left us and yet will be one that shall mourn for the reproach of the solemn assemblies 26. Moreover it is one of Satans plots upon you to prepare for the reproach of the Non conformists when greater necessity shall drive them to the Parish assemblies and Communion Do not you make any doubt of it but that if the wrath or rigour of superiours should bring them to the same condition as the old Non-conformists were the most of the present Non-conformists would come to the Parish Churches even in Common Prayer and Sacraments as they did And you are preparing reproach for them that they may then be called Changelings who forsake their former principles and cause 27. And verily you will keep up the Papists hope that by an universal Toleration they may at last come in on equal terms with you or by connivance be endured as much as you And if they be equal in England with you their transmarine advantages will make them more than equal notwithstanding their disadvantages in their Cause and in their contrariety to Kingly interest which Henry Fowlis hath in folio most fully and unanswerably laid open 28. And though God in mercy hath at present given us a King that owneth the Protestant Cause so resolvedly as to make a Law against any that shall report him inclined to Popery England hath no promise that it shall be so for ever And if we should ever have a King more indifferent in his Religion do you know what a temptation it would be to him to pull down the Protestant Religion if he found it but in corners under a connivance and found it under the reproach of such crimes as Bâ—gshaw's books contain It were the next way to procure the fatal word Down with them even to the ground Though I know we have the greater security against this because Popery is so much against Princes interest and is the delâ—vering up the Kingdome in part to a foreign power 29. In a word Satan is playing by Mr. Bagshaw no lower a game than by turning all the people from the Parish assemblies while there are not in England had they liberty 〈◊〉 Ministers enow to supply the tenth part of the Churchâ—â— to 〈◊〉 the generality of them to live like open Atheists that give God no publick worship at all and so to extinguish knowledge Christianity and all Religion in most of the Land These things I see and because I see them I do as I have done 30. There is another reason that sticks much with me as knowing what silly peevish souls are employed in against themselves but I will add no more Brethren I have discharged my conscience Some will hear I will bear the censures and obloquy of the rest Your sins are no more lovely to me than the sins of other men nor no more merciful to England We all suffer by and for such sins as I have reproved I am one of the sufferers and therefore should have leave to speak I am long ago engaged in the cause of Concord Love and Peace and will not betray it for the shadow of Purity nor for the pleasing of any party whatsoever Though no duty when such is to be omitted nor any sin committed for Peace And to prevent the Calumny of Papists and the mis-information of Posterity I add that besides one hot-headed honest young man Mr. Brown I hear of no Non-conformable Minister in England that openly owneth Mr. Bagshaw's 〈◊〉 or secondeth him in his defence of the Love killing Principles of unlawful Separation Which with the other evidences of quietness and patience in the private assemblies of these times I take to be a marvellous thing considering mens great and manifold temptations which in time I hope God will abate FINIS
those Principles in mens minds which cause Divisions in all other Churches as well as that and will never suffer Christians to Unite and Agree where they prevail 2. That I was so far from perswading any Minister to the present Conformity that I perswaded not the Readers 1. Either to use the Ceremonies 2. or to communicate with any Persecutors 3. or to own Diocesans 4. nor to communicate with or own a Diocesan Church 5. nor to communicate with or own any Parish Minister that is intolerable through Insufficiency Heresie or Wickedness 6. nor to speak one false word nor to do one sinful action to obtain Communion with the best Church in the world 7. nor to prefer Communion with a worse Church and Minister before Communion with a better where it may be had without greater loss than benefit 8. nor to forbear any lawful endeavours in private for each others good 9. nor to forsake a lawful faithful Pastor merely because he is cast out of the Tythes and Temple 10. nor to take a man for your Pastor merely because he hath possession of the Tythes and Temple 11. nor that a lawful faithful Minister should give over his Ministerial work or not perform it to the best Edificacation of the Church whoever is displeased by it or whatever it cost him which I take to be downright Perfidiousness against his Ordination and Sacrilege as being the alienation of a devoted consecrated person yea greater Sacrilege than alienating Church Lands 12. Nor did I perswade any Minister that instead of flying to another City as Christ once commanded he must needs fly from all Cities For the Diocesans that think Cities only were the seats of Churches and Bishops might inferr that if it be lawful to desert the souls of all in Cities and Corporations it is but a little step farther to dâ—sert the Villages also 13. Nor did I ever perswade any Minister to go to a Parish Church in City or Corporation who is by Law forbidden to come within five miles of it and who by appearing there doth put himself into prison for six months in the common Jayl 14. Nor did I ever perswade any to hear the common Prayer or go to the Parish Churches merely for fear of punishment and to save themselves None of all these were the matters I that medled with 3. But the things that I perswaded men to were these 1. To disclaim the foresaid Love-killing and Church-dividing Principles 2. Particularly to joyn with a Parish Church that hath a good Minister and that ordinarily in case you can enjoy no better without more loss than the benefit is like to be 3. And extraordinarily to joyn sometimes with such a Parish even when you have a better to shew by what Principles you walk unless when some apparent hurt forbid it which for that time is like to be greater than the good Pardon this Repetition of the state of my Case for without it I cannot be understood and his repeated untruths require it And now to his third Libel called the Review Sect. 1. The Title Page speaks of All my immodest calumnies confuted when 1. He neither proveth one Calumny in my Book nor confuteth one detection of his Untruths Sect. 2. He cunningly tells you in an Advertisement that ten or eleven have read his present citations of my words As if that justified fourscore falshoods before written Sect. 3. Pag. 1. He confesseth it is foolish and wicked to publish fourscore Vntruths in five or six sheets of Paper And yet thinks not himself obliged it seems any farther to vindicate himself by one considerable word but as it were by hoping his Readers will not believe that he was so foolish and wicked Doth Church-discipline require no better defence nor no more repentance for above fourscore published Untruths than this Sect. 4. Instead of Repentance he inviteth his Readers to usurp Gods prerogative as he doth and to judge my Heart that it was never truly humbled and that my Repentance is hypocritical Sect. 5. Thus lying down impenitently under all the crimes false doctrines and untruths which he published he now puts them off as Bye-matters and taketh on him to return to the Question which he saith was first designedly handled between us which he saith is Whether Conformity at this day upon conscientious grounds can be defended by any or at least with any kind of honesty be contended for by you Thus he will play small game no more nor write Untruths by parcels but let you know that it is not one untruth shall be the substance of his discourse If telling the Church be a duty it is not Railing to name the sin I therefore desire the Church to consider whether it be easie among the parties that he separateth from or worse than they to meet with so great Impudency in forgeries I know by equivocation almost any words may be verified But when there is no explication adjoyned the rule of humane speech is that Analogum per se positum stat prosignificato famosiore that is Analogous or equivocal words put alone without an ex exposition are to be taken in the most common or famous sense Now the word Conformity in its old and usual sense doth signifie that Conformity by Subscriptions Oaths and Ceremonies which distinguish the people called Non-conformists from the Conformists who yet were notoriously distinguished from the Separatists It 's true that it may be called Conformity if we are baptized if we profess Christianity if we read the Scriptures if we use the common Translation if we go to hear a Sermon in publick if we use the Lords Prayer c. in all this we do as the Church of England doth But this is not it that is notified by the common use of this name Now do but note the front of the man 1. The world knoweth that I never Conformed as the Law obligeth Ministers to do that I lose my whole Ministerial maintenance much more than ever he did all things considered and which is a thousand times more the liberty of my Ministry in publick because I do not conform 2. He knoweth that I have professed in all the three Books which he writeth against that I neither am for Conformity nor ever wrote for it He knoweth how distinctly I excluded that from the Question and stated the Question far otherwise which I meddle with Yet dare this man make this false profession of our difference 3. Yea when it is separation in plain words and not mere Non-conformity which he undertakes to defend on his very Title Page 4. And that I have oft professed to plead for the same cause that Dod Hildersham Cartwright Paget Bradshaw Brightman Ball Gifford and the other Nonconformists defended against the Separatists of those times â—â—d will you believe him if he say that they pleaded for Confâ—rmity Sect. 6. He again repeateth his most palpable untruth in comparing me in the warrs with any one whomsoever passing over my answers
utterly false Sect. 16. pag. 7. In a parenthesis he saith If there be any difference between you and us The Libeller filling three Pamphlets with heinous charges and after and before also questioning Whether indeed there be any difference between him and me Sect. 17. pag. 8 With as insolent ignorance doth he feign me to make that which he calleth Devised Worship viz. the Liturgy to be Idolatry in my foresaid Book and now to repent of and oppose what I held And all because Disp. p. 378. I say to such as they would suspend silence excommunicate punish all such as will not pray to God in the words that they impose on them that if Reasons will not allay their impious distemper but will domineer over mens consciences and the Church of God we must leave them to him that being the Lord and Law-giver of the Church is jealous of his prerogative and abhorreth Idols Remember that I spake of none but the Clergy And is there any man that excelleth not in ignorance and rashness that would have thought here that it is a Form of Prayer or Liturgy that I call Idols or that could not see at the first reading that I call the persons only the Idols that usurp the prerogative of God And will this pittiful man still falsly insinuate or suppose that all the honest Christians or Ministers of all the Parish Churches in England are such usurping imperious Idols yea or all the Bishops either Even Martyn himself as well as Ithacius Thus are poor souls abused by deceivers Yea note that in the same disputation cited by him I largely prove the lawfulness of Liturgies and Forms and the necessity of them in some cases Sect. 18. Ib. Yet doth he again most falsly say that I have unworthily receded from what I wrote and yet addeth that I have not that he knoweth of repented of it Receded from it and yet not repented of What a forgetful self-contradicter is this man And so he thanketh God that I was heretofore stirred up to write so much which now condemneth me even for the same that I there and then did write and never repented of Sect. 19. His next subject where he saith that I argue against the Divine and self-evidencing authority of the holy Scripture is one of the visiblest lyes that ever I saw written by a man When I had not only said the contrary but told where I had voluminously proved it to give me not a word of sense in answer but write as if he had never read my reply Being to Tell the Church I must desire them to consider Whether a more Impudent studied Lye impenitently insisted in after a double detection without an answer was ever presented to their view And whether they can name me a Christian Writer in the world more infamously self-stigmatized with this vice The rest that he writeth of it I cannot perswade my self to tire the Reader with an answer to Only I note that he citeth Mr. Hildersham's words with the false intimation that I contradict them while the same worthy man is both applauded by him and suppositively taken for a Patron of Idolatry as one that perswadeth men not onely to come to Church and Common-prayer but to come to the beginning False speakers do thus ordinarily contradict themselves Sect. 20. When pag. 11. he saith that a Papist is worse than of no Religion I say no more to him but that Overdoing is the Devils last way of undoing and that such men be they that multiply and confirm the Papists Sect. 21. Ibid. p. 11. he would have you know what Religion he is of and how he meaneth to save his Disciples from Idolatry saying Had not I learned the truth of Christian Religion from better arguments and a more certain way of reasoning than any your books afford I had still been plunged in the depths of Atheism Now 1. Note that Reasoning in a certain way preserveth him from Atheism 2. That he seemeth to say that he was an Atheist by saying I had still continued so But you must not expect such base mutability from him as when he hath denied the Living God to confess it plainly and profess repentance 3. Note that he will be an Atheist still and it seems perswade the Separatists to be such till he hath better Reasons than my Books afford Now the Reasons that my Books afford are these note them Reader First from the witness of God the Creator in the frame of Nature Secondly From the witness of God our Redeemer in his supernatural Revelations 3. From the witness of God the Holy Ghost on the Scriptures and in the Soul First Printing on the Scripture the Image of Gods Power Wisdome and Goodness which is its self-evidence And next by the Scripture printing the said Image of Gods Power Wisdom and Goodness on every holy soul which none but God is able to do These three Testimonies of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is the sum of my evidence enlarged Now Mr. Bagshaw will be an Atheist still and it seems perswade the Separatists to be such till he hath better reasons for his faith than the witness of the Creator the Redeemer and the Sanctisier God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is his zeal for the Glory of God and the Cause of Christ and the good of souls Sect. 22. Yet pag. 13. with much railing he insinuateth this abominable falshood and calumny against Christs excellent Servants that Calvin Preston Hildersham Perkins c. would have no more done in asserting a Deity and Christianity than to tell men that all is true that God speaketh in his Word and that propria luce it is evident that the Scripture is his word and that to all Gods elect he will give his spirit to discern it and thus much alone is better than all these disputes and reasonings Whereas 1. These same men have all of them said much more themselves in their writings 2. And Paul preached otherwise to the Athenians Acts 17. and to others 3. And what kind of preaching would this man make among Turks and Heathens that deny the Scriptures You see 1. He will leave out all the Natural evidences of a Deiy and of mans immortal state and so all the Principles in which we are agreed with them 2. He will leave out all the Historical proofs that these Books were written by Christs Apostles and Evangelists and are not altered since And 3. That he will leave out the use of mans Ministry in Translating or Preaching And will let the illiterate Reader look on a Hebrew and Greek Bible till propria luce they know it is of God or at least that the Minister when they say How shall I know that this is Gods Word shall only bid them read it whether they can or not and if they be elect the spirit will cause them to discern that propria luce it will shew it self to be Gods Word but if they be not elect they have