Obj. 25. But if we should abate you any thing, though but a cere∣mony, or a Subscription, or Oath, or should make any alteration in the Church▪Government, (though it were but to take the Church keys from Lay Chancellors▪, or if we should reform Discipline, or any thing at your desires, you will be taken by the people to be their deliverers and reformers, and your cause will be taken to be good when we yield to it in any part, and it will be said that you did not dissent from us, and make all this ado in vain; and we shall be thought to have been in the wrong, and all this while opposed Reformation Or (as the young Eccl Politician speaketh, pag. 258) This would but give the counte∣nance of authority to their scruples and superstitious pretences, and leave the Church of England under all those calumnies to posterity, with which themselves, or their followers labour to charge it; and ob∣lige future ages to admire and celebrate these peevish and seditious persons, as the founders of a more godly and through Reformation.
Ans. 1. It is the nature of all sin to blind the mind, and en∣gage the affections to it, that the more men have of it, the less they may either see or hate it. And so it is with Faction, Schism, and selfishness, which is the root of all (as the case of the Roman Clergy witnesseth.) And if any besides your selves had reported you to speak such words, which are the full significants of these vices, (selfishness, faction and schism), I should have judged him uncharitable. Alas! that ever men that call themselves Ministers of Christ, and Pastors of his flocks, should and would be thought to be the wisest and worthiest of his Ministers in comparison of whom we are worthy to be silenced, banished and ruined, should yet dare before God and man to vent and own the language of pride and faction, and envy, while they cry out against pride, and faction, and envy! But they that think they know something, know nothing as they ought to know! The Lord teach me to be∣come a fool, and escape their wisdom, that I may be wise; and to know my self better than such men do, before I pretend to know the folly, and hypocrisie, and unworthiness of men that are wiser, and more sincere and worthy than my self. What little need had you to disgrace your selves by telling the world that you will not amend, lest you be thought to have done amiss, and lest those that Page 135 desired it be celebrated as the founders of a godly Reformation! Hath not self-seeking and siding done enough against us yet, but you must keep up the distinction of Parties and their Merits for your own reputation against them whose desire is to have unity setled upon terms of common agreement, that there may be no more names or signs of faction among us?
Thus is the Church (or Kingdom rather) of Rome kept from Reformation, lest they should part with the honour of their In∣fallibility, and seem to confess that they needed Reformation.
2. But it is a gross mistake to think that this course will keep up your honour to posterity, or hinder the estimation of them who desire you to amend. For when you and we are in the dust, the world will not be afraid of you, nor silence truth lest they incur the danger of your frowns; but will freely tread upon your Hic jacet, and cast up your bones to make room for others, and talk of you and your acts as freely, as King Henry the Eighth, Queen Mary, Bishop Bonner, and Gardiner are now talkt of. And there will such men survive us, as will take it for a greater fault and shame to have sinned impenitently than to have repented; and to have refused amendment, when peace and common interest required it, and so many arguments were used for it; yea, and to have so afflicted their brethren that desired and sought it of them, than to have been guilty of the mutability and weakness of amending, or of being more for love and unity, and peace.
3. But if that be the matter, men of half your pretended wis∣dom, might easily know how to heal the Church, and yet to salve your honour too, yea and to deny the feared honour of the Dis∣senters, so far as such as you can hinder it. And if you will not in∣terpret it as an approving of your act, I will tell you how: Cannot you abate the Subscriptions, Oaths, and other such Impositions, and tell the world, that you do it not as convinced by the Noncon∣formists arguments, nor as supposing that the things have any evil in them, but only out of your eminent charity, as bearing with the weak, and your love of the Churches peace and concord, more than the dissenters love them? Nay you may rail at the Noncon∣formists in your very Concessions, and call them as bad as you do in your writings, so you will but yield to healing terms; and do it not as a Reformation, but as a peaceable forbearance of these Schisma∣tical, peevish, disobedient Reformers, that they may have no more pretence for Schism▪
Page 1364. Did Peter Heylin, or Archbishop Laud and his adherents, if Heylin belie him not, deal with the Papists on such terms as these? Did they say, They will justifie their Invasion 88, and their Powder-Plot, and all their Treasonable Practises, and Bulls, and all their false Doctrines for which these were done, if we abate them any thing, or yield them the least; and therefore we will yield them nothing at all? Did Grotius, did your Bishop Forbes, doth your Mr. Herbert Thorndike go upon such terms with them, or not? Speak out, Do you think us or the Papists nearer to you? If they are nearer you than we are, then you are nearer them than us; Even than us who subscribe to all the faith of the Church of England, and differ, as you say, but in indifferent things: Than us whose Writings declare our judgments to the world. But if you be really nearer to us, than to the Papists, why may you not yield as far to us, for peace and concord, as the Episcopal Reconcilers would have done to them? Even Dr. R. Cox would have yielded to Church-Images, Vid. Epist. ad Cassand.
5. Lastly, O that you would remember, that he that denieth not himself, cannot be Christs disciple. And that you would never tempt the world to think, that we should all have peace, if there were none that were cast down, because Abel offereth a more ac∣cepted sacrifice than their own; yea or if there were none that made it the chief point of difference, whether we should be seriously, or only seemingly Christians, and live as men, that believe indeed that there is a life to come, and that the Scripture is true.
I hope I may recite Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase on Act. 4 9. 14, 18, 21. If we this day be examined of an action, which is so far from being a crime, that it is a special act of mercy (as Preach∣ing the Gospel is)—Though they were as maliciously and petu∣lantly affected toward them (v. 16.) as was possible, yet had they nothing to object, or except against the whole action.—But Peter and John made light of their interdict or terrours, and told them plainly that they were commanded by God to preach; and that in all reason, God must be obeyed before them, or the greatest Magistrate on earth, and that they themselves could not but confess so much▪—And so not knowing what else to say to them, being not able to deny the force of their argument (they wanted our new wits), they ad∣ded more threatnings, if possibly they might terrifie them, and so dis∣miss'd them, having nothing to lay to their charge.
Page 137And if Mr. Middlesly in Lancashire had brought out the many thousand people converted by him, which Dr. Ames mentioneth, had it not been a silencing argument against his silencer, as well as the Cure of a lame man here was?
And on 1 Thess. 2. 15, 16. It being unreasonable that they which have cast off obedience to God, should persecute all men that come to tell them of their duty. And this generally is the ground of their quarrel to us, that in spight of their prohibition we preach to the Gen∣tiles, use means that they might repent of their Idolatries, &c. By which and the former things, the Jews do so fill up the measure of their sins, that the wrath of God, to the utter destruction of them, is now come out upon them, already denounced; and within a very little while, most certain to overtake them.
I apply it no further than to tell you, that if you will still chuse our Suffering, as more desirable than our Preaching the Gospel of Christ: your arms will sooner be tired with striking, than faith∣ful Ministers will be tired with Sufferings; and you will be sooner a weary of smiting with the Sword, than they will be with preach∣ing the Word, under all your pressures. And when your nets have taken only the Greater fishes, the lesser fry will all get through, and become more numerous, and in time as Great as those you took, and will make the vanity of your trade apparent, and make you one day wish that you had left such nets, and with Peter and them, have been fishers of men, to win them, rather than to destroy them.
