when all things seemed to favour it, but that good Providence, which so happily interposed against the ruin of our Church, and blasted the long projected scheme of these ecclesiastical Achitophels. A scheme so monstrous, so romantic, and absurd, that it is hard to say, whether it had more of villainy, or folly in it, and which even the Sectarists of all sorts (who will not be satisfied with any thing less than sovereignty) exploded, and laughed at, as ridicalous, and impracticable. It was doubtless a wise way to exemplify our brotherly love, and charity for the souls of men, to put both them, and ourselves into a gulph of perdition, by throwing up the essentials of our faith, and the uniformity of our worship. But since this model of an universal liberty, and coalition failed, and these False Brethren could not carry the Conventicle into the Church, they are now resolved to bring the Church into the Conventicle, which will more plausibly, and slily effect her ruin. What could not be gained by comprehension, and toleration, must be brought about by moderation, and occasional conformity; that is, what they could not do by open violence, they will not fail by secret treachery to accomplish. If the Church cannot be pulled down, it may be blown up; and no matter with these men how it is destroyed, so that it is destroyed. Now let us, I beseech you in the name of God, fairly consider what must be the consequence of this scandalous fluctuation, and trimming betwixt the Church and Dissenters, both in conscience, and prudence. Does not this innovating in, giving up, or receding from, any one point, or 2. Thus we see how dangerous these article in our faith, violate, and affect the False Brethren are to our Church, which is so whole frame, and body of it? Can we either great and considerable a branch of our civil add to, or diminish from, the least jot of our constitution, that the support of our govern religion? Are we to take its constitution as ment depends upon its welfare, and what afour Saviour and his Apostles delivered it down fects that must strike at the foundation of our to us; or have we authority to curtail, mangle, state; innovations in either, tending to the subor alter it, to suit it to the pride, humours, version of their laws, and the unsettling the caprice, and qualmsick stomachs, of obstinate, establishment, and consequently to anarchy, moody, wayward, and self-conceited hypo- and confusion. But to draw this argument erites, and enthusiasts? Will not such a base more home to the point: I will endeavour to and time-serving compliance give the enemies prove, that our False Brethren are as destrucof our Church an occasion of blaspheming her tive of our civil, as ecclesiastical rights. For as weak, and inconstant? Will it not argue first, it cannot be denied, that though they do the illegality of her ordinances and laws, or submit to the government, their obedience is that they were too rigid, and wanted an abate- forced, and constrained, and therefore so ment? Will not this harden, encourage, nay treacherous, and uncertain, as never to be justify the Dissenters in their opinion of their trusted, because proceeding upon no principle, separation, when they see such large allow-but mere interest and ambition; and whenever ances, and concessions made in its favour? What dishonourable and unworthy opinions rust they entertain of the priests of that Chorch, who can sacrifice their most solemn declarations and oaths to complaisance and preferment? What would be the end of all this, but to establish Heresy and Erastianism upon the ruins of our faith and discipline? Would not this spiritual legerdemain, this fallacious tricking, and double-dealing, eradicate the principles of truth, and honesty, or piety out of men's minds, make them uncon cerned whether there is any, or no religion, run them into an universal scepticism, and infidelity, and make them all Atheists or Papists? For when they had turned about, and about, and were grown giddy with change, they would either give up themselves to the disbelief of all things, or rest their wearied judgments in the authority of that Church alone, that can delude them with the specious pretences of an infallible guide. Thus our False Brethren, as the Jews did our blessed Saviour, crucify his Church betwixt thieves; and as they committed that execrable villainy under a pretended fear lest the Romans should come and take away their place, and nation, which by that very fact they brought upon themselves: so these men, out of a fictitions fear lest the modern Romans should come and destroy our Church, are working that ruin they pretend to avoid, and under a false zeal of keeping out Popery, are themselves infallibly bringing in that very Popery into our kingdom, with which they so falsly and ungratefully endeavour to attaint the Church of England, the greatest bulwark, and only safeguard against Popery in the whole world! Though it were highly to be wished that those excellent laws made for her defence and security, were at present put strictly into exe. cution; for the Roman-Catholic agents, and missionaries that swarm about this great city, as it were in defiance and contempt of them, were never more busy in making proselytes to their superstition, and idolatry, and perverting and debauching her majesty's subjects in every corner of our streets. that changes, their allegiance must follow it; and therefore (to use their own expression) are as much occasional loyalists to the state, as they are occasional conformists to the Church; that is, they will betray either, whenever it is in their power, and they think it for their advantage. Falshood always implies treachery; and whether that is a qualification for any one to be trusted, especially with the guardianship of our Church, or Crown, let our governors consider. And certainly nothing but the most sottish infatuation, can so far blind both our eyes, and our judgments, as to make us be lieve, that the same causes should not produce the same effects, and that the same latitudinarian and republican notions should not bring forth the same rebellious and pernicious consequences. They are pleased now to soften their lewd principles, and cover their dangerous tenets with the name of speculative opinions; but what fatal practices they have created, and whether these seditious thoughts will not again exemplify themselves in the same bloody actions, we shall be convinced, to our sorrow, if we do not apprehend. That the old leaven of their forefathers is still working in their present generation, and that this traditional poison still remains in this brood of vipers, to sting us to death, is sufficiently visible, from the dangerous encroachments they now make upon our government, and the treasonable reflections they have published on her majesty, God bless her! whose bereditary right to the throne, they have had the impudence to deny, and cancel, to make her a creature of their own power; and that by the same principles they placed a crown upon her, they tell us, they (that is the mob) may re-assume it at their pleasure. Nay, now they have advanced themselves from the religious liberty our gracious sovereign has indulged them, to claim a civil right, as they term it, and to justle the Church out of her establishment, by hoisting their Toleration into its place; and to convince us what alone will satisfy them, insolently demand the repeal of the Corporation and Test acts, as an ecclesiastical usurpation, which indeed under her majesty (whom God long preserve for its comfort and support!) is the only security the Church has to depend upon. And which they have so far eluded by their abominable bypocrisy, as to have undermined her foundation, and endanger the government, by filling it with its professed enemies. These charges are so flagrant, and undeniable, that a man must be very weak, or something worse, that thinks, or pretends, that Dissenters are to be gained, or won over by any other grants and indulgences than giving up our whole constitution: and he that recedes the least tittle from it, to satisfy, or ingratiate with these clamorous, insatiable and churchdevouring malignants, knows not what spirit they are of, or he ought to shew who is a true member of our Church. Have they not ever since their first unhappy plantation in this kingdom, by the intercession of that false son of the Church, bishop Grindall, always improved, and rise upon their demands in the permission of the government? insomuch that queen Elizabeth, that was deluded by that perfidious prelate to the toleration of the Genevian discipline, found it such an headstrong and encroaching monster, that in eight years, she foresaw it would endanger the monarchy, as well as the hierarchy and like a queen of true resolution, and pious zeal for both, pronounced, that such were the restless spirits of that factious people, that no quiet was to be expected from them, till they were utterly suppressed:' which like a prudent princess, she did by wholesome severities, that the crown for many years sat easy, and flourishing on her head. And had her successor, king James, but followed her wise politics, his son had never fallen a martyr to their fury, nor any of his unhappy offspring suffered those disastrous calamities, which made the royal family one continued sacrifice to their malice. And what better could bave been expected from miscreants, begot in rebellion, born in sedition, and nursed up in faction? I would not here be misunderstood, as if I intended to cast the least invidious reflection upon that indulgence the government has condescended to give them, which I am sure all those that wish well to our Church are very ready to grant to consciences truly scrupulous; let them enjoy it in the full limits the law has prescribed. But let them also move within their proper sphere, and not grow eccentric, and like comets that burst their orb, threaten the ruin and downfall of our Church and State. Indeed they tell us they have relinquished the principles, as well as the sins of their fore-fathers: if so, why do they not renounce their schism, and come sincerely into our Church? Why do they pelt her with more blasphemons libels, and scurrilous lampoons, than were ever published in Oliver's usurpation? Have they not lately villainously divided us with knavish distinctions of High and Low Churchmen? Are Dot the best characters they can give us, those of Papists, Jacobites, and Conspirators? And what do they mean by all this insidious cant, but by false insinuations, and raising groundless jealousies, and fears, to embroil the public, and to bring it into that confusion they are suggesting upon us? Whether these men are not contriving, and plotting our utter ruin, and whether all those False Brethren, that fall in with these measures and designs, do not contribute basely to it, I leave every impartial man that wishes the welfare of our constitution to determine: and if we find this true in fact, what reason have we to think, but that the national sins are ripened up to a full maturity, to call down vengeance from Providence on a Church and kingdom, thus debauched in its principles, and corrupted in its manners, and instead of the true faith, discipline, and worship, given over to all licentiousness, both in opinion, and practice, to all sensuality, hypocrisy, lewdness, and Atheism? And now are we under no danger in these deplorable circumstances? Must we lull ourselves under this sad repose, and in such a stupid, lethargic security, embrace our ruin? When Elisha the great prophet of God was surrounded with an host of enemies, that sought for his life, his blind servant beheld not the peril his master was in, till his eyes were opened by miracle, and he found himself in the midst of horses and chariots of fire. I pray God we may be out of danger! but we may remember the king's person was voted to be so, at the same time that his murderers were conspiring his death. What I have thus freely spoken, I hope is as much without offence, as it proceeds from a good intention, and a tender concern for her majesty's person, and government, and an hearty zeal for the honour and safety of our excellent Church and Constitution. I intreat your patience, "III. Briefly to set forth the heinous malignity, enormous guilt, and folly of this prodigious sin of False Brotherhood. "1. And first, With regard to God and religion. It is a most perfidious apostacy from, and reproach upon both. It is no less than renouncing our allegiance to our Almighty Sovereign, an open denial, and prostitution of our most holy faith and Church, upon which crime God has entailed so many dreadful threats, and anathemas. It is betraying our most solemn oaths, proving false to our sacred trust and commission, administering to, and indulging men in the most mortal sins, endangering both our own, and the salvation of that dear flock, for which Christ died, by exposing it to the corruptions of Heresy and Schism, the impostures of false apostles, and the deceit and malice of wolves in sheep's cloathing. It is deriving the highest blasphemy and dishonour upon the holy spirit of God, thus to prevaricate with his immutable oracles of truth, in wresting them to maintain the most diabolical falshoods and errors, and making veracity itself the author and patronizer of lies. It is forsaking our baptismal covenant, basely deserting the glorious colours we are listed under, turning refugees from our Saviour, and adherents to his most abjured enemies. In a word, to accomplish any wretched secular design, to gratify their pride or ambition, to feed their lust or avarice, to wreak their spleen or revenge, out of envy or disappointment, for a little, paltry honour, money, or preferment: these False Brethren will renounce their creed, and read the Decalogue backward, be the very reverse of our Blessed Saviour (whom like their primitive pattern, they first sell, and then betray) fall down and worship the very devil himself for the riches and honours of this world. "2. Secondly, in regard to the world. What a vast scandal, and offence must it give to all persons of piety, and integrity, to see men of character, and stations, thus shift and prevaricate with their principles, and starting from their religion upon any occasion of difficulty or trial, and like the disciples, flying from, and forsaking our Saviour, when his life lay at stake? To see men's opinions sit as loose about them as their garments, to put on, or off, for convenience? What can unwary persons conclude from such tergiversation, and hypocrisy, but that all religion is state-craft, and imposture? That all godliness is gain; and that the doctrines of the Church lie not so much in her articles, as her honours and revenues? Without doubt this modern latitude, and infamous double-dealing, as it can proceed from nothing but the rankest Atheism, so it must propagate it wheresoever it goes; and it is not to be questioned, but that the wonderful increase, and impudent appearance of all sects and heresies in this kingdom at present, beyond what was ever known in former ages, is chiefly to be attributed to it. But this crime is as pernicious to human society, as religion; for it destroys all common honesty, faith, and credit in the world, and in the place of it sets up an universal trade of cozenage, sharping, dissimulation, and downright knavery. For, what dependance can there be upon a man of no principles? What trust in equivocations, evasions, and lies? Nor indeed could any one be supposed so sottish, as to place the least confidence in these men, did they not bait their hook, and cover their treachery with the sacred and plausible pretences of friendship, whereby they are capable of doing much more mischief, than a barefaced and professed enemy. In what moving and lively colours does the holy Psalmist paint out the crafty insidiousness of such wilely Volpones?* "Wickedness (says he) is therein, deceit and guile go not out of their streets. For it is not an open enemy that has done me this dishonour, for then I could have borne it: neither was it mine adversary, that did magnify himself against me, for then peradventure I would have hid myself from him. But, it was even thou! my companion, my guide, and mine own familiar friend. We took sweet counsel together, and walked in the House of God as friends. There is no faithfulness in their mouths, their inward parts are very wickedness; their throats are open sepulchres, and their words are smoother than oil, yet be they very swords." Like Joah, they pretend to speak peaceably, and smite us mortally under the fifth rib. 3. Thirdly, with regard to a man's self, it is hard to distinguish whether our False Brethren prove themselves guilty of more excessive knavery, or folly. For whatever these cunning, temporizing politicians may think, they will find, after all their shuffling, and compliance, that the plain road of truth, ho- nesty, and integrity, is both the most prudent, *Volpone was a nick-name of lord Godolphin. Swift in his Journal to Stella,' April 24, 1711, says of Sacheverell," He hates the new ministry mortally, and they hate him, and pretend to despise him too. They will not allow him to have been the occasion of the late change, at least some of them will not, but my Lord Keeper owned it to me the other day." "The famous trial of Dr. Sacheverell arose from a foolish passionate pique of the earl of Godolphin, whom this divine was supposed, in a Sermon, to have reflected on under the name of Volpone, as my lord Somers, a few months after, confessed to me; and at the same time, that he had earnestly and in vain endeavoured to dissuade the earl from that attempt." Memoirs relating to the Change in the Queen's Ministry. Swift's Works, vol. 6, p. 273, Edit. of 1803. As to the cause of the Trial (which is naturally and almost necessarily mentioned in many parts of Swift's writings) he says the same thing in the 26th Examiner. their part in the lake which burns with fire and brinstone, with the grand-father of falshood, the devil and his angels. And so here we leave our False Brethren, in the company they always keep correspondence with. 4. Now what should be the result of this long discourse, but that if we bear any true concern for the interest, bonour, and safety of our Church and government, we ought steadfastly to adhere to those fundamental principles, upon which both are founded, and upon which their security, under God, alone depends; and consequently that it highly be as well as the safest way they can follow, and points him in the next, his portion with hypothat the wisdom of this world is as much fool-crites and unbelievers, with all liars that have ishness with men, as it is with God. For certainly there is no sin that so much disappoints its own ends as this does. Perhaps the man may obtain the present advantage he has in prospect, by relinquishing his old friends and principles; but is ever such a mercenary convert received heartily into the bosom of his former enemies? Or are they ever found so credulous and good natured, as to forgive, and believe such an apostate cordial and sincere, and fit to be trusted in any matter of weight or importance, who has betrayed his own party for the little, sordid lacre of a place or preferment? and is again ready to be retrograde, when-hoves us, cautiously to watch against, to mark, ever the wind shall change and veer about? and avoid all those that thus treacherously deSuch a False Brother may serve the present sert them. And indeed it would be both for our turn of his adversaries, who may seem, whilst advantage, as well as their credit, if such men they want the tool, to flatter and caress him; would throw off the mask, entirely quit our but let such a turn-coat rest assured, he shall Church, of which they are no true members, meet with hypocrisy for hypocrisy; and since and not fraudulently eat her bread, and lay he is got upon the stage, shall act his part and wait for her ruin, purloin her revenues, and be hissed off when he has done? Such a wise ungratefully lift up their heels against her. game do our projectors play, they barter and For then we should be one fold under one betray their friends, only to sell themselves shepherd, all those invidious distinctions that slaves into the hands of their enemies, who now distract and confound us lost, and we shall treat them with more insolence, disdain, should be terrible like an army of banners to and tyranny, than honest men do with scorn our enemies, who would never break in upon and contempt, if they do not go the whole such an uniform, and well-compacted body. lengths of their party, stick at nothing, though This indeed would be a true peace, and solid never so impious and absurd, and run from union, when we should all with one mind, and one extreme to a quite contrary. Thus little, one mouth, glorify God, and not with a conthus base, thus odious, thus contemptible, thus fused diversity of contradictious opinions, and servile, nay thus execrable is the traitor and inconsistent jargon of worship, which the God double dealer, in the sight not only of all ho- of peace, purity and order cannot but abhor. nest men, but the most professed knaves, and As it is a maxim in politics, that all governments bypocrites. Who cannot but have a tacit re- are best supported by the same methods and gard, and veneration for a man of steadiness counsels upon which they are founded; so it and probity, that upon all occasions is true to will appear undeniably true in its application himself, and his cause, is above the threats, to our constitution, which can be maintained as well as flatteries of this world, still trusting by no other principles, but those on which it is in his God, and his own integrity, and justice, built, and like their basis, the Gospel, if there is despising his interest, or success, and is under any violation, or breach made in any branch of all circumstances like that God, and religion it, it shakes and endangers the whole frame and he believes and serves, without variableness, body. These things, however little they may or shadow of change, but is the same, to-day, be represented by our adversaries, will be to-morrow, and for ever? Farther, these found of the most considerable consequence. False Brethren cannot be more odious to Let us therefore, as we are unhappily sharers God and man, than they are to themselves, who of St. Paul's misfortune, to have our Church in are always a self-contradiction, full of confu- perils among False Brethren, follow his examsion and perplexity, perpetually haunting ple and conduct in a parallel case. He tells themselves, the worst of dæmons, maintaining us in his Epistle to the Galatians, c. ii. That an irreconcileable war betwixt the outward and he was obstructed, and pestered in his preachinward man, conformists in profession, half-ing the Gospel, by False Brethren, unawares conformists in practice, and non-conformists in judgment. Such a mixture of inconsistency and nonsense, that any one that has the least spark of conscience or reason, must renounce and detest. But this dismal effect has such a state of habitual hypocrisy, that it quite damps, and extinguishes both, quenches the holy spirit of God, and crucifies his Son afresh; and as it finds a man void of shame, generally without a miraculous conversion leaves him incapable of repentance, and both damns him here, and hereafter; and as he chose it in this world, ap brought in, who came privily to spy out his liberty, which he had in Christ Jesus, that they might bring him into bondage. To whom he gave place by subjection, no not for an hour, that the truth of the Gospel might continue with the Church. Doubtless this brave and bold resolution did the Apostle take by the peculiar command, and inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and yet if our Dissenters had lived in those times, they would have branded him as an intemperate, hot, furious zealot, that wanted to be sweetened, by the the same courage, and indefatigable zeal and labour, to defend, as our adversaries to reproach, divide and ruin our Church, neither their united malice, nor power, nor all the plots and machinations of Rome, nor the very gates of hell itself, shall ever be able to prevail against her. And let us trust in that gracious Providence, which so miraculously delivered her on this day, that though she lies bleeding of the wounds she has received in the house of her friends, Lam. ii. 2, 4, "though the ways of Zion may mourn for a time, and her gates be desolate, her priests sigh, and she in bitterness, because her adversaries are chief, and her enemies at present prosper; though among all her lovers she has few to comfort her, and many of her friends have dealt treacherously with her, and are become her enemies," Zech. xiii. 6, "though there are few to guide her among all the sons whom she hath brought forth; neither are there many that take ber by the hand, of all the sons that she hath brought up," Isa. li. 18, "though her enemies cry, Down with her, down with her, even to the ground;" yet there is a God that can and will raise her up, if we forsake her not. us not therefore ungratefully contribute to her destruction; but let us continue stedfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as we know that our la. bour will not be in vain in the Lord. 1 Cor. xv. 58. Now the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a-while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. 1 Pet. v. 10, 11. To him be glory and dominion, for ever and ever. Amen.* gentle spirit of charity, and moderation, forSooth! Schism and faction are things of impudent and encroaching natures; they thrive upon concessions, take permission for power, and advance a toleration immediately into an establishment; and are therefore to be treated like growing mischiefs, or infectious plagues, kept at a distance, lest their deadly contagion spread. Let us therefore have no fellowship with these works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Let our superior pastors do their duty in thundering out their ecclesiastical anathemas, and let any power on earth dare reverse a sentence ratified in heaven. Let them discountenance all these seditious, lukewarm, almost-Christians, and promote men of probity, conscience, and courage; I say conscience and courage, for the one without the other is like faith without works, dead and insignificant. A Christian, and a coward, are such contradictions, as were never found in the Church militant; men of timorous and dastardly spirits, who are ashamed to own, or afraid to defend their principles, lest they should lose, or suffer by it will prove very poor disciples of the cross! Such men (as an ingenious prelate wittily expresses it) are only honest by chance. Let us despise the sneaking, shuffling compliances of such as consult their safety, and not their innocence, and dare to be true in the worst of times, with this all-sustaining cordial comfort, that whatever enemies we gain, or friends we lose, we carry one within us, that can confront, vanquish, and counter-balance all. "Woe unto them that have a fearful heart, and to the faint hands, and to the sinner that goeth two manner of ways!" says the wise man, Eccles. ii. 12. And agreeable to him the Apostle in very sarcastic expressions, Jade 11, 12, 13, "Woe unto them that have gone in the way of Cain, and run greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Corah! These are spots in your feasts of charity, clouds without water, carried about of winds, trees whose fruits are withered, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever." Let us, therefore, being well assured how much our cause deserves, and how much at present it requires our bravest resolutions, hold fast our integrity and religion, without wavering, and earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto the saints. "My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put ou the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickednesses in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the el day, and having done all, to stand," Eph. ri. 10, &c. Not doubting, but that if we shew Let * Of the numerous publications, which were more or less directly called forth by this Discourse, several are inserted in the Sommers' Collections. The second part of Faults on both Sides,' (4th Collection, vol. 3, p. 327,) exhibits much learning and ability, and concludes with the following extract from a Sermou, preached before the House of Lords by the excellent Sharpe, archbishop of York, (see his Case, vol. 11, p. 1123,) Jan. 30, 1700: "As the laws of the land are the measures of our active obedience, so also are the same laws the measures of our submission; and as we are not bound to obey, but where the laws and constitution require our obedience, so neither are we bound to submit, but as the laws and constitution do require our submission. "If a preacher in the pulpit should presume to give his judgment about the management of public affairs, or to lay down doctrines as from Christ about the forms and models of kingdoms and commonwealths, or to adjust the limits of the prerogative of the prince, or of the liberties of the subject in our present government: I say, if a divine should meddle with such matters as these in his Sermons, I do not know how he can be excused from the just censure of meddling with things that nothing concern him. This is, indeed, a practising in |