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Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38090	Antapologia, or, A full answer to the Apologeticall narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Bridge, members of the Assembly of Divines wherein is handled many of the controversies of these times, viz. ... : humbly also submitted to the honourable Houses of Parliament / by Thomas Edwards ...	Edwards, Thomas, 1599-1647.	1644 (1644)	Wing E223; ESTC R1672	272,405	322

to gaine the greater credit and beliefe to the things asserted in my Booke and to remove this opinion from lurking in many other bosomes and in particular to make the charge sit heavier upon the Anatomizer by speaking particularly to the matters of fact concerning him in accepting of his motion and request of proving the reports concerning him by witnesses and before a judicatorie I must therefore answer to the three Propositions of the Anatomizer as they have reference to the Antapologie 1. That many things reported in this Antapologie are misreported 1. Let the Reader observe that the Anatomizer though he play the fore-game and will be before hand in speaking to a Book before it come forth and because truth will hardly overtake a●…ye that is set out foure or five dayes before it as himselfe speakes therefore he will be sure to send forth in time even some dayes before reports come out yet the Anatomizer doth not say all things reported are misreported so that though many things may be misreported many things also may be truly reported and in page 4. in the definition he is pleased to give of the Antapologie 't is a Collection of such faults as either ment mistakes and malice or perhaps mens own infirmities have made either beyond the seas or here he denies not the truth of all the reports and fa●…les but grants them with a perhaps 2. I desire the Reader to consider that for the matters of fact related in the Apologie which in this Answer I speake unto asserting the contrary upon Reasons and grounds laid downe by me I never intended by such an Answer to make a Judiciarie infallible proofe which as 't is not necessary in the way of answering matter of fact so neither can it be by rationall men expected as if without that no sufficient Answer were given to disprove facts but only a rationall probable proofe from Letters and other Manuscripts going under the names of the Apologists and superscribed to their known friends from reports of men of credit and such who have lived amongst them hearing and seeing things and from many circumstances of place time c. by which in reason men may well judge accordingly and for this kind of proofe I beleeve I can make as rationall and conscientious a one to satisfie my selfe and all indifferent persons to judge according to what I write as hath been made these many yeares for since the Apologie came forth I have used a great deale of care diligence and circumspection both by 〈◊〉 to know the truth of things I formerly had been informed of and by inquiting particularly of many persons concerning circumstances and their proofes and questioning with them how they knew such a thing c. as also by forbearing to insert matters related to me upon a single tes●…monie and witnesse where there were not other strong circumstances con●…ing to make them out And yet for all the care I have used 't is possible that among so many things related by 〈◊〉 there may be some mistakes in the reports of some circumstances in matter of order and time place or number though I know none such and yet the report and fact true A report may be true and yet mistaken in one circumstance which when it comes to scanning may prove more foule in another so that the ●…se stands thus whether the Apologists relating such and such matters o●… fact an Answe●…er having evidences and testimonies by him of Letters written in their names reports from credible men as godly Ministers and Christians their own friends with other circumstances concurring hath not reason to question the truth of such facts and to answer to them by laying downe his grounds why he judges otherwise and for my Answer to the Apologists if in their Reply they deny any of the matters of fact I speake unto I will in my Rejoynder at the end of it print all their Letters with other Letters of their friends that I have by me and name the parties from whose hands I had them and how I came by them and relate other circumstances which for present I have concealed and then let the Reader judge whether I had not reason to beleeve and Answer as I doe But as for a Judiciarie proofe of all matters of fact in my Antapologie I not seeing those Letters writ and most of my Letters being but copies and many of the facts being done beyond the seas considering also 't is possible the relators may mistake in some things I cannot positively and judicially sware and make out such a kind of proofe 3. For some matters of fact spoken to in this Antapologia I know and am certaine of in my own knowledge and had them from some of the Apologists own mouthes and though they 〈◊〉 have forgotten them I can for a need rubbe up their memories by minding them 〈◊〉 the places times and occasions which they cannot deny I have also some originall Letters by me to prove some things asserted by me in this Answer and for the most materiall things of their preaching and acting for their way besides that the things themselves speake and are notorious I have many eare and eye witnesses both of Ministers and people which I can produce so that if I have reason to beeleeve a report of any thing I see no●… nor beare not upon the place as that there was a siege at Yorke and a great victory obtained by the Parliaments Forces neere Yorke c. I have ground to beleeve many of the particulars instanced in by way of Answer to the Apologeticall Narration●… Now finding severall passages in the Apologie in point of fact related with height of considence contrary to my knowledge and to the testimonie of many with a cōcurrence of other circumstances which I could not doubt of observing other matters of fact brought by the Apologists to take the people with against which though there were not such strong proofs yet in the drawing up my Answer to such p●…ticulars whether might not I now upon probable grounds as one sufficient witnesse with the circumstance of place and time c. question these and judge them to be much like the others 4. Particularly for M. Simpson because he hath publikely printed that the Antapologie is a ●…ction of such faults as either mens mistakes and malice or perhaps me●… own infirmities have made either beyond the seas or here in which sentence it is to be observed by the way he confu●…es all that 's brought by himselfe against the Anatomie or the Antapologie himselfe taking up reports suddenly and beleeving here sayes before he ever saw any one sheete yea or one page of the Antapologie branding a Minister and his Booke for a collection of such faults as either mens mistakes and malice have made by tellin●… this not only to a particular Church but to all the Churches in the World as printing doth and because he puts up a req●…est that the Reader will

known to us by their confessions and I never knew till this Apologie came forth that ever the Churches of New-England were stiled the reformed Churches as the Brownists and Separatists never yet were unto whom yet the Parenthesis relates as well as to any of the other Churches And for our own Congregations we meane of England in which through the grace of Christ we were converted and exercised our Ministeries long to the conversion of many others we have this sincere profession to make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements we conceived to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of us any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery Much lesse did it ever enter into our hearts to judge them Antichristian we saw and cannot but see that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. though more reformed yet for their mixture must be in like manner judged no Churches also which to imagine or conceive is and hath ever been an horrour to our thoughts Yea we alwayes have professed and that in these times when the Church of England were the most either actually over spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof and when our selves had least yea no hopes of ever so much as visiting our own Land againe in peace and safety to our persons that we both d●…d and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ. And besides this profession as a reall testimony thereof some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations and as we had occasion did offer to receive into the Communion of the Lords Supper with us some whom we knew godly that came to visit us when we were in our exile upon that relation fellowship and commembership they held in their Parish Churches in England they professing themselves to be members thereof and belonging thereunto What we have since our returne publikely and avowedly mad●… declarations of to this purpose many hundreds can witnesse and some of our brethren in their printed bookes candidly doe testifie for us In this Section you come to declare your judgements concerning the Congregations of England and the Ministery of them wherein you apologize for your selves in regard of misapprehensions you might lye under in respect of your judgements concerning them For what good you speake of them now and for owning them as your own in which you were converted and in which you converted many others I thanke you But for the sincere profession you make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements you conceive to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of you any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery much lesse did it ever enter into your hearts to judge them Antichristian You must pardon me if I believe not this profession Nay I must tell some of you that if Letters and other Manuscripts which goe out under some of your names and are in my hands be yours as I have great reason to believe they are I shall prove this sincere profession of yours to be insincere and shall evidence the contrary to what you professe before God and the world namely that the corruptions which did cleave to our worship and the unwarranted power did not only work thoughts and opinions in you that our Churches and Ministers were not true but that you exprest so much and acted in the vertue of it nay even to judge them Antichristian There are some passages in one Letter more especially amongst others written by Mr Bridge to his loving friends in Norwich Mr Henry King Mr Toft Mr Smith Mr Rayner Mr. Mapp the substance of which Letter to them is Not to be content with the ordinance of hearing but to looke out after the plat-forme of Government left by Christ and his Apostles by Elders Pastours Teachers Deacons and Widdowes and to consider that every Church hath the power within it selfe and is not subject to one Officer or to another Congregation but to the whole body and to that whereof the member is a part And then Mr Bridge falls upon Episcopall government under which these friends of his lived as Antichristian and that their Episcopall government under which they lived was Papall and Romish and then brings in these words And will you then submit unto it what becomes of them that doe worship the beast and what of them that receive his marke Rev 13. 8. Rev. 149 10. It is a worshipping it is a receiving a marke to practise any Canon constitution or order that is framed or injoyned by that government What you have no Elders Pastors c. What you sit stand kneele at the command of that government and in the Postscript of this Letter he adds these words paying a Pepper-corne may acknowledge a Land-lord and the standing up at the Creed may acknowledge the government Now I demand of Mr Bridge and the other Apologists what multitudes of the Assemblies and parochiall Congregations were there in England that were wholly exempt from that Government or whether there was any that did refuse wholy all the Orders injoyned by that Government and if so whether then in Mr Bridges opinion and in his letters all our Congregations and M●…nisters were not Antichristian in worshipping the Beast and receiving his marke let all the world and his owne conscience judge And for further proofe unto one of Mr Bridges letters were seven Questions annexed and propounded concerning the Ministerie worship and constitution of the Church Assemblies in England the usuall questions the Brownists make I have also the copie of a letter written from Mr Simpson to a man of note in London whose name out of respect to him I conceale the substance of which letter is to have him consider Whether he may live without all the Ordinances if they be any where to be had or live in danger of daily defilement and there is one thing which together with these he desires him to thinke upon namely what that state and condition is wherein we should injoy the Ordinances we should call nothing the meanes of salvation or Ordinances but what God hath appointed to his Church A Church is Christs bodie it consists of holy members in show at least joyned together to Christ as to a Head and as there is a bond whereby we are invisibly joyned so is there a bond to him visibly Ceremonies are nothing in regard

the Church meeting to excommunicate an impenitent sinner where there is a promise of binding in Heaven what is bound on earth which you cannot shew in your principle of submission and non-communion But this parenthesis is drawne in in the relation of your practise like many other particulars in this book to take with the simple people and to possesse them with the excellencie and majesty of your Congregationall way beyond the Presbyteriall and Synodicall and this passage here with many others in your Apologeticall Narration are paralell to passages in Mr Bachelours letters who after his suddaine conversion to the Church-way for want of better arguments to winne the people and to evince the truth of the Church-way writes thus For mine own part though but a few weeks agone when I was in England I found some objection in my spirit against the way of the Holland Churches and conceived wrongfully as Mr Edwards now doth through misunderstanding cast abroad by them whose sore eyes cannot endure the light of truth yet since by a good hand of providence I have been at Rotterdam and beheld the beautifull face of holinesse the lively representations of Iesus Christ in his ordinances the sweet and blessed communion of the Saints in all love and dearenesse mine objections are removed mine heart is convinced and I thinke many thousands in England as well as my selfe would soone be overcome at the very sight thereof A soule of gratious ingenuity needs no other Rhetorick to winne it then the presence of these heavenly administrations But what Anabaptist or Antinomian cannot say all this for their way and more too crying out the ravishments of the spirit free and glorious grace c. 7. You speake of consulting with sister Churches before that you proceed to matters of great moment and that you professed publikely in cases of concernment you ought so to doe pag. 16. and yet in page 15. you claime a full and entire power compleat within your selves untill you shall be challenged to erre grossely now how doe these agree for if you must consult before hand then 't is not an entire full compleate power before miscarrying and 't is but a power of consulting and advising after miscarriages and erring grossely and not an authoritative power 8. Whereas you call Presbyteriall excommunication excommunication pretended how much more truly may we call non-communion pretended and Protestation pretended for besides that in the Scripture excommunication is to be found there is such a censure there but no such sentence at all as non-communion there is also ground in Scriptures that Churches may be excommunicated as well as particular persons and of this in the Observations and Annotations upon your Apologeticall Narration page 43 44. you may reade strong proofes which your good friend M. S. thought best to take no notice of as not knowing how to answer them and I turne them over from M. S. to you five to give a satisfying answer 9. For that learned Speech made at the introduction and entrance into that solemne Assembly as the preface to it that it was the most to be abhorred maxime that any Religion hath ever made profession of c. I say 't is but a meere flourish and according to the Proverbe her 's a great deale of cry but a little wool and notwithstanding all these swelling words you are guilty indeed what in words and phrases you deny and in the more proper place when I shall speake to it in page 23 of your Apologie I will evince you are guilty of Independent liberty Thus we have rendred some small account of those the saddest dayes of our pilgrimage on earth wherein although we enjoyed God yet besides many other miseries the companions of banishment we lost some friends and companions our f●…llow labourers in the Gospell as precious men as this earth beares any through the distemper of the place and our selves came hardly off that service with our healths yea lives To this Section which containes the close and winding up of that part of your Narration during the time of your exile I answer It is a small account indeed you have rendred to what you seeme to hold out and to what such a Narration should have amounted concealing ●…nd reserving so much of your practise and wayes as I have before observed And as for those words the saddest dayes of our pilgrimage on earth c. I wonder at them sure you have been very happy men and have enjoyed many very good dayes that in your whole pilgrimage on earth of forty yeares and upwards those three or foure yeares in Holland where you enjoyed so many outward comforts and blessings should be your saddest dayes for my part I cannot say so Neither am I satisfied in those words besides many other miseries the companions of banishment For though in some banishments there are many other miseries the companions of them as deprivation of wife children friends maintenance with nakednesse hunger wandring up and downe in strange and desolate places harsh usage in a strange land yet you felt none of these But on the contrary you enjoyed wives children estates suitable friends good houses full fare I cannot imagine fewer miseries had you been in England could have waited upon you then did there unlesse that of bitter divisions and deadly differences the constant companions of your Church-way I could name many more miseries did abide some of us that stayed behind and might have done you to had you stayed in England As for those two instanced in particularly the losse of some friends and companions your fellow-labourers in the Gospell and your selves comming off hardly with your healths yea lives I must tell you those cannot properly and truly be called the companions of your banishment for those two Ministers namely Mr Archer and Mr Harris according to all reason and humane probability might not have lived longer in England both of them as it is well knowne having been long weake men in consumptions and sometimes nigh unto death before they went and for one of these Ministers Mr Archer he was so farre from being worse that he grew better and stronger in stomack sleepe strength and spirits after he went over into Holland as besides the many letters writ into England to friends of all sorts of the healthfulnesse of that place where he was with some of you and of the encrease of his strength I have letters written to me under his own hand to shew the contrary to what you affirme both of the distemper of the place and of the many other miseries the companions of that banishment In one letter he writes thus For Holland it is much better then I expected for pleasantnesse health plenty of flesh and foule we alter not o●…r English diet in any thing Utrich is a brave City a University with godly professors full of English a man may live as pleasantly there as at Hartford And in another My stomack sleepe strength