ingage me into particular vindications I answer That seeing the plainness of truth hath alwayes been an unsufferable bitterness to all perverse spirits this your reflection doth not deserve any special notice if I were inclined to retort it were not more easie for me then evident to say in your own words and let all men judge if there be not a subtile poisonous malice in your few Dialogues above all the pretended bitterness against which you clamour But seeing these Writings that you here mention are not only too clearly warranted by undeniable truth but manifestly approven by Scripture-practice and almost stile in the like cases of backsliding and apostasy your charging them with a bitterness unsampled in any Satire hath a higher tendency then probably you did advert unto But you proceed and what cursed doctrine is it Naphtali broacheth concerning private persons their punishing of crimes in case of the supinnesse of the Magistrat Pray Sir what is it For really I am of the opinion that notwithstanding of your insinuat supposition the thing is only notour to your self We finde indeed that Naphtali respecting the order and subordination of ends viz. the glory of God in the first place the good of the whole Society wherein the safety of the particular members is included in the next place and thirdly the maintenance of Government and Governours for the procuring of these other ends doth accordingly determine the obligation and duty of Subjects and as from this principle both he and many others do in the case of intolerable and inevitable oppression allow even to the smaller part the right of self-defence so in the case of notorious Rebellion against God and perversion of his righteous lawes he by an inference as much stronger and clearer in this case then in that as the indearing importance of the matter viz. the Glory of God and the salvation of souls is greater then that of our perishing lives and fortunes and a manifest revolt from God and open overturning of his work is a more enforcing exigence then any necessity can be pleaded for self-defence the principal grounds of that privilege proceedeth to assert to these small or great few or many whom the Lord stirreth up in the ceasing and failing of other means the power and right of Reformation and thence by way of anticipation of an objection he goeth on to shew that the deed of Phineas may not be made a cavill and that the samine being only an heroick stretch of his more fervent zeal and not an extraordinary act by reason of any special express warrant may both for encouraging unto and justifying the like practices very justly be regarded as an imitable example but as for your blunt and uncautioned general viz. that private persons may punish crimes in case of the supinness of the Magistrat I am confident who ever peruseth that whole passage in Naphtali will find it no less calumnious on your part then it is remote from the account that I have exhibited Now if you remain still of the opinion that even the Doctrine by me acknowledged for Naphtali's is accursed when you shall have answered the reasons and Scriptures by which he confirms it and particularly the command given Deut. 13. v. 12 13 14 15. with the examples of Phineas executing judgment without legal process Saul's souldiers rescuing Ionathan from the Kings injustice Elijah killing Saul's Priests not by any special command mentioned in the presence of the King without his leave as the King himself narrates it 1 Kings 19 1. and Azariah with fourscore valiant Priests their resisting Uziah in his proud usurpation all of them less or more dependent upon the forementioned position it will be seasonable for me to reply It is true one oâ— your party hath been at the pains to survey Naphtali and particularly and at great length the points above mentioned whether with candor or with clamor by strong and sound reason or by carping wresting and falsifying sophistry I leave it to others to examine Only when I consider that where in the beginning Naphtali doth treate of thir mattâ—rs he doth it expressly and truâ—ly by way of narrative from the doctrine and practices of our first Reformers and that with a very observable caution and moderation and that when in the end he doth resume this purpose he carrieth on his assertion from most simple and evident principles by a very rational and peâ—spicuous connexion to the conclusion designed I do indeed maâ—vel at the method wherewith I find him treated but waving gâ—neral vindâ—cations seeing your whole party as well as your self do not a little talk of Naphtali his making use of that instance of Phineas and do think by the inferences which you thence make to render the truth odious it will not be amiss that I enlarge a little on this subject And first I say that the fact of Phineas appeares to me not to have been extraordinary or to have proceeded upon any particular commission to him given but plainly to be such whereunto in its then-proper circumstances any one of the Congregation was equally warranted and which in the like exigence hath still a laudable use for imitation If you inquire my reasons there can be none more convincing then the Scripture account of this matter Israel in Shittim joines himself unto Baal-peor and the anger of the Lord being therefore kindled the Judges are commanded to slay every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor yet the plague by this execution is not stayed and the whole Congregation are weeping before the door of the Tabernacle when behold even in there sight about such an exercise because of a destroying plague raging in the camp a man of Israel in his most impudent wickedness cometh bringing a Midianâ—tish woman unto his brethren which Phineas perceiving he riseth up from among the Congregation tanquam quilibet taketh a javelin and going in after the Israelite brevi manu in the very Act thrusteth both the man and the woman thorow and so the plague was stayed and the Lord saith unto Moses Phineas hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel while he was zealous for my sake among them wherefore behold I give unto him my Covenant of peace and thus Numb 25. Which the Spirit of the Lord again commemorating Psal. 106. Describeth in these words then stood up Phineas and executed judgment and so the plague was stared and that was compted to him for righteousnesse unto all generations for evermore by which Scriptures this deed in it self upon the matter agreeable unto a positive and clear command being represented as proceeding in the Author not from any special call from God or command from Moses whereof there is not the least vestige in the Text but from the alone impulse of an holy and fervent Zeal exciting him to stand up to execute judgment and therefore counted to him for righteousnesse c. If these be not the undeniable circumstances and
his most Voluntarie free and desired as well as commanded suffering is a Truth so high and precious and justly accounted inimitable in substance that I strange you should debase it by making it a part of your Argument when you know that Christ came into the world that he might freely give himself a ransome and that therefore he neither would be diverted nor use the flight which he had formerly both commanded and practised do you rationally argue that because he thus suffered so ought we to do or because he refused his Disciples endeavours of rescue that therefore Christians in persecution should neither give nor admit of assistance I grant that if God so order it in suffering we ought to imitate his patience 1 Pet. 2. 21. But what maketh this for you You insinuate as if his not commanding Angels to his defence had been a meere effect of his patience but as this opinion is not countenanced by the description thereof given by the Apostle in the place cited so I pray you hear our Lord himself Thinkest thou that I cannot which I am certain soundeth plainly May not pray to my Father he shall presently give me c. but hoâ— then shall the Scripture be fulfilled that thus it must be here then is the reason of our Lords forbearance presume not to fancie another But you say he forbad his Disciples to draw the sword in his defence whith a severe threatning for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword Take you this to be a threatning against the Disciples which for their comfort is so plainly spoken against the traiterous band that came against him upon whom also it was most dreadfully accomplished Thus Grotius upon the place though in the point of defence he be very inconsequent if you cannot understand it thus from the context I desire you onely to read it in a parallel application Rev. 13. 10. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword here is the Faith and Patience of the Saints are you not then ashamed to make it their threatning and fear Next you adde that what our Lord said to Peter my Kingdome is not of this world c. is so Plain language that you wonder it doth not convince all If I were to oppose confidence to confidence I should make no other reply then that this is indeed so plain language that I wonder what Conviction you mean but because this is the ground of your proud and vain boasting which you are not affrayed to seal with the veracity of God let us hear the words at length Iohn 18. where our Lord being questioned by Pilat art thou the King of the jews ver 33. returnes the direct Answere ver 16. thus My Kingdom is not of this world if my Kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the jews but now is my Kingdom not from hence In which words as he witnesseth his Kingdom so to remove the jews accusation and Pilats jealousie he declareth the quality of it viz. That it is not of this world that is a worldly Kingdom to be exercised as other Kingdoms of the world are in out ward power and splendour and therefore can neither interfeere with nor diminish Caesars Empire and grandour and this he confirmeth by a most plain and convincing argument If my Kingdom were of this world then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the jews that is if I designed a worldly Kingdom I would have gathered followers or rather according to the assistance mentioned by him at his first taking called Angels my servants to fight for my rescueâ— but since I imploy no reliefe but willingly give my self unto the death now is it plain that my Kingdome is not from hence Thus I have set down both the plain language and I hope the plain meaning of the place but whence it is that you derive your advantage I protest I cannot divine If the Lord prove his Kingdom not to be a worldly one because he imployed no aid for his rescue from the Jews doth it therefore follow that all persecute Christians should reject all assistance and deliver themselves up to suffering after the same example Are you not yet satisfied that the manner only and not the act of our Lords suffering is proposed to our imitation Beleeve me Sir I have been often serious to finde out wherefore this text is so much talked of by the men of your persuâ—sion but unless is be that men who would be content that Christs Kingdome were not in the World do love to hear a phrase so neer it that it is not of the World or that the great Devotionaries of ease without adverting to the reason and making an Emphasis in that which is a clear speciality would force from the words contraire to their plain tenour and scope this general Rule that his Servants fight not no not as they would read it for his rescue I could never attain to a better conjecture It comes in my thought while a writing that it is possible that in reading the words forward you may understand them backward As if our Lord in saying If my Kingdom were of this World then would my Servants fight had reasoned thus because my Kingdom is not of this World therefore my servants do not fight But seeing his Argument is evident as the Meridian Sun My servants do not fight for my rescue therefore I pretend to no worldly Kingdom the force of the inference is no more clear then it is certain that the spirituality of his Kingdome neither is in this place nor can be at all used to astrict his followers to his unimitable example in this his free and voluntaire suffering But because I am resolved to constrain you to an acknowledgement that the Non-conf Answeres to your Scriptures are neither irrational nor ridiculous as you alledge I shall enlarge a little more upon this subject Some men of your way say that seeing Christ doth here declare his Kingdom not to be of this World for the clearing of Pilat and all Powers of the Jealousies which such a thing might raise of necessity the inconsistencie and prohibition of fighting the great fear of the Princes of the Earth must be imported It 's answered our Lords answere is no doubt framed and suited to the Jews accusation which beyond question both in Pilats and in their understaning was his affecting an outward Kingdom in prejudice of Caesar and as of this he doth unanswerably purge himself and thereby fully satisfy all the just feares that could be objected so to imagine that his purpose was to remove all the false apprehensions and restlesse inquietudes which only the wickednesse and violence of Tyrannes do suggestâ— and thereby to gratify Tyranny is both groundlesse and impious But to convince you plainly that the spirituality of Christs Kingdom doth not restrain Fighting for Religionâ— I ask
and many excellent qualities of our deceased Prince and the dutie I owe the now King nothing else could refuge you from the full returnes of a just resentment Passing therefore the many horrid Blasphemies Lies and Reproaches wherewith your Clergie during these unhappie wars did not cease continually to proscind the Cause and People of God more precious to him then all the Monarchs on Earth and did most instantly labour to render both detestably hateful unto the Prince until they brought all to ruine I shall in a few sober words vindicat the Lords servants from all these umbragesâ— and appearances whereby you endeavour to set off your reproach That the late King by evil Counsel specially that of unconscionable and ungrate Prelats wickedly abusing for their own ends a Conscientious Prince unto a fatal obstinacie was precipitat into many grosse errours of Government such as an excessive indulgence to Papists illegâ—ll and violent exactions many unusuall and high attempts against fundamental Laws and Liberties a strange connivance at the Irish Rebellion and at length a bloudy and pertinacious war against his Parliaments his greatest and best friends and Counsellours it was not the invention of evil affected men or Ministers as you alleage but the sad evidence of plain deeds and the unanimous verdict of these most capable and proper to discern Now if in this state of things the Lords Ministers favouring his righteous Cause did endeavour by a true representation both to avert the People from and animat them against evil courses destructive to Religion and Right wherein are they to be reprehended You say they charged the King with all But know you not that as whatever passed upon the Kings side did beare the impresse of his Name and Authority so they did continually charge the guilt and wickednesse of all mostly upon bad Counsel praying the Lord uncessantly with much tendernesse to the Kings Person that the Wicked might be removed from about the Throne that so it might have been established And as to what you alleage That contraire to Humanity and Christianity they did Persecute the memory of that Prince after his death and that with the hight of insolencie and barbaritie in the presence of his Son who now reigneth It is a calumnie which you are not able to justify It s true they wished and moved the King to repent of his accession to and mourne for the opposition to the work of God violence and bloud wherein his Father was unhappily engaged and from which the Throne except by serious Repentance will never be purged If this be the Inhumane Insolent and Barbarous raking into his ashes which you lay to their charge you remember little and fear lesse the jealousie of God who â—isiteth the iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children to the third and fourth Generation Neither doe you consider that the stain of Bloud is such specially upon a Throne that the unfeigned teares even of the Author do not wash it away Ezrah and Nehemiah mourned and repented for the Provocation of Kings and Princes many Ages past without the least reflection upon their memories Seeing therefore that the practises whereupon you found these high accusations were altogether consonant to the Word of God and the Principles then acknowledged both by King and People and to which in Conscience we do and must still adhere doth not your apparent bearing with us in the main and yet so virulently inveighing against a clear dependencie manifestly discover more then an inveterate malice As to our Ministers their manner of reproving sin you say they reproved not in secret but triumphed in the Pulpit without controll and against absents and that either out of Malice or ostentation Thus the tumor raised by the poison of your last calumnie doth still swell and you forget that you your self are vainly triumphing in Print against a Mock-adversarie But as you cannot verifie that ordinarely or allowedly secret reproof was omitted where there appeared reason and accesse for it so I am confident your allegeance hath no better ground then that Ministers for the strengthning of the Lords people did freely hold out the Apostacie and wickednesse of his declared Enemies for whom such a reproofe had been but in vain intended In the next place you tell us that the Sermons of our Ministers were no Extraordinary things Sir I will not compare I am no lover of Extraordinary things but I heartily wish that such Preaching were now more Ordinary to believe and therefore to speak though with speach contemptible is certainly infinitly more gracefull then to speak even Seraphickly and in practise to counter-act There is a Foolishnesse of Preaching commended by Paul above the wisdom of man Whether you would value it as an Ordinary or Extraordinary thing I know not But this Epithet of Extraordinary which you seeme to desiderat is very little consonant to Luthers Opinion Hi sunt optimi ad Populum Concâ—onatâ—res qui pueriliter populariter quà m simpliâ—issime docent These are the best Preachers unto the People who teach in a plain homely and most simple way You adde that their Sermons were half stuffed with Publick Matters nothing concerning Souls Why do you Hyperbolizâ— so widely in prejudice of Truth You know publick Matters were not medled with but in a clear exigence and if some did exceed others were defective and these were the infirmities of both but you tell us That these things concerne not Souls This is a touch of your Convenient Religion Pray Sir are Publick Maters transacted without private mens accession or in this accession hath Conscience no concernment Nay are not the solid practises of Christianity such as the contempt of the World for the most part most necessaire and conspicuous in Wrestling with and overcoming the great and frequent temptation of a publick sinful course But O the rare temper of this New device that both inwardly elevats to the highest Spiritual abstractions and outwardly smooths to a most easie temporizing complyance You say further that the solid Practises of Christianity were scarce â—ver named and that vertue was little Preached by us and far lesse Practised but why do you make so little Conscience of truth Your often touching upon this string with the presumption of Common ingenuity which I have and desire to retain for all men have made me apply to all conjectures to find out your ground for this allegance but in the end I see it is a plain forgerie The Lord knows that I am far from boasting of former Practises but that in this so visible a change attending the present Establishment from the Generall restraint and aw of Sin that before did oblige even the most profligat unto a seeming conformity unto these confessed aboundings of all manner of profanitie which do now fill the Land you should have the confidence to sayâ— that vertue was by us little Preached and far lesse Practised is that which I am sure these of your own way
do laugh at and which if ever ye returne to the right way ye will weep at And yet you proceed to oppone to us our Saviours Sermons Particularly that upon the mount I will not contend with your Mockeries I wish that both yours and ours may reflect on short-comings and endeavour amendment according to that pattern Next you say That the true hights of Spirituality were as little preached as the living in abstraction silence solitude and the still contemplations of God the becoming dead to all things and being much in Secret fastings Sir you are so much upon your hights that you see nothing about you Pray descend a little and consider that your own Ministers are as great strangers to these fine expressions of yours and you and they to the things signified to say no worse as ours are and much more And in effect seeing that you only measure your self by your self you are not wise and this affected noveltie of words doth argue litle sincerity But if Communion with God fellowship with the Father and with his Son Iesus Christ a heart and conversation in heaven Christ our Life dying dayly victorie over the World and the like may relish with you in this if Courser yet Scriptural style our Ministers I am sure were not unfrequent in pressing of them and secret prayers and fastings also and I am confident their Ministrie hath a seal yet abiding which may witness that it hath not been unfruitfull I cannot follow you in your again repeated accusation as if our Ministers had only preached a Pharisaick observance of Ordinances and a bare relyance on Christ without obedience to his Gospel These are only your allegeances destitute of truth Your next charge is that our Ministers handled nice subtilties which they called Cases of Conscience But Sir as you grant that some devout people may be under doubtings and fears so in reason you must allow not only a privat application for their remedy but also Publick Doctrine both necessaire for prevention and conducible for cure that in this there was an excesse I believe few would have imagined unless you had said it Yet when I call to minde what men of Conscience the generalitie of your Partie are and how in effect unacquainted with nay declared Enemies to all tendernesse thereof if you had termed Conscience it self Melancholy Imagination as well as Cases of Conscience nice subtilities it had added but little to my wonder As for what you adde That it is unsufferable to hear people who led but common lives talke of such things It is a truth which I have often heard our Ministers assert as also that the best way of silencing all doubts is as you speak to act Faith renew Repentance study Holinesse Humility and the other great practises of Christianity Why then are you so Divisive as to object things to us wherein we do not differ But alas the reason is too evident the designe to render us Odious must be observed and pursued by all Arts And therefore when you cannot contradict the Power that appeared in and the fruit of Conversion and Edification which accompanyed our Ministers preaching Yet your eye being evil by carping hints at Methods and by unnecessary cautions you suggest the things which you have not the confidence to object Thus you bid your N. C. See that by Power he do not mean a Tone in the voice A Grimace in the face c. and by Conversion a change in Opinion or outward behaviour influenced by Interest But Sir as both in Power and the fruit of Conversion our Ministers have been througly made manifest amongst us so I must add for their Voice and Gesture that although some of them might have been rude in speach yet not in knowledge And if your better breeding and sight of the Scene have modelled your Tone and action above the rate as you phansie of both yours and ours you but the more marre its ridiculous gracefulnesse by undervaluing others And as for the Conversions attending our preachings many of them are tryed and cannot be blasted by your mocking I Grant some were proselyted in whom the Evil Spirit having by Apostacie re-entered with seven more they are become more the Children of the Devil then they were before but seeing they are now yours make them not our reproach Your next challenge is that wee termed our Preachings the word of God and you tell us that to call them so and yet to confesse that Ministers may be mistaken in them is a Contradiction But why do you not rather accuse us plainly for terming our Ministers the Ministers and Embassadours of Christ If their Preachings be not his message no doubt they are not his Embassadours and if they be his Embassadours how can you deny their preachings in his Name to be his Message These things have such an evident and convertible coherence that I am in a suspence whether to impute this passage to your mistake or not rather to a designe to subvert the Ministerie And as many of your way would have it to turne all Christs Preaches unto Royal Orators As for your Contradiction it doth no more impugne Preachings then Preachers for to call Preachers the Lords Embassadours And their Embassie the Word of God have the same appearance of inconsistencie with the infirmity of Mistaking wherein you phansie your repugnancie to lye the truth is then first that Ministers are the Lords Messengers Next that their Preachings in his Name and conforme to the Warrant of his Word have not only that derived Authority which the Scripture equally imparts to all Rational and sound deductions made from it but also a particular superadded obligation from the Lords Commission wherewith the Preacher is Ministerially cloathed whence it clearly follows that as all true Ministers their Preachings are in his Name and ought to be agreeable to his Truth so the Preachers their admixed mistakes are of no more force either to deprive Preaching of the name or these things therein that are sound and true of the special Authority of the Word of God then the accidental miscariage of an Embassadour to make void his mission in other things consonant to his instructions How unsound then is your insinuation that The text indeed is the Word of God but Ministers Glosses by which terme you mockingly understand all Preaching or Expounding the words only of fallible men as if a Ministers sound interpretation and application did pertake of Nothing speciall from the Character which he sustains whereas you know that not only his Mission doth impresse his words with his Masters Authority but hath also many and great Promises of a suitable assistance Having thus cleared the Common Cause of the Ministrie and that their Preachings when sound are from a special ground the Word of God That which you subjoin of Ministers their usurping this name to their Preachings by Way of Artifice that thereby they might procure the credite of the Infallible and Inspired
a Gentleman why may not the temporall honour of a Lord be as well put upon a Bishop Sir if you were as innocent of the vanity as you seem to be ignorant of the Nature of these titles Our controversie were at an end a Faithfull Minister truely minding his work values not himself upon points of Herauldriâ— to acquit himself as becometh an Embassadour for the Glory of Christ is all his ambition and truly honourable beyond the accession of all temporall dignity If it were not so I could further inform you that a Gentleman and Nobleman do not only gradually differ but are prorsus disparata wholly different The King wee say can make the one but cannot make the other I grant the privileges of a Gentleman are commonly supposed to belong to Ministers and decent civility may respect them as of that ranck but really there appears to me such a disparity betwixt these things and a Bishops receiving let be the usurping of the temporall and more eminent honour or Lord specially as above his Brethren that if a Minister as such should but tenaciously lay claime to the title of a Gentleman I would think it not only very misbecoming his Profession but a plain forfeiture of the pretended privilege But your N. C. urges to better purpose that Bishops should not Lord it over Gods heritage And you for Answere tell us That by Lording is meant a tyrannicall domination and not a tittle Next That Gods Heritage applyed by us to the Clergie is not in the Text bearing only not Lording over their Lots or Divisions to which you adde That Whatever argument we use to put down Bishops from being as Noble-men will also prove Ministers not born such not to be Gentlemen Sir to put this foolish trifling about titles first by hand Bishops neither are Noblemen nor ought to be esteemed quasi Noblemen because 1. The thing is altogether incompetent and the title without the thing is a vanity 2. Either title or thing as it exalts them above their Brethren is sinful and the very reverse of our Lords Command Whosoever will be chief among you let him be your Servant not your Lord. He that is chief let him be as he that Serveth not as a Nobleman How then can ye acclaime either thing or title 3. The title of Lord in its Ecclesiastick usurpation hath been and is so grossly abused by Church-men above all that our Lord reprehends in the pride of the Pharisees not only to the pretending to the uppermost roomes at feasts and the chiefe seats in the Synagogues but the chief places in States and the first banches in Parliaments not only to Greetings in the Mercaâ—s and to be called of men Rabbi Rabbi but to ride next to the Honours and be called Grace Grace that seriously I marveil how you or any Christian regarding our Lords express words can justify it That these reasons do not militate against the civil and ordinary respect commonly payed to all Ministers and men of any fashion without either a vain usurpation in the receivers or any other thing then that courteous mutuaâ—l preference commended by the Apostle in the givers which without falling into the ravings of the Quakers their austerity you cannot from our Lords words redargue I think it needlesse to resume Now you say that by Lording prohibite to Church-men a Tyrannical domination is only meant why do you thus offer to impose contraire both to the import of the word and tenour of the Scripture the word used by Peter is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the very same used by our Lord Math. 20. Whence Peter himself learned the Prohibition that it signifies not to Tyrannize buâ— simply authoritative Dominari to rule with Authoritie all Lexica attest Neither doth the proposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 import more of force then what doth more expressively denote and distinguish the dominion of Empire and Authority from that of propriety As for the tenour of Scripture that it repugnes to your exposition is manifest 1. Because that where Math. in this passage useth the compound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke doth indifferently use the simple 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as of the same import to the present purpose by which your gloss of a tyrannicall domination is deprived of all shadow of ground 2. Because our Lord by both words doth only prohibite such a domination and authority amongst his Disciples as was exercised amongst the Gentiles by their Princes and which they who were called their Benefactors did use over them but certain it is that neither was the dominion of the Princes of the Gentiles allowedly or commonly tyrannick nor is it our Lords purpose in this place to brand them with such a character 3. The positive Command plainly set down and enforced by our Lords own example is too evident to leave any man hesitant as to the Prohibition But it shall not be so among you but whosoever will be great among youâ— truely great in virtue and reward let him be your Minister Let him exercise the Ministery committed to him by way of humble and painfull service denyed to all worldly advantages and neither affect nor assume the Grandour and Authority of Civil Governours Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to Ministere and to give his life c. and made himself of no reputation contemning his Gentility and not valuing his Nobilitie but took upon him the form of a Servant Sir do we indeed beleeve that this is commanded and proposed for a pattern to Gospel Ministers And yet it is not only most certainly so but also undeniable that if there were in Ministers and Church-men that same Spirit of Obedience to God and love to Souls which was in him who accounted it his meat and drink to do the will of him that sent him and to finish his work and if they had the same eye and regard to the joy set before them which he had who is the Author and â—inisher of our Faith it could not be other wayes For my part I think a serious reflection on these things is not only enough to confound for ever the ease vanity and pomp of aspiring Prelats but to make the best of Ministers ashamed to appear so much above their Master even in their indulged honesties and conveniencies But 4. Because the place that you touch is taken from Peter see how it also agrees with that of Math. Feed the flock of God c. Not as being Lords or Lording over Gods heritage but as being Ensamples where it is evident that the adversative doth not only reject your Gloss of a tyrannick domination But by commanding rather to lead and instruct by example then to rule by Authority hold furth the same humble and simple Ministerie to be enjoined here which by our Lord was before recommended The next thing you answere is that Gods heritage applied by us to the
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
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
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
Innovations of Prelacie and the Perth Articles thereafter introduced were by this Oath condemned Notwithstanding that its obvious meaning doth abundantly import the same both in the particular abjuration of the Popes corrupt Doctrine anent the nature number and use of the holy Sacraments his unwarrantable dedication of Dayes and his worldly Monarchie and wicked Hierarchie and also in the generall detestation which it contains of all Rites and Traditions brought into the Kirk without or against the word of God And that the generality of the Godly in the Land did so understand it yet such was the tenderness then used that the practice was only at first agreed to be forborn and the determination of the Question for the gaining of the doubtfull and refractory referred to a lawfull Assembly Now if this Assembly in the light of the reasons already touched and others mentioned in their Act did clearly determine this matter and the Covenant was thereafter taken with an agreeable Declaration where can you fixe your challenge To alledge after an Oath is taken that to be thereby abjured which doth no where appear in it is certainly as false as the termes you use are scurrilous but to declare from undeniable grounds these things to be contained in a prior Oath which only the temptation and darknesse of an after-defection did make to be questioned is nothing els then a just vindication and application requisite to a faithfull pursuance and whereof the instance of Nehemiah his renewing Covenant with God with a more large declaration of the manner of the Sabbaths observance then is to be found in the Law is an undeniable warrant But reason failing your passion and big words must be made use of to supply that deâ—ect for you say what violence did we use to oblige all to bow on this Idole Church-men refusing were deposed yea both they and Lay-men also excommunicat 'T is answered A faithfull and zealous prosecution of the Lords Oath from the Conscience of his holy jealousie is only the just and laudable effect of his fear and no wayes to make it an Idol But seing you love such expressions to sweare and forsweare as your partie hath done without either constancie or repentance is certainly to make an Idol not of the Covenant only but of the Great God thereto invocked who infallibly will one day avenge it As for the Censures you speak of if the perfidie of that refusall with the other transgressions and delinquencies whereof the persons particularly censured were for the most part if not all notoriously known and found to be guilty be duely pondered they will rather be found to fall short of then exceed the proportions of righteousness And though I deny not but the heats prejudices and other temptations inevitable in such changes to humane infirmity may possibly have rendered the lot of some few and these very few recusants rather obstinate then malitious a little hard and apparently rigid yet this is most obvious that the late revolution hath so infinitly exceeded not only for iniquity but also in the measure of its oppressions all the excesses chargeable on former times that nothing less then an impudence sutable to the late perjury could prompt you or any of your partie to move such an objection but let us hear your conclusion What man of common sense can think this the Cause of God which had such monstruous errours in its first conception Sir though I think that in the matters of God you do appeal to an ill Judge yet I am so little diffident of the cause which I maintain that only wishing you to be more sparing in obtruding your own ridiculous delusions for monstruous errours I heartily referre our discourse to my greatest Opposite In the next place making a step of your N C. weak and groundless concession That there were faults in the imposing of the Covenant and taking it up at your own hand That the matters of the Covenant are in themselves indifferent you go on to argue that seing in these things a man is not his own Master but by the command of God obliged to obey the Magistrat in all things lawfull a tye before all Oaths as by no act of ours we can be bound to break the Command of God so no more can we oblige our selves to do any thing in prejudice of anothers right our Soveraign's Authority and therefore since the King and Parliament have by Law annulled the Covenant and required submission to Episcopacie our antecedent Oath a voluntary deed of our own can no longer â—ind us against the commands of the Powers which are the mediatâ— commands of God I have set down this argument of yours more fully to the effect you may perceive that if I have not so much of your common sense as to comprehend it as a clear demonstration yet it is not for want of a just and true apprehension but really from the greater evidence of the answeres subjoined and first I say your foundation fails the matters of the Covenant are not things indifferent but in themselves true righteous and holy importing such an antecedent obligation as in the occurrence of the preexistent circumstances did render the taking and requiring of that Oath an indispensable dutie And this when you think good to quarrell I am most ready to make out 2. Supposing with you that the matter of the Covenant is indifferent and that in such things the Magistrates power of commanding cannot by any Oath or deed of ours be prevented or prelimited yet Sir think you that your Omission must so farre charme us to oblivion as to make us forget that as King Charles the first did in plene Parliament An. 1641. under his hand-writing ratifie the Nationall Covenant with the explication and Bond thereto annexed and prior Acts made anent it with such solemnities and concurrent considerations as it is impossible to question it so his Son who now Reigns did in the year 1650. and 51. take and confirme both it and the Solemn League and Covenant with such Oaths Subscriptions as well private and unrequired as publick Declarations and Acts that greater grounds of assurance were never heard of amongst men if then this was the case of the obligation of these Covenants at his Majesties returne admitting all that you suppose dare you or any say that the King and Parliament had power either to resile or to loose others from the Bonds which they themselves had thus established If a Fathers silence and non-contradiction to a Daughters vowing and whose vowes he may disannull do make her vowes to stand so that he cannot thereafter make them void how can the express solemn and sworne confirmation of King and Parliament in favours of a Covenanting people with any colour of reason be thought to be either in it self ambulatory or toward others less effectual But 3 to undeceive you of the vain esteem you have for this argument the very grounds of it are manifestly fallacious For
destroy all liberty and render men in every Oath how free and voluntary soever obnoxious to the Magistrat's absolute control and plainly to ranverse both the freedom of making and necessity of keeping all vowes which nevertheless the Lord hath most expressly allowed and confirmed Sir as I have with you supposed the matters of the Covenant to be in themselves indifferent and taken this pains for no other end then to rectifie your Common sense and refell your pretended Demonstration notwithstanding of so faire a concession so give me leave again to remember you and all concerned that seing the matters in these Covenants were antecedently true and righteous and are now concluded under the great Oath of God your pitiful quibling upon the Kings power in matters free and indifferent is so far from licensing us to the least violation that though we do further unanswerably alledge his Majesties supervenient ratification yet it is more for your redargution then our own confirmation whose Consciences are by the former ground most satisfyingly established And here I might put a period to my reflections on this Dialogue seing that what remaines doth nothing convel these sure grounds whereupon we are founded but because in pursuance of your conceit of the Magistrats power of rendering the matter of Vowes antecedently free unlawful and thereby making their obligation to cease you in returne to the Question What could move the King to preferre Episcopacie to Presbyterie pretend to many strong inductives whereby you suppose the change to be undeniably authorized This calumny must also be removed And before I enter upon this matter I cannot but commend your providence who fearing that your allegations would be found false do prudently provide a refuge in the profound and recluse deepth of Princes their secrets which you think should put a stop to the inquirie which indeed neither you nor all men beside are able to answere but as the strange wickedness and folly of this Act is such as all the devices imaginable cannot so much as vernish it with any apparent colour and its consequences have been so pernicious as have left no Subject in the Nations unconcerned in their smart so I hope without the imputation of a mutinous curiosity I may take the liberty to tell you that it was not our Leaders which occasioned the work you hint at to the King's Grand-father his Father and Himself Art thou he that troubleth Israel is an old and royall accusation of the Lord's Ministers I wish the answer now a dayes were as improper as I am tender to use it we have not troubled Israel but thou and thy Fathers house in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and thou hast followed thy own inventions I need not put you in minde of K. Iames his engagements to defend the Gospel and maintain the true and pure Ordinances and Discipline of God's house and how he thereafter turned and corrupted his way by no less then a direct invasion of Christ's Throne manifest perversion of his Ordinances designed subjection of the liberty of the Gospel and its Ministery to his lust and pleasure and open persecution of many faithful Ministers and Professours These things if you were ingenuous you should rather have essayed to answere as being already objected and proven by others then provoked me to the repetition As to what you objecte from latter times I am sorry that by so rude and false an accusation viz. You involved the Nations in bloud and not satisfyed with all the security you could demand you engaged with the King his Enemies in England and opposed the design of his deliverie An. 1648 you should engage me to reflect upon a worthy but abused Prince all whose faults I think both may and ought to be buried under his mis-fortune but seing this you will not suffer I shall only desire you and others to consider these sad grievances which are elswhere undeniably cleared viz. 1. The Prelatick Tyranny and impositions of these times 2. The rage and fury wherewith they endeavoured to inflame and stirre up all against this Kingdome after that they had first constrained us to just defence 3. Their notorious and reiterate persidies whereby they rendered all securitie desperate And lastly the sin of that backsliding course 48. now so evidently unmasked by the 9 Act of the late Parliament 1661 which instead of delivering did visibly precipitate his Majestie 's sad fate these things are so manifest even from the publick Records of the Nation that I can not but admire the effronterie of your confidence that can so overly pass them But you add a Question In a word what jealousies had you justly raised in the hearts of Princes of your Government Sir I wish you had deigned your self with another word of answere for really I know none except these old and endless ones the temptation and sin of all worldly Powers against the Lord and his Anointed As for our Tyranny 1649. against the Nobility you should first have answered for their breach of trust 1648 But since they themselves have publickly by the Act above mentioned avowed it your charge of Tyranny against the moderately disproportionate censures then inflicted merites no answere In the last place you say our Ministers divided shamefully among themselves I grant and sinfully also though that all engaged were not equally guilty and this was a great triall but since that an excess of charity toward your party on the one hand and a sounder judgement of your principles or rather looseness on the other was the only cause of the difference is it not invidious in you not only to have dissappointed your favourers but to taxe the greater number whom you have since so fully justified as men of maximes incompatible with Government Sir this is the summe of the account you make us of the reasons of his Majesties change with what evidence the Reader and not you must judge If he miss your Sun in its Meridian and finde your light to be but darkness a more simple eye and heart may be both his satisfaction and your remedy If I might enlarge in a more full returne I could easily demonstrate that all things being considered both before at and since the Kings restauration his adhering to the Covenant and owning that interest had been not only his safety and peace but his most certain establishment and Glory if the favour and countenance of the most High the firme love and loyalty of all good men and the undoubtedly equal compliance and submission of the other parties may be fit media in such an argument the conclusion is obvious But lest you say art thou made of the Kings Councel Forbear leaving events to God I shall be silent Having all along endeavoured to burne in the close of this Dialogue you go about to blowe us I am not for triffling with you in such unsincere and mixed complements the Lord purge both you and us from all dross and restore to
Religion requiring both heart and mouth the reasonableness of our service consisting in their Harmony the practice of the Lords people in all Ages the frequent examples every where in Scripture the experience of every serious Soul yea the common reason of all men redargue the gross absurdity of such a perswasion Were David's Thanksgiving 1 Chron. 29. 10. Solomon's Prayer 1 King 8. 23. and Iâ—hosaphat's Supplication 2 Chron. 20. 5. all without Book or Set-form only extemporary heats Are the praying Psalmes with all the exercises of the Lord Servants in the Nynths of Ezrah Nehemiah and Daniel and in other places clearly flowing as the Spirit gave utterance without any taught frame of words frisking fits of the Fancy Was our Lords Prayer Ioh. 17. only a sensible servour 〈◊〉 Sir I would rather suppose that although your airy discourse hath wildly seduced your observation yet your heart abhorres such impiety I will not therefore insist on the advantage which this your laxe inadvertencie so fairely offereth nor shall I content my self with this obvious retortion that where one instance can be given of conceived Prayer only managed by Fancie and subsisting in its vain exercise thousands may be found of persons through the practice and custome of Set-forms habituate to a most lifeless and superstitious mummery more suteable to the worshiping of stockes and stones then to the service of the true and living God Nor lastly will I vex you by shewing that the distinction which you make of praying by the Spirit and by words is so impertinently by you applied to our present purpose that though you endeavour thereby to impugne extemporariness multiplicity and variety of words in Prayer yet it plainly concludes all words to be superfluous for seing that in opposition to the spiritual worship of God which we contend for you tell us that we may pray by the Spirit use we words or not and that spiritual devotion is a still inward thing Is it not evident that all outward Forms whether set or extemporarie are thereby rejected But freely waving these your lapses that I may come more closely to the present purpose it is to be considered that the right and true worship of God is certainly inward in the minde will and affections God who demandeth the heart doth thence expect that tribute of reverence love fear acknowledgement and praise which in his sight is acceptable and all other outward performances as they ought to be the sincere expressions and significations of this internal devotion so they are wholly and only regulable by the prescriptions of Divine appointment If this truth were as seriously heeded as I am perswaded it is fixed and constant both by you and me our controversie would soon be ended The Question then is not concerning the life and truth of internal Prayer wherein without doubt the spirituality of that exercise doth principally consist but seing that you and we are agreed that God whom we serve is to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth the debate is anent the manner how this worship specially when Publick is to be performed Whether in set and imposed Forms or as the Spirit giveth utterance Or if for preventing mistakes you please to take it at greater length whether it be lawful for men to compose and impose Set forms for Prayer and Worship and thereto to astrict the People of God in their performances Or whether it be more agreeable to the will and service of God that prayer and worship which are to be performed inwardly in the liberty and truth of the Spirit and understanding in their outward expression be left to be managed by the free and sanctified use of the rational faculty for that end given and in many observably gifted By which state as you may easily perceive that I do allow not only the antecedent improvement of the expressive power by all warrantable aides and advantages but also the free using upon occasion of such words as others have formerly either dictated or made use of Nay even in so ne cases of several of you Set forms both which I conceive are very consistent with praying by the Spirit either as by you or by us defined So the precise point controverted and to which I would have you all along to advert is anent the imposing and astricting which I plainly judge to be both destitute of Divine warrant and contrary to the liberty of spiritual devotion and so repugnant in both qualities to that Worship in Spirit and Truth which only is acceptable But before I proceed to a confirmation there occurre some mistakes to be removed one is of some of your way who defining praying by the Spirit the uttering of such petitions as are immediatly suggested both matter and words by the Holy Ghost hold it for a Gift proper to the Apostles and their times and now ceased thus the English Debater and your own headless allegeance that extemporarie Prayer cannot be called praying by the Spirit unless we also call it infallible doth also coincide But seing by your description above mentioned you do allow of praying by the Spirit as not yet ceased and do thereby very justly understand rather the Grace then the Gift of Prayer although even the Gift where it is as it may be without the Grace may also have the name of praying by the Spirit and seing that both the Debater and you I suppose would be offended if any should affirme that no man using the Service-book-forms could pray by the Spirit I only add that as the Spirit is the great promise of the Gospel its Grace the life and its Gifts the strength of all Christian duties so praying by or in the Spirit can no more be impugned for want of infallibility then any other good work of the same Spirit in us denied for want of perfection But who would not pitie two Doctors of the Church either so disingenuous or unable as not to distinguish betwixt the Spirits ordinary measures and extraordinary assistances The next mistake is that reflecting upon the greater exactness of phrase attainable in a Set-form above what can be expected in an extemporarie work and commending the propriety conciâ—neness and gravity that may be in the former in respect of that rudeness incohesion and levity supposed to be incident to the latter you exaggerate the comparison as if the whole stress of the debate did ly in this point whereas he that duely considereth will not only finde your Forms at best to be but humane and imperfect and that the Gift of Prayer promised if duely improved in and with the exercise of the Grace is farre more likely to furnish sound savory and acceptable words then these jejune and lifeless composures for framing and enjoining whereof men have no promise of the Lords assistance And lastly that the whole word of God and the excellent patterns therein recorded with many other helps are at hand and allowed by us by way of Directory but he must
also grant that it is not our choice but the Lords own prescription which he doth accept Suppose your Forms were as much better then our conceptions as a Mans First-born is preferable to the beast of the field yet if not required they cannot come up with acceptance on his Altar and therefore I conclude that however the sincere Users may finde grace in his sight yet the peremptory Imposers cannot be innocent A third mistake is that because in the use of certain Set-forms a man may possibly pray with deep spiritual impressions and high elevations Nay the sublimest acts of communion with God may be expressed in the simplest Forms such as Thou art my God therefore you conclude that sâ—inted Forms are more suted to true spiritual devotion then the multiplicity and variety of words in an extemporarie exercise which do lead out and do too frequently only excite a phantastick transient pleasure almost evanishing with the sound wherewith they are pronounced But seing that the variableness of the condition of a militant Viator can hardly be defined much less the free actings of the Spirit in such exigences confined to any prescribed Forms and that the more Seraphick raptures of Divine contemplation do therefore subsist in few and plain words because above the reach of expression it is undoubtedly certain that neither the right use-making or rather agreeableness of certain forms to very sincere and serious devotion nor the simplicitie of words used in the nearest admission of heavenly fellowship do at all remove the unwarrantableness and inconveniencie of the restraint of Set forms when under the necessity of an imposition As for what is insinuate of these fancical heats and pleasures wherewith words ex tempore may possibly delude it is only an accidental inconvenience from our corruption and by the faults of your imposed Forms infinitly overballanced as I have already shewed These things being thus cleared for confirming of my assertion against your stinted and imposed Forms I say first That these impositions are peccant against the Truth of Gods worship because the samine requires his own express warrant and prescript It is in vain to worship after the commandements of men the service which he requireth not he abhorreth Will-worship is an abomination But such is your imposed and commanded Liturgie if now what doth the Lord require ought to be the serious reflection of every one that draweth near unto him if in all things commanded we ought to be circumspect without adding to or diminishing ought from it If the Lord did most exactly define the manner and every rite and ceremony of the legal Sacrifices and service yea every pin of the Tabernacle with the whole contrivance and orders of the succeeding Temple if strange fire made use of even in an offering to God be so severely vindicat and the erecting of another Altar then he had appointed even for his Sacrifices what can we conclude concerning your imposed Forms and the manner of that service which you so arbitrarily enjoin That they are of farre greater moment in his Worship then many of these things about which we see his holy jealousie to be so attentively conversant commonsense doth evince how then can they be receaved without his warrant without which all humane devisings are rejected Say not that the rigor of this strictnes was a part of the old legall bondage for granting that it may be so as to the particular manner of that dispensation yet you are so farre from being thereby helped that as I have formerly shewed that the burthen of the things by you imposed stands manifestly convicted by our Gospel-liberty so the immoveable principle that in his Worship his own prescription is the alone warrant of acceptable performance doth equally redargue the presumption of your imposing in whatsomever model without his Command But it may be objected that seing our extemporarie Prayers are as well a part of Divine Worship as your stinted Forms and that as to the frame of the words the former can no more yea rather less then the later pretend to a congruity to the word and will of God the argument from the unlawfulness of Will-Worship doth militat more against us then you 'T is answered If the question in this matter were only whether Set-forms or extemporarie straines may possibly be composed with the greater consonancie in words unto Scripture-phrase the objection might have some though in respect of what I have already touched of the promised gift of Prayer very little weight but seing our debate runs clearly concerning the manner how the true and Spiritual Worship of God is to be externally performed If the Lord whole alone it is to prescribe in this matter hath in a just congruity to the liberty of his own Spirit left it to the night and sanctified use of the rational expressive facultie and the due improvement of these helps and promises wherewith he hath instructed us for man vainly to arrogat a better contrivance in his devised impositions is an intolerable presumption and therefore though the conceived as well as the stinted Prayer be a part of Gods Worship Nay though this as well as the other singly and sincerely used may be accepted yet seing the Lord hath allowed the liberty of the former and doth not at all require the obligation of the latter the imposing thereof must of necessity be repute and cast as an humane invention I need not stay to resume that conceived Prayer for the reasons above mentioned and in respect of the promised gift and assistance of the Spirit whereof the composing and commanding of Set-forms is destitute may probablie be and is often found to be the better phrased Nor shal I tell you that the manner thereof is so undoubtedly the more rational genuine and lively that if even those of your way could be perswaded that men were sufficiently thereto qualified they would easily grant the imposing and use of Forms to be less necessary it is enough for us that the Lord who knoweth the best of our performances in whatsomever sort to be but lame and imperfect hath both allowed and accepted of our extemporarie petitions whereas your injoined Forms are no where required 2. I say that the imposing of Forms impingeth upon the Spirituality of Prayer and Worship That which boundeth and restraineth the free Spirit of the Lord in the motions and breathings whereof the very life of prayer doth consist impingeth upon the Spirituality of Prayer and Worship But so it is that the imposing of Forms restraineth and bindeth up c. Therefore c. That the Spirit of the Lord whereby his people especially in prayer are guided and acted is free not only in its gift but also in its operations both Scripture and experience do teach The winde bloweth where it listeth c. and so is every on that is born of the Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty not only from the bondage of corruption but
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
the other Nay as we know the expressive facultie where the organes are not impedite to be alwayes more or less subservient enough to the mindes conceptions so notwithstanding that the Gift and Grace of Prayer be certainly distinct yea in such sort separable that the gift may be where the grace is wanting yet seing the Gift is promised and given for the help of the Grace at lest in general for that in particular Persons the gift may be found without the grace for helping of the grace in others is not refused it is scarce to be supposed nor can it be easily instanced where one in whom the Grace was found was totally destitute of all measure of the Gift I say of all measure for that many have had the Grace without that eminencie of the measure that men do ordinarily terme the Gift cannot be denied but the thing to be principally here adverted to is that we judge not of the competencie of this Gift according to mens too frequent estimation That the mixtures of that wofull vanity from which of all vices our minds are most hardly purged occasioned by a just aversion of Forms ill framed and worse imposed have too far altered the ordinary Rule from sincere and acceptable simplicitie is too true a regret certainly if men were more denied unto their own wisdome and more surrendered to the conduct of the Holy Ghost even for the words which he teacheth both the ungodly scorn of many mocking at apparent weaknesses and the pretended modesty but reall vanity of others their self-diffidence and lastly our true and undeniable insufficiencies for a suteable utterance in Prayer would soon and happily be corrected But 3. admitting that most men were more unqualified and worse furnished then really they are for conceived prayer pray Sir what doth your imposing of Forms help the matter That the representing of Forms and other Rules by way of directorie may conduce for instruction will easily be agreed unto but that the imposition wherein the evill of your way lyeth addeth nothing by way of help but on the contraire is a presumptuous prescriving in Gods Worship a manifest restraining of the Spirit of Grace and Supplication and plainly injurious both to the exercise and improvement of the Gift of Prayer is not less obvious to every ones apprehension then by the arguments adduced evidently evinced Having thus discussed the first part of our present debate anent the imposing of Forms in general The second part whether that Systeme of Forms contained in your Service-book be not for not a few of them unfound and impertinent and not to be received so much as for a Directory remains yet to be handled But since it is a little after that you are pleased only to give a touch on this head and that the samine on our part hath been fully spoke to by such who by their examinations and anatomies have abundantly discovered both the Errors and Superstition which your Liturgie contains I proceed to answere what remains of your reasoning And 1. You lay it down as a ground that in opposition to your Forms we hold spiritual devotion to be only the using and pouring out of unprescrived words as if that were all required Which is altogether false and ridiculous seing it is evident that as no prayer is acceptable unless made in the Spirit so we therefore call our way spiritual yours formal in respect that ours is suted to the liberty and made dependent on the Spirits direction whereas your impositions do both restrain the Spirit and are plainly a humane invention 2. You say That it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to Worship God in simple and constant Forms But 1. That this doth indeed import more spirituality then the imaginative straines of these who only flow and are fervide in words and are not fervent in Spirit serving the Lord which is the very summe of your discourse is no more certain then impertinently by you insisted on 2. That the elevations of Spirit may sometime surmount the faculty of expression as I have already touched is as little to your purpose 3. That it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to Worship in a set-form then in the same inward frame to be able in free and Spirit-directed words in a more full and lively manner then any stinted Forms can pretend to expresse our prayers and our praises unto God I utterly deny And am very confident that when you attain to the experience you will be farre from thinking that this is a multiplicity which doth lead out 3. You say that if extemporarie prayer be by the Spirit it must be infallible But poor man do you not consider 1. That the Spirits direction and out imperfection are not incompatible 2. That this doth as much militat against spiritual prayer in and by your humane Forms which you so much magnify and yet they are neither perfect nor infallible 3. I have already told you that the Spirits extraordinary infallible assistance and ordinary presence and direction are most distinguishable 4. You your self plead that as we affirme that the people may join with the Minister and Pray by the Spirit though the words be not of their framing so the Minister may also pray in the Spirit though he use words framed by others and yet you know that neither the one nor the other are infallible 4. You say If one should with a short-hand follow his prayer whom we say prayes by the Spirit then may not that prayer be used over again Or is the Spirit in the prayer so volatile that it evaporats in the saving Really might I be free without offence I would tell you my fears that both your Reason and Religionare evaporat art thou a Master of Israel and askest such questions do either we affirm that praying by the Spirit doth consist principally in the conceiving of words so as another using but not conceiving the same words cannot pray by the Spirit Or do you imagine that the Spirit in Prayer is in the dress and form of words so that whoever doth use them doth pray by the Spirit And seing that both members are groundless what can your question import What it is to pray by the Spirit we have already heard which as it doth not impede why a man may not possibly join and pray in the Spirit though in the words of your Forms when uttered by the coldest Form alist so neither is it by us tyed to the conceiving and expressing of words nor doth a mans praying by the Spirit yet in words either composed or uttered by another in the least impugne that spiritual liberty in orall Prayer by us asserted against your unwarrantable impositions which liberty consisting in the unconfined use of words left to the Spirits direction as it is most agreeable to the freedom of the Spirit and our rational service which the Lord who requireth it hath not astricted unto Forms so in respect of your
both to have been and to have continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have lift up their voice and that one voice in the same extemporarie words to God in Prayer and Thanksgiving but do also subtilly and profanely take advantage from escapes incident to humane frailtie to proclame the same as gross abuses and thereupon scoff and mock at the heartie and spiritual Prayers of the Upright wherein the Lord delighteth I hope your own vanity and folly shall reprove you But 3. as attention is requisite even in the publick use of your Forms and in our way is attended with such advantages that do both render it sweet and easie and fully secure the conduct of our devotion so by your course it not only happens that oftentimes the attention is sore put to it and perplexed as you objecte to us but the very Rule of devotion is made altogether insecure and uncertain for proof of this there needeth no other Argument then that you observe these Forms lately added to the English service that these were as uncouth to the People at the first hearing and required as great attention as our extemporarie conceptions is clear and obvious But seing beside this the People are put to join in words they know not by whom framed and for the composing and commanding whereof their appeareth neither precept nor promise in Scripture that their attention in this case must be more exercised and their devotion in more hazard to be distracted then when they join with him whom they judge to be appointed by the Lord to be their mouth to him-ward and on good grounds suppose to bâ— instructed both with the knowledge of their condition and the Rule and Spirit whereby he ought to make the samine known in supplications unto God is beyond contradiction neither is this the only inconvenience of this sort in your manner there is a Court-practice that I could tell you of how the King pro re nata useth to issue out a Form of Prayer either for his own Chappel the Citie-Churches or further as he pleaseth to extend his orders and if these novell prescriptions be not more chargeable to the attention and disturbing to the devotion then any thing in our way nay if it be not a Method as dangerous in its tendencie as destitute of warrant let men judge But this is the Supremacie too high for you to have remembred 4. If there were a greater exercise of attention in our way then in yours yet when I consider that attention if not surcharged or confounded doth certainly tend to the quickening of the devotion and that on the other hand by the coldness of your stinted Forms both the attention is for the most part wholly slackened and the devotion deadened the instance you make of a few serious it may be but weak and peevish persons of your partie professing a great stayedness in the use of Set-forms whereas in extemporarie Prayer they could not keep their minde from distraction doth neither impugne these more lively and powerful devotions whereunto the Lord and not man hath ordered our Methodâ— nor in the least doth it counterballance these myriads of dead Formalists whom your way doth burie in utter securitie and irreligion In this place you tell us by way of wittie discovery that the way of extemporarie Prayer was well devised for spreading of Error or Sedition in respect forsooth that Ministers prayed over their Sermons so that what in the discourse seemed the words of man in the Prayer was called the dictat of the Spirit But Sir darre you or any man deny that extemporarie Prayer was the first manner of mens calling upon the Name of the Lord Are you not then ashamed to talk of it as a late device 2. How come you to suppose that words in Prayer spoken by us to God may rather seem the dictat of the Spirit and more speciously seduce nor the same words delivered in Sermon in the Name and as the word of God Certainly admitting you had forgot that you did already upon this very pretext endeavour to devest Preaching of this Authority yet common sense might have told you that in this there could be no deep artifice But 3. Wherefore may not a partie given to sedition or error devise and compose Forms to the same purpose and with more success If Forms be but of humane invention and if as you suppose they be more weightie and impressing then extemporarie words it is obviously evident that they furnish a far more advantageous opportunity to this your excellent devise I might confirme this by telling you how much this Method hath been made use of and prospered for the propagating and establishing of many errors and superstitions in the Romish Church but a nearer and latter instance of that piece of Herauldrie blazoning the Kings Titles and Prerogative very irreverently and undecently to God foisted in by Act of Councel in your Church-prayers for inculcating and advancing the exorbitant Supremacie may satisfy the world that your evill and vain conjecture against us was suggested by your own practice After the false and calumnious charge of gross abuses incident to our extemporarie Forms given in by you with much pretended tenderness and insinuation as I have already touched you N. C. Answeres that we had a Directory of the things we should pray for Which no doubt if you had been pleased to propound it in its â—ull latitude viz. That the whole word of God many other instructions and forms thence drawn and delivered and left to us by godly men with our own publick Directory and these of other Churches and lastly that the teaching of our Parents Masters and Pastors are all given to us to guide us and assist us both for matter and words in the prayers we ought to make And if you had understood it aright viz. that seing the rule in our way is as certain though not so stinted as that in yours and that our Ministers appointed to be the peoples mouth in publick Prayer and Worship are not only tried in their utterance for preaching but also for prayer And lastly that any material aberration is as discoverable and censurable among us as among you you might have been fully satisfied that neither the infirmities nor abuses of men are chargeable upon our manner of Worship nor doth your peremptorie imposing of Set-forms more secure the matter from the like and greater enormities But being resolved to carp you say why may not we have a Directory forwords as well as things 'T is answered 1. A Directory for things to be prayed for is no doubt a Directory for words also if the things be fully directed the application of words the known signes can have litle difficulty 2. The directory distinctly and particularly ordering the method and condescending upon the heads of prayer with as much exactness as the latitude to be reserved to the free grace and gift of God
â—hew the words and sentences of the Lord's Prayer to be therein disorderly found for so no doubt a good Christian prayer might almost be said to be taken out of the Alcoran but even for evincing that our Lord did respect them so much as Directories you must make out the whole context of his Prayer to be formally found therein But you add that Though the Aposâ—les and others immediatly inspired might pour out extemporarie Prayers it doth not follow that every one may use the same liberty Who would not pitie this folly If infallibilitie be required in our extemporarie methods wherefore not also in your Set-forms But seing the Apostles were only the better assisted and not singularly privileged to pray ex tempore by their extraordinary Gifts and if the same command of God and promise of the Spirits assistance are still with us for our warrant and encouragement to this dutie your argument here insinuate is emptie and inconcludent and in effect doth as much prove neither the Apostles their Preaching nor Praying to be at all by us imitable as the point you aime at Your next Argument for Set-forms you usher in by the instance of the Corinthians who in their Worship used Hymnes of their own composing as well as prayers and then you adde that you could never comprehend why we allow the Spirit to be restrained in Praising as to words and not in Praying Sir whether you preface the custome of the Corinthians for enforcing your imposed Forms or as the reason of your doubt anent the difference used by us in Praying and Praising doth not appear from your words However as it is evident that in that Church there was rather an exuberant liberty then any thing like to your stinting so our practice and theirs shal soon be reconciled but first let us take your N. C. Answere to your main scruple and he and I tell you that because the Psalmes and Scripture-songs are a collection of Praises dictated by the Spirit of God for Worship and have been so made use both by the Church of the Iews in the time of the old Testament and by the Christian Church in all Ages therefore they are used by us to the same end without either restraining the Spirit in the performance seing it is his own appointment or tying all our praises to these Forms seing God hath thereto only tyed our solemn praise by singing and otherwayes left and allows us a furder liberty To your N. C. part of this answere you reply that never were more absurdities crouded in less bounds And if I may also anticipat I am certain there were never more profane and ignorant fopperies stuffed into a return then in that which you here do make And first you say it is clear we may worship in the Spirit and yet be restrained as towords since we acknowledge that God hes done it in praising But waving that which I have already plainly and so often told you viz. that it is the imposing of men and not the free use-making of Set-forms that we condemne how absurd is it for you to alledge that a man worshipping in words prescribed by the Spirit is in so doing restrained in Spirit Could you not advert that the Spirits prescriving and mens are different and that he prescriveth to himself without any restraint 2. You say there are many Psalms prayers and why may they not be used for constant prayers as well as the other for constant praises Nay why for instance may we not use the 51 Psalme in plain words with a plain voice as prayer as well as in hobling rime with a Tuneâ— 'T is answered That I may first take out the waspish sting of your Mockerie is this the tender respect that you profess p. 70. to every thing that relateth to Gods service to call the Psalmes in meeter used both by you and us hobling rime or is your Poëtick vain so nicely delicate that you can endure no verses inferior to your loftie Pindarick Which yet if Criticks mistake not doth trote more rudely and lamely then our hobling meeter for my part I see not what answere can be given to these Questions save this that it seems both your tenderness and poesie are but false and forced But to the purpose 2. I answere that the Psalms-prayers and particularly the 51 Psalm may in plain words with a plain voice be used in Prayer as Prayer if so be the Spirit do so direct our utterance but if by constant prayers you mean that the Praying-psalms may as well be imposed and enjoined for prayer as the other for praise you want the warrant of the Word and Spirit of God who hath appointed the whole Psalms to instruct our praise but not to regulat our prayers and so you widely miss your marke But here you insinuat two difficulties 1. How we come to sing Psalms-prayers and this you afterward enlarge by demanding our warrant for using all David's Psalms since many of them relating to particulars of Davids life belong not to us Others of them are imprecatorie hardly to be sung and many things there are in the Psalmes which we understand not and lastly there were not above twentie of the Psalms used by the Jews in Worship To this it is answered that being commanded we sing Psalms-prayers not with direct thoughts suted to the strain of Prayer wherein they were first framed and said before they were appointed to be sung but with a reflexe acknowledgement of the goodness and mercy of God the hearer of Prayer who both turned the Authors mourning into a song of gladness and hath appointed it to be so used by us that we may be encouraged and praise him in the like hope if in almost all Psalms of Praise we finde the preceeding distress and afflictions with the prayers and groanings therein made first pathetically commemorat as the ground of the ensuing praise for the deliverance is it not easie to apprehend how that a small reflection might after the Lord's reliefe have made the reciting of a Psalm wholly of lamentation the most exulting expression of the delivereds joy and may commend it to us to the same purpose For my part when I read or hear the 88 Psalme beginning with crying and ending with darkeness and like Iob's imprecation upon the day of his birth having no light shining but a cloud dwelling upon it and yet finde it a song of the Sons of Korah directed to the chief Musician I cannot but acknowledge it for a Psalme of high praise unto God who turned such dolefull mourning to be the matter of rejoicing and thus if you will rightly consider that the Psalmes are ordained for the matter of praise whereof the manner consisting in reflexe acts directed by the Spirit unto such suteable meditations as may excite our joy in and praises unto God is most rationally and warrantably expressed by singing you may very quickly be satisfied that the Saints their complainings David's particular
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
above all things plead the necessity and alone sufficiency of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ for our Justification But to restore your words to their own channell you say that since all must be condemned if God enter into judgement therefore God gave his Son unto the death for us that thereby we might obtain Salvation And though by this passage it be clearly enough imported that it is before God and by the sentence of his Law that all men stand condemned and that therefore he hath given his Son whose Death and Bloud is the Propitiation and in whom he is well pleased to be a ransome for liberation and acceptation to all that believe on him whereby Justification by faith in Jesus Christ without the deeds of the Law is in substance granted yet for ushering in your good works to share with faith in Justification by a strange connexion you subjoin And all judgement is committed by the Father to the Son and Iesus Christ hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospell and live according to it But I must take notice 1. That by laying down the commission of judgement given to the Son as a ground to his proposing of the Gospel offer you manifestly repugne to our Lords own words and testimony expressly distinguishing the character of his first coming which was in the form of a servant to minister not to be ministered unto and by performing the Fathers commandment to save the World and not to judge it from that of his second coming which shall be with power and great glory to the Salvation of all that look for him and to judge and to execute judgement upon all that are ungodly 2. By making our Lords commission to judge antecedent to his ministration of the Gospel you invert Truth and plain Scripture-evidence whereby it is clear that our Lord was first sent into the World to preach the Gospel and lay down his life for sinners that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life And then because of his compleat and perfect obedience is exalted to be the Head of all things unto the Church and hath Authority also to execute judgement committed to him because he is the Son of Man But. 3. By this your doctrine you in effect subvert the grace of the Gospel in as much as in the place of the Gospel-covenant offering pardon and peace to poor lost sinners through Christ Jesus and with and in him all grace and glory you introduce our Lord as having by his death indeed merited the privilege of a new offer of life unto sinners but making and renewing the same in no better termes then these of the Law-covenant for as the Law sayeth that the man that doth these things shall live by them so you tell us that the termes of the Gospel-tender are to receive the same and live according to it Now if the Law doth offer life to such as receive and live according to it and our Lords proposal stand in the like termes admit the proposers not to be the same yet the proposals are certainly coincident and therefore although the eternal transaction betwixt the Father and the Son may be of Grace yet it is undeniable that in your opinion the tenders of the Law and Gospel as to us-ward do rune in the same tenor and the condescendence of both prerequiring our works is equally to be reckoned of debt These being the consequences of that Gospel-method by you here contrived and its designe no less evident to make works with saith the condition and procuring cause of our Iustification at least in the sight of Christ as the Judge appointed I add 1. That your attributing of Iustification to Christ as judge ordained over all in the last judgement is contrary to the Scripture that telleth us that it is one God that justifieth it is Christ that died marke the distinction made and no doubt reason it self informing us that it is the Law and Law-giver and not the Judge which define dutie determine paines and condemne the transgressors poenae enim persecution non Iudicis voluntati mandatur sed legis authoritati reservatur It doth also confirm that it appertaines unto God only as the Law-giver to remit the punishment incurred and accept and justify sinners upon an aequipollent satisfaction 2. The Authority to execute judgement being given to our Lord as the Mediator and because he is the Son of Man in which respect he is not the principal Author and efficient but only the meritorious cause of our Iustification not the very act but only the solemn declaration thereof can be ascrived to him in this capacity unless you can conceive that our Lord is not only both the Ransome and the accepter thereof but that by becoming the Propitiation he also becometh the partie to be appeased which are palpably inconsistent 3. The plain Scripture-truth in this point is that our Lord having compleatly obeyed the will of God and being made perfect through suffering is therefore highly exalted above every name and hath all power and judgement committed to him whereby as he doth here in time enrich with all Grace guid support and preserve all that beleeve in him and also over-rule restrain and punish all his and their Adversaries so shal he in the last day appear first to receive and welcome all his redeemed ones formerly justified by his Righteousnesse and sanctified by his Grace unto his Fathers joy And then with them to judge the reprobate and take vengeance on all that know not God and obey not the Gospel by which it is evident that Justification proceeding from God for Christs sake and necessarily preceeding both our Sanctification here and Glorification in the last day cannot be referred unto that judgement which is only declarative and executive according to these words Come ye blessed of my Father nor explicate according to its scheme And therefore although our Lord do therein for our encouragement in well doing and the commendation of the riches of his bountie make mention of our good works and shall certainly in that day also crown his own free grace in us with a reward yet thence to inferre that our Justification before God and in order to his holy justice having for its alone cause the Righteousnes of Jesus Christ and imported in the compellation ye blessed of my Father is founded on our weak love and scant charity which even the Righteous in that day seeme ashamed to owne is both a groundless error and high presumption But I proceed to your next words viz. That Christ Iesus hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospel and live according to it That this is a manifest perversion of the free Grace of God whereby our Lord Jesus doth freely hold out himself unto us not only for to be our Righteousnesse for Justification but also our Sanctification through his Spirit unto the glory of God and therefore
doth not require our holinesse as an antecedent condition seing it is indeed his own subsequent Giâ—t the obvious evidence of so clear a truth may sufficiently confirme and the following argumeâ—ts do unanswerably evince 1. Our Lords own words the surest Rule for understanding the proposal controverted do contain a free tender and not the termes by you represented Hear what he saith to Nicodemus Whosoever beleeveth in the Son of man shall no perish but have eternal life For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have everlasting life Iohn 3. 15 16. Iohn addeth he that beleeveth on the Son hath everlasting life chap. 3. v. 36. And again our Lord sayeth this is the work of God that you beleive on him whom he hath sent And this is his will that every one which seeth the Son and beleeveth may have everlasting life Verily verily I say unto you he that beleeveth on me hath everlasting life Iohn 6. 29 40 47. Surely these are Gospel proposalls yea the very summe and substance of its offer whereof your condition of a conformable life maketh no part I might add Paul's words to the Jailour believe on the Lord Iesus Christ and thou shall be saved but it is so much the strain of the whole New Testament that it were unnecessary to enlarge 2. If when we were Enemies and not for works of Righteousnesse which we have done we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son then the proposal of life and Justification is made through faith in his Name without the condition of these good works which you join with it but so it is that the antecedent is plain Scripture therefore that the consequent is identick with it as Justification and Reconciliation are cannot be denied 3. That which is the end of our Election Calling and Redemption by Jesus Christ is his undertaking for us in that respect and is the fruit of our faith and of our acceptation therethrough yea and is the product of the Fathers care over us as accepted in the Beloved cannot be said to be required of us as a condition antecedent to our justification no more then the same thing can be thought to be really both antecedent and subsequent But so it is that we are chosen and called to be holy and created in Christ Iesus unto good works through faith it is and that not of our selves it is the Giâ—t oâ— God that we become partakers of Christ for Reconciliation and of all his graces for Sanctification and lastly we are in him Gods husbandrie that we may bring forth the fruits of righteousnesse Therefore c. 4. Your requiring of good works together with faith previous to our acceptance by Jesus Christ is an uncertain and desperat thing in as much as it is evident that unless we be first accepted of him and united to him it is not possible for us to do any thing without me you can do nothing are our Lords own words Say not that this Argument equally militats against previous faith if we did hold faith as it is our act to be required as a proper potestative foregoing condition of our acceptance the objection might be of some moment but since we do affirme faith to be only the instrumental act to which the word of power exciting the Soul doth thereby lay hold on and close with Jesus Christ it is thence manifest that immediatly without any other prerequisite he becometh our propitiation peace and all 5. To these may be added that this your Doctrine joining good works to faith for attaining to our Lords acceptation subverteth the peace taketh away the joy of Beleevers checketh Paul's exultation in his so much professed assurance of the love of God in Christ Jesus and lastly as to sinners in extremity called immediatly before the twelfth hour removeth all ground of hope but I am already too full in a matter so clear and so largely handled by many more able Pens I might here subjoin that as your joining of good works as a condition with faith in the proposal of the Gospel is a manifest perverting of the free grace of God upon which these good works having a subsequent dependence cannot by any reall antecedent influence possibly move it so your turning faith by this conjunction to be a motive of the same nature and to be also respected in the quality of a condition is a palpable depravation of its use and comfort It s true our Divines taking the word condition in a large sense as it signifieth any thing prerequired do ordinarily say that faith and faith only is the condition on our part of the Gospel-covenant but that it is not therein a condition as a condition doth properly and legally import viz. that which though by convention only yet hath a meriting or moving influence upon the other parties performance and such as works previously required either in the Covenant of works or in that of Grace as you would have it certainly hath and can have no other I firmly maintain I further grant that the requiring of faith as a proper condition doth no less exact the existence of the thing then if it were repute to be necessary as an instrument yet that it clearly changeth the office of faith in the new Covenant unto that of the condition of works under the old and that by respecting it as a condition on our part it doth diminish that immediat regard we ought to have to and comfort which we derive from Jesus Christ and his Righteousnesse tendered unto us to be laid hold upon as the alone motive and satisfaction acceptable to God for our Justification cannot be denied But I go on with your discourse you add And as that which giveth us a title to the favour of God is the bloud of Christ so that which giveth us an interest in his death is faith with a life conforme to the rules of the Gospel But passing your conjunction and this your third and which I am certain would require more study to discover therein a connexion then you did adhibite in the using let me ask if the bloud of Christ giveth us a title to the favour of God is it not then the sufficient and sole price and purchase of our Iustification in his sight And must not faith its alone proper application render us accepted to the Beloved What then can your So further import Viz. so that which giveth an interest in the death of Christ is faith with a life conforme to the Gospel Can you or any man elsâ— conceive that a man by faith alone in the propitiation the bloud of Christ should be reconciled unto God and yet not attain to an interest in Christs death without a holy life superadded and concurring in the same causality Nay these things are plainly inconsistent 2. The fairest sense that your words can bear is that as we are restored to a
faults of your vain airie and insipid reasonings upon the matters themselves by you treated If you have foolishly and petulantly impugned not only the work of God and his Covenant in these Lands the Ordinances of the Government Discipline and Worship of his House but also endeavoured to unsetle and subvert the very foundations of Justification by Faith in Christ Jesus without the deeds of the Law a sent Gospel-ministerie determined Sacraments and Christian Liberty And if your N. C. pretending to be the Respondent hath on the other hand manifestly betrayed the Cause by such a faint ridiculous and absurd defence as you were pleased to suggest the folly of this your wrangling remaineth with your self alone the matters therein handled as they continow still to be the firme truths signal blessings and especial means given us of God for the declaring of his Glory and the promoving of our Salvation and are not by your discourse in the least prejudged so they are so farre from excusing that they greatly aggravat these jejune and gustless Methods wherewith you manage this your conference but foreseeing this censure you cunningly cast in our way the mention of better subjects whether with a designe thus to evade or by your insinuat distinction betwixt the forgoing matters as dry and arid and your subsequent speculations as these better things only to be pursued to drive on the deceit of an irreligious indifferencie so much at present studied by the Adversarie and his Emissaries let others Judge Two things only I must say 1. That to go about to smooth the World with the pretensions of sublime and Seraphick attainments and in the mean time from these hights as it were but really in a convenient accommodation to every guise whereunto carnal ease doth invite and outward peace perswade to slight despise and labour to relaxe from the conscientious observance of these ordinances and midses which the Lord hath given and appointed as the only way leading to himself and the felicity of his favour is the most delusive appearance of an Angelick light wherewith Sathan can possibly palliat his blackest enterprises 2. Though your subsequent discourse were much more sound and candid both in its tenor and scope then truely it is yet therein to figure your self to be as it were a new burning and shining light teaching your N. C. in such a strain as if all of us whom by him you personat were wholly ignorant of the truth of Religion both in its methods and ends and altogether strangers to its life is visibly more disingenuous and arrogant then sincerely charitable Say not that I am ill natured if you find these words a little more pointed it s you that hath sharpened them Nay if I should assume a furder confidence of boasting in behalf of the Lords Ministers and the true Seekers of his face found amongst us according to the measure of the grace which God hath distributed unto us and even become a fool in glorying for the abasing of your self-flatterie I do neither want a just provocation nor a clear precedent for my warrant But seing there are several things by you here proposed which may be for the use of edifying to a serious and considerat Soul and wherein a real union would indeed prove a most effectuall corrective both of sinistruous designes and evill mixtures I shall therefore wave the direct prosecution of such discoveries and wishing that that power light and life which is in true and pure Religion may indeed end all our differences I heartily join my assent to your subsequent discourse with all the harmony and affection that truth doth allow That some do place Religion wholly in debates others in external Forms others in some privat devotions others in the regulation of the outward man and others in certain inward speculations and self-devised strains are things not so strange as grievous but as to know the Father the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent is the summe and substance of Religion and Eternal life in which profession we are all agreed so it is the power of this knowledge descending from Christ Jesus our Wisdom and apprehending him for Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption which is mostly and most sadly wanting If in the conduct thereof men were abhorring and denying themselves and in the acknowledgement of him who hath called us unto Glory and Virtue laying hold on these great and precious promises which in Christ Jesus are all yea and amen then from the application of His Righteousnesse should the peace of reconciliation and joy in the Holy Ghost abound from the communication of his life and grace should the Divine seed propagat and diffuse it self through the whole man and from and by this truth and power of Religion Believers should be transformed into the likeness and image of God and rendered partakers of the Divine Nature by which it is manifest that as Christ Jesus is the only foundation so it is that in him alone there is Salvation neither is there any other name under Heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved The power as well as the reward of Natures light was long since forfeited in Adam and though in the succeeding Ages God left not himself without a witness in that he did good and gave the invisible things of him from the creation of the World to be clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead yet the ungodliness of men still prevailing and holding the truth in unrighteousness this weaker light served only to render them without excuse 't is true the Patriarchs were burning and shining lights but it was from Divine revelation and the oracles and promises of God in which they saw Christ's day and rejoiced and not from natures light that this their radiancy was derived The dawning opened by Moses had certainly a great splendour and therein Christ Jesus the end of the Law for Righteousnesse was very observably held forth but as it pleased the Lord to vail the glory of this discovery with many types and shadows not making it a great ridle as you do unadvisedly affirme but keeping and conducting that people under the Pedagogie of that more burdensome and severe dispensation until the fulness of the time should come so then it was that he sent forth his own Son a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel to bless them in turning away every one of them from their iniquities to turne them from darkness unto light and from the power of Satan unto God that they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctifyed by faith that is in him thus our Lord Jesus abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel and the great designes thereof not lying in that preposterous in coherent order by you represented are first by proposing to us that stupendious mysterie of the
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
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
by their own interest to teach this doctrine of peace It is not many weeks since the chief of your Fathers as you terme them preaching before the King's Commissioner and many members of Parliament on that Text Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace told his hearers in the very entrie that the particular rules of mutual for bearance and tendernesse given in that Scripture by the Apostle were only convenient for the then state of that Church wanting a Christian Magistrate But now there being a Christian Magistrat his authoritie should quiet all scruples and might not be demurred by these pretenses and going on to show that the only way to peace is to allow to the King not only an outward coercive power but also an inward directive architecktonick uncontrollable power O fear the Lord all ye his Saints over conscience in the matters of Worship with much ado as eye and ear witnesses do attest he stammered through a part of the first chapter of a new Piece entituled a Discours of Ecclesiastical policie And thus he delivered to us the very same doctrine of peace which in several places of your Dialogues you do very plainly hold out Whether or not then it be in the same principle and for the same end that ye do here pray for peace love and charity let men judge For our part your power riches and dignities in themselves to say the truth the very meenest of these trifles are by us neither coveted nor envied Our souls desire and earnest prayer to God both in your and our own behalfe is that God would open our eyes turne back our hearts heal our backslidings and restore unto us his Gospel and blessed Ordinances in power and purity O turne us again Lord God of hosts cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved then shall Glory dwell in our Land mercy and truth meet and righteousnesse and truth kisse each other then should the work of the Lord appear unto his servants and the beauty of the Lord our God even peace unity and love be upon us As for these Scriptures wherewith you second your wish for peace Were I not more tender in opposing Scripture to Scripture then you are in abusing it to your own designe it were easie for me to repay your admonition to love by a more seasonable exhortation to you of repentance But since the very consideration of the words by you cited may rectify your misapplication my single desire is that you had pondered or could yet ponder them If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies let us fulfil the Lords joy that we be first of a sound minde then like minded having the same love being of one accord of one minde Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory a short discharge of all the pride persecution and pompe of your prelatick order but in lowlinesse of minde let each esteeme others better then themselves Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among us let him show out of a good conversation his◠works with meeknesse of wisdome But if you have bitter zeal or envying For seeing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wanting this adjunct signifieth also envie without the least reflection upon that holy zeal of God's house which is said to eat up even the pattern of meekness Prince of peace your poor criticisme in altering the translation shewes more of your malice then your learning and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be Zealous there fore and repent of your perjurie and Covenant breaking this wisdome descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish for where zeal or envying The word is indeed still the same and so is your folly in this remarke and strife is there is confusion and every evill work But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable not first peaceable and then impure as that of your partie is Gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercie and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie O desirable quality And the fruit of righteousnesse is sowen in peace of them that make peace Let us put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindnesse humblenesse of minde meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave us so let us do and above all things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness And let the peace of God rule in our hearts to the which also we are called in one body and let us be thankfull Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdome teaching and admonishing one another in Psalmes and Hymns and Spiritual songs singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord and whatsoever we do in word or deed pray observe this fundamental direction Let us do all in the name of the Lord Iesus What shall we then say to these who in the Bond to the Publict Peace would not admit the name of the Lord to be mentioned Giving thanks to God and the Eather by him In all this I wish we were sincerily agreed And that these words were more deeply infixed in our mindes for I confesse I am wearie of vain janglings as much as you are and do long for truth and peace as much as you do for your much courted peace and indeed there is nothing that doth so much portend the Lords displeasure and imminent wrath as that not any pleadeth for truth they trust in vanity and speak lies they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquitie they hatch cockatrice eggs and weave the spiders web he that eateth of their eggs dieth and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper their works are works of iniquitie and the act of violence is in their hand they do much love outward peace but the way of peace they know not and there is no judgement in their goings they have made them crooked Pathes whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Therefore is judgement far from us and justice doth not overtake us we waite for light but behold obscurity for brightness bot we walk in darkness for our transgressions are multiplied before thee and our sins testifie against us for our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them in transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God speaking oppression and revolt conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falshood and judgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter yea truth faileth and he that departeth from evill maketh himself a prey Whether you or your N. C. account these words to proceed from a fretted minde or not I know not sure I am
the Land Truth and Purity and then shall we certainly enjoy Peace and Unity As for the liberty you taxe in our discourses and writings I hope no right discerner will finde it to be an invective but the native genuine and well-becoming freedom of Truth and Uprightness whether the license that you usurp in your pretended justifications of the King the Laws and your Consciences be indeed uncharitable bitter and malicious I neither say nor judge he whose glory is concerned he also judgeth But for the allowance of your defence by Tongue and Pen which you would appear to plead from our asserting of defensive armes you cannot be so serious in the demand as I am free to accord it seing I am perswaded that if the defensive armes which we maintain were no better warranted and as little to be feared as the self-defence which you pretend neither you nor any other would have accounted them to be worthy of the opposing The fifth DIALOGUE Answered SIR Neither envying you that poor applause which you vainly captate from your Mock-Non C. confessing himself to be by you much shaken in the matter of Bishops nor regarding the pitiful scorne you would cast on us by making him or your self rather ridiculous in avowing a blind aversation notwithstanding of his professed conviction I come to consider his quarrel against the Bishops on the account of your Common-prayer-book and what you answere Your N. C. alledges That this Common-prayer-book is a dead and formal Lyturgie set up instead of the pure and Spiritual worship of God In answere whereunto pretending as vainly that these are but big words as I have already clearly proved that the Government which we contend for is the interest and doth appertain to the Kingdom of Christ and thereby manifestly shewed this your confidence to be meer calumny you undertake to discover the fallacy by telling us what it is to pray by the Spirit And you say To Pray by the Spirit is when out of a deep sense of our misery and need and firm confidence in God we draw near to him to offer up our prayers and praises to him through Iesus Christ And you add That our hearts being moulded in this frame we pray by the Spirit use we words or not the same or different Nay it will appear we are carnal when we need to have our devotion tickled and provoked with new words Which description and the deduction from it being laid for a ground exciting your self by the faigned interjections of your N. C. surprises at the wit and novelty of your invention in representing the Liturgie-worship as Spiritual and the conceived one as carnal You go one to discourse of the differences betwixt spiritual devotion and prayer by words the termes wherein you are pleased very groundlessly and impertinently to state the distinction And the former you say lying in the will and not in the fancy and being affected with the thing and not with words can with the newness of affection make the same prayer in words though an hundred times repeated at every return New And is a still humbling and melting thing and so equable that it is above the frisking fits of the fancy neither doth it require a variety of words but in its sublimest exercises can persist long with great sweetness in the simplest Acts whereas multiplicity doth perhaps lead out the minde from pure and still devotion interior prayer and spiritual converse with God On the other hand you tell us that prayer by words lying in the fancy and its gratifications by the varying of things into several shapes the devotion raised by such Chimes is only sensible needing new phrases to renew its fervour and words and all the heat begot by words are but a false fire in the natural powers of the Soul which may heat the brain draw forth teares seem to wring the heart bâ—t amounts to nothing save a sensible fervour and present tickling wherein he that abounds most in Memâ—râ— Fancy Elâ—quence and Confidence is likely most to excell from all which you conclude that it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to worship God in simple and constant Forms and that extemporary prayer cannot be called praying by the Spirit except by Spirit be understood the Animal or Natural spirits This I suppose is a true account of your first floorish upon this subject to what purpose remaines yet to be inquired And first I might take notice of the inaccuracy of your expression of praying by the Spirit whereas the Scripture-phrase is to worship in Spirit Iohn 4. 23. Praying in the Spirit Eph. 6. 18. to worship in the Spirit Phil 3. 3. to pray with the Spirit 1. Cor. 14. 15. And though the difference be more in words then matter yet as the Scripture-diction is certainly the founder so I am apt to apprehend that your not adverting to it may have in part occasioned your vain and impertinent digression upon praying by the Spirit and praying by Words as if these were by us wholly distinguished and the latter preferred 2. I might observe that the description which you give us of Praying by the Spirit is more suteable to the calme and serene progress of a Christians course then to these doubtings feares wrestlings depressions and overwhelmings so frequently found in the experience of all to be thereto incident which being no less removed from and destitute of a firm confidence then the staying and assisting of the Spirit with groanes that cannot be uttered is therein observable your description appeares to be narrow and inadequat But the plain answer which I returne is that as the stating of the Question is by you wholly neglected so the reasoning whereby you go about to maintain your lifeless and superstitious Liturgie is altogether inconcludent The controversie betwixt you and us anent your Service-book is twofold 1. Whether the Publick worship of God ought to be astricted to set and imposed Forms And 2. Whether that form of Worship which your Book contains be not in it self in many particulars unsound and impertinent and consequently not to be received by way of directory farre less acquiesced unto as a precise injunction That these are the two hinges of this debate will easiely be acknowledged but what your above mentioned discourse doth contribute to its determination I must again solicite your second thoughts to render us an account We have your definition of praying by the Spirit and we let it pass Next you subjoin and that with many empty reiterations that praying in words specially extemporary and various is sensible fancical affecting and heating the brain in lower minds and producing only a natural fervour and that thus it may be with such who pray in words without the Spirit was never by us denied but darre you or any man els not abandoned to utter irreligion propose this as your opinion of all prayer in conceived and not precontrived and prescribed words Do not the very truth of