〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Exercisers of jurisdiction in other mens Dioceses 1 Pet. 4.15 What if other men be as good Scholars is it nothing but scholarship that makes a Minister I cannot think but that other Jews might be as handsome Butchers and Cooks as the Levites who yet might not be allowed to kill and dresse their own sacrifices 'T is true Christ though he called Levi call'd no Levite that he might abolish the former manner of worship yet he chose some to wait on this Ministry as they did on that and of them distinct orders as twelve Apostles and seventy two Disciples and after his Ascension others by mediation of the Apostles who are also said to be ordained by the holy Ghost Act. 20.28 either because the Apostles were by the holy Ghost directed to that Ordination of Ministers where they had planted Churches or because the gifts of the Spirit inabling for that Office were in their laying on of hands conferred or it may be for both But that Christ appointed these orders in his Church we may see Ephes 4.11 c. And he would not have directed his Epistles by St John in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation to the Angels that is the Ministers of the seven Churches if he had not approved of that Office And that it is with diligence to be proceeded in the word is plain He that hath an office let him wait on his office he that teacheth on teaching he that exhorteth on exhortation Do but make the cause your own by supposing if it could be proved that another man can husband your estate better then your self must he deprive you of your propriety If another man be found more worthy to serve the state then your self must he take from you that place to which you say you were chosen In p. 42. you have yet another fling at them and that is for waving questions when they cannot resolve them And this also if it be true is but a personall infirmity and no whit impugneth the Office of the Ministry Tishbi solvet nodos had not been a Proverb among the Jews if they had not in some questions of Religion been still unresolved But if because one Lawyer could not resolve me in one Law-case I should call the Law an imposture and the Lawyers Juglers would you not think me more fit for Bedlam then for any civil society and yet this were orthodox in your divinity Concerning the opposition you would make between faith and reason because you both use and require your Respondent to use all possible brevity I refer you for satisfaction to a little Book lately set forth and intituled The reasonablenesse of Christian Religion And what you say of the man of Macedonia meaning a better living and of the abuse of Funeral Sermons p. 44. is also to be reckoned among personall offences which no man doth as a Minister but as a sinner it being common to all men in some kinde or other to transgress In p. 44. you have While they are under such dispensations they are in a Labyrinth of trouble one while having rest in their spirits another while distraction judging of the love and anger of God toward them according to their actings as if God were as inconstant as they You would not be thought an Antiscripturist p. 51. You would not be thought to take men off from duty p. 56. and yet you condemn that dispensation men are under who are inconstant in their feelings Now whether are you in state of Grace or Glory this I hope you will not say and the other will confute your opinion I know Grace to be Glory inchoate and Glory to be Grace consummate But by state of Grace we understand that condition to Godward a man is in after his conversion so long as corruption is inmate with grace and like the Canaanites to the Israelites will dwell with him for sin doth remain though it do not reign in the Regenerate and grace is given to sustain the soul against corruption and temptation the filth continueth though the guilt be removed and the guilt though wholly in foro divino yet not so in foro conscientiae if wheresoever there be faith there is also infidelity Faith is therefore call'd a shield because it defendeth against despair Now no man can say his charity is perfect or his patience undisturbed and yet must we beleeve any mans faith to be insuperable in evidence as well as adherence in reflect as well as direct action God give me faith so long as I have doubt and when I shall have no longer doubt I shall have no need of faith But They judge of Gods love or anger c. There is not any knowing Christian that thinks love or anger to be in God quoad affectum because it would argue mutability which Scripture and reason teach us cannot be in him But quoad effectum we ought to judge for the most faithfull servants of God upon their uneven walking I mean their not sticking so close to the rules of obedience as sometimes they do and even when they do not are inabled to do observe not only outward calamities but inward desertions ingruing And whether God be displeased or no surely every true childe of God will finde cause to be displeased with himself for his own disobedience And if any man that hat Gods Word for his guide live under any higher dispensation I acknowledge my self to be experimentally ignorant of that condition And what is your conceit of this You write only negatively and so keep your self in a cloud still But when you have sublimed your conceptions of God and extracted from them the purest quintessence yet still you have of him no adequate but an analogical conception only God dwelleth in light inaccessible we can but per transennas videre while we dwell in houses of clay and cannot see him as he is while we have about us the body of sin Nor afterward neither can God be apprehended more then ad modum apprehendentis As therefore our Saviour said in the Gospel Why trouble you the woman for shee hath wrought a good work upon me so Why disturb you the Church of God putting people out of their good way and obscuring the light by which they walk sith you cannot hold them out a better it is a greater light must overcome the lesse and when the Sun of Righteousnesse shall arise the Moon and Starres may fail but neither the Glow-worms of earthly preferment nor the ignis lambens of flattering speeches nor the ignis fatuus of fantastick opinions ought to seduce us no nor the blazing comets of pretended revelations attract our confidence An approver of which dotages you seem to be p. 47. where you have these words I am much satisfied in my spirit having done that which I was convinced was my duty by the stirrings within me to this thing for at least a year past But how came you to be convinced
A Particular ANSVVER TO A BOOK INTITuLED THE CLERGY IN THEIR COLOURS Contra rationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturas nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit Aug. lib. de Trin. c. 6. Septemb. the 18th 1651. Imprimatur John Downam LONDON Printed by A. Miller for William Leigh at the Turks-head in Fleetstreet MDCLI TO THE LOVER OF THE CLERGY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr JOHN DAVY OF Taunton Magdalen Perseverance Dear Uncle I Have sent you in these Papers a salve such as by Gods blessing on your cost and direction I was able to compose for that wound which an undeserved enemy hath made on the reputation of the Clergy a wound too deep for me to search too great to cure but having found one instrument that caused it where I now reside I have endeavoured to apply my medicine thereto hoping that as is believed of the Unguentum armarium it may transmit some sanative vertue to th' affected subject Howsoever I shall hereby manifest my respect unto the suffering Parties and in some measure have performed the duty of Your most observant Nephew and ever gratefull Servant J. D. Sir I Have cursorily viewed this Book and think it seasonable for these times in which the Function of the Ministry is so much opposed Yours EDW. LEIGH TO THE AUTHOUR OF THE BOOK INTITULED The Clergie in their Colours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir IF you are indeed a Member of the Parliament of England and not rather a malicious Jesuite slily endeavouring the increase of our divisions which I see cause to suspect Give me leave as a free-born English-man to declare my thoughts concerning your Boook intituled The Clergie in their Colours Which you begin with a profession of your dislike of sheltring your self under any mans wings and no wonder for whose Patronage need you desire who call your self a Patriot of your Country I have as little propensity thereto as your self and yet I might justly be thought immodest and uncharitable too if I should impute all Dedication of Works to distrust of Workmanship which you there insinuate The greatness of a mans confidence adds nothing in facto to the goodness of his actions No doubt but you may see Epistles Dedicatory prefixed to many excellent Monuments of Learning and piety Though the Art need no Patron yet the Artist may as for example You being a Member of Parliament for so that I may not speak to no body I must suppose you to be your very name is sufficient to commend to the world that which you have written But should such an obscure person as I am set forth endeavours no less deserving yet could I not expect a like acceptation Plurima sunt quae Non homines audent pertusa dicere lana In the same Page you tell us that you decline the courting your Reader with a flattering Epistle for his approbation it being irrational and ridiculous c. You do well in declining flattery but Epistles to the Reader are for many works necessary and as ridiculous as you suppose them to your present purpose you have no less in effect in this very Apology for what is it other then a Preparative to your ensuing Discourse and an excuse for not Epistolizing is the very substance of many Epistles So your second Section I am perswaded that many will look wishly upon me for this work c. And your third 'T is probable that many will think me pragmatical c. have not indeed the form but contain the matter of Epistles Which I take not notice of as any great eye-sore in it self but as from you who criticize most severely of any man whose writings are at this time in my memory In that last mentioned Sect you speak of a kinde of Learning Idolized in England by which you mean skill in the holy Languages as is afterwards intimated p. 3. l. 13. And how I pray you is that Idolized with us An Idol properly is either that which men worship for a God against the first precept of the Decalogue or which they superstitiously use in the worship of God against the second And of these the Apostle saith An Idol is nothing in the world 1 Cor. 8.4 alluding as I suppose to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inanitates 1 Sam. 12.21 there translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also Isa 41.29 in regard they frustrate the expectation of their confiders there being no such divine power present with the Idol as against the first Commandment is supposed no any such acceptation of their exhibition in the service of the true God as is imagined by the violaters of the second Now can you call the gift of tongues lying vanities which the Apostles reckons among the gifts of the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.10 which whether inspired by the holy Ghost immediatly or acquired by Gods blessing on mens industry have the same use in order to their end viz. the making known the minde of God and how that should be made known so far as blessed be God we understand it without the holy Scriptures or they to us English-men without the use of tongues do but tell me and take my Buckler Or if you would have only their continuance superfluous the Scripture being already in our Vulgar Language you will either discover your ignorance of their multifarious use in Exposition or foul ingratitude for the benefit you have received from them Or if you mean Idolatry improperly spoken for your word Idolize implies action and so a culpability rather in the subject then the object you then complain of their abuse only and so you may as well complain of the best things that are for what is so good as may not be abused And you might with as little absurdity have prohibited us the quotation of holy Scriptures in defence of true Religion because reprobates wrest them to their own destruction And now give me leave to expostulate with you a little in the words of the Apostle Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols doest not thou commit sacriledge The calling of the Ministry you plainly despise and if the persons in especial manner dedicated to God do not escape you it is not to be hoped that you will acknowledge any so much as relative holiness in Places and Things And if that be your judgement I beseech you tell me how there can be any sacriledge or how that sin which Paul there argues to be so bad as Idolatry can at all be committed But this by the way In the third Page for you Sections are not distinguisht by figures you assert that It hath pleased God in all ages to confound the wise and mighty by poor and despicable instruments in the eyes of the world And you call our Saviour Christ his Apostles and Martyrs to witness what no good Christian will deny But what is this to your purpose Will it hence follow that Learning is useless in the Church of God Because God sometimes works without means must
he never work with them It was well foreseen of you therefore while you made an exception in your instance saying some of the Prophets and many Apostles but why you should put our Saviour Christ into your illiterate catalogue I know not unless that when it shall be proved impertinent to the main question in this particular you may limit it to your immediatly-foregoing assertion to which you have it may be for that cause sophistically annexed it And as for all those you speak of recorded by Mr Fox in his Acts and Monuments although they were children in Learning yet they stood on mens shoulders and might therefore see further then a Popish Polyphemus For I hope you cannot deny God made use of many famous lights of Learning for illumination of the unlearned people of that time some of which went to heaven in fiery Charets with them Christ called indeed unlearned men but he taught them what was necessary to their Apostleship while they preached only to the Jews and that within the limits of their own Country where the Hebrew tongue was well enough understood as appears Acts 21.40 although they used the Syrian Dialect But after our Saviour his Ascention when they were to teach all Nations the gift of Tongues as thereto requisite was conferred upon them And as Manna ceased when the children of Israel came into the Land of Canaan so extraordinary gifts ceased when God had by ordinary provided for the propagation of Religion So that to inhibit the use of learning in our Preachers of the Gospel were as irrational as to have forbidden the Israelites eating the fruits of Canaan because they had Manna in the Wilderness Presently after you make an odious parallel with Romish Wolves and Presbyterian Pastors affirming that as they so these hold it dangerous for such people to breath by whom their pomp and gallantry is like to fall Now Sir I require you to prove this bloudy accusation and to make it appear that the Grandees of the Presbyterian faction as you call them bare such mortall hatred against any people in England for Religions sake as the Popish Priests in Q. Maries daies had against all people of reformed Religion or else I shall hold you guilty of a malicious untruth for so speaking And yet as if this were a small matter to make them homicides you would make them murderers of souls too by affirming that As the Popish Clergie debard the common people from reading the Scriptures so these had rather people spent their time in reading of tales or following their worldly affairs but when they are hearing them speaking contradictions c. Now I am sure that I am compassed about with clouds of witnesses who will testifie with me that we never found cause of such suspition but the Ministers of the Gospel do alwaies exhort to reading and meditation of the Word of God or if any such had been we have not wanted time and means enough to displace them since the beginning of this Parliament Yet still your charge runs generally against the Clergy as if quatenus Clergy they were the greatest enemies to the Church of God And yet if you were not over-biassed with prejudice you would confess with me that the same men you inveigh against have been the instruments of what good God hath wrought in your soul either by their word or writings Good Sir do but examine when did you first come out of nature and by what means and do not with Themistocles his Hart crop that bush in a calm that sheltred you in a storm Or if it be not true by your self yet sure it is that multitudes of gracious souls will acknowledge men of that calling for their ghostly Fathers And what greater seal of an Apostleship can be desired then what the Apostle speaks of 1 Cor. 9.2 in these words If I am not an Apostle to others doubtless I am one to you for the seal of my Apostleship are ye in the Lord. As therefore that Potentate said of his government Call it what you will but by it I keep the people in good order So may I say of the calling of the Ministers amongst us Call it you what you please I am sure the word in their mouth is by the grace of God accompanying it made the power of God unto salvation This is it that excited me otherwise studious of obscurity to make my self I know not yet how publique spectacle and Aegles-like to force nature upon the sight of injurious dealing for I am neither Parson Vicar nor Curate and might notwithstanding any private interest have been silent but the Cause is Gods on whom I depend and may therefore say with the Lepers 2 King 7.9 I do not well to hold my peace And indeed should the redeemed of the Lord that have had the knowledge and love of God wrought in them by our publique Ministry be silent when such indignities are cast upon it it were enough to make as our Saviour saith in the Gospel the stones to cry that I may not say to cry out against them and to condemn their ingratitude In page 4. you carp at the distinction of Clergie and Laity but for what reason we may go look though things in themselves be distinct by nature yet they cannot in discourse be distinguished without several names whereof your own practice gives experience in the title of your Book viz. The Clergie in their Colours which if you say was done for distinctions sake that we might know of whom you speak as p. 45. grant us the same liberty and we ask no more It 's a question whether you know how the first of your family came by his name and yet you will think it cannot with justice be taken from you But the Clergy have besides Antiquity Etymologie for their name being so called from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lot because they are instead of the Levites the Lot of Gods and God of their Inheritance in especial manner for in a larger sense it is applied to all the faithfull 1 Pet. 5.3 and so are the Saints called Priests too although not by their particular but general calling of Christianity and so all the Lords people might without offence be called holy but yet when these same words were usurped by Korah in opposition to the holiness of the Priests Office God punished that schism of his with a stranger schism of the earth that swallowed him up Nor is the word therefore less pertinent because Clergy-men are not now chosen by a sortilegium as was Matthias for Apostles were a distinct degree of Ministers and to be chosen by God himself But however we are not so much in usuall words to regard a quo as ad quid and in every Art we must keep the same terms it hath been exprest in aforetime or else we can neither understand nor be understood My lot is faln to me in a fair ground saith David Psal 16. alluding to the manner