you have attributed to them as far as the effects can shew the heart to others I have before took some pains to let you see how easily men may be mistaken when they behold a man through the spectacles of partiality and defection or take the visible appearances for invisible graces the fraudulent art fiâ—â—s and deceits of men for the coelestial gifts of God And as for that which you have inferred hereupon viz. that if he love them he will scarcely take my dealing well You should first prove the Premises before you venter upon such a strange conclusion and not condemn a Christian brother upon Ifs and Ands. 32. In the next place you please to tell me that you are not an approver of the violence of any of them and that you do not justifie M. Burtons way and that you are not of the mind of the party that I most oppose in all their Discipline as a Book now in the Press will give the world an account In the two first parts of which Character which you have given us of your self as I have great reason to commend your moderation and hope that you will make it good in your future actions so I can say little to the last not having heard any thing before of the Book you speak of nor knowing by what name to call for it when it comes abroad But whereas you tell us in the next that you are sure the Church must have unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government or not at all I take you at your word hold there and we shall soon agree together Vnity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government no man likes better then my self bring but the same affections with you and the wide breach which is between us in some of the causes which we mannage on either side will be suddenly closed but then you must be sure to stand to the word ancient also and not to keep your self to simplicity only if unity and charity will content you in the ancient Doctrine in the simplicity thereof without subsequent mixtures of the Church I know no doctrine in the Church more pure and ancient then that which is publickly held forth by the Church of England in the book of Articles the Homilies and the Chatechism authorized by Law under the head or rubrick of Confirmation Of which I safely may affirm as S. Augustine doth in his Tract or Book Ad Marcellinum if my memory fail not his qui contradicit â—ut à Christi fide alienus est aut est haereticus that is to say he must be either an Infidei or an Heretick who assenteth not to them If unity and charity in the simplicity of Worship be the thing you aim at you must not give every man the liberty of worshiping in what form he pleaseth which destroys all unity nor cursing many times in stead of praying which destroyes all charity the ancient and most simple way of Worship in the Church of God was by regular forms prescribed for the publick use of Gods people in their Congregations and not by unpremeditated indigested prayers which every man makes unto himself as his fancy shall lead him which I hope I have sufficiently proved in my Tract of Liturgies And if Set Forms of Worship are to be retained as I think they be you will not easily meet with any which hath more in it of the ancient simplicity of the Primitive times then that by which we did officiate for the space of fourscore years and more in the Church of England And finally if the ancient simplicity in Government be the point you drive at what Government can you find more pure and ancient then that of Bishops of which I shall only present you with that Character of it which I find in that Petition of the County of Rutland where it is said to be That Government which the Apostles left the Church in that the three ages of Martyrs were governed by that the thirteen ages since have alwayes gloried in by their succession of Bishops from the Apostles proving themselves members of the Catholick and Apostolick Church that our Laws have established so many Kings and Parliaments have protected into which we were baptized as certainly Apostolical as the observation of the Lords day as the distinction of Books Apocryphal from Canonical as that such Books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles as the consecration of the Eucharist by Presbyters c. An ample commendation of Episcopal Government but such as exceedeth not the bounds of truth or modesty Stand to these grounds for keeping unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government in the Church of God and you shall see how cheerfully the Regal and Prelatical party whom you most oppose wil join hands with you and embrace you with most dear affections 33. But you begin to shrink already and tell me that if I will have men live in peace as brethren our Union must be Law or Ceremonies or indifferent Forms This is a pretty speculation I must needs confesse but such as would not passe for practicable in any well-governed Common-wealth unless it be in the Old Vtopia or the New Atlantis or the last discovered Oceana For how can men possibly live in peace as brethren where there is no Law to limit their desires or direct their actions Take away Law and every man will be a Law unto himself and do whatsoever seemeth best in his own eyes without control then Lust will be a law for one Felony will be a law for another Perjury shall be held no crime nor shall any Treason or Rebellion receive their punishments for where there is no law there is no transgression and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment punishments being only due for the breach of Laws Thus is it also in the service and worship of Almighty God which by the hedge of Ceremonies is preserved from lying open to all prophaneness and by Set Forms be they as indifferent as they will is kept from breaking out into open confusion God as S. Paul hath told us is the God of Order not of Confusion in the Churches If therefore we desire to avoid confusion let us keep some order and if we would keep order we must have some forms it being impossible that men should live in peace as brethren in the house of God where we find not both David hath told us in the Psalms that Jerusalem is like a City which is at unity in it self and in Jerusalem there were not only solemn Sacrifices set Forms of blessing and some significant Ceremonies prescribed by God but Musical Instruments and Singers and linnen vestures for those Singers and certain hymns and several times and places for them ordained by David Had every Ward in that City and every Street in that Ward and every Family in that Street and perhaps every
John Popham Lord Chief Justice at the Assizes held at Bury and thereunto I subjoyned these words viz. Good remedies indeed had they been soon enough applied yet not so good as those which formerly were applied to Thacker and his fellow Copping in the aforesaid Town of Bury for publishing the Books of Brown against the Service of the Church But here is no mention not a syllable of burning the said Books of sabbath-Sabbath-Doctrines but only of suppressing and calling in Which makes me apt enough to think that you intended that for a private nip relating to a Book of mine called Respondit Petrus which was publiquely voyced abroad to have been publiquely burnt in London as indeed the burning of it was severely prosecuted though itscaped the fire a full account whereof being too long to be inserted in this place I may perhaps present you with in a place by it self And secondly what find you in that latter passage which argueth me to be guilty of such bloody desires as I stand accused for in your Letter Cannot a man report the passages of former times and by comparing two remedies for the same disease prefer the one before the other as the case then stood when the spirit of sedition moved in all parts of the Realm but he must be accused of such bloody desires for makeing that comparison in a time of quietness in a time of such a general calm that there was no fear of any such tempest in the State as did after follow If this can prove me guilty of such bloody desires the best is that I stand not single but have a second to stand by me of your own perswasion for in the same page where you find that passage viz. page 254. you cannot chuse but find the story of a Sermon Preached in my hearing at Sergeants Inn in Fleetstreet in which the Preacher broach'd this Doctrine That temporal death was at this day to be inflicted by the Law of God on the Sabbath breaker on him who on the Lord's day did the works of his daily calling with a grave application to my Masters of the Law that if they did their ordinary works on the Sabbath day in taking fees and giving counsel they should consider what they did deserve by the Law of God The man that Preached this was Father Foxly Lecturer of S. Martins in the Fields Superintendent general of the Lecturers in S. Antholin's Church and Legate à Latere from the Grandees residing at London to their friends and agents in the Countrey who having brought these learned Lawyers to the top of the Ladder thought it a high piece of mercy not to turn them off but there to leave them either to look after a Reprieve or sue out their Pardon This Doctrine you approve in him for you have passed it quietly over qui tacet consentire videtur as the saying is without taking any notice of it or exceptions against it and consequently may be thought to allow all those bloody uses also which either a blind superstition or a fiery zeal shall think fit to raise But on the other side you find such bloody desires in the passages before remembred which cannot possibly be found in them but by such a gloss as must pervert my meaning and corrupt my text and it is Male dicta glossa quâ corrumpit textum as the old Civilians have informed us 20. But to come nearer to your self May we be sure that no such bloody desires may be found in you as to the taking away of life in whom we find such merciless resolutions as to the taking away of the livelyhood of your Christian Brethren The life of man consists not only in the union of the soul and body but in the enjoyment of those comforts which make life valued for a blessing for Vita non est vivere sed valere as they use to say there is as well a civil as a natural death as when a man is said to be dead in law dead to the world dead to all hopes of bettering his condition for the time to come and though it be a most divine truth that the life is more then food and the body then rayment yet when a man is plundered both of food and cloathing and declared void of all capacities of acquiring more will not the sence of hunger and the shame of nakedness be far more irksome to him then a thousand deaths How far the chiefs of your party have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears by the sequestring of some thousands of the Conformable and Established Clergy from their means and maintainance without form of Law who if they had done any thing against the Canons of the Church or the Laws of the Land were to be judged according to those Laws and Canons against which they had so much transgressed but suffering as they did without Law or against the Law or by a Law made after the fact aâ—ainst which last his Highness the late LORD PROTECTOR complaineth in his Speech made in the year 1654. they may be truly said to have suffered as Innocents and to be made Confessors and Martyrs against their wills Either they must be guilty or not guilty of the crimes objected If they were guilty and found so by the Grand Inquest why were they not convicted and deprived in due form of Law If not why were they suspended sine die the profits of their Churches sequestered from them and a Vote passed for rendring them uncapable of being restored again to their former Benefices Of this if you do not know the reason give me leave to tell you The Presbyterians out of Holland the Independents from New England the beggerly Scots and many Trâ—n châ—r-Chaplains amongst our selves were drawn together like so many Vultures to seek after a prey for gratifying of whom the regular and established Clergy must be turned out of their Benefices that every Bird of r pine might have its nest some of them two or three for failing which holding by no other Tenure then as Tenants at will they were necessitated to performe such services as their great Patrons from time to time required of them 21. Now for your part how far you are and have been guilty of these civil slaughters appears abundantly in the Preface which is now before us in which you do not only justifie the sequestring of so many of the regular and established Clergy to the undoing of themselves and their several families but openly profess That you take it to be one of the charitablest works you can do to help to cast out a bad Minister and to get a better in the place so that you prefer it as a work of mercy before much sacrifice Which that it may be done with the better colour you must first murther them in their fame then destroy them in their fortunes reproaching them with the Atributes of utterly insufficient ungodly unfaithful scandalous or that do more harm then good
that opined the contrary The like may be affirmed of Cambridge when D Whittakers sat in the Divinity Chair and M. Perkins great in the esteem of the Puritan Faction had published his Book Intituled The Golden Chain which Book containing in it the whole Doctrin of the Supra-Lapsarians was quarrelled first by Arminius in the Belgicks Churches and sharply censured afterwards by D. Robert Abbot in his Book against Tompson By these two first and after on the coming down of the Lambeth Articles of which more anon as hard a hand was kept upon all those who embrace not the Calvinian Rigors as was done at Oxon the Spirit of that Sect being uncapable of opposition in the least degree Under which two Generall Answers but the last especially we may reduce all Arguments which are drawn from the severe proceedings of those Professors and their adherents against all such as held any contrary opinion to them that is to say against Bishop Laud by Doctor Holland and D. Abbot by the last against D. Houson also and by D. Prideaux against Mr Bridges and in the other university by D. Whittakers against M. Barret by the whole faction there against Peter Barrow and finally by the two Professors then being against M. Simpson And yet those times were not without some Eminent men and men of prime Note and Authority as he calls their opposites which bear witnesse to the genuine Doctrines of the Church of England now miscalled Arminianism who never were subjected to the ignominy of a Recantation Amongst which I may Reckon D. Hursnet for one Master of Pembrook Hall in Cambridge afterwards successively Bishop of Chichester Norwich and Arch Bishop of York Whose Sermon aâ— St. Pauls Cross the 27 of Octob. 1584. sufficiently declares his judgment in those points of Controversie And I may Reckon D. Buckridge for another President of S. Johns Colledge c. and Tutor unto Bishop Laud at his first coming to Oxon who carring these opinions with him to the See of Rochester maintained them in a publick conference at York house against D. Morton Bishop of Lichfield and D. Preston Master of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge Anno 1626. 25. I have already written a full discourse shewing upon what Principles and Positions the Church of England did proceed at her first Reformation But this being designed as an Ingredient to a larger work now almost finished I must not wrong that work so far as to make use of it at the present and therefore you must needs have patience till a further time In the mean season I shall endeavour an answer to all those Arguments which your Adversarie hath made use of to evince the point he chiefly aims at leaving the positivity of Sin to your abler hand Where by the way give me leave to tell you that one who seems to wish me well though known no further to me then by the first Letters of his name signified in his Letter to me of the 3d. of March that Mr. Hickman was not the Author but the Compiler of the Book which is now before us having all the Assistance as he was credibly informed which the University could afford him But in this I cannot be of his opinion far less assistance being needful to this petty performance then the united Councels of an university Though my Eyes be very bad and unuseful to me in this way yet I am able to trace the steps of this young Serpent in all the Cliffs and precipices of the Rock upon which he glideth not onely as to follow him in his Proofs and arguments but many of his Phraseâ— and florishes also I could direct you to the Authors from which he borroweth his faining and his failing in the Advertisement at the End of his Book his charging you with tumbling in your Tropes and rowling in your Rhetorick p. 4 his dealing with you as Alexander did with his Horse Bucephalus taking him by the Bridle and leading him gently into the Sun that other men may see how lustily you lay about you though your selfe do not p. 7. I could direct you also to the very pages in M. Prinns book of Anti-Arminianism and that called Canterburies Doom out of which without acknowledging his Benefactor he takes all his Arguments Except that of Gabriel Bridges in Oxon and M. Sâ—mpson in Cambridg perhaps these also But being they are made his own as some unhappy Boys makâ— knives when they do but steal them I will Answer them one by one in Order as they come before me 26. In the first Entrance to his proofs he begins with Wicklife concluding that because the Papists have charged it on him that he brought in fatal necessity and made God the Author of sinne therefore it may be made a pâ—obable Guâ—ss that there was no disagreement between him and Calvin The Course of which Argument stands thus that there being an agreement to these points betwixt Wickliffe and Calvin and the Reformers of our Church embracing the Doctrins of Wickliff therfore they must embrace the Doctrine of Calvin also But first it cannot be made good that our Reformers embrace the Doctrine of Wickliffe or had any Eye upon that Man who though he held many points against those of Rome yet had his field more tares then wheat his Books more Heterodoxies then sound Catholick Doctrines And secondly admitting this Argument to be of any force in that present case it will as warrantably serve for all the Sects and Heresies which now swarm amongst us as for that of Calvin Wickliffe affording them the Grounds of their several dotages though possibly they are not so well studied in their own concernments For they who have consulted the works of Thomas Waldeâ—sis or the Historia Wiclesiana writ by Harpfield will tell us that Wickliffe amongst many other Errors maintained these that follow 1. That the Sacrament of the Altar is nothing else but a piece of Bread 2. That Priests have no more Authority to Minister Sacraments then Lay men have 3. That all things ought to be common 4. That it is as lawful to Christena child in a Tub of water at home or in a ditch by the way as in a Fontstone in the Church 5. That it is as lawful aâ— all times to confess unto a Layman as to a Priest 6. That it is not necessary or profitable to have any Church or Chappel to pray in or to do any divine service in 7. That buryings in Church Yards be unprofitable and vain 8. That Holidayes ordained and instituted by the Church taking the Lords day in for one are not to be observed and kept in Reverence in as much as all dayes are alike 9. That it is sufficient and enough to believe though a man do no good works at all 10. That no humane Laws or Constitutions do oblige a Christian and finally that God never gave Grace or knowledge to a great person or Rich man and that they in no wise follow the same What Anabaptist
much better in his instance of D. Laud inveighed against most bitterly in a Sermon preach'd by the said D. Robert Abbot then Vice-Chancellor on Easter Sunday doth affirm it was For in that Sermon there is nothing charged upon him in the way of Arminianism which was the matter to be proved but that under Colour of preaching against the Puritans he showed himself so inclinable to some Popish opinions that he seemed to stand upon the brink and to be ready on all occasions to step over to them a Censure which hath little truth and less charity in it that Renowned Prelate giving a greater testimony of his aversness from the Romish Religion at the time of his death then any of his persecutors and accusers did in the best Act of their lives 40. More pertinent but not more memorable is the case of Peter Barâ—e Professor for the Lady Margaret in the University of Cambridge a forrainer by birth but one that better understood the Doctrine of the Church of England then many of the Natives his Contemporaries in the University Some differences falling out between him and Whitakers in the Predestinarian points the whole Calvinian Faction rose in Armes against him Tyndal Some Willet Perkins Chatterton and the rest of the tribe siding with Whitaker in the quarrel But not being able altogether to suppress him by Argument they resolve to work their Ends by power apply themselves to Archbishop Whitgift to whom they represent the danger of a growing Faction which was made against them to the disturbance of their peace and the disquiet which might happen by it to the Church in general By their continuall complaints and solicitations they procure that Reverend Prelate to advise with such other Bishops as were next at hand that is to say the two Elected Bishops of London and Banger with whose consent some Articles were drawn up and sent down to Cambridge for the appeasing of the controversies which were then on foot These Articles being nine in number contained the whole Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination with the concomitants thereof received at Cambridge for a time and again suppressed rejected by King James in the conference at Hampton-Court Anno 1603. inserted by D. Vsher afterwards Archbishop of Armah in the Articles of Ireland Anno 1615. and finally suppressed again by the Repeating of those Articles in a full Convocation Anno 1634. Concerning which your Adversary tells us many things which must be examined 41. For first he tells us that his Arminianism did not only lose him from his place but lost him the affections of the University But I must tell him that his Arminianism as he calls it caused not the losing of his place for I am sure he held his place till the expiring of the term allowed by the Lady Margarets Statute whose professor he was Which term expired he left it in a just disdain of seeing himself so over-powered and consequently exposed unto contempt and scorn by the Arts of his Enemies Secondly If he lost the affection of the university which is more then your Adversary can make proof of unless he mean it of that part of the university onely which conspired against him yet gained he as much love in London as he lost in Cambridge For dying there within few years after it was ordered by Bishop Bancroft that most of the Divines in the City should be present at his interment which may be a sufficient argument that not the Bishop onely but the most eminent Divines of London were either inclinable to his opinions or not so much averse from them as not to give a solemn attendance at the time of his Funeral In the next place he quarrels with Bishop Mountague of Chichester for saying that those Articles were afterwards forbid by Authority and brings in M. Fuller making himself angry with the Bishop for the when and the where thinking it strange that a Prohibition should be conspired so softly that none but he alone should hear it But first the Bishop living in Cambridge at that time might hear it amongst many others though none but he were pleased to give notice of it when it came in question And Secondly the noise thereof did spread so far that it was heard into the Low Countries the making of these Articles the Queens displeasure when she heard it her strict command to have them speedily supprest and the actual suppression of them being all laid down distinctly in a Book published by the Remonstrants of Holland Entituled Necessaria Responsio and Printed at Leyden 1618. almost seven years before the comming out of Mountague's Book 42. And now I am fallen upon this Bishop I cannot but take notice of your adversarys most unequal dealing against him and you in his discrediting that part of your Argument which contains K. James's Judgment of him the incouragement he gave him to proceeed in his appeal and his command to have it Dedicated unto him to which you might have added for further proof of the Kings concurring in opinion with him that he had given him his discharge or quietus est from all those calumnies of his being a Papist or Arminian which by the two Informers had been charged upon him And secondly that the appeal being recommended by that King to D. Fr. White then Dean of Carlisle exceedingly cried up at that time for his zeal against Popery was by him licensed to the Press as containing nothing in the same but what was agreeable to the publique Faith Doctrine and Discipline established in the Church of England And whereas your adversary doth not think that the King should command any Book written by a private Subject to be Dedicated to himself which to my knowledge is a matter not without examples he doth not so much clash with you as put a lye into the mouth of the Reverend Prelate from whose hand you took it That Bishop certainly must be a man of an unheard of and unparalleld impudence in putting such an untruth on the King deceased to gain no greater favour from the King then Raigning then what of ordinary course might have been presumed on 43. For other points which are in difference between you upon this account I leave them wholly to your self advertising you only of these two things First that when King James published his Declaration against Vristius in which there are so many bitter Expressions against Arminius Bertius and the rest of that party he was much governed by the Counsels of Dr. James Montague who having formerly been a great stickler against Barnet and Baroe in the stirrs at Cambridge was afterwards made Dean of the Chappel Bishop of Bath and Wells and at last of Winton an excellent Master in the art of insinuations and the Kings Ecclesiastical Favourite till the time of his death which happened on the 19th of July 1618. Secondly that the Reason why King James so branded the Remonstrants in the Declaration That if they were not with speed rooted out
them and one that hated the Idolatries and superstitions of the Church of Rome with a perfect hatred This Reverend Father must not be consulted in the business for fear it might be thought that it was not to be done without him A Parish Vestry must be called by which M. Sherfield is inabled to take down the offensive Pictures and put new white Glass in the place though he be transported with a fit of unruly zeal instead of taking it down breaks it all in pieces Here then we have an Eldership erected under the Bishops nose a Reformation undertaken by an Act of the Vestry in contempt of those whom God and his Majesty and the Laws had made the sole Judges in the case An example of too sad a consequence to escape unpunished and such as might have put the people upon such a Gog as would have leâ—t but little work to the late Long Parliament Non ibi consistent Exemplaubi ceperunt sed in tenuem recepta tramitem latissime evagandi sibi viam faciunt as my Author hath it 52. But he proceeds according to his usual way of asking Questions and would fain know in what respect they may be accounted the obedient Sons of the Church who study by all their learning to take off that ignominous name of Antichrist from the Pope of Rome which had bin fastned on him by King James Archbishop Whitgift Bishop Andrews and the late Lord Primate and finally by the whole Clergy in their Convocation An. 1605. In the recital of which Proof I find not that the name of Antichrist was ever positively and and in terminis ascribed unto the Popes of Rome by any Article Homily Canon or injunction or by any other publick Monument of the Church of England which leave it to the Liberty of every man to conceive therein according as he is satisfied in his own mind and convinced in his understanding Arch-bishop Whitgift the Primate Bishop Andrews conceived the Pope to be Antichrist and did write accordingly Archbishop Laud and Bishop Mountague were otherwise perswaded in it and were not willing to exasperate those of the Popish Party by such an unnecessary provocation yet this must be accounted amongst their crimes For aggravating whereof he telleth us that the Pope was proved to be Antichrist by the Pen of King James which is more then he can prove that said it K. James used many Arguments for the proof thereof but whether they proved the point or not may be made a question Assuredly the King himself is to be looked on as the fittest Judge of his own intentions performance And he declared to the Prince at his going to Spain that he writ not that discourse concludingly but by way of Argument to the end that the Pope and his Adherents might see there was as good Arguments to prove him Antichrist as for the Pope to challenge any temporal Jurisdiction over Kings and Princes This your Antagonist might have seen in his own Canterburies doom fol. 264. Out of which Book he makes his other Argument also which proves the name of Antichrist to be ascribed unto the Pope by the Church of England because the Lords spiritual in the upper house and the whole Convocation in the Act of the subsidy 3. Jacobi so refined â—â— If so If any such Definition passed in the Convocation it is no matter what was done by the Lords Spiritual in the upper House of Parliament for that I take to be his meaning as signifying nothing to the purpose Wherein Gods name may such an unstudied man as I find that definition not in the Acts of Convocation I am sure of that and where there was no such point debated and agreed upon all that occurs is to bee found onely in the preamble to the Grant of Subsidies made at a time when the Prelates and Clergy were amazed at the horror of that Divellish plot for blowing up the Parliament Houses with the King Prelates Peers Judges and the choicest Gentry of the Nation by the fury of Gun-powder But were the man acquainted amongst Civilians they would tell him that they have a Maxime to this Effect that Apices juris nihil ponuns The Titles and preambles to Laws are no definitions and neither bind the subject in his purse or Pater-noster 53. As for the rest of the Bishops I find two of them charged particularly and the rest in General Mountague charged from D. Prideaux to be merus Grammatius and Linsel charged from M. Smart to have spoken reproachfully of the first Reformers on the Book of Homilies But as Mountague was too great a Scholar to be put to School to D. Prideaux in any point of Learning of what kind soever so Linsol was a Man of too much sobriety to use those rash and unadvised speeches which he stands accused of And as for Mr. Smart the apology of D. Cosens speaks him so sufficiently that I may very wel save myself the labour of a Repetition More generally he tells us from a speech of the late Lord Faulkland that some of the Bishops and their adherents have destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity have brought in superstition and scandal under the title of Reverence and decency and have defiled our Churches by adoring our Churches c. p. 40. and not long after p 64. That they have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspition that in Gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured to bring in an English though not a Romish Papacy not the out side and dress of it onely but equally absolute a blind dependence of the People on the Clergy and of the Clergy on themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the water But these are onely the evaporations of some discontents which that noble Orator had contracted He had been at great charges in accommodating himself with necessaries for waiting on his Majesty in his first expedition against the Scots in hope of doing service to his King and Country and gaining honour to himself dismist upon the Pacifiation as most of the English Adventurers without thanks of honour where he made himself more sensible of the neglect which he conceived he suffered under then possibly might consist with those many favours which both Kings had shewed unto his Father But no sooner had that noble soul dispers'd those clouds of discontent which before obscured it but he brake out again in his natural splendor and show'd himself as zealous an advocate for the Episcopal order as any other in that house witness this passage in a speech of his not long before the dismissing of the Scottish Army Anno 1641. viz. The Ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses
Caerleon upon Vske for any thing our Author can affirm to the contrary and was undoubtedly such at the first coming in of the Saxons though afterwards for the space of 140. years as before is said it remained Pagan so that our Author might have spared his pains in proving the Metropolitans of St. Davids to be successors unto them of Caerleon which was never denyed unless he could infer from thence that Caerl on was Senior in Christianity unto Canterbury for four hundred years as he expresly saith it was as well as in the Metrapolitical Dignity invested in it And this if he can do I shall conclude him willingly for a subtle Logitian though I shall hardly ever allow him for a sound Historian 27. The like imperfect defence he makes about the time when Lillies Grammer was imposed by King Hen. the 8. on all the Grammer Schools of England plac'd by him in the 11th year of that King Anno 1619 which was full eleven years before it was ordered by the Convocation of the year 1630. ut una edatur formula Authoritate hujus sacrae Synodi c. that one onely form of Teaching Grammer should be enjoyned from thenceforth by the authority of the Convocation to be used in all the Grammer Schools of the Province of Canterbury And questionless the Clergy in their Convocation would not have troubled themselves in ordering one onely Form of Grammer to be taught in all the Schooles of the Province of Canterbury if the King so many years before had commanded Lillies Grammer to be used in all the Schools of England Considering therefore that this order of the Convocation preceded the command of King Henry the 8. and that Lilly dyed some years before the making of this Order as our Author plainly proves he did the difference between us may be thus made up that Lillies Grammer being one of those many the multiplicity whereof had been complained of in that Convocation was chosen out of all the Râ—st by the Convocation as fittest for the publick use and as such Recommended by the King to all the Grammer Schools within his Dominions The Animadvertor was mistaken in making Lilly to be living after the Convocation who was dead before And yet he discovers no such indiscretion not made any such cavelling at a well timed truth in the Authors Book as the Appealant lays upon him the time of the imposing and not the making of Lillies Grammer being the matter in dispute in which the Appealant must be found as much mistaken for the Reasons formerly laid down as the Animadvertor in the other 28. His next defence is worse then this because he finds not any shift to convey himself out of the Reach of the Animadversion For finding it so clealy proved from the words of the instrument that the payment of the 100000. for the Province of Canterbury was to be made in five years and not in four which he held most probable he hopes to save himself by saying that not reckoning the first summe which was paid down on the nâ—il they had just four years assigned them for the payment of the remaindâ—r And so indeed it must have been if the first twenty thousand pound had been paid down upon the nail as he saith it was but indeed was not the instrument of that Grant bearing date the 22. of March 1530. and the first payment to be made at Michaelmas following As bad an Auditor he is in casting up the smaller summe of Pilkintons pension as in the true stating of this payment making no difference no great difference betwixt taking away 1000 l. yearly from the Bishoprick and charging it with an annual pension of 1000 l. For he that hath 1000 l. per annum in Farms and Mannors may pay a 1000 l. pension yearly out of it to a publick use and reserve a good Revenue out of it for his own occasions by fines and casualties in the Renovation of Eâ—â—ates and in such services and provisions for domestick uses as commonly are laid upon them 29 Our Author tells us of the Homilies as a Church Historian That if they did little good they did little harm but he avows as an Appealant that he hath as high an esteem of them as the Animadvertor p. 2. fol. 87. And then I am sure he must needs acknowledge them to be in a capacity of doing much good and no harm at all which is directly contrary to his first Position That the Homilies had been Reproached by the name of Homily Homilies by many of the Puritan faction I have often heard but never heard before that they had been called so by any of the same party with the Animadvertor and am as farre as ever I was from knowing whom that one man should be who did call them so he not being named by the Appealant Where by the way the Author hath uncased himself appears in his own proper person without any disguise for having first told us in the second Chapter of his Apparatus that he was one of the same party with Dr. Heylyn he now declares himself to be of the other and well it had been saith he for the peace and happiness of the Church if the Animadvertor and all of his party had as high an esteem as the Author hath c. where if the Author hath not plainly declared himselfe to be of a different party from the Animadvertor his many protestations pretences notwithstanding I must needs think my selfe as much darkned in my understanding as in my Bodily sight when he can extricate himselfe out of this entanglement I may perhaps think fit to enter on a set discourse whether the Images of God and his Saints may be countenanced in Churches I know by the word Countenancing whom he chiefly aims at without a visible opposition to the second Homily of the second Book but till then I shall not 30. As little am I bound to return any answer to his Argument taken Acts 2. 27. against the Local descent of Christ into Hâ—ll this being not a fit time and place for such set discourses The question and dispute between us relates unto the judgement of the Church of England touching this particular in which he cannot concur with the Animadvertor that any such Local descent hath constantly been maintained by the Church of England But that this is the positive Doctrine of the Church of England appears first by giving that Article a distinct place by its selfe both in the Book of Articles published in the time of King Edward the 6. Anno 1552. and in the Book agreed upon in the Convocation of the 5. of Queen Eliz. An. 1562. In both which it is said expresly in the self same words That as Christ dyed for us and was buried so is it to be believed that he went down into Hell which is either to be underderstood of a Local descent or else we are tyed to believe nothing by it but what
zeal and ignorance A writing is subscribed on the 10th of May by Finch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littleton Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Witsield and Heath his Majesties Serjeants at the Law in which it was declared expresly that the Convocation being called by the Kings writ ought to continue till it was dissolved by the Kings Writ notwithstanding the dissolution of the Parliament But what makes this unto the purpose Our Author a more learned Lawyer then all these together hath resolved the contrary and throw it out as round as a boul that after the dissolution of the Parliament the Clarks of Diocesses and Cathedrals desisted from being publick persons and lost the notion of Representatives and thereby returned to their private condition The Animadvertor instanced in a convocation held in the time of Queen Eliz. An. 1585. which gave the Queen a Benevolence of two shillings in the pound to be raised on the Estates of all the Clergy by the meer censures of the Church without act of peachment Against which not able to object as to the truth and realty of it in matter of Fâ—ct he seems to make it questionable whecher it would hold good or not in point of Law if any turbulent Clergy-man had proved Recusant in payment and having slighted by the name of a blâ—ck â—wan a single instance of an unparliamented inpowred Convocation he imputes the whole success of that â—ash adventure rather unto the popularity of so Peerless a Princess the necessity of her occasions and the tranquillity of the times then to any efficacy or validity in the act it self And to what purpose all this pains but to expose the poor Clergy of the Convocation An. â—640 to the juster censure for following this unquestioned precedent in granting a more liberal benevolence to a gracious soveraign by no other authority then their own 34. If the â—ppealant still remain unsatisfied in this part of the Churches power I shall take a little more pâ—ins to instruct him in it though possibly I may tell him nothing which he knows not already being as learned in the Canons as in the common Law In which capacity I am sure he cannot chuse but know how ordinary a thing it was with Bishops to suspend their Clergy not onely ab officio but a Beneficio and not so onely but to sentence them if they saw just cause for it to a deprivation Which argues them to have a power over the property of the Clergy in their several Diocesses and such a power as had no ground to stand on but the authority of the Canons which conferred it on them And if our Author should object as perhaps he may that though the Canons in some cases do subject the Clergy not only to suspentions but deprivations of their cures and Benefices â—in which their property is concerned yet that it is not so in the case of the Laity whose Estates are not to be bound by so weak a thred I must then lead him to the Canons of 1603 for his satisfaction In which we find six Canons in a row one after another for providing the Book of Common Prayer the Book of Homilies the Bible of the largest Edition a Font for Baptism a fair Communion Table with a Carpet of Silk or other decent stuff to be laid upon it a Pulpit for Preaching of Gods Word a Chest to receive the alms for the Poor and finally for repairing of the Churches or Chappels whensoever they shall fall into any decay all these provisions and reparations to be made at the charges of the several and respective Parishes according to such rates as are indifferently assest upon them by the Church wardens Sides men and such other Parishioners as commonly convened together in the case which rates if any did refuse to make payment of they were compellable thereunto on a presentment made to the Ordinary by the said Church-wardens and other sworn Officers of the several and respective Parishes And yet those Canons never were confirmed by Act of Parliament as none of the like nature had been formerly in Queen Eliz time though of a continual and uncontroled practise upon all occasions The late Lord Primate in * a Letter more lately published by D. Barnard assures the honourable person unto whom he writ it that the making of any Articles or Canons at all to have ever been confirmed in that Kingdom by Act of Parliament is one of Dr. Heylyns Fancies And now it must be another of the Doctors Fancies to say that never any Articles or Canons had ever been confirmed by Act of Paliament in England though possible they may relate unto the binding of the subject in point of Poperty 35. But our Author hath a help at Maw and making use of his five fingers hath thrust a word into the proposition in debate between us which is not to be sound in the first drawing up of the issue The Question at the first was no more then this whether such Canons as were made by the Clergy in their Convocations and authorized by the King under the broad Seal of England could any further bind the subject then as they were confirmed by Act of Parliament And Secondly Whether such Canons could so bind either at such times as the Clergy acted their own Authority or after their admission to King Hen. the 8. in such things as concerned Temporals or temporal matters otherwise then as they were confirmed by national Customes that is to say as afterwards he expounds himselfe until they were consirmed by Act of Parliament Which points being so clearly stated by the Animadvertor in behalf of the Church that no honest evasion could be found to avoid his Argument the Appealant with his five fingers layes down life at the stake and then cryes out that the Animadvertor arrogates more power unto the Church then is due unto it either by the laws of God or man maintaining but he knows not where that Church men may go beyond Ecclesiastical Censures even to the limbs and lives of such as are Recusants to their Constitutions p. 2. so 53. And having taken up the scent he hunts it over all his Book with great noise and violence assuring us that such Canons were constantly checkt and controlled by the Laws of the Land in which the temporal Estate life and limbs of persons were concerned p. 2. fol. 27. As also that the King and Parliament though they directed not the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts in cases of Heresie which is more then his History would allow of yet did they order the power of Bishops over declared Hereticks without the direction of the Statute not to proceed to limb and life p. 2. fol. 45. And finally reduceth the whole Question to these two Propositions viz. 1. The proceedings of the Canon Law in what touched temporals of life limb and estate was alwayes limited with the secular Laws and national Customes of England And
his Ink mixt with more of the durty puddle then the Church Historians was with gall and vinegar when he bespattered the poor Clergy in the Preface to his Book of the Grotian Religion with all the filth that could proceed from a Pen so qualified I need not saith he go to M. Whites Centuryes to be acquainted of the qualities of the ejected our Country have had too many of them that have long been a burthen instead of a blessing some never preached but read the Common Prayer Book and some preached much worse then they that were never called Preachers Some understood not the Catechism or Creed many of them lived more in the Ale-house then the Church and used to lead their people in drunkenness cursing swearing quarrelling and other ungodly practises and to amend all by railing at the Puritans Praecisians some that were better would be drunk but now and then and preach once a day remembring still to meet with the Precise least their hearers should have any mind to becom Godly but neglecting most of the Pastoral cure and lived much in worldliness and prophaneness though not so disgracefully as the Rest Which passage when I read over it caused in me so great an horror and amazement that I could not tell whether I might give any credit to my senses or not the words sounding loud in my ears but not sinking at first into my heart For who could possibly believe that one who doth pretend to so much piety should shew himself the master of so little charity To all the Acts and offices of which excellent virtue enumerated by S. Paul in his 1. Epist to the Corinthians cap. 13. he hath shewed himself so great a stranger as if his Soul had never been acquainted with the Graces of it Such as have thrust themselves into other mens livings and they who patronize them in it seem to have quitted all the other properties of Charity to the Sequestred Clergy and retain only to themselves the not seeking their own For they seek after the Benefices and Goods of others The Rear brought up by a young man of * Magdalen Coll. Oxon whom I shall not call a whelp of the same litter though he hath pleased to give me no other title then that of a bird of the same feather who spends his mouth by telling his Reverend brethren of the Brackly breed that the Episcopal Government will be desired by the bad and therefore that they should take care that the Good did not wish it restored also that the Prelatical oppressions were such as might make wise men mad that some of the Prelates might with reason be called Antichristian whose Courts vexed sundry laborious Preachers becaus they could not bow at the name of Jesus when as sundry idle sots whom they might frequently observe to stagger in the streets were never questioned and finally he leaves it unto consideration whether it be not envy rather then conscience which maketh some to exclaim with so much bitterness against the late Ejections Sequestrations Deprivations and whether our late Sequestrations were not more justifiable then those proceedings in the late Archbishops times when men were suspended ab officio beneficio meerly for not Reading the Book of sports In which particulars although he doth not â—ark so loud yet he bites as close as any other in â—he Pack who have deeper mouths I must confess that neither finding my self particularly named in that infamous Century nor concerned more then any other in those general calumnies I did not think my self obliged to take notice of them It was my expectation rather that some one or other of those who sustained most wrong would have done themselves the right of a vindication and not have suffered those reproaches to have gained belief by such a dul and dangerous silence But at the last finding the cry revived by the Civil Historian the Divine Right of Episcopacy called in question the Bishops and Clergy ignorantly censured for their Proceedings in Convocation and the subordinates of the late Archbishops whereof I had the honour to be one so unhandsomely handled I thought it my duty to appear in defence of those points wherein I found the Author either by inadvertency or want of better intelligence to have been mistaken And so far I was liberum Agens prompted by none but my own good affections to the pulick interess to that undertaking But so I cannot say of my engagings with the Church Historian being solicited thereunto by persons of all Orders Degrees and stations as wel Ecclesiastical as Accademical in the pursuance whereof I could not but take notice of that passage before laid down do the poor Clergy so much right as the nature of an Animadversion might comport withal Nec solum ad nos haec in juriavenit ab illo in the Poets words it is not we alone that are the poor sequestred and ejected Clergy but the whole Church which hath been injured by him in her power and priviledges for the asserting whereof and rectifying such mistakes as I found therein I first applyed my self unto that performance What led me to this Letter-Combate with M. Baxter you will find in the discourse it self In which you may perceive how sensible I am of those reproaches which he so prodigally casts abroad upon those poor men whom the late Ordinance for ejecting of ignorant and scandalous Ministers hath brought under his power I must needs say I might have slipt my self out of this employment as one of those whose casting out he hath disowned among many others under the notion of being Prelatical and so far interessed in the late Civil Wars as my attending on the Kings person at Oxon can ascribe unto me But in this case I will not sever my own interess from that of my Brethren my brethren not like Simeon and Levi in the evil of sin but like to Paul and Barnabas in the evil of Punishment when used despitefully and threatned to be stoned to death by the men of Iconium For though we are all guilty through human frailties of our several sins yet for those sins we stand accomptable onely at the Bar of Heaven Those scandalous crimes under colour whereof so many of us have received the punishment of Sequestration and Ejection that the Hands of men falling so short from being proved that the nonproseuting of the Evidence to a legal Tryal may rationally be thought to acquit us of them And therefore I shall weave up your defence in the same peece with my own that as we fell together we may stand together in the recovery of that Reputation which is dearer to us then our lives not suffering our common Adversaries to deal with us as Ignorant Jurors do too often in passing their verdict upon the Prisoners at the Bar when without consideration of the crimes or evidence they resolve to save one half and hang the other Whatsoever I have done herein as it
concluded with my self not to engage hereafter in any of these unhappy Controversies which this unhappy Age hath bred but where some unavoidable necessity shall compel me to it For though Mr. Baxter hath been pleased in a late Book of his to give me the Title of an hot Anti-Puritan as I am credibly informed by a Letter which is come newly to my hands I verily perswade my self that neither you nor he will finde any such heat in my Conference with him as may render me obnoxious to that accusation But whether it be so or not and whether that which I have done in that whole Discourse to which Mr. Baxter is a party will be taken for an acceptable service to your selves and the Church our mother remains in you to be determined to whose upright just and impartial censure I do most chearfully recommend my performance in it the other tracts having particular applications as I do you to the divine consolations of the Heavenly Comforter with that affection which becometh The most unworthy of your Brethren in these common Sufferings Peter Heylyn Lacies Court in Abing don â—â—y 2. 1659. Certamen Epistolare Or The Letter Combate Managed by P. Heylyn D. D. with M. Baxter of Keederminster c. IT was about the middle of August last that M. Baxter's Book Entituled The Grotian Religion was put into my hands and it was put into my hands with this advertisement that I should finde somewhat in the Preface which concerned my self That intimation gave me the curiosity of turning first to that which was said to be of my own concernment as indeed it prooved not without much amazement to me that a man whom I had never known by face and not much by fame should put such an unnecessary provocation on me For speaking of the various acceptations of the word Puritan he lets us know that with the late Prelates a Puritan was eiâ—her a Non-Conformist or a Conformist that in Doctrine was not Arminian of which set Peter Heylyn gives us a description by their opinions Ser. 23. My first amazement being over I began to examine my memory upon these two points First whether in any Book or Books of mine I had applied the name of Puritan to any such of the Clergy who being conformable to the Church in Rites and Ceremonies agreed not in some Doctrinal points with such of their Brethren whom M. Baxter there brandeth with the name of Arminians And secondly whether in any Book or Books of mine I had made any such description of those Puritan-Conformists for so I may express M. Baxter's meaning by their opinions as might and did distinguish them from other men but not being able to find the remembrance or any the least foot-steps of it of any such application of the name or any such description of the men as is described to me in that Preface I began to consider with my self what might be M. Baxter's design in it Doubtful I was whether it might not be his purpose to render my name as unpleasing to the conformable Clergy by attributing to them the title of Puritans because they hold not with those whom M. Baxter calls Arminians in some points of Doctrine as it had been before to the Presbiterians for standing in defence of the Church and the conformable Children of it good sport it would have made amongst them if such a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ball of discord such a bone of division being cast amongst us we had fallen foul on one another whilst they attending the success and taking opportunity to go on securely might in fine triumph over both And no less doubtful was I whether it might not be done upon some design of drawing me into fresh disputes and multiplying those invidious controversies which I chuse rather to decline Amongst so many uncertainties I thought it most agreeable unto my present condition to dispatch a fair but short Letter to him to let him know in what I found my self concerned and to desire him so far to assist my memory as to direct me to such Book or Books of mine and the particular places in them in which the name of Puritan was so applied and they to whom it was applied had been so described According to which resolution I had no sooner put an end to some business which detained me in London till the end of August and renewed the acquaintance betwixt me and my Study at my coming home but I prepared and sent away a Letter to him bearing date the thirteenth of September but either by my own incogitancy or the carelesness of my Scribe or Amanuensis there was no Copy of it taken so as I am necessitated to hit upon the matter and expressions of it as well as I can desiring M. Baxter to rectifie my mistakes therein if any shall be committed by me in laying down the sum and substance of that Letter which in brief was this The Substance of D. Heylyn's first Letter to M. Baxter of Keederminster SIR I Have lately caused your Book of the Grotian Religion to be read over to me and cannot but approve the modesty of your expressions and the ingenuity which you have shown in the carrying on of your designe Only I could have wished you had spared my name unless you would have proved me to have been one of that Religion as I think you cannot or else have had some more particular matter wherewithal to have charged me then I find you have For whereas it is said by you in your Preface That with the late Prelates a Puritan was either a Non-Conformist or a Conformist that in Doctrine was no Arminian of which sort Peter Heylyn gave us a description by their opinions I desire you to please to let me know in what Book or Books of mine you either find the name Puritan to be so applied or any such description made of them as your Preface speaks of Which favour if you please to do me you will not only therein supply the defect of my memory by which I may the better discern what I am to do but give me very just occasion to subscribe my self SIR Your very humble Servant and Christian Brother Peter Heylyn Lacies Court in Abingdon Septemb. 13. 1658. This Letter being thus dispatched I proposed these two hopes unto my self First That M. Baxter seeing his mistake would do me right and make me such amends in a publique way as might be answerable to the wrong he had publickly done me or otherwise that without any suspition of pragmaticalness or any new desire of being in action I might right my self What I have done in the last case must be left to the Reader M. Baxter having failed on his part of doing it for me For after more then six weeks expectation I received an Answer to my Letter on Saturday the thirtieth of October In the first part whereof he nameâ—mpuring â—mpuring it to his temerity that he made mention of me on that
common sense import though I desire that my words should be understood alwaies in the litteral sense or in any other sense that you shall give them as afore was said which being premised I would fain see how you prove the point which you have so blindly undertaken Marry say you I deal with M. Burton as the Puritans Oracle pag. 152. their superintendent Champion c. as in my Preface to that Book and my desâ—râ—ptiâ—n of him is that he followeth Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. pag. 182. Stay here a little M Baxter do you not tell us in the former part of your Letter that you had not seen that Book against M. Burton above 20. years and therefore condemned your temerity in mentioning me on the trust of your memory after so long time and can you now direct us not only unto single words Oracle Superintendent Champion c. and to the several pages where they are Can you direct us to a marginal Note pag. 182. relating to a Book called Necessaria Responsio and to the folios of that Book viz. pag. 82. with pag. 82 84. 85. or tell your Readâ—â— in what part or page of that Book he may find D Jackson acquitted from maintaining Arminianism and the Puritans condemned for wresting the Articles of the Church pag. 122 123. Can you do this and yet with confidence declare that it is 20. years since you saw that Book Assuredly your memory must be very good in remembring so many single words and particular passages with the very places where they are after the space of twenty years or very bad in not remembring that the description of a Puritan which you had charged on Peter Heylyn was to be found in M. Dow and perhaps not there Quid verba audiam cum facta videam You tell us that you have not seen that book this twenty years and here is evidence enough that you have it by you for I cannot think that you clogged your Note Book with such petit remembrances unless the term of twenty years may pass in your account for no more then yesterday 13. But be your memory good or bad I am sure your Logick is far worse none of old Baxter's this then your memory can be The Charge you are to prove is this That with the late Prelates a Puritan was either a Non-Conformist or a Conformist that in Doctrine was no Arminian of which sort Peter Heylyn gave us a description by their opinions By which we are to understand if you mean nothing else but what your words in the common sense import that the Puritans of whom the said sorry fellow called Peter Heylyn hath given us a description by their opinions is such a Conformist who in Doctrine is no Arminian This is the point you are to prove and for the proof of this you instance in M. Burton of Fryday-Street who though he was no Arminian in point of Doctrine yet was he so far from being a Conformist that since the hanging up of Penry at Saint Thomas of Waterings where he Preached before a very thin audience on the top of the Ladder as Johannes Stow informeth us Anno 1593. There never was a more profest outragious violent and seditious Non-Conformist in the Church of England Now if the Puritans be there described by M. Burton as you say they are or if the Reader understand me as describing Puritans only because I have so often given the person described that name as I am willing that he should and you say he must It must needs follow thereupon that the Puritans against whom I write cannot be such Conformists as are no Arminians but such notorious Non-Conformists as their Oracle and Champion M. Burton was There was an old distinction made by I know not whom betwixt the Knaves Puritan and the Knave Puritans the Knaves Puritan being one that made a conscience of his waies and followed not profane and licentious persons in their ungodly way of living But the Knave Puritans were those who under pretence of long Prayer devoured widdows houses and wilfully opposed the Rights and Ceremonies of the Church and clamorously cried down the Lordly Prelacy and jurisdiction of the Bishops that they might themselves Lord it over Gods people in their several Parishes and sit as so many petit Popes in their Classical Sessions These and no others are the Puritans against whom I write not against those who walk unblamably before God and man nor against those who following Calvin's judgment in the matter of predestination and the points concomitant conform themselves unto the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England here by Law established of which last sort were many Bishops Deanes Dignitaries in Cathedral Churches whose parts piety I admire as much as any whom it had been a madness to condemn for Puritans such Puritanism and their several dignities being inconsistent 14. So then the Puritan whom I aim at in the person of M Burton is a notorious Non-Conformist and whither I had described him or them we are next to see And my description of him as you tell us containâ—th first that hee follows Illyricus in his Doctrines dâ— providentia predestinatione gratia libero arbitrio c. If it conteins that first as you say it doth it must needs contain something in the second third and fourth places which you are willing not to speak of For if â—ou look into the place by you cited pag. 882. you will there find that M. Burton is not only said to be a follower of Illyricus in his Doctrines de providentia c. but to have also followed him in his fiery nature and seditious principles one of which was Principes potius metu seditionum terrendos quam vel minimum pacis causa indulgendum That Princes should be rather terrified with the feares of tumults then any thing should be yielded to for quietness sake All which being laid together as it stands in your Author falls so much short of being a description of such Puritans as being conformable to the Church in Rites and Ceremonies are notwithstanding no Arminians in point of Doctrine which you have charged on Peter Heylyn that it conteineth not such a principal part of that description as you have laid on D. Dow For besides that the Puritans hold the same opinions with those who follow Calvin's judgment in some controverted points before remembred they hold also some opinions of their own that is to say it is not lawful to use the Cross in Baptism or to bow at the blessed name of Jesus which M. Burton calls Cross-worship and Jesu-worship nor to be uncovered in the time of Divine Service to wear the Surplice kneel at the Communion to marry with the Ring and finally to stand up at the Gospels and the Gloria Patri In all which he and they were as much opposed by those of the Conformable Clergy who follow Calvin's
like and reckoned him for a reproach to the holy improvements of the Sabbath by justifying his Disciples in plucking off the ears of Corn upon that day commanding the man whom he had cured of his diseases to take up his bed and walk though upon the Sabbath and finally giving this general Aphorism to his Disciples That the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath Then which there could be nothing more destructive of those superstitions wherewith that day was burthened by the Scribes Pharisees and thereby more accommodated to the ease of the Ox and Asse then to the comfort and refreshment of the labouring man might not the latter Rabines among the Jews defend themselves in those ridiculous niceties about the keeping of that Sabbath Queen-Sabbath as they commonly call it for which they stand derided and condemned by all sober Christians by reckoning them for such holy improvements as D. Bound and his Disciples have since encogitated and devised to advance the dignity of the Lords day Saints Sunday as the people called it in times of Popery to as high a pitch Restore the Lords day to that innocent freedom in which it stood in the best and happiest times of Christianity and lay every day fresh burthens upon the consciences of Gods people in your restraints from necessary labours and lawful pleasures which neither we nor our forefathers have been able to bear though christned by the name of holy improvements The coming out of Barbours's Book Printed and secretly dispersed Anno 1628. but walking more confidently abroad with an Epistle Dedicatory to his Sacred Majesty about five years after declare sufficiently what dangerous effects your holy improvements had produced if not stopt in time and stopt they could not be by any who maintain your Principles that poor man being then deceived into the errour of a Saturday Sabbath a neer neighbour of this place hath been of late by the continual inculcating both from the Pulpit and the Press of the perpetual and indispensable morality of the fourth Commandment as it hath been lately urged upon us But so much hath been said of this by others and elsewhere by me that I forbear to press it further nor indeed had I said thus much had you not forced me upon it for my own defence 18. And for those most unjust as well as uncharitable speeches those bitter reproaches as you call them afterwards which you charge upon me in reference to my brethren whom I take for adversaries when you have told me what they are and of whom they are spoken and where a man may chance to find them I shall return a more particular answer to this calumny also but till then I cannot In the mean time where is that ingenuity and justice you so much pretend too you make it foul crime in me not easily to be washed away with the tears of repentance that I have used some tart expressions which you sometimes call bitter reproaches sometimes unjust and uncharitable speeches against my brethren many of them being my inferiours and the best but my equals and take no notice of those odious and reproachful Attributes which you have given unto your Fathers all of them being your superiours de facto though perhaps you will not grant them to be such de jure You call me in a following passage the Primipilus by which I finde you have studied Godwin's Antiquities or chief of the defenders of the late turgid or persecuting sort of Prelates whither with greater scorn to me or reproach to them it is hard to say the merit of the accusation we shall see anon I note here only by the way in S. Paul's expression that that wherein you judge another you condemn yourself seeing you do the same things and perhaps far worse But to return unto my self take this in general that though I may sometimes put vinegar into my inck to make it quick and opulative as the case requireth yet there is nothing of securrility or malice in it nothing that savoureth of uncharitableness or of such bitter reproaches as you unjustly tax me with But when I meet with such a firebrand as M. Burton whose ways you will not seem to justifie in that which followeth I hope you cannot think I should pour Oyl upon him to encrease the flame and not bring all the water I had to quench it whither soul or clean Or when I meet with such unsavoury peices of wit and mischief as the Minister of Lincoln Diocesse and the Church Historian would you not have me rub them with a little salt to keep them sweet The good Samaritan when he undertook the care of the wounded passenger is said to have poured into his wounds both Oyl and Wine that is to say the Oyl to cherish and refresh it and the Wine to cleanse it Oleum quo foveatur Vinum quo mordeatur as I have read in some good Authors he had not been a skilful Chyrurgion if he had done otherwise one plaister is not medcinal to all kind of sores some of which may be cured with Balm when others more corrupt and putrified do require a lancing but â—o I shall not deal with M. Baxter nor have I dealt so with others of his perswasion insomuch that I have received thanks from the Ministers of Surrey and Buckingham shire in the name of themselves and of that party for my fair and respectful language to them both in the Preface to my History of the Sabbath and the Conclusion to the same 19. But you go on and having given me some good councel which I shall thank you for anon you tell me that besides those many bitter reproaches of my Brethren which I take for adversaries I rise unto such bloody desires of hanging them as the better remedy then burning their Books For this you point us to the History of the Sabbath pag. 2 pag. 254. and in the general Preface to Ecclesia vindicata Sect. 8. In which last place we find it thus That partly by the constancy and courage of the Arch-Bishop Whitgift who succeeded Grindal Anno 1583. the opportune death of the Earl of Leicester their chief Patron Anno 1588. and the incomparable pains of judicious Hooker Anno 1595. but principally by the seasonable execution of Copping and Thacker hanged at Saint Edmonds bury in Suffolke for publishing the Pamphlets of Robert Brown against the Book of Common-prayer they became so quier that the Church seems to be restored to some hopes of peace Nothing in this that savoureth of such bloody desires as you charge upon me I am sure of that and there is little more then nothing in the other passage where speaking of D. Bound's Book of Sabbath-Doctrines and the sad consequents thereof I add that on the discovery of it this good ensued that the said Books were called in by Arch Bishop Whitgift in his Vâ—sitations and by several Letters and forbidden to be Printed and made common by Sir
any little outward lustre they then cried on the other side O the pride of the Clergie But tell me M. Baxter if you can at the least in what the turgidness or the high swelling pride of the Prelates did appear most visibly was it in the bravery of their apparel or in the train of their attendance or in their lordly port or lofty looks or in all or none Admitting the worst and most you can of these particulars would you have men that shine in an higher Orb move in a lower Sphere then that in which God hath placed them oâ— being ranked in order and degree above you would you not have them keep that distance which belongs to their places or because you affect a Paritie in the Church and perhaps in the State would you have all men brought to the same level with your self without admitting sub and supra in the Scale of Government If they were your Fathers in God why did you not look upon them with such reverence as becometh children If your superiors in the Lord why did you not yield them that subjection which was due unto them If fixt in place and power above you by the Laws of the Land only and no more then so why did you not give obedience to those Laws under which you lived and by which you were to be directed Take heed I beseech you M. Baxter that more spiritual pride be not found in that heart of yours then ever you found worldly and external pride in any of my Lords the Bishops and that you do not trample on them with a greater insolence calco Platonis fastum sed majore fastu as you know who said in these unfortunate dayes of their calamity then ever they exprest towards any in the times of their Glory Were it my case as it is yours I would not for 10000 worlds depart this life before I had obtained their pardon and given satisfaction to the world for these horrible scandals 25. This leads me from your uses of reproofs or reprehension which for my better method I have laid together to that of Exhortation which comes next in order For having told me of my many reproaches against extemporary prayers the holy improvements of the Lords day c. with my uncharitable as well as unjust speeches against my brethren you adde how confident you are that they are matters which I have exceeding cause in tears and sorrow to bewail before the Lord and for which I am very much obliged to publish my penitential lamâ—ntations to the world and that if it were your case you would not for 10000 worlds dye before you had done it This is good counsel I confess if it were well grounded and as divine â—hysick as could be given if it were properly administred as it ought to be But let me tell you M. Baxter you goe not the right way to work in your Application you should first convince me of my errours before you presse me to a publick Recantation of them and make me sensible of my sins before you preach repentance to me or can require such a solemn and severe repentance as you have prescribed It was in the year 1635. that the History of the Sabbath was first published which if it doth contain such matters of Reproach against the holy improvements of the Lords day as you say it doth why hath it not been answered in all this time my errors falsities and mistakes layd open in the sight of the world It is true that in the Postscript of a Letter writ from Dr. Twisse to the late Lord Primate bearing date May 29. Anno 1640. I find it signified with great joy no question that M. Chambers of Clouford by Bath hath long agoe answered Dr. Heylins History of the Sabbath but knew not how to have it printed But this was nothing but a flourish a cup of hot water as it were to keep life â—nd soul together till the pang was over For M. Chambers might as well know how to get his Book printed had he been so pleased as M. Byfield of Surry could get a Book of his printed in answer to that of Dr. White then Lord Bishop of Ely which came out at the same time with that History Or if he could not get it printed before that time which the Doctor speaks of I am sure he might have done it since the Presse being open to all comers but to none more then unto such as write against the Government and established Orders of the Church of England And it is more then 20. years since I published that Book so much complained of against M. Burton in which I answered all his Objections against the preheminence of Bishops their function in the Church the exercise of their Jurisdiction and cleared them from the guilt of all innovations in Doctrine Discipline and Forms of Worship which M. Burton in a furious zeal had laid upon them Why hath not that been answered neither in which the differences between us are so briefly handled that it would have required no great study but that the truth is mighty and prevaileth above all things Giue me but a satisfactory answer to those two Books not nibling at them here and there like a Mouse at a hard piece of Cheese which he cannot Master and then you may take further time to look into the History of Episcopacy and that of Liturgies Give me I say a full and satisfactory answer to those two Books and you shall find I have a malleable soul that I shall be as ready to publish my penitential Lamentations to the world as Origen did his in the Primitive times and cast my self as Esebollus did before the dores of the Church and call upon the Congregation passing in and out to trample on me for an unsavoury piece of salt calcate me tanquam salem insipidum fit only to be thrown on the common dunghil Till you do this you have done nothing but must leave me in the same state in which you found me and when you doe it I hope you will give me leave to use your own words and say that if I have erred it hath been through weaknâ—sse not by partiality much lesse by any willful opposition to a manifest truth 26. This said you fall into rapture and cry out Oh the holy breathings after Christ the love to God the heavenly mindedness the hatred of all known sin the humility self denial meekness c that you have discerned as far as effects can shâ—w the heart to others in abundance of those people that differ from you in some smaller things Here is a Panegyrick indeed fit only for Angelical spirits or such at least as live only on the food of Angels How well accommodated and applyed to the present subject we shall best perceive by consulting some of the particulars Some of your holy breathings we have seen before and shall see more in that which follows tell me then what you think of
these passages these breathings of M. Burton in his Apologie and Appeal In which he calls on the Nobility To rouse up their spirits and magnanimous courage for the truth and to stick close to God and the King in helping the Lord and his anointed against the mighty upon the Judges to draw forth the sword of Justice to defend the Laws against such Innovators who as much as in them lieth divide between the King and People upon the Courtiers to put too their helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion and faithful Ministers then suspended from the jaws of those devouring Wolves and tyrannizing lordly Prelates c. Upon the people generally to take notice of the desperate practises innovations and Popish designs of these Antichristian Prelates and to oppose and redress them with all their force and power And yet as if this had not been enough to declare his meaning he breaths more plainly in his Libel called The News from Ipswich in which he lets us know That till his Majesty shall hang up some of these Romish Prelates Inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibbeonites once did the seven sons of Saul we can never hope to abate any of Gods plagues c. What think you of these breathings of Buchannan in his book De Jure Regni apud Scotos where he adviseth Regum interfectoribus proemia discerni c. that Rewards should publickly be decreed for those who kill a Tyrant and the meekest King that ever was shall be called a Tyrant if he oppose the setting up of the holy Discipline as usually are proposed to those who kill Wolves or Bears And finally what think you of these breathings in one of the brethren who preaching before the House of Commons in the beginning of the long Parliament required them in the name of the Lord to shew no mercie to the Prelatical party their wives and children but that they should proceed against them as against Babylon it self even to the taking of their children and dashing their brains against the stones Call you these holy breathings the holy breathings after Christ which you so applaud Or are they not such breathings rather aâ— the Scripture attributes to Saul before his conversion who in the ninth chapter of the Acts is said to be Spirator minarum caedis adversus discipules Domini that is to say that he breathed out threatnings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. 27. As are their breathings such also is their meekness their humility their hatred of known sin their heavenly mindedness and that self-denial which you so commend for of their love to God I can take no notice As well as they are known unto you may you not be deceived in your opinion of them and take that first for a real and Christian meekness which is but counterfeit and pretended for their worldly ends Doth not our Saviour tell us of a sort of men false-preachers seducers and the like which should come in sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves What means our Savior by sheeps clothing but that innocence meekness and humility which they should manifest and express in their outward actions it being the observation of Thomas Aquinas that grand dictator in the Schools In nomine â—vis innocentiam simplicitatem per totam Scripturam designarâ— And yet for all this fair appearance they were inwardly but ravening Wolves greedily thiâ—sting for the prey and hungry after spoil and rapine Astutam rapido gestanâ—es pectore vulpem in the Poets language This you may find exemplified in the Sect of the Anabaptists who at their first appearance disguised themselves in such an habit of meekness and humility and Christian patience as gained them great affection amongst the people but when they were grown unto a head and had got some power into their hands what lusts what slaughter what unmerciful cruelties did they not commit when Tyrannie and K. John of Leyden did so rage in Munster But because possible you may say that these are not the men whom your character aims at tell me what spirit of meeknesse you find in Calvin when he called Mary Q. of England by the name of Proserpine and tells us of her that she did superare omnes diabolos that all the Devils in hell were not half so mischievous or what in Beza when he could find no better title for Mary Q. of Scots then those of Athaliah and Medea the one as infamous in Scripture for her barbarous cruelty as the other is in heathen Writers or what of Peury Vdal and the rest of the Rabble of Mar Prelates in Queen Elizabeths time to whom there never was the like generation of railing Rabshakehs since the beginning of the world Or what of Dido Clariâ—s who calls King James for neither Kings nor Queens can escape them intentissimum Evangelii hostem the most bitter enemy of the Gospel and I say nothing of the scandalous reports and base reproaches which were laid upon his son and successor by the tongues and pens of too many others of that party 28. Look upon their humility and you shall find them exalting themselvs above Kings Princes and all that is called God the Pope and they contending for the supreme power in the Church of Christ For doth not Traverse say expresly in his Book of Discipline Huic Disciplinae omnes principes fasces suas submittere necesse est that Kings and Princes must submit their Scepters to the Rod of that Discipline which Calvin had devised and his followers here pursued so fiercely Have not some others of them declared elsewhere that Kings and Princes must lay down their Scepters at the Churches feet yea and lick up the dust thereof understanding always by the Church their one holy Discipline did they not carry themselves so proudly in the time of that Queen whom they compared to a sluttish housewife who swept the middle of the room but left the dust behinde the door and in every corner that being asked by a grave Counsellor of State whether the removal of some Ceremonies would not serve the turn they answered with insolence enough ne ungulam esse relinquendam that they would not leave so much as an hoof behind And that you may perceive they have been as good at it in Scotland as ever they have been in England Take here the testimony of King James who had very good experience of them in the Preface to his Basilicon Doron where telling us what he means by Puritans he describes them thus I give this stile saith he to such brain-sick and Headie Preachers as refusing to be called Anabaptists participate too much with their humours not only agreeing with the general rule of all Anabaptists in the contempt of the Civil Magistrate and in leaning to their own Dreams and Revelations but particularly in accounting all men prophane that swear not to all their phantasies in making for every particular question of the Policie of the
were subject to the Pope Neither indeed was there any need at that time of this Councel that any such Definitions should be made no new Heresie or any new doctrine which by them might be called Heresie being then on foot for Luther did not rise in Germany till this Counsel was ended which might create any disturbance to the peace of that Church If any such priviledges were arrogated by Pope Leo the 10. that none should be accounted members of Christ and his Church but such as were subject to the Pope which you cannot find definitively in the Acts of that Councel you must rather have looked for it in the Bulls of that Pope after Luther had begun to dispute his power and question his usurped authority over all the Church In one of which Bulls you may finde somewhat to your purpose where you shall find him saying that the Church of Rome is Mother and Mistress of all Christians and that her doctrines ought to be received of whosoever would be in the Communion of the Church If this be that you mean much good do it you with though this be rather to be taken for a Declaration then a Definition 45. But if your meaning is as perhaps it may be that the Papists Faith may be called Faction because they appropriate to themselves the name of the Church and exclude all other Christians from being members of Christ and his Church which are not subject to the Pope as indeed they do take heed you lose not more in the Hundreds then you got by the County for then it may be proved by the very same Argument if there were no other that the Puritan Faith is Faction and so to be accounted by all that know it because they do appropriate unto themselves the name of the Church as the old Affrican Scismaticks confined it intra partem Donati For proof whereof if you please to consult Bâ—shop Bancrofts book of Dangerous Positions anâ— Proceedings c. part 3. chap. 15. you will find them writing in this manner viz I know the state of this Church make known to us the state of the Church with you Our Churches are in danger of such as having been of us do renounce all fellowship with us It is long since I have heard from you saith one Blake of the state of the Church of London Another By M. West and M. Brown you shall understand the state of the Churches wherein we are A third If my offence may not be passed by without a further confessiâ—n even before God and his Churâ—h in London will I lye down and lick the dust off your feet where you may see what it is which the heavenly-mindednesse the self-denial meeknesse and Humility which the brethren aim at and confesse it c. I have received saith the fourth a Letter from you in the name of the rest of the Brethren whereby I understand your joining together in choosing my self unto the service of the Church under the Earl of Leicester I am ready to run if the Church command me according to the holy Decrees and Orders of the Discipline Lay all which hath been said together and tell me he that can my wits not being quick enough for so great a nicety whether the Papists Faith or that of the Puritans most properly and meritoriously may be counted Faction 46. The third thing in which you seem unsatisfied in what I say concerning Popery is whether it be true or not that the Popes Decretals the body of the Canon Law is to be accepted as not being abrogated which being made for the direction and reiâ—lement of the Church in general were by degrees admitted and obeyed in these parts of Christendome and are by Act of Parliament so far still in force as they oppose not the Prerogative royal or the municipal laws and statutes of this Realm of England These words I must confesse for mine owning Hist Sab. pa. 2. ch 7. p. 202. and not 210. as your Letter cites it your parenthesis being only excepâ—ed and you name it this Kingdome in stead of the Realm of England though both expressions be to one and the same effect In which you might have satisfied your self by M. Dow who as you say gives some reason for it out of a Statute of Hen. 8. But seeing you remain still unsatisfied in that particular I shall adde something more for your satisfaction In order whereunto you may please to know that in the Stat. 29. Hen. 8. ch 19. commonly called the Statute of the submission of the Clergy it is said expresly First that the Clergie in their convocation promised the King in verbo Saâ—erdoris not to enact or execute any new Canons but by his Majesties royal assent and by his authority first obtained in that behalf and secondly that all such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodals Provincial as were made before the said submission which were not contrary or repugnant to the Laws Statutes and Customes of this Realm nor to the dammage or hurt of the Kings Prerogative Royal were to be used and executed as in former times By which last clause the Decretal of preceding Popes having been admitted into this Land and by several Canons and Constitutions of the Church of England and the main body of the Canon-law having for a long time been accounted for a standing rule by which all proceedings in the Courts Ecclesiastical were to be regulated and directed remain still in force and practice as they had done formerly But then you are to know withall that they were no longer to remain in force and practice then till the said preceding Canons and Constitutions as appears by the said Act of Parliament should be viewed and accommodated to the use of this Church by 32. Commissioners selected out of the whole body of the Lords and Commons and to be nominated by the King But nothing being done therein during the rest of the Kings reign the like authority was granted to King Edw. 6. 3. 4. Edw 6. c. 11. And such a progresse was made in it that a Sub-committee was appointed to review all their said former Canons and Constitutions and to digest such of them into form and order as they thought most fit and necessary for the use of this Church Which Sub committee consisted of eight persons only that is to say Thomas Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Lord Bishop of Eli Dr. Richard Cox the Kings Almoner Peter Martyr his Majesties professor for Divinity William May and Rowland Taylor Doctors of the Law John Lucas and Richard Gooderick Esquires who having prepared and digested the whole work into form and order were to submit the same to the rest of the 32. and finally to be presented to the King for his Royal Assent and confirmation And though the said Sub-committee had performed their parts as appears by the Book entituled REFORMATIO LEGUM ECCLESIASTICARUM ex authoritate primum Regis HENRICI VIII inchâ—aâ—a Deinde
who had taken up the information or vulgar Hear-sâ—y without inquiring into the falsity or malice of the first Report if Mr. Hickman would have had the patience to have stayd so long 4. But long I had not lain in this quiet slumber when I was rouzed by your Letter of March 8. informing me of a second Edition of that Book in which I did not bear a part in the Prologue only as in that before nor was made one of the Actors only in the body Tragi-Comedy but that the matter of the whole Epilogue was of my mistakings All which I could have slept out also if the same Letter had not directed me to page 23 24. where I should find a passage to this effect viz. That Dr. Holland had turned Dr. Laud the most Renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury out of the Schools with disgrace for but endeavouring to maintain that Bishops differed in order not only in Degree from inferiour Presbyters A son of Craesus which was dumb from his very birth could find a tongue when he perceived his Father in danger of death whom no extremity of his own might possibly have forced on so great a Miracle And therefore I conceive that it will not be looked upon in me as a matter of Prodigie that the Dishonour done to so great a Prelate who in his time was one of the Fathers of this Church and the chief amongst them should put me to a Resolution of breaking those bonds of silence which had before restrain'd me from advocating in my own behalfe I was not willing howsoever to engage my self too rashly with an unknown Adversary without endeavouring further to inform my self in his Grounds or Reasons In which respect I thought it most agreeable to the ingenuity which I had shown to Mr. Baxter on the like occasions to let him see how sensible I was of the injury done unto my self and the indignity offered to the fame of so great a Person before I would endeavour the righting of my self or the vindicating of his honour in a publique way To which end I addrest unto him these ensuing Lines Dr Heylyn's first Letter to Mr. Hickman SIR 5. YOur Book of the Justification of the Fatherâ— c. was not long since put into my hands w th a direction to a passage in the Preface of it It was not long before I consulted the place in which I found mention that a Book of mine had received the desert of its bitterness in being burnt by the hand of the publique Hangman It seems you were so zealous in laying a Reproach upon me that you cared not whether it were true or false It was thought a sufficient warrant to you that you were informed so without any further enquiring after it Which pains if you would please to take you might have learned that though such a thing was much endeavoured yet it was not effected i. e. that it went no further then noise and fame which served to some instead of all other proofs I was advertised yesterday by several Letters that the Book is come to a second Edition in which you have not only made bold with me which I can easily contemn but have laid a fouler Reproach on the Late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in being disgracefully turn'd out of the Schools by Dr. Holland But Sir however you may please to deal with such a poor fellow as I am you ought to have carried a greater Reverence towards a Prelate of such eminent Parts and Place whose Memory is more precious amongst all that love the Church of England then to suffer it to be so defamed and by such a person You pretend Information for the ground of your other errour but for this I believe you would be troubled to produce your Authors And if there be no more truth in the other parts of your Book in which you deliver points of Doctrine then you have shown in these two passages in which you relate to matters of fact you had need pray to meet with none but ignorant Readers such as are fit to be abus'd and not with any knowing and intelligent man Excuse me if my love to truth and my tenderness to a name which I so much honour have extorted from me these few lines which are most heartily recommended to your consideration as you are to the grace and blessings of Almighty God by Your very affectionate friend and Christian Brother Peter Heylyn Abingdon March 19. 1658. 6. By this time I had got the Book which I caused to be read over to me till I came to page 38. where I found my self as much concerned as before in the Preface and the integrity of Dr. Burlow once Dean of Chester and afterwards successively Bishop of Rochester and Lincoln to be more decryed then Dr. Laud the late Arch-Bishops was dishonoured in the former passage This put me to a present stand and I resolved to go no further till I had certified the Author of my second Grievance which I did accordingly I had waited somewhat more then a week since I had writ my other Letter without receiving any answer The shooting of a second Arrow after the first might possibly procure a return to both and so it proved in the event But take my second Letter first and then we may expect his answer unto both together Now the second Letter was as followeth Dr. Heylyn's second Letter to Mr. Hickman SIR 7. SInce the writing of my former Letter the last Edition of your Book hath been brought unto me In which I find p. 23. that you ground your self upon the Testimony of some who are still alive for Laud's being disgracefully turned out of the Dinity Schools by Dr. Holland I find also p. 38. that Dr. Burlow did upon his death-bed with grief complain of the wrong he had done to Dr. Reynolds and those who joyned with him in mis-reporting some of their Answers and certain passages therein contained And of the truth of this you say that you are able to give a satisfactory account to any person of ingenuity who shall desire it Sir I am not ashamed of having so much of a Suffenus as to entitle my self to some ingenuity and therefore think it not amiss to claim your promise and to desire a more satisfactory account in that particular then your bare affirmation This with your nomination of the parties who are still alive and able to testifie to the truth of the other I desire you would please to let me have with the first conveniency If no speedy opportunity doth present it self you may send to me by the Preacher who comes hither on Sunday I expected that my former Letter would have been gratified with an answer but if you send me none to this I shaâ—l think you cannot And so commending you and your Studies so far forth as they shall co-operate to the peace of the Church to God's heavenly Blessing I subscribe my self Your very affectionate Friend to serve you Peter
what Grounds I had had to affirm that Dr. Burlow did declare his trouble for some wrong done to Dr. Reynolds c. in relating the Hampton-Court Controversie Sir I will not censure you to have no Ingenuity but yet you must pardon me if I refuse to give you any further account of the matter till I understand first whether you will deal as plainly with me about some things contained in your own Examen Historicum Will you send me word what the names of those men are who said two of your Sermons about the Tares had done more mischief to the Papists then all the Sermons that ever Dr. Prideaux preached against them and what the name of that man is who did by Bishop Williams his appointment give a pension out of his place for the maintenance of a Scholar 2. I would gladly know whether you intend what I write onely for your own private satisfaction and not for publick view 3. I would willingly be informed what you would take for satisfaction whether it will suffice if I prove the business from the mouth of one who was a lover of the English Prelacy Liturgy and Ceremony When you have satisfied me you may suddenly expect an answer from him who again subscribes himself Your humble Servant Henry Hickman Magd. Coll. Ap. 1. 1659. 11. These Answers leaving me as unsatisfied as before I was I found that I had lost both my hopes and labour for the declining of a business which I was not willing to appear in if any satisfaction had been given me otherwise And therefore since he was not pleased to declare himselfe so freely to me in a private way as to beget between us such a right understanding as might prevent all further trouble which his first Letter seemed to wish I see not how I can avoid the making of a more publick business of it then I first intended unless I should betray my self unto scorn and censure My Letters being in his hands cannot be recalled and if I should not now proceed to give the world that satisfaction which I lookt for from him in the retracting of his Calumnies and salfe Reports he and his friends might think I could not In the pursuit whereof I purposed to have gone no further then the vindicating of my self and those whose names are dear unto me from the obstinacy of his Reproaches But he hath hinted me I thank him to another Argument relating to the Historicall part of his discourse of which perhaps I may render you an account also before we part Beginning at the lowest step I shall ascend at last by leisure to the top of the Stairs that having answered for my self I may be credited the more when I speak for others The Answer of P. Heylyn D. D. to Mr. Hickman's Letters of April 1. Relating to some Passages in a Book called The Justification of the Fathers c. 11. IT was good Councel which Demaratus of Corinth gave to Philip of Macedon when he advised him to settle all things well at home before he intermedled in the differences amongst the Grecians In correspondence whereunto I shall first do my best Endeavour to acquit my self from those Reproaches which the Justificator with a Prodigal hand hath bestowed upon me and thereby fit my self the better for advocating in behalf of those eminent persons of whose Renown I am more solicitous then my one Concernments Beginning therefore with my self in the first place I must take notice of his practise to make me clash with the Lord Primate whose Rest I desire not to disturbe upon any occasion He should have first reconciled those two passages which I proposed to D. Barnard p. 103. 104. of Respondit Petrus before he had made it such a wonder that a Doctor of Divinity should so unworthily handle a Reverend person and fasten upon him a dissent from the Church of England in a mater wherein he doth so perfectly agree with her If so if he agree so perfectly with the Church of England how comes he to differ from himselfe and speak such contradictions as D. Barnard nor no other of his great Admirers can find a way to reconcile to the sence of the Church Or if they can or that they think those contradictions not considerable for making his Agreement the lesse perfect with the Church of England you have gained the point which you contended for in your dispute which M. Buâ—le and D. Barnard laboured to deprive you of in his Book of the Lord Primates Judgment intended against none by name but your selfe and me though others be as much concerned in the General Interess 12. Much good may the Concession do you What comes after next the burning of the Book by the common Hangman I thought that Ignis fatuus had had been quencht sufficiently by the assurance which I gave him to the contrary in my Letter of the 19th of March But his desire to have it so is so prevalent with him that he neither doth deny the words nor can find any Reason to be ashamed of them be they never so false And what Ground can we find for so great a confidence 1. He appeals unto an Ordinance made in the year 1646. Which Ordinance he pretends to be still in force but whether it be so or not is a harder Question then a greater Lawyer can determine That Ordinance making â—o Report he flyes next to a common noise which Rings still in his Ears and must gain credit either as a noise or common or as both together though for the most part the louder the noise is and the more common it grows the less credit to be given unto it You know well what the two great Poets say of Fame Fama malum velox quae veris addere falsa Gaudet Eminimo sua per mendacia crescit But yet not seeming to lay much strength upon common Fame though it be one of his best Authors in some other cases he pretends unto a special Revelation from the Privy Council and grows so confident upon the strength of the intelligence that he holds at White-Hall which all great States-men must pretend to that he is sure the Book de Facto had been so disgraced though whether disgraced by being so burnt is another question if the sickness and death of the late Protector had not put the Privy Council upon minding maters of higher concernment The contrary whereof my Postscript unto M. Baxter hath most clearly Evidenced 13. The second charge wherein I stand single by my self is onely toucht at in the Letter where I am said to have bestowed some ugly words upon a Colledge not to be mentioned without honour insisted on more largely in the fag end of the Book without the least coherence or relation to it And there this man of brass makes me worse then a Tinker a rude Expression which declares him to be better studied in his Metaphisicks then his Moral Philosophy in committing more and fouler
remedies That which concerns me in relation to Bishop Burlow is my acquitting him from shewing any partiality in summing up the conference at Hampton Court a matter never charged upon him by the Puritan faction more then twenty years after his death and more then thirty years after the publishing of that Book which as the Church Historian saith to have been complained of so doth he only say not prove it and affirmations or complaints are no legal evidences where there are any reasons of strength to evince the contrary but what he wants shall be supplied by the Antagonist who fearing to be prevented in it puts the best legg forwards crying out with more hast then good speed That he will Answer the Doctor Admit him to his Answer and he will tell us That the times were evil that the prudent did think themselves obliged to be silent and that God did so order the matter that they lost no credit by a quiet committing their cause to him How so Because saith he D. Burlow lying on his death bed did with grief complain of the wrong which he had done to D. Reynolds and others that joyned with him in that conference If this be prooved we will admit of all the rest but if this be not proved all the rest is nothing And for the proof of this he is able as he saith to give a satisfactory account to any person of ingenuity who desires it of him I would have took him at his word desiring earnestly to be satisfied in the truth thereof presuming that I might lay claim to so much ingenuity as would entitle me to a capacity of obtaining that favour 20. But in this point I reckoned without my host for though I pressed my desire so far as to conclude that if he did not gratifie me with an Answer I should think he could not yet I am stil as far from satisfaction as at first I was I must first gratifie him in answering such demands as he puts unto me impertinent to the cause in hand and such as the nature of the point in issue cannot bind me too by any Rule of Disputation in the Schools of Logick or else the evidence desired must not be produced I gave some reason why I was not willing to name the parties who received or paid the pension given by Bishop Williams towards the maintenance of a Scholer two of the parties to my knowledg and the third for any thing I know to the contrary being still alive otherwise I could not only name the men but produce the acquittance And for the words relating to Bishop Prideaux they were spoke at a great Table in the Court in the hearing of many and being spoken in the Court must refer only to such Sermons as were preached at the Court and not to all which had been preached elswhete by that learned Bishop The Sermons will be shortly published if not done already and will be able to speak as much for themselves as can be desiâ—ed of me to do The witness in the cause touching Bishop Burlow may appear securely without drawing danger to himself and will be heard no Question both with love and freedom For if he be a lover of the English Prelacy Liturgie and Ceremonies who is to attest unto this truth I know of none who can refuse to give credit to it but if he take up the report at the second hand from one who told him that he took it from the Doctors mouth and not from the man himself that spake it his witness may be lyable to just exception and then we are but as we were without proof at all He vaunts it somewhere in his Book That he is furnished with a cloud of Witnesses to justifie his cause against you but in this point and the next that follows his Witnesses are all in a cloud shadowed as Aeneas and his followers were from the sight of Dido so that no mortal eye can see them Et idem est non esse et non apparere was the Rule of old 21. Upon no better grounds then this he lays a fouler reproach on the late most Reverend and still Arch-Bishop of Canterbury as being turned out of the Divinity Schools with disgrace by D. Holland in publicis commitiis for but endaevouring to maintain That Bishops differed in order and not in degree only from inferiour Presbiters I reproved him for this in my first Letter and told him how much he would be troubled to produce his Author he shifted it off by saying that he means no otherwise by being turned out of the Schooles with disgrace then that he was publiquely checkt by the said D. Holland for maintaining the said opinion and having M. Prinnes Breviate for the truth of this he thinks it a sufficient proof also to confirm the other but is it possible that any man who pretends but to a grain of ingenuity or learning should dare to lay so base a calumnie on so great a person and hope to salve the matter by such a ridiculous explication as may justly render him contemptible to the silliest School-boy Assuredly if he received a publique check be that same with being disgracefully turned out of the Schools there must be more turned out of the Schools with as much disgrace because as much reprehended and checkt as he of whom the foulest mouth could never raise so leud a slander The Doctor of the Chair in the Divinity Schools at Oxon would be more absolute in his decisions and determinations were this once allowed of then all the Popes that ever sate in Peter's Chair since they first laid claim to it 22. But he goes on and adds that this disgrace was put upon him for maintaining such a novel Popish Position as that before Not Novel I am sure for the ancient Writers call the solemn form of consecrating a Bishop by no other name then that of Ordinatio Episcopi and if the Bishop at his Consecration doth receive no Order his consecration ought not to be styled an Ordination And if it be not Novel then it is not Popish for id verum quod primum as they Father it unlesse he will be pleased to make Popery Primitive and intitle it to the Eldest times of Christianity But Popish if it needs must be then must the Form of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops c. be accounted Popish for which it stands acquitted by the Book of Articles and the two Parliaments of K. Edw. 6. Queen Eliz. must be Popish also by which that Form of Consecration was confirmed and Ratified Twice in the Preface to the Book we find mention of three Orders of Ministers in the Church of Christ Bishops Priests and Deacons and this distinction made as antient as the very times of the Apostles And in the Book it selfe besides the three distinct forms of Ordination the one for Bishops the other for Priests and the third for Deacons in one of the Prayers used at the Consecrating of a
published by John Poynet Bishop of Winton which he sets forth with many circumstances to indear it to us as namely that it was publick in the next year after the passing of the Book of Articles in the Reign of K. Edw. 2dly That being by that King committed to the perusal of certain Bishops it was by those Bishops certified to be agreeable to the Scriptures and Statutes of the Realm and 3dly That upon this Certificate the King prefixt his Royal Epistle before it charging their moral Schoolmasters within his dominions that diligently and carefully they should teach the same Thus have we seen the Mountain now comes out the Mouse for having thus swelled our expectation we had reason to look for some great matter but finde none at all Instead of laying down some clear passages out of Poynets Catechism which might evince the point he aims at he asks the Question answer him any man that dares How do the Master and the Scholar plainly declare themselves to be no friends to any of the Tenents M. P contends for A Question which a very well studied man may not easily answer that Catechism being so hard to come by that scarce one Scholar in 500. hath ever heard of it and hardly one of a thousand hath ever seen it But your Antagonist hath good reason for what he doth there being somewhat in that Catechism which more confirms the points M. Pierce contends for then he is willing to make known witness this Passage of the Catechism in the Anti-Arminianism from which your Adversary makes the greatst parts of his proofs evidence p. 44. After the Lord God faith the Catechism had made the Heaven Earth he determined to have for himself a most beautiful Kingdom and holy commonwealth The Apostles and ancient Fathers that wrote in Greek called it Ecclesiâ— in English a Congregation or Assembly into the which he hath admitted an infinite number of men that should be subject to one King as their soveraign and onely head him we call Christ which is as much as to say anointed c. to the finishing of this Common-wealth belong all they as do truly fear honour and call upon God duly applying their minds to holy and Godly living and all those that putting all their hope and trust in him do assuredly look for bliss of everlasting life But as many as are in this faith stedfast were fore-chosen predestinate and appointed to everlasting life before the world was made For though he seems to make such onely to be the members of the Church as were predestinated unto life from all Eternity yet we must understand it of them chiefly as being the most Excellent Members of it not of them alone For afterwards he enlargeth the acception of the word Ecclesia according to the natural and proper construction of it telling us that the Church is the company of those who are called to eternal life by the Holy Ghost The company of all those which are called to Eternal life and therefore not of those onely which are chosen or elected out of the number For many are called but few are chosen saith our Lord and Saviour Secondly it is not said that such as are Members of this Church were chosen to this end and purpose that they might be stedfast in the Faith and being stedfast in the faith might in the end obtain everlasting life but that being stedfast in the faith that is to say considered and beheld as such in the eternal Prescience or fore-knowledge of Almighty God they were predestinate and appointed to eternal life before the beginning of the world And Thirdly if these words or any other which he finds in Poynet may be drawn to any other construction which may serve his turn he must be made to speak contrary to the three Godly Bishops and Martyrs before remembred who being men of greater age and more experience in the affairs of the Church the chief Architects in the Great work of Reformation withal being three for one are more to be relyed on for delivering the true sence of the Church then any one single witness who speaks otherwise of it 31. For whom speaks Poynet in this place for M. Peirce or Mr. Hickman If he had spoke for M. Hickman we shovld have heard of it more at large as in that which followeth out of Nowel and if he do not speak for him it must speak for you more plainly speak the Answers unto certain Questions to which M. Prinne directs him in the end of the Bible Printed by Robert Barker Anno 1607. But the worst is they signifie nothing to the purpose which they were produced for For I would fain know by what Authority those Questions and Answers were added to the end of that Bible If by Authority and that such Authority can be proved the Argument will be of force which is taken from them and then no question but the same Authority by which they were placed there at the first would have preserved them in that place for a longer time then during the sale of that Edition The not retaining them in such Editions as have followed since show plainly that they were of no authority in themselves nor intended by the Church as a Rule to others and being of no older standding then the year 1608. they must needs seem as destitute of Antiquity as they are of Authority So that upon the whole matter your Adversary hath limited me with a very strong argument that they were foysted in by the fraud and practise of some Emissaries of the Puritan Faction who hoped to have them pass in time for Canonical Scripture such piae Fraudes as these are we have too many were those once allowed of some prayers were also added at the end of the Bible in some Editions and others at the End of the publick Liturgie which being neglected at the first and afterwards beheld as the authorized prayer of the Church were by command left out of those Books and Bibles as being the Compositions of private men not the Acts of the Church and never since added as before 32. In the next place it is said That the Composers of the 39. Articles were the Disciples and Auditors of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr or at least such as held consent with them in Doctrine none of them their Disciples and but few of them their Auditors I am sure of that Our first Reformers were too old Bishops and Deans most of them to be put to School again unto either of them And as for their consent in points of Doctrine it must be granted in such things and in such things onely in which they joyned together against the Papists not in such points wheâ—â—in those learned men agreed not between themselvâ—â— Bucer being more enclined to the Lutheran Doctrines and Martyr as it afterwards appeared unto those of Calvin Besides it is to be observed that the first Liturgy of K. Edw. 6. which was the Key to
your Adversary calls Arminians who constantly adhered to the determinations of the Church of England according to the Literal and Grammatical sense and the concurrent Expositions of the first Reformers I grant indeed that the Book being afterwards re-printed was dedicated with a long Epistle to Arch-Bishop Bancroft But that intituleth him no more to any of the propositions or opinions which are there maintained then the like Dedication of a Book to an Eminent Prelate of our Nation in denyal of Original Sin intituled him to the maintenance of the same opinion which he as little could digest they are your Adversaries own words in the Epistle to the Lecturers of Brackley as the most rigidly Scotized Presbyterian Nor stays he here for rather then lose so great a Patron he will anticipate the time and make Dr. Bancroft Bishop of London almost 18 moneths before he was and in that Capacity agreeing to the Lambeth Articles An errour which he borrowed from the Church Historian who finding that Richard Lord Elect of London contributed his Assent unto them puts him down positively for Dr. Richard Bancroft without further search whereas he might have found upon further search that the meeting at Lambeth had been held on the 26th of November 1595. that D. Richard Flesher Bishop of Worcester was then the Lord Elect of London and that D. Bancroft was not made Bishop of that See till the 8th of May Anno 1697. 38. The next Considerable preferments for learning the Clergy he makes to be the two Chairs in the Universities both to be occupied by those who were profest Enemies to such Doctrines as he calls Arminianism Which if it were granted for a truth is rather to be looked on as an infelicity which befell the Church in the first choice of those Professors then to be used as an argument that she concurred with them in all points of Judgement That which was most aimed at in those times in the preferring men to the highest dignities of the Church and the chief places in the Vniversities was their zeal against Popery and such a sufficiency of learning as might enable them to defend those points on which our separation from Rome was to be maintained and the Queens interess most preserved The Popes supremacy the Mass with all the points and niceties which depended on it justification by faith the marriage of Priests Purgatory and the power of the civil Magistrate were the points most agitated And whosoever appeared right in those and did withal declare himself against the corruptions of that Church in point of manners was seldome or never looke into for his other opinions until the Church began to find the sad consequents of it in such a general tendency to innovation both in doctrine and discipline as could not easily be redressed From hence it was that we find a non-conformist though â— moderate one in the chaire at Oxon a Mother but a violent Patron of in-conformity in a Professorship in Cambridge so many hankering after Calvin in almost all the Headships of both Vniversities And it was hardly possible that it should be otherwise Such of the learned Protestants as had been trained up under the Reformation made by King Edw. 6. and had the confidence and courage to stand out to the last in the Reign of Queen Mary were either martyred in the flames or consumed in prisons or worn out with extremity of Grief and disconsolation And most of those which had retired themselves beyond the Seas returned with such a mixture of outlandish Doctrines that it was hard to find amongst them a sufficient number of men so qualified as to fill up the number of Bishops and to be dignified with the Deanrys of Cathedral Churches By means whereof there followed such an universal spreading of Calvinism over all parts of the Church that it can be no matter of wonder if the Professors of the Vniversity should be that way byassed And yet as much as the times were inclined that way I believe it will be hard if not impossible for your Antagonist to prove that those Professors did agree upon such a platform of Gods decrees as he and others of the same perswasions would fain obtrude upon us now In Cambridge D. Whitaker maintained the supra-Lapsarian way of Predestination which D. Robert Abbot of Oxon condemned in the person of Perkins And I have heard from persons of very good Esteem that Dr. Abbot himself was as much condemned at his first coming to the Chair for deviating from the moderation of his Predecessor D. Holland who seldome touched upon those points when he might avoid them For proof whereof it may be noted that five onely are remembred by Mr. Prynne in his Anti Arminianism to have maintained the Calvinian tenents in all the time of that Professor from the year 1596. to the year 1610. whereas there were no fewer then 20. who maintained them publickly in the Act as the others did in the first six years of D. Prideaux And as for D. Overal one D. Overal as your Adversary calls him in contempt afterwards Dean of S. Pauls Bishop of Lichfield and at last of Norwich that his opinion were not that for which you are said to stickle I am sure it was not that for which he contends that he did not Armintanize in all things I am sure he Calvinized in none 39. Proceed we next to the Consideration of that Argument which is derived from the censures inflicted in either Vniversity upon such as trod the Arminian path so soon as they began to discover themselves Exemplified in Cambridge by the proceedings there against Barret Barrow and Simpson in Oxon by the like against Laud Houson and Bridges Of Barret Simpson and Bridges I shall now say nothing referring you to the 23. Section of this discourse where you will find a general answer to all these particulars In the case of Dr. Laud and Dr. Houson there was somewhat else then that which was objected against the other Your Adversary tells us of D. Housons Suspention for â—â—urting onely against Calvin If so the greater the injustice and the more unjustifiable the suspension for what was Calvin unto us but that he might be flurtad at as well as another when he came cross unto the discipline or Doctrine of the Church of England But Mr. Fuller tells you more particularly that at a Sermon preached in St. Maries in Oxon he accused the Geneva Notes as guilty of mis-interpretation touching the divinity of Christ and his Mesiah-ship as if symbolizing with Arrians and Jewes against them both and that for this he was suspended by D. Robert Abbot propter Conciones publicas minus Orthodoxas offensione plenas Which though it proves this Reverend person to be rufly handled yet it makes nothing to the purpose of your mighty Adversary which was to show that some such Censures of Arminianism might be found in Oxon as had been met withal in Cambridge nor doth he speed
there must be some guilt some doubt at least that all is not well as it should have been The Animadvertor was not of such eager spirit as to let fly at every one which came in his way and possibly might never have heard of this Church History living far of and no such trading in the Books of the time if the frequent clamours of the wrongs done to the Church and Clergy had not come to his ears before the Book it selfe had been brought to his hands And when it was brought into my hands it found me so far unresolved to do any thing in it that nothing but invincible importunity could have drawn me to the undertaking The Appealant therefore may be sure that I never sent him any such message as that if I had not been visited with blâ—ndness I would have been upon his bones before that time of which whosoever did it from him he knew as little of my corporal blindness which I thank God is not yet fallen on me as he did of my secret intentions as to that particular so far as I was from sending anysuchmessage to him that I resolved not to be known for the Author of those Animadversions whensoever they should come abroad and to disguise my self the better related in the Margin to a passage in my own Cosmogrophy fol. 19 which now the Appealant chargeth on me as a solecism in point of Heraldy in laying mettal upon mettal p. 2. fol. 12. 18. My Authors first fears being fallen upon him he finds himself brought under a new debate whether he should return an Answer to the Animadversions or sit down in silence The cause being pleaded on both sides he resolves at last to return a plain full and speedy Answer fol. 3. Full enough I confess of needless questïons and disputes which rather showed a Resolution not to bear the Quarrel then an ability to maintain it I remember I have somewhere read of a famous Wrastler who being many times overthrown who did suddenly start up and by an Eloquent Oration perswaded the people that he rather fell by the slip of his own foot then by the strength of his Adversary Such a wrastler I have met with in the present Appealant who imputes all his faults to slips slips of the Pen slips Pretal as he words it and slips of memory To which three heads the Greatest Errors and mistakes which occurs in the faltiest and falsest writing may notunfitly be reduced so much the fuller in regard he hath incorporated the greatest part of the Animadversions into the body of his Book which if abstracted from the rest of the Authors one would make the Greater Book of the Law upon a just a perfect Calculation of the line and folio's by one part in five Fuller then otherwise it needed or could have been by making use of such of the additionall Notes intended more for supplement and illustration then the disparagement of the Author or disgrace of the work But my Adversary thinks his work so perfect as to stand no more in need of Illustration then it doth of Correction supplements supposing some defects as Corrections presuppose some Errors Onely I hope the Animadversions will be well paid for before all is done the Authors being so well paid for the first Original as is said before and the Appealant better paid by the Book-sellers and his many Patrons to whom they are presented like the prayers of some old Mendicants at the doors of their good Masters and Dames for the transcript of them 19. But whether it be full or not I am sure it is more full then speedy For though the Appealant would be thought to be furnished with the Pen of a ready Writer yet had he time and leisure more then enough for a greater Work considering what helps he had to set it forward and therefore I may say in the words of Sampson that if he had not ploughed with my heifer he must have askt more time though otherwise he had time enough to have read my Riddle If Mason one of the Correctors to some Presses in London had not falsely and unworthily communicated the sheets to him as they came from the Press we might have heard of this Appeal about Michaelmas next in case it had not cooled in the heats of Summer and been retarded by the leisure of a long vacation But making use of this Advantage and having all such other helps as the Libraries and shops in London the use of his own hands and eyes the contribution of his friends and an excellent memory to boot could supply him with it could not come abroad against Easter term without the Midwifery of three Presses to assist at the Labour The making of a full and speedy Answer for it must be both could not else have agreed with that want of leisure his many various imployments and coming twice a Lords day to the Pulpit which without oftentation he pretends to in that very Chapter But some like Aesops fellow servants whom he tells me of presumes so much upon themselves as to promise that they can do all things and that whatever thing they do shall be full and speedy though there be little speed and less fulness in them 20. So much being said of the Appealant in reference to his engaging and dispatch let us behold him next in his qualifications One of the fellow servants of the Animadvertor a fellow sufferer with him in the cause of the King and one of the same party in the Church All this I am very glad to hear of and am sorry I did not hear it sooner especially if there be any truth as I hope there is in the insinuation My fellow servant if he were it must not be in the capacity of a Chaplain in Ordinary for I never saw his name in the list of the forty eight accompanied with his fixt times of Attendants as the others were but supernumerary and at large of whom there is no notice taken in the Court though they may make som noise in the Country And a sufferer he could not be because he willingly relinquisheth both his cure and prebend which he advanceth by the name of none of the worse Benefices and one of the best Prebends in England not holding both or either of them till they were forcibly taken from him as well as from the rest of his brethren fol. 2. no suffering where no injury or wrong is offered and there can be no injury done in disposing that which he so willingly abandoned as he saith himself for volenti non fit injuria as the saying is never applyed more aptly then on such emergencies And if he were of the same Party in the Church as he saith he was he would have show'd some greater zeal in maintenance of the intress and concerments of it some greater measure of compassion towards those poore men who being spoiled of their Goods and Livings by the infelicity of the times must afterwards be
whensoever any equal judicious Auditor shall trouble himself in casting up the Reckonings which are between us And in this hope I shall apply my self to Answer Mr. Fullers Letter whom I thus salute To my Loving Friend Mr. THOMAS FULLER SIR AT the End of your Appeal which came not to my hand till Friday the sixt of this moneth I find a very civil Letter directed to me in which you propose a breathing time after some wearinesse in the encounters which have past between us and the suspending of such Animosities as we may be supposed to harbour against one another But for my part as I have had no such long breathing time since those Papers which relate to you first past my hands as might make me the more ready for this second onset so you may take as long or little time as you please to consider of it before you return to the encounter Animosities I have none against you and therefore none to be suspended in this Inter-Parleance My affections being fair to your person though not to the cause for which you seem most to have appeared in the whole course of your History And if you had appeared so onely to my apprehension I had been the more inexcusable both to God and Man and the more accomptable to you for conceiving otherwise of you then you had deserved But I am confident there are very few true Sonnes of the Church of England who could make any other judgement of you out of your History then was made by me and therefore you must thank your selfe if any greater noise hath been made about it then you could willingly have heard You know what Caesars Resolution was about his wife for having her as free from the suspition as the crime of Incontinency and therefore if your Conscience do acquit you from the crim it self in Acting any thing against the Interest of the Church your Mother you had done very well and wisely had you kept your selfe free from the suspition also of such disaffections You tell me that you are cordiall to the Cause of the English Church and that your hoary hairs will go down into the Grave in sorrow for her sufferings But then as Samuel said to Saul What meaneth this bleating of the sheepe â—in my Ears and the lowing of Oxen which I heare What mean those dangerous Positions and those many inconvenient expressions that I may give them no worse name which occur so frequently in your Book and which no man who is cordial to the Cause of the English Church can either read with patience or pass over with pardon If you would be believed in this you must not speak the same Language in your second Edition as you have done in the first or leave so much in it of the former Leven as may soure the whole lumpe of your performance Nor would I have you think it to be any dishonour to cast aside those soure Grapes whensoever they shall come to a second gathering at which so many of the teeth of your Mothers Children have been set on edge there being no greater Victory to be gained in the World then what a Man gets upon himself You have said as much as could be in your own defence and therefore may come off with satisfaction to your self and others In altering all or any of those passages which have given occasion of offence to the most of your brethren And you may take this occasion for it not as necessitated thereunto by the force of Argument but as Sylla resigned his Dictator-ship rather out of his good affections to the peace and happiness of the Common-wealth then compelled by Arms. You are pleased to take notice of some Parts that God hath given us thinking we might have used them better then in these Pen Combates and that the differences betwixt us will occasion such Rejoycings in the common Enemy as was amongst the Trojans on the fallings out of Agamemnon and Achilles But I hope you doe not think in earnest that either of us are so considerable in the sight of our Enemies as those Great Commanders were in theirs or that any great matter of Rejoycings can be given them by our weak contentions In which what satisfaction you are able to give your selfe for spending so much of your Parts Pains and Time in the drawing up of your Appeal is known onely to God and your own Conscience But for my part I am not conscious to my selfe of any mispendings in that kind in reference to the writing of my Animâ—dversions in which as I had no other end then the vindicating the truth the Church and the injured Clergy so I can confidently say that I have writtten nothing in the whole course of that Book to the best of my knowledge which was not able to abide the touchstone of truth whensoever it was brought unto it The smallest truth is worth the seeking and many truths are worth the finding No loss of time or mis-imployment of our parts or pains to be complained of in that pursuit And therefore I shall say in the Words of Judicious Doctor Hackwell That such is the admirable Beauty and Soveraignty of truth in it self and such infinite content doth it yeild the soul being found and embraced that had I proposed no other end to my self in this present Treatise then the discovery and unfolding thereof I should hold it alone a very ample recompense and sufficient reward of my labour Fracta vel leviter imminuta Auctoritate veritatis omnia dubia remanebant as S. Augustine hath it You tell me also that as you know I will not allow you to be my equal so you will not acknowledg me to be your superiour whereby you tacitly conclude your self for the better man as much above me in the fortune and success of the present Duel as Cesar was above Pompey in the War between them In which though I may suffer you to enjoy the jollity of your own opinion yet it is more then probable that such as have observed the conduct of the action on either side may think otherwise of it Which being referred to the finall sentence of those only who are made Judges of the field I shall not be unwilling to shut up the Quarrel upon such conditions as are propounded in your Letter one only of my own being added to them I conceive that having offered these short notes to the publick view I might do it without any disadvantage of reputation By some passages in your Book and Letter I find that you take notice of a remediless infirmity and decay of sight which is fallen upon me rendring me almost wholly unfit for further engagements of this nature and I finde also on the other side that you have many advantages above me both in friends and Books of both which by the plundering of my Library and the nature of a Country life I am almost totally unfurnished Which though it may give you many
fair and flattering hopes of an easie victory whensoever you shall enter the Lists again yet as unfurnished as I am of all humane helps but such as I have within my self I little doubt of making good the cause against you if every point thereof should stand in need of re-examining as I think none doth However I have learned of Christ our common Master to agree with mine Adversary while I am in the way with him especially where it may be done not only salva Charitate but salva Veritate also where the agreement may be made as well without any loss to truth as improvement to charity I must needs say you have offered me very fair conditions whereby I am put into the way toward this agreement which I shall follow with the greater chearfulness you may call it passion if you please when I shall see some good effects of your Protestations such reparation made to INJVRED INNOCENCE as is professed in your Appeal Which happy hour whensoever it comes I shall not only give you the right hand of Fellowship as the Apostles did to Paul when from a Persecutor of the Church he became one of the chief Pillars in it but the right hand of precedency also which the old and dim-sighted Patriarch gave to Ephraim though the younger Brother We shall not then enter into the Dispute which of us goes first out of the field or turn our backs toward one another according to your Emblem of the two Lions endorsed which you have very well noted out of Gerrard Leigh for avoiding contentions in the way but hand in hand together as becometh Brethren the Sons not only of the same Father but of the same Mother too Nor shall we then enter into a Dispute which of the two shall be reputed for the good Philemon or which the Fugitive Onesimus there being as great a readiness in me to submit unto you in all points of civility as there can be aversness in you to acknowledg me for your Superiour by way of Argument So doing we shall both be Victors though neither can be said to be vanquished and shall consolidate a friendship without the intervening of a reconcilement And on these tearms none shall be readier to preserve either a valuable esteem whilst we live together or a fair memory of you if you go before me then SIR The most unworthy of your Brethren amongst the true Sons of the Church of England Pet. Heylyn Lacies Court in Abingdon May 16. 1659. The Contents of this Book 1. AN Exchange of Letters with Mr. Baxter occasioned by a passage in the preface to his Grotian Religion page 1. 2. An Exchauge of Letters with Dr. Barnard relating to the Book called Respondit Petrus and the supposed burning of it p. 97. 3. The Intercourse with Mr. Hickman in answer to some passages in his Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen c. p. 113. 4. A Declaration about Forms of Government the power of the Spartan Ephori and the Jewish Sanhedrim managed Letter-wise with J. H. Esq p. 205. 5. An Appendix to the former Papers in Answer to some passages in M. Fullers late Appeal for Injured Innocence p. 311. An Advertisement touching the Errata THe Reader is to be Advertised touching some mistakes which have occurred at the Press and are desired to be corrected with his Pen before he set himself to peruse these Papers As first p. 159. for these words viz. Should command the Paraphrases of Erasmus to be translated into English studied by Priests c. read thus viz. Should commend the Paraphrases of Erasmus translated into English to be studied by Priests c. And p. 183. for which but only determined not having commanded silence in those points read thus which determined nothing but onely commanded silence c. p. 108. dele these words that information had been made as to the burning of the Book The rest of Erratas being onely literal may be mended thus Page 2. l. 10. for described r. ascribed p. 10 l. 1. for difference r. distance p. 23. l. 8. for instancing r. in standing p. 27. l. 4. for our r. of our p. 29. l. 30. f. lay r. lay not p. 40. l. 5. f. any r. to p. 50. l. 3. f. Spirator r. Spirans p. 53. l. 8. f. no r. any p. 54. l. 19. f. baser r. border p. 68. l. 18. f insue r. be true p. 86. l. 15. d. owning p. 87. l. 1. f. 29. r. 25. p. 95. l. 26. f. Fame r. Tame p. 96. l. ult f. laesives r. Laeseris ibid l. 9. f. Consul r. Councel 105. l. 16. f. way r. worse p. 109. l. 2. 3. f. lata r. tota In the Second Part f. Burlow r. Barlow ubique p. 126. l. 34. f. whos 's r. but he whose p. 130. l. 13. f. Burle r. Barlee p. 135. l. 21. f. Burechus r. Purchas p 145. l. 4. f. 24. r. 246. p. 147. l. 10. f. manner r. all manner ibid l. 19. f. supra r. Sublapsarians p. 148. l. 19. f. Barrow r. Baroe p. 167. l. 13. f. nine ten r. ninteen twenty p. 174. l. 3. for a Mother r. another p. 238. f. Tachee r. Rochel p. 243. l. 5. f. sinking r. six Kings p. 244. l. 17. r. Abeyance p. 251 l. 8. f. Kings r. Consuls p. 253. l. 14. d. it was no. p. 258. l. 30. f. right r. know p. 292. l. 3. Agraramine p. 297. f. Rubbige r. Rabine p. 310. l. 1. to new disputes ad you have had my Answer p. 316. for Bullick r. Ballick p. 317. l. 16. d. Thesulri FINIS * Isa 42. 3. in Mat. 12. c. * Hist of K. Charles fol. 144. * Ch. Hist lib. 11. 207 Preface to the Grotian Religion Ser. 23. Hickmans defence of the Fathers c. * Act. Apost 14. 5. M. Fuller's Appeal was sent unto the Author about four days after the date of this Preface Aesopi Fabuloe * Tac. An. lib. 13. * Mat. 5. v. 11. 12. 1 Pet. c. 2. v. 12. 15. 1 Pet. 2. 23 a Snape to Field b Knewstub to Field c Blake to Field H. B. for Gek. p. 127. pag. 39 40 41. pag. 45. de lege 3. Pol. l. 2. de leg 31. Cal. Just l. c. 20. Sect. 31. Iudg. 20. p. 29. Num. 1. 46. Gro. ad Ex. 18. 21. Num. 21. Deut. 17. 8. Arist Pol. 3. c. 12. Hos 8. 4. Bâ— 5. c. 2 Judg. 1. 3. Pacuviâ—â— ap Livi. lib. 23. Dan. 1. 7. De jure Blac. p. lib. 1. ch 1. Jer. 38. 5. p. 289 * Iliad p. 254. * I am forced to omit the Greek verses because my Amanuensis is not Scholar enough to transcribe them distinctly for me Vell. Pater Hist 121. * Aliudque cupido mens aliud suadet video melioraproboque deteriora sâ—equor Ap. p. 23. Ap. p. 2. fol. 20. * Epist Ded. before the Sermons on the Tares Ob. Rese p. 8. p. 2 p. 52. p. 2. fol. 6. p. 1. p. 67. p. 2. fol. 14. p. 2. flâ— 15. p. 2. p. 24. Appeal p. 2. f. 56. â— 2. f. 59. p. 2. f. 70. p. 1. f. 47. Judgement of the L P. p. 112. p. 2. f. 43 I see a Lambe in his own can be a Lion in Gods and the Churches cause Ch. Hist l. 9. f. 130. p. f. 2. 19. p. 2 f. 101 p. 3. f. 5. p. 3. f. 4. p. 3. f. 7. C. Hist l. 11. p. 147 p. 3. f. 15. p 3. f. 20. p. 3. f. 54. * 1 Sam. 15. 14. Gâ— 48. 14
under any other that our first Ecclesiastical Authors tell us of that the Apostles not onely allowed but founded Bishops so that the Tradition for some Books of Scripture which we receive as Cunonical is both less ancient less General and less uncontradicted then that is We have lived long happily and Gloriously under this form of Government it hath very well agreed with the Constitutions of our Laws with the disposition of our people How any other will do I the less know because I know not of any other of which so much as any other Monarchy hath had eperience they all having as I conceive at least superintendents for life and the meere word Bishop I supposed is no mans aim to destroy nor no mans aim to defend c. so that if we should take away a Government which hath as much testimony of the first Antiquity to have been founded by the Apostles as can be brought for some parts of Scripture to have been written by them my fear is least this may avert some of our Church from us and rivit some of the Roman Church to her So he when he was come again to his former temper and not yet entred or initiated into Court Preferments 54. And thus at last I shall end my trouble and your own having performed as much as I proposed to my self in answer to the Historical part of your Antagonists discourse in which he laboureth to evince that the Calvinian Doctrines by you opposed are no other then the establisht Doctrines of the Church of England In the managing whereof I could wish he had carried himself with more Respect towards some great persons whom he ought not to have looked on but with eyes full of Duty and reverence and that he had not given me so just cause to think that by his speaking Evil of Dignities he may be also one of those who despise Dominion I could have wisht also that both M. Baxter and himself would have given me leave to have worn out the remainder of my days in peace and quiet without engaging me in any of those disputes by which they have given so much trouble to themselves and others For your part happy man be your doâ—e I see there is a way chalkt out for your Redintegration It is but going over to your Adversary in the point of Election and Gods invincible working on the hearts of his chosen ones then he doth asture you of a speedy agreement or at the least that you should easily bear with one another in the present Differences Can M. Pierce remain so obstinate as not to hearken to a Pacification on such easie terms as giving to his Adversary the right hand of fellowship captivating his own judgement to the sence of Calvin the great Dictator in the Churches of the Reformation to whom so many knees have bowed and much tribute of obedience hath been paid both with heart and hand Why do not you offer the same terms to so kind an adversary and tempt him to a Reconciliation on the like conditions which if he be not willing to accept when offered you may then keep your selfe at that honest distance which hitherto hath made you unaccessible to all approaches and kept you out of the reach of their shot whether bolts or shafts What fortune will befall my selfe upon this encounter I am not able to determine having done nothing to deserve the just displeasure and little hoping to obtain the favour of those men who shall think themselves concerned in it some men are so in love with their own opinions that they do not onely hate to be Reformed in the Psalmists Language but carry an evil eye towards those who have laboured in it looking upon them with as much disdain indignation as Hanun the King of Ammon did on Davids Messengers when he returned them to their Masters with their beards half shaven and their Garments cut off in disgrace to their very buttocks 2 Sam. 10. 4. But be my fortune what it will it will be a most infinite content unto me that by my weak endeavors I have contributed any thing to the Glory of God the vindication of the truth the edification of the Church and the satisfaction of those pious souls who heartily do pray for the peace of Jerusalem and most effectually endeavor to promote the Work Amongst which number there is none who can more possionately desire to be entertained then Your most affectionate friend and Brother in Christ Jesus Peter Heylyn Lacies Court in Abingdon April 15. 1659. A POST-SCRIPT To the former Papers SIR AFter I had dispatched the Papers foregoing to the Press I called to mind a passage in a Letter sent from Dr. Ridley then Bishop of London to Mr. Hooper Bishop of Glocester which you shall find amongst many others in the Acts and Monuments in which he signifieth unto him that though they had sometimes differed in matter of Ceremony yet there had been an uniform consent between them in matter of Doctrine So that unto the testimonies of Arch Bishop Cranmer Bishop Latimer and Bishop Hooper in maintenance of the cause which you contend for you may add also the concurrence of Bishop Ridley whose judgement in carrying on the Reformation was of such Authority that Canmer more relied on him then on any other I have been also further advertised of two Letters which are to be seen of M. Barrets own hand writing the one to D. Goad Master of Kings Colledg the other to Mr. Chatterton Master of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge in which he plainly lets them know That he would never yield to make that recantation to which for fear of losing his fellowship and being expelled the Vniversity endeavoured to draw him as also that D. Cosens and D. Martin making a diligent search into the Registers of the University could never find any such Recantation to have been made by the said Barret as is exemplified unto us in the Anti Arminianism from thence taken by M. Hickman though he do not so much as once acknowledg by whom he profiteth I am the more apt to believe that Barret never made the Recantation which is fathered on him because it appears clearly by the Acts themselves that though he did confess the Doctrines wherewith he was charged to have been positively and expresly delivered by him yet he averreth as expresly Quod contenta in iisdem Religione Ecclesiae Anglicanae omnino noti repugnant That they contained nothing contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England All that I find in the said Acts is the enjoyning of a Recantation the drawing of it into form and the delivering of it to Barret on the 5. of May by him to be published in S. Maries Church on the Saturday after and all this done when neither the Margaret Professor was of the same judgement with Barret nor the Vice-Chancellor himself whom it concerned as much as any were consulted in it But that Barret