against unlawfull usurpations conforme to the old practice of Gods Servants among us in the like case but seing in the late revolution not only Presbytries were broken and discontinowed but the very foundations razed a new foundation of the Kings Supremacie laid and a new superstructure thereon built Our compliance now as you require it would not be an act of Submission but a plain partaking in this wickedness 2. The case of mens usurpation in the State is so vastly different from that of your usurpations in the Church that it greatly alters the latitude of these submissions which you go about to equiparat for though in Civils the aspiring and usurpation of wicked men be a hainous transgression before God Yet such is the nature and condition of the Kingdoms of the Earth in themselves mutable and at the disposal of the most high who ruleth therein and giveth them to whomsoever he will and setteth up over them sometime the basest of men that the attaining thereto becometh such a providentiall title as may sufficiently warrant not only necessary submission and obedience in things lawfull but even these other acts of seeming compliance that do directly acknowledge the Usurper to be in titulo providing that they proceed no further either to anticipate Divine Providence in the establishment or homologate the wickedness of the usurpation If of this you have any doubt I remit you to Scripture-practice the customes of all Nations the opinion of most Casuists and Reason it self whereby the taking and exercising of inferior offices under undeniable Usurpers is most certainly confirmed And this is plainly the case both of State-usurpations and of the largeness of that submission which it admittes Now as for Church-usurpations the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus not being mutable and perishing like unto the Kingdoms of this world but his dominion of it self extra Commercium as Lawyers speak of things not acquirable and by Divine decree an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed As it is therefore incapable of all acquisition and his Crown such whereunto however the great ones of the Earth may bandie together and boast themselves against it neither violence nor possession can intitle So in case of a pretended usurpation though Providence may order a passive submission yet most certain it is that in this case where there neither is nor can be any title all deeds so much as of simple recognizance are utterly unlawful And therefore albeit that under the late Usurpation it was Lawfull to partake in the capacity of inferior Magistracie of that power whereunto the Usurper had in providence attained yet in the case of our present Church-usurpation to acknowledge it in the least by partaking of a jurisdiction founded in the pretended Supremacie and not derived from Christ to which neither the events of of Providence nor immemoriable possession can give the least shadow of title is altogether unlawfull Thus I have unfolded to you the disparity that invalidates your Argument and have also granted the passive submission which Providence and Christian patience do alwayes recommend If the grounds here insinuate do not so easily engage you assent when you shall add thereto these certain truths 1. That in Civils though the manner of purchasing may be in many cases injurious and unlawful yet it may be sufficient to acquire the dominion 2. That whereever the length of time or prescription may superinduce a Right there even from the beginning naked possesion is quasi titulus qui pro suo possidet potest usucapere 3. That although Lawyers speak of certain vitia that in private rights hinder definite prescription Yet all Polititians grant that immemorial possession or even that of three ages is sufficient to confirme over any people the most violent usurpation And lastly that on the other hand our Lords Throne and Scepter are everlasting and such as can never be moved I doubt not but all your difficulties will evanish You proceed to say that our Ministers are content to Preach and quite Discipline a part of their Rights why may they not aswell exercise Discipline though not with a full liberty 'T is answered 1. As I have already told you that to sit in your Courts is not at all to exercise Christs Discipline but a pretended power dependent upon another head so you do not truely accuse our Ministers of quiting Discipline it is well known that in so farre as is permitted they do not separate Doctrine and Discipline which our Lord hes conjoined And if full liberty be not permitted and they necessitat to acquiesce to what the Powers will allow it is very disingenuous in you to misconstrue this force which they suffer unto a voluntaire quiting 2. Though by the manner of your proposing the objection you would have us to believe that the cases are parallel and that in the case urged as well as in that instanced there is only a restraint laid upon a more full liberty yet the disparity is most manifest in this that in the matter of Preaching without the exercise of Discipline we are by force debarred from doing full dutie in which case the doing of a part permitted cannot be censured whereas in the compliance you require the very act is sinful and is therefore and not because we are denied a more full liberty very justly by us refused but having vainly concluded upon the poor arguments which we have heard our Ministers to be Peevish and made your pitiful N. C. confess himself non-plust by his general pretence of Conscience You ask him what he can pretend for the peoples withdrawing from your Churches since there is only a small alteration made in point of Government 'T is answered if all the matter be a small alteration in point of Government it had farre better become that charitable healing and free spirit whereunto you so often pretend to have reflected thus since the change lately made by its previoâ—s perjury and subsequent deluge of profanity the desolating of Churches and dispersing of Shepherds and flockes the disquieting and vexing of thousands unquestionably Godly and Loyal the fiering and filling all the corners of the Land with contention and discontent the burdening of a Countrey formerly exhausted and now expecting relief with heavie impositions and strange exactions And lastly the necessary and worst result of all these evils the provocking the Lord to Anger and rendering his Majesties Government less comfortable and desireable hath occasioned so great a perturbation and yet is in it self and imports so small a matter why do not our King and Nobles consider for what the Land perisheth Wherefore do not all men bend their knees and pour out their prayers to God and the King that so seen destructive and easily remedied a cause may be removed but seing for all your sparingness in passing judgment yet you cease not scornfully to censure a poor people needlessly and unchristianly by you
you do further urge particular Authorities when you have answered all my just scruples against the former and satisfied me in all their other opinions in the matter of Armes then you shall have my Answere but in the mean time pardon me if while I do indeed admire and praise the Grace and Glory of these Primitive sufferings I be neither too credulous of the mistakes of men nor do condemn the diversitie of the operations of the same God which worketh all in all specially seeing that by the same sufferings whereby you go about to impugne he hath so signally confirmed these practises which I do maintain But to this last you answere that you are far from thinking the better of a Cause because some die handsomlie for it Neither Atheisâ— Heresies nor Murthers want their pretended Martyres Sir I neither approve your too much magnifying pag. 7. nor your too much undervaluing pag. 9. of mens sufferings And therefore as at best I account them only a confirming and accessory and not a principal and leading argument so I must tell you that I conceive the force of its inference to flow from a certain lustre and insinuation of grace which your jejune Epithets of handsomnesse and gallantrie do but meanly expresse whether or not this appeared in our late Sufferers I wonder nothing that you deny it but sure I am that all the sincere lovers of the Truth have to their joy both acknowledged it been established by it After this by a transition of your own framing making your N. C. faintly and childishly disown and wave bygones whereof to deal plainly I do as little fear the odium as I account your Aâ—ologies taxing them of Rebellion to be most odious you come to enquire wherefore wee keep not the day of thanksgiving for the Kings restauration and seing you are not pleased with your N. C. answere I will give you mine Aud first it is not because you make it a holy day I know this is as much above your power as your act is presumptuous in ordaining it to be observed and your practices are far from keeping it as a holy day Nor do I now debate the Magistrates power in appointing pro re nata dayes of solemne thanksgiving wherein it is more then certain that the apparent abuse that hath been in institutions of this kinde and the end and designe of the appointment do give the Church a very necessary interest of advice Nor lastly will I detain you in the application of the difference of designing a day as a Circumstance for thanksgiving to be performed on it and dedicating a day to be kept as Holy in Commemoration a Popish error expressely by us abjured and by you revived he who desires a full clearing in this matter with a satisfying answere to all objections may find it in the English popish ceremonies but the great reason wherefore N. C. neither doe nor ought to keep that day is because you have assigned for the cause of it not only the mercie of the Kings returne but also the wicked overturning of the work of God and that with such a libeling preface of blasphemies against God and his cause and vile reproches upon the whole Nation that no true hearted man can read the Act without abhorrencie Now before you reject this my answere I only desire you to peruse and consider the Act and I am almost certain that although perhaps you will not come the length of the character I have made of it yet you will think it strange that men accessorie to many of these Righteous things against which it so foully railes should have been on the one hand indulgently indemnifyed without any acknowledgementâ— and on the other obliged under the pain of losing their sâ—ipends to a thanksgiving expressing the highest recantation Are these wayes equal Think not that my indignation against this Act is all and only from my disaffection to your establishment that is indeed one cause sufficient to produce a just detest but ingenuously I have so much of true Loyaltie to my Prince and affection to my Countrey that the disservice done to the King in rendering the celebration of that day which in its righteous and proper use might have been an acceptable kindly warming of his Subjects affection a very odious provocation to aversion and alienation is to me not a more just then powerfull incentive but such were the healings of these violent Physitians and such have been and will be the effects Again making a stepping stone of both your N. C. and his cause after you have made him confess disloyaltie because you are not able to prove it you hold out his way to be evil because of its crueltie and rigor in forcing men to take the Covenant and punishing such as refused and your N. C. granting this to be a fault also you charge it home very odiously against our Leaders as Men unacquainted with the meek spirit and obstinat in those severities It s answered whether these things be objected or not in a meek spirit is more your concernment then mine who regard not your bitternesse in any dresse That which you call cruelty if counter-ballanced with the guilt of the recusancie will quickly be alleviat to moderation If the Covenants for I shall touch both pressed had been new Oaths arbitrarely imposed there were some ground for your challenge but as to the first was it not the same wherein the Nation stood engaged from the first beginning almost of the Reformation and if after a great and visible defection it was upon our returning renewed and with a more expresse application against these corruptions whereunto we had backslidden required to be taken by all who could not decline without a manifest declaration of both their unsoundnesse and insinceritie in the Oath of God call you this Rigor And as to the second the League if the Communion of Saints and that sympathie wee ought to have with all Christs sufferings Members did persuade it as a dutie and if your then ejected Prelats did by their restlesse instigations and the breaches of Faith and Hostile invasion from England thereby procured render it convincingly a most necessary meane for the preserving and prosequuting the ends of the first was it not both rational and righteous that they who stood thus obliged by vertue of the first Covenant to take the Second upon their recusance should be proceeded against as Deserters And the truth is as they were not many that were troubled simply for not taking the Covenants so there were but few if any who refused the second who either before were not or thereafter became not directly opposite to the First Nor did these few refusers subsist in a quiet dissatisfaction but for the most part turned violent and bloudy Enemies or at least partakers with such Adversaries Notwithstanding of all which perjury and wickedness the procedour against these recusants or rather Apostates was so litle adequate either to
for righteousnesse as if its emphasis were not the rare commendation of the deed but that otherwise it might have been imputed to him for sin unto an inconcludent inference of a special command and calling 7. He calumniously asserteth that Naphtali holds great gifts and secret impulses to be a sufficient call for men to go beyond the ordinary rules which God hath set to them in their callings whereas all we find in Naphtali is that joyning a zealous excitation to the Lords command in an exigence of extreme necessity he thereof for superabundance maketh up a sufficient call to the heroick action thereon ensuing And. 8. And lastly he grosly perverteth the question as if any of us did affirme that we have warrant now to look for extraordinary persons having Gods special and secret mandat to do works which neither Reason nor Scripture do warrant when on the contrary Naph Labours mainly to show that even Phineas had no such character Now that these are the Surveyers reflections upon this fact of Phineas and this their successe the perusal of his Papers with what I have here said doth aboundantly cleare It remains in the next place that I declare how that as Naphtali's doctrine here vindicated is by him only narrativè delivered from the records of our first Reformation so the samine is there truely and more fully to be found and that Master Knox and our worthy Reformers were of the same opinion as to the instance controverted and from the ground thereof did give a resolution in a case far more debatable then that of Naphlali the following passage may evence In the year 1563 the Queen having emitted a proclamation against the Mass and yet conniving thereat and the Kingdom being visited by an universal death which master Knox sayes was for the idolatry of our wicked Rulers and our ingratitude that suffered them again to defile the land with that abomination the brethren generally offended determined to put to their own hands and to punish for example to others and so they practised on some and made intimation to the rest The Queen offended here at sendeth for Master Knox and dealeth with him earnestly to perswade the people and principally the Genlemen of the West not to put to their hands to punish papists Master knox on the other hand exhorteth her to execute justice which if she omitted he feared some would let the papists understand that they should not be suffered so manifestly to offend without punishment To this the Queen answereth will yow allow â—that they shall take my sword in their hand Now observe his reply The sword of justice Madam is Gods and is given to princes and rulers for one end which if they transgress sparing the wicked and oppressing the innocents they that in the fear of God execute judgment where God hath commanded offend not God although Kings do it not nather yet sin they that bridle kings to strike innocent men in their rage the examples of Samuel sâ—aying Agag Elias Jezabels Prophets and Phineas Zimri and Cozbi are evident And so Madam your Majestie may see that others then cheif magistrats have lawfully punished and may punish the crimes that God commands to be punished By which discourse it is evident as the sun light that Naphtali in place of being the broacher of this doctrine doth indeed come short of that which Mr Knox hath long since asserted it is true in his conclusion he saith others then chief Magistrats as if meaning by inferior thereafter subjoines that by act of Parliament power is given to all judges to search and punish mass-mongers and hearers but seing the same is only spoken with an accomodation to the then case and that both the grounds of Master Knox his reasoning in this place and his declared opinion in his appellation admonition to the commonalty viz. that the punishing of idolatry and such crimes as touch the majestie of God doth not appertain to rulers only but to the body of the people and every member thereof according to his vocation and according to that possibility which God doth minister together with the manifest consequence of clear reason give no lesse power to the people against subaltern then to subaltern against supreme magistrats I need not hereupon enlarge far lesse to answer the Surveyers profane inconsistent reflections upon these times if the opposition then made to idolatrous and persecuting Rulers had been indeed sedition or rebellion sinfully raised for some unjust cause extrinseck to the matter of religion by our first Reformers as many professors of that time were no dout too palpably guilty of sacriledge and self-seeking there had been ground to have placed all into one category and vindicate the Lords word from the sin of such instruments but seing the then-resistance was visibly made in the same Spirit which in the preceeding dispensation of and call to suffering had so patiently and constantly endured firie and bloudy trialls for the testimony of Jesus and was carried on by these reformers who continually testifying against the sacriledge and self-seeking mentioned did from clear scripture-grounds out of the manifest zeal of God and for the maintenance of his Gospel strenuously assert and promove these courses it is certain that their testimony is very significant adding as much confirmation as can be drawn from humane authority and the Surveyers alleviating thereof by alledging that our Lord was crucified by wicked hands and yet the result was the worlds redemption that reprobat ministers have saved their hearers a leprous hand may sow good seed and that heirs of glory may be gotten in bastardâ— is not more impertinent from its non consequence these works being manifestly evil then wickedly contumelious and ungrate but behold the instability of this double minded man who having vented all this foul malice against these doings of our first Reformers subjoineth let it be so that much of their way was justificable upon the account of these motives which then impelled them yet how unlike was the case then to what it is now c. Whereby it is evident that it is neither Naphtali's principles nor yet his doctrine concerning Phineas but the Surveyers different present apprehension of the hypothesis consequently the blindfolding charme of self-interest against the power of truth that seduceth him and his accomplices to their absurd contradiction Having thus asserted Naphtali's doctrine against your maligne misrepresentation it is time that I consider what you objecte against him And you â—ay ransack all the Provincial letters Escobar or the other proâ—ane Casuists you shall not find a more impious and detestable opinion among them then this doctrine concerning private persons their punishing of crimes in casâ— of the supinnesse of the Magistrate But pray Sir 1. Wherefore do you enumerat the Provincial Letters so elaboratly write against them among other profane Casuists This your escape if designed should be a bad reward for the Authors pains taken against that
to us further encouragement and punishing us not for Conscience since none hath suffered because he was for Presbytery or against Episcopacy but for unruly humors and practices Sir if our complainings and mournings were according to their just causes viz. our high handed Rebellion against God unparalleled breach of Covenant perjurious subversions and alterations of the Ordinances of God aswel as the Laws of the Land with the profanity ignorance and violence that have thence abounded and filled the whole Land neither should I or any of the fearers of the Lord have eyes to write or read this my vindication It is true all this iniquity and mischief is introduced and established by form of Law and thence you take the impudence to smooth it over as if there were no more in it then the alteration of Laws nay as if what before the Act Law made were righteously refused out of conscience after the accession of an humane injunction could not be forborn but out of humor And as if Conscience and Laws could not inteâ—â—ere you go on to tell us That the reason of our suffering is neither our adhering to Presbytery nor our nonâ— compliance with Episcopacy but only our unruly humors and practices But seing the colour of Law which you pâ—etend is indeed no relief of conscience but the greatest aggravation of that Apostacie and persecution whereof we complain and that notwithstanding of any reproch wherewith you do slander it the true cause of all our sufferings is none other then our stedfastness in the Oath of God binding us to the maintenance of Presbytery and extirpation of your Prelacy And lastly seing that we bemoan no violence either to death banishment bonds or spoile which the taking of your Declaration against the Covenant would not certainly have prevented the witness of our cause and sufferings who is in Heaven heareth and will reprove your lies As for our excess you say We make complaints to to God as if Heaven and Earth were mixed and adapt all the lamentations of Ieremiah to our sorry matters comparing the overthrow of Presbytery to the Babylonish captivity But oh that the causes of our grief were thorowly weighed and the hainousâ—ess of our provocations with the calamities come upon Gods House Ordinances and Servants laid in the balance together certainly then you should more regrete our defect then now you mock at our excess And in asmuch as sin is more grievous then judgment and judgments spiritual heavier then judgments temporal Nay Gospel Ordinances more precious then these of the old dispensation You would judge the overthrow of Presbytery visibly accompanied with breach of Covenant and the rejecting and expelling of the Lords ministry far more important at least in these respects whatever other aggravations there might have been in that distress then the Babylonish captivity To these objections you adde Now were your way what you imagine you should rejoice that you are called to suffer for it and not make such tragical complaints Who ever heard such ridiculous discourse in such a serious purpose Your N. C. doth only plead for a due concerning regard to the state of the Church and the interests of Iesus Christ you your self allow a fervent solicitude to God-ward in behalf of His Glory and the good of His People And we do not only propose for imitation the practice and exercise of Gods Servants who both of old of late in all times have from the love zeal of Gods Glory made the desolation of Gods Sanctuary the corrupting and removing of his Ordinances with the persecutions of his People matter of heavy complaint and deep mourning but do also greatly rejoice in that grace and glory whereby the Lord hath countenanced and beautified the tryals of particular sufferers amongst us no lesse then these of any other his Martyrs upon record And yet after you have confounded the complainings of the Lord's People of old for the desolations of his Sanctuary with their concernment in their own private losses and falsely and vainly distinguished betwixt the duty and deportment of Gods People under the old and under the new dispensation in order to afflictions you say dully without any connexion or regard to the mixtures of the cup of Gods People Our way is not what we imagine els we should rejoice that we are called to suffer for it But the Lord who giveth us both strength and joy in our sufferings doth also know and hear our mournings and will reprove your mocking But you say That our bitternesse against our enemies looks nothing like the mildnesse of Christ or the primitive Sufferers How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing That we approve not bitternesse against our persecutors upon any account is our serious profession whereunto our practices ought to be conform But with all that we hate their way pray that they may lay aside their opposition to the cause and people of God otherwise that such troublers were even cut off and when God enables and calls do stand up for the defence of the Gospell and our selves against evill doers is so far from jarring with primitive precedents that both Scripture Reason and the practice of all times do allow it And really Sir when I consider these your discourses so directly tending to the blunting nay extinguishing of all zeal for God and the perswading of a stupid not patient endurance of all injuries under the pretext of Christian Resignation that wickedness and violence so much at present prevailing may the better be estabilished as I cannot but regrete this point of your conformity to primitive examples not indeed these of Christians but of their persecutors who in the madnesse of their wickedness did often wheâ— their violence and intende their cruelty to the persecuted by their scornful reciting of the gospell precepts to patient suffering So I must tell you my fears that your pretendings to the serene and dove-like spirit are only collours to palliat your deep deceit and malice But making your N. C. decline your instance of the primitive Christians with a vain scoff of your own suggesting that far fowls have â—air feathers and appeal to the practice of late Reformers as such who universally resisted the Magistrate out of an exceding veneration as you pretend to the same Reformers you do undertake from undeniable evidence of History to convince us of the falshood of that vulgar error that the Reformation was carryed on by resistance But here in the entrance you must give me leave though I acknowledge that you take no advantage from it first to rectify your expression that the Reformation in many places where opposed by force was maintained by resistance Is that which we with as plain and full an evidence as can be instanced in any matter of fact do very confidently assert But that it was carried on by resistance Is not only inconsistent resistance sounding rather for the defence then the advance of any cause
of Nations are by all Lawyers held in some cases to be restricted And though I grant that many Casuists do require to the lawfulness of subjects their resistance beside the justice of the cause the concurring of inferior Magistrates yet that the same grounds with better consequence do also allow to the people by themselves inferior Magistrates either joining with the supreme oppressor or deserting their dutie the right of defence is the opinion of the more judicious Nay seing it is most certain as I have often touched that there are certain atrocious injuries which do force even from the most rigid royalist a particular exception in favors of single persons thereby attacqued it is evident that all this controversie is more in hypothesi then in thesi 3. If it be remembred what were Luther's mistakes in his younger years in the matters of war resistance withall that beside the information of Lawyers he had a further and a most important reflection upon the force and necessity of conscience in times of uncertainty and danger it must of necessity be acknowledged that this passage is not meerly a politick discovery whereof before he was ignorant but a manifest retractation of former mistakes I have already hinted how absurdly the Scriptures for not resisting of evill and for subjection to Powers are abused by Court-flatterers to a special prohibition of all resistance from Christians persecuted for conscience sake against their oppressing Princes Only for sooth because their unconcernedness in Religion doth sufficiently secure them from the consequence whereas it is clear as the Sun-light that the same Scripture-rules do make no distinction from what cause let be from what person the injurie doth descend but equally and indefinitly enjoyn patience and submission in their exigence and season ' without the least prejudice to these other rules of righteousness whereby aswell in the case of persecution for Religion as of injurious invasions upon other accounts the persons invaded when in an otherwise unrestrainâ—d capacity are warranted to resistance in their own defence And for this it may suffice though there were no more that Luther tells us that he ever taught that the Gospel doth not impugne or abolish politick laws much less then the fundamental laws of nature to which all politick laws do cede But what he further addes of a force and necessity of conscience thereby joyning the obligation to the right of defensive resistance is certainly a ground which if it were here pertinent I could improve to more then I have hitherto asserted But you say that every one knowes that the Princes are Soveraigns within themselves and the Emperour is only the head of the union How doth this blinde Confident medle without understanding That the constitution of the Empyre is purely feudal the Emperour Liege-lord and all the Princes feudataires recognoscing him and subject to the imperial Chamber where they have been often doomed and for faultedâ— Is a thing most obvious What do you then bable of united Soverraigns and Soveraigns within themselves By which dialect of discourse and a fair descent a Majori ad Minus you or any other private person may quo ad his reserved rights and liberties be termed a Soveraigne within himself We know that by concession they have large priviledges and that most of the regalia appertain to them but are they therefore Soveraignes Or is the Emperour only the head of the union Beside how will you make thir things quadrat to the Hanse-townes and free Cities who certainly for all their immunities and priviledges are immediatly and directly subject to the Emperour and yet have often ingaged in these defensive leagues and wars against him Thus I answere you in your folly But pray Sir do you think that ever our Lord commanded or the Gospel meant that though the poor people may not defend themselves when persecute for Religion yet great men their superiors though subject to the Supreme may Or if you be more rational can you imagine that an oppressed people upon any account with the concurse of inferior rulers may defensively resist their Soveraign to whom all are subject and that the same people no more but rather less subject to these inferior then all are to the Supreme may not as lawfully upon the like provocation defend themselves against both the Supreme Inferror joyning in an oppressive combination Specially seing it is most certain that as the Supreme hath all his power from the peoples suffrage and consent so the Inferior doth wholly and precariously for the most part subsist by his grant But I proceed you say As for the war that afterwards followed betwixt Charles the 5 th the Duke of Saxe besides that the Duke was free to defend himselfe as I have told Charles the 5 th declared it was not for Religion he fought 'T is answered for the freedom of the Duke of Saxe that it was no greater in this case then the people may acclaime in the like as also that if the Duke of Saxe his war was lawful upon the account of injuries for other causes then that of of Religion Religion doth only aggravat and not alter the case I have already cleared But what a pitiful allegeance is this that Charles the fift forsooth declared it was not for Religion he fought Whereas first by the league betwixt him and the Pope it is expressely convented That wherefore many years Germany had continued in great errors for which the Councel of Trent was called and set down And that these of the Smalcald confederacy did reject the same therefore the Pope and Caesar for the Glory of God and safety of that People have transacted that Caesar levy an army against Iuny next and by force of armes reduce these Refusers of the Council and Defenders of errors into the old Religion and obedience of the holy See 2. The Duke of Saxe and the Langrave writ to him to disswade him closing that when ever they should understand his pretended causes for that war they would so answere ut quivis intelligat injuriam nobis fieri te Romani Antichristi ac impii Concilii Tridentini impulsu bellum hoc suscipere ut Euangelii Doctrina Germaniae libertas opprimatur nec ullam aliam subesse causam docebimus 3. They at the same time emit a publick vindication for themselves proving by unanswerable arguments that Religion was the only cause of that war And should not you be ashamed to obtrude to us Caesar's groundless and calumnious assertion against both the Princes their declaration and reasons 4. The very letters written by Caesar to the Argentinenses and other Protestant Cities wherein accusing the Princes of Rebellion and Oppression under the pretext of Religion he really maketh out nothing together with their answer wherein all his pretensions are taken off nay Sleidan's whole sevententh Book containing the Pop's Bull his letters to the Helvetii the distinct returnes made to Caesar's demands
their guilt or number that upon a considerate and impartiall review I am assured all the excess that can be qualified will not suffice to purge your objection of Cruelty against the publick courses of these times of plain Calumnie I say the Publick courses for as to the particular practises of private persons although the corruption inherent to the best and the many and rapid Temptations of times of division and wars do offer me large matter of Apologie yet I doe rather wish that the outbreakings which wee have seen and felt of the Lords holy jealousie may make both the Lovers of his work to remember their provocations and tremble before this holy Lord God who will be Sanctifyed in them that come nigh him And also the haters of his Name to consider how much more upon such he will be Glorifyed But you not content to pervert the Righteous wayes of God go about mainly to represent his Ministers as bloudy men rejoycing and obstinate in bloud certainly such a grievous and horrid accusation ought to have been evidently instructed but since it is impossible to imagine the least shadow of ground for it unlesse that sometimes his Servants either in the more eminent and signall appearances of Gods vengeance upon his bloudy and perfidious Adversaries have joined their praises with Heavens Alleluiahs for the manifestation of his true and righteous judgements or that when the Lord called to punish they have regreted an unseasonable and partial excesse of Lenitie Are not these arrows firebrands and death which you throw in your pretended meekness like to the symptomes of Madnesse And now Sir since you will have it so give me leave to manage the retortion for your N. C. You accuse our times of cruelty for forcing men to take the Covenant though in effect it was only to make them stand to an Oath whereby all were antecedently obliged but have not you and many of you such as formerly were very forward to presse it upon others Now without either reason given or repentance so much as pretended been most violent to have all men to renounce it I will not mention the exclusion of all Non-renouncers from Publick Trust and the first Arbitrary fining and remitting or abating upon condition of the Declaration Temptations not only unjust but no less powerful and a hundred fold more extensive then all the certifications execute upon simple Noncovenanters the very instances by you given shall also serve my turne Are not to concurre in the present Church-Government and to promise submission to Episcopacie certain reductive disclamations And yet you cannot deny that for the refusing of these things many hundred of Ministers have been thrust out and in such manner vexed and tossed with imprisonments banishments consinements and proclamations upon proclamations that if the Lord had not provided your mercie in sparing their Lives had been only the complement of your Cruelty It s true that Ministers are not made to sweare to Maintain the present Establishment but if they be required to break a former lawful and approven Oath where is the disparity As for the People you tell us they are desired to do nothing but live peaceably and join in worship And verily though this were all and though your Publick Peace were not so perverted as it cannot be subscribed unto and your Worship so polluted and profaned as may give too just occasion of scruple it were easie to demonstrate that such hath been the Rigor and violence of your Methods that it is a wonder that a hundred to one have not been thereby irritate to more unpeaceablenesse and greater desertion but because you have brought against us and our leaders the odious accusation of Bloud although I have already removed it yet in pursuance of the parallel I must further tell you that the Bloud of the former Times abstracting from its justice was in a manner the Bloud of War iâ— War but in your Times wee have seen over and above its injustice the bloud of War shed in Peace and that of such Persons for such Causes and with such Circumstances as time doth only increase and not diminish its astonishment next the tragedie of these poor harmlesse persons who by your insufferable insolencies and exactions were provoked to take Armes is yet recent I shal not resume particulars but I am confident their cause their number their condition and their rout being considered the tortures and bloudy executions that ensued not upon the chief Actors and instruments but upon the inferior yea meanest of these Innocents led out to the slaughter without choise are hardly to be matched what hand your Lords of the Clergie had in these things how suift their feet were to shed bloud and how Burnet the A. P. of Glasgow taught the Executioner to truss him up with a pulley who for weaknesse could not be otherwise execute and the Armie Officers commanded drums to be beaten to drown the Testimony of the Lords dying witnessess is well known Nay it is more then probable that if the King had not put a stop to that but cherie and these oppressions and barbarities wherewith the West was afterward aflicted your Prelats had not given over until that partie had been utterly cut off and that whole Countrey laid desolate for their cause I might further tell you of your other severities and how by your rigid exceptions and other ensnaring Acts not only the intended favour of the Kings Indemnity was corrupted but also its very designe and effect frustrat But what need of many words let the fervent aud conspiring desires of the 1659 and the more exâ—lting joyes of the 1660. with the many disappointments grievances and exactions that ensued together with the present Universal coolness dissatisfaction and distraction and unsetled condition of the Kingdom be considered and impartially searched into their proper cause and if Prelacie be not found the only marrer of our joy and quiet ferment of our distemper and moth of our Loyalty then rejoice yee in the Bishops and let them also rejoyce in you but if thus it be then c. Thus you have forced me to retaliat your provocation and I am more then wearied of the subject In the next place you taxe the N. C. of great hight and insolencie in assuming the big Names of the Godly Partie and the People of God and calling their way the cause and Kingdom of Christ. Sir if they did indeed contend for the Ministery and Ordinances of Christ And that for the vindication of his Power and Government over his Church and the Prospering of his pleasure I think truely they had good right to all these names but that they did vainly and arrogantly use them it is more then you have proven or I doe remember And really J am in the opinion that upon search it will be found that the Titles of the People of God and of the Godlie Partie were at first not so much assumed by the asserters of our
and many excellent qualities of our deceased Prince and the dutie I owe the now King nothing else could refuge you from the full returnes of a just resentment Passing therefore the many horrid Blasphemies Lies and Reproaches wherewith your Clergie during these unhappie wars did not cease continually to proscind the Cause and People of God more precious to him then all the Monarchs on Earth and did most instantly labour to render both detestably hateful unto the Prince until they brought all to ruine I shall in a few sober words vindicat the Lords servants from all these umbragesâ— and appearances whereby you endeavour to set off your reproach That the late King by evil Counsel specially that of unconscionable and ungrate Prelats wickedly abusing for their own ends a Conscientious Prince unto a fatal obstinacie was precipitat into many grosse errours of Government such as an excessive indulgence to Papists illegâ—ll and violent exactions many unusuall and high attempts against fundamental Laws and Liberties a strange connivance at the Irish Rebellion and at length a bloudy and pertinacious war against his Parliaments his greatest and best friends and Counsellours it was not the invention of evil affected men or Ministers as you alleage but the sad evidence of plain deeds and the unanimous verdict of these most capable and proper to discern Now if in this state of things the Lords Ministers favouring his righteous Cause did endeavour by a true representation both to avert the People from and animat them against evil courses destructive to Religion and Right wherein are they to be reprehended You say they charged the King with all But know you not that as whatever passed upon the Kings side did beare the impresse of his Name and Authority so they did continually charge the guilt and wickednesse of all mostly upon bad Counsel praying the Lord uncessantly with much tendernesse to the Kings Person that the Wicked might be removed from about the Throne that so it might have been established And as to what you alleage That contraire to Humanity and Christianity they did Persecute the memory of that Prince after his death and that with the hight of insolencie and barbaritie in the presence of his Son who now reigneth It is a calumnie which you are not able to justify It s true they wished and moved the King to repent of his accession to and mourne for the opposition to the work of God violence and bloud wherein his Father was unhappily engaged and from which the Throne except by serious Repentance will never be purged If this be the Inhumane Insolent and Barbarous raking into his ashes which you lay to their charge you remember little and fear lesse the jealousie of God who â—isiteth the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth Generation Neither doe you consider that the stain of Bloud is such specially upon a Throne that the unfeigned teares even of the Author do not wash it away Ezrah and Nehemiah mourned and repented for the Provocation of Kings and Princes many Ages past without the least reflection upon their memories Seeing therefore that the practises whereupon you found these high accusations were altogether consonant to the Word of God and the Principles then acknowledged both by King and People and to which in Conscience we do and must still adhere doth not your apparent bearing with us in the main and yet so virulently inveighing against a clear dependencie manifestly discover more then an inveterate malice As to our Ministers their manner of reproving sin you say they reproved not in secret but triumphed in the Pulpit without controll and against absents and that either out of Malice or ostentation Thus the tumor raised by the poison of your last calumnie doth still swell and you forget that you your self are vainly triumphing in Print against a Mock-adversarie But as you cannot verifie that ordinarely or allowedly secret reproof was omitted where there appeared reason and accesse for it so I am confident your allegeance hath no better ground then that Ministers for the strengthning of the Lords people did freely hold out the Apostacie and wickednesse of his declared Enemies for whom such a reproofe had been but in vain intended In the next place you tell us that the Sermons of our Ministers were no Extraordinary things Sir I will not compare I am no lover of Extraordinary things but I heartily wish that such Preaching were now more Ordinary to believe and therefore to speak though with speach contemptible is certainly infinitly more gracefull then to speak even Seraphickly and in practise to counter-act There is a Foolishnesse of Preaching commended by Paul above the wisdom of man Whether you would value it as an Ordinary or Extraordinary thing I know not But this Epithet of Extraordinary which you seeme to desiderat is very little consonant to Luthers Opinion Hi sunt optimi ad Populum Concâ—onatâ—res qui pueriliter populariter quà m simpliâ—issime docent These are the best Preachers unto the People who teach in a plain homely and most simple way You adde that their Sermons were half stuffed with Publick Matters nothing concerning Souls Why do you Hyperbolizâ— so widely in prejudice of Truth You know publick Matters were not medled with but in a clear exigence and if some did exceed others were defective and these were the infirmities of both but you tell us That these things concerne not Souls This is a touch of your Convenient Religion Pray Sir are Publick Maters transacted without private mens accession or in this accession hath Conscience no concernment Nay are not the solid practises of Christianity such as the contempt of the World for the most part most necessaire and conspicuous in Wrestling with and overcoming the great and frequent temptation of a publick sinful course But O the rare temper of this New device that both inwardly elevats to the highest Spiritual abstractions and outwardly smooths to a most easie temporizing complyance You say further that the solid Practises of Christianity were scarce â—ver named and that vertue was little Preached by us and far lesse Practised but why do you make so little Conscience of truth Your often touching upon this string with the presumption of Common ingenuity which I have and desire to retain for all men have made me apply to all conjectures to find out your ground for this allegance but in the end I see it is a plain forgerie The Lord knows that I am far from boasting of former Practises but that in this so visible a change attending the present Establishment from the Generall restraint and aw of Sin that before did oblige even the most profligat unto a seeming conformity unto these confessed aboundings of all manner of profanitie which do now fill the Land you should have the confidence to sayâ— that vertue was by us little Preached and far lesse Practised is that which I am sure these of your own way
do laugh at and which if ever ye returne to the right way ye will weep at And yet you proceed to oppone to us our Saviours Sermons Particularly that upon the mount I will not contend with your Mockeries I wish that both yours and ours may reflect on short-comings and endeavour amendment according to that pattern Next you say That the true hights of Spirituality were as little preached as the living in abstraction silence solitude and the still contemplations of God the becoming dead to all things and being much in Secret fastings Sir you are so much upon your hights that you see nothing about you Pray descend a little and consider that your own Ministers are as great strangers to these fine expressions of yours and you and they to the things signified to say no worse as ours are and much more And in effect seeing that you only measure your self by your self you are not wise and this affected noveltie of words doth argue litle sincerity But if Communion with God fellowship with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ a heart and conversation in heaven Christ our Life dying dayly victorie over the World and the like may relish with you in this if Courser yet Scriptural style our Ministers I am sure were not unfrequent in pressing of them and secret prayers and fastings also and I am confident their Ministrie hath a seal yet abiding which may witness that it hath not been unfruitfull I cannot follow you in your again repeated accusation as if our Ministers had only preached a Pharisaick observance of Ordinances and a bare relyance on Christ without obedience to his Gospel These are only your allegeances destitute of truth Your next charge is that our Ministers handled nice subtilties which they called Cases of Conscience But Sir as you grant that some devout people may be under doubtings and fears so in reason you must allow not only a privat application for their remedy but also Publick Doctrine both necessaire for prevention and conducible for cure that in this there was an excesse I believe few would have imagined unless you had said it Yet when I call to minde what men of Conscience the generalitie of your Partie are and how in effect unacquainted with nay declared Enemies to all tendernesse thereof if you had termed Conscience it self Melancholy Imagination as well as Cases of Conscience nice subtilities it had added but little to my wonder As for what you adde That it is unsufferable to hear people who led but common lives talke of such things It is a truth which I have often heard our Ministers assert as also that the best way of silencing all doubts is as you speak to act Faith renew Repentance study Holinesse Humility and the other great practises of Christianity Why then are you so Divisive as to object things to us wherein we do not differ But alas the reason is too evident the designe to render us Odious must be observed and pursued by all Arts And therefore when you cannot contradict the Power that appeared in and the fruit of Conversion and Edification which accompanyed our Ministers preaching Yet your eye being evil by carping hints at Methods and by unnecessary cautions you suggest the things which you have not the confidence to object Thus you bid your N. C. See that by Power he do not mean a Tone in the voice A Grimace in the face c. and by Conversion a change in Opinion or outward behaviour influenced by Interest But Sir as both in Power and the fruit of Conversion our Ministers have been througly made manifest amongst us so I must add for their Voice and Gesture that although some of them might have been rude in speach yet not in knowledge And if your better breeding and sight of the Scene have modelled your Tone and action above the rate as you phansie of both yours and ours you but the more marre its ridiculous gracefulnesse by undervaluing others And as for the Conversions attending our preachings many of them are tryed and cannot be blasted by your mocking I Grant some were proselyted in whom the Evil Spirit having by Apostacie re-entered with seven more they are become more the Children of the Devil then they were before but seeing they are now yours make them not our reproach Your next challenge is that wee termed our Preachings the word of God and you tell us that to call them so and yet to confesse that Ministers may be mistaken in them is a Contradiction But why do you not rather accuse us plainly for terming our Ministers the Ministers and Embassadours of Christ If their Preachings be not his message no doubt they are not his Embassadours and if they be his Embassadours how can you deny their preachings in his Name to be his Message These things have such an evident and convertible coherence that I am in a suspence whether to impute this passage to your mistake or not rather to a designe to subvert the Ministerie And as many of your way would have it to turne all Christs Preaches unto Royal Orators As for your Contradiction it doth no more impugne Preachings then Preachers for to call Preachers the Lords Embassadours And their Embassie the Word of God have the same appearance of inconsistencie with the infirmity of Mistaking wherein you phansie your repugnancie to lye the truth is then first that Ministers are the Lords Messengers Next that their Preachings in his Name and conforme to the Warrant of his Word have not only that derived Authority which the Scripture equally imparts to all Rational and sound deductions made from it but also a particular superadded obligation from the Lords Commission wherewith the Preacher is Ministerially cloathed whence it clearly follows that as all true Ministers their Preachings are in his Name and ought to be agreeable to his Truth so the Preachers their admixed mistakes are of no more force either to deprive Preaching of the name or these things therein that are sound and true of the special Authority of the Word of God then the accidental miscariage of an Embassadour to make void his mission in other things consonant to his instructions How unsound then is your insinuation that The text indeed is the Word of God but Ministers Glosses by which terme you mockingly understand all Preaching or Expounding the words only of fallible men as if a Ministers sound interpretation and application did pertake of Nothing speciall from the Character which he sustains whereas you know that not only his Mission doth impresse his words with his Masters Authority but hath also many and great Promises of a suitable assistance Having thus cleared the Common Cause of the Ministrie and that their Preachings when sound are from a special ground the Word of God That which you subjoin of Ministers their usurping this name to their Preachings by Way of Artifice that thereby they might procure the credite of the Infallible and Inspired
Who would think that this were the accusation of Non-conformists who from the very beginning of Reformation have been continually vexed by your impositions and not rather conceive the objection to be made by them against your violent pressing of Crosse Surplice Service-book Book of Canons and other â—rash wherewith the Lords people have been uncessantly urged as the main yea only things of Religion But I cannot stand upon every one of your calumnies the Lord deliver you from this perverse spirit Only if by the driving objected you do understand our causing the people of the Land to stand stedfast and adhere to the Lords Covenant whereby they were formerly obliged it is already fully answered But that which you say is of greatest weight is that we are guilty of the waxing cold in Love to which our Saviour knits the abounding of Iniquity And this challenge you qualify by our judging you in Matters which are doubtful disputations spreading tattlesâ— of you as you call them carrying sowrly toward you and casting odious aspersions upon you as Apostates and the like with petulant railings and this you adde is a greater persecution then any little suffering of ours in the World Sir though I cannot sooth you as you do your felf by the mouth of your N. C. whose tongue you teach to speak lyes in your smooth words of deceit by telling you that too much of what you speak is true Yet I heartily wish there were more Charity on all sides but where you accuse us of waxing cold in Love and thence would inferre our accession to the present abounding iniquity I would first have you to read the text aright which runeth thus And because iniquity shall aboâ—nd the love of many shall wax cold which is a plain inversion of your causality 2. Admitting your ground to be good I seriously wish without vanity that the waxing cold in love both toward God and your Neighbour were not more your sin then ours then had we not been scorched into a blacknesse and consumed almost into ashes by these fiery trials kindled blown and kept into a flame by the Grandees of your way pourtrey them as you please whose heat speaks them to be set on fire against the Work People and Interests of God 3. To call the causes of our Differences matters which are doubtfull Disputations when both by Scripture Reason and Solemne Engagements and many sad experiences they are so fully determined is indeed to put false glosses upon things and to pretend to be a good Christian and to acclaime the charity and kindnesse of others in an avoued persistence in open Perjury Opposition to the Cause of God and persecution of his People is it not to wipe your mouth and say you have done no wickednesse But you say it is from the spirit of the Devil to fasten the brand of Apostasie upon the leaving of a partie and that to grow wiser is not to play the changling nor is a consciencious obedience to standing Laws time-serving Sir as I love neither to irritate nor prejudicate by hard words so I approve not either your or your N. C. tattles but if to leave God and not a Partie be Apostasie if to forsake the way and Truth of God be to play the changling and if to obey and conforme to mischief framed by a Law be time-serving I am sadly apprehensive that what you account to be but the Malice of the spirit of the Devil shall one day be found the Verdict of the Spirit of God Whether it be thus or not in our controverted differences let the things themselves and the issue of our discourse declare What you tell us of the primitive application of the word Apostasie is no restriction of its proper acceptation And for your other petty conceits in this place with your mock-complaint of the persecution of a just but disdained censure they are not of that moment to stop my procedour to that part of your conference which concerns Episcopacie This head you say falls asunder in two the one a general consideration of that Government the other supposing it were amisse how far it ought to be separated from And for the Government in place of all these weighty and unanswerable objections viz. the want of our Lords Warrant 2. Repugnancie to his and his Apostles Precepts and practice of restless labour simplicity equality humility and contempt of the world c. 3. Disconformity to the first and purer times of the Primitive Church 4. The pride avarice usurpation and cruelty to which it naturally tends and hath been depraved And lastly these evil and bitter fruits of profanity ignorance and superstition that it hath ever in its prevalencie produced which have been charged upon and made out against it by many of the Lords faithfull Witnesses you make your N. C. faintly and poorly to aledge I cannot think that Church-men should be called Lords and be great Persons that this is a desingenuous prevarication is obviously manifest Yet such is the weaknesse of your cause that the meanest argument you could put in your N. C. mouth is stronger then your answere wherein you tell us That this belongs not to the thing it self but is an addition of the Christian Magistrat But I must remember you first that Church-men and Ministers are not capable of every addition Civil offices and administrations are very lawfully bestowed by the Magistrat upon fit Recipients but as for Ministers they are not only an intolerable distraction many degrees above that charitable imployment which the Apostles could not bear but so inconsistent with the nature manner and end of their Ministrie that even our Lord while in this capacitie doth bruskly decline to be so much as an amicable trister And therefore to justify Bishops titles from this ground that they are extrinsick additions or from their civil place and voice in Parliament is no wayes concludent 2. Though this were not yet I am confident that who ever considers the received use and import of this title of Lord amongst us will find it an addition as full of fastuous vanity for Ministers as the title of Rabbi even admitting that its excess did lye another way therefore excepted against and prohibited by our Lord was unlawfull for the Apostles but 3. This title is not an addition flowing from the Christian Magistrat as you pretend but the very product of that pride and usurpation that at first exalted Prelacie which as as first it was assumed by the connivence of if not rather forced from the Civil Magistrat so now by the Bishops it is only derived from him in consequence of that Supremacie which both falsly against our Lord Jesus Christ and traiterously to the Pope in this respect their proper head they have for their own conveniencie transferred upon him But you add that we consider not that Sir and Lord Gentleman and Nobleman differ but in degree since therefore a Minister by Office â—hes the temporall â—onour of
manifest from the Text Iohn 13. 4. c. where we finde that our Lord doth first wash his Disciples feet before he told them what he was a doing and then having done the act not simply significant by his appointment but of it self as the effect expressing the greatest humility as its cause he teaches them not a â—oâ—emne reiteration but the use in these words If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash on anothers feet If I have been among you as he that serveth so ought ye to serve one another for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you I have not shewed you humility in a figure to be repeated for your remembrance but by a solid practice taught you the like performance so that to turne this pattern unto a rite is in effect as far from our Lords purpose as the instruction of plaiâ— examples is preferable to that of Mystick representations which exposition is so true and sound that as this phansie of yours was never owned by the Church of Christ so it is most certain that whâ—re it hath been followed I mean by the Pope and this action hath been used as a rite it hath only been made a colour to the most prodigious and superlative pride that ever the sun beheld and thus I hope all men may see that the not using of this washing never again used for any thing we read by way of Sacrament or Ceremony either by our Lord or his Apostles and Churches is neither a difformity in us from the Scripture nor an argument for your irreligious laxenesse in things you call externals As for your Demand why in your Worship do you not Kiss one another with a holy Kiss seing it is no where commanded in worship as you seem boldly and ignorantly to suppose and the Christian manner of the thing in customary civility is only recommended by the Apostle as an allay of chastity and kindnesse in Civil rencounters the question is but a petulant extravagancie of your vain imagination Next you Enquire why do you not anoint the sick with oyl I answere though you addresse this demand to a N. C. yet it is evident that your conclusion of difformity to the Scripture pattern thence inferred is equally levelled against the whole Protestant Church wherein this Ceremony is univerâ—aâ—ly diâ—used and that not from your vain warrant of the Churches Authority in and over things expressly commanded as you judge this rite to be No this is a presumption so high and laxe that even the grossest Papists are unwilling to avouch it but the â—ound answere of all the Churches is that as the custome of Anointing might have been occasioned from an observance then in use in these parts where Anointings were much more ordinary then in our parts of the world so it is mentioned in the Scripture by the Apostle Iames not by way of Command but as the accustomed Symbole adhibite in the exercise of the Gift of healing which being then Ordinary in the Church is commanded to be applyed by the prayer of Faith whereunto the effect is solely reâ—erred and only with the formality of Anointing as being then customary in the like cases seing then that the Text runs clearly thus is any sick let him call the Elders and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of saith shall save the sick And that the application of the extraordinary Gift of healing by prayer with the then usâ—all circumstance of Anointingâ— is here only enjoyned how can you make this Text binding as to the manner and circumstance when you cannot but acknowledge that the substance viz. the power of healing is ceased But having made your N. C. say That the Apostle promises recovery upon the anointing you turne to fight with your own shadow and tell him There is no such matter that the recovery is promised to prayer and also forgivenesse and seing we pray by all for their raising up and that they may be forgiven why do we not aswel anoint But what Logick can make out this consequence in as much as Anointing being there only spoken of as the concomitant rite used in the application of the Gift of healing it is manifest that without the existence and exercise of the Gift it self it is not now to be repeated and therefore though prayer be principally commanded as the speciall mean by which even the Gift of Miracles was actuate and made effectuall and to this day doth remain as the great one by which all the promises either for raising up or remission are drawen out unto effect yet thence to inferre that Anointing a peculiar solemnity in the Gift of healing should still continow notwitstanding the Gift it self be ceased is very absurd Now that Anointing was an Ordinary observance in the exercise of the Gift of healing you may read it clearly in the Disciples practice Mark 6. 13. And they Anointed with oil maâ— that â—â—re sick and healed them This being then the just and true account not only of our practice but also of that of the whole reformed Churches how vain and ridiculous are you to tell us that our pretense of Scripture is but to impose on women and simple people and all our persuasion grave nods and bigwords but leaving you to puff petulantly where you can prove nothing I proceed to your next demand who taught us the change of the Sabbath and you say we will read the Bible long â—re we finde it there which you think sufficiently proved when you tell us That the Churches meeting recorded to have been on the first day of the week saveth not that they antiquated the Saturnday as you are pleased very coursâ—y to speak and that of the Lords day sayeth yet less Sir for answere let me only tell you that by this your conceited slighting of Arguments which you cannot answere with your vain arguings against these things which you cannot disprove you have discovered to me the deep wisdom of Solomons contradictory-like advice answere a foolâ— and answere him not Prov. 26. 4 and 5. in so saâ—â—sâ—â—ying a reconciliation that remitting you for answere lest you be wise in your own conceit to the labouâ—s of these who have cleared this point above cavillation I â—orbear to make any further answere lest I should be like unto you Only I think it worth the observing how like the progresse of your dangerous Libertinisme is to that verdict of the Apostles 2. Tim. 3. 13. Your first sally was only against ruling Elders and Deacons the next attacques the very Discipline of Church your third endeavours to introduce the Superstition of Lent the Table Altar-wise the Surplice to corrupt the worship your fourth resolves the necessity of Baptisme and the Lords supper into the Churches arbitriment your fifth pleads for Extreame Unction or els a liberty and power to the Church above the
destroy all liberty and render men in every Oath how free and voluntary soever obnoxious to the Magistrat's absolute control and plainly to ranverse both the freedom of making and necessity of keeping all vowes which nevertheless the Lord hath most expressly allowed and confirmed Sir as I have with you supposed the matters of the Covenant to be in themselves indifferent and taken this pains for no other end then to rectifie your Common sense and refell your pretended Demonstration notwithstanding of so faire a concession so give me leave again to remember you and all concerned that seing the matters in these Covenants were antecedently true and righteous and are now concluded under the great Oath of God your pitiful quibling upon the Kings power in matters free and indifferent is so far from licensing us to the least violation that though we do further unanswerably alledge his Majesties supervenient ratification yet it is more for your redargution then our own confirmation whose Consciences are by the former ground most satisfyingly established And here I might put a period to my reflections on this Dialogue seing that what remaines doth nothing convel these sure grounds whereupon we are founded but because in pursuance of your conceit of the Magistrats power of rendering the matter of Vowes antecedently free unlawful and thereby making their obligation to cease you in returne to the Question What could move the King to preferre Episcopacie to Presbyterie pretend to many strong inductives whereby you suppose the change to be undeniably authorized This calumny must also be removed And before I enter upon this matter I cannot but commend your providence who fearing that your allegations would be found false do prudently provide a refuge in the profound and recluse deepth of Princes their secrets which you think should put a stop to the inquirie which indeed neither you nor all men beside are able to answere but as the strange wickedness and folly of this Act is such as all the devices imaginable cannot so much as vernish it with any apparent colour and its consequences have been so pernicious as have left no Subject in the Nations unconcerned in their smart so I hope without the imputation of a mutinous curiosity I may take the liberty to tell you that it was not our Leaders which occasioned the work you hint at to the King's Grand-father his Father and Himself Art thou he that troubleth Israel is an old and royall accusation of the Lord's Ministers I wish the answer now a dayes were as improper as I am tender to use it we have not troubled Israel but thou and thy Fathers house in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed thy own inventions I need not put you in minde of K. Iames his engagements to defend the Gospel and maintain the true and pure Ordinances and Discipline of God's house and how he thereafter turned and corrupted his way by no less then a direct invasion of Christ's Throne manifest perversion of his Ordinances designed subjection of the liberty of the Gospel and its Ministery to his lust and pleasure and open persecution of many faithful Ministers and Professours These things if you were ingenuous you should rather have essayed to answere as being already objected and proven by others then provoked me to the repetition As to what you objecte from latter times I am sorry that by so rude and false an accusation viz. You involved the Nations in bloud and not satisfyed with all the security you could demand you engaged with the King his Enemies in England and opposed the design of his deliverie An. 1648 you should engage me to reflect upon a worthy but abused Prince all whose faults I think both may and ought to be buried under his mis-fortune but seing this you will not suffer I shall only desire you and others to consider these sad grievances which are elswhere undeniably cleared viz. 1. The Prelatick Tyranny and impositions of these times 2. The rage and fury wherewith they endeavoured to inflame and stirre up all against this Kingdome after that they had first constrained us to just defence 3. Their notorious and reiterate persidies whereby they rendered all securitie desperate And lastly the sin of that backsliding course 48. now so evidently unmasked by the 9 Act of the late Parliament 1661 which instead of delivering did visibly precipitate his Majestie 's sad fate these things are so manifest even from the publick Records of the Nation that I can not but admire the effronterie of your confidence that can so overly pass them But you add a Question In a word what jealousies had you justly raised in the hearts of Princes of your Government Sir I wish you had deigned your self with another word of answere for really I know none except these old and endless ones the temptation and sin of all worldly Powers against the Lord and his Anointed As for our Tyranny 1649. against the Nobility you should first have answered for their breach of trust 1648 But since they themselves have publickly by the Act above mentioned avowed it your charge of Tyranny against the moderately disproportionate censures then inflicted merites no answere In the last place you say our Ministers divided shamefully among themselves I grant and sinfully also though that all engaged were not equally guilty and this was a great triall but since that an excess of charity toward your party on the one hand and a sounder judgement of your principles or rather looseness on the other was the only cause of the difference is it not invidious in you not only to have dissappointed your favourers but to taxe the greater number whom you have since so fully justified as men of maximes incompatible with Government Sir this is the summe of the account you make us of the reasons of his Majesties change with what evidence the Reader and not you must judge If he miss your Sun in its Meridian and finde your light to be but darkness a more simple eye and heart may be both his satisfaction and your remedy If I might enlarge in a more full returne I could easily demonstrate that all things being considered both before at and since the Kings restauration his adhering to the Covenant and owning that interest had been not only his safety and peace but his most certain establishment and Glory if the favour and countenance of the most High the firme love and loyalty of all good men and the undoubtedly equal compliance and submission of the other parties may be fit media in such an argument the conclusion is obvious But lest you say art thou made of the Kings Councel Forbear leaving events to God I shall be silent Having all along endeavoured to burne in the close of this Dialogue you go about to blowe us I am not for triffling with you in such unsincere and mixed complements the Lord purge both you and us from all dross and restore to
unto the grace of God in Christ Jesus while in the mean time you do still arrogate them as a condition on the creatures part you the more declare the folly but in nothing diminish the sinfulnesse of your vanity These things need not to be illustrat questionless who ever doth consider his lost condition by reason of sin and wrath and hearkeneth unto that fundamental Gospel-precept deny thy self imprimis all self-righteousnesse and beleeve will find the power thereof so deeply descending into his Soul that all the desire trust and hope thereof will be fixed on Jesus Christ alone and to be found in him not having his own righteousnesse which unto his sincere reflection will be so far from appearing a condition that it will disappeare as dung but that Righteousnesse which is through the faith of Christ the Righteousnesse which is of God by faith But who can sufficiently declare and regret the madnes and ingratitude of this pride of man Jesus Christ is made of God unto us Righteousnesse and yet we will thereto join our own for Justification in Gods sight He is also made unto us Sanctification that in Him we may bring forth the fruits of holinesse unto the glory of God and the very same fruits will we impropriat to be the condition and as it were the price of our acceptance even with himself who is our only acceptation and our all Sir be not deceived as they who in the sight of sin and fear of wrath fâ—ee unto Christ alone for a refuge do finde his Righteousness not more sufficient then freely offered to every one that willeth for Justification in Gods sight so your Doctrine requiring both faith and a holy life as the previous conditions to give an interest in Christs Death and ascriving Justification to faith because forsooth of the pitiful fruits of our righteousnesse and not that perfect Righteousnesse of Jesus Christ which it doth apprehend is wholly dissonant unto the method of the Gospel and cannot possibly attain its end What shall be then said of your ensuing words Now judge but a little what it is to have a right apprehension of things since I have in a few plain words told you that which with much nicety swels among you to Volumes Really Sir if I may use the liberty of answering by you permitted I would say what a sad thing is it to have a wrong and conceited apprehension of things since you have in a few involved words in such a manner obscured and confounded a plain point of truth that notwithstanding of express Scripture-light yet it hath necessarily required a great many words clearly to unsold it There remaineth now to be considered the main reason whereby as you shut up so you would seem to enforce the opinion which we have heard and that is the necessity of a holy life which you say Your way of Iustification doth clearly declare as being that whereupon we shall be solemnly judged justified and absolved at the last day and afterward you add That it may correct the error of many carnall Christians who love well to hear of Salvation by the death of Christ provided they be bound to do nothing themselves that they may be saved 'T is answered 1. That there are many seeming Christians who have a name that they live and are dead who have and do delight in a form of knowledge but want the power of whose delusion the error which you mention may be a part is an old and true regret And yet the explication by you delivered being so many wayes unsound and peccant as we have heard cannot possibly be an antidote 2. As these carnal Christians pretending to lay hold on Jesus Christ for Righteousnesse and yet wholly neglecting the study of holiness are of all men the most sadly deceived and most wretched deceivers so your manner of Justification derogating from the holy Iustice of God and the perfect Righteousnesse of Jesus Christ flattering the natural mans pride to which of all vices we are most prone and seducing souls from the free Grace of the Gospel cannot be less dangerous and pernicious But 3. This your reason for departing from Justification by faith only as encouraging to licentiousness is so directly the objection which the Apostle Paul taketh notice of and fully answereth after his having declared the truth of Justification as by us professed that we are thereby exceedingly fortified The passage is thus the Apostle having shewed that it is by the Righteousnesse of Jesus Christ that the free Gift cometh upon all men to Iustification of life and that it is by the obedience of one that many are made righteous and summing up the whole matter that it is grace that reigneth through Righteousnesse unto eternal life by Iesus Christ our Lord he subjoineth What shall we say then shall we continow in sin that grace may abound Seing it is not by our works but of free grace through faith in the Righteousness of Jesus Christ that we are justified from sin shall we therefore in as much as sin commendeth grace and our good works availl not continow in sin that grace may abound The plain insinuation of what you object Now hear the Apostles answere both for us and himself 1. He saveth justification by faith only cannot encourage to sin because such as do thereby truely lay hold on Jesus Christ partake of his death and are made conformable thereto How shall they then that are dead to sin live any longer therein Sin may indeed remain but that they who through faith in his Death are planted in the likenesse thereof and become as crucified with him should live any longer in sin is not possible To the same purpose it is that the Apostle Iohn saith whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin and he cannot sin because he is born of God And yet if any false pretender should therefore say either that he cannot transgress or that his transgressions are no sins and so license himself unto wickedness he but deceiveth himself and the truth is not in him 2. Paul saith that Justification through faith importeth a more certain assurance of good works then any thing by you urged The necessity of good works which ye plead for is only that of a condition strict indeed as to its obligation but very uncertain if not desperat as to its cause and reall existence being previously required unto our acceptance by and being in Christ as I have already shewed whereas the Apostle tells us plainly that according to the truth of Justification by him and by us asserted the necessity of good works is causally certain depending upon such infallible causes that whereever true Faith is the study of holiness must necessarily ensue and where this is not the pretense of Faith and Justification thereby is but vain and groundlesse For seing by Faith the only requisite on our part for Justification we are not only dead indeed with Jesus Christ unto sin but planted
no doubt if you had been Prelatick in those dayes you would have made it a far more plausible medium for the same conclusion And now our constancy to the truth once received and most solemnly ingaged unto and our abhorrence of the falshood and perjury of such who casting off all fear of God and regard to their own reputation either as Christians or men have subverted the righteous and pure constitution of this Church usurped its name and authority and are turned to be persecutors of such who cannot comply with all this wickedness is made by you not only a charge of separation but exaggerat as a preparative to the Quakers their folly O with how much more reason and undeniable evidence might the perjurious lightness and versatile falshood of your Prelats and their adherents who have been carried about by every wind of tentation be accused as the cause not only of the Quakers their giddiness by you objected But of all that contempt and regardless indifferency whereinto at present we see Religion thereby precipitat Your next quarrell is that we cherish in our followers a dejection of mind too much as if Religion which gives a man a right to the purest joyes should become a life of doubting and this you say introduceth a spirit of melancholy making way to pretended enthusiasme Whether or not this your challenge doth not in effect coincide with the cavils of the profane world and directly encourage that spirit which continually decrieth Religion as a â—our melancholy and inconversable conceit let every serious soul judge It is enough for our vindication that we do not teach any other dejection then that of humble repentance mortification and self-denial this is indeed a hard work compared in Scripture to the most bitter and grievous mournings nay unto death it self and seeing the superstructure of grace and glory thereupon founded is exceeding weighty and high it is certainly very necessary that these foundations be firmly laid and ever the deeper the better But as it is by the power of the spirit of Jesus and in the sense of his wonderful both depressing and exalting love that these things are best performed so an excess of humbling if not despairing abasement in this matter is no just fear and more unjustly made our reproach As for Religion no question it gives a man a right to the purest joyes and is also even in this life attended with a most ravishing foretaste and a most glorious and satisfying hope but if in this our bodily estate the same pure excellency of the thing and searching discoveries which it makes do by reason of the enmity of Satan and detestable and yet inevitable importunities and warrings of the World and the Flesh render us necessarily obnoxious to many doubtings fears and oppositions against which we are oblidged and by the word commanded to pray watch wrestle and fight continually do you therefore because we thus warn justly accuse us as if we made Religion a life of doubting let be to countenance these melancholy affectations and pretended enthusiasmes Sir if you were as serious in the practice as you appear affected in the speculations of Religion your experience of the many devices of Satan the deceitfulness of your own heart the uncessant oppositions of the Flesh and Spirit together with the oppressing and grievous sense of a body of death and sin which doth so easily beset would certainly convince you not only that security and not doubting is the common bane of professors but that our brightest shinings of joy in time are after the saddest shours of mourning that the most relishing wine of our consolation is made of the water of Repentance that it is from the seed of teares that the harvest of our joy groweth nay that our blessedness here is in a manner wrapped up in mourning and that it is hereafter only that we are to look for the times of refreshing when we shall be fully comforted But the Lord grant your more reall and solid dejections and deliver you from the vanity of an airy imagination which both in it self doth bend to and is frequently in righteousness plagued by these enthusiasmes wherewith you do reproach us And thus all men may see how unjustly we are by you blamed for the progress that Quakerism maketh amongst us and how directly not only that but most of the irreligion and profanity of these dayes is chargeable upon your way To this vindication I could further subjoin a very significant testimony viz. How that King Iames in his first and more innocent years did make his boast of the constitution of Presbyterian government as the most effectual bulwark against error and heresie but the certainty of this truth needeth no such support For your insinuation of piety and love here subjoined we have so often found the most keen arrowes of your calumny dipped in this oyntment that I think you oblidged to my civility when I pass it as one of your poor sweetening transitions In the next place you license your N. C. To characterize you freely to the effect that seeing you are resolved to let him prove nothing even what is truth in his charge may be construed prejudice but seeing it hath been my endeavour so to draw and design in vive collours that naming would appeare superfluous I need not prosecute such a representation As for the answere you return of your brave temper against reproach Apostolick firmness against all reports your pure anger without sin and more then humane goodness even to die for your hating traducers it were folly in me to question the truth where sincerity alone would be an incredible happiness but seeing these elogies are the smoak you capâ—at I grudge you not You go on and truly I beleeve with no less candor to class us in some sober and modest and others sour heady uncharitable and unsociable and for the first yow honour them great civility honour them the more for their first founder Calvin great wit and then lest this be taken for a jeer you tell us that the first being ever Presoytery had was in Calvin's brain and this you assure a great evidence indeed and verily whether your civility wit or evidence be the greater it were hard to determine only as it must be an extraordinary complement to which a scoffing jest doth make an accession and an extraordinary jest to which falshood gives the point and an extraordinary falshood which both the Scriptures the practice of the first and purest times of the Church and the more judicious and ingenuous of your own partie do redargue so questionless in all the three you are eminently singular Now for the second Class of us which you make to consist of narrow headed hot brain'd crosse grain'd Fanaticks you must be licensed to use them severely and with all my heart use such as you please only use the whole party and their cause truly and then I am confident this member of your
it appears rather to have been assertive then purely defensive 3. The advantage which this example doth give us is the more observable from that preface they make to their expostulation emitted to their confederats in these words Christus inquiunt unam ferienti maxillam jubet alteram quoque preberi feriendam hanc eius doctrinam sequâ—ti multa profecto toleravimus patienter quidem Nunc autem quando nullus est injuriarum finis aut modus cogimur ad illud confugere quod Christus usurpavit si malè quid egimus doceri petimus illud atque demonstrari c. Whereby understanding the patience which our Lord enjoynes according to its just exigence and measure and by a very exact and sound observation holding out how in a continued tract of injuries the duty of patience may at length cease and the liberty of defence then take place they plainly reject these abusive inferences of absolute subjection or rather stupidity in the cause of Religion which men assured by their indiffeâ—encie in these matters against the temptation and hazard would thence inferre 4. When you remembred the practice of the Suitzers in the point of Reformation how came you to forgett Basile Where you may finde Sleid. l. 6 that after the Reformation was in a manner established the Papists nevertheless did prosecute their own designe until the citizens thereby provoked assemble and supplicate the Senate that certain of their number countenancers of the popish preachers might be removed Which being refused they make an other Assembly and Supplication quamvis sine armis â— non tamen tam demisse quà m antea whereupon the Senate returning a second displeasing answere and the people being more offended because of the apprehended usurpation of a few they openly declare that they would take a course not for Religion viz. simply and only but for the vindication of their own right And so they instantly take armes And the same day one of them casting down a certain statue they suddenly take the occasion to throw down all the idolls and statues within the city making answere to such who came from the Senate to compose the matter that what the Senate had been advising upon for three years they would perfect in one hour that idols might no more be the cause of contention Upon which the Senate grants thâ—m all their desire removing the suspected Senators abolishing the Messe and settling the reformed Religion In which passage subjects their maintaining and asserting of the Reformation by armes againstâ— their superiors is so evident that it is very easie to conjecture the reason of your silence and omission It is true the people do mention the vindication of their right and not religion as the immediate cause of their taking armes But seing their meaning is plain enough that their just demands in behalf of Religion were in such a manner refused as not only their common right but their special priviledges were injured and seing in the progress the cause of Religion was by them most directly intended and pursued it is manifest above exception that as it was the occasion so the Reformation of Religion was the principal motive and end of all this stir As for Geneve you say the Bishop fled from it out of a pannick fear when the Reformation was received And 't is true the History saves that upon the change Episcopus atque Clerus irati discesserunt ab urbe But is it then pertinent for you to observe that no force was used where there was no provocation But you subjoine that Geneve was a free Town neither subject to the Bishop nor the duke of Savoy And no doubt you give this caveat for that war which you know was made against them in the year 1534. By the duke of Savoy adjutus ab ejus urbis Episcopo vel potius instigatus partim ob Evangelii proâ—essionem partim aliis de causis But seing although Geneve was a free Town yet it had a considerable dependence upon the Bishop and though it had not yet the instance is no less concludent for us then that of the war of Zurich I will not insist in any longer reply The seventh instance you also adduce by your N. C. Questioning what you say to the war in the Netherlands To which you answere that you say still they fought not for Religion And that they fought not for Religion that is to propagate it by Armes you are in the right But that persecution for Religion carried on by the making of new Bishops the Inquisition and bloody Edicts was the principal cause of all these wars Historians on both sides such as Bentivoglio Strada Grotius Grimstoun and his Authours do so fully attest that your confidence is to me admirable But you say Papists and Protestants did jointlâ— concurr in it It is answered 1. That the cause of these wars being complexe the Spaniard endeavouring no less to subvert the liberties of these Provinces then to extirpate the Reformed Religion it is nothing strange that there should have been a joint concurrence iâ— the opposition Specially seing 2. even the persecution at that time practised upon the Protestants in these Countries by the Spaniards strangers was so tyrannous ragefull and pernicious that many of their Compatriots though otherwise not of their Religion were yet induced to favoure their cause But 3. As it was the spreading of the Reformed Religion in these parts that first gave the Spaniard occasion to exercise tyranny and by violating and subverting their Liberties to designe an uniforme royalty over all his Dominions So it is unquestionable that Religion and the cruelty practised upon its Professors were the originall and principal cause of that war as the Apology set out by the Protestants after their first defeat in the end of the Regency of Margaret doth fully witness And here I might tell you of the joynt supplications and confederacies made about that time by these of that Religion for their own preservation and also the concessions made to them in that behalf But the History is so large in this matter that it were superfluous in this place to be more particular And therefore I say 4. That although in the beginning the mixed designe of the extirpation of Religion mainly intended and of the erecting of an uniforme Monarchy assumed through the occasion thereof carrying along a manifest and most injurious violation of all rights liberties and priviledges did at first ingage even Papists in the resistance yet it is most certain that the principal cause of the war viz Religion more and more prevailing of the Flamings themselves there were few save Protestants that took part on the defensive side And as for the French or others who joyned afterwards upon a clear ground of interest it belongeth not unto the present consideration You adde that Egmond Horn beheaded by the D of Alve as the chief instruments in it died both Papists 'T is answered Egmond and Horn
Which in effect is the very worst account that even the enemies of the truth do give of them and cannot be received by any impartial inquirer Yet seing it is most evident that persecution for Religion was the true cause moving the body of the Protestants to their own defence and that their Ministers and Teachers whom God had honoured to be instrumental in their conversion as Beza and others did countenance these wars and constantly maintain that a defensive resistance to subjects in a due capacity was no more prohibite upon the account of persecution for Religion then in the case of any other intolerable oppression The mixture of mans corruption inseparable even from his best actions in the prosecution of so good a cause can neither prejudge its justice nor deprive us of the advantage of this precedent But knowing your former answers to be weake and unsatisfying you subjoyne that you do not deny their following wars to have been direct Rebellion And is this the vindication you promised Only you bid us consider the fierce Spirit of that Nation and we must confess it was not Religion but their temper that was to be blamed Well Sir is this your candor The question is whether or not Religion was the cause of these wars which if the lawfulness thereof were not first supposed were utterly impertinent and you not darring to deny it do first tell us by a blunt petitio principii that the wars were rebellion and then that the French temper more then Religion is to be therefore blamed Who should regard such a pitiful Sophister But seing it can not be denyed that the many and great injuries suffered upon the account of Religion were the just provocation to these wars although some small censuâ—e either of precipitancy or of excess in the prosecution may possibly be imputed to the hote temper of that people or excused by the signal insolencie of ther provocations yet sure I am that neither the cause of Religion nor the justice of it is thereby in the least disproven But now you say many of the eminent men of that Church are fully convinced of the evill of these courses yea one of the glories of our Nation Cameron in the wars of the last King directly preached against their courses as Rebellion I will not answere that possibly it hath befallen the eminent men of that Church as it did many of our own who as they were removed from the first times of the Reformation the then opposition of adversaries from the evidence of the Lord's Spirit presence that therein appeared so according to the influence of after temptations were induced to condemne that which otherwise they would have approven It is enough for us that your many eminent whoever they be are more then overballanced by many more and more eminent still abyding on our side And for Cameron whom forsooth in your pedantick stile you more then cannonize by terming a Glory you must pardon us who know him better whatever be his opinion in this matter not to be dazled by his splendour specially seing you know that if we were disposed to vie with you in such vanities we might by adducing King Iames his justifying of the French Protestants their defensive wars in his answer to cardinal Perron eclipse this your glory into obscurity but what need of more words If these last wars were purely defensive for Religion they could not be rebellious and if they were not we only lose the instance but not the argument as I have abundantly proven But to this you make your N. C. Answer by asking How did the late King give assistance to the Rochellers in the last wars if so be they were rebellious And to this you reply That it proceeded from a particular reason Viz. Because the King of Britain had become the surety in the former pacification that the French King should observe the agreement Sir If I had the management of your N. C. part I think I should not have troubled you with this answer The assistance you mention was so like rather to a treachery that both for the good of these poor Protestants and for the honour of our King's memory I wish it had never been But since you suppose it to have been real how is it that by your return you do so pitifully betray your cause For seing by your acknowledgment the late King did in the pacification after the second war of Rochell with consent of the French King become surety to his Protestant subjects for due observance and by this his accession clearly acknowledged the lawfulness and validitie of the Protestants their treatie it is a more manifest confession of the Peoples right and capacity to restrain both by contract and necessary force the unjust and persecuting violence of their Prince then all the instances adduced do afford It is true you adde That this assistance was on our Kings part most just what ever the Subjects of France their part in it might be But where is your reason for this insinuat distinction Or what Logickâ— can prove that a just concurring assistance may be given in an unjust war That the King of Britain interposing was injured and affronted by the King of France his breach is not denyed by or contrary to us more then the injury done by the French King unto these his Protestants subjects But to clear this passage of your foolish quibles The Duke of Rohan in the Ninth of his Politick Discourses entituled His Apology upon the last troubles of France because of the Religion plainly tell us that the King of Britain did by a Gentleman sent to him remonstrat how he was surety in the last peace and did compassionate the Protestants their sufferings that if by fair means he did not obtain relief he would ingage his whole Kingdomes and his proper Person in so just a war to which he found himselfe oblidged in honour and conscience providing that the Protestants would take armes with him and promise as he would do not to hearken to any treatie but jointly with him And thereto the Duke subjoines that this promise of assistance was his principal ingagement to arme What think you then Do not these words plainly enough denote both Religion to have been the cause and what was the Kings approbation of these wars Or if you doubt the French man's faith pray take but a view of Mr Rushworth's Collections as to this affair and there beside the confimation of what the Duke sayes I am perswaded you will find the King so express and the Parliament so cordial in their resentments of the wrongs done to these poor Protestants and in their readinesse to assist for their relief that you will be ashamed hereafter to scorn your selfe by such confident childish conjectures and distinctions But I am sorry that by reflecting upon the part of the French Protestants in that war as less just then the King of Britains you should have forced
most High not prostitute to mens lusts devices While I say you are still such what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness what communion hath light withdarkness And what concord hath Christ with Belial Or what part hath he that keepeth Covenant with him that avowedly breaketh it If these be schismatical insinuations we are very willing to be accounted such and do heartily imbrace the reproach nay if I should tell you that such are the nature and circumstances of the present defection that it doth not only enjoyne a necessarie separation from your pretended and corrupt Ecclesiastick Courts for eviting the sin that attends a conjunction but also a witnessing withdrawing to testify against backsliders I might as easily evince it both from Scripture-precept and example But may be I am too prompt if the termes that you are about to offer be as fair as is promised that is as can be demanded by any rational person no doubt they will satisfie all our scruples And therefore wishing that the event may redargue this apparent anticipation I goe on to your following promise viz. to give your N. C. at next meeting a full prospect of the state of the ancient Church and you doubt not to convince him that their frame was better suted for promoting the ends of Religion then ever Prebyterie could be Sir your performance is expected and for your encouragement I am free to tell you that though the improbabilitie of the undertaking may possibly give the world a disappointment yet it will be no surprise It is not the first promise that you have failed in upon more unaccountable reasons Mean while you forbid us to abuse our Soveraign's royal goodnesse nor the tendernesse of these he sets over us But this in my opinion is a superfluous caution the Prelats have taken a surer course to prevent your fears for such hath been their care to secure this goodnesse and tendernesse from our abuse that hitherto they have thought fit to keep it without our reach I know this will appear a hard reflection to some of your party who would have even the common air estemed his Majesties and us to breath it by his indulgence But a flattering mouth worketh ruine and the Lord shall cut off all flattering lips We despise not his Majesties favour nay we desire and long for it that it may come down like raine upon the mowen grasse But while there is so great a short-coming in the things which are right in the eyes of the Lord and righteous toward his servants why should flatteries deceive And thus we are come to your Conclusion of Prayers for and exhortation to peace love and charity a very expedient one to so bad a cause so badly managed your rebellion against God your usurpation against our Lord Jesus Christ the wrongs done to his Church and People by which your Prelats have got into the chair and in compliance wherewith you your self do at least find ease If they cannot be mentioned by reason yet may in a manner be secured by peace And no doubt the love and charity which you crave would go a great length I will not say with Iehu what have you to do with peace But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God And that ought to be unto you of more moment then if Iehu with all his fury and forces were at your heels But you are of that number who would have peace though you walk in the imagination of your own hearts nay you seduce this people and heal their hurt slightly by saying peace where there is no peace But if you had stood in the counsel of the Lord and had caused his people to hear his words then you should have turned them from their evill way and from the evill of their doings am I a God at hand saith the Lord and not a God a far off Can any hide himselfe in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord. I have heard what the Prophets said who Prophesie lyes in my name and do cause my people to erre by their lightnesse yet I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profite this people at all saith the Lord. As for the love that you desire should we love them that hate the Lord you know whose profession it was do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee And am not I grieved with these that rise up against the I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Neither are these the words of one only under the old dispensation which elswhere you are pleased to terme more carnal and fierie He who wished that they were even cut off who troubled the Church appeareth to be of the same Spirit Nay God who is love and perfect in goodnesse to all his creatures is neverthelesse a consuming fire unto his adversaries And our Lord Jesus who came in lowlinesse and meeknesse to seek sinners and dye for enemies enjoyning love as a badge and legating peace as his proper blessing to all his followers doth notwithstanding pronounce many a sad wo unto the hypocritical proud covetous in a word if as shamlessly irreligious Prelatick Pharisee Let us therefore above all things in the first place contend for the love of God and to be found and to abide therein This once purging our hearts from dividing and distracting lusts will only happily cement us by its own bond But if you continue your opposition against God perversion of his righteous wayes and persecution of his Saints you do in vain pretend to that peace which is the Saints their priviledge and without which outward peace is no better then one of these snares that the Lord raineth upon the wicked Your next wish is for charity and O! that it might be both your and our blessing in its full extent charity not rejoycing in iniquity but rejoycing in the truth would quickly produce a desireable Accommodation but this is not the charity which you study 't is like a charity thinking no evill of your evil doings beleeving all your imposings enduring all your usurpations and bearing all your rigours would please you well And at this rate the most violent irreligious persecutor would become your concurrent But we have not so learned Christ. It is a very easie and advantagious thing to men possest of their desires to wish for security in the peace love and charity even of their adversaries And yet we are not so short of rememberance as to believe that this was alwayes the language of your partie At first it was make a chaine the land is full of bloodie crimes and the city is full of violence and your cry was rase it rase it even to the foundation And when after much crueltie and blood your Prelats would scarce by the restraint of more safe counsel be taken off their eager pursuites how hardly are they prevailed upon even
one should be punished as perjured who hath not himself invocated God as witness and avenger But as we do clearly see the Lords judgement in the contraire doth not the same reason which by making the Father's promise for himself and Children also their promise and therefore binding by transmitting the Oath in like manner confirme its righteousness I need not here precaution against the Children their invincible ignorance of the Fathers Promise and Oath their innocencie in this case descending from a clearer distinct head and purging from breach of Promise as well as breach of Oath doth neither inferre the liberty which you plead for nor impugne the transmission of a sworne Promise in its Religion as well as in its Obligation 6. Our Covenant being in the matter necessary and righteous for the manner made with and before God to be perpetually binding and for its solemnity unanimously sworne by almost the whole Nation and confirmed by all the Authority in it hath such a concurring evidence of all arguments and opinions for its perpetuity as an Oath that your nibling at it upon this head is not a greater proof of your perfidie then testimony of your inconsiderate ignorance but if you be ignorant your self you do well to make your N Câ— no better and therefore you make him objecte against your assertion that Children cannot be bound by their Fathers Oath doth not the Fathers debt oblige the Son and why not his Oath But to give you the advantage you designe I willingly turne the Argument to make for you thus The Father's debt doth not oblige the Son unless he be also his Heir and in this respect only as Possessor of his goods therefore c. To which I answere that as by the tenor of written Bonds for debt it is clear that the Debtor doth only oblige himself his Heirs and Successors in his Lands and goods so both Law and Reason do interpret all ordinary promises for debt to be of the same nature viz. to bind the person himself and to follow and affect his Estate together with the person who enjoying by universal title the promiser his estate is by the interpretation of Law understood to accept of the same with that burthen and no further so that if a Son as Son be not liable it is evidently from the restriction of the obligation according to the meaning of the parties which I already told you that an accessory Oath doth not exceed and maketh nothing for a Son's freedome in Conscience as to such other engagements whereunto both the Father's power and intention do concurre to make him liable In the next place I confess you do your N. C. reason and as just now we have heard the ridiculous objection you put in his mouth so in this place to his unanswerable argument for the Childrens obligation by the Parents Oath from the dutie of our allegeance descending from our Fathers their swearing the same you returne as ridiculous an answer viz. That we are not at all obliged to the King by their Oath but because the right of the Crown is in his Person who can forbear to laugh are you a Doctor in Israel and also a high pretender for the King and understands no better You say the right of the Crown is in his person but supposing it came there by the originall consent and allegeance sworne to his first Predecessor which I am sure is a title which in this place you will not quarrel is not the same that is the cause of his Kingship also the reason of our subjection Or will you admit it to be the Creating and not also the Conserving cause How do the most common maximes of reason militat against you You add and we are born his Subjects but pray doth our birth as men or as men born in such a place bring us forth with this character then should all men or at least even strangers casually born in the place be also born Subjects whereunto then can it else be ascribed unless it be that we are the off-spring of such who for themselves and their posterity did submit to the King by a perpetuall surrender transmitted upon us passivè with the same obligation If these things do not satisfy I intreat you to reflect upon the ordinary strain of all impeachments where you will finde the person accused of Treason though he never actually swore or promised allegeance yet constantly and very congruously charged with breach of Faith Failty and Allegeance nay I nothing doubt but if you were describing to us the crime of Rebellion you would at great length prove it to be both falshood and perfidy Your N. C. proceeds to argue thus How was Adam obliged for his Posterity if Parents cannot binde their Children And in return you say This is strange dealing and because you will have the instance an inapplicable mystery therefore you recurre to secret Divine transactions without either warrant or necessity but Sir is not this a strange stupiditie in you be it so that God's Covenanting with Adam as the common Head of Mankind so as upon his deed to make their standing or falling depend is a difficulty which only Gods Soveraignity can explicat is this therefore also a mysterie that Adam might have been any other father may be obliged both for himself and his posterity so as to ty them to obedience and upon their own 〈◊〉 obedience not their Fathers which is the singularity oâ— Gods Covenant with Adam to render them guilty or can there be any thing more plain both in Scripture and Reason then that not only the Loâ—ds command according to his will should be perpetual to the Posterity but also a Peoples Covenant made with him to observe the same doth oblige both them and after-Generations to continuall obedience as the 29. of Deut. most convincingly holds out But you go on still stumbling thus I Parents can binde duties upon their Children they may as well binde sins and this is to make wayâ— or more Originall sin then Adams Who would not pity such impertinencies The thing asserted is that a Parent may oblidge for his Children to dutie and you subjoin he may as well bind sins upon them Certainly Sir these are not the words of sobriety A Parent may command his Son to dutie may he also command him to sin the ignis fatuus that seduces you is that you appear to be dazled by an imagination of your own that we go about to imâ—ute to Children not the Parents obligation but their deeds their duties or failings which truly we as little dream of as certainly you will finde your present dream about Originall sin when you returne to your self wholly extravagant But the next lapse you make is in the person of your N. C. whom you cause in place of adducing an obligement by a Father binding himself and his posterity to bring in the instance of the Baptismal vow undertaken by the Father in Name of
the Child which seing it meets not our Question you both objecte and answere to no purpose The next demand your N. C. makes is How then is Saul charged and his Children punished for killing the Gibeonites And to this you make a very pleasant return not unlike your answere made to our obligation of Allegeance viz Shat Saul is taxed for bloud and killing the Gibeonites who by the Lords ratiâ—ying the Princâ—s their Oath to them had got a right to their lives and not for perjurâ— against that Oath which the Princes swore Before I consider this answere let us first hear the Scripture 2 Sam. 21. 2. Now the Gibeonites were not of Israel but of the Amorites and the Children of Israel had sworne unto them and Saul sought to stay them c. Wherefore David said to the Gibeonites what shall I do for you do not these words clearly intimate that the injury done them was contraire to that former Oath whereby they were secured To this you say The Oath is only here mentioned to reminde the Reader of the former History but doth not at all say that the Oath was still binding But if the words be set down to reminde the Reader certainly it is in order to some apposite purpose and the blind account that you make is scarce worthy of your self let be the Scriptures of Truth Next what can be more evident then that the Oath is first mentioned to shew their right thence derived and Saul's injury being thereto subjoyned it is manifest that for his breach thereby incurred a reparation for an attonement is offered and seing the Scripture saith enough if it say not expressly that the Oath was still binding it seems only to be omitted because in that Age there was none who doubted much less of your opinionâ— to deny it Now as to your answer I must take notice of what you seem to insinuat that the Gibeonites were spared not by reason of their Covenant made with the Princes but by the Lords ratisying of it whereby they became to be excepted from the rest of the devoted Canaanites But Pray Sir do you not in so supposing conâ—adict your Fellow-brother the Surveyer of Naphtaly who ranteth as you use to do against his Adveâ—sary the Author of the Apologetical Relation who asserted the same which you here suppose 2. You speak of a ratification of this Oath of the Princes by virtue of which abstracted from the Oath these Gibeonites were spared which you would do well to explain and cleare Seing then you cannot but grant that the Gibeonites were spared and enjoyed their lives by the right of that peace sworne unto them my next reply is most evident viz. that your answere alledging Saul's killing the Gibeonites to have been cruell and bloudy against their Right but not perfidious against that Oath and Covenant whereby their Right was granted can no more be said of Saul then it might have been said of the Princes who at first swore if so be they had the very next hour brocken their Oath and destroyed these whom they had saved it being a truth most certain that as every violation of Faith is an injurious invasion of that right which was thereby secured so it is impossible for a right arising from a Contract or Covenant to subsist unless its cause do still stand be repute to be in force You add that Saul is taxed of bloud and not of perjury A poor shift But I have already shewed him to be noted for both bloudy deceitfull are of too near a conjunction to allow of your negative inference of the exclusion of the other because one only expressed And now Sir I have ended this point only let me say it without vanitie that as I judge your folly in this last discourse to be such as no sober man could lightly fall into without a judicial desertion so I am confident if there be any ingenuity in you the return which I justly make you of the Epilogue which in this place you so vainly use will cover you with blushes viz. Thus I have taken more pains then was needfull to shew the ridiculous fondnesse of your absurd notion viz. That Children can not be bound by their Fathers Oath and have said more to disprove it then ever you will be able to answere What follows in this Dialogue is a meere rapsodie of railing and in the first place to decline your N C. too pungent demand that for all you have said you cannot deny but the Covenant binds these who tooke it you make a hydeous noise of that Little noise which you say we made in breaking it in some things viz. In our silence and not declaring against the Apostacy Tyranny and Perjury of the Usurpers and in our faint giving over to Pray for the King Sir contemning your calumny I answere were not the Usurpers sufficiently opposed in their evill courses while there was hope And is this all you can say that the Lord having broken us and brought us under their feet in the humbling sense of his dreadful displeasure we did not madly declaime against such to warn whom after their rejecting of our brotherly admonition the Lord did not further require us We love not to vye with you or any other either in stedfastness in the Covenant or faitfulnes to the King in these confused and calamitous times but of this one thing I am most confident that his Majesty was more obliged to the Covenant and these who to this day adhere to it for the continuance of his remembrance both with God and men in the dayes of his Exile and in disposing to and preparing the way of his return then to all the present high and false pretenders who are not ashamed in their flattering impudence to averre that the most notorious and base acts of Compliance whereof they were then guilty were yet the effects of a pure and constant loyalty As for the thundering you say was in your Pulpits against your course before we were silenced and is at this day in our Conventicles is it not enough that you mock at the warnings of the Lords Servants whom for no other cause then true Zeal for God and tender Love to your Souls and just indignation at your sin you have beaten and expelled but you must also thereto add falshood in your alledgeance anent what you call Conventicles and insolent insulting over our undeniable short-coming in due admonition after his Majesties Restitution whereunto an excessive desire by faireness and moderation to stop the precipitant current of your late defection did too generally tempt us before we were ejected but the Lord hears and regardsâ— You tell us in the next place That the Tyrann's cruelty did formerly terrify us and now we presume upon the King's clemencie If I had ever professed the hundred part of that respect for Oliver that the Chief of your way did I would say and say it truely that what ever he was