A Particular ANSVVER TO A BOOK INTITuLED THE CLERGY IN THEIR COLOURS Contra rationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturas nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus senserit Aug. lib. de Trin. c. 6. Septemb. the 18th 1651. Imprimatur John Downam LONDON Printed by A. Miller for William Leigh at the Turks-head in Fleetstreet MDCLI TO THE LOVER OF THE CLERGY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr JOHN DAVY OF Taunton Magdalen Perseverance Dear Uncle I Have sent you in these Papers a salve such as by Gods blessing on your cost and direction I was able to compose for that wound which an undeserved enemy hath made on the reputation of the Clergy a wound too deep for me to search too great to cure but having found one instrument that caused it where I now reside I have endeavoured to apply my medicine thereto hoping that as is believed of the Unguentum armarium it may transmit some sanative vertue to th' affected subject Howsoever I shall hereby manifest my respect unto the suffering Parties and in some measure have performed the duty of Your most observant Nephew and ever gratefull Servant J. D. Sir I Have cursorily viewed this Book and think it seasonable for these times in which the Function of the Ministry is so much opposed Yours EDW. LEIGH TO THE AUTHOUR OF THE BOOK INTITULED The Clergie in their Colours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir IF you are indeed a Member of the Parliament of England and not rather a malicious Jesuite slily endeavouring the increase of our divisions which I see cause to suspect Give me leave as a free-born English-man to declare my thoughts concerning your Boook intituled The Clergie in their Colours Which you begin with a profession of your dislike of sheltring your self under any mans wings and no wonder for whose Patronage need you desire who call your self a Patriot of your Country I have as little propensity thereto as your self and yet I might justly be thought immodest and uncharitable too if I should impute all Dedication of Works to distrust of Workmanship which you there insinuate The greatness of a mans confidence adds nothing in facto to the goodness of his actions No doubt but you may see Epistles Dedicatory prefixed to many excellent Monuments of Learning and piety Though the Art need no Patron yet the Artist may as for example You being a Member of Parliament for so that I may not speak to no body I must suppose you to be your very name is sufficient to commend to the world that which you have written But should such an obscure person as I am set forth endeavours no less deserving yet could I not expect a like acceptation Plurima sunt quae Non homines audent pertusa dicere lana In the same Page you tell us that you decline the courting your Reader with a flattering Epistle for his approbation it being irrational and ridiculous c. You do well in declining flattery but Epistles to the Reader are for many works necessary and as ridiculous as you suppose them to your present purpose you have no less in effect in this very Apology for what is it other then a Preparative to your ensuing Discourse and an excuse for not Epistolizing is the very substance of many Epistles So your second Section I am perswaded that many will look wishly upon me for this work c. And your third 'T is probable that many will think me pragmatical c. have not indeed the form but contain the matter of Epistles Which I take not notice of as any great eye-sore in it self but as from you who criticize most severely of any man whose writings are at this time in my memory In that last mentioned Sect you speak of a kinde of Learning Idolized in England by which you mean skill in the holy Languages as is afterwards intimated p. 3. l. 13. And how I pray you is that Idolized with us An Idol properly is either that which men worship for a God against the first precept of the Decalogue or which they superstitiously use in the worship of God against the second And of these the Apostle saith An Idol is nothing in the world 1 Cor. 8.4 alluding as I suppose to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inanitates 1 Sam. 12.21 there translated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as also Isa 41.29 in regard they frustrate the expectation of their confiders there being no such divine power present with the Idol as against the first Commandment is supposed no any such acceptation of their exhibition in the service of the true God as is imagined by the violaters of the second Now can you call the gift of tongues lying vanities which the Apostles reckons among the gifts of the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.10 which whether inspired by the holy Ghost immediatly or acquired by Gods blessing on mens industry have the same use in order to their end viz. the making known the minde of God and how that should be made known so far as blessed be God we understand it without the holy Scriptures or they to us English-men without the use of tongues do but tell me and take my Buckler Or if you would have only their continuance superfluous the Scripture being already in our Vulgar Language you will either discover your ignorance of their multifarious use in Exposition or foul ingratitude for the benefit you have received from them Or if you mean Idolatry improperly spoken for your word Idolize implies action and so a culpability rather in the subject then the object you then complain of their abuse only and so you may as well complain of the best things that are for what is so good as may not be abused And you might with as little absurdity have prohibited us the quotation of holy Scriptures in defence of true Religion because reprobates wrest them to their own destruction And now give me leave to expostulate with you a little in the words of the Apostle Rom. 2.22 Thou that abhorrest Idols doest not thou commit sacriledge The calling of the Ministry you plainly despise and if the persons in especial manner dedicated to God do not escape you it is not to be hoped that you will acknowledge any so much as relative holiness in Places and Things And if that be your judgement I beseech you tell me how there can be any sacriledge or how that sin which Paul there argues to be so bad as Idolatry can at all be committed But this by the way In the third Page for you Sections are not distinguisht by figures you assert that It hath pleased God in all ages to confound the wise and mighty by poor and despicable instruments in the eyes of the world And you call our Saviour Christ his Apostles and Martyrs to witness what no good Christian will deny But what is this to your purpose Will it hence follow that Learning is useless in the Church of God Because God sometimes works without means must
that you ought to revile them whom God commands you to honour You say by the stirrings within you But what if the spirit within you lusteth to envy we are commanded to try the spirits whether they be of God or no 1 Joh. 4.1 Now if your word be consonant to the voice of Gods spirit in the holy Scriptures God forbid but that I should lay my hand upon my mouth but your drift is to undo the Clergy which consequently must deprive us of the means of salvation which God by the men of that calling holds forth to us and that upon no other ground then some of your own carps and crotchets and contradictions which you would have fastned to their discourses but were fain to let them fall rather then have them no where upon the sacred Scriptures Set all the faults you have reckoned upon the tenters to make them odious and stretch them n longer then they will hold to be theirs and they will be found but a few personall infirmities such as we cannot have men without and such as any but a Malignant Ham would rather cover then blazon abroad You complain indeed of formality in religion p. 44. and abuse of Ordinances p. 46. but how you knit these into the net you make to catch Clarks in I see not Irregularity in singing Psalms hath the greatest cause of complaint that I finde in your Book and that 's farre from being a property of the Clergy for it agrees neither omni soli nor semper as is shewn before The Word of God in St Pauls time was preached by some out of envy by some out of vain-glory by some out of covetousnesse yet herein the Apostle rejoyced that it was at all preached Phil. 1.18 and if you had the same Spirit with Saint Paul you would not shew your self of a contrary mide Sir as you love your soul take heed of trusting to your inward stirrings You may be sure the subtle Tempter will not ordinarily suggest to a religious man a temptation to open prophanenesse because it is not like to finde acceptance but he will put into such a mans head good thoughts sometimes to keep out better he will strive to encrease his hatred of meritorious conceits thereby to insinuate into him neglect of duty and possesse him with grand detestation of formality in Religion in hope thereby to beget in him a disesteem of Ordinances Be not rashly confident of such motions knowing that the devill in form of an Angel of light may easily through the treachery of our deceitfull hearts insnare us I desire to presse this consideration the more earnestly because the main of your discourse consists in accusation a practice from which the very devil takes his denomination as if it were the worst quality he hath or his very profession for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as we have the word used Luk. 16.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he was accused I say again be not deceived the devill brought a colourable accusation against Job and there is little more in all that satyrical invective of your as you apply it to the Clergy In p. 48. You would not have people hearken to them in matters of State If you had said no more I should have had nothing to say against you why did you not take that for your theam and yet seeing you speak so much of the Clergies interest I may take notice of yours in this particular for had not Ministers medled in matters of State when time was you had scarce had any State-matters to meddle with now But how shall cases of conscience depending on matters of State be resolved suppose which no doubt hath been somewhere done a Minister be enquired of concerning the lawfullnesse of taking the late Engagement if he do his office he fals under your censure for medling in a State matter if he refuse he is condemned for a Malignant so that a Clergy-man considing or diffiding cannot be innocent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But they stir up people against the Parliament you say which if they do I hope the Parliament hath better arms then your pen to defend it But what makes you so hot in the businesse you who if you be out deserve not to come in and if you be in deserve to be outed doubtlesse the worst spoak in the wheel cracks first Though you worship no Images you may be a Worshipper of imaginations and adore the spurious brats of your own brain begotten in spirituall fornication and then the two-edged sword in the mouth of the Clergy must needs terrifie you being to divide between you and your errors It may be there would be no cause of complaining of their being against the Parliament if you were out of it Hatred against powerfull Preachers of the Word hath ever been a symptome of an unsound heart and if your inside were turned outward I doubt we might there reade somewhat like the words of angry Agamemnon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or that of Ahab concerning Micaiah I hate him because he never prophesieth good to me but evill Ministers being for no other cause your enemies but because they tell you the truth Such were the complaints that the rebellious Jews made against Jeremy he fell away to the Chaldeans he weakened the hands of the men of warre he sought not the prosperity but the hurt of the people no lesse then High Treason in every Article So they by the Apostles in the Acts These are the men that have turned all the world upside down The very foundations are out of frame but what hath the righteous done they stir up people against the Parliament What the Clergy the whole Clergy and quatenus Clergy so that their very calling is opposite to the power and priviledge of Parliament then lay all their faults upon me if that can be proved and Vnum pro multis dabitur caput Then to prove what I know not who denies you produce a place of Scripture viz. Rom. 13.1 2. Let every soul be subject c. Which because it is positively and directly whereas the rest of your discourse as your self confesse is negative and your texts of Scripture but obliquely introduced I will see how these words as a proof will stand with your prohibition of humane learning Suppose any conspiring servant make this plea for himself I am under command and must obey that power to which I am subject for all power is of God And by like proportion may every underling thus defend his guilt in any rebellion unlesse you tell him that by power is meant lawfull authority and not every force But while 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be translated power as well as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how can you be able without Greek to confute the Defendant So if it
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Exercisers of jurisdiction in other mens Dioceses 1 Pet. 4.15 What if other men be as good Scholars is it nothing but scholarship that makes a Minister I cannot think but that other Jews might be as handsome Butchers and Cooks as the Levites who yet might not be allowed to kill and dresse their own sacrifices 'T is true Christ though he called Levi call'd no Levite that he might abolish the former manner of worship yet he chose some to wait on this Ministry as they did on that and of them distinct orders as twelve Apostles and seventy two Disciples and after his Ascension others by mediation of the Apostles who are also said to be ordained by the holy Ghost Act. 20.28 either because the Apostles were by the holy Ghost directed to that Ordination of Ministers where they had planted Churches or because the gifts of the Spirit inabling for that Office were in their laying on of hands conferred or it may be for both But that Christ appointed these orders in his Church we may see Ephes 4.11 c. And he would not have directed his Epistles by St John in the second and third Chapters of the Revelation to the Angels that is the Ministers of the seven Churches if he had not approved of that Office And that it is with diligence to be proceeded in the word is plain He that hath an office let him wait on his office he that teacheth on teaching he that exhorteth on exhortation Do but make the cause your own by supposing if it could be proved that another man can husband your estate better then your self must he deprive you of your propriety If another man be found more worthy to serve the state then your self must he take from you that place to which you say you were chosen In p. 42. you have yet another fling at them and that is for waving questions when they cannot resolve them And this also if it be true is but a personall infirmity and no whit impugneth the Office of the Ministry Tishbi solvet nodos had not been a Proverb among the Jews if they had not in some questions of Religion been still unresolved But if because one Lawyer could not resolve me in one Law-case I should call the Law an imposture and the Lawyers Juglers would you not think me more fit for Bedlam then for any civil society and yet this were orthodox in your divinity Concerning the opposition you would make between faith and reason because you both use and require your Respondent to use all possible brevity I refer you for satisfaction to a little Book lately set forth and intituled The reasonablenesse of Christian Religion And what you say of the man of Macedonia meaning a better living and of the abuse of Funeral Sermons p. 44. is also to be reckoned among personall offences which no man doth as a Minister but as a sinner it being common to all men in some kinde or other to transgress In p. 44. you have While they are under such dispensations they are in a Labyrinth of trouble one while having rest in their spirits another while distraction judging of the love and anger of God toward them according to their actings as if God were as inconstant as they You would not be thought an Antiscripturist p. 51. You would not be thought to take men off from duty p. 56. and yet you condemn that dispensation men are under who are inconstant in their feelings Now whether are you in state of Grace or Glory this I hope you will not say and the other will confute your opinion I know Grace to be Glory inchoate and Glory to be Grace consummate But by state of Grace we understand that condition to Godward a man is in after his conversion so long as corruption is inmate with grace and like the Canaanites to the Israelites will dwell with him for sin doth remain though it do not reign in the Regenerate and grace is given to sustain the soul against corruption and temptation the filth continueth though the guilt be removed and the guilt though wholly in foro divino yet not so in foro conscientiae if wheresoever there be faith there is also infidelity Faith is therefore call'd a shield because it defendeth against despair Now no man can say his charity is perfect or his patience undisturbed and yet must we beleeve any mans faith to be insuperable in evidence as well as adherence in reflect as well as direct action God give me faith so long as I have doubt and when I shall have no longer doubt I shall have no need of faith But They judge of Gods love or anger c. There is not any knowing Christian that thinks love or anger to be in God quoad affectum because it would argue mutability which Scripture and reason teach us cannot be in him But quoad effectum we ought to judge for the most faithfull servants of God upon their uneven walking I mean their not sticking so close to the rules of obedience as sometimes they do and even when they do not are inabled to do observe not only outward calamities but inward desertions ingruing And whether God be displeased or no surely every true childe of God will finde cause to be displeased with himself for his own disobedience And if any man that hat Gods Word for his guide live under any higher dispensation I acknowledge my self to be experimentally ignorant of that condition And what is your conceit of this You write only negatively and so keep your self in a cloud still But when you have sublimed your conceptions of God and extracted from them the purest quintessence yet still you have of him no adequate but an analogical conception only God dwelleth in light inaccessible we can but per transennas videre while we dwell in houses of clay and cannot see him as he is while we have about us the body of sin Nor afterward neither can God be apprehended more then ad modum apprehendentis As therefore our Saviour said in the Gospel Why trouble you the woman for shee hath wrought a good work upon me so Why disturb you the Church of God putting people out of their good way and obscuring the light by which they walk sith you cannot hold them out a better it is a greater light must overcome the lesse and when the Sun of Righteousnesse shall arise the Moon and Starres may fail but neither the Glow-worms of earthly preferment nor the ignis lambens of flattering speeches nor the ignis fatuus of fantastick opinions ought to seduce us no nor the blazing comets of pretended revelations attract our confidence An approver of which dotages you seem to be p. 47. where you have these words I am much satisfied in my spirit having done that which I was convinced was my duty by the stirrings within me to this thing for at least a year past But how came you to be convinced
railing Rabshakeh then a scoffing Michol Virulencie of speech many times whets the spirits of Gods people and makes their zeal more fervent but scoffing hath commonly as it were an inchanting power of benumming the affections as experience teacheth us And therefore not unlikely it is that the Apostle Heb. 11.36 ranks mocking with scourging and if we compare Gen. 21.9 with Gal. 4.29 we shall finde mocking called persecution You spake but a little before of your being carried out by the spirit of the Lord and now I pray you Sir consider whether these words be congruous to the spirit of God or no yea whatsoever you may think of them to common sense for what means The sign in Aries I had thought Aries had been a Sign what was the sign in the sign Truly Sir if you did it ignorantly you were more bold then wise if wilfully I know no ground for your confidence unless as the Pope said he would pronounce Cathedra in contemptum Grammaticorum so you calling your self a Parliament man think you may speak non-sense by authority 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O Thales Thales quoth an old Wife how thinkest thou to comprehend the things in heaven and canst not see what is before thy feet when he going a Star-gazing fell into a pit So how do you think to perswade us that you are wiser then all the Learned of past and present ages while we finde you stumbling in the very A.B.C. of an Almanack Or if your wisdom be only spiritual and not carnal why do you thus miscere sacra profanis and having begun in the spirit proceed in the flesh What cause you have to accuse Mr Cheynel of madness I know not for I never heard of the man but by your relation but never till now did I know any man well in his wits condemn men for Droans by reason of their industry as you have done p. 8. for what less then industry doth reading and writing of voluminous discourses signifie Then with a Sarcasticall reproach you assault the Assembly of Divines as you say they are called What will not a man of a malignant spirit carp at A Professor of Mathematicks is cal'd a Mathematician of Logick a Logician of Rhetorick a Rhetorician and why must not a Professor of Divinity be cal'd a Divine O base envie for what else can any man say in such an exception And what in your Ironical accusation do you finde culpable in them but that In seven or eight years time with the help of the Kirk of Scotland they bring forth only a Catechism and Annotations on the Bible whom yet Telephus like you heal as it were with the rust of the same weapon for anon p. 29. you charge them with being able to do nothing without leave from the Parliament Now whether the Egyptians dealt worse with the Israelites in giving them no straw and commanding them to make brick or you with that Assembly in binding their hands and complaining of their idleness let the world judge If I had heard of nothing done by them yet they deserve too reverent opinion of me to be thought idle and I have heard their Annotations commended by some who probably can judge as well as you and would therefore think it extream impudence in any man to affirm with you If none be the worse for it few are the better And when we look for a reason hereof in the next words there is nothing but Experto crede Roberto Which when I first saw I turned back to the Title page to see if your name were Robert that so I might have an asseveration of at least one mans experience but it might be Robin Hood for any thing thence to be collected for him you have up too p. 4. I marvel with what face you charge Preachers with bold obtrusion of their doctrine and your self so magisterially require our assent to your calumnies on no better account then Experto crede Roberto As for your following complaint of their wary handling or unprofitable prolixity in explaining Scriptures I have no more to say to it but that if some be less able they be the more wise in being wary The Scriptures are as a water in which as a Lamb may wade so an Elephant may swim Who is sufficient for these things saith the blessed Apostle of the Ministeriall Office 2 Cor. 2.16 But thanks be to God for them we have many that handle not the Word of God deceitfully but shew themselves Workmen that need not be ashamed the undervaluing of whose labours considering what good God hath wrought by them may give us just cause to fear that he will in justice deprive us of them In p. 10. you say that for some years past you have entred into a serious consideration of your later end c. And so no doubt have many others and the further they have proceeded in that meditation the more heartily they have embraced the Ministers of the Gospel But on search of the Scriptures you finde contradictions absurdities and inconsequencies c. You might have done well in shewing us what doctrines held forth by our Ministers were repugnant to the Word of God which you have not done here nor in the remainder of your discourse as I might make appear now but for inverting the order begun But how comes it to pass that the further you seek the more you are intangled while the more we search the more we are confirmed But as a wise man of this Nation said concerning Philosophy A little might make a man an Atheist a great deal might make him a Divine so in matters of this nature men of the shallowest apprehensions are the greatest gain-sayers For among many such complainers of contradictions I have not yet found one who in its Logicall propriety could tell what a contradiction was I cannot say that ever I heard false doctrine in a publique Sermon in my life time and yet I am bound to thank God for it I have of a childe been instructed in the rudiments of Religion these hear it in every Sermon and yet when I come to reasoning with them they and I are in the points controverted altogether of the same opinion But as Ictericorum oculis omnia flava so they having a spirit of contradiction in them may imagine all that they reade or hear to be full of contradiction Omnia perversas possunt corrumpere mentes As Harpaste complained of the darkness of the house when her eye-sight fail'd her Or as too indulgent parents complain of the Schoolmasters negligence when their own fostering their children in untowardness is the cause of their non-proficience so do these men father upon the publique Ordinances the spurious brats of their own inventions Who but these complain of pudling the waters of the Sanctuary by confused preaching and talk of new lights and strange revelation who had they but an impartiall eie to their own condition would rather complain of the darkness of their
own understanding In p. 12. you tell us how hardly people could be drawn from the good opinion they have of their Teachers and the Teachers themselves Pope-like will not submit for many inconveniencies To what I pray you should they submit for you do not tell us what Should the Moon stay her course because a Wolf barks at her Or the builders of Jerusalem desist from their labour because Sanballat and Tobia mock at their proceeding Doth Christ teach us to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth more labourers into his harvest and must they that are entred withdraw themselves upon your malevolent perswasion Must the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts be left like the field of Solomons sluggard What be there no souls still to be cal'd home by the preaching of the word none to be confirmed none to be comforted O Sir whatever you boast of your own experience had you ever been truly sensible of a naturall condition felt the dolorous throws of a new birth and apprehended the soul-ravishing comfort of Gods Spirit speaking true peace to your conscience which by this despised preaching is daily wrought in the hearts of Gods chosen you would say with them How beautifull are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things and with the beleeving Galatians be ready to pull out your eies for them whose eies you would rather have pulled out Witness your envying their Profit and Credit while you affirm them to have no right to either Nor is it a Tithe matter you talk of though that but for covetousness sake need not have been questioned but p. 13. you allow them not the benevolence of the people and so would at once rob them of their respect and maintenance and the people also of that liberality that might redound to their account in the day of the Lord. But why have they no right to either As for their Credit the Apostle saith They that labour in the word and doctrine are to be accounted worthy of double honour It 's worthy our observation that Honour is here subjected in the people as being their duty to give it Are to be accounted for Honor est in honerante non in honorato so that if it be the peoples duty to give it here is honour compleat 1 Tim. 5.17 It will be long ere you envy their pains if you hold in this minde who might therefore answer you as Marius is by Salust in his Jugurthine war brought in speaking to the people of Rome Invident honori meo ergo invideant labori innocentiae periculis etiam meis quoniam per haec illam cepi And for their maintenance they have such evidence as no man can shew for any other inheritance mens laws may alter and Proprieties be Impropriated but God's more sure then that of the Medes and Persians altereth not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 9.14 The Lord hath ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel And from the sixth verse of that Chapter to the fourteenth he argueth to the same purpose And the Spirit of God foreseeing what shifts men were like to invent whereby to debar Ministers from their due and themselves from their duty adds an especial caveat to that precept Gal. 6.6 as worthy Mr Dyke quem honoris causa nomino in his eximious Tractate of the hearts deceitfulness hath observed Cap. 17. p. 234. for having said in the sixth verse Let him that is taught in the word make him that taught him partaker of all his goods to prevent such witty excuses as might hinder the sincerity of performance of that duty he adds in the seventh verse Be not deceived God is not mocked Besides it were unreasonable 1. That they who are imployed for us should not be maintained by us The labourer is worthy of his hire It was spoken by our Lord to them who took no more pains for preaching but to travel and speak and not to study as these do 2. That so much expence as is requisit to fit men for the Ministry should have no recompence A man that hath served an Apprenticeship seven years hath a Calling to live on but he that hath spent three times seven in Study shall by your allowance have no reward for all his expence of monies time or labour which how it can stand with that royall Law and consent of all civilized people To do as we would be done by let any reasonable man judge Perhaps you will say they are not the men or they have some other ill qualification rendring them incapable of what privilege otherwise were assigned to them Why but these are the Dispensers of the Word and Sacraments these are they that watch over our souls it is by their Ministry that God convinceth converteth confirmeth his people and to whom else can it be applied You complain of defects in the execution of their Office be it granted yet let them have therewithall the allowance due to all mortall men from us at least and they may pass for currant in the balance of a Christian judgement Very hainous were the sins of Ely's sons 1 Sam. 2.22 24. and yet the people are held guilty of sin for abhorring the offering of the Lord. And Christ made great complaint of them who sat in Moses chair in his time who yet commands the people to hear and obey them whom yet he convinceth of errours in the doctrine it self Mat. 23. Is it not strange reasoning that because a man is not yet near his journies end he should therefore sit down and go no further and yet what less doth this sound Because our Ministers have not yet attained to so clear knowledge of the minde of God in Scripture as to hold it forth so distinctly as some of the people do or at least think they do understand it let there therefore be no more Study and no more preaching Why how then shall we come by more knowledge you say by searching the Scriptures one might think then the Eunuch should have had no great need of Philip. 'T is true indeed as Luther said no matter if all our books were burnt so the holy Scriptures were well learned and rightly understood but do you by bare reading meditation and comparing Scripture with Scripture without any help of tongues and other Histories give a satisfactory answer to many questions to which the Scriptures give occasion of enquiry Et eris mihi magnus Apollo I will acknowledge you then with Apollos in the Acts to be a man mighty in the Scriptures indeed Or if this might be supposed by your self yet we know some men will not many men cannot most men do not spend so much time about them and if your own conscience might speak freely it would confess That for the knowledge you have attained to in Divinity you are next to God beholden to the labours of the Clergy But p. 13. This