proved to be his Luke 12.52.53 Math. 24.9.2 Tim. 3.12 1 Cor. 1.27 2 Cor. 6.4 5. So that where there 's none of this I avouch the Gospell in its purity is not there though where these are the Gospel is not the cause for that is men lusts and flesh fighting against the light but the only the occasion whereupon they arise when Satan the strong man holds the house the goods are all in peace but when Christ the stronger man comes to storm him out there 's contention in hearts houses Towns and Countries as when Christ came to Ierusalem all was in an uproar and when Paul came with his Gospel to Ephesus Athens Iconium Lystra Derbe lewd fellows of the baser sort were set on by others to raise tumults for truth tormented them into rage thus we often judge of Causes as good or bad right or wrong by the effects that flow from them but to reason upon a cause as good or ill true or false right or wrong according to the might or moaness the abilities or defects of the persons that stand up for it is the right way to wrong it indeed sith the Antichristian cause hath the mighty wise and prudent Priests and Potentates of the world for its Patrons when the poor only for the most part receive Christs Gospell and the strength that God ordains in defence thereof against the persecutor is the mouths of Babes and Sucklings Causes are to be rejected as wrong and false according to the defects and weakness that is discovered to be in the Arguments that are brought to maintain and not by the weakness and defects that may seem to be in those that are more zealous then able to mannage them if there appear to be weight in the Arguments these if strong however weakly and babishly propounded will carry the cause in the conscience of any but such Priest-be-charmed Christians as in Charity to their Churchmen are resolved to yield themselves up to be carried away with every wind of doctrine that passes from them and covering the weakness of them to be whifled any way by such arguments as the men themselves that make them are fain to grant to be weak to prove what they are brought for for no Argument is weak that is sufficient to evince the thing it s used in proof of though it fall from the mouth of never so weak a man if a weak feeble hand letfall an heavy Axe upon it or a sharp sword even the sword of the Spirit the word of God that is quick and powerfull it may serve to cut off the Popes head Tripple Crown and all but if the Pope himself and all his children which are the ablest Humanists in the world come out to warre against Christ and his cause with reeds and rushes blind non sequiturs weak and broken Consequences they must ride back to Rome for stronger swords or else they may force fools into conformity to their follies but never guide wise men after the spirit to believe their cause to be good as therefore t is not good that an ill cause that hath but weak Arguments to uphold it should be owned for good either in Charity or upon pretence of ability in the persons that patronize it as the Clergies crooked cause of Infant-sprinkling is for what saies the Parish to those poor ones in it that entertain the Gospel are you wiser than a whole Synod of able Orthodox Divines so it is a thousand pitties that a good cause that hath strong Arguments enough from Scripture and reason to prove it right should be wronged so as to be rejected as rotten yet so Christs true baptism is through the defects of the persons called Anabaptists who are supposed at least to have more zeal then ability to prove it of which sin of wronging a right cause upon account of such defects even the cause of Christs true baptism which in his strength those Babes that are baptized with it are not only zealous but able to make good against the Ablest Baby-Baptist that is among you I know no men under the Sun more guilty then you Clergy men who take your advantages to cry out the lowder against it as error by the defects of Christs Disciples that plead and practise it of whom you say commonly as you say complementally of your selves here they have more zeal then abilities to maintain it yea verily you who seem here whether more simply or more simulatorily who knows not so to implore the charitable benevolence of well disposed people to cover the weakness of your Arguments and not to suffer your cause of Infant-sprinkling to suffer throw your defects and inabilities to maintain it are men so far from teaching facienda faciendo from doing to others as you would be done to that you rather disclaim and proclaim those Arguments of ours as weak which as feeble a folk as we are are strong enough to storm you out of your strongest holds and cause that cause to be despised under pretence of our defects which though weak in our selves and pretending to little of that outward accomplishment which you call ability yet throw Christs word assertaining it to be his and his spirit assisting us thereunto we have both zeal and ability to maintain who is it I trow that trumpets about the eminency and learnedness of their party and illiteracy of the Anabaptists whereby to render the way the more contemptible more then the Priesthood who charm their people against the receipt of the Gospel in such sort as the Pharisees of old when they said are you also deceived have any of the Rulers of the Pharisees believed on him but this people that know not the law are cursed Ioh. 7.47 48 49. So brags Dr Featly and his fellows despising the way of dipping viz. joint suffrages of so many Bishops in such a Synod as for the Anabaptists they are a few mean sylly men and women an illiterate and sottish sect the father and head of whom quoth he was Nicholas Stock and a very blockhead was he p. 164. Simple rude Mechaniâ—ks Russet Rabbies Apron Levites whom we own not quoth he but detest and abominate p. 113 who know not how to dispute for truth because they know not the original and cannot conclude syllogistically in mood and figure p. 1.2 Thus Featly defeats them in their cause by dilating on their defects and which of you almost do not confirm your people against their cause by their infirmities of one kind or other like flies you feast your selves upon their sores and let go their sounder parts you make much of their little to your purpose you make your best out of their worst and out of their personal weaknesses strengthen your selves and others against the truth which wise men know is nevertheless truth for the poors receiving it you root in their very excrements whereby to find matter to make their good cause bad and yet here oh how mendicant of other mens mercy not only
to spare sentencing your cause as wrong by your personall defects and want of abilities but also in charity to couer the weakness of your Arguments which is such an unreasonable request as was scarce ever put forth before by any Disputants who if they find their Arguments to be weak ought rather to recant them specially after such publique acknowledgement of the weakness of them and to desire people that they would not suffer themselves to be swayed by them then otherwise But Sirs do you think in your consciences that there is such weakness in your Arguments as is here intimated to us in your own book and likewise that your cause which is so far from a good one that it deserves to bear the name of Abaddon is in danger of suffering so much through your defects in disputing it unless men be so charitable as to wink at the weaknesses of both I speak seriously in my mind you had then better by far have conceal'd then reveal'd your disputation in an Account and had provided much better for the honor of it for now you have vindicated it from the disgraces with which it was loaded in private like him that fetches a frisk out of the frying pan into the fire whilst you publish it in the same weakness onely robbing your Respondent of the strength of his Answers in which it discover'd it self at first and hang it out against the Sun so that all men may see clean through it so thin and thread-bare it is and that without spectacles and not onely so but make proclamation of the weakness of your Arguments with a petition to pardon the weakness of them that 's an ill bird which in hast bewraies his own nest and leaves it to others to make all clean and such are they that uncover their own nakedness so far when they need not that they are fain to be beholding to the benevolence of others to cover it and yet are so inexorable as to hold the cause of others inexcusable in the self same case wherein they are earnest to be excused by them for our cause is at a loss among you for the sake of what ere defects you spie in any persons that profess it But I believe you are not cordiall in your aâ—knowledgements here for if you were you would surely have endured your Respondents private representations of the weakness of your Arguments and your pedling in your proof of Infant-baptism with more patience then you did but its evident by your impatience towards him in that kind that what ere you say here of your selves in a voluntary humility yet you have so good an opinion of your selves and your work too that day that Tam nil as nothing as it here seems to be in your Account as well as ours you take it ill that any should esteem so poorly and speak so plainly though but privately of your trifling doings as you dispense with your selves to do here in publick before all the world and howbeit here 's weakness and defects and defects p. 3. overtly worded over by you in a general way yet it 's an hundred to one if a man take you at your word and yield to what you say as truth and say it ore after you that there 's much weakness in your Arguments and that there were many defects in your Disputation and your zeal of Infant-baptism is great and your abilities but mean to maintain it you will be half angry with him and think he casts scandals upon your disputation and be ready to gainsay all this and to stand up in vindication of your Arguments as strong and sufficient and lay all the defects that were in the disputation at your Respondents door and if you be askt what one individual particular Syllogism Term Argument or Scripture you were out in the framing uttering urging or underctanding of throughout the whole day of the disputation I am perswaded you will sooner bite your nayles then assign any or if it be specified by others that in this and that you were out you misunderstood such or such a Scripture such a speech or passage you faultred in I am afraid your pretended self-deniall will be found so little that you 'l justifie your selves in every bit and scrap of that which past from you during the whole discourse which makes your confessions deserve but little of that favour you so much implore by how much they savor of juggle and complement more then of a real true sense of what is wanting to you indeed which verily is a right-baptism to maintain rather then abilities to maintain that right-none that you stood up for nevertheless I must needs grant it to be true that you say here that your abilities were far short of your zeal yea so short that howbeit you had a good mind to do it yet you neither did nor could maintain it at all but wherefore was it but because you had a bad cause in hand yea had your zeal been as big as your cause was bad there had been no standing before you indeed the defects of your cause was the cause of your defects and not your own defects the cause of your causes had not the fault been more in your faith which was a false one then in your faculty to maintain things and had that and your baptism been as good as your parts are great and both these as probable as you capable to prove the meanest among you might have done more at the disputation then as it happend all of you did per vim unitam because though you fought with one who was no more then a flea in your ears yet you hapned to be fog'd so that you faced the wrong way and fell in unawares against the truth which in these daies of its return falls upon inquisitive consciences with more force from the mouth of fooles and babes then meer tradition doth from the wisest Babists in the world The deepest defect is in the cause you defend in the way you warrand t is a crooked cause an unwarrantable way and therefore those that will warrand mens walking in it can never do it without faultring and fumbling in the work and such after occasions of fawning on men for their charitable excusation Gentlemen that I may neither seem to defie nor yet to deifie your persons but put things upon a true Account you are men that have some worth and excellency and yet some weakness and exigency too but I impute your miscarriage in the disputation not half so much to your own as to your causes indigency your business was well man'd but ill manag'd because there was but an ill matter to be maintain'd you were at the wrong end of the staff and therefore well might you be defective in the strife this makes the least of the flock draw you great Leviathans out now adayes and the feeble to be as David before Goliahs that have been Polemically exercised from their youth
Ministers to attend continually upon this very thing viz. to reâ—der unto all men their dues as men viz. a room in quiet in the world of what wayes of religion soever yea though Indians and redress of any civil wrongs as they expect to have all men of what religions soever within their power to render to them their dues of tribute honour custome fear for for this cause pay they their tribute also because Magistrates are Gods Ministers to the world ward and to the Church as part of the world and in no other sense then as to the rest of the world to attend continually on this very thing to dispense praise or punishments for civil good and evil among men not spiritual for then they may punish evill thoughts proud looks ignorance non-profiting by the word not Gods Church-ministers to dispense good or evil for good or evil done in the Church but as the same actions may have reference to the state also as theft or the like civil abuse which comes one way under the Churches censure and another way under the Common-wealths they are not I say Church Ministers nor Ministers to the Church qua Church as the Priests principle seemes to make them for then they may claim not only Tribute but Tith also as well as the Priest but that he will be loath to part with though in truth it belongs to him for his Church wasting work full as little as to the other I humbly beg therefore I say of the Powers that truth which hath been trod under foot may be tolerated among them in their several civil States Common-wealths and Kingdomes and to the end it may undoubtedly be so let all that which the Powers in the several Nations do judge in their own consciences to be truth in point of Religion have toleration and protection and no more countenance by them as Magistrates but bare protection from injury as other waies also may have and not such extraordinary supports from a power Heterogeneal to that of the Church nor such extraordinary gratulations gratuities revenews incomes preferments and portions out of the common State-stock let their own private purses be as open to them such as professe it pay to its Ministry as much as they will for besides the partiality of this thing of making other Religions and wayes that judge themselves to be the truth as well as that pay and be tributaries to the true one and the gâ—umbles it will ingender in mens minds this proves the greatest mischief under heaven to the truth when the Ministers who should expect nothing but shame and suffering with their Master who was Beelzebub are flusht with the outward pomps and vanities of this world till they forget themselves so as scarce to know what ground they stand on and howbeit Magistrates may mean honestly in their high honourings of them as that good man Constantine the great did yet as his high embraces and graces done to Christian Bishops proved besides his intent the stirrup whereby those Lord beggars got up on horse back and rode to the devil for so hath that Romish whore rid both her self and the beast under her which is Christ'ndome so though I hope it never will yet it may possibly be so again if care be not taken against it witnesse the two other more seemingly modest and maidenly Minions Episcopacy and Presbitery which qua Ministry came out of her loines who have not brought the world so far out of that old Babilon towards Sion as they pretended to do by reformation as else they might have done being slugged luld asleep by benefits and benefices in the way for positâ eâdem causà ponitur idem effectus sublat â tollitur golden cups ever yet made wooden Priests and ever will do let truth have liberty and peace it will desire no more of the State if it be truth indeed And Secondly let all other wayes and religions besides that which the Magistrate judges to be truth that judge themselves to be in the truth save that of those whose very way as abovesaid is no way but dishonesty and whose way is to root out all wayes but their own by civil power be also tolerated practised and protected from outward violence and oppression as well as that for this besides the knitting of the hearts of men of all wayes under one civill power in intire love and strong affection to that Power that domineers not ore their conscience besides that I say this tolerating all practices in point of religion save that practise of non toleration of any but it self in civil states must needs tolerate the truth among the rest whether it ly in this way or that and so the Power shall be out of all danger and hazard of coming under the guilt of truth treading which the PPPriesthood hath engaged the civil power in for 1260 years together as else it cannot for if toleration be of no way but one then if that chance to be the wrong and the magistrates are no more sure then other men that they are in the right yea 100 to 1 they are not if they use civil violence to others First because the false wayes are many and broad and easie and fine and the true way but one and that so streit and narrow mean and base that not many noble and mighty and men of power ever find it 1 Cor. 1.26 Secondly because as King Iames said persecution is a certain note of a false Church then truth is unavoidably smothered by them and will first or last pull vengeance upon that power Rev. 6.11.12 though it be under the name of Heresie onely that he suppresses it and plucks it up under the name and notion of weeds and tares that would else choak the wheat besides therefore a most strict charge that Christ gives Mat. 13. that in the world i. e. the civil States and Common-wealths of it the Tares should stand together among the wheat untill the harvest which alone is an Argument putting all out of doubt in this controversie he gives this good reason viz. least in plucking up the Tares the wheat also chance to be rooted up with them t is for the wheats good therefore for the Tares to stand and for the wheats sake that Christ wills they should though not in the Church yet in the world to the very end thereof And because the Divine cannot yet divine that to be Christs meaning in that scripture that false worshippers hereticks c. may lawfully if not civil offenders be licenced to live in civil States let us consider how sinister his own conjectures are upon it I have met with some and some of chiefest note in this County of Ken who have shifted it of thus saying that by the Field is meant the Church not the World as we say and Christ himself interprets it in that place Secondly that the servants who ask whether they should pluck up the Taris yea or
was as to his coming thither by accident so he did too i. e. unappointed and unsent for in which sense I 'm sure some of you came not by accident but as specially bespoke in the name of a great Patron of your Party both to be there and undertake the business and appointed if not primarily yet secondarily or upon their refusal for whom some too confidently undertook they should undertake it who yet say of your selves page 3. you were not the men appointed to undertake it if by accident you mean thus as well you may for a man may come by accident enough to a place though he doth not drop out o th' clouds or slide down thither from the moon that worthy friend and beloved Brother under which name I the rather own him here because I had a letter from a prime one of your Party that speaks somewhat scoffingly of that compellation and besides though with Dr. Featly and his faction he is one of the Clergy of Laicks and an Apron Levite yet as his name is Temple-man so I take him to be a better Church-man then many a one who for not troubling his people with too much truth goes under the Denomination of a good one this man I dare say as far as he said he came by accident so farre he came by accident as he said and this proves your hearsay for its like so you had what you here say to be Heresie if an erring from the truth may as I know not why not be so stiled in civill matters as well as spirituall And this conducts me to another figment wherein you father as false a thing upon my self as any of those you seigned of me before which is at the bottom of that discourse which you record as passing between your selves and him concerning justification of Dying infants whether it be by faith or without it in which discourse though the folly of your opinion in that point and truth of his which is also mine namely that dying Infants are justified without faith I shall shew in due time and place yet I cannot but take notice by the way before I speak of that which more concerns my self of some Legerdemain and illogicall dealings of yours with him Report Reporting him asserting thus viz that there may be justification which is not by faith you report your selves replying thus page 9 that it is the grossest piece of Popery to hold justification by works and not by faith onely and the greatest controversie between them and Protestants Reply What shameful Sophistry have you shewn here in foisting in a foolish phrase and term that was neither used nor touched on by him in any of his fore-going speeches nor yet in that which your reply most immediately relates to viz. Iustification by works whereas you know well enough even as well as he and I and the rest that were there for your wits could not be so far gone a wool-gathering as to need Hellebor here that he neither spake nor meant of Iustification by works whether without faith or with it but of the Iustification of Infants without either faith or works neither of which as your selves confess they are in infancy capable to act although you say but if a man will not believe you he may chuse for there 's neither Scripture sense nor reason for it they have the habit this I say again you know to be the sence of such as you call Anabaptists witness your selves in two places viz. p. 8. where you give account of our opinion thus viz That way of the presentment of the righteousness of Christ without faith is a figment of the Anabaptists also p. 15. thus the adversaries are put to their shifts to find out a new way for the salvation of infants dying in their minority viz. the presentment of the satisfaction of Christ without faith in both which places you give the world to understand that you know our opinion to be that infants are justified by neither works nor faith which is a work but if at all by that which your selves hold is the material cause of the justification of men that act faith and of whom they being capable to act faith it is required as instrumentall viz. the righteousness of Christ secondly you know that this opinion is farther off and more flatly contradictory to that Popery that holds Iustification by works then yours can possibly be found to be for the very Iesuits may have some colour for saying that you say the same with them whilst their Tenet is justification by works yours by faith which say they and truely too is a work theirs by faith and works concurrent yours by faith that hath works concomitant and necessarily consequent thereunto between which two doctrines neither of which need be so much condemned each by other for ought I find as they are provided that all merit on our part be cashiered for there Rome errs besides us all for you will find them both true in the end viz. that both are instrumentally subservient and not either of them alone to the justification of not Infants but men and women of whom both as well as one are required in order unto life beâ—ween which two I say there 's not so vast a difference as you deem there is much less so great as is between these viz. Iustification by works and faith both which is that of the Papists and Iustification without either faith or works which is that of ours when we speak of justification with reference to infants only for between these there 's not the least colour of coincidence yet this was that justification that Inquirer spake of viz. of Infants by Christ without faith or any other work either which you know is no part of Popery yet first you reply besides the business which he spake to and define it gross Popery to hold justification by works as if he had held it yea secondly which is worse and down-rightly injurious you are not ashamed to tell-tale him to the world in the words below that he fell into this popery and that for asserting of a Iustification of Infants so farr as they need any neither by faith nor works but Christ without either so much as instrumentall on their part then which you see nothing more fully contradicts it if ye were blind indeed you had not sin'd so much in this but sure you cannot but see how you shuffle therefore without repentance your sin remaineth Another thing I take notice of by the way as I travel toward that fiction I mention above as referring to my self is this Report That when the quere was put to you by the inquirer as you call him what need infants have of being justifyed at all since they have no original sin which whether it were put for satisfaction in the thing or meerly to hear how readily you would resolve it I cannot say you bring in one of the Ministers in the name of the rest
conference and a confused croud of disputation it had had much more to boast of then it hath Pre. The Scandals that have since been cast upon it were expected c. Post. And well they might unless you reckoned without your Host if you scand the Scantines of the provision you made both for your credit and the proof of your practise but what Scandalls I trow were cast upon your Disputation here 's a great talk of Disgraces Scandals Injuries that its under as from us but unless summum jus be summa injuria we righted it rather a little too much in reckoning on it as more then it is worth or at least not setting so slightly by it as well we might But t is as usual a fashion among you Clergy men to count your selves scandaliz'd disparaged disgrac'd vilified undervalued c when you are but either found out in your falsehoods or slandered of a matter of truth as t is for you under one vile name or other to scandalize the Saints most falsly and slander the truth it self yet if your repute be at reparations more then justly through our occasion when we know it we shall make you satisfaction by submission and amends by amendment mean while have patience with us and in due time and Christs strength I trust we shall pay you all Pre. The men which were our Adversaries and their driving was known before c. Post. Were it in respect only to your Infant sprinkling that you did so frequently stile us thus we are no less then many hundreds of its old acquaintance who thinking once as you do that we did God service to be friends to it could now freely answer to the name of Adversaries but we are the best friends in the world to the Truth and your Persons could you once see wood for trees and no further Adversaries to your cause then as we are well assured you can never make it good while the world stands by all the shifts you can devise from the law of Christ whose cause you call it As for our Driving were it like that of Iesu the son of Nimshi it would excuse it self the better sith t is only against the house of the Woman Iezebell that hath sate as Queen over the Nations and stirred up Ahab the Kings and Powers of the Earth to commit fornication with her and to do abominably and to shed the blood of Saints if you be not she then our driving is not towards you but if you be as I dare not be sworn that you the CCClergy throughout all Christendome are not then wo to your house indeed not as from us but from the Lord who yet a little while wherein space is given you to repent and if he cast not you and your lovers into a bed together and into great tribulation except ye repent so that all the Churches of Christ shall know that t is even he that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and giveth to every one of you according to your works then the Lord hath not yet spoken at all by me Pre. It is no new thing with them to bespatter those Arguments with their tongue which they cannot unty with their teeth c. Post. It is an old new thing with your selves for it hath been of old the custome of the new Clergie though never of the true by common councel to cry down as Heresie what truth soever was too hard for them as for us it is no new thing with us indeed for it is one of those old things which were in use among us while we were all one with you but since we sincerely sought the truth are past away so that I cannot but clear those men that say it is no new thing with us as speaking no other then the truth and must needs condemn those who condemn us of it now as men condemning us of a meer new nothing Pre. Thou hast here a true though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed c. Post. I was musing a while what of the Ashford-Disputation this True Account could be truly counted a True Account of for I found that it mentioned neither the number nor the names of the Scribes that scrap't it nor the Disputers that disputed it nor the Arguments of more then one of those disputers nor all his Arguments nor half the Respondents Answers nor many more things that should be in it by right nor many of those things rightly that are in it by wrong at last I had resolution here that 't was A True though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed Yea Sirs I assure you a good whipping is fitter for that disputation then a printed Account of it to the world unless on purpose to be laugh't at that lasted no less then six hours whereof five and an half past away mostly in Immaterials and the odd half too in such Immaterials as these you have here accounted for and if these are the most material things that passed how Immaterial may the world well think were the most Immaterial that passed in the Disputation they surely were not worth one quarter of the while they past in Moreover that your Relation is Short yea far short of the Disputation Related I dare not deny but dare you say it ore and oâ—e again that 't is a true one how true it is is so apparent by the preceding Ezamen of your Account that I need not here so much as assert it to be false I shall therefore say no more but thus viz. Had you said false where you say true both here and in your title page where your c. is stiled A True Account A True Relation you had then said true without all question but your saying true in these two places where you should have said false hath made you speak falsly in both indeed Pre. The adversaries answers being rendred to his best advantage c. Post. As for example sometimes his answers are altered and translated into a clear contrary form sense meaning then he ever spake in somtimes added to somtimes defrauded of such clauses as would have given every body to understand his intent to be directly opposite to what its here represented sometimes invented as it were de novo somtimes rendred not at all but only related to be nothing in the least measure satisfactory nothing that carried the least shew of sense or reason to the purpose c. and all this if men would believe you and if they do not I dare say 't is because they have neither sense nor reason whereupon to believe it to your Respondents best advantage but t is utterly against your wills surely Sirs besides your intentions and in some such way as you never meant it if it be for 't were a wonder if you should mind my advantage so much as to render my answers the best way in order thereunto and 't is a chance had you intended my best advantage
but that you might have helpt me one lee-tle dram more then you have done what not one syllable not one scruple not one minits matter more of all that store that lies a smothering wherewith to mend the case of your Adversary whom you seem so to pitty too that if 't were possible even for old emnities sake for old truths sake which he strives to tell you you would do all to his best aduantage facile est invenire baculum ad caedendum canem you can easily pick a hole in his coat and could you not resolving to render things too to his best advantage find some few shreds and old ends or other out of all those cast clouts you made in the cutting out of your Account wherewith to stop a hole and hide the shame of at least some of that silly silence you sometimes father on him and some of that foppicall non-sense that you fain him and would fain have him at other times be thought to have utter'd was there not one grain more in all his six hours answering to put in his end of the scales whereby to have rendred his answers a lee-tle more weighty then you have rendred them and somewhat more answerable to sense and reason but in truth you may well be afforded a pardon for when hundreds of wise men that were ear witnesses of the disputation shall see how grossly you have falsified what you pretend to give a true Account of the truth will be no looser but yours the disadvantage rather in the end by Accident therefore indirectly and in such sense as the truth of God the more abounds through mens lies against it to his glory it may possibly prove true that things are here rendred more to my best advantage then if they had been more truly rendred but I suppose there would need no more to make Democritus weep and his dog laugh too if he had one then to hear you say in sober sadness that in this Ragged and Rude Rendition you directly intended any such matter as to render your Adversaries Answers to his best advantage or that you intended any other then the very contrary Pre. And the Ministers Arguments as they were delivered without any addition c. Post. Alack good men you minded so much the mending the case of your Adversary and so singly designed by alteration ablation addition c. the rendring of his Answers to his best advantage that you durst not trangress so much as a fingers breadth by adding any thing to what you delivered your selves towards your own advantage in your Account of the disputation but what ever Additaments figments amendments c. are used for his aliâs your own best advantage sake in the rendring of the Adversaries Answers yet the Ministers Arguments are set down even nakedly as they were delivered without any Addition for advantage as if either the Ministers needed nothing to be done in such a way in their case but might well spare all the advantage to go on the other side and yet be on the surer side too or else were such self-denying men that they would rather represent the cause of the Adversary at the very best then their own in the least measure any better then it was And truly Sirs I must needs say that for you that you have not advantag'd your own matter much by Addition to your Arguments but what benefit accrues to them as you manage the matter in your Account is rather by way of Abdition then Addition for you have hid the most Immateriall of them from being seen at all and rendred them clean out of the way the advantage they have lies more in their being rendred by the ablative case then by the dative Pre. Thou art desired to read them without prejudice to let thy charity cover the weakness of them c. Post. For my own part Sirs as I heard your Arguments for Infant-baptism without prejudice i. e. not passing sentence on them till I had heard them when you urg'd them at first at the Disputation by word of mouth so God is my witness how often I have read them ore and ore again without prejudice seriously setting my self to weigh them most impartially in the ballance of both Scripture and reason since you urg'd them ore again in print nevertheless I cannot possibly unless I speak against the light of my conscience judge them to be any other then what I said before and what your selves are pleased here to acknowledge them to be before all the world begging of people in charity to couer the weakness of them viz. but weak Arguments which ingenuous confession of yours if it be not a giving of the cause I appeal not only to all rational men that shall happen to read this who know that the truth or falshood of all causes respectively lies in the strength or weakness of the Arguments that are brought in defence thereof so that they either stand or fall according as the Arguments to uphold them be they few or many are either weak or weighty but also to your selves who tell us truly and plainly that t is the weight of Arguments onely and he is a weak man that saies weak ones are weighty ones that carries the cause your own words if they may be of any weight with you are these p 12. viz. besides that opinion of Ovid Et si non prosunt singula multa juvant what ever it may carry of credit in other causes ought to have but little in this where we trust not in multitude nor measure by number but substance and weight of Arguments are the foundation of our faith the other are for pomp and victory these onely for satisfaction and verity so that if a man might hope you would stick to this candid concession of yours and not start from it there need not be much said in discovery of the weakness or non-weightiness of your Arguments and consequently of the Rottenness of your cause for the world it self may hear what you say out of your own mouths in this very vindicatory Account of yours wherein you not onely publish some of your Arguments in that same weakness and nakedness wherein at first they appeared so that every eye may discern it having leave now to examine them at leasure but also after not a few vain glorious vauntings and ventings of your selves concerning them as of worth and weighry in way of defence of them from those sleightings those disgraces those injuries and censures of them as weak and wanting which they are under as from us at last being sensible of their weakness you sing a new song to the tune of cry you mercy and fall a beseeching the Reader in his charity to cover the weakness of them by which weak petition you may work upon some weak ignorants that are not book learn'd or if they be stand bent to believe all things as you desire them but on none that are truly disciples though onely A.
b. c. darians in the School of Christ but Sirs what need so much peccavi and precari if your ware were currant it would go off with acceptance without such a deal of cap and congee and pittiful intreaty to the Reader to cover the weakness of your Arguments the strength of which onely should cause him to gather the goodness of your cause and not strong intreaty to take it for good though the Arguments you plead it by are but weak Vino vendibili non opus est haedera if your Arguments and reasons for baby-baptism be strong and solid your Reader if rational will receive them if weak as you say they are he is a Reader scarce worth writing reason to who will be prevailed with by your desire so to cover their weakness as in charity to suffer himself to be overcome and carried away by them notwithstanding that their weakness to close with you in your cause and to be beaten into a belief of your baptism as good though it hath but broken reeds and bulrushes to maintain it by the force of bare beggings and beseechings or if in this request of yours to us to cover the weakness of your Arguments your meaning is not that we should be so silly as to build our belief and practice upon them though weak by your own confession whose they are but onely that we should not publish discover and divulge their weakness to the world but in charity be content to think our think or to see and say nothing truly Sirs what others will do at your request in this kind I know not but I assure you I cannot possibly for my part grant your desire in this case forasmuch as your selves have engaged me several waies not to be silent on pain of giving away the cause which if it were onely my own too the matter were so much the less you should have it with all my heart yea verily and my own life too to do your souls good for I know I could freely part with it to be a means of effecting your salvation but since it is the cause of God which he hath intrusted me with the pleading of against you who presume to enter the lists against it with such silly tools and weak weapons on behalf of a Babish-baptism which is not from heaven but of men I dare not give place so far as in foolish pitty to spare the Cittie Babylon or in Charity not to bewray a Breach or weakness in her walls of defence when I spie it for that were in Charity to betray the truth of of God and such Charity is more Antichristian by far then Christian what ere you call it and such as could have small hope of acceptance before God however esteemed of among men wherefore I desire you to have me excused if I cannot in charity cover the weakness of your Arguments for in Charity to poor souls that are led aside from the way of truth by your piteous pious pretences and weak reasonings for your way 〈◊〉 I am concerned in the very next place after I have done with this of yours to the Reader to discover to the world the weakness of them besides sith you have made so bold with your selves as to proclaime the weakness of your own Arguments for Infant-baptism I hope the Counties of Kent and Sussex will consider this that their choise Ministry that stood up to maintain Infant-Baptism at Ashford did after in their own Account theerof give out of their own accord that there was weakness in the Arguments they brought for that purpose men mutire nefas I hope it shall be no offence to you for me to second you in your own saying 't is you who have publisht your arguments to be weak my business shall be only publickly to prove them so to be as you assert them yet if it be offensive to you it shall be no wonder to me for I know already that you can bear it better to have your Disputation ly under disgrace and disparagement under shame and censure of weakness from your selves in print then from your supposed Adversary and true Friend my self so much as in a private Letter only and that some men as the Proverb is may more safely steal the horse then some so much as peep o're the hedge Pre. Not to suffer the cause to be wronged thorow the desects of those who had more zeal to maintain it then abilities c. Post. T is both usual and lawfull for us to judge of causes by the effects that naturally and necessarily flow from them for qualis causa i. e. naturalis per se talis effectus Retró e. g. Infant-sprinkling hath been a cause efficient and per se from whence much evil hath necessarily crept into the world for it hath been a means of confounding the Church and the World together of letting the Gentiles or Nations by whole sale into the outter Court of filling the world with meer nominal Christians and carnal Christianity whereby they have got advantage ever since to tread down the holy City and true worship and worshippers as Heresie Hereticks of bringing the nations into one Catholick Church whereof the Pope was universall Bishop or overseer for ages together thorow the eyes of his creatures the Clergy the very Stirrup whereby he and his Ministers who have blended themselves into a blind and beastly uniformity have become Masters of the Kingdomes and have got up to ride them a plea and president for traditions it being one it self which ever make Gods commands void and mens worship of God in vain an inlet of these and innumerable more mischiefs and absurdities for posito hoc uno absurdo sequuntur mille therefore it is undoubtedly an ill cause also t is lawfull to judge of a cause by the common Consequents which come from it not as caused properly but meerly occasioned by it and in respect of which it is called only causa sine quâ non i. e. that without which the other would not be and yet no other then the bare accidentall occasions of those effects which flow from something else as the cause thereof perse and most especially when those consequents are declared by the word of God to be such as will upon that occasion universally and unavoidably come to pass and thus we may give a shrew'd guess that our cause is good viz. that our Gospel Ministery Church-way and Baptism is the true one because we see it is seconded now and ever hath been with what it was of old seconded and foretold also that it should ever be even every where to the worlds end viz. divisions in families two against three and three against two the Father against the Son the Daughter against the Mother c. offences of friends and fleshly relations the account of Heresie and baseness hatred of men persecution cavils stirs tumults about it by which things Christs people Gospel Ministers and Ministrations are ever
in that truth on their side doth animate and assist them you meet them with staff and spear and humane accomplishments and they stand before you in the name of God and strength of that truth and true Israel of his whom you yet defie this makes Schoolmen like Schoolboyes under the rod when they are taken tardy in their exercise and see they are like to be whipt for it cry spare us in that their School-masters the Pope and Councels have overtaskt them and set them a Theam which Scripture whence onely they must fetch all their proofs saies just nothing of at all This makes the Disputers the Divines to come abroad a begging in print among the vulgar as you here do saying cover pass by bewayling the weakness of their Arguments their defects in disputing their presumption in entring the lists their non-preparation for the disputation because it s not the true Gospel they disputed for a very stripling may make a Gyant give back if he have hold on the hilt of his sword and the other thrust hard against the blade 't is hard for thee O Saul to kick against the pricks a learned lawyer may be at loss in a lame suit Asinus ad lyram may play his part better and make sweeter musick then the most accurate musitian that hath nothing to beat upon but a board it may well put any but the meer Sophister to his shifts to prove the moons made of green cheese and so 't will any save the meer self-seeker that is set to serve it out of a sight that he can serve himself of it and therefore is resolv'd to make any Argument serve turn even libet ergo licet rather then leave it to prove Infant-baptism much more Infant-rantism to be a good cause and yet the more 's the pitty this is the cause you have to make good and have been so bold as to stand up for which though your wishes are here that it may not suffer wrong through your defects yet mine are much rather that you may not suffer your selves to be wrong'd any more or to be wrong'd for ever through its defects for howbeit it flatters you into an opinion of its ability to be maintain'd by you by its appearing ability to maintain you yet you 'l find ith'end that by its fair flourishes it hath flusht you into more zeal then furnisht you with ability to maintain it when it shall have brought you to your choice of one of these two ex quibus minimum est eligengendum viz. either of Repentance from it and all other your Parochiall dead works tithes and other traditions that depend upon it upon a sight and acknowledgement that you have been mistaken about these as well as other Romish Remnants that you have seen cause through the Parliaments eyes to renounce since that long since Lutheran reformation which after longer standing out will be so much the harder Chapter for you Clergy men to run throw or else which is worse then nought of perseverance in your evil waies and dead works against light to prevent the other which last the Lord prevent from befalling any of you if it be his will Pre Who would not have presumed to have entered the lists c. Post. It had been no presumption in you had you been true Ministers of Christ and the cause you stood up in Christs cause indeed for grant it to be presumption in Vzziah to meddle in the publique service of the Temple and in Vzziah to put forth his hand to uphold the Ark and consequently for so you argue not we for men to meddle so as to minister to the Gospel publiquely in your Churches that are not in holy orders yet it is none vos Apello for the Priests or ordained Ministers of Christ to stand up any where in defence of Christs truth where it s traduced but rather duty which in speciall they stand bound to in that therefore you accounting your selves Christs Ministers do grant it to be presumption in you to put forth so publiquely when you saw it tottering you do no less thou give the cause you stood up in to be none of his as indeed it was not but your own and that was it only which made it presumption and very high presumption in you too in that you durst enter the lists against the Lord Iesus in in his own ordinance and that with such weak Arguments such flags as flam'd like swords but alas such as could not bear the brunt when it came to blows here how much less will they in that battel of the great day of God Almighty which is now marching apace upon you 'T is true therefore as you here confess you have been presumptuous and presumption is one of the most desperate sins that can be against Christ yet for all that in his name and as an Embassador from him though otherwise an unworthy and ever a contemptible creature in your eyes as though himself did beseech you by me I am bold to beg of you that you would not despair but come in and be reconciled to him presuming no more to stand up against him with such weak weapons as before least he tear you in pieces fall upon you and grind you to powder but sit down and humble your selves that you have stood so long in the way of Sinners so that they could not come to Christ through your Blurres lay down your arms and yield your selves prisoners to him stoop to that golden Scepter he yet holds out unto you own him as your King Priest and Prophet list no more against him but list your selves under him for he is gracious and will yet receive you and baptize you with his spirit if you turn at his reproof and repent and be baptized in water in his name for remission of sins Pro. 1.23 Act. 2.38 become little children in such a sense as you should be that you may be baptized and then be baptized in truth and in token for your memory hath lost your traditionary token sprinkling that hereafter you will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified but manfully fight under his banner against sin the world and the devill and continue Christs faithful souldiers to your lives end How happy had it been for you if you had took quarter from Christ before this time for he would have given it and forgiven all your enmity against him in his truth but you are stiff-blades and your words have been stout against him you Clergy men are Lords you will not come neer but I beseech you become Lord beggars at the throne of grace as Brightman said truly the Bishops were for earthly honor at the thrones of Kings and Princes that you may have more of that grace and holiness to worship God with reverence according to his own will which God gives to all humble Suppliants then had you less learning and living then you have and more disgrace in this world then ever
so then if you had pleased but your blunt delivery of your selves here without any modification of your meaning makes it out as if you meant to fright the whole Countrey to baptize all their infants in all hast as ever they mean to have any hope they shall be saved besides if they be but doctrinally damned and not really by the denial of baptism to them the matter is so much the lesse for as they are not one straw the better whether living or dying in infancy if they have it so they cannot be as to salvation one straw the worse if they want it and die without it and then what need such thundring out of terror to the parents as if there were no way but one that is damnation to their dying infants out of hand if they do not see to the baptizing of them in infancy before they dye moreover if it be doctrinally to damn all infants to deny their right to baptism then how damnable is your doctrine to that innocent age who deny it to no lesse then 20 to one viz. all the dying infants of unbelievers but the best on t is though your doctrine is so desperate and ungodly as to declare nought but damnation to all such as the Pope doctrinally damnes i. e. all that are not born within the pale of the Church yet there is salvation enough for these infants as well as for the other in Christ Jesus whereby till they deserve exemption by actuall transgression they may be saved really though with you they are doctrinally damn'd and with us as well as you deny'd to have or so much as to have any right at all to baptism Thus Sirs I have done with your deep Disputation there remaining no more but a certain magisterial moderation or determination in which you are your own carvers taking upon you to manage it by the mouth of him whose onely arguments all these are in which piece of your Pamphlet I shall briefly take notice of some passages wherein you speak very fairly of your selves very fowly falsly and injuriously of your respondent very conrradictorily to what you said before very ignorantly of the word very impertinently as to the proof of faiths being in and baptisms belonging to those infants you plead for more then those you plead against and then come to consider your Review you speak as followeth Determination Since it hath been proved that little infants have the holy Ghost c. here let there be a recapitulation of the former arguments therefore baptism is not to be denied unto them Detection Doubting belike whether any stander by can find in his conscience to give so good a testimony as you afford and such ample approbation to your Arguments as you desire and they deserve not you ingrosse the dijudication of the disputation between yourselves and me into your own clutches and then claw your selves in the face of the world and bestow such commendatories upon your simple shuffles as if it were proved and put out of doubt thereby that believers infants have the spirit faith holinesse and such apparent right both to heaven and baptism as no creatures have in the world besides them but having shewed how shallowly fillily and slenderly you have argued all this above I decline detest and disclaim this your positive dijudication and make my appeal from the high Commission Chair of you Clergy men who for ages and generations have sate judges in your own cause unto the people whom you have ever mis-led by your blind guidance to judge between us among whom not they who have so long commended themselves as Orthodox will be approved at last but those whom the Lord commendeth Determination If any doubt be raised concerning particular infants the judgement of Charity will cast that out especially considering no other judgement can be past upon those that are Adulti Detection That the judgement of charity concerning faith the holy spirit and right to the kingdom can in infancy be past no more upon believers infants then upon all infants is told us so plainly by your selves that if you be not resolved that you will never learn any thing that is truth from your selves you must needs see it as well as we since you say p. 18. there is no discovery of the habit of faith but by the asts and none by the acts in any infants at all in infancy and that the spirit is neither bound to work it in all the children of Christians nor barred from working it in any children of infidelâ— and p. 5. that the judgement of charity must so pass that we are to presume well of all who by actuall sin have not barred themselves and deserved exemption and that there 's better ground to build a judgement of charity concerning faith and the spirit in adultis then infantibus viz. profession and visible manifestation by the fruits and acts and a better judgement then that of charity viz. of certainty is to be had of adult persons right to baptism we seeing them certainly to professe faith as infants cannot which whether they deceive us in that profession or no is clear ground to baptize them on this I have shewed so sufficiently above that there needs no more be said of it here Determination Our Respondent hath confessed that Ishmael who was that carnall seed of Abraham yet had right to the seal of the Gospel Covenant circumcision and that the spirituall seed and their children have under the Gospel as good right to the seal thereof which is baptism Detection O rare and base what again Sirs what again I professedly denyed baptism to be a seal at all witnesse my then disavowing the Scotchmans proceedings in the dispute of baptism under the term of initial seal I also denied circumcision to be the seal of the Gospel Covenant or that it was set to Ishmael under such a notion yea you your selves are my witnesses but three pages above that I said circumcision was a seal to Abraham only and not to his posterity and yet here again as well as before you turn false witnesses against me and will needs fasten this upon me for a farewell that I grant all for truth that your selves ignorantly assert in these particulars and not content therewith a matter more monstrous then all the rest you say I confess not only Abrahams spirituall seed themselves i. e. believers but their children also to have under the Gospel as good right to baptism as the seal of it as they the direct contrary to which is the Position I stood then to evince yea which I both then did do still and ever shall till you disprove it better than you have yet done maintain against you or else wherin do we differ Sirs you should have done well to have expressed your minds in plain right down English and then the scope sum and scum of them would have risen and appeared thus viz. we the Disputers and Scribes of the Ashford
are men that make so much of every little for Christs sake that Crosses and diseases your flesh that you will hardly ever commend your selves as the ministers of Christ did of old 2 Cor. 6.5.6 c. 2 Cor. 11.26.27 in much patience in afflictions yea in necessities in stripes and imprisonments in tumults in crossings in labours in perils of waters in wearinesse in painfulnesse in watchings often in hunger and in thirst in fastings often in cold and nakednesse in indurance of hardship as good souldiers of Christ 2 Tim. 2. which sith you decline with all the might you can rather then expose your selves freely to for truths sake therefore the Lord have mercy upon your persons your ministeriall capacity will be cashiered Rantist Well what if it was so in the primitive times that total dipping was the custome must it therefore needs be so now will it follow that we must follow their fashion in that particular there may be sundry reasons whereupon they might baptize in such a manner then and yet no reason at all why we should tie our selves to the same Baptist. If it was so what do you speak suppositively of it still nay verily I hope you will not be so obstinate as to deny for all your gainsaying it hitherto but that it was so then for sure enough it was otherwise then in that way of sprinkling or powring nose dripping or face dipping either which are in use amongst you and keep it out at swords point as long as you can yet you will be forct to yield to it in the end when you consider that your own parâ—y are fain to flag so far in this case as to confesse it for not onely Tilenus reacheth us that heretofore submersion was the way of baptizing rather then aspersion but Dr. Featley also furnishes us as I have shewed above with as much as we desire and if it be once granted as it is in a manner already by not a few if not all but Mr. Blake why else do they trouble themselves and the world to render reasons why it might be by submersion in the primitive ages and places of baptizing but not so now I know no reason worth a rush on which we can be held excused from baptizing by submersion as they did Rantist T is true it is confest by some and if it were granted by all that baptism was then by dipping it were not so material to your cause nor would you get so much ground by it sith both such as flatly agree to it and such as see not cause to agree to it so fully as some do are all agreed in the grand reason why it was so then and why it may not be so now at any hand viz. the different temper of those climates wherein baptism first began and of ours wherein it now is practised theirs being so hot that there could be no danger by dipping in the coldest times ours so cold that it cannot but be very dangerous if not destructive to life and health I grant saith Dr. Featly that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized in the river and that such baptism of men especially in the Hotter Climates hath been is and may lawfully be used but the question is whether no other baptizing is lawfull or whether dipping in Rivers be so necessary to baptism that none are accounted baptized but those that are dipped after such a manner usitatior olim fuit c. submersion was more usual in Judea and other warmer Countreys saith Tilenus then aspersion notwithstanding sith submersion may prove prejudicious to the health specially of such tender infants as for the most part are baptized now a dayes we suppose the Church may use which she pleases and saies Mr. Baxter if it were otherwise in the primitive times it would be proved but occasionall from a reason proper to those Hot Countreys and saith Mr. Cook though it were granted that in those Hot Countreys they commonly washed by going down into the water and being dipped there whether in ordinary or ceremonial or sacramental washing that will no more inforce on us a necessity of observing the same in baptism now then the example of Christ and the Apostles gesture in the sacrament of the supper ties us to the same which was leaning and partly lying which was their usual table gesture then now the ordinary table gesture which is usual among us is most fit so the usual manner of washing among us is most fit to be observed in baptism and that is by powring as well as by dipping so you see these men are all of a mind that is was or at least might be so possibly in the primitive times but if it were yet not so in ours in regard of the coldnesse of our climate Baptist. Then it seems we shall have it amongst you pro confesso that in the Apostles dayes the way was dipping for though Mr. Cook keeps a loof off in his hypotheticals saying though it were granted and Mr. Baxter who borrowes well nigh all he saies against dipping from Mr. Cook Cookes it out but conditionally saying if it were otherwise yet Tilenus takes our part plainly and the Dr. drawes neerer to us then so giving it for gone that in those Hot Countryes baptism in rivers was then used onely whether such manner of dipping in rivers be so necessary to baptism in all countreyes this we say saies he is false and so for ought I see you say all But Sirs first I pray tell me from the very bottom of your consciences whether you can conceive that Christ hath appointed two sorts of baptism viz. one kind of baptism for Iudea and those regions round about Iordan and another for England Scotland France Spain Italy and all the regions round about of the Romish Christendom whether he hath ordained two baptisms or rather two different dispensations whereof one is not baptism to be used in different places viz. baptism for the Hot Countryes and Rantism for the Cold or whether he hath not rather wild one onely baptism and that a true one to be used throughout the world Dr Featley Mr. Cook Mr. Baxter suppose the first but where 's Mr. Blake all this while their wonted Coadiutor in the cause verily he leaves them a little here and lends us his hand who hold that Christ gave order and commission for no more then one way of baptism in all Nations for howbeit he finds in his heart to let Rantism passe for currant baptism among them that take the liberty to maintain and use it for fear of cold p. 4 yet whatever way of baptism the commission was given out for in those Hotter Countryes whether submersion or infusion for aspersion he ownes not to be it however the very same way and no other he holds the commission to be for in the coldest Nations under heaven and this will appear if what he saies in his 9. p. be considered where after he had used this argument to prove
Church and Schismaticks in the Church c. wherewith you astonish the vulgar but I protest this day before God and men not onely against him against whom you are Protestants also but against your selves also his Schismatical sons who own his ordinations and still walk in some of his ordinances viz. Rantism Parochial posture c. as those that are little lesse ignorant then he and his good sons of both the true Church and true peace thereof whilst the truth to which she should submit is not regarded by you and the very things that make a true visible Church and are de esse and constitutive of it so that abstract them and you null it viz. true matter i. e. believers baptized and true form i. e. free and not forced fellowship both which are so in the Churches of England Scotland Italy France and Spain are not onely wanting but also trodden under your feet Fourthly the peaceable way wherein we propagate these opinions were you as sure they are erroneous as I am that you 'l once find them to be truth will yet excuse and acquit us from all guilt of disturbing the peace of either the world or your Church which is the world in reference to the true one and unlesse you can say the Gospel of peace which where ere it comes occasions dissentions is the cause of them as in no wise it is but mens lusts rather that rage and take on against it you cannot say our Gospel is for it propounds them to the world in no other way then that and that way was no other then bare propounding them and as Christ and his disciples did not judge them here though they will judge them most severely hereafter who reject their words by the power of the Magistrate by the civil sword by nailing to pillories cutting off ears slitting noses whippings â—ines confiscations prisons bonds banishments fightings fire and fagot the bloody wayes whereby BBBabilon hath edified it self to that height of abomination the Arguments whereby the CCClergy were wont to convert Hereticks quickly from all error to dust and ashes so if any man hear our words and reject them well may we rebuke him sharply as they also did but we judge him not in that way whereby the Tribe of Levi that hath levied war for his lusts sake against the whole earth hath bereft all men of peace neverthelesse the words that we speak to him being those that Christ and his disciples have spoken in the world the same will judge him at the last day Secondly why sith it must needs be supposed there be many Godly men among the Ministers of the Nations though the most of them be wicked yet I do not except and exempt them when I inveigh so heavily against the CCClergy or why I do not rather forbear and spare to speak so broad at all and so generally as I do against that generation as an evill one for the sake of those good ones that are among them To which I say First that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 godly men properly are those onely that worship God aright i. e. according to his own will and institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which well weighed might possibly put the best men among you to your trumps to make good your title to that title and denomination of godly by Scripture record sith while you stand among the rest even you as well as the worst do preach and practise for doctrines of Christ some traditions of man if you had no more enjoined you by them on whom you wait for your instructions then barely the sprinkling of infants by which you make void what in you is the true baptism of Christ. Yet not denying but that there is a sprinkling of honest hearts quorum meliori luto finxit praecordia Titan whom the sun of righteousnesse as he lightens every man that cometh into the world hath hatcht up into a higher predicament of Godlinesse then their fellowees who are drawn up into some higher streins of devotion then the rest I adde further Secondly what are these littles to the lump what is the gleaning to the vintage here and there one good man to the whole corrupt crue of them that like Locusts and Caterpillars have spread themselves together with the smoak of errors over the earth in three several swarms or armies can some scores of well meaning Priests give the denomination of an holy PPriesthood godly Ministry to those legions of them that lie in wickednesse you may as well say there 's a million of Saints among the men of the world therefore reprove not the world for their sakes such as these who out of meer simple honestly rather then sinful sophistry and mystical iniquity do stand and act and argue against the true way as they do are Rarae aves very few to the multitude of humanists and sensual ones and subtle subverters of the Gospel which yet they would seem to be Ministers of for their own ends by whom they are commonly so hated too so far as they have any more strictnesse and sincerity then ordinary that they are among the other of their brethren as I was for querying after truth while I stood among them as owles and bats baited by other birds which few good grapes were they better then they are cannot denominate the whole vintage as una hirundo non facit ver BBBabilon is BBBabilon still and SSSodom is SSSodom and must be called so though Lot live in it and he called out of it too unlesse he mean mean to perish with it Thirdly those good men that are there the mores the pitty that they are so ought not to be suffered nor spared but spoke to the rather themselves and that very roundly too for being and abiding in a bad way and not the way it self and those many bad men that are in it scape declaring against as bad because of them there must be down-right dealing with upright men when they are in a wrong way and that indeed is the most upright dealing with them of all yea Sirs you that are upon the Account of these times for godly Ministers let me say this to you for verily I have sorrow of heart for some of you of my old acquaintance my own flesh and blood for whose sakes fâ—esh in me would fain be silent as knowing flesh in you would fain be let a lone but I must urge you to be serious in seeing how unsafely you satisfie your selves in your present fellowship with a carnal Clergy what make you among the prophane Ministry of the Nations that hath in all ages sate with such weight upon them as to sink them into a gulf of error so that all truth almost is heresie with them now and under hazard of being smoothered as soon as it peepes out from under that veil of traditions that hath covered it what make you keeping a Court of guard among the Babilonians to help to hold them in