THE Case of PERSECUTION, Charged on the Church of England, Considered and Discharged, In order to Her JUSTIFICATION, AND A Desired Union of Protestant Dissenters.  
The Parliament made good Laws: The Papists, out of a Pretended Reverence to Tender Consciences, hindered the Execution of them; and some Leading Dissenters (to say no more) had private Encouragement, to set up a mighty Cry of Persecution, to cast all the Odium on a Persecuting Church, and Diocesan Cannoneers. Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet, p. 68  
But Wisdom is justified of her Children,  Matth. xi. nineteen. 
Licenced and Entered according to Order.  
LONDON: Printed by Freeman Collins; and are to be Sold by Richard Baldwin, in the Old-Bailey. MDCLXXXIX.   

TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD, JONATHAN, Lord Bishop OF EXON.  
May it please your Lordship,  
THIS slender Present comes as a grateful Expression of that great Satisfaction and Joy with which your Clergy were filled; when your Lordship was installed our Diocesan.  
Your Lordship's Client, according to his mean Abilities, hath lately endeavoured after our Saviour's Method, to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and now he assays to give unto God, and his Church, the things that are God's. The Offering, I confess, is little, and lean, but coming as a Dove with an Olive Branch to that Ark, which hath been long tossed with succeeding Waves, bringing Tidings of the Abatement of that Deluge which had overflown the Church and Nation, and that the frightful Noise of Persecution doth now cease in our Land; I hope it may be taken into that Ark by your Lordship's Hand. The Widow's Mite which she cast into the Treasury, was graciously accepted by our blessed Saviour, and indeed it is only your Lordship's Approbation can give a Value to this Mite, as the Royal Stamp doth to those Metals which have no Intrinsic value in themselves. My endeavour is by a few Arguments, to silence those Murmur, Fears, and Jealousies, that the Church of England will be (as they slanderously report it hath been) a Persecuting Church; and this would be as needless, if we had to do with reasonable Men, and real Protestants, as to prove, that the Martyred Bishops in Queen Mary's days, who also were our first Reformers, were Persecutors, and destroyers of that Religion which they planted by their Doctrine, and watered with their Blood in every corner of their Kingdom, and which hitherto as a fruitful Vine hath brought forth such Fruit as hath honoured GOD and Man. But what need is there to draw a Line, 
Judges 9.11.  when we have the Works of Apelles before us.  
The more than Heroic Deeds of yourself, and those ever memorable Bishops your Colleagues, of whom our English World was not worthy, have struck dead all such Objectors, who as one Man stood up, as Phinees did, and by Petitioning, or as the other Translation hath it, by executing of Judgement, Psal. 106. v. 30.  
And by laying not only your Dignities and Honours, but your Lives and Fortunes in the Gap, gave a check and diversion to those Plagues of Popery and Slavery, which with so much otherwise Irresistible Violence were breaking in upon us.  
And how can those Bishops be any longer accounted Persecutors, or unworthy of the Mitre, who were such prepared Candidates for a Crown of Martyrdom for themselves, and so resolved Assertros of the liberty of the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God and our Saviour, for their Protestant Brethren. But as Suetonius, c. 74. says of Julius Caesar, That he thought it not enough that his Wife was without a Fault, but that she ought to be clear from all Suspicion of a Fault. Oportet uxorem Caesaris non solum crimine verum omni Criminis suspicion career.  
His present Majesty, after mature Consideration, hath now consummated the Union of our Established Church with his Royal Person, which he long since espoused by its Proxy, and lively Effigies, His Royal Consort, and which hath hitherto to his good liking, behaved herself, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as an unspotted Virgin; for thus hath our Royal Sovereign solemnly declared in the most August Assembly of the Nation, That he is resolved to support that Church, whose Loyalty he doubted not would enable him to Answer their just Expectation, and that it should be always his particular Care, and as soon as conveniently it might be he would call a Convocation: So that now there is as little cause of Suspicion left, that the Established Church should be a Persecuting, as that it can be a Popish Church; or that we shall have merely a Parliamentary Religion, as the Papists say, as that we shall have a Popish Religion, as some Dissenters fear. It is too apparent, that the Church was singled out as a Sacrifice, and devoted by the Papists to Destruction, and for Protection, as a Dove Persecuted by the Romish Eagle; she hath taken Sanctuary in the Bosom of our present Sovereign, and who can think that under the Influence and Conduct of so propitious, and benign a Protestant Prince, that Dove should be transubstantiated into a Serpent. Nor can her greatest Enemy suppose her to be so void of all Reason and Religion, as to forget those Vows which she made in that day of her Distress, which our Divisions made so Dark and Tempestuous, of her ready Inclination to a happy Union, in which our Strength and Security against our common Adversaries doth consist. And the God of Peace, who only can do it, make us all that dwell in one House, to be of one Mind, to know and do the things that belong to our Peace, before they are hid from our Eyes.  
I beg your. Lordship's Patience to hear a great Truth, which will never shame its Owner. We were at first hurried at so great a distance from one another, crumbled into so many Sects and Factions, and have been for almost Fifty Years together, running into irremediable Separations, by the Whips and Spurs of those furious Drivers and Riders, our common Enemies the Papists, whose secret, but now sensible Lashes, (and they must needs go, whom the Devil transformed into an Angel of Light, doth drive) have forced us to run into such Confusion, and Corruption, as none but he that raiseth the Dead could repair the decayed Careasses of our Church and State. And very Glorious would those Bodies have appeared at that Resurrection, were it not for some wrangling Sadduces, who would rather maintain an Annihilation, than grant a Resurrection; for whose Confutation it was necessary, for such as were concerned on the behalf of the Church, to assert her Doctrine, and their own Innocency under the late Revolutions; when therefore for the Re-establishment of the Church, a Commission was granted to some of different Persuasions, to consult thereupon; the Spirit of the Covenant did so stir in some Dissenters, as to move them to insist upon a necessity of Reformation of Episcopacy, and Liturgy, of Doctrine and Worship, to which the Advocates for the Church could not yield to the Satisfaction of their Adversaries, unless they had taken the guilt of all the former Wars and Confusions on themselves, and so have given their Adversaries an occasion to cry Victoria, and to triumph in their Destruction; from which they were sufficiently cautioned by the unreasonable Deal of those Men with the Royal Martyr, who taking Advantage by his too free, but on their parts forced Concessions, granting them all that in Reason and Conscience he could part with, still craved more, until they most unconscionably, and barbarously had worried him out of his Life. God forbidden such Obstinacy should still be predominant among us, when there are so many powerful Adversaries watching and labouring for our Divisions and Destruction. We have chosen indifferent Arbitrators to compose our Divisions, and heal our Breaches, and by the Blessing of God, we have an Umpire who is both able and willing to determine them; let us once more agree to submit to their Determination, and I doubt not, that although we may not have what may please every one, yet we may have what will profit us all. And now, my Lord, I beg your Pardon for this Trespass on your Patience, and hearty pray God for his Blessing on your Lordship's Endeavours in that Station wherein you now are, the Consideration of which (it being for a more public benefit) can only compensate your Absence, until it shall please God to grant us your Presence for our more particular welfare, which is much desired, and will be very acceptable to this your Diocese, and Native Country: And especially to  
Exon, April 27. 1689. being the day of your Lordship's Installation. Your Lordship's Most Humbly Devoted Servant, THO. LONG.   

THE OCCASION OF Publishing THIS TREATISE.  
IT was not the numerous Pamplets, which like so many Swarms of Infects raised out of Dunghills, have darkened and infected the English Air, and darting forth their impotent Stings, as so many Ephimeri, died the same day, Animamque in vulnere ponunt; but the Witchcraft of such as would raise the Dead to insect the Living; and as Evil Spirits disturb the Bodies of such as would rest in their Graves, to affright men out of their Wits first, and then out of their Religion, that hath given occasion to this little Tract: For to this end, the Posthumous Works of Mr. Clarkson, concerning Episcopacy and Liturgy, are Conjured up; and two Fiery Flying-Serpents, so full gorged with with Venom, that unless they vented it, it would have broke them, are flown abroad to amuse and infect the Unwary People, and turn their Hosana's to the Bishops, into a Crucifigite, and by perpetuating our Divisions, to keep open those Gaps that our Common Enemies have made, to bring in Popery and Slavery upon us: Such I take to be that Buffonery Scribbler, Hickringle, who profanely Drolls in Scripture-phrase, and as the Spawn of the Great Leviathan, or Solomon's Fool, casts Firebrands, Arrows, and Death, and makes it his Sport to do Mischief: an unlucky Bird, that attempts not only to Defile, but Destroy his own Nest by setting it on Fire: With this Boutéfeu Mr. R. B. hath joined himself in the same Design; and though like Sampson's Foxes, they look several ways, yet are they agreed, with Firebrands at their Tails, to run through and destroy our Cornfields. These are such sworn Enemies to the Peace of the Church, as nothing can satisfy, but a delenda Carthago, they lay their Axes to the root of that Tree, by the fall whereof they must inevitably perish. Their Works are so filthy and nauseous, that none but such as delight to wallow in the Mire, or to lick up what others have vomited forth, will fix an eye upon them: As to Mr. R. B.'s late, but often repeated and refuted Scribble, called, The English Nonconformity under King Charles the Second, and King James the Second; the words in the Title-page, and in the Conclusion, will sufficiently discover the Temper of the Workman, and the Nature of the Materials, to be both obb and warp from the beginning to the end; true Kidderminster-Stuff: In the Title page, he earnestly beseecheth Rulers and Clergy, not to divide the Land, and cast their own Souls on the dreadful Gild and Punishment of National Perjury, Lying, deliberate Covenanting, to Sin against God, Corrupt his Church, and not Amend; nor by Laws, or blind Malignity, to Reproach Faithful Ministers of Christ, and Judge them to Scorn and Beggardy, and to lie and die in Goals as Rogues, and so to strengthen Profaneness, Popery and Schism; and all for want of Willingness and Patience to Read and Hear their Just Defence, while they can spend much more time in Sin and Vanity: The Author humbly begs, that he and his Books of Unconfuteable Defence, of a Mistaken Persecuted Cause, may not be Witnesses against them, for such great and wilful Sin, to their Condemnation; to which he subjoins from Luke 13.3, 5. Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. In the second Page, he boasts (of what indeed ought to be his Shame) of his Pleas for Peace, wherein, he says, he showed how great and heinous the Sin of Conformity is. 

2ly, Of his Treatise of Episcopacy.  
3ly, Of his Apoloy.  
4ly, Of another Plea for Peace.  
5ly, Of a Treatise of Church-Concord: and that nothing like an Answer to any of these, hath been made, save that to some part of the first, some mere impertinant Noise, by some One that is Confuted, p. 3.   I wonder much that such Learned Men as Dr. Stilling fleet, Dr. Morrice, and others, who have Answered his Pleas (for Separation, not) for Peace, and his Tract of Episcopacy, etc. should condescend to draw the Saw with so Contentious a Person; but much more, that after they had so exposed him, as an Ignorant and Malicious Scribbler, he should again expose himself so far as to remind his Readers to inquire after those Answers which will demonstrate with how great Malice, and little Learning he did, and still doth oppose himself, even against those things, which in his Sober Intervals, he did allow. In the 4th Chapter, he reckoneth up Forty things required to Conformity, which he accounts to be Sinful: and in Chapter 56. Thirty Tremendous Circumstances and Principles that affright Men from Conformity.  
His Words in the Conclusion, p. 303. are these: If it be the Preachers of the Gospel, that yet will give the Land no Peace, but cry out, Execute, Prosecute, suffer not, strike home, and their Judgement be the Executioners Encouragement, who say, The Clergy tell us it is our Duty: I had rather answer them with Tears than Words— Is not Silencing, taking all we have, and lying in Jail among Rogues, from six Months to six Months, till we die, greater Slavery than the Turks inflict on Christians? What is this for, and on what sort of Men? Who be they that have caused and continued it, after Twenty Seven Years experience of the Effects? What is Diabolism, if this be not? Why is not Public Repentance of it Proclaimed? Now whereto tends all this, but to make the World believe, that the Church of England, and such Rulers as Defend and Support it, are all of them Lying, Perjured, and Intolerable Persecutors. As for his Colleague Mr. Hickringle, I shall need to say no more than this: That the Design of his Book against Ceremony-Mongers, is sufficiently shown, by his other Book against the TEST and Penal Laws; as if the Injunction of them were a Persecution; for the removal of which Groundless Scandal, the following Treatise is now Published.   

The Preface.  
SINCE it hath pleased Almighty GOD, in his tender Compassion to a Sinful Nation, to set over us a King and Queen who do naturally take Care for us, and as industriously seek to Unite and Preserve, as the late King did to Divide and Destroy us: We should no longer think of showing our Zeal for Christ, as James and John did, by calling for Fire from Heaven to consume all such as follow not us and our Opinion; but as useful Members under such an able Head, Unite into one Body, that we may withstand the furious Attempts of our Common Adversaries, who incessantly seek to improve the Seeds of Discord, which they have sown amongst us, for our utter Extirpation: And that I may remove and prevent the Prejudices which such as have hitherto Separated from the Established Worship, have conceived against the Governors of the Church, under Regal Authority, I shall here desire them to consider, what Condescensions and Concessions they have been always ready to make for the Ease of all Tender Consciences, and to which they are ready to Agree,  the Supreme Power shall commit the Consideration of those things to the Parliament and Convocation.  
His Majesty Charles the Second, in a Declaration from Breda, promised a Liberty to Tender Consciences, and that no Man should be disquieted or called in question for Differences of Opinion in Matters of Religion, which did not disturb the Peace of the Kingdom; and that he should be ready to consent to such an Act of Parliament, as upon mature Deliberation should be offered to him, for granting such an Indulgence: After which he sets forth his Declaration to all his loving Subjects of the Kingdom of England, and Dominion of Wales, concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs, Dated at Whitehall the 25th of October, 1660; which certainly was sufficient to satisfy all sober Protestants: He grants a Commission to some Persons of the Presbyterian, as well as of the Episcopal Persuasion; but what little Effect all these things wrought towards a Reconciliation, and by whose Fault, will thus appear: In his Majesty's Declaration, he desired the Dissenters to Read as much of the Common-Prayers, as they had no just Exceptions against: yet, though some had declared, they could Use the greatest part of it, I never heard, that any of them did comply with so reasonable a Desire of his Majesty; but instead thereof, they Petition for a Reformation both of Doctrine and Discipline, and that Commissioners might be appointed to Compile a New Form, or Reform the Old. And though the King denied the making of a New, having expressed his esteem of the Old, in his Declaration, Octob. 25. yet Mr. B. or some others, drew up another Liturgy, in eight Days time, which they confessed had many Imperfections, yet they call it their more Correct Nepenthe, and Protest before God and Men, against the Dose of Opium; (i.e.) the Liturgy recommended by the King and Parliament, as that which tended to the Cure of their Disease, by Extinguishing of Life, and to Unite them in a Dead Religion; and tell the Bishops, If these be all the Amendments and Abatements you will admit, you sell your Innocency and the Church's Peace for nothing. And in the due Account and Petition, they reflect as severely upon his Majesty, saying, We must needs believe, that when his Majesty took our Consent to a Liturgy, to be a Foundation that would infer our Concord, you (i. e. your Majesty) meant not that we should have no Concord, but by consenting to this Liturgy without any considerable Alterations. And in the close of the second Paper, they tell the King, If they should lose the opportunity of their desired Reconciliation, it astonisheth them to foresee what doleful Effects our Divisions would produce. As Basil said to Valens, so they, p. 117. of their Reply, If you will receive the true Faith, thy Son shall live; which when he refused, he said, The Will of God be done with thy Son: So we say too; if you will put on Charity, and promote the Church's Peace, God will Honour you, but if you will do contrary, the Will of the Lord be done, with your Honours.  
And as to the Laws, in a Prognostication set out 1661., p. 12, 13. they talk of new Impositions, Subscriptions and Oaths, Words and Actions which they believe to be against the Word of God; this reflects on the Legislators. Dr. Stillingfleet observed of the first Plea for Peace, That it looked as if it had been designed on purpose to represent the Clergy of our Church, as a company of Notorious Lying and Perjured Villains. And that Author, in his Answer to the Doctor's Sermon, p. 73. chargeth him with pleading for Presumption, Profanation, Usurpation, Uncharitableness, and Schism. And in the Preface of the Second Defence, That the Doctor's Book is made up of 

1. Untrue Accusations.  
2. Untrue Historical Citations.  
3. Fallatious Reasonings.   That Learned Doctor had propounded several Concessions to be made for the Ease of Dissenters, (not without the Consent and Direction of his Superiors, as I have been informed) all which Mr. B. rejects, saying, That the Benefit would redound sibi & suis; not reaching our Necessities, p. 21. of the Second Defence. I cannot omit what an ingenious Person writes in his Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet, which may serve to retort this Reflection, p. 68 I will tell Mr. B. a Secret which I have heard, but hope he will not put me to prove it; That the Parliament made good Laws, the Papists, out of pretended Reverence to Tender Consciences, hindered the Execution of them: and some Leading fanatics (to say no more) had private Encouragement, to set up a mighty Cry of Persecution, to cast all the Odium on a Persecuting Church, and Diocesan Cannoneers. In the Year 1681, was printed an Apology for the Nonconformist Ministers, to justify their Preaching contrary to Law; the Book is directed to the Right Reverend Bishops of London, Lincoln, Hereford, Carlisle, St. David's, and Peterborough, and others, of their Moderation, which he calls our best Bishops: But with what Reverence and Moderation doth the Author Treat them? P. 233. We Humbly lay these Petitions at your Feet, and beseech you, for the Souls of many Hundred Thousands, that you who call yourselves Fathers and Pastors of the Church, will not deny them the Bread of Life: We beseech you to come out of your Palaces, and be familiar with the People, and dwell in some Country Village, as we have done, that you may not see many Hundred Thousands Damned by your means, and you have nothing to say, when it is too late, but a non Putarum, that the instances of the obduration of Pharaoh, and the Pharisees, make you not afraid, lest the Wrath of God come upon you to the utmost, while you please not God, and are contrary to all Men, forbidding Christ's Labourers to preach to the Ignorant and Impenitent, that they may be saved: 1 Thess: 2.15. O that God would make them sensible how many thousand persons Damnation is like to be charged upon them for what they have already done, these seventeen Years, hindering so many Faithful Ministers: I must profess, if it were the last word I should speak, in the World, that I had rather be the basest Scavenger, yea, and suffer many Deaths, than be found at the Judgment-Seat of Christ, in the Place and Gild of those of you (the best and most moderate Bishops, etc.) who have done what is done against the Gospel and Church of Christ in this Land. In p. 236. the Author opposeth this Question in behalf of the Bishops, Why do I write all this to you (Bishops,) and not to his Majesty and the Parliament? I answer, It is not them, nor any of their Laws and Actions, which in all this Book, I intent to speak against— Yet the whole design of the Book was to Justify the Preaching of Non conformists contrary to Law. And p. 104. he says, No Bishops have Silenced us by Spiritual Government, that we know of, but only as Barons by the Secular Laws, to which they gave their Votes; and (he acknowledgeth) all did not. These Contradictions cannot be reconciled: And it was no less than a Spirit of Contradictions that wrought in the hearts of such Men as thus opposed themselves to the Establishment made by the Parliament, notwithstanding the many Alterations then made in the Liturgy and Rubrics, and the Reasons given for them in the Preface before the Common-Prayer, and the Discourse concerning Ceremonies, which there follows. And because the farther Concessions opposed by that Learned Dr. Stillingfleet, may give some satisfaction to the Reader, how willing the Church was to propose Terms of Reconciliation, I have here set them down, that it may appear also, how unreasonably they were despised by the Men of that Generation: And that this Doctor may not stand alone, or be thought to propose his own Sentiments only, I shall join with him the Reverend Dean of Canterbury, in a Sermon preached at the Yorkshire Feast, Anno 1679, p. 28. Though it was not for private Persons (says he) to undertake in matters of public Concernment, yet I have no cause to doubt, but the Governors of our Church (notwithstanding all the Advantages, and Authority too, which are on their side) were persons of that Piety and Prudence, that for Peace sake, and in order to a firm Union among Protestants, they would be content, if that would do it, not to insist upon little things, but to yield them up, whether to the Infirmity or Importunity, or perhaps in some very few things to the plausible Exceptions of those who differed from them. Dr. Sherlock makes up a Triumvirate, after whom I shall not need, though I could mention many Auxiliaries, in a Sermon preached before the Lord-Mayor, Novemb. 1688. We have reason to hope, that the Church of England, which at the beginning of the Reformation, took such prudent care not to offend the Papists in going farther from them than was necessary, will, whenever it is likely to do good, condescend to a great deal farther than it is necessary to Reform, to meet the Dissenters; for while the External Decency, Gravity, and Solemnity of Worship is secured, no wise and good Man will think much to change a changeable Ceremony, when it will heal the Divisions and Breaches of the Church: And let us all hearty pray to God, that there may be this good and peaceable Disposition of Mind in all Conformists and Non-conformists towards a happy Reunion. And all considering Men will think it time to lay aside such little Disputes, when it is not merely the Church of England, nor any particular Sect of Protestants, whose Ruin is aimed at, but the whole Protestant Faith.  
And to evidence that this was the Sense of the Governors of our Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with his Six Brethren, did declare, in their Petition to the late King, That they did not refuse to distribute and publish his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, for any want of due Tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom they were willing to come to such a Temper, as should be thought fit, when that matter should be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation.  
And in the Articles commended to the Bishops of his Province, and their Clergy, he Exhorts, That they walk in Wisdom towards them that are not of our Communion; and if there be in their Parishes any such, that they neglect not frequently to confer with them in the Spirit of Meekness, seeking by all good ways and means to gain them to our Communion; more especially, that they have a very tender regard to our Brethren the Protestant Dissenters, that upon occasion offered, they visit them at their Houses, and receive them kindly at their own, and treat them fairly wherever they meet them, persuading them, if it may be, to a full Compliance with our Church, or at least, that whereunto we have already attained, we may all walk by the same Rule, and mind the same Thing; and in order hereunto, that they take all opportunities of assuring and convincing them, that the Bishops of this Church are really and sincerely irreconcilable to the Errors, Superstitions, Idolatries, and Tyrannies of the Church of Rome; and that they warmly and most affectionately exhort them to join with us in daily fervent Prayer to the God of Peace, for an universal blessed Union of all the Reformed Churches, at home and abroad, against our common Enemies, and that all they who confess the Holy Name of our Dear Lord, and agree in the Truth of his Holy Word, may also meet in one Holy Communion, and live in perfect Unity and Godly Love. And it is well known, that many Ministers in the City and Country, were accounted Trimmers, and threatened to be Prosecuted themselves, because they refused to Present and Prosecute their Dissenting Neighbours: So that both the Bishops, and others of the Established Clergy, have been always ready to Sacrifice their private Peace and Interest, to the public Walfare.  
The Reverend Dean of St. Paul's Proposals, or Terms of Union, betwixt the Church of England, and the Dissenters: Taken out his Preface to the Unreasonableness of Separation, p. 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94. are as followeth:  
Quest. Is there nothing to be done for Dissenting Protestants, who agree with us in all Doctrinal Articles of our Church, and only scruple the use of a few Ceremonies, and some late Impositions? Shall these Differences still be continued, when they may be so easily removed, and so many useful Men encouraged, and taken into the Constitution? Do we value a few Indifferent Ceremonies, and some late Declarations, and doubtful Expressions, beyond the Satisfaction of men's Consciences, and the Peace and Stability of this Church?  
As to this material Question, I shall crave leave to deliver my Opinion freely and impartially; and that,  
I. With respect to the Case of the People; the Terms of whose Union with us, is acknowledged by our Brethren to be so much easier than their own. But these are of two sorts:  

1. Some allow the use of the Liturgy, but say they cannot join in Communion with us, because the participation of the Sacraments hath such Rites and Ceremonies annexed to it, which they think unlawful; and therefore, till these be removed, or left indifferent, they dare not join with us in Baptism, or the Lord's Supper; because in the one the Cross is used, and in the other Kneeling is required. As to these I answer, 

(1.) Upon the most diligent Search I could make into these things, I find no good ground for any scruple of Conscience, as to the use of these Ceremonies; and as little as any as to the Sign of the Cross, as it is used in our Church; notwithstanding all the noise that hath been made about its being a New Sacrament, and I know not what; but of this at large in the following Treatise.  
(2.) I see no ground for the People's Separation from other Acts of Communion, on the account of some Rites they suspect to be unlawful: And especially when the use of such Rites is none of their own Act, as the Cross in Baptism is not; and when such an Explication is annexed concerning the intention of Kneeling at the Lord's Supper, as is in the Rubric after the Communion.  
(3.) Notwithstanding, because the use of Sacraments in a Christian Church, aught to be the most free from all Exceptions, and they ought to be so Administered, as rather to invite than discourage scrupulous Persons from joining with them: I do think it would be a part of Christian Wisdom and Condescension in the Governors of our Church, to remove those Bars from a freedom in joining in full Communion with us. Which may be done, either by wholly taking away the Sign of the Cross; or if that may give offence to others, by confining the use of it to the public Administration of Baptism, or by leaving it indifferent, as the Parents desire it. As to Kneeling at the Lord's Supper, since some Posture is necessary, and many Devout People scruple any other, and the Primitive Church did in Ancient times receive it in the Posture of Adoration, there is no reason to take this away, even in Parochial Churches; provided, that those who scruple Kneeling, do receive it with the least Offence to others, and rather Standing than Sitting, because the former is most agreeable to the practice of Antiquity, and of our Neighbour-Reformed Churches. As to the Surplice in Parochial Churches, it is not of that consequence as to bear a Dispute one way or other; and as to Cathedral Churches, there is no necessity of Alteration. But there is another thing which seems to be of late much scrupled in Baptism, viz. The use of God fathers and God mothers Excluding the Parents. Although: I do not question, but the Practice of our Church may be justified, (as I have done it towards the end of the following Treatise) yet I see no necessity of adhering so strictly to the Cannon herein, but that a little Alteration may prevent these Scruples, either by permitting the Parents to join with the Sponsors; or by the Parents publicly desiring the Sponsors to represent them in offering the Child to Baptism; or which seems most agreeable to Reason, that the Parents offer the Child to Baptism, and then the Sponsors perform the Covenanting part, representing the Child; and the Charge after Baptism be given in common to the Parents and Sponsors. 
These things being allowed, I see no obstruction remaining, as to a full Union of the Body of such Dissenters with us, in all Acts of Divine Worship, and Christian Communion, as do not reject all Communion with us unlawful.   
2. But because there are many of those who are become zealous Protestants, and plead much their Communion with us in Faith and Doctrine, although they cannot join with us in Worship, because they deny the Lawfulness of Liturgies, and the right Constitution of our Churches; Their case deserves some consideration, whether, and how far they are capable of being made serviceable to the common Interest, and to the support of the Protestant Religion among us.   
To their Case I answer,  
First, That a general unlimited Toleration to Dissenting Protestants, will soon bring Confusion among us, and in the end Popery, as I have showed already; and a Suspension of all the Penal Laws that relate to Dissenters is the same thing with a boundless Toleration.  
Secondly, If any present Favours be granted to such, in consideration of our Circumstances, and to prevent their Conjunction with the Papists, for a general Toleration, (for if ever the Papists obtain it, it must be under their Name:). If, I say, such Favours be thought fit to be showed them, it ought to be with such Restrictions and Limitations, as may prevent the Mischief which may easily follow upon it: For all such Meetings are a perpetual Reproach to our Churches, by their declaring, That our Churches are no true Churches; that our manner of Worship is unlawful; and that our Church-Government is Antichristian; and that on these accounts they separate from us, and Worship God by themselves. But if such an Indulgence be thought fit to be granted, I humbly offer these things to Consideration.  

1. That none be permitted to enjoy the privilege of it, who do not declare, That they do hold Communion with our Churches to be Unlawful. For it seems unreasonable to allow it to others, and will give Countenance to endless and causeless Separations.  
2. That all who enjoy it, besides taking the Test against Popery, do subscribe the Thirty Six Articles of our Faith, because the pretence of this Liberty, is joining with us in Points of Faith; and this may more probably prevent Papists getting in amongst them.  
3. That all such as enjoy it, must declare the particular Congregations they are of, and enter their Names before such Commissioners as shall be Authorized for that purpose; that so this may be no pretence for Idle, Lose, and Profane Persons, never going to any Church at all.  
4. That both Preachers and Congregations be liable to severe Penalties, if they use any bitter or reproachful words, either in Sermons or Writings, against the Established Constitution of our Churches; because they desire only the freedom of their own Consciences; and the using this Liberty, will discover it is not Conscience, but a turbulent factious Humour, which makes them separate from our Communion.  
5. That all indulged Persons be particularly obliged to pay all legal Duties to the Parochial Churches, (lest mere Covetousness tempt Men to run among them) and no Persons so indulged, be capable of any Public Office. It not being reasonable that such should be trusted with Government, who look upon the Worship Established by Law as Unlawful.  
6. That no other Penalty be laid on such indulged Persons, but that of Twelve Pence a Sunday for their absence from their Parochial Churches, which ought to be duly Collected for the Use of the Poor, and cannot be complained of as any heavy Burden, considering the Liberty they do enjoy by it.  
7. That the Bishops, as Visitors appointed by Law, have an exact Account given to them, of the Rule of their Worship and Discipline, and of all the Persons belonging to the indulged Congregations, with their Qualities and Places of Abode; and that none be admitted a Member of any such Congregation without acquainting their Visitor with it, that so means may be used to prevent their leaving our Communion, by giving satisfaction to their scruples. This Power of the Bishops cannot be scrupled by them, since herein they are considered as Commissioners appointed by Law.  
8. That not indulged Persons presume under severe Penalties to breed up Scholars, or to teach gentlemen's Sons University-Learning; because this may be justly looked on as a design to propagate Schism to Posterity, and to lay a Foundation for the disturbance of future Generations.   
II. As to the Case of the Ejected Ministers, I have these things to offer:  

1. That bare Subscription of the Thirty Six Articles concerning Doctrinal Points, be not allowed as sufficient to qualify any Man for a Living, or any Church-preferment, for these Reasons. 

First, Any Layman upon these Terms may not only be capable of a Living, but may take upon him to Administer the Sacraments; which was never allowed in any well-constituted Church in the Christian World. And such an allowance among us, instead of settling and uniting us, will immediately bring things into great Confusion, and give mighty Advantage to the Papists againstour Church. And we have reason to fear, a Design of this Nature, under a pretence of Union of Protestants, tends to the Subversion of this Church, and throwing all things into Confusion, which at last will end in Popery.  
Secondly, This will bring a Faction into the Church, which will more endanger it than External Opposition. For such Men will come in Triumphantly, having beaten down Three of the Thirty Nine Articles; and being in Legal Possession of their Places, will be ready to defy and contemn those who submitted to the rest, and to glory in their Conquests, and draw followers after them, as the Victorious Confessors against Prelacy and Ceremonies. And can they imagine those of the Church of England will see the Reputation of the Church, or their own, to suffer so much, and not appear in their own Vindication? Things are not come to that pass, nor will they suddenly be, that the Friends of the Church of England will be either afraid, or ashamed to own her Cause. We do hearty and sincerely desire Union with our Brethren, if it may be had on just and reasonable Terms; but they must not think, that we will give up the Cause of the Church for it, so as to condemn its Constitution, or make the Ceremonies unlawful, which have been hitherto observed and practised in it. If any Expedient can be found out for the ease of other men's Consciences, without reflecting on our own; if they can be taken in without reproach or dishonour to the Reformation of the Church, I hope no true Son of the Church of England will oppose it. But if the Design be to bring them in as a Faction, to bridle and control the Episcopal Power, by setting up Forty Bishops in a Diocese against One; if it be for them to trample upon the Church of England, and not submit to its Order and Government upon fair and moderate Terms, let them not call this a Design of Union, but the giving Law to a Party to oppose the Church of England. And what the success of this will be, let wise Men judge▪  
Thirdly, If a Subscription to Thirty Six Articles were sufficient by the Statute 13 Eliz. c. 12. I do not understand how by virtue of that Statute a Man is bound publicly to read the Thirty Nine Articles in the Church, and the Testimonial of his Subscription, on pain of being deprived ipso facto, 
Co. Inst. 4. Part 323, 324.  if he do not. For the L. Ch. J. Coke saith, That Subscription to the 39 Articles are required by force of the Act of Parliament, 13 Eliz. c. 12. And he adds, That the Delinquent is disabled and deprived ipso facto; and that a conditional Subscription to them was not sufficient, was resolved by all the Judges in England. But how a Man should be deprived ipso facto for not Subscribing, and Reading the 39 Articles, as appears by the Cases mentioned in Coke, and yet be required only to subscribe to 36, by the same Statute, is a thing too hard for me to conceive.    
2. But notwithstanding this, if any temper can be found out, as to the manner of Subscription, that may give ease to the Scruples of our Brethren, and secure the Peace of the Church, the desired Union may be attained without that apparent Danger of increasing the Factions among us. 
And this I suppose may be done, by an absolute Subscription to all those Articles which concern the Doctrine of the true Christian Faith, and the Use of the Sacraments; and a solemn Promise under their hand, or Subscription of peaceable Submission; as to the rest, so as not to oppose or contradict them, either in Preaching or Writing; upon the same Penalty, as if they had not subscribed to the 36. Which may be a more probable means to keep the Church in quiet, than forcing a more rigorous Subscription upon them, or leaving them at their full liberty.     
3. As to the other Subscription required, 1 Jac. to the 3 Articles. The first is provided for by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. The third is the same with the Subscription to the 39 Articles. And as to the Second, about the Book of Common Prayer, etc. It ought to be considered, 

(1.) Whether, for the satisfaction of the Scrupulous, some more doubtful and obscure passages may not yet be explained or amended? Whether the New Translation of the Psalms were not fit to be used, at least in Parochial Churches? Whether Portions of Canonical Scripture were not better put instead of Apocrypha Lessons? Whether the Rubric about Salvation of Infants, might not be restored to its former place, in the Office of Confirmation, and so the present Exceptions against it be removed? Whether those Expressions which suppose the strict Exercise of Discipline, in Burying the Dead, were not better left at liberty in our present Case? Such a Review made by Wise and Peaceable Men, not given to Wrath and Disputing, may be so far from being a dishonour to this Church, that it may add to the Glory of it.  
(2.) Upon such a Review, whether it be not great Reason that all Persons who Officiate in the Church, be not only tied to a constant Use of it in all public Offices, (as often as they administer them) which they ought in Person frequently to do; but to declare at their first entrance upon a Parochial Charge, their Approbation of the Use of it, after their own Reading of it, that so the People may not suspect them to carry on a Factious Design, under an outward pretence of Conformity to the Rules of the Church they live in.  
(3.) Whether such a solemn Using the Liturgy, and Approbation and Promise of the Use of it, may not be sufficient, instead of the late Form of declaring their Assent, and Consent, which hath been so much scrupled by our Brethren?     
These are all the things which appear to me reasonable to be allowed in order to an Union, and which I suppose may be granted without detriment or dishonour to our Church. There are other things very desirable towards the happiness and flourishing of this Church; as the exercise of Discipline in Parochial Churches, in a due subordination to the Bishop; the Reforming the Ecclesiastical Courts as to Excommunication, without prejudice to the excellent Profession of the Civil Law; the Building of more Churches in great Parishes, especially about the City of London; the retrenching Pluralities; the strictness and solemnity of Ordinations; the making a Book of Canons suitable to this Age, for the better Regulating the Conversations of the Clergy. Such things as these, might facilitate our Union, and make our Church in spite of all its Enemies become a Praise in the whole Earth.  
But with what Ingenuity were these Concessions received? They were thrown back in their faces with a sibi & suis, let them keep them to themselves; froward Children once gotten into a peevish Humour, though they crave many things, and their indulgent Parent grants them all that they crave, yet will they not be quieted with any thing; and the longer they have been thus indulged, the more pettish they grow: and it often comes to pass, that such as endeavour to reconcile such Children to their Parents, are looked on as their Enemies; which is the common Fate of all Arbitrators, who though they be indifferently chosen by the contending Parties, and do with their utmost Discretion and Moderation, agree in an impartial Determination, in hope to please both Parties, yet are they sure to displease one, if not both; yet better it is so to do, than to permit them incessantly to vex one another by their unreasonable and perpetual Contentions.  
But I hope that those severe Corrections which we ourselves occasioned to each other, have abated this petulant Humour, and boaten us into better Manners, and taught us more Discretion; or at least, that the sense which we all lately had, and the prospect which we still have before us, of being utterly undone, and of losing those inestimable Substances of our Religion, Laws, and Liberties, while we contend only about Shadows, have reduced all Parties to more peaceable Inclinations; and that having agreed to refer the Matters in difference to equal Arbitrators, by our own choice, who have also agreed on such an Umpire as hath a tender Concern for the Satisfaction and Welfare of us all, we will with humble and hearty Submission, acquiesce in their Determination— Wherefore if it shall please our Legislators, by the Methods proposed, or any other, which to them, by the assistance of a Convocation, shall seem convenient, to give ease to Tender Consciences, I am persuaded that the Ministers of the Church would readily and gladly embrace such as shall Conform, and give them the right hand of Fellowship. And I hope, that although some men have formerly, when they had Toleration and Indulgences granted them (not for their sake, so much as for the Destruction of the Church, (as I hope they now perceive) and by the Mediation, and for the Advantage of Popery) rejected such Proposals with a kind of Scorn, yet now at length, after all the Hazards that by GOD's great Mercy we have escaped, all such persons as have any Moderation and peaceable Principles, or any Sense of the Danger wherein the Protestant Cause now stands, will hearty join in the Communion of the Church, to increase her Numbers and strengthen her Hands, that so, under the Conduct of our Religious and Auspicious Sovereigns, she may still stand as an Impregnable Bulwark, against all the Attempts of our Implacable Enemies, and a Terror to all that bear evil will to Zion.  
I shall only add the Advice of the Lord Bacon, That when many good Laws are made, there will need one great one more for the putting of those in Execution.  
The following Treatise was penned some Years since, when it was not thought so safe to Print it, as it may be seasonable now, to inform the Reader of the Moderation of the Church of England, and to persuade to a Union with it.   

THE CASE of PERSECUTION, Charged on the Church of England, Considered and Discharged, etc.  
AFTER the many frivolous and false Accusations charged on the Established Church, (viz.) of Superstition and Popery, by fanatics, and of Schism and Heresy, by the Papists, the opposite Factions did agree to charge her with the horrible Crime of Persecution: A Calumny so vehemently imputed, that they doubt not but it will fasten on her, and make ignorant, credulous and prejudiced persons believe, that she is as guilty as St. Paul was thought to be, when the Viper which arose out of the fire at Melita, fastened on his hand, which made the Inhabitants conclude, that he was a Murderer, Acts 28.3.  
But if we have the patience to look on a while, we shall see it fall off, without doing her any harm, and we may hope, that the impartial Reader will pronounce her not guilty; for though many Witnesses join in the general Accusation, yet if they are particularly and severally examined, they will confute each other; for if the Protestant Dissenters be asked, whether the Church of England hath persecuted the Papists, they are ready to answer No; but she hath complied with them much more than they themselves would have done. And if the Papists be asked, whether the Church of England have dealt too severely with the other Dissenting Factions, they will answer No; but they have been more indulgent to them, than any of their Persuasion, in the like circumstance with the Church of England, would have done. And the Church may Appeal to any of her Accusers, whether if they had power over her, they would not deal more severely with her, than ever she dealt with them.  
And evident it is, that the Church hath always been on the suffering side, the disagreeing Factions still struggling for the Pre eminence over the Church, as well as over each other; so that the Church hath been still grinded by the two opposite Factions, as between two Millstones, the one being sometime uppermost and sometime the other, but both of them conspiring and acting for her Destruction; though now they cry out of a Persecution only because they cannot persecute as when they were in power, for I doubt not but our Dissenters will acknowledge, that when the Papists were in power, as in the Marian days, their little finger was heavier than the Church's loins: And if the Sectaries had been settled, the Papists would not have had more gentle Lords; and though they agree scarce in any thing else, yet as St. Augustine on Psal. 36. observes, Tunc inter se concordant mali cum in perniciem justi conspirant non quia se invicem amant sed quia eum qui amandus erat mutuo oderent. Justly therefore might the Church complain as Erasmus did in an Epistle to the Bishop of Rochester, Triplex sustineo certamen, etc. I undergo a threefold Conflict, First against those Pagan Romanists which wretchedly envy me; secondly, with some Jesuits, Priests, and Monks who move every stone to destroy me; thirdly, with such implacable Sectaries as think they can never rise but by my Ruin.  
But through the singular providence of God, which hath often and wonderfully appeared for her preservation against many secrert Plots and open Assaults of her Enemies, she may say as the Psalmist, Psal. 124.2, 3. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men risen up against us, they had swallowed us quick, when their wrath was kindled against us. And as Psal. 129.2. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, yet have they not prevailed against me.  
I shall not now insist on the several Accusations charged on the Church, reserving them for a Second Part, wherein I shall Historically consider matters of Fact, only take a taste how bitter they are in these Expressions: Father Parsons, speaking of the Government of Queen Elizabeth, saith, Where are now the old Tyrants, Nero, Decius, Dioclesian, Maxentius, and other Persecutors of the Christians? Where are Genserik and Hunricus, with the Arian Heretics? As if that moderate Queen had been a greater Persecutor than any of them. No sooner was Queen Elizabeth come to the Crown, (saith another) and settled the Church of England, but she enacted those bloody Laws to Hang, Draw, and Quarter the Priests of the Living God. And I defy any man (saith another) to instance a greater Persecution, than that of Protestants against Catholics. Thus the Papists.  
And the other Accusers are not less sharp; our Government decried as Popish and Antichristian, and our Liturgy as the Mass, our Bishops as Wolves and Tyrants, Thorns and Thistles, and Military Instruments of the Devil, our Laws taring Engines, the Clergy are represented as a company of lying, perjured, and persecuting Villains: And hence the Land is filled with those loud Celeusmatas, which summons all hands to pull down the Church, and lay it even with the ground; and pity it is, but that Church which is so great a Cannibal, were so dealt with.  
I shall therefore inquire, First, What Persecution is. And,  
Secondly, Whether the Church of England is guilty of Persecution.  
And by the Church I mean, in a strict sense, the Clergy of England, against whom, I suppose, the Objection is intended, and not the whole Body of the Nation. First, then,  
Persecution is a malicious Vexation, and punishing of Men for Righteousness sake; for it is only they that live Godly in Christ Jesus, that suffer Persecution: for as Lactantius de Mortibus Persecutorum (saith), Quis nisi malus justitiam persequitur? As none but a wicked Man persecutes the Righteous, so none but the Righteous do suffer Persecution. To this purpose speaks St. Peter, Epist. 1. ch. 4. v. 15. Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busy-body in other men's matters: For if any be justly punished for his Faults, it is correction and not persecution; it is the cause not the suffering that entitles men to Martyrdom and Persecution: For what glory is it, saith St. Peter, if when ye are buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently; this is acceptable with God, 1 Pet. 2.20. By these two qualifications, the Complainers may judge of themselves; or because every man is apt to be partial in his own case, others may judge of them, whether they are truly persecuted or not; for if they have been punished for disobeying any Law of God, or of the King, that is not contrary to the Law of God, in which case the Law of God obligeth them to obey the King, not only for fear of wrath, but also for conscience sake; this is not to suffer for well doing, and therefore cannot be called Persecution: Wherefore it hath been well observed, that before the Blessing pronounced to those that are persecuted, our Saviour (doth not only add for Righteousness sake, but) prefixeth those other qualifications of being poor in spirit, of mourning and meekness, of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, or mercifulness and purity in heart, and peacemaking; and to such only belongs the Blessing: Matth. 5.12. Great is your reward in heaven. But to suffer as Busy-bodies in other men's matters, against Laws well established for Decency and Order, according to the Apostles Injunction, to draw down and provoke the wrath of our Superiors on our heads, for Disobedience to such things, as they have authority by the Laws of God and Men to enjoin, this is not to suffer for Righteousness.  
And for what cause soever it be that a man suffers, he ought by the next qualification no take it patiently, (i. e.) not to murmur or repine, not to resist and seek revenge, or endeavour by any unlawful means to transfer the Cross from himself to others, but as the Primitive Christians, receive the sentence even of Death with a Deo gratias, blessing God who hath counted them worthy to suffer for his sake, and given them Grace not only to believe, but also to suffer for the Name of Christ: For thus Christ suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps, who did no sin, (there is the first qualification, and the second followeth) who when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, 1 Pet. 2.21, etc. This is to be made conformable to Christ in his passion, and to suffer as a Christian, blessing them that curse us, doing good to them that hate us, praying for them that persecute us, which as none but the Christian Religion teacheth, so none but such as practise it, are truly Christians, Matth. 5.44. And thus doth Lactantius observe of the Christians in his days, whose Sufferings he describes to be extremely cruel and sharp, yet Ne verbo quidem reluctamur sed deo remittimus ultionem. And St. Ambrose, Laedentibus non irascimur spoliantibus non resistimus caedentibus non repugnamus.  
Now if we compare either the matter or manner of the Sufferings of those Primitive Christians, with the Afflictions and Patience of our Modern Sects, we shall find these to be more like pettish and froward Children, who fancy Bugbears to themselves, and by groundless fears and crying, disquiet themselves and others, then like those▪ Heroic Christians that endured the most exquisite Torments with invincible patience, praying for their Persecutors: The Stoics behaved themselves with a much more imitable fortitude; Tormenta a me abesse velim sed si sustinenda suerint, ut me fortiter animose honest geram optabo.  
And thus Seneca, Placebit ei ignis per quem fides collucebit; He would rather embrace the Fire, than betray his Fidelity. Whereas our Complainers do by intolerable provocations draw down punishments on themselves, and instead of enduring them with a Christian patience, seek to avenge themselves on the Inflictors: How unreasonable the Complaints of such men are, will appear, if we consider first, what their Sufferings have been, as to the matter and causes of them: Nulli dictum est nega Deum incende Testamentum Idolis Sacrifica; It was never said to any of them, Deny your God, or die by the hands of an Executioner; burn your Bibles, or we will burn you; Sacrifice to our Idols, or we will Sacrifice you; Sola fuerunt ad pacem hortamenta ut Deus & Christus ejus in unitate coleretur, (as St. Augustine speaks of the Donatists, (They were only exhorted to Worship God and his Son Jesus Christ in a peaceable Communion with their Christian Brethren, and to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace; wherefore he advised them to consider, Prius quid secerint deinde quod patiuntur; First what they had done, and then what they did suffer. So shall I desire those that think themselves grieved, to consider by what actions and provocations of theirs, the Penal Laws that are now in force, were procured; for, Ex malis moribus bonae leges, it was the seditious practices of ungovernable Men, that gave birth to those Statutes, which as the Preamble to those that were made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth declares, were made to retain her Majesty's Subjects in due Obedience.  
That there is a necessity of some Penal Laws for the restraint of Evil-doers, is the mature judgement of all Mankind, for without such, every Government would soon run into confusion; and therefore every of the complaining Parties, have made such Laws, and enforced them with more severe Sanctions, than those against whom they complain.  
That the making of such Laws belongs to the Supreme Magistrate, according to the National Constitution, is also unquestionable; and it would be ridiculous, and bring Authority to contempt, to make them and not execute them upon such as render themselves obnoxious by their disorderly behaviour.  
St. Augustine in his 48th Epistle says, That it was once his judgement, that there was no need of Coercive Laws in matters of Religion, lest we should have dissembling Catholics instead of open Heretics: And therefore he thought that none should be compelled to the Unity of Christ; but on second thoughts, he altered his opinion, and wrote a Tract, de Correctione Donatistarum, which is extant among his Retractations, l. 2. wherein he asserts the necessity of Penal Laws, which he grounds on his own experience, instancing in the City of Hippo, whereof he was Bishop, which notwithstanding all his Learning and Endeavours, was overrun by the Donatists, which set up separate Congregations, but by the execution of some Penal Laws, was so reduced to Unity, as if there had never been any Schism among them, for as he observes, they being first awed by fear, were afterward convinced by truth, which they could not hear from their false Teachers.  
And in his 48th Epistle, he appeals to them, Quis nostram non laudat leges ab Imperatoribus adversus Pagana Sacrificia, illius quippe impietatis Capitale supplicium est? (i. e.) Who of us doth not commend the Imperial Edicts against Heathenish Sacrifices, although the punishment be capital? And in his 50th Epistle he affirms, the Laws of the Emperors against those Donatists, were a greater act of Charity to their Souls and Bodies, as well as Piety towards God, than the Indulgence of Julian, which was such an occasion of Impiety and Cruelty, as had almost destroyed Christianity, by permitting Divisions among them; wherefore he desires them to consider, Quid potias eligatis utrum correcti vivere in pace an in malitia perseverantes falsi martyris nomine vera supplicia sustinere contra Petil. l. 2. which were most eligible, either by correction to live in peace, or to persevere in malice, and draw just punishments on themselves, being deceived with a false opinion of Martyrdom and Persecution: For as he truly says, Non persequitur phreneticum Medicus sed sphreneticus medicum; When men that are diseased, grow frantic and so ungovernable, that they seek to infect and abuse others, they that bind them to a better behaviour, do the office of a Physician, not a Persecutor; and so the Donatists did rather persecute the Laws, than the Laws them: Leges puniendo non possunt quod ipsi saeviendo potuerunt Epist. 170.  
Nor can any reason be given why such Laws and Penalties should not extend to such as live in the Communion of the Church, or separating from it, pretend Conscience for their Disobedience; for then all sorts of Wickedness might go unpunished, seeing that some men have pleaded Conscience as a pretext for the greatest Villainies Now seeing it pleased the Supreme Authority of the Nation, having had long experience of the Loyalty and peaceableness of such as lived in Communion with the Established Church, to make the Conformity of the Subjects to the public Doctrine and Worship a Test of their Obedience and Loyalty to the King; and having also observed, by many Years experience, that such as moved Sedition in the State, had first raised Division in, or made Separation from the Church, it pleased them to enact several Laws and Sanctions for an Uniformity in the Worship of God, as a means to preserve the public peace of the State; which Laws being the Senatus consulta, the effects of the Supreme Authority in Parliaments, wherein every Subject by himself, or his Representative, is supposed to have this Vote, they cannot be accounted the Constitutions of the Church, any more than the Plebiscita, or the Agreement of the People confirmed by the King, on the Advice and Counsel of his Parliament, and those Laws, which on such solemn deliberation and general consent were established, cannot rationally be annulled as long as the causes which made the enacting of them necessary are continued; And doubtless, as the Papists will acknowledge the necessity of them to suppress Heresies and Schisms, seeing there is no Nation where their Religion is established, where there are not more severe Laws and Sanctions made to suppress such Mischiefs, so all other Dissenters will approve of the execution of them, if they are constant to their own principles for the keeping out of Popery; and it will be an indelible Reproach to them all, who have professed a greater detestation of Popery and the Church of England, which they have slandered and opposed as if they had too far complied with the Papists, if they should at last confederate with them to take off those Laws which they unanimously consented to as a means to keep out Popery; especially it being evident to all considering persons, that when these Laws are abrogated, those Laws by which Popery was formerly established will be in force; and so they who consent to the taking away the one, do consent to the establishing of the other, and set up Popery by a Law. See the first and second of Queen Mary.  
But to return to the Vindication of the Church of England, from the Imputation of Persecution, let the Reader consider, that the Established Church hath neither any Power, nor any Principle that may incline her to it.  
1. It hath never had any Power, the Church being always in its Minority, and the King being her Guardian, she cannot enact any thing for herself; her Courts are the King's Courts, her Convocations are called by the King's Writs; they cannot consult of any other Matters, but what are proposed by the King, nor make any Canons, but what are proposed by the King, nor make any Canons, but what are ratified by his Authority, nor execute them, but by his Warrant; and that under these Provisoes, that they be not against the King's Prerogative, nor against the Common or Statute Laws: And there lieth an Appeal to the Court of Chancery, and the Common Law, which may grant Prohibitions against their Proceed, and hinder the Execution of their Sentences; so that neither any Corporal Punishment can be inflicted, nor any Fine levied, but by the Civil Magistrate, by whom all Penal Laws are executed; so that if there be any cause of Complaint, it is to be charged on those Members of Parliament, which themselves chose to Vote for them. Nor ought they to complain of what was acted by their own Choice.  
And whosoever will duly consider the Rise of those Laws, by which the Complainers have suffered the greatest Penalties, will find, that they were enacted, or procured by the Complainers themselves; for those Laws by virtue whereof the greatest Execution hath been done since the Reformation, were contrived by the Papists; I mean the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, which though some are pleased to call Protestant Oaths, yet were they in being before the Reformation. That of Supremacy was enacted in a full Parliament under King Henry the Eighth, and was only a Vindication of the ancient Rights of the Crown from foreign Usurpations; it was defended by divers Learned Men of the Romish Persuasion, particularly by Stephen Gardner Bishop of Winchester.  
And some great Men lost their Lives, for defaming or refusing to take that Oath, viz. The Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas Moor; and if others have suffered on the same account since, the Church of England cannot justly be accused of what was so solemnly recognized by the Papists, Nec lex est justior ulla.  
And as to the Oath of Allegiance, though it were brought into a form by King James, as a Test to discover such persons as had often conspired to take away his Life; yet as to the matter of it, it was to be administered in all Courts-Leet to the Subjects of the Crown, and was so framed, as to turn the Edge of it against the Papists.  
2. The Church of England hath no principles that may incline any of her Communion to Persecuting Practices, for she makes the holy Scriptures the Rule of her Faith and Practice, and Light is not more contrary to Darkness, than the Spirit of the Gospel is to that of Persecution: When James and John moved our Saviour to call for fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans, Luke 9.54. Our Saviour rebuked them, saying, Ye know not what spirit ye are of, for the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them: Of what spirit then are they of, who will call for Fire from Hell, if they cannot obtain it from Heaven, it concerns others to consider. As many as walk by the Rule of the Gospel, are for Peace and Acts of Mercy. And it's well known, that the Church of England strictly enjoins, that nothing be preached by her Ministers, but what is plainly declared in the Scriptures, or may be clearly ded uced from it. The Church teacheth all of her Communion, to pray for all Men, even their Enemies, Persecutors, and Slanderers, and frequently useth our Lord's Prayer, which obligeth them to forgive Men their Trespasses, as they hope to be forgiven of their heavenly Father: And St. Paul assures us, That all our gifts and graces without charity are nothing worth; that charity which suffereth long and is kind, which is not puffed up, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, 1 Cor. 13. by which Rule all Christians ought to walk. Here the Counsel of Optatus is seasonable, Si vestros videri Martyres vultis probate amass pacem in qua prima sunt Martyris fundamenta aut dilexisse deo placidam unitatem, aut habuisse cum fratribus charitatem sine qua maxima & imperiosa virtus caret effectu, p. 72. If our Church did lay claim to an infallible Spirit, and enforce her new Decrees on the Consciences of Men, under the pain of an Anathema, on all that should not receive them with the like submission, as they do to the Oracles of God? Did she exact a blind Obedience, and an implicit Faith to her Ordinances, with a Nonobstante to the Institutions of Christ; or if she did pronounce all Heretics that refuse to hold Communion with her, and teach that no Faith is to be kept with such Heretics? Did she account Men Heretics for keeping and reading their Bibles, and Books of Piety and Devotion, or set up an Inquisition to Imprison, Torment, and put to Death Men and Women, for their dissent from it in such Opinions? Did it punish Men because they believe their Senses, and will not fall down and Worship a piece of Bread, and give Divine Honour to the Works of men's hands, and Worship the Creature more, (or besides) the Creator, Rom. 1.25.  
Did it approve or allow the deposing Doctrine, and approve of Rebellion and Resistance, and Massacring thousands of innocent persons for its Advantage and Grandeur, which some of the Complainers of both Perties have contended for, and practised? Or, did it teach that Dominion is founded in Grace, that wicked Men have no Right to what they enjoy, but it belongs to the Saints to possess the Earth, and to bind Kings in Chains, & c? Did it erect Imperium in imperio, an Ernpire independent and paramount to that of the Prince, in whose Dominions they live, as too many of the, Cornplainers do affirm? Then might the charge of Persecution be justly pleaded against her; but she utterly detests and abhors all such Doctrines, and both teacheth and practiseth the contrary.  
The Weapons of her Warfare are not Carnal, but Spiritual Prayers and Tears, Patience and Forbearance, Exhortations, and Admonitions, which are not for Destruction, but for Edification.  
There is one sort of Persecution, and but one that I know of, that the Complainers have cause to accuse her of, and that is, not of the Sword, but the Pen; her cogent Reasons, and sharp Arguments which have been pressed and enforced against her Adversaries by the Sons of the Church, in Vindication of their dearest Mother; (and happy is she, for she hath her Quiver so full of them, that she is not ashamed to meet her Enemy in the Gates) these have done very considerable Execution, being so rightly aimed, so sharp headed, and driven home, that they could neither fly from, nor resist the force of them, but have been beaten from one Refuge to another, stripped of all the Armour wherein they trusted, left naked, and so defenceless, that all the broken Forces which her Adversaries, either Papists or Dissenters can Rally, have little left, but to complain of a Persecution.  
But as they have not felt, so neither have they cause to fear a Persecution from the Church of England, if they farther consider, how compassionately and charitably they have been always disposed for the Relief and Comfort of such afflicted Protestants abroad, which differ from her as much or more than the Protestant Dissenters of our own Nation; Witness the great sums of Money that have been Collected in our Assemblies, for the distressed Inhabitants of the Palatinate and Hungary, of Peidmont and Lucerne, and the liberal Contributions for Redemption of Captives, without respect of Persons; their great Hospitality to such as fled to her Bosom, being driven from their own Habitations Naked and Destitute, merely for Conscience sake, being otherwise very Loyal and Peaceable Subjects. And if the Church Established have not been forgetful to entertain Strangers, and relieve the Oppressed abroad, who can suppose them forward to persecute their Dissenting Brethren at home, who are of the same Household of Faith, to whom they are especially commanded to do good, Gal. 6.10.  
Again, the Penal Laws which are now in force, were for the most part enacted by the States of the Nation, long before the present Clergy had their Being, viz. in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, and therefore cannot be justly imputed to the present Generation; nor hath any rigorous Execution of them been enforced by the importunity of the Established Clergy: That Wind that brought the Storm over the Heads of the Complainers, did not blow from Canterbury or York, but from Rome or Scotland. The loud Clamours of our Dissenters against the Toleration of Papists, and the secret Whispers of the Papists against Indulgence to the other Sectaries, and the intolerable Misdemeanours of both, did awaken those dormant Laws, and necessitate the Execution of them, to prevent such another Deluge as had overflown the Nation with Confusion for almost twenty years together.  
And it hath been truly observed, that such as have been most earnest to revive the Execution of those Laws, were no great Friends to the Established Church; sometime a prevailing party of Presbyterians exasperating them against the Papists, and sometime a powerful party of Papists sharpening them against the Presbyterians and Sectaries, to incense both Parties against the Established Church; as it hath too truly fallen out, the Odium of what hath been procured by the opposite Factions, being now by them jointly thrown upon the Church; many of whose Ministers have been reviled for their Moderation by the name of Trimmers.  
Hagar and her Son Ishmael, were severely dealt with by Sarah, and did suffer much more than what some Men do now call Persecution; and yet the Apostle accounts that Ishmael was the Persecutor for his mocking of Isaac, who was the Son of a Prince, and Heir of the Family.  
And the Apostle tells us, That there are cruel Mockngs, as well as cruel Stripes and Imprisonments. And moreover, that there was an Allegory in these Transactions by Sarah, and her Son Jerusalem, or the Church of Christ is represented; and then by Ishmael all those cruel Mockers and Despisers of that Church, and its Fathers and Family, who scoffed at them as Antichristian, dumb Dogs, or Priests of Baal, and would once and again cast them out of the Family of God on Earth, and in Heaven too, are certainly meant, and to be noted for the Persecutors, though they first cry out of Persecution, as it is usual for those that are most guilty to complain first.  
But if any of the Clergy which had for their Loyalty to the Royal Martyr, suffered the loss of all manner of Subsistance for themselves and their Families for almost twenty Years together, were willing that some such Laws might be enacted, as might prevent the like Mischiefs for the future; I only ask, If any of the Complainers had been under the like Circumstances, would they not have endeavoured the same? And if so, what cause have they to condemn others, for what they would allow in themselves? Quod ab aliis vobis provocantibus factum est nobis non debet imputari.  
And I can with some Confidence assert, That many Members of the Church of England suffered more for obeying the King and his Laws, than the Complainers have for their Disobedience. And the Church of England hath suffered more for their Kindness to the Papists, than ever the Papists suffered by any unkindess from that Church. And many of the Clergy were like to suffer much for their Moderation to the Dissenters.  
But what cause is there of such frightful Complaints of being persecuted for Conscience sake, when they themselves may so easily and innocently take off those Penalties by a Conformity to the present Establishment, which is submitted to by the French Protestants, who are Men of as great Learning, and as tender Consciences, as any of the Complainers; an Establishment which is approved by all sorrs of Protestants abroad, even those of Geneva and Holland, where the Precedent of the Synod of Dort in Discourse with some of our Divines concerning the Constitution of our Church, did wish that they might enjoy the like with a Non licet nobis esse tam felicibus; and which is acknowledged, and dreaded as the greatest Bull-work against Popery.  
And therefore the prime leaders of the Separation, though they did not conform as Ministers, yet they by their Examples fully complied with our Liturgy in Prayers and Sacraments as Laymen, attending early on the public Worship, and Communicating frequently in our Sacraments, as the most sober of the Ancient Non-conformists did, and many of the present do; and it is affirmed by some, that they who now separate from the present Church, may for the same reason separate from almost all other Churches in Christendom; and one of their own Preachers delivers it as his own, and the Judgement of some others, That thousands are gone to Hell, and ten thousands on their march thither, that in all probability would never come there, if they had not been tempted from the Parish Churches, for the enjoyment of Communion in a Purer Church, Mr. Baxter in his Epistle to the Separate Congregations. And as to Popery, he says in his Defence of the Cure of Divisions, That the Interest of the Protestant Religion, must be much kept up by the means of the Parish Ministers, and by the Doctrine and Worship there performed; and they that think, and endeavour contrary to this, (of which side soever) will have the hearty Thanks and Concurrence of the Papists: And I am persuaded (says he) that all the Arguments in Bellarmine, and all other Books that ever were written, have not done so much to make Papists in England, as the Multitude of Sects among ourselves; and shall they use our Hands to do their Work? Thus he, and to this end he adviseth in his Saints Rest, p. 518. of the first Edition: Do not meet-together in Opposition to the public Meeting, nor at the time of public Worship, nor yet to make a groundless Schism, to separate from the Church, whereof you are Members, nor to destroy the old, that you may gather a new out of its Ruins, as long as it hath the Essentials, and there is hopes of reforming it. Nor can I think what reason the Complainers can Assign, why they may not as well conform to the present Church, who could conform with the Apostolical Church in their Primitive Constitution, for we read, Acts 2. v. 41. That those Christians were baptised, and v. 42. They continued steadfastly in the Apostles Doctrine and Fellowship, in breaking of Bread and Prayers; and v. 46. They continued daily with one accord in the Temple. They had their Synod, which made things in themselves indifferent necessary, per hic & nunc, to be observed for the Peace of the Church; they had a Superiority of one Minister above another, their Ordinations to that Office, their Censures to stop the Mouths of Gain-sayers; their Rods and Excommunications against many of which doubtless our Complainers (had they lived in that Age) would, and might as readily have pretended scruples of Conscience as now they do, and what marks the Apostles would have set upon such, is very obvious, Rom. 16.17. Mark them that cause divisions among you, and avoid them, for such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies. So 1 Cor. 3.3. Whereas there are among you envying and strife and divisions, are you not carnal, and walk as men. And Verse 4. While one saith I am of Paul, and another I of Apollo, are ye not all carnal?  
St. Judas, v. 16. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts: These are they that separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit; which the Apostles seems to give as an Answer to their pretences of having the Spirit in an extraordinary manner.  
But I shall not need to use any other Arguments to convince the Complainers of the Insufficiency of this Objection concerning their Consciences, than their own practice, for when the Complainers have been concerned in getting or keeping any beneficial Offices, the concern of profit doth satisfy the Scruples of Conscience, and they can generally conform to the Liturgy, and Communicate in the Sacrament, and seem the most zealous and devout in the Congregation; nor will they stick to Educate their Children in such Callings, as may fit them for such Employments wherein they must conform, which they could not do, if they did in their Consciences believe Conformity to be a Sin.  
Certainly we own more to our Spiritual Guides and Fathers, than to forsake them, and abandon them to the Malice of our Common Enemies; which is as great a sin, as if Children who have Parents, that provide all Necessaries for their well being, should desert them for some supposed Inconveniencies, such as the restraining them from some things which they know to be hurtful for them, or enjoin them some small matters which they conceive fit for them, though their Children think otherwise; and if they are corrected for their Faults, and shall count them Tyrants and Persecutors, they are in the sense of the Scriptures not Children, but Bastards, Heb. 12.8. And I believe none of the Complainers, which are Pastors or Parents, would approve the behaviour of such Children.  
I desire therefore, they would seriously consider, who they were that brought us out of a State of Darkness and Bondage, who vindicated the Liberty of the Gospel, and the due Administration of the Sacraments, who have planted the Tree of Life in the midst of us, and cultivated it by their Labours, and watered it with their Blood, and defended it against those that would grub it up by the Roots? And shall we not submit to them in a few Ceremonies, enjoined only for Decency and Order, though we think them inconvenient! St. Peter may instruct us better, who being demanded of our Lord, St. John 6.68. Will ye also go away? Master, saith he, whither shall we go, thou hast the words of eternal life? Where all things necessary to Salvation are constantly imparted, we may and aught to continue in that Communion; and it is acknowledged to be a sin to separate from such a Church, wherein we may continue not only without sin, but to the saving of our Souls; To which I shall add a very considerable Sentence of an Ancient Father, Non minor est gloria sustinere Martyrium ne scindatur Ecclesia quam ne idolis sacrificetur; 'Tis as great a glory to endure Martyrdom for the prevention of Schism, as to suffer it for not Sacrificing to Idols; seeing by this we secure our private Salvation, by the other we preserve the public Peace and Edification; we may innocently bear some Inconveniencies at their hands, from whom we receive so much good; especially considering, that what we conceive to be evil, are in their own nature things indifferent, and in the Judgement of the Church, are not thought any parts of Divine Worship, but may be changed or laid aside, as occasion shall require; as in the instance of the Cross in Baptism, at which the Complainers are most scandalised, which the Church hath declared may be omitted in private Baptism, and yet that Sacrament be effectually Administered: And I cannot but think that person highly peccant against the Rules of Christian Charity, who declared, That the removal of such innocent Ceremonies, would countervail for all the Blood that had been shed in our late Civil Wars, wherein the King and his Loyal Nobles, and many Thousands of good Subjects lost their Lives, besides the many thousands that died in that Rebellion.  
But if any person be yet dissatisfied concerning the reasonableness of what is required, in order to a Conformity to the Established Doctrine and Worship, let him consult the several Cases lately published by some Judicious Sons of the Church of England, and if their prejudices be not removed, it is because they are only pretended, or if real, they are unreasonable and invincible; and he whose Ears are stopped up from hearing such plain and convincing Truths, on which his Salvation doth depend, his Soul is in a dangerous condition. This Advice concerns especially those Leaders of the People, which cause them to Err, and by withdrawing them from their Folds, and dividing them, expose them to Destruction; for whose blood the Great Bishop and Shepherd of our Souls, will one day exact an Account from them; which they should seriously consider how to give with Joy, and not with endless Grief and Confusion; for as the Prophet Ezekiel, ch. 33.6. If a people take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman, and that watchman see the sword coming, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take away any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hands. When Quintilius Varus had unhappily lost some of the Roman Legions, he could not be at rest, thinking of a terrible Summons, Quintili Vare redde Legiones; And there is a more dreadful Account to be given of those Souls for whom Christ died, before a more awful Assembly than any Roman Senate, where the Secrets of all Hearts shall be revealed, and the ends and designs and consequences of their Actions be made manifest, and rewarded accordingly.  
Persecution is indeed a very heinous Sin, for if that Counsel or Way that is opposed and persecuted, be of GOD, the Opposers will be found Fighters against GOD; they persecute Christ in his Members, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.  
But here is another sort of Sinners, as bad or worse than Persecutors; namely, false Prophets and Seducers, which teach Doctrines contrary to those which CHRIST and his Apostles have taught; these strike at the Head, when the other aim only at the Body. The Persecutor for the most part acts as a professed Enemy, according to the principles and prejudices wherein he hath been Educated, and so acts ignorantly, in Unbelief, as St. Paul did; and had they known, they would not have Crucified the LORD of GLORY: the others have been instructed in, and professed the same Faith, lived in the same Communion, but being not sound in the Faith, in time of Temptation, fell away, and seek to destroy what they themselves had built; not only forsaking the Assemblies themselves, but raising Divisions in, and making Separation from them; setting up Altar against Altar; raising a War within the bowels of the Church, building Batteries, and throwing Bombs to force out those that are within it: And an open Enemy is not so culpable as a treacherous Friend, that like Judas, Cryeth hail Master, and betrays him with a kiss; These do not only Crucify him a fresh, but put him to open shame, as if he suffered as a Deceiver and Murderer, a Blasphemer of GOD, and an Enemy to Caesar; and herein doth more mischief than the ignorant and open Persecutor (who perhaps acts as the Roman Soldiers, in Obedience to their Chieftains) and endeavours to destroy not a few Christians, but Christianity itself. And the Christian Religion hath often thrived under Persecution, but hath always been weakened and dispirited by Divisions and false Doctrines.  
That one Schism of the Donatists in Africa, destroyed more than all the Ten Persecutions did in those Churches: The Persecutors sent many Christian Souls that lived in the Communion of Christ on Earth, to enjoy it in Heaven; the others sent many more to an Eternal Separation from the Head, having first cut them off from the Body: And woe be to them that shall be found guilty of so great Impiety.  
That there shall be such false Prophets, St. Peter foretold, 2 Epistle 2.1. Acts 20.30. That there should arise such from among our own selves, that should act as grievous Wolves, not sparing the Flock, speaking perverse things.  
And our Saviour teacheth us, That we may know them by their fruits; and by their likeness to the false Prophets that were of old, such as Jannes and Jambres, Core, Dathan and Abiram, who rebelled against Moses and Aaron.  
St. Judas describes them to be such as walked in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam, for reward, Judas v. 11.  
That Bless where they should Curse, and Curse where they should Bless: Many yet living, may remember the time, when the Pulpits were employed as so many Drums to sound an Alarm to War; and the People pressed, by wrested Scripture, to Arm themselves, and engage the worst of Men against the best of Princes; We have no Portion in David, nor any Inheritance in the Son of Jesse: Every Man to his Tents O Israel: And from Judges 5.23. heavy Curses denounced not against those that came not to help the Lords anointed against the mighty, but the mighty against the Lord and his anointed: It will grate the Ears of all that hear what was inferred by a great Boutifeu from that Text, Anno 1641. Curse ye bitterly, (i. e.) saith he, not only Maledicere verbo, but malefacere Re, to execute indeed what they wish in words, to deal with them as with Moabites, executing the wrath of God upon them: Cursed is every one that withholds his hands from blood (even the innocent blood of women and children) which was to be poured out like water in every street: And cursed is he that doth it fraudulently, as Saul did with the Amalakites, spill some, and save some, (meaning Agag the King.) And lest Curses alone should not prevail, he promiseth a Blessing also, Blessed is the man that takes the little ones, and dasheth them against the stones. Good God, to what barbarous Impieties do Carnal Lusts and Interests hurry on some Men against plain Scriptures, against Knowledge and Conscience, and to inspire deluded People by a false Zeal, to slay their Brethren with a Rage that reacheth up to Heaven, and think they do God as good Service in killing their Brethren, as the Priests that slew the Beasts for Sacrifice. Such Preachers as these are certainly the worst sort of Persecutors; they persecute themselves as well as their Brethren. For St. Judas 11. returns such Curses on their own Heads, with a woe unto them; and St. Peter says, 2 Pet. 2. They shall bring upon themselves swift destruction. And he propounds three Instances of the Judgements that hang over their Heads, verse 4. If God spared not the Angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, notwithstanding the perfection of their natures; then no pretence of purity will secure these, if he destroyed the old world, for abusing Noah a Preacher of Righteousness; then neither shall their numbers exempt them, if he turned the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into Ashes, for an example to all that should live ungodly; then how secure soever these men may seem, they are not safe, the Sun that shines on them in the morning, may rain down Fire and Brimstone on them before night.  
Object. These are terrible Judgements, but where are those false Prophets to whom they belong?  
Answ. I know not any party (though there be very many among us) whose Leaders do not accuse the Guides of the other Parties as false Prophets, as either not having a lawful Ordination, but run before they are sent, or being lawfully Ordained, do preach such Doctrines as are not agreeable to the written word, which is the only Canon, or Rule of Faith and Manners: As to the first, viz. The lawfulness of Ordination, it hath been sufficiently evidenced against the Papists, that the Ministers of the Established Church of England are lawfully Ordained, and by the Concessions of the most sober Dissenters it is granted, (who never required any other Ordination of such as went over to the opposite Parties,) nor doth the Church of England deny the validity of Ordinations in the Church of Rome, though it doth deny the same to those separate Factions, which heap up Teachers to themselves, having itching Ears, for the Primitive Church hath never approved of such Ordinations, wherein a Bishop did not preside and join with his Presbyters.  
But supposing the Ordination to be valid, we are to consider the truth of those Doctrines by the correspondency they bore to the Canon of the Holy Scriptures; for whoever shall preach any other Doctrine as an Article of Faith necessarily to be received and believed, in order to Salvation, though it be an Angel from Heaven, 'tis the Apostles Sentence that he be accursed, Gal. 2.8. (i. e.) we may have no Communion with him, by this rule therefore we are to try the Doctrines and Spirits of those false Prophets which are abroad in the World, and by these Characters we may discern them; if there be any that do deny that Jesus Christ is come into the World, or that he is indeed the Son of God, of one and the same substance with the Father; if any reject the Doctrines taught by him and his Apostles, resisting the Truth and Faith once delivered to the Saints, being ashamed of Christ and his Words, if any reject the Institutions of Christ's Ministers and Sacraments, or add new Precepts and Commandments, requiring the like observance of them, as of his Word and Ordinance; if any shall publicly preach such Opinions and Practices, as are not according to Godliness, but tend directly to Profaneness, Uncleanness, Disorder, and Division; if any forbidden what God Commands, or command what God forbids, teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men; such men will be found false Prophets; and whether the Socinians that deny the equality of the Son of God with the Father, in one Substance, whether they that set up other Mediators between God and Man, or command Divine Worship to be given to the Creatures, and the work of men's hands, or that to colour this Impiety, expunge the second Commandment, that add to the number of Sacraments more than Christ Ordained, and take from those which he instituted an Essential part; such as the Cup in the Lord's Supper, with a Nonobstante to Christ's Institution, or such as wholly deny the use and efficacy of Baptism, that prefer their own Prayers to that of our Saviour, and their own Dreams and Delusions to the Revelation of Christ and his Apostles; whether they that teach Disobedience to Magistrates, and speaking evil of Dignities, and stir up Seditions and Divisions, from whence come Wars and Confusions, and every evil thing; whether these have not the Characters of false Prophets, the Scriptures and Primitive Councils have determined.  
And if the Established Church teach no other Doctrine, than what is consonant to the Holy Scriptures, and approved as well by Papists as by Presbyterians and Independents; for as for the other Sectaries, Anabaptists, Quakers, etc. who reject the Authority of Scriptures, we are not much concerned for their Objections, if we worship the only true God, and own Christ Jesus, God and Man, to be the only Mediator between God and Man, observing all, and only the Doctrines of Christ, for rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are Gods: The Character of a false Prophet cannot justly be imputed to any of her Ministers; the great Crime objected to the Church by the Romanists, is our separation from their Communion, to which it is Answered, That we have no otherwise left them, than they have deserted the Doctrines and Communion of the Scriptures, and the Primitive Church, for the first four hundred Years, to which, if they shall return, we are ready to give them the right hand of Fellowship. But than it will be objected by some modern Dissenters, in the words of Optatus, Paces credemus uno sigillo sigillati sumus nec aliter baptizati, nec aliter ordinati quam vos testamentum Divinum legimus pariter, etc. We believe in the same God and Saviour, we are Baptised and Ordained as you, and read the same Divine Testament; but they are answered in the words of the same Father, Hoc solo nomine quod a Christi Ecclesia separati estis vitam non habelitis; for this only Crime of forsaking the Communion of Christ's Church, you may come short of Eternal Life. To which agreeth that of St. Augustin, Extra Ecclaesiam Omnia possint habere praeter salutem possunt habere honorem possint habere sacramentum possunt cantare Hallelujah possunt respondere, Amen possunt Evangelium tenere & predicare possunt in nomine patris & filii & spiritus sancti fidem habere, & predicare sed nusquam nisi in Ecclesiâ Catholica possunt salutem invenire. And therefore we are told, That Schism is as studiously to be avoided as Idolatry. Non minor est gloria Martyrium sustinere ne seinditur Ecclesia, quare ne Idolis sacrificetur, By denying the one, we consult for our private Salvation, by the other, for the public safety of the Church.  
And if indeed we are agreed in the Essentials of Religion, what cause can be given why by our Dissension in some Circumstances, we should expose ourselves and the People to all those Mischiefs, which will inevitably follow on our Divisions? For on the same grounds that they who agree with us in Doctrinals, do deny to hold Communion with us in Worship; others that have not so great an agreement with them, may forsake their Communion; and so our Divisions may be perpetuated and multiplied.  
Inter licet nostrum & non licet vestrum nutant animae Christianorum nemo vobis credit, nemo nobis omnes contentiosi homines sumus, saith Optatus, p. 84. The People will not believe we have the same Faith, when they see we agree not in the same Worship. But if we have indeed the same Faith, why do we separate? It is doubtless a Sin to separate from that Church, in whose Communion we may remain without Sin; and it is a real Imputation of somewhat that is sinful in our Communion, when we separate from it, because nothing but Sin can warrant a Separation.  
Our Saviour tells us, That he that is not with him, is against him, and he that gathereth not scattereth; and by a like consequence, he that scattereth destroyeth; when two Princes are engaged in a War, if those Subjects that have lived under the Government of either of them, shall according to their Power refuse to assist their lawful Prince, they may be accounted as Enemies; Suetonius in vita Neronis, Sect. 2. saith Cn. Domitius medios, inter hostes habendos censuit: And the Lacedæmonians had a Law, that in case of a Civil War, if any person stood neutral, when the War was ended, both Parties should agree to confiscate his Goods, and pull down his House as an Enemy to both; and thus the Romans dealt with Metius Suffetius, who in the War between the Romans and Alban stood hover with his Army, waiting the event of the War, till the Romans got the Victory, who condemned him to be torn in pieces with wild Horses; it was not because he did them any hurt, but because he did not yield them that Assistance which in duty he was bound; so that Neuters do generally make both Parties their Enemies, and seeking to save their Lives, they lose them; for all Governments do agree, to show more kindness to an open and generous Enemy, than to a pretended but treacherous Friend; as in the Case of Pub. Servilius, Medum se gerendo nec plebis vetuit odium, nec apud patres gratiam misit, as Suetonius: But Manlius, which had been against the Senate, being reconciled, Patribus mire fuit gratiosus, was greatly favoured by the Senate; therefore he concludes, Quando alterum habiturus sis inimicum jacienda est alea alteratri adherendum: We must cleave to one Party, or we make both our Enemies; but contra publicos hostes omnis homo Miles, as when the Sea breaks down the Banks, and gins to overflow a Country, every one ought to contribute his endeavours to prevent a general Deluge, or he may be guilty of destroying himself and his Neighbours; so it is with those that neglect their bounden duties in defence of their Religion, and the public Peace.  
And this reason is given to countenance such Practices, for Non caret scrupulo societatis Occultae qui manifesto facinori desinit obviari; He is justly suspected to be confederate in an evil Design, who knowing it doth not endeavour to prevent it.  
As when Moses saw an Israelite and Egyptian striving, if by his neglect to save the Israelite, the Egyptian had prevailed, he had made himself accessary to the destruction of his Brother; and thus we are taught, That our Saviour will at the last day condemn those that have not fed the Hungry, etc. together with those that have oppressed and rob them.  
God threatened the Edomites, Obadiah, v. 11. to destroy them for their Violence against their Brethren of Jacob; yet we read not there of any act of Violence against them, but— Thou stoodst on the other side when Strangers carried away Captive, their Forces and Foreigners entered her Gates, and cast Lots on Jerusalem: Thou wast as one of them, but thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy Brother, nor shouldest have rejoiced over the Children of Judah, in the day of their Destruction, nor spoken proudly in the day of their Distress: As thou hast done, it shall be done to thee, thy Reward shall return on thy own Head.  
When Haman procured that bloody Decree, for the Destruction of the Jewish Nation, Mordecai persuaded Hester to intercede for them by this Argument, If thou altogether hold thy Peace, Deliverance shall come, but (for not doing thy duty) thou and thy Father's House shall be destroyed. If the Edict had taken effect, it would be in vain for Hester to have pleaded the favour that Ahasuerosh had for her, she would probably have been executed as a Jew; as Plutarch relates of Manlius, whom the Romans condemned for favouring the Gauls, when he pleaded his former Services. Manlius eras mihi dum precipites agebas Senones, post quam mutari cepisti factus es unus ex Senonibus: They are Friends that engage with one another in times of Danger, but when they stand as Neuters, they are as Enemies: Hence the Spirit of God declares as great detestation of a fearful and lukewarm temper, as of that which is cold, and he threatneth to spew them out of his Mouth: They that halt between two Opinions are fit to be Priests of Baal, than of the Living God; and a strange infatuation it is, to pursue all those methods which our Enemies have designed for our Destruction. But to speak in the second place, as to the manner of suffering, so as to denominate those Sufferings Persecutions, we are to endure them patiently without unlawful Resistance or Revenge; so saith our Saviour, Mat. 5.39. Resist not evil, and when he himself suffered the greatest injuries and pains, as a Sheep before the Shearer is dumb, so opened he not his Mouth: And St. Paul, Rom. 12.17. forbids us to recompense evil for evil, or to avenge ourselves, but rather to give place unto wrath, and not be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good; against which indispensible Duties they do greatly offend, who heretofore disagreeing extremely from each other, do now wonderfully agree in breathing out Threaten and Revenge against the Established Church, as if it were an Assembly of bloody Thiefs, Murderers, and Persecutors; and endeavour to ruin her by such false Accusations, and railing Speeches, as Michael the Archangel durst not to bring against the Devil himself. A Sin that is accompanied with so many aggravations, as render it extremely sinful; for first, so it is to deal with our best Friends, as if they were our greatest Enemies, which we are forbid by our Saviour to do; which is to act as David's Enemies, against whom by a Prophetic Spirit, he denounceth so many dreadful Curses, as such men may do well seriously to consider, Psal. 109.6. who make it their business to return (instead of Good for Evil,) Evil for Good, and Hatred for good Will, and count those as Enemies who teach them the Truth.  
But Secondly, it is a great Aggravation of this Sin, when our Wrath is more against their Persons, for their Dignities and Endowments, than for any Vice, Injustice, or Injuries that they have done us, which is to act as Cain did, in the Murder of Abel, who slew him through Envy, because his Sacrifice was better and more accepted; for if we approve of the Doctrine of the Church, and can join with them in their Worship and Sacraments, but will by no means be reconciled to their Persons, through Envy to their Preferments, but will rather join with known Enemies, than with such real (though falsely suspected) Friends; this is to be of the like mind as Cosmo Duke of Florence, who said, He had read, and learned, that he ought to forgive his Enemies, but never that he ought to forgive his Friends. Whereas we ought to love the person of those Enemies, whose Vices we hate, but to hate any man's Person for his Virtues, and the Rewards of them is to hate them, the Pharisees hated Christ, whose whole Life was spent in going about to do Good. This is the Heir, (say they) come let us kill him, and the Inheritance will be ours: It is as plain as any demonstration in Euclyde, That it is not Truth, Religion, or Conscience, that such men contend for, but Reputation, Dominion, and Interest; and it will be no great Comfort or Glory to them, if with the Pharisees they have their Reward in this World.  
3. It is another aggravation of this Sin of Revenge, when if it should obtain the desired effect, we cannot expect any benefit to ourselves, but (Pereant amici dummodo unà pereant inimici) are content that our Friends and our Foes should perish together; and as the envious man would willingly lose one Eye, so as our Enemy may lose both. The Devil they say is good to his own, and no man ever hated his own Flesh; it is therefore an overgrown Malice, when neither the Plea of Abraham to Lot, Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee, for we are Brethren; nor that of the Canaanites, being in the Land that sought their common Ruin, can prevail for a Reconciliation; but when we have real fears of a venient Romani, the Romans will come and take away our Place, and our Nation; do yet join as the Jews and Romans did to crucify him with whom our Agreement may keep them out; this is to love Mischief for Mischiefs sake, and desperately to resolve and do as Samson did, to pull down that fabric in the Ruins whereof we are sure to be buried; and if their Damnation be just, who do evil that good may come of it, how much more just is their Damnation, that wilfully commit that one great Evil that will inevitably bring on ourselves and others, a Deluge of Miseries. Socrates was of a better persuasion than such men, Qui partem acceptae saepe inter vincla cicut cicutae, Accusatori nollet dare. who would not have any part of that Poison which he was condemned to drink, to be given to his false Accuser; but the Christian Religion teacheth us not to avenge ourselves when we have Power and Opportunity to do it, as St. Ambrose observes concerning our Saviour's Discourse with St. Peter, Luke 22.36. Domine cur me gladium emere jubes quem ferire prohibes nisi forte ut sit parata defensio non ultio, ut videar potuisse vindicare & noluisse: It was a reply worthy of Lewes the Twelfth King of France, when he was persuaded to avenge himself on some that had endeavoured to prevent his Succession to the Crown: It doth not become a King of France to revenge the Injuries done to the Duke of Orleans, but it no way becomes those who were once dealt with as Enemies to Church and State; (how justly I need not say) as soon as they have gotten any power to threaten Revenge on such who only did their Duty, and still are ready to be reconciled to them, which is an Argument that they are not yet recti in curia; but though they justify themselves are still in the number of such Righteous Persons as think they need no Repentance.  
I shall mention but one Aggravation more, (i. e.) when revengeful persons respect only their own private satisfaction, and not the Vindication of the Laws of God or Men: Let Heresy and Schism, Sedition and Rebellion go on and prosper, they are as unconcerned as Gallio was for the imprisoning of St. Paul, and the beating of Sosthenes, Acts 18.17. but the prosperity of Jerusalem is such an Eye-soar, that they cannot see the things belonging to their Peace; it is not Zeal for Religion, which such revengeful Prosecutions do greatly endanger, nor Love to Religion which they on whom they seek to be revenged have been Zealous for, but some private Designs of their own, which drives them on so furiously; for Difficilius in suis quam alienis pericules mitem esse.  
Thus Themistocles opposed the Counsels of Aristides, not because they were not for the benefit of the Commonwealth, but that he might suppress the Reputation and Interest of his Competitor; and a malicious Mind will rather suffer any thing, than the Prosperity of his Adversary, though it be to the sacrificing of his own, or the public Peace.  
And now let me mind the Complainers of another sort of Persecution, (i. e.) of the Tongue, which cuts as a Razor, and is as deadly sometimes as the Poison of Asps. The Heathen were wont to clap the Skins of Bears and Wolves on the backs of Christians, and so expose them to be torn of wild Beasts. And thus do too many deal with their Adversaries, they represent them as cruel, tyrannical, and persecuting Persons, and so expose them to the Rage of the People; little do those slanderous and malicious Men think how guilty they are of what they condemn in others; for quos gladio nequent voto interficiunt; and in the Judgement of God, the malicious and hateful Person is a Murderer, as Optatus says, That the Donatists slew the Bishops, Gladio ovis, and the hateful and revengeful Man wants only Power and Opportunity to be a Murderer. Little do the real Separatists who cry out against Persecution, suspect (saith Mr. Baxter in his Cure of Divisions) that the same spirit is in them. Whence is Persecution but from thinking ill of others, and abhorring, or not loving them? And do not you do so by those whom you causelessly separate from. It is one and the same thing in the Persecutor and Divider, which causeth the one to smite their Brethren, and the other to excommunicate them, the one to cast them into Prison as Schismatics, and the other to cast them out of the Church as Profame— the inward Thoughts of both are the same, that those whom they smite or separate from are bad and unlovely and unfit for better usage: So he.  
We have seen many Revolutions and Changes, and how many more may pass over this Generation, God only knows; But whatever they be, whatever party be uppermost, we cannot reasonably expect that our Privileges shall be more, or our Penalties less than they are under the present Establishment. Let us bless God, and learn to be content with such things as we have, for we have deserved much worse; may the Church never suffer greater Persecution than what she hath acted; nor they that hate her, ever find harder Task-mastors; and if it chance to fall, as the Eagle did by a Dart feathered from her own Wing, it is no more than what our Saviour did, who was betrayed by a Disciple of his own, that bore the Bag; and as it will be no disgrace to any to suffer as our Saviour did, so neither will it be any Glory to do as Judas did. The Royal Martyr, than whom there was not a meeker or more merciful Prince on the Earth, was barbarously murdered as a Tyrant, and Destroyer of his People; but as they who fought against, and overcame him, and then sold him to those who imprisoned, and slew him, could no more wash their hands from his Blood than Pilate did, for delivering Christ to the Jews and Romans to be crucified; so neither shall they be able to excuse themselves, (though they should plead that things fell out beyond their expectation, or that it was a persecuting Church,) if by their deserting, accusing, and betraying of it, it shall be destroyed; and though it hath been accused, and should be condemned as a Persecutor; yet I doubt not but she will be found a constant Preacher of that Doctrine which our Saviour taught her, of rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.  
In my former Treatise of Persecution, p. 3. I promised as a Second Part, of an Historical Relation of Matters of Fact, which upon some consideration got the start of this, being printed Anno 1684, and was Entitled, A Compendious History of all the Popish and Fanatical Plots and Conspiracies against the Established Government, from the First Tear of Queen Elizabeth, to 1684. It remains now, that I continue that Relation to the end of the Reign of the late King James the Second: In order whereunto, I think it necessary to premonish the Reader, who were the Actors, and who the Sufferers in these later Transactions. The Persons concerned on the oneside were the Church of England, as by Law Established; on the other-side, I account the Dissenters of all sorts, which acted sometimes severally, and at other times by combination, to undermine and destroy the Established Church; which being in a legal possession of its Rights, those who endeavoured either by open Acts of Hostility, or secret and subtle Arts of Defamations, Tolerations, illegal Conventicles, Confederacies, and Compliances with her professed Enemies, were the Aggressors and Persecutors: and therefore, though their Malice was so impotent, that it could never obtain its desired effect, yet that will not excuse them from being of a persecuting Spirit; nor will their first and loud Clamours of Persecution, Goals, Fines, and Imprisonment, make impartial and rational Men believe, that they were persecuted at all (much less by the Church, which, as I have shown, had never power to inflict such punishments); but only that the Sanctions of just and necessary Laws (without which no Church or State can subsist) were executed upon Transgressor's. The Members of the Church have suffered more for their moderation and kindness to Dissenters of all sorts, than for any rigorous prosecution of any: The Papists reviling them for being too favourable to Protestant Dissenters; and these, for too great a compliance with Papists. These account us Heretics and Schismatics for departing so far from them; the other hate us, as Superstitious and Idolatrous, for not going farther; insomuch, as the bare performance of our Duties, to which the Laws of God and the Land do oblige us, as well as our personal Oaths and Subscriptions, is by our Adversaries, of all sorts, accounted our Crime; and unless we wholly neglect our Duties, and so render ourselves obnoxious to the Laws, we are sure to be reviled as Persecutors; which is a Calumny as groundless, as if a Man that is legally possessed of an Estate, should be condemned as an Usurper, for not delivering up the possession to every Outlaw that demands it.  
I know that the Clamours which such Men make, as have drawn the legal Penalties on their own heads, may move the Mobilie to pity them, and entertain hard thoughts of the Laws themselves; but Men of more mature and sober Judgements will conclude, that such Transgressor's do rather persecute the Laws, than the Laws them. As in the Case of restraining distracted and ungovernable persons: Non persequitur medicus phreneticum sed Phreneticus Medicum.  
The first Matter of Fact that I shall mention, is the Behaviour of the Bishops in Parliament, and the rest of the Clergy in their several stations, on the occasion of the Bill of Exclusion, which was with great earnestness prosecuted by a Party in the House of Commons, and as vigorously opposed by another Party, whose Debates and Speeches Pro and Con, are Printed at large: And although the prospect of a Popish Successor might have prevailed with the House of Lords to admit some more moderate Debates thereupon, yet was it no sooner presented than rejected, and the blame thereof, by the Commons, was charged on the Bishops; who were thereupon accounted of as a dead weight laying on the Nation, and fit to be removed; and it was urged against them in that House, That they might well be afraid of their Religion, if the Fathers of the Church will join against the only Means that can save it: Nor were the generality of the Clergy defective in declaring their Resolutions to adhere to the Succession, being thereto encouraged by the Duke's solemn Protestation, That if ever he came to the Crown, he would support the Church in her Rights: Which Promise was not so unalterable as to the Duke, nor so infallibly believed by the Church, who perceived that he had acted contrary to it, in procuring Tolerations and Indulgences, to the dividing and weakening of the Church. But by these manifestations of their Loyalty and Fidelity to the Succession, the whole Body of the Clergy contracted more Odium from the disaffected People, their Party in the House of Commons having Voted the Bill of Exclusion, as an Act for securing the Protestant Religion, by Disabling the Duke of York to Inherit the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland, and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging; which is to be seen at large, p. 83. etc. of the Collection of the Debates; the Preamble whereunto is as followeth: Whereas James Duke of York is notoriously known to be perverted from the Protestant to the Popish Religion, whereby not only great encouragement hath been given to the Popish Party to enter into, and to carry on most devilish and horrid Plots and Conspiracies, for the Destruction of His Majesty's most Sacred Person and Government, and for the Extirpation of the True Protestant Religion. And also, That if the said Duke should succeed to the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom, nothing is more manifest, than that a total Change of Religion within these Kingdoms would ensue; for prevention whereof be it enacted, etc. To which some in their Speeches added, That it was impossible that a Popish Successor should come to the Crown, but through a Sea of Blood, and such a War as might shake the Monarchy, and endanger both him and his Children; which notwithstanding, they generally declared for the Succession, though they were premonished how dear it would cost them; and this is a great Argument that they were not of a revengeful or persecuting Spirit; but rather disposed to suffer, when God should call them to it; and in the mean time return good for evil.  
Upon Monday, being Feb. 2. 1684, Charles II. was seized by a violent Fit, supposed to be an Apoplexy, whereof he died on the Thursday following; and that Afternoon K. James II. was proclaimed, who sitting in his Privy Council, then assembled, declared, That since it pleased Almighty God to place him in that Station, and that he was now to succeed so good and gracious a King, as well as so kind a Brother, he thought fit to declare, That he would endeavour to follow his Example, and more especially in that of his great Clemency and Tenderness to his People. That he had been reported to be a Man for Arbitrary Power, though that had not been the only story which had been made of him. That he knew the Principles of the Church of England were for Monarchy; and that the Members of it had shown themselves Good and Loyal Subjects, and therefore he should always take care to defend and support them. And that he likewise knew, that the Laws of England were sufficient to make the King as great a Monarch as he could wish; and therefore, as he should never departed from the just Rights and Privileges of the Crown, so he would never invade any Man's Property. Which Declaration was then ordered in Council to be Published, and the same was repeated at the Coronation, and then confirmed by his Oath; for which Addresses of Thanks were sent the King from all parts of the Nation, assuring him of their Loyalty and Resolutions to maintain his Rights, and defend his Person with their Lives and Fortunes. These Declarations were repeated to the Parliament, which met May 22. 1685. That they might be assured that he spoke them not by chance, and that they might more firmly rely on a Promise so solemnly made. But how this Promise was performed, may appear by the following Events.  
During the sitting of this Parliament, News was brought of the Landing of Argyle in Scotland; and shortly after, of the Landing of the Duke of Monmouth in the West of England; whereupon the Parliament readily declared to stand by the King with their Lives and Fortunes, for the suppressing of those Rebellions, desiring him to take more than ordinary care of his Person. And though the Rebellions were suppressed chief by the voluntary Assistance of such as were of the Communion of the Church of England, among whom the R. R. the Bishop of Winchester was a great Instrument; and the Scholars of Oxford cheerfully engaged themselves: And the Militia raised in the West, caused Monmouth to turn Eastward in the Mouth of the King's Army. Yet in October following, the King took occasion to complain how useless the Militia was on such occasions, and to tell them, That nothing but a good Force of well disciplined Troops in constant pay, was sufficient to defend them from such as might disturb them at home, or from abroad. And here was a Foundation laid for a Standing Army, such as the King intended in a due time, by a French General, and Irish Soldiers, to over-awe the Nation, and make the Instruments of accomplishing his Designs; and there needed but a few more soft steps till the Church be surprised, and awakened out of that Security, wherein her own Innocence, and the King's frequent and solemn Promises had brought her; but first the State of Ireland must be altered; the Earl of Clarendon is called home, to make way for Tyrconnel; Scotland is secured by an Army which was raised for the suppressing of Argyle; the Duke of Albemarle, that was too popular, is sent to Jamaica, and whatever, or whosoever might be thought able to withstand any violence that should be offered to the Church, and the Religion that was Established is removed, and the Power put into such hands as the King could confide in, for the destruction of the same. And because the Protestant Dissenters were a considerable Party, and their Eyes began to be so far opened, as to perceive that they should perish in the Ruin of the Church, which made them more inclinable to a Union with it, for prevention of their common destruction, the old Stratagem of a Toleration and Liberty of Conscience, which Coleman declared to be an effectual means to destroy the Established Church, is now made use of.  
This bold and fatal stroke was made immediately at the Root of the Religion and Laws established in Scotland; but seconded by the same Arm against the Establishment in England, as will evidently appear upon these considerations. The Proclamation for Liberty of Conscience in Scotland, dated Feb. 12. 1687.  
In which consider first, the Foundation of it in these words, We have thought fit to grant, and by our Sovereign Authority, Prerogative Royal, and Absolute Power, which all our Subjects are to obey without reserve, do hereby grant our Royal Toleration, etc. Which words do assert a Power in the King to command what he pleaseth, and an Obligation in the Subject to obey whatever he commands.  
2. This Absolute Power is not grounded on any Law, lest it should seem to be derived from the People, but on a Sovereign Authority inherent in the King's Person, Jure Divino, which may be exercised on that ground as well in England as Scotland, as the event shows it was.  
3. This Absolute Power is to be obeyed by all the Subjects without reserve (i. e.) not only by a passive submission to the Power, but by an active compliance with it; so that when the King shall declare it to be his Will and Pleasure, That all his Subjects renounce the Protestant Religion, and turn Roman Catholics, (to which his Religion binds him, and as he hopes for Salvation, and under the Penalty of being deposed by the Pope) they are bound to be of the King's Religion.  
4. That the Subjects that will partake of the benefit of this Toleration, must swear, To the utmost of their power to assist, defend, and maintain the King and his Successors, in the exercise of this Absolute Power, against all deadly, (i. e.) all Mortals. So that the Subjects were to make a very dear purchase of this (intolerable) Toleration; for which they were to pawn their Souls, and submit all they had to an Absolute Power, without reserve.  
Let us consider therefore the intrinsic value of this Toleration, which says, We do give and grant our Royal Toleration to the several Professors of the Christian Religion after-named: Where the word Royal looks like a stamp on base Metal, mixed of Popery and Quakerism, expressed in the Proclamation, and is so general, that as never any Christian Prince granted the like, so the King as a Roman Catholic, could not grant to any of those mentioned, (viz.) either of the Church of Scotland, then established under Episcopacy; or to the Presbyterians or Quakers, whom the Church of Rome accounts Heretics. But than it is to be considered, that this Toleration of the Protestant Subjects, is granted under the several Conditions, Restrictions, and Limitations mentioned. As first: None are to be tolerated, but such as accept of the Toleration; (i. e.) acknowledge the Lawfulness of the Absolute Power, and swear to maintain it. 2. That nothing be said or done in their Meetings, that is contrary to the Weal and Peace of our Reign, Seditious, or Treasonable; and that they only exercise in private Houses. But what would be interpreted to be Seditious, the most cautious Preacher could hardly discern: But that all Scotland might know for whose sake the Toleration was granted, and who alone would, in time, reap the benefit of it, after a large commendation of the Papists as good Christians, and dutiful Subjects, it follows, We by our Absolute Power suspend, stop, and disable all Laws, or Acts of Parliament, made against Roman Catholics: So that they shall be as free in all respects as any of our Protestant Subjects; not only as to the exercise of their Religion, but to enjoy all Offices, Benefices, and others, which we shall think fit to bestow upon them: And to this end it follows, We do by our Royal Authority aforesaid, (i.e.) the Absolute Power, stop, disable, and dispense with all Laws enjoining any Oaths or Tests, etc. And whereas the Toleration for Protestants was clogged with several Conditions, etc. this for Papists is amplified in these words, We command all our Judges, and others concerned, to explain this in the most ample sense and meaning, etc. for their Indemnity.  
I have repeated the heads of this Proclamation more largely, that the Reader may see, what little reason the Protestants Subjects of Scotland had to return those slavish Addresses, which would be too nauseous to repeat: It is no great wonder that the Scottish Mobilie should return their Thanks; when the Privy Council declared, They would assert his Prerogative with the hazard of their Lives; and that whoever were employed by him, were sufficiently secured by his Authority. But that the English Subjects should dance after the Scottish Pipe, upon such Winds as blow hot and cold in the same breath, is an indelible Reproach of ignorance, and of obstinacy against what is their True Interest, the support of the Protestant Religion, Laws, and Liberties. Yet when the like Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, dated April 4. 1687, came forth for England, tho' the pretences were, That it ever had been his Majesty's Opinion, that Conscience ought not to be constrained, nor People forced in Matters of mere Religion, and that the perfect enjoyment of their Property had never been in any Case invaded by him: when it was known that the rigour used against Dissenters was urged by the Court; and many Outrages committed by a Standing Army, against the Subject's Property. And the suspending of Laws did strike at the very Foundation of Government, and Destruction of the Subjects, by placing Papists, who were not qualified by Law, into Offices and Places of Trust, Civil and Military, it is a wonder how any Faction in England could address their Thanks, and promise to stand by the King, as a Return of Gratitude for such a Toleration, as gave liberty to Turks, Jews, and Atheists; but was particularly designed for the establishing of that Religion which should persecute and devour all the rest; and yet there wanted not Addresses of Thanks from all parts of the Nation for this Liberty of Conscience, as it is called (but really of Confusion). The Addresses are so many, and fulsome, that I shall not surcharge the Reader with them; only observe, that they were offered by a Generation who succeeded those that petitioned for the Death of the Royal Martyr; that addressed Oliver Cromwell, and his Son Richard, with the like odious Flatteries, but that they should address their Thanks for taking off those Laws that kept out Popery and Slavery, is more, I suppose, that their Forefathers would have done; only it is evident, that it was done on a design to ruin the Church of England, though every ordinary person might perceive, it had been in the power of the those Addressers, Popery and Slavery would have been entailed on them and their Posterity by a Law.  
And though the Church of England had better Assurances, both by the Laws, and by their constant adhering to the Crown, than the Promises in that Proclamation, yet because they refused to return their Thanks, they were charged with the brand of Abhorrers, by the opposite Factions, who might well conclude, that since the King failed so much in his most solemn and deserved Promises to that Church, which was by Law Established, and was the Body of the Nation, those scattered Parties which had not deserved any Favour from the Crown, could not expect a performance of those Promises: But by this we see what slender opportunities some Men are ready to lay hold on, to vent their Malice against the Church, though their own Ruin be involved in it. And what was the import of such Addresses, but to thank the King for dispensing with those Laws, and as much as in him lay, abrogating and dissolving them, which were made as a Fence to the Protestant Religion, and for opening a wide gap for Popery and Slavery to come in and triumph over us.  
In April, 1688, the King declares, That he was encouraged by the multitude of Addresses received from his Subjects, to endeavour to establish Liberty of Conscience on such Foundations as should be unalterable: And desires his Subjects to consider, that for the Three Years last passed he was not such a Prince as he had been represented by his Enemies, (i. e.) an Oppressor, but a Father of his People. And now the Church of England, which had merited so many Solemn Promises for their Protection, were to have an experiment how well he would perform them; for he makes an Order in Council, That his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience should be read in all Churches and Chapels throughout the Kingdom: Against the Publishing whereof, the Seven Bishops, who were then on the spot, in behalf of themselves, and their absent Brethren, and their Clergy, humbly presented the following Petition:  
To the King's Most Excellent Majesty.  
Humbly showing,  
THat the Great Aversions they find in themselves to the Distributing and Publishing in all their Churches, Your Majesty's late Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, proceeds neither from any want of Duty and Obedience to Your Majesty (our Holy Mother the Church of England, being both in her Principles, and in her constant Practice unquestionably Loyal, and having to her great Honour been more than once publicly acknowledged to be so by Your gracious Majesty); nor yet from any want of due tenderness to Dissenters, in relation to whom they are willing to come to such a temper as shall be thought fit when that matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament and Convocation. But among many other considerations, from this especially, because that Declaration is founded on such a Dispensing Power, as hath been often declared illegal in Parliament, particularly in 1662., and 1672, and in the beginning of Your Majesty's Reign, and is a Matter of so great moment and consequence to the whole Nation, both in Church and State, that Your Petitioners cannot in Prudence, Honour, or Conscience, so far make themselves Parties to it, as the distributing of it all over the Nation, and the solemn Publication of it once and again, even in God's House, and in the time of his Divine Service, must amount to in common and reasonable construction. Your Petitioners therefore most humbly and earnestly beseech Your Majesty that you would be graciously pleased not to insist upon the Distributing and Reading Your Majesty's Declaration. And your Petitioners as in Duty bound shall ever Pray, etc.  


W. Cant.  
W. Asaph.  
Fr. Ely.  
Jo. Cicest.  
Tho. Bath and Wells.  
Tho. Peterborough.  
Jonathan Bristol.    
To which His Majesty answered:  I Have heard of this before, but did not believe it: I did not expect this from the Church of England, especially from some of you. If I change My Mind, you shall hear from Me; if not, I expect My Command shall be obeyed. 
The Reasons for not Reading the Declaration, given by a Clergyman, being worthy to be transmitted to Posterity, I have here inserted.  
A LETTER from a Clergyman in the City, to his Friend in the Country, containing his Reasons for not Reading the Declaration.  
SIR,  
I Do not wonder at your concern for finding an Order of Council published in the Gazette for Reading the King's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience in all Churches and Chapels in this Kingdom. You desire to know my Thoughts about it, and I shall freely tell them; for this is not a time to be reserved.  
Our Enemies who have given our Gracious King this Counsel against us, have taken the most effectual way, not only to ruin us, but to make us appear the Instruments of our own Ruin, that what course soever we take, we shall be undone; and one side or other will conclude that we have undone ourselves, and fall like Fools.  
To lose our Live and Preferments, nay our Liberties and Lives in a plain and direct opposition to Popery, as suppose for refusing to read Mass in our Churches, or to swear to the Trent-Creed, is an honourable way of falling, and has the divine comforts of suffering for Christ and his Religion; and I hope there is none of us but can cheerfully submit to the Will of God in it. But this is not our present Case; to read the Declaration, is not to read the Mass, nor to profess the Romish Faith; and therefore some will judge that there is no hurt in reading it, and that to suffer for such a Refusal, is not to fall like Confessors, but to suffer as Criminals for disobeying the lawful Commands of our Prince: but yet we judge, and we have the concurring Opinions of all the Nobility and Gentry with us, who have already suffered in this Cause, that to take away the Test and Penal Laws at this time, is but one step from the introducing of Popery; and therefore to read such a Declaration in our Churches, though it do not immediately bring Popery in, yet it sets open our Church-doors for it, and then it will take its own time to enter: So that should we comply with this Order, all good Protestants would despise and hate us, and then we may be easily crushed, and shall soon fall with great dishonour, and without any pity. This is the difficulty of our Case; we shall be censured on both sides, but with this difference: We shall fall a little sooner by not reading the Declaration, if our Gracious Prince resent this as an act of an obstinate and peevish or factious Disobedience, as our Enemies will be sure to represent it to him; We shall as certainly fall, and not long after, if we do read it, and then we shall fall unpitied and despised, and it may be with the Curses of the Nation, whom we have ruined by our Compliance; and this is the way never to rise more: And may I suffer all that can be suffered in this World, rather than contribute to the final Ruin of the best Church in the World.  
Let us then examine this matter impartially, as those who have no mind either to ruin themselves, or to ruin the Church: I suppose no Minister of the Church of England can give his consent to the Declaration. Let us then consider whether reading the Declaration in our Churches be not an interpretative Consent, and will not with great reason be interpreted to be so: For,  
First, By our Law all Ministerial Officers are accountable for their Actions: The Authority of Superiors, though of the King himself, cannot justify inferior Officers, much less the Ministers of State, if they should execute any illegal Commands; which shows, that our Law does not look upon the Ministers of Church or State to be mere Machine's and Tools, to be managed wholly by the Will of Superiors, without exercising any Act of Judgement or Reason themselves; for then inferior Ministers were no more punishable than the Horses are which draw an innocent Man to Tyburn: and if inferior Ministers are punishable, than our Laws suppose that what we do in obedience to Superiors, we make our own Act by doing it, and I suppose that signifies our Consent in the eye of the Law, to what we do. It is a Maxim in our Law, That the King can do no wrong; and therefore if any wrong be done, the Crime and Gild is the Minister's who does it: for the Laws are the King's public Will, and therefore he is never supposed to command any thing contrary to Law; nor is any Minister, who does an illegal Action, allowed to pretend the King's Command and Authority for it: and yet this is the only Reason I know, why we must not obey a Prince against the Laws of the Land, or the Laws of God, because what we do, let the Authority be what it will that commands it, becomes our own Act, and we are responsible for it; and then as I observed before, it must imply our own Consent.  
Secondly, The Ministers of Religion have a greater tye and obligation than this, because they have the care and conduct of men's Souls, and therefore are bound to take care that what they publish in their Churches, be neither contrary to the Laws of the Land, nor to the good of the Church: For the Ministers of Religion are not looked upon as common Criers, but what they Read, they are supposed to recommend too, tho' they do no more than Read it; and therefore to read any thing in the Church, which I do not consent to and approve, nay which I think prejudicial to Religion, and the Church of God, as well as contrary to the Laws of the Land, is to Misguide my People, and to Dissemble with God and Men; because it is presumed, that I neither do, nor aught to read any thing in the Church, which I do not in some degree approve. Indeed, let men's private Opinions be what they will, in the nature of the thing, he that Reads such a Declaration to his People, teaches them by it: For is not Reading Teaching? Suppose then I do not consent to what I Read, yet I consent to teach my People what I read: and herein is the evil of it; for it may be it were no fault to consent to the Declaration, but if I consent to teach my People what I do not consent to the Declaration, but if I consent to teach my People what I do not consent to myself, I am sure that is a great one: And he who can distinguish between consenting to read the Declaration, and consenting to teach the People by the Declaration, when reading the Declaration is teaching it, has a very subtle distinguishing-Conscience. Now if consenting to read the Declaration be a consent to teach it my People, than the natural Interpretation of Reading the Declaration, is, That he who Reads it, in such a solemn teaching-manner, Approves it. If this be not so, I desire to know, why I may not read an Homily for Transubstantiation, or Invocation of Saints, or the Worship of Images, if the King sends me such good Catholic Homilies, and commands me to read them? And thus we may instruct our People in all the Points of Popery, and recommend it to them with all the Sophistry and artificial Insinuations, in obedience to the King, with a very good Conscience, because without our consent: If it be said, this would be a contradiction to the Doctrine of our Church by Law established; so I take the Declaration to be: And if we may read the Declaration contrary to Law, because it does not imply our consent to it; so we may Popish Homilies, for the bare reading them will not imply our consent, no more than the reading the Declaration does: But whether I consent to the Doctrine or no, it is certain I consent to teach my People this Doctrine; and it is to be considered, whether an honest Man can to this.  
Thirdly, I suppose no man will doubt, but the King intends, that our Reading the Declaration should signify to the Nation, our Consent and Approbation of it; for the Declaration does not want Publishing, for it is sufficiently known already: but our Reading it in our Churches must serve instead of Addresses of Thanks, which the Clergy generally refused, though it was only to Thank the King for his Gracious Promises renewed to the Church of England, in the his Declaration, which was much more innocent, than to publish the Declaration itself in our Churches: This would persuade one, that the King thinks our reading the Declaration, to signify our Consent, and that the People will think it to be so. And he that can satisfy Conscience, to do an action without consent, which the nature of the Thing, the design and intention of the Command, and the Sense of the People expound to be a Consent, may, I think, as well satisfy himself with Equivocations, and mental Reservations.  
There are two things to be answered to this, which must be considered.  

I. That the People understand our Minds, and see that this is matter of Force upon us, and mere Obedience to the King. To which I answer, 

1. Possibly the People do understand that the matter of the Declaration is against our Principles: But is this any excuse, that we read that, and by reading recommend that to them, which is against our own Consciences and Judgements? Reading the Declaration would be no Fault at all, but our Duty, when the King commands it, did we approve of the matter of it; but to consent to teach our People such Doctrines as we think contrary to the Laws of God, or the Laws of the Land, does not lessen but aggravate the Fault, and People must be very good natured to think this an Excuse.  
2. It is not likely that all the People will be of a mind in this matter, some may excuse it, others, and those it may be the most, the best, and the wisest men, will condemn us for it, and then how shall we justify ourselves against their Censures? when the World will be divided in their Opinions, the plain way is certainly the best, to do what we can justify ourselves, and then let men judge as they please. No men in England will be pleased with our Reading the Declaration, but those who hope to make great advantage of it against us, and against our Church and Religion: others will severely condemn us for it, and censure us as false to our Religion, and as Betrayers both of Church and State: and besides that, it does not become a Minister of Religion, to do any thing, which in the opinion of the most charitable men can only be excused; for what needs an excuse, is either a fault or looks very like one; besides this I say, I will not trust men's Charity; those who have suffered themselves in this Cause, will not excuse us for fear of suffering; those who are inclined to excuse us now, will not do so when they consider the thing better, and come to feel the ill consequences of it: when our Enemies open their eyes, and tell them what our Reading the Declaration signified, which they will then tell us we ought to have seen before, though they were not bound to see it; for we are to guide and instruct them, not they us.    
II. Others therefore think, that when we read the Declaration, we should publicly profess, that it is not our own judgement, but that we only read it in obedience to the King; and then our reading it cannot imply our consent to it: Now this is only Protestation contra factum, which all People will laugh at, and scorn us for: for such a solemn reading it in the time of Divine Service, when all men ought to be most grave and serious, and far from dissembling with God or Men, does in the nature of the thing imply our approbation; and should we declare the contrary, when we read it, what shall we say to those who ask us, Why then do you read it? But let those who have a mind to try this way, which, for my part, I take to be a greater and more unjustifiable provocation of the King, than not to read it; and, I suppose, those who do not read it, will be thought plainer and honester men, and will escape as well as those who read it and protest against it: and yet nothing less than an express Protestation will salve this matter; for only to say, they read it merely in obedience to the King, does not express their dissent: it signifies indeed, that they would not have read it, if the King had not commanded it; but these words do not signify, that they disapprove of the Declaration, when their reading it, though only in obedience to the King, signifies their approbation of it, as much as actions can signify a consent: let us call to mind how it fared with those in King Charles the First's Reign, who read the Book of Sports, as it was called, and then preached against it.   
To return then to our Argument: If reading the Declaration in our Churches be in the nature of the action, in the intention of the command, in the opinion of the People, an interpretative consent to it, I think myself bound in conscience not to read it, because I am bound in conscience not to approve it: 

It it against the Constitution of the Church of England, which is established by Law, and to which I have subscribed, and therefore am bound in conscience to teach nothing contrary to it, while this Obligation lasts:  
It is to teach an unlimited and universal Toleration, which the Parliament in 72 declared illegal, and which has been condemned by the Christian Church in all Ages:  
It is to teach my People, that they need never come to Church more, but have my free leave, as they have the King's, to go to a Conventicle, or to Mass:  
It is to teach the Dispensing Power, which altars, what has been formerly thought, the whole Constitution of this Church and Kingdom: which we dare not do, till we have the Authority of Parliament for it:  
It is to recommend to our People, the choice of such Persons to sit in Parliament, as shall take away the Test and Penal Laws, which most of the Nobility and Gentry of the Nation have declared their Judgements against:  
It is to condemn all those great and worthy Patriots of their Country, who forfeited the dearest thing in the World to them, next a good Conscience, viz. The favour of their Prince, and a great many honourable and profitable Employments with it, rather than consent to that Proposal of taking away the Test and Penal Laws, which they apprehend destructive to the Church of England, and the Protestant Religion; and he who can in conscience do all this, I think, need scruple nothing.    
For let us consider further, what the effects and consequences of our reading the Declaration are like to be, and I think they are matter of Conscience too, when they are evident and apparent.  
This will certainly render our Persons and Ministry infinitely contemptible which is against that Apostolic Canon, Let no man despise thee, Tit. 2.15. That is, so to behave himself in his Ministerial Office, as not to fall under contempt; and therefore this obliges the Conscience, not to make ourselves ridiculous, nor to render our Ministry, our Counsels, Exhortations, Preaching, Writing, of no effect, which is a thousand times worse than being silenced: Our Sufferings will Preach more effectually to the People, when we cannot Speak to them: but he who for Fear or Cowardice, or the Love of this World, betrays his Church and Religion by undue compliances, and will certainly be thought to do so, may continue to Preach, but to no purpose; and when we have rendered ourselves ridiculous and contemptible, we shall then quickly fall, and fall unpitied.  
There is nothing will so effectually tend to the final ruin of the Church of England, because our Reading the Declaration will discourage, or provoke, or misguide, all the Friends the Church of England has: can we blame any man for not preserving the Laws and the Religion of our Church and Nation, when we ourselves will venture nothing for it? can we blame any man for consenting to Repeal the Test and Penal Laws, when we recommend it to them by reading the Declaration? have we not reason to expect that the Nobility and Gentry, who have already suffered in this Cause, when they hear themselves condemned for it in all the Churches of England, will think it time to mend such a fault, and reconcile themselves to their Prince? and if our Church fall this way, is there any reason to expect that it should ever rise again? These Consequences are almost as evident as Demonstrations, and let it be what it will in itself, which I foresee will destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion and Interest, I think I ought to make as much conscience of doing it, as of doing the most immoral action in nature.  
To say, that these mischievous consequences are not absolutely necessary, and therefore do not affect the Conscience, because we are not certain they will follow, is a very mean Objection; Moral Actions indeed have not such necessary consequences, as natural causes have necessary effects, because no moral causes act necessarily: reading the Declaration will not as necessarily destroy the Church of England, as Fire burns Wood, but if the consequence be plain and evident, the most likely thing that can happen, if it be unreasonable to expect any other, if it be what is plainly intended and designed, either I must never have any regard to Moral Consequences of my Actions, or if ever they are to be considered, they are in this Case.  
Why are the Nobility and Gentry so extremely averse to the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws? Why do they forfeit the King's Favour, and their Honourable Stations, rather than comply with it? If you say that this tends to destroy the Church of England and the Protestant Religion, I ask whether this be the necessary consequence of it? whether the King cannot keep his Promise to the Church of England if the Test and Penal Laws be Repealed? We cannot say, but this may be: and yet the Nation does not think fit to try it; and we commend those Great Men who deny it; and if the same Questions were put to us, we think we ought in Conscience to deny them ourselves: and are there not as high probabilities, that our Reading the Declaration will promote the Repeal of the Test and Penal Laws, as that such a Repeal will ruin our Constitution, and bring in Popery upon us? Is it not as probable, that such a compliance in us, will disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry, who have hitherto been firm to us, as that when the Power of the Nation is put into Popish Hands, by the Repeal of such Tests and Laws, the Priests and Jesuits may find some Salvo for the King's Conscience, and persuade him to forget his Promise to the Church of England? and if the probable ill consequences of Repealing the Test and Penal Laws, be a good reason not to comply with it, I cannot see but that the probable ill consequences of Reading the Declaration, is as good a reason not to read it.  
The most material Objection is, that the Dissenters, whom we ought not to provoke, will expound our not Reading it, to be the effect of a persecuting Spirit: Now I wonder men should lay any weight on this, who will not allow the most probable consequences of our Actions, to have any influence upon Conscience: for if we must compare consequences, to disoblige all the Nobility and Gentry by Reading it, is likely to be much more fatal, than to anger the Dissenters: and it is more likely, and there is much more reason for it, that one should be offended than the other: For the Dissenters who are wise and considering, are sensible of the snare themselves, and though they desire Ease and Liberty, they are not willing to have it with such apparent hazard of Church and State: I am sure that tho' we were never so desirous that they might have their Liberty, (and when there is opportunity of showing our inclinations without danger, they may find that we are not such Persecutors as we are represented) yet we cannot consent that they should have it this way, which they will find the dearest Liberty that ever was granted.  
This Sir, is our Case in short, the Difficulties are great on both sides, and therefore now if ever, we ought to besiege Heaven with our Prayers, for Wisdom, and Counsel, and Courage; that God would protect his Church and Reformed Christianity, against all the devices of their Enemies: Which is the daily and hearty Prayer of,  
May 22. 1688. SIR, Your Friend and Brother.  
Though this Petition was presented with all humble Submission, and how reasonable soever the Refusing to publish the Declaration was, it was so aggravated by Father Petre, and others of the Romish Persuasion, that the Bishops were sent for to the Council, and there charged with publishing a false, malicious, and seditious Libel, and by a Warrant of the Council committed to the Tower; on which there followed, at least in the hopes and expectations of the Papists, such a Scene of Persecution, as never was seen under Queen Mary. The Seven Bishops were by Habias' Corpus brought to the King's-Bench Bar, where was the Chief Justice, and an Ignoramus Papist Allebone, whom one of his Brethren openly exposed for his false Quotations.  
Justice Holloway, and Justice Powel, after all the plead of Council on each side, the Chief Justice gave this direction to the Jury: That if they believed the Petition presented by the Bishops to the King, was the same that was produced in Court, than the Publication was sufficiently proved; if not, the Bishops were not guilty of the Publication. And secondly, That any thing tending to disturb the Government, was Libellus Famosus; and therefore he judged it to be a Libel. Justice Holloway said, That the intention of an action ought to be considered; that the Bishops delivered the Petition with all humility and decency imaginable; and were not Men of evil lives; and it being the Right of every Subject to Petition, such a delivery could be no fault; especially, it being done to save themselves harmless, by showing their Reasons of not obeying the King's Command. Justice Powel declared plainly, That he saw nothing of Sedition, or other Crime fixed on the Bishops, nothing being offered by the King's Counsel to make the Petition false or malicious, and desired the Jury to consider, That the Bishops apprehended the Declaration to be illegal, being founded on a Dispensing Power; and he did never remember in any Case, that there was such a Power in the King, which if true, the Petition could be no Libel: And lastly, That such a Power would amount to an abrogation of all the Laws, and so there would be no need of Parliaments, but the whole Legislative Power would be in the King; which (said he to the Jury) is worth your consideration.  
The Jury accordingly considered the Case all Night, and in the Morning gave their Verdict for the Bishops, Not Guilty, which caused such Acclamations in the Court, as were echoed through the Nation. And this Deliverance of the Bishops, was esteemed the Freedom of the whole Nation from Popery and Slavery; and on it the Revolution of our Affairs began.  
This Scene of Persecution being so happily broken, we may have leisure to take a view of that other of the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs; which was such an Engine as Archimedes fancied he had contrived, that if he had found a place whereon to fix it, it would have unhinged the Globe of the Earth: but as it happened, there was no such place to be found. But this was so contrived, as to make the Church a Felo de se, and to fall by its own hands; for the Commissioners first named, were some of those that were intended to fall by it; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of Durham and Rochester, the Lord Treasurer, and Sunderland, and the Lord Chief Justice Herbert, and the Lord Chancellor, who was the Dominus Factotum, in conjunction with whom, any Two might act; and such Three might take Cognisance of any Case that was under the Ecclesiastical Laws; they might Visit both the Universities, the Cathedrals, and Collegiate Churches, Parish-Churches, Schools, and Hospitals; they might abrogate Old and make New Laws, with a Non Obstante to any Right, or ancient Constitution; and all their Acts were to be confirmed by a New Seal, having this Inscription, Sigillum Regiae Majestatis ad Causas Ecclesiasticas. But the Commission was so unwarrantable and ill designed, that the most considerable Men refused to act by it; in whose room other confiding Men are named, (viz.) the Bishop of Chester, the Lord Chief Justice Wright, and Baron Jenner; so that the Chancellor could never want Two of his own Distemper to act with him.  
The R. R. the Bishop of London was a Person of such extraordinary merit, that he was pitched on, as the first that was fit to suffer by this new sort of Ostracism, but finding no pretence for an Accusation in him, from any act of his own, he must suffer for another's sin imputed to him; or rather for a wicked invention of their own; for thus it was: Dr. Sharp of the Diocese of London, a Divine of known Integrity and Loyalty, as well as of Parts and Prudence, was represented to the King, as one that had preached Seditiously, and endeavoured to alienate the Affections of His Majesty's Subjects from him: whereof the Doctor being advised, endeavours by all means to clear himself; and by good Advice draws up a Petition to His Majesty, declaring, How faithfully he had served Him and his Brother, and had studiously endeavoured to suppress all Doctrines and Practices tending to Sedition, etc. But the Doctor could never find opportunity to present his Petition, for the Scene was otherwise laid, and thus it opened: A Letter was procured from the King to the Bishop of London, importing, That his Majesty being fully satisfied that Dr. John Sharp, Rector of St. Giles', had reflected on his Majesty, and on his Government, he commanded the Bishop forthwith (right or wrong) to suspend him. The Bishop returned an Answer to the Earl of Sunderland to this effect: That his Majesty's Command could not be complied with, being contrary to Law; because no Judges (as he was) could condemn any Man, before he was heard what he could say for himself: So that he was to suffer for what in Justice he could not do. On the Fourth of August he appears before the Commissioners, and the Chancellor asks him the Reason, Why he suspended not Dr. Sharp, according to the King's Order? The Bishop answered, That he had received such an Order, and if he had done contrary to his Duty, it was his ignorance, and not a wilful neglect. The Chancellor replies, That his Lordship ought to have known the Law: and however, that the King ought to be obeyed. To which the Bishop replied, That if a Prince required a Judge to execute a Command not agreeable to Law, it was his Duty, Rescribere & reclamare principi; which he did by the Lord Precedent; and that he had done in effect what the King commanded, advising the Doctor to forbear Preaching in his Diocese. After this, with some difficulty, his Council were admitted to plead, who justified the Bishop's Answer: and then the Bishop offered, That if through mistake he had erred in any Circumstance, he was ready to beg his Majesty's Pardon, and to make any reparation he was able. But in short, at his next appearing, he had his Sentence read, (viz.) That Henry Lord Bishop of London, being convened before the Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Affairs, for his Disobedience, and other Contempts; and being fully heard, was by them declared, deemed, and pronounced, Suspended from the Function and Execution of his Episcopal Office. In this one Noble Bishop the whole Hierarchy of England were struck at, and his Sentence but a Prologue to the Tragedy intended; the next Scene of which was this:  
On the Ninth of February, Dr. Peachel, Vicechancellor of Cambridge, received a Mandate under the King's Signet Manual, to admit one Father Francis, a Benedictine Monk, Master of Arts, without taking the usual Oaths; which the Vicechancellor, by the unanimous Consent of the University refused, perceiving their Privileges and Properties to be in danger; and upon their offering the Oaths to Father Francis, and his refusing to take them, they denied him that Degree; whereupon the Vicechancellor was summoned by a Messenger to appear before the Commissioners in person, and the Senate by their Deputies: Upon their appearance, the Vicechancellor was asked, Why he had not obeyed the King's Command, in admitting Father Francis? To which they gave their Answer in Writing: Showing, That by several Acts of Parliament, (viz.) 1ᵒ & 5ᵒ Eliz. by which it was ordained, No Man should be promoted to any Degree, without taking an Oath to acknowledge the King's Supremacy, etc. And 3ᵒ & 9º; Jacobi primi, it was enacted, That the Oath of Allegiance should be taken and administered by the Vicechancellor, and all the Principals of Houses, and by every Person that should be promoted to any Degree, for the preservation of the Doctrine of the Church of England, and the King's Prerogative: which Oaths the said Francis refused. And they pleaded also, That the admission to a Degree, was not of Ecclesiastical, but Temporal Cognizance. And that by a Statute 16 Charles II. No Court should be erected, having like Power, Jurisdiction, and Authority as the High Commission Court had, but should be utterly void. After some Debate, the Chancellor pronounced the Vicechancellor deprived of his Office, and suspended ab Officio & Beneficio, of his Headship of Magdalen College, and forbidden him to meddle with any public business in the University.  
This is another instance of the King's good will to the Church of England, and his unalterable observing his Declaration for Liberty of Conscience. And now the other Sister, the University of Oxford must partake of the same favour, where Dr. Walker a professed Papist is made Head of University College; and one Massey, a Popish Proselyte, Dean of Christ-Church; and Dr. Clerk Precedent of Magdalen College being dead, one Mr. Farmer procured the King's Mandate to succeed him; against whom they petitioned his Majesty, as being a scandalous person, and not qualified as their Statutes required; and they proceeded in a regular way to Elect Dr. Hough their Precedent, who being presented to their Visitor, was sworn and admitted; but being told of the King's displeasure, they complained of their Unhappiness to the Duke of Ormond their Chancellor, and the Bishop of Winchester their Visitor, that they were reduced to a necessity either of disobeying the King, or wronging their Consciences. And that after his Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, but Gallio cared for none of these things, the Commissioners cite the Fellows or their Delegates to appear before them. Their Delegates were Dr. Aldworth, Dr. Fairfax, Dr. Smith, Mr. Hammond, Mr. Dobson, and Mr. Fairer, who gave in their Plea to this effect: That they were bound by their Oaths not to admit any to that Office, but such as were Fellows of that, or New-Colledge, which Mr. Farmer was not: That they were not to admit any, but such did first swear to observe the Statutes of the College: That they were sworn not to admit any Dispensations by any Authority whatsoever; and that they had Elected Dr. Hough, who was qualified as the Statutes required. Mr. Farmer on proofs of his Incapacity was laid aside, and another Mandate sent for admission of the Bishop of Oxford. And shortly after the King coming to Oxford, ordered the Fellows to attend him at Christ-Church, and then told them, He had known them to be a stubborn and turbulent College for Twenty Six Years; taxed them with their Church of England Loyalty; and bid them go home, and know that he was their King, and would be obeyed; and such as refused to admit the Bishop of Oxford, should feel the weight of his Displeasure: But without dread of these Menaces, and the intended Persecution, they persisted to refuse the Bishop of Oxon, against whom they had the like Objections as against Mr. Farmer, the Bishop having Judas-like betrayed his Master, that had preferred him to that Honour, which he resolved to rise to, (viz.) a Coach and Six Horses, which was the Religion he resolved to adhere to; but for these causes they were all expelled, and made uncapable of any Preferment, and all to make way for a Seminary of Papists.  
For these breaches being made in the Walls and Towers of our Zion, and there being an Army of Locusts in the Land, which waited an opportunity to storm, kill, and take possession, there being at the same time a Nuntio from Rome, who was publicly feasted at the Guild-Hall, London, and an Ambassador at Rome, a numerous Spawn of Jesuits and Friars, who were seen in their several Habits, Schools, Public Houses appointed for them; and Four Bishops appointed to exercise Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.  
Ireland being secured in the hands of Papists; Scotland overawed by an Army; and the Fleet and Tower of London in confiding hands; the Popish Lords being the Cabinet Council, and Peter's the Jesuit chief Minister of State. What could be expected but a total overthrow of the Church? and that the King's Age and Infirmities being considered, that they should with all violence push on for our Destruction? But God infatuated the Counsels of all these Achitophel's, and what they designed for our Ruin, was by his gracious and wise Providence, turned to our preservation: For whereas the King to secure the Popish Interest, and to establish his Proclamation for Liberty of Conscience, to which the Prince and Princess of Orange could by no means be drawn to give their consent, the King was prevailed with to own a Suppositious Child, as Heir to his Dominions, that he might give a new life to the Popish and Fanatic Interests: But this, and his sense of the Protestant Cause, which was then in a decaying condition, stirred up the Spirit of our present King, to vindicate the Cause of the English Church, and his own, and his Consort's Title to the Crown; and the Severity used to the Bishops, and the Universities; and the Affront done to the English Soldiers, by bringing some thousands of Irish Cutthroats, and preferring them above the English, did stem the Tide; and immediately upon the Arrival of the Prince's Army, there followed a great Revolt of the Nobility, Soldiery, and Gentry of the Land, who marching towards London, became formidable to the King, who coming as far as Salisbury, intending to fight the Prince, found himself so deserted, that he returned in great haste to London; and considering into what straits his precipitant Counsels had brought him, he sends for such Bishops as were in, or near London, to have their Advice in that critical Juncture, which with all possible humility and integrity they did to this effect: 

1. That it was necessary for him to restore all things to the state wherein he found them when he came to the Crown, by committing all Offices and Places of Government to such of the Nobility and Gentry as were qualified for them according to the Laws, and by redressing and removing such Grievances as were generally complained of; particularly, that his Majesty would dissolve the Ecclesiastical Commission, and promise to his People never to Erect any such Court for the future.  
2. That he would not only put an effectual stop to the issuing forth of any Dispensations, but would call in, and cancel all those which since his coming to the Crown had been obtained from him.  
3. That he would restore the Universities to their Legal State, Statutes, and Customs; and particularly restore the Master of Magdalen College in Cambridge, and the ejected Precedent and Fellows of Magdalen College in Oxford, to their Properties.  
4. And that he would not permit any Persons to enjoy any Preferments in either University, but such as were qualified by the Statutes, and Laws of the Land.  
5. That he would suppress the Jesuits Schools opened in London, or elsewhere, and grant no more Licenses for such Schools as were against the Laws of the Land, and his Majesty's true interest.  
6. That he would send Inhibitions after the Four Romish Bishops, who under the Title of Apostolic Vicars, did presume to exercise within this Kingdom, such Jurisdictions as are by the Laws of the Land invested in the Bishops of the Church of England.  
7. That he would not suffer any more Quo Warrantoes to be sued out against any Corporations, but restore to such as had been disturbed their ancient Charters, Privileges, and Immunities, and condemn all those illegal Regulations that had been made.  
8. That he would fill up all the vacant Bishoprics in England and Ireland, with Persons duly qualified; and especially consider the See of York, whose want of an Archbishop is very prejudicial to the whole Province.  
9 That he would act no more, nor insist on the Dispensing Power, but leave it to be debated and settled by Act of Parliament.  
10. That on the Restoration of Corporations, he would issue Writs for a Free Parliament, for redressing of Grievances in Church and State, upon just and solid Foundations; and to establish due Liberty of Conscience.   Lastly, and above all, That his Majesty would permit some of his Bishops to lay such Motives and Arguments before him, as might by the Blessing of God, bring back his Majesty to the Communion of the Church of England, into whose Catholic Faith he had been Baptised, in which he had been Educated, and to which it was their earnest Prayer to Almighty God, that his Majesty might be reunited.  
Had these sober and pious Counsels been accepted then, when the Bishop's Petition was rejected as a false, malicious, and seditious Libel, the King might have been still settled on the Throne; but he had past the Rubicon, and was resolved to fight out his way for the establishing the Popish Religion against all opposition; and being deserted by his English Forces hath resolutely cast himself on the French and Irish; and what hath been done against the established Church there, cannot amount to less than a Persecution. And such a one must we have expected, had not God's Almighty Arm baffled their Antichristian Designs.  
Now if the Popish Party have been so hasty and violent in persecuting the Church, as soon as they got Power into their hands; notwithstanding all that kindness and moderation manifested to them, to the great regret of the other Dissenters, who thought themselves less gently dealt with. I know not what more gentle usage the Church could expect from them, who have so long and loudly cried out of Persecution, and for Forty or Fifty Years together, covenanted to root out Episcopacy and Liturgy, and perpetuated that Obligation to the present Generation; so that the bitter Spirit of the Smectymneunans seem to survive still in the present Dissenters, who still maintain the Old Cause; and if ever the Power should return to their hands, as in the time of the Long Parliament, would fly as high, and fall on the same Game; for a Lion is no less a Lion while he is restrained within a Den, and loaden with Chains, but grows usually more raging when let lose, and Maledicus à malefico non distat nisi occasione: Those ravenous Beasts that do rend a Man in Effigy, do manifest what they would do in Corpore, as the Donatists, who first slew the Orthodox Gladio Oris, did as they had opportunity destroy them o'er Gladii. I think it will be a difficult Province for a very good Orator, to persuade the Church of England, that such Dissenters as have all along struck at the Root, will be contented if a few Branches were cut off.  
When the Winds and Storms rage, the Husbandmen will part with the Branches to preserve the Root; I may part with a Coat or a Cloak to an importunate Brother, but if he to enrich himself, by making me poor, continues craving till he strips me to the skin, and leaves me naked, I am not so much charitable to him, as cruel to myself: Had the Dissenters in 62 asked less, they might have had more granted; but when they crave all, they deserve nothing; if the same Leaven do begin to swell and ferment the Spirits of Men now, as then, we are commanded to be ware of them. We had no sooner passed a Fiery Trial in the Twenty Years Persecution by the Dissenters, but were under another Twenty Years Trial, under the Papists, though it did not appear so visible and successful, till of late. And if the Papists should be asked who were the Persecutors in the first Twenty Years, they must answer the Dissenters; if we should ask the Dissenters, whether the Papists or the Church of England were the persecuted Party in the last Twenty Years, it must be answered the Papists were; for though their frequent Attempts to destroy the Church proved abortive, as there may be many traitorous Conspiracies against the Life of a Prince, though he survive them all, and bring the Conspirators to condign punishment, as in the Powder-Plot.  
Cain might have been called a Persecutor of Abel, though he had not slain him; and Ishmael's cruel mocking of his Brother, is called a persecuting of him. And if the same bitterness of Spirit do reign in the English, as hath shown itself in the Scottish Presbytery, the Episcopal Party may well be jealous of them; and few, I suppose, will be of the Opinion of W. J. That the Removal of our Ceremonies will be an equivalent compensation for the shedding of as much Blood, and exhausting as much Treasure, as was shed and exhausted in the late inhuman Civil War: Where the Royal Martyr, the Archbishop, many Nobles, innumerable Gentry and Commons, were sacrificed for a Reformation of Ceremonies; but I hope such fury will not possess the hearts of any Dissenters in this Age.  
To Conclude:  
The Church is still through the wonderful Providence of God in the legal possession of her Rights, she is neither Popishly affected, nor of a persecuting Spirit or Power; she hath learned by her own Suffering for Conscience-sake, how to pity such as are truly conscientious; but if any man be contentious, and will deny her that liberty which they challenge to themselves, I shall only say with the Apostle, 〈◊〉 hath been to those French Protestants 〈◊〉 have found 〈◊〉 a Sanctuary, and do readily join in her Worship and Service; and I suppose their Judgements are as solid, and their 〈◊〉 as tender as any of our Dissenters, who yet look on our Church as a ●eth-haven, and a House of Bondage.  
FINIS.   

ADVERTISEMENTS.  
1. A Resolution of Certain Queries, concerning Submission to the Present Government. The Queries. 

1. Concerning the Orginal of Government.  
2. What is the Constitution of the Government of England?  
3. What Obligation lies on the King by the Coronation-Oath?  
4. What Obligation lies on the Subject by the Oaths of Supremacy, etc.  
5. Whether if the King Violate his Oath, and actually Destroys the Ends of it, the Subjects are freed from their Obligation to him?  
6. Whether the King hath Renounced or Deserted the Government?  
7. Whether on such Desertion, the People, to preserve themselves from Confusion, may admit another, what Method is to be used in such Admission?  
8. Whether the Settlement now made, is a Lawful Establishment, and such as with a good Conscience may be Submitted to?    
2. A full Answer to all the Popular Objections that have yet appeared, for not taking the Oath of Allegiance to their present Majesties, particularly offered to the Consideration of all such of the Divines of the Church of England, (and others) as are yet unsatisfied: Showing, both from Scripture and the Laws of the Land, the Reasonableness thereof, and the Ruining Consequences, both to the Nation and Themselves, if not complied with.  
3. The Historian Unmasked: Or, Some Reflections on the late History of Passive Obedience. Wherein the Doctrine of Passive Obedience, and Nonresistance is truly Stated and Asserted.  
By a Divine of the Church of England.  
All Three Printed by Freeman Collins; and are to be Sold by Richard Baldwin, in the Old-Bailey. 1689.