in that point wherof you profess your selves to be Defendants I ought to have shewed upon what grounds I did it that you might have confuted them this would have tended more to the satisfaction of the Auditory than the omission of it could do if you will not believe me in this yet at least believe your selves for these are no other words then your own yet I confess you have no great reason to give heed to your selves neither considering how many offs and ons you are found in for one while you assert it needfull that I should lay down my grounds as above another while as here that I moved and had you said with importunity too you had spoken now no more than the truth to make a Position or which is all one to lay down my grounds onely you saw the unnecessariness of it O pure stuff at last through much importuning to have an hour or two wherein to do it and promising much more then you would accept of viz. That if that day were too short to dispute in I would give you the next day and the next and lastly pleading the equity of the thing from the order of the Schools where there 's no Disputation without Position to which order you had by Article oblig'd us such high condescension was acted by you Presidents of the place that I was allowed the large liberty of a quarter Report Next you go on to declare the sum of my Position and that being come into the body of the Church you the Ministers entred into the Desk and I standing a little distance off upon one of the seats leaning to a pillar and the multitude being silent I made my Position Reply For your relation of my leaning to a Pillar it being neither true nor material what doth it here I wonder in this your short and true relation as you call it of the most material things that passed yet sith 't is acknowledged by you to be a mistake in the margent of the coppy that you sent me I 'le not onlie excuse it for once though an error but lend you a little toward the making of it truth for I did lean indeed that day to a Pillar even the true Church of God which is the Pillar and ground of truth which would you all lean as much to as you do from it in these tottering times you would stand a little faster than you are like to do and secure your selves from that fall that is threatned in these words Babylon is fallen is fallen which though your Tower reach as high as heaven as that old Tower of Babell seem'd to do the Division of language that is in these daies wil e're long unavoidably bring upon you Report The heads of my Position you say are four to which sith you subject four Answers of your own I 'le reduce each of them to the severall head it relates to and so reply to both of them together First That I need not spend time about stating the question it being done before at the Communion Table to this first you saie answer was made that herein I confirmed the Ministers reasons against my making of a position Reply Though there was no need to spend time in acquainting them with the question over again because that was done before at the Table yet there was need and so I expressed my self often enough to spend time yea four or five times more than I could get of you in stating the question i. e. of making a Position for even with your selves these two are Synonima's for what you stile stating the question in the first head the very same you call making a Position in your answer yet such is your subtilty that you here represent it as if I who was so earnest before to have liberty to state the question in a Position and moved it as a matter most needfull were already so altered in my judgement as in the front of my Position to profess it needless to spend time about it Sirs what a sight of inâ—… and outs are here do you not remember or if you will not yet some people will that my chief complaint of you to them in my Position was this That though I so much desired it though it was very requisite and the manner of the Schools to which you tied me and therefore I ought of right to have had an hours time yet you had crowded me into the corner of a quarter which shewes that though you deem'd it wast of time for me to say anie thing almost about the question yet I judg'd it very needfull to speak more to it than your patience was pleased to permit me and yet it 's not enough for you in your Account of the Position to leave well-nigh all that little out which in that little time was declared as to the falsness of your administration by the way of sprinkling and other matters of your Ministery but you also falter and feign and forge so fowlie in your sum of the Position as to set down more in 't than was ever thought on Report Secondly That I came thither to defend the unlawfullness of Childrens baptism which an evill and adulterous generation did maintain against me to which you saie it was answered that I transgressed the Propositions in giving reviling and opprobrious terms callng you a wicked and adulterous generation to which saie you I replyed that my intent was not to fasten those words upon any there present that I desired they might be so taken which by you was admitted of Reply I came not thither i. e. to Ashford so much to defend as to prove could I have been licensed thereunto by your spiritual Court the unlawfulness of Childrens Baptism yet not of Childrens Baptism so much which though it is easie yet is needless to be disproved because no where dispensed that I know of but rather of Childrens sprinkling which as it is doublie unlawful so is universallie practised of this end of my comming I gave evidence enough in debating the fourth Proposition professing that I came to give account of my dissent and denial of the truth of your waie but when you denied me to give my desired Account wherein I would have been a Plantiff and a prover I must then defend or do nothing neither did I saie of this evil and adulterous generation that they maintained it against me but themselves for whether they do or do it not they cannot hurt me thereby but if they do it the worst will be their own for as they of old that rejected the true Baptism for none Luke 7. 30. did reject the conncel of God against themselves so do they that reject it for a false one as to the terms of evil and adulterous generation concerning which you first charge me and then acquitted me as not intending them to you I meant them then in verie deed of this Age wherein we live yet so long as you go a whoring
out of Irenaeus who lived toward the end of the second Century which Englisht are thus viz. Christ came by himself to save all all I say who are born again unto God infants and little ones c. it s not likely that in this sentence that father by the word born again meant baptism as Mr. Blake and Mr. Marshal contend for by that sence they father such absurdity upon that their father as children that pretend to honour their father may be ashamed of whilst they make him say Christ came to save all infants that are baptized when as neither all infants that are baptized are actually saved quâ baptized nor are any unbaptized infants damned quâ not baptized but both alike saved as both alike they either dye before they have bard themselves by actual sin and derserved exemption or living to years believe and obey Christ and both alike damned as living to years they both alike obey not his Gospel but however let Mr. Blake and Mr. Marshal squeeze what they can from the quotation it must yet remain as doubtful whether the speech of Irenaeus if it were his own were at all of infants baptism as it doth whether the speech fathered on Iustin though it be of infants baptism were at all his own and so what dubious evidence the second century affords so much as de facto that infant baptism was then in being all men may see whilst you can say no more then perhaps it was so and a fool may say as much as perhaps it was not which is a proportionable answer to that argument for t is commonly said in the Schooles saies Mr. Marshal that fortè it a solvitur per fortè non Secondly but what if your testimony de facto concerning the practise of infant baptism in the second century were as clear as t is cloudy yet what green headed anuquity is this in comparison of that we plead from viz. the Apostles themselves when you are stormed out of all your strong holds then you send us still to ages above us and cry out your practise is of 1500 years standing but sith you cannot say as we can of ours t is above 1600 years old nor is yours now likely to live to it as good you had said but 15 for our way onely being found in the first century and yours not at all before the second we are a people so much elder then you upstarts that your antiquity is but novelty with us whoregardlesse of what by mans wisdome was foisted in in after ages can aver with as much confidence as you can that now it is that from the beginning it was not so nor yet in end shall be I much marvel why Mr. Marshall contents himself to preach positively no otherwise then thus p. 3. viz. this priviledge of baptizing infants the Christian Church hath bin in possession of for the space of 1500 years and upwards he might as easily have said 1600 had his ground been as good for that as for the other and yet his ground for the other is so infirm and sinking under him that I believe he must fall down as low as the third century before he find sure footing for his proof of no more then the bare practise of infant baptism As for the Ius of it its nere the nearer if he could prove the matter of fact to be in the second though that still is the main question betwen us sith t is confest by Mr. Marshall that he uses not the Testimony and judgements of the Antients to witnesse to the truth of it but onely to prove a then practise of infant baptism and the question de jure whether infants ought to be baptized no one of the fathers nor yet the joint consent of many saith Mr. Blake p. 58. of his to Mr. Blackwood is a competent Iudge therefore if any of you who stand so much upon that young antiquity of it and plead the authority of the Church and fathers shall argue thus t is 1500 years old therefore it is 1600 you live below that candor ingenuity and discretion that I find in Mr. Marshal and Mr Blake who both deny your consequence and in this case close with us in the very truth Thirdly as for the third century t is somewhat more then probable that such a superstition as infant baptism was comming in at least or else t is like there would not have been such pro and con as was about it for true Origen if the Testimonies fathered on him be his own which he who well weighs what evidence is put in to the contrary by Mr. Blakwood p. 34 of his Rioynder to Mr. Blake where he saith that the original of Origen is lost that the Translator confesses he added many things of his own that Erasmus saies one cannot be sure whether one read Ruffinus or Origen that the learned put his commentary on the Romans among his counterfeit works as much sophisticated by Russinus and also what is said by Mr. Tombs too notwithstanding all that Mr. Marshall brings p. 15. 16. 17. 18. of his to Mr. Tombes whereby to salve it will find small ground to believe Origen I say a man of many errors stiles it a tradition received from the Apostles which if you will believe implicitly you may but else you need not for t is no more then a bare scripturelesse assertion Cyrian also and a Councel of 66 bishops almost contemporary to Origen are supposed to be of some such mind but upon such silly grounds as you that now plead infants baptism are ashamed of witnesse Mr. Blake p. 40 who denies them not to be erroneous as Mr. Blakwood calls them and therefore you may as well be ashamed of their opinion and expression of it also it being for all their reasons as scriptureless as that of Origen who brings nothing to prove what he said Babist But Mr. Marshal p. 18. tells you that it was because none opposed the lawfulness of infant-baptism which if they had Origen would no doubt have maintained by Scripture as well as affirmed it to come from the Apostles Baptist. This is strange when it is most evident and Mr. Marshall himself denies it not that famous Tertullian the first of that Century that might in respect of his Seniority to Origen and Cyprian be stiled a father to them both perswades by many reasons to deferre the baptism of children as most profitable Saying Let them become Christians when they know Christ. And in another place It behooves them that are about to enter into baptism to pray with frequent prayers fastings kneelings watchings and with the confession of all their sinnes past which things infants we know cannot do First then I appeal to your own consciences and Mr. Marshalls also whether this be not a plea against it as unlawful for to decline what 's most profitable is unlawful Secondly whether here be not pro and con among the Fathers about it and so though their
do when the Kingdome appointed by the Father to him in reward of his for them and by him to his disciples in reward of their sufferings for him Luke 22. 28. is come this I utterly deny nay rather he is yet in his Saints an underling to the civil powers the miserable ignorance of which time wherein Christ shall take unto himself his great power and reign and be de facto as he was de jure before King of Kings and Lord of Lords makes the Divines so dote as to Interpret that place Isa. 49. 23. of Kings being nursing fathers and Queens nursing mothers and bowing down and licking the dust of the Chuches feet and a hundred more as fulfilled now in this his day of small things in this his personal absence which when the divel is blind at least and bolted up in the bottomless pit Rev. 20. they l surely see are not in esse actuali till then and to suppose Magistrates to be now Christs chief Church officers Supremely under him to rule in it when as were they not already blind themselves they could not but see it to be contrary unto truth for women may be Magistrates but not Church Ministers and may be Supreme in authority in a State as Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth but are bid to be under obedience and fordid in Church matters so much as to speak much more to usurp authority in the Church 1 Tim. 2. 11. 12. 1 Cor. 14. 34. 35. viz. in refusing to be judge in matters of faith and religion * For Custoâ—…s et vindex ut ciusque tabulae under the Gospel because it was sounder that typical standing of the Law is but a tale and a trick of our Priests whereby to curry favour with their princes the truth is that whole Jewish State which was also a Church as no one whole nation under heaven now is was a type and both the Kingly Priestly and Prophe tical office that then headed that Church were typical of that tripple true head of the Gospel Israel Christ Jesus and are no more to be drawn in as an example so as to argue more warrantably from the Kings then to the civil Rulers now then from the High-Priest-Hood to the Popedome * my Petition to the powerâ—… on behalf of the Church is that it may have as much peace and as little preferment as they please for ever Cum Ecclesia peperit divitias silia devoravit matrem y Twospritualties whereof as bad as the first is the latter will be more sensuall then the former having not the Spirit Jude 17. though pretending to it more supremely then the other under which last the devil now acts as under a new vizard to the deceiving of people from the way of truth perceiving his old vizard worn so thin that all men begin now to see through it * Luk. 9. 53. 54 55. * Witness the Iesuites that 〈◊〉 kil Kings if Hereticks the Northen presbitery that may lawfully sight England if it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ctory and the Episcopal war against the State * So Iulius the second who seeing himself vanquisht threw away Saint Peters keyes into the River Tyber protesting he would thence forth help himself with S Pauls sword * The contrary towhich where ere t is well may men submit out of fear till they can help themselves but never out of love while the world stands for consci ence is a tender thing and though but a woâ—…m yet if trod upon wil turn again * Howbeit they shall never want flatterers to perswade them that they are Abj. Ans. * Vid. â— Tho. Beacons Reliquâ—…s of Rome sâ—…t forth cum privilegio 1563. Pope Servitius ordained that Hereticks should be banisâ—…t An. 588. fol. 214. Pope Pelagius the first that all Hereticks and Schismaticks should be put to death by the secular power provided that the Bishops in their spiritual courts do first prosecute convict and condemn them for Hereticks and then commit them to the temporal Magistrate to dispaâ—…ch them out of the way by fire sword or halter for they say as the chief priests to Pilate it is not lâ—…wful for us to put any to death In the councel of Lateran by Innocent the third 2 Patriaâ—…s 70 Aroh-bishops 400 Bishops twelve Abbots 800 Priests the Legates of the Greek and Roman Empire the Embassadors of Spain Jerusalem France England Cyprus it was decreed that all Hereticks and so many as should in any point resist the Catholique faith should be condemned that the secular power of what degree soever should be compelled openly to swear for the defence of the Catholique faith and to the utmost of their power to root out and destroy in their kingdomes all such persons as the Catholique Church should condemn for Hereticks and if any King should be a Heretick or defender of them and not reform within a year then his subjects should be absolved by the Pope from yielding any further subjection or obedience to him or keeping any fidelity with him and so t was in the case of John here in England who resigned to the Popes Legate his Crown kissing his knee as he came into England which John was after poisoned by a Monk who having his pardon from the Pope poisoned himself first to poison the King and also that the Pope may give that land to Catholiques to possesse peaceably and without contradiction all Hereticks being rooted out of it Obj. Ans. * 1 Sam 5. 24 * which he hath more saith then I that believes they ever will for surely the CCClergies Win all or lose all will pull them down at last * 〈◊〉 Es. 15. 5. to the 12. 49. to 57. Rev. 11. 〈◊〉 6. 19. 2. * for howbeit it was the Roman civil power in Potius Pilate passing sentence yet it was the Priestly malice that caused him to be crucified or else Pilate had re leased him so its Princely power but PPPriestly malice crying out crucifie him crucifie him that hath caused himunder the Gospel be crucified in his truth and Saints or else many of the civil Powers would release him â—…om 13 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pâ—… 2. 13. Magistâ—…es are called 〈◊〉 â—…dinance oâ—… Godâ—… the mâ—… tâ—…it oâ—…â—…he thing we 〈◊〉 goâ—…ern nâ—… is oâ—… him the ordinâ—…ce of 〈◊〉 to â—…he 〈◊〉 form of governmâ—… viz. whâ—…her it shall be by Kings Parliâ—… c. and also the paticular persons that shall execuâ—…e that form is alâ—…ogether in choice of the people * Act. 18 12 13. 14 * â—…e supra p. 279. * For that name Clergy however by themselves improperly impropriated to themselves as if they onely were the heritage of God for that 's the plain English of that Anglico-greek word Clergy yet in plain truth pertains properly to all Christs people and that in contradistinction too from the Ministry for the spirit speaking of the Elders and Pastors of the Church charges them not to Lord it over the heritage i. e. in other locution not
lands they had sinned and p. 182. out of Pontan Catolog Through Germany Alsatia and Swedland many 1000s of this sect who defiled their first baptism i. e. their no baptism by a second a true one were baptized the third time with their owâ—… blood i. e. miserably tortured as some have bin in England also both old and new yea massacred and murdered by fire and fagot for this and other resistance of the Romish stream by racking headings hangings pinching with hot pincers stabbings and such like wayes whereby the self-preserving common-wealth of Clergy men that they might testifie their cause by the Neronean cruelty of it to be of Christ who in the 9th chapter of just no where charges all his ministers to impower all Christian magistrates to imprison spoil torment hang banish burn drown whip fine flea and destroy all such as in foro hominum Synodicantium non Dei deny his name have restored those that have to their offence been overtaken with the fault of unfeigned faith and true obedience in the spirit of meekness in all ages of their reign So that if either fear or fire or blood or water were sufficient there hath hitherto wanted none of all these to suffocate the disputers to lay the itch and quench the heat of disputes against infant baptism but as the hast of these times wherein God begins to find the magistrates othor work viz. to curb the Christian cruelty of that whore that hath thus rid them into rigor against the Saints doth forbid the the ministers to be so throughly provided with them as heretofore so modesty doth to use those knocking arguments now in these times of Orthodozism where in both the Clergy and their bloody tenet of persecution for cause of conscience are discovered dayly in their colours How little then the Authorities of fathers and Churches in case we grant them to come in thereunto can contribute to your assistance is apparent and now that those modern authors you promise your Reader such through furniture from viz. Calvin Ursin and Featley upon this subject and also such others as though you name them not here yet have improved themselves more singularly on that single subject then any of these have done as little help you if they be well heeded I come now in the fourth place to discover And first as for your worthy Dr. Featley he is so worthily defeated and disarmed of all his Artillery by Mr. Denn that it were but to attempt the stripping of a naked and encountring of a wounded man to meddle much more with his arguments which are all sufficiently secured and disabled from doing much mischief to the true baptism onely for his high charges of the Anabaptists as he calls them as a bloudy illiterate lascivious lying sacrilegious sâ—…ct whether they may not more easily be made good against the Clergy in general then against the generallity of them he calls so may possibly be examined hereafter And as for Calvin and Ursin t is true they are both against us in the maine but in some things so slatly against you in the mean that you have as little cause to brag of their assistance of you as the Kirk of Scotland had to blesse themselves in the help of their King and his party who though they were all against England yet were so eager against each other that they rather weakned each others forces for thus do you Ashford arguers for infanr-baptism and those two Champions you seem to crack of as propugnators with you of the same who are such strenuous impugnators of their opinions asseverations and principles about the point as to debillitâ—…te and raze them down as impious and impedimental imbecillities for they cry out as I have shewed more at large above Christus non adâ—…mit salutem â—…is quibus adimitur baptismus quantum damni invexerit dogma illud c. Christ doth not deny salvation to them to whom baptism is denied what mischiâ—…f that opinion brings that baptism is necessary to salvation few consider and the opinion that they are damned who are not baptized makes as if the grace of God were lesse to us then to the Iews c. and there seems no small injury to be done to the covenant of God not to rest in this principle that infants are not excluded from the kingdom of heaven who depart out of this life without baptism and more of this sort so that instead of being strengthned in your last arguments at least wherein you assert that denying baptism to little infants destroyes the very hope of their salvation which is as much as to say Baptismum esse de necessitate salutis and perditos â—…sse omnes quibus aqua tingi non contingit c. that baptism of infants is so necessary to their salvation that parents can have no hope of their salvation if it be denied thâ—…m and that inâ—…ury is done to the Covenant of God and that the Goâ—…pel is worse then the law if infants be not bapâ—…ized instead I say of being strengthned by these mâ—…ns testimonies you turn us off to contrary wise you are rather spoiled and stark 〈◊〉 of a moity of that argumentative furniture whereby you strive to stiffen your selves and others against the truth even of no lesse then one or two of those three principal pillars wherewith you under pin your false practise and fortifie it from falling flat unto the ground As for the other men that together with your selves are up in armes in this age for infant-baptism so odiously are some of them at odds with you and among themselves as also some of you are with them and among your selves that it s well â—…igh enough to render a wise man mad at least a doubting man more distracted then resolved to hear read and see the wonderful jars that are among modern Divines as touching the various opinions ends grounds and principles upon which they plead and practise in this point of infant-baptism For not to spâ—…ak here of the jarrs which the baptism of persons in infancy occasions necessarily between the preachers assertions of baptisms nature use offices ends and the peoples practicals and infants capacities not one of which in infancy appears to the preachers to have any of those things which they say baptism signs seals and is used for viz. regeneration real union with Christ by faith and incorporation into him 〈◊〉 of his spirit and confirmation of their faith by it c. nor one of many when they grow up to years neither the most of them whom they so incorporate into Christ and signifie to the world by baptism that they are without doubt so accepâ—…ed and eternally beloved of Christ proving wicked and rejected of him as much as those who remain unbaptized till they are at age of which jars Mr. Blackwood speaks plainly p. 17. 18. 19. of his storm to which as little or nothing to the purpose as Mr. Blake replies p. 41 42. yet he is
Anti-christians Pedobap tists Sectaries c. and about his law and about Heresie and spiritual Truth and Schism in the Church and Ministry and such like about which the eares of the civil powers have been dâ—…d by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and folly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cockt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly so berly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleration for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of iâ—… for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world thoughall truth is the intollerablest thing in the
then nothing till you not onely trebbly endamage but totally undo many poor mens wives and childrens bodies and your own souls too except ye repent little considering that an inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning shall not be blessed in the end you devour widowes houses and for a pretence make long prayers and therefore will receive greater damnation you Tith mint and rue and all manner of herbs corn lamb wool milke egges calves pigs apples peares plums flax hey hens hops hemp wood houses cum mult is aliis quae nunc praescribere longum est either in kind or pecunialiter but you passe over judgement mercy faith and the weighty matters of Christs law you eat the fat and cloth your selves with the wool and kill them that are fed but you feed not the flock you even flea the very flesh from mens bones for your un-dues and that such men too sometimes whom your selves are so far from teaching that you have need to learn of them which be the first principles of the oracles of God you feed your people with words but not with the word you strengthen not the diseased but strengthen them in their diseases you strengthen the hands of the wicked that they do not return from their wickednesse and discourage the hearts of the righteous you run from place to place parish to parish parsonage to parsonage pretending you have Christs call from this to that when the loadstone that leads you is the love of lucre and when you are about to leave one living for the love of another you often dance a while between both serving them by turns by the halves till the half year be expired that you may have your half years hire from both places and when you take your leave of the flock which you fleec't before then what a deal of do there is to part and such scrape sometimes as if it went to the hearts of you that you must forsake them then there is farewell speeches farewell Sermons farewell all at once once for all the Lord be with you and such like but the devil may take them all and be their minister if he will for you if you can but get Christs call to a bigger living or some more emolumentall employment And howbeit you parish PPPastors can give your selves a dispensation from Christ to run away for selfs sake when you please from your flocks yet if any of your flocks run away from you for Christs sake to other Pastors many of you take oâ—… heavily at this saying t is a most miserable thing that when you have converted them and been a means of opening their eyes they should presently run away from your ministry you may separate your selves it seems without sin from them for more Tith but if they separate themselves from you for more Truth this is such a high piece of Schism and iniquity in the Church as deserves to be sharpely censured by the State at least if they abide not in all conformity to the cry of your wide mouthd coffers which if they do there 's so much the more content yea let them run to what Pastors they will so they still stand Paymasters to you for what said one even what many more of you proclaim is in your minds by your mindlesseness of ministring to men in spiritual things any farther then they minister to you in carnal viz let them run to the devil if they will quoth he for so you judge they do when they run from you to God so they will but pay us our tithes How justly may even England say as Isaiah said of Israel of old Isa. 56. 10. 11. 12. his watchmen are all blind they are dumb dogs that cannot bark but bite they can bitterly if men put no into their mouthes sleeping lying down loving to slumber greedy dogs that never have enough all looking to their own way every one to his gain from his quarter And as you can shift and flee from flock to flock and stand in several livings one after another some of you in two or three togetherin the same creeds catechisms formes of worship Government c. for your own earthly ends and emoluments so can you stand under severall postures practises creeds catechisms forms of worship government in the same livings rather then lose them when time and tide turns so strongly upon you as to turn you out of your places if you turn not with it Yea verily you are the most subtle shifting sinful shameful shuffling self Saviours some few still excepted for those that know their innocency in this I speak not of them but if any mens consciences tell them I speak of them I speak of them indeed from suffering joyfully the spoiling of your goods turning out of your houses in the troublous turnes of times for your professed conscience scruples that are to be found throughout the earth hence it is that you are generally quiet under the absence of that which you strictly pleaded for as truth while it stood and under the establishment of that which you stiled and stickled against as error till it was set up when the remove was made by the hand of that authority that was like to remove you out of your places if you sided not with it you suspend the removal of known corruptions and practise of known truths many times unlesse the whole state will move all in a body with you and unlesse all men may be made to march your way by Canons Ordinaces and Acts yea one order for this or that from the Rulers hath often given you a more clear sight of some things you seemd not to see before in an hour then bare reason would have done in a year from your Masters to you as well as to your servants from you stat pro ratione voluntas Hence it is that the same persons could ever serve the nations in the office of Priesthood under powers never so different never so contradictory one to other in principles postures practises government discipline liturgies formes Creeds Catechisms when there was no other remedy though till the sword decided it there was nothing but deadly implacability irreconcileablenesse to each others waies maugre all that the word could do among you witnesse the case of Common prayer which many of you saw to be a corruption yet kept to it while t was dangerous to decline it and till Authority took it away what Authority had to do to take it away by force from them whose conscience being blinded perswaded them they ought to use it I leave to authority to examine yet sure I am that Authority hath no Authority from God if it be a corruption to excuse impower or authorize any one to practise it without sin for so much as but an hour and many of you that could not see it to be any corruption at all but rather such a thing as would pluck up all Religion by the rootes till such
and that indeed is the most upright dealing with them of all yea Sirs you that are upon the Account of these times for godly Ministers let me say this to you for verily I have sorrow of heart for some of you of my old acquaintance my own flesh and blood for whose sakes flesh in me would fain be silent as knowing flesh in you would fain be let a lone but I must urge you to be serious in seeing how unsafely you satisfie your selves in your present fellowship with a carnal Clergy what make you among the prophane Ministry of the Nations that hath in all ages sate with such weight upon them as to sink them into a gulf of error so that all truth almost is heresie with them now and under hazard of being smoothered as soon as it peepes out from under that veil of traditions that hath covered it what make you keeping a Court of guard among the Babilonians to help to hold them in captivity still at least in the Suburbs and by the borders of Babilon where you yet linger and loiter for all your pretences and protestations to go quite home with them that are resolved foâ—… Sion what mean you to stand so neer in affinity as to make one spiritualty one spiritual fraternity with such flâ—…shly minded men as the main body of the national ministry consists of in all Europe for t is evident you 'l enter into the lists and make head with the worst of them even with the Pope himself against any further discoveries of truth then will stand with your standing among them though the Lord makes out the truth more clear and you seem in your prayers to desire him so to doâ—… 〈◊〉 yea I am almost ashamed to utter what I see I see preciseness and prophaness go hand in hand to keep out the true Righteousness indeed So that if I speak to the whole body of the CCClergy throughout the earth as very often I do yet I bespeak you no otherwise then I find you viz. whether for this or for that in particular yet all banded in one general body against the truth for as Herod and Pilate though at enmity could yet agree as friends against Jesus so you though of never so different complexions and constitutions lives and conversations doctrines and disciplines forms and fashions and goverments and Gospels yet are all friends to Christs crucifying in his disciples yea how implacably are you at odds among your selves one sort of you being for the supremacy of the Pope another for the Super-intendeny of the Bishop a third for the superstitions of the Synods others for they scarce know which and they care not what but as the temper of the times doth dispose them some Rantizing infants from one ground viz. because its a tradition some denying that and disclaiming it as both a rotten and false one yet Romanizing still from some other some and those the most more loose a few more strict in their manners notwithstanding all which variety you are at unity still i. e. at emnity against the Gospel of Christ. But should you help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord surely wrath will be upon you with them from the Lord If you Iehosophats i. e. the honest Presbyters in whom good things are found who have taken away the groves and much more of that Romish rubbish then your father Asa i. e. the good old Bishops did before you if you good Iehosaphats I say will after all this join with the wicked Ahabs that trouble Israel in imprisoning the Michaiahs at least by a silent assent and with the Ahaziahs that do wickedly so as to lay your heads together for ship-loads of Gold 2 Chron. 3. 31. 19. 2. 20. 35. 26. 38. for more means and maintenance saying to them we are in this point as you are our people as your people our parishes as your parishes our Articles of faith herein as your Articles of faith our way of maintenance as yours and we will be with you in the warre to reduce the Giliadites the sectaries that should be subject to us to our obedience your ships and all your projects works and councels will be broken and disappointed as the others what ever may become of your persons true men in a false way are out of Gods protection as well as hypocrites in a true Therefore depart ye from the tents of those ungodly men yea arise and depart from that Papistical posture of parish Churches and Pastoral relation to such as are not sheep which not Christ Iesus but the Pope stated men in at first for this is not your rest because it is polluted it will destroy you with a sore destruction whereupon come out from them and be ye seperate yea come out of her come out of her ye that are Christs people for Christs Ministers you are not though never so good men by Antichrists orders and partake no longer with her in her sins least ye partake also of her plagues Fourthly the Godlinesse and honesty of mens persons doth not prove the goodnesse and truth of the outward form and way of Church-order they are in nor must hinder the overturning it if false who will say many of these under the Episcopacy were not good men if good men stand in a bad place soil or posture they have so much the more need to be removed as trees and transplanted into a better for many of you Presbyters that go for godly were as godly every joâ—… while you stâ—…d in that false Episcopal form as now and some of you somewhat more for it s much to be feared that the settling of you in the same Hierarchy over the faith and chair of infallibility here in England out of which you justled the Bishops and they but an age above removed the Pope and the enjoyment of so much of their means hath been a means of abating much of your godlinesse and righteousnesse too if ever you had any or else the Priest surely would not so have so soon forgot that ere he was Clark as to have gone about so high Presbytery did but that God prevented him of his purpose so soon as ever he was gotten out of his own growning condition and kept from the clutches of those that crusht him to crush those that groan'd under him for the same liberty of conscience out of Smectimnus his own mouth There were therefore if not as many good men yet many as good men and to their then light sincere souls owning Prelacy and some its like owning the Papacy it self as may seem to be among you that now disown both yet did not this forbid you nor stop your mouths from using sharp invectives against their Authority as usurped their Government as ill their spiritual Courts consistories and seveveral sessions as spiteful to the truth their wayes as violent against tender consciences that could not close with them their Liturgies Ordinations administrations of Ordinances Baptism and