A Second Discourse of the Religion of England, Section 18
SECT. XVIII.
It is the Interest of the NONCONFORMISTS to prefer Comprehension before Toleration, where Conscience doth not gainsay.
IF it can be made evident, That the Nonconformists should embrace a Comprehension as the surest means of their particular Good, it will conduce exceedingly to evince, That the Favour of Rulers will not be in vain towards them; and that their Petitions, Discourses, and other Instances for Moderation, were not feigned, because grounded on their true Interest that cannot lye.
Were they united among themselves, and did the Times highly favour them, even then it were their Wisdom not to insist too far upon their own Perswasions, but to comply with such moderate Order as is most passable in the Nation, (their Consciences not gainsaying) much more doth it now behove them, by Moderation and Submission to dispose themselves for the Favour of their Superiors.
They should chuse rather (if it be possible for them) to be Comprehended in the Approved, then to be Tolerated in a Severed Way. For there is not so much lost thereby in point of Liberty, but as much or more is gained in point of Safety.
It is a happiness to be secured from dangerous wanderings, perplexities, breaches, and manifold inconveniences, into which they may be led that are wholly left without the Line of the Established Order. Those persons that by their Wisdom and Learning can the better defend themselves from the aforesaid Evils in a severed State, cannot be ignorant how precipitate and unadvisable many of their Number may be, and not so easily to be governed by their more prudent Guides. Men of discerning and stable judgments, would do their uttermost to preserve the more inconsiderate people from falling into a full and absolute Separation from all Christian Societies that are not of their Perswasion. For they may easily apprehend into how great and dangerous Errors that Vortex may carry about those that fall into it.
They that are best able to govern themselves, do see most need of a Publike Government, and how necessary it is, that both People and Teachers be under the Regulation and Influence of Authority, for the avoiding of many and great Inconveniencies. And there are many and great Benefits, by being comprehended in the Approved Order, not otherwise to be obtained. Their Peace is better insured, their Influence is more diffusive, their Instances and Motions for the Common Good, will be more regarded. They have a larger scope for imploying their Masters Talent in the Publike Service of the Gospel, and they may speak with more Authority, and better success among all ranks and sorts of men, who will look upon them as theirs, when they hold their Publike Stations.
Unto all this may be added, That the Ancient Nonconformists earnestly opposed the Separation of the Brownists, and held communion with the Church of England in its Publike Worship.
And doubtless it is the Ministers Interest, not to have their Subsistence by the Arbitrary Benevolence of the people, and so to live in continual dependance upon their mutable dispositions for a Maintenance that is poor and low in comparison of the Publike Encouragements. Hereby one may partly judg, whether Learned and Prudent men be Nonconformists by the pleasure of their own will, or the constraining-force of Conscience.
Now their Consciences may be relieved, if they be not made personally to profess or practice any thing against the dictates thereof. And retaining their own private judgments, they may well hold to this Catholick Principle, That in a Church acknowledged to be sound in Doctrine, and in the Substance or main Parts of Divine Worship, and not defective in any vital part of Christian Religion, they are bound to bear with much which they take to be amiss in others Practice, in which they do not personally bear a part themselves▪
As concerning a Form of Church-Government, and Rule of Discipline, Men that understand their own Interest, cannot for self-ends (as they have been upbraided) couet the Power of such a Discipline as inevitably procures envy and ill-will, without any temporal profit or dignity. And if the Higher Powers will not admit such a Form, (I deliver my own private judgment, without prejudice to other mens) this may tend to satisfie the Subjects Conscience. That Ecclesiastical Government is necessarily more directed and ordered in the exercise thereof, by the Determinations of the Civil Magistrate, in places where the true Religion is maintained, then where it is persecuted or disregarded. And they that have received the Power, must answer to God for it: They that are discharged from it, shall never account for that whereof they have been bereaved.