further perswaded touching the unlawfulness of those things than themselves they refused that also Now I would fain know of this Epistler whether he do not think Doctor Reynolds was one of those Most and whether he do not see that such men as he were ashamed the King should know that any of the Nonconformists to whom they wisht well were so weak as to call the things in difference simply evil N.C. I think you had best dismiss this man What say you to the Arguments in the Book it self C. Where shall we find them There are strains of railing Rhetorick ill applied similitudes which are the common way of deceiving abused Scriptures loose inconsequent-reasonings in a word no arguments that do not prove a great deal too much N.C. Methinks there is something in that p. 4. That it is impossible for a man to keep up his heart so much as in a tollerable posture of Devotion reverence and attention to such Prayers as having been fram'd by men and those no more excellent than their neighbours are grown familiar to us and can be said by roat beforehand we having heard them a thousand times already C. Nothing at all For by whom are their Prayers framed Are they Angels or glorified Saints in the Church Triumphant that must not have the name of Men Or dare they say the Spirit frames them And do they not repeat for ever the same phrases only not put together always in the same Order How many thousand times have you heard them beg that they might prize Christ more and Ordinances more and Sabbaths more and a number of such like things as these And besides all this what say you to the Psalms of David Could no man anciently joyn devoutly in singing them because they were so often repeated and so well known that the Jews had them by heart N.C. I cannot tell But God himself he saith judges it necessary to consult his glory I mean a Religious awe reverence and esteem to his counsels and works from men by concealing the one and the other till the time of their bringing forth that so they may come fresh and new to them VVhat say you to that C. I say he doth not write sense for it is as if he had told us that God doth not reveal his Counsels till he reveal them N.C. But you may guess at his meaning that God keeps secret what he intends to do till he bring it to pass C. That 's false For he foretold many things by the Prophets But were it altogether true it 's nothing to the purpose For though he surprizes us sometimes with events we never thought of and could not foresee and will not always ways let us know what be intends to do yet he doth not judg it necessary to conceal his will concerning that which we are to do No quite contrary He judges it necessary to declare it and hath made no new Declaration since the Apostles times And yet we may have a Religious reverence sure to his Counsels revealed in his Word though they come not fresh and new to us If we cannot all that I have to say is that then the same Exception lyes against them which you bring against the Common-Prayer Nor are your own Prayers so fresh and new as he pretends but we know beforehand the most you have to say only you have some new invented Words and Phrases which sometimes give us just disgust N.C. Doth not our Saviour say Mat. 13.52 that every Scribe every Teacher instructed to the Kingdom of Heaven i.e. meetly qualified for the work of the Ministry of the Gospel is like to a man that brings forth out of his Treasures things new and old C. What of all that N.C. Doubtless our Saviour spoke it upon this Account as he tells you C. Doubtless he was full of fancy as well as the rest of his Brethren which laid hold of every thing without any reason if it would but make a shew and serve to countenance their wild opinions Else he would have easily seen that our Lord speaks of his Apostles and Evangelists who were furnish'd with abilities to propagate the Gospel both by their knowledg in the Old Revelations in the ancient Scriptures and in the new which he made unto them N. C. But the Liturgy smells rank of the Popish Mass-Book which alone is sufficient to make it the abhorring of their souls that understand any thing of the severity of the Divine jealousie c. pag. 5. C. The old N. C. were not affrighted with such terrible Nothings as these But told our English Donatists the Brownists who objected this That it was more proper to say the Mass-Book was added to our Common-Prayer than that our Common-Prayer was taken out of the Mass-Book For most things in our Common-Prayer were to be found in the Liturgies of the Church long before this mass-Mass-Book you talk of was heard of in the world The Mass was patched up by degrees and added to the Liturgies of the Church now one piece then another And if a true man may challenge his goods wheresoever he finds them which the thief hath drawn into his Den then the Church of God may lawfully lay claim to those holy things which the Church of Rome hath usurped and snatch them away from among the trash wherewith they are mingled A great deal more to the same purpose you may find in Mr. John Ball * Answer to two Treatises of Mr. John Can. 1642. part 2. pag. 9. which I cannot now stand to tell you The sum is this That Popery is a Scab or Leprosie that cleaves to the Church It mostly stands in erroneous faulty gross and abominable superstructures upon the true Foundation whereby they poyson or overthrow the foundation it self But take away the superstructures and the foundation remains Remove the Leprosie and the man is sound N. C. You talk of Liturgies in the ancient Church We read of none in the Apostles time C. True But as the same person ingenuously confesses ** Ib. part 2. p. 17. they might be though we read nothing of them For the Apostles have not set down a Catalogue of all and every particular Order that was in the Church However a set form of Prayer to be used in publick meetings is not unlawful because it is of the number of things which God hath not determined in his Word c. And as to call that Holy which God hath not commanded is Superstitious so it is erroneous to condemn that as unholy or prophane which God allows or is consonant to his Word though not precisely commanded N. C. It is a common opinion that the Liturgy is a novel Invention in the dayes of blindness and laziness in favour of Idle and debauched Priests C. You are all as learned as the Prefacer to your Book But you might be more truly learned if you would read the Author now mention'd who tells you that though it 's hard to
Of their Canting phrases as Generation-work witnessing time from pag. 81. to 91 Dr. Wilkinsons confidence noted pag. 85 86 How they have shifted and changed phrases to serve their turn Ib. Of the power of phrases to hinder men from observing how they have been cheated pag. 88 The power they fancy they have to destroy us pag. 90 Their opinion of their knowledge and worth pag. 93 c. Of their practice and skill in expounding works of providence pag. 94 c. Their people not more knowing than ours pag. 99 Many know not what that is which they cry out against pag. 101 Instances in Popery superstition Will-worship pag. 102 103 c. About forms of prayer pag. 106 Their forms of railing which they use even in prayer c. pag. 107 Their small skill save only in phrases pag. 110 As appears by their easie turning to the wildest Sects pag. 111 A famous instance of this in New England pag. 112 Mistakes about the Spirits teaching and inspirations c. pag. 113 This together with the obscurity of their Doctrine a great cause of peoples doubts and desertions pag. 114 An instance of the intricate way of Mr. Hooker to satisfie a doubting Christian pag. 115 And to bring it to the promise as he speaks pag. 116 Hence the New England whimseyes pag. 117 Mr. J. Durants way of comforting believers and opening Scriptures pag. 118 119 They are no better at resolving doubts about particular actions pag. 120 How Religion hath been spoiled of late and exposed to contempt pag. 123 Non-conformists great want of Modesty pag. 126 c. Concerning eminent men pag. 129 Of judging others in what things we may in what not pag. 130 Charity covers a Multitude but cannot or may not cover all sins pag. 131 By what means prophaness came to abound pag. 133 Publicans and Harlots or Scribes and Pharisees which the worse pag. 135 136 The danger of Schism and separated Congregations pag. 138 139 Mr. Bridge his vain conceit that we are angry because they withdraw from us and slight us pag. 140 c. How 2 Cor. 6.17 is abused by him to countenance the separation pag. 144 By which and such like the old Brownists and more ancient Donatists justified their Schism pag. 145 The wise and charitable courses to which St. Austin directs us when men are generally bad pag. 146 147 Mr. Calvins judgment of a true Church and separation from it pag. 149 And Presbyterian Ministers judgment pag. 151 Act. 19.9 doth not countenance the separation pag. 152 The impertinent allegation of that place Rev. 14.4 by Mr. Bridg pag. 153 How the people have been cheated with the noise of such words as Babylon c. pag. 154 And by other means pag. 155 156 c. Of Idol Ministers pag. 158 c. The folly of those who think our Ministers out of respect to themselves are troubled to see people go to meetings pag. 161 The true reason of their trouble and the great danger of separation pag. 162 Not only to those who are of it but to others pag. 163 The great extremities it hurries men into pag. 165 The Presbyterian excuse that they separate not from us as Antichristian considered pag. 166 c. It makes their cause the worse if it be true pag. 168 Which tender conscienc'd men should consider especially remembring the issue pag. 169 170 The disorders among the Independents when in Holland pag. 171 And more anciently among the old Separatists pag. 172 173 c. No security against the like or worse again pag. 175 In vain to bewail these Divisions unless we take a course to amend them pag. 177 What belongs to private persons to do in order to it pag. 178 c. Not study so much their Governors duty as their own and what that is pag. 180 181 Of yielding on both sides pag. 182 The ancient Non-conformists did not think they still ought to preach when they were deprived but the contrary that they ought not pag. 183 The idle pretence of some from that place Wo be to me if I preach not confuted pag. 185 186 And of not consulting with flesh and blood pag. 187 Non-conformists do it too much Ib. Else why do they not teach as the old Non-conformists did how lawful set forms are c. pag. 188 189 And teach this with great earnestness pag. 190 Especially considering how miserably some are prejudiced against them pag. 191 That exception answered though a form be lawful yet useless pag. 192 Some reflections on a Book called Common-prayer Book Dovotions Episcopal Delusions c. pag. 193 The prophaness and chollerick scurrility of it pag. 194 c. The Ignorance and boldness of the Prefacer pag. 197 Mr. Cartwright not against a set form of Prayer c. pag. 199 How vainly he vapours with the name of Mr. Parker Ib. And abuses Mr. Greenham pag. 200 But above all Dr. J. Reynolds who lived and dyed conformable in all things to the orders of the Church of England pag. 201 Some of the little reasonings in the book answered pag. 203 204 The abuse of a place of Scripture noted pag. 205 The Liturgy smels not of the mass-Mass-book pag. 206 Antiquity of Liturgies by their own confession pag. 207 The presumption and uncharitableness of this Writer pag. 208 209 His main Argument answered pag. 210 After all his blustering he allows a prescribed form to be lawful pag. 211 And is fain to wrest some Scriptures in favour of conceived prayers pag. 213 His false arguing from Jer. 7.31 and such like places pag. 214 How that place Deut. 12.32 is wont to be misinterpreted pag. 215 It was the manner of Mr. J. G. to speak confidently be the cause never so bad pag. 217 218 Non-conformists generally guilty of too much confidence pag. 219 A gross corruption of Dr. Sibbs his souls conflict after his death noted Ib. 220 c. Of Forms of Prayer and of imposing them pag. 222 Smectymnuus allowed impositions in some cases pag. 223 The Presbyterians were against a Tolleration of the Independent way pag. 224 The Independents also impose their own devices have forms also c. pag. 226 c. Of Christian Liberty pag. 229 The opinion of Mr. Dury and Mr. Cotton c. about this pag. 230 231 Of Penalties pag. 232 The opinion of Presbyterians and Independents formerly about them pag. 233 How the King himself was abridg'd of his Liberty pag. 234 The Independents for punishments pag. 236 Some good Counsels out of Mr. Bernard pag. 239 How to behave our selves in doubts pag. 241 Some good Rules to guide our selves by pag. 242 What to do if we think that is sinful which Authority commands pag. 243 Rom. 14.23 Whatsoever is not of faith is sin opened Ib. Of fear to offend others pag. 244 The great want of charity and such like graces pag. 245 How these good Counsels were contemned by the separatists pag. 246 A description of them Ib. The Resolution of the
the Common-Prayer is guilty of where the Minister makes the Gentleman presently confess it to be full of Popish Errors and to appoint horrible Blasphemies and lying Fables to be read to the People Nay makes him cry out almost almost as soon as they had begun their Discourse O horrible How have the Bishops deluded King Edward the Sixth Queen Elizabeth King James and our gracious King Charles and the whole State and made them believe there was nothing in the service-Service-Book that is amiss or any way contrary to the Word God Almighty deliver us from them I should blush to the end of my life if after our whole debate I had concluded as this man begun But this is the way of those Sots that talk as if they were infallible and would bear all before them by their bare word nay take it very ill if you be not converted as soon as they open their mouth Pythagoras is reviv'd in some of you and Mr. such a one said it is of as good Authority as the best proof in the world N. C. This was some ignorant Zealot I believe C. So one would think and yet he had so good an opinion of himself that he thought such Works as these fit for the eyes of the High Court of Parliament To whom I find he presented Certain Grievances an 1640. of the very same import with this goodly Dialogue but so absurdly slanderous that you cannot but be astonish't at his brutish stupidity For there he tells them as he doth the Gentleman at the conclusion of their Conference that the Bishops have appointed some portions of Scripture to be read on certain dayes and omitted others on purpose to pervert the meaning of Christ and to keep weak Christians in blindness The whole Book of Canticles for instance is never appointed to be read that the People as he will have it may not be able to see the ardent Love and affection of Christ toward his Spouse the Elect and they thereby be stirred up to love Christ and be truly zealous for his Glory Nay if you believe him the Books of the Kings all save the 8 first chapters and the Chronicles were forbid because they shew that Godly Kings did ever love Gods true Prophets and did hearken to them and were zealous of maintaining true Religion and suppressing Idolatry In which words he discovered the very grounds of their quarrel with the King viz. that he did not take such great Seers as himself into his bosom and suffer them to guide his Conscience as if they were of the Privy-Council of Heaven But he discovered withal how little esteem he for his part merited Or rather how well he deserved to be stigmatiz'd and branded in the forehead as one to speak in his own language that was a false-Prophet Prophesying lyes For was there ever any man before this so impudent as to put a Libel of this Nature against his spiritual Fathers and Governors into the hands of the Highest Court of the Kingdom Did any of the Priests or Prophets of Baal think you ever help themselves and their cause by such invectives against the Prophets of the Lord For my part I am of the mind that the Devil himself would be hard put to 't to invent more bold and malicious Slanders than these of this mans forging who wanted nothing but wit to make him like that Father of Lyes And yet I suppose he passed for a Godly man a precious Servant of Jesus Christ a Faithful Minister of the Lord Nay was cherished and incouraged as one of Gods Prophets who had told them things that could be known no wayes but by a Revelation His Book also no doubt found wonderful acceptance though it was stuft with so much Ignorance and railing The people read it with a blind Devotion just as he was transported with so blind a Passion as to accuse our Church of that which all that had eyes must needs acquit it of For both the Books of the Kings were Appointed to be read intirely in the later end of April and in May. As for the Chronicles they being little more than a Repetition of what was writ before might well be left to our private Reading together with some other Books not easy to be understood without great Labour and long Meditation N. C. I wish you would dismiss this man for he hath given us both too much trouble C. Your people would not when time was so easily lay his Book out of their hands as I am able to prove But let him go together with all the Crew of Revilers that were before him For you must know there were Dialogue-writers of the same Stamp in the dayes of your Fore-fathers In one of which Books called the Dialogue of White Devils the Author expresly tells us that if Princes hinder the bringing in of their Disciples they are Tyrants and may be deposed by their Subjects A Doctrine which with all your reading in the Books of the Kings and the Chronicles you will no where find justified For the people were better taught than to go about to depose those that did not favour the Lords Prophets I know you all disclaim this principle and I verily believe many of you abhor it but I mention it to let you see what the Maximes of some of your Predecessors imboldned some of their Posterity to do For this purpose I could relate strange passages out of some Books esteemed by your Party which would verify the censure of the Bishop of Down and Conner * In his Visitation speed at Lisnegarvy 1638. publish'd by Authority upon the Title of the Dialogue now named Which he saith was very fit for such mens Books for if ever there were White Devils or Devils transformed into Angels of Light it is in their persons who under the pretence of Sanctity labour to bring in all manner of Disorder into the Church and confusion into the Common wealth But you have no mind we should remember any thing that is past that so you may the more confidently fill the world with loud clamors as if there never were such doings as now Else you might know there was another Dialogue in Queen Elizabeths dayes between Diotrephes and S. Paul in which the Discipline and its Favourers are magnified as Apostolical but the Bishops of the Church of England made no better than so many proud Diotrephes's nay so many Devils and he of Canterbury so they speak is Beelzebub even the Prince of the Devils N. C. Still you will have all the talk to your self and I must hold my tongue Pray give me leave to inlarge my self a while for I am blam'd I assure you very much for saying so little in our last Conference C. Speak your mind N. C. I must ingeniously confess that we cannot accuse you of such speeches as these but yet you shew your great malignity to us otherwayes In particular it is very ill taken that you make our Ministers guilty of
reward of a Physician N. C. Discharge of your duty you should say disgorging your Choler and Gall. Nay they will never believe if they hear what you now Discourse but that you wrote out of meer malice on purpose to disgrace them and that you deserve the reward of such Physicians as kill more than they cure C. How came they by this faculty of searching the heart N.C. How came you to ask this question C. I forgot my self Since they can see what God doth in the Spirits of men no wonder they can spy our thoughts and intentions N.C. I meant that they can see by your Book what your intentions were C. So they may For I told them plainly in my preface that I intended only to awaken them to see their Errors but it seems their Spirit look't into mine when I wrote those words and could see my thoughts better than my self Hath W. B. or his disciples had some Revelation about this matter N.C. None but what they received from your Book which contradicts they think your Epistle and declares the hatred you bear to them C. To their Schismatical spirit you should have said For I can sincerely profess as Mr. Edwards doth in another case That I have no personal quarrel with any of them no old grudge or former difference and therefore had not Truth constrained me Pref. to Antapolog I had out of respect and love to some of them forborn to say any thing of these matters And therefore let not my Book by reason of its truth and plainness be branded for a bitter railing and malitious Writing But let them consider that they need such a Book as doth not flatter and extol them but be plain and free with them For the truth is as he goes on they have been too much flatter'd both in their Persons and Churches and are undone for want of being plainly and freely dealt withal A Candle hath been too long held to them I hope my Book may do them much good to abate their swelling and confidence And if many of our Ministers would deal more plainly with them it would be better both for them and us I remember a passage concerning Luther in an Epistle of Calvin's to Melancthon they are still the same mans words which the persons being changed may be fitly applied to my purpose If there were that mind in us all that ought to be perhaps some remedy might be found And certainly we transmit an unworthy Example to posterity while we cast away all liberty rather than offend a few men Will not their vehemency rise and grow the more while all bear with them and suffer all things from them Undoubtedly it will Our base silence doth but make them open their mouths wider to declaim against us We cherish their insolent behaviour while we make no Opposition and give no check to their violence They imagine we allow them to be so worthy as they fancy themselves while we sit still and only see and hear their Folly And therefore to shew that we know them not that we hate them I took the Freedom to write those things which you accuse of Malice N.C. But as I told you they tend to their Disgrace C. No man ought to think himself disgraced by Truth nor reproached by just Reproof He should rather think he dishonours himself a thousand times more by still persisting in his Errors and justifying his faults And if you resolve upon this Course and seek rather to cast reproaches on us than amend your selves I doubt not it will turn at last to your greater disgrace and make you more vile in the esteem of all indifferent men N.C. Assure your self you had better have been otherwise imploy'd and never have meddled in this business C. I am not afraid of any evil Tongue nor of any thing else that man can do unto me But as your Mr. Cartwright once said am of Alcibiades his mind who trusting to the power of Truth when one lift up his staff ready to smite him if he would not hold his peace boldly replyed Smite me so thou wilt but hear me N.C. No they will not smite but they will defend themselves C. With all my heart But be you assured as he said in another case their heels will sooner ake with kicking against the prick than it suffer any hurt by receiving their broken and strengthless Resistance N.C. You are very warm and confident C. To tell you the very truth I have long observed in the fiery men that oppose our Church a strange Pride and conceit of the godliness of their own party beyond all reason together with a most shameful despisal of us as if our Piety were little or none at all This moved my Indignation and it will stir I think the spirit of any honest and cordial Christian to read such haughty Censures as these from the mouth of your most famous Divines That the Bishops are a generation of the Earth earthly Preface to the Dioces Trial. An. 1621. and savour not the things of God They are the words of Mr. Paul Bains approved by no less man than Dr. Ames who is pleased to add in his great modesty that there was as much agreement between them in their management of Religion except two or three and their powerful Preachers as between the light which comes down from Heaven and that thick mist which arises from the lowest pit And that there is more of God and his Religion in some one congregation of a silenc'd Minister than in all the Bishops families in England I appeal to all the world whether I had not reason to stomack these proud vaunts and scornful speeches And whether it was not absolutely necessary to let you see the emptiness flatness to say no worse of those men who now insult over us in like manner and would bear the world in hand that they are the only powerful Preachers who alone savour the things of God N.D. You have only cull'd a few sayings out of one or two Books C. They should have thankt me for that And might have seen if they pleased by that moderation that I was not desirous to publish their shame more than needs but studied their amendment by disclosing a little of their folly and concealing the rest If they will not believe but that I did my worst and revealed all I knew let them but signify this distrust of my Charity and I shall give them abundant satisfaction Mr. T. W. I am sure hath no cause to complain who with so much labour brings forth childish fancies and is so curious to speak absurdly and takes so much care to avoid serious and solid sense in the most weighty Arguments that his great Pains is conspicuous in these Defects Of this I did but give a small tast and that not out of the worst of his conceits which he ought to look upon as the Civility of a Friend and not as the want of skill in
tell us p. 10. That some are faln from the Truth which they saw so much despised and back slidden to Popery as the only Religion in their opinion wherein Vnity and Order is maintained And a little after p. 16. they say they are afraid lest too many may be too well conceited of that Religion finding Rome justified by Englands Confusion as Sodom was by Israels sin You may say perhaps according to your usual manner that all these were wicked But this is not so easily proved as peremptorily said And there want not good reasons to make us think that several well disposed persons by occasion of this Schism and the Scorn cast upon our Governors and Divine Service which accompanies it have forsaken our Communion and gone thither where they heard there was more Unity Order and reverence to Authority N. C. Our Ministers are as much against those who revile your Worship and Service or do not reverence Authority as you can be C. How doth that appear There is nothing more frequent with such as Mr. Bridge than to teach the people that our way of Worship and Church Government is Antichristian Read but the 5. of his Ten Sermons p. 370. and you will see I do not bely him Or for more full satisfaction I refer you to another Book of his called Seasonable Truths in Evil Times * Newly Princed 1668. where you may find him instructing them too plainly p. 118. that such as he have their Orders to preach or prophesy from Jesus Christ himself but Others by whom he can mean none but our Ministers have their Orders and power from Men from Prelates from the Beast for these are all one in his language Nay more than this he teaches the poorest weakest man or woman to go to Jesus Christ for a power to Prophesy remembring them what one Alice Driver said in Queen Mary's daies I 'le set my foot against the foot of the proudest Prelate of them all in the cause of Jesus Christ And therefore why should you not go to Christ says he and lay your selves flat upon the Promise and say to him O Lord I am a poor weak creature I fear I shall never be able to bear my Testimony but thou hast said I will give power to my two witnesses and I am one of thy witnesses Now then O Lord give power to me c. By which you may judge what he thinks of those Magistrates that uphold our Worship and Orders and allow no such weak creatures as his silly credulous followers to commence Prophets and Prophetesses when ever they shall fancy that Jesus Christ himself hath given them Power and Orders to preach and whether they be the Godly Magistrates or no Gods anointedones whom he speaks of p. 110. N. C. Those that I am acquainted withal dislike his boldness as much as your self C. If the rest of your Ministers have such an hearty abhorrence as I have of those that cast dirt even in the face of Authority it self let them shew it by some means or other Why do they not petition his Majesty now as some of your Churches did the late Protector not many years ago that he would chastise such Persons as these N. C. I remember no such thing C. But I do and you shall find it in the address presented to Richard Cromwel from the County of Northampton There after many high commendations of his Father whom they call the light of their eyes and the breath of their Nostrils and great expressions of joy that he had left him to them as a most choise Legacy they desire he would shew tenderness toward the name of God against the bold Blasphemers of his Magistracy Defamers of his sacred Ordinances Seducers from Truth Corrupters of his Worship And then that he would exercise just severity against despisers of Dignities and revilers of Authority Whose unhallowed Tongues set on fire from hell spare not to flash out their insolent reproaches and impious execrations against his Fathers Sepulchre and his own throne But I consider that in those daies it was their concernment to have despisers and revilers punisht Now they serve the Cause and help to disgrace the present establishment which is the reason I suppose that all the Churches are so mute in this matter N. C. You take the Liberty to say what you list but let me say little or nothing And when you have done you write a Dialogue between Your self and a Non-conformist in which you make him speak just what you think good and no more Is this fair dealing C. Where did you get the sole privilege of writing Dialogues You imagine perhaps we have forgot those that you entertain'd the people withal some years ago but our memories are not yet so slippery I call to mind for instance the Dialogue between a Countrey-Gentleman and a minister of the Word about the Common-Prayer answered by Authority 1641. And another between a Loyalist and a Royalist about our Civil Liberties an 1644. The first of these I can scarce forget if I would the Author of it Mr. Lowes Hughes imparting to me such an extraordinary piece of Learning as this that Kyrieleeson is a word compounded of Hebrew and Greek signifying in English Lord have mercy upon us He furnisht me also with a memorable reason why the Mass-Book leaves out the Dexology at the end of the Lords Prayer because the Pope saies he will have none of his Church neither Priest nor People to give so much honour and glory to God Which he was so well conceited of that he repeats it twice within the compass of a few leaves This good man I sometimes fancy would have been a chosen instrument and done marvelous well to write a RATIONALE of the Directory In which he might have told us that RATIONALE was a word compounded of Latin and English signifying All Reason And inform'd us in particular that the cause why the Assembly left it to mens liberty to leave out the whole Lords Prayer if they pleased was only this that all their Church might give all honour and glory to Jesus Christ So I suppose his Affection would have made him say though if he had followed his Reason it would have led him to this that as the Pope left out some of it because he would not do our Saviour so much honour so they permitted men to leave out all that every man might do him as little honour as he pleased N. C. You cannot for your life forbear to lead me now and then to some mirth C. I intended only to represent how your Ministers sometime abuse themselves more than any of us ever did As for my self I am not conscious of the least abuse I have put upon you nor that I have made you say any thing but what your people are wont to talk Certain I am that all the wit your Party hath shall never be able to find any such Absurdity in my Book as that Dialogue against
he himself had just before let his tongue loose in a most riotous manner against us Telling him that the Cathedrals were a Nest and Cage of all unclean Birds a harbour of dumb Dogs proud Prebends and a crew of Ale-swilling Singing men And that they came daily to offer near the Holy Table the blind Whelps of an Ignorant Devotion of which one may say as the Apostle the things which the Heathen offer in Sacrifice to their Idols they offer them to Devils and not to God Nay as if his tongue was set on fire of Hell and could not be tamed immediately after he had given that caution out of St. James he falls into a rage again and in a most nasty manner compares our Prelates to Swine lying in their Ordure For he saith the Hogsty-Prelatical had been swept but twice since the Conquest and the Temple of Jerusalem three times in the 3. years of our Saviours Ministry What office he design'd himself in this sweet work I cannot tell nor how you will excuse this savoury language unless it be sufficient to say that he railed by Publick Authority N. C. I abominate such Reformers and think they deserved to keep Hoggs rather than feed the Sheep of Christ C. I am glad to hear you say so And hope you as much abhor Mr. Hughes his Reproaches who sayes the Common-Prayer may be likened fitly to the abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place N. C. By what you told me before I could expect no better from him whom I think worthy to have been preferr'd to the same office with the other C. But you would expect better language would you not from two such Holy men as Mr. Allin and Mr. Shepherd the famous New-England Preachers N. C. They sure were more Conscientious than to utter any foul speeches C. Yet they tell you the English Service-Book hath stunk above ground twice 40. year in the nostrils of the godly who breathed in the pure air of Scripture Defence of the 9. positions p. 61. N. C. No more of this Noisom language I beseech you which is enough to poison the Air we breath in C. As it hath done already and so diffused its venome among your people that they are generally infected with this Plague Nay they not only do such things themselves but take pleasure in them that do them Witness all the filthy reproaches they bestow upon our Divine Service Clergy and People and the great satisfaction and applause wherewith the late Cobler of Glocesters writings were entertained even by those whom you esteem Religious This shews what manner of spirit you are of and that your people are in danger to deprive themselves of all sense of true Religion to pave their own hearts and make them like the high-way through which all things may pass without any difference save only a few innocent Ceremonies even whole Cart-loads of dung and filth And of the very same spirit I must tell you this sort of Religious people have ever been For Martin Marprelate with whose Devil this man was possessed was received with the like Applause and his Writings so thumb'd that they were even worn out with continual reading and handling of them If you will not believe me yet I hope you will trust Mr. Brightman whose words these are as you may see if you look into his Comments on the 3. Rev. 17. p. 49. of the English Edit where speaking of the Nakedness of Laodicea i. e. in his opinion the Church of England he makes this an Argument of it that this man had poured such great contempt and shameful reproach upon it which is the meaning of her being Naked There was one saith he that called himself by the name of Mar-prelate who set forth a Book wherein he dealt somewhat roundly with the Angel How were those bitter jests of his favoured among the People How plausible were they in a manner to all men How willingly and greedily with what great mirth were they every where entertained There is none so rude and unskilful but pondering that time in his mind would say thus to himself and that not without cause Truly the Lord hath poured out contempt upon Princes those that honour him doth he honour and those that despise him shall be despised He hath made our Priests contemptible to the whole People because they have broken their Covenant You may read what follows there if you think good For it is a great Demonstration how well those people were instructed in the Christian Religion and what rare devises you have been taught to blind your eyes that you may not see your sins For you may speak evil and rejoyce in iniquity and sport your selves in beholding your Fathers Nakedness and fancy all the time that you are fulfilling Prophesies executing the judgment written and pouring out Vials like so many Angels N. C. I should think rather this was the Devil with his followers fighting against Michael and his Angels C. And a Devil it was whom when you had once raised you could never conjure down again nor with all your Prayers and Fastings dispossess him Nay this foul Spirit grew in time so outragious that he flew at last in a foaming manner in your own face Which is a thing so remarkable that I cannot but put you in mind of it how you were served in your kind and felt the tongues of men sharpned against your selves which you had whetted to wound the reputation of others No sooner had you pull'd down the Bishops whom you had laid low before by such fellows as that Martin-Mar-prelate but out comes Martins Eccho which return'd all those Reproaches upon Presbytery Baal Babylon Egypt and all the rest of those Heathenish names were pressed to war against you which you had made to serve against us Presbytery was called a Limb of Antichrist a tyrannical Lordly Government a worse bondage than that under the Bishops a bondage under Taskmasters like those over Israel in Egypt Nay that Very Mouth which reviled our Church now reviled your intended Reformation Mr. Burton himself whom your people had so much admired and brought home with such joy and triumph that you fancied as I shall tell you before we have done that day to be the Resurrection of the Witnesses bestowed those censures on Presbyterial Government which he said * Dialogue called Conformity Deformity would bring us under perpetual slavery worse than either Egypt or Babylon And in the very same terms wherein you had rail'd against our Priests we heard the Sectaries railing against your Presbyters whom they called Romish bloody Priests Black Coats Diviners and Soothsayers Croaking Frogs the Devils Agents Pensioners to the accuser of the Brethren Nay the Assembly it self we were told had two horns like a Lamb but a mouth like a Dragon teaching the Parliament to speak blasphemy against the Saints that dwell in Heaven Your Vniformity also was as much disgraced as ours and stiled the Burden of the Saints
himself which are his judgments to wield and manage them by the sway and bent of their own frail cogitations It is true indeed in this manner to sit spelling and observing Divine Justice upon every accident and slight disturbance that may happen humanely to the affairs of men is but a fragment of your broken Revenge yet it is the shrewdest and cunningest Obloquy as he well observes that can be thrown upon our actions For if they can perswade the people that we are pursued with the divine Vengeance they have obtain'd their end to make all men forsake us and think the worst that can be thought of us If they can make them believe that they are the witnesses of Christ and we the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit that we are going to slay them and that three or four years hence they shall rise again and all become theirs they have promoted their Design in the craftiest manner that can be devised The still people will be put into seditious commotions notwithstanding all the Laws they that are now quiet will be stirred as with a mighty wind and conceit poor Souls that they are moved by the Spirit of the Lord and are doing the work of God fulfilling prophecies and making the clearest Comment on the Revelations But if there be not a fatal blindness on them I shall plainly shew you that this is so gross a Cheat that no observing person can be deluded by it Mr. Bridge you must know is not the first that hath suborn'd the Revelation to speak on his side and witness to his Cause There have been many before him who have assumed the persons of Prophets and prognosticated their own wishes would come to pass But the event hath so evidently detected the fraud and made the forgery appear that he is very impudent who goes about to serve himself of this old trick and they prodigiously silly who will still be deluded by it And feed on the weak conjectures of those who have nothing else to support their sinking spirits but that which hath made so many asham'd who relyed on it For Mr. Archer * In his Book of the personal reign of Christ you must know in the year 1642 from this very prophecy of the two witnesses filled the peoples heads with this Conceit that the end of the Papacy would be in the year 1666. They are his express words pag. 44. And he repeats the same again p. 46. where he tells us that the Witnesses shall recover again in 1666. and draw off one Kingdom in Europe from the Papacy and ruin Rome and this was that Wo which ends the sixth Trumpet Upon which account he adds p. 60. that the seventh Trumpet may begin presently after the ruin of Rome and so the Thousand years commence An. 1670. This no doubt was of singular use in those dayes to inspire your people with lofty hopes and bear up their hearts in the good Old Cause against all discouragements and therefore Mr. Bridge flyes to this Sanctuary now and expects the same success again on the spirits of his Ignorant Proselytes who have forgot the vanity of such Prophets or never reflect on the uncertainty of their Guesses N. C. Do not trouble me I intreat you with such relations C. It need be no trouble to you because you may reap a singular profit by hearing how such as he have deluded your expectations For there was another man a little after Mr. Archer who in his Lectures at St. Lawrence-Jewry about the two Witnesses printed by an Order of a committee of the house of Commons Mr. Fr. Woodcock 27. April 1643 tells us quite another story and will have the rising of the Witnesses to begin more early For his opinion is that the 1260. years begin between the first invasion of the Empire An. 365. and the sacking of Rome An. 410. And the year he pitches on is 380 or two or three years before and then the end of them excluding the three years and a half in which the Witnesses ly dead fell out about 1637. or 1638. Then he saith the Antichristian powers i. e. the Bishops slew the Witnesses by silencing suspending and throwing them out of their places And then there was great rejoycing and making merry according to Rev. 11.10 by the Popish Prelatical Faction as he is pleased to call them But after three years and an half i. e. at the beginning of the long Parliament the spirit of life from God entred into them and made them stand upon their feet and restored them to their liberty to the great astonishment of the Antichristian faction Nay they ascended up to heaven vers 12 i. e. were called by the Parliament to a more ample condition and they went up in a cloud i. e. abundance of people congratulated their freedom Which was then done most remarkably when three of these Witnesses Mr. Prin Mr. Bastwick and Mr. Burton were brought in triumph from the utmost parts of the Kingdom Then was the Earthquake spoken of Rev. 11.13 i. e. great Commotions which began with the Parliament And a tenth part of the City fell i. e. if you will believe him Prelacy and Ceremonies and 7000. men were slain i. e. Prelates Deans and Chapters with their appurtenances had their honour places maintenance taken from them In short he confidently affirms the Scene wherein these great things must be acted is one kingdom only And that it is no other but the Island of great Britain and the time of doing them some years before and since the calling of the Long Parliament p. 83. And so he concludes very triumphantly p. 90. Since the Witnesses are slain and risen again chear up then strengthen these weak hands Verily the bitterness of death is already over and from henceforth expect better dayes than either our eyes or the eyes of our Forefathers ever saw Which is a clear Demonstration that these men think themselves concern'd in all the good things and us in all the Evil contained in that Book and that every little change in our affairs makes them imagine they see themselves about to be raised and us to fall under their feet but yet that their high Confidences hitherto have been ungrounded and were the birth of their proud Fancies not the fruit of their sound Understanding of the Revelations of God And such M. B's prophecies I hope will prove who notwithstanding all those glorious dayes which his Fellows promised is still whining and complaining of their Sackcloth condition and waits for another Parliament to make them ascend up to heaven in a cloud and slay 7000. men once more i. e. according to the former Exposition the Bishops Deans and Chapters with all the maintenance that belongs to them Yet this I will say for him that he is a little more merciful than Mr. Woodcock was For he only threatens destruction to us in this world but the other saith the power of the Witnesses to shut
only wait till Christ assures him that he had made all the promises to him For thus he explains the business Jacob would not believe that Joseph was alive till he saw the Chariots that were come for him These sent from Joseph to Jacob brought Jacob to Joseph So every believing Soul is poor and feeble disabled to go to God and to believe in the Lord Jesus Doubting-Christian drawn to Christ p. 148.150 Therefore be must look to the Chariots of Israel first it should be of Joseph according to the resemblance and that will convey him to the promise and when the chariots are come get up into them The Lord Jesus is gone to heaven and hath sent these chariots for thee therefore get thee up and say Lord take me up with thee And so they did They got up into I know not what fiery Chariots and mounted into the Air and there fancied they saw the Lord Jesus immediately revealing himself to them and so carrying them to the promise the absolute promise And I verily believe these Doctrines were they from whence the American Jezabel as they call'd her extracted her Poisons and by which the people were prepared to drink of the cup of her Fornication perswading themselves that a man is united to Christ and justified without Faith that Faith is not a receiving him but discerning be hath received him already that a man is united to Christ only by the work of the Spirit upon him without any act of his that there is a testimony of the Spirit and a voice unto the Soul meerly immediate without any respect unto or concurrence with the word And that there are distinct seasons of the workings of the several Persons so that a Soul may be said to be so long under the work of the Father and not the Sons and so long under the work of the Son and not under the Spirit And in conclusion that a man is not effectually converted till he hath full assurance and that this is given immediately all the activity of a Believer being only to act to sin All these I say are the plain sense if there be any at all in this Book of what he delivered in more obscure words N. C. Pray go not about to prove this For my head begins to turn round already meerly with the scent of these intoxicating ingredients C. If these Doctrines had been broacht by any of us you would have found out our picture long ago in the Revelation and said that the Church of New England was Thyatira and this the Jezabel which called her self a Prophetess and that such Divines as these were the Prophets of Baal the Priests of Jezabel and these Doctrines the Doctrines of Devils All which you might have done with a greater colour and shew of reason than apply these names to our Priests But you are favourable to one another and wink at such Books as these provided the Authors be Nonconfurmists and cannot as you ignorantly speak bow to Baal N. C. I am glad there are none of these Doctrines here in this England C. Those Books are here and highly admired by such sound Believers as take all for Gospel that some men say but can find nothing of Christ among those that speak sense and make the Doctrine of Christ intelligible Nay I can find you Disciples of such Authors as these among your Preachers who will sometimes tell you that Christ will do all for you Sips of sweetness or Cons for weak Believers by John Durant 1662. and then tell you presently that something must be done by you Thus one of them introduces the Soul complaining That the Duggs of Divine love are full but I cannot suck Answer Be of good comfort Christ will not only open his Bosom but thy Mouth But I cannot fetch out the Milk that lies in his Breast I am but weak Answer Christ is sweet and with his finger be will force out the Milk of Mercy into thy Mouth if thou canst but open thy Mouth What need he have made an if of it if Christ would open its mouth and if he will do that and every thing else why did he not make an end of the business in one word and say All the Activity of Believers is to act to sin And so comfort the believing Ewes who are big with young in a sinful sense and say N. C. We talkt a little while ago of some mens bellowing and braying and now you are going to fall a bleating C. You are very pleasant I hope then it will not offend you to let you know that I was giving you the explication which this man makes of those words in Isaiah 40.11 I will gently lead those that are with young that is saith he according to the admirable way Pag. 102 103. now in fashion of expounding the holy Writ Christ will be very kind to those Saints that step aside which is called whoring in Scripture and deal gently with those who are big with young in a sinful sense whom I was going to tell you he comforts thus O ye sinning Ewes who have been big with young hath not be gone after you and furned you and laid you upon his shoulders rejoycing * Pag. 114. The very Phrase of Mr. Hooker Though thou canst not find the way to heaven yet he will find thee c. and lay thy Soul upon his shoulders i. e. upon the Riches of the freeness of his Grace p. 149 150. It may be thou hast been wandring like Dinah from thy fathers house art big with young and afraid to go home But fear not go and try be will not cast you out of doors Though you come with big bellies to keep to the Metaphor he will deal gently with thee though with young p. 119. N. C. We have followed these Ewes or Goats or what you do please to call them too far C. It 's true But at first I intended only to tell you how he describes weak believers Who have as Divines say the Faith of Adberence they will stick to Christ as theirs but they want a faith of Evidence they cannot see themselvs to be his p. 18. N. C. These Divines speak Nonsense C. Judg then in what uncertainty the Disciples of these Divines live who never tell them plainly what Faith is And what a strange blindness they labour with who cannot see as they speak that they are Christ's though they perswade themselves that he is theirs Nor do I see what satisfaction they are like to receive in particular cases any more than in this the greatest of all Your Doctrine seems to me to be so obscure that it 's hard to come to any solid setlement or peace of mind One of your Rules for instance is that we must have a warrant from the word of God for every thing we do If there be neither Precept nor Practise that we can find there to justifie an action we intend it must not be done
The Saints and people of God Seas Truths Sermon 6. p. 166. saith he they withdraw from the men of the World and do separate from them Now when we withdraw from men and from their worship we condemn their Worship and the men of the world do not love to be condemned To separate from them and from their Worship this they cannot bear The Saints do separate from them and therefore there is such a deal of anger and wrath in their hearts against them C. Alas Good man Doth he think we have such an opinion of him and his Saints as they have of themselves He flatters himself too much It is one thing to imitate the Saints and another thing to counterfeit them He shall never perswade me that quick-silver is better than gold and that turbulent and affrighted Imagination can be a surer guide either in the choice or exercise of our Religion than a calm Reason and a fixed well-resolved Judgment Let him call himself and his party Saints a thousand times or as oft as he breathes it shall never move me at all nor shall I think the worse but the better of my self for being none of them Let him pride himself in new devices of a different worship for the Saints and the rest of the world I am very well contented if they will but withdraw themselves far enough from us and let us be out of the hearing of their Gibberish Let him lead them to the Indies if he please and be separated from us by the wide Ocean it will be a great satisfaction to enjoy our worship quietly * Yet you must not hope for this For they must stay to power forth the Vials which next to the Separating from us is the thing that provokes the Antichristian party For they are to torment the men of the world and make them gnash their teeth and bite their tongues for pain As he tells you afterward pag. 179. to our selves Or rather let him retire into his Closet and think no company in the world pure enough for him but his Books and no Books but his own his preciseness I assure him shall never trouble me at all And I suppose I may pass my word for our whole Church that they will not complain for want of his company nor think it any disgrace to our Worship that such do not like it or perhaps abhor it nor any shame to themselves that they will have no Communion with us There were alwayes people of a morese and sowr humour whom nothing can please no not what they do themselves when once it pleases others too They must be of a contrary Opinion to the whole race of mankind And hate some things only because others love them And therefore if they not only withdraw themselves from us but also slight us and set us at naught the concern is not so great as to require my care Let them call Us the World and if they please the Dogs that are without the Holy City I value it no more than the barkings of an angry Cur Though in his vain conceit of himself and party he imagines we lay their disrespect to us mightily to heart For this you know is another cause which he is pleased to assign why the men of the world are angry with them The Saints and people of God do not regard the men of the World and the men of the World they think so Now for high and lofty men to be slighted and not regarded this makes them angry For which he cites Dan 3. and then repeats it They cannot bear this that they should not be regarded high and great men that they should not be regarded and therefore no wonder there is such a great deal of wrath and anger in their hearts against the people of God But let him repeat it as oft as he will tell him from me that it moves us not at all to want their regard for we do not think our selves honoured by their Esteem and Respect It is rather a reproach than an honour to be commended and praised by such mouths as value a composed countenance and a Sett of phrases more than the most composed and regular life and the best sense in the world Let them slight us therefore so much if they list as not to move their Hat or give us the time of the day or turn their face another way when they chance to meet us it is all one we shall have never the worse opinion of our selves or of our Worship We do not think them so able to judg of true worth or to discern between true and false good and bad as to concern our selves about their Opinion these being almost the same thing now adays and though all undertake to judg yet few know the difference We have something else also to support us than their favourable opinion of us and that is a sincere care with unblassed affections to search after the Will of God and a readiness to receive and do it whensoever we know it Let him bring us Reasons in stead of confident assertions and see if we will not studiously consider them and if they be good yield to them He spoke admirably who said that our Reason ought to yeild obedience to nothing but Reason and that Authority is a yoke which none but God hath a right to impose upon our judgments If God say it that 's reason enough but we shall never be perswaded that they only hear or understand what he sayes Let them talk as if they had not only slept in our Saviour's Bosom as a Gentleman I remember sometime said but even watch't in his heart and soul and as if there were none of his intentions hid from their knowledg They will never gain the greater credit with us unless we see more than words and confidence No though they should not only contemn and scorn us as altogether ignorant in the things of God but pronounce Anathema's and Curses against us as the limbs of the Apocalyptick Beast Heaven we know laughs them to scorn and we shall smile at their ridiculous presumption The Wolves we know will never be reconciled with the Shepherds flock and when we have done all that we can there will be an Envious and Malitious Generation who like the Rats and other imperfect Creatures which it is possible were bred in the Ark it self will still be gnawing the reputation even of the best Church in the World Every thing under Heaven is abused yea and what Heaven it self hath spoken is not safe from Injury and Violence and therefore why should we look to have a general respect or be cast down or angry either at the neglect of these men or if they please their Contempt and Reproach N. C. You say you are not angry but methinks you are in a great heat C. Not at their slighting us I assure you N. C. What then C. I told you that I professed a just indignation at some
shame But when the same sickness hath taken hold of very many there remains nothing else to the good but sorrow and be wailing that so they may escape that destruction which is like to come on the multitude of the wicked And in very deed saith he if the contagion of sinning hath invaded the multitude the severe mercy of Divine discipline is necessary but the counsel or enterprises of separation are both vain and pernicious yea sacrilegious because then they become both impious and proud and give more trouble to the good which are weak than they correct the sturdy ones who are evil And concluding this point he gives this Advice Let a man therefore with Mercy correct what he can and that which he cannot let him bear with patience And with love let him mourn and lament until He from above do either redress and amend or else differr until the harvest to root out the tares and to winnow out the chaff And here he alledges the example of St. Cyprian that holy Martyr who had been Bishop of Carthage and describes the multitude as full of gross sins yea many of his fellow Bishops as spotted with very foul crimes but yet he communicated with them though not in their sins which he evermore reprehended yet in the Sacraments and holy Worship of God Nay he shews that our Saviour himself did not separate in Body from the Pharisees and Saduces and multitude of common people but met with them at the Temple And it is also plain that the African Church in St. Austin's dayes besides their evil manners had some other blemishes which cannot be charged on ours for by his own complaint it appears there were such a multitude of Rites and Ceremonies then in use that they were a very great burden and the Church was oppressed and groaned under them And therefore I think your preciseness in separating from us is more like the disdainful and proud Religion of the Scribes and Pharisees than the humble and charitable purity of our blessed Saviour N. C. If you take these old Fathers for your Guides they will lead you I now not whither They held many strange Opinions C. I suppose you would separate from them too if they were alive But what think you of Mr. Calvin He is a more modern Father and you may think perhaps more inlightned will you stand to his judgment N. C. Why What says he C. He tells you that Wheresoever the Gospel is purely preached and the Sacraments administred according to the institution of Christ there is the Church of God Instit Book 4. Cap. 1. Sect. 9. And if the very multitude hath and doth honour these it deserves without doubt to be esteemed and judged a Church because it is certain that these things are not without fruit And if you look a litle further to the next Section he repeats it again with much earnestness Sect. 10. There appears in such a multitude as he mentioned before neither a deceitful nor doubtful face of a Church Of which no man may either despise the Authority or refuse the Admonitions or resist the Counsels or mock at the Corrections much less depart from it break in sunder the Unity of it and go unpunished For the Lord so highly esteems the Communion of the Church that he counts him for a Traiterous Runaway and forsaken of Religion whosoever shall stubbornly estrange himself from any Christian fellowship So that it be such a one as hath a true Ministry of the word and Sacraments He so commends the Churches Authority That when it is violated he judges his own diminished Do you hear this N. C. Yes But C. To prevent all your exceptions look further into the 12. Sect. and there he will tell you that the fellowship of such a Church is never to be cast off though it swarm full of many faults Yea and there may be some faultiness crept into it in the Administration either of Doctrine or of the Sacraments yet it ought not to estrange us from the Communion of it For all the Articles be not of one sort And therefore we ought not rashly for every light dissention forsake the Church c. But then in the next he tells you that in bearing with the imperfections of life our gentle tenderness ought to go much further And in the next but one that it is one thing to shun the private company of a wicked man and another for hatred of such to forsake the Communion of the whole Church Which is to be more rigorous than St. Paul And although this temptation to forsake the Church may by an indiscreet zeal of righteousness Sect. 16. enter into the thought of a good man yet we shall find that too much preciseness grows rather out of Pride Disdainfulness and false Opinion of holiness than of true holiness and true zeal thereof They that are bolder than others and as it were the Standart-bearers to make any departing from the Church for the most part do it upon no other cause but their despising of all men to boast themselves to be better than others But I think I had best let the rest alone lest you say I rail upon godliness of which this Separation is now grown a great note though in Mr. Calvins words N. C. We are not to mind what men say Nor to have their persons in admiration C. No Not what your own Ministers say Sure their words are another Gospel with you or else how come you so to misunderstand the old N. C. They are good men and so we value what they say C. I 'le shew you then that they have said the very same in behalf of our Form of Divine Service that I did the last time we talkt together And that they condemn this withdrawing from us which Mr. Bridge makes the mark of a Saint N. C. Pray let it alone It will be too long C. Let me tell you thus much That they told their Brethren of New-England heretofore that if we deny communion with such a Church as ours there hath been no Church these 1400. years with which a Christian might lawfully joyn Nay Letter of many Ministers in Old England requesting the judgment of their Brethren in New Engl concerning 9. Positions 1637. with their Answer 1639. And the Reply 1640 Published afterward by Mr. Simeon Ash and Mr. W. Rathband 1643. that if such scruples as are now in your heads may take place it will be unlawful to hold communion with any Society under Heaven And that as for making an Idol of the Common Prayer which by the way was a phrase they themselves made use of afterward it might be as well said that they made an Idol of their conceived Prayers And therefore what evil spirit is it that now possesses so many of your Presbyterian Ministers and hath driven them as if they were out of their wits from our Church and their own Principles and from all the Churches of
no end of Schisms But every two or three members if they pleased might set up a Church by themselves Witness the rent in that Church where Mr. Bridge and Mr. Sympson were teachers at Rotterdam Where Mr. Sympson Antapologia p. 29. p. 117. as Mr. Edwards informs us having only a Merchant and his Wife joyning with him at the first separated from Mr. Bridge and set up a new Church of their own Of which a Woman Mrs. White was the soundress as Mr. Bridge himself hath said And when they were thus torn in sunder both parts of the Division fell together by the cars among themselves There was a new rent in Mr. Sympsons company and Mr. Ward colleague to Mr. Bridge was deposed from his Ministry and office by Mr. Bridge his Church for some frivolous differences And such was the bitterness revilings and reproaches expressed in the letters that passed between them that the Readers ears would tingle should he hear them In short the Jews and the Samaritans were not greater Enemies than these were one to another as my Author affirms N. C. Mr. Edwards you mean C. Yes and I hope you think him a good one now as you did heretofore If not I can justifie what he sayes out of a learned Dutch writer if you please N. C. I am not much concern'd about this C. But you are concern'd to keep in mind these scandals in separate Congregations And it will do you no hurt I am sure to reflect a great deal farther back and consider what work the ancient Separatists of our Nation made in the same Country Johnson and Ainsworth fell out at Amsterdam and their Congregation was divided into two one of which excommunicated the other The two Johnsons also though Brethren in nature as well as Religion fell into such a fiery contention upon a small occasion that George the younger became a Libeller and loaded his Brother and others with many reproaches and that in Print to remain for ever The Elder broke fellowship with him and with his own Father who took part with George and curfed the other with all the curses in Gods Book and this breach was confirm'd by the heavy sentence of Excommunication and both Father and Brother delivered up to the Devil But then at Leiden J. Smith condemned them all and accused them of Idolatry telling them that their Constitution was as very a Harlot as either her Mother England or Grandmother Rome and that the Separation was the youngest and fairest daughter of Rome the Harlot The reason was because they look't into their Bibles when they preach't and into the Psalter when they sung For the Holy Scriptures he said were not to be retained as helps before the eyes in time of worship and particularly that it was unlawful to have a Book before them in singing of Psalms Besides their Government he thought was Antichristian because they joyned to Pastors other Doctors and Rectors which was an human invention And so he fell to the Anabaptists where he made also a new sect by baptizing himself if you please to have some of his words perhaps they may be useful to you When Popish prelacy saith he was suppressed and the Triformed Prebytery viz. Pastors Teachers and Elders substituted In his Book called the Differences of the Churches of the Sepation one Antichrist was put down and another set up in his place or the Beast was suppressed and his Image advanced And therefore as they that submit to the Prelacy are subject to that wo of Worshipping the Beast so they that submit to the Triform'd Presbytery are in like manner liable to that wo denounced against them that worship the Image of the Beast N. C. I perceive what you are going to say you would have me mark again how every Party paint their Opposites in the shape of this ugly Beast to terrifie simple people with it as we do children with Bug-bears C. And whosoever reads and considers these things will be I think of old Mr. Bernards mind who told this Nation threescore years ago that * it is better to endure Corruptions in a Church Mr. R. Bern. Plain Evidences Ann. 1610. p. 6. than be turmoiled with such Distractions and to be brought into such Confusions even a Babel of Languages of Opinions of Assemblies of Governing of Government and what not It is a blessing to be Well but a greater blessing to know it and so to abide For besides other Separations which I could tell you of the issue and result of all was this the decay of all true piety and a turning all Religion into wrangling censuring and condemning one another For as all that have declined to that Schism mark it I beseech you if the character do not concern some of you are found to be exceeding proud Consutation of the separatist agreed upon long since by the joynt consent of many Non-conformists Ministers published by Mr. W. Rathband 1644. part 4. p. 62 and disdainful towards all that are contrary-minded Yea even such as before they were infected with that leven were patterns of all love modesty and humility to others So will they not acknowledg nor reverence any of the most excellent graces that God hath given to any of his servants among us nor so much respect them as the very Papists will do No they profess greater detestation and despight to the most godly and most sincere men among us than they do to such as are most notorious in Prophaneness and Malice to the Truth And a Divine more ancient than these gave this remarkable Description of the fruits produced by separate Congregations Look upon the people saith he and you shall see very many who not regarding the chief Christian Virtues and Godly Duties as namely to be meek to be patient to be lowly to be full of love and mercy to deal uprightly and justly to guide their families in the fear of God with wholesome Instructions Mr. G. Gyfford's plain Declaration in which he undertakes not to vindicate every thing in our Church but that there was no sufficient cause of separation An. 1590. and to stand fast in the calling in which God hath set them give themselves wholly to this even as if it were the Sum and Pith of Religion namely to argue and talk continually against matters in the Church against Bishops and Ministers and one against another on both sides Some are proceeded to this that they will come to the Assemblies to hear Sermons and Prayers of the Preacher but not to the Prayers of the Book which I take to be a more grievous sin than many do suppose But yet this is not the worst For sundry are gone further and faln into a damnable Schism and the same so much the more fearful and dangerous in that many do not see the Foulness of it but rather hold them as godly Christians and but a little over-shot in some matters Which words I have the rather recited that
say Come let us go up out of this Babel and confusion Let us return to Sion though it be with weeping and Supplication There the Lord dwelleth and there he is truly worshipped For whatsoever they may acknowledg sometime the poor people whom I pity with all my soul are strangely and passionately possessed with an opinion of the sinfulness of being present at our Divine Service Many of them esteem one of our Ministers how well soever qualified and diligent in his calling however blameless and exemplary in his conversation no better than a Corrupt man a Time-server a Formalist Popishly affected or at least a man blinded and deceived through Ignorance Nay there are those who call them the Sons of Perdition and make them men of no Conscience Some have questioned whether they may marry a Conformist as if they were the people of a strange God To hear such a Minister they look upon as a great crime At least they think if any other be to be found they must go to the Non-Conformist though far the weaker man And as if they thought that to be godliness in themselves which they call tyranny in other men there are some that impose this upon their Children never to hear the Common-Prayer And charge them as I have heard upon their blessing to obey them in this Command And when for very shame they 01 cannot but acknowledg the gifts of some Ministers then they limit the use of them only to the information of mens Minds in the letter of the Scripture and discovering gross sins But that they may convert Souls and work Faith and Repentance in them they very much doubt if not flatly deny Nay so far doth this conceit carry some of them that they will scarce give a friendly countenance or salutation to us And they commonly call any small company of their own party the Church the people of God the Christians of such a town As if we had no portion in Christ but they had got him wholly to themselves These Humours were observed in the old Separatists and since they abound in you also there is great need to warn you to purge out the old leven lest it be transmitted from generation to generation N. C. But though a set Forum be lawful yet it is useless because there is no able Minister that needs one and we ought not to provide Crutches for those that are not able but rather remove them C. You would fain be Governors I see not subjects and we should have fine doings if you were in the Throne Unless you were as wise and honest as some of your Predecessors have been who made this discreet answer to your Exception There may be good Ministers who want the gift of extemporary conceptions of Prayer and by consequence need a Form For St. Paul setting down the requisites to a Bishop saith Mr. Geree * Resolution of 10. Cases Licensed by Mr. Cranford and dedicated to Mr. Rith Capel An. 1644. 1 Tim. 3. 1 Tit. Neither names nor intimates this for one of them And where the Scripture speaks of Ministerial gifts given to the edification of the Church this gift of prayer is never mentioned * 1 Corinth 1. to the 11. Rom. 12.6.7.8 Ephes 4.11.12 Tell me then if a man have all that St. Paul requires in a Bishop and yet wants this gift is he a lawful Minister of the Gospel or not No doubt there are such who cannot express themselves without confusion or to the edification of others without the help of a Form And experience tells us very excellent men have constantly tyed themselves to it As Dr. Taylor a couragious witness to the Truth used the Communion-Book even in private when he was in Prison and bequeath'd it as a Legacy to his Wife He instances also in Dr. Sibs and Mr. Hildersham who used constantly one form of Prayer before their Sermons And I find indeed the two last Sermons of the Doctor sent abroad by two eminent men with that Prayer before them * Upon 14. John 1. published by Mr. Tho. Goodwin and Mr. Philip Nye and dedicated to my Lord of Warwick By which you may see the Assembly were much out of the way when they told you the Lord Jesus furnishes all those whom he calls to the Ministry with this gift of Prayer Or else these men were among the idle and unedifying Ministry who did not put forth themselves to exercise their gift Preface to the Directory N.C. I have many things to say about Forms of Prayer and yours in particular especially about the imposing them if you have the patience to hear me C. With all my heart Only contract what you have to say because I have some business stayes for me N.C. You have seen a Book I perceive which hinders several persons I am told from joyning with you and they think it unanswerable C. What Goliah should that be N. C. It is called Common Prayer-Book-Devotions Episcopal Delusions Or the Second Death of the Service-Book C. A terrible Giant-like Title N.C. The Preface to which seems to call your Ministers the Sons of Perdition as you just now noted C. O I remember now it is said by his Friends to be writ by Mr J. Goodwin and printed in the wonderful year 1666 when they thought to see us tumble down with a powder N.C. It is full of his peculiar phrases and therefore C. I am not concern'd at all who was the Author Let 's consider what he says I took it to be a piece so soul and scurrilous nay so prophane and blasphemous against those Devotions wherein so many thousand Souls offer up themselves to God that I never expected to hear you name it without abhorrence N.C. You pass a very hard sentence on it C. If you had read the two first leaves seriously you would not say so Where as if he imagin'd himself in a Tennis-Court when he chanc't to peep into a Church he rudely calls the Minister's and People's answering one another Bandying and tossing of Devotions to and again a witty expression you think but borrowed alas as the rest of his Book from the Railers that were before him * It is as old as the Admonition in Qu. Elizabeths time Nay his fancy stept immediately from thence into an Ale-house and he tells us that these Devotions much resemble the jolly Scent of a set of Ale-inspired Companions chanting their drunken Catches upon a Bench. Which is such a leud and impious Scoff at the Devotions inspired by the Holy-Ghost which directed the Antient Saints thus to answer one another * 15 Exo. 1.21.15 Rev. 3. that to speak in Mr. J. Goodwins phrase he must be the first-born of prophanness who can deliberately commend such writings N.C. But what do you say to the rest of the Book C. I say he was in such a Cholerick fit and laid so furiously about him when he writ it that neither the admirable Song of St. Ambrose nor
the Creed it self which bears the name of the Apostles could escape with fair quarter N C. Not the Creed C. No For he blames the Liturgy for injoyning us to make Confession of our Faith in that form of words because saith he it contains that which I believe no man understands upon any good grounds what it means viz. the descent of Christ into Hell N.C. Read his words again Doth no man understand C. Not one if his belief be right which is exceeding large in this point though very strait in other things N.C. High Presumption you should say not belief Have not our Writers given a very good account of this Article C. I know not so well what yours have done I am sure ours both Bishops and Priests have explained it witness the late Primate of Ireland Bishop Bilson and Dr. Pierson in his excellent Book upon the Creed N. C. And when the Assembly debated this among other exceptions brought in against the three Creeds a learned Doctor told them in a Speech of his that all the Christians in the World acknowledged Christ's descent into Hell some way or other either Locally as many of the ancient Fathers Latimer the Martyr Bilson Andrews Nowel in his Catechism or Vertually as Durandus or Metaphorically as Mr. Calvin or Metonymically as Tilenus Perkins and the Assembly And therefore since there are so many ways to explain the words he desired that after the example of the Harmony of Confessions the Assembly would content themselves with branding only the Popish Exposition of the Article which takes Hell for a part of Purgatory where they suppose the Souls of the Fathers to have lay'd C. I remember well the words * Sacra Nemesis p. 18. it was Doctor Feately who made this Speech But alas all these men that we have named understood nothing They knew not poor Souls what they said when they made Confession of their Faith or they had no reason worth a rush for what they believed Nay all the Christian World do but babble in their Devotions if you will take the word of this triumphant Writer excepting alway such as himself who have no Creed at all that ever I heard of I mean make no confession of their Faith when they meet together N.C. They are offended perhaps with those words else they would use the Apostles Creed as it is commonly called C. That is not the business for he scoffs as I told you at the Song of St. Ambrose though it contain an incomparable acknowledgment of Almighty God and the principal points of Christian Faith and hath none of those words in it This is no more fit in his conceit to be used in Divine-Service together with the Psalms of David than an Asse was to be yoked with an Oxe in the same Plough under the Law of Moses Had he the same opinion think you of one of his own Hymnes or Rimes rather though never so flat and insipid No I warrant you They were divinely inspired heaven-born Songs no less Canonical than the Psalms of David N.C. They had no such thought of them C. Why then did they joyn them with the Holy Scriptures in Gods Service How durst they yoke together things so different as those made by God and those made by Man Or if that were lawful why are we blamed for using the Song of St. Ambrose in Divine Service Nay why did he call our Liturgy upon this account a medley * He adds a heap of other words as his manner is when these would have been sufficient of things Canonicals and Apocryphals no more fit to be molded together in Evangelical worship than those creatures I mentioned to be coupled in the same Plough N.C. I know no reason for it C. Nor will you ever find a Reason why another famous Book * Vox Populi Second part p. 3. of yours in the late times said that the solemn salutes and demy-adorations of St. John Baptist and the Flessed Virgin were left still in the Common-Prayer Book by our Reformers There is no occasion at all for this Calumny unless he thought Magnificat and Benedictus were two Popish Hymns whereby we honoured those Saints as it were easie I think to perswade many of their ignorant and credulous Followers Nay they who can be content to hear us compared to a knot of Ale-inspired Companions when we sing those words of the Holy Ghost may for any thing I know be taught to raile upon Magnificat and Benedictus if as they were but certain Drunken Catches N.C. You are too severe C. I abhor severity where gentleness is the proper cure But Saint Paul tells Titus that unruly and vain talkers and deceivers must be rebuked sharply Tit. 1.13 And there needs no other witness that there are such among them whose mouths must be stopt than the Prefacer to the Book we are speaking of a confident Ignoramus who struts as if he were some great man and makes a ratling with his big words as if he had some mighty matter to tell us but in effect hath just nothing except two or three gross and palpable falshoods of which I will make him asham'd if he have not a very brazen forehead N C. Do you think he would lye for Christ C. I think he is a bold and vain talker of things he understands not what more do you judge when you have heard what I have to say If the Book was writ by the person before nam'd as his Disciples affirm then he tells us one Notorious Tale when he saith The Author ended his days in a kind of Exile for adhering to this truth defended in his Book viz. That nothing ought to be imposed in the worship of God For it 's well known by all that understand any thing of our affairs that Mr. John Goodwin suffered no banishment of any kind but was disabled from his office though there had been no Common-Prayer for intermedling so much in the late Civil quarrels and writing a Book to justifie the horrid murder of our late Soveraign But to let that pass He asks us you remember Where were more learned more godly men in the World than Cartwright Parker Reynolds Greenham Ames And who knoweth not that these and many more of the same heavenly stamp suffered extream Persecution Deprivations and Banishments rather than they would touch with the graven Images the work of the Craftsmen that then were and now are the snares and nets upon Mispeh and Tabor N C. I remember them very well C. And is he not an abominable reviler in reproaching us with Idolatry and the worshipping of Graven Images N.C. But where are the Falshoods C. Is that none think you But those I now intend are that he makes those men against a stinted form of worship who were for it and to suffer extream persecution on that account who suffered none at all much less Banishment Other untruths there are but these are sufficient to make him blush if
he have any of that vertuous colour left N.C. Was not Cartwright of his mind C. No. For he declared his meaning was not to disallow of a prescript form of Prayer and an Vniform Order in the Church His quarrel was onely with some things in our service-Service-Book But yet he professed he did not oppose the Ceremonies as simply unlawful but only as inconvenient And therefore perswaded the Pretchers rather to wear the Surpliss than cease their Ministry and the people to receive the Sacrament kneeling if they could not have it otherways because though that gesture was as he conceived incommodious yet not simply unlawful All which and a great deal more I will prove out of his own works and other good Authors if it be contradicted as also that he lost his Professors-place at Cambridge upon other accounts and after all went to Warwick where he was born and dyed in the discharge of his Office as their Minister And Mr. Edwards I remember tells us that he citing a passage out of Mr. Cartwright's Comments on the Proverbs in a Sermon he preached a little before the Wars to perswade the people to take heed of the White Devil viz. the separation upon greater pretence of Purity Mr. John Goodwin came to him when he had done and gave him great thanks for it As for Mr. Parker he indeed went further and said the Ceremonies were unlawful either to be imposed or used But he was far from being so great a Schollar as this man fancies at least his learning was not well digested For taking upon him to maintain that Popish Idolatry is every whit as bad as Pagan he brings a passage out of Saint Augustine to justifie this that a Heretick is worse than a Pagan Which are the Words of another man whom Saint Augustine in that place confutes and asks him by what rule he concluded this seeing our Lord said If he hear not the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen not worse than an Heathen By which you may see how how forward men of this spirit are to catch at any thing that may seem to favour their Opinions and to make a shew of learning when they think it will serve them though they slight and undervalue it as a carnal weapon when it is in their Adversaries hands And if I thought this man understood him I should imagin he had learnt of Mr. Parker to magnifie those of his own party beyond their deserts For he extolls the refusing of conformity as such a singular piece of service done to God that he compares such persons as were therefore deprived to David Worthies and the three hundred men that followed Gideon Most brave flourishes How can you chuse but yield your felf captive to such Champions believing this Preface upon his word that those he Musters up were in the number of the Worthies But he belies Mr. Greenham too as I am able to prove from good Testimony even from himself But for brevities sake I shall only let you know that Doctor John Burges assures us that on his own knowledge and in his hearing Mr. Greenham denied to perswade any man against the use of the Ceremonies and professed he would be loth to be put to the solution of this Objection as he called it wear the Surpliss or Preach not Which is an argument that though he did not like them yet he did not hold them unlawful much less Idolatrous as this Ignorant Writer would perswade us I can prove also that he abuses Doctor Ames but that I make haste to tell you the most palpable forgery of all is the putting Doctor Reynolds into the Catalogue of his Mighty Men. And since he pretends to understand Latine I will send him for his more full conviction to an Author no less learned than that excellent Doctor and a far better Schollar than any of the rest and that is Doctor Richard Crackanthorp who tells the Arch-bishop of Spalato that the Doctor was no Puritan as he called him but he himself a Calumniator Defens Ecclsiae Anglicanae c. cap 69 pag. 419. An. 1529. For first he professed that he appeared unvillingly in the cause at Hampton Court and meerly in obedience to the Kings command And then he spake against not one word there against the Hierarchy Nay he acknowledged it to be consonant to the word of God in his conference with Hart. And in an Answer to Sanders his Book of the Schism of England which is in the Arch-bishops Library he professes that he approves of the Book of Consecrating and ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons He was a strict observer also of all the Orders of the Church and University both in publick and his own Colledg wearing the Square Cap and Surpliss Kneeling at the Sacrament and he himself commemorating their Benefactors at the times their Statutes appointed and reading that Chapter out of Ecclesiasticus which is on such occasions used In a Letter also of his to Arch-bishop Bancroft then in Doctor Crackanthorps hands he professes himself conformable to the Church of England willingly and from his heart his Conscience admonishing him so to be And thus he remained perswaded to his last breath desiring to receive Absolution according to the manner prescribed in our Liturgy when he lay on his Death-bed Which he did from Doctor Holland the King's Professor in Oxford kissing his hand in token of his Love and Joy and within a few hours after resigned up his Soul to God What think you now was Doctor Reynolds one of those that abominated our Worship suffered extream persecution deprivation and banishment too Or must he that lately stood among the most learned and godly men in the World be now blotted out and put in the black list of Idolaters and touchers with Graven Images What say you Will you never see how these men deceive you Must the most knowing men on our side that report things to us from solid testimony be thought lyars and these impudent sots be believed on their bare word N.C. I am convinced he understood nothing of these matters C. And yet he writes like a Teacher though I believe he never studied their own Writers about these points If he had the silenced Ministers in those dayes would have taught him a great part of what I have said For they have told us in Print * Christian Modest Offer as they call it of the silenced Ministers in which they call for another disputation Anno 1606. that Most of those Ministers appointed to speak for them at Hampton Court were not of their chusing or Nomination or Judgment in the matters then in question but of a clean contrary For being intreated at that time to dispute against those things as simply evil and such as could not be yielded to without sin they professed to them they were not so perswaded and therefore could not do so And being then requested to let his Majesty understand that some of their Brethren were
you know in express words That whosoever shall authoritatively and under a penalty command any model method or manner of Divine worship to be observed by men makes himself God c. you may read it at large p. 11. 12. For it is as clear as the Sun N. C. That such Books ought to be burnt C. I must add that you are all guilty of too much confidence and talk as if you were infallible in your conclusions When you see therefore the folly of it in another mend it in your selves And do not talk here after as if all Godly men had ever been of your mind No man of a tender Conscience but held it unlawful to prescribe any thing in Gods worship Every Body knows Cartwright Reynolds Greenham were of this opinion as the Prefacer boldly told you and it is a wonder he did not add Dr. Sibbs For so some of your party took care the world should believe and chose rather to corrupt his writings then have it thought he was of another Perswasion N. C. I shall never believe it C. You may chuse But I shall prove that this good mans writings were abused presently after his death in this very point For in his Book called the Souls Conflict he gave this direction among others to guide a Soul in doubtful Cases The Laws under which we live are particular determinations of the Law of God and therefore ought to be a rule to us so far as they reach Though it be too narrow a Rule to be good only so far as mans Law guides unto yet Law being the joynt Reason and consent of many men for publick Good hath an use for the guiding of our Actions that are under the same VVhere it dashes not against Gods Law what is agreeable to Law is agreeable to Conscience Thus the Rule stood when the Book first came out * First Edition 1635. pag. 364. But in a very short time after when he was newly laid in his grave the first words were changed into these The Laws under which we live are particular determinations of the Law of God in some duties of the Second Table In which they made two restrictions of that which he had said in General words First they restrain'd the Rule to the Second Table and not to all things neither but only some duties And then they add a whole Sentence by way of Example which was not in the first Edition which I make no doubt was done on purpose lest any man who read the Book should think it was the Doctors opinion that we should conform to the Orders of our Governours about the worship of God where the Law of God hath determined nothing in particular and their Laws do not cross his But what is there done by the Jesuites worse than this what greater injury to the dead than thus to play tricks with their Books and change their words at your pleasure N. C. It is very strange C. I have something more to tell you As they have added here so they have taken away in another place just before it He is Answering I told you this Question what course must we take for guidance of our lives in particular actions wherein Doubts may arise what is most agreeable to Gods will And one Advice is this we must look to our place wherein God hath set us If we be in subjection to others their Authority in doubtful things ought to sway with us A dangerous Rule some men thought and therefore in the next Edition they left out those words in doubtful things And also blotted out this whole sentence which follows It is certain we ought to obey viz. in doubtful things of which he is speaking and if the things wherein we are to obey be certain to us we ought to leave that which is uncertain and stick to that which is certain In this case we must obey those that are under God N. C. Are you sure of this C. As sure as that I see you though I must tell you there was a neat device to hide this fraud for they reprinted the Book speedily with the very same Title page that was before without giving notice that it was a second Edition And by leaving out those lines and adding an example as I told you to illustrate the rule as they had restrain'd it they made the pages exactly even as they were at the first * There are two Editions of 1635. one of his own another of some bodies else but so ordered that they seem the same At least they reprinted that sheet wherein these things are contained with these alterations which I add lest I should not be rightly understood by all Afterward the Book was divided into Chapters and in all Editions since you will find these Rules Chapt. 17. with these alterations N. C. By his own appointment it is like C. Why did they not tell us so N. C. I know not C. I 'le tell you then They were loth to tell a plain lye For the Doctor dyed within three days after he had writ his Preface to the first Impression and therefore it 's most likely made no Alterations That Preface was dated July the first 1635. and he dyed July the fourch So I gather from those who put out his two last Sermons preached June 21. and 28. and he dyed say they the Lords day following Immediately after which came out a new impression of the same year 1635. but not called a second Edition which they would have us believe was not till 1636. A meer cheat as I confidently affirm having seen and compared all N. C. I see now you are of an imposing Spirit and have taken a great deal of pains to shew it C. What Am I for imposing on men those words they never said N. C. Be not so perverse All the Reformed Churches are against imposing of Set Forms as I have been told C. As perverse as I am I 'le follow you for once So you have been told I believe that they are against all Set Forms though not imposed I am sure I have N. C. No I remember in the beginning of the late Wars the Scotish Forms of Prayer were printed C. And so were the French and those of Geneva and Guernsea and the Dutch to name no more all translated into English Therefore pray satisfie some of your Ignorant but yet confident Friend in this matter As for that of Imposing what think you of these words of Mr. Calvin in his letter to the Protector Octob. 22. 1548. As for Forms of prayer and Rites Ecclesiastical I do greatly approve that there be a certain one extant from which it shall not be lawful for the Ministers in their function to depart c. For which he there gives solid Reasons And whatsoever is pretended to the contrary the Reformed Churches do follow this Counsel and tye men to a Form in the publick duties of Gods worship as I can evidently shew But now let me
only observe that heretofore your Ministers thought it no light Argument against the Separatists that all Reformed Churches acknowledged the Church of England as their sister and consequently did not think her wicked for imposing Forms of Prayer So you may read in the Book I told you of before published by Mr. Rathband p. 6. though the truth is those Ministers have taken that Argument out of the Book of Mr. Bernards * Errors of Barrow and Greenwood confuted 1608 pag. 178. who speaks discreetly when he saith That though we do not make this our only or chief defence whereby we seek to approve our selves to God or the consciences of his people yet it is a thing that gives some reputation to us For even Saint Paul who received not his calling either from or by men alledges for the credit of his Ministry that three chief Apostles approved him and gave him the right hand of fellowship And which is more he seeks to win commendation and credit even to those Orders which he by his Apostolical Authority might have established by the example and judgment of other Churches * For which he cites 1 Cor. 7.17.11.15.14.33.16.1 N. C. Then you are for imposing C. I am for that which all men of any discretion think necessary viz. that every body should not be left to do according to their present humour and fancy when they come to worship God in the publick Assemblies Even the famous Smectymnuus allowed impositions in some cases For they propound this as an expedient that if it shall appear any Minister proves insufficient to discharge the duty of prayer in a conceived way it may be imposed on him as a punishment to use a set form and no other †Answer to the Humble Remonstrance p. 14. This was indeed a contrivance to disgrace the Liturgy as if it were fit for no bodies use but the duller and heavier sort of People but yet it shews their judgment above imposing which you now complain of And I would fain know what they would have done with such insufficient persons as had a good opinion of their gifts and thinking themselves wrong'd in being condemned to the forenamed Pennance would not obey them Would they have forced them to obedience or no If not their expedient signified nothing If they would then why should not the Magistrate do it now who knows that most of those who love liberty have a better opinion of their own abilities than they ought N. C. We wish the Common Prayer was left at liberty to be used or not as men found themselves inclined C. Do you so That 's because you despise it and think it good for little or nothing But were there one of your own Inventions to be established you would never leave us at Liberty if you had power to make use of it or let it alone Nothing should stand in competition with it but every thing else as well as Common-Prayer fall before it as Dagon before the Ark. Did not the Independents incur your displeasure for craving an allowance to order a few Churches after their own fashion Mr. Dury himself I remember a man of peace and composer of differences resolved their way was not to be tollerated For it would lay said he †Epistolary Discourse p. 21. Licensed by Mr. Cranford July 27. 1644. the foundation of strife and Division in the Kingdom to have two wayes of Church Government which may agree with some Matchiavilian but no Christian Policy And therefore it will be no wisdom in the State to yield to the Suit of the five Brethren except it be induced thereunto by the Necessity of avoiding some greater inconvenience than is the admitting of a seed of perpetual Division within it self which is in my apprehension the greatest of all other and most opposite to the Kingdom of Christ Now the less the cause of separation is the greater is the fault in those that make it and the less cause the State hath to give way to the making of it You remember therefore what Ordinances were made for the electing of Elders and that all Parishes and places whatsoever as well priviledged and exempt jurisdictions as others should be brought under the Government of Congregational Classical Provincial and National Assemblies a Ordin of 19. Au. 1645. And this was according to their solemn promise of setling Uniformity which part of the Covenant they said if you will believe them was alwayes before their eyes b Ordin 14 Mar. 1645. In pursuance of which also the City desired c Humble Remonstrance and Petition May 26. 1646. that some strict and speedy course might be taken for the suppressing of all private and separated Congregations And the House of Lords ordered the Printing of their Petition which was grounded upon a Remonstrance †Decemb. 15. 1642. of the House of Commons wherein they declared that it was far from their purpose or desire to let loose the golden rains of Discipline and Government in the Church or to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please As for the sacred Covenant that Holy Ordinance as Mr. Case calls it and choice piece of Divine Service you know no man could be a Minister or an Elder no nor practice as an Attorney or Solicitor at the Law unless he took it and the refusal of it was generally made a Mark of ungodliness as I will prove when you please N. C. I know not what reasons they went by then C. The same whereby they would proceed now if they had the same power and the same hopes And so I believe would the Independents too who are for imposing their own things as much as they are able For they have invented you must know a Model and form of their own heads which is not appointed in Holy Scriptures As first that the Members must be examined and give an account of the manner of their conversion which is in a certain Method and Form too in New-England and that before the Church Narration of some Church Courses in N. England by W. R. collected out of their own reports c. chap. 4. pag. 16. Then it is required that they enter into a Church-Covenant which is not the Covenant of grace but distinct from it For they acknowledge a man may be within the Covenant of Grace who is not in this and one may be in this who is not in that And yet it is a Sacred not a Civil thing which must be made publick before all the Church vocal and express so binding that none can be loosed from it without the consent of the Church And then it is held at least by many that the Members must prophesy i. e. exercise their gifts in and before the whole Congregation by preaching expounding applying the Scripture by instruction confutation Reprehension with all Authority †Which they say is an Ordinance
perpetual in the Church as we read in Mr. Cottons Catechism Now having devised these things to name no more I observe that the Covenant in the same Church is in one and the same Form of words as well as matter and therefore put into writing and must be read by the party to be admitted or he must hear it read by some other and give his Assent to it Here is not only a Form of Holy Covenant a principal point of worship as W. R. notes invented by one or more men but imposed upon others even as many as enter into the Church and more than that to be read upon a Book What is this better or how is it more lawful than a set form of prayer especially since this Covenant is imposed as an Ordinance of God and absolutely necessary so as no Book-Prayer I think is I find also that by this Covenant the Members in some places †Church of Salem in New-Engl were restrained and tyed up from shewing their gifts in speaking or scrupling till they were called thereto that is they being allowed to prophesie publickly and so to propound questions and make objections which they call Scrupling they bound them up in this Covenant which had the force of Law from doing it uncall'd I would fain know whether this be not to limit the Spirit as you speak and to stint it to times as you say we do it to words For if a man be never so full he must have no vent without a call from the Church And how I pray you doth this differ from an Ecclesiastical Canon as to it's force and obligation but only that it hath another name and all old Canons must be lay'd aside to make way for this new Covenant They tell us also expresly that the Magistrate may compel men to keep their Covenant though not to enter into it †Ib. Narration of Church Courses cap. 15. And for spreading of infectious Doctrines Mr. Wheelwright a Minister and Mrs. Hutchinson a pretended Prophetess were banished the Countrey Several of their followers also were some imprisoned some fined some disfranchised some banished and all disarmed for petitioning the Court in behalf of Mr. Wheelwright and remonstrating with due submission so their words were that they conceived he deserved no such censure a Proceedings of the General Court holden at New-Town Oct. 2. 1637. and the Apology in defence of the proceedings holden at Boston 1636. And great many more remarkable things there are in that story which I cannot stand to recite But must proceed to tell you that as for others who are not of their way there is just no liberty at all For as they will not grant communion to members of other Churches not constituted as they are so if a company of approved godly people should sit down near them where their power reaches differing from them only in some points of Church Government some of them tell us not only that they shall not be owned as a sister Church but also be in danger of severe punishment by the Civil Magistrate b Narration c. cap. 10. N. C. What is all this to our Independents C. They extol both the Men and the wayes of New-England to the Skyes and therefore approve of them I suppose not only as good but as excelling all other The Men they say have testified their sincerity to all generations future by the greatest undertaking except that of our Father Abraham viz. leaving this Countrey to go thither meerly to worship God more purely c Apologetical Narration 1643. pag. 5. And as for their wayes and practices they are improved to a better Edition and greater refinement than those of other Reformed Churches d Ib. which makes it reasonable to believe that when they Covenanted to reform according to the example of the best Reformed Churches they had New-England in their eyes as their pattern For those General words as Mr. Feak e Beam of Light p. 25. rightly observes left it under suspence and undetermined which of the Reformed Churches had obtained the highest degree of Reformation The Scots and their Friends judged the Kirk of Scotland the best Reformed the Dissenting Brethren approved the Reformation of New-England to be most excellent But be this as it will we have learn't thus much from what hath been related that the Churches of a better Edition and greater refinement do not think it unlawful to use forms in Gods holy Ordinances unto which they bind those who come under their Power restraining them also from opening their mouths when perhaps they think themselves full of the Spirit and denying leave to others to set up a different way from theirs in their Neighbourhood As for our Independents I can shew from their Books that they think it necessary to be as severe in a great many Cases 〈◊〉 and I remember as heavy complaints of them as ever they made of the Presbyterians and have been told that they daily spet their renom privately and publickly against those that separated from them a Vanity of the present Churches p. 3. and 11. c. N. C. It will be too long to relate all those things But I would fain know how this will stand with Christian Liberty C. Do you think that it consists in being tyed to no Law at all N. C. None but Gods C. Take heed what you say N. C. In matters of worship I mean C. That 's absurd as I have shewn you Gods Law hath only given us the general rules whereby things to be ordered in the Church according to which our Governors are to make particular Laws and we are to obey them or else there will be nothing but confusion Yet still our Christian Liberty remains because First we are not tyed to this or that pattern or Model but our Governors have liberty to establish whatsoever being in it self indifferent shall seem to them most expedient for maintaining comliness and Order And secondly when any orders are established this is our Liberty as our Divines teach you that we do not use them as any part of Divine Worship as some of you do nor as meritorious and satisfactory nor as necessary to justification or salvation but only for discipline and good Orders sake And lastly by consequence the same Authority may alter them and hath not so tyed up it self to them but that it is at liberty to abolish those in case of inconvenience arising and establish others in the room But such a Liberty as leaves men loose from all Laws and Orders save those that they shall chuse themselves is a wild fancy which your Ministers condemn as well as ours Mr. Dury for instance a very moderate Presbyterian tells the Independent Brethren We must expect no such Liberty as shall break the Bond of Spiritual Unity which by the allowance of a publick tolleration of a different Church Government may be occasioned To keep therefore Unity intire a few must
are from it N. C. What shall a man do then C. He must observe these Rules of that Good man 1. Keep all main Truths which are most plainly set down in the Word or by the Law of Nature ingraven on every mans heart 2. Believe every thing truly and necessarily gathered by an immediate consequence from the Text. 3. Follow evident examples fit for him either as a Christian or his special calling requires 4. Avoid that which is plainly forbidden or follows necessarily by an immediate consequence 5. Follow true Antiquity and the General practice of the Church of God in all ages where they have not erred from the evident Truth of God 6. If thou sufferest saith he let it be for known Truth and against known wickedness for which thou hast example in Gods word or of the holy Martyrs in Church story But beware of far fetcht consequences or of suffering for new devices and for things formerly unto all Ages unknown seem they never so holy and just unto man N. C. But what if the thing commanded seem to me a sin C. He answers some things sinfully commanded may be obeyed without sin as Joab obeyed David in numbring the People Secondly Consider how dost thou conceive it to be sin Is it simply so Shew me the prohibition else where no Law is there is no Transgression Or is it so accidentally that is in the abuse which may be removed or in respect of the Ignorance of the Lawfulness making thee to doubt and fear to offend Use all diligence for resolution And if it be not a known sin to thee certainly but only by probability consider whether probability of sinning may give thee a sufficient discharge for not obeying a plain Precept and to neglect necessary Duties otherwise both to God and man N. C. Would you have me do things while I am full of scruples whether I may or no Doth not the Scripture say whatsoever is not of Faith is sin Rom. 14.23 C. He takes no notice of that place But since you mention it I 'le give you an Answer not from my self Mr. John Geree Resolution of 10. Cases Licensed by Mr. Cranford 1644. whose judgment you value not much but from a Divine who we are told suffered much under the Bishops Things wherein doubts arise saith he are of a double Nature First Such as are meerly arbritary and at mine own dispose These may be left undone without scruple but not done with it because the inconvenience of Omission is but a little self-suffering Such are the things the Apostle speaks off forbearing the use of our Liberty in eating flesh or the like case If a man doubt whether he may do that or whether he may play at Tables or Cards the omission here being no more but only denying our selves a little content the doubt should make a man forbear But then there are other things that are not arbitrary but under a command as coming to the Sacrament obedience to the higher powers in things lawful Now if scruples arise about these and a man doubts he sins if he act and he also doubts he sins if he forbear it is neither clear that the thing to be done is sinful and so to be forborn nor perfectly clear that it is a duty and so to be done In this case he must weigh the Scales and where the Soul apprehends most weight of reason that way he must incline though the other scale be not altogether empty And this done after humble and diligent search with bewailing our infirmity that we are no more discerning will be accepted of God God puts not his people on necessity of sinning nor can our scruples dispense with his commands N. C. Sometime I think this is clear and solid Reason but many Friends think otherwise and I am loth to offend them by doing these things which our Governors require C. But consider First they may take offence when none is given Bern. Counsels of Peace and then the fault is their own and you not chargeable therewith Secondly the Question is whether they be offended in respect of what themselves know or but led by affection disliking of other mens dislike Intreat the former to let thee abound for such things in thy own sense and shew them that herein you may Brotherly disagree for the latter inform their judgment if they will yield to reason If not then consider Thirdly whether thou art bound to nourish up such men in their folly and to respect their partial affection being more carried away with an overweening of some mens persons than any thing at all with the right understanding of the cause And then Fourthly consider the power of the Magistrate and whether his Authority commanding do not take away the offence which might otherwise be given by a voluntary Act. And Lastly that a man should not stand more upon avoiding dislike in private persons than offence to publick Authority as I said before But alas as he saith at the end of his Book †Separatis Schism adjoyn'd to the other p. 161. Charity and such like graces are far to seek now adaies Men on all hands judge of things perversly This they will allow and that again humourously they will not like That which maybe justly done well without offence thereat will others be unjustly offended Things doubtful men take sinisterly yea they dare censure what they never saw condemn as ill what they knew not suspect where they have no cause gain-say where there ought to be no contradiction partial to themselves and rigorous towards others Authority will rule thus and so Subjects will obey with Exceptions Judgment from the word is not so much a Guide as will and affection in too many are made Masters These be ill dayes and contentious unhappy times in which men either will do that they will do of themselves or else fall to humour parties not simply receiving a love of the truth for the truths sake and so come to pertakings which doth but increase contention till all come to confusion except the Lord in his great mercy prevent the same N. C. And turn us all to a more moderate course and there keep us C. You have read the Book for those are the words that follow N.C. No. But I think there is much of truth in what he sayes and it had been well if his Counsels had been then followed C. Alas they who were chiefly concern'd in them were so far from following them that they took no farther notice of them than only to revile him that wrote them N. C. Methinks none should be so brutish C. It is as I tell you Mr. Ainsworth making an answer to this Book wholly omitted these Counsels of Peace save only that he once mention'd them with this haughty censure that perhaps the Author knew no more than Caiphas what he said Such men will not grant us able to say any good thing N. C. But his was an acknowledgment the