a second Reformation proclaimed to correct the first are all things fresh in Memory to those who are still living and saw them and all the world has wondered how the Church of England did so soon forget them as it appears She did for She was no sooner out of the Fiery Furnance of her Afflictions by the Restoration of King Charles the 2d but down right she falls upon her old pollicies of effecting an uniformity by vertue of Penal Laws when they had seen before the event of them in their Predecstors to have given them so much discredit and when they might have sufficiently learned how impossible it is upon Protestants Principles to erect and enforce a National uniformity in Religion to any one way of Worship but that there would still be Dissenters who upon their own Principles may plead an Exemption from it However they resolved to make a second Experiment and once more to try if they could make the whole People in England to be in their Religion all of one Complexion to which purpose a new Act of Uniformity is made more strict than that which went before with a new Test of Assent and Consent annexed thereto for bare Conformity in the use of the Liturgy will not now do there must be Swearing also All other waies of Religious publick Worship are made Conventicles and the Act of 20 l. a Month for not coming to Church revived and tho' it was alwaies thought to have been made directly against R. Catholicks it must now be made a sharp Scourge equally to all Dissenters What Confusions and Troubles these things brought upon His Majesties Subjects may be understood something from those who have given a publick Account of them a Printed Catalogue has informed us of neer 2000 Ministers turned out of their Livings by the Uniformity Act which was soon followed by another made at Oxford that turned them also out of their Houses to seek their Bread where they were no wise like to find it Another who was well able to make the Estimation informs us of fifteen thousand Families ruined by the Conventicle Act by proceedings against their Estates and Imprisonment of their Persons among whom he saies five thousand dyed under their bonds And if we suppose but three Children a peice to belong to those Families one with another we must compute no less than forty five thousand sufferers in their Estates by these Penal Laws for if the Parents be ruined their Children cannot but be deep Sufferers with them Do we talk of Queen Maries daies as times of sharp Persecutions Alas they were little to this Doctor Burnet gives an account but of 284. that suffered death in Her time and what is this to 5000. that have dyed under this Church of Englands Persecution nor doth he say any thing of loosing their Estates or the Childrens being deprived of what their Parents had I know a great matter is made by punishing Persons with Death but for my part I see little difference between suffering by the present Execution of Death and being stifled or starved to Death by the necessities and hardships of a Prison and supposing it lawful to make such a choice in case I must necessarily suffer by one of the two I should choose to suffer by the former rather then by the latter and I know many more to be of my mind How those of the Church of England can defend Her from being the only procuring cause of all these Miseries to those Multitude of afflicted Persons and Families I can no waies apprehend let them that can do it begin their Work as soon as they please in the mean time I hope they will not be angry if I endeavour to shew them how much all their proceedings this way was against the mind of King Charles the second who all along endeavoured to put a stop to their Severities from the desires he had that his Subjects might have injoyed the Liberties in Religion which they now do and this before he came into England as well as afterwards so soon as he saw what work was like to be made by the Execution of those Laws they had got him to sign chosing other more pious and peaceable Methods for his Subjects Ease Let us hear some of his own Words viz. His Declaration from Breda April 4th 1660. gives the first assurance of this We declare a Liberty to tender Consciences and that no Man shall be disquieted or called in question for differences in Opinion which do not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom Then again Feb. 10th 1667. Speaking to the Parliament one thing saies he I hold my self obliged to recommend to you at this present which is that you would seriously think of some course to beget a better Vnion and Composure in the Minds of my Protestant Subjects in matters of Religion c. Which undoubtedly must be intended towards the mitigation of the Penal Laws for in his Declaration March 5th 1671. He complains again of the severities then in use saying That it was evident by the sad experience of 12 years that there was little fruit of all those forcible courses and many frequent waies of Co-ertion that we have used for the reducing of all erring and dissenting Persons Again in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament 1678. I meet you here with the most earnest desire that a Man can have to Vnite the Minds of my Subjects both to me and one another and resolve it should be your fault if the success be not sutable to my desires Thus for neer twenty years together was this King labouring against the Violences of the Church of England towards those his Subjects whose Worshipping of God differed from theirs and who were the Men but themselves that then opposed Him in it And at whose door but theirs must all these deplorable Calamities be laid that have happened by the want of that Indulgence that King would have given and is now granted by his Royal Brother and Successor they may if they please consider it more fully at their Leisure His Majesty that now is by a Gracious and most Wise Retrospection upon all that had been Transacted in these Affairs during the four last Kings Reigns and from a God-like compassion towards his Oppressed Subjects in the midst of their Calamities sends out his most refreshing Declaration suspending the Execution of all those Penal Statutes that had been but very little before so fiercely Executed Upon this many thousands of the Protestant Dissenters of all perswasions through out the Kingdom who had been formerly by the Church of England represented to the late King as a sort of Humoursome Fanatical Disobedient Persons and Enemies to Monarchy and every thing else that looked that way come in with their Humble Acknowledgments First of Gods goodness to them as believing such a publick Mercy could not be but by immediate his guidance of the Kings Heart in the thing after this they declare their Joy and Thanks
to His Majesty as far as Honest and Dutiful Words can express assuring him of their Loyalty and Prayers for his long and prosperous Reign They humbly tell Him also that to his Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland he hath now established to himself a fourth Kingdom in the Hearts of those his formerly oppressed Subjects which as I believe to be true so was it modestly spoken inasmuch as the Dissenters are known to be far exceeding the quantity of a fourth part of the People of the three Kingdoms Several others testify their joy in that so good an opportunity is given them to express the truth of their Loyalty which the Church of England had hitherto presumed to have been entailed wholly on themselves A great many engage to Live and Die with him to the utmost of their lives and fortunes But passing by all others I would especially mark those who in the Capacity of a Grand Jury thank the King for his Declaration as it has prevented honest Neighbours from indicting one another in the things of Religion which to many Consciencious Men was a very great burthen and to the whole Kingdom a greater vexation then I can now stand to speak of begiting ill will and irreconsitable differences between one and the other of his Majesties Subjects which being by this means now taken away it is hoped their old Correspondency will be henceforth renewed in a true love of each Man to his Neighbour In the midst of this happy Union between His Majesty and his Dissenting Protestant Subjects the Church of England like the Churlish Elder Brother mentioned by our Saviour in the Parable of the Prodigal stand at a distance and Grumble They will neither thank their Princely Parent for the Favour He vouchsafeth to themselves nor will they come in to rejoyce with their Younger Brethren upon their Dutiful return and the Kings kind reception of them a thing so much the more culpable since none of the fatted Calfs I mean the Church Revenues are in the least killed for them but are as they were before wholly in the Church of Englands own Possession 'T is almost beyond rehearsals the dislike they shew of this Vnion as if they delighted to keep up the same or raise other and worse Confusions during his present Majesties Reign as they begot in the time of his four last Predecessors The bond of this Vnion which I may say is His Majesties Gracious Declaration many of them can scarce hear named but they are ready to fly back like Men that had trod on a Serpent One shakes the Head another bites the Lip a third Scouls and Frowns with as many other Evidences of their dislike as Bodily Gestures can shew And it would have been well could they have contented themselves within the Bounds of those tacite Intimations of their displeasure but this they could not do they must also break into Words and open Censures such as I have named before I do not charge all with this but I must say I daily find and meet with an abundance too many that are so doing insomuch as I think it highly necessary for every Man in his place to put a Stop as far as he can to the further progress of it For my self I know no better way that I can take then to mind them of the Inconsistency of such deportment with their boasted of Loyalty a thing of which they have seemed to be as tender as of the Aple of their Eye And if they are still so serious therein as they would be esteemed they should as I conceive judge themselves not a little concerned in a Question I have here to propose to them and the rather because I undertake to maintain the Negative The question is plainly this viz. Whether it be Consistent with that high degree of Loyalty so much boasted of by the Church of England for their Preachers in the manner they have done to Preach against their Kings Religion and both them and their Church Members to speak as they too frequently do against His Proceeding by his late Declaration This question is the bottom of all my following Expostulations wherein that I may proceed with the more perspecuity I shall do no more then make inquiry into two things First I shall examine wherein the highest degree of Loyalty according to the sence of the Scriptures may be said to consist Secondly I shall inquire how the present Behaviour of many of the Church of England both Clergy and Layety agrees with that Loyalty which I shall discribe In the first I am guided by two Texts of Scripture from whence I may argue as much as I shall need to my purpose the one is that of Rom. 13 1 2. Let every Soul be Subject to the higher Power where Subjection is required to be given for Conscience sake which makes it become a Religious Act. To give Subjection only because we cannot avoid it or because we are compelled is the Subjection of an Infidel or a Turk rather than a Christian The opposite to this is Resistance which is twofold First That which is by open Violence to the Person of him that is our Soveraign or to his Subordinate Ministers The second is when we Disobey or Speak against His Precepts Edicts or the Declaration of His Will which be sends forth in the Execution of His Government for not to Submit or to Speak against what he Directs is to resist So Luke 21.15 To gain-say and resist are made the same thing a Man may make resistance as well by his Tongue as his Sword from whence I infer that one part of the highest degree of Loyalty is a cheerful and willing compliance with the declared will of the King in all things without gain-saying not contrary to the Law of God The other Passage is that of St. Peter where we are bid to Honour the King This is a degree much higher than a bare forbaring of Resistance or disputing his Commands for a Man may give Obedience and be outwardly Silent towards Him who in his Heart he Slighteth To Honour the King contains in it many Acts both Internal and External our Internal Honouring Him lyeth chiefly in that reverential Esteem we have of His Person as he hath the stamp of Gods Authority on him the valuation we give to His Vertues The Faith we have in his Words and Promises the Acquiessence of out Minds in the Administrations of His Government and judging the Best of His Actions the contrary to these are Jealousies Prejudices all bad wishes and evil surmisings and judging of His Actions in the worst sence The External way of Honouring Him consists likewise of several parts as when we are in his Presence to use those bodily Gestures as may best and most decently express our inward reverence and sence of his Dignity the giving him his Honourable Titles To speak Reverently of him in the hearing and presence of others and prevent what we can all others
then I say our Church of England Priests and Doctors may be as busie and careful if they please to Counter-work them by the like private Conferences with their Parishoners and by inquiring who have been with them upon any such occasion which no Body that I know of will be against but greatly commend it as a most excellent way to secure their People from the Dangers they fear them to be in as to their being drawn to the R. Catholicks and prevent much of that Preaching which is now so much doubted to be consistent with their Loyalty I would suppose that every Pastor should know all of his own Flock or if he doth not or hath taken a bigger charge upon him than himself can overlook he ought in such cases to take in those that may assist him to hold up so good a Work so much to the advantage of their Ministry as such a Knowledge of the particulars of their Flock would do for every Soul is to be looked after by those that take the Charge thereof and are well paid for it too By this means they may come to know all that the Catholick Priests do and apply proper and pertinent Discourses to the particular Cases of their People as they find most needful and thereby Stablish them in those points wherein they find them most Wavering which indeed cannot be well known but by such private Conferences and therefore much more profitable than Preaching at Randum sometimes against this point and sometimes against that when they know not at what joint particularly any of the People Stumble and in so doing they would not only Letter secure their People but better testifie also their Honor of the King To watch is their Work as well as to Preach and they are denominated as much by the one as by the other Watching of the Flock includes the Knowledge of all Individuals I sear it is not so with us because many of our Parochialists have gotten their Parishes so large as to render this Knowledge and the Execution of this part of their office impracticable and perhaps some will plead their Inability from thence of doing that I recommend to them but I must answer that that they go ill to work that will justifie one Irregularly with another and to make the King suffer for their disorder How they will approve of this Expedient I now propose I do not well know but since the Catholick Religion is the Kings Religion I am certain something ought to be done by them in a Prudential way how to behave themselves under the present Circumstances as they are in a different way of Religion from him otherwise than I yet hear many of them have done let the Religion be what it will doth not the King's profession of it alter the Cale in no manner as to our behaviour When. John according to Gods command had Executed Judgment upon Jezebel by ordering her to be thrown out of a Window he would not have her Body left to be exposed to all Spectators but orders her to be Buried upon this very reason because she was a Kings Daughter When the Apostles planted the Christian Religion first in the World they setled most of their Churches under Princes who were wholly Strangers to the Christian Faith and as things were represented to those Princes by what the Jews had done in putting our Saviour to Death as one that had made Mutinies by stirring up the People Luke 23.3 those Princes according to humane Pollicies had little reason to receive any of those who were his Followers which I believe was one great Reason of their Persecutions and yet we find the Ap stles fearing it may be that the Christians because of that and their gross Idolatries might dispise those Princes do as carefully injoyn them to keep their Loyalty as to abstain from their Idol Worship St. Paul most earnestly presseth them to give all due subjection and St. Peter commands to Honor them and this while they were not so much as Believers of the Christian Faith sutable to what our Soviour had done before by his own Example to the Jewish Magistracy when he was condemned to Death by them He opened not his Mouth He answered them nothing as three of the Evangelists observe he could not approve of what they did yet would he not reproach them in the thing they were about and by this passive obedience gave Honor to those that wickedly put him to Death I do very much question whether the Preachers in the first Age of Christianity under the Pagan Roman Emperors did Preach against the Religion and Worship of those Princes as our Divines now do against the Religion of Rome by what I find upon Scripture record it appears to me that they did not but had other ways such as Conferences Epistolary Writings to secure the People in the Christian Faith When St. Paul Preach'd in the midst of Mars-Hill at ATHENS among a Company of Heathen Philosophers and common People it is observable how gently he touch'd upon their Idolatrous Religion He told them indeed that they were too Superstitious but he made not any Goodly Inventory of the particulars as Doctor Tenison did for the Catholicks but falls presently upon declaring to them the Doctrine of the only true God and his Creating the World His sending of Christ The Eternal Judgment and the Resurrection choosing rather to fix them in the Great Articles of the Christian Faith and the Sutable Practices of a Holy Life to which such Doctrines would lead them than to be Crying out against their Idolatries as knowing if once they come to embrace the Christian Doctrines their Heathenish Worship would fall of its own accord If after all this nothing will prevail but our Church-men will be still Preaching in this way I have one thing to say more which is to wish them to follow the Example of those Apostles who when they wrote to the Churches against a Religion so gross as that of the Pagan Idolatry did withal give the Christians positive Commands to keep up their Subjection and Honour to their Kings The like would I have our Preachers do at all such times as they Preach against any part of the Kings Religion viz. to teach the People at the very same time in some special manner how they should preserve in themselves the Honour and Loyalty they owe to his Person nevertheless their differing from him in their Religion If they do not put in some special Caveats of this kind as often as they Preach upon such Subjects which hitherto I cannot hear they have done I must for my self say they will hardly ever be able to vindicate the Loyalty they have so much boasted of in the World I have done with the Preaching I would proceed now to say something tho but a little about theirs and the Peoples Speaking more especially their Speaking against his Majesties Proceedings by his Declaration and the odd Carriages of them both
what has been done this way before and universally approved of without being any wise called in question may I 〈◊〉 be 〈◊〉 of without offence to any That which I aim at in this is only to note how when something of the same nature was passed by the late King Charles the Second dispensing by his Proclamation with two distinct particulars enjoyned by Act of Parliament as firmly as any of our Penal Laws about Religion can be not a word was ever objected against it as that it could not be done without a Parliament The one was for prohibiting of Spices from being brought into England otherwise than in English Bottoms and the place of their growth The other about the form of Cart and Waggon Carriages for the preservation of the Roads in both which Statures his late Majesty made a suspention and yet was never questioned in any Session of that or future Parliaments or by any of the Judges or Lawyers of the Kingdom which to this day continues still without any mans making the least noise about it Though no Parliament ever since gave that proceeding any confirmation as being Judged to have been done firm enough by the power that made the alteration This quarrel therefore is very unhandsome as it denies this King that Power in matters of Religion which they allowed the former King in things civil and is so much the worse in this Case as it questions His Majesties Prerogative in Ecclesiastical affairs which the Laws of the Kingdom have ever acknowleged to him in a peculiar manner In that very Act which was last made against Conventicles A Clause was put in as a special proviso c. That nothing in that Act shall make void his Majesties Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs but His Majesty his Heirs c. shall injoy the same amply as himself or any of his predecessors have done nevertheless the said Act. Undoubtedly when this proviso was made the Parliament did acknowledg that the King was not bound up by that Act so as that he could not grant any Liberty against its injuctions or suspend the Execution of the Law it self when it was wholly made upon an Ecclesiastical Account It must certainly be so also with the Vniformity Act for his Prerogative is not less in that because the like proviso is not made there no nor to the Test about Capacitating Men for holding of publick Offices since the matter of it relates chiefly to propositions that concern matters of Religion Of all Men in the World a Man would think our Clergy Men should forbear so much as to have the least thought of Questioning His Majesties Power touching what he has done by His Declaration when as Praying for him in their Pulpits they constantly present him to God as being over all Persons and in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil Supream Governor and Moderator For them therefore upon this small and first instance of his Moderatorship to call in question this his Supremacy either by preaching or speaking against what he hath done must give the People very strange Suggestions for while they do so what will the giving these Titles to Him be looked upon otherwise but as Hypocrisie towards God or a kind of Mock-Complement to the Kings Supremacy let them therefore either acknowledg the Power he hath exercised or else I know not how they will be able sincerely to say Amen to their own Prayers There are divers other things I had thought to have added to these Discourses but I fear what is writen already is more than many Mens leisure will allow them to read therefore I shall now forbear going any further and rather because it is like I may meet with some answerers or at least some better opportunity than I have at present which may draw them forth until which time I shall bid my Reader heartily Farewel FINIS
Some Necessary DISQUISITIONS AND CLOSE EXPOSTULATIONS WITH THE Clergy and People OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Touching their present LOYALTY Written by a Protestant Dedicated to the Citizens of LONDON With Allowance LONDON Printed for F. Smith and are to be Sold by R. Jenaway in Queens-Head-Alley in Pater-Noster-Row 1688. To the Honoured and Worthy Gentlemen the Citizens and Inhabitants of the most Eminent and Famous City of London Gentlemen THese Papers are directed to you in regard your City hath been the chiefest Scene of many of those things which their design is for the future to prevent I do not direct them to you as considered in your Body Politick but to each man by himself that may happen to look on them in his individual Capacity And having said this I think it proper in the next place to give you some account of the Reasons that chiefly induced me to this undertaking which you may briefly take in what follows I was for several Years a very unpleasant Spectator of the proceedings of the Church of England towards those her Dissenters that could not Worship God with their Liturgy and Ceremonies Which as I did deeply dislike so I would fain have excused her and laid the blame if I could somewhere else as themselves it seems now would do But I found it impossible to satisfie my reason in that Attempt while I daily met with and heard of such inveterate Sermons against that Rank of Persons aswere then Preached by the most Capital Men of the Function and as the Old Cocks crew so did the young Ones learn who are not to be exempted from acting their part in the Clamour divers of them being no sooner allow'd to tread the Stairs of the Pulpit but with their little Declamations that way were quickly as loud as the best of their Doctors Had the Supreme Civil Magistrate or his Subordinates driven on those Prosecutions while the Clergy had interposed with their Christian perswasions to the contrary it would have gone very far towards the lessening the Complaint but when the Civil Magistrates shall draw back and the Divine shall Spur forward I know not who in this case can be the Clergies Advocate But I shall say no more of this only entreat you to look back and consider how exceeding uneasie all things that related to your Station as Citizens were made to you Do you not remember what commotions inquietudes strange and unfriendly Divisions were all that time among you and how one Neighbour was put upon destroying another and every Man in fear of himself and jealous of whomsoever he spoke to Do you not likewise remember what huge Interruptions many of you met with in your dealings with your Country Shop-keepers Traders and Manufacturers even to a great stop of your wonted Traffick And as other bad effects these proceedings had upon your City what a Stand most Men were at who had let out their Moneys at Interest or Lodged them with the Gold-Smith-Lankers or the Chamber of London While divers of them thereupon conceived those Dissatisfactions as caused the calling in so much of those Monies in so suddain a manner as to beget that Insolvency which disappointed the future settlement of many of the Sons and Daughters of your sellow Citizens A thing perhaps would make your Hearts Bleed should you see the like Mis-fortunes happen to your own Widows and Children But Blessed be God the State of Affairs are now much altered by his Majesties late Declaration taking away the occasion of these Distractions insomuch as there seems to me to be the beginning of a General happy Settlement while I see Men of different perswasions in Religion that before stood at a distance each from the other now amicably to intermix and unite in their Trade Correspondencies and Business yea and in the publick Government both of the City and the Kingdom from whence it is already perceived that the difference of opinion in Religion hinders nothing from an unanimous agreement of all Persons managing those Trusts in a due Loyalty to the King and for the general good and peace of the Kingdom while one party is not set to oppress the other in his Religion Nor need any Man to doubt but such a good beginning would soon grow up to an absolute Perfection did not some Men who have little reason more than the Gratifying their own Jealousies make the opposition For what Foundation can be better laid for the Flourishing State of any Kingdom then that assurance His Majesty hath given in the two particulars of his Declaration which he would have to be Established in a more perpetual Law viz. That the Administration of his Government shall fully be with such Justice as every Man shall be preserved in his Temporal property And in Spiritual concernments as to Worshipping of God shall have his free Liberty Which two things being firmly setled from whence can it be imagined any pretence should be found for the worst of Spirits to set on Foot any Disturbances Plots or Insurrections He that now should but so much as offer at any such thing will presently fall under that general Disgust with all English Men as they will think him to deserve no less punishment than to be presently Hung up by the Heels until he Spew out his Gall and Die Who they are that make the opposition I speak of and by what means they manage it you will find in the Book it self I shall only say here that it is by some of those that heretofore have carried all the Crack for Loyalty and this is the true cause that hath drawn these Disquisitions and Expostulations from me that so I may know how they can make what they do of this kind consistent with their present Loyalty In order to which you will meet with a necessary question put to them for that purpose The Matters of Fact on which I often touch and upon which a great part of my Discourse doth proceed having been many of them done within the Lines and Limits of your Liberties I have thought no other Persons sitter to be made Arbitrators in them as they are here Controverted than your Selves And that there may be no mistakes or needless Disputations in the present case I have plainly laid down my own Notions of Loyalty wherein I have thought the Nature of it more especially to consist That so if any Person hath a mind to appear against what I have Written I do first pray him to contradict me in those Notions and then he will recover me from my first Error or if he finds he cannot do that I shall then pray him to shew me my bad Arguings from such good Principles and that will recover me from my second Error if of any such Error I should be guilty and this is the Method I intreat any such Person to take that may so concern himself I have been a Man who have always thought that there was much more in the Duty of
Loyalty than to Write or Preach against Rebellion or cry up the Doctrine of a meer external Non-resistance always believing that Men may be guilty of high Disloyal Acts even to the introducing of a Rebellion while themselves declare they abhor it This I learn'd from the Writing of King Charles the First Vide Page 18.30 as you will meet with in its place If any think I have written more favourably of the Roman Catholick Religion than becomes a Protestant I must reply to him I have written nothing at all either for or against one way of Religion or other but rather Refer as I said just now to such matters of Fact relating to the Three perswasions of the R. Catholicks The Church of England and Protestant Dissenters as were necessary to carry on what I intended and if in doing so and in comparing some things or practices of the Church of England with the Church of Rome I find that the Church of England hath upon its Protestant Principles made Laws for the punishing her Protestant Dissenters producing as bad Effects as those of the Church of Rome and thereupon say that the Protestants Sufferings from the Church of the England were in their Extent harder upon them since the last Settlement of their Uniformity than they can be said to have been under Queen Mary it doth not follow from hence that I Write for her Religion but rather that I am one that desire to Write impartially Or if while I see the Church of England Ministers either in their Printed Books or Sermons exposing as they have done of late some Doctrines or Practices of the other Church more to a Popular Contempt than for an Edifying Information of the People as they formerly dealt by the Dissenters and take occasion from thence to shew them in some particulars how very many of their own Practices and Doctrines may be in the same manner exposed I hope I may not be the worst Protestant for so doing If I reverence that Divine Principle viz. That Conscience in the matter of Gods Worship is not o the forced I am not to be blamed until I be otherwise convinced no nor if I Write against those who oppose His Majesty in settling the Kingdom upon that Principle in a Freedom from those Distractions which the practices of many upon the contrary Principles have ever since the Reformation brought upon it The principle is such as I cannot but value and love with all my Heart because I know it to be so agreeable to the Sence of every Mans mind That no Man who knows what belongs to the Sincere worshipping of God dare allow himself to be unwilling in any part of his Life to live otherwise than under its Benefit when I am otherwise convinced I may recal much of what I have Written but until then I am like to go on in the same way I am in If my Stile or way of writing be offensive to you as any whit too sharp I must crave your remission of that if you judge it to be a fault and for my excuse must say I unhappily learn'd it from the Church of Englands chiefest Doctors He that shall Read their Controversal Books and Sermons as I have done written against the Roman Catholicks and Protestant Dissenters will tell you it is next to an impossibility not to imbibe the Faculty of their way of Writing Gentlemen I have no more to say here but wish your Citty all imaginable happiness and each of your Selves and Families the Blessings of this World and that which is to come Some necessary Disquisitions and Close EXPOSTULATIONS WITH THE Clergy and People OF THE Church of England c. HOW highly the Church of England hath valued Her Self both upon the account of Her Loyalty and the super excellency of Her Constitution and Administrations is so well known among us as no Man needs my telling him any thing about it This is that Her Preachers and Members have so much boasted of as if in the point of Loyalty they were the only choice Persons in all his Majesties Dominions and in the case of Church Excellency they were the best and purest of all Churches in the World If all this were true it is pity they should have ever done any thing that might in the least wise lose or darken the Glory of such Excellencies or to make any Persons think otherwise of them than they think of themselves But I am in great doubt that if the People of England were divided into four Parts more then three of the four would be found to be of another Mind not only as to the excelling goodness of their Church but from some things they have lately done as to their Loyalty too In the former it is apparent for why else have such a Multitude of intelligent and well disposed Persons as to Religion with-drawn themselves from Her choosing father to bear all sorts of Afflictions then to be held in its Communion Not only a great number of Catholicks for so we commonly in compliance with their own phrase call those who hold to the Religion of the Chruch of Rome but even among Protestants also far greater numbers are found Zealous Dissenters from Her which surely must be from something they both of them find to give them great Dissatisfaction And as to their Loyalty I could likewise with that they had given no occasion to considerate Men to find as much defect in that as the other being such as in many Mens Opinions hath drawn upon it so great a Blemish as will not easily be wiped off especially while they cannot but take notice of two things The one is for so many of Her Clergy Mens Vehement Preaching against the Kings Religion The other is of the Irreverent Speeches and Censures many of Her Members have been found to express against His late Declaration I must acknowledge they have had the Advantages heretofore of tendring their Loyalty very specious when as all the Kings after the Reformation were wholly of their Perswasion and yielded themselves very much to be led by them but now when we have a King from whose Religion they considerably differ their Loyalty seems to be like that of those Mens which they formerly Condemned I do not say they take up Arms but as some Men have ordered the matter they have done that themselves which heretofore did in others too much lead the way unto such bad practises When I first observed that strain of Preaching in which many of them run immediately upon his Majesties coming to his Throne I must confess my self amazed at it for I saw him no sooner proclaimed King but all on a sudden we had such ratling Sermons both in City and Country against his Religion as if the Preachers had seen in a Vision that the Religion of Rome had been to be set up here in the first Month of his Reign Their hearers also and among them some of the chiefest ranck as to external
from doing the contrary that thereby those we Converse with may Honour Him as we our selves do And to come more closs to the present Circumstances of the times I must say that I judge one great part of our Honouring the King to consist in Addressing our selves to him in waies of publick and greatful acknowledgment of what special savours we receive from him for I cannot believe otherwise but that our Honouring the King must bear a great similitude to our Honouring of God and if so then I am sure Addressing when we would Honor Him must not be left out as often as he gives occasion For Men to talk of Loyalty where these things are wanting is but to abuse the King and themselves too These things I shall illustrate further by two Examples When King Saul delired Samuel to Honor him wherein did he place that Honor was it not by something the Prophet should do that was to support his Credit among the People 1 Sam. 15.30 Honor me now I pray thee before the Elders of my People Saul was to be laid aside and put out of the Government and he knew as much but it is like he thought it not convenient to his present Condition that the People should know it which they might have done in all likely hood had Samuel denyed his Request But what doth Samuel in the case Doth he not readily and openly shew his complyance So Samuel turned again after Saul and Saul Worshipped the Lord for that was the thing requested of Samuel viz. that he would go with the King to Worship God before the Elders of the People I hope no body Imagins that I extend this example so far as to oblige all Subjects to Worship as their King doth what Religion soever he professeth it proves my Argument better another way viz. As it is an instance of the Obligation that lyeth upon Men in sacred Office as Samuel was to maintain the Kings Honor in as publick a manner as their Place and Station give them Oppertunity and forbiding them doing any thing that may render him mean in the eyes of the People though they be not satisfied in all the King doth Samuel thus honoured the King when he knew that God had rejected him in the Government how then ought we to act towards a King who we all know God by most remarkable Deliverances hath set upon the Throne The like we have in the instance of King Ahasuerus mentioned in the Book of Esther who when he asked Haman what should be done to the Man the King delighteth to Honor was thus directed viz. Let there be put on him the Royal Apparel and bring him on Horseback through the streets of the City and proclaim before him Thus shall it be done to the Man whom the King delighteth to Honor. Wherein tho Haman mistook the Person at whom the King aimed as thinking it had been himself he did yet hit right in the Notion of the thing how that honor the King intended was to be effected and what other thing was it that he directed but such an act as should render that Person to be great and worthy in the eyes of the Peopl This being the true Notion of Loyalty as it may be considered in its highest degree The question will now come more easie to a resolution I see no need of explaining any of its Terms those upon which the whole stress of it depends are only concerning the manner of many of their Ministers Preaching and of their and the Peoples Speaking for I am not going about to tie-up either the People or any sort of Preachers from asserting the Religion they profess but when it so falls out that there is any difference between theirs and their Kings Religion I would not have it done in any way not consistent with their Loyalty Now what that manner and method is which divers of the Church of England have taken up in these things both by their Ministers in Preaching and by their People in Speaking about the Kings Declaration and his late proceedings in those affairs which I conceive to be very inconsiestnt with those high degrees of Loyalty they pretend to and these Texts lay before us I shall mention in the particulars following and first of the Preaching 1. When there is more Preaching this way than there seems to be need for or the supposed danger of the People requires which seems to be much our present case For I can no waies understand what necessity there is or hath been for all the Preaching we have had of late against the Catholick Doctrines Surely our Preachers must think the People to be in great Danger of their Faith but then how comes it about to be so Have they so much neglected them all the time before as that now when a R. Catholick King comes to the Crown they must be all new taught Or what is the Ground of all this fear For certainly some most Lamentable Apprehensions must have struck even to their very Souls or else they who have stood so mightily upon their Loyalty would not run upon such Methods as now to make it be called in Question I confess Men in a Panick fear may do strange things but then I must still be asking them What is it they Fear or what is that which thus excites them unto this Preaching Do they fear the People will all on a sudden become R. Catholicks By many Mens Sermons indeed some are apt to think so and that these Methods of the Pulpit are taken up as the only means to prevent it Well! but then I would know again of whom it is and of what rank of People are they most afraid For to speak my own thoughts Freely this seems to me to be a needless fear and more imaginary than real and could I suppose that the imparting such Observations as I have made of these things would in any wise obviate our Church-Mens Fears in this matter I would then particularize the Case as to the People and say The Protestant Dissenters I think need not be Doubted for they are a People so Anti-ceremonial in their Worship and so much against any kind of Liturgies or imposed Prayers as that they upon that reason are many of them withdrawn from the Church of England and therefore very unlikely to go to any Mass And among those that go to the Parish Churches there are divers Serious People who so approve of the Dissenters Worship as that they steal oftner to it than their Ministers are aware of and these may be supposed upon the same reason to be in as little danger as the other There being then no great ground of fear for these it must follow that those they are most afraid of are such as are of their own Church and here the Dissenters cannot refrain Smiling to see that after the Church of England hath so fairly Coppied out Her Liturgy Ceremonies and Hierarchie from the Church of Rome they should now
be afraid their own People of all others should like the Original better than the imperfect Copy To come then to their own Church are they the Gentry or the Commonalty and among them are they those that are most intelligent and sincere or those who are more indifferent and remiss in the true parts of practical Piety that have given them this Extraordinary fear Which of these ranks of Persons in their Church they aim at in these Preachings is to me unknown though under such a Division the quality of their Members may be considered If I may guess by likely Circumstances I must needs say I should think it were the Gentry First because Three of our chief Inns of Court Doctors whose Auditors are generally Gentlemen are as I hear much addicted this way so also are many of those Preachers in whose Parishes the Gentry most inhabit and to whose Churches or Lectures the Coaches chiefly throng But Secondly that which strengthens me in these Conjectures as much as any thing else is because I am told also these kind of Sermons are managed with many Arguments Inferences and Distinctions too Subtile and Sublime for most of the Commonalty to understand but whether it be the one or the other I think we need not much inquire since there are good grounds to induce a rational Man to believe there is no reason for the fearing of either especially to that degree as to require all that Preaching we meet with in that kind For the Gentry I see not why they should be questioned I shall not say any thing how many of them being concerned in the Old Church Lands have thereby their secular interests to strengthen their Religious Sentiments for I believe them to proceed upon higher and better Principles That which to me seems to be a kind of indissolvable tye to hold them firmly where they are is what I observe of most Men in all Religions who when they do first understandingly believe such or such a way of Religion to be best for them to chuse those former satisfactions which they may be supposed to have then received do so keep them to it as they seldom admit of any future thoughts to call it in question not caring to engage themselves in any new Controversies in things wherein they judge that they have long ago been satisfied but are rather improving themselves I speak now of the most serious sort of the Gentry in those pious practices which their Religion directs them to wherein divers of our Gentry are very Eminent And this I take to be the true Natural Reason why we find so few changing their Religion after a good maturity in Years and Judgment but those whose designs leads them to do it either in Hypocrisie or Policy And besides all this I look upon our Gentry in England to be Persons of that Ingenuity and Learning as that many of them understand the grounds upon which they are Protestants as well as any of the Clergy can Teach them so that I should think these fresh and often repeated arguings and pressing them against the R. Catholick Religion now used by our Church-Men are rather a kind of Impeaching them of weakness in their Profession then any necessary support the Gentry stand in need of Multiplyed cautions and directions being only needful for them that are weak As for those others of the Gentry and so also of the Commonalty who carelesly take up their Religion and are more relax in their Piety they may be the least feared of all Those strict observances that are used in the R. Catholick Chappels as also the Abstinencies solemn Confessions and Penances that must be submited to by such as are of that Religion will keep these Men more from it then all the florid Sermons they can hear Preach against it Nay to speak a bold Truth Persons indifferently disposed to the Mortifications Donations and self Denials which the Christian institution directs and are withal told by their Consciences that they must be of some Religion or other have scarce any Church else so accommodated for them to take shelter in as the Church of England the Reins of whose Discipline and Castigation are left so loose as Men may therein injoy several of their sensual gratifications yea and be in a fair or rather very foul degree prophane too without being called to any account or fall under the censures of the Church for it which neither in the R. Catholick Church nor in the Dissenters Churchs will be allowed them wherefore there is no fear of them neither The Commonalty which are indeed the greater Bulk of the People may I confess come under some other Consideration as they are not so Learned as we may judge the Gentry to be but then we must know that vast Numbers of them are Protestant Dissenters others are loose and remiss in their lives both which stand upon the same points I have mentioned before and as for those who keeping to the Church of England are Serious and Sober in their Lives though not so intelligent as the Gentry are it will appear to any that shall observe things as I have done that the very Manner and Principles of their Education wrought in them so great an Aversion to the R. Catholick Religion as that though it may be they understand little of the Difference between the one Religion and the other they yet carry on their opposition equally with those who presume themselves the chief Masters of Knowledge and need no Preaching to increase their prejudice And for those of the Commonalty that are more intelligent I may say they stand upon the same terms with the intelligent Gentry Upon the whole therefore I must say I see no kind of Necessity why so much of many Mens Sermons which ought to be chiefly intended to promote Practical Duties and true Devotions should be spent this way against the R. Catholicks unless it be to Prejudice the People against their Soveraign which is the most natural effect it is like to have for if the People be already thus prejudiced against his Religion this superabundant Preaching and Haranguing against it in the Pulpit is like to produce little betterfruit upon the Minds of such Men then the overcharging their Stomacks with meat doth upon their Bodies though the meat of it self be never so good yet it most commonly begetteth more Crudities and sower Belchings then good Nourishment nor can I see any better event liklier to proceed from many of these Sermons then the raising an abundance of popular Talk prejudice and dissatisfactions against the King for all People will be Discoursing of what they hear Preacht especially when the Subject Preach'd upon hath any relation to Persons in a supream Station who they think and look upon to be chiefly pointed at in such Sermons and the higher these Persons are in Dignity whose Religion is thus levelled at the more busie will the People be in their Censures and Reflections and how the
King is like to be Honored by all this I leave to all these Preachers to Judge Secondly Preaching against the Kings Religion must then be inconsistent with the Loyalty as before described when it is so managed as to beget in Men those Jealousies Censures and Suspicions as shall in any wise alienate their Hearts and Affections from him and their service of him When I consider this well and call to mind what a kind of influence irresistable I have observed in such kind of Preaching where the Kings Religion or the Government is any wise concerned to have had on the minds of Men. I cannot but pray our Doctors to consider well with themselves what prejudice they may do the King before they are aware and perhaps repent when it is too late As those London Preachers did Anno. 1641. 1642. who then extravagantly Preacht against the Liturgy Bishops and their Injunctions as our Church-Men have lately done against the R. Catholicks and I pray what followed but that fatal War whose sad effects we all to this day deplore The prejudices raised in Persons upon the account of difference in Religion are hardly possible to be related let me instance in Protestants only where the distance is not so great even according to the Church of Englands own acknowledgments as it is between the R. Catholicks and the Protestants and yet how have they carryed it one towards another as they have gotten power successively into their hands where let the Church of England come in for as great an Example as any of the rest have not they thought so hardly of their Non-conforming Brethren in the Ministry that could not comply with them in things which themselves say are but indifferent as that those that refused to wear a Surplice must be kept so poor as not to be able to buy a Shirt Ay! I might go yet a great deal higher did not the prejudice of many and those some of them zealous enough for the Church of England influence them so far as to conceive that because his Majesty was of the R. Catholick Religion he was not fit to be their King Church-Men may think of these things as they please but I am sure our wisest sort of States Men were of another Opinion as appears pears by what was enacted in the Parliament Anno. 13. Car. 2d who sensible of the ill effects such prejudices may produce where the King is the object of them made a Law That whosoever should publish or affirm the King to be an Heritick or a Papist or that he endeavoured to introduce Popery they should be disinabled to hold any Office or promotion Ecclesiastical or Civil making equal provision against either Catholicks or Protestants that might offend this way And the reason of this may be collected from the words of the Act it self which was because they knew the representing of the Religion of a King in a way of odium to the People was a thing tending to excite them to the hatred or dislike of his Person and Government Among other things I hear of as to this Preaching there is one dislikes me Exceedingly as having in it the most potent influence of any thing I know tending to the setting of the People in opposition to the King and that is those Sermons especially that intimate to them as if a time of PERSECVTION were coming on and the Obligation that lies upon all Persons to suffer whatsoever Persecution they meet with rather than to renounce any part of their Religion A Doctrine of excellent goodness in it self but I suppose now much mistimed unless we fear that Millions of Jews will invade us and set up the Mosaical Sacrifices again for I know not from whence Persecution can otherwise come if his Majesties Declaration as he desires be turned into an establish'd Law which I conceive none but the Church of England will endeavour to hinder While some Considering Men think with themselves how little this of Doctrine they have heard Preacht upon for twenty years before and now to be taken up since the King is come to the Crown and made the Common Theam of the Pulpit they know not how to interpret it otherwise than that the Preachers would have the people believe that their Religion is like to be denyed them and if they will stand to it they must expect to Suffer which that they may the better do it is necessary that they learn before hand how to behave themselves under such Providences And here again it would make a Man Smile to see how the World turns round I well remember that when the Dissenting Ministers were first displaced at St. Bartholomews 1662. Divers of them took their leave of their People the Sunday before in some Farewel Sermons divers of which were Printed by a good token that some of my acquaintance were soundly Punished for Printing them In these Sermons such Texts were chosen as from a Moral Prognostication they then made from the Conventicle Act they thought fittest to induce the People of a Patient Bearing of what was coming upon them I shall name only that of Heb. 10.14 about taking joyfully the spoiling of their Goods which was pertinent to the manner of their Sufferings since by that Act all their Moveables lay liable to the informers distresses The same course is now taking by Divers Church of England Doctors they have their particular Texts also fitted to what their Opinions are of the Times One Preaches upon taking up the Cross as if a new Persecution were indeed coming on Another calls upon us by his Text to contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints as if a new Creed were to be immediately introduced A third forewarns us of the Apostacy of which St. Paul speaks and this is applyed to the R. Catholick Religion I mention these but as Specimens by which we may judge of the rest but here they would do well to take notice what some Men say of themselves viz. that they do the same things which they before condemned in others and for which they caused them to be punished which is so much the worse in them than in the Dissenters for the latter had some shadow of reason to Preach as they did when they saw a sharp Law newly made against them but for the Doctors of the Church of England to Preach thus who have all the Laws on their side and the Kings Declaration to protect them for them to do this and no other ground to proceed upon but their Misbelieving the Kings Word what else is it but a Disingenious Disloyalty and that of the highest kind Or what would they have the People think under all these things And how can they do otherwise than produce most desperate Jealousies The fatal Consequences whereof and the Resentments that a Royal Breast cannot but have of such Treatment I shall refer to the Judgment of King Charles the First to be informed of who in his Meditations
these Mens Preaching against any way of Religion which themselves oppose 2. Because the Passage I am to take out of it shews how sharply they have rediculed upon the Kings Religion To this grave Auditory he Preaches upon the Text Psalm 112.5 Where after he had handled all things very well and sutable to the occasion of exciting Men prudently to give Alms he falls upon scoffing the R. Catholick Charity and especially touching the Scope and Event of it which he most strangely reprensents The best way will be to recite his own Words The Scope saies he they too often vainly aim at is the blessing of a presumed Saint who is ignorant of them Security from the External force of evil Spirits by the Charms and Spells of Monkish Conjuration a sort of Ecclesiastical Magick which these very Spirits invent and incourage Avoidance of those Causeless Curses and Anathamas which are with terror denounced from their seven hill'd counterfeit Sinai preservation from or deliverance out of the Imaginary Flames of Purgatory blown on purpose by Jesuitick Breath for the melting of the Treasures of the Credulous People The Event is the Alienation of Alms from their proper uses the increase of Superstition and the maintaining of an Universal Usurper for the pence of St. Peter conducted to the buying of such a Yoak as neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The things we purchased conducive to those ends are the wares of dark Impostures namely such as these viz. Shrines Images Lamps Incense Holy Water Agnus Dei's Blessed Grains Roses Peebles Rings Beads Reliques Pardons c. after all which he concludes with an Ironical Jeer. The goodly Inventory of Superstition If the Church of England think these Expressions to become the Gravity of a Doctor or be like the form of sound Words in which Timothy was advised to Preach or Words of â—â—â—erness in which St. Paul Preached to Festus or meet to be spoken in the greatest and most Honourable Audience of the City of London or fit to agree with the Solemnity of a Divine Institution I must then bid farewell to all reverence in their Religious Assemblies such stuff I might have expected in the Comedy called the Spanish Curate written I think to abuse the Catholicks but never expected them in a Church of England Doctors Sermon These Passages are so Notorious as that another Writer hath Published some of them before my self which made me think once to have left them out but then I found that either the Doctor or some body for him had made Exceptions against the Writer for leaving out the Word frequently while he represented him saying That the Scope of their Charity did vainly Aim at the Blessing of a presumed Saint c. Well! since he hath left it out I have placed it in but I know not what good it will do him unless it be that he intends thereby to take shelter under the common Proverb Almost and hard by saves many a Lie And so when his design is to render the R. Catholick Charity wholly Ridiculous he would think to hide it by saying that frequently or too often they make those vain Aims but this will not serve his turn since all the Charity they shew towards any poor Protestants is not capable of such an Aim as he mentions and therefore I must never the less his complaining affirm two things to be very soul in these Passages viz. The Unrighteousness of his dealing and the Scurrulity of his terms There are I believe many hundred Protestants in England who from their own experience of the R. Catholicks Charity towards them will have occasion to oppose him in saying that the Scope and Event of their Charity too often aimed at was to have them prayed out of Purgatory or buy Lamps Beads Incense c. Because the R. Catholicks in all the Charity they have bestowed on Protestants knew before-hand that those Protestants they Liberally reliev'd were never wont to make any such purchases or use any such Prayers and therefore could have none of those ends in the doing of it I have in my own knowledge this 50 years understood it to have been the standing Characters of the English Catholick Gentry to have been Exceeding Liberal in all the Eminent parts of Charity such as Relieving the Sick giving Money freely to those that have wanted Bread Lending as freely to others that only came to Borrow Cloathed such as have been Naked putting out the Children of many to be Apprentiees whose Parents could not do it themselves all which have been so great towards Protestants as in divers places the Catholicks have been esteemed to have out done those of the Church of England in the same things taking the like number in any County of the one as of the other therefore this must needs be an Unrighteous Aspersion The scurrulity is such as to find it in a Sermon exceeds all I have met with what kind of words hath he here pickt up Monkish Conjurations Jesuitick Breath the seven hill'd Counterfeit Sinai the Goodly Inventory of Superstition Ecclesiastical Magick c. he talks also of Spirits and Charms and Spells but certainly all this Language must be minted in some infernal Cell among such Spirits where God is seldom named unless it be very vainly I hope he did not conclude his Sermon with the Prayer that many of them do viz. That all these Words which we have heard with our outward Ears may be ingrafted in our hearts for I take him to be the happiest Man that could first forget such Words as these are and be delivered from the snare of following his bad Example in getting a habit of such ill Language I shall only tell him again of another part of his Unrighteousness and that is in his Inventorying as he calls it of the several things he names without giving his Auditory an account of the R. Catholicks use of those things supposing they have so many things in use in their Religion as he speaks of for this in honesty he ought to have done that so his Auditors might have judged whether they did not give as good a Rational for them as the Church of England gives for her use of the Surplice the Ring in Marriage Prayers over the Dead and repeating such words as these in putting the body of every deceased Person into the Grave as a part of their worship For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God to take to himself the Soul of our Brother c. We commit his Body to the Ground c. in sure and certain hope of Resurrection to Eternal Life when they often know not how they liv'd or dyed I may mention also together with these their standing up at reading the Gospel in the Communion Service and sitting when the same Scripture is read in a second Lesson c. I am of Opinion the R. Catholick Doctors do give reasons for what they do in their Ceremonies as well as the Church
of England doth of Hers which he ought to have told People if he had designed in a Christian way to have to reprehended them but his not doing this and jumbling and jingling all of them together as he doth is equally Unrighteous as it is Scurrulous but let 's go to the next The other is a Sermon Preacht upon that Text Mat. 16.6 When ye fast not as the Hypocrites from whence the Preacher would needs have a fling against Catholicks keeping Lent for it was in that time that the Sermon was Preacht whereby a subtile way he had found out he would have them guilty of the Hypocrifie here intended because while they abstain all that time from Flesh yet said he they make full Meals of other food I never yet heard any Man twitted or told of his full Meals or great Eating but it was either to deride him or break a jest upon him and so I look upon this to be and by the smiling of some of the People I was told of that heard the Expressâ—â—â— I suppose they thought so too Now I shall neither take upon me to justifie the Observation of Lent nor the manner of Fasting used in the Church of Rome yet this I cannot but say if what the Gentleman speaks of be Hypocrisie in them what is it in the Church of England who keep it as a Religious Fast but yet teach their People no abstinence at all but leave them to seed on all sorts of Flesh and well pallated Sauces as often and to as full meals as they please That the Church of England keep Lent as a Religious Fast their Commissioners at the Savoy Meeting with the Non-conforming Ministers shall speak for them for when the Non-conformists opposed the keeping it a Religious Fast they answered them That their Fasting of 40 daies may be in imitation of our Saviour for all that had been said to the Contrary for tho' we cannot arrive to his perfection abstaining wholly from Meat so long yet we may fast forty Daies together either as Cornelius his Fast till three of the Clock in the Afternoon or St. Peters Fast till Noon or Daniels Fast abstaining from Meats and Drinks of Delights and thus far we imitate our Lord. Thus they setled their Lent as a Religious Fast but by what has followed it seems they never intended to injoyn their People any of those abstinencies in which that Fast ought be kept if it be kept at all so that I may ask where is the Hipocrisie now But while I am thus Writing I call to mind two great Reasons as they are esteem'd which I hear alledged in justification of their present Preachings First they say all Ministers are to declare to the People the whole Council of God and by vertue of their Ministerial Office they have a power of Preaching what they think most fit Secondly they tell us that there are a great number of R. Catholick Priests up and down the City privately Alluring and Perswading the People to embrace that Religion which tenders their Preaching against it at this time absolutely Necessary Unto both these I shall give a distinct answer First I shall not dispute their Power in Preaching upon what Subjects they please nor do I know so much as one Man that would deprive them of that Liberty so that it be alwaies exercised and kept within the bounds of those things which the People may assuredly know are indeed the absolute Counsel of God but in controversial matters I know not how this can be for the People must needs know that one part in all such Sermons must not be the Counsel of God but against it for though both parties Preach upon that pretence yet there is but one Truth which hath alwaies made me think that Controversies were not fit for Sermons but rather Books or private Conferences for while a controversial point is handled in a Sermon the hearer may start some Objection in his thoughts which it may be the Preacher never so much as toucheth at whereby the whole matter is left in doubt which as often as it happens such hearers cannot receive those things as the Counsel of God though they should really be so and there all the labour that way is lost Again it may be questioned that supposing those Doctrines against which our Clergy Men are so frequently Preaching should not be the Councel of God it may yet be considered whether or no it be according to the Councel of his will they should just at this time above all others shew their opposition to them when they can hardly manage it without endangering the People from falling off from a very great Duty towards their King in which we are sure it is the counsel of God they should in no wise be defective It was the Councel of God that Circumcision an Ordinance which himself had made for the Jewish Church should not be continued in the Christian Church and St. Paul so Vehemently Preached against it to some Churches as that he told them if they were circumcised Christ should profit them nothing yet upon another Consideration he Circumcised Timotheus at Lestria It is a weighty point I leave it to our Doctors to consider how far the Councel of God is to be Preached with respect to the different Circumstances both of Time and of different Cases Again do not all Men know what great prophanness there is among Multitudes of those who profess themselves Members only of their Sanctuary some are great Drunkards others as great Oppressors some common Swearers and that also of those horrible Oaths or Expressions which ought not to be Named and not a few most desperate Whorers too many also Sabbath Breakers whereof divers to my knowledg come frequently to Church and very often receive the Sacrament Now I should think there are no Councels of God more necessary to be Preach'd to such Sinners than those that should convince them of the Evil of these desperate Courses and set them right in their Morals before their Heads are filled with Disputations in the Controversal parts of Religion and yet who but such Men as these after a Sermon Preach'd against the Catholick Religion talk more of it than they I hope the Church of England Doctors do not think that the only Capital Sins in England are the Worshipping of God without their Liturgy and Ceremonies as the Dissenters do or to be of the R. Catholick Religion and yet many wise Men of my acquaintance have been tempted to believe so by the Cursory Sermons we have had this Twenty Years wherein we have had Preaching against these two Ranks of the Christian profession than can be heard aaginst all those gross Impieties I have named To the Second Objection that supposes a Multitude of Persons in holy orders of the Catholick Religion to be privately inticing the Protestant People to leave their Religion I thus Answer That whether this be true or no I cannot tell but if it be
in that concern What the discourses of the Church of England People have been and still are upon this Subject I have mentioned already I am not so in love with repeating ill Languages as to name it over again It is no wonder the People should talk at the rate they have done while they hear and see what has been said and done by their Leaders in the Clergy The Declaration was no sooner dispersed about the Kingdom but Doctor Stillingfleet Re-prints his Sermon called the Mischief of Separation Preacht before the Lord Mayor of London against the Dissenters Worship in as sharp a manner as his wonted Oratory useth to do towards those he hath a mind to lash of which he may hear more at another time What he intended by the new setting it out himself best knows I inquire not after it I shall only inform him that this Act of his is looked upon by many as a direct affront to the Declaration as if he would have the People to believe that His Majesty had tollerated a Mischievous thing The Oxford Clergy do as good as call it by the opprobrious Name of a Suspected Artifice for when their Liocesan moved them to make some publick Testimony as a few others of their Church had done of their thankful sense of what the King had declared touching their being protected in their present Station and Worship they excuse themselves by making it one Reason of their refusal that by doing so they should forfeit their Reputation with the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of their Cummunion and that it may tempt those Persons to disgust them for their rash Compliance with suspected Artifices Language I should have scarce expected from the greatest Clown in the Country however I perceive they resolved to speak their thoughts Freely by which we may a little know their Minds From the Preaching I spoke of before the People were taught how to form their Jealousies against the King as that he would alter their Religion and these Men now tell them the Declaration is the Artifice they suspect for the bringing it about If they say I strain this too far and put upon it a sense they intend not I must then pray them to explain their own sense more fully and tell us what it is that in that Expression they do intend for until they do I cannot understand them otherwise than I now Write there being such a near Relation between the Peoples Addressing to the King and the Declaration it self from whence they take the occasion as none can hardly say the one is a Suspected Artifice but they must say the other is so too But there are other strains not inferiour to this I have last named They will not thank the King by an Address because forsooth it will make the Exercise of their Established Religion to be Precarious As if when a Father shall say to any Son at his coming to Age SON Care was taken upon the Marriage of your Mother to setle an Estate upon you which now you shall injoy so far from any interuption from me as I promise to give you the best protection I can in your possession of it The Son shall say Sir I must not thank you for any thing of this least I make my Title to what I have too Precarious I wish they come not at last to say we must not thank Almighty God for the Spiritual Blessings he bestows upon us by his Covenant of Grace since that Covenant was made and Established with our fore Fathers long before we had a being and that in a firmer manner than all our humane Establishments can pretend to be I cannot believe otherwise but that all subordinate relations stand bound upon every signal Testimony of Special Favour they receive from their Superiors to make their acknowledgements of thanks whatsoever Obligation they may conceive their superiors might have before-hand put themselves under while it was in their Power to have done otherwise with us if they had pleased nor do I see any thing in all these Doctors Arguments that is like to alter my Opinion Had all the People in England told me four or five years ago that I should have seen and heard such things as these and others I have lately met with from divers of our Church Men towards the King I do professedly declare I should never have believed them I hear also they have Question'd or Disobey'd rather his Orders in disposing of some Places which his Majesty would fill up or where he thinks it convenient to make an Alteration Ay! is it come to this alreeady will they thus dispute it with their King if they begin thus I know not where they will make an end as Men when once but of the way of their Duty no body knows where they will Stop There is one thing more in these Oxford Mens Reasons for their Non-Addressing with their thanks to the King which I cannot pass by without some Remark They say they do not offer those Reasons as the sense of their own Minds only but undertake to affirm them to be the Opinion also of the best part of the Clergy of the Kingdom by the best I presume they mean the greatest part but how they came so soon to know each others Minds in so great a Kingdom as this is unto many no small wonder I hope they are not hatching another Association for securing the Protestant Religion as that which they so much exploded in one of the late Parliaments if they are much good may do them I intend not to be of the Fraternity but supposing them to have this intelligence one from another more then I am aware of I may still wonder how they undertake so far for the Nobility and Gentry as to know their thoughts so much in the case while they seem to fear that thanking the King for his promised Favours will forfeit their Reputation with them as Men that had too rashly complyed with suspected Artifices I think by the Carriage of many both of the Nobility and Gentry towards the Kings Person and his afairs in the Court and Country I may reasonably conclude they give them no grounds for such a Conjecture In my apprehension therefore this looks too much like a Substile insinuating their own dislikes into those that are in that honourable Station that thereby they may be pre-ingaged against his Majesties proceedings than any real ground they had to fear their displeasure if they should have returned the Kings thanks for the assurance he hath given of his protecting and Supporting their Church To say no worse of the matter it is no fair dealing towards persons so much their betters nor hath it so much as one spark of Loyalty in it towards the King How the people should avoid the being ensnared in their Loyalty by such bad Examples as these I no waies apprehend my fears I must profess are not a few and I shall crave so much leave as to
lay before them two or three Considerations whereby they may see how much such kind of Speeches and Discourses as I spoke of before carry in them of Disloyalty First as they are directly opposite to that subjection we owe to the Kings proceedings they must ever be disloyal that they are so opposite is plain because such kind of Speaking is no better then resistance which is contrary to Subjects Duty I pray observe how the Duty of persons who are alwaies in a State of Subordination such as Women and Servants is set out in sacred Writ towards their Superiour and you will find it to be a State of silence Let the Woman keep silence in all Subjection saith the Apostle c. The servant also is strictly warned not to answer again but give obedience without disputing his Masters Commands The distance is the same between the King and his Subjects and I see no reason why the obligation should not be the same in the Subject towards his Prince as in a Servant to his Master or a Wife to her Husband It cannot but follow then but that all these peremptory Discourses and Questionings of things about the Kings Proceedings we so frequently meet with among the Body of the People are much besides their Duty as they are Subjects and great Tokens of Disloyalty in as much as they intimate their Minds and Hearts to be in a way of Resistance against them The plain case of Obedience is given us by St. Peter Submit your selves to every Ordinance of Man for the Lords Sake And what is this Declaration but the Kings Ordinance relating to the Execution of his Government This General Rule of Obedience is capable but of one Exception that I could ever hear of allowed in the Christian Religion and that is only when the thing ordained or commanded appears to be against some Command of God wherein God must always be obeyed before Man but this Exception hath no Shadow of place here for the Declaration hath no Command at all in it It is only his Majesties Prohibition of his Subordinate Officers to suspend their Execution of some punishments which an hundred Years experience have made appear to be very hurtful to the publick Peace and grievously oppressing to the Subjects with promises of Liberty in Religion for the promoting of Godliness and preservation of Property for the main maintaining of Honesty Now is any thing of this against a Command of God that we should refuse to give Subjection to it Had the King dealt by us as we have dealt by him and by one another or had he required of us to give Assent and Consent to any thing in his Religion that is doubtful to us or imposed upon us any new Oaths or Subscriptions to controveried propositions or any different ways of Religions than what we now profess something might have been said to have justified our Dissatisfaction But for such a Declaration as this is which to every Man is but a Negative thing to see Men rise up against it with full Mouth as if some thin horrible Evil were commanded in it may become the Worlds wonder Secondly the Speaking I have mentioned against his Majesties Declaration must be very Guilty of Disloyalty because it cannot be excused from a down-right dishonouring him what is a greater Dishonor to an ordinary Man than to have the Truth of his word or promise called in question how much more then to a King How can it consist with Honouring the King to say he either useth or indulgeth suspected Artifices Or that he will do such things as against which he hath declared what are these Speeches then but manifest Reproaches tending only to alienate his peoples good opinion of him I need say no more but only recite another passage from King Charles the First who had been served in much what the same manner I can more willingly saith he lose my Crown than my Credit Those foul and false Aspersions meaning the Scandals cast upon him that he would alter the Religion and Government of the Kingdom were secret Engines imployed against my Peoples love of me That undermining their opinion and value of Person mine and their Enemies might at once blow up their Affections and batter down their Loyalty You have all this in the same 15. Chapter of his Meditations I quoted before who from a very sharp Suffering he underwent by such kind of doings was best able to express their deadly mischievous consequences and do any of us pretend to Loyalty that are still doing the same things 3. My Third Reason against all such Discourses is drawn from the bad Quality of them as they must come within the compass of Unchristian Censoriousness what the difference is between Cursing the King in our Bed-chamber and censuring him in the open World as to the foulness of each of these Speeches I shall not now determine but of this I am sure that Censoriousness was ever made Criminal in the Christian Religion Who art thou saith the Apostle that judgest another mans Servant I need say no more but change the Word a little and ask who art thou that Judgest the Lords Vicegerent I expect it will be demanded here how I make any such Discourses or Preaching as I have named to be a Censuring the King I answer let but Church Men if they can assign me any true Notion of Censoriousness whereby they can defend some of their own Sermons and the peoples discourses of them from coming within the guilt of that Crime and I will read what I have Written I know Accademical Doctors may do strange things yet I confess I never heard them pretend to the working any Miracles in things Natural but I must here suppose them to make a kind of Miracle in Mortality if they can bring off themselves and their Loyalty fairly in this thing Our plain way of understanding censoriousness is this we say it is nothing else but judging another Mans Words or Actions to be ill or evilly intended without apparent evidence or to be otherwise intended than he hath made us believe This is the common evil Censuring that is between Men towards each other of equal rank that of inferiours censuring Superiours is made some what stricter but I shall not take the advantage of that but pass it by because if our Censuring the King be against the most ordinary Notion of it we shall find it much worse when we come to consider it in a Notion that is higher so that the present case I am upon will be this The King hath declared he will protect the Church of England in the way of their Worship as it is now Established but divers of them Judge otherwise looking upon his Declaration as an Artifice to be suspected as set on foot for another purpose wholly against what they ought to believe of him until they see apparent cause to Judge otherwise either by acting or declaring himself different from what he now doth
The conclusion then is this not to believe him is to censure him and to censure him is to do evil against him and every evil thing done against him is against our Loyalty Now this consuring must be so much the worse in as much as while Men follow the consequences of their own Reasonings they can see no grounds to believe that the Protestant Religion can receive any prejudice by any thing that can arise by the Declaration without offering a kind of violence to their own reason There are some persons who have given very great Reasons against the likely-hood of the Catholicks Religion overthrowing or suppressing Protestantism none of which I shall repeat I shall only take notice of two other things which I perceive to be much overlookt which to me seem of very great force in giving Protestants a full assurance as to this Case The first is in that the Declaration indulgeth those of the Protestant Religion which are at the remotest distance from his Majesties own Way for so I must repute the Protestant Dissenters in England to be as using no kind of Liturgy or Ceremonies in their Worship nor so much as acknowledging the office of a Protestant Diocessan Bishop which is indeed the great Protestancy of Christendom whereas the Church of England rigidly imposing the one and stilly maintaining the other together with their Symbolizing in both these respects with the R. Catholick Church and Worship Yea and in many Doctrines too of late which the first Reformation opposed have been thought to have been so near them as the effecting of an union to the extirpation of the Dissenters was the only thing feared and this not without ground while those Dissenters saw the Church of England upon the Death of his late Majesty to renew their prosecutions somewhat sharper than before But these fears are now abundantly removed which truly I must say could hardly have been done by any other means than that which his Majesty hath taken by his Declaration which must be to all Men of understanding an evidence on his behalf that he can have no designs against the Protestant interest nevertheless the Church of England judging otherwise 2. The Admission of the French Protestants in such Multitudes as are come over hither doth also confirm me in the same belief They are a kind of Presbiterians who because they would not become Papists are fled hither where they have not only the Exercise of their Religion but also very large Relief raised for their Necessities and that too by his Majesties own order What greater Testimonies than these can be given of his readiness to support Protestanisme And that He Acts in the highest degree of Sincerity to that Principle upon which he Grounds his Declaration viz. that Conscience is not to be forced from which we that are Protestants cannot but repute our selves exceeding safe and may conclude the Exercise of our Religion to be constantly continued to us and that because the Protestant Interest from all these things is more and more strengthened and allowed to make its utmost advantage to maintain it self in his Majesties Kingdoms all which may be so pleaded against the Censoriousness I here condemn as to make it appear to be every whit as irrational as it is disloyalty The utmost that can be said as to the benefit designed to the Catholicks by the Declaration is only that his Majesty would have those of his own Religion enjoy the same Liberty of Worship he hath given to the Protestant Dissenters and that they may be capable of serving him in Publique Employments as Protestants do which as it is all that is allowed them so as far as I perceive it is as much as they desire To the First I would ask how can the King well do otherwise according to that Divine Principle upon which he proceeds and how can Protestants deny it that hold the same Principle with him which I find none of them oppose when the case is put home and they have been pinch'd upon the point for even our Church of England Divines themselves choose rather to plead the obligation men are under to obey the Laws of the Land whereby their Liturgy and Ceremonies are setled than to insist upon the denying this principle and most generally justifie all their compulsions and penal inflictions from the Authority of our humane Laws telling the people that the Dissenters were not punished for their disobeying the Law a fine way indeed to turn the odium of those things upon the Parliament which themselves are ashamed to own and yet procured and so much struggle to have continued To the Second I would ask also how we shall object against it when we consider that His Majesty must needs in Equity have the same right to the service of all his Subjects as any Parents have to the Service of all their Children or any men have to that which they call their Property Tell me I pray why we should insist upon holding our own property and deny the King His I would be glad to see our Doctors who lately preach'd up Morality so much in the Socinian way as if they would make the whole Institution of Christianity and of Christ's coming into the World to be only a subservient thing to the Establishment of the Primitive Moral Religion to shew upon what principles of Moral right a King shall be denied the choice of those that shall Serve him more than a Noble Man the choice of his Steward or the Master of a Family his own Servants As yet I would never understand that human Laws could supercede any Moral Right fixt in the Original Divine Constitution of things I am no States Man but judging naturally according to the ancient usages of the Kingdom the King is not to be imposed upon in this particular when a King dyeth all publick Commissions formerly granted to his respective Officers become void Nay which is more if a Parliament be then in being his Death dissolves them the reason whereof I could never hear to be Grounded upon any other bottom but that a King was not to be imposed upon or bound up as to his Publick Ministers and Officers by any Act of his Predecessors There is 〈◊〉 thing more I would take notice of at this time which I have not 〈◊〉 so much 〈…〉 to which I would say something here if I knew how to 〈◊〉 it in and this only what I observe from many of the Church of England who when they have little to 〈◊〉 against that excellent Principle his Majesty proceeds upon in granting 〈◊〉 for Gods free worship nor the Moral Justice we owe him in choosing his own Officers they would fain pick a Quarrel with his Power and 〈◊〉 these things should 〈◊〉 come to us in a Parliamentary way I must confess the Power of a King is a thing so sacred and so strongly Lodged and Seated in himself as I have not 〈…〉 the least to peep into it Only