The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety, Chapter 11
CHAP. XI. A survey of the Mischiefs arising from Disputes, as they engage upon ill Arts and Scandalous Practices, to sustain the espoused Cause and Party.
AND yet so unhappily are many men mistaken, that these irregular heats which thus waste the vital spirits of Religion, are thought the most Soveraign Cordials to support them. The highest Paroxism of this Feaver are deem'd the perfectest Health. Men esteem the overflowing of their Gall, the exuberance of their Zeal, and then all the Promises to the faithful combatant in Christs camp, they confidently appropriate to that their so eminent Grace; though indeed it can with no more propriety be call'd so, than Pharaohs lean Kine might be said to be fat, because they had devour'd those that were so. In plain terms, men lay so great weight upon their being of right opinions, and their eagerness of abetting them, that they account that the unum necessarium, and think the propagating of those so important a service to God, as will justifie the use of the most interdicted instruments, legitimate the most enormous Commissions, that they can phancy contributive to that pious End: And moreover commute for the neglect of Practick duties in the general tract of their lives. I shall not here urge the hazard of mens erring in the choice of opinions, nay, the certainty that of many opposite, one only can be the right; and then to all such as miss, that their very groundwork fails them. I shall only confine my self to the malignant influence this Perswasion has on practice, and in that respect I cannot but affirm it a most pernicious delusion, which as it tends extremely to the enhansing the bitterness of our contests, so it may justly be reckon'd among the worst effects of them, and is a most irrefragable proof how much they obstruct the vital efficacy of Religion in our hearts. Nor is it any new thing for men thus to deceive themselves, for we find such Confidences as these frequently upbraided to the Iews, both by the Prophets and Christ himself, they thought their Zeal to the Temple and ritual observances, so invincibly meritorious, as no Crime could defeat, and that their legal purifications would render them acceptable in Gods Eyes, in spight of all their Moral pollutions: But how fallacious a hope this was, the many severe increpations of God do sufficiently attest. Yet certainly their guilt was far below ours, the things they so depended on were parts, though not the whole of their Duty; those Ordinances, though perhaps somewhat adulterated by Rabbinical mixtures, yet for the main were instituted by God himself, and that with a design of discriminating, and separating them from the rest of the world; and such peculiarities and priviledges as these, might have an aptness to excite that presumption: But alas, the case is otherwise with most of us; they are not the Revelations of Gods will, not the Testament of our dying Redeemer, but some Codicils and Annexes of our own we so earnestly abet. 'Tis not the Text (for then 'twere impossible for any that receiv'd the same Canon of Scripture to differ) but our glosses to which we pay such Reverence; and when on that account we sever our selves from those to whom the Commands of God, the Blood of our Saviour have most closely united and cemented us: We can yet make a shift to think that there is so much of Sacred in this, as shall not only render it highly rewardable, but also hallow all other profanations of our lives; and in our Iehu march upon such an expedition, can turn all regrets of conscience (like Iorams messengers) behind us. That this is so, none can doubt who observe with what boldness men rush upon the most unchristian sins, in pursuit of what they Phancy a Christian cause. Were it not for this amulet, how were it possible for any to think they may venture upon Perjury, Sacriledge, Murder, Regicide, any thing without impeachment to their Saintship; nay, to think that the only danger lies on the other side, in being remisly wicked, that to slack any thing of the utmost speed, is to do the work of the Lord negligently. Yet that this has been a prevailing Perswasion, we have had too many, and too sad instances; and God grant we may not find them so repeated, that our sense may supersede the use of our memories concerning them; nor has this been peculiar to one only Sect, but those who are otherwise at the widest distance unite in this Principle. They are not only Phanaticks that can say grace over the foulest crimes, and consecrate them to the use of a good cause; if we examine the Dypticks either of Conclave or Consistory, we shall find some Saints upon that account, who could never have been so upon any other. And when we consider how often Heaven has been mortgaged to gain Auxiliaries from Hell, how men have been encouraged to the most damning sins, by promises of being certainly saved; we must either think that a Holy cause is omnipotent enough to reverse Gods decrees, to save whom he would damn, or else that this pretence is one of the most ruinous deceits, the most fatal Treachery to souls that ever Satan contriv'd, who though he do in all instances play the Mountebank, yet sure never more than when on confidence of this Antidote he perswades us thus to swallow down his deadliest Poyson.
I MUST not here attempt to enumerate all the unchristian practices, that have on this score been made, not only lawful but meritorious; yet there is one of so frequent use, that I must needs advert unto it, and that is, those calumnies and falshoods, which are now become a piece of Ecclesiastick as well as state policy, and a great part of that offensive armour wherewith our controvertists assault one another. Indeed if we consider how many forges are daily going for these Engines, we shall have reason to think, all Parties have an high esteem of their usefulness. Of these Calumnies there are too many sorts and degrees to be here particulariz'd: And indeed those, who permit themselves to use any, can be suppos'd to have no other boundaries than the advantage of their cause: And accordingly as that seems to exact, they lay their Scene; sometimes they traduce the persons of their opposers, and by raising prejudices against them, hope some of it will reflect upon their doctrine: did men generally know how to distinguish between reports and certainties, this stratagem would be as unskilful as it is uningenuous: But considering the vulgar temper, its not unaptly suited to it. This it seems was anciently understood, it being the old Greek advice, foreign. To calumniate stoutly, for that how perfectly soever the wound of reproach be heal'd, there will remain a scar; and though we wipe away with never so much care the dirt thrown at us, there will be left some sulliage behind: And accordingly this was the Expedient the Pagans us'd against the Primitive Christians, to put them thus in the skins of beasts, and shapes of monsters, and then worry them to death. And this is the method still, though heightned and improved, and our Religion has suffered infinitely more since we us'd it against each other, than when they manag'd it against the whole community. But besides this defamation of Persons, another branch of this black Art is the depraving of Writings, both in the sense and very letter, and direct words; for the former of these, whosoever observes the strange perversions, and affected mistakes of mens meanings visible in many of our Polemick discourses, will sure resolve that a mans intentions, as well as his words and actions may be calumniated: Nor does the letter scape better, every period which threatens danger to the cause must be mutilated and dismembred, and as Sampson was by the Philistines, lose its Hair and Eyes, and then be made sport for the whole party. And I fear there are too few, who do not in this case take the Iewish reparation, an Eye for an Eye, &c. retaliate to the adversary the foul play they receive. But some advance yet higher, and think it not enough to make an Argument or Testimony useless to the Enemy, unless they draw it over to themselves, make it betray the side it was to maintain, and as a Conqueror uses to restore Arms to such of the adverse party, as will turn to his, so after they have by satisfactions secured themselves of its aid, it shall then be made as potent as is possible, and with such kind of Renegado troops as these, some causes have been much supported. Yet were this violation offer'd only to the writings of living men, who might vindicate it, 'twere not so transcendently ignoble, but it most frequently falls upon those, who have made their beds in the dust; who have chang'd their own Form, and cannot secure their Writings from the same fate: Nay, 'tis yet more frequently those, whom we have all reason to suppose, and most of us profess to believe, glorified Saints; and this superadds a daring presumption to all other circumstances of the guilt, and heightens an injustice into Sacriledge. It has always been held the most detestable sort of forgery to counterfeit Testaments, though the Testator were of never so low a quality, or his bequests of never so mean a value: And shall it now pass for a piece of commendable dexterity, an art of manage to falsifie those writings by which the Fathers of the Church design'd to entail truth and piety, not strife and faction upon her. We know Necromancy has justly been reputed one of the most horrid forms of Sorcery, because it enforced dead men to speak what the living were inquisitive to hear. I leave it to be consider'd what this wants of that, besides the dreadful ceremonies of the Incantation; certainly 'tis a guilt which nothing but our too familiar acquaintance with it could make unformidable. And indeed this whole method of serving a cause by such sinister means is so utterly repugnant to the Principles even of ingenuous nature, that we can scarce cast a greater scandal upon an Opinion, than to shew it needs such Aids. 'Tis by Historians branded as an execrable fact in him, who to secure himself from a neighbour Prince, call'd in the Turk into Christendom: But sure those who to fortifie their side have brought in this Artifice of calumniating and falsifying, have done an Act no less impious; the constitution of Christianity agreeing full as well with the Alcoran as with these Piaefraudes; as some of them who perhaps mean the fraud more than the Piety are pleas'd to call them. Nay indeed, they accord not much better with Philosophy than Divinity, every man knows the nature of contraries is to combate and expel, not to cherish and support one another. How absurd is it then for those, who say they design to advance truth, to make falshood their Instrument. I wish they would experiment to accommodate their secular concerns at the same rate, let them cool them in the Fire, warm them in the Frost, and feed themselves by perpetual Fasting, and when they find cause to commend the efficacy of that Method, they may with fairer pretence in this higher instance reconcile the feuds of Reason and of Nature, and make a lye the Evidence of Truth. In the interim, it may well pass for Sophistry as well as sin; and doubtless whatever advantages are hop'd for to private Sects and Parties by this art, Christian Religion in general is hugely prejudiced by it: For when men shall compare the veracity of Heathens with our falshoods; learn from Historians, that among the Persians, foreign, to lye was deem'd a fault of the greatest turpitude, and they therefore laid an ill Character upon persons in debt, foreign, because he that is so must needs tell lyes: And when they shall see in the Laws of Cingis a barbarous Tartar, Lying made a capital crime, and yet among Christian Casuists made a holy artifice, they will be tempted to think our end as fictitious as our way; and that our Religion has little countenance from truth, which is thus fain to make lyes its Refuge. Thus unhappily do these Arrows revert, not only on those who shoot them, but in the face of Christianity its self, which is defam'd, and traduced by those slanders, we aim at our private adversaries.
BUT besides this direct, there are other more oblique Wayes of making vice subservient to Religion, or to speak more properly, of making Religion subservient to vice; for some Zealots of several parties, who more regard the numerousness than purity of their Professors, discerning how much the sensual part of mankind startle at the strictness of Gospel precepts, are industrious to take off that discouragement; not by convincing them of the real divine sweetness and pleasantness of them, but by debasing and accommodating them more to the carnal appetite: Yet here men proceed not all alike, some use Christs yoke, as Hananiah did that of Ieremy, break it quite off; others only essay to slacken and alleviate it, that it may not pinch the lusts of libertine Proselytes: Of the first sort are such, as having made the adherence to their Party, the infallible mark of Sanctification, and that Sanctification of Election, do from thence proclaim to all who are so qualified a general Jubile and manumission from the bond even of Christ's as well as Moses's Law: or if some of them allow it to remain an impotent director, yet while they affirm that God sees no sin in his Elect, or if he do, beholds them as a Father does the harmless falls of his Child, rather with smiles than anger, they make the violations of it so safe, that they are too sure to be many, and between abrogating and thus enervating a law, the difference is meerly verbal.
OF the second sort are some, who by indulgent and partial glosses, seek to mollifie the severity of Christs commands. That contrive for their Clients not the means of Obeying, but the arts of Escaping them. Like the unjust Steward teach their lords Debtors to write fifty in stead of a Hundred; and decide Cases of conscience more according to the interests and passions of men, than the will of Christ. There are a generation of men of whose Dexterity in this faculty the world has taken so much notice that I need not name them, a sort of easie Casuists who seem to have erected a Court of Equity to relieve men against the rigor of divine Law; and there is little doubt but they shall find enough ready to make such appeals: Men love to be Christians as Cheap as they can, and therefore will close with that party, which offers the easiest terms: And then while these spiritual Pioneers do thus enlarge the narrow way, make it a road as well for the Beast as the Man, the brutish sensual, as well as rational divine Part of us, no wonder though Shoals of Converts throng in to them. But 'tis to be consider'd that all this while this is winning Proselytes to themselves not to God: the gaining them to a Sect not a religion; at least not to that pure religion, and undefiled which the grand Author of our Faith has both exemplified, and propos'd to us; for how much that suffers by this way of propugning private opinions, is more than enough apparent. Yet so ambitious are our prime leaders of such Trophies that in order to them some are said to ascend yet a step higher, and besides this general encouragement they give to mens lusts by taking off Restraints, do in some cases actually promote and excite them. For when they see a licentious person whose acquest they judge beneficial to their cause, they have artifices of fomenting his riots, do not only take off the bridle, but use the spur also, hoping that at the rebound it may conduce to their End. If any think it impossible it should do so, let them consider that among our various Opinions some there are which sell heaven much cheaper than others dare, that allow such easie attonements as the most habituated sinner need not despair of: and then the most infallible means to ascertain such to that side, is to make them too bad for any other. For when a man is resolute to keep his sins while he lives, and yet unwilling to relinquish all hopes when he dies, 'tis more than probable he will embrace that profession which bids fairest to the reconciling those so distant interests; and therefore the greater malefactor he is, the more sure he will be to fly to the horns of this Altar; the nearer sinking, the apter to catch at these reeds; so that the Project is not impolitick, though God knows so impious that 'tis much fitter for the School of Machiavil than of Christ; and seems to verifie that imputation as to a part of Christians, which Iulian once as falsly as maliciously affixt upon the whole: that their Church was an Asylum and sanctuary for the most flagitious offenders, and protected those guilts to which no other religion allowed any Expiation. 'Tis indeed so horrid that I cannot think there are many consciences so cauteriz'd by this fiery zeal as to admit it, yet that some have done it, there is too much certainty, and therefore 'tis no improper instance in our present argument, for if mens eagerness to support their several sides, can transport them to such attempts as these, 'tis abundant Evidence how much Christianity loses by these contests of under factions, which while they pretend to guard, do indeed invade her under her own Colours.
BUT besides the faults men commit with this immediate avowed aspect upon their religion, there are others which slily shroud themselves under the skirt of its mantle: I mean those Sins of common life, which though they pretend not to advance the cause, yet when acted by a Zealot are thought to be overwhelm'd by his heroick Piety▪ Indeed men who make themselves so much work about others faith, are seldom at leisure to regulate their own practice, and so have no way of stating their accounts with God, but by balancing the excess of the one against the defects of the other: How such reckonings will pass the grand Audit, 'tis I think not hard to divine, but in the interim, it keeps them very cheerful and secure, teaches them a Receipt to retain all their Sins, and yet lose none of their confidence; so that when they have immerst themselves in all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit, they can trust their zeal to refine them from all that Dross. Nor does it only thus reconcile them to their own vices, but to other mens also, whose most brutish sensualities they can look on with perfect patience, nay even Atheism its self can have fair Quarter: They are not much discomposed to see men have no religion, 'tis only the having one different from their own that awakes their indignation; then like Saul when seiz'd on by the evil spirit, they cast about their Javelins, think no rigor too great on such a provocation, yet even here they have intervals, and the very same persons who are thus at odds upon a religious, can unite upon a vicious account. Those who mutually denounce damnation to each other, can with full accord combine in those practices which will ascertain it to them both, as if they so much fear'd to have their predictions defeated, that they would be each others convoy to the land of darkness. Those that will by no means meet at the Church, know not when to part at the Tavern, and though they will not joyntly partake of the Cup of the Lord, are yet very sociable at the Cup of Devils; I mean those excessive debauches, which are a most acceptable drink-offering to those infernal spirits. Have we not seen many whose distant opinions have fastned upon one another the brand of Antichristianism, who have yet like Gog and Magog joyn'd against the holy city: and those who could never agree on the way of setting up Christs Throne, have yet been very unanimous in pulling down the Kings. Thus alas do we justle one another out of the narrow path that leads to life, but can hand in hand run our Carier in the broad way of destruction. And doubtless this great unevenness, these spiritual feuds, and carnal endearments between the same persons; this impetuous zeal, and as impetuous lusts in the same breasts could never be, did not men depend so confidently on the one, as to think it will commute, and satisfie for the other. But alas, how groundless a Presumption this is, the whole tenor of the Gospel does abundantly witness. In all that grand Charter where is there the least Clause importing such an immunity. I am sure there are multitudes that assert the contrary. Indeed the whole frame of the Evangelical covenant is totally against it: That requiring an entire uniform Sanctity, and allowing no other priviledge to the sins of the most knowing Professors, but a preheminence in punishment, the being beaten with many stripes. And when 'tis consider'd that the end of all religion is but the drawing us to a conformity with God, the impressing on us some Character of his eternal goodness and holiness, 'twill be as absurd as impious to believe that our zeal to any Religion can absolve us from that purity which is the end and design of all. And while this is the way men take to approve their piety, 'tis no marvail to find so many Christians, and so little Christianity in the world: for that is not to be estimated by the number of its professors, but by their obedience to its Rules, and he that gives up his name to it and not his heart, will receive as little advantage by it, as he brings honour to it, and how little that is in respect of its internal Efficacy, is I presume competently evidenced.
BUT that we may more throughly discern how universally destructive our wranglings are to it, in all its concerns, let us a little examine whether they do not endammage it even in respect of outward profession also. This may seem a strange Quaere to those who think their desputes about Religion are to denominate them the great confessors of the Age: yet certainly there is but too much ground not only for the enquiry, but to resolve it in the affirmative. And if it prove so, 'twill infer but sadly to those who having laid the whole stress of their Hopes upon their zeal to advance their Faith, will be found to have pull'd down more than they have built up. Now Christianity may in respect of profession decay two waies, either in its hopes, or in its possession, the one in relation to Aliens, the other to Disciples. The first by hindring the access of new Converts, the second by staggering or alienating the old, and both these waies she visibly appears to suffer by our divisions. And first if we consult but our experience, if we trust but our own observations, we cannot but confess that the Gospel has long been at a great stand. That that Sun which at its first arising was like David's, Ps. 19. surrounded the world in a vigorous efficacious motion, is since become like Ioshua's, Iosh. 10. 12. arrested in its course: Nay like Hezekiah's, gone backward, Is. 38. 8. Mahumetism (if not Paganism) having long taken up its seat in divers of the most flourishing Apostolick plantations. A sad change, that from the daily and numerous accession of the first times, it should now become a kind of Prodigy, a piece of news, scarce heard in an Age, that one single Proselyte is gain'd to the Church, yet that thus it is, is too obvious to be denied. And truly it is not much less apparent that our dissentions have in a great degree contributed to it. For first, as to the extirpation of the Eastern Churches, he that shall examine the records of those times, will have cause to say their Janglings and Divisions were not only in a moral or divine, but even in a proper natural sense, the Instruments of it. The Turk only coming in at those breaches which themselves had made, nor had their Candlestick probably been removed, had they not first abus'd its light, to the setting themselves in Combustion. That the same cause has not yet had the same effect among us, is owing not to its unaptness to produce it, but to the admirable patience and mercy of God, who yet withholds that fatal Judgment, which we do our parts to pull upon our selves; our mutual violences against one another herein unhappily combining and making one united force against us all. But though the divine goodness have hitherto so countermined our treachery to our selves, as not to suffer us to enjoy that state of darkness we have so courted, yet certainly our contentions are extremely accessary to the continuing it upon others, our many new and wandring lights, however they fail of having that Property of the Pillar of fire, Ex. 14. of illuminating and conducting the Israelites, yet too much answer its other, in becoming cloud and darkness to the Aegyptians; there being scarce any thing more apt to intercept the beams of the Sun of righteousness from the Heathen world, every of those little enclosures our Factions have made in the Church, becoming a great partition wall to keep others out of it. This may be made evident in several respects. As first, in relation to those many moral obliquities in which our eager disputes do (as hath already been shewed) betray us, which cannot but give so much scandal to any considering man, that we can scarce hope any can turn to us as to a better Religion, but will rather think it the way to relinquish all; to obliterate those native impressions of Piety and Honesty they brought with them into the world, so that if we expect any Proselytes it must be only such as would live worse than meer nature allows them.
BUT this though as important a consideration as can well be, I shall not here insist on, having in the second Section given some instances how apt our Morality is to defame our Divinity, and confirm men in Opposition to it. But though this be a great, yet 'tis not the only means by which our Dissentions hinder the progress of the Gospel, for they do not only make infidels less inclinable to receive it, but us to propagate it. Those do so busie and engross us, that there is neither leisure nor heart left for this. Our activest spirits are so engaged at home in asserting their private quarrels, that all such foreign designs are forgot. For as in Civil, so in Ecclesiastical concerns, every one is more industrious to advance his peculiar interest than that of the community, accordingly we find innumerable promulgers of every new Opinion. No Sect wants its Apostles to propagate and diffuse it; but where are there any that have the like care for the main Root of Christian Religion, which they have for these little Twigs and Offesets which they have planted in their own Gardens; how many ages must we look back to find a man that has made it his business to convert Infidels to the Faith. 'Tis true indeed there are some very magnificent relations of modern attempts this way, of great industry some have us'd to bring the most savage nations to the obedience of Christ: but if we examine 'twill be obvious, the main design was to subject them to themselves. 'Twas not so much their Heathenism as their territories they invaded, and such Apostles as these are ill qualified to make S. Paul's profession, 2 Cor. 12. 16. I seek not yours but you. And the success of such Essays have been answerable to the motive; they have won riches but not Souls. The Gospel in one hand and a sword in the other has made many slaves, but I fear few Christians. Indeed, what encouragement had those poor creatures to receive a Religion from their Oppressors? why should they think that those who tortured and kill'd their bodies, were really concern'd to save their Souls? or that those who would not permit them to enjoy what was their own, meant to help them to any thing better? And while the felicities of another world were recommended to them only by such, as had deprived them of all in this, we cannot wonder at their little appetite to embrace them; or to find the opprest Indians protest against that heaven where the Spaniards are to be their cohabitants. In short, this is sure such a method of Evangelizing, as too widely differs from that which first planted the Church, to be likely to advance its growth: so that notwithstanding all pretences of this kind, we may resume our assertion, and conclude that our intestine discords (perhaps not those alone) have diverted the Zeal of this more Christian undertaking, and left a great part of the world under that invincible Ignorance S. Paul mentions, Rom. 10. 14. How shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him, of whom they have not heard; and how shall they hear without a preacher: and God knows whether we have not herein provided better for their Excuse than our own.
THERE is yet another way by which our divisions impede their conversion, and that is by giving them prejudice to that Doctrine about which our selves cannot agree. 'Tis an universal Maxim that truth is alwaies consonant to its self; and therefore where they see so little unity they have too much temptation to doubt of Truth. He that wandring should meet a Company that offer to conduct him to his journeys end, might reasonably incline to deliver himself up to their guidance; but if he find them unagreed upon the way, one Disputing for this, and another for that, and every one protesting against all but his own; he would sure retract his confidence, and think they offer'd him only more variety of mistakes, resolve it as safe to trust himself to his own Errors as other mens. And this alas seems to be too exact a parallel of the present case; we Christians do so mutually damn one another, that a poor Turk or Heathen will think, he rather multiplies than ends his Danger by associating himself with us; for there being so many parties, which soever he joyns himself to, there will be abundant odds against him; so that if he could be secur'd the truth were among us, yet the great difficulty of finding it out, would be a very disheartning consideration. Besides men love in transactions of great Importance to have as many, and as credible Vouchers as may be, and upon that score 'twill sure be but a cold inducement, to any to turn Christian to foresee, that when he has done so, he shall be disown'd by far the greater part of that number, and that at his entrance into the Church, he shall be met with almost as many Anathemas, as when he was an Infidel. Nay, I scarce know whether I may call it an entrance into the Church, or rather into a Conventicle, or particular Congregation, our Schisms and Separations having hardly left a possibility of external communion with the universal Church, since the Communicating with one part of it, does infallibly Excommunicate from another. Thus have we placed our flaming Sword (though God knows no Cherubim) at the gate of our Paradise, and when God calls all men to the waters of life, our Contentions have made them like those of Marah, so bitter and unpleasant, as deters and averts men from them: Which as it is in the highest degree injurious to them, so is it contumelious to him, whose invitations are by this means frustrated; 'tis in some degree the evacuating one of the main purposes of Christs coming into the World, which was to call men out of darkness into his marvellous light, and as He was thus sent by his Father, so also were the Apostles solemnly commissionated by him to preach to the Gentile world, who with indefatigable industry and resolute sufferings pursued the charge; and sure this is competent evidence, that the design was of the greatest and most weighty importance, and such as can never be out-dated, till there cease to be objects of it, unbelievers to convert: And by that let us measure the guilt of obstructing it, which if we would impartially do, I assure my self the most passionate Bigot of any Party must confess, that it infinitely out-weighs all the Piety his doctrine can pretend to, that his peculiar Church gains not so much as the Catholick loses: And that how confidently soever he have Canoniz'd his quarrels, they are indeed but the worst sort of Heathens, and serve to keep out the better. Yet besides the mischief they do in relation to those that are without, they are extremely pernicious to those that are within, and that not only to some one Sect, but like an universal poyson, that is equally deadly to the most contrary complections, they operate on the most distant ranks of Professors, the tender and the obdurate, the scrupulous and the profane. And first for the tender tremulous Christian, 'tis easie to discern how much he must be distracted and amaz'd by them, for while he hears each Sect thunder out Damnation against each other, he cannot but be startled at the danger of adhering to the wrong, and though that may a while excite his diligence to discover the right, yet when he comes to that inquisition, he will meet with so many Polemick intricacies to entangle him, that after many turns, first to one side, and then to another, he will be apt to think the only clue to extricate him out of this labyrinth of many Religions, is to abandon all. Nor is this meer Speculation and Conjecture, God knows we have had successively through the whole round of Error too many practick experiments of it. Several persons there have been, whose Zeal to find out truth by an unhappy rule of False, directed them to allow of every Error: While like sick men, who desire to die good cheap, they put themselves into the hands of any Empirick; follow each bold pretender, that has the impudence to talk of Truth, till Superstition ends in Profanation, Godliness proves Atheism, and by having been of many Sects, at last have no Religion. And surely this is a most unhappy Effect of our discords, thus to be stumbling-blocks in our brothers way, and when we remember the woes pronounc'd against those that shall Scandalize any of the little ones, 'twill be strange how men can think to approve their Christianity, by the ruine of their Brothers, or secure themselves of Heaven by keeping Others thence: For though Christ tells his Disciples there should be some that should think it a service to God to kill their Bodies, yet to phancy the destroying of Souls so too, is a Deception of which we have neither record nor prediction in Holy Writ, and is a superfaetation of the spirits of delusion, peculiar to those who have placed their own sanctity in these religious wranglings, which serve to destroy it in other men. And as they thus serve on the one side to shipwrack the faith of these weak unstable Souls; so do they on the other advance the impiely of the daring sinner; for as they are Temptation to the one, so are they Pretence and Excuse to the other to bid defiance to all Religion. He whose dissolute affections have so long been courting his understanding to turn Atheist, will sure not lose the advantage of so plausible an Argument as our divisions afford him; and since his lusts engage him in an irreconcilable War against the practick part of Piety, he will most gladly embrace this occasion of quarrel against the Theory also: So making himself entire, and extinguishing those uneasie regrets and misgivings arising from the repugnancy of his life to his belief. It were not hard to give a compendium of these mens Logick, and draw out those Schemes of Discourse, by which from our differences in Religion they infer the discarding of all. But I fear these are already too well known, and where they are not, I should be loth to be any mans Instructor. This is I am sure too palpable, that how fallacious soever these Reasonings are, they have been very operative, as appears by the number of those avowed Atheists among us, who placing themselves in the seat of the scorner, give themselves much pleasing Divertisement by deriding our eager scuffles about that which they think nothing. If any man thinks that the Church is no loser by the defection of such Libertines, I must be allowed to dissent from him: For first, there are examples of the most vicious Persons, that have been reduced, and while they retain their Christian belief, that lays such undeniable obligations to good life, that whenever they resume their reason, they must take up vertue also with it; so that there is an equal possibility of their being good, that there is of their being rational: But when all hope and fear of a future estate is disclaim'd, when those cords are broken which should pull them up from the Dungeon, then, and not before is their state visibly desperate. But besides this possibility of recovering them, the danger of losing others is to be considered. Bold Atheism is like a raging Pestilence, which taints the very Air, so that those impious discoursings which are the effects of some mens Vices, may be the cause of others; and we too often see that those who ascended themselves by degrees, do in an instant advance their Proselytes to the height of Irreligion, as appears by the strange proficiency of some, whose Years allow them not to have arrived to it otherwise than per Saltum. And sure this spreading Contagion has been so destructive to the Church, that it were to be wisht, the meer titular Christians had rather remain'd such, than thus to have averted others from being so much.
AND now if all these scandals be worth our regret, if the emboldening and exasperating the bad, the corrupting the innocent, and the decay of Christian profession consequent to both be formidable Evils, we know where to charge the guilt. Our contentions must be arraigned as accessaries, if not principals in the case: And then sure it will befit our angry Zealots to consider, whether this be the way of advancing Gods truth, or what account they will give to the Lord of the Vineyard, who while they pretend to dress and prune the branches, do thus debilitate and destroy the roots. Nay, indeed in this they are treacherous even to their own pretensions, for all those several Religions which they so tenderly cherish, have no proper root of their own, but like Excrescencies, spring out of the main stock of Christianity, live by its juice and moisture, and consequently, can never hope to survive it. And then certainly there can be nothing more ridiculous, than to express their kindness to the one, by ways that are so ruinous to the other. 'Tis as if a Passenger in a Ship should to fortifie his private Cabin, tear up the planks and expose the whole Vessel to sinking: Yet thus preposterously do many of our chief Pilots apply their care. In the mean time, it cannot but be a very delightful prospect to the grand Enemy of Souls, to see us thus busily promote his interest, lay snares for our selves, and by our own folly do that which all his subtilties could never compass. Nor can we think but he will be as officious to us as is possible, while we are thus employed, will help us to contrive our Turrets, whilst he sees we pluck out stones from the foundation to build them with; nor shall we ever want new models of Churches, so long as they thus help to destroy the old; and how aptly they are fitted for that Purpose, needs (I suppose) no farther Demonstration.