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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	word_n	write_v	wrong_n	42	3	8.1976	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56305	The church of Christ in Bristol recovering her vail out of the hands of them that have smitten and wounded her, and taken it away. Being, a just and necessary vindication, from a false and scandalous imputation cast upon her by Dennis Hollister, formerly a member of her, but now an apostate from, and an opposer of those waies, truths, and people, which once he seemed zealous for. As appears by a late pamphlet put forth by him, called, The skirts of the whore discovered. With some particular words, from some particular persons whom he hath by name abused and reproached. Likewise a word by Thomas Ewen, unto what concerns him in the said pamphlet, and also to the later part of another book, called, Satan enthroned in his chair of pestilence.	Purnell, Robert, d. 1666. aut	1657 (1657)	Wing P4232; ESTC R213966	65,602	90

THE Church of Christ IN BRISTOL Recovering her Vail out of the hands of them that have smitten and wounded her and taken it away BEING A just and necessary Vindication from a false and scandalous imputation cast upon her by Dennis Hollister formerly a Member of her but now an Apostate from and an opposer of those Waies Truths and People which once he seemed zealous for As appears by a late Pamphlet put forth by him called The Skirts of the Whore discovered With some particular words from some particular persons whom he hath by name abused and reproached Likewise a word by Thomas Ewen unto what concerns him in the said Pamphlet and also to the later part of another Book called Satan enthroned in his Chair of Pestilence 1 Tim. 4. 1. Now the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the later times some shall depart from the faith giving heed to seducing Spirits and doctrins of Devils Acts 20. 30. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Isa 10. 24. O my People that dwellest in Sion be not afraid of the Assyrian London Printed for Thomas Brewster at the three Bibles at the West-end of Pauls 1657. TO THE READER Courteous Reader IT is but little pleasure or delight to the Authors of the ensuing Papers that they should fill the world or take up thy pretious time with matters of this nature there being at this day so many things of so much higher concernment for the minds of immortal Souls to be taken up with and seriously imployed about But we being to our grief and against our wills forced hereunto for the vindication of the Truth and justification of the waies thereof by a late scandalous and ridiculous Pamphlet put forth and published by one Dennis Hollister of Bristol once a Member of this Church and a man as famous for professing the Truth as now infamous for and by his Apostacy from it opposition to it and violence against it Who upon the first coming of the People called Quakers to this City did in a short time fall in with them own them and plead for them and by his so doing drew many a poor Soul out of the waies of Christ and into the waies of those miserable deluded People so that with himself there rent from this Church about eighteen or nineteen persons who are now wandring in the dark and blind paths of deceit and delusion towards death and destruction Whereupon the remaining part and through Grace the major part by far of the Church did after seeking the Lord and seriously advising together send Brethren first to enquire after him and them and to know the grounds of their absenting but some would return no answer at all others very contemptuously slighting and scorning the Church in this their act with many revilings as the manner of those People is After some months time the Church sent three Brethren to admonish them of their great evil and danger c. A Copy of which Admonition is in the following Papers as likewise a particular Admonition to Dennis Hollister setting before him five sore and palpable evils which we knew he was guilty of and that every tittle of it was both true and obvious though he doth with a most impudent and shameless face deny it railing at the Church for their so doing and instead of hearing the Admonition or acknowledging his evils did prepare a Letter with this Inscription For the People called Independents And by his subtilty engaged two of our Brethren to present it to the Church putting such conditions upon them as might best accomplish his designs as that it must be openly read in a full meeting c. He likewise speaking to some of the Church whom he had still an influence upon and hopes to draw off that they should be sure to be there at the reading of that Letter by which some of us came to understand his design and that his Letter was not to give any account to the Church of the things whereof he was admonished but rather to stagger and draw away more of the Congregation to himself and to those People and waies unto whom he was already departed Which thing is since evident by many passages in his Papers as that in his Epistle to the Reader where he hath these words viz. My just and necessary defence is kept from the simple hearted amongst them after whom my soul longs and for whose sakes it was principally intended c. By which all men may see that his principal intent was not to answer or satisfie the Church but rather to draw away some from it he also giving out there were yet such a certain number of persons naming of them that should yet come away which the Lord through the riches of his Grace hath hitherunto prevented and those persons in particular are more confirmed and established in the Truth and against the principles and waies of those People and much by his late Book it being so filled with rage and fury envy and bitterness false accusations and rash condemnations having nothing in it like the Spirit of Christ but the Church taking into consideration his Letter and first finding that he himself was cut of Gods way secondly that he had refused to hear the Church by their Messengers sent unto him thirdly that he did not own us as a Church in the Superscription of his Letter and fourthly understanding his design to be as aforesaid to draw away more if he could c. Hereupon his Letter was not opened but returned back and delivered to his Man-servant in his Shop himself being then absent but this did so enrage him he seeing himself so far disappointed of his ends and aims and the Church in some short time after sending three Brethren again the second time to admonish him and the rest according to Scripture rule Mat. 18. Tit. 3. 10. that he hath herevpon published that most scandalous Pamphlet called The Skirts of the Whore discovered and the mingled People in the midst of her c. In which he doth most unchristian-like abuse the whole Church stiling her a Synagogue of Satan and a Cage of unclean and hateful Spirits with many heaps of slanders and falsities c. to the dishonor of the name of Christ and the reproach of his waies and People and to the defaming of many of those whom God thorow rich Grace hath preserved faithful in this apostatising day We could not therefore without being guilty of or accessary to his sin and evil let his folly go unreproved but have set forth these few plain words of truth and soberness aiming at his confutation the truths justification our own vindication and others information and satisfaction desiring the Christian Reader to weigh well our coddition judge impartially of our wrong and help us affectionately by thy prayers and so we commit both thee and our selves unto him who will one day clear the innocent bringing forth

expressions must needs import for if this Church in Bristol be the Skirts of the Whore then other Churches in your account must needs be the Whore we being indeed but as the Skirts or out-casts of Sion but for your hard censures we shall leave to him that holdeth the seven Stars in his right hand and that walketh among the golden Candlesticks in the mean time we shall take up Davids resolution when Shimei cursed him 2 Sam. 16. 12. It may be the Lord will look on our affliction or tears and that the Lord will requite good for his cursing this day Oh how do the daughters of the Philistims rejoyce and the uncircumcised triumph Will not every prophane person that seeth us go in the street say lo there goes one of the skirts of the Whore one of the Synagogue of Satan one of the unclean birds c. and if we should reprove them for it will they not say that one of your selves have written and published it Oh! had it been a Turk a Heathen or a professed enemy to Christ that had done this we could have born it but that one who had tasted of the good word of God and knowingly professed the Truth for him to lift up his heel against Christ and to crucifie him a fresh in his Members and put him to open shame how will you look the Lord Jesus in the face at his appearing Poor man you often told us there was some Judas in the Church but little did we think that ever you would have acted so like Judas as first to betray us with a kiss calling us friends and then deliver us into the hands of our enemies to scourge us with their tongues and to spit in our faces and so to condemne us and the way of truth which we profess hardning their hearts against it yea will not all that pass by clap their hands hiss and wag their heads at us and say is this a Church of Bristol that men use to call an Assembly of Sion c. are these your gathered Churches about which there hath been so much contending of late nay then we will continue in our Parish Assemblies still we will never believe separation to be the way of God nor any of the separated Congregations to be the Churches of Christ but rather the Synagogues of Satan c. O are not these the thoughts and sayings of many at this day and how shall we answer these things Must we not make our solemn addresses unto God and say as Nehemiah 4. 4 5. Hear O our God for we are despised and turn his reproach upon his own head c. You also stile us the mingled People whom you reproachfully call the Independent Baptized c. O poor man was it not enough that you had often spoken reproachfully against that blessed Institution of Christ which he in his own person practised when he was about thirty years of age Luke 3. 21 23. and left as a standing Ordinance of the New Testament to all Generations till his coming again you calling it as you have often done that ugly thing of Baptism and so taking it quite away neither practising it upon your children for many years nor allowing it to believers but that you should now with despiteful hatred open your mouth in blasphemy against God and against his Tabernacle Is it a light thing that you have cast off and do neglect to practise the Commands and Ordinances of Jesus Christ written in his word but you must write contemptuously against them that do in conscience and obedience unto him walk in the practise of them you call us a mingled people you might possibly have spoken true had you said so of us before you and the rest left us for we had as it is to be feared a company of rotten Professors mingled amongst us some of which never brought any great honor to Christ but since you and they left us we do not know any soul in the Church but is able to give a good account of their Faith in Christ and are careful to walk in all the waies of Christ so far as they have obtained But for that mingling the which you mean of persons differing in their judgments about somethings c. you know in your own conscience that it was and is the principle of this Church to own and receive any that are truly godly though differing in some things and so you your self did readily receive our Brother Simpson though baptized and you gave way to another of the Church to be baptized though now you scornfully stile us a mingled People But the Church of Corinth or the Church of the Romans or the Church of Philippi among whom there were many that did differ in their Judgments about some things yet were not stiled a mingled people a harlot c. But had some of those that went with you been faithful to their light to have practised the Ordinance of Baptism when they were convinced of it they might have been some of the mingled too as you call us and what a preservative that might have been to them we shall not determine only this is observable that there was not nor is not one of all those that have practised the Ordinance of Baptism with us that have fallen away but onely one that was long before drawn away by the People called Free-willers You say we call our selves a Church of Christ in Bristol c. We answer hath not Christ called us so and owned us so surely you and others have solemnly professed that Christ hath evidently manifested his presence in this Church besides you and others can testifie that she was at first rightly constituted according to the light that God gave to his People in the work of gathering Churches at that time but it may be you will say she is grown carnal and become a harlot c. We shall not proudly boast but humbly acknowledge both to the Lord and to men that we have many weaknesses and failings which is matter of daily grief and complaint but where do you find that ever Jesus Christ did unchurch a People for such weaknesses as they did acknowledge and bewaile so long as they did not cast off him nor the faith of him nor their obedience to him read over the Epistles written to the Churches either Corinth or the Churches of Galatia or the seven Churches of Asia among whom there were many very great weaknesses and miscarriages pray read and consider 1 Cor 5. 1. 2 Cor. 12. 20 21. Rev. 20. 3. and yet Christ nor his Apostles doth not unchurch them and who are you then that durst so proudly set your foot upon the neck of this poor Church and trample her down as a harlot a Synagogue of Satan c. Again consider who were those that are said to be of the Synagogue of Satan Rev. 2. 9 3. 9. It was not the Churches that were called so for Christ owned them as Churches

by Iames Naylor a man then highly admired and cried up by you or those of your way as a man of great infallibility which perhaps might help to puff him up with pride by which he came to fall into this fad condemnation c. Now whereas some of your way boast much of your being all led by one and the same Spirit so that though they were at a great distance yet they all speak but one thing c. Now let any man read and compare your answers with Iames Naylors and see how near they come together unless it be in railing judging and censuring though therein I must needs say his answers are more moderate than yours And whereas a late Writer for your way puts it by way of derision to the Preachers in England that if six of the most able Doctors should have a portion of Scripture given them to interpret and they shut up in six several rooms c. that perhaps not two of the six agree in their interpretation Now suppose you had taken four more of your Teachers such as some of you had challenged the whole world to accuse of sin and made them six in number and have given them these sixteen Quaeries apart to answer perhaps they would have come as rear as you and Naylor do in your answers or as six of the weakest Preachers in England might have done in their interpreting a place of Scripture As for your word to England I shall say little to that but desire rather to mourn for the evils and abominations therein as I know it is my duty and yours also if you knew how to do it and so I conclude expecting that I shall have many sharp Arrows of bitter words shot at me both by you and others but for that I matter not much being conscious to my self that I have written in plainness words of truth and soberness and that I have been pressed by others to do what I have done and that rather for the vindication of truth than of my self and rather for the sakes of some godly people who may read it than for your sakes to whom I direct it and if you or others shall dip your pens in Vineger or Gall to write again I hope I shall bear it or modestly reply to it though my thoughts are rather to suffer my self to be trampled upon then again to answer a word seeing that of making many Books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Eccles 12. 12. And knowing also that neither you nor others can speak or write me so vile as I can and do see and acknowledge my self to be as in my self yet is my perfection and compleatness in another even in Christ Jesus my Lord in whom is all righteousness all strength and all fulness laid up for all those that sensibly see and feel that in them that is in their flesh dwelleth no good thing c. and thereupon do look unto him to receive of his fulness grace for grace in which glorious person all that do believe are justified and by whose grace and blessed Spirit they are in a measure sanctified and through whose pretious blood and perfect righteousness mediation and intercession they shall be eternally saved and in whose way I could as gladly now as ever subscribe my self Your Friend T. E. FINIS There is now in the Press a Book written by Robert Purnel entituled A little Cabbinet richly stored with all sorts of heavenly varieties wherein there is a Remedy for every Malady viz. Milk for Babes and Meat for strong Men and the ready way for both to obtain and retain assurance of Salvation being an Abridgment of the sum and substance of the true Christian Religion and to be fold at the Three Bibles in Paul's Church-yard

and stiled them so though they had many miscarriages but those that were stiled of the Synagogue of Satan were a company of proud boasters that said they were Jews and Apostles but did lie and were not so now consider who are those at this day that call themselves Apostles and boast of perfection do any of us do so or do not they that ye own do so and hath not the Church of Bristol tryed them and their Doctrins and found them lyars and their Doctrins false as the Church of Ephesus did Rev. ● 2. witness James Naylor Christopher Atkinson and others whose Books some of us have read and tryed and have found them to be contrary to the glorious Gospel of the grace of God which was preached by the true Servants of God and therefore have upon a good ground rejected them according to the counsel of the Spirit of God Gal. 1. 8 9. 2 John 10 vers But you say possitively that we are found to be a Synagogue of Satan was it ever heard that any man either Prophets or Apostles or any that feared God or expected to give an account of his words and actions did assume that boldness as thus to judge a people professing godliness every one of which are able to give a good account of their faith in Jesus and that do strive to walk up to what they know c. Is not this to take the place of Jesus Christ whose prerogative alone it is to try hearts and judge persons c. Did you not say truly when you said you did not know Christ and might you not have said as truly you did not acknowledg him for certainly did you ever think to stand before him to give an account of your hard speeches you could never speak and write thus Oh that you would consider what you have spoken and written to the grief of Christs wounded ones Psal 69. 26 If it were better that a milstone were hanged about a mans neck and he cast into the Sea than that he should offend one of Christs little ones Matt. 18. 6. How sad is it then for you to offend and grieve judge and condemn near 60 persons calling them a Synagogue of Satan c. and that for no other cause but that after praying for you and mourning over you we sent three times in love and pity to admonish you of the evil of your way you should now break out thus violently against us O blush and roul your self in the dust that if yet the day of Grace and door of Mercy be not shut against you You say it is in answer to a charge brought against you by some of the Members c. Truly we could have been glad that you had spared us that pains and had not conscience of our duty and love to the name of the Lord and to your soul prevailed with us more than any delight we had in that work you had never heard of us in that kind You say it is by you for the sake of the simple hearted among us published blessed be the Lord there are some simple plain honest hearted amongst us had you and the rest been so no doubt you would have stayed with us and thus much for the first branch of your Title page We observe that you begin your Epistle to the Reader as likewise your Book with the word outward fellowship c. Truly we shall easily grant that your fellowship in the things of God was but outward for had it been inward and spiritual in truth and sincerity you would no doubt have continued in it but as it is written 1 John 2 19. They went out from us because they were not of us We shall not spend time to answer every passage in your Letter lest as Solomon speaks Prov. 26 4. we should be like unto you and yet we shall answer some things lest as Prov. 26 5. you should be wise in your own conceit As for those Scripture expressions in your Book though misapplied by you yet we hope we shall consider them and examine our selves by them though not as they come from you but as they are the words of God and as for those taunts scorns false accusations judgings and condemnations of which your Pamphlet is full we hope we may as we have opportunity spread them before the Lord as Hezekiah did the Letter that he received Isa 37. 14. we being otherwise taught than to render evil for evil or railing for railing but rather to bless 1 Pet. 3. 9. having the example of Christ herein as well as a Precept hereto 1 Pet. 2. 23. Mat. 5. 44. yet we cannot but take notice of the absurdity of your arguing and proceeding wherein you first beg the question and then draw what inferences you please you first stile us a Synagogue of Satan c. and then heap up threatnings against us as such c. much like the heathen persecutors of old who would first wrap the Saints in the skins of Beasts and then set the dogs upon them to tear them c. Would you not count it an absurd thing if any man should come to you and heap up all the Scriptures that speak against murderers Adulterers Drunkards Swearers Lyers Theeves c. and apply them unto you taking it for granted that you are such a one and then ask you if this be not Scripture c. Or on the other side if one should take all the Scriptures that speak comfort to the true Saints in a suffering and persecuted condition and apply them to a common thief that is cast in prison for his wickedness or to a Malefactor that is going to suffer justly for his evil deeds c. Now this is just your way of reasoning and many others with you first to heap up multitudes of Scriptures that speak against the Whore of Babylon against Anti-christ against the Beast and the false Prophets against Hypocrites and Rejectors of the Gospel and against other ungodly and wicked persons c. and apply all this to whom you please either to the Churches of Christ or to the faithful preachers of the Gospel or to any other godly people right or wrong if they stand in your way you conclude they are such because you call them so whereas they may as soon prove the former things against you as you can prove the later against them so likewise the comforts and promises made to suffering Saints may as well be applyed to a common thief c. As to some of those that you stile the Servants and Witnesses of Jesus and this we find was Rabshaketh his way of arguing with Hezekiah 2 Kings 18. 22. Now had Hezekiah been the man and had he done the things that Rabshaketh there charged him with then he had reasoned rightly but Rabshaketh was mistaken in his foundation taking the things for granted whereas there was no such matter for godly Hezekiah had done no such thing onely Rabshaketh by his wit and subtilty framed

such arguments as he thought might accomplish his design namely to draw away the poor Isralites out of Jerusalem where God had set them and from Hezekiah whom God had set over them to come forth to their enemies as you may read at large 2 Kings 18. 30 31 32. and therefore do you consider a little what if you should be mistaken as Rabshaketh was who was as confident as you are and suppose that some of them at least whom you have cryed down as false Prophets and Deceivers should be found the Servants of Christ or that those Churches in England that you or some of your way call the well favoured Harlots or that this poor despised people in Bristol that you so contemptuously trample upon calling them a Harlot a Synagogue of Satan c. should at last be found the Churches of Christ and that he should own them as his People his Spouse the dearly beloved of his Soul and as those whom he had shed his blood for and given Grace unto Oh! how will you then be confounded c. And why may you not be mistaken seeing you have been mistaken thus long though few men upon earth were more confident of and violent for some things than you have been and yet you have been mistaken as you now say therefore take heed cease judging of Churches persons or things but leave that till he come whose right it is to judge and who will judge right but if you shall go on still to judge us we shall make our application to the Lord as David did Psal 17. 1 2. Hear the right O Lord c. Let our Sentence come forth from thy presence But the great matter you harp upon is that your Letter could not be received nor read in the Church c. Some of us had three reasons against it first because it was not directed to the Church but as it were in a deriding manner viz. To the People called Independents though now you joyn Baptized with them therfore if you would not own us as a Church we might justly refuse to own or receive your Letter Secondly you were a person under admonishing and had refused to hear the Churches Messengers therefore we had no warrant to read nor hear your Letter Thirdly some of us understood that your main design was to draw away some more to you though the greatest part of the Church were fully satisfied about the falseness of your way yet it may be there were some weak as there was in the Church of the Romans and of the Corinthians Rom. 14. 1. 1 Cor. 8. 9. But as for your jeering at our weakness and febleness and that we were afraid of being shaken concluding that fear had surprised the Hypocrites and that we were the wicked that could not stand in Judgment c. This is like Rabshaketh dealing with Hezekiah and the poor Jews c. as we told you before but we acknowledg we are a poor weak and afflicted People even the poor of the Flock whom the Lord hath yet preserved c. You likewise jeer at our Fasting day which in other words you did to a Member of the Congregation saying to this effect What could they not open a Letter but they must pray to their God and now they have prayed will not their God hear them as another of your company also jeering at our prayers used these words 1 Kings 18. 26. O Baal hear us c. But the truth is we did keep many Fasting daies after you left us and we can say through grace that God did not shut his ear against our prayers for This passage concerning R. Simpson was inserted by some of us without his knowledge not one Soul went from us after we did so As for your reviling and reproaching that godly man our Brother Simpson by name it may be when your Pamphlet comes into a far Country where neither he nor you are known some may believe what you write but in Bristol or any other place where he and you are well known your tongue will prove no slander for his humility integrity and godliness is better known than to be darkned by your pen but we shall leave him to clear his own innocency As for your Epistle to the Churches and Elders in England and Wales and particularly to those in Essex and Norfolk we shall leave that to them either to make their Appeals to the Lord or their Answer to you As for what you observed in eminent Church-Members and other high Pretenders to Religion as you say while you sate in Parliament and other chief places of Council and trust in the Nation we shall say nothing to that only this we do remember and did observe in what a height of discontent you came home and continued one while crying out against the Priests and false Prophets another while against Hypocrites and sometimes concluding and saying that al the Religion then profest in England was nought and that we must find out a new Religion at which some of us were silent as not knowing what you had seen and observed where you had been though some of us did reply as we doubt not but you doe remember but in this posture you continued till a new Religion came which you presently within few daies or weeks embraced without so much as setting apart one hour with the Church to enquire of the Lord what was in the bottom of that new Religion but rather threatning of us that if we did not speedily come away and embrace it we were all lost though you could not tell us of any thing we should come unto We come now to your chief Letter wherein you betray us again with a kiss calling us friends c. As for your Preface wherein you first disown any power that we have over you c. we shall not dispute that but resolve to do our duty according to Scripture rule Mat. 18. Tit. 3. 10. 11. and shall leave the issue to him in whose hands are the hearts of all men Secondly as for your pretended faithfulness but most unparallel'd impudency and sensoriousness in judging us to be no Church of Christ but a Synagogue of Satan and a Cage of unclean and hateful Spirits wherein lodgeth pride hypocrisie envy slandering back-biting railing lying love to this present world and conformity to the fashions c. We confess this is a sad sentence to cloath neer threescore persons with such a spoted garment many of which are able to give a better account of the work of grace in their souls and of their faith in Christ and have a more blameless conversation than ever we could hear of you or observe in you what secret seeds may be in the hearts of any among us we cannot say neither durst we proudly boast as others do but this we must profess ingeniously that we never observed so much of those evils before mentioned to break forth upon any of those that now are together as

we have seen in you and in some of those that are gone away with you and we are perswaded there is no judicious Christian this day in Bristol that hath known and observed you and us but will say the same thing so that there being so many such persons with your self gone from us we hope there is some Reformation in the Church but if there should still remain any such among us as we hope there doth not surely we shall be ready to deal with them as we have done with you and others onely we must know they are such for we must not take the railing accusations of our imbittered enemies for a sufficient proof Thirdly you say notwithstanding there is that in some of us after which your soul doth greatly long that the salvation of God were come out of Sion c. We do believe there is many a soul in this Congregation that doth long and groan day and night after more of the blessed Spirit of Jesus Christ that so they might know him better believe on him more love him more and live more to him and yet we trust there is never a soul in this Congregation but seeth sufficient ground to stand at a distance from your Principles and waies so that you may cease hoping for any of them to come unto you the Lord preserving them by his grace We come now to the five things in your Admonishing a Copy of which we having by us do here insert verbatiam First your leaving the Church which hath three sad consequences in it as we judge First the drawing of many away from the faith and waies of the Gospel Secondly the offending grieving and stumbling of many weak souls Thirdly the opening of the mouths of many to speak evil of the waies of Truth as 2 Pet. 2. 2. Secondly your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Thirdly your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not only of persons abroad but also of the Church contrary to Matt. 7. 1. Rom. 14. 3. also your calling the Church an Harlot Fourthly your asserting in the Church Doctrins contrary to Truth As first that we did not know what Faith was and that Faith was an eternal thing Secondly that Christ and Faith is all one Thirdly that Christ is not the object of Faith Fourthly your speaking reproachfully of the blessed Scriptures affirming they were blind and a plague to souls and further saying they are not the Word of God nor the Rule of Life Now because you say these are studied Accusations and from the Father of lies c. we shall therefore prove every title of these things to be true First that you have left the Church is true and that your so doing hath drawn away some grieved others and opened the mouthes of many to speak evil of the waies of Christ this is clear and plain and not a studied accusation but a real thing and that which hath been matter of grief and sadness to the Church and therefore we did send to admonish you of the evil of it Now in that you reply all judgment is given to the Son whom you say we are ignorant of and enemies to c. and therefore what is our judgment worth c. and then you go on to heap up fourteen dreadful Sentences against us such as the Spirit of God doth in Scripture give to Reprobates and cast-awaies and so conclude with that 2 Thes 2. 8. Now we desire any sober Christian to consider of this your Answer which you call your defence to our charge of which you complain you had much wrong because your Letter of defence was not read whether this be a Christian-like answer to the Admonition of a Church you not giving us herein one word or reason of your departing from us but onely heaping up 16. or 18. dreadful Sentences against us The second thing you were admonished of was your contemning of some and neglecting of others of the Ordinances of Christ First that Ordinance which you contemn is Baptism in Water which you utterly reject and cast away neither using it to your Children nor allowing it to Believers but calling it as you have often done that ugly thing of Baptism with other bitter and violent expressions against it to the grief of some of us Now we did not send to admonish you for not practising of it for we knew your judgment was against it but to admonish you of your great sin in speaking so contemptuously against it calling some of them that practised it ugly Anabaptists as you have done in some of our hearing Now whereas you call us hypocrites c. because as you say we sent to admonish you for not practising Baptism by Water you speak falsly and do us wrong for we did not so but onely for your contemning of it which we shall leave to the Lord of Ordinances to judge The second Ordinance which you neglect is the Lords Supper and such other Ordinances as are practised and to be practised in the Churches of Christ which that you do neglect is clear by your practise c. And whereas you demand whether we had medled in any such thing for some years past and then fall a threatning of us again as hypocrites with deceit and hypocrisie c. To which we answer you speak false again for the Church never neglected that Ordinance of the Lords Supper any years it is true that through your means and some others the Church did forbear the practise of it about a year together but it is one thing for a Church upon occasion to forbear an Ordinance and another thing totally to neglect it or deny it as you do but for your flying out as you do in the first part of your Reply to this particular against Inventions Traditions Imaginations of mens carnal wisdom c. We answer we use no Ordinance but the Institutions of our Lord Jesus Christ which he hath commanded to be observed in his Churches till his coming again in the mean while all men may see we had ground to admonish you for the contempt of some and neglect of other of the Ordinances of Christ so that this is no lie nor studied accusation as you call it and whereas you say in the close of this Reply that Baptism and the Lords Supper you own Oh! how durst you to publish such equivocation to the World when in your conscience you know you own neither of those two Ordinances neither Baptism by Water nor Breaking of Bread why then do you use such mental reservations deal plainly that men may know what you are did you not say in the words preceding that God requires truth in the inward parts and then presently write an abominable untruth is there any fear of God before your eyes c. The third branch of your Admonition is for your extream sensoriousness and rash judging not onlie of persons abroad but also of the Church calling it a

And when I had spoken these words I went from her and she went her way and never was questioned nor punished for any of these abuses and those words I spake but once to her and this was all I did and the occasion of it upon which you build your great structure concluding that I am no Minister of the Gospel but a Persecutor of the truth c. as in your large Letter to me thereupon you declared and that now in the title page of your Pamphlet you proclaim to the Nation c. but I wish you lay a better foundation for your other buildings lest you prove a foolish builder Now I would ask you a few sober Questions First How comes it to pass that you can stile Sarah Latchet a Servant of Jesus and publish her so to the world who is an Apostate and an Excommunicate person going on in such a rayling reviling fierce manner as hath been now declared and as divers witnesses can prove whereas there are many pretious Servants of Jesus and Saints of the most High now living in England and Bristol that have been known to walk with God for many years in uprightness their foot having held its steps and not declined from the good wayes of the Lord neither gone back from the Commandments of his lips but have esteemed his words before their appointed food and have stood fast in the worst of Times and sorest of Tryals c. and yet they must be censured judged condemned and cryed out against by you as if they were the vilest Persons on earth and all because they cannot close in with you and your way c. Secondly How durst you in your Conscience say That those raylings revilings cursings and lies c. which she uttered are a testifying from the Lord Do you not blush to name or write such a word Will Jehovah the great and glorious God of Heaven and Earth ever own such raylings revilings c. to be a testifying from him Or will he ever justifie you in what you have here written and published to the world O be ashamed and confounded poor deceived man Thirdly How will you bring both ends of your Parallel together you endeavour in your Letter to parallel Sarah Latchet with Paul and Sarah Latchet 's sufferings with Paul 's sufferings and me with Paul 's Persecutors Now then let me a little examine your Parallel 1. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ having received a Commission from heaven doth accordingly preach and publish the glorious Gospel of the grace mercy and love of God in Christ to poor sinners and likewise sets forth the Lord Jesus in his person virtues and offices inviting and beseeching with all love and tenderness those where ever he came to receive this grace and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ c. And Sarah Latchet comes forth rayling reviling cursing c. Ergo Sarah Latchet and Paul are alike 2. After Paul had with meekness and love tendred the grace of God and the person and vertues of Jesus Christ the Saviour as before some did rise up against him beat him stone him imprison him and whip him so that five times he received forty strips save one with many other fore and cruel abuses as you mention in your Letter out of 2 Cor. 1. c. And Sarah Latchet after she had rayled reviled and pronounced curses against people it was said to her It were fitter such an idle Huswife were sent to Bridwel Ergo Sarah Latchets sufferings and Pauls sufferings are both alike c. 3. Pauls Persecutors after they had heard the pretions glad-tydings of the Gospel and the report of Jesus Christ made unto them as before did actually take and cruelly beat stone whip and imprison Paul c. And I after I had been revised rayled upon c. said of Sarah Latchet it were fitter she were whipt and sent to Bridwel Ergo Pauls Persecutors and I were both alike and under the same condemnation c. Is this good Logick May not all that read your lines read your folly c. But to go on Fourthly Will you ask your Conscience this question Did you not publish and set forth this thing to wit of my not being a Minister of the Gospel c. to lay me if you could under contempt and scorn both in the City and Nation though you know in what sence and upon what ground I had denyed the title and dignity of a Minister as I have before declared but you knowing that this was a nail that would go and therefore you strick here and was not this such another piece of envie and hypocrisie as poor Mris. Prince did manifest when she came to rayl at me and reproach me at my Lecture at Nicholas when in her Conscience she durst not object against any thing that was delivered though it were often put to her by me but instead thereof after much bitter revilings against me called to the People and bid them to beware of me for she had heard me say I had not the Spirit of God c. Now suppose this had been true That I had at any time uttered my complaint to her or any others in the sadness and bitterness of my soul when under temptation as the Lord knows what sad hours and dark dayes I have passed through since I came to Bristol though you and many others little observed it or enquired after it but suppose I say I had uttered my complaint to her as she and many others have done to me was it a Christian-like part in her to publish this in the face of a Congregation many of which might be apt enough to take up a prejudice against me c. would you or she or any other think it either honesty christianity ingenuity civility or humanity in me if I should publish to the world what you or she or they have at any time uttred to me as a matter of grief burden trouble sadness affliction or temptation that lay upon your or their spirits now both you and she also knew full well the sad complaints of my soul under the sense of my own weakness the fore and terrible temptations that I encountred with the greatness and weightiness of my work the many eyes that were upon me and the great dishonour that would have come to the name of Christ if I should have miscarried in my work which made me to see the necessity and prize the excellency and long for the supplies of the Spirit of Christ and often to complain of that small measure I apprehend I had of it c. But Secondly Both you and she and some others know in your Consciences that there was another ground upon which and another sense in which I had sometimes questioned whether I and many other Christians had yet received the Spirit which for the Readers information end my own vindication I shall now declare When I lived in London and sate under the Ministry of some choice

done with the substance of your Letter I intend to add a short word to the ensuing part of your Book but I shall first make a little digression by joyning an occasional word to what I have now written c. I shall desire you to Consider Whether you are not by this act of yours in publishing me thus to the world tickled the hearts and pleased the fancies of many who were full enough of prejudice against me before nay are you not joyned as a Brother in bitterness with him that wrote the late Book called Satan Enthroned in his chair of Pestilence Let any judicious Christian compare your Book with the latter part of his and see whether those two bitter streams do not both arise from one corrupt fountain namely the Spirit that is from beneath may not I return your own words upon you which you unjustly charge upon me and this Church from Obediah 11 Thou wast like one of them c. and is this the kindness of a friend or the part of a brother O how truly are those Scriptures fulfilled in you Mic. 7. 5. Trust ye not in a friend c. Jer. 9. 4. Take ye heed c. for every brother will utterly supplant and every neighbour will walk with slanders You had written your Letter to me about a year ago and if you had known ought by me you might have written more but for you now to publish it to the world and to proclaim it in your Frontispiece and that in such a subtile manner that he that reads your title page and my name would verily think if they did not know otherwise that I were some dreadful persecutor and that I had caused some Servant of Christ to be whipt and punished but I trust the Lord will look upon my wrong and your envie my innocency and your hypocrisies c. but I know it is in vain to write farther to you and truly had it not been for the vindication of the truth and satisfact on of some poor souls in this City and Nation I should have cast your Book and the other mans Book aside and never have troubled my self to have answered you or him but since it is so that both your Books are spread abroad and read by many at which some are grieved others staggered and people generally apt to conclude that things are so as he and you have said because I am silent and say nothing as I remember it was with me once before when a publick Scandal was raised and cast upon me at my first coming to Bristol which the Lord knew and I in my own Conscience knew I was as innocent in as any man or child under heaven and therefore sate still about half a year resolving my innocency should answer for me c. which made many conclude I was guilty because I was silent till at length I was forced to seek a publick Vindication by the Magistrate which I had and then the mouths of bad people were stopped and the minds of good people satisfied So I conceive it might be now if I were wholly silent as to what you and he do write though indeed I had resolved silence and to have given you and him and others leave to have trampled upon me and were I in a private capacity I think I should do so but forasmuch as the Lord hath set me as a publick instrument in his work and that that which you and he have written of me tends much to the defaming of me and the hindrance of my work by laying stumbling blocks of prejudice into the minds of people against me I therefore think my self bound for the truths sake and for the sake of some good people in this City being thereunto also advised and perswaded by godly friends to set forth a few words of truth and soberness both to your Book and his And I desire that neither you nor he will be offended that I joyn you both together in this my Answer for first you are much alike Brethren in bitterness against the people called Independants and Baptized as may be seen throughout your Book and in the latter part of his Secondly I find that he hath often joyned you with me therefore I think it not improper to coupple him with you and I hope that neither your friends nor his will look upon my so doing as any disparagment to you or him Yet I must needs say in some things he is more modest than you in that he doth not name me as you often do though in some things you are more serious than he in that you do not 〈◊〉 as he often doth but both you and he have done what you could to lay me under contempt and scorn to the whole City and Nation and therefore I shall now address my self to answer some few passages in his Book though not for your information but for my own Vindication and for publick and general satisfaction c. And first in the 48 page of that his Book called Satan enthroned in his Chair of Pestilence c. he tells a story how they meaning the Church in Bristol send for a Taylor out of Wales to be their Teacher c. in which he deals very dis-ingeniously for first he knew that I was sent for by the Major of the City some Aldermen many of the Council and other Gentlemen and Commissioners of the City of Bristol which I take to be the Representative of the City c. As likewise I was sent for by many of the godly inhabitants as I have elsewhere declared and that not only to be a Teacher in the Church of Bristol but to be a publick Preacher of the Gospel in the City as I have through the help and grace of Christ hitherto continued and he himself at my first coming gave me the right hand of fellowship and professed he was satisfied in my Call But secondly I was no more a Taylor in Wales than he was any of his former Callings after he came to Bristol For when I was called to Preach the Gospel in Wales I left my former Employment as he did leave his several Callings when he took to Preaching the next thing concerning me in his Book is page 50. where he mentioneth a great Woman that had three Children unbaptized the truth of which I shall relate by which the falseness of his Relation will appear c. There was about the time of my coming first to Bristol a godly woman one at whose Husbands house the Church did often use to meet she having been delivered of a Child did about a month after desire the Church to meet at her house to render praise to the Lord and to spend some time in Prayer and conference c. accordingly the Elder that then was did upon the first day of the week appoint that the next Meeting should be at such a place to such an end now when the Church was met she desired that her Children might also