Authority That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty Which shews that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster did not think that the Kingdom of Christ is to be set up by ruining earthly Kings and Kingdoms and that they take not the right way to advance Christs Kingdom who reject the Magistrates countenance and maintenance of the Church Or who by despising and provoking Magistrates to wrath tempts them to discountenance the Church And seeing they look on the Church as Christs Kingdom the Historian hath not taken the right way to advance this Kingdom but hath taken the way to ruine it by dividing it For a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand And if he had pondered the explication of the third Petition it might have been a mean to have prevented his giving so much place to his own Humour and Will in this History and helped him to more submission unto the Holy Providence of God than doth appear in this History I wish he had ere he began to write this History put up that Petition And lead us not into temptation Or at the close of it put up that Petition And forgive us our sins We have great need ere we begin Debates and Controversies even when they are necessary to pray that we be not led into temptation And great need to close such Debates even when the cause maintained is right with praying Lord forgive us our sins I have examined all that had any appearance of Reason in this History and refuted many things which needed no refutation if it had not been for the sake of simple People who are often deceived by big words where there is no shew or colour of Reason I have often by Reason refuted the unreasonable clamours both of the Author of the Epistle and of the History whereas I might have opposed clamour to clamour for what is founded upon meer clamour may be as easily cried down as it 's cried up Let none because of the Authors errors in this History cast at other useful Books which he hath published nor reject any thing that is true and right in this History Good men have their failings and we may not take our measures of them from their miscarriages under a fit of temptation Job's Friends had a just hatred against Hypocrisie and they mistake Job and falls foul upon him as a Hypocrite and speaks many things that are not right things in the heat of Debate This Author had a just indignation against Erastianism and a Spiritual Supremacy in Magistrates and he apprehended that his brethren had interpretatively homologate this Erastian and Spiritual Supream power in the Magistrate and having mistaken them he hath fallen foully upon them and spoken much evil of them without cause These things which in the Epistle and History are wrong are things for the most part which several people had drunk in and the printing of these errours hath given occasion to rectifie the mistakes of erring people if they will not shut their eyes against the light The Lord who is excellent in working draws good out of evil and maketh all things work together for good to them who love him and are the called according to his purpose he can over-rule the darkness of error so as it shall be subservient to clear the truth In the worst times the Elect hath obtained and shall obtain The Lord reigneth and ruleth in the midst of Enemies he can when men are scattering the dust of Zion be making way for laying a solid foundation in the deep humiliation of his people for building his house The Church hath been before as dry and scattered bones as bones scattered at the graves mouth and yet he who raiseth the dead hath made these bones to come together and live It 's our best to leave the answering of that Question Can these Bones live To the Lord himself to Jehovah who makes things that are not to be who doeth great things and unsearchable marvellous things and without number If we would take shame and confusion of face to our selves and would humble our selves in the sight and sense of our sins our darkness and stumblings and justlings in the dark and justifie the Lord in his judgments that are come upon us and yet ascribe to him the glory of his Mercy and out of our depths and darkness cry to him that he would cause his face to shine and enlighten our darkness and send out his Light and Truth and pour out the Spirit of a sound mind and that he would quicken us by the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus that we might call on his Name and look on him whom we have pierced and mourn that when mens endeavours to gather the scattered sheep are not effectual that he the great Shepherd would seek out his sheep and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day And if we would wait on him in the way of his Judgments and hope in his Word his Covenant which he uses to remember for his People and to repent according to the multitude of his Mercies and though we have no ground of hope in our selves yet hope against hope on the Lord who is the hope of Israel and the Saviour thereof in the time of trouble and that because with him there is Mercy and plenteous Redemption And so continue humbly praying hoping waiting for him He could soon redeem us from all our Iniquities and all our Troubles and cure all our distractions and distempers and give Light and Life and Unity and Peace Let us take shame to our selves and give him the glory due to his Name that his Name may endure for ever and be continued as long as the Sun that men may be Blessed in him and all Nations call him Blessed Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who onely doeth wondrous things And Blessed be his Glorious Name for ever and ever and let the whole Earth be filled with his Glory Amen and Amen The Conference continued Farmer SIR there are many things considerable in this Answer to the History of the Indulgence which I purpose to consider but there is one thing which not a little troubles me That the withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers is called Schism Now I remember we are by Covenant bound to extirpate Schism and if I have been practising Schism in withdrawing from hearing the Indulged Ministers I have been Acting contrary to the Covenant Minister They who deal truly in the matter of the Covenant will study to fulfill their Vows not onely in some things but in all things Schism is a dissolution of that Union which ought to be among Christians and especially it appears in refusing that Church-fellowship or Ecclesiastical Communion which ought to be observed or in an unwillingness to communicate or to have communion with the true Church in Holy Actions Casuists shew that it is a most grievous
the Lord your God before he cause darkness and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadow of death and make it gross darkness When folk will follow their own imaginations and will not walk in the light of the word of God the Lord fills them with drunkenness and leaves them to dash upon one another and destroy one another like drunken men fighting in the dark But neither words nor rods will be rightly understood or laid to heart till the Spirit be poured from on high If the Lord would pour out his Spirit we would not only be brought to see our sins but to be ashamed of them to take shame and confusion of face to our selves we would sorrow and mourn and lament after the Lord we would turn from our sins to the Lord and joyn our selves to the Lord and we would joyn together in seeking the Lord in his Ordinances then the Wilderness would be a fruitful field the dead and scattered bones would be joyned together and live then Judah and Israel would be one stick in the hand of the Lord Ezek. 37. Then the Children of Israel and Judah would come together going and weeping seeking the Lord their God asking the way to Sion with their faces thitherward saying Come and let us joyn our selves unto the Lord in a perpetual Covenant that shall not be forgotten Jer. 50.4 5. When the Spirit is poured out from on high upon his people then the Lord turns to them a pure Language that they may call upon the Name of the Lord to serve him with one consent then they turn humble Suplicants and pour out their hearts in groans and sighs that cannot be uttered then Pride and Haughtiness is taken away and people become poor in Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh but trust in the Lord and rejoyce in the Lord Jesus Zeph. 3.9 10 11 12. Rom. 8.26 27. Phil. 3.3 Till the Lord come till he return with mercy and loving-kindness and turn us again and cause his face to shine and see our ways and heal us we will but wax worse and worse there is no remedy for us but in his Sovereign Gracc and those mercies that have been of old and endure for ever Let us look to him who is exalted to give Repentance to Israel and Remission of sins that he would turn us that we may be turned and heal our backslidings and heal our breaches that he may utter that quickning word Ezek. 37.9 Come from the four winds O breath and breath upon these slain that they may live O Lord come and overcome our evil with thy goodness for who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passes by the transgression of the Remnant of thy heritage and retains not anger for ever because thou delights in mercy who will turn again and will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast all their sins in the depth of the Sea thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham which thou hast sworn to our Fathers from the days of old Micha 7.18 19 20. We have not remembred our Covenant but have spoken words falsly in making a Covenant Nevertheless O Lord remember thy Covenant and establish to us an everlasting Covenant that we may remember our ways and be ashamed Establish thy Covenant with us that we may know that thou art the Lord that we may remember and be confounded and never open our mouth any more because of our shame when thou art pacified toward us for all that we have done O Lord Righteousness belongs to thee but unto us confusion of faces as it is this day to all of us to our Kings Princes Fathers Ministers people of all ranks belongs Confusion but to the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgiveness tho' we have sinned against him Lord give us Repentance and turn us and we shall be turned Let thy power be great according as thou hast spoken saying The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy forgiving iniquity and transgression Lord humble our uncircumcised hearts that we may take with our sins and accept of the punishment of them that we may remember them with shame and sorrow but do not thou remember against us former iniquities but according to thy mercy remember us for thy goodness sake O Lord remember for us thy Covenant and repent according to the multitude of thy mercies and for thy names-sake pardon our iniquities for they are many and great And when Wisdom and Council and Strength when Light and Life is gone and when Unity is gone when there is none to help and none of the Sons of Zion to take her by the hand in her distress when there is none to make up the breach no Intercessor let thine own arm bring salvation When all earthly Glory is stained blasted and gone appear in thine own Glory in the glory of thy wisdom power and Sovereign grace in building Sion build the house and bear the glory that when thou hast done the work by thy Spirit grace grace may be glorified and that this may be written for the Generations to come that the people which shall be created may praise the Lord. We do not present our Supplications before thee for our righteousness for we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousness as filthy rags but for thy great mercy O Lord hear O Lord forgive O Lord hearken and do defer not for thy own sake O our God! for this people are called by thy Name O Lord the hope of Israel the Savior thereof in the time of trouble though our iniquities testifie against us do for thy name sake if thou mark our iniquity we cannot stand but there is forgiveness with thee that thou may be feared there is mercy with thee and plenteous redemption and thou redeemest Israel from all his iniquities and troubles O remember not against us former iniquities let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us for we are brought very low help us O God of our Salvation for the Glory of thy name and deliver and purge away our sins for thy name sake save this people bless thy Inheritance feed them also and lift them up for ever Save us O Lord our God and gather us to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting and let all the people say Amen Praise ye the Lord. Unto the King eternal immortal invisible the only wise God be Honour and Glory for ever and and ever Amen FINIS
the Graces of the Spirit to glorifie God and enjoy him and to make sure their calling and election and to edify one another and put them to be wholly or mostly taken up about the managing of publick Affairs and to break out of their own place and pass the bounds of their Vocation that they may right all that 's wrong and what confusion this breeds both Reason and Experience may teach us If Professors had been earnestly exhorted to do the duties of their Vocation which the Lord calls them to and to be earnest in praying to God for those whom God hath called to be Magistrates and Ministers that they might be guided of God and inclined to those things that are right in the sight of God that they might under them live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty This had been to put them to their duty to walk in the way of God and to have shunned many disorders and confusions and to have obtained Israels mercy whom the Lord led like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron But when every private Professor is taught that he knows the Times and what Israel ought to do and that he is fit to guide the Shepherds and go before them in breaking the Ice what can be expected from such Antiscriptural Conceits but Confusion and Ruine He adds neither need I tell you how impossible it is to know what the present day and hour makes indispensable duty without a just reflection on what is past for the emergents of the present day can never be improved to the advantage of preventing the morrows Misery without this Now that you and I may be helped to a profitable reflection upon what is past and improve it to it 's just Advantage the Lord hath been pleased in this unconcerned Soper of many to put it upon the heart of a Servant of his to give you and me the following History c. Ans Doth he think that what he says here is so evident that every Christian Reader knows it without his telling them if he had only said that a just Reflection on what is past is useful for the Time present or if he had only said that this Reflection on what is past is useful for improving the emergents of the present day it might have passed without Animadversion but when he makes it impossible to know the present days duty without Reflection on yesterday when he says that the present days emergents can never be improved without reflection on yesterday He hath needlesly by winding up his Assertions as high as his fancy could twine them crackt their credit and disobliged his Reader and provoked him to stand out against his Assertions as injurious in bringing him under a new impossibility and impotency which he knew not of Now men love not to be brought under Impossibilities of knowing and acting for 1. It 's neither Time past nor present which makes duty or makes us know what is duty nor is it the remembrance of what is past that makes men know what is their present duty it 's the will of God and not Time which makes this or that our duty and it 's the Revelation of the Will of God that makes us know what 's our duty the day and what was our duty or error yesterduy Adam knew the duty of the day in which he was created but he had no yesterday to reflect upon Suppose a man lose all memory of what is past yet he may by taking heed to his way according to the word know his present duty I have known some Persons have that weakness of Memory that they did not remember that they themselves had spoken but a little before and yet they made Conscience of speaking right when they spoke It 's a hard thing to bind a man who hath lost his Memory of things past up under an Impossibility of knowing his duty in things present Again he makes a just Reflection not only upon a mans own actions which he may more certainly know but also a Reflection upon the Actions of others which he cannot know but by the relation of others and written Histories absolutely necessary for knowing the duty of the present day Now this is yet a more intolerable Impossibility to make our necessary present duty dependent upon uncertain Relations and it may be false stories how can men be assured that their reflections upon these past things are just when they know not whether the things be truly and justly related As for Exemple this History of the Indulgence hath many falshoods in it and these falshoods are not fit to instruct any what is the present duty but are apt to deceive the Readers and induce them to sin and not direct them to their duty But I see if I stay thus with the Author of the Epistle it will be long ere I can come to the Historian and therefore I shall only take notice afterward of these things which concern the Indulgence in this Epistle But ere I go further I cannot but here remember what I heard a Judicious Gentleman say of the Author of this Epistle viz. that he used to get as high in his expressions as his fancy could reach this is ordinary in Romantick Writers but it 's a great fault in any who pretend to write Truth especially in Divines And this puts me in mind of what I heard that great judicious and acute Divine Mr. James Wood say that the study of the flourishes of Oratory was dangerous in a Divine because as these flourishing Rhetorications do divert the Hearers or Readers from the simplicity of the Gospel so they who follow them are in hazard in that pursuit to run over the bounds of truth and to fly higher than Scripture and solid Reason do allow The Author of the Epistle hath frequently in these few lines flown higher in his fancy than Scripture or solid Reason will allow 1. In making the knowledge of the Times to know what Israel ought to do the Cognizance and Badge of the Professors of the Church of Scotland 2. In making it impossible to know the present duty without Reflection on the Time past 3. In making our necessary duty depend upon humane Stories which are often false and at best very uncertain 4. In saying that the emergents of the present day can never be improved without this Reflection on Yesterday Seeing the Author of the Epistle hath assaulted the Indulged Ministers with Questions I shall make use of the same Weapon that he may have fair play and my first Question is Whether he hath any Scripture or Reason to prove these four Assertions last mentioned My next Question is what Warrant hath he to say so confidenly that the Lord put it upon the Heart of the Historian to give us this History Does he think that the History was inspired by the Lord into the Heart of this Historian In this History there are many falshoods in matter of Fact many