before he stood in competition with Matthias and a good Casuist gives the reason Ordination is an external Rite Baldwin P. 1040. and no Sacrament therefore it may be itarated or repeated Were not many in these late times married by a Minister and afterwards by a Justice of peace Yet what a dust and a bustle do you make You pretend that you are willing to exercise the office of your mnistiry yet you are so stiff that you will not come in to have your patents sealed What though many of you scarce ever dipt your feet in fonte Caballino I mean were never graduated in the University by way of preparation to receive Orders in the Church yet I am assur'd ye would have found the Fathers of the Church so indulgent to you that notwithstanding this defect they would have flown upon your necks and rejoyc'd over you as their fellow-labourers in the Lords vineyard The door is not yet shut Why do you stand deliberating and demurring whether you should perform your duty by entring in Though 't is the eleventh hour of the day yet you may earn your penny if you will lay your shoulders to the work and with sincere and double diligence redeem the time you have lost But if you still resolve to go on whispering in the dark and to continue in your claudestine vaults do not study what answer you may give unto me but what return you will make to your master and mine at the great day of accounts how you will evade that woe which Saint Paul pronounced against himself had he not preached the Gospel which very words did so far prevail with an eminent person of your perswasion that as Saint Austin was converted from libertism by those words not in chambering and wantonness c. So was he reclaim'd from Non-conformity by Wo is me if I preach not the Gospel Mr Sprint Go ye and do likewise lay the same Text close to your hearts not as a charm but a cataplasma and if there be any life left it will setch you again if this phisick will not work upon your Tempers what think you of this expedient Were Saint Austin Saint Ambrose Calvin Perkins Nay were Christ and his Twelve Apostles here upon the Earth and met together in our English World would they think ye lurk in holes and seal up their mouths I dare say they would rather break forth into exultation and wonder saying How beautiful are thy Tents and thy Gates O England CHAP. VII A Transition or Introduction to the main Reasons which are pretended to obstruct Conformity VVE have hitherto been but in the Suburbs and grappled onely with your out-works The main Forts and Cittadels in which you incamp your selves against our batteries are yet untouc'd and unshaken All that hath been yet said is but pickeering some velitations with your forlorn hope like the Turkish Asapi which were to abate their enemies first furious onset and blunt their Swords to make way for the Janizaries The main battel is yet behind Just as Sophisters make a flourish with some inconsiderable and prelusory Sillogism before they pinch and wound with their keener Arguments Methinks I see your very Triarij divided into three Battalia's marching up yonder Hill like Hannibals Troops climing up the Alp's and in a Gigantick rage defying all the hosts of little David that shall stand in your way and oppose your thundering Legions Confident of victory and prodigal of death Your defensive Armour is not like that Ephes 6.14 15 16. But 't is the Covenant upon your breasts whilst you are clad with this you think your selves invulnerable and charm'd into a profound security Who can pierce this Coat of Male Your offensive Weapons are Swords and Javlings furbush'd with Lawfulness of War against the King and overturning the Government of the Church and State In the Rear are Volleys of Canonshot against the Book of Common Prayer This must be dragg'd along like a Royal Captive to adorn your Chariots and set off your Trophies These are your Cerberus-Heads these are your frightful Mormo's in these threefold cords twisted together lies your strength as Sampsons did in his hair What We give our Assent and Consent to the Common Prayer diselaim all War against the King Renounce the Covenant wee 'l never do it And indeed I tremble at this part of my perswasive since I am come to uncase the head and must be tampering with your right eyes lest both my Rhetorick and my skill should be defective in accomplishing my peaceable design and crowning my desires after unanimity Methinks I am essaying to carry a vast Mountain upon my back and to reconcile antipathies For though I had Logick enough to deal with your understandings and Engines to batter or undermine this Capitol yet you have so many reserves in those secret Corners and Caverns of your wills that I much doubt the force of my Oratory to inchant you out of them Yet as I have run with your footmen so I shall now endeavour to keep what pace I can with your Horsemen and like Horatius I will fiest separate these Ter gemini and then Auspice Christâ— plead with them apart CHAP. VIII Assent and Consent not unlawful to be given to the Common-Prayers and Rites of the Church of England I Have never been more transported with wondoer than when some of your classis those none of the lowest have maintained most dogmatically in conference with my self That neither the Greek nor Latin Churches had any forms of Prayer This made me almost to turn a Sceptical Academick and to doubt of all things of which I took my felf to have some knowledge I was even tempted to dis-beleive my own senses as if all things were but spectra phantasmes and empty apparitions which I beheld As if Geographers and Travelours had impos'd upon me when they told me of such a place as Constantinople For I thought I had as good evidâ—ne for these forms of Prayer which my eyes have looked upon and have been handed down to our age by the uncontroleable Tradition and unanimous consent of former generations as I could have of any objective verity below divine Revelations That cause must needs stand upon a tottering Basis that is usher'd in with so strange an Hypothesis Mat. 26.44 which amounts to no less than an incredible Paradxe As for the lawfulness of a form it is an indisputable indisputable warrant unto me that we have not only our Saviours practise who went the third time and prayed the same words but his command too When ye pray say And if you will have measure pressed down see the practise of Hezekiah who after he had compos'd an Ode of thansgiving for his recovery from sickness 〈◊〉 Iia 30. and thanksgiving you know is a part of prayer he vow'd to sing the same to the tuned instrument all the dayes of his life And the very same song which Moses began Exod. 15.1 Miriam repeated
words in the confession There is no health in us with the Letany as if it were a role of curses with kneeling at that short prayer at the end of the commandements Lord have mercy vpon us and incline our hearts to keep thy Law Alass Conscientis minus scrupulosa noscitur ex vitis these are poor vulgar cavils your scruples run higher concerning assent and consent And here you are very critical learned and curious in finding out gins to intangle and perplex your own consciences as if you had found out a spititual Microscope to discern what is invisible to our duller eyes Not only your wills say you must Consent to the use of it as good but your understanding is ingaged in the truth of the Liturgy And indeed I had thought these two acts had been so twisted together in rational men that ordinarily one doth suppose and infer the other When I consent with my will to use the prayers of the Church this ariseth from the conviction of my reason that I may and ought to do so And the act of my will would be brutish and irregular like that of Medea who was hurried only with the Ocstrum of her wilful passions if it were not steer'd by the dictate of my understanding this is to do it in judgment therefore you-do but put a fallacy upon your selves a bene conjunctis c. And whereas you say some of you that you could read our prayers if you might be abated your Assent n = * The Church in her best ages hath secur'd her vitals with an hedge of subscription In Austins time such as were admitted to the ministry were to renounce the errors of the Manichees Arrians Novatians and Pelagians to declare whether they allowed of first and second marriages the eating of flesh repentance after lapses Whether original concupiscence were a sin or whether such as were out of the Church might inherit eternal life in the Synode of Nice not only the Bishops but Constantine himself subscribed to the decrees of that Synode with his own hands So in Luthers time when the Church was pestered with Anabaptists Servetus Canipanus Stuckfoldius and other Furies it defended it self by prescribing bounds to those that were in the ministry which they should not pass See Melancton Tomo tertio Declarationum selectavum Cap de calumnijs Osiandri p. 699 700. And why should not the Church of England after these and other laudable examples fortifie and preserve the Capitol of her peace against turbulent invaders and pernicious incendiaries by limiting mens exorbitant excursions in joyning their consent to her wholsome discipline saying hitherto shall ye go and no further and Consent 't is all one to me as if if you should say you would use them in hypocrisie But if after all this strife what if these words Assent and Consent are but exegitical where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same thing is expressed in several terms as it is very usual in Scripture and import no more than that you shall constantly and unseignedly use this form in publick excluding all others Not as if our Assent to these definitions were in the same manner internal as that is which we give unto decrees as infallible but such as we give to those which are not contrary to the fundamentals of faith out of submission for peace sake Stilling fl desenee of the Arch-Bishop 82. l 509. as one well expresses it whose reading and judgment out-strips his years Whereas some of you have told me you would conform were you not injoyned to do do what is absolutely sinful These are but swelling words of vanity For I must tell you again prove what you say and you shall have more companions If any thing in the Common-prayer were contrary to any part of Gods word we have authority from our subscription to disclaim it It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to the word of God or besides the same They are the very words of our twentieth Article of Religion so far is she from imposing any thing that is sinful so unlike is our Church to the Church of Rome if Cardinal Peroon hit her meaning right when he told King James pressing him that the cup in the Sacrament was according to Christs institution That t is lawful for the Church to dispense with Christs institutions or if this single Cardinal be no competent Interpreter of that Churches sense yet the counsel of Constance cannot be denied affirming that although Christ hath appointed the Sacrament to be received under both kinds yet Hoc non obstante we decree that the lay-people shall only receive under the species of bread I only add this that by the illustration of contraries ingrateful men might be brought to see their own happiness who breath in the air of the English Church I bless God for his mercy and conclude with those words of remarkable D. Downham Though envy cannot say but our Church holds all substantial points of Divinity and uses the ordinary means of salvation as other Churches testifie yet so wanton in Religion are men through spiritual pride that they care not for the sound food of their souls unless they may have their own sauce 10. Besides your giving Assent and Consent you stumble again very unluckily at the very threshold of the Liturgy The very Calendar you say is intollerable For therein is injoyned the observation of festival dayes by the institution of man I will not dispute with you about the change of the Sabbath day from the seventh to the first day of the week I had rather grant that to be by Apostolical and divine Authority than raise any dust about it Yet this hinders not but that it is in the power of the Church to set apart other dayes especially I am confirmed herein because I find dayes of thanksgiving and fasting set apart in the Scriptures by comission from men and I have seen the like practised by your selves I find the feast of Pu rim so lemnly observed in the Old Joh. 10.22 and the feast of the dedication owned by Christ himself in the New Testament Those Agapae or Love feasts the Apostle speaks of were taxed by him not simply as feasts but as abused by the Corinthians 'T is easie to mention the Homilies and Orations which the Ancients made upon the Nativity of Christ and other festivals That is a false plea against Saints dayes as if they were equalliz'd to the Lords own day For look what difference there is between the Lady and her Maid Christ and his servants the same we acknowledge twixt the Sabbath and other festivals We Honour the Saints and if we should not I find by experience we should give the Papists just offence yet we do not adore them We desire to imitate those vertues and graces that were in the Saints We rejoyce at their conquest over the World their triumph in Heaven because they keep an
over again vers 21. Nay those Saints which had got the victory over the beast as if formes were to be used in Heaven sang the same song of Moses Rev. 15.3 You your selves do not account it any stinting much less quenching of the Spirit though you sing a pleasant Psalm that is drawn up into metre to your hands yet notwithstanding you 'l say you sing with the Spirit 1 Cor. 14.26 And the Apostle taxes it for an absurd indecorum in the Church of Corinth that when they came together every one had a Psalm And is it not as uncouth for every one in publick to have a several prayer A several prayer did I say Nay were men let loose to their own liberty they would be little better than wild Asses Colts snuffing up the wind towards divers climes One would pray contrary to another as they are sowr'd with opposite principles and aim at diametrical interests The devotions of Covenanteers and Independants have been a sad instance praying as if they would enervate ravel and unpray one anothers prayers Certainly this is not to take Heaven by violence or as Tertuliian Coire in â—oetum 〈…〉 deum quisâ— manu factà precationibus ambire orantes to beset the Almighty and as Jacob did not let him go untill he hear us and bless us Thetis in Homer caught Jupiter by the knees and by this importunity obtained her request Christ hath lest a special promise that their prayers shall be granted in Heaven Mat. 13 19. who in their askings can agree upon Earth When we are divided in our supplications as the Builders of Babel were in their languages we abate and weaken their force even as water looses its strength when 't is divided into a multipliciplity of Trenches Hezekiah and his Princes foresaw this dangerous and exorbitant humour in the Levites if once they got the reins upon their own necks therefore they prescribe them the very words wherewith they should sing praises unto the Lord. 2 Chron. 29.30 The primitive Christians were so uniform in their prayers that when they said Amen they made a noise like a clap of thunder or like the roaring of the Sea Judicious Hookâ— was so verily perswaded that no Church thorowly setled did ever use their voluntary dictates Ignatius in his Epistle to the Magnesians doth rarely and earnestly injoyn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let there be one common prayer in all the Church Constantine did not onely command a set form of prayer in the Church but also in his Camp And Calvin speaking of a form of prayer in his Epistle to the Protector of England is at his valde probo He alwayes us'd the same prayer himself before his Lectures which is Printedbefore his commentary upon Ezek el It he ever spake any thing obliquely of ours it was before it was polish'd and corrected in the latter end of the reign of King Edward the sixth And that such prayers were and are still used in the reformed Churches abroad at this day he is but a novice in story that is iguoranâ— of it As for these objections It shall be given to you in that hour what ye shall say And praying in the Spirit they do nothing invalidate the Authority offorms for the first is only concerning times of Tryal and Persecution when Christians were to be brought before Kings and Rulers for the sake of Christ And there is a meer fallacy in the last as if praying by a form and praying in the Spirit were such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they cannot stand together whereas their own sudden prayers are forms in respect of others that joyn with them yet I hope they will not deny but these do also pray in the spirit Nay a form hath many advantages to promote spiritual prayer for those that pray without premeditation their inventions memories judgments and tongues are all busie in framing matter and forming expressions suitable thereunto which must needs be as so many sucklers and distractions to abate the vigour of their intentions for what they pray Where men have a desire to instill their singular opinions into the minds of others 't is no wonder they would be lax and free in their prayers Hence it hath been forbidden by counsels to use any prayers but what have been approved by Synods lest poyson should be conveyed by prayers as it was by 〈◊〉 Priests in the Sacrament Neither is it strange that 〈◊〉 stomachs which refuse solid and wholsom meat and long after kickshaws if they reject the ordinary prayers of the Church and seek for other of their own inventions for you know men are fond of their own productions I dare say if any are not nourished and heated with our prayers if their hearts be not like those of the Disciples going to Emaus they bring with them some prejudicate impediment some nauseating distemper and coldness in their own breasts The fault is not in the liturgy but in their own want of zeal in not joyning their hearts in good earnest to those prayers or as it is expressed better to my hands Men lay all the blame upon the Liturgy to excuse the deadness of their own hearts Like her in Seneca that said the room was dark when she her self was blind I confess where men have fluent eloquent tongues and have expressions at will which are the common not distinguishing gifts of Gods Spirit if they are minded to sacrifice to the dragge of their own applause in the ostentation of their parts and desire to erect their own Monuments among the people they have a large field to expatiate in yet all this I aver may be done without any dram of saving grace The distinction between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grace and gifts deserves your further inquiry upon this subject I am not ashamed to acknowledge that upon emergencies I have indulged my self the liberty of my own measures and I found a vehement heat in my self for the time my affections even over running their banks and if I did casually hit upon any pertinent winning and melting words I was ready to flatter and hugg the felicity of my own rhetorick By which it clearly appears to me that there is a Serpent lurking under those leaves or specious pretences for extempory prayer especially when we do velificare or make a flourish in publick by turning the Pulpit to use Mr. Baxters words into the hypocrites Theatre We are then more apt to seek our own glory than the glory of him that sent us for in private commonly there is not so much heat attending our extemporary prayers I appeal to your own experience in this particular which is no small evidence that vain-glory is at one end of them For there is an exorbitant zeal which is a work of the flesh May there not be a fire in straw which may flame and expire at the same time Gal. 5.20 Cito ignis stipulae conquiescit
Idle too 1 Tim. 5.13 But is it such an unpardonable fault in our prayers that many of them are short What think you of ejaculations are not they prayers and commonly the most fervent There is most of a spiritual Impetus exerted in them as those that have but a short race to run their strength serves them to run the faster And is it not belonging to their very nature to be short What think you of all the prayers mention'd in Scripture were not Moses Hezekiah David Daniel nay Christ himself as able as any of us to lengthen out their prayers yet where have they left us any pattern upon Record of prolix protracted and volumnious prayers except you will say the Book of the Psalms are so But then why do you sit at the reading of them Is that a seemly posture for prayer and praises we read that Paul and Silas pray'd at midnight Saint Paul preach'd until midnight Acts 20.7 but I find none praying so long together That prayer of our Saviours Jo. 1.7 is the longest I can think on at present Yet though I read no long prayers in Scripture I read of them but with a sharp spit on black brand before them in three of the Evangelists Wo unto you Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites for you devour Widdows houses and for pretence make long prayers Or as some read it Simulantes orationem longam Not praying long but fainting and counterfeting the doing so That under the pretence of a long grace they might eat the greater dinner in swallowing Widows houses at a bitt Widows houses did I say I wish that some under this pretence had not thought to have taken the houses of God into possession had not the gobbets been too hard of digestion had not the great Paterfamilias and Land-Lord of these houses granted Davids imprecation against such sacrilegious cormorants O my God! make them like unto a wheele that is making them so giddy that they let go their hold If we came with a good stomack I mean with such a Christian appetite and disposition of soul as we ought to do when we joyn together in prayer the shortness would not offend us but rather prevent that tediousness which is too incident to our flesh and blood in our devotions and a means to make them new fresh and vigorous at every period As after Moses had been praying in the Mount Exol 12.7 his hands began to be heavy had not Aaron and Hur held them up It is not so easie as some account it to wind up the soul to an heavenly pitch and to keep it at that bent for any duration of time Sure I am the best of Gods people have complain'd of coolings slacknings and distractions in this case and after their prayers could even have cast stones at themselves and beat upon their own breasts when they have reflected upon their languishing devotions Therefore the shortness of our prayers and the peoples responses are so many helps to our infirmities as so much Cork or as so many bladders to keep us from sinking into the Gulph or dead sea of a lither and dull kind of oscitancy Then we have time time pause and take breath with Sampson to check our selves or with the Cocks to clap our wings that so with the greater alacrity and activity of spirit we may fall on again Bishop Gauden thought it most heavenly musick when he preach'd at the Temple to hear the unanimous Answers of that honorable Assembly every one bearing a part in the publick prayers this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apostles language to inflame one the other with fire from heaven When prayers are continued into an extraordinary length it falls out many times as when Saint Paul was long a preaching some like Eutychus will fall into a deep sleep until they be taken up for dead Act. 2.9 As for our being just the same with other Churches abroad in every punctilio it can neither be expected by them nor performed by us We allow them their Christian liberty without censuring them for that Wherein they differ from us in circumstantials and those that have been even pillars amongst them have been a◠their Dabimusque vicissim They have not not only commended but have wished for the same discipline and manner of worship among themselves were it consistent with the condition of their affairs Were I in some forraign Church said the learned Bishop of Worcester I heard it from his own mouth where it were the custom to kneel at the Creed Dr. Prideaux I would conform to that Church shall not we condescend to the practises of our own Church which are both lawful and warranted by the best authority of the Nation That our prayers are lawful appears by some of your own concessions For you say you should not be against them were they joyned in one whereas Magis and Minus vary not the species of any thing so neither doth the length or shortness of it A short line is a line as well as a long ones only the length of things many times doth but dwindle them into weakness as plate the more 't is beaten out the thinner it is and rarifaction in nature swells the same matter into a greater bulk but withall impairs its strength There is more worth in a Diamond than in a whole Mountain of rubbish-stone The less the eye is the sharper the fight And in the little compacted heart of a Lyon there is most of boldness and courage Nature is maxima in minimis it shews most of its skill in things of smallest quantity or as Saint Austin Deus non parvus in parvis Gods wisdom and power are not small in the smallest things Major in exiguo Regnabiteor pore virtus The Greek proverb also is often too true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And may not the Publicans short prayer Lord bemerciful to me a sinner be more massie and effectual than the bablings of the long winded Pharises This objection is more unreasonable yet for as 't is said of the Scriptures There are depths for the Elephant to swim and fords for the Lambs to wade Some things so mysterious that they may puzzle the most subtile and angelical Doctors some things so plain that a novice may run and read them Milk for babes and stronger meat for men of riper years So in our Liturgy There are some prayers more concise in consideration of our infirmities which are apt to tire in running a longer race of devotions and there are others more large as that for the Catholick Church c. to exercise their more Eagle-like wings who are able to soar higher or fetch a wider compass without resting or pausing by the way I read indeed of Nazianzene and Basil that they fasted so long until they became so many skeletons And Saint Bernard did pray so much night and day donec genua sustinere Corpus non possent until he was not able to go until his
knees as Eusâ—bius saith of Saint James were like those of Elephants Here was Nimietas Sancti fervoris Est discretio non tam virtus quam quaedam Auriga modâ—rat iâ— virtutum Bernard Ser. 49. in Cant. an immoderate zeal overflowing all banks without any judicious timeing of what is sacred God would not have us to Sacrifice our selves in the Letter but in the Allegory by offering him a reasonable service As we must not eat untill we nauseate our meat but give off with an appetite so our God expects not that we should pray untill we surfeit with an Honey-comb and make the exercise of Religion a very drudgery like rowing in a Gally He knows better whereof we are made There were a company of praying Hereticks in former ages who abused those words of the Apostle pray alwayes Religion was never intended to oppress the spirits of men but to refresh and ravish them Vt samelici ad delicias conveniamus that we may still be longing to appear before the presence of God Fervor discretionemerigat discretio fervorem Regat Our zeal must excite our Judgment Bernard Ser. 23. in Cant. and our Judgment must moderate our zeal 50 I find that the Commissioners chosen out of your selves to treat about the Common-Prayers at the Savâ—y have propos'd an alteration of several passages And I find that your requests are gratifi'd in several particulars such as were back'd with any shew of reason As in the offices of Marriage Churching of Women Burial and in the declaration of the ground of kneeling at the Sacrament and in other instances Now who would have thought but good-natur'd men should have come some few steps towards an happy accommodation Yet you stand like so many marble pillars without moving one foot as if you were resolv'd after all these concessions not to abate the least punctilio Let the Church sink or swim if you may not have your wills As David said of his dead child I shall go to him but he shall not return to me So we may say we may come to you but you will not move towards us Which calls to mind the like disposition in some of your perswasion who came to Queen Elizabeth and petition'd to be dispens'd withall concerning the Cross See Dr. Jo. Burgâ—â— The Queen readily granted their request upon condition they would yeild obedience to other things But at last they told her plainly they would not leave so much as a hoof behind How came the same spirit into you from them or how came the spirit in those members which once sat at Westminster First they must have Straffords blood and one would have thought that Sacrifice should have aton'd and asswag'd all growing fears but afterwards they must have a Triennial Parliament Yet all this was nothing they must have the Militia too Thus it was with them and it is with you one concession as it is in victories is but Gradus futurae a step to another you see what slender hopes of condescention you afford as on your parts 60. It is not my purpose to write a rationale upon the body of the Liturgy or to anatomise it in its several parts That 's performed already by more dextrous hands As Christ told the Glutton desiring that one might be sent to his Brethren to forewarn them that they came not into that place of torment They had Moses and the Prophets If they would not hearken to them neither would they beleive though one should rise from the dead So you have Hooker Hammond c. If these can get no audience what shall he do that comes after the King If an Apostle should rise out of his Grave or an Angel drop from Heaven and assure you that you may lawfully use the Common-prayers I much question whether some of you would believe them Yet your objections against our prayers are so light thin and scanty that I cannot find any rational man to insist upon them as so momentous or Tanta-Mount as to justifie their non-compliance with them here or dare trust their power to shield them from the Articles and cross interrogatories of a greater Bishop at another day of visitation Therefore most of you are like Squerrils skipping from one thing to another as if you were afraid to stand your ground or trust to any of your Forts Like sick men tumbling now on this side now on that Would you pitch upon any particulars in our prayers and say Hie figo baculum Hie murus Aheneus pointing at those things in them which are absolutely sinful and which will wound Conscience regulated by the word of God Then you must either be answered or else we must desist from our practise for we cannot do so great wickedness and sin against God But where 's the Champion that enter'd these lists If there hath been any who hath not received sufficient answers I must profess my own ignorance Porphyry and Julian found many things in the Scriptures to cavil at and open their mouths wide against But who thinks the worse of those Luminaries the Prophets and Apostles because such dogs bark'd at them And if the Divine Oracles have been expos'd to such Panthers what wonder is it that what is of humane composure though never so exactly fram'd be carp'd at by Aristarchus his off-spring I remember some yeares since a form of prayer of your own modelling peep'd out into the World and it was damn'd by many of your selves before it had wip'd off the sweat of the press whereas ours hath stood out against the tempests and shakings of virulent tongues for many yeares I had almost said ages And were men but so ingenious to promote a peaceable order in the Church as they are watchful to find knots in bulrushes and to torture their brains to find scruples in what is most plain they might without any startling or affrightments apply themselves to a conscionable use of the same Strange that men should be so jea lous that a Serpent should lurk under every leaf As if our Governours and Fathers were so unnatural as to give us scorpions instead of eggs lay trains to blow us up Rats bane to poyson us and gins to ensnare us Had we but a due latitude of Candour and charity towards others or understood our own happiness That we may take things in the Lyturgy in the best sense me can Dr. Sparks p. 58. As King James declar'd at the conference at Hampton Court and is still to be suppos'd that the same liberty is virtually allow'd by our Gracious Soveraign Sure these billows and waves would cease roaring CHAP. IX Concerning the Salvation of Infants dying after Baptism THe position concerning Children Baptiz'd That if they dye before actual sin committed they shall be undoubtedly sav'd doth much offend you though 't is no part of the Lyturgy injoyn'd to beread at any time But some of you say 't is such a doctrine as is purposely set down to