revile us and we have Christs example for it who said Father forgive them they know not what they do speaking of those that persecuted him which Saint Stephen imitating said Lord lay not this sin to their charge supplicating likewise for his enemies And so Saint Paul prayed for all those that forsook him when he appeared before Nero. Now when the Independents and Sectaries transgresse thus against precept upon précept and against the example of all the holy Prophets and Christ himselfe and his blessed Apostles and Martyrs and dayly by these their practices fight against God himselfe and are in every thing so unlike the old Puritans of England it is manifest that they have not outgrown them in this point of duty and that the way of Independency is not the way of righteousnesse but the way of error and open rebellion against God so that those glorious titles they assume unto themselves of being the onely holy and praying people and the Saints and but the old Puritans of England overgrown do not belong unto the Independents and Sectaries when they are so like the devill in all their practices For it is sufficiently known can be abundantly proved that many of the Independents Sectaries wil neither pray with the Presbyterians nor for them no nor for King and Parliament nor for the Assembly nor for the Scots yea if need be it can be proved that they have prayed and that publickly against them all yea their dayly Pamphlets witnesse what good affection they have towards them all whose chiefe imployment it is except it be now and then by the way of slattery when they coaks the Parliament a little to gain their favour that by their party in the house they may do the more mischiefe against the Presbyterians I say except it be at such a nick of time the whole imployment of all the Sectaries generally is abominably to abuse them and to raile and revile both the House of LORDS and COMMONS and the Assembly and the Scots and the City and for the King they cannot hear of his very name with patience I can say thus much of them and men also of good rank and reputation that I never have heard more reviling speeches in my life against any men then they have uttered in my hearing and in the audience of many and that at the Parliament door affirming openly that they were more tyrannicall then either Strafford or the Prelate and greater persecutors then those of the High Commission Court and this was the general language of all the Sectaries through the Kingdome within this twelve Moneths indeed since the recruiting of the House and since by that means they have strengthned their party and they have of late shewed lesse favour to the Presbytery and the City they have not been altogether publickly so boysterous in their expressions yet notwithstanding privately amongst themselves they can speak daggers both against many worthy Members in the House of Commons and against many of the Lords and against the City and against the Scots and especially against the Assembly all the which they traduce at pleasure with most of the proceedings of the House of Commons if at least they do not humor them to their desires and designes yea many of their printed Pamphlets can witnesse for me that I wrong them not and amongst others those that were writ by John Lilburne who is but the mouth of the rest who dares speak out what the other Sectaries dare but mutter and therefore he is adored and exceedingly animated and countenanced by them all and superlatively cryed up as the onely man of courage and animosity amongst all those of that fraternitie and he makes all the Lords but Prerogative and King creatures and the very House of Commons but the creature of the people who may call them to an account when they please and therefore for all their flatterie in their Petition it highly concerns the Great Councel and the whole kingdom timely to look into their proceedings their clandestine machinations lest that in recruting of the Parliament they doe so strengthen their faction that in fine they destroy not only the Parliament it selfe but the whole Kindome and make themselves soveraigne Lords indeed as they pretend they are over both the King and Parliament and all the people and so become really our Lords and Masters so that whereas formerly this nation was called the Popes and Prelates Asses we may now justly be called and termed the Independents Mules a monstrous brood indeed for it is sufficiently knowne and can be proved and that by good witnesse that it is their maxime that the Saints only ought to rule the world and to have the sword in their hand aud they prove this their Doctrine out of the 149. Psame where the Prophet saith v. 5 6 7. c. Let the Saints be jeyfull in glory let them sing abroad upon their beds let the high prayses of God be in their mouth and a two edged sword in their hand to execute vengeanee upon the Heathen and punishments upon the people to bind their Kings with chaines and their Nobles with fetters of Iron to execute upon them the judgement written this honour have all his Saints prayse yee the Lord. Upon this place of Holy Scripture they ground their opinion that the Saints only ought to rule the Earth now they account none Saints but themselves and all the Presbyterians enemies of Jesus Christ yea they have beene heard say when they are amongst themselves where they may speake freely that they see no reason why the Saints may not compell any nation by the sword to come under obedience to Christs Kingdome So that howsoever they challenge liberty of conscience now saying that conscience is a tender thing and that it ought not be forced yet if they but once get the day they will give no toleration I beleeve to any Presbyterians yea I am most assured had but the Parliament voted for Independency as they did for the Presbyterie they would have found Scripture enough then by which they would have proved that the Christian Magistrate might have forced any to come under obedience to Christs yoake and then the example of Nehemiah would have beene exceedingly urged by them all who seeking a through Reformation would not suffer so much as the language of Ashdod to be spoke within his jurisdiction but constrained them all to imbrace the true Religion and sweare by God that is to set up Gods true worship this example of Nehemiah I am confident would have beene urged and that eagerly by them all who at their first comming over from their pretended banishment I meane the Homothumadon Brethren and those of New-England as long as they had any hopes of setting up their Independency were very frequently heard speake of a through Reformation and alwayes commend noble Nehemiah for his zeale that hee would not suffer any false worship in Ierusalem but since they perceive their
Truly if ever the Scripture were fulfilled in any age of the world it is now fulfilled in these our times there being not any part in this whole description of those dangerous seducers that doth not in every branch of it agree with the Seducers and Sectaries of ours the most dangerous times in that regard that ever were in the world And therefore it concerns all men that desire the peace of Zion and the welfare of their own souls to take heed of them all least they be found fighters against God for we have precept upon precept to this very end given by all his holy Prophets Christ and his blessed Apostles to shun them and Saint John in his second Epistle v. 10 11. saith there speaking to all Christians If there come any unto you that bring not the doctrine of Christ entertain him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds Now we know the Sectaries of our times teach such doctrines as were never taught by Christ nor any of his blessed Apostles how then dare any that have the name of Christians be familiar with such and entertain them in their houses especially when Saint Paul saith 2 Tim. chapter 2. verse 19. Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity or evill And what greater iniquity and evil can there be then to live in the open violation of Gods Commands for in the very same chapter hee exhorted them ver 16. 17. to shun prophane and vaine bablings which is the practice of the Sectaries saying they would increase to more ungodlinesse and that their words will eate as doth a canker of whom is Hymeneus and Philetus who concerning the truth have erred saying that the Resurrection is past already and overthrow the faith of some he nameth some of the Sectaries there Now here also we are commanded againe to avoid all evill whether it be the evill of Doctrine or manners or evill company and especially to avoid and shun all false Teachers whose doctrines eat as a Gangrene such as are the new Doctrines of our times which are inferior to none for evill impiety and wickednesse that were ever yet taught in the world as yee may see in Learned Master Edward's Gangrena and therefore it concernes all to shun the evill of all Sectaries company and fellowship and in the 6 chapter of his 1. Epistle to Tim. verse 3. as if hee could never have given caution enough hee saith there If any man teach otherwise then he and Christ had instructed Timothy to teach and consent not to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to Godlinesse from such with draw thy selfe If Timothy which was a well grounded Christian an Evangelist by his place if he were againe and again by the Holy Apostle commanded to shun and decline the company and familiarity of all false Teachers and Seducers how much more ought all other Christians that are so much inferiour to Timothy in all respects to take heed of all Sectaries especially when we by our daily experience find how many they have misled and seduced Truly it hath been the great Rebellion of both Ministers and people in these our times contrary to the command of God to follow them and to lend them not only their eares but their Pulpits and Churches to preach in and doubtlesse whatsoever they may thinke they have both of them much to answer for before God as being the principall causes of the ruine and misleading of so many soules and if the State doe not speedily take order for the suppressing of all those wicked Deceivers the times will grow more dangerous and perilous not only in regard of the precious soules of many but in respect also of the peace and quiet of the Land for all things will speedily run to confusion and the Sectaries will bring downe Gods judgements upon the Land by their damnable and desperate Doctrines and ruine upon the very Parliament and the States of the Kingdome and there will one Iack Straw or other or one Wat Tylâ—r or some worshipfull Knipper or other be raysed up to be a deliverer of their Soveraigne Lord the people out of the hands of all Prerogative and King-creatures and out of the hands of their owne creature the Parliament The Lord awaken the Parliament the Lords and Peeres of the Kingdome and all the Governours through the same to stand now all upon their Guards they having had so many Warning-Peeces both in the Army and in the Citie both in Pulpits and Pamphlets what the Independents and Sectaries intend to doe Were there no other Books but Iohn Lilburns who knows the mind of his brethren and the great concourse of people that follow him and countenance him in his wicked practices it were enough to awaken the whole Kingdom But when wee daily heare and reade what Peters Salt-marsh Dell c. those worthy Saints both preach and print and what gallant Fellowes they have now with the sword in their hands and what priviledges they clayme unto themselves it is a matter of wonder and astonishment to me that they are not all of them timely looked unto and it stranges me most of all that there should be any of those Sectaries permitted through the Kingdome to beare any office of charge committed unto them or to have any other weapon offensive or defensive in their hands then a bodkin or a thimble which were the only iron many of them wore before these times for it is well known that all the Sectaries in the Kingdome within these six years were as much afraid of the Artillery Guarden and of the Military Yard as they were afraid of a Cathedrall Church and the roaring of the Ordnance and Canons and the noyse of a volley of shot the sound of a Trumpet and the beating of a Drum were as formidable Musick in their eares as the noyse of a paire of Organs or Sackbuts or the singing of the Choristers in Pauls Westminster-Abbâ—y or in the Kings Chappell and yet now they can begin to talke of the sword in their hands It is not good that such children as these are should be suffered to have such dangerous weapons in their fingers It was not thought fit by our Fore-fathers who were commended for their wisdome that any Papists should sit in the Parliament and our ever to be honoured Worthies now sitting in that great Conncell did not thinke it for the Kingdoms safety that any Papist should bee of the Kings Councell and at the first sitting of the Parliament no Monopolists or Gatherers of Ship-money or Pattentees or any such creatures though they were lawfully chosen by the people were suffered to sit in Parliament but were thrust out as being suspected they would prove bad instruments to the State and therfore I say notwithstanding the peoples election they were immediatly dismissed the great
have hindred their activity as those that stoned Stephen that they might be the more nimble left their garments in other mens keeping When I saw so â—ude a company and hearing withall that they were of all Religions and that they had combined themselves together by swearing to take away the life of many in the House of Commons and that their businesse might go on the better and with the greater success that whiles some of them were there acting of their parts in a disorderly and tumultuous manner others of them were in the city at a private Humiliation a speciall day being set a part to seek God as they said that they might have justice done against some of the Members of Parliament that were not favourers of the Il-dependents as Jezabell caused the Elders of Jezreell to call a Fast when shee took away the life of poor innocent Naboth This that I now say was related unto me by one of that company that not long after went out of the room who was the onely person I knew amongst them all But I not knowing the cause of such a concourse of uncivill people demanded the reason of it and it was replyed that there was not a third part of those that were to come up for the whole city would appear there in that businesse the day following to demand justice against such and such as guilty of High Treason but that now they were seeking God and in private Fasts and that some were assembled in such a mans house naming the party In this formall manner things were related unto me as the righteous Judge of the whole world knoweth all which proceedings I suppose was to do evill to their neighbours Now when I had well viewed and considered all these men and saw their complections â—arre worse then that of the Earle of Strafford and beholding all their behaviour and seeing their incivility towards all men and especially towards my selfe whom they causelesly reviled saying that they had kept mee from hanging not long since and that I had lived on their almes and that they had prayed for my deliverance out of my troubles and that now I was come home with a vengeance unto them for I was turned an Apostate and a Persecutor of the Saints so that they could not in their hearts pray for mee and many other reviling speeches they used in the presence of many honourable Gentlemen as they can all witnesse and that without giving them any occasion in word or deed as the standers by are ready to depose I say I seeing this their disorderly behaviour and withall hearing them with open mouth traduce the great Councell of the Kingdome and accusing them all of injustice affirming that their proceedings were as tyrannicall as those of Strafford and the Prelates and not onely saying it but printing it in a Pamphlet in the which they had most shamefully and falsely belyed mee as the whole Parliament knew in all which they did evill to their neighbours I in replying to that Pamphlet in my just defence thought it an abuse of gravity to use it upon such whibling Fellowes and chose rather by way of merriment to answer them then seriously to spend time about them and therefore calling to mind some of their owne expressions against the Earle of Strafford as that hee had got a blow with a French Coulstaffe and that hee looked like the belly of a Toad and remembring also what they had spake of the Cavaliers that came with the King to the Parliament that they looked like so many Furies and Fiends out of Hell and recollecting withall what they had often spake of the Ministers of the Church of England how that they ran from one part of the Kingdome to an other to get Church preferments and regarded nothing but their bellies and sought nothing but the inslaving of the King himselfe and all the Gentry and Nobility of the Kingdome that they might the more tyrannically domineer over all the people and how they had polluted all the Church of God with their idolatries and superstitions and with all manner of heathenish and antichristian defilements and abominations and remembring also many of Martins expressions against the Presbyters of the Church of England in his blasphemous Pamphlets as that of the Arraignment of Mr. Persecution and his Eccho and his Hue and Cry the which Bookes were entertayned amongst all the Independents and read with great delight they making themselves upon all occasions merry with them and especially with those expressions wherein hee bringeth in all the Presbyters and Master Simon Synod with great ironteeth and such luxuriant tushes as one might picke them with a Rowling-pin and I say I calling to my remembrance all these their expressions in which they greatly delighted and pleased themselves when at any time they inveighed against the Presbytery and studied to make them all odious to the people as they have done in all which they have done evill to their neighbours thought it not amisse to make choyce of some of their owne Rhetorick which I did purposely to find out the humour of the Cattle and that all men might see the partiality of the Independents and indeed the vanity of all unstable men in generall who are won with an apple and lost with a nut and will prayse and disprayse they know not for what and one day commend that in themselves which an other day they will condemne in any of a contrary mind and at one time extoll a man for that which upon an other occasion they will censure him for with all manner of aggravations The consideration of these things and with what disguised aspects and hideous lookes and odde complexions they appeared in all the roomes about the Committee and how they grinned at mee with their teeth made mee in the description of them use the same expressions that they had formerly done of Strafford and the Cavaliers and the Presbyters of the Church of England when both in their countenance and actions they paralleld them and say they looked like so many furies and like the belly of a Toad and as if they had got a blow with a French Coulstaffe and that one might picke some of their teeth with a Bedstaffe all which were their owne expressions and as they accused the Presbyters for belly gods so they also were very sensible of good cheere and that as the Presbyters had with their superstitions polluted the Church so they did pollute them with their scummering and pissing in them and that as they sought to inslave the Gentry and Nobility and the whole Kingdome so the Independets if they could but once attaine the mastery would doe no lesse and for this my so speaking I had very good reason being well acquainted with their language and dialect having often heard some of them say that the Gentry and Nobility had beene the cause of all the miseries of the Kingdome and that if they continued in their greatnesse
disposing of the very charity and bounty of the brethren to all the necessitated Disciples within their jurisdictions and who gave directions to the Deacons how they should be distributed to the best emolument and benefit of the poor and according to the intention of these benefactors which as it is an act of Government and that a principall one so of necessity the Presbyters must then meet together that by their joynt and common consent and councell all things may be rightly ordered But in the chap. 15. v. 2. 4. 6. 22. the Presbyters of Ierusalem by name are expressed and in chap. 16. and in Act. 21. v. 17. 18. in these words Then they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certaine other of them should go up to Ierusalem unto the Apostles and Presbyters about this question and they were received of the Church and of the Apostles and Presbyters to whom they declared all things that God had done with them and how that there rose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which beleeved saying that it was needfull to circumcise them and to command them to keepe the law of Moses and the Apostles and Presbyters came together to consider of this matter c. ver 22. Then pleased it the Apostles and Presbyters with the whole Church c. and chap. 16. v. 4. And as they went through the Cities they delivered them the Decrees to keepe that were ordained of the Apostles and Presbyters which were at Ierusalem c. and chap. 21. v. 17 18. And when we were come to Ierusalem the Brethren received us gladly and the day following Paul went in with us unto Iames and all the Presbyters were present and v. 25. As touching the Gentiles which beleeve we have written and concluded say the Presbyters that they observe no such thing Out of all which places before I forme my arguments to prove That the Church of Ierusalem consisting of many Congregations and Assemblies was governed by a Presbytery that is by the joynt consent and common Councel of the Apostles and Presbyters which made but a grand Presbytery I shall desire all men to consider that howsoever the Apostles in the places above specified are differenced by that title from the Presbyters yet in all acts of government performed by them in the Church of Jerusalem they were for the substance of them ordinary acts such as Presbyters dayly performe and therefore answerably the Apostles themselves are in them to be considered as Presbyters that is men governing in an ordinary way as such as had received the keyes which is the power of jurisdiction and therefore were in their ordinary imployment though at other times in their severall ministries and going from Nation to Nation to preach as Christs extraordinary Ambassadours 2 Cor. 5. they used superlative authority which God had invested them with and graciously bestowed upon them for the benefit of the Church and the good of his people and I am induced so to beleeve because the Apostles in holy Scripture are called Presbyters that is the ordinary Governours and Magistrates of the Church though the more principall and primary ones and therefore did act as Presbyters in ordinary acts of Church Government and for a pattern to all Churches in like administration Neither may any suppose for all this that the Apostles did fall lower in their power in that they acted as Presbyters for our brethren do acknowledge that at Ierusalem the Apostles acted as Presbyters of a particular Congregation Now then if they did not fall lower in their power by acting as Presbyters in a particular Congregation what reason will dictate to any man that they should fall lower in their power by acting as Presbyters in a joynt Presbytery The truth is to govern and to rule the Church was the ordinary imployment of the Apostles and therefore they are stiled Presbyters which is to say the Rulers Councellours Magistrates and Governours of the Church neither for all this did their Presbyterships exclude their Apostleships nor did their acting as Presbyters deprive them of their Apostolique power nor of that Apostolique spirit which guided them even in these things wherein they acted as Presbyters for although under one notion we looke upon the Apostles as extraordinary men yet under another as in all those affaires of publique concernment and in matter of government and for that end the assembling of themselves together we do not consider them as Apostles for therein they did not act as Apostles with a transcendent and infallible authority and in an extraordinary way but as Presbyters and ordinary Governours and Councellours and in such a way as makes their meetings and actions a patterne and president to succeeding ages and of the Presbyters congregating of themselves together for common acts of Government whether in a Presbyterian or Synodicall way And as it is in civill affaires and in the government of Kingdomes and States so it was then in the Church of God in a Kingdome some of the Counsellors are of the more secret admission and are generally called Cabbinet Counsellors and are counted of as extraordinary men and others of the generall ordinary Councel yet when all these sit in a Common Councell together to consult about matters of State and publique concernment they â—it then together as ordinary Councellours and every one of them has as much authority and liberty to debate things by reason and dispute in way of consultation and to give his vote about any thing as well as any of the most extraordinary Councellors and this hath been the practise of all ages We read that Hushy when he was by Absalon called into counsell had his voice and gave his vote as well as Achitophel the Oracle of that time and as in the Common-Councels and Parliaments of Kingdomes whatsoever honour dignity or extraordinary imployments any of them were taken up in before their session and meeting or whatsoever dignity or titles of honour they have extraordinarily above others and take their places accordingly before they come together into the Parliament yet they all sitting as Judges and Peeres in the Kingdome the meanest Lord in the Kingdome hath as much authority there as the greatest and so in the House of Commons as they are Judges and chosen by the people for that purpose have all of them even the meanest as much voice and authority in way of consultation as the greatest And so likewise in the Synod or Assembly now of Divines the meanest Presbyter hath as much voice and liberty in way of debate and voting as the greatest Prelate there And even so it was in the Church of Jerusalem when the Apostles those extraordinary gifted men and the Ordinary Presbyters met together in counsel they all acted there as counsellors and ordinary presbyters and therefore in all those particular actions of the Apostles wee have mention of in their severall meetings whether wee consider them by themselves alone and not joyned with the
persons The third Essentiall part of soveraigne power in any state is this to make warre and peace at pleasure either forraigne or domesticall upon any just occasions and to have the managing of the Militia c. so that those only in whose hands this authority lyeth they are reputed and indeed are the supreme Rulers in that state The fourth Essentiall property of superlative power and authority in any government or state is this to have a Court of ultimate resort to the which all men may fly for reliefe and to the which all Appeales by all persons from all parts within their jurisdictions and from all inferiour Courts are made upon any unjustice done them there or upon any pressures or grievances by any one in authority and in whose power it is to end and determine all controversies and differences or to redresse all abuses and to relieve the oppressed so that in whose hands soever this authority resides they onely are said to exercise the soveraigne power and to bee the sole Governours and Moderators in that state The fifth and last paâ—t of supreme authority in any state consists in this that they have the power of pressing and stamping monies and coynes and setting the valution upon them or any other monies that are currant in their countries or have the disposing of the treasurie of those states in which they live and have the Exchequer in their hands and all the revenues of them and to whom all the tributes subsidies assessements customes benevolences and collections of the people that are gathered for the common reliefe and preservation of the whole countrey or state are sent and who have the disposing of them according to their wisedome in those mens hands I say that this power â—esideth of disposing the treasury or revenues they and they onely are the supreme Magistrates and Rulers in that state as at this day it resides with all the former essentiall properties in the hands of King and Parliament that great Councell of the Kingdome by all which it sufficiently appeareth that all soveraigne power resides in them onely and is soly exercised and managed by them so that if Master Knollys should say that it doth not prove that the government lyeth now in the hands of King and Parliament that great Court because the contributions collections and excises from all parts of the Kingdome are sent unto them and are now at their disposing I beleeve the great Councell would teach him a little more wit and all those his brethren that should joyne with him in this his argumentation a little better manners Now if wee will compare things together wee shall find that whatsoever can prove the soveraigne power in all secular governments to be in those mens hands which exercise it the same may be said concerning the Ecclesiasticall Government in the Church at Ierusalem and of the Apostles and Presbyters of that Church who were the chiefe Officers and men in authority in it that the government and soveraigne power in that Church lay in their hands onely So that it will then undeniably follow that my argument will for ever stand good against Master Knolly's fond cavils for the proving of these two truths viz. that the Presbyters in the Church at Ierusalem and in all other churches were the onely Governours in those churches and that from this reason because the almes were sent unto them and because they had the disposing of the treasury of the Church This I say will in the first place necessarily follow The second truth that will result out of the words is this that the Apostles and Presbyters governed and ruled that Church by a common-councell and Presbyterie both which Master Knollys vainely denyeth will follow from my Argument But for the farther elucidation of this truth and that it may the better appeare unto all men I will briefly run over the essentiall properties and parts of supreme and soveraigne power that were exercised in that church and shew that they resided onely and solely in the Apostles and Presbyters hands who were the Governours of that church and that the people had nothing to doe with them and for the first to wit the legislative power it was in the church of Ierusalem and committed onely into the hands of the Apostles and Presbytery of that church as who had received the Keyes Matth. 16. and Matth. 18. For so saith the Prophet Isaiah chapter the 2. verse 2. out of Zion shall goe forth the Law and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem and Acts the 1. vers 2. 3. it is said that Christ for the time that hee remained upon the earth after his Resurrection through the Holy Ghost gave commandements unto the Apostles whom hee had chosen speaking to them of the things pertaining to the Kingdome of God and commanded them that they should not depart from Ierusalem but waite for the promise of the Father which was that hee would send them the Holy Ghost the comforter which should teach them all things and bring all things unto their remembrance whatsoever Christ had said unto them and that hee should abide with them for ever Iohn 14. verse 26. and leade them into all truth and in the fifteenth Chapter hee cals his Apostles his friends telling them that hee had made knowne unto them all things that hee had heard from his Father verse 15. and hee promised that the Holy Ghost should bring all those things to their memories and in the same Chapter in the 26. verse Christ saith when the comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father hee shall testifie of me From all which places and from the 28. of Matth. verse 18 19 20. Mark the 16. verse 15 16 17 18. and Iohn the 20. verse 21 22 23. and many more that might be alleaged it is apparently evident that the Apostles and Presbyters in the Church of Ierusalem were invested with a legislative power so that whatsoever they preached or writ that wee find recorded in the Holy Word of God they are all the Statutes and Lawes of the King of his Church Christ Jesus and by the which all Christs subjects to the end of the world are to be regulated and governed The Apostles and Presbyters in the Church of Ierusalem had power also to abrogate old Lawes and to enact and establish new ones as wee may see Act. 15. and Act. 16. yea they had power of life and death of which wee have one example in Ananias and Saphira Act. 5. yea they raysed the dead cured the lame and healed the sicke with their very shadowes and all this power was given unto them for the ratifying of their authority and to shew they were sent of God withall they had the power of erecting new offices and creating new Officers not onely in Ierusalem but in all the Churches as that office of Deacons in the sixth of the Acts and the
put to silence the ignorance of foolish men The old Puritans of England had fully learned this Lesson of obedience to all authority both civill and Ecclesiasticall being commanded to obey them that have the rule over them and to submit themselves unto them as who watched over their soules as those that were to give account c. Hebr. 13. 17. and this doctrine they did inculcate incessantly unto the people and for the government Ecclesiâ—sticall the old Puritans of England did beleeve it was that Presbyterian Government that is now contended for by all the Presbyterians as is to be seene at large in the learned Workes of that ever to be honoured Master Cartwright in his disputations against Bishop Whitgift who for his zeale to that government was called the Father of all the Puritans They also did beleeve that all government both Ecclesiasticall and Civill was radically originally and inherently in God and Christ and from them derived to the Kings Princes Nobles and Iudges of the earth and to all the true Ministers of the Gospel in his Church who all have their authorities immediatly from God and by whom alone according to the Holy Scripture they rule and command they never durst be so blasphemous as to rob God of his honour and glory and the Kings Nobles and Judges of the earth and the Ministers of the Gospel of their severall powers saying that Kings and Nobles and the Rulers of the earth and Ministers in Christs Church and Kingdome were the creatures of the people and that the people were the soveraigne Lord both of Kings Nobles Parliaments and Ministers and that the authority which they exercised was inherently in the people and that they might give it and deposite it into whose hands they pleased and where they lusted and call any of their Rulers and Governours to an account and appoint them their times and seasons when they should meet and tell them what they should doe and displace them at pleasure as they shall thinke fit all these Lessons of Blasphemy the old Puritans of England were ignorant of which learned nescience of theirs is commendable They had beene better taught from all the Holy Prophets and blessed Apostles who both by precept and example have instructed the people of God in all ages to yeeld obedience to those that were Governors over them as wee may reade through all the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament where we find what reverence even Father Abraham the Father of the faithfull shewed unto all Kings under whose government he lived in the time of his Peregrination and where wee reade also what reverence Ioseph yeelded unto Pharaoh and how Iacob his Father demeaned himselfe with all the Patriarks to Pharaoh and those that were over them in authority and how Ieremiah behaved himselfe to the King in his time and how the three Children and Daniel carried themselves to the very Kings of Babylon though heathen Princes never speaking unto them nor comming before them but with all reverence deprecating all evil from them upon all occasions praying for their welfare yea Christs example ought to be for our imitation who opened not his mouth the same we find in all the Apostles whensoever they were brought before authority with what sweetnesse of language they carried themselves towards them and what reverent expressions they used to all in authority though never so wicked when they were brought before them yea if they had fayled but in the least expression how soone they would recall themselves for when Ananias commanded them that stood by Paul to smite him on the mouth Act. 23. and he in passion beholding his injustice said God shall smite thee thou painted wall when it was replyed unto him revilest thou Gods High Priest Paul stands not upon the justification of his words but meekly answers I wist not brethren that it was the High Priest for it is written saith he Exod. 22. 27. thou shalt not speake evill of the Ruler of the people Paul had learned his Lesson well and soone recollected himselfe acknowledging his error that he had deviated from the rule which is there recorded for all mens imitation in after times to the end of the world to square their lives and obedience by they are not by that to speake evill of the Ruler of the people whether he be Ecclesiasticall or civill and if they may not speake evill then they may not resist their authority and unihilate their power which is the extremity of evill and rebellion yea all men are forbid so much as in their Bed-chamber to curse or think evil of those in authority how much more are those then blame worthy that not only think evill but speak evill yea write and publish evill against Kings Nobles and Judges of all sorts both civill and Ecclesiasticall and divest them all of their authority speaking evill of Dignities and assuming the Soveraignty of them all to themselves that from God himâ—elfe calling themselves the soveraigne Lords of them all giving them Lawes to rule by and denying them their due reverence in the face of the Kingdome as lately some of the Independents and Sectariâ—s have done both to the House of Lords and Commons Surely such mens damnation sleeps not whatsoever they pretend and how highly soever they carry themselves and by whom soever in these their evill doings they are supported backed and seconded For Saint Peter in his second Epistle that knew very well the mind of God concerning such men in the second chapter saith this of all the wicked verse 9 10 11 12. c. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished but chiefly them that walke after the flesh and despise Dominion and Government whom hee cals presumptuous selfe-willed that are not afraid to speake evill of Dignities which the very Angels saith hee though they were greater in power and might would not doe against the Devill being in authority though it were usurped but those as naturall brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed speake evill of things they understand not and shall utterly perish in their owne corruption and shall receive the reward of unrighteousnesse Here is a fearfull Doome pronounced against all such people as spake evill of Dignities and Saint Iude likewise in his Epistle seconds Saint Peter verse 8 9 10 c. calling such men as despise authority and speake evill of Dignities filthy Dreamers and compares them to brute beasts and unto Cain and unto Balaam and unto Corah Dathan and Abiram pronouncing woe unto them all and proclaiming them spots and deformities in all companies and societies calling them moreover clouds without water creatures empty of all goodnesse trees whose fruit withereth yea without fruit twice dead here in this world in their sinnes and trespasses and eternally in the world to come and as if hee could never have spake enough of such men as
despise Dominion and speake evill of Dignities hee cals them raging waves of the Sea foming out their owne shame wandring stars to whom is reserved the blacknesse of darkenesse for ever against whom he saith the Lord will execute judgement for all their ungodly deeds and for all their hard speeches stiling them Murmurers complayners whose mouths speak great swelling words having mens persons in admiration because of advantage desiring all men to remember the words of the Holy Apostles and of our Lord Jesus Christ who fore-told the people of God that there should be such Mockers in the last times who should walke after their ungodly lusts and that they might the better take notice of them and know who these men both Christ and the Apostles spake of he saith they were such as should separate themselves sensuall not having the spirit he describes them to be an unsanctified race of men whatsoever seeming holinesse they make a shew of and such as ought to be avoyded and shunned of all such as desire to please God and avoyd that condemnation that was denounced against all such as despised dignities and resisted authority and even as the Lord by his servants commanded the people to separate from the company of Corah Dathan and Abiram and to goe from their tents lest they were involved in the same miseries and calamities that were coming upon them for their rebellion against Moses so ought all the people that indeed do truly fear God decline the companies and societies of all such as now oppose authority and make themselves the soveraign Lords of the Kings and Rulers and Judges that God hath appointed over them for surely a greater unrighteousnesse cannot be perpetrated against God then thus superciliously to trample upon authority and to despise those that are over them which is the dayly practice of the Independents and Sectaries all which unrighteousnesse the old Puritans of England were not guilty of having been better taught and therefore in this part of duty the Independents are different from the old Puritans of England who walked not in this way of unrighteousnesse and therefore the Sactaries have not out-stripped them in this point of obedience to authority but they are indeed overgrown and are become monstrous in their rebellious practices Yea so far they are from reverencing those in authority as they are grown to that height of pride and unrighteousnesse as many of them will not so much as pray for the very Parliament or the Assembly either privately or publickly as can sufficiently be proved by such as are acquainted with them and their practices for not long since in a great Assembly and Congregation of Independents one of their Predicants being in prayer after he had put up many petitions and requests in behalfe of their fraternity thus expressed himself speaking unto God Now Lord saith he we should come to pray for the Parliament and Assembly but they are not worthy the prayers of the Saints and so with disdain he passed them by as unworthy of their prayers then the which what could be spake more wickedly and contrary to the practice of all the old Puritans of England who in all their prayers and supplications private and publick ever with tears prayed for all in authority I affirme that this practice of the Independents is not onely one of the highest strains of all unrighteousnesse and contrary to the practice of all the old Puritans of England but contrary to all the practice of all the Saints that ever yet lived in the world and contrary to all the commands of God both in the Old and New Testament For we have read how earnestly Moses prayed for the rebellious Israelites wishing himselfe rather to be blotted out of the book of life then that the Lord should destroy them and so did Paul wish for his Countrymen the Jews Samuel also when the people desired him to pray for them 1 Sam. 12. v. 23. God forbid saith he that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you c. So that the holy Prophet makes it a sin in either Ministers or people not to pray for their brethren and especially those in authority for this was the practice of all the Prophets the Lord told a heathen King that Abraham his servant should pray for him yea father Abraham prayed for the very Sodomites and the Kingdoms in which they dwelt Gen. 18. And the people of Israel when they were in captivity in Babylon had a command from God himselfe to pray for the welfare of very Babylon and the Princes of the same and we have read what supplications Daniel Ezra and Nehemiah put up in behalfe of those heathen Princes under which they lived as well as for their own Countrymen And Saint Paul gives it in charge to all Ministers and people 1 Tim. 2. to pray for all men ver 1 2. I exhort saith he that first of all supplications prayers and intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men For Kings and all that are in authority that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life in all godlinesse and honesty For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour So that here there is not onely an exhortation to all Christians in generall but in speciall to Ministers to pray for all men but primarily for those in authority and reasons grounds are also given by the Apostle of incouragement to this duty viz. because that it is a good and acceptable thing in the sight of God tending also for the peace quiet and tranquillity of them all and which is more to all godlinesse which is the glory of all peace and therefore that they ought to pray for those in authority And this exhortation of the Apostle all the old Puritans of England did ever most diligently observe and follow praying for them that were in authority night and day whereas the Sectaries were never in private heard pray for either King or Parliament or the Scots or Assembly How wicked a thing therefore is it in the Independents and Sectaries and what a part of unrighteousnesse is it in them dayly to omit this duty who will neither pray with their brethren nor for them but separate from all their societies as from a people unholy yea how impious and rebellious a thing is it in them against both God and all authority to say and that in a disdainfull manner even in their publike meeting places and congregations that neither the Parliament nor Assembly are worthy their prayers yea it is well known and can be proved that they pray against them and the King himselfe and that not onely privately but in their congregations publikely Surely if either the Parliament or Assembly or the Presbyterians were as bad as the Kings of Babylon or the persecuting Jews yet they ought to be prayed for For we have a command to pray for all men yea for our enemies and those that persecute us and
own experience concerning the charity of the old Puritans of ENGLAND who ever kept their ranks whatsoever their wealth and riches were and would never exceed in houshold-stuffe in fare or diet whatsoever their hospitality was which notwithstanding was many times very great and this order and decency they observed out of conscience and that they might the better relieve the necessities of others and this was the way the old Puritans of ENGLAND to my knowledge walked in and this was the way of righteousnesse as approved on and commanded by God himselfe and yet the old Puritans of ENGLAND knew their Christian liberty and what right they had to the creature as well as any Sectary or Independent in our times Now if we compare the Independents and Sectaries in respect of this custome with the old Puritans of ENGLAND we shall not find them the old Puritans of ENGLAND overgrown that is to exceed them in all these graces of charity wisdome moderation frugality and orderly walking every one according to that rank and station God hath placed them in for the Sectaries have all of them changed this ancient custome and way of righteousnesse and are all run as in their opinions into the way of error so in this into the by path of luxury and sensuality So that the Sectaries generally although the greatest part of them through the Kingdome as it is well known are such as are but newly sprung up out of the ruines of the State and that were never borne to any thing yea many of them before the troubles of the Kingdome having scarce bread to put in their mouths yet now are grown to such a height of pride and luxury and sumptuosity that you shall find their houses furnished rather like Noblemen and Peers then ordinary men and ye shall see more plate in their dwellings and all things with more bravery and elegancy then in the pallaces of the Grandees of the Earth and their fare and dietis so delicious and set out with such curiosity of cookery and all things correspondent to it in respect of all sorts of wines and dilicacies and whatsoever rarities the seasons and time of the year will afford as they exceed the very Princes of the world by report of those that have been at their entertainments so that Dives in all his glory exceeded them not Yea it is well known and can be proved that many of them that were never born to three halfpence a year of inheritance nor never were worth any thing but what they have got in these troublesome times by the ruines and miseries of others that these very fellows are tasters to all the Noblemen and Peers of the Kingdome And their very Predicants are grown so dainty that they must be served before the Lords and mighty rich men in all markets for they will outbid the greatest of them for the satisfying of their pallates So that whatsoever rarities according to the severall seasons of the year whether from sea or land are stirring they are ordinarily the men that have the first gusto of them So that they exceed the daintyest and most delicate Dames and Ladies by the relation of those that are acquainted with their diets so that all fine things are tasted and eat in their houses before they are so much as heard of in Noblemens Families whereas the old Puritans of ENGLAND denyed themselves all these things who were usually according to the proverbe the first that were last served This I have heard affirmed by great Gentlemen and travellers very gallant men that were sometime very intimate with the Sectaries and Independents whose familiarity they made use of onely to pry into their severall humours and whom the Sectaries had some hope to have gained to their party and therefore spared not in their entertainments these very Gentlemen I say have asserted unto me that whatsoever things were thought some ten years since to be rarities in all Princes Dukes Marquesses and Noblemens houses and were rarely to be found in any other places they met dayly with them in every ordinary Independent and Sectaries house upon all occasions So that they vowed unto me they thought them the onely Helieogabalists in the world and the greatest Sensualists and they observed that generally there was more luxurious entertainments now amongst them in these times that called for mourning and fasting then ever were in the richest Subjects houses in the times of the Kingdomes prosperity So that if ever there were a generation of men in the world that in their fulnesse of bread and in their felicity forgot the afflictions of Joseph they were the Independents and Sectaries who are alwayes feasting which was one of the principall causes as they profest unto me that made them beleeve they were not the onely Saints their actions being so unsaint-like which made them also pry farther into their dealings and proceedings which they found to be altogether contrary unto the royall law of Love for as they said all their charity was ever limited within the confines of their own fraternity and to such onely as were either of their party or they had hopes to gain in all which things they are different from the old Puritans of ENGLAND who walked in that way of righteousnesse which teacheth every man a moderation and right use of the creature and to keep within their bounds and to extend their charity towards all especially towards the poor and indigent and not to spend all upon themselves in luxury and vanity and that at such times as call for mourning and fasting and when there are such multitudes of distressed godly families as are drove from house and home and have been made a prey to the spoilers whom the Sectaries will see lie famishing in the streets rather then they shall receive the least reliefe from them unlesse they will become of their fraternity which many of them to my knowledge out of meer necessity were forced to be or else they could not have had the least reliefe from them which is not the way of righteousnesse and that way God hath chalked out through his holy Word for all his Saints and Servants to walk in saying that they should always have the poor amongst them and that their charity should be extended to all and therefore commands all his servants Mat. 5. ver 48. to be perfect as their heavenly father is perfect and ver 44 45 46 47. injoyning them That they should love their enemies and blesse them that curse them and do good to them that hate them and pray for them that despightfully use them and persecute them And telling all his servants That by their so doing they shall shew themselves to be children indeed of their heavenly father who makes his Sun to rise on the evill and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust saying If you love them only that love you what reward have you Do not even the Publicans the same And
And all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord and all the kindreds of the Nations shall worship before thee And Psal 72. it is said All Kings shall fall down before him and all Nations shall serve him And Psal 86. 9. All Nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee O Lord and shall glorifie thy name Innumerable places to this purpose might be produced for the proving of Nationall Churches for all Nations are Christs by donation Psal 2. 8. Ask of me saith the Lord speaking to Christ and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession Yea they are his by conquest who hath vanquished the strong man and disarmed him and vindicated the Nations into his own possession yea they are his by purchase also viz. all the elect of them for he hath redeemed them with his precious blood 1 Pet. 1. Acts 20. Yea they are his by call for he sent his Apostles into all nations to invite them to come in Matth. 28. Marke 16. And many of them obeyed the call and are his by covenant as we may see it Revel 11. v. 15. where it is said The Kingdomes of this world are become the Kingdomes of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall raigne for ever and ever And Paul in the 11. of the ROM speaking unto all the Gentiles in as much as he was the Apostle of the Gentiles saith ver 17. That some of the naturall branches being broken off the Gentiles which were the wilde Olive tree were graffed in amongst them and with them did partake of the root and fatnesse of the Olive tree So that now all the Nations were equall in priviledges with the Jews in all respects so that as that was a nationall Church so are they and yet all make but one Church for there is but one shepherd and one sheep fold one Church consisting of Jews and Gentiles now as the Church of the Jews is said to be but one Nationall church because all the tribes in that Family or Nation and all the visible and publike assemblies of the same being parts of the catholicke church and living under one ecclesiasticall and civill government were by the profession of the same faith and fellowship and communion of the same worship and government united into one body ecclesiastick or ecclesiastical commonwealth So for ought I know all those Kingdomes Nations Countries and Provinces that shall imbrace the Gospel as I said before and come under the government of Jesus Christ the great high Priest and King of his church which was typified by the legall high Priest and the Kings of Judah and do yeeld obedience unto him and that government he hath appointed in his church may all of them being joyned in a particular consociation and community in any country Nation or Province or Kingdome receive their denomination from the several countries nations in which they are For the Church eatholick being an homogenial and similar body retains the name of church into what cities countries nations or Kingdomes soever it be divided into for as those many Congregations in the Church at Ierusalem made all of them but one church within its precincts and had its name from thence so may the many Parishes and Villages which being met together in their severall bounds in the profession of the same Christian faith make but one Church being all of them through that countrie combined together under one government both Ecclesiasticall and civill for as for the division of the nations it is not to be considered meerly as an humane and politicke Ordinance as many conceive and therefore would make Provinciall Churches and Parish Churches a humane invention for in the 32. of Deut. v. 8. it is said there when the most high divided to the nations their inheritance so that God was the Author of this division and gave their severall names unto them and set all their bounds and limits yea he hath set the bounds of every man as it is sufficiently proved by the Apostle Acts 17. where hee saith verse 26. that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitations so that the division of the whole world into divers nations and those nations into severall Provinces and Counties and those counties into so many hundreds and Wapentakes or Rapes or Tribes and all these into so many severall Parishes is said to be Gods owne appointment for he is said to have divided the nations tohave set them their bounds and therefore I can conceive no reason why Parish Churches amongst us may not as well be accounted Gods Ordinance as Parish Synagogues amongst the Iewes and why citie Churches amongst us may not as well be Gods Ordinance now as it was then for so by divine institution they were then in the Apostles times esteemed and it is well knowne that in New-England all their severall Townes as that of Plymouth Bostorne Cambridge c. have all their bounds and limits prescribed unto them and all the people within that precinct and no farther that submit themselves to that their government are said to be Members of each severall Church and of no other and yet all this is as much politick as the division of our Parishes and Cities and those Churches constituted by the Apostles in every citie village and countrey were as much politick as ours and yet are called Gods Ordinances and truly I know no good reason why our parish churches should not farre rather and with farre greater reason be of divine institution then those churches of the congregationall way for it is well knowne that all the Members in our severall Parishes dwell within such and such limits and for the most part are all well and familiarly knowne one to an other and every weeke once at least see all one an others faces and can daily meet together for to watch over one another whereas those of the congregationall way dwell many of them twenty miles one from another and some threescore miles one from another and all for the most part a great distance one from another scattered here and there so that they cannot possibly one watch over an other as is pretended and behold one an others conversation for that is impossible and therefore for my particular I know that the parochiall or parishionall assembling of themselves together for the injoying of the Ordinances hath presidents for it in holy Writ and that many both in cities and villages but wee have not one president of such congregations as are now in our new Churches in all the whole Booke of God and therefore I conclude that all our parochiall meetings are farre more of divine institution and Churches properly so called then the Assemblies of the congregationall way And by the same
or sweare fealty to any King who is owned by the people and whole Kingdome to be their lawfull King as appointed and set over them of God and is openly proclamed through the whose Realm to be their King though at that time hee be in an other Countrey and but now comming to take the possession of his Kingdome I say I demand whether such subjects as take the oath of allegeance and sware fealty unto him before he comes and sits visibly upon his Throne be not by this their oath become that Kings subjects as truly and as really as if the King were bodily present I demand further when hee is in person come into his Kingdome and visibly amongst them saluted and entertained and owned by the people for their King whether or no those subjects that then take their oath of allegeance and promise by that their oath their subjection unto him bee not as really and truly his subjects as those that after hee is inaugurated and gone into one of his other Kingdomes take then the oath of allegeance and sware subjection unto him in all his just commands I am confident that all men that are but a little skilled in politicks or any good learning will acknowledge that either of the former subjects are as truly and really subjects unto him though they never saw him as many hundred thousands never did their Kings as those that tooke the oath when hee was gone in triumph into an other of his Kingdomes And thus it was with those that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist that great Officer of Christs kingdome and the blessed Apostle those Stewards Secretaries privie Counsellors Embassadours of his Royaltie who all baptized those that came unto them into Iesus Christ the King and Messiah as well before his death as after and all they owned him as well then for their King as after crying Hosanna thou sonne of David and strowing their garments in the way saying Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord peace in Heaven and glory in the Highest Luke 19. vers 4. and therefore it is a senslesse reason yea contradictory unto it selfe that I. S. bringeth considering there is no difference for the substance of the matter though there be some variety in respect of the circumstance of time and in this fond error of I. S. is my brother Burton and the Papists who thinke there was a great difference between the Baptisme before Christs death and that after his death when indeed for substance there was none no more then was betweene the Sacrament of the Lords Supper before Christs death and after And therefore all those that received either of those Sacraments or both of them before his passion were as good Christians as those that received them after for hee was owned by them at that time to be the Lambe of God that was to take away the sins of the world of beleevers and to be the King of the Iews the Saviour of his people to be the anoynted Christ they took the Sacraments upon it which is as much as the oath of allegeance to any King which were sufficient to make them as good Christians as any that should come after them and therefore they that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist into Christ to dye which I. S. doth acknowledge they were all as good Christians as any now baptized by the Independents and therefore that hee faith to the contrary and in opposition to this truth is a meer babble and a contradiction of himselfe And this shall suffice to have spoke to his first answer to prove that those that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist were as good Christians as any other that were baptized after Christs death His second is as senselesse which is this To say saith he that the Baptisme of Iohn was the same with Christs and the Apostles is flat contrary to the assertion of Iohn himselfe and the Apostles Mat. 21. 25. Act. 18. 25. I baptize you with water saith he but there comes one after me who shall baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire These are the words of his second argument to prove that those that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist were no Christians In the entrance of this his answer he beats the ayre and fights with his owne shadow and falsifies my words for I never said nor thought it that the Baptisme of Iohn was the same with Christs for the Scripture relateth that Christ baptized not at all Iohn 4. vers 2. I said indeed it was the same with the Apostles and that is manifest out of many places of the holy Scriptures as out of the 3. of Luke ver 2. Iohn the 1. v. 33. where Iohn himself speaking saith hee that sent mee to baptize with water the same said unto me c. Yea one of those places quoted by himselfe Matth. 21. vers 25. sufficiently declares that Iohn had his Commission from God himself whose Prophet he was to baptize with water and the Apostles themselves before Christs death and Ascention baptized but with water and had no other Commission but that Saint Iohn the Baptist had and Iohn baptized with the Baptisme of Repentance saying unto the people that they should beleeve on him which should come after him that is on Christ Iesus Act. 19. vers 4. and the very Apostles Baptisme before Christs death vvas no other but the Baptisme of repentance and to beleeve in Christ yea faith and repentance was the summe of all the Preaching both of Iohn and of all the holy Apostles both before Christs death and after as wee may see Acts 20. vers 21. where the Apostle saith Testifying both to the Iewes and also to the Greeks repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ Now when the Baptisme of Saint Iohn and the Apostles both before Christs death and after was all one for substance and all into Christ as wee may yet further see Acts the 8. 16. where it is said they were baptized in the name of the Lord Iesus It was no error in mee to say that the Baptisme of Iohn was into Christ Iesus and the very same with that of the Apostles for the Holy Ghost which is the spirit of truth hath so taught mee and therefore all those that were baptized by Iohn the Baptist were as good Christians and beleevers as those that were baptized by the Apostles if repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ and being baptized into him could make good Christians which were blasphemy to gain-say and nothing else but to give the spirit of God the lye and therefore J. S. affirming that there was a difference between the Baptisme of Iohn and that of the Apostles and denying that those that were baptized by Iohn were Christians gives the spirit of God the lye for the holy word of God which was penned by his spirit asserteth the contrary And for that text that he citeth
doctrine to prove this their opinion to be legitimate So that in this point of their beliefe the Papists and the Independents agree against all the current and the whole Schooles of all the most Orthodoxe Protestant Divines who hold they were Christians Secondly they agree in this also that both of them hold that the forme of a church must ever be visible and apparent So that were their never so many Assemblies of Christians in a city or country and all beleevers if they be not cast into such and such a mold and forme then theyare not churches properly so called but in their dialect they are either Heritickes or no Christians but proclaimed enemies of Iesus Christ and his Kingdom So that according to the Papists doctrine all those Christians that are not within the limits compasse and bounds that they have circumscribed their church with and are not under that visible forme of government they have appointed they accompt them all Heritickes and no churches as all men know And in the same manner do the Independents unchurch all churches in the world but such as in their opinion are cast into a church mould according to the New Testament forme and have their distinct Officers and Members united into one body respectively That is to say speaking in their owne language all such congregations and assembles as are fluid and are not joyned and united together by an explcite particular Covenant fixed in their officers and Members having a Presbytery of their own with absolute Soverainty and power within themselves Independent they are no churches and all those Christians that are not within the compasse and limits of this their new mould or modell they proclaime them enemies of Iesus Christ and his kingdome and accompte of them as a company of infidels and affirme that they are no true churches nor churches properly so called So that we see that both the Papists and Independents agree in this that they bound and limit all churches to such and such an externall forme so that wheresoever that is wanting according to their dialect though otherwise they have the preaching of the Gospel the right administration of the Sacraments and the true invocation of God they are no churches properly so called And both of them farther accorde and agree in this that the forme of their churches consists in the distinction of their Officers and members and the uniting of them into one body respectively they must not be fluid as they speake but they must be fixed in their Officers and Members and having a Presbytery of their owne with absolute soverainty and jurisdiction within themselves Independent But in this the Papists deale far more honestly then the Independents for they have in many large volumes fully set downe the modell of their government and what it is and shew how they are fixed in their Officers and Members and for their chiefe Officers they say they are the Pope and his Presbytery at Rome the Cardinals Patriarchs Primates Metropolitans Archbishops c. and we know where to finde them and what their modell and government is to a hare But what the Independents modell is or will be no man could yet ever learne but by conjecture which I must confesse seemes a wonderfull thing to me that they should thus at pleasure unchurch and unchristian all churches and Christians as not formed into a church mould after the New Testament forme and yet never declare what that forme and mold is And yet this is their daily wicked practice So that all men may see if they will not put out their eyes that in this and many other of their tenents and opinions the Independents are but a company of Mungrell Papists and would have all men belieeve with an implicit faith as their Churches believe and take all they speake as Oracles though it be never so groundlesse But we have learned Christ better then so who is the Prophet and King of his Church and who hath commanded us to heare him Matth. 17. and to obey his voyce Iohn 10. and not to give eare unto strangers And from his blessed Word we have learned these two lessons the first that wheresoever the Gospel of the Kingdome of Iesus Christ is faithfully and truly Preached by Ministers sent by him and where this Everlasting Gospell is imbraced and believed and yeelded obedience unto by the people and where there is the right Administration of the holy Sacraments and the true invocation of God they are a true church or churches although they be fluid and be not fixed in their Officers and members and have not that externall forme either the Papists or the Independents speake of and for this our faith we have warrant from Gods holy Word Secondly we are taught out of the holy Scriptures also that there may be a true church or churhes in many nations and kingdomes where they injoy not all the Ordinances in a publicke manner nor where their very meetings together are not allowed unto them by authority for all such as confine a church or churches to these externall formes they speak of they confound the essence and substance of a church with the adjuncts and Accideuts of it whereas churches may be true churches and yet want the externall forme of Government as may by innumerable places of holy Scripture be proved as for instances In Israel where God had set up his owne worship and established a forme of Government and commanded that it should punctually be observed yet we read in the 2 of the Chron. chap. 15. ver the 3. these words Now for a long season Israel was without the true God and without a teaching Priest and without law So that from this place we may gather that their did not then appeare any externall forme of a church no not in Israel when the true God was not publickly known amongst them and yet notwithstanding God had there his true church amongst them yea in the greatest height of Idolatry when all the Prophets were persecuted and lay hid in Caves yet at that time also God had seven thousand that never bowed knee to Baal So that it is evident that it is not the externall forme that is absolutely required for the making of a true church but it may be a true church without that externall appearance they speak of For a church is one thing and the outward forme and discipline is another And truly if a man will not suffer himselfe willingly to be deluded with appearances and naked shaddowes for the truth it selfe and will but consider the great variety and change of the church in respect of the outward alteration of the government of it in all ages after God himself had set it up in Abrahams Family and consider it in all its peregrinations and pilgrimages and that after God had given unto Abraham and his seed such directions for the setting up of his worship wheresoever he and his posterity should come and
favour from them that they allowed them publike places of meeting as well as private as may be gathered from Pauls words who said That he had taught them publikely and from house to house Now where there were such multitudes of people as could take up a famous Apostle night and day for three whole yeares together who ceased not all that while to warne every one with teares Acts 20. 31. and that publikely and privately ver 20. and where there were many more extraordinary Teachers besides a whole Colledge of Bishops and all of them faithfull and painfull Preachers as appears Revel 2. ver 2. and all these likewise continually imployed there of necessity there must be severall churches and congregations but in the church of Ephesus there were such multitudes of people as imployed the Apostle Paul for three whole yeares night and day and many other extraordinary Ministers besides a whole colledge of faithfull and laborious Pastors and Bishops Ergo there were severall churches and congregations in the church of Ephesus and therefore the word church is to be taken collectively as well antecedenter as consequenter as well as the word Angell for there is the same reason of both Now then if the word Angell in the Independents opinion 〈◊〉 to be taken collectively the word church by as good Authority is to be so taken and therefore as there were many Angels and Ministers in the church of Ephesus so there were many Assemblies and churches in that church by all which it undenyably followeth that one church may have many churches in subordination to it as this of Ephesus and the other Asian churches had and consequently was Collegially and Classically governed communi consilio presbyterorum Now then when the the church of Ephesus and all the other churches my brother Burton enumerateth were all so governed it followes that all these churches must be a paterne of government for the regulating and moderating of all other churches to the end of the world which being all Presbyterially and Classically governed as hath been proved all other churches at this day are to be Classically and Presbyterially moderated so that now when it is manifest both by Scripture and reason and by the Independents owne concession that the word churches may be taken as well Antecedenter as consequenter it matters nothing what Master Baines thinks to the contrary whose judgement in this businesse is very erroneous how Orthodoxe soever he was in his other writings for there is no man though of never so greatlearning or parts no not an Angel that shall ever by Gods assistance make me believe or imbrace any doctrine or opinion that is contrary unto the holy Scripture and all sound reason as this novell tenent and whimsie of the Independents is and truly so it appeareth to be from my brother Burtons owne words who by his induction of so many churches and by that nigh relation he affirmes they all had each to other and amongst themselves concludes they were all dependent For if there was as great or nigh a relation betweene church and church as is between member and member in the body of a man as he asserteth so that the one cannot say to the other I have no neede of thee then of necessity they must be all dependent but there is as great or nigh arelation between church and church as my brother Burton asserteth as there is betweene member and member so that the one cannot say to the other I have no neede of thee Ergo they are all dependent For the antecedent it is so cleere that all intelligible men will assent unto it And for the assumption my brother Burtons words confirme it and therefore the conclusion doth necessarily insue And if men would but consider and that duly the mâ—nner of the civill government in all the Cities we reade of in the old Testament both in Iuda and Israel and the Ecclesiasticall government in them the truth would easily be perceived and the controversie would quickly be at an end amongst all sober minded Christians Now in those severall Cities we shall finde that under their severall Kings and Princes they were all governed by a secular Presbytery called by the name of Elders and Nobles whose civill power and Authority under those Kings and Princes extended as far as the severall bounds and territories under their severall Cities delated themselves and not only within their wals for as at their first constitution they were so many severall kingdomes as the Scripture relateth and had their severall jurisdictions and bounds so into whosesoever hands and Authority they were in succession of time devolved either by conquest donation agreement or compact they commonly continued their Antient dimensions and limits and as farre as their secular power extended it selfe in respect of their civill government and policy the same limits did the Ecclesiasticall ever observe and governed all the Townes and Villages under them all whose inhabitants and dwellers in their severall abodes and habitations within the compasse of their severall jurisdictions were called Citizens and the whole country in their severall precincts were called by the names of the severall Cities as all Histories relate And if we will but examine the Annals of times all men may finde that which I now say to be true For we see in the change of all governments from Democratiall to Aristocraticall and from both to Monarchy that as far as their bounds and limits extended themselves before their changc the Monarchsor Kings that either invaded those Governments or were brought in by election or the free choyce of the people extended their sole power to the extreamest limits of those severall governments and in their owne name ruled those severall Countries which before were governed by the Common counsell of their States Senats Elders or Judges as we see it hapned not onely in the kingdomes of Iuda and Israel after the government of the Israelites was changed into a Monarchie but even in the Roman Empire and all other kingdomes for when Caesar had invaded the Soverainty and had made himselfe Perpetuus dictator as farre as the bounds and limits of the Roman Aristocracy extended its selfe before the change so farre did his sole power expatiate and extend it selfe after the alteration and the same power did all the succeeding Emperours exercise to the extremest bounds of that Empire till the dissolution of it as all Histories declare Even so when the severall Presbyteries through the Christian world were through the cunning and policy of Antichrist that man of sinne changed into Episcopacies as farre as the severall Presbyteries extended themselves so farre did the severall Bishops appointed over them extend their sole power and exercise their sole Authority Hence arose so many broyles contentions and digladiations amongst those severall Bishops about the bounds and limits of their severall Seas and jurisdictions of which all Ecclesiasticall stories are full all the which doe sufficiently prove and declare
and in the Baptist as it is at large set downe Matth. 3. and it was ratified by all the blessed Trinity as by the immediate descension of the Spirit of God upon Christ in the likenesse of a Dove who was the person baptized with a voice from God the Father out of Heaven saying this is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well pleased So that Christ God the Father and God the Holy Ghost did sanctifie and confirme this ordinance not only to all those that had beene baptised by Iohn and Christs disciples who were also baptized by Iohn but to all those in all future ages that should be baptized by Christs disciples and all his faithfull Ministers which hee sent into all nations to preach and baptize them Matth. 28. to all which hee promised his presence to the end of the world So that I am most assured all good Christians beleeve that Christ was well baptized and if he was well baptized it cannot be denyed but that all those that were baptized by Iohn and Christs disciples were all likewise well baptized and were all good Christians for both Iohn and the Disciples had their commission from God and Christ himselfe for their so doing and therefore if any authority from Heaven and a speciall command from God and a mission from him be of any force to ratifie and ascertaine any ordinance then the baptisme of Iohn and Christs disciples was authenticke and all those that were baptized by them ought to have beene taken notice of by my brother Burton and all the Independents as formed into a church or churches except they doe indeed beleeve that Christ the King and head of his church with his blessed Apostles and all his seventy Disciples whose names were written in Heaven and all those multitudes of men and women that administred unto him and followed him of whom hee gave this testimony Matth. 12. ver 49 50. Behold my mother and my brethren for whosoever shall doe the will of my father which is in heaven the same is my brother sister and mother except I say they beleeve all these cannot make up a formed Church or churches which were impiety to thinke Now I referre it to the judgement of any well grounded christians whether or no they doe not beleeve that the great Pastor and Shepheard of our soules Christ Iesus with his mother brethren and sisters with all those that heard the voice of this their Shepheard and knew it and therefore followed him and beleeved in him with all Johns Disciples and those that were baptized by his and Christs disciples Ministry cannot as well make up a formed church or churches as any of our new formed congregations with a Pastor and Teacher and a few other of their conceited Members I am fully perswaded that upon due deliberation they will say they can see no good reason but that Christ the chiefe Pastor of his sheepe and so many true beleevers and Saints with him should not all of them as well make up a formed church or churches as ten or twelve in one of our new congregations and therefore that they ought to have beene taken notice of by my brother Burton and those of his Fraternity as formed into a church or churches which notwithstanding they doe not asserting in expresse termes that they take no notice of them as formed into a church or churches which if it be not the highest point of blasphemy and temerity I know not what either blasphemy or rashnesse is in any The Ildependents have unchurcheâ— all the reformed churches and all churches but those of the congregationall way and now they unchurch all those glorious Christians that were baptized by the Baptist and Christs disciples wee saith my brother Burton in the name of them all take no notice of them unlesse formed into a church or churches So that wee may not wonder at least wee may not take it in ill part that they unchurch us and deny our churches here in England and all other reformed churches to bee formed churches after the New Testament forme for they say the same of Christ and all that beleeved in him and that were baptized into him whiles hee was upon earth affirming that they were not formed into a church or churches So that having so good company we may the more quietly sit downe when wee are so like our Master and his Disciples and Followers of all the which they say they take no notice of them as formed into a Church or Churches These words may not slightly be passed over Wee saith my brother Burton take no notice of them unlesse formed into a Church or Churches c. What men ordinarily take no notice of they slight or little regard especially if they speake those words from the judgement of deliberation and not upon extemporary passion or except they be in very great haste and then they may be somewhat excused if they passe by their best friends and take no notice of them otherwise if they speake it out of seriosity that they take no notice of men it is as much as to say they slight them regard them not or despise them But I have a better opinion of my brother Burton though he thinketh very unworthily of me then that hee should slight his best friend Jesus Christ and take no notice of him and his disciples and all the beleevers in Christs time especially when hee pretends That hee onely labours to set him up upon his Throne as King and counts all his dissenting brethren from his wayes enemies of Iesus Christ and his Kingdome I say in this regard I harbour a more favourable and a more charitable opinion of my brother Burton then that upon mature deliberation and serious thoughts he should take no notice of Christ and his Apostles and Followers and of all the faithfull baptized by Iohn and Christs disciples as not formed into a church or churches and yet these are his words we saith he take no notice of them as formed into a Church or Churches I therefore conceive more venerably of him as that it was in his haste when he thus spake and printed for so hee intimateth in his learned Epistle to the Reader therefore saith hee I hasted at length as fast as before I was slow if possible to recover our brother a charitable Gentleman toward a brother though not well advised It seemes here was some tumour began to grow and made him giddy and run like a chicken without a scalpe which needs timely lancing to prevent some inflammation to a head whiles the humor flows in so fast to use some of his own Rhetorick This humour of his made my good brother idle-brained and occasioned him to make more haste then good speed certainly it either perverted his judgment or put him into a lunacy or into one of his odd dreams for otherwise he would have taken notice if not of those multitudes baptized by Iohn and Christs Disciples atleast of Christ
Which the Lord preserve his people from and put it into the hearts of the great Councell of the Kingdome and all cordiall and understanding men to oppose with all their might as they love the peace of Church and State and the establishing of the true religion in these three Kingdomes and the propagation of the Gospell to the worlds end all the which the whimsicall opinion of Independency will hinder which indeed tendeth to no other end but to bring in an Anarchy and a confusion of all things and the setting up of Athisme or a Pantheon of all Religions to the great dishonour of God and the disturbance of our Church and State and the alienating of the nighest allyes one from another and to the distraction of all men as our small and little experience of that way hath by wofull tryall and dayly experience taught us And this shall suffice to have spoke of the second branch of their definition in discovering the absurdities of it and the impossibilities of attaining such a church as that sets down and the great inconveniences with the unsupportable bondage that would necessarily ensue upon it to all such as should subject themselves to such a Government as the Independents would bring into the world I now come to the third part of their definition viz. Their particular explicite holy Covenant which they not onely call the form of a Church but make it an holy Ordinance which it cannot be for the reasons above specified as having no warrant from God our father nor no example in any of the primitive Churches who had no other but the generall Covenant which all the Presbyterians allow as it is authorized by God himselfe though they reject that particular explicite Covenant brought in by the Independents as being an humane Ordinance which all Christians in Gods service ought to abhor as not commanded and injoyned unto them by the King of his Church Christ Jesus whose voyce onely they are bound to hear and who alone they are to set up as King upon his Throne who is their Lawgiver and mighty Councellor and the sole governour of his Church and Kingdome And should it be accorded and granted to the Independents That this their particular explicite Covenant were indeed the forme of a Church as they would perswade the people then all the primitive and Apostolicall Churches as well as all the reformed Churches at this day in the world besides their own congregations were not true formed Churches which were a great wickednesse and impiety to aver and maintain But besides this their unwarrantable Covenant which they make the forme of a Church they require of all such as will enter into Church fellowship with them many other pretty things which they hold not onely requisite but Gods Ordinance also as First That they should walk some weeks moneths and perhaps years with them for a proof of their conversation and for the tryall of their behaviour and manners and except they can please the whole church there can be no admittance at last Secondly after their good liking of their carriage they injoyn them to make a publike confession of their faith and if that dislikes them they cannot be admitted Thirdly after this they require of them to bring in the evidences of their true conversion as the time when the place where and the manner how all which if the congregation approve not of as sufficient they cannot be yet admitted Lastly they that are to be admitted must have the consent and approbation of the whole congregation both of men and women or else by their Charter they cannot be admitted into Church-communion with them All these things as I am able to prove they require in some of their Congregations before any can be admitted as joynt members amongst them never a one of the which conditions or injunctions not withstanding hath either precept or president for it in all Gods holy Word And therefore it is an unsufferable flavery that they impose upon the people besides this their particular explicet covenant which they make the form of the Church which should they onely require without any of their o'her grolleries were a bondage too unsufferable for in that their Covenant as I have been informed by some of them when in familiar manner and in the time of our friendship I desired to know the method of admitting of their joynt members and especially what the Covenant imported and what they promised in it and what by it they were tyed unto and for answer they replyed that three things were contained in this their holy explicite Covenant First That they promise and by this Covenant binde themselves to each other in all Church fellowship as to be helpefull one to another in all things and especially to their Pastors and to stand one by another without desertion of each other and that in the greatest dangers and difficulties and to yeeld obedience and willing subjection and conformity not onely to those truths that are now imbraced and entertained amongst them but also willingly to submit themselves to all such New Light for the future that God shall by his Word and by the Ministry of their Pastors discover unto the Church This as I have been informed by the Independents is the first thing they require of those that are to be admitted as members and which they promise and Covenant to performe The second thing contained in the Covenant is That if they be single persons either batchelors or maidens widdows or widdowers they may not marry without the consent of the Church The third thing contained in this their holy Covenant is That they may not remove their habitations and dwellings though never so advantagious unto them for their traffick and tradings into any remote place from them without the consent of the Congregation and some other things there are comprised under this Covenant which they keep among themselves as arcana regni as secrets of their Kingdome all the which if they be seriously looked into contain in them so many mysteries of Iniquity yet all of them exceedingly advantageous unto themselves they all tending to the strengthning of their partie and the more corroborating their combination as those that are judicious have well observed But were there no other slavery and bondage in their whole religion but this of their covenant and of the appertinances belonging thereto as amongst others their blind obedience there was never yet a greater yoak of servitude put upon poor people under Antichrist himself and the truth is as the Papists oft times scoured over old holy dayes with new ceremonies and solemnities and put them upon the people to be observed as new ones even so the Independents furbush over old errors with new varnish to make them more specious to the deluded people and bring them in as new truths and set them up as new Lights when they are nothing else but ancient errours and very Popery it selfe in a new attire as
Religion neither is the true Religion nor that it leads men the true way to salvation And affirmes that hee groundedly and absolutely denies that either the Church of England is or ever was a true Church innumerable more such sentences might be produced out of this Pamphlet to this effect and from many such premises as these hee exhorts all good people that are in the bosome of the Church of England as they love their own inward peace and spirituall joy to withdraw their spirituall obedience and subjection from her Now here againe I appeale to all judicious Christians what the Devill the Accuser of the brethren could have spake more raylingly and falsely against the faithfull servants of God both Ministers and people then what Iohn Lâ—lburne in the name of all those of his Fraternity hath uttered against them all Surely if any Enemies Persecutors Raylers and Revilers of the people of God and false Accusers ever lived upon the earth they are those of the congrâ—gationall way and therefore they are no Sâ—ints Yeâ— when they write most mildly against the Presbyterians they call them Lyons Beares Wolves Tygers and in their ordinary language in towne and countrey they never see almost any Minister passâ— by them but they call them Baals Priests the lims of Antichrist the Antichristian brood the Devils Ministers Presbytyrants with a thousand other words of conâ—umely and of all their Presbyterian brethren both Scots and English they speake of them most shamefully upon all occasions terming them sonnes of earth sinners carnall people enemies of Christ Jesus and his Kingdom nay they revile us in the open streets when we passe by them and all that I now say the Independents themselves cannot deny to be most truly related by mee and their very bookes and all their Pamphlets are now in the hands of the people and daily read by them and they all can witnesse for mee that I have wronged them in nothing by all which that part of my Minor is sufficiently proved that all the Independents are notorious Raylers Revilers and false Accusers and therefore no Saints nor good Daemons but such as ought to be separate from and not to be communicated with in holy things as not formed into a church or churches after the New-Testament forme which ought to consist of all visible Saints And that they have caused divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine of Christ is also apparent and that from the great rents schismes and factions they have causelessely made amongst their brethren in church and state having neither Precept nor President in the whole Booke of God for any of their practises and proceedings in their new congregations and therefore this truth also being by the sad experience of all men notoriously knowne wee have a command to shun them and take heed of them as of a company of Seducers and false Teachers who so long as they persevere and continue in these their ungodly wayes they proclaime themseves to be no Saints nor good Daemons but a Generation of vipers and serpents and such as all godly soules ought to have no communion with whatsover their pretences of holinesse and sanctity be And that they are notorious covenant breakers it is most evident and apparent to all that will not wilfully shut their eyes for they have entred into a solemne covenant and oath and that made in the presence of God to labour for a through reformation of Religion in the Kingdome of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship and Discipline according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches and in expresse words also they have vowed and covenanted in the presence of Almighty God the searcher of all hearts with a true intention to performe the same as they shall answer it at the great day that they will without respect of persons indeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy Superstition Heresie Schisme Prophanenesse and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godlinesse lest they partake in their sinnes and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagnes They have vowed also with all faithfulnesse to indeavour the discovery of all such as have beene or shall bee Incendiaries Malignants or evill Instruments by hindring the reformation of Religion dividing the King from his people or one of the Kingdomes from an other or making of any factions or parties amongst the people contrary to thâ—s league and covenant And all the Independent Ministers in the Reverend Assembly did faithfully promise unto their brethren and under their owne hands by writing confirme it that they would preach such doctrines publickly only as tended to Faith Repentance and Salvation and that they would not trouble the people with any of those controversies concerning Discipline and Church-government till they saw what Plat-forme of Discipline the Parliament and the Assembly should set downe and solemnly promised also by such a time to bring in their modell and others of the Ministers of the congregationall way when they came out of New-England entring into serious discourse with some of their brethren the Ministers of the Church of England that had suffered much under the Prelates tyrannie and that indeed had indured the brunt and undergone the heate of the day of their cruelty and persecution and of whom they had experience for their faithfulnesse and constancy in the truth I say some of these fugitive Ministers after their returne entring into communication with them and demanding of them what Discipline and Government they intended now in place of the Prelaticall usurpation to establish and set up for answer they told them that their indeavour God assisting them should be to set up a Government according to the word of God as nigh as they could after the example of the best reformed churches in Scotland France Germany and Low-countries whereupon they immediately replying said if this be indeed your reall intention then in the presence of God wee give you the right hand of Fellowship resolving to stand to you and by you faithfully unto the death All that I now relate can be proved by an Iliad of witnesses Notwithstanding all these Covenants Promises and serious ingagements and that in the presence of God they have all of them blake all these covenants and promises made both to God and man and have violated them all and every one of them and have not only neglected to bring in their modell of government though promised by them and againe and againe urged to it but made factions rents and schismes in the Church and preached up the congregationall way and brought an odium and hatred of the Presbyterie amongst the people and most shamefully continually inveighd against their brethren the Presbyterians and all their proceedings and have laboured also with all their might and power to hinder the reformation of Religion and to breake the union betweene the two nations Scots and English and to bring in a toleration of all
reade this Booke I will here againe repeate his answer to my Argument with his distinction The Jndependents saith hee grant that it is the Presbyters part to rule but saith he wee distinguish betweene authority and jurisdiction on the one hand and power and interest on the other this latter belongs unto the people the other is proper to the officers which they exercise in the name of the Church c. If hee had said in the name of Christ it had been better but all error is like unto sinne it seldome goes single and alone for here I. S. commits a multiforme error in robbing not onely the Presbyters and Ministers of Christ of their due honour but in robbing also the Lord of life himselfe of his dignity and royaltie and making all the Ministers and Officers of Iesus Christ and his peculiar servants but the vassales and slaves of the people who they call the Church so that according to I. S. his learning all the Officers and Ministers of Christ are at the peoples disposing for they are all of them to act as the Church directs them and they must doe it alwayes in the name of the Church and this is the Hysteron Proteron Divinity of the Independents in all which they deale most wickedly on every side so that when they seeme to speake the Ministers fairest they abuse them to their face for here I. S. by that distinction of his would perswade the world that the Independents give great honour to the Ministers in saying that authority and jurisdiction belongs unto them and is theirs properly and that only power and interest belongs unto the people and yet in the same breath before hee hath passed two steps by his owne description of the power and interest which hee grants unto the people hee gives away all that authority and jurisdiction that hee spake of a little before not onely from all the Ministers and Presbyters of the Gospel but from Christ himselfe the King of his Church and invests the people with it which hee cals the Church saying that the Officers are to exercise their authority and jurisdiction in the name of the Church so that it is evident according to his Divinity that the Ministers of Iesus Christ are but the slaves of the people and that all men may see that this is his meaning he in the 12. page saith that the very Apostles and Elders in the Councell and Synod at Ierusalem were but as a Committee to prepare the dispute and then to report it for the assistance nnd concurrence of the multitude these are his owne words by all which if hegives not the people by his distinction of power and interest a greater authority then hee gives unto the Apostles and Presbyters and to Christ himself let every ingenious man judge which is not only a horrid impiety but abominable in justice sacriledge yea every man may plainly perceive that out of his own words and from the language of al the Independents that he invests the people with all authority under that distinction of power and interest for in saying in the same pag. that in ordination election of officers belongs unto the brethren and imposition of hands to the officers where there are officers as in a Church constituted and compleate by these words hee invests the people with all full and ample authority as any men are capable of or can be betrusted with for amongst many of the Independents to my knowledge they make nothing of ordination and imposition of hands and count it but a complement that makes nothing to the essence of any officers as they say for they assert that it is sufficient to make any man an Officer or Minister if hee be once chosen by the people and it is the election of the church and their call as they say that makes officers without which they affirme they can bee no true officers so that if election be the maine and essentiall busines required for the making of Church-officers and as they teach their followers and they give the power of election to the church or people and affirme that all things are ever to be done in the name of the church it matters not with them whether they be ordained or have any imposition of hands or no that being in their dialect but a complement or a needless ceremony for so I have heard them speak the which ordination also though they say it belongeth unto officers notwithstanding the church and people make no scruple to exercise it at any time and to put it in execution if they thinke it fit as the practise of the new gathered Churches daily teaches all men yea wee may gather as much out of I. S. his owne expressions that the power of ordination as well as of election resides in the people and lies in their hands who saith that imposition of hands is proper to the officers where there are officers in a Church constituted and compleate intimating that if they have no Church-officers they themselves may then ordaine them and this is the practise of some of the churches of the congregationall way by all which their language and proceedings if by their distinction of power and interest they doe not assume arrogate all power to themselvs and take it into their owne hands and invest the people with plenary authority over all Ministers in Church and State I know not what it is to conferre authority on any people It is most notoriously knowne that our Independent Gentlemen would place all authority in the people and would have the Magistrates and Ministers in Church and State all dependent upon them and expect their election and ordination from them and they onely would be independent and all this may be gathered not only from their words and practises and out of all their Pamphlets but even from I. S. his owne distinction of power and interest which hee saith belongs unto the people having thus from their owne Principles sufficiently elucidated that by the Independents doctrine and by their distinction of power and interest they assume all authority to themselves whiles they pretend they give authority and jurisdiction to the Ministers I will now set forth their wickednesse in shâ—wing how they rob Christ of his honour and the Apostles also and Presbyters of Ierusalem of their dignity and power as well as they doe all other ordinary Presbyters of their due honour and authority And I will first begin with their dealing towards Christ the King and Lord of his Church which is his Kingdome All those that know how the Kingdomes and Empires of the world aâ—e governed know that all their Councels Embassadours Judges Rulers and Officers under them either in the time of peace or warre in all their acts of government and in all their precepts and mandates whether Imparative or Prohibitive and in all their Courts of Judicature transact and passe all things with all their writs and summons in the
his Throne all such as these are I say make Christ a Pagent King and salute him with haile Master as the Jews did to usurpe some of their own rhetorick and learned elequence but indeed they disthrone him For what is it to disthrone a King if writing of Warning Peeces and Pamphlets against Kings service and Kings-honour be not And what I pray is it to disthrone a King if this be not to passe all acts of Government in the peoples name and to send out all their warrants and mandates in the peoples name and to command all their officers to manage all their imploiments in the peoples name never so much as mentioning or taking notice of the King in a publique act of Government Are not all these actions and passages to any rationall creature a sufficient demonstration that the King in that Kingdome is either absolutely disthroned or is but a King to them in ludibry as Christ was to the wicked Jews I am confident that all understanding men will so conclude Now when in all the new congregations those new gathered churches the Ildependents there have such amongst them that write books and that with their approbation against Iesu-Worship that is against the Worship of Iesus who is the eternall King of his Church and when every day in all their particular churches they exercise all the acts of Government in the name of their churches and not in Christs the Kings name and that against the command of Christ and his Apostles I affirm and by the grace of God I hope ever to make it good that all this is not onely a robbing Christ our Lord and King of his due honour but a blasphemous and more then a Papall usurpation and derogating from his Kingly dignity and royalty yea it is indeed a plain disthroning of Christ their King and thrusting him out of his place and putting themselves in it which whether or no it be not the highest point of contumacy rebellion and blasphemy I leave to the judgment of others as for my self I know not what either of these things be if they be not blasphemy for when I learned Divinity I was taught that blasphemy consisted in this either to give unto God that that belonged not to him and to the excellency of his Majesty divine nature or to detract from him that that peculiarly belonged either to the essence persons or glorious attributes of the diety or to give the honour properly and peculiarly due to God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost or to any person in the glorious Trinity to any creature or malitiously or wickedly to speak evill of God his essence attributes word works c. or to do or act any thing obstinately and wilfully that is or may be derogatory to the dignity and honour of the Divine Majesty of God blessed for ever any of these things when I studied Divinity were thought blasphemy and worthy of severest punishments and those that perpetrated any of those crimes were reputed unworthy to live and proclamed blasphemers and men unsufferable and yet there are many such kind of creatures in our new gathered Churches who are guilty of all that can be called blasphemy and that rob Christ the Lord of his Worship and write against Iesu-worship blaspheme the holy Scriptures and deny the diety of Christ and the blessed Trinity c. and disthrone Christ in their new Congregations whiles they cry hail Master exercising all acts of Government amongst themselvs in the name of the Church never so much as mentioning the name of Christ the King and many more intolerable insolencies they dayly commit against the Soveraign Majesty of heaven and earth the Lord Jesus Christ our Lord and King and all these notwithstanding are counted Saints that commit these vices and malifices and great books are writ in defence of all these wicked blasphemous wretches and both their errors and their persons are countenanced and that by their great Rabbyes and Champions all which notwithstanding are in Gods dialect and in his holy Word both old and new counted abominable creatures and men unholy and displeasing unto God and the acters and abetters and countenancers of all such blasphemies and wickednesses were thought equally guilty and great and fearfull judgements were denounced against them all as it is apparently evident out of Gods holy Word and yet these great evills are counted but the infirmities of the Saints amongst our Independent masters Now then I say when the Illdefendents are guilty of all these crimes as partly acting them partly tolerating such as are both actors and abetters or conniving at them and countenancing them pretend they what they will of setting up Christ upon his Throne I hope to be ever able to make it good that they all of them disthrone Christ manifest to the world that as much as in them lies they would not have him raign over them and so make themselves guilty of that crime they lay to the Presbyterians charg whom they dayly accuse to be enemies of Jesus Christ his Kingdom and such as would not have Christ rule over them when notwithstanding the Presbyterians do and ever will by Gods divine assistance set up Christ King upon his Throne and shall ever desire that all honour and glory and praise may be given for ever and ever to the King eternall immortall invisible the only wise God the King of Saints and King of Kings and that he may solely rule for ever and that all his enemies and such as rob him of his honour and dignity may be made his footstoole in the number of which the greatest part of the Sectaries are and all such as comply with them And this shall suffice to have spoken concerning the first part of my undertaking against I. S. which was to set forth the wickednesse of the Independents and to shew how by their doctrine they rob Christ of his honour and Kingly dignity when they pretend they set him upon his Throne which is an unsufferable blasphemy in them And now I come to prove against I. S. that I undertook in the second place to make good viz. that by their doctrine they not only rob Christ of his honour but all Christs blessed Apostles Ministers and Servants of their power and leave them nothing but the name and shadow of authority which is a horrid injustice and wickednesse in the Sectaries and Independents to do which although I have briefly proved before yet I shall here again for the more full elucidation of the truth and for the better setting forth of the Ill-dependent wickednesse a little further expatiate in this business and answer to all that I. S. hath materially or with any colour to speak in behalfe of his cause where I presume he hath spake as much as he and his complices thought and conceived made for it and for which their vain and impious jangling they must one day give a dreadfull account I undertake therefore now to prove
to obey now when these of the congregationall way have neither precept nor president for these their proceedings in their admission of Members it is but a vaine tradition of their owne braine and ought by all Christs true Disciples to be abhorred and abominated But whereas my brother Burton saith that they that are to walk together should first be agreed together and cites these words out of third of Amos ver 3. Can two walke together except they be agreed To this I thus Reply First that if the Independents were Gods and all the Presbyterians went on in wicked and sinfull courses then this question of his had been to the purpose but when it is certain that the Illdependents are sinners as well as the other Sonnes and Daughters of Adam and many of them known to be notoriously scandalous not onely for their damnable and hereticall opinions and schismaticall doctrines but for their lying rayling hypocrisie pride covetousnesse c. and all of them guilty of the sin of seducing and misleading the poor people I say in all these regards I see no reason why there should be any necessity layd upon Gods heritage and people to be acquainted with them and their ways except it be that all such as fear God and will walk in his pathes by knowing of them may shun them and their by-wayes which they are bound to do both from precept Prov. 4. v. 14 15. Ps 1. v. 1. and from the example of our Saviour Ioh. 2. ver 24. where it is said that Iesus did not commit himselfe unto them because he knew them And so all good people and such as truly fear God should make use of their knowledge to shun such seducers and deceivers and to decline all their by-wayes But secondly I answer that God hath no where injoyned or required that those that either are to be made Christians or to be admitted into Church fellowship should either know the faces of all the Members of the congregation or should be particularly acquainted with the whole church that he is to be admitted a Member of For we have no warrant for such practice in the whole Scripture neither is there any example of it from one end of the Bible to the other and therefore it is meer Will-Worship and a serving of God after the commandments of men which is so often condemned in holy Scripture as Isaiah 29. Matth. 15. Mark 7. Coloss 2. and therfore ought to be abhorred as an intolerable yoke of bondage which neither we nor our forefathers could bear Acts 15. Whereas Christs yoke is easie and light and they that take his yoke vpon them finde rest unto their soules Matth. 11. ver 28 29 30. who saith unto his people Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest He doth not say If you will come to me and be admitted into church fellowship you must first walk sometime with my people and be acquainted with them I say Christ the King of his church hath given no such command either to those that are to be admitted or to his Ministers and stewards of his house which is his church of any such practice Thirdly I answer that as there is an impossibility almost for any man or woman to be acquainted with a whole Church so it is neither necessary nor usefull For that knowledge that is required as necessary to salvation and for the making of any fit to be church Members consists in these things that they repent and beleeve and be baptized and that they should know the onely true God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ John 17. And this is the first thing absolutely necessary to salvation which is required of all such as will be Christs Disciples The second thing is the knowledge of our selves which consists in self-denyall and regeneration For if any will be Christs Disciples they must deny themselves and take up his crosse dayly For so saith Christ our King Matth. 16. Luke 9. And again John 3. ver 3. Christ speaking unto Nicodemus saith to him and in him to all men Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God ver 5. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God He must be a new creature saith he And this is the knowledge that Christ the King of his church requires as necessary for their salvation so for their admission into church fellowship and he that has these qualifications has as much as Christ requires and there is no need of any particular or familiar acquaintance with all those of the congregation or with the whole church or that they should walk some time with them therefore it is wickedly done in all those of the congregational way to impose laws of their own making upon the people of God their brethren who are a free people and therefore they that desire to serve their King Christ Jesus and to hear and obey his voice only ought to detest all these false teachers that would so inthrall them especially they ought to abominate their practices because they make these their traditions Gods Ordinances But whereas my brother Burton saith that abundans cautela non nocet and that they look not so much at circumstances in conversion as the substance I affirme it is a most arrogant expression in any so to speak for in his thus speaking he makes as if it were in the power of poor mortall creatures to search mens hearts and judge of the secrets of the same which is onely Gods peculiar but that is not all but in this his expression there is a high strain of confidence in the man that he will seem to be wiser then Christ himselfe that was the King and Lawgiver of his Church and the mighty Councellour and yet he gave no precept for this abundans cautela and yet it is most certain that he revealed the whole will of his Father and his Disciples also delivered unto the church the whole counsell of God Act. 21. And yet neither Christ nor his Apostles did ever deliver this doctrine of walking with the church sometime nor never spake of this abundans cautela therefore I gather it is neither part of the will or councell of God that they injoyn this walking upon his people therefore all the true subjects of Jesus Christ and all his leige people ought to abominate and abhorre all such usurpers as my Brother Burton and his complices are that trample down the Laws of Christ our King and impose their own inventions and traditions upon his people for Christs Ordinances and Statutes And this shall suffice to have spak to what my brother Burton had to say to my second Quâ—rie To the third quaerie concerning the consent of the people and congregation my brother Burton replyes that it is answered before which was no answer to that quaerie But now learned I. S. comes in and Page 18.
We hold it saith he yea that for the admission of any to Membership or Office bearing in a church the consent of the congregation or the major part thereof as well as officers be required and that as well in regard every one takes a charge upon him as in respect of interest I expected that this groll I. S. should according to his promise not onely have given me a parcell of words but as he accounted me a Catachumenos that he should have taught and instructed me out of Gods Word which must be the rule of our obedience and out of his statutes where ever Christ the King of his Church had ever given such a law unto his people that they should admit of none into his house without the consent of all their fellow servants and where he did resign his authority and put it into the peoples hands and commanded them that they should take a charge of his family upon them as having an interest in it and where Christ did ever by any law or statute make his people servants to each other as that they should take a charg over them have an interest in them to judge them at pleasure all this I looked for at I. S. his hands and that now he should have fully informed me in it especially when we have a command from Christ our King to the contrary I desire to go on warily 1 Cor. 7. 23. who saith to all his servants and subjects by his Apostle Ye are bought with a price be not ye the servants of men Now if we are not to be the servants of men how then comes it to passe that the Independents make us not onely servants but slaves and vassals to them for what greater bondage and servitude can there be in the World then to be under the controule of every one his fellow servants so that without their good likinâ— they can neither come in nor go out of their masters house nor be admitted to do that service their master calls for at their hands but if any one of their fellow servants shall except against him he must be kept out of doors I appeal here to the judgement of all men whether there were ever extant in the World such a generation of Lordly Gentlemen over Gods heritage seen since mortality inhabited the earth or that did ever more impudently domineer and Lord it over Gods Clergyes then in this our age where every man makes himselfe a Lord and Judge over his brother who is purchased by Christ his King and made free by his Word especially is not this a horrid insolency in any to take upon him to judge his brother when there is a statute law and a command laid upon him to the contrary Rom. 14. 13. Let us not therefore saith the Apostle judg one another any more but judg this rather that no man put a stumbling block or occasion to fall in his brothers way in the which Law statute there are 2 observables The first is this that no man should judge his brother any more and this statute is ratified by many other and from most warrantable and divine reason the other statutes that confirme this are many in the same chapter with the reasons thereof For saith the Apostle What art thou that judgest another mans servant to his own master he standeth or falleth ver 4. therefore thou oughtest not to judge him For to this end saith he ver 9. Christ both dyed rose again and revived that he might be Lord both of the dead and living Christ saith he is our Lord both by donation by conquest by purchase by covenant by fellowship with the sonne and with the Father we were given unto him by God the Father and he conquered all our enemies and led captivity captive and vanquished the strong and armed man and disarmed him and rescued all his servants out of his slavery he hath redeemed us by no less price then his pretious blood and we are his people also by covenant and by communion in his graces and resurrection and glory injoying with him all felicity and everlasting happinesse with an eternall Kingdome therefore saith he in the 12. verse Why dost thou judge thy brother and why dost thou set at naught thy brother we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ Therefore judge not thy brother And St. James saith my brethren be not many Masters And this I say is the first observable out of that text that we ought not to judge one another any more The second observeable is that no man should put a stumbling blocke or occasion of fall in his brothers way Now I appeale unto any man what greater stumbling blocke or occasion to fall can be put in any mans way then when men on their own heads impose a Law upon their brethren that Christ our King never gave to his people or what greater scandall and offence can be given to a poore servant of Jesus Christ his King then to be thrust out of their Masters doores or to be kept out of their Masters house and to be judged at the will and pleasure of his fellow servants whether hee be fit to come into his Maastars family or not if this be not to judge his brother if this be not a scandall yea if this be not an intolerable tyrannie there was never any either judgement scandall or tyrannie in the world nor greater rebellion and contumacy against the King of his Church and against his subjects servants and redeemed ones and therefore if the Pope and Prelates were so much abominated and abhorred of all men for their usurpation over Gods heritage and clergies how much ought such squanderling fellowes as this I. S. and his complices be abominated who thus take upon them to discerne into the very secrets of their brethrens hearts and to judge them fit or not fit to be received into Church fellowship and into the communion of Saints and according to their conceit and opinion so to bring in their verdict of admission or non-admission when Christ our Lord and King sayes judge not lest ye bee judgod Matth. 3. and bids all men that are heavie laden to come unto him Matth. 11. and saith Iohn the 6. v. 37. Him that comethunto me I will in no way cast out Here the Lord the King of his Church gives free admittance to all his subjects and servants to come into his Kingdom and house but here is my Lord Taps his Chaplaine and his associats and they all take upon them this power and authority that except it be by their good leave liking they shall not be admitted into the house of God for they have a charge over that house and an interest also these are I. S. his owne expressions Now I do here againe appeale to any that have but any ordinary understanding whether there was ever such a supercilious brood of creatures in the world before these Ill-dependents were hatcht that can
same word is used Matth. 19. 5. For this cause saith our Saviour shall a man leave father and mother and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall cleave to his wife Now saith he we know that a man cleaves to his wife by a covenant and therefore why not so to the Church If he had said why not so unto Christ he had said something to the purpose for we are married onely unto Christ and not to the Church knowing that the Church is Christs Spouse and Christ is the Churches Husband and we are married unto Christ and not to the Church and one to another neither did any Christian yet ever deny but that all those that would be joyned unto Christ and so be received into his house and family and be subjects of his Kingdom they must take the oath of Allegeance unto their King Christ and therefore must enter into his house which is his Church by the covenant of Baptism this I say all men accord unto when men are first admitted into the Church And this covenant I say all that will be Christs Disciples and of his Kingdom and Family must take before they can be admitted But that they should after they are baptized enter into another particular explicite covenant and by that binde themselves to the Church I affirm there is neither precept nor president for it in all the holy Scripture either of the old or new Testament neither is there any such mystery in the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to imploy so much for we know the same word is used in the eighth Chapter of the Acts verse 29. Where the Spirit said to Philip go neer and joyn thy self to this Chariot Where the word joyn in the original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the which word Philip did not understand that he must joyn himself to the Eunuchs chariot by a particular explicite covenant No more ought any wise man to conceive that when Paul assayed to joyn himself to the Disciples that by that he would have taken a particular explicite covenant of Church fellowship This is nothing else but to beg the question and to amuse the simple and to deceive them by taintering the words of Scripture and stretching them beyong their native signification to make them fit for their occasions that they may juggle the better to delude the poor people which is a great wickednesse in these men thus to trisle about words till they loose the Truth which is the substance to the destroying of their poor souls The truth is that word is often used in the holy Scripture and is used metaphorically as being taken from Joyners and crafts men that joyn many things together by Glew And â—o ordinary discourse it intimates a close joyning whether natural as a branch to the Vine or an arm to the Body or artificial as when two sticks are joyned to become one in Ezekiels hand Ezek. 37. As when Masons joyn stones together or Carpenters timber to make a house But that this word joyn should alwayes imploy a particular explicite covenant to any Church or Congregation when any man takes on him a new relation to it and is made a member of it I affirm there is not one example of it in all the Word of God and as for any command that every member of a Church should do it there is none And therefore it is a meer Will-worship and one of their own Traditions and ought to be abandoned of all Christs Disciples and with so much the more detestation because they make it one of Gods Ordinances and part of his Service and Worship and the very form of a Church whereas it is a batch of their own leven by which they have of late much sowred the Truth But as I said before so I say now again that Christians are to swear fealty onely to their King and Lord Christ Jesus who is their husband and who is the onely Master of his own House and Church and whose voice is onely to be heard and whose Laws are onely to be obeyed and listned unto we swear no allegiance or fealty to the Church for we are all his servants domesticks and have no authority one over another to impose Laws upon each other or to enter in to any covenants amongst our selves without a special command from Christ And as when Stewards of Princes or Noblemen take any in to their masters families they swear them onely to their lords and masters we never hear that the servants enter into any covenant among themselves or joyn or unite themselves in covenant one to cleave unto another Such proceedings amongst servants would never be allowed or tolerated amongst men it would be thought rather a conspiracy or a confederation to do mischeif if they should attempt such a thing As when those men enterd in to a covenant amongst themselves that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul yea it hath ever been observed in all countreys That when servants began once to combine together and to joyn themselves by secret covenants they have alwayes plotted mischeif and therefore there hath been special care used to prevent such conspiracies And all men may well perceive by this their covenanting in their new gathered Churches what it tends to if God of his infinite goodnesse prevents not their designe Therefore I say we being Christs domesticks and his Church and being his house and he being the onely Lord of it and our King we are to smite our covenant onely with him and to swear fealty and obedience to him onely and his Laws and we are not to be the servants of men 1 Cor. 7. And therefore the Lord saith in Malachi the first If I be a father where is my reverence if I be a Lord where is my honor How is it that ye obey me not We are onely therefore to obey his voice and not to regard the traditions of men or to serve God after the commandments of men Now then when the Independents impose this their covenant upon the people as a part of Gods worship and will not admit of any into their new Churches without entering in to this conspiracy I say by all their proceedings in as much as in them lies they dis-throne Christ in preferring their own laws before his wherein they commit a detestable wickednesse And this shâ—ll serve to have spake concerning the fourth quere And now I come to the fifth of womens votes whether they are to be admitted in elections To which my Brother Burton thus replies Page 15. We saith he tie not the keys to womens girdles And I. S. page 19. But as for this of womens voting in the Church saith he we have no such custome nor any of the Churches of God that I know Thus he For answer to both my Brother Burton and I. S. I say thus much That they cannot be ignorant of the practice of the Churches in many of which and those the
a pattern of imitation to bind all Churches to the end of the world which both Master Knollys and my brother Burton learnedly inferre but as far as it makes for the advantage of the Presbyterian opinion and to shew that the Presbyters have the sole authority of admitting Members into Church fellowship from the example of Philip Ananias Paul in baptizing the Goaler and Lydia and Peters baptizing of Cornelius and admitting of him and those that were with him Members into Church communion by their sole authority without those conditions they propound and without the consent of the people then they cry out that they are extraordinary examples or meer extravagants Now whether this be not with the Papists to make the Word of God a nose of wax or a leaden rule that they may either work and mould it or bend it into what fashion they please I leave it to the judgement of the learned and experienced Christian But by the way also I desire the Reader to take notice what my brother Burton granteth viz. that the receiving of those Gentiles and the admitting of them by Peter into the Church by Baptism was to make them one Church with the beleeving Jews these are his own words From which it is sufficiently apparent that be men baptized and admitted into the Church either after an ordinary way or after an extraordinary it is sufficient to incorporate them into Church-fellowship both with the beleeving Jew and Gentile and to make them Members of Christs Church which is as much as I contend for So that it is most certain as those that are Members of any particular Church are by vertue of that Members also of the whole Catholique visible Church so in like manner those that are made Members of the Catholique visible Church may also by vertue of that be Members of any particular church for the Church of Christ is his Kingdome and it is but one Flock and one Sheepfold and there is but one Shepherd of it and King that governs it and therefore in whatsoever part of this Kingdome of Jesus Christ they are admitted Members and after what manner soever they be admitted whether in an ordinary or an extraordinary way they are Members of the whole Church and may communicate in all ordinances with any particular Church whatsoever as being subjects of Christs Kingdome and injoying all the immunities and priviledges that any of Christs subjects can challenge And all this I learn from my brother Burtons doctrine who so long as he holdeth out any truth unto me I will listen unto as he hath done in this point but no farther Again as all those viz. the Eunuch Paul Cornelius Lydia and the Goaler were admitted to be Members of Christs Church by the sole authority of the Ministers Evangelists and Apostles and without any of those conditions urged by the brethren so are all other Christians by the sole authority of the Presbyters to be admitted into church-fellowship and that upon Christs own conditions viz. Faith Repentance and Baptism Having upon the occasion of my brother Burtons and Hanserdoes words spake thus much I will now come to my Answer to them both And first whereas they peremptorily affirme from the interrogation of Peter to those that came along with him where he saith Can any man forbid water that these men should not be baptized c. that it doth imply that the brethren have power also of admitting Members into the church and ought to have their voices as in the receiving of them in so in the casting of them out It is a meer non sequitur and a very groundlesse illation and inference for the interrogation plainly manifests the contrary as will appear from other presidents and reason as for example in the eighth of the Romans ver 33. 34. Saint Paul saith Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect Who is he that condemneth who shall separate us from the love of Christ All the which interrogations do not imply as the Apostle himselfe answereth that any creature can lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect or that any creature can condemn or that any creature can separate the Elect from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus Another instance to omit many we have of the same nature with that of Peter Acts 8. 35. Where the Eunuch said unto Philip See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized I demand of any whether or no this interrogation of his doth not imply as much as if he had said no creature now can hinder me from Baptism seeing that we have water that element that is appointed for it and I do beleeve And so much may be gathered from Philips Answer to him who saith nothing could hinder his baptism and admission into the Church if he did beleeve in Christ with all his heart whereupon the Eunuch answered I beleeve that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he was forthwith baptized So that by this it is sufficiently manifest that that inference they would gather from Peters words cannot groundedly be made viz. that it is in the power of the people to hinder any as is yet more evident from Peters own words and reasons when he was questioned about this businesse in the 11. of the Acts the story whereof is there set down at large with Peters Answer to all their Objections Who told them ver 12. that the spirit bad him go with those that came from Cornelius nothing doubting c. saying in the conclusion of his discourse and that with an irresistible reason ver 17. For as much then as God gave them the like gifts as he did unto us who beleeved in the Lord Jesus Christ what was I that I could withstand God All the which discourse of Peter and this his reason do sufficiently prove that his interrogation saying Can any man forbid water that these should not be baptiâ—ed Doth not imply as my Brother Burton and Master Knollys would have it that it was in the power of those that were with Peter or any other to have hindred their baptism and admission into the church of Christ seeing they beleeved For if Peter himselfe should have refused it he had been disobedient to God himselfe and had doubted which he was forbidden and withall had resisted in as much as had been in him the spirit of God For so saith Saint Peter What was I that I could withstand God From which I gather and that by very good reason that all those of the congregationall way that will not admit all such as beleeve and are baptized into their new gathered churches without they walk some time with them and without the making of a publike confession of their faith and the bringing in of their evidences of their conversion and entring into a particular explicite covenant and without the consent of the whole church are all fighters against God and withstanders of his spirit And if they do
than the Common-Prayer to many of the precious consciences of Gods people whose duty it is in his judgement to dye in a prison before they act or stoope unto so dishonourable a thing as this is to their Lord and Master as to maintaine the black-coats with tythes whom they looke upon as the professed enemies of their anointed Christ c. These are some of his formall expressions I leave the comment of these severall passages to others neither doe I rehearse innumerable such like sentences as are daily vented to the intolerable disgrace both of all the Ministers of the Church of England and of all those beleeving christians that are under their severall charges and that in every Pamphlet in the which they proclaime all the Ministers to be the sworne and professed enemies of the Lord Iesus Christ and such as deny disclaime and preach against Christs kingly government over mens consciences and churches and for the people and beleevers in England they proclaime them to be men unconverted or at least converted but in part wanting the maine thing Christs Kingly office men visibly out of the covenant of grace who have not so much as an outward profession of the faith who deny Christ to be their King to whose persons and Infants the very Sacraments and seales of grace with all church communion may and ought to be denied c. By the which words they not onely unchurch all the congregations of England Scotland Ireland but indeed all the reformed churches and unchristian all christians but those that are in their owne independent assemblies and account them as aliens and strangers from the common-wealth of the Saints and make Christ to be no King over them or to have any Kingdome in or amongst them but onely amongst themselves in their new congregations whereas Christ ever had a church or Kingdome upon earth in all ages before they were and hath without all controversie a true Kingdome in many churches in these our dayes where they are not Had I not seene their expressions in print and the Booke in which they are uttered set forth by authority with approbation I should not have beleeved that they had all of them bin so uncharitable but finding that booke not onely printed by license but generally applauded by them all and much magnified as the frequent editions of it doe manifest I gather it is the universall opinion of them all Than the which what could bee more uncharitably and unchristianly spoken what comfort can any of the Ministers of the Church of England have in the society of these men who what soever outward seeming favour they shew to them in their hearts conceive of them as the sworne enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and as men unworthy to live and who count it a dishonourable thing to their Lord and Master to maintaine those black-coats with tythes whom they looke on as the professed enemies of their anointed Christ can I say any Ministers with joy and alacrity converse with these men no surely what reall comfort can any poor christian beleevers through the Kingdome either expect or looke for at these mens hands if they were in their power whom they declare and that in print and in their Pulpits to be men unconverted or converted but in part wanting the maine thing Christs Kingly office men visibly out of the covenant of grace who have not so much as an outward profession of faith who deny Christ to be their King to whose persons and Infants the very Sacraments and seales of grace with all church-communion may and ought to be denied can any true christians be reall friends to the enemies of Christ He saith Saint Paul 1 Cor. chap. 16. v. 22. that loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be Anathama Maranatha will any true Christians blesse those that God hath curst David said I hate them that hate thee yea I hate them with a perfect hatred And surely those that are true friends to Christ hate all his enemies now they looke upon our Ministers as the profest enemies of Christ and upon all the people under their ministery as enemies of his Kingdome and as men to whose persons infants the very Sacraments and seales of grace with all church-communion may and ought to be denied they are their own words can they therefore expect any reall friendship from them whatsoever outward curtesie they seeme to shew them no doubtlesse how can any poore christian have any delight to come amongst these men or so much as to be in their society whom they account of as the enemies of Christ and his Kingdome For my owne particular I would not willingly come in any mans company or be familiar with any that I thought a profest enemy of Christ and his Kingdome neither should I ever beleeve I could have any reall esteeme from such as thinke mee an enemy of Christ and his Kingdome It was the greatest calamity to the poore sufferers under the Prelats tyrannie and to all those distressed christians that were haled into the High-commission court or into the Star-chamber or before the Counsell-table for matter of Religion and conscience which was the lot of many thousands through the whole Kingdome that commonly their greatest enemies were those of their owne house their parents their brethren and sisters would be the chiefest calumniators and reproachers of them and that in word and deed would most despightfully persecute them denying them the common humanity of hospitality and would not so much as looke on them except it were to revile them and insult over them and would ordinarily joyne with their enemies both privately and publickly and desert them in their greatest streights as all of them can generally witnesse which not onely encouraged their enemies against them but added credit to their false acculations and calumnies for they would usually say ye may see what manner of men these are whose nighest friends are not only ashamed of but thus speake of them which was a greater affliction unto them than all the other miseries and sufferings they under-went for had they beene their professed enemies as David said they could easily have endured it and there would lesse credit and regard have beene given to their words but they were their parents brethren sisters and familiars and therefore it added more sharpely to their affliction So had they beene our professed enemies as Papists Socinians Arminians or those of the Prelaticall faction that should have proclaimed us enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and had they denyed unto us and our children the seales of grace with all church-communion it would not have troubled us but tu Brute that Brethren that fellow-sufferers in affliction that had gone up to the house of God together and had taken sweet counsell together that they should now proclaime us the enemies of Iesus Christ and deny communion with us oh let not this bee spoken in Gath and Ashkelon This is that that grieves and sads
their own and therefore if the name of Presbyters be odious in the Ministers of the Church of England no reason can gainsay it but that they also should be as odious to the people as their brethren for they also are Presbyterians But that the truth may the better appear whether the Ministers of the Church of England or the Independent Ministers be most guilty of all the accusations laid to their charge it will not be a misse to compare the practice of the Ministers of the church of England and the proceedings of the Independent Ministers together and that both for their doctrine and discipline and in their severall studies and endeavours for the advancing of Christs Kingdome and by so doing it will be easie for any to judge which of their governments and which of the Ministers are more intolerable and which of them are most guilty of those foule reproaches the Ministers of the church of England are aspersed with by their Brethren for he hath a shallow understanding and a very dim sight that cannot discern whether those that advance Christs their Kings Word and Laws onely and follow his commission and the example of the holy Apostles in their Ministeries and that of John Baptist and the primitive Preachers or those that set up their own inventions and prefer them before the Laws of Christ and have neither precept nor president for their doings in all the holy Word of God He I say that cannot judge which of these most advance Christ for their King either those that obey Christs Laws or those that observe their own neglecting Christs is of a very shallow capacity But now let us compare them together the Ministers of the Church of England preach faith and repentance the Law and the Gospell according to Christs commission given to his Apostles and they receive all into the Church that beleeve and are baptized and such as but desire to be admitted they demanding of them what they should do to be saved and in their so doing they have both precept and presidents For Christ in his commission unto them hath given them authority so to do Neither did he ever say unto his Apostles and Ministers admit none into the church although they beleeve and are baptized without they walk with you some dayes weeks moneths or years that you may behold their conversation and manner of life and after you have had some tryall and experience of them see then that they make a publike confession of their faith before the church and give in the evidences of the truth of their conversion before the congregation and enter into a private and solemne Covenant and be admitted by the consent and approbation of the Church or otherwise if they will not submit themselves to this Law and come into the Church upon these conditions receive them not into your Assemblies nor admit of them for members Here is nothing of all this in Christs Commission nor in his holy Word nor any president of the same in sacred Authority and therefore John the Baptist and the holy Apostles and primitive Ministers admitted all that came unto them and such as but demanded of them what they should do to be saved and baptized them and received them into the Church without any gainsaying or question as we may see in the third of Luke and in the seventh chapter of the same book and in the second of the Acts and no sooner did the Eunuch desire baptisme but Philip granted it the Goaler did but aske Paul and Sylas What they should do to be saved and they said Beleeve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house and it is related that the Goaler and all his were streight way baptized Acts 16. vers 31 32 33. that is they were forthwith admitted into the Church without either walking any time with the Church for their approbation or without either making a publike confession of their faith before the Church or giving in evidences of the truth of their conversion to the congregation or entring into a private covenant and without the consent and allowance of the Church And Christ notwithstanding was imbraced by them as their Lord and King and was preached by Paul and Silas as the Lord and King of his Church and was set up upon his Throne as King by them as well as he is in any Independent Churches and yet they had none of all their new borne truths and they could then see how to set up Christ upon his Throne without their new lights and as Christ was then by Paul and Silas and the other Apostles set upon his Throne as King in all those primitive Churches so he is at this day in all the true Protestant Churches through the world as well as in any of the Independent Assemblies and yet they were and are all ignorant of their new way so that any understanding christian may gather that all their new borne truths are no way requisite for the setting up of Christ as King in his Church nor for the advancement of Christs Kingly government for if they had Christ would have put them into the Apostles Commission and the Apostles who were led into all truth by the holy Ghost who brought whatsoever Christ had taught them concerning the Kingdome of God Act. 1. into their memories would have suggested all these things The new way the new borne truth the new lights to them that they might have been recorded if they had been necessary for the setting up of Christ upon his Throne but when neither Christ nor the holy Ghost nor the blessed Apostles have prescribed any of all these to the church nor called for them nor required them of any that desire to be saved or made Members of the church whether this be not a great temerity in any men to preach all these things as the lawes of Christ I leave it to the judgement of any ingenuous minded christian and whether this be not to preferre their own inventions and traditions before the commandements of God and the lawes of Christ the King of his church and whether this be not rather to set up themselves than Christ I referre it also to any judicious and impartiall christians to weigh and consider I shall now demand of any moderate christian therefore and let him answer me candidly whether of those Ministers and people most advance the Kingdome of Christ and acknowledge him to be their onely Lord and Law-giver that both in their teaching and beleeving follow his commission and Word and teach nothing nor beleeve nothing as they are injoyned but what Christ their King commands them or those that to the commission and commands of Christ adde their own inventions and traditions and preferre them before the lawes of Christ the King and Law giver of his Church I am confident if he will deale impartially he will answer me that those Ministers and that people most advance Christ for their King
by the Word of God and the holy Scripture as the noble Bereans did Now whatsoever was written was written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the world are come and therefore as it was the errour of the Israelites that they received things barely upon report without consulting with the mouth of God and as it was the honour and praise of those noble Bereans that they searched the Scriptures to see whether the preaching of Paul were according to the holy Scripture so if we shall receive these new borne truths these new lights these new ways without consulting with the living Oracles we shall offend as the Israelites did in beleeving the Gibeonites upon their words and shall degenerate and be unlike to those the renowned Bereans who would not receive Paul's doctrine though an Apostle without searching the Scriptures whether things were so or no as he taught them and surely now much more ought we to try all things by the Word in these erroneous times whosoever they be that preach them unto us and if they be not evidently proved unto us out of the Scriptures we may not admit of them for it will be not only a sin but for our immortall shame to be deluded with novelties much more then it was our ancestors disgrace to be deceived by pretended antiquities And therefore it is the duty of every Christian seriously to consider with themselves that these are matters of God and concerne no lesse then our eternall welfare and in thâ—â— regard we may not call mens ways Gods ways but we are to seek for the old ways Jer. 6 we are to examine Christs and his holy Apostles ways in gathering of Churches and making of Members and it we find no footstep in all Gods Word of these new ways we ought to relinquish them and turn again into the pathes that God hath commanded us to walk in wherein we shall be sure to find rest for our souls and comfort in life and death and it will be no disgrace to any to be undeceived for they are deceived and that greatly and dangerously that think or beleeve that any men mortall can shew or teach a better way to Heaven or set down a better way of converting souls and of gathering of Churches and making of Members and of setting up Christ as King upon his Throne than that which Christ himself and his blessed Apostles have taught and set down to all posterity and from the which rule we ought not to swerve though an Angel from Heaven should teach us otherwise Galatians 1. ver 8. 9. When therefore the Ministers of the Church of England follow Christs and his Apostles way and method in their teaching and for the converting of men and hear only the voyce of Christ their King and the Christian Beleevers through the Kingdome under their Ministeries do all faithfully cleave unto the written Word and square both their faith and obedience according to that rule there is no just cause why the Independents should proclame them all enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and such as oppose his royalty and preach up themselves and their congregations as the onely people of God and his Saints and account all those that dissent from them as opposers of Christs government telling the people in their Sermons that they come over from beyond the seas thinking that they would have set up Christ upon his Throne and that they would have embraced him for their King and would have established his government and have gone on in a church-way and have set up the ways of God but they find it otherwiise that they deny disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government and persecute the wayes of the Lord Christ so that they can find more favour from moderate Papists and common Protestants than from them by which their dealing say the Brethren they have so taken off the edge of Gods peoples affection from them that the Saints and servants of God cannot pray for them proclaiming themselves the Saints and people of God as if all the other beleevers through the Kingdome dissenting from them in their opinions were no Saints nor people of God Nay they affirme it in their Pulpits and in every Pamphlet that both Ministers and people are enemies of Iesus Christ and his Kingdome and all such as will not joyne with them in their new wayes And one of them not long since affirmed unto me that the church of England was a Strumpet and an arrant Whore and that shee being once a Whore could never be presented unto Christ as a chaste Spouse which was an expression not onely uncivill and unbeseeming a christian but untrue also for grant shee had beene so shee is now come out of Babylon and has entred into a publicke covenant against her and we reade of Judah and Samaria howsoever they had defiled themselves and played the Harlots yet upon their unfained repentance and true faith in Iesus Christ and renewing their covenant publickly of new obedience were presented unto Christ as a chaste Spouse so that what is impossible with man is possible with God But this is the generall opinion of the brethren and howsoever they will not all of them speake it out in plaine words as some of them doe yet they preach and practise a separation from all our assemblies and congregations as from a people not to bee communicated with and declare that by their deeds which they will not as yet publish in their writings nor in expresse words as hee did And one of the Independent Ministers not long since denouncing Gods judgements against all those that would not assent unto their new wayes nor light their candles at their new lights nor embrace their new-borne truths told them that by their standing out against the wayes of God for so they suppose these are and by their unkind usage of the Saints and persecuting of them they would at last drive from amongst them the praying people meaning themselves as if no other prayed but they onely and then they might looke that the judgements of God would speedily come downe upon them as it hapned to the Lutherans in Maydenburge in Germany who thrust out all the Calvinists out of their Towne a praying people and immediatly after the enemy came upon them with fire and sword and destroyed them all With these and such like expressions are their preachments stuffed and to say the truth of many of their Sermons they are like Taylors cushions consisting of a hundred severall shreds of various colours all independent making a fine shew but comely no where but in a Taylors shop and surely such kind of expressions as these are may beseeme their Pulpits but no grave and learned honest ministers for they have no just cause to complaine of persecution amongst us it is a calumny neither deale they christianly with us to accuse us that wee oppose the wayes of God for we doe not so we onely contend for the faith
of the Arraignment of Mr Persecution in many more of their scurrilous writings plead for a toleration of all Religions under pretence of liberty of conscience whatsoever they be as Judaisme Turcisme Popery Paganisme and all manner of sects and for the confirming of this their diabolicall tenent they bring in the example of the heathen Nations who suffered all Religions amongst them and the example of Poland Transsylvania and Holland those pantheons of all Religions add tell us of the Parable where Christ commanded that the Tares and the Wheat should be suffered to grow together till the harvest the day of judgement And use or abuse rather some other places of Scripture which as they conceive make all for a toleration of all Religions To all which their pretences I shall at this time briefly anwer after I have set down some grounds out of holy Scripture and produced some examples of Gods dear children friends and servants out of the same which must be the warrant of all Christians to follow to the end of the world for whatsoever was written before was written for our learning 1 Cor. 10. Rom. 15. and by the Word of God and from the example of Gods servants we are ever taught that diversity of Religions amongst Christians ought not to be tolerated And first to begin with Abraham the Father of the faithfull and his seed whose examples all that are his and their children ought to set before their eyes for imitation The Lord called Abraham as it is in Joshua 24. out of his Father Terah's house and from his kindred when they served other gods and made a Covenant with him as it is at large set down in the 12. of Genesis and in divers other places of the same book and in speciall in the 17. of Genesis verse 1 2 3 c. where the Lord reneweth his Covenant with him and his seed and sets down the conditions of his Covenant with Abraham which was that Abraham should walk before him and be perfect and that then he would be his God all sufficient to provide for him and protect him wheresoever he came which covenant the Lord ever kept with Abraham and his seed delivering them out of the hands of all their enemies when they served him according to the conditions of the covenant walking uprightly before him as he will do to all his children to the end of the world walking in father Abraham's steps and of Abraham the Lord says this in the 18. of Genesis ver 17 18 19. Shall I hide from Abraham that which I doe seeing that Abraham shall become a great and a mighty Nation and all the Nations of the earth shall be blessed in him for I know him that he will command his children and houshold after him that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do Iustice and Iudgement that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him c. In these words we have Gods testimony of Abraham in the which he gives this witnesse of him that he would command his children and houshold after him that they should keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgement Then it is manifest that Abraham tolerated neither in his children nor in his houshold any Religion contrary unto that that God had taught him nor suffered no idolatry nor Sects in his family for this had not been to walke uprightly before God for it had been unjust dealing with God so to have done for Abraham and his seed were to walk perfectly and sincerely before God and therefore he would never tolerate all Religions or the worshipping of a false God or the worship of the true God after a false manner which also is Idolatry for this had not been to do justice and judgement but Abraham set up the true worship of God wheresoever he came as the whole story of his life doth abundantly declare And so did Isaac after him and Jacob after him as in the 33. of Genesis doth appear where Jacob said unto his houshold and to all that were with him put away the strange gods that are among you and be clean and change your garments and let us arise and go up to Bethel and I will make there an Altar unto God who answered me in the day of my distresse and was with me in the way which I went and they gave unto Iacob all the strange gods that were in their hands and Iacob hid them under the Oak that was at Sechem and the terror of God was upon the cities which were round about them and they did not pursue after the sons of Iacob In these words we have a president for imitation with the fruit and benefit that doth redound to all those people and Nations that set up the true worship of God and root out all Idolatry and false worship out of their families and Countries for Jacob gives no toleration in his house nor amongst his people for all Religions or for any other but that which God himselfe had appointed he sets up the true worship of God and that onely within his Jurisdiction and buries all the Idols of what price and how rich soever they were and he found the comfort and benefit of this his so doing for the Lord for this his faithfull service blessed him and protected him from the fury of all his provoked enemies for the terror of God was upon them all so that they durst not pursue him And if we take notice in our reading of the holy Scriptures we shall find and that through the whole Word of God that the Lord ever followed that people and those Kings and governours and their whole Kingdomes and Countries with speciall blessings and singular favours that purged their Country from idolatry and all false worships and struck a terror into all their enemies round about them neither did they ever purge their Countries from Idolatry and root out Idolaters but the anger of the Lord was presently appeased by it and it is alwayes recorded to the eternall praise and honour of those Kings Rulers and Judges that were most forward in reformation and that set more throughly upon that good work of reformation and those that did things but to the halves in reformation have not so honourable a testimony in holy Scripture as the other and that God hath ever been pleased when Idolatry hath been rooted out and Idolaters put to death there be many presidents of it in the Word of God Amongst others that in the 32. of Exodus how highly was God displeased there with the making of that Calf and how well was he pleased when execution was done upon the contrivers and authors of that Idolatry that place sufficiently declareth yea in the 13. of Deuteronomie the Lord declaring how much he detesteth Idolatry and all false worship giveth a dispensation to children for disobedience to their parents who by his law they are bound to obey in Gods matters so
and cryed out against it as an intolerable violating of Gods Law and asserted that it was enough to provoke the Lord to anger against the whole Land and write bookes and divine Tragedies upon Sabbath-breakers and Profaners of the Lords day and those that permitted the profanation of it which with the godly of those times was reputed their immortall honour how unsufferable a thing therefore is it I say now in these very men to pleade for a toleration of all Religions that could not then tolerate sports on the Lords day by which not onely the fourth commandement would be brake but all the commandements of both of the first and second Table without doubt they have a great deale to answer for before God for by the doctrine wee have learned from our Law giver and King the Lord Jesus Christ who is not changeable though they be they that breake the least ef Gods commandements and teach men so to doe whatsoever they esteeme of themselves that they set up Christ upon his Throne and whatsoever opinion men have of them they are the least in the Kingdome of Heaven and have much to answer for before his Tribunall for these their wicked dealings and truly it exceedingly saddeth my heart when I think of them how fearefully they are fallen and what a scandall and blemish they are to their holy profession that thus Chamelion like change their forme upon every occasion But how much more is it intolerable then in those men that have the name of Rabbies amongst those of the congregationall way and that would make the world beleeve they are the onely Saints for those to make themselves merry when the godly and faithfull Ministers of the Gospell out of sorrow and griefe of soul spread before the Lord the blasphemies of the times as good Hezekiah did the blasphemies of Rahshekah that it may move the people to mourning and sackcloth and to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God for the diverâ—ing of his Judgements that do for these their blasphemous tenents hang over the land I say how intolerable a thing is it in such men to make a sport at it and as Solomon speaks of the wicked in his time whom he calls fools to make a mock at sin Yet such there are as Cretensis by name amongst the rest is one of them who makes himselfe merry at these blasphemies and writes books in justification of those wicked and ungodly men and calls their damnable practices the infirmities of the Saints accouÌ„ting of them as Saints and holy men whereas the good and zealous Prophet Ieremiah ch 9. cryeth out at the beholding the abominations of his times far inferio to those of our dayes saying Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I might weep day and night for the slain of the Daughters of my people Oh that I had in the wildernesse a lodging place of wayfaring men that I might leave my people and go from them for they be all adulterers an assembly of treacherous men And they bend their tongue like their bow for lyes but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth and they know not me saith the Lord. Here we see the posture of the holy Prophet we find him armed and clad with mourning to behold the profanation of the truth and we have here also his great complaint that at that time there were not any valian for it upon the earth If now this glorious Prophet were in the world and amongst us here in England and should behold those damnable blasphemies that are every where venâ—ed by the sons of Belial in these times should see how few upon the earth are valiant for the truth yea how they labour for a toleration of all Religions how would his spirit be moved how would his soul be perplexed within him to see it and what fountains of tears would he pou e out to the Lord quenching of the fire of his wrath and indignation against them but how much more would it perplex and trouble hâ—s soul to see any that should write yea publish books wherein they do not onely make themselves merry at those blaspnemies and count them the infirmities of the Saints but proclame them Saints that perpetâ—ate all these wickednesses and write most scurrilous â—ailing and vilifying books and Pamphlets against his holy servants that are valiant for the truth counting them speaking disgracefully and contemptibly of them but thimbles full of dust without all controversie it would sad his soul to the very death and so indeed it should trouble the souls of those that are truly godly to behold such lawlesse wickednesse not only to go unpunished but to find favor and applause even of those that are Masters of the Assemblies Truly howsoever out of the infinite patience of God these men are yet suffered yet I am most confident he that wil come wil come and not tarry to reveng his own quarrel the quarrel of his servants that are valiant for the Truth And I wil take the liberty to say thus much to St Cretensis that reverend learned and ever to be honoured Master Thomas Edwards who he so much vilipendeth and slighteth calling him a thimble full of dust will walk like a noble lyon when he like a Curr or Bandogg shall go bawling by him and withall I would advise him to take heed of that thimble For two or three fillips more of it upon his great noddle may so stagger him as he may happily never recover again and for ought I know or can discerne God may make halfe a thimble full of that dust to put out his eyes and the eyes of half the Independents and Sectaries in England For most assured I am that all such as in the name of the Lord as he doth come out against such notorious enemies of God and his Truth as Cretensis and his associates are will be able to confound them all and by the power of his might be ever strong enough to deal with the whole Army of them and with all those grolls and â—ynnies that take their part and appeare in their wicked cause I will therefore rather advise Cretensis not gyant like to fight any longer against the Truth but to humble himselfe for what he hath already done under the mighty hand of God whom he with his complices abetters have so highly provoked to wrath and anger against this poor tottering Kingdome It is not Cretensis with all his foul language shall ever be able to bespatter the immaculate reputation of learned and godly Master Edwards who hath in Gods cause ever shewed himselfe valiant for the truth and stood in the gap against the errors of the times and hath lift up his voice like a trumpet which will be for his immortall praises when too too many of his brethren which will not be for their honour were silent We finde it Matthew 13. ver 24 25. When the man had
corrupt Courts in the Kingdome yet even in those Courts there was an appearance of justice in this kind so that if any man had any just exception against any mans testimony if it did not totally overthrow their witnesse which it many times did yet it so enervated their evidence that it was never so valid and prejudicall to him as otherwise it would have been as you your selfe can witnesse it was in my cause in the High Commission Court where I making it appear by sufficient witnesse that Thomas Newcomin and John Danet and Richard Daniel had formerly been expunged in the Chancery for Knaves and had for that out of malice put me up into it were all my adversaries and perjured varlots their testimony by the whole Court was rejected and they were by them all accounted a company of Knaves all over soul and body for so some of the Court said of them and I was onely condemned for my book And this part of Justice in many causes remained even in those Courts in the worst of times in all Courts of the world there was ever leave and liberty given unto the accused to make his just defence and bring in the evidences of his own innocency and non-guiltinesse his just exceptions against both his accusers prosecutors and witnesses and this by the very law of nature for so said Festus that it was not the manner of the Romans to condemn any before they had been brought face to face with their adversaryes and that they had bin fully heard what they could speak for themselves for otherwise if they had condemned any without either of the former conditions they had not proceeded according to law nor condemned them judicially Fourthly those that are judged judicially and according to the Lawes of God and nations they must ever be within the jurisdiction of that Court and of those that judge them and under their Lawes Neither doe any wise Judges take any cognizance of things without their jurisdiction and if any should bee so unjust or unadvised to attempt any such thing the party accused hath the benefit of his Appeal as wee see in the cause of Paul when hee appealed from the Tribunall of the Jewes to Caesars Barre And all men know that the Courts of one Countrey doe not judge and condemne the subjects that dwell in an other and that are under an other government yea the Courts secular and the Courts Ecclesiasticall even in the same Kingdomes and Common-wealths doe not intermeddle with one an others imployments except it be by speciall appeale which is granted unto them by some caution upon just occasions but they leave each Court to the managing of those causes that are of speciall cognizance there and within their jurisdiction for otherwise it would breed confusion speedily in a Country and therefore those distinct Courts and Jurisdictions take the cognizance of those things onely that are peculiar and proper to themselves and within their spheare and never intermeddle and exercise any power over others that are out of their jurisdictions be they never so facinorous or accused of never so high a crime yea if any information or accusation be put up against any man into any Court be it true or false if the Judges conceive that the parties impleaded against belong unto an others jurisdiction they will send them thither to be judged and decline sentencing of them and this method of judgement the very Law of nature teacheth all men yea Pontius Pilat though a most wicked and unjust Judge yet understanding that Christ was of Galilee of which Herod was the Tetrarcke or Governour and conceiving him to be under Herods jurisdiction he sends him forthwith unto Herod intimating that the examination and tryall of his cause peculiarly belonged unto him if Christ were judicially to be proceeded against Yea Paul himselfe saith What have I to doe to judge those that are without Those that were without in Pauls opinion and under an other jurisdiction hee professed that hee had nothing to doe with them The fifth thing required for the judiciall proceeding and handling of any cause is this that they that are to be Iudges may not be both parties witnesses prosecutors Iury and Iudges in the same cause for it they be they cannot be said judicially to give sentence All that I now write unto you Brother I am confident your conscience tels you is just and true Now in all nations and well governed Kingdomes and countries if there have beene any faylings in either of these conditions and requisites the subjects have the benefit of the Law against both their Prosecutors and Iudges and may appeale unto the King or supreame Court of judicature in the Kingdom crave justice there against such Iudges and such proceedings and if they cannot obtaine justice there God will call them to an account one day for it for in the judgement of all men such proceedings have ever beene counted illegall and unjust and all those Iudges that have at any time given sentence without observing those rules and conditions did never censure any man judicially neither can their judgement be said to be judiciall in any just mans understanding Now Brother if your proceeding against mee be examined by these rules and by such men as are judicious and truly godly without faction you will not be thought judicially to have censured condemned me for it is most certain you have not in all the carriage of this busines beene a judiciall Iudge for in this your sentence you have gone against all the Lawes of God and nature yea against the practice of the most corrupt Courts in the world in that you have accused me arraigned me and condemned mee without either Articles Bill Libell saving your owne Booke allegation or information and without any lawfull citation into your Court or any Court you have also condemned mee before I knew who were my Accusers and that without hearing mee ever speake for my selfe yea you have condemned and adjudged me an innocent man withou any lawfull witnesse for as I am not conscious to my selfe of ever having done any thing that deserves convention before any Court of Iud icature in this world much lesse to have sentence given against mee so I am most assured that if ever these your dealings against mee shall be brought to a tryall and a judiciall hearing indeed as they may be if the time once grows more quiet I shall make it clearly and evidently appeare that the ground of this your beastly accusation brought against me viz. that I am a scandalous Walker to the shame of the very name of Christian Religion did first arise from one of the most infamous notorious creatures though an Independent that now lives upon earth for all manner of villanies a shame dishonor to her name kindred known to be one of the most prodigious impudent Whores that is this day in the world except the Whore of Babylon and yet
because they are Presbyterians refused in private to pray or joyn in prayer with them and for such who hold and do pronounce all that walk not in their way to be enemies of Jesus Christ c. These Independents by their opinions and practices do sufficiently prove the truth of what I said in the forecited words and therefore you with all that hold such an opinion must disclaime that Independent principle if you denie the veritie of them otherwise you will declare to the whole world that you are not so zealous for Gods glorie nor love not the Lord so sincerely as his faithfull servants have formerly done and withall you will manifest to all men that you are more studious to preserve your own honours and reputation then the glory of God For whereas you with most of the Independents that I know doe hold and maintaine in your bookes intituled Vindication and Vindiciae veritatis That the Presbyterians are enemies to Christs Kingly office that instead of finding Christ set upon his Throne in their Congregations you find there no more but an Image such as Michael had made up instead of King David 1 Sam 19. or as those that in mockery made of Christ a Pageant-King striping him and putting on him a scarlet Robe and on his head a Crowne of Thornes and in his hand a Reed saluting him with Haile King of the Jewes with which title over his head they crucified him That the Presbyterians neither professe nor confesse Christ but say with the wicked Iewes we will not have this man to raigne over us Luke 19. 14. That they are at the best but Converts in part c. which is to say they are in King Agripas condition but almost Christians Act. 26. 28. or like Simon Magus still in the gall of bitternesse and bond of iniquity And if this great charge against the Presbyterians be true which you so confidently affirme in your books truly all the Presbyterians are in a more cursed condition then the wicked Iewes were for why they know and say they doe beleeve that Iesus Christ is God and man the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth Iohn 1. 14. who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and declared to bee the Sonne of God with power according to the spirit of holinesse by the resurrection from the dead Rom. 1. 3. 4. The Redeemer of his Elect and chosen ones Ephes 1. 4 5 6 7 8. The Saviour of all that beleeve in him Ioh. 3. 15 16. The blessed and onely Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords 1 Tim. 6. 15. Now the Presbyterians knowing and professing that they doe beleeve these Gospel truths which the Iewes did not know nor would not beleeve if they notwithstanding are enemies to Iesus Christ and refuse to set Christ upon his Throne but in mockery set up Christ as a Pageant King in their Congregations and doe as those who saluting him with Haile King c. yet reiect him saying wee will not have this man to raigne over us Then the Presbyterians sinne in the height of aggravation sinning against their owne knowledge and professed beliefe and all such cannot but hate Iesus Christ and are haters of God for the Lord Iesus Christ hath said Hee that hateth mee hateth the Father also Ioh. 15. 23. So that consequently you make them the children of the Devill For if God were their Father they would be so farre from being enemies that they would love the Lord Iesus Christ the Sonne of God this the Lord and Prince of life hath declared and He makes it his Argument to convince the unbelieving Jewes that God was not their Father saying If God were your Father yee would loue mee for I proceeded forth and came from God neither came I of my selfe but hee sent me If the Presbyterians therefore are enemies to Christs Kingly office and make a mâ—â—ke King of him who proceeded forth and came from God and was sent by him as you have once and again published in print then it must needs be granted they are not the children of God but the cursed children of the Devil Anathema maranatha because they love not the Lord Iesus Christ And from what hath bin said this is further necessarily implyed that either you with all that are of your judgement herein have falsely accused the Presbyterians as indeed you have to be enemies to Christs Kingly office otherwise if you and they are a holy people and such as doe advance Christ upon his Throne then I say I am perswaded the Independents doe hate the Presbyterians yea it were an hainous offence in them to love such whom they hold and judge to be enemies to Christ and so haters and enemies to God for to love any that hate the Lord is a wrath provoking sinne this the Prophet sheweth plainely when reproving King Iehosaphat hee said unto him shouldst thon helpe the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord 2 Chron. 19 2. wee find it in sacred Writ that Mordecai a holy man was so farre from loving any of Gods enemies that notwithstanding all the Kings servants that were in the Kings gate bowed and reverenced Haman for the King had so commanded concerning him yet Mordecai bowed not nor did him reverence Esth 3. 2 3. I suppose none will give way to such an uncharitable thought as to thinke that Mordecai would run the hazard of his owne ruine and the destruction of all the people of the Iewes for want of giving an outward Complement for that had beene but pride in him so rebelliously to transgresse the Kings Commandement But he knew Haman to be an Agagite of the stock and raze of the Amalecks who were enemies to God of whom the Lord had said that hee would utterly put out the remembrance of Amaleck from under heaven And had sworne that hee would have warre with Amaleck from generation to generation as hee will with all that are his enemies Exod. 17. 14. 16. and withall hee well remembred how much the Lord was displeased with King Saul for sparing and honouring Agag the King of the Amalekites in so much that hee rent the Kingdome from him for it and gave it to David and only for favouring his enemies and not destroying him according to Gods command therefore Mordecai one of Gods peculiar people and his faithfull servant looking on Haman as hee was an enemy to God hated him and would not so much as bow nor doe outward civill reverence unto him Indeed maliciously and implacably to hate any is a sinne that cryeth loud in the eares of God and of this crying sinne too too many Independents are deeply guilty as is very evident by their raising up false reports to defame those who indeavour to walke in the wayes of Gods Commandements without hypocrisie but to hate Gods enemies is no sinne for it is the fruit of true grace and