orthodoxe Bishops the while Truly in all likelyhood at home quietly in their own Sees in their retired studies without notice of any plots without any intimation of dangers much more without intermedling in any secrets of State or close stratagems of disturbance So as it was not their love to peace and truth that could oppose what they never could reach to know Neither is it any fault of theirs that the deare and precious name of Episcopacie is exposed to base and vulgar obloquie Let those who will needs poure contempt upon the guiltlesse looke for a just revenge from him who hath said Touch not mine anointed and doe my Prophets no harme Still therefore must I take leave to crie Fie upon those my Brethren that dare to charge faction upon Episcopacie and withall to deplore the unhappy mis-cariages of any of our spirituall Fathers that shall be found guiltie of these wofull broyles What Cyprian would have done upon occasion of so high an indignitie offered by you to that holy function appeares sufficiently in his Epistle to Rogatianus though no instance can come home to the point For let me boldly say that since Christianitie lookt forth into the world there were never so high and base scornes put upon Episcopacie as there have been by shamelesse Libellers within the space of this one yeare in this Kingdome yea in this Citie God in his great mercie forgive the authors and make them sensible of the danger of his just vengeance SECT. II. VVHat a windie Section have you past wherein you confesse you have striven for words Things you say shall now follow Things well worthy to bee not more precious to the Remonstrant then to every well-minded Christian Leiturgie and Episcopacie Leiturgie leads the way We had need to begin with our prayers I challenged you for the instances of those many alterations you talked of in the present Leiturgie You answer me Truly Sir if we were able to produce no fuller evidence of this then you have done of your Iewish Leiturgie ever since Moses time we should blush indeed but if we can bring forth such instances c. Truly Brethren you could do little if ye could not crack and boast the greatest cowards can do this best Do not say what ye can do but do what ye say Put it upon this very issue For the Leiturgie ye say we can bring forth instances of such alterations as shall prove this present Leiturgie to be none of that which was confirmed by Parliamentary Acts Mark well Readers for certainly in plain English these men go about to mock you The question is of the present Leiturgie which is pretended to vary extremely much from that in Queen Elizabeths daies Now come our braving Vindicators and after all their brags labour to shew that this our present Leiturgie differs from that in the daies of Edward the sixt and spend one whole Page in the particular instances Is not this pains well bestowed think you have they not hit the bird in the eye utterly balking what they undertook they undertake what no man questioned and now before-hand crow and triumph in these cockle-shels of a famous conquest But ye lay this for your ground That the Leiturgie confirmed by our Parliamentary Acts is the same which was made and confirmed in the fifth and sixth of Edward the sixt With one alteration or addition of certain Lessons to be used on every Sunday in the yeer and the form of the Letany altered and corrected and two sentences onely added in the delivery of the Sacrament to the Communicant and none other or otherwise Thus sayes the Act. Now comes your rare sagacity and findes notwithstanding Queen Elizabeths Leiturgie varying from the former in many omissions in many additions in many alterations Wherein what do ye other then give the check to a whole Parliament they say flatly None other or otherwise you say The Book is so altered that the Leiturgie now in use is not the same that was established by Act of Parliament But be that as it may there lies not the question If Queen Elizabeths Book did so much differ from King Edwards What is that to us Say as you have undertaken what such huge difference there is betwixt King Iames his Book and Queen Elizabeths Now your loud vaunts end in flat silence neither can you instance in any thing save some two pettie Particles not worthie of mention that in the title of Confirmation the words For imposition of hands are added and in the Epistle for Palm-Sunday In is turned into At These are all besides those which I fore-specified which have so mis-altered the Leiturgie that it can no more be known to be it self then the strangely-disguised Dames which were mentioned in Doctor Halls reproof Now let the Reader say who is worthie to wear those Liveries of Blushes which in your Wardrobe of Wit you have been pleased to lay up for your friends But I have not yet said all If you say to these we should adde the late alterations in the use of the Leiturgie bringing in loud Musick uncouth and unedifying Anthems a pompous superstitious Altar-service we think any indifferent eye will say this is not the Leiturgie established by Parliament What mean you Brethren thus to delude the Reader are these things you mention any part of the Leiturgie are they prescribed by any law of the Church are they found in any Rubrick of the Communion-book Do not the allowed Forms of our publique Prayers in all Parochiall and some Cathedrall Churches in Chappels in houses stand intirely without these Why do you therefore bring in these things as essentiall to Leiturgie In the meet omission of some whereof no doubt some Bishops of England no lesse zealously conscionable though better tempered then your selves may be found to conspire with you As for the namelesse Bishop whom you cite you must pardon me if I did not understand either you or him for the words in your Defence run That the Service of the Church of England is not so dressed that if a Pope should come and see it he would claim it as his own Now you report them to be That the Service of the Church of England is now so drest c. so as you cannot blame me if I knew not the meaning or the man But by this your description of his preaching it as matter of humiliation to all the Bishops of this Kingdome in a day of solemne and nationall fasting I perceive it is the Reverend Bishop of Carlile whom you thus cited and whom you have herein not a little wronged I acquainted that worthy Prelate with the passage he disavows the words and defies the reporters vehemently protesting that he never spake either those words or that sense and to make it good delivered me the pretended clause transcribed out of his notes with his owne hand which I reserve by me no whit sounding that way but signifying onely a vehement dislike of some
one by and for the Catechumeni the second for the Penitents the third for the Faithfull You cannot elude so cleare a proofe by saying the Councell required prayers for all these but did not binde to set formes in prayers for the same Councell stops your mouth whiles it tels you in plaine termes {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that the same form or Liturgy of Prayers was to be used morning and evening And Clemens though not the true yet ancient tels us {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. and in the eight Book of his Constitutions recites large prayers which were publiquely used in the Church Let the Reader now judge where this shuffling lies The Canon requires one of these prayers to be in silence what then So doth our Liturgy require in the Ordination of Ministers that in one passage of this solemne act our prayers should be secret and silent yet the rest is no lesse in set formes You might then bee ashamed to object want of fidelity to me in the citation of that testimony which I but barely quoted in my margin Neither can you avoid a self-confutation in your owne proofes There was no noise of the Arrian heresie till the Nicene Councell The Councell of Laodicea wherin set formes are notified was before the Nicene by your owne account Yea but say you the heresie of Arrius was not just borne at the period of the Nicene Councell True but was it borne so long before as that any Councell tooke notice of it before the Nicene This you dare not affirme But for a second shift the heresie of Arrius troubled the Church sometime before the name of Arrius was borrowed by it Grant we upon good authority of Fathers and Councels that the ground of the cursed error of Arrius concerning the Son of God was laid before by others what is that to the question of set prayers What is if this be not a plaine shuffle Neither is it any other then a meere slurre wherewith you passe over the unanswerable pressure of the Laodicean Councell before mentioned by cavilling the difference betwixt prescribing and composing the Councell is flat in both and injoynes one and the same Liturgy of prayers Certainly brethren you finde cold comfort at Laodicea Let us see how you mend your selves at Carthage The Fathers there injoyne that no man in his prayers should name the Father for the Son or the Son for the Father that in assisting at the Altar their prayers should be directed to the Father that no man should make use of any other forme then is prescribed unlesse he did first confer with his more learned brethren Hence you gather there was no set forme in use in the Church and no such circumscribing of liberty in prayer that a man should be tied to a set Liturgie The charge was doubtlesse given upon a particular occasion which is buried with time whether it were ignorance or heedlesnesse in those African Priests that they thus mistook in their Devotions I cannot determine But why might it not be then as it is with too many now that notwithstanding the Churches prescriptions men will be praying as they list and let fall such expressions as may well deserve censure and restraint However that they had set formes seemes to bee sufficiently implyed in their own words Quicunque sibi preces aliunde describit for what can that aliunde relate unto but some former prescription which that they had even in these African Churches we need no other testimony then of the Magdeburgenses who cite Cyprian himselfe for this purpose in his Booke de Oratione Dominica where he tels us that the Priest began with Sursum corda Lift up your hearts and the Congregation answered Wee lift them up unto the Lord To which they adde Formulas denique quasdam precationū sine dubio habuerunt They had then without doubt certaine set formes of prayers and to suppose that they had prescribed formes for publique use which no man should be required to use it were a strange and uncouth fancy Neither need wee any better contest for our defence then him whom you cite in your margin learned Cassander in the just allegation both of this Councell and the Milevitane the Canon whereof runs thus It pleaseth the Fathers that those prayers or orisons which are approved in the Synod shall bee used by all men And no other shall bee said in the Church but such as have beene made by some prudent Authors or allowed of the Synod lest perhaps something may bee composed by them through ignorance or want of care contrary to the faith Say Readers is not this a likely testimony to bee produced against set formes of Prayer What is it then that you would hence inferre First that this being Anno 416. is the first mention of prayers to be approved or ratified in a Synod and the restrayning to the use of them Grant that it were so of prayers to bee ratified or restrained Is it so of prayers to be used Are you not sufficiently convinced herein by the Synod of Laodicea It is the occasion that draws on the Law till now this presumption of obtruding private mens prayers upon the publique use of the Church was not heard of in those parts now only was it seasonable for correction Secondly you say the restriction was not such but that it admitted a toleration of prayers framed by prudent Divines no lesse then those which were approved by the Synod What gaine you by that when these prayers were said and not conceived and so said that they were put into formes not left to arbitrary delivery Secondly the occasion of this restriction being the prevention of errours in praying is so universall both for time and place that it may well argue this practise to be most ancient for the originall and worthy to be perpetuall for the continuance And now that the Vindicators may see how small cause the Remonstrant hath to be convinced of the latenesse of set forms imposed not till the Arrian and Pelagian Heresies invaded the Church let them be pleased to tell the Reader what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Prayers prescribed were whereof Origen speaks in his 6. book against Cels so frequently used and if that word may undergo another sense what those {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} can be construed wherefrom he quotes three or four passages of Scriptures in the fourth book against Celsus Lastly what the meaning and inference may be of that which the Centuries alledge out of Origen in his 11. Homily upon Ieremy Vbi frequenter in oratione dicimus Da omnipotens da nobis partem cum Prophetis da cum Apostolis Christi tui tribue ut inveniamur ad vestigia unigeniti tui If this be not part of a set form of prayer and long before Arrius or Pelagius I have lost both my aim and the day if
prayer be good and holy why should I more refuse it as comming from a Papists mouth then I would make use of a vicious prayer comming from the best Protestant Where I said If the Divell confesse Christ to be the Sonne of God shall I disclaime the truth because it passed through a damned mouth You answer But you know Sir that Christ would not receive such a confession from the Divels mouth nor Paul neither Act. 16. True in respect of the person confessing not of the truth confessed As it came from an evill spirit our Saviour and St. Paul had reason to refuse it but neither of them would disclaime the matter of that truth which was so averred There is great difference betwixt the words of a foule spirit and a faulty man but if you will needs make a parallel it must be personall Christ would not allow a Divell to confesse him we will not allow a Popish sacrificer to usurpe our good prayers but if my Saviour would not dis-allow that I should make use of the good Confession of an evill spirit much lesse would hee dislike that I should make use of that good prayer which was once the expression of an evill man And yet these were not such being taken from the composures of holy men and ill places so as this is no other then to take up gold mis-laid in a channell which could not impure it you may well aske why it was laid there you have no reason to aske why a wise man should take it up Your question therefore What need wee go to the Roman Portuise for a prayer when wee can have one more free from jealousies in another place might have been moved to those Worthies which gathered this pile of devotion who would easily have answered you that your jealousie is causelesse whiles the prayers themselves are past exception but can with no colour of reason bee charged upon us who take holy prayers from good hands not needing to enquire whence they had them YOur second reason is as forcelesse as your first Our Liturgie was composed you say into this forme on purpose to bring the Papist to our Churches that failing there is no reason to retaine it The argument failes in every part First our Liturgie was thus composed on purpose that all Christians might have a form of holy devotion wherein they might safely and comfortably joyne together both publickly and privately in an acceptable service to their God and this end I am sure failes not in respect of the intention of the composers however it speed in the practise of the users of it Secondly there is no reason that where the issue of things faileth the good intention of the agent should bee held frustrate or his act void Our end in preaching the Gospel is to win soules to God if we prevaile not shall we surcease and condemne our errand as vaine But here I say the project sped for till the eleventh yeare of Queene Elizabeth there was no Recusant You tell me It was not the converting power of the Liturgie but the constraining power of the Law that effected this But brethren what constraining power was of any use where there was no Recusant Every constraint implies a reluctation here was none If then our Liturgie had no power of converting to our Churches yet it had no operation of averting from them What the Popes negotiations were with Queen Elizabeth at this time imports nothing I am sure I have those Manuscript Decisions of the Jesuitish Casuists which first determined it unlawfull to joyne with our assemblies till which our Liturgie had so good effect that those who differed from us in opinion were not separated in our devotion But how am I mistaken That which I boasted of as the praise is objected to mee as the reproach of our divine service What credit is this to our Church you say to have such a forme of publicke worship as Papists may without offence joyne with us in c. Or How shall that reclaime an erring soule that brings their bodies to Church and leaves their hearts still in errour I beseech you brethren what thinke you of the Lords Prayer Is that a perfect platforme of our devotion or is it not Tell me then what Christian is there in the world of what nation language sect soever except the Separatist onely will refuse to joyne with their fellow Christians in that forme of prayer And What credit is it to our Christian profession to have such a forme of publicke prayer as Papists Grecians Moscovites Armenians Jacobites Abassines may without offence joyne with us in I had thought you would have looked for the reclamation of erring soules by the power of preaching Here is no unteaching or confutation of errors no confirmations of either Doctrines or Uses in the formes of our prayers And if I should aske you how many you have reclaimed by your conceived prayers you would not I feare need to spend too much breath in the answer When I therefore impute the rare gaine of soules to the want or weaknesse in preaching you think to choak me by an exprobration of the fault of your Governors Let the Bishops see how they will cleare their soules of this sinne who having the sole power of admitting Ministers into the Church have admitted so many weake ones and have rejected so many faithfull able Preachers for not conforming to their beggerly rudiments Let those whose guiltinesse findes themselves galled with this crimination flie out in an angry answer but if there be those who have beene conscionably carefull not to admit them that are not competently {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} not to eject any peaceable and conscionable Divine for meere matter of ceremonie how injuriously have you fastened upon them other mens delinquences although it is not unpossible that men may be able Preachers and yet turbulent and there may bee ceremoniall rites neither theirs nor beggerly You are deceived brethren it is not our Liturgie that hath lost any too many have lost themselves by a mis-taught prejudice against our Liturgie as for the mis-catholick part tell me I pray you whether is it more likely that a staggering Papist will rather joyne with a Church that useth a Liturgie or one that hath none With a Church that allowes some of their wholesome prayers or that which rejects and defies all though never so holy because theirs And for our own surely if our acute Jesuits had no keener arguments then this you bring we should be in small feare to lose Proselytes For what weake Protestant could not easily replie The Church of Rome was ancient but yours is new that was orthodox this false The service was not yours but borrowed and usurped from better hands we make use of it as wee may in the right of Christianitie not in any relation to you and your errours So much for you and your Jesuit in the second reason YOur third Reason is
the Remonstrant would blush for intimating there is as much reason to conforme to their Liturgies as those of the reformed Churches I must tell you it is of your owne making neither did ever fall from my pen I doe blush indeed but it is to see your bold mis-takings and confident obtrusions of things never spoken never meant I doe not mention a conformitie to their Liturgies as equally good but onely aske Why wee should be tied to the formes of one Church more then another as those who are intire within our selves and equally free from obligations to any so as you shut up your first quaere with a mere cavill and the Reasons whereby you indevoured to back it are utterly reasonlesse YOur second quaere is to seek of so much as any good pretence of reason yea of sound authoritie Whether the first reformers of Religion did ever intend the use of a Liturgie further then to be an help in the want and to the weakenesse of the Ministers For first have they ever professed their whole and sole intentions or have they not If not how come you to know what they never expressed If they have why have you suppressed it Secondly it is obvious to every common understanding that there were other reasons besides this of framing set formes of publick Liturgies as The uniformitie of Divine services in every nationall Church the opportunitie of the better joyning together of all hearts in common devotions the better convenience of fixing the thoughts upon the matter of a fore-knowne expression So as this which you have so groundlesly intimated cannot be imagined to be the onely reason of prescribed Liturgies Tell me I beseech you what thinke you of our Saviours Epitome of a Liturgie the Lords Prayer for certainly it was no other a forme of prayer injoyned by divine authoritie Was that onely intended to be an helpe in the want and to the weakenesse of the Ministers Was it not prescribed for the help of the devotion of all disciples Your instances are if it might be poorer then your assertion The 23. Canon of the 4th Councell of Carthage ordaines Ut nemo Patrem nominet pro Filio c. In a care to prevent the dangerous mis-prisons of some ignorant Priests in Africk in mis-naming the sacred persons in the Trinitie it charged them not to mis-apply the termes Therefore all prescribed formes of prayer are onely intended to supply wants or weaknesses of Ministers A stout inference and irresistible The composers of the Liturgie for the French Church at Frankford tell us Hae formulae inserviunt tantùm rudioribus nullius libertati praescribitur These formes serve onely for the ignorant sort not prescribing to any mans libertie What meane you brethren to urge so improbable a proof First this was but a particular congregation and therefore of no use or validity for the practise of the whole Church Secondly these prayers which they set forth were onely for the private use of Christians for I hope you will not imagine that when they say rudioribus tantum inserviunt they serve onely for the more rude and ignorant sort of people that they herein meant to point out the Ministers so as your very allegation confutes your selves and seconds me Your following inforcement in this Paragraph failes of sense much more of reason and doth but begge what it cannot evince You tell mee of thousands who desire to worship God with devout hearts that cannot bee easily perswaded that these set formes though never so free from just exception will prove so great an helpe to their devotion I tell you of many more thousands then they and no lesse devoutly affected that blesse God to have found this happy and comfortable effect in the fore-set prayers of the Church Neither doth this plead at all against the use of present conception whether in praying or preaching or derogate any thing from that reverent and pious esteeme of conceived prayer which I have formerly professed Surely I doe from my sould honour both I gladly make use of both and praise God for them as the gracious exercises of Christian pietie and the effectuall furtherances of salvation there is place enough for them both they neede not justle each other And if experience had not made good this truth of mine to many the most eminent Divines of these later times eminent I meane not more for learning then strict pietie why would they in their prayers both after and especially before their Sermons have confined themselves to a set forme of their own making without the variation of any one clause as I can abundantly instance Certainly they wanted not that freedome of either spirit or tongue which is challenged by meaner persons but did purposely hold themselves to the usuall conceptions wherewith their thoughts and the peoples eares were best acquainted As for the difference which is pretended in the use of Liturgies in other reformed Churches which you say doe use Liturgies but doe not binde their Ministers to the use of them it will prove no better then a mere Logomachie In this point if wee bee understood wee shall not differ If as you explicate your selves in the sequele out of the Canons and Rubrick both of the Dutch and Genevian Churches you meane onely that the Ministers were not so tyed up to those prescribed formes that they might not at some times and upon some occasions make use of their owne conceptions you have herein no adversary Doubtlesse all Christian Divines have ever had that liberty in all the Churches that have professed the name of Christ neither ought it neither can it bee denyed to any either of theirs or ours All allegations to this sense might well have beene spared wee shall willingly concurre with you both in opinion and practise But if by this not binding to the use of a Liturgie you understand either an arbitrary power not in use in any Liturgie at all or an absolute release from any whatsoever usage of their publickly-prescribed formes and a wilfull rejection of them as either unfit or unlawfull because set and stinted none of your cited Authorities no practise of any well governed Church will countenance so strange a Paradoxe In this Calvin fights directly against you whiles hee orders Ut certa illa extet à quâ pastoribus discedere non liceat That there should bee a certaine forme from which it may not bee lawfull for Ministers to depart The contradiction whereunto alledged out of your namelesse Liturgie of Formulae pro arbitrio I leave to your owne reconciling As for the Lutheran Churches though they have more superfluitie then want yet why they should bee excluded out of the List of the Reformed I know no reason since if all Protestant Churches which is the usuall contradistinction from Popish come under that stile these are wont to challenge the deepest share in that denomination Neither is it out of any disrespect to the Churches reformed as your
frequented by Ministers and people and this hath hitherto been obediently and peaceably observed now upon some new exotick scruples good people are taught to place pietie in the disobedience of those acknowledged Lawes and nothing will quiet their many thousand consciences but an abrogation of the good Lawes they were wont to live under What must the indifferent Reader needs think of this The Law is the same it was under which our religious fore-fathers went happily to heaven the change is in us Oh miserable men whom some few tempestuous blasts from New-England and Amsterdam have thus turned about and made insensible of our former blessings Meane while that which pincheth you in my Reply you are willing to passe over in silence Were the imposition amisse what were this to the people The imposition if faulty is upon the Minister how can that more concerne the people then their joyning with him in an usuall prayer whereto hee ties himselfe of his owne making If the case bee equall why doe you not labour to convince your people of so unjust a partialitie and to reclaime them from so palpable an errour the end whereof without a speedy remedy can bee no other then that I have most unwillingly fore-spoken perfect difformity and confusion I May not omit to proclaime to the Reader your eminent charity to me of whom you say Yea so resolute he is not to yeeld to a libertie in what is established c. that wee evidently see by his answer that had the reading of Homilies beene as strictly enjoyned as the Booke of Common Prayer the ablest Minister in England were the Law in the Remonstrants hands must be held as strictly to them as to this How now Brethren What in so angry a confidence On what ground I beseech you The Remonstrant is well knowne to have beene as diligent a Preacher as any in your Alphabet and to bee still as not yet defective in that dutie so as great an incourager of Preaching as the best of your Patrons why will yee thus unjustly raise so envious a suggestion against him Hee is soresolute not to yeeld a liberty Alas what power hath hee to either yeeld or denie a libertie who professeth as hee ought nothing but humble obedience But when a question is stated concerning the injunction or freedome of a Liturgie you may be pleased to give mee leave to defend that part which my conscience and I thinke upon sure grounds dictates to me for a certaine truth Non eadem sentire bonis c. had wont to bee a received rule but as to this challenge it selfe might the Readers leisure serve him to cast back his eye upon this passage of my Defence he shall no lesse marvell at the injustice then the uncharitablenesse of it Hee shall there see with what inoffensive caution I marshall Homilies and Liturgie in the same ranke so making our obedience the rule of the use of both as that I professe a just liberty yeelded in both showing that if Homilies were injoyned to be read and yet a free use of Preaching allowed there were no more cause to refuse them then we have now to refuse the Liturgie having withall a freedome to our conceived Prayers In which position I would faine see what malice it selfe can finde to carpe at AS for that strange project of yours of imposing the use of set formes as a punishment to un-sufficient Ministers yee might well give mee leave to smile a little at so uncouth a penance and so unheard-of a mulct whereat others perhaps will laugh out You answer mee with a retortion of my owne words and seeme to please your selves much in the conceit calling the ingenious Reader to record of your owne grosse mistaking Be this once pleased Readers since you are call'd up to examine these mens confident fidelitie I had as I well might taxed this rare project of theirs Yet himselfe say they comes out with a project about Preaching never a whit better and doth as good as confirme our saying in the latter end View the place I beseech you see if you can finde any the least intimation of either preaching or project All that passage is onely concerning prayer the gift whereof I say every forward Artizan will be unjustly challenging Away then say I with the booke whiles it may bee supplied with his more profitable non-sense and conclude how fit it is where is nothing but an empty over-weening and proud ignorance there should bee a just restraint a restraint I say in a limitation of the formes of prayer For what should Artizans have to do with preaching Or what such absurd project is there in this just restraint Tell me now Reader whether this bee not as like Bellarmine as the man in the Moone Truely how either the Cardinall came into the line or the Noble Peere into the margin he were wise that could tell What was professed in the hearing of some of you and some of your Superiours of a willing condescent to part with that which is indifferent to themselves if they might bee informed it is offensive to others must be supposed to import as a true information so a just offence wherein they should bee sure of the concurrence of some whom you are pleased to censure as lesse mercifull then whom none can bee more ready to make good that of Gregorie in putting to their hand for the removing of customes truely burdensome to the Church Thus you have very poorly vindicated the first part of your Answer concerning Liturgie having made good nothing which you have undertaken disproved nothing which I affirmed and if as you professe your desire was a sincere pursuit of truth you are the more to be pitied that you missed it it is not yet too late for you to recover it bee but ingenuous in confessing what you cannot but see and wee cannot differ And if you doe heartily joyne with me in lamenting the breaches and miserable distractions of the Church why should you not joyne with me in the effectuall indeavours to make them up Why do you suffer your hands to widen that which your tongues would seeme to close If peace bee the thing you desire who is it that hath broken it Wee are where we were the change is on your parts and if there have beene some particular incroachments and innovations in some few hands what is that to the whole Church of England what is that to those whose proceedings have beene square and innocent Wee hope then that the Worthies of that High Court the great Patrons of peace and truth will soone see and seriously consider where the grief of the Church lyes and by their wisdoms put a seasonable end to these miserable and dangerous distempers SECT. III. YOur third Section is nothing but a meere jangle of words wherewith it was too much for the Reader to be once troubled for whose sake I shall cut you up short making it apparent that my affection to
innovations as the turning the Table to an Altar and the low crindging towards the Altar so erected but as for the Leiturgy or Service of the Church of England not a touch of either in his thoughts or tongue Now brethren learne you hence just matter of private humiliation for so foule a sclander of a grave and religious Bishop and in him of this whole Church For learned Calvin if those who professe to honour his name would have beene ruled by his judgement wee had not had so miserable distractions in the Church as wee have now cause to bewaile all that I say of him is that his censure of some tolerable fooleries in our holy Service might well have beene forborne in alienâ Republicâ your vindication is that hee wrote that Epistle to the English at Francford Who doubts it The parties were proper the occasion just but not the censure Parciùs ista when wee meddle with other mens affaires I may well be pardoned if I say that harsh phrase doth not answer the moderation which that worthy Divine professeth to hold in the controversie of the English AS for that unparalleld Discourse whereon you run so much descant concerning the Antiquity of Liturgies deduced so high as from Moses time you argue that it cannot be because you never read it Brethren your not omniscient eyes shall see that my eyes are so Lyncean as to see you proudly mis-confident you shall see that others have seene what you did not and shall sample that which you termed unparalleld It is neither thank to your bounty nor praise to your ingenuity that the question is halfe-granted by you but an argument of your self-contradiction An order of Divine service you yeeld but not a forme or a forme but not prescribed not imposed and for this you tell us a tale of Iustin Martyrs Leiturgie and Tertullians Leiturgie how much to the purpose the sequell shall shew In the former you grant that after the Exhortation they all rose and joyned in prayer prayer ended they went to the Sacrament but whether these prayers were suddainly conceived or ordinately prescribed there is the question and whether that Sacrament were administred in an arbitrary and various forme mee thinks your selves should finde cause to doubt But Iustin saies to cleare this point that in the beginning of this Action the President powred out prayers and thanksgiving according to his ability and the people said Amen What ever his ability was I am sure you have a rare ability in mis-construing the Fathers and particularly these testimonies of Iustin and Tertullian To begin with the latter out of him you say The Christians in those times did in their publike assemblies pray Sine monitore quia de pectore without any prompter but their own heart Prove first that Tertullian speaks of publike assemblies Secondly know that if he did the place is to your disadvantage for as a late learned Author well urges would ye have it imagined that the assembled Christians did betake themselves publikely to their private devotions each man by himself as his own heart dictated this were absurd and not more against ancient practise then as your selves think piety Was it then that not the people but the Minister was left to the liberty of his expressions What is that to the people How did they ere the more pray without a prompter How is it more out of their heart when they follow the Minister praying out of unknown conceptions then out of foreknown prescription So as you must be admonished that your Sine monitore without a prompter is without all colour of proof of prayers conceived your Zephyrus blows with too soft a gale to shake the foundation of this argument and indeed is but a side-winde to my Heraldus and the very same blast with your Rigaltius though you would seem to fetch them out of different corners If I give you your own asking you have gained nothing For what would you infer Christians prayed for the Emperors without a monitor as the heathens did not therefore they had no formes of Christian prayers He were liberall that would grant you this consequent when rather the very place shews what the forme was which the Christians then used We are praying still for all Emperors that God would give them a long life a secure raigne a safe Court valiant hoasts faithfull Counsellors good people and a quiet world This was Tertullians Leiturgie wherein the hearts of Christians joyned without a monitor It is small advantage that you will finde in my sense of Sine monitore not being urged by any superior injunction If no injunction you say how could it be a Leiturgie a commanded imposed forme You are unwilling to understand that the injunction here meant is generall a command to pray for the Emperour not a particular charge of the forms injoyned in praying this was therefore the praise of their Christian loyaltie that even unrequired they poured out their supplications for Princes Shortly then after all these pretended senses Tertullian will not upon any termes be drawne to your partie Those other two places of Tertullian and Austine are meerely sleevelesse and unproving not making any whit at all more for conceived prayers then for prescribed Who ever made question whether wee might build our prayers upon our Saviours form or whether we might vary our prayers with our occasions Those Fathers say no more we no lesse Ye dare not say there were no publique Leiturgies in S. Austins time My Margin was conviction enough which ye touch as an Iron too hot with an hand quickly snatcht away Your denial should have drawn on further proofs Iustin Martyr though fifty yeers before Tertullian follows him in your discourse How guiltily you both translate and cite him an Author of no mean judgement hath shewed before me I shall not therefore glean after his sickle But shortly thus take your {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in your own best sense for quantum pro virile potest what will follow The President prayed and gave thanks to the utmost of his power therfore the Church had then no Leiturgie What proof call you this Look back Brethren to your own citation you shall finde Prayers more then once in their Lords-day meetings These latter were the Presidents the former some other Ministers these in the usuall set forms those out of present conception both stand well together both agreeable to the practise as of these so of former ages BUt whiles I affect over-full answers I feel my self grow like you tedious I must contract my self and them Your assertion of the originall of set forms of Leiturgy I justly say is more Magistrall then true and such as your own testimonies confute That of the Councell of Laodicea is most pregnant for set formes before Arrius or Pelagius lookt forth into the world wherein mention is expresly made of three formes of Prayer
charity would faine suggest that I say they are but a poore handfull in comparison of the world of Christians abroad I have ever honoured them no lesse then your selves but in regard of the paucitie of their Professours Their value is no whit the lesse because their number is so One sparke of a Diamond may bee worth large piles of Marble But I might well argue that in a point wherein no judicious man can place an errour there can bee no just reason that wee should abandon the received practise of all the Christian Churches upon earth for the late institution of a few If herein I mis-judge I am willing to bee convinced THe Rubrick of King Edward the sixth agreeing with the liberty given by divers Ordinances at this day of omitting upon some great occasions part of the Liturgie injoyned makes nothing for the proofe of the proposition supposed in your Quaere That the Reformers of Religion did never intend the use of a Liturgie further then to bee an helpe in the want or to the weakenesse of a Minister It will be an hard taske to make these two other then inconsequent You tell mee of the practise of some stiffe Ordinaries that have denyed this liberty and plead that what some Ordinaries have voluntarily yeelded you cannot be blamed to desire as a favour from the high Court of Parliament It is not for mee to returne the answer of my Superiours but I cannot but put you in minde that there is a vast difference betwixt an act of occasionall indulgence and a constant claime betwixt a particular dispensation and an universall rule Further then this I prescribe not but obey However the state of Homilies and Liturgies bee much different these latter having been even from the Primitive times prescribed to the common usage of the Church which the former offers not to challenge yet I granted that If wee did utterly abridge all Ministers of the publicke use of any conceived prayer on what occasion soever the argument might hold force against us You tell mee of some men that have sacrilegiously done so I send you to those some men for your answer The commands and practises of the Church of England are within the taske of my Defence Let private men speake for themselves From the Deske you leape into the Pulpit and tell us that your argument is as strong against limiting in Prayer as limiting in Preaching wherein you are unwilling to know that our Church allowes equall freedome in both Who that hath sate within the report of our Pulpits can but say that our Ministers doe there ordinarily pray as freely as they preach I pray God they may doe it holily and discreetly in both Whiles they are allowed this freedome in their Pulpits what inconvenience can it be to be limited to solemne publick but sacred formes in their Deske We allow both you would rob us of one where is the sacriledge So then in all this eager passage your Reader sees what fearefull venies you give to your owne shadow for certainly you have here no visibly reall adversary if by a set Liturgie wee went about to infringe all liberty of conceived prayer you might pretend some ground of a quarrell but when wee allow and commend and practise both in their due places where can you fasten THe reason is lamentable which you urge in the fifth place that many denie their presence at our Church-meeting in regard of those imposed prayers Our eyes can witnesse not without teares the too much truth of this sad assertion wee have seene and pitied to see many poore mis-guided Mechanicks waiting abroad in the Church-yards for the good houre who so soone as ever the long expected Psalme calls in to the ensuing Sermon have throng'd into the Congregation as now onely worthy of their presence Alas poore soules were their knowledge which they over-weene but equall to their zeale they would see and hate their own mis-judgement In the meane time shift it how you please woe woe be to those teachers that have mis-led well-meaning people to this dangerous and ungodly prejudice It had beene better for them never to have beene borne then to have lived to be authors of so pernicious a Schisme in the Church of God I have no reason to accuse you whom I know not although I must tell you your cold put-off doth little lesse then accuse your selves For your parts you say you professe that you are not against a free use of a Liturgie Wee thanke you for this favour what is this but to say If a Liturgie be not left free wee professe our selves to bee against it wee animate all others in that profession You are yet more courteous and tell us Yee doe not count a Liturgie a sufficient ground of separation from the Church Marke Reader there is fraud in the words they say they doe not count a Liturgie a sufficient ground of separation they doe not say this Liturgie such a Liturgie as they could devise and upon such termes might perhaps bee no sufficient ground of a separation but this Liturgie of our Church as it now stands they doe not undertake for Speake out brethren and doe not smother your thoughts declare freely to your Auditors whether the Liturgie established in this Church be such as wherewith they ought to joyne and whether that come within Saint Augustines rule of non-scindendas Ecclesias were you lesse reserved the Church would perhaps be more happy The Remonstrants Dilemma may peradventure come too late when you have forestalled the minds of ignorant men with strong resolutions against all imposed Liturgies but especially our owne Now you can confidently say The persons concerned will denie that either the Liturgie is good or lawfully imposed if it were good and here for ought I see they and you are resolved to rest in vaine shall we go about to make good the Premisses whiles you have taught them to hold fast the Conclusion Disputes will not do it you have found a way that will worke the feate By loosing the bond of imposition and taking away the cause of disputes and troubles of many thousand consciences Why now Brethren I like you well plaine-dealing is a jewell The way not to be troubled with Liturgies is to have no Liturgies at all and the way to have no use of Liturgies at all is not to injoyne them as if you said The way to loose the Gordian knot is to cut it in pieces the way to prevent the danger of violating Lawes is to let them loose or make them arbitrary the way to remedie the discontent of Popish Recusants is to retract the Oath the way not to be barred by the gate is to throw open the hedge Truely brethren if this bee the onely meanes of redresse you have reduced us unto a good condition it is the established and as hath hitherto beene thought the wholesome Law of this Kingdome that this and this onely Liturgie should be used and
themselves equally interessed in this quarrell can suffer either so just a cause unseconded or so high insolence unchastised For my selfe I remember the story that Plutarch tels of the contestation betweene Crassus and Deiotarus men well-stricken in age and yet attempting severall exploits not so proper for their gray haires What said Crassus to Deiotarus Doest thou begin to build a City now in the latter end of the day And truly said Deiotarus to him againe I think it somewhat with the latest for you to think of conquering the Parthians Some witty lookers on will perhaps apply both these to me It is the city of God the Euangelicall Hierusalem which some factious hands have miserably demolished is it for shaking and wrinkled hands to build up againe now in the very setting and shutting in of the day They are dangerous and not inexpert Parthians who shoot out their arrowes even bitter invectives against the sacred and Apostolicall government of the Church and such as know how to fight fleeing are these fit for the vanquishing of a decrepit Leader Shortly then since I see that our Smectymnuans have vowed like as some impetuous Scolds are wont to doe to have the last word and have set up a resolution by taking advantage of their multitude to tyre out their better imployed Adversary with meere length of discourse and to do that by bulk of body which by cleane strength they cannot I have determined to take off my hand from this remayning Controversie of Episcopacy wherein I have said enough already without the returne of answer and indeed anticipated all those thred-bare objections which are here againe regested to the weary Reader and to turne off my combined opposites to matches more meet for their age and quality with this profession notwithstanding that if I shall finde which I hope I never shall this just and holy cause whether out of insensiblenesse or cautious reservednesse neglected by more able Defenders I shall borrow so much time from my better thoughts as to bestow some strictures where I may not afford a large confutation I have ever held {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which as it holds in whatsoever matter of discourse so especially in this so beaten subject of Episcopacy wherein since I finde it impossible for my Adversaries to fal upon any but former notions oft urged oft answered For brevity sake we will content our selves with what that learned Rivet spake of the two Treatises of Scultetus Haec omnia jam dudum sunt protrita profligata with this yet for a conclusion that if in this their wordy and wearisome Volume they shall meet with any one argument which they dare avow for new they shall expect their answer by the next Post FINIS Tertul. Apol. c. 30. pag. of The Defence 13 August Ep. 121. 14 Justin Martyr Apol. 2. 14 Concil. Laodie c. 8. 15 Concil. Carthag 3. 15 Concil. Milevit 2. 16 Hieron. ad Euagr. 61 Greg. Naz. Orat. 28. 65 Firmilianus in Cypr. Ep 75. 71 Ambr. in Presbyt consignant 72 Concil. Antioch c. 10. 72 D. Raynolds 101 Orig. contr. Cels 141 August contr. Crescon. l. 3. 146 In the Answer to the Humble Remonstrance Episcopall bravado p. 3 Treason treason p. 4 Episcopall zeal broke into flames of indignation p. 6. We know not what his arrogancie might attempt p. 14 So many falsities and contradictions p. 15 A face of confident boldnesse p. 15 A self-confounded man p. 15 Notorious falsity p. 15 Notorious p. 16 Not leave his p. 16 Os durum p. 18 Forgets not himself but God also p. 18 Words bordering upon blasphemie p. 18 Indignation will not suffer us to prosecute these falsities p. 18 A stirrup for Antichrist p. 30 Antichristian government p. 65 We thank God we are none of you p. 74 Borders upon Antichrist p. 80 Pride Rebellion Treason Unthankfulnesse which have issued from Episcopacie p. 85 Defence p. 48. Doth hee say those Iudges were called Areopagi Parag. 2. Answ p. 4. They cite it No lesse haynous These words Ruling under one acknowledged Soveraigne are purposely left out in their citation of them to make the proposition odious what fidelity there is in this let the Reader judge The first and greatest Zelot at Franckford lib de obedient And Buchanan in his Booke de jure Regni Nos autem id contendimus populum à quo Reges nostri habent quicquid juris sibi vendicant regibus esse potentiorem jus quidem in illos habere multitudinē c. Buchan de jure Regni Parag. 3. Parag. 4. Cypr. l. 3. ep. 9. Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer 1◠Eliz. Tolerabiles ineptiae In Anglorū controversia moderationē tenui cujus me non poenitet Cal. Epist. Parag. 2. Author of the use of publique Prayer This is that which is ordinarily termed by thēA Sacrifice of fools out Eccles. 5. 1. Precantes sumus pro omnibus Imperatoribus vitam prolixam imperiū securū domū tutam exercitus fortes senatū fidelē populum probum orbem quietum Tert. Apol. c. 30. Your cavill in the Margin of your book shews you want matter of quarrell The Suas which you would have in stead of Nostras is a disadvantage to your self Those are called the peoples Prayers which the Church ever had and shall have and those were to be looked on therefore prescribed and to be read there being a clear opposition betwixt Audirent and Intuerentur Iustin Mart. Apol. 2. Use of publique Prayers The word may as well imply all intention of voyce because the congregation was large Pag. 15. Parag. 3. Conc. Laod. c. 19. Conc. Laod. c. 8. Conc. Carthag. 3. c. 23. Centur. Magdeb. cent 3. c. 6. Concil. Milevit 2. Vid. Author of the use of publike Prayer pag. 8 9. Cent. 3. c. 6. Where we often in our prayer say Give us O Lord Almighty give us a portion with thy Prophets give us a portion with the Apostles of thy Christ grant that we may be found in the footsteps of thine onely begotten Son Parag. 4. So Hannah made her private prayers in the house of God 1 Sam. 1. 10. Mor. de Ples de Missa l. 1. c. 3. P. Fagius in Paraphras Chald. in Lev. 16. in 23. Du Pless de Missa ejus partibus l. 1. c. 5. Verba tanquam concepta the very words as conceived by him Lyran. in Lev. 16. Lud Cappell Spic in Act. 3 Whence we may see that the prayer for which Peter and John went up to the Temple was that which the Jews called {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The lesser Oblation which answered to the Evening Oblation prescribed by the Law c. Parag. 5. Postea mortuus est Adrianus cujus Deus non misereatur obiitque cum luctu magna contritione Tempus autem regni anni sunt 21. Deus conterat ejus ossa ita ut computus annorum ab Adamo ad mortem ejus 4513. mens. 7. Quo tempore c. abstulit librum optimum qui penes illos fuit jam inde a diebus illis tranquillis pacificis qui comprehendebat cantiones preces sacrificiis praemissas Singulis enim sacrificiis singulas praemiserunt cantiones jam tum diebus pacis usitatas quae omnia accurate conscripta in singulas transmissa subsequentes generationes à tempore Legati Moses sc. ad hunc usque diem per ministorium Pontificum Max. Hunc ille librum abstulit c. quo libro historia nulla praeter Pentateuchū Mosis antiquior invenitur c. Chron. Samaritan Parag. 6. Num. 10. 35 36. Num. 6. 23 24 25 26. Capell spicil in Act. 2. P. Fagius in Chal. Parap Levit. 16. O Domine peccarunt iniqua egerunt c. Et cum offerret juvencum pro peccato Ubi supra P. Fagius in Chal. Parap Deut. 8. Parag. 7. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Euseb. de vita Const. li 4. c. 17. Morn de Pless lib. de Miss. cap. 5. Concil. Anc. Luke 1. Heb. 9. 21. 1 Cor. 9. 12. Parag. 8. Paragr. 9. Paragr. 10. Paragr. 11. Paragr. 12. Paragr. 13. Paragr. 14. Paragr. 15. Calvin Epist. to the Protector c. prius citat Paragr. 16. Paragr. 17. Paragr. 18. Paragr. 19. Para. 2. Para. 2. Pag. 21. Episc. by D. R. p. 2. 127. Para. 4. Plutarch in vita Crassi