exempt a man from the malignant calumnies of this Judge of the Churches When in one sentence he telleth you how much I have written against the Bishops and in another that I am in the same condemnation with him and yet in another that I dare look no truth in the face that bringeth suffering when he talks of one point that all Christians are agreed in and directly bringeth none And when he chargeth me with Atheistical arguing against the divine and self-evidencing authority of the Scripture and therefore to be Rejected of all as one of the worst sort of Hereticks that under the notion of being a Christian and a Protestant doth with his utmost industry and cunning labour to overthrow our foundation When I know of no one man living in this Age that hath written so much I say not so well for the things in question Scripture and Christianity as I have done May not this man as modestly charge Bishop Downame to be a Papist that hath written so much to prove the Pope to be Antichrist or say any thing else that he hath list to say 12. Doth he not fix upon you by such Libells as these an odious reproach As if he would perswade the world that you that he writeth to are so partial so blind so false to truth and to your own souls and such pernicious enemies to peace as that you will receive that which is thus falsly said to you without ever reading what is said on the other side or against all the evidence that contradicteth it and will believe all these visible untruths of his without any proof upon the bare report of so rash a man 13. Whether following such men and wayes as this is not the likeliest way in the world not only to increase the reproach of the Non-conformists and make them all thought of as we do of the Quakers and so to continue severities against them as a company of furious unsociable persons but also to harden men into a contempt of Religion it self 14. Doth not God permit such a Champion of the Cause of Division thus criminally to miscarry that you may see that you are not better than those you separate from You blame them for subscribing erroneously or falsly And which of them hath put thirty three and forty eight visible untruths deliberatly in print and Impenitently stands in them as your Champion hath done Doth not this shew you that you are not so good but that the Churches of godly Pastors are as worthy of your Communion as you are of theirs If one should admonish one of your Church-members of one single deliberate avowed lye would you not call him to Repentance And will you believe this man and follow him upon his bare word who hath published eighty such falshoods Yet I am not one that think he loveth a lye because it is a lye but one that is thus guilty through proud overvaluing his own unfurnished understanding and through an extraordinary Rashness and want of tenderness of Conscience You have heretofore had better Guides and you have better still I never met with two Ministers that approve his Libell nor any but Mr. Browne alone you have a more peaceable Rule And if you are Christians indeed you have a Peaceable Spirit and a Saviour who is the Prince of peace who hath prayed that all his Disciples may be one John 17. 21. and a God who is the God of peace Follow therefore the Wisdom that is both Pure and Peaceable and not that from beneath which is earthly sensual and devilish and worketh by envious zeal and strife unto confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. To Mr. EDWARD BAGSHAW BROTHER it is not a little troublesome to me and will be troublesome to many peaceable Readers both that these Writings should pass between us and that I should mention your faults so plainly as I do But as I began not with you so I know not how to let you talk on without betraying the peace of the Church the credit of the Non-conformists who are by your self obliged to disown you and the souls of the weak brethren for whom Christ dyed And I am constrained plainly to name your faults 1. Because truth consisteth in speaking of things as they are 2. And because my business is now to summon you to Repentance to which end the opening of your sin is necessary 3. And because these following Scriptures are my ground and your own word seem to me to charge it on me as my necessary duty upon dreadful penalties The Scriptures that I set before me are Lev. 19. 17. after mentioned Rom. 16 17. Mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. But if ye have bitter envying or zeal and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish For where envying zeal and strife is there is confusion and every evil work c. 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 12 13. 3. 1 2 3 4. John 17. 21 22. Rom. 14. 15. John 8. 44. When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyer and the Father of it Rev. 21. 8. All lyers shall have their part c. 22. 15. Whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Psal 15. 2 3. That speaketh the truth in his heart backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour 3 John 9 10. I wrote unto the Church but Diotrephes who loveth to have the preheminence among them receiveth us not wherefore if I come I will remember his deeds which he doth prating against us with malicious words And not content therewith neither doth he himself receive the brethren and forbiddeth them that would and casteth them out of the Church Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14. I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed For he withdrew and separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision and the other Jews dissembled likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation But when I saw that they walked not uprightly c. Tit. 3. 10 11. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject Your own doctrine is as followeth pag. 1. It will be a favour if you look upon me as one that neither desires nor if you believe what your self have writ deserves such expressions of your familiarity Pag. 2. I hope you are not to learn that every untruth is a lye Pag. 11 12. There being little difference in the sight of God between the persecuting of brethren our selves and by not sharply reproving it seeming to approve of it in others And I hope you will say as much against approveing your own sin as other mens Pag. 14. All are commanded to turn aside from them A Church which
Mr. Hildershams acknowledgement of Gods authority above mans against Mr. Hildershams arguments against separation and his perswasions to come to the beginning of the Churches prayers and to imply that you know more than those worthy men when you give the world so little evidence of it doth prove the goodness of your cause as much as it proveth your humility or self-acquaintance Sect. 55. E. B. p. 17 18. The former non-conformists held Arminianisme so fundamental and dangerous an errour c. But you do not only speak favourably of it but also Proudly tell us that you are confident not one of many hundreds who speak against Communion with Arminians do understand what Arminianisme is As if plain Christians could not easily come to know it R. B. 1. As under Church-tyrants all is Schisme which contradicts their Schisme so with some men all is Proudly spoken which contradicteth their Pride and supposeth them to be but half as ignorant as they are 2. Were all the Non-conformists of one mind about Arminianisme Was not Arminius himself against Prelacy and Ceremonies and many of his followers Who were the great Antiadiaphorists in Germany but Iliricus Amsdorsius Gallus and other Lutherans Is not Mr. Dury a Non-conformist who hath forty years laboured to bring the Lutherans who are as far from us as Arminius and the Calvinists to Communion 3. Who would be at the labour to read over the many Volumes that are written about Pre-determination Free-will Concurse and Grace by which such Ignorant souls as I cannot to this day tell what they mean nor in many or most points wherein they differ when this man and his plain followers Women and Boyes so easily know it But like the Pope that can Infallibly expound the Scriptures but is so wise that he will not do it Le Blank and many more might have spared their pains of right stating the Controversies if they had this mans Key I never yet met with the man that could but make me well understand what it is that is meant by Free-will nor what by the Power which they dispute of to do good much less open all their meanings de scientia media de Concursu prae-determinations c. But here 's one can easily tell us all But I warrant him he will not Some men alas and some Treachers will be wise and humble in despight of Wisdom and Humility and Christians in despight of Love Unity and Peace Sect. 56. E. B. p. 18. His own Free-will hath not the least power to receive the things of God R. B. 1. What not sanctified Free-will 2. What! not a Receiving obediential power A receiving power is a passive power as it is strictly taken Hath a free-agent less Power to receive Grace than a marble to receive the engraving of the work-man Doth no man ever receive Grace Or do they receive what they cannot receive Hath a man no more Receptive Power than a block or stone I know its said The natural man Receiveth not c. that is Vnderstandeth not believeth not and loveth not in sensu Composito But it s never said that Our free-will hath not the least power to receive But I have said so much of this and the next point the badness of nature to which he giveth not any answer at all that I wonder that the man thinks that one that is all tongue and no eares or eyes is fit for credit or humane converse Sect. 57. E. B. You Jesuite like are not afraid to say The Scipture tells us not sufficiently and particularly which Books in it self are Canonical nor that the various Readings are the right nor whether every Text be brought to us uncorrupted R. B. 1. And by implying your assertion of the contrary you become a false Teacher of pernicious doctrine As if you designed to make men Jesuits or Infidels by renouncing the Scriptures as soon as they find that these things are not sufficiently there done and thence to be proved without subordinate testimonies 2. Why do not you save such as Dr. J. Reignolds Chamier and others their great labour and prove out of Scripture it self which of all the various readings mentioned by Beza Capelus and others and found in various Copies is the right and so of the rest Sect. 58. E. B. So that in effect you do resolve the Credit of the Holy Scriptures into the truth of Church-history which words are so contrary to the true Protestant doctrine so fully agreeing with the doctrine of the Jesuits c. R. B. 1. As to agreeing with the Jesuits fully c. all that know their Writings know it is an untruth 2. True Protestants usually say the same things that I do Though you may meet with some few like your self that do not 3. I have fully opened in the Preface to the 2d Edit c. of my Saints Rest how ambiguous that word Resolving into is and how far your saying is true or false He that enquireth what Laws are in force in England must distinguish of these two Questions 1. Which are the Laws which are the Statutes in force what words are false Printed and what right what Copies most perfect And 2. What Authority are these statutes of The Authority of them is all resolved into the Authority of the King and Parliament But we that are not so wise as you must be beholden to various Copies Records Printers Lawyers to know which are the Statutes in force and whether any words be falsly Printed And if we find so many hundred various Readings as be in the Bible we cannot know in every one which is right and which is wrong by the bare inspection of the Book it self And if you have any considering faculty left and your free-will hath the least power to receive any truth or stop you in your errour me-thinks these questions should force you into your witts Qu. 1. Shall he that by the Book alone can resolve all these doubts see it in the Original or only in Translations If in the Original 2. Shall he see the Autographs or only the Transcripts or Impressions 3. If the Autographs be not to be seen but only Transcripts hath God promised unerring infallibility to all the Scribes and Printers in the world or to some only or to none 4. If to all where is the promise If to some how shall we know them If to none may they not all erre 5. When many Copies so much differ as they do is it not certain that some of them erred 6. Can all Women and Unlearned persons or Ministers judge by the Original Transcripts who understand not the Original tongues 7. Must he that shall be certain see all the various Copies or will it serve turn to see some one only 8. If he must see all who is he or she in the world that can be certain If they must see many who knows how many and which 9. If they must see but one Copy how shall
to joyne in Testimony that what was recorded was true And is this Printed Epistle and Testimony no Publication Sect. 84. Mr. Bowne The second untruth is that I am uncontrolledly affirmed so to be when I believe he had never a second in the world that either will or can affirm it R. B. Here are two more falshoods 1. That it is an Vntruth that I said of him 2. That I said it was uncontrolledly affirmed that he was the Author But that he was a Publisher you have now his own Confession of his Epistle which I had read and Mr. Joseph Baker gave me the Book and told me it was published by Mr. Jordain and Mr. Browne and this report I oft after heard and it never was controlled to me which is all that I can reasonably mean my uncontrolled For how is it possible for me to know what is said of him to all others in every distant place and corner Sect. 85. Mr. Browne As for the Book it self and the matter of fact contained in it I never yet met with any judicious sober Christian that had seriously perused it who durst adventure to pronounce either of the whole or any considerable part of it that it was an effect of Melancholy R. B. Who talkt of the whole But what part you will call considerable who knows Is not this a concession that some part is so judged of And must your Ignorance of such matters as Melancholly have so great influence into your Divinity But you may say true For most now adayes converse with few but those of their own mind And the Book is not to be got in any shop that I can hear of Sect. 86. Mr. Browne Whether this decrying of experiences this slighting the work of Gods spirit in the soul the crying out that these things are but the effects of Melancholy be not the ready way to make all supernatural Conversion derided and the whole mysterie of Godliness contemned consider R. B. 1. Here is implyed a fourth Untruth that I decry experiences and the rest here mentioned 2. Alas must the poor Church of Christ have such miserable Guides that build hay and stubble and think if it be burnt the Church must fall I tell you sir such rash and Ignorant Teachers as your Writings shew you to be are the men that do so much towards the very same effects which you seem to fear even to tempt men to deride all supernatural conversion as that I scarce know a more powerful way If you heard one man say Satan as an Angel of Light stirred up the Quakers to pretend Miracles Prophesies and spiritual raptures purposely to tempt the World to Infidelity by perswading them that the Spirit in the Prophets and Apostles was but the like And if you heard James Naylor say Your calling the Spirit in us a vain Imagination or deceit is the way to perswade men that the spirit in the Prophets and Apostles was but imagination and deceit Which of these two sayings would you believe I take the case which I spake of to be the like I tell you still that all the Truth and Goodness that your Book mentioneth truly was wrought by the spirit of God But if men will make the world believe that any false doctrine or any sin or any false exposition of Scripture is of the spirit or that their unproved Impulses which are not agreeable to the word but are against it or besides it must be believed to be of God and will describe these as Experiences and Gods way of Converting souls their Ignorance will as effectually serve the Devil to bring true Conversion and the spirit into scorn as the derisions of a Drunkard will do if not more It is no new thing for Satan to deceive as an Angel of light and his Ministers as Ministers of Righteousness And if you know not his wiles expect not that we should all concur with you in exposing spirituality and holiness to the scorn of such as now abhorr it or as of late have taken such advantages against those that are better than themselves Sect. 87. R. B. Whether you instructed her in those principles you know best If you deny it I retract it That you were very zealous in them is past doubt but just the day when you began whether before that Book was begun or before it was finished or when I leave to your own report Sect. 88. Mr. Browne Indeed it is now my Opinion that there is a glorious state of the Church yet to come before the last end of all things when all Oppression and Oppressours shall cease and every thing of man shall be laid down in subserviency to the Interest of Christ and the Kingdom of the World shall become his R. B. Amen! It is my earnest Desire as well as yours But Desire and Belief are not all one The Prophesies that you suppose foretell all this I thought I almost understood thirty two years agoe but since I perceive I did not But I contradict not that which I do not understand nor never did Who will plead for Oppression And what Christian desireth not the greatest Holiness and Righteousness in the World I freely confess my Ignorance in the point whether on this side the general Resurrection there shall be so perfect and universal Righteousness as you describe as that All Oppression shall cease My greatest Hope is in the three Petitions of the Lords Prayer Thy Name be Hallowed Thy Kingdom Come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven And I am sure this will warrant my desires And I the better like those Opinions of a perfect age because Hope will set men upon praying for it But as I detest all Rebellions against just Authority on pretence that they are not truly Godly and all setting up mens selves on pretence of setting up Christ and using unlawful means on pretence of good ends so I am afraid of being tempted down from the Heavenly Hopes and Comforts by looking for more on earth than is indeed to be expected Sect. 89. Mr. Browne p. 29. He tells us first that she was suddenly moved to come to hear him Preach R. B. A meer untruth as I have before shewed I said not so Sect. 90. Mr. Browne That she had such convictions from his Sermon for so he seems to intimate c. R. B. Untrue again as is before shewed Nor will your seeming salve it Sect. 91. Mr. Browne That she desired to speak with him is another untruth R. B. Of that I shall speak anon Sect. 92. Mr. Browne That she did impose on her self abstinence from meat R. R. Here he contradicts himself as she did and saith she durst not eat and yet falsly chargeth me with untruth for saying the same sence Sect. 93. Mr. Browne Lastly She never fell in so among the Quakers as to be one of them though it is true that through the power of Temptations she was somewhat
rightly what I have written than the Books themselves I leave them to judge and do as they are and as such men lead them And how far Tradition or History or Humane aide and Testimony is necessary to our Reception of the Scripture I have long agoe opened at large in the Preface to the second Part of my Saints Rest and shewed you that Dr. Whitaker Chemnitius Davenant Rob. Baronius and other Protestants usually say the same that I do and that otherwise by casting away such subordinate means Proud-ignorance and pievish wrangling will cut the throat of faith it self and undermine the Church of God Reader I will conclude also with an Admonition as my Accuser doth As thou lovest Christianity Scripture and thy soul take heed of those Ignorant destroying-defenders of the Scripture who would tell the Infidel world that they may continue Infidels till we can prove that the Scripture alone by its own light without humane Testimony History or Tradition will bring it self to all mens hands without mans bringing it and will translate it self without mans translating it or in the original tongues will make all English men and all that cannot read at all to understand it or being translated will tell you sufficiently which is the true translation and where the Translater failed or will tell you among many hundred divers Readings which is the right and which Copy is the truest and which particular text is uncorrupted or rightly translated For instance whether it should be in Luke 17. 37. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Matth. 24. 18. and Beza saith In uno exemplari apud Theophilactum Scriptum est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 id est Cadaver sicut etiam in nonnullis codicibus testatur selegisse Erasmus Videturque haec lectio magis accomodata c. Hundreds of such may be named And believe not these men till they can name you one man that ever knew before some man told him by the Book alone whether Esther and the Canticles were Canonical and the Book of Wisdom and Pauls Epistle to the Laodioaeans Apocryphal and knew what was the sense of the Original Text and what Copies and Readings and Translations were true and what false Yea or that knew these particular Books were the same that the Apostles wrote without alteration till some one told it them Would not that man reduce the Church into less than one single person who would have no man believe the Scripture nor take it for Gods word till he can do it without any help of man or humane History or Testimony or Tradition But of this I put him twenty Questions before It shall now suffice to tell you this much of the plain truth that such furious false Teachers as shall take the foresaid course may not utterly subvert your faith The Scripture and Christian Religion taken together as one frame or Body hath that in it self which may prove that frame and all the essential parts of our Religion to be of God And the true proof of the Divine Authority of the Scripture is by the evidence of the spirit not a new Revelation of the spirit But by a double Impression of Gods own Image made by the Holy Ghost one upon the Scripture it self The other by the Scripture in its continued efficacy on Belivers souls And both these Images are the Impresses of the Trinity of Divine Principles even of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God which are unimitably done in both This is the true proof that Scripture is the word of God But this proof excludeth not but supposeth the Ministry and Testimony of man as a subservient help and means even to bring it to us to translate it to teach us how to know both the sense and verity of it and to testifie which is the true Canon Copies Reading Translation c. And they are ignorant subverting deceivers and destroyers of your souls who would separate the Word the Spirit and the Ministry which Christ hath conjoyned as necessary together for your faith and that would cast out subservient helps as unnecessary under pretence of the sufficiency of the Scripture As if Printing it were needless because Scripture is sufficient of it self And the fore-said self-evidencing Light is not sufficient without humane help and Testimony to make you know every Canonical Book from the Apocryphal nor to know the truest Copies in the Original nor the rightest readings nor this or that particular verse to be uncorrupted nor the translation to be true nor this or that to be the true meaning of the Greek or Hebrew word nor that the Minister readeth truly to the unlearned that cannot try it by his own skill nor read himself And he that would make the contrary supposition to be the foundation of your faith would destroy your faith the Church and you Postscript REader since the Writing of this two things have faln out which make it a more displeasing work to me than it was before And I am sorry that Mr. Bagshaw made it necessary The one is that as the current report saith he is again in Prison for Refusing the Oath of Allegiance And I naturally abhorre to trample upon a suffering person which hath caused me to say so little against the Armies and Sectarian miscarriages since their dissolution and dejection in comparison of what I did before in the time of their prosperity The other is The Printing of the Life of Mr. Vavasor Powel which hath so many good things in it that I fear lest the mention of his false Prophecies extorted by Mr. Bagshaw who first published also his name as the Author of them should abate their exemplary use But yet I must give this notice to forreigners and posterity that they must not judge either of the JUDGEMENT or the SUFFERINGS of the Non-conformists by these mens It is not for refusing the Oath of Allegiance that they are silenced and suffer as they do nor do they consent to the words which conclude the life of Mr. Powel That since such a time he hath learnt that we must pray for our present Rulers as sinners but not as Magistrates No man can truly say that such Doctrines as these have been proved against any considerable part of the Ministers that are now cast out or that they were deposed and silenced for such things seeing they commonly take the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy And how far the ejected Ministers of Scotland are from the Principles of Separation Mr. Browne a Learned Scottish Divine hath shewed in the Preface of a Learned Treatise Newly Published in Latine against Wolzogius and Velthusius even while he saith most against receding from a Reformation overthrowing the Tenents maintained by our two or three English Brownes which formerly were called Brownisme Though the same mans numerous reasonings against the derivation of the Magistrates Office from the Power of the Mediator I waite
Principles of Church-division and censorious unwarrantable Separation I Know there is in Holiness a contrariety to sin and Heaven and Hell must finally shew the difference for ever And to reconcile them is as unpossible as to reconcile Light and Darkness I know that it is the endeavour of every faithful Minister of Christ to make this difference plainly known and in Doctrine and Discipline to separate the precious from the vile and to make ungodly men know that they are ungodly and to give to each their proper portion and to keep the Churches as clean as they can by lawful means I know that the ruine of this purging and differencing Discipline is a great part of the lamentable ruine of the Churches and occasioneth that scandal to the Mahometans and Heathens because of the wicked lives of Christians which is one of the greatest hinderances of their conversion And that all Christians should use their utmost skill and power to recover Religion to its primitive Purity and Splendour and Discipline to the most effectual regular exercise And I know that in mens private converse there must be a great care what company we converse with and especially whom we make our familiars And that to be indifferent and to intimate an equality or likeness of the godly and the wicked in doctrine communion and familiarity is a notable sign of an ungodly person And upon these accounts I know that when persons are newly recovered from ungodliness themselves they are very much inclined to fly from the company of such as far as their safety doth require And by this inclination and their ignorance they are frequently tempted to go further from them in Church communion than God alloweth them to do and instead of separating from them in their sin to separate from them in their duty and to separate from the Churches of Christ in his true worship because of the mixture and presence of the bad And this they are drawn to 1. By forgetting the Scripture pattern and state of the Churches even in the purest age and thinking only what they desire rather than what is to be expected or done 2. By forgetting the difference between the Church visible which is alwayes mixt with Hypocrites and offenders and the Church invisible which shall all be saved 3. By forgetting the difference between their private familiarity where they are choosers of their company themselves and their Church communion where the Pastors are the Rulers and Judges of the fitness of the members Or else not understanding that this use of the Keyes and judging of the fitness of the members is indeed the Pastors Office and not theirs 4. By not considering that nothing must be done by Discipline upon Offenders but in a course of Church-Justice upon due Accusations Summons Audience Proof and patient Admonition And not by casting out any irregularly upon the expectation of every one that will say that they are ungodly and scandalous 5. By forgetting the great difference between joyning with men in sinful actions and joyning with them in their duty in which they should be encouraged 6. By forgetting the great difference of keeping in our own place and duty though bad men are present and going out of our place and duty to joyn with them in sin 7. By forgetting that God will have all mens own wills by Choosing or Refusing to have more hand in their Welfare or Misery than other mens And if they mischoose the sin will be their own 8. By forgetting that God hath not left the Church at arbitrary liberty to judge any Godly or Ungodly at their pleasure But hath given us a set Test or Rule to judge them by which is their sober Profession of Consent to the Baptismal Covenant upon which the Adult and their Infants have right to Baptism And being Baptized have Right to Church Communion in all the Acts which their Age and Understanding makes them capable of And it is Church-tyranny to refuse such as shew this Title till they are openly proved to forfeit it by Impenitency in gross sin after publick admonition and due means This is the truth and the method of Christs discipline and the Rule of our Communion 9. By superstitious placing their Religion in indifferent and undertermined things and laying a greater stress on the words of prayer than there is cause Overvaluing their several outward forms expressions and orders in the worshipping of God when instead of provoking each other to faith and fervency to Love and to good works they place more of Godliness in words and circumstances which God hath certainly left free to every mans conscience than God doth place in them And one thinks that he is irregular that prayeth without a set form and another that he is ungodly that prayeth not by the Spirit who useth a set form when both do but speak their own superstition and make Laws and Rules which God never made Superstition and our own additions in Religion even in those that cry out much against it is the occasion of most of our Church-divisions One side supposeth every disorder or unfit expression in free prayer to be a greater fault than indeed it is And that its unlawful therefore to joyn with a Church that hath no set forms Another party supposeth the forms in the Church Lyturgy to be worse than they are and that it is unlawful to joyn in them or to receive the Lords Supper when they are used When as God hath neither tyed us to set forms nor from them save only as unsuitableness to any particular persons may make one less edifying than the other And both free prayers and set forms studied prayers and sudden prayers are all the work of man as to mans part and therefore they must needs be imperfect and faulty as man is And yet in both we may pray by the Spirit even with the holy and fervent desires which the Spirit exciteth in us And the Spirit may ordinarily be a Spirit of supplication in us and help our infirmities in the one way and in the other And therefore though I will not equall them For I prefer some mens free praying before any forms and I prefer the Common prayers before some mens free prayers yet I may say that I will neither Assent and Consent to every word in the one nor in the other no not of any man that ever I heard And yet I will not take it for unlawful to joyn with Church or Family or person in the one or in the other yea upon long experience if I had fully my own choice and liberty I would use free prayer one part of the day or one day and a well composed form another part because I see commodities by both and such inconveniences of either way alone as are if possible to be avoided But when the Mind hath received a prejudice against either way by Education Custom or former distastes no reason how clear soever will overcome it till age and
experience do mellow green and sowre Spirits and teach them to judge of things soberly and impartially not as others judge of them but as indeed they are 10. And men are much furthered in the way of separation by forgetting what good even hypocrites themselves may receive by their station in the visible Church And that it is not for nothing that the Great Master of the Church hath so ordered the terms of admission upon meer Profession of Consent to the Baptismal Covenant and of Exclusion upon proved Impenitency in gross sin after sufficient admonition and patience as that multitudes of bad men ever have been and will be in the visible Church Though the regular station that such persons should choose till they come up to sincere consent is the place of Catechumens if they were not baptized in Infancy and the place of Penitents if they were yet supposing that they intrude further by a false profession yet God hath provided great advantages in Church communion for their good and secured the innocent from imputation of sin by reason of their presence 11. And men are induced to separation by forgetting how tender Christ is of the weakest of his members that are sincere and that he had rather many hypocrites were received than one true Christian shut out For he hath a day at hand in which he will separate the Tares from the Wheat and will take out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them that work iniquity And they consider not how impossible it is to shut out all hypocrites and not to shut out many weak ones that are sincere 12. And it much wrongeth them that they forget what a Mercy it is that Christ hath not made the power of the Pastors or Church to be arbitrary in admissions or exclusions but hath tyed them up to certain terms and prescribed to them whom to Receive or Reject And that they consider not what confusions otherwise would be brought into the Church and what Church-tyranny men would exercise And how the difference of mens Judgements Interests Temptations and Passions would make almost as many sorts of Churches as there are individual Governours and Churches And one would make one measure and another another measure of their communion 13. And it greatly wrongeth such men that they never had right apprehensions of the Nature and great Necessity of Vanity among believers and the Churches of Christ They cry out Truth must not be sold for Peace when they neither know aright what is Truth or Peace But by Truth they mean their own doubtful opinions and by Peace they mean their own quietness with men We easily confess that as Peace signifieth our freedom from persecution or sufferings or from the reproach of men the least holy truth is to be preferred before it and more tenaciously held than it But if by Peace they mean the Unity and Concord of believers or of the Church of God they speak dangerously and suppose a pernicious falshood that Gods Truth and such Peace or Concord may at any time be separated And it is no wiselier spoken than if they had said A mans eye-sight or health is to be preferred before the Union of his soul and body or before the Concord of Head and Heart or before the conjunction of his members When as non cutis nulla est affectio Destroy the Subject and you destroy the Accidents Without union of parts the Church is no Church Dividing it is destroying it A House or Kingdom divided cannot stand And when it is no Church it hath no Truth as a Church nâ—r any thing that dividers did contend for An Integral member may rather be cut off than the whole should perish But what member will separate it self from the bâ—dy Or who but a murderer will on pretence of curing be a divider and dissolver 14. And it wrongeth these Christians much that they look on the narrow space of the Churches about them and forget the state of almost all Christs Churches in the whole world which are in a 〈◊〉 worse condition than our Parish Churches are which though it should draw no man to like the least imperfection in them or in himself nor to neglect any true reforming duty yet would it make a tender Christian rather tremblingly to return to Vniversal due Communion than to dare to separate from almost all Christs visible body upon earth 15. And gazing all upon one side doth make men forget how heinous an injury it is to Christ to rob him of the greatest part of his Churches and to say that they are none of his when they could easily perceive that it would not be well taken by the King if they should say that he is King of no more but three or four Villages in the Land And he that can take four parts yea nineteen parts of Christs Church from him to day may take away the fifth or the twentieth to morrow and so may turn Infidels and deny Christ to be Christ For no Kingdom no King 16. And they forget that as the Body must have its due magnitude as well as its comely scite of parts so we must be zealous for the Greatness as well as the Purity the Extensive as well as the Intensive growth of the Church And if Christs flock be little they dishonour it that would make it tenfold less than indeed it is Jer. 30. 19. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry And I will multiply them and they shall not be few and I will glorifie them and they shall not be small 17. And the Passion that is kindled in men by their sufferings is very strong in conquering their judgements so that too few in the whole world are found so sober as not to go too far from those they suffer by unless it be timerous or temporizing complyers that yield to escape their further suffering 18. And men are strangely forgetful of the experiences of themselves and others And when God hath let loose the Spirit of division to the confusions both of State and Churches and to the ruining of true Reformation and to the woful and scandalous dissolution of many particular Churches where it hath come yet will not men understand or remember but see as if they did not see Holland England New England give them loud and lamentable warnings and yet they will not hear 19. And they that know what man is indeed will not deny but that in very many there is something of that Pride which some call spiritual but is too carnal in mens inclination to separation He that knoweth how excellent a thing it is to be Wise and Holy and Happy is oft tempted to be desirous that his own excellency should appear and not be hid by his joyning with such as are taken for ignorant common men and so would stand further from the common sort of visible Christians than God would have him And also some persons who
are resolved not to know your self Do you not see now that the man who took it for so great a crime in the Bishop can speak himself 1. Against the same man 2. With the same accusation 3. In the same manner And is the same thing bad in the Bishop and good in you The matter is it seemeth now to be your concernment to speak it It s like you would then have separated from the Bishop for it And yet now it is no fault in you O what a blinding thing is selfish partiality And what reason hath any man to doubt but if it were in your power you would silence me as much as any Bishop would And will you not yet see that which you are so angry with me for telling you viz. How much of the very same Spirit is in Church-dividers with that which they most condemn in others Why then do you not separate from your selves 5. But though you may think its like that you have me here in your snares I shall make this benefit of it that you may see I am not so great an enemy to Repenting as you declare your self to be I do hereby freely profess that I Repent 1. Of all that ever I thought said wrote or did since I was born against the Peace of Church or State Against the King his Person or Authority as Supream in himself or as Derivative in any of his Officers Magistrates or any Commissioned by him 2. That I Repent that I no more discouraged the Spirit of pievish quarrelling with Superiours and Church-orders and though I ever disliked and opposed it yet that I sometimes did too much encourage such as were of this temper by speaking too sharply against those things which I thought to be Church-corruptions and was too loth to displease the contentious for fear of being uncapable of doing them good knowing the prophane to be much worse than they and meeting with too few Religious persons that were not too much pleased with such invectives 3. And I do Repent that I had not more impartially and diligently consulted with the best Lawyers that were against the Parliaments Cause For I knew of no Controversie in Divinity about it but in Politicks and Law and that I did not use all possible means of full acquaintance with the Case And that for a little while the Authority of such Writers as Mr. Rich. Hooker lib. 1. Eccles Polit. and Bishop Bilson and other Episcopal Divines did too much sway my judgement toward the Principles of Popular Power And seeing the Parliament Episcopal and Erastian and not hearing when the Wars began of two Presbyterians among them all nor among all their Lord Lieutenants Generalls Major Generalls or Colonells till long after I was the easilyer drawn to think that Hookers Political Principles had been commonly received by all which I discerned soon after upon stricter enquiry to be unsound and have my self written a Confutation of them ready for the Press many years ago 4. And all the rest of my sin in this business which I know not of particularly I do Implicitly and Generally Repent of and daily beg of God as I have done these twenty four years and more to give me a particular Conviction of them and not to suffer me to live or dye in any impenitence but so far to acquaint me with all my great and publick sins that I may openly confess them and give others warning to avoid the like This is the Repentance which upon your invitation I profess If you quarrel with it as not instancing in particulars enow I answer you that as in the Revocation of the Book which you accuse I thought it best to Revoke the whole though not as Retracting all the doctrine of it because if I had named the particular passages some would have said I had mentioned too few and some too many and few would have been satisfied so is it in the present Case 6. As to your Defence of me heretofore 1. You know I never desired it of you nor gave you thanks for it For though you took my part you understood not my Cause and therefore in the main deserted it 2. I am not at all ambitious of such an Advocate 1. Whose Defence was then judged by all that I heard speak of it to be commendable only for boldness and a handsome Epistolary Style having little of Judgement or argumentative strength 2. Whose errors and faults will disgrace the Cause which he defendeth 3. Who can blow hot and cold and when his passion and erroneous interest requireth it can change hands and take up his adversaries work and do the same thing in the main which he accused Threaten me not with so desirable a desertion As for the following insultations on supposition of the sufficiency of your snare you see now that it is to glory in your shame Sect. 21. E. B. Your mentioning with so much scorn the doctrine of the temporal Reign of Christ which you in derision call the fifth Monarchy way and your endeavour to expose all that you think favour that opinion is another evidence that you dare not look any truth in the face which brings present danger with it no though formerly you were as earnest and open an asserter of it as any R. B. I see but five express falshoods in matter of fact in these few words 1. One is that it is Christs Temporal Reign which I call the fifth Monarchy way when as I have no such words nor meaning but do my self believe Christs Temporal Reign even that now he is Head over all things to his Church Ephes 1. 21 22. and that all Power in Heaven and Earth is given him Mat. 28. 19. and all things are delivered into his hands John 1â— 3. 17. 2. that he hath power given him over all flesh and that to this end he dyed rose and revived that he might be Lord of the dead and living Rom. 14. 9. and that he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords But whether he will Reign a thousand years in corporal visible presence on earth I am not wise enough to know But I am afraid of those opinions which draw down mens minds from looking for a treasure and reward in Heaven and tempt them to expect great things on Earth But in this Age custome hath taught men to distinguish between those called Fifth Monarchy men and meer Millenaries And by the former name I mean such as they that assumed that name have been whom I will not describe lest I seem to imitate you or offend you more than needs 2. The second falshood is that I mention the Doctrine of Christs Temporal Reign with scorn and derision when I only mentioned the way by which many of my acquaintance came to hold it and the arguments which they used to defend it with pitty and dissent but not with scorn or derision much less that doctrine which he nameth 3. The third falshood is that I
endeavour to expose all that I think favour that opinion when as some of my most intimate and honoured friends favour the Millenary Opinion and I know how commonly it was owned by many of the Ancients and who doth not honour the name of Mr. Jos Mead Dr. Twisse Mr. Baily Mr. Porter c. that did more than favour it And when did I ever endeavour to expose such men its like you mean unto scorn or some evil 4. The fourth and notorious falshood is that I dare not look any truth in the face that brings present danger with it when himself saith that I am in the same condemnation with them which hath more truth in it in a full sense than I will here open lest I seem to dishnour my Governours And though I confess that my Imprisonment was not so long and sharp as his yet he can scarce be so ignorant as to imagine that he loseth by his judgement so much as I do by mine quoad lucrum cessans damnum emergens But his own Pen doth publish him temerariously false while he publisheth me to have been formerly as earnest and open an asserter as any of this Opinion and doth not cite one syllable whereby I ever did revoke it And I here as openly declare to him and all the world that I am still of the same mind that I was in that point and I am still ready to express my mind in the same words of mine which he reciteth And while I openly own the same words which he accounteth so dangerous and pretendeth that they assert as much as any judge whether he be a man to be believed that saith I dare not look that truth in the face which I openly own or any other that brings present danger 5. The next notorious falshood is that formerly I was as earnest an asserter of it as any that is of the Fifth Monarchy way As any Have I written for the Millenary Opinion as earnestly and openly as Mr. Mead hath done Have I I will pass over late practices Nay did I ever write or speak one word for it But you shall presently see how he confuteth himself But before I leave this I must name two or three implyed falshoods in these words besides the five expressed 6. The one is that the Doctrine of the Temporal Reign of Christ brings present danger when as all Christians that I know of do believe or hold his Temporal Reign And as for his Personai Corporal Visible Reign I never heard of any Law against any that held it nor any danger that any man incurred much less any suffering for holding it I am perswaded if Christ came personally and visibly to demand it the King himself would yield up his Crown to him But I must confess to you that if any man will call himself a believer of the Fifth Mâ—narchy and thereupon will either deny the Authority of Rulers that are bad even if they were Infidels or Persecutors or that they judge bad or will deny to swear Allegiance to the King or will maintain that good men may seize upon the Government because they are good or think themselves so and that because the Saints shall judge the world therefore they may depose bad Governours and take their places and set up themselves under pretence of setting up Christ I deny not but such as these may be in danger And I am none of them that will own such opinions as knowing them to be no truths but pernicious errors 7. The other implyed falshood is that I have changed my opinion or the profession of it in this point in question Sect. 22. E. B. 〈◊〉 not many years ago you told us that you were perfectly neutral as to the point of Christs visible and personal Reign upon earth and you did not know which way your judgement did most incline But the Theocratical Policy or Divine Common-wealth which is the unquestionable Reign of Christ upon Earth this all Christians are agreed may justly be sought and the temporal dignity of the Saints which would undoubtedly much bless the world R. B. 1. You misprint the temporal for that temporal and so turn the predicate into the subject 2. For as meerly neutral as in almost any point of so great moment c. you put perfectly neutral 3. For I scarce can perceive which way c. you put you did not know Yet I number not these with your falshoods but shew you that you are so habituated to Rashness that you seldom seem to heed what you report 2. And can you wink so hard as not to see how here you openly declare your falsehood Do you prove me as earnest and open an â—ssâ—rter as any by citing words in which I profess to be ignorant neutral and uncertain Will your followers still believe such an open self-contradicting false accuser Is Neutrality and Vncertainty the most earnest and open asserting of a doctrine If you say that you meant it of Theocracy I answer review your words you speak of Christs Temporal Reign and of the Fifth Monarchy way and say as earnest and open as any Was Mr. Mead and Dr. Twisse but Neutral Was Mr. Archer but Neutral 3. I still approve of all the words of mine which you recite What mean you then to tell me of a change 4. And is it like that I take that to be dangerous which I say that all Christians are agreed of 5. And do you not grosly wrong those Rulers from whom you think any danger or hurt will come to us for such doctrine as this Who is there that will deny that A holy and Righteous Government in the hands of holy and righteous men would be a blessing to the world and is to be vehemently desired and sought by just and lawful means Will any Christian charge this doctrine to be erroneous When it is much of the sense of the three first and greatest Petitions in the Lords prayer and when all Christians know that Tyranny Ignorance and Vngodliness are the three constituting materials of the Devils Kingdom in the world and that Tyranny is the grand maintainer of Ignorance and Vngodliness while the Heathen and Infidel and Popish Princes of the Earth do keep away the clear and powerful preaching and publication of the truth and Turks Persians Indians and other Mahometans and all the Heathens do maintain Deceivers and cast out the Gospel of Jesus Christ Sect. 23. E. B. p. 7. Sir I have been very curious to enquire into the doctrine of the Fifth Monarchy and most of my Converse is with those that do in Faith expect and in Patience wait for such a time and I never knew any of them however they are mis-represented carry the notion further than you have already done R. B. 1. And are you a man then that is fit to make such a stir to divide the Churches and to account your self wiser than all the Old Non-conformists in those
needs talk to the people of their superiours actions and speak against them behind their backs 4. If we know that one two twenty have spoken or written plainly in reproof of a sin are all the Ministers in the Land bound to do the same over again Must they all leave their flocks to come up to London to do it Or must they every one publish his reproof in Print 5. All silence or not-reproving is not a seeming consent much less in Gods sight little different from persecution Were all the Churches in the Empire Persecutors or to be separated from which did not reprove the Emperours for banishing Athanasius and Chrysostom and such others Of all the silenced Ministers in London or England how small a number is there that have sharply reproved the silencers And perhaps they that have done it most sharply may have been more sharp than did beseem them To conclude Readers mark here by this reason how few you must hold communion with in the Land or in the world if you will be the Disciples of Mr. Bagshaw Away from Conformists and Non-conformists that have sharply reproved persecutors This is the way to be able to guess at the names and numbers of those that by his rule you must Communicate with 5. But what if they have sharply reproved this one sin you cannot prove that they themselves have done so by all other sins Even you your self have left some unreproved And will not the want of the sharp reproving of other sins as well as of persecution make your communion with such unlawful 6. But at the worst not reproving can be but a particular sin And it is not every particular sin that maketh Communion unlawful 7. And have you first admonished them of that sin and tryed all these Ministers whether they be penitent Yea or ever heard them speak for themselves Or do you reject Matth. 18. 15. and make to your self and followers a new Law that whomsoever you shall suspect or accuse of sin you must also separate from 8. But by this rule of yours methinks few if any should be liker to be accepted in your communion than my self if reproving persecution would serve turn And yet even I also am rejected by you as being not wise or good enough to communicate with such as you but as one of the worst of Hereticks to be rejected of all 9. But I beseech you give your Readers leave here to remember if you will not that your own doctrine imposeth it on me as my duty to Reprove you sharply as I have done while you teach the world that it is but little different in the sight of God to persecute and not sharply to reprove it and so disown it For if it make the sins of my superiours mine if I do not sharply reprove them and make me almost as guilty as they I shall not be innocent if I reprove not you sharply when it is to me that you direct your words And I had rather be thought too sharp than be guilty of all the crimes and falshoods of this your Script especially when you are the accuser of my silence your self Sect. 41. E. B. Lastly admitting there are some worthy and able men among the Parish Ministers which for my own part I believe never a whit the more because you affirm it yet this we must say that their sin is great in submitting to so undue a way of entering into the Ministry and therefore we both forbear our selves and warn all others not to hear them because we cannot think our Lord Christ ever sent such to Preach in his name who directly and by a solemn Oath have renounced their Christian liberty under pretence of Preaching Christ and are indeed nothing else as to the whole discharge and exercise of their office but servants of men in consistent with being servants of Christ R. B. 1. Either you think there are some worthy able men among them or you do not If you do why should you be so malignant as to question the assertion of it and so loth to grant it If you do not how unfit is so false and malignant an accuser of the brethren to be the conducter of souls or the Historian of the age that will not know a thing so publick and notorious 2. As for your not believing me no men are so hardly brought to believe the truth from others as they that are conscious of ordinary falshood from themselves 3. I think I could prove their sin as effectually as you can But must we separate from all sinners or from all that sin in their entrance into the Ministry And why not as well from all other sins of equal greatness Do you warn all others not to hear your self Or do you yet take your self to be no sinner or no great sinner What if the Presbyterians think the Independents way of entrance to be undue And the Independents think so of the Presbyterians And both of the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists of them both c. Must they all therefore warm all men not to hear each other Mr. Nye thought not so when he wrote for such hearing publick Ministers Is it fit for the Author of two Books of Calumnies and bold Untruths besides false Doctrines and other Crimes to say Their sin is great c. and therefore we both forbear our selves and warn all others not to hear them 4. Most that I speak of did enter into the Ministry in the Presbyterian or Independent way heretofore and do but continue on the terms which I dissent from as well as you How then can you say they unduely enter into the Ministry 5. Did you know before you wrote this that all such as we perswade men to hear have by Oath renounced their Christian Liberty what Oath is it that you mean If you mean the Oath of Supremacy or Allegiance unless Popery be Christian Liberty we know of none such which these renounce And I know of no other Oath except that of Canonical obedience in licitis honestis And for that 1. I find not that the Act or Canons do impose it on those that come for Ordination nor am so well skil'd in the Law as to know by what Law it is done 2. I know that men have been ordinarily ordained without it And to such your reason for separation is vain 3. Mr. Bradshaw and other old Non-conformists were wont to say that they obeyed the Diocesanes and so did promise them obedience only as they are the Kings Officers deputed for the exercise of that Civil or Coercive power which Magistrates have in Causes called Ecclesiastical And what Liberty doth that give away 4. But suppose that you are the wiser man and that those that are more ignorant do mistakingly think that Canonical obedience and the Oath with that of Supremacy to be their duty and no renouncing of their Christian liberty Is it not false doctrine to conclude that Christ never
sent out any that had as great a sin as this what none when he sent out Judas himself who was first a Thief and after a Traytor Do you think then that Christ ever sent out Lyars Railers furious Church-dividers false accusers c 5. That indeed they are nothing else as to the whole discharge and exercise of their office but the servants of men is another slander and untruth He that is a servant of Christ and a true Pastor of a Christian Church and a sound Preacher of the Gospel and an helper of believers faith and a lover of the peoples souls and a diligent upright labourer for mens salvation is something else than a servant of man even in the discharge of their Ministerial office But such are many of the Conformable Ministers Ergo Prove if you can that Dr. Preston Sibbes Stoughton Whittaker Mr. Bolton Whateley Gataker Fenner and all the late Assembly save eight or nine at most being all Conformists were nothing else but the servants of men and not at all the servants of Christ Your Father thought otherwise of Mr. Bolton and perhaps they were both as wise as you Prove now that Mr. Gurnal Mr. Trap Dr. Lightfoot Dr. Walker Mr. Langley and many others that I can name that are worthy men in London and round about it are nothing else but the servants of men And will it not be as hard to prove one to be a servant of Christ who serveth Satan by falshood and malice and calumniating Christs Churches and Servants as those that are thus the servants of men Sect. 42. E. B. For the question is not as you weakly and insignificantly word it whether a Defective faulty true Church may ordinarily or at least sometimes be joyned with But whether a defective faulty imposing Church is not to be separated from R. B. 1. You begin here with another untruth I was the stater of the Question and did not referr it to you to state it I chose that question to dispute which I thought fittest Therefore to tell me that it not the question which is the question is untrue 2. We have here another taste of your insolency To call them Magisterially weak and insignificant words which you design not to examine nor once notifie to the Reader wherein the Weakness or Insignificancy is nay which we suppose you in the next sentence use your self expresly in all the words save one and implicitly as to that For Defective and faulty are words that you condescend to use And when you say a Church you must mean a Church that hath Truth of Essence or else you speak equivocally or contradiction And may not a True Church be faulty and Defective where then is the insignificancy of these words 3. And as to the Predicate Is there a difference between the Questions whether such a Church may be joyned with and whether it must be separated from If there be I will put the question as hath least ambiguity I mean such separation as consisteth 1. In holding that such a Church may not be joyned with 2. And as consisteth in a privative not-joyning or refusing Communion as unlawful If you mean any thing else you talk not to me and to my question 4. But is all the stress of separation laid upon the word Imposing I undertook to prove that the Parish Ministers that I speak of do not Impose upon the people unless officiating be imposing As Separatists themselves impose their own Words of Prayer upon the people that are to joyn with them It being the Ministers office to word his Prayers and praises he imposeth them on the people And all other circumstances in which the Pastor doth and must guide the flock as what Chapter shall be read what Psalm Meeter Tune Time c. I think the Separatists impose And I know not that the Minister whom I hear doth impose any more on me Therefore by your own rule I am not bound to separate from this Parish Church because it is no Imposing Church It is Imposed on but it doth not Impose that I know of Sect. 43. E. B. This we affirm 1. Because we know not how else to preserve our Christian Liberty which it is an indispensible duty to maintain but by separating from those that would unduly take it from us R. B. These universal terms not limited nor expounded are to be taken universally And so here are two false doctrines one that it is indispensible duty to maintain all our Christian liberty and the other that we know not how else to maintain it But if by this Liberty you mean but some sort of liberty and not all you should have distinguished if you would not deceive And if by we know not you intend only a Confession of your own ignorance that would be no proof of the point in hand because that may be true which you know not 1. There is a Liberty called Christian because it is essential to Christianity as to be freed from the Covenant of Works and from the Guilt and Reign of sin and from the power of Satan and the state of enmity against God c. 2. There is a Liberty called Christian because it is procured and given us by Christ though not essential to Christianity as to eat of this meat or that flesh or herbs to be free from the observation of certain dayes and Customs and Ceremonies not sinful in themselves 3. There is a Liberty called Christian because Christians have it in common with all other men or with many as to marry or not marry to live in this Countrey or that to be free from oppression injuries slanders persecution when they can And we must distinguish of the word Our that is we must shew how far this Liberty is Ours indeed 1. It is one thing to be Ours Necessarily or as you say Indispensibly and another thing to be ours when we can get it keep it or use it without a greater loss than it will compensate or a greater hurt to others It is one thing to be ours in fundamental right to be used at fit times and another thing to be ours to be alwayes used Prop. 1. The Liberty which is essential to our Christianity or Godliness is indispensibly to be maintained and exercised Gal. 5. 1. Prop. 2. All degrees of the same liberty must be maintained as well as the essentials that is we must labour to be as free as we can from all the degrees of sin and misery But we cannot here have what we would Prop. 3. There is a Liberty to use certain things as statedly or ordinarily Indifferent which is none of Ours to use them in several Cases which take away the Indifferency as in case of scandal or greater hurt to others or our selves or of the restraint of just authority Prop. 4. The same must be said of forbearing things indifferent Prop. 5. Our Liberty from
Worship of God which he hath not commanded without exception is a sin 2. That being present where they are used involveth us in the guilt Where note 1. That it is not Part of the Worship but things used in the Worship that he speaketh of 2. That I proved the contrary to both these at large and the man saith only that he hath my word for the contrary and giveth not a syllable of answer to my twenty instances and many undenyable reasons to the contrary Doth he not either highly esteem his own reason and authority that thinketh it should be received if he do but say the word without attempting to answer what 's said against him or else doth he not greatly despise his own Readers and followers in taking them for such credulous ductile souls as will take his bare word without expecting any reason from him to confute what is said on the other side Or is all this on presumption that his Reader will not know what I have said Sermon Notes Meeters Tunes printed Bibles as printed and divided into Chapters and Verses the words of a Sermon or Prayer the particular Method Cups Tables c. are used in the Worship of God without any particular command or any command for this rather than that in cases of indifferency And yet all these are not therefore unlawful And I proved that all Ministers and Families sin in Gods Worship and yet that it is not therefore lawful to separate from them all If you your self say that you say nothing in preaching or praying but what is commanded you and that your Worship hath no sin you deceive your self and the truth is not in you But if you think it a sin for any to hear you or have communion with you why do you not plainly tell your hearers so To keep far from a false matter as from writing falshoods by the dozens and not to partake of other mens sins is one thing and for Children to tell their Fathers or People their Pastors we must not worship God with you because in Forms Words Method you do something not commanded yea because through error you do somewhat sinful is another thing Sect. 45. E. B. Lastly Whatever pretences may be used for the keeping of Peace yet to speak strictly so as to satisfie Conscience Peace is but ill bought if we must purchase it at so dear a rate as the loss of truth And this Truth concerning the sole Soveraign Power of our Lord Christ in appointing all matters of his Worship is a point so necessary to be maintained and so utterly inconsistent with the supposing that any thing is to be obtruded which he hath not commanded that we dare not allow our selves in the practice of any thing which may prejudice that fundamental R. B. 1. How oft have I answered that saying about selling Truth for Peace and must hear it again in the old confusion without any notice of what hath been said See my Treatise of Infant Baptism on that point particularly Do I fell thirty three Truths when I read thirty three untruths in your Writings Do I sell Truth if I should hear you preach or pray erroneously and impose your confused prayers on the people or impose this or that Metre or Tune on them in singing of Psalms 2. Here you say Matters of Worship before it was in Worship And even the word Worship is taken so variously as calls for explication before we determine whether man may appoint matters of Worship For if you will call putting off the Hat and reverent gestures in particular and Metres and Tunes and the Method and words of the particular Prayer or Sermon by the name of Worship then man may appoint it 3. It is an untrue supposition and but a begging of the question that our presence with any thing obtruded unlawfully is a prejudice to that fundamental of the Soveraignty of Christ All men that sin do sin against his Soveraignty And all that obtrude any thing unlawfully sin against it by that obtrusion But if you obtrude a rash and passionate prayer on the people or an erroneous or disorderly prayer or an ill-composed Hymn or Psalm their presence is no approbation of your error nor denying of Christs Soveraignty Do you or can you believe and make all your followers believe that the Synagogue-Worship and the Temple-Worship were kept so pure by the Priests Levites and Pharisees in Christs dayes as that there was nothing of humane Tradition obtruded Or nothing but what God commanded Can you believe this Or can you believe that Christ was not usually or often present there See Luke 4. 16. At Nazareth where he had been brought up as his custom was he went into the Synagogue on the Sabbath day And of Paul its said Acts 17. 2. As his manner was he went in to them and three Sabbath dayes reasoned Or do you believe that Christ was a sinner and that he contradicted his own Soveraignty What! and yet be a perfect Saviour Who is it now that prejudiceth fundamentalls Sect. 46. E. B. And we judge we have sufficient warrant from what the Apostles did in a like case Acts 15. 24. For if they reproved such as preached up Circumcision and other Legal Ceremonies at that day when as the Apostles had given them no such Commandment saying of them that they subverted or spoiled the souls of the Disciples then may we affirm the like of those men now who in things equally indispensible do act with every whit as little authority from whom on that very account we think it our duty to separate R. B. 1. The authority of the King and lawful Magistrates is more about the Circumstantials of Worship as whether Abiathar shall be High Priest c. than the false Teachers was about that doctrine 2. The Apostles do indeed declare that they sent them not to preach or not such doctrine But that 's not the thing on which they lay the great accusation but on the false and dividing doctrine which they preached Christ saith of one that cast out Devils in his Name and followed him not Let him alone he that is not against us is for us And Moses wisht all the Lords people were Prophets But these false Teachers would have made the keeping of Moses Law to be necessary to salvation And can you prove that the Minister doth so whom I use to hear Do all the Parish Ministers do so Can you see no difference between one that saith The Law or Cannons command me to use this Surplice or Form as an indifferent thing and one that saith Except you do this or that you break Gods Law and cannot be saved Except you separate from all Parish Churches you sin against God and prejudice a fundamental Sure it is one thing to say God saith this or binds you to this or forbids you this and it s another thing to say The King or the Bishop saith it 3. And what is it
The word mixt is ambiguous and implyeth a double act one of the Impure part and that Christ designeth not but forbiddeth the other of the holy who joyn with some that are unholy and that in some Cases Christ commandeth and did practise himself 3. Without distinction indeed it should not be for Discipline is appointed to distinguish regularly 4. Take home the argument and try it on your self Whatever Church is such as Christ did not call and design it to be is not to be communicated with But a Church that hath an erroneous Preacher or an erroneous sinful people is such as Christ did not call or design it to be Ergo And will you then communicate with any in the world or any with you Sect. 50. E. B. p. 14. Though through the Corruption of men and negligence of Church-Officers many ungodly prophane Formalists and hypocrites did and daily do creep in yet there is a strict command given to put such out of the Church and turn aside from them If such are to be withdrawn from then if any Church which is admonished concerning them shall still maintain abett and countenance them that Church is defiled and unfit to be communicated with 1 Cor. 5. 7. Eccles 9. 18. Heb. 12. 15. R. B. 1. It is only gross sinners after just Admonition upon proof that are to be put out The Officers ought not to do it without proof 2. Have you or others rightly Admonished every Parish Minister that you call us to separate from and convicted them upon proof when you have heard them speak for themselves 3. And who gave you authority so to examine other Pastors being but a single person 4. We easily grant and earnestly desire that true Church-Justice should make a difference But in case the Officers do not their duty it is none of the peoples duty to separate therefore haveing done their own part except in these cases 1. That the Error or Crime be so great as to be inconsistent with Christianity or Church communion 2. That the Church do not only neglect it but deliberately Own that Error or Crime in its aggravated state as it is so inconsistent with Christianity or Communion Not only being consequentially guilty of it as the best man may be of the most heinous sin of another by some omission of his duty to cure it but making it their profession or Practice 3. That this be done not by some particular members only but by an essential part of the Church that is either by the Pastor or by the main body of the people 4. That this be fully proved or so notorious as to need no proof 5. That they be impenitent herein after due admonition When these five things concur it is a duty to separate from a Church as unfit for Christian Communion And in lower cases it is a duty to prefer a Better when we can have it But it s much higher or lower rather that you go You say A Church which after admonition and discovery of offenders will not use her authority to cast them out This may be by mis-information on the sinners side or by meer negligence as in Eli's case and may be a great sin and yet not the same in kind as that which should be censured nor such as will unchurch that Church nor make its communion unlawful to the innocent As to your proofs the Texts you cite are all written to the whole Churches as Churches who are bid put them away c. save that to Timothy and Rev. 2. which is to the Church-Rulers And it followeth not that if a Church or Church-Rulers who have the power of the Keyes are bid to reject or cast out or not suffer an Heretick or wicked person and to have no fellowship with them therefore every member is forbidden to have Communion with that Church in Gods Worship unless they cast such a one out I did by many Scripture instances Rev. 2. 3. 1 Cor. 11. 15 c. prove the contrary to which you give no answer 5. Let all sober Readers note how few in the world we shall have communion with on your terms How certainly you will turn all Churches into strife and bitter envyings confusion and every evil work For Railers and Covetous among the rest are those that must be avoided And if any member of the Church shall think that one Railer or one Covetous person is kept in unjustly away they must go and condemn the Church as unworthy of Communion And who will not think that read your Book that you would be one of the first accused of Railing Yea how few even of the strictest separating Churches are they that neglect not Discipline upon some one person It may be it may be a rich or powerful man that will persecute or divide the Church if he be cast out Is there no Gathered Churches as they are called that have one Railing woman in or one Covetous person 6. But Sir our question is not only of the Communion of Members but also of strangers occasionally and rarely And what call hath a stranger to try the Discipline of another Church Or what opportunity hath he to know all their members crimes and to admonish them Why may not I in my travail communicate with a Church whose members and Discipline I know not At least all Parish Churches have not been thus admonished by you Sect. 51. E. B. p. 14. Lastly Which will fully answer the scruple It is to be considered that the Primitive Churches were setled by the Apostles and constituted according to the Divine pattern having all the Ordinances of Christ and true Officers rightly established among them so that though many scandalous sins did break out and were visible among some of the members yet a power was still retained in each Church for the keeping themselves pure by casting out offenders whereby they were kept to the institution and orders of Christ without any universal innovation or degenerating in those Essentials of Order as well as Doctrine which they fell into in the ages after and when Antichristianism which was then working did manifestly shew it self not only in rejecting truth 2 Thess 2. but in imposing error Rev. 13. 16 17. then was separation made necessary R. B. Reader this confused huddle of words it seems is the thing he trusteth to as a full answer to the scruple But 1. If such Churches are to be communicated with as yet retain all the Essentials of Office Order and Doctrine then those are to be communicated with that are now in question But the former seemeth here intimated by himself That our said Churches have all such essentials is thus proved Whereever there are true Pastors and a Christian flock related mutually as such receiving the holy Scriptures as such there are all things essential to a true Church for Office Order and Doctrine But it is so 〈◊〉 the Parish Churches in question To stay here to write a particular
proof of the validity of the Ministers Calling any further than to put the accuser if he can to prove that any essential part is wanting whether in Qualification Ordination or Consent would be vain it being done so largely by the old Non-conformists 2. But is there a Power retained in such Churches to cast out offendors Answ Yes A Power divine or given by Christ Remember that as I have proved Disp of Ordinat men are not the Makers of the Office of the Sacred Ministry nor the Measurers or Givers of the Power but only the Choosers of the person that shall receive what Christ by Institution giveth and the Ministerial Investers of the person in that power Therefore Whoever receiveth the Office of a Pastor receiveth the power of the Keyes to take in and cast out Though not arbitrarily nor ungoverned by himself But the Parish Ministers or very many of them now in question do receive the Office of Pastors Therefore they receive the power of the Keyes to take in and cast out If you say that the Bishops intend it not in ordaining them I answer 1. It sufficeth that Christ intendeth it who is the only maker and giver of the power The Book of Ordination maketh them solemnly Covenant to give faithful diligence alwayes so to Minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and the Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath â—â—â—manded c. And to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which they are perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture as containing all such necessary doctrine And to be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to Gods word And to use both publick and private monitions and exhortations as well to the sick as the whole And to be diligent in prayers and reading the holy Scriptures and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same laying aside the study of the world and the flesh And that they will be diligent to frame and fashion themselves and their families according to the doctrine of Christ and to make both themselves and them as much as they can wholesome examples to the flock c. And till lately the said Book recited Acts 20. 28. to the Presbyters at their Ordination And the Canon 26. saith No Minister shall in any wise admit to the receiving of the holy Communion any of his Cure or flock which be openly known to live in sin notorious without repentance Besides what the Rubrick saith to that purpose And now though I think this one of the greatest sores which you have touched yet judge whether even the Laws and Canons concede no Power to the Ministers 3. But if they did not the Power of Office is one thing and the Liberty of exercising it is another We have Power from Christ to preach and if we be silenced and our liberty restrained by men that proveth us not to be no true Ministers If you mean that no Church is to be communicated with where the Pastor is hindered by men from the full discharge of his Office you mistake and can never prove it 4. They that voluntarily neglect their Office without hinderance by the force of men are more to be blamed than those that are so forced But in the Primitive Churches Discipline was lamentably neglected voluntarily as appeareth in the Case of most of the seven Churches Rev. 2. 3. for which they are threatned by Christ and in the Corinthians case yea corrupted by such as Diotrophes And do you think that the Church that hath Power to do well and will not is therefore to be communicated with because it can that is because it sinneth not through disability but negligence or wilfulness 5. But the Core of your erroneous reasoning is behind you say they were without any Vniversal innovation or degenerating in those Essentials of Order as well as doctrine which they fell into in the ages after c. An Vniversal degenerating in the Essentials even of Doctrine and Order too is a big and a sad word And the time pointed at by you being so early if I can understand you you do as the Seekers unchurch the universal Church of Christ For if it Degenerated Vniversally in the Essentials of doctrine it Vniversally apostatized from Christianity For where any Essential part is lost the Essence and just Name is lost And I beseech you let not rashness or passion blind you to over-overlook the dreadfulness of this Doctrine 1. If Christ had then no Church as he had not if the Essential degeneration was Vniversal then he was no King of the Church on Earth no Lord no Teacher no Saviour of the Church no Intercessor for it in the Heavens And do you not then dethrone him and deny him indeed to be the Christ What a Head without a Body A King without a Kingdom 2. So you will make all Gods Promises of his Churches perpetuity as built on the Rock against which Hell Gates should not prevail and of being with them to the end of the world c. to be false and fail And if the whole Church failed and the Promises made to it what particular soul can trust Gods Promises 3. If all the Church apostatized how shall we know that Apostates did not corrupt all the Copies of Scripture that are come down to us 4. And then the Article I believe the holy Catholick Church would have been a falshood or error 5. And then there could be no Baptism no Sacrament of the Lords Supper c. 6. And then there must be New Apostles with Miracles to make a new Church And thus we have Mr. Williams doctrine whose Story I recited in my last Book Sect. 52. E. B. p. 15. This necessity of separation which began then continueth still since our Churches though reformed from Popery that is from Antichristianism in some points yet are not restored to the primitive pattern and purity R. B. 1. Whether by our Churches you mean only the Parish Churches of godly Ministers or also All the Protestant Churches and all other Vniversally through the world I am not sure But as far as I can conjecture by your words you mean All. Because you speak of them as in a Continuance in part in the Vniversal degeneration in Essentials And you speak of them as avoiding Popery but in part and call them our Churches and mention no Church in the world here that you own as a true Church and whether any where in all your writings I remember not I confess I pretend not to know the mind of so careless a Writer by any words but very plain ones But if this be your mind as it seemeth to be you would do well being so bold a man to tell the world your mind more plainly And you that think that no Truth is to be sold as you call it for Peace let Independents Presbyterians Separatists Anabaptists c.
know it if indeed you think that all their Churches are to be separated from as well as the Parish Churches If this be your mind I suppose you are but a Preacher to Auditors your self and not a Pastor to any Church He that thinks no Truth should be concealed for fear of suffering should not carry it in darkness and dissimulation to the Pastors and Churches about him if really he believe them to be no Pastors or Churches or not to be communicated with But I think that you better deserve to be disowned by them than they by you Certainly few or no Protestant Church that I have known will say that it is restored to the primitive pattern and Purity in degree If that therefore be your meaning you do separate from all the Churches in the world But if you mean not in Degree but in Essence I still challenge you to prove that the Churches in question want any thing Essential or need a Restoration to that which they never lost Sect. 52. E. B. p. 15. So that more may be said for separation now when whole Churches are out of order and corrupt than could be at that time when corruption had infected only particular members R. B. 1. Is it now come to that Is it the number corrupted that must decide the case Who can tell where to find this Proteus sometime it is the mixture of holy and unholy sometime it is not bare corruption without Imposition And now it is the numbers corrupted whole Churches And in the next sentence you shall see what 2. Is the whole Church any thing besides the particular members Is there any other matter or any form besides the Relation of the particular members 3. I challenge you if you can to prove any corruption in the Churches in question which is not consistent with the essence I know not so much errour or harm in the people of the Church that I now joyn with where I live as Paul chargeth on the Corinthians or Galathians Though I suppose the primitive Ministry and gifts more excellent than any of ours Sect. 53. E. B. For it is not as I said before Corruption barely no nor Imposition barely that is a sufficient ground for any to separate For where some lesser errours are held but not Imposed or where only necessary things are imposed we shall not forbear Communion But when errour is once imposed and by a strong hand forcibly maintained notwithstanding all admonitions and endeavours of reformation here we must separate or consent to sin R. B. Better and better Here it is granted that neither Corruption barely nor Imposition barely will justifie separation But by Corruption and Imposition barely seemeth to be meant such formaliter quoad actum without including the degree of the matter For it is expounded of Lesser errours held and not Imposed or of necessary things Imposed So that if it be Imposed on us to Worship God it will not prove us no Christians we are beholden to you for this clemency And if we should mistake a point of Genealogie or Chronologie it will not un-church us This is something 2. Well but what is the crime that maketh our Communion unlawful when errour is once imposed c. so then if you can speak sense any errour Imposed will do it What if it be Imposed on the Church to use a Translation of the Bible that hath some errour in And is there any without Must that Church needs be separated from And yet the Church that used the same Voluntarily and therefore more sinfully is not to be separated from What if erroneously it be imposed on the Church to meet at an inconvenient time or place What if some flaw or errour in Chronologie on smaller-matters were in their imposed Confession which the Pastour erroneously subscribeth to It seems an Infallible Imposing Church may be communicated with and no other But do you not know that there is a Ministerial as well as a Magistratical forcing Imposition Every Pastour that speaketh as by Commission from Christ Imposeth somewhat on the people He Imposeth doctrine and Method and words in prayer and times places utensils orders metres tunes as aforesaid Must all these be separated from that is almost all the Pastors in the World And is there no remedie 3. But perhaps you lay all the stress on a strong hand and force If so prove that your Ministerial Imposition of errour in your Prayer or Conduct doth not make Communion unlawful and yet that forcible imposition doth As if Voluntary reception made less the sin Prove that the Church of the Jews was nullified whenever any errour was imposed by authority Or when the Pharisees then in power had corrupted it in Christs time by force If this were your meaning then separation could scarce be Lawful till there was a Constantine a Christian Emperour who being not infallible might force or impose something amiss whereas you before talk of an early universal failing necessitating separation It seems then that no Countries are so unhappy as those that have Christian Magistrates who being fallible impose some errour And that in all the Ages and Countries that have Heathen or Infidel Rulers notwithstanding Church Corruptions not forced Separation is a sin 4. But I would fain know whether it be the Imposition that nullifieth the Church or makes Communion unlawful or only the obeying that Imposition If it be the Imposition then a Heathen Prince may nullifie the Church at pleasure If it be only the obedience then 1. Must it be once obeying or continual What if Aurelian or Dioclesian forbid Church-assemblies will once obeying them nullifie all the Churches or make their Communion unlawful 2. Why will not obeying a Minister or deâ—â—ver make it as unlawful as obeying a King 3. Why doth not the doing it without constraint as is said make it as unlawful as obedience 5. Is it the King and Parliament or the Bishops whose Impositions have this sad effect If the former then as is said it was 300 years after Christ before separation was lawful If the latter then it is not force only that doth it And Independent or Anabaptist or Presbyterian Pastors may Impose as well as Bishops For the Bishops disclaim all coercive power in the Church as I have shewed to Dr. Moulin Sect. 54. E. B. The second Argument is the example of the former Non-conformists who you say were all against separation c. R. B. Here you cite a passage of Mr. Hildershams that the authority of man is not to be set against Gods and that we may know more than those that went before us c. And did not I tell you so my self who dissenteth from you in this Bring your proof from Scripture against them and us and we will hear you Or give us but good proof that you are a wiser and better man than they and are better taught of God and we will yield this by-reason from authority But to bring
of a holy life 5. That Brother Browne instructed me in the fifth Monarchy principle whereas he then opposed it Answ I said Mr. Browne and others were her Instructers who were very zealous for the way called the fifth Monarchy and having instructed her in those opinions c. If I did mistake here I recant my errour But I will tell you my grounds 1. That the others were of that opinion as they deny not so I have heard no others deny 2. At the publishing of that Book same spake the same of Mr. Browne and of his companion 3. The Book doth plead for that opinion 4. His Epistle is before the Book as a Publishing applause of it 5. He professeth that opinion to this day And all these appearances might induce such a judgement of him But if he took it up between the Action and the publication of the Book on what day or week it is none of my business to declare He better knoweth those himself 6. That I imposed abstinence upon my self as to meat when I would gladly have eaten but durst not because I apprehended I had no right to the Creature being out of Christ This is all false and untrue and I am astonished that Mr. Baxter should with so much confidence affirm these things Answ 1. The good Woman understandeth not that she contradicteth her self She did not impose abstinence on her self but she durst not eat for the reason here given that is She did not impose abstinence on her self but she did impose it for fear upon this reason These untruths and nonsence in a Woman are more excusable than in her Teachers Why doth She render a Reason why She durst not eat if by that fear and for that reason she did not impose abstinence on her self Did any other impose it or shut her mouth Is not that our own doing which we give a reason of and say that we did it through fear Doth not he that giveth a Thief his Purse consent himself to it and make it his own act to save his life If she knew not what she did why is she angry for being thought Melancholy which is many a Godly persons case If she did know why doth she falsly call it an untruth that she imposed it on her self By this taste you may see that even in well-meaning people the same principles will oft have the same practices when here are five untruths in this short Letter and four at least of her accusation of my words are visible untruths But I would know of Mr. E. B. or her whether it be true doctrine that one out of Christ should not eat because they have no right and whether almost to consume her self with Famine was well done If so must all wicked men do so If it be false doctrine as undoubtedly it is I further ask whether it was the spirit of God or Satan that was the Author of it I hope she dare not father sin and falshood on Gods Spirit And if it was a Temptation of Satan as it was I ask whether to yield so far to a Temptation so much against the light of Scripture nature and self-preservation in a case so plain that common people know the errour of it and to proceed so long almost to famishment in that errour and sin I say whether this shewed not some flaw at that time in natural understanding and reasoning as well as in grace If it did as sure it did what could it be less than Melancholy And I hope it was never the mind of Mr. Jordan or Mr. Browne in that Book to father this opinion or practice on Gods spirit I doubt not but God thus oft tryeth his own but it is as little doubt but that he oft leaveth them under Melancholy as the Tempters opportunity and advantage And its pitty that poor souls should be angry with those that know their case better than they themselves and truly pitty them Sect. 81. R. B. I come now to Mr. Brownes Letter wherein I will not reckon it as it is with his untruths that my two last Treatises give great occasion to the Adversaries of Truth and Purity to reproach and Blaspheme God and his people For the man speaketh as his ill cause and principles have made him think And that this is no more than some of my Disciples have suggested to him whether it be true or false I know not What men that I have been eleven years driven from may be drawn to by cruelties on the one hand and seducers on the other I can give no account of at this distance Let them answer for themselves The first untruth I charge him with is that I have uttered many falshoods of himself and others The case is anon to be tryed Sect. 82. Mr. Browne P. 27. How the present Conformists can be excused from some degree of Idolatry remains to be better proved R. B. An answer to what I said had been more congruous than this put-off And that you take it for no Railing to call almost all Christs Churches on Earth even the Reformed Idolatrous and yet take it for railing to be told that you so accuse them ignorantly rashly and self-conceitedly doth but shew the blinding power of selfishness and dividing principles when there is so vast a disparity 1. In the matter of the charge 2. And in the persons charged That your Brother Bagshaw liath as you call it now deceived your expectation and wronged his cause that is hath been fain to leave his untruths unjustified I suppose you cannot deny in consistence with your own expressions Sect. 83. Mr. Browne p. 28. Indeed sir in two lines there are no less than two Vntruths published to the world concerning me The first is that I am the Author and Publisher of that Book which is affirmed by him against the most notorious evidence in the World to the contrary The Author Mr. Timothy Jordain and all that I did was being desired to write an Epistle wherein I acquaint the Reader that I am not the Author of it but only did joyne in Testimony to signifie what was recorded in the ensuing Treatise was true R. B. Reader wouldst thou think it possible for a man that voluminously accuseth the Churches and chargeth them with Idolatry and had read my detection of his Brothers Untruths to face men down with such words as these that I say that which I never said I have many times over read my own words and I can find no syllable of what he saith that I affirm him to be the Author of that Book I only said the Publisher and he addeth the Author as may presently by the Readers eye-sight be convicted I say Published by Mr. Browne as is uncountroledly affirmed And is not this also a rash and careless man that no better heedeth what he readeth and what he writeth And doth he not here declare himself a Publisher of it when he confesseth he put an Epistle to it
enclined to them R. B. Here he untruly intimated that I said more who never said so much but only that she thought they lived strictlyer than we and fell in among them And now Reader I shall again tell thee my reasons for all that I said of her Mr. Joseph Baker then Preacher in Worcester a man of unquestionable Prudence and Credit now with Christ told me all that I have said of this Woman and that she had not been at Church of a long time before and was passing along the Streets and was suddenly moved to go in to the Church at Lecture time and that she was struck as aforesaid at the hearing of the Text and before Sermon was done could hardly forbear crying out in Church and that she had on the conceit of their strictness faln in among the Quakers and been often at their meetings but hearing them speak against Scriptures and Ministers was troubled and thought that they spake that which her experience would not suffer her to consent to and that she was like in these perplexities to fall into great Melancholy and her body also to be weakened by the troubles of her mind and that through his motion or perswasion she was desirous to speak with me I had no reason to deny belief to him When I came next to his house the Gentle-woman came to me and he and she together repeated the substance of all this again and she spake not a syllable against it And speaking a few words to disswade her from the Quakers in haste I never saw her more The said Mr. Baker told me after of all her sad and Melancholy abstinence and weakness and of Mr. Browne and Mr. Jordanes frequency with her And shortly after shewed me the Book with Mr. Brownes Epistle to it and told me that which they now thus quarrel with that Mr. Browne was one of the publishers of it and was for the doctrine in it Though I discerned by the Book that she her self was taken with that point These things I long heard affirmed and confirmed and never contradicted till this day and now you hear that the Timeing of Mr. Brownes Opinion and endeavours is all that they can say any thing against themselves And thus much I thought meet to say against their rash occasions on this by-occasion Sect. 94. R. B. p. 30. I have not yet done with Mr. Bagshaw He comes on again in a Postscript with more Untruths And first he tells you how little commendation it is to my honesty to have yet such easie access now to the Licensers and Press that he can Print two Books before another man can Publish a few sheets Answ 1. I never spake with the Licensor nor saw him And if neither of those two Books were Licensed when he wrote this at least is not this still a fearless heedless man 2. Is not Honesty among these men become a word of a new signification And is it any wonder if our dishonesty make us unworthy of their Communion when our honesty is questionable for the Licensing of our Books If it be a sign of dishonesty to do any thing which our Rulers will but allow of it may next be dishonesty to speak any thing that they think worthy to be believed and to Preach the Gospel if they do but allow it And may not your honesty be as reasonably questioned because you are suffered to Preach Sure the Licensers are not so bad men as to prove all dishonest whose Books they License Sect. 95. E. B. His last Book about the Sabbath might have been wholly spared Dr. Owen having judiciously and accurately handled that Question before him R. B. 1. The Wisdom from above is without partiality and without hypocrisie Was it a blot on Dr. Owens honesty that his Books are Licensed O forgetful man 2. Who made the Law that no man must write on a subject after Dr. Owen was Dr. Owen to be blamed for needless work because he wrote on the Sabbath after Dr. Bound Dr. Young Dr. Twisse Mr. Eaton Mr. Bifield Mr. Shephard and many more 3. Mine was Written and in the Press before Dr. Owens was abroad Though I had before seen Mr. Hughes his accurate Treatise that then came out Sect. 96. E. B. His last Book about the Sabbath doth make so full a discovery of Mr. Baxters spirit in pleading for Saints dayes that is for will-worship R. B. 1. Remember Reader that it is my own Book and not his that discovereth my spirit Fetch thy judgement of it thence and spare not 2. And if thou find cause to put down the Commemoration of the Powder-plot or such other dayes for fear of will-worship do not therefore renounce all see houres for secret and family-prayer and Lectures it being equally will-worship to appoint a set hour as a set day which God in Scripture hath not appointed Sect. 97. E. B. And in Atheistically arguing against the Divine and self-evidencing authority of the holy Scriptures which he doth for many pages together that henceforth I hope he will no longer be a Snare but justly he Rejected of all as one of the worst sort of Hereticks since under the notion of being a Christian and a Protestant be doth with his utmost industry and cunning labour to overthrow our foundation in that he puts the credit of Scripture on the Truth of History and denies any certainty but what may be gathered from that which dangerous doctrine I could not but warn thee Christian Reader as thou lovest thy peace and comfort as well as the truth of Christ that thou wilt diligently beware of And I must leave it to thee to judge whether that Conformity which such a person pleads for is not justly to be suspected R. B. Here are three more visible untruths in point of fact 1. That I argue against the Divine Authority of the Scripture yea or the self-evidencing either which I have written for at large in three several Treatises 1. In the 2d Part of my Saints Rest 2. In a Book called the Unreasonableness of Infidelity 3. In my Reasons of the Christian Religion most fully but never wrote a word against it 2. That I do with my industry and cunning labour to overthrow our foundation Hath this man written more for the foundation than those three Books 3. That I deny any certainty but what may be gathered from the truth of History For which he citeth not one word in which I ever said so nor can But the contrary is legible in the forecited Volumes at large As to the matter of his Accusation I will not here write another Book to tell men what I have written in the former Read my own words even those he accuseth and my Treatise for the Christian Religion and judge as you see Cause But for them that will believe him to save them the labour of reading it in my own Books as if another man were liker to tell