God and his Will contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament as they are approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is that one only Revelation which is thus both inspired and also by eternal sanction instituted and appointed of God for the all-sufficient and absolutely perfect Canon of his Church and that both as touching the Doctrine therein contained and its accessary mode of scription it being wholly committed to writing by God's Holy Prophets Apostles and Evangelists being all by the Holy Ghost as his immediate Actuaries extraordinarily qualified for irresistibly incited to and infallibly guided and actéd in the work commenced by Moses the first and finally concluded and perfected by St. John the last of Canonical Writers may be very rationally evicted and that to an utter exclusion not only of the Jewish Talmud the Turkish Alchoran Popish Traditions Enthsiastick Fancies c. from having part or lot in the Sacred Canon but of matters of a higher predicament namely all vocal Revelation such as was that whereby God instructed his Church for the first two thousand Yeares and upwards and the many Sermons of Christ and his Apostles not recorded though equally inspired of God with the Scriptural as also several Prophecies as those of Gad Nathan Iddo and others which were not only equally inspired but likewise recorded yet irrecoverably lost as being only accommodated pro tunc to some particular state condition exigency of the Church which once satisfied they were judged unnecessary to be incorporated into the universal Canon Where I advertise the Reader that the sufficiency of the Scriptures is evicted in their authority for it being once agreed upon that the Revelation contained therein is of a truth the Word of God we cannot more question its sufficiency then its testimony whereof this is a signal part namely that It is as inspired of God so as his Sacred Institutes profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction c. sufficient to perfect every individual Man and the whole Church of God That whatsoever things were written were written for our Learning c. That this word must be indeclinably observed without turning to the right hand or to the left That nothing must be added to this Word or diminished from it upon peril of accumulative misery denounced by St. John the last and longest liver of Canonical Writers as hath been said in the very last of his writings namely the very close of the Canon by way of penal sanction and ratification of the whole So that the very crisis of this weighty concern of stating and setling our Faith obedience in and to the Holy Scriptures lyeth in the evidence of the Divine Authority thereof after this discursive method That which is the Word of God ought necessarily to be believed and obeyed But the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament is the Word of God Therefore this Revelation ought necessarily to be believed and obeyed The major or first proposition is a conclusion of natural Reason founded and following upon God's essential veracity and supremacy as hath been said the dictates of the very Light and Law of Nature as well as that of a Deity it self The minor or assumption namely that the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is the very Word of God is apparent upon a threefold testimony namely that of the Church that of the Scriptures themselves and that of the Holy Ghost of which the two former onely are argumentative the one as Humane and Ministerial the other as Divine and Canonical as for that of the Holy Ghost He being the efficient cause of our Faith and obedience his testimony indeed is most certainly perswasive to a person 's own Conscience but this testimony being private and internal like the Hidden Manna which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it and the truth or divinity hereof being with all opponents equally questionable with that of the Word it self it can be no wayes convictive to others Well then to urge only the two former and that very briefly As touching the first of those namely the testimony of the Church which I here consider and observe it Sir not under the notion of a Church for as such it is onely knowable by the Scriptures not they by it but as a collective Body or society of prudent and honest faithful Witnesses professing and attesting the Holy Scriptures and the Religion therein prescribed so that the Argument standeth thus That Revelation which is by a society of prudent honest and faithful Witnesses who are neither deceived themselves nor deceivers of others professed and attested to be the Word of God in all rational construction and evidence is such But the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is by such a society of prudent honest and faithful Witnesses c. professed and attested to be the Word of God Ergo c. The major or first proposition Sir I reckon unquestionable with all Atheists and Infidels throughout the world for certainly as essential infallibility in God by vertue whereof in genere entis he can neither deceive nor be deceived is the ground of an infallible assurance in matters of Divine testimony so a rational infallibility in a society of prudent honest and faithful men who therefore cannot be suspected to be in genere moris either deceived in themselves or deceivers of others is a sufficient ground of rational assurance in matter of humane testimony as is that in question viz a humane testimony of a divine Revelation for what more can be required in the case As for the roof of the minor or assumtion all that is required hereunto is the eviction of the prudence honesty and faithfulness of those Witnesses or the rational infallibility of themselves and and their testimony namely that they are such as can neither be suspected of being deceived in themselves nor yet of any imposture or intent of deceiving others where I understand as to our immediate concern in the case the present Testifiers especially without a perplexing recourse had to the first being that the credit of the preceeding is still successively secured in the subsequent Churches thus being once perswaded of the prudence and honesty of the present Church namely that she is so wise and prudent as not to have been deceived by the next preceeding from whom she received the Scriptures and so honest and ingenuous as not to deceive the Reader or my self or the next ensuing we are accordingly assured of the same both prudence and honesty and consequently rational infallibility in the former and so in the next to that and so on to the very Apostles and first witnesses Now then Let the intellectuals and morals the wisdom prudence and discretion the honesty fidelity and integrity of the present Witnesses of the Divinity of the Scriptures be impartially scann'd and all compared with the multitude of
Dignity pre-engaged be perfected and ripened into a firm perswasion by the concurrent certificative Testimony of the Holy Ghost as the efficient cause thereof exerted in if distinct from the admirable efficacy of the Doctrine it self upon the mind and judgment the heart will and affections c. namely that the Revelation that is the doctrine confirmed by miracles both co-attested canonically in the Scriptures and ministerially by the Church contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament as they are approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is of a truth the Word of God c. There be several other Secondary and Collateral arguments of the Divinity of of the Scriptures as the cessation of Gentile-Oracles the subversion of Pagan-Idols by vertue hereof like the fall of Dagon before the Ark the implacable Malice rage and fury of Satan and his accomplices against them the Divine Judgements upon their inveterate Opponents the invincible courage constancy and resolution of their Confessors and Martyrs the quality of the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists their first Publishers and Writers the admirable preservation of them against all opposition the confession of Adversaries Jews Gentiles Sibylls Phylosophers Heathens and Hereticks c. touching the divine truth thereof And also several other Internal markes and cognizances of Divinity as antiquity consent of parts efficacy of doctrine and the like But the former being only known to us by humane Testimony it is plain that the prudence and discretion the honesty and integrity of the present Witnesses of the Divinity of the scriptures as persons Rationally Infallible or such as cannot in reason be suspected of any either active or passive deceit imposture in the case is must to any considerate person appear to be equivalent to all the rest and a more sure and compendious argument for fixing and setling of our belief in the particular The latter I have omitted as not so argumentative or convictive to natural-Conscience which I have here more especially addressed my endeavour to as the others above urged But that none may wonder why I urge not here the argument of miracles which others of the greatest Fame lay such a main stress upon I will give you and the world this brief account of it Miracles are considerable in reference to the case in hand but two ways namely as either matter of Divine testimony co-attested together with the doctrine by them confirmed canonically in the Scriptures or else as matter of humane testimony co-attested together with the said doctrine ministerially in by the Church as hath been preasserted Now in short Sir under neither consideration are Miracles or can they rationally be supposed to be the argument of our Faith but only the partial Object thereof as matter of Divine testimony as hath been said in the Scriptures and matter of Humane testimony in the Church and therefore requiring a correspondent assent to both Where for a further account of my self I crave leave to Remonstrate against a very Eminent and worthy Divine of the quorum of the Clergy by you contemned now living who in a Book as noted as himself holds this of Miracles for the main convictive Argument of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as though best now because such of old which is a meer fallacy a non causa pro causa partly and partly ab accidente for First to argue ab absurdo from his own Hypothesis namely this That which Christ himself in his time used as the best argument to prove the Divine Authority of his doctrine is the best still to which I subsume But so it is that that of visible miracles was the best argument which Christ used to prove the Divine authority of his doctrine making the Ear-witnesses of the one Eye-witnesses of the other as infallibly demonstrative signs and seals of Divinity and then the conclusion followeth full of absurdity viz. that that of visible miracles obvious to our Eyes as those were which he wrought in the dayes of his flesh to his then-proselytes is the best argument that can be used still to prove the Divinity of his doctrine the scriptures or which is all one Christ must re-descend into the world and work New miracles visible as his first before he can have New converts Absurd Again If that which Christ himself used as the best Argument to prove the Divinity of his Doctrine which is known to have been visible miracles be the best still then are we under an unavoidable necessity of incurring the same guilt to wit non-conviction and positive unbelief or in the same Authors opinion which I do not here dispute the sin against the Holy Ghost with those reprobated Infidels in the dayes of Christ through our being destitute of the same provisions against it namely visible miracles Nay more we are under a necessity of incurring sin without possibility of remedy a necessity of sinning through want of the preventive visible miracles without possibility of remedy because the positive unbelief mentioned and sin against the Holy Ghost if those be distinct are known by scripture-verdict to be unpardonable this gross absurdity followeth by necessary consequence how injurious nay blasphemous against the Wisdome Goodness Holiness and Justice of God the asserting of such a thing were is easy to determine Thirdly Dilemmatically that Reverend Author must necessarily consider miracles either as Recorded in the Scriptures or as Reported by the Church for as visible they were peculiar to Christ's Contemporaries and Eye-witnesses If as Recorded in the Scriptures as such they being part of the Divine testimony which is this complex the Doctrine of Christ confirmed by Miracles they are not the Argument but the Object of our Faith and we believe not the Scriptures for the Miracles but the Miracles for the Scriptures as part of the sacred narrative and together with the Doctrine by them confirmed and joyntly with them therein Recorded the Collateral Object of our belief If again as Reported by the Church then by my Authors Divinity the testimony of the Church is the main or best Argument that can be used to prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures A train of Absurdities and if we abstract from the testimony of both Scriptures and Church let any tell me what significancy Miracles are of in the case The Author I assure you is a person approved for Eminent both Learning and Piety and indemnified from your two extenuative Characters of which in their due place but personal respects must vail to the interest of the truth I can easily declare with him that I believe that Doctrine to be of God which is confirmed by undeniable Miracles I can as easily declare that I believe all true Miracles to be of God because they exceed all created power but the critical Query in the case by him omitted is how shall one be assured that such Miracles were ever wrought as Christ's turning of Water into Wine for instance his Raising of
to understand that Sacred Truth might have been easily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by tradition from father to son conveyed preserved all that time pure entire and incorrupt free from the above-named Inconveniencies yea one single Trinmvirate might have performed this for the whole Two thousand years mentioned namely Adam Methuselah and Shem Methuselah living above Two hundred years with Adam and Shem who lived to the Fiftieth of Isaack's Age which was about the Two thousandth one hundredth and Fiftieth of the Age of the World about a hundred with Methuselah But now being that the Church-Line hath been since far extended her constitution advancing from Domestical to National and from That to Oecumenick and Vniversal Japhet perswaded to co-tabernacle with Shem and moreover the Life of Man very much since curtail'd being contracted by Sacred Horoscope to seventy or at most eighty years yea very rarely protracted to that insomuch that many successive Sages of the Church would not suffice to perform that now which that one single ternion did before and thus the case infinitely altered It followeth that for a preventive expedient against the Three-fold Inconveniency above-specified namely oblivion corruption and suppression a scriptural and written Rule is most Convenient And lastly that it is most congruous to the Nature and Honour of GOD to indulge his Creatures such a Revelation Rule and Directory is most convincingly manifest from his own infinite Perfections partly and partly from the concerns of his Glory and Honour in his own Worship being rightly performed and his Creature 's Happiness being fully secured for to urge but one argument in this one piece of Sacred Oeconomy which is Nemesius's concerning a Divine Providence in general should not God in condescention to his Creatures necessity and conveniency mentioned as well as in compliance with the Interest of his own Honour therein concerned afford him such a Revelation of his Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life this non-indulgence or refusal must necessarily proceed either from want of Wisdom or of will or of power and sufficiency in God as if either he were not Wise enough to understand how to gratifie his Creature or indeed consult his own interest herein or not Good Gracious and Kind enough to his Creature or Faithful enough to his own interest to do it or else in case of both Skill and Will yet not Able or Sufficient enough hereunto But now being that God as is evident by the very light of Nature is infinitely Wise infinitely Good and All-sufficient it were desperate treasonable Blaspemy committed against Heaven to assert any of those Defects and therefore in fine by the best of consequence as a special supernatural Revelation of the divine Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life is to the Creature absolutely Necessary and a Scriptural and Written one most Convenient So it is most congruous and suitable to the Divine both nature and honour to afford and indulge his Creature this most needful useful Scriptural Rule and Revelation Lastly Sir That this necessary-expedient Revelation of God and his Will this Canon Rule and Directory of Divine Doctrine and Worship and Christian Faith and Life c. is no other then what is contained in that System of Sacred Truth the Volume of the Scripures of the Old and New Testament as approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is as rationally demonstrable as either of the former This being that only Revelation to which the necessary properties and conditions of such a Canon do appertain which are summarily these two namely Divine Authority in respect of the Original and universal sufficiency in respect of the end it being absolutely requisite that such a Rule should both proceed from not Man Church or Angel but God himself as its Author and also by due proportion correspond to the ends and intendments specified as a plain and plenary description of and direction to the true God true Worship true Happiness and the appropriated means of the acceptable performance of that Worship and infallible attainment of that Happiness what more Rational and may that Instrument Method and Model of Revelation be for ever exploded the Church of God as apocryphal which is devoid of either property The one is a compound of infallible Veracity and authoritative Power expressed in the Revelation as being by its Sacred Author whose essential properties those are both inspired and instituted for the only authentick and unalterable Canon of his Church the former requiring our Faith the latter our Obedience Both in their respective analysis ultimately resolvable into the same as their very formal and Fundamentall Reason a principle of natural Conscience as well as that of the Authors eternal Power and God Head So that the Christian Religion framed by this Canon is of all others the most rational as being founded partly upon the Veracity of that God who can neither deceive nor be deceived partly upon his Supremacy or potestative Right by vertue whereof quicquid libet licet he may as the Creature 's Soveraign Proprietary enjoyn and exact of him whatsoever Worship or Service his own absolute but righteous Will shall dictate or direct and if any of the English Clergy offer to court your assent or obedience hereunto as other let them for ever inherit your Contempt The other property again by me considered as relating to both matter and manner of Revelation is the absolute perfection of the Canon whereby it is conceived as a Sacred Pandect or Ecyclopoedy expressely or implicitely directly or consequentially to comprehend the whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary to be either known and believed or observed and practised in order to God's Glory and Man's happiness with so much clearness and perspicuity as that all both literate and illiterate may in a due and diligent perusal of the same attain to a competent skill and knowledg therein So that that onely Revelation must necessarily be the authentick Organ and Instrument Canon and Rule of Divine Doctrine and Worship Christian Faith and Obedience to which those two Canonical properties and conditions agree viz. that authority in respect both of inspiration and institution and that all-sufficiency in respect both of matter and manner of discovery so as that all Faith and Obedience yielded to the Revelation must be resolved into the veracity and supremacy of its Author expressed therein as the formal object or objective Reason of both aswell as into the universally perfect and all-sufficient Testimony it self as the material one and not into the testimony either of Church with the Papist or of Spirit with the Enthysiast both committing a most absurd and putid Circle in giving the reason of their hope asserting the truth and authority of the Canon by those respective testimonies and again in a reversed method the truth of those testimonies as being no other way known to be true by the Canon therefore to be equally declined Now that the Revelation of
Lazarus from the Dead and his Curing of all manner of Diseases c. for confirmation of his Doctrine the two former one may by the very light of nature be assured of and yet question the last This certainly is no otherwise attested then first in a secondary and subservient order by the Church as a Ministerial mean of conveying to us the truth of matter of Fact and next in a superiour order by the Scriptures themselves as the the Canonical Records of the same and in both in conjunction with the Doctrine by them confirmed and both Doctrine and Miracles as the complex and conjunct object of our Faith equally credible upon Testimony which Faith is as hath been said by the concurrent testimony and inward illumination and motion of the publick spirit of the Holy Scriptures viz. the Holy Ghost ripened into this firm perswasion that the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that is both the Doctrine it self and the narrative of the Miracles by which it was confirmed as collateral parts and contents thereof is of a truth the Word not of Man nor Angel but of GOD himself and the onely authentick Canon and Rule of Divine faith worship and obedience which I thank God I am as much confirmed in the belief of not onely to speak with Campian in another perswasion quam me vivere as that I live but as surely as that there is a God by whom I live else had long ere now become a miserable prey to subtil Adversaries who are ever observed primarily as you do to attact their Opponents in the scriptural foundation and that especially in its very fundamentality namely the Divine Authority thereof here Asserted and I hope Evicted Thus Sir I have gone a great way about to bring you by the nearest way home at leastwise if not to gain upon you as a Proselyte yet to guard your Reader against you as an Enemy And now I Challenge you to do your Worst the hurt will be your own none of mine nor I hope of his being that I have arm'd him with an Antidote he shall not need to fear what I promised to produce in the next place viz. your infective example And indeed Sir your whole Rhapsody seemes to be nothing else but a continued exemplification of your Atheisme and Blaspemy expressed in depreciating extenuating debasing and what in you lies nullifying the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures and that in the most material Promises Invitations Precepts Narratives c. therein contained which could you by your foul index expurgatorius expunge them the sacred Canon as belike you have them your Creed let the remainder be branded for Apocryphal for me for to instance in a few what greater Promise is there recorded in the whole Book of God then that in Malachi Vnto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his Wings Or Invitation then that of Isaiah Ho every one that thirsteth come ye buy and eat yea come buy Wine and Milk without money and without price Or Precept then that early summons in our Saviour's triennial Preaching Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Or Narrative then that of St. John God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Everlasting Life Or its Parallel that of St. Paul This is a faithful saying and worthy of all Acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the World to Save Sinners c. And what a poor jejune dilute empty History were the Volume of Holy Scripture and consequently how helpless and hopeless your case and mine and that of all Sinners universally if depauperated of those and their parallel Evangelical contents being that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very quintessence the life and spirit the very soul and substance of that Blessed Revelation consisteth therein and yet most Blasphemously debased and prophaned by your self and prostituted to Contempt in others for which you must be accomptable witness those facetious but blasphemous Laconicks with which you Criticize thereupon viz. that of The Moon of Righteousness upon the first A spiritual Sack-posset upon the next The Soap of Sorrow and Fullers-earth of Contrition upon the third That of the Daughter of God and Dauphin of Heaven upon the fourth and that of a Christmas-Feast consisting of Three Dishes c. upon the last and the like which who but your self can either read or relate without Horrour I guess what your Reply might be here namely that you have onely transcribed the Blasphemies of others to wit those of the Clergy c. But then remember Sir what the doctrine of the Civil Law is approved with all civil men above alledged namely that Publication without Vindication is implicite Accusation especially in a case of of such an universal concern as are the Holy Scriptures which your own interest therein had obliged you to vindicate but that it is plain you have renounced it In short then supposing matter of fact to be matter of sad truth namely that some unhappy Clergy-men have to the disgrace of their function Religion and Scriptures committed such horrid Blasphemies which as yet I do not enquire into but methinks if any such be you should have by name singled them out of the society to their deserved contempt this will not justify you in what I charge you withal It being manifest that you have not only divulged those Blasphemies but divulged them without the least vindication of the Holy Scriptures Religion c. thereby so greatly damnifyed and disparaged which as hath been said is an implicite joyning of issues with the first Aggressors nay that you do industriously throughout your Letters betray and prostitute the same to accumulative contempt in the Laity and that with all imaginable artifice and advantage of an extemporary and occasional witt to use your own idiom in your own praise that cursed Volupia to whose unhallowed Shrines you have presumed to devote and sacrifice God's own Word and Oracles though you might easily have made experiment thereof upon another Theam at a much cheaper rate than that is like to prove of adventurous jesting with a two-edged tool and what plainer instance or argument of A. theism But for a further and fuller exemplification and conviction hereof I will first prompt your Reader with this rule that as in the sacred Decade or Ten commandements in particular so in the sacred Scriptures in general he that offends in any one point is by Divine verdict guilty of all to wit intensively in regard the Divine authority of the whole is violated in any one particular And now or instance in particulars of Scripture not by the Clergy but by you and the whole consequentially in those abused depreciated and what in you lieth exauctorated I do in the next place recommend to your Readers perusal a few pages of your second Letter noted in my Margent
commendation-worthy and laudable and then at last a summary recapitulation of the whole First then I reckon the Oyster-Litany and the Flounder-Creed Let. 1. p. 52. Let. 2. p. 128. Let. 2. p. 59 60. ib. p. 64. the likening of of Isaiah's Wine and Milk to a Spiritual Sack-Posset Christ's coming into the world to save Sinners to a Christmass-Feast of three Dishes the Son of God to the Dauphin of Heaven the Son of God not the Daughter of God c. as by you represented though I am much perswaded that your own endeared Volupia is the Authoress of all abominable Blasphemy Let. 1. p. 57 58. Parson Slip-Stocking and the spiritual Shop-keeper such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Athanasius complained of in his time both grosly ridiculous Let. 1. p. 55 56. Your Chymical Divinity of Aqua-fortis Sal-armoniack and Aqua Regia as also the Sope of Sorrow and the Fullers Earth of Contrition Let. 1. p. 63 68. your chyming Divinity of Reason and Revelation as also of ingress egress and regress number and name manner and measure Let. 1. p. 62. Let. 1.66 c. your harmonious Divinity of the Sphears and Peal of Faith Hope and Charity your Mechanick Divinity of the stradling Compasses ib. p. 67. your Meteorological Divinity of the Text dropping and melting asunder ib. p. 69. your Horological Divinity of Spiritual Dialling c. All Folly and Impertinency Let. 2. p. 72 c. The Wedding Ring fit for the Finger will not I assure you fit mine who by no means likes arctum annulum gestare a ridiculous immodest lascivious Epithalamium inspired from Hymen more like than from the Innonocent Dove and becoming a Wanton Let. 2. p. 123. ib. p. 124. rather than a Pulpiteer The Butt of spiritual Wine will hold no common Water I would it had never been broach'd The Chest and Cupboard of Truth is as empty as the Butt unless the Author mean the Ark of the Testimony Faith likened to a Foot a Leg a Hose c. L. 1. p. 59 L. 2. p. 63 L. 1. p 60 ib. p. 71. ib. p. 68. Let. 2. p. 124. The adulterating of the Apostolical Coyn the Milky way to Jupiter's Palace the threshing worm Jacob the Doctors weeping 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the note of great Sacks and many Sacks c. sweeping the Walks of the Heart spiritual Leech Angle of Prayer Fishing for Mercy L. 1. p. 75 ib. 72 73. laying the Soul a whitening holy girding and trussing up for Heaven and the like Discoveries and Expressions like your Salt-water-Language of Starboard and Lar-board c. all affected Strains of Irreverence Folly and Impertinency Again Sir L. 2. p. 64 L. 1. p. 53 ib. p. 56. ib. p. 72. ib. p. 74. the Sun of Righteousness not Moon of Righteousness this Sun passing the Signs of the Zodiack c. your Omnipotent All c. the Bulrush-repentance Christs taking the Disciples a Cubit lower while they were taking thought for a Cubit the Scribes following of a Thou rather than a That that is ib. p. 75. Person rather than Mercenary Advantage Mercy turning Justice into a Rainbow Let. 2. p. â—24 the Rainbow a Bow indeed but what hath no Arrow in it and the like though not like the more solid Divinity yet very excusable yea being prudentially managed as to use justifiable too as being frequent quickners of Fancy as this is of Attention in sacred performances Let. 1. p. 67. Moreover Accusatio vera Comminatio severa englished a Charge full of Verity and a Discharge as full of Severity the Textual Dividends by you criminated as also miraculum in modo and miraculum in nodo and the like are all brisk laudable Notions much like that strain which is known to have been very familiar to S. Augustine Bernard and other Fathers of the Church witness their Works whom therefore you might as justly in this respect traduce and expose to Contempt as English Clergy-men Of this nature was that which my self heard but very lately from an eminent Pulpiteer citing those words of the Psalmist I am wonderfully made his Gloss was Acupictus sun Englishing it I am a curious piece of Embroidery or Needle-work and very laudable favoured I believe as those who understand the Hebrew better than your Countrey-Parson or I do can inform you by the Original And certainly intermixtures of such innocent brisk strictures and quaint Notions as these are do much add to the life of a Discourse You shall be my debtor for another and then I return to yours which you will say is as acute a remark from the Pulpit and delicacy of wit as any that occurrs throughout all your Narrative namely this that S. Paul is a spiritual Hermaphrodite a rare one indeed if true but how is that proved By his own testimony else we had never known it thus he begot the Corinthians and travail'd in birth of the Galatians and all this mystically is he not then a spiritual Hermaphrodite A quaint notion indeed which with many more witty and very laudable Attraâ—bives of Fancy and Attention we should never enjoy from the Pulpit should you exhaust that delicate Vein in the Vniversity or render it contemptible to the Laity The proving of Monarchy or Kingly Government from Christ's advice Seek first the Kingdom of God c. and of Episcopacy yea of Peerage too from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Jaylors question as if no better Gentleman had usher'd the Bishops into the House of Lords and arguing from Abraham's begetting of Isaac Let. 1. p. 76 77 78. against Non-residence I take to be amongst many more witty Calumnies of your own contrivance wherein there is more of Mercury than of Saturn and less of Divinity than of either In the mean time you remind me of one more which I can furnish you withal and no more for me till your first Doomsday which is hard by One Criticizing upon that place of S. Paul Evil Conversations corrupt good Manners because forsooth there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original did read instead of evil conversations wretched Homilies a Phanatick I warrant him but whom shall we blame here Since the Greek will bear this Translation him or S. Paul or Heathen-Menander from whom the Apostle adopted it into the Sacred Canon I leave it in medio and proceed Again Sir amongst Laudables in the Foolishness of Preaching what is sufficiently pertinent significant and commendation-worthy in the Sermons or Books of those whom you condemn Let. 1. pag. 52. I reckon the likening of the Apple of that Tree which grows upon the Banks of the River Euphrates which is to the Eye fair and tempting but inwardly dust and rottenness to the frail corruptible state of man ib. p. 60. The likening of Scripture-Doctrines Precepts Promises Threatnings and Histories to the five smooth stones c. and should highly applaud it were the