ye were with If the person be silent and give no answer the suspicious Inquisitor will be more confirmed in his suspicion and readily conclude the man guilty If the man be really guilty and yet clears himself he sins by lying If he confess his guilt he makes a scandal in an unwarrantable divulging of his sin and though it may be he hath behaved himself blamelesly yet a tender person upon such an enquiry may readily be put to a demur and suspect that he may at least have omitted something which he ought to have done and so cannot give any present account of the serenity of his foul in that matter which will encrease the sinful suspiciousness of his Inquisitor and though he be altogether blameless and his Conscience serene yet the very questioning of such things is apt to breed suspicions and scandals But to come to his Question His design in it is to find the Indulged Ministers guilty by their own Confession of the neglect of a Testimony against the wickedness of this Invasion made by the overturners of the Work of Christ The Question is Whether it was the duty of those Ministers at that time to give in a Testimony of that nature He determines they should have done it then or never Now he hath so conceived his Question that whether they answer yea or nay he will conclude them guilty for not giving in such a Testimony as he requires at that time for if they say they were helped to witness a good Confession against this wickedness then he will conclude that then it was duty to give in such a Testimony as he requires at that time for to make a Confession good it 's required that it be seasonable an unseasonable Confession is not a good Confession for the seasonableness of a Confession is one of those things which are required to the goodness of it and a good thing is made up of intire causes but any defect makes a thing evil Again it cannot be said that men with serenity of soul can have confidence to give Christ thanks for helping them to give an unseasonable Confession or a Confession out of season But again if they answer that they were not helped by Christ to give such a good Confession then he will conclude that they are guilty of neglecting to give in that Confession at that time seeing it was a good Confession and so seasonable which if they had given they would have done it by the help of Christ and would have had matter of thanksgiving and seeing they have not done it they have not been helped by him to that which was good and their duty at that time Thus whether they answer his Question affirmatively or negatively he will conclude them guilty The Author made his Address as he says not as an acute disputant but as a poor blunt plain open-hearted man in a few plain Questions he should not after such a profession of plain-dealing in the very Entry begun with Sophistry with a Caption from many Interrogations Solomon says Prov. 9.8 Reprove not a Scorner lest he hate thee So that a man may forbear to reprove a Scorner and yet not be guilty of a sinful neglect but by such a captious Question as this any man who hath been with and heard Scorners will be found guilty for if ye spear at him were ye helped by Christ to witness a good Confession against such a Scorner or to give a good reproof to such a scorner if he answer that he was not helped to give him a good reproof then ye conclude that he omitted good and so sinned in not reproving him whereas Solomon forbids to reprove him If he say he gave him a good reproof then he calls that good which the Scripture forbiddeth or if this question be moved to one who hath not reproved a man when he was not in a case to receive reproof suppose when in drink or in the height of rage or when in such distemper and under such prejudice as the reproving of him would hinder him from doing some good that he were about to do and in all probability make him worse if the person perceive not the captiousness and sophistry of the Question but answer yea or nay he will be intangled but such may easily answer the Question thus 1. That they did not reprove such a person in such a case and 2. That it was not good to reprove him in such a case or at such a time and that therefore he was not guilty of neglecting a good reproof because it was not seasonable to reprove at that time If the Prefacer would have dealt as plainly as he promised he should have plainly proved that these Ministers should at that time have given in such a Testimony as he requireth The command that requires the making of Confession is an affirmative Precept and though it be obliged at all times yet doth not oblige to give a Testimony at all times we must never deny the truth but we must not ever make Confession of it as all Casuists grant We do not hear that Moses and Aaron made any formal protestation against Pharaohs Blasphemy and avowed Rebellion against God they heard him say Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice to let Israel go I know not the Lord neither will I let Israel go They make no Protestation nor Declaration against this blasphemous Speech and avowed Rebellion against God they only shew their Warrant and humbly insist in their Petition and yet these extraordinary Embassadours of God were in another manner of capacity for doing this if it had been necessary and seasonable than ordinary Ministers are read Exod. 5.2 3. Nor do we hear that the other Children gave any written or verbal Protestation against the making of the Image and Proclaimation to worship it Nor did Daniel give any written subscribed or verbal Declaration against the making signing publishing of that Decree which discharged all Petitions to be given to any for thirty days but to Darius which was to make him God alone All that they did was they did not obey but acted contrary to those godless Decrees and chused rather to suffer death than obey them Nor did our Saviour speak any thing before Herod though a vile man when he was before him Christ held his peace a long time before the Council and when he spoke he gave in no written or verbal Protestation against the Council it 's constitution and corruptions nor against the sentence they pronounced against him as a Blasphemer Nor when Paul compeared at Rome do we hear of any Protestation against the monstrous abominations and persecutions of Nero. Many Martyrs and Confessors did forbear to make publick Protestation against the Idols and Idolatry of their Persecutors and all that many of them said was this That they were Christians and upon that suffered How many both private Christians and Ministers have appeared before the Council since the Supremacy was established
the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness When folk will follow their own imaginations and will not walk in the light of the word of God the Lord fills them with drunkenness and leaves them to dash upon one another and destroy one another like drunken men fighting in the dark But neither words nor rods will be rightly understood or laid to heart till the Spirit be poured from on high If the Lord would pour out his Spirit we would not only be brought to see our sins but to be ashamed of them to take shame and confusion of face to our selves we would sorrow and mourn and lament after the Lord we would turn from our sins to the Lord and joyn our selves to the Lord and we would joyn together in seeking the Lord in his Ordinances then the Wilderness would be a fruitful field the dead and scattered bones would be joyned together and live then Judah and Israel would be one stick in the hand of the Lord Ezek. 37. Then the Children of Israel and Judah would come together going and weeping seeking the Lord their God asking the way to Sion with their faces thitherward saying Come and let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Jer. 50.4 5. When the Spirit is poured out from on high upon his people then the Lord turns to them a pure Language that they may call upon the Name of the Lord to serve him with one consent then they turn humble Suplicants and pour out their hearts in groans and sighs that cannot be uttered then Pride and Haughtiness is taken away and people become poor in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh but trust in the Lord and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus Zeph. 3.9 10 11 12. Rom. 8.26 27. Phil. 3.3 Till the Lord come till he return with mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again and cause his face to shine and see our ways and heal us we will but wax worse and worse there is no remedy for us but in his Sovereign Gracc and those mercies that have been of old and endure for ever Let us look to him who is exalted to give Repentance to Israel and Remission of sins that he would turn us that we may be turned and heal our backslidings and heal our breaches that he may utter that quickning word Ezek. 37.9 Come from the four winds O breath and breath upon these slain that they may live O Lord come and overcome our evil with thy goodness for who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the Remnant of thy heritage and retains not anger for ever because thou delights in mercy who will turn again and will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins in the depth of the Sea thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn to our Fathers from the days of old Micha 7.18 19 20. We have not remembred our Covenant but have spoken words falsly in making a Covenant Nevertheless O Lord remember thy Covenant and establish to us an everlasting Covenant that we may remember our ways and be ashamed Establish thy Covenant with us that we may know that thou art the Lord that we may remember and be confounded and never open our mouth any more because of our shame when thou art pacified toward us for all that we have done O Lord Righteousness belongs to thee but unto us confusion of faces as it is this day to all of us to our Kings Princes Fathers Ministers people of all ranks belongs Confusion but to the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness tho' we have sinned against him Lord give us Repentance and turn us and we shall be turned Let thy power be great according as thou hast spoken saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity and transgression Lord humble our uncircumcised hearts that we may take with our sins and accept of the punishment of them that we may remember them with shame and sorrow but do not thou remember against us former iniquities but according to thy mercy remember us for thy goodness sake O Lord remember for us thy Covenant and repent according to the multitude of thy mercies and for thy names-sake pardon our iniquities for they are many and great And when Wisdom and Council and Strength when Light and Life is gone and when Unity is gone when there is none to help and none of the Sons of Zion to take her by the hand in her distress when there is none to make up the breach no Intercessor let thine own arm bring salvation When all earthly Glory is stained blasted and gone appear in thine own Glory in the glory of thy wisdom power and Sovereign grace in building Sion build the house and bear the glory that when thou hast done the work by thy Spirit grace grace may be glorified and that this may be written for the Generations to come that the people which shall be created may praise the Lord. We do not present our Supplications before thee for our righteousness for we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousness as filthy rags but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy own sake O our God! for this people are called by thy Name O Lord the hope of Israel the Savior thereof in the time of trouble though our iniquities testifie against us do for thy name sake if thou mark our iniquity we cannot stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou may be feared there is mercy with thee and plenteous redemption and thou redeemest Israel from all his iniquities and troubles O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy name and deliver and purge away our sins for thy name sake save this people bless thy Inheritance feed them also and lift them up for ever Save us O Lord our God and gather us to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. Unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and and ever Amen FINIS
kindly to it and it takes well with them and they with it And Error is like a fretting gangreen the longer it continues it rots and spreads the more And it 's observed that when People drinks in erroneous Doctrines upon the bare word of these who teach Division and their heart and affection takes with Error though they have neither shadow of Scripture or Reason for it that they are hardly recovered from these delusions for People who are misled by some wrested Scripture or captious Reasoning they may be more easily recovered by shewing the true meaning of the wrested and mis-applyed Scripture and the captiousness of the false Reasoning But when People will err and love to wander and will stumble though they wot not at what and are so affectionately addicted to their erroneous Opinions that they will hear nothing that makes against them there is little probability of Cure for as they received them without Reason because they would receive them so they retain them against Reason and cannot endure to have these beloved tenets brought under examination and tryal and therefore they readily flee out in Passion upon any who would inform them as mens Lusts are their Idols so are their Errors when they are once settled in their hearts Augustine said that his error was his God Error meus erat Deus meus Now if this Historian who was a man of letters be so confounded and confused in stating this Question and is involved in gross contradictions what wonder if the poor people who are not fit for Debates be whirled round by such whirl-winds and contrary winds into a confused giddiness that they wot not what they say or affirm and know not what to do and be like Children that have so long run about that they fall down as unable to stand or move any more So they are so confounded with these perplexed Questions about hearing which cannot be propounded and far less resolved without manifest Absurdities and Contradictions that many of them are fallen over in a careless laziness and indifferency about all hearing of the Word and spends the Lords day in sleeping loytering and idle wandring The Historian doth but waste time and paper when he says that in our best times People were not so tyed to the hearing of their Ministers as that they might never or in no case hear others for that is not the Question But this is the true state of the Question Whether People who have these Ministers to hear who were formerly Ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery to be their Pastors and those who have these Ministers to hear whom they invited to come and help them when they were destitute and had none to Preach to them If these People who have consented to receive the Lords Ordinances from these Ministers and have waited on their Ministry and joyned with them in the Lords Worship if they ought to break off that Church-fellowship and though they acknowledge these Ministers to be Ministers of the Gospel and though these Ministers Preach the Gospel and dispense the Lords Ordinances according to the Lords Institution yet if they ought to withdraw constantly from hearing them and that because it 's unlawful to hear them and there is sin wrapt up in hearing them and that they are called of God to withdraw that in doing so they may bear witness against the sinful Usurpations manifest in the Indulgence and the many evils in accepting it or more shortly If it be sin for these People to hear these Ministers and if it be their Duty to desert them and separate themselves from these Congregations where they exercise their Ministry This Historian seemeth to be for the Affirmative and so confident that these People do right in withdrawing that he says One might think it strange that there should be any necessity to vindicate them considering what he hath said above I am one of these who have considered what he hath said above and I thought it very strange how he could vent such gross and manifestly false Calumnies against faithful Ministers and how he could wrest and pervert their true right honest words contrary to common sense and equity that he might wring out of them that which never entred in the thoughts or heart of these Ministers And again I think it strange that by these false and groundless Calumnies which he hath cast upon these honest Ministers he should labour to rent the Church of God by Schism by breaking these who will listen to him off from communicating with the true Church in the true Worship of God and by pressing them to disown and desert these Ministers whom they formerly owned and countenanced and whom they are still obliged to own and have no just cause to desert except his false Calumnies be accounted just causes Having observed the confusion and contradictions in which the Historian hath involved himself in stating the Question it remains to consider what he says for the vindication of these who scruple to hear and own the Indulged Ministers But seeing he says nothing but what he hath said before and is formerly refuted I hope the Reader will not expect that I should play the goke in repeating again his Cuckows and refuting them although I followed him before in his extravagant wandrings when he without and contrary to all sense and reason imagined that this or that or the other thing was the meaning of the Indulged Ministers words yet I cannot have any pretext for making meer repetitions in his wandrings there was variety of vain imaginations which made the refutation of them less tedious but to repeat the same things to no purpose but to waste time and paper would be intolerably tedious and nauseating I shall onely by answering his first Question shew the way of answering the rest 1. Seeing by what is said under our first head of Arguments c. Answ Seeing by what is said in answer to your first head of Arguments it is manifest that the Indulged in and by their accepting of the Indulgence have not wronged our Lord Jesus Christ who is the onely Head of the Church and King in Zion in any of these nine several particulars which are nine several Calumnies the ordinary Arguments which he makes use of against the Indulged Ministers for he could find no true Arguments to his purpose against them How can they but be blamed who out of a sinful credulity make up or take up such vile Reproaches against faithful Ministers and then out of these Calumnies create to themselves scruples which scare them from hearing these whom the Lord hath sent to Preach the Gospel to them And so through the rest of his Questions where he refers to his heads of Arguments I refer to the Answers which cuts off both heads and tails of these captions As for the Arguments taken out of the late Apology which contrary to the intention of the Apologist he abuses for he perverts the words
grieved that they should have started that Question at all among them and if it were to do again would be better advised and are very desirous to have the divisive Distempers of the People cured and the Preachers of Schism discountenanced And yet this Historian with two or three of the younger sort would contrary to the mind and heart to the tears and prayers of all his Brethren increase the Disease which they were studying to cure and encourage these rash and inconsiderate Youths to cast more fire-brands and add Oyl to the flame I have considered the 47 48 49 Verses of the 7th Chap. of John with Mr. H's Notes and the more I consider it I think it the more impertinently alledged For these Pharisees and Rulers were Enemies of Christ they believed not themselves and they endeavoured to hinder others to believe on Christ and are enraged that the People did believe on him Now the Ministers of whom he is speaking are not Enemies of Christ but his Servants and faithful Servants and zealous for his Glory and are so far from hindering People from believing in Christ or from looking on them as ignorant and cursed upon that account that they study to bring People to believe in Christ and are grieved that this Author and his Associates withdraws them from Christ by withdrawing them from his Ordinances where he comes and blesses his People and is in the midst of them and withdraws them from hearing these whom Christ sends to Preach to them and so hinders them from believing for Faith comes by hearing and it increases by hearing Mr. H. takes notice that these Pharisees were puffed up and I leave it to the consideration of the Reader if the way of these Faithful and Zealous Ministers seems not to be farther from this than the way that this Historian hath taken in this History He shews it's an old Engine to keep men from Christ by the opposition of able and eminent Church-men But the stress of the Argument which he proposes to answer did not lie most upon that that they were Church-men in eminent place of great parts but on that that they were Faithful and Zealous Ministers and that they were not seeking themselves or their own things but the things of Christ and the Edification of the Body of Christ appears in this that they are not like the Historians Youths who cry down all but themselves and draws away the People from all others to hear themselves and tells the People there is a cursed thing in other Meetings and warns them to beware of it But their Faithful Ministers does not seek to engross all the Peoples affection to themselves but they are for their hearing of others they behave as the Lords Ministers were wont to do in the Primitive times and as we find the Apostles doing in their Epistles they commend and recommend their fellow-labourers to the Churches and strengthens their hands Again these Pharisees took it as an evidence of the Ignorance and Misery of the People that they believed on Christ These who speak of the Ignorance of the People who withdraw from hearing Indulged Ministers are far from thinking them Ignorant and Cursed upon that account But they know that many of them are very ignorant of Christ and of the way of Salvation and it 's sad to them that are drawn away from the means of Knowledge Preaching and Catechising from learning the grounds of Religion and their Heads filled with vain janglings And they learn not to know their own sins in order to their Humiliation and Self-denial but learns to know the sins of others more than their own and that readily puffs them up What he adds about the Peoples guiding and breaking the Ice it blows up the People with a conceit that God hath made them Guides and Leaders to go before the Ministers and made the Sheep to lead the Shepherds There was enough of wind in this Bladder before the Historian might have without any hazard spared his breath here and not blown up the People with the ill wind of an anti-scriptural conceit When the Lord guides his People in his way he guides them according to his Word in the use of the means that he himself hath appointed he leads his People like a Flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron and for my part when I observe that these whom the Lord hath not made Guides and Leaders and Shepherds wilfully refusing to be guided and led by these whom God hath made Guides and Shepherds and confidently taking upon them to lead their Leaders I am very suspicious that all is not right and that both the Leaders and they who are led by them are wrong But this is an old trick used by these who stir up People to Schism or Sedition to give the People fair words and make much of them Corah Dathan and Abiram do highly complement the People All the Congregation say they is holy every one of them and the Lord is among them Such fair words will easily beguile unstable Souls I remember a judicious and sober Countrey-man said of one of these Preachers who made it a great part of his work to draw away the People from hearing Indulged Ministers That he thought he clapped the Bairns heads too much The Historian was mistaken if he thought that withdrawing from the Indulged Ministers had it's rise from the People for it was some Preachers who by private conferences and publick Preaching drew them away He alledges that the matter about hearing the Curats is a sufficient instance of the Peoples good guiding Yet I perceive by what he says that he would not follow the Peoples guiding even in this matter for he does not think the Baptisms administrated by them to be no Baptisms But some of the People have thought their Baptism to be the mark of the Beast and that 's much worse than nothing He does not think the hearing of Curats simply unlawful and thinks if there were no other to hear they should be heard But some of the leading People have thought the hearing of them simply unlawful I heard of some who said that the hearing of them was as unlawful as Fornication Adultery as the Worshipping of the Calves of Dan and Bethel And I suppose the Historian will not deny that Fornication c. are simply unlawful Some have been so far from thinking that hearing them could ever become Lawful that they have placed their Religion and Sincerity in this A Minister informed me that when he was enquiring concerning the estate of a dying woman he got no other account of any Evidence that it was well or would be well with her but this that she had never heard a Curate and I suppose the Historian would have looked on this as a Soul-deluding and destructive Error to make that an Evidence of Sincerity which a Lazy Profane Atheistical Person can so easily forbear and that from a Principle of Laziness Profanity or Atheism From
Authority That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Which shews that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster did not think that the Kingdom of Christ is to be set up by ruining earthly Kings and Kingdoms and that they take not the right way to advance Christs Kingdom who reject the Magistrates countenance and maintenance of the Church Or who by despising and provoking Magistrates to wrath tempts them to discountenance the Church And seeing they look on the Church as Christs Kingdom the Historian hath not taken the right way to advance this Kingdom but hath taken the way to ruine it by dividing it For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And if he had pondered the explication of the third Petition it might have been a mean to have prevented his giving so much place to his own Humour and Will in this History and helped him to more submission unto the Holy Providence of God than doth appear in this History I wish he had ere he began to write this History put up that Petition And lead us not into temptation Or at the close of it put up that Petition And forgive us our sins We have great need ere we begin Debates and Controversies even when they are necessary to pray that we be not led into temptation And great need to close such Debates even when the cause maintained is right with praying Lord forgive us our sins I have examined all that had any appearance of Reason in this History and refuted many things which needed no refutation if it had not been for the sake of simple People who are often deceived by big words where there is no shew or colour of Reason I have often by Reason refuted the unreasonable clamours both of the Author of the Epistle and of the History whereas I might have opposed clamour to clamour for what is founded upon meer clamour may be as easily cried down as it 's cried up Let none because of the Authors errors in this History cast at other useful Books which he hath published nor reject any thing that is true and right in this History Good men have their failings and we may not take our measures of them from their miscarriages under a fit of temptation Job's Friends had a just hatred against Hypocrisie and they mistake Job and falls foul upon him as a Hypocrite and speaks many things that are not right things in the heat of Debate This Author had a just indignation against Erastianism and a Spiritual Supremacy in Magistrates and he apprehended that his brethren had interpretatively homologate this Erastian and Spiritual Supream power in the Magistrate and having mistaken them he hath fallen foully upon them and spoken much evil of them without cause These things which in the Epistle and History are wrong are things for the most part which several people had drunk in and the printing of these errours hath given occasion to rectifie the mistakes of erring people if they will not shut their eyes against the light The Lord who is excellent in working draws good out of evil and maketh all things work together for good to them who love him and are the called according to his purpose he can over-rule the darkness of error so as it shall be subservient to clear the truth In the worst times the Elect hath obtained and shall obtain The Lord reigneth and ruleth in the midst of Enemies he can when men are scattering the dust of Zion be making way for laying a solid foundation in the deep humiliation of his people for building his house The Church hath been before as dry and scattered bones as bones scattered at the graves mouth and yet he who raiseth the dead hath made these bones to come together and live It 's our best to leave the answering of that Question Can these Bones live To the Lord himself to Jehovah who makes things that are not to be who doeth great things and unsearchable marvellous things and without number If we would take shame and confusion of face to our selves and would humble our selves in the sight and sense of our sins our darkness and stumblings and justlings in the dark and justifie the Lord in his judgments that are come upon us and yet ascribe to him the glory of his Mercy and out of our depths and darkness cry to him that he would cause his face to shine and enlighten our darkness and send out his Light and Truth and pour out the Spirit of a sound mind and that he would quicken us by the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus that we might call on his Name and look on him whom we have pierced and mourn that when mens endeavours to gather the scattered sheep are not effectual that he the great Shepherd would seek out his sheep and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day And if we would wait on him in the way of his Judgments and hope in his Word his Covenant which he uses to remember for his People and to repent according to the multitude of his Mercies and though we have no ground of hope in our selves yet hope against hope on the Lord who is the hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble and that because with him there is Mercy and plenteous Redemption And so continue humbly praying hoping waiting for him He could soon redeem us from all our Iniquities and all our Troubles and cure all our distractions and distempers and give Light and Life and Unity and Peace Let us take shame to our selves and give him the glory due to his Name that his Name may endure for ever and be continued as long as the Sun that men may be Blessed in him and all Nations call him Blessed Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who onely doeth wondrous things And Blessed be his Glorious Name for ever and ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen and Amen The Conference continued Farmer SIR there are many things considerable in this Answer to the History of the Indulgence which I purpose to consider but there is one thing which not a little troubles me That the withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers is called Schism Now I remember we are by Covenant bound to extirpate Schism and if I have been practising Schism in withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers I have been Acting contrary to the Covenant Minister They who deal truly in the matter of the Covenant will study to fulfill their Vows not onely in some things but in all things Schism is a dissolution of that Union which ought to be among Christians and especially it appears in refusing that Church-fellowship or Ecclesiastical Communion which ought to be observed or in an unwillingness to communicate or to have communion with the true Church in Holy Actions Casuists shew that it is a most grievous