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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93646	The guilty-covered clergy-man unvailed; in a plain and candid reply unto two bundles of wrath and confusion, wrapt up in one and twenty sheets of paper. The one written by Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford of Reading; the other by William Thomas of Ubley in Somersetshire. Wherein all their malicious slanders and false accusations, which they cast upon the truth, are clean wash'd off; their weapons with which they war against the Lamb, broken over their own heads; and they, with the rest of the tyth-exacting teachers, proved to be the great incendaries, and mis-leaders of these nations. In which also there is made a brief and sober application, to the magistrates, and other inhabitants, within the city of Bristol. / By Thomas Speed, a friend to all that tremble at the Word of the Lord; but an irreconcileable enemy to the mysterious deceit, and monstrous hypocrisie of those that do teach for hire, and divine for money.	Speed, Thomas, b. 1622 or 3.	1657 (1657)	Wing S4905; Thomason E893_1; ESTC R203614	61,807	87

is a stone that every sorry thing in black to use your own expression hath to cast in his face who hath so much honesty and courage as to bear testimony against the wickedness of your Pharisaicall generation If any man doth appear with strength of truth and plainness to decry the deceit and unrighteousness of teachers and people every ignorant Priest is presently crying out a Jesuite a Jesuite thinking by that brand of reproach to render those just accusations that are brought against them less credible in the judgements of the simple But do not decieve your selves in thinking that I shall be scared from discovering your uncleanness by your great words I am as irreconcileable an Antagonist to the Antichristian principles and practices found among the Jesuites as I am to the same found among you from declaring against which I shall never be disswaded by either bribe or fear The rest of your scorns and unsavory scoffs in your Title page I pass over as being unwilling to defile my thoughts or my pen with such filthy rubbish I now pass to both your Epistles And first I cannot but take notice how you walk in the old path of begging Patronage to your deformed Pamphlet Christ Fowler and Simon Ford 's Epistle to Col. Sydenham examined You have some mire and dirt to throw upon the innocent out of the raging Sea of your inward guilt and what then that you may act your design with the more authority you must crouch and cringe to Col. Sydenham and tell him that you are his Honors affectionate Servants that under his shelter as you phrase it you might shoot out the bitter arrows of lies and slanders with which your Epistle and Book do abound with the greater hope of credit among those that live in the same spirit of wickedness with your selves Had you writ nought but truth that would not have needed the shadow of any mans wing for its shelter and patronage I once knew Colonel Sydenham dwelling in a spirit of prudence and moderation in which if he yet abideth and be not Priest-ridden into passion and prejudice against the truth which I should be sorry to understand I doubt not but he doth discern and loath that spirit of fawning and flattery upon which you offered up to him that polluted sacrifice of an Epistle You begin it with a high but a lying Accusation charging me with Apostacy to damnable doctrines To which I say That he that saith that of me which he neither doth nor can prove is a lyar and such do I charge you Two to be who have most maliciously dealt with me both in this Epistle and the Pamphlet as your Predecessors the Roman blood-suckers did with the poor innocent Christians in those days viz. cloath them with the skins of some ugly creature and then cast them to the wild beast to be devoured But I doubt not but that I shall before you and I part give the sober Reader a true representation of such Doctrines and Practices of yours and your Brethrens as will make his ears to tingle You tell Colonel Sydenham that in my Epistle I challenged all the publick Teachers in the Nation and you in particular Rep. Now whether this be true or like the former Col. Sydenham and all honest readers may determine upon perusal of my Epistle in which there is not a word of any challenge or any thing like it But how doth it appear that I did challenge you your proof is because you say I sent you each a Book by name To which I shall onely say That the person that delivered you a book from me utterly mistook me For why I should particularly direct a book to either of you whose faces to my knowledge I never saw nor ever exchanged word with you let the reader judge This is the pretended ground of your undertaking but I rather judge the real rise to be from a mixture of your guilt and ambition that you might at once give the world a proof of your abilities both in painting and sophistry But your coverings are too short and to the most weak-fighted of the children of light is your nakedness manifest The next thing you suggest to Colonel Sydenham as a motive to your undertaking is that you dared not to betray the truth and the glory of the Lord Jesus nor the precious souls of the people Rep. Did not your hypocrisie stare in your faces when you were penning these fained motives Are you not known to live in a professed enmity to the truth of Christ appearing in his Saints and yet pretend a zeal for it Are not your conversations a stain to the very profession of hi●●●me by living in pride covetousness by your persecution nay what in you lieth drawing his blood in his innocent Lambs and yet you tender of his glory Besides how can you absolve your selves from being betrayers of precious soul who cry peace peace where the Lord hath spoken no peace Jer. 6.14 and do slay the souls that should not die who do reach for doctrine Ezek. 13 19. the traditions of men drawing poor souls from their true guide to listen to your corrupt dreams and divinations and keeping them fast in the snares of Satan do lead them down hood winck'd into the chambers of death I shall pass from yours to William Thomas his Epistle Will. Thomas his Epistle to his friends c. in and about the City of Bristol scan'd in which he maketh a great cry to little purpose He directeth it to his well beloved Friends and Neighbors in and about the City of Bristol those in particular of his own charge and in special those that have sadly and dangerously declined from the Scripture path Rep. I will not quarrel at the sence or rather the of this inscription I shall speak to the thing intended It seemeth that William Thomas hath those of his own charge that have sadly and dangerously declined from the Scripture path And do they not therein demonstrate themselves to be teachable Disciples in following their Pastors practise Sure I am he is far wide from the Scripture-path both in his principles and practice and if you call to him for Scripture to prove what he saith or doeth as I have sufficiently done he will give you one of his own meanings or wild deductions instead of Scripture which if you refuse to accept then an out-cry is presently made here is one that denieth Scripture an Heretick an Heretick He telleth his friends in Bristol among many other notorious untruths that I will needs bee his adversary Reply As if from a busie minde I had been the beginner of the present contest betwixt us VVill. Thomas the beginner of the present Contest Whereas I was quietly abiding in my calling not designing to write or print any thing to him or touching him Neither can I say but that I might have gone to my grave in silence without writing or printing ought that

called July I received by the hands of a Friend a Pamphlet with a scoffing inscription written upon it subscribed with both your hands and directed to my self which I have perused and seriously weighed and do find it to be a monstrous birth begotten by the Prince of darkness conceived in the womb of your own guilt and brought forth by the vigorous assistance of that great Red Dragon Rev. 12.4 5. which stood before the Woman ready to be delivered to devour her man child as soon as it was born Since which time I have met with another heap of anger and confusion come forth under the name of WILLIAM THOMAS of Vbley a piece which is found having on it the same stamp of enmity with yours onely with this difference that whereas you have subtilly couche and covered your malice under the deceitful paint of smooth words he hath thrown out his scorn and disdain both against the truth and mine own person under a thinner covering in the view of all men To both these Pamphlets I shall now apply my self in a way of Reply not thereby to gratifie either of your wills or lusts nor to vindicate my self who could the Lord is my witness gladly sit down in silence wearing your reproaches as a crown upon my head and through the power of his grace who hath saved me esteem it my honour not onely to suffer affliction but to die bearing testimony against their wickedness under the merciless hands of your bloody generation But for the truths sake which you so prophanely trample upon and for the innocents sake whose blood you so eagerly thirst after and for the simples sake whom you so miserably delude I may not keep silence But before I speak either to the Title or the Contents of either of your Papers I shall premise these five things 1. In my Reply I shall principally direct my Speech to you two yet so as that I shall in passing on take notice of what ever William Thomas hath spoken * Which is but very little worthy of an Answer Who in his Epistle directed to the Reader and prefixed to his Pamphlet declareth his resolutions to have no further to do with me although in his following Book there be scarce a Page in which he doth not mention me with scorn and contempt ☞ A rare demonstration of his truth and ingenuity to throw as many stones at me as the hand of his rage could well lay hold on having but just before told his Reader that he would have no more to do with me 2 Take notice that I shall not make it my business to trace you in every unsavory and impertinent expression throughout your Books I esteem my time more precious then to squander it away in raking into all that mire and dirt that 's closed up in those one and twenty sheets of paper However you may esteem of time who live by the sweat of other mens brows eating the fat and drinking the sweet with me I must let you know it 's more precious then plenty 3 What ever of dung or filth you have cast on the truth or my self I shall quietly wipe off not lifting it back again upon your own faces but let it fall into the Channel whence you may perhaps spend your spare hours to take it again to bespatter the innocent with in you next 4 Whether it may prove an irritation or an allay to your fury I am not solicitous but from me you may not expect flattering language As the Scripture doth so shall I study to give every thing its true denomination by calling a lie deceit hypocrifie by their proper names which I prefume you will judge railing but I according to the Scripture plainness 5 Whereas throughout that Epistle which sticks so sorely as an arrow in your guilty breasts I did speak to those of your Function under the name of Teachers waving that of Priests being willing to cut off every shadow of a just exception now I shall occasionally make use thereof in this my following Reply and that for these two Reasons First Because your selves do own the name and do call your selves and your Brethren thereby in page 13. at the close of the 12 Section of your Book So that you cannot rationally take it ill that I give you what you take to your selves Secondly Because you lay confident claim to their maintenance viz. Tythes which the Ministers of the Gospel sent out by Jesus never claimed and therefore it 's but reasonable that a distinction should be kept betwixt you and them as well in your names as practices These things being premised I shall pass on to your Books To both which I must justly charge you with prefixing lying Titles You say A sober Answer to an angry Epistle whereas neither was my Epistle angry nor your Answer sober as all that live in lobriety will upon perusal of both truly judge You had shewed some honesty in speaking truth if you had vice versâ said An angry Answer to a sober Epistle William Thomas is more notorious in his transgressing the limits both of truth and honesty calling his bundle of ignorance and passion by the name of Railing rebuked A swelling Title thinking thereby to beget his reader into a beleif that he had to do with some monster of a man What a furious peice is a guilty Priest when his sore is rubbed Let truth hit him but upon the seat of his guilt and you rouse a Lyon from his sleep In what a strange Region of flattery and filthy complements do those men breath with whom truth in plainness of speech is railing and the express language of the Scripture reviling You proceed in your Title page to charge me with revolting from being a publick Teacher to merchandize To which I reply that the understanding Reader may easily conclude how far your Book is from being a sober Answer when as you have the confidence to prefix so egregious a lie in the very front of it For that those that know my manner of life can testifie that for many years together whilst I was a Publick teacher as you stile me I did merchandize and therefore did not revolt from the one to the other That I am still a Merchant is true in which calling I esteem it my duty to abide faithful not making my self burthensom unto others as your troublesome generation are to the whole Nation at this day So far am I from esteeming the name of a Merchant a term of reproach to me that I do in heart prefer one honest Merchant before a legion of Tithe-exacting Priests and must withall tell you that did the Commonwealth reap no greater yeatly advantage from the industrious Merchant then it doth from the devouring Priests they that sit at Helm might at each years end write down their names in the books of their greatest accompts in worthless Cyphers You charge me further with using Jesuitical equivocations c. Rep. This

will it then avail you to offer this for your Apology viz. That you were told by your Teachers that you ought to punish Hereticks and that you should do God service in killing them whom they represented to you as Deceivers Out of his own mouth will Priest-ridden Pilat be then condemned who was not onely fore-warned that he should have nothing to do with that just man but also had a witness for Christ in his own conscience That he had committed nothing worthy either of bonds or of death A few words more to all To the Inhabitants of Bristol in general as well people as Magistrates within that great City and I shall close this 1. In the fear of the Lord live and abide And to that of God in all your consciences take heed which is your day and night-companion which followeth you to your Beds your Tables your Fields your Shops your Closets your Counting-houses and will also to your Death-beds and your Graves secretly checking you for those miscarriages to which no eye is privy but the Lords which doth often smite you when in your dealing you do either lie flatter defraud or over-reach your neighbour I say to this take heed for it is the candle of the Lord to search you give ear to it when it convinceth you of sin and crieth to you for amendment turn not your backs upon it when it calleth upon you to repent ere it be too late and to turn from lying vanities to serve the living God 2. Resign not up your precious souls to the miserable guidance of those your Teachers who say and do not that you should condemn what they condemn and approve what they approve But be as wise for the eternal concernments of your souls as you are for your outward man see with your own eyes hear with your own ears and walk with your own feet Pass not away the few days of your pilgrimage in listning to their strong delusions suffering your selves to be lull'd asleep by those pleasing Dreamers even upon the brink of eternity 3. Awake awake ere the King of terrors seize upon you and consider whether you are able to stand in judgment before the Lord at his coming Suppose with your selves every hour That that impartial executioner stood at your doors ready to pull down your earthly Tabernacles and strip you naked of all this worlds glory the husks on which you do now so contentedly feed and seriously think whether your foundation be sure and your building upon the Rock that the violence of storms and winds you can abide and not be removed 4. Remember oh remember that through the gates of death must you pass for your selves and to the Lord must you render an account for your selves and not another for you Therefore lean not upon your blind guides those Egyptian reeds whose pleasing songs of perishing glory may satisfie your souls for a season but neither shall they die for you nor give up your account for you in the great and terrible day of the Lord. Let not their fury drive you nor their perswasions allure you to any thing for which the the witness of God in your own consciences will condemn you Do not at their instigation cry out for Jesus to be crucified But first ask what evil hath he done neither be ye hasty at their request to take the blood of those upon your selves and your children whom they do decree as Hereticks and Blasphemers The Jews had as high an esteem of their Leaders the Scribes Pharisees and High-priest for wisdom and godliness as you can have of yours and yet the blood of Christ which they so confidently begged might be put upon their score being condemned for a BLASPHEMER hath proved a grievous burden under which their posterities backs have bowed for these Sixteen hundred years past 5. Stumble not at the meaness of Christs coming because not attended with worldly pomp and glory The Jews of old did split themselves against this rock They expected their Messiah to be some outwardly illustrious Potentate that should be admired for his earthly greatness and splendor that should rather advance then decry the glory of their Temple their Worships and Sacrifices c. But when they saw him come as a root out of a dry ground having no higher discent that they knew then from Joseph a Carpenter and Mary a mean woman his Wife having for his followers Fishermen and Publicans c. they were offended at him and saw no form nor comliness in him wherefore they might desire him If you ask your Teachers at this day where Christ is to be found They will tell you among the wise and the learned the Rulers and the great men And where he is spiritually worshipped They will tell you in the populous conventions and their gay Steeple-houses where it must be religion for poor hearts to sir and hear their railings and contradictions instead of Divine Oracles But alas how different are the waies and works of the great God from the waies and works of vain man He chuseth not many wise 1 Cor. 1.27.28 not many mighty not many noble but on the contrary the foolish the weak the base the despised peeces of the Creation doth he chuse to manifest himself in Therefore when your Teachers cry out unto you Lo here is Christ lo there believe them not He is near that saveth you Look not for him in the Palace he is persecuted thence in the Inn there is no room for him but in the Manger you may find him The contrite heart is the place of his habitation and the broken and humble spirit are the throne of his glory In truth of love to your precious souls have I written these things to you which howsoever you shall interpret yet herein have I peace that my conscience have I faithfully discharged towards you as in the presence of the Lord. Oh that my fellow-Citizens of Bristol would in the cool of the day sit down and seriously consider what I have said and the God of all grace and mercy grant to you all that in this your day you may know the things that do belong to your peace before they be hid from your eyes I shall now pass from the Two Epistles to the Two Books principally applying my self as I have before said to you two Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford. And first The Preamble to C. Fow. and S. Ford's book examined Of the Preamble to your book Which is a mixture made up of the old Babylonish stuff viz. falshood flattery and gross hypocrisie The first you manifest in charging me with the maintaining of absurd paradoxes in Civility and blasphemous heresies in Religion Wheras I am content to appeal to any sober reader which shall read my Epistle and your Answer whether there be any such thing to be found under my hand in the first or proved upon me by you in the later But you say So you dare call the

mind you that even among the heathens it was deemed unreasonable that where mens conversations were otherwise honest being compared with the just laws of men they should notwithstanding suffer for what they did beleeve and practice concerning the law of their God Nor is it my design to blunt the edge of the sword against the transgressor The righteous law was made for the unrighteous person 1 Tim. 1.9 and upon him doth the stroak thereof justly fall Whilst your sword is born against the evil doer it s the sword of the Lord But beware of turning the edge thereof against the innocent for then it s no longer the sword of God but the executioner of your own lusts I do well know how passionatly ye are invocated by those that long to be in the Chair to enact Laws to establish Church Government as they call it and punish Hereticks that is in plain English to make every Parish Teacher a Bishop to give Laws to yours and other mens consciences Neither am I ignorant with what longing expectation many that call themselves Ministers of Christ though none of his Ministers ever persecuted any man do wait to receive Commission from you to exercise the matchless cruelty of that villanous Tyrant in stretching all that are too short to the just length of their bed and cutting all those shorter who in length do exceed it But however they may incessantly urge you pretending a vision from the Lord to establish laws to bind the conscience yet know that it 's Christs prerogative to give laws to that and you will be in his esteem but Vsurpers whilst you undertake to rule there O. P. In his Speech to the Parl. in the painted Chamber Sept. 12. 1654. where he is of right sole King and Law giver He spake truth who said That liberty of conscience is a NATVRAL right So that he that maketh an intrenchment upon that doth what in him lieth bereave me of my birth right Sirs Deceive not your selves nor let the lips of any false Prophet deceive you Page 30. for I say plainly to you and you shall one day witness what I say to be true that it will neither be for your honor or your peace in the great day of your account that any Act shall be found enrolled among the Laws of your establishing whereby the holy one of Israel hath been sought to be limited Which of you can mean sure the waters of the great deep in the hollow of his hand Isa 40.12 13. or mete out heaven with his span or comprehend the dust of the earth in a measure or weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a ballance Or which of you hath at any time directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellor hath taught him O how then is it that you should but once think to pale and limit within the scant circumference of mans cloudy reason that Sovereign WIND which bloweth when and where and how it listeth Gen. 17.14 There is a time when circumcision is commanded upon pain of death there is a season when the same thing maketh Christ unprofitable to the user Gal. 5.2 There is a time when swearing by the name of the Lord is commanded Deut. 6.13 and there is a time when the great Law-giver whom under penalty of being destroyed we are commanded to hear cuteth off all exceptions and saith swear not at all Act. 3.23 Matth. 5.34 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ΟΛΩΣ Take heed of forbidding where Christ commandeth and of commanding where he forbiddeth In the counsel of the Lord stand and you will find direction near you The hand of grace doth hold the candle of the Lord a measure of the light of Christ which you have received in all your Consciences Joh. 8.12 being guided by which you will be safely led on to enact laws according to that Royal law written in the heart for God and not against him At this Oracle the spiritual light of Christ so despised by the wise among men you may take counsel in your greatest streights and find certain resolution You shall neither stagger nor err for its conduct is in the sure and clean paths of peace not contrary but according to the Scriptures of truth which were given forth by the holy men of God who dwelt in the same light of Jesus Take heed of acting that thing for which the witness of God in your consciences do condemn you for if that condemn you God is greater then the conscience Finally Remember that whilst you abide faithful with the Lord he will be with you but if you forsake him 1 Chron. 28 9. Isa 59.10 he will forsake you and then you will be left to grope as in the dark at noon day and stagger in your counsels as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit And know Isa 19.14 that as all powers in this nation have stood firm whilst they stood for God so it hath been and will be the certain fore-runner of their sudden ruine when once they begin to clash or contend with the Lord or his people The Lord God Almighty be your sun and your shield I am Yours in the love and service of the Lamb against the Dragon THOMAS SPEED To the honest Reader READER I Have now through the croud of my other necessary imployments brought forth this ensuing Reply to Two large and fiery Pamphlets both written in Answer to a short Epistle directed to the publick Teachers of this Nation The after part of one of which written by Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford concerneth not the said Epistle but the Book to which it was prefixed and therefore to that I have not now made my Reply In the Epistle to his Reader being threatned with a sudden Answer to the whole Book by William Thomas and then I shall Reply upon them both together Or in case of William Thomas his silence I shall then undertake them singly nothing doubting but that in the strength of truth by the power of the Lord I shall be made able to repel all the furious assaults which they therein make upon the Lamb's followers In the mean while having once cast thine eye upon this ensuing Reply be at the expence of so much pains as to read it through lest by a cursory or partial view thereof thou shouldest wrong me or mine Adversaries Whilst thou art reading shut prejudice out of doors and set singleness and sobriety as Watchmen at the door-posts of thy heart to keep it out so wilt thou be kept from passing rash or unrighteous judgment upon the truth or me The God of Wisdom give thee understanding in all things Farewel THOMAS SPEED THE Guilty-covered Clergy-man Vnvail'd In a Reply to two Pamphlets The One Written by Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford of Redding The Other By William Thomas of Ubley in Somersetshire Christopher Fowler and Simon Ford UPon the sixteenth day of the moneth past

related to him or his vexatious generation but that he first began with me by writing to which I returned him a plain and sober Answe upon which he reported things 〈◊〉 touching me that were as formerly I have said both false and scandalous which reflected much upon the truth and others that were innocent The knowledge of which necessitated me to put pen to Paper and prepare that for the Presse which otherwise might never have come to publike view And now that I am ingaged I am resolved in the strength of the Lord never to desist while I have a tongue to speak or a hand to write from discovering the monstrous wickedness of the Romish Whore deckt with a glorious profession And when ever it be that by the hand of violence my mouth shall be either stopped or my Pen obstructed I shall then esteem it my mercy from the Lord to be made able and willing to offer my life unto death bearing witness against all the abominations of that blood-thirsty company of false Prophets who in cruelty and oppression both upon the bodies and consciences of Christs righteous servants have exceedingly out-done their Fathers the Bishops and the generation of evill-doers that have gone before them William Thomas farther telleth his friends that his Adversary meaning my self hath his abode in Bristol where many of the same apostatizing and erroneous way with himself are entertained and countenanced which he cannot but present as matter of deep humiliation to that City Rep. A charge like to that of his brethrens of Redding but as to Error and Apostasie not the shadow of truth in it Reader let William Thomas appear and I shall be free to meet him before any that are sober in publike or private in that City and by the Scriptures of truth let me be proved the Apostate or he the Lier But why is it matter of * Religion is the pretence but domination is the thing intended humiliation that I have my abode in Bristol and have with others entertainment and countenance May not Thomas Speed and other peaceable Citizens abide in their proper habitations in Bristol as well as William Thomas in that which is none of his at Vbley What would this angry man have doth he desire our throats should be cut or our persons exiled because we dare not professe Subjection to the imperious dictates of every Lordly Priest Is it matter of humiliation that we have the priviledge to breath in the common air Hath he and his brethren been pulling and preaching down Bishops and Tyrants and praying and fighting for liberty of Conscience these fourteen yeare past and is it now become matter of humiliation that they that are more deserving then themselves because more faithful to the Common-wealth should have the liberty of a quiet abode among men and that just countenance which the laws of the Nation do afford to all free born Englishmen To what height is this proud Priestly spirit ascending which hath not elbow-room enough throughout the Nation unless it can justle all others that in Conscience do dissent out of the land of their nativity Reader mind what I shall say and remember that I told thee of it before hand that black and cloudy will that day be and especially to many professors who now sit and laugh at others sufferings when as that hellish Synodical principle shall be reduced into practise viz. if any will not conform let them choose to themselves either bonds or banishment He proceedeth in his anger calling my Book an ugly monster brought to Bristol Fair. To which I reply that it was so in part is confessed for that which it contained of his untruths slanders and contradictions made it such Ay but it was brought to Bristol Fait Reply This is matter of great discontent to him The folly and filthiness of the priests must not be brought to too publike view Do but honour them before the people giving them the cap and the knee in the market-place and you may call them by their proper names in private But was not William Thomas his Mishapen Birth to which I am now making my Reply brought first to be shewed at Bristol Fair and hath not Thomas Speed as much right to have a just vindication of the truth and himself brought to that Fair as William Thomas hath for his heap of wrath and slanders to say no more to be first brought to the same place Reader when ever thou dost meet with any Priest that hath but so much ingenuity as to give the same liberty he would have for with one so qualified I could never yet meet I desire to hear of him assuring thee that I shall highly esteem of him as far as he abideth faithful in the practice of that principle There are two sorts of persons to whom this poor enraged man addresseth himself in his Epistle which is made up of gross untruths slanders clinches causes considerations remedies means and such other Babilonish stuffe as his usuall preachments are compounded of The first sort are such who as he expresseth it have held fast those things which they have received Who they are that the Priests do esteem to stand firm and heard from their teachers c. These he calleth in the precedent lines in the third page of his Epistle such as have stood firm The English of which I shall give the Reader in these following particulars 1. They in the estimation of these men do stand firm who can worship and adore them in all companies where they come as great Schollers able Divines and such at whose lips they are to seek counsell 2. They that can esteem what ever their teachers do Magisterially dictate to them as the Oracles of God not presuming to deviate therefrom under the penalty of being reckoned among the despisers of Gods messengers 3. They that stand ready to become executioners of the Priests wrath upon all those as Hereticks whom they condemn for such in their pulpits 4. He that can spend the first day of the week devoutly listning to his Minister crying out of pride covetousness malice c. and yet finding him guilty of some or all the same crimes in his practice the whole week following can notwithstanding before others that condemn him endeavour to cover over his wickedness with the vail of humane infirmity alledging on his behalf that the purest gold must have allowance of some grains and that he is a very precious able Minister albeit that he be attended with many grosse failings such a man standeth firm in their accompts 5. He that can drudge and toil and sweat the whole year about making more conscience of paying the tenths of all his labours to the Priests then he doth of avoiding open prophaneness not daring to reserve to himself a sheaf or a lamb or an egg or a Pig or a Goose to which his Minister layeth claim under the penalty of being condemned for one that does sacrilegiously rob his

you are advertised that William Thomas intendeth to take that task in hand himself c. And yet contrary to your several sayings you have undertaken the dispute with me touching many of the most substantial things contained in my Book as the Reader may at large see by perusing yours and mine You proceed in the same Section to con me thanks for the charitable advice I begin my Epistle withal promising with a great many Lamb. like words to take warning c. Instead of which William Thomas doth most bitterly revile me calling me False witness Novice one that do cast reproach upon Gods servants c. Rep. It was not without cause that William Thomas told his Reader in his Epistle to his Pamphlet that his and yours his Brethrens meditations were so directed that you should walk in something a different way in one and the same work and yet without difference For in your seeming disagreement you agree You smite more in the dark he more openly in your work you agree which is to support your tottering Babel one Master do you serve and you shall receive your wages In your way of prosecution you differ just as much as a wolf in sheeps cloathing from the same creature in his proper shape SECT 4. You begin your Fourth Section with a Query Whether I do beleeve in earnest that those Prophets of whom Michah speaks that teach for hire and divine for money or those whom Christ notes for doing their works to be seen of men c. are characters suiting the men of my indignation To which I answer That I retain indignation against no man looking upon every mans person as the workmanship of God but against that evill spirit that ruleth and rageth in you and your brethren do I bear a perfect indignation And I do beleeve that to all Idol Shepheards in this Nation that are acted by that spirit do the Characters given both by Michah and by Christ most aptly suit of which more in the next Section And whereas you charge me with a desire to reduce you to voluntary contributions I say if you are Christs Ministers why should you not be contented with Christs maintenance who that I can find in Scripture never ordained any other but this freely ye have received Matth. 10.8 freely give and I never read of any of his in Scripture that found their allowance too scant But as for such as you who do feast it and brave it among the people who must have for your lusts as well as for your necessity it s no marvel if you refuse a confinement within the limits of his maintenance SECT 5. Your fifth Section beginnneth with a high-flown expostulation demanding of me in the heigth of your spirits who I am that do judge your hearts Why because say you I tell you what you aim at and set up as your end in preaching Rep. That I did appeal to you in my Epistle whether you were not guilty of the same crime of teaching for hire with Micha's hirelings is true But it seemeth your own guilt made the application Neither had I judged your hearts but your works if I had been positive in my charge against you May not a common drunkard with as much strength of reason as you interrogate me demand of you when you call him by his name who are you that do judge his heart Do not his fruits manifest what sort of tree he is If you are not indeed such as do preach for hire and divine for money Tyth-exacters proved to teach for hire tell me why is it that when you first begin to set up that trade you do so earnestly covet to get into that place which yeeldeth the largest maintenance most Tythes most acres of Gleab Land or the greatest augmentation And when you are setled why is it that you are so easily removed thence to a richer Benefice Moreover I have seen many sore contentions among you Teachers who should get into a Parish endowed with a large Revenue but how is it that you never contend who should come among a people from whom there might be expected little money and smal maintenance In brief do you not settle and remove just as Tenants do for outward advantage from a hard to a better bargain And is it judging your hearts to ask whether such men as these do not teach for hire and divine for money William Thomas saith Page 5. that he and his Brethren do take that which Christ saith they are worthy of How is that proved Luk. 10.7 by Christs words in Luke The labourer is Worthy of his hire whereas neither are they Christs Labourers because persecutors nor do they take his hire for in the same verse Christ commandeth his labourers to eat and drink such things as were given them which way of maintenance they despise under the notion of voluntary contribution SECT 6. Your Sixth Section smelleth so rank of loathsom hypocrisie that it cannot but be abominable in the nostrils of any sober reader Whilst you pretend to adore that gracious providence which keepeth you out of the reach of my malice otherwise strange things would follow you are assured you should not be long Without persecution c. Rep. What pious and peaceable Martyrs would you have your Reader to judge you two to be who dare so devoutly adore that providence who keepeth you from the reach of his malice who never yet exchanged word with you nor saw either of your faces nor had ought to do with you in his life time and who doth as much abominate that spirit that persecuteth as he doth the foulest devil that ever came out of the bottomless pit Nay who for this very thing sake principally doth deny you and your outragious generation But you say that you have already your shares in the persecution of the tongues and hands of those of my fellowship and communion Rep. To which I reply two things First Whereas you do often throughout your Book in scorn make mention of me and my Fraternity me and my Sister-hood me and my Quaking generation me and my companions c. I say that I am of no sect or faction nor do I profess my self of any other generation but of those that fear God Acts 10 35. and work righteousness And whatever name of reproach your venemous tongues do for the truths sake cast upon such I do esteem it my honour to wear with them as my crown Secondly You mention three things that these persecuters do to you 1. Impoverish you and your families 2. Detain your just and legal subsistance 3. Disturb you in the exercise of your publick Worship To the first I ask Is it truth or is it a lye that you say are you and your families indeed impoverished who do live high fare deliciously and vaunt it among men Why sirs are you past all shame that you can aver things so notoriously false 2. Your second is like unto

can escape the stroak of your slanderous pens who dare preach any thing print any thing and produce no other proof for what you avouch but this that you dare say it is so Nay to what height of impudence are you come who dare belie the Son of God in saying presently after that he commanded his to travel about to declare without shooes on their feet Monstrons impiety Mar. 10.8 9 10 what is it not enough for you to heap slanders falshoods and reproaches upon me but you must attempt to fasten an untruth upon him who is truth it self Read that Scripture again and then see if you can be so wicked as to say that Christ commandeth that which never proceeded out of his lips viz. that his should travel without shooes upon their feet Reader what horrible fables would these men fasten on the Scripture among the ignorant were they kept sealed in Greek or Latin when as they dare even now to assert such things to be in them for asserting which the meanest child that can read English may prove them Liars Much ado you keep in this Section labouring in confusion and all to prove that which I never denied 1 Cor. 9.6 to 14. viz. that they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Which Scripture you say the adversaries to Ministers maintenance do pass over in deep silence and you expect it will be by me also c. To which I say that I do subscribe to the truth of what Paul saith all along in that Chapter viz. That he that planteth a vineyard ought to eat of the fruit thereof and he that feedeth a flock ought to eat of the milk thereof c. But what is all this to you who are not Planters but destoyers not Feeders but devourers of the flock or if you were such what rule is this for your vexatious suits at law for your maintenance Doth the Scripture say that Paul took those men by the throats that gave him not the tenth of all their increase when you shall come to do Pauls work and tread in Pauls footsteps I shall not deny you Pauls wages You close this Section with as notable a falshood as the rest viz. that no man holds the nine parts by firmer law in these Nations then the Minister claims his tenth by Rep. If a man purchase ten acres of Land by measure and payeth a full consideration for each foot of the said ten acres have you as much right to the tenth acre who never advanced peny towards the purchase as he hath to the other nine who paid the full value for the whole If a poor man having a great family to maintain do rent five acres of land and after he hath plowed it and sowed it and he and his have lived in hope perhaps with naked backs and empty bellies to receive the fruits of all their labor and toil have you as good right to the tenth sheaf as the poor oppressed man hath to the other nine Well you may have a law that will own you in such your cruelties in the Courts of men but sure I am you have no law that will justifie you in the presence of the Lord and that shall you surely one day witness to your shame and sorrow without repentance Where as I demanded in my Epistle a rule in Scripture by which the teachers of the Nation did exact the tenth of their encrease who did not hear them nor own them for their Pastors William Thomas answereth me by another Query viz. Must a Minister be deprived of the members of his Church and the maintenance of his place both at once Rep. Is this Query a rule in Scripture to justifie their practice Reader thou that art sober judge whether this be an answer bespeaking him that gave it forth to be a Minister of reason muchless of the Gospel These are the men that do so passionately assert the Scripture to be their rule in words and yet being demanded a rule thence for their practice in a matter of such moment are so shameless as to offer a senceless Query instead of Scripture And thou maist further observe that throughout both their books they have not produced any one Scripture that do prove their practice in the things they are accused of But instead thereof do offer the conceptions of their own brains or else such meanings and sences as they please to force upon the Scripture which if a man refuse to accept of he is presently condemned for an Antiscripturist SECT 8. In your eighth Section both you and William Thomas do confess the matter of fact viz. That many of your brethren are found wallowing in the common mire c And you say also that you do bewaile it Which I should have some reason to beleeve also were your Pulpits fill'd with as frequent declamations against the abominations of such your polluted Brethren as they are with invectives against those that stand up to bear witness against theirs and your wickedness In the close of this Section you speak of Swearing drunken and otherwise disorderly companions that frequent the Quakers assemblies Rep. To which I say That I have been often in the meetings of those peaceable people and do bless the Lord that I lived to be in them where I have seen many drunken swearing disorderly companions But they were not of them with whom they assembled though they were among them but the scabby sheep that belonged to some Priest or other that came there to act the same part in those Assemblies that their Shepheards do in the pulpits viz scoff scorn reproach and revile the innocent SECT 9. Your ninth Section is full of venome and bitterness of taunts and unsavory scoffs which as I said in the beginning I shall let fall into the Channel You accuse me for calling the Scriptures in scorn your rule For which I can boldly and truly charge you to be a couple of malicious lyars For the Scriptures of truth I do highly esteem and do bless the Lord for them neither have I through all my Epistle or Book mentioned them with that apparent contempt that you do calling them in your Tenth Section your low Rule and Section Sixty two your old Rule When my pen doth drop such contemptible expressions touching the Scriptures as these are then write me down among the number of those that do scorn it with your selves Until then know that the Scriptures I do own against you and your prating companions that do pretend to cry up the Scriptures in word onely serving your lusts upon them making a trade to talk of them thereby to get a livelihood but do most wretchedly abuse them and trample them under feet by contradicting them in your practices After this having expostulated with you touching all your violence and persecution against Christ in his members minding you of the judgement of the great Day you return this in answer viz Judge not that you be not judged