Ministerie of the word without usurping a stated superior Order of Governing as their special work let be immixing themselves by privilege in secular Courts and affaires 3. That they should be obeyed is this their power for discipline and Government set down in Scripture not also its rules limites Were the Apostles more then Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God was not the sure word of Prophecie their great warrant When the Apostle Paul is about to set order in the Church of Coriath hear his Preface by ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ And as in the ordinance of the Lords Supper he only delivers what he had received of the Lord so even as to that smallest of matters the Length and Fashion of the hair doth he use any other Authority then what he seconds with rational persuasion How far was he then from that dominion over our Faith which you ascribe to the Church not only of appointing significant instructing Ceremonies but of abrogating things as expresly ordained in your opinion as the true Sacraments 4 You say That things should be done to Order Edification and Peace keep within these bounds and invert not this Method and we are agreed but if you subsist not in the regulation of the manner but wil impose New things which the Lord requireth not nay which he abhorreth even your own inventions framed to your own lusts and interests or produced by your delusions then make peace your Argument because ye will not allow it to such as in Conscience cannot conforme the Lord who hath founded Zion Reigns in it who hath builded his House rules over it will one day judge Thus you see how these your everlasting obligations do fully conclude all the truths that we assert Where you adde that the other Rules are now altered with the alterable state of things whereunto they were accommodate if you understand it soundly of these things only which are indeed ceased it is a very certain and allowable truth but you remember not that in the very Page preceeding you impute this alteration so groslyâ— to the bare Practice of the Catholick Church a very doubtfull terme and thereby not only unsetle Scripture foundations as to the Sacraments but endeavour to introduce such an arbitrary authority in the Church that in place of establishing true Christian Liberty which you seem here to assert it is evident that you go about plainly to set up an absolute Spiritual tyranny over the Church of God and so to load it with the Ceremonies and innovations a bondage more severe then the old dispensation from which we are liberate but blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ who hath delivered us not only from that old Law of Ordinances but hath made us free that we should be no more the Servants of Men nor liable to be judged in meat or drink or in respect of an holy Day or of the new Moon or of the Sabbath and having blotted out the hand writting of God's Ordinances that was against us hath put no new blank in Mens hands for their own devices and superstitions To conclude then in your own words these things are so rationall and also so clearly deduced from your own concessions that I see nothing either to be excepted against our Conformity to the Scripture pattern and the true Christian liberty both in opinion and practice which we maintain or to be alleaged for your pretended liberty consisting in a Licentious absurd imposing on such whom you acknowledge to be free But in order to this last point viz. your attempt to remove a Scripture rule easie in it self and imparting true Libertie to its observers and to set up an unwarrantable Yoke of Church Authority in its place I conceive it is that here you go about to represent your N. C. as a vain and clamorous boaster of the Crown Throne and Kingdome of our Lord on purpose to prejudicate against our just complaint of your invasion and Robbery but waving your Calumnious Methods I shal only endeavour to speak â—urth the words of truth and sobernesse I shall not here discourse of the Kingdom of Christ in all its parts whereunto we finde in Scripture both the outward Protection of the Church vengeance upon Adversaries and all judgement even the great and last ascrived but in order to our present purpose I affirme plainly that our Lord Jesus as the Redeemer is in a peculiar manner exalted to be Head and King in and over his Church by vertue of which Kingdome he sendeth forth and Authorizeth his Ministers hath defined their Order and Power determined Censures and given and declared Laws to be observed in his house and that in such a manner and in that perfection that in all things properly thereto relating he hath only left to the Officers by himself appointed a Ministerial power of administration so that there is neither place left nor power given to diminish from or adde to the Officers Laws Censures and Orders which he hath therein established that these things are so cannot be better cleared then by remitting you to our larger Catechisme where as you will finde satisfying Scripture proof for their confirmation so really I cannot but by the way recommend to you its more serious study for the curing of that loosenesse in Principles which almost in every thing you discover My part at present shall be to consider your strange discourse on this subject You say then Christ's throne Crown and Kingdom are inward and spirituall not of the World nor as the Kindoms of the World Sir though I acknowledge the Scripture phrase in this matter to be Metaphoricall Yet I wish you had better observed it and forborn the hard and unused expression of an Inward Crown But to the question Christs Kingdom is indeed in its power and effects the restriction a little above premised being remembred internall and Spirituall but doth it therefore follow that its administration is not externall and visible when the Lord declared all power to be given unto him and by vertue thereof sent forth his Apostles and Ministers and gathered Churches having peculiar Rulers Laws and Ordinances was not this both visible and audible Are not all the acts of Discipline and Government properly thereto referable of the same Nature Our Lords Kingdom is truely not of the World nor as the Kingdomes thereof is it therefore not in the World What doth this arguing conclude You proceed a great part of his Kingdom is the liberty whereto he hath called us and I grant that as liberty and deliverance from Sin and Satan are among its choise benefites and therefore the exultation of Zachariah his thanksgiving so our liberation from the yoke of Jewish Ceremonies and all such bondage is that which we readily acknowledge in opposition to youâ— unwarrantable exactions but what would you thence inferre because Christ hes liberate us from the former slavery and Pedagogie hath he
manifest from the Text Iohn 13. 4. c. where we finde that our Lord doth first wash his Disciples feet before he told them what he was a doing and then having done the act not simply significant by his appointment but of it self as the effect expressing the greatest humility as its cause he teaches them not a â—oâ—emne reiteration but the use in these words If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash on anothers feet If I have been among you as he that serveth so ought ye to serve one another for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you I have not shewed you humility in a figure to be repeated for your remembrance but by a solid practice taught you the like performance so that to turne this pattern unto a rite is in effect as far from our Lords purpose as the instruction of plaiâ— examples is preferable to that of Mystick representations which exposition is so true and sound that as this phansie of yours was never owned by the Church of Christ so it is most certain that whâ—re it hath been followed I mean by the Pope and this action hath been used as a rite it hath only been made a colour to the most prodigious and superlative pride that ever the sun beheld and thus I hope all men may see that the not using of this washing never again used for any thing we read by way of Sacrament or Ceremony either by our Lord or his Apostles and Churches is neither a difformity in us from the Scripture nor an argument for your irreligious laxenesse in things you call externals As for your Demand why in your Worship do you not Kiss one another with a holy Kiss seing it is no where commanded in worship as you seem boldly and ignorantly to suppose and the Christian manner of the thing in customary civility is only recommended by the Apostle as an allay of chastity and kindnesse in Civil rencounters the question is but a petulant extravagancie of your vain imagination Next you Enquire why do you not anoint the sick with oyl I answere though you addresse this demand to a N. C. yet it is evident that your conclusion of difformity to the Scripture pattern thence inferred is equally levelled against the whole Protestant Church wherein this Ceremony is univerâ—aâ—ly diâ—used and that not from your vain warrant of the Churches Authority in and over things expressly commanded as you judge this rite to be No this is a presumption so high and laxe that even the grossest Papists are unwilling to avouch it but the â—ound answere of all the Churches is that as the custome of Anointing might have been occasioned from an observance then in use in these parts where Anointings were much more ordinary then in our parts of the world so it is mentioned in the Scripture by the Apostle Iames not by way of Command but as the accustomed Symbole adhibite in the exercise of the Gift of healing which being then Ordinary in the Church is commanded to be applyed by the prayer of Faith whereunto the effect is solely reâ—erred and only with the formality of Anointing as being then customary in the like cases seing then that the Text runs clearly thus is any sick let him call the Elders and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of saith shall save the sick And that the application of the extraordinary Gift of healing by prayer with the then usâ—all circumstance of Anointingâ— is here only enjoyned how can you make this Text binding as to the manner and circumstance when you cannot but acknowledge that the substance viz. the power of healing is ceased But having made your N. C. say That the Apostle promises recovery upon the anointing you turne to fight with your own shadow and tell him There is no such matter that the recovery is promised to prayer and also forgivenesse and seing we pray by all for their raising up and that they may be forgiven why do we not aswel anoint But what Logick can make out this consequence in as much as Anointing being there only spoken of as the concomitant rite used in the application of the Gift of healing it is manifest that without the existence and exercise of the Gift it self it is not now to be repeated and therefore though prayer be principally commanded as the speciall mean by which even the Gift of Miracles was actuate and made effectuall and to this day doth remain as the great one by which all the promises either for raising up or remission are drawen out unto effect yet thence to inferre that Anointing a peculiar solemnity in the Gift of healing should still continow notwitstanding the Gift it self be ceased is very absurd Now that Anointing was an Ordinary observance in the exercise of the Gift of healing you may read it clearly in the Disciples practice Mark 6. 13. And they Anointed with oil maâ— that â—â—re sick and healed them This being then the just and true account not only of our practice but also of that of the whole reformed Churches how vain and ridiculous are you to tell us that our pretense of Scripture is but to impose on women and simple people and all our persuasion grave nods and bigwords but leaving you to puff petulantly where you can prove nothing I proceed to your next demand who taught us the change of the Sabbath and you say we will read the Bible long â—re we finde it there which you think sufficiently proved when you tell us That the Churches meeting recorded to have been on the first day of the week saveth not that they antiquated the Saturnday as you are pleased very coursâ—y to speak and that of the Lords day sayeth yet less Sir for answere let me only tell you that by this your conceited slighting of Arguments which you cannot answere with your vain arguings against these things which you cannot disprove you have discovered to me the deep wisdom of Solomons contradictory-like advice answere a foolâ— and answere him not Prov. 26. 4 and 5. in so saâ—â—sâ—â—ying a reconciliation that remitting you for answere lest you be wise in your own conceit to the labouâ—s of these who have cleared this point above cavillation I â—orbear to make any further answere lest I should be like unto you Only I think it worth the observing how like the progresse of your dangerous Libertinisme is to that verdict of the Apostles 2. Tim. 3. 13. Your first sally was only against ruling Elders and Deacons the next attacques the very Discipline of Church your third endeavours to introduce the Superstition of Lent the Table Altar-wise the Surplice to corrupt the worship your fourth resolves the necessity of Baptisme and the Lords supper into the Churches arbitriment your fifth pleads for Extreame Unction or els a liberty and power to the Church above the
Scripture and your sext to compleat the carier of your delusions Notwithstanding that the clâ—arest light both of Reason and Religion do exact a definite constant portion of time for a rest and this rest to be holy unto the Lord that the Law of God in recommending the celebration of the old Sabbath doth found it upon a perpetual determination of the seventh part of time grounded on Divine Authority and example and lastly that the Scripture in the antiquating of the service and observation of the Jewish Sabbath doth evidently translate the keeping of the perpetual holy rest unto the Lords day the first of the week Notwithstanding I say of these firme grounds your sext attempt darres to unfix this grand Ordinance the reverence or contempt whereof hath in all ages of the Church by experience been found of great moment and unquestionable influence either as to the promoving or decay of true Piety and Godlinesse how justly may it be said of you and your Compliâ—es who endeavour to make void the Divine institution of this day which your predecessours so grosly and wickedly profaned ye be witnesses there ore unto your selves that you are their Children fill ye up the measure of your Fathers But O â—ear lest you do not escape the damnation of Hell I will not take Notice of your own or your Non-conformist's meen reflection on these things That they may prove our Church was not perfâ—ct but will not justify you your answere to that which follows viz. do you mean to lay aside the Scripture 〈◊〉 rather to be considered wherein leaving the retortion of â—ouâ— objected insolence and big pretending to the impartiall examiner of what you have alledged and I replied â— come â—o your summe of the whole matter which you say is That the Scriptures were designed bâ— God for the purifying of the hearts and conversations of Men Most true And therefore it was not necessaire they should contain direct rules for the Church-policie which being a half Civill matter needs not Divine warrants a strange inference whereof almost every word is a ridle for first you grant that the Scripture doth contain Rules though not Direct rules for the Church-policie and yet you adde almost immediatly that it needs no divine warrant Then what mean you by Direct rules if you mean Particular as the subjoined Antithesis of Common doth give us to understand let these Scripture rules Common or not be observed and particular determinations thereto duely squared and it is all we contend for Search therefore the Scriptures and whatever latitude may be left therein as to the regulation of necessary and common circumstances according to decencie and order for Edification Yet I am confident that as to the substance and main of the Officers Discipline and Government of the Church the matters in controversie betuixt us both you shall be found thereby clearly condemned and we justified but if by denying the Scripture to contain direct rules for the Church-policie you understand that it only holdeth out indirect unstraight and ambiguous rules applicable to any forme as may best sute serve the interests and lusts of vain Men this indeed is agreeable to your scope but as far from Scripture as it is dissonant to the truth of God and Great ends of the Gospel 2. What do you understand by the Church policie its Officers Discipline and Government are the things which we contend for If you think these half Civil I would gladly learn what a Church as such can have more Ecclesiastick certainly if a distinct Head Jesus Christ a distinct Authority flowing from that all Power given to him a distinck manner nothing like but wholly opposite to the way of Civil rule distinct effects and ends as Holinesse and eternall perfection are from external justice and temporal peace and lastly a distinct subsistence of the Church and its Policie not only when disowned but mortally persecute by the Civil Powers may prove the Policie Ecclesiastick to differ from the Civil there can be nothing more clearly disterminat but if by Policie you only mean the externall protection and assistance which the Civil Magistrat may and ought to give to the Church it is not only half but wholly Civil as to its rise and cause and therefore the acknowledgement thereof we render under God heartily and entirely to the Powers which he setteth up I might further question what you call half Civil and how you come to deny that Divine warrant which at first you half grant but I shall content my self to declare the falshood of your inference understood of the Discipline and Government of Gods house the subject of our debate by shewing you that its plain contradictory is a Scripture truth viz. The Scriptures were designed by God for the Purifying of the hearts and conversations of men and therefore it was necessary they should they do contain direct rules for the Churches Policie wholly Ecclesiastick appointed by Jesus Christ The reason of the consequence is clear not only because the Church Policie viz. its Officers Discipline and Government are expresly and directly ordained by our Lord for our Sanctification Salvation as I have formerly shewen therefore their necessity such as cannot without the highest presumption be called in question but also because their usefulnesse in order to these ends is by diverse Scriptures undeniably held forth And he who as the Son was faithful over his own house gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. yea and all the Gifts Power Authority and Directions to be found in Scripture concerning them for the work of the Ministrie the Edifying of the body of Christ and perfecting of the Saints Is a truth so evident that I marvail how you could adventure on this Architectonick reasoning and offer to lay down the end and project of the Gospel and then frame and Modell its institutions and midses according to your own imagination and not rather humbly endeavour in the recognisance of his wonderfull love and fidelity to and care of his Church his own body with all sobriety to pursue the knowledge and practice of what things-soever he hath ordained for its edification I might further remember you that the rebuke and all the Censures of discipline are for Edification the Saving of the soul making sound in the faith and Causing others to fear and that we finde the exercise of the Churches Authority and Government in that Meeting and Decree made at Ierusalem attended with The consolation and establishment of the Churches But if your own concessions be but a little pressed they will easily exhibite the inconsistencie of your vanity you say then That the common rules are in Scripture 1. That there should be Church Officers and are not their Power Degrees and Ministerial Authority as certainly therein defined 2 That these should be separate for that function Ought not then the best among them give themselves continually and wholly to Prayer and to the
History Victories and the like with all the composures made thereupon yea even these imprecatorie Psalmes which though in the direct act they appear to be hard and to need a special warrant may nevertheless furnish unto all sweet reflections of praise are most proper for the matter of song whereunto they were both at first framed and have since been used are all the works of God wonderful and such as may excite to praise and do you think it strange that the various exercises of his Servants and People should be accounted proper matter for this exercise Sir though I be no pretender to Poesie farre less presumptuous PINDARUM AEMULARI yet I conceive the smallest intelligence of the Nature and manner of Encomiasticks and Elogies finding matter in every subject might have guarded you from this escape but here I must digress unto a very pertinent discovery I have already told you that though by command we use the Psalmes in our praises yet seing these Forms are prescribed by the Spirit it can import no restraint and therefore can furnish no argument for your humane impositions but now there appears a more significant disparity viz. That the Psalmes being commanded by the Lord only for the matter of our praises though many of them may suggest both inward elicite conceptions and outward proper expressions of praise yet it is evident that by the injunction the reflex acts wherein the nature and exercise of praise doth formally consist are not in the least narrowed or confined let be stinted or restrained whereas by your imposed Forms framed on purpose not simply to furnish matter but to direct nay to suggest lead and express our Petitions the very formal desires of the heart and spirit in their substance at least though not in their degree are so led and bound up that it is hard to determine whether this restraint be more visible or injurious Having thus farre diverted I return to our purpose You say there are many things in the Psalmes that we understand not To sing without understanding is certainly sinful but unless you affirme the Psalmes to be in themselves unintelligible you may not because of our ignorance or weakness reject the institution of God Lastly you tell us that there were not above twentie of the Psalmes used by the Jews in Worship 'T is answered 1. You observe not that all this clatter is no more against us then against you at least your Episcopal Church for as for your self I am almost in the opinion that you are yet so little fixed that the clearest redargution will prove no conviction 2. The very inscriptions of more then thrice the number of Psalmes by you named do demonstrat the groundless confidence of this your alledgeance beside that we finde 1 Chron. 16. 7. the very first Psalm delivered by David to the publick Singers insert in the Book of Psalmes without any direction by way of title what may we then conceive of the rest 3. Reforming Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing praises unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the Seer and this the opinion and custome of the Church in all ages have understood of all the Psalmes whence then is it that you do assert so boldly The 2 difficulty which I am to remove is that you say we are not bound or rather have no warrant to use the Psalmes in meeter or with Tunes To this I answere That we are bound to sing is evident both from Scripture-precept and example and that we are thereby warranted to have the Psalmes in meeter with Tunes is as clear as both are necessary at least convenient in the propriety of our language for the use of singing I deny not but prose may be sung but seing it is certain that our language hath no such exact Prosodie as either to render it easiely measurable or the measures distinguishable by points and accents nay that the import of the musici or tonici accentus in the Hebrew qui olim moderabantur harmoniam musicam is so farre now lost and unknown that if we were now to sing the Hebrew Psalmes we could not make use of them Pray Sir leave us but the way of meeter in place of points and accents untill you teach us better Grammar whereas you hint that we may have all David's Instruments as well as Tunes if you could learn us to sing without Tunes as we may well do without Organs I shal not contend but seing that David did no doubt invent and introduce these his Instruments as well by the special direction of the Spirit as he did all other things anent the service of the Temple and that the Primitive Christians worshipping more in the simplicity of the Spirit then in outward showes canebant assâ voce non 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I think you may now put up your pipes and spare the cost Next you say Why may not the Christian Church compose new Hymnes as they of Corinth did And this you judge to be the more necessarie because that David's Psalmes have not such full and clear Hymnes upon the great Mysteries of the Christian beliefe And you think the liberty which we plead for in Prayer should much perswade it 'T is answered if you consider that Scripture 1 Cor. 14. and particularly the 26. v. you may understand that as the Apostle's business in the place is to set an order to the use of extraordinary Gifts wherein that Church abounded so the Psalms Doctrine Tongue Revelation and Interpretation there spoken of appear to be inspired and afflatitious motions which will not found you any argument And you your self do so plainly observe that these Psalmes of the Corinthians were framed by private persons that I marvell that your remembring of the thing to be extraordinary did not stop your translation of it by way of Privilege to the Churches in our dayes 2. Seing the Lord hath provided us with a plentiful variety of Psalmes and Hymnes and beside hath allowed us as full a liberty of praising in prose as of prayer I think it doth fully remove all that is here by you objected and abundantly warrant us both to abide content with Gods institutions and refuse a superfluous mixture of humane Odes with these Divine Psalmes which he hath appointed for the matter of our more solemne Praises But your scope is Why do not ye use the Glorie to the Father and your N. C. answering Because it is not in the Scripture and is but the device of men you reply who would not be sick with such pitiful folly Thus your nice ceremonious stomach nauseats sure and solid truths You add shew me a reason why you make prayers and not praises I answere 1. Whatever we make we impose none 2. We do not say that we make either prayers or praises our plain profession is that as the Lord whose it is hath commanded so we worship him using that allowed liberty of Spirit and utterance both in
prayer and praise whereunto he himself hath promised to direct and assist us And as for the Psalmes given us by Divine appointment for the matter only and not for the formal expression of our more solemn praising we are satisfied with his bountie and therefore do refuse your vain superaddition of an humane invention That our Meeter-Psalmes are no device of men seing they are the same in substance and senâ—e with these in prose without any greater variation then the application of the command of singing to us Scots-men doth both require and warrant is obvious to any mans candid reflection As to the possibility of singing in Prose as well as in Rime I have already acknowledged it and when you shall make it plainly and safely practicable I presume none will dissent But you again return to the Doxologie and asks Why it may not be used in the end of singing as well as it is used by us in the end of praying And this second Demand heats you to be unmannerly and to tell us that such childishnes makes you doubt our rational faculties When in faire dealing it would become your charitie better to informe them but passing your folly I say we close our prayers ordinarily with praise and glory to the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost because it is warrantable from Scripture-practice to wit in Blessing and agreeable to the truth and liberty of Gospel-worship and yet we refuse it in singing marke it not in praising because for that exercise the Lord having instructed us with a sufficient plenty of Divine composures we think it neither needfull nor acceptable that we should gratifie an arbitrarie imposition in receiving the supplement of an humane addition It is true the words are Scriptural but can you say that the Scripture beares any such allowance for their use in singing as it doth for the Psalmes of David Yea and many other spiritual songs in Scripture whereof you might indeed with some reason reprehend our too great disuse Hence therefore it is manifest that not only the offence of your unlawful imposing but also the want of Scripture-warrant doth exhibit the reason of our different practice in praying and solemn sung praises which you so hotly urge Having thus Sir vindicat both the Truth and our rational Faculties with how much advantage might I retort your reproach of Childish weakeness suppose our Reasons for refusing were no better then yours for imposing is it not a childish impotencie to be angrieâ— let be to make such a stirre for our scrupling to do a thing when you have no better reason for you then because we exactly and fully do the equipollent And really when in my self I consider that on your part such is the nature of almost all the differences that fill this Church and Kingdome with so much distraction how can it be sufficiently regreted for Men yea Christians yea Christian Rulers to vex and toss poor Innocents whom they ought with tenderness to protect for no other reason even in your acknowledgement but because they will not surrendare their Consciences to arbitrarie vain and frivolous impositions which the very natural liberty of reason would disdain is indeed a matter of wonder which nothing save a Devillish design to debosh Conscience and judicial delusion from the Lord can satisfie But I pray the Lord to open their eyes who ought to see In the next place returning to Prayer you bid us consider how Hosea the Prophet prescribes a form when he sayeth take with you words and say Strong reasoning The Prophet is exhorting a backslidden impenitent and obdured People to returne and for their help and encouragement instructing them how by a short supplication to God they might avert his wrath And this you make a warrant for men rigidly to impose Forms If a Non-conformist should go â—orth in the Spirit of the Lord and proclame O Scotland returne unto the Lord thy God take with you words and say take away the iniquity of a despised Gospel and brocken Covenant and receive us graciously c. would not you think him very impertinent who should thence conclude that man to be for a set Liturgie But our saviour prayed thrice still in the same words and yet the third time more â—ervently I will not tell you that even in the Text there may be a little variation observed but pray Sir who of us ever affirmed that fervour in prayer did consist in a varying of the phrase which is the inference you here make against us and yet that a stinted form specially when imposed may restrain fervour is as evident to any impartial discerner as that a deep fervor of Spirit may oftentimes fixe in one short petition nay sometimes be intended to a degree beyond words is certainly confirmed by manifold experience You conclude that in the Church they used Forms very early I will not tell you that antiquity is not a better plea for Set-forms then it is for Bishops And really in my opinion it is so much the worse for either that it pleads so jointly for both for that corruptions do draw on one another and especially a declination in Government a declination from the pure worship though the first beginnings and antient examples were more obscure yet the joint progress and increase of these evils in the Roman Church and the renewed late experiments which we have had at home confirme it above exception But my answere is first that the liberty of prayer which we plead for was in the Church long before Set-forms even from the dayes of our Lord during the times of the Apostles and their Apostolick Successors is a most certain truth and a better pattern then any after-alteration why do you not then hold to it As for the Liturgies of Iames and Mark you your self disowne them and they are notour forgeries 2. Admit that in the third and fourth Centuries partly through declining formality and partly for a remedy of the then much advanced decay both of Piety and Gifts in the Christian Church certain Liturgies were composed and used yet the very variety of them which you acknowledge as of that of Basile that of Chrysostome that of Ambrose doth sufficiently testify that though they might then have been proposed for helps and so used yet there was not one of them imposed by peremptory injunction As for what you say of the Reformed Churches that they have their Liturgies and that so had we ours at our first Reformation it so exactly quadrats to what I have answered anent the antient Liturgies their being framed for helps that there can be nothing more apposite in as much as it is a most certain truth that both our old Liturgie since you do name it so and these of the Reformed Churches are so farre different and free from the impertinencies corruptions ceremonies and rigid restriction of your Service-book by which it grossly bewrayes its foul Popish fountain that they do more oppugne then
you of Poperie how justly or unjustly I leave it to the Reader You make him say but are you not ARMINIANS And to that I must confess in the words of your N. C. you answere with so much Legerdemain that you are not easily discovered yet these few things are manifest 1. That such is the strange extent of this your latitude that it is more inclineable and favourable to any Sect or Partie then Conscientious Non-conformists If you deal with Papists then all their gross Idolatries and superstitions yea and their horrid Rebellions and Cruelties are forgotten and they forsooth hold the foundation and only build upon it wood hay and stuble And you earnestly wish for a temper which undeniable experience shews your partie hath endeavoured after at the rate of a hundred fold more condescendence then is required to the appeasing of all our complaints If Arminians come in your way not one word of all these errors so highly injurious to the Doctrine of the certainty immutability of Gods holy Decrees of the freeness and efficacie of his Grace of the extent of the merit of Christs Death and to the comfortable truth of the Saints Perseverance nor yet of these disorders and tumults wherewith we know they have infested the Reformed Churches but away with these controversies the itch of multiplying and canvassing subtill questions hath proven the chief pest of the Church It is good to be sober-minded And thus we see they do indeed vent profess and seduce according to their pleasure whereas if this your tendernesse of Religion and sober-mindedness were reall would not the first more readily teach you that the departing from the simplicity and humility of the Gospel hath been the visible inlet to all the wickedness and darknesse at this day in the Church of Rome And the second that in nothing sober-mindednesse is more sober then anent imposing upon such as do really scruple in Conscience things that the Lord hath no where commanded which two are the hinges of most of these debates which at present disturbe us Now on the other hand how you have treated Non-conformists all alongs I leave it to your own and every mans obvious reflection Rebellion Hypocrisy and Peevishness you falsely make their ordinary Epithets And for your inclinations towards them a short look forward exhibits them in Verse wherein after your approbation of the bloud and fynings that we have suffered you melodiously sing This strange distemper doth all skill defy Physicians hopes still falsify But as a joint which Gangren doth corrupt Must be cut off from the sound lump Better the body grow a stump Then by such members banckrrupt And then again lest such rigour may prove a stain to your Christian and Catholick latitude you add a forbearance for us such as it is wherein though your own interest plead for a delay yet you can forgive nothing it is only Till brimful be their cup Then chaffed justice shall the chaff devour And Angel-reapers bring the Iust to Heavens floor This this I fear is the inside of your pretended charity and it but too plainly evinces that all your professed stretches of a faire and comprehensive Latitude are in their regard to us but the forced product of your own conveniencie 2. By your opposing to the Soveraignity of God which the Arminian opinion doth proudly impugne his infinite Goodness and Holiness which they make their great pretense and declaring that the reconciling of these attributes is beyond your capacity it is evident by resolving this objection in the common difficulty of the unsearcheablenesse of Gods judgements both by them and by us acknowledged you take part on their side however it is not my purpose to draw you unto debate the Counsel oâ— God though imperscrutable yet it standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his The Soveraignity oâ— God though part â—â—nding ou◠〈◊〉 it only so much the more establisheth the liberty and certainty of his Decrees without all shadow of unrighteousnesse and in stead of interfering with doth plainly render both his Goodness and Holiness the more eminent and glorious These are the refâ—ections that the Apostle maketh upon this subject Pray consider the passage Rom. 9. where the Apostle after having shewed that before the children had done any good or evil God in his free purpose according to Election not of works but of 〈◊〉 that calleth preferreth the Younger and passeth by the Elder loving Iacob but hating Esaw to vindicate the Righteousnesse of God which is your stumbling recurreth to his Soveraignity having mercie on whom he will have mercie and whom he will hardening And he is so far from conceiving with you that the Soveraignity of God on the one hand and his infinite Goodness and Holiness on the other are to humane capacity irreconcileable attributes that it is from this high Soveraignity that he not only deduceth the excellencies of mercy and illustrateth the glory of Gods power and wrath but rationally answereth the proud reply of poor clayes carnal arguings against the Lord its infinite maker and free and absolute disposer But you say that you may well take his own oath for it that he taketh no pleasure in the death of sinners And so you may indeed very safely if either you understand it of the death of sinners simply and abstractly in it self considered or with respect to his serious call to them to repent and live as the context of that passage doth hold out but if you would thence deny that God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known purposed from all eternity to pass by such on whom he willeth not to shew mercy enduring with much longâ— uffering the vesselâ—s of wrath fitted to destruction you directly contradict the Apostle and all these other Scripture-passages whereby God and the Saints their rejoicings in the manifestation of his righteous Judgements are clearly holden out But 3. wishing to you and all men much fear sobriety and Scripture-simplicitie in the Doctrine of this high mystery of Predestination and not urging further the designed indifference which under a faire general you clearly go about to introduce for all Arminian tenents my earnest desire is that the Rule which you give for a conclusion may indeed both stint curiosity and direct practice Viz. Let none of our good be ascribed to our selves and none of our evill be imputed unto God You proceed to make your N. C. alledge our Ministers their jealousies of this your new way that you maâ— again appeal to and make a boast of your fruits but since I have without boasting abundanâ—ly searched and shaken you and left all to open view I also referre the judgemâ—nt to that most righteous cognizance But now you are wearied of these your wranglings and therefore you resolve to leave these dry and arid matters and talk a little with your N. C. on better subjects Sir your resolution is just and good only transferre not the
the matter you make your N. C. in place of a solid representation of the truth controverted rap out an indigested heap of Pompous titles and by this personat blustering you take the occasion very kindly to commend your own personall modestie whether this be not more invidious then ingenuous dealing let others judge certainly if you had used that candor which you professe your N. C. would have told you that the work of God we desire to own is that inlightning grace and assisting presence of God whereby after that the Lord had caused his people to receive the truth in its power he mightly stirred them up and inabled them to resist the growing corruptions and shake off the heavie yoke of wicked Prelacie to restore and establish his ordinances specially the Ministerie and Government of his Church in puritie to maintain and defend the same against the violence of Adversaries and to direct all these endeavours and attainments to the advancement of our Lords Kingdom over the hearts and consciences of men and the prospering of his pleasure in these Lands and that by such righteous means and methods as are clearly warranted and approven by Scripture Reason and many uncontroverted precedents This is the truth your Non-conformist ought to have witnessed not more confirmed by the publick writings and actings of these times then indelebly sealed in the hearts and by the experiences of many thousands of the seekers of God but seing I am astricted to follow you I returne to your objections And first you say Rebellion was the Soul of our whole work our Covenant a Bond to cement us in it in an excess of faire dealing not questioning the particular merit of the hypothese of our cause you demand one place in both the Testaments warranting Subjects their fighting for Religion say plainly you can bring many against it Sir if you had thought it convenient I judge it was proper for you to disprove from Scripture Subjects their fighting for Religion not to require your Non-conformist to prove it for seing you know that quae sunt juris permissivi such things as law and right permit if not prohibited 〈◊〉 suâ—ficiently understood to be permitted any N. C. by an undeniable subsumption may easily evert your argument If a miserable Melancholian falling in disgust with certain necessary means of 〈◊〉 should affiâ—me that it is unlawful to use them because he finds not one place in either Testaments expresly warranting it would you account his reasoning conclusive I am confident you would not wherefore then do you urge us with his dreams Now your negative objection a Testimonio negato from a negative Testimonie as they say being such a notorious fallacie I need say nothing to what you adde of the Scriptures silence of the Jews Israelites their not rising up against their apostat idolatrous Princes much less can their omitting what they might and ought to have done be of any import If you could bring an example from Scripture of a King polluting the Sanctuary and the people offering to oppose him restrained either by rational perswasion or the Lords plain prohibition that only were apposite to your purpose But you say The faithfull Prophets their not exhorting to popular Reformation or resisting Princes doth evidently show that the omission of it was no sin 'T is answered to make this argument better then your last it is not enough to alleage that the Prophets did not provock to such courses unless you adde that they did industriously forbear so to do even in its season You know so well the necessity and beautie of tide and season to every purpose and work that your inconsideratnesse in this point is scarcely excusable The Scripture tells us most frequently of the perversnesse and bentness of that peoples heart to Idolatrie and Rebellion against God And no doubt in publick defections they were either the Kings entisers as Hos 7. 3. or did willingly walk after the Commandment Hos. 5. 11. What wonder then if the Prophets did forbear to ply them with any such expresse exhortation let be that you should account their simple omission as you love to speak or rather the Scriptures silence in the thing of any force And here I cannot but note the unequall dealing of the men of your perswasion who notwithstanding of their clamorous arguings from the silence of the Prophets against Subjects their taking Armes Yet when in the case of the ten Tribes their falling away from Rehoboam by them condemned for Rebellion by others justified as warrantable they are pressed not with a bare negative silence which is all that you object but with a silence of reproof circumstantiat with all that could render it significant they wave it as of no strength But lest you should think me too rigid in insisting only against your methods I proceed to give you though not obliged a positive return to your demand and to shew you some of the positive warrants that I finde in Sripture for Subjects their sighting for Religion and although as doubtful of the old Testament you seem to alleviat its testimony by terming its dispensation more carnall and fierie yet I hope you are perswaded that change of dispensations doth no wayes alter the truth and righteousnesse of God The first ground therefore which I take from Scripture is from the Law of Moses where I finde the keeping of the Lords Covenant not only injoined to the People of Israel as one body incorporat under the highest perswasives and strongest Sanctions that can be conceived and established to be their supreme Law but also its vindication and execution recommended to them in such a manner as doth clearly evince that it was the constant dutie of the faithful amongst them all other regards set aside even by force to have asserted and maintained it If salus populi the safety of the people under the interpretative notion and force of Suprema Lex Soveraigne Law have in all just exigences in all ages amongst all Nations licensed and warranted a defensive resistance and controll against their King and Rulers can Religion infinitly preferable in it self and confirmed by such an expresse Law be thought destitute of this prerogative It is in vain to alleage a disparitie from the inconsistencie of carnall weapons with the spirituality of Religion this is already obviat by the Lords own determination Deut 13. 12. If Israel was to animadvert with the sword against any city turning aside to Idolatrie can we doubt that it was lawful for them in the same manner to defend the true worship Do not recurre and say it was certainly lawfull in many cases but not against the Prince For if you allow Religion this weapon I have already proved its right and privilege by a higher title and clearer evidence then any other received cause of defence can pretend to But if you utterly disallow defensive armes against the Powers you destroy Nature deny Reason contradict Scripture
remember how Plinie in his Epistle to Trajan does paint the tender and conscientious Practice of the Primitive Christians with the same vermilion of Superstition but I am apt to think it is still the same Spirit of opposition to the Puritie of Ordinances power and practice of Godliness which prompts men to these unjust representations of such as dare not run the same course with them or who are constrained by the love of Christ to hold fast that which is below their Luke-warme temper to contend for But I need not be further solicitious in this vindication being confident that you are not able to proselyte into a beliefe of this reproach any sober or rational men nor will I envie you the advantage you are like to reap as a just retribution from every unprejudiced Reader and that is not to be beleeved afterward when ye speak the truth having with so much calumnious confidence solicited them into the beliefe of what they know to be a falsehood But Sir to shut up this Dialogue with you though raro vidi Clericum penitentem I have seldome seen a Clergy man a repenter hath been mostly verified in the men who have perverted the right ways of the Lord yet the Calumnie is so gross and groundless that I would willingly â—latter my self into a hope that when ye think on what ye have said ye will smite upon your thigh and be brought to an acknowledgement of the sin of unjust accuseing the brethren And I assure you Sir our joy would be almost equal with your advantage to see you weep over the falshoods and calumnies and evil designe of this first borne of your strength The Second DIALOGUE Answered YOu begin with a question What great goodnesse it was which so commended our Partie and having made your N. C. make a pitifull simple vaunt that you may out-vaunt him you proceed to accuse and censure as you list Sir if we dared to make our selves of the number or compare our selves with them that commend themselves we want not matter wherein we might indulge a little to the foolishnesse of boasting but seeing that he whom the Lord commendeth and not he who commendeth himself is approved we will not boast of things appertaining to our selves but endeavour that all our Glorying may be in the Lord. I have already told you how God blessed us with his Ministery and that Ministery with Power and Presence It was he who gave the word and great was the company of these that Published it it was he who clothed his Priests with Salvation and made his people to shout for joy It was he who in the more special times and shinings of his love made the Graces of his People to flow and Souls were ravished with these discoveries And if not only in the Publick Assemblies Gods fear was Great but Families also did seek him apart If the vulgar whom you undervaluingly so name did greatly delight in the Law of the Lord and the Sabbath was called a delight the holy of the Lord honourable we cannot but account these great matters and the very paths and Methods which do most assuredly lead to the great hights of Christianity Yea surely these Gospel Ordinances do lead unto the living God and to Jesus the Mediatour of the New Covenant and unto Communion with him and the Participation of all Graces I know there is a shorter way which too many take who forming unto themselves faire Ideas and words of Self-denyal resignation abstraction of minde and the like do entirely and pleasantly rest in the phansie and talk of these things and as much of a specious outward converse as may in some sort salve their reputation from these many forfeitures which by the sinfull accommodations of their love of ease they manifestly incurre and these men commonly in their self-elevation do not only slight the true Ordinances and from the infirmities of â—raile men intrusted therewith do take advantage to mock but license themselves unto an absolute compliance with every mode and dress in Church-Government and worship which humane policie or Sathans Malice please to invent nothing regarding how much thereby they may make themselves partakers of the Perjury Bloud and Violence which promove and the Profanity that followeth the courses that they approve but as they prudently provide for their own advantage and credite by the abused pretext of an illimited respect to Authoritie so they easily quiet all the reluctancies of their inward Light with any verball slender and inoffensive dissent This is the New convenient contrivance of Religion which indeed desires to be admired for its pretended Mortifications high attainments and peaceful enjoyments but in effect doth only recommend it self by a luke-warme and quiet indifferencie in the Matters of God a flattering and safe deference to Authority and a sinfull and sweet veneration of outward peace Whether your discourse and practice do â—avour or not of this way I do not judge I hope the serious seekers of God will still see and ask for the Old Paths and do know that it is the Good way wherein neither by a Pharisaick show of external devotion not yet by vain and Notionall pretendings but by humble and sincere waiting upon God in the means of his own appointment they have really attained to these graces in the names whereof you boast and so do finde rest to their Souls And certainly if to such the present sad alteration which for the former light power and frequencie observed in the Assemblies of the Lords People hath covered his house with darkeness death and desolation doth minister suitable reflections it can be no matter of wonder When David remembred these things and did consider the like changes he poured out his soul in him because he had gone with the multitude and went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise for this Ieremiahs heart diâ—d faint for these things were his eyes dimme because of the Mountain of Zion which was desolate the foxes walking upon it O what want had they of you for a comforter who could have carried them farre above these external shaddows and taught them Resignations and abstractions in such a hight that neither the corruption nor the removing of Gods Ordinances should have overclouded their Easefull Serenety But you insinuat that N. C. do overprize Ordinances and undervalue Moralitie I have already told you that this is but a calumny and that an holy and pure conversation is the greatest and best part of Religion is not by us in the lest questioned without the endeavour of holinesse the other parts may possibly in Hypocrisie be pretended but cannot indeed have any reality only remember that Christ Jesus who is our all is also our Sanctification and let your Morality be indeed Christianity In the next place you fall upon Particulars and alleage That our Discipline was wholly different from the rules of the Gospell and far short of that of the Ancient
Bishops This you instance in our Kirk Sessions which you say were like Birlaw Courts I will not examine your expressions but your reasons You tell us first that the Church should only Medle with Sins as they are scandals and not as they are injuries whereas our Sessions cognosced upon wrongs which belonged to the Magistrat But pray Sir May not the same Offence be both as a wrong cognoscible by the Magistrat for the reparation of the Plaintiffe and punishment of the Delinquent and as a scandal appertain to Church censure for the reproofe and amendment of the Offender reconciling of the offended and instruction of all Certainly it cannot be denied Now seeing our Sessions did only medle with Sinnes under the second formality what doth your challenge amount to This matter is to me so plain that I incline to think that the too Narrow acceptation of Scandal for the offence of one Brother against another without any external injury must be the only ground of your scruple but as all injurie is attended with a very sensible Scandal and every open sin hath also a General harding Scandal in it for which it is to be rebuked before all that others also may fear so it s necessarily previous traill cannot in reason be separated from its commanded rebuke But your next objection carping at the dilations made to these Courts because not preceeded by private Admonition made by the partie offended shews more plainly your mistake in as much as the Gospel order of Admonition can only have place in private offences in the which case it was also by us observed But to require the like Method in Publick offences is manifestly to exempt from their censure all open sins which being equally offensive unto all render this procedure wholly improper 3. You object That our Church Sessions did exact Fines but if you consider that these Fines which you mention are particularly imposed and determined by Statute and thereby appointed to be applyed to pious uses And therefore the demanding and uplifting thereof only aswell for the more summare and effectual restraint of sin as for the end whereto they are dâ—stined in use to be exercised by Kirk Sessions or rather by their Officers and Bedels in deficiency of the Magistrate who should have been appointed in every Paroche for that effect this your scruple must quickly cease but if you still think that notwithstanding both the manner and conveniencie of this practise the â—amine is unsuitable to a Church Iudicatorie do ye not strain at a Gâ—at and swallow a Camel nay a monstruous one Viz your Spiritual Lords in the highest temporall Courts where both civil and capital punishments are irrogated and inflicted 4. You say that we forced people to stoup to our Discipline by threatning them with the Temporall sword Sir this is a great untruth we never owned nor exercised High Commissions And if obstinat transgressours were then and still be punishable by the Laws of the Land wherefore seek you to make this our burthen 5. You say that the the time of our pennance was short the ancient Bishops did separat offenders as many years as we did weeks Just now you accused us of rigour and here you complean of our lenity And not remembring that the Ancient Bishops did not more exceed us in strictness of Discipline then we do exceed the Modern You are not ashamed to make your own sloth the Charge of our Mediocrity However the lawfull though various regulations of Prudence whereof according to the diversity of times and circumstances things undetermined by Scripture are acknowledged to be capable may sufficiently reconcile any apparent discrepancie in our practise from that of the Ancients 6. You say we used Discipline to put a temporal shame upon Offenders Again we are too Rigid but wherefore may not Discipline be used to shame Offenders as well as the disobedient are commanded to be noted and separated from that they may be ashamed 2. Thes. 3. 14. And the Incestuous person is ordained to be delivered to Sathan for the destruction of the flesh 1 Cor. 5. 5. As for your Phansie that Penitents are more Gazed at as you phrase it upon the high place you mention then at the Church doore we are not of your Opinion and the Church doore was ever thought a place of more obvious observance and severe pennance 7 You say we wretchedly abused Discipline by subjecting people to Censure for trifling matters and that Ministers were more Zealous against opposition to their courses then against opposition to the Everlasting Gospel But Sir as these trifling matters which I suspect you hint at were no lesse then the whole import of the present differences so whether the opposition you make so light of hath not in the event proven a most pernicious opposition to the Everlasting Gospel let any serious Soul judge This vindication whereunto ye have engaged me for our Kirk sessions obliges me to add in their behalf that although these Courts be very low and plain in themselves yet hath their excellent use for the suppressing of all ungodlinesse been alwayes very observable I need not go back to former times nor adduce as I may even K. Iames his expresse Testimonie to represent the notable and effectual influence of their right exercise the present increase of Prophanity through the ceasing of this remedy and the most ordinary jeer of dissolute Persons taxing one another for their exorbitancies with this scoâ—â—ing regrate Oh for a strick Kirk are too obvious confirmations And truely as I have oâ—ten marveiled to see a thing so mean in appearance so much the eye sore and scorne of Proud licentious Persons So I doubt not but this consideration alone by pointing out the reason may abundantly satisfy all serious scruplers From your dissatisfaction with our Kirk Sessions you go to taxe our Ministers their Libertie and Manner of reproving sin And as to the first you do so invidiously exaggerat their dealing in order to the late King and him who now Reigneth that I cannot dissemble my surprizal at your so excessive and abusive Railing on the Ministers of Christ and some whereof you your self say within two leaves are very good men fearing God but all are here reproached without distinction as Unnatural Hams Incendiaries open Lyars inhumane unchristian and malitious Persecutors of the memory of a pious dead Prince and that with the hight of insolencie and barbaritie Deliver my Soul o Lord from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue Sir I pretend not to your Privilege to scold in a meeke spirit and to lie walking in the Spirit and falshood But as I cannot but commend your wisdome in tristing the vent of your rage and malice against the Lords Ministers to such a subject not more advantageous against a retribution then apt to point the keen arrows of your spite with a most mortal odium so were it not for the reall and high respect that I bear to the Person
institute for and greatly commended by the effectual propagation of the Gospel and conspicuous advancement of holinesse so the ignorance and licentiousness which as the shadow doth the body do attend the prevailing of your Order are not more the imputation of men then the bitter and corrupt fruits that undeniably demonstrate the corruptnes of that plant of Prelacie not planted by God whereby they are produced ye shal know them by their fruits is a Test for Courses as well as Persones and that a good tree bringeth forth good fruit but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit is no lesse applicable to and clearly verified in the one then in the other The pure ordinances of a Gospel Ministrie and Church-Government according to our Lords appointment as they have his warrant and promise so they may expect his blessing but Lordly Prelacie the unwarrantable invention of man accomodate to a politique or worse designe and carried on by palpable avarice pride and falshood for the reducing of the just liberty of preaching and due respect to Conscience unto a subserviencie to mens lusts and secular interests cannot be more attended with the evil effects of ignorance profanitie and irreligion then it hath a peculiar influence directly productive thereof and therefore Sir as you say that you are so far Episcopal as to love the order I suppose because it is Ordered and submit to it because you see that rest is good so â— intreat you to be so far Rational as to consider that Presbytery and Prelacie are not meere distinguishing names but such realities as have even in our experience produced most Important and different effects and then I question not but the sad and woful consequences of that abounding Sin and Profanenesse which from your Prophets are gone forth into all the land will render you so far Christian as to know by such fruits the corruptnes of your Episcopacie that hath brought them forthâ— and without adjuring you to any Sect turne you not only to be a mouâ—ner for the sins of your partiâ— but a serious supplicant that the accursed cause thereof may be removed But you say that Non-conformists are guiltie of the present loosnesse who 1. By making Religion a cloak to so many State-designes make too many suspect Religion to be but a designe oâ— it self 2. by driving people to an outward compliance in formes cause them to nauseat at all Religion but. 3. and mostly by their waxing cold in love to which our Saviour plainly knits the abounding of iniquitie Sir as to your two first reasons If I should as lightly deny them as you do affirme them you should be fully answered but this your accustomed confidence of objecting to Non-conformists these things whereof their Adversaries are mostly if not only guilty obliges me to a further reflection That Religion may be made a cloak to State-designes nay to the greatest villanies is certainly one of the most grievous of these offences because of which a wo is pronounced to the world but that this hath not been so much the accidentall practice of any Person of our way as the very substance of your whole course is obvious to the meanest Consideration How austerly our first Reformers were denied to all Worldly advantages and how faithfull to the Crown and then infant King I leave it to the candid and impartiall consideration of all sober Men not preferring the vain pretenses made for perverted yea profaned Authority in Odium of Truth to the most convincing evidences of all impotencie and wickednesse that can be instanced from any History The next passage that occurres of these who on our part in a most stedfast simplicity did assert and establish Presbytrie untill the year 1596. of others who on your part by Fraud Perjury and Violence did in compliance with King Iames his design of Complementing the English Clergie on the one hand and attaining to a greater freedom of indulging and gratifying the Popish partie on the other both supposed necessaire for assuring the then much courted Succession endeavour the overthrow of Presbytrie as being too straight for such crooked courses is an instance against your first reason which I am bound in Charity to think you did not call to minde sure I am that which you object of our aiming at State-designes change but State into Court and you will finde it was so far from being our guilt that it was King Iames his regret on our behalf that honest Men would not be thereby tempted But it is like the times you hint at are these of our late Troubles Wherein though I acknowledge that the feigned concurse and corrupt designes of some did in their occasion discover themselves Yet it cannot be denied that such was and is the truth of the work of God and stedfastnesse of its faithfull Adherers that even unto this day through all the various temptations of Malignancie on the one hand and Sectarianisme on the other both it and they do retain their integrity Really Sir when I consider that neither the tempting terrour of the prevailing Malignant interest in the Years 1645. and 48. nor the succeeding victory usurpation and very plausible and insinuating offers of the Sectarians with all these strange revolutions that have since happened have moved the Lords faithfull remnant in the Land from that well tempered and justly ballanced fear of God and honour to the King which from the beginning they professed and do hold forth in the Covenant and all their Publick actings Your accusation of the work of God as a State design appears to me a very palpable inconsistencie and ridiculous calumny to design State changes or advantages and yet to omit and slight all the probable yea and possible opportunities of compassing them are things which Malice it self cannot affirme to be compatible As for these who not being upright nor stable in the Lords Covenant have according to the impulse of their own worldly designes turned and figured themselves unto every sort of compliance they are now so unexpectedly and wholly almost become of your way that there needs no other evidence of the eà sie accommodation that all selfâ—seekers and time-servers do finde in it but wherefore do I seek to retort Can there be any thing more certain then that as corrupt Court designes have only imposed this heavy Yoke of Prelacie upon the Lords Church and People amongst us so such have been and are the wicked and ungodly practices of its Lords and their dependents the vast dissonancie of their lives even from their own Canons and profession that I do not so much wonder at your impudence in objecting against our course The tempting of many to suspect Religion to be but a design of it self as that the monstrousnesse of your Hierarchy hath not scandalized the whole world to account all Religion but a cheat 2. You say by driving of people to an outward compliance in forms we have caused them to Nauseat at all Religion
Who would think that this were the accusation of Non-conformists who from the very beginning of Reformation have been continually vexed by your impositions and not rather conceive the objection to be made by them against your violent pressing of Crosse Surplice Service-book Book of Canons and other â—rash wherewith the Lords people have been uncessantly urged as the main yea only things of Religion But I cannot stand upon every one of your calumnies the Lord deliver you from this perverse spirit Only if by the driving objected you do understand our causing the people of the Land to stand stedfast and adhere to the Lords Covenant whereby they were formerly obliged it is already fully answered But that which you say is of greatest weight is that we are guilty of the waxing cold in Love to which our Saviour knits the abounding of Iniquity And this challenge you qualify by our judging you in Matters which are doubtful disputations spreading tattlesâ— of you as you call them carrying sowrly toward you and casting odious aspersions upon you as Apostates and the like with petulant railings and this you adde is a greater persecution then any little suffering of ours in the World Sir though I cannot sooth you as you do your felf by the mouth of your N. C. whose tongue you teach to speak lyes in your smooth words of deceit by telling you that too much of what you speak is true Yet I heartily wish there were more Charity on all sides but where you accuse us of waxing cold in Love and thence would inferre our accession to the present abounding iniquity I would first have you to read the text aright which runeth thus And because iniquity shall aboâ—nd the love of many shall wax cold which is a plain inversion of your causality 2. Admitting your ground to be good I seriously wish without vanity that the waxing cold in love both toward God and your Neighbour were not more your sin then ours then had we not been scorched into a blacknesse and consumed almost into ashes by these fiery trials kindled blown and kept into a flame by the Grandees of your way pourtrey them as you please whose heat speaks them to be set on fire against the Work People and Interests of God 3. To call the causes of our Differences matters which are doubtfull Disputations when both by Scripture Reason and Solemne Engagements and many sad experiences they are so fully determined is indeed to put false glosses upon things and to pretend to be a good Christian and to acclaime the charity and kindnesse of others in an avoued persistence in open Perjury Opposition to the Cause of God and persecution of his People is it not to wipe your mouth and say you have done no wickednesse But you say it is from the spirit of the Devil to fasten the brand of Apostasie upon the leaving of a partie and that to grow wiser is not to play the changling nor is a consciencious obedience to standing Laws time-serving Sir as I love neither to irritate nor prejudicate by hard words so I approve not either your or your N. C. tattles but if to leave God and not a Partie be Apostasie if to forsake the way and Truth of God be to play the changling and if to obey and conforme to mischief framed by a Law be time-serving I am sadly apprehensive that what you account to be but the Malice of the spirit of the Devil shall one day be found the Verdict of the Spirit of God Whether it be thus or not in our controverted differences let the things themselves and the issue of our discourse declare What you tell us of the primitive application of the word Apostasie is no restriction of its proper acceptation And for your other petty conceits in this place with your mock-complaint of the persecution of a just but disdained censure they are not of that moment to stop my procedour to that part of your conference which concerns Episcopacie This head you say falls asunder in two the one a general consideration of that Government the other supposing it were amisse how far it ought to be separated from And for the Government in place of all these weighty and unanswerable objections viz. the want of our Lords Warrant 2. Repugnancie to his and his Apostles Precepts and practice of restless labour simplicity equality humility and contempt of the world c. 3. Disconformity to the first and purer times of the Primitive Church 4. The pride avarice usurpation and cruelty to which it naturally tends and hath been depraved And lastly these evil and bitter fruits of profanity ignorance and superstition that it hath ever in its prevalencie produced which have been charged upon and made out against it by many of the Lords faithfull Witnesses you make your N. C. faintly and poorly to aledge I cannot think that Church-men should be called Lords and be great Persons that this is a desingenuous prevarication is obviously manifest Yet such is the weaknesse of your cause that the meanest argument you could put in your N. C. mouth is stronger then your answere wherein you tell us That this belongs not to the thing it self but is an addition of the Christian Magistrat But I must remember you first that Church-men and Ministers are not capable of every addition Civil offices and administrations are very lawfully bestowed by the Magistrat upon fit Recipients but as for Ministers they are not only an intolerable distraction many degrees above that charitable imployment which the Apostles could not bear but so inconsistent with the nature manner and end of their Ministrie that even our Lord while in this capacitie doth bruskly decline to be so much as an amicable trister And therefore to justify Bishops titles from this ground that they are extrinsick additions or from their civil place and voice in Parliament is no wayes concludent 2. Though this were not yet I am confident that who ever considers the received use and import of this title of Lord amongst us will find it an addition as full of fastuous vanity for Ministers as the title of Rabbi even admitting that its excess did lye another way therefore excepted against and prohibited by our Lord was unlawfull for the Apostles but 3. This title is not an addition flowing from the Christian Magistrat as you pretend but the very product of that pride and usurpation that at first exalted Prelacie which as as first it was assumed by the connivence of if not rather forced from the Civil Magistrat so now by the Bishops it is only derived from him in consequence of that Supremacie which both falsly against our Lord Jesus Christ and traiterously to the Pope in this respect their proper head they have for their own conveniencie transferred upon him But you add that we consider not that Sir and Lord Gentleman and Nobleman differ but in degree since therefore a Minister by Office â—hes the temporall â—onour of
Clergie is not in the Text Pray you Sir how came this in your head that we apply the title of Gods heritage to the Clergie or own them under this name Know you not that the usurping of this prerogative both by your and the Popish Church-men hath been alwayes esteemed by us an high arrogance As for your pretending to correct our Translation Pray Sir be sober and remember the respect which you bear to the Authors 2. I grant the Greek Verbatim â—â—ndered seemeth to sound neither as exercising Lordly authority over the Lots by which as your interpretation of a tyrannical domination is disproved so even your pretended exactnesse Your being wantingâ— is exceeded 3. Since the Lords People are certainly here meant whether you understand them to be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lots in order to their respective Pastors whoâ—e â—ortitions and divisions they are or as being Gods heritage according to the usuall signification of the singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heritageâ— and the clear Synonymous import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the following part of the verse but being Ensamples to the flock it matters nothing as to our present business but plainly shews your impertinent curiosity However I wish you to consider that as we condemn the worldly and pompous usurpations of Prelats above their own degree and over their Brethren so we most of all condemn their spiritual Tyranny in Lording over the Consciences of Gods People whom they cease not now as alwayes to vex with their Pharisaick imposing and exacting of implicite obedience to vain Traditions and humane inventions more then obedience to the Commandments of God as will afterward appear Your N. C. proceeds to say that his chief quarrell against Bishops is that they are a function of mans devising and no where instituted by God To this you think fit to answere by way of retortion telling us of our great but vain pretenses to a jus divinum in severall things As first in the matter of Lay Elders thus Sir you deall wittily when you can do no betterâ— seing you cannot confirme your own opinion you endeavour at lest to subvert your adversarie but before I enter with you upon particulars I must tell you first that Presbyterians in pleading for a jus divinum do not pretâ—nd to a posiâ—tive and expresse prescription from Scripture of all the smaller points and circumstances either of decencie or order requisite to their Government and Discipline in as much as the regulation of these being abundantly provided for by the general rules revealed and the things themselves and their use such as ingenuous persons cannot probably mistake the want of express warrants in all or any such particulars cannot be justly cavilled at as a defect 2. That it had better become the sobriety that you require of your N. C. for you to have answered what many worthy Men have written for the jus divinum of Presbyterie then to have passed all with the empty censure of your own airy character of big talking and minding it as little as any could to the effect you may amuse your poor N. C. with a fear of your conceited quiblings but leaving these things with as confident an estimation as your undervaluing is vain and groundlesse to the impartial perusal of judicious Readers I do only here premise that whoever abstractly and seriously considers the clear light and obvious project of the Gospel will of necessity finde 1. That our Lord Jesus by vertue of that Kingdom and All Power given to him in Heaven and in Earth did for the carrying on and prospering of his pleasure the Salvation of sinners appoint in the Persons of his Apostles a perpetual Ministrie in his Church the summe of whose charge is both severally jointly to take heed to oversee and feed the Church of God and the chief part and dutie of which office is to Preach and Teach and consequently to reprove rebuke exhort remit and retain bind and loose c. in which things the heads of Doctrine and Discipline with their immediate power and warrant from Jesus Christ and their connexâ—on and dependence betuixt themselves do certainly consist and are clearly held out 2 As the Apostles were all the Ministers waving the matter of the Seventie whose mission and imployment was only locall and preparatorie unto every Citie and place whether he himself would come and to say the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you and de facto ended at their returne Luk 10. 1. 9. 17. appointed by Christ and in them the order office and full pattern of the Gospel Ministrie established 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even unto the end of the world so they are by our Lord vested with such equall power so expresly prohibited the aspiring to or usurping these degrees lawfull and allowed in secular dignities and so enixely commanded the lowliest humility and submission conceivable not only in their personall conversation but in their Ministrie that to introduce an imparity either of Power Dignity or stated Preheminence amongst Gospel Ministers is plainly to reject and deny our Lords institution and ordinance 3. That although the Apostles were singular above their successors in many respects such as an infallible assistance in the discharge of their Ministrie eminencie of Gifts an unconfined exercise an universall oversight and the privilege not only of our Lords peculiar and chosen Witnesses but of being the spirituall Fathers and Authors of conversion to almost the whole Christian Church yet were these prerogatives only temporary and necessarily requisite and suited to or depending upon the particular exigence of the Gospels first propagation and so far from changing or innovating that equality parity and lowlinesse of Ministers most manifest from our Lords command and appointment that on the contraire these other advantages hindered not the Apostles to respect and acknowledge the Pastors of particular Churches as partakers with them of the same Ministeriall power their fellow-labourers Brethren not in the bare name as your Prelats scorne their Curates and the Pope in his pretended sevus servorum Dei the whole Roman Church Compresbyters and in the Pastoral charge altogether their equals 4. As the power of Government consisting in the Authoritative deciding of Controversies according to the word of God the due application of Ecclesiastick Discipline and Censures and the right regulation of all other things pertaining to the Ministeriall function is clearly imported in the Command of Feeding and Over-seeing beside its naturall inseparability from the conduct of every rational let be Christian institution and Society and consequently only assistent and secondarie to the other offices of the Ministerie so the Lords command of that most lowly submission and simplicity incapable of the very notion of imparity which he opposeth even to that lawfull Authority and dignity allowed in civils doth in such a peculiar manner regard the exercise of this Governing Power that whether it be more absurd to introduce a
subordination of the parts unto the whole in matters pertaining and relating to the body and concerning its end are the inseparable propriâ—ties and privilege of a Society is evident aâ—ove exception which argument is the more confirmed that in the acts of the Apostles we finde the Church assembling and by Common Counsel managing its affaires and determining differences not by any speciall and expresse warrant or command but meerly in the exercise of this intrinsick power competâ—nt to the Church as gathered and erected in one Society This right then and power of meetings being undeniable to the whole by the same reason precedent they are confirmed to the parts the Subordination whereof to the whole cannot be drawn in doubt Thus you see how your own grant affirmeth what you dâ—ny but your N. C. answeres further That they at Antioch send up to them at Jerusalem And are not the Spirits of the Prophets subject to the Prophets To these Scriptures you reply beginning with the last That it is clear that in that place the Apostle is speaking of Pâ—râ—chial Churches which subjection none deny But Sir is not that which you call in question the Subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries Now if the Apostle tell us That the Spirit of the Prophets who in the dayes oâ— the Apostles had many of them charge pro indiviso jointly over the same Church but now a dayes have their distinct charges over Parochial Churches are subject to the Prophets gathered in one assembly may not the Subordination questioned be sufficiently thence concluded especially seing I can hardly suppose you so Anti-episcopal as to be Independant and still to doubt after the many irrefragable demonstrations given by the Presbyterians whether this Church of Corinth was a Presbyterial and not a meer Congregational or Parochial Church As for what else may be in your return I confesse I reach it not seeing that at the time of the Apostles writing we finde no divided Parishes and to fancie that the subjection spoken of waâ— of the Prophets in one Parochial Church such as at that time there was properly none and not rather of the many Prophets having the charge pro indiviso jointly over the whole company of the Beleevers in that Citie in which many parishes were virtually included is groundless and absurd To the first instance you say It is ridiculous to urge it seing they of Antioch sent not up to Jerusalem either as to a Church superior or as to an Oecumenick Councel but to men there who were immediatly inspired That they sent not up as to an Oecumenick Councel I cannot dissent from you seing I finde in the Text no suitable concurse for or vestige of such an Assembly but that they sent not up as to a Church superior is by you ill asserted and worse proved seing 1. The phrases in the letter sent from that meeting that certain which went out from us and it seemed good c. to lay upon you and that the same letter is termed a Decree do clearly prove a superior Authority in the writers 2. Because the example which ye adduce from the jews their high Priest for confirming your Gloss doth plainly redargue you in as much as the Jews consulted not the high Priest his Urim and Thummim without regard to his Authority but consulted him as the high Priest and the Person to whom God had therefore committed them Deut. 17. v. 10. 11. 12. putting them in the breast-plate termed of judgement and not of Responses But you may say supposing the matter was thus carried what makes it for your Assemblies I Answere yes very much for it sheweth 1. That if the Apostles who all of them severally were immediatly inspired and so might have determined this controversie did notwithstanding join with other ordinary Elders or Churchâ—officers and by common counsel give out their Decrees that common Councels their authority in the Church are juris Divini 2. That as the Church of Antioch in which the Apostle Paul Barnabas and several other Prophets wereâ— and the other Churches in Asia received and submitted to the decrees so it evidently intimats a subordination of these making as it were one Provincial Church to that great Assembly of the Apostles Elders conveened at Ierusalem You subjoin in this place That if that meeting at Jerusalem was a Councel then all Councels may speak in their stile it seems good to the Holy Ghost c. It 's answered 1. The connexion oâ— your proposition containeth an obvious non sequitur in as much as it is not from their being a Councel but from the certainty of these Scripture evidences whereupon their determination proceeds that their prefacing of the minde and sentencâ— of the holy Ghost doth flow 2. That that meeting was a Councel of the Apostles and Elders at Ierusalem a conveened in one to Consulte Reason and exercise Authority which severally was not so satisfying â—or the very Apostles to do notwithstanding of their immediâ—â—e assistance is plain from the Text especially Pauls deference to them 3. If you imagine that Ecclesiastick Councels cannot be of Divine right unlesse they have the Spirits absolute and infallible assistance you erre as grossly as he who for want of this infallibility should deny to the Church a standing Minâ—strie by Divine institution 4. Though the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost given to the Apostles aâ—d being to them in stead of the rule was indeed singular and extraordinary Yet as the Lord to all his Ordinances hath annexed the promise of an agreeable presence which doth not fail the sincere and faithfull improvers so Church Assemblies in matters of Faith to them committed and following the rule thereto prescribed are also thereby countenanced and in sound beleeving and upright walking may both attain to and profess their assurance of the Holy Ghosts assistance 5â— Seing that all Councel-acts and Canons anent matters of Faith ought to be guided by the Spirit and conform to the word of God and enacted and emitted in this persuasion these Meetings that truly keeping the rule and sincerely laying hold on the promise do proceed in their determinations may therein warrantably use the Apostles words and such as do otherwayes are only culpable in the presumptuous usurpation because they have not rightly followed and in effect attained unto the rule of the Word and the conduct of the Spirit which ought indeed to be their warrant 6. Having on these clear grounds declared the Authority of Ecclesiastick Meetings in Matters of Faith I freely grant that in other things which may be incident to their cognition and are not of Faith nor defined in Scripture they have neither the like warrant nor may they use the like expressions and therefore as in this case they cannot found upon the Lords Commandments so they are only to be respected as such who are intrusted to give their judgement and have obtained mercie of the Lord to be faithfull 7. The
beside their exprâ—ss Warrant the main thing of this Controversie they had such an agreeable conveniencie and deâ—encie to the service of Sacrificing then in use and might probably in the Priests to whom they appertained have had such a prefiguing respect to the immaculate innocencie of Jesus Christ our great Priest and Sacriâ—â—ce and yet did so little appear in the more solemne Garments of thâ— high Priest that the example adduced doth rather redargue then confirme your continuance of this now idle Rite I might further tell you that the use of Sack cloth among us was not offended at and if it had would probably have been forborne And also adde to these clear disparities your rigid imposing and exacting of these your Doctrines more then the Commandments of God both in prejudice of Christian Liberty and to the slighting of true godliness but whether the disparities above mentioned be subtile shifts as you are pleased to judge before you hear or solid differences these who are less prejudicate will easily discerne In the next place you returne to show us our difformity with the Scripture-pattern in demanding Why we do not observe the decree of the first Councel at Ierusalem to which I answere that we observe it except in so far as it was designed to be temporarie and framed to bury the Synagogue with honour viz. in the matters of Bloud and things strangled And as for meats offered to Idols the Apostle Paul did thereafter declare that point so that in these particulars the Decree doth not reach us This answere as to your reply differeth nothing from your Non-conformists And therefore I proceed and really Sir I finde in your return such pitiful inadvertencies as to the Text of Scripture that I cannot but premise my wish that in the study of it you may become more serious 1. You say that to alledge that the exceptions in the decree were made to please the jews is a divised phansie against expresse Scripture and yet the Text beareth Iames first propounding the thing and plainly adding this reason Act. 15. 21. For Moses in old time hath in every City them that Preach him c. Whereupon it follows then pleased it the Apostles pray Sir consider the Text and what this then can els import 2. You say St Paul wrote his Epistle before he went to Jerusalem and yet James tells him these things were still observed there whence you infer that commands in externals may be both local and temporarie What indistinctnesse and bad logick have we here If you mean that Paul wrote his Epistle that I mean anent meats offered to Idols before he went up to Ierusalem from the Church of Antioch to that Councel of the Apostles and Elders the Scripture is contraire showing that his travels unto Greece and all his dealing with the Corinthians yea and almost all his Epistles were thereafter but if you mean that he wrote befor his going up thereafter mentioned Act. 21. it may be so indeed as to his Epistles to the Corinthians and some other but then the Apostle Iames only tells him that the beleeving Jews were still zealous of the Law and that they were offended that he taught the Iews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses which is so far from concerning the Decree under consideration or the proving your point that a thing may be obligatory in one place and not in another that as Iames adviseth Paul to purge himself of that calumny anent the Jews so v. 25 he expresly resumeth and secludeth the case of the Gentiles before determined As to your other inference that Commands in externals are not intended â—or lasting obligations I grant this Decree or any other having a temporary reason is thereby determinable but if your meaning agree to your too visible design to resolve the Eâ—durance of these things which are absolutely setled into the Arbitriment of the Church or rather of the Civil Powers for it is evident that though in all your discourse you pretend the Church yet you take your measures from the Civil Authority it is not only groundless from the matter of the Apostles thâ—ir Decree but of dangerous consequence to the shaking loose of all Religion for proof whereof see how upon the back of this discourse you boldly attempt to make even the very Sacraments Arbitrarie by asking why weâ—â—se not washing of feet since there is no Sacrament set down more punctually in Scripture And when your N. C. retorts that you are under the same obligation which retortion may be pertinently made to most of your objections you tell him that you have a clear answere that in these externals God intended no perpetual obligation and therefore in them you follow the practice of the Catholick Church O unhappy Bohemians and you other Christians who suffered so much and so grievously for the retainning of the Cup in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper If this new Doctor who with his New Light can penetrate unto the secrets of God and measure the duration of his intentions had lived in your dayes he could have told you that the Cup is but an externall thing under no perpetual obligation and by his Doctrine of Conveâ—â—encie led you to a safe and peacefull Accommodation to the practice of the Catholick Church but Sir they are at rest As for this your Laxe acceptation of a professed indifferency in externals what part of the Christian Religion or Worship may it not corrupt or subvert and seing it doth tolerate and allow the not practising of the washing of feet to you as well founded In Scripture as either of the Sacraments would it not in a just parity of reason dispense with and forego these also This is indeed doctrine so damnable that I hope it shall never need an Antidote and therefore I returne to examine your third or eight Sacrament I know not which for all are but externall of washing of feet And you say That it hath in Scripture of Element Water the Action washing the feet the Institution as I have done so do ye And ye ought to wash one anothers feet and the spiritual use of it Humility Whence you conclude Why do ye not there ore use this rite To which last point it is that waving any further discourse anâ—nt the Nature and requisites of a Sacrament whereof notwithstanding your parrallel description of this washing yet I perceive you are loath to apply the name I shall direct my answere viz. that this washing is not to be used because though our Lord did practise this lowly act of Condescendence as eminently expressive of that humility whereunto he would have his Disciples instructed yet neither is it in it self of the Nature of a Sacramental signe whereof all the significancie is from the institution and vertue in the exhibition of the thing signified which you cuningly omit to mention Nor doth Christ perform it by way of Institution for Repetition but by way of example for Imitation as is
therefore left us to the worse Tyranny of mens pretended and corrupted power and deluded imagination God forbid but as the hath set us free for ever so he hath only laid on us his own easie â—â—oke and light burthen of Pure and Evangelick ordinances by which our Liberty is so far from being intringed that it is thereby both preserved and enlarged In the next place you say Since no Allegorie holds it is ridiculous to argue because offices in a Kingdom are named by the King therefor it must be so in the Church It 's answered 1. do you then think that our Lords Kingdom is only Allegorick Or because the symboles and badges usuall in Earthly Kingdoms are in a figure thereto transferred is it therefore wholly a figure but God hath set his King upon his holy Hill of Zion and Know you assuredly that God hath exalted him to be both Lord and Christ bâ—wisâ— therefore and be instructed Kiss the Son lest he be angrâ— and learn to acknowledge his Kingdom in all the parts and privileges thereof by him declared Next it is most evident that not only Christs Kingdom in and over his Church is reall and certain and that Officers truely such vested with his Authority and therefore depending on Christ as King are held forth by the Scripture and to be really found therein but seing he himself hath in the Gospel so expressly founded their mission upon that All power given unto him and Paul so plainly referres the giving of Apostles c unto his Ascension and exaltation are you not ashamed to alledge these things to be only by us concluded from the vain appearance of an Allegory And thus to make your self ridiculous in that scorne you intended for others But poor wretch you adde That we may as wel say that there must be coin stamped by Christ as Officers appointed by him in his Church for this is the runing of your words Lord deliver you from this profane Spirit thinkest thou that the Kingdom of Christ hath need of money as it hath indeed need of Officers Or because money is current and symony a frequent practice in your Church hes it therefore any place in Christs true Church Sir your profane scoffing at the Kingdome of Christ is one passage amongst many that give me Confidence to say arise O God plead thine own cause remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee dayly But I professe I am confounded in my self when I think of my own provocations and on the iniquitie of his Sons and Daughters for if the abuse of the Glorious Gospel shineing amongst us in so much puritie had not been great he would not have given up the dearly beloved of his Soul into the hand of such persecuting adversaries and such scoffers at him who justifie these malicious mockers in Cajaphas Hall with an over-plus of wickednesse O if he would returne he would quicklie emptie Pulpits and Chairs in Universities of such who bend their tongues for lies and make the world see because they have rejected knowledge he hath also rejected them that they shall be no Priests to him The next thing you subjoin is what King will think his prerogative lessened by constituting a Corporation to whom he shall leave a liberty to cast themselves into what mould they please providing they obey the General Laws and hold that liberty of him Thus you will alwayes aspire to enter into the Counsel of God if your vote had been here asked it is very like you would have bestowed large privileges upon that Church where you might have been a sharer But we bless him to whom the Church is committed and on whom the Government is laid who hath provided better and given unto his Church complete Officers perfect Ordinances true Laws and good Statutes and ordered his house in all things and therefore as we are not to enquire what the Lord might have done but humbly and thankfully to acknowledge what he hath done so in these things for men to disown his Authority and deny his bounty and usurp to themselves a power of altering what he hath established and fashioning the worship and Government of Gods house according to the device of their own heart is no doubt no lawful liberty but a licentious invasion of Christ's prerogative and a jealousie-provoking sin of Laese Majestie Divine That thus it stands betuixt you and us the preceeding passages do plainly witness and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as a Son over his own house so expresly commended and preferred before the faithfulnesse of Moses is an argument which you will never dissolve You say his faithfulnesse consisted in his discharging the Commission given him by his Father Most certain but you ask who told us that it I suppose you mean the appointing the Officers Ordinances and Government of the house of God was in the Fathers Commission Herein is a marvellous thing You know that Jesus Christ whrist was sent by the Father to redeem gather feed guid and Govern his Church and you see that as the things in question are thereto necessarie so in discharge hereof he sends out Apostles and Ministers Ordains Officers vests them with power and Authority instructs them to a Ministerial and lowly administration and deportment defines Censures appoints his Ordinances and Laws liberats the Worship of God from the shadows and types of the Jewish Pedagogie and cleares its true and spiritual exercise and liberty and finally acquits himself faithfully in all his house do you then question if he did these things or doubt you that he did them by Commission it is a hard Dilemma which you will never evade but you adde that if we argue from Moses it will inferre that all particulars must be determined whereupon you urge that as Moses determines the dayes of Separation for a legal uncleannesse why doth not the Gospel the like for spirituall uncleannesse It 's answered if you had taken up the Argument aright and considered the faithfulnesse of Christ and Moses not in order to the same but with relation to their respective Commissions You had not fallen into this mistake but the Scripture parallel is clear Moses as a servant did faithfully completely order Gods house therefore Our Lord much more as a Son hath thus ordered the Church his own house Whence as it doth no wayes follow that whatsoever things were institute by Moses ought to have been in like manner imitate by our Lord so this is most concludent that as Moses as a Servant did diligently and exactly execute his Commission in order to the Tabernacle its service Ministers and all its appurtinents so Christ both by reason of a command received and of his interest and power hath exceeded the faithfulnesse of Moses in the Ordering and appointment of things appertaining to his Church But for the better confirming our Reasoning and the removing of your Mistake I do only recommend to you this obvious truth viz. that the Commendation of our Lord held
out by the Apostle in this comparison institute betuixt him and Moses regardeth the Manner but not the subject of their administrations Not what was the Nature of extent of Moses his trust but what was his diligence and faithfulnes in the discharge is the light and argument of the parallel suppose two intrusted in imployments wholly diverse and inadequate and the exact fidelity of the one trustie to be notourly known may not the faithfulness of the other be thence very properly commended And wil not this commendation very evidently inferre that as the first was punctually observant of all things committed so the second did equall his exactness without giving the least ground to conclude that therefore either the second must have done the same or like things with the first or yet that the first administration was as extensive as that entrusted to the second this being duely perpended and it being certain that not the establishing of an universall and perpetual order to all and every of the concerns of the jewish Church as appeares from the alteration and addition made thereafter by David and Solomon but only the setting up of the Tabernacle its Sacrifices and service according to the command accommodate to the then state of that People was to Moses and that only by peremptory prescript as to a servant enjoined whereas unto our Lord as a Son over his own house was freely committed the unchangeable establishment of his Church in all its requisits unto his coming again then if our Lords faithfulnesse be indeed equall to that of Moses his appointing of Officers Ordinances and Laws necessare and convenient to his Church with all requisite exactnesse though neither after the pattern nor in that particular and peremptory strictnesse of Moses his prescriptions can neither be denied nor declined If you yet cavill that this sayes too much viz. that all particulars must be now as of old determined It 's answered the determining of Particulars under the Law was from the expresse â—enour of Moses his Commission and therein did consist much of the Pedagogie and rigour of that shadowing dispensation from which God having now relieved us and given us the clear light of the Gospel and these things necessare and convenient to its holy ends in simplicity parity and liberty it is evident that as our Lords faithfulnesse under this Gospel administration did oblige him to provide the Church in all things necessary and convenient and liberate us from all further burthen of Antiquate rites and Ceremonies beyond the necessary exigences of decencie and order so he hath fully acquit himself in this his own house as Moses in his house and by this his faithfulnes for ever excluded all your superinduced humane inventions whether in Church-Officers Government or Worship in a word so ill grounded is the absurdity wherewith you would urge us and the faithfulnesse of Christ compared to that of Moses is so farre from saying too much viz. that all particulars must be in the Gospel determined that it inferres the direct contraire viz that seing God having committed to Moses a Law descending to a most strict prescription of Particulars and Ceremonial observances he was therein faithfull therefore our Lord more faithful having a dispensation entrusted to him only of Gospel Ordinances with a becoming liberty hath in his fidell discharge both fully defined the former and established the latter free from all humane either General or Particular inventions and impositions But you go on and tell us That Moses instituted no Church-Government in the way we use it and that Synagogues their Rulers chief Rulers were not appointed by Moses yet no unlawful thing since countenanced by Christ his Apostles Whence you conclude That either what they did was founded on Divine tradition which no Christian will grant or that a form of Government was devised by men and if the Iews had that Libertie certainly the Christian Church is more free as to these externals Sir not to detain you in a curious enquiry into the special composition gradual advance and necessarie alterations of the jewish Policie It 's answered 1. I have just now told you that Granting Moses did not institute any Church-Government as used by us because neither given him in commission not at that time needfull and agreeable to the condition of a wandering people and the dispensation they were then under Yet the Scripture Argument from our Lords faithfulnesse preferred to that of Moses being conclusive of the same yea of a greater care of all things necessarie and requisite for his Church to the end of the World then that which Moses did adhibite even in the setting up of the Tabernacle and it s commanded service must of necessity inferre both that our Lord did de facto provide for the Ministerie and Government requisite in his own house and that the Ministerie and Government which we finde descrived in the Scriptures of the New Testament are of his appointment and such as may not be altered 2. Not to mention the evident necessity of Synagogues up and down the Land for the end of teaching the people a most certain dutie which could hardly otherwayes be performed the dispersion of Levi among the Tribes Moses blessing designing him to teach Iacob judgements and Israel Gods Law Davids appointing 4400. of the Hebronites 1 Chron. 26. 30. 31. 32. thorow all Israel in all businesse of the Lord and for every matter pertaining to God as well as affaires of the King and Asaphs regret for the burning up of all the Synagogues of God in the Land not to mention the coincidence often hinted at in the Old Testament of Judges and Teachers of the Law in every City and their appointment out of the Tribe of Levi are grounds more then probable of the Divine institution of Synagogues and their Rulers and that they were no humane invention 3. The evident Testimonies that we have in the Word of God not only of the Lords special appointing of the Tabernacle its whole service and Ordinances framed and suited to the then State and Posture of that people but also how that he Reformation and establishment made in Davids dayes together with the building of the Temple its Officers and Porters were particularly directed by the Spirit of God in Samuel David and the Seers of these times instrumental in that work 1 Chrom 9. 22. and 28. 11. may sufficiently evince to any rational discerner that the Synagogues more material then many of these circumstantial things expresly commanded were also ordained by the Lord and likewise instruct all to a most tender and precise adherence to the express Will of God in all Matters relating to his house and Worship And here upon the mentioning of David I cannot omit to remember how that in all the Scripture we finde not a parallel and type more frequent then that of our Lords Kingdome in and over his Church to that of David over Israel seeing then that
these â—igures have their certain grounds of resemblance and there is not a more conspicuous typifying Character in the person of David then that of his Royall ordering and establishing the house and Church of God whereunto he was raised up and particularly inspired and commanded though the faithfulness of Christ preferred to that of Moses should not Yet his succession in the Throne of David to reigne over the house of Jacob for ever doth undeniably conclude both the Government and complete setlement of the Church by us contended for 4. If you would reflect upon the Lords singular Providence over his People Israel first in that Theocratie whereby in a peculiar manner he Governed them unto the dayes of Saul 2. in their Urim and Thummim and the holy Oracles of God which they constantly enjoyed 3. In the continuall assistance which they had almost in all times of Prophets immediatly inspired you cannot lightly suppose that either Synagogues or any other Lawfull institution concerning their Law and worship were a meer humane invention but though the evidences of their appointment remaining with us upon record were more obscure these passages alone do render it more then probable that their Authority and rise was Divine 5 The comparing of the Church of Christ to that of the Old-Testament is so unfavourable to your cause and there are such manifest disparities in that parallel that it rather maketh against you then for you for as the Ordinances of that dispensation were such as were to be done away and abolished and therefore were appointed by God who in times past spake unto the Fathers by the Prophets at Sundry times and in divers manners in a variant and mutable forme So the Lord having in these last dayes and now in the end of the World spoken unto us by his son to whom he sayeth thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Anointing of the most Holy attended by the sealing up the Vision and Prophecie and the setting up of his everlasting Dominion do infallibly conclude the introducing of a more excellent Ministerie and the full and immutable establishment of all Ordinances requisite to the ingathering and perfecting of the Saints Sir if these things were considered by you and that our Lord hath now at last by himself given and ordered for us a complete and perfect apâ—ointment of all means necessary in his Church you should finde more Soul-satisfaction in walking at true liberty in the observing of his precepts then in the Lascivient fancies of your own vain Imagination which not content to rest in the blessed change that our Lord hath made of the first Covenant not faultles unto this New one and better ordered under the specious aspiring to a liberty equal to that of the Jewish Church doth plainly charge the Christian Church with the imperfections of that which is decayed and vanished Having thus examined and answered the strain and scope of your discourse I shall briefly go over what remains You say Our Saviour and his Apostles countenanced the Synagogues and their Rulers and why not seing not only their first institution appears to have been such as I have declared but also other occasions noted in the Gospel wherein you have no advantage did clearly thereto invite Next you say That this their practice was either founded on divine Tradition which no Christian will grant or that a form of Government not unlawful was devised by Men I answere 1. I have exhibited already warrants for their practice beside tradition 2. Might not the positive manner of the institution of Synagogues have been then more clear while the thing was in observance then now it is after its abolition and the revolution of so many Ages 3. If I were concerned in your parenthesis against Divine Tradition I would ask you why do you thus without distinction make the admitting of it in the Jewish Church so great an absurdity That there were Divine Traditions before the Word was committed to writing and that under the dark imperfect and progressive dispensation of the Old Testament assisted nevertheless by a more immediate presence unwritten traditions might both have been more usuall and were less fallible may be probabely enough held by these who yet now after the full and perfect revelation of the Gospel by our Lord Jesus Christ do upon solid grounds very justly reject unwritten Traditions in the Christian Church By which reasons you may perceive that the one member of your Dilemma labouring so sadly of untruth both in its supposition and the absurdity thence inferred it can no wayes be cogent to enforce the other of the liberty of Mans devising in the point of Church-Government even in the Jewish Church let be in the Christian so many wayes more excellent But in the close you insinuate That the greater liberty you plead for to the Christian Church is in externals That this General ambiguous objection is only intended for a convenient retreat is apparent from all the preceeding discourse seeing if by Externals you understand things in their own nature extrinsick to the constitution of the Church and which in the New Testament have no further use allowed then is conducible to decencie and order we willingly grant that the Christian Church being in effect absolutely liberate from the old burthen of Ceremonies and not as you vainly conceit endowed with a greater and more arbitrarie power of imposing is indeed herein more free then the Iewish was But if by externals you mean as alas the instances premised do too plainly speak all the visible Ordinances of the Church specially that of Government at least what ever is in it visible the liberty that you would introduce is not more contraire to the Scripture both of the Old and New Testament as I have shown then most licentious and irreligious Your last cavill against the exercise of our Lords Kingdom in ordering the visible administration of his Church is That if this were inferred by his headship over the Church his being also the head of the World should argue the same determination in the order of the World as well as in that of the Church And having made your N. C. seemingly and poorly check you by saying that Christs Church is dearer to him then all the World Then you restrict the absurdâ—â—y which you press unto the civil Matters of the Church and proceed in such a rambling discourse that I am at a stand how to medle with it But waving the censure of your impertinencies I answere 1. That the Mediatory Kingdom of Our Lord over his Church and his Natural so to speak Soveraignity over the World are so grosly here by you confounded that I can only intreat you to be more serious in reading and searching what the Scripture doth very distinctly hold forth 1. Of their different rise the one given the other not given 2. Of their different objects and ends the one having proposing the World men in order to a
regular and peaceable being in it the other the Church and men therein called unto spiritual duties and eternal life And lastly of their different administrations the one grounded on the dictats of reason and using external Magisterial authority and power and sensible rewards and pains the other proceeding on divine revelation and carried on by no such externals save a simple Ministerie and the power internal and spiritual and then I doubt not but you will of your self rectify such aberrations 2. The parallel of Gods Government over the World with the Kingdom of Christ over his Church is so far from concluding that Arbitrary or Architectonick power which you endeavour to set up in Ecclesiasticks equall to that in Civils that the contraire may from thence be sufficiently evinced thus therefore God hath not determined the order of Civil matters either in the World or in his Church because an Architectonick and free disposing Government limited with general rules necessare to its ends was most suitable to that almost absolute right and power which he hath given unto man in and over the things about which it is conversant but so it is that the things of the Church about which our Lord Jesus his Kingdom is exercised being wholly Spiritual are neither committed to our power nor left unto our arbitriment And plainly such whereof the Lord in all times hath reserved to himself the sole determination and therefore it was clearly necessare that all the Ordinances Ministerie and Government thereto pertaining should be also by him alone ordered and appointed which disparity doth not only reject but unanswerably retort your Argument from this pretense 3. Your great error and greater presumption in this question is that apprehending our Argument for the Determined Ordinances and Government of Gods house to be taken from the simple position of his Kingdom and the consequences that by allusion to the Kingdoms of the Earth may be thence deduced you remember not that the Scripture not only holds out his Kingdom and the nature thereof very distinctly but also doth particularly exhibite all the Ordinances necessare unto its ends and appointed to be therein observed So that our reasoning being wholly Scriptural both in its ground and superstructure your redargution from imaginary reason opposed to the clear and positive Counsel of God is plainly irrational if in the dayes of old Israel had changed the Law and Ordinances given and therein disowned Gods particular Kingdom and Government over them and notwithstanding thereof pretended to the liberty of the Nations about seing this their liberty was no wayes determined by but very consistent with the Lord 's high Soveraignity under which all do bow had this poor reasoning justifyed their rebellion certainly not how much less then can it conclude the exemption of the Church from Christs Kingdom in these Ordinances therein by him established of which the Lords peculiar Kingdom over Israel was but a slight adumbration But you say Seing justice is a part of Gods Law as well as devotion why doth not the Lord determine how his Church should be governed in Civils It 's answered Justice is indeed a part of Gods Law and he hath therein determined as particularly as the right which God hath given to man in Civils doth permit or the ends thereof do require but as this your Arithmetical equalizing of Mans liberty in matters of devotion to that power he hath in things Civil doth sadly discover the woful vanity of an unserious Spirit So the Geometrical analogie of Gods determining anent our Devotion wholly dependent upon his prescript unto his general appointment in matters of outward justice accommodate to that power and liberty he hath therein left us in place of inferring an equal power to Man in both doth on the contraire evidently demonstrate that the Lords determination in matters of Religion is as much more particular then his Commandments are in the things of justice as our Liberty in the former is more restricted then our Liberty in the latter if you had but considered thâ— th◠〈◊〉 hath given the Earth unto the Children of Men and that the things thereof being put under his feet an agreeable power of Government thereanent is certainly given unto his hand whereas our Lords Church and People are his peculiar people his chosen Nation redeemed and bought with his precious bloud and not their own let be to have the things concerning their Souls redemption in their power how happily had you been delivered from this strange confounding of things Sacred and prophane And how clearly might you have perceived that Gods Dominion over the World consisting in General Laws suited to its object and swayed by his Soveraign Providence in order to his holy ends doth bear but little likenesse to our Lord Jesus his Rule and Government in his Church as a Son over his own house and also its Ordinances But to inforce your point you adde that you hope we will grant that the Civil Peace is more necessary to the very being of the Church then is Order in Discipline Whence you insinuate that the former as well as the latter requires Chriâ—â—s particular determination Not to Scandalize you by frustrating your hope Sir you know so well that a thing though more necessary Yet if such only by a mediate and consequential necessity may therefore fall under a quite diverse disposition from that which though less necessary by this mediate and extrinsick necessity to the being of the Church then the Sacrament of the Lords Supper do the former therefore aswell and in the same manner with the latter belong to Christs Kingdom As to what you adde That it was for this reason that the things of Civil peace were determined in the Old Law This did so certainly flow from Gods peculiar interest in that People as a Kingdom as well as a Church that I make no answere That which you subjoin for evincing that either the Lords Kingdom over the Earth doth extend to the appointing of Civil Officers or els his Kingdom over his Church imports no such thing is so manifestly repugnant to the very nature of the things and the Lords declared pleasure the best decision Nay this whole discourse doth so foolishly and laxely cast and weigh things Religious and Profane in the same ballance of vain conjecture that I almost repent my noticeing of it so much but see the flatterie of delusion having made your N. C. childishly to decline all Reason as Carnal and in the fright forsooth of your strong reasons retreat to his Ministers and the Bible you ridiculously triumph over him and think your self so much Master of the field of Reason that insinuating your own praise in the description of Sound reason you puff at other mens as pitiful niblings thus being first in your own causeâ— you would seem just how I have Searched you let others judge for Scripture you tell us That to quâ—te it is not to build sure upon it the
Devil did that and so do all Sects do you therefore mean that it should be laid aside as an insufficient Judge or that we use it no better then the Devil did I desire you may explain your self if not for our concernment at least for the Scriptures vindication In the mean time I am heartily willing that both what you and what I have said be rightly pondered and whether the Church in matters of Government be lest to rove in your pretended liberty or more excellently established by the infinite wisdom unspeakable love and most tender care of its only Lord and Head let Scripture and Reason impartially decide But to conclude all you tell us with a preface That the Angels of the Churches afford us fairer likely hoods for Bishops then ever we shall finde in the Bible for Presbyterie It 's answered seing you your self do acknowledge that nothing in it whether you mean in this place or in the whole Scripture the words are ambiguous amounts to a demonstration I remit the matter to the Scriptures by me adduced whereby I am confident all your Likelihoods are more then counterballanced He who is further desiâ—ous to have them removed may consult M. Durham upon the Text for my own part since ever I had the understanding to consider that the Râ—velation was made in a Mystick phrase that the Seven starres who are the Angels do certainly signifie the many teachers that were in every one of these Churches that in the Candle-sticks as in the Starres we finde the same oneness and number and lastly that though to the Angel be the inscription for address yet we finde the body of all the Epistles written directly to the whole Churches these things I say occurring I protest I could never discerne more reason in this argument for subjecting these Churches unto seven superior single Prelates then for making the same Prelats really Angels or turning every Church into a Candle stick Or if I may adduce another instance not absimilare to your Faire Likelihoods for interpreting the two Witnesses to be the two Arch-Bishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow When you have spent your endeavours upon the Authority of Episcopacie you think to seconde it in the next place with its Antiquity derived you say from the times next to the Apostles whereupon you conclude in these words That how this excrescing power should have crept into the whole Church and no mention when it came in no Prince or Universal Council to introduce it in the times of persecution when the Church usually is purest and most free of pride no Secular consideration to flatter but the first brunt of the persecution alwayes against it and how none opposed it if this was not introduced by Apostles or Apostolicall men passeth my Divination And really Sir as to its particular Methods and increase so doth it mine And so much more then it doth yours that I am perswaded from clear Scripture that it was not only not introduced but plainly reprobate by our Lord and his Apostles Yet am I so little thereby stumbled that the more dark and obscure I finde its rise and progresse I am the more confirmed that it is the very Mysterie of iniquity and do so much the more admire the incorruptible and eternall Truth of the Gospel which as in the beginning it foretold the coming and took very early Notice of the first motions of this prodigie of wickednesse So hath it through the many ages of its exaltation preserved it self against and now in the latter dayes overcomes its Malice But to review your discourse more particularly I have already shewed that the Ministery and Government institute by our Lord and confirmed and practised by the Apostles was plainly Presbyterian if so what place for further inquirie Is your alledged traditional subsequent humane institution of Prelacie of greater moment 2. That even in the Primitive times and for 140. years after our Saviour no vestige of Prelacie appears upon record is the consentient opinion of the best Searchers both on your and our part 3. This plea of Antiquity hath already been so fully handled and improved both by yours and ours specially Hamond on your part and Blondel Salmasius and other Learned servants of Christ on ours that there needs nothing be added and where the advantage is the Ingenuous may easily discerne He that desires a solid and short accompt of the matter may read the appendix to the jus Divinum Ministerii Evangelici But you proceed to give in some poor scrapes of pretended Antiquity which not only the most sure and clear and farre more ancient Scriptures of Truth but even the convincing answeres which they have often receaved might well have made you to forbear And first you say That Ignatius his Epistles are plain language And so they are indeed but too plain for you to have cited as the following passages compared with the Scriptures subjoined may evince In the Epistle to the Tralliani we have what is a Bishop but he that is possest of all Principality and Authority beyond all as much as is possible for men Reverence the Bishop as ye do'Christ as the holy Apostles have Commanded c. As the Lord Christ doth nothing without his Father so must ye do nothing without your Bishop Let nothing seem right or equall to you that is contra to his judgement In the Epistle to the Philad Let the Princes obey the Emperours the Souldiers the Princes the Deacons and the rest of the Clergie with all the People and the Souldiers and the Princes and the Emperour let them obey the Bishop no doubt the Bishop of Rome In the Epistle to the Smyrnenses The Scripture saith honour God and the King but I say honour God as the Author and Lord of all things and the Bishop as the Prince of Priests resembling the image of God of God for his principality of Christ for his Priesthood c. There is none greater then the Bishop in the Church who is consecrated for the Salvation of the whole World c. Let all men follow the Bishop as Christ the Father c. It is not Lawfull without the Bishop to baptize or offer c. He that doth any thing without consulting the Bishop Worshippeth the Devil Now on the other hand let us hear what the Scripture saith to this purpose Who then is Paul who Apollo but Ministers by whom ye beleeve Be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ for we preach not our selves but Christ Iesus the Lord and our selves your Servants for Iesus sake Not that we have dominion over your faith but are helpers of your joy for by faith ye stand But so shall it not be among you whosoever will be great among you shall be your Minister and whosoever of you will be the chiefest shall be Servant of all to these adde the practices and other professions of the Apostles concerning themselves and their fellow-Labourers and really Sir when
that happens to be promoted and that the order or institution it self destitute of divine warrant and promise and clearly occasioned by evil contention and introduced into the house of God by humane invention could not at first have any thing in it recommendable and hath since produced most corrupt â—ruits Neither the existence of Many excellent and great men in this degree nor the laudable yea extraordinary advantages that the Church hath received from them in the concret can now justify and maintain the Order it self in the abstract If this arguing were good able and well qualifyed men vested with such a power or placed in such a condition have proven and may prove notable instruments of Good therefore it is reasonable and expedient that such a constant order should be erected we might not only have Bishops but most of the Monastick Orders of the Roman Church We finde Peter with the singular benefite of the Church exercing a power of Life and Death and that given him from above and not assumed could therefore an order of Church-men pretending to the like Authority be rationally thence maintained in the Church No wayes Accidental advantages do not commend unwarranted institutions much less can they justle out our Lords express constitution But it is he the perfect orderer of his own house who hath positively defined and blessed its Officers and their power and not left the matter Arbitrarie to the probable contrivances of apparent benefite farre less to the dissembling pretenses of mens Lusts and corrupt Interest 8. It is to be noted that although the great measure of Grace given to the Primitive Church and the hard and frequent persecutions wherewith it was exercised did for a time hinder that strange depravation and incredible â—ruption of wickedness whereunto the setting up of the Ancient Prostasia the rudiment of your Prelacie did from its first beginnings secretly and covertly bend Yet this is most evident that so soon as the Church of God obtained the countenance and was favoured by the more fond in many things such as excessive Doâ—ations and Grants of privileges then prudently pious benevolence of Secular Princes this Prelatick order which in its depression had been indeed honoured with many shining lights and Glorious Martyres attaining then to its ascendent did not only debauch the Lords Ministers for the most part unto idleness avarice and luxurie but continually climb up according to its proper Genius of Ambition until the Devils design in its rise and progress was fully discovered and consummate in the revelation of the Son of perdition 9. This being the rise progress and product of Prelacie in the first Churches as may be clearly gathered from the writtings of these times how it was introduced in other Churches thereafter gathered and brought in may be found in their Histories Only this is certain that as in almost no Church it can be shewed to have been coëvous with Christianity and in all the western Churches where it obtained place was ever a sprig of Romes Hierarchie propagate by her ambition and deceit and the like practices So the Church of Scotland in special was in the beginning and for some centuries thereafter instructed and guided by Monks without Bishops until palladius from Rome did set up Prelacie among us as many Authors witness Nay we may finde it on Record that even in the 816. year a Synod in England did prohibite the Scots any function in their Church because they gave no honour to Metropolitans and other Bishops By these observations having in some sort delineate the mysterious and crooked windings of this excrescing Power in its first motions and setting forth and very clearly and naturally traced its progressions and thence deduced that most prodigious production of the Antichristian Papacie as any considerate man may thereby easily perceive not only how it might but how de facto it hath crept into the whole Church without an Apostolicall introduction notwithstanding of all your contrarie insinuations so I am confident that what ever other advantages these primitive times had above our latter dayes yet our discovery made after so full a revelation compared to the obscure appearances of this wickedness in the first ages of the Church cannot be thereby rationally disproved and your scurrile disparaging of the latter times of reformation as the fagg end oâ— sexteen hundred years doth with little less success plead for the Pope and Antichrist then for your Anâ—ichristian Prelacie As for the rest of your discourse wherein you tell your N. C. that though the ancient Bishops were better men then either Bishops or Presbyters alive Yet in Presbyteries Specially in the matter of Ordination they were sine quibus non and what ever be the present abuse of the Episcopall power Yet it is a rational and most necessary thing that the more approven and gifted be peculiarly incharged with the inspection of the Clergie an order of men neâ—ding much to be regulate and seing all humane things and Presbytery also are liable to be abused the common maxime remains to be applied remove the abuse of Bishops but retain their use In answere hereto I need not inlarge he who knows Church History best will easily grant that as for the first Centurie and an half we have no vestige upon record of your Prelatick power So when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had place their concurrence in Presbyteries was only for order as being the Modâ—rators a consideration of the same exigence and effect whether they be fixed or unfixed and not from any peculiar power proper to them as a superior order A thing so certainly disowned by the primitive Church that even after the Bishops thought themselves well stated in their Prelacie and were beginning to contend among themselves for the Papacie Hierom doth plainly deny them any such prerogative above Presbyters and was not therefore contradicted by any How much more then doth this condemn that sole power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction whereunto your Bishops do pretend As for your alledged reason and necessity of promoting the better gifted over the unruly Clâ—rgie whatever application it may have to that naughty Company of your insufficient and profane Curats or Conformity to the Court yea the worlds prejudice against our Lord Jesus his Ministers and all his followers Yet these two things are most evident 1. That as that lowely and ministerial Government appointed by Christ in his own house admitting no superiority or inequality of power among Ministers is not subjected to and alterable at the arbitriment of humane reason so the advantage of Gifts whereupon you would found it doth so little favour your conclusion that the direct contrarie is recommended by our Lord as its best evidence and fruit he that will be chief among you let him be your Servant and that not only as to the grace of humility but in plain opposition to that superior Authority exercised in Secular Rule whereof the imitation in this place is expresty
prohibite to Gospel Ministers but the ground of your mistake is that Notwithstanding our Lord hath said of himself and his Ministers that one is your Master and all you are Brethren and fellow-servants among whom an inequality of gifts may well consist with an equality of condition Yet restess and most subtile Ambition for gratiâ—ying its evil lust will even in a plain opposition commanded alleage the affectation and not the thing it self to be discharged and in the low liest state of Service devise superior and inferior degrees The second thing is that though I be â—arre from denying humane infirmities incident to Ministers as well as others and do heartily wish that the of â—nces by them occasioned may be alwayes as the most hurtful to the Gospel most seriously precautioned and regreted Yet I am sure that without regard to our Lords most gracious gifting and most wise ordering of his Ministery for the feeding and ruling of his people to affirme that neverthelesse there is no order of men needs so much to be regulated is a presumptuous and vain imputation against Jesus Christ the Head and King of the Church and his Oeconomie Hath our Lord taken so great paines to Separate Instruct Sanctify and send forth Ministers and promised them so special a presence and assistance for the oversight and conduct of Believers and darre any Christian say that even the order it self for alas I grant the men are but earthen vessels needs more then any other the contrivance of mans invention for its regulation But let none that honoureth Jesus Christ or remembreth the former Beautie Order and Successe of his Ministrie and Courts amongst us be offended this reflection proceeds from the same Spirit that accused our great Master as a Rebell and Usurper and his Apostles as the Troublers and Subverters of the World As to your conclusion when you have disproved the Divine warrant of Presbytrie and shewed both its occasion rise tendencie and proper fruits to be only evil as I have done in the matter of Prelacie then you may equiparat them in the point of abuse but seing the abuse of Presbytrie is only accidental from humane infirmity and that of Prelacie its most native Genius and Product Naâ— seing Presbytrie is indeed the right use of the Churches Government and Prelacie its manifest depravation the maxime which you adduce in its just application doth most clearly say remove the abuse of Prelacie and let the use of Presbyterie be reâ—ained The fourth DIALOGUE Answered SIR since you have said nothing that I have not to my self and I hope to all rational and impartial men satisfyingly answered and seing I can say it in Gods sight that in all the matters hitherto treated I finde in my heart a serious desire to please him in all things and also to comply with his Church and obey the Laws of the Kingdom in what I judge agreeable to his will with as much distrust of my self and charity towards others as humane frailtie doth permit In this perswasion truely and by your own verdict conscientious without either noticing the pitiful shift of a blind conscience which you make your N C. pretend or charging you with that arrogance whereupon you make him weakly to exclaime I shall proceed to consider the grounds which in this place you lay down You say then Private persons have nothing to do with Government submission and not judging is their part I cannot stand to discusse all the ambiguities that may be latent in this General but it is strange 1. That the Government of Gods house â—or that is the point betwixt us should be instituted by him for the Edification and Salvation of private persons and his own Glory as you cannot deny and yet they to have nothing to do with it 2. You say Submission iâ— their dutie And would you have it blind and not rational and conscientious 3. Our Lord hath defined the Government of his Church and did establish the same among us engaging us thereinto by a perpetual Covenant is it then nothing of our concernment But may we breake these sacred tyes and abandone our selves to an implicite compliance with every humane invention I grant that private persons are neither under a righteous constitution to usurpe the part of the Governours nor yet under a sinful unlawfully to solicite and endeavour an alteration but as in the former case both Reason and Religion specially where an Oath hath interveened doth oblige to maintenance so in the latter I am assured that all active owning and approving the thing whereunto we are pressed beyond a providentiall acquiescence is utterly sinful If you require my reasons there is none like your own viz. first because I am perswaded that what ever may be the comparative innocencie of an erring but well-meaning opinion Yet of every Soul who hath seen the Glorious light and work of God in the Lands and engaged himself thereto by solemn Covenant and now of late hath broken these bonds and concurred to change Christs pure Ordinances and set up establish or countenance Prelacie and its wicked Hierarchie God will surely either in this life as we have already seen in the convictions of many or in the last and great Judgement openly require it 2. Because not only perjury manifestly ingredient in the active submission and compliance which you exact hath a plain and direct tendencie to the blotting of the Soul but as the Gospel and all its Ordinances are designed to purify the heart So this of Government so clearly therein appointed and of so necessaire and effectual influence for the conserving of truth edifying of the body of Christ and perfecting of the Saints doth undeniably contribute to the same end And by these two easie rules it is whereby I heartily wish that both you and I and all men may examine our Consciencâ—s In the next place you tell your N. C. That we have no rationall ground to think you wrong in Matters of Religion do you then think that obedience to the Lords Command against swearing falsely and adhering to and owning the Kingdom and Ordinances of Jesus Christ are no Matters of Religion or have you already answered the full and just account that I have given of our differences But supposing there may be error on your side you adde that unless the error be of greater importance then the Communion of Saints is it ought not to unty the bond of the unity of the Catholick Church This is the rule which you gave us before in your first Dialogue and therefore I shall say little to it only if your meaning be that except the conjunction with the erring partie be of greater prejudice then separation upon that account we ought not to unty the unitie of the Church I willingly assent but if there be any other latent sense in your strange weighing the import of error with an article of Faith things quite opposite without all communication of degrees when
ensnared and thereafter more cruelly persecute and oppressed not repeating what hath been said by others in their vindication I shall briefly run over what you here subjoin You say then That Separation being a tearing of the Body of Christ to forsake the unity of the Church when there is scarce a colour of pretence for it must be a great sin 'T is answered I will not stand to descant upon the nature and several degrees of Separation and how that non-conforming to and compliance with a prevalent backsliding partie in effect the worst of Separatists which is our present case is very different from the case of Separation from a Church formerly acknowledged and joined with nor love I to inquire how farre a mans entrie into the Ministrie by open perjury and violence and his profane and flagitious deportment therein notourly known may in the perturbed state of the Church supply the want of a declarative sentence making void his mission Nor lastly will I make use of your own plain laws viz. the Act anent the restitution of Bishops and the late Act of Supremacie whereby all Church-power mark it is made dependent upon and subordinat unto the Kings Supremacie to prove your Ministers to be but Court Curats But in this I am plain and confident that if the Prophets who by their lyes and lightness cause the people to erre and speak peace to such as despise the Lord and strengthen their hands who walk in the imagination of their own heart be not to be hearkened unto if we ought to bewarre and flee from false Prophets whose fruits of ungodliness as well as heresie as is clear from the context do discover them to be but ravening wolves destroying Souls under the sheeps cloathing of an exterior call and hypocritical composure if such who cause divisions and offences contraire to the received truth and who serve not our Lord Jesus but their own belly are to be avoided and lastly if these Destroyers and Offenders be the only persons guilty of all the Separation and other inconveniences which ensue then are your Curates as dignoscible by all or one or other of these characters as the night is by darkness justly yea necessarily to be disowned fled from and avoided and only chargeable with that schisme whereof you endeavour to make us guilty But you add That in a schismatical time-serving humour we come sometimes to Church to â—vite the punishment of Law but seldom that we may retain our interest with our partie that we hear some of you but not others that some go to Churches in the Countrey but not in the City and finally some join with you in the ordinary Worship of Prayer and praise yet will not join in the Eucharist which is but solemn praise Sir if you had been candid in this reflection in place of imputing this variety to humour and faction it would indeed have moved you to pity the strait of so many good people redacted to such a multiâ—arious perplexity which yet in its outward appearance is but light in comparison of these inward inquietudes wherewith the contraire workings of the fear of God love of truth abhorrencie of wickedness tenderness toward Authority respect to union and peace and fear of punishment do continually sollicite them If I might presume so farre upon your credite I could tell you that in my certain knowledge some have been against their Consciences forced by violence and spoill to hear your Curates who therefore have mourned many Moneths thereafter and certain of them even unto death That others whom the generality of your Curates did either offend or according to the Lords prediction Ier. 23. v. 33. after long triall not profite at all have searched by a choise to remedy the evill for that there are better and worse not only as to private but also as to Publick transgressions you groundlessly deny and lastly that some have prevailed with themselves to hear and join with you in prayer and praise who have yet still scrupled in their Consciences to communicate with you in that Sacrament which beside the adjunct of solemn praise is designedly institute to signify and confirme our communion in as well as our union with Christ from whom we have reason to apprehend that many of you according to Scripture-rules and the grounds which your conversations hold out are at great distance If then these things be so let it satisfy you in this point that as the Generality of the whole land would account it a great reliefe to be delivered of all your Tribe and many of the godly are convinced that your Ministery being neither of nor for our Lord Jesus is not to be owned so all these umbrages of compliance which you observe are only the effects of curiosity fear or some other humane frailty wherewith by you we can neither in Charity nor ingenuity be urged But you are so desireous to win us to this conformity of owning your Curates that you are willing to suppose them to be but Intruders occupying the places of our faithfull shepherds violently torn away and yet you argue that although the high priest-hood was in our Lords dayes violently invaded by the Romans and by them exposed to sale and those Symoniacks did also usurp thâ— right of others yet we find Cajaphas as high Priest Prophesâ—ing and our Saviour answering to his authoritative adjuration and though the Pharisees were wretched teachers and very guilty persons yet our Saviour saith hear them for they sit in Moses chair which you saâ— is unanswerable and was the doctrine of our own Teachers 'T is answered not to insist upon the particular and full answere already made by others for dissolving the apparent force of this objection it is to be considered 1. That as this argument doth proceed upon parallel instances and similitudes for the most part lame and unequal so the Jews their particular customes and observances in the examples adduced are to us so hid and unknown and the Jewish constitution in General of a Church and Nation joined in one special people unto God by virtue of a Divine Law for matters both Civil and Religious committed even in its Civil part to the custody and interpretation of their Religious Officers is so manifestly different from that of the Christian Church gathered in one out of all and every Nation only for things Religious without any alteration in their Civil State under Jesus Christ their Head and King and the Ministers by him sent forth that little light as to our present purpose can be thence concluded 2. That not only in the point of the Churches Ministerie but also in its worship and other ordinances to reason from the dispensations of Soveraigne Providence in the decline of Churches the lawfull compliance of good men with these Churches in owning them in things found and bearing with corruptions which they could not remedy and lastly from the Lords assistance and presence that never the less hath therein
appeared For the declaring of what is dutie or not dutie in the exigence of the first innovations tending and leading unto the setlement of these abuses is very deceitfull and dangerous If in this ye be doubtfull my charity I hope shall give you satisfaction what before the Reformation were the gross corruptions of the Romish Church both in its Ministers Worship and Sacraments is to you well enough known And yet that many pious and devout Souls and some of them convinced and mourning for its abominations did nevertheless therein sincerely seeke and serve the Lord and found the strength and joy of his presence shall never be by me denied If then it should happen that in your high pretensions for Union Peace a Popish Ministerie or other abuses should be set up and enjoyned among us would you think it just to require our conformity and to offer to square dutie in such a case to any of these particular precedents to be found in the times of the former darkness I am confident you would not If our Lord when on Earth did for a while connive at certain corruptions in a dispensation drawing to its period and if at the times of ignorance God sometime wink and according to the obscurer light and witnessing thereof do allow the endeavours of such who happily may feel after him and finde him for any man thence to conclude that the change unto the Gospel administration made no alteration in dutie or that in a greater measure of revelation whereby we are commanded either to repent of former or to resist returning corruptions we ought to be stinted to the old rule and make no further advance are wide mistakes It ought to be the study of Gods Servants to discerne times and to know in this their day the things which belong unto their dutie as well as unto their peace to ty up practice that ought to be advertent unto and hath a dependence upon every circumstance unto generals abstracted and concluded from the particular instances of other times is altogether fallacious 3. Let me remember you of what I have already hinted at viz. That seing Separation is a departing from an Union once acknowledged even in these things which are not in themselves condemned which certainly is of great importance and of a very weighty and various consideration whereas non-conforming to or non-compliance with the introduction of things that are clearly sinfull and unlawfull hath a manifest warrant and is of no such extent from instances of not Separating to conclude against Non-compliance and from denying the Majus of Non-separation to deny the Minus of a tender forbearance is bad Logick nay so ill doth this parity hold that on the contraire the very aversion that every true Christian ought to have for Separation doth mostly recommend this Non-compliance which being a soveraigne and prescribed antidote against these evils which if once received may go on to greater corruptions and necessitat a sadder division is therefore to be timeously adhibite For clearing of this let me but ask you this one Question The allowed Separation of the reformed Churches from that of Rome doth it not plainly inferre that it had been better and was the dutie of these informer ages to have seasonably resisted and not complied with the first beginnings of these errors and evils which afterward did procure the rent And however you may judge that the causes of that Separation were no more then sufficient and could have laked nothing yet I am assured that you and every rationall man will say that a timeous Non-conforming warrantable upon lesser motives might have proven the better course I shall not enforce this consideration by suggesting the evill tendencie of your way nor do I tell you that it is a reviving of the same causes that in processe of time did produce all Romes abominations and that these floods of Error and Superstition had their visible rise from smaller aberrations so that if God should suffer the course of your defection to prosper and weare out the present opposition the Ages to come might more justly take up against us the complaint of our not timeous resisting then we can regret the too easie compliance of these who should have withstood the beginnings of Romes backsliding On these things I say I do not insist but that you may the more plainly understand the difference that I conceive to be betwixt Non-compliance and Separation I freely acknowledge that if God had permitted this whole Church to slide into the present evils of your Prelacie and corrupt Ministers and thereafter had blessed us with a discovery yet I would not in that condition allow the same necessity and expediencie of a Separation that now I finde to plead for a Non-compliance in as much as our present Non-compliance is not only a more certain seasonable and safe dutie but is also attended with a faithfull and edifying adherence to our true and sent Teachers who though removed to corners do still remain the Lords Ministers and our Pastors which things do much difference it from the case of a proper separation as above descrived and do not a little justify these more tender practices which you would disprove Now though these few things premised do obviously satisfy the difficulty objected yet to render the application more full and easie you may further consider that your instance from these corrupt High Priests set up by the Româ—ns doth not help you 1. Because that the high Priest was ordained by the Lord as in order to Sacrifice so also for Rule and Judgement and that not only in matters purely Religious but also in all things determinable by Moses Law at least as to the Ministerial declaring of the Ius which albeit in a great part meerly civill are yet in this respect termed the matters of God and jubjected to the high Priest his judgement in the respect mentioned 2. There is no statute in Moses Law affixing as you alleage the high Priest-hood to the Eldest Son of Aaron's line who possibly might have happened to be an Infant or legally incapable but only to his race in generall so that there was a necessity that the determination of the choise should be in the hand of the Sanhedrin thus Eli Abiathar and Ahimelech were all of Ithamar and not of Eliazer his branch As for the promise made by the Lord to Phineas it is neither made to the eldest Son of his posterity nor did it give any proper right but only an assurance whereof the accomplishment is sufficiently performed in the return of the Priest-hood to Zadock and his line notwithstanding the preceeding interruption 3. Not to enter into a particular debate anent the form and power of the Jewish Church as distinct from the State and wherein the differences did consist this is the received opinion of the Orthodox that though at the first institution their supreme Church-sanhedrin was as to causes and several other particulars distinguished
in the wayes and paths of the Lord and more especially in the large and all-searching discoveries of the minde yea of the deep things of God and what strange exercises have been and may be in the experiences of the Saints the result of this liberty and of the variety of our unstable condition Iacob's wrestlings Davids heart commuâ—ings Spirit-searchings overwhelmings and again exultings Ierimiah's mournings and Daniel's supplications do exhibite a few examples Now that the imposing of Forms which are set certain and determined doth stint this liberty and cannot possibly quadrat to all the variety above mentioned needeth no other evidence then that of an ingenuous reflection I have already acknowledged that in the right using of several of your Forms a man may have his heart very deeply affected and now I further suppose for argument that such may be the aptitude of a full and sound composition as may possibly suppeditat petitions and expressions convenient to every exigence but yet that the Spirits free use-making and mens stinting thereof to these Forms do vastly differ cannot be denyed since that notwithstanding of all conceded the enjoining of these impositions is not only inconsistent with the free methods but also doth confine the illimited enlargements of the Spirit as cannot but be obvious to any exercised discerner But that which I suppose doth induce you and many others into an error in this particular is a preposterous observation of certain good motions and sincere and servent devotions which possibly some may feel in the use of your Common-prayer-book whence you inadvertently conclude that the same Forms not appearing obnoxious to the escapes incident to extemporarie expressions may more safely and sufficiently serve to the exciting and signifying the like spirituall motions and devotions in all whereas it is certain that as in the former case these motions were only the free breathings and stirrings of the Spirit and in a manner accidental to these Forms wherein they come to be uttered so to ty the same free influences to the manuduction of a set of words is more absurd then the same words are often found to be incompetent to the setting forth of the singularity that may be in the case of the Supplicant whether a whole Church or single Person Really Sir when I consider that the Lord craves the heart and that men Worship him in Spirit and that it is thence and out of its abundance that the mouth ought to speak and from a beleeving heart that the tongues confession is acceptable I cannot but wonder how this inversion of preceeding and leading Forms should be so much asserted and certainly if we may after the Lord's example Mal. 1. 8. reason in these things from self reflection may not the knowledge we have of our own way in such supplications to or from our Neighbours wherein the heart and not the justice and merit oâ— the sute comes to be regarded teach us to reprobate and nauseate such impositions If in hearty requests we ourselves can neither be confined in the making to a rat of words put in our mouth nor relish the like practice from others and do censure such methods as too cold and indifferent how much more should we stand in awe to obtrude them to the Father of Spirits the searcher and lover of the heart I might arise higher upon this subject and demonstrate to you from the order of nature which certainly the Lord hath principally ordained for his own Worship Service and Glory that the heart and minde and not the eyes common sense or memory unless in so farre as is requisite to the joining of the hearers in Publick prayer ought to preceed in all and without question did preceed in the first acknowledgements rendered to him by his creatures but I neither love nor need to admixe such reasonings to these Scripture-grounds already adduced I shall therefore summe up this argument with answering two objections viz. That I seem 1. to forget that our Ministers in publick prayer do as much preceed and lead the peoples devotions and affections by their conceived words as if they were set and predevised 2. To suppose that all who can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a suteable utterance And to the first it is answered 1. That it is evident that the People may and ought to joine in publick prayers uttered by one as their mouth although the samine be by him conceived and to them unknown until expressedâ— this is clear from the practices of God's People in these publick prayers of David Solomon Iehosophat and others already mentioned and you your self lay it for the ground of an argument viz that the people can joyne and pray by the Spirit though the words be not of their framing 2 That although our Ministers do preceed in words yet seing the people are gathered in the Lords Name and he with the power of his Spirit in the midst of them and the Minister is called and appointed to oversee them know their condition and necessities and to be their mouth toward God and lastly seing there is a promise of the Spirits publick aswell as private assistance whereupon we may assuredly confide both for a due instruction sense and utterance in the Minister of the Peoples state and exigence and a sweet uniting of their hearts in an harmonious concurrence the agreeablenesse and advantages of conceived and not imposed prayer are thereby abundantly conserved and the difference betwixt the Ministers preceeding in free and Spirit-directed words from the manuduction of your restricting forms manifestly held forth Offend not that I say Spirit-directed words for if I should descrive Prayer in the utterance to be the expressing of these desires which through the Spirit we make unto God in the name of Jesus Christ for things agreeable to his will in words directed by the same Spirit and thence draw an argument for reprobating your vain devising and rigid commanding of Forms which practice the Lord hath neither ordered nor blessed I should but define the dutie according to the Precept and Promise which is no more impugned by the mixture of your infirmities then the account given by you either of internal praying by the Spirit or external by a Set-form which as from us do alwayes labour of imperfection are thereby made void As for the second objection that I seem to suppose that all that can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a â—uâ—eable utterance I answere 1. That my present discourse of conceived Prayer doth no more suppose all to be thereto qualified then your discourse of internal Prayer by the Spirit doth warrant the like construction how men do pray and how they ought to pray are easie to be distinguished 2. The Spirit of supplication is no doubt promised not only for inward motions but also for outward suteable expressions and the teaching of God is sufficient and may be forthcoming for the one as well as for
carnal restringent and unwarrantable imposings is therefore and most justly termed spiritual But it were only a wearinesse to trace all your Mistakes and inconsistencies in this question he who can conceive that the spiritual manner of prayer by us commended is neither on the one hand a praying alwayes in new words nor on the other such as can be lawfully tyed up to humane stinted forms but is to be performed whether by a man for himself or with and for others in words freely directed by the same Spirit from which the inward desires and motions ought to proceed will easily tell you that the case of a Ministers following this Rule and being astricted to words framed by another hold no parallel and with the same facility unravel all your other quiblings and pitie your impertinencies and therefore I go forward Your N. C. asks but doth not the Spirit help our infirmities and teach us to pray And you tell him that the words aright considered speak out a far different thing from what he would draw from them and that the Spirit doth indeed teach us the matter of our Prayers and also the manner to wit the temper of our hearts but that words are not meant appears from what follows and maketh intercâ—ssion for us with groans that cannot be uttered But Sir if the Apostle commend the Spirits assistance to us in prayer in intending our desires above the earnestness that words can express doth it therefore follow that in the directing of our utterance which is a lesser matter his help is not to be expected 2. Though in this place the Spirits help for the direction of our words were not meant can you deny that that gift is not fully elsewhere promised have you forgot the anointing that teacheth us of all things The Spirit that giveth utterance And the Father of lights from whom cometh every good Gift And who enricheth us by Iesus Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge Or need I to remember you of the promises that the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly or elegantly and again the tongue of the dumb shall sing Really Sir if a man diffident of the readinesse of his expression cannot from these open fountains draw supply I am confident that the brocken Cisterns of your imposed Forms will make him but small reliefe After this relapsing into your former prejudice and causing your N. C. to say That in this imbodied state we need to have our Souls stirred up by the commotion of our Fancies you accept of the acknowledgement and thence inferre That at least such a way of praying is not so sublime and therefore ought not to be called praying by the Spirit But Sir as I have already told you that he who being internally moved by the Spirit of Grace neither needeth a Set-form to obstetricat his expression nor therein confineth himself to it but out of the abundance of his heart and in words directed by the Holy Ghost doth flow forth in his Prayers and Praises is indeed of a higher size then he who having the same devotion toward God is therein either stinted by another or straitened in himself to a limiting and restricting Form so your talking in this place of the stirrings of the Soul by the commotion of Fancie and the gratifications of Nature and imagination is but the gratification of your own vanity in as much as it neither pertaineth to the present Question whereof the lawfulness or unlawfulnesse of mens imposing Set-forms of Worship and not the life or spirituality thereof wherein I hope we are agreed is the subject neither do we either teach or defend but plainly reject these carnal methods here by you supposed to excite devotion by fancie and kindle our affections by imaginations where the inspiration of the Spirit ought to warm the heart and blowe the flame as being the offering of strange fire unto the Lord in place of the heavenly fire that descends from himself upon his Altar It is true the heart and desires thereof being once set on work by this divine principle may and ought to enlarge it self by the summoning and exciting of its affections and whole minde and strength for the intending of its fervor and elevating of the Soul but this truth doth so little favoure your impositions in preference to our way that by a new argument it further and evidently confirmes the narrownesse and insufficiencie of your stinted Forms to that spiritual Soul-devotion wherein the Lord delights But you say That you will convince us of the evill of extemporarie Forms and 1. you say That I must long exercise my attention to consider what he who prayes intends and this strangely draweth out the minde from devotion which cannot vigorously act two powers at once and therefore you conclude that both in reason and experience Set-forms do conduct a mans devotion with less anxiety wavering or distraction To this it is answered 1. That seing the Churches of Christ are united not only in the same form of profession but in the same Spirit and have the promise of the presence of the Lord and his power in all their Assemblies gathered in his Name whereby both Minister and People may expect all due assistance in their performances your supposed unacquaintedness in the People with what the Minister intends with the long attention and strange out-drawing of the minde which you thence inferre are but your own groundless and faithless imaginations 2. That a certain measure of previous attention in joining either with conceived or imposed Forms is necessary to instruct our devotion is neither by you nor us to be denied but how you can thence conclude that attention as such which in this case both in your and our way is absolutely necessary directly preparatory and leading into should lead out from the devotion to ensue and by what Logick you make the attention or inclination of the minde and the devotion thence arising almost as connected as the inclining of the ear and hearkening are two powers and not two acts and these also incompatible surpasseth common understanding It is true if I could suppose with you that the People nay the Minister himself going about to pray were wholly ignorant how he will discharge it and that therefore they either join blindly or with anxiety nay further that our way labours under many abuses of tedious length scurrilous expressions involved periods petulant and wanton affectations and the like I might possibly finde some shadow of reason for your alledgeance but since you not only speak as a stranger to the Grace and Gift of Prayer and to the unity of the Church of Christ which is one Body baptised and united into one Spirit having one Hope one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all whereby Christians before Forms were imposed are found
and Covenant of Baptisme as to Infants so your appropriating the administration thereof to the Bishop objected by your N. C. in his next demand doth yet more discover its vanity and evill design To the arguments therefore which you bring for it and 1. to its Antiquity I answere that the simplicity and purity of the first Ages of the Church knew it not 2. As it s very first beginnings cannot be calculate beyond the times of the Churches declination so it is most certain that from an arbitrarie well-meaning institution it hath since been depraved to such an abuse as may sufficiently justify the total removal of its use 2. As for your Scripture probability from the laying on of hands so notourly known to have been then only used in the conferring of the extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit or in the Ordination or Mission of Ministers neither it nor your alleaged assent of most Reformers do merite any answere Next you tell us in defence of Private Baptisme That for us to confine the Sacramental actions to the walls of a Church is gross Superstition But who would have thought when you clamour so much upon our Non-conforming Meetings you would have stumbled into such a mistake Our exception against Privat Baptisme is therefore not the want of a dedicated House as you do vainly alleage but because our Lord having by his commission annexed it to the preaching of the word whereof it is the seal and it being the Sacrament of our initiation into the Church its performance doth evidently appear to be most agreeable to the ordinary Church assemblies where-ever held beside that peoples mindes prone to superstition may by the practice of Private Baptisme be readily inclined both to apprehend the Popish absolute necessity of Baptisme and thence to regard the exterior action more then the spiritual signification and efficacie is confirmed by undeniable experience both in your and the Roman Churches For the inconveniency which you poorly exaggerate from the distance of many Churches the badness of seasons and tenderness of Infants as unto this day it was never made the ground of a reall complaint so you should understand that the dispensations of Gods Providence do not alter the dispositions of his holy will From Baptisme you pass to plead for the private administration of the Communion to Persons on death-bed and this you think the seasonablenes of its use and the propriety of its ends to such a case do abundantly perswade To which I answere 1. That though at no time Faith and Love need more to be quickened the Death of Christ more to be remembred nor communion with the Church to be declared then in the approach of the last pangs it will not thence follow that therefore the Communion may then be privatly administrat for since not the seasonableness of the fruits but the warrant and Rule given unto us is first to be heeded in the going about of holy administrations nay since that without this regard duely adhibit the blessing and fruits are but in vain expected it is evident that barely from the exigence of the fruits to conclude in any case the lawfulness of the celebration is preposterous Religion and worse Reason Now 2. That the rule set down to us in this Sacrament doth reprobate this your observance is evident not only from that connexion that there is and ought to be observed betwixt the word and Sacraments But 1. From our Lords own pattern in the institution keeping this solemnity with the company of his Disciples making as it were a little Christian Church 2. Because the Apostle in his regulation of this Sacrament according and with respect to his Masters pattern doth suppose the Churches coming together into one place and consequently the ordinary Church Assemblies as a necessary requisite in the free and peaceable times of the Church 3. Because the very Mysterie of the Lords Supper representing the union of Believers with and their communion in Iesus Christ their Head and the name that it hath thence obtained 1 Cor. 10. v. 16 17. is not well consistent with this private administration 'T is true the Authors of your Articles not being able to decline the convincing evidence of this reason do among other preparations require that there be three or four free of lawful impediments present with the sick person to communicate with him but as such a packt Conventicle beside other inconveniences hath no just resemblance of the Church her ordinary Assemblies much less can communicating with hand-weal'd companions be a signe of that free equable and comprehensive communion signified by this Sacrament so it is manifest that the forementioned requisite is only a colourable evasion manifestly acknowledging the force of our argument in fraudem Legis salvis verbis sententiam ejus circumveniens But 3. This your Private Communion is to be reprobate because as the decumbents faith love and other graces in that hour of his need are only best excited by the means at that time allowed and competent and the sanctified remembrance and improvement of other privileges and ordinances formerly enjoyed so it is certain that this observance hath not only been abused by the Papists unto the abomination of their private Maâ—â— but is also rejected by the Reformed Churches not Lutheran as found to be inductive of vain Superstition whereever it is used and for this I need not go farre in search of confirmations for you your self in telling us That your practice was very early in the Church subjoin that Iustin Martyr sayes they sent of the Eucharist to them that were absent and that the story of Serapion shews how necessary Christians then thought it to be guarded by this holy viaticum which two instances whether true or false being generally held to be an excess both inclining to and introductive of vain Superstition and therefore reckoned among the first Naevi appearing in the face of the Primitive Church and now generally disused by all the Churches of Christ as they are by you adduced do too evidently demonstrate how much both your spirit and customes do bend to a relapse in these evils In the next place your N. C. asks you What you say for Kneeling in receiving sure this looks like Superstition and Idolatrie And in return you confess that it is the Article of them all which you have least fondness for And this indeed is very fitly expressed in as much as it is evident it can be no rational or solid liking which inclineth you to any of them but since even your fondness as to this Article is defective how farre must you be from doing the thing in faith And how much more sound and Christian would it be for you here to subsist and say since for want of the warrant of Faith this Kneeling cannot possibly please God let it be removed from his Holy Ordinance But you proceed and tell us That since the kneelers do declare that they neither believe Christ to
it is that as our Lords posture in eating the Passe-over whatever it was was not contrary to the Divine prescription so the Iews their practice acknowledged by you to have been the same can be no ground for your Superstitious innovation of Kneeling introduced contrary to our Lords example the Rule of the institution and both introductive of and tending to plain Idolatrie As for that greater liberty allowed to Christians which you here plead as we have already heard that you only alledge our liberty from the former rigor to the effect you may impose your new yoke of a more iâ—rational bondage so it is evident that in this plaâ—e you mention our freedome of Gesture on purpose 〈◊〉 you may enslave us to the imposition of your Superstitious Kneeling but he truely walketh at liberty who keepeth the Lords Commandments You shut up this Article with a perhaps that more veneration is due to this action now that our Saviour is exalted then he could have allowed of in his humiliation But. 1. the veneration that you here speak of to the action sufficiently intimateth that for all the pretenses made in the contraire the Kneeling which you plead for is in some sort relative to the Elements therein used and therefore Idolatrous 2. your perhaps unsoundly insinuats that our Lord could not have allowed of the same adoration now due to him in Exaltation in the state of his Humiliation which you know to be false 3. at best it is a conjectural intruding into these things which you have nor seen and so not meriting any regard In the last place you treat of the Article anent the observing of dayes and denying that you pretend to make them holy dayes you tell us that it is another thing to keep peculiar dayes of thanksgiving for the great and signal mercies of the Gospel-dispensation and in such customes you can apprehend no evill and really Sir I am confident you have seen as little good but to be short remitting what may be said against this Article to the pious and learned Labours of these Authors which I have already commended I only add that although the construction which you put upon this observation of dayes is certainly the most plausible that can be made yet you know so well how grossly these dayes have in the Roman Church been abused to superstition and profanity both in their dedication and observation And it is so obvious to any how to this day the generality in these Reformed Churches where they are observed do in the persvasion as well as practice continue the same abuse that I think since they are only an humane invention not good in itself your own rule p. 70. that when such things are grossly abused then there is ground to change their use may fully satisfy you as to the justice and reason of our dissent But you affirme confidently that in all Ages of the Church Christians have had a peculiar veneration for these dayes 'T is answered a veneration for these dayes how doth this language agree with the above mentioned interpretation whereby reducing these dayes to the condition of a meere circumstance of a constant Anniversary thanksgiving you go about to purge them of all further Superstition But this wind of your vanity can not he hid it is as the ointment of the right hand which bewrayeth it self 2. These dayes were not in veneration in the first and purest Age of the Church whereby both the generality of your assertion and your argument from Antiquity are subverted you tell us that the observation of Easter and Pentecost are clearly derived from Apostolical practices what you understand by Apostolical practices concernes me not seing that the Apostles and Church in their times knew no such thing And this Negative proving it self cannot be controlled I grant the succeding Ages became soon fond of these vanities but what were the bitter fruites of contention and schisme which the Lord in his justice did suffer this earely corruption to produce is notourly known and certainly such as alone might have taught the whole ensuing generations to be more tender of Gospel purity and simplicity Shall we then also refuse instruction But you say Paul hasted to be at Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost Pray Sir be more sincere all we find in Scripture is that he hasted to be at Ierusalem the day of Pentecost And I appeal to common ingenuity if that any rational man considering Paul to be a Iew and to hasten against one of their three great Feasts and Convocations then by the Iews still observed to his own Countrey and its Metropolis where the general and solemne confluence of his whole Nation was to meet can thence conclude that he went thither to keep the Feast of Pentecost in the meaning by you insinuate and requisite to your purpose In the last place you tell us that Paul sayeth of the legall holy dayes he that regardeth a day to the Lord he doth regard it Whence you inferre that if Moses his Feasts might have been kept holy to the Lord much more may these be which the Church hath institute Really I am so wearied with this poor stuff that civility forgetting it to be your own doth almost prompt me to demand your pardon for resuming it The Apostle Paul in that Chapter is most expressly declaring our Christian Liberty and its right use and in the case of a weak Brother esteeming one day above another belike from the difference made by Moses Law he only adviseth that he be fully perswaded in his own minde and seing he regardeth it unto the Lord he would not have him therefore judged Now tell me plainly is this either the case or the controversie betwixt us Are Bishops the weak Brethren from the abiding impress of a Divine dispensation fulfilled and evanishing but not expressly antiquat tenderly and conscientiously over-esteeming and regarding certain dayes and therefore only pleading a charitable forbearance Or lastly Seing the Bishops do not only without warrant keep up these superstitious observations but peremptorily enjoin and impose them upon others whereas the Apostle in the same place doth both declare our Liberty and with equal care prescribe that seing he that regardeth not the day to the Lord he doth not regard it that therefore he should not be judged Are they not by the very Text here alledged manifestly convicted But it is enough And whether our dislike of these Festivals and the other Articles of Perth be not well grounded and your observing and enjoyning of them both Superstitious and irrational I leave it to the judgement of all the Lovers of Truth The sixth DIALOGUE Answered SIR To this conference very visibly contrived for the commendation of your self and your way and wherein pretending by sublime speculations and the swelling words of a faire profession to elevat Souls to the solid hights and true liberty of Christianity you plainly go about to introduce a regardless indifferencie for all
it imports to me an excess wherewith we ought not to comply To join with the merit of Jesus Christ that of their own good works nay of their own superstitious inventions and to his Mediation that of Saints seem to me to impinge upon the very foundation which you acknowledge What shal we then say of the avowed gross Idolatries and Superstitions ridiculous penitences and perverted morality whereby both the truth and spirituality of Gods Worship and Service with the inward and genuine Grace of Obedience and Sanctification are subverted Really Sir these appear to me to be a superstructure of such naughty stuffe as neither the sincerity of Grace with which I judge them incompatible nor even the flames of their own purgatory will ever purge away But you proceed That though you will not say that all things controverted betwixt the Reformed Churches and them are matters of Salvation yet in their greater errors such as the Popes Supremacie the Churches infallibility the corporal presence c. you condemne them and perhaps on clearer grounds then we do 'T is answered 1. That the things controverted with the Papists are not all of them such as do directly and necessarily in beleefe or practice appertain to Salvation is not by us denied but where in this your latitude you do in effect intimate such a dissent from the Reformed Churches as if many things betwixt us and the Papists were needlessly by us drawn in question it is such an undervaluing of the will and way of the Lord whereupon even in our smallest differences we hope we are founded that I could not pass it without an observation 2. Whether you do indeed condemn the Papists in many of the points by you enumerate let be on better grounds is to me very dubious You say you are against the Popes Supremacie but how is it then that you have transferred it upon his Majesty and that with a more ample extent then ever was conceded to nay or arrogat by any Pope That the King may enact such Acts and Orders concerning the administration of the external Government of the Church and the Persons therein imployed and concerning all Ecclesiastick Meetings and matters therein to be proposed as he shall think fit is more then any Pope ever assumed Pray Sir is the difference betwixt the persons of the Pope and Prince the hinge of the controversie Or is this one of the clearer grounds you talk of consider it at your leisure In the next place you tell us that you condemn the Churches infallibility and yet p. 31. of this same Book your affirme that even in matters as punctually set down in Scripture as either of these Sacraments the Church may judge that God did not therein intend any perpetual obligation and by her practice oblige us to a cessation and consequently alter Scripture-determinations Beside you know what power you attribute to the Church to impose significant ceremonies and other observances which although you tell us for an evasion do not take away the liberty of inward opinion yet you affirme that they do bind in Conscience to a conformable practice Verily if a Church so impowered be not infallible the concessions are too large but the truth is Scripture defectible the Church fallible and nothing fixed appear to be most aggreeable to the lightnes of your brains and the Conveniencie of your new latitude 3. You affirme that you are against the corporal presence and also the worshiping of Images and yet you are for Adoration to before or in order to the Eliments For call it as you will you plead for it as due veneration in the action whereof they are the necessary objects how these do consist I see not For my part I cannot but judge the Papists though more gross yet more consequent But we have enough of this subject and these few instances premised may indeed well justify the excessive love which you profess to the unity of the Catholick Church wherein you include the Roman and your esteem for such meaning by Cassander and others of his way who have studied to bring things to a temper do palpably hold out your byass to their haltings But if the unity and temper that you aime at be of this temper since it hath not truth for its foundation the Lord deliver his Churches from it In the next place your N. C. and you fall a quarrelling about Iustification and after you have first taxed then smoothed and again in a manner rejected the Papists their Iustification by works and their Merit you proceed to Iustification by faith only and when you have given us your explanation of it you make a prettie boâ—st as it forsooth by your right apprehension of things you had in a few words told that which with much nicety swels amongst us to Volumes Sir I so greatly defire to find you walking in the truth and am so little in love with contention especially in a matter of this importance that I am resolved rather fanely to pass then rigidly to strain even your more ambiguous expressions but since you would make the World beleeve that with you and you only is to be found both Truth and Light and that on the other hand we do perplexe this point with Nicâ—ties and subtilties it will not be amiss that in this matter I examine you more particularly which that I may performe with the greater candor and perspiciuty I shall first exhibit your words in their full context and thereafter review them in parts You say then That Iustification and Condemnation are two opposite legall termes relating to the judgement shal be given out at the last day For though we are said to be condemned already this is only that we are now in the state of such as shal be solemnly justified or condemned Now at the great day we must give an account of our actions and we must be judged accordingly but since all must be condemned if God enter in judgement with them therefore God gave his Son to the death for us that thereby we might obtain Salvation And all judment is by the Father committed to the Son and Iesus Christ hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospell and live according to it And as that which gives us a title to the favour of God is the blood of Christ so that which gives us an interest in his death is faith with a life conforme to the rules of the Gospel and the root of this new life is a faith which worketh by love purifyeth the heart and overcometh the world and therefore Iustification is ascribed to it in Scripture and this you say is the right apprehension of things both ascribing all to Christ and declaring clearly the necessity of a holy life 'T is answered The matter of Justification being in effect the very substance of the Gospel and its right uptaking of the greatest moment in order to our Salvation for as much as you by
this point of more knowledge then your self who proving it by the point ordinarily set after the figures of the year of God would have the following restriction only to concerne the Acts and Lawes generally annulled But as it is evident that the point maketh no period and protestant Religion contained in that Act. 1592. Should be vacated and annulled so the obvious tenor of the words together with the sense of the Parl. Anno. 1662. Who in the new establishment of your Prelacy did judge it convenient to the grounds therein laid down to rescind de novo that old Act in all its heads clauses and Articles whatever might be the consequence do abundantly elide this conceit However I do again tell you that our consciences in this matter are better founded and not squared to such mutable rules And therefore seeing our grounds are firme and stable let me in the words of your own exhortation obtest you and your party to consider your way better cease from your persecution repent of your apostasy and usurpation and return into favour with God and union with us Now follows a childish quarrel between you and your N. C. anent the tenderness of your love and prayers in our behalf above that measure which we use towards you and 1. You say wo should be to you and you N. C. If the love of God to you did appear in such effects as the love of some of ours doth the invidious strain of their prayers being universally that God would bring you down destroy the incorrigible and shew the rest the evill of there defection but you say how would we take it if you should pray that God would destroy our party and shew us the evill of our Rebellion and other wicked courses 'T is answered 1. Seeing that wo shall certainly be unto all such and they are far from the love of God who are incorrigible that God by making manifest his righteous judgments would glorify his own Name and deliver his Church from such adversaries is a prayer clearly warranted both from the word and the practice of the Saints nor is it in the least discordant from that Christian charity whereby I am really moved earnestly to desire the Lord to deliver you and all both from the thing and its punishment 2. That God would bring down the proud that exalt themselves against Jesus Christ and give repentance to backsliders is a prayer so agreeable to the will of God and full of love to the persons prayed for that I am certain whatever may be said against our principles which I remit to the impartial discerner yet our practice in this as being both tenderly Christian and fairly consequent cannot but be approven 3. Mistake not if you should pray for us in the same strain we might possibly and with great reason account it an aggravation of the evils of your other principles and practices but we are not so narrow as to construe it a particular breach of charity Nay for my part as I would think it rationally consequent so abstracting from the errors which it supposâ—th I would take it for the greatest testimony both of your zeal toward God and love toward us But if I may use a little freedome why do you please your self so much in vain talk though we hear not many of your prayers yet I am sure all know that we want not plenty of matter and instances for a retortion in what termes soever you please to frame your challenge are we so short in memory as not to remember how your pulpits sounded both in preaching and prayer after the late rising and that not only against these poor broken innocents but in such a manner against our whole party as by false and fierce accusing of all without distinction might almost have excused in them the like attempt to save from that fury that thundered every where If you would have any latter and more particular instances pray inquire after the B. of St. Andrew's Sermons specially that preached by him the 30 of Jan. 1669. and the other before the last Parliament you complain of the severe stile of our prayers he good man being ill satisfied with such soft and aâ—rie tooles and having passionately fumed out a most bitter invective against our Presbyterian Ministers not long since his brethren and benefactors did very agreeably close it in these words these are circumforaneous Demagogues acted by a spirit otherwise to be cast out then by fasting and prayer But what need I mention your prayers when indeed many of your practices have most visibly been such as may justly make your fairest words suspected of the deepest dissimulation I know some of you have a fashion of praying that God would unite this poor Church and heall our breaches But if that be all the evidence you can bring to shew the healing and peaceable spirit to be on your side Pray tell me why the Church of Rome that may boast as much of the same formula may not as justly pretend to it I might further adde that it appears to be no extraordinary merit for such as are countenanced by the Powers and do Idolize peace and ease to wish for an union with any whom they apprehend to be their opposits and that perhaps the more sober amongst you for all their compliance under the tentation yet are not so far abandoned as that they dare in Gods sight justifie there defection and pray against the party and courses which they know they did not desert from any conscientious conviction But I have insisted too long on so poor a subject and I can in your own words assure you that we are not only ready to unite with you but are extremly though not implicitly desirous of it and do therefore dayly pray that God would open your eyes reclaim you from your backslidings and grant unto us union and peace in truth to his glory This is the Accommodation that is only desireable if you pursue any other I am certain that however it may be consonant to your designes yet it is altogether dissonant from your proâ—ession and therefore if we be more rational and upright to hate all sinfull Accomodation and rather to wish that our differences may stand and be perpetuat in the behalf of truth then cemented by a sinful compliance wherein are we to be reprehended Now that this is all that we teach in this matter the same books which you referre to do testify and that it is none other then the very doctrine of the School of Christ the frequent Scripture-injunctions to the defence of and stedfastness in the truth with the commands of a just opposition to and avoiding of every false way and its promoters do sufficiently evince But you adde Let all men judge if there be not a bitterness in the Preface to Masâ—er Rutherfoords letters the Apologetical Narration and Naphtali unsampled in any satire let be grave and Christian writing Sir since you are pleased to
wicked School 2. Though the assertion as by you indefinitly laid down be not a little invidious yet seeing it is undeniable that Phineas and Elias did neither as Magistrats whatever was their capacity nor by special warrant punish crimes and execute judgment and that desperate disorders in the publick government may by the force of necessity license to private persons specially parents and masters this power controverted to affirme without exception that the doctrine concerning private persons their punishing of crimes in case of the supinness of the Magistrate is cursed seemeth rather to be the effect of passion then of reason 3. Divine impulses have been and are still casible and that the Lord thereby without the giving of any special commission may stirre up to such an heroick act as though necessarily debording from common methods may not the less in its whole tract and event be attended with so peculiar a lustre and evidence of Gods approbation as may even force from you an assent notwithstanding that the deed can only be maintained by these general positions which you seeme to disprove is to me unquestionable And therefore your so severe disowning without any reserve of private persons their punishing of crimes in case of the supinness of the Magistrate excluding all possibility of divine excitations to that purpose appeareth to be very precipitant Are the contingencies of humane affaires and their surprisals and pressures such as to move Kings and Princes on earth over and above all fixed and regular courses to define certain causes and occasions Quando liceat unicuiqne sine judice se vindicare velpublicaÌ„ devotionem subjug are edicto quod serum esset punire judicio it a ut cuncti adversus latrones publicos desertoresque militiae jus sibi sciant pro quiete communi exercendae publicae ultionis indultum And if in the far more pressing and conspicuous exigences of the glory of God when Soul-murderers and Christ-deserters are not only permitted but patronized the Lord in that case animat private persons to heroick undertakings for his glory when all other judgment faileth shal the justifying of such practices though otherwise countenanced by many undeniable testimonies be exclaimed against as accursed doctrines far be it from us and all that love the Lords glory and adore his soveraignity I say otherwise countenanced c. for that some men under these collours may pretend to the like warrant when in reality they have it not is indeed to be regreted nay that the present loose and lewd practices of some who most licentiously invade Conformists under cloud of night in their own houses to no good purpose whatsomever but to the great scandal of Religion and prejudice of the Countrey are such as by many clear circumstances are utterly to be condemned whatever they may pretend is I hope manifest without any observation and needeth not any further caution 4. If I may come a little nearer on this subject wherein I protest sincerâ—ly I have no designe but to vindicat the truth and wayes of the Lord with all tenderness and fear and with all due regard to the deceitfulness of humane passion and corruption are there not many suppositions casible wherein to speake roundly freely in the extreme pressure either of our own or our neighbours interest in matter of life or estate both you and I and all others whatever be our shynesse in opinion would have a clearnesse to act many things of the same nature with or as important as the punishing of crimes not only without but even in some cases against the Magistrate how can we then deny the like obligation and warrant to the highest and most important concernment of the glory of God in its just and manifest exigence Sir I know that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God but verily when I reflect how that in many cases relating to self the most part of men and even dissemblers in profession are neverthelesse in practice firmly perswaded and in some cases all without exception are even in opinion most determined as to their right and obligation of defence and resistance And withall consider that our love which is certainly the foundation of this right and obligation ought to be infinitly more intended toward God then toward all things else I cannot but wish that both the perswasion and zeal of all men in his matters were accordingly proportional to their value But oh who is now on the Lords side and who are they that aspire unto Levi's blessing who said unto his father and to his mother I have not seen him neither did he acknowledge his brethren nor knew his own Children 5. Although the position be by you exhibited in such a laxe Manner as if upon the emergencie of every crime every private person were constitute the Magistrats overseer and exacter of his administrations that you may the better load us with your forged absurdities Yet Naphtali's doctrine above declared over and above the just exigence required is so clearly set down in the case only of gross and notorious backsliding and defection countinanced or connived at by the Magistrate wherein the concernment of Gods glory and our call to assert the same is far more discernable and manifest then in the punishing of other crimes that I hope I have said enough to cut off vain and impertinent cavillations It is therefore certain that though this doctrine concerning private persons their punishing of crimes in case of the supinnesse of the Magistrate in its undefined and uncautioned latitude may be obnoxious to gross abuses yet absolutely to deny the same and thence to condemne not only many fair scripture-examples but all heroick excitations which in their suteable exigences are by a clear concurrence of circumstances manifestly demonstrate to be from the Spirit of God as to the matter warranted by his command and in their manner dependent on his soveraignity were most rigid and unjust But you go on and tell us that what cursed effects this cursed doctrine produced all the Nation saw when in the sight of the Sun a villain with a pistol invaded the persons of two of the fathers of the Church and that in the chief â—â—rect of our royall City What an empty pomp of words have we here to make out this cursed effect a villain fathers of the Church chief strâ—et royal City big words indeed Sir the way to be just in your resentments is first to be equal and then I doubt but if you have as much respect to our Lord Jesus King over his Church as you pretend to your fathers of the Church that the wrongs and invasions by them villainously committed with a high and insolent hand in the sight of all the Nations against his glory and prerogative will not only make you give to them the epithet wherewith you censure their invader but account the effects of their wickednesse a hundred-fold more accursed But lest I offend you by
done to these most dearly affecting concernes of God's Glory and his Churches welfare ought not to be more tenderly afflicting and poweâ—fully exciting to duties of prayer and all righteous indeavours then the Lords high and holy Soveraignity is both most strengthening to these duties and comfortably excâ—usive of all sinful anxiety and dejection the heavâ—nly return made to our Lord I have both glorified my Name and will gloriâ—y it again doth abundantly hold out this consistency and is so far from being contrary to a holy touching grief upon that account that on the other hand you may find the necessary cercainty of God's Glory the ground both of the earnest and assurance of our Loâ—â—'s supplication and of the comforting answere made to his troubled soul whence it did proceed But that which I would enquire is how you come to make such an answere to your N. C. challenge which being very rational and sound complaining only of a stupid misregard and profane indifferency without the least â—â—exure to the other extreame of sinful anxiety had in my thought been better and more ingenuosly answered by a simple denial then by your unnecessary cautions To oppose one truth to another can have no innocent design Nay iâ— I may use your own maxime that all things have two sides I fear this your discourse prove also double faced and that under the colouâ— of excessive anxiety dejâ—cting melancholy you do indeed condemn that mean of a concerning solicitude for Gods Glory and his Churches wellfare which you seem to allow and by iâ—sinuating joy to be the end and fruit of Religâ—on resolve all its seriousness into the indifferency objected But lest you judge this challenge which is only an anticipation to be want of charity I proceed to what ensues which is first your N. C's reply to wit That all this your preceeding discourse is still contrary to the holy men of God the Psalms Prophets Lamentations are full of sad complaints and certainly a greater measure of zeal becomes the more clear manifestation of the love of God under the Gospel And to that return which you give to it running out upon the difference of the old and new dispensation shewing forsooth that outward desolations and losses which under the former were curses and grievous under the later are pronounced blessings and matter of joy and so forth What strange dealing and doctrine is this Your N. C. tells you of the complainings and mournings of the holy Men of God in old times for the desolation of Gods house departing of his Glory and the blasphemie of his Adversaries Which I am certain every serious soul will take to be no other then the same careful regard to the Glory of God and the good of his Church which just now we heard you approve and is no doubt inseparable from the true Love and Zeal of God in all ages But you in your present Answere would have these regretes to be only suteable to a carnal dispensation and nothing agreeing to that of the Gospel Now if this be not a palpable discovery of your sinistrous design let all men judge Or if you think that I do wrest your words do you or any man els make them pertinent in any other sense I am content to bear the blame But neither is this your doctrine in it selfe more sound You say That outward desolations and afflictions were of old signes of Gods displeasure curses but now they are pronounced and made blessings Pray Sir make you no distinction betwixt a sign of Gods displeasure and a curse Or do you think that sufferings and afflictions may not be both signs of displeasure against sin and yet profitable corrections yea matter of joyous consolation in the event Certainly if you had consulted Scripture in this matter you would have found that as the sufferings of Gods People under the New Testament are accounted chastisements and consequently signs of the Lords displeasure against sin which thereto provokes so under the Old they were no less to be by them regarded as the chastenings of a loving father and the rebukes of love But it seems you have forgotten the exhortation which under both dispensations speaketh unto the Lords People as unto children My son despise not thou the chastening of the Lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him for whom the Lord loveth the chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth Nay blessed is the man whom thou chastenest O Lord and teachest out of thy law being so plainly said of oldâ— I wonder how you could lapse into thir mistakes I grant that the Jewish dispensation is much countenanced by temporal promises and that even the manner of divine service thereby appointed did much depend upon their performance Whereas that better Covenant being established upon better promises is in effect so ordered that afflictions and persecutions did and do tend rather to its advancement But if thence you conclude either that the People of God in old times were to regard their sufferings as they respected themselves differently from what is commanded to and commended in Christians or that their complaints for the corrupted or suppressed Worship of God and the departed Glory by reason of prevailing backsliding or outward desolation may not now under the Gospel in the like calamities be lawfully and laudably resumed over and above your evil design mentioned you bewray palpable ignorance I might here further adde that you may not only observe the same patience and fruit of chastisements under the old that is found under the new dispensation but also read the grace and glory of their confessions and martyrdomes in almost the same termes wherein you go about to represente the sufferings under the Gospel as new and singular Others were tortured not accepting deliverance they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were sâ—ain with the sword they wandered about in sheep-skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy Pray Sir who were they or wherein is this account short of that which you exhibite of Christians their rejoicing in sufferings except in the vain excess of your superstitious festivals viz. the dayes of the death of Martyrs observed by the Church under the name of Natalitiae Martâ—rum But I have already sufficiently demonstrate both the folly and falshood of this your impertinent distinction And the mixture of the cup of Gods Children being clearly confirmed by the experience of all ages your taxing of our mourning because of a broken Covenant a profaned Sanctuary and abounding wickedness and violence as sinful repining because of personal sufferings notwithstanding that the joy and strength of the Lord hath been very conspicuous in our dying Witnesses and our other Sufferers doth plainly adde malice to your ignorance But in our complainings you reprehend both injustice and excess and for injustice you tell us That the reason thereof is only the alteration of the Law 's and the Magistrat's denying
Which in effect is the very worst account that even the enemies of the truth do give of them and cannot be received by any impartial inquirer Yet seing it is most evident that persecution for Religion was the true cause moving the body of the Protestants to their own defence and that their Ministers and Teachers whom God had honoured to be instrumental in their conversion as Beza and others did countenance these wars and constantly maintain that a defensive resistance to subjects in a due capacity was no more prohibite upon the account of persecution for Religion then in the case of any other intolerable oppression The mixture of mans corruption inseparable even from his best actions in the prosecution of so good a cause can neither prejudge its justice nor deprive us of the advantage of this precedent But knowing your former answers to be weake and unsatisfying you subjoyne that you do not deny their following wars to have been direct Rebellion And is this the vindication you promised Only you bid us consider the fierce Spirit of that Nation and we must confess it was not Religion but their temper that was to be blamed Well Sir is this your candor The question is whether or not Religion was the cause of these wars which if the lawfulness thereof were not first supposed were utterly impertinent and you not darring to deny it do first tell us by a blunt petitio principii that the wars were rebellion and then that the French temper more then Religion is to be therefore blamed Who should regard such a pitiful Sophister But seing it can not be denyed that the many and great injuries suffered upon the account of Religion were the just provocation to these wars although some small censuâ—e either of precipitancy or of excess in the prosecution may possibly be imputed to the hote temper of that people or excused by the signal insolencie of ther provocations yet sure I am that neither the cause of Religion nor the justice of it is thereby in the least disproven But now you say many of the eminent men of that Church are fully convinced of the evill of these courses yea one of the glories of our Nation Cameron in the wars of the last King directly preached against their courses as Rebellion I will not answere that possibly it hath befallen the eminent men of that Church as it did many of our own who as they were removed from the first times of the Reformation the then opposition of adversaries from the evidence of the Lord's Spirit presence that therein appeared so according to the influence of after temptations were induced to condemne that which otherwise they would have approven It is enough for us that your many eminent whoever they be are more then overballanced by many more and more eminent still abyding on our side And for Cameron whom forsooth in your pedantick stile you more then cannonize by terming a Glory you must pardon us who know him better whatever be his opinion in this matter not to be dazled by his splendour specially seing you know that if we were disposed to vie with you in such vanities we might by adducing King Iames his justifying of the French Protestants their defensive wars in his answer to cardinal Perron eclipse this your glory into obscurity but what need of more words If these last wars were purely defensive for Religion they could not be rebellious and if they were not we only lose the instance but not the argument as I have abundantly proven But to this you make your N. C. Answer by asking How did the late King give assistance to the Rochellers in the last wars if so be they were rebellious And to this you reply That it proceeded from a particular reason Viz. Because the King of Britain had become the surety in the former pacification that the French King should observe the agreement Sir If I had the management of your N. C. part I think I should not have troubled you with this answer The assistance you mention was so like rather to a treachery that both for the good of these poor Protestants and for the honour of our King's memory I wish it had never been But since you suppose it to have been real how is it that by your return you do so pitifully betray your cause For seing by your acknowledgment the late King did in the pacification after the second war of Rochell with consent of the French King become surety to his Protestant subjects for due observance and by this his accession clearly acknowledged the lawfulness and validitie of the Protestants their treatie it is a more manifest confession of the Peoples right and capacity to restrain both by contract and necessary force the unjust and persecuting violence of their Prince then all the instances adduced do afford It is true you adde That this assistance was on our Kings part most just what ever the Subjects of France their part in it might be But where is your reason for this insinuat distinction Or what Logickâ— can prove that a just concurring assistance may be given in an unjust war That the King of Britain interposing was injured and affronted by the King of France his breach is not denyed by or contrary to us more then the injury done by the French King unto these his Protestants subjects But to clear this passage of your foolish quibles The Duke of Rohan in the Ninth of his Politick Discourses entituled His Apology upon the last troubles of France because of the Religion plainly tell us that the King of Britain did by a Gentleman sent to him remonstrat how he was surety in the last peace and did compassionate the Protestants their sufferings that if by fair means he did not obtain relief he would ingage his whole Kingdomes and his proper Person in so just a war to which he found himselfe oblidged in honour and conscience providing that the Protestants would take armes with him and promise as he would do not to hearken to any treatie but jointly with him And thereto the Duke subjoines that this promise of assistance was his principal ingagement to arme What think you then Do not these words plainly enough denote both Religion to have been the cause and what was the Kings approbation of these wars Or if you doubt the French man's faith pray take but a view of Mr Rushworth's Collections as to this affair and there beside the confimation of what the Duke sayes I am perswaded you will find the King so express and the Parliament so cordial in their resentments of the wrongs done to these poor Protestants and in their readinesse to assist for their relief that you will be ashamed hereafter to scorn your selfe by such confident childish conjectures and distinctions But I am sorry that by reflecting upon the part of the French Protestants in that war as less just then the King of Britains you should have forced
me to a discovery which rendreth its event so dishonourable to our King's memory Having run thorow so many examples with such success as we have spoken you conclude And thus I have cleared the Churches abroad of that inâ—urious stain you brand them with But seeing I have so mamanifestly discovered your falshood and presumption in this matter I will not insult over this your folly You go on in the next place to our Britain and tell us of the English Reformation and how that it was stained with no blood save that of Martyrs and that indeed was no stain but as you do well correct your selfe its chief Ornament But Sir if the Reformation in other places were no less confirmed and rendred glorious by this zeal and testimony and withall the People by defensively resisting when in a sufficient capacity did evidence a greater and more universal constancy not versatile by every blast of Authority and ambulatory at Princes their pleasure doth it not rather augment then diminish their praise You adde That in England though a Popish and persecuting Queen interveened betwixt the first Reformation of King Edward and the second of Queen Elizabeth yet none rebelled And what then Pray Sir how or wherefore doth Scotland want that glory Sure I am that the Reformation being established in Scotland after a sharp war and by the way you may remember that Queen Elizabeth sided with the subject both by Pacification Authority and determination of a General Assembly yet we received Queen Mary from France a declared violent Papist without the least question anent her right of Government or any opposition moved against her until provoked by such weakness wickednesse as I am ashamed to mention Wherein then in this regard are we inferior to England unless it be that neither for the favour nor fear of a woman we were moved by any publict act let be by vote of Parliament as the Representative of that Nation to deny the â—aith and again take on theyoke of the Romane Antichrist Or how are you not ashamed to reproach your Nation with a nimious fervour specially upon this occasion wherein our worthy Reformers did make the Court complyance back-drawing and lukwarmness of a few temporizers their great and continual complaint In the next place you tell us that all that travelled the World can witness that we were not approven in our late rebellion and passing by Diodat Spanhem Rivet Salmasius Blondel Amerald de Moulin and others not named as all either in print or publick discourse declaring for you you say There was an act made by the Consistory of Charentoun that no man should be barred the communion for the Scots Excommunication except it were for a crime And this forsooth was a loud declaration of their disowning of our practice 'T is answered 1. Though you could give a account of the opinion of the Nations abroad concerning our late wars yet their judgement in matters so remote from their knowledge and wherein the favour generally born to Kings specially when so fatally unfortunat as Charles the first was is able to create in the most part very little inquisitive a very strong prejudice cannot amount to a testimony of any moment 2. That the more knowing among them did both by their Histories and other writtings also by their letters approve our proceedings might be very easily made out by an unanswerable condescendence nay that the generality both of Dutch and French Protestants did condemne the King's party and their practices I am certain none of these to whom you appeal in this matter can justly disown it As for Diodat and the rest you name why do you not eâ—hibite their words You say indeed for some of them very wisely and safely That they did only declare themselves in their Discourses and Sermons And for these I think you must be excused because you heard them not But for the rest I ingage that whatever passages you shall adduce from them on your part I shall redargue either their information in matter of fact or their reasons in matter of Right to the satisfaction of all unbyassed men Beside Salmasius is most exceptionable in respect he was imployed and got money in the cause and yet in the judgement of many though he had unanswerable advantages as to the main design of his defence he was even in that shamefully baffled And for Amerauld read but his own vain and ridiculous Dedication of his paraphrase upon the Psalmes to the King in the year of his restitution and I am certain you will allow us to think the want of his suffrage no prejudice to our cause Now for your act made at Charenton I confess your not producing of it doth the more dissatisfy because you represent it in termes little consistent viz. That the Scoâ—s Excommunication should not debar unless it were for a crime That you take a crime in this place in its larger acceptation for an offense and not in that more strict and proper wherein Lawyers use it it were disingenuity in me for to call it in question But then how Excommunication can otherwise proceed without the allegation of any crime as you seem to accuse us is indeed to me a difficulty inexplicable whereof I am sure our Church could not be guilty and therefore seing the Consistorie could not doubt that the Church of Scotland did hold an offense and obstinacie to be the necessary causes of excommunication for them to have â—lighted the tryal by us made and judged the particular grounds of our procedure not answerable to the general rule had been breach of Christian communion and charity whereof your naked assertion shall never make me think the French Church guilty withal yow know that the Bishop of Galloway whom you alledge to have been upon this act admitted to the Lords Table notwithstanding of his excommunication was excommunicate upon the accusation of clear crimes So that what you call a loud declaration on the Consistories part I apprehend to be only a loud calumny on yours But whatever be in that act or the Bishops admission upon his own information in opposition to all your vain pretenses of contrary Authorities it is certain that not only the truth and right was on our side but also that our practices were approven yea applauded and we therein encouraged by letters from several of the reformed Churches yet extant upon record But in the next place your N. C. Demanding it you undertake to tell him ingenuously what precedents there are in History for subjects fighting upon the account of Religion And the first you say that you know is that of Gregory the seventh arming the subjects of Germanie against Henry the fourth from whom other Popes taking example they made no bones upon any displeasure pretending alwayes some matter of Religion to depose Princes and liberat their subjects As you instance in Frederick the. 1. und 2. Lewes of Bavier and several others but the latest
John his base râ—signation exercise over England a particular authority that after the Reformation and the shaking of the papal voke the Oath of Supremacie was brought in to exclude all forraign Iurisdiction and reinstate the King is his Civill Authority That Henrie the 8th did indeed set up a Civill Papacie but the Reformation of England was never dated from his breach with Rome that the Oath of supremacie was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck Power or to make the power of Ordination of giving Sacraments or of Discipline to flow from the King that however because the generality of the words might suggest scruples they are explained in an Act of Parliament of Q. Elizabeth and in one of the 29. Articles and morefully by B. Usher with King Iames approbation And lastly since we have this oath from England none ought to scruple the words being sufficiently plain and the English meaning ours This is the full and clear account which you promise But who knows not these poor and insignificant pretenses King Iohn's resignation was indeed so base that by all disinterested it was ever held to be invalid and in after times scarce ever mentioned let be pleaded It is therefore the Pop's general tyrannie and what it was and whether abolished in these Kingdomes or in effect only transferred from him to the Prince that we are here to consider And I think I may take it for granted that you judge the Pope's exorbitant usurpation specially his assumming to himselfe not an external assisting oversight which we grant to be the proper right of Princes but by way of an intrinseck and direct power the sole and uncontrolable care of the Church her ministry and ministers with his arrogating an architectonick power in the ordering of Gods Worship so that in all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters therein proposed he may enact what canons he pleases to be parts of the Papal tyranny not only as in him but in all men under our Lord Jesus Christ unwarrantable and antichristian nay some of these are points of so high a nature that the greater part even of the members of the Romish Church do reclaim against them Now questionlesse if this power be to the Pope unlawful and incompetent all secular persons and Princes are therefore much more excluded in asmuch as the Pope being at least in shew a Church-man and according to the hypothese even of your Hierarchy the first Bishop of the westerne if not of the whole Church he is fortified by certain seeming pretenses of which the clame of civil Princes is wholly destitute To come then to our purpose that after the Reformation the Popish yoke not only as to the particulars above mentioned but also as to his forreign Jurisdiction unlawfully usurped over Church-men in civills to the prejudice of the King's Soveraignity was righteously shaken off and the King re-instated in his Civil authority over all Persons and also in all Causes in so far as they are committed to his royal direction and tuition is not at all denyed If that matters had here sisted and upon the abolition of the Papal domination the things of God and of Caesar had been equally restored who could have gain-said it But that on the contrary by the Pop's exclusion and in place of this righteous restitution the King under pretence of the vindication of his own Supremacy did procure to himself a very formal and full translation of what the Pope had not only usurped from him but arrogate from God specially in the things above-specified both the occasion of this change and the manner how this Supremacy hath since been exercised do aboundantly declare And for clearing the occasion it may be remembred 1. That the Peter-pence called in the beginning the King's almes imposed by on Ina King of the West Saxons was discharged by Act of Parliament in the reigne of Edward the Third and the contention anent the exemption of Church-men from the King's Courts most hotly agitate in the reigâ—es of Henry Second and King Iohn was composed many years before the dayes of Henry the Eight So that neither that exaction nor this old debate and far less King Iohn's most invalide resignation not worth the naming could be the cause of King Henry his acclaiming the Supremacy 2. The only motive that we find in History whereby Henry was instigat to reject the Pope and to declare himself to be supreme in causes Ecclesiastick aswell as civil was his purpose of divorce from Queen Katharine wherein finding himself abused by the Pope and his Legates their delayes he discharges all appeals to Rome appointing them to be made from the Comissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and from the Archbishop to the King and is thereafter first called by the Clergy and then declared by the Parliament to be Supreme head of the Church in liew of the Pope whose authority was abrogat by the same Act These things then being certain and you your selfe acknowledging that King Henry did set up a civil Papacy It is easy to determine that this change was not a bare exclusion but a plain translation of the Popes usurped power We know the Reformation of England was never dated from that breach with the Bishop of Rome But what then Can you deny that this was both the rise and establishment of the Supremacy which being transmitted to Edvard the sixth and then renounced by Queen Mary and again restored to the Pope was by Queen Elizabeth reassumed and so continueth untill this day It is true that after the breaking up of the more clear light of Reformation whereby not only Rom's Superstition bot also the Popes usurpation and tyranny in many things was upon better reasons rejected and especially after the succession of Queen Elizabeth to whose Sexe the former title of headship for all the smoothings that had been before used was nevertheless construed not to be so agreeable Many explications were adhibite for qualifying the Supremacy both in answer to the opposition of Papists and for removing the offence of the Protestant Churches But the truth is these explications though more sound in their grounds yet in their explication were nothing conclusive as to the present debate and their Authors arguing for the Supremacy from the examples of reforming Kings and Emperours acting not by vertue of an assumed prerogative but only from that extraordinary power which the necessity of the end upon the failzour of other midses doth measure out to Princes first and to others also if in a competent capacity did rather infer the justification of the work then conclude the approbation of the Supremacy notwithstanding it was therein imployed Nay while by these their reasonings they went about from such extraordinary interpositions only warranted by the exigence of necessity and the rectitude of the work thereby effectuat to establish to the Prince a constant setled authority properly conversant about these matters the argument is far more
absurd then if because a Governour may in a manifest incident disorder falling for example in a Family repone the Father and head thereof to his paternal oversight one should thence conclude to the same Governour a proper power and faculty of placeing and displaceing Heads of Families and appointing the Rules thereof at his pleasure Now that thus it fell out in England after the Reformation and that the same if not a more exorbiâ—ant power taken from the Pope was transferred and setled upon the Crown as a perpetual privilege thereof is in the second place by the manner of its exercise and its ensuing fruits veâ—y evidently held out For proofe whereof the office and actings of the Lord Cromwell as Vicare General appointed by Henry the eight over the spirituality though by the good providence of God ordered to be a notable mean for advance of the Reformation is an undeniable argument And as to the continuance of the same usurpation in order to other effects in themselves evill and not to be justified there needeth no curious search the frequent practices of after Princes laying claime to this power namely Elizabeth Iames and Charles in their ecclesiastick medlings but especially of his Majesty now regnant in his interposing in Church-matters and thereby overturning a true Gospe-â—ministry introducing a new model of Church-government absolutely dependent upon himselfe reviving vain groundless and antiqâ—â—â— ceremonies appointing and imposing new Religions Dayes and Forms And lastly giving Rules to Ministers their doctrine what points to preach and what to omit all according to the device of his own heart are an obvious demonstration which things are in themselves so evident that I strange you should accuse Henry the Eight of a civil Papacy and so inconsequently acquit al his Successors Whereas in effect they not only acted in Church-matters after the same method by him observed using the same prerogative in the grant of their High Commissions and in other acts which he exercised in his vicarious deputation but he is the Prince who waving his haltings upon the other side and considering the necessity there was at that time of an extraordinary remedy for the good things that he did seemeth to have employed their usurped Supremacy most excusably and also very advantageously for the promoving of the Reformation Bot you tell us that the Oath of Supremacy was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck power or to make the power of Ordination of Sacraments and of Discipline flow from the King It is answered seing the many evill effects of this Supremacy do so plaâ—â—ly evince its direct and proper tendency and its late explanation by Act of Parliament doth put its nature and extent beyond all controversy to tell us what at first it was or was not designed for is but a vain suggestion And therefore according to these â—urer grounds I must now tell you 1. That although the King not likely to be tempted by such an empty curiosity hath neither expresly declared in his own favour nor assumed to himselfe the exercise of this power of administration yet that by vertue of his Supremacy as it now stands explained he may do both or either when he pleaseth is not to be doubted I need not reminde you that any Church-power not acknowledging a dependence upon and subordination unto the Soveraign Power of the King as Supreme is abrogate and discharged But pray Sir he who may enact what he thinketh fit concerning all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters may he not if he think fit declare himself to have the power of the ministerial function Nay what may he not do But 2. admitting that this was not meaned by the Parliament in their explanation and that in probability the King will never affect the imployment yet that the intrinseck power of Government belonging to the Church both as to a Society of our Lords erection and by his express gift and concession is by the Supremacy taken away I beleeve it will be so far from being disowned that it is rather vaunted of as its principal end and advantage But referring the truth and evidence of this point anent the power of Government given by our Lord immediatly to his Church to what hath been very fully by others declared and is by me above hinted at I verily think that though we had no other argument save the sad changes that of late have ensued upon the usurpation of this Supremacy the usefulness and excellency of this intrinseck Government is thereby rendered apparent beyond the evidence of any further confirmation And really when together with the authority of its founder I consider the undeniable necessity and expedience of an internal power of Government in the Church as the most significant mean for making all its other gifts powers offices effectual And how much it is commended by the signal usefulness of a proper Government in every Society but more especially to our adversaries by that high yea sacred estimat which they so much inculcat of that Civil-government and all its punctilios whereupon their interest depends and when on the other hand I reflect upon the peâ—â—â—â—ous and woful influences that in all ages have constantly attended either the suppression or usurpation of this great divine ordinance I cannot sufficiently regrete that the pride ambition and vanity of men in setting up and advancing this Supremacy should be so sinfully subservient to the Divell 's great design of crossing the progress of the Gospel and propogating irreligion Which evil is the more to be lamented that nothwithstanding that our own experience of its wretched consequences doth evidently redargue this usurpation yet these men who in the matter of Civil government make every circumstance sacred and exclaime against the smallest innovation as if all confusion were imminent can and do in the business of Ecclesiastick government with a more then Gallio indifferency and coldness slight all its concerns in opposition to their carnal designes as questions of meer outward forms and the skirts and suburbs of Religion far removed from its life and substance Whereas it is very certain that eternal life and salvation the great end is not more preferable to temporal peace and outward tranquillity then our zeal for the government of God's House institute by himselfe in his Church in order to our everlasting welbeing ought to exceed our regard to Civil government which in this respect are but the ordinances of man in order to our temporal interests Nay so apparent is the lukwarmness hypocrisy of mens reasonings in behalfe of this Supremacy that though in the supposition that our Lord had by himselfe immediatly erected in any Kingdom a Society or incorporation with masters laws and a competent jurisdiction in order to some temporal advantage as he hath in the acknowledgement of all institute his Church with Ordinances Officers and Government suited to its great ends all rationâ—â— men let be the members of that Society would judge the
from the setting up of the Papal tyranny doth contribute nothing to your advantage And where you say that since the Reformation the Supremacy hath still been stated as one of our differences from them 'T is very certain that it hath been granted by all the reformed Churches that Princes may and ought to reassume their own power and Kingdome given unto the Beast in so far as in the times of the prevailing of the mystery of iniquity it was either by force extorted or by fraud elicite from them But that any King or Prince upon the pretense of recovering his own from the Pope should lay claim to all that he hath usurped either against our Lord or over his Church nay to more then ever any Pope did arrogate which is the case and import of your Supremacy is that whereunto I am confident no true subject of Jesus Christ and enemy of Antichrist can judiciously assent And therefore if in this we do more solidly soundly maintain the differences betwixt the Reformed and Popish Churches and while we assert our Lord's prerogative and his Churches priviledge against the Pope do not betray them to any other pretender we hope our differing from you aswell as the Papists in this matter shall only witness us to be the more upright defenders and no deserters of the Protestants plea and the truth of God Now this is That Supremacie which as I have very plainly and graphically represented without making use of Scolastick termes or distinctions in my opinion not more frequent then superâ—luous in a matter so palpable so I am confident that every one who hath that true understanding of the fear of God and the sincere love of our Lord Jesus will ever abhorre it with all its wicked effects But you in your crastines do not only make your N. C. cede as it were to your reasonings but in a manner own the late pretended Indulgence as flowing from the Supremacie on purpose to fix upon these few Ministers of ours who have been thereby restored at least a constructive approbation of this evill And thus you move your N. C. to say that he hopes you are so much for the Supremacy as not to quarrel at this Indulgence lately granted and by way of reply you tell him how good Subjects you are not to criticize upon your Soveraign's pleasure and how much more moderate then we who would not have received ann 1641 such a proposition from the King in favours of the Doctors of Aberdeen And from this falling to touch our opposing the readmission of Malignants to the Army against the Englishes you exceedinly please your selfe in your own well-natur'd compliance and would have even the jealousy and aversion which some of you have for this favour commend your submission as the greater vertue because against your inclination But not to lose time in these your trifflings the weak shadowings of your vain imagination to be brieff and round with you I differ from your N. C. and am so much against the Supremacy that I abominat the Indulgence under this name That God hath disposed the King to restore in any measure what was so sinfully taken away we account it a great blessing wishing that he may be in such manner satisfied with the fruits of this course as may more and more convince him of its righteousness and encourage him to its prosecution But if you or any els do think by this poor and scant restitution to bribe the Lords People to a consent to the rest of your usurpations and a more tame compliance with all the other wrongs and mischiefs that you have done and are still doing we trust the Lord shall deliver his own from so fearfull a snare And that as hitherto our Ministers have looked upon themselves as such neither of man nor only by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father so they will accordingly acquit themselves and in a special manner as they expect our Lords presence to be with them testify for his right and ordinance against all invasions and that so much the more as the hard condition of the present times hath in some sort ingaged them to a seeming allowance of which they ought to purge themselves in the first place As for your being better subjects to the King then we are we know indeed that many if not all of you either principally designing or els simply deluded by outward peace and ease do in order to this end not only acknowledge the King as Supreme but in effect adore and revere him as the most high and for the freedome of your persons and fortunes really enslave your consciences to his dictates But as this is a subjection no more stable and fixed then the mutability of that interest whereon it depends so it is a measure thereof for which we do neither envy you nor for the want thereof fear to be less accepted either with God or man Only let me tell you that I take your not criticizing upon the late Licence a thing though very hardly resolved upon and no better digested by your evill natures and foolish malice yet in it selfe most conducible and in its effect very advantagious to your ends to be so much the concernment of your interest as scarce to be a mark of just and ordinary subjection let be to furnish a complement to your slavish flattery But you talk to us also of your greater moderation O the impudence The Prelates having raged several years in persecution and violence against persons only chargeable with a simple not-countenancing of their evill courses to the ruining of a part and distressing of the whole Countrey and to the manifest hazard of turning all to Confusion a few of our Rulers more wise foreseeing the consequences are at length perswaded to a small relenting and in hope thereby more assuredly to compass their end of suppressing and extinguishing the party by them feared they resolve rather to allay and break them by pretended favour and seeming indulgence And this having succeeded more happily then either reason or sense can convince the ever-jealous and cruel Prelatick Clergie you would have us so stupid as to applaud you for your moderation as exceeding any thing by us practised But to convince you by the retortion of your own instance Will you or any knowing man affirme that if there had been no more of necessity and interest to plead for us then appeared in the behalfe of the Doctors of Aberdeen we had notwithstanding have attained to this favour For my part I think it may be demonstrate that had that freedome been used by us in open disputing and opposing which was permitted nay allowed to the Doctors instead of Answers and Answers to Replyes as they are termed we had certainly got Prisons and Gibbets And yet for all your calumnious alleageance that they and other worthy persons whom nevertheless you wisely forbear either to name or number were by us driven away by tumults and
most High not prostitute to mens lusts devices While I say you are still such what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness what communion hath light withdarkness And what concord hath Christ with Belial Or what part hath he that keepeth Covenant with him that avowedly breaketh it If these be schismatical insinuations we are very willing to be accounted such and do heartily imbrace the reproach nay if I should tell you that such are the nature and circumstances of the present defection that it doth not only enjoyne a necessarie separation from your pretended and corrupt Ecclesiastick Courts for eviting the sin that attends a conjunction but also a witnessing withdrawing to testify against backsliders I might as easily evince it both from Scripture-precept and example But may be I am too prompt if the termes that you are about to offer be as fair as is promised that is as can be demanded by any rational person no doubt they will satisfie all our scruples And therefore wishing that the event may redargue this apparent anticipation I goe on to your following promise viz. to give your N. C. at next meeting a full prospect of the state of the ancient Church and you doubt not to convince him that their frame was better suted for promoting the ends of Religion then ever Prebyterie could be Sir your performance is expected and for your encouragement I am free to tell you that though the improbabilitie of the undertaking may possibly give the world a disappointment yet it will be no surprise It is not the first promise that you have failed in upon more unaccountable reasons Mean while you forbid us to abuse our Soveraign's royal goodnesse nor the tendernesse of these he sets over us But this in my opinion is a superfluous caution the Prelats have taken a surer course to prevent your fears for such hath been their care to secure this goodnesse and tendernesse from our abuse that hitherto they have thought fit to keep it without our reach I know this will appear a hard reflection to some of your party who would have even the common air estemed his Majesties and us to breath it by his indulgence But a flattering mouth worketh ruine and the Lord shall cut off all flattering lips We despise not his Majesties favour nay we desire and long for it that it may come down like raine upon the mowen grasse But while there is so great a short-coming in the things which are right in the eyes of the Lord and righteous toward his servants why should flatteries deceive And thus we are come to your Conclusion of Prayers for and exhortation to peace love and charity a very expedient one to so bad a cause so badly managed your rebellion against God your usurpation against our Lord Jesus Christ the wrongs done to his Church and People by which your Prelats have got into the chair and in compliance wherewith you your self do at least find ease If they cannot be mentioned by reason yet may in a manner be secured by peace And no doubt the love and charity which you crave would go a great length I will not say with Iehu what have you to do with peace But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God And that ought to be unto you of more moment then if Iehu with all his fury and forces were at your heels But you are of that number who would have peace though you walk in the imagination of your own hearts nay you seduce this people and heal their hurt slightly by saying peace where there is no peace But if you had stood in the counsel of the Lord and had caused his people to hear his words then you should have turned them from their evill way and from the evill of their doings am I a God at hand saith the Lord and not a God a far off Can any hide himselfe in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord. I have heard what the Prophets said who Prophesie lyes in my name and do cause my people to erre by their lightnesse yet I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profite this people at all saith the Lord. As for the love that you desire should we love them that hate the Lord you know whose profession it was do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee And am not I grieved with these that rise up against the I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Neither are these the words of one only under the old dispensation which elswhere you are pleased to terme more carnal and fierie He who wished that they were even cut off who troubled the Church appeareth to be of the same Spirit Nay God who is love and perfect in goodnesse to all his creatures is neverthelesse a consuming fire unto his adversaries And our Lord Jesus who came in lowlinesse and meeknesse to seek sinners and dye for enemies enjoyning love as a badge and legating peace as his proper blessing to all his followers doth notwithstanding pronounce many a sad wo unto the hypocritical proud covetous in a word if as shamlessly irreligious Prelatick Pharisee Let us therefore above all things in the first place contend for the love of God and to be found and to abide therein This once purging our hearts from dividing and distracting lusts will only happily cement us by its own bond But if you continue your opposition against God perversion of his righteous wayes and persecution of his Saints you do in vain pretend to that peace which is the Saints their priviledge and without which outward peace is no better then one of these snares that the Lord raineth upon the wicked Your next wish is for charity and O! that it might be both your and our blessing in its full extent charity not rejoycing in iniquity but rejoycing in the truth would quickly produce a desireable Accommodation but this is not the charity which you study 't is like a charity thinking no evill of your evil doings beleeving all your imposings enduring all your usurpations and bearing all your rigours would please you well And at this rate the most violent irreligious persecutor would become your concurrent But we have not so learned Christ. It is a very easie and advantagious thing to men possest of their desires to wish for security in the peace love and charity even of their adversaries And yet we are not so short of rememberance as to believe that this was alwayes the language of your partie At first it was make a chaine the land is full of bloodie crimes and the city is full of violence and your cry was rase it rase it even to the foundation And when after much crueltie and blood your Prelats would scarce by the restraint of more safe counsel be taken off their eager pursuites how hardly are they prevailed upon even