of their Hearts into the Schism and Faction as I make no question there have been some let your Eyes be now opened and behold the prospect of your Folly into which you have been miserably seduced by your Leaders and Guides and as you tender your own safety to withdraw from the Tents of Chorah that State of Schism and Antichristianism as the Ancient Fathers accounted it Come out of this Babylon and renounce with Abhorrence all Seditious and Factious Tenents and Opinions all disloyal Principles and Practices whatsoever and return into Communion of your Mother the Church of England For however invincible Ignorance heretofore might extenuate your Crimes yet now it will not when it will certainly be no less than Sin against Knowledge and Experience it will be wilful and affected Ignorance shutting your Eyes against clear Evidence and Demonstration which will no more excuse you notwithstanding your pretences of Conscience than it did the Jews in Crucifying our Saviour or those that killed the Apostles because their wicked Consciences told them That therein they did God good Service And it cannot but be matter of great wonder that after such clear and evident Discovery and Detection of the abominable Hypocrisie and Wickedness of Fanaticism That ever there should remain any one among us at this day Those therefore that still remain such must needs be looked upon as having most prostituted and malicious Souls who are in Judgment given up to a reprobate Mind whose end is Destruction as the Apostle speaks And it is a matter of great wonder That there are so many in our days still to remain so sottish as when they make use of the Rules of Prudence and Discretion in all their other Concernments yet as to their greatest Concernment their Immortal Souls they lay them aside and every or any pitiful Schismatick and Imposter or any piece of Folly Ignorance Peevishness and Ignorance must serve their turn be the Director and Guide of their Souls and yet nevertheless they will profess to believe That Miracles are ceased in the Church To perswade us all now to learn to be Dutiful and Loyal Subjects to our Prince and Liege Lord the King our Gracious Sovereign Let us consider as one of late hath well observed That the Worth Excellency and Providence of a Prince are not sufficient to make a Kingdom or Nation Happy His Subjects ought to Contribute their Proportions also to it Let us therefore abhorr and detest and cast away those Seditious Principles of the late times That we may do Evil that Good may come and That a lawful Prince may be withstood and resisted when-ever they themselves shall judge that Religion and Property is invaded or in Danger For when these dangerous Opinions prevail among Subjects in what Circumstances must needs that Prince be when-ever an Opportunity offers it self our late times have sufficiently verified by plain Demonstrations Let us entertain therefore in our Minds the Honest Christian Loyal Principles of the Church of England Let us be obedient Sons unto Her Let us be of humble peaceable and complying Tempers for this is an undeniable Truth That it is a far less Crime to commit an Error on the right Hand that is to say in a peaceable Compliance with just and lawful Authority to promote thereby Order Government Peace and Vnity Than on the left that is to say to commit an Error in disobedience to just Authority in this sence it may be well said Melius est Humilitas in malis quam Superbia in bonis For as the first proceeds from Humility and dutiful Subjection to Authority and is the Preserver of publick Order Government Unity and Peace wherein the Welfare of Mankind principally consists in this World So the other is the product of Pride Presumption and Insolence and over-turns all Government Order and Peace in the World and brings in nothing but Disturbances Strife and Contention Rebellion Blood and Ruin and in short if Subjects would be Loyal Kingdoms could not be miserable But I would not herein be misunderstood to plead for Sin in any case for the obtaining the greatest good although a Heathen once said Iniquissimam pacem justissimo bello antefero he preferr'd an unjust Peace before a most just War But this I am confident of We cannot be innocent when-ever we disobey a just Authority except the unlawfulness of the thing commanded be as clear and apparent as our Duty of Obedience is And for my own part I would chuse rather to run to the utmost extent of what is lawful before I would refuse Active Obedience to a just and lawful Authority either in Church or State and I think I have the Holy Christian Religion on my side to justifie me herein And I am ready to think also that according to this Rule all our Dissenters and Fanaticks will be Tryed one day at the Great Tribunal when their Proud Ignorant Pievish and Froward Consciences shall be no excuse to them It doubtless therefore very much concerns us to consider seriously of the great danger there is in those no small Sins of Heresie and Schism to such as are really and truly such And we are more easily deceived in these kind of Sins in regard Satan herein is notably transformed into an Angel of Light And such Persons who are not so easily tempted to Intemperance and Debauchery yet herein greedily swallow down his Baits and spiritual Pride that is ready to attend such Men as are free from Debauchery and Prophaneness many times helps forward the Temptation likewise the greatest Hereticks and Schismaticks that ever were in the World have had very fair outsides at least I mean of good and pious Conversations How much therefore doth it concern us to have a great Care of that Sin that attends such as are possibly otherwise good Men but nevertheless of all Vices is one of the greatest and most pernicious For as one well said Whereas all other Vices proceed from some ill in us some sinful Imbecility of our Nature This alone ariseth out of our good Parts Now to let us know what these Sins are Calvin speaketh thus in his Institutes They are called Hereticks and Schismaticks who making a Division do break in sunder the Communion of the Church which is contained in two Bonds viz. The Agreement of true Doctrine and Brotherly Love whereupon St. Austin saith he putteth this difference between Schismaticks and Hereticks because the latter viz. Hereticks corrupt with false Opinions the sincerity of the Faith and the former viz. Schismaticks even where there is like Faith do break the the Bond of Fellowship But yet we are farther to consider to make an Heretick There must be not only frror in Intellectu but Pertinacia in Voluntate not only Error in the Understanding but Obstinacy in the Will for as St. Austin speaketh Qui sententiam suam quamvis falsam atque perversam nullae pertinaci animositate defendunt quaerunt autem cauta sollicitudine veritatem
beyond Example but Belief as a late worthy Author hath observed which Crimes it is much to be feared are not yet expiated although forgot but cry aloud to Heaven for Vengeance especially considering how many there have been among us in this Nation who were so far from Repenting of the said horrid Villainies that they owned and avowed those very Principles of Sedition and Disloyalty which promoted and were the cause of the same and with audacious Impudence proceeding many steps onwards in the same Path of Disloyalty and towards the perpetrating of the same Wickedness again Let us consider also of our Pride and Wantonness in Religion our running greedily into Errors Heresies and Schisms with the Consequences of them Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Sedition Envyings Murthers the loss of true Religion Peace and Unity and how we have by this means cloathed Religion and that which some would call the Protestant Religion in a deformed Dress in a Fools Coat made it Ridiculous yea Loathsom to all sober and considering Persons in the World And therefore now to make us sensible of the Wickedness of the late times and especially considering there is a generation risen up since who are many of them ignorant of the same I shall make a short Scheme Draught and Representation of the Rise Progress Fruit and Effect of Fanaticism and Schism We may understand That there was a happy Reformation of Religion perfected and compleated in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth of Blessed Memory by the Wisdom Moderation and Judgment of our Wise Reformers the Reverend Learned and Pious Divines the Bishops and Clergy of the Church of England in Convocation Assembled who proposed to themselves the keeping of the Golden Mean Reforming no farther from Rome than was fit necessary and commendable and indeed no farther receding from Rome than she had receded from her self and from Antiquity and therein doing no more than what had been the desires of many others famous and worthy Men who nevertheless lived and died in Communion of that Church and what was thought upon good grounds That other Parts of Christendom would have attempted and effected if they could have had a lawful Oppertunity and Authority for the doing thereof as we had in England In short as the Worthy Dr. Fearn truly states the Case of our Reformation in England We said he had just Cause to Reform and so had our Adversaries the Romanists We in Reforming did what we ought if they had done what they ought and had cause to do no breach or division had followed And further We in doing what we ought preserved the Faith entire together with Charity they would neither cast off their Errors which clogged and corrupted the Faith nor retain Charity but cut us off as much as in them lay from the Catholick Church So that it is clear saith that Worthy Author to whom the Division must be imputed Now we must understand presently after the compleating of this happy Reformation of Religion in Queen Elizabeth's Reign there arose a discontented and dissatisfied Faction although curb'd and kept under by her called a while after Puritans which were like Mothes in a Cloth eating and fretting the same continually murmuring against the said excellent Reformation finding great fault with Government Liturgy and the Reverend Bishops and Governors of the Church instead of being thankful to God for the same and of their ready and chearful Subjection as good Christians ought to this Excellent Constitution Yea the said Faction did proceed to repine and complain against the same refusing to Conform to it and so continued to do all King Jame's Reign abusing the Favor and Indulgence of that good Prince granted to them in the Conference at Hampton-Court increasing and growing more numerous by their pretences to Piety and Purity of Religion with their frequent Sermons and Lectures then superstitiously accounted the Main if not the All of Religion and then also very much perverted and abused to promote Faction and Discontents against the Ecclesiastical Government until at last growing to a Head about the middle of the Reign of King Charles the First they then arrived to the height of Boldness and Insolence and by the means of that black Parliament 1640. in the Choice of whose Members of the House of Commons that Faction had a great hand together with the Rebellion of their Brethren the Scots they became like an impetuous and overflowing Flood and carried and bore down all before them in the Nation And as the only pious and godly People and true Protestants fit to Rule and Govern the Kingdom that Parliament having by importunity and specious Pretences obtained of their Sovereign a Confirmation for their sitting as long as they pleased boldly then managed a War and Rebellion against their Sovereign and when by this means this Nation not to mention Ireland had lain divers years weltering in Blood God in just Judgment upon the Nation suffering them to prosper in their Wickedness they then seized into their hands all the Royal Prerogatives the Revenues and Lands the Jewels and Goods of the Crown the Supports of the Royal Dignity deposing and most barbarously Imprisoning their Liege Lord and Sovereign Charles the First of ever Blessed Memory who then flying to his own Country-men the Scots for Protection was sold and Betrayed by them and retaining Him in Prison in Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight not suffering Him to enjoy so much as one of his Servants or Chaplains to Attend Him Then also forcing into Banishment the Royal Family to live upon the Charity of Roman Catholicks and what some Loyal Subjects in England secretly conveyed over to them with the peril of their Lives That Faction then further proceeded on to overthrow the Government of the Church to cast out Prelacy as a piece of Popery totally dissolved all Church-Government sacrilegiously sold all Church-Lands and Revenues also casting off as Popish and Antichristian the Holy Feasts and Fasts of the Church as Christmas Easter c. turned Churches into Stables also in the mean time all-a-long miserably debauching and corrupting the Christian Sound Doctrine as that wise Prelate Arch-Bishop Bancroft charged them with long before in his Survey of the Holy discipline His words are these That the Puritans did pervert the true meaning both of Scripture and Fathers to serve their own turn especially in these particulars following Not to mention that Opinion of God's designing from all Eternity the greatest part of Mankind to destruction merely from the good pleasure of his Will a Doctrine highly dishonourable to the Divine Majesty First That we are saved by Faith alone when yet they saw this was so interpreted as if they did define Righteousness by the sole Opinion or Perswasion of the Mind and did seclude good Works That we are justified by the imputation of Christ's Righteousness to us as if we had fulfilled the whole Law our selves and that we are cloathed with this Garment of our Elder
his Crown may flourish And in the next place abhorring that which is evil let us cleave to that which is Good for I hope we need not be exhorted not to be again Authors of our own Ruin And that as we cannot be so senseless but abominate the horrid Crimes afore-mentioned and earnestly desire our own Welfare and Happiness so to lay aside all Murmuring and Discontent all Schism and Faction all Sedition and Rebellion to yield all Loyal and Faithful Subjection to Our Gracious Sovereign the Lord 's Annoynted according to the Pure and Sound Doctrine and Principles of Christianity of our Mother the Church of England whose true Sons have as one speaks been ever found by Experience to be Cordial Friends to the Crown of England and which Church is the greatest Example of Loyalty that perhaps ever appeared in the Christian World unto whom let us submit our selves as the worthy Dr. Hammond admonishes us His words are these Uniform Obedience is due from us to the Commands of that Church wherein we were born the Church of England which of all others in the Christian world hath most adhered to the universal Church of the first and purest Ages Let us Conform our selves therefore to this best Constituted Church in the World who hath kept to that Excellent Rule Quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus receptum fuit and adhered to the Scriptures and true Antiquity Let us live peaceable and quiet Lives in all Godliness and Honesty and adhere to our Holy Christian Religion in all things and make our Religion the great Business of our Lives For Inter Christianos Gentiles non tantum fides debet sed etiam vita distinguere we ought to be distinguisht by our Lives and Conversations as well as by our Faith and Profession For this is most certain That true Piety Vertue and Goodness Integrity Humility Loyalty and Peaceableness are the most proper Fruits and Effects of a well-instructed pure Religion of a sound Faith and Perswasion As it is therefore doubtless the Great Interest of Princes to Protect Countenance and Support the true Religion of Jesus Christ which is repleat with nothing but Humility Fidelity Justice Wisdom Moderation Temperance Sobriety Subjection Loyalty Peaceableness Unity Love and Charity So also it is their great Interest to take care to propagate among their Subjects good and sound Principles of Religion Subjection and Loyalty and to that end That there be a total Suppression of all erroneous and seditious Books and Discourses and that together with the Sacred Scriptures and good Catechisms there might be permitted none but sound Tracts of Practical Divinity well and wisely composed to come into the Hands of their Subjects according to which there should also be constant Means of instructing all Men by Preaching but more especially the Youth and younger sort by frequently Catechising them This being well secured it were no matter what became of a many Tracts of Religion currant amongst us if they were committed to the Flames which do but distract and disturb many of them mislead if not poyson Peoples Minds with bad Principles and by those means in time there might be made a happy Reformation of Men's Minds and Manners Let us in the next place consider That it is the great Interest of Subjects to Copy out the Holy Christian Religion in their Lives and Conversations and then most of our great Complaints would without question cease all Disorder and Confusions be no more heard of in the World If Men whom the Most High hath differenced from Beasts by Rational and Immortal Souls would not lay aside their Manhood their Reason and degenerate into Beasts and be led and hurried by their Senses Appetites and Passions They might therefore easily be perswaded to entertain what would certainy promote their True Happiness and Interest the Excellent Religion of the Holy JESVS it being the great Design of God in sending his Son into the World to promote the Welfare and Happiness of Mankind throughout the whole World And can any one not void of all common Reason or Sense think that ever God gave us Wise and Understanding Vigorous and Active Souls merely to animate Human Bodies to Eat and Drink and Sleep to gratifie our Senses our brutal Parts to provide only for our Bodies to be mere Sensualists and Epicures and to acquire and heap up Riches Doubtless our Noble Excellent and Immortal Souls were given us for more noble and excellent Employment and End to be raised up above these things to be busied and taken up with the Contemplation of God of our Glorious Creator his Excellencies and Perfections and all his wonderful Works to Adore Love and Honor Him in all that we are or have That whether we Eat or Drink or whatsoever we do in Word or Deed we should do all the Praise and Glory of God and in all things to be regulated by his Laws Now shall we forget God and be more degenerate than the Beasts which Perish For the Ox knoweth his Owner and the Ass his Master's Crib To come more close to us We that own our selves Christians do we believe the Religion we Profess If we do why doth it signifie so little to us as it doth Why do we not live somewhat answerable to it Or if we do not believe it Why do we own the Profession Either we must be guilty of abominable Hypocrisy or of Atheism and Irreligion And once take away Religion and the Sense of God out of the World you do as it were take the Sun out of the Firmament you take away the Distinctions of Good and Evil bring your selves to be Beasts wallowing in all manner of Filthiness and Sensuality You reduce the World into its first Chaos of Confusion destroy the Happiness of Man overthrow all Rule Order Government and Peace in the World It hath been found by universal Experience in all Ages of the World the great Peace Happiness and Prosperity which hath always risen to the World from Religion and the true lively affecting Sense of God and Obedience to his Laws from the Exercise of Vertue and true Goodness And that on the contrary when Atheism and Prophaneness prevailed that Mens Lusts and Passions quickly disturbed the World and overthrew the publick Peace of States and Kingdoms brought in War Mischief Blood and Ruine turning a Fruitful Land into a Barren Wilderness For how is it possible that such men as are unfaithful to God should be True and Loyal to their Sovereign his Vicegerent upon Earth That such as are men of no Religion men of no Principles and walk by no Rule but are Slaves and Drudges to their Appetites and Lusts should ever in time of Danger and Tryal stick fast to the Crown and Government and perform the Duties of Loyal and Obedient Subjects and dye for their Prince And as for such among us as have been led away by the specious Pretences of Fanaticks in the simplicity and honesty
Doctrine Worship and Government and so to degenerate from its primitive Purity and Integrity and was made use of as a Means and Instrument of acquiring Honor Splendor and Riches and of promoting those great Vices of Pride Covetousness Idleness and Luxury and this instead of making Men Virtuous and Good and rectifying their Lives and Directing them in the Ways of Holiness and Peace conducting them to Heaven Thus I humbly conceive from the Pope's Primacy of Order arose the Supremacy of Jurisdiction and from thence Papal Tyranny packing of General Councils corruption in Doctrine and Practice with innumerable other Mischiefs to the Church the great dividing and endangering Christendom and laying it many times in War and Blood And on the other hand how this Holy Religion of JESVS Christ hath been miserably corrupted and abased by Sectaries and Fanaticks how hath it been made absurd and ridiculous to all the World by their Pride and Folly their ignorant Confidences Peevishness and Animosities Who out of a mad blind Zeal against Popery never could think themselves safe and far enough separated from Rome until they fell into Religious Frensy yet would then notwithstanding account themselves Protestants yea the best of Protestants and what a long train of dismal Consequences there followed the same the World can witness and more especially of late Years we in England as you have heard before Oh! may I therefore exhort us again to bewail our Follies and abandon them to Renounce all Schism Contention Fanaticism that Plague of the Reformation and living vertuous and good Lives and in Conformity and Subjection to our Mother the Church of England her wholesom and Excellent Constitutions Oh! Let us learn this most commendable Duty from our Adversaries the Romanists who are very Respectful towards their Ecclesiastical Governors and very Conformable to the Constitutions of their Church and abhor to do any thing that may prejudice the Order Peace and Welfare of the same in any kind for which I cannot but have a great respect for them and in which I shall endeavour to follow their Example in the Church of England wherein I was born and for so doing they cannot I hope justly blame me And although they are possibly led by a blind Obedience or Impicit Faith as we call it and are thereby many times misled yet their fault arising from a diffidence of themselves and obedience to their Superiors will be very pardonable especially of such as are born and bred in that Communion it being a fault on the Right-hand and far less than what our Fanaticks and Sectaries are guilty of who out of Pride Ignorance and Presumption refuse Subjection to the Spiritual Governors which God hath set over them and thereby break the Unity and Peace of the Church Let us therefore heartily pray as our Mother the Church teaches us Almighty God who shewest to them that be in Error the Light of thy Truth to the intent that they must return into the Way of Righteousness Grant unto all them that are admitted into the Fellowship of Christs Religion that they may eschew those things that are contrary to their profession and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen I shall conclude and say sufficit tentasse Let it suffice I have done my Endeavour in a good Cause For certainly if the Promotion of the Honour of God the Advancement of True Religion and Vertue if the Promoting of Loyalty and Fidelity the Honour and Happiness of my Gracious Sovereign if the Detestation of Errours of Atheism and Prophaneness Vice and Wickedness of Fanaticism Hypocrisie Schism and Rebellion and representing them in their proper colours if promoting the Peace and Happiness of the Church of England as now by Law Establish'd the best Christian Church in the World of Piety and Unity amongst all her Members if promoting the Peace of Christendom and more especially the Honour Happiness and Prosperity of this Nation yea of all his Majesties Dominions I say if the honest endeavours of the same be a commendable and worthy Design it is all I intend in the Writing and now making Publick these although sudden yet serious Thoughts Therefore I hope I may meet with a pardon for the meanness and unworthiness of the performance to so good an end And as for any one that shall find fault with my weak and unworthy management of so worthy so good a Cause it is no more than what I do my self Let him but be pleased to undertake the Cause and manage it better and I assure him I shall be so far from being offended with him That I shall be infinitely well pleased and rejoyce therein and return him my thanks And it is yet my Hopes this Essay may animate and encourage eminent and able Champions in so worthy a Cause which without doubt is the most excellent most honourable most worthy the best in the World and merits the assistance of the ablest Heads Pens and Tongues that are extant among us FINIS Books Printed for and Sold by Luke Meredith at the King's Head at the West End of St. Paul's Church-Yard AN Introduction to the Old English History comprehended in Three several Tracts The First An Answer to Mr. Petyt's Rights of the Commons Asserted and to a Book Entituled Jani Anglorum Facies Nova The Second Edition very much enlarged The Second An Answer to a Book Entituled Argumentum Antinormanicum much upon the same Subject Never before Published The Third The Exact History of the Succession of the Crown of England The Second Edition also very much enlarged Together with an Appendix containing several Records and a Series of Great Councils and Parliaments Before and After the Conquest unto the End of the Reign of Henry the Third And a Glossary expounding many Words used frequently in our Antient Records Laws and Historians Published for the Vindication of Truth and the Assistance of such as desire with Satisfaction to read and truly understand the Antient English Historians and other Pieces of Antiquity By Robert Brady Doctor in Physick A Loyal Tear dropt on the Vault of the High and Mighty Prince Charles the Second of Gorious and Happy Memory By Henry Anderson M. A. Vicar of Kingsumborne in Hampshire The Songs of Moses and Deborah Paraphras'd with Poems on several Occasions Never before Published To which is added A Pindarick on Mr. L'Estrange A Dialogue between a Pastor and his Parishioner touching the Lord's Supper Wherein the most material Doubts and Scruples about Receiving that Holy Sacrament are removed and the Way thereto discovered to be both plain and pleasant Very useful for Private Christians in these scrupulous Times By Michael Altham The Second Edition To which is added Some short Prayers fitted for that Occasion and a Morning and Evening Prayer for the Use of Private Families Two Treatises The First Concerning Reproaching and Censure The Second An Answer to Mr. Serjeant's Sure-Footing To which are annexed Three Sermons Preached upon several Occasions and very useful for these Times By the late Learned and Reverend William Faulkner D. D. Rhetoricae Libri Duo Quorum Prior de Tropis Figuris Posterior de Voce Gestu praecipit In usum Scholarum postremo recogniti infinitisque poene mendis expurgati Autore Carolo Butlero Magd. Artium Magistro Sir Edwin Sands in his Europae Speculum