Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...

CHAP. XXIII.

ALthough I have thus far and thus long insisted (most honoured and beloved Countrey-men) upon the mischiefs of abused Liberty,* 1.1 as the first and chief cause (I conceive) of the greatly lapsed and decaying estate of the Church of England and the Reformed Religion (which was heretofore so setled, so sound, so prospered, so approved by God and good men;) yet I cannot for∣bear a further search into this Ulcer or Fistula: for indeed her hurt is not now a green wound lately made, either by the malice of open ene∣mies, or by the wantonness of those friends, who love to be alwayes pickeering and skirmishing in Religion; but it is now by a long con∣fluence of ill humours in people, grown a venomous and inveterate sore, contumacious to any ordinary Medicines, opprobrious to the best Physitians, contagious to the remaining parts of this Civil and Ecclesiastical body, which have any thing in them sound and sincere;

many of which, especially among the common people, being weak, are less able to resist that petulant poyson, and spreading itch of li∣berty, which is so bewitching a name to the populacy; a temptation and infection which few vulgar spirits are able to resist, or willing to remedy. And indeed the mischief seising (like Mercury or Quick∣silver) upon the spirits and brains of men that are rash, easie, & heady, it makes them presently suspect, and shortly to hate all those, as their enemies, who go about to curb or cure so welcome and flattering a di∣sease: which is not less dangerous, because delightfull; for commonly all those things that are most agreeable to naturall men and carnall minds (who love to be licentious) prove grievous to Gods Spirit, scandalous to the name of Christ, and pernicious to his Churches purity or peace. Liberty, if it be in ill keeping, soon putrifies to li∣centiousness,* 1.2 as the manna did, which turned to wormes.

Not that I am any way against that rationall, ingenuous, modest, inoffensive, charitable and conscientious liberty, which is the onely true Christian liberty to be desired and enjoyed, either in private or in publick; such I mean as is neither touchy nor turbulent, but carries an equall tendernesse to other mens honest and harmless freedome, as to its own, seeking onely by lawfull means, either to remove those impediments of its well-being and doing, that are really rubs or remi∣ras in its way to heaven, or else to obtain those holy allowed advan∣tages which may most promote its communion with God; with Christ, and his blessed Spirit: which holy freedomes and happy advantages are surest to be met withall (as I conceive) in those high wayes and plain paths, which Christs Catholick Church in its nobler parts and ampler combinations hath constantly kept, after the pri∣mitive proportions, & Apostolicall distributions of Churches, wherein the majesty of Christ, & the harmony of Christians, which is the ho∣nour of Christian Religion, are infinitely more to be seen, and safely preserved, than in any of those by-wayes or diverticles, which Schismatick liberty affects to chuse and follow; which will at length make any Nationall, Christian and Reformed Church, that was heretofore grounded in truth, guided with order, united in love, conspicuous with beauty, fortified with its joynt power, uniform in its solemn ministrations, and orderly in all its holy motions (like an army well ordered disciplin'd, and bravely marshall'd) to be like the routed parties and ragged regiments of a scattered and divided army.

It is an observation never failing, That the sanctity of Christi∣an Martyrs, the honour and prevalency of that Religion which recommends the crucified Lord Jesus, as a Saviour and preserver, not a destroyer of mankind, these are best preserved in any na∣tion or society of men, there, where least liberty or license is per∣mitted to private spirits publickly to innovate or alter, dispute or deny, contemn or subvert, those Catholick Truths and Doctrines, or those comely constitutions and customes, which are once well & wisely setled by publick counsel and authority, which carried due re∣gard

to the glory of God, to the rule of his Word, to the Catho∣lick precedents, and to the common good of that particular Na∣tion or polity. All experience, and our own as bad as any, teacheth us, that liberty, in the vulgar sense and use, is like a sweet and rank kind of Clover-grass, with which the beast of the people will soon surfeit, even till they burst themselves, if they be not mode∣rated, and restrained from over-feeding by their wise Governours in Church and State.

The Histories of Sleidanus and others sufficiently shew you, in the last Century, how wild the Boores of Germany grew, even to a kind of a Lycanthropy, by such liberties as their teachers first indul∣ged, and themselves afterward usurped; how quickly this charm (like Circe's) turns men and women into dogs and wolves; how abused liberty having once seized upon the thatch and straw, the pe∣tulancy and insolency of common people, as most combustible matter, like a masterless and unbridled fire, it will devour more in a few dayes, by the pragmatick folly of some extravagant heads and hands, than the wisdome, piety and gravity of your forefathers could erect, or your posterity will be able to repair, in many years or ages: for no fires burn with more fury & pertinacy, than those which maintain their unquenchable flames by the oyl of Religion and Liber∣ty, with which they are least to be trusted, who most love to play with it, as children do with fire and gun-powder. Common people, like young heirs, who have more wealth than wit, are of so profuse an humour, and so lavish of their liberty, both civil and religious, when once they think themselves masters of it, that they will pre∣sently be undone, if they have not some wiser men to be their Guardians, who will be better husbands for them than they would be for themselves; nor are they ever more desperately prodigall, or more certainly miserable, than when (like mad-men) they have by insolency or importunity extorted from their Governours and the Laws, such a portion of liberty, either civil or religious, as they least know how to use, and will be sure to abuse.

Let those men that are the greatest Tribunes of the people, the seeming Patrons of their liberties (but reall parasites of their licen∣tious humours) in Religion, let them, I say, make but one years triall, with how much good nature, reason, justice and modesty, these people will use their civil and naturall liberty; in which, be∣ing absolved from all restraint of laws and fears, of power and of punishment, they shall have leave, with the bridle on their necks, to covet, challenge, contend, invade, usurp, and take every man to himself such women, such houses, such goods, such lands, such of∣fices, such power and such honours, as each of them most fancies himself capable to deserve or enjoy: in a few dayes they will soon see how severe a revenge such folly will take of it self, both as to the actors and permitters.

If such inordinate liberty (which naturally men affect, and which imposeth on mankind the necessity of having publick laws and ma∣gistratick

powers above all private mens fancies) if it be so pesti∣lent in civil and secular regards, that the indulgence of it is no more to be permitted by wise and good men, for one moneth, or one day, than a fire may be left to its freedome for one hour in any private cab∣bin or chamber, to the endangering of the whole ship and house; how (I beseech you) can it be convenient or profitable to the common in∣terests of Religion, or the honour of any Nation that desires to be cal∣led Christian, to let every man pick and chuse their severall do∣ctrines, opinions, forms and fashions of Religion, as they best fancy; or to suffer them to set up to themselves what Prophets, Pastors, or Preachers, what Churches, Congregations & Conventicles they most affect;* 1.3 one being of Paul, another of Apollos, a third of Cephas; one Episcopall, another Presbyterian, a third Independent, a fourth own∣ing no Ministers, no Religion at all? Specious names and godly pre∣tensions may be very pernicious to the peace of the Church, the ho∣nour of Christ, and the good of mens souls, as the blessed Apostle there observes, through the folly and factiousness of people. Better the most deserving names, how much more the most flattering No∣vellers in the world, should be buried in eternal oblivion, than they should be set up in the Church of Christ, as so many apples of conten∣tion, so many wedges of division, so many rivals to the glory of Christ, so many moths to religious unity and the Churches beauty, so many Molechs or Idols, through whose fires your posterity, as Chri∣stians (that are not yours onely,* 1.4 but Gods children, and, as it were, Christs seed and off-spring) should be forced to pass with popular noy∣ses and incondite acclamations of liberty, onely to drown the sad cries of those poor souls who are to be tormented in those flames, those Tophets of uncharitable novelties and factious liberties.

Christian liberty, as vulgar spirits commonly use it, is but a corro∣ding salve spread on a silk plaister; it is a confection of carnal projects, wrought up with spirituall mixtures; it is poyson presented in a gilt cup, the Devils rats-bane mingled with sugar. The sad effects al∣ready upon us in England, and further threatning us, do promise no∣thing upon this account,* 1.5 but envies, wraths, strifes, jealousies, animo∣sities, whisperings, swellings, tumults, seditions, oppressions, and mutual persecutions,* 1.6 with every evil work among us, as men and Christians.

Notes

• * 1.1

  A further dis∣covery of mis∣chiefs from a∣bused liberty in Religion.
• * 1.2

  Exod. 16.20.
• * 1.3

  1 Cor. 3.4.
• * 1.4

  Heb. 2.13.
• * 1.5

  2 Cor. 12.20.
• * 1.6

  Jam. 3.16.