common with that impropriated part of it the Church and therefore in the business of Religion supposed as general Preliminaries and as it is in all other Arts and Sciences confessed Principles for he that cometh unto God as Candidate in this Sacred Profession must believe that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him A Godhead Religion Concomitant Reward and Happiness Common-Creed wherein all Heathens and Pagans Jews Mahometans c. whose several Testimonies I must not here insert as well as Christians universally throughout the world are Joynt Confessors save here and there a Protagoras Diagoras Lucian the Author of the Contempt of the Clergy c. and such like Desperadoes who yet never durst out of a Feaver expresly deny any of all the Three a GOD his WORSHIP or a FVTVRE STATE or suppose they live the Pope's Life questioning what they dare not cannot deny Clement the Seventh is the Man I mean his Three Dying-Resolves will be their certain though too late Conviction viz. Whether there be a God Whether the Soul be Immortal Whether there be a Heaven and Hell Again Sir That in order to the due knowledg of this God the right and acceptable performance of this worship and the discovery and attainment of this happiness a special Revelation of the Divine Mind Will and Rule of Faith Life is to the creature absolutely necessary that a scriptural Rule and Revelation is most convenient and that to afford the creature such a Rule is most congruous to the sacred nature honour of God are all rational truths aswell as the former For Sir as touching the necessity of such a Rule and Revelation although a person might by the conduct of the Light and Law of Nature emproved by the accessary help of the works of Nature discover and learn That there is a God yea and in some degree what He is both in his negative Attributes independency infinity immutability c. and in his affirmative-goodness wisdom power c. yea and those in their very eminencies omnisciency omnipotency c. and the like as the necessary and essential properties of the first Cause Likewise that there is religious worship due to this God yea and that he ought to be worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a way and manner most acceptable to himself Lastly that reward and happiness attends and depends upon that Worship yea and in some respect what objective happiness chief good is viz. God himself qui omnis beatitudinis fastigium meta finis as said the Divine Plato like as his Master Socrates the former the very sum adequate measure and boundary of all real blessedness yet notwithstanding all this What Vnity of Essence in Trinity of Persons is One in Three without division Three in One without confusion God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost all one individual Spirit the proper object of divine Worship What the right and acceptable manner of performing that Worship Wherein that true formal happiness consists which attends thereupon and by what means attainble c. Those Sir believe it are not at all discoverable by that common Light by reason of that infinite disproportion which is between such a defective medium and the object and hence in the Academy the Lyceum the Stoa and other Athenian Phrontisteries would have found no more credit then the doctrine usually preached for a hundred yeares last past in the Church of England hath in your books Follies Lett. 1. pag. 59. else what mean't the Heathenish polytheisme and great Armado of mock-Deities alias Mortals bewrayed by the Tombs they had aswell as Temples thirty thousand strong as it is in Hesiod's muster-roll copied by St. Augustine of whom three thousand amongst the very Graecians as it is in Homer's whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if with you as Canonical as belike his Iliades and Odysses are then we know at once what is your Creed your Bible and Practice of Piety six thousand amongst the Romanes as it is in Varro's more Gods then there are of Contemned Clergy all England over what mean't their monstrous Idolatries their two hundred eighty eight Beatitudes recounted by the learned Roman now mentioned and such like stuff of which to speak with the Father me piget quod illos non puduit and that not amongst the ruder Plebeians only but even persons of more defecated intellectuals their polished Sophies Ingeniosoes Vertuosoes and the most refined of all Nations and professions the Egyptian Priests the Persian Magi the wisest Graecian Philosophers Stoicks Peripateticks Platonicks c. the most inquisitive Roman Naturalists the Graecian and Roman both Orators and Poets even the very Princes in either Faculty Demosthenes and Tully in the one and in the other which your Reader may chance to wonder at Protestant-Homer Let. 2. pag. 43 45 46. and which is yet stranger Virgil the undoubted Nonconformist had he but held out to Bartholomew the Famous the onely persons of either Perswasion I assure you that I ever read or dream'd of to have come from Rome or Athens What I say can the Pagan Mock-deities Idolatries and imaginary Beatitudes in the very judgement of the most strenuous Advocates of pure Naturals portend other then an utter Insufficiency of natural light for the ends and purposes above specified namely the administring of the due Knowledge of the True God True Worship and True Happiness Therefore a New Light or supernatural Rule and Revelation is absolutely necessary Again Sir the expediency of a scriptural or written Rule may appear from a three-fold danger and inconveniency which an unwritten one is liable to namely that of oblivion and forgetfulness that of depravation and corruption by unjust additions detractions falsifications and forgery and lastly that of utter destruction and suppression the first through the treachery of Humane memory the two last through the implacable enmity of Satan and his Accomplices against God his Truth and Church From all which a written Rule and Revelation is more secure as being a publick Record and Repertory whereunto recourse may be had upon all occasions as well for relief to Memory as for trial or redress of questioned and impeached Truth hence called by St. Peter a surer word of Prophecy than Vocal or Vnwritten to wit not by a certainty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of veracity for all Divine Revelation is equally sure in this sense because equally true but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of security upon the accounts mentioned True it is God was pleased to instruct his Church for the first Two thousand years and upwards onely viva voce by a vocal Revelation of his Mind and Will for ought certainly known to the contrary but then Sir the constitution of the Church was during that long Aera onely domestical confined within the Line and Limits of particular Families which compared with the longaevity and great age of the Aborigines of the World gives us plainly
Years last past is full of such Follies c. Then the conclusion followeth by clear consequence viz. that therefore the Preaching usual in the Church of England for an Hundred Years last past is such as is at present usual therein and consequently by your own position a hinderance of Salvation rather then the means to it the Preachers Fools and the Preaching Murther That is to say the Faith and Doctrine usually Preached yea and Printed too for both Press Pulpit Writings as well as Sermons are by you charged contended for lived and dyed in yea and by many of them sealing with their Blood what they professed by Tongue or Pen dyed for by our first Reformadoes Protestant-Champions and Church-Worthies our Marian Martyrs all our Orthodox Learned Pious Painful Preachers under the Reign of Q. Elizab. K. James Charles the first in times past and what hath been still is under our present Soveraign King Charles the II. usually Preached published is a hindrance of Salvation rather then the means to it consequently the Church of England since the Sun of Righteousness arose in it with his healing wing of Reformation no true Church for as extra Ecclesiam nulla salus there is no ordinary Salvation without the Line of Church-Communion so there is no true Church without the appropriated meanes of Salvation and then according to your Divinity Ichabod farewell Church of England And now Sir what do you think of your self upon recollection or what will your Reader think of you have I not here convincingly made out against you from your own Principles and positions a base unworthy pestilent designe upon the Reformed Religion and Clergy and in them upon our Church to what in you lies the utter subverting and nullifying of the whole And what you mean by your mysterious reserves namely that what you intend by usual Preaching Lett. 1. p. 81. Lett. 2. p. 101. you will not here go about to explain and the reasons of your Letters might be further explained when occasion should require but I have done it to your hand in a paraphrase very congruous to the original what you mean I say by such Reserves and shrew'd hints as those are we may by this time very plainly perceive especially with the additional help of a short Glosse of your own dropt from you it seemes unawares a great way off from the Text where you explain the good time by those despaired of dayes of vertue Lett. 1. p. 124. of having the Tithes restored to the Church most unjustly robb'd of them by the Sacrilegious Church-Publican Henry the Eight to wit when like a wise Man he rejected the Yoak of Papal Supremacy Anglia non patitur duos Caesares which other Christian Princes Issachar like couch and crouch under and forraged its Antichristian supports Monkish Nests and Nurseries with which the Nation was at that time much more over-stock'd then now it is with an Orthodox Clergy though in so doing he onely kill'd the Pope's Body as Luther said of him in the mean time saving his Soul c. Encrease of Church-Patrimony Sir I do as heartily wish and pray for as your self but I 'll be sure that it be a Reformed Church which upon any such score I enter into my Litany but this you aim to subvert But good Sir pray tell me how comes it to pass that you adventure to explain the good time in the plausible circumstance of Church-Tyth which you doe so mysteriously conceal in the concern of usual-Church Preaching 'T is very odd here you are express but in the case of Preaching you treat your Reader with Morose Reserves what I intend by usual Preaching I shall not here go about to explain the reasons of my Writing may be further explained when occasion shal require Sir I doe not like these odd hints of your hic nunc I understood by your last Lett. 2. p. 200. that you was gon into Devonshire to secure the World from your being ever troublesom in this kind any more Amen said I a good riddance and what other kind of trouble you design for it the God of Heaven knowes your reticentiae's of time place and occasion when where and upon what account you intend it may be by Letters of Credence to be produced in a good time further to explain to us the reasons of your Enquiry and what you understand by usual Preaching in the Church of England I must tell you are very suspicious what do you mean to comment upon it with the sensible gloss of Fire and Faggott or a second dose of the Jesuite's Powder or the new game of Trapp-Law or t'other Coal from the Altar because the first did not the business and thus of Inquisitor turn Executioner In the name of God Father Son and Holy Ghost we defie the Divel and all his Works Being that your Charge Sir is commenced from and coextended with Englands Evangelick Century and blessed Aera of Reformation the hundred Yeares last past whereas had it been limited to the last twenty or thirty we had less suspected your morals and consequently Vulpes Bovem agit the Reformed Religion and Clergy therein attacted and what in you lies subverted insomuch that it is plainly manifest that the Christian Religion founded and fixed in the Nation is with you the Apple of contention who therefore criminates Ministers being two bent upon Preaching of it Lett. 2. p. 72. index sufficient of yours It highly concerns the Church of England to stand in Justification of her first Reformation her original Protestancy and remonstrance against and separation from the Church of Rome the Religion by her professed her Clergy the official Preachers and Publishers of that Religion and the usual Preaching of that Clergy which in her name as her Advocate I have vouch'd to doe Well then The Essentials constitutive of a true Church Sir of the Mystical aswell as of the natural Body being these three namely the Head the Body and intimate Vnion and Communion between both the onely Head of the Christian Church being Jesus Christ God and Man in one Person appointed and anointed by God the Father King Priest and Prophet thereof the only mystical Ligament and bond of Community in this holy Corporation being the Divine Spirit originally derived from the Head through the whole Body the Church as Heiress thereof being the common foundation of that Sacred patronymick Christian under the New Testament as well as of that other Meschiahim as Eusebius notes under the Old or the Catholick Faith the product of that Spirit or both whence it comes to pass that the Founder Foundation Superstructure and medium or instrument of conjunction are all in Holy Scripture propounded as so many Vnites admitting of no consort or collateral One God and Father of all One onely Lord Mediator Saviour Foundation Name Way c. One Body One Spirit Faith Hope and Religion And being that the Religion professed and practised
to understand that Sacred Truth might have been easily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by tradition from father to son conveyed preserved all that time pure entire and incorrupt free from the above-named Inconveniencies yea one single Trinmvirate might have performed this for the whole Two thousand years mentioned namely Adam Methuselah and Shem Methuselah living above Two hundred years with Adam and Shem who lived to the Fiftieth of Isaack's Age which was about the Two thousandth one hundredth and Fiftieth of the Age of the World about a hundred with Methuselah But now being that the Church-Line hath been since far extended her constitution advancing from Domestical to National and from That to Oecumenick and Vniversal Japhet perswaded to co-tabernacle with Shem and moreover the Life of Man very much since curtail'd being contracted by Sacred Horoscope to seventy or at most eighty years yea very rarely protracted to that insomuch that many successive Sages of the Church would not suffice to perform that now which that one single ternion did before and thus the case infinitely altered It followeth that for a preventive expedient against the Three-fold Inconveniency above-specified namely oblivion corruption and suppression a scriptural and written Rule is most Convenient And lastly that it is most congruous to the Nature and Honour of GOD to indulge his Creatures such a Revelation Rule and Directory is most convincingly manifest from his own infinite Perfections partly and partly from the concerns of his Glory and Honour in his own Worship being rightly performed and his Creature 's Happiness being fully secured for to urge but one argument in this one piece of Sacred Oeconomy which is Nemesius's concerning a Divine Providence in general should not God in condescention to his Creatures necessity and conveniency mentioned as well as in compliance with the Interest of his own Honour therein concerned afford him such a Revelation of his Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life this non-indulgence or refusal must necessarily proceed either from want of Wisdom or of will or of power and sufficiency in God as if either he were not Wise enough to understand how to gratifie his Creature or indeed consult his own interest herein or not Good Gracious and Kind enough to his Creature or Faithful enough to his own interest to do it or else in case of both Skill and Will yet not Able or Sufficient enough hereunto But now being that God as is evident by the very light of Nature is infinitely Wise infinitely Good and All-sufficient it were desperate treasonable Blaspemy committed against Heaven to assert any of those Defects and therefore in fine by the best of consequence as a special supernatural Revelation of the divine Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life is to the Creature absolutely Necessary and a Scriptural and Written one most Convenient So it is most congruous and suitable to the Divine both nature and honour to afford and indulge his Creature this most needful useful Scriptural Rule and Revelation Lastly Sir That this necessary-expedient Revelation of God and his Will this Canon Rule and Directory of Divine Doctrine and Worship and Christian Faith and Life c. is no other then what is contained in that System of Sacred Truth the Volume of the Scripures of the Old and New Testament as approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is as rationally demonstrable as either of the former This being that only Revelation to which the necessary properties and conditions of such a Canon do appertain which are summarily these two namely Divine Authority in respect of the Original and universal sufficiency in respect of the end it being absolutely requisite that such a Rule should both proceed from not Man Church or Angel but God himself as its Author and also by due proportion correspond to the ends and intendments specified as a plain and plenary description of and direction to the true God true Worship true Happiness and the appropriated means of the acceptable performance of that Worship and infallible attainment of that Happiness what more Rational and may that Instrument Method and Model of Revelation be for ever exploded the Church of God as apocryphal which is devoid of either property The one is a compound of infallible Veracity and authoritative Power expressed in the Revelation as being by its Sacred Author whose essential properties those are both inspired and instituted for the only authentick and unalterable Canon of his Church the former requiring our Faith the latter our Obedience Both in their respective analysis ultimately resolvable into the same as their very formal and Fundamentall Reason a principle of natural Conscience as well as that of the Authors eternal Power and God Head So that the Christian Religion framed by this Canon is of all others the most rational as being founded partly upon the Veracity of that God who can neither deceive nor be deceived partly upon his Supremacy or potestative Right by vertue whereof quicquid libet licet he may as the Creature 's Soveraign Proprietary enjoyn and exact of him whatsoever Worship or Service his own absolute but righteous Will shall dictate or direct and if any of the English Clergy offer to court your assent or obedience hereunto as other let them for ever inherit your Contempt The other property again by me considered as relating to both matter and manner of Revelation is the absolute perfection of the Canon whereby it is conceived as a Sacred Pandect or Ecyclopoedy expressely or implicitely directly or consequentially to comprehend the whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary to be either known and believed or observed and practised in order to God's Glory and Man's happiness with so much clearness and perspicuity as that all both literate and illiterate may in a due and diligent perusal of the same attain to a competent skill and knowledg therein So that that onely Revelation must necessarily be the authentick Organ and Instrument Canon and Rule of Divine Doctrine and Worship Christian Faith and Obedience to which those two Canonical properties and conditions agree viz. that authority in respect both of inspiration and institution and that all-sufficiency in respect both of matter and manner of discovery so as that all Faith and Obedience yielded to the Revelation must be resolved into the veracity and supremacy of its Author expressed therein as the formal object or objective Reason of both aswell as into the universally perfect and all-sufficient Testimony it self as the material one and not into the testimony either of Church with the Papist or of Spirit with the Enthysiast both committing a most absurd and putid Circle in giving the reason of their hope asserting the truth and authority of the Canon by those respective testimonies and again in a reversed method the truth of those testimonies as being no other way known to be true by the Canon therefore to be equally declined Now that the Revelation of
the key exchanged for the Croisade but this I wonder that you of all men should advise for you know Sir that the holy Warriours vouch to fight not Turks only but Infidels how beit strange it is if both wayes of vent namely either to a slavery in Turky the Barbadoes or Indies or to an honourable adventure into the Holy Land may not suffice to reduce the number but sink or swim stand or fall it is all one to you what becomes of either Cargo or Armado so there be but a good riddance to the Nation of such cumber-ground-Inmates that is of our Guides Lights Pastors Seers and Overseers We are beholden to you Sir and what the sequel hereof might be or your design in it your Reader be Judge I do but think how great your grudge had been had the whole English Clergy match'd in number one single order of another See namely that of St. Bennet of which it is bragg'd that it hath been the fruitful Nursery of no less than Fifty-two Popes Two hundred Cardinals sixteen hundred Arch-Bishops Four thousand Bishops and Five thousand Saints approved by the Church or that of the Cordeliers or Minims computed by Sabbellicus in his Enneads to be in Europe besides the multitudes in Asia Africa c. above Five hundred thousand a thing almost incredible out of whom the General of the Order of St. Francis their Patron hath upon all occasions offer'd to advance the Pope an Army Thirty thousand strong and all very well spar'd besides a great many Tunns for Transport whether the commodity be good or nor I leave to others to determine Invidious grudge against Englands Clergy though the sum total amounts not to so many hundreds as there are of thousands in one single Romish order this I dare say is rancide and inveterate though the spirituall press and tunnage may seem to be spoken by a Jocoso your Inquisition herein in the case of our Clergy somwhat resembling that of the Roman Tyrants of old in the case of Christians whom they tormented for a diversion But this is not all I suppose that the English Clergy being divided into three parts and a thousand in each tertia that one of those is dispatched away under their sacred Labarum for the Holy-Land unanimously resolved to be either absolute Masters or Martyrs upon the spott a second ship'd off amongst other domestick commodities with which the Nation is over-stock'd at so much par teste or per tunn for the Barbadoes or the Indies c. to get their living as Adam got his by digging in grounds or mines under ground as not worthy to live upon it and all this jure exterminij by Act of Parliament too prompted by your judicious motion this supposed I say the Ghostly Armado the sacred Cargo all ship'd and gon and the Nation well rid of them is all your spire malice and contempt quite spent and evaporated now I doubt not there is a tertia behind still and the mischief of all the office in and with them the number of persons retrieved but the function still continues in the remainder and whilst there is a preaching Timothy or a praying Joshua in England to be sure Amaleck cannot prevail Therefore Your next attempt Sir is made upon the Ministerial Office and Function it self especially in those two grand Ministerial exercises Preaching and Prayer both Manna and Incense and that with such a strain of dialect as deserves the severest anathema in my Budgett but I referr that piece of Justice to your Reader To begin with the latter You severely criminate and highly disparage the Spirit and gift of Prayer Lett. 2. p. 155. and which yet is usual with both sorts of the English Clergy Conformists and Nonconformists all conceived Prayer Now what the Gift and Spirit of Prayer is a Learned ingenious and worthy Prelate of our Church shall determine who knows but Episcopal Reverence may aw you into a submission whose Judgment in the particular I perswade my self is of general authority with all that are sober and discerning namely Bishop Wilkins whose assertions in the case are these in his Discourse of Prayer viz. the Gift of Prayer may be thus described It is such a readiness and faculty proceeding from the Spirit of God whereby a man is enabled upon all occasions in a fit manner to express and enlarge the desires of his heart in this Duty Unto the attaining of this Gift in its true latitude and fulness there are three sorts of Ingredients required viz. 1. Something to be infused by the Spirit of God who must sanctify and and spiritualize the judgment and affections before we can either apprehend or desire any thing as we should 2. Some natural endowments and abilities disposing us for this Gift as readiness of apprehension copiousness of fancy tenderness of affection confidence and volubility of speech which are very great advantages to this purpose being naturally much more eminent in some then others 3. Something to be acquired and gotten by our own industry namely such a particular and distinct apprehension both of our sins and wants and the Mercies bestowed upon us that we may be able to express the thoughts and dispositions of our minds concerning them in such a decent form as may excite both in our selves and others suitable affections The first of these is by some stiled the Spirit of Prayer the two latter the Gift of Prayer c. This Sir is Diocesan Doctrine and let that Clergy-Man undergo your Contempt that pretends to other Gift or Spirit then what is here described But now what do you think will the World Judge of you who advance an all-Damning and illiterate Hector into a competition herein Lett. 1. p. 36. with a Learned and Reverend Prelate for you undertake Sir to recriminate you from your own censure sub nomine penae to procure one of the rankest Hectors about Town Lett. 2. p. 157 that shares his time between Swearing and Cursing and something else who supposing he does not put in sometimes an Oath in stead of O Lord and a God damn him by the common Law of autocatacrisy in stead of God bless him shall make a long well-worded and affectionate Prayer with confession of all the Villanies committed since the Flood Contempt of the Clergy I hope amongst the rest which shall draw forth as many Tears and as deep Groans as any of the greatest pretenders to that Gift or Spirit that is to say as any Prayer of the Bishop himself now mentioned he being of the number of those pretenders as you are pleased to entitle them And if this be not test sufficient to the World of what Spirit you are of I will for ever abjure all Spirit-discerning faculty and I doubt not but this one signature of it will serve to debase your credit for ever with any impartial Reader in order to whose just verdict touching your project and principle of Atheisme it is
means methods helps c. conducing hereunto with due explication and application of the same accoâ—â—â—ng to the acroamatick rules of that Divine art must needs be in foro Ecclesiae saving Preachers at leastwise no Hinderers of Salvation As That the condition of all mankind by nature is a state of sin and misery consisting in the loss of beatifick friendly union and communion with God the sum of all created happiness and the incursion of his wrath curse and all the accumulative misery attending his violated Law both in this world and that which is to come That there is no possible way of escape or recovery out of this condition without a Mediator or Redeemer interposing as a third person between God and the Delinquent partly by reason of that infinite both disproportion and opposition distance and repugnance between the two parties and partly by reason of the Sinners own invincible insufficiency hereunto That this only Mediator Redeemer and Saviour is the Christian 's Messias and Immanuel the Son of God incarnate in a true Humane Nature assumed into personal subsistence with the Godhead as being of all persons in Heaven and Earth and indeed a kind of compend of both alone qualified for such a negotiation his twofold-Nature Divine and Humane his threefold Office Kingly Priestly and Prophetical his twofold state of Humiliation and Exaltation his manifold Vertues especially his Spirit and Merit his Laws Ordinances and Institutions c. all co-effectual herein That true Faith namely that sacred principle and habit whereby we not only assent to Christ's Revelation of himself but receive and embrace his Person upon his own terms as therein offered and revealed together with true Repentance another pious qualification in turning from sin to God out of a due sense of the hainousness as well as danger of the Offence and Mercy through Christ in the Offended with firm resolutions and endeavours of amendment are the conditions necessarily required in and of all that partake of this Saviour and Salvation That Good Works or the acts of sincere and conscionable Obedience performed to the Moral Law are the necessary and inseparable testificats proofs and evidences of that Faith and Repentance the Decalogue being ever the best justification of the Creed That the Word Sacraments Prayer but your Heathen's touch of Devotion will not serve turn and the like are to be pursued as the ordinary means and methods instituted and appointed of God for the producing of that Faith Repentance and Obedience And Methinks I have waded through great Mysteries in a little time and if I gain a Proselyte by the means my labour is well bestowed Amen say I 't is pity Witt should perish The Publican two I say of such fundamental truths as these represented in this Scheam with due explication and application of the same must needs I think if there be any such in the world be an edifying and saving way of preaching not a hinderance but furtherance of Salvation And to apply That the usual preaching in the Church of England is such saving preaching as well as her Preachers both her first Refromers and their Successors infinitely emproved Answ pag. 25. since the High-Sheriff's Sermon in St. Marie's Pulpit at Oxford in point of Order and Office sufficiently authorised and the Religion by them purged and preached and in community with the People joyntly professed and practised truly Catholick-Apostolick She Sir is very well satisfyed and like to be dayly more and more confirmed in it I hope unless better Authority be offered for an innovation in either Creed or Clergy than what hath ever as yet appeared on this side the Sea or to some of us beyond it from the Learned'st either Men or Books But I 'll assure you for your comfort you have little reason to hope ever to see such days of vertue What! and yet our usual Preaching Folly and a hinderance of Salvation God forbid Sir If I have failed in the premisses disprove them if not pray deny not the conclusion but this is antiquated game 't is ordinary with the Old Serpent to act the Diabolus where he cannot be Apolyon accuse what he cannot destroy when as after a great expence of Venom and Subtilty he cannot thanks be to God either Vnminister our Clergy nor Vn-church our Laity to the ruine of the whole he cunningly playes his after-game in traducing all our Church as Apostate our Religion as Heresy our Discipline as Schism our usual Preaching as Folly and a hinderance of Salvation and Sir supposing I grant part of your charge that the Preaching of the first Reformers of our Church and what is usual in it at present was is the foolishness of preaching what then such was that of the very Apostles yet saving to them that believed and why not ours theirs notwithstanding the Folly charged upon it by the Greeks saving and ours because of the same charge from a Grecizer damning destructive a hinderance of Salvation Segnior no but to read your destiny in theirs by the same Oracle if the usual preaching in our Church be Foolishness it is to them that perish Foolishness and between Convert and Castaway I know and you will find no middle Limbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then who fool twice or worse Your own dear Minion with whom I will conclude this particular hath told you the same upon the matter in a more intelligible language plain English instead of Greek and that in a cornute and thereby indeed he pusheth you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but fool-hardy takes no warning Answ pag. 80. either you expect saith he that your Reader should believe nothing of what you say throughout your Letters and then you play the Fool and write to no purpose or you would have him believe all and then you do little better than 'twere almost actionable had I not a precedent for it play the Knave And now Sir By way of reflection upon the whole in order to a conclusion of this general What Reader that is not either prepossest with your poysonous Principles and prejudiced or else wholly stupified and insatuated when he shall recollect within himself and duly weigh the premisses What Reader I say thus qualified and considerate will not readily Joyn issues with me in this conclusion viz. that the scope project and designe of your Letters of Enquity can be no other then instead of the pretended redress of the Contempt of the Reformed Religion and Clergy to expose and betray both to it and by meanes thereof propagate what your Rhapsody abounds withall most pestilent and licentious Principles and Practices Atheisme Libertinisme preparatives to Popery Sensuality and what not to the utter subversion of both though you have Politician-like for cautelous Guards to the designe observable throughout your Epistles which I here note once for all cunningly interwoven Sly insinuations with dextrous retrieves prologues from Pilate and Epilogues from the Harlot washing your Hands with the one as if
in and by the Church of Rome especially since Trent-Council assembled and ended above your hundred years ago is inconsistent with and destructive of this individual Headship true Faith and Church-constitution being nothing else but an Anti-christian miscellany and compound oppositum in apposito of God and the Creature God-man and meer-man in the most material points and principles of Christianity the Persons of both in point of Worship the Power and Authority of both in matters of Faith the Righteousness and Merit of both in point of Satisfaction and Justification the Wills of both in the act of Conversion the Intercession of both in the great office of Mediation yea an universal co-equivalency or equal concurrence of Worth Vertue and Efficacy from both throughout the whole business of Redemption and Salvation especially from Christ and the Virgin Mary constituted therein Corredemptress with her Son and Saviouress a latere as if her Brests as well as his Sides had been no less then sacramental and the Mothers Milk and the Son's Blood equally saving Moreover to prosecute this Religious medley God and the Creature in the Decalogue Christ and the Church in the Creed Scripture and Tradition in the Canon Pater-Noster and Ave-Maria in the Litany Sacrament and Sacrifice in the Supper c. all so many Riddles in the Mystery of Iniquity A Religion consisting of such Trent-Forge-Principles and Practices as these viz. In point of Doctrine Papal Supremacy and Authotity Church Infallibility unwritten Traditions equall'd in authority with the Holy Scriptures the doctrine of Man's free-Will in opposition to God's Free-Grace the Doctrine of Perfection of Merits Pardons and Indulgences redounding from a surplusage of Works of super-erogation and satisfaction as they are termed as if any meer Man could fullfill in obedience beyond what the Law requires and satisfy in penance beyond what Sin deserves a rare Religion the doctrine of Purgatory and Souls Departed the doctrine of Mass-service and Transubstantiation the Consecrating Priestling turning a petty Creator as is supposed converting sacramental Forms into real Substance and Commemoration into Expiation celebrating Christ's Death with his death as well as with his own in destroying instead of discerning the Lord's Body yea both Saviour and Sacrament at once the doctrine of Ministration in an unknown Tongue by means whereof they do most sacrilegiously robb the Children of their Bread in the Scriptures as they do of the Cup in the Supper and many more such like Doctrines not of men onely but of Divels which I list not to dwell upon the Subject being so Frightful In point of Worship Idolatry and Imagery Superstition Saint-Worship c. In point of Polity absolute Tyranny the Keys turned into a Sword sufficiently exercised and dearly experienced throughout the World upon Princes-Crowns their Subjects-Consciences and Protestant-Blood in sanguinary Lawes a bloody Inquisition direful Anathemaes execrable Massacres rageing Persecutions c. the violent Calentures of that Torrid Zone The Religion in fine of that Church which is in Doctrine damnably Heretical in Worship grossely Idolatrous in Polity and Government intollerably Tyrannical in all palpably Antichristian opposite to and virtually destructive of Christs fundamentality and headship in his Person or Natures in his Offices in all their parts in his States in his vertues merits graces priviledges Institutions and ordinances c. in one or more or all of those and consequently destruction of the Catholick Faith and Religion by Himself and his Apostles and the whole successive series of Christians throughout the World professed and practised and finally of the truth of a Christian Church his Body all in effect nullified thereby yea and a false head other foundation and another name being substituted in opposition to the true the Religion I say professed and practised in the Church of Rome and that Church her self especially since Trent-Council being such as is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 described it followeth by necessary consequence that the separation of the Church of England both primitive in her first Reformers and present in their Successours persisting in that happy divorce from her and embodyed into a contradistinct but true Church under Christ the onely true Head in a Joynt profession of his Faith the true Religion is so far from being Schismatical this being ever a causeless and groundless separation in or from matter of true Religion in a true Church that on the contrary it is righteous and Justifyable yea absolutely necessary by the authority of that Law whereby we are strictly commanded to renounce and abjure her society upon peril of sharing in her Plagues from which Good Lord deliver us Sir if in this short defence of our Reformation which it is like may seem a kind of morose Tragedy to an airy Mercurius but that I aim at a further goal you think I have falsified or misrepresented any principle of the Romish Church charge me with it and spare not and if I do not Justify what I have asserted brand me for as great a slanderer as your self Again Sir True Religion being that onely of which the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth is the Author the Holy Scriptures the Word of Truth is the Rule and the Holy Church whereof our Church of England is part the Pillar and Ground of Truth is the publick Trustee Keeper and Conservatory as Pillars or Tables are of affix'd Papers and Proclamations to wit modo forensi non architectonico derived and delivered as is above-said to her from the Apostles and to them by Christ from God himself And the Reformed Religion Faith Doctrine and substantial Worship professed and practised in and by the Church of England being such as may appear from her publick tests and monuments especially the three Creeds Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian and her doctrinal Articles unanimously agreed upon in two several Convocations viz An. Dom. 1562 and 1604 c. compared with the Sacred Canon whose test and trial in the Case she is willing to undergo It follows that the Reformed and onely reforming Religion professed and practised in and by the Church of England is the onely true Religion which when you assault with Argument as now you undermine by Stratagem you shall be dealt withall Moreover Sir The Church of England is no less satisfied in her Clergy then in her Religion that as God hath by a Law of as long duration as that of Sun and Moon in the ordinary course of his Providence appointed to publish and propagate his Truth and instruct his Church by a constant series and succession of persons of holy Order and Office authorised and qualified thereunto so her Clergy is such having derived their orders together with their Religion ex traduce Apostolica from the original Seminary Founders of Christianity in England who are recorded in History the monumental Memory and best Intelligencer in such cases to have been Apostles or Men Apostolical whether Philip or Joseph of Arimathea sent by him as Tertullian