1 Cor. 15.24 speaketh of the second kinde of Kingdome which shall at the end of the world cease when the Churches warfare shall have an end and her immediate communion with God shall begin when the blessed and glorious Trinitie shall be all things in all men shall supply the want or absence of all things there shall not be because there shall be no need of them Magistrate Minister Word Sacrament Temple Sun or Moon Then cometh the end you tell us that then or deinceps should be afterwards but others think it were better rendred mox statim that is by and by or presently after Strange that the Apostle should say Every one in his own order and yet finde no order or time for the resurrection of the unjust if there be it is not mentioned with the just Answer Under this Unusquisque no other are comprehended but Christ they that are Christs the term here reacheth no further you may finde just and unjust mentioned elswhere Acts 24.15 I have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust The twentieth chapter of the Revelation the fourth and sixth verses do imply two Resurrections the first and the last yet not both of the bodie but one of the soul from the death of sin and errour during this world The other of the bodie out of the dust of the earth at the end of this world These two resurrections are plainly and distinctly laid down by our Saviour in the fifth chapter of S. Johns Gospel the first in the 25 verse The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live The second in the 28 and 29 verses The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth It 's a Resurrection after they had been beheaded and therefore not in this life time now if that be not the last Resurrection then there is a Resurrection follows in which the rest shall rise ver 5.12 I answer but I neither rehearse nor retort your insulting words The fourth verse speaketh neither of bodies nor of resurrection but of souls onely and expresly I saw the souls of them that were beheaded and they lived and reigned to wit in heavenly glorie it is not said they rose again or lived again But the rest of the dead lived not again That is Satan detained many still in Paganism and Antichristianism who would not rise out of sin and errour Until the thousand years were finished That is Not all that time of Satans binding not that they rose afterward but they rose not at all it is not a limitation of the time but an absolute denial This is the first Resurrection Which is as if he had said thus This living again that I speak of is to be understood of the first Resurrection which is from the death in sin and I pray mark it well It is not the same life or kinde of living that is affirmed of those in the fourth verse and denied of those in the fifth it is said of those quod vixerint that they lived of these quod revixerint that they lived again And betwixt these two there is not to be conceived any Synonymus contradiction but a diversitie Metaphorical Those in the fourth verse lived the life of glorie those of the fifth verse did not arise or live again to the life of grace And you unskilfully put together the fifth verse with the twelfth whereas the fifth speaketh of the first Resurrection the twelfth of the second or last which is of the bodie at the day of Judgement Because you say that though you speak besides the ordinary rode yet you speak not besides the Scriptures I would desire your scholars whom you instructed in the Doctrine of the Millenarians though very obscurely in your Catechisme and have added now an explication or vindication of it That they would read over that chapter which you refer them to and which hath from the beginning of this errour been accounted the principal place of Scripture giving countenance to such belief that is the twentieth chapter of the Revelaion you say the dead in Christ shall rise first and reign with him a thousand years and then the rest shall rise to judgement of condemnaion by themselves apart Now in reading this chapter they shall finde that after the thousand years are expired there followeth what The Resurrection of the ungodly no. But Satan loosed Cog and Magog going forth to battel with armies of innumerable souldiers making war against the Saints and which are to be devoured with fire from heaven And whence should these wicked ones be there were none but the just living upon the earth for the rest of the dead lived not again for all that time If they read on to the 12 verse there Saint John seeth the general judgement at the last when both sea and land give up their dead they were judged every man according to their works good as well as bad and they were condemned who were not written in the book of life not those who were not raised at the first Resurrection And if the chief authority of Scripture for your opinion be so palpably impertinent and the proof taken thence so weak how weak is your opinion So much for the Scriptures which you bring Now we are to consider the judgement of the ancient orthodox To say nothing that Justin Martyr one of the ancientest of the primitive writers tells us that in his times all that were in all things orthodox Christians so beleeved Dial. with Tryph. So also Tertull lib. 3. contra Marc. and Lactant. lib. 7. the Reader that hath the books may if he please consult them I study brevitie You would not name Cerinthus who was somewhat more ancient though much more heterodox yet he it was who broached the opinion you speak of so witnesseth Saint Augustine in his eight book of heresies He held it indeed in a more gross manner some of the fathers following refined it from the more feculent parts Justin Martyr had it from the Jews with whom he conversed and his opinion is meerly Judaical that Jerusalem shall be built again enlarged and beautified and that the Prophets and the Patriarchs the Jews and the Proselytes who were before Christs coming shall meet there in a joyfull manner but not that all they who belong to Christ shall be raised with them as you teach And secondly you would not let us know because you studied brevitie what authorities your authours had for that their belief though fairly you give us leave to consult them Now I finde that the first place brought by the first of your three is out of Isa 65.22 As the days of a tree are the days of my people the meaning whereof is to be gathered from the words next before the similitude is taken from the matter there spoken
go thorow with so tedious an employment And yet when I pass by his objections and exceptions such as they are taking no notice of them I am afraid those Lay-men that he speaketh of pag. 102. that cannot read Latine and yet could see the faults of my arguings when they shall come and here espie moreover the want of my answerings will verily beleeve that I am quite put to silence in the respective particulars and can finde cut nothing to say in behalf of my self but am at Dulcarnon right at my wits end I must therefore desire you to remember that if I have omitted any thing it is not because I thought it could not answered but because I thought it needed no answer or else deserved none trusting that you my Reader will compare what is said on each side and satisfie your self So will I here take my leave of you rather than I will seem either to misdoubt or any further to prevent your observation CHAP. I. Touching the Epistle IF beginnings be ominous as they are held to be then may I presage at the very first what I shall finde in that which followeth for with these words you break into your discourse M r. H. observes a wrong method he condemns me as an Interpolator veritatis Title-page a Huckster of the truth before he brings in any proof or evidence Sentences prefixt in title-pages are not to be taken with any strict or rigorous application your self Sir have now set down five severall ones there wâ—h do intimate much worse against me before you did prove they were applicable to me and your very Title proclaims my Notes to be Mistakes before you give in any evidence that they were such at least in the Readers order and the progression that he must make This is just as if you should blame the Vintner for hanging forth his ivie when as yet you have not tasted his wine or before you know whether it comes not so near to vinegar that after the old quip of Palladas a bunch of Lettice or other Sallet-herbs may not better become the sign-post According to your new method which your self follow not he that writes a book must place the Title of it there where FINIS is wont to stand for when he hath concluded we will suppose that he hath made his Title and his promise good But Titles as I take it are usually impressed last As also Prefaces and Epistles though they be placed first are yet taken to be composed then when the work is done Pag. 1. Articles of Religion must not be injurious to the Churches growth or her members by tying them to the measure already obtained By the growth and measure you speak of you do not mean more clear illumination in respect of the minde or evident belief which is called Gradual Revelation for that is no way hindred by tying Christian people to Articles and forms of Confession But I finde where your trouble lyeth you are for Doctrinal Revelations which are in regard of the object or things revealed as if there were some points of our Confession that had no certainty and some others that being not commonly known are not yet received into it which may hereafter be found needfull to be beleeved as Chiliasme or Christs temporall kingdome and many other old lights that might again be set up new if once the people could be brought to forget those terms of prejudice Donatist Anabaptist Pelagian We had not as yet had our Articles and Catechismes if Popish Articles had not been broke through or gone beyond Because Articles and Confessions were once abused must they not now be made use of Simile est mater erroris The Anabaptists thought they must needs oppose Luther as much as Luther opposed the Pope How shall the people ever come to be grounded and rooted in the Faith if they be taught to think that they are still upon uncertainties no otherwise than they were before the Reformation I fear the late Synod went more from the English Catechisme than mine hath done by far especially in the points the Reviewer sticks at Here you make divers Parallels namely betwixt the Church-Catechisme that of the Synod and your own But I have not yet made any collation or comparison betwixt the Assemblies Catechisme and any other And I think there is no comparison to be made betwixt so great a number of men so well qualifyed whatsoever their Authority was pretending to walk in the beaten path of the reformed Churches And your self being but one singular person without any colour of Authoritie professing to forsake the common road And he that readeth the Title-page of your Catechisme and observeth what points you there promise to lay open would think that you ought in fair dealing to have made the nine and thirty Articles your Standard and rule of comparison for They contain the established Doctrine of the Church of England touching those controverted points but in the childrens Catechisme nothing is laid down purposely concerning them because it was not thought although you think so that they did sute the capacitie of children Yet because you seem to appeal to the English Catechisme as making much for you I am willing to deal with you there and thither we will go Although I expect you should evade and shift off all that can be brought against you out of it or else flie off from it as not obliging you in all things but onely in some things that you approve And these two I reckon to be much alike I know little difference in this matter betwixt you who think that Confessions which are to be subscribed unto be prejudicial to Christian growth and libertie and others whosoever they be who make confessions and articles useless by opposing and eluding their manifest meaning Out of the Church-Catechisme I propound to you two arguments in brief against your common Doctrine The first out of these words The holy Ghost sanctifyeth all the elect people of God Where is taught that Gods Spirit sanctifyeth those that be elected elected first and then sanctifyed You teach quite otherwise that God electeth those that are sanctifyed chooseth the godly man as you wrest the Psalm and those that beleeve and that are called that is engrafted into Christs mystical Bodie and you cannot finde where the Uncalled are said to be elected Secondly the English Catechisme teacheth the scholar thus That he is not able to serve God without his special Grace and he that hath learned this lesson well will never be brought to answer to the name Universalist or beleeve he can do it by Universal Grace So here is no accord in the points we stick at Sect. 3. His third page utters this uncharitable slander of me that I dread and deprecate all national establishment of Religion as sanguinary persecution Reply 'T is false That God establish his true Religion in this Nation I pray for and neither dread nor deprecate Is there no way to build
to think that there are more than one Bara Elohim is the sacred Text good Hebrew and sound Doctrine But Creavit Dii is scandalous no true Latine nor good Divinitie And because you think good to joyn with those that hold it not to be a bare Hebraism but an intimation of the Sacred Trinitie I pray you to remember on the other side 1. that the plural number implyeth two or four as wel as three so wholly it is but a matter of uncertaintie 2. because you say here it is a scandal for Christians to Judaize for so you are pleased to Lutheranize if indeed you beleeve that God is called Elohim because of the pluralitie of persons then wheresoever that word be found though ascribed to one several person it must signifie the whole Trinitie and then in stead or Judaism you are in peril to fall into Sabellianism or the errour of the Patropassians And for the common people I hope they will be warie how they walk and how they speak in such points of Faith as this is And because it is a matter of consequence and because the ground is slipperie let them in Gods name lay fast hold upon the Athanasian Creed beginning thus Whosoever will be saved for their guide and conduct let them read it often and hear it with their best attention and prefer it before all Catechismes much more before any new-fangled one There shall they soon learn by plain Analogie according to the Doctrine of the Scripture and the Doctrine of the Catholick Church That the Father is Creatour The Son Creatour The holy Ghost Creatour yet are there not three Creatours but one Creatour And this may suffice for your second chapter CHAP. III. Sinfull lusts THe Question is Whether in those words of the English Catechisme Sinfull lusts of the Flesh the word Flesh signifieth created nature as you taught or the corruption of nature as I said making the epithet sinfull serve onely to amplifie and not as you make it to distinguish Here you say Be it so the matter is not material it is to trifle about a toy Yet I gave some reason why it was requisite that Christians young and old should understand the meaning of that term Matter of words is so far material as to preserve what is material Verba quasi vasa as the shell preserveth the kernel and the vessel keepeth what is put into it But though you say Be it so yet presently after it must not be so Sinfull may be an epithet to distinguish withall Why so Because we are taught to renounce not the works of the Devil onely but the Devil also why not also the other two enemies the world and the flesh Those words of the Catechisme refer to Baptisme In the form of Baptisme these three enemies are twice named singly or solely without any epithet or addition namely Grant they may triumph against the Devil the World and the Flesh also To fight under his banner against Sin the World and the Devil By which two places compared together any one that will may plainly see what Flesh in the form of Baptisme and in the form of the Catechisme doth signifie namely Sin for what is called Flesh in one place is called Sin in the other And every one that will may plainly see also that you are resolved to uphold whatsoever you have said yea though it be an evident absurditie This Question with the answer you left out wholly in your later Edition which when I perceived I made some doubt whether or no I should take notice of it in my Review because I did interpret the omission to be a kinde of confession of your mistake yet did I note it for the reason given in my Postscript But here you declare your self to be for confused signification rather than a nice distinction and what you threw out of your second edition you call home for your relief in defence of your first Neither are you well contented as it seems that every one should interpose or meddle and mislike that which haply may deserve to be misliked Nemo sibi extrane us est sicut in vulnerum tract atione saith Julius Scaliger Ossa mihi extraxi egomet minimo dolore No Chirurgeon can so inoffensively touch or handle a wound or sore or fracture as the Patient can And more than this I shall not say to your third Chapter CHAP. IV. The tree of knowledge VVHen upon the marginal note of your fourtieth Question and Answer I mentioned that horrible errour as you well call it The Denial of Divine Prescience I did it so fairly and softly that I thought I had not given any just cause of distaste or anger I gave you account of my intention in making stay at it It was because the Socinians had gone that way verie far and some of the Remonstrants were following I had some other reasons which I then kept to my self but now my expectation thus failing me you shall have them One was because there was a pestilent Sectarie who to prove that God doth not know free actions before they come to pass produced those words Gen. 2.19 God brought the beasts and fowls to Adam to see what he would call them and because I thought your gloss upon the ninth verse of that chapter might unhappily help that errour forward namely that it was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil because God would trie whether man would do good or evil I therefore endeavoured to give the true reason why it was called the Tree of knowledge And Socinus disproves Divine prescience from those words Gen. 22.12 Now I know thou fearest God seeing thou hast not withheld thine onely son and your explication of a place of the same kinde with these two was likely to promote that pernicious errour Another reason was this I did observe of you in your writings that you do in a manner wholly symbolize with the Remonstrants and in some things with the Socinians as in these for instance 1. In neglecting the authoritie custome and manner of the Church upon pretence of walking onely by the Scripture-rule witness the verie first Question of your Catechisme and Open door Preface § of this You bid the people prefer the Apostles expressions before mens glosses as here pag. 44. you contented your self with the Scripture phrase and used not that of the Church 2. In your opinion that Christs death was onely a Preparation to his Sacrifice 3. Ut fideles panem frangant are the words of their Catechisme and Professours to break bread are the words of yours 4. You hold with them that Faith is wrought by no immediate power but onely the word preached 5. You would have the Names written in the book of life to be Qualities and Socinus Praelect 13. pag. 72. Satìs est eorum qualitatem quandam certam esse quae in hac metaphora proprio nomini planè respondet It is sufficient that those who are said to be elected
have some certain qualitie which in this Metaphor of the book of life plainly is answerable to their proper names You who have gone so far with them or after them are in danger to go further What irreligious principles they that plead for their libertie of will are forced to maintain I know not That you might soon have seen by that which follows there By Their libertie I mean such libertie as they plead for and such as cannot stand with certaintie of Prescience Say they For any one to exhort another to do that which he knoweth before hand he will not do is to dissemble such libertie as must be free not onely from coaction or compulsion but from necessitie of infallibilitie as to the event which necessitie is incident to things contingent and fortuitous for events necessarie contingent chanceable are called so and differenced so in respect of their second causes not in respect of the first or supreme cause for Quicquid est quando est necessariò est any thing that is must needs be so then when it is so That Saul after he was wearied with seeking up and down the countrey for his fathers cattel should on such a day and such an hour of the day meet with the Prophet Samuel was to Saul then when it came to pass as certain as that the sun should set that night or did rise that day that is it was most certain because it was present But to God all things are certain and present that shall be as certain to him though future as to us though present Socinus therefore was driven and if he had not been driven and enforced to it he would never have done it to denie and impugne Divine Prescience and that in order to denial of Divine Decrees and to maintain Quod non est certum non est scibile nec futurum whatsoever comes to pass and doth not certainly come to pass is not capable of being known no more than factum infectum fieri is capable to be done And the Socinians in Compendiolo Negant admissa infallabili omnium futurorm Praescientiâ refelli posse dogma de Praedestinatione and whether they speak reason or no Ger. Vossius can tell whose words are these Hist Pelag. c. 6. Th. 15. Nisi negarc volumus Deum praescire quid homo pro quibusque circumstantiis sit acturus fateri etiam COGIMUR Deum certis hominibus Gratiam praeparâsse quâ certo infallibiliter salventur aliis verò hujusmodi Gratiam non praeparâsse that is Unless we will say that God doth not foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances we cannot but of necessitie confess that he hath for some certain men prepared such grace whereby they shall certainly and infallibly be saved and not prepared such grace for others If Faith be Gods gift and if he will give it to whom he will give it this is that predestination which you endeavour what you can to fright the world withall That therefore which you call in this chapter a horrible errour and I called an irreligious principle you must fall to and defend by rational consequence unless you give over your horrible and irreligious manner of reviling Gods decrees I fear this Gentleman is so far from thinking that God did not know before that he thinks he decreed necessitated Adam to sin Would I follow his course in fastening upon him the sayings and judgements of other men of his minde I might finde passages enough to that purpose in many of them to render him and his opinions odious but Mr P. hath done it so fully that I shall but actum agere do what is done already and therefore I shall leave the Reader for that to him Although I do think that you have more minde to slander than cause to fear yet I will now tell you 1. I do not beleeve God did decree sin but I think you beleeve that he did decree the permission of sin 2. In those things which are decreed to come to pass Gods decree inferreth no necessitie upon inferiour causes or agents because he decreeth all things to come to pass according to their kinde natural agents to act naturally voluntarie agents voluntarily So of necessary contingent and casual agents I pray suffer your self to be informed a little better by Dr. P. Baro pag. 321. in explication of this position Dei Decretum pravae voluntatis libertatem non tollit Therefore I shall leave you for that to him But if you have so much leasure as to trouble your self about others and what it is that they think and that you would not be afraid there where no fear is I pray let all your fear in this matter be for them that call it A gross solecism to imagine that there should be one cause of the act and another of the obliquitie or sinfulness of the act and that think it is as impossible to separate the wickedness of the act from the act that is wicked as it is to distinguish the roundness of the globe from the globe that is round So that he which is the Authour of the one must be the Authour of the other also yet the Apostle Paul said Acts 17.28 In him we live and move Let it be for them who tell you it must be a Metaphysical head that can determine how God should work by evil instruments and not be guiltie of the evil and yet the Apostle said Acts 3.18 He hath So fulfilled Let it be for them that think he who withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event and in whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done and he that withdraweth the light is the cause of that which followeth for want of the light And yet no man that hath his reason left entire to him can imagine that the sun which is all light having no darkness in it can be the cause when it setteth of the shadow of the night It is an easie matter to make any opinions seem odious to those men that are full gorged with prejudice against them Every thing feeds according to the kinde and constitution Torva leaena alupum scquitur I can tell of some who in the doctrines of the Church of England wherein they have been educated have been verie much confirmed by the matter and the manner of some mens writings against them And as for those men that take such pains to make the opinions you speak of to be odious I do wish and if it might be I would advise them that they would at last forbear and not please themselves in so odious a practise whether these opinions be true or false is uncertain it is at least probable that they are the Truth and upon these reasons First it because very many of these men by their own confession were of the verie same minde in these points of doctrine and held that
never have laid any great weight upon that place Gal. 5.4 Ye are fallen from Grace for in the third ch v. 26. he saith ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Such warnings and exhortations are usefull to all for as the secure are awakened and the unsound may hereby be made better than they are so are true beleevers held in that state which they have attained By fear of falling away they are preserved from falling away Care and watchfulness are spiritual graces of God whereby they continue stedfast When many of Christs disciples being offended left him their departure endangered the rest the twelve therefore he kept by him by asking them thus will ye also go away As for such impossibilitie of falling away as you speak of I know not any That which certainly shall not in the event come to pass may yet be possible in it self to come to pass For the Saints considered in themselves to fall away is a thing possible yea very probable such is their weakness such is their danger But upon supposition of Gods Decree and promise and preservation it is impossible that it should be They are as frail as glasses but they are held by a warie hand God will not suffer them to be tempted above their strength but knoweth how to deliver them out of temptation He will not suffer the rod of the wicked to rest to abide long upon the lot of the righteous lest the righteous put forth their hands to wickedness He shortens the days of trouble that the Elect be not born down nor sink under the burden And sometimes speedily takes them away lest malice should alter their understanding or deceit beguile their soul To prove that there is a difference betwixt true beleevers and Apostates besore their fall I alledged several places to which you have answered severally and largely But you have said nothing that hath made any of those testimonies to that purpose invalid The two first did shew not onely that there is a difference but that the ground of that difference is in Gods secret counsel To those two I shall onely add now some other the like and then conclude this chapter Joh. 17.12 None of them is lost but the son of perdition And what that signifies you cannot better understand than by conferring with a parallel place of the same subject namely Joh. 13.18 I speak not of you all I know whom I have chosen in each of these texts Judas is he that is excepted and in the one he is called the son of perdition in the other he is said not to be chosen and thence it was he fell away and was lost And that Election to life is spoken of there and not to Office is certain and evident for Judas was chosen to be an Apostle When the Jews in so great a part fell off from the true Church it was a very great offence How doth the Apostle remove it Rom. 11.7 Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the Election hath obtained it When some turned the Grace of God into wantonness S. Jude to prevent the scandal saith that such false teachers and their followers were not good at first and at best but such as crept in unawares and were before of old ordained to this condemnation And when the generalitie of the inhabitants of the earth did wonder after the Beast and worship him there is in serted a clause of difference betwixt them and others and that difference derived from the very fountain or foundation of God the Elect are excepted Revel 13.8 All whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world CHAP. XXIX The will of God IF it please the Reader to peruse first mine and then yours and but compare them together I suppose he will not think it needfull that any thing more be written now about the title or subject of this chapter When we are speaking of the will of God you betake jrour self to the Free will of man bringing forth such fragments as have often been served up I shall onely take notice of some other things which you have fallen upon no way belonging hither For you are like a valiant Gamester and will have at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joannes ad oppositum as you can hold up any thing that you have said you can oppose whatsoever another saith yea sometimes although it be your own opinion Sect. 2. But he says God is to be worshipped in spirit and truth now and not as before Christs coining in outward rites shadows and ceremonies which then bare a great part of Gods service I am glad M. H. is for such spiritual worship if it be in realitie for he may have it is likely a secret intention contrary to his revealed sayings as he signifies of God Soon after this about the beginning of your next Section you call it a Threed-bare distinction of A Revealed will and secret and like better of Conditional and Absolute I told you then you had often heard it and I like it the better for being common and ordinary You say little to it there and here you make a Jest upon it and a jest if it be a threed-bare one as this is is stark naught but if withall it be prophane and Lucianical it is the more abominable To understand and to make out the two-fold will of God manifestly delivered in holy Scripture it concerneth you as well as others and I think you cannot do it better than others have done For example Exod. 7.3 4. God commanded Pharaoh to let the people go at the very same time he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he might not let them go Yours of Conditionall and Absolute will not help the matter here unless you can tell what should be the condition in this case You that hold God willeth all men to be saved in your sense without any difference till they themselves make it not conferring one place of Scripture with another one principle of Faith with the rest must make two contrary wills or else deny whether directly or by consequence Gods omnipotence It being a most certain truth in Reason and in Religion gion that God doth whatsoever he will both in Heaven and in Earth But others say consonantly to other parts of Christian Divinity that Gods revealed will is not always properly a will but onely figuratively interpretatively or by way of likeness He is said to will because he seemeth to will in declaring what he willeth should be mans duty and what he will accept and approve of if performed Now because this is declared by the Law or Commandment therefore it is called his revealed will This is no way contrary to his will whereby he peremptorily determines what he himself will do and what shall inevitably come to pass which because he hath not discovered to us except matter of prophecy or promise is therefore called his secret will Or
that it is his will by way of approbation he approveth alloweth and liketh well of universall and perfect obedience and the salvation of all men as agreeable to his nature and generall inclination and as morally good though he doth not compleatly and perfectly will it so as to effect it And that his will to save all men consisteth in procuring a Saviour or Redeemer for all men and ordaining means of salvation more or lesse for all men not in causing those means always to take place Thus have we been taught by those whom you had done better to follow than to take the chair of the scorners and make a mock of what you cannot or will not understand But were not the Ceremonies of Gods appointing then more warrantable and sutable to Davids spiritual worship than Rites or Ceremonies of mans Institution now that God never commanded might not a man expect more blessing then in observing them than in the other now I durst not determine positively You compare the Rites and Ceremonies given to the Jews by Moses with the Ceremonies of Mans Institution now And you do it so that the people may think the Rites established in our Church are appointed as appertaining to Gods service no less than those which were imposed upon the people of the Jews in the old Testament Wherein you deal very injuriously with the Church of England and with the consciences of the weak Before the Liturgy is declared that what of Ceremonies is retained is for Discipline and Order and not to be esteemed equall with Gods law When the Gileadites had erected an Altar on the other banck of Jordan and that of their own heads without divine command yet as a Ceremony some way significant in religion the other Tribes were highly offended at it taking it to be a corruption of the true worship and a kinde of defection from the God of Israel But so soon as they heard them protest against any such intention and declare that they meant it onely as a witness of their consent in Gods worship and of their joint-profession with their brethren that dwelt in the land of Canaan they gave over presently laid aside their jealousie add suspicion and rested well content They who have endeavoured to satisfie the Non-conformists did fully declare these things to be matters of indifferency no part of divine worship no way necessary to salvation no more than any thing else that is done and ought to be done at the command of a Superiour They did always disclaim any opinion of necessity or efficacy ascribed by Papists to their Ceremonies any obligation of Conscience otherwise than in civill Laws which God in the general hath commanded us to observe The more to blame are they that will not at last after so many protestations and declarations receive satisfaction If any of those high-flown Anabapists with whom you have discoursed who are against civill customes yea against customes of Civility as well as against Ecclesiastical Laws and will not come at our Churches because they have been defiled with Mass should argue thus against you as you have in a sort taught them to do Might not a man expect more blessing in going to the Temple at Jerusalem which was of divine dedication appointed and consecated by God himself descending from heaven and by his cloud of glory owning it for the place of his mansion and abode than we can expect in going to our Churches which are but of mans institution and consecration I suppose you would shape him some answer or other I pray let that answer serve for you both Upon occasion of those words in the Church-Cathechisme To keep Gods holy will and Commandments you asked your Scholar what is the will and Commandment of God concerning thee And you taught him to answer thus Gods will is that I should be saved Upon this I noted that Gods will to save men is matter of belief not of practice therefore not of precept hereto now you answer That God commands us to be saved I prove from Isa 45.22 and there I find these words look unto me and be ye saved this is your proof because Be ye saved is the Imperative mood forsooth and that is as much as commanding A most worthy argument but more worthy of G. F. or G. W. than of their Antagonist but better becoming one of your Laymen that can read no Latin than your self for if they could they might there have found it salvi eritis or ut servemini I hope your skill in Logick will help you not to make two preceps of those words but to resolve them into a precept and a promise or if you be resolved to hold you to your Grammar and your Moods then let me tell you that though it be called the Imperative yet it is not always so but now and then something else as Precative carrying prayer or entreaty for otherwise you will teach not the Souldier onely with a sword in his hand but any other beggar when he asketh Almes to command for they make use of the Imperative Mood and Postulative or requesting as Pay me that thou owest a Demand not a Command and Concessive or granting as sleep on now and take your rest and Hortative as Be of good courage fear not and Constitutive causing something to be or be made which was not before as Gods Voice at the Creation Fiat and the Kings Sois Chevalier and Lastly Promissive as Do good and live for evermore So that which you call a Command is a Promise Look unto me and ye shall be saved He commands us to look to him and if we do he promiseth to save us CHAP. XXX The Conclusion IN your last chapter there is little I shall take notice of besides that which you have in effect mentioned twice before namely pag. 2. pressing ceremonies and domination in the Church yon call Beastly doing and the voice of the Dragon and pag. 36. The Magistrate must not exercise the Authority of the Dragon in appointing Ordinances of worship and here you are at it again If the time of Beast-worshipping be not yet over as many godly persons think it is not then the Scripture says all that then dwell upon the earth are false worshippers onely excepted whose names written in the book of life And many godly persons know that there have been and are still many ungodly persons who would gladly overthrow and destroy all Christianity upon pretence of Antichristianisme The Apostle Paul 2 Cor. 2. hath given us warning of the danger incident to Reformation and what the Devices and Machinations of Satan are at such a time and what his Method and that is this to drive men from one extreme to another Witness the case of the incestuous Corinthian there who being at the first tolerated in his wickedness without any manner of censure was in the next place well nigh plunged into despair and swallowed up of sorrow through over-rigorous dealing When the