did the like in the Councell of Seleucia called by Constantius an Arian Emperor who did therein suppresse by perpetuall Amnestie the mention of Homousios and Homoiousios that so they might coine a new faith and utterly extinguish that of the Councell of Nice p 115. This you ascribe indeed unto the Prelates as an Art of theirs but you must needs intend it of the King whose Act it was Nor doe you only misinterpret his Majesties most pious Act in an undutifull scandalous manner but you pervert both this and the other also to serve your turne and sometimes factiously retort them on His Majestie as if not observed What ever thing you challenge or except against that is forthwith proclaimed to be against his Majesties Declarations so solemnly set out and published for satisfaction of his people as Viz. in your two Epistles to his Sacred Majestie in your Apology p. 6. in your addresse to the Nobility p. 23.24 and to the Judges p. 28.30.31 and in your Pulpit Pasquill p. 51.52.54.64.65.67.72.146 and finally no lesse then thrice in the Newes from Ipswich As for example His Majestie intended by the first that before the Articles to silence those disputes which might nourish faction and in the other to nourish in his Subjects a good opinion of his constancie to the Religion here established but you and such as you will abuse them both You were convented as you tell us unto London house for Preaching on the point of Predestination and there it was objected to you that you had done therein contrary to his Majesties Declaration pag. 51. which in the Margin there you affirme to be A dangerous and false charge laid upon the King And thereupon you answered that you never took the Kings Declaration to be by him intended for the suppressing of any part of Gods trueth nor durst you ever conceive a thought so dishonourable to the King as to think him to be an instrument of suppressing Gods trueth No doubt you had good ground for so quick an answere and what was that His Majestie in his Declaration about the Parliament had profest as much p. 52. Here is the King against the King one Declaration against another both by you abused both made to serve your turne as occasion is But why do you thus construe his Majesties words Because say you it was no part of his Majesties meaning to prohibit Ministers to Preach of the saving Doctrines of Grace and Salvation without the which the very Gospel is destroyed p. 51. the ministery of the Gospel overthrowne and nothing but orations of moralitie to be taught the people And doth the whole ministerie of the Gospel the saving doctrines of Grace and Salvation depend alone upon those difficult and dangerous points of Gods secret counsells Are all the Doctrines of the Gospel matters of meere moralitie save those at which Saint Paul did stand astonished and cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O the depth and heigth Cannot Christ Crucified profit us rather you and your disciples unlesse wee must be taught that the greatest part of mankind is cast off for ever without any regard had to their sinnes and all the promises of the Gospel made unto them of none effect Or do you think that Faith and an honest life will become unprofitable unlesse wee vexe poore people with the noise of doubtfull disputations which Saint Paul prohibited Take heed Sir I advise you as a speciall friend least that befall you which Saint Austin did once complaine of Viz. lest honest though unlearned men get heaven whilest you with all your subtilties are excluded thence Surgunt indocti et rapiunt coelum et nos cum doctrinis nostris sine corde ecce ubi volutamur in carne et sanguine But to what purpose do I seek to charme so deafe an Adder Be the Kings purposes never so sincere and pious yet you are bold to quarrell with his Declaration and to cry out vnto the people that the Doctrines of Gods Grace and mans salvation are husht and banished out of Citie and Countrie and that there 's not a Minister one amongst a thousand that dare cleerely and plainly according to the word of God and the Articles of our Church preach of these most comfortable doctrines to Gods people and so soundly and roundly confute the Arminian heresies as you call them repugnant thereunto p. 116. But so you will not leave the King he must heare more yet His Declaration about lawfull recreations on the Lords day is the next you quarell with In this you fall more fowly on him then you did before more then a civill honest man would or could probably have done upon his equall and yet you ground this too on his Declaration For thus you say No wise and honest man can ever imagine that the king would ever intend to command that which mainly tendeth to the dishonor of God and his word to the violation and annihilation of the holy Commandement touching the Sabbath and to the alteration of the doctrine of the Church of England How so Because say you this were against all those solemne Royall protestations of the King c. p. 56. Stay here a little I beseech you How doth this businesse of the Sabbath touch the Declaration about dissolving of the Parliament which is cited by you Yes in a very high degree because say you it is a mighty Innovation in the doctrine of the Sabbath which hath beene ever since the Reformation and so from the Reigne of Queene Elizabeth of famous memory constantly universally and unanimously maintained in the Church of England pag. 57. Qui semel verecundiae limites c. And if you proceed on a little you will shortly blush at nothing For the point in hand Men of farre more credit then I trow you are assure us that your new doctrine of the Sabbath was never known in England untill the yeere 1596 and being made known then not before was neither universally nor unanimously received as you informe as For had it beene a Doctrine constantly maintained ever since the Reformation as you falsly say assuredly Arch Bp. Whitgift had never called in those Books which maintained that argument as it 's well knowne he did in his visitation Anno 1599. nor had Judge Popham done the like at the Assises in Saint Edmonds bury in the yeere 600. You must tell likelier tales then this or all the old wives in your Parish will beshrew you for it who cannot but remember with what harmelesse freedom they used to behave themselves that day in their yonger times You stay not here but as before you set the King against himselfe one Declaration of the Kings against another so next you set the King against the Parliament and tell us that the prophanation of the Sabbath or Lords day which the Books seemes to give allowance to as in sundry sports here specified is contrary unto the Statute 1. Caroli in which all unlawfull Exercises and
new orders or bringing in new fashions never knowne before If you have any other pedegree as perhaps you have from Wiclif Hus the Albigenses and the rest which you use to boast of keepe it to your selfe Non tali auxilio the Church of England hath no neede of so poore a shift Nor did shee ever think it fit further to separate herselfe from the Church of Rome either in doctrine or ceremonie then that Church had departed from herselfe when shee was in her flourishing and best estate and from Christ her head And so King Iames resolved it at Hampton Court That which remaineth touching the poison which the spirit hatt ruleth in the aire hath infused into the chaire of the Hierarchae and your distinction betweene nominall and reall grace for which I make no question but you doe hugge your selfe in private is not worth the answering I shall produce your raylings as I goe along but not confute them as knowing little credit to begotten by contending with you and farre lesse by scolding But where you seeme to be offended with the Bishops â—hat they should stile themselves the Godly holy Fathers of the Church I hope you know the title is not new nor first used by them All ages and all languages have so entituled them The Gretians everused to stile them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Reverendos in Christo Patres the English our Reverend fathers in God all of them as of common course you cannot but know it As for that patch which followes after viz. the Pillars of our faith and your conceit upon them both of Caterpillers and stepfathers those you may heare amongst the scoffes reviling and reproachfull termes which with a prodigall hand and a venemous penne you cast upon them every where in your severall Pasquills to which now I hasten To begin therefore where we left for fathers you have made them Step-fathers for Pillars Caterpillers their houses haunted and their Episcopall chaires poysoned by that spirit that bear's rule in the ayre These we have told you of before goe on then They are the limbs of the beast even of Antichrist taking his very courses to beare and beate downe the hearing of the Word of God whereby men might bee saved p. 12. Their feare is more towards an Altar of their owne invention towards an image or crucifixe towards the sound and syllables of Iesus than towards the Lord Christ. Pag. 15. Miscreants 28. the traines and wiles of his the dragons dog-like flattering tayle pag. 30. New Babel-builders 32. blind watchmen dumbe doggs plagues of soules false prophets ravening wolves theeves and robbers of soules which honorary attributes you bestow upon them from the Magdeburgians pag. 48. Either for shame mend your manners or never more imprison any man for denying that title of succession which you so bely by your unapostolicall practise pag. 49. If the Prelats had any regard either to the honour of God and of his word or to the setled peace of the kingdome as they have but little as appeareth too palpably by their practises in disturbing and disordering all pag. 63. The Prelates actions tend to corrupt the kings good peoples hearts by casting into them feares and jealousies and sinister opinions towards the king as if he were the prime cause of all those grievances which in his name they doe oppresse the kings good subjects withall pag. 74. These factors for Antichrist practise to divide kings from their subjects and subjects from their kings that so betweene both they may fairely erect Antichrists throne againe pag. 75. Antichristian mushromes pag. 83. They cannot be in quiet till res novas moliendo they may set up Popery againe in her full equipage 95. tooth and nayle for setting up of Popery againe 66. trampling under their feete Christs kingdome that they may set up Antichrists throne againe p. 99. According to that spirit of Rome which breatheth in them by which they are so strongly biassed to wheele about to their Roman Mistresse pag. 108. the Prelates confederate with the Priests and Iesuits for rearing up of that religion pag. 140. by letting in a forraigne enemie which these their practises and proceedings pretend and tend unto pag. 75. The Prelates make the mother Cathedralls the adopted daughters of Rome their concubines whereon to beget a new bastard generation of sacrificing idolatrous Massepriests throughout the land p. 163. Nothing can now stay them but either they will breake all in peeces or their owne necke p. 164. All this sir in your Pulpit-pasquill So also in your Apologie Iesuited Polypragmaticks and sonnes of Belial and in the newes from Ipswich Luciferian Lord Bishops Execrable traytors devouring wolves with many other odious names not fit to be used by Christians Finally in your Pulpit libell you seriously professe that you are ashamed that ever it should bee sayd you have lived a minister under such a Prelacie p. 49. Great pittie sir you had not lived a little in king Edgars time amongst whose Lawes it was ordeined that that mans tongue should be cut out which did speake any slanderous or infamous words tending to the reproach of others Hitherto for the generalls And there are some particulars on which you spend your malice more than all the rest you descant trimmely as you thinke in the Newes from Ipswich on my Lord of Canterbury with your Arch-pietie Arch-charitie if Belzebub himselfe had beene Arch-Bishop Arch-Agent for the devill and such like to those A most triumphant Arch indeed to adorne your victories His costly and magnificent enterteinment of the king at Oxford you cry out against in your sayd Pulpit libell for a scurrilous enterlude made in disgrace of that which is the greatest beauty of our religion to wit true pietie and learning and will him in this shrift to confesse how unseemely it was for him that pretendeth to succeed the Apostles p. 49. You taxe a certaine speech of his as most audacious and presumptuous setting his proud foote on the kings lawes as once the Pope did on the Emperours necke p. 54. in marg and tell him that the best Apologie hee can make is that his tongue did runne before his wit and that in the flames of his passion he had sacrificed his best reason and loyaltie p. 55. You tell us also that the republishing of the booke for sports with some addition was the first remarkable thing which was done presently after the Lord of Cant. did take possession of his Grace-shippe pag. 59. that with his right hand hee is able to sweepe downe the third part of the starres in heaven p. 121. Having a Papall infallibility of spirit whereby as by a divine oracle all questions in religion are finally determined pag. 132. However in your generall charges I left you to runne riot and disperse your follies according as you would your selfe yet now you are fallen on a particular and a particular as eminent in vertue as hee is in place you may perhaps
neither For at the beginning of November when you Preached that Pasquil of the Fifteene hundred there were not twice fifteen that 's not halfe your number involved in any Ecclesiasticall censure of what sort soever and not above sixteene suspended Sixtie and sixteene are alike in sound but very different in the number and of those sixteene eight were then absolved for a time of further triall to be taken of them and two did voluntarily resigne their places so that you have but six suspended absolutely and persisting so Now of the residue there was one deprived after notorious inconformitie for 12. yeeres together and finall obstinacie after sundry severall monitions eight excommunicated for not appearing at the Court and foure inhibited from preaching of the which foure one by his education was a Draper another was a Weaver and the third was a Taylor Where are the 60. now that you so cry out of I have the rather given you this in the particulars which were collected faithfully unto my hands out of the Registerie of that Diocesse that you and other men may see your false and unjust clamours the rather because it was related to me by a friend of mine in Glocestershire that it went current there amongst your Brethren that your said 60. were suspended for no other cause then for repeating the doxologie at the end of the Lords Prayer So for your other number betweene 60. and 80. suspended upon day till Christmasse or Christide as you please to phrase it upon examination of the Registers there appeare but eight and those not all suspended neither two being Excommunicated for not appearing Eighty and Eight doe come as neere in sound as Sixtie and Sixteene before but differ more a great deale in the Calculation And so much for the grand persecution in the Diocesse of Norwich How doe you find it pray you in other places Why more or lesse say you over al the Kingdom For you complaine as truly but more generally p. 27. that many Godly Ministers in these dayes are most unjustly illegally yea and incanonically also in a most barbarous and furious manner suspended excommunicated outed of their livings and deprived of all livelihood and means to maintaine themselves How just soever the cause be on the Prelates part and that there be no other means to bring things to right there where the Orders of the Church are so out of order then by the exemplary punishment of the most pervers to settle and reduce the rest yet persecution it must be if you please to call it so Such Innocent people as your selfe that runne point-blanck against the Orders of the Church cannot be censured and proceeded with in a legall way but instantly you cry out a Persecution But thus did your Fore-fathers in Queene Elizabeths time et nil mirum est si patrizent filij CHAP. VI. The foure first Innovations charged by H. B. upon the Bishops most clearely proved to be no Innovations Eight Innovations charged upon the Bishops by H. B. King James his order to young Students in Divinity made an Innovation in point of doctrine the reason of the said order and that it was agreeable to the old Canons of this Church Another Order of King James seconded by his Majesty now being with severall Bookes of private men made an Innovation of the Bishops No difference betweene the Church of Rome and England in Fundamentalls Private opinions of some men made Innovations in point of doctrine The Pope not Antichrist for any thing resolved by the Church of England The doctrine of Obedience and of the Sabbath not altered but revived explained and reduced to what it was of old No Innovation made in point of discipline A generall view of Innovations charged upon the Bishops in point of worship Bowing at the Name of Jesus praying towards the East and adoration towards the Altar no new Inventions not standing up at the holy Gospel Crosse-worship falsely charged upon the Bishops No Innovation made by the Bishops in the civill government The dignity and authority of the High-Commission AS is the persecution such are the Innovations also which you have charged upon the Bishops both yours and so both false alike Yet such a neat contriver are you that you have made those Innovations which you dreame of the cause of all that persecution which you so cry out of For in your Pasquil it is told us that we may see or heare at the least of oâ—d heaving and shoving to erect Altar-worship and Jesu-worship and other inventions of men and all as is too plaine to set up Popery againe and for not yeelding to these things ministers are suspended excommunicated c. pag. 25 And pag. 64. you ground the persecution as you call it in the Diocesse of Norwich upon the violent and impetuous obtruding of new Rites and Ceremonies monies You call upon the Bishops by the name of Iesuiticall novell Doctors to blush and be ashamed and tell them that they doe suspend excommunicate and persecute with all fury Gods faithfull ministers and all because they will not they may not they dare not obey their wicked commands which are repugnant to the lawes both of God and man p. 81. If this be true if those that bee thus dealt with bee Gods faithfull ministers and the commands imposed upon them so wicked as you say they are contrary to the lawes both of God and man and tending so notoriously to set up Popery againe you have the better end of the staffe and will prevaile at last no question Meane while you have good cause as you please to tell us to comfort your selfe and blesse the name of God in that he hath not left himselfe without witnesse but hath raised up many zealous and couragious champions of his truth I meane faithfull ministers of his word who chuse rather to lose all they have then to submit and prostitute themselves to the wicked unjust and base commands of usurping Antichristian mushromes their very not yeilding in this battel being a present victory p. 83 But on the other side if the commands of the Superior be just and pious agreeable to the orders of the Church and all pure antiquity then are your godly faithfull ministers no better then factious and schismaticall persons and you your own deare self a seditious Boutefeiu so to incourage and applaud them for standing out against authority This we shall see the better by looking on those Innovations which as you say The Prelates of later dayes have haled in by head and shoulders being besides and against the law of the land and much more the law of God p. 111. These you reduce to these eight heads viz. 1. Innovation in doctrine 2. in discipline 3. in the worship of God 4. in the Civill government 5. in the altering of bookes 6. in the meanes of knowledge 7. in the rule of faith and 8. in the Rule of manners It is a merry world mean-while when you
the Primitive Church As for Franciscus a S. clara being the book is writ in latine and printed in the parts beyond sea how can you charge the Bishops with it for that it hath beene printed in London and presented to the King by a Prelate you dare not certainely affirme but speake it onely upon heere-say p. 117. Or were it so yet being written in the latine it is meete for Schollers and such as understand that language not as your pamphlets are proposed unto the common people either to misinforme them or to inflame them As for the booke intituled the Female glorie you finde not in it that I see by your collections any thing positively or dogmatically delivered contrarie unto any point of doctrine established and received in the Church of England Some swelling language there is in it and some Apostrophes I perceive by you to the virgin Marie which if you take for Invocations you mistake his meaning who tells us plainly as you cite him p. 125. that the more wee ascribe unto her setting Invocation apart the more gracious wee appeare in our Saviours sight No Innovation hitherto in point of Doctrine From bookes set out by private men proceed we to the opinions of some certaine Quidams which you are displeased with and were it so as you report it yet the opinions of some private men prove not in my poore Logick an Innovation in the Doctrine by the Church delivered though contrary unto the Doctrine so delivered To make an Innovation in point of Doctrine there must be an unanimous and general concurrence of minds and men to set on foote the new and desert the old not the particular fancie of one private man And yet I think you will not find me out that particular man that hath defended any thing contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England and passed uncensured Yes that you can you say for certaine For a great Prelate in the High Commission Court said openly at the censure of Dr. Bastwick that wee and the Church of Rome differ not in fundamentalibus but circa fundamentalia as also that the same had beene affirmed by one Choune p. 122. Suppose this true and how comes this to be an Innovation in the Doctrine of the Church of England Hath the Church any where determined that wee and those of Rome doe differ in the Fundamentalls if not why doe you make this saying an Innovation in the Churches Doctrine The Church indeed hath told us in the Nineteenth Article that the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith it hath not told us that that Church hath erred in Fundamentalls The learned Junius could have told you that the Church of Rome is a true Church quoad essentiam according to the essence of a Church lib. de Eccl. cap. 7. and Dr. Whitakers that there were many things in the Church of Rome Baptisme the Ministery and the Scriptures quae ad veram ecclesiam pertinent which properly appertaine to a true Church An argument that neither of them thought that Church had erred in Fundamentalls And certainly if that confession of Saint Peter Thou art Christ the Sonne of the living God Matth. 16. be that Rocke on which the Church of Christ is founded as all our Protestant Divines affirme it is the Church of Rome doth hold as fast on that foundation as you or any Zealot of your acquaintance and hath done more against the Hereticks of this Age in maintenance of the Divinitie of our Lord and Saviour then you or any one of your Divines be hee who he will But for the Church of Rome that it is a true Church and that wee doe not differ from them in fundamentalls you may see further in a little booke called the Reconciler doe not you remember it and the occasion of it too writ by the Bishop of Exeter now being and therein the opinion of some Bishops to the selfe same purpose and of some others also learned men whose judgement you preferre in other things more then any Bishops Had you but throughly studied the Reconciler as you should have done you had not made this quarrell perhaps none at all As for the other opinions of more private men that have offended you you goe on and say that Justifiâ—ation by works was maintained in Cambridge at the Commencement not long agoe and that Shelfords booke will prove Justification by Charitie as also that the said Shelford in that book maintaineth that the Pope is not Antichrist contrary as you say to the resolved Doctrines of our Church in our Homilies and else-where p. 122. and 123. In answere to the first of which I hope you doe not think in earnest that whatsoever point is ventilated and discussed in the Publike Schooles is presently conceived to be a Doctrine of the Church or that there hath beene nothing handled in those disputations but what is agreeable thereto Many things there both are and may be handled and propounded problematically and argued Pro and Con as the custom is as well for the discovery of the trueth as the true issue of the question betweene the parties And if you please to cast your eye upon those questions which have beene heretofore disputed at those solemne times how many will you find amongst them and those of your owne speciall friends in which the Church hath not determined or not determined so as they have then and there been stated and yet no clamour raised about it Nor doe you truely relate the businesse neither Thesis not being so proposed as you informe us Viz. That wee are Justified by Workes but onely that good Workes are effectually necessary to Salvation so that the principall part of our justification was by the Doctor then and there ascribed to faith workes only comming in as effectuall meanes to our salvation For Shelfords Booke what ever is in that maintained should as little trouble you if he ascribe a speciall eminencie unto Charitie in some certaine things it is no more then what was taught him by Saint Paul who doth preferre it as you cannot chuse but know before Faith and Hope Nor doth hee attribute our justification thereunto in any other sense then what was taught him by Saint James And here I purposed to have left you with these opinions of particular and private men but that you tell us by the way that by the Doctrine of our Church in the Homilies and elsewhere it is resolved that the Pope is Antichrist Your else-where I am sure is no where and that which you alledge from the booke of Homilies is as good as nothing The Second Homilie for Whitsunday concludeth with a Prayer that by the mighty power of the holy Ghost the comfortable Doctrine of Christ may be truely preached truely received and truly followed in all places to the beating down of sinne death the Pope the Devill and all the Kingdom of Antichrist Can you
alleigance 1. Elizabethae and here to make your ignorance the more remarkeable you place the oath of Supremacie 3. Iac. Cujus contrarium verum est The oath of alleigeance t is you meane And sure you will not say all Seminarie Priests and Lay-papists refuse the oath of alleigeance considering that of each sort some have written very learnedly in defence thereof therefore according to your way of disputation the religion of all Papists is not rebellion and consequently their faith not faction The second proofe you offer is that by Doctor Iohn White and Dr. Cracanthorp it is affirmed that the Church of Rome teacheth disloyaltie and rebellion against kings that Popish Authors doe exalt the Popes power over kings that some of theÌ„ have sayd that Christian kings are dogges which must be ready at the Shepheards hand or else the Shepheard must remove them from their office p. 134.135 This argument is full as faulty as the other was and will conclude as much against your selfe and the Puritan faction as any Papist of them all The Citizens of Geneva expelled their Bp. as the Calvinians in Emden did their Earle being their immediate Lords and Princes Calvin hath taught us that the three estates Paraeus that the inferiour Magistrate Buchanan that the people may correct and controule the Prince and in some cases too depose him And you Mass Burton have condemned that absolute obedience unto Kings and Princes which is due to them from their subjects and that unlimited power which is ascribed unto them because theirs of right Therefore we may from hence conclude or else your argument is worth nothing that out of doubt the Puritan religion is rebellion and their faith faction As for your generall challenge p. 191. viz. What one Protestant can they bring that ever committed treason against his king or lifted up an hand against his sacred person I leave it to the Papists to make answere to it to whom your chalenge is proposed But I could tell you in your eare which I would to God were otherwise of more than one or two twice told and twice told to that Protestants of that sort which you most labour to defend and make to bee the onely right ones Had you distinguished as you ought betweene the doctrines of that Church and the particular either words or actions of particular men you had not made so rash a venture and lost more by it than you got So then the religion of the Church of Rome not being in it selfe rebellion though somewhat which hath there beene taught may possibly have beene applyed to rebellious purposes there is a little feare that their faith is faction and so the alteration not so grievous as you faine would have it What further reason there was in it you shall see anon The third booke altered as you say is that set sorth by the king for the publicke fast in the first yeare of his reigne and which his Majestie by his proclamation commanded to be reprinted and published and so reade in the Church every Wednesday What finde you altered there In the first Collect as you tell us is left out this remarkeable pious sentence intirely viz. Thou hast delivered us from superstition and idolatry wherein we were utterly drowned and hast brought us into the most cleere comfortable light of thy blessed word c. And then you ad Loe here these men would not have Popery called Superstition and Idolatry nor would they have the Word of God so commended as that cleare and comfortable light which teacheth us all duties both to God and man p. 142. This is the last of all these changes which tend as you informe us to bring in Popery and therefore I will tell you here what I conceive to be the reason of those alterations which you so complaine of You cannot chuse but know because I think you have it in your Pamphlet against D Cosens that in the Letanie of King Edward 6. there was this clause viz. From the tyrannie of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities from all false doctrine c. Good Lord deliver us This was conceived to be as indeede it was a very great scandall and offence to all those in the Realme of England which were affected to the Church of Rome and therefore in the Liturgie of Queene Elizabeth it was quite left out Had you beene then alive you might perhaps have quarrelled it and taxed those learned men that did it of Popery Innovation I know not what and then conclude it that they would have the people think that there was neither tyrannie in the Pope nor any detestable enormitie in the Church of Rome But as that then was done with a good intent and no man quarrelled for it that I can heare of why should you thinke worse of the changes now or quarrell that authoritie which gave order for it before you knew by whose authority it was so done conceive you not that those who in this Kingdome are affected to the Church of Rome are not as apt to take offence now as they were before or that there is not now as much consideration to bee had of those which are that way affected as was in any part of the said Queenes time the matter being of no greater moment than this is how great soever you pretend it Most of our faults before have beene of Commission but these that follow most of them are omissionâ— onely First you except against the leaving out of the whole prayer It had beene best for us c. And this was done with an Alas because therein was commended the profitable use of continuall preaching the Word of God p. 142. The Newes from Ipswich calls it the most effectuall prayer of all because it magnifies continuall often preaching c. and call's our powerfull Preachers Gods servants Say you me so Then let us looke upon the Prayer where I perswade my selfe there is no such matter All that reflects that way is this It had beene also well if at thy dreadfull threates out of thy holy word continually pronounced unto us by thy servants our Preachers we had of feare as corrigible servants turned from our wickednesse This all and in all this where doe you finde one word that magnifies continuall preaching or that takes any notice of your powerfull Preachers quorum pars ego magna as you boast your self Cannot the dreadfull threats of Gods holy word be any other way pronounced and pronounced continually by Gods servant then by the way of Sermons only or if by sermons onely by no other Preachers than those whom you stile powerful preachers by a name distinct I trow the reading of Gods Word in the congregatioÌ„ presents unto the people more dreadfull threats then what you lay before them in a sermon and will sinke as deepe Therefore assuredly there was some other reason for it then that you dreame of â—nd thinke you that it
superstition and stiling the conformable ministers of this Church a generation of Idolatrous sacrificing Masse-priests You know what he in Tacitus replied on the like occasion Tu linguae ego aurium Dominus sum And you may raile on if you please for any answere we shall give you but neglect and patience Onely I will be bold to tel you that were it not for those Cathedralls howsoever you vilifie and miscall them we had not onely before this time beene at a losse amongst ourselves in the whole forme and order of divine service heere established but possibly might have had farre more Recusants in this kingdome then now wee have Which if you take to be a Paradox as no doubt you will you may remember that it was affirmed by Marquesse Rhosny Ambassadour here for King Henry the fourth of France having observed the majestie of our divine service in Cathedrals that if the same had bin observed by the Protestants in France there had not been so many Papists left in it as there were at that time For your particular instances in the Cathedrall Churches of Durham Bristol Saint Pauls and Wulpher Hampton 161. though I trowe Wulpherhampton bee no Cathedrall but that you have a minde to match your friend the Minister for his Cathedrall Church at Dâ—ver the most that you except against are things of ornament which you are grieved to see you more rich and costly then they have been formerly Judas and you alike offended at any cost that is bestowed upon our Saviour either on his bodie or about his Temples both of you thinking all is lost that is so disposed of and that it would doe better in the common bagg whereof hee was and you perhaps have beene the bearers And so I should proceed to the third Argument which you have made in the behalfe of these Innovations as you cal them drawn from the furniture fashion of his M â—â— Chappell and to an answer thereunto But we have met with them already partly in answere to your own wretched seditious comparison of his Majesties Chappell and the Altar there to Julian the Apostates Altar and Nebuchadnezzars golden image and partly in reply to the selfe same answers made to the sold Argument by your friend the Minister your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and true yoake-fellow in this cause whither I referre you So having traced you up and downe from one end of your Pasquill unto the other and looked upon those factious and seditious doctrines which you have preached unto the people nothing remaineth but that I lay before you and your Audience a word of Application and so conclude THE CONCLUSION Containing an addresse to H. B. and representing to him the true condition of his crime and punishment thereto belonging if he should be dealt withall according to the Law in that behalfe Oldnols case The Puritanes use to practise on the people for the accomplishment of their designes Scandalum magnatum what it is and how punished Seditious writings brought within the compasse of Treason and severall persons executed for the same Many of the Principall of the faction hanged up by a particular Statute in Q. Elizabeths time The power ascribed unto the people by the Puritan doctrine An Exhortation to the People to continue in obedience to God the King and his publike Ministers No further Answeres to be looked for to those pestilent libells which every day are cast abroad The close of all IT pleased King James of blessed memory to leave unto the World at once both a complaint for and commendation of the Church of England It is a signe saith he of the latter dayes drawing on even the contempt of the Church and of the Governours and Teachers thereof now in the Church of England which I say in my conscience of any Church that ever I read or knew of present or past is most pure and neerest the Primitive and Apostolicall Church in Doctrine and Discipline and is sureliest founded upon the Word of God of any Church in Christendome Which commendation as the Church doth still retaine so may it take up the complaint in more grievous manner those times being modest then in respect of these and those contempts which he complaines of being now growne to such an height Supra quod ascendi non possit that greater cannot be imagined Wherein as the Triumviri whom at first I spake of have well played their parts so there is none of any age nor all together in all ages which hath shewne greater malice unto the Church and to the Governors and Teachers of it then you Mas Burton Not to the Bishops only and inferiour persons whom either for their place or calling you were bound to honour but to the supreame Governor thereof your Soveraign and Patron as you please sometimes to call him your carriage towards whom I shall first lay down according as before delivered and after tell you my opinion freely what I thinke therein First for the King you call His royall power in question and are offended very much that any one should attribute unto him an unlimited power as you meane unlimited or that the Subject should be taught that his obedience must be absolute that being say you a way to cast the feare of God and so his Throne downe unto the ground You tell us of some things the King cannot doe and that there is a power in government which he neither hath nor may transferre upon another You had my censure of this before in the Second Chapter Yet I will here be bold to tell you that as it is a kind of Atheisme to dispute pro and con what God can doe and what hee cannot though such disputes are raised sometimes by unquiet witts so it is a kind of disobedience and disloyalty to question what a King can doe being Gods Deputie here on earth especially to determine what he can and what he cannot Then for the obedience of the Subject you limit it to positive lawes the King to be no more obeyed then there is speciall Law or Statute for it the Kings Prerogative Royall being of so small a value with you that no man is to prize it or take notice of it further then warranted by Law and which is worse you ground this poore obedience which you please to yeeld him upon that mutuall stipulation which is between the King and people and thereby teach the people that they are no longer to obey the King then he keeps promise with the people This ground of obedience laied you next proceed unto the censure of his Majesties actions complaining that in your commitment unto Prison his Majestie had not kept his solemne covenant made with his people touching their Petition which you call of right That by his Declaration before the Articles the Doctrines of Gods Grace and mans salvation have beene husht and silenced and that by silencing those needlesse controversies there is a secret purpose to suppresse Gods truth
commanded fire from heaven to have burnt them all or sent them further off with a noli me tangere But caught or not caught all was one For though it was no time to move the Court for a Prohibition being out of Terme yet he bethought himselfe of another way to elude his Judges and that was by a strange Appeale being neither a gravamine nor a sententia to decline that Court and put the cause immediately into his Majesties hands where he might be he thought both a defendant and complainant as he saith himselfe p. 1. of the Apologie A fine invention doubtlesse but more sine then fortunate For on a new Contempt as himselfe informes us he was suspended by the high-Commissioners both from his Benefice and Office and the suspension published as he now complaines in his own Parish Church to his intolerable disgrace and scandall Indignum facinus Therfore that all the World might knowted and on what suspended Lo a necessitie so he saith is laid upon him as formerly to Preach now to Print his Sermon for Sermon he will have it called whosoever saith nay And printed at the last it was as before was said and therewithall was printed also an Apologie for the said Appeale with severall addresses to the Kings most Excellent Majestie to all the true-hearted Nobilitie of His Majesties most honorable Privie Counsell and to the Reverend and Learned Judges the Copies of them both being spread abroad for the greater consolation of the Brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here and there dispersed like Simeon and Levi brethren in evill in the tribes of Israel This is the substance of the storie which I have here laid downe together by way of preface that with lesse interruption I might ply the Argument presented to us both in the Sermon and Apologie For howsoever neither of them be considerable in regard of the Author who since his being thrust out of the Court hath beene an open and professed enemie of the Publicke Government yet in relation to the Church and Rulers of it whom he endeavoureth to expose to the common hatred and next in reference to the people whom he hath laboured to possesse with false and sinister conceits of the present state it hath beene thought convenient by authority that an Answer should be made unto them The preservation of Religion is a thing so Sacred that we cannot prize it to the height and therefore they that labour to preserve it are of all men the most to be esteemed and honoured Proximus diis habetur per quem deorum majestas vindicatur as the Historian rightly noted So that wee cannot blame poore men if they are startled and affrighted at those scandalous rumors which are diffused and spread amongst them to make them think that Religion is in no small danger or if they hold a Reverend esteeme of those who seeme to them to have a principall care thereof and the safety of it Onely they are to be admonished not to be too credulous in matters of so high a nature till they are throughly certified of the trueth thereof that they conceive not ill of the Church their mother upon the light and false reports of every male contented spirit or thinke them Champions of Religion who are indeed the bane and disturbers of it That Faction in the Church which Mast Burton and his Copesmates have so much laboured to promote hath since the first beginning of it accused the Church of England of the selfe same crimes whereof they now pronounce her guilty nor haue they found any new matter wherewithall to charge her than that which their fore-fathers had beene hammering on in the times before them yet they cry out with no lesse violence but farre more malice than their fathers did and fill the minds of iealous and distrustfull people with doubts and feares of innovations of and in the worship of God the whole doctrine of Religion as if the bankes were broken downe and Popery were breaking in a maine upon us onely because they can no longer be permitted to violate all the orders of Gods Church here by Law established The Papists and these men how different soever they may seeme to bee in other matters have as it were by joynt consent agreed in this to charge this Church with novelties and innovations the one especially in the poynts of Doctrine the other principally in matters of exteriour order the service of God But as we say unto the one that in the reformation of this Church we introduced no novelties into the same but onely laboured to reduce her to that estate and quality wherin she was in her originall beauty and the Primitive times so may we say unto the other that all those Innovations which they have charged upon the Church in their scandalous Pamphlets are but a restitution of those ancient orders which were established heere at that Reformation This that the world might see and see how scandalously and seditiously they traduce the Church I was commanded by authority to returne an Answer to all the challenges and charges in the said two Sermons and Apology of Master Burton For being it was the leading Libell in respect of time the principall matters in the Newes from Ipswich being borrowed from Master Burtons Sermon and that those many which have followed are but a repetition of and a dilating on those poynts which are there conteined it was conceived that bee being answered the rest would perish of themselves On this command I set my selfe unto the Work and though I knew no credit could bee gotten from such an Adversary Vbi vincere inglorium est atteri sordidum and that there are a sort of men who hate to be reformed in the Psalmists Language yet being so commanded I obeyed accordingly cannot but account it an especiall honour to mee to bee commanded any thing in the Churches service Besides J could not but be grieved to see my dearest Mother traduced so fowly in things whereof I knew her guiltlesse and it had argued in mee a great want of Piety not to have undertaken her defence herein being called unto it From which two great and grievous crimes defect of piety and true affection to the Church our mother and disobedience to the commands and orders of the higher powers no lesse than from the Plague and Pestilence good Lord deliver us Having thus rendred an account both of the reasons why the Sermon and Apology of Master Burton have been thought worthy of an Answer and why for my part J have undertaken a Reply unto him I must now settle close unto the businesse beginning first with the Apology so farre forth as it justifieth his said Appeale and leaving those particulars which he doth charge upon the Prelates to be considered of more fully in due place and time CHAP. I. Containing a particular answere to the severall Cavills of H. B. in defence of his Appeale Appeales unto His Majestie in what case
to dispute but to disobey the Kings commands Now Sir I pray you what are you or by what spirit are you guided that you should finde your selfe agreeved at unlimited power which some of better understanding then your selfe have given to Kings or thinke it any Innovation in point of doctrine in case the doctrine of obedience to our superiours bee pressed more home of late then it hath beene formerly Surely you have lately studied Buchannan dejure regni or the vindiciae writ by Beza under the name of Iunius Brutus or else perhaps you went no further then Paraeus where the inferiour Magistrates or Calvin where the three estates have an authority to controule and correct the King And should the King be limited within those narrow bounds which you would prescribe him had you power he would in little time be like the antient Kings of Sparta in which the Ephori or the now Duke of Venice in which the Senate beare the greatest stroke himselfe meane time being a bare sound and an emptie name Stet magni nominis umbra in the Poets language Already you have layd such grounds by which each private man may not alone dispute but disobey the Kings commandements For if the Subject shall conceive that the Kings command is contrary to Gods word though indeede it be not or to the fundamentall lawes of state although hee cannot tell which be fundamentall or if he finde no precedent of the like commands in holy Scripture which you have made to be the onely rule of conscience in all these cases it is lawfull not to yeeld obedience Your selfe have given us one case in your Margin pag. 77. we will put the other Your reprehension is of those that so advance mans ordinances and commandements as though they be contrary to Gods Law and the fundamentall lawes of state yet presse men to obedience to them your instance is of one which was shrewdly threatned how true that is we meane to tell the world hereafter for refusing to doe that which was not agreeable to the word of God viz. for refusing to read the booke of sports as you declare it in the Margin pag. 26. whether you referre us So then the case is this The King permits his people honest recreations on the Lords day according as had beene accustomed till you and your accomplices had cryed it downe with order to the Bishops to see his declaration published in the Churches of their severall diocesses respectively This publication you conceive to bee repugnant to Gods word though none but a few factious spirits ever so conceived it and that your doctrine of the Sabbath be contrary to all antiquity and moderne Churches and therefore by your rule they doe very well that refuse to publish it It 's true indeed in things that are directly contrary to the law of God such as carry in them a plaine and manifest impietie there is no question to be made but it is better to obey God then man But when the matter chiefly resteth either in misapplying or misunderstanding the word of God a fault too incideÌ„t to ignorant unstable men to none more then to your disciples their teachers too or that the word of God be made a property like the Pharisees Corban to justifie your disobedience unto Kings and Princes your rule is then as false as your action faulty So for your second limitation that 's but little better and leaves a starting hole to malicious persons from whence to worke on the affections of the common people For put the case the King in necessary and emergent causes touching the safety of his empire demand the present ayde of all his subjects and any Tribunitian spirit should informe them that this demand is contrary unto the fundamentall lawes of state according to your rule the subject is not bound to obey the king nay he might refuse it although the busines doth concerne especially his owne preservation But your third limitation that of conscience is the worst of all For where you make the word of God to be the onely rule of conscience you doe thereby conclude expressely that neither Ecclesiasticall or Civill ordinances doe binde the conscience and therein overthrow the Apostles doctrine who would have Every soule be subject to the higher powers not for wrath onely but for conscience sake So that in case the king command us any thing for which we finde not some plaine precept or particular warrant in the word of God as if the King command all Lecturers to read the service of the Church in their â—oodes and surplices before their Lectures such his command is plainely against conscience at least the Lecturers are not bound in conscience to submit unto it because there is no speciall precept for it in holy Scripture And certainely this plea of conscience is the most dangerous buckler against authoritie which in these latter ages hath beene taken up So dangerous that were the plea allowed and all the judgements of the king in banco permitted to bee scanned and traversed in this Court of Conscience there were a present end of all obedience Si ubi jubeantur quaerere singulis liceat peunte obsequio imperium etiam intercidit as he in Tacitus If every man had leave to cast in his scruple the balance of authority would be soone weighed downe Yet since you are so much agreived at the unlimited power which some gives to Kings will you be pleased to know that Kings doe hold their crownes by no other Tenure than Dei gratia and that what ever power they have they have from God by whom Kings reigne and Princes decree justice So say the Constitutions ascribed to Clements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Irenaeus also an antient father Cujus jussu homines nascuntur ejus jussu reges constituuntur And Porphyrie remembreth it amongst the Tenets of the Essees a Iewish Sect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no man ever did beare rule but by Gods appointment Holding then what they have from God whose deputies they are and of whose power they are partakers how and by whom doe you conceive they should be limited doubtlesse you meane to say by the lawes of the Land But then if question be demanded who first made those lawes you must needes answere also the kings themselves So that in case the kings in some particulars had not prescribed limits unto themselves and bound their owne hands as it were to enlarge the peoples neither the people nor any lawes by them enacted could have done it Besides the law of Monarchie is founded on the Law of nature not on positive lawes and positive lawes I trow are of no such efficacie as to annihilate any thing which hath its being and originall in the law of nature Hence is it that all soveraigne Princes in themselves are above the lawes as Princes are considered in abstracto and extent of power and how farre that extent will
Pastimes are prohibited upon that day and therefore dauncing leaping and the rest which the Book alowes of p. 57. For this you are beholding to your learned Counsell the first that ever so interpreted that Statute and thereby set the Statute and the Declaration at an endlesse odds But herein you goe farre beyond him for he only quarrelled with the living who had power to right themselves You lay a scandal on the dead who are now laid to sleepe in the bed of peace and tell us of that Prince of blessed memory King James that the said Booke for Sports was procured compiled and published in the time of his progresse into Scotland when he was more then ordinarily merrily disposed p. 58. When he was more then ordinarily merrily disposed Good Sir your meaning Dare you conceive a base and disloyall thought and not speake it out for all that Parrhesia which you so commend against Kings and Princes p. 26. Leave you so faire a face with so foule a scarre and make that peereles Prince whom you and yours did blast with daily Libells when he was alive the object of your Puritanicall I and uncharitable scoffes now he is deceased Unworthy wretch whose greatest and most pure devotions had never so much heaven in it as his greatest mirth I could pursue you further were you worth my labor or rather if to Apologize for so great a Prince non esset injuria virtutum as he in Tacitus were not too great an injurie to his eminent virtues and therfore I shall leave your disloyal speeches of the King deceased to take a further view of those disloyall passages which doe so neerely concerne the King our now Royall Soveraigne For lest the people should continue in their duty to him being the thing you feare above all things else you labour what you can to take them off at lest to terrify his Majesty with a feare to lose them For you assure us on your word because you would have it so p. 64. that pressing of that Declaration with such cursed rigour as you call it both without and against all Law and all example and that also in the Kings name is very dangerous to breed in peoples mindes as not being well acquainted with His Majesties either dispositions or protestations still you bring in that I know not what strange scruples or feares causing them to stagger in their good opinion of his Majestie And in the Apologie giving distast to cal your Majesties loyall subject who hereupon grow jealous of some dangerous plot p. 6. You would faine have it so else you would not say it Quod minus miseri volunt hoc facile credunt But hereof and how you encourage men to stand it out wee have more to come A man would think that you had said enough against your Soveraigne charging him with so frequent violating of his protestations and taxing in such impudent manner his Declaration about sports as tending mainly to the dishonour of God the prophanation of the Sabbath the annihilation of the fourth Commandement and the alteration of the doctrine of the Church of England Yet that which followes next is of farre worse nature no lesse a crime then pulling down of preaching and setting up Idolatry pretty Peccadillo's For Preaching first it pleased his sacred Majestie out of a tender care of his peoples safety to ordaine a fast by his Royall Proclamation to provide that in infected parishes there should be no Sermon the better to avoid the further spreading of the Sicknesse which in a generall confluxe of people as in some Churches to some Preachers might bee soone occasioned This his most royall care you except against as an Innovation contrary to his Majesties publick Declarations p. 146. and in the Newes from Ipswich you tell us also that it is a meanes to inhibit preaching and consequently to bring Gods wrath upon us to the uttermost p. 147. You call it scornfully a mock-fast p. 148. a mock-fast and a dumb-fast distastfull to all sorts of people in the Ipswich newes and in plaine language tell the King that this restraint with other innovations which you have charged upon the Prelates do fill the peoples minds with jealousies and fears of an universal alteration of religion p. 147. What peoples minds are filled so I beseech you sir but those whom you and such as you have so possessed I trow you have not had the people to confession lately that you should know their minds and feares so well as you seeme to do But know or not know that 's no matter the King is bound to take it upon your word especially considering that the restraint of preaching in dangerous and infected places and on the day of fast when men come empty to the Church and so are farre more apt to take infection then at other times is such an Innovation as certainly the like was never heard of in the holy Scripture or any of the former ages and withall so directly contrary unto his Majesties solemne Protestations made unto his people Here 's a great cry indeed but a little wooll For how may wee be sure that the holy Scripture and all former ages have prescribed preaching as a necessary part of a publike fast yea as the very life and soule of a fast as you please to phrase it both in your Pulpit Pasquill p. 144. and the newes from Ipswich That so it was in holy Scripture you cite good store as viz. 2 Chron. 6.28.29.30 Chap. 7.17.14 Numb 25.6 to 10. Ioel. 1. 2. Zeph. 2.1.2.3 all in the margin of the Newes book Of all which texts if there be one that speakes of preaching let the indifferent Reader judge The Scripture being silent in it how shall we know it was the custome in all former ages For that you tell us in the same margine of the Newes book that so it was 1. Iacobi Caroli Most fairly proved I never knew till now but that the world was older then I see it is Men talk of certain thousands that the world hath lasted but we must come to you for a new Chronologie The world my masters and all former ages which comes both to one contain but 34 yeares full not a minute more An excellent Antiquarie No marvell if his Majesty be taxed with innovations changing as he hath done the doctrine of the Sabbath first set on foor Anno 1596 and the right way of celebrating a publike fast for which you have no precedent before the yeare 1603. Nor can I blame the people if they feare an alteration of religion when once they see such dreadfull Innovations break in upon them and all his Majesties solemne protestations so soon forgotten neglected Yet let me tell you sir that fast and pray was the old rule which both Scriptures and the Church have commended to us as in the texts by you remembred and that delivered by Saint Paul 1. Cor. 7.5 Oratio jejunium sanctificat jejunium orationem
and such as you the Innovators and Novatians of the present times complaine of other men for that very fault of which your selves are onely guilty Quis tulerit Gracchos But to goe with you point per point what Innovations have you to complaine of in point of doctrine Marry say you There was an order procured from King Iames of famous memory to the Universities that young Students should not reade our moderne learned writers as Calvin Beza and others of the reformed Churches but the Fathers and School-men p. 111. Quid hoc ad Ithycli boves What have the Bishops now alive to do with any act of King James his time or how can this direction of that learned Prince bee brought within the compasse of Innovations in point of doctrine Directions to young Students how to order and dispose their studies are no points of doctrine nor doe I finde it in the Articles of the Church of England that Calvin or Beza are 〈◊〉 bee preferred before Saint Austin or Aquinas But doe you know the reason of the said direction or if you do not will you learne Then I will tell you There was one Knight a young Divine that preached about that time at Saint Peters in Oxford and in his Sermon fell upon a dangerous point though such perhaps as you like well of viz. that the inferiour Magistrate had a lawfull power to order and correct the King if he did amisse using this speech of Trajans unto the Captaine of his Guard Accipe hunc gladium quem pro me si bene imperavero distringes sin minus contra me For this being called in question both in the University and before the King he layed the fault of all upon some late Divines of forraigne Churches who had misguided him in that point especially on Paraeus who in his Comment on the Romans had so stated it and in the which he found that saying of the Emperour Trajan On this confession Paraeus Comment on that Epistle was publickly and solemnly burnt at Oxford Cambridge and Saint Pauls Crosse London And shortly after came out that order of King James prohibiting young ungrounded Students to beginne their studies in Divinity with such books as those in whom there were such dangerous positions tending so manifestly to Anarchy and disobedience but that they should beginne with the holy Scriptures so descendendo to the Fathers and the School men and by degrees to those Divines you so much magnifie Whâ—â— hurt in this good sir but that it seemes you are possessed with your old feare that by this means the Kings may come to have an unlimited power and absolute obedience will be pressed more throughly on the subjects conscience Besides you cannot but well know that generally those divines of forraigne Churches are contrary in the point of discipline unto the Hierarchy and rites of the Church of England which some implicitely and some explicitely have opposed and quarrelled Which as it is the onely reason why you would have them studied in the first place that so young students might be seasoned with your Puritan principles so might it be another motive why by the Kings direction they should come in last that Students finding in the Fathers Councels and Ecclesiasticall historians what was the true and ancient kinde of governement in the Church of Christ might judge the better of the modernes when they came to reade them Nor was this any new direction neither it being ordered by the Canons of the yeere 1571. Cap. de Concionatoribus that nothing should bee preached unto the people but what was consonant unto the doctrine of the old and new Testament quodque ex illa ipsâ doctrina Catholici Patres veteres Episcopi collegerint and had beene thence collected by the Orthodox Fathers and ancient Bishops As for your dealing with the Fathers of whom you say as Virgil said of Ennius that they which reade them must margaritas e Coeno legere gather pearles out of the mud p. 112. that's but a tast of your good manners Nor would you slight them so I take it but that the most of them were Bishops But whatsoever you thinke of them a wiser man then you hath told us qui omnem Patribus adimit authoritatem nullam relinquet sibi Your second Innovation in point of doctrine is so like the first that one would sweare they were of one mans observation and that is the procuring of another order in King James his naâ—â— inhibiting young Ministers to preach of the doctrines of election and reprobation and that none but Bishops and Deanes should handle those points Good Sir what hurt in this Are those deepe mysteries of Gods secret Counsailes fit argument for young unexperienced Preachers wherein calores juveniles excercere to trie their manhood and give the first assay of their abilities or call you this an Innovacion in point of doctrine when as for ought you have to say the doctrine in those points continued as before it did onely the handling of the same was limited and restrained to graver heads The like complaint you make of his Majesties Declaration before the Articles by meanes whereof you say the doctrins of the Gospell must bee for ever husht and laied asleepe p. 114. what Sir are all the doctrines of the Gospel husht and laied asleepe because you are inhibited to preach of predestination and that not absolutely neither but that you may not wrest the Article in that point as you were accustomed This was the Devills plea to Eve and from him you learnt it that God had said to our first father hee should not eate of every or any tree in the Garden of Eden whereas he was restrained onely from the tree of knowledge of good and evill But hereof wee have spoke alreadie and referre you thither Hitherto also you reduce the publishing of certaine bookes most of the which were either answer'd or called in and therefore you have little reason to except against them My Lord of Chichesters appeale was as you say called 〈◊〉 by our gracious Soveraigne and had not other men free leave to print and publish a discourse in answere to it The Historicall narration you disliked and that was called in too to please you If Doctor Jacksons bookes were as you falsly tell us to maintaine Arminianisme I doubt not but you have in keeping a booke invisible to any but to such as you said to bee writ by Doctor Twisse as much against his person as against his argument For Doctor Cosens Private Devotions that still lieth heavy on your komacke as not yet digested though both your selfe and your learned Counsell disgorged your selves upon him in a furious manner Brownes prayer before his Sermon if you are agrieved at you may finde the verie clause verbatim in King Edwards first liturgie Anno 1549. which in that verie act of Parliament wherein the second was confirmed is said to bee a very Godly order agreeable to the word of God and
conclude from hence that by the Doctrin of the Church the Pope is Antichrist the Devill assone For they are put there as distinct things the Pope the Devill and the kingdome of Antichrist and being put downe as distinct you have no reason to conclude that it is resolved by that Homilie that the Pope is Antichrist Nor doth the 6 Homilie of Rebellion say the Pope is Antichrist Though it saith somewhat of the Babylonicall beast of Rome The whole clause is this In King Johns time the Bishop of Rome understanding the bruite blindnesse ignorance of Gods word and superstition of Englishmen and how much they were inclined to worship the Babylonicall beast of Rome and to feare all his threatnings and causelesse curses hee abused them thus c. Where certainely the Babylonicall beast of Rome is not the same with the Bishop or Pope of Rome but rather the abused power of that then prevalent and predominant See Or were it that the Pope is meant yet not being spoken positively and dogmatically that the Pope is and is to be beleeved to be the Babylonicall beast of Rome it is no more to bee accounted for a doctrine of the Church of England then that it was plaine Simony in the Prelates then to pay unto the Bishop of Rome great summes of mony for their Bulls and conformations as is there affirmed I have yet one thing more to say unto you in this point Saint John hath given it for a rule that every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God but is that Spirit of Antichrist whereof you have heard c. So that unlesse you can make good as I thinke you cannot that the Pope of Rome confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh you have no reason to conclude that hee is that Antichrist Hitherto we have followed you to finde an innovation in point of doctrine and are yet to seeke and if wee finde it not in the next two instances both wee and you have lost our labour There you say somewhat doubtlesse and charge the Bishop with two dangerous innovations one in the doctrine of obedience to superiors the other in the doctrine of the Sabbath or Lords-day These wee have met withall alreadie and therefore shall say little here Onely I would faine learne for I know not yet where that conditionall obedience which you onely like of is delivered to us by the Church where there is any thing layed downe for a publick doctrine against that absolute obedience which you so dislike and reckon the inforcing of it amongst the Innovations made in point of doctrine your brethren in the Conference at Hampton Court put in a scruple how farre an ordinance of the Church was to binde them without impeaching of their Christian libertie where at the King being much moved answered that it smelled very ranckely of Anabaptisme adding I charge you never to speak more to that point how farre you are bound to obey when the Church hath ordained it What think you Sir Heere is an absolute obedience preached to the Churches Ordinances I hope you cannot tender lesse unto the Orders of the King As for that other Innovation which you tell us of about the doctrine of the Sabbath there is indeed a mighty alteration in it I could wish there were not but it was made by you and yours who litle more then 40. yeeres agone first broached these Sabbath-speculations in the Church of England which now you presse uppon her for her antient doctrine This hath beene shewne at large elsewhere and therefore I will say nothing now But where you say that for the maintenance of that change which you lay upon them their novell Doctors have strained the veines of their conscience no lesse then of their braines p. 126. I am bold to tell you that at the best you are a most uncharitable man to judge the hearts of those whose face you know not For my part I can speake for one and take almighty God to witnesse that in the part committed to mee I have dealt with all ingenuitie and sinceritie and make this protestation before God and man that if in all the scriptures Fathers Councells moderne writers or whatsoever monument of the Church I met within so long a search I had found any thing in favour of that doctrine which you so approve I would not have concealed it to the suppression of a truth for all the world How ever you accuse me yet my conscience doth not Delectat tamen conscientia quod estanimae pabulum incredibili jucunditate perfusum in Lactantius language Your Innovations in the points of Doctrin being blowne to nothing let us see next what is it that you have to say for the change of discipline the second Innovation which you charge upon my Lords the Bishops And here you say that where of old the censures of the Church were to be inflicted upon disordered and vicious persons as drunkards adulterers heretickes Apostata's false-teachers and the like now the sharpe edge thereof is turned mainely against Gods people and Ministers even for their vertue and pietie and because they will not conforme to their impious orders p. 127. That Bishops sometimes turne the edge of their authoritie on those who you entitle Gods ministers and people is as true as necessarie but that they turne it on them even for their pietie and vertue is both false and scandalous Iust so a Brother of yours whom I spare to name preached once at Oxford that good and honest men were purposely excluded from preferments there ob hoc ipsum quod pij quod boni onely because they were inclined to pietie and vertue But Sir those godly folke you speake of are Godly onely in your eye and in such as yours and if the edge of authoritie be turned upon them it is because they have too much of your spirit in them The censures of the Church proceed no otherwise now then of old they did Looke in the antient Canons and you shall see with what severitie the Church of old did punish Schismaticks and Separatists and tell mee if the Church now doth not deale more mercifully with you then of old it did And where you seeme to intimate that now the censures of the Church are not inflicted as of old upon disordered and vicious persons that 's but your wonted art to traduce the Bishops and make them odious to your followers For looke unto the Articles for the Metropolitan visitation of my Lord of Canterbury Anno 1635. and for the visitation of my Lord of Norwich Anno 1636. both which I am sure you have perused or any of the rest which you meete next with Looke on them well and tell mee truely if you can whether there bee not speciall order for the presenting of all those vicious and disordered persons of the kindes you mention you could not choose but knowe this having seene the Articles and therefore
Latimers Sermons Bishop Iewels Bishop Andrewes and diverse others Your afternoone Sermons on the Sondaies if performed by Lecturers are but a part of that new fashion which before wee spake off and having no foundation in the Church at all it cannot be an Innovation to lay them by And if the Curate of the place or whosoever hath the Cure of Soules bestow his time in Catechizing as he is appointed that in effect is but to change one kinde of Preaching for another So that if he that hath the Cure doth carefully discharge his office and performe his duty you have no reason to complaine for want of having Sermons in the after noone I know it is the custome of you and yours to take up Sermons more by tale then weight and so you have your number you thinke all is right But as in feeding of the body one temperate meale digested presently and concocted throughly adde's more unto the strength of nature then all that plentifull variety of delicates which gluttony hath yet invented So doe they profit best in all heavenly wisdome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not who heare many Sermons but which heare good ones For limiting the Catechizing unto halfe an houre that 's ordered by the Canon also and it is ordered by the Canon that Children shall bee taught no other Catechisme then that set forth in the booke of Common prayer Not that the Curate is to examine them by question and answere onely without expounding any of the principles of religion which is that you quarrell but to examine and instruct them as the Canon hath it Yet so that under the pretence hereof nor you nor any such as you may assume that libertie as to turne simple Catechizing for the instruction of the youth and ignorant persons of the Parish into a Catechisme Lecture of some two houres long not differing from your mornings sermons but in name alone If in great Cities and the Viniversities Sermons are limited to the same time of the day or as your owne phrase is to one houre onely assuredly it is neither new nor strange The Sermon appointed for the morning being a part of the second service is to be read or spoken in all Churches at the time appointed by the Church Nothing in this de novo that I can heare of In Oxford it was alwayes so since I first knew it the Sermon for the Vniversity and Towne being expressely at the same time Nor neede you bee offended at it if by that meanes the people in those places cannot heare above one sermon in a day it being not many but good sermons not much but profitable hearing which you should labour to commend unto them but that you would bee some body for your often preaching Our Saviour tels us of some men that thought they should bee heard by much speaking and you are one of them that teach the people that they shall be saved by much hearing Your two last innovations I shall joyne together the one being in the rule of Faith which is now made you say to be the dictates of the Church to wit the Prelates p. 151. the other in the rule of manners which must not bee any more the word of Christ but the example of the Prelates lives and dictates of their writings onely p. 156. In this you have most shamefully abused your selfe and all them that heard you The rule of faith is still the same even the holy Scriptures nor can you name a man who hath changed this rule or made the dictates of the Church to wit the Prelats the rule of faith The application of this rule that is the exposition of the Script you must acknowledge to be in the Churches power or els you are no son to the Church of Eng. For in the Articles of the Church to which you have subscribed more thē once or twice it is said expresly that the Church hath authority in cōtroversies of faith that it is vwitnes a keeper of holy writ As also that it hath authority to expound the scriptur cōditioned that it so expound one place that it be not repugnant to another And for the judgmēt of prelats I know not how you can excuse your selfe before God almighty for not submitting therunto having called God to witnes that you would so do For when you took the order of holy Priesthood it was demanded of you in the Congregation whether you would reverently obey your Ordinary and other chiefe Ministers unto whom the government and charge is committed over you following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions and submitting your self to their godly judgements and you made answer that you would the Lord being your helper Either then you must first cōvince their judgements of some plaine ungodlines or else your not submitting to them must be a plaine colluding both with God and man Reeve whom you jeere at so both in your Pasquil p. 152. and in your dialogue between A. B. saith no more then this and if you say not this you have not lied unto men only but unto God Nor is this any other doctrine then what was held for currant in Ignatius his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Let the Priests saith he submit themselves unto the Bishop Deacons unto the Priests the people to the Priests and Deacons And then hee addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My soule for theirs that faithfully observe this order So he And had you kept this order you had not so engaged your self in these factious brabbles wherewith you have disturbed both your selfe and others Touching the rule of manners that any hath affirmed or written that it must bee according to the Prelates lives and dictates you produce no proofe Onely you say and say it onely that they doe countenance allow and by Episcopall authority dispense with an heathenish kinde of life especially in most sacred times as the Lords day This is no proofe I hope but an ipse dixit or a petitio Principii take it at the best although it bee an argument you are used most to And I must answer you to this in the words of Tullie Quid minus est non dico Oratoris sed hominis quam id objicere Adversario quod si ille verbo negarit ulterius progredi non passis Till you bring better proofes for your innovations your selfe must be reputed for the Innovator and all the mischiefe which you have imagined against other men will fall upon your owne pate and deservedly too Hitherto you have acted the false Accuser and have done it excellently well none better In the next place you come to play the Disputant and that you do us wretchedly none worse For first you say that it is pleaded by our changers as you please to call them that they bring in no changes but revive those things which antient Canons have allowed and prescribed as standing up at the Gloria Patri and at the reading of