doctrine of Calvin, and principles of Buchanan, that they set the people
above the magistrate; which, if I mistake not, is your own fundamental,
and which carries your loyalty no further than your liking. When a vote
of the House of Commons goes on your side, you are as ready to observe
it as if it were passed into a law; but when you are pinched with any
former, and yet unrepealed act of parliament, you declare that in some
cases you will not be obliged by it. The passage is in the same third
part of the "No-Protestant Plot," and is too plain to be denied. The
late copy of your intended Association, you neither wholly justify nor
condemn; but as the Papists, when they are unopposed, fly out into all
the pageantries of worship, but in times of war, when they are hard
pressed by arguments, lie close intrenched behind the Council of Trent:
so now, when your affairs are in a low condition, you dare not pretend
that to be a legal combination, but whensoever you are afloat, I doubt
not but it will be maintained and justified to purpose. For, indeed,
there is nothing to defend it but the sword: it is the proper time to
say anything when men have all things in their power.
In the mean time, you would fain be nibbling at a parallel betwixt this
Association, and that in the time of Queen Elizabeth.[78] But there is
this small difference betwixt them, that the ends of one are directly
opposite to the other: one with the queen's approbation and conjunction,
as head of it; the other, without either the consent or knowledge of the
king, against whose authority it is manifestly designed. Therefore you
do well to have recourse to your last evasion, that it was contrived by
your enemies, and shuffled into the papers that were seized; which yet
you see the nation is not so easy to believe as your own jury; but the
matter is not difficult to find twelve men in Newgate who would acquit a
malefactor.
I have only one favour to desire of you at parting, that when you think
of answering this poem, you would employ the same pens against it, who
have combated with so much success against Absalom and Achitophel: for
then you may assure yourselves of a clear victory, without the least
reply. Rail at me abundantly; and, not to break a custom, do it without
wit: by this method you will gain a considerable point, which is, wholly
to waive the answer of my arguments. Never own the bottom of your
principles, for fear they should be treason. Fall severely on the
miscarriages of government; for if scandal be not allowed, you are no
freeborn subjects. If God has not blessed you with the talent of
rhyming, make use of my poor stock, and welcome: let your verses run
upon my feet; and for the utmost refuge of notorious blockheads, reduced
to the last extremity of sense, turn my own lines upon me, and, in utter
despair of your own satire, make me satirize myself. Some of you have
been driven to this bay already; but, above all the rest, commend me to
the nonconformist parson, who writ the "Whip and Key." I am afraid it is
not read so much as the piece deserves, because the bookseller is every
week crying help at the end of his Gazette, to get it off. You see I am
charitable enough to do him a kindness, that it may be published as well
as printed; and that so much skill in Hebrew derivations may not lie for
waste-paper in the shop. Yet I half suspect he went no further for his
learning, than the index of Hebrew names and etymologies, which is
printed at the end of some English Bibles. If Achitophel signifies the
brother of a fool, the author of that poem will pass with his readers
for the next of kin. And perhaps it is the relation that makes the
kindness. Whatever the verses are, buy them up, I beseech you, out of
pity; for I hear the conventicle is shut up, and the brother[79] of
Achitophel out of service.
Now, footmen, you know, have the generosity to make a purse for a member
of their society, who has had his livery pulled over his ears, and even
protestant socks are bought up among you, out of veneration to the name.
A dissenter in poetry from sense and English will make as good a
Protestant rhymer, as a dissenter from the Church of England a
Protestant parson. Besides, if you encourage a young beginner, who knows
but he may elevate his style a little above the vulgar epithets of
profane, and saucy jack, and atheistic scribbler, with which he treats
me, when the fit of enthusiasm is strong upon him: by which
well-mannered and charitable expressions I was certain of his sect
before I knew his name. What would you have more of a man? He has damned
me in your cause from Genesis to the Revelations; and has half the texts
of both the Testaments against me, if you will be so civil to yourselves
as to take him for your interpreter; and not to take them for Irish
witnesses. After all, perhaps you will tell me, that you retained him
only for the opening of your cause, and that your main lawyer is yet
behind. Now, if it so happen he meet with no more reply than his
predecessors, you may either conclude that I trust to the goodness of my
cause, or fear my adversary, or disdain him, or what you please; for the
short of it is, it is indifferent to your humble servant, whatever your
party says or thinks of him.
* * * * *
Of all our antic sights and pageantry,
Which English idiots run in crowds to see,
The Polish[80] Medal bears the prize alone:
A monster, more the favourite of the town
Than either fairs or theatres have shown.
Never did art so well with nature strive;
Nor ever idol seem'd so much alive:
So like the man; so golden to the sight,
So base within, so counterfeit and light.
One side is fill'd with title and with face; 10
And, lest the king should want a regal place,
On the reverse, a tower the town surveys;
O'er which our mounting sun his beams displays.
The word, pronounced aloud by shrieval voice,
Laetamur, which, in Polish, is rejoice.
The day, month, year, to the great act are join'd:
And a new canting holiday design'd.
Five days he sate, for every cast and look -
Four more than God to finish Adam took.
But who can tell what essence angels are, 20
Or how long Heaven was making Lucifer?
Oh, could the style that copied every grace,
And plough'd such furrows for an eunuch face,
Could it have form'd his ever-changing will,
The various piece had tired the graver's skill!
A martial hero first, with early care,
Blown, like a pigmy by the winds, to war.
A beardless chief, a rebel, e'er a man:
So young his hatred to his prince began.
Next this (how wildly will ambition steer!) 30
A vermin wriggling in the usurper's ear.
Bartering his venal wit for sums of gold,
He cast himself into the saint-like mould;
Groan'd, sigh'd, and pray'd, while godliness was gain -
The loudest bagpipe of the squeaking train.
But, as 'tis hard to cheat a juggler's eyes,
His open lewdness he could ne'er disguise.
There split the saint: for hypocritic zeal
Allows no sins but those it can conceal.
Whoring to scandal gives too large a scope: 40
Saints must not trade; but they may interlope:
The ungodly principle was all the same;
But a gross cheat betrays his partner's game.
Besides, their pace was formal, grave, and slack;
His nimble wit outran the heavy pack.
Yet still he found his fortune at a stay:
Whole droves of blockheads choking up his way;
They took, but not rewarded, his advice;
Villain and wit exact a double price.
Power was his aim: but, thrown from that pretence, 50
The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence;
And malice reconciled him to his prince.
Him, in the anguish of his soul he served;
Rewarded faster still than he deserved.
Behold him now exalted into trust;
His counsel's oft convenient, seldom just.
Even in the most sincere advice he gave,
He had a grudging still to be a knave.
The frauds he learn'd in his fanatic years
Made him uneasy in his lawful gears; 60
At best, as little honest as he could,
And, like white witches[81], mischievously good.
To his first bias longingly he leans;
And rather would be great by wicked means.
Thus framed for ill, he loosed our triple hold[82];
Advice unsafe, precipitous, and bold.
From hence those tears! that Ilium of our woe!
Who helps a powerful friend, forearms a foe.
What wonder if the waves prevail so far,
When he cut down the banks that made the bar? 70
Seas follow but their nature to invade;
But he by art our native strength betray'd.
So Samson to his foe his force confess'd,
And, to be shorn, lay slumbering on her breast.
But when this fatal counsel, found too late,
Exposed its author to the public hate;
When his just sovereign, by no impious way
Could be seduced to arbitrary sway;
Forsaken of that hope he shifts his sail,
Drives down the current with a popular gale; 80
And shows the fiend confess'd without a veil.
He preaches to the crowd that power is lent,
But not convey'd, to kingly government;
That claims successive bear no binding force,
That coronation oaths are things of course;
Maintains the multitude can never err,
And sets the people in the papal chair.
The reason's obvious: interest never lies;
The most have still their interest in their eyes;
The power is always theirs, and power is ever wise. 90
Almighty crowd, thou shortenest all dispute -
Power is thy essence; wit thy attribute!
Nor faith nor reason make thee at a stay,
Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths, in thy Pindaric way!
Athens, no doubt, did righteously decide,
When Phocion and when Socrates were tried:
As righteously they did those dooms repent;
Still they were wise whatever way they went.
Crowds err not, though to both extremes they run;
To kill the father, and recall the son. 100
Some think the fools were most, as times went then,
But now the world's o'erstock'd with prudent men.
The common cry is even religion's test -
The Turk's is at Constantinople best;
Idols in India; Popery at Rome;
And our own worship only true at home:
And true, but for the time 'tis hard to know
How long we please it shall continue so.
This side to-day, and that to-morrow burns;
So all are God Almighties in their turns. 110
A tempting doctrine, plausible and new;
What fools our fathers were, if this be true!
Who, to destroy the seeds of civil war,
Inherent right in monarchs did declare:
And, that a lawful power might never cease,
Secured succession to secure our peace.
Thus property and sovereign sway, at last,
In equal balances were justly cast:
But this new Jehu spurs the hot-mouth'd horse -
Instructs the beast to know his native force; 120
To take the bit between his teeth, and fly
To the next headlong steep of anarchy.
Too happy England, if our good we knew,
Would we possess the freedom we pursue!
The lavish government can give no more:
Yet we repine, and plenty makes us poor.
God tried us once; our rebel-fathers fought,
He glutted them with all the power they sought:
Till, master'd by their own usurping brave,
The free-born subject sunk into a slave. 130
We loathe our manna, and we long for quails;
Ah, what is man when his own wish prevails!
How rash, how swift to plunge himself in ill!
Proud of his power, and boundless in his will!
That kings can do no wrong, we must believe;
None can they do, and must they all receive?
Help, Heaven! or sadly we shall see an hour,
When neither wrong nor right are in their power!
Already they have lost their best defence -
The benefit of laws which they dispense. 140
No justice to their righteous cause allow'd;
But baffled by an arbitrary crowd.
And medals graved their conquest to record,
The stamp and coin of their adopted lord.
The man[83] who laugh'd but once, to see an ass
Mumbling make the cross-grain'd thistles pass,
Might laugh again to see a jury chaw
The prickles of unpalatable law.
The witnesses, that leech-like lived on blood,
Sucking for them was medicinally good; 150
But when they fasten'd on their fester'd sore,
Then justice and religion they forswore,
Their maiden oaths debauch'd into a whore.
Thus men are raised by factions, and decried;
And rogue and saint distinguish'd by their side.
They rack even Scripture to confess their cause,
And plead a call to preach in spite of laws.
But that's no news to the poor injured page;
It has been used as ill in every age,
And is constrain'd with patience all to take: 160
For what defence can Greek and Hebrew make?
Happy who can this talking trumpet seize;
They make it speak whatever sense they please:
'Twas framed at first our oracle to inquire;
But since our sects in prophecy grow higher,
The text inspires not them, but they the text inspire.
London, thou great emporium of our isle,
O thou too bounteous, thou too fruitful Nile!
How shall I praise or curse to thy desert?
Or separate thy sound from thy corrupted part? 170
I call thee Nile; the parallel will stand;
Thy tides of wealth o'erflow the fatten'd land;
Yet monsters from thy large increase we find,
Engender'd on the slime thou leav'st behind.
Sedition has not wholly seized on thee,
Thy nobler parts are from infection free.
Of Israel's tribes thou hast a numerous band,
But still the Canaanite is in the land.
Thy military chiefs are brave and true;
Nor are thy disenchanted burghers few. 180
The head[84] is loyal which thy heart commands,
But what's a head with two such gouty hands?
The wise and wealthy love the surest way,
And are content to thrive and to obey.
But wisdom is to sloth too great a slave;
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
Those let me curse; what vengeance will they urge,
Whose ordures neither plague nor fire can purge?
Nor sharp experience can to duty bring,
Nor angry Heaven, nor a forgiving king! 190
In gospel-phrase, their chapmen they betray;
Their shops are dens, the buyer is their prey.
The knack of trades is living on the spoil;
They boast even when each other they beguile.
Customs to steal is such a trivial thing,
That 'tis their charter to defraud their king.
All hands unite of every jarring sect;
They cheat the country first, and then infect.
They for God's cause their monarchs dare dethrone,
And they'll be sure to make his cause their own. 200
Whether the plotting Jesuit laid the plan
Of murdering kings, or the French Puritan,
Our sacrilegious sects their guides outgo,
And kings and kingly power would murder too.
What means their traitorous combination less,
Too plain to evade, too shameful to confess!
But treason is not own'd when 'tis descried;
Successful crimes alone are justified.
The men, who no conspiracy would find,
Who doubts, but had it taken, they had join'd, 210
Join'd in a mutual covenant of defence;
At first without, at last against their prince?
If sovereign right by sovereign power they scan,
The same bold maxim holds in God and man:
God were not safe, his thunder could they shun,
He should be forced to crown another son.
Thus when the heir was from the vineyard thrown,
The rich possession was the murderer's own.
In vain to sophistry they have recourse:
By proving theirs no plot, they prove 'tis worse - 220
Unmask'd rebellion, and audacious force:
Which, though not actual, yet all eyes may see
'Tis working in the immediate power to be.
For from pretended grievances they rise,
First to dislike, and after to despise;
Then, Cyclop-like, in human flesh to deal,
Chop up a minister at every meal:
Perhaps not wholly to melt down the king,
But clip his regal rights within the ring.
From thence to assume the power of peace and war, 230
And ease him, by degrees, of public care.
Yet, to consult his dignity and fame,
He should have leave to exercise the name,
And hold the cards, while commons play'd the game.
For what can power give more than food and drink,
To live at ease, and not be bound to think?
These are the cooler methods of their crime,
But their hot zealots think 'tis loss of time;
On utmost bounds of loyalty they stand,
And grin and whet like a Croatian band, 240
That waits impatient for the last command.
Thus outlaws open villainy maintain,
They steal not, but in squadrons scour the plain;
And if their power the passengers subdue,
The most have right, the wrong is in the few.
Such impious axioms foolishly they show,
For in some soils republics will not grow:
Our temperate isle will no extremes sustain,
Of popular sway or arbitrary reign;
But slides between them both into the best, 250
Secure in freedom, in a monarch blest:
And though the climate, vex'd with various winds,
Works through our yielding bodies on our minds.
The wholesome tempest purges what it breeds,
To recommend the calmness that succeeds.
But thou, the pander of the people's hearts,
O crooked soul, and serpentine in arts,
Whose blandishments a loyal land have whored,
And broke the bonds she plighted to her lord;
What curses on thy blasted name will fall! 260
Which age to age their legacy shall call;
For all must curse the woes that must descend on all.
Religion thou hast none: thy mercury
Has pass'd through every sect, or theirs through thee.
But what thou giv'st, that venom still remains,
And the pox'd nation feels thee in their brains.
What else inspires the tongues and swells the breasts
Of all thy bellowing renegado priests,
That preach up thee for God, dispense thy laws,
And with thy stum ferment their fainting cause? 270
Fresh fumes of madness raise; and toil and sweat
To make the formidable cripple great.
Yet, should thy crimes succeed, should lawless power
Compass those ends thy greedy hopes devour,
Thy canting friends thy mortal foes would be,
Thy God and theirs will never long agree;
For thine, if thou hast any, must be one
That lets the world and human kind alone:
A jolly god that passes hours too well
To promise heaven, or threaten us with hell; 280
That unconcern'd can at rebellion sit,
And wink at crimes he did himself commit.
A tyrant theirs; the heaven their priesthood paints
A conventicle of gloomy, sullen saints;
A heaven like Bedlam, slovenly and sad,
Foredoom'd for souls with false religion mad.
Without a vision poets can foreshow
What all but fools by common sense may know:
If true succession from our isle should fail,
And crowds profane with impious arms prevail, 290
Not thou, nor those thy factious arts engage,
Shall reap that harvest of rebellious rage,
With which thou flatterest thy decrepit age.
The swelling poison of the several sects,
Which, wanting vent, the nation's health infects,
Shall burst its bag; and, fighting out their way,
The various venoms on each other prey.
The presbyter, puff'd up with spiritual pride,
Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride:
His brethren damn, the civil power defy; 300
And parcel out republic prelacy.
But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke
And tyrant power will puny sects provoke;
And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train,
Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane.
The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown shall jar,
In sharing their ill-gotten spoils of war:
Chiefs shall be grudged the part which they pretend;
Lords envy lords, and friends with every friend
About their impious merit shall contend. 310
The surly commons shall respect deny,
And justle peerage out with property.
Their general either shall his trust betray,
And force the crowd to arbitrary sway;
Or they, suspecting his ambitious aim,
In hate of kings shall cast anew the frame;
And thrust out Collatine that bore their name.
Thus inborn broils the factions would engage,
Or wars of exiled heirs, or foreign rage,
Till halting vengeance overtook our age: 320
And our wild labours, wearied into rest,
Reclined us on a rightful monarch's breast.
- "Pudet hæc opprobria, vobis
Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 76: 'The Medal:' see 'Life.']
[Footnote 77: A pamphlet vindicating Lord Shaftesbury from being
concerned in any plotting designs against the King. Wood says, the
general report was, that it was written by the earl himself.]
[Footnote 78: When England, in the sixteenth century, was supposed in
danger from the designs of Spain, the principal people, with the queen
at their head, entered into an association for the defence of their
country, and of the Protestant religion, against Popery, invasion, and
innovation.]
[Footnote 79: 'Brother:' George Cooper, Esq., brother to the Earl of
Shaftesbury, was married to a daughter of Alderman Oldfield; and, being
settled in the city, became a great man among the Whigs and fanatics.]
[Footnote 80: 'Polish:' Shaftesbury was said to have entertained hopes
of the crown of Poland.]
[Footnote 81: 'White witches:' who wrought good ends by infernal means.]
[Footnote 82: 'Loosed our triple hold:' our breaking the alliance with
Holland and Sweden, was owing to the Earl of Shaftesbury's advice.]
[Footnote 83: 'The Man:' Crassus.]
[Footnote 84: 'The head,' &c.: alluding to the lord mayor and the two
sheriffs: the former, Sir John Moor, being a Tory; the latter, Shute and
Pilkington, Whigs.]
* * * * *
RELIGIO LAICI; OR, A LAYMAN'S FAITH.
AN EPISTLE.
THE PREFACE.
A Poem with so bold a title, and a name prefixed from which the handling
of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the
author to say somewhat in defence, both of himself and of his
undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me, that, being a
layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which
belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that perhaps
laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most
incompetent judges of sacred things; but in the due sense of my own
weakness and want of learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make
myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my
own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the
reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place, I will
ingenuously confess, that the helps I have used in this small treatise,
were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of
the Church of England: so that the weapons with which I combat
irreligion, are already consecrated; though I suppose they may be taken
down as lawfully as the sword of Goliah was by David, when they are to
be employed for the common cause against the enemies of piety. I intend
not by this to entitle them to any of my errors, which yet I hope are
only those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has caused
me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse. Being naturally
inclined to scepticism in philosophy, I have no reason to impose my
opinions in a subject which is above it; but whatever they are, I submit
them with all reverence to my mother church, accounting them no farther
mine, than as they are authorised, or at least uncondemned by her. And,
indeed, to secure myself on this side, I have used the necessary
precaution of showing this paper, before it was published, to a
judicious and learned friend, a man indefatigably zealous in the service
of the church and state; and whose writings have highly deserved of
both. He was pleased to approve the body of the discourse, and I hope he
is more my friend than to do it out of complaisance: it is true he had
too good a taste to like it all; and amongst some other faults
recommended to my second view, what I have written perhaps too boldly on
St Athanasius, which he advised me wholly to omit. I am sensible enough
that I had done more prudently to have followed his opinion: but then I
could not have satisfied myself that I had done honestly not to have
written what was my own. It has always been my thought, that heathens
who never did, nor without miracle could, hear of the name of Christ,
were yet in a possibility of salvation. Neither will it enter easily
into my belief, that before the coming of our Saviour the whole world,
excepting only the Jewish nation, should lie under the inevitable
necessity of everlasting punishment, for want of that revelation, which
was confined to so small a spot of ground as that of Palestine. Among
the sons of Noah we read of one only who was accursed; and if a blessing
in the ripeness of time was reserved for Japhet (of whose progeny we
are), it seems unaccountable to me, why so many generations of the same
offspring, as preceded our Saviour in the flesh, should be all involved
in one common condemnation, and yet that their posterity should be
entitled to the hopes of salvation: as if a bill of exclusion had passed
only on the fathers, which debarred not the sons from their succession:
or that so many ages had been delivered over to hell, and so many
reserved for heaven; and that the devil had the first choice, and God
the next. Truly I am apt to think, that the revealed religion which was
taught by Noah to all his sons, might continue for some ages in the
whole posterity. That afterwards it was included wholly in the family of
Shem is manifest; but when the progenies of Ham and Japhet swarmed into
colonies, and those colonies were subdivided into many others, in
process of time their descendants lost by little and little the
primitive and purer rites of divine worship, retaining only the notion
of one Deity; to which succeeding generations added others: for men
took their degrees in those ages from conquerors to gods. Revelation
being thus eclipsed to almost all mankind, the light of nature, as the
next in dignity, was substituted; and that is it which St Paul concludes
to be the rule of the heathens, and by which they are hereafter to be
judged. If my supposition be true, then the consequence which I have
assumed in my poem may be also true; namely, that Deism, or the
principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying
flames of revealed religion in the posterity of Noah: and that our
modern philosophers - nay, and some of our philosophising divines - have
too much exalted the faculties of our souls, when they have maintained
that by their force mankind has been able to find out that there is one
supreme agent or intellectual Being which we call God: that praise and
prayer are his due worship; and the rest of those deducements, which I
am confident are the remote effects of revelation, and unattainable by
our discourse, I mean as simply considered, and without the benefit of
divine illumination. So that we have not lifted up ourselves to God, by
the weak pinions of our reason, but he has been pleased to descend to
us; and what Socrates said of him, what Plato writ, and the rest of the
heathen philosophers of several nations, is all no more than the
twilight of revelation, after the sun of it was set in the race of Noah.
That there is something above us, some principle of motion, our reason
can apprehend, though it cannot discover what it is by its own virtue.
And, indeed, it is very improbable, that we, who by the strength of our
faculties cannot enter into the knowledge of any Being, not so much as
of our own, should be able to find out by them, that supreme nature,
which we cannot otherwise define than by saying it is infinite; as if
infinite were definable, or infinity a subject for our narrow
understanding. They who would prove religion by reason, do but weaken
the cause which they endeavour to support: it is to take away the
pillars from our faith, and to prop it only with a twig; it is to design
a tower like that of Babel, which, if it were possible, as it is not, to
reach heaven, would come to nothing by the confusion of the workmen. For
every man is building a several way; impotently conceited of his own
model and his own materials: reason is always striving, and always at a
loss; and of necessity it must so come to pass, while it is exercised
about that which is not its own proper object. Let us be content at last
to know God by his own methods; at least, so much of him as he is
pleased to reveal to us in the sacred Scriptures: to apprehend them to
be the Word of God is all our reason has to do; for all beyond it is the
work of faith, which is the seal of Heaven impressed upon our human
understanding.
And now for what concerns the holy bishop Athanasius; the preface of
whose creed seems inconsistent with my opinion; which is, that heathens
may possibly be saved. In the first place, I desire it may be considered
that it is the preface only, not the creed itself, which, till I am
better informed, is of too hard a digestion for my charity. It is not
that I am ignorant how many several texts of Scripture seemingly support
that cause; but neither am I ignorant how all those texts may receive a
kinder and more mollified interpretation. Every man who is read in
Church history, knows that belief was drawn up after a long contestation
with Arius, concerning the divinity of our blessed Saviour, and his
being one substance with the Father; and that thus compiled, it was sent
abroad among the Christian Churches, as a kind of test, which whosoever
took was looked upon as an orthodox believer. It is manifest from
hence, that the heathen part of the empire was not concerned in it; for
its business was not to distinguish betwixt Pagans and Christians, but
betwixt Heretics and true Believers. This, well considered, takes off
the heavy weight of censure, which I would willingly avoid, from so
venerable a man; for if this proportion, "whosoever will be saved," be
restrained only to those to whom it was intended, and for whom it was
composed, I mean the Christians; then the anathema reaches not the
heathens, who had never heard of Christ, and were nothing interested in
that dispute. After all, I am far from blaming even that prefatory
addition to the creed, and as far from cavilling at the continuation of
it in the Liturgy of the Church, where, on the days appointed, it is
publicly read: for I suppose there is the same reason for it now, in
opposition to the Socinians, as there was then against the Arians; the
one being a heresy, which seems to have been refined out of the other;
and with how much more plausibility of reason it combats our religion,
with so much more caution it ought to be avoided: therefore the prudence
of our Church is to be commended, which has interposed her authority for
the recommendation of this creed. Yet to such as are grounded in the
true belief, those explanatory creeds, the Nicene and this of
Athanasius, might perhaps be spared; for what is supernatural will
always be a mystery, in spite of exposition; and for my own part, the
plain Apostles' creed is most suitable to my weak understanding, as the
simplest diet is the most easy of digestion.
I have dwelt longer on this subject than I intended, and longer than
perhaps I ought; for having laid down, as my foundation, that the
Scripture is a rule; that in all things needful to salvation it is
clear, sufficient, and ordained by God Almighty for that purpose, I have
left myself no right to interpret obscure places, such as concern the
possibility of eternal happiness to heathens: because whatsoever is
obscure is concluded not necessary to be known.
But, by asserting the Scripture to be the canon of oar faith, I have
unavoidably created to myself two sorts of enemies: the Papists indeed,
more directly, because they have kept the Scriptures from us what they
could; and have reserved to themselves a right of interpreting what they
have delivered under the pretence of infallibility: and the Fanatics
more collaterally, because they have assumed what amounts to an
infallibility, in the private spirit; and have detorted those texts of
Scripture which are not necessary to salvation, to the damnable uses of
sedition, disturbance, and destruction of the civil government. To begin
with the Papists, and to speak freely, I think them the less dangerous,
at least in appearance to our present state; for not only the penal laws
are in force against them, and their number is contemptible, but also
their peers and commons are excluded from parliament, and consequently
those laws in no probability of being repealed. A general and
uninterrupted plot of their clergy, ever since the Reformation, I
suppose all Protestants believe; for it is not reasonable to think but
that so many of their orders, as were outed from their fat possessions,
would endeavour a re-entrance against those whom they account heretics.
As for the late design, Mr Coleman's letters, for aught I know, are the
best evidence; and what they discover, without wiredrawing their sense,
or malicious glosses, all men of reason conclude credible. If there be
anything more than this required of me, I must believe it as well as I
am able, in spite of the witnesses, and out of a decent conformity to
the votes of parliament; for I suppose the Fanatics will not allow the
private spirit in this case. Here the infallibility is at least in one
part of the government; and our understandings as well as our wills are
represented. But to return to the Roman Catholics, how can we be secure
from the practice of Jesuited Papists in that religion? For not two or
three of that order, as some of them would impose upon us, but almost
the whole body of them are of opinion, that their infallible master has
a right over kings, not only in spirituals but temporals. Not to name
Mariana, Bellarmine, Emanuel Sa, Molina, Santare, Simancha,[85] and at
least twenty others of foreign countries; we can produce of our own
nation, Campian, and Doleman or Parsons; besides, many are named whom I
have not read, who all of them attest this doctrine, that the pope can
depose and give away the right of any sovereign prince, _si vel paulum
deflexerit_, if he shall never so little warp: but if he once comes to
be excommunicated, then the bond of obedience is taken off from
subjects; and they may, and ought to drive him, like another
Nebuchadnezzar, _ex hominum Christianorum dominatu_, from exercising
dominion over Christians; and to this they are bound by virtue of divine
precept, and by all the ties of conscience, under no less penalty than
damnation. If they answer me, as a learned priest has lately written,
that this doctrine of the Jesuits is not _de fide_; and that
consequently they are not obliged by it, they must pardon me, if I think
they have said nothing to the purpose; for it is a maxim in their
church, where points of faith are not decided, and that doctors are of
contrary opinions, they may follow which part they please; but more
safely the most received and most authorised. And their champion
Bellarmine has told the world, in his Apology, that the king of England
is a vassal to the pope, _ratione directi domini_, and that he holds in
villanage of his Roman landlord: which is no new claim put in for
England. Our chronicles are his authentic witnesses, that King John was
deposed by the same plea, and Philip Augustus admitted tenant. And which
makes the more for Bellarmine, the French king was again ejected when
our king submitted to the church, and the crown was received under the
sordid condition of a vassalage.
It is not sufficient for the more moderate and well-meaning Papists, of
which I doubt not there are many, to produce the evidences of their
loyalty to the late king, and to declare their innocency in this plot: I
will grant their behaviour in the first to have been as loyal and as
brave as they desire; and will be willing to hold them excused as to the
second, I mean when it comes to my turn, and after my betters; for it is
a madness to be sober alone, while the nation continues drank: but that
saying of their father Cres. is still running in my head, that they may
be dispensed with in their obedience to an heretic prince, while the
necessity of the times shall oblige them to it: for that, as another of
them tells us, is only the effect of Christian prudence; but when once
they shall get power to shake him off, an heretic is no lawful king, and
consequently to rise against him is no rebellion. I should be glad,
therefore, that they would follow the advice which was charitably given
them by a reverend prelate of our church; namely, that they would join
in a public act of disowning and detesting those Jesuitic principles;
and subscribe to all doctrines which deny the pope's authority of
deposing kings, and releasing subjects from their oath of allegiance: to
which I should think they might easily be induced, if it be true that
this present pope has condemned the doctrine of king-killing, a thesis
of the Jesuits maintained, amongst others, _ex cathedra_, as they call
it, or in open consistory.
Leaving them, therefore, in so fair a way, if they please themselves, of
satisfying all reasonable men of their sincerity and good meaning to the
government, I shall make bold to consider that other extreme of our
religion - I mean the Fanatics, or Schismatics, of the English Church.
Since the Bible has been translated into our tongue, they have used it
so, as if their business was not to be saved, but to be damned by its
contents. If we consider only them, better had it been for the English
nation that it had still remained in the original Greek and Hebrew, or
at least in the honest Latin of St Jerome, than that several texts in it
should have been prevaricated, to the destruction of that government
which put it into so ungrateful hands.
How many heresies the first translation of Tindal produced in few years,
let my Lord Herbert's history of Henry VIII. inform you; insomuch, that
for the gross errors in it, and the great mischiefs it occasioned, a
sentence passed on the first edition of the Bible, too shameful almost
to be repeated. After the short reign of Edward VI., who had continued
to carry on the Reformation on other principles than it was begun, every
one knows that not only the chief promoters of that work, but many
others, whose consciences would not dispense with Popery, were forced,
for fear of persecution, to change climates: from whence returning at
the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, many of them who had been in