them all together viz. it unchristens the whole Church of God c. I say thus confessing that our doctrine unchristens whole christendome which the Pope hath called the Church of God but is indeed the whole world of Gentiles that hath got into the outer court the meer outward form and name of christianity and hath trod down the holy City and true worship for 1260 years that whole world that hath for ages and generations wondered after the beast nor is this inconsistent with the truth of Christs promises of his presence and guidance among those that are his true Church and people indeed for howbeit he hath according to the word left those to their own wayes that left and liked not his wayes yet he ever hath still doth and ever will lead those into truth that love the truth and will be led by his spirit when he will lead them yea though he tied not himself to teach them that should chuse the Pope for their Tutor yet according to his promise he hath bin more or lesse with those that observed what he commanded them in his word from the beginning and so shall be even to the end Review Lastly it doth the devils work in the shape of angels of light to make men renounce their baptism and if from Nero's hating the Christian Religion the antient Apologetist of the Church did rightly gather the goodnesse of it we may the validity of infants baptism from the devils hatred of it it hath ever been said of him he will not make a bargain with any soul till it hath renounced its first bargain which was made with Christ at baptism the Anabaptists are his Proctors and do it to his hand Re-Review Of which desire of his to have us renounce our baptism being not a little aware though immediately after I renounc't that Rantism I once had unawares to my self in the innocency and ignorance of my infancy in the room thereof received real baptism I had one messenger from Satan to buffet me and beat me off from further proceeding in and owning of that practise yet through the goodness of God and that grace of his wherein I still stand I was so far from being removed that I was much more settled strengthned and stablisht in the present truth wherein I walk and I trust shall walk in unto the end unlesse I receive more evidence to the contrary then ever I have done from any writings or any discourses of any that ever I met wiâ—h of what principle or profession soever which messenger whose name was William Everard after the flesh but the name that the father had given him was Chamberlin as he said for he lived in the secret chambers of the most high though he came to my house pretending that he was immediately sent from God with a message to me in particular viz. to renounce that practice of baptizing which himself had sometimes walkt in also but now relinquisht did to my self and some others after half a dayes most serious observation of his speeches strange extasies and uncouth deportment by many prodigious passages blasphemous pratings and as by experience we then proved them flatly false pretences to what he had not and most presumptuous yet successeless undertakings and frivolous fopperies of which I am willing at any time but not capable under a hours time to give fuller account to any that shall desire it discover himself to be one of the Archangels of darknesse which the devil now sends forth a new in the shape of angels of light and is now no lesse apparently I think to all that know him and where he is And howbeit it hath bin more then once but once especially as I have hinted to the Reader in a shrewd shake of sicknesse that befel me above a twelve moneth since to the great retarding of this work reported that I was shaken sheer out of my mind and judgement concerning this way and baptism so as to have recanted and renounced it yet I call my God to witnesse to whom also I give thanks for his mercy toward me in that particular that partly by the more then ordinary advantages I then had through my sequestration from all other occasions to seek the Lord to search and try my wayes and turn again unto him partly by the more then ordinary ingagements that were then upon me so to do and that seriously and sincerely through my dayly expectation to be clapt up in clods of earth till the great day of acccounts I have bin much more sweetly satisfied since then concerning the truth of this way then ever I was in all my life before neither did I then find any cause to repent me of coming to Christ in it as neither shall any that renouncing your Rantism do rightly receive it so they continue to walk uprightly in it to the end but this I must confesse I found good cause to repent of it that I had not honoured it so much as I might have done since I ownd it nor walked so profitably serviceably blamelesly holily and worthily in it nor so suitably to so holy and worthy a way as it is in it self not withstanding the account of basensse and foolishness that it hath in the world 1 Cor. 1.30 So that ever since that forenamed sifting I had from Satan by the mouth of that his Agent by whom he solicited me to forgo my baptism I side with you in this viz. that t is the Devils worke in the shape of an Angell of light to make men renounce their baptism and though I am somewhat otherwise opinioned about the Divels affection to infants baptism then you are for I think if he hate it t is as he hates holy water or any other of his own inventions wherby he hath juggled away the truth and imitated Christs ordinances out of doors yet I am fully of your mind that he so hates the true baptism I mean the baptizing of professed believers from whence I gather the goodnesse and validity of it against him that it is most of the business about which he is at work in the shape of an Angel of light in these daies wherein his time growes short and his old kingdome begins to fail him by means of the true baptism to erect to himself a new kingdome and in order thereunto to make men renounce that baptism as knowing that he cannot strike a downright bargain with a soul to become fully his as the high Notionists and spiritual Sensualists of these times do till it hath renounced its first bargain made with Christ in baptism not what was made with Christ at infant rantism for infants are not capable per se to bargain with Christ and how they do it per alios I do not see sith such as say they do it for them were never appointed by them so to do nor by Christ neither that I know of nor do I remember any bargain to own Christ and not be ashamed of
nine wayes at once such Noniformity there is among you some saying this and some that and some you wot not well what your selves What pretty Checker work is there in your judgements about one and the same thing wherein you would be unanimous and uniform if you would return all unto the truth O how doth Babell come tumbling down by this Division of tongues even as when theeves fall out true men come to their goods even so suâ—ely will the true Church come at last to the understanding of this truth even that no infants at all are to be sprinkled when they shall see what a do there is about it among divines and how they would hold it if they could tell how and say something for it if they could tell what the disputers and scribes will scuffle one with another till their poor people not knowing which to follow will at last betake themselves to leave them all and follow Christ. What Sirs is the Gospel the plain simple gospel such a maeander as this is Christ thus divided were Paul Peter and Barnabas and Iohn and the rest of the Apostles and ministers whose Successors you all say you are but are not in very deed so intricately intangled in vain janglements about one and the same question as you are both among and within your selves so that your answers and Accounts for your practise hang together more conjangletine then conjunctim but no marvel if the Cat winckt when both her eyes were out you draw nigh to God O yee Priests with your mouth and honor him with your lipps but have for the most part of you removed your hearts far from him and your fear towards him is taught after the precepts of men therefore are ye drunken but not with wine you stagger but not with strong drink for the Lord hath powered upon you the spirit of deep sleep and hath closed your eyes you Prophets you Rulers you Seers hath he covered you have disserted the truth and are degenerated into a counterfeit kind of Baptism that never descended from above that hath stood now of a long time jure Ecclesiastico but not jure Christico and so the best of you know not how to hold it now the truth returns from the land of her captivity without fidling and faining and patching and shifting and such shameful ridiculous thwarting of your selves and one another with yea and nay in your joint prosecution of one and the same cause as will if you reform not in time object as much to the Ha Ha-He of that part of the Christian world that yet wonders after you of the protestant Clergy as other popish toies have done the Papacy to the Papè of such as once wondered after them give over therefore your dabling of infants faces and baptize believers by profession cast away all your wood hay and stubble which cannot endure the trial by the light of that day that is now approaching and begin the Gospel again as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be in this world world without end Amen Thus Sirs saving your vain boasting what innumerable Arguments and such through furniture from Scripture from reason from the Churches and Fathers Authority from more modern Authors amongst whom you mention Calvin Vrsin Dr. Featley I have shewed that Scriptures are against you that Reason is against you that the Primitive Church and Fathers are against you that the immediately sub-primitive Church and Fathers are against you that the praepostern-Church and Fathers are though some against you some for you so little to be regarded in their testimonies in respect of the Superstition of their times that if they were all wholly for you they prove nothing de jure as neiâ—her do the testimonies of the more antient Fathers by Mr. Marshalls and Mr. Blakes confession that though the Clergy and all Christendome Pope Civil powers and people have been so fully for you for ages together as that they have persecuted all that have been against you yet this shewes the badness of your cause by the bloudiness of it and so makes more against then for you that two of those three Authors of your own alledging are as much for you as men can be that are opposite to you for they as ignorantly as your selves own your practise though they disown and overturn one or two of the prime pillars and grounds you practice from that the third viz. Dr. Feaâ—ley is killed as dead as a door-nayle by Mr. Den and that your selves and the other sticklers that still stand up in your cause are so miserably imbroiled in civil wars divisions diversities of design to bring about the same thing contradictions clashings Ayes and Noes among your selves that you can never make an handsome head against the truth till your matters hang more harmoniously together so that nought remaines in which you can hope unlesse your self excusing quarter crying Epistle to the Reader which is also answered can stead you but your forlom hope of these three following Arguments which are more then half laid sprawling already and that tottered troop and ragged Regiment of Scufflers against Reason and that Scare-crow that comes up in the Rear of the Review and that Patheticall summons of all the Pastors to come in and succour you and oppose the growth of Anabaptism by preaching what they can against those Hereticks the Anabaptists but disputing no more with them because the effects of disputing with them are dangerous All which by then I have dispatch a little more dispute with whether I shall be more weary of writing or you of reading this as I know not well so it matters not much I shall its like give over then however First then to the first of your three Arguments that ensue Review The First is taken from the universall practise of the Church of God which the Adversaries would not hear of at the Disputation The grounds of it are expresse texts of Scripture Mat. 28.20 Lo I am with you alway to the end of the world Iohn 14.16 The Comforter shall abide with you for ever ver 17. The spirit of truth ver 26. Who shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance which I have told you Iohn 16.13 He will lead you into all truth The Argument is this To hold that Christs promise is not true is damnable blasphemy But to hold that the universall Church hath erred in so necessary a matter as baptism and that for so many hundred years is to hold that Christs promise is not true his promise of being with his Church of guiding it by the spirit into all truth Ergo To hold the Vniversall Church hath so erred is damnable blasphemy If the Anabaptists object That the Church of Rome useth this Argument for her traditions The Answer is That those traditions which she pleads for were neither universal nor doctrinal as this of baptism and therefore the exception against her was just and those
first after once we do repent and believe and that so necessarily first necessitate both praecepti and medii in order to outward membership and fellowship in the visible Church of Christ and in order also to the true being of the visible Church in that outward right form and order that if it be not first done and done according to his own mind and not mans and first laid as a foundation among the rest of those principles Heb. 6.1 2. of Christs doctrine which altogether are called the foundation i. e. to the visible Church of Christ which is said to be built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets i. e. their doctrine or that form of doctrine they delivered whereof baptism in water was a part and a principle though not the principal part Eph. 2.22 Rom. 6.2.3.17 I deny that there can be any visible Church of Christ at all truly constituted according to his own will and such a bearer up of that building it is thaâ— abstract it and there is no building fitly framed together nor people growing together visibly an holy Temple in the Lord and he that in these latter dayes will ever erect that holy City and Temple which was trodden under foot by the Gentiles advancing all into the name of the Church at the door of infant-sprinkling must preach and practise again that true baptism of repentance for remission of sins in the absence of which there was no true visible Church as to outward order and form at all in their opinion as well as mine who hold and so does the whole Clergy that baptism is the way by which persons enter and out of which there is no entring at all into the visible Church in which therefore to erre is in truth such an unsufferable crime and so fearfully to erre in one of the most necessary points of Religion as pertaining to visible Church order that except ye repent of your infant-sprinkling O ye Priests and be baptized truly according to Christs will in the name of the Lord Iesus for remission of that and all other your sins and superstitions your error is enough to justifie our separation from you nor find we how we can in Christs name and according to his will or without violation and palpable breach of that outward order which he gives no dispensation for to us abide in one body or Church fellowship with you in the supper Secondly Sirs though I told it you before yet to conclude this I now tell you again though we deny infant baptism yet we do not hold at all nor conclude thereby that the whole Church of God hath universally erred i. e. the Church of Christ in all ages and places and howbeit it is trâ—e as Dr. Featley saies p. 19 and we with him That particular Churches have erred and may erre as the Greek Church and the Latin Church the two legs upon which Mr. Marshal strives to make infant baptism stand still because it hath stood there so long and general councels which the Schooles term the representative Church are subâ—ect to error and have sometimes as Dr. Featley saies and so often say I that that I le never build my faith upon them decreed heresie and falshood for truth howbeit all christendom hath erred after the Clergy in this point and many more for 1260 years yet t is true as Dr. Featley saies that the formal Church as they speak i. all the assemblies in the world cannot be impeached with errour in this point of infant baptism forasmuch as the true Churches of the first times never knew it and many faithful witnesses that knew it to be a corruption testified against it in the darkest times and the best reformed Churches even no lesse then scores of Assemblies do deny it at this day to the shame of that one general Assemblie that would have settled it Review And not onely so but if Mr. Fishers doctrine which 〈◊〉 lately delivered as a judicious gentleman affirmd who heard him that â—ll that did believe and were dipt should be saved but all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned be true they as much as lies in them damn to the pit of hell all the Matyrs Professors Fathers believers for many hundreds of years together Which onely doctrine should make all men to abhor them and not let their soules intermeddle with their secret whose rage is so fierce whose wrath is so cruel Christ shuts out onely unbelievers from heaven whosoever believeth not shall be damned This doctrine shuts out believers if they be not dipt i. e. if they be not Anabaptists it cannot be the ceremony they are so hot for without the substance Re-Review But saving the over apprehensive powers of that judicious Gentleman who ere it was that heard me he most grossely abuses in it himself and me in reporting such a thing to you as also you abuse both him and me and the world too in reporting it as from him to the world yet you have done him honour so farre I confesse as to conceal his name or else you had done him a greater spite indeed himself in shewing such shallowness of capacity in hearing as scarcely calls for that worthy title of judicious Gentleman and me in not only mistaking but mistelling his mistake also to you who print out his mistake to all the world for such doctrine as this That all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned did never yet fall from my mouth nor did ere take place or was ever owned for truth in my mind yea howbeit I summon you or any else to shew me in the word not taken by snatches but in the whole intent and scope of it Gods promise of salvation by Christ without obedience to him both in repentance faith and baptism too to those of whom all these things are required I say it again least you mistake me as speaking of infants for they being capable of none of these of them to salvation none of these are required of whom all these are required since all those that obey not the Gospel in what part soever of it it is manifested to them shall be damned 2 Thes. 1.7 8 9 2.10 11 12. Howbeit I say I wish you to advise how safely you that know it to be your duty may neglect it and how groundedly you can assure your selves that you do believe at all in truth if you receive not the love of every title of Christs truth so as wherein it appears to you to imbrace and obey it yet I am well assured I never utterd the other viz. that all that did believe and were not dipt should be damned nor is it now nor ever was it my judgement to this hour of which for the worlds and your satisfaction sith I have been very often charged and that twice or thrice in publique places where I have preacht so to hold I shall here give this brief account I judge that all persons
9.31 yet their Messengers to the world must expect to be continually under clouds and to be counted deceivers disturbers trouble townes turners of the world upside down where ere they come and to be in tumults and dishonors and evill reports among most men 2 Cor. 6.4.10 yea wo unâ—o those Ministers that desire all men should speak well of them t is a shrewd sign they are none of Christs I think God hath set forth us Messengers last of all saith Paul of the Messengers to the Church of Corinth when it was at rest 1 Cor. 4.9.13 as men appointed to death for we are made a spectacle to the world and Angels and men we are fools for Christs sake we are weak the Church themselves may be honoured but we must be dispised we hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffetted and have no certain dwelling place and labour working with our hands being reviled we blesse being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we intreat we are made the silth of the world and are the offscouring of all 's things unto this day So that I marvel men should think we seek to be cryed up among men yet thus are we censured by the Clergy and all that ever were forward for the truth and sought to vindicate it in any part thereof since it began to return from under those clouds wherewith the Clergy hath overcast it were so censured by the Common Councel of Clergy men in their several climates as drawing disciples after us that they might be called after our name and not Christs and so wee and not he be glorified The papists calumniated Luther with it that he affected his disciples should be called Lutherans but he denyed it non â—ic o â—atue non sic oro ut meum nomen taceatur absit ut mihi faetido vermium succo accederet ut filii Christi meo vilissimo nomine dicerentur in like manner say we to them who are insatuated into the same faith concerning us Non sit O sacerdos non sic Oramus non ut nostrum sed ut Christi nomen nominetur et ut quisquis nominat nomen Christi ab iniquitate ista abscedat 2 Tim. 2.19 Imo absit a nobis gloriari nisi in cruce Iesu Christi per quem mundus nobis cruâ—ifixus est nos mundo Gal. 6.14 novit dominus qui sui sunt as for your selves O Priests non vâ—detis id manticae quod in tergo est T is the praise of men that most of you seek much more then the praise of God this makes you so erre from the way of truth this makes it more tedious to you then t is ordinarily to other men to be of that sect that is every where spoken against and to see the Gospel whose constant companions disgraces are when it shines upon you you are impatient of hearing so much ill as poor Christ in his disciples must and so are for the most part capable but of little good 4. Covetousness St paul cals it the root of all evil al in the church al in the commonwealth growes out of the root of Papal Prelatical Presbyterian I had almost said and might say it if they turn Tith-mongers too whether per se or per alios Independent covetousnesse Achans â—acriledge Naboths Murder Naamans Idolatry Iudas's treason Demetrius's persecution Demas's apostacy even all the mischief of all these kinds which haue been acted by the CCClergy throughout all christendome who as is shewed above are in truth the most sacrilegious cruel false worshipping Christ selling truth treading and Apostatical generation that are from Apostolical purity doth proceed from this rotten root of covetousnesse which hath so corrupted the whole Masse of men called Ministers for this 1260. years and upward that vel duo vel nemo few or none of them have ever preacht the Gospel nor freely and fully held forth the truth in all points as it is in Jesus from thenceforth to this very day And indeed how can any other be expected then corrupt doctrines from men of corrupt minds which hold gold to be godlinesse 1 Tim. 6.5 and suppose liberal and bountiful maintenance and rich Revenues to be the chief corner stone in their church work yet thus the Clergy by their wonted clamors for it not onely at Rome but at Westminster also seem to me to suppose yea the higest pitch that many of them seem to point at in reformation of religion is the restoring of impropriations and crushing the pride of the swelling Poppies or Epâ—scopal clergy and conferring that large allowance on the Presbyterial you cry out that a base Ministry can never do good upon the people and that the poverty of the Ministry is enough to bring them into contempt and that the church is robbed of a painful Ministry because there is not hony enough in the hives to feed a drone But I say you have made your selves more base by far and brought your selves into more contempt by your covetousnesse and greedy gaping after riches then ever yet you came into by poverty and that one Drone will devoute more maintenance if men put into his mouth as long as he will open it as many honest self-denying ministers will make a good shift not only to live but to live to Christ on they are not seducers that preach on cheaper terms but the basest Ministers if you count that basenesse to be destitute of liberal maintenance were ever yet the best Ministers of the Gospel and the most inriching Ministers to the people Christ foresaw clearly enough that a rich ministry would make but poor work in his Vineyard therefore in his wisdome chose not many rich nor mighty nor noble but the foolish weak base abject dispised ones in the eyes of the world and earthen vessels to send his treasure by into the world 1 Cor. 1.26 27.28 2 Cor. 4.7 yea those Ministers of Christ that were in afflictions necessities distresses hunger and thirst cold and nakednesse poor and having nothing that neither had nor provided silver nor gold nor brasse in their purses as Peter and Paul and the rest of the primitive preachers had not were the most pretious plain painful profitable preachers of the Gospell that ever the earth boâ—e Matth. 10.9 Act. 3 6. 1 Cor. 4.11 2 Cor. 6.4 ad 11. 2 Cor. 11.23 ad 28. and if mighty meanes were such a mighty means to make able Ministers of Christ as is pretended by you Clergymen that tell the State they may as well set Carpenters to build without tools as send forth Ministars without liberal maintenance I wonder there are no better Ministers at Rome where they are maintained more like Monarchs then Ministers of Christ but t is a true proverb that their golden cups made them become such wooden Priests Cum ecclesia peperit divitias filia devoravit matrem you tell the Magistrates that they l discourage persons from medling therwith if they allow not large maintenance to the
which you profess to give A true Account of First The Propositions agreed on between your selves and your Respondent his Position and what else was precedent and preparative to the Disputation Secondly The Disputation it self and such things as were subsequent to it in each of which if I shew not that you have recorded more flat falsities and down-right untruths than one and that were too much to fall from your pens were you Ministers of Christ indeed then let my own pen record me for a lyar and my own self bear the blame of over-charging you and that for ever In order to a trial of the Truth in this case between you and me though I suppose I shall not be more critical in considering nor volumnous in dilating on them than your selves are numerous in bewraying of your own negligences ignorances contradictions fictions nakednesses and abusive shifts throughout this your three-fold thing yet I shall make little less than a totall transcription of your Papers before I have done and therin take notice of such absurdities at least whereby you most notoriously delude the world most grosly oppose the truth most unworthily wrong your Respondent and most palpably proclaim your selves to be rather true Dissemblers than true Discoverers of the Ashford Disputation and Smotherers rather than Publishers of that Gospel-truth in the point of Baptism which you pretend also to give as true an Account of to the world as of the other Report You talk first of Propositions agreed upon between your Respondent and your selves the Ministers at the Communion-Table in the Church of Ashford in Kent before the Disputation began Reply Give me leave Sirs sith silence with you may be taken else for Assent to say a word or two to this you stile your selves the Ministers both here and else-where throughout your book But if you mean Ministers of Christ and the Gospel I am yet to learn that from you which I never found you very forward to teach me viz. that you came truly and honestly by that Title you have hitherto wanted no provocation from me to prove the lawfulness of your calling I made bold to denominate you Antichristian Ministers in my Position upon the very day of the Disputation before those Thousands which you say were Auditors thereof And I have asserted the same more abundantly since in that letter to Mr. G. C. which it seems you know so well as even thence to take occasion in a Pet to publish so much as you have done of your Disputation all which is enough to give you to understand that I own you not at all in that capacity yet did you never no neither then at the Disputation nor since in your so true a Relation of it so much as once open your mouth or strike one stroke with your pen whereby to evince it that you are Christs Ministers which gives me to believe that howbeit you have a habit of calling your selves so yet you had rather men believed you on your bare words than put you to prove your selves to be so and that you are as utterly uncapable to clear it as 't is clear you are unwilling to be urged to it You speak of the Church of Ashford and a Communion-Table in it 'T were strange if I should not know what you mean thereby yet had you told this peece of your tale in other Terms it had been so much the less lyable to correction I know but one Church of Ashford that hath a Communion-Table in 't and that is those few persons who since they have gladly received the Word of Truth have been according to Christs will in that kind baptized in his name for remission of sinnes and do now continue in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking oâ— bread and prayers to which the Lord I hope will add dayly such in those parts as shall be saved in this Church there is a Communion-Table indeed even the Table of the Lord at which they meet blessing and drinking that Cup of blessing which is the Commemoration and Communion also of the blood of Christ breaking and eating that bread which is the Commemoration and Communion of the body of Christ at which you and your Respondent never yet met but may do yet in due time if the Lord please to grant you for till then surely it never will be repentance to the acknowledgement of his truth But for other Communion-Table I wot not Sirs that there is any at all at Ashford As for that common Table which stands in the great stone house where the Bells hang where the people meet once a week but never do that they should do if they were disciples of Christ indeed which house you call the Church of Ashford and I cannot but allow you so to do sith you disclaim the true one the very Steeple being well nigh as much a truly constituted Church of Christ as a parish people the one whereof is but a compacted number of dead stones in a literal sense and for the most part no less in a spiritual sense is the other besides stone Churches and wooden Priests such as if you are not yet most of the Popes children are suit well enough each with other as for that Table I say where you and your Respondent agreed better about the Articles of the Disputation then they do for ought I see to this day about that Article of faith they disputed on you had need to find some fitter phrase for it than Communion-Table for it hath long since ceased to be of any such use as for people to communicate at it The Gentleman my beloved friend that is now Resident there and President too in pretence at least as a Pastor over that flock having never administred it at all since his abode among them nor since the Classis possest him of that Relation and gave him orders to feed them with that ordinance why he doth not meddle with that service in his parish would be farre more wonderful to me then 't is had not mine own conscience been of the same constitution with his when I was with him in the same condition for as my own feet stuck once in the same stocks when I stood in Pastorall relation to parochiall people so I believe him to be further inlightned then to be free for a promiscuous admittance to the Supper of such Societies among whom he discerns not a few more goats than sheep or to hold Communion there with them whom in the Pulpit he cries out on as unbelievers as knowing well enough there 's no fellowship to be held between light and darkness believers and unbelievers in that holy ordinance yet he sprinkles the Infants of all as you also do and my self blindly did or else that parish will prove happily to hot to hold him upon what account he doth so I know not for sure it cannot be upon this because onely believers Infants are to be sprinkled The Lord open
and that numberless crue of corrupt Clergy-men which by the advantage of that smoak of errors with which he darkened the Sun and the Air ascended from it will fall again for out of the bottomless pit those Locusts came and into the bottomless pit they must return Report Fourthly That I was a fool and an Ass and the weakest of many to defend the doctrine of Iesus Christ yet doubted not but to make it clear against every opponent to which your answer was that that which I said of my self out of a voluntary humility you the Ministers did acknowledge out of the sense of your wants Reply As to secular literature I did indeed acknowlege my self to be a Dunce and a Fool but as to your bringing me in here as branding my self with the name of Ass I must protest against it as one of those scandalous and false aspersions with many more of which this story of yours is stored in trial of which I appeal to a letter sent to me some few dayes after the Disputation from an eminent gentleman then of your party my answer whereunto you cavill at but care not for answering at all your selves wherein he writes thus to me as concerning this present passage viz. If any man should ask my opinion now notwithstanding your seeming modesty to term your self Dunce and fool I should be apt to conclude with the proverb that to me you did appear by much more knave than fool either therefore this gentlemans memory was better than yours or else your faculty of forging is greater than his and this is most likely of the two for though he reviles me through ignorance of what I am yet I think he spake plainly what he thought and repeated no more than what I spake of my self but you oportet mendacem esse memorem whether wittingly or no it concerns you to examine have most grosly falsified my words that you may fasten the fouler blemish upon my person this language you learn'd be like from Dr. Featly who very often al-to-be-asses the Anabaptists calling his argument from circumcision to Infant-baptism in respect of the Anabaptists Pontem Asinorum a bridge which these Asses could never pass over p. 40. also in his preface to the Reader wherein rating the russet Rabbies for preaching against the errors of the Priest-hood what quoth he are all the Prophets become mad that the Asses mouth must needs be open by miracle to reprove them nor doth he say so altogether without some reason for verily we were all once Ass-assinated so farre as most Christ'n creatures are still as to yield our selves up to be rid by Balaam the false Prophet i. e. Assemblies and Classes of the Clergy who love Tyâ—hes the wages of their unrighteousness and take toll of all people for deluding them till upon a time we saw the Angel of the Lord with his sword ready drawn in his hand to destroy him as he was riding us to defie Israel since when refusing to go with him any further though he smites us of Dumb Asses as we were before we are become the Lord opening our mouths a people speaking with mans voice and forbidding the madness of the Prophet Moreover I may well excuse your calling me Asse by craft whilst you condescend to call your selves unawares by the same name of Fools and Asses for do but mark what you here say of me and how you make it agree with your selves he said say you that he was a fool and an asse and that which he said of himself out of a voluntary humility the Ministers did acknowledge i. e. of themselves out of a sense of their wants fallere fallentem non est fraus Report You tell us furrher that you prayd the Congregation that sinee you were not the men appointed for the Disputation but onely undertook it that the truth might not be wholly deserted and the current of slanders which was likely to rush in against it might be somewhat interrupted by the seasonable interposing of your selves they would not suffer any defects of yours to prejudice the cause that it was the truth on your side did animate you to undertake it which you were ready to evince by the Arguments following leaving the success to God to whom onely it belonged to convince the understanding Reply Here 's much talk of the truth and the truth but the truth is your undertakings have been ever a deserting of the truth as it is in Iesus and causes of a current of slanders that rush in against it in every parish from the mouthes of your Priest-rid people who living under your constant out-cries of Heresie Schism and such like upon all that suits not with your covetous interest have learnt exactly to speak in your tongue as if they had been spit out of your mouthes as for your seasonable interposure it is by so much unseasonable as t' will prove succesless to your ends for though while the Clergies will was the worlds law their interposings did interrupt all arisings of truth yet now t is the time of the end wherein men wil run to and fro and you labor in the fire and weary your selves for very vanity to uphold your thred-bare traditions for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Report The sum of the Disputation held at Ashford in Kent Iuly 27. Reply Had these two brief businesses which you stile above the sum of my position and here the sum of the Disputation been stilled some of the position some of the Disputation or a little of one and a little of t'other you had bin in the right on 't for there 's scarce so much as some of either As for the Position you have dispos'd on 't out of the way and diminisht the Disputation into nothing almost in comparison of the true proportion of both Now as to this piece of business which you stile the sum of the Disputation I must talk with it two wayes and deal with it under this double notion First as t is a Relation of the then Disputation Secondly as t is your Disputation for Infant-baptism I shall shew the falsness of the one and the foolishness of the other and then come to review your Review your relation so you term it is most manifestly false if not as false a one as was ever pend or printed concerning such a matter since the Pope and his Priests perceiving their kingdom to decline by the breakings forth of truth from under their smothers began to be-lye its witnesses to this day I shall take notice of a few more of your figments and two or three passages in the Disputation which passed by the memories of you Accountants least by telling the whole truth you should shame the devil and your selves which may suffice to prove a disproportion between your Tattale and its Title of true Account and so leave it to the unprejudic'd auditors of our Discourse and
impartiall per-users of our Relations Report First you assert page 3. and that point blank that I confessed that at three or four years old many began to be instructed in Principles of Religion and that at that age they might be baptized but afterwards that proof being offered that infants of a day old were as capable of baptism I would have recalled it Reply Sirs why hath Satan filled your hearts to ly thus against the truth and by filching out of the waie purposelie as may be supposed what was of most moment to the making out of my true meaning to wrest and represent my expressions and intentions in them as croslie and contradictorily to what they were intended as yea and nay are one unto the other that children at three or four years old as your selves then affirmed may be instructed I granted and do still acknowledge with you but that I said at that age they might be baptized upon that account of bare instruction unless apparently effectual to their true conversiâ—◠〈◊〉 the faith so that by Profession they give good ground to our consciences to believe that they believe I here disclaim it as either a mis-conception or rather a meer conception and birth of your own brains and profess it in the sight of God and all men to be that which in the sence you here insert it in came not so much as into my mind much less out of my mouth at that time and though I find you so un-ingenuous in your dealing that I wonder how you can wish me to deal ingenouusly with you as you do yet can I not conceive you to be so unjudicious as to conceive I confest as you have here accounted since my speech to all that were not dull of understanding was most plain to a very contrary purpose and tended to shew the utter unwarrantableness of baptizing at any age at all whether in Non-age Middle-age or Old-age unless it be found in the way of Faith and therefore of baptizing anie Infants in respect not only of their incapacitie to believe but much more to make profession of belief I shall therefore give you and the world too wherebie yours must needs appear to be a juggle a more true Account of the Dilation that was then between us on this wise it was I confess I granted for 't is the verie truth though not of a straws weight to your purpose that by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 18.3 was meant children in Non-age to which Christ saies his Disciples must be like although bie the phrase v. 6. viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I asserted then and see no occasion of saying otherwise to this hour that he means his Disciples whom he likens to the other and not little ones in age and bodily Stature in proof of which I referr'd you to Mat. 10.42 where under the self same greek phraise viz. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he expresses no other than his Disciples there being no little child then among them of which he could be imagined to speak moreover I shewing how that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did properly signifie not such an Infant as you sprinkle which cannot speak called infans quasi non fans but a child capable at least to be instructed and so you are to seek still for Infant-baptism 't was bolted out bie you that at three or four years old many began to be instructed even in principles of Religion and that then at least they might be baptized whereupon I replyed that 't was neither this nor that age old or young gave right yea that no age could make a fit subject for Baptism but that wherein a person is apparently instructed to conversion and that when so instructed they were to be baptized whether old or young so that if you could so effectually instruct children at three or four years of age as to bring them to make such profession of faith as I could not but judge to proceed from the reality thereof within I could then for my part baptize them yet I thought it was a thing very seldome if ever at all visibly effected to this effect and much what in iisdem terminis did I then deliver my self yet so willingly were you mistaken in my meaning as downrightly to set me out for such a Childish Novice as met you before thousands to maintain the unlawfulnes of Childrens Baptism and held a Discourse of 6 hours to that end and yet confest the lawfulness of it so soon as ever we had well begun but Sirs suppose I had confessed as I did not that children of three or four years old because capable at that age to be instructed might without respect to the begetting of faith in them by that instruction even then and thereupon only be baptized yet will you not at last be ashamed think you of that ignorant assertion of yours namely that infants of a day old are as capable of baptism as they for grant it should be granted you as it is not that bare instruction without any success thereof to conversion is a good ground to baptize persons on at three or four years of age yet is it a ground whereupon to baptize Infants of a day old that are not capable of so much as that bare instruction a man may in much wisedom and some hopes if not of present yet of future conversion thereby begin to indoctrinate his children at three or four years old and instill the principles of truth into them as preparative to their obeying it hereafter and also to baptism it self in due time yet I judge him as very a Child as his Child that goes about to instruct and baptize it so soon as t is born yet after your own assertion by which you would make men believe I asserted that children of three or four years old are capable of instruction and consequently of baptism so young you second it with another more absurd and false than the former namely that children of a day old are as capable of it as they Say you so Sirs are infants of a day old capable of Baptism that cannot so much as be instructed in principles much less be begotten to the true Religion or if you say you hold not their right to baptism from a capableness of instruction from which you plead the other but upon other grounds upon what grounds I beseech you Sirs upon what grounds as you offered to shew them then so shew them now if you can for none of the Arguments in your Account can possibly prove such a thing What Infants of a day old I 'le saie it again that you may consider it for sure you did not consider what you said when you said it what children of day old fie for shame Sirs had you said infants of eight daies old it might have held some proportion with that grand ground you go upon viz. the Analogy between Baptism and Circumcision but this opinion doth
declare they have it or warrant your baptizing them thereupon so long as still 't is unapparent to you that they have it for first à posse ad esse non valet consequentia it follows not because it may be therefore 't is yet such Country-clearing of things is seen now and then among you Countrey Clergy-men that if from may-be to must-be may not pass for good reason there must be no more given at all witness the yery last Argument us'd by the first opponent at this Ashford Disputation whereby to prove infants to have the spirit who having urg'd the example of Iohn Baptist whose example is also hinted in your Review p. 16. of your Pamphlet just before to this effect viz. Iohn had the holy spirit from the womb therefore children have it and being answered to that thus viz. Ex puris negativis et particularibus nihil sequitur universale claps in this consequence to close up his discourse with viz. It doth not appear to you that children have not the spirit as much as to say they may for ought you know have the holy spirit therefore they have it To whom 't was repli'd that it would not follow that I was at Canterbury such a day because it did not appear to him that I was not and this as I remember though your Account doth very freely forget all this but I hope you will remember to be asham'd on 't was the very period of that mans Disputation with me saving what he added after in his recapitulatory moderation and after that in other emergent conferences with me and others to whose non-sequiturs as I have in faithfulness set down what I returned then so pace vestrâ I say thus much more now viz. that if I should go about to prove from the Possibility of things to be so or so or from their non-appearance to be not so though not yet appearing to be so that therefore they are so viz. more worlds then one or another world of men in the moon or as he from the particular case of Iohn Baptist to other infants so I should syllogize from the particular and extraordinary case of Balaams Ass to other creatures of that kind viz. Balaams Ass by a special power of God upon him did speak and reprove the madness of the Prophet therefore very Asses can speak plain enough to reprove the madness of the Priests though I have learn'd Christ better then to record him as such a one for the like deduction yet I know who have so well learn'd the Featlaean language that in their Account I should have been an Ass for my labor Secondly and this I told you then too but your Account had no mind to mention what makes against you Tum demum i. e. proprìe et quoà d nos dicuntur res fieri cum incipiunt patefieri then things as to us are when they appear and not before and to talk de non entibus et non apparentibus is one as frivolous as the other yet such lazy learning and lowzy logick is at Rome with the infatuated Pope and such of his Creatures as trouble themselves so much about Tyth that they have no time to study Truth nor understand either sense or reason that whilst wise men indeed whose wisdome is not as theirs is already turn'd into foolishnese do argue from the Appearings of things to be to their being from the evidence that they are to their existence they magisterially impose things to be received as truth because Ipse Dixit and both assert them to be and make men believe they appear plain enough so to be when their say so shews them though no inquisitive sincere self-denying Christian can in the word find either how or where of but a very little better stamp is your way of arguing here who being hous'd by custom under a cloudy confidence that infants have the holy spirit will needs have it appear whether it doth or no but for my part it appears not yet to me yea I reply Secondly to this part of your Report that I did indeed then say as you have here truly related that it could not be made appear that Infants have the holy spirit to the making of them subjects of baptism yea I testifie the same still that it cannot notwithstanding all your undertakings which of what little force they are to such a purpose I shall try more at large when I handle your Account over again not as an Account but as your Argumentation for Infants having the holy spirit and so right to baptism Nevertheless Thirdly that I acknowledged any such thing as this in the least that the Scriptures above named did seem so much as to intimate such a matter as that infants might have the holy spirit as it had been most contradictory to that which here you say I said immediately after it and is most contrary to my Judgement to this present so I deny it disclaim it and testifie again it as another of your abominable abuses of your selves my self and the world into which you have feigned forth this Account and as an opinion that neither then or ever since nor ever before since I found the way of truth hath had the least entertainment within my bosom And so I pass on to your other juggles among which Nigro Carbone notandum est this would not be let slip without a Selah in that some few lines below this you relate thus Report That my Answer was that in Scripture children were indefinitely taken but concerning this or that particular child no proof could be made Reply Which thing I confess I said yet take notice I must how you let slip your memories being willfully weak as I find them very often to be something more of my then speech which had you not declined to set down would have shewed a little more plainly and yet its prety plain as t is but hardly quite so plain as the nose on a mans face how you strike quite besides the iron stear to a wrong point and in your following undertaking upon that my Answer stickle clearly to another purpose then that proposed by me for my speech was not concernâ—ng this or that particular child only but of this or that particular child above another viz. proof could not be made of this child in its infancy suppose a believers more than of a Heathens if one of these and one of those be lookt on together whereupon also I then added but you have absented it in your Account that if two Infants viz. a believers and an unbelievers as yet unknown which is which should be presented to you whereof but one secundum te o Sacerdos may be baptized It would put you very shrewdly to it to discern of your selves which of the two is the believers Infant by any more manifestation of the spirit in it than in the other yea I now tell you over again that such a presentment would fumble and puzzle both the
conference and a confused croud of disputation it had had much more to boast of then it hath Pre. The Scandals that have since been cast upon it were expected c. Post. And well they might unless you reckoned without your Host if you scand the Scantines of the provision you made both for your credit and the proof of your practise but what Scandalls I trow were cast upon your Disputation here 's a great talk of Disgraces Scandals Injuries that its under as from us but unless summum jus be summa injuria we righted it rather a little too much in reckoning on it as more then it is worth or at least not setting so slightly by it as well we might But t is as usual a fashion among you Clergy men to count your selves scandaliz'd disparaged disgrac'd vilified undervalued c when you are but either found out in your falsehoods or slandered of a matter of truth as t is for you under one vile name or other to scandalize the Saints most falsly and slander the truth it self yet if your repute be at reparations more then justly through our occasion when we know it we shall make you satisfaction by submission and amends by amendment mean while have patience with us and in due time and Christs strength I trust we shall pay you all Pre. The men which were our Adversaries and their driving was known before c. Post. Were it in respect only to your Infant sprinkling that you did so frequently stile us thus we are no less then many hundreds of its old acquaintance who thinking once as you do that we did God service to be friends to it could now freely answer to the name of Adversaries but we are the best friends in the world to the Truth and your Persons could you once see wood for trees and no further Adversaries to your cause then as we are well assured you can never make it good while the world stands by all the shifts you can devise from the law of Christ whose cause you call it As for our Driving were it like that of Iesu the son of Nimshi it would excuse it self the better sith t is only against the house of the Woman Iezebell that hath sate as Queen over the Nations and stirred up Ahab the Kings and Powers of the Earth to commit fornication with her and to do abominably and to shed the blood of Saints if you be not she then our driving is not towards you but if you be as I dare not be sworn that you the CCClergy throughout all Christendome are not then wo to your house indeed not as from us but from the Lord who yet a little while wherein space is given you to repent and if he cast not you and your lovers into a bed together and into great tribulation except ye repent so that all the Churches of Christ shall know that t is even he that searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and giveth to every one of you according to your works then the Lord hath not yet spoken at all by me Pre. It is no new thing with them to bespatter those Arguments with their tongue which they cannot unty with their teeth c. Post. It is an old new thing with your selves for it hath been of old the custome of the new Clergie though never of the true by common councel to cry down as Heresie what truth soever was too hard for them as for us it is no new thing with us indeed for it is one of those old things which were in use among us while we were all one with you but since we sincerely sought the truth are past away so that I cannot but clear those men that say it is no new thing with us as speaking no other then the truth and must needs condemn those who condemn us of it now as men condemning us of a meer new nothing Pre. Thou hast here a true though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed c. Post. I was musing a while what of the Ashford-Disputation this True Account could be truly counted a True Account of for I found that it mentioned neither the number nor the names of the Scribes that scrap't it nor the Disputers that disputed it nor the Arguments of more then one of those disputers nor all his Arguments nor half the Respondents Answers nor many more things that should be in it by right nor many of those things rightly that are in it by wrong at last I had resolution here that 't was A True though short Relation of the most materiall things that passed Yea Sirs I assure you a good whipping is fitter for that disputation then a printed Account of it to the world unless on purpose to be laugh't at that lasted no less then six hours whereof five and an half past away mostly in Immaterials and the odd half too in such Immaterials as these you have here accounted for and if these are the most material things that passed how Immaterial may the world well think were the most Immaterial that passed in the Disputation they surely were not worth one quarter of the while they past in Moreover that your Relation is Short yea far short of the Disputation Related I dare not deny but dare you say it ore and oâ—e again that 't is a true one how true it is is so apparent by the preceding Ezamen of your Account that I need not here so much as assert it to be false I shall therefore say no more but thus viz. Had you said false where you say true both here and in your title page where your c. is stiled A True Account A True Relation you had then said true without all question but your saying true in these two places where you should have said false hath made you speak falsly in both indeed Pre. The adversaries answers being rendred to his best advantage c. Post. As for example sometimes his answers are altered and translated into a clear contrary form sense meaning then he ever spake in somtimes added to somtimes defrauded of such clauses as would have given every body to understand his intent to be directly opposite to what its here represented sometimes invented as it were de novo somtimes rendred not at all but only related to be nothing in the least measure satisfactory nothing that carried the least shew of sense or reason to the purpose c. and all this if men would believe you and if they do not I dare say 't is because they have neither sense nor reason whereupon to believe it to your Respondents best advantage but t is utterly against your wills surely Sirs besides your intentions and in some such way as you never meant it if it be for 't were a wonder if you should mind my advantage so much as to render my answers the best way in order thereunto and 't is a chance had you intended my best advantage
but that you might have helpt me one lee-tle dram more then you have done what not one syllable not one scruple not one minits matter more of all that store that lies a smothering wherewith to mend the case of your Adversary whom you seem so to pitty too that if 't were possible even for old emnities sake for old truths sake which he strives to tell you you would do all to his best aduantage facile est invenire baculum ad caedendum canem you can easily pick a hole in his coat and could you not resolving to render things too to his best advantage find some few shreds and old ends or other out of all those cast clouts you made in the cutting out of your Account wherewith to stop a hole and hide the shame of at least some of that silly silence you sometimes father on him and some of that foppicall non-sense that you fain him and would fain have him at other times be thought to have utter'd was there not one grain more in all his six hours answering to put in his end of the scales whereby to have rendred his answers a lee-tle more weighty then you have rendred them and somewhat more answerable to sense and reason but in truth you may well be afforded a pardon for when hundreds of wise men that were ear witnesses of the disputation shall see how grossly you have falsified what you pretend to give a true Account of the truth will be no looser but yours the disadvantage rather in the end by Accident therefore indirectly and in such sense as the truth of God the more abounds through mens lies against it to his glory it may possibly prove true that things are here rendred more to my best advantage then if they had been more truly rendred but I suppose there would need no more to make Democritus weep and his dog laugh too if he had one then to hear you say in sober sadness that in this Ragged and Rude Rendition you directly intended any such matter as to render your Adversaries Answers to his best advantage or that you intended any other then the very contrary Pre. And the Ministers Arguments as they were delivered without any addition c. Post. Alack good men you minded so much the mending the case of your Adversary and so singly designed by alteration ablation addition c. the rendring of his Answers to his best advantage that you durst not trangress so much as a fingers breadth by adding any thing to what you delivered your selves towards your own advantage in your Account of the disputation but what ever Additaments figments amendments c. are used for his aliâs your own best advantage sake in the rendring of the Adversaries Answers yet the Ministers Arguments are set down even nakedly as they were delivered without any Addition for advantage as if either the Ministers needed nothing to be done in such a way in their case but might well spare all the advantage to go on the other side and yet be on the surer side too or else were such self-denying men that they would rather represent the cause of the Adversary at the very best then their own in the least measure any better then it was And truly Sirs I must needs say that for you that you have not advantag'd your own matter much by Addition to your Arguments but what benefit accrues to them as you manage the matter in your Account is rather by way of Abdition then Addition for you have hid the most Immateriall of them from being seen at all and rendred them clean out of the way the advantage they have lies more in their being rendred by the ablative case then by the dative Pre. Thou art desired to read them without prejudice to let thy charity cover the weakness of them c. Post. For my own part Sirs as I heard your Arguments for Infant-baptism without prejudice i. e. not passing sentence on them till I had heard them when you urg'd them at first at the Disputation by word of mouth so God is my witness how often I have read them ore and ore again without prejudice seriously setting my self to weigh them most impartially in the ballance of both Scripture and reason since you urg'd them ore again in print nevertheless I cannot possibly unless I speak against the light of my conscience judge them to be any other then what I said before and what your selves are pleased here to acknowledge them to be before all the world begging of people in charity to couer the weakness of them viz. but weak Arguments which ingenuous confession of yours if it be not a giving of the cause I appeal not only to all rational men that shall happen to read this who know that the truth or falshood of all causes respectively lies in the strength or weakness of the Arguments that are brought in defence thereof so that they either stand or fall according as the Arguments to uphold them be they few or many are either weak or weighty but also to your selves who tell us truly and plainly that t is the weight of Arguments onely and he is a weak man that saies weak ones are weighty ones that carries the cause your own words if they may be of any weight with you are these p 12. viz. besides that opinion of Ovid Et si non prosunt singula multa juvant what ever it may carry of credit in other causes ought to have but little in this where we trust not in multitude nor measure by number but substance and weight of Arguments are the foundation of our faith the other are for pomp and victory these onely for satisfaction and verity so that if a man might hope you would stick to this candid concession of yours and not start from it there need not be much said in discovery of the weakness or non-weightiness of your Arguments and consequently of the Rottenness of your cause for the world it self may hear what you say out of your own mouths in this very vindicatory Account of yours wherein you not onely publish some of your Arguments in that same weakness and nakedness wherein at first they appeared so that every eye may discern it having leave now to examine them at leasure but also after not a few vain glorious vauntings and ventings of your selves concerning them as of worth and weighry in way of defence of them from those sleightings those disgraces those injuries and censures of them as weak and wanting which they are under as from us at last being sensible of their weakness you sing a new song to the tune of cry you mercy and fall a beseeching the Reader in his charity to cover the weakness of them by which weak petition you may work upon some weak ignorants that are not book learn'd or if they be stand bent to believe all things as you desire them but on none that are truly disciples though onely A.
to spare sentencing your cause as wrong by your personall defects and want of abilities but also in charity to couer the weakness of your Arguments which is such an unreasonable request as was scarce ever put forth before by any Disputants who if they find their Arguments to be weak ought rather to recant them specially after such publique acknowledgement of the weakness of them and to desire people that they would not suffer themselves to be swayed by them then otherwise But Sirs do you think in your consciences that there is such weakness in your Arguments as is here intimated to us in your own book and likewise that your cause which is so far from a good one that it deserves to bear the name of Abaddon is in danger of suffering so much through your defects in disputing it unless men be so charitable as to wink at the weaknesses of both I speak seriously in my mind you had then better by far have conceal'd then reveal'd your disputation in an Account and had provided much better for the honor of it for now you have vindicated it from the disgraces with which it was loaded in private like him that fetches a frisk out of the frying pan into the fire whilst you publish it in the same weakness onely robbing your Respondent of the strength of his Answers in which it discover'd it self at first and hang it out against the Sun so that all men may see clean through it so thin and thread-bare it is and that without spectacles and not onely so but make proclamation of the weakness of your Arguments with a petition to pardon the weakness of them that 's an ill bird which in hast bewraies his own nest and leaves it to others to make all clean and such are they that uncover their own nakedness so far when they need not that they are fain to be beholding to the benevolence of others to cover it and yet are so inexorable as to hold the cause of others inexcusable in the self same case wherein they are earnest to be excused by them for our cause is at a loss among you for the sake of what ere defects you spie in any persons that profess it But I believe you are not cordiall in your aâ—knowledgements here for if you were you would surely have endured your Respondents private representations of the weakness of your Arguments and your pedling in your proof of Infant-baptism with more patience then you did but its evident by your impatience towards him in that kind that what ere you say here of your selves in a voluntary humility yet you have so good an opinion of your selves and your work too that day that Tam nil as nothing as it here seems to be in your Account as well as ours you take it ill that any should esteem so poorly and speak so plainly though but privately of your trifling doings as you dispense with your selves to do here in publick before all the world and howbeit here 's weakness and defects and defects p. 3. overtly worded over by you in a general way yet it 's an hundred to one if a man take you at your word and yield to what you say as truth and say it ore after you that there 's much weakness in your Arguments and that there were many defects in your Disputation and your zeal of Infant-baptism is great and your abilities but mean to maintain it you will be half angry with him and think he casts scandals upon your disputation and be ready to gainsay all this and to stand up in vindication of your Arguments as strong and sufficient and lay all the defects that were in the disputation at your Respondents door and if you be askt what one individual particular Syllogism Term Argument or Scripture you were out in the framing uttering urging or underctanding of throughout the whole day of the disputation I am perswaded you will sooner bite your nayles then assign any or if it be specified by others that in this and that you were out you misunderstood such or such a Scripture such a speech or passage you faultred in I am afraid your pretended self-deniall will be found so little that you 'l justifie your selves in every bit and scrap of that which past from you during the whole discourse which makes your confessions deserve but little of that favour you so much implore by how much they savor of juggle and complement more then of a real true sense of what is wanting to you indeed which verily is a right-baptism to maintain rather then abilities to maintain that right-none that you stood up for nevertheless I must needs grant it to be true that you say here that your abilities were far short of your zeal yea so short that howbeit you had a good mind to do it yet you neither did nor could maintain it at all but wherefore was it but because you had a bad cause in hand yea had your zeal been as big as your cause was bad there had been no standing before you indeed the defects of your cause was the cause of your defects and not your own defects the cause of your causes had not the fault been more in your faith which was a false one then in your faculty to maintain things and had that and your baptism been as good as your parts are great and both these as probable as you capable to prove the meanest among you might have done more at the disputation then as it happend all of you did per vim unitam because though you fought with one who was no more then a flea in your ears yet you hapned to be fog'd so that you faced the wrong way and fell in unawares against the truth which in these daies of its return falls upon inquisitive consciences with more force from the mouth of fooles and babes then meer tradition doth from the wisest Babists in the world The deepest defect is in the cause you defend in the way you warrand t is a crooked cause an unwarrantable way and therefore those that will warrand mens walking in it can never do it without faultring and fumbling in the work and such after occasions of fawning on men for their charitable excusation Gentlemen that I may neither seem to defie nor yet to deifie your persons but put things upon a true Account you are men that have some worth and excellency and yet some weakness and exigency too but I impute your miscarriage in the disputation not half so much to your own as to your causes indigency your business was well man'd but ill manag'd because there was but an ill matter to be maintain'd you were at the wrong end of the staff and therefore well might you be defective in the strife this makes the least of the flock draw you great Leviathans out now adayes and the feeble to be as David before Goliahs that have been Polemically exercised from their youth
in that truth on their side doth animate and assist them you meet them with staff and spear and humane accomplishments and they stand before you in the name of God and strength of that truth and true Israel of his whom you yet defie this makes Schoolmen like Schoolboyes under the rod when they are taken tardy in their exercise and see they are like to be whipt for it cry spare us in that their School-masters the Pope and Councels have overtaskt them and set them a Theam which Scripture whence onely they must fetch all their proofs saies just nothing of at all This makes the Disputers the Divines to come abroad a begging in print among the vulgar as you here do saying cover pass by bewayling the weakness of their Arguments their defects in disputing their presumption in entring the lists their non-preparation for the disputation because it s not the true Gospel they disputed for a very stripling may make a Gyant give back if he have hold on the hilt of his sword and the other thrust hard against the blade 't is hard for thee O Saul to kick against the pricks a learned lawyer may be at loss in a lame suit Asinus ad lyram may play his part better and make sweeter musick then the most accurate musitian that hath nothing to beat upon but a board it may well put any but the meer Sophister to his shifts to prove the moons made of green cheese and so 't will any save the meer self-seeker that is set to serve it out of a sight that he can serve himself of it and therefore is resolv'd to make any Argument serve turn even libet ergo licet rather then leave it to prove Infant-baptism much more Infant-rantism to be a good cause and yet the more 's the pitty this is the cause you have to make good and have been so bold as to stand up for which though your wishes are here that it may not suffer wrong through your defects yet mine are much rather that you may not suffer your selves to be wrong'd any more or to be wrong'd for ever through its defects for howbeit it flatters you into an opinion of its ability to be maintain'd by you by its appearing ability to maintain you yet you 'l find ith'end that by its fair flourishes it hath flusht you into more zeal then furnisht you with ability to maintain it when it shall have brought you to your choice of one of these two ex quibus minimum est eligengendum viz. either of Repentance from it and all other your Parochiall dead works tithes and other traditions that depend upon it upon a sight and acknowledgement that you have been mistaken about these as well as other Romish Remnants that you have seen cause through the Parliaments eyes to renounce since that long since Lutheran reformation which after longer standing out will be so much the harder Chapter for you Clergy men to run throw or else which is worse then nought of perseverance in your evil waies and dead works against light to prevent the other which last the Lord prevent from befalling any of you if it be his will Pre Who would not have presumed to have entered the lists c. Post. It had been no presumption in you had you been true Ministers of Christ and the cause you stood up in Christs cause indeed for grant it to be presumption in Vzziah to meddle in the publique service of the Temple and in Vzziah to put forth his hand to uphold the Ark and consequently for so you argue not we for men to meddle so as to minister to the Gospel publiquely in your Churches that are not in holy orders yet it is none vos Apello for the Priests or ordained Ministers of Christ to stand up any where in defence of Christs truth where it s traduced but rather duty which in speciall they stand bound to in that therefore you accounting your selves Christs Ministers do grant it to be presumption in you to put forth so publiquely when you saw it tottering you do no less thou give the cause you stood up in to be none of his as indeed it was not but your own and that was it only which made it presumption and very high presumption in you too in that you durst enter the lists against the Lord Iesus in in his own ordinance and that with such weak Arguments such flags as flam'd like swords but alas such as could not bear the brunt when it came to blows here how much less will they in that battel of the great day of God Almighty which is now marching apace upon you 'T is true therefore as you here confess you have been presumptuous and presumption is one of the most desperate sins that can be against Christ yet for all that in his name and as an Embassador from him though otherwise an unworthy and ever a contemptible creature in your eyes as though himself did beseech you by me I am bold to beg of you that you would not despair but come in and be reconciled to him presuming no more to stand up against him with such weak weapons as before least he tear you in pieces fall upon you and grind you to powder but sit down and humble your selves that you have stood so long in the way of Sinners so that they could not come to Christ through your Blurres lay down your arms and yield your selves prisoners to him stoop to that golden Scepter he yet holds out unto you own him as your King Priest and Prophet list no more against him but list your selves under him for he is gracious and will yet receive you and baptize you with his spirit if you turn at his reproof and repent and be baptized in water in his name for remission of sins Pro. 1.23 Act. 2.38 become little children in such a sense as you should be that you may be baptized and then be baptized in truth and in token for your memory hath lost your traditionary token sprinkling that hereafter you will not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified but manfully fight under his banner against sin the world and the devill and continue Christs faithful souldiers to your lives end How happy had it been for you if you had took quarter from Christ before this time for he would have given it and forgiven all your enmity against him in his truth but you are stiff-blades and your words have been stout against him you Clergy men are Lords you will not come neer but I beseech you become Lord beggars at the throne of grace as Brightman said truly the Bishops were for earthly honor at the thrones of Kings and Princes that you may have more of that grace and holiness to worship God with reverence according to his own will which God gives to all humble Suppliants then had you less learning and living then you have and more disgrace in this world then ever
and people did begin so high as Abraham or before such time as Moses and Aaron had according to Gods command to them ceremonially sanctified by the bloud of sprinkling and dedicated both the Book of the Covenant and all the people and all the vessells of the Ministery and all other things pertaining to that Tabernacle for both that holy people and all their ceremonially holy things whereby you need not be ignorant unless you will that the holiness of that seed and their sanctuary was the same and began and were to end both together were first consecrated didicated purified sanctified all at one time under Moses Heb. 9.18.19.20.21.22 c. whether I say the holiness of the seed began so high as Abraham is a thing so out af doubt to me that I dare say that as the holy land was not relatively holy till they came into it so the holy seed as well as the other holy things of that Covenant were not ceremonially consecrated nor formally sanctified nor vouchsafed that title of a holy seed though vertually they were a choise seed before till a little before they were to enter it and howbeit I challenge no man yet I intreat any man in the world to shew me if he can where they were denominated and distinguished from all other people as unclean by that term of a holy people till God intituled them so by Moses Exod 22.31 ye shall be holy men unto me neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts ye shall cast it to doggs which place compared with Levit. 22.8.9 Deut. 7.6 chap. 14.2 chap. 26.19 doth so plainly shew these two things First That the holiness there spoken of began but thenceforth Secondly that it was but a certain ceremonial distinction and a holinese opposite to that kind of defilement which might be contracted by eating of unclean beasts and so fully ceased in Christ that I even blush to read Mr. Blake and have been ashamed in my mind to hear some Independents also bring those Scriptures wherein God called Israel a holy people to himself to prove that an inchurched believers meer fleshly seed is now by nature holy in the same sense Now then let us hear the conclusion of this whole matter of the things that have been spoken this is the summe viz. that there are three kinds of holiness of which when you say children of believing parents have holiness and consequenrly the spirit you undoubtedly mean one viz. Matrimonial Ceremonial Moral The Middlemost of which because your fellow laborers against the Gospel intend that chiefly in their books I have treated on last and most largely and I now say three things of it in special First That it is a Holinesse which once was but now is not in being Secondly That it is a Holiness which of it self when it was in being as it was at the beginning of the Gospel before Christ crucified could not without faith and moral holiness interest the persons in whom it was seated in any of these three things viz. Gospel Promises Gospel Priviledges or Gospel Ordinances 1. Not the promises for they were made to Abraham in Christ and his spiritual seed not his own fleshly seed upon such terms as bare birth of his body or such holiness and righteousness as was under the Law intituling to Canaan Rom. 4.13.14 Gal. 3.16.29 2. Not the priviledges viz. Gospel immunities and Church-membership for those that could plead they were under the typical freedomes of the old house or Church under the Law as Abrahams seed only were are denyed by Christ to be that holy seed that should stand in the Gospel house that was now to be built or share in that spiritual freedome which the sonne gives which is the only freedome indeed unlesse they did Abrahams works Iohn 8.32 to the 40th 3. Nor yet the Ordinances no not so much as Baptism the initiating ordinance it self for when that old holy seed remaining yet under their relative and denominative holiness unabolished did plead it as to baptism they were put back by Iohn and not permitted barely upon that account upon which they stood in the old house without faith unless they now believed and amended their lives whose repulse of them when they came to his baptism was this viz. begin not to say we have Abraham to our Father c. Mat. 3.7 8 9. Luke 3.7.8 Thirdly suppose baptism were entailed so to that holinesse and a meer fleshly seed of believers or of believing Abraham himself as truly as t is true it is not yet how grossely were you overseen Gentlemen in undertaking to prove the holy spirit by it to be in infants for that 's the probandum the very thing which by the holinesse of infants you went about to make good for the minor of your first sylogism which was this but little children have the holy spirit being denied was proved say you first by their faith secondly by their holinesse thirdly by those Eulogies given them in Scripture if then by holinesse you mean this kind of holiness I mean ceremonial which once was in the Iews by nature you have a wet eele by the tail then indeed for ask but Mr. Blake and he 'le tell you that that holinesse was in thousands who yet had not the holy spirit yea in truth all the Iews had that holinesse of whom not a Tenth even then when they had it were either in infancy or at years morally sanctified or indued with the holy spirit and as I have said these three things in special concerning that one kind of holinesse so I have three things in general to say in short concerning al these three sorts of holinesse viz. First one of them was in infants of old and now is not but is vanisht and when it was it proved not the spirit viz. ceremonial Secondly another is but nothing to your purpose I mean the proof of the spirit though it be in most infants viz. matrimonial Thirdly the other is not yet come for ought yet appears to infants viz. morall which if it did appear to be in them positive qualitativè as an inherent quality not negative onely so as to be without sin or absolutely innocent for absolute innocency hath no need of baptism then I should say something more to you but you see it doth not therefore though you said nothing then as I wish since I had suffered you to do from infants holinesse to the proof of their having the spirit and right to baptism yet I have searcht but cannot possibly find what holinesse you could possibly have proved it by I have been the larger here though you gave me but a bare hint by the nomination onely of infants holinesse first because here lies indeed the very principal knot and basis of this controversie which you erring in are consequently erroneous in all your wayes for Error minimus in principio fit major in medio Maximus in fine And as for all oâ—her arguments pro and
Ioseph Gen. 40.15.16 the High-Priest all the People Num. 6.23 Moses all Israel before his departure also Deut. 33.1 c and yet they were not actually possessed of the blessings just then when they blessed them but along time after There is a blessing by promise as God blessed Abraham with a Son and the Land of Canaan a blessing by Prophesy as Iacob blessed all his Sonnes fortelling as I may say their several fortunes Gen. ' 41. a blessing by Prayer as in the forenamed places and in this of Mat. 19.13 Mark 10.16 And there 's a blessing by putting into actual possession and fruition of a mercy so God blessed Israel with the real enjoyment of the Land of Canaan and all temporal blessings in that earthly place so Antitypically will once bless all the spiritual seed of Abraham with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places by Christ Iesus Eph. 1.4 Now the three first waies of blessing persons are all concerning things to come and sometimes a long while after yea in prayer Christ blest all that ever should believe on him through the word to the worlds end Ioh. 17. so long before the thing befell them that it was even before most of them were born As to your Minor then wherein you say little children were blessed by Christ I grant it to be true but not in any such sence as truely argues at all that in their infancy they had the holy spirit For First it of the two most plainly appears that his blessing was no other then bodily infirmities which are as incident to infants as men and the end for which they brought them shews the utmost he did to them which was not that he should baptize them as I shall more clearly shew by and by but that he should touch them and put his hands on them and pray no question t was in order to healing for t was at a time when he healed many others if you compare this passage as t is in Mat. 19. with the first and second verses of the Chapter yea v. 15. t is plainly expressed what he did i. e. he laid his hands upon them and departed thence besides Luke saies they brought little children unto him also that he should touch them which ALSO shews that others were brought too as sick folks commonly were because vertue went out of him so that as many as touched him were made perfectly whole Secondly if he did blesse them spiritually in his prayers t was doubtless yet all whom he healed were not so blessed neither witness the nine Leapers concerning things to come and if he prayd for their particular salvation yet they might not immediately have the spirit But Thirdly What ever t was he did to those particular infants which whether they were believers infants or no too no man can tell for many sought him for loaves and outward mercies and many for healing of themselves and children meerly that they might be rid of their burdens on whom yet he had compassion for all that yet first what is this to other infants or to ours that cannot now be brought to his person besides what more to believers than unbelievers infants what more to any then to all away therefore for shame with such dry Divinity as this he touched those children and blest them that were then presented to him that he might touch them therefore all believers infants have the holy spirit and must be baptized away with such dribling dispute also it is not fit for Christs School nor mans neither The next Eulogie you mention is this viz. Their being declared to have right to the Kindome of heaven whence your Argument must run thus Babist Those who are declared to have right to the King dome of heaven have the holy spirit But little children of believing parents are declared to have right to the kingdome of heaven Ergo they have the holy spirit Baptist. In answer to which I must distinguish upon your middle term There 's a twofold right to the Kingdome of heaven viz. a remote right and an immediate right conditional or absolute a right in potentiâ and a right in Actu The remote Conditional potential right ad regnum to the Kingdome upon future Contingencies and Events this all persons that ever were born into the world have i. e. conditionally or in case they dying in infancy do no evil or living to years shall believe and obey the Gospel but what is this right to your purpose for verily First It proves not the holy spirit which you speak of to be in those that have it Secondly if it did it proves it to be in unbelievers as well as believers seed as unto whom when they come to years Christ is a common salvation and the Gospel of the kingdome is to be tendered and that not in moâ—kage but truly and really as theirs till they reject or put it from them 〈◊〉 as the â—ews to all generations since Christ have done that they may believe and believing have life through his name i. e. immediate right to it here and possession hereafter or if they happen to dy in the innocency of their infancie before they have to speak in your own phrase p. 5. by any actual sin barred themselves or deserved to be exempted from that generall stâ—te of littl children declared in Scripture viz. secundum te O Accountant right to the Kingdome of Heaven then have they all such apitudinem regnandi as will cost the Priest-hood of England for all his Christian charity in declaring the right of belivers seed to the Kingdome more reason than they ever did or yet have to bestow that way to clear themselves from the just censure of Antichristian cruelty for their excluding and damning all the dying infants of others which are rari quippe boni numero vix sunt totidem quot c. counting the little corner believers will stand in at least no less then twentie to one And as for that other more immediate actual absolute right to the Kingdom when it shal come this Mediante Morte in infantiâ all dying infants have as well as some and not in infantiâ all dying infants of believers thâ—n of unbelievers for even of such I mean all dying infants for infants living to years are no more infants though it be questionable too whether Christ speaks of the same in the place in hand or of such as are like them in innocency c. of the two most likely to be the truth of such I say I grant the kingdom of heaven to be for ought I know but of no persons living to years whether believers seed or unbelievers Nisi mediante fide et obedientiâ and then they have actual and present right to it all which notwithstanding mark what I say for it cuts in two the sinews of your consequence t will not universally follow neither that those that have right have pro presenti the holy spirit for though nothing can come
of But First with spending so much time and searching so much into their testimonies as you have compelled me to do that me thinks I am out of my element where I desire to be i. e. the Scriptures whetâ—er I le return by and by God willing especially this last testimony of Tertullian which yet I could not help unless I would for want of help betray the truth when I saw how Mr. Marshal Dr. Holmes and others had almost stolen away corrupted and by fair words enticed our old friend Tertullian to serve on their side for we would not willingly be cousined of what is our due yeâ— least any man should think of me above that he seeth me to be and take me to be a man of much reading because I talk so much of the Fathers I testify that I am of little further acquaintance with these Fathers for my converse is mostly with Maâ—thew Mark Luke Peter Paul Iude Iames and Iohn then this controversie hath brought me to which now is so much that though I honor them as honest and good men in their times as finding many things of much worth and excellency in them yet for all that I am sick Secondly with seeing what abundance of absurdities silly reasons senselesse anti-scriptural sentences odd conceâ—ts vanities vaâ—ieties of error as well as verities uncertainties whether some of their books be their own or no mistranslations foisting of what of their own other men please into their works as Ruffinus into Origen falsities flat contradictions amongst themselves and such like are to be found among them sufficient enough to cause all men to trust no more to their testimonies then with their own eyes they see the same testifyed in the Scriptures Thirdly I am sick more yet to find the whole Clergy after whom the whole world wonders and walks in error wondring so much after these Fathers and walking after them where they walk in error and yet neglecting to give heed to them where they speak the truth and which is worst of all sleighting the short pure and plain waies of God the Father of all of Christ our Father and the first Fathers next and immediately under God and Christ Supreme Governors of the Church and givers out of the Gospel to the world I mean the Apostles who in my mind write the way of the Gospel if men were not willing to go astray from it because it is narrow self denying and thorny though more briefly yet more clearly to any common capacity then the most voluminous of all the other fathers do for we use all plaineâ—s of speech saies Paul 2 Cor. 3. Wherefore Fourthly and Lastly I am sick most of all to consider what a stirr ministers make in their quotations of the Fathers marching on and giving such a broad side as they think with two or three sentences ou of the fathers as if they would bear all men down before them that come near them no higher read then in the Scriptures no better armed then with the sword of the spirit the word of God For this only is dispised as much as Davids sling and stone before Goliah and this too though in coole bloud the Scripture is confessed by themselves to be so instar omnium that nothing is of any force but what flowes from it for though some Clergy men dote so far that they believe the Fathers no otherwise then they would have the world to believe themselves i. e. because ipse dixit yet some are so wise as to confesse that how far forth soever the Fathers may serve to prove to us things de facto to be done in their several ages yet their testimonyes de facto cannot prove any thing to us to be de jure at all whereas if it be so and ye so it is I am me thinks become a fool at this time in falling before I was aware so up to the ears in contest about a few testimonies of the fathers as well as I and others heretofote in counting so extraordinarily on them wherefore I do henceforth humbly conceive and confess my self to the people together with all my fellow father-fool'd friends viz. the Clergy of all Christendome to have been no better then childish and semi-simple so far as such high and holy heed and such heedlesse submission hath been given by us to these fathers Schoolmen and other authors as hath occasioned extreme seduction from the Scriptures hear therefore O thou most miserably be wildred Priesthood of the Nations and understand for so thou shalt if thou return from out of that thick wood of Authors Polemical Tracts Schoolmen Casuists Tomes Volumes of Fathers Councels Commentators Treatises Systemes of Theology framed forms of old and New Creeds long and short Catechismes confessions of Churches c. in which thou hast wandred and lost thy self from the truth to the unfeigned study of that little book of Scriptures which alone if thou wilt be admonished by it is able to make thee and them that hear thee wise enough unto salvation Thou speakest what thou hast seen of thy fathers we speak what we have seen of our Fathers what thine teach in their books we regard not quâ ipsi dixerint unless quâ dictum prius by our Fathers if they teach no other then what our Fathers teach in theirs it is no more then what thou having the same Scripture the same liberty to search the same promise of the same spirit to guide the same accesse to God in prayer for it mayest learn not at second hand from them but at first hand from thence as easily as themselves but when they go aside from that and thou with them and thine with thee a venture this seems no other to me then Ignis fatuus with a false flash going before and Ignoramus fatnus with his false faith and a number of ignorants following after Thou tellest us of thy novel antiquity of Counsels National Oecumenicall of Churches Greek and Latin of Fathes Austin Gregory c. and yet confessest thy self that particular Churches have erred and may erre and if all particulars then why the universal which consists of all particulars cannot thou canst not prove and that generall councels which the School-men term the representative Church are subâ—ect to error and have sometimes decreed heresie and falshood for truth thou confessest by Dr. Featley p. 17. of his figment And that none of the fathers nor yet the joint consent of many is a competent judge for faith to hang upon concerning the right of things is confest by Mr. Blake p. 58. of his to Mr. Blackwood and yet to go round again thou ventest thy self out of the mouthes of others as if their verdict were enough to warrant and canonize all that for verity that is vented by them Tell us therefore no more as Dr. Featley doth of Gregory nor yet of Gregory the great whose testimonies if they were for thee but now I think on t they are not for
their heads together to find ouâ— such superstitious stuff as your selves are ashamed of wherewith to support it what made Bernard complain that t was laught at among other ridiculosities as praying to and for the dead what made Imperiall lawes and Synodical cannons enjoin it under such strict penalties what made Pope Innocent 3. who together with the 600 Bishops and all the rest of the Clergy which in the councel of Lateran determined Transubstantiation confession were called fooles and block-heads seducers of the people hereticks and blaspemers by Iohn Purvey one of Wickliffs followers p. 17. of Luth. praedec what I say made that Innocent among other things decree so strictly as he did that the baptism of believers infants should succeed circumcision if that tradition found no Traitors which sought the death on t and if the risers up against it were hardly heard of before Luther Either then the verity of doctrine in Churches reformed from Romes downright dotage doth prove as Dr. Featley sayes well it doth a perpetual duration of it so that it must needs have professors in all ages or it proves it not if not then the main argument whereby Dr. Featley defends Protestanism to have been perpetually before Luther doth not vindicate you in your Religion from the name of Novellists any more then us and so the Pope by his plea for the verity of his Church from perpetuall visibility universality c. carries the cause clean from us all but if it doth then as we deny your infant-baptism to have been perpetuall because its false doctrine and our Church and way of baptism we hold in contradistinction to you being as consonant to the word and primitive pattern as the truest of those doctrines you hold in contradistinction to the Pope is vindicated by Featleys own argument to have been as perpetually before Luther as the purest piece of Protestanism and party of Protestants whatsoever Again an ennumeration of a successive number of particular persons barely professing the truth in the times of all Christendoms erring from it but not visibly constituted into any right Church form or order either doth prove Christ and his spirit to have been with his people alwayes and in all ages according to his promise and consequently his promise in that particular to be true notwithstanding the woâ—â—ds so universal erring for a time or else it doth not prove it if such an ennumerarion of single professors successively witnessing to the truth against Romish error doth not clear Christs promise to be true then your selves are as justly charged by the Iesuites who use the same argument against you that you use against us to be guilty of that damnable blasphemy of denâ—ing Christs promise to be true as we are charged to be guilty of it by your selves for as much as all that you say towards the salving of Christs promise of his perpetual presence with your Church while he left Rome from fault of falshood is but an induction of certain persons that before Luther testified to your doctrine yea he that answers the Iesuites question sayes no more confessing that a succession of Protestant Churches cannot be shewed but if it doth prove Christ his promise to be true then I hope it serves to prove it in our case as well as yours or else it s a hard case indeed forasmuch as though a perpetual succession of such visible Churches as ours are is not to be shewed through all ages of the Clergies crushing down the truth yet we can give as full evidence of a sort of single Saints that testified against infant-baptism even in those times as you can of such as testified against any other popish tradition whatsoever By this time you may see the fore-man in your for-lorn hope that is sent before as a subtil scout in a sophistical coat to entrap us is not onely discovered in his drift but divested also of his deceitful dresse disarmed and disabled from your service and laid a bleeding neverthelesse sith he opens his mouth and prates against us still with malicious words falsely chargâ—ng us again and bespattering us what he can with his tongue because he sees he cannot hurt us with his teeth we shall be constrained to lend him one or two blowes more toward the dispatching of him out of the way and then we shall be ready to meet with the force that follows Review And indeed they do conclude the whole Church of God to have erred most fearfully in one of the most necessary points of religion as if she had been totally deserted by the spirit of God and Christ had not made good his promise Re-Review First I observe that when ever it seems best to serve your turn so to do you stile baptism so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion about the administration of which to erre is most fearfully to erre litâ—le lesse then downright damnable otherwhile again as when you would modifie mens spirits towards your proceeding in infant baptism from proceeding so eagerly against that practise in case it should prove to be the error and ours the truth then you speak as diminutively of it as may be as if it were a matter which it matters not so much whether it be done your way or ours in childhood or at years by dipping or sprinkling so it be done an error which is not worth so much ado and striving to reprove and rectifie as the Anabaptists make of such indifferency that t is not fit sith t is now the custome that the peace of the Church should be disturbed about it as if this truth of the Church though troden down must not have an hand lent it to help it up again for fear of displeasing and awaking the Church from her sweet sleep of superstitious security till she pleases not so fundamental a defection which hand soever it lies but that it may be left ad libitum dispensed ad placitum so that such as will have their infants sprinkled may and such as will not or cannot be satisfied that is the true baptism may chuse and be baptized themselves if they please or not at all if they please and yet not be disowned so far one by another but that they may notwithstanding different judgements in so fiddling a thing as that is fall together but it will be by the ears sure at last into one fellowship and I know not how much such prety prate doth passe from your partie sometimes to lull us in as it were to wink at small faults and to make no noise about such a petty matter if infants baptism should be as many Priests know it is e. g. Dr. Gouge yet know it not no more then a meer Tradition of men At Pater ut gnati sic nos debemus amici Si quod sit vittum non fastidire What a deal of Patheticall Popisticall perswasion to this purpose as to pacify peoples spirits towards your errors in small points
in the world meaning not infants but such as are at years of discretion to whom the Gospell comes in any measure are of some or other of these three sorts viz. 1. Either such as neither believe at all nor so much as in words profess so to do Or 2. Such as in words say they believe and indeed do not Or 3. Such as both profess to believe and do indeed believe as they say Now I suppose we all hold the first sort viz. professed prophane ones so living so dying will be damned and unless we will deny the Scriptures we must needs hold the second sort whose professed faith is a dead faith shall not be saved for what doth it profit if a man say he hath faith Jam. 2.14 and have not works c. whereby onely faith is proved to be true indeed as it is professed can that faith save him as for the third sort viz true believers I subdivide them in my thoughts into 2 ranks First such as believing in Christ truly for salvation believe also baptism in its true way of dispensation and not rantism to be Christs will concerning them and these I am certain will submit accordingly and obey him in it for such as say they have faith and live in rebellion to what parts of Christs will they know they ought to obey him in have not faith to salvation what ever they say Or Secondly such as believing in Christ neither see nor believe nor practise baptism in that only true way wherin we dispense it and all this meerly for want of meanes to discover it to them or by means of the invincible ignorance of their times and ages wherein they lived and wherein according to the will of God permitting it so to be the mind of God in that thing hath been hid and as we know it hath in many more things for ages and generations together remained undiscovered which times of ignorance I believe God much winked at in those who sincerely owned truth and obeyed it so far as it then appeared and as they saw it though now he commands all men to return from Babylon in these daies of light wherein men may see but that they will not yea many prophets and righteous ones in the height of Popery have desired to see and hear what we do or may do yet could not the Scriptures lying lockt up as unlawful well-nigh for any to consult with therefore look you to it who say you do not this or that because you see it not for I testify to you that it is a time wherein the true light shineth so cleerly that men need not erre if they love not darkenesse more then light because their deeds are evil And the same measure of light and reformation and truth which might have denominated you reformists had you lived 100 years ago will not serve to denominate you so now since the smoak that darkned the sun and the aire is much more perfectly dispelled then in that twilight in this form I mean of such as could not see not because they would not but because it shone not do I rank all the Martyrs and those honest men whom you doâ—e on as Fathers and all true professors and believers for many hundreds of years together who witnessed to truth and suffered for it too so far as it did appear to them in their times to this sort of men I am more charitable and tender in my censures then you can possibly prove your selves to be and so I am also to infants for all your prate of pleading for them against our cruelties neither doth any doctrine that ever I delivered damn any of these to the pit of hell as your doctrine of so rigid haâ—sh fierce and cruel rejection of all infants from salvation save those of believers doth damn an hundred to one of them that dy in innocent infancy and where it should be that that Gentleman told you I preacht that doctrine That all such as believe and yet are not dipped shall be damned I know not but this I know that I was ever so far from conceiving much more expressing any such thing that where I speak in publique of that point of baptism in prevention of that prejudice and opinion of our harshness which your publike balling at us begeâ—s in your hearers I commonly deliver my self to the contrary But now Sirs as for your selves who so falsely father this doctrine upon me as mine and that with such abhorrency of both it and me for it and with such patheticall expressions of your zeal against it as that you even set your teeth an edge as it were and whet the spirits of all men to abhor us for it if they had nothing in all the world against us in point of doctrine but that not to let their souls intermeddle with our secrets whose rage is so fierce and whose wrath is so cruel what if I go no further then your own Account of the Disputation at Ashford to prove that your selves are the men that hold this doctrine that though persons believe yet if they be not baptized they must be damned and not we are you not then condemned out of your own mouths to perpetual abhorring now therefore Quid rides de te fabula narratur thou O Accountant art the man of whom this tale may be told more truly then of us who hast plotted so well as to plat a whip here for thy own back yea I appeal to the whole world of wise men â—o judge whether I do not bring proof out of your own paper if your true Account be yours and be as true an Account of your judgements as t is pretended to be of your disputation that it is your own judgement and not mine that baptism is so necessary to salvation that even such as believe and yet are denyed to be baptized notwithstanding that very belief of theirs shall be damned go bur back with me therefore to the 7th page of your Pamphlet and compare it with what you say in the third and fourth pages concerning childrens believing and see what an Account you have there given of your own minds in this matter In the fourth you conclude from the like in the children of the Iewes that the children of beliâ—ving parents have faith in the third page you conclude from Mat. 18.6 that little ones do believe now look but in the seventh page and let all the world judge whether you do not there say of these same persons viz. of the infants of believing parents of whom you asserted before they were believers that if they may not be baptized and that 's none of the childrens fault neither as the neglect of baptism is in men it destroies the hope that the parents can have of their salvation for it leaves them in no better condition say you then Turks and Pagans and their children the salvation of whom is with you as hopeless for ought I see as of the Devills which
ours therefore I shall not trouble my self with it but the first of them which you say is so directly against us t is because you are blind if you do not perceive it to be an express downright declaration of a general justification of all from Adams sin as to life i. e. a resurrection from that bodily death which that sin brought upon all mankind and from which as there is now a universal return of every individual by Christ so there had never bin any returning for any one man in the world but by Christ to all eternity world without end 1 Cor. 15.21.22 Yea as universally as that judgement or condemnation to that first death came by Adam upon all men so that it spreads its black wings upon them all and brings them all down to the dust from whence they came so universally is justification unto life i. e the benefit and resurrection from that death from which else no one man should ever have risen come by Christ upon all men really and truly and not onely so but a capacity also and possibility of eternal happinesse and well being after that resurrection and all this whether persons believe it yea or no yea and a promise and certainty of it in case of belief in this Christ otherwise indeed a losse of the Resurrections becoming a mercy and benefit to them and a lyablenesse even after that escape of the first death that came by the first Adam to a sorer even that second death that lake of fire which by the second Adam by whom comes eternal blessednesse on believers comes upon all unbelievers and that for ever So that if there be no salvation to infants without justification yet ther 's justification of infants without faith or baptism either And whereas you argue from the cart to the horse from the justification and salvation of infants to their faith I argue from their non capacity to believe to their justification and salvation without it no salvation or justification without faith say you but infants are justified and saved therefore they believe if no justification and salvation without faith say I infants who cannot believe can neither be justified nor saved but infants so farre as they need justification for they have no sins of their own are justified and saved also for the kingdome of heaven belongs to them therefore there is justification and salvation for infants without faith To conclude therefore this opinion of you adversaries to the truth which allows no salvation to infants without faith puts you miserably to your shifts viz. either to find out a new way of coming by faith which Paul saies comes onely by hearing or else to damn innumerable dying infants who whilest they lived were uncapable to hear the word preached and so to believe or else as you do p. 18. to dream out a new kind of hearing whereby infants come by their faith viz. an inward wonderful miraculous hearing of some voice of the spirit within such a sigment of your own brains as the Scripture is wholly silent in and no true Church of God nor rational man but your selves who dream dreams and divine â—alse divinations and things of nought deceits of your own heart and tell them to the deceiving of others did ever dream of and whosoever shall consider the impertinencies of your proofs in a cause of so great consequence shall have just cause to suspect all your other doctrines and to take heed how they take any thing any more upon trust as the whole world hath done now of old from these new masters the Clergy who instead of being ministers in truth or servi servorum dei have bin domini dominorum Lords over the heritage and over the faith of all civil powers and people teaching them instead of the true doctrine of the old ministers the traditions and commandements of men And so I have done both with the head of this third argument and with that long tail also that trails after there remains no more of it to be meddled with but a certain slender sting that sticks to this tail put forth against us with more length then strength in prosecution of the argument which I shall cut out into many pieces and after set upon each section severally and then I hope your great hope of help from these three unworthies will prove a forlorn hope indeed Review But to prosecute this Argument for the full satisfaction of the simple but honest Reader since there is no way to come to salvation but by justification and no justificatnon but by faith why should it be doubted by any but little infants which are ordained to salvation are also by faith made subjects of justification those soules which please God so well as they are to see him presently after their separation from the body why should they not be capable of faith without which the Apostle saith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Re-Review The Reader had need be honest for I dare say he will be simple enough that receives full satisfaction your way by your present prosecutions of it because there 's no way for salvation and justification for men that are actual sinners and capable to believe and to whom justification and remission is preached to the end that they might believe it to their comfort is there therefore no other way wherby God willing and ordaining to save little infants from eternal wrath can possibly or doth certainly save them that can neither sin or be preacht to nor believe but that very self same way of believing is he tied to that means to save infants by as we are tied to it in order to the saving of our selves viz. the way of faith if so why not to repentance and self denial also for both these are the way to us Act. 2.38.40 Mat. 16.24 and would it not shift a man out of his seven sences to hear such doctrine that infants as ever they will be saved dying infants must even in their infancy repent is it not manifold more suitable to reason and sense of Scripture that as infants so far as they are guilty become guilty unwittingly to themselves by the presentment and imputation of the first Adams sin without personal disobedience in themselves so also should be justified from that imputed sin by the presentment of the satisfaction and imputation of the righteousness of the second Adam as unwittingly to and without personal obedience in themselves and because without faith t is impossible to please God for such as have actually incurred his wrath such as come to him by prayer for these indeed must believe that is God and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him ther fore is it impossible for infants also who yet actually disspensed him nor yet are capable to come to him by belief or prayer Is that Scripture think you intended to infants for shame scope the Scripture a little better Review Is it not the
any way in ones armes is easie enough to the dispenser when the disciple is once gon down with him into the water and yields himself to be laid along in it by his hands but conceive what part of a man you will except the hands which you will not for shame say is the onely member to be baptized and I le say hic labor hoc opus est t is a matter of no smal difficulty to dip meerly that for if you will dip a mans head and shoulders onely in the River you must poise and posture him Archipodialiter with his heeles upwards if his feet and legs onely you must first at least lift him up wholly and carry him in clearly from the ground which kind of dipping men in Rivers as t is more toilsome surely then that totall dipping which Iohn and Philip used so let him take it who is minded to make himself more moil then needs for our parts we have a way wherein to do it with more ease and to do it more sufficiently too then by the halves As for the other of the Dr. quibbles viz. First for the rest of them are elsewhere removed That the Israelites were baptized in a cloud not dipt into it Resp. nor sprinkled neither but onely metaphorically baptized Secondly that Zebedees children were baptized with blood the baptism wherwith Christ was baptized and yet neither he nor they dipt into blood Resp. Both he and they were baptized with sufferings shame and contempt and affliction and all misery in the world for truths sake i. e. penè yea penitus submersi sunk ore head and ears in deep waters of the proud going over their souls and overwhelmed with the waves of the wickeds wrath prevailing against them for a time and that 's the bloody baptism he speaks of not litterally the sprinkling of their own blood upon them when they were slain for Iohn suffered otherwise but his blood was not shed at all Thirdly that the fathers speak of the baptism of tears but no dipping in that baptism Resp. we mind not what your fathers spake hyperbolically but what our fathers spake in truth and plain sobernesse in this case It was therefore a totall dipping certainly which was then used and by which Christ and the Eunuch were baptized in the water and not any other kind of washing there as the Dr. dreames which is also evinced yet a little further by this forasmuch as though the Eunuch was gone down with Philip into the water yet he was not said to be baptized till Philip had dipt him therein for if the wetting or washing or dipping of some parts of the body onely might passe for sufficient baptism then as soon as Philip had conducted the Eunuch into the River he might have led him out again as a person sufficiently baptized for he was washt already and dipt so far as to the Ancles but the businesse was not done though the Eunuch was in the River till he had baptized him thereinto Rantist Give me leave though to put in one thing by the way and that is this t is a question to me for all your confidence whether Philip and the Eunuch went down into the water at all or no the praeposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon you ground it doth not alwayes signifie into but sometimes unto and why may it not in this place be thus read viz. they went down both of them unto the water both Philip and the Eunuch Baptist. No it cannot for they came unto the water before and so it s expressely spoken in the text ver 36. where its said and as they went on their way they came unto a certain water t is probable some foord or brook that they were to pass through and the Eunuch said see here is water what hindereth me to be baptized if they were come unto the water already as the word saies they were they could not be said properly except they had gone from it first to come unto the water again after they were come unto it therefore the next motion was into it without question yea the very Dr. himself with whom we now deal confesses no lesse then this that Christ and the Eunuch were baptized in the river and that such baptism of men hath been used if then they were used to be baptized in the water they went down first certainly into it not unto it onely for then they could not be well said to be baptized in it As therefore to that other quirk whereby the Dr. seeks to evade all baptizing in water and pleads for a baptism with water onely viz. that the praeposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which commonly is put after the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not in but with and is so translated and this is one of Mr. Cooks Crotchets too p. 12. of his book the Drs own grant quite cashieres it while he saies that Iohn and Philip baptized Christ and the Eunuch in the river for though I deny not but that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be and sometimes is truly enough translated with especially in Rev. 19.21 the place quoted by Dr. Featley and Mr. Cook who both strive to enervate A. Rs argumentation from that praeposition which is used Mat. 3.7 Mark 1.8 where Iohn saies I indeed baptize you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. in water saith A. R. with water saith the Dr. and Mr. Cook yet if it be granted as it is by the Dâ— to be in the River then it cannot be denied but that it is in water however and so the Dr. thwarts himself in that Neither is there such inconsistency in my conceit between baptizing in water and with water as that either this or that should be held exclusively of the other for they rather necessarily stand both together yet so as that the advantage stands still by it on our hand for whoever baptizes at all yea he that baptizeth in water baptizeth with water also and likewise he that will baptize wiâ—h water must necessarily baptize in water too i. e. obruere overwhelm or plunge persons over head and ears therein or else if we go to the truest signification of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in reality he baptizeth not at all Let it be rendred therefore baptize in water or with water which you will it s all of a price to us sith the one of these includes the other And whereas the Dr. and Mr. Cook both make such a matter of the words that follow viz. He shall baptize you with the holy spirit and fire the Dr. pleading that the Apostles were baptized with fire not dipt in to it and Mr. Cook that one may as well say Christ baptized in the holy spirit and in fire or put the party into the holy spirit and fire as that John baptized in water the praeposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being there also I answer we may as well say so indeed for t is a truth as well
the putting on of garments after baptism when yet sometimes there had been all reason for the mention of it as in the case of Paul of whom after he was baptized it is said he received meat and was strengthned but not that apparell was put on him nor dry and warm clothes applied to him which we should sure have heard of if he had bin dipt over head in water Baptist. If by putting off of clothes Mr. Blake mean as it appears he doth by his talk of naked dipping in the same place such a putting them off as is in order to putting on others fit for such a purpose in their stead I know not onely no necessity but no modesty also in such a divestment nor yet does Mr. Tombes I dare say though in his expressions viz. that in former dayes it was thought no immodesty and that there is no necessity that persons be dipt naked Mr. Baxter is so abominably uningenuous as to wrest his words into such base and sinister senses and to abuse him to the world as if he had meant it was no immodesty in old time to be dipt naked and as if he held it lawfull to be dipt naked though not necessary when ingenuity of judgement and such love as he pretends to Mr. Tombes would have construed his meaning to be this viz. that it was counted no immodesty in former times though it be now by Mr. Baxter to be dipt in that way wherein we are dipt which is not naked as Mr. Baxter bruits it and that it is not necessary to be dipt naked as Mr. Blake Mr. Baxter and Mr. Cook think it is if persons be baptized by a totall dipping and as for the Scriptures mentioning of the putting off and on of their clothes in their addresses to and dresses after baptism there was not onely no necessity but at all no expediency in the mention of such a matter yea both reason and nature it self suggesting how needful that was to be done it would have been very vain and superfluous to have talked on it as for the double mention that is made viz. by Luke Acts 7.58 of the witnesses that stoned Stephen laying aside their garments at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul who is said Acts 8.1 to be consenting to his death and also by Paul himself Act. the 22.20 confessing to God his persecutions and how when the blood of the Martyr Stephen was shed he was standing by and consenting to his death and kept the raiment of them that shew him Mr. Blake cannot be so silly as to think that that clause concerning those mens clothes was put in as a piece remarkable or worth recording of it self or in any other respect in the world save for this end onely as it was an expression of the malice that Saul who was afterward converted and called Paul did at that time bear against the truth for surely had there not been that good reason wherefore the laying aside of their clothes had not been worth our notice nor should it ever have been mentioned simply for it self sake but now there was no such weighty end as this nor any end or purpose at all in order to which it was needfull to mention the circumstance of their clothing and unclothing about the administration of baptism it is enough that we have recorded of the thing in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. that and how and why it was done but it would have been frustraneous and even every way endlesse to have minded us of such impertinent appertenances to baptism as the dressing and undressing of the disciples if any one tell me a story that such and such infants were sprinkled at such places is not that relation sufficient and compleat unlesse he tell me how the infants were drest in their blankets and what a fiâ—ling was made by the midwife and the minister about the unpinning and turning up of their face clothes is not the story of Naamans washing himself seven times in Iordan full enough to our use because there is no mention of his putting off and on Christ washt his disciples feet and wiped them it may well be supposed they put off their shoes first and put them on again yet there is no mention of that Mr. Blake thinks that among all the multitudes that were baptized there must have been some words about their unclothings and clothings and specially that there was reason that we should have heard that Paul had dry and warm clothes put on him after his baptism as well as mention of meat given him if he had been baptized by immersion because he had been weak but what crude conceits are all these it was related that he was weak through fasting three daies and that was but proper and answering to the other to tell how after he eat his meat and gathered strength but the other must have come in for ought I see without either sense or reason and sith he stranges that among so many baptized no mention should be made of their preparations viz. the seponing and resuming their garments I wonder what mention he finds of the accommodations that those multitudes had that were circumcised in Abrahams family in one day and in the City of the Shechemits and those thousands in the wildernesse after the long cessation both before and after circumcision and yet that was such a tedious bloody sore and painfull piece of service as required no question ten times more attendance with clothes and other accomplishments till it was whole then this of baptism even in that so troublesome way to you wherein we dispense it Rantist But pray give me leave a little Now we talk of their Cloaths I remember that no sooner was Christ come out of the water but immediately the spirit drove him into the wilderness the spirit of the Lord caught away Philip and the Eunuch went on his way rejoicing Act. 8. whence I argue thus viz. if they put off their Cloathes they did not stay to put them on but went away naked if they had them on then being as you say dipped over head and ears they must have worn them wet but the first had been unseemly the later prejudiciall to their health Baptist. Well argued Mr. Simpson again as sure as can be you have got his Arguments by root of heart for these also are Mr. Simpsons very words in that letter of his above mentioned Rantist Whose Argument this is it matters not I suppose it is past your answer and here is reason enough in it to disprove Christ and the Eunuchs total dipping as a meer groundlesse and reasonlesse conjecture and crotchet of your own coming or if you have any thing to say to it I pray let us have it out of hand Baptist. Reason say you it were well if there were so much as common sense in it for my part I suppose it a senselesse fancy but I am sure there is
directly oppositly to Mr. Ba. who saies it is the church I disprove his opinion thus First If by the kingdomes of Christ be meant the Church then it must be thus read viz. the Kingdomes of this world are become Christs Church but what an absurdity must that be specially with Mr. Bax. above all men who so strenuously contends that by the word Kingdoms of this world is meant not in part only but the whole kingdom for to hold that by that phrase the Kingdomes of this world is meant all the kingdomes upon the earth taken wholly and not Synechdochically for a part of those kingdomes onely and that by the kingdom of Christ the Church onely is to make the sense thus viz. the whole world is become Christs Church therefore it cannot be so but thus and so all the circumstances of the text do evince for it is spoken of Christs raign over all the world in the latter daies after the seventh Trumpet hath sounded and not over all his Church onely and of Christs taking to himself ver 17. that great Monarchy power kingdome or greatnesse and glory of his reign which before he permitted to be in the hands of the Dragon beast and whore so that they reigned over the whole earth and the saints too in rigour and unrighteousnesse Rev. 13. Rev. 17. ult I say it must be thus viz. the Kingdomes of this world the Kingdomes under the whole heaven the Monarchy of the whole Earth is now come into Christs own hands or the Government over all is now actually on his shoulders Besides what will Mr. Bax. gain more by his sense of that Scripture towards the proof of his infant-membership then I for the membership of heathen infants then for the Church membership of the whole world if I were minded to plead for it if the Kingdomes of this world wholly taken none excluded do become the Church of Christ then all men as well as infants must be Church-members on that account Besides he speaks as de futuro what shall be under the seventh Trumpet therefore if it were to be taken as Mr. Bax. imagines that the Kingdomes of this world infants as well as men are now become Christs Church then it would evince that it was not so from the beginning of the Gospel Church for what effects are spoken of as falling out now newly under the seventh Trumoet are things that never were in being before Besides observe Mr. Baxter how he pleads to have Kingdomes taken in the largest sense in the former part of the verse and how angry he is if it be taken for lesser then all the whole kingdomes of the world but in the latter part where Kingdomes must needs be and is as largely to be taken for it is the Kingdomes of the world are become Christs Kingdomes i. e. dominion not Christs churches there he will needs lace it up into the narrowest acceptation that the word kingdom can possibly bear Oh therefore the grosse pieces of ignorance that are in that Argument of his for infants membership in the Church which he grounds from a Scripture that will as well prove all the world to be Gospel Church-members as believers infants if his very own false sense of it should be admitted but in truth proves not the one nor the other thus he argues viz. the Kingdoms of this world i. e. all and all in them shall become Christs kingdomes therefore infants of only believers not heathens are Church-members under the Gospel He that saies this followes any better then the Pope follows Peter in the holy chaire shall never be counted or voted mentis compos whilest I am compos voti Mr. Bax. therefore had better have found 40 shillings where he never looked for it then have looked for infant-membership in this scripture where he will never find it with his eyes open His three next Arguments viz. the ninth tenth and eleventh run all upon one strain and therefore as he need not have made more then one of them so I need not make more then one answer to them all yea I need make none at all having spoken to that point sufficiently before yet a hint of it here may do no hurt They stand all upon one bottome viz. the meliority of the times under the Gospel above the times of the Law of this new covenant above the old the summe of what he saies is this if believers infants may not now be members of the visible Church then both Jewes and Gentiles are in a worse condition now then before Christ and Christ is come to be a destroyer and not a Saviour and to do hurt to all the world the believing Jewes and the Church yea and the very Gentiles thereby in regard of the happinesse of their children are in a worse condition then of old but this is a vile doctrine saith he for Jesus is a Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises Heb. 8.6 where sin abounded grace much more abounded Rom. 5.14 15.20 and the love of Christ love hath height length depth breadth and passeth knowledge Ephes. 3. To which simple inconsequent conceits I answer by denying the consequence it followes not that the world is in worse estate under Christ then before because infants might be members of the Jewish church but not now of any visible church of the Gospel nay verily the world is in a far better condition then formerly by how much they are under more clear and plain promulgations more faâ—re and universal tenders of salvation then in the narrow or shadowy dispensation of the Law and also under greater love richer grace better and more glorious promises unlesse they fall short of them through their own unbelief then those which were made to the natural Israelites onely all whose glory was but a type of the other for the great favor love and promises of God to them as meerly Abraham Isaac and Iacobs natural seed unlesse they also believed and then they as now all the world might be heirs with Abraham of the grace and promises of the Gospel did make them heirs of that earthly Canaan onely but the Gospel grace makes all men heirs on termes of faith and obedience to Christ of the glory of the heavenly Canaan for ever the grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all men now appears and as for infants albeit no infants now be baptized into fellowship with the visible Church nor are priviledged as the Jewes infants once were with interest in the blessing of an outward earthly Canaan nor yet vouchsafed that meerly titular account of sanctifyed and peculiar people of God as in opposition to other infants as by birth accountatively sinners common and unclean which distinction of a birth holiness and uncleaness Mr. Baxter had he but half an eye in his head might clearly see Acts 10.28 is so taken out of the world and ended in Christ that now no man however born no not a Gentile may be called in
will put us positivly to prove a third state denying that there 's any medium asserting that infants if they be not in the visible Church of Christ in their infancy are in the visible kingdome of the devil which to say is false doctrine I shall bring Mr. Baxter to stop the mouth of Mr. Baxter and to convince him that either there is a third state in which believers infants are in their infancy which is neither of these two or else to drive him to that Dilemma to preach this false doctrine himself that believers infants are in the visible kingdome of the Devil To this purpose I first demand of him which of these two viz. the visible church of Christ or the visible kingdome of the devil believers infants are visibly in before baptism First as for the visible kingdom of the devil he must say they are either visibly in it or out of it if he say they are in it then he himself preaches that false doctrine which he saies is ours and makes all infants even of believers members of the visible kingdom of the devil if he say they are out and not in the visible kingdom of the devil then that doctrine which teaches men to leave them unbaptized and denies them to be admitted members of the visible church of Christ till they come to age is not guilty as he saies it is of making them doctrinally members of the visible kingdome of the devil for it is but a delay indeed till they can do what is required to baptism As for the visible Church of Christ he must say they are either visibly in it before baptism or not in but out of it if he say they are in the visible church of Christ visibly before baptism then they cannot be said to be as oh how oft ore and ore again are they said to be by Mr. Bax. p. 24.25 admitted to be members entered listed added initiated into it as into Christs School and first stated into it by baptism for to be first entered into it by baptism and yet to be visibly in it before baptism these two are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 utterly inconsistent each with other as to be let into a room when and while one is already in the room is impossible yet with Mr. B. persons are let into the visible church after they are in it yea they must be in it saith he before they may be admitted to be in it nor will his distinction of a member compleat and incompleat p. 24. which he used before to the tearm disciple which I know he will make help him at all here sith with himself an incompleat member is one that hath but jus adrem not in re ad Ecclesiam not in Ecclesia a right to onely not a standing in the Church a title to the relative change and not a being yet in that relative change that he saies passes upon him by baptism Besides to say the truth they are but incompleat members after baptism whom you baptize sith when baptized and in the church they have not present right to other ordinances of the church for you admit not your infant members to the Supper but if he say they are not visibly in the church of Christ before baptism but out of it as indeed they are then either he must say they are in the visible Kingdome of the devil which is false doctrine with himself to say of believers infants or else say they are in some third or middle state to the unsaying of what he said before by way of denial of such a third state which let him say and we will agree with him and such a third state there is which all infants are in as well as some whether he will deny himself so as to acknowledge it yea or no. His 22. plain Scripture-less proof for infant Church-membership and baptism is this viz. That doctrine which leaveth us no sound grounded hope of the justification or salvation of any dying infant in the world is certainly false doctrine but that doctrine which denieth any infants to be members of the visible Church doth leave us no c. This argument I have spoken to sufficiently above and thereupon might well passe it by here and refer Mr. Ba. thither for an answer where in answer to the Ashford Disputants that urge the same argument enough to satisfie is returned But finding this to be that which of all things most gravels Mr. Baxter and makes him stick so stiffly to his plea for the baptism and Church-membership of infants because unlesse that be owned he can find no good ground in all the word whereupon to hope or believe that any dying infant in all the world can be saved which if he could find he would find the vanity of his venting so much concerning a necessity of baptizing and inchurching infants and save himself a deal of puzzling himself about that which the New Testament hath not one word of and fearing lest I should be judged cowardly to slide by it as if I saw Mr. Ba. handled it more unanswerably then any other and partly because Mr. Ts. suspension of his judgement concerning the future state of any infants is puft at by him and uneffectual to his satisfaction unlesse he could assure him of the salvation of some dying infants at least of believing parents which if he could assure him of out of the way of their church-membership and baptism it should satisfie him sufficiently I perceive to censure all other infants to hell and to say all those millions of poor innocents I mean the dying infants of other men in respect of which these he is so pittiful to are scarce one of a 100. are all damned for ever with which harsh cruel bloody and mercilesse censure of his I am much more and more groundedly dissatisfied then he is about the denial of meer outward membership and bare ordinance of baptism to those few on whose behalf he pleads them and lastly hoping the Lord may lend him some ligh◠whereby to see a consistency between the non membership and baptism of believers infants and the salvation of the dying infants of not believers onely but all dying innocent infants in the world I shall enter on an examination of what he saies to the contrary and an explication of what apprehension in this particular I am begotten to by the word of truth and though I shall decline sacerdotale delirium that common stock of divinity which the Clergy have treasured up in their Theological Systems out of which ocean of error and dead sea of tradition the younger Rabbies use to draw into their common place books and store themselves with arguments against Anabaptistical heresie i. e. this troublesome truth yet I trust I shall give a good account before all the world at the Tribunal of Christ Jesus In order hereunto therefore I first flatly deny the Minor of Mr. Bas. above cited syllogism which by another Syllogism he proves
by Christ Iesus of resurrection of the dead and the eternall judgement and baptized in water in the name of Christ for remission of sins and together with imposition of hands prayed for that they may receive the holy spirit of promise do afterward continue stedfastly in the doctrine of the Apostles and in fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers all the true universall visible Church that I know of if you will needs have an universal visible is that which doth exist in these particular visible societies and is neither narrower nor wider then these particulars Such was the visible Gospel Church in the primitive times and the same and no other then that which was the visible Church then is the visible Church now and in all times of the Gospell wherein it is at all the visible Church was that which did consist and was made up of all the particular Churches that then were viz. Rome Corinth and all the rest which were societies and assemblies of persons thus called gathered and built up an house unto God upon the foundation of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ as the six above named are called Heb. 6.1 as they are also called Eph. 2.20 the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles i. e. that form of doctrine as t is called Rom. 6.17 which every beginner in Christ did own and obey and which obeying he was fit matter for the visible church and was after by mutual consent of the party offering himself and their suffering him to join with them Acts 10.26 formally added actually admitted to visible fellowship with them in breaking of bread and prayers for that with freedome on both sides such persons as had thus far been taught and had learned these principles this a b c and owned it i. e. professing to believe what of it was matter of faith and visibly practising what of it was practical were visible disciples new born babes Heb. 5.13 and such babes being baptized and having laid this foundation as to fellowship were then accepted thereunto that they might grow up to perfection in order whereunto unto this visible church Ephes. 3.21 which though it exists in many several particular bodies each of which is independent on any other head then Christ and impowered from him to determine all its own affaires ultimately within it self yet since it endeavours to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace is said to be but one body because of one spirit one call one hope one Lord one faith one baptism one God and father of them all who is above all and through all and in them all God hath given officers gifted for its service viz. some Apostles some Prophets some Pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of this visible body of Christ till we all come to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fulnesse of Christ Eph. 4.3.4.5.6.11.12.13 As for that Catholique visible church I mean that voluminous body or part of the world commonly called Christ'ndome which was once all as it were of one language and one speech and is now rather three in one or a Triune treader of the truth viz. Papall Prelaticall Presbyterial yet to this day exists in those particular visibles as were never thus seperated and called and constituted upon the foundation of the doctrine of the Apostles but conglomerated by the lump by the Apostle Peters supposed successor into Nationall Provinciall Parochiall to call a spade a spade I can call it no other then the CCCatholique Beast that bears now in three parts a BBBabilonish CCClergy Rev. 16.19 i. e. indeed the very CCCatholique whore Rev. 17. As for particular persons though professing to be believers that yet are not baptized and added to some such particular visible society or church but are yet abiding in the capacity only of single though visible Saints till they are both baptizd and added as members to walk in fellowship with some particular assembly and congregation in breaking bread and prayers as every such a one as supposes himself to be a saint ought to be or else his saintship may be much suspected if he will not they are no visible members of the visible church but onely fitter materials then they were before their faith and in a neerer right to be both baptized and admitted to be members then when they had none they are better matter for the visible church but not yet formally of the visible church have jus ad rem not in re ad ecclesiam not in Ecclesia a right to the church but not actual standing in it till entered and admitted Nor yet are they immediate matter for or in immediate right to membership though believing till baptized but materia remota and in jure quodam conditionali remoto a certain remote matter though neerer then when meerly men and in a conditional and remote right For as believers are the immediate matter for or in immediate right to baptism so baptized believers after laying on of hands in prayer are the immediate subject i. e. in immediate right to be admitted yet neither are baptized believers actuall members till admitted the formality and most immediate entrance and way of becoming a visible member of a particular visible Church and so consequently of the generall visible if I may so call it which hath its existence in all the particular churches which are the immediate matter of which that is made up being not simply the act of baptism but the act of joining our selves after it Act 9.26 and the constitutive form of a visible Church is not their being all baptized but their free falling into fellowship with each other and though we are said to be all baptized into one body t is an expression of the necessity only of every ones being baptized in order to a being in the visible Church for none hath right to be of the visible body unbaptized but though the baptized have immediate right to be of the body yet are they not meerly of it because baptized till added to it and as one cannot be said to be actually under baptism from an immediate right to it by faith till he have submitted so neither can we be said to be actually in the body from our immediate right to it by baptism till we are admitted Self condemned sinners have a right to believe in Christ believers a right to baptism baptized believers a right to the spirit of promise to have hands laid on with prayer that they may receive it according to the promise Asts 2. Acts 8. Acts 19. such as these to fellowship in the visible Church yet not in fellowship till assaying to join themselves they are accepted and yet in a visible state of salvation too both before baptized as the thief and after baptized before added to the Church visible as the Eunuch who both were seemingly members of the
the shadowes flie away and Christ comes as a swift Roe and young heart upon the mountains of Bether so that now we are to exercise our selves rather unto Godlinesse for all bodily exercises as baptism breaking bread and Church order c. profit little besides t was said there should be a falling away from all those forms of worship and the way of ordinances which was in the primitive times 2 Thess. 2.3 and a treading down of the holy City and Temple Rev. 11.1.2 as to the form it then stood in both which have fell out also accordingly so that there hath been a taking of all that dispensation of ordinances in their primitive purity totally out of the way therefore now we are to meddle no more with them at all at least unless we had some extraordinary Prophets as the Iews had after the treading down of their temple and and worship to satisfie and shew us that its the mind of the Lord we should set up that old fabrick and form again Baptist. This is the old tune which you and your followers have been used to sing in any time this seven year which yet I could never learn to this day distinctly to sing in after you and I am perswaded never shall unlesse I could hear more clearnesse and distinction in the sound then yet I do to whom while I sound how sutable your sense is to the sense of Scripture you are Barbarians when you speak thus That Christ now comes in the light and power of his spirit as a swift Roe and hart upon these mountains of division that now are between the PPPriests among themselves and between others and them and that abundance of light comes dispelling that fog and smoak of mens traditions which hath risen out of the bottomlesse pit and of a long time darkned the Sun and the air and the hearts of people all this I grant but that this coming of his doth put an end a ne plus ultra to any one of his own traditions or ordinances that were instituted by him and in his name delivered to the Churches in the primitive times as a part of his will and testament then this is as hard a lesson for me to learn as t is for some to learn that t is their duty to be baptized for assuredly nothing but Christs own personal coming shall put a period to any one tittle of his Gospel will and Testament or of that outward dispensation which by appointment from himself was then in force and therefore to neither baptism imposition of hands or Churchfellowship in breaking bread every of which most undoubtedly was a part of the preceptory part of Christs Gospel in those daies and of that new Testament ratified in his blood 1 Cor. 11.25 which gospel testament and holy will of his that he as a great Prophet left in charge for all men to observe when he went away Mat. 28.20 Mark 13.34 Luke 19.17 to the 28. and not any new one delivered since is the very same according to which he will judge all men at his return any part of which therefore in either promise or precept suppose but the ordinances of it for I am sure it was a testament and Gospel that had ordinances then wo be to that man or angel that shall once dare to declare as null yea let no man flatter himself and delude others with pretences of an Angelical Seraphical life to be led now in an higher kind of way then the Saints and Churches did in the primitive ages of the Gospel for I tell that man that if he were not only appearing to himself to be wrapt up above Paul but really an angel from heaven and not Christ himself who when he comes personally shall say indeed unto his servants come up higher he must be Aaathema preaching and holding forth other then what the Apostles at first delivered to the Churches of Galatia who received the Gospel with the outward ordinances and Church order thereof Gal. 1.6.7.8.9.11.12 compared with 1 Cor. 11.23.24 c. in which Scriptures its evident that the whole intire Gospel which was preached then by Paul who received it together with the ordinances of baptism Gal. 3.27 and the supper not of man but of the Lord was strictly required to be kept without hearkning to any other things then what were then delivered and received in the Churches though spoke by an angel from heaven or their very selves who at first preached them who if ever any such thing should have fallen out as their falling off from that truth and contradicting themselves for so doing must have been held accursed yea if Paul himself should have come some 100â— of years after to the Churches of Galatia and gainsaid what he had said before saying you received the Gospel from me at first with ordinances but now you may let the ordinances of it alone it s enough for you to believe onely and live up to God in the spirit he had condemned himself to cursing out of his own mouth if then the Apostles that at first gave out the Gospel to the world were not on pain of being accursed to preach any other then what at first they preached what cursing attends thee O wretched Ranter that deifiest thy self and takest upon thee not onely to deny but to defie the Gospel of Christ in the ordinances of it and the holy oracles of the living God Thou tellest us of a coming of Christ by his spirit into the hearts of men after which there need be no more use of ordinances that when Paul saies men must continue breaking bread till he come he means till he comes in spirit but I tell thee if the right eye of reason were not utterly darkned in thee thou couldâ— not but understand that till he come 1 Cor. 11. speaks of the same time as Christ himself speaks of when he saies to his Church in Thyatira Rev. 2.25.26 which were then in a Church posture and under the use of ordinances that which ye havâ— already hold faâ—t till I come and that that time was no other then the end of this world which he shall put a period to by his personal coming is cleared by the verse following he that over cometh and keepeth my works unto the end to him will I give power over the nations where by the end as he means the same period he pointed at before in that phrase till I come so he means the time of Christs second coming to judgement to raign at the end of this world mentioned Mat. 24.3 and in scores of Places more and not the time of his coming by his spirit unto men for so he was come and hath come more or lesse well nigh as soon as and even ever since he went away yea according to his promise he soon sent his spirit to abide with his people in their observation of his commandements and not otherwise as a comforter in the absence of his person Iohn
made void his commandments and subpaena damni Temporalis et eternae damnationis imposed mens Traditions arrogantly in their stead so you in your severall lines have done no lesse yea you also make people to erie with all your might and whatever tender consciences find Christ piping to the contrary in his word yet if they dance not after you pipe when it sounds to the tune of Tiches and put not into your moneths you cry peace but bite with your teeth and prepare war against them Mich. 3.5 possessing the world with prejudice against them as a sort of seditious Sectaries damnnble Hereticks and Schismaticks yea exceptis excipiendis saving some few scatterings here and there of more sober and moderate minded Ministers like so many graines of salt to keep the rest from stinking too much in these states where you have or would have raigned who have not been so hot spur as their fellowes by the good will of P. the Presbiter as well as of P. the Prelate and P the Pope many an honest mans native countrey for non-conformity to his Gangraenaticall domination should ere this have been made too hot to hold him so far therefore as separa from the true church and her orders may denominate a people Heretical Schismaticks and Divines themselves place the Nature of Heresie much in seperation and Schism the Denomination seems to be your due O P P Priests who are departed from the primitive church and not ours for departing from you ye are are those Schismatical Teachers that are rent all from the primitive plainesse of the Gospel and present pompousnesse of each others way and have seduced the whole world into spiritual thraldome idolatry and superstition and inticed them into a carnal liberty of calling all things according as your carnal ends and interests impose the names of Heresie or truth upon them you are S S She that having got the good liking of the Kings and Kingdomes of the earth to confide in you do close the eyes of their judgements as Dr. Featley faines we do with your birdlime of Schism from the true church and head thereof Christ Jesus and bewitcht them into an implicit submission to Papism Arch-bishopism Oecumaenical Synodism Provincial Câ—assism and so lead them as you lift into Anti-gospelism Antiscripturism c. making a prey of them and though Featly had the faculty of faining the Baptists to be such yet you are indeed devisers of new religions and Spiritual Impostors falsely pretending to Christ as the Patron and Authorizer of your new doctrines of which Paedo-baptism is one which because there is not the least dram of evidence for it in the word of Christ therefore when people begin to question it you amuse the vulgar with the names of some divine Authors or other not Peter nor Paul c. but St Austin St Gregory S Chrysostome c. at Rome his Holiness the Pope the holy Mother the Catholique Church Ghostly Fathers c. and in places where those subterfuges are not regarded Reverend Sinods of grave Orthodox Divines Ministers of Christ Suffrages of all the learned Divines in the Reformed Churches c. and this you do to secure your Tenets from the hazards of disputes and exempt your persons and actions from the rest of examination as if there were such infallibility herein that it is no lesse then blaspemy to doubt or call in question the Dictates or Directories c. of such and such thus bearing your selves up with bombasting termes of Fathers Spiritual Ius divinum c. you gain to the captivating of the reason of men so far that they resign up themselves jurare in v v vostram sententiam and will be as their Priests are and never believe but that they believe the truth when all this while there is nothing but humane authority and humanum est errare for most things you do yea you are indeed the greatest Schismaticks or Rentmakers in the seamlesse coat of Christ that the Earth bears you are they that have caused divisions and offences contrary to that doctrine which was at first received at Rome and in all Churches and by good words and fair speeches viz. decency order c. have deceived the hearts of the simple so as to make more conscience of serving those belly gods the Priests then the Lord Jesus according to his own will therefore when you talk so much to us of the Church and your Church crying out as the Pope does against the Bishops for theirs and the Bâ—shops against you Presbyters for your departure from them Hereticks Hereticks that disturb the peace of the Church forsake the Church infringe the unity of the Church yet I say what Church so long as there is no other Church constitution among you to this day then that of parishes into which the Pope put all Christ'ndome what Church so long as the doctrine of Christ and his Apostles on which every true Church is built is cut off disclaimed and exploded and neither the word purely preached nor the Sacraments duly administred which by Calvin and Featley themselves are both made such true notes of the true visible Church that wherever they are there is the true Church and where not there 's no true Church what ever there may be in pretence yea verily so far are you from due administration of the sacraments giving the Supper to such as were never at all much lesse truly baptized many of you Presbyterians not administring it at all to your flocks whom you contend were truely initiated into your Church by baptism that indeed as you have substituted infant rantism instead of it so you preach down that due administration of baptism and the Supper which according to the primitive pattern Acts 2. is at this day to be found amongst us withall the vehemency you can proclaiming us Schismatical hereticks for declining your disorderly administrations and according to our covenant pressing on to that purity of administration of Gospell ordinances which lies now in such plain English before mens eyes that all your glosses wil beguile them but little longer there is no danger therefore of being rent from the Church of Christ in departing from participation with you in your oppositions of the truth therefore never glory so much in these vain lying words the Church of God the Church of God which is indeed the Common tone of all you Romanists each to other in your rendings each from other for there is none of you all three have a true visible Church of Christ among you nor yet right any administration of the things you call Sacraments whether we speak of either baptism or the Supper My answer then to the whole PPPriesthood of Christ'ndom even ye Protestant Clergy also from all whom as well as from the Pope we who are fictitiously stiled Anabaptists and charged as Schismatical Hereticks for so doing and troublers of the unity of the Church are departed shall be the
may read as it were in text letters your own abstract from that of mine when you please and signing the Titles of the CCClergy whether true or surreptitious with three letters in the front as C. C. C. PPP c. most commonly when I speak of â—hem in the lump to denote the three PPParts into which that great City B B Babylon which they make stands divided I proceed as followeth That Heresies must be the Apostle hath said yet it makes no more for a tolleration of them in the true Church I mean though others mean in the civil state than that of our Saviour of offences saying foreseeing no question how by means of the Clergies crying out Heresie Heresie Schism against the way of truth being once turned aside to Heresie themselves the world would be offended at his little ones for walking in it They must come but wo to the man by whom they come the Apostle reckons Heresies among the works of the flesh Idolatry Witchcraft c. Gal. 5.20 which alone is argument sufficient against the Patronage and Invitation of them unless withal license in the true Church should be given to all other carnal sins why should the Church of God upon Earth make much of those against whom the Kingdome of Heaven shall be shut her pale is not so strong to keep them out from breaking in upon her like wild bores and wolves to spoil and wast her but her good will should not be so great to them as to wellcome them in to her fellowship till they repent from their dead works of superstition bloody tenet of persecution for cause of conscience worshipping God after mens traditions blaspheming the name of God and his Tabernacle and them that dwell in heaven trampling the holy City Heresie Schism from the primitive truth c. Neverthelesse howbeit to tolerate and harbour Hereticks in communion with them whilest they oppose the true way of Christ would be an error and an evill too intollerable in a true Church of Christ yet I hold that opinion of the C C Clergy not onely intollerably Heretical in it self but intollerably hurtful also to themselves that Hereticks may not be tolerated in a civil state for if Fines Prisons Banishments Racks Wâ—ips Tortures headings hangings burnings and such like punishments with the civil sword were the due of every Heretick and Schismatick in the faith as the C C Clergy have for ages and Generations born the world in hand that they are to the causing of all these their national Church censures to be inflicted on the Saints when they have once blindly sentence them to be Schismaticks to the civil power if this I say were the due of every Heretick or Schismatick and every true Heretick and Schismatick had his due too good Lord how have the C C Clergy condemned themselves out of their own mouthes to devastation when the civil powers shall find them to be the Arch-Hereticks in the world if taking them at their word they shall do with them as they say they ought to do in this case concerning others but God forbid that with what judgement they judge they should be judged and with what measure they meet it should be measured to them again at our suggestion if their own Cheek-by-jole carriage to the Stern-men of the State do not pull it unavoidably upon themselves yea verily though as far as those that oppose themselves against the truth of Christ they may well challenge the name of Schismaticall Hereticks and though Amen might justly be said by the Magistrate in this point to the opinion of Gangraena and his Gang and might Amen be said to his wise wishes as concerning us who teach and practise baptism in its primitive fashion we could expect to be suffered in the Common-wealth no more then High-way Murderers yet dare we not desire their exâ—irpation out of any of their native rights in the several states wherein they are nor such uncivill suppression of them meerly for their erroneous Tenets as they have sollicited the higher powers to concerning us we have not so learned Christ nor would they if they had heard him and had been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus for howere it comes to passe that the C C Clergy whose own the worst would he if that were true and execution done accordingly are so besotted as to believe that Hereticks and Schismaticks from the faith men of false waies worships religions though elsewise never fo peaceable and innocent must not onely be dischurched but discommunicated also from the patronage of the civil power and cut off from the priviledges of other Subjects yet neither Christ nor any of his Apostles as from him gave any order for such rigid rejection indeed the Apostle Paul wills in his Epistle to Titus cap. 3. who was a Church officer that a Heretick after a second and third admonition be rejected i. e. from the Church and Gal. 5.12 wishes that they were cut off from the Church that did trouble the Church and Rev. 2.20.21 the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering that woman Iezebel which calleth her self a prophetesse to teach and seduce his servants to fornication i. e. false worships c. but it will noâ— follow therefore that such may not have license to live civilly in civil states for the weapons of the Churches warfare wherewith she is to fight against Heresies and which she is ever to have in readinesse to revenge all disobedience to Christ by are noâ— carnall 2 Cer. 10.4 5 6. not such as are used by the officers of States but onely spirituall as admonition reproof and in case of obstinacy putting out from among them delivering up to Satan and not delivering up to the secular power as the Popish Priesthood used to do when any of their creatures specially of their Clerico-creatures turned Hereticks i. e. departed from their Heresies to the truth saying pray take him into your power and be merciful to him meaning hang or burn him for a Heretick The Church I say is neither to use the carnal weapons of the State nor yet to stirr up the State so to use them on her and truths behalf as to imprison fine hang burn or banish false worshippers unbelievers misbelievers or Hereticks further then they are withall as by meer unbelief they are not offenders against the civil State I find the Lord Christ foretelling by himself and his Apostles that for the most part the more is the pitty the Rulers Kings Governours and Princes of the world would be such enemies against his Gospel that his Disciples should be â—ald before them as evill doers for his names sake Matth. 10.18 that not many mighty and noble men would own his truth 1 Cor. 1.26 that rich men would oppresse the Church and draw them before their Judgement seats and blaspheme that worthy name wherby the poor in this world which commonly are the richest in faith are called Ia. 2.6 that the Kings
of the civil powers have been dâ—nd by the usual addresses of the PPPriesthood unto them for help against Hereticks and Schismaticks and by their hideous outcries viz. of the Prelates against the Presbyters saying help O King and the Presbyters against the Sectaries help O Parliament all will be overspread with a Gangrene of Heresie Murder Murder c. O ye Magistrates restrain dipping in cold water as you will save the lives of your subjects and such stuff and felly as is powred out to the Magistrate by the Minister against men more true to Christ and Magistracy then himself I humbly conceive the Magistrate may lawfully and more acceptably to God then otherwise save himself so much labour as to let these matters alone yea he may do well to see that whatever Religion men be of that are under his civil power in each state whether Iewish Turkish Heathenish Popish Prelatical Presbyterian or Independent may not be injurious each to other without satisfaction in civil matters and to see that none commit any uncivil actions that are contrary to that common honesly and righteousnesse among men which men as magistrates are set to vindicate to see that none live be they of this or that Religion dishonestly without correction to see that none usurp Dominion over each others faith so as to make all men believe as some do whether they see ground to believe so yea or no by the civil sword to see that in order to their own eternal good they find out and walk in the way of truth themselves as it is in Jesus and when they are once assured that they are in the truth themselves to let that truth be verbally declared per se or per alios as much as they please but not forced upon others as their faith further then the light of preachings and discourses may prevail to fasten it on others consciences and to see that even enemies to the Gospel and true Church may have no more then the weapons of the Churches warfare which are not carnal used towards them to make them friends and as to those who walk in truth whoever they are or shall but be supposed by the successive representatives Princes or Powers to walk in the way of truth to see that they be countenanc't but not too much maintenanc't because Christs disciples nor cookt up to all the honour and preferment and places of trust and advantage above their fellow subjects to the ingendring of jealousies and emulations in others that may be happily though not so neer the truth of Christ yet as trusty to the State as themselves for that too often choaks the Church but onely that with an indifferent impartial hand as men whether in Church or out being otherwise honest and able and of publique spirits not selfish nor covetous nor cruel c. may seem fit to be intrusted with such and such places so they may be chosen and disposed of thereunto in a word to see that such as make prayers and supplications and intercessions and giving of thanks for all men for Kings and such as are in authority living in all godlinesse and honesty may as well as others and others also as well as they living soberly and honestly though not Godly in Christ Jesus nor worshipping in way of truth but falsly may live a quiet and peaceable life without persecution as to confiscation bonds or death for doing and denying according to the dictates of their own though yet blinded conscience and that men of all Religions may live without molestation one from another any more then by meer manifestations of their light one to another at seasonable times in wayes of query disputation and preaching and then to leave all men to worship God according to their several wayes even misbelievers Hereticks and Iewes themselves and others that yet believe not in Christ but deny him till the Lord lend them light by the word of truth and to stand or fall to their own master Christ Jesus to whom every conscience shall give account of it self at last who if any man hear his words and believe not nor receives but rejects them judges him not here either by himself or the civil magistrate or by his Church any further then to non-communion with them yet by the word that he hath spoken unto him will judge every man at the last day Thus it is most evident the magistrate whether Christian or Heathen is to do and not otherwise viz. to give protection to men as men living honestly soberly and justly without respect to their Religions whether true or false And as to Religions to allow Tolleration to all men to practise according to their principles the practise of whose principles is not directly destructive to the true Religion common honesty civillity morallity righteousnesse and the peace and safety of the Common-wealth as some mens principles are if put in practise yet verily I know none among Christians at least save those of the two Spiritualties vix the Rantizing PPPriest that in his precincts which is the whole world could he catch it would have no tolleratian for any way of worship but his own and the Ranting Prophet who would have toleration of all and more too not onely all Religions but all as well unciuill unnatural lewd abominable as irreligious actions which nature it self cries shame on among beasts magistracy finds it self an ordinance of God to give correction to among heathens for those men are now acting upon the stage of whom Iude speaks when he saies Iude 10. what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves the principles of that old PPPriest and this new Prophet if practised in the hight of them are utterly inconsistent with the standing of truth in the world untrampled viz. that of the Priest and also with the standing of very manhood among men of civility in civil states of the common-health of the Common-wealth it self viz. that of the Prophet the one is so far from owning any power to be a terror to evil works and incouragement to good that despising all Government and speaking evill of dignities he holds that there is at all neither good nor evil nor better nor worse amongst works but all alike and then good Lord how fast must iniquity dishonesty unrighteousnesse and incontinency thrive and abound upon earth to the ripening of 〈◊〉 for the sickle when it shall be acted with allowance from such a principle as this viz. that there is now no iniquity at all this man would have the civil power allow all Religions and good Manners too but allowes of none at least thinks he needs use none himself and is for a Toleration of all truth in the world though all truth is the intollerablest thing in the world to him and though it hath leave from him to grow besides him and will too among some yet he hopes to loosen it by lending it so much scope
Ministers to attend continually upon this very thing viz. to reâ—der unto all men their dues as men viz. a room in quiet in the world of what wayes of religion soever yea though Indians and redress of any civil wrongs as they expect to have all men of what religions soever within their power to render to them their dues of tribute honour custome fear for for this cause pay they their tribute also because Magistrates are Gods Ministers to the world ward and to the Church as part of the world and in no other sense then as to the rest of the world to attend continually on this very thing to dispense praise or punishments for civil good and evil among men not spiritual for then they may punish evill thoughts proud looks ignorance non-profiting by the word not Gods Church-ministers to dispense good or evil for good or evil done in the Church but as the same actions may have reference to the state also as theft or the like civil abuse which comes one way under the Churches censure and another way under the Common-wealths they are not I say Church Ministers nor Ministers to the Church qua Church as the Priests principle seemes to make them for then they may claim not only Tribute but Tith also as well as the Priest but that he will be loath to part with though in truth it belongs to him for his Church wasting work full as little as to the other I humbly beg therefore I say of the Powers that truth which hath been trod under foot may be tolerated among them in their several civil States Common-wealths and Kingdomes and to the end it may undoubtedly be so let all that which the Powers in the several Nations do judge in their own consciences to be truth in point of Religion have toleration and protection and no more countenance by them as Magistrates but bare protection from injury as other waies also may have and not such extraordinary supports from a power Heterogeneal to that of the Church nor such extraordinary gratulations gratuities revenews incomes preferments and portions out of the common State-stock let their own private purses be as open to them such as professe it pay to its Ministry as much as they will for besides the partiality of this thing of making other Religions and wayes that judge themselves to be the truth as well as that pay and be tributaries to the true one and the gâ—umbles it will ingender in mens minds this proves the greatest mischief under heaven to the truth when the Ministers who should expect nothing but shame and suffering with their Master who was Beelzebub are flusht with the outward pomps and vanities of this world till they forget themselves so as scarce to know what ground they stand on and howbeit Magistrates may mean honestly in their high honourings of them as that good man Constantine the great did yet as his high embraces and graces done to Christian Bishops proved besides his intent the stirrup whereby those Lord beggars got up on horse back and rode to the devil for so hath that Romish whore rid both her self and the beast under her which is Christ'ndome so though I hope it never will yet it may possibly be so again if care be not taken against it witnesse the two other more seemingly modest and maidenly Minions Episcopacy and Presbitery which qua Ministry came out of her loines who have not brought the world so far out of that old Babilon towards Sion as they pretended to do by reformation as else they might have done being slugged luld asleep by benefits and benefices in the way for positâ eâdem causà ponitur idem effectus sublat â tollitur golden cups ever yet made wooden Priests and ever will do let truth have liberty and peace it will desire no more of the State if it be truth indeed And Secondly let all other wayes and religions besides that which the Magistrate judges to be truth that judge themselves to be in the truth save that of those whose very way as abovesaid is no way but dishonesty and whose way is to root out all wayes but their own by civil power be also tolerated practised and protected from outward violence and oppression as well as that for this besides the knitting of the hearts of men of all wayes under one civill power in intire love and strong affection to that Power that domineers not ore their conscience besides that I say this tolerating all practices in point of religion save that practise of non toleration of any but it self in civil states must needs tolerate the truth among the rest whether it ly in this way or that and so the Power shall be out of all danger and hazard of coming under the guilt of truth treading which the PPPriesthood hath engaged the civil power in for 1260 years together as else it cannot for if toleration be of no way but one then if that chance to be the wrong and the magistrates are no more sure then other men that they are in the right yea 100 to 1 they are not if they use civil violence to others First because the false wayes are many and broad and easie and fine and the true way but one and that so streit and narrow mean and base that not many noble and mighty and men of power ever find it 1 Cor. 1.26 Secondly because as King Iames said persecution is a certain note of a false Church then truth is unavoidably smothered by them and will first or last pull vengeance upon that power Rev. 6.11.12 though it be under the name of Heresie onely that he suppresses it and plucks it up under the name and notion of weeds and tares that would else choak the wheat besides therefore a most strict charge that Christ gives Mat. 13. that in the world i. e. the civil States and Common-wealths of it the Tares should stand together among the wheat untill the harvest which alone is an Argument putting all out of doubt in this controversie he gives this good reason viz. least in plucking up the Tares the wheat also chance to be rooted up with them t is for the wheats good therefore for the Tares to stand and for the wheats sake that Christ wills they should though not in the Church yet in the world to the very end thereof And because the Divine cannot yet divine that to be Christs meaning in that scripture that false worshippers hereticks c. may lawfully if not civil offenders be licenced to live in civil States let us consider how sinister his own conjectures are upon it I have met with some and some of chiefest note in this County of Ken who have shifted it of thus saying that by the Field is meant the Church not the World as we say and Christ himself interprets it in that place Secondly that the servants who ask whether they should pluck up the Taris yea or
no and are bid to let them grow together with the Wheat are not the Civil Magistrates but Christs Disciples who had nothing to doe to pluck them up and so the civil Magistrate may do it no withstanding to this purpose I have been answered when I have askt in way of querie the sense of that place To which I say First that by the Field is most necessarily meant the World and not the Church First Christ so expounds it himself the field saith he is the World but say they the World is oft used to expresse the Church and so may here I reply first I deny that the word world in any one place of Scripture signifies the Church onely it signifies sometimes the fabrick of the Universe Secondly it signifies all man kind good and bad collectively Thirdly sometimes the wicked onely that lie in wickednesse 1 Iohn 1.13 Iohn 17. abstract and in contradistinction to the godly and the Church but never at all the Church the godly the Elect alone abstract and as in contradistinction to the wicked and though I know how far forth to maintain their absurd doctrines in other cases some Divines divine such a matter yet till they shew more for it then they have ever shewed to me or I am sure can shew out of the word not denying but that there is a number electorum i. e. all that believe and obey Christ exmundo electus their Mundus electorum is haud mundus dialectus Secondly here it cannot be the Church however because it is vox secundae intentionis a speech that is expounded by Christ to be the sense of the other speech of field he used before for if the word world were ever used for the Church it must be by a figure synechdoche whereby a smal snip of it is signified by the whole and then Christ speaks figuratively again in his Exposition of the other figurative word field which were incertum per incertum to open one paraboricall expression by another as paraboricall as that which who can think Christ did to his Disciples to whom his intent was to speak more plain that they might understand him but understand him they could not well if while he spake figuratively at first he did not speak properly at last however for whereas he had told them the field was the World they had as much need to have asked again what the world was if they could not think he meant plainly as he said Thirdly the Church is exprest usually by the name of Christ's Garden Vineyard c. which are places more peculiar and sequestred as Cant. 4.12.16 Isaiah 5.6 Ez. 15. and the world or part without the Church by the name of Field Forrest c. wherein Tares wild bores briars thornes as well as wheat and Saints may live Fourthly if by Field and World here is meant the Church then t will follow that sith the Tares i. e. false Worshippers Hereticks Antichristians are bid to be let alone untill the harvest that such as these may be tolerated not in the world or civil state onely with the Church but also in the very Church it self which toleration cannot be for God chides that Church that suffers Iezebel to teach fornication in her and if the P P Priesthood plead for such a Toleration as this as he had need considering how his Church is filled with tares more then he is either able or willing to root out then â—e is for a tolleration far more intollerable then that we plead for for we would have Hereticks and Schismaticks and Erroneous false worshippers and nominall Christians Antichristians no neerer the Church then in the world with them i. e. the same States Towns houses but not in one and the same Church-fellowship or Congregation but they would have them stand in the Church for which sure Christ gives no permission much lesse a strick Commission as here is that they should But say you Christ does not here mean that they shall stand as if none had to do pluck them up but onely forbids these servants who were his disciples from meddling with them to evâ—ry of whom he gives not Authority to pass censures and punish but some may have Authority for it for all that Some who are those I trow it must be then either the Ministry or the Magistracy not the Ministry for it is far more cleer that by the servants here that took notice of the tares to the housholder is meant the servants of Christ in the office of Ministers that would fain have been meddling as the false Ministry ever does to root out all both out of Church and world too that is not of institution by Christ in their opinion and such a spirit may too much shew it self in the true too see the like Spirit in his own disciples the first Ministers Luke 9.54.55 Mat. 15.12.13.14 for which Christ gives them a check and tells them they knew not what spirit they were of and bids them let the false plants alone to the heavenly Father to pluck up in his time saying let them alone they be blind leaders of the blind and will both in due time fall into the ditch t is far more clear I say that t is his Ministry he here forbids then common disciples for why should not their Ministry complain of them aswell as they yet he bids these let them alone which shewes too that t is the World and not the Church they are to stand in for it belongs properly enough and primarily to the Ministers with consent of the Church executively to passe the censure of putting them out of the Church Secondly not the Magistracy for if it were the Church as they say it is how miserably do they mope and yet so the Priest does that make him the highest officer in the Church to cast persons out of the Church who is though the highest officer over the Church and World too yet in truth no Church officer or Minister in the Church qua Church at all Besides lastly which puts all out of doubt the prohibition is to all men as well as some and sounds forth the mind of Christ to be that the tares shall stand in the Field till the harvest and not be pluckt up by any at all but stand till the harvest they cannot according to his will if according to his will either Magistrate or Minister might pluck them up out of the field what field ere t is that is here spoken of his will is not only that such shall not pluck them up but that they shall not be pluckt up until the harvest i. e. the end of the world till he sends his Angels to gather the tares all things that offend every plant that the heavenly father hath not planted out of his Kingdome which taken at large is the whole world and to bundle them for the fire To all these many more reasons may be added why the Magistrate may not force men at all
enemy came and sowed among the wheat i. e. in the same parts and places of the world Towns Countreyes c. locally considered the children of the wicked one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Thes. 2. that wicked false worshippers of God after their own inventions mens precepts not his will people and priests grown up into a Church worship ministery religion insensibly by little and little from false principles and foundations custome forefathers prudential additions of orthodox men c. not the pure naked word it self a people born to their religion yea their christian religion in the way of flesh and blood and the will of man of the Pope and councells constituting and civil powers from them commanding not of God by the word of truth The Enemy that sowed them is the devil for he indeed filled the whole world even the whole Christian world with false worshippers false principled Clergy men and when he could not kill the wheat the Christians in the ten persecutions in his open war against them by the mouth of thâ— beast or empire heathen wherein he prosecuted them under their own names because Constantine a Christian was come now to the crown then he turned Christian himself and would have Christianity imbraced by all meanes by a law and sowed the seed of false principles of stablishing Christian religion as the onely religion before which all other shall now down promoting Christianity in the shell that he might kill it in the substance causing great honours revenues Peters patrimonies to be given in favour of Christianity from which principles selfish ambitious lazy luxurious Ministers as the Pope formall meer nominal Christians grew up and overtopt the truth and true Saints that kept close to the truth in the midst of all this mock shew wherin the devil hath kept an apish imitaon of Christs church all along and ministry ordinances baptism supper church censure but all corrupt and trod the holy city to the ground Rev. 11. the same subtle one now he sees his trade of forcing men from the truth by the principle of conformity to the false Christianity and the old Spiritualty fail is now shifting himself undoubtedly in to another Spiritualty that will as much corrupt delude the world by the principle of liberty of conscience abused and turnd by the Ranter into license though we who plead for liberty of truth say in maxima libertate est minima licentia in the greatest liberty of conscience to serve God there 's the least licence to serve the devil by our lusts and corrupt our selves in what we know naturally as bruit beasts nor is that conscience that makes conscience of nothing The harvest is the end of the world the reapers the Angels by whom at that time Christ will throughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into his barn and burn up all chaff Tares husks weeds bryers thornes idolators hypocrites subtle seducers and sinful subverters of the truth whoever shall appear to have been such and all other trash with unquenchable fire Matth. 3.12 Mean while I say still Tares may stand among wheat locally in one Country yet not lawfully in one church society Weeds and flowers Roses and nettles Lillies and thornes Vines and brambles Idolatours and true worshippers Believers and infidells the children of the Kingdome and of the wicked one the Temple of God and idols Christs church and the Devils chappel discovered hypocrites and sincere Saints Christians of all sorts save such whose very principle prohibits toleration and they make the case uncapable to be which will win or loose all stand alone or not at all as whether the P P Priesthoods do not or at least did not let all men judge Jews Turks and Pagans may be lawfully allowed their religions living in subjection under one civil power if the whole world were but one Monarchy in one World in one Field or Common-wealth though not in one Garden not in one Vineyard or Church and may not be made to be of the true religion whether they will or no yea I appeal to the conscience of any sober minded man whether if Pontius Pilate whom the Scripture stiles the Governour of Iudaea and a lawful Governour over the church a very heathen may be but no heathen lawfully a member much lesse an officer or a Governour in the Church whether I saie if Pilate should have been converted by Christ at the bar while he sate on the bench and truely believed in him it would have pleased Christ that he should have improved his civil power to have established Christianity in Iudaea and forced all men under penalty to believe in christ and renounce all meer Jewish worships or whether it had been as lawful a decree in Augustus Caesar to have forced all men to be Christians under a penalty as t was in him to issue out a decree that all the world should be taxed I suppose not but that he must have left all to their waies and have practised it himself and protected it from injury and propounded it to all in way of preaching but not prosecuting any by his civil power if they would yet remain Jewes or heathens and Christ might as easily have made Emperors his Disciples had he meant that the Gospel should be established by civil power And this is for the further safegard and advantage to the wheat as I sayd before for Christ gives this reasâ—n why he would have the tares to be let alone least by rooting out the tares the wheat be rooted out also for if all religions may stand then the true one may stand in quiet without disturbance if all people may walk every one in the name of his God Mich. 4.5 then we may walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever but if all be beaten down in a state and but one stand ten thousand to nothing it is not the truth that is there established for truth may be trodden down but treads not down others in a violent way of persecution Besides if true Religion establish it self alone in some States by forcing men to subject to it its gives a bad example to false religions in other states that think themselves in the right to do the like and force men that love the truth there to submit to them and so there 's quit for quo and no end of disturbances they saying that we are Tares we that they are and so there is nothing but pulling up by the roots if toleration be not tolerated as the most peacemaking principle and so in these bussles if the wheat grow alone some where it must fall elsewhere even every where where the tares are resolved to stand alone and so Homo Homini Lupus Christianus Christiano Diabolus men must be wolves and devils each to other throughout the world Besides if the power in any place be ignorant and under an erring conscience that conscientia errans
will oblige him seemingly to himself at least to tread down truth and set up false hood and all this by a law yea if the Magistrate take the part of any religion against all other so as to establish it alone and root out them whether it be the true one or a false one that he sets up not tolerating all others but forcing them to submit to it the mischief is in a manner intolerable on either hand for if false have not we all felt the smart of being forc't to false wayes Smectimnus as well as others if he hath not forgotten the groans that for liberty of conscience came once out of his own mouth while he was crusht under him that was crusht under the Popedom but in the Marian dayes above but if true the forcing men to own it before they see ground freely to receive it makes a world of formalists of nominal Christians who had as good be nothing at all as no better then they are of hypocrites which are worse then nought the worst sinners in the world for is it not better for me to remain a Jew under a blind conscience till I see the truth then to turn Christian against my though blinded conscience for fear of men before convinc't or before I yet see it to be the truth a forced feigned profession for fear of men if it happen to be of the truth it self is at best but splendidum peccatum a guilded sin Besides t is to weave the spiders webbe as Isa. 59. to make laws and penalties to bind conscience which brawny conscienc't men can creep ore let them be what they will as we see in Nebuchadnezzars dayes and in the Popes time and ever since all people for fear fall down and worship the golden image the King and Clergy sets up save such as fear God indeed And if it be thought that if the civil power take not the part of truth as I wonder where and when ever it did at least since Constantines times till of late it will be lost more in the croud of errors and Heresies that will ensue a general toleration then any other way it can I say let truth alone and turn it loose to plead fully for it self and it will work out its way and live and thrive maugre all the entanglements it can have from tares plain truth may be trusted to treat with the subtlest and proudest opposers it hath in the world that caeteris paribus do make head against it but if it be set against by the forrain power of a civil sword premi yet then too hand supprimi potest do but defend it onely from injury equally with others by the civil and then it will defend it self by the spirituall sword against them all Wherefore I again humbly represent that grave Councel of Gamaliel whose reason is good to all the civil Magistrates throughout the earth by whose subjects t is sharpely controverted and zealously quaeried what is truth viz. that they refrain from meddling more with men though they seem mad men to the world and besides themselves for the sake of truth in pretence lest happily they be found fighters against God for if any way be not of God t will in Gods time come to nought of it self and ye cannot establish it if of God you cannot withstand it but t will come on in this juncture specially wherein it dawns toward the great day and God is about to pluck up every plant he hath not planted And if men be in your apprehension blind leaders of the blind in things of God yet let them alone if they will not go to the right way when called to it they will see when they both fall into the ditch And likewise I humbly beg that what is further and more clearly held forth concerning this subject of liberty of conscience by Mr. Blackwood in the first part of his storming of Antichrist may be well weighed by our Magistrates together with the thirty quaeries presented to them lately by Mr. Iohn Goodwin and his vindication of them against the Apologist neither of which ever will be answered solidly by their parish Ministers And as for the P P Priesthood it self though I hope the night is too farre spent for any save such as will be ignorant and if any man will be ignorant let him be ignorant saith Paul 1 Cor. 14.28 and so say I to doubt but that the day is dark over them and theirs they are blind leaders of the blind in many things which many others see of whom yet they are asham'd to learn and which is worse such as stand not a little in their own light by snuffing at it that the Russet Rabbies and Clergy of Laicks should presume to instruct them more perfectly in the way of God which God in these daies wherein the last must be first and the first last will subject the proudest spirited Priests in Christ'ndom to take from some illiterate and perhaps non-sensical yet honest hearted Saints stammerers in speech babes with them bablers as of old eloquent Apollos from Aquila and Priscilla or else it may be hid from their eyes And though what they would not that others do to them when they were underlings each to other they have done unto all other professions that were underlings to them in the day of their raign hasting what they could to the hunting of the Sectaries out of their synagogues or their native rights and enjoyments therein which they have subjugated to be their Synagogues counting the compasse of whole Common-weals and Kingdomes little enough for them to Lord it over and set their several names of Papal Prelatical or Presbyterian there confounding and Babilonishly blending Church State Power together so that t was hard for any token clearly which was which or to know where to set the sole of his foot almost upon European ground in any Nation but he and all his conscience and all must come under the command and fall within the verge of some or other of their mercilesse Church Monarchies yet neverthelesse my humble desire to the powers on their behalf is that they may be tolerated and protected in the practise of what profession Religion way of worship doctrine discipline or Church-government soever they see occasion among themselves and such as shall see occasion to cleave to them or any of them to set up so far as they shall desire to build their several BBBabels without that blood of souls and bodies of men in which they have imbrued both their own and the Princes hands of the Christian Nations in former dayes I heartily plead for a toleration for them if ever the power shall as not a few people already do discern them to be as Heretical and Schismatical from the truth as they have judged all others to be such toleration I mean as may not be inconsistent with the toleration of all other people and professions of Religion in the
several nations in peace together with them and in security from such searches as have been made by their Surrogates Paritors and Proctours c. after men as unsufferable Schismaticks that side not with them but a toleration of them in that wonted Tyranny of treading all under their feet and plucking up all plants by the roots that live beside them by the civil power when they once have censured them â—or such seditious ones as are not fit to be suffered in a state because they submit not to their statelinesse and complain'd of them to Kings as Haman to Ahasuerus of the Jewes the true Churches type saying Esth. 3.8 there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the Provinces of thy Kindom and their laws are divers from all people neither keep they the Kings laws therfore it is not for the Kings alias not the CCClergies profit to suffer them and made their modest request that if it please the King it may be written that they may be destroyed which conscience of correcting Hereticks that conform'd not to the CCClergies Christianity carried Christian Kings to condescend to in old time this toleration is too intolerable in all conscience I wish well to the persons of the men called CCClergy God is my witnesse but I wish not so well to their way as to wish it up in the way wherein they would have had it and yet I here wish they may have their way too abating us no more of it then their unreasonable wonted wishes that the state would allow no wayes but their own let them pare off that knotty piece from off their principle wherein they pray the Powers to beat all men into the belief of all they say by the sword the belief of which they can never beat into them by the word then let them and their party practise what they please let their way be no way of civill violence to all other wayes and then in civil peace let them walk in it till they are weary and let it stand till by the word it fall before the true one if it be such a noun Adjective that it cannot stand by it self in Scripture sense and Reason without such a Substantive as the civil sword to support it t is a sign that there 's far more shew then Substance in it for verily that Gospel that will not stand not onely without but against the edge of Caesars sword encountring with it is Antichrists but none of Christs Gospel to me yet such it seems is the CCClergies Gospel which freedom to set it up by other wayes leaves still as helplesse as hopelesse of ever standing unlesse it may be stablisht against all other wayes on the necks of all people by the carnal weapons of Caesars civil State it s very doubtful of entring the feild with no other strength then its own Canons unlesse the state lend it her ordinances to back them but if Baal be a God me thinks he might speak for himself against them that throw down his Altars without imploring all the Gods of the earth to speak for him if the Multitude of his Priests cannot set up his worship without the Magnitude of earthly Princes to relieve them let it go and a good riddance of it too if Dagon cannot stand on his own legs but must fall before the Ark unlesse the benevolence of others lift him up his PPPriests may set him up as much as they will for themselves but they shall never set him up again for me Neverthelesse I am as freely willing sith t is the will of Christ and his Testament that even Baalitish Romish worshippers should have a Room and being in the world by the civil Magistrates permission they yielding civil subjection even to the end thereof as I am willing there should be a Room and being in it for the truth for though the Prophets of Baal were put to death in reforming Elijahs time in the old Church of Israel which was the type yet that pointed out no more then that spiritual execution which is to be done on Iezebel and her false worships in the true Church in these reforming times of the Gospel not one of which may abide any more in the Gospel Israel yea I here seriously supplicate the civil Powers for them that their consciences no more then ours may be forced by any forinsecal power to act in Church worships contrary to their conviction but if nought will content the PPPriesthood at all as of old it would not but that all Hereticks as they call them that hearken not to their Traditions must be clublawd into conformity to their parochial precepts so far at least as to obey the Hue and Cry of their purses without free leave from their own consciences so to do then protesting against the iniquity of their desires after the persecution of those who desire the protection of them from persecution by the civill Power my most humble suit to the supreme Powers is that they will be pleased as to let the PPPriesthood preach as much as they please a little of which work serves the turns of some of them and to let such as are satisfied in their Souls and spirits that they ought to do both to own and pay them so to let such as seem to themselves on sufficient grounds to have clear cause to decline them have the freedome of their consciences to be none of their flocks and being none of their flocks a freedom from being forcibly fleec'd by them any more and if the CCClergy shall he Angry at this without a cause to let them be pleased without amends sith t is most evident that as men ought not to be constrained against their wills to be of Christs much lesse of the CCClergies flock so he that feedeth a flock may freely and not by force live of the milk of that flock he feeds and may not of them that are forrainers to his flock further then they are free to supply him they went forth freely to preach the Gospel for his names sake taking nothing much lesse by force of the Gentiles that were Ministers to the Church of old Iohn Ep. 3. v. 7. and many heathenish Parishes here have the Gospell preacht freely to them when they accept on it by the messengers that go forth of the true churches at this day but many Parish Ministers will make all that live or have to do within their line buy their Sermons of them and that at their own price too whether they like them or no and which is worse though they have sold them once it may be often ore already and a dear penniworth too yet as oft as they remove to other livings they carry them away along with them in their papers from the people that have already bought and paid for them preach them ore again and so sell them for as much more in other places but I hope the civil power throughout Europe
cases and though the PPPriests perswade you t is a piece of acceptable service to God to let your whole Nations be by law from you compelled to be their Churches that as you civilly so they uncivilly may go hand in hand Moses Aron like share with you in subjecting violenâ—â—y all souls your selves too to their SSSacerdotall suggestion in soul cases that you may lawfully punish Hereticks into the hearing of them banish them into a blind obedience to their directions yet I am bold in the Lord to assure you that as you should have little thank from him should you force men to such a worship as for the matter of it is according to Christs will against their own so will he once check you in wrath if you repent not in time for forcing all men to worship after the CCClergies will against Christs for as the first is at best but a piece of honest ignorance so this last is at least no lesse then a piece of divellish darknese Rev. 13.7.8 Hearken no more therefore O ye the Magistrates as you respect the true good of your Republiques to the clamors of your CCClergy when they cry out to you to hunt out Hereticks i. e. such as after the way they call heresie so worship God whereby they run you unavoidably if you run after them upon certain ruine and on the hazard of fighting against God and then wo be you of rooting the wheat his Saints out of the Field the world in which it ought to stand and the tares too even till the harvest and of infinit cumbrances inconveniences and brangles about Church matters wherein as Magistrates you are not so immediately concerned as they dictate to you who are such a contentious sect of men both with all others and each with other about one Church businesse or other continually that t is impossible now specially since truth is returning home which they have so long driven from her own border but that the nations will be imbrued in their own and one anothers blood in defence of their fopperies if you engage as oft as they would egge you to it on their behalfs What animosities have ever been between the Temporalty and these Lords Spiritual What quarrels and jarres between the Fryers of several orders what whole Countrey clashes and consumptions have been made in Germany between the Calvinists and Lutherans what inveteracy between the C C Clergy of the severall F F Formes of Government which though they can agree all against the true Clergy or heritage of God yet hate each other unto the death yea oh the infinite wranglings and little lesse then divellish dissentions wherewith as with a fire they have wasted all corners of their CCChristendomes that they have been more like the places of burying dead bodies then like the houses of Christs flock yea they have consumed themselves in their miserable burning whilest in their holy wars they have called in severally the civil sword to the ultimate determining of their spiritual controversies and made carnal weapons the instruments of their churches warfare as if the best way to convert the nations to Christ were to convert them to dust and ashes how have they foamed upon occasion of different opinions so as to tear and rend people to pieces and engage them their princes at swords point for their lusts and wills sake how have they cast the people from one element to another one false way unto another till they have made whole Countreys Cities and their own Academies Aceldamaes feilds of blood and like foaming and raging waves of the Sea striving together for the dictates of that kind of Clergy still that they are the Sectaries of insomuch that some observant spirits have wisht to dy and depart this life among other ends for this that they might be delivered from the sight of the implacable hatred of Divines all which things also do take off the Magistracy from attendance to their main businesse of relieving the oppressed judging the fatherlesse pleading for the widow and the works of justice and mercy among their people which God will have and not sacrifice and take better from them then the improvement of themselves to set up either the Pope the Prelate or the Presbyter or establish any form of Religion whatsoever by a law Oh therefore that the Powers would consider it though I fear me most nations in Christendome will not till they pay dear for their learning and leave their people free to chuse what God they will serve and which way they will serve the true God by suffering all waies to stand before them in the world and be objected fairly to their tryall then shall truth be sure to be told them as well as errâ—ur and leave them without excuse that shall reject it Mean while as to the civil interest of the whole and each part of their Commonwealths to see strictly to it that they attend continually on that very thing for which they are when once the ordinance of men by their election the ordinance and ministers of God and to be submitted to as both the ordinance of God and man and that for both conscience sake and the Lords that they attend upon the protection of all people from being injured one by another in any cases pertaining to externalls and the maintaining of outward peace civillity and good manners in all men to the whole and to each other by punishing evil doers of such a nature and rewarding of such as do well without partiality or respect to any persons or parties in which cases Regum est parcere subjectis et debellare superbos thus doing they must necessarily maintain true Religion too so far as they are called as Magistrates to maintain it whilst when all states have trod it down under pretence of maintaining it that supprest all as Schism that suited not with the Monarchiall minds of the men called CCClergy this state sets it up as far as men may or can set it up that suffers it to live and thrive among the false If there be any matter of wrong or wicked lewdness done by any as well members of the true Church as any other reason wills and therefore no Christians but CCClergy men and their creatures whose way is against reason will be against it that such should suffer according to the law in that behalf whether unto bonds or unto banishment or unto confiscation or unto death without benefit of the Clergy who have benedicted all benefits to themselves and not be favoured because members or because Ministers of such Churches neither is it fit at any that any persons should be spared or but so much as favoured in any measure in such a case for their religions sake though it be the true one and they of never so high account and eminent standing in it For howbeit the men who are commonly but not properly called Clergy but specially the Clergy
immediately under the Popes supremacy were priviledged so far as to stand exempted from the reach of the civill law and to save themselves the trouble of being hanged when they had deserved it as much as other men by a businesse called the benefit of the Clergy i. e. the immunity of the Clergy from the civil law some relikes of which benefit the Clergy once had and still hath in some places seem to me to remain in our civil Courts wherein we see in some capital crimes the malefactour si legat ut Clericus if he can but read like a Clerk or Clergy man he escapes execution when else he should have died without remedy which favour is also called the benefit of the Clergy yet we desire that no manner of men may have exemption from the course of civil Justice yea if we whom they call Anabaptists do any thing at any time worthy of death by the civil law rightly regulated we refuse not to die but as we desire that others should so are we willing our selves in civil matters to stand at Caesars i. e. the civil Magistrates judgement seat where we ought to be judged in such cases and thus did Paul when accused by the Priests as a Pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition meerly for preaching the Gospel To the Jews saith he have I done no wrong nor yet against Caesar have I offended c. therfore no man may deliver me to them I appeal unto Caesar Act. 24.5.12.13 14.20.25 8.11 where we see that in case of civil injury charged upon him as committed by him he appeals to Cesar to judge though Cesar was a heathen and he a Christian and not of Cesars Religion which he had been a mad man in doing had the question been simply about the right Religion yea when any question a roâ—e in the Church about Religion as in the point of circumcision Act. 15. the Apostles Elders and brethren considered of it among themselves consulting the mind of the spirit in the word and had they not agreed it they would not have referred it nor had any not conformed to their determination in that point would they have complained of them to Cesar and as Paul would not stand at Cesars judgement seat in Religious as he desired to do in civil so Cesars Deputies would not meddle at all as Magistrates in Religious cases for when the Jews set Paul before the judgement seat of Gallio deputy of Aâ—haia and complained saying This fellow perswadeth men to worship God contrary to the law Gallio said if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdnesse O ye Iews reason would that I should bear with you but if it be a question of words and names of your law look ye to it for I will be a judâ—e of no such matters and he drave them from the judgement seat as who should say we are set to keep civil peace and right among you but not at all to determine you in your worships Oh therfore that the Magistracy would consider it that they are set not to force men to submit all to one worship nor yet forcibly to suppresse either Heresie or truth but to prevent tumultuousness about either If Demetrius and the craftsmen of like occupation who make shrines for Diana have a matter of wrong against any let the civill law be open and let them plead each other there but if the enquiry be concerning other matters as namely setting at nought their craft prophaning the Temples of their Goddesse and destroying their false worships by plain preaching of truth what 's Heredox what Orthodox in worship c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let that be determined in a lawfull Assembly i. e. as the word is in the Greek insome lawful Church congregation or select meeting for that purpose Last of all though the Lord prohibit the standing of Idolators c. in the Church 2 Cor. 6. Rev. 2. yet he himself who could presently root them out if t were his mind permits not onely true but also false worshippers Hereticks c. to have a being in the world and therefore me thinks Gods Vicegerent should not be against it It is according to the will of God himself permitting not approving them that heresies do arise but its according to his good will approving and in his woâ—d appointing that they shall stand in the world when risen further then they can be annihilated by the word And as the Scripture shewes how far he himself tolerates them so the Divines themselves as shy as they are of having them tollerated do Give these good Reasons of Gods suffering of Hereticks 1 For the discovering of the sound that Gold and Silver may be known from hay and slubvle that by the Devills sitting of us the good corn may be discerned from chaff it is the Apostles Reason 1 Cor. 11.19 that they which are approved may be known for who they are that with the weapons of the Churches warfare are valiant for the truth indurers of hardship as good Souldiers of Christ c. would not appear if there were no Hereticks False worshippers Antichristians Truth treaders c. to try them true love to Christs truth can never be seen if never tryed nor tryed if truth never opposed hated hunted and that to death too sometimes by the fierce wrath and cruel malice of its enemies 2. That truth may be discussed and fetcht out as fire from the concussions oâ— flint and steel Truth had not been fetcht half so far out of the dark nor from under that Popish Smoother of traditions at this time as it is had not the CCClergy so hotly hunted it and so fiercely clasht against all that came out to clear it If there had not been an Hereticall CCClergy crying out Heresie against all truth the world had never heard so much of it in these latter daies as now it hath and I verily perswade my self that as the day breakes and the shadowes fly away the way of truth in the hearts of the Just and in the eyes of the of the world by how much the CCClergy calls Heresie upon it shall shine more and more still to the perfect day if Luther and Calvin had not been and that so fiercely flung at by Popish Priests because they preached against indulgencies and selling pardons for money and against the Lordlines of the Popish Hirrachy they had not heard so much against them but that they might have sold more pardons then they have done since and the 2 latter litters of Spiritual lords that qua CCClergy came out of the Popes loins the two PPriesthoods of the Protestant party might have lorded it longer like their father who will never be dead as long as they are alive had they not been as iron and steel against truth and true worshippers whom God makes as hard as flint against their faces that by their concussions against it he may the more fully fetch it forth the
oppositions and imprisonments which Paul met with from the adverse party whereby they intended to smoother it in his daies fell out rather to the furtherance of the Gospel for it came to be the more manifest in all places by means of errors so earnest appearance against it 1 Phil. 12. to 19. Thus truth hath gained ground not a little in these latter daies by the ominous onsets wherewith falsehood fights it and would fain fright and force it to hide its head and wisdome works out it self not a little to light by follies flying so furiously at the face of it 3. That the truth mihgt be better loved and more price set upon it we prize lihgt the more by our knowledge of darkness health by our sense of sicknesse errour is a foil to a Diamond truth looks more lovely being compared with it The lilly looks most lovely and beautifull when it stands among black thornes 2 Cant. 2. the stars though ever obvious to us would never shine if there were no night contraria juxta se posita maxime elucescant contraries set together discover each other more lively in their severall loathsome or lovely formes the light of the Sun shewes brightest seemes sweetest when it breaks from under a dark cloud so does the Sun of righteousnesse now arising appear the more lovely by how much it hath been hid from the earth now of long time by that dismall darknesse and smoak of Heresies erroneous false worships and foolish figments with which the CCClergy hath filled all parishes throughout CCChristendome 4 For the punishment of hypocrites nominall Christians curious Minds such as have itching eares and heap unto themselves teachers stragling sheep fall into the wolves clutches such as will not keep the steps of the flock but go after the flocks of the Companions ever fall into most dangers of seducement all which is most plain by too woful experience in all Nations of CCChristendome for while Christianity and the Gospel was professed sincerely as it was saving some remote beginnings of mens traditions to take place against the commands of Christ in the first three hundred years wherein t was evidenced by the ten bloody persecutions that Christians served Christ for love then and not for loaves nor for lives sake neither for they loved not their lives unto the death there were not half so many Hereticks or Heresies as have been since but when once after Constantine Christianity comming into credit and being not onely owned by the Emperors themselves but established by their edicts in all things according to the pattern shewed them in the word not of Christ but of the Catholique Clergy convened in Councels as the Religion sub paena to be submitted to men turned Christians upon such sleight grounds and were born to that Name of Christianity without the Nature no otherwise then of the will of man and were no more then nomine tenus professors of it the Lord in his just and severe judgement to these nominal Christians permitted those Spiritual plagues that we see Rev. 8. Rev. 9. seconded the sounding of the trumpets to fall thick and three fold upon the world suffered the Clergy to fall to contentions jars and janglings about their ambitious interests viz. primacy and universallity c. and to Apostatize more and more from the plain primitive truth and to degenerate be degrees into darknesse till they came at last to be totally blinded in things of God and blind leaders of the blind Princes and people that implicitly give up themselves to be guided by them that both might drop together into the ditch yea he suffered that great star the Bishop of Rome that sometime shone very bright to fall as wormwood upon the third part of the waters the pure doctrine of the Gospel i. e. to foist in his heresies to the poisoning and imbittering of the doctrine so that many died even all that drank thereof because it was bitter and unwholsome and he suffered the third part of the Sun and Moon and Stars all the means and waies of Christs own institution and appointment to give light unto men by to be smitten and darkned corrupted covered with false glosses depraved with heaps of heresies and traditions c. crept in and authorized by the Pope and his Ecclesiastical Doctors so that what with the damnable and horribly devillish heresies by means of Mahomet and his Alcoran infecting the Orientall Christians through all Asia and these Papisticall errors of those Arch-Hereticks the Pope and CCClergy and Scholastick Rabbies who with vain deceit seduced the Occidental part of the world from the simplicity that is in Christ the day shone not for a third part of it the might likewise i. e. the third part of that pure and pretious truth of Christ which shined in the primitive Churches was now exclipsed and extinguisht neither had men by the third part so much of that clear light of Christs Gospel that they were wont to have in former dayes yea further in way of plague and punishment to hypocrites and meer nominal Christians the Lord at last suffered that star which fell before or angel of the Church of Rome when he was fallen from all his heavenlinesse and love of truth to earthlinesse and love of money and honour from beneath to open the bottomlesse pit i. e. the way to the very depth of hellish darknes and to raise up a smoak or thick fog of errors and heresies lies traditions which as the smoak of some great furnace darkened the sun and air i. e. totally put out the light of Scripture and pure administrations which were but in part ecclipsed before so that now nothing could be seen as it were but Popish legends and such stuff by the advantage of which smoother the Locuâ—ts came out i. e. the Clergy that swarmed all over the earth in every parish one at least stinging hurting wounding to eternal death by their poisonous doctrines propounded under pretence of the word of Christ all persons save such as have the seal of God in their foreheads even a few witnesses to the truth that withstood their doctrins which locusts are said to be scorpions i. e. carrying a fair face but stings in their tailes and to have crowns because of their great power for under their great King Apollyon they rule all and reign ore the Kings of the earth These are they that outwardly wear the sheeps cloathing i. e. cloth themselves with the denominations of Clergy Gods heritage Spiritual men Priests men of God which are the true titles of the sheep but inwardly are ravening wolves into whose clutches the stragling sheep that would not keep the steps of the flock of Christ but turned aside after the flocks of the companions going at a venture which way the most went for companies sake right or wrong did fall and by whose Heretical principles men are in danger of perishing for ever Thus when the world would be
down to us again who shall descend into the deep to bring Christ to us from the dead who shall go beyond the Sea for us viz. Holland Germany c. and bring the word unto us that we may hear it and do it who shall go into Scotland and brings us a directory and platform of government from them You swear to reform after the example of the best reformed Churches but you mean of Europe not of Asia sure not the congregations you read of in the word but the Nations you dote on in the world viz. Scotland Holland Denmark Swethland Germany c. which all qua Nations excepting such in them as truly fear God and worship him answerably to his will are together with this till they be converted to the faith by the spiritual and the civil sword and then not in nonage baptized not sprinkled in the name of Christ with confession and for remission of sins and then walk in free not forced fellowship in breaking bâ—ead and prayers are as far in sano sensu from the denomination of true Churches and have as much need of reforming as our selves Indeed you talk of Church of Orthodoxnes and reformation as the thing much desired making them the Hereticks and Schismaticks that side not with you see Baxt. p. 151. We prayed for reformation and the progresse of the Gospel we fasted and mourned and cryed to God we waited and longed for it more then for any worldly possession indeed we overvalued it and had too sweet thoughts of it as if it had been our heaven and rest therefore t is just in God to suffer these men meaning the Anabaptists to destroy our hopes and if they root the Gospel quite out of England its just in God but yet we hope they shall be but our scourges and that God is but teaching us the evil of their Schisms c. But Sirs what is that hoped for reformation of yours the pure Gospel you Presbyters so much talk of which those that hinder and hold not with you in are all sentenced for Schismaticks ipso facto for my part I could never find what reformation more in ordinances discipline doctrine and government you Presbyterian Priesthood aimd at then establishment of the Scottish faith and the removal of the Bishops and their superstitious Clergy as they removed the Popish before out of place that themselves might reign as tyrannically in their steads the pulling down of red glass windows and placing of white the knocking down of Fonts and setting up Basons to Rantize in the forcing the fathers to say the same at the Font that the God-fathers did in old time the observation of your own directory instead of the old liturgy giving the supper to none at all for most riged Presbyters have denied that to their whole parishes this seven year instead of giving it promiscuously to all levelling the maintenance of the Nations ministry so that every one may have a competency of an 100d per annum and not some all some none as in old'n time and a few such trivial translations in which the Gospel is no more promoted reformation according to the primitive faith and baptism far lesse furthered then it would be if never a penny might more be paid to the Priests that preach for hire while the world stands such a reformation indeed you have generally overvalued therefore its justice in God to you and mercy to the whole land to suffer his people to prosper in their preachings of the truth to the utter destroying of your hopes which if they were not more after worldly possessions in many of you that settled your selves in 100ds per annum by the shift then after that which is truth indeed t will be the better for you another time but I testifie it to the faces of you that for all your prayings and fastings and mournings and cryings to God and waitings and longings for Reformation you are the fiercest opposers of the primitive practise under heaven T is true you CCClergy are some more reformed then some you differ each from other as Papal Prelatick Presbyterian facing each other a squint as the three corners in a Triangle falling out and contending bitterly with one another about your own false wayes yet canina utentes facundia concurring to bark altogether against the true yea even you Protestant Priests yea you Presbyters that pretend more strictly and peculiarly to the title of Preachers and Presbyters of the truth and more serious searchers after it in prayer and supplication are together with the flat Popish Priests grosse hiders of the truth as it is in Jesus for the revealing of which to your selves you seem and that sometimes with fasting earnestly to pray to God and for the revealing of which to them in preaching you seem and that sometimes Iure divino to take pay from men You cry mightily indeed after knowledge and lift up your voices for understanding saying Lord direct us more and more into the way of truth for we are blind and ignorant and in the dark neither know we what to do but our eyes are to thee give us pure ordinances shew us the right way c. but if in any of your publique places never so soon after your prayers the Lord stirre up the spirits of any of the messengers of his Churches that go forth in power and plainness of speech to make offer of any question or further information you are so far from that candor which the Rulers of the Jewish Synagogues used in this case Act. 13. and from saying men and brethren if you have any word of exhortation to the people say on that you rather rate them as dogs out of doors with what make you here to disturb us we must have an order taken with you to make you hold your peace and such like rough repulses as 100ds of people know are used by more then one of you Querists after truth and yet you tell us of running into corners as refusing and unwilling to be be openly examined and tell your people that veritas non quaerit Angulos see Featley p. 167 and that we creep into houses as if we were ashamed to come out into your publique assemblies though we tell you ore and ore again that as t is more for want of your leave then our love so to do that we do not tell the truth there before your faces so our meetings when in private houses are more publique then yours when in publique places by how much where ere we are and what ere we say we submit not onely to your accesse but your exception also as you though in publique do not to ours You professe your selves desirous to have all things come to light before all that all things may be proved by your people and indeed though he that doth evil hateth the light neither â—ometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3.21.22 yet he that doth truth cometh to
the light that his deeds might be made manifest that they are wrought in God yet the means and courses by which truth should be tryed which are plain and not puzzling discourses upon the Scripture you smother by all the means and courses you can conveniently devise as for any entire discourses of such as are contrary minded to you though teachers of truth as t is in the word these you cannot away with at any hand nor permit to be used in publique before the people while you have any powar to shut your pulpit doors upon them you bid your people now or then prove all things that they may find out which is good and shun the evil but by your good-evil will they shall hear no more then what you tell them and chuse whether they 'l take that for truth or nothing you bid them cut where they like and yet you 'l be their carvers and force them to feed upon what you offer them or fast and welcome for no more messes must be meddled with though they have never such a mind to cut and try then what is of your dressing that oft is no more then some sugar sopt sententious Academical bespangled hide bound glasse measured spirit stinting stuff which may challenge the name of duncery baldnesse babling and prating more then that sincere milk of the word you commonly call so which hour of divinity when you have bookt down and cond with no little care is many times but Sed and someâ—imes but Red ore when all 's done neither yet oft times you crow couragiously upon your own dunghil you pay it soundly in your own pulpits with convincing and opposing the approach of heresies and argue so substantially against them that you carry the cause and win all but t is because you play there by your selves for if any chance to hear you that hath never so much wherewith to undeceive your deluded people yet they may not receive his interrupted reply to never so little when you in the first place have pleaded your cause the next thing to be done is for all them that hear and have ought against you to hold their peace they must not andere audire alteram partem least they be infected though wise men know there is no other way to be perfected in the knowledge of the truth and freed from that hobnob implicit faith which is wrongly acted when rightly objected then by hearing all that is to be said against it as well as for it yea the heathen herein may be thy Tutor O PPPriest Qui statuit aliquid c. You cry out they are not Orthodox that oppose you and so forbid all audience of them to your people whom you feed with a word and a blow a bit and a knock lest if they be not as well corrected into a refusal of all direction from others as directed by your selues they quickly discern difference between you and them yet you would fain be counted free and forward that all should have liberty according to their duty to try all but the niggard shall never be called liberall nor the churl said to be bountiful for me for he deviseth not the liberal things whereby the liberal shall stand yea the instruments of the churl are evil and he deviseth wicked devices to destry the poor with lying words when the needy spoaketh right things yea his heart works iniquity to practise hypocrisie and to utter error befor the Lord to make empty the soul of the hungry and to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail Isa. 32.5.6.7.8 As for pro and con discourse or disputation you smother that likewise with all your might for as you desire no more of it then needs must so you decline it what you can and disclaim it too as far as you dare for shame be seen in such a service as disputing against disputing is declaiming against it as a dismal thing of some dangerous consequence poison means of infection contentionem scabiem and such like being sensible of your sores you come not to the stake to be questioned in your waies before your blind admirers but when you cannot with credit considering your over shooting your selves sometimes in hasty challenges make a cleanly come off without it though it be to meet with those that are inferiour to your selves save that the Lord is with them for surely you see somewhat further then a mole into a milstone that things are no better with you then they should be why else should there be such loathnesse like that of the Elephant that 's loath to drink in fair waters for fear of seeing a foul face to come to the light as we find there is in the most of you as well as in Dr. Gouge who would at no hand vouchsafe any publique discussion of inâ—ant-sprinkling whether it were of God or man nec per se ne per synodum in his parish with Dr. Chamberlain yet sometimes Euphoniae gratia for reports sake you make some pretty put offs in publike and put on tooth and nail for disputation but alas you curtail it into so narrow a compasse as namely half a day two hours or some odd end of an after-noon when two dayes is too little two weeks scarce enough two years not too much to discusse the truth in witnesse not onely Iude who bids the Saints of the last times saving Tertullian and Sir Henry Wottons dislike out contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints and Paul who for 2 years space disputed dayly in the School of one Tyrannus not such a Tyrant to the truth as you are it seems for if he had he would have admitted not a word out you confine it I say into such a corner of time that as Pilate askt what 's truth and when he had so said went his way without an answer so you hast to have an end not hearing half the half quarter that is to be said in opposition to your own opinions about that question And during that little while the busines lasts you carry all as much as you can above the reach and beyond the capacity of plain minded men and women that come together for resolution in Scholastick terms and conclave it from their cognizance under the lock and key of your Linsey wolsey Logick which is neither fine enough for the University from which you have a while discontinued nor home-spun enough for the Country which muddy way of mood and figure is neither suitable to the simplicity and plainess of speech in which the Gospel ought to be declared and discussed nor reasonable to reason in with Russet Rabbies that are otherwise reasonable enough to give you such reasons of their faith and practise as you can never rationally resist nor is it much more profitable to our honest hearted people then if you spake wilde Irish. And when you have done then you smother and cloud over all that was more plainly and punctually
answered and uttered to you on truths behalf in some true counterfeit Account or other in many if not most of which waies this Ashford Dispute as I have already shewed before both was and was designed to be smothered Thus like the fish Caepia when you are like to be catcht with playing too neer the mouth of plain truth you cast a flood of ink behind you and darken all that 's done and like the Lizard making good prints with your feet putting on as fair pretences as may be of willingnesse to try and have all things seen as they are upon the forepart of your work and then dashing all out with your tail and blurring all ore again with with some after and hinder part practises whereby to hinder the truth still from taking place in the spirits of the people As your Fathers have done before you for ages and generations together so do your selves in this point more too not a few Their delight was to hide their counsels and to do their works in the dark that they might say who seeth and who knoweth us Yea the whole Creation of you out of the Chaos of Romes Catholicon have been a very race of Smotherers that have cryed down truth as Heresie Saints as Schismaticks their tendernesse as stubbornnesse their serviceablenesse to Christ as selfishnesse seperation from your superstitions and corrupt communions as Sectarism singularity perseverance in Christs way without turning back to the flesh pots of Aegypt as obstinacy and will fulnesse Church meetings as Conventicles Church Messengers who are Christs true Ministers to the world even to the end of it approving themselves as so as few of you do in much patience in tumults c. reducing men to primitive purenes of faith fellowship worship baptism Supper life as Fools Bedlams Juglers Seducers Seditious Tumultuous deservedly round and rough reprovings of you who are more then any men hardened in your abominations as Elias Iohn Christ and others did them that were like you disgracing railing reviling the one and onely true baptism as Anabaptism basenesse Enthusiasm Scripture searching by the Laity the onely way of Christs own appointment for all men to come to acquaintance with him by as medling more then needs Scripture opening by the illiterate Weaver Taylor Shoomaker Souldier upon whom the spirit that onely makes a preacher may as soon blow as upon a Schollar a means to multiply errors And thus what you Popish would smother in an unknown tongue you English P Priesthood who deliver it from that would more subtilly smother in a known whilest how far soever men see into the word yet they must see and say nothing or presume to see no farther nor practise any faster than the Priest Yea to shew how little you degenerate from him you even fill up the measure of your Father the Pope that wrath may come upon you all to the utmost whilst in these last breakings forth of light from all that smother wherewith Synodicall constitution hath overcast it even since your own seperation from Rome you damn it all by whole sale for darknesse ye are therefore of your Father Abaddâ—n and the works of that Father of yours ye do he was a Smotherer from his beginning and neither could abide in nor can yet abide the truth because there is no truth in him he opened the bottomelesse pit and raised up such a smoak of traditions Ceremonies Canons Calumnies lyes nicknames misrepresentations of things to the world as the smoak of a great furnace to the darkning of the sun and the air when he speaks a ly he speaks of his own for he is a lyar and next to the devill the Father of it when he smothers that which should come to light he acts most like himself for he is a Smotherer also and the father of that practise Wherefore also as he loved that curse even darknesse drynesse and smother so it is come unto him and his CCClergy as he delighted not in the blessing of light so it is far from him as he cloathed himself and his with smoak and smother like as with a garment so it is come into his very bowells and like oile into his bones it must be to him as the garment that covereth him and for a girdle wherewith he must be girded this is the Reward of that Adversary from the lord and of all that speak evil with him against the truth Thus God hath left you in his just severity to wander in by waies and to be lost in the laborinth of your learned Legends till you be all moped and snared even in the works of your own hands and smothered to blindnesse by your own smoak because when you should have Fathered and Mothered the Gospel so as to have brought it out in its primitive native beauty and brightnesse you CCClergy men have been the generation in all ages of your raign that have murdered and smothered it in the world And instead of Patronizing the truth and its professors and promoters you have belyed blasphemed both by the termes of Heresie Hereticks and worse witnesse Featly specially who from a few feats of some few mad men or rather Monsters of Munster and other places hapily like to our English mad braind Ranters whose rudenesse is in reason no reproach to us sith the way of baptism and Church-membership we walk in which these either never owned or abode not in allowes not but is more at odds with open wickedness then any other waies whatever who I say from some particular pranks of one Iohn of Leyden and his compeares that is no more kin to us then one Ioan of Lin is to the whole CCClergy denominates all the Baptists whom he yoaks together with them under the nick-name Anabaptists an Impure and carnall sect a cruell and bloody sect a prophane and sacrilegious sect a lying and blasphemous sect an illiterate and sottish sect all how truly it agrees to those men of Munster and their Chieftan Iohn of Leyden it matters not but I am sure as much as you wipe your mouths and shift it of from your selves to the people of God that walk in the truth of the Gospel yet there 's no generation of men upon earth whom it all laies more claim to then the PPPreisthood of the Nations For first though you stile your selves the Spirituality and holy men of God you are a race of men exceptis excipiendis still setting a side those few even all such whose consciences do not check them of too little chastity more corporally carnall then every body knowes on yea saving the holinesse that you have in a black box derived from his Holinesse the Pope whose holiness all your holiness of that kind hangs on and from the date of which the name of Spiritualty also i spilt upon you throughout Christendome from him who thinks he hath by a promise to Peter the fatherhood of the Clergy as much as Abraham the fatherhood of the faithful I believe
the committee to be able godly and Orthodox which Independent proposition I hardly know what to make of it is so odd what Sits does the denomination of a right constituted Church depend upon the Pastors being approved to be able godly and Orthodox a right constituted Church is that which is built upon the foundation or principles of the word of Christ and the Apostles Heb. 6.1 2. Ephes. 2. some of which you Independents yet want but go on in your light for me till you see it darknesse I can speak but obiter to you here yet know that if you settle not upon all the foundation even your Church will be a come down castle too ere long a right constituted church is that which hath right matter viz. baptized professors right â—orm i. e. free fellowship of such together in one body in breaking of bread and prayers whether they have yet a Pastor over them yea or no for the churches were rightly constituted first and had elders after ordained among them as they were found gifted yet with you the church that hath no Pastor and he not approved Orthodox is yet not to be declared a right constituted church what if the Pastor prove Hetâ—rodox does the church loose its true constitution or I would I knew what you mean by constitution for perhaps I do not and why do you talk in singulari so much of the Pastor and Pastor of a Church as if you were of the mind that a church might have no more Pastors and Overseers over it but one whereas t is most evident that there may be more Elders Pastors Overseers these are all one 1 Pet. 5.1 in one Church and that not without need neither when that one flock or congregation grows numerous for then they oft grow out of the observation too much of one eye see Act. 20. Paul sent for the Elders of the Church of Ephesus whether any Church ever had but one Pastor or Overseer in it or no if any at all I know not but I am sure the use was to ordain more then one to one Church Act. 14.23 Tit. 1.5 but one cannot Lord it so well if others be i th traces with him but however why must all this business of declaring which be right constituted Churches Orthodox Pastors which not hang upon the Committees approving or not approving of the Pastors what if the Committee should chance to be Heterodox it self or the Major part of it or the Major part sitting at that time when this Pastor comes for approbation what shall a true constituted Church lose or keep her name of a true constituted Church at a venture upon the vote of a Committee and what need at all that the Committees be so cumbered with the care of such affairs and what vanity to venture the determination of which be true Churches of Christ which the Scripture declares plain enough whether the Committee see it yea or no upon the verdit of a Committee to whom other affairs are most properly committed let all the Churches come before the Committee and all people declare their ways and their God and he whom the Committee saies is God let him be God and not the rest will you have it so if you will I will not take truth upon trust from the vote of any Committee man under the Sun and if you would not have it so you were better never trouble Committees with such matters at all then not commit them finally to them so as to agree to act at a venture as they determine in matters meerly of Religion and that the true Churches of Christ who know no King but Jesus in church and conscience will never do but prove themselves to be true constituted churches of Christ and preach the Gospell too as it is in Iesus where ere they see people ignorant of it whether they will hear or forbear though all the Committees yea and all the Kings and Popes and Priests and People in the world should declare against them Beloved Friends me thinks you look too like a national Ministry to be of the right stamp yet I had hoped Independents would never have turned State Ministers and have lookt so much after State honour State help State approbation State preferment State Maintenance for ministering to either their Churches or to the purblind nation as I see they do but Sirs if you be true constituted Churches of Christ indeed I do not say you are nor is it my businesse here to prove you are not though you are not till you own his baptism but if you be as you imagine you are know that Christ hath set in his Church Apostles or Messengers to be sent forth not by the State but by the Church it self to preach his Gospel to the world at the Churches and not the worlds charges and to preach the Gospel to the Parishes without pilling the poor parish people making way for the Gospâ—l and the truth by force and law whether they be free to have it to buy aâ—d receive it on such terms as you tender it on yea or no therefore send forth and maintain your messengers among your selves you are rich enough and let them preach the Gospel to them gather Churches but alas now I think on t how can they preach the Gospel by the halves and gather true constituted Churches that yet own not as ye O Independents yet do not all the principles of the oracles of God nor all the first doctrines of Christ as that of baptisms laying on of hands upon which together with the rest the true visible Church stands as on her foundation and are yet not onely unbaptized but unwilling to be baptized or to baptize with any other baptism then that Rantism that ran down hither through Rome You propound that when any of the Pastors of right constituted Churches dye or leave them to take up some other imployment they choose and present another Pastor within six moneths and may have one settled among them within 12 moneths by approbation from the said Committe or to dissolve or disperse themselves into other Churches Good Sirs what mean you by this shall the Parliament and their Committees never have their liberty to attend onely and perfectly the true liberties of the subject nor be at quiet from this wearisome work of approving and setling of ministers that are men mostly so unsetled in their minds that they 'l never if they have such liberty to leave as you here allow them settle longer in one place then till they have more means or be more to their minds in another had this piece been propounded by parish ministers and people it had become them as sounding somewhat sutable to their posture and principle for t is the usual tone they talk in when one Pastor having left them to take up another call from Christ or imployment somewhere else to his advantage they addresse to the Committee for the approbation or settlement of
dayes and were not by him persecuted nor constrained either to be of his Religion nor to say nothing against it nor against any other in after times indeed when the Emperours grew bloody against the Christians all Religions lived quietly under Caesar but the Christian that was worse then nought and I think it not a little too bad and not doing as our duty is to all men as we desire they should do to us but the way back to Priestly blindnes if we put Caesar on now because he is a Christian to let the Christian Religion live quietly under him and none else for my part I dare not desire that the Jews may not not onely live but till they see better serve God in their wayes of worship in the State as well as others for a being they must have somewhere and may no where without sin if not here for is it more sin for one Common-wealth to let false worshippers live in it till they see the truth then for another yea and let them and others too preach and promulgate even all that ere they can for their way Ob. I know men fear false Religions will seduce men from the true to themselves An. Let them gain what they can whom can they gain not the elect which in your sense are a sort of individuals without respect to any thing done in time personally unchangeably positively and not conditionally determined to faith and final perseverance in it to the death and if they seduce others to damnation it self they are no other then such with you as are as particularly peremptorily and not conditionally onely of their loving darkness more then light afore of old ordained to that condemnation therfore me thinks you of that principle of all others should see no danger of doing more hurt then God decreed to have done by suffering seducers in the world before the foundation of it and as for us who hold no such though as much election and reprobation as your selves in that sense in which the Scripture speaks oâ—t which bids us know that God hath chosen the godly man to himself and ordained ungodly men to condemnation not determining the individuals to life or death before birth but upon account of belief or non-belief of the truth that 's told them for he hath chosen men to life no otherwise then through belief and ordained men to be holy i. e. that they shall believe and live holily that mean to live for ever even we that know there is danger enough and yet hope enough too of life for men that neglect not their own salvation â—are venture truth among all false wayes whatsoever which when and where ere it lives uncurbd as it never yet did in England without molestation more or lesse to these our dayes for a 1000 years and upwards will shine through all the rest so clearly to mens souls as either to save them or else at least to convince them so as if they perish by following any false wayes that grow up by it to leave them without excuse because they either did know and did not what they knew or might have known more then they did but would not besides if any religion be as I am sure the true one is not though the RRRomish Jewish Turkish and all others are such a dead Sea of Divinity as hath not life enough in it to live of it self if it may have bare leave unlesse all others that would live beside it be sneapt by the civil sword so that they must not shew their heads by it for its sake let that Religion be the Jews and the Turks and the Popes and the Prelates and the Presbyters and the Independents too if it will for me but while I live to Christ surely t will be none of mine So I have done with you my dear friends of the Independent way and shall wait and pray that you may first laying as your foundation then leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ go on unto perfection T is time to return to talk on with the Pope and PPPriesthood to whom I have almost forgotten what more I was about to say being put by it by ones presentment of these proposals to me inter scribendum which draw'd me on to this long Perenthesis and off from my present purpose viz. the proving of the PPPriesthood to be that themselves which they most falsely father upon them whom they as falsely call Anabaptists I have shewed how though they call us an impure and carnal sect a cruel and bloody sect yet themselves are both these much more then we yea and much more that 's nought then either of these two also For next whereas you stile us a prophane and Sacriledgious sect yet that you are a more Profane and Sacrilegious generation then those whom Dr. Featly calls so will appear very plainly if you consider either what Sacriledge and Profaneness are indeed or what Dr. Featley if he may be your spoksman to whom you refer us doth falsey suppose it hath defined it to be for he states profaneness or sacriledge for these two with him are one to be the extream in the defect to Religion to which the extream in the excess saith he is superstition which is the offering to God what he claimes not for his own whilst the other i. e. profaneness Sacrilegiously Robs God of that which is his own in a particular manner which if so then you CCClergy men are more guilty in this behalf then any other under the Sun for besides that you erre from the true religion in the excesse by superstitious attribution of such things to God as his by institution which are not his but your own inventions viz. payment of Tithes to you infant-sprinkling and many other which you plead for as if the Lord had required them Iure divino or Iure Apostolico whereas it is no false Latine because true English to say they stand Iure humano et Apostatico or rather Daemonito by the devil and the whores appointment you erre from it also in the defect by Sacrilegious ablation and abolition of the true Baptism and Ordinances from the Church which Christ hath appointed this though it be wonderful strange yet is marvellous true for though ordinary men miscarry from the mean but by one extream ordinarily e. g. if men erre from the vertue liberality by prodigality they are not covetous too or if by covetousness they are not prodigal too but so extraordinarily out of holy order are you O ye that are in holy orders that you content not your selves to go beyond the word but you 'l be behind it too you will make God own that he never commanded neither to use the phrase and figure in which he speaks of himself came it all into his mind and disown his own precepts which you make void by your traditions T is bad to be in the extream on either hand from the truth but to be in
of this present age and nation as denying any obedience to civil Magistracy any propriety in goods as holding plurallity and community of wives divorce for difference in religion as dipping men and women stark naked and such like Yea just the same lying shiâ—ts and inventions that the Popish Clergy did use to help their Religion by against the Protestants when they began first to protest against them and their abominations do you the Protestant CCClergy i. e. both Prelacy and Presbytery strengthen your cause by against the Anabaptists especially of all sectaries 1. They detain the People from reading the Scripture alledging to them the perills they may incurr through misinterpretation you likewise would not have the Scripture medled with by this Clergy of Laicks Mechanick fantastick Enthusiasts profound watermen Sublime Coachmen Illuminated Tradesmen c. Apron Levites Sectarian Preachers as Dr. Featley and Mr. Baily call them for they say you are dunces and ignorant both of tongues and arts and so must needs run into errors and are insufficient for these things let the smith keep him to his Anvile and the Cobler to his last 2. These bred Antipathy between the Papist and Protestant and debar them all sound of the Protestant Religion as much as may be by prohibiting books of the reformed writers and Traffick with such Hereticall Countries or such places where those contagious sounds and sights as they term them might make them return infected You also forbid your good Protestants all society and commerce as much t is possible with these pitchy persons as those that they can't come neer but they must be defiled with them 3. Those by the severity of their inquisition and so you by your high commission and spiritual alias spiteful Courts while they stood and by complaints to the next Classis Synod c. as in Scotland and threats to have an order taken with such and such as here in England crush as far as you can in your people the very beginnings and smallest suppositions of being this way addicted 4. They teach their people to Believe that the Protestants and so do you that the Anabaptists are basphemers of God and his Saints Those that in England Churches are turned into Stables you that the Anabaptists preach in Tubs that Stables are turned into Temples stalls into Quires Shopboards into Communion-tables Those that the people i. e. Protestants are barbarous and eat young children that Geneva is a professed sanctuary of Roguery c. you that the Anabaptists are filthy and base in their Conventicles and are for Murder Adulteries Butchery Bawdery the veriest villains in the world You tell the world that the Anabaptists would have no rules nor bonds of lawes because of their dissolutenesse which though it be true enough of the Ranter that Peter and Iude speaks of that seperate themselves from their churches sensual presumptuous self-willed despising Government Peter the second Epist. chap. 2. yet is most false of our Churches that seperate from you that we would have no discipline in the Church no learning nor universities No coercive power in the civill Magistrates to restrain us because we walk inordinately whereas though we cannot away with your Canons yet we are the only men in the world for the rule which Christ himself hath set for men to walk by even the word the Scriptures which onely and not Synodicall constitutions nor holy chair we stand to have the standard for truth to be tryed by to the worlds end and are for all lawes in nations save such as obedience to which makes us palpably rebellious against the law of Christ viz. lawes for tithes with trebble dammages for Christ never appointed mens goods to be streined and they sold out of what they have to pay his own Ministers for preaching his own Gospel much lesse to pay the Popes Ministers for preaching a Gospel of their own also laws to come to masse in Latine or Masse in English or any service of mans making under penalty we also stand for a true Church that hath right matter viz. professed believers baptized and right form viz. free not forced fellowship in breaking of bread and prayers we are also for the true discipline i. e. Christs not the Clergies in that Church we hold also that Magistrates though their persons should be wicked men and heathens for the notion of Christian addes nothing to their power as Magistrates are the ordinance of God To maintain all civil justice and righteousnesse between man and man and to restrain abuses such as murder treason adultery drunkennesse theft false witnesse though they have no coercive power to keep men from serving God according to his own will that power we deny yet go not about by violence to withstand it but in quietnesse suffer under it when it is put forth against us we are also for learning for t is a good talent to use for God and too good for the Devill a good servant but a bad master and we wish that there were more of it then there is among you CCClergy if it may be also well improved as it seldome is by those of you that have it for as those of you that are more singular schollars then the rest in humanity and that meer Anthropo-Theology that is among you which you call Divinity are deep dunces for the most part in the school of Christ and most opposite through the wisdome of their flesh which is enmity against God to the follishnesse of the Gospel so no lesse then legions of you are little learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 either Yea verily and fiftly howbeit among other things you brand the Anabaptists with the names of an illiterate and sottish sect cut as chips out of Nicolas Stock whom Featly faines to be the father of the Anabaptists and stiles a very blockhead and such as know not how to teach nor dispute for truth because they know not the original and cannot conclude in mod and figure p. 113.164.163 nor make able ministers of the Gospel because they understand not the Scripture in the Original languages and cannot expound without Grammer nor perswade without Rhetorick nor divide without logick nor sound the depth of any controversie without Philosophy and School divinity p. 118 yea Dr. Featley defeats 1000s of his fellow Clergy men utterly in so saying from the name of able Ministers yea as he saies of us in another so may we of them in this case hos suo ingulamus gladio we may wound them with their own dudgeon dagger for if ignorant and unlearned men are not fit to make ministers then not onely their Laity which are millions are unlearned for the most part and so by Dr. Featleys own confession unfit to be teachers of truth but even multitudes of their CCClergy too for it is none of the least brands saies Dr. Featley p. 164. of the Roman Antichrist that he filled the Church with
a tradition though more antient and reverent then some others as Mr. Rogers said of it and of which the church hath been posâ—est for 1500 years as Mr. Marshall a little more then he could undoubtedly prove too said of it is confest not onely by the Italian Clergy as Bellarmine who said it could not be proved by Scripture but as simply as our Clergy wrests the Scripture into the proof on t by the Remonstrants also who held it but as a very antient Rite that could scarcely be left off without great offence yea and Dr. Gouge also that would not be intreated to say ay or no to it at Dr. Chamberlains request now he sees people begin to pry into it did once acknowledge that it was a tradition of the church see Dr. Chamb. to Mr Bakewel p. 3. where he saies he hath under Mr. Barbers hand that he said so and used it as an argument to perswade him to take the oath ex officio And I desire all men to understand by these presents before whom we may happen to dispute this point hereafter that we declare against infant-sprinkling as a novelty in the faith and when we plead the dipping of believers as we are not in jest intending otiosam disputationem such idle dribling demi disputes and dainty dispatches as the Priesthood put us off with wherein he flams us i th mouth for an hour or two with the flap of a fox tail and lends us two or three licks of Latine and Logick and away again but a more serious earnest and constant course of conferring till the truth be tryed to the utmost so what we are so careful to contend for it is no new one but that old faith and baptism which was once delivered to the Saints this course of continued discourse though it suits not with such as seeing see not whose waies and courses are so much the more suspitious to be naught by how much the lesse they abide the light And a Modern Author whose Learning and Judgement lives in the Memories of many of our Kentish Clergy passed this sentence on it Pruritus disputandi scabies Ecclesiae yet I say is that the very life of the truth is so far concerned in that there 's very little of it comes to light in the CCClimate of the CCClergy by reason of their subtle sneaping things as much as may be out of sight that make against them I know the perverse disputings against the truth of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godlinesse that t is reformation enough to mend the means of Presbyters out of the Bishops superfluities is the scabb of the Church of England indeed but I speak not of the pravity but purity of the disputation when plain minded men destitute of all self ends are minded to be serious and self denying and single-hearted in this work in order to more then either money or meer dispute it self nor is it Pruritus disputandi an itching simply after dispute for who are we simple Coblers Cartars Smiths Fishermen Farmers c. to stand before the wise and the Scribe and the disputer of this world in that work if God had not rejected them and made his wisdome foolishnesse but it is pruritus disprobandi a deep desiring of disproving your practises as Popish dispelling your smoak of errors and endeavouring to the utmost of our power according to what you have sworn us to in that kind to root out not by the civil sword but the plainnesse of the word your superstition heresie Schism and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine that disposes us to desire it Indeed The Heathen said it was a wicked custome to dispute about the Gods for thereby things certain are oft called into question nor have they said thus without reason considering what little strength of Reason they had wherwith to assertain it that their Gods were Gods at all but me thinks it should not be counted therefore a wicked custome among true Christians that own the true God unless to put forth such curious questions about God as the Schoolmen do viz. An deus potius non fuisse whether God could have chosen whether he would have been God or no and such like fooleries to dispute about their God and about his worship for fear it should grow more doubtful by discussing and howbeit considering the strong causes that commonly stiffen and harden the CCClergy in their Heresies or the utmost of their ends in disputing and some of those sorry effects that ensue there is but little encouragement to that work of disputing with them yet sith truth can likely be no looser by comming to the light nor is diminisht but displayed the more by how much it is discussed I see no reason why it should be declined and why Heteticks are not to be disputed withall and here it cannot be amisse If we consider 1 the Causes 2 the deâ—ign of Hereticks 3 the Common effects of disputation with them Among the causes of the CCClergies Heresies may be reckoned Amor sui a conceit of themselves a fancied perfection and purity in them more then others Amor sui primum aedificavit civitatem diaboli saith St. Austin self love first set up the divels Kingdome Even that great City BBBabylon that in three PPParts reigns over the Kings and nations of the earth for though there were many superstitions grown in uppon the Christians before in the first three hundred years yet the pompous Kingdome of Priests had no foundation whereupon to rise so long as the Roman Empire remained Heathen for then the very Bishops of the Church of Rome whom the Devil hath since made his Vice-gerents in the world were persecuted to the death by the devil himself acting in the heathen Emperors in bloody butchery against Christians yea the Ministers went under miserable martyrdome as well as others and kept indifferent close to the truth but when once the Dragon who fought against Michael and his Angels with open rage before and acted against them under the very name of Christians by his Angells the heathen Emperors and massacred Millions of Christians when he saw the Emperor himself Constantine the Great turned Christian and resolved to vindicate Christs cause and rescue the Christians from their bloody sufferings and finding that Michael and his Angels did now prevail against him and his cruel Cutthroats so that place must be no more found for them in heaven i. e. the high places of power in the Empire and that he could execute his wrath now no longer by them against the saints as Christians a Christian being now come to the Crown he had no other remedy now then to play his cards about another way and turn Christian also himself that he might have the fairer advantage to crush the true Christians that kept the commands of God and the faith of Jesus under the new nicknames of Hereticks Schismaticks c. that
legerdemane or other most paultrily purchased but specially under the Papacy where si nihil attuleris ibis Homere foras Calvin saies vix cente simum quodque beneficium in papatu sine Simonia conferri c. scarcely every hundredth benefice is bestowed at this day in the Papacy without Simony as the old writers defined Simony I do not say that they all buy them with ready mony but shew me one of twenty that cometh to a benefice without some by commendation some either kindred or alliance promoteth and some the authority of their parents some by doing of pleasures do get themselves favour Finally benefices are given to this end not to provide for the Churches but for them that receive them therefore they call them benefices by which words they do sufficiently declare that they make no other account of them but as the beneficial gifts of Princes whereby they either get the favour of their souldiers or reward their services I omit how these rewards are bestowed upon Barbers Cooks Moil-keepers and such dreggish men And how judaical Courts do ring of no matters more then about benefices so that a man may say that they are nothing else but a prey cast afore dogs to hunt after Is this tolerable even to be heard of that they should be called Pastors which have broken into possession of a Church as into a farm of their enemie that have have gotten it by brawling in the law that have bought it for money that have deserved it by filth services which being children yet scantly able to speak have received it as by inheritance from their uncles and kinsmen and some bastards from their fathers But this is more monstrous that one man I will not say what manner of man but truly such a one as cannot govern himself is set to govern six or seven Churches A man may see in these dayes in Princes Courts young men that have three Abbacies two Bishopwricks one Arch-bishoprick but there be commonly Canons laden with with five six or seven benefices whereof they have no care at all but in receiving the revâ—nues Inst. lib. 4. cap. 5. Sect. 6. etc. Thus they yea the Popes studied nothing more saith Helin Geog. p. 184. then to advance their Nephews for by that name the Popes use to call their bastards hence came the saying of Alexander the third viz. the laws forbid us to get children and the devil hath given us Nephews in their stead and though Luther add Calvin were themselves men of more moderate minds then to purchase preheminencies titles dignities to themselves yet though somewhat better then at Rome it hath been too bad among the Successors of both in Clerical capacity as to that corrupt kind of climbing to the chiefest punctillioes of earthly eminency they can attain to yea verily there 's very few of them but they are Papalis Ambitionis homines of Popely aspiring minds seeking superiority gaping after glory of this world not that to come liking to be lookt upon with distinction as men not like other men as men of worth when their worth lies more many times in what they have then what they are affecting to be applauded for their very Sermons to be humb'd when they come to a period in order to which I blush to think how they were wont to pause and look for 't in university pulpits and sometimes too when to their greater shame they went without it and to be thankt for their great pains when they have done thus surfeiting upon self-conceit and being drunk with affectation they erre in affection to the rule of faith for how can ye believe saith Christ when ye receive honour one of another and seek not that honour that cometh from God onely Iohn 5. this honour from beneath is the very element in which and not in God save as they are his creatures these Chamaeleons the CCClergy live move and have their being The ar of popularity is the breath by which the Heretick lives vain glory the stirrop by which he mounts into such magnitude and towers so high as to overtop not onely all other people but all other Princes also of the earth and to exalt himself above all that is worshipped and called God he lackt to make himself a name like to the name of the great men that are on the earth for the name of Minister or Servant to so plain and disrespected a Master too as the Master Christ was whose name was cast out as evil who made himself of no reputation and would have all his Servants specially the Servants of all his Servants to be of the same mind and follow him through scorn shame suffering and not be above him here if they mean to reign with him hereafter this was too mean a name for him to be known by he must be Dominus Dominorum here KKKing it over the Kings of the earth Paschalis the first caused the Priests of certain parishes at Rome by reason of the neernesse of his person their presence at his election and to honour their Authority with a more venerable title to be called Cardinals they are now Mates for Kings and numbred about 70. Helin Geog. p. 182. And howbeit Christ forbad his ministers the seeking of glory from men in this world as not the time for them to come to the crown in or to any thing but the cross yet his desire was Dicier hic est to be cryed up by the people as Supreme Moderator in all the matters of Christs Church and civil State too against the plain will of the old master in his word and to be sought after as a new Master Our Saviour saith of the Pharisees they loved the praises of men and the present priesthood of the Protestant nations lay this to our charge who are Christs Messengers and Servants to his Churches whom they call Anabaptists calumniating us so far as we are zealous and follow on according to the many covenants which both they and we have taken to reform fully by the word as if we sought nothing but glory and to be seen of men and meerly to make our selves Masters of a sect and such like which if we do we shall dearly answer for the sin of seeking and serving our selves of Christs service at the last as well as they but me thinks if blindnesse in this point had not happened to them they should see of themselves that men cannot seek secular honour to themselves by siding with such a sect as ever was and ever will be whilest the world stands such is its hatred to the truth every spoken against yea verily the name of these churches that own and keep close to all the principles of Christs doctrine and own the whole truth for Christs sake whose they are both are and yet will be cast out as evil by all other churches yet grant these Churches should grow into more request and favour among men as they do at sometimes more then some Act.
the trade of preaching you cannot set up possibly to any good purpose thus Featley p. 101. prophecy quoth he is an extraordinary gift of the holy spirit preaching a special faculty acquired by many years study and Mr. Evans in his Sermon to the Lords my Lords quoth he we know you would have a learned Ministry but it is impossible for learning ever to flourish without maintenance you may as well set carpenters to build without tooles as send forth Ministers without their parchments we plead not my Lords for our backs and for our bellies but for good books and furnisht brains there are some that will seduce upon cheaper tearms but there must be honest provision made that every Minister may have a good library or elâ—e the Land is like to have but an ignorant Ministry and a perishing people again my Lords we know you would have a gracious people to fear God honour the King and obey your honours but it is sufficiently known that a base Ministry can never do good upon the people the generall pride of man is such that poverty is enough to bring a man into contempt c. As if because the pride of man specially of great men is so great that the poor mean Ministers of Christ are subject to be despised by them therefore they must have a kind of pompous Priesthood that may delight their daintines and fit their vain fancies and haughty humors what the Lords of the earth would have I know not so well as themselves I believe they would have a learned Ministry to lean to and live at ease on and a people to fear God as far as themselves do among whom the fear of God hath been taught still after the precepts of the men called CCClergy and to honour the King and obey their Honours but this I know and therefore t is but flattery not to say foolery to tickle them up with talk of their great zeal of the Gospel as their fawning Chaplains do that few or none of their Honours are effectually called to Christ or have ever yet honoured him so far as to honour own and acknowledge his truth in that primitive purity wherein t was at first given out partly because the CCClergy claws them too much into odd conceits and with untempred morter dawbs them into a belief of an Omnia bene in that easie gaudy gospel they sow as a pillow under their elbowes and partly because not many of these mighty and nobles ones will stoop when t is discovered to them to that plainness and simplicity that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.3 to that foolishness of mechanick preaching that basenesse of baptizing that streightway of self-denying that needlesse work of Scripture searching with their own eyes that weak nothing of Christs choosing by which to confound and bring to nought in the end the prudence of the Scribes and wisemen of this world whom they wonder after so the great King of Kings and Lord of Lords Christ Jesus was not over-seen and yet he chose such base things and sent forth such a poor base Ministry of illiterate mechanicks to preach his Gospel at the first beginning of it too which surely he would not have done if it were his own mind that the contempt of his ministry which by their poverty illiteracy and outward basenesse is apt to arise in the hearts of the proud should be prevented by putting the outward pomp of much earthly riches and that low literature of this foolishly wise world upon them Mean while I am not against a Ministers having learning let a man have as much as he will on 't so he use it as a telent to serve the truth with when once he he hath found and owned it but against that necessity of outward learning to the Ministry of Christ so as to say as the Priesthood doth that ordinarily a man cannot be a Minister of Christ without it for verily the spirit which onely makes a Minister blows where it lists and doth for ought I see bestow it self now as of old it did more frequently upon poor Mechanicks and illiterate Artizans then learned Scribes and Schoolmen Nor am I against a Ministers having a library and looking into other books if he have a mind to it and have money enough of his own to buy them so be he do not lose himself therein as the CCClergy in all ages have done from his serious study and sincere search of the plain Scripture it self but I am far from desiring that poor people should be charged to fill and furnish Ministers studies with books and their brains with notions out of other Authors that are no more to be heeded then themselves further then they speak according to the word nor shall I ever acknowledge such a necessity as you plead that men must needs busie their braines about abundance of other mens writings or else cannot but be ignorant Ministers of the Gospel sith the Scriptures themselves are of themselves if the CCClergy could once consider it or one could possibly beat it into their braines profitable for all things and able to make Ministers and people wise enough to salvation and to make a man of God perfect and throughly furnisht unto all good works but that they do not store their hearts as they should do with study of them onely or at least mainly as the primitive Ministers of the Gospel did and the purest Ministers of it now do 2 Tim. 3.14.15.16 I wonder what our Clergy men would do to preach the Gospel if there were no other books extant but the very bible they would surely either cease from being Ministers any more at all or else make better Ministers then they are I do not speak this to excite men to make such a bone fire of all books but the bible as Dr. Featley saies Iohn Matthias made p. 165. and yet by the Clergies leave I dare not say as Dr. Featly there saies that t were better all those who in his sense are obstinate Sectaries for many such are pretious Saints were burnt at a stake then that such a bone fire were made for I know no absolute necessity to the salvation of men of the being of any book in the world but the bible which as it was once alsufficient to make men wise to salvation without looking into any other and before there were many other besides it so I know not sith we have them in such plainness as now we have maugre all the malice of the Pope and Clergy who would once have made a bone fire of the Scriptures why it is not as alsufficient as heretofore whilst yet there was no more Gospel Scripture then in self but I speak it to excite the CCClergy for whom I have great sorrow of heart to see their miserable neglect of wretched ignorance in the Scriptures to give more attendance to the reading of them as which are alsufficient and onely necessary to a Minister if there were
illuminated Tradesmen Christ the Carpenter Peter the Fisherman Paul the Tentmaker Aquilla and his wife Priscilla from which kind of poor folks and babes to whom it seems good in gods fight to preach the plain Gospel and reveal by his word and spirit what he hides from wise men when they will not see this prudent PPPriesthood if he were not proud might learn more truth and Gospel purity then ever was taught him by his Grand-father the Pope or any of those Clerical Councells or Ghostly fathers which he consults more with then with Christ and Scriptures The Reason of all his obstinacy against tradesmens teachings is this he knows that his trade of teaching for hire and divining for money Must fall if tradesmen begin once to turn divines and to teach truth for nothing ye know that by this craft quoth he Act. 19.25 c. we have our wealth moreover ye see and hear c. he is well aware and so are we that if he lose the lives of persecution for conscience and sprinkling of infants Iachin Boaz the two main pillars grand Supporters of his kingdom his Temple will quickly rend in to more pieces then 3 PPPs from the top to the very bottom and all his matchlesse magnitude and numberlesse priestly Prerogatives drop directly to the ground viz. his Lieutenantship to the prince of this World his Lordship over the heritage his headship over the Church his dominion over the faith his title to the tenth of every mans estate his merchandize of slaves bodies and souls of men his leave to trample the holy city and slay at pleasure the truth tellers that torment him his rich revenues dignity glory power seat and great Authority together with all the priviledges profits liberties immunities thereunto belonging All this his royalty must fail if he give ground but a little and would have failed ere this time If he had a face could blush at his own abominable blindnesse or ingenuity to confesse himself hurt or own the plain truth while his lungs will serve him in reply or Amor sui constrain him to cry heresie against the truth therefore this Diotrêphes that loves to have the preheminence over all for ever because he hath had it for a while receiveth not truth but prates against it in the pulpit and elsewhere with malicious words and though he contradict himself ever and anon in his own Sermons and discourses yet if he say any thing at all he thinks it much when wisemen weighing it find it little to the purpose Tertullian thus describes Hermogenes Loquacitatem facundiam existimaret Impudentiam constantiam deputaret c. so he when he bumbasts the pulpit and slashes the Saint Schismaticks in their absence before his people supposes he hath spoken with no small grace when t is for want of grace that he did it and that when he is most audacious against all reformation as at Rome and even that he hath sometimes sworn himself and others to as here in England when he finds it more crosse to his credit then he thought of when he undertook for t he counts them fickle unconstant that change their minds and mend their manners and himself only stable and constant to the CCChristian Religion Hence it is that the effects of Disputation with him have been not onely fâ—ustrate but dangerous dangerous I say to him no otherwise then as it overturned his Kingdome that the truth of Christ might take place but to them that disputed with him in this respect as it hath been no lesse then their pretious lives were worth once to oppose or open their mouths against him witnes Wickliff Hus Ierome of Prague and all the executions done in Queen Maries daies upon such as durst dispute against the Pope or meddle against the mass and those done in Queen Elizabeths upon Barrow Greenwood and Penry who were hang'd by Episcopal malice for professing against them and the Common-prayer which now well nigh all England hath renounc't as a corruption and what should have been done upon such as disputed against or depraved the Presbyterian directory is well known for that Clergy hath shew'd themselves so much in their Fathers colours that ere long all England will renounce both it and them and in this respect it hath been also frustrate as to peoples conviction for truths witnesses to dispute never so clearly against him for as much as he hath still stopt their mouths with the stake prison or gallows and kept his own wide open against them in the pulpit when he hath secured them from all capacity of storming him there for The common sort are apt to think those have the victory that live to speast last and that their CClergies cause is never wrackt by the cause of Christ as long as one is left alive that can speak a word in that against the other And by how much error takes with our corrupt nature more then truth by so much there is more danger of its spreading where the Roots i. e. the self love vain glory ambition covetousnesse pride Lordlines universality and cruelty of the CCClergy who are plants that our heavenly father never planted Stocks from whom stemes out a stench from whom abomination branches it self out to the corrupting therof in al quarters of the Earth Rev. 11.18.17 5.19.2 are not plucked up and rooted out for from the Priest and the Prophet profanness heresie hath gone out into all the world and spread it self like a leprosie or some raging canker and for the most part such is the resolvednesse of the CCClergy to bind the people still to a blind obedience to their blind guidance of them beside the word that Disputations with them if not carefully I mean clearly and also coolly proceeded in with love to their persons and almost without zeal against their evils which yet we must not abate them an ace of for all their anger pacem cum hominibus cum vitiis bellum they Raise more evil spirits of wrath and divellishnesse in them then we can lay because they see them raise more good spirits of doubts and earnest enquiries after truth in the people who before were wont to take their ware on trust without trial then then they can lay again while they live by all the shifts and subtleties they can devise for when once people are resolved to believe things to be heresie by hearsay no more but to fancy them according as they find them in the word and to see into the plainness of speech that is in the Scripture with their own eyes they see so much disproportion between the national Church wayes and those of the primitive Churches of the Gospel that they commonly resolve not to see at all adventures through the unclear eyes of CCClergy men any more This makes them fret and fume and fain and fiddle hither and thither which way to fasten their Heretical opinions further if it be possible on them in whom they they
stick and into whose hearts they have eaten fowl healthless holes already and to drive them deeper even with hammer and nailes if they can tell how or else to cleave whole Countries asunder with beetle and wedges Heresie is said by the Apostle to fret like a canker so that it is not the clearness nor yet the coolness nor yet the heat of a disputation can correct it in some mens hearts the tongue may heal any poisoned wound with licking of it sooner then that which the Heretick the Pope and the Priesthood hath made so deeply hath he found his heresies in the dark cells of some mens implicit consciences Athanasius his disputation with Arrius and Austins with Manickaeus are sufficient Instances Indeed it is not possible to expect any good fruit from those former grounds as to the CCClergie themselves and such of their CCCreatures as stand bent to believe all they say and never doubt it though otherwise much good may come to others that are inquisitive by disputation with them or that he which is possessed with self love and hunts so greedily after glory or gain as the CCClergie dots should be perswaded to hearken to any reason which contradicts his principles or to disclaim that waie which must advance his design What is the result of this discourse to forbid all disputation with HHHim no by no means it is necessary to stop the clamors of the adversarie to the truth who will cry out victoria if his challenge be not answered and make our sâ—leuâ—e be a confession of the truth on his side if he be not stoutly encountred with Saint Austin who was in his time called Malleus hereticorum of whom it is said that he never went so willingly to a feast as to a conference when Pascentins the Arrian bragd that he had worsted him in his dispute and those believed it which desired it yet gave not out from disputing but was onely careful to set down his disputations in writing for the future that the truth might appear vindicated from those false reports with which commonly it is blasted either by word or else by some such true counterfeit Accounts in print as that which is at this day extant of the disputation held at Ashford A Disputation orderly carried soberly proceeded with without heats and distempered passions not suffered to go out of its due bounds nor to follow every new sent that is taken up by the way nor to degenerate into quarrellings and hasty fals chargings of the Anabaptists as this and that they know not what without proving them such or disproving their doctrines as if others do not I do know more then one place where and where more then once too it hath been so will contribute much to the clearing of truth the begetting of doubts in them that yet never doubted but blindly believed the contrary The removing of doubts in them that are already in doubts about it and putting it out of all doubt to them all in the end that all is not so well yet as it ought to be with the very reforming Clergy and that their parochial posture is popish and their constitution ordination administrations baptism and the supper is all disorderly and out of joint to the confirming of the strong that stand fast in the true faith the recovery of the laps't world that hath departed from the faith Gospel Baptism Church order which was once delivered to the Saints and been seduced from Christ by the Scholastical incroachments of the CCClergy and as it may chance in time if the civil powers that have preferred them would come once to favour the truth the convincing â—he SSSeducer it is rare so to mannage one among an unskilful multitude where the auditors take themselves no lesse engaged then their champions and will be ready on all hands too much but an 100 fold more for ought I find among the parochial party then the other disorderly to break the lists which hath made so many able Scholars not in mans onely but in Christs School also almost averse from undertaking it but unless their be sufficient caution against such exorvitatances as jangling with bells to drownd all audience of truth and counter speeches of non-sense rather then nothing to interrupt him that is about to speak the truth and noise of shouting if it were possible to shame the truth and such like geer as I have met with in my daies better be no disputation at all nor preaching of truth among such it being if not a giving of that which is holy to dogs and casting of pearles before swine which will turn again and rent you yet at least impossible any thing should come of it that good is and yet even that shall be no hurt to the Ministers of Christ that are approved in tumults yet cannot help it but blasphemy to the truth stumbling to the weak parishioners that stumble enough already poor souls the Lord help them to see their preachers violently oppose preaching and proving the truth out of the Scriptures a kind of shamefull Glory to the adversaries of the truth the PPPriesthood from some a glorious shame to the undertakers for it There is therefore a better way for the true Pastors of the true Churches and specially the Churches messengers to the world in which to oppose the approach of heresies which the parish Pastors make mickle use of to oppose the truth by under the names of Anabaptism at least in their Respective flocks and that is by preaching To argue substantially against them to convince them soundly is the best in the pulpit if they can freely get in a place wherein one might have hid ones self for a month together or more and sometimes a year from some parish Priests non-resident Parsons divinity Doctors but specially the lazy Lord Bishops not very long since but now to keep out the Anabaptists more frequented by some Priests then else it would be a place which is secured much and yet not alwayes neither when plain truth tellers are in it from those incursions to which disputations are subject It is worth observation that neither Transubstantion nor consubstantion have so much as appeared in these days wherin so many old Heresies as infant sprinkling for one which as a mad bul having its deaths blow on the forehead struggles more then ever are in a sort revived and stickled for and plyed with new and fresh assaults and unheard of arguments for t was pleaded for but as a tradition mostly in times above us as well as new ones broached And the reason is because all Ministers in these parts good and bad true false even the Priests themselves in their Sermons provided for the sacrament have every where oppugned them as having indeed no cleer colour in them of either Scripture common sense or reason as neither hath infant sprinkling if the National Ministers would once wisely consider it The learned Hooker observes that in Poland so
according to the word it is because there is no light in them Isa. 8 19 20. Ask therefore the High Priest Christ Jesus and if you cannot be resolved so speedily as you desire to your satisfaction and content be content to stay till God shall reveal in the mean time while you doubt suspend the practise and do nothing doubtingly but exercise your selves the while in searching the Scripture and prayer to which pretious practise God hath made many pretious promises in his word as namely That they shall be undefiled in the way that seek the Lord with their whole heart Psalm 119.1 2. That if thou wilt turn at his reproof though thou hast been a simple one and hast loved simplicity a scorner that delightest in scorning and jearing at the truth and a fool that hath hated knowledge which all are high degrees of sin yet he will powre out his spirit upon thee which happily hath been thy laughing stock and make known his words unto thee Prov. 1.22.23 that if thou wilt receive his words and hide his commaddements within thee If thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thy heart unto understanding yea if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasure then thou shalt understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God Prov. 2.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Yet be assured of this humble ignorance in many questions debated in these daies by Divines and also in old time before us by learned Schoolmen and Casuists and by the Popish priests that reason about the unreasonable fopperries and refusely scum that arises out of the dead sea of their divinity is more acceptable to God then contentious curiousity yet not such humble ignorance about the ordinances of Christ as our Priesthood would hold men in as if the Law and Oracles of Christ which are all plain to him that understandeth were in things necessary to salvation so difficult and obstruse that poor mechanicks must meddle no more in t then they have leave from them in facili et apecto postta est salus the way of salvation is plain to be found in the book of God he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord for remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the holy spirit but the PPPriesthood hath led men the next way round about to salvation and framed a new Gospel for their followers which Scripture makes no mention of at all but as those Israelites that were led up and down the wildernesse so long God had sworne should not enter into his xest so neither shall those Christians that when the truth lyes plain before them delight rather to trace to and fro in the thicket of traditions received from their after forefathers then in the way of the first fathers of the Church and love more to wander then to walk in the narrow way of truth in the vast forrest wondrous wood and wide wildernesse of the PPPriests inventions 9. Consider sadly in heresie the sin the punishment the sin St. Paul places it among the works of the flesh Murder Idolatry Witchcraft Drunkenness c. and well may for t is onely in favour of the flesh and for some base fleshly ends or other that men depart from the way of truth and not of the spirit for that leadeth those that are resolved to be led by it as it speaks in the Scriptures into all truth as it is in the mind of Christ Jesus Iohn 14. The least heresie cannot be excused the nature of it is to gather as it grows it is to run downhil and that 's the cause why so many follow it and so few the truth for its an uphill a narrow way that leads to life therefore few find it but facilis descensus averni the way to the bottomlesse pit is an easie and broad descent therefore many there be that go in thereat even whole towns Counties Kingdoms yea the whole world 1 Ioh 5.19 Rev. 13.3 a few onely excepted that obey the truth whose names therefore are written in the book of life the heretick that hath begun it cannot stop when he will but when once he ceases to receive and retain God in his knowledge and the love of the truth that he may be saved through some base love of the world and the lucre and lust thereof that he may be pleased profited preferred a 100 to one but he is hardned for ever in blindnesse God also giving him over as well as he himself to deeper and deeper delusion and at last to the love of lies more then truth Ieroboams rent turned into idolatry and the rent of such as run from the primitive doctrine of Christ is come to no less the Rantizer and the Ranter also are both sad examples to us how fearâ—ul a thing it is to run away from the plain path of the word of Christ the one whereof when he ran down once but so far as to take upon him to mend Christs ordinances and teach for doctrine his own traditions never left adding more and more of his own odd constitutions till he sunk ore head and ears in a gulf of golden legends and a lake of lies the other when he had once declined the Scripture and denied all ordinances never left advancing himself into the clouds of his own airy conceits till his waxen wings melted with his soring so neer the sun and so he fell headlong into a sink of sordid sensuality The punishment is either temporal the Donatists of old as some say the Anabaptists as they are commonly cal'd of Germany who if ever they ownd the truth abode not very long in it are examples of Gods Iudgements in that kind spiritual blindnesse of understanding hardnesse of heart seeing and not perceiving hearing and not understanding and last of all eternal the worm that never dies Christ shews all mens labour in their religion is lost by reason of it in vain do they worship me teaching for doctrine the traditions of men the Apostle shuts heaven against it 5. Gal. and twice over denounces cursing to any yea angels from heaven that preach any other then what they preached and I am sure they never preached infant sprinkling yea whoever is an heretick vel dandi vel auferendi sacu in either excesse or defect by adding or taking away from the word God will add the plagues upon him that are written in that book and take away his name out of the book of life Saint Austin saith of Arrius how true that saying is I say not but t is an argument Ad hominem a good item however for every one that is any other way Antichristianus that his paines are increased in hell as oft as any one thorough his heresie is seduced from the faith therefore vae vobis Scribae Sacerdotes
nought but shame belongs to man and pray for those that desire as the conversion of others to it so thy preservation in the truth which oh how hard is it to abide by in these evil times of temptation from the fals Churches the non-chuches which both seek what they can to unchurch the true which thou continuing faithfully in it to the death shall onely lead thee unto everlasting life but if any man will be ignorant let him be ignorant Now as to the Apologetical part I say thus to you O ye Priests you are of all men the generation whose great and general displeasure I expect to fall under and for this present works sake to become your enemy more universally then ever yet because I here tell you the truth but as little hope as I have to be heeded by you in what I say I must tell you and the Lord judge between you and me whether I speak the truth or not I am so far from desiring the temporal much more the eternal destruction of any one of you that as far as t is possible I would prevent both yea if by the publication of all this I seek any thing next to Gods glory more then the salvation as well of your own souls as of such as are seduced and insnared by your spiritual sorceries in wayes of false worship heresie and Schism from the primitive truth will not the Lord at last find me out nay verily I love the persons of you all as well as other mens indeed I love you too well to spare sharpness toward you or in silence suffer you to perish as I verily believe and therefore speak the more plainly to you that by any means I may save some of you without remedy you will do persisting in your wonted obstinacy against the Gospel this being the faith which God hath begotten me to by a serious search and observation of the word and world together the faith which he hath for some years made me to live in and will I trust if he call me to it strengthen me to die in rather then deny one jot of it to please men good or bad friend or foe unlesse it be discovered to me to be a false one I must not be ashamed to professe it for fear of them that kill the body for then wo unto me from him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell and should I be altogether silent as my fearful flesh would fain be least I should prove an intollerable offence to my friends and seem to be as O my God thou knowest how far I am not a self avenger on my foes and expose my self as at no hand I desire to do might it be avoided to the hatred and hard censure of you all the light of this truth would arise many other wayes yea the Lord pleadeth it before you day by day by the tongues and pens of others besides my self but I neverthelesse might be destroyed I had at first illumination and strong impulsions of spirit not perceiving like Samuel who thought it had been Eli that called him and not the Lord whether it were the suggestion of Gods spirit or my own and when at last I understood clearly that t was the Lord himself that told me he would do such a thing to the house of Eli i. e. the Generation of the Priesthood as should cause the eares of all that â—ear it to tingle I feared likewise to shew Eli the vision and was as loath to declare as you OPPPriests are to hear the things concerning you here declared I was ready to say to the Lord send this message by the hand of him by whom thou wilt send but necessity was upon me yea wo unto me my God had been a terrible one to me had I refused it yea I may say as Ieremy Ier. 20.7.9 O Lord thou hast deceived me and art stronger then I and hast prevailed for I said I will not make mention of this nor speak it in thy name but his word was within me as fire in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could not stay he whose face onely I seek that I may not be deceived the light or louring of whose countenance is more to me then the favours or frowns of all faces hath prest me in spirit to tell that on the house tops which he hath told me in the ear in a closet what shall befal me in so doing I know not save that the spirit witnesseth that afflictions do every where abide me and all those that will live godly in Christ Jesus yet none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto me that I may finish my race and the ministry I have received of the Lord Jesus to testifie the Gospel of the grace of God Act. 20.24 if your Ministry Gospel doctrine Baptism be right then ours is wrong and if ever it appear we shall come back to you if ours be right then yours is wrong and must be declared that you may return to the truth I know there are many things you will question not to say quarrel with me about First you 'l ask me why I do not for the peace sake of the Church forbear and keep my opinions in these points to myself rather then publish them so plainly in print as well as by word and penne to the disturbance thereof To which I say if it be the truth I hold and matter of weight withall it wil excuse the promoting of it self if it were to the distraction of the Church which is to be subject to the truth and not the truth to her also to the distruction of the world fiat justitia aut pere at mundus Secondly the matters held forth here by me which are mainly the falsness of your Ministry and baptism are as truth so of such consequence as to be well worth discovering if either Luther did well to declare against the Pope and Clergy of Rome or your selves O Presbyters against Prelates Deans and Chapters c. without regard to the several disturbances that were like to be consecutive thereto yea the true subject and manner of administration of baptism which when it serves your turn so to do you call a circumstantial matter a ceremony for which if you should erre therein none but weak querulous consciences will complain and separate an indifferent thing for which why should we make so much ado aâ—gâ—at not to be streind at and such like is so necessary a matter one of the most necessary points of Religion which those that erre in do most fearfully erre and are totally deserted by the spirit of God these are your own words Thirdly you talk much and t is the language of the Pope to your selves since you rent from his Church of the Church and our holy mother the Church and Ghostly fathers of the Church and good and true tempered sons of the Church and the peace of the
quando intelligitur etiam id cujus est similitudo fit perspicuum et quidem magis quam fine similitudine et ut vera similitudo non intelligitur nisi analogia similitudinis intellegatur ita nec sacramenta nisi Analogia signorum et rerum intellegatur hoc sensu Apologia Augustanae confessionis aliquoties sacramenta vocat picturas x See legh crit sac p. 76.77 where he ore and ore again confesses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—ignifies to dip plunge under water c. primarily and properly p. 76. it signifieth primarily such a kind of washing as is uâ—ed in Bucks where linnen is plunged or dipt Beza neque vero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 significat lavare nisi a coÌ„sequenti nam proprie declarat tingendi causa mergere also p. 77. the native proper signification of it is to dip into water or plunge under water Joh 3.22 23. Mat. 3.16 tanquam ad tingenduÌ„ mergo Causab immergo intingo abluo Bucan mergo et tingo Bullinger proprie significat immergo submergo obruo aquâ Zanchius videtur copiam abundantiam perfectam quandam perfusionem denotare Areâ— a witnes these words received in a late letter from two Gentlemen of Chichester viz. SIR The occasion of these lines is the result of a late conference viz. to desire your grounds arguments in wriing for the continuance of water-baptism what you conceive required to evidence a right administrator and subject thereof Sir our end herein if we know our own hearts is to be assured of the mind of the Lord Christ touching that ordinance and our duty therein that we may walk conformably to his will c. a Acts. 3.22 b Is. 55.4 * for â—o Mark records the commission whereâ— Matâ—thewes meaning is much explaind Mar. 16.15.16 Go ye out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature he that believeth and is baptizd shall be saved c. Argu. 1. d For these I speake to now and not to such as are shy of the use of Christs ordinances on an other account viz. a wretched conceit of such worth and weightinesse in them that no men in the world are now found fit to meddle with them or are admitted by Christ to be administrators of them for both these wayes doth the devil deceive men by to erre from the plain way of Christs truth e 1 Cor. 1.18 Rom. 1.16 f 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cor. 1..1.25 Argu. 2. f Act. 20.27 g Mat. 21.25 h Luk 7.29.30 Argum. 3. g Mat. 5.19 h Luke 16.10 h Rom. 14.2.5 i 1 Cor. 7.27 28. k Act. 8.4 l Act. 8 3â— m Act. 8.12 n Act. 8.14.10 36.18 11. o Act. 9.6 p Act. 22.10 q Act. 10.6 r Act. 10.33.48 s Rom. 6.34 t Gal. 3.26.27 v Act. 12.1 2 3 4. c x Col. â—2 12 r Act. 16.15.22.23 Arg. 4. Arg. 5. * for God whose waies limit us not himself was somtimes better then his word and anticipated the disciples obedience in these things so as to give his spirit beyond even Peters expectation to persons before baptized and prayed for yet did not this disingage them from doing that outward service but the more ingage them to be baptized Act. 10.45.46.47.48 h for its most certain that this was the will of Christ and tendred to all the world as so so to stand in all ages generationâ— of it to the end yea a special part of his testament as well as preaching faith repentance prayer and the rest and that since as well as before the Testators death Mat. 28.18.19.20 Act. 2.39.8.12.16.10.47 48.16.15.33.18 8.19 5.22.16 after which death of the Testator no man ever knew so much as a mans testament altered or disanul'd in one tittle of it without grosse palpable injury to the Testator x Mar. 1.4 y in which juncture of time he spake nothing to his discipâ—es by way of commandement or otherwise but such things as pertained to the Kingdom of God and to his Church and Gospel Act. 1.2.3 * See Mar. 1.1 2 3 4. the beginning of the Gospel of Christ Ioh. did baptize in the wildernesse and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins * in his book called Some glimps of that bright and morning starr a Mat. 24.34 Mar. 13.30 Luk. 21.32 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this generation or age meaning wherein we see the signs of Christs coming will no passe or be ended before all be fulfilled and â— he come b Eph. 3 2. speaking of ages divisim even all the several ages to the very end of time and age it self to the end of all times he saies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to all ages of the world or to all ages of time of times even for ever c which how neer kin it is too to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that signifieth semper i e. alwaies every smarterer in Greek may understand 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * John did no miracle yet what he spake was true nor were any held excused that believed not his baptism to be of heaven but those are said â—e reject the councel of God against themselves that were not baptized of him * as if Christ had administrations in force but had made no provision of administrators whereby they might be at all dispensed * which may serve to the satisfaction of such as think that after the long cessation of tune baptism that hath been in the world there must be an utter omission and no resurrection of it again for ever because none but unbaptized persons to begin it for Iohn himself the greatest administrator of water baptism that ever was eiâ—her was not baptized himself at all or else by â—ome that were never baptized or else by some of those which himself had first baptized which still makes the case the same and evidences that unbaptized persons may possibly be right administrators and that the non baptization of the person that does it nulls not the dispensation of it to believers * As Christ also doth Mar. 16.16 saying he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved for true he that believeth not whether he be baptized or no shall be damned * 1 Pet. 4.11 * for he that hearkneth not to his voice in all things whatever he saith shall be cut off from among his people Act. 3.22 â—3 Major Minor * for no man can of himselfe by name prove expresly that he shall be save the Scripture promising life to neither Peter nor Paul by name save as they were believers but onely by an inference from the Scripture and in the ballance of right reason comparing Scripture with Scripture or by arguing in some such manner out of it viz. he that believeth and is baptized continuing in that his faith and obedience till death shall be saved Mark 16.16 Rom. 2.7 Heb. 10.35.38 but I believe and am baptized and continue in that faith and Gâ—d assisting will never draw back Ergo
baptized â—very one of you in the name of Christ for remission of sins yet they put themselves out of all capacity of preaching and you of practising thus whilest they make you believe you are aforehand in the business of baptism because of something like or rather very unlike it which was dispensed to you in infancy called sprinkling which they have sprinkled into the name of baptism yea have not some of them kept the Lords Supper wholly from you all for as many years together as they have lived among you and the rest kept back many hundreds of you as wicked and unworthy from that ordinance communicating in it with two or three score upon such like pretence of Scripture viz. what communion what part hath light with darknsss Christ with Belial the Temple of God and Idolators believers and infidells for what else can they pretend for if you were all believers and all walking in the light as God is in the light ye might have fellowship one with another therin the blood of Christ his son cleansing you from all sin as to the Supper therfore you are unbelievers yet are you not all or at least the most of you believers when you have children to be sprinkled you are unbelievers when your Minister is in the Pulpit and at the Table but owned all as believers while he stands at the Font or Bason whose persons for want of faith repentance and better behavior they will not admit to the Supper do you not see how you are nosed and gulled and Priest-ridden whilest with them you are ungodly persons and yet godly parents Church-members and belivers at one time and yet neither this nor that at another one while sheep specially at washing and sharing time whose little ones are lambs that must be bosom'd and brought to Christ and baptized as those to whom the Kingdome of heaven and priviledges of it are intailed and belong by right of generation and birth of Christian professors and many such good morrowes another while viz. at next Communion that entail is cut off again you being unbelievers and perhaps to go round again at next child you have to christen its tack on again so that when they are pleased or rather profitted by that title you are the flock of God purchased with his own blood over which the holy Ghost hath made them overseers both to feed and feed on and when they please to improve the power and turn the key of the kingdome upon you they shut in with an hand ful of their own leaven as the true Turtle choise Church spiritual Spâ—use Synagogue of Saints and lock twenty to one of you out from feasting with them as a company of Carâ—ion Crowes of Carnal Christians hateful hangbyes Servants of Satan as a heard of Wolves and Goats and Dogs and Swine Again some of you say Paedobaptism is a tradition of the Church as Dr. Gouge who used such an assertion to Mr. Barber as an Argument to him to take the oath ex officio and therefore belike being like to offend his fellowes if he did he would not at any hand deliver his opinion pro or con in answer to Dr. Chamberlain whether the sprinkling of infants were of God or man also Mr. Daniel Rogers who saith it is as reverend a Tradition of the Church as any but confesses himself unconvinced by any demonstration of Scripture for it others say it is an Apostolicall Tradition and institution of Christ and among these some say there is neither expresse â—or positive command or example for it in the New Testament as Mr. Hunton yet good consequence for all that from the Old to prove it Christs Ordinance yea as good from the New as there is for women to eat the Supper as Mr. Marshall though the best consequence that I â—nd the wisest of you make is to me as far fetcht as Peter had the keyes given to him therefore the Pope may sell pardons for money and save as many souls as he pleases and that 's a ground or conseqence as far shorâ— as an improbabillity yea as an impossibility is to a certainty in respect of that which is for womens fellowship in the supper for there 's as much president and precept too for that as there is for mens it either women may be disciples believers and Church members as t is sure they may and were Act. 1.14.2 41.42.17.12 though infants neither were nor can be till they have learned or if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be of the common gender 1 Cor. 11.28 expressing both sexes and as well the woman as the man as those gentlemen know very well it is that shroud themselves under so thin a shrub from the storm that is now lighting on their garisons as Mr. Calvin once did and Mr. Marâ—hâ—l and others still do others not venturing the cause wherein the whole Clergy is so neerly concerned upon such a ticklish term as that of a tradition of the Church stand to it that there 's both precept and president for it in the Scriptures seeming to yield that if at least there be not one of them we have not warrant to meddle with it and of this sort I have met with many a one I am sure with more then one who when they have in publique disputes bin but put to assign and produce those places where that plain precept and president is contained they send us to such Scriptures where unbiassed men may sooner â—ind the way of a serpent upon a rock then either institution or instance of infant sprinkling viz. for precept to the second commandement Exod. 20. so Dr. Channel at Petworth Ian. 1. 1651. saying that the second commandement enjoines us to observe all the institutions of God and Christ from time to time but not seeing that he was by right to have brought some other scripture first whereby to prove infants baptism to be one of those institutions which was the thing denied and not the other for we grant that all Christs institutions are to bâ— obeyed without putting any man to carry us so far back to the second commandement to convince us of it but we deny still that its one of Christs institutions that infants should be baptized aâ—â— to Mat. 28.19.20 which was assigned to me both by Mr. Reading at Foâ—â—â—ton 1650. and also by Dr. Channel at Petworth out of which I making it appear by argument and by comparison of this with the same passage as recorded in other words Mark 16.15.16 that those who are bid to be baptized there are such as are also commanded first to be taught preacht to c. therefore not infants these two men that might both be worthily renowned for ought I know in respect of their worth otherwise were their parts improved as much for as they are against the truth in this point and were it not their hap to be yet besâ—hâ—old beside the Gospel as t is in truth replied both to one the same
purpose but nothing to their own viz. that when Christ saies go reach and baptize and he that believeth and is baptized in these expressions he speaks of persons at years not of infants for such must be taught first but that hinders not but that infants may be baptized before teaching and this is the very common wind away of you all to all whom as to them then so I say now again if the Scriptures and commands of your own assigning do speak of persons at age onely and there 's no mention at all of children in either of them for in those words Dr. Featley expresses all your minds concerning Mat. 28. Mark 16. when brought by us against infant baptism where are the Scriptures that do mention infants so as to institute their baptism if I should assert this that Christ commanded that infants should eat at his table and being put to assign what Scripture it s commanded in should name 1 Cor. 11.28 and when it s argued against me to the contrary saying that place permits them onely to come that can examine themselves as infants cannot therefore t is no command for infants to come should answer thus viz. there 's no mention at all of children in that text much lesse any prohibition of infants to come when Paul saies let a man examine himself he speaks of persons at years onely but that hinders not why infants may not come without self-examination would you not say I were half out of my wits yet thus do you all almost as well concerning places of your own assigning as those we bring viz. Mat. 28. Mark 16.16 Act. 2. Repent and be baptized Act. 8. if thou believest thou maiest return thus viz. those phrases speak of adult ones and not of infants and so say I of these and every Scripture else that speaks of baptism and I trow where is that place that makes mention of any such thing as the baptism of infants Secondly in president of which you send us to the housholds wherein your selves cannot tell that there was any infant therein at all which is as much as to say and urge ab exemplo thus viz. t is not certain by any one instance thereof that any one infant was baptized in those housholds which are said to be baptized in the primitive times Ergo no doubt but by the same example infants ought to be baptized now Again some of you urge Mat. 28. as the institution of Christ for baptizing men of ripe years at least yea and infants also as Mr. Marshall some of you again deny this saying that Mat. 28. is not an exact platform of Christs commission concerning the matter or subject of the administration of baptism as Dr. Holms p. 7. both which men direct their different doctrines to Mr. Tombes in order to his direction but how shall that man be resolved which shall he cleave to whose words shall he take the Doctors or the Divines Again some of you say that semen carnis a fleshly seed is intituled to the promise for even this seed with you is semen fidei some of you say semen sidei the spiritual seed onely i. e. as many as are of the faith and so faith the Scripture are blessed with faithfull Abraham but then semen fidei with you is no other but semen carnis the fleshly seed and that of such too as are Abrahams seed not after the flesh nor after the faith neither thus you wander in a wood and trace too and fro in a thicket moap up and down in a myst are rapt up in a cloud of confusion contradiction and unanswerablenesse about the proof of a popish practise dancing round and crossing the way one of another ever and anon and yet ken it not nor consider how all mens eyes that are but half open are half amazed at your shufles Again some of you pin your practise upon the score of the infants faith and of these again there are several subdivisions for some ground it on seminall faith onely i. e. the habit or on infants having faith denying utterly their capacity to act it i. e. to believe as Mr. Willcock and many more Some again deny that they do build it upon seminall faith but say they go upon more certain grounds as Mr. Blake p. 24. to Mr. Blackwood who saith of faith in the root or of this semniall faith this faith is not our ground for infants baptism being undiscernable Some again upon their acting faith which they assert infants capable to do though against their wills as well as to have it as to the clear contradiction of themselves Mr. Willcock and many more do whilst they with him and he with them speak of children in this phrase viz. that they do believe and thus they speak whilest they interpret that clause Mat. 18.6 i. e. these little ones which believe in me of little ones litterally taken for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere i. e. to believe expresses not the habit onely but the act of faith as to know to read to teach to love to learn do sound out non munus non actum primum onely but actum secundum also Some of you again put that practise upon score of the parents faith not the childs and of these which are also subdivided some the faith of the next parents onely as Dr Holmes who in his to Mr. Tombes p. 216.217 saith thus the children are not to be baptized whilst the next parents are unbelievers i. e. though the grand parents be believers and Mr. Cotton also who p. 87. of his book stiled the way of the Churches of New England saith thus God never allowed his Church any warrant to receive into Covenant the children of godly parents who lived a thousand years ago nay rather the text is plain that the holynesse of the children dâ—pendeth upon the faith of the next immediate parents or one of them at least as if the seed of parents were not their seed at two or three generations off others the faith of the remote parents as Mr. Rutherford Pres. p. 164 where he saith all infants born in the visible Church what ere the wickednesse of the neerest parents is are to be received into the Church by baptism yea p. 173 Joshua had commandement of God to give the seal of the Covenant to their children who were as openly wicked against the Lord as murderers drunkerds swearers c. also Mr. Marshall and Mr. Baily who commends Mr. Cottons learâ—ed maintenance of infants sprinkling in p. 132 and yet contradicts him in this thing no further off then p. 134. saying although the parents are wicked meaning the immediate parents yet the Lords interest is in the children i. e not of the 3 â— and 4 th but of the 1000 th generation and by this shift the Ishmaâ—â—â—ts the Edomites the Turks are of Abraham though not of Isaac and so Gods by birth yea we and the whole world are of Noah though not of Abraham and
a number of ignorant Mass Priests Monks and Friats who blind guids as they were of the blinder people fell with them into the ditch of Superstition Heresie and Sensuallity and say I the English Antichrist i. e. the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a chip of the old block that was an Apprentice at Rome in old'n time till he set up for himself here and became indeed what the old Caiaphas Pope Urbane the second prophesied of him in a complement about 1099 little thinking then God wot that he would serve him such a trick as to set up his posts against his posts and take away his custome and trading here in England Papatus alterius Orbis this English Antichrist I say hath multiplyed many teachers and feeders that are far better â—ed then taught in matters of either God or man and as few Scholars as are among the true Churches if there were none the truth would stand without them and God delights in no mans legs but if there were need of that to the making ministers of the Gospel there is proportionably fewer among your churches considering how little Christs flocks is and how voluminous the fold of the WWWhore and how few truly are so that go under that name among the people with whom hand tam cultus quam cucullus facit monachum for though you talk of secular learning yet if that were so necessary to a Minister as the Ministry say it is it would not onely cut off Peter and Iohn from that denomination who were though better gifted yet lesse learned in that sense then the least of you but most of you CCClergy also among whom throughout your whole dominion of Christndome there 's few Country Curates are well studied Scholars indeed in Logick and other arts and sciences and as for the tongues and original languages of the Scriture I speak it to the shame of the Ministry who unminister themselves in saying it is so necessary there is scarce five of 20. know the originall in the old Testament and not twenty to 5 so well as you should do in the new and as for the onely true learning and original of all wisdom the fear of God growth in grace and the knowledge of Christ and misteries of his kingdom and the spirit that Christ promised to his people to teach them all things which it were better for you by all your learning that you had more of unlearned Peter himself may truly tearm the most of you such unlearned ones as wrest the Scripture to your own destruction Act. 4.13 2 Pet. 3.16 yea so ungifted are the most of you so much as to pray and then well may you be to preach and that is to be unlearned as to the ministers office that unlettered or at least unspirited Artificers may be the proper name of some Clergy men as well as of the teaching tradesmen Dr. Featly speaks of for these receive the holy spirit that gifts them to it but not many of the Clergy are gifted to pray extempore without book if I onely said this you would not believe me but sith your great Patron Dr. Featly to whom you send us is my Patron as to this you must believe it whether you will or no unlesse you would have us believe him whom you will not believe yovr selves who gives this good reason p. 95. why its necessary to have set formes for the Ministers of the church of England to pray by if they pray at all in publique for there is not one Minister saith he or Curate of an 100 specially in Country Villages or Parochial churches who hath any tolerable gift of conceived as they term them or extempore prayers which if so you have smal reason to cry out of others as illiterate yea verily your selves will appear to be as the Anabaptists are stil'd by you an illiterate and Sottish generation in things principally pertaining to Christ and to Ministers of Christ to be skil'd in for that indeed is to be truly learn'd or unlearn'd in quoquo genere viz. to be raw or ready either in that which men supremely pretend to excell in as the Divine doth to excell other men in the things of God or else in that which is most excellent in it self and most worthy ouâ— being learn'd in as the highest and most excellent objects that are knowable being Christ and the mysteries of his kingdome those consequently are the best Scholars in the world that are most deeply insighted thereinto though elsewise never so ignorant Si Christum nescis nihil est si caetera noscis Si Christum noscis nihil est si caetera nescis Now count which of these two waies you will the greatest Clerks will appear to be the greatest Novices the greatest Doctors the greatest Dunces the greatest Schoolmen the least Schollars the prime of the Priesthood the prime Ignoramus's that the Christian earth doth carry for howbeit O yee PPPrists some of you for the most of you will never be mad with much learning even surfeit on inferiour literature viz. arts tongues c. and are taller then other men by the head in the reading of History Oratory pieces of pibald Poetry and such like yet as to the misterious plain Gospel wherein are hid and whence are handed out unto us the treasures of eternity in earthen vessels i. e. the homely base foolish weak wayes and dispensations which are of Christs chusing which it concerns Christs Ministers of all men to be more clear in then in any thing else they are low and therefore too high and wonderful for you high studied men to reach to they are far about out of your sight Yea I thank thee O father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hidest these things because seeing they will not see them from the wise and prudent and revealest them unto babes yea O Lord how great is the multitude of meer Humanists that feed onely upon the common Theory of that Theology they have framed to themselves and relish nothing but what is of man how are thy depths even thy downright deliveries of soul saving truth in plainess of speech by the mouths of stammerers stark duncery to them how will not a poor marred mocked misreputed Saviour and gospel in any wise down with them who did of old and who do still stand out most stiffly against thy gospel O Christ but the proud self conceited Pharisees Priests and Lawyers who while the people believe and justifie God being baptized with the true baptism do generally reject the councel of God against themselves being not baptized therewith where had thy message by the mouth of Paul lesse acceptance then at the university of Athens where hath the word now lesse then in the Academies Christian Academies seemingly reforming Academies where if thou didst not tell us that Christ crucified should be foolishnesse to the wise men after the flesh and disputers of this world who could believe that the Princes of Zoan should be such fools
such idiots as they are in the matters of thy Kingdom where doth thy truth meet with more difficult entrance more course entertainment more malitious accusatious more captious questions secret underminings open oppositions then among the CCChristian Ministry which therefore is not thine but Antichristian because it is both for thee and against thee yea who so blind as those that seem to themselves to be the onely Seers both for themselves and others ever seeking to thee for thy spirit yet ever resisting thy holy spirit speaking to them out of the mouths of babes as a very babler ever teaching yet never learning which be the first principles of thy doctrine ever serving thee yet ever thinking they do thee service when they affront thy servants O Lord let as many of them as do it ignorantly obtain thy mercy if it be thy will and let thy truth shine into their souls that they may be saved as for such as are more malevolently disposed if it may not be otherwise but that the main body of the CCClergy shall evermore be adversaries to thee and thy Clergy Amen sobeit And now have shewed the Reasons why God suffers Hereticks and hath suffered the Arch-heretick and Schismatick and mother of Abominations of all Christndom i. e. the CCClergy that have been Wolves rather then Pastors to Christs sheep the last of which reasons was this to provoke the true Pastors to diligence and watchfulnesse to prove them whether they be hirelings or not such as will flee when the wolf comes or lay down their lives for the sheep and having discovered whom I mean by Pastors viz. not the Priests but those of the truly gathered and constituted churches that have separated themselves from the Priest and his parish popish posture I proceed yet a little further For This last Reason administers the matter of this ensuing discourse concerning the wayes how Pastors of right constituted Churches such as those of the Baptists onely are should oppose or rather should have opposed the coming in of these wolves the CCClergy for the Pastors of old through their negligence did suffer them to come in and drive them out being entered What the Magistrates duty is in this case it presumes not to set down here partly because the Magistrates duty is discovered and discourst on above and partly because it presumes the Magistrate will be wise enough in this age to know what he is to do towards the freeing of himself from that infinit care and cumber that hath crusht him in former dayes by the CCClergies constant clacking to him to correct Hereticks Schismaticks and Sectaries and crying out to him to lend them his helping hand and the edge of his civil sword about Church-work yea and if God who did once put it into the hearts of the Kingdomes of the earth to fulfill his will and to agree and with one mind to give their power strength and Kingdom unto the beast and to serve the whore that rode them Rev. 17.13.17 and as ten horns to toss the Saints at her will will now put it into the minds of these ten horns even all the Kingdoms of Christndom to hate the whore and make her desolate and naked and eat her flesh and strip her of all her tith and spiritual glory revenue dignity and burn her with fire and in their rage to ruin great BBBabilon the City that in three PPParts or PPProud PPPriesthoods hath reigned over them as I believe he will Rev. 16.19 17.16.18 throughout as I can neither much help or hinder it so I find no warrant to cry Alas Alas for it as the Kings and Merchants that come down with her shall do but rather Allelujah with all the people Rev. 18.9.11.16.19.1.2.3 c. There are two publique wayes for private are suffering fastings and prayers and teares c. matters wherewith the CCClergy for the most part of them never yet kild themselves nor approved themselves yet as the Ministers of Christ by as his true Ministers did of old which have been practised by Pastors in those primitive dayes viz. Disputing Preaching concerning both which this discourse intends onely a short survey leaving the proceedings in them to their judgements whom God hath made faithful Disputation say our Ashford Disputants hath ever been decried by most iudicious and grave men Tertullian is bitter say they against it Perdes in contentione vocem nihil consequeris nisi vilem de blasphematione landem and I say so too a man may very easily wrangle ad ravim dispute himself hoarse and lose his tongue in contention and get nothing but a base repute of blasphemation specially when as t was at Ashford and somewhere else within a mile of an oak the contention is so sharp that there 's not onely six tongues to one or two talking for it tuning altogether against the truth but six bells balling out also to bear it down with And another magni res est periculi veterem fidem quasi novellam otiosa disputatione discutere and so indeed it is a matter of great disadvantage idlely to dispute the old faith as if it were some new one whereupon that truth may receive detriment by us in nothing henceforward we do all men to wit that howbeit the CCClergy and their creatures claim antiquity to be on their sides still both in the point of baptism and other differences between them and the men call'd Anabaptists and delude their people into a blind misbelief that all that truth which now comes to light is to be taken for granted to be heresie before hand new faith new wayes a new Gospel and this they do more easily and effectually by how much t is true that the fog of their errors hath been so thick that men can find but little of that which now shines forth in the dayes of our more immediate forefathers though there were many righteous men no question then disiring to see and hear what we now do and could not howbeit I say they have prepostest people thus yet in order to the dispossessing of them of that praejudication by reason whereof the primitive truth which however God winktwhile it was a time of ignorance must now it comes to light again be received in the love therof that they may be saved and in the rejection of which they will be damned 2 Thes. 2. gets little entertainment into their hearts I here proclaim it again to all people upon earth as that truth which as I have shewed above God will shew the Clergy once to their shame that the baptizing or dipping believing men and women in that way wherein we do it is no new faith practise nor baptism but that one only true baptism which was instituted by Christ and used in the primitive times of the Gospel and that their sprinkling infants is a meer trifle a toy a new trick and tradition of the church in its beginning to degenerate into darknesse and superstition and also that t is