Considering the condition of affairs in these nations, in reference to the late miscarriages, and present distempers of men about religion; it was no hard conjecture, that some would improve the advantage, seeming so fairly to present it self to them, to ends of their own. Men of prudence, ability, and leisure, engaged by all bonds imaginable in the pursuit of any special interest, need little minding of the common ways of wisdom for its promotion. They know, that he that would fashion iron into the image and likeness which he has fancied, must strike while it is hot; when the adventitious efficacy of the fire it has admitted, makes it pliable to that whereunto in its own nature, it is most opposite. Such seems to be, in these days, the temper of men in religion, from those flames wherewith some have been scorched, others heated, all provoked, and made fit to receive new impressions, if wisely hammered. Neither was it a difficult prognostication for any one to foretell, what arguments and mediums would be made use of, to animate and enliven the persuasions of men, who had either right, or confidence enough, to plead or pretend a disinterest in our miscarriages, for an embracement of their profession. Commonly with men that indulge to passion and distempers, as the most of men are apt to do, the last provocation blots out the remembrance of preceding crimes no less heinous. And whatever to the contrary is pretended, men usually have not that indignation against principles which have produced evils they have only heard or read of; that they have against practices under which they have personally suffered. Hence it might easily be expected, that the Romanists, supposing, at least by the help of those paroxysms they discern among us, that the miscarriages of some of their adversaries would prove a garment large enough to cover and hide their own, would, with much confidence, improve them to their special advantage. Nor is it otherwise come to pass. This persuasion and suitable practice thereon, runs through all the veins of the discourse, we have proposed to consideration; making that seem quick and sprightly, which otherwise would have been but a heap, or a carcass.
That then this sort of men would not only be angling in the lesser brooks of our troubled waters, endeavouring to enveigle wandring loose and discontented individuals, which has been their constant employment; but also come with their nets into our open streams; was the thoughts of all men, who count themselves concerned to think of such things as these. There is scarce a forward Emissary among them, who cries not in such a season; An ego occasionem mihi ostentatam, tantam, tam bonam, tam optatam, tam insperatam, amitterem? What baits and tacklings they would principally make use of, was also foreknown. But the way and manner which they would fix on for the mannagement of their Design, now displayed in this Discourse, lay not, I confess, under an ordinary prospect. For, as to what course the wisdom of men will steer them, in various alterations, [in non-Latin alphabet], He is no mean Prophet that can but indifferently guess. But yet there wanted not some beams of light to guide men in the exercise of their Stocastick faculty, even as to this also. That accommodation of Religion, and all its concernments to the humours, fancies, and conversations of men, wherewith some of late have pleased themselves, and layed snares for the ruine of others, did shrewdly portend, what in this attempt of the same party we were to expect. Of this Nature is that Poetical strain of Devotion so much applauded and prevailing in our neighbor-Kingdom; whereby men, ignorant of the heavenly power of the Gospel, not only to resist, but to subdue the strongest lusts and most towring imaginations of the sons of men, do labor in soft and delicate Rhymes, to attemperate Religion to the loose and aery fancies of Persons wholly indulging their minds to vanity and pleasure. A fond attempt of men not knowing how to manage the sublime, spiritual, severe truths of the Gospel, to the ingenerating of faith and devotion in the souls of sinners; but yet that which they suppose is the only way left them to prevent the keeping of Religion, and the most of the [illegible] party at a perpetual distance! So Mahomet saw it necessary to go to the Mountain, when the Mountain for all his calling would not come to him. And of the same sort is the greatest part of the Casuistical Divinity of the Jesuits. A meer accommodation of the Principles of Religion to the filthy lusts and wicked lives of men, who on no other terms would resign the conduct of their souls to them, seems to be their main design in it. On these effects of others, he that would have pondered what a wise and observing person of the same Interest with them, might apprehend of the present tempers, distempers, humors, interests, provocations, fancies, lives of them, with whom he intends to deal, could not have failed of some advantage in his conjectures at the way and manner wherein he would proceed in treating of them. It is of the many, of whom we speak; on whose countenances, and in whose lives he that runs may read provocations from former miscarriages, supine negligence of spiritual and eternal concernments, ignorance of things past beyond what they can remember in their own dayes, sloth in the disquisition of the truth, willingness to be accommodated with a Religion pretended secure and unconcerned in present disputes, that may save them and their sins together without further trouble, delight in queint language and Poetical strains of Eloquence, whereunto they are accustomed at the Stage, with sundry other inward accoutrements of mind not unlike to these. To this frame and temper of spirit, this composition of humours; it was not improbable, but that those who should first enter into the Lists in this design, would accommodate their style and manner of procedure; Nec spe[illegible] fefellis expectatio. The Treatise under consideration, has fully answered what ever was of conjecture in this kind. Frequent repetitions of late provocations, with the crimes of the provokers; confident and undue assertions of things past in the dayes of old; large promises of security temporal and eternal, to Nations and all Individuals in them; of facility in coming to perfection in Religion without more pains of teaching, learning, or fear of opposition; all interwoven with tart Sarcasms, pleasant diversions; pretty Stories of himself & others, flourished over with a smooth and handsom strain of Rhetorick, do apparently make up the bulk of our Author's discourse. Nor is the Romance of his conversion, much influenced by the tinckling of Bells, and sweeping of Churches, suited to any other principles: A matter, I confess, so much the more admirable, because, as I suppose it, in the way mentioned, to have bin his singular lot and good hap; so it was utterly impossible, that for five hundred, I may say a thousand years after Christ, any man should on these motives be turned to any Religion, most of them being not in those days in rerum natura. A way of handling Religion he has fixed on, which, as, I suppose, he will himself acknowledge, that the first Planters of it were ignorant of; so I will promise him, that if he can for a thousand years after they began their work, instance in any one Book of an approved Catholick Author, written with the same design that this is, he shall have one Proselyte to his Profession; which is more, I suppose, then otherwise he will obtain by his learned labor. That this is no other, but to perswade men, that they can find no certainty or establishment for their Faith in Scripture, but must for it devolve themselves solely on the Authority of the Pope, will afterwards be made to appear, nor will himself deny it. But it may be, it is unreasonable, that when men are eagerly engaged in the persuit of their Interest, we should think from former Presidents, or general Rules of Sobriety, with that reverence which is due to the things of the great and holy God, to impose upon them the way and manner of their progress. The event and end aimed at, is that which we are to respect; the management of their business in reference to this world and that which is to come, is their own concernment. No man, I suppose, who has any acquaintance with the things he treats about, can abstain from smiling, to observe how dexterously he turns and winds himself in his Cloak, (which is not every ones work to dance in) how he gilds over the more comely parts of his Amasia, with brave suppositions, presumptions, and stories of things past and present, where he has been in his dayes; covering her deformities with a perpetual silence; ever and anon bespattering the first Reformation and Reformers in his passage. Yes, their contentment must needs proceed to an high degree of complacence, in whom compassion for the woful state of them whom so able a man judgeth like to be enveigled by such flourishes and pretences, does not excite to other affections. The truth is, if ever there blew a wind of doctrine on unwary souls [in non-Latin alphabet], we have an instance of it in this Discourse. Such a disposition of cogging slights, various drafts in entising words, is rarely met with. Many, I think, are not able to take this course in handling the Sacred things of God, and Eternal concernments of Men; and more, I hope, dare not. But our Author is another man's Servant; I shall not judge him, he stands or falls to his own Master. That which the importunity of some Noble Friends has compelled me to is, to offer somewhat to the judgement of impartial men, that may serve to unmask him of his gilded pretences, and to lay open the emptiness of those prejudices and presumptions wherewith he makes such a tinckling noyse in the ears of unlearned and unstable persons. Occasion of serious debate is very little administred by him; that which is the task assigned me, I shall as fully discharge, as the few hours allotted to its performance will allow.
In my dealing with him, I shall not make it my business to defend the several parties, whereinto the men of his contest are distributed by our Author as such; not all, not any of them. It is the common Protestant Cause which, in and by all of them, he seeks to oppose so far as they are interested and concerned therein; they fall all of them within the bounds of our present Defensative. Wherein they differ one from another, or any, or all of them do, or may, swerve from the common principles of the Protestant Religion; I have nothing to do with them in this business: And if any be so far addicted to their parties, wherein, it may be, they are in the wrong, as to choose rather not to be vindicated and pleaded for, in that wherein with others I know they are in the right, than to be joined in the same plea with them from whom in part they differ, I cannot help it. I pretend not their commission for what I do; and they may, when they please, disclaim my appearance for them. I suppose, by this course, I shall please very few, and, I am sure, I shall displease some, if not many: I aim at neither, but to profit all. I have sundry reasons for not owning or avowing particularly any party in this Discourse, so as to judge the rest, wherewith I am not bound to acquaint the world. One of them I shall, and, I hope, it is such an one, as may suffice ingenious and impartial men, and thereunto some others may be added. The Gentleman whose Discourse I have undertaken the consideration of, was pleased to front and close it, with a part of a Speech of my Lord Chancellor's; and his placing of it manifests how he uses it. He salutes it in his Entrance, and takes his leave also of it, never regarding its intendment, until coming to the close of his Treatise, to his Salve in the beginning, he adds an aeternum Vale. That the mention of such an excellent Discourse, the best part in both our Books, might not be lost, I have suited my Plea and Defensative of Protestantism, to the spirit and principles and excellent ratiocinations of it; behind that Shield I lay the manner of my Proceeding, where, if it be not safe, I care not what becomes of it. Besides, it is not for what the men of his Title-page are differenced among themselves, that our Author blames them, but for what he thinks they agree in too well, in reference to the Church of Rome; nor does he insist on the evils of their Contests to persuade them to Peace among themselves, or to prevail over them to center in any one persuasion about which they contend, but to lead them all over to the Pope. And if any of them with whom our Author deals and sports himself in his Treatise, are fallen off from the fundamental denominating principles of Protestant Religion, as some of them seem to be, they come not within the compass of our plea, seeing, as such, they are not dealt with by our Author. It is the Protestant Religion in general, which he charges with all the irregularities, uncertainties, and evils, that he expatriates about; and from the principles of it, does he endeavour to withdraw us. As to the case then under debate with him, it is enough, if we manifest that that profession of Religion is not liable or obnoxious to any of the crimes or inconveniences by him objected to it; and, that the remedy of our evils, whether real or imaginary, which he would impose upon us, is so far from being specifical towards their cure, that it is indeed far worse than the disease pretended: to the full as undesirable as the cutting of the throat, for the cure of a fore-finger. There is no reason therefore in this business, therefore I should avow any one persuasion about which Protestants that consent in general in the same Confession of Faith, may have or actually have difference among themselves; especially, if I do also evince, there is no cogency in them, to cause any of them to renounce the truth wherein they all agree.
Much less shall I undertake to plead for, excuse, or palliate the miscarriages of any part or parties of men during our late unhappy Troubles: Nor shall I make much use of what offers itself in a way of Recrimination. Certain it is, that as to this Gentleman's pretensions, sundry things might be insisted on, that would serve to allay the fierceness of his spirit, in his management of other men's crimes to his own ends and purposes. The sound of our late Evils, as it is known to all the world, began in Ireland, among his good Roman Catholics, who were blessed from Rome into Rebellion and Murder, somewhat before any drop of blood was shed in England, or Scotland — Oculis malè lippus inunctis Cur in amicorum vitiis tam cernis acutum Quàm aut Aquila aut Serpens Epidaurius? Let them that are innocent throw stones at others; Roman Catholics are unfit to be employed in that work. But it was never judged either a safe or honest way, to judge of any Religion by the practices of some that have professed it. Men by Doctrines and Principles, nor Doctrines by Men; was the trial of old. And if this be a rule to guide our thoughts in reference to any Religion, namely, the principles which it avows and asserts, I know none that can vie with the Romanists, in laying foundations of, and making provision for, the disturbance of the civil peace of Kingdoms and Nations. For the present, to the advantage taken by our Author from our late unnatural Wars and Tumults to reflect on Protestancy, I shall only say, That, if all the Religion of Sinners be to be quitted and forsaken, I doubt, that professed by the Pope must be cashiered for company.
Least of all, shall I oppose my self to that moderation in the pursuit of our Religious Interests, which he pretends to plead for. He that will plead against mutual forbearance in Religion, can be no Christian, at least no good one. Much less shall I impeach what he declaims against, that abominable principle of disturbing the peace of kingdoms and nations, under a pretence of defending, reforming or propagating of our faith and opinions. But I know, that neither the commendation of the former, nor the decrying of the latter, is the proper work of our Author; for, as the present principles and past practices of the men of that Church and Religion which he defends, will not allow him to entertain such hard thoughts of the latter, as he pretends to; so as to the former, where he has made some progress in his work, and either warmed his zeal beyond his first intendment for its discovery, or has gotten some confidence, that he has obtained a better acceptance with his Reader, than at the entrance of his Discourse he could lay claim to, laying aside those counsels of moderation and forbearance which he had gilded over, he plainly declares, that the only way of procuring peace among us, is by the extermination of Protestancy. For having compared the Roman-Catholic to Isaac, the proper heir of the house, and Protestants to Ishmael vexing him in his own inheritance, the only way to obtain peace, he tells us, is, Projiee ancillam cum filio suo; Cast out the handmaid with her son, that is, in the gloss of their former practices, either burn them at home, or send them to starve abroad. There is not the least reason then, why I should trouble my self with his flourishes and stories, his characters of us and our neighbor-nations, in reference to moderation and forbearance in Religion; that is not the thing by him intended; but is only used to give a false alarm to his unwary Readers, while he marches away with a rhetorical persuasive to Popery. In this it is wherein alone I shall attend his motions; and, if in our passage through his other discourses, we meet with any thing lying, in a direct tendency to his main end, though pretended to be used to another purpose, it shall not pass without some animadversion.
Also, I shall be far from contending with our Author in those things wherein his Discourse excelleth, and, that upon the two general reasons, of will and ability. Neither could I compare with him in them if I would, nor would if I could. His quaint rhetoric, biting sarcasms, fine stories, smooth expressions of his high contempt of them with whom he has to do; with many things of that sort, the repetition of whose names has got the reputation of incivility, are things wherein as I cannot keep pace with him, (for Illud possumus quod jure possumus); so I have no mind to follow him.
