in Tumults Sedition Bloodshed and War in a word in all manner of actions and designs most contrary to the Spirit of Christianity Eighthly and lastly Our Lights if they should chance sometimes to be mistaken by us no harm at all would accrue to others and not any considerable prejudice to our selves because as hath been said the matters in which they direct us are in their Nature Indifferent and are ordered onely towards a more perfect loving of God and withdrawing us from Creatures Whereas all the Miseries and almost all the disorders and enormous Vices of the Nation he means England are the effects of their misleading Lights Thus saith he stands the case betwixt Catholick Inspirations and the pretended Inspirations of Sectaries Such is that Spirit of Charity and Peace and so divine are the effects of it directing the minds of good humble obedient and devout Catholicks And such is the Spirit of Disorder Revenge Wrath Rebellion c. and so dismal are the effects of that Spirit wherewith self-opinionated presumptuous frantick Sectaries are agitated What resemblance what agreement can there be between these two This evill Spirit though it Sacrilegiously usurps the name yet it doth not so much as counterfeit the operations of the good one Or if with the name it doth sometimes seem to counterfeit some outward resemblance and to some persons shew demure looks c. yet the Aequivocation and Hypocrisy is so grosse and palpable that they must put out their eies that perceive it not Thus having given you an account in his own very words what opinion that man hath of you I shall leave you to reflect upon them and as you find your selves able to impugn them to challenge him still to the combate for that Glory wherein you are so confident you excell all the world besides In the mean while we shall force our selves into so much patience as to read over your Arguments without Reason why the denying you the free Liberty of venting your Conceived prayers in the Pulpit suitable to the variety of Subjects and Occasions should strip these Nations of an able holy Ministry as you affirm For First you say It is well known that an Ignorant man may read a Prayer and Homily as distinctly and laudably as a learned Divine and so may doe the work of a Minister if this be it But we say this is not it though an appendant to it or an Ingredient of it and so that Argument comes to nothing And the next will amount to no more when you adde that it is so well known that mans nature is so addicted to ease and sensual diversions as that multitudes will make no better preparations when they find that no more is necessary When they are as capable of their places and maintenance if they can but read and are forced upon no exercise of their Parts which may detect and shame their ignorance but the same words are to be read by the ablest and the ignorantest man it is certain that this will make multitudes idle in their Academical Studies and multitudes to spend their time idly all the year in the course of their Ministry and when they have no necessity that they are sensible of of diligent studies it will let loose their fleshly voluptuous inclinations and they will spend their time in sports and drinking and prating and idleness and this will be a seminary of lust or they will follow the world and drown themselves in Covetousness and Ambition And their hearts will be like their studies As it is the way to have a holy able Ministry to engage them to holy studies to meditate on God's Law day and night so it is the way to have an ignorant prophane and scandalous Ministry and consequently enemies to serious Godliness in others to impose upon them but such a work as in ignorance and idleness they may perform as well as the judicious and the diligent Thus you are pleased to declaim for want of Reason but how little this signifies to the Cause you have in hand the Reader will be able to judge by our Reply which is in short as followeth First That such as are Expectants must submit themselves to an Examination of their Abilities before they can be admitted unto holy Orders and if they have neglected their Academical studies this alone will detect and shame their Ignorance and if we finde they have been so bad proficients though they should passe in a crowd for their Degrees which yet we heartily wish may be prevented by the care of those who from time to time shall have the Government of the Universities that they are able to doe nothing but to read we shall reject them as unfit for the Priestly office For secondly we know that Reading is not all our work Sermons are to be preached Where doth Learning and Devotion abound more then in such Churches and among such Societies as are strictly tied to the use of Publick Forms and therein the Scriptures to be expounded emergent Controversies to be decided Cases of Conscience to be resolved the weak to be supported the doubtful strengthned the disconsolate and languishing comforted and such doctrines administred as may tend to the edification of all the people and the neglect of this their necessary duty or their failing in it will sufficiently detect and shame mens ignorance and the very fear of this will ingage them to be sedulous and diligent in their studies Thirdly As for your extemporary Conceptions of Prayer suitable to the variety of Subjects and Occasions they cost you no time of premeditation in your Studies And therefore fourthly We have observed that many of your Gifted-men have been as much immersed and drown'd in Lust and Idleness in Covetousness and Ambition as any other and if it would bring any advantage to the Christian Profession we could give you some Centuries of such persons but in charity we shall spare you Fifthly We have a Conscience of our duty to God and man we need not disparage our selves in saying as well as you and an eye to that great recompence of reward designed to spur us up unto it and how many of our perswasion even upon this single account do study to shew themselves approved 2 Tim. 2. 15. unto God work-men that need not be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth we leave it to God and the world to judge Sixthly and lastly If there be any so forgetful of their duty as to let loose their fleshly voluptuous inclinations and to spend their time in Sports and Drinking Prating and Idleness a thousand to one some eye of inspection will take notice of their miscarriages unless they be all committed in a very dark corner and sure as you say there is power enough in Magistrates and Bishops to punish them and if they prove incorrigible to cast them out It is a shameless Calumny to affirm for you do more then insinuate that there is no other work imposed
prevent the sin then to give way to it because they are able to exert their power to punish it But you alleadge further In all other Professions these means are thought sufficient to regulate the Professors His Majesty thinks it enough to regulate His Judges that He may chuse able men and fit to be trusted in their proper work and that they are responsible for all their Male-administrations without prescribing them formes beyond which they may not speak any thing in their charge Physicians being first tried and responsible for their doings are constantly trusted with the Lives of high and low without tying them to give no Counsel or Medicine but by the Prescript of a Book or determination of a Colledge If those men had duely considered how much the Eternal interest of immortal Souls doth outweigh the temporal concerns whether of Estate or Life perhaps their Modesty would have prompted them to have omitted these impertinent comparisons If the Judge commits a slip in his Charge or the Physician be guilty of a mistake in his Prescriptions here is no irreverence in these Cases offered or committed against the Divine Majesty And yet we see Physicians have their Dispensatory and 't is questionable in some Cases to neglect it and Judges have their Formes and the Processe that is not according to them is pronounced void and of none effect But you goe on and tell us Your Reason makes more against Preaching and for onely reading Homilies and it is so undeniable as that we must like it the worse if not feare what will become of Preaching also For first It is known that in Preaching a man hath far greater opportunity and liberty to vent a false or private opinion then in Prayer Secondly It is known de eventu that it is much more ordinary And if you say that He speaks not the words of the Church but his own nor unto God but man and therefore it is lesse matter we answer It is as considerable if not much more from whom he speaks then to whom He speaks as the Minister of Christ and in his stead and name 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. And it is as a higher so a more reverend thing to speak in God's name to the people then in the peoples name to God and to speak that which we call God's Word or Truth or Message then that which we call but our own desire We make God a lyar or corrupt his word if we speak a falshood in his name We make but our selves lyars if we speak a falshood to him in our own names The former therefore is the more heinous and dreadfull abuse and more to be avoided Or if but equally it shewes the tendency of your Reason for we will not say of your designe as hoping you intend not to make us * If you had that gratitude which becomes you you would acknowledge Deus notus in Anglia in Britannia magnum nomen ejus Non taliter fecit c. Russians We do therefore for the sake of the poor threatned Church beseech you that you will be pleased to Repent of these desires and not to prosecute them considering c. Could you so lately have your hands imployed in tearing the Church of God in pieces could you pave and paint her anew with the bodies and bloud of your fellow-subjects are you now become Petitioners for the poor threatned Church as you odiously but wilfully mistake it if the Church be threatned by us now whose Prayers and Teares and constant Profession of her Faith and Practice even with the perill and losse of estate and life was it that under God upheld her in the time of your Apostasie A cast of that Charity and Candour which you pretended to shew where there was no occasion for it would have become you here much better then the repetition of that perverse insinuation that we have a designe to dethrone or suppress Preaching And yet we must tell you by the way that Reading the Scriptures and Homilies too upon occasion for you your selves read such as are of your own making and your Sermons are nothing else is a Substantiall part of the Publick Service of the Church As for your first Reason it might have some weight in it if the Common Prayer were designed for no other end then to keep out private and false Opinions But we consider withall that 't is better weighed and more Authentical better known and more Solemn and consequently better accommodated to set forth God's Glory and to administer the peoples duty in the several parts of God's Worship and being of a competent length for the exercise of our publick Devotions we would not have it suffer any defalcation or disparagement by the intercourse of any private conceptions of whatever temper or complexion And this is a Supersedeas as to your second Reason But because we observe something of mistake in it we must reflect upon it to undeceive you or your Reader We confesse 't is a foul shame and a foul fault too and therefore a foul shame to mis-demean ones self whether in Preaching or in Prayer But sure to miscarry in the last is the more heinous because therein the Glory of God is more immediately concerned and therefore He styles his House not the House of Preaching but of Prayer And as His Majesty whom we adore in Prayer is greater then any Majesty we can be imagined to address our selves unto in Preaching so the irreverence or profaneness is much greater in offering unto him a corrupt oblation God himself hath thus resolved it Mal. 1. 8. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil Offer it now unto thy Governour will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of hosts If such Oblations be a dishonour to a Governour to God they are a greater Of all the duties of Religion Prayer certainly is the highest in point of access to God and therefore to account it as you doe a more heinous and dreadful sin to misbehave your selves in your discourses unto men then in your prayers to Almighty God is to preferre your Congregation before the God that presides over it and to worship the Creature more then the Creator who is blessed for ever And you must not think to shift off the Blasphemy for materially so it is by saying the Preacher speaks as Christs Minister for Christ is a Priest as well as a Prophet and we are in Christs stead here on earth in the capacity of our Priesthood as well as in the capacity of our Prophetick as that signifies the Preachers Office and we do no more minister to the peoples needs in Christs name in this capacity then we minister for their interest and advantage by his Authority in that other For the Priest as the common father of the world stands at the altar taking care of all after the manner of
to tell you that as well the experience of our own dispositions as the constant Practice of the Church in all Ages assures us the contrary Hereupon we are astonished no lesse at the untruth and perversity then at the arrogance of your following expressions in these vain words And though we have concurred to offer you our more Corrected Nepenthe's yet must we before God and men protest against the dose of Opium which you here prescribe or wish for as that which plainly tendeth to cure the Disease by the extinguishing of Life and to unite us all in a dead Religion You need not force your modesty to tell us we know your opinion well enough that your own Geese are all Swans but we like none of the breed for their black feet sake which trample down all Order and Authority But your Nepenthe's haply are not so proper for your Constitutions Things that do exhilarate and raise the Spirits and awaken Fancy are dangerous to be administred to the Frantick And it is an ill * Apud medicos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur affectus praeter naturam qui morbum velut umbra corpus sequitur Galen â— Symptome that you proclaim your medicine to be your poison but if finding you in some Lucid interval we can persuade you to take it that dose of Opium will be more soveraign to coole your brain and bring you to rest and settle your distempers For you talke idly still in your next words And when our Prayers that avail must be effectual and fervent Jam. 5. 6. and God will be worshipped in Spirit and truth and more regardeth the frame of the Heart then the Comeliness of Expression we have no reason to be taken with any thing that pretends to help the Tongue while we are sure it ordinarily hurts the Heart So you say but are you sure on 't Will you not eate your words presently and tell us that Formes have their laudable use We shall observe it as we go along with you In the interim we do acknowledge that it is not the style and ornament but the humility and the fervour that gives the perfection unto Prayer And Prayer is then humble and fervent not when 't is designed and made to move affection as your extemporary ones for the most part are but when it proceeds from it as the off-spring of a heart that abounds with humility fervour and compunction Hence * Grad 21. Climacus adviseth Noli verbis excultioribus in oratione tua uti Saepe enim Infantium simplicia pura balbutientia verba Patrem suum qui in coelis est placaverunt But he speaks of the Prayer not of a Publick but a Private person offer'd up in his own name and not in the name of the Church For should the Priest offer up those simplicia and balbutientia verba those Childish uncouth expressions there he would certainly incurre a just shame with men and so lose that concurrent help which you formerly commended to us But what cannot a Form of Prayer be * God forbid that I should ever think that there are not righteous men among the Prelatical or fervent effectual prayers that are Liturgical saith your Advocate in his Peaceable Enquiry about Re-ordination p. 125. effectual and fervent as St James requires cannot God be worshipped in Spirit and in truth in it If you affirm then you produce these Scriptures to no purpose but if you deny then it will follow that no forms are laudable and then you contradict your selves and condemn as well God himself as his Servants for prescribing them But for all you have involved your selves in these palpable Absurdities you are resolved to hold the Conclusion still for you say further It is not the affirmations of any men in the world persuading us of the harmelesness of such a course that can so far unman us as to make us disbelieve both our own Experience and common Observation of the effect on others We know Humanum est errare and if you will not be unman'd in that sense who can help it 'T is certain men may be deceived in their own * What think you of Corah Dathan and Abiram Numb 16. 3. All the congregation are holy every one of them and the Lord is among them Wherefore then lift ye up your selves above the congregation of the Lord Experience and in those effects which they observe in others There is a sensible Devotion that begins in sensitive nature and makes a conspicuous alteration in it It produces great tendernesses fervour and melting affections it will draw sighs from the bosom and tears from the eies and spring many motions of delectation and sweetness in the heart And men may have so great a complacency in these inundations of sweetness and pleasing impetuosities imagining them to be gracious effects and actuations of the Holy Ghost as to be transported with them And yet this sensible Devotion may rather indanger to depresse the operations of the Spirit then advance them and many times doth nourish Pride self-love and a contempt of others rather then contribute to the augmentation of Divine Love or a proficiency in Obedience To abate therefore the too high esteem that unwary souls may have of this sensible fervour and devotion we are informed by very * Jacob. Alvarez de Paz de Inquis Pacis lib. 2. par 3. cap. 3. per totum Sancta Sophia Treat 3. §. 1. c. 5. per totum Dr. Meric Casaubon of Enthusiasm c. 6. per totum creditable observation that it is not alwaies a sign of a good disposition or holiness in the Soul Very impious persons may and have injoyed it When it is derived to us as the gift of God he intends it for our incouragement in his pure love and therefore it is not to be neglected Hae consolationes sensibiles * Sensible devotions are called also sensible consolations by the Writers of Mystical Theology verae quamvis despiciendae non sint non sunt tamen supra modum astimandae Quia nec sunt verae virtutes nec necessarii solidarum virtutum effectus nec necessaria profectûs instrumenta sine quibus plurimi ad magnam virtutem ac mentis puritatem ascendunt * Jâ—c Alvar. ibid. When they are truly sent us from God they are subject to great perversities if they be not used with discretion they may prove pernicious and plunge the Soul August Baker in Sanct. Soph. ubi suprá more deeply in self-love and corrupt nature in which they are much immersed But this sensible Devotion fervour and sweetnesse may flow also from the mere natural temper of the body or from the vehement intention of the mind or from a tone and cadence of words or power of language or from the subtile insinuation and illusion of the Devil as the Masters of Devotions do generally observe This is a Truth acknowledged in the Morning Exercise at Cripplegate p. 515.
where it is resolved That we may easily be deceived by our Enlargements because there are many winds and gales blowing from several quarters which may set the Soul in active going and doing as Popular applause high opinions of the Preacher taking-Expressions in Prayer flourishing Novelties and notions in a Sermon Satanical infusions common and ordinary Inspirations of the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to Reprobates Hebr. 6. 4 5 6. All which or any of which may so draw and delight the heart that as Orpheus 's Pipe they may make the heart dance in a duty and yet for all this it may be possible yea probable the heart may dance after the Devil's pipe And you must give other men leave to have their own experience and observation as well as you And when we see in you more Humility Self-denial Resignation of will and self-conceit and more obedience to Superiours which are under a divine command and of indispensable necessity to Salvation we shall be the more inclinable to believe your pretensions that some proficiency in the way of solid Vertue and Devotion is to be made by the course you plead for But it is not the affirmations of all the men in the world speaking in their own behalf and in favour of their own conceits that can so far unman us as to make us interpret those practices to be the effects of the Holy Spirit which contradict the Principles of Christianity extinguishing both Charity and Obedience But admit the effects you boast of were really the gifts of God and truly tended to the advancement of his pure Love in you would this warrant you to contemn or omit the established Liturgie of the Church All the Masters of Devotion that I have met withall do resolve otherwise To this purpose consider what Augustin Baker Sanct. Soph. ubi suprà cap. 2. saith in his Treatise of Vocal Prayer As for that Vocal Prayer saith he either in Publick or Private which is by the lawes of the Church of obligation no manner of pretences of finding more profit by internal exercises ought to be esteemed a sufficient ground for any to neglect or disparage it For though some Souls of the best disposition might perhaps more advance themselves towards perfection by internal exercises alone yet since generally even in Religion Souls are so tepid and negligent that if they were left to their own voluntary devotions they would scarce ever exercise either Vocal or Mental Prayer therefore inasmuch as a manifest distinction cannot be made between the Particular dispositions of Persons it was requisite and necessary that all should be obliged to a Publick external performance of divine Service praising God with the tongues also which were for that end given us that so an Order and decorum might be observed in God's Church to the end it might imitate the imployment of Angels and glorified Saints in a solemn united joyning of hearts and tongues to glorify God This was necessary also for the edification and invitation of those who are not obliged to the Office who perhaps would never think of God were they not incouraged thereto by seeing good Souls spend the greatest part of their time in such solemn and allmost hourly praying to and praising God Thus he And this perhaps you may be induced to subscribe to if we can get you in a good mood as you now seem to be for you tell us in your next words that some Formes have their laudable use to cure the errour and vice that lyeth on the other extream It seems then there is a Mediocrity and now you are resolved to hit it In good time for hitherto you have done more then insinuate That Formes are not a worship of God in Spirit and truth not effectuall and fervent but a dead Religion that ordinarily they hurt the heart that they are a dose of Opium that doth extinguish understanding-serious-godliness and the life of Religion What could you have said more to load them with contempt yet now you confess some Forms are not only lawful but laudable This looks like Bellarmine's Tutissimum that gave a defeat to his whole designe He writes five Books against Justification by Faith and then concludes the Controversie with a Confutation of all that he had written of it Propter incertitudinem propriae justitiae periculum inanis gloriae Tutissimum est fiduciam totam in sola Dei misericordia benignitate reponere So our Deformalists after a miserable stuctuation are glad to come to an Anchor to their Tutissimum and to take fanctuary from an impendent storm by confessing that some Forms are Lawful Lawfull but for what for nothing but to make a medicine to kill the itch that of pride curiosity and novelty the errour and vice that lyeth on the other extream 'T is well Forms are good for something in your opinion But let a wise and an humble man use them and they will serve very well to entertain and exercise a sound Faith and a sincere Love and a substantial Devotion But by this we see these men can speak truth if they list especially when their reputation and interest is concerned in it witness that Position of Mr Baxter's * In his Unsavoury Volume against Mr. Crandon or his Nosegay presented to Mr. Joseph Caryll page 83. ante finem which if his Party had the conscience to practise it would put an end to our Divisions and settle us in a happy state of Uniformitie for thus he saith Let me be bold to tell my opinion to my Brethren of the Ministry that though I deny them to have either credit or Authority against the known Word of God yet so great is their credit and Authority even as Teachers Guides of the Church in Causes agreeable to the Word And in Causes to the people doubtful and unknown and in Causes left by the Word to their determination the Word determining them but generally that I think the ignorance of this truth hath been the main cause of our sad Confusions and Schisms in England and that the Ministers have been guilty of it partly by an over-modest concealing An important truth falls from the pen of Mr. Baxter if he could say and hold their Authority and partly by an indiscreet opposition to the Papists errour of the Authority of the Church and I think that till we have better taught even our Godly people what credit and obedience is due to their Teachers and Spiritual Guides the Churches of England shall never have peace or any good or establisht Order I say again we are broken for want of the knowledg of this truth and till this be known we shall never be well bound up and healed This is Mr Baxter's sober Concession and he thought it so signal a verity when he wrote it that he set a hand in the margent to remark it and point it out to every Reader as most worthy his observation Let him preach the same Doctrine still and