deniall of all authority that the apostolicall office it self in its proper reciprocal acts was nothing els but the Episcopall I see you startle chang your complexion as it is now a dayes exercised in the church of England whether the ordination of that function was Ioh. 21. 15. or 20. 22. or as others more probable by these words as my Father sent me so send I you in the same place and at the same time were Bishops ordained These are the Apostles successors in asse et ex solido in all things that ever was assentative to their office as to call the Disciples and elders of the Church not theirs who come with swordâ— and pistols to maintaine the truth together Act. 12. 2. 20. 17. v. or divine Prosbytors Act. 14. 25. to give direction for Church censures 1 Corinth 5. 5. to make lawes and canons Ecclesiasticall 1 Cor. 11. 2. to require observation of the same 1 Cor. 16. 1. Now the gifts of immediate calling universall commission infallibility longâ—â—â— and miracles were 〈◊〉 in the Apostles nor officiall but personally only extraordinary and for the imployments of the time neither indeed can that be called apostolicall which is not proper to and convertible with the Apostles but all these extraordinary inducements were in others besides them and in the Eâ—angelists in Philip the Deacon or in the Disciples though not all of them in every one of these 〈…〉 essentiall to that office in constituendo but the Acts of Ordination and Iurisdiction these the Apostles as Apostles once had and these by the same right of Institution transmitted by the succession of many ages to the present Bishops 〈◊〉 you angry at this stant Lumina flamma and it may be it may doe your good if you shall happen to empty your stomack of some loathsome humors at the view of this position nor have you a possible way for all your windings to get about it unlesse you either maintaine that the office of the Apostles in its very 〈◊〉 was extraordinary and then no office 〈◊〉 an inducement a gift and nothing usefull for our times which your Schismes as many of them as you are of men will not suffer us to beleeve or that each of you and not the Bishops onely are the 〈◊〉 of the Apostles and then would we gladly see you give Imposition of hands as they did and pronounce the sentence of Excommunication without the consent or assistance of your lay-brethren and inspired-parishoners but you divide the coat seemlesse before betwixt you You have better right I thinke to the extraordinary gifts as that of immediate calling when you dispise the Orders of the Church tel us the Imposition of hands was the ceremony of a miracle if you can presume upon your abilities and obtaine the hummings of a factious congregation you have your calling and are sent by God that of universall commission when the reformation of all Kingdomâ—s is alike to you 〈◊〉 parishes must confine the single gifts of others but a whole nationall Church not your double qualifications that of infalâ—ibility when you obtrude your sense of Scripture the Fathers are but dull tapers to your bright stars they more of kinn to the Antichrist than you if you thinke you have found a text for it they good men must be Heretikes no more disprite you cannot erre that of miracles was never more believed by the popish ridiculous Legends than by you Iohannes de Vordg fained something that deserved the name of a wonder but your Rabbies to the laughter of the hearers content themselves with each common accident this they will have to fall out by the strength of their prayers either for the confusion of the reprobate as they call them or the furtherance of the good cause nor are they satisfied to give which every Christian must and should the determination of all successes to Almightie God but they in a presumptuous holines will be upon his sacred counsels prey into his secrets and boldly designe a particular end for his divine providence in every thing Only the gift of tongues I cannot tell how to fix upon you and withall not polute you with which God knowes you are not guilty of the language 〈…〉 You see now I have not troubled 〈◊〉 conscience with Timothy and Titus and theâ—e shall be still Bishops to me while you prove the circular and monethly changes I have derived the originall of Episcopacy from the Apostles Office not their authority Doubt not therefore if Bishops be 〈…〉 unlesse you doubt if the Apostles were so or because of your love of parity you thinke them of that same order with the seaventy Disciples deny if you dare that the institution of our blessed Saviour Iesus Christ were divine and I give you the bucklers as to neg antibus principia Thus have I flourished with you it were a shame to bestow a blow in earnest upon such a poor smatterer as your selfe I have ever thought it the best refutation of you and of your cause to lay your foolish impertinences open to the eye of the world then I am assured onlie these who love to have their braines suspected would give you the least approbation You finde in the administration of the Episcopacy office the perfect image of the papall beast from horne to hoose but stay and take it home to yourselfe who aâ—e the only beasts I know amongst men if irrationality and passion can argue want of Iudgement and turbulency in affections your plurality of marriages the old licence oâ— the Germane Anabaptists your love Feasts your night meâ—tings can abundantly witnesse this your absurd simpliciâ—y and ignorance in this and other your libels give testimony of that it is not altogether a mistake of religion but aliquod naturae vitium a hypocondriacie a fault in your braine that causeth your ravings hence I incline to thinke this humor of yours may be epedemicall because of some 〈◊〉 this to be as physio logists transformed as the life quoad actâ— secundum a man in a beast But I have mistaken you all this time you mâ—ane the papal beast the Antichristianisme I pray you if his definition can fit you who sit in the house of God and opposethâ—l Magistrates that are called Gods only in this you differ that Gods house is mistaken for your owne nor shall we want an individuality it is no lesse in the unity of your covenants and oaths of secrecie than in the successive race of the Bishops of Rome You are pleased to call the ministers a dumbe preisthood a mockery what disgrace is this to the Church to these that have baptisme from her or doe expect salvation in her You have indeed named them bald-pateâ— with those ungracious children but take your seat for it in the first Psalme and there stay for your punishment Doctors with us and Priests doe pronounce the sentence of excommunication and with no more indecency we thinke than if some
honourable House of Commons against whom by this reason you have taken up the bucklers will provide for that fire that gangrene of yours which hath already inflamed the bed-straw and ceased almost upon the very heart of the Kingdome In your sixt answer you ld delt your strokes about you your first blow is at the Liturgy this you observe to bee popish in two respects First in regard of the whole frame and matter of it as being translated out of the Romish Latine Liturgie But is it not the Romish Liturgie translated That is are there any thing in the Masse Booke which is not in the booke of service if your answer be negative I leave you to bee hissed at but if affirmative What advantage have you gotten by this envious calumny Doe you thinke we may not use what is in the Masse booke consonant to Scripture and purest antiquity to say otherwise were to deny the Lords prayer and the Decalogue because they are there Indeed I thinke you intend no lesse then a perfect reformation from Rome that is a flat denyall of all that ever Rome maintained so much doth your new Creed proport God grant you doe not deny Christ to be the Sonne of God because the Devills confessed him to be so Tell mee in good earnest are you so silly as to conceive that there have beene Heretiques before your selves who durst adventure to have nothing common with preceding Christianity And why may there not be some few pearles in that dung-hill the masse-booke If these be culled out and according to Scripture and the best patterne of ancient Liturgies most judiciously framed for the service of our Church what can malice or ignorance say against it no greater errour in you and our other enemies of Rome than not to distinguish betwixt the purging of an old Church and the building of a new they upbraid us because they say it is so you because you thinke it is not so all must be admitted from them errours with truths all rejected by you truthes with errors they destroy the perfection of the Scripture you the being of the Church you no lesse enemies to the authoritie of this then they to the beliefe of that But let both of you roare like the Lyonesse bereaved of her whelps and mixe heaven and earth together by your lowings Naaman shall be the same man to us before and after his washing wee will in despight of papists cleanse the leprosie in spight of you retaine the substance you mention the late parallel in a Mathematicall sense justly so called for as Lines parallel cannot be in one point coincident so neither the Service booke with that of the Masse he is an ungratious sonne of the Church who hath falsly invented these whoredomes and they the unworthy off-spring of such a mother if they rest unrevenged Meane time what a death it is to thinke of the sport and advantage our watchfull enemies will be sure to make of our self-confession that we have the same publike worship which in them we doe condemne as heresie as idolatrie what exporbrations what triumph of theirs will hence ensue How shall we argue against them without bespattering our owne faces in time to come all our helpe is that the Treatise it selfe the parallell is so ridiculous a peece that it will bee thought the dreames of a sleeping person and they say Dormientes non tenentur de jâ—re we are not answerable for the fact You tell us you omit to say what you cannot you dare not say all your frivolous exceptions are so fully answered by the learned Mason judicious Hooker and others that it will be three ages yet ere you attaine to so much judgement as to understand their discourses why doe you gull the world with these bravadoes such generall flashes and when it comes to the close to the dispute frustra comprensa manus affugit imagâ— Par levibus ventis volucrique fimillima somâ—â— No word of you then if we dare call the settled Lawes of Church and State in question we shall by the meanest of five thousand in England stop your blacke and ignorant mouthes and make you confesse there is nothing conteined in that Booke which is not agreeable with Scripture suteable to Antiquitie and allowable by the confessions and writings of the best reformed Churches and Divines in Europe And you Sir who hath made all this dinne how should a man finde your out either to convert you or to be converted by you your name it seemes was affrighted of the title-page but it may be you had none and that this libell hath been penn'd by you in the interiâ—â— betwixt your renunciation of that name you had from the Church of England and your anabaptization You adde there is vitious things animus meminisse horret that runne thorow all the veines of the Service Booke all the letters of the Alphabet cannot furnish censures for this blasphemous Rabshakeh God rebuke thee Satan Sufficiently discovered by whom in whose age Did your Separatists ever produce any thing upon this subject but lazie indigested fables as farre from learning as their authors from sense King Arthurs storie a tale of Robin Hood or the Bookes of Chivalrie were ever thought more profitable non-sense more judicious stuffe Your second generall respect is The imposition of the Liturgie upon all mens consciences let the matter be never so landable yet the manner the imposition is a wile of the Antichrist Here I entreat Geneva to answer you whose Church hath an imposed a set forme of Liturgie and whose worthiest men Calvin and Beza doe stoutly maintaine the Churches power in prescribing Ceremonies and Orders for Unitie and Peace sake It were easie to have loaden the Margine with quotations if I had not abhorred the ostentive foolishnesse of your sect. Who runnes may reade here that in terminis terminantibus you brand all superioritie Ecclesiasticall whether of King Church or Parliament for all these are included in this imposition with the minsing titles of Popery and Antichristianisme if this be the reformation you intend that no law can please you much good may it doe you and those that desire it I am confident the Church and State of England are not so wearie of themselves as to become slaves to your fancie this perhaps may fit America where there is no government at all but how it may subsist with a being of a kingdome here I understand it not Popery you say is Antichristianisme hence every Papist must be the Antichrist nor stay you here but bring the matter home from Italie to England and tell us by a necessarie consequence that not Bishops onely but all Superiours doe oppose and overthrow the Kingly office of Christ which is incommunicable to any creature and power in heaven or earth bona verba quaeso The Scripture you bring 2 Ioh. 22. is as farre from the point as you from truth and judgement Speake out dare you say it in open termes though
that not the second Table all this time you respect we pray for your health and doe protest against your madnesse Now I have found you out Qualem primo qui sâ—rgere mense Aut videt aut vidisse putat per nubila iunam And know how to take a direct aime the reformation you ayme at is shorter laced then either consistories or parishes there is a necessity of setting up other Congregations besides these here your intent is to have all reduced to families old 〈◊〉 must be your Doctor and pastor his wife Tib your diaconesse his Sonne Die your ruling Elder and the serving man Will your Deacon a pretty Church indeed and where none are to be admitted but such as are approved by the whole assembly he And his houshold the supreame and only congregation upon earth not any beyond it in purity above it in jurisdiction no more contest now for consistories or Parochial Churches you for the avoyding of profanenesse have assigned us a lesser circle ipse ratem conto subigit all will be well and you be at the Stearn Is this your modell your patterne of reformation It is so ridiculous children will point at you and it in the streets if not for Christianity yet for shame â—ake abstaine from such motions for the which the enemies dreaming you and the Church of England to be concentrike namâ— us no more Heretickes but mad men nor are you lesse dangerous then they the innocent Sheepe are no lesse terrified by the barking of the dogs within then by the handling of the Wolves without my very soule bleedeth to thinke what discouragements you give us at home what ignominy and scandall and disgrace you are to us abroad But you proceed and tell us If there must bee a nationall Church let not this exclude and barre out the free use of congregations Here you play the Libertine give you freedome and you care not what religion is at the next doors this is the Golden branch let you once see this though your mouths were as maine and wide as these of Cerberuss tumida ex ira tune corda recedunt This is indeed the confusion your parity aymes at that every man may do what seemeth him good in his own eyes now let any Christian judge whether it is your love to purity that perswaded your Separation from the Church now your reformation of the Church or your desire of license when if that be granted to you you are willing to be dayly spectatours of the Antichristianisme and their patron such is all to you beside your sanctified Conventicle of a nationall Church Order as they call it and how doe you You have no use no name for order at all all beâ—de your humour though prescribed by the state must be order as they call it this is your respect to Parliaments you are the onely mouths I know of all power and Iurisdiction Nor must the consciences of Gods people in things indifferent for order and unities sake be regulated by wholesome Lawes when every mans conscience must be tyed to yours in the very principles of religion how farre they decline from this so farre from purity from salvation without this no admission to your society to your communion nor as you will have it to the Kingdome of Heaven It is said of Aristotle he disputed against monarchie least any beside his master should affect that just so you against government when you are the hardest Tax-masters the most curious searchers of opinions in the world nothing can passe your censures and that is either to be saved or damned which is not borrowed from your selves You wil have us to believ that though you are in yet you are not of the world you good men are separated from the world in the corruptions thereof whether is this that you cannot sin or that you do not sin whether boast you here of your opinion or your practise If the first take it with you and that of the Apostles when you say you have not sinne you are lyers and the truth is not in you but if the last I will tell you you are now too grosse not to bee discerned all your figge-tree leaves of Purity and reformation will not cover your nakednesse violence rebellion deceit cruelty dissimulation wrath incharity in a word all the titles that attend you in the first page are your individuall Lackeys and doe your best will acknowledg no other Master I have knowne men of honest civill dispositions ere they joyned to your sect but then as if Sathan had entered with the Sop immediately became proud testie hollow-hearted and whose charity dar'd nor so much as extend it selfe to the respects of nature or acquaintance these in the Children of disobedience might be accompted sinnes what they are in you I know not it may be as by the accesse of trueth and light your natures are essentialy changed so the qualities and viciousnesse of your actions But I have mistaken you all this time it is a Separation from the world in Doctrin not in practise you intend you are as farre from this as you are from Rome Meane time you beare us in hand you are not Separate and woes me for it from the civill state but are peacâ—able members thereof subject and obedient to all good and just Lawes how long they may happen to fit your iâ—ching humours go beyond this traine the Laws will be neither good nor just you must have the power to interpret them as you have the Protestation and thereafter obey not them but your fancy concerning them Here you bring in your fulminatrix legâ—o as if all we were Pagans about you what your prayers have procured to us let these last thundring dayes witnesse the almost ruines of a poore Church by your Schismes wil testifie it to the succeeding ages The Apostle indeed exhorts us to pray for Kings your hearers know how you obey this exhortation when by your praiers you teach them how to suspect their Princes of Luke-warmenesse and oppression in your wavering petitions to God for their reformation their amendment as Ioab did to Amasa you stab their authority their reputation beneath the fifth Rib. But if it were not proprium convertibile with your Sect to make bold with Scripture I could fit you better with texts and tell you of a Miriam who said hath the Lord spoken onely by Moses and not by us also and of a Core of whom you learned your Dialect you take too much upon you seeing all the congregation of the Lord are holy wherefore lift you your selves above the Congregation of the Lord But you are worse then both these no speech by Moses as by your selves not all the Congregation of the Lord but onely you are holy I will therefore assigne you a third that comes more home to the point To your Tents O Israel what Inheritance have we in the Sonne of Iesse validior est oris quà m operis vox Let the condition