As You Were

As you were; OR A Posture of Peace.

SOLONS Law against Neutrality, in a civil dissention, is most unreasonable, because in some cases it must engage a man on dishonest or dishonorable action. For in that civil broyl between Caesar and Pompey, which side should a man have ranged himself unto, when both were so pernicious to the Common-wealth, that put Cicero to a stand? Or in that tripartite division of Jerusalem that ushered in its final desolation, where the best was so base that no honest man had the face to own it?

We have had here in England a most unhappy and unnatural division, and for a long time heard of no more but two parties under the names of Cavalier and Round-head; the first proper enough and rightly given, but the reason of the latter let him render you that first imposed it. The flowers of that garland that both sides strove for were the Protestant Religion, the Laws of the Land, the Kings just rights, the Privileges of Parliament, and Liberty of the Subject, each pretending they would flourish best in his own Garden; But what ever pretences were, or however in time quarrels may increase and one beget another, yet sure at first the Helens both strove for was only Church policy, wherein Episcopacy met with a Rival that carried her not with Courtship but Rape. The Cavalier is dismounted, the Roundhead is fallen himself into a subdivision of Presbytery and Independency; the latter in its full latitude is like a Megallanica a vast unknown tract, no man can tell how far it reaches; only coasting upon it such discovery is made as finds it a place of privilege for all Sectaries in the world, and how many those are or may be no man can say for certain, until the devil hath done brooding. If the former be quite defunct [as we heat her last Will is made) I doubt the latter will divide again & fall into a thousandpieces; but now, I think on it, we never heard of any strife among the Heathen about any point of Religion; their false gods were all good fellows; and all false worships do commonly keep good fellowship; and thats the reason now that all Sectaries tug so hard for Toleration. The Romans had their Pantheon or Temple of all the gods; but the true God is a jealous God, Dagon and the Ark cannot stand together.

And for Presbytery, it is but a new name to an old stuff, a common cheat in the world, when men intend to make it worse. And if there were formerly a Church-Tyranny that enslaved us, as some cried out, that think their very Garters are Gyves; then now, as Philip of Macedon said of the Greeks, that left his alliance to side with Titus Quintus, at the best we have but changed our fetters. For what power is challenged by this Presbyterian policy, and what Majesty by this new Hierarchy, you shall hear by their words and see in their practice. For the Church is never governed aright according to their mode, until Kings and Queens do subject themselves unto the Church, and submit their Scepters and throw down their Crowns before the Church and lick up the dust of the feet of the Church (as good kiss the Popes toe) and willingly abide the censure of the Church. The civil Magistrate is no officer at all in the Church; The Presbytery or Eldership is the Church, and every Congregation or Church must have a Presbytery; and all Kings and Princes must be of some Parish and under some Presbytery. And the Gentry must yet expect less then the King; be enslaved in their own Lordships by a new way of Parochial Tyranny; for if they conform not then they must expect in a short time to see the meanest of their tenants become their masters in judicature, and so this prime mistery will produce that great vanity that Solomon speaks of; The servant shall ride and the master go a foot. Their practice hath been accordingly, as in Scotland, where the heat of Presbytery hath prvoed such a Hectique in the body politick thereof, that the substance of Kingly power is utterly consumed, and nothing left now but the bare bones and very skeleton of a Monarchy.

Now next let us look upon the Independent and see what we may hope for from them. The Sectaries teach, that the state universal, the body of the Compeople, is the earthly Sovereign, Lord, King, and creator. If the King, Parliament, all officers and resides in the state universal, and the King, Parliament &c. are their own mere creatures, to be accountable to them, and disposed of by them at their pleasure; the people may recall and re-assume their power, question them. and set others in their place. That the Lord's and Peers of the Land, are but painted puppets, and Dagons, that our superstition and ignorance, their own craft and impudence have erected, no natural issue of Laws, but the Mushromes of Prerogative, the wens of Just Government sons of conquest and usurpation, not of choice and election; intruded upon us by power, not constituted by consent, not made by the people from whom all power place and office that is just in this Kingdom ought only to arise. That they are a clog to public proceedings obstructing good, promoting evil things; their pestilent Pamphlets are full of such railings, whereby ye may see their endeavors to alter and overthrow the very fundamentals of the Government of this Kingdom. Nay they ascend higher and are not afraid to utter desperate speeches against sacred Majesty itself, not fit to be repeated. And then for the Church what out-cries there are to down with all Government, Maintenance and Ministry, and then the freer up with that great Diana of Toleration; they boldly assert, It is the will and command of God, that, since the coming of his son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish or Antichristian Consciences and worships be granted to all men in all Countries and Nations.

And now what hopes can we conceive of these two, to set King or Kingdom in a lasting peace, that are so opposite not only one to another, standing upon punctilios not considerable with the loss of the meanest man, but also to monarchy & true liberty, Whereunto, Anarchy & Tyranny are enemies alike. But stay: who are yonder so serious in discourse? One of them is the noble Irenaeus: I will draw as near as I can unperceaved, and listen if I can hear any comfortable hopes of a good accommodation.

Irenaeus. Gentlemen, I cannot without a bleeding heart consider, that after all these miseries of so redious a war, there should be so little relenting and so much bitterness amongst us, as I perceive by your discourses there is. The abuses in the state, were hope are well reformed; and that gracious grant of a trienniall Parliament, is an impregnable rampire against all future assaults of your public Rights and Liberties. Troubles in the Common-wealth do commonly arise from dissensions in the Church; and dissensions in the Church do commonly arise from the pride and covetousness of Church-men. Who, if they could be as lowly and meek as their great master was, may quickly end this Controversy of Church-Government; that now is like to blow up a new flame: The being or purity of Religion is no way concerned in it. It was once in the hands of Bishops, many of them, men of admirable piety and learning; and (if that gross mixture of Ceremonies were laid aside, and that sweeping tail cut off, that unnecessary and pernicious rabble that followed their heels) there it might happyly have continued. Now it is in the hands of the Presbytery, of men, for their pious and indefatigable labors, as well deserving of the Church as any; and if men would but rightly conceive it as it is, nothing but the old Government and discipline in new hands, that perhaps endeavor to give a better account of it. I see no reason why any but loose livers need to except against it; their rigid censures, so commonly accounted, being nothing, but what our own Church in the old Liturgy enjoined, and every Minister ought to have practiced. A third party, whom they call Independent, do refuse to admit any external policy or power at all in the Church, but indeed would pluck it from others, to take it to themselves: the strif is for nothing but rule. The only remedy will be to command every man to his own place again; the Commonwealth being newly rackit and every member out of joint. And as in the body natural, the insolence of some humors encroaching on the bounds of the rest cause great distempers: so in this body politique, pride, and covetousness of men, not content with their own places or portions, is the only cause of these distractions.

Let every Member then do his proper office, the Magistrate with the sword, the Minister in the word, the Merchant in his trade; every man mind his own business: And because the people dote still so much upon the old form of Church Government, and discipline; if it were restored again to the first hands and pristine state, with such cautions and limitations as may consist with public safety, it may prove an excellent Cement to close all again. But above all, if his sacred Majesty the head of this great body were seated again with his great Council of Parliament, by whose influence we all receive our civil life and motion; then, though we are many Members, yet we should all move as one man again, and all mind the same thing, even peace and love.