men altogether unletter'd men called from mending nets to preach the Gospell If this were so That God according to his good pleasure without any consideration of study or height of parts chose simple unlearned unstudied men to be Prophets and Apostles and Teachers then why should any thinke he hath so confined or entailed his free Spirit or vocation of men upon great parts and studies that he may not if he please call the like unstudied simple men from the Plough or Fisher-boat or Stall or Shop-board to be Ministers of his Gospel and Teachers of his people now My Brethren you see I have not prevaricated or diminished ought of the strength of the Argument which is urged in favour of Lay-mens preaching In answer to which laying aside all partiality to my selfe and prejudice against them I shall with the same spirit of meekness and Candour with which Saint Paul here in this Text bespoke his Corinthians beseech you who heare me this day to observe and weigh and consider well this which I shall say for a Reply First Far far be it from me so to flatter the place of my Education or so to biass my beleef by any false ovevarluing of humane Industry or great parts that I should pinion as it were or put limits to the power of the Almighty Or should be so irreligiously bold as to gain-say that piece of his Gospell which compares his holy Spirit to the Wind which bloweth where it listeth If they who thus pretend to a private Inspiration doe meane that whatever God did in the times heretofore he is able to doe now I shall easily grant it And here in the presence of you all confesse my selfe to be of their opinion Nor shall I make any doubt or scruple at all to say that if we looke upon what God is able to doe by the same power by which he was able to raise up Children to Abraham out of stones or to speake yet more neerly to the Argument in hand by the same power that hee was able to make a Herd-man a Prophet or a Fisher-man an Apostle he is able in our times also if he please to make the meanest Tradesman one of the greatest Luminaries of his Church Since to an Omnipotent Agent whose gifts are meerly Arbitrary and depend wholly upon the pleasure of his owne will the greatest endowments of men and the least are alike easie But though he be able to doe this and in the ancient times of the Scripture have imparted his Gifts without respect of Persons yet whether he now will or whether in our times hee doth still thus extraordinarily raise up Teachers to himselfe is extreamly to be doubted For here with all the Christian gentleness and reason which may possibly conduce to the clearing of this doubt were I to argue this Controversie with one of those men who invade our function and from gathering of Sycamore fruit step up into the Pulpit I would onely aske him this question What Commission he hath thus to usurp upon our Office Or who signed him his patent Since the Apostle tells us in the fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrewes at the fourth Verse A place well worth your marking my Brethren That no man taketh this honour of a Priest to himselfe But he who is called of God as was Aaron I know his common answer will bee that God hath called him to this Office by the secret Instinct and Motion of his Holy Spirit But then he must not take it ill if I yet farther aske him by what signes or markes or testimonies or tokens he can either maâ—… it reasonably appeare to himselfe or others that God hath dealt with him as he dealt with some of the Prophets or Apostles called him from his Trade by such a motion of his Spirit Elisha we know made Iron swim and knew mens Closet-discourses in a farre Countrey which was a sure and certaine signe that God had called him to be a Prophet The Apostles also we know wrought many of Christs miracles which was a most infallible signe that God had chosen them to be Apostles If any of these men who derive their warrant from the same sacred spring can make Iron swim or like Elisha remaining here in their owne Israel can tell us what the King of Syria saies in his Bed-chamber Or if like Saint Peter they can cure fevers and diseases by their bare shadowes passing over them Or if like the rest of the Apostles having never before knowne Letters they can of a sudden speake all Languages the Controversie is at an end It would bee a very great sinne against the Spirit of God to deny that hee is in them of a Truth But if all the proofe and signe they can give us that they have him be onely a strong perswasion of themselves Nay if by an infallible Illumination they could assure themselves that they have him yet as many as have not the like infallible Illumination to assure them so too will not be guilty of an unpardonable offence if they suspect they have him not For here I must once more repeat my former Question and aske by what effects or signes of the Spirit men shall know them to be called By what will some man say why Doe you not heare them preach expound Scripture unfold Prophecies interpret Parables nay plucke the veile and cloud from the Booke of Mysteries it selfe the very Revelation Can any of you great Schollers with all your study of Philosophers Fathers Councells Schoole-men Historians Oratours Poets either hold your Congregations longer or send them away more edified And will you yet ask Questions Or doubt of the certainty of their vocation I must not dissemble with you if I could meet with an unlearned Handicraft-man who without study can doe this to the same height and measure of Truth as those unjustly-cryed downe learned and well-studied men doe I should begin to alter my opinion And should reckon him as hee deserves in the number of the inspired But alas my Brethren as I am not come hither to disparage the guifts of the Holy Ghost in what person soever I finde them or to perswade that Scripture rightly expounded is not one and the same from the mouth of a Priest or an inspired Lay-man so this I must freely say to you That as many of those strange Teachers as I have heard have expounded Scripture indeed and have ventured upon some of the hardest places of the Prophets But then if all my studies of the Bible assisted with all those holy uncorrupted learned helps which might enable mee to understand it aright have not deceived me their expositions and Sermons how passionately delivered or how long soever are evident proofes to mee that they have not the Spirit If they had they would never certainely expound Scripture so directly contrary to his meaning Or make the writings of the Prophets or Apostles weare only that present shape not which the holy Ghost hath
who most belyes God to his Glorie To what unweighed aery scruples and vanities is he entitled How is his Scripture for want of learning to understand it aright abused and made the bellowes to blow a fire fit rather to be quencht by the repentance and teares of the Incendiaries and feeders of it How many are there who daily urge text for Bloud-shed and undertake to prove the slaughter of their Brethren I had almost said of their lawfull Prince and Soveraigne too warrantable by the VVord of God What bold Libell or Pamphlet hath not for some yeares railed in a holy style And what Sermons have not been spiced with a a holy sedition Hath it not even to the ruine of one of the most flourishing Kingdomes of the world beene made a piece of Religion to divide it against it self to divorce a King from his People and his people from their peace Have not men been taught that they cannot give God his due if they give Caesar his And that the onely way left to preserve in themselves the grace and favour of the one is quite to deface and blot out the image and superscription of the other And have not the Teachers of these strange unchristian Doctrines delivered them to the people in the holy stole of Prophets Have they not called a most unnaturall civill VVar the burden of the Lord Have they not quite inverted the injunction of the Apostle and turning his affirmative into their negative have they not directly contrary to his word said Thus saith the Lord honour not the King My brethren let me speake freely to you as in the presence of God who knowes that I hate the sinne of these Prophets here in the Text too much to flatter Or if I would be so irreligiously servile you your selves know that the present condition of things is at too low an â—…bbe for me or any man else to hope to thrive by such a false Engine If there be such a thing as a VVaking providence over the actions of men wich I confesse an unresolved man in such irregular times as these might be tempted to question or if there bee such a thing in nature as Truth with a promise annext to it by the God of Truth that first or last it shall prevaile unlesse by a timely and seasonable repentance of their abuse of the Name of God and of their many bold reproaches throwne upon his Annoynted they divert their punishment Something me thinks whispers to me I dare not be so confident of my owne infallible sanctity as to call it the Spirit of God but something whispers to me and bids mee in the Prophet Ezechiels words in another place Prophecie against these Prophets and say * VVoe to the foolish Prophets who have followed their owne spirit and have seen nothing Because with lies they have made the heart of the Righteous sad whom the Lord hath not made sad and have strengthned the hands of the wicked that he should not returne from his evill way Or if this will not awake them but that they will still be guilty of the sinne of these Prophets here in the Text they must not take it ill if not I but the holy Ghost which they so much boast of by whom they so confidently pretend to speake passe this sad sentence on them and their complyers by the mouth of two other Prophets 1. As for their complyers if any such there have been who have said to the Seers See not and to the Prophets Prophecie not unto us right things but speake to us smooth things Prophecie deceit let them heare with trembling what the Prophet Esay sayes in his 30. Chapter at the 12. and 13. Verses Because sayes he ye despise my word and trust in oppression and perversenesse and stay thereon Therefore thus saith the holy one of Israel This iniquity shall bee to you as a breach ready to fall swelling â—…ut in a high wall whose breaking commeth suddenly at an instant The meaning of which propheticall judgement will be easily understood of any who shall consideringly marke the beginning and progresse of the Chapter to the context where 't is uttered and denounced Next as for the Prophets themselves who for poore low earthly interests and respects have suffered themselves to be mis-led let them with confusion of face heare what the Prophet Ieremy sayes in the 23 Chapter at the 32. verse A place no lesse remarkable then the former As for those sayes he who doe prophecie false dâ—…eames and do tell them and cause my people to erre by their lyes and by their lightnesse yet I sent them not nor commanded them behold I am against them saith the Lord and they shall not profit this people at all saith the Lord God The conclusion then of this Sermon shall be this Fathers and brethren of this University I presume it could not but seem strange to you to heare your Manners and Religion as well as Studies and Learning not long since publiquely reproved and preacht against out of this Pulpit by men who professe themselves indeed to be Prophets but discovering to you so little as they did of the abilities of Prophets sonnes could not but seem to you very unfit Reformers or instructers of this place I presume also that with a serious griefe of heart you cannot but resent that there should bee thought to be such a dearth and scarcity of able vertuous men among us that the Great Councell of this Kingdome in pitty to our wants should think it needfull to send us men better gifted to teach us how to preach What the negligence or sâ—…oth or want of industrie in this place hath been which should deserve this great exprobration of our Studies from them or how one of the most famous Springs of Learning which of late Europe knew should by the mis-representation of any false reporting men among us fall so low in the esteem of that great Assembly as to be thought to need a Tutor I know not Nor will I here over-curiously enquire into the ungiftednesse of the persons who have drawne this reproofe upon us or say that some of us perhaps might have made better use of our time and of the bounty of our Founders then by wrapping up our Talent in a Napkin to draw the same reproach upon our Colledges which once passed upon Monasteries which grew at length to be a Proverbe of Idlenesse But that which I would say to you is this Solomon in one of his Proverbs sends the sluggish man to the Spider to learne diligence Take it not ill I beseech you if I send some of you for this is a piece of exhortation which doth concerne very few who have been lesse industrious to these vaine but active Prophets which I have al this while preacht against Mistake me not I doe not send you to them to learne knowledge of them For you know 't is a received axiom among most of them that
which are first capable to be seen and then to be transcribed into a picture But why that part of Christ which after his Resurrection when it began to cease to be any longer a part of this visible World was seen of above five hundred brethren at once may not be painted Nay why the figure of a Dove or of cloven Tongues of fire wherein the third person in the glorious Trinity appeared when he descended upon our Mediator Christ and sate upon the heads of the Apostles may not be brought into imagery I must confess to you I am not sharp-witted enough to perceive Though this I shal freely say to you and pray do not call it Poetry That to maintain that Christ thus in picture may be worshipt is such a peece of Supeâ—…stition as not only teaches the simple to commit Idolatry but endeavours to verifie upon him in colours the reproach which the calumniating Jews stuck upon his person and to make him thus painted a Seducer of people As for your fourth paragraph which assaults me the second time with an Argument without an Edge which is that the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of comparison in point of fitness to be preserved having in my former Letter already answered you I shal not put my self to the needless trouble the second time to confute it For answer to your Fifth pray Sir read that part of my Sermon which you have corrupted into a quibble And there you shal find that what I say of clean linnen is not as you say a shifting Fallacy But I there say that which you wil never be able to controule which is That by the same reason that you make Surplices to be superstitious because papists wear them you may make Linnen also to be superstitious because papists shift And so conclude cleanliness to be as unlawful as Surplices or Copes Sir this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I confess the same Answer twice served in to you not out of scarcity or barrenness or for want of another Reply but because much of your Letter is but crambe repetita a carret twice boyled Your sixth paragraph is a faggot bound up with more sticks in it then you without poetical Licence can possibly gather from my Letter where Sir I only promise you when ever you shal cal upon me to derive to you all the ancient parts of our English Liturgy from Liturgy's which were in the Church before popery was born Of which if any part be to be found in the Rubricks of the Church of Rome your logick wil never be able to prove that therefore 't is to be rejected as trash and trumpery in ours Good things Sir lose not their goodness because they are in some places mingled with superstitious Nor as I told you before do Davids Psalms cease to be a piece of Canonical Scripture because they are to be found bound up in the volumn with the Mass. Sir if what ever is made use of by the Pope or touches upon Rome should be superstitious the River Tiber would be the most blameable river in the World What you mean by a prelatical Faction here in England or what they borrowed from the Rituals or pontifical of Rome is exprest to me in such a mist of words which sound big to the common people and signifie nothing to the wise that I must confess my dulness I do not understand you If you mean that they inserted any new peeces into the old garment of our CoÌ„mon-prayer-book and those borrowed from the Missal or Breviary of Rome I beleeve Sir abstracting from those alterations made in the prayers for the King Queen and Royal issue which the Death of Princes exacted unless for constancy sake you would have them allow of prayers for the dead and in King Charls and Queen Mary's days to pray still for King Iames and Queen Anne which would be a piece of popery equal to the invocations of saints you will find nothing modern or of such new contrivance as past not Bucers Examen in the raign of Edward the sixth And was confirmed by Act of Parliament in the raign of Queen Elâ—…zabeth In saying this in their defence who had the ordering of such changes I hope Sir you will not so uncharitably think me imbark't in their Faction which truly to me stil presented it self like the conceal'd Horses under ground a fiction made to walk the streets to terrifie the people as to perswade your self after my so many professions to fall a sacrifice to the Protestant Religion that it can be either in the power of the Church or court of Rome to tempt me from my Resolution Which is to go out of the world in the same Religion I came in Sir I gave warning in my last letter not to venture your writings upon the Argument which deceives none but very vulgar understandings and which I in my Sermon cal the Mother of mistakes which is from an accidental concurrence in some things to infer an outright similitude and agreement in all Because Bellarmine says tradition is a better medium to prove somethings by then a private spirit and because I in this particular have said so too you tacitely infer that I and Bellarmine are of the same Religion which is the same as if a Turk and a Christian saying that the Sun shines you should infer that the Christian is a Mahumetan and for saying so a Turk I confess you do not say we are both of the same Religion but that I in preferring Tradition which you your self in your seventh paragraph tllow to be the Constant and universal Report of the Church before he Testimony of the Spirit speaking in the Word to the Consciences of private men am more profane than he Heer sir you must not take it ill if I expose you to the censure of being deservedly thought guilty of a double mistake The one is that if Bellarmine in this particular were in an Errour and if I had out-spoken him in his Errour yet the Laws of speech will not allow you to say That in an unprofane subject either of us is profane more heretical or mistaken you might perhaps have said and this though a false Assertion might yet have past for right Expression But to call him positively and me comparatively more profane because we both hold That a Drop is more liable to corruption then the Ocean or the testimony of al ages of the Church is a fuller proof of the meaning of a text in Scripture then the solitary Exposition of a man who can perswade none but himself is as incongruous as if you should say that because Bellarmine wrote but three Volumns and Abulensis twelve therefore Abulensis was a greater Adulterer then He. Your other mistake is That you confound the Spirit of God speaking in the Scripture with the private Spirit that is Reason Humour or Fancie of the person spoken to Sir let that blessed Spirit decide this controversie between us
He sayes that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of private Interpretation That is so calculated or Meridianized to some select minds understandings that it shall hold the candle to them only and leave All others in the Darke But if you will consent to the Comment of the most primitive Fathers on that Text The meaning of it is That as God by his Spirit did at first dictate the scripture so he dictated it in those thingswhich are necessary to Salvation intelligible to all the world of Men who will addict their minds to read it It being therefore a Rule held out to all mankind for them to order their lives and actions by and therefore universally intelligible to them it should else cease to be either Revelation or a Rule for you to hold that it cannot be understood without a second Revelation made by the same Spirit that wrote it to the private spirit of you the more-Cabinet Reader is as if you should inclose and impale to your self the Ayre or Sun-beames And should maintain that God hath placed the Sun in the firmament and given you only eyes to see him In short sir 't is to make his word which was ordained to give light to all the World a Dark Lanthorn In which a candle shines to the use of none but him that bears it Your Eighth Paragraph being the third of your eleven Questions as also the close of your ninth shall receive a latine Answer from me in the Divinity School Your next Paragraph is againe the Hydra with repullulating Heads Where first you put me to prove the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England Which being managed by a Prelaticall faction whom you say I call the Church was not excellent if I reckon from the yeare 1630. to 1640. As for the Doctrine Sir I told you before that the Primitive Church it selfe was not free from Heresies If therefore I should grant you which I never shall till you particularly tell me what those erroneous doctrines were that some men in our Church were heterodox nay hereticall in their opinions yet I conceive it to be a very neere neighbour to heresie in you to charge the doctrines of persons upon the Kingdome or Church Such Doctrines might be in England as you whether out of Choice or Luck have said yet not by the Tenets or Doctrines of the Land No more then if you should say that because M. Yerbury and some few oâ—…hers hold the Equâ—…lity of the Saints with Christ the whole Kingdome is a blasphemer and was by you confuted at S. Maries The publick doctrine of the Church of England I call none but that which was allowed to be so by an Act of Paâ—…liament of England and that Sir was contained in the 39. Articles If any Prelate or inferiour Priest for the Cicle of yeares you speak of either held or taught any thing contrary to thâ—…se as it will be hard I beleeve for you to instance in any of that side who did you shall have my consent in that particular to count them no part of our Church In the meane time Sir I beseech you be favourable to this Island and think not that for ten yeares space 't was hereticall in all the parts of it on this side Berwick Withall Sir I desire since you have assigned me an Epocha to reckon from that you will compare the worst doctrines which wore the date of the Trojan Warre among us with those which have since broke loose in the space of a Warre not halfe so long and you will find that our Church for those ten yeares you speak of wore a garment I will not say as seamless and undivided as Christs coat But since the Soldiers did cast lots upon it so much heresie as well as schisme hath torne it asunder that 't is now become like Iosephs coat imbrued in bloud where no one piece carryes colour or resemblance to another As for the Discipline and Government of our Church if you would speak your conscience and not your gall you would confess that the frame and structure of it was raised from the most Primitive Modell that any Moderne Church under the Sunne was governed by A Government so well sized and fitted to the Civill Government of the Kingdome that till the insurrection of some false Prophets who presumed to offer strange fire before the Lord and reduced a Land which flowed with milk and honey into a wildernesse they agreed together like the two Scripture-brothers Moses and Aaron and were the two banks which shut up schisme within its channell and suffered not heresie or sedition to overflow their bounds In short Sir I know not into what new forme this Kingdome may be moulded or what new creation may creep forth from the strife-full heap of things into which as into a second Chaos we are fallen But if the Civill State doe ever returne to its former selfe againe your Presbyterian Government which was brought forth at Geneva and was since nursed up in Scotland mingled with it if I be not deceived in the principles of that Government will be but a wild Vine ingrafted into a true Vpon which unequall disproportioned Incorporation we may as well expect to gather Figs of Thistles or grapes of thornes as that the one should grow so Southerne the other so Northerne that one harmonious musicall Body should arise from them thus joyned What Errors in Government or Discipline were committed by the Prelates I know not neither have you proved them hitherto chargeable with any unless this were an error that they laid an Ostracisme as you say upon those that opposed your Government I beleeve Sir when Presbytery is set up and you placed in your Consistory with your Spirituall and Lay-Brethren you will not be so negligent or so much asleep in your place as not to find an Ostracisme for those who shall oppose you in your office In the meane time Sir to call them or those who submitted to their Government A Prelaticall faction because the then wheels of their Government moved with an unanimous undisturbance is I beleeve a calumny which you would faine fasten upon them provoked I suppose by the description which I have made of the conspiracy of the False Prophets of Ierusalem in my Sermon I must deal freely with you Sir do but probably make it appear to me that this Faction in your letter was like the Conspiracy in my Sermon Do but prove to me that the Prelates devoured soules That they took to themselves the Treasure and precious things of the Land That to effect this they kindled the first spark towards a CivilWar then blew it into such a flame as could not be quencht but with the bloud of Husbands ravisht from their Wives and the slaughter of parents prest and ravisht from their children Doe but prove to me that they made one widdow or built their Honours upon the ruine or calamity of one Orphane Lastly do