cloud was a Pillar of fire and light to let you see if you be not wilfully blind that education of men at Schools and Universities in the knowledge of the Arts and Sciences as also Tongues and Languages is so far from being a way shut up by Christ as an Impertinency or Impediment to his Ministery that it hath been and is still a way laid open by him even in the times of his best and purest Ministery as a great furtherance and promotion thereof and that his Humane learning which you so vilifie is instrumental and subservient so it ought to be as Hagar to Sarah to the better propagation and profection of the Divine truth But Sir what is the reason you and yours are so much out of charity with Scholars and University Learning Sure it is because you are too much in love with your selves and the Countrey ignorance and like not those who are not like you in ignorance or whom you cannot be like unto in knowledge Like as it is said that Hierom wrote somewhat against Bishops and the Episcopal order because he could not be made a Bishop himself And yet I have heard and partly know it that you had natural wit enough to have been a Scholar though God never gave you the gracious will thereto and I have heard you discourse a great deal more rationally then now you do which makes me think you were dipt in some shallow Pond and not over head and ears otherwise you would not after such declaiming writing against the learning of Latine have within a line or two spoken and written Latine your self as you sililly do in those words of my taking a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum yea and have spoken false English too like a bad English Scholar also for I never took a Living from them the people neither from them as the owners nor from them as the Doners and so no way from them I hope that hereafter you will love Latine the better now your self begin to speak it But I have done with that which concerneth my self solely in your Letter for as to those other Queries or Interrogatories Did ever Jesus lay down my sprinkling of water in Baptism upon the childs face it is answered as being the subject of this my last piece written to you my being Master and Lord over Gods Heritage my taking a Parish Church my giving the Lords Supper to no better then dogs These have been answered as being a part of the Subject of that my former piece written to your brother Thus When the Jews had married wives of Ashdod their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak in the Jews Language Neh. 13.23 24. so you having made a separation and divorce from your Mother Church of Jerusalem and entred into a Communion and match with Ashdod or Samaria this your Letter as your childe and off-spring speaks wholly I may say and not half the speech of the Separation or Ashdod for in all these particulars which you have mentioned you plowed with your Samsons Heifer and there is no more difference betwixt that he first vented and you now have added then betwixt Ephraim his Shibboleth and Gilead his Shibboleth You tell me of some no better then dogs that I give the Sacrament to and of your self having been not so good as a dog yet I see you are good at gathering up the scraps and eating the crumbs which fall from your Masters Table your Master Brothers Table to whom you have committed your soul and in whom you have put your trust for your soul as I have heard you should say to him and so like a Parrat or Pie as I said you speak no other but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Language of your Master and Teacher brother In answering therefore him first I have answered you also who are but his second nay but the very first again now also I will answer my own question before of Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely Magister artis ingeniique largitor venter When he began to be in want he went and joined himself to one of the Citizens or Farmers in that Countrey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as now so then Citizens had their Farms in the Country and were Farmers also as well as Citizens and so he filled his belly with the very same Husks the Swains or Swines do eat Luke 15.15 And so I come to that in your Letter which you speak first Of my Parishioners to be no better then dogs and secondly of your self to have been one not so good as a dog till the grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you say I fear you have not owned but the day will discover and God will judge betwixt you and us Sir it is true I wrote so that I feared it and do still fear as I wrote that you owned not the Truth for you own not the Scriptures in the right sense which are the Word of Truth but wrest the Letter to prove your own Errors nor do you own the Church but have forsaken it which is the Pillar of Truth and betaken your self to a Synagogue of your own and not onely this National Church of England but the Universal Church in the world as who have withdrawn your self from the publick Ministery of the Truth in the Word and Sacraments Yea and have renounced one of its true Sacraments your Infant-baptism these things have been clearly and largely set forth already in my answer to your Brother and I must not tyre my Reader or trifle away paper with needless repetitions And therefore though I yeeld you that the grace of God hath appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes which I am glad to see as it appeareth yet I cannot say as you follow on that it hath pluckt you to or into the knowledge of the Truth for I find you not there but rather which both your Letter and life make to appear in the ignorance and that wilful ignorance of the Truth which makes me doubt somewhat of the truth also of the grace of God you so boast of for where true grace appeareth it not onely sanctifieth and plucketh out of wicked wayes but it illuminateth and setteth in the knowledge and path of Truth Yea and usually the grace of God doth first enlighten the soul and teacheth it the knowledge of the Truth before it pluck him from his wicked wayes as in the Prodigal and Saul more apparently There shined round about him a light from heaven and a voice thereout taught him the knowledge of the Truth even Jesus whom he persecuted in ignorance and so there fell from his eyes immediately as it had been scales and he received forthwith his sight and so after arose and was baptized Acts 9.3 18. and became a new creature and was plucked out of his evil and
thee as it were a Shipboard or into the Ark sealing Christ with his benefits unto thee which shall not be pulled off and made Null and therefore need not to be iterated and set to again the first being still of force and efficacy to all true believers in Christ and repenters of sin Thus I have shewed you Sir how most men yea all men who have been Baptized in their Infancy may and ought to look upon themselves as Baptized in their Infancy which you seem to condemn and that to very good purpose and benefit and whereas you adde as the other part of your condemning them for their not looking after the Command of Christ to be baptized when they believe will you have them look after that is not to be seen or found nay have you seen or found out such a Commandment I pray Si lend or sell no some of your eye-salve to annoint our eyes for by and from that eye-salve in the 3. of Rev. 18. wherewith we have anointed our eyes according to Christs Council there given we cannot see from the one end of the New Testament to the other any such Commandement for persons baptized in their Infancy to be baptized when they believe And yet as if you had revealed and brought to light some rare matter of Salvation you have a very scrious and devout epilogue that it your considerations should be considered without a selfiish prejudicial Spirit a Spirit willing to he guided by the Spirit of the Lord according to his word of truth and the Scriptures truly red and interpreted by the Spirit of the Lord which are quoted to prove the Assertions It will appear to every honest and unbyassed Spirit that Infant-Baptism is a great and dangerous errour for ever to be rejected of every Soul that expects Salvation by Christ Jesus What a Cackling is here made upon the laying of an addle egge or rather what a Crowing is here upon the Treading out of a few idle considerations you have the faculty of entitling upon the Spirit and the Scriptures that which they being the Spirit and Scriptures of Truth own not your considerations and interpretations though very seldom you give interpretations them you leave for me to make quotatious and considerations enough you bring and those to no purpose or proof as I have particularly demonstrated where you cite them I leave it to the Honest and unbyassed Spirits to judge and determine whether the Texts you have cited were pertinent to your Consideration or according to your meaning or interpreting if you have given any whether Infant-Baptism be a great and dangerous errour for evewr to be rejected because now opposed of you which ever was a good and Religions Truth ever practised amongst the Saintt because recommended of Christ and the Apostles whether youts or mine be a selfish and prejudiciall Spirit I confess my Spirit is prejudiciall to yours your opinions as your Spirit is prejudicate to mine and thoughts Lastly whether your considerations be not as inconsiderate in the writer so inconsiderable to the Reader However you think so well of them that you go on to more of them when its time to have done with such selfish things and in the next place offer to me some of your considerations upon Act. 2.39 The which if I thought they were no more considerate nor considerable than your former I would consider a while upon it whether or no I should take them into consideration at all or pass by them as inconsiderable And such indeed they seem to be and upon the General view I find them so for in them all there are nothing but answers and solutions made to objections not set down Refutations and denyals of a sense before it be any where mentioned is not this Cart before the Horse which a Carter methinks should not do a consideration without consideration which a Consideratour I am sure should not do we had before your judgment setled out of Quaeres this is as bad your answers to no objections your refuting no Exposition of ours Well as all the way hitherto I have ordered your matters for you so I see I must do so still or else we shall make no work of it at least have no orderly proceeding in it First therefore let the sense of that Text be given and the argument drawn out of it for Infant Baptism which I will do for you and then after let the refutation of that sense and the Answers to that Argument be added or subjoyned the which you shall do for me Peter having preached here unto the Jess and laid to their charge the death and crucifying of Jesus Christ and brought them to some apprehension of their horrid sins at the 38 Verse exhorteth them to repent and be baptized into the Name of the same Jesus Christ and to accept him for their Messias the which he doth upon this reason and ground mentioned in the 39 Vers and drawn from the benefit that should redound not to the mselves onely but to their Children by their believing in Christ The which he proves from the Promise made to them and their Children In plainer and larger words thus it is God hath remembred his Covenant in sending that blessed Seed in whom he promised to be the God of Abraham and his Seed know ye therefore that as God made the Promise of Grace in Christ to come and to be exhibited unto Abraham upon his believing and took also his Children and Posterity into Covenant with him not onely the natural Jews but even amongst all Nations whoever became followers of Abraham's Faith should by vertue of the same inherit Abraham's Promise That he would be their God and the God of their Seed also which should also be taken into the same Covenant so now this blessed Seed in whom the Promise was founded being now come and exhibited would make it good to you all Jews and Gentiles who would believe in him and notwithstanding your cruel practises against him and your crucifying of him if you will believe in this Lord of life and your Messias you shall thereby be in as good or better condition under this last Administration for your selves and your children as in the former therefore deprive rot your selves by your impenitency and infidelity of so great a benefit as may come to your selves and Posterity for the Promise is made to you and your Children c. what Promise or the Promise of what for so I will clear the Text of some exceptions the Promise of the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost so say some of you that you may the better turn this off from Infants of Believers baptized It is true they are promised also in the Verse before and I acknowledge they were Appendants to the Primitive Baptismes of the adult and peculiar to the first times for the more abundant confirmation of their Faith as Act 10 11. who were converted to it from Paganism and
your flesh Interperate what 's that is it not Intemperate or interprate sure it is not to interpret Scripture No marvel indeed if you would have me To confider of these things you have written with an unbiassed spirit and a self-denying humble spirit such as those spirits are that are guided by the spirit of the Lord For surely then your spirit hath not been guided by the Spirit of the Lord as which is or hath been in your Letter a byassed spirit and an all other besides your self denying proud spirit and therefore without any just ground you arrogate those words of the Apostle to your own practise saying as he 2 Cor. 2.17 We are not as many which corrupt or deal deceitfully with the Word but as of seneâ—rity sincerity but as of God in the sight of God speak we in Christ What you speak when you are teaching and expounding or praying I know not this I know by the experience you have given of your self to me that in your writing and citing Scriptures in your Letter you are the most corrupter and the most deceiptful dealer and wrester also of Scripture that ever I read I do not know many scarce any that go beyond you except your Masters and Tutours you know whom I mean and your sincerity is as false spoken as written of you if as of sincerity as of God in the sight of God you shall speak in Christ it will be acceptable as to God so to man and my self if renouncing the hidden things of dishonesty not walking in craftiness not handling the Word of God deceitfully but by manifestation of the truth you commend your self to every mans conscience in the sight of God as you add of your selfe 2 Cor. 4.2 Comparing spiritual things with spiritual but so you did not when you compared the holy and legitimates together and the unclean with bastards to go no farther backward And Scripture with Scripture for Scripture is the best Interpreter of Scripture neither did you so when you could finde no Scripture to compare with 1 Cor. 7.14 that either did interpret or intimate bastards to be unclean and much less fignified by this word there or legitimates to be holy and much less meant by this word there For that in the close of your Letter which concerneth my self in particular as That you should gladly see better fruits from me If I knew what fruits you mean I should soon tell you whether or no I should ever glad you so much as to see them but if they relate to which immediately goeth before them the wresting of Scriptures by Humane learning I must tell you that the root that I am graffed into and which beareth me shall ever I hope bring forth better fruits though I question your gladness in seeing them as being opposite to your fruits who throughout your whole Letter have been gathering yea pulling and enforcing thornes of grapes and thistles of figs divers errorneous Tenets from Texts that will not nor can bear them the which I am sorry to see from you And for your intreating me to lay aside all selfe-ends and by-respects you must pardon me herein for I took up the defence of my self and my Ministery and Infant-Baptism as well as of others making both my end next unto Gods glory and the truth without any other by respects which I must not upon your request lay aside but for that which followeth I have seriously considered the things and words of God spoken by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures which were all written for our learning and imitation yea moreover have enformed you in particular how far forth all which were written for our learning were written for our imitation some of them and some of them not which you indistinctly and confusedly jumble together yea and according to your farther intreaty I have turned to and looked into all those Scriptures you have but quoted and named and not written out for want of time as you say and have writ out all the words of most of them as who never want time to search out the Truth of the Scriptures if I want not health Your self best know whether it was for want of time or for want of truth you did not transcribe the words as making most an end nothing to the purpose or Point for which you set down and multiplied Chapters and Verses by their figures onely and whether this was Not walking in craftiness nor handling the Word of God deceiptfully but by a manifestation of the Truth a commending your self to every mans Conscience whether this was of sincerity as of God as in the sight of God spoken or written judge you but judge righteous judgement for God will who trieth the heart c. For that in the close still of your Letter which concerneth your self it is your desire that wherein you have erred I would inform you by plain Scripture It is done to your hand but I fear it is not gone to your heart whose heart was and is I surmise resolved before hand as your hand laid upon your heart to that purpose of not acknowledging any error or submitting to information for what hope or likelihood is there hereof when as presently you adde You are confident heare here is nothing aserted asserted nor queared but will now appeare a truth proved by Scriptures and likewise will appeare at the great day Wherefore then do you intreat me to weigh things seriously and if you have erred in any thing to inform you when as you are confident here is nothing asserted or quaered but will now appear a truth just as the man in the Gospel professed to follow our Saviour Christ and went away presently about other matters of no such consequence you likewise say you will be informed by me wherein you have erred and in the next words you are confident of nothing asserted or quaered by you here but the very Truth I am perswaded the work will be much alike the informing you to the laying down of any error of yours and the washing of a Leopard to the putting off any of its spots But I should gladly see better fruits from you than such a non resolution and brasse-forehead which for the most part is in most of the Revolters from our Church and the Truth as not to be conformed and converted when informed confuted notwithstanding Though I have laboured in vain and spent my strength for nought and in vain yet surely my judgement is with the Lord and my work with my God Isa 49.4 But Sir are you confident that there is nothing â—sserted or quaered but will appear a Truth what that which is asserted by you may appear let passe buâ— sure that which is quaered by you here will not now appear a Truth neither now nor never will it be a Truth no not at the great day that which is quaered onely your Quaeres were your judgement as you affirmed before now you affirm they are a
Truth proved by Scriptures and yet but propounded in Quaeres and what will they be at the last your Quaeres will appea you say a Truth also at the last and great day you will be deceived then as now for your Quaeres are not Resolutions Decrees Axioms but Quaeres it doth not yet appear what is Truth in them to your self or any others put them out of Question into Propositions come out of your Quaeres into your Resolves and then I will tell you whether now in the later little daies they do or in that last great day they will appear a Truth or Truths In particular to passe by your Questions and Quaeres your Sacrilegious Usurpation to Preach Baptize and distribute the Sacramental Bread and Wine your injurious Detension of Christian Infants from Baptism the Seal of the Covenant God made with them also your ridiculous dopping and plunging of grown persons over head and ears back ward in a Pond who were before Baptized in their infancy in the face of the Congregation your Scrismatical separation from your Parochial and National fellow members professing truth and holiness your Scurrilous railing upon the true visible Church of England and the Ministers thereof as Baalitish Devillish and Antichristian professing and worshiping Christ Jesus and God in spirit and truth with a world more of fraudulent misinterpreting and misapplyings of sacred writ virulent Caluminations of holy Truth violent oppositions of lawful order uncharitable imaginations and contempts of higher Powers and all persons who are not of your S ct and Set can I think or any man else whose brains and heads have not been intoxicated by a superfluous re-baptization that these will appear a Truth or truths at that great and last day which in all the former daies the Word of God hath judged and condemned for errors and untruths it hath been the fashion of some Heretiques and Scismatiques when they have been confuted and confounded with the evidence and light of Truth which hath been flashed in their faces here from the Word and Scriptures to make their appeals to the great and last day for trial and to Jesus for the Judge of truth or untruth but we have it already as a ruled Case from himself in the 12. of John 48. ver The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him and you and all at the last day and the Apostle Paul speaketh of the same day When God shall judge the secrets of men according to his Gospel Rom. 2.16 Flap not me off therefore with this put off of your Tenets if you have done with Quaeres as its high time that they will appear Truths at that great and last day for if you cannot now in this your little present day make them to appear Truths according to Christs word and Pauls Gospel better than you or others have done as yet and yet I think you and they have done your best they will never appear Truths in the great and last day but the Word and Gospel will then as now they do appear against them for errors and untruths and by that Word and Gospel Christ and his Apostles and all the Saints shall judge and condemn them for such so that you and they who held up your heads in these waters of strife and contention here on Earth with the pust and blown bladders of your self-conceipted fansies will be fain to hang them down in shame and confusion of face Revel 3. â—â— Calling upon the Hills to fall upon you and to the Mountains to cover you from the face of him that siteth upon the Throne and from that shine and lustre of Truth that then will appear at that great and last day I will therefore give you the good counsel of the Apostle Let every man for the counsel is good for all of us take heed how he buildeth upon the Foundation Jesus Christ every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it Especially the great and last day you speak off Because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is whether Gold Silver precious Stones or whether Wood Hay Stubble if any mans work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward if any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer losse 1 Cor. 3.10 and 12. And whereas in your next close you bid me lye down before it and stoop to it it is spoken like an imperious School Master or imperial Master of the Field which as yet you are neither as for all the Truths of Christ set forth in his Word and Gospel I do here stoop to them and ly down before them prostrating and casting down all my imaginations and every thing of my Reason that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God bringing into captivity every thought or affection of mine to the obedience of Christ and his Truth and pleasure laying my hand upon my mouth and putting my mouth in the dust and laying dust upon my head I do here bow down my head incline my heart throw down all within me and without me and wholly and totally yield my self unto Truths of the Word of God as to the Victorious and Conquering the powerful and Triumphant Rod and Scepter of Christ Speak Lord for thy servant heareth 1 Sam. 3.10 1 Kings 18.39 Numb 23.18 Deut. 32.4 The Lord he is the God The Lord he is the God God is not as man that he should lye a God of Truth and without iniquity just and right is he yea God is truth it self and Christ is the Way and the Truth and the Spirit is truth 1 John 5 6. And thy Law is truth and all thy Commandements are truth John 14.6 Psalm 119.142 and 151. Thy Word is true from the beginning Psal 119.160 and so to the end thy Word endureth Heaven and Earth shall passe away but one jot and tittle of the Word shall not passe away till all be fulfilled Matth. 5.18 But Sir to lye down before or stoop to your Quaeres and Considerations and Interpretations so void and empty of the Divine Truth of God and his Word so full and even swoln with the Humane sanfie of man and his will though you masterly expect it I shall Scholarly defeat you I am now too strong and well truss'd and truth'd to untrusse or untruth to such a dip-dop pedant or rather Anti-pedant as you are such a one as you are I could have disciplined that way and discipled any other way fifty years ago and I have too much of Mordecai the Benjamite in me and of his zeal to the Church of God than to bow or stoop to such a Haman a man the Agagite the separate that speaks so ill and vilely of the people of God and seeks to destroy it and them utterly Nay rather let your Dagon fall upon his face to the earth before the Ark of the Lord and your Quaerulous errors lie down
small step farther by my upholding or rather by Gods enlightening of it and Gods upholding of it For not I 1 Cor. 15.10 but the grace of God it is by which I am what I am and have done what I have doen to the God of which Grace I do here give up the Glory in the words of that heavenly Host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men Luke 2.14 And now return unto thy rest O my soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee c. Psal 116.17 But I must not thus make an end you Sir will not let me return to my rest or give me a Writ of ease until I have considered some certain Texts of Scriptures which you have written out to the full of the words and left with me for the conclufion of your Letter There is not reason the Reader should be deprived of them they are so excellent for the purpose and so pertinent to the cause they come like after-drops when a storm of rain is over The first is Job 6.24 25. Teach me and I will hold my tongue cause me to understand wherein I have erred how orceable forcible are right words but what doth your arguinges arguing or Arguments reprove do ye imagie imagine to reprove words Why do you leave out that which followeth with your leave I will add it as belonging to the former and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as winde This is kindly spoken of you to me as of Job to Eliphaz his friend if as truly meant and I think I may say in justification of the truth more than my self for wisdom is justified of her children that the thing is really done you are taught the truth here and caused to understand wherein you have erred and may hold if willing to learn therefore hold your peace as a friend answered and therein satisfied without reply as another friend only questioned and thereby convinced was speechless without answer Luke 22.12 But I suspect you have not told me all your heart and do but mock as Delilah told Sampson I fear I shall never teach you who have learned as much as you desire to know I may perhaps cause some other an indifferent Reader or so to understand wherein you have erred but your self the principal party I shall not I foresee according to that Text Prov. 27.22 the words whereof for want of time I have not written out Nor will you hold your peace for all your saying so you must or may as to any material or substantial replication you can make against the truth herein asserted and proved but you neither will nor can hold your peace as to frivilous multiplication of words impertinent citations and misinterpretations and mis-applications of Texts slanderous calumniations of Ministers and the Answerer especially no more than the dog in the dark night can or will leave barking and bawling at the bright Moon But how feeble and impotent are crooked and impertinent words appears by Job saying How forcible are right words the other words What doth your arguings or arguments reprove as unfitting and unseasonable for you to use unto me before you had heard or read any word or syllable of any arguing or argument from me You might rather have left them out for me to have said them to you as now I shall after that I have read over and heard your arguings and arguments or rather Quaeres Gonsiderations Interpretations without any arguings or arguments in them What do they reprove Indeed they reprove something every thing those things that deserve no reproof but they prove nothing no not those things that most needed proof and which you undertook to prove which indeed moved and occasioned me to be thus large in setting down the things in controversie betwixt us by proving and disproving and reproving sometimes lest all the time should be as lost and mis-spent betwixt us and no body nor our selves the better by this discourse The last words are right words for us both and very forcible to inform me and reform my imagination which hath been to reprove words and speeches of one that is desperate you were very loth to write out these words and good cause why which are as wind so are both the words and speeches of one that is desperate and so are the reprooss of such words and speeches of one that is desperate you out of hope of learning I out of hope of teaching according to that Text Jer. 17.9 Jerem. 13.23 The words whereof I have not written out for want of time The other Texts that you have heaped up together and at large transcribed are nothing but very Quakerisms in the end of your Letter to which Anabaptisms will come in the end you have here begun though you are not the first For as it is the fashion of Quakers to get up into their memories and mouths all the Texts of old and new Testament where any false and vicious Prophets are spoken of and against or any covetous and superstitious Pharisee is taxed and reproved and to flap them in the face of every Minister they meet withall though never so impertinently and inconsiderately insomuch that one of them very lately being at Church after the Minister had ended his Sermon as who preacheth constantly every Sunday twice Yea said he this is just as the Prophet saith Isa 56.10 They are all dumb dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down c. And just even so do you Sir first you tell me of Jerem. 5.4 and have now time enough to write out the words at length and not in figures Surely these are poor they are foolish for they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgement of there their God The which is spoken of the ignorant and perverse people amongst the Jews the Prophet complains of like as we Ministers may of many such amongst us your self not excepted and I commend you for your fit and pertinent and even Quaker-like application of it to us the Ministers of England whom you know to know the way of the Lord c. and therefore apply it against your own science and conscience to Ministers which is spoken onely to the People by the Prophet The next is Micah 3.5 11 12. Neither here is there to you any want of time to write out all the words Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people to erre that byte bite with their teeth and cry Peace and he that putteth not into there their mouth they even prepare war against them The Heads thereof judge for reward and the Priest thereof teach for byre hire and the Prophets thereof devine divine for money yet will they lean upon the Lord and say Is not the Lord amongst us none evil can come unto us Therefore shall Zyon Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field c. What if there were in the State
14.15 For so I have put your three last Texts together into one as being all much as one that so I might bring your words the sooner to an end Neither here wanted you time to write out all the words even of three Texts together yet I see you are as far off from an end as when you began for you here fall back again upon your old matter you began withal to quaere me about Commandements of God and mens Traditions and Prescriptions say once more out of your former Text What will ye do in the end I must answer you from these Texts That I must now do in the end the same I did in the beginning discourse again of the Commands of God and Prescriptions of men But I am resolved otherwise having gotten up the stone to the top of the hill not to let it roul back or tumble down again this would make my labour endless and my pains infernal and Hellike which are supernal now and Heaven-like nor will I suffer you to begin the Sute again but will force you to joyn issue and to come to trial and so to an end In vain Sir you will tell me that we worship God in vain teaching for Doctrines the Commandements of men when as you do not here as not heretofore teach me and tell me what Commandement of man we make or teach for a part of Divine Doctrine or Worship We teach and embrace the Political and Ecclesiastical Commands of the Supreme Rulers over us as prescriptive Orders and directive Rules about the external carriage and outward celebration of the publick Divine Service and Worship to make it the more comely and in order and have not you the same Collinical and domestical Orders and Rules about your private Congregations and Administrations and so teach for Doctrincs the Commands of men and worship God in vain by your Text What a vanity is this in you to write thus in vain and in fine to shew nothing of ours in vain but onely words in vain of your own So likewise why do ye not name some one of those heavie burdens grievous to be born that we either lay upon the peoples shoulders or if lasd by others we our selves are not ready to move them with one of our fingers As for the old legal burdens and yokes of keeping the Law in all its Morals and Ceremonials as to justification and salvation thereby we were and are so far from laying them on mens shoulders no not with one of our fingers that with both our hands and not ours only but with the hands of the Apostlet Acts 15. we do pull them off knowing that neither our Fathers nor we for our shoulders yet are underlaid by them as well as others were able to bear them and to lay no greater burden upon men than things necessary as to salvation than the yoke and burden of Christ of which the one is casie and the other light as Christ himself said of it who also maketh it so unto all that undergo the same Matth. 11.29 30. This is no other than the Gospel the Doctrine and Commands of Christ the which as his yoke draweth in all and as his burden beareth out all Evangelical Graces and Duties which we Ministers in the Name of Christ impose upon our People or rather call upon them to take this yoke and burden of Christ upon them and to learn of him and to practise as he did things learnable practicable and imitable And these burdens and yokes we also as yoke-fellows and burden-fellows with our people we are even with both our hands and all our hearts ready to move stir and lift at and lift up as upon our own so their shoulders bearing our parts and helping them to bear their parts in repenting believing praying c. so bearing one anothers burthens as the Apostle adviseth Gal 62. yea with heart and mouth praying for them and preaching to them we strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees as the Prophet bids us Isa 35.6 by saying to them that are of a fearfull heart Be strong fear not if any faint under their burden or hold it not fast or stand not sure under it or grow weary of well-doing Coloss 6.9 and as the Apostle again exhorteth 1 Thessal 5.14 we are alwaies ready to comfort the feeble-minded and to support the weak and to be patient towards all men as active towards some for we that are strong or stronger than some others of our people I may say ought and some of us I say do or desire to do as we ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves Rom. 15.1 nay we cannot please our selves if we be such as we ought to be better I think I am sure we cannot please God better than by bearing the infirmities of the weak and helping them to bear their burdens What would you Sir have more of us do you so much your selves are not you rather of those bad Scribes and Pharisees and in their coat and seat whom you quote and cite against us For a Scribe I think you are none or a very bad one who not only cannot write true English of your own without a Copie but even when you have a Copie before you and write out of the Bible cannot write the true English out of that Copie witness my Corrections of your Transscipts of these last Texts Nor are you a true Scribe for whereas at the beginning of your Letter and so all along when you had time enough before then you did not write out the many Texts you quote and cite about matters in question and proof but onely name the Chapter and Verse now at the end of your Letter when you have less time and are in more haste to make an end excusing the former for want of time you write out to the full length all the words of ten or eleven verses without any mention made of or excuse for want of time They were not the Pharisees onely but the Scribes also that were the Hypocrites in our Saviours time so the words run together Scribes Pharisees Hypocrites And was there not an Hypocrisie in your Scribism or the Scribe here shewed himself an Hypocrite I have said it and shewed it it was not want of time or leasure what then even want of truth and sincerity which you so much assume to your self or rather presume of in your self too much For Sir of fifty Texts of Scripture at least alleged by you in the former part of your Letter of which all had one verse many two and some three verses and some more To write out the words of few or none of them whereby the Reader and especially Popular sort might see how they accorded to the matter in hand for which they were cited when time enough was before you and at your own will and pleasure to take and then towards the end of your Letter to intreat me to look
your errors then you cite the Text onely but write not the words for want of time and truth too and so feed their senses onely with figures and numbers onely sending them away to search out the words for their satisfying their understandings as the Egyptians did the Isaelites to finde out straw for their burning the Brick But I remember your last Text you cited wherewith you think you have hit us home was that off the Scribes and Pharisees laying heavy burdens upon mens or the peoples shoulders and not moving them with one of their fingers I have put by the blow as of all the other your Texts alleged against us so of this and the Scribism of the same and have made them to recoil-back fly in your own face because you overcharged and had no kill to charge aright you hold as great if not a greater correspondency with the Pharisees than the Scribes Few of you are Scribes more are Pharisees for you are like unto them in your name the word Pharisee signifying Separate as formerly I said so in your corrupting and false interpreting of Scripture this I have shewed throughout this Discourse so in your high conceipt of your own righteousness and holiness this you manifest in your scornful and supercilious looâ—s and speeches so in your compassing the Land to make you Proselites and ambitious seeking the people and their applause this all men see and you will not deny I adde lastly which makes the wonder that people run after you in your laying heavy burthens and grievous to be borne upon the shoulders of men and women This latter is the thing I will shew out off Act. 15. where ver 5. There arose up certain of the Sect of the Pharisees which believed or professed Jesus to be the Messia saying it was needful to Circumcise the newly converted Brethren c. the matter is decided in the 10. ver 28. ver Now therefore why tempt you God who put a yoke upon the neck of the Disciples which neither our Fathers nor we were able to bear And it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary thing c. Out of which I gather and deduct this one General Proposition leaving out the particular of Circumcision Things laid upon Christians or Disciples more than necessary are a burden and yoke and seemeth not good to the Holy Ghost but is a tempting of God Joyn we issue now in brief Here the Pharisees of the old separation said it was needful to Circumcise the new converted Chirstians or Disciples and you of the newer separation say it is needful to re-Baptize grown and professing Christians or Disciples upon a particular confession of their Faith are not you now agreeable to the Pharisees in laying on a burden and a yoke upon the necks and shoulders off the Disciples and Christians But how do I shew this latter to be a burden or yoke why from the Proposition here because the re-Baptizing of Christians or Disciples who were Baptized formerly in their Infancy is more than needful or necessary andthat it is so my whole last part of this Discourse which now I am finishing hath amply Demonstrated yea your own Rule given to me at first doth joyntly attest the same the which is this of all things necessary to Salvation the Scripture hath either a Command or an Example or both Now shew me for that your practise any Command of God Expresse or Implicite or by Consequence for such your re-Baptizing Or any Example of any grown person or Christians formerly Baptized so re-Baptized if you cannot hold you your peace they are your own words I will speak you a Pharisee laying upon mens necks and shoulders a yoke and a burden and moreover by doing so a tempter of God and doer of that which seemed not good unto the Holy Ghost and the Apostles Again for you to require of Infants born in Covenant with God and of Parents in Covenant with God an external confession or profession of Faith before you will put them under the initial Seal of that Covenant and in the mean while to with hold this from them until they shall do that is a putting a yoke and burden upon their necks and shoulders to hinder them in their Christian progresse it is to tempt the Lord and to put him upon other means for Infants Salvation than Baptism and its a doing of that which seemeth not good to the Spirit and the Apostles assembled and determining the case in a holy Synod for that it is a requiring more of Infants than is necessary to needful for their Baptism Yet once more The leading of grown Christians Baptized before into some deep Pond and therein re-Baptizing them plunging and holding them some while there under water over-head and ears body and cloaths too is a yoke upon the neck and a burthen put and laid upon the head and shoulders heavy and grievous to be borne especially of the aged infirm and sickly and a doing of more than is necessary unto the administration of Baptisin unseemly and superfluous if not ridiculous and so more than seemeth good un to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles met in Counsel yea it is an tempting of God and some as I have heard have sickned and died soon after thereupon of which I shall discourse at large in my Narration censure of a late dipping which followeth Now see Sir by this whether we Ministers of the Church of England or you Separates from the same be like to the Pharisees And so I have retorted all your Texts and returned them to you again to apply them to your selves or to apply your selves to them I shall therefore onely give you the like friendly farewel at the end of my Letter as you gave me in yours namely a few Texts of Scripture to consider of and seriously to weigh some for your self and others that take upon you to be Preachers of the Separation to consider of and that not slightly as you use Numb 16.11 and 12. 2 Chron. 26.18 Jer. 23.21 31 32. 2 Corinh 11.13 14 15. 2 Tim. 3.5 6 7 8 9. Tit. 1.10 and 11. Heb. 5.4 and 5 2 Pet. 2.18 19. 2 Pet. 3.16 Some for your followers and others that hear you and if any of my people be amongst them for them also to consider of and that not lightly 2 Chron. 36.15 16. Jerem. 2.13 Matth. 24 23 24 25 26. Mark 12. 38 39 40. Luke 21.1 with Mat. 16.6 and 12. Rom. 16.17 18 Gal. 4.16 17 18. Gal. 5.7 8 9 10. 2 Tim. 4.3 and 4. Heb. 10.23 and 24 Heb. 13.9 2 Pet. 2.12 Jude 17 18 19. 20. And this one for all and every one of you 1 Tim. 6.3 4. 5. You see Sir I do not as you did for whereas in the matter of Proof I have written out the words of every Text to the full here in point of Reproof I onely name the Texts and no
your last line lovely and amiable though the first leaf was hatefull and detestable I embrace you in your last line so also in your Subscription speak it again and write or subscribe again your self that in the hand of two witnesses or the double witness of your hand this word may stand and be more confirmed To be the Lord Jesus's devoted Servant as also mine and the rest the meanest of Christs Servants and Ministers Servants for Jesus sake which I take onely according to the Apostles limitation Galath 5.13 in or by love for which also I thank you being ready also to serve you in and by love for Jesus sake but with another of the same Apostles limitations 2 Thess 2.10 by an in love of the truth the which because some have not received God hath sent them strong delusions that they should believe a lye as it followeth in the Apostle ver 10 11. But we are bound to give God thanks for you Brethren and Nâ—ighbours and Parishioners and your selves are boundmuch more to do the same to God for that he hath called you unto the belief of the truth by our Gospel and something also by this my Answer to you 2 Thessalonians 2. verse 14. Therefore Brethren and Neighbours stand fast and hold the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by word or our Epistle verse 15. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace comfort and â—stablish you in every good word and work verses 16 17 And now also Brethren I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up Acts 20.32 Consider what I say and have said and the Lord give you understanding in all things 2 Tim. 2.7 Let every soul that is understanding be subject to the higher powers of the word and captivate every thought to the obedience of the truth Let every Saul who is ignorant admit of the light of the Word and Truth to shine round about him that the scales by the Ministry of Ananias may fall away from their eyes that in seeing they may see and understand the truth of all the matters and mysteries of Salvation Acts 9.15 But if any man be ignorant and will be ignorant let him be ignorant and still be ignorant 1 Cor. 14.38 Or Let them hear and say reade and see It is truth Isa 43. verse 9. And so Sir because I will be answerable to you in all things I do now subscribe my self as in relation to my Master and Lord Jesus Christ His the least of his Servants and Ministers not worthy to be called a Servant and Minister of Christ so in reference unto you my Antagonist and Opponent Your the greatest of your friends worthy to be called a friend of yours for am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth Gal. 4.16 When you have tried all your Brethren and Friends Truth will be your best Friend and your best Brother will be Jeffry Watts From Muchleigh's Parsonage July the 1. 1656. Now I proceed from a Scribe and his Letter answered and a Pharisce or Separate churched to a hypocrite or Dipper sprinkled but first of all to be questioned and catechised and so to the Narration of a dipping to be censured according to my Promise in the Title and Frontispiece of this Treatise Onely first Courteous Reader I Must desire of thee that in the reading over if so thou art intended this Narration of a Dippping with a Censure thereupon which followeth now Thou wouldst not mind a Passage or Paragraph of the Former Epistle to thee which goeth before the Answer and Instruction of a Scribe and his Letter as wherein I apologized for my omitting to cite and call into the several Points I handled the venerable Testimonies of the ancient Doctors and Fathers of the Church in their own learned Languages This I excused unto thee partly because I was confined and tyed up by the Scribe and his queres onely to Scripture Commands and Examples for my Answer and partly for that I intended my Answer should go no farther then in a reciprocal and interchangeable Letter returned unto him who first occasioned and provoked it Though afterwards by reason of the larger extent of my Answer then I expected The Desk refusing a transcription of it to which I had offered it I was even compelled to make my refuge unto the Presse for an Impression of the same otherwise all the labour must be lost on both sides the Queres and Letter unanswered the Scribe uninstructed the Pharisee uncharged and Truth unvindicated as to and by my self This beingdone the Answer finished dismissed and sent away for the aforesaid prupose There fell out and was practised in my Parish and it may be for the more affront to me at a house of mine there This Dipping of two new Sisters in a Pond of the Yard The which being in publick upon the Lords-day and betwixt the Morning and Evening Worships drew away much people thither and was discoursed of by many mouthes and so famed about in these parts that I resolved and could do no less to get a full Narration of the business and to pass my censure upon the same And so having first preach it down in my Pulpit to my own Parish as a New business of ill consequence I next have written it down in my Study to thee the Reader and have sent up also this my censure after the former my Answer to be Impressed or Imprinted together into the same Tractate as handling both of them matters very agreeable and consonant So then here intending the Presse and having now no confinements or restraints upon me I have taken my full Liberty to produce and bring in much of the Learned Antiquity and to write out and transcribe their weighty Words and Speeches in their own Languages as many of them as I had by me for the fuller Confirmation and firmer Attestation of this my censure upon that Dipping that it was and is as I have said a New business and a very Novelty Yea this I have done as for the convincing the Anabaptists their Dipping and Immerging Baptism so called to be of Novelty so for the Confirming the Orthodox their Sprinkling and Aspersing Baptism as it is to be of Antiquity by the evidences of the ancient Fathers and Doctors brought forth and shewed on both sides and farther I have ascended up to the Highest Antiquity of all even to the Ancient of dayes and the Primogenit of every Creature and have probably at least shewed that Christ Jesus himself manifested in the flesh was but Aspersed or Superfused with water and not Dipped and Immerged under the water certainly not in their way and manner at his Baptism by S. John the Prime baptist nor other Christians after him by S. Peter and the other Primitive Baptizers And as to raâ—fi
Bishop to be confirmed as Gregory the Great acknowledgeth in his Sacramentary in which is set down the order of baptizing Infants To which I shall adde the Testimony of another one Alcuine or Albine by name who lived in the Year 780. and so 220. years after the aforesaid Gregory and the rather I do because he was an English man born in Yorkshire and it may be thereupon called the other name Albine of Albion he was the scholar of our venerable Bede and the school-master also as friend and familiar to Charles the Great by whose advice Charles the Great founded the University of Paris and appointed four principall Heads and Presidents thereof Rabanus Alcuinus Claudius Johannes Scotus all the Scholars of our Beda so much is France beholding to England for their Learning and learned men but to the purpose the words of Alcuine are Postquam vestiti fuerint Infantes he is speaking of Infants after they had been baptized naked deportantur ante Pontificem ad confirmandâ—m who sate in a seat fixed somewhere in the Church or in Sacrario the Chancel or Vâ—stry for the same purpose whereby I conceive it was at the solemn times of Baptism twice in the year Easter and Whitsontide an evideut Testimony both for Infant-baptism and also for Infants baptized naked And it is true also that the old and late Liturgy of our Church of England mentioneth the Ministers taking the child to be baptized into his arms naming it shall as the Rubrick hath it dip it in the water so it be discreetly and warily done but whether in the cloaths or out of the cloaths it is not expressed In present I think and so shall until I be better informed that our Church meant a dipping of the Infant out of the cloaths and therein owned the Antiquity of the practise but yet shewed her authority in things of such nature for that she addeth if the child be weak it shall suffice to pour water upon it so indulging the health and welfare thereof and what child is not weak in these our Northern cold Clymates though not contradicting Antiquity which did so dip children naked in those Eastern warmer Countreys where they might more safely do it I am sure she meant not your new way of dipping in the cloaths over head and ears and the whole body What if she meant the dipping of the naked face onely or the naked forehead and head also in the water by such as hold still to the dipping there mentioned so doing as it crosseth not the Antiquity for the reason I gave but now so it favoureth not your novelty for the reasons I have given against the same all this while By this time you may see and hear how your dipping and baptizing bodies in their cloaths in a new busines and none of the old way I remember Justin Martyr in dial ad Tryph. gives the Pharisees that peculiar term and epithite of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of their washing so many things as cups pots vessels and tables us are mentioned Mark 7.4 But these are civil or superstitious washings or ceremonial Your Scribes surpasse these Pharisees in dipping of cloaths and all in their baptizing and washings which are Eclesiastical religious and even moral with them and therefore may more justly be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dippers or washers and in this sense Johns the Baptists I do look when you shall fall from this novelty in this Sacrament of Baptism to such another novelty in the other Sacrament and when you break bread give it into your proselytes hands with their gloves on I omit to open unto the Reader the packet of these other frivolous if not scurrilous Rites and Ceremonies which were used at this your dipping some whereof you relate and others for modesty I suppose you silence but are talked of by the spectators as ridiculous and infamous I question them not at all for they were all such questionless onely this I question How men of such sincerity onely should be thus full of ceremony also and wonder also how you who hate in others innocent and significant ceremonies in ministerial celebrations and abominate them as the abomination of desolation throwing them away as the rags and patches of Popery and rending them off as the fringes and laces of the whore should now be so far in love of them as to clothe and adorn your Dippal administrations in such offensive and sensless Rites and Ritual dresses so that your brother may be better called a master of Ceremonies then a Minister of Ordinances This one thing I shall question here why your brother was so quick of his words and so slow at his work for so it seems by the narration which is your relation that he spake the words according to the institution I baptize thee in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost before he dipped them in the water though but immediatly before The which I take to be another novelty if not more some vanity be not in it For our English Liturgy consonant to the ancient Liturgies of the Churches doth otherwise and better practise direct where as the Rubrick hath it the Minister naming the child shall dip it in the water saying I baptize thee c. And I conceive there is good reason for it that the dipping into or sprinkling with water and the pronouncing the words of administration I baptize c. should be done in one and the same instant of time as two conjunct Acts and not one before the other because the sign and the thing signified are two correlate parts and go together not one before the other If either may go immediately instantly before the other It is the dipping before the words as our Liturgy hath it Dip it in the water saying and not the words before the dipping as your Tympany doth it he spake the words before he dipped nay there is not verity or truth in it to say the words I baptize c. before the party be in the water or the water upon the party But your Dippers tongue dipt and tipt it may be aforehand for the better keeping out of the cold of water did run so fast in the pronouncing the words of institutution too fast indeed as which did run before it was sent and spake before the Lord opened the mouth of the man Numb 22.28 that his hands having taken such fast hold of the sisters by their clothes about the shoulders and loath to let it go or put them out of his sight till needs must he forgat the work action of dipping them putting them under the water at the same time or before the speaking of the words of Institution And so I may say as the Comaedian doth in a like dipping and tripping Neque lingua neque manus suum faciebant officium I may put in neque pedes as the Comaedian doth for his feet ran too fast to the Pond
baptism yet shall we not need to infer hence or to introduce hither the Rite of immerging and emerging which is your total dipping as which is resembled as well and better in our manner of aspersion and effusion of water upon the party though but upon a part for when water is poured upon or is laid upon the head of the adult standing on his feet or kneeling on his knees as likewise upon the face of the child lying in the Arms of the Minister or the Parent or other presenting it are they not the while as it were buried in or do they not lie under the water as the buried doth under the earth and so the party may be said to arise as it were when it comes or goeth from the water as the body doth from the earth or the Ministers dipping his hand into the water and plucking it out when he layeth it on may it not have the same signification with immerging and emerging and so of the Burial and Resurrection of Christ And I think I may say our Church in giving liberty of dipping or immerging and emerging of Infants if not weak did it not so much from authority of this or any other Scripture as in conformity to some of the Ancient Christians and Fathers of the Church in this custome as in other lawful Rites they practised to which and whom I now come Onely I shall give but a tender and gentle touch of one thing that floweth more naturally or rather more mystically from the afore-alledged Texts That if the baptized his being buried with Christ in baptism be represented and signified by the lying and abiding of the water upon the face or forehead as a part of the body and so the body in that part thereof its lying and abiding under the water even sprinkled and poured upon it Then sure it is not advisedly and conveniently done by Gentlewomen and tender Mid-wives to wipe off the water from the part and absterge it with a handkerchief as soon as it is laid on by a Minister or by turning the head of the Infant whom I speak for that cannot speak for it self presently downward to cause the water to fall off it upon the ground In all the History of Baptism from the beginning of it in Jordan and Rivers to the present being of it in Fonts or Vessels I do not read of such a word spoken or such a work done as absterging or wiping off water in Baptism no not then when there seemed more occasion for it as when the adult and likewise Infants were immerged all over their naked bodies in the water at Baptism nor then when presently after it they went or were carried to be anointed as they were either all over their bodies as in the Greek Churches so Cyril Catech. Mystag 11. Chrysest Homil. 6. in Col. witness or in their foreheads and breasts and between the shoulders so Epiphanius Haeres 79. Rabanus de Instit Cler. l. 1. c. 23. affirm Therefore learned Vossius doth justly censure the Translator of the Apostolical Constitutions of Clemens as they are called for rendring those words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 3. Cap. 15. Thus deinde Diaconissa eas abstergit for the word is and signifieth anointeth not abstergeth and the work was the Deaconess anointed them not absterged them after baptism The truth is they neither absterged or wiped off water after their Baptism or oyl after their unction and so such a custom hath no ground either in Equity or Antiquity True it is also that this our Westernly Northen Climate is colder much then those Easternly Southern and our waters therefore are colder and our Infants tenderer and our Mothers more indulgent and our Midwives are more adventerous but our Ministers are descreet not to pour on much water and that they do to hold it some while in their hand to the warming of it and gently to rub and wash the face of the Infant with such warm hand and warmed water and God is ever merciful at his Ordinances and Sacraments especially so that I never heard of any child that ever sickned much less died upon a cold taken at Baptism In a word and a word also is enough to a wise woman The wiping of the Baptismal-water from the childs face as soon as it is laid or poured on is so far as lieth in her the taking off and avoiding I will not say a frustrating and evacuating of the sign and seal as soon as it is laid on as to that signification and sigillation of the parties being buried with Christ in baptism as which onely the abiding and remaining of the water upon the body or bodily part and it s lying and centinuing under the water doth resemble and represent But I return to you Sir and shall now proceed to farther discussing of your dipping and our sprinkling by Antiquity to shew which is the good old way I or it may be when you wrote me word that your dipping was older then our sprinkling or pouring on of water and that it was the good old way you had some squint-eye upon Antiquity of the second hand for the Scripture is the Antiquity of the first hand the very good old way it self for that your right or direct eye could see little or nothing in the Scripture for your dipping and immerging And I am glad to meet you here again in this your good old way hoping that by your looking upward to Antiquity and the ancient Customes of the Churches of God you may ere long lay down your Novelties and the yesterday fashions of your new Brotherhood And to say the truth whither else can you now go being beaten out of your holds you thought you had and those firm ones as you had thought in Scripture for your dipping and immerging and finding at leastwise now no ground or footing in any Pond there no not River for your Dippers and Immergers to stand in and baptize whither I say can you go but need of it more then zeal to it driving you to the next Antiquity which succeeding and some of them seeing the Canon of Scripture consummated and consigned by St. John the Revelationist as Evangelist and so living and dwelling next to those starry times of the Apostles and those Sun-shining dayes of Christ Jesus can best discover relate and traject their light they being the next neighbours to the same borrowed and participated from them But to the point I acknowledge that some of the Ancients yea many of them did use to dip and immerge at and in their baptizings and because it lieth upon your hand to prove it let the learned of your side take it in hand to transcribe and produce such ancient Authors and their Testimonies I had as live they should spend the time and lose their labour when they have done as my self for so they will neither will it be of any advantage to you and your dipping and immerging being far different as to the
charge nor are so sparing of their wine our Divines tell them and they should teach their people that a sup of wine as a morsel of bread may do well enough as well if not better then greater quantities of each at the Sacramental Communication according as anciently they did as Gelasius Lyzicenus in Act is Concil Nicaeni cap. 30. reporteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this cause we take not much but little of the Bread and Wine for that we know we take them not to or for satiety but sanctity The like whereof is that of Eucherius Serm. 5. de Pascha Eucharistiae sacrae perceptio non in quantitate sed in virtute consistit quòd corpus sacerdote dispensante tantum est in exiguo quantum esse constat in toto The participation of the holy Eucharist stands not in the quantity but efficacy for that the body of Christ when the Priest dispenseth the same holy Eucharist is as much in a little part of the Wine and Bread as in the whole together I have indeed said the more of this as being in my opinion very needful and necessary to strengthen and arm our selves and our people against the dangerous tentations of the Devil wherewith he and his instruments which are many in these dayes do mainly assault the mindes and scruple the consciences and pervert the faith of the weaker amongst us as indeed they have done to your self Sir by your leave He as he goeth about the earth roaring and they hissing as they creep into houses that their and your sprinkled baptism was no true baptism as being but a little water poured upon your face but onely one part outwardly and telling you if you will be baptized indeed and to purpose you must be dipped and immerged in your whole body and in every part outwardly that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless against the coming of the Lord 1. Thess 5.23 Thus they together have cast a snare upon you they have snared you into their nets and caught you with some other silly Fry as the Spider hath the simple Fly and have dipped and doused you in your cloathes under water you being in their nets the devil in a corner laughing snearing and dancing the while over you even as the Spider doth winde up and truss up the Fly being come into its Cobweb and then skips leaps and runs about it and which I may mark sucks and seeds upon the poor Fly Well Sir if you be willing to come to the acknowledging of the truth as I am zealous to bring you to it and to recover your self out of the snare of the divel who are taken captive by him and others at his will and theirs 2 Tim. 2.25 26 read consider believe the Truth I have set before you but read with impartiality without prejudicateness Consider with indifferency without precipitancy and believe the Truth with submission without resistance and with many other words have I testified the Truth in the answer of your Brother before as well as in this answer to you and have exhorted and do exhort saying Save your selves especially save your self from this untoward and froward Generation Acts 2.40 And if this be not enough that I have said read on still for I have somewhat more to say unto you as willing that you should not perish but come to the knowledge of the Truth and the acknowledgement of your Errors for so also there is somewhat more that you say to me in your Letter thus you write further Sir I wonder how you dare to say that you do imbrace the Truth as it is laid out by Jesus did Jesus ever lay down that a man should learn the Latine and Greek Tongue and so to a Vniversity to read Philosophy and commence Batchelor and Master of Arts and Batchelor and Doctor of Divinity and so come to a Parish there to take a Living from them to the value of 100 l. per annum more or less they nilling willing and there stile himself the Minister of Jesus Christ Did ever Christ lay down that you should take a little water and sprinkle it on the face of an Infant and say you dip them in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost did ever Christ lay down that his Ministers should be his peoples Masters as Lords over Gods Heritage Did Christ lay down that you should take a Parish a Church and to them cast the holy things of the body and blood of Christ as unto a company many of them if not the most of them no better then dogs I my self having been one who was not so good as a god till the grace of God appeared plucking me out of my wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth which you fear I have not owned But the day will discover and God will judge between you and us Here is stuff indeed enough to make an onely English-man to speak Greek and Latine of purpose to declare the vanity of such words against Languages like as the Sedentary Philosopher did presently arise and walk about to shew the folly of him who before him denied motion Quis expedivit Psittaco suum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Picasque docuit nostra verba conari I wonder Sir where you learned to speak these our words to spie out our Liberties yea to Pie and Parrat out our Tongues Degrees and Learning of the University your self never living there and now conversing with the Antipodes to the same Auditum spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici Truly friends and Readers so I would join you for that I know all Readers of me will not be friends with me I had not written out this passage but that I would at the closure of my answer present you with this spectacle of ridiculous stuff to move some mirth in you for there is nothing of Oracle or solid matter in it to take up any of your serious eyes ears or thoughts These indeed having been carried now a long time even unto wearisomness and tediousness I fear through the washes deeps and dippings of Ponds and Rivers it is time to bring you now to a fire to warm and dry you and in good time be it spoken as done Here 's an ignis fatuus a smoaking fire-brand a sparkling squib a blazing Comet a crackling thorn-bush enough to smutch a whole University but fear nothing deest ignis there 's no fire under the words nothing but a little flash and fume and new light a noise vox preterea nihil if you cannot warm your hands at it yet clap your hands at it and shout and laugh at it till you have warmed and refreshed your self sufficiently whilst I go on with my answer to such words for there is nothing of matter in them and shew the vanity of vanity in them also and all to be but vanity here Sir How dare you say you embrace the truth laid out by Jesus did ever Jesus lay down
that a man should go to School and learn his Accidence and Grammar and so to a Scrivener to write a good hand to cypher and cast account commence a shop-keeper or Grocer and set up shop and sell by the pound Figs and Currens being never brought up to the trade in the parish they nilling willing to make a living to the value of he knows what more or less and there stile himself a Brother and Teacher of Jesus Christ but this is nothing Look about you all Apprentices How dare you say you embrace the truth as it is laid out in Jesus did ever Jesus lay down that a man should go up to London binde himself to such a Trade for seven or eight years and after a Trade learned and his years of Apprentiship served out to get himself made a Free man and then to Commence Merchant or Trades master after that to come to be Warden of his Company and so Deputy of a Ward at last to rise to be an Alderman and Lord Major of the City and get a great estate there amongst the Citizens to a value of 1000 l. per annum more or less they nilling willing and then stile himself a Citizen of London Once more look about you Lawyers How dare you say you embrace the truth as it is laid out in Jesus did ever Jesus lay down that a man should go to the Inns of Court learn the Latine and French tongue and there read Magna Charta the Reports and Cases and so Commence Barrister and Councellor and so Serjeant of the Coife and lastly a Judge of Assize and so take Fees from the Clyents for Causes to the value of divers 100 l. per annum more or less they nilling willing and there stile himself a Councellour at the Law But why do I intermeddle here The Narrator or Relator meaneth not me sure for that he speaketh of some Doctor of Divinity who might therfore do well to doctrine a little better yea and discipline the Indoct young-man But if he be not indocible also me thinks my self but a Batchelor of Divinity and but an ordinary Pastor or Minister could do the one doctrine him sufficiently to go to no higher degrees for this and leave the other of disciplining him to the higher Powers Nay even a Batchelor of Art to go so low nay I believe some Sophisters of a Colledge not to trouble any of the degrees at all of the University in so mean a work can tell you and will tell you in answer to your Audacious bold fac'd daring interrogations 1. That as there are in Scriptures laid out by Jesus Christ orders and degrees of Truth so also a Truth of orders and degrees even such as are in our Church and Universities See for your learning Eph. 4.8 11 12. When he Jesus ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men diversities of gifts and therefore he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers or Doctors diversities of degrees for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come unto a perfect man c. Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers or Doctors c There is that whole Chapter 1 Cor. 12 to this purpose to shew the diversity of gifts and degrees of Officers in the Church from the foot hand eye head of the natural body and the diversity of the parts thereof insomuch that the same Apostle saith 1 Tim. 3.13 They that used the office of a Deacon well purchased to themselves a good degree that is a Presbytership and howsoever you think otherwise of it Jesus himself as he was present at the marriage in Cana of Galilee John 2.1 to countenance that estate and degree of Matrimony so he sate in the midst of the Doctors Luke 2.46 both hearing them and asking them questions whereby he also Authorised that degree also and all other inferior and subordinate degrees tending thereunto So it is laid out by Jesus both in Nature and Grace also as that one Text sheweth Mark 4.28 The earth bringeth forth fruit of her self first the blade then the ear after that the full corn in the car and then when the fruit is ripe he putteth in the sickle because the Harvest is come Are there not mentioned in the Psalm 62.9 Men of high degree and men of low degree and doth not James bid the brother of low degree rejoyce in that he is exalted Jam. 1.9 Will not you do the like who are now but a Brother of low degree rejoyce when you are exalted to be a Preacher and then a Dipper who is with you a Brother of bighest degree You have been a Surveyour in your own Parish and then Overseer and now having a little better regulated your house may hope to be a Constable to rule the Town and also you may rise to be a Church-warden but that you have forsaken your Church and the Church if that will exempt you and now then why are you so against our being Batchelor of Art and then Master and so Batchelor of Divinity and then Doctor which are our degrees of the University like as the other are your degrees of the Countrey 2. He can tell you that Jesus indeed hath laid down expresly and absolutely in particular Texts words That a man must serve and worship God onely in Spirit and Truth and place his faith confidence in his promises and repent of all sinful habits and acts and what are his duties to God and man in the place and calling that he is of with all other particular and general matters necessary to salvation and of Moral concernment But for other things that are of an inferior alloy and but of Ceremonial or Temporal Circumstantial nature he hath laid them down onely inclusively and respectively in some general rules and dictates of good order and comeliness upon a just occasion or need unto edification and for good and so left them to common Christian reason and humane prudence to undertake and prosecute according to the same amongst which things are those that you except too education in the University study of the Greek and Latine reading Philosophy taking Degrees Titles of discrimination getting Preferments diversity of Orders c. of which you may read more particularly and largely in my book before if you desire to be a Scribe instructed to the Kingdom of heaven in such particulars Onely I will either add here or repeat here fearing you will scarce be at the pains for so it will be to you pains to read it that the learning of the Latine and Greek tongues you might have put in the Hebrew too if you had been a true Israelite and the studying of Philosophy and other Arts and Sciences and the taking of the several Degrees which are the honours and garlands of the Universities which they give to Proficients accordingly to make
nature as well as others Eph. 2.3 and Eph. 1.4 and yet were not nor could be called dogs notwithstanding impure or hateful before God because they were in and under the love of God which is called Amor Benevolentiae the love of his eternal good Will and Benevolency in electing of them although before their Conversion and before they have Faith they do not stand actually reconciled unto God which is called Amosr Complacentiae the love of his special delight and complacency in accepting of them by the coming of Christ into the world and purchasing it for them so that their persons are never hateful or detestable but beloved and accepted from all eternity and therefore cannot be as bad as dogs though their state wherein they are in may be odious and detestable as was Sauls when he persecuted the Church and as was yours when you walked in wicked wayes and both of you were ignorant of the Truth but this some similar act or quality of a dog as impurity and ignorance for a while is not enough or sufficient to impute the Title and denomination of a dog to such whose persons belong to Gods Election and are under gracious favour of God in a Christ and are parties covenanted with and partakers of the Seal or Seals Doth God take care for Oxen 1 Cor. 9.9 what Dogs who are Gods what a transposition of letters is this what an Anagram which none but an Ingram and Agrammatical man who is himself transported with a zeal without knowledge can or will affirm or make The field that is intended for Wheat fallowed for Wheat and Sown with Wheat is not called or to be called a barren Wilderness and desart Land though weeds come up in it every where and before the good husbandry hath appeared plucking them up but it is called Tilth-land and a Wheat-field The ground of your error lyeth in this that you thought of no other Grace but that of sanctification when you spake those words of your self and others to be dogs until the Grace of God appearing plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth so the words themselves do shew and therby shew also your ignorance of the Grace of God both that of Election and that of Justification which is not any inherent Righteousness and quality as Papists also hold with you which in matter of Justification or Election is but dung as the Apostle calleth it for the Grace of God is one of his Attributes out of us in God and according to the use of Scripture is either metonymically the special gift of Grace or properly the gracious favour of God in Christ by which Grace we are elected called justified sanctified and shall be glorified and in this order they go one before another as several acts and degrees of Grace sanctification being the end or effect as of our Election Eph. 1.4 and of our Justificaiton Luke 1.75 so of our Vocation 1 Thes 4.7 It s a strange error of yours to account your self and others a sheep onely in and under the Grace of sanctification so you say you were no better then a dog till the Grace of God plucked you out of your evil wayes were you then a dog and no sheep in and under the Grace of Election and Vocation and Justification I am sure others are not But what is your drift and scope I pray Sir in writing thus to me now at this time that your self hath not been so good as a dog till the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked way unto the knowledge of the Truth Is it to advance the power and efficacy of your separate and dipping Ministery above mine and the Sacerdotal function it must be so and no marvel for you committed soul and body unto but one of them my self and others could seldom get your body unto our Churches and Ministery I prepared my dinner and killed my Oxen and fatlings and had all things in a readiness Mat. 22.4 but you made light of it and went another way or would stay at home or when you came if the good seed I sowed in you did not fall into good ground Mat. 13.4 to bring forth fruit but you suffered the fowls the wicked one to devour and catch it away or the thorns of the care of this world to spring up and choak it you must blame neither Seed nor Sower neither Ministery nor Minister but even say of your self I was a High-way side Hearer a Thorny-ground Auditor like as you say you was no better then a dog that while and so I gave that which was holy to dogs But I do not say so that you were that while any such for you did neither trample the holy things under your feet though they fell upon thorns or by the way side neither did you turn again and rend me Again Let no one of you be puffed for one against another 1 Cor. 4.6 I acknowledge there is a difference of Ministery but who maketh thee to differ from another who is Paul and who is Apollos but the Ministers by whom you believed for neither is Paul that planteth nor Apollos that watereth any thing but God that giveth the increase 1 Cor. 3.5 7. you do well and wisely to say The Grace of God appearing pluckt you out and so to ascribe the glory of your plucking out of wicked wayes to the Grace of God The Grace of God is free as the Spirit of God to blow where it listeth John 3.8 and upon whom so by whom and when it listeth Yet thirdly I add that According to the Grace of God which is given to me I have laid the foundation 1 Cor. 3.10 of your coming out of your wicked way to the knowledge of the Truth for many years together and another doth but build thereon and the foundation I have laid in you was none other then Jesus Christ and him crucified The Covenant of the Grace of God in Christ I will be thy God and the God of thy seed made therefore with your believing Parents and your self with the Seals therof which have been given you and the conditions which are to be performed by you yea I have built upon this foundation Gold Silver and precious stones preach in Faith and Repentance and Obedience in your own words coming out of wicked wayes unto the knowledge and practice of the Truth and just then when the building should have been raised up unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ you fell a pulling down as fast as I had built up yea you suffered others to come in upon you by their sleights and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive to build upon my foundation Wood Hay and Stubble and such combustible things and to set in many of their weak and impotent and beggerly rudiments upon it especially those three your separation from your Church your evil affection to the ordained
Ministery your new Dipping and Re-baptizing with arenouncing of your old If you or any of you shall question farther why the Grace of God by my Ministery did not pluck you out before and sooner divers years ago before this last fatal one out of your wicked wayes c. it is answered Because there was the Grace of God in it which is free to work as I said and as where and by whom so when it pleaseth for Paul plants onely and Apollos onely watereth but God giveth the increase some increase I have shewed you God gave but the full increase which is the Harvest doth not presently come up after sowing For so is the Kingdom of God as if a man should cast seed into the ground and the seed should spring and grow up he knoweth not how saith St. Mark For the Earth bringeth forth the fruit of her self first the blade then the ear after that the full corn in the ear Mark 4.26 27 28. Conversion in some cometh as lightning from Heaven and is done suddenly in a moment at once so to Saul and Zacheus but to others as the seed before mentioned it comes up slowly and by degrees in time as to Nicodemus and the Prodigal and this is your case Now it is not the last stroak with the Axe that must baer the name of cutting down the great Oak from the stump and root but all the blows from the first to the last nor is it the sowing of the last handful of seed must go away with the title of bringing forth the whole rop Hosea 6.5 Mat. 3.10 God hath been hewing you these many years by the Axe of my Ministery which hath been sharpened at times in reproofs and admonitions to you both in the matter fitted for you and in my thoughts fixed upon you in the publick and so laid to the Roots of the Trees to your evil wayes saying Bring forth fruits worthy or meet for Repentance else you must be hewen down and cast into the fire So for the same purpose God and his Grace by my Ministery hath been seeding you with the good and principal Wheat the pure and precious Word of God for these many years and now shall the men of yesterday your new Seeds-men and Heads-men your last Teachers and Dippers who have wrought but one hour be made equal to me Mat. 20.12 yea be preferred before me who have born the burthen and heat of the day if God will have it so let it be so It is lawful for him to do whatsoever he will with his own and mineeye shall not be evi because God is good Herein also is and will be that saying true One soweth another reapeth John 4.37 38. They in the mean time reap that they bestowed no labour upon I laboured with you and they entered into my labours and have gotten you out of my hands though to no good praise and commendation for themselves and it may so fail out they may finde no great Crop or purchase of you and neither may repay their craft more then their charge especially it you will do as you ought Return and own the first Grace of God appearing to you and plucking you out from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But fourthly Is this all Sir that you new Teachers and Converters have done for you and is this all the Grace that hath appeared to you for to pluck you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Nay they have not done all this for they have not brought you to the knowledge of the Truth but of their Errors they have pulled you from knowledge to ignorance and from the truth to falsities and lyes as the Scripture phraseth such and I will tell you presently the particulars but suppose it a while they have pluckt you to the knowledge of the Truth that 's enough to prove you a true Convert by them for Judas was pulled up so far as to the knowledge of the Truth yet proved an Apostate at last for all that and was an Hypocrite in the mean time if you be not plucked up farther yet namely to the love of the Truth God may send you as in present he doth strong delusions that you shall believe a lye and be damned 2 Thess 2.11 12. Yea and yet farther to the obedience and practice of the Truth else you may miss to be blessed in the end for If ye know these things blessed are ye if ye do them John 13.17 Many shall say unto me saith Christ in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy Name yea and in thy Name cast out devils to whom he will profess even to such Professors I never knew you depart from me ye workers of iniquities Mat. 7.22 23. Oh but you are also plucked out of your wicked wayes too Oh but Grace of God hath appeared in that also But neither is that sufficint to shew your Conversion by them for Ahab humbled himself and went softly and abstained selling himself unto sin a while at the rebukes of Elias 1 King 21.29 and Herod reformed somewhat and did many things at the preaching of John and heard him gladly Mark 6.20 and Esau mourned for his loss and sale of his birth-right and sought the blessing again and that carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 If you ask what more would I require what lacketh yet I answer to you as our Saviour Christ did to the young-man Mat. 19.20 for neither are you too old if you be not too cold to learn saying much as you do All these things do I now keep though not from my youth up the Grace of God hath now in my elder years appeared plucking me from my wicked wayes One thing is lacking and if you wilt be a perfect Convert find the way to change your minde as the Author to the Hebrews addeth and not onely to alter your course and turn to the Lord with all your heart and so order that your soul and spirit may be washed from evil lusts and not onely the body and cloathes dipt from wicked works But you add The day will discover and God will judge between us and you whether you own the Truth to which and whom therefore I leave you § I proceed to a sit thing which is this That whatsoever good thing is wrought in you seriously and unfeignedly I concongratulate it whatsoever it be and would be instrumental unto the growth and increase thereof in the way of the Word of Truth let the Grace of God that hath appeared to you have the glory of it not unto them not unto them your new Land Teachers and new Pond Dippers but unto the name and Grace of God give the glory of whatsoever Conversion is wrought in you If you do not then with David I will say Not unto us O Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give glory for thy Mercy and Truths sake Psal 115.1 They have pluckt you onely from the
say they have converted you and so say some others I am sure and done you much good to your souâ— which you have said you would commit to them and trust them with a very foolish almost blasphemous speech if you said it And God faith here they shall not profit you at all and therefore do you no good either in soul and body as to Conversion and Salvation whom shall I believe God or you whom do you believe God or your self Gods true prediction or your own false suggestion Come come Sir Let God be true and every man a lyer Rom. 3.4 as it is written also for so your self and every other man that saith he hath profited in soul unto Salvation or Conversion by these unsent and unordained Preachers of the separation when as God saith such shall not profit the people at all by their Anabaptistical Doctrines and Preachings Mistake me not I am not against the profit that may come even from them to you or others by mutual and fraternal conferences exhortations admonitions supplications so long as their words be seasoned with the falt of Truth and Grace and be good to the use of edifying and your selves have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil and be able to try and prove all things and hold to that which is good for so God hath allowed and approved of it and profit may come upon it Col. 3.16 1 Thes 5.11 But this from Gods Word I hold That an usurped publick taking upon them the cure of souls without Commission as teaching Anabaptists do in a manner yea upon the matter of the fraternity and sorority within their limits and also their dispensing and dividing the mysteries of the Word and Seals of the Sacraments without a lawful sending ordination and separation thereto and that in a rightly constituted and planted Church where there is a power of order and degrees and a settled or fixed Ministery will be of no profit and benefit to you or the people as to Faith and Conversion that wait and attend onely upon such a service or Ministery if I may so call it For now lift up your eyes and look on the fields are they white unto the Harvest since people left praying that God would send Husbandmen into his work and Laborers into his Vineyard and since people have left coming to and attending upon their own painful preaching Ministers and have betaken themselves to the hearing of self-intruding peakers which were none of Gods calling or sending are they not rather smutched and smitten with blasting and mildew with pride haughtiness malice variance rancour envy fraudulency covetousness lying defamation hypocrisies impuâ—ities more then ever they were and compassed about of late with such a dark cloud of Satans witnesses and his Emissaries every where transforming themselves into Angels of New light no better then darkness Besides the Schisms in the Churches of God and destractions of mens minds the contempts of Gods Ordinances the broaching of Errors and Heresies the Rapines Sacriledges and Massacres that have been committed the slighting of Laws and Civil Magistrates the uprising of bloody Wars and throwing down of Order and Proprieties Insurrection and Rebellion And now Sir I return to you again to whom I have a sixth thing to acquaint you with and then I shall take my leave and subscribe a friendly farewel to you § Sixthly What shall I say more to you of these men for that indeed a notable change and alteration hath been wrought in you is manifest to all them that dwell here abouts and we cannot deny it my self as I have said rejoyce at it yea and the Angels in Heaven rejoyce over one sinner that repenteth and converteth truly and sincerely This therefore I will say even the same still that you do That the Grace of God appeared plucking you out of your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth But I ask as St. Paul doth Gal. 2.3 This onely would I hear and know of you Received you the Spirit by the works of the Law or by the hearing of the Faith so received you this Grace or your Conversion of being pluckt out of yoru evil wayes to the knowledge of the Truth from the Word preached by your Brethren of the separation or from the Word preached by my self or other ordained Ministers I have proved before that unsent Teachers and Preachers shall not and cannot profit you with their Doctrines especially being not of God and his Word and therefore they have not wrought any such thing in you by their Doctrines and that you could not cannot attain and therefore have not attained to Faith but by hearing of a sent and ordained Preacher and the Word of God by him Again received you this Grace of God or your Conversion and plucking out of your evil wayes from the Spirit of God in and by your last Dippism or your first Baptism not in and by your last dipping at Laver for this requireth Conversion and Faith and Profession of it before you can be partaker of it you must bring these with you already wrought to your dipping your dipping doth not work them at that time but presupposeth them so I cannot call your dipping a Laver of Regeneration but a Generation of I know not what at Laver or a degeneration Besides I have shewed this your dipping which is but a Re-baptizing at the best to be a humane device yea Heretical practise so esteemed and for such condemned of the Churches of God throughout all Ages and therefore it can be no means or instrument of God and his Grace to pluck you from your wicked wayes to the knowledge of the Truth Whither now Sir will you go as Hos 2.7 so is yur case She shall follow after her Lovers but she shall not overtake them and she shall seek them but shall not finde them then shall she say I will go and return to my first Husband for then was it better with me then now Follow not therefore after those your Suitors and Solicitors rather your inveiglers and beguilers that rather have tempted your spiritual chastity and attempted also somewhat upon your body but come and return to your first Husband Christ Jesus and your first Covenant of Grace sealed unto you in your first Baptism from which as from the Fountain hath issued out all other Grace of God appearing to you sithence and even that plucking you out from your wicked wayes and bringing you to the knowledge of the Truth through his dispensing his word and your hearing the same of Gods Ministers sent to that purpose and through the operation of his Spirit stirring up the Grace of God in you and the Grace of the same sanctifying your afflictions and last sickness and fears and other things that have befallen you She did not know that her first Husband gave her Corn and Wine and Oyl and multiplyed her silver and gold which they prepared for Baal Hos 2.8 or as in the
by the Beard and mouth and slew him for all his roaring quirks and howling quaeries and so have delivered you if you will be delivered from the spirit of bondage and love not your chain and fetters of their Errors more then the Freedom and Liberty of Truth for if the Truth or the Son of God who is the Truth have made or shall make you free then you are free indeed Now then and lastly Sir shew your self a true Israelite come and hear the Truth and know your friends the soul-truth which is the sole-truth and your soul-friends which are your sole-friends and come away from those Task-masters that lay heavy burthens upon your bodies and dip them under water over head and ears for their own gain more then yours and for their advantage to an evil cause Forego your bondage and darkness of Aegypt which goeth under the name of New-light and Liberty forget your garlick Onions and Flesh-pots which they call The Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit run from their hot furnaces and rash fires which they tearm Zeal keep away from their Ponds cold waters which they call Dipping Baptizing depart from the Tents of those that practice Rebellion under pretence of Religion Holines shake off your fellowship with their unfruitful works and words and as you have heard unprofitable Preachings and Teachings presumed upon under the Title of a gifted Brother-hood and Fraternity leave the Citizens or Farmers field and the Husks there and arise and go to your Fathers house the Church of God where is bread enough and to spare for the servants and much more for the Sons Get loose from those Bushes and Brambles where you are are entangled before you lose all the wool off your back and be fleeced by them Come now then and let us reason together saith the Lord though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow though they be red like crimsom they shall be as wool If you be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the Land but if you refuse and rebel you shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Esay 1.18 19 20. Yea come and return as to the Lord so to your Pastor Here 's the right hand of fellowship and true Brotherhood I offer unto you to set you free and to help you out and to defend you against them yea and now that I have been long going after you as a lost sheep and one of my hundred fold and have found your at last I will lay you on my shoulders to bring you home again and wil undergo any labour and pains for your Reversion Reduction bearing also with your former defects or defaults with patience and meekness as the Apostle bids we should bear one anothers burthens Gal. 6.2 yea and I shall call together our friends and neighbours to a publick rejoycing and thanksgiving bearing also the Burthen of the Song or Psalm my self and saying Rejoyce with me for I have found my sheep which was lost yea and the blessed Angels above will be of the Quire and there will be joy in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth as your self yea and Christ Jesus the Great shepheard of all the sheep and of all souls will embrace your returning delight in you Who his own self bare your sins in his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 For you was as a sheep going astray but if you shall return unto this Shepherd and Bishop of your soul When the chief Shepherd shall appear you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away whereby you will be glorified in heaven and in the mean time he will put a Crown of Righteousness upon your head that falleth not off whereby you shall be both justified and sanctified also Nay your self will thus become a Crown of rejoycing to us all my self especially For what is our hope or joy or crown of rejoycing Are not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming Yea you are our glory and joy 1 Thes 2.19 Therefore my brother dearly beloved and longed for my joy and crown Phil. 4.1 return unto the Lord the Lords Church and Flock the Lords Ministery and Pasturage the Lords Covenant with Parents and their Children the Lords Baptism and Sheep-mark and so stand fast in the Lord my dearly beloved Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the sheep through the Blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work of righteousness and word of truth working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen Heb. 13.20 21. If yet notwithstanding all this friendly invitation and fair warning you will not hear and hearken to come in but will go still astray My soul shall weep in secret places for your pride and mine eyes shall run down with tears because the Lords flock and your self for one amongst them is carried away captive Jer. 13.17 Wherefore I take you to record this day in which you have read over what I have written to you that I am pure from the blood of you all you and all for what I say unto you I say unto all for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God Acts 20.26 27. in these particulars that he hath out of his Word revealed unto me And so I have delivered my soul as to you and them by foretelling and forewarning you of the truth as a Watchman set over you Ezek. 33.9 if you will not deliver your soul by obeying the truth and submit thereunto when it is held out to you by him who hath the rule or guide and oversight of you and watcheth for your soul and must give account and would do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you Heb. 13.17 Then you will die in your iniquity and obstinacy your blood will be required at your own hands and will lie upon your own head who can help it unless God forbid it the which also God forbid I pray God Yea once more also I call heaven and earth to record this day against you Deut. 30.19 or for you that I have set before you life and death Blessing and Cursing therefore chuse life that both thou and thy seed may live and that thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that his Covenant that he made to be thy God and the God of thy seed and that thou mayest obey his voyce and that command for the baptizing of the Parent and his Seed That thou mayest cleave unto him and not forsake your God in Covenant with you sealed in your Infancy by renouncing your Baptism then and now running after other unprofitable Dippings for he is thy life and the length of thy dayes that thou mayest dwell here on earth a while and also be in Heaven for ever And now to him that is of power to establish you according to the Gospel and preaching of Jesus Christ and the Revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began but now is made manifest and by the Scriptures of the Prophets according to the Commandement of the Everlasting God made known to all Nations for the obedience of Faith To God onely wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever Amen Rom. 16 25 26 27. To which onely wise God and his Providence committing my self and what I have written here as likewise to the same onely good God and his blessing commending you and what you shall read here even to the Word of his Grace which is able to build you up who are fallen from that of Baptism and to establish all that stand therein I take my leave and give you farewel resting your affectionate and inseparate Pastor and Friend Jeffry Watts FINIS ERRATA EPistle to the Reader page 2. l. 8. read Printer p. 11. l. 22. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 19. l. 16. r. word p. 24. l. 27. r. even p. 25. l 13. r. Hypocriticab p. 27. l. 18. r own p 32. 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Running title for honour r. beware p. 256. l. 31. r. devising p. 273. l. 28. r. brethren p. 274 l. 31. r. comb p. 276. l. 37. r. so p. 278. l. 2. r. have made p. 290. l. 1. add you Of Baptism Page 24 line 31 read with p 56 running Title r not practical p 61 l 3 r or p 72 l 33 r your p 73 l 24 for Chap r Verse p 74 l 3 blot out and p 87 l 30 add iâ— p 100 l 28 blot out in p 103 l 21 r they p 117 l 19 r alwayes p 131 l 16 r she l 17 blot out of p 140 l 16 r Apostle p 142 l 38 r the p. 145 l 35 r procreating p 151 l 37 r these p. 157 l 11 r friend p 163 l 35 for can r you p 164 l 7 add was p 198 l 32 r Apostles l 34 for yet are r were l 35 for to r doe The Dipper Sprinkled Page 13 line 6 read fruit p 19 l 39 r naughtiness p 27 l 26 r sicca p 28 l 18 add as p 30 l 2 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 37 l 8 blot out die p 48 l 14 r. four p 81 l 18 r potissimum
them and seriously to weigh them excusing the matter that for want of time you had not written out all the words of all the Scriptures you might have added scarce of any at all when in the end and last clauses your Letter when time must needs therefore be more wanting to you by reason your Letter comming was noised abroad and long expected to take so much time as to stand and stay the writing out all the words to the full a thing different from your fashion when you had more time of six or seven Texts without the least intimation of want of time let the next honest Clerk or Scribe judge whether there were not some Legerdemain and Handicrast if not heart deceipt in such hand-writing and a piece of hypocritical Scribism as also Anabaptism or of scribbling and Anabaptizing hypocrisie in it And there was another piece of the same stuff in it besides for the former part of your Letter being of matters and points of Divinity in Question betwixt us it was your policy and hypocrisie to set down to your Tene's and Assertions Texts of Scripture named and figured by Chapter and Verse so to put a fair gloss and Iustre of Truth for the amusing of the vulgar people and deluding them with such shews and paints of proof you knowing they neither have skill nor will nor leasure nor pleasure to turn to the words themselves and weigh them of which you might have saved them the labour and me also but that you meant not but rather to put me to the pains wherein you lost your labour and purposes for that it is a pleasure to me to search the Scriptures if you had written out the words into your sheets and folded up them with your Arguments or Expositions together into the same But then there was another fear or Quakery in it for Hypocrites are ever a fraid of discovery and Quake for fear of it as the Devils believe but tremble for the same fear of being discovered in their false faith For you feared and might well enough that if you had written out the words of your Texts and set them down together or by your Opinions and Expositions people must needs see and reade both together and so comparing the one with the other the words of the Texts cited with the words of your Tenees asserted they might espy and discern as an ordinary understanding may do the impertinency of the one to the other yea the contrariety of the matters in them And truly this was and it a notable piece of Popery and Jesuitism to keep the people as much as may be from the words of the Scripture for the words of the Scripture are pure enlightning the eyes but peoples darkness best for their devotion they know and say Therefore indeed was I the willinger to look into every Text cited by you that so I might present unto the Reader whomsoever the Texts of Scriptures in words at length and not in figures as I said before if I remember well and so giving him a plain outsight of the words He may come to a clearer infight of the sense and better discern what it proveth or proveth not A good way to disfigure an onely Text scribe and to reverse and decapitate a verse and Chapter Hypocrite But there is more of the same cloath your Linsie Woolsie hypocrisie here at the end of your Letter for usually he that plaies the Hypocrite in the beginning works the Hypocrite in the end and turns to be of a merry a very one when you were engaged to prove and fortifie your Tenets as hitherto you onely set down Chapter and verse but not the words why so you could not stand about writing them down for want of time no no that was not the cause for being but newly begun it was free to you to have taken as much time as you would was it not rather for want of truch and out of abundance of subtlety and policy lest the Reader finding Gods words and your words in the same place together might the easier at one view see the distance and diffonancy of the one from the other and so perceive the weakness of proof in your allegation But now that you are resolved in the end for a friendly farewel to reprove yea to revile and reproach the true Church of England and the true Ministers thereof and now in the foot of your Letter without any foot or ground unless the foot of Pride like as you did the same in the front of your Letter without any front or brow but that of Brasse to trample under your unclean and stinking feet the sweet and precious Sons of Sion like as you dossed them before with your brasen and impudent forehead it seems now at the latter end of your Letter you can finde time enough though it be high time you should have done two hours and two sheets ago to write out fully the words of six or seven Texts spoken of some false and erroneous Prophets yea and of some corrupt Judges and Magistrates yea and some ignorant and sottish people some thousands of years fithence and to apply them to the learned pious and laborious Ministers of England very foolishly impertinently inconfiderately yea very wickedly maliciously devillishly Oh here you are very exact and diligent to write out all and the very words that your proselites reading here may learn the Scripture phrases and words and get them by heart and have them ready in their mouths as Shimei had the stones in his hand to cast them at David a man after Gods own heart and to asperse slander and bequaker the Ministers of God who are such according to Gods will as they passe by them or meet with them Remember Lord the reproach of thy servants how we do bear in our besoms the reproaches of the mighty people Wherewith thine enemies have reproached O Lord wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine Anointed Psal 89.56 Why did you not write out a thousand Texts more word for word even all in the Bible that mention any sin or vice of any Nation any erroneous or prophane person of any place there recorded and make application of them all to the Church of England and the Ministers there of This would have made the heap of your stones the bigger and so would have heaped up more wrath for you against the day of wrath for your speaking evil of Dignities and reviling Orders and especially for your teaching vulgar people errors confusions as to renounce their first Baptism and reproach their Preaching and Baptizing Ministers and that in Scripture Language and Phrases which they learn of you and such as you who writ out the Texts and the words too when you wrest Scripture to the vilifying of Ministers and you want no time nor malice for the doing of it to put such words into your peoples eyes and ears and mouth but when you are to wrest Scriptures for the justifying of