Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	believe_v	faith_n	infallible_a	2,205	5	9.7344	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84760	A sober answer to an angry epistle, directed to all the publick teachers in this nation, and prefixed to a book, called (by an antiphrasis) Christs innocency pleaded against the cry of the chief priests. Written in hast by Thomas Speed, once a publick teacher himself, and since revolted from that calling to merchandize, and of late grown a merchant of soules, trading subtilly for the Quakers in Bristoll. Wherein the jesuiticall equivocations and subtle insinuations, whereby he endeavours secretly to infuse the whole venome of Quaking doctrines, into undiscerning readers, are discovered; a catlogue of the true and genuine doctrines of the Quakers is presented, and certaine questions depending between us and them, candidly disputed, / by [brace] Christopher Fowler & Simon Ford, [brace] ministers of the Gospel in Reding,	Fowler, Christopher, 1610?-1678.; Ford, Simon, 1619?-1699.	1656 (1656)	Wing F1694; Thomason E883_1; ESTC R207293	63,879	81

of our bodies meet with no other entertainment then an Who hath required these things at your hands And we desire you particularly to consider what the Apostle Paul tells you that if a man give up his very body to be burned and have not charity 1 Cor. 13. 3. it profits him nothing And surely if your generation be sufferers you are the most uncharitable sufferers that ever were and Martyrs that have been in the World from Christs time till the starting up of your new Apostles within these 3. or 4. years are so far from that charity wch other sufferers in Scripture have had to their bloodiest Persecutors that your mouthes are full of rayling reviling cursing and bitternesse to those that do not meddle with you further then it concernes them in their places to preserve others under their charge from the infection of such abominations as those fore-mentioned However We have not so learned Christ as to render evill for evill but desire to suffer under the sharp Arrowes of your tongues as he gave us an example not reviling againe when we are reviled by you but committing our Cause Callings and Maintenance to him that judgeth uprightly And to instruct even the worst of Opposers in meeknesse trying if God will at any time give them repentance to 2 Tim. 2. 25. 26. the acknowledgment of the Truth and that they may recover them out of the snare of the Devill who are taken captive by him at his will which we yet with pity towards and prayer for you are assured to be the condition of your selfe and your Clients in this Cause ANd now Sir after a tedious pursuit of you through all Sect. 57 the windings and turnings of your subtle insinuating Epistle it may be expected we should proceed to your Book it selfe But we shall wave it as we before told you for these reasons First Because a great part of it hath been once served up in the Epistle and because we found it not seasoned with salt by us already discovered and rejected as unsavoury So that we shall not cloy the Reader with a second course of it Secondly Because that we find that it is wholly made up of personall contests with Mr Thomas and insolent reflexions and reproaches upon him into whose harvest we desire not to thrust in our Sicle besides that we are advertised that he intends to take that task in hand himselfe and we are assured that he will not need any assistance from us or any other to answer it as it deserves Onely because you so often call the Scriptures in scorne our Rule in your Epistle and therein expresly reject all Interpretations and deductions which we draw from them in preaching or dispute we will here subjoyne these two questions Q. 1. Whether the holy Scriptures be the Saints ground and rule of faith and practise Q. 2. Whether it be lawfull without an infallible spirit to interpret Scripture or draw consequences and deductions thence In both these you defend the Negative we the Affirmative As to the first of them in your Book you stand only upon Sect. 58 your defence against some Texts quoted by Mr. Thomas concerning which we leave you to his second charge wherein we doubt not but he will fetch them off without losse Mean while we cannot but take notice of the Artifices of your selfe and others of the generation you close withall 1. We observe that in most or all matters of difference betwixt us you put us upon the proof of our Principles and practises and offer none for your owne which is a slye way of hiding your owne weaknesse and discovering our strength that so you may make your advantages of it Which is as if a man should sue another at Law to produce his evidences by which he holds his Land to be canvassed by his owne Counsell without exhibiting any thing in his owne behalfe to justifie his claime to it 2. We observe also that you reserve to your selves a liberty of excepting against the Jurisdiction of the Court in which the cause is depending not allowing it a power to decide the case if you see you selves likely to be cast in Judgment although you will owne it so far as you suppose it may serve your turne against us For you call us forth to a tryall by the Scriptures and yet will not allow them to be the rule to decide the controversie 3. We observe thirdly that you will have the choice of the Weapons in this encounter not only for your selfe but us also setting up a Star-chamber Court of your own first to damne our Evidences and then forsooth you will fight with us when you have disarmed us You will dispute with us from the Scripture and yet will allow us no Arguments to dispute withall A valiant undertaking and worthy peice of Chivalry for which you deserve to be recorded among the chiefe Champions of the Quaking Knight Errantry But we hope upon second thoughts you may be perswaded Sect. 59 not to disparage your owne atchievements upon us by keeping your selfe within the security of an Irish bogg where it is harder to come at you then conquer you and come forth into the plain field where we may encounter you upon even termes If otherwise we shall take it as an Argument of your Cowardize and yet rather swallow any inconvenience then not dislodge you and set up the Banners of Truth upon your owne ground And first we will try you with a few Quaeries which seeing Sect. 60 they are your owne familiar way of arguing we hope you will admit into your consideration Q. 1. Whether you will receive the Scriptures Testimony concerning it selfe or no If you will then Q. 2. Is it not the rule of faith by your owne confession For it is that to which you submit your saith in this question If you will not then Q. 3. To what purpose do you require of Mr. Thomas to produce a Scripture P. 4. that saith in Terminis it is the rule when if he do the question is as far from being decided as before In the next place we will state the question between us that Sect. 61 we may understand one another First therefore the question betwen us is not Whether the Scriptures or written word have been the ground and rule of faith and practise in all ages of the World but whether in every age of the World since any part of them was written so much as was written in any age were not the rule by which those of that age were to be regulated and consequently whether to the ages that have been and shall be since the whole was compleated the whole be not so and to continue so to the Worlds end So that you are quite besides the Cushion and the Question in the instances of Abel Enoch and Ahraham and all the Patriarchs before Moses who wrote the first Scripture We are not so silly as to affirme the

word as written to have been a rule before it was written Although we shall not doubt to prove that those Patriarchs had the same foundation to build on and the same Law or Rule to walk by though they were not then committed to writing The Apostle tells us Gal. 3. 8. that the Scripture preached the Gospel to Abraham where it is observable that Abrahams light was Scripture light before the Scriptures were written 2. The question between us is not whether the Scriptures be the personall or reall ground of faith but whether as Mr. Thomas well distinguisheth it be the Doctrinall or declarative ground or foundation of faith This distinction whether you will admit or no we must premise because we would not be engaged to fight with a meer shadow If you will own the Scriptures to be a doctrinall foundation or ground of faith i. e. to hold forth from God those Doctrines which and which onely we are bound to beleive our dispute is at an end for we are of a mind we owne Christ alone to be the foundation or ground of faith personall or reall that is to be the person or thing that our faith is built on and the Scriptures to be the onely ground and foundation by way of Doctrine or declaration what we are to beleive concerning Christ and how to beleive on him We hope you will understand us we speak as plaine as we can to avoid cavills about termes All therefore that we are to prove in this question is that all things which vve beleive and do as necessary in order to salvation are to be such as are contained in the Scripture and to be judged by it whether they be so or no. We say All things which we beleive and do as necessary in order Sect. 62 to the salvation of our Soules are to be such as are contained in Scripture If not because to please you we must not argue from Scripture we desire you to satisfie us Q. 1. What thing necessary to be beleived or done in order to salvation there is which we may or must receive from any other Rule or build on any other foundation and what is that Rule or foundation We suppose you are bound either to allow our rule or shew us a bettor Or Q. 2. Whether what the Scriptures containe be sufficient to guide us to salvation or no If you affirme it then we shall think our selves well enough with our old Rule seeing vve may be saved and yet admit no other If you deny it you must out-stare these plaine Texts 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. From a Child thou hast knowne the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation And all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousnesse That the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto every good work And that of John wherewith he closeth his twentieth Chapter These speaking of the signes which Christ did are written that yee might beleive that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleiving yee might have life through his name Say not that this concernes onely the Gospel of John or if more onely the Histories of the Evangelists For then we shall make bold to conclude our Position à fortiori If there be enough in one or at most four Bookes to work faith and thereby bring us to salvation much more in all the Scriptures Q. 3. Whether the Scriptures of the old and new Testament be the word of God or no or do you owne no word of God but Christ We suppose here you will answer us as your brethren here do We dare not deny it for feare of the Law we dare not affirm it for then we deny our own principles We know not how you will answer it But we must tell you if you deny it we are sure the Scriptures affirme it of themselves else we desire to know what it is that is called the Word of God in the places following Mar. 7. 13. 2 Cor. 2. 17. 4. 2. What it is that David so often calls by the name of thy word Ps 119. whether Christ spake himselfe or the declarative word of God Lu. 5. 1. If you affirme it We ask further Q. 4. Whether it be not the duty of the Creature to beleive and be guided by the declared word of God rather then by any others word whatsoever Q. 5. Whether there be any such thing in the World as Heresie or Errour If there be not to vvhat purpose are all those Prophesies that foretell and Cautions that forewarne Gods people against them in the Scripture If there be may they be discovered or no If they may not how can it be a duty incumbent upon Saints to avoid them is there any avoiding of an undiscoverable evill If they may by vvhat rule but the written Word Q. 6. Whether there be any duty or sin in the World or no The affinity your Sect hath vvith the Ranters in Principles vvhich G. Fox acknowledgeth makes us beleive that some of you vvould they speak out must answer No but what a man thinkes to be so We vvill not judge the thoughts But if you be more sober vve onely ask you Q. 7. What rule vve have to judge of vvhat is Duty or Sin but the vvritten Law of God Is it the light of every mans private bosome This is the forementioned Ranting Principle Is it immediate Revelation For to this your brethren incline as may be seen in the Quaeries sent to Mr. Baxter of Kiderminster one of vvhich vvas Whether he owned Revelations or no And Naylers Answer to his Quakers Catechisme and that very strongly yea they pretend to the same mission from God to this or that place to do this or that errand which the Prophets had of old and to be limited in their stay in and departure from such places by the immediate commands of God * See Deusberies discovery and his owne confession therein That at Derby he answered the Major that he would stay there till the Lord ordered him to go out of Towne and when he was put out returned and staid till he was free in his spirit to depart p. 8 9. If you be of their mind vve further enquire Q. 8. What certaine token you have to know the commands of God from the commands of Satan seeing he can easily insinuate his suggestions by inward voices as commands of God According to the old Law of God to his people the Jewes Pretenders to a Spirit of Prophesie though they gave evidence of their pretended mission from God by signes and wonders and those coming to passe too yet were to be discovered and judged by the written word Deut. 13. 1 2 3. c. And in the new Testament the Doctrine of an Angell from Heaven is submitted under a curse to the Doctrine preached by the Apostles Gal. 1. 8. And we desire to know

whether you vvill submit your Revelations to this Touchstone or no If so you yeild the question If not then whatever Commands or Prohibitions you receive in the way of revelation you must obey vvhether agreeing or disagreeing to the written Law of God And then how far the examples of Abraham offering up his Son and Phinehas executing vengeance yea and vvhen time serves Ehuds message from God to Eglon may be witnessed in you as you speak we know Judg. 3. 19 not and shall pray vve never may by experience Q. 9. Whether the Scriptures do not establish it selfe as the rule of Faith in referring all pretenders to new light to the Law and the Testimony and telling us expresly That if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in Isa 20. 8. them And whether the light in you and in your companions be not darknesse that will not undergo this tryall Q. 10. Whether the phrases of walking in the Law of the Lord keeping Gods Testimonies taking heed to a mans way according to Gods word not wandering from Gods Commandements Ps 119 1 2. 9 10. 21. 30. 35. 51. 102. 110. 133. 157. laying Gods Jugdments before him going in the path of Gods Commandements not declining from Gods Law not departing from Gods Judgments not erring from his Precepts ordering his steps in Gods word not declining from his testimonies Are not cleare evidences that David made the written word that then was his Rule And you owne Davids Rule for yours p. 8. Q. 11. Whether you think in your conscience that Deut. 5. 32 33. doth not convincingly prove the Scripture to be the Saints rule The words are Yee shall observe to do therfore as the Lord your God hath commanded you and before vve have the repitition of the written Law You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left c. Your answer in your book is in summe P. 7. that all the Scripture was not then written But did not Moses therein establish as much as was then written for the rule the Saints of those times were to walk by Besides these words immediatly refer to the Morall Law before repeated in the same Chapter And will you exclude that from being the Saints rule as well as other Scriptures Then indeed there vvill be no duty or sin but as a man thinks Q. 12. Whether you deale honestly with Calvin in that P. 20. Scripture Eph. 2. 20. whilest you tell your Readers that he saith in Terminis That the Apostle doth in that Scripture intend Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets and Apostles did beare witnesse Whereas Calvin saith expresly It is without doubt that the foundation in this place is taken for the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles And therefore Paul teacheth that the Quin fundamentum hic pro doctrina sumatur minime dubium est Et itaque docet Paulus fidem ecclesiae in hac doctrina debere esse fundatam Calv. in l. Churches faith ought to be founded on this Doctrine And there is not any mention at all of those vvords in Calvin vvhich you quote from him To say the truth vve much vvonder how you could have the brazen face to father a saying upon Calvin vvhich he never said till vve looked upon Marlorate whose mis-quotation or rather the fault of his Printer it seemes deceived you for there vve find among other things there ascribed to Calvin this passage you mention But it concerned a man of your acutenesse not to have taken up a report from another vvhen Calvins vvorks are so common in every Shop and Study that vvith a little paines more you might have conversed vvith the Originall Author whence Marlorate makes his collections But it seemes you vvere vvilling to snatch at any thing that seemed to support your cause vvhere ever you found it And yet you shewed no part of ingenuity in your usage of Marlorate himself vvho together vvith that passage vvhich you quote and under the same note by which he distinguisheth Calvins vvords cites Calvin point blank against you saying that the Apostle shewes in that place how the Ephesians vvere made fellow Citizens vvith the Saints Nempe si fundati sint in Prophetarum Apostolorum Doctrinâ to wit If they be founded on the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles These words and others to the same purpose immediatly precede your owne quotation vvhich renders your dis-ingenuity the more culpable as shewing a vvilfull designe of abusing so reverend a name to delude your Readers Q. 13. In a vvord tell us ingenuously Whether we must or must not beleive the Doctrines which the Scriptures lay downe upon their owne authority If vve must vvhy do you quarrell at those that call them the rule ground foundation of faith seeing every intelligent man will tell you that it is the same thing to beleive the Doctrines of the Scripture upon the Scriptures authority and to make the Scriptures the ground rule foundation of faith If vve must not then tell us what superadded to the Scriptures owne Authority renders their Doctrines more credible We observe the Papists state this question as you do But they vvill answer us ingenuously That they beleive the Scriptures because the Church hath confirmed them And the Socinians are of your mind also but they deale fairely too and speak out That they will beleive the Scriptures as far as reason votes with them Would you speak out vve doubt you must confesse you are very neer these last in your judgment Why do you not tell us plainly that you beleive the Doctrines laid down in the Scripture as far as the light within you concurs with them And then vve shall know vvhat you mean in denying the Scriptures to be the rule and ground of faith Viz. That as much as pleaseth you you vvill beleive and vvhat dislikes you shall be cashiered as an old Declarative or an Almanack out of date as some of your Cater-cosins the Familists have blasphemously called the Bible Q. 14. Lastly Whether God vvill not judge every man vvho lives within the sound of the Gospell by the written word If not what meanes the Apostle Paul when he saith that as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel Rom. 2. 12. 16. And seeing we are upon this subject give us leave to enquire yet a little further what are those Books out of which the dead shall be judged and whence one day God will draw the rule of his proceedings in the day of Judgment as you may find Apoc. 2. 12. If God vvill judge us out of the written word after death surely we are not to be blamed if we study that Statute-Law and labour to conforme our beleif and practise thereunto whilest we live which must judge us when we dye Or else we pray you

have suggested to him Viz. That that Scripture did not expresly forbid Jesus of Nazareth to throw himself down from the Pinnacle And in the third Tentation according to your Tenet our Sect. 67 Saviour had been hard put to it to prove that it was unlawfull to worship the Devill himselfe had Satan been disciplined by your principles and required of him an expresse Text That it is not lawfull to worship the Devill Whereas it seemes for want of your Artifice the silly Tempter was put off with a Scripture that requires us to worship and serve God onely and concludes the unlawfulnesse of Devill-worship by this Argument If we must worship and serve God only ergo not the Devill But we must worship and serve God only therefore not the Devill And the Sadduces afterwards were very silly animalls that Sect. 68 they would let our Saviour go away in triumph for putting Mat. 22. 32. Exod. 3. 6. them to silence by so weak a proof of the Resurrection as the words of God to Moses in the Bush I am the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Why had they not required in so fundamentall an Article of faith especially a positive and expresse Scripture affirming in so many words that the dead shall rise againe But you think our Saviours example will not beare us out in Sect. 69 our interpretations and deductions because he was infallible in P. 6. what he spake and neither did nor could erre in what he said which you suppose cannot be said of us or our meanings and arguments To which we answer we do not compare our selves with our Saviour in point of infallibility although your generation do who account themselves equally perfect with him But this we say that our Saviour in these places and others where he argues from the Scriptures doth not urge his owne infallibility as the ground upon which he requires beleif neither did Satan or the Sadduces acquiesce in the acknowledgment thereof but in the conviction wrought in them by the strength of his Arguments And we must tell you that any one who can draw an Argument rightly from Scripture is no lesse infallible in the conclusions so deduced thence then our Saviour was in his The question therefore will be Whether any person in interpreting and arguing from Scripture be infallible but whether such interpretations and deductions be truly and bona fide according to the mind of the H. Chost in Scripture whether they be drawn by a person that is fallible or infallible For be the person never so fallible that gives the interpretation or drawes the argument yet if the interpretation be sound and the argument rightly concluded he is therein infallible For you cannot be altogether ignorant of that common Maxime That nothing Ex veris possunt non nisi vera sequi but truth can rightly follow from truth and a false conclusion can never be regularly drawn from true premisses So that all that flourish which you afterwards make is but a meer rhetoricall vapour and signifies just nothing to an understanding Sect. 70 Reader For whereas you bid us either tell the people P. 6. plainly that we are infallible that they may receive our deductions from Scripture for true Doctrine nay Scripture it self or else say that we are fallible that so they may take liberty of proving our actions and doctrine We answer we need not tell the people we are infallible and yet they are no lesse bound to receive our deductions if rightly drawne from Scripture then if we were indeed so Because although we be not infallible yet so far as we regularly argue from Scripture we are not deceived nor can deceive them The authority of our deductions from Scripture depends not on our fallibility or infallibility but upon the evidence they carry in them of their necessary connexion with the truth we argue from And this because we owne our selves fallible we allow our hearers to use their owne judgments and consciences to prove and try whether it be so or no. God forbid but they who as you say must dye for themselves and account to the Lord for themselves should interpret for themselves and beleive for themselve But what then will it therefore follow that they must not receive our interpretations or beleive our deductions Or that we may not help them to interpret or draw deductions which they cannot so well do themselves They interpret for themselves that by the light of the Scriptures and their owne Judgments led by them see cause to owne our interpretations And they beleive for themselves who are upon a serious weighing of our Arguments convinced that they ought to admit them as just and lawfull deductions from Scripture What you add in the close of that Paragraph that it may so Sect. 71 fall out that six of those that esteem themselves the ablest Doctors if shut asunder shall so vary in the interpretation of one Scripture that scarce two of the six shall agree in the same interpretation Whence you would infer how little credit is to be given to our deductions we might take for an unsavoury scoff and so passe it by But we shall forgive you this and many more such if it will do you any good and vouchsafe to answer even where you deserve no answer but silence and scorne Be it therefore as you say which yet in Scriptures that containe matter of saith and practise we cannot suppose most of us we conceive in such are at least till the new-fangled conceits of these times infected some of the Ministry as well as others were of the same mind in most of them yet herein we are no more to be blamed then the Apostles and other primitive Teachers themselves who differed as much in those times of clearest light about the Scriptures that enjoyned the observation of Jewish Ceremonies whilest some of them earnestly contended that they extended to converted Gentiles and others affirmed the quite contrary And will you thence conclude that there is little credit to be given to any of their deductions because they disagreed among themselves All that can be hence solidly inferred is no more but this that therefore it concernes Gods people to search with the Noble Beroeans whether the things the one or the other saith be most consonant to the Scriptures But you that will not beleive our interpretations or deductions Sect. 72 because we are not in all things agreed will you beleive them in those things wherein we are all or the greatest part of us of a mind Surely if so most of the quaking Doctrines will fall to the ground for very few if any of us shall dare to interpret Scriptures to the countenance of those horrid Doctrines before mentioned In a word this whole discourse about infallibility and differences Sect. 73 among our selves in interpretation of Scripture as one hath very well observed before us smells rank of your Popish

A SOBER ANSWER To an angry EPISTLE Directed to all the publick Teachers in this Nation and prefixed to a Book called By an ANTIPHRASIS Christs Innocency pleaded against the Cry of the Chief Priests Written in hast By THOMAS SPEED once a publick Teacher himself and since revolted from that Calling to Merchandize and of late grown a Merchant of Soules trading subtilly for the QUAKERS in Bristoll WHEREIN The Jesuiticall Equivocations and subtle Insinuations whereby he endeavours secretly to infuse the whole Venome of Quaking Doctrines into undiscerning Readers are discovered a Catalogue of the true and genuine Doctrines of the Quakers is presented and certaine Questions depending between us and them candidly disputed By Christopher Fowler Simon Ford Ministers of the Gospel in Reding LONDON Printed for Samuel Gellibrand at the Ball in Pauls Church Yard 1656. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE Colonell WILLIAM SYDENHAM One of his Highness Councill and one of the Commissioners for the Exchequer and Captaine for the Isle of WIGHT Right Honourable THe Author of the Paper we herein deale withall having by his Apostacy to the damnable Doctrines of the Quakers and written Apologie for them in the said Paper endangered divers of our Towne and the parts adjacent where he was formerly in some esteem and withall in the same Paper formed into the modell of an Epistle directed to them insolently challenged all the Publick Teachers of this Nation and particularly us who now appeare against him by sending two of the Pamphlets to us by name we dared not betray the Truth and Glory of our Lord Jesus nor the precious Soules of the People by neglecting to publish a timely Antidote against the Poyson of such a subtill and insinuating peice as your Honour if you will vouch-safe to look on it and compare it with this Answer will easily discerne it to be We perceive the designe of the Author is by false suggestions to reproach the Ministry and by Jesuiticall Equivocation to sweeten the Doctrines of the Quakers to the Publick Magistrates And upon that account we thought it meete to present this our necessary vindication of that and discovery of these to some Person in Authority of Honour and Conscience that under such a shelter we might gaine it a more facile admission to others of those unto whom we are necessitated to appeale And because we can assuredly suite that Character to your self and withall are perswaded that by reason of your equability of carriage to dissenters in late times our Adversary himself cannot reasonably quarrell at us for our choyce of a Patron and lastly because we have both of us in some measure but one of us more largely by divers years experience known you a cardial friend to a Godly Ministry and the Doctrine which is according to Godlynesse we therefore humbly put it into your Honours hands Sir as to the Cause we maintaine we need not any Creatures Patronage nor dare we submit it to any Creatures Umpirage for we are assured it mainly concernes such foundations of Religion as deeply ingage the honour of our Lord Jesus and therefore we are assured he will not suffer them to be moved and such as will stand when all Persons and Doctrines shall be judged finally and everlastingly according to the purport of them But as to our candour and integrity in the managery thereof and the proportion of satisfaction which we give therein we are contented to stand to your Arbitration wherein however we may fare yet it shall suffice us that our Consciences tell us that we have done our endeavour to defend the Truth and that with meeknesse and moderation beyond our Antagonists deserts or the merits of his cause and our experience tells us that you will not disdain to accept from us this small Testimony that we are very much Right Honourable Your Honours affectionate Servants for the Interest of Christ our Master Simon Ford. Christopher Fowler AN ANSWER TO AN EPISTLE OF THOMAS SPEED Directed to all the Publick TEACHERS in this Nation and prefixed to a Book of his called by an ANTIPHRASIS Christ's Innocency pleaded c. SIR NOT many daies since we received each of us a Book as from you by the hands of a Friend of yours living in this Town Intituled Christs Innocency pleaded c. which although it be particularly directed to a Godly and able Minister of the Neighbourhood yet it seems you thought fit to disperse it into these parts as well as over the rest of the Nation in Print to confirm those that are already gained to your belief and reduce others either to an entertainment of or moderation to the principles thereof And we must confesse that you have acted the last part of this designe with a great deale of Artifice not without as we conceive a concurrent aime of your own to shew how much credit your wit could give to an evill cause and how if not amiable yet tolerable you could render an ugly face by a decent dresse For our parts we are sorry you can find no better exercise for your parts then the maintaining of absurd Paradoxes in Civility and blasphemous Heresies in Religion for so we dare call the Doctrines you undertake to shelter under the wing of your Patronage and make no question but that Judge who we are assured will one day make that written Law which you refuse to own as the rule of your lives the ground of his proceedings upon you and all others that live within the sound of it after death will then call them so too when all the rhetoricall vailes you put upon them will be pulled off and you be found except you repent one of those that dawbe a rotten Sepulcher with untempered Morter and cover Violence with a Mal. 2. 16. Garment of subtle and Jesuiticall equivocation And indeed that which makes us the more compassionate towards your self in this sad delusion you are under is the repute which you have had till of late daies for soundnesse and Orthodoxy in Doctrinals and some kind of moderation beyond others of your Brethren in separation towards those you separated from And this because we feare that the influence of your Apostacy may occasion the ruine of many others whose former esteem of your person endangers them to follow you blindfold into your Errors This we assure you is not the least cause together with the preservation of those of our own charges from the infection likely to be spread among them by your name and the reducement of those of them who may we feare call you Father in other respects as well as the relation of Affinity which induceth us to put Pen to paper in this Quarrell Not that we intend hereby to take the Cudgels out of the hand of that Reverend man who is more neerly concerned and better able to manage them then our selves for as to that concernes his Papers so brokenly quoted by you we believe his own publication of the entire Copies which

you think fit to conceale not without some ground of suspicion that you were rather willing to pick out what you could best sport your self and your credulous Reader withall then to give a solid answer to his Arguments as they come from his hand with such animadversions as he is sufficiently able to make to the disingenuities of your reply will abundantly vindicate him and the Truth Onely we cannot but acquaint you that you have mistaken the mark very much in the arrowes of bitter words which your discourse levels with too much virulency against that holy man Had you dealt with one of those sorry things in black whose Doctrine and life are scandals to the Gospell and blemishes to their holy Profession you might have promised your selfe an easie beliefe from the Readers of your Book to whatsoever load of reproches you should have laid upon him but the man you deale withall is so well known for Piety Meeknesse Humility Heavenly-mindednesse tendernesse of conscience and all other Ministeriall Qualifications that you may as well perswade them the Snow is black as fasten those reproches upon him with any hope of gaining credit to your self or your book except amongst those who are either totally strangers to him or given up to so potent a prejudice against all that beare the name of Ministers that they can easily admit into their Creed whatsoever evill can be said of them But to more sober Readers and especially those of the parts where he lives you might be easily convinced had you any principles left to bottome a conviction upon that the unjust imputations you every where bespatter him withall will render you suspected in all the rest of your book for the falsehood detected in them And we must tel you withal that we cannot prevail wth our reasons or consciences to perswade themselves that you have that infallible Spirit which you pretend to dictate to you seeing we know you to be so grossly mistaken in the censures you spend upon him and divers of his fellow-labourers Nor can we judge that language inspired by the holy spirit of God when we consider that there is no Gall in that Dove that those holy men of God who wrote as they were moved by the H. Ghost tell us that Saints must put away all clamour and bitternesse and evill speaking Ephes 4. 31. and wrath That the wisdome that is from above is gentle Ja. 3. 17. Ja. 1. 16. and that if any man bridle not his tongue his religion is vain And lastly that if you be not a better Master of Language then Michal the Arch-angel or we deserve worse usage then the Devill himself the light in which the Apostle Jude spake will tell you but that you think him too low a Scholar to instruct you that have gotten through the Schoole wherein he was a Disciple that it ill becomes you to bring against your Antagonists a railing accusation But if that convince not you Iude 9. and your brethren of the incivility and irreligion of your tongues and pens in this way we shall refer you from Michaels Dispute to Enochs Prophesie wherein you will find that hard speeches will beare an Indictment at the last Assise as well as Vers 14. hard blowes And in the mean time we hope God will heare our prayers and free us from the mercy of your Hands who find what cruelty there is in the tender mercies of your Prov. 12. 10. Tongues Mean while in hope that a soft answer will turn away wrath Pro. 15. 1. and that we may set you a fairer Copy to write after when you next put pen to paper we shall endeavour by Gods assistance Pro. 26. 4 5. to answer so much of your papers as concernes us in common with other Ministers without answering your passions And Sir upon our first view of your Pamphlet we cannot Sect. 1. but tell you that if your Title-page were calculated for the Meridian of your Book you mistook your self extreamly For Tituli remedia pixides venena to let passe the Title it self wherein you abuse the glorious name of Christs Innocency to patronize your own guilt we cannot but wonder how Seneca an Heathen comes to be so great in your esteem that you that will not allow us to quote Hierome Augustine Calvin or Luther yet think your Book Epistle p. D. credited by the wrested Testimony of a Pagan Philosopher prefixed thereunto Sect. 2. But to let that passe and proceed to your Epistle which only because you direct it to the whole body of the Ministery we suppose our selves concerned in The rest of your Book because we are assured from your Adversary that he will speedily take it in hand we suppose you will give us leave to be so ingenuous as to leave to his able Pen without interpreting it any wise to proceed from any consciousnesse of our own weaknesse that we meddle not with it And here in the first place we con you many thanks for the charitable advice you begin withall and assure you that the more we think of the day and houre which in your entrance you mind us of and that account we must hereafter therein give to the righteous Judge of Heaven and Earth the more are we excited to the consciencious discharge of that office which however you revile we are sufficiently assured he will own at that day to be held by commission from him and the more are we encouraged against all that evill entertainment which for the discharge thereof we meet withall from men of corrupt minds 2. Tim. 3. 8. reprobate as concerning the Faith And we hope we shall take warning even from an Adversary to walk worthy of our high and holy calling and not wear our Livery to the disgrace of our Master But we are jealous that whatever use we may make of your counsell you intend it to far another purpose to wit rather as a slye way of casting reproach upon us by insinuating that we stand in need of being so advised then out of any intention to do us good by that advice I wish you were in your language is no other then I proclaime your are not Sect. 3. And although you tell us immediatly after that you will not undertake Epistle pag. 2. rashly to judge us or accuse us to the world from which crime of rash judgment you think your self sufficiently secured by comparing our works with our rule the Scriptures and then proceed as you think cum privilegio to misapply Scriptures to slander us yet we must retort upon you that which you give in way of advice to us that the hower is coming when all coverings shall be removed and the vailes pluckt off from Ep. p. 1. all faces and then we doubt not but you will be found not only a rash but a false accuser and that to the world in Print notwithstanding that colour and covering which you hide