• 4. And as for those few whom you thus blemish for their indecent tones and gestures ; what if those tones you speak of, amount to no more but natural defects, and unavoidable infirmities, which they would, but cannot help ? Do they for this, and no worse than this, deserve to be censured, and condemned for hypocrites ? Or, what if they be insensible actions, occasioned by the greater intention of their spirits in the service of God ? May not these very things, which you profanely flout, censure, and scoff at, either not at all be noted as bleraishes to their devotion by the eye of God, or noted with appro- bation and dehght, as the effects of spiritual fervency in his service ? Certainly, gentlemen, you are no good marksmen, that neither draw the right arrow, nor level at the true mark.
4. And were not this a vain and empty pretence, to cover your own malice against godliness ; how comes it to pass, that more sceni- cal habits, words, and gestures, should pass as ornaments in others, whom you affect ? AVhether this be not partiality unworthy of a man, let reason and conscience freely judge.
In a word ; What commission or authority can you produce, thus to ascend the throne of God, and drawyour bitterest censures through the very hearts of God's people, for such pitiful trifles as these ; first condemning them as hypocrites, which is a most unwarrantable pre- sumption ; and then persecute them as far as you can, for their pre- sumed hypocrisy ? Have a care what you do ; be not mockers, lest your bands be made strong. This is a sin which hastens national desolation ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 16, 17. " They mocked the messen- gers of God, and despised his word, and misused his prophets ; until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no re- medy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword," &c.
Plea 2. You say^ It is not godliness you hate, and would persecute ; but they are a sort of persons, who under a pretence of zeal for re- ligion and reformation, design nothing else but sedition and rebellion, that the nation will never be (juiet, whilst such vipers are suffered to
THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION. 5^5
licve in it : And to fortify this plea, you add, that both their hypo- crisy and sedition have been made sufficiently evident to the world in many instances.
Zealfor the laws, and security of the government, if rightly tem- pered and qualified, is highly commendable ; and wherever sincerity animates, and prudence governs it, it ought by no means to be dis- couraged. But tliere are too many grounds and causes of suspicion, that both these will be found wholly wanting, or extremely defective, in many high pretenders to it, when it comes to be fitted to its bot- tom principles, and weighed in the just balance of sound reason.
For if you be inflamed with a pure zeal for the laws and govern- ment you live under ; then you will find yourselves obliged, for your own vindication, to satisfy the just expectation of your own and other men's reasons and consciences, in the following particulars :
Expectation 1. Flrst^ Reason and conscience, in yourselves and others, will expect it from you, that you, of all men living, should be most precisely and punctually obedient to all those just and good laws you live und"er ; since your zeal burns so hot against those that comply not punctually with them. For those that make so-much conscience, as you seem to do, of other men's offences against the laws must be presumed (if your profession be sincere) to make at least as much conscience of breaking any of them in your own per- sons ; else neither reason nor conscience will ever admit this plea of yours for sound and good.
Now the laws sometimes appoint punishments for nonconformity to the rites and ceremonies, affixed to the public national w^orship ; and so they do alwaysfor convicted swearing, drunkenness, and adul- tery. All these laws have the very same sanction, by the authority ■we live under. They forbid, and punish, the one as well as the other. And if there be any difference, it lies in this, that these lat- ter are expressly forbidden and threatened by God, antecedently to the magistrate's prohibition of them, which hath no small weight in the matter under consideration.
Now, if any man shall pretend zeal and conscience, against dissent in judgment or practice, from the church, but makes no conscience at all to curse and swear, be drunk or unclean ; he will find it a difficult task to persuade his, or other men's reasons or conscience, that this his zeal for the laws and government is sincere and pure. For were it so, it could never allow him to live in the notorious violation of the laws himself, which he is so fierce and bitter against others for.
Eocpeciation 2. Secondly^ If your zeal be sincere, it will contain itself within the bounds and limits of the offence, and not lay hold upon the innocent, as well as upon the guilty ; and make you hate and perse- cute them that were never turbulent and seditious, equally with the greatest criminals. If you will hug this principle as things stand now, reason will tell you, it is as just at all other times, as it is at this.
Would you not think it an unreasonable and most injurious thing.
526 THE REASONABLENESS OF PERSONAL REFORMATION.
to be plucked out of your shops, or houses, and hurried away to the gaol ; because two or three dissolute fellows in the city or town where you live, have been riotous or seditious, though you possibly know not the men, nor can be so much as justly suspected of any confederacy with them ? True zeal for the laws and government, is content to wait, and suspend its revenge, till a fair conviction have passed upon the guilty. And when it falls upon them, it is careful that it touch none besides them : but suffers a man to retain, in the ver}'^ height of it, due love and honour for all that are innocent.
If Christians be first denominated by general titles and terms of distinction, which they cannot help, and then the crimes of any particular person, that the world pleases to denominate as one of the same party, must be charged and imputed to the whole ; what must the consequence of this be, but that the whole community become obnoxious to punishment, and the very government itself thereupon be dissolved ?