enemy came and sowed among the wheat i. e. in the same parts and places of the world Towns Countreyes c. locally considered the children of the wicked one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thes. 2. that wicked false worshippers of God after their own inventions mens precepts not his will people and priests grown up into a Church worship ministery religion insensibly by little and little from false principles and foundations custome forefathers prudential additions of orthodox men c. not the pure naked word it self a people born to their religion yea their christian religion in the way of flesh and blood and the will of man of the Pope and councells constituting and civil powers from them commanding not of God by the word of truth The Enemy that sowed them is the devil for he indeed filled the whole world even the whole Christian world with false worshippers false principled Clergy men and when he could not kill the wheat the Christians in the ten persecutions in his open war against them by the mouth of thâ— beast or empire heathen wherein he prosecuted them under their own names because Constantine a Christian was come now to the crown then he turned Christian himself and would have Christianity imbraced by all meanes by a law and sowed the seed of false principles of stablishing Christian religion as the onely religion before which all other shall now down promoting Christianity in the shell that he might kill it in the substance causing great honours revenues Peters patrimonies to be given in favour of Christianity from which principles selfish ambitious lazy luxurious Ministers as the Pope formall meer nominal Christians grew up and overtopt the truth and true Saints that kept close to the truth in the midst of all this mock shew wherin the devil hath kept an apish imitaon of Christs church all along and ministry ordinances baptism supper church censure but all corrupt and trod the holy city to the ground Rev. 11. the same subtle one now he sees his trade of forcing men from the truth by the principle of conformity to the false Christianity and the old Spiritualty fail is now shifting himself undoubtedly in to another Spiritualty that will as much corrupt delude the world by the principle of liberty of conscience abused and turnd by the Ranter into license though we who plead for liberty of truth say in maxima libertate est minima licentia in the greatest liberty of conscience to serve God there 's the least licence to serve the devil by our lusts and corrupt our selves in what we know naturally as bruit beasts nor is that conscience that makes conscience of nothing The harvest is the end of the world the reapers the Angels by whom at that time Christ will throughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into his barn and burn up all chaff Tares husks weeds bryers thornes idolators hypocrites subtle seducers and sinful subverters of the truth whoever shall appear to have been such and all other trash with unquenchable fire Matth. 3.12 Mean while I say still Tares may stand among wheat locally in one Country yet not lawfully in one church society Weeds and flowers Roses and nettles Lillies and thornes Vines and brambles Idolatours and true worshippers Believers and infidells the children of the Kingdome and of the wicked one the Temple of God and idols Christs church and the Devils chappel discovered hypocrites and sincere Saints Christians of all sorts save such whose very principle prohibits toleration and they make the case uncapable to be which will win or loose all stand alone or not at all as whether the P P Priesthoods do not or at least did not let all men judge Jews Turks and Pagans may be lawfully allowed their religions living in subjection under one civil power if the whole world were but one Monarchy in one World in one Field or Common-wealth though not in one Garden not in one Vineyard or Church and may not be made to be of the true religion whether they will or no yea I appeal to the conscience of any sober minded man whether if Pontius Pilate whom the Scripture stiles the Governour of Iudaea and a lawful Governour over the church a very heathen may be but no heathen lawfully a member much lesse an officer or a Governour in the Church whether I saie if Pilate should have been converted by Christ at the bar while he sate on the bench and truely believed in him it would have pleased Christ that he should have improved his civil power to have established Christianity in Iudaea and forced all men under penalty to believe in christ and renounce all meer Jewish worships or whether it had been as lawful a decree in Augustus Caesar to have forced all men to be Christians under a penalty as t was in him to issue out a decree that all the world should be taxed I suppose not but that he must have left all to their waies and have practised it himself and protected it from injury and propounded it to all in way of preaching but not prosecuting any by his civil power if they would yet remain Jewes or heathens and Christ might as easily have made Emperors his Disciples had he meant that the Gospel should be established by civil power And this is for the further safegard and advantage to the wheat as I sayd before for Christ gives this reasâ—n why he would have the tares to be let alone least by rooting out the tares the wheat be rooted out also for if all religions may stand then the true one may stand in quiet without disturbance if all people may walk every one in the name of his God Mich. 4.5 then we may walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever but if all be beaten down in a state and but one stand ten thousand to nothing it is not the truth that is there established for truth may be trodden down but treads not down others in a violent way of persecution Besides if true Religion establish it self alone in some States by forcing men to subject to it its gives a bad example to false religions in other states that think themselves in the right to do the like and force men that love the truth there to submit to them and so there 's quit for quo and no end of disturbances they saying that we are Tares we that they are and so there is nothing but pulling up by the roots if toleration be not tolerated as the most peacemaking principle and so in these bussles if the wheat grow alone some where it must fall elsewhere even every where where the tares are resolved to stand alone and so Homo Homini Lupus Christianus Christiano Diabolus men must be wolves and devils each to other throughout the world Besides if the power in any place be ignorant and under an erring conscience that conscientia errans
to spare sentencing your cause as wrong by your personall defects and want of abilities but also in charity to couer the weakness of your Arguments which is such an unreasonable request as was scarce ever put forth before by any Disputants who if they find their Arguments to be weak ought rather to recant them specially after such publique acknowledgement of the weakness of them and to desire people that they would not suffer themselves to be swayed by them then otherwise But Sirs do you think in your consciences that there is such weakness in your Arguments as is here intimated to us in your own book and likewise that your cause which is so far from a good one that it deserves to bear the name of Abaddon is in danger of suffering so much through your defects in disputing it unless men be so charitable as to wink at the weaknesses of both I speak seriously in my mind you had then better by far have conceal'd then reveal'd your disputation in an Account and had provided much better for the honor of it for now you have vindicated it from the disgraces with which it was loaded in private like him that fetches a frisk out of the frying pan into the fire whilst you publish it in the same weakness onely robbing your Respondent of the strength of his Answers in which it discover'd it self at first and hang it out against the Sun so that all men may see clean through it so thin and thread-bare it is and that without spectacles and not onely so but make proclamation of the weakness of your Arguments with a petition to pardon the weakness of them that 's an ill bird which in hast bewraies his own nest and leaves it to others to make all clean and such are they that uncover their own nakedness so far when they need not that they are fain to be beholding to the benevolence of others to cover it and yet are so inexorable as to hold the cause of others inexcusable in the self same case wherein they are earnest to be excused by them for our cause is at a loss among you for the sake of what ere defects you spie in any persons that profess it But I believe you are not cordiall in your aâ—knowledgements here for if you were you would surely have endured your Respondents private representations of the weakness of your Arguments and your pedling in your proof of Infant-baptism with more patience then you did but its evident by your impatience towards him in that kind that what ere you say here of your selves in a voluntary humility yet you have so good an opinion of your selves and your work too that day that Tam nil as nothing as it here seems to be in your Account as well as ours you take it ill that any should esteem so poorly and speak so plainly though but privately of your trifling doings as you dispense with your selves to do here in publick before all the world and howbeit here 's weakness and defects and defects p. 3. overtly worded over by you in a general way yet it 's an hundred to one if a man take you at your word and yield to what you say as truth and say it ore after you that there 's much weakness in your Arguments and that there were many defects in your Disputation and your zeal of Infant-baptism is great and your abilities but mean to maintain it you will be half angry with him and think he casts scandals upon your disputation and be ready to gainsay all this and to stand up in vindication of your Arguments as strong and sufficient and lay all the defects that were in the disputation at your Respondents door and if you be askt what one individual particular Syllogism Term Argument or Scripture you were out in the framing uttering urging or underctanding of throughout the whole day of the disputation I am perswaded you will sooner bite your nayles then assign any or if it be specified by others that in this and that you were out you misunderstood such or such a Scripture such a speech or passage you faultred in I am afraid your pretended self-deniall will be found so little that you 'l justifie your selves in every bit and scrap of that which past from you during the whole discourse which makes your confessions deserve but little of that favour you so much implore by how much they savor of juggle and complement more then of a real true sense of what is wanting to you indeed which verily is a right-baptism to maintain rather then abilities to maintain that right-none that you stood up for nevertheless I must needs grant it to be true that you say here that your abilities were far short of your zeal yea so short that howbeit you had a good mind to do it yet you neither did nor could maintain it at all but wherefore was it but because you had a bad cause in hand yea had your zeal been as big as your cause was bad there had been no standing before you indeed the defects of your cause was the cause of your defects and not your own defects the cause of your causes had not the fault been more in your faith which was a false one then in your faculty to maintain things and had that and your baptism been as good as your parts are great and both these as probable as you capable to prove the meanest among you might have done more at the disputation then as it happend all of you did per vim unitam because though you fought with one who was no more then a flea in your ears yet you hapned to be fog'd so that you faced the wrong way and fell in unawares against the truth which in these daies of its return falls upon inquisitive consciences with more force from the mouth of fooles and babes then meer tradition doth from the wisest Babists in the world The deepest defect is in the cause you defend in the way you warrand t is a crooked cause an unwarrantable way and therefore those that will warrand mens walking in it can never do it without faultring and fumbling in the work and such after occasions of fawning on men for their charitable excusation Gentlemen that I may neither seem to defie nor yet to deifie your persons but put things upon a true Account you are men that have some worth and excellency and yet some weakness and exigency too but I impute your miscarriage in the disputation not half so much to your own as to your causes indigency your business was well man'd but ill manag'd because there was but an ill matter to be maintain'd you were at the wrong end of the staff and therefore well might you be defective in the strife this makes the least of the flock draw you great Leviathans out now adayes and the feeble to be as David before Goliahs that have been Polemically exercised from their youth
directly oppositly to Mr. Ba. who saies it is the church I disprove his opinion thus First If by the kingdomes of Christ be meant the Church then it must be thus read viz. the Kingdomes of this world are become Christs Church but what an absurdity must that be specially with Mr. Bax. above all men who so strenuously contends that by the word Kingdoms of this world is meant not in part only but the whole kingdom for to hold that by that phrase the Kingdomes of this world is meant all the kingdomes upon the earth taken wholly and not Synechdochically for a part of those kingdomes onely and that by the kingdom of Christ the Church onely is to make the sense thus viz. the whole world is become Christs Church therefore it cannot be so but thus and so all the circumstances of the text do evince for it is spoken of Christs raign over all the world in the latter daies after the seventh Trumpet hath sounded and not over all his Church onely and of Christs taking to himself ver 17. that great Monarchy power kingdome or greatnesse and glory of his reign which before he permitted to be in the hands of the Dragon beast and whore so that they reigned over the whole earth and the saints too in rigour and unrighteousnesse Rev. 13. Rev. 17. ult I say it must be thus viz. the Kingdomes of this world the Kingdomes under the whole heaven the Monarchy of the whole Earth is now come into Christs own hands or the Government over all is now actually on his shoulders Besides what will Mr. Bax. gain more by his sense of that Scripture towards the proof of his infant-membership then I for the membership of heathen infants then for the Church membership of the whole world if I were minded to plead for it if the Kingdomes of this world wholly taken none excluded do become the Church of Christ then all men as well as infants must be Church-members on that account Besides he speaks as de futuro what shall be under the seventh Trumpet therefore if it were to be taken as Mr. Bax. imagines that the Kingdomes of this world infants as well as men are now become Christs Church then it would evince that it was not so from the beginning of the Gospel Church for what effects are spoken of as falling out now newly under the seventh Trumoet are things that never were in being before Besides observe Mr. Baxter how he pleads to have Kingdomes taken in the largest sense in the former part of the verse and how angry he is if it be taken for lesser then all the whole kingdomes of the world but in the latter part where Kingdomes must needs be and is as largely to be taken for it is the Kingdomes of the world are become Christs Kingdomes i. e. dominion not Christs churches there he will needs lace it up into the narrowest acceptation that the word kingdom can possibly bear Oh therefore the grosse pieces of ignorance that are in that Argument of his for infants membership in the Church which he grounds from a Scripture that will as well prove all the world to be Gospel Church-members as believers infants if his very own false sense of it should be admitted but in truth proves not the one nor the other thus he argues viz. the Kingdoms of this world i. e. all and all in them shall become Christs kingdomes therefore infants of only believers not heathens are Church-members under the Gospel He that saies this followes any better then the Pope follows Peter in the holy chaire shall never be counted or voted mentis compos whilest I am compos voti Mr. Bax. therefore had better have found 40 shillings where he never looked for it then have looked for infant-membership in this scripture where he will never find it with his eyes open His three next Arguments viz. the ninth tenth and eleventh run all upon one strain and therefore as he need not have made more then one of them so I need not make more then one answer to them all yea I need make none at all having spoken to that point sufficiently before yet a hint of it here may do no hurt They stand all upon one bottome viz. the meliority of the times under the Gospel above the times of the Law of this new covenant above the old the summe of what he saies is this if believers infants may not now be members of the visible Church then both Jewes and Gentiles are in a worse condition now then before Christ and Christ is come to be a destroyer and not a Saviour and to do hurt to all the world the believing Jewes and the Church yea and the very Gentiles thereby in regard of the happinesse of their children are in a worse condition then of old but this is a vile doctrine saith he for Jesus is a Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises Heb. 8.6 where sin abounded grace much more abounded Rom. 5.14 15.20 and the love of Christ love hath height length depth breadth and passeth knowledge Ephes. 3. To which simple inconsequent conceits I answer by denying the consequence it followes not that the world is in worse estate under Christ then before because infants might be members of the Jewish church but not now of any visible church of the Gospel nay verily the world is in a far better condition then formerly by how much they are under more clear and plain promulgations more faâ—re and universal tenders of salvation then in the narrow or shadowy dispensation of the Law and also under greater love richer grace better and more glorious promises unlesse they fall short of them through their own unbelief then those which were made to the natural Israelites onely all whose glory was but a type of the other for the great favor love and promises of God to them as meerly Abraham Isaac and Iacobs natural seed unlesse they also believed and then they as now all the world might be heirs with Abraham of the grace and promises of the Gospel did make them heirs of that earthly Canaan onely but the Gospel grace makes all men heirs on termes of faith and obedience to Christ of the glory of the heavenly Canaan for ever the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men now appears and as for infants albeit no infants now be baptized into fellowship with the visible Church nor are priviledged as the Jewes infants once were with interest in the blessing of an outward earthly Canaan nor yet vouchsafed that meerly titular account of sanctifyed and peculiar people of God as in opposition to other infants as by birth accountatively sinners common and unclean which distinction of a birth holiness and uncleaness Mr. Baxter had he but half an eye in his head might clearly see Acts 10.28 is so taken out of the world and ended in Christ that now no man however born no not a Gentile may be called in
will put us positivly to prove a third state denying that there 's any medium asserting that infants if they be not in the visible Church of Christ in their infancy are in the visible kingdome of the devil which to say is false doctrine I shall bring Mr. Baxter to stop the mouth of Mr. Baxter and to convince him that either there is a third state in which believers infants are in their infancy which is neither of these two or else to drive him to that Dilemma to preach this false doctrine himself that believers infants are in the visible kingdome of the Devil To this purpose I first demand of him which of these two viz. the visible church of Christ or the visible kingdome of the devil believers infants are visibly in before baptism First as for the visible kingdom of the devil he must say they are either visibly in it or out of it if he say they are in it then he himself preaches that false doctrine which he saies is ours and makes all infants even of believers members of the visible kingdom of the devil if he say they are out and not in the visible kingdom of the devil then that doctrine which teaches men to leave them unbaptized and denies them to be admitted members of the visible church of Christ till they come to age is not guilty as he saies it is of making them doctrinally members of the visible kingdome of the devil for it is but a delay indeed till they can do what is required to baptism As for the visible Church of Christ he must say they are either visibly in it before baptism or not in but out of it if he say they are in the visible church of Christ visibly before baptism then they cannot be said to be as oh how oft ore and ore again are they said to be by Mr. Bax. p. 24.25 admitted to be members entered listed added initiated into it as into Christs School and first stated into it by baptism for to be first entered into it by baptism and yet to be visibly in it before baptism these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly inconsistent each with other as to be let into a room when and while one is already in the room is impossible yet with Mr. B. persons are let into the visible church after they are in it yea they must be in it saith he before they may be admitted to be in it nor will his distinction of a member compleat and incompleat p. 24. which he used before to the tearm disciple which I know he will make help him at all here sith with himself an incompleat member is one that hath but jus adrem not in re ad Ecclesiam not in Ecclesia a right to onely not a standing in the Church a title to the relative change and not a being yet in that relative change that he saies passes upon him by baptism Besides to say the truth they are but incompleat members after baptism whom you baptize sith when baptized and in the church they have not present right to other ordinances of the church for you admit not your infant members to the Supper but if he say they are not visibly in the church of Christ before baptism but out of it as indeed they are then either he must say they are in the visible Kingdome of the devil which is false doctrine with himself to say of believers infants or else say they are in some third or middle state to the unsaying of what he said before by way of denial of such a third state which let him say and we will agree with him and such a third state there is which all infants are in as well as some whether he will deny himself so as to acknowledge it yea or no. His 22. plain Scripture-less proof for infant Church-membership and baptism is this viz. That doctrine which leaveth us no sound grounded hope of the justification or salvation of any dying infant in the world is certainly false doctrine but that doctrine which denieth any infants to be members of the visible Church doth leave us no c. This argument I have spoken to sufficiently above and thereupon might well passe it by here and refer Mr. Ba. thither for an answer where in answer to the Ashford Disputants that urge the same argument enough to satisfie is returned But finding this to be that which of all things most gravels Mr. Baxter and makes him stick so stiffly to his plea for the baptism and Church-membership of infants because unlesse that be owned he can find no good ground in all the word whereupon to hope or believe that any dying infant in all the world can be saved which if he could find he would find the vanity of his venting so much concerning a necessity of baptizing and inchurching infants and save himself a deal of puzzling himself about that which the New Testament hath not one word of and fearing lest I should be judged cowardly to slide by it as if I saw Mr. Ba. handled it more unanswerably then any other and partly because Mr. Ts. suspension of his judgement concerning the future state of any infants is puft at by him and uneffectual to his satisfaction unlesse he could assure him of the salvation of some dying infants at least of believing parents which if he could assure him of out of the way of their church-membership and baptism it should satisfie him sufficiently I perceive to censure all other infants to hell and to say all those millions of poor innocents I mean the dying infants of other men in respect of which these he is so pittiful to are scarce one of a 100. are all damned for ever with which harsh cruel bloody and mercilesse censure of his I am much more and more groundedly dissatisfied then he is about the denial of meer outward membership and bare ordinance of baptism to those few on whose behalf he pleads them and lastly hoping the Lord may lend him some ligh◠whereby to see a consistency between the non membership and baptism of believers infants and the salvation of the dying infants of not believers onely but all dying innocent infants in the world I shall enter on an examination of what he saies to the contrary and an explication of what apprehension in this particular I am begotten to by the word of truth and though I shall decline sacerdotale delirium that common stock of divinity which the Clergy have treasured up in their Theological Systems out of which ocean of error and dead sea of tradition the younger Rabbies use to draw into their common place books and store themselves with arguments against Anabaptistical heresie i. e. this troublesome truth yet I trust I shall give a good account before all the world at the Tribunal of Christ Jesus In order hereunto therefore I first flatly deny the Minor of Mr. Bas. above cited syllogism which by another Syllogism he proves
of this present age and nation as denying any obedience to civil Magistracy any propriety in goods as holding plurallity and community of wives divorce for difference in religion as dipping men and women stark naked and such like Yea just the same lying shiâ—ts and inventions that the Popish Clergy did use to help their Religion by against the Protestants when they began first to protest against them and their abominations do you the Protestant CCClergy i. e. both Prelacy and Presbytery strengthen your cause by against the Anabaptists especially of all sectaries 1. They detain the People from reading the Scripture alledging to them the perills they may incurr through misinterpretation you likewise would not have the Scripture medled with by this Clergy of Laicks Mechanick fantastick Enthusiasts profound watermen Sublime Coachmen Illuminated Tradesmen c. Apron Levites Sectarian Preachers as Dr. Featley and Mr. Baily call them for they say you are dunces and ignorant both of tongues and arts and so must needs run into errors and are insufficient for these things let the smith keep him to his Anvile and the Cobler to his last 2. These bred Antipathy between the Papist and Protestant and debar them all sound of the Protestant Religion as much as may be by prohibiting books of the reformed writers and Traffick with such Hereticall Countries or such places where those contagious sounds and sights as they term them might make them return infected You also forbid your good Protestants all society and commerce as much t is possible with these pitchy persons as those that they can't come neer but they must be defiled with them 3. Those by the severity of their inquisition and so you by your high commission and spiritual alias spiteful Courts while they stood and by complaints to the next Classis Synod c. as in Scotland and threats to have an order taken with such and such as here in England crush as far as you can in your people the very beginnings and smallest suppositions of being this way addicted 4. They teach their people to Believe that the Protestants and so do you that the Anabaptists are basphemers of God and his Saints Those that in England Churches are turned into Stables you that the Anabaptists preach in Tubs that Stables are turned into Temples stalls into Quires Shopboards into Communion-tables Those that the people i. e. Protestants are barbarous and eat young children that Geneva is a professed sanctuary of Roguery c. you that the Anabaptists are filthy and base in their Conventicles and are for Murder Adulteries Butchery Bawdery the veriest villains in the world You tell the world that the Anabaptists would have no rules nor bonds of lawes because of their dissolutenesse which though it be true enough of the Ranter that Peter and Iude speaks of that seperate themselves from their churches sensual presumptuous self-willed despising Government Peter the second Epist. chap. 2. yet is most false of our Churches that seperate from you that we would have no discipline in the Church no learning nor universities No coercive power in the civill Magistrates to restrain us because we walk inordinately whereas though we cannot away with your Canons yet we are the only men in the world for the rule which Christ himself hath set for men to walk by even the word the Scriptures which onely and not Synodicall constitutions nor holy chair we stand to have the standard for truth to be tryed by to the worlds end and are for all lawes in nations save such as obedience to which makes us palpably rebellious against the law of Christ viz. lawes for tithes with trebble dammages for Christ never appointed mens goods to be streined and they sold out of what they have to pay his own Ministers for preaching his own Gospel much lesse to pay the Popes Ministers for preaching a Gospel of their own also laws to come to masse in Latine or Masse in English or any service of mans making under penalty we also stand for a true Church that hath right matter viz. professed believers baptized and right form viz. free not forced fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers we are also for the true discipline i. e. Christs not the Clergies in that Church we hold also that Magistrates though their persons should be wicked men and heathens for the notion of Christian addes nothing to their power as Magistrates are the ordinance of God To maintain all civil justice and righteousnesse between man and man and to restrain abuses such as murder treason adultery drunkennesse theft false witnesse though they have no coercive power to keep men from serving God according to his own will that power we deny yet go not about by violence to withstand it but in quietnesse suffer under it when it is put forth against us we are also for learning for t is a good talent to use for God and too good for the Devill a good servant but a bad master and we wish that there were more of it then there is among you CCClergy if it may be also well improved as it seldome is by those of you that have it for as those of you that are more singular schollars then the rest in humanity and that meer Anthropo-Theology that is among you which you call Divinity are deep dunces for the most part in the school of Christ and most opposite through the wisdome of their flesh which is enmity against God to the follishnesse of the Gospel so no lesse then legions of you are little learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either Yea verily and fiftly howbeit among other things you brand the Anabaptists with the names of an illiterate and sottish sect cut as chips out of Nicolas Stock whom Featly faines to be the father of the Anabaptists and stiles a very blockhead and such as know not how to teach nor dispute for truth because they know not the original and cannot conclude in mod and figure p. 113.164.163 nor make able ministers of the Gospel because they understand not the Scripture in the Original languages and cannot expound without Grammer nor perswade without Rhetorick nor divide without logick nor sound the depth of any controversie without Philosophy and School divinity p. 118 yea Dr. Featley defeats 1000s of his fellow Clergy men utterly in so saying from the name of able Ministers yea as he saies of us in another so may we of them in this case hos suo ingulamus gladio we may wound them with their own dudgeon dagger for if ignorant and unlearned men are not fit to make ministers then not onely their Laity which are millions are unlearned for the most part and so by Dr. Featleys own confession unfit to be teachers of truth but even multitudes of their CCClergy too for it is none of the least brands saies Dr. Featley p. 164. of the Roman Antichrist that he filled the Church with
which you profess to give A true Account of First The Propositions agreed on between your selves and your Respondent his Position and what else was precedent and preparative to the Disputation Secondly The Disputation it self and such things as were subsequent to it in each of which if I shew not that you have recorded more flat falsities and down-right untruths than one and that were too much to fall from your pens were you Ministers of Christ indeed then let my own pen record me for a lyar and my own self bear the blame of over-charging you and that for ever In order to a trial of the Truth in this case between you and me though I suppose I shall not be more critical in considering nor volumnous in dilating on them than your selves are numerous in bewraying of your own negligences ignorances contradictions fictions nakednesses and abusive shifts throughout this your three-fold thing yet I shall make little less than a totall transcription of your Papers before I have done and therin take notice of such absurdities at least whereby you most notoriously delude the world most grosly oppose the truth most unworthily wrong your Respondent and most palpably proclaim your selves to be rather true Dissemblers than true Discoverers of the Ashford Disputation and Smotherers rather than Publishers of that Gospel-truth in the point of Baptism which you pretend also to give as true an Account of to the world as of the other Report You talk first of Propositions agreed upon between your Respondent and your selves the Ministers at the Communion-Table in the Church of Ashford in Kent before the Disputation began Reply Give me leave Sirs sith silence with you may be taken else for Assent to say a word or two to this you stile your selves the Ministers both here and else-where throughout your book But if you mean Ministers of Christ and the Gospel I am yet to learn that from you which I never found you very forward to teach me viz. that you came truly and honestly by that Title you have hitherto wanted no provocation from me to prove the lawfulness of your calling I made bold to denominate you Antichristian Ministers in my Position upon the very day of the Disputation before those Thousands which you say were Auditors thereof And I have asserted the same more abundantly since in that letter to Mr. G. C. which it seems you know so well as even thence to take occasion in a Pet to publish so much as you have done of your Disputation all which is enough to give you to understand that I own you not at all in that capacity yet did you never no neither then at the Disputation nor since in your so true a Relation of it so much as once open your mouth or strike one stroke with your pen whereby to evince it that you are Christs Ministers which gives me to believe that howbeit you have a habit of calling your selves so yet you had rather men believed you on your bare words than put you to prove your selves to be so and that you are as utterly uncapable to clear it as 't is clear you are unwilling to be urged to it You speak of the Church of Ashford and a Communion-Table in it 'T were strange if I should not know what you mean thereby yet had you told this peece of your tale in other Terms it had been so much the less lyable to correction I know but one Church of Ashford that hath a Communion-Table in 't and that is those few persons who since they have gladly received the Word of Truth have been according to Christs will in that kind baptized in his name for remission of sinnes and do now continue in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking oâ— bread and prayers to which the Lord I hope will add dayly such in those parts as shall be saved in this Church there is a Communion-Table indeed even the Table of the Lord at which they meet blessing and drinking that Cup of blessing which is the Commemoration and Communion also of the blood of Christ breaking and eating that bread which is the Commemoration and Communion of the body of Christ at which you and your Respondent never yet met but may do yet in due time if the Lord please to grant you for till then surely it never will be repentance to the acknowledgement of his truth But for other Communion-Table I wot not Sirs that there is any at all at Ashford As for that common Table which stands in the great stone house where the Bells hang where the people meet once a week but never do that they should do if they were disciples of Christ indeed which house you call the Church of Ashford and I cannot but allow you so to do sith you disclaim the true one the very Steeple being well nigh as much a truly constituted Church of Christ as a parish people the one whereof is but a compacted number of dead stones in a literal sense and for the most part no less in a spiritual sense is the other besides stone Churches and wooden Priests such as if you are not yet most of the Popes children are suit well enough each with other as for that Table I say where you and your Respondent agreed better about the Articles of the Disputation then they do for ought I see to this day about that Article of faith they disputed on you had need to find some fitter phrase for it than Communion-Table for it hath long since ceased to be of any such use as for people to communicate at it The Gentleman my beloved friend that is now Resident there and President too in pretence at least as a Pastor over that flock having never administred it at all since his abode among them nor since the Classis possest him of that Relation and gave him orders to feed them with that ordinance why he doth not meddle with that service in his parish would be farre more wonderful to me then 't is had not mine own conscience been of the same constitution with his when I was with him in the same condition for as my own feet stuck once in the same stocks when I stood in Pastorall relation to parochiall people so I believe him to be further inlightned then to be free for a promiscuous admittance to the Supper of such Societies among whom he discerns not a few more goats than sheep or to hold Communion there with them whom in the Pulpit he cries out on as unbelievers as knowing well enough there 's no fellowship to be held between light and darkness believers and unbelievers in that holy ordinance yet he sprinkles the Infants of all as you also do and my self blindly did or else that parish will prove happily to hot to hold him upon what account he doth so I know not for sure it cannot be upon this because onely believers Infants are to be sprinkled The Lord open
even therefore no true visible Church of God because it Rantizes Infants for that being undoubtedly a stragling from the truth and an undue administration of that ordinance not only as to the form of it but the subject also the name of the true visible Church of God is ipso facto destroyed from it were there no more error in it but barely that if Doctor Featly to whom you send us in your Review define the true Church of God aright for while he saies that meaning that only is a true Church where the word is truly taught and the Sacraments duly administred consequently that is no true Church where baptism is unduely administâ—ed and so it is or rather Rantism instead of it not only at Rome but in England also whilst to Infants therefore as the Church of Rome is but a false Church so the Church of England is no true one I utterly do therefore yea and did then deny that Infant-Baptism is at all practised by the Church of God and yet O full of all fallacy as if your Respondent were agreed with you in 't that the true Church of God did baptize Infants how finely have you foisted in this Epithite to the baptism of little children viz. practised by the Church of God and that in this very Account you give of our agreement about the very form and terms of the question that was yet to be disputed between us Report Thirdly That the Arguments used in the disputation should be only express Scriptures or arguments of necessary consequence from them All Authorities of Fathers and Churches laid aside though the practise of the Church was pleaded for yet would not be yielded to Reply 1. I agree with you that the Arguments should indeed have been such only by agreement but that one of those you then used or any of these few material ones for the immateriall being of no account with your selves you Account not for which you here expose to be perused is grounded upon express Scripture or any good consequence therefrom I deny as will I hope be manifested in my ensuing Re-review of them and Review of your Review it self Secondly if by Fathers whose authority you hang so much on you mean those that were some hundreds of years after Christ and were canonized more lately for such as Father Origen Father Chrysostome Father Ierom Father Cyprian Father Austin and the other objects of the Clergies Dotage and if by Churches you mean those that were in the ages when and places where these Fathers lived or any other since the primitive times which were the purest it is but a follie to stand arguing from them whose words and waies are no more the rule of truth to us then ours are to be to them that succeed us for verily they might and did speak sometimes not according to the word and then they were as Heterodox as others and our selves are in as good possibilities as they to speak according to the word and then we are as Orthodox and Authentick to the full as themselves I did therefore utterly disown all authority of these Fathers and Churches for I knew none they had to be a Standard to after ages yet though I counterpleaded your Plea from their practise it was not least your cause should be advantaged thereby for even the Testimonie of those Fathers is against you but because as they were subjected to the word so were they as subject to error as our selves but if by Fathers you mean the Primitive Prophets and Apostles to whom all your Fore-fathers are but Children viz. Father Peter Father Paul Father Iames Father Iude Father Iohn whose Doctrine was the foundation to the Churches and by Churches those that were then built upon their doctrine as that of Ephesus Corinth Philippi Rome c. before the falling off from the truth the Authority of these Fathers and practise of these Churches is pleaded for as seriously by us as the other superstitiously by your selves Report Fourthly Here you tell us t was propounded That the form of the Disputation should be Syllogisticall which I after many reasons alledged by you the Ministers to inforce the same at last yielded to Reply A very fit phrase for it for 't was inforced by you indeed yet more by strength of resolution than reason that 't was yielded to by my self is as true yet I must profess it was because the Disposition of your wills did put me 〈◊〉 as we say to Hobsons Choise for I saw you so desirous to draw your necks out of the coller and to make any thing an excuse to break off the Discourse that I must choose either that way or none and therefore rather than the work of that day should â—all as it must have done altogether else for you to the total failing of the expectation and hindering the edification of the people I could not but give way to your desires Nevertheless your many reasons which were but two and those as reasonless too as if you had said nothing were counter-mand with as many more and those also of so much weight that because you began to feel them sit heavy upon your Scholastick skirts you would have obstructed my delivery of them to the people for what great matters did you alledge whereby at that time and place to prove the expediency of such a form First that 't was given out as my desire to them is it never may be again by them of our party that I was a Scholar and durst meet with Scholars in discourse and therefore seeing I now was before Scholars it was expected that I should dispute in the way that 's most usual among them Secondly That the way of Dispute by Syllogisms for which some of you had little need to dispute considering their illogicall and un-syllogisticall doings that day wherein they were all-to-be-puzzled in their matter by fumbling so much about that form was the clearest and most compendious to the proving of things and the preventing of extrravagancies and disorder much what in such a manner did you utter your selves in order to inforcing your Proposition to which the reply was to this purpose Namely First that though I had been in the Vniversity and a Graduate there yet I pretended to no great Scholarship yea that I was a Dunce and a fool which very terms and no other I repeated again in my Position and was contented to be counted for no other as to that kind of learning of much of which I was willingly forgetful that I might know more of Christ and the plainness of his Gospel Secondly that I came not thither to dispute nor did I the Lord is my witness in that formal way you stood upon but in plainness to give an account before all to as many as should ask it according to my ability and what liberty you should allot me thereunto which yet was well nigh none at all of the way you call Heresie after which I and many others
saie of this evil and adulterous generation that they maintained it against me but themselves for whether they do or do it not they cannot hurt me thereby but if they do it the worst will be their own for as they of old that rejected the true Baptism for none Luke 7.30 did reject the councel of God against themselves so do they that reject it for a false one as to the terms of evil and adulterous generation concerning which you first charge me and then acquitted me as not intending them to you I meant them then in verie deed of this Age wherein we live yet so long as you go a whoring from God after waies of mens tradition and teach people to do so as you do I see not how I could have been truly said to revile had I used them directly to your selves Report Thirdly that though I had once been of that opinion and a Minister of the Church and received orders from it yet now I was of another and did renounce both the Church and her orders to which say you 't was answered that it was no marvell that I that had forsaken the Church should afterwards revile and despise her and that God having suffered me to fall into so gross an error as to deny and renounce my first baptism did in his just judgement suffer me to fall further and further Heresie being like a Precipice where after a man hath begun his run he cannot stay till he come to the bottom Reply I was once of that opinion indeed and practise too together with your selves and had not a little zeal thereof though not according to knowledge when I acted in your false function by implicit faith and made the Directories Canons Catechisms Creeds of the Clergies compiling my Rule as many more did besides my self not comparing them so singly as I should have done with that true Directory of the word but I have since seen good occasion to recant it as you will undoubtedly do also first or last and O that it may be yet in time to your peace notwithstanding your now forwardness to uphold it I was also in your sence once a Minister of the Church but since going about to look for that Ministry of the Church and for that Church whereof I thought my selfe a Minister from thenceforth I could never find either t'one or t'other As for your Church of England I confess I received twice her holy orders viz. once from the Bishops in the daies of their Dominion by whom I was ordained a Deacon i. e. in Scripture-sence to look toth'poor but in their sence half a Priest for in that capacity we might sprinkle if allow'd and give the wine to people also in the Supper but not by any means the bread unless very specially licensed thereunto till we should come into the full order of Priest-hood for so ran the phrase in the old English horn-book which as to that part was stiled The book of the Ordination of Bishops Priests and Deacons once also by the Presbyters so called since the time of their Parricid or cutting the throats of their fathers the Bishops that gave the being of Priesthood to them and inducting themselves to reign in their stead as the Bishops themselves had dealt not long before with their old father the Pope who gave the being of Priesthood to them both from whom not as a Priest-hood but a true Presbytery as they say I was in orders to practise their refined Popery more perfectly which I might do before but by the halves but now I know not where this Church of England is if you speak of a true Church of Christ unless you can prove things to have their true being without either their true matter or true form for as the subject matter whereof it consists is false being not baptized believers so the form into which the Pope cast it some 600 years since in to which also the Prelate and Presbyter have new cast it being and that subpaena too National Provinciall Parochiall is utterly false and her fellowship as good as none at all because not free but forced and as for the true Ministry thereof I know not where it is neither if that onely be a true one as you were wont to say it is that can derive it self by a line from the very Apostles neither can you make good your interrupted succession from them unless the Pope from whom your Series comes was even then a true Minister of Christ when he was also an Antichristian Deceiver and unless Apostacy and Apostolicy can so stand together as that Rome was even then an Apostolick Church when 't was palpably apparent to be an Harlot neither if I could tell where can I tell very well which is the Ministry of your Church of England there are so many Ministries in it now namely Prelaticall High-Presbyterian Presbyterian-Independent each of which lay claim to that title but being both themselves and their adherents for such different forms of government cannot all three be the Ministry of one Church unless your Church of England that was of old so full of uniformity is now become capable of tri-formety in its discipline and Ministry and yet to be intirely but one Ministry and Church of England still which if it be it s a tr-iform monster then indeed As to your answer to this third head I wish you to weigh how rawly you utter your selves whilst just after your selves had clear'd me from the guilt of Reviling and before I had us'd any new terms that could have the least savor of reviling you return to charge me of it again but no marvel when every round reprover and renouncer of your Romishness is as much a reviler with you as your selves are at Rome for renouncing that grosser Popery that 's there Howbeit in truth he reviles your Church no more that calls it a very Harlot if it be so then your selves revile Rome in calling her a Harlot because she is so you hint at my renouncing my first baptism can a man renounce that he never had for what was dispenc't when I was a child as t is no signe to me now for I remember not that I ever saw it so I learn by the hear-say of it that it was not baptism at all as for this last which is also the first baptism that ever was administred to me I see no cause to renounce it as yet nor yet I am well assured ever shall As for heresie or believing and doing besides the word t is a Precipice indeed where after men have begun their run unless the Lord mercifully prevent them as he hath done me and many more of late and I desire may your selves in due time who are all gone astray from primitive truth after the doctrines and commandements of men they cannot well stay till they come to the bottom even the bottomless pit it self into which that Arch-Heretitk the Pope who open'd it
the Ministers would not hinder the preaching of the word or call any time unseasonable for that the Ministers answered that they magnified preaching as much as any yet must needs tell them the Apostle makes it inferior to charity and that when charity was in danger to be violated by it it were but Christian prudence to omit it Reply Antichristian priestly-popely pollicy if ye will but neither Christian prudence nor Pastor-like pitty nor Peter-like piety nor Pauls charge to Timothy 2 Tim. 4.1.2 which was to preach the Word and be instant in season and out too to reprove rebuke exhort c. with all long suffering and doctrine Ob. But some there would have been griev'd at it in which case better to have omitted it in charity then hazzard hatreds by performance Aâ—sw Some there its like would not have indur'd it yet is that no plea whereupon to omit it for then we must preach no more Gospel to the world which sets two against three and three against two and occasions not causes by means of mens lusts opposing it more sword then peace at present Luke 12.51 52 53. Yea the time will come and now is when men yea Ministers will not indure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts heap to themselves teachers and what heaps upon heaps of false teachers are there in all Christendom for the Clergy have made themselves many as the locusts many more then to every parish one tickling men up still with an omnia benè in a bad condition even when for their sakes Isa. 24. omnia penè penitus peritura sunt and will turn away their ears from the truth and be turned unto fables of mens feigning but watch thou in all things indure afflictions do the work of an Evangelist fulfill thy ministry 2 Tim. 4.3 4 5. Report That the Congregation consisted of two sorts of men and women whose opinions were different that there was a danger of a breach between them that as they came together and had behav'd themselves quietly all the time so they might be permitted to depart that the mischieâ—s which follow Division are easier prevented then heal'd c. Reply Great indeed are the mischiefs that follow Divisions they are more easily prevented then heal'd but as sure as the Lord lives and his word hath any truth in 't the Divisions of these dayes the mischiefs of which and that 's the best on t ' will light most upon the tripple Tower of BBBabel even the Tripple CCCrown and Kingdome of the CCClergy out of whose clutches God is going to redeem his Captive Clergy the height of which Tower he will bring down to the Earth even to the dust these Divisions I say will neither be prevented nor healed notwithstanding all indeavours to that purpose till that be fully accomplisht which this Division of Languages truly tends to in the Councels of God viz. the utter shattering and disabling of these great Babel-builders so that their Ambitious projects shall come to a Perpetual end till then breach upon breach cannot be avoided while the Earth was as in old time of Priestly pomp it was of one language and of one speech all saying nemine contradicente as the Pope said all worshipping as the Priest-hood appointed all believing as the Church believed there was so much Charity to the Churches peace that all truth was choakt under the name of Schism for the sake on 't the builders by whom the corner-stone is still refused saying one to another go to let us build us a City and a Tower whose top may reach to heaven let us make us a name and nothing was restrained from them which they imagined to do by advantage of this their unity and uniformity of speech and Religion but now God is coming down to view the great Tower this Pompous Kingdom of Priests and finding it swell up to heaven above the stars of God over all on earth at least that 's called God he sayes go to let us go down and confound their language that they may not understand one anothers speechâ— whereupon as the great City is split in three parts so each of these will be subdivided more and more into Sectaries of all sorts so that men understand not now the language of the Pope and Priest-hood nor will Christs sheep hear the voice of those strangers by which Division of tongues if that Great City cease to reign and that montanous Babell come down and become a plain before Zerubabel as it must t is not so devillish as Divine a Division which all are not so sorry for as some whose Alas is lamented back again with Hallelujah yea let the day break more and more and the shadows flie away and my beloved be like a Roâ— or young hart hasting ore these mountains of Bâ—ther i. e. Division Cant. 2.17 And now as to the peoples being permited to depart I know none were held there against their wills besides your selves yea both you and they too that would might have gon in peace and those that would might have staid in peace had you not troubled all with your oppositions if such as had a mind to stay had been as peaceably permitted to abide as you who had such a mind to be out were peaceably permitted to depart for any hinderance you had from us all might have been full as well for ought I know as now it is Report Next you relate I not hearkning to the Reasons of the Ministers it was at last referred to the Minister of the place being there present and he desired to declare whether he would give way to my preaching which he refusing to do upon the reasons before said one of the Congregation began to utter some words tending to a Commotion viz. that he had nothing to do with them that they would do it without his leave and the like whereupon the Ministers conjured me whose interest they observed to be so great in the people by the bonds of Charity the candor and Sobriety of a Christian and ingenuity of a Scholar that I would dissolve the Congregation that they might part without professed hostility that there would great disgrace light upon their meeting besides dangers which they did foresee if I did not that if I persevered in my motion they did protest openly before the Congregation against it and did charge upon me whatsoever inconveniency should follow so being perswaded I went out of the Church with the Ministers and the Congregation followed Reply I saw not so much as a grain of reason in all you spake in prevention of so innocent and in it self inoffensive a purpose as that was to render a reason of my faith to a people that expected it from me and were as your selves were not then and there so willing to hear it whereupon I neither did nor durst decline the doing of it upon any such account as convicted that by right I ought not to have done it nevertheless I must confess when
are no more capable of the use of any ordinance then the other He tells us these by birth are of the houshold of God of the Citizens of the Saints t is much he said not fellow Citizens in Pauls phrase Eph. 2. sure t was because he bethought himself of their uncapableness of fellowship for all their membership He tells us that these are orderly admitted i. e. by baptism then which Scripture knows no other admission for no sooner do we read of a convert saith he but we presently hear of his baptism whereas of all the converts in Christendom that sit under the ministry of the Pope Prelate and Presbyter I never knew one in all my daies baptized after their coversion of him by preaching till being converted from them to the Truth as it is in Iesus they convert and come to us and then we immediately baptize them indeed but as for them t is impossible for them so much as to preach the Gospel in all Christendome in the way and words in which Peter Ananias Philip Paul and all the first and purest preachers did while they suppose all they preach to to have been baptized in infancy for what Priest in Christendom can say to his parish repent and be baptized for remission of sinnes arise and be baptized and wash away thy sinnes he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved as they of old said Mark 16.16 Act. 22 without gross absurdity having christn'd them all long before he ever preacht to them neither do they baptize any at all after conversion and the best baptism they dispense in token of remission of sins so long before either sins commission or the sinners conversion is at best but meer rantism neither He tells us that those have right to all the immunities of this house to all the priviledges of this City of God meaning the Church here below and have title to all Christs visible ordinances that they belong to Christ and therefore must parâ—ake of that which is of Christ and being of the houshold they must therefore have of the food of the houshold yea the stewards of the mysteries of God must be accountable in case they deny it them And yet till they are at years not any one of them may participate as themselves say of any one of those visible ordinances viz. neither praying preaching hearing not the supper nor any thing else which is the food of the houshold after baptism by which they are barely entred in infancy and onely thrown ore the threshold into the house and then ly starving for many years together without bit or crumb of any other food at all being utterly denied to be communicants at the supper the use of which their folly will once be manifest who say they are lesse capable of in infancy then of the use of baptism for as shall appear more hereafter howbeit they are truly capable of neither they are as truly capable of both as of either yet are they deni'd a share in that service of the supper by these stewards of the mysteries of God the ministry themselves and that for no less then 16 years together at least according to the rule of the old stewards the episcopacy that have almost given up all their earthly account and I know not for how long by the will of the new stewards i. e. the Presbytery for if their rule be to practise it no oftner then they practise it indeed some of them have had no supper at all in their parishes neither for young nor old for about seven or eight years together last past and when they will no body knows and how they can with a good conscience I cannot tell nor never could while I stood among them they standing all and their people all universally unbaptized to this day for which neglect of theirs to give persons their meat in due season order and manner feeding them with a break-fast in baptism before they are fit to be fed so much as with that milk and then denying them any supper at all when they come to years though they then both pay for it and are at least as fit to feed thereon as they were in infancy to feed on baptism the Lord of that supper and of all the other holy ordinances of his which they have dispenst more after their own minds and mens tradition will and Testament then his own will call them ere long to give account of their stewardship too and let them be no longer stewards And yet a little more to trace Mr. Blake to and fro as he daunceth the hay up and down in that tâ—ifling treatise he tells us that these are a holy seed of the noblest birth yea though they be the children of loose living parents of misbelieving parents p. 4.5.25.26 of apostatized parents of excommunicate parents of fornicating parents and consequently a very bastard brood which under the law that Mr. Blake himself professes to be tried by were unclean and not admitted into the congregation unto the tenth generation of papistical parents for even these are but misbelievers and Christians in name still and as himself sayes no infidels though to go round again holding such damnable errors in the faith p. 30. as shut them out from the happiness and therefore I think from the holiness too of Christians yet all this notwithstanning to go round again if the children but of believing parents that are of the Church and to go round again not true believers neither as believer is opposed to unbeliever misbeliever or Christian in name onely with all which he confesses the Church may abound but as believer is opposed onely to infidel p. 25. between which terms unbeliever and infidel which are not synonimaes it seems with him yet the Scripture makes no more difference then is between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same greek word that expresses both and is translated into latin by infidelis and Englisht by either unbeliever or infidel notwithstanding all this I say if born in England or any where else in any nations or of any parents that are but Christian in name onely or of but one such Christian parent the other being an Indian that is with him an infidel indeed they are with him a holy seed still that God ownes and challenges for his yea frrom the womb Gods heritage a seed so nobly born as noble Nehemiah himself was not yea p. 28. the least of whom is greater then Nehemiahs better These high and Heroick Eulogies Mr. Blake bestowes upon not true believers and real Saints onely to whom yet they peculiarly belong but on meer carnall Gospellers the naturall lukewarm formalists of the Antichristian more then Christian nations upon pretensive verbal professors and that not of truth neither as t is in the word but as in the word of an erroneous Priest-hood who preach truth for tith and yet not the tith of that truth they should preach neither
should be baptized as neer as may be upon the time of their conversion and becoming disciples and if it have been then foâ—eslowd it must be after as soon as it can but in no wise so many years before it as the priests unviversally do it and such of whom it is not known nec per se nec per alios when they first were discipled and converted but oh how do I fear that as he that never doubted never believed so many of those implicit converts Mr. Baxter talks on that never knew when they were discipled and converted were never yet truly discipled hor converted at all to the truth as it is in Iesus but as they had it more by tradition from their fathers then unfained search of Scriptures such I say of whom t is not known when they first were converted and discipled shall by my consent be baptized when ever it is first known that they are converted and discipled unto Christ by their own profession of their conversion and discipleship and desire of baptism and this not by my consent alone but by the joint consent of all these very Scriptures which Mr. Baxter himself hath coâ—ed for our example and warrant all which if as far as Christs own precept and practise and the primitive Churches example can do it they do not warrant the baptism of all and onely such persons as were first taught or made disciples by preaching or instructed till they both learnt believed and imbraced the Gospel and professed themselves disciples and offered themselves to baptism and consequently of no infants then for my part I le lay aside all sense and reason as no more to be heeded as a help to understand the Scriptures and turn a very Tom-fool and he that can Altobelogick these Scripture institutions and instances into plain Scripture proofs of infant Church membership and baptism Erit mihi magus Apollo for there 's no mention of infants either expressely or implicitly in any one of them Oh therefore to Eccho back to Mr. Baxter a little in much what his own words to us concerning those Scriptures p. 127 that those who are so inclinable to seperation from the primitive practise would consider the unfitnesse of infants to be admitted by baptism to be Church members under the Gospel Oh that they that in church whole parishes as if they because the Pope will have it so were all Churches and will have no trial at all and discoveries of the work of persons conversion before they admit them but take them all at hap hazard as they fall from the belly within the bounds of that parish where they are plac't and popified would but lay to heart all these Scripture examples and make more conscience of observing their rule and not presume to be wiser and holier then God when it was mans first overthrow to desire to be but as God though he did not attempt to go beyond him as the priests do in adding other Subjects to his ordinances then himself appointed which changing of his law will be mans last overthrow Isa. 24. doubtlesse those that Christ baptized by his disciples were Church-members but those were not infants but such as were first made disciples by preaching onely Iohn 4. and be that will go beyond Iesus Christ in strictnesse shall go without me I do not think he will be offended with me for doing as he did i. e. for baptizing none but such as believe and professe themselves disciples and as repent of their sins and desire to be baptized in the name of Christ for the remission of them and so I have done with Mr. Baxter till we meet again onely since Mr. Marshal is pleased ponere obicem to object and bolt in here that we cannot say none in these places were baptized but such as did thus i. e. believe and professe themselves disciples p. 217. to Mr. Tombs because the word onely is not here I may well call it obicem or objectionem obularem a hint not worth a half penny and if he appeal to his own conscience it will tell him no lesse neverthelesse what ere he thinks I say again all that were baptized in the forenamed places were such as are there specified to be profest converts and believers and if there were any more let him assign and shew us whom and wee l believe him as for the housholds himself is in the sands whether there were any infants in them or no and I have shewd above that they that were baptized in them are exprest all by some clause or other exclusive of infants and conclusive onely of adult disciples besides Mr. Cotton confesses that the infants were not baptized with their parents and that the infants that were brought to Christ were not baptized at all for ought he knows nor their parents neither and here are all the Scriptures that declare how baptism was done then and to whom most of which are cited by Mr. Baxter himself from which you cannot possibly scrape so much as any old odd end of an example for such a businesse as your baptism As for us besides that plain precept we have in Mat. 28. even every whit of this is plain â—resident for our baptism and comes into our assistance against all your cavils O ye Priests for thus I argue viz. The baptism of men and women professing faith in the Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord c. is a baptism yea all the baptism that the Scripture speaks of either in way of command or example But the baptism which we dispence is a baptism of men and women professing faith in our Lord Iesus confessing sins calling on the name of the Lord gladly receiving the word c. Ergo that baptism which we dispense is a baptism yea all the baptism the Scripture speaks of in way of either command or example Therefore Sâ—rs how hath Satan bewitched you that you cannot believe and obey the truth what will you onely think things and thrust your thoughts of them as oracles upon all others will you imagine and suppose and dream and dote and fancy and fain a baptism that the Scriptures and first Churches never knew and then father your figments upon the Scriptures and fasten them as the fashion which the whole world must be forct to follow and conform to Moreover I do not at present remember any one part of Scripture which your selves summon into your help in this case of infant baptism that doth not yield ammunition and much matter against you more then for you unlesse it be one or two used by your selves which one may as well with Skoggin untile the house to look for an hare as urge either pro or con about infants baptism so farre shall he be from finding in them any proof for that or the true baptism either as namely 2 Cor. 13.5 1 Thess. 4.13 There are but two places that I know of besides those I have already turned
as failing in that point if you do it no otherwise then it was done then and there viz. the dayes and places wherein the primitive Churches dispenst it for they were all so wholly strangers to your infant baptism that not so much as the sound of such a thing was ever heard among them and howbeit Dr. Feaâ—le tells us a tale p. 16. out of Origen on the Romans whose originall is lost and into which work of his on the Romans t is shrewdly suspected by the learned that Ruffinus and the Romans have Sophisticated such a sentence that the Church had infant-baptism from the Apostles and thence very goodly grounds A positive argument of very great moment saith he that may convince the conscience of any ingenuous Christian viz. that the Apostles in their dayes began to baptize infants and the whole Catholique Christian Church in all places and ages even from the Apostles dayes hath admitted the children of Christian parents to holy baptism therefore t is no error Yet I must tell you that Origens bare word and single say so if it were his own is no warrant whereupon all men may safely muchlesse must necessarily believe it was so but the word of the New Testament of which the Apostles mostly were the Pen-men is warrant enough to us to believe that it was not so were the word onely silent about it how much more whilest it hath so much against it that we may say t is exclusive of it Howbeit therefore you say that infant baptism hath been universall it is sufficient proof of its non universallity in that you can never prove that it hath been universall and we have proved that in the Apostles dayes it was not so that in the first Century t was not so nor in the second for ought any man living can possibly shew how ere it began to creep in about the third and howbeit it hath been never so universally and erroneously practised from the fourth or fifth Centuries till now yet neither will it follow that the universall Church hath practised it nor that the universal Church hath erred in it nor that Christs promise Mat. 28.20 Ioh. 16.13.14.16.17.29 concerning the spirits abode and guidance is not true for that 's not more made then made good to those that perform the condition and terms on which it was made viz. the observation of what he commanded in which case the spirit is ever present and ever was and shall be with those few that keep the truth as for the most when they began to dote on mens teachings and traditions and to fashion themselves more at a venture after the words of the wise and prudent then after the word of God it self and to Idolize the dictates of Synods and Ghostly fathers so as blindly to subject themselves to their sentences as their onely Oracles then Terras Astraea reliquit Christ who did ingage to lead them by his spirit who would be led by it was dis-ingaged and true enough in his promises though he left the world to lie in darknesse and to be filled with their own wayes and with the fruits of their own inventions Moreover t was not the Church in the capacity of a Church in respect of outward form and order but his disciples to whom that promise was made to whom also it was performed and made good in all ages according and in such measure as they kept close to him for in the time of the treading down of the Temple and holy City and the true worship and worshippers and of all that visible fabrick and Church posture which stood in the primitive times and even in the grossest darknesse God gave power to his two witnesses i. e. by his word and spirit in the hearts and mouths of his Saints impowered them to prophesie and testifie to the truth against the traditions of Rome and against infant baptism as well as other of her superstitions and heresies how else could Bernard have said as he doth Serm. 65. super cant of some that opposed the corruptions of his time They laugh at us because we baptize infants because we pray for the dead and require the prayers of Saints yet even to those Martyrs that did witnesse to some truth in times of Ignorance the light was though not so totally and terribly as to the rest of the world much ecclipsed ore now it is and that promised manifestative presence of Christ not a little interdicted and communion with him interrupted by the interposition of that smoak which comming out of the bottomless pit clouded the sun and thickned the aire and as Christ himself foretold also it should be Iohn 14.30 by the intervening of the Prince of the darkness of this world who was to have his time wherein to darken all things and had it too so that by his delusive wiles the whole world was won to be once an Arrian and after that an Antichristian worshipping the Dragon and the Beast wondering and erring all together into one Catholique Church-body called Christendome and by common consent bearing the whore or false Ministery called Clergy warring at her will against the Saints and though not finally for so the gates of hell cannot yet or along time prevailing against them that dwell in heaven Rev. 13.4 5 6 7. In all which time nevertheless as I said before some truths were revealed to some and so much to such as then sought to Christ and not to men as may well serve to verify Christs words and justify all the promises of his presence with his people as to the true purport of them as yea and Amen Babist But where was your Church then all this while till these latter times Baptist. Where it was to be according to the word of prophecy Rev. 11.1 viz. troden underfoot for 1260 years by the nominall Christians or Gentiles coming by the lump into the outer Court i. e. into a bare name and feigned form of Christianity after the time of Constantine at the compulsive call of the Clergy since when though there have been an number of Saints in sackcloth that have seen much light from Christ and suffered for it yet I am so far from undertaking to prove there was that I am rather of the mind there was not nor was to be if the word be true any truly collected truly constituted visible Churches at all in right outward form and order standing upon that true foundation i. e. the principles of the Doctrine of Christ and the primitive prophets and Apostles for many ages upwards even from the Clergies carrying the Church captive into Babylon unto these daies wherin the foundation Heb. 6.1.2 with Eph. 2.20.21.22 which hath been razed is laid again and the measuring line gone forth upon the Temple is in the hands of the true Zerubbabel Christ Iesus who shall also finish it not by Army nor by strength but by my spirit saith the Lord of Hosts If this answer be not satisfactory that our Churches
of themselves is as seems by your selves a faith and practise against Reason why else doth reason object against it Indeed the Papists aâ—e so unreasonable in sundry articles of their faith that they hold some things not onely above but against Reason and that 's tâ—e worst that can be said of the most absurd and â—bominable tenets that are amongst them and that is so bad that even thereupon the Protestant priesthood finds occasion enough to abhor them witnesse their Tenet of transubstantiation or real presence of Christs very body in the supper of which when we say how can this be its not onely against other articles of faith viz. his bodily ascention session and local mansion in heaven but also against common sense and reason it being in reason impossible that one body should be at once in two places as well as in consubstantiation it is for two distinct bodies viz. the bread and Christs body to be at once in one place they say much what as you say here and in the lines above viz. that howbeit its difficult to understand how it should be so in Reason yet if we had learnt to believe the Scriptures which in plain terms assert the thing saying of the bread this is my body we would believe it and leave the manner of its being so to him who saies it with whom all things are possible as we do in the articles of faith e g. the resurrection of the body not asking how it can be because the Scriptures have declared it The Reformists tell them again that the resurrection of the dead is a thing not onely in respect of God who can do all things save such as imply imperfection as to lie and die c. and contradiction for its impossible utterly that pure contradictories should be both true but also in respect of the thing it self possible to be effected but the ubiquity and the actual universal eating of one and the same numerical body and so smal a body too as that of Christs and at one and the same time in so many several places are matters and fancies savouring of such contradiction and so adverse to the very nature of God that as Kekerman system log p. 42. saies Ne deus quidem producere potest et logica eas e suis excludit ordinibus such as God doth not and Reason knows not O but saith the Papists nothing but humane reason judges this impossible and repugnant to other articles of faith to whom among other things our Divines use to reply that in matters of religion and faith and things of God reason is not to be laid aside as if we were to bring bare bruit sence i. e. blind implicit faith onely to the word of God but to be used by us that we may thereby as without which we cannot distinguish truth from falshood yea to speak yet in the very words of your own author in this case I mean Vrsins Catachise to which you send us whose these words mostly are which I have already spoken see page 414.415 For even therefore was reason given us of God that we might by the light of the mind discover contradictory opinions and clearly understanding what is agreeable to the word of God and what repugnant to it may imbrace this and refuse that Hoc nisi firmum maneat nullum erit dogma tam absurdum c. Vnlesse this stand for granted no opinion though never so absurd and impious yea nothing in the sincks of all hereticks though never so impure and monstrous can be confuted out of the holy Scripture for hereticks and deceivers will reply their opinions do not contradict the word of God but onely it seems so to humane reason You see then how among your own writers the foundation of faith and true religion is laid not onely in the Scripture as the rule and fountain whence we fetch all but secondarily in sound Reason also improved in way of trial of things by it as without which no use can be made of Scripture so that though some Divines proclaim it to the whole world for so do your selves in this place that Reason it self is against them in their way and consequently that their way is against Reason and many Divines confesse their faith and religion in some articles and particles of it to be above Reason which is but a gentle-gigg too if by above Reason they mean so as that Reason cannot comprehend how they are at least conceive them possible so to be yet however farewel such a faith for ever for me as Reason fights with and far be it from me either to do or believe any thing against reason for as they that see not good ground in reason to believe what they believe can never be alwayes ready as every Christian ought to render a reasonable answer to such as ask them a Reason of the faith that is in them and are at best but implicit in believing so they who believe not only without and beyond but even against Reason it self opposing them in their faith are most unreasonable believers indeed and such as shall find that Reason as easily as they think t is answered will make good what objection it makes against the most unreasonable of them all but to leave this and to come to the discourse or ratiocination it self which followes between Reason and reasonlese for what else can I fitly stile such an Antagonist as stiffens himself against Reason and counts it nothing to refute it yea t is done here in your Review for satisfaction to the Reader as you say but t is undone again in the Re-review to the undeception of the deceived and the deceiver The objections of Reason and replies of reasonlesse and re-replies of Reasons friend are as followes Review 1 Infants have no knowledge of good or evil Ergo no faith By the same reason they should be denied to have the faculty of understanding the exercise of their faculty they have not no more have they of their faith not the act but the habit as was said before Re-Review Good Sirs consider what a reasonlesse reply to reason this is For if by faith you mean only a faculty of believing what ever in time may be told them which is the adaequate object of faith in general that is in all reasonable creatures and is de esse to them universally innate in them as a part of the rationall soul as well as the faculty of remembring what in time they may hear and of willing and chosing what in time may be propounded to them and of understanding what in time may be taught them but what is all this to your purpose who plead faiths being in some infants onely not in all when as faith in that sense is as much in all infants as in some and would if it could at all entitle such as have it to baptism entitle all mankind to baptism as well as some sith all have the faculty of
other were they that wrought miracles to convert sinners from the evil of their waies but that cannot be granted by you however who cry out that the working of miracles was an extraordinary gift that hath ceased since the times of the Apostles finally the conversion of souls of men to faith by the preaching of the word is that which is effected ordinarily and therefore is not miraculous for ordinary and miraculous are clear contrary so that they do rather tollere se invicem then are capable to be denominated of one thing both at once for an ordinary thing is not only that which comes to passe usually and frequently but chiefly which is accomplished secundum ordinem according â—o a common order of meanes and constant course of second causes as faith in infants doth not being wrought if at all without the outward means as your selves confesse and even thereupon and in that very respect here called miraculous and if I could ever see such a thing at all as neither you nor I ever did I should say it were a miracle indeed to see an infant believe on him of whom understandingly they never heard but Miracles are such things which as they are done more rarely then other things so when they are done t is if not contra yet at least praeter extra supra ordinem either against or besides or out of or above the usual way not keeping the accustomed use of means nor process of second causes Fourthly whereas to back one absurdity with another you assert the work of the spirit in the conversion of men i. e. adult ones which is by outward means to be both ordinary and miraculous I judge it to be as very a Bull as ever was conceived and gendred in the braines or calved out of the mouth of man Review 8. The only Scruple is the making it appear concerning particular children which are brought to be baptized whether they have faith or no for say the Anabaptists faith is an inseparable condition required in persons to be baptized and we know not the heart nor the work of the spirit Though enough hath been said to this in the disputation yet these two things are added for further satisfaction 1. That true faith is not required in every one to be baptized for then none but justifyed persons should be baptized and those that are apostates afterwards must be said to fall totally and finally from grace 2. That a charitable judgement concerning their having faith is sufficient to admit them to baptism which judgement is as due to children of believing parents as to any of years that make profession First because the Scripture hath so amply declared the good will of Christ to them which is tantamount to any ones single profession of himself Secondly because we know nothing against any particulars wherby they should be excepted from such judgement Re-Review You begin first to storm the rear or last clause of that Argumentative matter which you have here charged upon the Anabaptists as their opinion but you might have spared that pains if you had pleased for those you call Anabaptists assert not such a thing as that is they say not that faith but that an outward appearance or profession of faith is an inseperable condition required in persons before they be baptized by them for they know not what belief is in the heart but as confession of Christ is made with the mouth and profession of him in the words and works whether therefore persons have faith or not and whether there be any as he that is blind sees no such that receive the truth in truth for a time and after fall totally from it that is neither here nor there to us in this case for if there be inwardly no dram of faith at all yet if there be such an outward serious profession made of it that we thereupon I say again thereupon and not on charity misgrounded can judge it to be we are excused in baptizing such hypocrites and apostates and their comming to holy things with unhallowed hearts will be not upon us but themselves but if there be never so much faith in the heart and no profession of it without whereby it appears concerning this and that particular person that he believes so far as we can discern God will not hold us guiltlesse in baptizing such persons for taking his name in vain That opinion therefore of a necessity of faiths being really in persons as well as a profession of it before we may baptize them Reasonlesse might as well have writen under his own head as under the head of Reason for that is owned no more by one then by the other t is a real profession of it that in foro hominum gives admission and warrants the administration which because it neither is noâ— can be made by any particular infant and consequently no appearance made that it hath faith therefore infants may not be baptized This indeed remaines a scruple unremoved by you to this very hour or is rather a matter unscrupled and altogether undoubted by us viz. that it cannot be made appear concerning this or that particular infant suppose any one of them you sprinkle that it hath any faith at all You tell us enough hath been said to this in the Disputation I tell you that more then enough is said against it in the Disprobation yet fith you are pleased to add as little as can be in further satisfaction I shall add as much as need be in further refutation of your folly You say that a Charitable judgement concerning this or that particular persons having faith for your proof now is to be de individuo is sufficient to admit them to baptism and that this judgement is as due to children of Christian parents i. e. every particular amongst them that are brought to be baptized as to any at years that make profession It seems then that the believing paâ—ents personal profession of his own personal belief which is that onely whereby we judge him to be a believer doth prove himself to us to be a believer not one jot more plainly then it proves all his children if he hath never so many to be believers as well as he and that we are bound by duty to judge all the children of a professor to have faith as certainly as we may judge that professor himself to have it for the same judgement of charity that is due to professed believers is say you equally and every whit as due to such believers children Are you not ashamed of such a blind businesse as this what doth a mans personal visible acting and professing of faith discover it to others that the habit of faith as you call it is in himself no further then it discovers it to be also in his children did you not say but the very next page above that no judgement of science concerning a persons having faith can be passed till the acts of
faith themselves which are never seen in infants are seen and examined which is as much as to say that when the acts are seen and examined as they may be in men then a judgement of science may be past on them do you not say that the discovery of the habit of faith to be in infants is made onely a posteriore i. e. onely by their future professings and personal actings of it which is as much as to say when children come once to act faith then it may appear and be known that faith is in them but tell then or in their infancy it cannot appear to be in them do you not say it cannot be certainly presumed what children have faith what have not the working of the spirit being not known to us and the spirit himself not bound to work faith in all the children of Christian parents nor barrd from working it in any children of infidels and that there can be no conclusion made of this thing which infants have faith which have not which is as much as to say that though it may be more certainly concluded presumed and judged concerning men at years who have and who have not faith yet the same doth not appear concerning infants in infancy are not these your own sayings but a few lines above and yet for all that have you so soon forgot your selves as to unsay it all again in this page where you ingage to make it appear concerning the particular children which are brought to be baptized that they have faith and to determine that in charity we are bound to judge faith to be in believers infants as much as we are bound in charity to judge it to be in the believing parents themselves that make profession and such judgement is as due to one of these as to the other were there ever such contradictions as these committed to paper before But le ts us examine your reason why we are to judge faith to be in these infants as we are to judge it to be in any that make profession you say because the Scripture hath so amply declared the good will of Christ to them which is Tanta mount to any ones single profession of himself I answer that the Scripture declares the good will of Christ to little children in general without exception and not to one more then another but what 's this to prove any of them to have faith much more what is it to the proving and making it appear that this and that particular infant hath faith which is the matter now in hand when other infants have it not or to prove believers infants to have it exclusively of the infants of unbelievers yet you say this declaration of Scripture which your selves confesse p. 5. declares concerning infants in general proves this or that single infant in contradistinction to others to have faith as sufficiently as any ones single profession proves it concerning his single self Nay this report of Scripture makes it appear say you most sottishly p. 5. that infants have faith more then the particular profession of any whom we admit to baptism can make it appear of himself and yet to go round again a posteriore onely i. e. by profession of it onely the discovery of the habit of faith is made O curious criss-crosse The second reason you here give why a charitable judgement concerning their faith is due to these particular infants and not others i. e. infants of believers and not unbelievers is this viz. Because you say we know nothing against any particular infants why they should be accepted from such a judgement To which I answer Do you know any thing against the particular infant of an heathen if this be a reason upon which we are to judge any infants in particular to have faith because we know nothing against any particular t is a reason upon which we are in charity to judge all particular infants in the world to have faith as well as any yea the infants of infidels as well as Christians for who knoweth any thing more against the infant of an infidell in his infanny whereby he should be excepted from our charitable opinion of him then he knows against the infant of a Christian especially that I may to your confutation conclude against you in your own words p. 5.6 since it cannot appear that one of these more then the other hath by any actual sin barred himself and deserved to be exempted from the general state of little infants declared in the Scripture viz. that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them So having run through and repelled that rout of responsives that would not be ruled by reason I come now to enter skirmish with your Scare-crow for verily what follows is no other then a false Alarum a sound of words a number of Iackets and Breeches stuft with stubble and bombasted into the shape of men in arms to fright fools at a distance Review We shall only present to the Christian Reader those horrid sins this wretched error of the Anabaptists involves men in and so forbear to be further troublesome it may be the sight will make many tremble and forsake their tents and not suffer them to be so frolick about the hole of the Asp or play with the Leviathan and walk upon the ridge of those Alps whose Praecipice is so fearfull Re-Review Bona verba quaeso and not thunder without lightning Review 1. It makes them deny their first faith with their baptism for there is but one faith saith the Apostle and one baptism Eph. 4.5 Re-review Aliâs it makes them first confesse and visibly professe that one faith and own that one baptism which what ever they did in words in works they denyed till now and makes them renounce that none faith and none baptism which they had in infancy for if they had faith while they were infants how can they deny it in your opinion who deny any falling from faith but if they had none in infancy then how can you deny but that they had none and so they deny none at all Review 2. It makes them crucify Christ again for we are baptized inâ—o Christs death and therefore but once because Christ dâ—ed but once Re-review It makes them crucify Christ often ore and ore again indeed i. e. in the Supper where in a figure they break his body and shed his blood an orderly fellowship and communion in which service they are ingaged to and enter upon after the example of those Acts 2.42 immediately after baptism Other crucifying Christ I know none among them that is caused by their doctrine but that of those who after they are inlightned in it and have tasted the good word of God c. do after that fall away again and such indeed crucify to themselves the sonne of God afresh and put him to open shame Heb. 6.4 but I hope the truth among none but Reasonlesse persons shall bear the blame and be made
them all together viz. it unchristens the whole Church of God c. I say thus confessing that our doctrine unchristens whole christendome which the Pope hath called the Church of God but is indeed the whole world of Gentiles that hath got into the outer court the meer outward form and name of christianity and hath trod down the holy City and true worship for 1260 years that whole world that hath for ages and generations wondered after the beast nor is this inconsistent with the truth of Christs promises of his presence and guidance among those that are his true Church and people indeed for howbeit he hath according to the word left those to their own wayes that left and liked not his wayes yet he ever hath still doth and ever will lead those into truth that love the truth and will be led by his spirit when he will lead them yea though he tied not himself to teach them that should chuse the Pope for their Tutor yet according to his promise he hath bin more or lesse with those that observed what he commanded them in his word from the beginning and so shall be even to the end Review Lastly it doth the devils work in the shape of angels of light to make men renounce their baptism and if from Nero's hating the Christian Religion the antient Apologetist of the Church did rightly gather the goodnesse of it we may the validity of infants baptism from the devils hatred of it it hath ever been said of him he will not make a bargain with any soul till it hath renounced its first bargain which was made with Christ at baptism the Anabaptists are his Proctors and do it to his hand Re-Review Of which desire of his to have us renounce our baptism being not a little aware though immediately after I renounc't that Rantism I once had unawares to my self in the innocency and ignorance of my infancy in the room thereof received real baptism I had one messenger from Satan to buffet me and beat me off from further proceeding in and owning of that practise yet through the goodness of God and that grace of his wherein I still stand I was so far from being removed that I was much more settled strengthned and stablisht in the present truth wherein I walk and I trust shall walk in unto the end unlesse I receive more evidence to the contrary then ever I have done from any writings or any discourses of any that ever I met wiâ—h of what principle or profession soever which messenger whose name was William Everard after the flesh but the name that the father had given him was Chamberlin as he said for he lived in the secret chambers of the most high though he came to my house pretending that he was immediately sent from God with a message to me in particular viz. to renounce that practice of baptizing which himself had sometimes walkt in also but now relinquisht did to my self and some others after half a dayes most serious observation of his speeches strange extasies and uncouth deportment by many prodigious passages blasphemous pratings and as by experience we then proved them flatly false pretences to what he had not and most presumptuous yet successeless undertakings and frivolous fopperies of which I am willing at any time but not capable under a hours time to give fuller account to any that shall desire it discover himself to be one of the Archangels of darknesse which the devil now sends forth a new in the shape of angels of light and is now no lesse apparently I think to all that know him and where he is And howbeit it hath bin more then once but once especially as I have hinted to the Reader in a shrewd shake of sicknesse that befel me above a twelve moneth since to the great retarding of this work reported that I was shaken sheer out of my mind and judgement concerning this way and baptism so as to have recanted and renounced it yet I call my God to witnesse to whom also I give thanks for his mercy toward me in that particular that partly by the more then ordinary advantages I then had through my sequestration from all other occasions to seek the Lord to search and try my wayes and turn again unto him partly by the more then ordinary ingagements that were then upon me so to do and that seriously and sincerely through my dayly expectation to be clapt up in clods of earth till the great day of acccounts I have bin much more sweetly satisfied since then concerning the truth of this way then ever I was in all my life before neither did I then find any cause to repent me of coming to Christ in it as neither shall any that renouncing your Rantism do rightly receive it so they continue to walk uprightly in it to the end but this I must confesse I found good cause to repent of it that I had not honoured it so much as I might have done since I ownd it nor walked so profitably serviceably blamelesly holily and worthily in it nor so suitably to so holy and worthy a way as it is in it self not withstanding the account of basensse and foolishness that it hath in the world 1 Cor. 1.30 So that ever since that forenamed sifting I had from Satan by the mouth of that his Agent by whom he solicited me to forgo my baptism I side with you in this viz. that t is the Devils worke in the shape of an Angell of light to make men renounce their baptism and though I am somewhat otherwise opinioned about the Divels affection to infants baptism then you are for I think if he hate it t is as he hates holy water or any other of his own inventions wherby he hath juggled away the truth and imitated Christs ordinances out of doors yet I am fully of your mind that he so hates the true baptism I mean the baptizing of professed believers from whence I gather the goodnesse and validity of it against him that it is most of the business about which he is at work in the shape of an Angel of light in these daies wherein his time growes short and his old kingdome begins to fail him by means of the true baptism to erect to himself a new kingdome and in order thereunto to make men renounce that baptism as knowing that he cannot strike a downright bargain with a soul to become fully his as the high Notionists and spiritual Sensualists of these times do till it hath renounced its first bargain made with Christ in baptism not what was made with Christ at infant rantism for infants are not capable per se to bargain with Christ and how they do it per alios I do not see sith such as say they do it for them were never appointed by them so to do nor by Christ neither that I know of nor do I remember any bargain to own Christ and not be ashamed of
him that either I or others for me made with Christ on that day wherein I was sprinkled no though as they tell me in token thereof that I might never forget it I was signed with the sign of the Crosse this work of diswading men from owning baptism as long as he can and perswading them to disown it when they have it though the Devil be at one end of it yet dares be not be seen in it himself but acts all by his emissaries the Anti-baptists are his Proctors and do it to his hand the Rantizer and the Ranter the sprinkling Priest on the one hand the sparkling Prophet on the other between these two he does or rather undoes what he can in â—â—der to prevention of whose design I shall as the Lord lends leave say something to them both before this work go out of my hands though it hang so much the longer in them Review They will peradventure wave the fury of some of these blowes by denying their name by saying they do not rebaptize but baptize those that were not baptized before whose baptism is null But we should renounce our baptism too if we should yield them that plea till they have proved it null by better Arguments then any yet ever urged by them they shall be denyed that evasion and one would think they ought to be sure of their footing and not walk upon slippery ground for no better is their proof where the fall is into hell If thou art warned thou wilt be armed against them they will never encounter where they find this preparation if thou wilt not be warned we have delivered our own soules Re-Review Having spent all your other Ammunition and vented your verdict to the bottom you here once for all discharge your great Warning piece and Roar us all at once down into hell what else mean you by this clause where the fall is into hell is the error on which hand soever it lies yours or ours so damnable in the question about the true subject and the true form and administration of baptism that the opposite parties to the truth herein must needs damn without more adoe I trow not in case they act through ignorance altogether invincible in the very integrity of their hearts but if the truths Antagonists in this point whether it be you or we either see and see not or may see and will not or can see and dare not or find the footing and ground they go upon to be unsure and slippery the proofs they practise from to be poor pedling and paltry as God knowes yours are if you do not and yet for fear and shame of men find it not then the fall may chance to prove a desperate one indeed and therefore Sirs see ye to it see that ye see to it for ye are a generation that in these daies of discovery are seen more into then you are aware of and may see much more then you do if you will And they that say it is so dangerous to be out in the question disputed that the error on which side soever reaches and leads them that follow it to the end as farre as hell had need be more sure of their hand then you can be in your cause from the most serious search of Scripture that they are in the right and if they find that they are out to return in time Or do you make the game in this case and question between us and you to go thus viz. That if it chance to appear hereafter that we are out in the point of baptism then we must to hell without remedy but if the error prove or fall out to be on your side it shall be so venial and tollerable a trangression that you may go to heaven for all that verily one would think it were to run thus in the thoughts of you Clergy men of some of you at least for some are more moderate towards us and our tenet then other some and some of you at sometimes more moderate then your selves at other times amongst whom bitter Mr. Baxter is one who though he be far more immodest in his discoursings of our dipping then we are in our dispensings of it to any in which respect I confesse I count him as keen to the full as he confesses himself to be and one that persues the controversie which more crabbidness then it calls for for if it be so small a matter as he makes on t yet however he is so modest about it that he can scarce afford the Anabaptists the term of Heretiques much lesâ—e of damnable Heretiques as most of you do yea he speaks so diminutiveâ—y and Apologetically of our supposed error p. 9.10 but that to go round again he is as hyperbollicall and egregious in accusing it page 12.13 where he loads us who dissent from him in it well nigh as low as hell viz. That this controversie considered in it self is of lesse moment then many imagine and a point that God laies not so great a stresse on as many do Neverthelesse some of you are â—am in vestris talpae in alienis linces so eagle eied a broad and bleared eyed at home that if your infant-sprinkling be made appear to be the error as more then one of you that persist in it deny it not to be O how it s excused extenuated exempted from so much as guiltifying much more from damnifying hell deep its dispensers Though it had been better it never had been brought in and that baptisme never had been changed yet since t is now the present custome and authority requires it there 's not so much evil in it but it were better stand then the Church fall a contending about it But while our dipping is supposed to be the error t is an error of so dangerous concernment that finally to stand in it is to fall flatly into the pit of hell And little better then thus it is for ought I see with you Ashford disputants if we compare this place with page 26. of your pamphlet yet we take it the more kindly from you however since t is your watch word to us whether we be warned from baptizing of believers by it yea or no if we be not warned you say true you have deliuered your own selves yet one good turn for another I warn you again that you have delivered your selves hitherto more against the truth of God then from the wrath of God unlesse you warn more wisely and deliver your selves more divinely for the future You tell us peradventure we will evade the fury of some of your blowes by denying our name you may well say the fury of your blowes for the very title of Anabaptists is a bang wherewith in your wrath and fury you wound many honest men and bast them till they stink again in the nostrils of their neighbours for your sakes whereby you basify and prate them out as odious ones to the world when you cannot prove them
peace of conscience which I was once constrained to deny my self of because it was once inconsistent in me with such peace but welcome that disgraced truth of dipping disciples sith t is that truth which I am certain howbeit they have trampled it for a time the gates of hell shall never prevail against nor the ablest man on earth so as to disprove it by all that is to be said to the contrary from the word of Christ. Rantist There 's more to be said yet to the contrary and more then ever was answered yet or ever will be to any purpose by you or any one else of your gang and that not onely in way of exception against much of that you have alleadged about the childishnesse vanity and insufficiency of infants sprinkling but also against that dipping fancy you are fallen into which is some new motion or renewed notion at the best having for all you have said neither good ground nor example from the word onely the old greek word may be so construed and that 's all the ground I could ever learn for that fluid practise and I am confident that you and that party are wholly in the wrong for I have seriously studied that controversie and besought the Lord to guide me and his good spirit by principles from his word of truth sealed upon my conscience doth assure me that way of dipping is groundlesse irrational and more uncivilly foolish then infant baptism can be called childish and I desire you to tell me what commission he had that baptized you who may possibly be an unbaptized person or if he was not yet if you look but some few removes backward and inquire who baptized him and who him and who him c. you must come at least to unbaptized persons I mean even in your own account who deny sprinkling to be baptism and such I hope you do not count fit administrators of baptism and yet such must begin it for your way was not in use very long agon also what commission hath Christ given you to baptize you being no minister of the Gospel and also what commission he hath given you or any else to baptize in that manner which is without Scripture against reason and common sence and discretion yea I may say against all principles of modesty and common honesty and charity to mens lives and so against both the sixth and seventh commandement that many judicious men have judged it to be little lesse then murther and adultery and I could easily prove it to be as bad as I say of it but that its superfluous so to do sith sundry of our worthy Mr. Baxter Divines viz. Dr. Featley Mr. Blake Mr. Cook and especially have some of them in one perticular and some of them in another done it so sufficiently already that I le rather refer you unto them Baptist. I have been so much innured to such hot-shots since I owned the truth that I can well walk in the middest of them now without amazement much of this sort of matter I have under my hands in private letters to my self and others and what of it is not there is legible I confesse as it were in text letters in the printed Polemicals of your Champions whose sharp censures and heavy charges of the way of truth which we walk in how judicious they are shall God willing be anon examined sith you send us to them at present you shall have a short word to your quaeries and such other passages which may occure and intervene either from your self or their writings in way of contradiction or obstruction to any thing that hath been said before Your first is grounded upon a simple supposition that an unbaptized person may in no case baptize or make a fit administrator of baptism whereas there is nothing in the world more clear then this that when it is to be done and cannot be well done otherwise it may be done as well as by one that was by one that never was baptized at all yea why not in case of innitiation after intermission as well as at the innitiation of the Gospel it self I wonder who baptized Iohn the Baptist that was the greatest administrator that ever was for either he was baptized surely or else he was not if he was ever baptized at all who baptized him but if he was never baptized the matter amounts still to be the same i. e. to evince no lesse then we assert that at the innitiation of the dispensation whether at first or after a long unlawful cessation an unbaptized person may baptize for if Iohn the Baptist himself was not baptized himself or if he was either by one that was unbaptized or else by one that was first baptized by himself he talks in his sleep that saies an unbaptized person may not in such a pressing case baptize Your second querie is as unsolidly grounded as the other and supposes your opinion to be this that no man though baptized himself unlesse he be a Minister i. e. an ordained officer may baptize for say you what commission have you to baptize you being no Minister of the Gospel whereas if by Minister you mean one officiating as a pastor over a people there is nothing more cleer in the world or in the word either then that others besides the Ministers may baptize viz. not any she for which there 's no president but rather precept to the contrary 1 Cor. 14. 2 Tim. 2. but any prophet i. e. any he gifted disciple especially when by the improvement of his gifts he proves as not seldome such do instrumentall of the parties convertion Ananias baptized Paul himself yet was he but a certain disciple Acts the 9. if you say that he was sent by God himself to that service it serves to shew this however which we affirm that God limited not that dispâ—nsation to the Ministry for if he had he would have sent Peter or at least some other officer to that work Did not Philip baptize the Samaritans and the Eunuch yet he did it in the capacity of a disciple and howbeit t is true he was ordained to be a Deacon and Deacons were by the Bishops babishly authorized to baptize yet that was no part of his office as a Deacon for his Deaconship designed him to no more then barely to have a care of the poor and if you say he was an Evangelist also so is every one that is gifted to preach the Gospel and doth it whether he be in any office or no for Evangelist is nothing but a preacher of the Gospel and such are they that occasionally preach it as well as such as preach it constantly by way of office therefore all the disciples that were scattered together with Philip it s said went every where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 8.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 11.20 and Philip that was one of those disciples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 8.40 preached or did the work of an
clear of it self that men famous even of your own way that have not thrust their fingers too far into the fire of this controversie concerning the primitive form of baptizing as these men have done and therefore will on in what they have once asserted and get thorow by hook or crook rather then recede with that shame I should say honour which is the right of every recantant when he sees he hath misreckoned do not onely confesse but also teach us the very same that we stand for Witnesse Tilenus who tells us that Immersio usitatior olim fuerit praesertim in Iudea et aliis regionibus c. p. 886. dipping yea totall dipping for in the very line before he defines the right of baptism to be tripple Immersio in aquam mora sub aqua emersio ex aqua plunging into the water abode under it resurrection out of it was rather used heretofore specially in Judea and other warmer countries then sprinkling Yea Dr. Featley that is as it were the fronteer or fileleader in doing all the disgrace he could to dipping did yet find occasion to acknowledge little lesse p. 69. notwithstanding saith he I grant that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized in the River and that such baptism of men i. e. in rivers specially in the hotter climates hath been is and may lawfully be used though I confesse he gives this a pull in again and very cleanly contradicts himself in the very next words saying that there is no proof at all of dipping or plunging but onely of washing in the River O grosse First as if the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did signifie onely to wash in some other way and not at all to wash by dipping Secondly as if ever any things or persons that are washed in Rivers are washed ordinarily otherwise then by dipping or plunging Thirdly as if he could properly be said to be washed in a river that was never in it but was onely scrubd a little by the side of it Or Fourthly as if wise persons would go into a river for no more then a little fourbishing their faces Rantist You talk of in the river and into the River but you heed not what Mr. Baxter saies in the present section that you are desired to speak to he tells you the word into is not to be taken as if either John and Christ or Philip and the Eunuch were at all in the water or descended into it but unto it onely it being below in the bottoms and the countrey being montanous in which respect they might well be said to go down into it Mr. Cook also and Mr. Blake do both very elegantly answer your observation in that particular Mr. C. thus to A. R. viz. your collection from Philips going down into the water with the Eunuch therefore they used dipping is as vain must they not go down to the water where it was if they would use it would the water have come up to them in the chariot any sooner for sprinkling then for dipping of the same stamp is your inference from Mat. 3.16 Mark 1.10 from Christs ascending from the water for as Christ was pleased to be baptized with water so he was pleased to go where the water was viz. in the channel where there was a descent and from which there was an ascent so that he must go down to and come up from the water Nay rather your conceit is here confuted for if our blessed Saviour had been plunged of John into the water then it would rather have been said that John cast or plunged Christ into the water and took him out of the water but it is onely implyed that Christ went down to the water and came up again from it Mr. Blake thus to Mr. Blackwood viz. for your criticism of the ascending and descending if you compare Acts 24.1.25.1 also with your places quoted you will see it nothing for your purpose those phrases are used when men go to a place or from a place when they neither ascend upwards neither descend downwards Bishop Usher will furnish you with ten severall Scriptures where the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Acts of the Apostles is used for no descent from a higher place to a lower but onely a removing from place to place though in this place we may believe there was some ascent and descent waters being lower places and when they went to the place of waters the channell in which the waters had their current they may be fitly said to go into the water howsoever one or two examples serve not your purpose but a General concurrence of all examples We have examples giving full evidence of a different practise and nothing can be concluded from those examples Baptist. O the wondrous wayes of wretchednesse if not of wilful wilinesse that the wits of these men work in whereby to wave of the way of God from taking place among them how do they strive to keep it off as it were at staves end not yielding it an inch lest it should get an ell one brings one kind of furniture wherewith to fight it another another yet altogether are but a bullrush a flag that shewes like sword and Rapier but will scarce hold a push if put to it to the purpose Mr. Blake he fetches furniture from Bishop Vsher that saies there are ten Scriptures in the acts where the words ascend and descend expresse no more then removing from one place to another of which if those he alledges be two of the ten or supernumerary it matters not for if there were 10000 it would do him no right and truth no wrong in this place where it is believed by every of the three both himself and his two Colleagues that here was going up and down from higher places to lower therefore he may set that cypher some where else or send it home again to the book whence he had it and where perhaps it was of use for here it stands void and serves for nothing And as for their joint sneaping the words they went down into the water and came out of the water into such a short sense as may serve your own curtaild and cloudy conceptions of the matter and exclude our construction that is most clear and congruous perverting and mincing it thus viz. that they went down to the water i. e. the channel where the water was to which there was a descent and ascended from the water or if it be allowed to be read as t is most properly rendred by the Translators into the water yet the meaning of that word into must be no other then unto I admire how men of such professed piety can convince their consciences to content with such home-spun coverings such greivous glosses pittiful put ofs as they do in this case I profess they might almost as good say that the heard of Swine that Mat. 8.32 are said to run down into the Sea did but run down to the Sea and no
exemplifying such a thing as the housholds he makes use of are but also clear examples to the contrary as the non-baptizing of those very infants that were brought to Christ and the non-baptizing of those very infants with their parents Act. the 2. to whose parents and their children to on the same termes of repentance when at years the promise is there made both which Scriptures he wrests into his turne yea verily and had he but one true single example of any one infant baptized in all that word we should lay down to him and never open our mouthes more against infant baptism yet if these two examples do prove for us it seemes they shall not be heeded whilst against them unlesse there be a general concurrence of all examples Wherefore secondly I tell him of a truth that though me thinks the single example of the Lord Iesus might content him and of the Eunuch for can he shew a better example then these yet there 's as general a concurrence of all examples in this particular as there is of the example of any one thing that is exemplified in the Scriptures all Ierusalem all Iudea and the Region about Iordan were baptized i. e. dipt of Iohn in Iordan confessing their sins Christ dipt of Iohn into Iordan the Eunuch going into the water and there baptized baptizing in Aenon because much water and indeed the very word baptize makes them all examples of our practise while it signifies obruo submergo Secondly saies he we have examples giving full evidence of a different practise and nothing can be concluded for you from these examples of yours Mr. Bls. examples it seems for his different practise must conclude for him but our examples though never so clear must conclude nothing for us ipse dixit Mr. Bl. hath forbidden them so to do and therefore we must sign ne plus ultra here and urge our examples no more wherefore I le cease Onely secondly I hope he will give me leave to ask him what different practise it is he meanes of which he hath examples giving full evidence against ours and if it be either baptism of infants or Rantism of infants or powring water on infants or washing infants any other way or dispensig Christs ordinance of baptism to men or women in any other way then in the way of dipping or washing by dipping which baptizo signifies I le promise him faithfully that upon his giving us any one example that gives full evidence of it or any other kind of full evidence of it besides that of example any of which he is far from giving in any thing that was ever pen'd by him yet I shall yield and become his disciple and follow him as far as I find him following Christ in that or any thing else and that for ever till then he must excuse me if in love to his soul I seriously beseech him to search and try his wayes and turn in truth to that truth of the Lord Iesus he yet tramples on Rantist There is example given you enough against your way by Mr. Blake Mr. Baxter and Mr. Cook too of baptizing otherwise then by dipping in the Iailor whom they all instance in either expressely or implicitly First Mr. Baxter saies in that section of his which you have not yet fully spoke to that the Iailor was baptized in the night in his house and therefore not likely over head in that Countrey where water was so scarce and to this agree some words of Mr. Blake and Mr. Cook concurrent in matter though different in form we read saith Mr. Cook p. 16. of multitudes baptized even 3000 in Ierusalem without mention of going to the Rivers and of whole families without mention of going to the waters or fetching store of waters it is like the waters they had within doors at midnight sufficed Acts 2.41 Acts 16.15.33 and saith Mr. Blake p. 10. sometimes baptism was administred where water for dipping was not to be had and though the Eunuch comming to a river saith here is water what hindred that I should be dipped yet there is little probability that Paul could say so in Judas's house in streight street in Damascus nor the Iailor in his prison in Philippi you say that baptism was ordinarily in rivers where there were many waters but sure there were neither many waters nor rivers in these mens dwellings and as sure they went not out in the night unto any such places yet were they baptized Baptist. Are these your Examples of baptizing otherwaies then by dipping certainly unlesse these three men were every one of them either shamefully slighthy in their searches or willingly ignorant or smitten with blindnesse and given up in some measure at least for their not imbracing this plain easie truth of dipping in the love thereof to deep dotage and stronge delusion they could never believe much lesse print such palpable untruths absolute absurdities and cleer self confutations as are unavoidably to be seen by him that reads with understanding these parcells they have published to the eye of all men See first how Mr. Cook contradicts himself in that clause we read of great multitudes baptized even three thousand in Ierusalem without mention of going to the Rivers To say nothing of the invalidity of this piece to his purpose nor needlessenesse of the Scriptures mentioning the particular place where every one was baptized for what if that be not specified every where where baptism is talked on least the volume should swell is it not as much as to say they were dipped in that it is said they were baptized i. e. submersi obruti abluti immergendo for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies mainly I suppose I may safely say only such washing as is by dousing dipping or swilling specially since in places enough it is said they were baptized in Rivers and places of much water but to say nothing I say of that mark how this clause of Mr. Cook clashes with another of his within a matter of ten lines upwards from it for there giving other reasons then that of dipping why Iohn chose to baptize in Rivers and running waters among others he gives this as a speciall one viz. Because of the multitudes that were baptized especially saith he seeing there came such huge multitudes to him to be baptized and yet here were great multitudes baptized even no lesse then 3000 and yet sith there is no mention of the place where which by Mr. Cooks own reason if it be a reason must be a place of running waters and streams that many might be imploied at once in baptizing along the river for the more speedy dispatch with so great multitudes therefore these belike went not out to the rivers though yet there 's no more mentioned that they did not then that they did There were thousands of converts Act. the 4. the 4. of the matter of whose baptism there is no more mentioned then of the manner of it and yet there is
also Senior Mr. Simpson one of you my Ashford opposers who in a letter under his hand to a neighbor of his much of which is partim directe verbatim partim oblique collateraliter out of Mr. Blake so that it stands or falls in him and of the rest that is not translated thence into his turn some already is and some that is not yet is to be spoken to as I go along tells us that there was not any water in Jerusalem wherein so many as were there baptized in so short a time at that time of the year when water was more scanty could possibly have been dipped What a strange conceit is this what not water enough in nor yet about all Ierusalem to dipp a man over head in for sith he saies not so many the same water course I hope that one can be dipped in may also serve to dipp a thousand shall we think that in the greatest drought that could happen all those brooks the Scriptures mentions viz. Cedron and Siloam and the fountain of Gyhon and the Conduit of the upper pool which ran with several streams and were at one place all coincident with Cedron were dryed up so that not a place could be found of any competent depth for men to dip in But perhaps what Mr. Baxter saies concerning Aenon upon the report of travellers viz. that even the River Aenon it self where Iohn baptized because there was much water is found to be a small brook that a man may almost step over or as I find it expressed to me in a letter to a neer and deer friend of mine upon the credit of eye witnesse historians Aenon was but a small purl scarcely knee deep at the deepest so Mr. Simpson may say but it is on his own head if he do concerning these brooks that were about Ierusalem to all which I shall for brevities sake dispatch this answer here now I am about it And first I intreat Mr. Simpson to consider that this serves not his turn howe-ever if Cedron and Siloam and the rest that were without the City and the stream also that ran through the City from the fountain of the old pool into Cedron should be all such as Aenon is supposed to be sith the fishpool Bethesda at which lay a great multitude of impotents and into which one amongst the rest desired to be put or cast for the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but could not was both deeper and broader then so and convenient for many to dip in at once for if we may credit Bethesda it self the very name instructs us in no lesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being in english no other then the house of flowing down so called for the concurrence and confluence of many waters thereinto see Calvin upon the place who tells you that it was a pool he thinks into which water did flow down continually through either channels or pipes that the Priests for it was neer the Temple might as well be furnisht with water for their sacrifices as the people were with sacrifices themselves in the sheep market wherein it was others think and as I take it Beza in his Anotations that it was a pool at which cattel drank and in which they used to be plunged whereof saith he there could not but be great store in Ierusalem so much may well serve without any more to salve the sore eyes of Mr. Simpson As for Mr. Baxter I le bate him his almost and yet he will not get much by the matter for as I have seen others baptized by totall dipping in the like so was I seen to be baptized my self in a place of so little latitude that an active man might make shift to step over not almost but altogether in which yet there is water enough left behind to baptize a thousand if not a million more in the same manner and so not to say how possible it is if not a thousand to one that Aenons eye witnesses never sounded Aenons depth in all places nor secondly how possibly a brook might be much swerved up since then somwhat shallowed in so many Generations nor thirdly how possible it is to deepen the shallowest stream that is very easily in order to such a purpose for I have seen ancle deep streams so ordered as I speak of more then once or twice for a need though that Aenon had need to be made deeper in those places where Iohn did baptize may be twenty times told by some Travellers that love to hear themselves talk before I shall believe it once Not to say any thing I say of these let Aenon be but knee deep if you will experience hath so taught the expedience of knee deep to dip in to my self and other Baptizers that I know that as we have dipt persons oft where it hath not bin so deep so except in such a channel where we cannot well avoid it we choose now not to go in much deeper See Fourthly how all your three Worthies Mr. Blake Mr. Baxter and Mr. Cook do deceive you as being indeed deceived themselves and that in a manner so plain that none but Blind Seers can look beside it for though each of the three were alone in each of those other errors which they severally utter in your last joint quotation and confident commendation of them yet wo is me may England say that my leaders are so mifled the whole Trinity of them is at unity but against all verity in this even in the very thing in which principally you would have us mind them for whereas as an instance that baptism was not by dipping they all alledge that the Iailor was baptized at midnight in his house and therefore probably not in such a way as dipping that he was baptized about midnight is true enough but that he was baptized in his house is so contrary to truth that a very child may find the falsenesse of that assertion for howbeit Mr. Cook saies plain-ly it s like the waters they had within doores at midnight sufficed and Mr. Baxter more plain-ly that the Iailor was baptized in the night in his house and Mr. Blake most plain-ly t is sure there was not many waters nor rivers in the Iailors dwelling and it is as sure that they i. e. the Iailor and the Apostles went not out in the night to any such places as were fit to dip in yet what saith the word in plain truth no lesse then this that the Iailor after he was baptized brought them into his house and set meat before them and rejoiced for it is said first that upon the earth-quake and Pauls crying out to him that he should do himself no harm the Iailor hasted into Paul and Silas and brought them out secondly that they upon his then inquiry told him what he should do to be saved and preached the word to him and all his whereupon in this intertime i. e. between the time of the Iailors bringing them
since in a loving letter from a worthy friend of mine whose words shall sway me where I see them suit with the word of truth where not I must be excused to the full as much as Mr. Cook and Mr. Blake and Mr. Baxters sway you be they right or wrong Grant that dipping was alwaies used in those Hot Countreys yet you know saith he that necessity and charity dispense with Ceremonies even of Gods own institution nor is the Nature of the Sacrament altered by this change viz. from dipping to sprinkling for seeing the whole vertue of the Sacrament is in signification perablutionem it no more matters Quantum quisque abluatur then it doth in the Supper Quantum quisque comedat But verily I am not able to discern either in this or in that you say above or in that you cite out of Mr. Cook and Mr. Baxter the least warrant in the world for the way of sprinkling or for waving the old wonted way of dipping with all the wisdome I have to weigh it by at this instant as for what you take notice of that I said my self above viz. that there is difference between matters circumstantial and substantial so that we need not be so strict in the observation of the one I will not eat any thing I then uttered but me thinks you might as well had you not been partial have taken notice of what followed as of that which had you done you would have seen how little accrues to your purpose out of that granâ— of mine for I told you there and now tell you again sith I see you so quick to catch at things by the halves and slow to mind what in them makes against you that howbeit it is not so material which way you baptize so you baptize yet if you Rantize onely you vary not onely in a circumâ—tance but in the very substance of the Ordinance doing quite another matter then that you should do and not the matter i. e. Baptism in another manner onely for we will bear with that as a thing neither here nor there whether you baptize i. e. wash a person by overwhelming or burying him in water in this gesture or that this form or that with his face up or down yea be it by infusion of water on him or immersion or putting him under it which of the two is most proper and easy we weigh it not so you see to it that you bury and overwhelm him for all this while you retain both the true outward sign which is baptism or burial under water in baptism in its nature and essentiall form in its true Analogy and proportion to the spiritual things signified which are primarily the death burial and resurrection of Christ and secondly our being washed from sin by his blood but if once you fall from baptizing to rantizing from submersion to aspersion from dipping to dripping from a totall covering to almost a totall keeping him from the water you vary from the very thing that is required not from one manner of baptizing to another but from baptizing to another matter There fore Siâ—s when you talk of our being hot for a ceremony if by the word Ceremony you mean some petty trivial immaterial meer circumstance in baptism which may indifferenter aut adesse aut abesse sine baptismi interitu be or not be and yet baptism be baptism still as dipping backwards or forwards in ponds or Rivers you are much deceived in us we regard not such ceremonies But a ceremony is a thing which though it stand but for a time yet stands by positive command for that time wherin it is to stand by no lesse then divine institution nor know I any man Church or Angell that can institute a Ceremony to be observed and imposed and if by a Ceremony you mean thus not the meer manner of baptizing but the matter even baptism it self which of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may altogether with the ordinances of the Gospel or new Covenant very properly be stiled Ceremonies as well as all the Ordinances of Divine service under the Law forasmuch as these last but for their time viz. till the second appearing of Christ as those of the old covenant Heb. 9.1 lasted only till his first appearing then I confesse we are somewhat stiff for the ceremony nor can you blame us if you consider what we do for in so doing we contend for no lesse then substance as far as you can call any ordinance of Christ so that hath a tendency as a sign or otherwise unto something yet more substantial the rite of Circumcision the Passeover and all the other Sacrifices of the Law though shadowes in comparison of what they pointed at yet were ordinances so substantial as instituted of God and so strictly to be observed that who so should have taken upon him to alter and shape them more to the model of his own mind would have heard as ill from God for it as without his leave for omitting them altogether how ill that is he cannot be ignorant that hears how sharply he speaks to them that were too short but in tiths and offerings when in force saying that a curse had therfore devoured their blessings Mal. 2. and also that neglected circumcision saying every soul that is not circumcis'd meaning of whom circumcision is required but it was not of females then any more then baptism is of infants now shall be cut off from among his people and I appeal to your own consciencies if any should have said circumcision is a painful a tedious and dangerous piece of service and dispensation to little infants and so it was indeed much more then dipping in cold water and thereupon in charity circumcision being nothing and uncircumcision nothing but a new creature we will only pare there nailes and make that serve instead of the other would the Lord have took it better at their hands would either God or good men have held them guiltlesse yet whether they had circumcised thus or thus viz. with a knife a sharp stone or a pair of shears I suppose that circumcision had been dispenst with and even thus may we say of baptism as nothing as it is it being an ordinance of Gods institution both they that omit it to whom it is commanded and they that in charity take upon them to alter it so as to make Rantism serve instead of it preaching or practising no baptism at all or another thing that is no baptism under the name of it were it the Apostles themselves or an angel from heaven that should thus alter the Gospell shall equally be accepted or rather equally accursed before God Gal. 1. can you blame us therefore if we contend for the right baptism for it is not another manner of the thing then you use but the very thing it self we plead against you who cannot be said to alter the right way of baptizing but the rite of baptism it self it is not a
bare circumstance in the ceremony we differ in but we differ in the substance i. e. in the ceremony or rite it self which you have changed having no parts at all of the rite in your wrong practise which your own party divide the rite of baptism into Ritus in baptismo est triplex saies Tilenus the rite or ceremony in baptism is threefold immersion or plunging into the water continuance for a time under the water resurrection out of the water in resemblance of Christs death burial and resurrection and ours in him Which of all these three are to be found in your aspersion unlesse you will all own Featleys fetch for good resemblance viz. the dipping burial and resurrection of the ministers hand when he sprinkles the infants face sith therefore you have broken the law of Christ the Son that Law-giver and Prophet whose voice we are to hear in all that he saith and changed the ordinances so far as to turn his baptism into rantism you will as they that despised the Law of Moses the servant be cut off from his people Acts 3. Heb. 2. Heb. 10. sith you make void his plain word under pittiful pretences viz. the coldnesse the tediousnesse the danger of dipping in these climates as if the reason for dipping were proper onely to Hot Countries no marvel if such as see from under the vail of priestly pretence that hath darkned the whole earth are hot to have a recovery to the truth specially since it is a truth not unknown to us nor yet so trivial truâ—h as these that inck is made of gum and paper made of rags nor yet such a Scripture truth as is not material to be known as that about Pauls cloak and parchments and that Abiam was the Son of Sacar as Mr. Baxter bables p. 218.219 a sign that paper is made of rags by his wasting it in such toies for these we are not so strictly held to reveal but a truth of such worth that it is to be preferred before that truthles peace he pleads for the disturbance of which he calls hell p. 2â—0 saying We are little beholding to those men that would have turned the Church into hell i. e. privation of peace rather then silence their supposed truthes To whom I say If that be hell which priests so call Then truths true friends are hell-hounds all But a word to Mr. Baxter out of Mr. Baxter p. 218. in vindication of our loathnesse to betray this truth by our silence viz. The Law commandeth us to do our duty to preserve truth from being lost so that if truth be lost while I do my duty t is no sinne of mine if it be not lost while I neglect my duty it is yet my sin God disposeth of events not we therfore what consequences may be occasioned sith they are not caused by preaching the Gospel I may not for fear of them nor shall shun to declare the whole counsel of God I know necessity and charity do dispense with circumstances in ceremonies and with ceremonies or ordinances themselves of Gods own institution sometimes But first it is with the omission onely but not with the alteration of them into other if a man converted on his death bed or on the ladder when ready to be executed as the thief was upon the crosse be willing to be baptized if it may be but cannot in charity he may and of necessity he must be dispenst with dying unbaptized in such a case but no man may dispense another thing to him i. e. Rantism in its room and stead no more then he may give other things then bread and wine in the supper to a stomach too weak to bear either of those for that is to take upon him to make another institution and Gods leave man never had so to do Secondly it must be by leave from the Lord implicit or expresse upon which onely we can ground the lawfulnesse of omission and necessity and charity but not charity mistaken are leave enough no doubt to let a lone though in no wise to alter what ever he ordaines as when it neither can be at all nor can be done conveniently nor possibly without killing men indeed whereupon we find no fault found with Israel in the wildernesse for forbearing to circumcise 40 years together it is like least it should hinder them in their warfare but sure I am they should have heard of it from the Lord if to forgo the sorenesse of that circumcision they had circumcised i. e. cut off onely the hair of their heads Let the Ranter therefore shew us Gods word for his omission and the Rantizer for his mutation of Baptism and we will fall in with either as we see it evidenced therein Rantist If you do but mind the Testimonies I cited out of Mr. Cook and Mr. Baxter and what you hinted your self as written to you in private you cannot chuse but see word enough for our use of sprinkling though dipping were used never so in the primitive times for they tell you but me thinks you do not much mind it that the Scripture requires not totall washing that Christ appoints not the measure of water nor manner of washing more then the measure of bread and wine in the Supper he hath left it ad libitum and as they say very well the whole vertue of the Sacrament lying in signification per ablutionem it matters no more Quantum quisque abluatur then quantum quisque comedat and as it is folly to think that men must eat in the Supper as long as head and stomach will hold because it signifyes the souls refreshment so that in baâ—tism we must be washed all over because it best signifies our burial with Christ a little signifies as well as much a clod of earth a pepper corn a little skin cut off in circumcision so by a little bread and wine eat and drank and by a little water sprinkled may the refreshment of the soul be represented Baptist. That which best signifyes is best to be done and forasmuch as tâ—at best signifies that both signifies and resembles the quantity of the Element that manner of action which best resembles is best and fittest to be used undoubtedly in baptism in which Christ hath undoubtedly appointed what is best whereupon if Mr. Baxter grant or if he do not he cannot deny that overwhelming best resembles and consequently best signifyes our burial with Christ he never will give good reason whilest he breathes upon this earth why washing all over as he calls it should not be used as for that reason that is given against it here by himself at second hand and by Mr. Cook at first of whom he borrowes well nigh every bit of what he saies against a totall dipping save only his fearful fairfowl flourishes upon it viz. First that the measure of water and manner of washing the whole body is not appointed Secondly That then in the Supper there must be a eating to the
full Thirdly That a little may serve as well as much there 's little weight as far as I see in any part of it The first hath so little reason that it hath no truth in it for Christ hath appointed vertually in some measure the measure of water in that his very appointment of the manner of washing in the way of a totall overwhelming as appears before in the â—ignification of the word Baptize which signifies a dipping or overwhelming of that subject that is particularly denominated to be washed by it whether it be the whole man or but a part of him if the tip of the finger only be said truly to be baptized then that tip must be totally washed if the hands be denominated without a figure to be baptized then the hands at least are totally washed if the man be the subject properly predicated to be baptized then that man also must be totally washed but in Scripture the man is required and appointed to be baptized to the performance of which such a measure of water is consequently appointed as may be at least sufficient for that end and required it is that it be neither so little that it cannot totally wash him nor yet so much as must necessarily drowne him as an ocean would but a proportion suitable to that purpose To the second I might answer that there is not altogether the same reason for such a totall filling and swilling in the Supper as there is for a totall swilling in baptism sith the main and radical matter that is to be resembled in baptism is Christs death burial and resurrection but the radical thing that is resembled in that action of our eating and drinking in the Supper is our faith whereby we feed upon Christ and accept him each to our selves as our Redeemer without which that he is a Redeemer will do us no good for faith is the appropriating of of Christ the bread of life each to our selves who is set before us in common in the whole loaf and as it will do a man no good to have bread and wine before him which are elements most refreshing unless he take them and eat and drink so neither us to see a Saviour set before us unlesse we take of his salvation to our selves This is that which is most immediately signifyed and particularly represented in the Supper which businesse of bare taking Christ Jesus to our selves by faith is represented truly in taking never so little but a burial and resurrection not in never so little water a few crumbs of bread and sips of wine taken do repâ—esent a taking of Christ in the Supper but not so a few drops of water tiffled upon the face Christs death buriall and resurrection and fith you say the refreshment of the soul by the fullnesse is represented in our eating and drinking in the Supper and yet that eating and drinking a little bread and wine not to fulness is enough in the supper to represent that and so why not a little water not deep enough to dip and bury in applyed to us in baptism the burial and resurrection of Christ I might answer that the refreshment of the soul by Christ is represented rather in the elements then in the action of either eating or drinking in the supper by the bread which is a strengthner of mans heart and wine which is for them of a sorrowful heart and therefore there might not be altogether the need of representing our refreshing by eating and drinking much at least so much as Mr. Cook and Mr. Ba. talkes of viz. to the filling and glutting of our selves to the top as long as head and stomack will hold that action would yield but a small resemblance of a refreshment and were enough to make a sound man sick but there is a reason in all things and a difference as we say between staring and stark mad thus I say I might answer and cut off your arguing for analogy and a small portion of the element in baptism as well as in the supper between which there is not fully the same reason But verily I am of your mind that a refreshment of the soul by the fulnesse of Christ is very fit to be resembled and represented by the quantity of the elements as well as by the elements in the supper also and yet am I not of your mind that so little as you ordinarily use is so very fit as you dream it is to represent it but of the mind rather that as you are in your baptism viz. not out of your element as you should be if you were baptized in truth by submersion or putting clear under water but out in your element rather i. e. in the measure of your water which is not adaequate to the true manner of washing so you are also in the supper too poor in your provision of elements for that which is the true and full purport of that sacred service you have got together many littles to prove that so little element as you use both in baptism and supper may do as well if not better then more all which are very little to the purpose a little may signifie as well as much saies Mr. Baxter a clod of earth a pepper corn but what then we are to signifie with resemblance or else a sacrament is no sacrament saith Austin but saies Mr. Cook a little may resemble the washing and the refreshing of the soul may well be resembled by a sprinkling of a little water eating and drinking a little bread and wine in circumcision a little skinne was cut off what then First it was as much as God required to be cut off Secondly it was so much as made it circumcision Thirdly as much as truly and clearly resembled the circumcision of the heart which is signified but such is not for all Mr. Cooks conceit that little water you sprinkle nor yet that little becad and wine you distribute it is neither so much as represents clearly the things signified which are not onely the clearing of the soul by Christs dainties in the supper which should be resembled by eating and drinking it but some more chearing and refreshing of the body then that which is commonly in your communions But alas the burial and resurrection of Christ in baptism should be resembled by submersion and emersion and therefore to answer Mr. Cook in the words of Mr. Cook the outward elements of water bread and wine are for spirritual use and to signifie spiritual things so that if there be the truth of things but what I wonder if there be not as I am sure in Rantism there is not the truth of baptism the quantity is not to be respected further then is sufficient for its end namely to represent the spiritual grace so far then it seemes it must be and that is enough to confute Mr. Cooks Rantism for it represents not the spiritual grace and that it be neither so little as not clearly to
Ba. argues from the samenesse of the Olive tree the Jew was broken off from and the Gentile was grafted into that therefore as infants stood members then so they must now I answer it is true there is some kind of indentity between the Jewish and the Gospel Church but not such as concludes an indentity of membership for infants they are the same ingenere visiblis Ecclesiae they agree in the common name of Church and visible Church elected and segregated from the world but there 's little else that I know of wherin they are the same they differ in circumstantials in their accidental forms in their officers ordinances customs constitutions subjects members that being constituted of one whole nation of people or fleshly seed of Abraham taken out from all other nations this of a spiritual seed of Abraham i. e. believers scaterred here and there taken out of any nation as they happen to be called almost every nation some the ceremony of inchurching Abrahams own much more any other mans meer fleshly seed being ceased Mr. Bax. peddles on apace and brings a company of Scripures in proof of infants Church-membership and baptism which though he stile them as indeed his whole book Plain Scripture proofs for those two yet a man that is not minded to force the Scripture into the Service of his own fancy because it does not serve it freely may look till dooms day before he see in them any plain perspicuous proof of either one of these or of the other Christ saith he Mat. 23.37 would have gathered Ierusalem oft as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings but they would not therefore sure he would not have put them or their infants out of the Church the strength of the consequence lies here saith he he would have gathered whole Ierusalem and that into the visible Gospel Church therefore infants also Now that Christ does not speak of whole Ierusalem here as he saith he does both men and infants the circumstances of the text do fully evince to us for he speaks of the same persons he speaks to and the same persons he complains of saying ye would not the same and no other are they to whom he speaks when he saies Oh Ierusalem how often would I have gathered c. but those were men and women only whom he called to believed in him and not infants Again he gathered them by preaching of the word into baptism and membership and received all that came and no more viz. sometimes the children and not the parents sometimes the parents and not the children so that a mans foes for the truths sake sometimes were they of his own family his own flesh therefore he offered not to gather infants for he preacht not to them nor called them at all nor were any more baptized and added to the Church-fellowship in the Gospel then they that gladly received the word that did not infants yea 3000 were gathered into the first Gospel Church by preaching and baptism in one day and never an infant among them all for they surely did not continue in fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers Acts 2. Therefore whereas Mr. Ba. in his Epistle to the parish of Bewdley challenges Mr. T. to name him one particular Church since Adam either of Jewes or Gentiles where infants were not Church-members if they had any infants till 200 years ago I name him the first Gospel Church that ever was Act. 2. in which there was not one infant yea there was three thousand baptized in one day and it is a hazard but that those three thousand had many perhaps no lesse than three thousand infants belonging to them all and yet as Mr. Cotton thinkes so think I that none of their infants were baptized with them much lesse were added with them to the Church or continued with them in fellowship as the whole Gospel Church did in breaking of bread and prayers yea though there was no infants in that Church which was gathered at Ierusalem it self to which Christ saies how oft would I have gathered thy children c. and therefore Mr. Baxs sense is very sinister so I challenge him again to shew me not by such dubious muddy cloudy circumlocutory inconsequential consequences as he doth but undeniable evidences any one of all the Gospel Churches of the primitive times either of Jewes or Gentiles which we are all to reâ—orm by viz. Ierusalem Rome Corinth Galatia Philippi Ephesus Thessalonica or any other to fellowship in which there was one infant baptized added and admitted and I shall cry him mercy and lay down the Cudgells at his feet and acknowledge he hath broke my pate The next Scripture he uses is more impertinent then this yet Mr. Ba. makes a certain shift to squeese an argument out of it and to compel it invita minervâ not a little against its own intent and meaning to corroborate his crooked crazie creed concerning the inchurching and cristening of infants viz. Rev. 11.15 whence he thus Syllogizes If the kingdoms of this world either are or shall be the kingdomes of the Lord and of his Christ then infants also must be members of his kingdom i. e. the visible Church the Antecedent is the words of the text indeed as he saies but the sequel is so sure and follows so firmly in his fancy that he saies nothing can be said against it that is sense or reason but indeed it self is against both sense and reason Who would ever think if the word did not declare that the things of wisdome are hid from the wise and prudent that such a disputer as Mr. Ba. holds himself to be should deduce the now membership of infants from such a premise as this viz. because the kingdomes of this world are or else shall be the kindomes of God and Christ what 's this I trow toward the eviction of the other much every way saith Mr. Ba. yea so much that for any thing he can see this text alone were sufficient to decide the whole controversie whether infants must be Church members Amen so beit say I let this Scripture decide it and let 's see what Mr. Ba. saies on t If they can say quoth he by kingdoms is meant here some part of the kingdom excluding all infants such men may make their own creed on those termes let the Scripture say what it will I know in some places the word kingdome and Ierusalem c. is taken for a part but if we must take words alwayes improperly because they are taken so sometimes saith he then we shall not know how to understand any Scripture so of necessity it must be understood properly i. e in its prime signification of the whole kingdoms and whole Ierusalem with him and not improperly for a part onely though Mr. Blake to Mr. Black saith upon occasion of our pleading for the proper signification of baptize nothing more ordinary then to have words used out of their prime signification whereby
infants as concerning their everlasting salvation into little a little corner yea good lord how few dying infants does he hope shal be saved that hath hope of none but of some i. e. believers infants which are but one of many and also not of all but onely some of them yet to conclude this in a way of resemblance to Mr. Bs. conclusion of his Argument from Mark 10. p. 107. I blesse the Lord Jesus Christ King of the Church though he gave no order to baptize and in church infants here on earth yet for having a greater tendernesse towards the eternal state of all dying infants then Mr. B. is yet aware of and towards all that live to years such a tendernesse as to invite them to himself universally and bid them wel-come and so great a care to inform his Church in his Word and Gospel concerning his good will to all men and to all infants also in that particular so as to speak it so plainly that plain minded men that are not minded never to change their minds as I hope Mr. B. is not may well see his mind in this case even as if he had therefore done this because he foresaw that some would arise so carnally and so cruely conceited as to suppose it impossible to be and but in vain to hope it almost that Gods saving mercy should extend to any more dying infants then those few and not all those few neither of their own and for my part I gladly accept Christs information and submit to his discovery let them resist it that dare And lastly one more Argument of hope that I have within my self that all dying infants must needs be saved is this yet because I could never find since I lookt for it as also none ever shall that look not without their eyes what should nor what save the Priesthoods divine kind of Doctrine does damn them I mean any of them so dying any more then one of them First as for sin which onely damnes I know none they have of their own and to say that any infant dyes eternally for theiniquity of his father only makes the word of God which is truth it self no better then a flat falsehood to me who read in Ieremy 31.29.30 Ezek. 18.3.4.19.20 Deut. 24.16 2 Kings 14.16 that the waies of God who requires it strictly of man not to put the children to death for the sins of the father but every man only for his own sin are so equal for all the false accusation of him by the wicked Jewes that seeing he both saies and also swears it that men shall never have occasion to say the childs teeth are edged by the grapes the father only hath eaten and in way of complaint for injustice doth not the son bear the iniquity of the Father but that every soul that dies shall dy for his own iniquity onely and that individual soul onely that sinneth shall dy i. e. eternally for temporally t is true we all dy in Adam as far as a to temporal death God may and often doth visit the sins of the Father on the children to the third and fourth generation of such as hate him not onely when children inherit so as to imitate their fathers hatred of God in which case only t is a punishment to those children but also on infants so as to take them out of the world with the fathers as in the case of Dathan and Abiram Amaleck Hittites Amorites c. yea Sodom and Gomorrah and the old world on which for ensamples sake to them that in after times should live ungodly the flood and the fire fell not onely temporal but eternal to the adult ones that gave themselves over to fornication and followed strange flesh though but temporal only to infants who neither lived ungodly nor gave themselves over to fornication as the other did and therefore though passing hence with the rest to a temporal death by that fire yet are not set forth as an ensample with the rest to all that should live ungodly by suffering the vengeance of eternal fire 2 Pet. 2.6 Iude 7. But the same temporal death that may be in fury to one as t is a passage to worse may be a mercy to another and so to those infants a passage from worse to better as good Iosiah was slain in battell as well as wicked Ahab and that for going on his own head to war as well he yet was it in respect of that eternall state that followed as well for him as ill for Ahab Sith therefore it s said so plainly the son shall not die for the iniquity of the father and yet temporally they may be taken away with the father it must needs be meant that eternally none die nor lye for ever under wrath for no more then meerly the fathers fault whereupon all dying infants having no trangression of their own cannot be damned for their own nor yet for their father Adams transgression and so are all as well as those of believers in a visible state of salvation and while they live infants unlesse hereafter they reject it as Esau did the land of Canaan in visible right to so dying to the heavenly Canaan Yea many thanks to my Ashford opposites for that clause of their pamphlet which is assistant to me almost at all assaies Christian charity it self which doth presumere unumquemque bonum nisi constet de malo constrains us to hope all things believe all things concerning the salvation of dying infants and of all infants as well as some specially since these more then those i. e. the infants of unbelievers more then of believers have not committed any actual sin wherby to deserve to be exempted from the general state of little infants declared in Scripture viz. that of such is the Kingdome of heaven Secondly as for righteousnesse there 's enough in Christ to take away it being imputed what ever unrighteousnesse is imputed for Adams sin and why that righteousnesse should not be imputed if the Scripture had not said it so plainly as it does Rom. 5. 2 Cor. 5.19.21 1 Cor. 15.22 to all poor dying innocent infants as well as some I cannot imagine unlesse you say not God the fathers love to all but man the fathers faith is that thing that must save some of those infants of believers that are savd by interesting that fruit of his body in the righteousnesse of Christ as well as himself for the taking away the sin of his soul which faith a father wanting the child shall perish for ever in default out and yet be in no fault in the world about it Alas poor infants indeed that descend from such parents as believe not if it be so that that the fathers faith onely does interest the infant in Christ their forefather the first Adam by his sin unawares to them damned them say they and say I if it did there 's righteousnesse enough in the heavenly father and the second
Jacobs Lord was said before they were born by God who foreseeing it might easily foretell how it should be and did so too but for the words Iacob have I loved Esau have I hated as they also were spoken of the two Nations that came out of their loines viz. the Edomites and Israelites and that not without respect to Edoms being the border of wickednesse â—o far was it from being spoken of them before they were born that t was hundreds of years after they were dead and rotten Mal. 1. But if it were just as Mr. B. understands it that before they were born and without any respect to their personal rebellion and obedience in time it had been said Iacob have I loved Esau have I hated would it prove that article in Mr. Bs. creed that God hath promised to be merciful to Godly mens seed in general in contradistinction to the seed of the wicked in no wise I suppose since as godly as Isaac was even one of his Sons was hated from the womb if Mr. B. conceit were true aswel as the other of them from the womb beloved but surely had not Esau sinned and set so light by the heavenly blessing he had not lost it much less if he had dyed from the womb Fourthly as for the universallity of redemption which is by Jesus Christs dying as Mr. Ba. saies tâ—uely for all for every man for the sins of the whole world which he had meant to have drawn an Argument from but did not he might easily have drawn one that would have served my turn in this place viz. to have proved that very age even the whole species of infants to be savd by Christ from wrath and ruine except they live to reject his grace afresh as in infancy they do not but it utterly overthrowes his hopes by the halves of infants for it is both a good ground and as good a ground whereon to hope the redemption from wrath to come of every dying infant as of any one And lastly to conclude my answer to this 22 Argument of Mr. B. which I have insisted the longer on in much hope of helping him to a better hope of all dying infants that neither are nor are to be added to the visible church whereas I was once set upon by a Gentleman with this objection who if ever this book came to his hands and this passage to his eye will remember it though I forbear to name him Viz. Obj. If we may be assured of the salvation of all our dying infants we may then in love to them knock them on the head in their infancy and so be sure to prevent their perishing by condemnation I intreat that Gentleman to beware of so much as saying that we may do such gross evil that so great good may come thereof least his damnation for it be just and then what little benefit will accrue to him all men may judge that to save his infant damnes himself There 's but four Arguments of M.Bs. behind brought in proof of the right of membership to infants whereof two viz. his 24th and 26th are the one from 1 Cor. 7.14 the other from Mark 10.13.14.15 Two Scriptures that I have talkt on so much in the book above and given the genuine sense of that I shall but tautologize to speak particularly to them again seeing I see nothing new taken notice of in them by Mr B. but what is abundantly answered in effect above where I have shewed the abrogation in Christ of that birth holinesse he means and the uncleannesse consequently opposite thereunto so that there 's no man however born though a barbarian can be called in opposition to others as by birth holy by nature a sinner in that ceremonial sense from Act 10. Gal. 2. yea M.B. confesses p. 81. the Common sense of holinesse was one and the same in all i. e. Priests and Levites under the Law c. Temple Altar Sacrifices children of believers and believing yoak fellowes viz. a separation to God so then if that holinesse of Priests Temple c. was ceremonial so this is and if that holinesse is abolished in all other things why abiding onely the seed I have also proved that the other place where it is not evident that the infants brought to Christ were ever baptized by his disciples or any other doth more deeply disprove infanâ—s-baptism and membership then all the places ever brought by Mr. B. are capable to prove or make good either Yea as good a man might have said as send me to those two places for infant-baptism you may find it if you look in the bible I le say no more therefore to them His other two viz. the 23th and 25 hare both as he confesses but probable and and by and by will appear not to be so much His first is this If an Infant were head of the Church then infants may be members But Christ an infant was head of the Church Ergo. That cannot be half so much as a probable Argument whose premises are neither of them true yet such is the syllogism here brought by Mr. B. both the propositions of which I deny his consequence is true indeed that infants may be members if an infant were the head i. e are capable out supposing Gods will that it should be so now in the Gospel which a man may suppose if he will but shall never find to be so in his word nor does his curious crotchet out of Irenaeus that Christ went through every age to sanctify it unto us prove the other to be a truth for there 's no truth at all in it self yea t is falsum per falsius for Christ did not passe through every age of man that he might sanctify that age for he lived not to any old age here though now he that was dead is alive again for evermore for his life was soon cut off from the earth And as concerning his headship in his infancy I admire a man of wisedome should assert it for to say nothing how little this agrees with that above page 62. where he saies t is disputable whether ever Christ was a Churchmember properly or no as if the head because the principal that rules the rest were no member at all of the body t is evident to me that as man he had not any of his Prerogatives settled actually upon him till after he had purchased them by his death he was perfect first through sufferings Heb. 5.9 and after his death and resurrection he was made Lord and Christ Acts. 2. And exalted highly above all Phil. 2. and set far above all principality and given to be head over all things to his Church which is his body Ephe. 1. ult Moreover to me there is as much force in it if Christ had been head of the Church in his infancy and much more then in Mr. Bs. to argue thus if Christ the head of the Church that was circumcised in his infancy yet was not
Christs next appearing Thus having sufficiently proved the Minor of the forenamed argument in each particular of it in which as neerly as I could well croud them together are coucht as many if not all such particulars are needful to be proved to the evincing of the continuance of this doctrine and dispensation of laying on of hands to the end I shall hasten to an end both of this subject and of this system also but because I find some things put in by way of positive exception and objection against this truth from the mouthes of some as well as something by way of query from the pens of others who also in that way have appeared against it so newly at the the presse viz. the late Enquirers above-named a remnant of whose Questions â—emain yet unanswered here though not so unanswerable as some do deem them I shall adde a word or two more toward the removeal of these two sorts of blinding bushes whereby I fear many may be infatuated so as to turn andâ— from the way of truth in this particular and so leave both it and them unto the Lord. First then whereas by word of mouth some tell me That Laying on of hands was a way peculiar to that juncture designed of god to the time then being only wherein the Apostles say some and othersome the Lord gave the holy spirit in some visible eminent and extraordinary gifts thereof as tongues prophecy miracles healing c. simply to this end that these might be a sign to confirm it visibly to the eyes of people that the doctrine they taught and practised in the principles and other parts of it was from above and no other then the oracles of God First I grant that in the primitive times there were and that in the way of prayer and laying on of hands given not by the Apostles though for as is shewed above they were not baptizers with the spirit but by the Lord onely whose onely prerogative that is to baptize with the holy spirit sundry gifts as healing c. which may be called extraordinary and rare respectively to these times wherein they have bin seldome or never seen or heard of as I know not that that of tongues now adaies ever was though as to that of healing and that of discerning of spirits and some other manifestations of the spirit given to profit withall as a word of wisdome and a word of knowledge it is within a little of past doubt to some that such as these as the Lord pleases are some lesse some more frequently given now among them that walk in truth though what gifts some have seen and been sensible of in others or themselves t is not so fit to boast of as to be silent Secondly I grant that many of this sort and hapily many more then either are or need to be or shall be given now were given then to confirm the New Testament doctrine in the first delivery of it to the world in the room of the old one to be of God of some of which there maybe a cessation the end they had such special respect to then being sufficiently accomplished and the word being now committed unto writing Mark 16.17 18 c. Heb. 2.3 4. But thirdly that either such gifts of the spirit as these were either the onely or the chief kind of gifts of the spirit that were to be and were expected lookt after or given in that way of prayer and laying on of hands as a service destinated pro tempore only in order to the receiving of such or that these gifts were so extraordinary in respect of the eminency or excellency of them because more visible and ad extra beyond such as may be warrantably by promise expected and are in that way assuredly and ordinarily given at this day these two I see no warrant to subscribe to for as t is most sure that the promise was so far as I find in terminis nor onely nor so oft of these things though I deny not but these were at that time for ends that concern not these times promised too but of the spirit to several other purposes as above the holy spirit the spirit in the fruits and graces and comforts of it the gift of the holy spirit we find it all along almost in no lesse then scores of Scriptures whereof some few are more plain so assuredly the holy spirit in that way of prayer and laying on of hands was given to baptized believers in other gifts then these viz. the graces comforts and fruits of it love joy peace assurance c. In respect of which in case those outward gifts of the spirit should all have failed or shall fail now yet that dispensation is not therefore rendred empty useless and out of date but remaines rather more gloriously useful then as to external gifts of tongues and such like continually even unto the end yea also if we speak of gifts meerly externall and visible as some call them though for my part I judge the spirit is as visible to us and manifested to be in men by the fruits and graces as by those things that are more commonly but not more properly then those called gifts I suppose his senses as well as his reason doth not a little fail him that descerns not not only those most excellent waies of grace as love joy c. 1 Cor. 12.31 but even the best and most excellent and profitable outward gift of the spirit even that of prophecy or speaking to exhortation edification and comfort for that is the gift of prophecy and the best outward gift that we can covet or compasse given unto baptized believers whom we pray for and lay hands on at this day to whom nature and University Nursery never gave it And if any say we see such a kind of gift as you call prophecy given also to others aswel as such as submit to it That 's nothing to us what God does whose word binds us to such or such a way but not himself we are quaerying what we are required to do by him upon the account of which we may by promise expect the holy spirit not what God does God often anticipates his own promise and is better then his word as Act. 10. 47. he gave the spirit before baptism which is promised onely to baptized believers Act. 2.39 yet that does neither give us disingagement from Gods outward way nor warrant us to expect the spirit out of it but ingage us so much the more unto it ver 48. If God will give any other men his holy spirit out of that way I am glad sith it pleases himself he is so good to them but as that assures me not that I specially if inlightned about his way yea then assuredly I shall not shall have it so too so sure I am that in his way I shall obtain it and if any have been so highly favoured of god as that he
fifteen hands that subscribe to those Questions not one of them did find occasion to subscribe his dissent to this for whereas t is supposed and proposed so publiquely for truth by the Enquirers that Heb. 6.2 speaks not of any one laying on of hands onely but plurally as of the doctrine of baptisms its most palpably apparent to such as are not a sleep in their reading of that text that it speaks in the singular number of one laying on of hands alone and not of layings on of hands as it must have been expressed for so you are fain to expresse it your selves when you speak plurally of it in your fifth question had he meant more kinds of imposition of hands then one for though hands be the plurall number yet laying on which is the phrase you speak to or else you speak nihil ad Rhombum is a substantive of the singular number both in the English and in the Greek and suppose the spirit had spoken plurally of more imposions of hands then one must that that was Act. 8 17-19.6 on baptized believers be ever the more excluded or the more incuded rather in all likelyhood among the rest and because the Apostle does not speak particularly enough nor distinguish nor expresse plainly enough what he means by shewing the end purpose and event of the imposition here spoken of therefore belike he meant that no body should ever own this principle at all but the truth is he speaks of no more impositions then one Therefore to conclude with the Enquirers question propounded thus to themselves we desire to know what safety it is for any man to conclude that question to be worthy of an answer that is so falsely grounded as this of the Enquirers is and to conclude that Heb. 6.2 is meant of more layings on of hands when it expresly speaks but of one And so dear Friends whom I love too well to spare speaking plainly to you in a case wherein upon occasion of your putting on too too rashly in print little lesse then against it a precious truth of Christ lyes at stake between us since you are pleased to urge and importune us so earnestly at the close of your questions by the opportunity that you have thereby put into our hands to justify our practise viz. laying on of hands upon all baptized believers as we love the glory of God and the promoting of that which we so highly esteem and hold to be truth as we will declare our love to the truth by countenancing men who diligently make search after it as we tender the union and communion of the Churches c. that we would discharge our duty and try if we could make it appear by the word of God which I confesse with you is able to instruct us in all things and therefore though much might be said from the constant practise of the Churches in and bordering upon the primitive times to the further clearing up of the truth in this point yea men far better studied that way then I am who yet see sufficiently to my satisfaction tell us that all Antiquity teacheth laying on of hands after baptism yea and some that never practised neither it nor true baptism yet I wave all such Arguments as of no weight without the word Since also you promise us that if we so do then you shall acknowledg the truth thereof to the glory of God and your own shame in being ignorant so long and speedily imbrace it if God so assist you by his word professing you will to that purpose expect our faithfull care to be expessed with chearfullnesse without making delaies in a matter of so great importance which may unite and establish us in one mind hereupon I could not in conscience but take so much notice of your questions they meeting me also just in the mouth whilest I was musing to say some little but not a quarter so much as here is to evince the noncessation of this service as well as that of baptism as to give this transient answer as I travel along being bound also as you hint to me to give to every one that asketh it a reason of the hope that 's in me with meeknesse and fear so desiring the Lords blessing upon it towards you and upon you in your examination of it and as you have light your execution according to it that such excaecation as the Ranter who is run out of the reach of reason hath by little and little queried himself into may never overtake you I remain both yours and every ones servant for Christs sake Thus much concerning the continuation of that practise of laying on of hands now as to the present use of the ordinances of breaking of bread and church-fellowship I shal speak but briefly to that forasmuch as these are services the continuance of which to the end is denied doctrinally by none for ought I know but the Ranter that is run up above all saving that the Rigid Presbyterians though in words they own the supper yet in works do deny it for many if not most of them live in the neglect of that administration of the supper in their parishes some four some five some six seven eight years without any use of it at all as if there were no such matter as that now in being for others I mean a certain mixt sort of Independents that are rife in these dayes they own and practise it and Church fellowship too more then enough unlesse more orderly in respect of that Antecedency to these of all the principles of the doctrine of Christ which ought to be now as it was in the primitive times which times they pretend to reform by taking in Omnium generum an Omnigatherum of persons men and women whom they take to be believers into fellowship in one visible body in breaking of bread and prayers some whereof having renounced their Rantism as null are truly baptized some as yet but meerly Rantized yet supposing themselves sufficiently baptized because of that which can be of no use to them as a sign for they remember it not some hanging in the air between both not satisfied whether they were truly baptized in infancy yea or no some doubting whether any water baptism at all be needful to be used in these times some convinc't that they ought to be baptized but not yet finding any Administrator that fits their fancies some resolved to be baptized but Christ who expects it from them must wait their leasure none reproving their procrastination nor saying to them as Ananias to Paul and now why tarriest thou arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins calling on the name of the Lord or as Peter to the Iews repent and be baptized Some resolving never to be baptized but roundly renouncing all water baptism as nothing concerning them yet leaving them at liberty to act according to their light that have a mind to submit to it and who see
dispensation till the substance it self comes childish things that must be put away when once we become men things imperfect and in part onely which when that which is perfect is come must vanish and be done away and such like and all this as t is nor more nor lesse then we say our selves so t is even as much as we need desire thee to say as to the evincing of what we contend for for sith we yet see not face to face 1 Pet. 1.8 in whom though now ye see him not yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable c. when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Iohn 3.2 i. e. then and not before and since that which is perfect i. e. the substance is not yet come for as we that remain and shall be alive at the coming of Christ shall not prevent or as to perfection be before hand with them that are asleep in Iesus 1 Thess. 4.15 16 17. so they i. e. that are long since dead both in and for the Lord without us shall not be made perfect Heb. 11.40 sith we are not all yet come to be men at age to the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ therefore ad hominem till then we must look through the glasse till then the shadow and that which is in part and imperfect as being indeed most suitable to an imperfect state must stand till then the outward work of the ministry in point of offices and ordinance for the perfecting of â—he Saints for the edifying of the body must remain Eph. 4.11.12 13. Thou tellest us mistaking the sense of Paul Phil 3.13.14 Heb. 6.1.2 that higher things perfection are now to be minded and prest after and these to be forgotten that those are principles of Châ—ists doctrine which were once eyed and laid as a foundation but must be left and not laid now any more But contrary to what David saies of himself Ps. 131.12 thine eyes are so lofty thy heart so haughtily exercised in minding the things thou callest high some of which are too high and others too low and base for any Christian to be busied in that thou mindest not the words of Paul to all Saints Rom. 12.16 where he saith not minding high things for so the greek words truly translated are but together with high things minding low things t is confest that in some sense we are to forget or not to mind what is behind but to mind to presse after to reach forth to things that are before to leave the principles the foundation of Christs doctrine go on to perfection but not in thy sense o Ranter who hereby takest upon thee to buryall manner of observation of these things even by any under utter oblivion to prohibit all present practise of principles by so much as babes to rase the foundation so as to declare it not fit to be laid at first now as of old it was no not by very biginners in the School of Christ but in the spirits sense who in those places means no other then thus viz. not that the babes in Christ must not use milke in these times as well as in the primitive not that the beginner in Christs School is not now as well as then to learn his letters and to begin first in his ABC not that those that will begin to build themselves an holy temple in the Lord an habitation of God through the spirit must not now lay any foundation at all but that having laid the foundation they should not think that their building is at an end but build up higher grow up higher in Christ thereupon that they should lay the foundation so sure at first that they should not have need in respect of their non proficiency or relapses into sin to be laying these i. e. faith of remission repentance c. ore and ore again but to proceed to perfection that babes should not remain alwaies babes feeding on nothing but milk but growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ and in ability to bear stronger meats higher doctrines that the young Scholar should not remain alwayes a novice an ABC darian no further learnt then in his horn book but according to the time he hath had learn to read perfectly that he may be able to teach others rather then need to be taught his letters again this is the spirits sense for otherwise it s ever necessary that babes have milk and absurd that a Scholar should be bid to forget his letters and how to spell that builders should leave laying any foundation when they begin nay veriâ—y the most studied Scholar must first learn and then remember his letters or else he cannot possibly read babes must be fed with milk at first or else they will not thrive to be perfect men builders must lay a foundation and have an eye to it too all along in their building upward even till they come to the very top observing how all the whole fabrick that they work after doth square and keep touch with that or else they may chance to make such a crooked fabrick as will fall to the ground at last yea perveniri ad summum nisi ex principiis non potest Thou tellest us as concerning the outward ordinances of the Gospel that bodily exercises profit little but art wretchedly ignorant of it that by bodily exercises which profit little Paul means not at all as thou dost the ordinances of Christ or any ouâ—ward parts of his worship and will revealed in his word for that is though not the greatest yet a great part of godlinesse it self which according to the true signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a right serving of God according to his own will in his word of truth where he requires us to serve worship and glorifie him in our bodie as well as in our spirit 1 Cor. 6.19.20 but such bodily exercises and old wives fables as abstinences from meats lent'n and good friday fasts and such ordinances as touch not tast not c. which men subject themselves to after the commandements and doctrines of men of Popish Priests whose Religion stands mostly in such matters 1 Tim. 4.3.4.7.8 Col. 2.20.21.22 Thou tellest us as one of the main grounds whereupon there must now be no more walking in ordinances and that way of outward service that was at first that it was foretold 2 Thess. 2.3 that there should come a falling away from it and a treading down of all that outward form which then was which to say nothing how probable it is that that prophecy 2 Thess. 2.3 and several more do point more at that falling away that thou oh false prophet shalt cause in the very last dayes then at that which by the proud PPPriesthood hath been made before thee I declare to be such an absurd and senslesse consequence as is more worthy of a silent sleighting then a
the power and purity of Christs ordinances are a 1000 fold more strictly stickled for according to the Covenant by us then by all those Orthodox ones he talks of who the more shame for them do so zealously and constantly oppose us we therefore cannot rationally be denominated Hereticks and Schismaticks in separating from and practising contrary to you in the point of baptism so long as we keep close to the primitive truth gladly both preaching and receiving the word as t is preacht by Peter Act. 2. saying repent and be baptized every one of you repenting and being baptized accordingly and after that continuing in the rest of the Apostles doctrine and fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers and though we draw never so many disciples from you after us yet the man is out of his Christian wits that deputes and declares this to be Heresie and Schism sith so far are we herein from rending from and refusing to be reduced to the Church that we indeed earnestly endeavour to reduce them to the true Church to the true head Christ the true constitution the true Baptism and Gospel order from which they are rent and run astray wondring after a false Church a false head viz. a Lording Priesthood and Parochial posture both which derive all their being from Dioâ—rephes i. e. his prating Preheminence the Pope But now as for your selves the PPPriesthood of the Nations who mostly deny not but that the primitive baptism was of believers and dispenst in Rivers or places of much water which was needlesse if sprinkling was then the way you have a thing among you indeed which you call Baptism but t is not that one Baptism that old Baptism then urged and used but another a new Baptism and yet to say the truth neither another nor A new Baptism but A-no-Baptism Rantism Babism a toy of your own taking up by tradition from your forefathers but not the first fathers that were the founders of the Christian Church for you find it not there but fetch it further from thence by such consequence as besides the remotnesse of it is too weak and rotten to carry it downwards to these times you are they that dissent and rend from the truth in this point of baptism and draw all the world to Sectarize and erre after you by a law by your subpaena directories yea you pretendedly reforming Presbyters who peculiarize the term oâ— Orthodox to your selves even you as to the right administration of the outward right of baptism are not a whit lesse Erratical Heretical Schismatical and Heterodox then the Pope for as he hath another baptism then that which was in the primitive times viz. infant â—antism which by the mouth of his cardinal Bellarmine he confesses to be but a tradition of the Church so you have no other then the same yea you own that for good baptism which is done at Rome or else how to prove the Popish Bishops to be baptized themselves that baptized and ordained you Presbyters you plainly know not yet you falsely father it upon Christ and fain it to be an ordinance of his then which nothing is more clear then that it is not And as in point of baptism you all erre not knowing or at least not doing according to the Scriptures all means used to reduce you thereunto notwithstanding so in th supper and many more matters pertaining to that visible Church order that was in those times as namely impropriating to your selves sole power of speaking in your Churches i. e. steeple-houses so that your members may well say men mutire nefas it is not for them to open their mouthes there unlesse to answer when you catechise them whereas then all the Church were to covet to prophesie i. e. to speak mutually to the exhortation edification and comfort each of other and being gifted might all women onely excepted prophesie one by one and every one minister as of the ability God gave them great or small that God in all things might be glorified and all judge of the doctrine delivered but with you what doctrine ere ye deliver men may try it if they will but must take it whether they will or no the mouths of all must be muzzled up save such as in your sense are ministers i. e. have some Parchment Preachment orders to shew from such as can shew their orders from his Highnesse the head of the Church not Christ but his Holinesse the Pope who had his from the beast Rev. 17. who had his from the devill Rev. 13. yea verily as to the external face and fashion of the first Churches you have altogether altered it from what it was and brought in a businesse of your own heads being all gone aside and altogether become vain in your wayes as to your administrations of Gospel ordinances so that there is none of you that are in the right way of the primitive Churches no not one yea ye are separated from and make a head against the true head of the Church Christ Jesus and take upon you to head the Church your selves for this is not the fault of P the Pope onely but of PP i. e. you Prelates and Presbyters too who howbeit you seem to throw off that supremacy or headship which the Pope had once and laies claim to still in the protestant part of Christ'ndom yet in your several Christ'ndoms you have been not nominally but really as supreme in Church work as he and that not over the people onely but civil powers also to whom in all cases Ecclesiasticall and civill though you say you grant the headship or Supreame Government under Christ yet how doth that appear sith they only Corrective but you Directive till of late have done all for the Bishops and Sinods and General Convocations of the Clergy and assemblies of the Kirk seeundum te must determine what is to be done by Magistrates in Church affairs and they do it accordingly The Priests must give out the word and sentence what is the worship the way the faith the truth what Heresy and Schism who are Hereticks and Schismaticks and then the Princes in all their Dominions establish the one and root out the other as Rogues at their appointment in which cases saving the bare name of supremacy over the Churches which hath been allowed it is difficult to me to discern whether Christian Kings have not been as of old under the Popedome so more lately under the very Protestant Clergy as the Bosholder under the Constable at his discretion direction to whip the beggars and though you may say and so saies the Pope too that you claim to head and order the Church directive no otherwise then under Christ yet in very deed as he for all his saying so you have presumed to set your selves above Christ the only head Counseller Lord and Lawgiver to his Church for as the Pope hath done no more then broken his lawes changed his ordinances trampled his truth
very same that you Protestant Clergy do make in your own defence when you are charged by your old father Caiphas and his Catholicks as Hereticks and Schismaticks in your rending from them and as infringers of the unity of their Church yea in the very words of Calvin to whom you my Ashford opponents are pleased to send us who saith thus of them as I do with him of you all Inst. l. 4. c. 2. S. 2 Magnifice quidem c. They do indeed gloriously set out their Church unto us that there should seem to be no other Church in the world and afterward as though the victory were gotten they decree that all be Schismaticks that dare withdraw themselves from the obedience of that Church that they paint out and that all be Hereticks that daâ—e once mutter against the doctrine thereof But by what proofs do they confirm they have the true Church S. 1. If the true Church be the pillar and stay of the truth it is certain that there is no Church where lying and falshood have usurped the dominion S. 3. There is therefore no cause why they should any longer go forward to deceive by pâ—etending a false colour under the name of the Church which we do reverently esteem as becommeth us but when they come to the definition of it not onely water as the common saying is cleaveth unto them but they stick fast in their own mire because they put a stinking harlot in place of the holy spouse of Christ that this putting in of a changling should not deceive us beside other admonitions let us remember this also of Augustine for speaking of the Church he saith it is it that is sometime darkned and covered with multitude of offences as with a cloud sometime in calmnesse of time appeareth quiet and â—ree sometime is hidden and troubled with waves of tribulations and temptations He bringeth forth examples that oftentimes the strongest pillars either valiantly suffered banishment for the faith or were hidden in the whole world S. 4. In like manner the Romanists do vex us and make afraid the ignorant with the name of the Church whereas they be the deadly enemies of Christ. Therefore although they pretend the Temple the Priesthood and other such outward shews this vain glistering wherewith the eyes of the simple be dazled ought nothing to move us to grant that there is a Church where the Word of God doth not appear for this is the perpetual mark wherewith God hath marked them to be his He that is of the truth saith he heareth my voice Again I am the good shepheard and I know my sheep and am known of them my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me And a little before he had said that the sheep follow their shepheard because they know his voice but they follow not a stranger but run away from him because they know not the voice of strangers Why are we therefore wilfully mad in judging the Church whereas Christ hath marked it with an undoubtful sign which wheresoever it is seen cannot deceive but that it certainly sheweth the Church to be there but where it is not there remaineth nothing that can give a true signifition of the Church for Paul rehearseth that the Church was builded not upon the judgements of men nor upon Priesthoods but upon the doctrine of the Apostles and Prophets but rather Jerusalem is to be severally known from Babilon and the Church of Christ from the conspiracy of Satan by that difference wherewith Christ hath made them different one from another He that is of God saith he heareth the words of God ye therefore hear not because ye are not of God In summe forasmuch as the Church is the kingdom of Christ and he reigneth not but by his word can it be now doubtful to any man but that those be the words of lying by which Christs kingdome is feigned to be without his scepter that is to say without his holy word 5 But now whereas they accuse us of Schism and Heresie because we both teach a contrary doctrine to them and obey not their lawes and have our assemblies to prayers to baptism to the ministration of the supper and other holy doings severally from them it is indeed a very sore accusation but such as needeth not a long or laborsome defence they are called Hereticks and Schismaticks which making a division do break in sunder the communion of the Church And this communion is holden together with true bounds that is to say the agreement of true doctrine and brotherly charity whereupon Augustine putteth this difference betwixt Hereticks and Schismaticks that Hereticks indeed do with false doctrine corrupt the purenesse of faith but the Schismaticks sometime even where there is like faith do break the bond of fellowship But this is also to be noted that this conjoining of charity so hangeih upon the unity of Faith that faith ought to be the beginning thereof the end and finally the only rule Let us therefore remember that so oft as the unity of the Church is commended unto us this is required that while our minds agree in Christ our wills also may be joined together with mutual well willing in Christ Therefore Paul when he exhorteth us to that well willing taketh for his foundation that there is one God one Faith and one Baptism Yea wheresoever he teacheth us to be of one mind and of one will he by and by addeth in Christ or according to Christ meaning that it is a factions company of the wicked and not agreement of the faithful which is without the word of the Lord. S. 6. Cyprian also following Paul deriveth the whole fountain of the agreement of the Church from the onely Bishoprick of Christ he afterward addeth the Church is but one which spreadeth abroad more largely into a multitude with increase of fruitfulnesse like as there be many sun beams â—ut one light and many branches of a tree but one body grounded upon a fast root and when many streams do flow from one fountain although the number seem to be scattered abroad by largeensse of overflowing plenty yet the unity abideth in the original take away a beam of the sunne from the body the unity suffers no division break a branch from the tree the broken branch cannot spring cut off the stream from the spring head being cut off it drieth up so also the Church being overspread with the light of the Lord is exâ—ended over the whole world yet there is but one light that is spread every where Nothing could be said more fitly to expresse that undividual knitting together which all the members of Christ have one with another we see how he continually calleth us back to the very head Whereupon he pronounceth that Heresies and Schismes do arise hereof that men do not return to the original of truth nor do seek that head nor keep the doctrine of the heavenly master Now let them go
may read as it were in text letters your own abstract from that of mine when you please and signing the Titles of the CCClergy whether true or surreptitious with three letters in the front as C. C. C. PPP c. most commonly when I speak of â—hem in the lump to denote the three PPParts into which that great City B B Babylon which they make stands divided I proceed as followeth That Heresies must be the Apostle hath said yet it makes no more for a tolleration of them in the true Church I mean though others mean in the civil state than that of our Saviour of offences saying foreseeing no question how by means of the Clergies crying out Heresie Heresie Schism against the way of truth being once turned aside to Heresie themselves the world would be offended at his little ones for walking in it They must come but wo to the man by whom they come the Apostle reckons Heresies among the works of the flesh Idolatry Witchcraft c. Gal. 5.20 which alone is argument sufficient against the Patronage and Invitation of them unless withal license in the true Church should be given to all other carnal sins why should the Church of God upon Earth make much of those against whom the Kingdome of Heaven shall be shut her pale is not so strong to keep them out from breaking in upon her like wild bores and wolves to spoil and wast her but her good will should not be so great to them as to wellcome them in to her fellowship till they repent from their dead works of superstition bloody tenet of persecution for cause of conscience worshipping God after mens traditions blaspheming the name of God and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven trampling the holy City Heresie Schism from the primitive truth c. Neverthelesse howbeit to tolerate and harbour Hereticks in communion with them whilest they oppose the true way of Christ would be an error and an evill too intollerable in a true Church of Christ yet I hold that opinion of the C C Clergy not onely intollerably Heretical in it self but intollerably hurtful also to themselves that Hereticks may not be tolerated in a civil state for if Fines Prisons Banishments Racks Wâ—ips Tortures headings hangings burnings and such like punishments with the civil sword were the due of every Heretick and Schismatick in the faith as the C C Clergy have for ages and Generations born the world in hand that they are to the causing of all these their national Church censures to be inflicted on the Saints when they have once blindly sentence them to be Schismaticks to the civil power if this I say were the due of every Heretick or Schismatick and every true Heretick and Schismatick had his due too good Lord how have the C C Clergy condemned themselves out of their own mouthes to devastation when the civil powers shall find them to be the Arch-Hereticks in the world if taking them at their word they shall do with them as they say they ought to do in this case concerning others but God forbid that with what judgement they judge they should be judged and with what measure they meet it should be measured to them again at our suggestion if their own Cheek-by-jole carriage to the Stern-men of the State do not pull it unavoidably upon themselves yea verily though as far as those that oppose themselves against the truth of Christ they may well challenge the name of Schismaticall Hereticks and though Amen might justly be said by the Magistrate in this point to the opinion of Gangraena and his Gang and might Amen be said to his wise wishes as concerning us who teach and practise baptism in its primitive fashion we could expect to be suffered in the Common-wealth no more then High-way Murderers yet dare we not desire their exâ—irpation out of any of their native rights in the several states wherein they are nor such uncivill suppression of them meerly for their erroneous Tenets as they have sollicited the higher powers to concerning us we have not so learned Christ nor would they if they had heard him and had been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus for howere it comes to passe that the C C Clergy whose own the worst would he if that were true and execution done accordingly are so besotted as to believe that Hereticks and Schismaticks from the faith men of false waies worships religions though elsewise never fo peaceable and innocent must not onely be dischurched but discommunicated also from the patronage of the civil power and cut off from the priviledges of other Subjects yet neither Christ nor any of his Apostles as from him gave any order for such rigid rejection indeed the Apostle Paul wills in his Epistle to Titus cap. 3. who was a Church officer that a Heretick after a second and third admonition be rejected i. e. from the Church and Gal. 5.12 wishes that they were cut off from the Church that did trouble the Church and Rev. 2.20.21 the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering that woman Iezebel which calleth her self a prophetesse to teach and seduce his servants to fornication i. e. false worships c. but it will noâ— follow therefore that such may not have license to live civilly in civil states for the weapons of the Churches warfare wherewith she is to fight against Heresies and which she is ever to have in readinesse to revenge all disobedience to Christ by are noâ— carnall 2 Cer. 10.4 5 6. not such as are used by the officers of States but onely spirituall as admonition reproof and in case of obstinacy putting out from among them delivering up to Satan and not delivering up to the secular power as the Popish Priesthood used to do when any of their creatures specially of their Clerico-creatures turned Hereticks i. e. departed from their Heresies to the truth saying pray take him into your power and be merciful to him meaning hang or burn him for a Heretick The Church I say is neither to use the carnal weapons of the State nor yet to stirr up the State so to use them on her and truths behalf as to imprison fine hang burn or banish false worshippers unbelievers misbelievers or Hereticks further then they are withall as by meer unbelief they are not offenders against the civil State I find the Lord Christ foretelling by himself and his Apostles that for the most part the more is the pitty the Rulers Kings Governours and Princes of the world would be such enemies against his Gospel that his Disciples should be â—ald before them as evill doers for his names sake Matth. 10.18 that not many mighty and noble men would own his truth 1 Cor. 1.26 that rich men would oppresse the Church and draw them before their Judgement seats and blaspheme that worthy name wherby the poor in this world which commonly are the richest in faith are called Ia. 2.6 that the Kings
of the very Christian Nations would throw down their crowns and give up their power and strength unto the beast commit fornication with the W W Whore and at her instigation make war with the Lamb and at last be overcome by him Rev. 17.14.17 and be put down together with all their rule authority and power as very enemies though once his ordinance under his feet 1 Cor. 15.24.25 I find also Ephe. 4. that he hath set in his Church Apostles Pastors c. for the work of the Ministery and affairs of it but I no where find in his will and Testament that Christ intended the Magistracy as his Ordinance though undoubtedly in other cases the supreme ordinance of God to men whether in the Church or out of it for civil good to officiate so immediately in matters of Religion faith church order c. as to execute Church-discipline Church censure for meer Church disorders Church Divisions Church offences or so as to make all men within their jurisdiction and yet though their Churches be no true Churches neither so the CCClergy would have it to believe as the Church believes worship as the Church worships and be members of the Church whether they will or no if not to pray with them yet at least to pay to them or else to be excommunicated out of all they have and under the name of Hereticks dischurcht out of the world for so verily they do doctrinally at least who teach such false doctrine that men of false relegions whether heathens Jewes Turks or Pagans or men erring most grosly about the true as Papists or whatever else though never so submissive in all civil things to the civil Powers yet may not lawfully be licensed to live in civil States or in any Common-wealth under the Sun for by the same reason that Iews Turks Heathens Hereticks may not without sin be tolerated in one Nation but must ex officio be rooted out of it upon that meer account of denying and defying Christ which is as high as ever any Heretick went they may not without sin be permitted to be in another and so either some nations mâ—st sin in allowing these to live in them or else though de facto they cannot by reason of their number yet de jure they ought as far as they well can by Kings and Princes among whom few or none are so well acquainted as they should with what is Heresie and what truth to be driven quite out of the world and so the poor Iewes whose conversion the Priests pray for with much zeal and compassion must in quiet live no where at all that they may be converted but must belike be turned altogether into the sea Besides the notion of their being Christians adds nothing to mens power as Magistrates so but that if such magistrates as are Christians are Church officers as Magistrates then other Magistrates as heathen Magistrates must be Church officers as well as they and then how well that Christian Church is likely to be served and governed whose head Church-officers are Heathens a fool may see Yet whether the Magistracy be Heathens or Christians it matters not to the Church so long as they are the ministers of God and Christ to them and others too for civill good to punish evil doers that are injurious against the common or any mans proper weal Church-member or other in body goods or name by stealing lying murder defiling defaming defrauding c. whereby any are prejudic'd in point of their outward well being mean while whether he be the minister of God onely or Christ also and that not onely as God but God man also it matters not so long as he is an ordinance to us for civil good so that if any matter of Division of inheritances or of wrong and wicked lewdnesse be brought before the Magistrates committed whether by a church-member or any other it is all one reason wills that the Magistrate should hear it and be they Heathens or be they Christians who stand before him determine and destribute according to the equity of his civil Law and as much as Mr. Baxter looks askew at this assertion p. 120. as if he thought the Magistrate were to do a Pagan no right against a Christian without partiality not favouring a Christian in a civil cause against a Heathen a Turk an Egyptian a Pagan so as to take the Christians part further then the equity of his cause in hand may justly call for it more then the others though the Magistrate himself also be a christian and a brother to the christian whose cause depends before him or a member of the self same congregation with him not balking to do civil justice against Church-members they deserving punishment as if the church were exempted from his jurisdiction in civil things because he is no christian but a heathen nor yet denying to do right to church-members if they be injured by others for if he do any of this I am sure he does no justice in his place whereupon Gallio the Depuputy Goâ—ernour of Achaia who was not a little to be commended in one thing was no lesse to blame in another Act. 18.17 in that when the Greeks in a rude and barbarous manner took Sostenes the chief Ruler of the Synagogue and beat him for letting Paul preach in it before his face and before the very judgement Seat too yet he cared for none of those things for those were the things that fell duly and directly under his cognizance as he was a magistrate and so the minister of God to men for good whether they be Christs disciples or no for the redresse of such civil abuses neither is Christ yet in his own person Luke 12.13.14 nay nor yet by any Church-officers of his qua sic unlesse they be civil Magistrates also and then as in that capacity they must do that right that concerns them as such as meer church-officers to be judge in those outward cases and as therein the outward man onely is concerned for then Paul one of the chief Apostles and officers of the Church being then present might have taken upon him in the behalf of Sostenes and himself as the Pope and the P P Priesthood do for the most part in their religions to have determined for themselves in that civill dissention but Christ as man and his church as his Church are yet no judgers nor dividers over men but the Magistrate by Gods and if I say by Christs appointment it hurts us not is made as onely in such so the only judge and divider in such civil matters but if it be a question and a brabble about Heathenism Turcism Iudaism Christianism and about Religion worship and faith and Iesus and words and names as Antinomists Arminians Anabaptists Pelagians Socinians Anti-christians Pedobaptists Sectaries c. and about his law and about Heresie and spiritual Truth and Schism in the Church and Ministry and such like about which the eares
of the civil powers have been dâ—nd by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and felly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cookt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly soberly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleratian for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of 〈◊〉 for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world though all truth is the intollerablest thing in the world to him and though it hath leave from him to grow besides him and will too among some yet he hopes to loosen it by lending it so much scope
immediately under the Popes supremacy were priviledged so far as to stand exempted from the reach of the civill law and to save themselves the trouble of being hanged when they had deserved it as much as other men by a businesse called the benefit of the Clergy i. e. the immunity of the Clergy from the civil law some relikes of which benefit the Clergy once had and still hath in some places seem to me to remain in our civil Courts wherein we see in some capital crimes the malefactour si legat ut Clericus if he can but read like a Clerk or Clergy man he escapes execution when else he should have died without remedy which favour is also called the benefit of the Clergy yet we desire that no manner of men may have exemption from the course of civil Justice yea if we whom they call Anabaptists do any thing at any time worthy of death by the civil law rightly regulated we refuse not to die but as we desire that others should so are we willing our selves in civil matters to stand at Caesars i. e. the civil Magistrates judgement seat where we ought to be judged in such cases and thus did Paul when accused by the Priests as a Pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition meerly for preaching the Gospel To the Jews saith he have I done no wrong nor yet against Caesar have I offended c. therfore no man may deliver me to them I appeal unto Caesar Act. 24.5.12.13 14.20.25 8.11 where we see that in case of civil injury charged upon him as committed by him he appeals to Cesar to judge though Cesar was a heathen and he a Christian and not of Cesars Religion which he had been a mad man in doing had the question been simply about the right Religion yea when any question a roâ—e in the Church about Religion as in the point of circumcision Act. 15. the Apostles Elders and brethren considered of it among themselves consulting the mind of the spirit in the word and had they not agreed it they would not have referred it nor had any not conformed to their determination in that point would they have complained of them to Cesar and as Paul would not stand at Cesars judgement seat in Religious as he desired to do in civil so Cesars Deputies would not meddle at all as Magistrates in Religious cases for when the Jews set Paul before the judgement seat of Gallio deputy of Aâ—haia and complained saying This fellow perswadeth men to worship God contrary to the law Gallio said if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdnesse O ye Iews reason would that I should bear with you but if it be a question of words and names of your law look ye to it for I will be a judâ—e of no such matters and he drave them from the judgement seat as who should say we are set to keep civil peace and right among you but not at all to determine you in your worships Oh therfore that the Magistracy would consider it that they are set not to force men to submit all to one worship nor yet forcibly to suppresse either Heresie or truth but to prevent tumultuousness about either If Demetrius and the craftsmen of like occupation who make shrines for Diana have a matter of wrong against any let the civill law be open and let them plead each other there but if the enquiry be concerning other matters as namely setting at nought their craft prophaning the Temples of their Goddesse and destroying their false worships by plain preaching of truth what 's Heredox what Orthodox in worship c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let that be determined in a lawfull Assembly i. e. as the word is in the Greek insome lawful Church congregation or select meeting for that purpose Last of all though the Lord prohibit the standing of Idolators c. in the Church 2 Cor. 6. Rev. 2. yet he himself who could presently root them out if t were his mind permits not onely true but also false worshippers Hereticks c. to have a being in the world and therefore me thinks Gods Vicegerent should not be against it It is according to the will of God himself permitting not approving them that heresies do arise but its according to his good will approving and in his woâ—d appointing that they shall stand in the world when risen further then they can be annihilated by the word And as the Scripture shewes how far he himself tolerates them so the Divines themselves as shy as they are of having them tollerated do Give these good Reasons of Gods suffering of Hereticks 1 For the discovering of the sound that Gold and Silver may be known from hay and slubvle that by the Devills sitting of us the good corn may be discerned from chaff it is the Apostles Reason 1 Cor. 11.19 that they which are approved may be known for who they are that with the weapons of the Churches warfare are valiant for the truth indurers of hardship as good Souldiers of Christ c. would not appear if there were no Hereticks False worshippers Antichristians Truth treaders c. to try them true love to Christs truth can never be seen if never tryed nor tryed if truth never opposed hated hunted and that to death too sometimes by the fierce wrath and cruel malice of its enemies 2. That truth may be discussed and fetcht out as fire from the concussions oâ— flint and steel Truth had not been fetcht half so far out of the dark nor from under that Popish Smoother of traditions at this time as it is had not the CCClergy so hotly hunted it and so fiercely clasht against all that came out to clear it If there had not been an Hereticall CCClergy crying out Heresie against all truth the world had never heard so much of it in these latter daies as now it hath and I verily perswade my self that as the day breakes and the shadowes fly away the way of truth in the hearts of the Just and in the eyes of the of the world by how much the CCClergy calls Heresie upon it shall shine more and more still to the perfect day if Luther and Calvin had not been and that so fiercely flung at by Popish Priests because they preached against indulgencies and selling pardons for money and against the Lordlines of the Popish Hirrachy they had not heard so much against them but that they might have sold more pardons then they have done since and the 2 latter litters of Spiritual lords that qua CCClergy came out of the Popes loins the two PPriesthoods of the Protestant party might have lorded it longer like their father who will never be dead as long as they are alive had they not been as iron and steel against truth and true worshippers whom God makes as hard as flint against their faces that by their concussions against it he may the more fully fetch it forth the
oppositions and imprisonments which Paul met with from the adverse party whereby they intended to smoother it in his daies fell out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel for it came to be the more manifest in all places by means of errors so earnest appearance against it 1 Phil. 12. to 19. Thus truth hath gained ground not a little in these latter daies by the ominous onsets wherewith falsehood fights it and would fain fright and force it to hide its head and wisdome works out it self not a little to light by follies flying so furiously at the face of it 3. That the truth mihgt be better loved and more price set upon it we prize lihgt the more by our knowledge of darkness health by our sense of sicknesse errour is a foil to a Diamond truth looks more lovely being compared with it The lilly looks most lovely and beautifull when it stands among black thornes 2 Cant. 2. the stars though ever obvious to us would never shine if there were no night contraria juxta se posita maxime elucescant contraries set together discover each other more lively in their severall loathsome or lovely formes the light of the Sun shewes brightest seemes sweetest when it breaks from under a dark cloud so does the Sun of righteousnesse now arising appear the more lovely by how much it hath been hid from the earth now of long time by that dismall darknesse and smoak of Heresies erroneous false worships and foolish figments with which the CCClergy hath filled all parishes throughout CCChristendome 4 For the punishment of hypocrites nominall Christians curious Minds such as have itching eares and heap unto themselves teachers stragling sheep fall into the wolves clutches such as will not keep the steps of the flock but go after the flocks of the Companions ever fall into most dangers of seducement all which is most plain by too woful experience in all Nations of CCChristendome for while Christianity and the Gospel was professed sincerely as it was saving some remote beginnings of mens traditions to take place against the commands of Christ in the first three hundred years wherein t was evidenced by the ten bloody persecutions that Christians served Christ for love then and not for loaves nor for lives sake neither for they loved not their lives unto the death there were not half so many Hereticks or Heresies as have been since but when once after Constantine Christianity comming into credit and being not onely owned by the Emperors themselves but established by their edicts in all things according to the pattern shewed them in the word not of Christ but of the Catholique Clergy convened in Councels as the Religion sub paena to be submitted to men turned Christians upon such sleight grounds and were born to that Name of Christianity without the Nature no otherwise then of the will of man and were no more then nomine tenus professors of it the Lord in his just and severe judgement to these nominal Christians permitted those Spiritual plagues that we see Rev. 8. Rev. 9. seconded the sounding of the trumpets to fall thick and three fold upon the world suffered the Clergy to fall to contentions jars and janglings about their ambitious interests viz. primacy and universallity c. and to Apostatize more and more from the plain primitive truth and to degenerate be degrees into darknesse till they came at last to be totally blinded in things of God and blind leaders of the blind Princes and people that implicitly give up themselves to be guided by them that both might drop together into the ditch yea he suffered that great star the Bishop of Rome that sometime shone very bright to fall as wormwood upon the third part of the waters the pure doctrine of the Gospel i. e. to foist in his heresies to the poisoning and imbittering of the doctrine so that many died even all that drank thereof because it was bitter and unwholsome and he suffered the third part of the Sun and Moon and Stars all the means and waies of Christs own institution and appointment to give light unto men by to be smitten and darkned corrupted covered with false glosses depraved with heaps of heresies and traditions c. crept in and authorized by the Pope and his Ecclesiastical Doctors so that what with the damnable and horribly devillish heresies by means of Mahomet and his Alcoran infecting the Orientall Christians through all Asia and these Papisticall errors of those Arch-Hereticks the Pope and CCClergy and Scholastick Rabbies who with vain deceit seduced the Occidental part of the world from the simplicity that is in Christ the day shone not for a third part of it the might likewise i. e. the third part of that pure and pretious truth of Christ which shined in the primitive Churches was now exclipsed and extinguisht neither had men by the third part so much of that clear light of Christs Gospel that they were wont to have in former dayes yea further in way of plague and punishment to hypocrites and meer nominal Christians the Lord at last suffered that star which fell before or angel of the Church of Rome when he was fallen from all his heavenlinesse and love of truth to earthlinesse and love of money and honour from beneath to open the bottomlesse pit i. e. the way to the very depth of hellish darknes and to raise up a smoak or thick fog of errors and heresies lies traditions which as the smoak of some great furnace darkened the sun and air i. e. totally put out the light of Scripture and pure administrations which were but in part ecclipsed before so that now nothing could be seen as it were but Popish legends and such stuff by the advantage of which smoother the Locuâ—ts came out i. e. the Clergy that swarmed all over the earth in every parish one at least stinging hurting wounding to eternal death by their poisonous doctrines propounded under pretence of the word of Christ all persons save such as have the seal of God in their foreheads even a few witnesses to the truth that withstood their doctrins which locusts are said to be scorpions i. e. carrying a fair face but stings in their tailes and to have crowns because of their great power for under their great King Apollyon they rule all and reign ore the Kings of the earth These are they that outwardly wear the sheeps cloathing i. e. cloth themselves with the denominations of Clergy Gods heritage Spiritual men Priests men of God which are the true titles of the sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves into whose clutches the stragling sheep that would not keep the steps of the flock of Christ but turned aside after the flocks of the companions going at a venture which way the most went for companies sake right or wrong did fall and by whose Heretical principles men are in danger of perishing for ever Thus when the world would be
the light that his deeds might be made manifest that they are wrought in God yet the means and courses by which truth should be tryed which are plain and not puzzling discourses upon the Scripture you smother by all the means and courses you can conveniently devise as for any entire discourses of such as are contrary minded to you though teachers of truth as t is in the word these you cannot away with at any hand nor permit to be used in publique before the people while you have any powar to shut your pulpit doors upon them you bid your people now or then prove all things that they may find out which is good and shun the evil but by your good-evil will they shall hear no more then what you tell them and chuse whether they 'l take that for truth or nothing you bid them cut where they like and yet you 'l be their carvers and force them to feed upon what you offer them or fast and welcome for no more messes must be meddled with though they have never such a mind to cut and try then what is of your dressing that oft is no more then some sugar sopt sententious Academical bespangled hide bound glasse measured spirit stinting stuff which may challenge the name of duncery baldnesse babling and prating more then that sincere milk of the word you commonly call so which hour of divinity when you have bookt down and cond with no little care is many times but Sed and someâ—imes but Red ore when all 's done neither yet oft times you crow couragiously upon your own dunghil you pay it soundly in your own pulpits with convincing and opposing the approach of heresies and argue so substantially against them that you carry the cause and win all but t is because you play there by your selves for if any chance to hear you that hath never so much wherewith to undeceive your deluded people yet they may not receive his interrupted reply to never so little when you in the first place have pleaded your cause the next thing to be done is for all them that hear and have ought against you to hold their peace they must not andere audire alteram partem least they be infected though wise men know there is no other way to be perfected in the knowledge of the truth and freed from that hobnob implicit faith which is wrongly acted when rightly objected then by hearing all that is to be said against it as well as for it yea the heathen herein may be thy Tutor O PPPriest Qui statuit aliquid c. You cry out they are not Orthodox that oppose you and so forbid all audience of them to your people whom you feed with a word and a blow a bit and a knock lest if they be not as well corrected into a refusal of all direction from others as directed by your selues they quickly discern difference between you and them yet you would fain be counted free and forward that all should have liberty according to their duty to try all but the niggard shall never be called liberall nor the churl said to be bountiful for me for he deviseth not the liberal things whereby the liberal shall stand yea the instruments of the churl are evil and he deviseth wicked devices to destry the poor with lying words when the needy spoaketh right things yea his heart works iniquity to practise hypocrisie and to utter error befor the Lord to make empty the soul of the hungry and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail Isa. 32.5.6.7.8 As for pro and con discourse or disputation you smother that likewise with all your might for as you desire no more of it then needs must so you decline it what you can and disclaim it too as far as you dare for shame be seen in such a service as disputing against disputing is declaiming against it as a dismal thing of some dangerous consequence poison means of infection contentionem scabiem and such like being sensible of your sores you come not to the stake to be questioned in your waies before your blind admirers but when you cannot with credit considering your over shooting your selves sometimes in hasty challenges make a cleanly come off without it though it be to meet with those that are inferiour to your selves save that the Lord is with them for surely you see somewhat further then a mole into a milstone that things are no better with you then they should be why else should there be such loathnesse like that of the Elephant that 's loath to drink in fair waters for fear of seeing a foul face to come to the light as we find there is in the most of you as well as in Dr. Gouge who would at no hand vouchsafe any publique discussion of inâ—ant-sprinkling whether it were of God or man nec per se ne per synodum in his parish with Dr. Chamberlain yet sometimes Euphoniae gratia for reports sake you make some pretty put offs in publike and put on tooth and nail for disputation but alas you curtail it into so narrow a compasse as namely half a day two hours or some odd end of an after-noon when two dayes is too little two weeks scarce enough two years not too much to discusse the truth in witnesse not onely Iude who bids the Saints of the last times saving Tertullian and Sir Henry Wottons dislike out contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints and Paul who for 2 years space disputed dayly in the School of one Tyrannus not such a Tyrant to the truth as you are it seems for if he had he would have admitted not a word out you confine it I say into such a corner of time that as Pilate askt what 's truth and when he had so said went his way without an answer so you hast to have an end not hearing half the half quarter that is to be said in opposition to your own opinions about that question And during that little while the busines lasts you carry all as much as you can above the reach and beyond the capacity of plain minded men and women that come together for resolution in Scholastick terms and conclave it from their cognizance under the lock and key of your Linsey wolsey Logick which is neither fine enough for the University from which you have a while discontinued nor home-spun enough for the Country which muddy way of mood and figure is neither suitable to the simplicity and plainess of speech in which the Gospel ought to be declared and discussed nor reasonable to reason in with Russet Rabbies that are otherwise reasonable enough to give you such reasons of their faith and practise as you can never rationally resist nor is it much more profitable to our honest hearted people then if you spake wilde Irish. And when you have done then you smother and cloud over all that was more plainly and punctually
matters of the law and Tithes offerings and things that came by Moses and now are not at all but who hath robbed him in matters of grace and truth and ordinances and things that came by Christ one tittle of whose Testament shall not be contradicted by man nor angel under pain of cursing you talk of golden cups and vessels in which the whore fills out her abominations and filthinesse of her fornication to the whole earth but who hath taken away the key of the Kingdom of heaven i. e. from the people and Church in whom the power lies fundamentally and primarily for t is but derivatively from the church under God secondarily executively and ministerially in the Officers not onely Papa but PP too see Rutherfords Presbytery wherein he wrests the power of the Keyes from the people who hath taken away the key of knowledge and shut up the Kingdom of heaven against men as neither willing to go in themselves by the right way and baptism nor to suffer them that would who but ye O Priests have been in these things more sacrilegi church-robbers then sacerdotes or givers of holy things yea what evil of this kind YYYou have wrought in the sanctuaries of God how you have laid them wast throughout the whole earth how you have defiled the pure waters thereof and did so Claudere rivos shut down the floodgates that the people could have none of these to drink and caused all discourses and all places to overflow with muddy and brackish waters if I should hold my peace the stones out of the wall even those living stones out of the true Temple that are living monuments of Gods mercy at this day in that they are alive from the dead even the dead night of your errors will proclaim to the everlasting infamy of that generation that have been the neerer the church the further from God Thou makest thy boast of God O PPPriesthood and wouldst seem to approve of the things that are most excellent and art confident thou thy self art a guide of the blind and a light of them that sit in darknsse an instructer of the foolisâ— a teacher of babes but indeed thou art a blind guid a dark lantorn a foolish instructer and hast need thy self to be taught by those babes which live upon the sincere milk of the word which be the first principles of the oracles of God thou hast a form of knowledge and of truth as it was in the Law that was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long since abolished according to which thou Enthusiasts to thy self a Iudai al Pontificall Politicall Pollitical Religion of thy own but thou art grossely ignorant of the truth of the Gospel and that form of doctrine that Rome obeyed from the heart of old before it came to be a mother of harloâ—â—y and of such a crew of corrupt children as have since then come from her to the corrupting ing of the earth thou teachest another but thou teachest not thy self thou preachest a man should not steal but thou stealest thou saiest a man should not commit adulâ—tery but all the Kings and their people in the christian earth have committed adultery with thee thou seemest to abhorre it yet thou more then any committest sacriledge yea thou o PPPriesthood art that holy harlot that holy thief that hast fingred the most holy things yea even the holy Scripture it self which is the store-house and under Christ the treasury of truth and hid it from the world under unknown tongues and a heap of unsound sences which thou hast put upon it therefore thou art inexcusable O woman when thou judgest the now churches of sacriledge for wherein thou judgest them thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things which thou saiest they do but they do not and therefore is he now killing thy children with death and we are sure that the judgement of God is according to truth against them that do such things Yea wo unto you O ye blind guids ye strein at a gnat and make it sacriledge and church robbing to take Fonts and railes and pipes and pictures and altars c. out of your stone Temples and keep a do about cleansing and hallowing and having these outside decencyes and orders and offerings but swallow a camel and demolish the true temple of God and the vessels of the sactuary i. e. the ordinances thereof which is holy indeed which Temple the Saints are that are built together a spiritual house unto him and your selves are full of ravening extortion and excesse you are as graves that appear not and the men that walk over you are not aware of you nor how they are rid over by you nor how very well to be rid of you wherefore the wisdome of God even Christ Iesus now sends you prophets and Apostles and wisemen and Scribes to warn you yet these you kill and crucifie and scourge and persecute as your enemies because they tell you the truth that the blood of all the Prophets that have prophesied in Sack cloth and tormented you and your forefathers and your people that dwell on earth for 42 moneths may come on this generation and so your house be left unto you desolate for ever And fourthly there needs no more to prove you to be what you say of us that we are viz. a lying and blasphemous sect then all these forenamed falsities which are asserted of the Anabaptists when of right they belong more properly to your selves Yea great need indeed and good reason that you should be the Plantiffs in this businesse of loaâ—ing with disgraces belying and blaspheming who have bin your selves nex and immediately under Satan Supreme false accusers of the brethren to the world and the powers Courts and consistories thereof civil and ecclesiastical for Hereticks Schismaticks Sectaries seditious deceivers hypocrites blasphemeâ—s enemies to Caesar trouble Townes and what not with which kind of nicknames you the false kingdome of the Priests have overwhelmed the true royall Priesthood as with a flood the burden of whose scandals blasphemies tales and disgraces wherewith you have loaded the saints per mille ducentos sexaginta annos 1260. years exceeds any id genus that the saints have loaded you with in number weight and measure per millies mille ducentas sexaginta Lias 1000000260 l. You have cloathed the pretious sons and daughters of Sion as the persecuting Emperors did of old with the skins of wild beasts and so cast them to the dogs to be devoured i. e. with the names of Monsters and so exposed them to the hatred of the world with the which kind of sport not onely Dr. Featley and Mr. Edwards while they lived made themselves merry and their friends too by bestowing Legends a piece towards the support of their severall false wayes as one great Benefactor did a Legend of lies on the Papistrey to the maintaining of that which they call the golden Legend but others also bely the nicknamed Anabaptists
be supreme and overcome so the lord let him for a time that he might manifest his own power the more in the overcomming him for ever in the end yea power was given him to make war by the beast that bears him even all nations of Christendom which he overcame first against the Saints and to overcome them also and so to be filled with his own inventions he gives out when any disputes against him that his desire is to be satisfyed by disputing and so perhaps he would but t is with riches more then rightousnesse with tith more then truth for in truth he seemes if he must meet with such as charge him with error in his doctrine of baptism tith forced maintenance forcing conscience as if he would renounce his opinions and practises in these points if any can prove them to be corrupt but seeks onely opportunities to spread his odd opinions of what schism and sacriledge and robbing of God it is if submission be not acted and tithes be not offered to him among the vulgar among whom his Ghostly pretences produce a kind of aweful affrightment and dread of doing any thing against what he saies being resolved before hand never to be convinced of the truth as t is in the word for that overturns him in all his preferment projects and plucks him up from all the profits of his present princely posture which is such a right eye to him that he hath not faith enough to believe that it can possibly be more profitable to him to part with though Christ himself till him tis then to preserve and perish with it His disciples are for the most part not such as the noble Beraeans that would take nothing upon trust from the very Apostles mouths but searched the Scripture dayly whether the things were so or no not onely men but honourable women too not a few but rather meet idle implicit forefather faitht men simple and weak women who try nothing but keep their Church and believe as their Church believes and as their good churchman saies led away with diverse lusts and pleasures leaning onely on their Priests understandings pinning all their Religion upon their sleeves adoring all that their Orthodox divines deliver at a venture ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth as t is in the word whose honest ignorant devotions he hath won to himself by his cunning artifice of pretended piety voluntary humility seeming zeal to the truth long prayers or rather multitudes of short prayers and praises Pater Nosters Miserere Mei's Magnificats Te deums Gloria Patri's per Iesum Christum Dominum nostrums and such like devoutries and being once gained are so carried on with the streme of corrupt custome present fashion foolish affection that no reason in the world can reclaim them he deterreth lay people as much as may be from reading expounding or too much prying into the Scripture alledging unto them the perils they may incur by misinterpretations he hath laid his foundations so firmly in the dark consciences of men women by perswading them of his own infallibity Ecclesiastical Authority his Ius Divinum in the Government and guidance of the Church as here in Britain and even of his Temporal jurisdiction too as at Rome over both heaven and earth hell and purgatory of his power in the agony of mens souls to forgive sin that men and women are becharmed into beleif of him he hath woven himself so far into their credulity that all his sayings are received as oracles all his doings as divine all his traditions as truth it self all his Administrations as Apostolical all his doctrines as Orthodox all his Arguments though confessed by himself to be weak as unanswerable and all others Administrations Actions Answers Arguments though never so consentaneous to the true sense of Scripture valued at that price which he sets upon them as if the holy chaire of Papall determination Episcopal Convention Synodical constitution could not possibly be mistaken yea the Scripture it self is but a nose of wax with him of what shape soever the CCClergy casts it into of no more authority then Aesops Fables with the Papists if the Pope say the word so as to disdate digrade it or put any part of it out of commission of no other sense then the Bishops and Synod seem to say is the sense on 't with their good Protestants so altogether Oraculous is the Pope among his the Bishop among his the Presbyter among his and even all the three several CCClergies among their three several sorts of CCCreatures that their different ipse dixits are ipso facto divine directory and discharge enough too for these different doters on them insanire cum ratione to dote to and fro by Authority so as to do and undo and do and undo and do by In a word he is too bold to be born down not so much from such things as make the righteous witnesses to truth as bold as Lions before God and men viz. the goodnesse of his cause for that is stark naughâ— and rotten nor the clearnes of his call either to his Clerical function or any actions he goes about by vertue and in persuance thereof for t is clear enough that his orders emission commission as to the external etymology of them are more from the Pope then Christ and the true Church nor any good answer of a good conscience for either his conscience is so cloudy that he cannot or so cowardly that he dares not or so resolved that he will not see or else so clear that he is condemned of himself when truth shines plainly upon his face but rather from either his great interest in or directive authority over the civil power that hath long back as well as bellyed him as in England or his having it all in his own hands and dispose as at Rome where ecce duo gladii both swords are in the Clergyes clutches so that he can quickly correct those that contradict him he is too clamorous to be silenced calling out with such a heavy noise and divine ditty against the truth and condemning it with such an outcry of Schism Schism Sedition blasphemy Heresie Heresie before he hath half heard it and so soon as ever its opening its mouths to speak that all the parish pulpits in a whole Countrey and now and then their steeples ring out in such combustion to the tune of Great is Diana of the Ephesians Act. 19 28.34 that truth hath no way wherby to silence him but to be silent her self for when she begins to declare he with his Heresie Heresie soon stops men ears he is too arrogant to be convinced he hath controuled whole nations cut of the spirit of Princes bin terrible to the kings of the Earth and devinced invincible Emperors in his time therefore may well scorn to be convinced abominate detest disdain to be directed by Russet Rabbies Apron Levites Ministerian Mechanicks illiterate Artizans
illuminated Tradesmen Christ the Carpenter Peter the Fisherman Paul the Tentmaker Aquilla and his wife Priscilla from which kind of poor folks and babes to whom it seems good in gods fight to preach the plain Gospel and reveal by his word and spirit what he hides from wise men when they will not see this prudent PPPriesthood if he were not proud might learn more truth and Gospel purity then ever was taught him by his Grand-father the Pope or any of those Clerical Councells or Ghostly fathers which he consults more with then with Christ and Scriptures The Reason of all his obstinacy against tradesmens teachings is this he knows that his trade of teaching for hire and divining for money Must fall if tradesmen begin once to turn divines and to teach truth for nothing ye know that by this craft quoth he Act. 19.25 c. we have our wealth moreover ye see and hear c. he is well aware and so are we that if he lose the lives of persecution for conscience and sprinkling of infants Iachin Boaz the two main pillars grand Supporters of his kingdom his Temple will quickly rend in to more pieces then 3 PPPs from the top to the very bottom and all his matchlesse magnitude and numberlesse priestly Prerogatives drop directly to the ground viz. his Lieutenantship to the prince of this World his Lordship over the heritage his headship over the Church his dominion over the faith his title to the tenth of every mans estate his merchandize of slaves bodies and souls of men his leave to trample the holy city and slay at pleasure the truth tellers that torment him his rich revenues dignity glory power seat and great Authority together with all the priviledges profits liberties immunities thereunto belonging All this his royalty must fail if he give ground but a little and would have failed ere this time If he had a face could blush at his own abominable blindnesse or ingenuity to confesse himself hurt or own the plain truth while his lungs will serve him in reply or Amor sui constrain him to cry heresie against the truth therefore this Diotrêphes that loves to have the preheminence over all for ever because he hath had it for a while receiveth not truth but prates against it in the pulpit and elsewhere with malicious words and though he contradict himself ever and anon in his own Sermons and discourses yet if he say any thing at all he thinks it much when wisemen weighing it find it little to the purpose Tertullian thus describes Hermogenes Loquacitatem facundiam existimaret Impudentiam constantiam deputaret c. so he when he bumbasts the pulpit and slashes the Saint Schismaticks in their absence before his people supposes he hath spoken with no small grace when t is for want of grace that he did it and that when he is most audacious against all reformation as at Rome and even that he hath sometimes sworn himself and others to as here in England when he finds it more crosse to his credit then he thought of when he undertook for t he counts them fickle unconstant that change their minds and mend their manners and himself only stable and constant to the CCChristian Religion Hence it is that the effects of Disputation with him have been not onely fâ—ustrate but dangerous dangerous I say to him no otherwise then as it overturned his Kingdome that the truth of Christ might take place but to them that disputed with him in this respect as it hath been no lesse then their pretious lives were worth once to oppose or open their mouths against him witnes Wickliff Hus Ierome of Prague and all the executions done in Queen Maries daies upon such as durst dispute against the Pope or meddle against the mass and those done in Queen Elizabeths upon Barrow Greenwood and Penry who were hang'd by Episcopal malice for professing against them and the Common-prayer which now well nigh all England hath renounc't as a corruption and what should have been done upon such as disputed against or depraved the Presbyterian directory is well known for that Clergy hath shew'd themselves so much in their Fathers colours that ere long all England will renounce both it and them and in this respect it hath been also frustrate as to peoples conviction for truths witnesses to dispute never so clearly against him for as much as he hath still stopt their mouths with the stake prison or gallows and kept his own wide open against them in the pulpit when he hath secured them from all capacity of storming him there for The common sort are apt to think those have the victory that live to speast last and that their CClergies cause is never wrackt by the cause of Christ as long as one is left alive that can speak a word in that against the other And by how much error takes with our corrupt nature more then truth by so much there is more danger of its spreading where the Roots i. e. the self love vain glory ambition covetousnesse pride Lordlines universality and cruelty of the CCClergy who are plants that our heavenly father never planted Stocks from whom stemes out a stench from whom abomination branches it self out to the corrupting therof in al quarters of the Earth Rev. 11.18.17 5.19.2 are not plucked up and rooted out for from the Priest and the Prophet profanness heresie hath gone out into all the world and spread it self like a leprosie or some raging canker and for the most part such is the resolvednesse of the CCClergy to bind the people still to a blind obedience to their blind guidance of them beside the word that Disputations with them if not carefully I mean clearly and also coolly proceeded in with love to their persons and almost without zeal against their evils which yet we must not abate them an ace of for all their anger pacem cum hominibus cum vitiis bellum they Raise more evil spirits of wrath and divellishnesse in them then we can lay because they see them raise more good spirits of doubts and earnest enquiries after truth in the people who before were wont to take their ware on trust without trial then then they can lay again while they live by all the shifts and subtleties they can devise for when once people are resolved to believe things to be heresie by hearsay no more but to fancy them according as they find them in the word and to see into the plainness of speech that is in the Scripture with their own eyes they see so much disproportion between the national Church wayes and those of the primitive Churches of the Gospel that they commonly resolve not to see at all adventures through the unclear eyes of CCClergy men any more This makes them fret and fume and fain and fiddle hither and thither which way to fasten their Heretical opinions further if it be possible on them in whom they they
according to the word it is because there is no light in them Isa. 8 19 20. Ask therefore the High Priest Christ Jesus and if you cannot be resolved so speedily as you desire to your satisfaction and content be content to stay till God shall reveal in the mean time while you doubt suspend the practise and do nothing doubtingly but exercise your selves the while in searching the Scripture and prayer to which pretious practise God hath made many pretious promises in his word as namely That they shall be undefiled in the way that seek the Lord with their whole heart Psalm 119.1 2. That if thou wilt turn at his reproof though thou hast been a simple one and hast loved simplicity a scorner that delightest in scorning and jearing at the truth and a fool that hath hated knowledge which all are high degrees of sin yet he will powre out his spirit upon thee which happily hath been thy laughing stock and make known his words unto thee Prov. 1.22.23 that if thou wilt receive his words and hide his commaddements within thee If thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart unto understanding yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasure then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God Prov. 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Yet be assured of this humble ignorance in many questions debated in these daies by Divines and also in old time before us by learned Schoolmen and Casuists and by the Popish priests that reason about the unreasonable fopperries and refusely scum that arises out of the dead sea of their divinity is more acceptable to God then contentious curiousity yet not such humble ignorance about the ordinances of Christ as our Priesthood would hold men in as if the Law and Oracles of Christ which are all plain to him that understandeth were in things necessary to salvation so difficult and obstruse that poor mechanicks must meddle no more in t then they have leave from them in facili et apecto postta est salus the way of salvation is plain to be found in the book of God he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord for remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the holy spirit but the PPPriesthood hath led men the next way round about to salvation and framed a new Gospel for their followers which Scripture makes no mention of at all but as those Israelites that were led up and down the wildernesse so long God had sworne should not enter into his xest so neither shall those Christians that when the truth lyes plain before them delight rather to trace to and fro in the thicket of traditions received from their after forefathers then in the way of the first fathers of the Church and love more to wander then to walk in the narrow way of truth in the vast forrest wondrous wood and wide wildernesse of the PPPriests inventions 9. Consider sadly in heresie the sin the punishment the sin St. Paul places it among the works of the flesh Murder Idolatry Witchcraft Drunkenness c. and well may for t is onely in favour of the flesh and for some base fleshly ends or other that men depart from the way of truth and not of the spirit for that leadeth those that are resolved to be led by it as it speaks in the Scriptures into all truth as it is in the mind of Christ Jesus Iohn 14. The least heresie cannot be excused the nature of it is to gather as it grows it is to run downhil and that 's the cause why so many follow it and so few the truth for its an uphill a narrow way that leads to life therefore few find it but facilis descensus averni the way to the bottomlesse pit is an easie and broad descent therefore many there be that go in thereat even whole towns Counties Kingdoms yea the whole world 1 Ioh 5.19 Rev. 13.3 a few onely excepted that obey the truth whose names therefore are written in the book of life the heretick that hath begun it cannot stop when he will but when once he ceases to receive and retain God in his knowledge and the love of the truth that he may be saved through some base love of the world and the lucre and lust thereof that he may be pleased profited preferred a 100 to one but he is hardned for ever in blindnesse God also giving him over as well as he himself to deeper and deeper delusion and at last to the love of lies more then truth Ieroboams rent turned into idolatry and the rent of such as run from the primitive doctrine of Christ is come to no less the Rantizer and the Ranter also are both sad examples to us how fearâ—ul a thing it is to run away from the plain path of the word of Christ the one whereof when he ran down once but so far as to take upon him to mend Christs ordinances and teach for doctrine his own traditions never left adding more and more of his own odd constitutions till he sunk ore head and ears in a gulf of golden legends and a lake of lies the other when he had once declined the Scripture and denied all ordinances never left advancing himself into the clouds of his own airy conceits till his waxen wings melted with his soring so neer the sun and so he fell headlong into a sink of sordid sensuality The punishment is either temporal the Donatists of old as some say the Anabaptists as they are commonly cal'd of Germany who if ever they ownd the truth abode not very long in it are examples of Gods Iudgements in that kind spiritual blindnesse of understanding hardnesse of heart seeing and not perceiving hearing and not understanding and last of all eternal the worm that never dies Christ shews all mens labour in their religion is lost by reason of it in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrine the traditions of men the Apostle shuts heaven against it 5. Gal. and twice over denounces cursing to any yea angels from heaven that preach any other then what they preached and I am sure they never preached infant sprinkling yea whoever is an heretick vel dandi vel auferendi sacu in either excesse or defect by adding or taking away from the word God will add the plagues upon him that are written in that book and take away his name out of the book of life Saint Austin saith of Arrius how true that saying is I say not but t is an argument Ad hominem a good item however for every one that is any other way Antichristianus that his paines are increased in hell as oft as any one thorough his heresie is seduced from the faith therefore vae vobis Scribae Sacerdotes
c. Last of all to mourn for the calamities of the true Church which hath for this 1600 yeares been spoiled and under clouds and partly by the Roman Empire Heathen partly by the Roman Empire Christian been trod under the feet of tyrranical truth trâ—aders the losse of souls the Scandal of true Religion which is and hath been every where spoken against houses and lands wives and children goods and liberties when lost consumed destroyed are lamented by us should not Châ—ists losses be more dear and how much more the losse of Christ himself who as he told of that ecclipse of that primitive entercourse which he had with his people then by the interposition and comming of the prince of this world between him and them so hath now of a long time been a great stranger in all Christendome On What comfort had it been to have had the Son of God walkisg with us may the Chrâ—stian world say in the midst of the flames that have devoured and wasted in all corners of it but specially the third part of Christian men which hath been killed by the fire and by the smoak and by the brimstone which issued out of the mouths of the four Angels that were bound before in the great River Euphrates i. e. the four cruel Territories of the Turkish Empire united all under one head viz. Ottoman the Great some 390 years ago and from thenceforth getting ground on this side Euphrates to no lesse then a third part of Christendome as being indeed prepared for an hour a day a month a year i. e. 391. years to slay the third part of nominall Christians with most inhumane mercilessenesse and cruelty Rev. 9 12. ad sinem I say what comfort would it have been to have â—ad not onely the name but the spiritual presence of Christ preserving for those that were consumed in that divellish devastation but alas the Heresies Blasphemyes and abominable idolatries of the Christian nations have made him depart and leave the men that meerly by name are Christians to utter distress and darknesse without either succour or support under such bloudy sufferings those sins where not so much suffered in civil States for that may be as set up and stablished as the onely Christianity to be allowed of as they have been by the national Antichristian Christian Churches so that true Christianity is suppressed and suffers for the sake out and for nonconformity thereunto are ever and ever will be the forerunners of the removal of his Candlestick and of the destruction of the very denomination of Church at last among that people that have a name to live and are dead However let us O ye that are the true Christian Churches Mourn for our own sins those sins which have provoked God so much to wrath against his true Churches in former times are beginning to be too rife among us therefore why may he not justly if we lay it not to heart in time deal so with us as of old with them so as to dischurch us so as to lay open our fence â—read down our hedge break down our Tower and expose his vine to every beast of the Forrest let us be zealous and repent and in secret let our souls weep for the abominations done in the midst of Sion let horror take hold on us and rivers of tears run down our eyes because men keep not Christs law le ts mend what we can and mourn for what we cannot mend and whilest as the Ranter and his Rout laughs our weak works to scorn on the one hand so the CCClergy and their Clients on the other puff at our Mechanick buildings as Sanballaâ— scoffed at the Iewes Neb. 4.1 2 3 saying in malice and mockage What do these feeble folk will they fortify themselves against our Orthodox Divines will they sacrifice without a Priest among them will they make an end in a day to reform which is many a years work for a learned Synod will they revive the stones even the dead bones of old Hereticks out of the heaps of rubbish that are burnt that which they build if a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall le ts not be discouraged nor afraid to proceed in the way and work of the Lord let them laugh but let us weep for them as well as not spare to reprove them so far as we have any hope to reform them let them curse but let us blesse yea let us fast and pray not with Wednesday and good Fryday fasts and Lent'n Letanies nor with the Pharisees twice a week fasts who paid tith and refused to submit to Christs baptism nor yet with Jezebells fasts who set honest Naboath on high and accused him of blasphemy on that day with so much the greater advantage and finer pretence as if the Clergy did not when they obtained fasts against hereticks t will not repent them so much another time as some think it may yet of those repentances nor yet with the Jews fasts that fasted for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse that hung down their heads for a day like a bulrush and thought God was half beholding to them for it because they spread sackcloath and ashes under them though they neither loosed the bands of wickednesse nor let the oppressed go free nor undid heavy burdens nor broak every yoak nor dealt their bread to the hungrie nor brought the poor that were cast to their houses nor coveted the naked when they saw them but rather hid themselves from their own flesh and hardned their hearts against the poor and heaped up riches for themselves and oppressed full as much and it may be much more then before shall we call these fasts and acceptable daies to the Lord Isa. 58 they are all abominable rather then acceptable Therefore let us fast as well from as for iniquity and what ever others do let us serve the Lord let us call for justice and plead for truth let us not defile our hands with blood nor our fingers wiith iniquity let our lips speak no lies nor our tongue mutter perversenesse let us not hatch cockatrice egges nor weave such spiders webs as have been woven in the Nations to entangle tender consciences in and make the poor harmlesse flies a very prey to their malevolent intentions so shall we cause our voice to be heard on high let us thus fast and pray and with fasting and prayer endeavour the casting out of every blind and deaf and dumb devil and beseech the Lord that the eyes of the Priesthood and their People may be opened to see their eares unstopped that they may hear the truth their tongues unloosed that they may be preachers of it indeed as now they are in pretence and in word onely and no more Christian Reader that ownest the truth if thou beest profited so as to discern between Christs way and the CCClergies more clearly then ever give God the glory for
nought but shame belongs to man and pray for those that desire as the conversion of others to it so thy preservation in the truth which oh how hard is it to abide by in these evil times of temptation from the fals Churches the non-chuches which both seek what they can to unchurch the true which thou continuing faithfully in it to the death shall onely lead thee unto everlasting life but if any man will be ignorant let him be ignorant Now as to the Apologetical part I say thus to you O ye Priests you are of all men the generation whose great and general displeasure I expect to fall under and for this present works sake to become your enemy more universally then ever yet because I here tell you the truth but as little hope as I have to be heeded by you in what I say I must tell you and the Lord judge between you and me whether I speak the truth or not I am so far from desiring the temporal much more the eternal destruction of any one of you that as far as t is possible I would prevent both yea if by the publication of all this I seek any thing next to Gods glory more then the salvation as well of your own souls as of such as are seduced and insnared by your spiritual sorceries in wayes of false worship heresie and Schism from the primitive truth will not the Lord at last find me out nay verily I love the persons of you all as well as other mens indeed I love you too well to spare sharpness toward you or in silence suffer you to perish as I verily believe and therefore speak the more plainly to you that by any means I may save some of you without remedy you will do persisting in your wonted obstinacy against the Gospel this being the faith which God hath begotten me to by a serious search and observation of the word and world together the faith which he hath for some years made me to live in and will I trust if he call me to it strengthen me to die in rather then deny one jot of it to please men good or bad friend or foe unlesse it be discovered to me to be a false one I must not be ashamed to professe it for fear of them that kill the body for then wo unto me from him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell and should I be altogether silent as my fearful flesh would fain be least I should prove an intollerable offence to my friends and seem to be as O my God thou knowest how far I am not a self avenger on my foes and expose my self as at no hand I desire to do might it be avoided to the hatred and hard censure of you all the light of this truth would arise many other wayes yea the Lord pleadeth it before you day by day by the tongues and pens of others besides my self but I neverthelesse might be destroyed I had at first illumination and strong impulsions of spirit not perceiving like Samuel who thought it had been Eli that called him and not the Lord whether it were the suggestion of Gods spirit or my own and when at last I understood clearly that t was the Lord himself that told me he would do such a thing to the house of Eli i. e. the Generation of the Priesthood as should cause the eares of all that â—ear it to tingle I feared likewise to shew Eli the vision and was as loath to declare as you OPPPriests are to hear the things concerning you here declared I was ready to say to the Lord send this message by the hand of him by whom thou wilt send but necessity was upon me yea wo unto me my God had been a terrible one to me had I refused it yea I may say as Ieremy Ier. 20.7.9 O Lord thou hast deceived me and art stronger then I and hast prevailed for I said I will not make mention of this nor speak it in thy name but his word was within me as fire in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay he whose face onely I seek that I may not be deceived the light or louring of whose countenance is more to me then the favours or frowns of all faces hath prest me in spirit to tell that on the house tops which he hath told me in the ear in a closet what shall befal me in so doing I know not save that the spirit witnesseth that afflictions do every where abide me and all those that will live godly in Christ Jesus yet none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto me that I may finish my race and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus to testifie the Gospel of the grace of God Act. 20.24 if your Ministry Gospel doctrine Baptism be right then ours is wrong and if ever it appear we shall come back to you if ours be right then yours is wrong and must be declared that you may return to the truth I know there are many things you will question not to say quarrel with me about First you 'l ask me why I do not for the peace sake of the Church forbear and keep my opinions in these points to myself rather then publish them so plainly in print as well as by word and penne to the disturbance thereof To which I say if it be the truth I hold and matter of weight withall it wil excuse the promoting of it self if it were to the distraction of the Church which is to be subject to the truth and not the truth to her also to the distruction of the world fiat justitia aut pere at mundus Secondly the matters held forth here by me which are mainly the falsness of your Ministry and baptism are as truth so of such consequence as to be well worth discovering if either Luther did well to declare against the Pope and Clergy of Rome or your selves O Presbyters against Prelates Deans and Chapters c. without regard to the several disturbances that were like to be consecutive thereto yea the true subject and manner of administration of baptism which when it serves your turn so to do you call a circumstantial matter a ceremony for which if you should erre therein none but weak querulous consciences will complain and separate an indifferent thing for which why should we make so much ado aâ—gâ—at not to be streind at and such like is so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion which those that erre in do most fearfully erre and are totally deserted by the spirit of God these are your own words Thirdly you talk much and t is the language of the Pope to your selves since you rent from his Church of the Church and our holy mother the Church and Ghostly fathers of the Church and good and true tempered sons of the Church and the peace of the
himself and in no commission from Christ to make his Ministers could not secundum te O Presbyter make those true Ministers that made those that made them that made these that make you and so what ere you are as from him yet as from Christ you are no Ministry at all but in very deed the very same that I cal you viz. of the Beast and of the Dâ—agon as also the three fold CCChristendome of whom you say that they are Jewes i. e. Christians when they are not are no other then the Synogogue of Satan In all which so far am I from reviling that I speak the words of sobernesse and truth which whoever does may not unlikely be reviled as a reviler by you but is a faithfull reprover indeed for it is not simply vile terms spoken that make a reviler if spoken both seriously and in season but their non agreeablenesse to them they are spoken of for else undoubtedly not onely your selves who spake as vilely of the Pope as I of you but Iohn Baptist Peter Paul yea and Christ Iesus himself none of which reviled at all though upon occasion of their enmity against God they called men whom else they respected well enough too by the name of Satan evil and adulterous generation Generation of Vipers children of the devil enemies of all righteousnesse bruit beasts Foxes Doggs Swine c. must all be revilers with you too This take therefore from me and let it satisfy viz. that I le never fasten any terms upon you which by your works you first fasten not on your selves yet know that persisting as you have done under the notion of Christs Ministers in pride and perversenesse against his Gospel though I should never call you Deceivers Antichristian and the WWWhore of BBBabylon yet you l prove your selves to be so in the end Now therefore Oh HHHarlot hear and fear for I have heard from the Lord of Hosts a consumption determined upon thee throw out the whole earth thou hast being well mounted harnased and attired upon the back of thy beast made warr against the Lamb in his Saints thy Hereticks for fourty two moneths a time times and a half or 1260 years and power hath been given thee and the beast which thou spurrest to overcome them and over kindreds tongues and nations so that all that dwell upon earth have worshipped him and thee on him whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world yea thou hast opened thy mouth in blasphemies and caused thy beast under thee to blaspheme the name of God and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven yea thou hast spoken great words against the most High and worn out the Saints of the most high and thought to change times and lawes and they have been given into thy hand so that who was like to thee and thy beast who was able to encounter and make war with him but now behold thy proud times are ended and the Lamb will overcome thee for he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful and thou that hast led into captivity shalt go into captivity and thou that hast killed with the sword must be killed by the sword here is the patience and faith of the Saints And the very ten hornes themselves even all the kingdomes of Christendome into whose hearts it hath been put to give thee all their power and strength as well as the tith of all their glory and riches and carnall things upon thy pretence of ministring to them in spiritual all which thou hast swom upon been born up and fortifyed by as Babylon of old by the River Euphrates and with all which thou hast as with so many hornes of a savage beast tossed bruised gored the sides of Saints under the name of Sinners even these shall now turn upon thee and unhorse thee yea they shall hate thee O Whore and make thee desolate and naked and burn thy flesh with fire so that all thy lovers great and small and thy Merchants that have been rich by trading as in other things so especially in bodies and souls of men shall bewail and lament when they see the smoak of thy burning saying Alas Alas for thee whilest Gods people that are first come out of thee yea whole heaven and all the holy Apostles and Prophets who now suffâ—r under thee for telling thee the truth and shall be avenged of thee shall rejoice over thee at thy downfall You will hardly give audience O ye Priests to this word but some of you rather cry out against me as multitudes of your Churches good children did some few dayes since in Smithfield when by one of the City Marshals meerly for preaching the Gospel to thousands there assembled to hear it I was betrayed into their hands to be abused saying away with him away with him hang him t is pitty but he should be stoned and such like hue and cryes as were heard of old others of you Seers may be ready to call to me scoffingly out of your mount Sier watchman what of the night watchman what of the night but whether you will hear or whether you will forbear I tell you Sirs the morning cometh and also your dead night therefore if you will enquire enquire quickly return and come to the truth before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you or if it may not be said as of old it was that many of the Priests were obedient unto the faith yet Oh that many of your people would know in their day the things that make for their peace before they be hid from their eyes and partake no more of your sins least they partake of your plagues but if IIIezebel and her lovers will lie in bed together and not repent when God gives them space to repent of their fornications then me thinks I hear a noise among them as of those that are in hellish tribulation yelling out from beneath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alas Alas whilst from above a voice of much people in heaven saying Hallelujah Hallelujah for now our Lord will raign And judge that Scarlet WWWhore who still doth fain Her self to be Christs Spouse and so maintain Her self a Qeen the world her slaves in chain Though like a Quean she doth the whole earth stain Wiâ—h Whoredomes and Saints blood whom she hath slain Three PPParts three CCCrowns three HHHeads of subtle brain A TTTripple TTTribe Rides Christndom t is plain And like Hells three mouth'd Monster stands to strain Souls that scape thence and bark them back again Yet when t is told this Minx this whore in grain Frowns Frets Hates Teares Fumes Threats Storms Fomes amain But IIIezebel wo to thy house refrain Thy pride thy lies thy wrath like that of Cain Thy filth thy self thy greediness of gain Else as thy mirth hath been shall be thy pain This
contrary unto truth for women may be Magistrates but not Church Ministers and may be Supreme in authority in a State as Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth but are bid to be under obedience and fordid in Church matters so much as to speak much more to usurp authority in the Church 1 Tim. 2.11.12 1 Cor. 14.34.35 viz. in refusing to be judge in matters of faith and religion * For Custos et vindex ut ciusque tabulae under the Gospel because it was sounder that typical standing of the Law is but a tale and a trick of our Priests whereby to curry â—avour with their princes the truth is that whole Jewish State which was also a Church as no one whole nation under heaven now is was a type and both the Kingly Priestly and Prophetical office that then headed that Church were typical of that tripple true head of the Gospel Israel Christ Jesus and are no more to be drawn in as an example so as to argue more warrantably from the Kings then to the civil Rulers now then from the High-PriestHood to the Popedome * my Petition to the powers on behalf of the Church is that it may have as much peace and as little preferment as they please for ever Cum Ecclesia peperit divitias filia devoravit matrem y Two spritualties whereof as bad as the first is the latter will be more sensuall then the former having not the Spirit Jude 17. though pretending to it more supremely then the other under which last the devil now acts as under a new vizard to the deceiving of people from the way of truth perceiving his old vizard worn so thin that all men begin now to see through it * Luk. 9.53.54 55. * Witness the Iesuites that may kil Kings if Hereticks the Northen presbitery that may lawfully fight England if it receive not their directory and the Episcopal war against the State * So Iulius the second who seeing himself vanquisht â—hrew away Saint Peters keyes into the River Tyber protesting he would thence forth help himself with S Pauls sword * The contrary to which where ere t is well may men submit out of fear till they can help themselves but never out of love while the world stands for conscience is a tender thing and though but a worm yet if trod upon wil turn again * Howbeit they shall never want flatterers to perswade them that they are Abj. Ans. * Vid. Tho. Beacons Reliques of Rome set forth cum privilegio 1563. Pope Servitius ordained that Hereticks should be banisht An. 588. fol. 214. Pope Pelagius the first that all Hereticks and Schismaticks should be put to death by the secular power provided that the Bishops in their spiritual courts do first prosecute convict and condemn them for Hereticks and then commit them to the temporal Magistrate to dispatch them out of the way by fire sword or halter for they say as the chief priests to Pilate it is not lawful for us to put any to death In the councel of Lateran by Innocent the third 2 Patriarchs 70 Arch-bishops 400 Bishops twelve Abbots 800 Priests the Legates of the Greek and Roman Empire the Embassadors of Spain Jerusalem France England Cyprus it was decreed that all Hereticks and so many as should in any point resist the Catholique faith should be condemned that the secular power of what degree soever should be compelled openly to swear for the defence of the Catholique faith and to the utmost of their power to root out and destroy in their kingdomes all such persons as the Catholique Church should condemn for Hereticks and if any King should be a Heretick or defender of them and not reform within a year then his subjects should be absolved by the Pope from yielding any further subjection or obedience to him or keeping any fidelity with him and so t was in the case of John here in England who resigned to the Popes Legate his Crown kissing his knee as he came into England which John was after poisoned by a Monk who having his pardon from the Pope poisoned himself first to poison the King and also that the Pope may give that land to Catholiques to possesse peaceably and without contradiction all Hereticks being rooted out of it Obj. Ans. * 1 Sam 5.24 * which he hath more faith then I that believes they ever will for surely the CCClergies Win all or lose all will pull them down at last * 2 Es. 15.5 to the 12.49 to 57. Rev. 11.10.6.19.2 * for howbeit it was the Roman civil power in Potius Pilate passing sentence yet it was the Priestly malice that caused him to be crucified or else Pilate had released him so its Princely power but PPPriestly malice crying out crucifie him crucifie him that hath caused him under the Gospel be crucified in his truth and Saints or else many of the civil Powers would release him * Rom. 13.1 1 Pet. 2.13 Magistrates are called the ordinance of God as the materiality of the thing we call government is of him the ordinance of man as to the particular form of government viz. whether it shall be by Kings Parlia c. and also the particular persons that shall execute that form is altogether in choice of the people * Act. 18.12.13.14 * Se supra p. 279. * For that name Clergy however by themselves improperly impropriated to themselves as if they onely were the heritage of God for that 's the plain English of that Anglico-greek word Clergy yet in plain truth pertains properly to all Christs people and that in contradistinction too from the Ministry for the spirit speaking of the Elders and Pastors of the Church charges them not to Lord it over the heritage i. e. in other location not to domineer over the Clergy 1 Pet. 5.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we see therefore God calls the flock and not the Sheepheards muchlesse the Sheepshearers by the name of Clergy but the Pope as if he had projected purposely to betheeve Gods people out of all their priviledges and rights leaves them not so much as their own proper name to be known by but bestows the name of Clergy upon the Creatures of his own creating and leaves them the name of Laicks in its stead telling them when they begin to charge his CCClergy with impropriation of preaching and pay to themselves that they are but a Clergy of Laicks see Featleys Epistle but to say the truth excepting some few of his sons of the Episcopal and Presbyterian CClergy that are come from him two wayes viz. by dissent and descent who may be honester and wiser then the rest and yet are not so wiâ—e as to know their own father the rest are mostly A CCClergy of Lazicks or lazy locusts In like manner hath he ingrost other titles to himself and his CCClergy all which the Scripture gives to all Christs people as namely that of Spiritual men as if all the world
all your eyes to see those sorry shifts wherein you shroud your selves for a time from your own sight so that ye see not when ye interfeer nor feel when you hack your own shins for who so blind as those that cannot see how you act quite contrary to that you argue for and overthrow your own principles by your practise Report These Propositions say you were as followeth First that both parties should publiquely protest that they sought for verity not victory Reply I acknowledge this is very true and it was protested on both sides accordingly as was agreed nevertheless whether it be the Proud Priest-hood that seeks to tuck all men under their girdles and by force to tye high and low rich and poor Prince and people male and female bond and free to serve God in no other way than the Pope or their Arch-bishops or Arch-presbyteries appoint and to tread all under them that with never such evidence of Scripture and demonstration of the Spirit and power do gainsay them or that poor party of people who meerly in order to the promotion of truth rejoicingly subject themselves to scorn shame hatred of all revilings from friends foes neighbors old acquaintance c. whether I say it be those or these alià s you or we that pretend verity and intend onely victory will appear more at large in the examination of the 23. page of your book in the first line whereof you charge us therewith as an evil most specially incident unto us mean while I let it pass and go on Report Secondly that the question to be disputed was Paedo-baptism namely whether the baptizing of little Children born of believing parents practised by the Church of God were lawfull Reply I remember indeed that when 't was questioned what the question should be Paedo-baptism was agreed upon to be it i. e. whether children ought to be baptized but had I been as wise as a Wood-Cock or minded the matter so well as I should have done I had spoken in a language more consonant to your practice for Paedo-rantism was the question I intended i. e. whether children ought to be sprinkled for though Baptism or Dipping of Infants is that the lawfullness of which you will never be able to demonstrate an error lying still in the Subject in case you did as â—n truth you do not dispense it yet you are gone further from the truth then so no more at best than Rantizing that false Subject which to do is indeed no Baptism at all I excepâ—ed against this in my Position as well as the â—ther but your prudence was pleased to leave it out in your accurate Account thereof least it should do you more harm than good and asserted your errour to be double in your dispensation of that you call Baptism viz. first in that you plead to have Infants be baptized when they ought not Secondly in that you pretend to bapâ—ize them and yet do not of both which I demanded an account at that time and in all reason you should have given it but not caring how little your sprinkling is spoken of because you have little or nothing to speak for it you so took me at my word at the Table when I yielded to dispute Paedo-baptism that Paedo-ranâ—ism your only practise might not be medled with in discourse at all Secondly I observe when ever you come to dispute for your Childish-christenings you plead only for the Infants of Believers but is not your plea by far too narrow for your practise whilest you commonly christen the Infants of all you know your people are not all in the faith why else do you preach to them as prophane to the end you may convert them thereunto yet the wickedest wretches you so keep from the Supper that you often keep all from it for their sakes have access with their seed to be christened as freely for the most part as the other doth not that same faith that denominates men believers saints godly and gives them and as you say theirs too a true title to Baptism intitle their persons to the Supper or must a man bring you another and that a better kind of faith to the one than he had need care for toward the other this some of your Tribe do not blush to say because as the case is there is nought else to be said but know ye Sirs and they too that though you have your several sorts of Saints for your severall services viz. your grosser sort of believers to admit not in their own persons neither when at years but in their posterity only to your Rantism and a finer sort for the Supper yet Christ requires but one sort of faith and saintship to both these ordinances viz. no more than a true one to the one and no less than a true one to the other Again you had much need had you not think you to set children of believing parents as the only subjects of Baptism in the staâ—e of the question between us when throughout your whole Dispute as I shall shew when I come to consider it there is not a tittle nor grain of argument brought by you to prove the right of Believers Infants to Baptism but it serves as much every whit to prove the like for the Infants of Vnbelievers also yea Sirs take this from me you do your cause a world of wrong in stating your question so streightly for besides that you give the ly therein to your own action which is the admission of all that are brought to you and are born within the precincts of your parishes you drive your selves to such a Dilemma by your own disputes that you will not know how to open your Church-doors for Believers Infants to come in thereat but Vnbelievers Infants will with ease creep in at them too Thirdly one word more to this yet Did your Respondent assent to you in it as you seem to say that the Baptism of children is practised by the Church of God how pretily have you put these terms practised by the Church of God into the very question and that too as it stands stated beeween us Did I give and grant so much or have you not rather taken it for granted from me whether I will or no Sirs I had thought I had given you sufficient evidence of my denial that the Baptism of Infants is practised by the Church of God yea though the Church of the Pope and such as you call the Church of God as the Church of the Prelate the Church of the Presbyter and some others too do dispense Rantism to Infants under the name of Baptism yet I did then as also I do still deny it to be or have been practised by any true Church of God primitive or modern that then was or now is visibly constituted according to his will in the word As for what you call the Church of God whether you mean all Christendome or the Protestant part of it only it is