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
Lazarus from the Dead and his Curing of all manner of Diseases c. for confirmation of his Doctrine the two former one may by the very light of nature be assured of and yet question the last This certainly is no otherwise attested then first in a secondary and subservient order by the Church as a Ministerial mean of conveying to us the truth of matter of Fact and next in a superiour order by the Scriptures themselves as the the Canonical Records of the same and in both in conjunction with the Doctrine by them confirmed and both Doctrine and Miracles as the complex and conjunct object of our Faith equally credible upon Testimony which Faith is as hath been said by the concurrent testimony and inward illumination and motion of the publick spirit of the Holy Scriptures viz. the Holy Ghost ripened into this firm perswasion that the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament that is both the Doctrine it self and the narrative of the Miracles by which it was confirmed as collateral parts and contents thereof is of a truth the Word not of Man nor Angel but of GOD himself and the onely authentick Canon and Rule of Divine faith worship and obedience which I thank God I am as much confirmed in the belief of not onely to speak with Campian in another perswasion quam me vivere as that I live but as surely as that there is a God by whom I live else had long ere now become a miserable prey to subtil Adversaries who are ever observed primarily as you do to attact their Opponents in the scriptural foundation and that especially in its very fundamentality namely the Divine Authority thereof here Asserted and I hope Evicted Thus Sir I have gone a great way about to bring you by the nearest way home at leastwise if not to gain upon you as a Proselyte yet to guard your Reader against you as an Enemy And now I Challenge you to do your Worst the hurt will be your own none of mine nor I hope of his being that I have arm'd him with an Antidote he shall not need to fear what I promised to produce in the next place viz. your infective example And indeed Sir your whole Rhapsody seemes to be nothing else but a continued exemplification of your Atheisme and Blaspemy expressed in depreciating extenuating debasing and what in you lies nullifying the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures and that in the most material Promises Invitations Precepts Narratives c. therein contained which could you by your foul index expurgatorius expunge them the sacred Canon as belike you have them your Creed let the remainder be branded for Apocryphal for me for to instance in a few what greater Promise is there recorded in the whole Book of God then that in Malachi Vnto you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his Wings Or Invitation then that of Isaiah Ho every one that thirsteth come ye buy and eat yea come buy Wine and Milk without money and without price Or Precept then that early summons in our Saviour's triennial Preaching Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand Or Narrative then that of St. John God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Everlasting Life Or its Parallel that of St. Paul This is a faithful saying and worthy of all Acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the World to Save Sinners c. And what a poor jejune dilute empty History were the Volume of Holy Scripture and consequently how helpless and hopeless your case and mine and that of all Sinners universally if depauperated of those and their parallel Evangelical contents being that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very quintessence the life and spirit the very soul and substance of that Blessed Revelation consisteth therein and yet most Blasphemously debased and prophaned by your self and prostituted to Contempt in others for which you must be accomptable witness those facetious but blasphemous Laconicks with which you Criticize thereupon viz. that of The Moon of Righteousness upon the first A spiritual Sack-posset upon the next The Soap of Sorrow and Fullers-earth of Contrition upon the third That of the Daughter of God and Dauphin of Heaven upon the fourth and that of a Christmas-Feast consisting of Three Dishes c. upon the last and the like which who but your self can either read or relate without Horrour I guess what your Reply might be here namely that you have onely transcribed the Blasphemies of others to wit those of the Clergy c. But then remember Sir what the doctrine of the Civil Law is approved with all civil men above alledged namely that Publication without Vindication is implicite Accusation especially in a case of of such an universal concern as are the Holy Scriptures which your own interest therein had obliged you to vindicate but that it is plain you have renounced it In short then supposing matter of fact to be matter of sad truth namely that some unhappy Clergy-men have to the disgrace of their function Religion and Scriptures committed such horrid Blasphemies which as yet I do not enquire into but methinks if any such be you should have by name singled them out of the society to their deserved contempt this will not justify you in what I charge you withal It being manifest that you have not only divulged those Blasphemies but divulged them without the least vindication of the Holy Scriptures Religion c. thereby so greatly damnifyed and disparaged which as hath been said is an implicite joyning of issues with the first Aggressors nay that you do industriously throughout your Letters betray and prostitute the same to accumulative contempt in the Laity and that with all imaginable artifice and advantage of an extemporary and occasional witt to use your own idiom in your own praise that cursed Volupia to whose unhallowed Shrines you have presumed to devote and sacrifice God's own Word and Oracles though you might easily have made experiment thereof upon another Theam at a much cheaper rate than that is like to prove of adventurous jesting with a two-edged tool and what plainer instance or argument of A. theism But for a further and fuller exemplification and conviction hereof I will first prompt your Reader with this rule that as in the sacred Decade or Ten commandements in particular so in the sacred Scriptures in general he that offends in any one point is by Divine verdict guilty of all to wit intensively in regard the Divine authority of the whole is violated in any one particular And now or instance in particulars of Scripture not by the Clergy but by you and the whole consequentially in those abused depreciated and what in you lieth exauctorated I do in the next place recommend to your Readers perusal a few pages of your second Letter noted in my Margent
that I single out such matchless instances of your extemporal and occasional Witt which let me tell you none but some unsanctified Humster for your Hector will ever afford an Amen to or reckon other then facetious villany remember for a check to it though Noah's Flood mentioned in your Hector's Litany be past yet St. Peter's Fire is still to come which all your holy Water cannot quench Ignorant-Poor Clergy indeed if a profligate Hector-Rampant shall out-vie them in their faculty being no further hallowed then with your outside consecration of a double Cap Cassock and Girdle Again As touching the other grand part of the Ministerial Office namely Preaching It is your peremptory assertion Sir in the Words of some great Patron an Intimado possibly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom you adopt for your mouth that such Preaching as is usual in the Church of England is a hinderance of Salvation Lett. 1. p. 81. rather then the means to it and the explication of what you intend by the epithete usual you reserve to the good time c. but what I will give the World to understand presently and yet plough with no other then your own Heiffer That Preaching of the Word of God by persons of Holy Order duly authorised and qualified hereunto is a Divine Institution that such Preaching is the ordinary meanes of Salvation and that the Preaching usual in the Church of England of which a fuller vindication hereafter is such She and I in her is obliged to believe till She see better Authority for altering of her Creed or Clergy then you or your Masters are like to produce in haste But the emphasis of your assertion lyeth in the adjunct viz. usual with which you epithet the Preaching by you tax'd and what you intend by usual Preaching in the Church of England must be traced by its extreams or opposites Now then the extream or opposite of usual Preaching must either be 1. Extraordinary high performed in the Holy Tongues Hebrew and Greek through an immediate illapse and inspiration of an infallible Spirit and if so Christus corpore Paulus ore nothing less will serve your turn then then St. Augustine's wish the audible Preaching of Christ or an Apostle in person visibly re-incorporated into the Church or else 2. Extraordinary low and mean possibly by way of prescribed Homily the Church speaking in this as the Spirit in the former but this you know is performable by the meanest Desk-Man one of your Contemptibles though never Master of other Language or Literature then what he may owe to a Mothers Nurses or School-Dames discipline or 3. Extraordinary in respect of Church Office order and degree as being performed onely by Primates or Prelates c. but neither do I take this to be the meaning of your unusual Preaching for besides the great breach of charity implied in it as if all the Preachers in the Church of England were Hinderers of Salvation except onely two saving Graces and twenty four Dominical Vertues if once the inferiour order and Body of the Clergy be brought into Contempt I am sure the Most and Right Reverend must look to share in the Destiny Or else lastly but of that anon It is not a little observable Sir I hope your Reader will sense you accordingly that while you expose our Preachers to the contempt of the Laity you amuse them with dark Reserves touching their Preaching The Clergy and Religion is the very Theme Argument and subject-matter of your Letters those you presuppose a contempt of the Grounds and Occasions of this Contempt you have engaged in an Enquiry into with pretence of friendly redress those grounds and occasions you summarily reduce to two viz the ignorance and Poverty of the Clergy of which anon in the explication and demonstration of those two characters the Preachers are plainly described whose Preaching you averr to be a hinderance of Salvation Now then the usual Preachers of the Church of England are plainly described by you and in them the usual Preaching what then can be the meaning or Mystery of your Reserve that the usual preaching that hinders Salvation which one would think you have sufficiently explained yet you will not here goe about to explain Lett. 1. p. 81. Lett. 2. p. 101. and that the reasons of your scrible might be further explained when occasion should require undoubtedly profound all naught and that I may unmask and detect you according to my promise I will spell out the Original by your own Copy for therein as God would have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your speech bewrayeth you and by good consequence draw a summary conclusion touching the designe charged upon you from your own premises and that in A third assault made by you upon both Doctrinal and Ministerial foundation joyntly the Reformed Religion and Clergy more expressely Ad hominem then All such preaching as is at present usual in the Church of England is a hinderance of Salvation rather then the meanes to it But the Preaching used in the Church of England for an hundred Yeares last past is such as is at present usual therein Therefore the Preaching used in the Church of England for an hundred Yeares last past is a hinderance of Salvation c. Sir of this Categorick Syllogisme for form unexceptionable as you must needs know if your Logicks match your Ethicks the premisses are your own and I hope you will not deny the conclusion which is a compendious glosse and Comment upon the pestilent designe of your Letters of Enquiry The Major proposition Consists of your own express words above scann'd onely your indefinite is by me turn'd into an universal which you know the Rules of School will justify me in as well as the matter in debate such preaching and all such Preaching are equivalent The minor proposition or assumption is your own too as appears partly by express words partly by the scope series tenour and contexture of your Discourse disown it if you can Lett. 1. p. 58 59 It would be an endless thing Sir say you to your Correspondent to count up all the Follies that have been for an hundred Yeares last past Preached and Printed of this kind Now what kind of Follies you mean is plain from your foregoing Narrative concerning ridiculous Preaching by way of impertinent nay Lett. 1. p. 32 38 45 c. sometimes Blasphemous Metaphor Similitude Tales or such as is apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and that Religion which he professeth of which afterwards when I come to enquire into matter of Fact so that the argument standeth thus That Preaching which is full of Follies or such useless and ridiculous things as are apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed is such as is at present usual in the Church of England and therefore by you supposing it such exposed to Contempt But the Preaching usual in the Church of England for an Hundred
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
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
dull obtuse emasculate c. quick Mercurial brisk acute witty pregnant Spirits and all Specimens of Ingenuity and Sagacity to the honour of the Academy the Church the Nation and emulation of Forreigners and I believe the prudent Governours of either Vniversity will hardly be perswaded by all your flexanimous Rhetorick as your dear Amasio accoasts you or Logick either to alter their Method in the former or not to cherish the latter But to render you more ridiculous Sir than you can the Clergy contemptible English Exercises in an Academick Diatribe pudeat haec opprobria nobis What though the Clergy preach in English to their people Must therefore that choice time or any considerable part of it which should be to the greatest advantage husbanded and improved in the acquiry of their due Ministerial preparatives and provisions of Literature be spent upon their Mother-Tongue Impertinent The Rules and Methods of Oratory the Arts and Arguments of perswasion are by you confessed to be the same in all Languages And surely he hath but a very incompetent Dose and use of Reason who cannot accommodate the same to any Scope Theme or purpose pro re nata upon all emergent occasions in any Language whatsoever he is once Master of And as for those Strains and Delicacies of Wit you speak of they are 1. Juvenile Elaes the laudable products of a Youthful Fancy 2. The frequent Preludes of more than ordinary sagacity and pregnancy of Spirit in the years of maturer consistency and 3. In case at any time over-luxuriant beyond the bounds of Modesty and a Trespass in Ethicks yet easily corrigible by a riper discretion and all to the greater experienced advantage in the whole Trinity of Professions Law Physick and Divinity and what expence and exhaustion of Academick Spirit must needs ensue upon the draining of this Cephalick Vein is easily discernable For that Axion of yours that Rope-Dancers in the Schools Let. 2. p. 104. oft-times prove Jack-puddings in the Pulpit I suspend a Reply till I be better informed from the Doctor of the Stage to whom you do so often refer me and his Puppet But to go on what a strange hysteron-proteron like the rest of your ribble-rabble have you committed in recommending the teaching and learning of Mathematicks and Philosophical Lectures the prime Delicacies of Wit to the lower-Form Grammar-Schools and English Exercises nay a Caput mortuum and dispirited Muse to the Vniversities Yea and a Solâ—cisme in Morals to boot in a petulant criminating of the want of both ridiculous Again what more obvious than a wicked project of destroying those grand Seminaries of Learning and consequentially Religion the Clergy in the Academy the Mother in the Nurse the Church of England in her Vniversities c. A compendious way I confess For to what purpose as to the Concern of the Clergy are Vniversities either founded or resorted to if English Exercise must be their great Academick Discipline and emprovement in their Native tongue the highest Acquist which the world be Judge doth nothing so well beseem an Alma Mater Academia as your little house by the Church-yard or the Ferula of your pitiful construing Master I am ashamed to say Nurse Mother or School-dame So that your Ironick Conjugates Vniversity-Scholar Vniversity-Learning Academick Youngster c. I take to be but verbal tests of your Weigelian project whereby you study to drain and exhaust those Fountains which your Masters tell you upon experience you cannot so immediately poyson till at last like bemudded low-water-Nilus they produce nothing but Monsters like your self and Enemies to Learning Religion Church and State who I hope may be by Sword or Key in due time animadverted upon accordingly if the School-Fry or the Academick Youngsters as you call them prevent not that piece of Justice and then Asinus inter Apes Lastly Sir ad hominem as before one ground of the Contempt of the Clergy you alledge to be their Ignorance that you may demonstrate their Ignorance in the Church you quarrel their Education in the Vniversity here all that you criminate is want of English Exercises and Delicacies of Wit or which is all one too much Wit Latine and Greek c. in Academick Exercises now your Argument then the Clergy is both too much exercised and expert in Latine and Greek c. or too little in the English and also too witty in the Vniversity ergo ignorant in the Pulpit Rare Consequence There they are Sophies but here very Morio's I promise you Sir if by your Logick you can prove Ignorance by its opposite Wit and Learning I would advise you to Hackney out your Cerebellum to better advantage than here you have done and so I have passed your second Stage We are now arrived at your ultima Thule Master Inquisitor the very last and chief Stage in your whole Circuit namely the Pulpit where I find the poor Clergy empannell'd in Wainscot and their supposed Ignorance charged from Effects as before from its Causes especially in the prime Ministerial Act and Exercise of Preaching which though together with that of Prayer I have before sufficiently vindicated yet I will now give brief Answer to your chief Allegations in matter of Fact Your First Exception Sir is formed against such Preaching as is either mountingly eloquent Let. 1. p. 38 c. or profoundly learned where ad hominem I must be your Monitor at the very first Oportet Mendacemesse memorem Remind your self Sir that the grand design of your Inquest is to detect the Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy alias to betray them to it the chief ground hereof by you alledged is their Ignorance and thus you attaint them de capite especially in the chief Official Act of Preaching as that which is chiefly apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed And yet is your first Exception this dis unctive Preaching either mountingly eloquent or profoundly learned What! the Preaching both eloquent and learned nay in both superlative and yet the Preacher ignorant How inconsistent are you with your self Unless you understand St. Paul's Antiperistasis in the case as if much Learning and Eloquence had caused a Dotage in the Clergy but as I said above Tongue-trip is Gods Will your own Speech all along bewraying of you as the Ass you know as well as his Master spoke against his own Genius But now what Reader can so far prostitute or debauch his Reason as to reckon your Ishmael-like Tongue any Slander in anothers Credit since you all along do so foully betray your own Under this Head you criminate the checkering and besprinkling of Sermons with Greek Latine and Hebrew which yet provided the Citations be pertinent not over-numerous and pro hic nunc conducive to the magnifying of the Office more than of the Person is justifiable by the same Authority that the Apostle Paul quoted Heathen-Greek out of Aratus to the Athenians out of