testimonie of Gods spirit witnessing inwardly with my spirit and partly upon the sense and experience which I have of the power of them in overcomming my naturall corruptions as it were against my will and partly upon that particular sight and knowledge which I have of the glory and divine Majestie shining in them I am so confident and assured that they are Gods most holy and infallible word that my conscience tels me I had rather forgoe all the world and my dearest bloud and bodily life than denie the truth of them Yea if the Church and Teachers which perswaded me first to receive them for Gods word should fall away by apostasie forsweare and denie them or any part of them or if any Angell from heaven should teach the contrary I would count them accursed as the Apostle enjoines me Gal. 1. 8. And now I can say to the Church and my Teachers as the Samaritans did to the woman who brought them to Christ Loe I have heretofore beleeved the Scriptures to be Gods word upon your testimonie and authoritie but now I see with mine owne eyes I have the inward testimonie of Gods spirit and feele by powerfull effects and by experience in my selfe that these Scriptures are Gods holy word and the power of God to salvation This I freely confesse is my knowledge and perswasion of Gods word which by these degrees I have attained unto And I daily have experience and evident signes of the same grace in all other Christians with whom I doe converse familiarly Now therefore in the second place I charge you before God and upon your conscience to answer directly and plainly before this people here present whether you have experience of the same grace in you and whether you have by these degrees oâ— any of them attained to this full assurance of knowledge and understanding of the Scriptures Mr. Fisher. What is that to you whether I have or have not Or what if I hold it needlesse to assume so much unto my selfe Mr. Walker It is very necessarie that you should doe either the one or the other And whether you confesse or denie you are taken and ensnared If you say that you have experience of this grace in you and of this gift and testimonie of the spirit then you are plainly convinced by your owne mouth of wilfull blasphemy against the Holy Ghost in that you have denied contradicted derided and scoffed at that worke of his in the Saints of God of which worke you have experience in your owne soule But if you confesse that you never felt this order and worke of grace in you and that your faith is nothing but an implicit beleeving of the Scriptures upon the Churches testimonie and authoritie without any sense or experience of the power and vertue thereof in your soule and that you blindly and desperatly cast your selfe on the Church without any particular discerning of the truth of the Scriptures or any inward testimonie of the spirit then it is certaine to say the best that you are yet a babe in Christianitie and Christ Iesus is not yet formed in you Yea I feare that you are worse than so for if after so many yeeres studie of Divinitie and so long continuance in the publike calling of a Priest and teacher of others you be found not onely destitute and void of this necessarie grace of a Christian but also an opposer and gainesayer of it and a scorner of such as professe it we cannot but deeme you a very Atheist and sonne of Belial in whom is verified that which S. Paul foretold of the slaves of Antichrist 2 Thess. 2. 12. viz. That God should send them strong delusions that they should beleeve lies and be damned not beleeving the truth but having pleasure in unrighteousnesse Also that which is testified by S. Iude of such reprobates who are of old ordained to condemnation viz. That they speake evill of those things which they know not and whatsoever things they know naturally as beasts which are without reason in those things they corrupt themselves and that they are corrupt trees and without fruit twise dead and plucked up by the roots and raging waves of the sea foaming out their owne shame and wandring starres to whom is reserved the blacknesse of darknesse for ever Mr. Fisher You are very sharpe and uncharitable in your judgement but it is no matter what you say neither will I argue more with you at this present for it is time for us to depart Mr. Walker I doe not judge you but by your owne mouth and by the infallible word of God and from henceforth I leave you to the judgement of God and to the censure of all here present who have heard you at this time onely thus much I must tell you that I doe manifestly discerne by your cariage speeches and behaviour your evill conscience and that you doe dolo malo wilfully oppose the truth and factiously cleave to the Romish religion For all here present have seene that you refuse and are afraid to be tried either by Scriptures or Fathers or disputation and reason or by the spirit of God which you would never doe so openly to your shame if your conscience did not tell you that they are all against you in the speciall articles of your religion wherein you dissent from us To this divers of them who were present gave their assent and professed that they were exceedingly deceived in their opinion of Fisher wondering that one so vaine and ridiculous as he shewed himselfe should dare to undertake the defence of his religion face to face against any learned man before any understanding hearers or that any should be either so foolish and blinde as to be seduced by him or so impudent and void of iudgement as to give him the name and report of a learned man or to number him among subtle disputants And one among the rest calling unto the Iesuit asked him very earnestly whether he were indeed that Fisher the Iesuit who disputed with Doctor White before the King which when he acknowledged Surely said the man I should never have beleeved it if any other had told me so for it could never have sunke into my minde that any of your name and report should be so absurd and ridiculous as you have here shewed your selfe For I see that neither the Originall Scriptures nor your owne translation of them nor the Fathers nor disputation and argument are of any account with you Doe you thinke that any man will be so foolish as to beleeve you who have no ground but your owne word and will But now I am glad that you have given me iust occasion as to abhorre your religion more than ever before and to esteeme you a vaine wrangler of no judgement so also to stop the mouth of some of my kinred who are of your religion and great admirers of your person and praisers of your learning by reporting and testifying unto them concerning
but also by the inward heavenly comforts and spirituall strength which they thereby and from thence receive doe sensibly perceive that Gods hand is with them and he doth in them speake to their consciences then they need no more the judgement of the Church nor of any externall judge to assure them that the Scriptures are Gods true infallible word for though all professors in the world or an Angell from heaven should preach and affirme the contrarie they will not assent unto them but rather count them as Anathema and accursed as the Apostle commands Gal. 1. 8. Mr. Fisher. They who are true Catholikes and rest upon the judgement of the Church have as much assurance and certaintie of the truth of the Scriptures as is needfull from the testimonie of the Church for they build vpon the rocke against which the gates of hell cannot prevaile But you teach men to build their faith on their owne private spirit and you are lead every one of you by his owne conceit which is the cause of so many sects and schismes and severall opinions among you every one assuming to himselfe presumptuously such an infallibilitie of judgement in matters of faith as doth not belong to any private man neither can bee attained unto by the common and vulgar sort of Christians Mr. Walker You shew your selfe by this speech of yours to be not onely a meere carnall man such a one as hath never felt the lively worke of Gods spirit in his heart nor tasted of the heavenly gift but also a brutish man corrupting that reason and darkning that light which by nature is in you which I will evidently shew divers waies First you preferre the externall testimonie of the Church before the internal testimonie of Gods spirit and make it a more sure rocke to build on than the Holy Ghost who is the spirit of truth Secondly you seeme to exempt and exclude the common sort of Christians and all private men from the communion of the Holy Ghost and from that gift and grace and inward worke of the spirit by which they are illuminated to see and perswaded to beleeve the truth of Gods word every one particularly in his owne soule and with his owne heart contrary to the Scriptures which teach that the spirit of Jehovah resting first and originally on Christ the head Isa. 11. 2. is from him inspired and infused into all and every faithfull member of his body the Church Rom. 8. 9. in such sort that they are said by that one spirit to be baptized into one bodie whether they be Iewes or Gentiles 1 Cor. 12. 13. and their bodies are said to be temples of the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in them 1 Cor. 3. 16. and 6. 19. and by this spirit they are said to have the gift of knowledge and faith 1 Cor. 12. and to be led into all truth Ioh. 16. Thirdly you call the holy spirit of Christ which we challenge in Christ by a common right as common to all the elect and which doth worke the same faith and knowledge in every particular Christian by the name of a private spirit wherein you shew most palpable ignorance overspreading your carnall eyes and possessing your carnall heart For that spirit which flowes from that one common fountaine of all goodnesse even God the Father of all and is sent forth in and through the name of that one common Mediatour and Saviour of the world his Sonne Iesus Christ which is also the same in Christ the head and in the whole universall bodie of the elect and faithfull and doth worke in all and every one particularly the same common knowledge of the same truth and the same common faith in the same promised seed And all this by no private motions or inspirations separated from the word of God but onely by that common meanes even the word of Christ spoken by his mouth and written by his Prophets and Apostles in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament this spirit can in no case be called a private spirit For it is the propertie of the Holy Ghost the true Comforter to come from the Father in the Sonnes name and to teach the truth and worke faith by the common rule and meanes of the Scriptures and not to speake of himselfe new things which Christ had not spoken before but onely to speake what he hath heard and so to receive of Christs and to give to us and to lead us into all truth by calling to our mindes the word spoken by Christ and recorded in the Scriptures and by writing it in our hearts as our Saviour plainly testifieth Ioh. 16. 13 14. This spirit which is discerned by these properties we challenge to our selves by the common right of the elect in Christ and he it is who doth testifie to our spirits that the holy Scriptures are the true infallible word and doth transforme our soules into the obedience of them and doth worke in us that same faith by which all the Saints have beene justified and saved from the beginning of the world But now as I have shewed you which is the true spirit of God common to all the elect and faithfull and that by his properties observed from the words of Christ our Saviour and also that the spirit of Protestants is that spirit So I demand of you whether you Papists have any such spirit working in you that faith and knowledge of the Scriptures which you build on the testimonie and authoritie of the Church If you say that you have no such spirit but are led every one by his owne sense then are you carnall and sensuall men not spirituall by your owne confâ—ssion If you say that you have the spirit moving every one of you particularly to rest on the judgement of the Church of Rome and causing you to beleeve that the Pope cannot erre and that the Scriptures which he doth commend unto you are therefore Gods word then I would know of you why that spirit so resting and working in every particular Papist should not be esteemed a private spirit as well as that which works in every Protestant Mr. Fisher. Your spirit is a private spirit because he leads every one of you into severall opinions and private interpretations of Scripture which have never beene received in the Church nor commonly acknowledged of the godly Fathers and Doctors Mr. Walker If you have no more to say for your selfe than this I shall easily convince you by your owne mouth and prove from your owne words that the spirit of Papists not the spirit of Protestants is indeed a private spirit For first our spirit perswades us to receive for Gods infallible word no other Scriptures but those which by the common consent of all the ancient Fathers and of all sorts of Christians even of you Papists your selves are held for Canonicall but you Romanists receive divers Scriptures for Canonicali which by S. Hierome and other Ancients and by all the reformed Churches
are and have beene censured for Apocrypha and so you are in this more private in your opinion than we Secondly we Protestants build upon no other rock but that which is common to all the faithfull from the beginning even God himselfe who is prima veritas the first truth and upon his word of promise made in Christ the promised seed and we are founded on the Prophets and Apostles who are the common foundation both to all the fathers in the old Testament and to all Christians in the time of the Gospell But you build upon a new rocke even the Pope of Rome whom yee call the universall Bishop sitting in Peters chaire a foundation which all the faithfull forefathers before the comming of Christ were ignorant of and never heard or dreamed Neither did the first Christians in the primitive Church for divers hundred of yeeres after Christ acknowledge any such name or title but even Gregorie the Great a Bishop of Rome who lived 560. yeeres after Christ condemned it as a note of Antichrist and his forerunner as by his epistles is manifest Thirdly though divers sects of Anabaptists Familists and Enthusiasts men of fanaticall spirits have growne up like tares in the field of the reformed Churches who follow their owne private fancies imaginations and divers inspirations of Satan which have no warrant from the Scriptures but are contrary to the written word yet they are not of us we renounce their society and expell them out of our Churches and say of them as the Apostle did 1 Ioh. 2. 19. They went out from us but they were not of us And as for the interpretations of some obscure Scriptures which Luther Calvin and other learned men have lately found out and doe finde out daily which were not knowne of old nor commonly received we embrace them not for novelty nor because they are singular nor for the authoritie of the expositors themselves but because we finde them to be agreeable to the originall text and to other plaine places of the same Scriptures and to containe the old and common doctrine of Christ and his Apostles and Prophets which hath beene beleeved and embraced in all ages of all true Christians But a great number of the articles of the Romish religion concerning Image-worship Canonization of Saints Purgatorie Pardons Indulgences Transubstantiation Massing sacrificing for the dead and such like they are builded vpon private visions apparitions dreames imaginations and fancies of Friers and upon singular inspirations of Monks and other doating persons slavishly devoted to your superstitions so that the Popish spirit is indeed the same with the private fanaticall spirit of Anabaptists and Enthusiasts as plaine reason and experience doe shew Mr. Fisher. The Iesuit taking little pleasure in the hearing of these things made great shew of a desire to breake off and to be gone onely he put on a bold and impudent face to deride the opinion of Protestants concerning the gift of the spirit by which particular Christians are enabled to know and beleeve the Scriptures and to be fully perswaded and assured of the truth and true meaning of them And as for you saith he to Master Walker it is well for you that you have such an infallible spirit which doth enable you to discerne the word of God and doth more assure you of the truth thereof than the publike testimonie of the Church But pardon us if we hold it doubtfull seeing we have no more but your owne word for it Mr. Walker Yea and I will have your word professing the same of your selfe also or else I will make you appeare to all here present to be void of all true Christianitie First you shall see that all your scoffs shall not make me ashamed to professe and to proclaime the grace and gift which God hath given me for the knowledge of his word and how I come to know it by the worke of his spirit Secondly I will urge you upon your conscience to answer me whether you have experience and feeling of the same grace in you That which I can with a good conscience testifie of my selfe I hold to be no singular gift but a grace common to all true Christians and it is this First I confesse that I was borne of Christian parents and my father and mother who tenderly loved me and were also of me dearely beloved did teach me the first principles of religion from my infancie and did tell me that the holy Scriptures contained in that Bible which was read and expounded in our Church were the true word of God I being not able to judge of it my selfe beleeved it so to be upon their word and authoritie for the reverent respect and esteeme which I had of them Afterwards they caused me to frequent the Church and to heare that word read and expounded by learned Preachers and told me that I ought to beleeve what I heard out of it preached in the Church and so I did for I beleeved the Preachers publishing that word in so much that partly by their exhortations and partly out of a care which I had of my soules health and in a desire of Gods favour and blessings which were thereunto promised I did even from my youth give my minde to reade and learne the Scriptures Howsoever I must confesse that at the first and in my childish yeeres I did finde but little savour sweetnesse in the most profitable parts of the Scriptures such as Davids Psalmes Salomons Proverbs the bookes of the Prophets the Epistles of the Apostles and such like yea though I beleeved that they were Gods word yet by reason of my naturall corruption I did take more pleasure and delight in Poeticall fables and feigned histories which did feed my corruption and were a kinde of fuell to my sinfull lusts and vanities Neverthelesse whether it was mine owne conscience urging me or the spirit of God which moved me I cannot certainly tell but sure I am that still I did upon the testimonie and authoritie of my Parents and Teachers reverence the Scriptures as Gods word and force my selfe to reade them contrary to my rebellious nature and at length when I came to more ripe yeeres I found that the word which was most opposite and distastfull to my sinfuâ—l corruption did worke upon me most strongly and effectually which is an infallible token of Gods hand in it and a sure signe of the divine power and supernaturall excellencie thereof I felt the promises of the Gospell and the words of the Prophets and Apostles which before had little relish begin by Gods grace to be most sweet and comfortable in all crosses and afflictions and to be most profitable by strengthning me with the spirit of prayer and faith against temptations by mortifying my fleshly corruptions and by reforming my life so that I began to rejoyce in the Scriptures more than in any earthly treasures and did devote my selfe to the studie of them and now partly upon the