innovations as the turning the Table to an Altar and the low crindging towards the Altar so erected but as for the Leiturgy or Service of the Church of England not a touch of either in his thoughts or tongue Now brethren learne you hence just matter of private humiliation for so foule a sclander of a grave and religious Bishop and in him of this whole Church For learned Calvin if those who professe to honour his name would have beene ruled by his judgement wee had not had so miserable distractions in the Church as wee have now cause to bewaile all that I say of him is that his censure of some tolerable fooleries in our holy Service might well have beene forborne in alienâ Republicâ your vindication is that hee wrote that Epistle to the English at Francford Who doubts it The parties were proper the occasion just but not the censure Parciùs ista when wee meddle with other mens affaires I may well be pardoned if I say that harsh phrase doth not answer the moderation which that worthy Divine professeth to hold in the controversie of the English AS for that unparalleld Discourse whereon you run so much descant concerning the Antiquity of Liturgies deduced so high as from Moses time you argue that it cannot be because you never read it Brethren your not omniscient eyes shall see that my eyes are so Lyncean as to see you proudly mis-confident you shall see that others have seene what you did not and shall sample that which you termed unparalleld It is neither thank to your bounty nor praise to your ingenuity that the question is halfe-granted by you but an argument of your self-contradiction An order of Divine service you yeeld but not a forme or a forme but not prescribed not imposed and for this you tell us a tale of Iustin Martyrs Leiturgie and Tertullians Leiturgie how much to the purpose the sequell shall shew In the former you grant that after the Exhortation they all rose and joyned in prayer prayer ended they went to the Sacrament but whether these prayers were suddainly conceived or ordinately prescribed there is the question and whether that Sacrament were administred in an arbitrary and various forme mee thinks your selves should finde cause to doubt But Iustin saies to cleare this point that in the beginning of this Action the President powred out prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability and the people said Amen What ever his ability was I am sure you have a rare ability in mis-construing the Fathers and particularly these testimonies of Iustin and Tertullian To begin with the latter out of him you say The Christians in those times did in their publike assemblies pray Sine monitore quia de pectore without any prompter but their own heart Prove first that Tertullian speaks of publike assemblies Secondly know that if he did the place is to your disadvantage for as a late learned Author well urges would ye have it imagined that the assembled Christians did betake themselves publikely to their private devotions each man by himself as his own heart dictated this were absurd and not more against ancient practise then as your selves think piety Was it then that not the people but the Minister was left to the liberty of his expressions What is that to the people How did they ere the more pray without a prompter How is it more out of their heart when they follow the Minister praying out of unknown conceptions then out of foreknown prescription So as you must be admonished that your Sine monitore without a prompter is without all colour of proof of prayers conceived your Zephyrus blows with too soft a gale to shake the foundation of this argument and indeed is but a side-winde to my Heraldus and the very same blast with your Rigaltius though you would seem to fetch them out of different corners If I give you your own asking you have gained nothing For what would you infer Christians prayed for the Emperors without a monitor as the heathens did not therefore they had no formes of Christian prayers He were liberall that would grant you this consequent when rather the very place shews what the forme was which the Christians then used We are praying still for all Emperors that God would give them a long life a secure raigne a safe Court valiant hoasts faithfull Counsellors good people and a quiet world This was Tertullians Leiturgie wherein the hearts of Christians joyned without a monitor It is small advantage that you will finde in my sense of Sine monitore not being urged by any superior injunction If no injunction you say how could it be a Leiturgie a commanded imposed forme You are unwilling to understand that the injunction here meant is generall a command to pray for the Emperour not a particular charge of the forms injoyned in praying this was therefore the praise of their Christian loyaltie that even unrequired they poured out their supplications for Princes Shortly then after all these pretended senses Tertullian will not upon any termes be drawne to your partie Those other two places of Tertullian and Austine are meerely sleevelesse and unproving not making any whit at all more for conceived prayers then for prescribed Who ever made question whether wee might build our prayers upon our Saviours form or whether we might vary our prayers with our occasions Those Fathers say no more we no lesse Ye dare not say there were no publique Leiturgies in S. Austins time My Margin was conviction enough which ye touch as an Iron too hot with an hand quickly snatcht away Your denial should have drawn on further proofs Iustin Martyr though fifty yeers before Tertullian follows him in your discourse How guiltily you both translate and cite him an Author of no mean judgement hath shewed before me I shall not therefore glean after his sickle But shortly thus take your {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in your own best sense for quantum pro virile potest what will follow The President prayed and gave thanks to the utmost of his power therfore the Church had then no Leiturgie What proof call you this Look back Brethren to your own citation you shall finde Prayers more then once in their Lords-day meetings These latter were the Presidents the former some other Ministers these in the usuall set forms those out of present conception both stand well together both agreeable to the practise as of these so of former ages BUt whiles I affect over-full answers I feel my self grow like you tedious I must contract my self and them Your assertion of the originall of set forms of Leiturgy I justly say is more Magistrall then true and such as your own testimonies confute That of the Councell of Laodicea is most pregnant for set formes before Arrius or Pelagius lookt forth into the world wherein mention is expresly made of three formes of Prayer
A SHORT ANSWER TO THE Tedious Vindication OF SMECTYMNVVS BY The AVTHOR of the Humble Remonstrance LONDON Printed for NATHANIEL BUTTER in Pauls Church-yard at the pyde-Bull neare St. Austins gate 1641. TO The most High Court OF PARLIAMENT Most Honorable LORDS And ye most Noble KNIGHTS CITIZENS and BURGESSES of the House of COMMONS NOthing could fall out more happily to me then that my bold Adversaries have appealed to your inviolable Justice for sure I am whiles you are as you ever wil be your selves wise and just my cause cannot miscarry in your hands With no lesse therfore but better grounded confidence I cast my self upon your unpartiall judgement rejoycing to think how clearly you will distinguish betwixt a facing boldnesse and a modest Evidence of truth How can I but receive courage from your pious and just proceedings It is I that vindicate these men oppose that holy Leiturgy which your most religious Order in this Active session commanded to be intirely observed How busie Faction is to crosse that your most seasonable Decree every day yeelds new and lamentable proofs If these indeavours of mine serve onely for the pursuance of your so necessary and gracious Act they cannot fear to be unwelcome But if I have hurt a good cause by a weak and insufficient handling let me suffer in your censure and let my Adversaries triumph in my sufferings Contrarily if after all their smooth insinuations it shall be found that this champertous combination hath gone about by meer shews of proof to feed the unquiet humors of men in the unjust dislike of most justifiable ancient and sacred Institutions and to cast false blames upon my peaceable and sincere managings of a certain Truth let them passe for what they are and feel that justice which they have appealed An ANSWER TO A Calumniatory EPISTLE Directed by way of PREFACE to the Reader READERS MY comfort is that you have eyes of your own and know how to use them With what gravity would our Smectymnuans else perswade you that my late Defence is fraught with such stuff as you shall finde undiscernable by any but their eyes You cannot well judge of the management of this quarrell unlesse it will please you to receive notice how this fray began It is not long since I sent forth a meek and peaceable Remonstrance bemoaning the frequence of scandalous Pasquins and humbly pleading for the just and ancient right of Leiturgie and Episcopacie Wherein I could not suppose that any person could finde himself touched save onely those who profess friendship to Libells enmity to the established forms When all on the sudden the Smectymnuans a strange generation of men unprovoked unthought of cry out of hard measure and flye in my face as men wrongfully accused I know them not I hurt them not If their own guilt have galled them that is no fault of mine A long and bitter Answer is addressed by them where no question was moved Insomuch as I could hardly induce His Majestie when I presented my Defence to His Royall hands to beleeve that any except on could be taken to so fair and innocent a Discourse My labour was all for peace even this is made the ground of the quarrell What should I now do I were worse then a worm if upon this treading upon I did not turn again Yet not so much out of respect to my own poor and if need were despicable reputation as to the publique cause of God and his Church which I saw now ingaged in this unjust brawl According to my true duty therefore I published a short and defensive Reply to their long Answer wherein I hope the judicious will witnesse that the Truth sustains no losse Now inraged with a moderate opposition they heat their furnace seven times more and break forth into a not more voluminous then vehement Invective I do not see them look cleeringly through their fingers at their seeminglyunknown yet often discovered and oft vilified Antagonist it is all one so long as he is namelesse if he be a Consul they are Senators Civility is but a Ceremony All faces under masks are alike It matters not for the person let it please you to look at the cause In the carriage whereof they first tax me with over-lashing in my accusations I had objected to them mis-allegations misinterpretations mis-inferences weak and colourable proofs neither can their querulous noise make me go lesse or be lesse confident in my charge They liken themselves to Cato and well may they are extremely like of thirty accusations no one could be proved against Cato of no fewer charges which are laid upon them I see not how they acquit themselves of one Who can but wonder at this eminent boldnesse that they dare tell you There are after all my generall exclamations but four places for which I tax them of falshood Falshood is their own word Mis-allegation is mine Be pleased to cast your eye upon my Margin and to count this quaternion of their imputed errors But they are mis-inferences and weak inconsequences which besides mis-citations were upon the file of my accusations wherein I fear Cato's number will be out-vyed Readers such fidelity as you finde in the deniall of my manifest exceptions against their allegations look for in the demonstrative proofs of their exceptions against mine There is belike a Machiavel somewhere finde him out I beseech you and let him be brought forth to shame certainly where the falshood lies there he lurks In the second place they tell you of raylings revilings scornings never the like since Montagues Appeal and present you with a whole bundle of such strange flowers of Rhetorick as truly I wondred should ever grow in my Garden wherein they have done passing wisely in not noting the Pages as the severall beds wherein such rare plants grew for I have carefully re-examined the Book and professe seriously that some of them I cannot finde at all others I finde but utterly mis-applied We are called they say Vain frivolous cavillers riotous proud false envious c. Let me appeal to your eyes Readers where ever I thus wronged those whom I call Brethren Divers of these words I confesse to have used but to another purpose upon a different subject that which I speak of the things they unjustly take of the persons For example I talk of false and frivolous exceptions They say I call them false and frivolous men I talk of vain cavills They charge me to say they are vain cavillers I speak of a riot of assailants They cry out that I call them riotous men I say a suggestion is envious They take it to themselves I call the Libellers Factious persons They mis-apply it as spoken of them I say an intimation is witlesse and malicious I am taken to say the men are so And not to weary you with so odious a rabble I say this is weakly and absurdly objected They say I call them weak and absurd men Thus I could
easily passe through the rest and shew you that what I speak by way of supposition they take absolutely what I speak as dehorting they as accusing what of speeches they of persons what of others they of themselves And thus rises the rare Rhetorick which they have imputed to me wherein I doubt not but ye my Readers will take occasion to think what fidelity shall we expect from these men in citing other Authors when they do so foully mis-report the Book in our hand They arenot then my flowers but their own weeds which they have thus bundled up together But had I so far over-lashed as is pretended your wisdom Readers would send you to inquire of the provocation For surely the occasion may if not justifie a mans act yet abate his blame When therefore ye shall look back and see with what strange insolence I was intertained by these undertakers ye will be so far from complaining of my sharpnesse that ye will rather censure my patience How blinde self-love will make men in their own concernments These men will not see in themselves that true guilt which they unjustly cry out of in another So I have heard a man with a very noysome breath censure the ill lungs of his neighbour Let my Margin present thee Reader with but an handfull out of a full sack These are their terms in their verie first papers without any pretence of imitation But if we should rake together the scornfull girding and as some of their betters have styled them unmannerly passages of this their angry vindication it were enough to fill a Book alone Readers ye may if you please beleeve how easie it were for me to pay them home in their own coyn But I had rather to consider what is fit for me how namelesse soever to give then what they are worthy to receive Some others may perhaps be more sensible of this indignity then my self who have learned to think more meanly of my self then they can speak and at once both to pitie this petulancie and dis-regard it In the third place they talk of daring protestations and bold asseverations and spend some instances of the particular expressions of my confidence Do not think Readers that I will be beaten out with words there is no one line of those passages which they have recited that I will not make good against all the clan of Smetymnuus Neither can I out of this assurance decline any Bar under Heaven for the triall of my righteous cause It is therefore an unreasonably envious suggestion of theirs that in dedicating my Book to His Sacred Majestie I did ever the more flye from the judgement of Parliament when in that very Epistle I made confident mention of my secure reliance upon the noble justice of their Iudicature Besides that it is not too wise nor too loyall an intimation of these men which would imply such a distance betwixt Soveraign and Parliamentary interest For me I would ever suppose such an entire union betwixt them as the head and the body that they neither should nor can be severed in the rights of their severall concernments As for that resolute averment of the Author of Episcopacie by Divine Right That he offers to forfeit his life to Iustice and his reputation to shame if any living man can shew any Lay-Presbyter not as they please to report the word a Ruling Elder in the world till Farell and Viret first created him Let me be his hostage let my life go for his if any one such Lay-Presbyter can be produced Let them search Records and try their skill and when they have overcome triumph But in the mean time they may not think to fob us off with the colourable testimonies of B. Whitgift King Saravia who were all well known to be just so good friends to Lay-Presbytery as themselves are to Episcopacie For the rest If I have been somewhat bold with them in telling them right-down of poor arguments verball exceptions meer declamations shuffling of testimonies unproving illustrations I may crave your pardon Readers but theirs I cannot as not conscious of any ill-placed word in this easie Censure Shortly my much reverenced friend learned Rivetus will give them but a little thanks in mis-applying his censure of Bishop Montague to a man so differently tempered whom he hath with particular respects vouchsafed to honor and oblige In the fourth place they tell you that after all these Thrasonicall boasts of mine if their whole Book were divided into four parts there is one quarter of which I make no mention Wherein Readers I think verily you may beleeve them For in the first leaf of my Defence I fore-told you so much as finding nothing in that swollen bulk but a meer unsound Tympanie instead of a truly solid conception whereof you may easily perceive the one half well neer bestowed either in meer verball quarrells or in reall disputes of things uncontroverted I am more thrifty of my good hours then to follow them in so wilde a chace pitching onely upon those points which I conceived to be valuable and pertinent wherein my profession was so to save time as that I should not lose ought of truth It is an injurious suggestion therefore which these men make that where their proofs are strongest there I have glided away without answer since I can safely call God to witnesse unto my soul that I am not conscious to my self of any one considerable argument of theirs that I have balked in my replicatory Defence But if in their estimation there be any such as wherin they have placed an over-weening confidence let them not spare to re-inforce it to the utmost that the world may witness their valour and my cowardise What need is there of this you will say when they have already gloried in the victory vaunting that they have me confitentem reum and in effect the cause granted by me in those things which are most materiall Were it so Readers as they pretend that I come neerer to their Tenets then some others one would think they should in this finde cause to acknowledge and imbrace mine ingenuity rather then to insult upon me as in way of disgrace I wis it is not the force of their argutation that could move me one foot forward but if Gods blessing upon my free disquisition of truth should have so wrought upon my better-composed thoughts as that I should have yeelded to go some steps further then others towards the meeting of peace one would not think this should yeeld any fit matter of exprobration But the truth is I have not departed one inch from either my own Tenet or from the received judgement of our Orthodox Divines Now that they may see the fault is not in my levity but in their own mis-understanding that Identity of the names and offices of Bishops and Presbyters in the beginning of the Apostles times whereat they take advantage they may see averred at large in Episcopacie
so throughly setled by those which you spitefully call begged suffrages that no wit of man can finde but a probable colour to revive it Faine would you have something to say to Doctor Hall if ye knew what it were In his book of the old Religion he cites a speech of Luthers that this good friend of Rome saies Under the Papacie is true Christianitie yea the very kernell of Christianitie What of this Did Doctor Hall faine that Luther said so Or doe these men feare that Luther is turn'd Papist Compare this you say with that the Bishop of Salisburie saith in his begged suffrage who thus speakes That the Church of Rome is no more a true Church then an arrant whore is a true wife to her husband Well Compare Luther with the Bishop of Salisburie two worthy Divines what then They will I hope prove good friends and Doctor Hall with them both whose owne suffrage hath bin and is no lesse peremptorie against Rome then this which he begged A married woman though she be a close harlot is yet a wife and though she be not true to her husbands bed yet she is truely his wife till shee belegally divorced Such is the state of the Roman Church to Doctor Davenant and Doctor Hall and all other Orthodox Divines Where now is your charitie in raising such groundlesse intimations against your innocent brethren Tell the Reader I beseech you where that scorne lies which you say is cast upon you in this passage of my Defence I justly boast of those our Martyrs and Confessors which were the composers of our Liturgie You would faine counterpoize them with some holy Martyrs and Confessors of the same reformed Religion that opposed it even to persecution and tell us of the troubles of Frankford Pardon me brethren some Confessors you may talke of but Martyrs yee can name none One who was the most vehement of all those opposers I knew to live and dye in a quiet submission to the Liturgie established none of them suffered death for Religion they might bee holy men and yet might square in their opinions even betwixt Paul and Barnabas there was a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} My praise of our Martyrs tended not to the disparagement of any other AS for that slurre which your answer seemed to cast upon the Edict of King James and our Parliamentary Acts that they are not unalterable as the Lawes of the Medes and Persians your so deep protestation clears you in our thoughts I have charitie enough to beleeve you but I must tell you that speech might have a good heart but it hath an ill face let it passe with favour and as for those cheerefull expressions which you confesse you have taken liberty to make use of in the passages of your booke you will pardon me if they bee intertained with as cheerefull answers Tertullian shal be seconded by Horace Ridentem dicere verum Quis vetat Let those laugh that win For your Quaeres It seemes you thinke I am merrie too soone in receiving them with so sarcasticall a Declamation Your project is of the altering of our Liturgie I tell you seriously if you drive at a totall alteration as your words seeme to import your quaere is worthy of no better reception then scorne For that any private person should as of his owne head move for the entire change of a thing established by so sacred authoritie and such firme and full Lawes can be no better then a bold and ridiculous insolence It was truly told you that if you intended onely a correction of some inconvenient expressions no doubt it would bee considered of by wiser heads then your owne whereby I meant that honourable and reverend Committee to which this great care was by publick assent referred you straight suspect a designe to gaine upon the Parliament and by a pretended shadow of alteration to prevent a reall and totall reformation Take heede brethren lest you heedlesly wrong them whom you professe to honour and we with you Is the Parliament thinke you so easie to be gained upon by pretended shadowes Will those solid judgements bee likely to be swayed by colours Why do you cast that aspersion upon them to whom yee say you have presented these considerations and to whose grave wisdoms we do no lesse humbly submit That God who sits in the assemblie of the Judges of the earth will we hope so guide the hearts of those great and prudent Peeres and Commons that they shall determine what may conduce most to peace and godly uniformitie But sure brethren you could not imagine that by those wiser heads wee should meane our owne when you compare your owne designes and successe with our plaine credulitie and late un-thriving proceedings Injoy your winnings without our envie not without our pitie of the poore Church of England which will I feare too late rue your prevalence THe alteration of the Liturgie sent into Scotland is a businesse utterly unconcerning us whatever unhappy hands were in it would God they had beene prevented by some seasonable Gout or Palsie in the report of the alteration made of the Liturgie in the beginning of Queene Elizabeths time I feare you doe not well agree either with truth or with your selves if we compare this passage with your first entry into this large Section let the scanning of it be left to the Readers better leisure as not worthy to retard our way Doctor Taylor whom you are pleased seriously to honour with the titles of my Ironie hath made good amends belike for the praise he gave to our Liturgie which he helped to compose in his censure of a Bishops Licence and the Priestly robes the one whereof you say hee called the marke of the Beast the other a Fooles coat But what if the strange variety of Popish vestments seemed to that holy Martyr ridiculous What if to take a licence to preach from the hands of a Popish Bishop seemed to him no better then to receive the marke of a Beast what is that to us what to the cause Were these tenets erroneous is this sufficient to enervate his testimonie for the allowance of that Letanie which he made his last prayer at his parting with his deare consort And for the free use whereof he blessed that God to whom hee was sending up his soule Were it a good ground of judgement that he who once erres can never say true But for this censure of the good Martyr let those that feele the smart of it complaine Let us descend since you will have it so to the re-examination of those your reasons which enforce your desired alteration First it symbolizeth with the Popish Masse I say neither as Masse nor as Popish you disprove me in neither neither indeed can doe Could you instance This prayer is Superstitious that Idolatrous this Hereticall that Erroneous you might have just reason to except at any touch of our symbolizing with them But if the