you shall make these things found in Ignatius consistent even with the strain of pure Religion and the truth of the Gospel let be to the Orthodoxie and Piety of Ignatius and the simplicity of his times then shall I cede to the Authority of these Letters Only in the mean time let me tell you that for all the pains that Hamond hath taken to assert their Faith the words above cited do savour so strongly of most gross and corrupt interpolation that not only I reject their Testimony as to the matter of Prelacie but do esteem even the passages that may be therein found for Presbyterie as to the Trallians be subject to the Presbyterie as to the Apostles of Iesus Christ The Presbyters are the Council of God and joint Assembly of the Apostlâ—s and such like of little or no value 2. You mention Cyprians time but hold I preceive your second Edition mends your first and this your practice like to that of your more innocent friend Mr. Coluin in his verses of giving us second Editions bearing additions without advertissment had indeed abused me If by accident I had not fallen in the review of my papers to make use of your second Copie and in this you tell us in the next place of the Apostolicall Canons a work of very venerable Antiquitie at least the first fiftie of them though perhaps none of the Apostles But first why say you Perhaps in a matter beyond all peradventure 2. Not to trouble you with Criticisms he who would be resolved anent the Authority of these Canons let him only read them And as I am confident he will be farre from thinking either the first 50 or the rest of them Apostolicall So I am certain the mention made in the 3. Can. of Sacrificium Altare Oleum in Candelabrum Incensum oblationis tempore a Sacrifice Altar oyl in the lamp and incense in the time of offering the 17. Can qui viduam duxit Episcopus aut Presbyter aut Diaconus esse non potest he who hath married a widow cannot be a Bishop or a Presbyter or a Deacon the 25. Can. Ex his qui caelibes in Clerum pervenerunt jubemus ut Lectores tantum cantores si velint nuptias contrahant Of Bachelors who hath entered into orders Readers only and Singers if they will may marrie the great and constant distinction therein made inter Clericum Laicum and the many other vanities therein to be found specially in the last part of them will easily render their venerable Antiquity of no moment in our present Controversie so that neither your 40 but in effect the 38. Canon though it were more positive and expresse for your Prelatick preheminence nor your Synodicall injunction to the same purpose both posterior to the first Primitive purity are of any regard but 3. so wretched is the cause that you defend that even in your clearest evidences your partiality and hypocrisie is manifest You alledge the Apostolicall Canons in defence of your Prelatick Order and yet you consider not that the same Canons do not only condemn your Prelates But subvert their present constitution I shall not insist upon the 24. Canon Episcopus aut Presbyter in fornicatione aut perjurio deprehensus deponitor Let a Bishop or a Presbyter guilty ofsornication or perjury be deposed the 20. Episcopum aut Presbyterum qui fideles delinquentes quid ergo si Innocentes percutit terrorem ipsis hoc modo incutit deponi praecipimus We command that the Bishop or Presbyter who smiteth delinquents and so becometh a terrour unto them be deposed what then if they smite the innocent the 28â— 41. 53. 57 75. which I am most assured if observed would remove all the present Bishops and Curats in Scotland but the Canons I offer are the 4. Omnium aliorum Pomorum Primitiae Episcopo Presbyteris domum mittuntor Manifestum autem est quod Episcopus et Presbyteri inter Diaconos reliquos Clericos eas dividunt Let the first â—ruits of all others aples be sent home to the Bishop and Presbyters for it is Manifest that the Bishop and Presbyters divide them among the Deacons and the rest of the Clergie 33. Cujusque gentis Episcopos oportet scire quinam inter ipsos primus sit neque sine illius voluntate quicquam agere insolitum illa autem quemque prosetractâ—re quae ad Parochiam ejus loca ipsi subdita attinent sed neque ille citra omnium voluntatem aliquid facito 36. Bis in Anno Episcoporum celebrator Synodus pietatis inter se dogmata in disquistionem vocanto and 80. Dicimus quod non oporteat Episcopum aut Presbyterum publicis se adminiâ—â—rationibus immiscere sed vâ—care commodum se exhibere usibus Ecclesiasticis animum igitur inducito hoc non facere aut deponitor together with the obvious strain of the whole plainly insinuating the Bishop to be the person to whom the flock is principally and immediatly committed and who as the Primus Presbyter the first Presbyter ought chiefly to minde the charge In which Canons although I grant that their appears a precedencie of Order given to the Bishop over the Presbyters who in these times were many Ministers living in one City and Society having the charge in common among themselves and with and under their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over the Church and Flock in their bounds and also to the first Bishop of a Province over his Coëpiscopi Yet I am sure your Prelatick power and Superiority acclaiming the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction is no where thereby approved but rather condemned Your third Testimony you bring from Cyprian in whose time you say That the power of Bishops was well regulate and Setled and here knowing that he professeth That he would do nothing without the Clergie that he could do nothing without them nor take upon him alone Whereby the antient Prostasia and not your Prelacie is plainly and only held forth You insinuate as much as if he had afterward retracted this opinion and this you prove very pitifully 1. From his answere to one Rogatian a Bishop that he by his Episcopall vigour and Authority had power presently to punish a Deacon for an affront received which yet doth not at all seclude the Presbyters according to the Rule of the Canon Law Episcopus non potest judicare Presbyterum vel Diaconum sine Synodo Senioribus The Bishop cannot judge a Presbyter or a Deacon without the Synod and Eldersâ— 2. From this Censure of Hereticks and Schismaticks for proud contempt of their then Bishops which we do as little allow as you do 3. From a letter written by the Presbyters and Deacons of Rome after the Death of Fabian wherein they complain of the want of one to Moderate and with Authority and advice to take accompt of Matters whence you say that surely they thought little of Persbyters being equal in power to Bishops who
John his base râ—signation exercise over England a particular authority that after the Reformation and the shaking of the papal voke the Oath of Supremacie was brought in to exclude all forraign Iurisdiction and reinstate the King is his Civill Authority That Henrie the 8th did indeed set up a Civill Papacie but the Reformation of England was never dated from his breach with Rome that the Oath of supremacie was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck Power or to make the power of Ordination of giving Sacraments or of Discipline to flow from the King that however because the generality of the words might suggest scruples they are explained in an Act of Parliament of Q. Elizabeth and in one of the 29. Articles and morefully by B. Usher with King Iames approbation And lastly since we have this oath from England none ought to scruple the words being sufficiently plain and the English meaning ours This is the full and clear account which you promise But who knows not these poor and insignificant pretenses King Iohn's resignation was indeed so base that by all disinterested it was ever held to be invalid and in after times scarce ever mentioned let be pleaded It is therefore the Pop's general tyrannie and what it was and whether abolished in these Kingdomes or in effect only transferred from him to the Prince that we are here to consider And I think I may take it for granted that you judge the Pope's exorbitant usurpation specially his assumming to himselfe not an external assisting oversight which we grant to be the proper right of Princes but by way of an intrinseck and direct power the sole and uncontrolable care of the Church her ministry and ministers with his arrogating an architectonick power in the ordering of Gods Worship so that in all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters therein proposed he may enact what canons he pleases to be parts of the Papal tyranny not only as in him but in all men under our Lord Jesus Christ unwarrantable and antichristian nay some of these are points of so high a nature that the greater part even of the members of the Romish Church do reclaim against them Now questionlesse if this power be to the Pope unlawful and incompetent all secular persons and Princes are therefore much more excluded in asmuch as the Pope being at least in shew a Church-man and according to the hypothese even of your Hierarchy the first Bishop of the westerne if not of the whole Church he is fortified by certain seeming pretenses of which the clame of civil Princes is wholly destitute To come then to our purpose that after the Reformation the Popish yoke not only as to the particulars above mentioned but also as to his forreign Jurisdiction unlawfully usurped over Church-men in civills to the prejudice of the King's Soveraignity was righteously shaken off and the King re-instated in his Civil authority over all Persons and also in all Causes in so far as they are committed to his royal direction and tuition is not at all denyed If that matters had here sisted and upon the abolition of the Papal domination the things of God and of Caesar had been equally restored who could have gain-said it But that on the contrary by the Pop's exclusion and in place of this righteous restitution the King under pretence of the vindication of his own Supremacy did procure to himself a very formal and full translation of what the Pope had not only usurped from him but arrogate from God specially in the things above-specified both the occasion of this change and the manner how this Supremacy hath since been exercised do aboundantly declare And for clearing the occasion it may be remembred 1. That the Peter-pence called in the beginning the King's almes imposed by on Ina King of the West Saxons was discharged by Act of Parliament in the reigne of Edward the Third and the contention anent the exemption of Church-men from the King's Courts most hotly agitate in the reigâ—es of Henry Second and King Iohn was composed many years before the dayes of Henry the Eight So that neither that exaction nor this old debate and far less King Iohn's most invalide resignation not worth the naming could be the cause of King Henry his acclaiming the Supremacy 2. The only motive that we find in History whereby Henry was instigat to reject the Pope and to declare himself to be supreme in causes Ecclesiastick aswell as civil was his purpose of divorce from Queen Katharine wherein finding himself abused by the Pope and his Legates their delayes he discharges all appeals to Rome appointing them to be made from the Comissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and from the Archbishop to the King and is thereafter first called by the Clergy and then declared by the Parliament to be Supreme head of the Church in liew of the Pope whose authority was abrogat by the same Act These things then being certain and you your selfe acknowledging that King Henry did set up a civil Papacy It is easy to determine that this change was not a bare exclusion but a plain translation of the Popes usurped power We know the Reformation of England was never dated from that breach with the Bishop of Rome But what then Can you deny that this was both the rise and establishment of the Supremacy which being transmitted to Edvard the sixth and then renounced by Queen Mary and again restored to the Pope was by Queen Elizabeth reassumed and so continueth untill this day It is true that after the breaking up of the more clear light of Reformation whereby not only Rom's Superstition bot also the Popes usurpation and tyranny in many things was upon better reasons rejected and especially after the succession of Queen Elizabeth to whose Sexe the former title of headship for all the smoothings that had been before used was nevertheless construed not to be so agreeable Many explications were adhibite for qualifying the Supremacy both in answer to the opposition of Papists and for removing the offence of the Protestant Churches But the truth is these explications though more sound in their grounds yet in their explication were nothing conclusive as to the present debate and their Authors arguing for the Supremacy from the examples of reforming Kings and Emperours acting not by vertue of an assumed prerogative but only from that extraordinary power which the necessity of the end upon the failzour of other midses doth measure out to Princes first and to others also if in a competent capacity did rather infer the justification of the work then conclude the approbation of the Supremacy notwithstanding it was therein imployed Nay while by these their reasonings they went about from such extraordinary interpositions only warranted by the exigence of necessity and the rectitude of the work thereby effectuat to establish to the Prince a constant setled authority properly conversant about these matters the argument is far more
Clergie is not in the Text Pray you Sir how came this in your head that we apply the title of Gods heritage to the Clergie or own them under this name Know you not that the usurping of this prerogative both by your and the Popish Church-men hath been alwayes esteemed by us an high arrogance As for your pretending to correct our Translation Pray Sir be sober and remember the respect which you bear to the Authors 2. I grant the Greek Verbatim â—â—ndered seemeth to sound neither as exercising Lordly authority over the Lots by which as your interpretation of a tyrannical domination is disproved so even your pretended exactnesse Your being wantingâ— is exceeded 3. Since the Lords People are certainly here meant whether you understand them to be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lots in order to their respective Pastors whoâ—e â—ortitions and divisions they are or as being Gods heritage according to the usuall signification of the singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heritageâ— and the clear Synonymous import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the following part of the verse but being Ensamples to the flock it matters nothing as to our present business but plainly shews your impertinent curiosity However I wish you to consider that as we condemn the worldly and pompous usurpations of Prelats above their own degree and over their Brethren so we most of all condemn their spiritual Tyranny in Lording over the Consciences of Gods People whom they cease not now as alwayes to vex with their Pharisaick imposing and exacting of implicite obedience to vain Traditions and humane inventions more then obedience to the Commandments of God as will afterward appear Your N. C. proceeds to say that his chief quarrell against Bishops is that they are a function of mans devising and no where instituted by God To this you think fit to answere by way of retortion telling us of our great but vain pretenses to a jus divinum in severall things As first in the matter of Lay Elders thus Sir you deall wittily when you can do no betterâ— seing you cannot confirme your own opinion you endeavour at lest to subvert your adversarie but before I enter with you upon particulars I must tell you first that Presbyterians in pleading for a jus divinum do not pretâ—nd to a posiâ—tive and expresse prescription from Scripture of all the smaller points and circumstances either of decencie or order requisite to their Government and Discipline in as much as the regulation of these being abundantly provided for by the general rules revealed and the things themselves and their use such as ingenuous persons cannot probably mistake the want of express warrants in all or any such particulars cannot be justly cavilled at as a defect 2. That it had better become the sobriety that you require of your N. C. for you to have answered what many worthy Men have written for the jus divinum of Presbyterie then to have passed all with the empty censure of your own airy character of big talking and minding it as little as any could to the effect you may amuse your poor N. C. with a fear of your conceited quiblings but leaving these things with as confident an estimation as your undervaluing is vain and groundlesse to the impartial perusal of judicious Readers I do only here premise that whoever abstractly and seriously considers the clear light and obvious project of the Gospel will of necessity finde 1. That our Lord Jesus by vertue of that Kingdom and All Power given to him in Heaven and in Earth did for the carrying on and prospering of his pleasure the Salvation of sinners appoint in the Persons of his Apostles a perpetual Ministrie in his Church the summe of whose charge is both severally jointly to take heed to oversee and feed the Church of God and the chief part and dutie of which office is to Preach and Teach and consequently to reprove rebuke exhort remit and retain bind and loose c. in which things the heads of Doctrine and Discipline with their immediate power and warrant from Jesus Christ and their connexâ—on and dependence betuixt themselves do certainly consist and are clearly held out 2 As the Apostles were all the Ministers waving the matter of the Seventie whose mission and imployment was only locall and preparatorie unto every Citie and place whether he himself would come and to say the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you and de facto ended at their returne Luk 10. 1. 9. 17. appointed by Christ and in them the order office and full pattern of the Gospel Ministrie established 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even unto the end of the world so they are by our Lord vested with such equall power so expresly prohibited the aspiring to or usurping these degrees lawfull and allowed in secular dignities and so enixely commanded the lowliest humility and submission conceivable not only in their personall conversation but in their Ministrie that to introduce an imparity either of Power Dignity or stated Preheminence amongst Gospel Ministers is plainly to reject and deny our Lords institution and ordinance 3. That although the Apostles were singular above their successors in many respects such as an infallible assistance in the discharge of their Ministrie eminencie of Gifts an unconfined exercise an universall oversight and the privilege not only of our Lords peculiar and chosen Witnesses but of being the spirituall Fathers and Authors of conversion to almost the whole Christian Church yet were these prerogatives only temporary and necessarily requisite and suited to or depending upon the particular exigence of the Gospels first propagation and so far from changing or innovating that equality parity and lowlinesse of Ministers most manifest from our Lords command and appointment that on the contraire these other advantages hindered not the Apostles to respect and acknowledge the Pastors of particular Churches as partakers with them of the same Ministeriall power their fellow-labourers Brethren not in the bare name as your Prelats scorne their Curates and the Pope in his pretended sevus servorum Dei the whole Roman Church Compresbyters and in the Pastoral charge altogether their equals 4. As the power of Government consisting in the Authoritative deciding of Controversies according to the word of God the due application of Ecclesiastick Discipline and Censures and the right regulation of all other things pertaining to the Ministeriall function is clearly imported in the Command of Feeding and Over-seeing beside its naturall inseparability from the conduct of every rational let be Christian institution and Society and consequently only assistent and secondarie to the other offices of the Ministerie so the Lords command of that most lowly submission and simplicity incapable of the very notion of imparity which he opposeth even to that lawfull Authority and dignity allowed in civils doth in such a peculiar manner regard the exercise of this Governing Power that whether it be more absurd to introduce a
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
that happens to be promoted and that the order or institution it self destitute of divine warrant and promise and clearly occasioned by evil contention and introduced into the house of God by humane invention could not at first have any thing in it recommendable and hath since produced most corrupt â—ruits Neither the existence of Many excellent and great men in this degree nor the laudable yea extraordinary advantages that the Church hath received from them in the concret can now justify and maintain the Order it self in the abstract If this arguing were good able and well qualifyed men vested with such a power or placed in such a condition have proven and may prove notable instruments of Good therefore it is reasonable and expedient that such a constant order should be erected we might not only have Bishops but most of the Monastick Orders of the Roman Church We finde Peter with the singular benefite of the Church exercing a power of Life and Death and that given him from above and not assumed could therefore an order of Church-men pretending to the like Authority be rationally thence maintained in the Church No wayes Accidental advantages do not commend unwarranted institutions much less can they justle out our Lords express constitution But it is he the perfect orderer of his own house who hath positively defined and blessed its Officers and their power and not left the matter Arbitrarie to the probable contrivances of apparent benefite farre less to the dissembling pretenses of mens Lusts and corrupt Interest 8. It is to be noted that although the great measure of Grace given to the Primitive Church and the hard and frequent persecutions wherewith it was exercised did for a time hinder that strange depravation and incredible â—ruption of wickedness whereunto the setting up of the Ancient Prostasia the rudiment of your Prelacie did from its first beginnings secretly and covertly bend Yet this is most evident that so soon as the Church of God obtained the countenance and was favoured by the more fond in many things such as excessive Doâ—ations and Grants of privileges then prudently pious benevolence of Secular Princes this Prelatick order which in its depression had been indeed honoured with many shining lights and Glorious Martyres attaining then to its ascendent did not only debauch the Lords Ministers for the most part unto idleness avarice and luxurie but continually climb up according to its proper Genius of Ambition until the Devils design in its rise and progress was fully discovered and consummate in the revelation of the Son of perdition 9. This being the rise progress and product of Prelacie in the first Churches as may be clearly gathered from the writtings of these times how it was introduced in other Churches thereafter gathered and brought in may be found in their Histories Only this is certain that as in almost no Church it can be shewed to have been coëvous with Christianity and in all the western Churches where it obtained place was ever a sprig of Romes Hierarchie propagate by her ambition and deceit and the like practices So the Church of Scotland in special was in the beginning and for some centuries thereafter instructed and guided by Monks without Bishops until palladius from Rome did set up Prelacie among us as many Authors witness Nay we may finde it on Record that even in the 816. year a Synod in England did prohibite the Scots any function in their Church because they gave no honour to Metropolitans and other Bishops By these observations having in some sort delineate the mysterious and crooked windings of this excrescing Power in its first motions and setting forth and very clearly and naturally traced its progressions and thence deduced that most prodigious production of the Antichristian Papacie as any considerate man may thereby easily perceive not only how it might but how de facto it hath crept into the whole Church without an Apostolicall introduction notwithstanding of all your contrarie insinuations so I am confident that what ever other advantages these primitive times had above our latter dayes yet our discovery made after so full a revelation compared to the obscure appearances of this wickedness in the first ages of the Church cannot be thereby rationally disproved and your scurrile disparaging of the latter times of reformation as the fagg end oâ— sexteen hundred years doth with little less success plead for the Pope and Antichrist then for your Anâ—ichristian Prelacie As for the rest of your discourse wherein you tell your N. C. that though the ancient Bishops were better men then either Bishops or Presbyters alive Yet in Presbyteries Specially in the matter of Ordination they were sine quibus non and what ever be the present abuse of the Episcopall power Yet it is a rational and most necessary thing that the more approven and gifted be peculiarly incharged with the inspection of the Clergie an order of men neâ—ding much to be regulate and seing all humane things and Presbytery also are liable to be abused the common maxime remains to be applied remove the abuse of Bishops but retain their use In answere hereto I need not inlarge he who knows Church History best will easily grant that as for the first Centurie and an half we have no vestige upon record of your Prelatick power So when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had place their concurrence in Presbyteries was only for order as being the Modâ—rators a consideration of the same exigence and effect whether they be fixed or unfixed and not from any peculiar power proper to them as a superior order A thing so certainly disowned by the primitive Church that even after the Bishops thought themselves well stated in their Prelacie and were beginning to contend among themselves for the Papacie Hierom doth plainly deny them any such prerogative above Presbyters and was not therefore contradicted by any How much more then doth this condemn that sole power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction whereunto your Bishops do pretend As for your alledged reason and necessity of promoting the better gifted over the unruly Clâ—rgie whatever application it may have to that naughty Company of your insufficient and profane Curats or Conformity to the Court yea the worlds prejudice against our Lord Jesus his Ministers and all his followers Yet these two things are most evident 1. That as that lowely and ministerial Government appointed by Christ in his own house admitting no superiority or inequality of power among Ministers is not subjected to and alterable at the arbitriment of humane reason so the advantage of Gifts whereupon you would found it doth so little favour your conclusion that the direct contrarie is recommended by our Lord as its best evidence and fruit he that will be chief among you let him be your Servant and that not only as to the grace of humility but in plain opposition to that superior Authority exercised in Secular Rule whereof the imitation in this place is expresty
distinction will be found but a groundless malicious forgery but to confirm it you remember a passage of one of our Preachers allowing Sharpness in defence of the Truth and to check the proud conceit of Adversaries and though it arise most natively from the words and be clearly verifiable in all times and occasions yet loving to rake in our former divisions you will have it to be directed against the insolence forsooth of the then protesting partie and to serve as a complete apology for any sharpness you have used But Sir as you cannot subsume in the termes of that doctrine either upon your own defense of the Truth or upon our proud conceit and consequently do fall short of your designed apology so your reflecting upon these differences wherein you are nothing concerned being plainly intended for the disgracing of the whole party doth far more discover your malice then our infirmities and therefore to use the words of the Text seeing you use these of the doctrine although there be mockers with us and our eye doth continow in their provocation at which upright men may be astonied yet let the innocent stir up himself against the hypocrite and the righteous hold on his way and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger The next wedge which you set and drive for to divide us is to tell the world that our humors and sollies are not chargeable upon the whole Presbyterian party that the English Presbyterians are â—ar beyond us in moderation as appeares from Baxter's Disputations on Church-government and all they desired in the late treaty was to be joyned with the Bishops in the exercise of Discipline which we refuse 'T is answered what your opinion is of the whole party shall not be taken from your fraudulent insinuations but as these are plainly enough confuted by your more free expressions in other parts particularly in your 1. Dialogue Pag. 6. Where you say Rebellion was the soul of our whole worke and the Covenant the bond thereof and Dial. 4. P. 62. where you charge both English and Scots with all the blood of the late war So these umbrages of differences which you alledge either from a particular person his problematick disputations or a streatch of Accommodation flowing in a great pressure of necessity from men not by oath tyed with us to this preservation of that where unto they had not actually attained but only to endeavour a Reformation according to the sure rules therein set down ought not to be either a matter of stumbling or an excuse to your deceit But now forgetting your distinction with the same breath you exhibite one of your former charges against us all in these words before the late dissorders all the Presbyterians in Scotland did sit in the Courts for Church-discipline and why may not you aswel do the like And to this you make your N. C. Answere upon the old legal establishment then standing and never rescinded untill the year 1662. On purpose that you may surprise him as you speake with a new discovery forsooth of an Act published and printed now 57 years ago whereby you say the Act. 1592. Sâ—tling Presbytery was expresly annulled and hereupon you pretend such amazement and do make such exclamations upon our disingenuous forgery or intolerable ignorance and groundless and presumptuous shisme that this whole passage saving your reverence doth plainly appeare to me to be but the schareleton tricks of a pitiful impostor For 1. I told you before upon your 4. Diâ—l Where I confess I waved this matter as not worthy the answering That the reason of our different practice now in order to your meetings from what was used formerly is plainly this that Prelacy being at first introduced in this Church mostly by cunning and a lent procedure our true Presbyteries were not thereby discontinued but only injuriously invaded and usurped upon of which practices any honest Minister being free and purging himself of all appearance of accession by open protestation might very lawfully sit still and serve his Master therein but in the late overturning all things being carried at a far different rate and not only the old Presbyteries distolâ—ed but a new foundation being laid of the Kings Supremacy and all the power and jurisdiction of this Church therein fountained and both Bishops and the present pretended Presbyteries thereon founded it is most manifest that your present meetings being no lawful Churchâ— inâ—sicatories are not to be countenanced by any true Minister of Jesus Christ. 2. You make your N. C. lay claime to a legal establishment as a necessary warrant to impower Ministers to meet in Ecclesiastick-courts whereas you know that although we judge Magistrats bound to give Christs Church the assistance and protection of their authority and laws yet we constantly hold the power of assembling as well as of Discipline to be intrinseck in the Church derived unto it from Jesus Christ its head and this is certainly a jus divinum to which all true Non-conformists do constantly adhere and which your N. C. doth very foolishly and weakly omit 3. The noise you make that it is in all our mouths that the law for Presâ—yteries was in force untill the year 1662. Which for my own part I may declare I never either thought or heard alledged as the account of the different practice wherewith you here urge us and your pretended surprise and vain account of being undeceived by a person of great honour who shewed you the Act. 1612. Which I hardly believe that there is any in Scotland of your coaâ— ignorant of What do they signify but the dress of a ridiculous fable to impose upon the simple to our prejudice 4. If the matter were worth the contending for I could shew you that that person of great honour is not much oblidged to your report for the credit of his knowledge in as much as your words do import that both he and you do understand the Act. 1592. setling Presbytery to have been by the Act 1612. totally rescinded and Presbyteries thereby totally disolved whereas the clause of the Act runneth verbatim thus annulling and rescinding the 114 Act. Parl. 1592. Aud all and whatsomever Acts Laws Ordinances and Customes in so far as they or any part thereof are contrary or derogatory unto the Articles above written so that there being no Article or provision in the Act. 1612. Making void the approbation given to the being and meetings of Presbyteries by the 1592. Although I grant their power and priviledges are thereby much diminished It is evident that the power of meeting and doing all other things not altered by the posterior did still remain allowed to Presbyteries by vertue of the prior Say not that the first part of the abovementioned rescissory clause relative to the Act. 1592. Is simple and doth there terminat as I heard once affirmed by one of your party not 't is like of so great honour as your informer but I am sure in
absurd then if because a Governour may in a manifest incident disorder falling for example in a Family repone the Father and head thereof to his paternal oversight one should thence conclude to the same Governour a proper power and faculty of placeing and displaceing Heads of Families and appointing the Rules thereof at his pleasure Now that thus it fell out in England after the Reformation and that the same if not a more exorbiâ—ant power taken from the Pope was transferred and setled upon the Crown as a perpetual privilege thereof is in the second place by the manner of its exercise and its ensuing fruits veâ—y evidently held out For proofe whereof the office and actings of the Lord Cromwell as Vicare General appointed by Henry the eight over the spirituality though by the good providence of God ordered to be a notable mean for advance of the Reformation is an undeniable argument And as to the continuance of the same usurpation in order to other effects in themselves evill and not to be justified there needeth no curious search the frequent practices of after Princes laying claime to this power namely Elizabeth Iames and Charles in their ecclesiastick medlings but especially of his Majesty now regnant in his interposing in Church-matters and thereby overturning a true Gospe-â—ministry introducing a new model of Church-government absolutely dependent upon himselfe reviving vain groundless and antiqâ—â—â— ceremonies appointing and imposing new Religions Dayes and Forms And lastly giving Rules to Ministers their doctrine what points to preach and what to omit all according to the device of his own heart are an obvious demonstration which things are in themselves so evident that I strange you should accuse Henry the Eight of a civil Papacy and so inconsequently acquit al his Successors Whereas in effect they not only acted in Church-matters after the same method by him observed using the same prerogative in the grant of their High Commissions and in other acts which he exercised in his vicarious deputation but he is the Prince who waving his haltings upon the other side and considering the necessity there was at that time of an extraordinary remedy for the good things that he did seemeth to have employed their usurped Supremacy most excusably and also very advantageously for the promoving of the Reformation Bot you tell us that the Oath of Supremacy was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck power or to make the power of Ordination of Sacraments and of Discipline flow from the King It is answered seing the many evill effects of this Supremacy do so plaâ—â—ly evince its direct and proper tendency and its late explanation by Act of Parliament doth put its nature and extent beyond all controversy to tell us what at first it was or was not designed for is but a vain suggestion And therefore according to these â—urer grounds I must now tell you 1. That although the King not likely to be tempted by such an empty curiosity hath neither expresly declared in his own favour nor assumed to himselfe the exercise of this power of administration yet that by vertue of his Supremacy as it now stands explained he may do both or either when he pleaseth is not to be doubted I need not reminde you that any Church-power not acknowledging a dependence upon and subordination unto the Soveraign Power of the King as Supreme is abrogate and discharged But pray Sir he who may enact what he thinketh fit concerning all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters may he not if he think fit declare himself to have the power of the ministerial function Nay what may he not do But 2. admitting that this was not meaned by the Parliament in their explanation and that in probability the King will never affect the imployment yet that the intrinseck power of Government belonging to the Church both as to a Society of our Lords erection and by his express gift and concession is by the Supremacy taken away I beleeve it will be so far from being disowned that it is rather vaunted of as its principal end and advantage But referring the truth and evidence of this point anent the power of Government given by our Lord immediatly to his Church to what hath been very fully by others declared and is by me above hinted at I verily think that though we had no other argument save the sad changes that of late have ensued upon the usurpation of this Supremacy the usefulness and excellency of this intrinseck Government is thereby rendered apparent beyond the evidence of any further confirmation And really when together with the authority of its founder I consider the undeniable necessity and expedience of an internal power of Government in the Church as the most significant mean for making all its other gifts powers offices effectual And how much it is commended by the signal usefulness of a proper Government in every Society but more especially to our adversaries by that high yea sacred estimat which they so much inculcat of that Civil-government and all its punctilios whereupon their interest depends and when on the other hand I reflect upon the peâ—â—â—â—ous and woful influences that in all ages have constantly attended either the suppression or usurpation of this great divine ordinance I cannot sufficiently regrete that the pride ambition and vanity of men in setting up and advancing this Supremacy should be so sinfully subservient to the Divell 's great design of crossing the progress of the Gospel and propogating irreligion Which evil is the more to be lamented that nothwithstanding that our own experience of its wretched consequences doth evidently redargue this usurpation yet these men who in the matter of Civil government make every circumstance sacred and exclaime against the smallest innovation as if all confusion were imminent can and do in the business of Ecclesiastick government with a more then Gallio indifferency and coldness slight all its concerns in opposition to their carnal designes as questions of meer outward forms and the skirts and suburbs of Religion far removed from its life and substance Whereas it is very certain that eternal life and salvation the great end is not more preferable to temporal peace and outward tranquillity then our zeal for the government of God's House institute by himselfe in his Church in order to our everlasting welbeing ought to exceed our regard to Civil government which in this respect are but the ordinances of man in order to our temporal interests Nay so apparent is the lukwarmness hypocrisy of mens reasonings in behalfe of this Supremacy that though in the supposition that our Lord had by himselfe immediatly erected in any Kingdom a Society or incorporation with masters laws and a competent jurisdiction in order to some temporal advantage as he hath in the acknowledgement of all institute his Church with Ordinances Officers and Government suited to its great ends all rationâ—â— men let be the members of that Society would judge the
75 DIAL III. PResbytery and Prelacy how falsly said to be only mere distinguishing names 78 The present looseness most unjustly charged upon Non-Conformists 79 Unanswerable arguments against Episcopacie 84 Whether this Title of Lord be due to Bishops 85 That Scripture 1. Pet 5. 3. cleared from the false Glosses of Adversaries 87 c. The Ius Divinum that Presbyterians plead for together with these things that do fairly exhibite the Platform of Presbyterian Government 90 c. Of Lay-Elders 96 c. Of Deacons 99 Of Diaconesses 102 Of Evangelists 103 Of the Classical Subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries c. 104 Of Discipline and whether the Penitence of Lent the Table altar-wayes and officiating in a surplice may be as lawfully appointed by the Church as the circumstances of publick repentance to wit so many dayes a place of repentance and the use of Sackcloath for scandalous persons 109 c. Of the decree of the first Council at Ierusalem 113 Of the washing of Feet where you have the Conformist's design of resolving the necessity of Sacraments into the arbitrement of the Church discovered 115 c. Anointing the sick with oyl why not used by N. C. 117 Of the change of the Sabbath 119 Whether the Scriptures contain direct Rules for the Churches Policy which is wholly Ecclesiastick 121 Of the Kingdom of Christ how the Officers Laws Censures and Order of his House are by himself established 126 c. Whether the Angels of the Churches assoord any ground for Bishops 144 The plea of Antiquity for Bishops together with a short delineation of the rise progress and product of Prelacy in the first Churches 144 c. DIAL IIII. SUbmission to and complyance with the present Prelatick Government cannot be without sin 165 Whether Paul's conforming to Iews and Gentiles doth enforce Compliance with Prelacie 166 167 c. Whether it be unsufferable Peevishness if the Magistrate enjoin a thing declaring it free in itself and only necessary because commanded upon that score to refuse obedience 170 Of Christian Liberty and wherein it stands 174 Prelatick exactions high impingements upon Christian Liberty 175 Why Non-Conformist's cannot joine in Prelatick Courts for Church Discipline 181 182 376 c. The Conformist's reasoning for joining answered where that Question why ought we not to submit to the Bishops as wel as to the late Usurpers in the State Is fully answered 182 c. The just ground People have of disowning Curats and charging them with that Schisme whereof they would make N. C. guilty 189 190 The Conformists arguments for owning and hearing Curats fully answered 192 c. How and in what cases Children are bound by their Fathers Oath 205 c. That charge of breach of Covenant in some things viz. silence and not declaring against the Apostacy Tyranny and Perjury of the Usurpers and a faint giving over to pray for the King answered 219 220 The National Covenant vindicated 222 c. Whether the Laws annulling the Covenant doth loose its obligation where you have a plain account of the Nature obligation both of Vows and Laws 230 c. The Conformist's allegations for justifying the King's setting up of Prelacie false and calumnious 236 DIAL V. THe grosness of the Conformist's perswasion of extemporary prayer redargued 244 That Qâ—estion about the composing and imposing Set-forms fully handled 246 c. The Conformists reasoning against extemporary Prayer answered 258 Whether singing Psalms and Scripture-songs be a restraining of the Spirit 272â— Why all David's Psalms is used in Praising together with the right way of singing Psalms-prayers 274 Of the English Liturgie 285 c. Of the 5. Articles of Perth 288 c. DIAL VI. ANent the name and Principles of Latitudinarians 305 306 The opinion of the Author of the Dialogues anent Justification â—xamined and found unsound 313 c. The men of the Latitude more inclineable to favour Papists Arminians or any Sect or party rather then Conscientious Non-Conformists 345 346 c. DIAL VII WHether the Conformist doth sufficiently purge himself of Socimanisme Popery and Arminianisme 365 366 Non-Conformists unjustly charged with the progress of Quakerisme 369 370 Whether the Prayers and actions of the Prelatick Conformists evidence any tenderness of Love towards Non-Conformists 378 c. Naphtali's Doctrine vindicated specially his Doctrine upon Phineas his Act. 382 c. The Surveyer's calumnies and objections against Naphtali removed 393 c. That Doctrine concerning private Persons their punishing of Crimes in case of the Supinnels of the Magistrat cleared 401 402 That Religion was maintained by resistance is no vulgar error but a thing undenyable 1. From the Waldenses their resisting of the King of France 418 c. 2. From the Bohemian wars under Zisca 424 c. 3. From the wars in Germany 427 428 4. From Sweden 441 5. From the Practice of Helvetia and Genevâ— 442 6. From the Practice of Basile 444 7. From the wars in the Netherlands 446 c. 8. From the Civil wars of France 454 That allegeance that the Church of Scotland was condemned by the Churches abroad for her maintaining Reformation by Armes shown to be false 460 461 That the Pop's usurpation is not abolished in Brittain and Irland but in effect only transferred from him to the King Of the Supremacy and whether it takes away the Churches intrinseck power 472 473 Arguments for the Supremacie answered 479 What account is to be had of the Indulgence as flowing from the Supremacie 487 Whether there can be an accommodation with the present Prelatick party 493 494 Whether Peace Love and Charity be due to Conformists 496 READER Ere thou read correct with a pen these Errata as followeth PAg. 9. Lin. 6. read mightily p. 17. l. 18. r. directions ibid. l. 19. r. out p. 23. l. 17. r. it is p. 25. l. 12. Peter r. Pilat p. 26. l. 19. is r. it p. 31. l. 12. r. off p. 33. l. 22. r. stipend p. 34â— l. 30. r. suffering p. 37. l. 22. r. in p. 38. l. 24. r. into in p. 41. l. 22. r. thought p. 45. l. 28. r. place p. 50. l. 33. r. poenitentem p. 56. l. 6. r. the. ibid. l. 32. r. are p. 62. l. 12. r. your p 65. l. 5. r. Preachers p. 66. l. 20. r. acknowledge p. 82. for first Dialogue r. third Dialogue p. 87. l. 16. r benches p. 90. l. 33. r. least p. 97. l. 1. r. inconsistence p. 101. l. 12. r. least p. 102. l. 1â— r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 103. l. 3. r. do p. 112. l. last r. continued p. 127. l. 12. r. Kingdomes p. 130. l. 29. dele whrest p. 133. l. 9. r. purity p. 135. l. 4. r. the. p 137. l. 7. r. appointment p. 146. l. 22. r. contrary p. 147. l. 32. r. perceive p. 154. l. 21. r. thing p. 162. l. 28. r. restless p. 196. l. 32. r. subjected p. 199. l. 1. r. out p. 207. l. 33. r. concerned p.
you in a word what is the reason that the Christian world doth not patiently stretch out its neck to the Turkish Cruelty Sure you are not ignorant that the pretended cause of his invasions hath often been to destroy the Christian Faith if then the spirituality of Christs Kingdom doth altogether prohibite his Servants fighting wherefore do not Christian States and Princes lay down their Carnall defensive weapons and rest quietly in this that God who governs the world can maintain his own right and the wrath of man doth not work his righteousnesse as you are pleased to Cant to your N. C. I know the only reply you can make is that the case of free Estates and Soveraigne Princes against foreiners is very different from that of Subjects against their Rulers but doth not this plainly discover the Sophistrie of your Method you tell us first that Subjects may not fight for Religion against their persecuting Prince because the spirituality of Christs Kingdom forbids all fighting upon that account And then when you are urged with the incontrovertible practice of Christian Kingdomes you just recurre say that the instance not being of Subjects against their Prince doth not quadrat and not remembring that this is the very quaesâ—â—um you make the vain and emptie assertion of the irresistibilitie of Princes without any proofe both head and tail of all your reasonings I may not insist to tell you that if the spirituality of Christs Kingdom did cause the King of Kings and him who even on earth owned himself greater then Solomon to suffer without resistance The Soveraignity of Christian Princes cannot give them a contrary privilege I know these of your way and many others also carried away with their error forgetting both the Authority which Christ exercised and for which he was questioned by the jewish Rulers and also his own most expresse words no man taketh my life from me but I lay it down of my self I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again stick not to make an obligation of subjection to the then Tyrannes Murtherers an ingredient in his submission but I am tedious More consideration of the worth and wonderful love of our Lord Jesus Christ would teach you no doubt both a better understanding in the Truth of God and more reverend and tender vindications then these you make of the True and Faithfull Witness You proceed in the next place upon occasion of your N. C. alledging that you condemne our first Reformation carried on by Fighting to tell us that the ages immediatly after Christ afford the best examples in these the Christians though suffâ—â—iently numerous and cruelly irritate did onlâ— increase by suffering and not by fighting the force used in our Reformation was the enemies tares and no precedent of men is to be opposed to the expresseâ— word of God Sir to begin where you leave I hope I have already fully cleared that the expresse word of God is against you and not for you neither will I expatiat upon the undeniable Necessitie Righteousnesse Reason and evident blessing of that Force used in our first Reformation by which our Religion Libertie yea the Royall line and Crown were under God only preservedâ— Nay your reprochful likening of it to the devils tares is so far from lessening the evidence of that Spirit which after having resisted unto bloud and wrestled through many great and strong persecutions did animate the Lords people to a very noble defence countenanced by all the then Reformed Churches that it doth not so much as demurie my charitie that if you your self had been in these dayes you had taken part with the Congregation That which I shall stay a little upon is the practice of the Primitive Christians whereby you think fighting for Religion to be as much condemned as suffering is highly commended And because this objection doth lead unto the delightful search and vindication of the works of God for answere I observe first that as in the holy and determinate Counsel of God it became the Captain of our Salvation to be made perfect through suffering so it pleased him for the greater manifestation of the power of his Grace by the Foolishnesse of Preaching and Weakeness of Suffering to render the propagation of his Truth more glorious and thus in the first times of the Gospel the greater the crueltie and the more ineluctable that the necessity of the suffering was the more inexpressible was the glory of that presence and the joy of that consolation whereby the Church in its deepest distresse did most highly triumph 2. So unspeakeablie did the power of this assistance prevail to the dispelling of the fear and removing of the horrour of all these torments and afflictions that many instead of flying incontrovertibly lawfull did directly run to suffering and to a great part the Garland of Martyrdom became a most Ambitionat Crown by the mistake of the exuberance of which assisting grace not only many odd practices in precipitating themselves unto suffering and death but Opinions also then held such as that of the unlawfulnesse of all resistance for Christians even against Robbers and Murtherers can only be excused 3. But if the beautie and splendor of this grace did in some measure dazle the eyes of its more immediate witnesses how much more did it astonish its more remote and after admirers who receiving the report with fames increase and taking their measures more from their own good design then the exact simplicitie of truth by their pious and affectionat Rhetorications stopt not to strain matter of fact sometimes beyond probabilitie If you be a stranger to this truth advert how the almost immediate after Age magnifies their Patience and Sufferings such as veflra omnia repleâ—iâ—us with more then one grain of allowance 4. As this was the dispensation of the first ages of the Gospel so when the Lord advanced the Church to a certain and visible capacity of defence peruse Histories and you will find plenty of instances of Christians their fighting for Religion The Armenii very early even before Constantine his Empire Libertatem exercendi Christianismi Armis vindicant Clade afficiunt Maximinum as the History beares and how the persecuted Christians under the Persian and Arrian did implore and receive the aid of the Roman and Orthodox Emperours would be superfluous to narrate By these few reflections as I have cut of from your argument all the necessary suffering and strained capacities of the Primitive Christians so I have given you such a full and evident account of their not searching after or improving sooner any real measure of sufficiencie for defence which probably they did but little minde that this their omission cannot without manifest calumnie be adduced to disprove either their immediate afterâ— practises or the agreeable and universally approven examples of our late reformations Now if for proving their more early capacite for or expresse dissent from Defensive Armes
Prophets is as far from truth as their diligence in searching of and their care of confirming all their Doctrine by the Scriptures with their frequent and continual intimations that the People ought to build all their Faith upon that sure foundation are notourly known But you have not yet done with our Ministers you tell us again that our great Men were medling Men and most of them were very little spiritual in their conversation and Seldom in the Commendation of God and Religion to the People Sir omitting your insinuate distinction of Greater and Lesser Ministers amongst us which you know we acdnowledge no further or otherwayes then the Lords free Grace gifts do make it and passing your accusation of Medling which I have already answered As to Spirituality of converse it is indeed a thing so excellent and beautiful that it can never be enough studied never enough practised and never enough pressed but the manner and designe of your reflection considered it is so void of truth and charitie toward Non-conformists whereof so many have been burning and shining Lights and so sadly applicable to your Clergie the very scume of Men let be of Christians that I can only marvel at and regret the excesse and confidence of your Malice Pardon me if the strangenesse of your procedour force me to such expressions I protest sincerely your Methods are so perverse that I have no greater difficultie then how to find civil termes sufficient to detect them Thus after you have delivered a groundless and calumnious challenge of our Leaders their want of Spirituality in ordinary discourse you hold out its singular usefulnesse And falling to question us as wholly strangers to these great things of Devotion and holinesse which you enumerate you falsely conclude truely these things are as little among you as any partie I know Well Sir as I wish heartily that they were more and that they may still encrease even to your conviction which I am certain requires a degree equall to if not beyond perfection so my prayer is that God who both knows all the darring and open wickednesse and ungodlinesse of these of your way and sees your heart and weighs your words may discover unto you the sin of speaking wickedly and talking deceitfully against him and his servants In the next place telling us that we seeme very desirous to be noticed in our Religion You charge our Communions as tumultuary disorderly and talkative It 's Answered that sometime they were numerous is not denied but if you consure Great multitudes their following of Christ as tumultuary and disorderly it is more then the jews ever did That our running many miles to them shews us to be Idolizers of Men your objected opporrunity of the Sacrament nearer hand does not prove it for as we were far from neglecting neerer occasions or undervaluing any of the Lords sincere Servants so to acknowledge also and improve the difference of Gifts which the Lord hath dispensed savours nothing of Idolizing and cannot without palpable envy be dissallowed If in other things I were satisfied and in the libertie of a free election I am confident that without slighting the call of neerer invitations I might chuse rather to go ten miles to your Communion then five to anothers and yet you cannot say that I Idolize you As to what you object That at our Communions all our businesse both in preparation and Participation was to hear and talk it is but your mis-information or mistake I am suâ—e previous self-examination whether by the names or Inward stilnesse and recollection I do not indeed well remember was alwayes most seriously pressed and also much practised and in the action it self a short convenient silence was the more general custome As for your other alledged inconveniences of Croud and Distraction these are but the peculiar aversions of your particular Genius other more strong and lesse delicate and nice Spirits did easily overcome these difficulties You further say that You cannot think them very devout who love rather to hear one talk then to retire inwardly and commune with their own hearts but what esteem have you for him who disliking the hearing of others and pretending to inward retirements maketh the talk of these things all his work And why do ye without ground accuse us of a preference whereof we are not guilty As we hold both Hearing and Meditation to be duties and beautiful in their seasons so we endeavoured to practise without either the Partiality which you object or its contrary which you incurre O but you adde that some of us will be many hours in Publick worship and perhaps not a quarter of an hour in secret That there may be such amongst us and worse I nothing doubt but if you intend this for an accusation either against our way or the Generality that own it it is an allegeance for which our Father who seeth in secret will in due time rebuke you Another fault which you find about our Communions is their iâ—â—requencie as being brought by us from the dayly practice of the Apostles and the after frequent custome of the whole Church to once a year Sir you know so well the Churches power and the differing observations that have been in use as to this circumstance of time that I think although your disatisfaction had been founded on better grounds Yet you should have been tender to make of it an objection That the Primitive Church did soon fâ—ll from the first dayly celebration your own Argument grants what was the after practice and is at present your custome I need not mention it is certain that neither the one nor the other do agree to your rule of Weekly Communions Suppose then our Church had by a suitable regulation of this matter designed the greater solemnity of Gods Ordinance had this been a licentious admixingâ— four own devices as you are pleased to terme it but the plain account of the thing is that there was no positive Prescription as to the times of this observance known amongst us Only as the Churches of old did Ordain that all Christians should Communicate at least once a Year so our Church did appoint that at least once if not tuice in the year this Sacrament should be administrate Now if we liking better a joint then a separate participation of the people of the same Parish and knowing that the particular exigences and desires possibly incident to private Christians might be easily supplied in other places none being tyed to any fixed time did therefore not so often celebrate and for the most part but once a Year truely I think that the variation from the former frequencie was visibly compensed with a greater advantage of Solemnityâ— As for your demands why the Communion was not keept every Lords day It 's answered as there is no command for it so you have already heard that we wanted not reasonable considerations which did persuade the contrarie For the hint you give of
Sathan got over the Saints in the use of such a mean then to publish to the world his victories that the thing it self might pass for a vice As for the practice of Private Meetings in evil times all your supposed and accidental inconveniences to which even the best of things are obnoxious are far from making me condemn that which to the Lord is very acceptable and to his People profitable Mal. 3. 16. So that if the intenâ—â—ment and application of your Discouâ—se be levelled at our latter customes seeing you cannot truely charge them with any of these evils which you mention and since your opinion doth clearly depend upon your different judgement as to the main I must take liberty to dissent from you with the same confidence wherewith you assert it and withall tell yow that I wish their frequencie did keep a proportion with the deep distress of the People of God in this penury of pure publick preaching and then I am sure we should have ten for one and if so there were ground of hope that they might in these Private Meetings pray your Intruders out of their publick capacities that so these who now dare not be overâ—heard in their meetings to mourne for the desolation of the Sanctuary and the departings of the Gâ—ory might bless him together in these Assemblies out of which they are thrust and keept and might once more as of old be made glad in his house of Prayer For a close to this Dialogue you make your N. C. boast of the glory of our Unitie to the effect that you may the more foully set out the divisions that fell out amongst us and to do it with the greater advantage you endeavour prudently to remove by a preface the suspicion of what you are resolved to practise and therefore you tell us You love not the Spirit of detraction but whether you be acted by it or not let these Epithets you give us of Unchristian Malitious Brethren in Cruelty and Implacable bear witness for my part though I do so much detest divisions that I am content to let your representation passe with all its excesse on purpose that to all concerned they may appear more odious and that if it be the Lords will even your reproachful tongue may smite the guiltie into Repentance yet for the vindication of the truth I must say that such hath been its bad fate and worse reception in the Earth that I should sooner judge Division then Unitie to be the signe of Orthodoxie to be found among a partie Perfect unity in truth is a blessing so great that it is reserved for Glory If you think that our Lord came to send peace on Earth remember his own words I came not to send peace but a sword and to set a man at variance against his Father c. Schismes must be nay were the very first temptations and trial of the Church against which all the Light and Power of the Apostles could not guard it As therefore Sir you do falsely make us to glory in our Unity so take head lest by making division our charge yow do not far more calumniously reproach the Christian Faith Do not imagine that I do hereby patronize divisions Nay I know and am persuaded that because there is nothing more repugnant to the Genius and hurtfull to the progresse of Truth then Contentions therefore it is that the Devil hath even laboured most to infest it with these temptations but I would have you to understand that seeing these strifes whereof you accuse us did certainly proceed from the remaining dreg and adventitious mixture of ane Evil Spirit relaxing former Engagements remitting the first Zeal and not a little bending to your way and from mens corruptions on all hands although that you could say that our course did take away Peace and in place thereof being War yet it would no more inferre the Spirit that moved therein to be contentious then you can justly object against the blessed Gospel of Peace these Schismes hatred and tumults wherewith in all Ages it hath most â—â—â—ocently filled the World As therefore our Lord doth make it the great characteristick of himself blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me so let not the heats and contests about Truâ—â— affright you from its search or foolishly induce you unconcernedly without disstinction to condemn all Contenders but rather more engage you to seeke and hold it fast and highly to esteem all its zealous adherents where ever you perceive the Devil to bestâ—â—re himself most actively against it Surely if this disposition were in you the offense you seem to take either at the greater oppositions betwixt the Friends Adversaries of the Lords work or these humane infirmities wherewith his Servants amongst themselves hapened to be exercised would soon be removed As for youâ— Veneration whereof you judge us unworthy we acclaime it not we wish your Most Reverend and Right Reverend did truely merite it which is all the Scolding wherewith I repay your Malice The third DIALOGUE Answered SIR you cause your N. C. begin this conference with so just an animadversion upon your â—eeming pretenses to some extraordinary sublime thing and reall deficiencies not only in being guilty oâ— our common evils but also in â—ouâ— want oâ— these good things which you acknowledge were amongst us that I cannot but wiâ—h you had reserved as much ingenuity to your self in your answere as you make and acknowledge him to speak truth in his alledgance But in place of considering his challenge of the evâ—ls of your Way and the sad and strange alteration it hath procured in this poor Church you subtiâ—ly labour to evade by telling That you are not so engaged as blindly to desend any interest you are so far Episcopal as to love the Order and submit to it but you have not sworn fealtie to any Sect your prayer is that all distinguishing names were buried you do not patronize but mourn in Secret for the sins that are amongst you adding That Non-conformists are guiltier of the present loosâ—â—sse then perhaps they think And thus after that in your second Dialogue you have not only riped up mis-construed and exaggerated to the hight the infirmities of the Men oâ— our side but imployed all the invention of calumny to render them odious and then charged all these things directly upon our Way when you see a retortion appear you instantly decline it by insinuating the evils to be the faults of men and no wayes chargeable upon your cause I will not complain of this unequall measure neither shall I take notice that when you apprehend a stress for all your inveighing against the one and love to the other you can for a shift alleviate both Prelacie and Presbytrie to Emptie names shreud your self in the Sanctuary of ease the convenience of your new divised latitude But I must remember you that as the thing we contend for is an Ordinance of Jesus Christ both
stated degree of Superiority and Dignity among Ministers in the point of Government or to separate and exalt Government from and above the office of Preaching to which it is subservient and to appropriate it to certain Ministri-prelati above others can hardly be determined I need not here caution concerning ruling Elders seeing the more full description of Ecclesiastick Government is here given in order to Ministers in which these Elders being only partiall sharers it is not more agreeable to their warrant then suitable to this position 5. As the grounds of the equality and parity of Ministers by us asserted are by these truths plainly held out so that superiority of Power though still Ministerial competent to the meetings of the Brethren as well over the severall constituent members as over the Church according to their warrant hereafter declared is thereto very consistent and thereby mostly established whether these things all evident in the Doctrine and practice of Christ and his Apostles do not fairely exhibite the principles and platform of a Presbyterian Ministerie and its Ministerial parity Let men judge Really Sir when I consider Preaching to be the main office even our Lords own commission great erand into the world Discipline to be dependent upon it and wholly referable to its end and a simple Ministerial Government only allowed for the regulation and advancement of both and when I do remember that neither the glorious excellencie of the Lord Jesus hindered him to be amongst his Disciples as he who served nor did the many advantages of the Apostles and others extraordinarily gifted and accordingly imployed and sent out as their assistents requisite in the Churches infancie make them assume to themselves or endeavour to settle in the Church any superior Order above the degree of preaching Elders and Overseers whom they allwayes respected as their equals in the work of the Gospel And thirdly when I call to minde that wherever a Church came to be gathered the Apostles did either by themselves as at Lystra Iconium and Antioch or by their fellow labourers as Timothy at Ephesus and Titus in Crete there left and appointed by Paul for the work and charged to leave the place when called therein ordain Elders without any imparity or higher order and that Paul after having testified that he had keep back nothing profitable nor shuned to declare all the Counsel of God but shewed them all things did commit to the Elders of Ephesus the full charge and oversight of the Church of God without appointing any Angel Prelat over them And lastly when I reflect how that in the beginnings of the Gospel at Ierusalem all things almost were acted by Common counsel that where and when the Christian name did first take place there and at the same time we finde a Presbyterie of Prophets and teachers assembled and acting jointly and by the Command of the Holy Ghost sending out even the greatest of the Apostles as subject to them that Paul imposeth hands with the Presbyterie termeth it their deed Peter exhorts Elders as his fellows their Compresbyter when I say I ponder these thingsâ— they do make me assuredly conclude the Ministrie Government of the Church in the way of Presbyterie to be as much Iuris Divini as it is opposite to and removed from your Hierarchie Having thus discovered the foundation and traced the undeniable lineaments of Presbyterie in the Word of God I may not insiâ—t upon the inconsonant deformities of Prelacie only this I must say that though Prelacie were not attended with many and great corruptions and in its exaltation mark it lest you think me injurious to good men had not been alwayes enemy to Religion and Godliness Yet a superiour Order of Church-men usurping from the Pastors of the flock of God the Ministerial Power of Iurisdiction and the only right of Ordination and acclaiming to themselves the sole management of Government as their proper work with dignity and authority over their Brethren hath neither warrant nor vestige in the Scripture of the New Testament but is so palpably the invention of man that it is not a greater wonder that the Devil should have improved it to all that pride avarice wickednesse and villany which it hath produced then it is a mysterie how the world should have been thereby imposed upon and have endured all its rapine sacrilege and usurpation under the pretext of Religion to which it is so repugnant I come now to try how you impugne the jus divinum which we assert for Lay elders and other matters condescendâ—d up on by you and therefore hitherto by me not touched You say Lay-Elders are founded on no Scripture as the most judicious amongst us acknowledge And you wonder that when we urge from the Apostles giving rules only for Bishops and Deacons that Diocesans must be shuâ—fled out how we do not also see that ruling Elders are not there Who these most judicious amongst us in Scotland may be who deny Lay or rather Ruling Elders to have any Scripture warrant seeing your own N. C. is none of the Number I cannot apprehend but for your wonder I think it may be easily satisfied if you will but consider that it is not from the simple omission of Diocesans in this Text that we exclude them from the Church but since it is manifest from the Epistles to Timothy and Titus that the true Apostolick Bishop was no other either in name or office then a Presbyter Nay that by the rules to him set down your Diocesans is plainly cast and rejected like as both in Acts Chap. 20. and Titus the names of Bishop and Presbyter are promiscuously used is it not clearly concludent that your Diocesan hath no Scripture warrant whereas the ruling Elder as he is not in these places confounded and made the same with the preaching Elder but may justly enough share both in the general names of Elder and Over-seer and also in their rules without any incosistence so his liquid warrant as a distinct officer is elswhere obviously extant In the next place you add that the Brethren in the Council at Ierusalem prove too much viz. That our Elders are judges oâ— Doctrineâ— but if their concurrence both in the meâ—ting and in the decree may be fairly understood of an assisting and approving suffâ—age without attributing to all unanimous assenters the same power and Authority of deciding as is very casible in any other heterogeneous Assembly whether our argument conclude from the Brethren as distinguished from the Apostles and preaching Elders and therefore to be taken for ruling Elders or from the Elders there mentioned as including both the preaching and ruling Elders your abâ—uâ—dity doth not follow and our argument is nothing convelled But you say it is absurd to think that that was a Church judicature Pray Sir not so fast you would say that that meeting was not a General Synod for that it was a Church judicature its decree doth evince As
subordination of the parts unto the whole in matters pertaining and relating to the body and concerning its end are the inseparable propriâ—ties and privilege of a Society is evident aâ—ove exception which argument is the more confirmed that in the acts of the Apostles we finde the Church assembling and by Common Counsel managing its affaires and determining differences not by any speciall and expresse warrant or command but meerly in the exercise of this intrinsick power competâ—nt to the Church as gathered and erected in one Society This right then and power of meetings being undeniable to the whole by the same reason precedent they are confirmed to the parts the Subordination whereof to the whole cannot be drawn in doubt Thus you see how your own grant affirmeth what you dâ—ny but your N. C. answeres further That they at Antioch send up to them at Jerusalem And are not the Spirits of the Prophets subject to the Prophets To these Scriptures you reply beginning with the last That it is clear that in that place the Apostle is speaking of Pâ—râ—chial Churches which subjection none deny But Sir is not that which you call in question the Subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries Now if the Apostle tell us That the Spirit of the Prophets who in the dayes oâ— the Apostles had many of them charge pro indiviso jointly over the same Church but now a dayes have their distinct charges over Parochial Churches are subject to the Prophets gathered in one assembly may not the Subordination questioned be sufficiently thence concluded especially seing I can hardly suppose you so Anti-episcopal as to be Independant and still to doubt after the many irrefragable demonstrations given by the Presbyterians whether this Church of Corinth was a Presbyterial and not a meer Congregational or Parochial Church As for what else may be in your return I confesse I reach it not seeing that at the time of the Apostles writing we finde no divided Parishes and to fancie that the subjection spoken of waâ— of the Prophets in one Parochial Church such as at that time there was properly none and not rather of the many Prophets having the charge pro indiviso jointly over the whole company of the Beleevers in that Citie in which many parishes were virtually included is groundless and absurd To the first instance you say It is ridiculous to urge it seing they of Antioch sent not up to Jerusalem either as to a Church superior or as to an Oecumenick Councel but to men there who were immediatly inspired That they sent not up as to an Oecumenick Councel I cannot dissent from you seing I finde in the Text no suitable concurse for or vestige of such an Assembly but that they sent not up as to a Church superior is by you ill asserted and worse proved seing 1. The phrases in the letter sent from that meeting that certain which went out from us and it seemed good c. to lay upon you and that the same letter is termed a Decree do clearly prove a superior Authority in the writers 2. Because the example which ye adduce from the jews their high Priest for confirming your Gloss doth plainly redargue you in as much as the Jews consulted not the high Priest his Urim and Thummim without regard to his Authority but consulted him as the high Priest and the Person to whom God had therefore committed them Deut. 17. v. 10. 11. 12. putting them in the breast-plate termed of judgement and not of Responses But you may say supposing the matter was thus carried what makes it for your Assemblies I Answere yes very much for it sheweth 1. That if the Apostles who all of them severally were immediatly inspired and so might have determined this controversie did notwithstanding join with other ordinary Elders or Churchâ—officers and by common counsel give out their Decrees that common Councels their authority in the Church are juris Divini 2. That as the Church of Antioch in which the Apostle Paul Barnabas and several other Prophets wereâ— and the other Churches in Asia received and submitted to the decrees so it evidently intimats a subordination of these making as it were one Provincial Church to that great Assembly of the Apostles Elders conveened at Ierusalem You subjoin in this place That if that meeting at Jerusalem was a Councel then all Councels may speak in their stile it seems good to the Holy Ghost c. It 's answered 1. The connexion oâ— your proposition containeth an obvious non sequitur in as much as it is not from their being a Councel but from the certainty of these Scripture evidences whereupon their determination proceeds that their prefacing of the minde and sentencâ— of the holy Ghost doth flow 2. That that meeting was a Councel of the Apostles and Elders at Ierusalem a conveened in one to Consulte Reason and exercise Authority which severally was not so satisfying â—or the very Apostles to do notwithstanding of their immediâ—â—e assistance is plain from the Text especially Pauls deference to them 3. If you imagine that Ecclesiastick Councels cannot be of Divine right unlesse they have the Spirits absolute and infallible assistance you erre as grossly as he who for want of this infallibility should deny to the Church a standing Minâ—strie by Divine institution 4. Though the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost given to the Apostles aâ—d being to them in stead of the rule was indeed singular and extraordinary Yet as the Lord to all his Ordinances hath annexed the promise of an agreeable presence which doth not fail the sincere and faithfull improvers so Church Assemblies in matters of Faith to them committed and following the rule thereto prescribed are also thereby countenanced and in sound beleeving and upright walking may both attain to and profess their assurance of the Holy Ghosts assistance 5â— Seing that all Councel-acts and Canons anent matters of Faith ought to be guided by the Spirit and conform to the word of God and enacted and emitted in this persuasion these Meetings that truly keeping the rule and sincerely laying hold on the promise do proceed in their determinations may therein warrantably use the Apostles words and such as do otherwayes are only culpable in the presumptuous usurpation because they have not rightly followed and in effect attained unto the rule of the Word and the conduct of the Spirit which ought indeed to be their warrant 6. Having on these clear grounds declared the Authority of Ecclesiastick Meetings in Matters of Faith I freely grant that in other things which may be incident to their cognition and are not of Faith nor defined in Scripture they have neither the like warrant nor may they use the like expressions and therefore as in this case they cannot found upon the Lords Commandments so they are only to be respected as such who are intrusted to give their judgement and have obtained mercie of the Lord to be faithfull 7. The
beside their exprâ—ss Warrant the main thing of this Controversie they had such an agreeable conveniencie and deâ—encie to the service of Sacrificing then in use and might probably in the Priests to whom they appertained have had such a prefiguing respect to the immaculate innocencie of Jesus Christ our great Priest and Sacriâ—â—ce and yet did so little appear in the more solemne Garments of thâ— high Priest that the example adduced doth rather redargue then confirme your continuance of this now idle Rite I might further tell you that the use of Sack cloth among us was not offended at and if it had would probably have been forborne And also adde to these clear disparities your rigid imposing and exacting of these your Doctrines more then the Commandments of God both in prejudice of Christian Liberty and to the slighting of true godliness but whether the disparities above mentioned be subtile shifts as you are pleased to judge before you hear or solid differences these who are less prejudicate will easily discerne In the next place you returne to show us our difformity with the Scripture-pattern in demanding Why we do not observe the decree of the first Councel at Ierusalem to which I answere that we observe it except in so far as it was designed to be temporarie and framed to bury the Synagogue with honour viz. in the matters of Bloud and things strangled And as for meats offered to Idols the Apostle Paul did thereafter declare that point so that in these particulars the Decree doth not reach us This answere as to your reply differeth nothing from your Non-conformists And therefore I proceed and really Sir I finde in your return such pitiful inadvertencies as to the Text of Scripture that I cannot but premise my wish that in the study of it you may become more serious 1. You say that to alledge that the exceptions in the decree were made to please the jews is a divised phansie against expresse Scripture and yet the Text beareth Iames first propounding the thing and plainly adding this reason Act. 15. 21. For Moses in old time hath in every City them that Preach him c. Whereupon it follows then pleased it the Apostles pray Sir consider the Text and what this then can els import 2. You say St Paul wrote his Epistle before he went to Jerusalem and yet James tells him these things were still observed there whence you infer that commands in externals may be both local and temporarie What indistinctnesse and bad logick have we here If you mean that Paul wrote his Epistle that I mean anent meats offered to Idols before he went up to Ierusalem from the Church of Antioch to that Councel of the Apostles and Elders the Scripture is contraire showing that his travels unto Greece and all his dealing with the Corinthians yea and almost all his Epistles were thereafter but if you mean that he wrote befor his going up thereafter mentioned Act. 21. it may be so indeed as to his Epistles to the Corinthians and some other but then the Apostle Iames only tells him that the beleeving Jews were still zealous of the Law and that they were offended that he taught the Iews among the Gentiles to forsake Moses which is so far from concerning the Decree under consideration or the proving your point that a thing may be obligatory in one place and not in another that as Iames adviseth Paul to purge himself of that calumny anent the Jews so v. 25 he expresly resumeth and secludeth the case of the Gentiles before determined As to your other inference that Commands in externals are not intended â—or lasting obligations I grant this Decree or any other having a temporary reason is thereby determinable but if your meaning agree to your too visible design to resolve the Eâ—durance of these things which are absolutely setled into the Arbitriment of the Church or rather of the Civil Powers for it is evident that though in all your discourse you pretend the Church yet you take your measures from the Civil Authority it is not only groundless from the matter of the Apostles thâ—ir Decree but of dangerous consequence to the shaking loose of all Religion for proof whereof see how upon the back of this discourse you boldly attempt to make even the very Sacraments Arbitrarie by asking why weâ—â—se not washing of feet since there is no Sacrament set down more punctually in Scripture And when your N. C. retorts that you are under the same obligation which retortion may be pertinently made to most of your objections you tell him that you have a clear answere that in these externals God intended no perpetual obligation and therefore in them you follow the practice of the Catholick Church O unhappy Bohemians and you other Christians who suffered so much and so grievously for the retainning of the Cup in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper If this new Doctor who with his New Light can penetrate unto the secrets of God and measure the duration of his intentions had lived in your dayes he could have told you that the Cup is but an externall thing under no perpetual obligation and by his Doctrine of Conveâ—â—encie led you to a safe and peacefull Accommodation to the practice of the Catholick Church but Sir they are at rest As for this your Laxe acceptation of a professed indifferency in externals what part of the Christian Religion or Worship may it not corrupt or subvert and seing it doth tolerate and allow the not practising of the washing of feet to you as well founded In Scripture as either of the Sacraments would it not in a just parity of reason dispense with and forego these also This is indeed doctrine so damnable that I hope it shall never need an Antidote and therefore I returne to examine your third or eight Sacrament I know not which for all are but externall of washing of feet And you say That it hath in Scripture of Element Water the Action washing the feet the Institution as I have done so do ye And ye ought to wash one anothers feet and the spiritual use of it Humility Whence you conclude Why do ye not there ore use this rite To which last point it is that waving any further discourse anâ—nt the Nature and requisites of a Sacrament whereof notwithstanding your parrallel description of this washing yet I perceive you are loath to apply the name I shall direct my answere viz. that this washing is not to be used because though our Lord did practise this lowly act of Condescendence as eminently expressive of that humility whereunto he would have his Disciples instructed yet neither is it in it self of the Nature of a Sacramental signe whereof all the significancie is from the institution and vertue in the exhibition of the thing signified which you cuningly omit to mention Nor doth Christ perform it by way of Institution for Repetition but by way of example for Imitation as is
manifest from the Text Iohn 13. 4. c. where we finde that our Lord doth first wash his Disciples feet before he told them what he was a doing and then having done the act not simply significant by his appointment but of it self as the effect expressing the greatest humility as its cause he teaches them not a â—oâ—emne reiteration but the use in these words If I your Lord and Master have washed your feet ye also ought to wash on anothers feet If I have been among you as he that serveth so ought ye to serve one another for I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you I have not shewed you humility in a figure to be repeated for your remembrance but by a solid practice taught you the like performance so that to turne this pattern unto a rite is in effect as far from our Lords purpose as the instruction of plaiâ— examples is preferable to that of Mystick representations which exposition is so true and sound that as this phansie of yours was never owned by the Church of Christ so it is most certain that whâ—re it hath been followed I mean by the Pope and this action hath been used as a rite it hath only been made a colour to the most prodigious and superlative pride that ever the sun beheld and thus I hope all men may see that the not using of this washing never again used for any thing we read by way of Sacrament or Ceremony either by our Lord or his Apostles and Churches is neither a difformity in us from the Scripture nor an argument for your irreligious laxenesse in things you call externals As for your Demand why in your Worship do you not Kiss one another with a holy Kiss seing it is no where commanded in worship as you seem boldly and ignorantly to suppose and the Christian manner of the thing in customary civility is only recommended by the Apostle as an allay of chastity and kindnesse in Civil rencounters the question is but a petulant extravagancie of your vain imagination Next you Enquire why do you not anoint the sick with oyl I answere though you addresse this demand to a N. C. yet it is evident that your conclusion of difformity to the Scripture pattern thence inferred is equally levelled against the whole Protestant Church wherein this Ceremony is univerâ—aâ—ly diâ—used and that not from your vain warrant of the Churches Authority in and over things expressly commanded as you judge this rite to be No this is a presumption so high and laxe that even the grossest Papists are unwilling to avouch it but the â—ound answere of all the Churches is that as the custome of Anointing might have been occasioned from an observance then in use in these parts where Anointings were much more ordinary then in our parts of the world so it is mentioned in the Scripture by the Apostle Iames not by way of Command but as the accustomed Symbole adhibite in the exercise of the Gift of healing which being then Ordinary in the Church is commanded to be applyed by the prayer of Faith whereunto the effect is solely reâ—erred and only with the formality of Anointing as being then customary in the like cases seing then that the Text runs clearly thus is any sick let him call the Elders and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of saith shall save the sick And that the application of the extraordinary Gift of healing by prayer with the then usâ—all circumstance of Anointingâ— is here only enjoyned how can you make this Text binding as to the manner and circumstance when you cannot but acknowledge that the substance viz. the power of healing is ceased But having made your N. C. say That the Apostle promises recovery upon the anointing you turne to fight with your own shadow and tell him There is no such matter that the recovery is promised to prayer and also forgivenesse and seing we pray by all for their raising up and that they may be forgiven why do we not aswel anoint But what Logick can make out this consequence in as much as Anointing being there only spoken of as the concomitant rite used in the application of the Gift of healing it is manifest that without the existence and exercise of the Gift it self it is not now to be repeated and therefore though prayer be principally commanded as the speciall mean by which even the Gift of Miracles was actuate and made effectuall and to this day doth remain as the great one by which all the promises either for raising up or remission are drawen out unto effect yet thence to inferre that Anointing a peculiar solemnity in the Gift of healing should still continow notwitstanding the Gift it self be ceased is very absurd Now that Anointing was an Ordinary observance in the exercise of the Gift of healing you may read it clearly in the Disciples practice Mark 6. 13. And they Anointed with oil maâ— that â—â—re sick and healed them This being then the just and true account not only of our practice but also of that of the whole reformed Churches how vain and ridiculous are you to tell us that our pretense of Scripture is but to impose on women and simple people and all our persuasion grave nods and bigwords but leaving you to puff petulantly where you can prove nothing I proceed to your next demand who taught us the change of the Sabbath and you say we will read the Bible long â—re we finde it there which you think sufficiently proved when you tell us That the Churches meeting recorded to have been on the first day of the week saveth not that they antiquated the Saturnday as you are pleased very coursâ—y to speak and that of the Lords day sayeth yet less Sir for answere let me only tell you that by this your conceited slighting of Arguments which you cannot answere with your vain arguings against these things which you cannot disprove you have discovered to me the deep wisdom of Solomons contradictory-like advice answere a foolâ— and answere him not Prov. 26. 4 and 5. in so saâ—â—sâ—â—ying a reconciliation that remitting you for answere lest you be wise in your own conceit to the labouâ—s of these who have cleared this point above cavillation I â—orbear to make any further answere lest I should be like unto you Only I think it worth the observing how like the progresse of your dangerous Libertinisme is to that verdict of the Apostles 2. Tim. 3. 13. Your first sally was only against ruling Elders and Deacons the next attacques the very Discipline of Church your third endeavours to introduce the Superstition of Lent the Table Altar-wise the Surplice to corrupt the worship your fourth resolves the necessity of Baptisme and the Lords supper into the Churches arbitriment your fifth pleads for Extreame Unction or els a liberty and power to the Church above the
Scripture and your sext to compleat the carier of your delusions Notwithstanding that the clâ—arest light both of Reason and Religion do exact a definite constant portion of time for a rest and this rest to be holy unto the Lord that the Law of God in recommending the celebration of the old Sabbath doth found it upon a perpetual determination of the seventh part of time grounded on Divine Authority and example and lastly that the Scripture in the antiquating of the service and observation of the Jewish Sabbath doth evidently translate the keeping of the perpetual holy rest unto the Lords day the first of the week Notwithstanding I say of these firme grounds your sext attempt darres to unfix this grand Ordinance the reverence or contempt whereof hath in all ages of the Church by experience been found of great moment and unquestionable influence either as to the promoving or decay of true Piety and Godlinesse how justly may it be said of you and your Compliâ—es who endeavour to make void the Divine institution of this day which your predecessours so grosly and wickedly profaned ye be witnesses there ore unto your selves that you are their Children fill ye up the measure of your Fathers But O â—ear lest you do not escape the damnation of Hell I will not take Notice of your own or your Non-conformist's meen reflection on these things That they may prove our Church was not perfâ—ct but will not justify you your answere to that which follows viz. do you mean to lay aside the Scripture 〈◊〉 rather to be considered wherein leaving the retortion of â—ouâ— objected insolence and big pretending to the impartiall examiner of what you have alledged and I replied â— come â—o your summe of the whole matter which you say is That the Scriptures were designed bâ— God for the purifying of the hearts and conversations of Men Most true And therefore it was not necessaire they should contain direct rules for the Church-policie which being a half Civill matter needs not Divine warrants a strange inference whereof almost every word is a ridle for first you grant that the Scripture doth contain Rules though not Direct rules for the Church-policie and yet you adde almost immediatly that it needs no divine warrant Then what mean you by Direct rules if you mean Particular as the subjoined Antithesis of Common doth give us to understand let these Scripture rules Common or not be observed and particular determinations thereto duely squared and it is all we contend for Search therefore the Scriptures and whatever latitude may be left therein as to the regulation of necessary and common circumstances according to decencie and order for Edification Yet I am confident that as to the substance and main of the Officers Discipline and Government of the Church the matters in controversie betuixt us both you shall be found thereby clearly condemned and we justified but if by denying the Scripture to contain direct rules for the Church-policie you understand that it only holdeth out indirect unstraight and ambiguous rules applicable to any forme as may best sute serve the interests and lusts of vain Men this indeed is agreeable to your scope but as far from Scripture as it is dissonant to the truth of God and Great ends of the Gospel 2. What do you understand by the Church policie its Officers Discipline and Government are the things which we contend for If you think these half Civil I would gladly learn what a Church as such can have more Ecclesiastick certainly if a distinct Head Jesus Christ a distinct Authority flowing from that all Power given to him a distinck manner nothing like but wholly opposite to the way of Civil rule distinct effects and ends as Holinesse and eternall perfection are from external justice and temporal peace and lastly a distinct subsistence of the Church and its Policie not only when disowned but mortally persecute by the Civil Powers may prove the Policie Ecclesiastick to differ from the Civil there can be nothing more clearly disterminat but if by Policie you only mean the externall protection and assistance which the Civil Magistrat may and ought to give to the Church it is not only half but wholly Civil as to its rise and cause and therefore the acknowledgement thereof we render under God heartily and entirely to the Powers which he setteth up I might further question what you call half Civil and how you come to deny that Divine warrant which at first you half grant but I shall content my self to declare the falshood of your inference understood of the Discipline and Government of Gods house the subject of our debate by shewing you that its plain contradictory is a Scripture truth viz. The Scriptures were designed by God for the Purifying of the hearts and conversations of men and therefore it was necessary they should they do contain direct rules for the Churches Policie wholly Ecclesiastick appointed by Jesus Christ The reason of the consequence is clear not only because the Church Policie viz. its Officers Discipline and Government are expresly and directly ordained by our Lord for our Sanctification Salvation as I have formerly shewen therefore their necessity such as cannot without the highest presumption be called in question but also because their usefulnesse in order to these ends is by diverse Scriptures undeniably held forth And he who as the Son was faithful over his own house gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. yea and all the Gifts Power Authority and Directions to be found in Scripture concerning them for the work of the Ministrie the Edifying of the body of Christ and perfecting of the Saints Is a truth so evident that I marvail how you could adventure on this Architectonick reasoning and offer to lay down the end and project of the Gospel and then frame and Modell its institutions and midses according to your own imagination and not rather humbly endeavour in the recognisance of his wonderfull love and fidelity to and care of his Church his own body with all sobriety to pursue the knowledge and practice of what things-soever he hath ordained for its edification I might further remember you that the rebuke and all the Censures of discipline are for Edification the Saving of the soul making sound in the faith and Causing others to fear and that we finde the exercise of the Churches Authority and Government in that Meeting and Decree made at Ierusalem attended with The consolation and establishment of the Churches But if your own concessions be but a little pressed they will easily exhibite the inconsistencie of your vanity you say then That the common rules are in Scripture 1. That there should be Church Officers and are not their Power Degrees and Ministerial Authority as certainly therein defined 2 That these should be separate for that function Ought not then the best among them give themselves continually and wholly to Prayer and to the
these â—igures have their certain grounds of resemblance and there is not a more conspicuous typifying Character in the person of David then that of his Royall ordering and establishing the house and Church of God whereunto he was raised up and particularly inspired and commanded though the faithfulness of Christ preferred to that of Moses should not Yet his succession in the Throne of David to reigne over the house of Jacob for ever doth undeniably conclude both the Government and complete setlement of the Church by us contended for 4. If you would reflect upon the Lords singular Providence over his People Israel first in that Theocratie whereby in a peculiar manner he Governed them unto the dayes of Saul 2. in their Urim and Thummim and the holy Oracles of God which they constantly enjoyed 3. In the continuall assistance which they had almost in all times of Prophets immediatly inspired you cannot lightly suppose that either Synagogues or any other Lawfull institution concerning their Law and worship were a meer humane invention but though the evidences of their appointment remaining with us upon record were more obscure these passages alone do render it more then probable that their Authority and rise was Divine 5 The comparing of the Church of Christ to that of the Old-Testament is so unfavourable to your cause and there are such manifest disparities in that parallel that it rather maketh against you then for you for as the Ordinances of that dispensation were such as were to be done away and abolished and therefore were appointed by God who in times past spake unto the Fathers by the Prophets at Sundry times and in divers manners in a variant and mutable forme So the Lord having in these last dayes and now in the end of the World spoken unto us by his son to whom he sayeth thy Throne O God is for ever and ever the Anointing of the most Holy attended by the sealing up the Vision and Prophecie and the setting up of his everlasting Dominion do infallibly conclude the introducing of a more excellent Ministerie and the full and immutable establishment of all Ordinances requisite to the ingathering and perfecting of the Saints Sir if these things were considered by you and that our Lord hath now at last by himself given and ordered for us a complete and perfect apâ—ointment of all means necessary in his Church you should finde more Soul-satisfaction in walking at true liberty in the observing of his precepts then in the Lascivient fancies of your own vain Imagination which not content to rest in the blessed change that our Lord hath made of the first Covenant not faultles unto this New one and better ordered under the specious aspiring to a liberty equal to that of the Jewish Church doth plainly charge the Christian Church with the imperfections of that which is decayed and vanished Having thus examined and answered the strain and scope of your discourse I shall briefly go over what remains You say Our Saviour and his Apostles countenanced the Synagogues and their Rulers and why not seing not only their first institution appears to have been such as I have declared but also other occasions noted in the Gospel wherein you have no advantage did clearly thereto invite Next you say That this their practice was either founded on divine Tradition which no Christian will grant or that a form of Government not unlawful was devised by Men I answere 1. I have exhibited already warrants for their practice beside tradition 2. Might not the positive manner of the institution of Synagogues have been then more clear while the thing was in observance then now it is after its abolition and the revolution of so many Ages 3. If I were concerned in your parenthesis against Divine Tradition I would ask you why do you thus without distinction make the admitting of it in the Jewish Church so great an absurdity That there were Divine Traditions before the Word was committed to writing and that under the dark imperfect and progressive dispensation of the Old Testament assisted nevertheless by a more immediate presence unwritten traditions might both have been more usuall and were less fallible may be probabely enough held by these who yet now after the full and perfect revelation of the Gospel by our Lord Jesus Christ do upon solid grounds very justly reject unwritten Traditions in the Christian Church By which reasons you may perceive that the one member of your Dilemma labouring so sadly of untruth both in its supposition and the absurdity thence inferred it can no wayes be cogent to enforce the other of the liberty of Mans devising in the point of Church-Government even in the Jewish Church let be in the Christian so many wayes more excellent But in the close you insinuate That the greater liberty you plead for to the Christian Church is in externals That this General ambiguous objection is only intended for a convenient retreat is apparent from all the preceeding discourse seeing if by Externals you understand things in their own nature extrinsick to the constitution of the Church and which in the New Testament have no further use allowed then is conducible to decencie and order we willingly grant that the Christian Church being in effect absolutely liberate from the old burthen of Ceremonies and not as you vainly conceit endowed with a greater and more arbitrarie power of imposing is indeed herein more free then the Iewish was But if by externals you mean as alas the instances premised do too plainly speak all the visible Ordinances of the Church specially that of Government at least what ever is in it visible the liberty that you would introduce is not more contraire to the Scripture both of the Old and New Testament as I have shown then most licentious and irreligious Your last cavill against the exercise of our Lords Kingdom in ordering the visible administration of his Church is That if this were inferred by his headship over the Church his being also the head of the World should argue the same determination in the order of the World as well as in that of the Church And having made your N. C. seemingly and poorly check you by saying that Christs Church is dearer to him then all the World Then you restrict the absurdâ—â—y which you press unto the civil Matters of the Church and proceed in such a rambling discourse that I am at a stand how to medle with it But waving the censure of your impertinencies I answere 1. That the Mediatory Kingdom of Our Lord over his Church and his Natural so to speak Soveraignity over the World are so grosly here by you confounded that I can only intreat you to be more serious in reading and searching what the Scripture doth very distinctly hold forth 1. Of their different rise the one given the other not given 2. Of their different objects and ends the one having proposing the World men in order to a
regular and peaceable being in it the other the Church and men therein called unto spiritual duties and eternal life And lastly of their different administrations the one grounded on the dictats of reason and using external Magisterial authority and power and sensible rewards and pains the other proceeding on divine revelation and carried on by no such externals save a simple Ministerie and the power internal and spiritual and then I doubt not but you will of your self rectify such aberrations 2. The parallel of Gods Government over the World with the Kingdom of Christ over his Church is so far from concluding that Arbitrary or Architectonick power which you endeavour to set up in Ecclesiasticks equall to that in Civils that the contraire may from thence be sufficiently evinced thus therefore God hath not determined the order of Civil matters either in the World or in his Church because an Architectonick and free disposing Government limited with general rules necessare to its ends was most suitable to that almost absolute right and power which he hath given unto man in and over the things about which it is conversant but so it is that the things of the Church about which our Lord Jesus his Kingdom is exercised being wholly Spiritual are neither committed to our power nor left unto our arbitriment And plainly such whereof the Lord in all times hath reserved to himself the sole determination and therefore it was clearly necessare that all the Ordinances Ministerie and Government thereto pertaining should be also by him alone ordered and appointed which disparity doth not only reject but unanswerably retort your Argument from this pretense 3. Your great error and greater presumption in this question is that apprehending our Argument for the Determined Ordinances and Government of Gods house to be taken from the simple position of his Kingdom and the consequences that by allusion to the Kingdoms of the Earth may be thence deduced you remember not that the Scripture not only holds out his Kingdom and the nature thereof very distinctly but also doth particularly exhibite all the Ordinances necessare unto its ends and appointed to be therein observed So that our reasoning being wholly Scriptural both in its ground and superstructure your redargution from imaginary reason opposed to the clear and positive Counsel of God is plainly irrational if in the dayes of old Israel had changed the Law and Ordinances given and therein disowned Gods particular Kingdom and Government over them and notwithstanding thereof pretended to the liberty of the Nations about seing this their liberty was no wayes determined by but very consistent with the Lord 's high Soveraignity under which all do bow had this poor reasoning justifyed their rebellion certainly not how much less then can it conclude the exemption of the Church from Christs Kingdom in these Ordinances therein by him established of which the Lords peculiar Kingdom over Israel was but a slight adumbration But you say Seing justice is a part of Gods Law as well as devotion why doth not the Lord determine how his Church should be governed in Civils It 's answered Justice is indeed a part of Gods Law and he hath therein determined as particularly as the right which God hath given to man in Civils doth permit or the ends thereof do require but as this your Arithmetical equalizing of Mans liberty in matters of devotion to that power he hath in things Civil doth sadly discover the woful vanity of an unserious Spirit So the Geometrical analogie of Gods determining anent our Devotion wholly dependent upon his prescript unto his general appointment in matters of outward justice accommodate to that power and liberty he hath therein left us in place of inferring an equal power to Man in both doth on the contraire evidently demonstrate that the Lords determination in matters of Religion is as much more particular then his Commandments are in the things of justice as our Liberty in the former is more restricted then our Liberty in the latter if you had but considered thâ— th◠〈◊〉 hath given the Earth unto the Children of Men and that the things thereof being put under his feet an agreeable power of Government thereanent is certainly given unto his hand whereas our Lords Church and People are his peculiar people his chosen Nation redeemed and bought with his precious bloud and not their own let be to have the things concerning their Souls redemption in their power how happily had you been delivered from this strange confounding of things Sacred and prophane And how clearly might you have perceived that Gods Dominion over the World consisting in General Laws suited to its object and swayed by his Soveraign Providence in order to his holy ends doth bear but little likenesse to our Lord Jesus his Rule and Government in his Church as a Son over his own house and also its Ordinances But to inforce your point you adde that you hope we will grant that the Civil Peace is more necessary to the very being of the Church then is Order in Discipline Whence you insinuate that the former as well as the latter requires Chriâ—â—s particular determination Not to Scandalize you by frustrating your hope Sir you know so well that a thing though more necessary Yet if such only by a mediate and consequential necessity may therefore fall under a quite diverse disposition from that which though less necessary by this mediate and extrinsick necessity to the being of the Church then the Sacrament of the Lords Supper do the former therefore aswell and in the same manner with the latter belong to Christs Kingdom As to what you adde That it was for this reason that the things of Civil peace were determined in the Old Law This did so certainly flow from Gods peculiar interest in that People as a Kingdom as well as a Church that I make no answere That which you subjoin for evincing that either the Lords Kingdom over the Earth doth extend to the appointing of Civil Officers or els his Kingdom over his Church imports no such thing is so manifestly repugnant to the very nature of the things and the Lords declared pleasure the best decision Nay this whole discourse doth so foolishly and laxely cast and weigh things Religious and Profane in the same ballance of vain conjecture that I almost repent my noticeing of it so much but see the flatterie of delusion having made your N. C. childishly to decline all Reason as Carnal and in the fright forsooth of your strong reasons retreat to his Ministers and the Bible you ridiculously triumph over him and think your self so much Master of the field of Reason that insinuating your own praise in the description of Sound reason you puff at other mens as pitiful niblings thus being first in your own causeâ— you would seem just how I have Searched you let others judge for Scripture you tell us That to quâ—te it is not to build sure upon it the
write so where the Episcopal power seemed to be devolved upon them but pray Sir If a society consisting of Members all equal in power but having a Head or President for order and good Rule do regret his loss during the vacancie in these very termes wherein lyeth the inconsistence How foolish then is that stricture of your vanity which you here subjoin viz. but. I believe few of you know these writings whereas to be plain with you in my thought neither you nor I have given any great Specimen of this knowledge or said so much as the half of what is obviously to be found in almost any printed debate anent this matter Sir I must tell you further if I my selfe were alone concerned in this reflectionâ— I would scarce look upon it as a reproach worth the wipeing off to be as great a stranger to these things as ye take me to be nor would I think many cubits were added to my stature to be as knowing in them as your self yet it is known that I tell the world no news when I say that there have been and to this day are not a few great men of our way who have given such proof of their knowledge in these ancillarie and minutious things whereof you represente us as ignorant as have made your greatest Rabbies finde that wherein they gloried they were not short of them and if ye know not this yet seem to have lost your silly self in the Labyrinth of Antiquitie and by this means are fallen under the shameful reproach of being peregrinus Domi and if ye know it and yet so superciliously assert the contraire what Apologie can ye make for speaking so great an untruth that will either satisfie the world or your own Conscience But Sir ingenously I professe I pitie you for your Vanitie and folly for it seems ye think this the only expedient to make the world beleeve the pregnancie of your pate and Pronounce you worthie of the Chair but Sir it will onely make the more serious weep to remember who did once fill it and should have filled it still when they consider how it is become the seat of a scorner and the lesse serious will laugh at your prodigious folly I have only one overture to propose unto you that your vanity may be with some handsomeness hereafter coutched and the world may let pass what you say without quarrelling at it as a known falshood And it is this in your after comparings and measurings of your abilities that you may be taken notice of for a Nonsuch be so wise as to compare your self with your Fellow-Curats if ye hope to bear the bell but when ye insinuate a comparison with so many burning and shining lights and then in your Juvenile pride and self-conceit arrogate a preference to these ye do only force men to take notice of and enquire into your shame and short-coming And if I mistake not fall upon the most certain method of making your self â—â—ink above ground Sir if in these two or three lines I have digressed contrary to my inclination the occasion will justifie it and charity persuades to it But 3. You tell us that in the Council of Nice Speaking of the power of Metropolitans the Canon sayes let the ancient customes be in force It 's answered 1. We finde that Council did conveen in the year 325. Now admit that certain Customes concerning Metropolitans as well as Bishops were bâ—ought into the Church about 165. years before the Councel which is the highest period from whence they can be calculat These customes in this respect might will therein be termed Antient without the least contrariety to my assertion 2. It 's evident enough from many suffrages that as the primitive Episcopacie which succeeded to Presbyterie the Government first institute by our Lord and his Apostles and exercised in the Christian Church did only import the humane invention of a Prostasia for Order So the custome of Metropolitans in these times did differ nothing from it as may appear from the 33. Canon of these called Apostolical already cited wherein he is only termed Primus Gentis Episcopus and tyed to the advice of his Coëpiscopi In the next place you tell us that nothing can be alledged against your Episcopal power but Some few or disjointed places of some Authors which at most Prove that they judged not the origen of Bishops to be divine and none save Aerius repute an Heretick did ever speak against the difference betuixt Bishops and Presbyters Sir if you did not here acknowledge almost all that I desire I could easily shew you that not only the Scriptures of the New Testament and the agreeable practice of the Apostles and their Immediate successors are against your Prelatick excrescent power but that even for several ages thereafter while both Bishops and Metropolitans did exercise their Prostasian your Diocesan Prelat having the sole power of Ordination and jurisdiction was unknown yea expresly reprobate but because the appendix whereunto I have already referred and Smectymnus do plainly make out this point I shall not detain you As for Aâ—rius it 's true he held that a Bishop and a Presbyter do not differ and that Augustin cals this proprium ejus dogma his proper Opinion and Epiphanius dogma furiosum et stolidum a furious and foolish opinion and that both of them do ranck him among Hereticks but seing they also accuse him of Arrâ—anisme and withal do also taxe him for error in some points which are clâ—ar truth viz. that it is not lawful to pray and offer for the dead their censure is as little to be noticed as his Testimony specially seing many Learned men do plainly assert that not only Hierom but even Augustin himself Chrisostom and many others of the Fathers were of the same opinion with Aërius as to the matter of this difference but for Ierom you go about to alleviat his Testimonye viz. Idem ergo est Presbyter qui Episcopus Therefore a Presbyter is one and the same with a Bishop noverint Episcopi se magis consuetudine quan dispositionis dominicae veritate Presbyter is esse majores c. And let the Bishops know that they are above Preebyters more through custome then any divine warrant Because he himself was but a Presbyter Pray Sir who were they whom your men cite so fast for Bishops were not they themselves Bishops and yet the truth is there were Bishops also at that time of his Opinion 2. You say that his fervent if not sirie Spirit drives him along in every things to an excess Good Sir where is now your veneration for Antiquity and the holy fathers For us seing we do not found on mans Authority this your brusk character discovering more of your partiality then of Ieroms infirmity doth not offend Only this I must say that whatever be his fervor in his other writtings yet I am sure that both in his Commentarie upon Titus and in
this matter would fall under the compasse of this crime However not to rake into this abysse of wickedness that Act of Supremacie giving to the King over all Persons Meetings and in all Causes of the Church all the power that Christ as head of the Church in these things hath or can acclame a piece of such desperat solly that I am assured that as he that sitteth in the Heaven doth laugh so shall he one day have all its contrivers and abettors in dirision in this I am very positive that according to the present legall establishment made in these matters to derive the power of your Courts from or connect the same with the power and headship of our Lord Jesus is utterly impossible That we then who as Ministers of the Gospel do take upon us and exercise no power save that which is our Lords cannot join and partake with your Meetings your self may judge But you say That all that is Divine in Discipline is that scandalous persons be noted and separated from worship but how this shall be administred can be no matter of Religion or of the concernment of Souls providing it be done 'T is answered to argue thus all that is Divine in Preaching is that the truth of the Gospel be declared but how this shall be performed can be no matter of Religion or of the concernment of Souls providing it be done would it not be false and weak reasoning 2. As your Providing it be done viz. rightly is a salvo whereby a man may as pertinently argue against all means whatsomever which certainly are nothing useful providing the end for which they are appointed be rightly done so this quality hath such an exigence even of these midses which you suppose to be of no import that it plainly subverts your Argument But 3. Your position that all that is Divine in Discipline is that scandalous persons be noted c. Is false in as much as this is no more clearly to be found in Scripture then the Persons and Officers therewith incharged are evidently thereby ordained yea this matter is so certain that there is scarce one place to be seen in Scripture for the warrant of Discipline which doth not with the same evidence hold out the persons intrusted with its administration And I will give unto thee the keyes of the Kingdom of heaven Whose sins soever ye remit they are remitted unto them Feed Over-see Rule the slock are Commissions so full ordaining the persons as well as designing their work that I can hardly impute the laxeness of your reasoning to your oversight In the next place for as for your quibling with your N. C. anent the foolish answere which you put in his mouth it is altogether frivolous as shall be shewed in your 7. Dial. you urge That seing that Presbytries do by Divine right acclaime a power oâ— jurisdiction they ought to meet in these Courts let the Law call it what it will even as iâ— the King should abrogate all Laws for the worship of God and declare that all that assemble to worship God shall be understood to worship Mahomet and thereupon command all to meet though we meet not on that ground yet you hope we would sâ—ill meet to worship God how ever it be interpret 'T is answered If the jurisdiction competent to Presbyteries by Divine right were in these Courts your Argument might have some weight but seing they are not the former Presbyteries but new Courts set up as I have already declared no more deriving power from Jesus Christ then your late High-commission how can you think in reason that either the right and power of Presbyters or his Majesties call should oblige Ministers to com to the one more then the other For my part as I esteem it a less sin upon the Kings call to come to a Court of his own erecting then to abuse Christs warrant to the establishing of a Court as his which by its institution manifestly disowns him So I should sooner resolve upon the Kings command to meet in the High-Commission then by coming from the motive of our Lords warrant acknowledge your Exercises of the Brethren for his Courts which are so palpably setled upon the basis of another Authority As for your Similitude not to insist upon such claudicant Arguments it is like to the legs of the lame which are not equall but make it straight thus the King dissolves all Christian Churches and erects Mahometan Mosches charging all to repaire there to worship and declaring that he will account thâ—ir so doing a testimony of their compliance with the change by him made Now if one should stand up and for the perswading of just recusants say that they may safely go there and worship God without either owning of Mahomet or regarding the construction may be made of it Pray Sir how would you understand it And what ever you or any reasonable man think should be the practice or Christians in this case I am content the N. C. be thereby judged I confesse the termes of the Similitude are hard But remember they are of your own choosing and my work is only to make them just to conclude therefore it is not Mens interpretation or mis-interpretation although in many cases these homologations whereby either Enemies may be hardened or friends stumbled require also a very weighty consideration that we regard in this matter but the reall state of things whereby as Christ's power is ejected forth of your Courts So the Divine jurisdiction of Presbyters cannot possibly therein have place To this you subjoin that suppose Episcopacie were Tyrannie and Bishops were Tyrannes in the Church Why ought you not to submit to them as well as you did to the late Tyrannes in the State It is answered if I did think there were any Emphasis more then the strain of your discourse in this your urging Our submission to the late Usurpers I could tell you that though the cases were parallel as they are not all the submission made by us to Oliver would not make out your inference And that it is Your and not Our submission which only can serve your turn I need not mention that Mr. Sharp Now of St. Andrews was the first if not the only Minister in Scotland that took the Tender and thereby deserting his Fellow-prisoners procured his own liberty Nor how the late introductors of Episcopacie were most or many of them such as by subscriving the Tender abjuring the King and the like compliances had wholly deboshed their Consciences unto the perfidious re-establishing of your abjured Prelacie whereas the tenacious honesty of the faithfull of the Land was both then and is now accounted their bigotrie and folly But to the purpose 1. If Bishops had only been intruded upon Presbytries as they were in former times it is not questioned but Faithfull Presbyters not Outed of their possession founded on Divine right might have continued the same with a due Testimony and opposition
ensnared and thereafter more cruelly persecute and oppressed not repeating what hath been said by others in their vindication I shall briefly run over what you here subjoin You say then That Separation being a tearing of the Body of Christ to forsake the unity of the Church when there is scarce a colour of pretence for it must be a great sin 'T is answered I will not stand to descant upon the nature and several degrees of Separation and how that non-conforming to and compliance with a prevalent backsliding partie in effect the worst of Separatists which is our present case is very different from the case of Separation from a Church formerly acknowledged and joined with nor love I to inquire how farre a mans entrie into the Ministrie by open perjury and violence and his profane and flagitious deportment therein notourly known may in the perturbed state of the Church supply the want of a declarative sentence making void his mission Nor lastly will I make use of your own plain laws viz. the Act anent the restitution of Bishops and the late Act of Supremacie whereby all church-Church-power mark it is made dependent upon and subordinat unto the Kings Supremacie to prove your Ministers to be but Court Curats But in this I am plain and confident that if the Prophets who by their lyes and lightness cause the people to erre and speak peace to such as despise the Lord and strengthen their hands who walk in the imagination of their own heart be not to be hearkened unto if we ought to bewarre and flee from false Prophets whose fruits of ungodliness as well as heresie as is clear from the context do discover them to be but ravening wolves destroying Souls under the sheeps cloathing of an exterior call and hypocritical composure if such who cause divisions and offences contraire to the received truth and who serve not our Lord Jesus but their own belly are to be avoided and lastly if these Destroyers and Offenders be the only persons guilty of all the Separation and other inconveniences which ensue then are your Curates as dignoscible by all or one or other of these characters as the night is by darkness justly yea necessarily to be disowned fled from and avoided and only chargeable with that schisme whereof you endeavour to make us guilty But you add That in a schismatical time-serving humour we come sometimes to Church to â—vite the punishment of Law but seldom that we may retain our interest with our partie that we hear some of you but not others that some go to Churches in the Countrey but not in the City and finally some join with you in the ordinary Worship of Prayer and praise yet will not join in the Eucharist which is but solemn praise Sir if you had been candid in this reflection in place of imputing this variety to humour and faction it would indeed have moved you to pity the strait of so many good people redacted to such a multiâ—arious perplexity which yet in its outward appearance is but light in comparison of these inward inquietudes wherewith the contraire workings of the fear of God love of truth abhorrencie of wickedness tenderness toward Authority respect to union and peace and fear of punishment do continually sollicite them If I might presume so farre upon your credite I could tell you that in my certain knowledge some have been against their Consciences forced by violence and spoill to hear your Curates who therefore have mourned many Moneths thereafter and certain of them even unto death That others whom the generality of your Curates did either offend or according to the Lords prediction Ier. 23. v. 33. after long triall not profite at all have searched by a choise to remedy the evill for that there are better and worse not only as to private but also as to Publick transgressions you groundlessly deny and lastly that some have prevailed with themselves to hear and join with you in prayer and praise who have yet still scrupled in their Consciences to communicate with you in that Sacrament which beside the adjunct of solemn praise is designedly institute to signify and confirme our communion in as well as our union with Christ from whom we have reason to apprehend that many of you according to Scripture-rules and the grounds which your conversations hold out are at great distance If then these things be so let it satisfy you in this point that as the Generality of the whole land would account it a great reliefe to be delivered of all your Tribe and many of the godly are convinced that your Ministery being neither of nor for our Lord Jesus is not to be owned so all these umbrages of compliance which you observe are only the effects of curiosity fear or some other humane frailty wherewith by you we can neither in Charity nor ingenuity be urged But you are so desireous to win us to this conformity of owning your Curates that you are willing to suppose them to be but Intruders occupying the places of our faithfull shepherds violently torn away and yet you argue that although the high priest-hood was in our Lords dayes violently invaded by the Romans and by them exposed to sale and those Symoniacks did also usurp thâ— right of others yet we find Cajaphas as high Priest Prophesâ—ing and our Saviour answering to his authoritative adjuration and though the Pharisees were wretched teachers and very guilty persons yet our Saviour saith hear them for they sit in Moses chair which you saâ— is unanswerable and was the doctrine of our own Teachers 'T is answered not to insist upon the particular and full answere already made by others for dissolving the apparent force of this objection it is to be considered 1. That as this argument doth proceed upon parallel instances and similitudes for the most part lame and unequal so the Jews their particular customes and observances in the examples adduced are to us so hid and unknown and the Jewish constitution in General of a Church and Nation joined in one special people unto God by virtue of a Divine Law for matters both Civil and Religious committed even in its Civil part to the custody and interpretation of their Religious Officers is so manifestly different from that of the Christian Church gathered in one out of all and every Nation only for things Religious without any alteration in their Civil State under Jesus Christ their Head and King and the Ministers by him sent forth that little light as to our present purpose can be thence concluded 2. That not only in the point of the Churches Ministerie but also in its worship and other ordinances to reason from the dispensations of Soveraigne Providence in the decline of Churches the lawfull compliance of good men with these Churches in owning them in things found and bearing with corruptions which they could not remedy and lastly from the Lords assistance and presence that never the less hath therein
carnal restringent and unwarrantable imposings is therefore and most justly termed spiritual But it were only a wearinesse to trace all your Mistakes and inconsistencies in this question he who can conceive that the spiritual manner of prayer by us commended is neither on the one hand a praying alwayes in new words nor on the other such as can be lawfully tyed up to humane stinted forms but is to be performed whether by a man for himself or with and for others in words freely directed by the same Spirit from which the inward desires and motions ought to proceed will easily tell you that the case of a Ministers following this Rule and being astricted to words framed by another hold no parallel and with the same facility unravel all your other quiblings and pitie your impertinencies and therefore I go forward Your N. C. asks but doth not the Spirit help our infirmities and teach us to pray And you tell him that the words aright considered speak out a far different thing from what he would draw from them and that the Spirit doth indeed teach us the matter of our Prayers and also the manner to wit the temper of our hearts but that words are not meant appears from what follows and maketh intercâ—ssion for us with groans that cannot be uttered But Sir if the Apostle commend the Spirits assistance to us in prayer in intending our desires above the earnestness that words can express doth it therefore follow that in the directing of our utterance which is a lesser matter his help is not to be expected 2. Though in this place the Spirits help for the direction of our words were not meant can you deny that that gift is not fully elsewhere promised have you forgot the anointing that teacheth us of all things The Spirit that giveth utterance And the Father of lights from whom cometh every good Gift And who enricheth us by Iesus Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge Or need I to remember you of the promises that the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly or elegantly and again the tongue of the dumb shall sing Really Sir if a man diffident of the readinesse of his expression cannot from these open fountains draw supply I am confident that the brocken Cisterns of your imposed Forms will make him but small reliefe After this relapsing into your former prejudice and causing your N. C. to say That in this imbodied state we need to have our Souls stirred up by the commotion of our Fancies you accept of the acknowledgement and thence inferre That at least such a way of praying is not so sublime and therefore ought not to be called praying by the Spirit But Sir as I have already told you that he who being internally moved by the Spirit of Grace neither needeth a Set-form to obstetricat his expression nor therein confineth himself to it but out of the abundance of his heart and in words directed by the Holy Ghost doth flow forth in his Prayers and Praises is indeed of a higher size then he who having the same devotion toward God is therein either stinted by another or straitened in himself to a limiting and restricting Form so your talking in this place of the stirrings of the Soul by the commotion of Fancie and the gratifications of Nature and imagination is but the gratification of your own vanity in as much as it neither pertaineth to the present Question whereof the lawfulness or unlawfulnesse of mens imposing Set-forms of Worship and not the life or spirituality thereof wherein I hope we are agreed is the subject neither do we either teach or defend but plainly reject these carnal methods here by you supposed to excite devotion by fancie and kindle our affections by imaginations where the inspiration of the Spirit ought to warm the heart and blowe the flame as being the offering of strange fire unto the Lord in place of the heavenly fire that descends from himself upon his Altar It is true the heart and desires thereof being once set on work by this divine principle may and ought to enlarge it self by the summoning and exciting of its affections and whole minde and strength for the intending of its fervor and elevating of the Soul but this truth doth so little favoure your impositions in preference to our way that by a new argument it further and evidently confirmes the narrownesse and insufficiencie of your stinted Forms to that spiritual Soul-devotion wherein the Lord delights But you say That you will convince us of the evill of extemporarie Forms and 1. you say That I must long exercise my attention to consider what he who prayes intends and this strangely draweth out the minde from devotion which cannot vigorously act two powers at once and therefore you conclude that both in reason and experience Set-forms do conduct a mans devotion with less anxiety wavering or distraction To this it is answered 1. That seing the Churches of Christ are united not only in the same form of profession but in the same Spirit and have the promise of the presence of the Lord and his power in all their Assemblies gathered in his Name whereby both Minister and People may expect all due assistance in their performances your supposed unacquaintedness in the People with what the Minister intends with the long attention and strange out-drawing of the minde which you thence inferre are but your own groundless and faithless imaginations 2. That a certain measure of previous attention in joining either with conceived or imposed Forms is necessary to instruct our devotion is neither by you nor us to be denied but how you can thence conclude that attention as such which in this case both in your and our way is absolutely necessary directly preparatory and leading into should lead out from the devotion to ensue and by what Logick you make the attention or inclination of the minde and the devotion thence arising almost as connected as the inclining of the ear and hearkening are two powers and not two acts and these also incompatible surpasseth common understanding It is true if I could suppose with you that the People nay the Minister himself going about to pray were wholly ignorant how he will discharge it and that therefore they either join blindly or with anxiety nay further that our way labours under many abuses of tedious length scurrilous expressions involved periods petulant and wanton affectations and the like I might possibly finde some shadow of reason for your alledgeance but since you not only speak as a stranger to the Grace and Gift of Prayer and to the unity of the Church of Christ which is one Body baptised and united into one Spirit having one Hope one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all whereby Christians before Forms were imposed are found
custome intimated by Paul of the saying Amen at the giving of thanks do not remove the confusion objected 1. because it is the opinion of some that that passage in the Acts was an afflatitious motion both dictat and uttered by the Spiritâ—s immediate inspiration 2. It may be doubted if the whole company did all of them lift up their voice in as much as one speaking in a company and the whole consenting and joining they may be properly enough said to lift up their voice with one accord though every single member do it not 3. Supposing as is not improbable that the great exultation of that smal company did then express it self in that extraordinary manner would you make such extraordinary examples precedents for ordinary service sure Reason repugnes and the effect of decencie doth not answere 4. For your Amen as I am certain that the Apostles words may be understood of a consentient though silent Amen so it is evident that even in the point of order your so frequently repeated Amen is superfluous and vain but if you will reduce your practice to a decent use seing the matter appears to be indifferent if you love to express it use your liberty only permit us the like favour of ours As to what you subjoine that The people all with their voice join in the Psalmes and therefore may also in Prayers the disparities are clear 1. we are warranted and commanded to sing which necessarily requires our own vocall performance and concurrence whereas the command of Prayer either private or publick hath no such import A man may pray in his heart or join with another without using words I hope you will not say that he can also properly sing and not use his voice 2. I grant your Liturgie being admitted the joining of all with their voice in Prayer though not very orderly or decent is yet practicable but seing we refuse these forms the reason of our different practice in this matter from our use in singing must by your self be acknowledged Having considered your answeres to what you make your N. C. objecte against the English Lyturgie I might give you an appendix of many more important exceptions As 1. It s scenical and mimical composure throughout very unbecoming the Worship of the great God 2. The many impertinencies of its Letanies Gospels Epistles and Collects 3. It s mancking and confounding of Holy Scripture specially in its Collects 4. The superstitious observation of dayes and other ceremonies twisted all alongs with its whole tenor and exercise And 5. It s corrupt tincture and unsavorie and unacceptable straines and methods which it derives from the Roman Idolatrous Missal and Superstitious Ritual and Breviarie whence it was translated but seing others have fully declared them to whom you have thought good to make no answere civility forbids me to urge a declining Adversarie And thus we are arived at the controverted Ceremonies viz. The five articles of Perth which you say were all lawful and most of them useful and necessary Sir the matter of Ceremonies in general and also of these by you specially named with all the pretenses that possibly can be alledged for them have been so fully treated and examined by ours particularly by Didoclavius alias Mr. Calderwood in his Altare Damascenum and Gillespie in his English Popish Ceremonies that I marvell how you had the confidence to set forth these poor mustie and many times and wayes refelled and basted reasonings which you adduce Neither are you in this only censurable but when I compare that wit and acuracie adhibit by others of your way in the handling of this subject with that bluntneâ—s and confusion wherewith you repone to us the very meanest of their Arguments not so much as in the least recocted nay that the short motives and insinuations mentioned in the tenor of the Articles themselves are of farre more weight then all your superficial discourse my censure doth almost exceed to accuse you either of bold ignorance or a designed treachorie However since all the arguments either used by others or abused by you with all that could be invented for maintaining your vain plea doth stand by us fully and evidently discussed I minde not by a disadvantageous repetition to lapse into your error and therefore shall content my self by a summare and close review of what ensues in this Dialogue to bring it to a Period The first of the five Articles which you begin with is Confirmation And you say That if it had been introduced as a Sacrament we had reason to except against it but seing it was only designed for a solemne renovation of the Baptismal Vow that Children who do not therein engage themselves when they come to the years of discretion may then do it and is confirmed by antiquity the probable meaning of the laying on of hands mentioned Heb. 6. and the assent of most Reformers the thing seems to be sufficiently warranted 'T is answered 1. It seems that in this place you forget your self did you not tell us in your 3. Dialogue that washing the feet and anointing the sick with oyl though in appearance as particularly descrived and as well warranted by Scripture as either of the Sacraments yet since antiquat by the Church are now lawfully difused wherefore then may not the Church having power to exauctorate Sacraments be also allowed the power to institute new ones and so establish your Confirmation as a Sacrament specially since the Roman Church doth so practise it 2. Not to contend with you anent the name and definition of a Sacrament How come you to deny to the Church the power of introducing Confirmation as a Sacrament and yet to allow it the power to appoint it as a solemn renovation of the Baptismal Vow Certainly whatever be the difference betwixt the two yet the unquestionable Rule that in the house and ordinances of God men are not without Divine prescript either to add or change doth equallie refute innovations of all sorts 3. You speciously obtrude your Confirmation as a solemn renovation of the Baptismal Vow but if you consider the thing as it stands in the Article whereby it is enjoined it is plainly the Bishops solemn benediction of young beginners for the increase of knowledge whereby it is manifest that your description importing the young beginner his act is manifestly different from the thing being the Bishops act which you undertake to maintain But 4. Whatever way we take it its singular solemnity wherein its form consists is not only without all Scripture-warrant but plainly superfluous seing that as the Bishop or Presbyters their blessing is not thereby bettered or materially differenced from their ordinary benediction so the ordinary profession of beginners in their examinations and especially their after-partaking of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper doth more then supply your pretended solemn renovation 5. As this conceit of Confirmation as it is explained by you doth evidently derogate from the Sacrament
it imports to me an excess wherewith we ought not to comply To join with the merit of Jesus Christ that of their own good works nay of their own superstitious inventions and to his Mediation that of Saints seem to me to impinge upon the very foundation which you acknowledge What shal we then say of the avowed gross Idolatries and Superstitions ridiculous penitences and perverted morality whereby both the truth and spirituality of Gods Worship and Service with the inward and genuine Grace of Obedience and Sanctification are subverted Really Sir these appear to me to be a superstructure of such naughty stuffe as neither the sincerity of Grace with which I judge them incompatible nor even the flames of their own purgatory will ever purge away But you proceed That though you will not say that all things controverted betwixt the Reformed Churches and them are matters of Salvation yet in their greater errors such as the Popes Supremacie the Churches infallibility the corporal presence c. you condemne them and perhaps on clearer grounds then we do 'T is answered 1. That the things controverted with the Papists are not all of them such as do directly and necessarily in beleefe or practice appertain to Salvation is not by us denied but where in this your latitude you do in effect intimate such a dissent from the Reformed Churches as if many things betwixt us and the Papists were needlessly by us drawn in question it is such an undervaluing of the will and way of the Lord whereupon even in our smallest differences we hope we are founded that I could not pass it without an observation 2. Whether you do indeed condemn the Papists in many of the points by you enumerate let be on better grounds is to me very dubious You say you are against the Popes Supremacie but how is it then that you have transferred it upon his Majesty and that with a more ample extent then ever was conceded to nay or arrogat by any Pope That the King may enact such Acts and Orders concerning the administration of the external Government of the Church and the Persons therein imployed and concerning all Ecclesiastick Meetings and matters therein to be proposed as he shall think fit is more then any Pope ever assumed Pray Sir is the difference betwixt the persons of the Pope and Prince the hinge of the controversie Or is this one of the clearer grounds you talk of consider it at your leisure In the next place you tell us that you condemn the Churches infallibility and yet p. 31. of this same Book your affirme that even in matters as punctually set down in Scripture as either of these Sacraments the Church may judge that God did not therein intend any perpetual obligation and by her practice oblige us to a cessation and consequently alter Scripture-determinations Beside you know what power you attribute to the Church to impose significant ceremonies and other observances which although you tell us for an evasion do not take away the liberty of inward opinion yet you affirme that they do bind in Conscience to a conformable practice Verily if a Church so impowered be not infallible the concessions are too large but the truth is Scripture defectible the Church fallible and nothing fixed appear to be most aggreeable to the lightnes of your brains and the Conveniencie of your new latitude 3. You affirme that you are against the corporal presence and also the worshiping of Images and yet you are for Adoration to before or in order to the Eliments For call it as you will you plead for it as due veneration in the action whereof they are the necessary objects how these do consist I see not For my part I cannot but judge the Papists though more gross yet more consequent But we have enough of this subject and these few instances premised may indeed well justify the excessive love which you profess to the unity of the Catholick Church wherein you include the Roman and your esteem for such meaning by Cassander and others of his way who have studied to bring things to a temper do palpably hold out your byass to their haltings But if the unity and temper that you aime at be of this temper since it hath not truth for its foundation the Lord deliver his Churches from it In the next place your N. C. and you fall a quarrelling about Iustification and after you have first taxed then smoothed and again in a manner rejected the Papists their Iustification by works and their Merit you proceed to Iustification by faith only and when you have given us your explanation of it you make a prettie boâ—st as it forsooth by your right apprehension of things you had in a few words told that which with much nicety swels amongst us to Volumes Sir I so greatly defire to find you walking in the truth and am so little in love with contention especially in a matter of this importance that I am resolved rather fanely to pass then rigidly to strain even your more ambiguous expressions but since you would make the World beleeve that with you and you only is to be found both Truth and Light and that on the other hand we do perplexe this point with Nicâ—ties and subtilties it will not be amiss that in this matter I examine you more particularly which that I may performe with the greater candor and perspiciuty I shall first exhibit your words in their full context and thereafter review them in parts You say then That Iustification and Condemnation are two opposite legall termes relating to the judgement shal be given out at the last day For though we are said to be condemned already this is only that we are now in the state of such as shal be solemnly justified or condemned Now at the great day we must give an account of our actions and we must be judged accordingly but since all must be condemned if God enter in judgement with them therefore God gave his Son to the death for us that thereby we might obtain Salvation And all judment is by the Father committed to the Son and Iesus Christ hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospell and live according to it And as that which gives us a title to the favour of God is the blood of Christ so that which gives us an interest in his death is faith with a life conforme to the rules of the Gospel and the root of this new life is a faith which worketh by love purifyeth the heart and overcometh the world and therefore Iustification is ascribed to it in Scripture and this you say is the right apprehension of things both ascribing all to Christ and declaring clearly the necessity of a holy life 'T is answered The matter of Justification being in effect the very substance of the Gospel and its right uptaking of the greatest moment in order to our Salvation for as much as you by
this point of more knowledge then your self who proving it by the point ordinarily set after the figures of the year of God would have the following restriction only to concerne the Acts and Lawes generally annulled But as it is evident that the point maketh no period and protestant Religion contained in that Act. 1592. Should be vacated and annulled so the obvious tenor of the words together with the sense of the Parl. Anno. 1662. Who in the new establishment of your Prelacy did judge it convenient to the grounds therein laid down to rescind de novo that old Act in all its heads clauses and Articles whatever might be the consequence do abundantly elide this conceit However I do again tell you that our consciences in this matter are better founded and not squared to such mutable rules And therefore seeing our grounds are firme and stable let me in the words of your own exhortation obtest you and your party to consider your way better cease from your persecution repent of your apostasy and usurpation and return into favour with God and union with us Now follows a childish quarrel between you and your N. C. anent the tenderness of your love and prayers in our behalf above that measure which we use towards you and 1. You say wo should be to you and you N. C. If the love of God to you did appear in such effects as the love of some of ours doth the invidious strain of their prayers being universally that God would bring you down destroy the incorrigible and shew the rest the evill of there defection but you say how would we take it if you should pray that God would destroy our party and shew us the evill of our Rebellion and other wicked courses 'T is answered 1. Seeing that wo shall certainly be unto all such and they are far from the love of God who are incorrigible that God by making manifest his righteous judgments would glorify his own Name and deliver his Church from such adversaries is a prayer clearly warranted both from the word and the practice of the Saints nor is it in the least discordant from that Christian charity whereby I am really moved earnestly to desire the Lord to deliver you and all both from the thing and its punishment 2. That God would bring down the proud that exalt themselves against Jesus Christ and give repentance to backsliders is a prayer so agreeable to the will of God and full of love to the persons prayed for that I am certain whatever may be said against our principles which I remit to the impartial discerner yet our practice in this as being both tenderly Christian and fairly consequent cannot but be approven 3. Mistake not if you should pray for us in the same strain we might possibly and with great reason account it an aggravation of the evils of your other principles and practices but we are not so narrow as to construe it a particular breach of charity Nay for my part as I would think it rationally consequent so abstracting from the errors which it supposâ—th I would take it for the greatest testimony both of your zeal toward God and love toward us But if I may use a little freedome why do you please your self so much in vain talk though we hear not many of your prayers yet I am sure all know that we want not plenty of matter and instances for a retortion in what termes soever you please to frame your challenge are we so short in memory as not to remember how your pulpits sounded both in preaching and prayer after the late rising and that not only against these poor broken innocents but in such a manner against our whole party as by false and fierce accusing of all without distinction might almost have excused in them the like attempt to save from that fury that thundered every where If you would have any latter and more particular instances pray inquire after the B. of St. Andrew's Sermons specially that preached by him the 30 of Jan. 1669. and the other before the last Parliament you complain of the severe stile of our prayers he good man being ill satisfied with such soft and aâ—rie tooles and having passionately fumed out a most bitter invective against our Presbyterian Ministers not long since his brethren and benefactors did very agreeably close it in these words these are circumforaneous Demagogues acted by a spirit otherwise to be cast out then by fasting and prayer But what need I mention your prayers when indeed many of your practices have most visibly been such as may justly make your fairest words suspected of the deepest dissimulation I know some of you have a fashion of praying that God would unite this poor Church and heall our breaches But if that be all the evidence you can bring to shew the healing and peaceable spirit to be on your side Pray tell me why the Church of Rome that may boast as much of the same formula may not as justly pretend to it I might further adde that it appears to be no extraordinary merit for such as are countenanced by the Powers and do Idolize peace and ease to wish for an union with any whom they apprehend to be their opposits and that perhaps the more sober amongst you for all their compliance under the tentation yet are not so far abandoned as that they dare in Gods sight justifie there defection and pray against the party and courses which they know they did not desert from any conscientious conviction But I have insisted too long on so poor a subject and I can in your own words assure you that we are not only ready to unite with you but are extremly though not implicitly desirous of it and do therefore dayly pray that God would open your eyes reclaim you from your backslidings and grant unto us union and peace in truth to his glory This is the Accommodation that is only desireable if you pursue any other I am certain that however it may be consonant to your designes yet it is altogether dissonant from your proâ—ession and therefore if we be more rational and upright to hate all sinfull Accomodation and rather to wish that our differences may stand and be perpetuat in the behalf of truth then cemented by a sinful compliance wherein are we to be reprehended Now that this is all that we teach in this matter the same books which you referre to do testify and that it is none other then the very doctrine of the School of Christ the frequent Scripture-injunctions to the defence of and stedfastness in the truth with the commands of a just opposition to and avoiding of every false way and its promoters do sufficiently evince But you adde Let all men judge if there be not a bitterness in the Preface to Masâ—er Rutherfoords letters the Apologetical Narration and Naphtali unsampled in any satire let be grave and Christian writing Sir since you are pleased to
King 's pretending to an arbitrary and absolute disposal of these previleges thus granted to be an injurious invasion and usurpation Yet in order to the Church and her rights and immunities they are not ashamed to cut off â—o even and just a parallel and deny so evident a consequence in behalf of her righteous liberty But wisdome is justified of her children And how much were it to be wished that at the least the children of light were as wise as the children of this world are in their generation 3. Beside the invasion threatened to the Church in its power of administration and the usurpation from the Church of the power of Government which this Supremacy imports it further attributes to the Prince according to our Parliaments late explication an illimited power in matters of Religion proper and reserved to God alone To enact whatever a man thinketh fit in Ecclesiastick meetings and maâ—â—ers I am certain is that which the Lord did never allow to any meer man under heaven and yet that this power is assumed and how by vertue thereof old unwarrantable superstitions have been retained new rites and ceremonies in Divine Worship devised and Churches turned and overturned according to mens pleasure is sufficiently known without my condescendence And therefore seing the King by vertue of his Supremacy doth not only intermedle by giving his civill sanction and confirmation to the intrinseck powers of the Church by you mentioned as you do allege or by acts imperate as others in contradistinction to elicite acts in these matters doe use to express it but doth lay claime to an absolute power in and over all Church-matters and persons the filly pretense whereby you go about to smooth it is not worthie of any mans notice In the next place you tell us of some explications provided for removing of the scruples which the generality of the words of the oath of Supremacy might suggest And to this it may suffice for answer that seing these explications are certainly confined to England and by no publick Act received or owned among us your allegeance with your childish ground that we have this oath from them is wholly impertinent as to our releifeâ— But seing the setting down of these explications contained in the English act and Articles above cited Which you do counningly omit will not only by comparing therewith the far different practices of the Kings of that Realme discover the inadequatnesse not to say the slightnesse of these sensings in effect meerly devised to palliat an excess in it self nowise justifiable but more fully manifest the strange extravagance both of the practical acceptation and late express interpretation of this Supremacie You may read them as follows the words of the Act in quinto Elizab. Declare her power and Authority to be a soveraignity over all manner of persons borne within the Realme whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal so that no forreigne power hath or ought to have any superiority over them and these of the Articles run thus Art 37. We give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the injunctions also lately set forth by Elizab our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwayes to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himselfe that is that they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the civill sword the stubborne and evill doers These being the termes of these explications what consonancie the medlings of their Princes in imposing rites ceremonies and formes of Worship enjoyning their own dayes and profaning God's commanding what Doctrine Ministers should forbear permitting excomunication in their own name jointly with the Lords and finally by sitting and ruling in the Temple of God as in their own Court do hold therto is obvious to the first reflection Only this I must say that if the Kings of England their Ecclesiastick actings be indeed sufficiently warranted by the foregoing explanations the Author of the late discourse of Ecclesiastick policy who in prosecution of the King's Supremacie doth plainly annexe unto it the Authority of the preisthood and power over the conscience at least the obedience of men in matters of Religion in place of that applause wherwith he is generally received at Court deserves rather to be demeaned as the highest calumniator and depraver of his Majesties government But not to trouble you further with these double English senses viz that pretended by their Acts of Parliament and Articles which I grant to be more sound and such wherewith many godly men have rested satisfied and the other more true received and followed by their Court and Clergie nor yet to insist upon your incomparable and blessed Who now hath mens persons in admiration Bishop Usher his more full interpretation equally redargued by what I have alreadie said Let us consider our Scots most excessive though more ingenuous explanation and although I do apprehend the words of the Oath of Supremacie to be in themselves capable of a sound sense and that by understanding supreme Governour of this Kingdomeâ— not to be a limiting designation but a plain qualification of the nature of the government as being in order to its correlat this Kingdome in it selfe civil and only in this notion to be extended to persons and causes ecclesiastick all difficulties may be salved yet when to the rise and manner of this Supremacie above declared I adde how of late it hath been made the ground of the King his restoring of Bishops and framing their government to an absolute dependence upon himselfe granting of the high Commission appointing the constitution of a National Synod and of other strange acts before touched and especially that as the Act Parl. 1592. expresly and justly limiting this Supremacy was by the first Act 〈◊〉 2. Parl. 1661. Wholly abrogate and made voidâ— so by the first Act of the Par. 1669. The same Supremacie is assâ—rted to that absurd hight as doth import a plain surrender of Conscience and submission of all Matters of Religion for as to civills we are not so rash to his Majesties pleasure in a more absolute manner then ever to this day hath been acclaimed either by Pope or general Council These things I say being weighed I think I may safely conclude that I look upon the Supremacie not only as a civill Papacie but an height of usurpation against our Lord King in Zion whereunto never Christian Prince nor Potentate did heretofore aspire And here your N. C. seconding my assertion tells you that this Supremacie clearly makes way for Erastianisme To which you answer That this is one of our mutinous arts to find out long hard names and affixe them to any thing displeaseth us But passing the childishness of this conceite as if either a long or hard name were more odious then a short in my opinion
sâ—ch is the manifest wickedness of this your Supremacy that it is one of your â—elusive arts to make your N. C. rather vail it with an obscure name then leave it to an open discoverie and in the same manner it was that the men of your gang after they begun to broach their dangerous dissolute and undermining principles thought fairly to have palliate all with the gentle name of Latitudinarian as apparently obleidging to all parties But now that they are detected they turn their talk and loth to marr their affected smoothness by terming it otherwise then the long name they blame us for loading them with reproach whereas to the best of my knowledge it was their own invention and choise But not to detaine you about names which really I do so little value in any respect that I do not so much as regard the name Fanatick nor these many other wherewith the truth and partie which I maintain have been standered let us proceed to what you say to the things And first you tell us that in the old Testament the Kings of Judah frequently medled in divine matters and the Sanhedrin which was a civill Court determined in all matters of Religion 'T is answered did you not just now give us an account of certain restrictive explications made of the Supremacie What do you then intend by these instance Not that I do exclude Kings from a due medling in divine matters or do decline the righteous practices of the Kings of Iudah in the largest construction that they can receive But certainly if what you say of their Sanhedrin be true it will overturne all your pretended limitatioâ—s at least give to the King a determining judgement in all matters of Religon which neither ought nor can be admitted But. 2. This threed-bare argument taken from the Kings of Iudah and the Sanhedrin for your Supremacie is so fully answered by others specially by Mr. Gillespie in his Aaronâ—s Rod and he hath so evidently cleared that there was a Sanhedrin ecclesiastick distinct from the civill and that these two governments were not confounded that I wonder you are not ashamed of such jejune repetitions And in effect it is so plain in Scripture that none of these Kings did interpose in matters of Religion otherwise then by their extrinseck oversight and assistance except either by immediat commission and direction from God as it happened in the establishment made by David and Solomon not to be drawn in consequence or els in the case of necessary Reformation in which ordinary means ceasing the obligation of the end doth authorize even more extraordinary endeavours that seing the Lord himselfe did immediatly reprove the usurpation of Uzziah I can not imagine from what particular precedent you do designe your advantage However of one thing I am most perswaded and I am charitable to think that all your confidence dare not deny it that had any one of the Kings of Iudah arrogate to himselfe a Supremacie in all causes and over all persons aswell Ecclesiastick as Civill so as to declare that whatsoever he should enact anent Ecclesiastick meetings or matters should be obeyed and observed by all his subjects he had been repute no other then a rebell and usurper against God and a proud contemner of his Law And as for the Sanedrin though it were not proven that there was one Ecclesiastick and â—n other Civill yet their distinct sacred and inviolable Preisthood doth so strangly plead for a constant separation where we find the Lord to have made a divided institution that any conjunction in that Court or any thing beside occasioned by their singularly mixed Policy can nowise infer the conclusion you plead for The next thing you say is That the Christian Emperours did medle in matters of Religion 'T is ans That the first Chistian Emperours did medle in matters of Religion so as to confirme the truth and Ecclesiastick decrees by their Civill sanction to establish the Chuâ—ch in the condition wherein they found her to adorne her with certain priviledges enrich her with revenues and beautifie her with fair structures is not denyed But what is all this to your Supremacie And who is he who doth not wish for a just measure of the like favour and assistance You add that they called the first general Councils And why not Who denyes that the King may within his Dominious do the like But the point you drive is to have this power to the King solely and exclusive of any right and power in the Church to appoint and meet in such Assemblies what ever be the necessity contrary to the Kings prohibition And that for order and decency the King's consent and countenance should first be sought nay that his refusal ought to be of that moment as not to be counter-ballanced but by a very visible urgencie is by all granted Only that he hath an absolute veto in this matter I positively and firmly deny for seing it is evident that the Church while under pagane Princes did enjoy this power how she should lose it upon their becoming Christian otherwise then to be tyed out of respect and for order to make to him the first application to be regulable by his reasons and very tender of his displeasure is utterly unexplicable and were in plain termes to defer to them as Christians though acting as Antichristians and worse then their pagane predecessors And further it may be considered that the power of conveening in Council being founded on the same warrant with the Churches liberty to meet for the duties of Worship the former no more then the later can be made dependent upon the Prince his pleasure But you subjoine that they presided in these Councils And to this there is no answer like unto your own viz. that in presiding they only ordered matters but did not decide in them which together with a Moderator after the example of the first Nicen Synod wherein Constantine presiding Eustathius of Antioch did by prayer open the Council you know we do willingly allow But to help you a little in this point I grant that Theodosius in the Council of Constantinople seems to have gone a great length yet all that we find upon record is that the Council being divided without issue by the opinions of the Orthodoxe of the Macedonians Arrians Ennomians the Emperour requires their several confessions and after much earnest prayer to God for light and direction he declares for the Nicen Faith whereunto the Synod agreeing the contrary heresies are condemned And this was no doubt a very laudable practice warranted both by the exigent and the truth it selfe whereby many things less regular without inferring an ordinary and proper power in the Author for their warrant have very often been sustained A good turne specially when done in the cessation of other midses doth sufficiently subsist by its own merit Iehojada a Priest in a state of necessity armes against a Tyranne and reformes the
Kingdome But can you or any man thence conclude that therefore he acted from an ordinary power and facultie a priviledge proper to his office Why then should men be so absurdly unequal as from the like extraordinary interpositions of Princes in Church perturbations to attribute to them a proper inherent right and perpetual prerogative Next you say That the Emperours also judged in matters of Schisme But seing that any judgement given by them was consequent to the Churches determination though perhapes with a little attemperation for conveniency whereof determinations in these matters do very naturally allow the instance is no more favourable then the rest you have adduced But the Code Basilicks Capitulers of Charles the great shew that they never thought it without their sphere to make laws in Ecclesiastick matters 'T is answ This objection shewes that either you are little acquainted with what is in these Books or little advertent to the conclusion you have in hand The laws you mention are either imperial confirmations of the truth owned by the Church or for condemning and punishing of declared hereticks or for authorizing and ordering a slender umbrage of jurisdiction called episcopalis audientia granted to Church-men in charitable and favourable cases or for restraining and correcting their dissolute manners or lastly anent the regulating of Hospitals Alms-houses other things pertaining to the outward policy of the Church Pray Sir what make these for your Supremacie Or was ever this part of his Majesties power by us questioned But where wil you finde in all approven antiquity that ever a Prince by vertue of a pretended inherent right in his Crown or any acclaimed prerogative and Supremacie in causes Ecclesiastick took upon him with one blow summarily to overturne the established Ministery of a Church by himselfe formerly by solemn Oath confirmed introduce new Office-bearers set up a new frame of Church-government declaring himselfe to be the sole head and fountain thereof to whom all others as subordinat must be accountable for their admistrations In what antient record did you ever read of a Commission granted by a King for Ecclesiastick affaires impowering Secular persons to appoint Ministers to be censured by suspension and deposition and Church-men to punish by fining confining incarcerating and other corporal paints What Emperour or Prince did ever assume to himselfe in the right of his royal power at once to impose upon a whole Church a new liturgie and form of service never before heard of among them Or did it ever enter in the heart of a Christian Potentat to declare for a Law that what ever he should please to enact anent Church-meetings and matters should upon the publication be by all obeyed and observed and in suite of it to statute that if either Minister or other person not allowed by his or his Bishops authority do preach expone Scripture or pray except in his own house and to these only of his own family it shall be judged a Coventicle and liable to pains of Law These are a part of the native fruits of your Supremacie If you look back to confirme it by antient precedents pray give us but one parallel I grant that Iustinian in some of his Constitutions after having declared and confirmed the truth received by the Church and dâ—termined by her Councils not only condemnes but anathematizes the contrary heresies But seing his using of that phrase peculiar to the Church and properly importing a power acknowledged not to be competent to secular Athority doth only express his more enixe detestation of these errours and approbation of the Church her censures against them it cannot with any colour of reason be made use of for your purpose But you proceed to tell us that the Bishops not excepting the Bishope of Rome were named at least their elections approven by the Emperours And what then For my part if the Emperour and all Christian Princes should agree at once to reduce them aswell as they advanced them it should not be accounted an invasion of the Churches power or priviledge But because it is like that these Emperours you speak of did indeed regard them as true Church-officers nevertheless medled as is mentioned in their elections I answer further that the true cause of Princes their first medling in the elections of Bishops was either the diffidence of the Bishops as to that office and title wherein not being satisfied from Scripture-warrant they were inclined to apply to the Emperour for the supplement of his confirmation or els their solicitous ambition which in thesearly contests that they had for precedency did prompt them among other artifices to fortify their pretensions by the Emperour's favour and suffrage However this is very certain that whether the Emperour 's medling was first procured by the Bishops address or did flow from their own proper motive had these Church-men contained themselves within the rules and limits set to them by our Lord they had never judged the Emperours confirmation requisite to the validity of their office and title and therefore seing the true account of this matter is that the aspiring of Ecclesiasticks did give the first rise unto this secular medling whether we take it to be no usurpation as being conversant about that which to say the truth is not Christian let be Ecclesiastick or to be a partaking in the Church-men their usurpation either of the two doâ—h equally make void your argument After the reasons which we have heard you conclude That Kings their medling in Ecclesiastick affaires was never controverted till the Romane Church swelled to the hight of tyranny and since the reformation it hath been still stated as one of the differences betwixt us and them It is answered If Princes had at first exceeded and intruded too far in Church-matters and then the Pope acted by a worse spirit and no less aspiring had risen up against his Masters and thrust himselfe into their rooms what would this make for your advantage Or doth it to either of them conclude a right Suppose a Papist debating this question should argue thus that the Pope his headship in Ecclesiastick affaires in England was never controverted till Henry the Eight impatient through lust did arrogate to himself the Supremacy and since that time it hath still been stated as one of the controverted differences would you think this reasoning pungent Why then is not your discerning equall to your judgement But the clear truth in this matter is that although the Emperours of old did at no time lay claime to this Supremacy questioned yet they and the succeeding Princes having too much connived at and countenanced the Antichristian ambition working in Prelacy toward the Papacy it was from the righteous judgement of God that upon its exaltation they were blinded and involved in these contentions and justly plagued by the transcendent insolence of an evill which they had too much fomented And therefore your dating the period of these contests
from the setting up of the Papal tyranny doth contribute nothing to your advantage And where you say that since the Reformation the Supremacy hath still been stated as one of our differences from them 'T is very certain that it hath been granted by all the reformed Churches that Princes may and ought to reassume their own power and Kingdome given unto the Beast in so far as in the times of the prevailing of the mystery of iniquity it was either by force extorted or by fraud elicite from them But that any King or Prince upon the pretense of recovering his own from the Pope should lay claim to all that he hath usurped either against our Lord or over his Church nay to more then ever any Pope did arrogate which is the case and import of your Supremacy is that whereunto I am confident no true subject of Jesus Christ and enemy of Antichrist can judiciously assent And therefore if in this we do more solidly soundly maintain the differences betwixt the Reformed and Popish Churches and while we assert our Lord's prerogative and his Churches priviledge against the Pope do not betray them to any other pretender we hope our differing from you aswell as the Papists in this matter shall only witness us to be the more upright defenders and no deserters of the Protestants plea and the truth of God Now this is That Supremacie which as I have very plainly and graphically represented without making use of Scolastick termes or distinctions in my opinion not more frequent then superâ—luous in a matter so palpable so I am confident that every one who hath that true understanding of the fear of God and the sincere love of our Lord Jesus will ever abhorre it with all its wicked effects But you in your crastines do not only make your N. C. cede as it were to your reasonings but in a manner own the late pretended Indulgence as flowing from the Supremacie on purpose to fix upon these few Ministers of ours who have been thereby restored at least a constructive approbation of this evill And thus you move your N. C. to say that he hopes you are so much for the Supremacy as not to quarrel at this Indulgence lately granted and by way of reply you tell him how good Subjects you are not to criticize upon your Soveraign's pleasure and how much more moderate then we who would not have received ann 1641 such a proposition from the King in favours of the Doctors of Aberdeen And from this falling to touch our opposing the readmission of Malignants to the Army against the Englishes you exceedinly please your selfe in your own well-natur'd compliance and would have even the jealousy and aversion which some of you have for this favour commend your submission as the greater vertue because against your inclination But not to lose time in these your trifflings the weak shadowings of your vain imagination to be brieff and round with you I differ from your N. C. and am so much against the Supremacy that I abominat the Indulgence under this name That God hath disposed the King to restore in any measure what was so sinfully taken away we account it a great blessing wishing that he may be in such manner satisfied with the fruits of this course as may more and more convince him of its righteousness and encourage him to its prosecution But if you or any els do think by this poor and scant restitution to bribe the Lords People to a consent to the rest of your usurpations and a more tame compliance with all the other wrongs and mischiefs that you have done and are still doing we trust the Lord shall deliver his own from so fearfull a snare And that as hitherto our Ministers have looked upon themselves as such neither of man nor only by man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father so they will accordingly acquit themselves and in a special manner as they expect our Lords presence to be with them testify for his right and ordinance against all invasions and that so much the more as the hard condition of the present times hath in some sort ingaged them to a seeming allowance of which they ought to purge themselves in the first place As for your being better subjects to the King then we are we know indeed that many if not all of you either principally designing or els simply deluded by outward peace and ease do in order to this end not only acknowledge the King as Supreme but in effect adore and revere him as the most high and for the freedome of your persons and fortunes really enslave your consciences to his dictates But as this is a subjection no more stable and fixed then the mutability of that interest whereon it depends so it is a measure thereof for which we do neither envy you nor for the want thereof fear to be less accepted either with God or man Only let me tell you that I take your not criticizing upon the late Licence a thing though very hardly resolved upon and no better digested by your evill natures and foolish malice yet in it selfe most conducible and in its effect very advantagious to your ends to be so much the concernment of your interest as scarce to be a mark of just and ordinary subjection let be to furnish a complement to your slavish flattery But you talk to us also of your greater moderation O the impudence The Prelates having raged several years in persecution and violence against persons only chargeable with a simple not-countenancing of their evill courses to the ruining of a part and distressing of the whole Countrey and to the manifest hazard of turning all to Confusion a few of our Rulers more wise foreseeing the consequences are at length perswaded to a small relenting and in hope thereby more assuredly to compass their end of suppressing and extinguishing the party by them feared they resolve rather to allay and break them by pretended favour and seeming indulgence And this having succeeded more happily then either reason or sense can convince the ever-jealous and cruel Prelatick Clergie you would have us so stupid as to applaud you for your moderation as exceeding any thing by us practised But to convince you by the retortion of your own instance Will you or any knowing man affirme that if there had been no more of necessity and interest to plead for us then appeared in the behalfe of the Doctors of Aberdeen we had notwithstanding have attained to this favour For my part I think it may be demonstrate that had that freedome been used by us in open disputing and opposing which was permitted nay allowed to the Doctors instead of Answers and Answers to Replyes as they are termed we had certainly got Prisons and Gibbets And yet for all your calumnious alleageance that they and other worthy persons whom nevertheless you wisely forbear either to name or number were by us driven away by tumults and
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