THE COUNTERPLOT; Or the Close CONSPIRACY OF Atheism and Schism OPENED, and, so, DEFEATED; AND THE DOCTRINE and DUTY of Evangelical Obedience, or Christian Loyalty thereby ASSERTED.  
By a Real member of this most Envied, as, most Admired, because, best Reformed Protestant CHURCH of ENGLAND.  — dabit Deus his quoque finem. 
LONDON, Printed for HENRY BROME, at the Gun in St. Paul's Churchyard. MDCLXXX.   

The Author to the Reader.  
Error shall quit that Station, and begin to stir and bustle for Room, when we see it crowds to the Chair, and gapes at the Cushion, we do then also most plainly see, the most natural and necessary Tendencies of such Emotions, as ever we sensibly felt the effects and results of them. We know as well the certain mischief and danger of such attempted encroachments, as we can remember the destruction that was brought upon us by their consequent Usurpations; and we have no more power not to fear what we have felt, than we have reason not to expect what we so fear, or to deny the notices of sense, or the Testimonies of experience, or to hope for any better conclusion, because a worse cannot be drawn, from the same Premises.  
When we see the life of our Father in the same circumstances of danger, by which that of our Grandfather was first invaded, and then in common and certain course, we know how destroyed; can we see this without a tongue? or could any thing excuse us if we did not, but that we could not cry? No certainly, in such a case (and I pray God the case be not now such) my fear to speak would be as sinful, as it would be religious to forbear. My guilt would be as deep as my silence; and the not proclaiming, next to that of procuring the danger; the not discovering the net and breaking it too if I can, next to the making and spreading it if I could: or if I only take the Net away, and make it (and lay it) up, I am so far from doing my duty, that I may be justly suspected to do against it, and by a specious abstinence from the appearance, to go a nearer and surer way to the evil itself, and under the pretence of preventing a present (indeed a prevented or uncertain) danger, to assure to myself a better prepared occasion, for a less defeasable and more certain ruin.  
There is a late Author neither unknown nor unlearned, yet more known by a notable Dedication of his last fruits, (as he saith, but tells us not how he has disposed of his first) who has taken great pains, and the greater in respect of his age and other infirmities, to dress up and prepare a ground of Union, etc. wherein truly (how well soever he can mean) he does nothing but actum agere in either sense, he does that over and over which had been better never done at all; for until he first supersedes the necessity of putting such a case as we have supposed, till he hath numbed our sense and experience too of the force of such a supposal; till he hath parted us from that which is as near as the skin, as concerning as the life, and never to be put off but with our unclothing of flesh and blood; till he shows us we never had, and that we have not now any such cause of fear, I say till he has first done all this, his labours will be so far lost, as they cannot appear other or better, than Lefthand Strew of green Rushes or dry Sand, and to no better use or purpose than what the Nurse makes of the one, or the Soldier of the other, to serve only for Cover of Filthiness or Design. I wish with all my heart (as knowing his abilities) he had rather employed his Right hand and Arm too with a Broom and Lever, to have swept out the Nauseating filth, and removed those scandalous blocks, and that Rock of Schism, those Blunderbusses and Granades which we know to be in the ground, or under the strew, as well as we know how they came, and who laid them there, or are acquainted with those love-killing, and peacebreaking (as he calls them) or (as we could better have understood both) those King-killing Principles (and Practices too,) which both six and show them to be there still; and therefore as (monstrum hoc magis horret quod sub humana specie, etc.) a Monster is the more frightful the liker it is a man, we do the more suspect and dread, and shun this ground, because notwithstanding what we know is upon it, yet it seems reasonably clean and smooth, and so fit for the laying a net or scrap, and alluring the silly bird. However therefore, as considering the Author's personal endowments together with his mixed Practices, I dare not affirm that he intended ill; so reflecting the same endowments upon his great and notable experiences, I know not how to assert (how much soever I am willing to hope) that he meant well.  
But I must remember myself accountable to the Reader why I mentioned my Lord Bacon's opinion, and every man's duty. It was done purposely to give him notice, that I intended the following Sheets a small but good earnest of this duty, and a wellmeant or wished rather than done or performed Essay of that Opinion. Wherefore I pray they might be so accepted only as offered thee by thy fellow-subject to God and the King, whom  
GOD SAVE.   

THE Counterplot.  
IT hath been well observed by Divines from the Language of the Holy Penmen, that there is scarce any one word amongst them of a more Emphatical and Comprehensive sense, than that of Sin, which is therefore Interpreted to us more especially by those signal names of Folly or imprudence, of Anomy or disobedience, of Enmity or spightfulness; and we are fully instructed by these notorious Synonyma's, both in the general and common nature of Sin, and in the specific and appropriate qualities of sinners, and degrees of sinning. We are plainly taught, as that besides this, there is properly no other evil in the world, (which the sense and sound of our English word [Evil] so like in both to that in the Hebrew for sin does also evidence) so likewise that there can be no such fool in Nature or Morality, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  no such Rebel in Policy, no such Adversary in Religion, as is the deliberate and designing Sinner: Who if he be not always actually (which the Providence of God, by the mutual oppositions and clashings of men's lusts, may and doth often hinder,) yet is he always habitually all these, the sillyest and maddest, the most disorderly and ungovernable, the most malicious and implacable of all creatures.  
Now the reason of this is, because as the folly of such a Sinner lies not so much in the want, as in refusing the directions of Wisdom: so neither is his Disobedience so much in his Nature as in his Will, from whence his Enmity is (Judicially) in both.  
Is not he the rashest, and so the greatest fool in the world, that will By't the stone, or Curse the dice, or Damn the bowls, or Quarrel the government, or whatever hits not his humour; and all this merely because his Passion or Interest will not suffer him to judge of the true nature of things? might we not beg such a Fool as this, and successfully too in the judgement of Solomon, who throughout his Proverbs makes him Impleadable as an Idiot? and yet were not he a worse than this greatest fool, that should take any of this Wise man's Materials to lay a Foundation for Dominion in Grace; an error that we have seen built up into an Heresy, and become a Fortroyal to the Prince of this world; (whose best Subjects are the worst of Rebels, and his chiefest rule in the hearts of the Disobedient,) and as tempting a guilded bait for the sense of man, as any we have yet found laid, in the Romish or Turkish, or Malmsbury Alcorans? I wonder not therefore when I read in the Sacred Oracles, the foulest Sins whether of Practice or Opinion branded with the name of folly.  
Yet we all know, (if we consider what we know) that the Devil is no fool, it were a repugnancy to his nature, that he should be, and a contradiction to our own experience to think him so, who is so far from that, as he can make us wise to do evil. And yet the sinner must be a fool with a witness that learns of him because he is an Angel whilst he knows him to be a Devil, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and not more a Tempter in the one, than an Accuser of us in the other, and so the true Father of those modern doctrines, that directly prompt and advise me to the greatest evil of Sin, if it does but suit with my Inclination, and the design of Empire, under the Title of the Catholic Cause. As great as the fall was, the Devil saved his head, he fell so (as we say) upon his feet, that he stands ever since the Archest Heretic and Rebel too; in that contrary to his created nature he would not be subject to his God, and so continues the Enemy to man now, because he was that Rebel to God then. And those children are likest this father who would sin as unnaturally as he did, and most likely to do most mischief for the same reason.  
The Commands of God in both Tables have so like an aspect, and lay such an equal obligation upon all men, that the violation of One makes us guilty of all, according to that known rule, Bonum ex causâ integrâ, malum est ex quolibet defectu. Not that there is not a difference in Sins, as there shall be in punishments (for we read of a greater and lesser damnation) but that a wilful habitual transgression in any one point doth necessarily evince the insincerity of our obedience to all the rest: in which respect it had certainly been better for us never to have known the Law, than thus to transgress it.  
The weak and wilful Sinners may be equally mischievous to others, yet not alike guilty in themselves; for though both agree in the want of circumspection and due consideration, yet they always differ in the measure of knowledge, whereby it usually comes to pass, that the subtle Serpentine malice of the one, abuses the inadvertency of the other, who is therefore so much the less, as his seducer is more guilty, whilst the one means not the least evil in that same thing wherein the other intends the greatest.  
Suppose them both Dissenters from any Public Establishment, whilst the one measuring himself too much by himself, and so mistaking Persuasion for Conscience, by not squaring it so exactly as he should by the rule of Conscience, the Word of God, suspends his Obedience upon the account of his Christian Liberty: The other taking the advantage of his brother's weakness, improves it into the mischief of his own wilfulness, and however he knows distinctly, that to despise dominions, or speak evil of dignities, can by no means be any part of that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, but that to submit to every Ordinance of man, is a prime and integral part of that liberty; Though he knows experimentally, that Rebellious or Seditious practices never sail to bring an universal hatred and reproach upon the very Profession of such Practitioners; though he knows confessedly that our Roman-Catholick enemies (for in that sense if any, the contradiction of that double adjunct is reconcileable) do so continually, as if they did naturally and necessarily endeavour, to Destroy by dividing, to Divide by amusing and discontenting the English Nation, and by this, once already most approved and effectual artifice, to make Protestants themselves, by the strength and violence of their clamours against Prelacy, to hale in Popery; and that therefore there seems no other possible way to prevent its in road, than by our aptest methods of Uniting, to defeat theirs of Dividing, for that otherwise it would be in vain for us to confute their errors in Doctrine and Worship, whilst we ourselves commit greater in policy and prudence, by not submitting our single judgements to the joint determinations of our Governors: though he knows the Pharisees had their name from their separation, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉  and this had its rise from their opinion of their own holiness, or that they were better than other men: though he knows this Protestant English Church, was and is the envy and hate of Rome, (and therefore as he knows also, not Popishly affected, as he (therefore also) suggesteth against his knowledge) and the Ornament and bulwark of all the rest, and stands as the Royal-Fort or Rampire between them and ruin: though he knows what King James said, at least he must believe what others have so lately testified, 
Dr. Oat● Nar. Is. Causa ●p. 116.  that there are (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) Jesuits among us Protestants (however I cannot deny but it might be hard of digestion, for the strongest stomach and sharpest appetite of Faith, how any Protestant should eo animo, become Jesuit or Priest, pro hac vice, to betray both or either, and then eodem animo to return Protestant; or how (upon such supposal) though he stands (rectus in curiâ) good Evidence, as we say, for the King, or in foro humano, how he should stand so (where yet we are sure he must stand or fall) in foro Poli, or however he might be rewardable with those things (Riches and Honour) which are (dignum patellâ operculum) absolutely the good things of this world, yet he should be so much as decently, (I say not justly) dignified or remunerated with those (non enim haec filii tunica) which so notoriously respect another; or how it could acquit such a person, because nothing can be said against the man, whilst as little can be pleaded for the Christian.) Though he remembers at what Consults we were told there was to be, as that since there was a Rebellion in Scotland; so though he remembers the Firing of London, and the flagitious Achievements, and most nefandous perpetrations of that Parliament, (did I say? I recall that word to vindicate this August and salutary name from that sink and draught of the body politic, and so better notified to us by its like in the body natural, and therefore, I say, not of that Parliament, but of that same (what do you call it? 
The Rump. ) Coccygis mariscae:) though he knows, I say, and remembers all these things, yet he stifles the consideration of any, claps them all down as it were under deck and holds the truth in unrighteousness, and by gradual insinuations and artificial compliances, as in sympathy with the tenderness imposes upon the credulity of his brother, and at last (which is the greatest shame and affront to humane understanding) menages him into a very tool or engine to serve his turn, and makes him thus unwittingly as unwillingly over reached, a property to his lust, and Tows him from the shore of his first, and perhaps innocent Scrupling, into the Main sea of Covenants and Associations, and then as wind or tide pleaseth, into the bottomless gulf and endless guilt and miseries of Sedition and Rebellion, Schism and Sacrilege, Anarchy and Confusion.  
All which he most compendiously effects, by working (as was said) upon his brothers mistaken Confidence, till he has hammered it into the Presumption, and then cast it under the obligation of regular Conscience, though he knows, as soon as he thinks on't, it can be nothing less, as being confessedly influenced by such considerations as are neither compatible to the nature, nor consistent with the rule of right Conscience.  
Can that be an obligation of Conscience which may be canceled by fear or danger? which makes it my duty to oppose that Government to which I am Naturally a Subject, and not that to which I am but accidentally or occasionally so? which makes me Fear my Master abroad, but not Honour my Father at home? or which makes me deny my Prince and Sovereign that very power which I challenge to myself, that he may not order matters concerning Religion or the Worship of God, at least as well, in his larger, as I may and do, and claim to do in my lesser Family? How can it be Conscience, or indeed common Justice, that binds me to one and not to both? Surely if the plea of danger be so good against the practice, as to evacuate the obligation of any necessary duty, we may as Logically well, plead other, or lesser inconveniencies in bar of all. And if customary or affected Swearing shall be as graceful as native unaffected Eloquence, if it be fashionable to be profane, or a credit to riot in the day time (as God knows by the neighbourhood of some viler practices these are, I am sure, the less, as I fear too little infamous) I need not stop from going up to preferment upon such steps as these; or if it should be a scandal to be Religious, I may consult my advantage or reputation by being otherwise, as well as I may think myself bound to innovate Religion established here in England where I fear no punishment, but loosed again in Italy or Turkey, where I cannot hope for impunity.  
From these huddled premises, as we see by the stirring of the hang that some body must be behind them, we are reasonably excited to the necessary use of so much prudence and caution as may warrant us to suspect and distinguish our seeming friends, and to detect and expose if we can our most secret enemies; and that this our suspicion may not itself be suspected, or the detection so much as questioned, we will now draw back the curtain, and present our cabalists as in Consult, and in the very manner, that every man may see for himself, that (as naturalists report of the Basilisk, that it kills or dies by seeing or being seen) the Conspiracy thus opened may defeat the Conspirators, and the very enmity and danger of the Plot, be turned into a security against itself.  
But to clear the prospect that we may take the fuller view of the Club of Monsters, and see besides the deformity of their single subsistences, the greater ugliness of their social Confederate beings, their monstrous politic Coitions and Copulations, that when lose and singlest they are Foxes then, and mischievously cunning, but when in tayled and combined, they are Dragons too, and fatally pernicious, (the parting of the heads where the bodies are conjoined completes the Monster, and however they ran cross in their premises, yet they never fail (at the old Rendezvouz) to meet in, and draw the firebrand into the knot of the same conclusion) I say that we may discern all this, we shall endeavour (as Grammarians deal with their Anomala's, which though fewer in number, give them greater trouble than the whole multitude of regular words) to bring them into particular Classes, and under a more distinct and peculiar consideration.  
The Enemies of Truth (and by close and necessary consequence, of Peace and Order) we know to be very many, but the chiefest of them like all other irregular things fall under one of the extremes, Excess or Defect, and are so reducible to Two sorts, the Credulous Enthusiast, and the Resolved Infidel; he that lightly, weakly, easily believes any thing, and he that seriously, wilfully, obstinately believes nothing; he that in Practice believes every Spirit, and he that in Print believes none.  
We have lived to see such Meteors in Religion, Wand'ring stars, or glaring Comets. We have seen multitudes of men and women like empty clouds exhaled by the heat of strange fire of intemperate Zeal from the turgid misty Fogs of Pride and Ignorance, combined in Faction, and then hurried to and again by some violent eruptions, issuing as it were out of the Central cavern of a Flatulent Hypochondriack body, 
Rumpers.  and whirled about with perpetual Agitations upon the Vertiginous Axis of that Globe; so that whoever he were that first gave us notice of a Public constituted Officer as properly belonging to such as these, 
Crack-fart.  though in the Name he affixeth to this Officer, he seems not to have been modest above the rate or besides the complexion of his Sect, yet in the thing or office itself, he now appears manifestly pertinent and much beyond the intention of his wit.  
We have seen Clouds bagged with poison, fixed and ponderous and spouting downright upon the bareheads of the disciples of Leviathan, That Monster with a witness, so destitute of right reason as to be void of Religion too. An Animal indeed, but so far from Religiosum (which must needs include Rationale) that he has only a title (and 'tis pity he ever had that) to bipes and implume. With him it can't only rain in drops of problem or Opinion, but it must pour too in spouts of the most daring and impudent affirmations.  
He tells us roundly there is (and for this very good reason when it once appears) because there can be no incorporeal substance, for that it would be a contradiction and so impossible there should be any, as if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were nothing akin to Entity, 
Leviathan p. 214. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  to which we all know 'tis nearer allied than to matter or corporeity; but as we also know, they are some kind of deformities in our bodies, which make us most ashamed of being stripped, so it must be some such cause that makes us so afraid of a separate existence.  
If I should say (as I need not) the disciple of the Leviathan is mad, the Reader knows what I mean, and I speak intelligibly, or if I say he is besides himself, I am allowed to speak pertinently, and he, could he come to himself again, would grant me to speak as truly, that he was not himself, and that he was, when he was not so; how then can he confess the lesser Separation which is in Lunacy, whilst he cannot so much as conceive that greater Divorce which is in Ecstacy, whenas it is manifestly repugnant, to know any thing in kind, which we cannot also apprehend in degree, to know any thing to be actually at a lesser, which we cannot imagine to be possibly at a greater distance.  
So then 'tis not any contradiction in the terms of incorporeal substance, that can be the cause why there is none such. What then? why truly this or nothing, and this less and worse than nothing, because if there were such a substance, than there must be a Spirit, (and that would put the hook into this Leviathan, for) then there will be a God, whereas otherwise, (the Monster were free to take his pleasure and pass time, for) there could be no God, and so no Religion, and then no good or evil but as forced and made such by ourselves. For that supposing God is or may be, he must be infinite and indivisible, and therefore also must be incorporeal, because otherwise he must have parts, and so be divisible, and so finite.  
Diogenes Laertius, reports of Pyrrho, 
In vita ejus.  that he denied any difference between good and evil (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) other than what Positive law or custom had made; and I think Seneca tells as much of Epicurus. Besides these two I am not presently ware of any third, till Mr. Hobbs will needs be teaching (ubi nulla respublica, 
p. 72. de Cive c. 12. etc.  nullum injustum, etc. nihil absolute bonum aut malum, etc. Natura est ad mandatum relativa, & omnis actio suâ naturâ adiaphora, etc.) that there's nothing good or evil in itself, or naturally just or unjust, but all so or so in reference to the Magistrate, being otherwise and in themselves indifferent, etc. But this Gentleman hath forgot, what yet he must needs have learned from one of his great Masters (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) that there is an Eternal Law every way inclining us to that which is just and equal; 
Aristot. de mundo, c. 16.  and that as the Being of God must needs be infinite (as we have shown already) so must it by the like necessity of his Nature be infinitely holy, because the perfections of God are not Adjuncts but Essential to his Nature, wherefore he cannot act but agreeably to them, he cannot approve or disapprove any thing but suitably to these, so that to imagine one thing to be as congruous to him as another, good as evil, must needs be Blasphemy and contradiction to boot, and make God both to be and cease to be what he is; because, that God abhors evil, is rather from the Sanctity of his Nature and Essence, than from the determination of his Will, and therefore whatever is properly and essentially good, must rather be so by its resultanco from this Holy Being, than by any positive Sanction or precept of Law; and therefore also, 'tis in respect of its Sanctity rather than Sovereignty, that the Will of God becomes the measure of good and evil, which is not such because his Will is Arbitrary, but because it must be agreeable to his Holiness.  
Though we are not born with congenit Notions of good and evil, yet we are born with such Faculties, as duly exercised between acts and objects will make us necessarily apprehensive of congruity or incongruity in this or that, whilst yet this apprehension owes itself not only to the moral, but to the connate and essential rectitude of those Faculties, which show us, by consideration such a manifest proportion between some, and disproportion between other acts and their objects, that without repugnancy and doing violence to those powers, we cannot judge otherwise of them, than that they are right or wrong, equal or unequal, from that proportion or disproportion, we thus perceive in them, and have thereby as certain rational Principles of Moral practice, as any we can have of Science, and know as well that we are to give every one their due, as that two and two make four, and therefore two taken from four leave two still; and those certain determinations which the Soul makes in this rational exercise of comparing acts and objects, are those very issues which Philosophers call common Notions, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  i. e. the Rudimental innate, or engrafted Principles of Rational nature, whereby we find our Intellectual Faculties to be as much affected with moral evil as our Sensatories are by the most incongruous or ingrateful Objects.  

Rhet. l. 1. c. 14. Rom. 12.17.  Thus we find some things, (as Aristotle observes) right or wrong by nature, or (in St. Paul's language) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, just or honest in the sight or esteem of all men, q. d. no rational creature can possibly esteem them other than such, because the faculties wherewith he judgeth are created by God, who hath made man with such Faculties as make him necessarily judge so and so, and therefore this judgement of his must be Gods too, and so must be a Law from God given to man, which, man as rational, cannot departed from, it being the Law written in his heart, or wrought into the essential frame or composition of his reasonable nature.  
What imaginable account can there be given how the Gentiles, who had not the Law, could be a Law unto themselves, or do by nature the things contained in the Law, etc. if there were not a Law in and to that nature abstracted from and antecedent to all other Sanctions and Precepts whatsoever? They had not the Law written or revealed to them, what Law had they then but this in their nature which was born with them? They could have nothing but that Natural light, or the dictates of right reason, by whose conduct notwithstanding they did those things, which were also commanded in the Law of God, or as the Poet words it— sponte suâ sine lege fidem rectumque colebant.  
This was that Lex scripta in cordibus hominum, quam ne ipsa delet iniquitas, as St. Aust. speaks, that Law written in men's hearts which sin itself could not blot out. This was that Law to which a penalty was annexed in case of Transgression, to be taken upon the verdict or testimony of Conscience, i. e. that reflection the Soul makes, 
Conscience what?  and the judgement which by that reflection it passes upon itself according to Law, without which Law, as there could be no guilt, so without guilt there could be no Conscience. Therefore if the Law makes not, distinctively, good or evil, we can neither do well or ill, or have either comfort or regret in the sense of one or other.  
Conscience can never act without respect to a Law, and to the Maker and Judge of that Law. Its reflection would be an useless and idle thing, if all other things were indifferent, because the sense of guilt would be incompossible with the praeclusion of Law; and therefore every man's experience as it feels the one, so it proves the other.  
Witness the perplexity that haunts the Soul of the most cautious and closest sinner; Witness the lashes that the Monarch feels from the hand of Conscience, though freed from the touch of any other, patiturque suos mens conscia manes. Witness the fears and horrors of dying men, who are then most afraid of this when they are nighest out of the reach of all other punishment.  
But besides the testimony of Conscience we have the universal consent of Mankind, there having never yet been any Nation so barbarous, that believed every thing naturally alike, or that had not some Principles and Practices too of Morality. And indeed were it not thus, were not good and evil made such by nature distinctly, and antecedently to humane Laws, these Laws could signify nothing; for were there no antecedent obligation to obey those Laws, Rebellion would presently be as lawful as obedience is necessary. Vain names of Oaths of Allegiance, or Promises of Fidelity, if it be not first a duty in itself to keep one's word. I wonder who would then be a Subject, that could hope to better himself by being otherwise.  
Besides, were it not thus, how should humane Laws bind, as we see they do, in those places where Revelation has not yet been, if the Obligation of Conscience to Obedience in such places be not resolved into the Law of Nature enjoining Obedience as due to Governors. Yea, precluding the Law of Nature, (I speak now with becoming reverence) how could God himself bind us to obedience by any Positive Law? for unless it be first my duty to believe God because of his Veracity, I am, after the clearest Revelation, left at my liberty to believe whether the Law be from God or no; and if I should be so kind as to believe him, yet if nothing be good or bad in itself, then to despise the authority of God cannot be evil, and therefore I may choose, as an indifferent thing, whether I will obey him or not. Yea, why may not men if they please, invert the very frame of all moral things, and turn Vice into the place of Virtue?  
So absurd as we have seen, is this false and dangerous Hypothesis; so directly thwart to the first Principles of Reason, and to the common sense of mankind, so plainly effective and introductive of all the evil and misery that can be done or suffered in the world; that if it could be reasonably believed, that the Author (a man I doubt not eminently Learned) should not be ware of what so follows thereupon; it might also be charitably hoped, that he would have denied himself, upon the first sight of such mischievous consequents, were it not that we see many other, and some not unlearned, men, who while they abhor the Principles in terms, yet embrace those inferences, which must needs come from them in course.  
Tell the Schismatic there is no God— oh! Abominable that 'tis abominable, and the Atheist shall feel his arm; but tell him— Kings are not (or obedience due to them is not) Gods,— and you may shake his hand. 
Suum evique tribuaere.  Tell him there is a natural or original Law of justice, etc. (out upon these Atheists) he'll say so too; tell him right reason is that instrument by which we discern this Law to be given to our natures; still he's content; but tell him that therefore Obedience is both rational and natural— and he gins to start (what do you mean Sir?) Tell him that therefore it is due to man as Governor, i. e. as the Ordinance of God— you amaze him, (what? though he be a Papist) [where, by the way, we cannot but acknowledge this same though, 
Modern Papist, or Infidel.  etc. to be so much the more considerable as it carries with it an Emphasis of the loudest and harshest sound, Papist, in our English Reformed Translation being in a manner the same reading with Infidel, or Mahometan; but whilst I think it the severest, I may also suspect it for the unjustest too, as being a supposition however made at first, God knows, not I; yet since that time manifestly as enviously urged and improved by some to such a popular height, that it now seems more than probable they had rather suppose it, though false, than truly not suppose it, and that they would not quit their advantage, or exchange the pleasure of fixing the guilt and odium, for my comfort in or my hope of, the improbability of that imputation. Their busy floating upon the top or surface of common fame, will not let them sink to the depth and bottom of such humble reflections, as supposing what they suppose, would certainly help us more, and become us better; for whether is more Evangelical think we, the language of Ashdod or the speech of Canaan? that roaring clamour— he is Popishly affected, and shall never Reign, etc. or that still remorseful voice— righteous art thou O Lord, and thy judgements are true, and as we sinned by thrusting out, as we did, a Protestant King, and Nursing Father, so shouldst thou punish us, by bringing in the contrary, yet still righteous art thou, O Lord, etc. But besides that, we may be jealous of this jealousy, as seeing no more sufficient ground, than we think they have good cause for it, and that we are not to suspect rashly without such ground, or tumultuously and irreverently with it; methinks we have this good reason against it, that it got no higher than a Supposition there, where we doubt not it would, if it could, have been lifted up to an Assertion; and I know some very near the subject of this predicate, that know no more of it than I do, and I now thank God, that thus I do not know it, and thence may infer my duty not to believe it; my duty I say, and the rather, because I believe verily such a Supposition can hardly be well made of any man or Christian, without making another of the ignorance or unsincerity of the same man, nay, it seems next to a contradiction or moral impossibility that it should be otherwise, for how can his knowledge admit such doctrines as are pointblank opposite to the sense and reason of Mankind? or how can that be Faith which embraceth such as are inconsistent with the nature and rule of Faith? Besides, that the Supposition, as first made, would fitly serve (which can never be thought of without horror) to justify the Effusion, or slain the Innocence, or elicit an Ominous Ebullition, of the yet fresh and purest blood of that ROYAL MARTYR.] (But to return from this unacceptable digression,) Tell him therefore the lawful King must be obeyed, whatever he is otherwise, and you confound him (away! he cry's, I see you are a disguised Protestant.)  
Tell another Schismatic— God has given us a Natural Law, distinctive of good and evil, and such Faculties, as duly exercised, are sufficient to discern it, etc. he readily agrees to the words, only he must reserve a sense for his own practice. He is ashamed not to say as you do, whilst resolved never to do what you say; and the next news you hear of him, he has transverst those very Faculties, he is either Transubstantiating Bodies, or Gelding Oaths, or Deposing Kings, or (a sad pretty thing) Absolving Subjects from the Law of their own Natures, or, to say all in a word, he is Covenanting against his own Vows, and so breaking the bonds, blasting the dignities, and consuming the persons of all men and things, Sacred or Civil, by the breath of that Fiery-flying-Serpent.  
Good God what Babel's of Opinion and practice does the pride and ignorance of men erect against Thee! every man is building like mad, and every man will be a master and lay his own foundation. One makes it of the smallest sifted particles of Atomical dust, which he found by that same good luck, that they had to meet there. Another lays it only with dry lose stones thrown together by the withered and tremulous hands of some decrepit and uncertain Traditions, doting enough to be thought old, and old enough to be found rotten. Another works it with hewn and squared and polished stone, but jointed with the most untempered mortar of perverse reasoning, and vain Philosophy (a deal of good stuff spoiled and worse than lost.) Another that saith, he sees the vanity of these foundations, yet builds such an irregular Superstructure, as is only fit to stand upon these, and worthy for whose sake these foundations themselves should be razed and overthrown. Such mad work is there made by the lusts and interests of men, with the most holy Religion and laws of God  
But 'tis well for us, that in these confusions, and against these extremes, we are sufficiently directed and forewarned— not to believe every spirit; 
Joh. 4.1.  therefore we are sure there are Spirits, and that some are true, and many are false, and all must be tried; and that they may be tried, we have given us from God the Spirit, 
Cor. 12. ●. 10.  the gift of discerning Spirits, or distinguishing those glister among us, which are not gold, which pretend the Commission or Inspiration of God, for the impulse or impetus of lust; which make good and evil, true and false, to be but empty names, or words that signify nothing, or nothing but the Will of the Supreme Magistrate, and so necessarily infer this contradiction, that the same things in several places are true and false, and our Lord Christ must have been a false Prophet, 
●●viathan, 250.  because condemned by the Roman Governor, and Mahomet a true Prophet because allowed by the chief Sultan; which teach us that the Sovereign power (beyond whatever hath yet been arrogated by any Pope) may null the old, 
Ibid.  and make a new Canon of Scripture, or none at all.  
Now for these, and a thousand more the like Spirits of error we may if we will find a plain rule of trial in the word of truth; where we see the genuine characteristic properties of the Spirit of God.  
It is a Spirit of Truth; therefore, a good life with an erroneous judgement in Essential and Fundamental points necessary for Faith or Practice, as in the great doctrine of Obedience to Governors, which runs through the whole body of the Gospel, if he allows or abets resistance in any case; or if he ascribes infallibility to frail and sinful man;" or privilegeth a Priest to do a greater Miracle than ever Christ did, by Transubstantiating a piece of bread to make and eat his Saviour; he must needs be led by a Spirit of error.  
It is a Spirit of Holiness; therefore, to be Orthodox and yet immoral, to have good opinions with bad practices, to think right, and to do wrong; is to be led by the unclean spirit.  
It is a Spirit of Unity; therefore, to Reform by Schism, to dissolve the Bond of Peace, wherein the Unity of the Spirit is to be preserved, to separate or Absolve Subjects from their Obedience, to teach them to swear, to be forsworn, or to lie for God's sake, is to be led by the Spirit of division, whose name is Legion.  
It is a Spirit of meekness and order; therefore, to despise dominions, to excommunicate Kings, or subvert Kingdoms, is to be led by the Spirit Abaddon or Apollyon, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Rev. 9.11.  the Spirit of mischief or destruction always working in the children of disobedience.  
It is a Spirit of Sincerity, working in us simplicity and singleness of heart; therefore to lift up the Left hand to God, and the Right against his Vicegerent; to hate Idols, and love Sacrilege; to declaim against the Prelacy of Conforming, and Vote up the Papacy of Nonconforming Ministers, is to be acted by the Spirit of Hypocrisy, or the father of Lies.  
It is a Spirit of Knowledge or understanding; therefore, to levelly the Canon of Scripture with the Apocrypha, to make the Word of God truckle under Tradition; to advance Jesus against Christ; or to propagate Religion by the Sword, is to be led by the Spirit of Slumber, the God of this world that blindeth the minds of men.  
Thus let us Try the Spirits, and by the fruits of Love, Joy, Peace, 
Gal. 5.22.19.  Long-suffering, Gentleness, Goodness. etc. or of hatred, variance, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, etc. we shall easily know them.  
Yet because Vice borders close upon Virtue, and is never without some colour or probability to set it off, we are not to make our last judgement upon the Acts, till we be first acquainted with the habits of men: till we know the general current of their lives, as well as the particular conduct of their designs, and the means they use as well as the end they pretend to; and when this is done, let the Forms of godliness be never so artificially drawn, the fire of Zeal and the light of Sanctity never so well painted, let the Colours be never so fine ground, and laid on with never so delicate a Pencil, we shall see the difference between the Picture and the Life, and though the grapes should be lively enough to deceive the Birds, the Boy will be dead enough to betray the cheat.  
The first Impostors that ever appeared in the Church of Christ (and such there did appear even in the most Primitive and purest times) were brave fellows indeed, such as had not our modern baffled threadbare canting forms, but span new and fresh-napt signs of godliness and wonders too; such as might have credited the softest credulity, to take up pity any where. 
Barchochaebus. Apollonius. Sim. Magus.  One could vomit flames; (but may not the Preacher of Sedition vie with him?) Another had the knack of ubiquity, and could tell at Ephesus, what was done at Rome (I doubt that's farther than from London to Edinburgh.) Another could fly (but could not one of our Airy Enthusiasts with the advantage of his light (for he must mean levity of judgement) within him, do at least as much? I think one might advisedly wager on this side whether for tower or stretch.) Yet these would scarcely be good jugglers at this day; 'tis plain they have been all outdone both with and without the Metaphor. We have those who from their Seditious sanguinary Principles, do naturally (sure that's as much as literally) spit fire and blood together; yet can no more speak with tongues, than they can vomit flames without a Metaphor, or more honestly pretend to learning, than they can to flying; or to know what is done by others, than to consider what they do themselves. They pretend as little to the gift of obedience, as to that of Tongues or Healing, 
Kings and Bishops.  and are therefore probably the less pleased with those, who either exact the one, or exercise the other.  
Generally I say they do not so much as pretend to Learning; no, their provident Father fitting their stocks to their trade, and their wisdom to their generation, has furnished them with much industry and little wit, so little as to lay that claim which they have quitted to Learning, to the gift of Preaching, (to say nothing yet of the gift of Prayer till we see a little farther, whether they understand what it means) wherein yet every body knows they exceed in nothing more than noise, though we may not deny, that they temper that excess with as great a defect of sense. But admitting that they Preached eminently well (which many think 'tis plain they do not) I hope the Heretic Nestorius went beyond them; and though they equalled him, yet if he, or they, or an Angel from Heaven, should Preach another doctrine than what hath hitherto been delivered, to lead us into Rebellion or Schism, or Sacrilege, we could give them no better entertainment than that of Anathema Maranatha.  

Numa. Eumenes. Mahomet. Ilaricus.  If they pretend to immediate Revelations, for their comfort they are not alone, we can bring them a Roman, a Greek, a Saracen, a Goth to bear them company. Or supposing they had a sleight of hand (as in Subscriptions, and some such cases must be acknowledged) yet Apollonius Tyanaeus could have put them down. If they plead Prosperity or impunity in Sin as an Argument of Divine Approbation, we say from the Word of God, that this is one of the wickedest ways of reasoning, and we add for their instruction or encouragement, it is that very way wherein the Schismatics of ROME have most delighted. Alas! how patiently did God permit the disobedience of the first, and the murder of the second Adam? yea and all the villainies of the world, however most contrary to the Precepts, are yet executed by the permission of God. If Piety ceaseth to be such, because prosperous, or permitted, or not hindered by force (inconsistent with a free and moral Agent) than the great Mogul, or the greater Bishop of Rome, should now be as great Favourites of Heaven (and so I think they are) as ever our Regicides or Usurpers were; and he that having robbed the Temple of Delphos, immediately after escaped a shipwreck, had argued Logically well, in concluding as he did, from that deliverance, that the gods had approved his Sacrilege.  
Do they live strict and Religious lives, yet in Schism and Disobebience to the Ordinances of God? (for such are humane Laws) we say 'tis impossible they should do so, because 'twere a contradiction, and yet that though they did so, it would not be argumentative, because we have heard from St. Jerome of the abstinence and Scleragogy of Montanus, that his strictness was his disease, 
Hieron. ad Marcel.  and from no better Spirit than his Spleen; and therefore they are not to be blamed that cannot so readily and roundly Saint a Schismatic, because he is no drunkard, swearer, sabbath-breaker, or adulterer, for that these though all damning sins, are yet less intolerable than Envy, Malice, Schism, Sacrilege, Hypocrisy, and Rebellion, or that most intoxicating sin of Spiritual pride, which are so properly the Devils sins (as drunkenness and whoredom can never be) that they are called devilish wherever they are found in men, and are in St. Peter's judgement, 
2 Pet. 2.9, 10.  the most damning.  
Do they refuse our Assemblies because they hate them, and do they hate them because our Worship is either merely Technical and Theatrical as the Atheist drolls out his bolts, or plainly Idolatrous and Superstitious, as the Schismatic shoots his arrows? But is it indeed, or can you think it is either so, or so? Speak out ye sons of Anak or Leviathan, is our Liturgy such a Pageantry of Worship? a knack or trade invented by Priests for filthy lucre's sake, and by them according to the privilege of Inventors monopolised? This is Giantlike, a right faller on, 
Nephilim.  and faller off from God, he speaks congruously to himself big and high and terrible; and if there be no God he speaks wisely, he is no fool. For what business hath he to do with that name, or what reason to take it into his mouth (other than to spit it out in droll) whose being is not in his heart? What's he concerned in Liturgick or Eucharisticks that has nothing to pray to or for, no God to praise or honour with the Sacrifice of his lips? But if there be a God, than the fool turns back with triumph upon the man, 
Rephaim.  and the Babe upon the Giant, and the antiphrasis is utterly reversed, and he languid and feeble, and faint and weak, without the Metonymy; see this Infant-Gyant who is not now so much as that span long, which before he exceeded by Six cubits! see this fierce, swift, bold, terrible and mighty Leviathan, an impotent and fearful Minim! see yet a step lower, this living and roaring Lion, 
Job 26.5.  a dead Carrion dog, degraded as low as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or inanimate, fallen down to a dead thing. Yea, a (Mappeleth, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, cadaver) dead carcase, for such the vulgar latin makes this Giant. And now the fool peeps again, not only the rash, bold, furious, inconsiderate, but the very natural (indeed most unnatural) fool. The Virgins that had no oil, were manifestly akin to this fool, by their supine negligence and improvidence, yet not nearer sure than the half blood of gross and woeful imprudence, not the whole of stark staring madness. Those fools would have begged or borrowed what they had not; this fool will not so much as need what he wants. He hath, he will have, no Sacrifice for God, which even the Heathen themselves have always made to be the due and necessary acknowledgement of a Deity. But let us bray this fool no longer.  

Our Liturgy not corrupted by the Missal.  Say Schismatic, what is our Liturgy? Oh! most abominable, filthy, noxious, childish, confused, tedious, improper, literal, Book-service, etc. a most blind, lame, yea a dead Sacrifice, etc. Hold a little, is it all this? yet, methinks, if it be a Sacrifice of Praise to God, it matters not through what hands it past  it came to us. What can the Missal, (if it were the Alcoran) of Rome concern us or defile it? We say of our Liturgy, just as we do of our Religion, it is not New but Reform. What ails you now? unless you love Schism for itself, it should offend you no more than it troubles us that our Faith and Worship are all of a piece.  

No impediment to the Spirit of Prayer. Rom. 8.26.  Nor can set and stinted Forms, as such, possibly in any degree quench or hinder the Spirit of Prayer, for that as this is not tied to or with words, so neither doth it supply any defect in them. It helpeth our infirmities indeed, but not with words, but with supplies that cannot be worded, with (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) sighs and groans unutterable. It consists in those fervours of Soul that will put life into any Form, not in forms of my own making or borrowing, as you lamentably affirm, and so cheat the people, and (eadem opera) blaspheme the Holy Ghost.  
You complain of ease, whilst you tell us a child might perform this Service, for that is both our advantage and obligation, 
Not childish because a child can read it.  God's Service being not to be weighed by the labour of doing, but by its relation to him for whom 'tis done, else we know a Butcher could have killed and dressed a Lamb better than a Priest under the Law, and now the child that can read the book is not therefore fit to offer the Sacrifice under the Gospel. He can read— Take, eat, etc. but may he therefore Administer, etc.  
You could never be so much troubled with our confused Antiphona's, if your Ears were not as tender as your Consciences, 
Antiphona's no Confusions  for I pray tell us, is it not a public Sacrifice, a joint Confession (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) which (for aught we know yet) must be made by Speech, and therefore we pray God to open our lips, and you teach the people to shut them: Is this well done, or is not that better?  
Neither could you think it impertinent, if you considered it to be a public Sacrifice of Praise, 
The Service not impertinent,  not only for Blessings immediately upon ourselves, but upon others, or upon us by the means or intervention of others. Might not you, may not we partake of the Grace vouchsafed to the Blessed Virgin, in her Magnificat? or may we not all with Simeon, in his Song, rejoice at the sight of that Salvation?  
So 'tis much any man should think those Prayers too long, 
not tedious,  wherein we are begging for Eternity, or quarrel them for justling out Preaching, which as they do not necessarily, so if they do it accidentally or by surprise of some occasion, yet then, which do you think may better be spared, the Prayers which are (a Sacrifice) to God and for his Honour, or the Sermons which are to us and for our benefit.  
But how is it that you call it a dead Sacrifice? what? 
not a dead Sacrifice.  does it want that life of affection which is necessary? Truly this must be a fault, lay it where it may; but can the Forms be guilty? can we justly require that in or of the Sacrifice, which only belongs to them that offer it? must the Church create the affection, because she composed the Forms? If we come without our hearts, is not the fault our own? can Repetition deaden Affection? or cannot our sense of the same wants, or can words shifted and not the same keep life in it? did the Jews ever complain of their Sacrifice (the Type of ours,) because there was a Lamb in the Morning, a Lamb in the Evening, a Lamb every day in the year? 
Mat. 26. 4● Luk. 22. 4●  did our Lord think you, want ability, or affection to pray, when he thrice used the same words?  

Nor lame.  How is it defective or lame in its parts, its Confessions, Petitions, or Thanksgivings? Is not the end and use of it to be a Sacrifice of Praise, rather than a storehouse for every duty, otherwise than to serve for that Sacrifice? why do you not consider, that if particulars were named, all could not say Amen? And when general words are used, all that are acquainted with their own Souls can reflect upon particulars, and so make a private advantage of the public service.  

Nor blind.  How is it blind, or not edifying? Is it because it edifies us not in Faith or Knowledge, as a Sermon doth, or should? why than it seems it is to be blamed because it is not a Sermon. But how then shall Sermons escape, because they are not Prayers, nor a Sacrifice for the praise of God, as this is? And now I hope well, that if this edifies, it will be enough to supersede the complaint.  
Tell us therefore, do not Hymns and Anthems with Music too, edify the Praise of God, even in Christian worship? disprove it, and continue an enemy, or grant it, and become a friend to this Holy Service. Never be so bold hereafter as to dare to say— there's nothing but (porridge) Prayers, 
Ps. 69.30.71.20. Rom. 15.8.  etc. Or if thou wilt, remember thou sayest also— there's nothing but Honouring or Praising God. Consider likewise thy obedience, is a Sacrifice of righteousness, but it is not this Sacrifice of Praise; that's a metaphorical, but this is a proper Sacrifice. For though that word [Sacrifice] imports something to be slain or destroyed, yet that is but accidental to its notion, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  and rather distinguishes the kind, than constitutes the nature of it, which consists in offering something to God in acknowledgement of him, and which is as properly done now by the fruit of our lips, as of our flocks or our fields before. Therefore we rob God, if we deny him the honour of this Sacrifice, which as it is distinct from all other acts of obedience, so is it of a special intendment, and of a different obligation, though he hath also from us the honour of obedience, because this is only of consequence, as agreeing with the nature and will of God. Say now again, is our Worship and Service Idolatrous, or Superstitious?  
Oh ye blessful Souls of Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, Latimer, etc. are not we followers of you, or were not you of Christ! Is our Superstition more or less than yours? Tell us if it were not part of your Triumph, that you enjoyed those very privileges which the present establishment affords us! 'Tis true, there were some differences of judgement even among these: but not more I trow, nor greater than were between St. Peter and St. Paul, nor of worse consequence among themselves (however since perverted by Posterity) than theirs were. They had not all the same mind in all things, but they had all no mind to separation. They were men, but good men, sincere men, therefore differing and therefore not divided. They had several opinions of some lesser circumstantial things, but gave them all up (and at such a time as conscience must needs have been most awake) to those greater and essential interests of peace and unity. The most fearful among them did but slacken their steps thoughtfully, none of them stood still restively, or stubbornly, or stayed till the Government should come to them by Teleration, rather than they would go to it by Conformity. No, no, they knew for all the prejudices of Foreign conversation, or domestic Persecution, either of which might have been apt enough to drive them out of, or beyond their pace, they knew well how Obedience was better than Sacrifice, but knew nothing of our modern Gloss, which sacrifices obedience itself to the Mammon's of interest or humour.  
How unlike were their peaceable Dissenting to our Seditious dissensions! Those soft and tender Willows to our hard and sturdy (Ket's) Oaks of Reformation! quite another thing in their causes and effects, their means and ends, their extraction and conversation. Their differences were neither begotten of Pride, nor born of Ignorance, but the lawful issue of godly jealousy and humble fear; so born in honest wedlock, Christened by the Canon of Scripture, attested by the Prophets and Apostles, proclaimed and certified to us, as with Drum and Trumpet, by their Noble Army of Martyrs and fellow-soldiers. They were not managed by peevish public Remonstrances, or (the same thing in other words) prohibited Petitions, but by modest inquiries, by private gentle discussions, by fraternal correptions or admonitions, and at last sweetly concluded (and indeed necessarily from such Christian premises) in most Evangelical compliances and condescensions.  
There have been, there are, there will be differences in the judgements, till there be none in the faces of men, 
Schism.  only let them be without offences, however without that which has more than all the rest, and is the Rock of offence, SCHISM. An offence with a witness, having as much of the Devil for it, as of Christ against it: A difference as Antichristian as Inhuman, not only of interests but of natures, making one man a Wolf (in Plundering,) a Serpent (in Trapanning or Implotting,) and a Devil (in accusing) to another. For my own part as I doubt not there are many, so I am persuaded that I know some in the present Communion of the Church of England, so abhorrent from any likeness or appearance of Superstition, that they are always ready (in voto) to interpose their own lives between it and their Consciences, who yet choose to incorporate themselves into this Established body, as the aptest, the clearest, the surest evidence of that abhorrence.  
This Clouds of Witnesses passed away before our memories, only by the hearing of the ear, but there's another which our eyes have seen, (though no bigger at first than a man's hand, 
Arch-Bp. Laud.  or the dimensions of a single person, yet quickly spreading itself over the surface, and darkening the Horizon of three Nations, with such a thick and palpable darkness, as will never let us forget how long it was ere Sun or Stars appeared.) A Martyr of the infelicity of the times he lived in; A Martyr against the Devil (and his principal work) of Schism; and how then, or who says, not a Martyr for the God of Unity? who wrote himself so Legibly a Protestant, that even (that which we know runs fastest from truth) prejudice itself, or any thing but gross or affected ignorance may read it; so that one might with as much truth and reason deny him the name of his first Baptism (William Laud) as with justice or good manners, that of his second, Protestant Martyr, a Name so truly and eminently his own, that besides his Title by purchase (as before) he has that of Royal donation, and that also from that First CHARLES, THE PRINCE OF PROTESTANTS AND MARTYRS TOO; wherefore it may be good counsel, or caution to him that thinks or speaks otherwise, to consider well, whether he can reasonably suppose, there were any man then living, with so great advantage to know, or ability to judge, the mind and cause of that happy man, that unhappy Metropolitan, as was that incomparably most Judicious Prince.  
But to resume our buisiness of inquiry; does the Schismatic dislike our Worship because he likes not our Discipline? Is he offended at that lenity and longanimity which is used towards scandalous sinners? If this be it, then let them first compare (as was noted before) those sins which the Devil never commits, with those which are proper to him, and then religiously consider the dreadful Emphasis of St. Peter (〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) chief or especially concerning those that despise Government, of whom he tells us that they are especially reserved by the Lord to the day of judgement, 
● Pet. 2.9, 10.  to be punished; and than though our Ministers do not (what they cannot lawfully) shut the doors against such sinners till excommunicated, they will either think with more Charity of our Communion or with less Arrogancy of their own, and separate from us, if at all, with the temper and language of that meek Centurion (Domine non sum dignus) Lord I am not worthy, 
〈◊〉 7.6. ●s 65.25.  etc. not of those Idolaters in the Prophet— stand further off, etc. And then how would such an excess of humility in them, be quickly matched with another of Charity (with arms and hearts!) from us! what joy would there be in heaven, what peace on earth, what harmony in both! How would the Atheist blush, the Papist fret, and our Schismatic leer, and all the enemies of God and the King be as that young man Absalon! Whereas on the contrary, if these brethren of ours (Alas! our brethren! for such they profess frequently they are, and such God knows we desire most passionately they should be) will still remain inexorable by all the methods of reason or loving kindness; if they will invincibly persist to maintain their separation, to deprave the doctrine, disturb the discipline, and disown the Government of the Church; if they will walk thus disorderly, in contempt of all authority and public order; we must then, (whether we would or no, for Christ has made it our duty, 
Matt. 18.17. 2 Thes. 3.6. 2 Cor. 5.11.  and reinforced it upon us by St. Paul) we must then I say, deal with all such as the Jews did with Heathens and Publicans, we must withdraw from them in their disorders, and in case of irreclaimable contumacy, not only not religiously, but not so much as civilly entertain them, or as St. John expresses it, we must not receive them into our houses, or bid them God speed. And indeed what reason can there be that we should eat or drink with them at their or our own Table, who are therefore too unworthy, because they think themselves too good, to eat or drink with us at the Lords Table! Or what Charity can bid any man God Speed, in the way of Corah? or how can I affect his Society, that hates my Religion and my God? How can I bear it when I see my Saviour so manifestly Crucified afresh; between the Heretic breaking the Unity of the Church in point of Doctrine, by denying one or more of her Fundamental Articles; and the Schismatic in point of Discipline, endeavouring to overthrow her Government? How can I endure another downright Judas, to betray the whole Cause of Christianity, with a compliment of Religion, or a Kiss of Zeal?  
Surely if we must withdraw from the Heretic (who if he keeps his error to himself, 
Schism worse than Heresy.  may be no bodies foe but his own) then much more certainly from the Schismatic as the more Scandalous, Mischievous and Impious of the two, as necessarily offending against Peace and Charity together; 
And why.  because the Schismatic cannot possibly keep his Schism to himself, that being public in its own nature, as being a positive separation from public Worship, erecting Altar against Altar, and more than a bare negative suspension of Communion, and by consequence an affront to the Governors, and a scorn to the Government of the Church, by setting up a Conventicle prohibited by God and man, against a Church established by the Laws of both. The Schismatic is an actual divider in, and of the Church, and therefore worse by odds than any other who is but passively divided, or cut off from her; as much worse as to subvert the whole Legislative power, is worse than any violation of a particular Law; or to make way for all the Heresies and Immoralities in the world, is worse than any one of those can be.  
The Schismatic must needs be so much worse than the Heretic, as a vicious practice is worse than a false opinion; 
The Communion of Saints. The Schismatic a Heretic too.  and as a Schismatic is for the most part ipso facto an Heretic too; for I pray tell me does he not renounce the IXth Article of the Creed? does he not disown (did I say) does he not despise and detest that great Fundamental and essential to all Christian Religion, submission to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake, as well as our own? or tell me if this be not a most principal and fundamental doctrine.  
Gentlemen, I beseech you speak out, Is it not a part of our Obedience to God himself? Is it not the aptest of all others to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace, and is it not therefore that we find no Doctrine in the Holy Scriptures, more earnestly or more affiduously, 
1 Pet. 2.18.  more plainly or more expressly prescribed to us, than that of Uniform obedience to all that are over us in authority, worst as well as best? and therefore tell me again,  
Is it not both a most foolish and a most nefarious pretence, that the Religion or irreligion of our Governors can either widen or straiten our divine obligation to strict obedience? Tell me,  
Was there ever more incarnate devils than Nero or Tiberius, whom yet both Christ and St. Paul obeyed themselves, and commanded others to obey?  
Tell me, Is not our obedience to Magistrates due to that Authority which has commanded us to pay it them? and therefore cannot be paid as due to the men as men, or to the good as good, but reduplicatively to the Magistrates as such, let them be otherwise what they will, so they be not Usurpers or command contrary to God, and then does not the very exception of those cases confirm the doctrine in all other? Tell me,  
Are we not when the commands of God and the King are inconsistent, then to give our whole active obedience to God, and to his Deputy our passive only? and is not the Kings command otherwise the command of God too, and is not the same Law mediately divine which is immediately humane, or are we more obliged by strict precept to fear God than we are to honour the King; or more forbidden the Worship of Idols than disobedience to lawful Authority, or is any man able so much as in his conception to separate the sin of Schism from such disobedience, or such disobedience from rebellion against the Law of Christ, or a state of damnation from either of them? Tell me,  
Does not St. Judas put all these together in his description of the Gnostics, the first and worst Schismatics, 
Judas 4, 8, 12, 16, 19  Heretics and Rebels in the Primitive Church, when he calls them Murmurers, Complainers, walking after their own lusts, separating themselves (from what I beseech you, 
ver. 6.  if not from the Church established) having not (yet questionless pretending to have) the Spirit, whom he therefore parallels for their misery as well as sin, with those that made a Schism as it were in Heaven, and separated from the Church Triumphant, reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the Judgement of the great day. Tell me,  
Are not those who do not hold fast the Profession of the Faith, but forsake the assembling themselves together (at stated times and places by just authority appointed) as the manner of some is, 
Heb. 10.23, 25.  are not they inferred to sin wilfully, and that therefore there remains nothing for such, but a fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation? Do we not find the Holy Penmen, thundering out the Terrors of the Lord against this single sin more than all the rest? and why do we so, but because this sin gives the greatest scandal to the enemies of Christ, and helps to justify them in their highest prejudices to his Name and Gospel? Do we not find the Schismatics singled out from the whole herd of scandalous and notorious sinners to be marked and avoided as the worst of all, as most destitute of Christian meekness, not consenting to wholesome words, but— proud, knowing nothing, doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, etc. presumptuous, self-willed, despising Governments, etc.  
Can any pride be more monstrous than to be proud of knowledge, and yet know nothing? or can it be any other thing than such an exalted pride as this, that can make men of low Parts, and little Learning, of ordinary Education and mean Improvements, to separate from this Great and Admired Church of England, from the solemn devotions of her Public Liturgy, contrived by the Wisdom, directed by the Learning, embraced by the Piety, established by the Authority of such a Nation? confirmed by at least 33 Acts of Parliament, and as many Convocations, Signed and Sealed by the Sufferings of so many Confessors and Martyrs, and since that Asserted against the wit and malice of all Opponents? Is not this such an arrogance of pride as no Rhetoric can express, no Charity excuse, no Humility not censure?  
And yet this is not all, we are not at the height yet, for do they not tell us plainly they could approve of many things even in the Liturgy itself, if they were not imposed by Law? Good God that ever men should make the reason why they ought, the reason why they will not serve God decently and in order! that ever men should choose to impose upon themselves, that they might not be governed by others!  
Tell us once again (for 'tis hard to believe any thing against the reason of mankind) must Parliaments and Synods stoop and strike fail to you? must all that is great or Sacred among us be exposed and marked out for the objects of your contempt? will nothing please or content you, but the basest and most unnatural submission of Antiquity and Authority to your Wills? 
Luciferian pride.  This is so high a flight and to such a pitch as none but the Son of the morning can surmount, it towers to such a lessening of Credibility that without the help of a contrary to match it, it would hardly be believed by being (that for which some other things must be believed) invisible. We could not so easily believe their Pride to be so great (as to make some men (in a woeful sense) little inferior to some Angels) but that we feel their Charity to be as little. 
Uncharitableness.  For do they think any thing but evil of us or towards us? They cannot see their own eyes nor the beams in them, but in the eye of a Conformist they can presently spy the least mote, yea and stare it into a mountain. They are so black jaundiced with malignity and prejudice, that they can see nothing (not by no means nothing) but Popery or Paganism in all our service of God. Tell us therefore, can you rationally deny that you esteem us as bad as any Pagans? or can you excuse yourselves in that separation if you judge not our Communion to be as absolutely unlawful, as you judge your own to be absolutely necessary to Salvation? Is not this your Charity? Gentlemen are you awake? 
De Vnitate Eccl.  do you hear St. Cyprian? macula ista nec sanguine abluitur, Martyrdom itself is not sufficient to make amends for Schism. Are ye not frighted? How can the Father speak truth if Schism be not exclusive of Christian Charity? or if their Charity gives him the lie, I hope their Faith will be civiller to St. Paul, and does not he plainly infer, 
1 Cor. 13.1, 2, 3.  that whilst we live in Schism we have no Charity, our Alms are no better than ostentation, and the yielding ourselves to be burnt, but a mad kind of Martyrdom, or rather but a foolish Sacrifice to humour and stomach; like that of Clement and Ravilliac who died Martyrs to the Papacy, or those whom we read of to have been called (Martyrs stultae Philosophiae,) Martyrs of vain Philosophy, or that which may serve for all the rest, of our own English Regicides, to their Fanaticism. They all died for the Deities they all adored.  

Multiplicity of Sects.  As by this time we may justly doubt whether the abundance of Pride or want of Charity be greater in these men, so considering the multiplying prolific nature of all evil, and of this above all, we are like to doubt on still, whether they do not paramount themselves, and excel their Eminencies before named in their exceeding plenty of divisions. How many are the Sects that have been made by this devil Schism? were not all the calamities of England begun, continued, and (if ever they be completed) must they not be finished in thee? 
The Black box.  Here's the Black box you talk on! a Box with a Vengeance! Pandora's Box! How fast 'tis sealed up! hold, I think there's some Inscription upon the Seals— Bul. P. Pi. 5.— Sol. Le. and Cou. Nay then I am resolved I'll open it— It flies like Bottle Ale, what are these papers that are tumbled out— Impeach. of Straff.— Impeach. of Arch B. L.— Instruct. for Vxbr. Tr.— Instructions for Consults— List of King's Judges— Reasons for Toleration— Considerations concerning Elections, etc. Petitions against Proclamations. If these be the top, what's in the bottom? but I'll put them in again, for aught I know it may be as much as the Reputation of a Protestant is worth, but to look upon them; well, 'tis true I see (that by a little allusion, 
Mr. Cowley  I may gratify my memory with a dear name) 
Schism; thou'rt a devil, if I may call thee one,  
For, by this Box, thy name is Legion.  Didst not thou set up an Heteroclite Assembly against a Regular Convocation, a vagrant Directory against a settled Liturgy? didst not thou sell the Lands first, and then the Head from the Crown? didst not thou set up iniquity for Law, and strength for an Hight Court of Justice? Was it not thou Schism! that foundedst all Right in Dominion, and all Dominion in Grace! was not Leviathan, or is not New Rome a spawn of thee thou cursed Dam of all the Blasphemies and Heresies of all times! Didst not thou beget that mongrel Toleration, and expound Christian Liberty into that sense which we now all see, and (without the preventing mercy of God and vigilancy of our Governors) must feel too? and by the warmth of these didst thou not hatch those ugly monster's Ochlocracy and Anarchy, and hast thou not been brooding of these ever since the Restauration of England to itself, or the King to England?  
In which last respect as thou art every where black and blue by thy envious and malignant nature, thou art yet uglier and more odious here by thy most superlative ingratitude. Who can be that Viperous generation of more proper name than they that undermine and conspire against those Laws and Legislators, by and under which they have and hold the greatest earthly enjoyments, and this whilst themselves (or the chiefest among them) confess us Protestants, 
Indifferent things no cause for separation.  and can show no greater or other cause for their Animosities, than our enjoining some indifferent things uncommanded in the Scripture, which is such a cause as must equally engage them against all the Reformed Churches in Europe, in which there must be some indifferent things, and so against themselves too.  

The name of Jesus adorable.  The Bowing at the Name of Jesus is none of those things, and the offence they take therefore is not given: for admitting what they object, that the practice is neither warranted nor intended by the Apostle in that common Text, yet certainly those mighty peculiar Emphases which we find put by the Spirit of Truth upon that all-adored and salvific name, must needs enforce it. Have the Angels in their more exalted nature, have they knees for this hyperhypsistous Immanuel, and can the Christian man have none for the same superexcelling and most exalted Jesus? do they bow inquisitively, shall the mountains and rocks bow literally, and can I not bow Religiously? must my understanding bow (or break) to the Faith of the incarnation, and can my body (in this state of Union) not bow at the Name, or (which is all one) at the mention or memory of God incarnate.  

Versus, etc. Typical.  And for the like reason, though bowing towards the Temple (Jerusalem) were Typical then, yet bowing in the Temple or house of Prayer even by the practice of the Antitype itself must be pious still; and that place as separated and consecrated by Christ, so hallowed and esteemed by us. 
Arist.  The Philosopher can tell us that a lie is malum in se, a sin against the Law of our Nature, therefore to make a lie (quod efficit tale) must be so and more; and to violence or captivate a profitable truth can be little less; the good which I do against my mind is so far hypocrisy, as the evil which I so do is infirmity; and there is crimen falsi in both; when I bow my body to the person I had rather stab, or kiss the hand that I wish cut off, does not my soul make my body lie? so when my soul bows in Adoration of God, can it so exclude the body in this state of conjunction, as either to deny the right or interdict the use of its assistance? would not such exclusion be an injurious restraint and oppression of that truth which I am always bound to own and assert by a reasonable service of God, with my whole man, my soul and body together? We grant 'tis the Loyalty of the soul that makes a true Christian subject, yet we know this never is or can be unattended by the hand and knee too. 
Voluptas animae anima voluptatis.  We grant that as the pleasure of the Soul is the soul of pleasure, so the worship of the Soul or Spirit is the soul of worship, but then this soul is in the body still and acts not but ecstatically without it, and it acts as distinctly, as grossly bodily in any determinate position of the hand or eye, as in the flex on of the back or knee, all are alike bodily worship, and equally liable to exception, though their fortune has not been alike: if there be any difference in the notoriety of the gestures, than we say, the more visible, (if decent and Analogous) the more honorary; we think it impossible for any soul seriously militant, to think it adviseable to throw away his arms, or give them up to his enemy, to give that bow or worship to any creature, which upon the oath and fidelity of a soldier he must give to, and only to his Creator; he must bow as spiritually and literally too as he must not bow; yea he must bow as naturally and necessarily (whilst he is in the body) as he must not; he cannot enter the house, or begin the work of Prayer, without bowing forth his Domine non sum dignus, nor make any solemn religious address without the Soul of a Christian, and the body of a man together; the negative precept both directs and confirms the positive duty, and by being commanded not we are instructed how to bow; look what share he knows his body must have in the violation, he gives it the same in the performance of his duty, and is so well persuaded of the reasonableness of this service, that, without doing open violence to the express command by hacking out a piece (as some of our Schismatics acquaintance have cut off the whole) and restively stopping at (thou shalt not bow) he cannot conceive the least colourable objection against this, or in favour of the contrary practice, unless either it should be said here (as we have heard before) that it must not be done because commanded, which God forbidden; or that it could be thought argumentative or not Sarcastical; which I remember to have seen somewhere produced by a person of Honour as the only Text, that can piece up the rent of that mutilate Communion in the Church of Rome, viz.— Father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me, etc.  
But it may be the pinch is not so much here, and they are more offended as English men than as Christians, 
Where the pinch lies.  as abridged of those privileges which their interest in Magna Charta claims for them, that they are not admitted to places of trust and office, etc. Truly we might willingly endure the envy of this objection upon condition it were but as true in Thesi as it would be absurd in Hypothesi. For, besides that we know by sad and memorable experience, were Schismatics Legislators, they would certainly enforce such a Conformity, as they will now neither comply with themselves, nor forgive in others, they have made themselves even by their own Principles incapable of being what they complain they are not; for if indifferent things are not properly the matter of humane Laws, as humane is contradistinct to divine, there's nothing in the world besides that can be so, because all necessary things are already sufficiently commanded, and all unlawful things as evidently forbidden in the Word of God, in which respect they are altogether divine and in no wise humane Laws; so that there could be but one Law (precisely humane) which the Schismatic Legislator could possibly enact, 
The Schismatics Law.  viz. that every Christian should be a law unto himself, or the same in other words, that every man's reason should be his guide, and every man's will should be his Law, and consequently that all should be rulers as much as any.  
May we not now appeal unto themselves whether they be not of all Recusants the most unexcusable, more than those that are tossed about with every wind of false doctrine, when not our Doctrines (true or false) but our bare Surplices can scare them, or our Organs blow them out of the Church? whether it had not been better for them never to have been the members of Christ, than being such to out themselves off from his Body which is the Church? whether it were not fit, seeing common safety cannot always subsist without public peace, nor public peace without compliance on one side or other, whether I say it were not fit, that the Inferiors, the fewer and the more ignorant, should yield, to the Superiors, the many and the more learned? and this so much the rather, if it be well considered that however Christians ought to serve one another in love, yet obedience to inferiors is grievous and not without some excuse for being so; whereas that of Superiors (as of Christ (who according to his humane nature was a subject) to Caesar) is a most noble, natural and necessary duty, as that which supports the whole Fabric of the Church and of all the Kingdoms upon earth, and in Heaven too, that which is so equally essential to Policy and Religion, that 'tis plainly impossible either for Saints to be Schismatics or Rebels, or for such to be Saints without making our Faith, our Scriptures, our Religion vain, without a downright welcome to Anarchy, and farewell to all Society.  
The contempt of Authority linked with an obstinate contumacious and seditious humour, is so very a monster, that it makes an error of judgement, which might otherwise have been venial in itself, a diabolical and damning quality. So that if Schism were no such sin as it is, yet it were worth the parting with, for the purchase of public peace, of which rightly improved, piety and prosperity, strength and safety, are the genuine and precious fruits. It was for this that our Lord himself complied in some things, both with Jews and Gentiles▪ that he might gain both. It was for this that we find the like compliances of St. Paul (of whom we should all be followers as he was of Christ) yielding to circumcise Timothy, 
Act. 15.28, 29.  and refusing again to circumcise Titus. To gain the Jews he denied himself the use of his Christian liberty, and resumed it again to gain the Gentiles. It was for peace and to unite dissenters, that the Apostles made that conciliar establishment of things indifferent by a Law whereby they induced a necessity à parte post upon things indifferent à parte antè.  
And this Apostolical practice as it plainly informs our judgements in the true subject matter of humane Laws, and whereabout they are properly conversant, and as plainly directs our practice of obedience in such cases, so will it never be made to serve their purposes, who, by binding the whole force and weight of it upon their Governors' shoulders, so as they themselves may not touch it so much as with one of their own fingers, would make it a ground of exception from the general rule of submission, and a warrant to dispute at least, and (as it constantly follows) to deny at last that obedience which they pretend according to this practice should not have been commanded; as if the condescension and indulgence of Governors were not to the ignorance or frowardness, to the intellectual or moral infirmities of dissenters; as if the Jews had not been culpable in their tenaciousness of the Law of Moses, when St. Paul purposely stooped to them and approved its observance by his own practice; as if the bowels and forbearing of any injured and incensed Parent did not make it more the child's duty to love and honour him, and should not make it more his shame and grief to displease him, more his sin and guilt to disobey him; as if not presently to take the forfeiture, were reasonably to avoid the debt, or cancel the debtor's obligation; or as if it were equally of duty, as it is of power in the Prince to suspend the execution of a known Law, for some weighty reasons of State, and upon the prospect of public benefit, and to tolerate a practice against Law and without hope of any common good, and not without just apprehensions of the greatest experience of the contrary, and therefore against all the reason in the world, but that of his own courtesy and mere pity.  
'Tis true indeed when Kings are said to be Gods, we best understand how they are such, when they are said also to be nursing Fathers, and therefore without fear either of contradiction to sense, or of courtship against reason, we can say they are humane Gods, their deity best asserted by their humanity, and both by a joint supremacy of power and goodness, and we cannot choose but wonder at the Anti-supremacy of Schism, that our ready obedience should not confess the one as irresistible, as our rebellions have proved the other.  
'Tis as true, that there is no such mirror so clear and true to look in, no such optic or perspicil to see with, as is the Crystal of the Word of God; a glass of such virtue that it not only most perfectly discovers the object but also disposes the medium, and directs the faculty; a glass that will never suffer us to behold any thing with or through prejudice or base interest, or without Christian charity and meekness; a glass that never shows us the spots of others but by reflection upon our own; in this glass we can neither behold the virtues or vices of our fellow-subjects with envy, or without pity, nor the blemishes or beauties of our Governors, without a reverence becoming both; a reverence I say as being a mixed affection of fear and love, by which I fear the power whilst I love not the fault of the person, and love the person whilst I fear the evil, whether sin or punishment, of the fault. In this glass we see what we must piously bewail, yet may not proudly censure in our Superiors; what we must reprove with caution and without arrogance in our equals; and what we must judge and condemn impartially, positively, absolutely and irrespectively (to any though more scandalous sins of others) in ourselves; St. Paul was the greatest of sinners, with the greatest assurance of Salvation; and the Publican was a sinner with more comfort, than the Pharisee was not a Publican.  
In this glass the most absolute Sovereign Prince may best see himself in the fullest proportion; he sees by and for whom he reigns absolutely, and without whom he reigns not independently; he sees that his Government is arbitrary as that is supreme and unquestionable by man, but not as any way unaccountable, but as every way most strictly and most especially accountable to God, for he sees him that is properly and originally King of Kings, under whose most supreme and comprehensive Title, and by virtue of whom he sees himself constituted and authorized, and accordingly to which he is to be directed, limited and subordinate, and therefore by no means to entrench upon the Prerogatives Royal of his Lord Paramount, and therefore not to govern by his own Will, which is God's peculiar, a rule to himself, and a Law to the Sons of men, the root and source of all Government, which so spreads and runs itself through the whole nature of man, that it makes Government not more divine in itself than connatural to us, and as effective of our well-beings in Societies as of our social and conjugal propensions, and therefore as old as Paternity itself, or the First of the Firstborn, making every man naturally sociable, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Supremum, medium, ultimum.  and actually disposed and tending to Societies, which therefore cannot possibly consist without Government, nor that without order, nor this without degrees of subordination; and therefore also because the foundations of Government are thus laid in our very natures, there is nothing that can lay nearer to these foundations, or be as we say, more fundamental or essential to Government than our obedience to the Laws of men, and their conformity to the Laws of God; he plainly sees and contemplates the Sovereignty of God, that all power belongeth unto him, that dominion and fear are with him, both in heaven and in earth, and for ever in both, and thereby supples and tempers his Prerogatives against all immoderate assume to himself, or encroachments upon his people; he can never measure himself by himself, whilst he compares himself with his God; instead of that turgid Interrogation— Is not this great Babel, which I have built, etc. he makes this of most humble admiration— Lord! what is man! what shall I render to thy mercy, or answer to thy justice! how shall I usurp thy right or pervert thy favour! how shall I discharge my trust and give up my account with joy! In this contemplation the Prince mounts indeed, but 'tis to a lessening of himself, and magnifying of his God.  
And as the Prince so the subject is sufficiently instructed in the nature of his obedience, and knows it to be the same which he performs to God for his own sake, and to man for God's sake, and therefore dares not but distinguish thus, as he dares not otherwise between the person and office of the Governor, that he pays not his obedience to the man as man (gentle or froward) but to the man as Magistrate and only so.  
Thus this Theme of God's universal, absolute and everlasting power, will prove a sufficient Amulet against all the charms of tyranny of all sorts, as well that of injustice or oppression in the Governor, as that (the more mischievous and less tolerable of the two) that of Usurpation and Rebellion in the Subjects, who in Conscience of this truth, of their own accords cannot but recognize their Prince, as Gods immediate Vicegerent, and highest Commissioner amongst men, and that therefore no man or men in the most collective sense (for that nothing less can by any means be inferred from the most important negative interrogation who?) can say unto him what dost thou? he sees him singulias & omnibus major, but neither seeks nor hopes nor desires to find him universis minor. He improves the Wise man's counsel of not cursing the King, no not in a thought, into not so much as thinking disloyally; so far is he from writing rebelliously— To your Tents O Israel, etc. or from speaking and threatening seditiously, that— deliverance shall come another way.  
He dares not pretend a kindness for the person, which he intends against the Government of his Prince, or by a most abominable and flagitious superfaetation hatch one plot under the heat of zeal against another.  
He is willing as much as in him lies to have peace with all men, and to look gently upon the errors of others, as rather to be of ignorance, and only consequentially or indirectly such; whilst yet he observes many sorts of men explicitly and professedly renouncing those erroneous opinions, which notwithstanding they do virtually abet, and implicitly defend under the patronage of some other they think less obvious or less obnoxious principles, and whilst they declaim pathetically against the Treason acted upon the First, and contrived against the Second Charles, and in the same heat of breath against those Jesuitical doctrines of Excommunicating, Murdering or Deposing Kings, are content in the mean time to send those Kings to the people for their power, and as the people's Stewards to give up their accounts of Government to them also; so the Papist (that incorrigible because infallible Schismatic) bears himself high upon the tiptoes and magistery of sense and reason, whilst by his most beloved Transubstantiation he affronts both; so the Atheist whilst he cannot deny a First and eternal cause, will not yet so much as conceive the more evident existence of a Spirit; if these errors be no worse descended than from ignorance or inadvertency, he hopes the bare naming of them sufficient for their conviction, but if mixed with obstinacy or interest of a Party, he quits them as impregnable against all the batteries of Reason or Religion; however even against these he dares not magnify himself, but desires rather to be humbled unto dust for them, and under the deepest sense of his own frailty, the guilt and danger of sin, and the memory of that signal wrath which has been so expressly revealed from Heaven against us the children of disobedience.  
In this glass the Prince best sees and feels too how handsomely or easily his Crown sits, if it be irradiated with the GLORIES of Piety and Sincerity, if illustrated with the greater and more luminous resplendencies of Justice and Mercy, (what a bald-crowned head were that, that could not pardon?) and with the lesser twinkling eyes, yet truly orient and genuine sparks of Temperance and Affability; and with these bigger and lesser Luminaries, the Prince in peace and prosperity, in safety and joy, in reputation and honour, shines directly upon himself and more obliquely but not less beneficially on all his Subjects; he scatters iniquity and conciliates Majesty with these eyes.  
Yet as the natural eyesight is weakened if fixed over long, or too intently upon the same object; so these Political eyes of Justice and Mercy, by looking too hard and too wissly, or too long and too indulgently, may be dazzled into rigorous severity or cruel pity; in which cases if it could be duty to put the question, there might be reason enough to make it, whether the Prince had not better borrow other men's eyes, than thus use his own, or were not more inexcusable than if he had never looked in this glass, or whether the vicinity of some glistering metals may not obscure or disadvantage the brightness of the purest gold, or that it would not be a disparagement to the Royal virtue of Clemency, if such a mistaken pity should be still misplaced, and find such a noble unbeseeming shelter in the courtesy of the Prince's nature, where it not only gets protection from the pursuit of obloquy, where Christian loyalty governs the very tongue; but works itself into possession too, and makes the pitying, in the best Translation the most pitied, and in the vulgar, the most pitiful Prince, or that it would not be an infelicity, if it were not a fault, and if it did not sully his Robes, would not probably dusk the lustre of his Name, which the Prince cannot but discern in this glass, where he sees plainly that the mercies of the wicked are cruel, and that the indulgences of the good may be so too; for Charity being of an active disposition, and walking much abroad would be very often affronted, either slighted by the ingratitude of some, or justled, or perhaps assaulted by the perverseness of others, or betrayed by her own goodness, if she were not sometimes attended and guarded by severity.  
Without this, how easily might she be stroked and softened into a cruel and dangerous impunity, by indulging (not the weaklings or fearful ones, but) the stout and stubborn, the obstinate and malicious, the designing and incorrigible offenders, such as corrupt themselves with goodness, and turn the flat of indulgence into the edge of presumption, and at the next turn into the point of direct enmity.  
The Prince sees all this, and more than this, when he considers his Purple of so pure a die, that the smallest soil will spot it, and the least spot will discolour it; his Crown of so fine a make, so eminent a site, such a transparent splendour, that even a mote of imperfection may be seen in it, much more would any cloud be notorious, which besides what it gathered of its own from any noxious morbific exhalations, would not fail of some malevolent aspects to thicken it into the darkness and then spread it into the inauspiciousness of some strange and prodigious Eclipse, Prognosticated by the conjunction, caused by the inter-op-position, and harangued into the defection of some great bodies. So much need and use has the Prince of this true glass to see himself, when so many false ones are made by others to see him with.  
Hitherto we have beheld the Prince viewing himself impartially, and looking graciously upon all his Subjects that are or should be such, and they again beholding their Prince in the same glass but not with the same eyes, some with an eye of reverence, or religious fear and love, some with an eye of jealousy or fear designed for hate, as that for destruction; and these because they look not, like those, directly from God to the command and from that to the duty, but asquint or across, from God obliquely or in pretence, but then most directly to the Party or Interest, and from that cross again upon the prescribed duty; we cannot see them sufficiently (who look so many several ways) at one view.  
Sometimes they amuse us with close and warm insinuations of fears and jealousies, and so scatter the seeds of discontent; thus by a pretended Tyranny they make way for Anarchy, and by fictitious for real Popery, the Devil and shame together teaching them to colour Schism with Zeal, and to suit their mediums of suggestions or accusations with their ends of ruin and destruction. Sometimes (like Tumblers) they see best with one of their eyes, their left eye sharp-sighted enough, when their right eye is full of darkness; thus they obtrude upon us worldly wisdom, which we see they have, for divine light which we know they have not. Thus they teach humour and confidence instead of Conscience, and act accordingly through thick and thin, they'll boggle or stop at nothing when the devil rides them, i. e. as they love to mistake it, when conscience overacts them, then, show them if you can those impieties which they dare not act to make them sure of their Election: In this carrier they have done such feats in our memory, so black and execrable, exploits so exactly Theatrical and infernal, that their own Father might learn to act after them; that charity itself could do them no greater kindness, than to make them (if not penitently innocent) less nocent avoidable, that so if they will not choose the honour or comfort, they might be mercifully compelled to enjoy the common benefits of obedience, so that however they will perish by other sins, they might not be able to damn themselves by Rebellion.  

Popish Schismatics.  Some of them that have traded longer than the rest and set up for wholesale, have engrossed that most comprehensive falsehood Infallibility, as the surest staple error to advance trade, and help off the rest; 'tis odds but some of them heretofore were near choking (for I think they eat bones and all) with their Transubstantiation, and this infallible crust was first prepared to cure them, and ever since administered to all for prevention of the like danger; surely a most sovereign remedy! for by keeping the gullet thus at stretch, and the swallow wide enough open, it makes all safe. 
Pope Pius the iv in Counc. of Trent.  Since that they have been able to take down XII Articles more than ever the Apostles took up, into their Creed prescribed by one of their infallible Doctors, and prepared by his trusty Trojans, his Apothecaries of Trent, they can swallow the whole 24 together, at one gulp without check or chewing; and can we think now they should stick or strain at a Bolus of one man, the man Jesus Christ? they are foully wronged if they be not now endeavouring to do as much by St. George for England and his horse too.  
Some of them look cross upon the whole Law of Moses, 
Antinomians.  as if our freedom from the rigour of that were our exemption from the bond of all humane Laws, and licentiousness of life were the true Christian liberty, or as if that liberty were not a manumission from the bondage and dominion of sin and Satan, but from the yoke of Christ and the precepts of Christianity, and from the not only Positive but Moral Law of Moses, which we know is the Law of Nature and of Christ too; as if they were free to regulate the Laws by their own humours, and not these by those, as if no errors of judgement, no not blaspheming or denying God were to be corrected or restrained by Laws; as if it were not the sin but the duty of the Magistrate when he beareth the sword in vain.  
Some look upward with such bold and fixed staring upon the decrees of God as such absolute irrespective and irreversible things, 
Predestinarians.  as do eternally determine both the end and the means, and necessitate both our sins and our punishments, and therefore warrant us to live, as we were born, without care; for that our vices cannot hurt us if Elect, nor our virtues help us if Reprobate; for that either we cannot repent if we would, or that we must repent do what we can; that whatever comes to pass was antecedently unavoidable, and we thereby fully discharged of any farther care or solicitude, concerning our actions or our ends, and may therefore, as our complexions dispose us, go merrily or despairingly to hell, but go however; whereas would they but consider themselves as bound in duty, not to think or speak any thing unworthy of God, or any thing which they would be ashamed should be thought or spoken of themselves, they could not but conceive and acknowledge, that God's promises and threats are general and conditional; that his decrees are just, and so inclusive of his dealing with all men according to their deeds, and exclusive of any respect of persons, and therefore that justification doth not precede Repentance, nor repentance avail without amendment, that sin is not forgiven before committed, or before repent, and that therefore repentance must be in time, and justification which follows it (as well as pardon) must be so too.  
Some look down so brutishly upon one extreme, 
The Separatist and Debaucher or Anti-hypocrite  that they never can advert to the other, one is so wholly intent upon his jealousies of Tyranny and Popery, that he never sees or fears Rebellion and disobedience, whilst another in avoidance of this Hypocrisy, rushes into a worse extreme of Debauchery, and is so resolved an anti-hypocrite, that he will not endure so much as a form of godliness, but rather than seem religious will proclaim his sin as Sodom; rather than hypocritically abstain from the appearance of evil, and not from the evil itself, as the other doth, he will abstain impudently both from good and from its appearance; and though a Professor of Christianity, will vie with the effronteries of the most shameless Heathens, in disclosing those pudendous enormities which he hath done, and that he may not be outdone, in boasting of more than he ever had the appetite, or (if that yet) possibly the strength to perpetrate, thus he hates hypocrisy worse than the other loves it, and by glorying in his impiety, not only displeaseth, but as the more horrid Devil of the two, even despiseth God.  
It would be endless to remark upon the numberless divisions and subdivisions of Sectaries, yet all equally pretending to be, and (how ill soever or awry they look) to be looked upon by us as our reformers, all equally dissenters from, Reformers without, and Usurpers against authority, all equally admirers of themselves and despisers of their Superiors. Now what a monster think we were that Church like to be, whose formation or reformation were thus effected, that were to be licked into shape and feature by the poisonous slavering tongues of all these! or what can we imagine would look liker the abomination of desolation!  
All this while the Holy, Humble, Sincere-hearted man, that trembles at the word of God, and is afraid of his judgements, or in other words, the truly Loyal and Christian subject, he looks directly with ease and pleasure into the perfect Law of liberty, his magna charta indeed, where he finds his privilege in his duty, and his liberty in his obedience; his fear is not taught him by the Traditions or practices, the policies or prosperities of men. He has learned whom to fear, and for whom; the Lord for his own sake, and the King for the Lord's sake; both or neither. He measures his whole Religion by his adequate obedience to God and man; and his whole obedience by the Law of God, whether bidding him (semper) obey his Rulers, etc. or forbidding him (ad semper) to worship Idols, etc. Both are alike his duty, alike conducible to his Salvation, alike (when transgressed) threatened with Damnation, and therefore reckons that he must needs be subject, not only for fear of wrath or hope of profit, for fear of hell or hope of Heaven, but for Conscience towards God and ourselves; for that this precept of obedience is not only consequentially good as every positive Law is, but simply good, and so antecedently obliging as a part of the Law of Nature, without any relation to the written Law, which here serves only to make disobedience more unexcusable, and under a greater condemnation. Wherefore he still reckons on, that no form of godliness can be more than so without common honesty, no common honesty without giving all their deuce, nothing more due than what the subject owes to the Sovereign; whereupon he concludes that dishonesty, as such, is ungodliness and disobedience, as scandalous as drunkenness or adultery. Thus the good subject has reviewed himself, but cannot go from the glass without a duteous filial reflection upon his Prince; let us attend him in this posture also, and mark what he reports from his own eyes.  
He tells us he once saw in this glass, that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that exemplar and ornament of Royalty, the First CHARLES of England, so like as only not equal to his Prince and Saviour; in his Solitudes a Prophet, in his Sufferings both King and Priest, or according to that new name received at his second Baptism, the ROYAL MARTYR: in the circumstances of his Apprehension, and Arraignment, in the matter of his Charge and Defence, the manner of his Death and Burial, in the glorious Resurrection of his Name and Memory, (a name embalmed with spices of its own) in his living to do good and dying to do more, yea in dying expressly to save his People's Liberties and Properties, he hath so revived the history of the Cross, that he can see Christ in this his Principal member Crucified again, He can point to the Council, to the Soldiers, to the Judas, to the , to the Golgotha, etc. He bids us remember we had, Alas that we had! such a Prince; of Piety to that degree as was alone sufficient to add the excess to our iniquity, and fascination to the Rebellion of his people; and were not Oblivion enacted into duty, he could never forget— Exit Tyrannus Regum ultimus, So died that worst of Tyrants and last of Kings, that ingrain as engraven Inscription of our Antiplastical Protector— Exeo Martyr Populi, Behold I die the Martyr of the People, that innocent and Heroic expiration of the Royal Sufferer. However he'll be sure to remember to pray that— Ne sit Martyr in populum, his blood might not be a witness against these Nations, might not be upon us and upon our children, may at last be the merciful sentence of the supreme Avenger. Amen. 
Amen.   
He now sees in the same glass, by a providence as full of mercy as wonder, another CHARLES, a Second from the First, there's a specialty of mercy; and a Second to that First, there's the wonder. Such a Second to such a First must needs demonstrate the wisdom and goodness of God to be alike infinite. For what but a most unparallelled and stupendous clemency in such a Son, could ever have qualified him to forgive (did I say) nay to forget, a like impiety against such a Father! what but such a Miracle of Magnanimity or Christian patience in the one, could have pardoned even to Oblivion the guilt of those who so eminently were self-condemned by the Piety and Innocency of the other!  
A Royal temper indeed! enough at once to put us out of doubt why, or how 'tis said that Kings are gods, and into doubt again, whether there be not a better medium of Government than Fear! whether the 
* Tacitè permittitur quod sine ultione prohibetur. Tertul.  Father's Assertion, that what is not congruously punished is tacitly allowed, might not now be put to Problem in its own defence? And indeed were there as much force as there is reason in goodness to oblige, the doubt were over, there being nothing in the world that should so reasonably influence the minds of men as the sense of kindness without the reason of merit, much more, against the reason of our demerits. But the corruption of humane nature being such as ordinarily nourisheth pride in ourselves and malignity against goodness in others, it consequently joins enmity with ingratitude and perverseness to disobedience, whence it proves so very hazardous an experiment of ruling, as is thought worthy to be checked by a Proverb, of killing with kindness; and therefore the experience of all times has made it out of question, that Laws would be no more than idle ludicrous things, if they were not dignified and asserted by their sanctions of rewards and punishments. However, if the Subjects of such a Prince, would but give him the honour of his own mercy (which can never be well done but with the utmost of a grateful obedience) no good man would grudge them the benefit of the same: and if they should do so ill as to preclude to themselves this; yet let them not do worse than so by denying their Prince that. Can we now not acknowledge the kindness of that Providence, which first gave us, then preserved for us, and afterward restored to us such a Prince as this, and all these in such a manner; so signal and above ordinary course, by a Star at his Birth, by his escape at Worcester, and by his unbloudy Restauration, when, as ill as we had used him, he was more desired and wanted by the Nations than they could be by him?  
We cannot for our hearts deny, or if we could that, yet we cannot for our senses but confess those Testimonies God himself hath thus given of his pity and mercy towards us in the instance of this Monarch of mercy, and shall we dare to pervert our apprehensions of this blessing into jealousies and fears against him, instead of thankfulness to God for him, or make our experience of God's gracious Providence in this Succession, a ground for doubting or shifting it in the next? God forbidden.  
Let us never hope to prosper by iniquity, who are sure we can never be miserable without sin. We know we may and how we may be happy in Suffering, with comfort and without guilt; yet neither so, nor so, when we suffer for our own sakes and not for Gods, when we do against the command, that which is not righteous, that we may not suffer, according to the command, for that which is. For as he said, necesse est ut eam non ut vivam, so we all know our Obedience is necessary, when our Security may not, and our resistance cannot be so.  
He tells us now he will step a while from the glass, and make room for our dissenting brethren to come and see, and then tell us plainly, whether what has been here represented, be not so there; and as the worst he wishes to them is that what he hath seen or said might be beneficial; so the best he can hope for them is that by their compliance with, (or rather than fail, their condescension to) their Superious, they will make it so. This, as it is the greatest Charity he can have for them; so is it the least as he saith, that for his own part he would use towards them. For that as long and as steadily as he hath been looking in this Glass, and among so many plain and evident rules of Faith and Practice, as he hath seen there, he cannot discern the least shadow of ground or reason to justify the making, or excuse the maintaining their Separation; (but much, very much, to aggravate and condemn both) And therefore he warrantably concludes, that, abstractly from Pride or Ignorance, Interest or Humour, there can be none. And therefore also he Conjures and Obtests his brethren by the mercies of God; by the bowels of Christ; by the Indulgence of the King, and the Love of their Country; by the Honour of Religion, and the Bond of Nature; by the Reason of Law, and the Obligation of Conscience; by the Gild of their League, and the Debt of their Allegiance; by the Miseries of the First, and the Mercies of the Second CHARLES; by the Truth of their Repentance for the one, and Gratitude to the other; by the Grief and fear of their acknowledged brethren, and the Rage and hope of the common enemy; by the Memory of former, as the Fate of all future disobedience; by the dearest and most prevailing names, of Christian-Catholick-Reformed-Protestant (and) Englishmen, they would now give us the right hand of Fellowship, and both hands of help and assistance, by an hearty compliance with, and submission to the most approved, equal, comely, Primitive and Apostolic Established Government, of this Confessedly True, Sound, Lawful, Reformed, Protestant CHURCH of ENGLAND.  
FINIS.   

Henry Brome's Advertisement. 1680.  
WHereas there are several Discourses and Pamphlets abroad in the World, that pass for the Writings of Mr. Roger L'Estrange; wherein he never had any hand at all; This is to Advertise the Reader, that he hath lately Published these following Pieces, (all but the Two last) and no other.  

Toleration Discussed, in a Dialogue betwixt a Conformist and a Nonconformist, and betwixt a Presbyterian and an Independent.  
Seneca's Morals Abstracted.  
The Guide to Eternity.  
Tully's Offices, in English.  
Twenty Select Colloquies of Erasmus in English.  
Tyranny and Popery Lording it over the Consciences and Lives of the King and People.  
The Reformed Catholic.  
The History of the Plot in Folio.  
The Freeborn Subject.  
The Case Put for the Duke of York.  
An Answer to the Appeal.  
Seasonable Memorials.  
The Parallel, or The Growth of Knavery.  
A Dialogue betwixt a Citizen and Bumpkin.  
A Dialogue betwixt a Citizen and Bumpkin, the second Part.  
A Further Discovery of the Plot, with a Letter to Dr. Titus' Oats.  
The Gentleman Apothecary.  
Five Love-Letters Translated.  
Discovery on Discovery, in a second Letter to Dr. Titus' Oats.  
The Committee, or, Popery in Masquerade, curiously done in a Copperplate.  
The Way of Peace.  
The Arts and Pernicious Designs of Rome.