prerogative or peoples Liberties but leaves every thing as it finds them to their own just rights according to Law and if it self come to be one of those Rights It doth not repeal from any the Legal Right of it self which is the greatest and surest Rule that a Religion can guide it self by not to disturb but to extend peace to the world The Prince the People being for it or any thing it teaches or does most secure of their own interest though it fall out oftentimes to the greatest sufferings of its servants in all worldly Interest even loss of life it self and that with all circumstances of painful dying which yet it is able to râ—â—â—mpence in the resurrection of the just that better resurrection There remains nothing to compleat this whole Discourse of the excellency of Christian Religion in the Foundatioâ—â— of Peace it lays but the Universal Goodness Holiness â—urity Mercy and all the most generous fruits of thâ—se it is so concerned in and enjoins with so much absoluteness the heavenly and eternal glory it directs the earnestness zeal and highest ardor of all Christians upon so that while they are in the way of well-doing seeking honour glory and immortality they have all the arguments of love and peace working within them and governing all their outward Actions But I have so every way prevented my self in this part that I shall not at all further pursue it but recollect this whole Discourst into the Conclusion of it And in the first place it carries upon this very sad and melancholy Contemplation The so great and nice preparation of Natural Religion of Christian Religion for the peace and quietness of the world How monstrously unsuccesful hath it been among men What great Heats and Disquiets have Differences in Religion been still both the true and unpretended Occasions and the pretended only and counterfeit Causes of in the world What Blood and Cruelty what Slaughters and Massacres what Exquisite Torments and Artifices of Barbarity have been call'd for Contrived and Executed in this Qâ—arrel On one side men have made Religion a cover and shelter for Sedition Rebellion Commotion and Change of Government perfectly against the whole design of it On the other side Wordly Powers have charg'd all offers of a Religion never so true never so peaceable as if it was bringing out the Engines of Destruction for the blowing up States and therefore judg'd most reasonable the Authors and Proselytes of it should be pursued with severest punishments And without any Relation to these Concernments the very different apprehensions in Religion have been thought worthy of the extreamest Hate and most barbarous Persecutions of Racks Wheels and Tortures as if men having destin'd one another to Hell in another world on these accounts thought it but fit the Hell should be begun here or else which hath been sometimes a pretence for this savage method they would pull them with violence indeed out of that fire or save them from those flames yet so as by fire cruelly forcing them thereby into the Religion of their Judges Now how contrary this is to the nature of True Rational or Christian Religion I have all along shewn But however multitudes of the Votaries of Religion whether true or false have with incredible patience and oftentimes with joy and triumph embrac'd their sufferings and gloried in their death and torments esteeming their pains Martyrdom a name of honour in this world and of great expectations in the world future So that a very considerable part of Story is fill'd up with great undertakings upon account of Religion with the severity of Laws against any thing strange or innovated in the profession of Nations and the Martyrologies of those that have suffer'd for being otherwise perswaded Now if a man values and estimates things by this worlds peace happiness and quiet he would be ready to praise and applaud Atheism and Irreligion and wish there never had been the name or notion of any other in the world to give origin to so much mischief and injumanity Especially considering the Christian Religion the most excellent tender Religion most compassionate of Humane Nature most Clear Intelligible Rational Vertuous freest from Ceremony most aliene from Superstition most modest and humble most submissive to Government at its first entrances into the world endur'd the whole weight and body of malice and cruelty against it was sown in the Blood and grew up as from the Graves of the Confessors and Martyrs of it being first founded in the death of the Author though he indeed gave proof of the Truth and last issue of it in a Glorious Resurrection And since it hath possess'd it self of the acknowledgment and Authority of Thrones Princes Laws and Governments Baptiz'd whole Nations into its profession it hath been most strangely perverted from its whole design and intention into the same instrument of Ambition and Cruelty upon the various accounts and occasions that Church-History and other Chronologies swell and labour in the Relation of Yea even small and valueless things if weighed upon its own just Ballance have yet given fury to the greatest Animosities and Dissentions which have not been washed off but in an Ocean of Blood In sum this of all Religions hath been first most persecuted hated and oppos'd by Grandees and Chiefs of the world in its first approaches to the world and since by the several Dissentions within it self been the Field of Blood made use of sometimes by design sometimes by angry power but so as that the purest and most sincere Professors have been mostly dyed in their own gore so that by the same standard of worldly interest next to Atheism and Irreligion Antichristianism or denial of Christian Religion would seem next to be chosen But when we more wisely and justly apprize the mighty and unconquerable Reasons for Religion in general and the particular vast and momentous Arguments for the reception of True Christian Religion it must needs lead us to other much more serious and reconciling Considerations And who that is a Grave Thinker having been first put into an amaze then into the most melting and relenting Commiserations that the world should be so unhappy in that wherein its greatest happiness consists that there should be such deplorable instances of rage and even Hellish cruelty that cannot be drawn out or exprest in any suitable and condecent language upon the account of that Religion that professes every where of it self it came not to destroy mens lives but to save them even then when the mistaken Zealots of it would have had Fire from Heaven in a present revenge upon those that would not receive the most compassionate founder of it the greatest lover of Humane Nature that ever was in the world Who I say that ponders these things would not set himself to find out the causes of these evils and sadly bethink himself how they should so generally fall out among Christians themselves And indeed he
could not contradict it self No dream wonder or praediction however fulfilled was Authentick enough to draw the Jews from the true God that Deut. 13. 1. had so supremely demonstrated himself to them nor might any Angel or Spirit that is Immediate Inspiration or Doctrine given by it seduce them from Christ so evidently seal'd to them in the New by God the Father and therefore Gal. 6. 27. all pretensions to the contrary how high soever are to be rejected with detestation They knew All that endeavoured it must know themselves deceivers the greatest crime against Natural Religion and indeed none so subject to Humane Inquiry to their detection or severity when detected as Impostors pretending Divine Revelation Nor to their most Authoritative restraints and repressions as the wild Enthusiast though with more mercy because he is himself so greatly deceiv'd and deluded And next to these an Apostate from Christianity can hardly if at all give such an account of himself to Christian Powers as should clear him from being a most hainous offender against Natural Religion The sum then is this He to whom Christianity is propos'd as faithful and worthy of all acceptation with such assurances of it from Natural Religion and its own evidences as are sufficient to draw any man intelligent and conscientious to it and yet rejects and refuses him that speaks from Heaven to him is to be delivered over to the Judgment of God who will judg the secrets of all hearts by that very Gospel of Truth Rom. 2. 16. He that apostatizes from it when he hath once received it may be justly call'd to the most strict account by Christian Magistrates and as they find reason further censur'd or punish'd it being ordinarily impossible there should be such an Apostate from so excellent a Religion once tasted but with greatest violation of Natural Religion and Conscience he that pretends Divine Revelation against that which hath so ample a pattent from Heaven may most righteously be first discover'd expos'd and after dealt with as the most flagitious self-guilty Deceiver by Christian Rulers who are the Ministers of divine vengâ—â—â—â—e in such cases and Rom. 13. 4. by private Christians for his natural evil works cast out of their whole Society Religious or Civil except he appear an Enthusiastick Phrenetick who in pity to him is to be shut up in a Bethlehem from doing so great injury to himself and others And thus I have finish'd the first Argument concerning the acceptableness of Natural Religion to God our Saviour guiding my self in it by this Rule Viz. The most comprehensive Religion in charity to others while we keep to main foundations in our charity and to the purest strictest Rules in our selves we can attain to is certainly the best and most like that one God and one Mediator the common bosom of love peace hope rest The 2. Arg. Proving Natural Religion is fit to be the center Arg. 2 of common peace and agreement in Religion is this There is an Vniversal Code of Natural Religion of which every man hath a part for himself so that we may all appeal one to another as it were to page and line whether it be not so written in that book of the Law within us Whether such a thing be not our duty and whether we have not sin'd in doing contrary And indeed thus to do is the universal usage of men in all their debates one with another As face answers to face in water so the heart of man to man in this Natural Religion as the parts of Humane body agree in all men so do these proportions and lineaments of souls We may with greater certainty solicite men upon these Principles than evil men tempt one another upon common depravation For corruption though all one in the fountain yet lyes in more several veins than these laws of natural Conscience so that men may be miss'd by those that tempt them out of their proper inclinations to evils as hitt in the wrong vein But there are none of these lines of natural Conscience wanting in any man nor an aptness to be mov'd in them if searcht to the quick they will feel it to conviction though too often not to conversion The Apostle in preaching to Faelix struck him in the Sentiments of Righteousness Temperance and Judgment to come as in master-veins and knew he must take place as it prov'd in his trembling So in his Discourse Act. 17. he fell upon that universal sense of a Divine Being and his excellent Nature of which he was sure there was a counter-part within them He did not first preach Christ to them a point without them but getting within them in natural Principles he assayed by the continuity and similarness of the one with the other to intwine as with admirable artifice he does those Natural Principles with Christianity Our Saviour indeed dealt with the Jews in more absolute and positive terms because natural conscience lay higher and nearer to supernatural instructions by their acquaintance and familiarity with the Oracles of God committed to them But in dealing with those that had not those Revelations the Prophets and Apostles center their Applications to them in this Vniversal Religion and with great reason and expectation of success As Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar I counsel thee to break off thy sins by righteousness and by shewing mercy to the Dan. 4. 27 poor if it may be a lengthning of thy tranquillity This was Natural Doctrine and fit to be addressed to a Prince never so much a stranger to Divine Revelation For this is a Religion known to all the world and therefore that in which all may most reasonably unite This is that a Magistrate may with greatest Authority demand conformity to of his subjects and they oblig'd to obey as the King of Niniveh most justly enjoin'd publick Joâ— 3. 7. Humiliation and repentance in the case of so great and iminent Judgment For every Magistrate is suppos'd as a Magistrate to have good knowledg of this Law of which he as a man hath a copy as the Kings of Israel had of the revealed Law and in which as they in that he ought to be conversant that he may be just that ruleth over men ruling in the fear of 2 Sam. 23. 3. God Of this also every subject hath a copy that he may know his duty and observe it Hence therefore Vniversal conformity is an unquestionable obligation when he that commands and they who are to obey have both the same just weights and measures committed to them one in order to Rule and Government the other in order to Obedience and Subjection such as cannot disagree no more than sealed weights and measures in general Traffick and which each have a standard of and may except inexcusable ignorance negligence or injustice be in the fault have an immediate recourse to But beyond this what of Compulsion there can be I do not understand Every Revelation is received
by Faith and Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God It is the sword of the Spirit that is to make the way and not the sword of the Magistrate that is to cut it Christianity substantial fundamental Christianity hath the best claim to the Edicts of Principalities and Powers for it there being no other Revelation except that in the world but what is counterfeit and spurious no other Religion so inducible upon truly Natural Principles and in Christianity it is the substantial Christianity not every nice Dispute or Definition much less additional Mode or Ceremony that hath this claim And yet notwithstanding such a claim I make doubt whether ever any sober Christian would wish Christianity propagated with Force much less with Blood and Cruelty like the Popish Conversion of the Indians I believe no true Christian no truly Protestant Christian ever did desire it or think it agreeing with Christianity And let not the Compulsory Laws of Jewish Religion plead a coerciveness for the Christian upon the Reason that a better Religion more deserves it for First The better the Religion the better Methods of introducing and recommending it are desirable as much therefore as Instruction excels Brutish Force as much as sincere Compliance of Judgment Reason and Understanding excel Hypocrisie and feigned Conformities as much as Divine Impulses and Suasions of the Holy Spirit excel the Power of Laws enforced with Penalties or being of the Religion of the Prince for Mode Compliment or Preferment so much ought the way of introducing men into the most excellent Religion of Christianity exceed and surpass all other ways that can be devised to draw men to any meaner Religion than it and as much easier may be the effect In Natural Religion men are not to be drawn into it they are created with it they are and must be of it and are only punished for not acting suitable to it In Revealed Religion their own judgment and choice moved by suitable Arguments both enters and retains them in it though as I have before observed the case of the Apostate from main Christianity arguing an offence against Natural Religion may be of a different consideration Further In the Jewish Religion the immediate government of God that liv'd as a Prince in the midst of them made their case different from any other that ever was in the world their Messages from Heaven being so immediate and distinct their consultations in cases of doubt with the Divine Will being so near at hand and the Evidences of all being so clear and undoubted that the sensibleness of them equalled the very assurance of the Laws of Nature The Objections that I can foresee against this Argument lye these two ways If the Laws of Nature are so clear and evident how comes it to pass there is so great a darkness and ignorance in multitudes of persons yea in Nations concerning these Laws And yet how much less is the Obedience paid to them And lastly how comes it to pass there never was such a Concord and Agreement in them In Answer to this I should only briefly rejoin these two things 1. That notwithstanding this there always hath been and will be such Evidences of the Truth Righteousness Reasonableness and Naturalness of these Religious Principles that no more can they be banished out of Humane nature than the Notions of Health Beauty Happiness can be extinguished in the world notwithstanding all the disease variation from the exact model of Beauty and lastly the Vnhappiness Misery and Complaint so universal in the world so that though there is not any Example of the perfection of any of these in this world and very great and general Deficiencies from them yet the Notions of every one are whole and intire and such representations and approaches to what we mean in them are so visible as to take away all doubt of the things themselves and of the desirableness of them even so it is in this Natural Religion 2. The whole disadvantage then of Natural Religion objected must be imputed to the miserable depravation of mankind to that degree that the most excellent things so lose their effect as even to seem to lose themselves yet still they remain and so remain as to require and even exact their acknowledgment and so demand that due effect and that so powerfully that the justice of the demand pressed home cannot be denied and thus it is in Natural Religion 2. Object It may be objected fâ—r the enforcement of Revealed Religion by severities That when the Reasons of it are laid before men as of the true Christian Religion lying in a straight and even line from Natural Religion to it it can only be the Brutishness and Obstinacy of men that they do not receive it which may be justly punished as against the Laws of Nature and the interpretation of Punishment shall be not as intended to compel them into the Christian Religion but to chastise their Beast-like Senslesness or Obstinacy In Answer to this I would re-enforce these three things 1. As to the main of the Objection there is so great a difference between Naturals that will certainly rise up at earnest and vehement summons being within already though they may lye hid and deep and what is purely from without and must enter through those multiform Meander'd twisted and twined passages of mens Vnderstandings and intellectual Belief through varieties of Tempers Educations Principles men have most convers'd with and rivetted their whole souls into that it is impossible for any but God alone who searches the heart to know where the guilty obstruction lyes when the screws of truth and the receptacles of mens minds do not reciprocate and answer one another where the key of Truth and the wards of mens thoughts so dissent as not to be reconciled so that this must be left for ever as to Divine Omnipotency in the efficacy so to the Divine Judgment where the fault is of mens not receiving what is so graciously offered from Heaven 2. Therefore to pretend to judg obstinacy or insensibleness or whatever other faulty Reason we have prepared of mens not receiving the Religion we would impose is to assume Divine prerogative to our selves and to become Judges in His peculiar Court or to contrive an Artifice to cheat an acknowledged Principle viz. not compelling Revealed Religion of its due Obedience and lastly to cloath innocent persons for any thing we know with the Sambenito painted with Devils or Beasts skins wherein they may appear guilty with the disguise we have put upon them though out of that they cannot with Charity be concluded nocent or guilty of those particulars we charge them with All this is to be understood when the offence and the particular offence it being not enough in this case to say there is some offence without special matter charged against Natural Laws is not as evident as in any other case of humane judicature and where the only proof
we whatever smaller distinctions make the they and the we are both one in our Lord Jesus Christ We ought therefore to pray for the common benefit of all so united though not bound up in the same form with us for a gracious audience and reception of their and our Worship of God that so the Spirit of Love and Vnion in the main may convey all our services into one before God where indeed if they are as he requires they meet stripp'd of all their outward Circumstances Form and Ceremony Faith and Obedience being alone able to mount thither with them And services so raised can by no means be spar'd for small differences in a National Religious Interest for the Angels of all such behold the Face of our Father in Heaven If Darius though a Heathen Prince had such a sense of the virtue Ezr. 6. 10 of that true Religion he was not of as to engage those of so great difference from him in their sense of God to pray for the peace of the King and his Sons how much more should we who are all of the same true Faith and Worship and know the Force and Energy of it by great acts of Favour to one another in those things wherein we cannot be wholly one yet all joyn in praying for the acceptance of one anothers services and the services of the whole Nation whereof we are not only Civil but Religious Members And if we are truly Religious shall be so accounted with God yet with the abatement of our sinful differences and divisions How should we therefore unite that we may lose none of the things that we have wrought but may receive a full reward Rule 6. It is the happiness of our Nation that if any man truâ—y understands considers and pronounces of our National Religion It stands in the Scripture making us wise to Salvation In Faith in Jesus Christ Repentance Love of God Fear of the Divine Majesty all Acts of Justice Love Mercy Compassion true sincere Preaching the whole Word of God Prayer use of Sacraments the Lords-day Religious Discourses Conferences Catechetical Instructions and Education of Youth in the knowledg of Religion Restraint of Atheism Irreligion Intemperance and Sensuality generally and throughout the Nation Compulsion of the very worst of men to acknowledge a Deity and his Worship for what is hypocrisie in them may turn to the salvation of good men These are the things I say again that are truly our National Religion all things pertaining to Order Decency outward Form or Mode are but the Vehicle the conveyance of that True Religion if the main Ends of which be obtain'd viz. That these Religious Acts are perform'd but with that peace and freedom from confusion Confusion destructive of all publick Actions and with that Honourableness that is agreeable to the state of every Nation and this Nation particularly in the simplicity of Religious Worship It is enough and whatever on these accounts is commanded in our National Religion I freely own and acknowledge as reconcilable with these Characters forbearing such who though agreeing in all main things upon sincere endeavours to understand them so cannot acquiesce in them as so who deserve compassion These things ought to be no Partition-Wall in our National Worshipping of God one with another nor can they without great rigor and censor ousness very evil in the sight of God be condemned in those who for the sake of Substantial National Religion the publickness and more universal benefit of it wherein they are most truly zealous pay obedience to the Rules of them Rule 7. Let us all strive labour preach hear and pray and even suffer in the Reformation of our selves and endeavours to Reform all others according to the most excellent Rules of our most Holy Religion professed in this Kingdom as our National Religion that it may be found to Praise Honour and Glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ and be thought worthy to stand before the Son of Man at his coming before whom nothing but the Gold and precious Stones of Substantial Truth and Goodness can stand all else will be burnt off as Hay and Chaff by the fire of that day and they that have been hot and contentious for them be saved only as by Fire with difficulty and loss And in the mean time that our Vnion and Love in the True Religion may be to us an assurance of the Divine Favour and presence of his protection and blessing that neither our Candlestick may be removed nor our Nation the present place of it be taken away for generally both are removed one with the other or soon after one another Rule 8. Let no man be discouraged from the most zealous Affectionate joyning himself to and promoting National Religion because oâ— that veneration due to the Name of The Church and Churches according to the Scripture For a Nation united in True Christian Religion differs no more in the strictest notion from a Church than a Body of men united and consecrated to God according to the Law of Nature differs from a Society united and consecrated to God according to an Institution that is no more than an Institution planted in Nature differs from an Institution given by Revelation For one is the Appointment of God of old from the very Foundations of Humane Society The other after the Fall of Nature and the Inability of it to its end An Institution therefore does not repeal a Natural Law but takes care it should be fulfill'd and compleated in its chiefest End Israel was a Church to God being so devoted to him by his own Institution and it was a Holy Nation according to the Original Exod. 19. 6. Law being elevated by the Institution to its true perfection as a Nation The Christians to whom the Apostle Peter wrote As they were a Church according to the Institution of Christ so they were a Holy Nation as he stiles them succeeding into the place of that whole Jewish Nation Consecrated to God by the Law of Nature upon Nations though but strangers scattered abroad yet to show the 1 Pet. 1. 1â— great value God has of a Nation devoted to him they are stiled A Holy Nation The Institution of the Catholick Church as the seat 1 Pet. 2. 9. of the True Religion of Jesus Christ makes a Nation united in that True Religion both a Church as that Catholick Church hath thereby a Residence in it and much more than those fore-mentioned scatter'd Jews a Holy Nation as it is Nationally resign'd up to God in the True Religion according to the Law of Nature made perfect by the Institution Where then a Nation is united in the Truth of Christian Doctrine the Purity of Divine Worship the Holy Rules of Practise the Catholick Love of all Christians Baptized into the same Body made to drink into that one Spirit In Pastors and Teachers Ministring the same Gospel the Apostles infallibly deliver'd and seal'd with Miracles All
two Cases to be the Expedient against Scandal he therefore perswades the not eating upon these Contingencies as by the by which was a very easie performance for Christian Charity but the Thing he was wholly intent upon was that great Doctrine of not Scandalising for the sake of Indifferent Things These Circumstances easily vanished the main Point remains unmoved They were only a Scheme a momentany and transitory one to display this great Doctrine in and to present it upon When these things grew into a Ritual Religion the Scheme was altered and shifted they grew sinful and were condemned the Doctrine stood yet and for ever stands firm planted upon them Object 4. The Rites used are such as are recommended from Antiquity and were of use of old in the Primitive Church Answ Allow it to be so All that can be collected from thence is but Example wound up to its highest Peg when it does not reach Christ And whenever it does not reach him it does not bind Be ye followers of me as I 1 Cor. 11. 1. am of Christ said the Apostle just about to discourse of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ordinances or Traditions Those Concurrences All Every where Always must begin in Scripture and be found there else they do but oblige our Prudence not our Conscience Only so far as Antiquity or the Primitive Church inables us to see with our own Eyes the Sense of Scripture or the Determinations of Natural Light and Reason in any Case so far it obliges us in Conscience All else is but the Deference of Modesty and due Regard which cannot weigh against Scandal except we make the Oracles of Antiquity equal to the Heavenly Oracles and then we must demand the same Certainty of the Divine Inspiration of the one as of the other or else we may quickly run into the greatest of Scandals Object 5. The Commands of Lawful Authority take away the Indifferency and make Necessary what was before Indifferent Answ The Question is not Whether Magistrates ought to be obeyed in all things Indifferent for that is readily granted if in all Circumstances they are Indifferent nor whether Rites are Indifferent Things for that is also supposed to be granted but the question must be Whether it is an indifferent thing to give or receive Scandal upon the account of Indifferent Things seeing that may indisputably fall out or the Apostles Discourses fall to the Ground and in one sort of Indifferents as well as others else the Apostles Discourse will be ineffectual to any the like Case Seeing then the Tribunal and Authority of God is higher than of any of the Supreams of this World and that Scandal is cognisable only before him and that whatever incurs Sandal is inseparable from Sin against God it must needs follow that in a Case of Doubt from which a Man cannot acquit himself he cannot obey Men in that without disobeying God who hath declared to him Whatever is not of Faith is Sin and he that doubteth and doth what he doubteth of is Damned that is Condemned within himself and in the thing it self And the Reason in such a Case must be the same as in a Case of Obeying Magistrates against any express Divine Prohibition For though the thing doubted of does much differ if it be indeed indifferent Yet the Prohibition is as plain against doing what is doubted of and what is not of Faith as in any Case Seeing then all Humane Authority must lower its Top to Divine I cannot see but that in Indifferent things in Religion which is Gods peculiar for we speak only of that the Magistrates Power is excluded in case of real doubt of Conscience in which a Man can do nothing but he runs into Gods danger even as in any other case of such danger by reason of Sin And what is offered in Relief will not avail viz. That Obedience to Magistrates is certainly a Duty but whether there be any disobedience to God about such or such Indifferents is in doubt and if the thing be indeed indifferent it is a doubt upon mistake And then there is a disobedience to God in an undoubted Rule and Command to avoid it in a case not only of doubt but of mistake This I say cannot avail Because the measure is not to be drawn betwixt Obedience to Magistrates in all lawful things or things indifferent but betwixt Obedience to Magistrates and Obedience to that Rule of the Word of God in all cases of doubt which is as clear and as little subject to doubt as any Rule whatever Yet does not this evacuate the Power of Magistrates it being restrained to things indifferent in Religion and in Doubt and the Doubt fixed upon a grand Principle of Truth Nor is that of greater satisfaction That in Obedience to Magistrates there are so many degrees of Good and so many of Evil in the Disobedience but in doing well or ill concerning Indifferents there are much fewer Degrees both of the Good and the Evil therefore Obedience to God in so great a Morality as Obedience to Magistrates is always to be preferred before our doing well in Indifferents and the fear of Evil in one to be avoided much rather than the same fear in the other The Reason of Dissatisfaction is this That the Measure is not betwixt the Morality of Obedience to God in obeying Magistrates and doing well or ill about things Indifferent but betwixt the Morality of Obeying God in one of his clear and undoubted Precepts and in another of the same Evidence and Clearness which must needs be one and the same and of the same Rate of Morality Seeing Obedience to God is the Fundamental Morality If it were not thus the Magistrates Prohibition of Sacrifice of the Cup in the Lords Supper must exempt from Obedience to God in those Duties because Obedience to Magistrates is a Moral Duty but the other Ceremonial But it is out of Measure certain Obedience to God is both the top and the bottom of all Morality and although Obedience to Magistrates is a great point of Morality yet Obedience to God is so before it as to be the Measure of it Besides if Obedience to God be to be valued not by his Authority but by weighing the Precepts themselves much more Obedience to Magistrates is to be estimated by the Commands they give of which Indifferents in Religion will never be made out to be worthy to be the Tests either of their Authority or our Obedience whatever unthinking Men have said therein Indeed among the Divine Commands God hath chosen Mercy rather than Sacrifice honouring Parents rather than Corban but it is because he hath so declared in his Word and in Mens Consciences But all the Laws of God do harmoniously Conspire and Subordinate themselves one to another among which Obedience to Magistrates and Preserving the Government and Peace of Conscience are none of the least nor of any contest or distance of unkindness between themselves Whoso