Religion requiring both heart and mouth the reasonableness of our service consisting in their Harmony the practice of the Lords people in all Ages the frequent examples every where in Scripture the experience of every serious Soul yea the common reason of all men redargue the gross absurdity of such a perswasion Were David's Thanksgiving 1 Chron. 29. 10. Solomon's Prayer 1 King 8. 23. and Iâ—hosaphat's Supplication 2 Chron. 20. 5. all without Book or Set-form only extemporary heats Are the praying Psalmes with all the exercises of the Lord Servants in the Nynths of Ezrah Nehemiah and Daniel and in other places clearly flowing as the Spirit gave utterance without any taught frame of words frisking fits of the Fancy Was our Lords Prayer Ioh. 17. only a sensible servour 〈◊〉 Sir I would rather suppose that although your airy discourse hath wildly seduced your observation yet your heart abhorres such impiety I will not therefore insist on the advantage which this your laxe inadvertencie so fairely offereth nor shall I content my self with this obvious retortion that where one instance can be given of conceived Prayer only managed by Fancie and subsisting in its vain exercise thousands may be found of persons through the practice and custome of Set-forms habituate to a most lifeless and superstitious mummery more suteable to the worshiping of stockes and stones then to the service of the true and living God Nor lastly will I vex you by shewing that the distinction which you make of praying by the Spirit and by words is so impertinently by you applied to our present purpose that though you endeavour thereby to impugne extemporariness multiplicity and variety of words in Prayer yet it plainly concludes all words to be superfluous for seing that in opposition to the spiritual worship of God which we contend for you tell us that we may pray by the Spirit use we words or not and that spiritual devotion is a still inward thing Is it not evident that all outward Forms whether set or extemporarie are thereby rejected But freely waving these your lapses that I may come more closely to the present purpose it is to be considered that the right and true worship of God is certainly inward in the minde will and affections God who demandeth the heart doth thence expect that tribute of reverence love fear acknowledgement and praise which in his sight is acceptable and all other outward performances as they ought to be the sincere expressions and significations of this internal devotion so they are wholly and only regulable by the prescriptions of Divine appointment If this truth were as seriously heeded as I am perswaded it is fixed and constant both by you and me our controversie would soon be ended The Question then is not concerning the life and truth of internal Prayer wherein without doubt the spirituality of that exercise doth principally consist but seing that you and we are agreed that God whom we serve is to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth the debate is anent the manner how this worship specially when Publick is to be performed Whether in set and imposed Forms or as the Spirit giveth utterance Or if for preventing mistakes you please to take it at greater length whether it be lawful for men to compose and impose Set forms for Prayer and Worship and thereto to astrict the People of God in their performances Or whether it be more agreeable to the will and service of God that prayer and worship which are to be performed inwardly in the liberty and truth of the Spirit and understanding in their outward expression be left to be managed by the free and sanctified use of the rational faculty for that end given and in many observably gifted By which state as you may easily perceive that I do allow not only the antecedent improvement of the expressive power by all warrantable aides and advantages but also the free using upon occasion of such words as others have formerly either dictated or made use of Nay even in so ne cases of several of you Set forms both which I conceive are very consistent with praying by the Spirit either as by you or by us defined So the precise point controverted and to which I would have you all along to advert is anent the imposing and astricting which I plainly judge to be both destitute of Divine warrant and contrary to the liberty of spiritual devotion and so repugnant in both qualities to that Worship in Spirit and Truth which only is acceptable But before I proceed to a confirmation there occurre some mistakes to be removed one is of some of your way who defining praying by the Spirit the uttering of such petitions as are immediatly suggested both matter and words by the Holy Ghost hold it for a Gift proper to the Apostles and their times and now ceased thus the English Debater and your own headless allegeance that extemporarie Prayer cannot be called praying by the Spirit unless we also call it infallible doth also coincide But seing by your description above mentioned you do allow of praying by the Spirit as not yet ceased and do thereby very justly understand rather the Grace then the Gift of Prayer although even the Gift where it is as it may be without the Grace may also have the name of praying by the Spirit and seing that both the Debater and you I suppose would be offended if any should affirme that no man using the Service-book-forms could pray by the Spirit I only add that as the Spirit is the great promise of the Gospel its Grace the life and its Gifts the strength of all Christian duties so praying by or in the Spirit can no more be impugned for want of infallibility then any other good work of the same Spirit in us denied for want of perfection But who would not pitie two Doctors of the Church either so disingenuous or unable as not to distinguish betwixt the Spirits ordinary measures and extraordinary assistances The next mistake is that reflecting upon the greater exactness of phrase attainable in a Set-form above what can be expected in an extemporarie work and commending the propriety conciâ—neness and gravity that may be in the former in respect of that rudeness incohesion and levity supposed to be incident to the latter you exaggerate the comparison as if the whole stress of the debate did ly in this point whereas he that duely considereth will not only finde your Forms at best to be but humane and imperfect and that the Gift of Prayer promised if duely improved in and with the exercise of the Grace is farre more likely to furnish sound savory and acceptable words then these jejune and lifeless composures for framing and enjoining whereof men have no promise of the Lords assistance And lastly that the whole word of God and the excellent patterns therein recorded with many other helps are at hand and allowed by us by way of Directory but he must
the other Nay as we know the expressive facultie where the organes are not impedite to be alwayes more or less subservient enough to the mindes conceptions so notwithstanding that the Gift and Grace of Prayer be certainly distinct yea in such sort separable that the gift may be where the grace is wanting yet seing the Gift is promised and given for the help of the Grace at lest in general for that in particular Persons the gift may be found without the grace for helping of the grace in others is not refused it is scarce to be supposed nor can it be easily instanced where one in whom the Grace was found was totally destitute of all measure of the Gift I say of all measure for that many have had the Grace without that eminencie of the measure that men do ordinarily terme the Gift cannot be denied but the thing to be principally here adverted to is that we judge not of the competencie of this Gift according to mens too frequent estimation That the mixtures of that wofull vanity from which of all vices our minds are most hardly purged occasioned by a just aversion of Forms ill framed and worse imposed have too far altered the ordinary Rule from sincere and acceptable simplicitie is too true a regret certainly if men were more denied unto their own wisdome and more surrendered to the conduct of the Holy Ghost even for the words which he teacheth both the ungodly scorn of many mocking at apparent weaknesses and the pretended modesty but reall vanity of others their self-diffidence and lastly our true and undeniable insufficiencies for a suteable utterance in Prayer would soon and happily be corrected But 3. admitting that most men were more unqualified and worse furnished then really they are for conceived prayer pray Sir what doth your imposing of Forms help the matter That the representing of Forms and other Rules by way of directorie may conduce for instruction will easily be agreed unto but that the imposition wherein the evill of your way lyeth addeth nothing by way of help but on the contraire is a presumptuous prescriving in Gods Worship a manifest restraining of the Spirit of Grace and Supplication and plainly injurious both to the exercise and improvement of the Gift of Prayer is not less obvious to every ones apprehension then by the arguments adduced evidently evinced Having thus discussed the first part of our present debate anent the imposing of Forms in general The second part whether that Systeme of Forms contained in your Service-book be not for not a few of them unfound and impertinent and not to be received so much as for a Directory remains yet to be handled But since it is a little after that you are pleased only to give a touch on this head and that the samine on our part hath been fully spoke to by such who by their examinations and anatomies have abundantly discovered both the Errors and Superstition which your Liturgie contains I proceed to answere what remains of your reasoning And 1. You lay it down as a ground that in opposition to your Forms we hold spiritual devotion to be only the using and pouring out of unprescrived words as if that were all required Which is altogether false and ridiculous seing it is evident that as no prayer is acceptable unless made in the Spirit so we therefore call our way spiritual yours formal in respect that ours is suted to the liberty and made dependent on the Spirits direction whereas your impositions do both restrain the Spirit and are plainly a humane invention 2. You say That it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to Worship God in simple and constant Forms But 1. That this doth indeed import more spirituality then the imaginative straines of these who only flow and are fervide in words and are not fervent in Spirit serving the Lord which is the very summe of your discourse is no more certain then impertinently by you insisted on 2. That the elevations of Spirit may sometime surmount the faculty of expression as I have already touched is as little to your purpose 3. That it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to Worship in a set-form then in the same inward frame to be able in free and Spirit-directed words in a more full and lively manner then any stinted Forms can pretend to expresse our prayers and our praises unto God I utterly deny And am very confident that when you attain to the experience you will be farre from thinking that this is a multiplicity which doth lead out 3. You say that if extemporarie prayer be by the Spirit it must be infallible But poor man do you not consider 1. That the Spirits direction and out imperfection are not incompatible 2. That this doth as much militat against spiritual prayer in and by your humane Forms which you so much magnify and yet they are neither perfect nor infallible 3. I have already told you that the Spirits extraordinary infallible assistance and ordinary presence and direction are most distinguishable 4. You your self plead that as we affirme that the people may join with the Minister and Pray by the Spirit though the words be not of their framing so the Minister may also pray in the Spirit though he use words framed by others and yet you know that neither the one nor the other are infallible 4. You say If one should with a short-hand follow his prayer whom we say prayes by the Spirit then may not that prayer be used over again Or is the Spirit in the prayer so volatile that it evaporats in the saving Really might I be free without offence I would tell you my fears that both your Reason and Religionare evaporat art thou a Master of Israel and askest such questions do either we affirm that praying by the Spirit doth consist principally in the conceiving of words so as another using but not conceiving the same words cannot pray by the Spirit Or do you imagine that the Spirit in Prayer is in the dress and form of words so that whoever doth use them doth pray by the Spirit And seing that both members are groundless what can your question import What it is to pray by the Spirit we have already heard which as it doth not impede why a man may not possibly join and pray in the Spirit though in the words of your Forms when uttered by the coldest Form alist so neither is it by us tyed to the conceiving and expressing of words nor doth a mans praying by the Spirit yet in words either composed or uttered by another in the least impugne that spiritual liberty in orall Prayer by us asserted against your unwarrantable impositions which liberty consisting in the unconfined use of words left to the Spirits direction as it is most agreeable to the freedom of the Spirit and our rational service which the Lord who requireth it hath not astricted unto Forms so in respect of your
of Coin that if the inward opinion be left free no imposition upon the outward practice can wrong Christian liberty that extemporate prayer is but fancicall and carnal that there is no praying by the Spirit unless in a manner and in words infallible that the English Liturgie is an excellent Rule of Worship and many such like things Certainly if these I say be the principles of the Latitudinarians as they are yours they are very loose and dangerous even subversive of the very foundations the Word of God and the Ordinances therein appointed 3. You take to your selves the commendation of very good lives I wish you may not be deceived the Pharisees made clean the outside of the cup and of the plater but God requireth and searcheth the heart and these things that come forth from the heart evill thoughts deceit blasphemies pride foolishnes as well as adulteries murders thefts these defile the man What of these may be found in this little Volume of your Dialogues especially lies calumnies mockings it were too rigid for me to recapitulat I leave it to the impartial perusal of what both of us have said Only as I desire not to be accounted so uncharitable as to propose this as a proportional cognizance of all the writings and sayings of the men of your way so I heartily pray the Lord to make all of you indeed rectitudinarians 4. As for your strong wits I wish you may be as little puffed up with the conceit of them as we are terriâ—fied by their opposition that you do not abuse them to Atheism or Socinianism we chearfully accept of the acknowledgement Only let me tell you that though we be as loath as you are to deny Christianity both in its Articles of beliefe and precepts of practice to be highly congruous to the dictats of right reason and do grant that Religion the highest accomplishment of Nature is suteable to mans supreme faculty yet that thus to propose them is the most convincing way to all clear witted men labours of these difficulties 1. That although there be not only as much obvious reason in the revelation of the Gospel as may stop the mouth of all Gainsayers and unanswerably confound the vanities of Atheism and all false Religions but also such a Divine congruous light as once entering and dispelling the natural man's darkeness causeth these things which formerly were to him as foolishness appear to be the wisdome of God yet it is certain that the things of God depending solely upon his free holy and unsearchable good pleasure and decree and being only communicat by the revelation and receivable in the illumination of the Spirit to think to propose and enforce them by rational perswasion for the conversion of men in the state of nature is vain and presumptuous and therefore if it be in this manner that you do understand your assertion viz. that thus to propose them is the most convincing way to all clear witted men seing it both imports a sufficiencie in the proposer and a possible capacity in the hearers to convert without efficacie of Divine grace and the light of revelation it is doubly peccant 2. In what sort soever your assertion be understood the superlative preference which it giveth to your way of reason directly impingeth upon the Apostles their manner of preaching which was not with the wisdom of words but in that simplicity which unto these that sought after wisdom was as foolishness It was neither by the Wise nor by the Scribe nor by the Disputer but God choosed the foolish things of the world to confound the wise Consider the Apostles their Sermons yet extant specially Peters not only to the Iews but also to Cornelius and the first converts of the Gentiles there can be nothing more simple either in perswasion or in expression Hear Pauls testimony of himself and I brethren came not with excellencie of speach or of wisdom declaring unto you the testimony of God but was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling c. and certainly if you will be pleased to ponder the reason and end which he subjoins viz. that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God You cannot but perceive both the difference of this way from and its excellencie above that of rational perswasion which you so much commend 3. As neither the undoubted congruity of Christianity to reason once enlightned nor the sufficiency of reason by its own force to redargue proud mockers and despisers do conclude its aptitude for the discovery explication or right uptaking of the things of God without the Spirit which alone knoweth them So it is justly to be feared that this new method of adventuring by reason without the testimony of the word to propose and explain these mysteriesâ— do not only prove ineffectual for true instruction but also inductive of the Authors themselves into many misprisions and errors For men to quite and lay aside the conduct of the true and only light which is the best evidence and manifestation both of its self and of its object and in a vain curiosity to set up and demonstrat by the taper of Reason in the sunshine of revelation and to endeavour to cause reason lead or guide which with much difficultie is able to follow is a presumption not more full of pride then of danger Paul was a man very learned long exercised and no doubt mightily fervid in all the Arts and Methods of reasoning but from the time that that light from Heaven above the brightnes of the Sun shined about him and laid him on the ground trembling and astonished we find his speech in the matters of the Gospel was not with entising or perswasive words of Mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit with much fear sometime indeed he disputes and thereby also confounds but it is his preaching that mostly converts Think not that by these reflections I aime particularly at either the fault or fate of the men of your way no let their writings speak for themselves but that there is such a vanity too much in present practice the late more pretendedly rational then Scriptural essayes of many do too sadly evince 4. You say that you Latitudinarians are neither Papists nor Cassandrians but in effect charitable Protestants and that you are far from that hight of rigour of damning all Papists which some of us owne 'T is answered That we are sufficiently tender in this point is notour to all and this your challenge if rightly understood of Papists that is of all who live within the verge of and own the Church of Rome is as groundless as your needless profession of an uncontroverted charity because they hold the foundation Iesus Christ though they build upon it wood hay and stuble I confess that seing thereby you plainly enough insinuate that Papists even as such do not erre fundamentally and consequently under this reduplication may be saved
subordination of the parts unto the whole in matters pertaining and relating to the body and concerning its end are the inseparable propriâ—ties and privilege of a Society is evident aâ—ove exception which argument is the more confirmed that in the acts of the Apostles we finde the Church assembling and by Common Counsel managing its affaires and determining differences not by any speciall and expresse warrant or command but meerly in the exercise of this intrinsick power competâ—nt to the Church as gathered and erected in one Society This right then and power of meetings being undeniable to the whole by the same reason precedent they are confirmed to the parts the Subordination whereof to the whole cannot be drawn in doubt Thus you see how your own grant affirmeth what you dâ—ny but your N. C. answeres further That they at Antioch send up to them at Jerusalem And are not the Spirits of the Prophets subject to the Prophets To these Scriptures you reply beginning with the last That it is clear that in that place the Apostle is speaking of Pâ—râ—chial Churches which subjection none deny But Sir is not that which you call in question the Subordination of Sessions to Presbyteries Now if the Apostle tell us That the Spirit of the Prophets who in the dayes oâ— the Apostles had many of them charge pro indiviso jointly over the same Church but now a dayes have their distinct charges over Parochial Churches are subject to the Prophets gathered in one assembly may not the Subordination questioned be sufficiently thence concluded especially seing I can hardly suppose you so Anti-episcopal as to be Independant and still to doubt after the many irrefragable demonstrations given by the Presbyterians whether this Church of Corinth was a Presbyterial and not a meer Congregational or Parochial Church As for what else may be in your return I confesse I reach it not seeing that at the time of the Apostles writing we finde no divided Parishes and to fancie that the subjection spoken of waâ— of the Prophets in one Parochial Church such as at that time there was properly none and not rather of the many Prophets having the charge pro indiviso jointly over the whole company of the Beleevers in that Citie in which many parishes were virtually included is groundless and absurd To the first instance you say It is ridiculous to urge it seing they of Antioch sent not up to Jerusalem either as to a Church superior or as to an Oecumenick Councel but to men there who were immediatly inspired That they sent not up as to an Oecumenick Councel I cannot dissent from you seing I finde in the Text no suitable concurse for or vestige of such an Assembly but that they sent not up as to a Church superior is by you ill asserted and worse proved seing 1. The phrases in the letter sent from that meeting that certain which went out from us and it seemed good c. to lay upon you and that the same letter is termed a Decree do clearly prove a superior Authority in the writers 2. Because the example which ye adduce from the jews their high Priest for confirming your Gloss doth plainly redargue you in as much as the Jews consulted not the high Priest his Urim and Thummim without regard to his Authority but consulted him as the high Priest and the Person to whom God had therefore committed them Deut. 17. v. 10. 11. 12. putting them in the breast-plate termed of judgement and not of Responses But you may say supposing the matter was thus carried what makes it for your Assemblies I Answere yes very much for it sheweth 1. That if the Apostles who all of them severally were immediatly inspired and so might have determined this controversie did notwithstanding join with other ordinary Elders or Churchâ—officers and by common counsel give out their Decrees that common Councels their authority in the Church are juris Divini 2. That as the Church of Antioch in which the Apostle Paul Barnabas and several other Prophets wereâ— and the other Churches in Asia received and submitted to the decrees so it evidently intimats a subordination of these making as it were one Provincial Church to that great Assembly of the Apostles Elders conveened at Ierusalem You subjoin in this place That if that meeting at Jerusalem was a Councel then all Councels may speak in their stile it seems good to the Holy Ghost c. It 's answered 1. The connexion oâ— your proposition containeth an obvious non sequitur in as much as it is not from their being a Councel but from the certainty of these Scripture evidences whereupon their determination proceeds that their prefacing of the minde and sentencâ— of the holy Ghost doth flow 2. That that meeting was a Councel of the Apostles and Elders at Ierusalem a conveened in one to Consulte Reason and exercise Authority which severally was not so satisfying â—or the very Apostles to do notwithstanding of their immediâ—â—e assistance is plain from the Text especially Pauls deference to them 3. If you imagine that Ecclesiastick Councels cannot be of Divine right unlesse they have the Spirits absolute and infallible assistance you erre as grossly as he who for want of this infallibility should deny to the Church a standing Minâ—strie by Divine institution 4. Though the infallible guidance of the Holy Ghost given to the Apostles aâ—d being to them in stead of the rule was indeed singular and extraordinary Yet as the Lord to all his Ordinances hath annexed the promise of an agreeable presence which doth not fail the sincere and faithfull improvers so Church Assemblies in matters of Faith to them committed and following the rule thereto prescribed are also thereby countenanced and in sound beleeving and upright walking may both attain to and profess their assurance of the Holy Ghosts assistance 5â— Seing that all Councel-acts and Canons anent matters of Faith ought to be guided by the Spirit and conform to the word of God and enacted and emitted in this persuasion these Meetings that truly keeping the rule and sincerely laying hold on the promise do proceed in their determinations may therein warrantably use the Apostles words and such as do otherwayes are only culpable in the presumptuous usurpation because they have not rightly followed and in effect attained unto the rule of the Word and the conduct of the Spirit which ought indeed to be their warrant 6. Having on these clear grounds declared the Authority of Ecclesiastick Meetings in Matters of Faith I freely grant that in other things which may be incident to their cognition and are not of Faith nor defined in Scripture they have neither the like warrant nor may they use the like expressions and therefore as in this case they cannot found upon the Lords Commandments so they are only to be respected as such who are intrusted to give their judgement and have obtained mercie of the Lord to be faithfull 7. The
therefore left us to the worse Tyranny of mens pretended and corrupted power and deluded imagination God forbid but as the hath set us free for ever so he hath only laid on us his own easie â—â—oke and light burthen of Pure and Evangelick ordinances by which our Liberty is so far from being intringed that it is thereby both preserved and enlarged In the next place you say Since no Allegorie holds it is ridiculous to argue because offices in a Kingdom are named by the King therefor it must be so in the Church It 's answered 1. do you then think that our Lords Kingdom is only Allegorick Or because the symboles and badges usuall in Earthly Kingdoms are in a figure thereto transferred is it therefore wholly a figure but God hath set his King upon his holy Hill of Zion and Know you assuredly that God hath exalted him to be both Lord and Christ bâ—wisâ— therefore and be instructed Kiss the Son lest he be angrâ— and learn to acknowledge his Kingdom in all the parts and privileges thereof by him declared Next it is most evident that not only Christs Kingdom in and over his Church is reall and certain and that Officers truely such vested with his Authority and therefore depending on Christ as King are held forth by the Scripture and to be really found therein but seing he himself hath in the Gospel so expressly founded their mission upon that All power given unto him and Paul so plainly referres the giving of Apostles c unto his Ascension and exaltation are you not ashamed to alledge these things to be only by us concluded from the vain appearance of an Allegory And thus to make your self ridiculous in that scorne you intended for others But poor wretch you adde That we may as wel say that there must be coin stamped by Christ as Officers appointed by him in his Church for this is the runing of your words Lord deliver you from this profane Spirit thinkest thou that the Kingdom of Christ hath need of money as it hath indeed need of Officers Or because money is current and symony a frequent practice in your Church hes it therefore any place in Christs true Church Sir your profane scoffing at the Kingdome of Christ is one passage amongst many that give me Confidence to say arise O God plead thine own cause remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee dayly But I professe I am confounded in my self when I think of my own provocations and on the iniquitie of his Sons and Daughters for if the abuse of the Glorious Gospel shineing amongst us in so much puritie had not been great he would not have given up the dearly beloved of his Soul into the hand of such persecuting adversaries and such scoffers at him who justifie these malicious mockers in Cajaphas Hall with an over-plus of wickednesse O if he would returne he would quicklie emptie Pulpits and Chairs in Universities of such who bend their tongues for lies and make the world see because they have rejected knowledge he hath also rejected them that they shall be no Priests to him The next thing you subjoin is what King will think his prerogative lessened by constituting a Corporation to whom he shall leave a liberty to cast themselves into what mould they please providing they obey the General Laws and hold that liberty of him Thus you will alwayes aspire to enter into the Counsel of God if your vote had been here asked it is very like you would have bestowed large privileges upon that Church where you might have been a sharer But we bless him to whom the Church is committed and on whom the Government is laid who hath provided better and given unto his Church complete Officers perfect Ordinances true Laws and good Statutes and ordered his house in all things and therefore as we are not to enquire what the Lord might have done but humbly and thankfully to acknowledge what he hath done so in these things for men to disown his Authority and deny his bounty and usurp to themselves a power of altering what he hath established and fashioning the worship and Government of Gods house according to the device of their own heart is no doubt no lawful liberty but a licentious invasion of Christ's prerogative and a jealousie-provoking sin of Laese Majestie Divine That thus it stands betuixt you and us the preceeding passages do plainly witness and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as a Son over his own house so expresly commended and preferred before the faithfulnesse of Moses is an argument which you will never dissolve You say his faithfulnesse consisted in his discharging the Commission given him by his Father Most certain but you ask who told us that it I suppose you mean the appointing the Officers Ordinances and Government of the house of God was in the Fathers Commission Herein is a marvellous thing You know that Jesus Christ whrist was sent by the Father to redeem gather feed guid and Govern his Church and you see that as the things in question are thereto necessarie so in discharge hereof he sends out Apostles and Ministers Ordains Officers vests them with power and Authority instructs them to a Ministerial and lowly administration and deportment defines Censures appoints his Ordinances and Laws liberats the Worship of God from the shadows and types of the Jewish Pedagogie and cleares its true and spiritual exercise and liberty and finally acquits himself faithfully in all his house do you then question if he did these things or doubt you that he did them by Commission it is a hard Dilemma which you will never evade but you adde that if we argue from Moses it will inferre that all particulars must be determined whereupon you urge that as Moses determines the dayes of Separation for a legal uncleannesse why doth not the Gospel the like for spirituall uncleannesse It 's answered if you had taken up the Argument aright and considered the faithfulnesse of Christ and Moses not in order to the same but with relation to their respective Commissions You had not fallen into this mistake but the Scripture parallel is clear Moses as a servant did faithfully completely order Gods house therefore Our Lord much more as a Son hath thus ordered the Church his own house Whence as it doth no wayes follow that whatsoever things were institute by Moses ought to have been in like manner imitate by our Lord so this is most concludent that as Moses as a Servant did diligently and exactly execute his Commission in order to the Tabernacle its service Ministers and all its appurtinents so Christ both by reason of a command received and of his interest and power hath exceeded the faithfulnesse of Moses in the Ordering and appointment of things appertaining to his Church But for the better confirming our Reasoning and the removing of your Mistake I do only recommend to you this obvious truth viz. that the Commendation of our Lord held
the Land Truth and Purity and then shall we certainly enjoy Peace and Unity As for the liberty you taxe in our discourses and writings I hope no right discerner will finde it to be an invective but the native genuine and well-becoming freedom of Truth and Uprightness whether the license that you usurp in your pretended justifications of the King the Laws and your Consciences be indeed uncharitable bitter and malicious I neither say nor judge he whose glory is concerned he also judgeth But for the allowance of your defence by Tongue and Pen which you would appear to plead from our asserting of defensive armes you cannot be so serious in the demand as I am free to accord it seing I am perswaded that if the defensive armes which we maintain were no better warranted and as little to be feared as the self-defence which you pretend neither you nor any other would have accounted them to be worthy of the opposing The fifth DIALOGUE Answered SIR Neither envying you that poor applause which you vainly captate from your Mock-Non C. confessing himself to be by you much shaken in the matter of Bishops nor regarding the pitiful scorne you would cast on us by making him or your self rather ridiculous in avowing a blind aversation notwithstanding of his professed conviction I come to consider his quarrel against the Bishops on the account of your Common-prayer-book and what you answere Your N. C. alledges That this Common-prayer-book is a dead and formal Lyturgie set up instead of the pure and Spiritual worship of God In answere whereunto pretending as vainly that these are but big words as I have already clearly proved that the Government which we contend for is the interest and doth appertain to the Kingdom of Christ and thereby manifestly shewed this your confidence to be meer calumny you undertake to discover the fallacy by telling us what it is to pray by the Spirit And you say To Pray by the Spirit is when out of a deep sense of our misery and need and firm confidence in God we draw near to him to offer up our prayers and praises to him through Iesus Christ And you add That our hearts being moulded in this frame we pray by the Spirit use we words or not the same or different Nay it will appear we are carnal when we need to have our devotion tickled and provoked with new words Which description and the deduction from it being laid for a ground exciting your self by the faigned interjections of your N. C. surprises at the wit and novelty of your invention in representing the Liturgie-worship as Spiritual and the conceived one as carnal You go one to discourse of the differences betwixt spiritual devotion and prayer by words the termes wherein you are pleased very groundlessly and impertinently to state the distinction And the former you say lying in the will and not in the fancy and being affected with the thing and not with words can with the newness of affection make the same prayer in words though an hundred times repeated at every return New And is a still humbling and melting thing and so equable that it is above the frisking fits of the fancy neither doth it require a variety of words but in its sublimest exercises can persist long with great sweetness in the simplest Acts whereas multiplicity doth perhaps lead out the minde from pure and still devotion interior prayer and spiritual converse with God On the other hand you tell us that prayer by words lying in the fancy and its gratifications by the varying of things into several shapes the devotion raised by such Chimes is only sensible needing new phrases to renew its fervour and words and all the heat begot by words are but a false fire in the natural powers of the Soul which may heat the brain draw forth teares seem to wring the heart bâ—t amounts to nothing save a sensible fervour and present tickling wherein he that abounds most in Memâ—râ— Fancy Elâ—quence and Confidence is likely most to excell from all which you conclude that it expresseth a more spiritual temper to be able to worship God in simple and constant Forms and that extemporary prayer cannot be called praying by the Spirit except by Spirit be understood the Animal or Natural spirits This I suppose is a true account of your first floorish upon this subject to what purpose remaines yet to be inquired And first I might take notice of the inaccuracy of your expression of praying by the Spirit whereas the Scripture-phrase is to worship in Spirit Iohn 4. 23. Praying in the Spirit Eph. 6. 18. to worship in the Spirit Phil 3. 3. to pray with the Spirit 1. Cor. 14. 15. And though the difference be more in words then matter yet as the Scripture-diction is certainly the founder so I am apt to apprehend that your not adverting to it may have in part occasioned your vain and impertinent digression upon praying by the Spirit and praying by Words as if these were by us wholly distinguished and the latter preferred 2. I might observe that the description which you give us of Praying by the Spirit is more suteable to the calme and serene progress of a Christians course then to these doubtings feares wrestlings depressions and overwhelmings so frequently found in the experience of all to be thereto incident which being no less removed from and destitute of a firm confidence then the staying and assisting of the Spirit with groanes that cannot be uttered is therein observable your description appeares to be narrow and inadequat But the plain answer which I returne is that as the stating of the Question is by you wholly neglected so the reasoning whereby you go about to maintain your lifeless and superstitious Liturgie is altogether inconcludent The controversie betwixt you and us anent your Service-book is twofold 1. Whether the Publick worship of God ought to be astricted to set and imposed Forms And 2. Whether that form of Worship which your Book contains be not in it self in many particulars unsound and impertinent and consequently not to be received by way of directory farre less acquiesced unto as a precise injunction That these are the two hinges of this debate will easiely be acknowledged but what your above mentioned discourse doth contribute to its determination I must again solicite your second thoughts to render us an account We have your definition of praying by the Spirit and we let it pass Next you subjoin and that with many empty reiterations that praying in words specially extemporary and various is sensible fancical affecting and heating the brain in lower minds and producing only a natural fervour and that thus it may be with such who pray in words without the Spirit was never by us denied but darre you or any man els not abandoned to utter irreligion propose this as your opinion of all prayer in conceived and not precontrived and prescribed words Do not the very truth of
also grant that it is not our choice but the Lords own prescription which he doth accept Suppose your Forms were as much better then our conceptions as a Mans First-born is preferable to the beast of the field yet if not required they cannot come up with acceptance on his Altar and therefore I conclude that however the sincere Users may finde grace in his sight yet the peremptory Imposers cannot be innocent A third mistake is that because in the use of certain Set-forms a man may possibly pray with deep spiritual impressions and high elevations Nay the sublimest acts of communion with God may be expressed in the simplest Forms such as Thou art my God therefore you conclude that sâ—inted Forms are more suted to true spiritual devotion then the multiplicity and variety of words in an extemporarie exercise which do lead out and do too frequently only excite a phantastick transient pleasure almost evanishing with the sound wherewith they are pronounced But seing that the variableness of the condition of a militant Viator can hardly be defined much less the free actings of the Spirit in such exigences confined to any prescribed Forms and that the more Seraphick raptures of Divine contemplation do therefore subsist in few and plain words because above the reach of expression it is undoubtedly certain that neither the right use-making or rather agreeableness of certain forms to very sincere and serious devotion nor the simplicitie of words used in the nearest admission of heavenly fellowship do at all remove the unwarrantableness and inconveniencie of the restraint of Set forms when under the necessity of an imposition As for what is insinuate of these fancical heats and pleasures wherewith words ex tempore may possibly delude it is only an accidental inconvenience from our corruption and by the faults of your imposed Forms infinitly overballanced as I have already shewed These things being thus cleared for confirming of my assertion against your stinted and imposed Forms I say first That these impositions are peccant against the Truth of Gods worship because the samine requires his own express warrant and prescript It is in vain to worship after the commandements of men the service which he requireth not he abhorreth Will-worship is an abomination But such is your imposed and commanded Liturgie if now what doth the Lord require ought to be the serious reflection of every one that draweth near unto him if in all things commanded we ought to be circumspect without adding to or diminishing ought from it If the Lord did most exactly define the manner and every rite and ceremony of the legal Sacrifices and service yea every pin of the Tabernacle with the whole contrivance and orders of the succeeding Temple if strange fire made use of even in an offering to God be so severely vindicat and the erecting of another Altar then he had appointed even for his Sacrifices what can we conclude concerning your imposed Forms and the manner of that service which you so arbitrarily enjoin That they are of farre greater moment in his Worship then many of these things about which we see his holy jealousie to be so attentively conversant commonsense doth evince how then can they be receaved without his warrant without which all humane devisings are rejected Say not that the rigor of this strictnes was a part of the old legall bondage for granting that it may be so as to the particular manner of that dispensation yet you are so farre from being thereby helped that as I have formerly shewed that the burthen of the things by you imposed stands manifestly convicted by our Gospel-liberty so the immoveable principle that in his Worship his own prescription is the alone warrant of acceptable performance doth equally redargue the presumption of your imposing in whatsomever model without his Command But it may be objected that seing our extemporarie Prayers are as well a part of Divine Worship as your stinted Forms and that as to the frame of the words the former can no more yea rather less then the later pretend to a congruity to the word and will of God the argument from the unlawfulness of Will-Worship doth militat more against us then you 'T is answered If the question in this matter were only whether Set-forms or extemporarie straines may possibly be composed with the greater consonancie in words unto Scripture-phrase the objection might have some though in respect of what I have already touched of the promised gift of Prayer very little weight but seing our debate runs clearly concerning the manner how the true and Spiritual Worship of God is to be externally performed If the Lord whole alone it is to prescribe in this matter hath in a just congruity to the liberty of his own Spirit left it to the night and sanctified use of the rational expressive facultie and the due improvement of these helps and promises wherewith he hath instructed us for man vainly to arrogat a better contrivance in his devised impositions is an intolerable presumption and therefore though the conceived as well as the stinted Prayer be a part of Gods Worship Nay though this as well as the other singly and sincerely used may be accepted yet seing the Lord hath allowed the liberty of the former and doth not at all require the obligation of the latter the imposing thereof must of necessity be repute and cast as an humane invention I need not stay to resume that conceived Prayer for the reasons above mentioned and in respect of the promised gift and assistance of the Spirit whereof the composing and commanding of Set-forms is destitute may probablie be and is often found to be the better phrased Nor shal I tell you that the manner thereof is so undoubtedly the more rational genuine and lively that if even those of your way could be perswaded that men were sufficiently thereto qualified they would easily grant the imposing and use of Forms to be less necessary it is enough for us that the Lord who knoweth the best of our performances in whatsomever sort to be but lame and imperfect hath both allowed and accepted of our extemporarie petitions whereas your injoined Forms are no where required 2. I say that the imposing of Forms impingeth upon the Spirituality of Prayer and Worship That which boundeth and restraineth the free Spirit of the Lord in the motions and breathings whereof the very life of prayer doth consist impingeth upon the Spirituality of Prayer and Worship But so it is that the imposing of Forms restraineth and bindeth up c. Therefore c. That the Spirit of the Lord whereby his people especially in prayer are guided and acted is free not only in its gift but also in its operations both Scripture and experience do teach The winde bloweth where it listeth c. and so is every on that is born of the Spirit where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty not only from the bondage of corruption but
in the wayes and paths of the Lord and more especially in the large and all-searching discoveries of the minde yea of the deep things of God and what strange exercises have been and may be in the experiences of the Saints the result of this liberty and of the variety of our unstable condition Iacob's wrestlings Davids heart commuâ—ings Spirit-searchings overwhelmings and again exultings Ierimiah's mournings and Daniel's supplications do exhibite a few examples Now that the imposing of Forms which are set certain and determined doth stint this liberty and cannot possibly quadrat to all the variety above mentioned needeth no other evidence then that of an ingenuous reflection I have already acknowledged that in the right using of several of your Forms a man may have his heart very deeply affected and now I further suppose for argument that such may be the aptitude of a full and sound composition as may possibly suppeditat petitions and expressions convenient to every exigence but yet that the Spirits free use-making and mens stinting thereof to these Forms do vastly differ cannot be denyed since that notwithstanding of all conceded the enjoining of these impositions is not only inconsistent with the free methods but also doth confine the illimited enlargements of the Spirit as cannot but be obvious to any exercised discerner But that which I suppose doth induce you and many others into an error in this particular is a preposterous observation of certain good motions and sincere and servent devotions which possibly some may feel in the use of your Common-prayer-book whence you inadvertently conclude that the same Forms not appearing obnoxious to the escapes incident to extemporarie expressions may more safely and sufficiently serve to the exciting and signifying the like spirituall motions and devotions in all whereas it is certain that as in the former case these motions were only the free breathings and stirrings of the Spirit and in a manner accidental to these Forms wherein they come to be uttered so to ty the same free influences to the manuduction of a set of words is more absurd then the same words are often found to be incompetent to the setting forth of the singularity that may be in the case of the Supplicant whether a whole Church or single Person Really Sir when I consider that the Lord craves the heart and that men Worship him in Spirit and that it is thence and out of its abundance that the mouth ought to speak and from a beleeving heart that the tongues confession is acceptable I cannot but wonder how this inversion of preceeding and leading Forms should be so much asserted and certainly if we may after the Lord's example Mal. 1. 8. reason in these things from self reflection may not the knowledge we have of our own way in such supplications to or from our Neighbours wherein the heart and not the justice and merit oâ— the sute comes to be regarded teach us to reprobate and nauseate such impositions If in hearty requests we ourselves can neither be confined in the making to a rat of words put in our mouth nor relish the like practice from others and do censure such methods as too cold and indifferent how much more should we stand in awe to obtrude them to the Father of Spirits the searcher and lover of the heart I might arise higher upon this subject and demonstrate to you from the order of nature which certainly the Lord hath principally ordained for his own Worship Service and Glory that the heart and minde and not the eyes common sense or memory unless in so farre as is requisite to the joining of the hearers in Publick prayer ought to preceed in all and without question did preceed in the first acknowledgements rendered to him by his creatures but I neither love nor need to admixe such reasonings to these Scripture-grounds already adduced I shall therefore summe up this argument with answering two objections viz. That I seem 1. to forget that our Ministers in publick prayer do as much preceed and lead the peoples devotions and affections by their conceived words as if they were set and predevised 2. To suppose that all who can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a suteable utterance And to the first it is answered 1. That it is evident that the People may and ought to joine in publick prayers uttered by one as their mouth although the samine be by him conceived and to them unknown until expressedâ— this is clear from the practices of God's People in these publick prayers of David Solomon Iehosophat and others already mentioned and you your self lay it for the ground of an argument viz that the people can joyne and pray by the Spirit though the words be not of their framing 2 That although our Ministers do preceed in words yet seing the people are gathered in the Lords Name and he with the power of his Spirit in the midst of them and the Minister is called and appointed to oversee them know their condition and necessities and to be their mouth toward God and lastly seing there is a promise of the Spirits publick aswell as private assistance whereupon we may assuredly confide both for a due instruction sense and utterance in the Minister of the Peoples state and exigence and a sweet uniting of their hearts in an harmonious concurrence the agreeablenesse and advantages of conceived and not imposed prayer are thereby abundantly conserved and the difference betwixt the Ministers preceeding in free and Spirit-directed words from the manuduction of your restricting forms manifestly held forth Offend not that I say Spirit-directed words for if I should descrive Prayer in the utterance to be the expressing of these desires which through the Spirit we make unto God in the name of Jesus Christ for things agreeable to his will in words directed by the same Spirit and thence draw an argument for reprobating your vain devising and rigid commanding of Forms which practice the Lord hath neither ordered nor blessed I should but define the dutie according to the Precept and Promise which is no more impugned by the mixture of your infirmities then the account given by you either of internal praying by the Spirit or external by a Set-form which as from us do alwayes labour of imperfection are thereby made void As for the second objection that I seem to suppose that all that can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a â—uâ—eable utterance I answere 1. That my present discourse of conceived Prayer doth no more suppose all to be thereto qualified then your discourse of internal Prayer by the Spirit doth warrant the like construction how men do pray and how they ought to pray are easie to be distinguished 2. The Spirit of supplication is no doubt promised not only for inward motions but also for outward suteable expressions and the teaching of God is sufficient and may be forthcoming for the one as well as for
carnal restringent and unwarrantable imposings is therefore and most justly termed spiritual But it were only a wearinesse to trace all your Mistakes and inconsistencies in this question he who can conceive that the spiritual manner of prayer by us commended is neither on the one hand a praying alwayes in new words nor on the other such as can be lawfully tyed up to humane stinted forms but is to be performed whether by a man for himself or with and for others in words freely directed by the same Spirit from which the inward desires and motions ought to proceed will easily tell you that the case of a Ministers following this Rule and being astricted to words framed by another hold no parallel and with the same facility unravel all your other quiblings and pitie your impertinencies and therefore I go forward Your N. C. asks but doth not the Spirit help our infirmities and teach us to pray And you tell him that the words aright considered speak out a far different thing from what he would draw from them and that the Spirit doth indeed teach us the matter of our Prayers and also the manner to wit the temper of our hearts but that words are not meant appears from what follows and maketh intercâ—ssion for us with groans that cannot be uttered But Sir if the Apostle commend the Spirits assistance to us in prayer in intending our desires above the earnestness that words can express doth it therefore follow that in the directing of our utterance which is a lesser matter his help is not to be expected 2. Though in this place the Spirits help for the direction of our words were not meant can you deny that that gift is not fully elsewhere promised have you forgot the anointing that teacheth us of all things The Spirit that giveth utterance And the Father of lights from whom cometh every good Gift And who enricheth us by Iesus Christ in all utterance and in all knowledge Or need I to remember you of the promises that the heart of the rash shall understand knowledge and the tongue of the stammerer shall be ready to speak plainly or elegantly and again the tongue of the dumb shall sing Really Sir if a man diffident of the readinesse of his expression cannot from these open fountains draw supply I am confident that the brocken Cisterns of your imposed Forms will make him but small reliefe After this relapsing into your former prejudice and causing your N. C. to say That in this imbodied state we need to have our Souls stirred up by the commotion of our Fancies you accept of the acknowledgement and thence inferre That at least such a way of praying is not so sublime and therefore ought not to be called praying by the Spirit But Sir as I have already told you that he who being internally moved by the Spirit of Grace neither needeth a Set-form to obstetricat his expression nor therein confineth himself to it but out of the abundance of his heart and in words directed by the Holy Ghost doth flow forth in his Prayers and Praises is indeed of a higher size then he who having the same devotion toward God is therein either stinted by another or straitened in himself to a limiting and restricting Form so your talking in this place of the stirrings of the Soul by the commotion of Fancie and the gratifications of Nature and imagination is but the gratification of your own vanity in as much as it neither pertaineth to the present Question whereof the lawfulness or unlawfulnesse of mens imposing Set-forms of Worship and not the life or spirituality thereof wherein I hope we are agreed is the subject neither do we either teach or defend but plainly reject these carnal methods here by you supposed to excite devotion by fancie and kindle our affections by imaginations where the inspiration of the Spirit ought to warm the heart and blowe the flame as being the offering of strange fire unto the Lord in place of the heavenly fire that descends from himself upon his Altar It is true the heart and desires thereof being once set on work by this divine principle may and ought to enlarge it self by the summoning and exciting of its affections and whole minde and strength for the intending of its fervor and elevating of the Soul but this truth doth so little favoure your impositions in preference to our way that by a new argument it further and evidently confirmes the narrownesse and insufficiencie of your stinted Forms to that spiritual Soul-devotion wherein the Lord delights But you say That you will convince us of the evill of extemporarie Forms and 1. you say That I must long exercise my attention to consider what he who prayes intends and this strangely draweth out the minde from devotion which cannot vigorously act two powers at once and therefore you conclude that both in reason and experience Set-forms do conduct a mans devotion with less anxiety wavering or distraction To this it is answered 1. That seing the Churches of Christ are united not only in the same form of profession but in the same Spirit and have the promise of the presence of the Lord and his power in all their Assemblies gathered in his Name whereby both Minister and People may expect all due assistance in their performances your supposed unacquaintedness in the People with what the Minister intends with the long attention and strange out-drawing of the minde which you thence inferre are but your own groundless and faithless imaginations 2. That a certain measure of previous attention in joining either with conceived or imposed Forms is necessary to instruct our devotion is neither by you nor us to be denied but how you can thence conclude that attention as such which in this case both in your and our way is absolutely necessary directly preparatory and leading into should lead out from the devotion to ensue and by what Logick you make the attention or inclination of the minde and the devotion thence arising almost as connected as the inclining of the ear and hearkening are two powers and not two acts and these also incompatible surpasseth common understanding It is true if I could suppose with you that the People nay the Minister himself going about to pray were wholly ignorant how he will discharge it and that therefore they either join blindly or with anxiety nay further that our way labours under many abuses of tedious length scurrilous expressions involved periods petulant and wanton affectations and the like I might possibly finde some shadow of reason for your alledgeance but since you not only speak as a stranger to the Grace and Gift of Prayer and to the unity of the Church of Christ which is one Body baptised and united into one Spirit having one Hope one Faith one Lord one Baptisme one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all whereby Christians before Forms were imposed are found
both to have been and to have continued with one accord in Prayer and Supplication and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have lift up their voice and that one voice in the same extemporarie words to God in Prayer and Thanksgiving but do also subtilly and profanely take advantage from escapes incident to humane frailtie to proclame the same as gross abuses and thereupon scoff and mock at the heartie and spiritual Prayers of the Upright wherein the Lord delighteth I hope your own vanity and folly shall reprove you But 3. as attention is requisite even in the publick use of your Forms and in our way is attended with such advantages that do both render it sweet and easie and fully secure the conduct of our devotion so by your course it not only happens that oftentimes the attention is sore put to it and perplexed as you objecte to us but the very Rule of devotion is made altogether insecure and uncertain for proof of this there needeth no other Argument then that you observe these Forms lately added to the English service that these were as uncouth to the People at the first hearing and required as great attention as our extemporarie conceptions is clear and obvious But seing beside this the People are put to join in words they know not by whom framed and for the composing and commanding whereof their appeareth neither precept nor promise in Scripture that their attention in this case must be more exercised and their devotion in more hazard to be distracted then when they join with him whom they judge to be appointed by the Lord to be their mouth to him-ward and on good grounds suppose to bâ— instructed both with the knowledge of their condition and the Rule and Spirit whereby he ought to make the samine known in supplications unto God is beyond contradiction neither is this the only inconvenience of this sort in your manner there is a Court-practice that I could tell you of how the King pro re nata useth to issue out a Form of Prayer either for his own Chappel the Citie-Churches or further as he pleaseth to extend his orders and if these novell prescriptions be not more chargeable to the attention and disturbing to the devotion then any thing in our way nay if it be not a Method as dangerous in its tendencie as destitute of warrant let men judge But this is the Supremacie too high for you to have remembred 4. If there were a greater exercise of attention in our way then in yours yet when I consider that attention if not surcharged or confounded doth certainly tend to the quickening of the devotion and that on the other hand by the coldness of your stinted Forms both the attention is for the most part wholly slackened and the devotion deadened the instance you make of a few serious it may be but weak and peevish persons of your partie professing a great stayedness in the use of Set-forms whereas in extemporarie Prayer they could not keep their minde from distraction doth neither impugne these more lively and powerful devotions whereunto the Lord and not man hath ordered our Methodâ— nor in the least doth it counterballance these myriads of dead Formalists whom your way doth burie in utter securitie and irreligion In this place you tell us by way of wittie discovery that the way of extemporarie Prayer was well devised for spreading of Error or Sedition in respect forsooth that Ministers prayed over their Sermons so that what in the discourse seemed the words of man in the Prayer was called the dictat of the Spirit But Sir darre you or any man deny that extemporarie Prayer was the first manner of mens calling upon the Name of the Lord Are you not then ashamed to talk of it as a late device 2. How come you to suppose that words in Prayer spoken by us to God may rather seem the dictat of the Spirit and more speciously seduce nor the same words delivered in Sermon in the Name and as the word of God Certainly admitting you had forgot that you did already upon this very pretext endeavour to devest Preaching of this Authority yet common sense might have told you that in this there could be no deep artifice But 3. Wherefore may not a partie given to sedition or error devise and compose Forms to the same purpose and with more success If Forms be but of humane invention and if as you suppose they be more weightie and impressing then extemporarie words it is obviously evident that they furnish a far more advantageous opportunity to this your excellent devise I might confirme this by telling you how much this Method hath been made use of and prospered for the propagating and establishing of many errors and superstitions in the Romish Church but a nearer and latter instance of that piece of Herauldrie blazoning the Kings Titles and Prerogative very irreverently and undecently to God foisted in by Act of Councel in your Church-prayers for inculcating and advancing the exorbitant Supremacie may satisfy the world that your evill and vain conjecture against us was suggested by your own practice After the false and calumnious charge of gross abuses incident to our extemporarie Forms given in by you with much pretended tenderness and insinuation as I have already touched you N. C. Answeres that we had a Directory of the things we should pray for Which no doubt if you had been pleased to propound it in its â—ull latitude viz. That the whole word of God many other instructions and forms thence drawn and delivered and left to us by godly men with our own publick Directory and these of other Churches and lastly that the teaching of our Parents Masters and Pastors are all given to us to guide us and assist us both for matter and words in the prayers we ought to make And if you had understood it aright viz. that seing the rule in our way is as certain though not so stinted as that in yours and that our Ministers appointed to be the peoples mouth in publick Prayer and Worship are not only tried in their utterance for preaching but also for prayer And lastly that any material aberration is as discoverable and censurable among us as among you you might have been fully satisfied that neither the infirmities nor abuses of men are chargeable upon our manner of Worship nor doth your peremptorie imposing of Set-forms more secure the matter from the like and greater enormities But being resolved to carp you say why may not we have a Directory forwords as well as things 'T is answered 1. A Directory for things to be prayed for is no doubt a Directory for words also if the things be fully directed the application of words the known signes can have litle difficulty 2. The directory distinctly and particularly ordering the method and condescending upon the heads of prayer with as much exactness as the latitude to be reserved to the free grace and gift of God
â—hew the words and sentences of the Lord's Prayer to be therein disorderly found for so no doubt a good Christian prayer might almost be said to be taken out of the Alcoran but even for evincing that our Lord did respect them so much as Directories you must make out the whole context of his Prayer to be formally found therein But you add that Though the Aposâ—les and others immediatly inspired might pour out extemporarie Prayers it doth not follow that every one may use the same liberty Who would not pitie this folly If infallibilitie be required in our extemporarie methods wherefore not also in your Set-forms But seing the Apostles were only the better assisted and not singularly privileged to pray ex tempore by their extraordinary Gifts and if the same command of God and promise of the Spirits assistance are still with us for our warrant and encouragement to this dutie your argument here insinuate is emptie and inconcludent and in effect doth as much prove neither the Apostles their Preaching nor Praying to be at all by us imitable as the point you aime at Your next Argument for Set-forms you usher in by the instance of the Corinthians who in their Worship used Hymnes of their own composing as well as prayers and then you adde that you could never comprehend why we allow the Spirit to be restrained in Praising as to words and not in Praying Sir whether you preface the custome of the Corinthians for enforcing your imposed Forms or as the reason of your doubt anent the difference used by us in Praying and Praising doth not appear from your words However as it is evident that in that Church there was rather an exuberant liberty then any thing like to your stinting so our practice and theirs shal soon be reconciled but first let us take your N. C. Answere to your main scruple and he and I tell you that because the Psalmes and Scripture-songs are a collection of Praises dictated by the Spirit of God for Worship and have been so made use both by the Church of the Iews in the time of the old Testament and by the Christian Church in all Ages therefore they are used by us to the same end without either restraining the Spirit in the performance seing it is his own appointment or tying all our praises to these Forms seing God hath thereto only tyed our solemn praise by singing and otherwayes left and allows us a furder liberty To your N. C. part of this answere you reply that never were more absurdities crouded in less bounds And if I may also anticipat I am certain there were never more profane and ignorant fopperies stuffed into a return then in that which you here do make And first you say it is clear we may worship in the Spirit and yet be restrained as towords since we acknowledge that God hes done it in praising But waving that which I have already plainly and so often told you viz. that it is the imposing of men and not the free use-making of Set-forms that we condemne how absurd is it for you to alledge that a man worshipping in words prescribed by the Spirit is in so doing restrained in Spirit Could you not advert that the Spirits prescriving and mens are different and that he prescriveth to himself without any restraint 2. You say there are many Psalms prayers and why may they not be used for constant prayers as well as the other for constant praises Nay why for instance may we not use the 51 Psalme in plain words with a plain voice as prayer as well as in hobling rime with a Tuneâ— 'T is answered That I may first take out the waspish sting of your Mockerie is this the tender respect that you profess p. 70. to every thing that relateth to Gods service to call the Psalmes in meeter used both by you and us hobling rime or is your Poëtick vain so nicely delicate that you can endure no verses inferior to your loftie Pindarick Which yet if Criticks mistake not doth trote more rudely and lamely then our hobling meeter for my part I see not what answere can be given to these Questions save this that it seems both your tenderness and poesie are but false and forced But to the purpose 2. I answere that the Psalms-prayers and particularly the 51 Psalm may in plain words with a plain voice be used in Prayer as Prayer if so be the Spirit do so direct our utterance but if by constant prayers you mean that the Praying-psalms may as well be imposed and enjoined for prayer as the other for praise you want the warrant of the Word and Spirit of God who hath appointed the whole Psalms to instruct our praise but not to regulat our prayers and so you widely miss your marke But here you insinuat two difficulties 1. How we come to sing Psalms-prayers and this you afterward enlarge by demanding our warrant for using all David's Psalms since many of them relating to particulars of Davids life belong not to us Others of them are imprecatorie hardly to be sung and many things there are in the Psalmes which we understand not and lastly there were not above twentie of the Psalms used by the Jews in Worship To this it is answered that being commanded we sing Psalms-prayers not with direct thoughts suted to the strain of Prayer wherein they were first framed and said before they were appointed to be sung but with a reflexe acknowledgement of the goodness and mercy of God the hearer of Prayer who both turned the Authors mourning into a song of gladness and hath appointed it to be so used by us that we may be encouraged and praise him in the like hope if in almost all Psalms of Praise we finde the preceeding distress and afflictions with the prayers and groanings therein made first pathetically commemorat as the ground of the ensuing praise for the deliverance is it not easie to apprehend how that a small reflection might after the Lord's reliefe have made the reciting of a Psalm wholly of lamentation the most exulting expression of the delivereds joy and may commend it to us to the same purpose For my part when I read or hear the 88 Psalme beginning with crying and ending with darkeness and like Iob's imprecation upon the day of his birth having no light shining but a cloud dwelling upon it and yet finde it a song of the Sons of Korah directed to the chief Musician I cannot but acknowledge it for a Psalme of high praise unto God who turned such dolefull mourning to be the matter of rejoicing and thus if you will rightly consider that the Psalmes are ordained for the matter of praise whereof the manner consisting in reflexe acts directed by the Spirit unto such suteable meditations as may excite our joy in and praises unto God is most rationally and warrantably expressed by singing you may very quickly be satisfied that the Saints their complainings David's particular
this point of more knowledge then your self who proving it by the point ordinarily set after the figures of the year of God would have the following restriction only to concerne the Acts and Lawes generally annulled But as it is evident that the point maketh no period and protestant Religion contained in that Act. 1592. Should be vacated and annulled so the obvious tenor of the words together with the sense of the Parl. Anno. 1662. Who in the new establishment of your Prelacy did judge it convenient to the grounds therein laid down to rescind de novo that old Act in all its heads clauses and Articles whatever might be the consequence do abundantly elide this conceit However I do again tell you that our consciences in this matter are better founded and not squared to such mutable rules And therefore seeing our grounds are firme and stable let me in the words of your own exhortation obtest you and your party to consider your way better cease from your persecution repent of your apostasy and usurpation and return into favour with God and union with us Now follows a childish quarrel between you and your N. C. anent the tenderness of your love and prayers in our behalf above that measure which we use towards you and 1. You say wo should be to you and you N. C. If the love of God to you did appear in such effects as the love of some of ours doth the invidious strain of their prayers being universally that God would bring you down destroy the incorrigible and shew the rest the evill of there defection but you say how would we take it if you should pray that God would destroy our party and shew us the evill of our Rebellion and other wicked courses 'T is answered 1. Seeing that wo shall certainly be unto all such and they are far from the love of God who are incorrigible that God by making manifest his righteous judgments would glorify his own Name and deliver his Church from such adversaries is a prayer clearly warranted both from the word and the practice of the Saints nor is it in the least discordant from that Christian charity whereby I am really moved earnestly to desire the Lord to deliver you and all both from the thing and its punishment 2. That God would bring down the proud that exalt themselves against Jesus Christ and give repentance to backsliders is a prayer so agreeable to the will of God and full of love to the persons prayed for that I am certain whatever may be said against our principles which I remit to the impartial discerner yet our practice in this as being both tenderly Christian and fairly consequent cannot but be approven 3. Mistake not if you should pray for us in the same strain we might possibly and with great reason account it an aggravation of the evils of your other principles and practices but we are not so narrow as to construe it a particular breach of charity Nay for my part as I would think it rationally consequent so abstracting from the errors which it supposâ—th I would take it for the greatest testimony both of your zeal toward God and love toward us But if I may use a little freedome why do you please your self so much in vain talk though we hear not many of your prayers yet I am sure all know that we want not plenty of matter and instances for a retortion in what termes soever you please to frame your challenge are we so short in memory as not to remember how your pulpits sounded both in preaching and prayer after the late rising and that not only against these poor broken innocents but in such a manner against our whole party as by false and fierce accusing of all without distinction might almost have excused in them the like attempt to save from that fury that thundered every where If you would have any latter and more particular instances pray inquire after the B. of St. Andrew's Sermons specially that preached by him the 30 of Jan. 1669. and the other before the last Parliament you complain of the severe stile of our prayers he good man being ill satisfied with such soft and aâ—rie tooles and having passionately fumed out a most bitter invective against our Presbyterian Ministers not long since his brethren and benefactors did very agreeably close it in these words these are circumforaneous Demagogues acted by a spirit otherwise to be cast out then by fasting and prayer But what need I mention your prayers when indeed many of your practices have most visibly been such as may justly make your fairest words suspected of the deepest dissimulation I know some of you have a fashion of praying that God would unite this poor Church and heall our breaches But if that be all the evidence you can bring to shew the healing and peaceable spirit to be on your side Pray tell me why the Church of Rome that may boast as much of the same formula may not as justly pretend to it I might further adde that it appears to be no extraordinary merit for such as are countenanced by the Powers and do Idolize peace and ease to wish for an union with any whom they apprehend to be their opposits and that perhaps the more sober amongst you for all their compliance under the tentation yet are not so far abandoned as that they dare in Gods sight justifie there defection and pray against the party and courses which they know they did not desert from any conscientious conviction But I have insisted too long on so poor a subject and I can in your own words assure you that we are not only ready to unite with you but are extremly though not implicitly desirous of it and do therefore dayly pray that God would open your eyes reclaim you from your backslidings and grant unto us union and peace in truth to his glory This is the Accommodation that is only desireable if you pursue any other I am certain that however it may be consonant to your designes yet it is altogether dissonant from your proâ—ession and therefore if we be more rational and upright to hate all sinfull Accomodation and rather to wish that our differences may stand and be perpetuat in the behalf of truth then cemented by a sinful compliance wherein are we to be reprehended Now that this is all that we teach in this matter the same books which you referre to do testify and that it is none other then the very doctrine of the School of Christ the frequent Scripture-injunctions to the defence of and stedfastness in the truth with the commands of a just opposition to and avoiding of every false way and its promoters do sufficiently evince But you adde Let all men judge if there be not a bitterness in the Preface to Masâ—er Rutherfoords letters the Apologetical Narration and Naphtali unsampled in any satire let be grave and Christian writing Sir since you are pleased to
for righteousnesse as if its emphasis were not the rare commendation of the deed but that otherwise it might have been imputed to him for sin unto an inconcludent inference of a special command and calling 7. He calumniously asserteth that Naphtali holds great gifts and secret impulses to be a sufficient call for men to go beyond the ordinary rules which God hath set to them in their callings whereas all we find in Naphtali is that joyning a zealous excitation to the Lords command in an exigence of extreme necessity he thereof for superabundance maketh up a sufficient call to the heroick action thereon ensuing And. 8. And lastly he grosly perverteth the question as if any of us did affirme that we have warrant now to look for extraordinary persons having Gods special and secret mandat to do works which neither Reason nor Scripture do warrant when on the contrary Naph Labours mainly to show that even Phineas had no such character Now that these are the Surveyers reflections upon this fact of Phineas and this their successe the perusal of his Papers with what I have here said doth aboundantly cleare It remains in the next place that I declare how that as Naphtali's doctrine here vindicated is by him only narrativè delivered from the records of our first Reformation so the samine is there truely and more fully to be found and that Master Knox and our worthy Reformers were of the same opinion as to the instance controverted and from the ground thereof did give a resolution in a case far more debatable then that of Naphlali the following passage may evence In the year 1563 the Queen having emitted a proclamation against the Mass and yet conniving thereat and the Kingdom being visited by an universal death which master Knox sayes was for the idolatry of our wicked Rulers and our ingratitude that suffered them again to defile the land with that abomination the brethren generally offended determined to put to their own hands and to punish for example to others and so they practised on some and made intimation to the rest The Queen offended here at sendeth for Master Knox and dealeth with him earnestly to perswade the people and principally the Genlemen of the West not to put to their hands to punish papists Master knox on the other hand exhorteth her to execute justice which if she omitted he feared some would let the papists understand that they should not be suffered so manifestly to offend without punishment To this the Queen answereth will yow allow â—that they shall take my sword in their hand Now observe his reply The sword of justice Madam is Gods and is given to princes and rulers for one end which if they transgress sparing the wicked and oppressing the innocents they that in the fear of God execute judgment where God hath commanded offend not God although Kings do it not nather yet sin they that bridle kings to strike innocent men in their rage the examples of Samuel sâ—aying Agag Elias Jezabels Prophets and Phineas Zimri and Cozbi are evident And so Madam your Majestie may see that others then cheif magistrats have lawfully punished and may punish the crimes that God commands to be punished By which discourse it is evident as the sun light that Naphtali in place of being the broacher of this doctrine doth indeed come short of that which Mr Knox hath long since asserted it is true in his conclusion he saith others then chief Magistrats as if meaning by inferior thereafter subjoines that by act of Parliament power is given to all judges to search and punish mass-mongers and hearers but seing the same is only spoken with an accomodation to the then case and that both the grounds of Master Knox his reasoning in this place and his declared opinion in his appellation admonition to the commonalty viz. that the punishing of idolatry and such crimes as touch the majestie of God doth not appertain to rulers only but to the body of the people and every member thereof according to his vocation and according to that possibility which God doth minister together with the manifest consequence of clear reason give no lesse power to the people against subaltern then to subaltern against supreme magistrats I need not hereupon enlarge far lesse to answer the Surveyers profane inconsistent reflections upon these times if the opposition then made to idolatrous and persecuting Rulers had been indeed sedition or rebellion sinfully raised for some unjust cause extrinseck to the matter of religion by our first Reformers as many professors of that time were no dout too palpably guilty of sacriledge and self-seeking there had been ground to have placed all into one category and vindicate the Lords word from the sin of such instruments but seing the then-resistance was visibly made in the same Spirit which in the preceeding dispensation of and call to suffering had so patiently and constantly endured firie and bloudy trialls for the testimony of Jesus and was carried on by these reformers who continually testifying against the sacriledge and self-seeking mentioned did from clear scripture-grounds out of the manifest zeal of God and for the maintenance of his Gospel strenuously assert and promove these courses it is certain that their testimony is very significant adding as much confirmation as can be drawn from humane authority and the Surveyers alleviating thereof by alledging that our Lord was crucified by wicked hands and yet the result was the worlds redemption that reprobat ministers have saved their hearers a leprous hand may sow good seed and that heirs of glory may be gotten in bastardâ— is not more impertinent from its non consequence these works being manifestly evil then wickedly contumelious and ungrate but behold the instability of this double minded man who having vented all this foul malice against these doings of our first Reformers subjoineth let it be so that much of their way was justificable upon the account of these motives which then impelled them yet how unlike was the case then to what it is now c. Whereby it is evident that it is neither Naphtali's principles nor yet his doctrine concerning Phineas but the Surveyers different present apprehension of the hypothesis consequently the blindfolding charme of self-interest against the power of truth that seduceth him and his accomplices to their absurd contradiction Having thus asserted Naphtali's doctrine against your maligne misrepresentation it is time that I consider what you objecte against him And you â—ay ransack all the Provincial letters Escobar or the other proâ—ane Casuists you shall not find a more impious and detestable opinion among them then this doctrine concerning private persons their punishing of crimes in casâ— of the supinnesse of the Magistrate But pray Sir 1. Wherefore do you enumerat the Provincial Letters so elaboratly write against them among other profane Casuists This your escape if designed should be a bad reward for the Authors pains taken against that
most High not prostitute to mens lusts devices While I say you are still such what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness what communion hath light withdarkness And what concord hath Christ with Belial Or what part hath he that keepeth Covenant with him that avowedly breaketh it If these be schismatical insinuations we are very willing to be accounted such and do heartily imbrace the reproach nay if I should tell you that such are the nature and circumstances of the present defection that it doth not only enjoyne a necessarie separation from your pretended and corrupt Ecclesiastick Courts for eviting the sin that attends a conjunction but also a witnessing withdrawing to testify against backsliders I might as easily evince it both from Scripture-precept and example But may be I am too prompt if the termes that you are about to offer be as fair as is promised that is as can be demanded by any rational person no doubt they will satisfie all our scruples And therefore wishing that the event may redargue this apparent anticipation I goe on to your following promise viz. to give your N. C. at next meeting a full prospect of the state of the ancient Church and you doubt not to convince him that their frame was better suted for promoting the ends of Religion then ever Prebyterie could be Sir your performance is expected and for your encouragement I am free to tell you that though the improbabilitie of the undertaking may possibly give the world a disappointment yet it will be no surprise It is not the first promise that you have failed in upon more unaccountable reasons Mean while you forbid us to abuse our Soveraign's royal goodnesse nor the tendernesse of these he sets over us But this in my opinion is a superfluous caution the Prelats have taken a surer course to prevent your fears for such hath been their care to secure this goodnesse and tendernesse from our abuse that hitherto they have thought fit to keep it without our reach I know this will appear a hard reflection to some of your party who would have even the common air estemed his Majesties and us to breath it by his indulgence But a flattering mouth worketh ruine and the Lord shall cut off all flattering lips We despise not his Majesties favour nay we desire and long for it that it may come down like raine upon the mowen grasse But while there is so great a short-coming in the things which are right in the eyes of the Lord and righteous toward his servants why should flatteries deceive And thus we are come to your Conclusion of Prayers for and exhortation to peace love and charity a very expedient one to so bad a cause so badly managed your rebellion against God your usurpation against our Lord Jesus Christ the wrongs done to his Church and People by which your Prelats have got into the chair and in compliance wherewith you your self do at least find ease If they cannot be mentioned by reason yet may in a manner be secured by peace And no doubt the love and charity which you crave would go a great length I will not say with Iehu what have you to do with peace But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God And that ought to be unto you of more moment then if Iehu with all his fury and forces were at your heels But you are of that number who would have peace though you walk in the imagination of your own hearts nay you seduce this people and heal their hurt slightly by saying peace where there is no peace But if you had stood in the counsel of the Lord and had caused his people to hear his words then you should have turned them from their evill way and from the evill of their doings am I a God at hand saith the Lord and not a God a far off Can any hide himselfe in secret places that I shall not see him saith the Lord do not I fill heaven and earth saith the Lord. I have heard what the Prophets said who Prophesie lyes in my name and do cause my people to erre by their lightnesse yet I sent them not nor commanded them therefore they shall not profite this people at all saith the Lord. As for the love that you desire should we love them that hate the Lord you know whose profession it was do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee And am not I grieved with these that rise up against the I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Neither are these the words of one only under the old dispensation which elswhere you are pleased to terme more carnal and fierie He who wished that they were even cut off who troubled the Church appeareth to be of the same Spirit Nay God who is love and perfect in goodnesse to all his creatures is neverthelesse a consuming fire unto his adversaries And our Lord Jesus who came in lowlinesse and meeknesse to seek sinners and dye for enemies enjoyning love as a badge and legating peace as his proper blessing to all his followers doth notwithstanding pronounce many a sad wo unto the hypocritical proud covetous in a word if as shamlessly irreligious Prelatick Pharisee Let us therefore above all things in the first place contend for the love of God and to be found and to abide therein This once purging our hearts from dividing and distracting lusts will only happily cement us by its own bond But if you continue your opposition against God perversion of his righteous wayes and persecution of his Saints you do in vain pretend to that peace which is the Saints their priviledge and without which outward peace is no better then one of these snares that the Lord raineth upon the wicked Your next wish is for charity and O! that it might be both your and our blessing in its full extent charity not rejoycing in iniquity but rejoycing in the truth would quickly produce a desireable Accommodation but this is not the charity which you study 't is like a charity thinking no evill of your evil doings beleeving all your imposings enduring all your usurpations and bearing all your rigours would please you well And at this rate the most violent irreligious persecutor would become your concurrent But we have not so learned Christ. It is a very easie and advantagious thing to men possest of their desires to wish for security in the peace love and charity even of their adversaries And yet we are not so short of rememberance as to believe that this was alwayes the language of your partie At first it was make a chaine the land is full of bloodie crimes and the city is full of violence and your cry was rase it rase it even to the foundation And when after much crueltie and blood your Prelats would scarce by the restraint of more safe counsel be taken off their eager pursuites how hardly are they prevailed upon even
by their own interest to teach this doctrine of peace It is not many weeks since the chief of your Fathers as you terme them preaching before the King's Commissioner and many members of Parliament on that Text Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace told his hearers in the very entrie that the particular rules of mutual for bearance and tendernesse given in that Scripture by the Apostle were only convenient for the then state of that Church wanting a Christian Magistrate But now there being a Christian Magistrat his authoritie should quiet all scruples and might not be demurred by these pretenses and going on to show that the only way to peace is to allow to the King not only an outward coercive power but also an inward directive architecktonick uncontrollable power O fear the Lord all ye his Saints over conscience in the matters of Worship with much ado as eye and ear witnesses do attest he stammered through a part of the first chapter of a new Piece entituled a Discours of Ecclesiastical policie And thus he delivered to us the very same doctrine of peace which in several places of your Dialogues you do very plainly hold out Whether or not then it be in the same principle and for the same end that ye do here pray for peace love and charity let men judge For our part your power riches and dignities in themselves to say the truth the very meenest of these trifles are by us neither coveted nor envied Our souls desire and earnest prayer to God both in your and our own behalfe is that God would open our eyes turne back our hearts heal our backslidings and restore unto us his Gospel and blessed Ordinances in power and purity O turne us again Lord God of hosts cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved then shall Glory dwell in our Land mercy and truth meet and righteousnesse and truth kisse each other then should the work of the Lord appear unto his servants and the beauty of the Lord our God even peace unity and love be upon us As for these Scriptures wherewith you second your wish for peace Were I not more tender in opposing Scripture to Scripture then you are in abusing it to your own designe it were easie for me to repay your admonition to love by a more seasonable exhortation to you of repentance But since the very consideration of the words by you cited may rectify your misapplication my single desire is that you had pondered or could yet ponder them If there be therefore any consolation in Christ if any comfort of love if any fellowship of the Spirit if any bowels and mercies let us fulfil the Lords joy that we be first of a sound minde then like minded having the same love being of one accord of one minde Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory a short discharge of all the pride persecution and pompe of your prelatick order but in lowlinesse of minde let each esteeme others better then themselves Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among us let him show out of a good conversation his◠works with meeknesse of wisdome But if you have bitter zeal or envying For seeing that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wanting this adjunct signifieth also envie without the least reflection upon that holy zeal of God's house which is said to eat up even the pattern of meekness Prince of peace your poor criticisme in altering the translation shewes more of your malice then your learning and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be Zealous there fore and repent of your perjurie and Covenant breaking this wisdome descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish for where zeal or envying The word is indeed still the same and so is your folly in this remarke and strife is there is confusion and every evill work But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable not first peaceable and then impure as that of your partie is Gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercie and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie O desirable quality And the fruit of righteousnesse is sowen in peace of them that make peace Let us put on therefore as the elect of God holy and beloved bowels of mercies kindnesse humblenesse of minde meeknesse long-suffering forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave us so let us do and above all things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness And let the peace of God rule in our hearts to the which also we are called in one body and let us be thankfull Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdome teaching and admonishing one another in Psalmes and Hymns and Spiritual songs singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord and whatsoever we do in word or deed pray observe this fundamental direction Let us do all in the name of the Lord Iesus What shall we then say to these who in the Bond to the Publict Peace would not admit the name of the Lord to be mentioned Giving thanks to God and the Eather by him In all this I wish we were sincerily agreed And that these words were more deeply infixed in our mindes for I confesse I am wearie of vain janglings as much as you are and do long for truth and peace as much as you do for your much courted peace and indeed there is nothing that doth so much portend the Lords displeasure and imminent wrath as that not any pleadeth for truth they trust in vanity and speak lies they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquitie they hatch cockatrice eggs and weave the spiders web he that eateth of their eggs dieth and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper their works are works of iniquitie and the act of violence is in their hand they do much love outward peace but the way of peace they know not and there is no judgement in their goings they have made them crooked Pathes whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Therefore is judgement far from us and justice doth not overtake us we waite for light but behold obscurity for brightness bot we walk in darkness for our transgressions are multiplied before thee and our sins testifie against us for our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them in transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God speaking oppression and revolt conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falshood and judgement is turned away backward and justice standeth afar off for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter yea truth faileth and he that departeth from evill maketh himself a prey Whether you or your N. C. account these words to proceed from a fretted minde or not I know not sure I am