common with that impropriated part of it the Church and therefore in the business of Religion supposed as general Preliminaries and as it is in all other Arts and Sciences confessed Principles for he that cometh unto God as Candidate in this Sacred Profession must believe that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him A Godhead Religion Concomitant Reward and Happiness Common-Creed wherein all Heathens and Pagans Jews Mahometans c. whose several Testimonies I must not here insert as well as Christians universally throughout the world are Joynt Confessors save here and there a Protagoras Diagoras Lucian the Author of the Contempt of the Clergy c. and such like Desperadoes who yet never durst out of a Feaver expresly deny any of all the Three a GOD his WORSHIP or a FVTVRE STATE or suppose they live the Pope's Life questioning what they dare not cannot deny Clement the Seventh is the Man I mean his Three Dying-Resolves will be their certain though too late Conviction viz. Whether there be a God Whether the Soul be Immortal Whether there be a Heaven and Hell Again Sir That in order to the due knowledg of this God the right and acceptable performance of this worship and the discovery and attainment of this happiness a special Revelation of the Divine Mind Will and Rule of Faith Life is to the creature absolutely necessary that a scriptural Rule and Revelation is most convenient and that to afford the creature such a Rule is most congruous to the sacred nature honour of God are all rational truths aswell as the former For Sir as touching the necessity of such a Rule and Revelation although a person might by the conduct of the Light and Law of Nature emproved by the accessary help of the works of Nature discover and learn That there is a God yea and in some degree what He is both in his negative Attributes independency infinity immutability c. and in his affirmative-goodness wisdom power c. yea and those in their very eminencies omnisciency omnipotency c. and the like as the necessary and essential properties of the first Cause Likewise that there is religious worship due to this God yea and that he ought to be worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a way and manner most acceptable to himself Lastly that reward and happiness attends and depends upon that Worship yea and in some respect what objective happiness chief good is viz. God himself qui omnis beatitudinis fastigium meta finis as said the Divine Plato like as his Master Socrates the former the very sum adequate measure and boundary of all real blessedness yet notwithstanding all this What Vnity of Essence in Trinity of Persons is One in Three without division Three in One without confusion God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost all one individual Spirit the proper object of divine Worship What the right and acceptable manner of performing that Worship Wherein that true formal happiness consists which attends thereupon and by what means attainble c. Those Sir believe it are not at all discoverable by that common Light by reason of that infinite disproportion which is between such a defective medium and the object and hence in the Academy the Lyceum the Stoa and other Athenian Phrontisteries would have found no more credit then the doctrine usually preached for a hundred yeares last past in the Church of England hath in your books Follies Lett. 1. pag. 59. else what mean't the Heathenish polytheisme and great Armado of mock-Deities alias Mortals bewrayed by the Tombs they had aswell as Temples thirty thousand strong as it is in Hesiod's muster-roll copied by St. Augustine of whom three thousand amongst the very Graecians as it is in Homer's whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if with you as Canonical as belike his Iliades and Odysses are then we know at once what is your Creed your Bible and Practice of Piety six thousand amongst the Romanes as it is in Varro's more Gods then there are of Contemned Clergy all England over what mean't their monstrous Idolatries their two hundred eighty eight Beatitudes recounted by the learned Roman now mentioned and such like stuff of which to speak with the Father me piget quod illos non puduit and that not amongst the ruder Plebeians only but even persons of more defecated intellectuals their polished Sophies Ingeniosoes Vertuosoes and the most refined of all Nations and professions the Egyptian Priests the Persian Magi the wisest Graecian Philosophers Stoicks Peripateticks Platonicks c. the most inquisitive Roman Naturalists the Graecian and Roman both Orators and Poets even the very Princes in either Faculty Demosthenes and Tully in the one and in the other which your Reader may chance to wonder at Protestant-Homer Let. 2. pag. 43 45 46. and which is yet stranger Virgil the undoubted Nonconformist had he but held out to Bartholomew the Famous the onely persons of either Perswasion I assure you that I ever read or dream'd of to have come from Rome or Athens What I say can the Pagan Mock-deities Idolatries and imaginary Beatitudes in the very judgement of the most strenuous Advocates of pure Naturals portend other then an utter Insufficiency of natural light for the ends and purposes above specified namely the administring of the due Knowledge of the True God True Worship and True Happiness Therefore a New Light or supernatural Rule and Revelation is absolutely necessary Again Sir the expediency of a scriptural or written Rule may appear from a three-fold danger and inconveniency which an unwritten one is liable to namely that of oblivion and forgetfulness that of depravation and corruption by unjust additions detractions falsifications and forgery and lastly that of utter destruction and suppression the first through the treachery of Humane memory the two last through the implacable enmity of Satan and his Accomplices against God his Truth and Church From all which a written Rule and Revelation is more secure as being a publick Record and Repertory whereunto recourse may be had upon all occasions as well for relief to Memory as for trial or redress of questioned and impeached Truth hence called by St. Peter a surer word of Prophecy than Vocal or Vnwritten to wit not by a certainty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of veracity for all Divine Revelation is equally sure in this sense because equally true but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of security upon the accounts mentioned True it is God was pleased to instruct his Church for the first Two thousand years and upwards onely viva voce by a vocal Revelation of his Mind and Will for ought certainly known to the contrary but then Sir the constitution of the Church was during that long Aera onely domestical confined within the Line and Limits of particular Families which compared with the longaevity and great age of the Aborigines of the World gives us plainly
to understand that Sacred Truth might have been easily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by tradition from father to son conveyed preserved all that time pure entire and incorrupt free from the above-named Inconveniencies yea one single Trinmvirate might have performed this for the whole Two thousand years mentioned namely Adam Methuselah and Shem Methuselah living above Two hundred years with Adam and Shem who lived to the Fiftieth of Isaack's Age which was about the Two thousandth one hundredth and Fiftieth of the Age of the World about a hundred with Methuselah But now being that the Church-Line hath been since far extended her constitution advancing from Domestical to National and from That to Oecumenick and Vniversal Japhet perswaded to co-tabernacle with Shem and moreover the Life of Man very much since curtail'd being contracted by Sacred Horoscope to seventy or at most eighty years yea very rarely protracted to that insomuch that many successive Sages of the Church would not suffice to perform that now which that one single ternion did before and thus the case infinitely altered It followeth that for a preventive expedient against the Three-fold Inconveniency above-specified namely oblivion corruption and suppression a scriptural and written Rule is most Convenient And lastly that it is most congruous to the Nature and Honour of GOD to indulge his Creatures such a Revelation Rule and Directory is most convincingly manifest from his own infinite Perfections partly and partly from the concerns of his Glory and Honour in his own Worship being rightly performed and his Creature 's Happiness being fully secured for to urge but one argument in this one piece of Sacred Oeconomy which is Nemesius's concerning a Divine Providence in general should not God in condescention to his Creatures necessity and conveniency mentioned as well as in compliance with the Interest of his own Honour therein concerned afford him such a Revelation of his Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life this non-indulgence or refusal must necessarily proceed either from want of Wisdom or of will or of power and sufficiency in God as if either he were not Wise enough to understand how to gratifie his Creature or indeed consult his own interest herein or not Good Gracious and Kind enough to his Creature or Faithful enough to his own interest to do it or else in case of both Skill and Will yet not Able or Sufficient enough hereunto But now being that God as is evident by the very light of Nature is infinitely Wise infinitely Good and All-sufficient it were desperate treasonable Blaspemy committed against Heaven to assert any of those Defects and therefore in fine by the best of consequence as a special supernatural Revelation of the divine Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life is to the Creature absolutely Necessary and a Scriptural and Written one most Convenient So it is most congruous and suitable to the Divine both nature and honour to afford and indulge his Creature this most needful useful Scriptural Rule and Revelation Lastly Sir That this necessary-expedient Revelation of God and his Will this Canon Rule and Directory of Divine Doctrine and Worship and Christian Faith and Life c. is no other then what is contained in that System of Sacred Truth the Volume of the Scripures of the Old and New Testament as approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is as rationally demonstrable as either of the former This being that only Revelation to which the necessary properties and conditions of such a Canon do appertain which are summarily these two namely Divine Authority in respect of the Original and universal sufficiency in respect of the end it being absolutely requisite that such a Rule should both proceed from not Man Church or Angel but God himself as its Author and also by due proportion correspond to the ends and intendments specified as a plain and plenary description of and direction to the true God true Worship true Happiness and the appropriated means of the acceptable performance of that Worship and infallible attainment of that Happiness what more Rational and may that Instrument Method and Model of Revelation be for ever exploded the Church of God as apocryphal which is devoid of either property The one is a compound of infallible Veracity and authoritative Power expressed in the Revelation as being by its Sacred Author whose essential properties those are both inspired and instituted for the only authentick and unalterable Canon of his Church the former requiring our Faith the latter our Obedience Both in their respective analysis ultimately resolvable into the same as their very formal and Fundamentall Reason a principle of natural Conscience as well as that of the Authors eternal Power and God Head So that the Christian Religion framed by this Canon is of all others the most rational as being founded partly upon the Veracity of that God who can neither deceive nor be deceived partly upon his Supremacy or potestative Right by vertue whereof quicquid libet licet he may as the Creature 's Soveraign Proprietary enjoyn and exact of him whatsoever Worship or Service his own absolute but righteous Will shall dictate or direct and if any of the English Clergy offer to court your assent or obedience hereunto as other let them for ever inherit your Contempt The other property again by me considered as relating to both matter and manner of Revelation is the absolute perfection of the Canon whereby it is conceived as a Sacred Pandect or Ecyclopoedy expressely or implicitely directly or consequentially to comprehend the whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary to be either known and believed or observed and practised in order to God's Glory and Man's happiness with so much clearness and perspicuity as that all both literate and illiterate may in a due and diligent perusal of the same attain to a competent skill and knowledg therein So that that onely Revelation must necessarily be the authentick Organ and Instrument Canon and Rule of Divine Doctrine and Worship Christian Faith and Obedience to which those two Canonical properties and conditions agree viz. that authority in respect both of inspiration and institution and that all-sufficiency in respect both of matter and manner of discovery so as that all Faith and Obedience yielded to the Revelation must be resolved into the veracity and supremacy of its Author expressed therein as the formal object or objective Reason of both aswell as into the universally perfect and all-sufficient Testimony it self as the material one and not into the testimony either of Church with the Papist or of Spirit with the Enthysiast both committing a most absurd and putid Circle in giving the reason of their hope asserting the truth and authority of the Canon by those respective testimonies and again in a reversed method the truth of those testimonies as being no other way known to be true by the Canon therefore to be equally declined Now that the Revelation of
Ecclesiastick Polity and Government c. But the whole as I said before universally accommodated to all the respective States Conditions and emergent Exigencies of the Church whose Pastors Teachers Guides and Overseers they are by eternal sanction constituted and established In fine Sir There be two grand Official Acts necessarily incumbent upon the Clergy as the publick Guides Teachers and Instructors of the Church namely the propagation the preservation the delivery and the security of Divine Truth and Religion the revelation of it to the Church and the defence of it being revealed against its and her Enemies Now in order to a laudable performance of these Offices there is 1. absolutely pre-required in point of priviledge the derivation and reception of that Religion from God himself the Author of all Truth as well as being and 2. ordinarily by way of necessary antecedent and preparative to all a competent knowledge of and skill in the Latine Greek and Hebrew Tongues those at least the first being of general use as in the pursuit of all manner of knowledge in general so of Divine in particular both the other two being the Original Languages of that only Authentick Revelation of God and his Will the Holy Scriptures co-inspired of God together with the Doctrine therein contained and thereby conveyed and the last Test of Sacred Truth in all Appeals in Logical Methods of Ratiocination and Discourse in Natural and Moral Philosophy in Metaphysicks and the other more useful parts of Humane Literature that Naturals being polished and somewhat refined by these the Divine being founded in the Man our Ecclesiastick Candidate may be the better prepared for his sacred Province and Mystery for Theology in all its parts Dogmatical Polemical Acroamatical and Concional c. for the reception of Sacred Truth from God ordinarily conveyed in the use of Means namely as to Ministerial accomplishment Learning and Learned Languages the great deferents of knowledge whence is observable the Divine Providence in the successive circulation of Learning and Religion together in the world viz. from its very Aborigines and the Chaldeans to the Egyptians from them to the Grecians from them to the Romans till at last arrived in this Island to the rescuing of it from its Original Darkness for the propagating of this Truth being received whether by way of sacred Orthotomy in a due explication and application thereof or a dextrous resolution of cases of Conscience or writing or otherwise and lastly for the preserving and securing of it when published or propagated partly by a polemick defence of and contending for the Faith partly by a due regular Pastoral conduct and Church-Discipline c. Now Sir as imperitia culpae adnumeratur as saith the Aquilian Law Ignorance by you charged is a great crime in the Clergy and no less plague to the Laity for if their very Light be Darkness how great must be that Darkness So on the contrary the Qualifications mentioned concurring with other Supernatural Gifts and Ecclesiastick Order and managed with competent wisdom prudence and discretion I conceive sufficient in foro Ecclesiae to denominate a person an able Minister of the New Testament and then Ambasciator non protapena Let. 1. p. 123. which very thing is happily confirmed by your own little authority for though it be not necessary say you for every Guide of a Parish to understand all the Oriental Languages or to make exactly elegant or profound Discourses for the Pulpit both which ib. p. 38. by your own confession our Clergy do and therefore instead of defect super-erogate yet most certainly it is very requisite that he should be so far learned and udicious as prudently to advise direct inform and satisfie the people in holy matters c. And if the Author of the Contempt of our Clergy once prove their incompetency of Qualification and insufficiency to these Ministerial Act sand Offices he is I must needs say a most dextrous Ingenioso else which had not his own Minion said Ans p. 80 I durst not Fool or Knave As touching the Second Particular That the Clergy of the Church of England Sir is justly chargeable with the want of that Ministerial Knowledge as explained or with Ignorance and Insufficiency I do in their name and behalf peremptorily deny That in the Twilight indeed and early days of the Reformation Preaching like the constitution of the Church it self was rude and impolite is confess'd Yea nor is it denied but that there be here and there coecus coeco dux such as your Booty-Antagonist may be or some others of his Brother-Levites whose only Manna is a Homily and Incense Liturgy Dutiful Sons of the Church who can speak as an indulgent Mother hath taught them and here and there a Sixth-Rate-Non-conformist a choice Vessel possibly but poorly fraughted Such I deny not but there be of both Predicaments who to their own shame and ignominy but that is the least and to the disparagement in tantum of their Function Doctrine and Church wherein they live are devoid not only of the Ornamental part of Learning we could abate them that but even of what is absolutely requisite to render them apt to teach or workmen that need not to be ashamed who may therefore be most justly contemned for Logick Rhetorick and other necessary parts of Philosophy those they left behind them in the Vniversity if they were ever there from whence they came ut canis e Nilo For Languages a little Latine serves turn and it were well for Priscian that there were none at all less Greek and as to the Hebrew that is a Holy of Holies unapproachable by ordinary Priests a Disgrace to themselves to the Church to the Ministry and Religion May Authority for ever doom such to the Desk but that I bethink my self it is too near to the Pulpit c. You see Sir you cannot be more severe than my self where there is occasion for it But now Sir will you draw your Argument from the Day-star to the Meridian or because only here and there a dim Light in it disparage our Candlestick What is the rude impolite yea impertinent Ministrations and Insufficiency of a few to a polished generality or indeed Plurality Nay rather will not the accomplishment and renown of the generality make abundant recompence for the defects and disgrace of a few So that there is greater reason for publishing the Credit than the Contempt of the English Clergy a Clergy that deserves more a Panegyrick than needs my Apology or fears your Inquest Two things I will be bold to assert here 1. There is no Profession in the world wherein there have been so many persons eminent for all the several parts in the whole Encyclopoedy of Learning as the Clergy especially the English Again 2. There is no Hierarchy or Clergy in the world wherein there have been so many persons eminent for Theological accomplishments as the Clergy of the Church of England What!
Dignity pre-engaged be perfected and ripened into a firm perswasion by the concurrent certificative Testimony of the Holy Ghost as the efficient cause thereof exerted in if distinct from the admirable efficacy of the Doctrine it self upon the mind and judgment the heart will and affections c. namely that the Revelation that is the doctrine confirmed by miracles both co-attested canonically in the Scriptures and ministerially by the Church contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament as they are approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is of a truth the Word of God c. There be several other Secondary and Collateral arguments of the Divinity of of the Scriptures as the cessation of Gentile-Oracles the subversion of Pagan-Idols by vertue hereof like the fall of Dagon before the Ark the implacable Malice rage and fury of Satan and his accomplices against them the Divine Judgements upon their inveterate Opponents the invincible courage constancy and resolution of their Confessors and Martyrs the quality of the Prophets Apostles and Evangelists their first Publishers and Writers the admirable preservation of them against all opposition the confession of Adversaries Jews Gentiles Sibylls Phylosophers Heathens and Hereticks c. touching the divine truth thereof And also several other Internal markes and cognizances of Divinity as antiquity consent of parts efficacy of doctrine and the like But the former being only known to us by humane Testimony it is plain that the prudence and discretion the honesty and integrity of the present Witnesses of the Divinity of the scriptures as persons Rationally Infallible or such as cannot in reason be suspected of any either active or passive deceit imposture in the case is must to any considerate person appear to be equivalent to all the rest and a more sure and compendious argument for fixing and setling of our belief in the particular The latter I have omitted as not so argumentative or convictive to natural-Conscience which I have here more especially addressed my endeavour to as the others above urged But that none may wonder why I urge not here the argument of miracles which others of the greatest Fame lay such a main stress upon I will give you and the world this brief account of it Miracles are considerable in reference to the case in hand but two ways namely as either matter of Divine testimony co-attested together with the doctrine by them confirmed canonically in the Scriptures or else as matter of humane testimony co-attested together with the said doctrine ministerially in by the Church as hath been preasserted Now in short Sir under neither consideration are Miracles or can they rationally be supposed to be the argument of our Faith but only the partial Object thereof as matter of Divine testimony as hath been said in the Scriptures and matter of Humane testimony in the Church and therefore requiring a correspondent assent to both Where for a further account of my self I crave leave to Remonstrate against a very Eminent and worthy Divine of the quorum of the Clergy by you contemned now living who in a Book as noted as himself holds this of Miracles for the main convictive Argument of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures as though best now because such of old which is a meer fallacy a non causa pro causa partly and partly ab accidente for First to argue ab absurdo from his own Hypothesis namely this That which Christ himself in his time used as the best argument to prove the Divine Authority of his doctrine is the best still to which I subsume But so it is that that of visible miracles was the best argument which Christ used to prove the Divine authority of his doctrine making the Ear-witnesses of the one Eye-witnesses of the other as infallibly demonstrative signs and seals of Divinity and then the conclusion followeth full of absurdity viz. that that of visible miracles obvious to our Eyes as those were which he wrought in the dayes of his flesh to his then-proselytes is the best argument that can be used still to prove the Divinity of his doctrine the scriptures or which is all one Christ must re-descend into the world and work New miracles visible as his first before he can have New converts Absurd Again If that which Christ himself used as the best Argument to prove the Divinity of his Doctrine which is known to have been visible miracles be the best still then are we under an unavoidable necessity of incurring the same guilt to wit non-conviction and positive unbelief or in the same Authors opinion which I do not here dispute the sin against the Holy Ghost with those reprobated Infidels in the dayes of Christ through our being destitute of the same provisions against it namely visible miracles Nay more we are under a necessity of incurring sin without possibility of remedy a necessity of sinning through want of the preventive visible miracles without possibility of remedy because the positive unbelief mentioned and sin against the Holy Ghost if those be distinct are known by scripture-verdict to be unpardonable this gross absurdity followeth by necessary consequence how injurious nay blasphemous against the Wisdome Goodness Holiness and Justice of God the asserting of such a thing were is easy to determine Thirdly Dilemmatically that Reverend Author must necessarily consider miracles either as Recorded in the Scriptures or as Reported by the Church for as visible they were peculiar to Christ's Contemporaries and Eye-witnesses If as Recorded in the Scriptures as such they being part of the Divine testimony which is this complex the Doctrine of Christ confirmed by Miracles they are not the Argument but the Object of our Faith and we believe not the Scriptures for the Miracles but the Miracles for the Scriptures as part of the sacred narrative and together with the Doctrine by them confirmed and joyntly with them therein Recorded the Collateral Object of our belief If again as Reported by the Church then by my Authors Divinity the testimony of the Church is the main or best Argument that can be used to prove the Divine Authority of the Scriptures A train of Absurdities and if we abstract from the testimony of both Scriptures and Church let any tell me what significancy Miracles are of in the case The Author I assure you is a person approved for Eminent both Learning and Piety and indemnified from your two extenuative Characters of which in their due place but personal respects must vail to the interest of the truth I can easily declare with him that I believe that Doctrine to be of God which is confirmed by undeniable Miracles I can as easily declare that I believe all true Miracles to be of God because they exceed all created power but the critical Query in the case by him omitted is how shall one be assured that such Miracles were ever wrought as Christ's turning of Water into Wine for instance his Raising of