CHAP. IV.

*WHo doubts, but if the plebs or populacy, in any Na∣tion or Church, be left to themselves, to cut out Religion & Liberty into what thongs they list, they will soon be not only unshod, ungirt & unblest, but so quite naked and unclothed, as to any Christian grace or vertue, gravity or decency, truth or san∣ctity, that their shame and nakedness will soon ap∣pear in all manner of fedity, deformity, errour and ignorance, inso∣lence and confusion? They have little studied the vulgar genius, who do not find by all reading and experience, that the common temper of people is rude and perverse, light and licentious, petulant and inso∣lent,* as S. Bernard well expresseth it.

Yea, they are undone, and perish eter∣nally, if they be betrayed to themselves; if God and good men be not better to them than they deserve, desire, or design for them∣selves, either in things civil or sacred; if there be not, by just and honest policies, such holy restraints and wholsome severities put upon them,* as are not their chains, but their girdles; not their bannacles, but their bridles. Alas, what wise Magistrate or Minister is there, who doth not find by daily experience, that if you will but save peo∣ples purses, they are not very solicitous how to save their souls? most of them think Taxes and Tithes farre greater burthens, than all their sins and trespasses; not much valuing their sanctification or salva∣tion, so as they enjoy that rustick, thrifty and unmannerly liberty, which they naturally affect, against their teachers and betters. What immense summes of money have of late years been spent upon mili∣tary and secular accounts? If the hundredth part had been desired of them, in order to have procured a competent maintenance for an able Preacher in every parish (without which there is little hope ever to enjoy competent Ministers) O what an out-cry would have been made? what an oppression would it have seemed to the common people, beyond ship-money, yea, beyond the bricks and bondage of Egypt, as if their very life-blood and the marrow of their bones had been taken from them? so much doth the beast and naturall man over-weigh the Christian, in the most of men and women.

Page  151The freest, easiest, and cheapest Religion is thought the best among them: what is most grateful, is most godly: then they fancy themselves most happy, when least obliged to be holy; and then most zealously religious, when they may be most securely licentious. The more factious and pragmatick spirits among them do think that all Polity and Religion, things civil and sacred, must needs be shipwreckt and utterly miscarry, unless they have an oar in the boat,* unless they put their hand to the helm of all government. It doth not suffice their busie heads and hands to trimme the sailes, as common Mari∣ners, when commanded, but they must be at the steerage; not consi∣dering what balast of judgement, what anchor of constancy, what compass of sound knowledge, both divine and humane, is necessary for those who undertake to be Pilots and guides of States and Chur∣ches.

The rude plebs, like mutinous mariners, are prone so to affect liberty, as to endanger their own and other mens safety: they are like Porpuices, pleased with storms, especially of their own raising: they joy in the tossings of Religion, and hope for a prey by the wrecks both of well-built Churches and well-setled States: they fancy it a precious liberty to swim in a wide sea, though they be drow∣ned at last, or swallowed up by sharks: they triumph to see other poor souls dancing upon the waves of the dead sea, to be overwhel∣med with ignorance, idleness, Atheism, profaneness, perdition; which is the usual, and almost unavoidable, fate of those giddy-headed, & mad∣brain'd people, who being happily embarqued, and orderly guided in any well-setled Church, do either put their ablest Pilots under hat∣ches, or cast them over-boord; which hath been of late years the re∣ligious ambition of many thousands, in order (forsooth) to recover and enjoy their imaginary Christian liberties, which soon make com∣mon people the sad objects of wise mens grief and pity, rather than of their joy or envy. For, like wandring sheep, they naturally affect an erroneous and dangerous freedome from their shepherds and their folds, that they may be free for foxes, wolves and doggs: yea, some of them, by a strange metamorphosis, that they may seem Christs sheep, turn wolves, seizing upon and destroying their own shepherds: which the true flock of Christ never did, either in the most persecuted, or the most peacefull times of the Church; but were ever subject, with all humility and charity, to those godly Bishops and Presbyters,* which were by Apostolicall succession and Divine authority over them in the Lord; whom they were so far from stripping, robbing, or devouring, that both Christian Princes and faithfull people endowed them with most gratefull and munificent expressions of their loves and esteem, even in primitive and necessitous times, as a due and de∣served honour to men of learning, piety and gravity, who watched over their souls, being both wel enabled, and duly ordained to be their rulers and guides to heaven.

But now, who sees not by the sad experience of the Church of En∣gland, how the plebs or common people, yea all persons of plebeian Page  152 spirits, of base and narrow minds, (who are the greatest sticklers for those enormous and pernicious liberties) who sees not how much they would be pleased to set up Jeroboams calves,* if they may have liberty to chuse the meanest of the people to be their Priests, or some scabbed and stragling sheep to be their shepherds;* if they may make some of their mechanick comrades to be their Pastors and Ministers,* examined and ordained by their silly selves? O how willing are they (poor wret∣ches) in their thirst for novelty,* liberty and variety, as Theophylact ob∣serves, to suffer any pitifull piece of prating impudence, who walketh in the spirit of falshood, to impose upon them so far as to be their Preacher and Prophet, if he will but prophecy to them of liberty and soveraignty, of sacred and civil Independency, * of corn, wine, and strong drink, of good bargains and purchases to be gained out of the ruines of the Church, and the spoils of Church-men?

O how little regret would it be to such sacrilegious Libertines, to have no Christian Sabbath, or Lords dayes, as well as no Holy-dayes, or solemn memorials of Evangelical mercies? How contented would they be with no preaching, no praying, no Sermons, no Sacraments, no Scrip∣tures, no Presbyters, (as well as no Bishops,) with no Ministers or holy Ministrations, with no Church, no Saviour, no God, further than they list to fancy thē in the freedom of some sudden flashes and extemporary heats? There are that would still be as glad to see the poor remainder of Church-lands and Revenues, all Tithes and Glebes, quite alienated and confiscated, as those men were, who got good estates by the former ruines of Monasteries, or the later spoylings of Bishops and Cathe∣drals: nothing is sacred, nothing sacrilegious to the all-craving, & all-devouring maw of vulgar covetousness and licentiousness. O how glorious a liberty would it be in some mens eyes, to pay no Tithes to any Minister! much more precious liberty would it be to pur∣chase them, and by good penniworths to patch up their private for∣tunes.

Nothing (in very deed) is less valuable to the shameless, sordid, and dissolute spirits of some people, than their souls eternall state, or the service of their God and Saviour; whom not seeing, they are not very solicitous to seek or to serve, further than may consist with their profit, ease and liberty. They rather chuse to go blindfold, wandring and dancing to hell, in the licentious frolicks of their fanci∣full Religions, than to live under those holy orders and wholsome re∣straints, which in all Ages preserved the unity and honour of true Christian Religion, both by sober Discipline and sound Doctrine.

In the later of these the Clergy of England most eminently aboun∣ded; and in the former of them they were not so much negligent (which some complaine) as too much checkt and curbed: few men being so good Christians, as to be patient of that severe Disci∣pline which was used in the Primitive Churches; which if any Bishop or Minister should have revived, how would the rabble of Libertines Page  153 cry out, Depart from us, we will none of your wayes,* neither Di∣scipline nor Doctrine, neither your Ministrations nor Ministry,* nei∣ther Bishops nor Presbyters; let us break these Priestly bonds in sunder, and cast these Christian cords from us: our liberty is, to lead our tame teachers by their noses, to pull our asinine Preachers by their luculent ears, to rule our precarious Rulers: if they pretend to have or use any Ecclesiasticall authority, so as to cross our liberties, to curb our consciences, or to bridle our extravagancies; we look upon them as men come to torment us before our time,* who seek to lead us away captive, to deprive us of our dear God Mammon, (as Micah cried out after the Danites) or of our great Goddess Liberty,* according to the jealousie which Demetrius and the Ephesine rabble had for their Diana, against the Apostles. This is the Idea of that petulant, profane and fanatick liberty, which vulgar people most fancy and affect; for the enjoying of which, they have made so many horrid clamours, and ventured upon so many dangerous confusions, both to their own and other mens souls, in matter of Religion.