which being equally commanded by God himself were of equall obligation as to their performance with any of the rest of which no such Typicall account can be given And therefore the reason of their Institution can only be this That since every thing must of necessity be done with some Ceremony in some Place or Time or Order or Gesture or Manner and Circumstance or other it pleased God for the avoiding of Confusion and for the preservation of an uniform and orderly way of Worship which would otherwise be exposed to perpetual change disturbance and alteration to adjust and determine the particular circumstances of those indifferent matters because considering the perverseness of some mens minds and the diversity of their several fancies and humours such changes and alterations could never happen without a considerable breach of Charity and Friendship among men which must needs be a wonderfull Obstruction as well to the interest of the Civil State as to all the religious Performances and Duties both as to their devotion in themselves and as to their acceptance with Almighty God If therefore the nature of Mankind be still the same under the Gospel that it was under the Law if the reasons for the necessity of Uniformity be the same now that ever they were in former ages if the method of this Uniformity be not adjusted by God himself under the Gospel as it was under the Law and if this Uniformity cannot be obtained unless the Church be invested with a right and power of prescribing the terms of it than it follows plainly as hath been already observed that the Church must be invested with such a power because else it would want the necessary means of its own unity and preservation which every Society must be supposed by the Laws of nature and reason to be invested with and if the Church be invested with such a power then all its Members are under an indispensable obligation to obey it because that Power which may be lawfully disobey'd is no Power at all And this is sufficient to vindicate the exercise of Ecclesiastical Censures And if you demand further Whether it be lawfull for the civil Sanction to interpose in behalf of the Church to see that its Orders and Injunctions be duly and faithfully executed and obey'd I answer that it is for this plain reason because the Civil Power has a right of exacting all kinds of lawfull Obedience from its subjects and this obedience if it were not Lawfull could not be enjoyned by the Church it self But besides the express provisions of the Law of Moses it self there were also several pretended traditions of Moses from Mount Sinai there were likewise the determinations of their Wise men in controverted cases the Decisions of the Tannaim and the Amoraim and of the Schools of Hillel and of Schammai the two so much celebrated but disagreeing Founders of the Pharisaick Order For which Traditions and Determinations of their famous Masters the Jewes had usually as great if not greater Veneration than for the Law it self and they were at length swell'd into so vast a bulk that like the Missals and the Rituals of the Romish Church at this day which are so full of Ceremonies burthensom in their number frivolous and superstitious in their use they ate out the very life and heart of true Religion as our Saviour himself in several places of his Gospel with no less Justice than severity complains The Heathen World had also their Sacred Offices prescribed by a certain Form as well before as under the Law And the same is the case with the Mahometan and Pagan Idolaters at this day which Ceremonies of theirs though for their number they be intollerable to a devout Soul which cannot suffer it's self to be so far taken off from the more inward and substantial part of Religion though in their nature they be mostly foolish and in their use Superstitious and in their design Idolatrous as being directed to a false object yet as well these as the Jewish Formalities do prove thus much by the common consent of Mankind that an Uniformity in the outward circumstances of Divine Service is necessary to the more due and solemn performance of Religious Worship and to the publique peace and quiet of the World What is the reason that at this day the French Persecution against the reformed Religion and its Professors rages with so much violence and fury thorough all the spatious Territories and Dominions of that mighty Monarch Shall we think it is a Zeal for the Catholique Religion as they are pleased to call it that is for a Fardle of absur'd ridiculous and blasphemous Superstitions that inspires so wise and powerfull a Prince with so mean thoughts of Cruelty and Revenge Shall we think he acts upon a principle of Conscience who has sufficiently discover'd to the world by his insatiable thirst after Empire which cannot be purchas'd without the price of Bloud that he has no other principle of action than that of a boundless appetite of Rule and Greatness Shall he be thought to act upon a principle of Duty and Religion who makes destructive and depopulating Wars without giving a reason and violates the faith of Peace by arbitrary Dependances and unwarrantable Claimes Who conquers more by the peremptory Decrees of his late erected Chambers than by the conduct of his Generals or by the numbers discipline and valour of his Armies What therefore can be the true cause and motive why he that glories in the blessed title of the Most Christian King should yet notwithstanding persecute Christianity it self What else can be the true reason of all this Cruelty and seeming Madness but that he wisely considers that the true way to Empire abroad is by unity and peace at home that a Kingdome divided against it self cannot stand and that these differences of Religion as they have done already in the experience of that Kingdome as well as ours will some time or other prove the occasions of great disorders and commotions in the State And shall we not then make use of the same wisdome for the support of Christianity which is with so much diligence and zeal made use of by others for its Extirpation For Popery is either no Christianity at all or it is Christianity wrapt up and hid in such an heap of Ceremonies and Superstitions that it can hardly be discerned Is it worth our while to contend about Ceremonies when we are losing the Substance to squabble and fall out about indifferent things when our Religion and our Liberty our temporall and eternall Interest lye at stake If the things prescribed be indifferent and consequently lawfull why do we not show that they are so by complying with them If the quarrells raised about indifferent matters do yet notwithstanding rise as high as those which are agitated between the Papists and us about matters of a necessary and unalterable nature why do we not cement and compose these unhappy breaches by
A SERMON PREACHED Before Sir P. W. Anno 1681. WITH ADDITIONS To which are annexed Three Digressional Exercitations I. Concerning the true Time of our Saviour's Passover II. Concerning the prohibition of the Hebrew Canon to the ancient Jews III. Concerning the Jewish Tetragrammaton and the Pythagorick Tetractys By JOHN TVRNER Late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1684. A SERMON Preached before Sr Patience Ward UPON THE Last SVNDAY of His MAYORALTY Anno 1681. With ADDITIONS By John Turner late Fellow of Christ's College in Cambridge Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio popularis aurae LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. SUMMA PRIVILEGII Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical 1640. Artic. 8. WHereas the Preaching of order and decency according to St. Paul ' s rule doth conduce to edification it is required that all Preachers as well beneficed men as others shall positively and plainly preach and instruct the people in their publick Sermons twice in the year at least that the Rites and Ceremonies now established in the Church of England are lawfull and commendable and that they the said people and others ought to conform themselves in their practice to all the said Rites and Ceremonies and that the people and others ought willingly to submit themselves unto the authority and government of the Church as it is now established under the King's Majesty And if any Preacher shall neglect or refuse to doe according to this Canon let him be suspended by his Ordinary during the time of his refusal or wilfull forbearance to doe thereafter TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON Dean of the CHAPEL ROYAL AND One of His Majestie 's most Honourable Privy Council May it please Your Lordship WHen the following Sermon was preached which is now a full twelve-month ago and as much as since the latter end of October it made so great a noise about the Town and was the occasion of so loud a cry against me from a dâ—sloyal and disaffected party that I was forced immediately to put it to the Press not out of any vain opinion which I had of my performance which as it was but mean in it self so it could not be well expected that it should be better considering the shortâ—ess of the time which was spent in the composing but for my own just and necessary vindication that the world might see and be satisfied what it was that had opened the mouth of Calumny and Detraction so wide and Your Lordship having received information that there was a design to make my Sermon publick which Iacknowledge I ought not to have done without Your Lordship's good leave by whose commission and authority it was preached I was commanded to deliver up my Notes to be perused by Your Lordship before they went to the Press but it so happening that they were then actually in it before that order came and the first sheet having been printed off all the possibility of Obedience that was left me was to recall my Papers from the Press and lay them at Your Lordship's feet as they were torn in pieces by the Printer and in a condition very much ashamed to make their appearance before You. Your Lordship was sensible of the confusion my Papers as well as my self were in and would not suffer them to blush in your presence but was pleas'd to dismiss me in a most obliging manner for which unexpected goodness when I came so apprehensive as I was of a less favourable usage I am bound to pay you my everlasting thanks and to command me further not without expressing some trouble at the incivility and indiscretion of Sir P. W. which was indeed an affront to Your Lordship and the whole Clergy of the three Kingdoms in my person to let you see the Papers when they were printed I came away as I had reason from Whitehall where I had the honour to pay my duty to Your Lordship then going to the Council not onely well satisfied but very much transported with so obliging an answer and having now a Licence from your self as well as from the Eighth of the Ecclesiastical Canons made and set forth by a Convocation of the two Provinces in 1640. whereby we are obliged twice every year to preach upon the Subject of Decency and Order and whatsoever may be preached may be printed also if occasion so require I had now a double encouragement to go on with the Impression and accordingly I did go on If Your Lordship shall demand of me as it is very natural for you to doe what was the reason of its publication being so long delayed all the answer I can make is that it was so far was I at first from designing it for the Press had I not been provoked to it by the clamours of the worst of men as well as encourag'd to stand up in my own defence by such as were friends to the Government and by consequence to me I say as it was I found it to be a very imperfect and unfinish'd piece and such as had reason to apprehend the censures of its friends as well as enemies therefore I presumed to take the liberty not to alter any thing which I had spoken but onely to add so much to it as might make a just disquisition upon the Subject and yet if I had taken a liberty of making alterations so it had been onely in the expression not the sense it would have been such a liberty as would have been vouched by the best examples that antiquity affords Pliny as himself confesses in his Epistles did so by his Panegyrick to the Emperour Trajan and before him that great Master as well of thought as expression did the same by his Oration in defence of Milo and not to say any thing of the Verrine Orations and the invectives against Catiline it is very reasonable to believe that the Philippicks instead of being burnt as Anthony would have had them have been transmitted to Posterity with an improvement of incens'd eloquence and Ciceronian rage There is one thing indeed which I know not whether I ought to mention or no which did receive some little alteration if the omission of a Line or two for it was no more may be called by that name and that is that upon occasion of discourse concerning the persecution still raging in the Territories of the French King I did speak of his Majesty out of the zeal I had for the Protestant Religion and being under no tie of obedience to a foreign Prince but onely of respect to his Character if he do worthily sustain it with so much sharpness and Satyr comparing his Persecution to that of Nero Maximine or Dioclesian which was the very thing and the onely thing that was omitted that there were persons
as I suppose appointed by the Congregation de propaganda side the Committee that manage the interest of the Faction to buz in my ears as an argument to discourage me from publishing what I had spoken that my Sermon would have the honour of being translated into French for the use of Monsieur Barillon that a complaint would be made by the French Ambassadour in a memorial on set purpose that I had broken the Peace between the two Nations and that a Fellow of a College that had not so much as a Pupil to take his part had presumed barely with the assistance of his Sizar a worthy Squire to so redoubted a Knight to levy actual War upon the most potent and formidable Prince that these latter Ages of the World have seen though I was not sensible that I had said any more than they themselves who made use of this advantage against me are every day speaking among one another with a bitterness of Language peculiar to the men that use it though for this perhaps the French King is to thank them that they take no more liberty with him than they do with their own rightfull Sovereign and natural liege Lord the one for subverting the Protestant Religion and the other for maintaining it which shews them to be a People so very hard to be pleased that I am resolved never to be a servant to such difficult Masters for as Aristophanes saith rightly in the entrance into his Plutus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither indeed when all comes to all have I said any more than what most of the Princes and States of Christendom have publickly complained of by their Ambassadours and Agents in the Court of France and what is sufficiently justified by that excellent Person Dr. George Hickes a great ornament of Learning and as able a Champion for the established Religion as ever the field of controversie hath afforded hath verified to a tittle in his judicious Sermon concerning the True Notion of Persecution a Discourse which I wish with all my heart those of the Separation would take the pains to reade that complain so much but so unjustly of the subject of it So that I think upon the whole matter Sorbiere's case and mine are very different from one another though that were the example that was used to fright me for I have not spoken contemptibly of the French Nation which I have always accounted of as a gallant People valiant in War and always excelling in all the arts of Peace much less have I dared to vilifie the awfull Majesty of so great a King whose Sovereign Power I do as much acknowledge to be an image of the divine inviolable sacred and never to be mentioned without reverence and honour as I do that of our Royal Master himself the best of Princes the Father of his Country the delight of Mankind the wonder of this Age and the inimitable Example of all that are to come but yet I think it to be such an image as it would be inexcusable Idolatry in me who am an English Subject to fall down and worship And as my case is very different from that of Sorbiere so are my circumstances too for he they tell me for the indignities he put upon the English Nation the bravest people that the Sun beholds was deservedly turned out of all but I am humbly bold to tell Your Lordship and the rest of my Superiours that I have nothing out of which to be turned and that I should think my self comparatively happy in respect of what I am now if I could be placed in his circumstances without the crime that occasion'd them and as I am a stranger to his circumstances and his crime so I thank God I am as far removed from his Principles too for he and his two friends Mersennus and Gassendi were of the Religion of Malmsbury if they had any at all as appears by their joint admiration of the Book De Cive the Latin Leviathan that sports himself in foreign waters as the English one does upon the British Coast but I own no principles that destroy the very nature and being of obligation and are by consequence enemies to Mankind But it is easie to discern that all I have yet said is by no means a satisfactory answer to Your Lordship's question why the edition of this Sermon hath been so long delayed for the Additions to it are not so considerable that the twentieth part of all this time need to have been taken up about them and though indeed when I am brought to this pinch I cannot give a good account of such a slow and dilatory proceeding yet a true one I will be sure to give and it is this that when I had written and printed off ten sheets of this discourse which is as much as I now publish I launched out I know not how or why into things merely Philological and foreign to the subject and as it is usually when men are got into a Labyrinth they do but lose themselves the more for endeavouring to get out so one digression bringing on another I found I had wander'd so far out of my way that the subjects I now employ'd my thoughts upon began to speak another Language from that in which the former part of my discourse was written They that have a Talent at censuring will be apt to say that this proceeded out of nothing else but a certain vanity and affectation of appearing learned and it may be this was indeed the very cause since it will be difficult to assign a better though I am not sensible of it and so far as I know any thing of my self but how few are there that do understand themselves I have no such thing as pride or affectation in my nature and in truth it would be very inexcufable in me to be proud of any thing or to appear as if I were so and much more to resolve industriously in spite of the Subject or the Company I am in to be talking of matters in which neither are concerned because this is an humour so tawdry and impertinent and touches my imagination with so satyrical impressions upon it self that of all things in the World it would appear the most despicable to me if it did not make me sick as it always does and no man can properly be said to despise that which he fears But whatsoever were the true reason of so extravagant a ramble from the subject and the Text whether it proceeded out of vanity and foolish ostentation or whether it were onely what some that know me will be apt to plead in my behalf that I am naturally inclined by my constitution to digress from every such Subject which I undertake which I believe to be a true account of the business for I scarce ever set upon any thing in my life but I was always pestered with a multiplicity of thoughts as perfect strangers to the Subject and to one
another as all the several barbarous and distant Nations of which the Ottoman forces are composed who though they are all engaged upon a common design yet they understand not one anothers Language I say whatever were the true occasion of such an irregular composure or whether Your Lordship will referr it besides the two causes I have lately mentioned to some decay of mind which my misfortunes may have brought upon me yet thus much I know that when I came to consider and compare the sheets which I had written together I was very much ashamed of what I had done and very angry with my self insomuch that I saw no hopes of being reconciled but by throwing those papers that had made the difference aside to try if that way it were possible the business might be forgotten that so Richard and Baxter who were at Mortal jarrs might be brought to a better understanding with one another for it is a very painfull and uneasie thing for a man to be fallen out with himself and if there be any torment more exquisite than another a thing of which all the Philosophers but the Scepticks are agreed I am clearly of opinion that the shame and confusion resulting from a foolish and imprudent action is the worst punishment belonging to humane nature Therefore I did as it very nearly concerned me use all the expedients I could think of or devise and made all the friends I could possibly to my self that the business might be timely made up and as the last remedy I was resolved to forget it and to employ my meditations upon subjects of another and a very different nature In this interval I writ that Discourse concerning the Laws of Nature and their obligation which is now abroad as the second part of it lies by me ready for the Press onely it wants transcribing for it is written after so confused a manner that no Compositor can deal with it at present I writ also that Epistle which followed concerning the Marriage of Cousin Germans which hath suffered great variety of censures not onely from the different capacity of its readers but from their different interests likewise for it is generally the nature of Mankind that they will have nothing to be true which does not sute with the circumstances they are or would be in albeit when things are impartially considered I can scarce believe there are twenty men in the King's dominions that are concerned in point of interest or honour to believe what I have written to be false and I have some reason to believe that the most considerable objection that lies against that short Essay is that it will be very long before any man who understands himself will be so hardy to undertake to answer it There was one indeed who had a design of that nature and though I know not the person yet his character I do and so will Your Lordship likewise when I shall have told you that it was the loyal learned and ingenious writer of Constantius the Apostate an adversary whom though for his known ability I had reason to dread yet having Nature and Antiquity so clearly on my side I would have chosen such an Antagonist before any other both because in his advocation and defence of Cousin Germans the utmost strength of that cause would have been brought into the Field which would have brought the matter on one side or other to a speedy issue and because he was pleased to express himself in a Letter of his which had no name at the bottom with so much candour and ingenuity towards me and indeed so far above any thing which I pretend to deserve that I was well assured that the controversie would be managed on both sides without any heat of words with mutual kindness and civility toward each other as becomes those that know how to defend the truth without insolence and how to yield to it without shame and that have joined the courtesie of Gentlemen and the charity of Christians to the learning judgment and ability of Scholars but upon what reason I know not he afterwards desisted as it seems from his design and I do not speak this as if I would be thought to send him a challenge by Your Lordship which it would be very rude in me to doe but I would rather make it my humble request to him that he would suspend his engaging in the controversie against me till he have heard all I have to say for my self and then if my arguments will not demonstrate what they pretend to do I will as freely recant my opinion as ever I maintained it and give the World the reasons why I have altered my mind in the mean time I look upon my self as bound in gratitude and justice to let Your Lordship and the World understand how much I think my self obliged to so ingenious a man for his favourable opinion of me and that I should be glad to be as well acquainted with his person as I am with his unquestionable loyalty and learning My Lord I am very sensible that by what I writ upon that subject I did incur the displeasure of some for whom I have so great an honour that I am very uneasie under the sense and apprehension of it though I have done nothing but what I thought my duty at that time when I did it and I see no reason yet to alter my mind but these are the common inconveniences of humane life to which every wise and good man ought with a Philosophical patience and equality to submit as I do and am very perfect in that Lesson which by long practice I have taught my self of bearing with patience as well the affronts and indignities of mine enemies as the misconstructions and misinterpretations of my friends for such I call all those who are friends to our common freinds the King the Church and the Religion established and that I might give no farther occasion of offence I have suspended for a while the publication of what remains upon the same subject till the controversie not yet decided by my Lords the Delegates have received its final period and issue by their judicious honourable and wise determination And besides these papers which have been either publish'd or are ready for the Press and were some of them begun and others finish'd during that time of my retirement from my former studies and to another end of the Town there was another discourse which lay by me imperfect being an exercitatation upon that Law of Moses whereby the Brother or the next of kin was obliged to raise up seed to his deceased and childless Brother or Kinsman a great part of which was written by me at Cambridge as a preparatory to that other Treatise of the Marriage of Cousin Germans which it is now a long time that my thoughts and studies have been conversant about and being so much of it as was then done transcribed in a very fair and legible hand
I cannot imagine but I shall do in all so as notwithstanding the conceptions which are uttered may be materially different from one another yet they will all bear their part in the harmonious consort of our common design which is to perswade to communion and to peace this ought in reason to be looked upon since we have not at any time compared notes together nor have ever had any private conference at Sevill or Valadolid or any other place to be not so much the voice of prejudice as of nature which is every where uniform and like her self and being attentively and heedfully consulted will be sure to pronounce the same sentence where the cases themselves are not different from one another But though all other considerations and motives should desert me when I pretend to give a reason of publishing these papers yet this I am sure will not that if by the usefulness of my performance I cannot doe an immediate service to the cause it self yet that cannot possibly suffer any disparagement from so obscure a Champion for it and I shall at least doe a collateral service by giving an advantage to others upon the comparison and therefore I beg of Your Lordship if I am not so happy to make a succesfull attaque upon the enemies of our Church who hold out obstinately notwithstanding all their arguments are answered their trenches filled up and their bastions beat about their ears yet that at least I may be suffered to be a foil to its friends and to appear in the company of those for whom I have so great an honour and esteem Velut Hedera serpens inter victrices lauros But that which was the chief inducement to me to come abroad at this time or rather a provocation which I could not resist was that to frustrate the design of my competition when I appeared a candidate for the Salters favour the memory of this Sermon was by mine enemies made use of as an objection against me and though this stratageme was far from having that malevolent influence upon the success of my affairs which was intended it appearing after all that I had a very powerfull interest in that Loyal body yet I had reason to take it very ill that that which was an instance of my Loyalty and affection to the government and the Religion established and therefore ought in justice to have been an argument in my behalf should be made an article of impeachment against me And for that reason I was resolved to publish what I had written partly to vindicate my self and partly that being challenged at so bold a rate with that which was my duty and was indeed mine honour as if it had been an unpardonable fault not to publish it at such a critical juncture might be interpreted a disowning of what I had done which I abhor to think of and have taken this course to purge and vindicate my self in the best manner I can as well from the suspicion of so detestable a baseness as from the guilt and blackness of the crime it self And as I was firmly bent upon this honest resolution those words of our Saviour came into my mind which he spake to his Disciples in his Sermon on the mount and which have a particular reference to the Clergy in all ages Ye are the salt of the earth but if the salt have lost its savour wherewith shall it be salted I considered that salt by naturallists was looked upon as the great principle of fixation and rest that by the ancients it was accounted a symbol of friendship and a token of peace and upon such accounts as these thought I within my self it cannot be that the Salters who are a Loyal body firm to the King and the Religion established who are desirous to promote that peace and good correspondence among men which is the very life of trade and the greatest blessing of life and by consequence are zealous for that uniformity of divine worship without which experience tells us there is no peace to be had it cannot be that they who are thus disposed should be displeased with me for being like themselves so that instead of losing any thing of my interest among them I did rather promise my self abundance of advantage from the honesty of this action which if it be not otherwise rewarded will sit down contented in the enjoyment of it self and will abundantly make up with inward satisfaction whatever it wants of any outward reward If the salt have lost its savour in the original it is if we may call the Greek the original of St. Matthew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Your Lordship knows to be a Latinism as there are many such in the New Testament si sal infatuetur for this is the meaning of fatuus in Latin it signifies a pall'd and phlegmy substance that hath no taste nor relish no savour life or spirit in it it is a floating sediment and a liquid Caput mortuum and therefore it is very fitly applied in the metaphorical way to insignificant and useless persons the men of latitude and moderation that have not the courage nor the honesty to declare themselves but live in a Commonwealth with the same listless and unconcerned indifference as if they were not members of it which if it have any effect at all it must needs be a very bad one by keeping the disagreeing parties at a bay by casting a tacit and supposed reflexion upon such as dare stand up in defence of the Government and the Laws as if they were not so good or at least not so wise as they should be and by giving at the same time a secret encouragement to the disaffected interest and party as if their cause were such that all the moderate and sober sort would side with them if they durst but dare not in Conscience take part with the Laws against them And yet after all this is fatuum in both senses it is not onely insipid but it is foolish too and certainly for any man to sit still with his armes folded and his eyes dropping into a forgetfull slumber pretending neither to see nor feel any thing about him when his own interest which is involved in that of the publick lies at stake and when by declaring for his Country against a Faction he may ensure himself and get a great deal of deserved honour and reputation into the bargain is at once a most prodigious wickedness and a most despicable folly together for though they doe a present service to the Faction by it yet it is true with them as it is with us he that is not with us is against us and so it will be seen if ever they get the day that the indifferent standers by shall fare no better than he that made a stout and resolute resistence onely there will indeed be this difference between them that though the estates of the one and of the other are an equally tempting and inviting
play and from him no favour or if instead of Satyr he have a mind to be more innocently wity let him but mix a little seriousness with his wit and let that seriousness be such as is not dull and then I promise him like Hippocrates his twins a very old comparison but it will be older before it is quite out of date we will be wonderfull friends in the midst of the fray and we will laugh and cry together and I will follow him with a complement at the same time when I make a pass at the very heart of his cause as the Retiarii in the Roman Theatres were used to doe by their Antagonists the Mirmillones who had a fish graven or painted upon their shield Piscem peto Non te peto Quid me fugis Galle But I had much rather that they whoever they are that shall think it for their own credit for otherwise I am sure they will hardly doe it for the interest of their cause to concern themselves with such an unfledg'd authour whom they may catch with chaff as well as bird-lime as they please themselves I say I had much rather that they would betake themselves to a serious and close way of writing which notwithstanding all the sharpness of the following discourse which to be sure will be represented much greater than it is I have very carefully observed in it neither is there any thing which I should more hate in my self or more despise in another than for a man to lose his argument in an impertinent wilderness either of wit or anger Therefore if any of that party be dissatisfied or hath a mind to pretend that he is so with what I have said already upon the three following questions in which all the matters in difference are contained First Concerning Episcopal Government Secondly Concerning humane impositions in religious matters in the general and Thirdly Concerning the particular impositions that are the occasion or pretence of Separation from the Church of England Let him then enter the lists as soon as he pleases and I promise Your Lordship I will not fail to answer him in defence of the establish'd Religion and for the quieting the minds of his Majestie 's good subjects against either the tricks or the mistakes of inconsiderate or designing men not that I pretend to be able to say much more upon these subjects than I have done already but some men will not be convinced by any thing at the first hearing let it be never so plain but they must have it over and over in other words and in a new appearance till by degrees the truth is rendred so familiar to them as to subdue the prejudices they have imbibed against it or the mistake so palpable that obstinacy begins to blush and be ashamed And the better to prevent all artifice and cant which do but perplex the cause and make all controversies endless and cheat the world of their money and their time to prevent all squabbling about authorities which is an incompetent way of arguing in this case because men that are not able to search into these things themselves will be sure to believe the quotations of their own side whether true of false or whether they be rightly applied or not For this reason I propose that we lay all arguments but those of nature aside For if it be found upon principles that are universally acknowledged and such as make their appeal to every common understanding that Episcopacy that is a superiority on the one hand and a dependence on the other is the most perfect form of Government both in Church and State or indeed that there can be no lasting government without it that in the Church it secures the greatest reverence to the Clergy by which they are the better enabled to influence the people and by consequence to answer the end of their institution and separation to the ministerial office if it give the greatest incouragement to learning if it strengthen the hands of discipline as well with respect to the inferiour Clergy as the Layety and if this be a natural means to secure the publick peace then here is all that can be expected to justifie this form of government in the Church and though the testimonies of antiquity may receive strength and advantage from the nature of things which is the onely true immutable antiquity to which we must appeal yet those very testimonies let them be never so numerous unanimous and positive when they have nature against them what are they but so many confessions of ignorance or design of want of honesty or want of skill So also in the second enquiry if it shall be found that humane impositions in religious matters are of absolute and indispensable necessity for the keeping any ecclesiastical society together for the preservation of peace and unity among men if it follow plainly from the consideration of humane nature and humane passions as well as from the experience of our own and former times that without such impositions we must crumble into sects as numerous as the motes that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that lie basking in a beam of the sun or that infinity of crowding stars by which the Celestial Galaxy is adorned this is abundantly sufficient from the necessity of such humane institutions to justifie their lawfulness and to prove their obligation and it is so far from being true that there can be no external circumstance of religious worship appointed and ordained by men which is not expresly revealed and set down in some place or other of the New Testament that if on the contrary our Saviour and his Apostles had expresly told us that we must not so much as move an hand or a foot in any religious assembly or affair without express licence and authority from them which they have no where done and yet at the same time had not adjusted the particular instances of our behaviour in these matters which they have not done neither all the inference that could have been made from this would be that we must not worship God at all which is a very odd sort of divine revelatition Besides that nothing can be more foolish than to perswade to charity to talk perpetually of peace and love and such like luscious and delicious things onely to make our mouths water while at the same time we are deny'd the necessary means of securing so desirable blessings to our selves It would be true at this rate not onely in the event but in the design too that our Saviour came not to bring peace but a sword and the end of his coming if he had any at all being onely to set the world together by the ears as it must be if he deny the civil or ecclesiastical magistrate a power of determining those indifferent matters which he hath not any where determined himself this would be a plain argument that he was a gross impostour instead of being