constancy sake you would have them allow of prayers for the dead and in King Charls and Queen Mary's days to pray still for King James and Queen Anne which would be a piece of popery equal to the invocations of saints you will find nothing medern or of such new contrivance as past not Bucers â—xamen in the raign of Edward the sixth And was confirmed bâ— Act of Parliament in the raign of Queen Elizabeth In saying this in their defence who had the ordering of such changes I hope Sir you will not so uncharitably think me imbark't in their Faction which truly to me stil presented it self like the conceal'd Horses under ground a fiction made to walk the streets to terrifie the people as to perswade your self after my so many professions to fall a sacrifice to the Protestant Religion that it can be either in the power of the Church or court of Rome to tempt me from my Resolution Which is to go out of the world in the same Religion I came in Sir I gave warning in my last letter not to venture your writings upon the Argâ—ment which deceives none but very vulgar understandings and which I in my Serâ—on cal the Mother of mistakes which is from an accidental concurrence in some things to infer an outright similitude and agreement in all Because Bellarmine says tradition is a better medium to prove somethings by then a private spirit and because I in this particular have said so too you tacitely infer that I and Bellarmine are of the same Religion which is the same as if a Turk and a Christian saying that the Sun shines you should infer that the Christian is a Mahumetan and for saying so a Turk I confess you do not say we are both of the same Religion but that I in preferring Tradition which you your self in your sâ—â—â—â—â—h paragraph tâ—ow to be the Constant and uniâ—ersal Report of the Church befoâ—â— he Testimony of the Spirit speaking in the Word to the Consciâ—â—ceâ— of private men am more profane than he Heer sir you must not take it ill if I expose you to the censure of being deservedly thought guilty of a double mistake The one is that if Bellarmine in this particular were in an Errour and if I had out-spoken him in his Errour yet the Laws of speech will not allow you to say That in an unprofâ—â—â— subject either of us is profane more heretical or mistaken you might perhaps have said and this though a false Assertion might yet have past for right Expression But to call him positively and me comparatively more profane because we both hold That a Drop is more liable to corruption then the Ocean or the testimony of al ages of the Church is a fuller proof of the meaning of a text in Scripture then the solitary Exposition of a man who can perswade none but himself is as incongruous as if you should say that because Bellanmine wrote but three Volumnâ— and Abulensis twelve therefore Abulensis was a greater Adulterer then He. Your other mistake is That you confound the Spirit of God speaking in the Scripture with the private Spirit that is Reason Humour or Fancie of the person spoken to Sir let that blessed Spirit decide this controversie between us He sayes * * 2 Pet. 1.20 that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of private Interpretation That is so calculated or Meriduanized to some select mind understandings that it shall hold the candle to them only and leave All others in the Darke But if you will consent to the Comment of the most primitive Fathers on that Text The meaning of it is That as God by his Spirit did at first dictate the scripture so he dictated it in those things which are necessary to Salvation intelligible to all the world of Mâ—n who will addict their minds to read it It being therefore a Rule held out to all mankind for them to order their lives and actions by and therefore universally intelligible to them it should else cease to be either Revelation or a Rule for you to hold that is â—â—â—not be understand without a second Revelation made by the same Spirit that wrote it to the private spirit of you the more-Cabinet Reader is as if you should inclose and impale to your self the Ayre or Sun-beâ—â—es And should maintain that God hath placed the Sun in the firmament and given you only eyes to see him In short sir 't is to make as word which was ordained to give light to all the World a Dark Lanthorn In which a candle shines to the use of none but him that bears it Your Eighth Paragraph being the third of your eleven Questions as also the close of your ninth shall receive a latine Answer from me in the Divinity School Your next Paragraph is againe the Hydra with repullulating Heads Where first you put me to prove the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England Which being managed by a Prelaticall faction whom you say I call the Church was not excellent if I reckon from the yeare 1630. to 1640. As for the Doctrine Sir I told you before that the Primitive Church it selfe was not free from Heresies If therefore I should grant you which I never shall till you particularly tell me what those erroneous doctrines were that some men in our Church were heterodox nay hereticall in their opinions yet I conceive it to be a very neere neighbour to heresie in you to charge the doctrines of persons upon the Kingdome or Church Such Doctrines might be in England as you whether out of Choice or Luck have said yet not by the Tenets or Doctrines of the Land No more then if you should say that because M. Yerbury and some few others hold the Equâ—lity of the Saints with Christ the whole Kingdome is a blasphemer and was by you confuted at S. Maries The publick doctrine of the Church of England I call none but that which was allowed to be so by an Act of Pa liament of England and that Sir was contained in the 39. Articles If any Prelate or inferiour Priest for the Cicle of yeares you speak of either held or taught any thing contrary to these as it will be hard I beleeve for you to instance in any of that side who did you shall have my consent in that particular to count them no part of our Church In the meane time Sir I beseech you be favourable to this Island and think not that for ten yeares space 't was hereticall in all the parts of it on this side Berwick Withall Sir I desire since you have assigned me an Epocha to reckon from that you will compare the worst doctrines which wore the date of the Trojan Warre amongs us with those which have since broke loose in the space of a Warre not halfe so long and you will find that our Church for those ten yeares you speak of wore a garment I will not say as seamless
also unlawfull because Papists shift and so conclude Cleanliness to be as superstitious as Surplices or Copes Sir you may call this Poetry but there is a Logick in it which I hope doth not cease to be Logick which you cannot resist because 't is not watrishly or flegmatickly exprest As for those parts of the Common-Prayer-booke which I doe not say were borrowed from Rome as you impose upon me but are to be found in the Rubrick of the Church if I had said they had been borrowed from that Church yet you have said nothing to prove that upon this supposition 't is Popery to use those Prayers in Ours Foreseeing I beleeve that if you had offered to maintaine that what ever is in the Popish Lyturgie is Popery that is superstitious and fit to be proscribed out of the Church you would meeting with a good Disputant and one not addicted to Poetry have been compelled to confess that the Lords Prayer and Davids Psalmes are Popery too though the one were delivered by Christ the other by one who lived long before Antichrist because they are bound up in the same volumne with the Masse Sir if this be your Logick 't is Socrate ambulante coruscavit and will be a false fire to lead you for ever out of the way But here Sir though I need not take the paines to confute the Nothings you have said against me in this particular yet whenever you shal call upon me to make good my undertaking I doe promise to make it evident to you that all the ancient parts of the Common-Prayer-booke which I plead for I doe not plead for because they are used by the Church of Rome but because they were part of the Lyturgie of those Churches which were thought primitively pure and not superstitious and were in the world long before Popery or Antichrist was borne I must therefore for ought you have yet said to alter my opinion still stand to my former conclusion which is that by the same reason that either the whole or any part of our Cōmon-Prayer-Book is to be turned out of the Church because in some things it agrees with the Lyturgie of the Church of Rome Italy and Rome it self is to be turned out of the world so a new Map to be made of it where these places are not because they are the Popes Territories and lye under his Jurisdiction Lastly Sir as for the Visitors you threaten both me and Christ-Church withall of whom some report that you are one when you come to execute your Commission so you will not urge it as a Topicke to convince my understanding but as a Delegacy of power to examine my studies life and manners I shall bring all the submission with me which can be expected from one subject to the tryal and examination of such a power Being withall very confident that when that time comes however you may perhaps finde an old Cope or two in our Colledge yet you will never bring Logick enough with you to prove that they are either Idolatrous or have been put to a superstitious use And therefore Sir in this particular you have lost your friendly counsell there being no need at all that we should against that time study for an Answer In your next Fascicle you say that I maintaine that some things in the Excellency and Height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and the Evidence of their Truth upon the Authority of Christs Miracles convey'd along in Tradition and Story And therefore conclude that my Religion leanes too hard and too heavy upon Tradition Sir though I have alwayes lookt upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New as two glorious lampes which to all eyes that have not lost the use of seeing by being kept sequestred from the sunne too long in the darke mutually give light to one another so that a vigilant Reader by comparing Prophecies with their Accomplishments will have very great reason to beleeve that both are true yet because this amounts but to the discourses and perswasions of a single mans reason if I prefer Tradition which is the constant universall consent of all Ages as a fuller medium to prove doctrines by which are hardly otherwise demonstrable doe I any more I pray then prefer the universall Testimony and Report of the Church of all Times before the more fallible suggestions of a private spirit Your next Paragraph is perfectly the Hydra with repullulating Heads which I warned you of in my first Letter And multiplies so many causeless questions as make it nothing but a heape partly of such doubts partly of untruths as would make it one of Hercules labours to examine them First you bid me prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination in the hand of a Prelate Sir if the practice of the Apostles in the Scripture in this point were not cleare yet the practice and opinion of the Church for 1500 yeeres ought to be of too great Authority with you to make this a scruple Knowing that no Church in the world thought otherwise till the Presbyterian Modell crept forth of Calvins fancie nor any good Protestant in the Church of England till such as you recalled Aërius from his grave and Dust to oppose Bishops Next you bid me justifie that no Church that ever the sunne lookt upon hath beene more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it or better establisht for the Government and Discipline of it then the Church of England hath Sir you repeat not the words of my Sermon so faithfully as you should I am not so extravagant as to say that no Church that ever the Sunne lookt upon but that the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many many yeeres that is in my sense for many Ages saw not a purer Church then ours was both for the Doctrines and Discipline of it Against this you wildly object I know not what Doctrines publiquely countenanced but tell me not what these Doctrines were speake of certaine superstitious practices and Prelaticall usurpations but doe not prove them to be either superstitious or usurpt quarrell with the Delegation of Bishops power to Chancellors then proceed to the tyrannie of the High-Commission-Court and at last conclude with I know not what Imaginary corruptions and Innovations introduced into the State Church and Vniversity Sir if I should grant this long-winded Charge of yours to be true as truly I think it is onely a seeing of vanity yet my confident Assertion is not hereby enfeebled I hope when I spoke of the purity of our Church you did not think I freed it from all blemishes or spots The Primitive Church it selfe had some in it who broacht strange doctrines Saint John had not else written his Gospell against the Gnosticks nor Saint Paul his Epistle to the Galatians against those that held the necessity of Circumcision The next Ages of the Church have not been more distinguisht by their
this conflict I am very much pleased with your faire condescension to have all things in controversie rationally and spiritually examined 1. Sir you did as I conceive preach in defence of all images set up in any Chappell in the Vniversity you know there are divers Images of some persons in the glorious Trinity set up in some Chappels within this Vniversity You must then acknowledge all Images of that sort ought to be taken downe Imago nos tantismâ—t memoriale excitat uti Jesuitae passim Dico non esse tam certum in Ecclesiâ an sint faciendae imagenes Dei sive Trinâ—tatis qâ—â Châ—â—sti sancto is hoc â—nim ad sidem â—ertinâ—t tilud eâ—t in opiâ—one Bâ—lla deim g l. 2 c. 8 Jâ—animata spâ—ritualem quandam virtâ—â—em exconsecratione adipiscuntuâ— c. Tho. p. 3. q. 83. art 3. Deum imaginibus inhabitantè colunt Deum cutâ—m virtuâ—e â—stam spâ—â—â—tuaâ—â— retâ—â—heâ—e alquando sive â—â—â—â—be esâ—tâ—nâ—m Casetanus hac in reâ—nc Gentilibus quidem sanientioâ— habâ—tur You are not perswaded by any Scriptures which I have cited but nature hath taught you so pure is your nature that it is a breach of the second Commandement to draw a picture of God revise that fancy the Schoolmen whom you prefer before the testimonies cited out of the Word have taught you that it is not onely sinfull but impossible to draw any picture of God But be pleased to consider that the Scriptures are a perfect nay indeed the onely All-sufficient perfect Rule therefore you need not goe about to patch up the rule with the low generall dictates of nature School-men you may study the Lâ—llian Art fill your braine with Sebund's fancyes but my Schoole-men as you call them are the best Tutors the best Schollars If you prove that is is impossible to picture God you doe not touch the point in Controversie for vaine men will fancy and endeavour to doe that which is impossible for to be done Beleeve it Sir they who had consulted as many Muses and courted as many Graces as you have done and were able to demonstrate out of their Poets that we are Gods off-spring yet were not able without the help of divine Revelation to infer from thence that the Godhead is not like to Gold as you may see it convincingly proved Act 17.29 For as much then as we are the off-spring of God we ought not to thinke that the Godhead is like to Gold or Silver or stone graven by Art or mans device I dare not therefore make the Schoolmen my Judges in this weighty point and I beleeve you cannot prove them to be Judges in any point which concernes the Mystery of faith or the power of godliness but enough of that 3. The word thereupon is sometimes Illative sometimes Ordinative you are sufficiently answered but let me adde that if no Image is like God then sure those Images which are not made to represent God and yet are by Idolatours turned into Idols and worshipped as if they were divine cannot reasonably be defended Sir I must guess at your meaning because I beleeve you have omitted two or three words such is your running negligence which should help to make your sophisticall criticisme perfect sense Truly Sir if it be so high a fault to picture God I may justly wonder that any picture of a Saint turned into an Idoll should be retained and pleaded for by any man that pretends to be a Protestant and if it be impossible to picture God it is also impossible to picture God-man And I beleeve that you will acknowledge our Mediatour to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. That the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of a comparison in point of fitness to be preserved is a truth written with a Sun-beame Sir I never durst argue from the abuse of a thing against the use of it if the thing be necessary But the Sun is necessary and Images are not necessary ergo there is no parity of reason between the termes of your comparison 5. It appeares to me by your shifting fallacy that you make Copes as necessary as clean Linnen 6. You will never be able to prove that all that the prelates and their Faction have borrowed out of the Missall Ritualls Breviary Pontificall of Rome are to be found in any Lyturgie received by the Primitive Church And I would intreat you to consider whether they who doe profess a seperation from the Church of Rome can in reason receive and imbrace such trash and trumpery And yet though you would willingly be esteemed a Protestant I find you very unwilling to part with any thing which the Prelates have borrowed from the Court rather the Church of Rome 7. Your next Paragraph doth concerne Tradition I shall give you leave to preferre the constant and universall consent of the Church of Christ in all ages before the reason of any single man but Sir you doe very ill to call the testimony of the spirit speaking in the word to the Conscience of private men a private spirit I thinke you are more profane in the stating of this point then Bellarmine himselfe 8. You have not yet proved that any Prelate can challenge the Sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction Jure divino 9. I should be glad to know for how many yeares you will justifie the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England I beleeve the Doctrine Discipline and Government of the Prelaticall faction whom you call the Church was not excellent if you reckon from 1630. to 1640. and that is time enough for men of our time for to examine I beleeve that you will acknowledge that the Prelates did lay an Ostracisme upon those who did oppose them who were in the right both in the point of Doctrine and Discipline we shall in due time dispute Though Prelacy it selfe be an usurpation yet there were many other encroachments which may justly be called Prelaticall usurpations and the Parliament hath sufficiently declared its judgement in this point they have clearly proved that Prelacy had taken such a deepe root in England and had such a destructive influence not only into the pernicious evills of the Church but Civill State that the Law of right reason even Salus populi quae suprema lex est did command and compell them to take away both roote and branch you may dispute that point with them Sir you cannot prove that Prelacy is an Order of the Church as ancient as the Christian Church it self and made venerable by the never interrupted reception of it in all Ages of the Church but ours 10. I am no Turkish Prophet I never preacht any piece of the Alchoran for good Doctrine much less did I ever make it a piece of the Gospell all that I say is this that Christians incorporated in a Civill State may make use of Civill and naturall means for their outward safety And that the Parliament hath a
Sermon I am not at leisure to repeat every Sermon that I preach preaching soe often as I doe sometimes twice and upon just occasion thrice a day to every one that is at leisure to cavill at that which thay heard but at second hand yet to shew how much you are mistaken I will give you a breife but satisfactorie account My Text stands upon record Isa 40.25 the Doctrine I raised from the words was as followeth Doct. There is no creature in heaven or earth like God in all things or equall to God in any thing The first Corollarie I deduced from thence when I came to make application was breifly this That no picture can be made of God because there was nothing like him in heaven or earth All nations are less then vanity in comparison of God to whom then will ye liken God or what likeness will ye compare unto him Isay 40.17.18 The Prophet urgeth this Argument against all manner of images which are made to represent God who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and stretcheth out the heavens from the 19. v. of the same chap to the 23. ver and he enforceth this Argument vers 21. have yee not knowne have ye not understood c. as if he had say'd yee are ignorant sotts irrationall and inconsiderate men if yee apprehend not the strength of this Argument Now SIR be pleased to produce your strong reasons and overthrow if you can the Doctrine or the Corollary Your Intelligencer was if not a false Prophet yet a false Historian when he told you that I accused you of making images equall with God SIR I said that images were not like unto God and thereupon wondered that you tooke upon you to pleade for the retaining of those images which have beene too often turn'd into idolls not by the piety but superstition of forme times You say that by the same reason there should be no Sun in the firmament Whence I collect that you will be forc'd to maintaine that images are as necessary in the Church as the Sun in heaven be pleased to read the 22. page of the false Prophet Moreover you plead for Copes and for those parts of the Common-Prayer Booke which were borrowed from Rome pag. 21 22. The Visitors will ere long enquire whether there hath not beene a Superstitious use of Copes at Christ-Church and therfore I did not make any such enquirie in my Sermon but as a Freind I give you and your adherents timely notice of it because I believe you had need study for an Answer You maintaine that some things in the excellencies and height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and evidence of their truth upon the authority of Christs miracles conveyed along in tradition and story pag. 16. and therefore I say your Religion leanes too hard and too heavy upon Tradition You are offended that I spoke not distinctly concerning Prelacy you may if you please try your strength and endeavour to prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction in the hand of a Prelate 2. You may if you can justifie that no Church that ever the Sun look'd upon hath been more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrine of it or better establish'd for the Government and Discipline of it then the Church of England pag. 17. if you believe this confident assertion you may proceed and justifie all the Doctrines which were publikely countenanced or approved all the superstitious practises and prelaticall usurpations nay the delegation of the Prelates usurped power to Chancellors and all the Tyranny of the high Commission together with all the corruptions and innovations introduced into the State Church Vniversity from the yeare 1630. till 1640. by a prevailing faction who were not the Church or Vniversity but the disease indeed the plague of both If you dare not undertake so sad a taske you cannot justifie the 17.18.22 23.27.35 pages of the False Prophet you must prove that the proceedings of the Parliament are Turkish pag. 15 1â— that none of the Members of either House of Parliâ—â—ent who complaine of the blemishes of the Church are tâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—med good Protestants pag. 18. that the Reformation which they have made is 〈◊〉 vanities pag. 20. that they are guided by no other principles but such as are contrary to all rules of right judgement either common to men or Christians pag. 21. that the Ministers who have appeared for the Parliament are all of them False Prophets who have encouraged the Parliament to oppression sacriledge murther and to make all names that are great and sacred cheap and odious in the eares of the people That the Ministers are the liars and the Parliament-men the compliers as appears by all your unworthy insinuations hints intimations quite throughout your Scurrillous Libell falsly called a Sermon let any prudent man judge whether this be not your maine drift and scope à carceribus usque ad metam You talke of a Religion in which you were borne were you borne in a Surplice or a Cope Christiani non nascuntâ—r sed fiunt Sir the Parliament doth not defame nor will they suppress the true Protestant Religion and therefore if you fall in this quarrell I said that you must be sacrificed in the defence of Tyranny Prelacy Popery if you put not Religion in Copes Images Prelates or Service-Booke quorsum haec perdito why doe you talk of being Martyr'd say that if the King will give you leave you will burne your Copes and Surplices throw off the Bishops and Common-Prayer Booke you 'l break your windowes and take the Covenant and make it evident that you are and ever will be of the Kings Religion for you hold none of these things necessary now whatever you have said heretofore unless they be made necessary by right Authority Sir if I made any prediction it was that your Sermon would be confuted before it was burnt you know Paraeus was burnt before he was confuted and if you be not guilty of any doctrine received in Poland I wonder First why you did endeavour to incense an Officer of this Garrison against me because I had refuted M. Yerburies blasphemous errors 2. Why you did maintaine those damnable Doctrines on the last Sabbath forgive me this injurie for I heare you did but vent them and were no way able to maintain them Sir I acknowledge that I doe contend for the restitution of the true Protestant Religion and contend for the civill right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion we were in manifest danger to lose our right by the force and violence of potent Enemies whereupon the high Court of Parliament judged it fit to repell force by forces be pleased to shew how the Parliament doth hereby canonize the Alchoran or declare themselves to be of the Mahumetan perswasion the Parliament will not compell you to be happy onely take heed that you do not compell them to make you
Martyrs then Heretiques yet the Primitive Church ceased not to be Apostolically pure because it had a Cerinthus or Nicolaitans in it nor the succeeding Churches to be the Spouse of Christ because one brought forth an Apelles another a Marcion a third a Nestorius a fourth an Eutiches a fift an Arius Sir as long as the best Church in the world consists of men not infallible there will be errors But then you must not charge the Heterodox opinions or Doctrines of particular men though perhaps countenanced by some in publique authority upon the Church Besides Sir every Innovation is not necessarily a Corruption unless it displace or lay an Ostracisme upon some other thing more worthy and better then it selfe You your selfe say that the corruptions introduced were brought in by a prevailing faction who were not the Church If they were not my Assertion holds good that notwithstanding such corruptions yet our Church in its time was the purest Church in the world This then being so me thinks Sir you in your pursuit of Reformation by making Root Branch your Rule of proceeding have beene more severe then the lawes of right Reason will allow you If there were such a tyrannie as you speake of streaming it selfe from the High Commission Court why could not the tyrannie be supprest without the abolishment of the Court Or if there were such a thing as Prelaticall usurpation why could not the usurpations be taken away and Episcopacie left to stand Sir if you be Logician enough to be able to distinguish betweene the faults of persons and the sacredness of functions you cannot but pronounce with me that to extirpate an order of the Church ancient as the Christian Church it selfe and made venerable by the never-interrupted Reception of it in all the Ages of the Church but ours for the irregular carriage of a Prelate or two if any such have beene among us is a course like theirs who thought there was no way left to reforme drunkenness in their State but utterly to root up and extirpate and banish Vines The remainder of your Paragraph is very politically orderd which is that because you finde it hard for you to confute my Sermon by your Arguments you will endeavour to make the Parliament my Adversary who you thinke are able to confute it by their power And bid me prove that the proceedings of the Parliament are Turkish Here Sir methinks being a Poet I see a piece of Ben Johnson's best Comedy the Fox presented to me that is you a Politique Would-be the second sheltring your self under a capacious Tortoise-shell Why Sir can you perswade your selfe that the great Councell of the Kingdome by whom you are imployed if they will vouchsafe to reade my Sermon will not presently discerne your Art And withall perceive that though the Text upon which I out of the Integrity of my soule preacht that Sermon stick as close to False Prophets as the Centaures shirt did to Hercules and set them a raging yet that they having never Parliamentarily profest to propagate Religion by their speare can no way be concerned when I say that such a perswasion in us Christians would be Mahumetan and we thereby should translate a piece of the Alchoran into a piece of the Gospel Sir I am so confident of the wisdome of that Honourable Assembly of my owne innocent meaning and of your guilt who have beene one of those Turkish Prophets and in your Letter to me still are who have preacht that piece of the Alchoran for good doctrine that for answer to all your slye impotently-malicious mis-applications and shiftings off that which I have said onely of such as your selfe to the Parliament I shall onely appeale to my Sermon And by that if you please to undertake the Devils part and be my Accuser shall be content to stand or fall In the meane time Sir I must repeat what I said before that if it be read or lookt on through those refractions with which you have mis-shap'd and crookt it I shall consent to what you say in the end of your filthy Paragraph That 't was once a Sermon but you almost à Carceribus usque ad metam have made it a Libell In your next what shall I call it you are very Critically pleasant And because I talke of a Religion wherein I was borne aske me whether I were borne in a Surplice or Cope and then very distinguishingly proceed and say Christiani non nascuntur sed fiunt To the first I reply that it had been as unnaturall for me to be borne in a Surplice or Cope as for you to come into the world with a little Geneva set-ruffe about your neck Next Sir for your sharpe distinction I hope though the Muses be your Step-dames yet you thinke not the figures of Rhetorick to be so superstitious that it shall be Popery in me to make use of a Metonymy and to express my selfe by the Adjunct when I mean the place and Country I grant Sir that men are not borne but re-born Christians yet 't will be no great Errour in speech for a man to say he is born in Christianity if he be a Christian and were born in the place where Christianity is establish'd Sir I doubt you begin to think secular learning to be a profane thing And that you are bound to persecute Tropes out of Expression as you have Liturgy out of the Church If you do Sir we shall in time if we proceed in this conflict fulfill a peece of one of Saint Paul's Epistles between us I become a Barbarian to you and you to me I am glad to hear you say That the Parliament will not suppress the true Protestant Religion Sir I never thought they would But then 't will be no harm to you if I pray That whilst you pursue such a through Reformation of it as of late years hath left it doubtfull in the minds of the people what the true Protestant Religion is you let not in Popery at that Gate by which they strive to shut it out If Queen Maries dayes do once more break in upon us through the sluce which we open to them by our unsetledness and Distractions and if I then fall a sacrifice in defence of the same Religion for which I now contend I hope you then will think your self confuted And no longer beleeve that I am such an ill Judge of Religions or so profusely prodigall of my life that I would make it a Holocaust or Oblation either to Tyranny or Popery In short Sir let the King and Parliament agree to burn Copes and Surplices to throw away the Common-Prayer-Book or to break our Windows I shall not place so much Religion in them as not to think them alterable and this done by Right Authority But as for the Covenant 't is a pill Sir which no secular interest can so sweeten to me that I should think my self obliged to be so far of any mans Religion as to swallow
declines that part of entercourse which obligeth one mans letter to carry some correspondence to anothers and instead of a confutation only multiplies questions and urgeth me to prove divers passages of my Sermon which M. Cheynell's part was to convince because the superscription of it darkly and the close of it more clearly required me to meet him at an English disputation the next day at S. Maries before the Townsmen and their wives very unfit moderators certainly in the points there to be discus'd I for the present to divert that meeting return'd him this short Answer SIR THough in the Letter you sent me yesterday by I think Jellyman the Cobler you have given me such a tast of your Logick as well as civility that I have small encouragement to meddle any farther with you unless you will promise hereafter to write with better consequence and less distemper yet Sir least you should triumph over me as one beaten by your Arguments not by your rudeness I have thought fit for once to return you this answer First that without the danger of a dark room as I told you before I cannot consent to meet you at S. Maries at two a clock Next that I do imbrace your offer to meet me at Latine weapons in the Divinity Schoole when the Doctor of the Chayre comes to town Thirdly that if your Syllogismes be no better then your wit which I perceive strived to be facete when it adventured to say that you feare my weapon will have more false Latine then true steele I doubt the Poet you contemne so much will go equall with you in the conquest Lastly not being ingaged I confess to preach thrice a day I will with as much dispatch as I can put order to your chaos and return a fuller answer to your strange letter wherein I know not whether you have less satisfied or more reviled From my Chamber this morning Jan. 22. 1646. The Author of the Sermon against false Prophets J. Mayne This Letter might have beene lengthened with many other reasons besides those already set down to shew how unfit 't was for mee to meet M. Cheynell at an English disputation at S. Maries as M. Yerbury did As first because the frame and carriage of the whole dispute between us in all probability would have been as irregular and tumultuous as the other was where because neither of them kept themselves to the lawes of disputation which enjoyne the Disputants to confine themselves to Syllogisme raised from the strict rules of Mood and Figure which admit not of extravagancy In the judgment of all Schollers who were present it was not a Dispute but a wild conflict where neither answered one another but with some mixture of ill language were both Opponents by turnes Next because the greatest part of the Auditory would have consisted of such a confluence of Townsmen and women as understood good Arguments and Replies as little as they do Latine and so the issue of this Disputation would probably have been the same with the former where M. Cheynell was thought to have the better by one Sex and M. Yerbury by the other Loath therefore to forfeit my discretion before such an Incompetent Assembly of witnesses with as much dispatch as one ingaged by promise could make I returned to his Letter this fuller Answer SIR Among the other praises which greater friends to the Muses then I perceive you are have bestowed upon Virgil he hath been called the Virgin Poet. Yet Ausonius ordering his Verses another way hath raised one of the most loose lascivious Poems from him that I think ever wore the name of a Marriage-song Me thinks Sir and I doubt not but all they who shal compare them together will be of my opinion you in your Letter have just dealt so with my Sermon it went from my hands forth a sober Virgin but falling into yours it returns to me so strumpeted so distorted in the sense and misapplied in the expressions that what I preach'd a Sermon you by translating whatever I have said of false Prophets to the Parliament have with the dexterity of a falsification transformed and changed into a Libell This I do not wonder at when I remember what the Physitian was who said that where the Recipient is distempered the most wholsome food turns into his disease just as we see in those harmfull creatures whose whole essence and composition is made up of sting and poyson the juice which they suck from flowers and roses concocts into venome and becomes poyson too Having said this by way of Preface to my following Reply first Sir confining my self to your method how you spend your morning thoughts being impossible for me outright to know unless your thoughts were either visible or you transparent I desire you wil not think me over-curious if I open a door upon you and proceed by conjecture You say you use to spend them upon a better subject then a pot of dead drink that hath a little froth at top and dregs at bottome To what passage of my Letter this refers or why a language which I do not understand should possess the porch entrance to yours I am not Oedipus enough to unriddle But if I may guess what your morning thoughts were when as you confess you did let them loose by your pen to discharge themselves upon me in a shower of rude untheologicall flat downright detraction though they were not employ'd upon a frothy subject yet they shew that you were at that time in his distemper in the Gospel a piece of whose raging and distraction 't was to fome at mouth Next Sir had I been present at your Sermon as I am glad I was not for I desire not to be an Auditor where I must hear my self libelled from the pulpit I shal easily grant by the taste which you have given me in this short Conference with you of the perspicuity of your stile and the clearness of your matter that 't was possible enough for me not to understand it I doe therefore acknowledge it as a favour from you that you will let me no longer wander in uncertainties or write to you upon the mis-report of a fallible Intelligencer but will your selfe be my Clue to guide me to what you said Which favour you have much heightned by robbing your weightier employments of so much time to convey it in as might have been spent in providing your selfe to preach thrice a day and yet not doe it so hastily or with such a running negligence as to be thought to preach but once a week As for your Text and the Doctrine built upon it at whom soever it was shot I shall not quarrell with it But how your Corollary should concern any thing that I have said in my Sermon contrary to your Doctrine I cannot possibly imagine who do there onely speak of the vanity of some of our Modern Prophets who can see Idolatry in a Church-window And do onely strive
to prove that for people to refrain the Church as you know who did because some though perhaps not of our age paid worship to the windowes was a fear as unreasonable as theirs was who refused to go to Sea because there was a Painter in the City who limn'd shipwracks Sir had you a minde to deal pertinently or ingennously with me you would witness for me that though I speak in defence of the Ornamentall use of Images yet I in no passage of my Sermon do defend any Image or pourtraicture made of the Deity Sir 't is not your saying That no picture can be made of God because there is nothing like him in Heaven or Earth or the following proofs of your letter which I conceive to be a piece of your Sermon at St. Maries which because I came not to it you in charity have sent home to me that perswades me that any such picture is unlawfull Nature as well as the numerous places of Scripture which you have quoted to prove that which I never yet denied have long since taught me that to make or draw any picture or Image of God is not onely a breach of the second Commandement which is built upon the invisibility of his Essence and Nature but that the Attempt would be much more vain then if a Painter should endeavour to limn a soul or minde which not affording any Idea or resemblance to his fancy to be taken by cannot possibly by him be exprest in Colours The Task therefore to make any Draught or Figure of God pray Sir being misled by your example do not think me superfluous in my pursuit of an Argument to which I was not bound to reply is besides the sinfulness of it much more impossible For First Sir if the School-men which I hear you once said you had long studied to little purpose may be Judges He cannot be limn'd or drawn because he is a Spirit Therefore not capable to be represented by any gross materiall Thing Next because He is Infinite and therefore not capable to fall under Symmetry or be circumscribed within the finite lines which stream from a Painters pencill Thirdly because He is Simple that is as your Schoolmen say for you know Sir I am but an English poet All in All and All in every part Or in other Termes a Thing entirely uniform and indivisible within it self which admits not of any false representation of it self by limbs or parts Lastly Sir because I will not be tedious and go over all his other Attributes who shall paint his Omaiscience who his Omnipotence who his Eternity who his Vbiquity Knowing this Sir and much more of him not by the Help of a borrowed Illumination I could not trespasse so much against my own studies and Conscience as to allow of any picture of God And therefore in this particular challenging me as you impertinently do to produce my strong reasons and overthrow if I can your Doctrine or Corollary deduced from Esay 40.25 where God by his Prophet sayes To whom will ye liken me or shall I be equall saith the Holy One You would fain have me be your Adversary in an undefensible Cause that your conquest of me might be the easier In short you would have me profess my selfe to be an Anthropomorphite that you might have the advantage to confute me for an Heretike Sir since you deny that you said in your Sermon that I made Images equall with God which if you had said my Sermon without any new confutation would have disproved you I am in that particular satisfied and shall think it was though not a wilfull one yet a mistake in the reporter But then Sir I must tell you that I am not at all satisfied with that which followes Where you say that Images are not like unto God and Thereupon wonder that I took upon me to plead for the retaining of those Images which have been too often turned into Idols not by the piety but superstition of former times For here Sir if I would take the advantage of expression not well considered upon you in saying that Images are not like unto God and thereupon that I did ill to plead for the retaining of other Images not of God a Sophister would make the world believe that you think all Images superstitious and therefore fit to be banisht out of the Church but onely such Images as are made of God which would expose you to the opinion of being thought very subject to speak contradictions But being a meer poet Sir whose ability you know lies not in making use of Aristotles Eleuchs but in the soft harmless composure of an Elegie or Ode I shall deal more gently with you That is take you in the most advantagious sense which you possibly upon your better morning thoughts can put to your words believe that the fault you finde with me for the retainment of Images is because by the superstition of former times they have been turn'd into Idols Sir if I be not deceiv'd my Sermon in this particular is able to save me the labour of a reply Where I have once for all said that which you wil never be able to controul how poetically that is not dully soever you may think it exprest that by the same reason that Ornaments are to be turn'd out of the Church because some out of a mis-guided devotion have adored them we should not have a Sun or Moon or Starres in the firmament but they should long since have been banisht the skies because some of the deluded Heathen worshipt them The little fallacy with which you think to entrap me when you say that hence you collect that I will be forced to maintaine that Images are as necessary in the Church as the Sunne in the Firmament will expire like all other thin Sophismes in vanity smoke when I have shewn the weakness and infirmity of it which will be briefly done by repeating onely the sense of my Sermon in other words and saying that if Images doe agree with the Sunne in that they have both been made Idols though one be no necessary part of the Church and the other be a necessary part of the building of the world yet if for that reason wherein they agree one must be banisht any man that hath Logick though he be a Poet may inferre that t' will be as reasonable that the other should be banisht too In your next Paragraph or fardell of I know not what you say that I plead for Copes and for those parts of the Common-Prayer-booke which were borrowed from Rome And then confute me with the threats of an ere-long Visitation Sir there is neither Logick nor School-Divinity in this As for Copes you know I joyne them with Surplices in my Sermon and say that by the same reason that the false Prophets of our times would perswade the people that Surplices are unlawfull because Papists weare them they may endeavour to perswade them that Linnen is