Marshall 's Authority and Stamp So that Delphos it self was the inferiour Oracle Whereas then when the preceding Letter was written I stood as appears in great need of an Answer to whom could I in prudence have gone better than to this so eminent an Oracle He who without fear or difficulty could give Answers to the greatest affaires and concerns both of Church and State He who was quasi gentium Apostolus the Occumenical Oracle to Scots and English He who professeth himself acquainted with the Mindes of all Christendom yea and the Minde of God too Here sure or nowhere was I to expect an Answer this or no Pope Stephen was infallible Whereas then my humble Address was Eminenti to so great an Eminence I doubt not but now the Reader as well as the Writer may expect either a full or a fair a civil or a charitable Answer In the Letter there is I think a modest and Hypothetical Request either to salve my Repute with the Worshipful Knight I writ about or to make me his Convert his Charity might have done the one if his Judgement could not do the other But I could not importuue either till at length I met him at Cambridge that very day the Usurper of Trinity kept his Divinity-Act in the School-yard I desired to speak with him told him my Name excused my boldness that being unknown I troubled him with a Letter At this he began to open and said And printed it when you had done To which I solemnly and truely protested Who printed it I knew not nor of the printing of it till a Neighbour shewed it me adding Sir I am now for London and intend to wait upon that worthy Person in whose house you was then Couchant I humbly desire to know whether you have done me the favour to satisfie him that you found me a conscientious though a weak Brother Et jam parturiunt montes His Answer was You may go look Had he bid me go look how and what he subscribed when he was Ordained and Instituted it had been somewhat for the Form of his Subscription was I Stephen Marshall do willingly and ex Animo subscribe to the three Articles above mentioned and to all things that are contained in them Whereof the second is the Book of common-Common-prayer That he himself will use the Form in the said Book prescribed in publick Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and none other Or had he bid me go look what he himself did after the Renouncing of his Subscription when he married his Daughter by the Common-prayer this had been something but indefinitely to bid me go look was next door to say to a Dog Get you out And here I cannot forbear with honour to remember Learned and Civil Mr. Jeremiah Whittaker to whom when I address'd my self upon the same scruple I had of him in his house a very kinde reception and when in discourse I told him how I had negatively subscribed to use in publick Administrations the Common-prayer and no other He told me I was surely deceived and desired me to meet him at the Dean of Westminster's where the Assembly then sat next Morning which I did and brought with me a Book of Canons but the good man anticipated the shewing of them telling me that indeed the Subscription was as I said and that I had called to his remembrance a sin which but for me he should never have asked pardon for A fitter man to deal with a tender Conscience than Mr. Marshall He did go look indeed but it was into his own Breast and there he found he had sinned against his Subscription which ingenuous Confession I wish may do him more honour than a Monument Vtilitas facit esse Deos quâ nempe Remotâ Templa ruunt nec erunt Arae nec Jupiter ullus It was partly said by the Poet Profit makes Gods Temples Altars and Jupiter himself were no further valued than men got by them Trucly I do heartily wish that even among us none did drive on Religion as a Trade subscribing and avowing the Liturgy with as changeable Consciences as they did the Covenant and the Engagement valuing nor one or other but as a present Expedient which truely makes me call to minde what a Reverend ' Bishop of the Church of Ireland observed here in England viz. The greatest danger that ever the common-prayer-Common-prayer-book had was the indifferency and the indevotion of them that used it but as a common Blessing and they who thought it fit for the meanest of the Clergy to read Prayers and for themselves onely to preach This doubtless did and ever will depress the honour of the Liturgy for mobile Vulgus she moving people can never value what they see is by the Priest but superficially profest When Augustus Caesar and Mark Anthony were at variance there is a known Story of a poor man who not being able to prognosticate which should return the Conquerour made two Crowes equally ready one could say Ave Caesar victor Imperator and the other Ave victor Imperator Antoni One prepared to salute Augustus and the other Anthony All a matter to the poor man who was chief so he got by it Now as Crowes even so Oracles they have been taught to speak for advantage many of them being like unto Wind-instruments which sound no longer than they are puffed up Now of my Crow-like Oracle the Authour of the History of Independency thus Mr. Marshall when he saw Independency prevail secretly turned his Coat the wrong side outward could not tell whether C. should import Charles or Cromwel And this my unlucky Letter bears date that very year so that my Oracle being at a loss shall be pardoned and have no more said either to him or of him for this so dobious and unexpected Answer in a case of Conscience You may go look Anno ut sertur Mirabili Responsum Mirabile 1666. FINIS Vers 18. * * Gal. 5. 20. * * 2 Kings 19. 33. Ezr. 4. 4. Antiq. c. 3. initio cap. * * 1 TIâ—… 2. 8. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 2 Pet. 2. 8. v. 21. v. 54. * * Acts 3. 1. * * Acts 8. 27. Acts 24. 11. Psal 96. 9. Psal 99. 5. * * Neh. 9. 3. Matth. 5. 20. Mal. 1. 11. Epist 136. Miles 964 From Saba to Jerusalem Acts 8. 27. His whole Journey 1928 M. Acts 24. 11. Erasmus Matth. 3. 11. * * Rom. 15. 6. Rom. 1. 9. * * Vers 26. Exod. 3 4. Josh 5. 14. Matth. 6. Luke 15. 18. Matth. 28. 19. 1 Tim. 2. Esay 56 Acts 3. 1. 1 Cor. 13. Mat. 5. 16. Rev. 5. 11 Hoc proprium est sanctorum quod Rebus creatis pro suo jure utuntur Beza in Hebr. 2. p. 8. Zech. 12. 10. Tyndal Rps. Bible Geneva March 26. 1645. In a Letter of his * * Pag 180. Rom. 13. 17. * * A President without a President or the Form of the Indictment The Jurors for the Lord-Protector of England upon their Oaths do present that Edward Freeman of Ayston in the County of Rutland Gent. and Dorothy his Wife the 25 of December and the first of January 1653. and divers other Sabboth-days and several days commonly called the Holy-days of Saints and Friday called Good-Friday and suchlike days as Ash-wednesday and Sundays in Lent Easter-day and Whit-sundays do usually travel from Ayston aforesaid to Wardly in the same County to hear Mr. John Allington Clerk to read the most part of the Book of common-Common-prayer and to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the Form of the said Book and also do present the said J. A. Clerk for reading the said Book of common-Common-prayer or most part of it at every such Assembly and for administring the Lord's Supper to Popish and Prelatical persons of other Countries Cringing Bowing and Kneeling to the Altar and Sacrament then administred contrary to Ordinance of Parliament in that case provided And did also say he would be torn in pieces by wilde Horses before he would give over bowing at naming Jesus Reformed Catholick 707. Pag. 855. Ibid. 1 Kings 18. 32. Lib. 7. de leg Lib. 4. c. 17 Eccles 5. Gen. 4. 26. Ioan. Drusius in difficilioribus Genesâ—os Barradius Tom. 4. l. 10. c. 12. Numb 6. 23. In 1 Cor. 11. ver ultim Val. Max. lib. 1. cap. de Religio Printed 1628. Lib. 83. quaest 31. Inst t. l. 4. c. 14. p. 19. As Grotius cites him de jure belli Illis Med. upon death Chron. Chario Diocles Matth. 41. Luke 51. Mark 61. John 98. Ian. 2. Epist 33. In Sermone ad plebem intra Basilieam Ep. 33. P. 118. in Bridewel Hom 84. in Matth. See the Supplication of the men of Norfolk and Suff. in the Book of Martyrs 728. Abridg pag. 413. Decemb. 31 1646. In his Letter to a Friend in the City p. 36. Jan. 18. 1643. History of Independency part 1. pag. 52. * * 53. Dr. Hill
honour I have reviewed the thing and finde that what is Truth and Reason it will still be so change the state and condition of Seculars how they please So that look what in the days of Tryal they then did no other in these better days do they seem to me And what to me that also they appear to some so candidly judicious that upon their account and as they conceive for the good of others they again shew themselves not so much because strong but because short and plain and ad Captum vulgi and to their capacity who most need them it being thought by some that what was writ and published when the Liturgie like Christianity in the days of St. Paul was every where much spoken against that will be much sooner heeded than what hath been published since our Form of Worship hath been like the rising Sun either for the Beauty or Necessity of it received at most hands For to receive it now may be gain but to retain it then had more of godliness But as the Apostle of the Gospel the same may I say of the Liturgy whether in pretence or truth it is now used I do therein rejoyce and will rejoyce for I know this may turn to the salvation of many by the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ which being the spirit of Wisdom and Holiness will much more certainly accompany a well-digested Form than a sudden Rapsody in as much as Consideration and Prudence approach nigher to Holiness and Wisdom than rashness basty and inconsiderate Effusions One pretending to pray in my sequestred Pulpit is said to say O Lord get up upon thine Horse and make haste into Ireland or thou wilt lose more honour there than ever thou gotst in England He certainly had less of the spirit of Prayer than he who shall devoutly read the meanest of our Collects And it is very well known if it were worth the while to shovel up such Dunghils we might present the World with an huge heap of such unsavory Profanations and therefore except the madness of the people and the upholding of their Credits who have thus dishonoured God I cannot imagine what should hinder as universal joy that Forms are established and Ministers confin'd to pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding also For if St. Paul did wisely well when he preferred five Words spoken with the understanding before ten thousand in an unknown Tongue certainly it is as proportionably true to say A Prayer of five Lines deliberately made understandingly penn'd and devoutly offered is to be preferred before an whole hour of that which neither Speaker nor Hearer can give any tolerable repetition or account of Some whom I have lately treated with are come to this Truely they like the Prayers and wish there were no worse made but the Imposition that Christians should be under penalties compelled to be present at these Prayers that they like not Now for their sakes who make this Objection I must needs and especially to them remember that when the Lords and Commons acting both without and against their King were doing as the godly Ministers and Party then hoped their work then even they now Enemies to Imposition were by them stiled Custodes vindices utriusque Tabulae Not onely Gods Ministers but Gods Avengers Then it was lawful for their Magistrates in matters of Religion and Worship to Impose and if not obeyed to Dispose even of all men had Thus thought the Worthy that I have to deal with for Mr. Marshall in a Sermon upon Psal 102. v. 16 17. thus Those in Authority in things of this life may command and act ad Modum imperii by way of imposing in matters of Religion And a little after As Josiah put to death those that followed Baal so may the Parliament those that will not return to the Lord and leave Antichristianism In the year 1647 I have the testimony of many persons of Quality then Prisoners in the Tower who after an hundred Sollicitations but to have Bread out of their own Estates received from a Chair-man this Answer He would famish them into the taking of the Covenant and Negative Oath In the Articles for which I loft my Livelyhood a grand Charge is the refusal of the Directory Now if it were lawful for usurping Powers to oblige under the severity of undoing to be present at no man knew what at such Prayers as could neither be considered on nor reviewed Certainly then à Fortiori it is much more lawful for a legal and undoubted Authority to exact our presence at a Form which may be both seen and read and examined before men approach to make or give consent to the oblation of it And indeed not to make a business of this pretence it is undoubtedly clear that no party in Authority but did impose and did exact a Conformity to their Imposition Witness the Protestation the Covenant and the Engagement All Forms Humane Forms and such as have neither Command nor Example in the Book of God Yea they were Forms Contradictory and gain-saying each the other And yet whosoever refused any one of them he was proceeded against as disaffected to the present Government and by consequent unworthy to enjoy his own Bread Nor do I believe there can be found so great a difference between a Vow in Form and a Prayer in Form that it shall be lawful for Vsurpers to impose the one and unlawful for the legal and loyal Magistrate to impose the other So that refusal of the Common-prayer meerly upon the account of Imposition it seems to carry a greater measure of stomack than Conscience in it And thus thought Mr. Calvin or else he would never have writ to the Protector in the first of Edw. the sixth as in the Title-page That he exceedingly approved a set Form both of Prayer and Ecclesiastical Rituals and would have it such as no Pastor might recede from And for proof of it in England I shall onely relate what hapned some nine years after and may be read in the 1531 Page of the old and unpurged Edition of The Book of Martyrs of John Careless a Coventry-Confessor who to Dr. Martin thus The second Edition speaking of the common-Common-prayer of Edw. 6. is good and godly and in all points agreeing to the Word of God And then infra I will adde thus much more That the same Book which is so consonant and agreeable to Gods Word being set forth by common Authority both the King's Majesty that is dead and the whole Parliament-house ought not to be despised of me or of any other private man under pain of God's curse and high displeasure and Damnation except they repent April 25 1556. See here one ready to go to the Stake being as himself writes proclaimed Heretick at Paul 's Cross makes such a conscience of obeying the Authoritative Imposition of the Common-prayer-book that he professeth Nor he himself and will these Exceptors say he had
we are to take no notice by a Worship in Spirit and Truth and by worshipping the Father understood worshipping in a Form for Father implies a Form and by publick Liturgies let us a little survey their Piety and their Prayers First Our blessed Lord and Master who gave this rule he himself exemplified what he gave for the exact Pattern and the very Basis of all Gospel-worship is Pater Noster Our Father The Apostolical Symbol the Canon and Square of all the Professions of our Faith it begins Credo in Deum Patrem I believe in God the Father Confession of sins as the words were by our Saviour put into the mouth of the penitent Prodigal it is an address unto the Father I will go to my Father c. And Father I have sinned against heaven and against thee The Sacrament of Initiation or first admittance into the mystical Communion it is confined to this rule In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Yea when the Church in humble thankfulness returneth Praise and Glory unto God for all his benefits it is done as becomes true Worshippers by worshipping the Father and by saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son c. And as for the Church of England is not every Collect a most exact Gospel-worship Almighty and most merciful Father begins our Confession Almighty God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begins our Absolution Then the Prayer of the Son unto his Father And the Close of every Collect is through Jesus Christ which is still an implication of the Father So that according to this rule the true Worshippers shall worship the Father Who can be truer Worshippers than that Church all whose publick Prayers are Addresses and Acts of worship to the Father And as for Spirit and Truth had it been inconsistent with publick and outward Worship or with Form then St. Paul would never have writ to Timothy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Prayers should be not onely said but made for Kings and all that are in Authority St. James the Brother of our Lord he had scornfully and ignominiously been termed Jacobus Liturgus James the Liturgist had set Forms been inconsistent with Spirit and truth Justine Martyr he would never have spoken of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Common-prayers nor Ignatius before him of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of one Prayer had it been a stinting of the good Spirit to have a Liturgy or a Common-prayer Yea there would have been no Churches to have worshipped God in no publick Assemblies to have worshipped there nor indeed no use at all of our Bodies in order to God's glory if Spirit and Truth concluded against outward worship Whatsoever then the antient Churches understood by Spirit and Truth they did not understand an opposition either to bodily or to outward worship For that which is held the best Interpreter of Scripture to wit Praxis Ecclesiae the Church-Practice you see it doth evince the contrary for they had Churches they had known and set Forms for publick worship Yea Beza himself in his smaller Notes thus Quae ad Ordinent spectant ut precum formulae disposuit Apostolus Those Decencies which appertain to Order as Forms of Prayer the Apostle himself prepared and disposed By Spirit and Truth then we may very well here understand a worshipping of the Father according to those measures which the Spirit Light and Grace of the Gospel prescribeth and alloweth to us By Truth we may understand such outward expressions and manifestations as are proportionable to such a Spirit to such Light to such Grace for so by their unanimous and constant practice the primitive and best Churches understood it Lastly therefore give me leave in a word to shew how much it concerns us to give all due regard and respect to the outward and publick Worship of God under the state of the Gospel The Servants of God under the Gospel they are stiled by our Saviour Veri Adoratores the true Worshippers not the unsatiable Hearers Now it seems strange to me that Christians should emphatically be called the true Worshippers and yet many make no account at all of Evangelical Worship as if God did not as much regard the honour done unto his Person as he doth the bare hearing and listening to his Word Or as if Pray continually and Continue in prayer sounded not as much duty as doth Be instant in season and out of season By Evangelical Worship I understand Prayers Supplications and giving of Thanks confession of Sin profession of Faith making and performing of Vows oblation of Praise singing of Hymns and Psalms reception of Sacraments Adoration either with or without these So that the Father is then worshipped in Spirit and in Truth when there is a reverential address or a religious performance of all or any of these before him so that we cannot come under the honourable Appellative in the Text Veri Adoratores true Worshippers unless we outwardly and publickly even thus assemble for to worship Esay 66. 23. the Evangelical Prophet speaking of Gospel-days thus writes All flesh shall come to worship before me saith the Lord. To worship is not to clap on our Hats and sit on our Seats to hear a Sermon but to perform some act of honour some humble office some such religious Duty the reverence whereof may shew forth our distance and the Father's glory the performance whereof may move all who see it say These men are in the presence and before their God These men know what they worship These men have the Fear and Apprehension of a glorious Majesty before their eyes For being the great designe of God in all his works is the setting forth of his own Glory Worship it is the very immediate tendency to that great end For they that worship it is their actual employment to set forth his praise and to magnifie him under some glorious Attribute or other So that indeed between Hearing and Worshipping there is as much difference as between Hearing and Doing For Hearing being but a disposition to Doing Worship is the very practice Doing and actual Advance of God's honour and therefore a Duty not to be laid aside nor so coolly frequented and performed as by too too many He who in the second Commandment said Thou shalt not bow down to them or worship them He who forbids Sacrisice and Prayers and Praises yea the very bowing of the Body to false Gods doth not in so doing imply less than a reservation of this Worship to himself And therefore to him who is the everliving God and the everlasting Father to him we must ascribe and give the Glory the Honour and the Worship that evangelically is due unto him for the true Worshippers are in all duty bound to worship the Father and to worship him in Spirit and Truth Hos 6. 6. I desired mercy and not sacrisice and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offerings
distance or for not acquaintance with the Voice he oft cannot understand or understanding cannot so instantly consider and judge of as to deem it a meet oblation for his God Whether I say these acts can better be discharged and Praestantissima quaeque Deo upon a transient than a set Form let every man so judge as he will answer it to his God Sixthly Men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in conceived or conceited Prayer For he who holds Original Sin in Infants as such no bar to Salvation he cannot abide that men in Prayer should say they are damned before born and came into the world Brands of Hell-fire Or such who hold Sacraments have no effect but in the Elect onely these cannot joyn in a preparative Prayer but either they must have a Congregation of Elect onely or they must rashly say they know not what and pray for such grace for some present which they pretend to know God will never give And indeed upon what but upon this are built all the sorry Objections against the Liturgy Seventhly Conceived Prayer or as they call it praying by the Spirit is for the most part a great cheat being the main Product of a ready Tongue and a strong Memory in which is treasured up for all occasions Scripture-Phrases Collections Notes and such Expressions as are most taking and popular For that the Holy Spirit will put words into the mouth of any man as he did once into Balaam's Ass suddainly and irresistibly or that by the Spirit of Prayer is meant a capacity to speak in the Vocative Case an Hour or two is not yet proved to a serious and a sober Christian That place of Zechary I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications it will by no means do them this service For Authority I hope undeniable to conceivers the Assembly-Annotations tells us And I will pour This Prophecy had its accomplishment partly upon our Saviour's coming and yet shall more fully upon the last conversion of the Jews So that by them the present Church seems not the subject of this promise Indeed they say the house of David typically represents the Church of Christ and the Children of God But then by the Spirit of Grace and Supplications they by no means mean the gift of Prayer or a power of a sudden to say what they list in the Vocative Case For by the spirit of Grace they onely mean an help from God to make Prayer in Believers holy and acceptable and that is far from long and indigested Rapsodies And as for that upon which Fanaticks lay the great stress the Spirit of Supplications The Comment declines it wholly and rather sides with those who render the Original by Compassion or Lamentation So that this is a pitiful Bottom to cozen and cheat the people on with or to an expectation of such a surprize of Spirit as shall make them pray what they list and as long And indeed both the learned in the Hebrew Tongue and the Context bear against it for albeit some conceive as the vulgar Latine renders it Prayer or Supplications may yet as Cornelius à Lapide whom I therefore quote because he hath prepared the Collection for me upon the place observes the Septuagint the Chaldee Pagnine the Tigurine Version and Hierom by what some Humorists call the Spirit of Prayer they rather render Compassion Commiseration a Minde tender and propense to pity and compassion And indeed if we consider the very next words and by them measure the prime end of this promise we shall finde the genuine and proper meaning of the Text must needs be thus I will pour upon the house of David and the Inhabitants of Jerusalem a Spirit so tempered with Grace and Tenderness that they shall be sensibly touched and affected when they shall look upon him whom they have pierced and shall mourn for him as one who mourneth for his onely Son Enough to evince the Septuagint the Chaldee and the rest rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Spirit of Commiseration Pity and Compassion than as the vulgar Latine which but to serve an interest the godly Party abhors to follow Spiritus precum the Spirit of Prayers Yea in former and elder English Versions it is read thus The Spirit of Grace and Compassion and perchance had been so still had not this pretended gift of praying sprung out not many years before the last Translation But since men have had an itch to magnifie their own gifts and as did the Scribes and Pharisees by long prayer to get into and deceive the people set Forms of Prayer hath been mightily deprest as if those Prayers were unworthy a Parlour that did decore a Church But If we shall look back to the days of Edward the sixth and Queen Mary we shall finde both at home and abroad both in private and in publick the Church-Prayers were venerable and of great use In the days of Edward the sixth one Thomas Cottesford put out the Church-prayers in the Singular Number that they might be fitted for a Closet and a personal Devotion and accommodated to every day of the Week Morning and Evening And he was held a very good man in his days and as I have been told of the Puritan way In the days of Queen Mary Dr. Taylor Parson of Hadleigh in Suffolk as in his Life appears when his Wife came in an Evening to visit him his Evening-prayer was the Letany and whilst he lay in Prison his daily Prayers were the service-Service-book of Edward the sixth and that Book he gave to his Wife as a pious Legacy So that it was then no strange thing to use the common-Common-prayer in a private house nor was that arrogancy of Spirit in holy Breasts as to think no Prayer comparable to those of their own conceiving I may take God to witness honourable Sir I can say with a perfect Heart as Moses once did Numb 11. 26. Would God all the Lords people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them But to hear ignorant rash cunning and catching people calling their own God's Spirit and their crafty effusions the Breath of God and his Dictates This my soul abhors an indignation to this was a great motive to the following Letter I conceived a necessity upon me then to assert a set Form when an abundance of what was then called Prayer savoured more of Diurnals Designes News and Villanies than of godliness or purity of the Gospel Yea the Spirits of too too many of my own calling are not yet to be trusted to speak what they list in Prayer some yet taking occasion rather to instil their present dislikes than to promote a sincere and pure Devotion Now being it is so that men of different Principles can never conscionably joyn in a controverted Prayer there seems to me even hence a great necessity that Prayer should be set and
not the Spirit of God nor any private man might not under the pain of God's curse despise it pronouncing Damnation to all despisers if they repent not In the Stirs of Frank-ford reprinted you shall finde the Exiles of Frank-ford were so far from thinking it a pressure to a tender Conscience to impose a Discipline that they made it a condition without which no reception into their Congregation That not onely Ministers as with us but Men of all sorts yea and Women too were to subscribe unto it Nor is it ever to be dream'd there should ever be such a thing as Subordination or as they love to speak Ruling Elders without Impositions Or that any wise man should impose who hath not a coercive Power So that either every particular Christian must be a Church or there must be an obeying of them that have the rule over us and a Communicating in such Prayers as we our selves made not As for that fond Objection giving but not granting of it That set Forms stint the Spirit I conceive the result of that Dispute amounts onely to this Whether it is meeter every private Minister or a consultation of many Fathers should do it For both equally do it For if the Prayer which they call conceived Prayer be indeed so forasmuch as no Conception is imaginable without Form by consequence this conceived is a formed Prayer And if so then the Spirit in the Speaker is confined pro tempore to that Form If it be not conceived nor considered then 't is rash indigested a present unfit for a Ruler much more for a God However be it what it will it circumscribes the Auditors and bindes up their attention to the present speaking In a word being the Nation hath sadly found that both God hath been highly dishonoured and the Souls of men truely religious mightily grieved at the Follies Rebellions Impertinencies and prodigious Failings of private spirits even under pretence of Prayer there is a grand necessity of stinting restraining and limiting such spirits toward which there is no more excellent expedient than a Form of Prayer nor any Form that I ever yet saw beyond our own concerning which I shall adde this onely Sir Edward Cook in his famous Reports reports how in the 33 year of Queen Elizabeth Mr. Cawdry sometime Parson of South-Lussenham in the little County of Rutland was deprived as the Jury then gave in For that he had preached against the Book of common-Common-prayer and refused to celebrate Divine Service according to the same Now of the same little County the Writer hereof May the 5th 1646. was at the Committee for plundered Ministers in Westminster Sequestred March 17th 1653 at the General Sessions at◠Oakham Indicted And upon the 28th of November 1655 actually deprived by Major-General Butler for Officiating or Celebrating Divine Service by the same To the abiding of which Sequestration Indictment or Deprivation whether notwithstanding Mr. Stephen Marshall's following Answer the Reasons here following in the Letter were perswasive shall now be left to the censure of the patient and the prudent Reader Isaac Massey A BRIEF APOLOGY FOR THE Sequestred Clergy Wherein among other things this Case of Conscience is judiciously handled Whether any Minister of the Church of England may to avoid Sequestration omit the publick use of the Liturgy and submit to the Directory In a Letter from a sequestred Divine to Mr. STEPHEN MARSHALL Querelam Ecclesiae quisque Catholicus facit suam Printed in the Year 1649. In Nomine Crucifixi secundum illud primae ad Corinth cap. secundo vers secundo Reverend Sir THis Address may seem very strange and yet if you shall consider the occasion it will appear that I could not prudently do other for you being accounted a Light in that very House in which I stand eclipsed I could not imagine by any other mean than your splendour how to obtain the dissipation of this Cloud Sir so it is that that worshipful and worthy Knight Sir John Trever is one to whom I owe very much for it was his Letter and his Influence that first guided and planted me to and in the School of the Prophets It was respect to him that gained me a Tutor and it is now my respect to him which gains you this trouble For when about the beginning of Michaelmas-term I was at London meeting him in the Palace-yard I thanked him for a late courtesie his reply was I had disabled my self from the capacity of a courtesie I took leave to answer it was my Conscience and the tenderness thereof that hath thus streightned me He told me again in words as I conceive to these equivalent that I was more byassed by Conceit than Conscience and guided rather by Will than Judgement I have so little left that I can demonstrate to the world I have not made gain my godliness and I shall now desire to make it as evident unto you that 't is not Fancy but Scruple and Scruple onely for which my self and in me a Wife and five Children very deeply suffer so that I here with all respect implore your assistance either to satisfie my weakness and set me right or which perchance may be the shorter work be pleased to satisfie him whom I do so highly honour that you conceive my grounds and reasons are such as may conclude me a rational and conscientious though weak Brother The misdemeanours for so they are called for which my conviction bearing date May 5 1646. testifieth I am sequestred they are these 1. Adoration or worshipping God by bowing of my Body Eastward or towards the holy Table 2. For the exteriour acknowledgement of the Deity of my Saviour when summoned to it by his blessed Name Jesus 3. For deserting my Cure two whole years 4. For officiating by the Common-prayer-book with refusal of the Directory To which is added a general surmise of Malignancy against the Parliament First as of least concernment I shall give you this brief account of the third charge to which I negatively answer I never at all did desert my Cure For being as Justinian derélictum dicitur quod Dominus eâ mente abjecit ut id in numero rerum suarum esse nolit that onely is deserted which is thrown off with a minde to be no more possest I cannot possibly be said to have deserted my Cure when by Petition upon Petition by Letter upon Letter and all the ways I could imagine I implor'd my quiet at home or to have leave to know why and our Committee never would or did give way to either so that what is here called desertion is no more than what those words of Scripture will well warrant When you are persecuted in one City fly unto another Secondly Every absenting more than two years in these days of trial hath not been accounted sequestrable and therefore under favour I suppose though this by way of cumulation is put in this is not the gravamen for there is