this Catholick Church ordinarily there is no Salvation 3. That is the Holy Catholick Church which professeth that One Holy Catholick Faith once for all delivered unto the Saints whereof the Holy Scriptures are the Conservative and Rule 4. That Holy Catholick Church teaches no error destructive of Salvation 5. Therefore cannot so long as it continues so abuse the world by imposing false or forged Scriptures upon it Quere further What reason now from hence can be deduced why any rational person should desert the Church of England that adheres to the acknowledged Rule of Faith the Scriptures and enter into the present Church of Rome which at the threshold requires him to renounce his Senses Reason and Charity and obliges him to the belief of a Creed composed a few years ago at Trent which we desire the Papists to prove was the Catholick Faith of the truly antient and Catholick Church Third Section containing the Papists Reply N. 1. A Categorical Answer to the Queries concerning the Jewish Church I Admit the promises of God here mentioned respectively to Jews and Christians A. to 1. Q. To the first I answer affirmatively A. to 2. Q. The Second commits a fallacy of Ignoratio elenchi The Queries about the Christian Church to which these ought to correspond proceed not upon any particular Kingdom no nor upon any particular Church nor on every one or any particular mumber of the Priests or Pastors of the Church but upon the representative Catholick Church in a full and lawful meeting of the chief Pastors to teach the Church diffusive what she is to believe as matter of Faith or to reject as errors in Faith when questions arise about any of them I therefore answer that when any such question arose amongst the Jews they were neither to have their last refuge to the Kings of Israel or Judah nor to the State Magistrates or common people for resolution in what they were to believe but to the lawful High Priest for the time with his High Council or Synod of other chief Priests and Doctors in the Law of Moses And they were to conform their belief to what they defined and taught them so that whatsoever either the Kings or some number of inferior Tribes or some particular Priests taught practised or believed contrary to the Doctrine and definition of this Supreme Spiritual Council was to be held erroneous and those who held forth such erroneous Doctrine pertinaciously or practised publickly contrary to it were to be esteemed in their doctrine Hereticks and in their practise Nonconformists to the True Church or Separatists from it If therefore a Jew in the times mentioned in the Querie should have demanded which was then the True Visible Church wherein Salvation could be acquired the answer must have been That it was the High Priest then being and all these believers who conformed their Faith Practises and Communion to him and his high Council ut supra And all such as stood in opposition against him and division from him were Aliens so long as they continued in that state from the True Church Now if the Querist had proved efficaciously that the High Priest with his fore named Council taught the people either Idolatry the common sin of the Jews or any other breach of Gods Law to be lawful or any error against Gods Revelations to be true or any of his Revelations to be false he had overthrown the whole fabrick of my Queries But seeing this is not yet done by him his Queries are neither an Answer nor any obstruction to mine and therefore they remain in their full vigour against him For notwithstanding all he says in his second Query which is the main force of his instance I have clearly shewed a Jew of those times which was then the True Visible Church out of which Salvation could not be had Now it is impossible to prove any such matter unless he enervate the words of our Saviour Mat. 23.2,3 where he says That whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees taught who had and did sit in Moses his chair that is succeeded in his Spiritual authority was to be observed and done by all the Jewish people which supposes evidently they could not teach them either error in Faith and Manners as part of Gods word for then he should have commanded to do evil and believe errors so that they were infallible in their teaching till Shiloh came And the reason why they were so infallible says our Saviour was because they sate upon Moses his chair and so governed successively the Church of God faithfully in matter of doctrine as he did in his time Upon the chair of Moses have sate the Scribes and Pharisees All therefore that they shall say unto you Observe and do it And this reason proves not only those that sate then when our Saviour spake these words but that all those who sate before them ever since the time of Moses were infallible in all divine doctrines both of Faith and Manners A. to Q. 3. The third Querie is therefore thus answered That the Jewish Church understood ut supra could not teach any error as matter of Divine Faith or Religion A. to Q. 4. To the fourth Querie I answer That though from the precedent Answers it followes that the Jewish Church by divine direction preserved the Holy Scriptures so entirely that it never rejected any true part of Gods written word nor received into their Canon of Gods written word any Book or Sentence which was not his word yet it followes not thence that every private person should find out every particular point of Religion by particular or express proofs out of that written word alone but that the Authority of the Jewish Church ut supra in matters controverted should interpose it self and determine the controversie Nor do the two Texts quoted in the Querie prove thus much For that Esa 8.20 proves only this that they were neither to have recourse to Soothsayers nor to extraordinary visions but to the Law and Testament when doubts arose Now this is so far from forbidding to have recourse to the present respective Priests and Governors of the Church that the Law and Testament command expresly that recourse is to be had to them in doubtful cases Deut. 17. from the 8 th to the 12 th verse and Malachi 2. from the 4 th to the 8 th In which places the interpretation of the Law is reserved to the Priest and the disobedience to the Priests command declared to be so great a sin that it is to be punished with no less than death And for the Scriptures themselves it was so far from the Ordinance of Moses his Law that every particular or private Believer had license or opportunity or ordinary possibility to peruse them and gather from them by his sole perusal what was and what was not to be believed as private Protestants now do that the Law was only to be read to them once in Seven years Deut. 31.10,11 and
c. will become a false Prophet But suppose you had given a Categorical Answer That it can never obtrude false Scripture c. then you must grant that the Catholick Visible Church is infallible in the delivery of Scripture If so then is there an Infallible Judg upon the earth concerning this point If so I require some satisfactory reason why the Church should be infallible in this and fallible in other points of Faith seeing it is as great absurdity to abuse the world with salse Faith as with false Scriptures Or what authority is there either in Scripture or Antiquity which limits the infallibility of the Church to the sole determination of Scripture Or is it not as pornicious to a Soul to be put in danger of damnation by having a dangerous error taught it by the Church as by having some Books happily less dangerous than that error imposed upon it by the Church To your Conclusion I answer The reason why you are to desert the Protestant English Church is not because it adheres to the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith for the Roman doth that as well as the Protestant but because they will have that the sole Rule in exclusion of Vniversal Tradition and the voice of the Catholick Church Nor is it any reason to refuse to join with the Roman Church because it enjoyns one to renounce his Senses and Reason For it enjoyns this no more than Scripture and the Protestant Church does For was not Lot to deny his Senses when he perceived them to be Angels whom his eyes ears and touch taught him to be living men And how could our Saviour pass through a whole crowd of people and neither be seen beard or felt without a deception of the Senses Now it is far more opposite to humane reason to believe one to be three and three to be one and that in the very self same being without any difference or mutation then to believe bread to be changed into flesh or one body to be in more places a once What you say of breach of Charity is misconceit of our doctrine We censure not the Persons but the Doctrine and that maintained pertinaciously and obstinately Now who does so we cannot absolutely judg and therefore pass no absolute judgment upon particulars And this is so far from breach of Charity that it is only out of Charity that we let Protestants know what danger they are in that they may avoid it whereas otherwise we should be Flatterers and Sycophants in setting them go on securely in the danger we conceive them to be in The Council of Trent composed no new Creed at all but gave a Catalogue of such points to be professed by all those who were to teach in publick Academies before they were admitted to that office As the English Protestants do exact a profession of the 39 Articles of such as she admits to Orders I have nothing to do with the proof of any thing till these Queries be answered by Protestants Fourth Section containing an Examination of the foregoing Reply made by the Romanist which was comprised in a Letter to the Gentleman assaulted Mr. F. M. SIR I Received the Papers which you conveyed unto me by many Ambages on the 12th of April since which time I have been intangled in several businesses that allowed me no leisure to consider the Cavils of the Factors for the Court of Rome who are like the Clients of * Beelzebub the Lord of Flyes 2. Reg. 1,2,3 the Prince of Devils Musca est meus pater clam illum nihil haberi potest Plaut the Idol God of Ekron the Flies not only for their insinuation into secrets but also for their restless importunity who though beaten off from the flesh they would taint and corrupt yet return again But now though enough hath been lately published by eminent persons in our Church to stop the mouths of gainsayers or at least to secure prudent readers from the dangerous practises of those who like Elymas cease not to pervert the streight waies of the Lord Act. 13.10 yet I have taken some spare time to examine what is returned to that Paper which you know Sir I writ in your Dining-room whilst you staid a while for your company to dinner Upon the perusal I find nothing that may render the defence of mine own former writing so difficult to me as it may be tedious to you For you will see that Oracle of Solomon verified Prov. 17.14 The beginner of strife is like one that opens a passage to waters As waters let in at a small breach quickly spread to a deluge so you may observe how contentions about Religion begun by admission of a few questions swell to Volumes that cloy or tire rather then instruct readers except they be such lovers of Truth as to seek it with patience But least my silence might give some occasion to the Adversarie of triumphing over our Church whereas indeed neither the validity of our cause or profession nor the credit of our Church depends on so weak a Basis as the acting of one of the meanest of her Children I shall endeavour to repair this breach and to retrench these bitter waters of Romish contentions against the Truth into their own channels And that you may not be affrighted with the very bulk of my Reply I shall not enlarge my discourse to disprove every particular which these Papers may tempt me to contradict but make short animadversions upon whatever occurs and appears material to our present Queries My first Querie ministers no occasion of dispute The second in which he rightly apprehends the main force of my instance against his Queries to lie is attacked by him confidently with such weapons as I may safely trust you to judge of their validity And indeed you that are assaulted in the possession of the truth of Christian Religion conveyed unto you by the light of Gods Word in the Scripture which is held forth by a Ministerie that doth not pretend to Infallibility but professeth legitimate Authority to instruct all under their charge in the Doctrine of the Gospel must be Judge in the Court of your own conscience whether the Roman Questionist or I speak that which is agreeable to the common Rules of Truth And your Reason assisted with the blessing of God the Father of Lights who freely and liberally gives wisdom sufficient to salvation unto all that with humility meekness and resolution of obedience implore his holy Spirit of understanding must be permitted to be your Guide in discovering the True Church from the False and may as well and safely be allowed to distinguish the wholesome Doctrine from the corrupt and noxious since this may be easier and sooner discerned by the agreeableness of any Doctrine to the sence of Scripture in which all things necessary are plain then the truth of a Church can be discovered by those Notes commonly given by the Papists which are uncertain variable difficult to
Canonical Scripture The Catholick Church being quickly after enlarged and spred through many regions of the earth did together with the Gospel preached receive Copies of the Scriptures which had been communicated by the particular Churches to which they were directed at first unto their neighbour Churches These Scriptures were by all Churches reverenced and preserved as the Grand Charter of their Salvation and the Laws and Records of their Society as the Church was the Kingdome of Christ distinguished from the world The zeal of Christians for their Laws and their knowledg of them which were frequently read in the publick Assemblies according to an * Col. 14.16 Appostolical order to which we must add above all the Providence of Gods watching over the Church for the preservation of Scriptures being more pretious to God than to Man and as pretious to God as the world it self these being well considered may assure us that it was morally impossible that the whole Church of God should be cousened into the reception of any forged Scriptures And if the Church in following ages could not combine together to coyn counterfeit Scriptures then the Church universal could never obtrude any thing upon the world for Canonical Scripture which was not received from the Primitive Church at first But how doth it follow from hence that the Church is an Infallible Judg in this point A creditable witness is not presently an Infallible Judg. A faithful Depositary that keeps Records is not the same thing with an unerring Judg. The Tradition of the Church Universal which hath derived the Holy Scriptures from age to age is not an Act of Judicature The Nation of the Jews is at this day a credible witness of the divine Original and authority of the Old Testament at least at the first plantation of the Church Christian the Jevvish Church did preserve and deliver the Holy Scriptures in tire so much at least as God thought necessary or expedient and if any book vvere lost that by being lost became unnecessary and vvas secured by Gods Providence in the conveyance of his Oracles to Christians Doth it hence follovv that the People of the Jews was a visible Infallible Judg in that point and if so then in all matters of Faith For thus the Papist proceeds If so I require some satisfactory reason says the Querist why the Church should be infallible in this and fallible in other points of Faith c. I have already shewed that the Case is not so as this man imagines therefore I am not bound to give him the satisfaction which he requires Yet for your further information I add this 1. The reception and tradition of Scriptures by the Church is a fact which God orders as expedient for the preservation of Religion 2. The certain number of the Books written by inspiration is not a point of faith necessary for every Christian to know and believe unto Salvation 3. The Catholick Church cannot err in any point of faith necessary to salvation 4. But any particular Church may believe and teach erroneous Doctrine for matter of Faith The Church of Rome which is not the sole keeper of Scripture may and doth err in several points of their Religion and doth impose upon her children uncanonical Books for Scripture and false Doctrines for matters of faith as is evident by the Canons of the Conventicle of Trent And yet it is not in the power of the Church of Rome to abuse the whole Christian world by the imposition of counterfeit Scriptures upon it I shall yet persist in my reflexion upon the Jews that I may shew that the keeping of Scriptures without forgery falsification and corruption is a thing distinct and separable from erring teaching errors The Jews cannot be denied to have been good keepers of the Books even then when they corrupted the Religion enjoyned by the Law written in those Books Never yet was any man so weak as to conclude that the Priests and Rabbies of the Jews were Infallible Judges of the Doctrine concerning the Messias even those who condemned Christ the Son of God to be guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death because they kept the Books of Moses and the Prophets There is now less reason why we should take the present Church of Rome which we evidently see to teach Doctrines and set up a worship as contrary to the Scriptures as darkness is to light to be an infallible Judge of faith upon this account because the Primitive Roman Church in communion with other Churches did hand down to posterity the holy Scriptures without any falsification since the Church of Rome at this day doth both accept and impose upon her own Children and would but cannot upon others Apocryphal Books for Canonical I have now shewed that these Queries are not unanswerable by Protestants adhering to their own principles or Axioms I desire you to consider the result of the whole design Except you allow him at first that the Roman-Church is in propriety of speech the Catholick Church this disquisition can advance you not an hairs-breadth to a better opinion of the Roman Church for a Guide then you had before For after all the clamour made for resolution of these Queries concerning the Catholick Church the main Question stands as it did Whether the Church of Rome at this day be to be subjected unto as an infallible Guide and to be communicated with all other Churches being abandoned and particularly the Church of England whereof you are now a setled member Till this be resolved you that know the frame of our Church and the module of our Religion may stay safely where you are It remains now that I examine his Answer to my conclusive Querie And I shall briefly note what you may by your own reason or experience discover either absurd or false in it He doth not require you to desert the Reformed Church of England for adhering to the Scriptures as the Rule of Faith For the Roman Church doth that as well as the Protestant as he says If this Querist do not pretend to Infallibility and Authority over you he will out of modesty allow you to examine whether Papists do as well that is as fully and firmly adhere to the Scriptures as English Protestants Certainly they do not well own them for a Rule who accuse them of obscurity and imperfection and make it a point of faith that the defectiveness of Scriptures must be supplied with unwritten Traditions And as certain it is that we who maintain the fulness of Scriptures in delivery of all things necessary to salvation and the perspicuity in that delivery and therefore admit of no point of Religion that is a meer stranger unto the Scripture do more closely stick to that Rule then the Papists But because you are free to examine the adherence of Papists to the Scriptures in particulars by comparison with the English Protestants try whether a mangled Eucharist the real Sacrifice of Christ by a Priest
not any would of Spirits present or to come and therefore denied the existence of Angels or Spirits departed and the reâ—urrection of the body by the return of souls to refume their earthly tabernacles repaired Mat. 22.23 Act. 23.8 The heads of this Heresie were the chief of the Nation and as it fell out in the vicissitude of Priests whose office was made venal by the Court the High Priest himself was sometimes a Sadduces Read Act. 4.1 and 5.17 when such an Heretick possest the Chair of Moses or Aaron who understood not Moses aright as our Saviour ascribes the error of the Sadducees to their ignorance of the Scriptures you may be sure that men of the same judgement made up the greater part of the Sanhedrim For the animosity of the Sadducees against the Pharisees together with their interest in the Nobility was such that they would not allow many birds of another feather to pearch upon the same branch of Authority though one Pharisee Gamaliel once was permitted to be of the Council Now then if a Jew loth to rely on his own understanding should desire to be instructed in this main Article of Religion which is the chief root of obedience and supporter of patience to whom should he repair and whom should he believe See Act. 26.6,7 If you will take the Querists word The High priest with his Council was the true visible Church to be hearkned unto But if they declared their own sense and no body can reasonably imagine that they would contradict themselves or as Balaam once was so they all being met together in Council should by a powerful Enthusiasm be constreined to speak contrary to their own mind and deliver that Truth which they did not approve in their own consciences and should in speaking Truth lye by the power of the Holy Ghost the inquisitive Jew was bound contrary to the general sentiment of the 12 Tribes which did in the Expectation of a Resurrection called the hope of Israel serve God day and night to become a Sadducee to disbelieve Moses and to condemn himself to an everlasting death which should swallow up his person and his piety and separate him for ever from having any communion with the God of Abraham Jsaac Jacob. If the Council it self should happen to be divided by factions and interrupted by clamour and violence from determining any thing as it was the fate of the Council to which the Apostle Paul appeared Act. 23. then what is become of the Visible Guide Or how shall the Jews conscience be satisfied of this fundamental doctrine Certainly he must remain a Sceptick and that is next degree to Atheist if he do not find a clear Rule and a firm Rock whereon to build his holy faith which is the ground of a holy life And if he do he need not look for an Infallible Guide which if he have yet the vain curiosity to seek for he will never have the good hap to find I leave you now to judge of this mans resolution of my Queries And though he be like the Scribes and Pharisees in his industry to make Proselytes yet I have no fear of you but that you can discern the fraudulent course he takes to perswade and discover the sad end to which he leads his abused followers Since now I have out of Gods word evinced that the Priests of the Jews high and low were not only corrupt in their private manners but also grossely ignorant of Gods Law See Jer. 5.31 and seducers of the people from the true service of God and suborners of false prophets for that also may justly be taken into consideration for the support of their credit and power with the people Mat. 23.37 and imployed their Judicial power to condemn the true Prophets I have done enough mine Adversary himself being Judg to overthrow the frame of his Queries which were set up as a Gate or Bulwark of Hell to maintain the Devils devise The Infallibility of the Church of Rome masked with the specious Title of the Catholick Church And because I have also by our blessed Saviours sermons and sentence shewed the impiety as much as absurdity of honouring the Scribes and Pharisees with a priviledg of Infallibility I have said all that I conceive requisite concerning his answer to my second and third Queries which he resolves thus The Jewish Church understood ut supra that is the Pastors of the Church representing the whole and acting with authority for the government of the people could not teach any error as matter of divine Faith or Religion Only take this Corollary He must have a mind able to swallow and concoct Transubstantiation that can believe these Idolatrous Pastors so often complained of by God could do all this mischeif in the Church if they had been as dumb dogs in the Devils cause as they were in Gods and as silent for teaching any error in matter of Religion as they were in the instructing of men in the true way of God Or that these ignorant and debauched Priests being consulted concerning the Law of God would or should of necessity by a secret and powerful instinct of an Infallible Genius perpetually waiting upon them at least inspiring them upon such occasions teach the people contrary to their own perswasions and practise See Jer. 2.26 23.1,2 Read Esa 56.10,11 Certainly blind watchmen dumb and yet greâ—dy doges Shepheards that could not understand were but sorry Guides and as far from being infallible teachers of Religion as Hell is from Heaven To the fourth Querie c. The vanity falshood and impiety of the precedent Answers to my 3 counter Queries being sufficiently evidenced it may seem superfluous to disprove what he builds upon the sand because this will sink of it self with the unsound foundation But because from that absurd supposition of Infallibility settled in the Jewish Priesthood he inferrs that the Jewish Church he means the Priests or chief Pastors thereof for he is much in proving that the people had very little to do with the Bible by divine direction preserved the Holy Scriptures intire without mutilation or addition of any thing uncanonical I shall briefly consider this Consequence which imports that the preservation of Scriptures depends upon the Infallibility of the Priests or the Church that keeps it I confess that Gods gratious providence is remarkable in preserving his pretious Word conteined in the Book of the Law But I pray you consider how little the Priests above mentioned contributed their care to the conservation of the Scripture For in the reign of Idolatrous Kings who sometimes profaned the Temple with Idols sometimes shut-up the doors of it the Priests who basely flattered and officiously served their Kings were so far from considering the Law at all and much more from reading and teaching it publickly that it might be the rule of Gods service that in Josiahs time the Pentateuch or the whole Law of Moses or as
from true Let the next Paper if it can shew the contrary for this offers nothing to that purpose Till then and for ever the Law and Testimony written by Gods special design stand for a Rule of Pastors teaching and peoples obeying Next he brings 2 proofs of his assertion out of Deut. 17.8.12 Mal. 2.4 The Devil could find Scriptures to advance his temptations But Consider the violence offered to Gods word by this racking it As to that of Moses there is indeed there an establishment of a High Court without appeal to whose cognizance are referred all important Controversies about the Law of Moses which being in the whole frame of it divine gives a tincture of Religion to those causes that were for the substance Civil or concerned the outward estate or persons of the people Deut. 17.8 If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment between blood blood between plea and plea and between stroke and stroke c. In that Court the Priests and Levites who by their office were bound to study the whole Law of God and fit to expound the political Statutes given by the hand of Moses for the government of that Nation but contrived enacted and endited by God himself did sit with the Elders as Judges Now judg you whether the submission required of all Jews being at difference about civil matters to the sentence of that Court signify any thing to enforce upon Jews an obligation to believe and obey the Priests in all things when common reason assured them that their doctrine practise and injunctions were contrary to the Law of God Submission to the sentence of a Supreme Court which was necessary for peace to put a period to contentions did not oblige the party adjudged to believe the sentence to be just though the aggrieved party had no remedy till the judg of all the world appear to do right That those Judges did often turn judgment into wormwood it is evident by the Prophets and it is well known that that Court setled at Jerusalem having taken to themselves the power of judging Prophets did very often condemn the Lords true Prophets Now what Master of reason can ever fairly deduce from the outward subjection which was necessary both for wrath and Conscience to aSupreme Court of Gods institution though the Judges were not infallible in judicature That those Priests were Infallible teachers of Religion whose word was to be taken and relyed on without refusal or so much as tryal As to that of the Prophet Malachi it is subtilly done of him to touch it lightly but fraudulently done to cite it imperfectly It is enough that I have already shewed the full sense of the Prophet who declares what the Priests were by their office obliged to do and from their Dignity and Duty aggravates the crime of the debauched Priests of that age who abused both their power and also the people And this sharp reproof is far enough from proving them then to be infallible But this Querist surely presumes you to be a Papist already and of that form that is unlicensed to read the Book of God Else he could not be so stupid as to affirm that which any one but indifferently versed in the Scriptures knows to be false Or it may be and that is very likely he himself is very little acquainted with the Bible but borrows both his citations of Scriptures by halves and also his Answers to them that are commonly alledged by us from his deluding Masters Otherwise how were it possible that a diligent reader of Scripture should say mark his words It was far from the Ordinances of Moses that every private believer had license to peruse the Scriptures When nothing is more inculcated by God and Moses then that parents should learn and teach their children the Law bind it about their arms make Phylacteries of it and by all means possible derive unto posterity the Ordinances of God and the History of his Providence which are the subject of the Holy Scriptures If it be said that all this they might do without Book because once in seven years they heard the Law read we must then allow the Jews quicker apprehensions and more comprehensive and tenacious memoties then we have in our generations But see the unpardonable ignorance or impudence of this cross-grained Querist who says the Law was to be read once onely in seven years Deut. 31.10,11 Doth that precept which enjoyns the Law to be read in the Panegyris at the Feast of Tabernacles in the Sabbatical year include a Prohibition of the Jews to read the Bible by themselves and to meditate in the Law day and night as occasion serves which is a blessed imployment Psaal 1.1,2 Would Moses deprive them of this happiness Or was that Statute broken by the Jews every Sabbath day as often as Moses was read in the Synagogues in every City as St. James tells us it was the Custome of old so to do Act. 15.21 Mark then the Sophistry of this illiterate impostor and his companions I say Illiterate because he says that passage of Moses and the story of Esdras Nehem. 8.12,13 was all We that is Papists read in Scripture of the common Peoples knowing the written word Blessed be God that We Protestants may and do read more that assures us that the word of God did dwell plentifully among the Jews and ought to do so with all Christians without Bushels set over the Light as in the Church of Rome Yet we do not affirm that every Idiota or private servant of God could by his private study attain to the full meaning of every hard sentence None of us thinks this necessary or possible Yea we make a question at least whether any High Priest or Council under the Old or New Testament ever fully understood all the things hard to be understood or hard to be interpreted in the Law and Prophets or in the * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Pet. 1.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5.11 Evangelical and Apostolical writings It is enough as to my purpose and indeed for the safety of Gods people that the Faith and Duty of every one was written with a suâ—-beam and lay open to be read and understood by the common people with the help of a good Guide though he were below Infallibility And it was a grievous fault in the despisers of the riches of Gods Grace that God had written for them the great things of his Law Hos 8.12 and they were counted as a strang thing This Querist doth bewray his ignorance by another mistake of some consequence in his design to make the Levites and People dependent on the High Priest for the sense of Scripture He says Esdras the chief Priest interpreted the Law to the Levites and enabled them to expound it to the people Indeed Ezrah was a Priest and a perfect Scribe by whose industry and Gods special assistance the Books of Moses the Psalmes and