and govern all the Designs of the Princes of Christendom And his Mandates and Decretal Epistles must ever be flying about into all Parts and Provinces and when any doubt or difficulty arose away to Geneva to consult the Oracle that always return'd his Answers with the Confidence and Authority of an Apostle And thus did this hot and eager Man bear down all before him by the boldness of his Nature to attempt and indefatigable vehemence of his Spirit to prosecute what he had once attempted till he made himself at once both Pope and Emperour of the greatest part of the Reformed World All his Dictates were Articles of Faith and all his Censures Anathema's and every dissent from his least important and most unwarrantable Principles was Heresie and every Heresie capital and damnable All Schemes and Models of Truth were coin'd in his Name and warranted by his Authority it was his Decree that stampt them Orthodox and no Opinion that did not bear his Image and Superscription might pass for current Divinity And whoever was so hardy or so unhappy as to oppose himself to this bold and insolent Usurpation or but to demur upon the Infallibility of his Determinations he was immediately assaulted with Volleys of Anathema's and they pour'd upon him showres of Invectives and hated Names and he was shunn'd like Infection and dreaded as the Pest and Plague of the Reformed Communion and if they wanted power to persecute him with Fire and Faggot they would kill him with Noises and Anathema's And thus has this man and his followers intricated the way to Heaven with their own new Labyrinths and wild turnings trifling Questions and uncertain talkings they have smother'd and buried the Truths of God under the superstructures of their own foolish Inventions they have blended their own dreams and Visions with the Divine Oracles and then require the same Assent to their ill-spun Systems and Hypotheses as to the inspired Writings of St. Paul and obtrude pure non-sense and contradictious Blasphemies upon our Belief with as much rigour and boisterous zeal as the most indispensable Truths of the Gospel requiring as confident an Assent to the black Doctrine of irrespective Reprobation as to our Saviours Death and Resurrection and making it as necessary a point of Faith to believe that the Almighty thrust innumerable myriads of Souls into Being only to sport himself in their endless and unspeakable Tortures as that he sent his own Son into the world to dye for the Redemption of mankind Nay this they stick not to discard and disavow for its inconsistency with the Hypothesis of absolute Decrees This is the Fundamental Article of their Creed and all other points of Divinity must be so modell'd as to suit and accommodate themselves to this Foundation of their Faith And thus in most places did the design of Reformation degenerate into a furious Zeal for the Calvinian Rigours the seeds of which Doctrine have produced nothing but thorns and briars of Contention that have eaten out the life and power of true Religion and make men barren in every thing but discords and disputations The woful effects whereof are visible in most Foreign Churches where Piety is exchanged for Orthodoxy and Devotion for speculation where their Religion is a zeal for a Scheme of Opinions and their Learning an Ability to maintain them § 13. But in the setling or modelling of our Reformation by the Providence of God and our Governours this mans assistance was refused and his advice rejected they understood him too well to admit him into their Counsels and resolved to keep up close to their first design of reforming the Church to the Apostolical simplicity Though afterward this Doctrine took root here by the industry of some zealous youths that had been train'd up at the feet of that great Gamaliel and return'd home Seminary Priests of the Calvinian Theology This was the only errand and design of Whittingham Travers Cartwright and others and the only original of all the Schisms and disturbances that have ever since infested the Church of England was the unseasonable zeal of these men to reduce its Doctrine and Discipline to the platform of Geneva And though they were immediately check't in their attempt upon the Discipline that they thought good to assault with fierce and open Violence yet as for the leaven of their Doctrine they insensibly spred and conveyed it into the minds of their Disciples and it grew and prosper'd mightily in all places because as it was cultivated with much zeal and water'd with much preaching so was it not encountred with any publick opposition the Church not having declared it self positively in any thing but against the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and as for all the other Disputes of Christendom she contrived the Articles of her Communion with that prudence and moderation as to take in all men of whatsoever different Perswasions in other matters into her bosom and protection She embraced Trojans and Tyrians with equal Favour and would not wed her self to the narrow Interests of a Party nor determine all the quarrels and differences of disputing men No she left them to the Liberty of their own Opinions only reserving to her self a power to quash and silence their Disputes for the ends of Peace and Government But this moderation was too cool for these warm and hot-headed men they thought it not enough for the honour of Mr. Calvin and therefore resolved to declare themselves expresly for him in defiance to all other Doctors and Heads of Parties But the Pulpits must make good this and they are resolved to make good the Pulpits and therefore they make them and the People to groan with nothing but the continual noise of Decrees and the depths of Election and Reprobation were always ratling and thundering in their ears The whole Circle of their preaching and practical Divinity was reduced to Calvin's Interpretation of the ninth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans And when they had scared and astonish'd the People into an admiration of these gloomy Mysteries nothing will satisfie their restless heads unless they may be voted the Doctrine of the Church and the cause of the Reformation And all the men of the first moderation must be branded for Apostates and the People let loose to rail at them as Papists or under some other hated name that they abhorr'd but did not understand And this is the Interpretation of our Authors malicious suggestion of his being aggrieved to observe such evident declerisions from the first establish't Reformation towards the old or a new and it may be worse Apostasie such an apparent weariness of the principal doctrines and practices which enlivened the Reformation i. e. A wicked schismatical Relapse to Popish Arminian Errors an Apostasie from the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches to worship the old Pelagian Idol Free-will with the new Goddess Contingency or an halting between Iehovah and Baal Christ and Antichrist admitting the Belgick
appropriate to some extraordinary Circumstances wherewith they were attended So that in answer to his severe Interrogatory seeing my Reputation and something else lies at stake I must profess that though I believe the visible and miraculous Immissions of the Holy Ghost to have been peculiar to the first Ages of Christianity yet am I as far and perhaps farther than himself from denying that its ordinary Assistances are equally bestowed upon and continued to all successive Periods of the Church For not to mention that the Conditions upon which the Promise of the Spirit is entail'd agree equally to Christians of all times and places I know not to what purpose men should address their Devotions to Heaven either for Grace or Vertue I care not which when there is no possible way of effecting them but by the Impressions of the Spirit of God upon the spirits of men And did I not believe its Influence upon the minds of men I would list my self among the Followers of I. O. and explode the Lords Prayer it self as a foolish and insignificant Form seeing the greatest part of its Petitions are things of that Nature as that they cannot be accomplish'd any other way than by the efficacy of the divine Spirit upon ours In short the whole state of this Question is plainly this That in the days of the Apostles the divine Spirit proved it self by some clear and unquestionable Miracle and that was the rational evidence of its Truth and divine Authority but in our days it proceeds in an humane and a rational way and does neither drive nor second us with unaccountable Raptures and Inspirations but joyns in with our Understandings and leads us forward by the Rules of Reason and Sobriety by threatnings and by promises by instructing our Faculties in the right Perception of things and by discovering a fuller Evidence and stronger Connexion of Truths So that whatever Assistances the Spirit of God may now afford us they work in the same way and after the same manner as if all were perform'd by the strength of our own Reason and therefore Men are not to be allowed to pretend to its guidance unless they can prove it by some evident Miracle or at least justifie it either by some clear Text of Scripture or some Rational Argument and then it is that which warrants the Action and not the pretence of the Spirit But as for those that talk of its immediate and unaccountable Workings and confine them not to the ordinary Rules of Reason and Methods of Prudence they unavoidably fall into all the mischiefs and frenzies of Enthusiasm and there is nothing so absurd that they may not believe or so wicked that they may not practise by the instigation of the Spirit of God And now after all this Noise and Cavil I and my Adversary are fully agreed in the main matter of the Quarrel viz. That Grace and Vertue are the same thing For all the difference he assigns between them relates not to the Nature of the things themselves but to the Principles from whence they issue viz. That the same Instances and Duties of Moral Goodness that are called Vertues when they proceed from the strength and improvement of our own Natural Abilities are called Graces when they proceed from the assistances and impressions of the Spirit of God so that even in his account Grace is nothing but infused Vertue and infused Vertue is Vertue still and this is the only difference that I assign'd between them and thus my Challenge that is the Cause and Object of all this Zeal and Indignation stands firm and unattempted viz. That when they have set aside all manner of Vertue they would tell me what remains to be called Grace and give me any notion of it distinct from all Morality He that can do this shall be greater than Apollo and all his Muses And whereas for a farther proof that the Graces or the fruits of the Spirit were nothing but Moral or to speak in the home-spun Language of our Fore-fathers Ghostly Vertues I alledged two evident Texts of Scripture to that purpose with the first he quarrels in the first place that I have not either through my own or the Printers neglect expressed the words in a different Character though I have quoted both Chapter and Verse and if this be a fault I must beg his pardon and seeing it is the first he has been able to discover I hope I may easily obtain it In the next place he excepts that in rendring the words I use Peaceableness in stead of Peace and Cheerfulness as equivalent with Ioy. The Cavil is but a little one and the Fortunes of Caesar and the Roman Empire depend not upon it and therefore I will not trouble the Reader with a Critical Account of the Reason of my Translation 't is enough that these words may and often are used promiscuously and differ no more than Reason and Reasoning The other Text was Tit. 2.11 In which I affirm that the Apostle makes the Grace of God to consist in Gratitude towards God Temperance towards our selves and Justice towards our Neighbours No says he the Apostle says not that Grace consists in these things but that it teaches these things I must confess I was not so subtle and Scholastical as to distinguish between subjective Grace as he there speaks and effective Grace because they are but different terms of Logick for the same thing and that Grace that teacheth us these things consists in doing them they differ only as the Principle and Effect of the same Vertue and whatever the Apostle might there intend by Grace nothing can be more pat to my Purpose than that he places its whole design in teaching and promoting the practice of those Moral Vertues This is obvious to every vulgar eye but our Author is forced for want of better employment to saw the Air. § 5. My last crime is that I slander them with the Truth and charge them of making Vertue and Grace inconsistent whilst they teach that though a man may be exact in the duties of moral goodness yet if he be a graceless Person i. e. void of I know not what imaginary Godliness he is but in a cleaner way to Hell and the morally Righteous man is at a greater distance from grace than the Prophane Though were I destitute of all other proof their very distinguishing between Grace and Vertue or the Spiritual and the Moral Duties of the Gospel is in it self directly destructive of all true and real goodness for if they are the same thing under different Appellations then whilst this Doctrine presses men to a pursuit and acquisition of Excellencies of Grace and spiritual holiness over and above the common vertues of Morality it engages their main industry and their biggest endeavours in the pursuit of dreams and shadows because there is nothing beyond the bounds of Moral Vertue but Chimera's and flying Dragons Illusions of Fancy and Impostures of
Corrections § 4. But as deeply as he resents my contemptuous account of their Preachings yet he stomachs nothing more then that scorn I have reflected upon their Preachers And this is a warm Provocation indeed Touch the Mountains and they will smoke Thus whereas Pag. 253. I charged the Guilt of all our Schismatical Ruptures upon the perverseness of about an hundred proud ignorant and seditious Preachers he snaps me up with an hasty Inference as if I had affirmed there were not above an hundred Preaching Ministers among the Nonconformists But by his leave are there not in this as in all other Factions some busie and pragmatical Incendiaries that animate their Companions to seditious Attempts and Practices that widen our Differences by their Frantick and outragious Zeal that make Separation an indispensable Duty and lead the People into an open Defection from the Church and make all our Distractions incurable by their sturdy and insolent Humour The number of these hot Spirits is not great and 't is these onely to whom I ascribe the continuance of our Schisms and Subdivisions and 't is these onely against whom I would have the Laws particularly levelled Severity upon them would quickly make the rest more cool and tractable and 't is well known how by the punishment of a few Ringleaders under the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the whole Faction was awed into a milder and more peaceable Deportment The very face of Discipline is enough to dash those that are not so utterly Frantick out of their Confidence and but to shake the Publick Rods over them will quickly scare them into better Obedience And what I have spoken contemptuously of their Preachers as to their Ignorance and their Duncery is applicable onely to these pert and busie Promoters of the Schism Men of more Learning are more modest and peaceable and though their Consciences and Mis-apprehensions of Things devest them of their Publick Employment they do not immediately run themselves into open Separation but submit to that Conformity that is requisite in private Christians there being nothing required by our Church of such Persons that can drive People of any Wit and Sobriety from our Publick Congregations and therefore these Men quietly submit to their own Fate and the Laws and are not such Wretches as to Fire an House to Roast their own Eggs and embroil a Kingdom for their own petty Ends and Envies and as for these I love and honour their Integrity and pity their unhappy Fate in that they have brought themselves into such a straight as makes their private Interest inconsistent with Publick Peace But besides these there is a sort of Pedling Theologues whose Ignorance onely makes them able Divines who might have wanted Grace as well as their Contemporaries had they not wanted Parts and Learning It was Duncery and defect of Wit that qualified them with Ministerial Abilities the Pulpit was their Refuge from the University and they flee to the Altar onely to take Sanctuary against Scorn and Contempt And 't is pleasant to observe upon what shifts and artifices these empty Puffs are put to uphold the credit of their Sufficiency and they never discover any thing of Wit and Ingenuity but in their slights and stratagems to cover their Ignorance None better skill'd in the management of Looks or more dexterous in the command of solemn Face and judicious Forehead They can so improve their defect of Knowledge as to make it pass for depth of Judgment and whatsoever part of Learning they understand not they either despise as notional and unprofitable or seem grave and reserved and with Learned Shrug intimate something they can but will not communicate or give a sturdy and peremptory Determination of the matter in debate and then the Decree is past 't is not to be disputed they will carry the Ball away by Clamour and Confidence and stand amazed if you will not admit what they know not how to prove But if neither these nor any of their other Tricks will relieve them but that they are pursued so close that they cannot escape your discovery the last Refuge of their Folly is Scripture and Religion they put on serious Brow and fall into a fit of Preaching and what Text so suitable to be abused to their purpose as St. Pauls I desire to know nothing but Iesus Christ and him crucified Like the Fox in the Fable who having no Tail of his own preach't against all Tails as deformed and burthensom Excrescencies And thus do these Men become acquainted with the Workings of the Spirit because they are not capable of understanding the Methods of Reason and Laws of Argumentation and they scorn to defend their Doctrine by Humane Learning and but to oppose their Fables and ridiculous Falsities about the Mechanical Process of Regeneration is to blaspheme the Spirit of Grace And they will Rebuke all your Rational Arguments and Demonstrations with sawcy and pragmatical Reproofs and in stead of replying to your Objections will shake their Heads and pity your Ignorance in the Mysteries of the Gospel and then malapertly exhort you to beware of Pride and Carnal Reason and preach the great danger of leaning too much on your own Understanding And thus these bold Fellows when they cannot out-argue will out-face you a thwacking Contradiction shall neither stagger nor astonish them they will firmly stand their ground against all the dint of Argument and by the assistance of the Spirit of God maintain Conclusions in defiance to their Premises Say what you will prove what you can demonstrate the incoherence of their Notions and the wildness of their Conceits they will foil all your Wit and Carnal Reason with a caution against vain Philosophy and Humane Learning and a disdainful reflection upon the Natural Mans Ignorance in the things of the Spirit And thus shall the Spirit of God be forced to vouch and patronize their Folly the Divine Oracles shall be heapt together to cover their Ignorance and they will guard their phantastick Impertinencies with abundance of Chapter and Verse and if you offer to assault their Truth they will beat you off with Volleys of Texts and pour them so thick upon you that you shall never be able to storm their Ignorance But if you will not be out-pelted at Scripture the next Specimen of their Learning is to refer you to some of their own Authors that have written to as wise purpose as themselves talk and if at that Weapon you prove too hard for them their last refuge is still Reverend Dullness they look demurely turn up the White and shake the Head at your Prophaneness and Blasphemy And then if you have any Grace or Modesty you are obliged to blush and be silent And if there be any Female Proselyte in company for such are the usual Associates of their Zeal and Conversation she must outwardly pity and inwardly scorn you Alas poor Man this 't is to be a stranger to the Workings of the Spirit of
God and to be ignorant of the Mysteries of the Covenant of Grace What a vain thing is this Humane Learning without Grace and the Teachings of the Spirit How is this Man puft up with a conceit of his own Knowledge and yet what a silly Wretch is it in the Mysteries of Religion What strange Conceptions has the poor Soul of Regeneration of the Spirit of Bondage and the method of Conversion Alas poor Thing he understands it no more then I do his Arabick or Algebra What a comfortable Light have I that am but an unlearned Idiot in the most inward and experimental parts of the Mysteries of Godliness by the Teachings of the Spirit and precious Mr. whilst a Vail of Darkness hides these gracious Comforts and Priviledges from the Eyes of this Natural Man And thus they prostitute the Dignity of Religion to the Impertinencies of every Gossip and uphold the Noise and seeming Interest of the Party by the Zeal and Clamour of that Sex Nothing so resolute as they at holding fast Conclusions they will die Martyrs to their Truth before they know their Premises and if they once chance to fasten upon a Proposition they will never quit their Hold while they have either Teeth or Tongue § 5. And therefore it has in all Ages been the peculiar Artifice of such creeping Impostors to tamper with the warmth and the weakness of that Sex Wo unto you ye Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for ye devour Widows houses and for a pretence make long Prayers Why Widows Houses more then any others Why because they had the management of their Estates at their own disposal and so were more liable and likely to be cheated but chiefly because their sorrowful Spirits were more prone to Superstition and Melancholy Devotions and so more apt to give good Entertainment to these demure and white-eyed Comforters And St. Paul giving a personal Character of some Religious Juglers in his days describes them to be such as creep into houses and lead captive silly women i. e. such as under great shews and pretences of Holiness insinuate themselves into Wealthy Families and by their plausible Arts and demure Pretensions seduce the weaker Sex that by reason of the feebleness of their Minds and timorousness of their Consciences are most apt to credit their sad and sorrowful Stories and suffer themselves to be abused and led any way by these precise and Saint-like Pretenders and which is the main to reward their pains with good Fees and good Meals Neither are the foolish Women so easily taken by these holy Cheats modest sober and vertuous but they are wicked as well as silly laden with many lusts and vices such as are willing to reconcile their passions and lustful desires with a state of Religion and under its vizor to maintain their pride their peevishness and their wantonness And the more handsomly to delude such silly Wretches these Gospel-Pharisees are ever canting to them in empty and senseless forms of Speech and stuff their Memories with a set of insignificant and unintelligible Phrases that they may know how to prate perpetually of Religion without knowing any thing of its true Nature and Efficacy and all the fruit of their much Hearing is much Talking and as I once heard it observed in the Pulpit 't is their highest emprovement to be able to gossip in the Language of St. Paul By these and such like little Arts they decoy in Female Proselytes to their Party and 't is their onely Master-piece to inveigle their hot and eager Spirits An Artifice that any Sot may manage that can but whine and flatter 'T is such Mountebanks as these that are the great Apostles of the Cause and whom I branded with the Marks of Pride Ignorance and Sedition How my Character suits with their Humour I must leave to your own Experience and Observation though I could give you in a sufficient Catalogue of some of their most famous Preachers and choicest Wits that you would deem better qualified to plant Tobacco then to propagate the Gospel The greatest Idols of the People would have a mighty Resemblance to that hated one of Bell that as the Story tells us was Brass without and Lead within were it not that they want no assistance to devour their own Sacrifices And now who can endure not onely to hear such Idiots to talk as if they were infallible but to set up their Standard and display their Colours in defiance to all the Wisdom of Government and the Authority of Laws You see I never upbraided them with their meer Ignorance it was their Pride and their Insolence that I laid open to Publick Severity would they learn to be humble and submissive and be sensible of their own Folly and Ignorance and would not every Mas Iohn set up for a Patriarch we would never expose them for their weakness and simplicity but when they will combat Government affront the Decrees of Princes trample upon all Publick Constitutions and oppose their own singular Conceits to the Prescription of Ages and the Consent of People when they will not yield up so much as a Metaphysical Speculation to the will of their Prince and peace of their Country and when all the Laws and Fundamental Rules of Government must be subverted rather then the least of their Sentiments shall be reversed in brief when their Folly must prescribe to the Wisdom of Mankind is it not time think you to take down their Stomachs and to expose their Ignorance to the Publick Scorn and their Insolence to the Publick Rods § 6. But suppose my Censure of their Ignorance and defect of Learning had aimed at their chiefest Rabbies and their deepest Clerks I could have justified my self by some great Examples of his own Fraternity where a Man can scarce ever want Authentick Presidents for any sort of Rudeness and Ill-manners Particularly what thinks he of his Friend I. O. who giving a Character of the Episcopal Clergy beside Tyranny Persecution and a rank hatred of all Godliness adds A false Repute of Learning I say A false Repute for the greater part especially of the Greatest and yet taking Advantages of Vulgar Esteem they bear out as though they had engrossed a Monopoly of it though I presume the World was never deceived by more empty Pretenders especially in respect of any solid Knowledge in Divinity or Antiquity Goodly How does this Modest Censure of the greatest Prelates that ever flourish't in the Church of England become the State and Grandeur of the Vicar of Coggeshal What empty and shallow Pretenders to Knowledge were Archbishop Laud and all his Favourites if compared to this unfledged Curate And to what an heighth of Confidence was the young Sizer perk't with the success of his Rumford-Performances But who so presumptuous as those Smatterers that have onely Learning enough to prefer them to the Pillory And what less Disgrace can that Caitiff deserve that shall dare to Arraign the Ghosts and invade the
will not so far submit my self to the power of his Malice as to make Protestations to the World or Appeals to Heaven as some tender Constitutions would have done But I defie all the weak Attempts of malevolent Tongues False Slanders as they spread so they vanish like Lightning and to Men wise and honest the flash appears and dis-appears at once and he that is concerned for the good Opinion of such as are neither puts himself upon an harder Game then I am willing to play or able to manage And though in three Lines I could not onely answer but shame his base and proofless Surmises of the Unworthiness of my Aims by making it appear that so far I was from having any ill design that I was not in a Capacity of having any at all yet I will rather chuse utterly to neglect this and all his other mean and unworthy Arts of Malice as being satisfied that when Men would discredit their Adversaries by such unhandsom Reflections upon their Persons and private Affairs as are altogether impertinent to the Matters in debate they prove nothing but the strength of their Malice and weakness of their Cause Nay so outragious is our Author that when he comes to reflect upon my Satyr against Atheism he blows upon it with as much scorn and rancour as upon the sharpest and most pointed Invectives against themselves As if no Man could write against their Party but he must immediately be stricken with a Spirit of Infatuation and forfeit all use of his Reason and his Understanding and were not able to discourse pertinently upon the most pregnant and most noble Argument in the World But so it is though you speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels and though you understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge yet if you have not Charity for them you are no better then sounding Brass and a tinkling Cymbal And yet had he onely slighted and scorn'd my weak Essay upon this Theme it would have been none of the most remarkable Instances of his Incivility but to spit his rankest Venom at it is unexemplified Candour and Ingenuity And among all the ugly Suggestions he has darted at me he has not aimed any with more malice and bitterness of spirit then those he has bolted upon this occasion but whatsoever foul Language I may deserve upon other accounts I appeal to the hottest Zealot of his own Dispensation whether it were discreetly or civilly done to cast Reproaches at me whilst I was exposing Prophaneness and Irreligion to publick shame A man that had not been utterly transported with Rage and Envy would have had the discretion to have vented his Choler upon more seasonable opportunities for now alas he effectually defeats his own Malice by treating me with the same rudeness when I deserve well as when I deserve ill from which way of procedure what else can the World conclude but that the Man raves and cares not what he says so he may abuse and defame me But upon this occasion he has intimated a considerable Truth viz. That there is less danger in this kind of Atheism that vents its self in little Efforts of Wit and Drollery then in those Attempts that under Pretences of sober Reason propagate such Opinions and Principles as have a direct Tendency to the Subversion of the Grounds of Religion It is well advised and they would do well to consider it that invalidate the Rational Accounts of the Christian Faith and destroy all sober Grounds of the Divine Authority of the holy Scriptures that undermine the Evidence of Miracles and Universal Tradition and resolve the Motives of its Credibility into vain and frivolous Pretences What greater Advantage can any Man give to the Enemies of Religion then to inform them That the Alcoran may vie Miracles and Traditions with the Scripture and then in their stead produce no other proof of its Divine Authority then what the Alcoran may as well plead without their concurrence and such is the Testimony of the Spirit if it convince not in a rational way and by the use of Motives and Arguments for remove their Evidence and then all pretences to Inspiration become uncertain and unaccountable and there remains no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to distinguish between a true and a false Testimony And what greater disservice can any man do to the Interest of Religion then to draw bold and horrid Consequences in behalf of Atheists Papists and Antiscripturists from every petty Controversie Does not he effectually invite Men to a neglect of the holy Scriptures that tells them they can have neither Truth nor Certainty if there be various Readings in the Original Texts and yet confesseth that Ocular Inspection makes it manifest that there are various Readings both in the Old Testament and the New and it 's confessed there have been failings in the Transcribers who have often mistaken and that it is impossible it should be otherwise I must acknowledge my self a little surprised to hear our Author question whether there be such a thing as speculative Atheism in the World and yet himself can discover a wide door to it in every Proposition even in the Lords Prayer it self It is somewhat prodigious that when so many Men in all Ages have made so many Attempts to enter at this Door they should never be able to light upon such an easie and such an open passage § 9. Another passage that he chides and cavils at is the account I gave why I instill'd so much tartness and severity into some Expressions from the Example of our Saviours behaviour in the Temple where I observed that there was but one single instance in which Zeal or an high Indignation might be just and warrantable and that is when it vents its self against the Arrogance of haughty peevish and sullen Religionists The Rashness of this Assertion he checks and controuls with authentick Precedents and Examples out of the old Testament though every illiterate Peasant could have inform'd him of the vast difference between the Jewish and the Christian Oeconomy theirs was a more harsh and severe institution the temper of their Zeal was more fierce and warlike and in some Cases to kill a Brother out of hatred to Idolatry was a commendable Action and at some times Swords and Daggers were the means of Grace as they lately were of Reformation Their Zealots were priviledged to execute any more notorious Offender without the Forms and Solemnities of Legal Process But their Examples are no warrantable Precedents for our Practice and our Author might as pertinently have prescribed to my imitation the Act of Elias for a blameless and a justifiable instance of Zeal as that of Phinehas And as for the Example of our blessed Saviour he pretends grievous Resentments for the Irreverence of my Expressions towards him such as hot fit of Zeal seeming Fury and transport of Passion though I know not how I could have expressed my self in more
abating Words for if it were but a seeming Transport that directly implies it was no real or criminal excess and this word seeming has such a soft and qualified signification that it evacuates the malignity of the hardest Expressions for it is properly of a Negative Import and serves onely to supplant and remove the Affirmation to which it is prefixt so that a seeming fury is in propriety of Speech no fury at all and therefore I cannot see how I could have described this Action in more tender and cautious words for I think a kind of Fury as Doctor Hammond phraseth it that is not wont to speak irreverently of his Saviour is not near so soft Language as seeming Fury But the true Reason why I used these Expressions was because our blessed Saviour did in that Action take upon him the Person and the Priviledge of the Jewish Zealots a sort of Men that profest to be transported by some extraordinary impulse beyond the ordinary Rules of Law and Decency and by consequence must be acted with a greater heat and vehemence of spirit and therefore when our Saviour imitated their way of proceeding it must needs carry in it a great appearance of their passionate and extatick Zeal And I think the reflection of the Disciples themselves upon this Fact has more seeming harshness in it then my Remark for upon this occasion they call to mind that passage in the Psalms The Zeal of thy House hath eaten me up or has fed and gnaw'd upon me and that is an angry and fretting thing But says our Author this Attempt could not be performed with a seeming transport of passion because it was a Miracle and done with the evidence of the Divine Presence upon him as if he could not exert an Act of Omnipotence with an appearance of passion when 't is inseparable from all Actions of Justice and Severity You see how upon all turns I am forced to invalidate weak and slender Cavils because they are urged for mighty and vehement Informations 't is their method to astonish the People with frightful words and every Objection must be pursued as high as Atheism and Blasphemy Their wide Mouths scorn to indict for petty Crimes and therefore they are resolved to charge every misprision and little miscarriage of High Treason But the main design of his Assault upon this passage is not so much to beat down my Fences as to let us see his deep Stores of Ammunition in Jewish Learning for some Men are mighty Rabbies at the second hand and can furnish great Volumes with a power of Hebrew as Brokers do their Shops with old Cloaths And I have read a famous Writer though he shall be nameless that abounds with Rabbinical Quotations all which if you would trace them are trivial in Modern Authors But though Men by such borrowed Gays may make the Vulgar gaze and admire them yet they do but expose their Ignorance and Vain-glory to the Learned World And what a flourish does our Author make here with his description of the Temple and its several Courts and Apartments though 't is known to every School-Boy that has read Godwin's Antiquities And therefore he might have supposed as I did the known difference between the inward Court of the Jews and the outward Court of the Gentiles as distinct from the Court of the Priests and Levites and not have lavish't away two whole Pages to describe them before he made his approach towards the purpose viz. To prove that it was not the Gentiles Court out of which our Saviour whipt the Buyers and Sellers as I affirm'd but the other that is proper and peculiar to the Jews And here what a gaudy shew of Learning might I make what Sholes of Hebrew Greek and Latin Quotations might I heap up in my own defence there being so great a multitude of late Writers that have collected Variety of Proofs out of the Ancients in defence of my Opinion But I shall rather chuse to leave this superannuated Pedantry to those who more affect it and perhaps more need it and shall content my self with the Reasons of one plain English Author more then in the bare Authority of twenty Latin ones and that is Mr. Mede in his first Book and second Discourse where the Reader may peruse an excellent Account of the Truth and Reasonableness of my Opinion I shall only transcribe two passages that are most material to my purpose the first to prove it could not be the Court of the Jews and the second that it must of necessity be that of the Gentiles 1. Those who were so chary that no uncircumcised or unclean Person should come into their place of Worship who trod the Pavement thereof with so much Religious Observance and Curiosity who would not suffer as Iosephus relates any other Building no not the Palace of Agrippa their King to have any prospect into it lest it should be polluted by a prophane Look how unlikely is it they would endure it to be made a place of Buying Selling and Bartering yea a Market for Sheep and Oxen as Iohn 2.14 it is expresly said to have been Neither will it serve the turn to excuse it by saying It was to furnish such as came thither with Offerings for the Sheep and Oxen whilst they were yet to be bought to that purpose were not sacred but prophane and so not to come within the sacred limits 2. The place alledged to avow the Fact speaks expresly of Gentile-Worshippers not in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 onely but in the whole Body of the Context Hear the Prophet speak Esay Chap. 56. Vers. 6 7. and then judge The sons of the stranger that joyn themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love the Name of the Lord to be his servants every one that keepeth the Sabboth from polluting it and taketh hold of my Covenant namely that I alone shall be his God even them will I bring to my holy Mountain and make them joyful in my house of Prayer their Burnt Offerings and Sacrifices accepted upon mine Altar Then follow the words of my Text For my house shall be called i. e. shall be it is an Hebraism a house of Prayer for all people What is this but a Description of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Gentile-Worshippers And this place alone makes good all that I have said before viz. That this Vindication was of the Gentiles Court otherwise the Allegation of this Scripture had been impertinent for the Gentiles of whom the Prophet speaks Worshipped in no place but this You see the prodigious trifling of this Man that runs after such wild and stragling Impertinencies to so little purpose One would have thought that when he insisted so severely on a matter so remote from my main Design he would have been secure of mighty Advantages on his own side and not have blunder'd so horribly in such far-fetcht Digressions § 10. His next great Assault and 't
the cursed Oaths Debaucheries Prophaneness various Immoralities and sottish Ignorance that are openly and notoriously among those whom we countenance and secure what havock might an ordinary Ingenuity make among the Conforming Clergy But he is merciful How does this Man both vanquish and oblige us by his Civility And though he proclaim us to the World a pack of Sots Dunces Drunkards Atheists yet he is resolved to spare our Reputation if this be his kindness when he forgives what would it be when he retaliates What enraged Malice could have struck with a more angry sting White 's Centuries and the Cobler of Glocester's Tales are civil and cleanly Stories if compared to the baseness and insolence of this Suggestion But suppose it carried with it as much Truth as it does Rancour yet it would be but an impertinent Calumny and no material Recrimination to our Charge We pry not into their Conversations nor set Spies upon their secret Practices nor do we upbraid them with any Wickedness from which they may be recovered by their own Convictions But the Follies we endeavour to expose are such as they esteem Gospel-Mysteries and the Vices we correct are such as they adopt among their choicest Vertues and by which they rate and value themselves If they can discover any such pestilent and destructive Impostures among us let them reprove them with the roughness of Satyrs and the severity of Zealots But as for these Miscarriages he pretends to load us withal they are such as no Man will justifie and if any be obnoxious to his Charge who will plead their Innocence And they stand condemned not onely in the Opinion of the World but their own Judgments too Whereas the onely things we lay to their Charge are such pretences whereby they not onely elude but satisfie their Consciences And we discover the sottishness of such Delusions not out of any design to expose their Persons to Contempt but barely to disabuse the deluded multitude 'T is not the personal Faults of W. B. the Friendly Debate aims at but those of his Schismatical Way and Spirit He has by his ridiculous abuse of the Holy Scriptures perverted the whole design of the Gospel and adulterated almost all the Articles of the Christian Religion And if so 't is great Charity in us to deliver the People from the danger of such pernicious Impostures whereas it can be nothing but Malice in them should they attempt to revenge themselves by personal Disgraces and Reflections § 12. But our Authors Apology is not yet at an end he proceeds Though Learned Men such as Plato and Cicero may argue candidly and perspicuously in Dialogues yet it cannot be denied that advantages may be taken from this way of Writing to represent both Persons Opinions and Practices invidiously and contemptuously above any other way so that by this means brave and worthy Personages may be rendred ridiculous as Socrates was by Aristophanes By which his Enemies gain'd the advantage of exposing him to publick Contempt and thereby prepared a way for the management of an open Accusation against him and his Charge was Nonconformity to the Establish't Superstition of the Church of Athens Did ever any Man make such wretched Apologies 'T is a sad symptom when such positive People are driven to such sceptical and doubtful Pretences and are still forced to take Sanctuary in a naked May-be Socrates was abused and so may any good Man what then what is this to the Friendly Debate and the Nonconformists Must they be acquitted because Socrates was not guilty Because some honest Men are maliciously traduced shall that discharge all others of just Accusations They may be justly charged by the Friendly Debate though the honest Philosopher was foully and durtily slander'd by Aristophanes Verily Sir this is no better to say no worse then popular Stuff and Shop-Logick But 't is his great Weapon of Defence and thus he tells us elsewhere St. Paul was accused of Canting as well as W. B. and the Nonconformists he was so and that very unjustly but what necessity is there that they should be as wise or as honest as that great Apostle There is no imaginable Connexion that I know of between his and their Actions to what purpose then is it to defend themselves with his Innocence St. Paul was able to account for the Truth and Reasonableness of that Doctrine which they call'd Canting If they are able to do as much for their Phrases let them do it and that will silence all our Clamours and Cavils and we will no more endeavour to shame them out of the Profession of the Gospel by crying out Canting Phrases Silly Non-sense Metaphors But otherwise we will pursue the Cry till we shame them out of their Folly and Confidence and assure your self we will not suffer them to obtrude their own affected Non-sense upon the People as the choicest and most important Mysteries of Religion But to return to the case of Socrates his Vertue is abundantly clear'd to all Posterity by his Apology and when they have given as satisfactory an Answer to the Friendly Debate as Socrates did to his Accusers they shall not be treated as Socrates was but till then they are nev'r the wiser for his Philosophy nor the better for his Innocence But however no Man will affirm that Aristophanes Dialogues were absurd and inartificial and yet they are sufficiently abusive and therefore in that way of Writing a witty Man may if he have no regard to Truth or Falshood make any thing look uncouth and any Person appear ridiculous If our Author had instanced in Ben Iohnson's Alchymist or his Bartholomew-Fair in stead of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aristophanes the People would have been able to discover the wide impertinency of this Exception though it is in my Opinion one of the most plausible Hits in his whole Book for they might then have known there is no Analogy between the Friendly Debate and those waggish Comedies he does not represent W. B. as the Poet did Ananias nor confute him in a Disputation with a silly Puppet as he did Brother Buisy He does not personate him with Antick Postures and Actions nor fasten upon him Roguish and unlucky Stories nor put into his Mouth ridiculous Words of his own unhappy Invention That way indeed a witty Man may expose the best and the wisest to publick scorn but then the Artificial Contrivance of such Dialogues consists not in any regard to Truth and Reason but in the unhappiness of the abuse Whereas the Genius of the Friendly Debate is as remote from this Comical Waggery as the Dialogues of Plato and Cicero that are sometimes facetious but never abusive and disingenuous The body of his Discourse is Rational and Argumentative and though it may be sometimes set off with pleasantness of Humour and picquancy of Wit yet he never seeks advantage by counterfeit Follies and Comical Abuses And if they can charge him with any thing
foul and thick a Cause the more they struggle the faster they stick and therefore they would be well advised not to dally too much with that Author for though I know him to be far from an angry or a Cynical Humour yet I am able to discern such an hatred and antipathy to Hypocrisie from the Genius of his Writings that if they will tempt him to unrip all their Folly and Knavery he is apt enough to discover such thick Blasphemies against Divine Providence and such unparallel'd Abuses of Religion in their most sumptuous Pretences and most plausible Practices as shall represent the Men of greatest Reputation amongst them for Wisdom and Learning in as ridiculous a Guise as T. W. and the Men of greatest Vogue for Conscience and Integrity under as seditious a Character as W. B. and no Man more obnoxious upon both accounts then I. O. And who can endure to see Men that are so horribly bemired bear up with so much State and Confidence § 14. But the great Nuissance of my Preface is some unkind and unhappy Reflections that I chanced I know not by what Mis-fortune to cast out upon their Gift of Prayer This is the dear Palladium of their Pulpits and they will as soon fling up the whole Cause as forego this Priviledge of Talking 'T is the Ephod and the Teraphim of the House of Micah and nothing shall ever wrest it from them but Fine Force and Invincible Resolution and therefore where this is endanger'd or invaded our Author you may be sure will lay about him with all the power of Words and vehemence of Zeal so that here I must struggle to purpose to carry off this Darling of the Cause In the first place then the Man is Wonder-strucken that I should design all along to charge my Adversaries with Pharisaism and yet should instance in their Confession of Sin when it is the Characteristical Note of the Pharisees that they made no Confession of Sin at all But to awaken him out of his amazement he may know that the Pharisaick Hypocrisie consists neither in long Prayers nor short Confessions no more then it does in long Robes or short Cloaks Spiritual Pride is its onely Essential Character and it is of no Concernment which way and in what Expressions it vents and discovers its self There is a creeping as well as a vaunting Arrogance and this Vice is never so confident as when it appears in the Garbs and Postures of Humility And thus when Men dissemble with the Almighty when they know that they belye themselves with false Accusations when they mourn for Sins of which they think they stand clear and innocent and pretend to be humbled for those Offences of which they are not seriously convinced Tell me a greater instance of Pride and Insolence in the World then this jugling and counterfeit Humility for what else can these Men think within but that they oblige and complement the Almighty by being content to be thought viler Wretches then they think themselves onely to advance the Interest of Gods Glory and set off the greatness of his Free Grace And what an obliging Favour is this when they will sacrifice their own Reputation to the Glory and Renown of his Attributes So that 't is apparently a coarser piece of vanity to confess those Sins of which we are not guilty then not to acknowledge those of which we are And that there is something of this Leven lurking at the bottom of all this Humiliation is notoriously evident for as much as howsoever humble and complemental they are in their Talk to God yet in their Conversation with Men the Scene immediately alters then they return to the old Pharisaick Vomit and then Publicans keep your distance and then they censure and despise their Neighbours as Carnal Gospellers and applaud themselves that they are not as the Men of the World Then we bless the Lord for humbling our proud Hearts and for emptying us of all our Self-righteousness thereby to bring us effectually to an experimental sense of the deep and more spiritual Mysteries of the Gospel to an heavenly taste and relish of the sweetness and preciousness of the Lord Jesus and of that Soul-ravishing delight wherewith his People are affected in their spiritual Closings with him and lastly to an inward feeling of the glorious Discoveries Manifestations and Comings in of his Spirit upon the Hearts of Believers in all his Ordinances This is the inward practical and experimental part of the Mystery of Godliness whereas your Formalists and meer Moral Professors make a great Noise about their dry Devotions and Self-wrought-out-Mortifications But alas poor deluded Wretches they never viewed the Ugliness of their Nature in the Glass of the Law they never lay under the Horrours of the Spirit of Bondage they never had a humbling sight and thorough sense of their Sins and were never perfectly emptied of their own Self-righteousness and though they can do good Actions yet they cannot deny them and make woful Complaints to Almighty God that all the Duties they perform though they know them to be agreeable to his Laws are wicked and abominable Ah! this Corrupt Nature is a proud Thing and hardly driven out of its Trust and Confidence in its own Righteousness nothing but an absolute and thorough Conviction of its own Self-emptiness Self-abhorrency and Self-despair can ever bring it to a full and absolute Close with the Lord Christ. This is the Block at which Millions of poor Souls stumble everlastingly and 't is the Lords distinguishing Mercy that has taken the Veil from off our Eyes and enabled us to see the danger of a Self-righteousness So that this Pageantry is the main ground of all their Spiritual Pride and Arrogance upon this they build the lofty Conceits of their own peculiar Godliness and their insolent Contempt of all others that have more Wit or less Vanity then to be as fond and phantastick as themselves and in the result of all this formal and counterfeit Humility is made the specifick difference between the People of God and the Men of the World But here his Pen takes occasion to flie out for 't is very unruly upon a Censure of mine against an Insolence of theirs for confining the Elect and the Godly to their own Party and esteeming of us as no better then the Wicked and the Reprobate of the Earth Wherein says he I am satisfied that he unduly chargeth those whom he intends to reflect upon However I am none of them I confine not Holiness to a Party not to the Church of England or to those that dissent from it This his Confidence dares affirm though 't is so notorious that never any Party of Men in the World no not the Jews did with greater assurance appropriate to themselves all the Titles and Characters of the People of God For what else mean their Accounts and Descriptions of the Power of Godliness by the Singularities of their own
Womb and again pass through all the scenes and workings of Conviction in which state of formation all new Converts must continue their appointed Time and when the days are accomplish'd they may then proceed to the next Operation of the Spirit i. e. to get a longing panting and breathing frame of soul upon which follows the proper season of Delivery and they may then break loose from the Enclosures of the spirit of Bondage and creep out from those dark Retirements wherein the Law detein'd them into the Light of the Gospel and the Liberty of the spirit of Adoption But of this perhaps our Author may understand more before he and I part in the mean time let us follow our present Chase and we shall have pleasant sport enough for never did wily Reynard shew greater variety of shifts windings and doublings than this subtle Disputant § 2. The Antichristian Errors of this Chapter he has reduced to four general heads the first whereof he confesseth to be a great and important Truth viz. that Moral Vertue consists in the observance of the Laws of Nature and the Dictates of Right Reason and therefore he only transcribes my Proof and Account of the Reasonableness of the Assertion and repeats it again in his own obscure Words and flat Expressions and so immediately proceeds to the second viz That the substance yea the whole of Religion consists in moral vertues and to prove it he repeats that short Scheme that I have drawn up of the most material parts and branches of Religion and in answer to it he first talks and then objects He wishes I would give him a summary of the Credenda of my Religion as I have done of its Agenda And so I will when I shall think my self obliged to write impertinently for his humour but should I be so civil as to gratifie him in this Request though perhaps the positive Articles of my Belief are not altogether so numerous as his Systematick Orthodoxes nor my Creed so bulky as his gross Bodies of Dutch-divinity Yet I could give him in such a large Negative Confession of Faith as would both satisfie and make him repent his Curiosity In the next place he tells us the ten Commandments would have done twice as well on this occasion But 't is no disparagement to my Account of Religion if it be but half as good as the ten Commandments though I am apt to believe the Decalogue was never intended for a perfect Systeme of the Moral Law I cannot imagine that by thou shalt not make to thy self any Graven Image is meant thou shalt not institute Symbolical Ceremonies or that by Thou shalt not murther Alms and fraternal Correption are enjoyned nor can I fancy that when only one Particular is express'd twenty more are intended that may any way be reduced to it by strein'd and far-fetch'd Analogies But if we add the Explication of the Church-Catechism for which our Author has no doubt a mighty fondness it would make up a much more perfect Scheme of Religion than what I have represented I confess 't is contrived with a great deal of wisdom and judgment and its Exposition is easie natural and useful and not made out by forced and uncertain Deductions and therefore has admirably attain'd the End it aimed at which is chiefly a plain and intelligible Account of the main scope and intent of the Decalogue and not an intire Institution of Christian Theology But upon this he takes a civil and seasonable occasion to remark that he fears the very Catechism it self may ere long be esteemed Phanatical though if it should meet with such ill Usage it would not be much worse treated than it was ere long when it was esteemed Popish However his Fears are of no more force than his Arguments they are equally wise and reasonable and prove nothing but his Ill-nature or something worse And now to all this he subjoyns a tedious story of a foolish and half-witted fellow that from this Opinion that all Religion consists in Morality proceeded to a full Renunciation of the Gospel If either the man himself had made good this Consequence or our Author for him this tale might have been of more use than all his Arguments that is it might have been to the purpose but otherwise 't is as meer Tittle-tattle as when he tells us the Papists make use of our Pleas for Government in behalf of their Tyranny and Usurpation I can no more prevent some men from streining absurd Conclusions from the wisest and most Reasonable Premisses than I can hinder others from preaching Treason or Blasphemy from the divine Oracles But all this is no more than Skirmish the main Battel follows and he draws up all his Forces in three Objections i. e. in repeating the same Objection three times 1. My Representation of Religion is suited to the state of Innocence 2. It carries in it neither supposition nor assertion of sin 3. It omits some of the most important duties of the Christian Religion Repentance Humiliation Godly sorrow c. Whereas its being suited to the state of Innocence it s not implying a supposition of sin and its omitting the duty of Repentance is apparently one and the same thing For 't is nothing but meerly a supposition of sin that makes our present Condition differ from the state of Innocence and that infers the necessity of Repentance and therefore in answer to this great Objection in its united strength I humbly crave leave to remonstrate that Religion for the substance and main design of it which is the only thing I designed to represent is the same now as it was in the state of Innocence For as then the whole duty of man consisted in the Practice of all those moral Vertues that arose from his natural Relation to God and man so all that is super-induced upon us since the Fall is nothing but helps and contrivances to supply our natural defects and recover our decayed Powers and restore us to a better ability to discharge those duties we stand engaged to by the Law of our Nature and the design of our Creation So that the Christian Institution is not for the substance of it any new Religion but only a more perfect digest of the Eternal Rules of Nature and Right Reason For it commands nothing but what is some way suitable to and perfective of Rational Beings and all its duties are either Instances or Instruments of moral Goodness it prescribes no new rules and proportions of Morality and all its additions to the Eternal and Unchangeable Laws of Nature are but only means and Instruments to discover their Obligation and improve their Practice in the World All men I think are agreed that the real end of Religion is the Happiness and Perfection of Mankind and this end is obtain'd by living up to the Dictates of Reason and according to the Laws of Nature which the Gospel has framed into
School-boy What are these things so indeed Come come young man these are not things to be trifled with you may vent your Wit upon other Occasions and not make sport with sacred and serious Truths tell me then are you in good earnest Do you think or believe that there are not now any real gracious Operations of the Spirit of God upon the hearts and minds of men in the World or do you not If you do Sirrah 't is the most pernicious Heresie that ever infested the Church of God If you do not speak plainly and clear your self of those Tales that are told abroad of you and some of your Truantly Companions that you may not have occasion to complain that you are mis-represented Indeed Sir I have nothing to plead in my own defence but openly to declare that as I never believed so did I never affirm that the assistance of the Spirit was confined to the first Ages of the Church I have expresly taught the contrary and our Author is able and I thank him for it not unwilling to bear witness that 't is a flat Contradiction to some of my other Assertions And the only ground of so big an Information is his impertinent way of forcing deductions for thus he infers If this be the only Reason why any thing in Believers is called Grace why Vertues are Graces namely because God was pleased in the first Ages of Christianity miraculously to inspire its Converts with all sorts of Vertue then there is no Communication of grace unto any no work of Grace in and upon any in an ordinary way through the Ministry of the Gospel in these latter Ages If this man can argue thus and not blush he is a match for the boldest man living his Confidence is impregnable and though 't is possible he may want a good Conscience yet he can never want a Brazen-wall You know Sir my plain design was to represent that Grace and Vertue were the same thing In order to which I gave a short Account how Vertues came to be stiled Graces viz. Because in the first Ages of Christianity they were in a visible and miraculous manner derived purely from Gods free grace and goodness And now is it not brave concluding from hence that because the Original Reason of the Peculiarity of the name is not now in being that therefore the thing it self is perish't out of the World too and because the Remarkableness of those miraculous Influences of Heaven upon the first Believers that was the only ground that gave occasion to this new stile is ceased that therefore the ordinary Influences of the Spirit are not continued to Believers in all Ages and Periods of the Church They were then called Graces or Free-gifts because they were the effects of meer favour whereas now they are the joynt issues of our own Industry and the Spirit of God co-operating with our honest endeavours and therefore they cannot now with so much Propriety of speech be stiled Graces because they are not matters of pure Infusion though they may be allowed the Title still in some Proportion because they are still in some Proportion produced by the special Energy and Co-operation of the Holy Ghost In the same manner as those Abilities bestowed upon the Apostles without the concurrence of their own Industry were called Gifts though now they might be more properly express'd by other Names notwithstanding that we owe them to the blessing of God upon our studies and endeavours And what was then the gift of Tongues is now vulgarly called skill in Languages and what was then the gift of Vtterance is now the Art of Eloquence and Rhetorique For in our days men preach not from pure Infusion but either from study or from boldness And I. O. overlashes according to his custom when he tells the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England c. that when he came to print his Sermon sundry Passages in it were gone beyond his Recovery having had their Rise from the present Assistance which God was pleased to afford in the management of the Work it self This is to fasten his own raw Effusions upon the wisdom of the Spirit of God and to stamp a divine Authority upon the Extravagances of his own roving fancy 'T is another horrible Effect of their spiritual pride and arises from a vain Opinion of their great intimacy and familiarity with God himself But if you look into the Sermon you will scarce find any thing of immediate and infallible inspiration but some things false and many ridiculous And I dare say God never put it into his mind to tell the Parliament that it was a great hindrance to the advancement and progress of the Gospel in Wales because they were still zealous of the Traditions of their Fathers By which he means their kind entertainment to the Episcopal Clergy whom he immediately adorns with the honourable Title of Beggarly Readers But such was the prodigious Impudence of these men that when they vented any thing of a more bold and daring Nature they always vouched a strong and unaccountable impulse of the Spirit of God upon their minds and when ever they attempted any blacker and more enormous Villany it was God that put it into their hearts all their greater wickednesses were the peculiar Issues of his Spirit when ever they had a mind to any new villanous undertaking it was but seeking the Lord in Prayer and then if they found themselves somewhat strongly inclined to pursue their own designs that was a sufficient discovery of his will and pleasure to his secret ones Never was the Spirit of God more boldly or more familiarly blasphemed than by these precious Wretches and though they have at present no such lewd practices to fasten on it yet nothing more vulgar with them at this time than to ascribe their Follies to its special direction give them the best advice in any affair that your prudence can suggest and they will do as the Lord shall direct them Nay this is their Reply to the Commands and the Counsels of their Superiours and they will give obedience to their Laws as shall seem good to themselves and to the Holy Ghost Nothing more concerns Magistrates than to chastise such shameless and incorrigible Enthusiasts as the boldest and most dangerous Enemies to the Publick Peace they cancel all the Laws of Government and there is no disturbance or Rebellion that they may not justifie by the warrant and pursue under the protection of the Spirit of God Whether this be intemperate language I know not but if it be 't is excess of truth that makes it so But to return though the names of things that were proper in the Apostolical Age are not so proper now that is not so much as the Ghost of an Argument for the Cessation of the things themselves because the Reason of the name was not taken from the Nature of the things but was
a passable proof and so satisfactory that our Author has nothing to except against it but by pretending its inconsistency with some other parts of my Discourse but for the present that is no Objection against the positive truth and direct reason of the Argument it self and in short 't is this All Rituals and Ceremonies and Postures and Manners of performing the outward Expressions of Devotion are not from their own nature capable of being parts of Religion and therefore unless we used and imposed them as such 't is lamentably precarious to charge their Determination with Will-Worship because that consists in making those things parts of Religion that God has not made so so that when the Church expresly declares against this use of them and professeth to injoin them only as meer circumstances of Religious VVorship 't is apparent that it cannot by imposing them make any Additions to the VVorship of God but only provides that what God has required be performed in a decent and orderly manner And this is the real difference between the Christian and Mosaick Ceremonies in that theirs were made lasting and necessary parts of their Religion by being establish't with the same impress of Divine Authority as the Duties of the Moral Law whereas ours are not any integral parts of Divine VVorship but purely accidental and alterable circumstances of Religious Services and so are not of the same standing Necessity and Obligation as were the Mosaick Rites but as they were first established by our Superiours according to the common Rules of decency and discretion so may they be reversed by the same Authority In a word they are of the same Nature and Obligation with all other matters of humane Laws that are only disposed of by the publick Wisdom as it shall by the common notices of things judge them most convenient to publick Ends. § 4. And now upon this Bottom we might fairly wind up this Controversie for I am secure this ever has been and ever will be its real Issue But our Author cries no no. For if this Principle should fail us there are yet other general Maxims which Non-conformists adhere unto and suppose not justly questionable which they can firmly stand and build upon in the management of their Plea as to all differences between me and them i. e. He is a resolved and incorrigible Schismatick and the plain design of these words is only to encourage the People to stand firm to their Principles what though we may be stormed out of our old Elsibeth-pretensions let us not immediately resign up our Colours and march out of our Cause we have when all is lost unknown retreats and fastnesses as all Banditi and Moss-Troopers have to secure our selves from perfect discovery and destruction This man is a Demetrius a Ring-leader in sedition and therefore it more peculiarly concerns him to bestir himself and keep the Mutineers together and raise and animate their fainting spirits against discouragements and despondencies The People may murmur among themselves Is this poor Pretence the only ground of all our Schisms and Disturbances Have our Leaders no greater grievance against the publick Laws than this lank and pitiful Story which themselves it seems dare not own without mincing and disguising it with their own shuffling and to us unintelligible Reservations Is this all the Popery and Idolatry of the Church of England against which they are still inveighing with so much Zeal and Bitterness at the Meetings Must all this noise and stir be made and the King and Parliament thus disturbed for this Neighbours let us be advised and not create all this needless trouble to our selves and others only to countenance their Pride and Peevishness The plain troth is their Zeal was so flush'd with success in the late Tumults as transported them to too much Outrage and Cruelty against the Church and now because forsooth they are ashamed to acknowledge their fault and folly for what disgrace so grievous to proud and self-opinionated men as to confess an Error we fools as we are must be inveigled and drawn in to bear out their Extravagances Come come this is the true Mystery of Separation For you may see they themselves whatever they pretend are not so fond as seriously to believe the Publick Worship Popish and Idolatrous Do we not know that the Chiefs of the Presbyterians came constantly to Church and to Common Prayer till of late and those that are more modest and peaceable do so still which 't is apparent they could never have done had they really deem'd it Idolatry How then shall we justifie our selves in running thus giddily into these wild and unwarrantable Schisms Does not common sense tell us though perhaps we understand nor their School subtilties that 't is a base and unworthy thing thus insolently to affront the Kings Laws when we may avoid it without breaking Gods And therefore seeing whatever Reasons they may have for their own Non-conformity we are satisfied by their own example they have none big enough to warrant our Separation Let us then resolve with one Consent to be peaceable and ingenuous and return every man to his own home and his own Parish-Church But bear back this great Chieftain appears for he is still upon all Occasions the most bold and forward Oratour to hearten his back-sliding Brethren against Doubts and Despondencies witness Ianuary 31. in the year 48. when those wretched Miscreants wanted some spiritual Comfort and Cordial against the horrour of their Yesterdays villany And thus he appears in this present streight and thus you may suppose him after Preface of solemn wink to bespeak the mutinous Churches My Friends do you consider what you attempt Do you know what dreadful and horrible things are still behind Alas False Worship Superstition Tyranny and Cruelty lye at the Bottom and when these have possessed the Governours of a Nation and wrapt in the consent of the greatest Part of the People who have been acquainted with the mind of God that People and Nation assure your selves without unpresidented Mercy is obnoxious to remediless Ruine If you think Babylon is confined to Rome and its open Idolatry you know nothing of Babylon or the new Ierusalem no no their darling Errors are stones of the old Babel closing and coupling with that tremendous Fabrick which the man of sin has erected to dethrone Jesus Christ. You may venture to taste if you please but remember who forewarned you there is death in the Episcopal Pot. But as for your own Parts let all the World know and let the House of England know this day that you lie unthankfully under as full a dispensation of mercy and grace as ever Nation in the World enjoyed well you will one day know what it is to undervalue the glorious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ i. e. the seditious Preachings of I.O. Good Lord What would helpless Macedonians give for one of your Enjoyments O that Wales O that Ireland O
treacherous Spirit or the malignant sin of Loyalty By Providence were Gods People call'd to sing their Songs upon Sigionoth for the interchangeable Dispensations of the imprisonment and delivery of the Committee By Providence were the hands of the Cavaliers that had itching fingers and an hankering mind after the inheritance of Gods people knockt off an hundred times and sent away with bloody fingers By Providence did the Parliament-Army trace out their way from Kent to Essex and from Wales to the North. By Providence were the zealous Parishioners of Coggeshal stirred up to make an Opposition to the Enemy gathering at Chelmsford By Providence was there a perverse Spirit of folly and errour mixed in all their Counsels By Providence were they drawn into a Party to force the People of God that were before faln together by the ears to piece together against the common Enemy By Providence was Peter deliver'd out of Prison the three Children out of the fiery Furnace Daniel out of the Lyons Den and the Essex-Committee from the Jaws of the starv'd Cavaliers By Providence was the great Dispensation of the 30. of Ian. 1648. carried on in order to the unravelling of the whole Web of iniquity interwoven of Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny in Opposition to the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus By Providence did Moses deliver Israel from their Egyptian Bondage and by Providence did the Rump deliver England from Tyrannous Pride and Oppression By Providence were the People of this Nation given up to fight against their Deliverers by that Opposition to make its workings more clear and conspicuous By Providence was it that in the year 1649. there was not a Potentate upon the Earth that had a peaceable Mole-hill to build himself an habitation upon and that there were so many Controversies disputing in Letters of Blood among the Nations and that for the Interest of the many By Providence were the Church-Stars the Bishops that were meerly fixed to all mens view and by their own Confession in the Political Heavens utterly shaken to the Ground By Providence was Cromwel forced to make such havock in Ireland because the Lord had sworn to have war with such Amalekites and to avenge his People from generation to generation By Providence and Cromwels choice was I. O. call'd forth to attend his Excellency in his Scottish Expedition that he might be instructed by him in the Art of discovering Gods deep and hidden Dispensations toward his secret ones By Providence the mercy whereof was composed of as many Branches of Wisdom Power Goodness and Faithfulness as any outward Dispensation has brought forth since the name of Christian was known did the Rump by the defeat of his Majesty at Worcester continue to sit in Council and the Residue of the Nation in peace By Providence a mighty Monarchy a triumphing Prelacy a thriving Conformity were all brought down to recover the People of the Lord Christ from Antichristian Idolatry and Oppression By Providence was Ireton that rare Example of Righteousness Faith Holiness Zeal Courage and Self-denial disposed to close with the mind of God with full purpose of heart to serve the will of the Lord in his Generation so that he staggered not at the greatest difficulties through Unbelief but being stedfast in Faith he gave glory to God and Davidically prepared the way of the Lord in paths of Bloud The time would fail me to speak of Isaac and Ioseph Gideon Noah Daniel and Iob do but consider the Providential Circumstances of all Transactions in our late Rebellion and that will discover where dwells that spirit which actuated all the great Alterations that hapned in these Nations For believe him such things have been brought to pass as have filled the World with Amazement and well they might A Monarchy of some hundred Years continuance always affecting and at length wholly degenerated into Tyranny destroyed pulled down swallowed up a great and mighty Potentate that had caused Terrour in the Land of the living and laid his Sword under his head brought to punishment for Bloud Hypocrites and selfish men abundantly discover'd wise men made fools and the strong as water A Nation that of Scotland engaging for and against the same cause backward and forward twice or thrice always seeking where to find their own gain and interest in it at length totally broken in opposition to that cause wherewith at first they closed Multitudes of Professours one year praying fasting mightily rejoycing upon the least success bearing it out as a sign of the Presence of God another year whilst the same work is carried on cursing repining slighting the marvelous appearance of God in Answer unto Prayers and most solemn Appeals being very angry at the deliverances of Sion On the other side all the mighty successes that God hath followed poor despised ones withal being with them as with those in days of old Who through faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the Sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in fight turnned to flight the Armies of the Aliens He I say that shall consider all this may well enquire after that Principle which being regularly carried on yet meeting with the Corruption and Lusts of men should so wheel them about and work so many mighty Alterations Now what is this but the most effectual design of the Lord to carry on the Interest of Christ and the Gospel whatever stands in the way This bears down all before it wraps up some in bloud some in hardness and is most eminently straight and holy in all these Transactions Isa. 14.32 What shall one then answer the Messengers of the Nation That the Lord hath founded Sion and the poor◠of his People shall trust in it § 5. Thus you see how Providence and O. Cromwel still headed the Independent Faction though perhaps you may wonder how it could continue faithful so long to such a bloudy and accursed Interest But alas for that you must know it neither had Power at first to refuse the Cause nor being once engaged to retreat for by the power of Faith they can at their pleasure press it to the Service and by the strength of Imagination they can bind the Thoughts of the Almighty and engage all his Attributes to joyn in with their designs and in their way of arguing they never want for Inducements to draw in Providence and the Rabble to their Assistance and that chiefly among many other by these four Topicks 1. By applying old Prophesies to present Transactions it concerns not to what particular Affair they might relate if they can be streined by Faith or Fancy to suit any present Exigence the honour of Providence lies at stake not to suffer such choice Believers to stick in the mire and therefore God is bound to protect and deliver them