the subject matter of my Assertion viz. Eucharistical Oblations or any other outward significations of the natural Worship of God in the first Ages of the World I before affirmed and do still maintain that they who say they were enjoyn'd and warranted by divine Command take the Liberty of saying any thing without proof or evidence § 8. But if they are Arbitrary Inventions of men our Author desires to have a Rational Account of their Catholicism in the World and one Instance more of any thing not natural or divine that ever prevail'd to such an absolute universal acceptance amongst mankind As for the latter part of his demand I think festival solemnities may challenge as great Antiquity and Universality as Sacrifices There being no Nation in the World that ever was known to be altogether destitute of set and publick Festivals in honour of their Gods and as I before observed the Anniversary Sacrifices of their First-fruits was the most ancient and most universal solemnity of Worship in the World And some learned men conjecture with as much Probability as the nature of the thing will bear that such were the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel and that from the Propriety of the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at the end of days which say they implies some set and solemn season of the year and there is no Idiom more frequent in the holy Scriptures than to express set and anniversary seasons by Days To omit innumerable other Texts 1 Sam. 2.9 The Yearly Sacrifice is called Sacrificium Dierum so that the End of Days implies the Revolution of the Year when Abel offer'd the First-born of his Flocks and Cain the First-fruits of his Fields But however this may be 't is attested by all the best Records of ancient Times that Harvest Sacrifices and Festivals of First-fruits were the most Ancient most Catholick and perhaps only Publick Solemnities of Religion And yet it will be as impossible to discover any Obligation from Nature or any Warranty from divine Institution for their Practice as for the Original of Idolatry which yet had universally prevail'd over the Religion of mankind and for ought I know might have done so still had not divine Providence been pleased to disabuse the wretched World by so many Revelations and miraculous discoveries of himself so that it is possible some things may acquire to themselves a Catholick Credit and Reputation that never had it bestowed upon them by God or by Nature especially if they chance to have any near Relation or Connexion with universal and unabolishable Truths But seeing our Author desires a particular account of the Catholicism of Sacrifices thus it hapned The first Ages of Mankind having a full and certain knowledge of the Being of God and a strong sense of the necessity of his Worship in that they had the same assurance then of the first cause of their Beings as we have now of our Fore-fathers and Progenitors From hence they became obliged from the instinct of Nature and the dictates of Right Reason to acknowledge and celebrate their Creators Bounty and to return some Expressions of Gratitude to him for his Favours and Benefits Divine Worship then being so clear a dictate of Humane Nature it was but agreeable to the Reason of Mankind to express their sense of this Duty by outward Rites and Significations Now what Symbol could be more natural and obvious to the Minds of Men whereby to signifie their homage and thankfulness to the Author of all their Happiness than by presenting him with some of the choicest Portions of his own Gifts for they had nothing else to present in acknowledgment of that Bounty and Providence that had bestowed them And this was so far from arguing any pregnancy of Invention that to have missed it would in my conceit have been flat stupidity For though all sensible signs derive their significancy from positive Institution yet the ground and reason of their Institution is usually unless they are inept and irregular some natural suitableness they have in them to denote the thing signified Now I will challenge our Authors wit to pitch upon any thing in Nature that could be so easie and proper to express by way of outward action their thankfulness to God as these Eucharistical Oblations so easie a thing is it to fetch their beginning from Humane Agreement without recourse to the Authority of Nature or Divine Prescription The Religion of Sacrifices then being the most conspicuous Symbol and Signification of the Worship of God among the first Fathers of Mankind it descended to their Posterity together with their natural sense of Religion of which these were the onely visible signs and indications and therefore without them it could have had no outward and sensible appearance in the World because these were its onely practical way of conveyance and by continuing to observe the Rites and Customs of their Ancestors they kept up their dictates of Religion And thus the Idea of God and the use of Sacrifices were propagated together into all Societies of Mankind by their observance of the Customs and Traditions of their Progenitors Now so easie and unforced is the probability of this account of their Catholicism though they owe their original purely to the Choice and Institution of men that as long as their Off-spring kept up any belief of the Notion of a Deity or any Reverence for the wisdom of their Fore-fathers it was morally impossible in the ordinary course of humane Affairs the Tradition of Sacrifices should ever be lost in the World And this may suffice to shew how it came to pass that they found such a Catholick entertainment in all Societies of Mankind and it was all one as to that whether they had their first beginning from humane invention or divine Institution for when once they had acquired the Esteem and Reverence of Religion Use and Custom would ever after keep up their Practice and Reputation in the World So that though it was impossible they should ever obtain such an universal use and credit by their own strength and upon their own account yet when they had once obtain'd such an inseparable Connexion with mens natural indelible sense of Religion it was then as impossible without such an extraordinary change of things as was brought
for coming so near home and loves to keep aloof off from present Transactions A Man may talk confident Conjectures of things that hapned so many thousand years ago and tell fine Stories of Men that begot Sons and Daughters before the Flood But 't is dangerous to talk of the History and Constitution of Affairs in the present World a Man may possibly contradict known and undeniable experience and every Novice that is never so little acquainted with the present state of Forreign Churches will be able to check and shame our confidence And there are two unhappy Books of Mr. Durel that plainly demonstrate that we are a new Race of Men in the World that are not yet sufficiently polish't and civilized for Humane Society and such as whilst we continue fond of our wild and barbarous Principles must be banish't all establish't Churches and Commonwealths in Europe § 10. In the close of this Chapter I gave an account of the nature and use of significant Ceremonies that are the same thing with external Worship under a different Name outward Worship consisting in nothing else but signifying our inward thoughts and sentiments of Religion either by Words or Actions where I shewed that it might be indifferently exprest and performed by either and that Gestures of Reverence were of the same use in the Worship of God as solemn Praises and Acknowledgements and that to bow the Body at the mentioning the Name of Jesus was the same kind of honour to his Person as to celebrate his Name with Hymns and Thanksgivings and therefore that the Magistrates Prerogative of instituting significant Ceremonies amounted to nothing more than a Power of defining the import of words and by consequence that 't is no other Usurpation upon his Subjects Consciences than if he should take upon him to refine their Language and determine the proper signification of all Phrases imployed in Divine Worship as well as in Trades Arts and Sciences and therefore I could not but profess my admiration at the prodigious confidence and impertinence of those Men that could raise such hideous Noises and Out-cries against the Laws of a setled Church and State upon such slender grounds and pretences But here our Author quickly requites me with a counter-wonder That I cannot express my dissent from others in controverted Points of the meanest and lowest concernment but with crying out Prodigies Clamours Impertinencies and the like Expressions of astonishment in my self and contempt of others I might reserve some of these great words for more important occasions And the truth is these are not any matters of the greatest importance and were our Dispute meerly concern'd in their Speculation I could discourse as coolly and carelesly about them as about a Mechanical Hypothesis or a Metaphysical Notion and should not be more eagerly concern'd to resolve the truth of the Question than I am to determine the Principle of Individuation But when the establish't Government of a Nation shall be subverted by such nice and new-invented Subtilties when never any Church in the World was more rudely treated by her own Children than the Church of England by the Puritan Schismaticks when Men shall cry out Antichrist Popery and Superstition and all for the Idolatry of a significant Ceremony and when this clamorous Exception is so vain so groundless and impertinent is it not infinitely prodigious to see Men so confident and troublesom upon such slight and vanishing appearances What scurrilous Language do they continually pour forth against the Church of England What ignominious Titles do they fasten upon her Friends and Followers And with what disdain and insolence do they spit at her way of Worship and Devotion Into what woful and endless Schisms do they drive their Proselytes from her Communion What Disturbances do they create in the State and what Ruptures in the Church And how do they imbroil and discompose the peaceable setlement of a flourishing Kingdom and all this meerly out of hatred to the Popery and Paganism of a Symbolical Rite For ever since the Scepter of Jesus Christ as they stiled their Presbyterial Consistory has been wrested from them by force of Argument and ever since the divine Right of the holy Discipline has been so shamefully exploded and that time and experience have put a baffle upon the confidence of their old Pleas and Pretences all the out-cry has been against the unwarrantableness of instituted Ceremonies which after innumerable Trains of Distinctions and Limitations about Natural and Customary and Topical Signs still spends it self against the Superstition of mystical and significant Rites so that the substance of this whole Contest is now at length resolved into this single Enquiry and upon this all their deeper and more subtle Men of Controversie spend all their Choler and Metaphysicks 'T is true they defend themselves with the Pleas of Scandal Tenderness of Conscience c. but when they use their Offensive Weapons they scarce annoy us with any other Objections than what are levell'd against the Churches Usurpation in taking upon her to appoint new Ceremonies and Institutions of Worship And therefore if ever I had reason to cry out Prodigies Clamours and Impertinencies it was upon this subject and this occasion when my Thoughts were warm with reflecting upon those mighty Troubles and Inconveniences under which these Men have brought the best establish't Church in the World by their unreasonable folly and curiosity For tell me Sir is it nothing to shake the Foundations and hazard the Overthrow of a setled Church Is it nothing to discompose the Publick Peace and Tranquillity of a setled State Is it nothing for Subjects to withdraw their assistance from their Prince and their Country Is it nothing to violate the Fundamental Laws of Love and Peace and Charity Is it nothing to rend the Body of a Church into numberless Schisms and Contentions Is it nothing to keep up implacable Feuds and Animosities among Members of the same Commonwealths Is it nothing to harden debauch't and ungodly Men against Religion it self by giving them too much reason to suspect it as a thing that is troublesom and mischievous to Government Is it nothing to encourage the designs of sacrilegious Wretches by giving them advantage under the disguise of Zeal and Purity to prey upon the Churches Antichristian Patrimony In a word Is it nothing to gore the Bowels of a Kingdom with everlasting Changes and Reformations and all this upon Pretences as thin as Sope-bubbles and as brittle as Glass-drops § 11. But let us take a brief Surveigh of their particular Reasonings and Exceptions and then our wonder at these Mens confidence will be so far from abating that it will swell into ecstasie and downright astonishment For first says our Author To say that the Magistrate has Power to institute visible signs of Gods honour to be observed in the outward Worship of God is upon the matter to say that he has Power to institute new Sacraments for so
such things would be But I say so such things would not be and so there is an end of our dispute and at this lock have we stood gazing at one another at least this hundred years here Cartwright begun the Objection and here he was immediately check't in his career by Whitgift who told him plainly He could not be ignorant that to the making of a Sacrament besides the external Element there is required a Commandment of God in his Word that it should be done and a Promise annexed unto it whereof the Sacrament is a seal Here they stopt and his Adversary never proceeded in his Argument but some that came after him resolved not to part so easily with so big an Exception though perhaps for no other reason than because Cartwright had started it and the truth is all his followers have done little more than lickt up the Vomit and Choler of that proud Schismatick and therefore they never pursued this new-fangled Cavil beyond his first Syllogism where himself was repuls't and rebuked and ever since this has been their post and they are resolved to keep it with unyielding and invincible confidence and their foreheads are so hardned that you may sooner beat out their brains than shame or convince them out of their Folly and though they have been so frequently and vehemently urged to a Proof and Prosecution of their Argument they could never be made to stir one foot backward or forward but here they stand like men enchanted and whatever Demands or Questions you propose to them they return you not one syllable of reply but Sacraments Sacraments And in this Posture do they continue to this day to haunt us with the stubbornness of unlaid Ghosts and 't is the only voice this Head of Modesty is able to utter upon this Subject He is resolved upon it that all significant Rites instituted in the Worship of God are real Sacraments and that so they shall be And that is stubborn and indisputable Proof and 't is not modest to bear up against so much Brass and Boldness and yet I am resolved for once to rub my forehead and not to be brow-beaten but to look him in the Face with the confidence of a Basilisk and upbraid him either to make good or to renounce his Argument and if he will neither yield nor proceed to scorn and affront and point him out of his intolerable Confidence Here then I fix my foot and dare him to his Teeth to prove that any thing can be capable of the Nature or Office of Sacraments that is not establish'd by divine Institution and upon Promise of divine Acceptance These are inseparable Conditions of all Sacramental Mysteries and whatsoever other Properties and Qualifications they may have beside these are always necessary and indispensable Ingredients of their Office so that without them nothing can lay claim to their Name or Dignity however any thing may happen to symbolize with them upon other Accounts and by other Circumstances For the Christian Sacraments are the inseparable Pledges and Symbols of the Christian Faith and are establish'd to that Intent by the Author of the Christian Institution and they are such outward Rites and Ceremonies whereby we openly own the Covenant and pass mutual Engagements to stand to its Terms and Conditions and therefore he alone that appointed the Religion is able to appoint by what outward Signs or Acts of stipulation we shall signifie and express our acknowledgment of and submission to his Institutions So that the meaning and intention of it is to assign some particular Act of Worship whereby we may express our Engagements and Resolutions of Obedience to the whole Religion and who then can declare and specifie what Rite he will accept as a full acknowledgment of our duty of Universal Obedience but he alone that requires it And therefore unless it pretend to his Institution there is no imaginable ground why it should be thought to pretend to the Office and Dignity of a Sacrament And certainly they have a very mean opinion of these sacred Mysteries that require nothing more to their Nature and Function but bare significancy and make every external sign capable of that holy and mysterious Office and what can more derogate from the Credit of those great Pledges of our Faith and Instruments of our Salvation As if they carried in them nothing of a more useful or spiritual Efficacy than what every common Rite and Ceremony may acquire or pretend to by Custom and humane Institution § 12. But 't is still more pleasant and more prodigious to see men that are so stiff and dogmatical in their Talk have so little regard to their own Pretences thus whereas they will admit no other Umpirage of our present Disputes about Divine Worship but what may be fetch'd from immediate Divine Authority yet in this grand Exception they take no notice of its Decrees and Determinations and though our Author will have every significant Circumstance of Devotion to partake of the Nature and Mystery of a Divine Sacrament yet he makes no attempt to prove it out of the Word of God No there is not a Text in the four Gospels that may be abused to that purpose And Paul for to allow him the Title of Saint is Popish and Idolatrous and our Author is as shy in all his Writings of bestowing it upon an Apostle as upon Cain or Iudas though he will vouchsafe the Title of Holy that is coincident with it to every Zealot of his own Brotherhood but by what name or title soever dignified or distinguish'd the Apostle Paul is utterly silent in the Case and now we have no higher Authority to vouch our Cause but the Schoolmen and Austin As for the former not to dispute the impertinency of the Quotation whenever they speak sense we are ready to subscribe to their Reason but their bare Authority is of no more force in the Church of England than the Decrees and Oracles of Mr. Calvin their Writings are no part of the Canon of Scripture or the four first General Councils and 't is well known what wise accounts they are forced to give of the Nature of Sacraments to justifie the unwarrantable Determinations of their own Church that had rashly and needlesly enough defined some things to be so that are in themselves infinitely uncapable of that sacred Name and Office And I know nothing for which any part of their coarse and frieze Discourses is more ridiculous in it self or more unanimously condemned by Protestant Writers of all Communions than their loose and groundless descriptions of the Nature and Office of Sacramental Pledges But this is one of their old ways of trifling when the pursuit of their Principles forces them upon an absurdity to father it upon the Schoolmen as if because these men sometimes talk absurdly that shall justifie their Impertinencies And as for his Citation out of St. Austin viz. Signa cum ad res divinas pertinent sunt
a passable proof and so satisfactory that our Author has nothing to except against it but by pretending its inconsistency with some other parts of my Discourse but for the present that is no Objection against the positive truth and direct reason of the Argument it self and in short 't is this All Rituals and Ceremonies and Postures and Manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion are not from their own nature capable of being parts of Religion and therefore unless we used and imposed them as such 't is lamentably precarious to charge their Determination with will-Will-Worship because that consists in making those things parts of Religion that God has not made so so that when the Church expresly declares against this use of them and professeth to injoin them only as meer circumstances of Religious VVorship 't is apparent that it cannot by imposing them make any Additions to the VVorship of God but only provides that what God has required be performed in a decent and orderly manner And this is the real difference between the Christian and Mosaick Ceremonies in that theirs were made lasting and necessary parts of their Religion by being establish't with the same impress of Divine Authority as the Duties of the Moral Law whereas ours are not any integral parts of Divine VVorship but purely accidental and alterable circumstances of Religious Services and so are not of the same standing Necessity and Obligation as were the Mosaick Rites but as they were first established by our Superiours according to the common Rules of decency and discretion so may they be reversed by the same Authority In a word they are of the same Nature and Obligation with all other matters of humane Laws that are only disposed of by the publick Wisdom as it shall by the common notices of things judge them most convenient to publick Ends. § 4. And now upon this Bottom we might fairly wind up this Controversie for I am secure this ever has been and ever will be its real Issue But our Author cries no no. For if this Principle should fail us there are yet other general Maxims which Non-conformists adhere unto and suppose not justly questionable which they can firmly stand and build upon in the management of their Plea as to all differences between me and them i. e. He is a resolved and incorrigible Schismatick and the plain design of these words is only to encourage the People to stand firm to their Principles what though we may be stormed out of our old Elsibeth-pretensions let us not immediately resign up our Colours and march out of our Cause we have when all is lost unknown retreats and fastnesses as all Banditi and Moss-Troopers have to secure our selves from perfect discovery and destruction This man is a Demetrius a Ring-leader in sedition and therefore it more peculiarly concerns him to bestir himself and keep the Mutineers together and raise and animate their fainting spirits against discouragements and despondencies The People may murmur among themselves Is this poor Pretence the only ground of all our Schisms and Disturbances Have our Leaders no greater grievance against the publick Laws than this lank and pitiful Story which themselves it seems dare not own without mincing and disguising it with their own shuffling and to us unintelligible Reservations Is this all the Popery and Idolatry of the Church of England against which they are still inveighing with so much Zeal and Bitterness at the Meetings Must all this noise and stir be made and the King and Parliament thus disturbed for this Neighbours let us be advised and not create all this needless trouble to our selves and others only to countenance their Pride and Peevishness The plain troth is their Zeal was so flush'd with success in the late Tumults as transported them to too much Outrage and Cruelty against the Church and now because forsooth they are ashamed to acknowledge their fault and folly for what disgrace so grievous to proud and self-opinionated men as to confess an Error we fools as we are must be inveigled and drawn in to bear out their Extravagances Come come this is the true Mystery of Separation For you may see they themselves whatever they pretend are not so fond as seriously to believe the Publick Worship Popish and Idolatrous Do we not know that the Chiefs of the Presbyterians came constantly to Church and to Common Prayer till of late and those that are more modest and peaceable do so still which 't is apparent they could never have done had they really deem'd it Idolatry How then shall we justifie our selves in running thus giddily into these wild and unwarrantable Schisms Does not common sense tell us though perhaps we understand nor their School subtilties that 't is a base and unworthy thing thus insolently to affront the Kings Laws when we may avoid it without breaking Gods And therefore seeing whatever Reasons they may have for their own Non-conformity we are satisfied by their own example they have none big enough to warrant our Separation Let us then resolve with one Consent to be peaceable and ingenuous and return every man to his own home and his own Parish-Church But bear back this great Chieftain appears for he is still upon all Occasions the most bold and forward Oratour to hearten his back-sliding Brethren against Doubts and Despondencies witness Ianuary 31. in the year 48. when those wretched Miscreants wanted some spiritual Comfort and Cordial against the horrour of their Yesterdays villany And thus he appears in this present streight and thus you may suppose him after Preface of solemn wink to bespeak the mutinous Churches My Friends do you consider what you attempt Do you know what dreadful and horrible things are still behind Alas False Worship Superstition Tyranny and Cruelty lye at the Bottom and when these have possessed the Governours of a Nation and wrapt in the consent of the greatest Part of the People who have been acquainted with the mind of God that People and Nation assure your selves without unpresidented Mercy is obnoxious to remediless Ruine If you think Babylon is confined to Rome and its open Idolatry you know nothing of Babylon or the new Ierusalem no no their darling Errors are stones of the old Babel closing and coupling with that tremendous Fabrick which the man of sin has erected to dethrone Jesus Christ. You may venture to taste if you please but remember who forewarned you there is death in the Episcopal Pot. But as for your own Parts let all the World know and let the House of England know this day that you lie unthankfully under as full a dispensation of mercy and grace as ever Nation in the World enjoyed well you will one day know what it is to undervalue the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ i. e. the seditious Preachings of I.O. Good Lord What would helpless Macedonians give for one of your Enjoyments O that Wales O that Ireland O
except this single one I will in requital freely grant him all his other Nine if that will do him any service though for what use he intends them in our present Enquiry I confess I am not able to divine however I am not at all concern'd in them and therefore if he can make any advantage of their service much good may they do him And now having driven the Nail thus home with hard Notions out of the School-men he clincheth it with Testimonies out of the Fathers and if I will not be born down by strength of Reason no nor Confidence he resolves to sweep me away with the Torrent of Authority But though he argues very ill yet he quotes much worse For you know it has been an old and beaten Controversie between us and the Church of Rome whether the written Word of God be the adequate Rule of Faith and in this both sides have hotly engaged with all sorts of Weapons viz. Reason Scripture and the Opinion of the Ancients to which last purpose many Protestant Writers have collected a vast variety of express Assertions out of their VVritings in behalf of the Protestant Opinion Now some of these our Author gravely transcribes for my Confutation and what they plainly affirm'd of necessary Articles of Faith he confidently applies to Ceremonies of outward VVorship Out of what particular Author he made bold to borrow them they are so common and trivial it is impossible to determine you may meet them all together with some other Company out of which he has cunningly drawn these to escape discovery in Chamier tom 1. Lib. 10. where he maintains the perfection and sufficiency of the Canon of Scripture for a Rule of Faith And the passages themselves do so plainly limit their own sense to this subject that they are utterly uncapable of any other Application and if you can prevail with your self barely to run them over that without any farther trouble will satisfie you of their wretched and palpable Impertinency for my own part I have neither leisure nor patience to waste precious time and good Paper upon such woful Trash Let him take his liberty in his own wild Rangings whilst he roves aloof off from my Concerns and therefore I am resolved without regard to his unnecessary digressions to confine my discourse only to those things that pretend a direct and immediate attempt upon my former Treatise § 9. In the Prosecution of this Argument I shewed this Principle to be so perpetually pregnant with mischiefs and disturbances that 't is impossible any Church should establish any Rules of Decency or Laws of Discipline or any setled frame of things appertaining to the Offices of external Religion that it will not of necessity contradict and abrogate in that there never was nor ever can be any Form of Worship as to all Circumstances prescribed in the Word of God because that has actually determined no exteriour parts of Religion beyond the two Sacraments and therefore as long as men lie under the power of a Principle so equally false and troublesom they can never want what themselves may apprehend a just Pretence to warrant Disturbance and Disobedience So that we found by experience that when once it was let loose upon the Institutions of the Church of England it worried every thing that stood in its way and turn'd its fury alike upon every Party that pretended to peace and setlement it was merciless as some bodies rage and lust and spared nothing that Sacriledge could devour And as by this the Puritans assaulted and ruin'd the Church of England so when they subdivided among themselves and mouldred into new Churches and Factions it was still the Offensive Weapon of every aspiring Party with it the Independents vanquish'd the Presbyterians with it the Anabaptists attempted the Independents and with it all the little Under-sects set up against the Anabaptists and with it as soon as they were born like the Dragons Teeth they fell foul upon each other and had they crumbled into a thousand farther divisions and subdivisions for nothing so endless as Phanatick Innovations it would equally have served both for and against all because whatever particular Customs and Rules of Decency they should have agreed upon in the Worship of God it was apparently enough impossible they should ever vouch and warrant their Prescription out of the Word of God the Reason is evident because that has prescribed and determined none at all And therefore after the Liturgy it sent the Directory with Church musick it silenced Sternholds Rhimes with the Cross it cashier'd sprinkling in Baptism and when it had at least in design pluckt down Cathedral Churches it fell upon Steeple-houses And what could ever stop the fury of so endless and so unreasonable a Principle for when it had wandred as far as Tom of Odcomb through a numberless variety of Changes and Reformations it would ever have been at as great a distance from its intended End as the foolish Traveller when he had compassed the Top of Olympus was from touching the Sun For how should men with all their search and travel be ever able to discover that in the Word of God which the Word of God has no where discover'd in it self But 't is no matter for that our Author appeals to all mankind whether an issue and setled stability be not likelier to be effected by all mens consenting unto one common Rule whereby these differences may be tried and examined than that every Party should be left at Liberty to indulge to their own Affections and Imaginations about them In plain troth Sir I must take some severer course with this man if nothing else will reclaim him from this lazy Trade of Begging I had taken pains to prove both from the Nature of the Thing and the Experience of the World that this Principle carries disquiet and disturbance in its bare supposition because it stands upon demands impossible to be satisfied But this man without taking any notice of my Arguments replies like himself i. e. boldly and impertinently to my Assertion and gravely supposes there is or ought to be a common Rule established in the World whereby differences concerning outward Worship may be tried and examined which is the very thing in Question between us and all my Proofs to which this is intended for a satisfactory Answer are directly levell'd against the very supposition it self in that it invites and engages men to remonstrate to any setled Form of Worship upon such unreasonable grounds of Exception as it is impossible for any Church in the World either to avoid or to redress If indeed there were any such common Rule prescribed in the Gospel it would no doubt be a certain and admirable way to determine Controversies but in the mean while to suppose it against flat experience because we apprehend it convenient for our own Ends and Interests is just such another way of arguing as the Romanists insist upon to prove the
be brief all the dreadful Prophesies of St. Iohn are not to be appeased till the Princes of Christendom shall be pleased to agree in the Ius Divinum of Independency In the next following Section I demand why forsooth this Proposition must be limited to matters of Religion only And why the Scripture ought not to be esteemed as perfect a Rule of Civil as of Ecclesiastical Polity and why not as complete a System of Ethicks as a Canon of Worship So that if I should require any other Reason of this Limitation beside their own humour it is not in its own nature capable of any other account but what is given by the Scriptures themselves and therefore unless they can shew us where they expresly limit this Doctrine to matters of Worship the very Pretence disproves and condemns it self But our Author instead of standing to this Appeal and satisfying my demands by Determinations out of the Word of God endeavours to account for this difference by the meer Reason of things themselves which though it were true is yet coarsly impertinent seeing the Principle it self disclaims any other proof or Confirmation but what relies upon express Testimony of Scripture And yet 't is as false as 't is impertinent for 't is in many words to this purpose That matters of Civil Government relate to the Conveniences of this Life and so are capable of being varied according to the Circumstances of things and Rules of prudence whereas the things that appertain to the Worship of God have another reference to the pleasing of God and the purchase of Eternity and therefore are stated by him in all particulars and not at all left to prudential Accommodations This little subterfuge you know I have already stopt and though I had not it is obvious at the first glance of a reflecting thought that all matters Civil Moral and Religious have a common Relation to the Concerns both of our present and future state The Affairs of Religion may as they are managed be either useful or hurtful to the Conveniences of this Life and on the contrary our Civil and Political Interests have an unavoidable Reference to the Accounts of the Life to come and therefore to spare more words this can make no difference between them as to the Jurisdiction of Earthly Powers § 10. In the next Paragraph I endeavoured to represent how this delicacy and coyness of Conscience must engage men to remonstrate to the Institutions of all Churches that either were are or shall be in the World And here I instanced in some Customs both of the Jewish and the Primitive Christian Churches of old and of late in those of the Lutheran and Calvinian Communion and more particularly in some of the Rites and Usages of the Long-Parliament Reformation But here he wisely winks at all the Instances I produced of things now in being for their notoreity of Fact is so certain and unquestionable that 't is impossible any Face should be varnish'd with Confidence enough to deny it with eyes open And then as for the Precedents I alledged out of the Records of Ancient times he turns them all off with one short and scornful glance What tell you me says he of the Feast of Purim was it not a Civil Observance Though 't is so infinitely certain it was a solemn day of Thanksgiving instituted by Mordecai for so eminent and unexpected a Deliverance of the Jewish Nation from that general Massacre that was so bloudily plotted and so fiercely prosecuted by Haman and his Accomplices And for this reason was it attended as all their other Festivals of Joy ever were and ours ought to be with bounty and charity to the Poor But if he will not allow the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the Month Adar to have been Religious Feasts 't is to be feared he will in time proceed to deny that the twenty fourth of October in the year 1651. was observed with Holy-day Respect and Religion though it be marked out in some bodies Calendar as a solemn day of Thanksgiving for the destruction of the Scots Army at Worcester and the Providential deliverance of these Nations from their Civil and Ecclesiastical Bondage and from a Tyrant full of Revenge and a Discipline full of Persecution with sundry other Mercies In the next place what do I twit him with the Feasts of the Dedication and the Fasts of the Captivity when I have no proof of their being approved But gentle Sir had they been such bold and unwarrantable Encroachments upon the divine Prerogative as you pretend it can scarce be imagined but that God would sometime or other have protested against them as he often did against all their other Obliquities and misdemeanours so that their not being expresly scorn'd and rejected is of it self a just and safe Presumption of their Acceptance And yet however as for the first Feast of the Dedication of the Altar instituted and observed by Solomon there is the same evidence of its being accepted as there is of the whole solemnity of consecrating the Temple for immediately after the end of this Ceremony which was the last part of this Princely and magnificent Performance God himself is pleased to declare to Solomon his full and entire Approbation of the whole duty And then as for the latter Feast of Dedication for rebuilding the Altar by Iudas and the Maccabees it was performed with extraordinary Gravity and Devotion and is represented by the Author of that History as a remarkable Instance of their Zeal and Piety And that is sufficient proof that the Jews themselves as strictly as they were tied up by the Mosaick Canon to prescript Forms had no such terrible Conceptions of the Sacrilegious Boldness of new occasional Solemnities and ceremonial Additions But those were Apocryphal Times and therefore not capable of the evidence of divine Testimony unless it were that our Saviour afterward sufficiently intimated he did not dislike the Institution by vouchsafing his Presence at the Solemnity which had it been such an unlawful observance he would never have done unless that he might take occasion to reprove it as he did all their other unwarrantable Traditions And as for the other Parallel Instance of the Fasts of the Captivity I see not how we can expect or desire a more express Allowance and Approbation than what the Almighty himself has been pleased to give us by his own immediate Inspiration Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the Fast of the fourth month and the Fast of the fifth and the fast of the seventh and the Fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Iudah Ioy and Gladness and chearful Feasts therefore love the Truth and Peace Where are reckoned up without any mark of difference three Fasts instituted upon emergent and occasional reasons together with one ordained and appointed by God himself and where also 't is promised if they would reform their Immoralities according to the
and as to this particular business of the Scots they speak thus When they i. e. Papists Clergy and other Enemies of Religion conceived the way sufficiently prepared they at last resolved to put on their Master-piece in Scotland where the same method had been followed and more boldly unmask themselves in imposing upon them a Popish Service-Book for well they knew the same Fate attended both Kingdoms and Religion could not be altered in one without the other God raised the Spirits in that Nation to oppose it with so much zeal and indignation that it kindled such a flame as no expedient could be found but a Parliament here to quench it i. e. By hiring and tempting them to a new Rebellion at the price of one hundred thousand Pound beside the reward of Pay and Plunder for the common Souldiers the promise of Church-Revenues for the chief Promoters of the service the sacrifice of the Archbishop of Canterbury to their malice and revenge and what was most likely to endear the Cause the Reformation of the Discipline and Worship of the Church of England by the Model of the Kirk of Scotland that absolute Pattern of a thorough godly Rebellion Again The Declaration of Lords and Commons March 2. orders this Kingdom to be put in a posture of defence by Sea and Land because there was a design by those in greatest Authority about the King for the altering of Religion That the Scottish War was fomented and the Irish Rebellion framed for that purpose That they had Advertisements from Venice and Paris and Rome that the King was to have four thousand men out of France and Spain which could be to no other end than to change his own Profession and the Publick Religion of the Kingdom In the 19 Propositions sent Iune 2. 1642. the eighth is this That your Majesty will be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made of the Church-Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise c. And the 17th That the King should enter into a more strict Alliance with the Protestant Princes and States for the defence of the Protestant Religion against the Attempts of the Pope and his Adherents And the Propositions made by Lords and Commons Iune 10. 1642. for bringing in Money and Plate to maintain Horse and Arms runs upon this ground first That Religion else will be destroyed and this is particularly recommended to all those that tender their Religion And when the King countermanded the Propositions they re-inforce them by the endearments of Religion And Tuesday 12 Iuly 1642. resolve it upon the Question That an Army be forthwith raised for its defence and preservation Their Declaration of Aug. 8. 1642. grounds its self upon this That the Kings Army was raised for the Oppression of the true Religion And therefore they give this account to the World for a satisfaction to all Men of the Justice of their proceedings and a warning to those who are involved in the same danger with them to let them see the necessity and duty which lies upon them to save themselves their Religion and Country Where they tell us at large and in great passion That Papists ambitious and discontented Clergy-men Delinquents and ill-affected persons of the Nobility and Gentry have conspired together and often attempted the alteration of Religion c. That all was subject to will and power that so mens minds being made poor and base and their Liberties lost and gone they might be ready to let go their Religion whensoever it should be resolved to alter it which was and still is the great design and all else made use of but as instrumentary and subservient to it And then after an horrible harangue about the King and Queens going away the Lord Digby's Letter the Members going to York c. They the Papists Prelates c. come to crown their work and put that in execution which was first in their intention that is the changing of Religion into Popery and Superstition The Scots in answer to a Declaration sent them by their Commissioners at London from the two Houses did Aug. 3. 1642. return another wherein they give God thanks for their former and present desires of a Reformation especially of Religion which is the glory and strength of a Kingdom c. Protest that their hearts were heavy and made sad that what is more dear and precious to them than what is dearest to them in the whole World the Reformation of Religion has moved so slowly To which they add that 't is indeed a work full of difficulties but God is greater than the World and when the supreme Providence giveth opportunity of the accepted time and the day of salvation no other work can prosper in the hands of his Servants if it be not apprehended and with all faithfulness improved This Kirk and Nation when the Lord gave them the calling considered not their own deadness nor staggered at the Promise of an hundred thousand Pound through unbelief but gave glory to God And who knoweth but the Lord hath now some Controversie with England which will not be removed till first and before all the Worship of his Name and the Government of his House be setled according to his own will when this desire shall come it shall be to England after so long desired hopes a tree of life And therefore they proceed to press earnestly for an Uniformity in both Kingdoms but it must be after their own model What hopes say they can there be of Unity in Religion in one Confession of Faith one form of Worship one Catechism till there be first one form of Ecclesiastical Government yea what hope can the Kingdom and Kirk of Scotland have of a durable Peace till Prelacy be pluckt up Root and Branch as a Plant which God hath not planted and from which no better Fruits can be expected than such sowre Grapes as this day set on edge the Kingdom of England In answer to this goodly Declaration the Lords and Commons desire it may be considered that that Party which has now incensed and armed his Majesty against us is the very same which not long since upon the very same design of rooting out the Reformed Religion did endeavour to begin the Tragedy in Scotland c. And having thanked the Assembly of the Church of Scotland for proposing those things which may unite the two Churches and Nations against Popery and all superstitious Sects and Innovations whatsoever do assure that they have thereupon resumed into their Consideration the matters concerning the Reformation of Church-Government and Discipline which say they we have often had in consultation and debate since the beginning of this Parliament and ever made it our chiefest aim though we have been powerfully opposed in the Prosecution and Accomplishment of it And in another Declaration to the Convention of Estates they remonstrate that the honourable Houses have fully
take it ill in good earnest if we only deny them the Liberty and free Exercise of their Religion till they are willing to give us some security of their being governable § 12. The second part of Protestancy is the Reformation of Doctrine and here the design was to abolish the Corruptions and unwarrantable Innovations of the Church of Rome and to retrieve the pure and primitive Christianity It was not their aim to exchange Thomas Aquinas his Sums for Calvin's Institutions or Bodies of School-Divinity for Dutch Systems but to reduce Christianity to the prescript of the Word of God and the practice of the first and uncorrupted Ages of the Church to clear the Foundations of our Faith from all false and groundless Superstructures and once more recover into the Christian World a pure and Apostolical Religion And therefore the only Rule of our Churches Reformation were the Scriptures and four first general Councils She admits not of any upstart Doctrines and new Models of Orthodoxy but all the Articles of her Belief are ancient and Apostolical and if she her self should teach any other Propositions she protests against their being matters of Faith and of necessity to Salvation And for this reason she imposes not her own Articles as Articles of Faith but of Peace and Communion Nor does she censure other Churches for their different Confessions but allows them the Liberty she takes to establish more or less Conditions of Communion as the Governours of the Church shall deem most expedient for peace and unity And she only requires of such as are admitted to any Office Imployment in the Church subscription to them as certain Theological Verities not repugnant to the Word of God which she has particularly selected from among many other to be publickly taught and maintain'd within her Communion as necessary or highly conducive to the preservation of Truth and prevention of Schism and for this reason she passes no other censure upon the Impugners of her Articles than what she has provided against the Impugners of the Publick Liturgy Episcopal Government and the Rites Ceremonies of Worship because they are all intended to the same end the avoiding Disorders and Confusions These then are the conditional Articles of the Communion of the Church of England and they are necessary and excellent provisions for peace and unity For among all the Disputes and Divisions of Christendom it is but reasonable she should take security of those Mens Doctrines and Opinions whom she intrusts in publick Imployments to prevent her being embroil'd in perpetual Quarrels and Controversies So that Subscriptions to the Articles is required chiefly upon the same account as the Oath of Supremacy whose Penalty is That such who refuse it shall be excluded such places of Honour and Profit as they hold in the Church or Commonwealth And 't is very reasonable that Princes should be particularly secured of the Fidelity of those Subjects that they entrust with their publick Offices And thus all the punishment that the Church of England is willing to have inflicted upon Dissenters from her Articles is to deprive them of their Ecclesiastical Preferments as being unfit for Ecclesiastical Imployments For though she is not so careless of her own peace as to impower Men in the exercise of her publick Offices at all adventure so neither is she so rigorous as to make Inquisition into their private Thoughts And therefore we are not so harsh and unmerciful as somebody you wot of who would be thought a warm Bigot for Toleration and yet has sometime profest he would give his Vote to banish any Man the Kingdom that should refuse their Subscription But as for the absolute Articles of the Faith of the Church of England they are of a more ancient date they were not of her own contriving but such as she found establish't in the purest and most uncorrupted Ages of the Church and in the times nearest to the primitive and Apostolical simplicity That is the measure of her Faith and the standard of her Reformation here she fixes the bounds of her Belief and seals up the Symbol of her Creed to prevent the danger of endless Additions and Innovations But as for all other matters I say with the late Learned Archbishop as he discourses against Fisher If any Errour which might fall into this as any other Reformation can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal And withal by virtue of this Fundamental Maxim may in due time and manner be redrest By the wisdom and moderation of this Principle the Church secures her self against the Prescription of Errour So that if she should at any time hereafter discover any defect in any particular instance of her Laws and Constitutions and in a work so great so various and so difficult 't is not impossible as the Archbishop observes for the greatest caution and prudence to be overseen in some smaller things she has reserved a just power in her self to reform and amend it This in brief is a true and honest account of the Protestancy of the Church of England But so it hapned that beyond the Seas there arose another Generation of pert and forward Men the vehemence of whose Zeal and Passion transported them from extream to extream so that they immediately began to measure Truth not by its agreement with the Scriptures and the purest Ages of the Church but by its distance from the See of Rome and the Apostacy of latter times whereby it so came to pass that they did but barter Errours in stead of reforming Corruptions and in lieu of the old Popish Tenets only set up some of their own new-fangled conceits But above all the rest there sprung up a mighty Bramble on the South-bank of the Lake Lemane that such is the rankness of the Soil spred and flourish't with such a sudden growth that in a few days partly by the industry of its Agents abroad and partly by its own indefatigable pains and pragmaticalness it quite over run the whole Reformation and in a short time the right Protestant Cause was almost irrecoverably lost under the more prevailing Power and Interest of Calvinism That proud and busie Man had erected a new Chair of Infallibility and enthroned himself in it and had he been acknowledged their Supreme Pastour he could not have obtruded his Decrees in a more peremptory and definitive way upon the Reformed Churches Nothing can be rightly done in any Foreign Church or State but by his Counsels and Directions He must thrust himself in for the Master-workman where-ever they were hammering Reformation He must be privy to all the Counsels