_~Religion!~ Now a meer fantastick Name, The ~Heathens~ Glory, but the ~Christians~ Shame; A Cloak for ~Hyprocites~, the Tool of State, And, to decoy dull Fools, the ~Levites Bait~; Thy ~Lustre~ was not tarnish’d in the Time When ~Vice~ was ill, and ~Virtue~ was no Crime? When holy Folks from ~Sin~ for Refuge fled, And no ~Dissention~ in Opinions bred. In the first ~Infancy~ of humane Race, The World was overshadowed with ~Grace~; The very Light of Nature ~Goodness~ taught, And humble Vot’ries to the ~Altar brought~; Where ~Hecatombs~, no longer doom’d to live, Sincere ~Devotion~ did to Heaven give. Again, the ~Jews~ were not so very blind, But they in ~Rites~ and ~Types cou’d Blessings find~; ~Mosaic~ Customs, and ~Levitic Rules~, Was all the Doctrine of the ~Rabbins~ Schools: In mystic Rites, and ceremonial Laws, With ~GOD~ and ~Angels~ they cou’d plead their Cause. But now the ~Temple-Veil~ is drawn aside, Which did the Truth in ~Hieroglyphicks hide~, The great ~Messiah~, by a wond’rous Birth, From ~Heaven~ came, to preach to Men on Earth; Whose sacred ~Sermons~ shew’d the certain Way, How all the World ~JEHOVAH~ must obey: And by his ~seamless Garment~ we may see, One only ~Faith~ does please the ~Deity~. So ~Toleration~’s but ~a Wile, to draw Dissenters~ from the ~Gospel~ and the ~Law~; But none by such ~Indulgence~ will be shamm’d, But ~Fools, that will in spite of Fate be d⸺’d~._
Having had a Suit of Law in Chancery, which was lost thro’ my Lawyers Mismanagement, at the Charge of twenty five Pounds out of Pocket, I could not forbear making the following Observations on the Unhappiness of those People who go to Law.
Some are so zealous to ruin one another, that _Westminster-Hall_ is every Term made the Place of Destruction. They fasten upon, worry and tear one another; and he that gets the better, generally pays so dear for his Victory that he had better have sat down by the Loss. Not that I would, with the _Socinians_, stretch that Command of our Saviour to his Disciples, to let the Coat go after the Cloak, and make it a Sin against the Gospel, for Christians to go to Law, any farther, than that they should not contend for Trifles. _Christianity_ lays no Body open to be abus’d, and impos’d upon, where a regular Remedy may be had. It forbids doing as we would not be done by, and obliges us to bearing and forbearing, rather than to be litigious; but takes away no Body’s Property, nor gives so much Countenance to Injustice, as to disarm the oppress’d from recovering their Right. Had going to Law been a Crime in itself, it had never been permitted to the _Jews_. They were allow’d it, and had Courts by divine Appointment erected for the Determination, of what belong’d to every Man. And it is too much for a few singular Dissenters upon a Text, to take upon themselves the putting a Bar to _Christian_ Liberty, which in all Ages has been admitted. Nor can we see here that these Precepts of the Sermon upon the Mount, be confin’d as some would have them, to the first Ages only: That what was legal in those Days, it is not the same now. It seems to be from too much Inclination to the World, such Expositions have been set up, that make a Difference in Times and Seasons, as if the Precepts of the Gospel were not always of the same Obligation; and we could excuse ourselves in the Contempt of them, because we are not the Persons they were immediately deliver’d to.