before all the world and therefore that the Reply be published And if it shall be thought fit to be dedicated to the King I wish that mine own hand might present it For to say no more how highly doth the Cause concerne the King and his Kingdome did he but truely know it And how he should come to know it but this way I know not And I hope his Majestie will not refuse it at Charities hand I have said Mother Zeale what sayst thou Zeale Deare Mother can we see our God so highly dishonoured our Christ so belyed his Spirit so despised his Word so disparaged his Worship so depraved his Saints so destroyed his true Spouse unchurched and excommunicated out of the Creed and a false Church fasle Faith false Religion false Gods set up in Christs Throne to be Judges in matters of Faith and proud men to usurpe over the Consciences and Soules of his people and the like and are we not to set a worke all the irons in the fire that may be to arme us against such an all-daring Philistin who dare so desperately defie the Hosts of the living God And blessed be our God who hath raised up and inabled such a Replyer and blessed be the Replyer who ever he be that takes up Davids sting and stone to throw at that Gyant-like Mushrumme And were there an hundred such Replyes let them all be published and all be presented to the King to the confusion of all Babell-builders or Ierecho's rebuilders And if men will willfully close their eyes and stop their eares against the Truth at their perill be it I have sayd Mother Humility what sayst thou Humility Deare Mother I humbly pray that the Reply be published and if my Sister Charity doe present it to the King all my ambition is to waight upon her as her hand-maid to beare up the Traine of her manyfold sin-covering Mantle This is all I can doe or say Mother Prudence what sayst thou Prudence Deare Mother although I accord with all that my Sisters have here said yet seeing it pleaseth you to impose this taske upon me I shall give you a faithfull and just account what I further conceive to be not altogether unworthy our serious consideration about the dedicating and presenting the Reply to the King First we all know what reward others have had for the like service and that of fresh memory as a Minister appealing from the Prelates to the King for a just and equall hearing of his Cause which was about the discharge of his Ministry in Preaching was delivered over to the Censure of a Court wherein his maine Adversary sate a Judge and the Censure was accordingly so terrible as no age can parallell And Secondly the same Adversary that was the Prime instigator to inflict the said Censure continues still in the same power and favour in Court so as if my Sister Charity her selfe together with Humility should present the Reply I know not what security she can have from the like Censure of being both Schismaticall and Seditious because she thus appeares against a most notorious Adversary of CHRIST and his Word but such whose power and favour in Court can so farre prevaile to the abusing of the sweet and unsuspicious nature of Princes as to make them beleeve that they cannot possibly be misled by such a Leader although the Prelate himselfe confesse that Worth once misled proves of all other the greatest Misleader and the Replyer hath detected and proved him the most notorious blind Leader that ever sate in Canterbury Chaire And Thirdly who sees not the maine worke that so many arrowes of persecution against Gods Ministers and people and so the Gospell it selfe as appeares too palpably by the Prelates usuall practises doe ayme at As namely the rooting out of the Gospell and the erecting of all Popish Superstition and Idolatry and so the bringing in of Atheisme and Infidelity with Antichristian Tyranny and all to reduce England to a Reconciliation with Rome as also the Relation it selfe doth unblushingly discover And the Merchants doe tell us from abroad how the Priests and Fryers can tell them upon occasion of the Scots first standing out that this course was by the Prelaticall Faction reaching as farre as Rome resolved on before yesterday And Fourthly when we looke upon the hideous outrages of the Prelates against which no complaint can take place nor find better successe then as when a man casts stones upward which fall down againe upon his own head doth it not argue the Estate of things to be desperate and at the height when such men as the Prelates are mounted on a throne of iniquity framing mischiefe as by a Law But yet Lastly notwithstanding all this when I consider how mercifully God hath heard the earnest prayers of his people in moving the Kings heart to such an accord with Scotland as of late although those bitter Roots which GOD never planted and which poâ—son the very ground they goe on the Prelates I meane so fast are they rooted in the earth are left still unplucked up and that the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord as the Rivers of waters and that if he were once rightly possessed of the State of things wherein he hath been by the Prelates extreamly abused and his State exposed to the wrath of heaven we should be in good hope of Reformation so as what lawfull meanes may be most likely and probable to conduce hereunto is worth the putting in practise though full of hazzard saving that the same GOD who mightily and mercifully moved the Kings heart so farre to yeeld to his Scottish Subjects as to enjoy in a good measure the Prelates onley excepted their liberty of Conscience can also perswade him to doe as much and more for his Subjects Christs people in England And therefore my conclusion is I am so farre from Sacrificing to humane discretion or carnall reason in this point that I could be content to accompany my Sisters Charity and Humility in presenting the Reply resolving with Hester And if I perish I perish And this is all I have to say for the present Mother Piety what sayst thou Piety Deare Mother I owe a duty as to GOD principally and in the first place so to the King Gods vicegerent in the second place and therefore what may conduce to the happinesse and well-fare of the King in this kind I would for it hazzard all And I am for the pubilshing and presenting of the Reply to the King in hope he may possibly read and understand the true State of things being of such high importance as in the world there cannot be a greater And if this be not done things going on as they have done there wil be no longer abiding for us in this place I have said Mother Patience what saist thou Patience Deare Mother what your selfe and my loving Sisters here do or shall resolve of my office is to prepare my backe to beare whatsoever
smart of it though perhaps an ordinary Bee may smell it out yet I will not take upon me to divine it But if you will contend and offer violence to a whole Hive forcing the Bees beyond their nature though you be never so well armed Cap a pied from top to toe as with Sauls armour so as the Bees cannot reach you yet how shall you escape the sting of the great Master-Bee JESUS CHRIST who is able with one whoope to rayse an army of flies to plague the Aegyptian Tyrants and Taskmasters for their extreame violence offered to his poore Bees And never look that such Bees should ever brook your Priest as having learned by too much experience that he comes not but to kill and take the honey As Christ saith of the Thiefe or Vsurper that climbeth up into the Sheep-fold another way He cometh not but to steale kill and to destroy Againe I must crave a little more of your patience while I somewhat more thorowly Scan your Conjunction of the King and Priest so closse and inseparably together The King and the Priest or The King and the Prelate or The King and the Bishop according to a new Late Start up Proverbe or as you make it a new Maxime in the Politicks No Bishop no King Now for a ground whereon to pitch the Mathematicall Staffe of my ensuing Demonstration I must begge two Aitâ—mata or Demands First That ever a King is good this is such a principle as transcends the Demonstration of Art For He 〈◊〉 Minister of GOD to thee for Good Ergo Good The Second is That a Priest or Prelate as being out of the ranke of Gods Creation and Ordination is ever Bad. These two things granted as they may not be denyed I say It is not good that Good and Bad be joyned together Although as Scaliger saith Malum non est nisi in bono Evill is not but in good But the King and Priest thus linked together are like to two Planets in Conjunction the one as Astronomers tell us Benigne the other Malignant and during the Conjunction the Benigne Planet is not so forcible in its kindly influence as the Malignant is potent in hindering it and in sending forth his own more predominant Malignity not so easily qualified by the Benignity of the other And they say againe that some Planets are of such a temper as they are neither good nor bad but as they are in Conjunction with others if with a good Planet they are good if with a bad evill As we read of King Ioash who so long as good Iehoiada the High Priest lived raigned well but he being dead he by the bad Counsell of his Princes fell to Idolatry So an evill Planet being in Conjunction with an indifferent may cause it to doe hurt which in its owne nature is not much malignant Againe 't is observed of the Oake which for strength among all the Trees may be an Embleme of a King being all overgrown with the Ivie which for its many insinuations and windings every way may well resemble your Priest it thrives not the fewer leaves and branches it puts forth for shade and protection from a shower or storme or heat of Summer and litle fruit to feed the hungry for it is hide-bound so guirt in by the Ivie that it cannot prosper Yea such a Conjunction cannot be more fitly parallelled in my judgement then to the feet of that Image in Daniel the Head whereof was of gold the breast and armes of silver the belly and thighs of brasse his legges of iron his feet part of iron and part of clay The Image represented the Successive Raignes in the Babilonian Monarchy each worse then other till at last it came to ruine And it may be an Embleme of all Kingdomes and States which if they want the ancient Roman Lustration or Purgation every five yeares like some old Statutes of England for a Trienniall Visitation a certain thing which was wont to be called a Parliament or so will according to an old observation in the Politicks easily grow worse and worse As the Roman Poet observed in his time Aetas parentum pejor avis Tulit nos equiores mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem In English thus Our Fathers Age which they did passe Grew worse then our Grand-fathers was Our selves worse then our Parents be And our next race proves worse then we But we pitch to be silent in the rest of the Image upon the feet mixt of iron and clay the last legges as the Proverb which that Empire went upon Iron as Daniel interprets it signifies strength but Clay brittlenesse which intermeddled with the Iron addes no strength to it but onely makes it swell the bigger which swelling portends and causes ruine For the Iron relying on its mixture with the Clay and the Clay presuming to doe great things by being joyned and backed with the Iron here is the Portent In the Revelation we read of Kings giving their power to the Beast that is giving way to the Beast or to his limbs the Priests to exercise a power over them and their Kingdomes For which cause England was wont to be called the Popes Asse The ten hornes which thou sawest upon the Beast these shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked and shall eate her flesh and burne her with fire For God hath put in their hearts to fulfill his will and to agree and give their Kingdome unto the Beast untill the words of God shal be fulfilled On this GOD and on his word will we wait Sure we are that the whore of Babylon with her Priests shall come down into the dust And all Gods people are admonished to come out of her least they partake of her sinnes and receive of her plagues So in due time when Gods word shall be fulfilled the Iron shall unmixe it selfe from the Clay that the one may be preserved and the other goe to his owne place to the earth whence it came and wheâ—eof it is But in the next place for what good end and purpose doe you linke your Priest with the King Because say you They more then any other are bound to looke to the Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners Surely for the first the King we doe in all humility imbrace and acknowledge him as Gods vicegerent bound to doe that office for the true Church of Christ which Gods word hath injoyned and requires of him And that consists generally in â—his as he is Custos utriusque Tabulae the Keeper in trust of both the Tables of the Law he is to see ut currat Lex that Gods Law and Word hina treke that it may run have a free passage without impeachment that the Commandements of the Law be kept Sarta tecta safe and sound without diminishing much lesse demolishing any one of them that nothing be done either in Doctrine or Manners or in the
this case to sit as King in the throne which he hath set up for himselfe in every mans conscience And Christ hath redeemed us from all bondage and subjection to humane devises in Spirituall things as the Apostle saith Ye are bought with a price be not the servants of men So as this Kingly office this Kingdome over his Church Christ hath purchased with a deare price even his precious blood But Prelates â—raâ—ple this blood of Christ under their feet and make this his purchase voyd by setting themselves in his throne by sitting in and over mens consciences making Laws and imposing Rites as absolute Kings over the Church binding the Conscience to a necessary conformity to them in the worship of God And to this purpose this their Kinglike Authority indeed intollerable usurpation and Tyranny comes usually armed with a strong guard of Canons and attended with metà polleÌ„s phantasÃas with a pompous train of Ceremonies ever waiting at their heeles For their Maxime is No Ceremonies no Bishop A Bishop and his Ceremonies are Relatives and can no more be seperated one from the other then an Altar and a Priest But of Ceremonies I shall have occasion to speak more anon and therefore I am the briefer here The Summe is That a Prelate as a Prelate attended with his Ceremonies which he imposeth upon the Consciences of Gods people in the worship of God doth thereby deny Christ to be the onely King of his people and so to be their Redeemer as who hath freed them as from all Leviticall and Legall Rites so from all humane Ordinances and Devices in the worship of God I conclude therefore That a Prelate by his very place profession and practise as a Prelate usurping domination over mens Consciences in Gods worship by imposing his Ceremonies denyeth Christ to be the King of his people denyeth Iesus to be the Christ and so is a Lyer and Antichrist For who is a lyer but he that denyeth Iesus to be the Christ He is Antichrist Thus the Case being so that the Church of England being a Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Church and so for Church-Government and Discipline ruled and Lorded over by the Prelates doth thereby as a Prelaticall Body united to Prelaticall Heads and by subjection and conformity unto their Lordly impositions and injunctions in point of Ceremonies and of the worship of God conspire with the Prelates in denying Christ to be her onely King and so with them denying that Iesus is the Christ is justly condemned of Antichristianisme I should now proceed to some other passage but that one rub here comes in the way and that is concerning the Church of Christ which here ye name For you say The Church of England practises Church-Government as it hath been in use in all Ages and all Places where THE CHRCH OF CHRIST HATH TAKEN ANY ROOTING Why my Lord what say you to all the reformâ—d Churches beyond the Seas Hath your Church-Government in England been in use in all places where thâ—se Churches have been rooted now for the space of at least 100. years What In Geneva In France In Belgia and other places Now therfore you must either plainly confesse this one Clause to be most notoriously false or else that the best Reformed Churches beyond the Seaes are no true Churches of Christ. But for that you passe not much to confesse that those Reformed Churches are no true Churches because they have no Prelates This you Spake openly not long agoe at your High-Commission in Cathedra when your charity called that famous and glorious shining Lamp Mr. CALVIN Rascall when you gave those Churches that doom Had you been a Prelate in Queen Elizabeths time durst you have done so Nay in King Iames his time who with the Church of England gave all those Reformed Churches the right hand of fellowship as true Churches of Christ as in the Councel of Dort durst you have done it And why now tam audax omnia perpeti as that Heathen Poet said And have not these Churches taken rooting How then have they continued so long and flourished so much and put forth so many beautifull and goodly branches godly and learned Divines and brought forth such abundant good fruit Could all this be without taking root yea and a sound rooting too well planted by Gods own hand and watered abundantly with his blessed showers of Grace from heaven and fenced about with the wall of his mighty protection against Stormes and Tempests And I trust they shall stand and flourish when all degenerate plants which our heavenly Father hath not planted shal be plucked up by the roots as bearing no other fruit but the Apples of Sodome without beautifull but all black and rotten within Although it might justly be feared could you effect your so laboured thorow Reconciliation with Rome to become all one as you say you already be you would doe your best to root out all those Reformed Churches as that of the Palatinate now is And 't is true inded that no particular visible Churches can promise to themselves perpetuity of continuance in one place longer then God is pleased But for thee O daughter of Babylon thou Mother of whoredomes God hath particularly designed and marked thee out for destruction so as thou with all thy confederate Lovers shall not escape and the day of thy visitation sleepeth not But for the Kingdome and Church of Iesus Christ it shall abide to triumph over Antichrist and all his accursed Crew And for thee ô Church of England beware of being an Ivie about that old rotten Romish Oake least you both be cut down together and be cast into the same burning Lake for ever beware of grappling thy selfe with that old leaking and sinking Peter-boate as thy Pilate would perswade thee least you both be swallowed up together L. ibid 'T is very remarkeable that while both these the Romanist and Seperatist presse hard upon the Church both of them cry out of Persecution like froward Children c. P. What cause the Romanist hath so to cry I know not especially if the just Lawes against them be suffered to sleepe But for your Seperatists among whom you reckon and ranke godly and zealous Ministers and all good men whom you hunt after and prosecute continually in all your Courts what cause these have to cry out of persecution and that even in the throwing of them out of their Churches and Houses and native Countrey that they can rest no where for you and so what cause they have to cry and complain to their GOD of such persecution as having none on Earth to complaine to both the world may see and you shall one day feele withot speedy repentance which we have as little hope of as you can have of heaven But they being thus persecuted you impute the cause to their hard pressing upon the Church comparing them to froward Children Indeed Children will cry when they are swadled or beaten and misused And
curse them yet can you not doe as that wicked Prophet did in Counselling King Balack to put a stumbling block before the Children of Israel by inticing them to his Idols with his faire Damosels You can tell us that the Church of England and of Rome are one and the Same Church and that her worship of Images is but a trenching or coming neare Idolatry as at after so as none need fear communion with her so he be but ignorant of her Corruptions Of which more hereafter But though you cannot prophesie what is all your practise but a cleare Prognostication and that not onely foretelling but causing and haling in a Deluge of Atheisme and Irreligion flowing in upon you Yea witnesse this your Book which could not spring but from the root of Atheisme and Sourse of all Irreligion and which doth not onely prognosticate nor onely teach the way how Atheisme and Irreligion may gather strength but doth certainly presage and that by necessary consequence most terrible Judgements and Calamities to fall upon the Church of England I would say rather upon the Hierarchy of England and which you doe with both hands in writing and publishing this Book and by all other your practises pull upon your own heads But this your feare of Atheisme and Irreligion to gather strength is say you while the Truth is weakened by an unworthy way of contending What Truth Or what is that unworthy way of contending for the Truth Or what is your Atheisme and Irreligion For all these termes need your interpretation But your prudent modestly therein we will make bold as well as we can to Supply First for Truth it is much in your mouth I meane the name and word Truth But when you name Truth you alwayes mean Falshood as when you Speake of the Church you meane such a Church as is a false Church and when you Speake of Peace you meane such as is a false Peace when your Reconciliation with Rome is a Conspiracie against Christ and his true Church and when you name Priest you meane such as is a false Priest and when you name Devotion you meane such as is a false Devotion of humane devising and when you name Faith as the gift of God you meane not the true Saving Faith whereof the Apostle speakes where he Saith Faith is the gift of God As we shall see at after So as ever under the green leaves of such faire words as Truth Peace Church Devotion Faith c. we may ever Suspect and shal be ever sure to find a false Serpentine Sense to lurke Secondly your unworthy way of contending for the Truth what is it but that which the Apostle exhorts unto that Christians should earnestly contend for the Faith given to the Saints and Paul that we should sunathlein wrastle together as for Mastery or for a Crown for the Faith of the Gospell Now is not this that which you call an unworthy way of contending for the Truth No doubt of thâ—â— As to write Books or preach Sermons proving the Pope to be Antichrist and the Church of Rome to be a false Church or no Church of Christ and no Salvation to be hoped for in that Church and that all true Christians ought to have no Communion with that Church but to abhorre and abandon her as the Lord commandeth and that Prelates are not Jure divino but are Antichristian and their Hierarchy Tyrannicall and that Altars in Churches are a denying of Christ the Onely Altar and that all Ceremonies invented and imposed by men in the Service of God is a will-worship condemned by Christ and his Apostles and many such like This is that unworthy way of contending whereby you say the Truth is weakened No marvaile Thirdly what is that Atheisme and Irreligion which you feare will gather Strength while the Truth is weakened by such an unworthy way of contending This I take it may be taken two wayes Either that by Atheisme you meane the true Faith of Christ which is opposite to the Romish faith wherewith you hold such correspondence for whatsoever is contrary to Romes faith or which is all one your faith is with you branded for Atheisme Or Secondly Atheisme truely and properly taken gathers strength by such an unworthy way of labouring a Reconciliation between the Church of England and the Church of Rome which to make way for you are glad to say that these two Churches are for substance one and the Same Church Now before your time the Church of England though in many things it symbolized with Rome as hath been shewed yet still it renounced all communion with her as being a Strumpet and that great Whore whose Husband is the great Antichrist But now you have so turned the Cat in the pan by making way to bring the Church of England back againe to an union and communion with Rome that you put the people to a stand to a nonplus so as they know not what to beleeve or what to think but are ready to cast off all further thought of God as if there were no God because they see those to flourish and to goe on unpunished who overthrow the faith formerly professed in England seting up the Romish faith againe where it had been cast out and on the other side Preaching and Preachers to be put down and the true Professors to be persecuted and thrown out of all and forced to quit their native Countrey and the like Now where all this is do you but feare that Atheisme gathers Strength Nay is not the root of all your cruely in persecuting Christs Ministers and People meere Atheisme It is noted of the Sadduces that of all other Sects they were the most cruell in their judiciall Censures As Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 2. c. 14. out of Iosephus And no marvaile They denyed the Resurrection and the Last Iudgement So as they were Atheists This made them dare to practise all cruelty and injustice For Maxima peccandi illaecebra impunitatis Spes So how durst you be so unjust and cruell in your oppressions and persecutions did you certainly beleeve that there is a Resurrection and Last Judgement wherein you shall be Judged But this by the way 't is an Item And Irreligion also what 's that That 's soon resolved to wit Obstinacie in not admitting of Altars in some Churches Irreveverence in not bowing to Altars and worshiping towards the East and adoring the name Iesus and the like This is with you Irreligion because your whole Religion is placed in these things For so you tell us in the words following L. p. 19. The externall worship of God in his Church is the GREAT WITNESSE to the world that our hearts stand right in the Service of God Take this away or bring it into contempt and what light is there left to shine before men that they may see our Devotion and glorifie our Father which is in heaven P. Surely were it not
the making of it That is That it is ill very ill done of those who ever they be Papists or Protestants that give just cause to continue a seperation P. Here you speake plain Papists or Protestants and why not then Protestants as well as Papists that did very ill in making the seperation as they doe ill in continuing of it But yet your meaning here may possibly be that as it was ill done of the Roman party to give the first cause of the separation so it were no lesse ill done to continue the same cause to the continuing of the Schisme You may doe well to perswade Rome to lay down all her Corruptions which the Protestants have and doe protest against her that so if the Schisme be any longâ—r continued it may then appeare to be long of the Protestants â—ut if Rome be obstinate and incorrigible in her errors you have no reason to say it is ill done on the Protestant party to continue the Schisme But it may be perhaps ill done of the Protestant Church of England notwithstanding to continue the Schisme for as it may be well done of you to sowder it againe And therfore while the case is thus in agitation and Rome maks no more hast to meet you the multitude of her impedimenta bagge and baggage and all kind of Trumpery retaining her peace and which in no sort she will part withall and so will not stirre a foot over Tiber what 's wanting on her part you will supply with all expedition dressing up her sister the Church of England in Romes fashion unto such a conformity and symphony as promiseth a making up of the maâ—ch with all faults on both sides sooner perhaps then Rome could hope for L. ibid. The Kings and the Church of England had no reason to admit of a publick Dispute with the English Romish Clergy till they should be able to shew it under the Seale or Powers of Rome That that Church will submit to a third who may be an Indifferent Iudge between us and them or to such a Generall Councel as is after mentioned P. First the English Romish Clergie are by the Laws of England Traitors and therfore to be disputed withall at Tiburne So as if you put them to shew their warrant to dispute with you under Romes seale they will require of you perhaps to shew them under Englands seale an abrogation of the Laws against them And you tell us before that the Church of England knows well that a Parliament cannot be called at all times Nor will the Powers of Rome permit their Religion to be disputed on And whom will you chuse to dispute with them some peaceable men that will not be apt to fall out with the Jesuites your Lordship being Moderator But you know Rome denyes the Rule of Faith the Scripture And Contra negantem Principia non est disputandum Who shall else be the Umpier Who the Third Who the Indifferent Iudge Could both the Churches joyntly chuse a more Indifferent Iudge then your selfe Sure Rome her selfe would nominate you before Bellarmine himselfe if he were living A Generall Councel indeed of Romish English and other Prelates might do much so you should be sure to exclude all the Protestant Reformed Churches for wranglers as Franciscus à S. Clara well adviseth And then if a Generall Councel should reconcile and compose all differences though never so erroniously yet the Error must stand till another Generall Councel shall reverse it as you tell us at after But you adde L. p. ibid. and 146. And this is an honest and I think a full Answer And without this all Disputation must end in a clamour and therfore the more publick the worse because as the Clamour is the greater so perhaps wil be the Schisme too P Nay my Lord if you stand upon termes of honesty indeed you should have nominated the Scripture for the onely sufficient and upright Iudge between you This had been honest in one that professeth but the name onely of a Protestant But for that you told us enough before whereby we understand that this point of honesty is no part of your meaning But if your Answere were not in this respect honest I must tell you neither was it full but an empty and frivolous Answere To dispute of Divinity or Religion where Scripture is not the onely Iudge is as to judge of gold by the colour without the touchstone And so he that could shew the best colour for his matter by a false light should carry it away And I may say truely without the Scripture be Iudge your disputation must needs end in a clamour where the voyce of God is of no authority But then also if Scripture should be the Iudge you might well say The more publicke the worse For it is such a light as would discover all your fallacies and so raysing a clamour of the publicke Audience when they should observe such collusion between the English Clergie and the English Romists it might breed such a detestation against all Reconciliation with Rome as would make the rent the wider and so all your labour should be in vaine And then you might use the Proverbe As good never a whit as never the better L. p. 148. That there are errorr in Doctrine and some of them such as most manifestly indanger salvation in the Church of Rome iâ— evident to them that will not shut their eyes P. To indanger Salvation is much and for you to say so much is much too and you saying so much we need not make much doubt of the truth of that you say in this Case And yet in saying so much you speake not all truth The truth is as we have proved and shall yet further That Romes Errors in Doctrine are damnable and cannot consist with salvation as is evident to those whose eyes are truly opened L. ibid. A. C. himselfe confesses that error in Doctrine of the Faith is a just cause of seperation so just as that no cause is just but that Now had I leasure to descend into particulars or will to make the rent in the Church wider 't is no hard matter to prove that the Church of Rome hath erred in the Doctrine of Faith and dangerously too And I doubt I shall afterwards descend to particulars A. C. his importunity forcing me to it P. By A. C. his canfession then the Protestants are able to justifie their seperation abundantly As for your Lordship you are so charitably and peaceably affected that you are loth upon any termes though it concerne the salvation of mens soules in such a case to speake the truth home to make the rent wider till by your Adversaries importunity I would say A. C. you be forced to it You have too tender a heart to be a Surgion when for feare least the opening of the wound make it wider you suffer it to fester inwardly It were well if you were halfe so tender hearted to the
Conscience Whether the High-Priest Azariah did transgresse or no when King Vzziah in the Temple burnt Incense on the Altar he with fourescore Priests of the Lord that were valient men went in after the King and withstood him saying It perteameth not unto thee Vzziah to burn Incense unto the Lord but to the Priests c. Loe here was a withstanding the King But I will not presse you for your Judgement for I find in the next verse Gods own Judgement of the Case for Vzziah with the Censer in his hand being incensed even while he was wroth with the Priests the leprosie even rose up in his forehead before the Priests in the house of the Lord from beside the Incense-Altar And Azariah the Chiefe Priest and all the Priests looked upon him and behold he was leprous in his forehead and they thrust him out from thence yea he himselfe hasted also to goe out because the Lord had smitten him And Vzziah the King was a Leper unto the day of his death and dwelt in a severall house being a Leper for he was cut off from the house of the Lord and Iotham the Kings son was over the Kings house judging the people of the Land Now to apply this to the present purpose You make your self as the High-Priest of the Church of England Now suppose the King of England should doe that whereby the foundations of Faith and good Manners were shaken what would your Lordship doe I aske not what you would doe in case you should be the Chiefe Agent and Instrument a Counceller a Promoter and a Contriver of such a thing For then it were a vaine Question But suppose you had no hand nor head in it at all and were a man zealous of Gods glory and truly pious and found in the faith and one that knew well what the foundations of Faith and good Manners are and when they are shaken and one that respected more the Kings good and Honour then your own private ends and more Christs Kingdome then any Hierarchy or spirituall-Temporall Principality on Earth and one that loved more to speake the Truth to Kings though you were sure of displeasure then to flatter and speake pleasing things to the ruine of the State and Kingdome though for the present it pleased suppose I say all this for even impossibilities may be supposed then tell me what your selfe a man of such high Place and Grace in Court and of so great Power to perswade and disswade would doe when you should see the Foundations of Faith and good Manners to be shaken by the King or supreme Magistrate For the very Name of shaking the Foundations of Faith and good Manners is enough to shake a Mans heart and cause him to abhorre the very thought of it if he were not either altogether senselesse and ignorant what the Foundations of Faith and Good Manners do meane or knowing them were not either an open or secret enemy unto them For what is such a shaking but a mâ—king way for the sodaine precipitation of the state of all things into inevitable Destruction a dissepating of all humane society a mingling of heaven and earth together in one Chaos of all Confusion And therfore now that we are upon a point of such Moment as it were the Center wheron the worlds Globe is pitched or as the two Pillars in Solomons Temple Iâ—chin and Boas stability and strength Faith and good Manners being the stability and strength of all true Religion of humane society and Civil Politie it wil be worth our Inquiry a little what it is to shake these Foundations or when these Foundations are shaken And it is possible that these Foundations may at this very time be shaken in the Church and state of England and so threaten if not hasten Ruine in somuch as a speedy remedy for prevention upon the discovery may be required You will say God forbid What God forbid that in such a Case a speedy remedy should be used No not so by your leave Well what say you then to your Articles of Religion wherein the Doctrines of Faith of the Church of England and those of them that are according to the expresse Scriptures as Gods Grace in Election Predestination Salvation c. are shaken Are they not shaken and that terribly too by an Edict or Declaration so as they doe at the least nutare et huc illuc fâ—luctuare so reele too and â—ro like a drunken man as no sober man knows to which side they will fall And are not those Doctrines of Gods free and saving Grace in Christ the foundations of Faith which are contained in those Articles Can you deny this Again what say you to the Two Tables wherein are contained the Ten Commandements of Gods Morall Law Are they not also Foundations Yea and Foundations both of Faith and Good Manners For the Foure Commandements of the First Table concern Faith and Religion the Six of the Second Good Manners So much all confesse and your selfe too And you say Emperours and Kings are Cussodes utriusque Tabulae They to whom the Custody and preservation of both Tables of the Law for worship to God and duty to man are commited And That a Booke of the Law was by Gods own command in Moses his time to be given to the King Deut. 17.18 So you Is it so then What say you then to those two Great Commandements the Last of the First Table and the First of the Second Do they not stand closse together as those two formentioned Pillars in Solomons Temple Iachin and Boaz Is not holy Obedience to God in his worship on his own day as Iachin the stability of the the Church and Temple of God And is not Civil subjection to superiours as Boaz the strength of the Common-wealth So as when these two Commandements are shaken are not two maine Pillars and Foundations of Faith and good Manners shaken and so the Foundations both of Church and Common-wealâ—h shaken What say you to this ô Great High Priest Is it true or no For I must now put you to it You give just occasion But you answere nothing siâ—ence in this Case is consent and such as proceeds frâ—m guilt of Conscience And how ever Res ipsa clamat The thing it selfe proclaimes it and cleare evidence proves it For doth not the Edict for Sports so often upon fresh occasions mentioned declare as much And doth it not shake the Fourth Commandement for the sanctification of the Lords Day the Lords Sabbath-Day Which Dispensation of such profane and madde sports can it consist with sanctification or any holinesse or common sobriety of a Christian or with Christian Profession or with our Baptismall vow to the Contrary much lesse with the direct and expresse immediate solemn sanctification of that day commanded in that Fourth Commandement Is not here then a Foundation of Religion and so also of Good Manners too shaken For what Good Manners doth our May-pole-dances and
But who shal be Judge of that Alas we are never the nearer if you Prelates be the visible Iudges For then what Canons or Constitutions shall crosse either Scripture or Positive Law of the Land which you shall define and determine to be fit for you to govern the Church by What Laws of the Realme shal be just which crosse one of your Canons Did not in a Cause pleaded in your High-Commission the Popes Canon aledged by the Advocate on the one party preponderate a Statute of Edw. 6. alledged by the Advocate of the adverse party so as the Popes Canon carryed the Cause So as while you will be the visible Iudges you will lead us all in a Circle and make us so turne round as we should not know where we are imagining that all the world went upon wheels Yea but there is yet one qualification may help at a pinch For you say Archbishops and Bishops under a Gratious Keng to governe c. 'T is true indeed that under the shadow of a Gracious King to you you are imboldened to do all you do Lastly you say the Church of England doth not beleeve there is any necessity to have one Pope or one Bishop over the whole Christian world And are there not trow you many thousands in the Church of England which doe not beleeve there is any necessâ—y of having One Pope or Arch-Prelate over the whole Church of England the other world as before And I beleeve there is no more necessity of the one then of the other but that they might be well spared as Christ will one day not spare them And as I said before the Pope by as good a Title may argue a necessity of his being uneversall Bishop over the whole Christian world as you can setting the Law of England aside for your being Pope over the whole Church of England And that upon your own Ground for you say The Church of England and the Church of Rome is one and the same Church no doubt of that and The Church of England may find her selfe where Romes is now just there then if so that both are one and the Popes Principality more powerfull then that of Canterbury and if there be a nccessity that Canterbury be over the whole Church of England which is but a part of the Catholicke and that for order and unity why not the like necessity for the Pope to be supreme over all for preserving order and unity seeing your Militant Church is but one and to make many heads many Vice-Roys is to divide the body and Kingdome and so make rents in it which you like not of But to conclude I beleeve and with me all true Beleevers who have their judgements rightly informed wherever they be in any part of the world that there is a necessity of duty lying upon all Christian Magistrates to exterminate and exterpate the whole Hierarchy and Prelacy as Antichristian enemies of Iesus Christ and of his Kingdome yea and the band of Civil States and people out of the world For so we read Rev. 17.16 17. A place worthy to be written in the hearts of all Kings Christian. And it is the duty of all true Christians to rowse up the Spirit of prayer in them and to stirre up the coals of zeale to flame forth in offring up of pure Incense of fervent Prayer especially in these times wherin Satan so rageth and his Instruments grow so malapert and mischievous that God would hasten the accomplishment of Antichrists Kingdome that so the Kingdome of Iesus Christ may be exalted and inlarged and he alone rule and raigne in his Church L. p. 212. Somwhat may be done by the Bishop and Governours of the Church to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith and to keep the Church from renting or for uniting it when it is rent And this pag. 198 one Pope cannot doe P. Somwhat Why you tell us immediately before that the Pope or a Bishop may perhaps despense in some cases with the Decrees of a Generall And this I hope is somwhat more then somwhat Or perhaps at least And we have shewed before how you Prelates do either preserve the Church from renting or when it is rent make up the breaches of it namely by an uniting and confederating against Christ and his true Church and by labouring tooth and nayle to support and keep safe and sound your Antichristian Hierarchy which is not truly and properly an unity but a conspiracie against Christ from whose true Mysticall body you have made the Great and unreconciliable Rent And therfore you to preserve the unity and certainty of Faith intire which even as you are Prelates you are altogether Apostates from and enemies unto Or is the spirit of Infallibility intayld to the Prelates Chaire For doth not this necessarily imply either an Infallibility or at least a greater dexterity and a more excellent and Divine spirit to be in Prelates qua Praelati Infulati as they are Mitred Bishops then in all those that are no Prelates when onely by Prelates though but somwhat to this purpose may be done But we have shewed before what ability or soundnesse of judgement in divine spiritual matters we may expect to be in Prelates in comparison of others who are both learned pious judicious Divines L. p. 194. To draw all together to settle Controversies in the Church there is a visible Iudge and Infallible but not living and that is the Scripture pronouncing by the Church and there is a visible and living Iudge and that is a Generall Councel P. Here I goe backe a little to fetch in this passage as fiâ— here to usher in a many other Passages scattered here and there in your Book which is hard to reduce to any order or forme But we must do as we may And I shall not wittingly offer violence to any part in the least though somtimes here and there I am faine to pull them in by the head and shoulders And here you doe with the Papists make the Scripture to be but a dead letter for say you it is not a living Iudge no nor yet a speaking Iudge but as it is pronounced by the Church Wheras the Apostle saith of it Zonâ—o lógos tou Theou The word of God is living or lively nor onely so but e'nergès effectuall as it is before noted And if you will apply this to the Word preached that 's true too Although you will not confesse preaching of Gods word to be the Scripture or yet the word of God But it must be pronounced by the Church as the onely mouth of Scripture and that must be also in the Churches sense Of which sufficiently before Yet this you adde to all your other indignities you put upon the Scripture that you make it a dead Iudge and so indeed no Iudge at all as before you plainly tell For if it be blind as wanting light and if it be mute or dumb