However, I will here make another Proposal to the Bishop of St. David's. Because he thirsts after a very severe Punishment of me, or he would not be so warm in his Exhortations of the Government to that Purpose, I'll tell him how he may glut his Revenge, and inflict a greater Punishment on me, than, in all probability, the Civil Magistrate will humour him in. If he'll but put a Stop to the Prosecution at present (which is not out of the Power of our Bishops, whatever they may pretend) and let the Controversy go on, till I have finish'd my Reply to his two Volumes, which shall be done with all Expedition; then, if his Passion is not allay'd, I will submit to any Punishment, he in his Wisdom and Justice, without Mercy, shall think fit to have laid on me, whether it be to Death or Imprisonment. And what would he, or any implacable Priest, desire more? This Proposal makes him my Judge as well as my Accuser, and if he be not the most unreasonable Man alive, he must accept of it. All my Hopes here are, that his Reason may recover its Dominion over his Passion, against the Conclusion of my Defence, or it will go hard with me. If the Bishop will not comply with this Proposal, I shall conclude, he's possess'd with the only certain and allegorical Satan, mention'd in my Discourses; and I shall be confirm'd in the Opinion of St. Hilary (whose Testimonies about Devils, the Bishop has silently pass'd by, without any Charge upon me for Misrepresentation) that there are no worse Devils in the World, than the calumniating, furious, and persecuting Tempers of Mankind. The Bishop, by the by, has taken Pains to prove there are other Devils, of an infernal, frightful, and independent Nature, and of a more certain Existence than Hobgoblins; and he gravely asserts, that three of those Devils enter'd into each Hog, that ran violently down-hill; thereby making the little Pigs to carry as great a Burden as the old Boars and Sows, which should have been better thought of by him. The Bishop, perhaps, for these my Descants, will say I am an Infidel; but I assure him, it is one of the Articles of my Primitive and Christian Faith, that the old Dragon, Satan, the Serpent, or the Devil, mention'd in the Revelations, is no other than the furious, violent, and persecuting Spirit in Man; which, upon the World's getting Liberty of Religion, will be bound and chain'd. And it is the Opinion of Thousands, as well as of my self, that Mankind will never be Happy, nor at Rest, till this Devil is exorcised out of the Priesthood, and so of consequence chain'd up. According to the primitive Way of interpreting the Revelations of St. John, the Time is near at Hand for the binding this Apocalyptical old Dragon or Satan, that has pester'd the World through all Ages past. All the Honour that I desire, is, by my Studies and Endeavours to be contributing to so great a Work, for the Good and Happiness of Mankind.
To conclude. I have been the more expeditious in printing of this Discourse, not only for fear the Bishop's Vindication (as it is call'd) should have a malign Influence upon some People, I don't mean our Civil Magistrates, who are wiser and more learned than to be guided by such outragious Stuff; but because he should not long triumph in a Conceit of the Potency and Excellency of his Performance, as if no Reply could or would be made to it. If I had at this Time enjoy'd free Liberty of Debate, I should not have thought it worth my while to meddle with his Dedication, which with a Scorn I should have pass'd by, and left to the Animadversions and Chastisement of other Enemies to Persecution; but would immediately have enter'd upon a Defence of my Discourses against him. If I do retrieve my Liberty, and the free Use of my Pen, and should not publish Defences of my self, I should deserve (what one said the Bishop of London, for his declining my Challenge, deserv'd) to be piss'd upon for a vain Pretender to Argument and Authority.
In the mean time, I have nothing to request of our Clergy, but that Liberty of Debate may be indulg'd us; that Liberty of theological Disputation, which would be granted, if they did not industriously labour to obstruct it. When will they cease to disgrace Truth, to dishonour their Religion, and to disparage their own Education and Learning; and no longer envy Mankind the blessed Enjoyment of such a Liberty!
But their Religion, they say, would be in Danger upon such a Liberty. How can that be? How can Christianity be in Danger, that has not only the Omnipotence of God on his Side, but a numerous standing Army of Priests, hired for the Defence of it? It is not then their Concern for Religion, that prompts them to so much Zeal here; but their Fears for their Interests, that depend on the Issue of this Controversy.
Was I to write against any other honest Trade, that is practised in this City, the Artificers of it, being sensible of the Usefulness of their Craft, would let me go on unmolested; and only pity and despise me for the Vanity of my Attempt to subvert them: But the Clergy, being prick'd with a Consciousness of the Mischiefs and Inconveniencies of their Establishment, do therefore thus winch and kick.
And who, besides the Clergy, are at this time Enemies to Liberty? None hardly, but their immediate Dependents, whom they can easily infuse their fiery and furious Notions into. Was it to be voted this Day among the learned Laity, I dare say, the Friends of Persecution would be found vastly short of the Numbers of their Adversaries. And I hope to God, the Legislative Authority of these Nations will soon take the Matter into their Consideration; and either limit or enlarge the Bounds of Liberty, that honest and well-meaning Men may be no longer harrass'd and molested, for their sincere Endeavours to serve the Publick.
No Body, I trust, can complain of any disrespectful Usage, I have here given the Bishop of St. David's, that considers, how he has treated me in his Sermon before the Societies for Reformation; and in his Charge to the Clergy of his Diocese; as well as in his Vindication. It would be sufficient, if I had no other Excuse for my self than this, That Controversy is like a Game at Foot ball, in which, if a Lord will engage with a Plowman, and should meet with a Kick on the Shins, he ought not to complain of the ill Manners of it: So if a Bishop will dispute with one of lower Degree, he must look for a Rub on his Intellects, a Rap on his Pate, and if his Adversary cuts him on a soft Place, he should know how to bear it with Patience. But the Bishop, contrary to this Game-Rule in Controversy, complains[356] of my unmannerly Treatment of him, and cries out of the Sufferings and Reproaches he undergoes, as if he was already more than half a Martyr for Religion. I can't pretend to equal him in Reproaches and Sufferings, having not so quick a Sense of them; and therefore I am willing, that good Christian People should pity my poor Bishop, rather than me, in a persecuted and sorrowful Condition.
How long it will be, before I publish another, and second Part of my Defence, is uncertain, for a Reason, that I need not again mention. But if it please God, that I enjoy Life, Health, and Liberty, I'll go on with my Designs. I am resolv'd to give the Letter of the Scriptures no Rest, so long as I am able by Reason and Authority to disturb it. If our Ministers of the Letter will not ascend with me, the sublime and allegorical Mountain of divine Contemplation, they than have no Comfort nor Enjoyment of themselves in the low Valley of the Letter, if I can disquiet them. Notwithstanding what the Bishop has written in Vindication of Jesus's Miracles, the litteral Story of them, by the Leave of God, and of the Civil Magistrate, shall be afresh attack'd, and perhaps with more Ridicule, than I used before. What should I flinch for? The litteral Story of Jesus's Miracles is not, in the Opinion of the Fathers, as well as of my self, agreeable to Sense and Reason; neither can Jesus's Authority and Messiahship be founded on the Letter of them. I am not for the Messiahship of a carnal Jesus, who cured the bodily Diseases of Blindness and Lameness; but for Messiahship of the spiritual Jesus, who will cure the Blindness and Lameness of our Understandings. I am for the Messiahship of the spiritual Jesus, who will expel the mercenary Preachers out of his Church, after the manner that Jesus in the Flesh is supposed to have driven the Sellers out of the Temple, which litterally is but a sorry Story. I am for the Messiahship of the spiritual Jesus, who exorcised the furious and persecuting Devils out of the Mad-men of Jews and Gentiles; and tho' he permitted them to enter into a Herd of Ecclesiastical Swine, yet will precipitate them into the Sea of Divine Knowledge. I am for the spiritual Jesus, who will cure the Woman of the Church, of her Issue of Blood, that is shed in Persecution and War; which her Ecclesiastical Physicians, and Quack-Doctors of the Clergy, have not been able to do, tho' they have received large Fees and Revenues to that End. I am for a spiritual Messiah, who will cure the Woman of the Church of her Infirmity, at the Spirit of Prophecy, of whose Infirmity this Age is her eighteenth Year. So could I write of all Jesus's Miracles; for the whole Evangelical History is Figure and Shadow of the spiritual Jesus, whom we should know to be in us of a Truth, unless we be Reprobates. The Clergy, if they are not wilfully blind, may hence see my Christian Faith and Principles; and be assured, that what I do in this Controversy, is with a View to the Honour of God, the Advancement of Truth, the Edification of the Church, and Demonstration of the Messiahship of the Holy Jesus, to whom be Glory for ever. Amen.