of your House-hold Gods With Sacred Corn and savory Salt by oddes Yea and every Schoole-boy knowes that Distich of old Cato Si Deus est animus nobis ut carmina dicunt Hic tibi praecipuè sit pura mente colendus If God as Poems say a Spirit be Then with pure mind let him be serv'd of thee And as the Roman Orator also said Non in Ambrosia Deus c. I doe not think saith he that God is delighted with Ambrosia or Nectar or such like sensuall delights in his Service Tuscul. Quaest. lib. 1. Thus you see how those Heathen even by the glimmering light of nature had a better opinion of God then our modern Prelates have or at least then our present Oracle of Canterbury hath shewed himselfe to have for how neere came they to that truth uttered by Christ God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth c. And if you propound the Jewes for example of State in the service of God first God commanded it and the magnificence of it was a Type of Christ and of his Spirituall Temples all glorious within Those Types are all vanished the truth being come And to revive that Service and those Types or to set up an Image of them you doe with the Jewes deny Christ to be come And for this Ierome shall answere you Si placeat aurum placeat et Iudaei If gold please you so well in the service of God let the Jewes also and Judaisme please you And the Poet Dicite Pontifices in Templo quid facit aurum Tell us you Pontificiall Priests what makes gold in the Temple And tell me whether was Adam and Eve more beautifull in Gods eyes and their own too having no other cloathing or ornaments upon them but their naked Innocencie then in their new devised fashion of Fig-leave-Aprons Although they now seemed gay with their borrowed leaves as the Crow with his borrowed feathers And surely this may be a very fit patterne to Sample your Church by For yours and Romes Church having lost their Primitive and Originall beauty of Innocencie Simplicity and Purity of Christs Spouse as the Love of God Saving Faith Soundnesse of Doctrine Sanctity of Conversation and Purity of his Worship which you have by so many of your Superstitions so miserably corrupted think you now to please GOD with a curious painted Service which serves to no other purpose then to please your owne fancie and other mens carnall senses Is not this a GREAT WITNES to the World of your notorious blindnesse and most grosse and palpable ignorance of the very nature of the Godhead who Is a Spirit and therefore will be worshiped in Spirit and truth And they who thus worship him in Spirit and Truth are the true Worshipers as the same Scripture Speakes and GOD seeketh such to worship him as is noted before So as that Inscription which the Apostle found upon that Altar in Athens Agnósto Theo To the unknowne God may it not be written as well upon your whole service which you dedicate to the unknowne God which being patched up like a Fooles gay Coate of so many diverse coloured shreddes wherein your service being dressed up you think it is wondrous pleasing to God doth not all this bewray that you doe all this service to a God whom you know not as whom your fancie frameth to be some carnall Man whose senses are delighted with such service as his Eares with Organs his Eyes with goodly Images curious wrought Copes rich Palls faire guilded Plate his Smell with sweet Incense his Majesty with siting upon your Stately High Altar as upon his Throne and to keep his Residence in your goodly Cathedrall as in his Royall Court May not then that which the Apostle thereupon Preached to the Athenian Philosophers be hereupon applyed to the Romish Rabbies and blind Prelates of Rome and of the Church of England Ye men of the Church of England I perceive that in all things ye are too Superstitious For as I passed by and beheld your Devotions marke your Devotions I found an Altar for blind Devotion cannot be without an Altar with this Inscription To the unknown God whom therefore ye ignorantly worship him declare I unto you God that made the world and all things therein seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth dwelleth not in Temples made with hands neither is worshiped with mens hands as though he needed any thing c. Forasmuch then as we are the Offspring of GOD we ought not to thinke that the Godhead is like unto Gold or Silver or Stone graven by art and mans devise And the times of this Ignorance GOD winked at but now commandeth all men every where to Repent Because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in Righteousnesse c. Now what say you to this all you blind Ceremony-Mongers Are you growne so stupid as not to be sensible how this toucheth you as much yea and much more then those Athenians What Are you so blind and senselesse as for all this to dreame that GOD accepts your ga◠Puppet-play as a Service of Piety done to him Nay GOD tooke so little delight in those Sacrifices and Rites which himselfe ordained in the Law and much lesse when the people rested in the outward performance and observance of them that he Saith Who required these things at your hands to tread in my Courts c. So also Psal. 50.8 I will not reprove thee for thy Sacrifices to have been continually before me I will take no bullocke out of thy house c. No Who so offereth me thanks and praise honoureth me and to him that ordereth his Conversation aright will I shew the Salvation of God Now consider this ye that forget God least I teare you in pieces and there be none to deliver Yea the consideration hereof brought Christ down from the bosome of his Father to offer up his body as the onely acceptable and All sufficient Sacrifice to put an end to all carnall rites and services If then Gods own Ordinances in the Law did not please him but that he must send his Sonne in the flesh to fullfill all things then what hope can you have that your vaine Superstitious devises should please GOD or that he should otherwise be affected with them but thereby to be provoked to send his Sonne the Second time in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God even all blind worshipers but much more willfully blind such as obey not the Gospel of our Lord Iesus Christ c. Then shall all your Sumptuous Ceremonies and Solemne Service be discovered and the rotten inside of your hypocriticall formalities be turned out to the view of all the world Like to Cardinall Campeius his Sumpter which with a justle in Cheape-side the girts bursting downe it falls and out fly the old Boots and Shooes and
A REPLIE TO A RELATION OF THE CONFERENCE BETWEEN WILLIAM LAUDE and Mr. FISHER the Jesuite By a Witnesse of JESUS CHRIST JOB 38.2 Who is this that darkeneth Councell by words without knowledge 1 KINGS 18.21 How long halt you between two opinions If the LORD be GOD follow him but if Baal then follow him CANT 2.15 Take us the Foxes the little Foxes that spoyle the Vines for our Vines have tender Grapes IMPRINTED Anno MDCXL A SAD AND SERIOVS CONSULTATION OF A DISCONSOLAE MOTHER CHRISTS VIRGIN-Spouse with twelve of her Children about her whose names are Faith Hope Charity Zeale Humility Prudence Piety Patience Iustice Mercy Verity Prayer whose severall judgements the Mother requireth in a doubtfull case MOTHER MY Deare Children how doth the very sight of you revive my dolefull spirits almost drowned in the Dragons flood You are to me as that twelve-starred Crowne upon my head But to the purpose for which I have called you together though indeed you are never asunder nor absent from me and it is this You have taken notice of a notorious Booke lately published by the Prime Prelate of England which he calls a Relation of a Conference c. And how to that Relation a Sonne of mine no lesse known to you all then assisted by you in the worke hath made here a Reply and presented it to me But now how to improve and dispose of it for the best is the doubt The Relator the Prelate ingageth the King in it by two bonds the one of Patronage the other of Command as if the King had first commanded it to be published and now did give it Patronage and protection which if true it puts me in a straight what to doe with this Reply For who so fit to take notice of it yea and to give it Protection too if both the matter and the consequence of it being of so high a nature be well and wisely weighed It hath much perplexed me Now therefore give me your best advice And first Faith what sayst thou Faith Deare Mother put away from you all such perplexed thoughts 'T is true If we looke on worldly meanes with a carnall eye we are all in a straight But this is our safety 'T is well the world hath never an object to allure our confidence to pitch upon it And best of all when all the world is banded against us and our Christ. Is not he alone sufficient to cope with them Doth he not laugh at their proud but vaine attempts which are no lesse against him then against us Is not the Cause then his And are not we his And is not he for us Who then shall be against us What though Principalities and Powers and Spirituall wickednesses in high places be with all the power and pollicie of the world with all the craft and cruelty of the Dragon and Devill armed against us why still Christ is for us That 's sufficient Therefore there be moe with us then against us We are a little flock against a world of Wolves and Foxes Lyons and Beares but we have a watchfull and powerfull Shepheard whose Legions of mighty Angels those heavenly Hosts doe pitch their tents round about us We are his Paradise on earth which he defends continually with his Cherubims flaming sword that proud Apostates cannot so invade us as to take one Tree of life from us Let the wild Beasts then rage and warre upon us let the Aegyptian troopes pursue us as with open mouth to devuore us but stand we still and see the salvation of the LORD He that led his people through the Sea never wants power to deliver his when in most desperate straights Mother Cheare up Not a haire of your head shall perish The faithfull and True hath said it As for outward meanes if we have them we use them as Gods ordinances if we have them not nay if all be against us yet our Faith in GOD is the same and ever greater stronger and nobler without and against meanes then with them And much more is our GOD the same and his glory most shineth where outward meanes are either least helpfull or most opposite My resolution then is this The Reply in my judgement is very necessary to be published and withall as most pertinent and important to be presented to the King But whether he will read it or no leave that to GOD. We shall neither loose our labour nor reward For great is the Truth and shall prevaile what ever opposition Men or Devils make against it And in this Reply the true Faith is defended against the Prelates false and counterfeit Faith I have said Mother Well Hope what sayst thou Hope Deare Mother I am of the same mind and spirit with my Sister Faith By all meanes cast away all anxious and perplexed thoughts and be of good comfort though our Shippe be shrewdly weather-beaten and shaken yet Christ is at the sterne And I have already cast Anchor in the Havens mouth on a firme ground within the Veile When Noahs Arke floated over the toppes of the highest Mountaines in that dreadfull Deluge when the world was a Sea what Pilot safely guided and steered its course that it should rest upon the Mount Ararat Even the same Pilot we have to conduct us through these Floods to the Haven where we would be Let the Reply for truth against falsehood be published under Christs Patronage and protection that 's sufficient As for Men the lesse we hope in them the lesse we feare them And while we doe our duty with the one hand we lay hold on the Crowne with the other I have sayd Mother Charity what sayst thou Charity Deare Mother as my Sister Hope is the Anchor both sure and stedfast So I am the three-fold Cable not easily broken and therefore be of good comfort For Love not all the floods can drowne it Now for the Relation were those many passages in it noted by the Replyer some common slips of ignorance or humane frailty I would cast my large mantle over them but being of a high nature and full of impiety against GOD and CHRITT and the Holy Ghost and the holy Scriptures and against your holy Spouse-ship and against Faith and against Charity and so against all true Religion yea proceeding also from a Prime Prelate pretending great learning and knowledge and professing such singular eminencie and dexterity of wit and judgement as being the onely able Champion of the Church of England to defend the truth against a Jesuite and all this under the faire white veile of hypocrisie onely his Black-moores skin too grosly appearing in his malignant practises in persecuting the Truth and in those malicious and impious passages in his Booke so as he is left altogether naked of all plea of ignorance therefore I hold it fit that his hypocrisie should be unmasqued his bold falcities confuted his insollencie suppressed his impiety rebuked and the Truth maintained against him
Incendiary For behold Lord what havock is made in the Land What superstitions in will-worship what oppression of the Gospell what persecution of thy Ministers what effusion of their innocent blood What dispersion of their poore families What prophanation of thy holy Sabbaths What erection and adoration of Antichristian Altars and Images What suspension of the doctrines of Grace and Salvation What usurped Tyrannicall Domination over thy Ministers and People What imposition of the intollerable yoake of Ceremonies upon their necks bringing them againe under Antichristian bondage whom Christ by the shedding of his precious blood hath made free And what urging and pressing with furious rage reaching up to heaven the observation of all humane Ordinances while yea and whereby thy divine Ordinances are cast out And what wilt thou now doe to thy great Name Thou hast of late by terrible signes from heaven as it were by sound of Trumpet summoned the whole Land threatning to destroy it Surely the provocations are great were not thy Patience greater But thou expectest Repentance with Reformation of all these abominations But little appearance as yet and as little hope while such Books as this are Patronized and Authorized What then Lord Wilt thou therfore proceed to judge the whole Land for these things Surely the whole Land is defiled and so the cause were just But yet remember Lord that thou hast a remnant yet left therein that have not bowed the knee to Baal And consider withall that they are a Faction principally of some few persons as the Prelates that have caused such confusions in the Land And wilt thou destroy the righteous with the wicked farre be that from thee Shall not the Iudge of all the world doe right And even now do not thy People lift up strong cryes unto thee against their Aegyptian Taskemasters and Babylonian Lords And behold Lord what a desperate Leader this Faction hath got even as Iudas was to the Rowt the Primate and Metropolitan of all England those Antichristian Titles he so much vaunteth of who because he walkes in Factious and lawlesse by-wayes therefore hath this Fox for his better defence gotten upon him the Lyons skin pretending the King for the Author and Patron of all his practises Now the Foundations being thus cast down what can the Righteous doe But thou art in the holy Temple Thy Throne is in heaven wherein and whence thou swayest all Scepters here below Thou art the King of Kings and in whose band the Kings heart is as the rivers of waters turning it which way it pleaseth thee And thou hast of late mercifully turned his heart to grant to his Scottish People their ancient Christian liberty both by freeing them from Ceremonies and from the High Commissions thereby cutting shorter at least the Hornes of the Beast in the exercise of Prelaticall Tyranny Now ô Lord be pleased to perfect this thy worke both in Scotland and England and throughout all Christendome by causing the Kings of the Earth that formerly were as hornes to the Beast and had given their power unto him to hate the Whore and strippe her naked and that by throwing down the Hierarchy the maine Pillar of the Antichristian Throne which is advanced above and against the glorious Kingdome and Throne of our Lord Iesus Christ. And for this cause ô Lord open the Kings eyes clearely to see the notorious hypocrisie of his Prelate who under a Colour of Peace and Truth goes about to overthrow all true Peace and Truth in his Kingdome Let him see ô Lord how dangerous it is to maintaine or countenance an Antichristian Faction within his Kingdome Let him see how naked his Kingdome lyes at this time exposed to all the stormes of heaven through so many crying Sins and desperate iniquities which the whole Land groaneth under ready to sinke to the bottome of hell Let him see and be rowsed up to a more watchfull Care and diligent attention upon the grave and waighty affaires of a King and especially not to commit the Care of Religion to Romish Prelates which are no members of the true Church of Iesus Christ. And withall ô Lord quicken the Kings heart with a Coale from thine Altar even with the zeale of the Spirit of Iesus Christ to enter into a present strict examination of the State of Religion as it now stands in his Kingdome And because thou hast in mercy stirred up and strengthened a Servant of thine to discover to the King not onely the great dishonour his Name sustaineth but the great danger his Kingdome incurreth while such intollerable things are suffered as thy Servant hath in his Reply laid open Now ô Lord let it be thy pleasure to bring this worke to a full perfection by the publishing of it that so both the King and his People by taking knowledge thereof may come to see what a miserable condition they are brought into by one blinde guide and bold Prelate And let thy Spirit ô Lord awaken and quicken the minds of the Lords and Nobles of the King and State to consider what a base vassalage all those are brought under who suffer themselves to be made slaves to serve the lawlesse lusts of one domineering Primate and at length wisely to foresee the mischiefes which the Altering of Religion to the worse and reducing all back againe to Rome may and will certainly bring upon the Land and upon themselves too if not the more speedily prevented by a sound and serious thorow Reformation Make the great ones of the world ô Lord sensible that there is a judgement to come and that there is a terrible GOD above them that shall call them to a strict reckoning for all those ungodly practises wherein themselves have either been Agents or Instruments either Principalls or Accessories as in oppressing thy Word and Truth in persecuting thy faithfull Ministers and the like And Lord stirre up all thy people to fervent and continuall Prayer and strengthen them therein to persevere and watch untill an Answer come forth from thy Throne to all their Petitions and Supplications which from day to day they have and do and shall present unto thee Oh let not our God be angry with his people that pray unto him with unfained hearts and lips nor let their enemies Say Where is now their GOD But Lord stirre up thy strength and come and helpe us Put the wicked in feare O Lord that they may know themselves to be but men And shew some token upon thy servants for good that they which hate us may see it and be ashamed because thou Lord hast holpen us and comforted us And let the Atheisticall Scornfull world see that it is not in vain to serve God and to call upon him and to wait for him And now Lord avenge the Cause of Iesus Christ against Antichrist and break down Antichrists throne and exalt Christs Throne that himselfe alone may sit and rule and raigne over his People and the show◠of that King may
worship of GOD besides the prescript and precise Rule of Gods written word that able and godly Ministers duely chosen by Gods people and Congregation be set over every Congregation to preach Gods word diligently to the people and that the well deserving be cherished incouraged countenanced and protected from oppression but the Droanes cast out of the Hive This is all the King need to be carefull of about the Hive of Christ. For then as for Doctrine and Manners Gods word in the due administration thereof will sufficiently direct informe instruct and teach both what to beleeve and how to live and worship God and honour the King But for the Priest you speake of to intermeddle Procul ô hands off Here 's no roome for him he may get him to Rome to his Sacrifice This Priest as is already touched hath no calling of GOD at all and therefore not bound to any such thing much lesse ought he to yoake himself with Kings that he may prescribe what Doctrines and Manners do best please his own corrupt and blind fancie And as for you my Lord if you be that Priest as 't is most likely what kind of doctrine we might look for at your hand your Book here will sufficiently inform us as we shall see throughout and as partly we have seen by your acts edicts declarations and practises And for Manners I pray you what Manners will your Priest teach us Namely how to make a legge or a courtesie at our coming within the Church with the posture of our face towards your Altar devoutly and lowly to bow passing by or approaching your Altar devoutly to pray with the face east-wards towards your Altar to make a low legge or crindge when the name Iesus is named to doffe the bonnet with some other courtesie before an Image Crosse or Crucifix to receive the Communion kneeling before your Altar and many such like as will fit time and place Yet whether these be your Manners or Doctrines you can best resolve us And if you meane Morall Manners in life and conversation can your Priest teach them Can he that ruffles up and downe the Court in his Silkes and Sattens teach men humility Can he that ambitiously aspires to honours and riches in the world teach men contempt of the world and contentednesse with a meane estate Can he that flatters and dissembles and playes the Hypocrite teach men Sincerity and Truth Can he that is an Accuser of the Brethren teach men Charity Can he that is a cruell persecuter of Gods servants and children teach men to be mercifull Can he that oppresseth the innocent in their cause and takes away the righteousnesse of the righteous from him teach men to doe justice Can he that hates the very name of holinesse and the practise and profession thereof in a strict life as GOD commandeth teach men to be holy Can he that labours all he can to put out the light and to put down Candlesticks that hold it forth to set up his blind Priesthood teach men to walke as Children of the light Can he that stops Ministers mouthes for preaching the truth teach how Ministers ought to preach Can he that hates holy Wedlocke and violently Separates Man and Wife without Cause teach Man and Wife their mutuall duties to each other Can he teach Chastity who thus exposeth marryed Couples to Satans temptations to incontinencie Or in a word is he fit to look to the Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners whose both judgement and affections in both are altogether corrupted Away therefore with your Priest from the King least that come to passe indeed which here you say as it were to prepare the way that the Priest undertaking to qualifie the Church with a new kind of integrity as he hath already done in a good measure in Doctrine and Manners he bring to utter ruine both Church and Kingdome Lastly before I leave your Comparison of the Bee-hive I cannot but note two plâ—ces of Scripture which you make as you use to doe when you apply any Scripture which is not a Shooe will fit your foot very bold with For the first you say The Kings case as King Davids is to be stung with the Bees For this you quote in the Margent Psal. 118.12 And you apply it to the King saying God grant it be never yours Why was David stung by the true Church and Children of GOD which you compare to a Hive of Bees You are much mistaken David there speakes not onely in his owne Person but as a Type ingenerall of Gods Church and in particular of Christ. First as in his owne Person who were those Bees that stung him or buzzed about his eares Were they any of Gods Children Was it not especially Saul who continually persecuted him and sought his life to have stung him to death Wherein was he not rather the Master-Wasp or the Master-Hornet that with his Swarms of Wasps and Hornets armed troopes pursued after Davids life and sometime inclosed him like a Swarme of Bees And for this very Cause did not David complaine to the Lord of Sauls cruelty setting forth his wickednesse under the name of Heathen For when Saul sent and they watcht the house to kill him coming about him like Bees David thereupon flyes to GOD in prayer to deliver him from the workers of iniquity and to save him from bloody men Thou therefore O Lord God of Hosts the God of Israel awake to visit all the Heathen be not mercifull to any wicked Transgressors And vers 8. But thou O Lord shalt laugh at them thou shalt have all the Heathen in derision Now by Heathen here is plainly meant Saul and his wicked Servants and Officers and that for their heathenish cruelty seeking to murther innocent David With such Bees therefore was he compassed about That 's for his Person Secondly David in that Psalme 118. represents the Church of God that Bee hive you Spake of whose Bees are often smoaked out of their Hive or smothered in the Hive and their honey devoured by the wild Boares of the Forrest the Common Bee-hunters a right Embleme of the cruell persecuters of Gods Children and Church who are here in the world as Sheep in the midst of Wolves One fresh bleeding-new example I could give you of one Member of this Church one Bee of this Hive whom you sent your Officers with Swords and Weapons beseting his house to take him as you did and though not to kill him presently yet with intent that in case He did live His life should be worse then any death So as hath not such a one reason to hold himselfe one of that Church which David in his Psalmes prefigured as touching the afflicted estate therof in this world But enough of this Instance before Thirdly in that Psalme and that passage by you quoted and so foulely misapplyed David speakes Typically and Prophetically of Christ and
for this GREAT WITNESSE which here you bring in arayed in Capitall Letters to wit your externall will-worship in many devised Ceremonies of seeming Humility Devotion and Piety the world could not come to know what Religion is in your heart towards God in that internall part of his worship which you Speak of But now through the cleare perspective of your bright shining Devotion without we can discerne what Devotion is within Herby we come to know all that spirit of Infidelity and Apostacie and consequenty of Atheisme and Irreligion which is in your heart Do you set up Altars and adore them and set up Priests to serve at them to which you must needs adde a Sacrifice sutable some materiall and corporall thing Hereby we come to know how in your heart you deny Iesus Christ to be the onely Altar Priest and Sacrifice as is shewed before And were it not for your lowly bowing at the bare nameing of the Name Iesus you should want witnesse to testifie to the world that deep hypocrisie in your heart while in bowing to Iesus you persecute the Lord Iesus Christ in his Word in his Ministers in his Members So as your externall ceremoniall worship is the GREAT WITNESSE to the world that there is in you an Antichristian heart a Popish heart a Superstitious heart an Idolatrous heart an Evill heart of unbelife in departing away from the living God How then with what inward testimony of your Conscience with what evidence of truth can you say that your heart stands right in the Internall worship of God when the externall is so crooked and bowed together with so many lowly duckings and crindgins so as your Head and Feet doe even meet together And is not the Devotion of your heart every way as crooked Doth not your heart bow as and when your body doth And is not the Same object which your body boweth unto the object to which your heart boweth and wherein your internall worship is ultimately terminated and bounded For as Aug. Saith Quis intuetur Semulacrum c. Who beholdeth an Image that is not so affected as to imagine the Divinity to be in that Image which he adoreth And doe not you Say that your God-Almighty is upon your Altar which you bow unto when you Say of your Altar you will have none to fit above God Al-mighty So as either you Locally place God there or you make your Altar your God and goe no further But suppose you doe in and by that Altar which you bow unto worship God Who hath required such worship at your hands Nay hath not GOD in the Second Commandement expresly forbidden any such worship in or by an Image or any such thing as Man deviseth in and by it to represent and worship GOD And such will-worship is it not the fruit of the Will of your Evill Corrupt and Superstitious Idolatrous and Proud Heart whence it springeth and proceedeth O Proud and Blind Hearts indeed that dare make choyce of their owne selfe-pleasing devises in Gods worship thinking thereby to please GOD But GOD abhorres all such will-worship But it is Say you a testimony of your Humility But the Apostle expresly condemneth such voluntary Humility And tell me what is there in all the World seting your Honours and Dignities and Favour in Court aside wherein you take more Pride and Glory then in such counterfeit Humility wherein your Heart is more lifted up in perswading your selfe that thereby the World comes to take you for the most Devout and Pious Prelate or Person in all England and as whereby you so bewitch the Court with an opinion of your incomparable Sanctity then simply in these your externall Ceremoniall Complements Saving onely that they Serve for your GREAT WITNESSES to all the world that your heart stands right in the Service of God which indeed is a Service done to your selfe And this appeares in part through those Swelling words set down at large Characters EXTERNALL WORSHIP GREAT WITNESSE Is not this a cleare expression of a heart full of pride selfe-conceit and vain glory when you doe thus as the Poet said Proijcere ampullas Sesquipedalia verba strout it in such a swelling Style and big words And that the world may yet further see how little I misjudge in this let your own immediate words further witnesse For Say you Take this away this EXTERNALL WORSHIP this GREAT WITNESSE and what light is there left to shine before men that they may See our Devotion and glorifie our Father which is in heaven I remember indeed what Christ said to his Disciples Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven These be the words you play withall as a Descant of your Devotion But cursed is he Saith Christ that addeth to or taketh from Gods word Here you doe both for you leave out good works and in stead of that put in your Devotion and you put out the true Light there which is faith and put in the place of it your false Light which is your blind Devotion I say blind Devotion because of your own devising For as the Prophet saith If they speake not according to this word it is because there is no light in them So I say of that Feare or Devotion which is taught by the precepts of men Such have no light in them But your Dovotion is your Light when both you and it be blind As I have read of some Creatures that are múopes Mope-eyed as we Say that see better in the darke then in the day To such darknesse is light Such a light is your Devotion And such Devotion was in the Priests of Baal which was mixt or rather inflamed with great zeale Zeale in Launcing themselves that the blood sprang out Devotion in their long Prayers from Morning till Noon And this secundum usum Sacrum after their manner Now might not they have said as you doe This our externall worship is a GREAT WITNESSE to the world of our Zeale to our God and without which what light have we left whereby men may see our Devotion And such also was the Devotion of Hypocrites of whom Christ saith They pray standing in the Synagogues and in the Corners of the Streets that they may be seen of men Now might not these Hypocrites say for themselves This our externall Devotion is the GREAT WITNESSE unto the world that our hearâ—s stand right being testified by standing in Prayer so as without this light men could not see our Devotion So the Pharisees who were curious Masters of Ceremonies in will-worship they wore goodly broad Phylacteries and for pretence made long prayers Might not they also have said as you This our externall worship in long Prayers in our Solemne Robes with goodly Boarders is the GREAT WITNESSE to the world that our hearts stand right and without this Light men could
parts of mans body yet still that member wants other members to beare witnesse unto it that it is a part of mans body As if every particular member of mans body by its inherent proper motion were not a sufficient witnesse not onely to all the rest of the body that it is a living and true organicall body of man but also to it selfe that it is a true living member of this body Or as thus It is not the whole frame of heaven and earth that can assure us that we doe well to thinke that God made all the world for if any one Creature should give testimony to all the rest yet still that Creature would require another Creature to give testimony to it that it is one of Gods Creatures and so we should never come to any pawse to rest our assurance this way that God created the whole world heaven and earth and all the Creatures therein Now what is there besides the Creature that can assure us of this What The Authority of men or the Tradition of the whole world No for By Faith we come to understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were made of things which did not appeare Now whereupon is this Faith grounded Surely on the word of God and confirmed abundantly by the whole frame of heaven and earth and all the Creatures therein not one of them but having a stampe of the Creator upon it to assure us that it is his Creature And how doe we come to be assured that this word of God is contained in the Scripture By the Authority of the present Church Doth Hooker Say so Had you Said The Ancient Church as the Jewes in witnessing for the Old Testament and the Ancient Apostolick Church in witnessing for the New you had said Somthing As also if you had put the Ministry of the Word for the Authority of your present Church For as we said before the Ministry of the Word is Gods own voyce which commends unto us the Scripture as the word of God This is Gods owne ordinary meanes to bring men to Faith and not the Authority and Tradition of I wot not what present Church And now against Mr Hookers sensible Demonstration as you call it I will oppose another Demonstration which is not onely sensible but most true as proving that the testimony of Scripture to be the word of God is in the Scripture it selfe First Paul in the Epistle to the Romans witnesseth that unto the Iewes or Israeliets under the Old Testament were committed the Oracles of God those Oracles were contained in all the severall Bookes of the Old Testament which the Jewes kept intire and inviolate without the mixture of Profane Books And of this Scripture Paul speaketh and testifieth saying All Scripture is given by inspiration from God And Christ himselfe giveth testimony of the Old Testament saying to the Jewes Search the Scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternall life and they are they which testifie of me And what those Scriptures were the Jewes knew well enough for they were deposited with them and they kept them as their chiefest treasure And Peter also gives testimony to the Old Testament saying of it that Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost speaking of the Scripture expresly in that place in the former verse And To Him give all the Prophets witnesse Thus the New Testament gives testimony to the Old that it is the word of God And I hope you will not except against this testimony as insufficient Againe the New Testament gives witnesse to it selfe that it is the word of God Peter witnesseth of Pauls Epistles that Paul wrote them according to the wisdome given unto him that is the Holy Ghost And Christ said to Peter I have prayd for thee that thy Faith faile not Yea He sent the Holy Ghost to all his Apostles that should lead them into all truth Ergo what they preached and wrote was the Truth and word of God And Christ made all his Apostles his witnesses who in all their writings beare-witnesse of him both of what they saw and heard and so their record left in writing is true See Luk. 1.2 1 Joh. 1.3 3 Joh. 12. And none writ the New Testament but either Euangelists or Apostles all indued with the Holy Ghost And the Wisdome of Christ reserved his beloved Disciple Iohn as the last surviver of all the rest to write the Book of the Revelation and to conclude as the New Testament so the whole Bible with that Charge If any man adde to this Book or take away from it c. as shewing that the whole and intire Scripture was now compiled and consummate I might be copious in this point But I will summe up all this The New Testament gives testimony to the Old that it is the word of God also to it selfe one Book to another one Apostle to another who were all witnesses of Christ Christ and the Holy Ghost to all the Apostles all their writings being guided by the Spirit of Truth and giving joynt witnesse unto Christ and to the truth of the Gospell Yea and the severall parts beare witnes to themselvs As 1 Cor. 14.37 If any man think himselfe to be a Prophet or Spirituall let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the Commandements of the Lord. And 1 Pet. 5.12 I have written brieflly exhorting and testifying that this is the true Grace of God wherein ye stand And Joh. 20.31 These things are written that ye might beleeve that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that beleeving ye might have life through his Name So 1 Joh. 1.3 4. 2 Joh. 5. 3 Joh. 12. And we also â—eare record and ye know that our record is true And as the New Testament doth every where beare witnesse both to the Old and to it selfe both in the whole and every part even by the Spirit of God that speakes and breathes in the whole and every part So the Old Testament in like manner beares witnesse both to it selfe and to the New Testament and that by many Types and Prophecies all which are fulfilled in the New So as these two Testaments are as Ezechiels Wheeles one within another the New Testament being the Old revealed and the Old the New veiled Or they are like the two Cherubims both looking towards the Mercy-Seat which is Christ the Summe of them both the Old looking upon him as he was promised and to come the New as he is now exhibited and come Thus we have here a full true and evident Demonstration that the whole Scripture gives testimony to it selfe that it is the word of God And yet you Say That Truth it selfe cannot say that Scripture it selfe can doe it But you adde L. ibid. That Scripture cannot beare witnesse to it selfe nor any one part of it
as then in Norfolke and Suffolke and Essex while these godly and painfull Ministers preached the word of God it did as the Apostle saith trékein run or diarrusai flow forth like the waters in the Sanctuary When Paul was prisoner at Rome and yet had liberty to preach the word for in those dayes Les Diables estroyent encores en Leur Donat the Devil was but a Grammer Scholar and had not learned in Machiavels Schoole to be one of Antichrists Statesmen to shut Ministers up in the Inquisition-house that they shall never tell Tales more in the Pulpit he Said For the which I am a Prisoner in bonds but the word of God is not bound So as while Gods Ministers are not restrained from preaching the word of God but that they freely preach it without impeachment it may be truly said The word of God is not bound But on the contrary when Godly and painfull Ministers are silenced then it may alike truly be sayd The word of God is bound I will recollect all and conclude with a Syllogisme If the free Preaching of Gods word be the liberty of it and the silencing of Gods faithfull Ministers be a binding of Gods word then the freeing of such silenced Ministers is the restoring of Gods word to its libetty But the free Preaching of Gods word is the liberty of it and the silencing of Gods faithfull Ministers Therefore the freeing of silenced Ministers is the restoring of Gods word to its liberty The consequence of the Antecedent cannot be denyed and the Minor is the Apostles in that place forealedged so as here is nothing left for you to deny but the Conclusion And that 's enough for you Yet might those Ministers have but eqâ—all Law and liberty to plead their Cause against you they would easily purge themselves from such an aspersion of being Factious when some of your party would prove to be deep enough plunged at least in a Premunire to say no more were not the Laws asleep and in this case in as much bondage as the Gospell I passe from the matter of your Ipswich Newes to the Author And it would be News to tell us truly who that might be But all the tidings you can tell us of him is by certain marks to describe him unto us And those are three 1. Is H.B. which in your Book set out concerning those three foresaid bitter men and which you read in the Starre-Chamber before all the Court at their Censure you set in the margent over against those passages which you cite out of Ipswich News This is one of your marks although as I said before and as I have it by very credible intelligence he was not the Author of it and therfore you take and have set your first mark amisse for H. B. it was not And yet this mark falsly set became the occasion of the seting on of the second mark and that was an Eare-marke and that upon both the Eares for failing and that closse to the head which escaped scarce a hayres breadth and this upon the Pillory that some thousands of beholders might be witnesses of it The third mark I find here in your margent in this form †a Crucifix I cannot call it but it is next unto it a Crosse it is and very like to Christs Crosse and as like to that Pillory wherein H. B. stood as can be A fit mark therfore for him whom you had so marked before So as if any inquire of this Author who it should be your Book can shape him a ready answere Ecce signum Loe here a signe of that Pillory on which he suffered In the last place you call him here in scorn and through the nose as Tertullian speakes in another case of an Hereticke the Godly Author of the late Newes from Ipswich and all this he may do by Authority that sits in Cathedrâ— derisorum in the scorners chaire making a mock of all true Religion Godlinesse and honesty And thus you cease not still to persecute the poore Man every kind of way here by â—ruell mocking as the Apostle speakes But he but drinks of the same Cup which his Lord and Master drunk of before him And all these things you load Christs Servant withall shall but make his crown the more glorious For I heare he indures that his perpetuall closse Imprisonment and Banishment from Wife Children Friends Countrey all with as great a continued magnanimity as he did his standing and suffering on the Pillory L. ibid. I ever tooke Sermons and so do still to be most necessary expositions and applications of holy Scripture and a great ordinary meanes of Saving knowledge But I cannot thinke them or the preachers of them divinely infallible The Antient Fathers of the Church preached farre beyond any of these of either Faction and yet no one of them durst thinke himselfe infallible much lesse that whatsoever he preached was the word of God And it may be observed too that no men are more apt to say that all the Fathers were but men and might erre then they that think their own preachings are infallible P. Here you acknowledge Sermons to be necessary expositions and applications of holy Scripture and a great ordinary meanes of saving knowledge Doe you so Have you indeed ever taken them to be so And so still indeed What still What all this while that you have been and are a most notorious persecuter of and rooter out of godly Preachers whom your late Brother White in Scorne in his Book of the Sabbath or rather against the Sabbath calls Sermonders And is there a generation or profession of men above ground whom you hate more then these If you ever took Sermons to be such why do you continually take the Preachers themselves in your nets and so devoure them Are Sermons necessary expositions and applications of Scripture and that by your owne confession Then the greater your condemnation that take away this Key of Knowledge And that they be a great meanes of Saving knowledge Then why do you not onely suffer the people to perish for want of them but chase away good Pastors from them Thus are you not guilty of the blood of so many thousand Soules and have pronounced the sentence of condemnation against your selfe with your own mouth And thus doth not the nakednesse of your notorious and shamelesse hipocrisie discover it selfe to all the world while you professe in words one thing and in your deeds practise the contrary But you give the reason your selfe because you take Sermons to be such as you say therefore you persecute the Preachers of them Neither yet come you full home to the truth in giving Sermons their due for all your sugred words Sermons I meane the plain powerfull and sound preaching of Gods word by explication and application You say they are great meanes of sound knowledge You doe not say so of Sermons as of your externall
because they are seperated from the Church of Rome and from all Prelacy and Hierarchy we do exclude you and Rome with your Prelaticall and Hierarchicall Churches and Government Ecclesiasticall from being any true Churches of Iesus Christ. And whereas you say Rome was once Right and Orthodox 't is true that in Pauls time the faith of those Christian Romans was famous throughout the world and so it might continue pure for a time after but when once the Prelacie and Hierarchy of Rome and that but within Romes Diocesse was erected it became Ipso facto Antichristian and after when the Bishop of Rome became supream over all Christendome then it was the Church of Antichrist from which it is necessary for all true Christians to make a perpetuall Seperation L. p. 133. The Roman Church which was once Right is now become wrong by imbracing superstition and error P. Such is your stile to touch that delicate Woman tenderly as saying She is now wrong by imbracing superstition and error But not by defiling her selfe with abominable Idolatries This you never once charge her with in all your Book as we shall see more at after And onely error as humanum est errare but you never tell her of her Heresies and Apostacie from Christ and her Doctrines of Devils Beware of that You have therfore put me to the greater paines in dealing plainly both with her and you L. ibid. 'T is too true indeed that there is a miserable rent in the Church and I make no question but the best men do most bemâ—ane it nor is he a Christian that would not have unity might he have it with Truth P. You are often putting your finger into this scarre or rent An Argument it paines you because ubi dolor ibi digitus And I am perswaded the more you put your finger in it the wider you will make it And certainly those that are indeed the best men are so farre from bemoaning such a rent as they rejoyce in it the cause considered as in their glory and safety And such Christians as have the greatest wisdome tempered with their goodnesse do see such an Impossibility of Reconciliation with Rome that they account it the greatest folly in the world once to dreame of such an unity as is coupled with a condition of Truth I mean Truth indeed not such a Truth as you mean there where nothing but superstition and error Idolatry and Infidelity Hypocrisie and Iniquity Ambition and Avarice Pompe and Pleasure are the onely supporters of Peters Infallible but counterfeit Chaire Unlesse you mean as you must doe those good men which are your Confederates in your Idolatrous Altars and other Superstitions and Idolatries halting between two opinions God and Baal and have already one foot over Romes thresholdâ— accounting themselves with your Church of England one and the same Church with Rome as two branches of the same tree as two Sisters of the same venter ready to salute each other with the kisse of amity and unity as Aâ—ab did his Brother Bâ—nhâ—daâ— then much may be what should hinder your unity And for your Truth as we sayd before we know very well what it is Rome will not want for that which you call Truth L. ibid. But I never said nor thought that the Protestants made this rent P. I pray you do you think as you speake But admit it Why should you think so Or why are you so zealous in makeing such an Apology which true Protestants indeed will never thank you for But you are such a Protestant as I dare say would not have been the first that should have made the rent no nor the hindmost neither so firme you are for peace But I noted before a necessity of Seperation to be made by the Protestants from Rome as Christ admonisheth Rev. 18.4 Come out of her my people c. L. p. 135. He must leave my words to my selfe and their sense either to me or to the genuine construction which an Ingenious Reader can make of them P. 'T were well If you would observe the same Law your selfe to others Then you would not so frequently as you doe make a poore Minister an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate and turn aside the just for a thing of nought as the Prophet speaks L. ibid. The Protestants did not get that name by protesting against the Church of Rome but by protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errors and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome and our Protestation is ended and the Seperation too P. Yes by protesting against the very Church of Rome got they and that deservedly the name of Protestants For were not those errors and superstions you speake of yea and Antichristianisme and abominable Idolatries and universall Apostacie become the very body and soule of the Religion faith and practise of that Church Was not your Dalilah the Church of Rome become that Harlot and Mother of whoredomes and all abominations before the Seperation and rent was made Could they then protest against her corruptions and not withall against her selfe Were not all her corruption so incorporated unto her as they were altogether inseperable from her like the Blackamores skin or the Leopards spots which cannot be changed And do not you confesse that they protested against her Corruptions when nothing els would serve when there was no remedy left when she was grown incorrigible So as they might have said as in the Prophet we would have healed Babylon but she is not healed Forsake her and let us goe every one into his own Countrey for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the Skies It applyes it selfe And my Lord you speake too late and in vain to A.C. to remove Romes errors and superstition A C. is not of the Faith to remove such mountaines He cannot wâ—sh the Blackmore white You must procure such a Generall Councel as is at least equall to that of Trent to reverse all those Decrees whereby all Romes superstitions and errors are so ratified as England will sooner heare of a Parliament for Reformation then Rome will indure the thoughts of any more Generall Councels to question or meddle with her Trent Decrees Rome is now setled upon her lees and you shall sooner remove the City of Rome it selfe from her muddy Tiber then the Church of Rome from her superstitions Nor is the black skin more conaturall to the Ethiopian nor spots to the Leopard then Idolatry Superstition Infidelity Apostacie and all error is conaturall to the Beast with seaven heads and ten hornes as making up both the Complexion and Constitution of that painted Whore And therefore you might have saved all this labour in vain in writing such a Volume out of a hope to worke an unity with Rome when her superstitions and errors shal be removed and that is ad Graecas Calendas
the strength of your powerfullest perswasive reasons and draw them by your gentlest motives but doe not hale and dragge them with the violence of your Archiepiscopall power and Romish zeale Throw not Godly Ministers out of their Ministry and Means and that by Hundreds with their Wives and Children exposed to all miseries of poverty and all because they will not dare not yeeld to your lawlesse Prelaticall Impositions Innovations Usurpations But if you will needs proceed on in that your violent course against Christ and Christian liberty and peace of mens Consciences assure your selfe you shall not prâ—sper you shall not be victor Christ will confound you with all your Power and Pollicie And He shal be both Irenaenus and Victor for his Church both to Conquer his Enemies and to restore Peace to his People And thus much of your example of Irenaeus and Victor L. p. 141. Well thus the whole Militant Church is holy and so we beleeve And if she erre in the Foundation that is in some one or more Fundamentall points of Faith then she may be a Church of Christ still but not Holy but becomes Hereticall And most certaine it is that no Assembly be it never so Generall of such Hereticks is or can be holy P. Doe you beleeve the whole Militant Church to be holy And so doe I. But your whole Militant Church is not the same with that which I beleeve is holy For your whole Militant Church whereof you professe to be a member is in plain terms the Antichristian Church and the Church Malignant which is a persecuter of the true Militant Church of Christ as both hath been and yet will be made more manifest So as your Militant Church is properly so called for no other reason but because it makes Warre against Christ and his Saints Rev. 12.7 and 13.7 and 16.14 and 17.14 but the true Militant Church of Christ is so called because she fights spiritually under Christs banner against Sinne the World the Flesh the Devil and cruell Persecuters whom she overcomes by the blood of the Lambe and by the word of her Testimony not loving her life unto the death So as your Militant Church is a name which you have usurped abused and perverted whereas it is to be named according to its nature The Church Malignant For further proofe hereof you say if she erre in some one or more Fundamentall points c. Which implyes your Militant Church may erre in points Fundamentall Which cannot possibly be understood of the onely true holy Catholicke Militant Church of Iesus Christ. For this whole Militant Church of the Elect cannot either in whole or in part or in the least member of it erre in any Fundamentall point so as thereby to becâ—me unholy For this were else to fall from Christ and from â—he Comâ—munion of Saints by being seduced by Antichrists and false Prophets who shall deceive if it were possible but it is not possible the verâ— Elect. This erring in the Foundation belongs and extends to all the Reprobates of the world who are by Antichrist seduced unto their perdition who because they receive not the love of the Truth that they might be saved God shall send them strong Delusions to bâ—leeve a lye yea to beleeve that for truth which their own â—eared Conscience tells them is a lye For not to receive the love of the truth implyes that they had received the truth unto acknowledgement and conviction but the love of this truth they imbraced not But the whole Militant Church of Christ I say cannot be so seduced unto perdition or to fall from Christ. What is it to fall from Christ To fall from Christ is to fall from that Faith and love of Christ which once they professed that is from the Faith of the Doctrine of Christ and from that love which they professed towards it And this faâ—ling from the Faith of Christ is when any one Fundamentall point of faith is denyed and persisted in as we have formerly proved as in the Resurrection and Circumcision and sundry others I might adde here many other Instances as the Deniall of all the Doctrines of Grace in Gods Free Election Redemption c. which Grace and Merit of Christ is peculiar to the Elect onely I will onely adde one more here which I but touched before He that denyes the Lords day to be the Sabbath day of Christians commanded no lesse to Christians in the 4th Commandement then the seventh or last day of the week was to the Iewes he erres in the Foundation becomes unholy and falls away from the Faith of Christ. This I demonstrate thus First The 4 th Commandement is Morall and so eternall and unchangeable And as the eternall sabbatisme is in heaven belonging to the Church Tryumphant so there is a sabbatisme temporall pertaining to the Church Militant in this world This sabbatisme as the other is the rest of God His Rest saith David This Sabbatisme in the Church Militant is by God himselfe appointed to be solemnly observed of the whole Congregation on that seventh day of the week wheron himselfe rested This Sabbath or rest of God was on the seventh or last day of the week upon the finishing of the worke of creation And therfore for that very cause God commanded his People in the Old Testament to sanctifie that Sabbath day weekly This is given as the Reason of its sanctification by the People The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God For in six dâ—yes he made heaven and earth and rested the seventh Therfore c. Remember to sanctifie the Sabbath day the Lords Sabbath day And note he saith not Remember to sanctifie the seventh or last day of the week but Remember to sanctifie the Sabbath day These words are the Morall substance of the Commandement The rest is an exposition and application of it the exposition to keep holy that Day for Sabbath which is the Lords own Sabbath day wherein himselfe hath rested Note this well for I will speak much here in few words Weigh them therfore number them not The particular application of the seventh or last day of the week as wherein God rested from his works of Creation is commended and commanded to Gods people under the Old Testament So as if there had not come in afterwards a more glorious Sabbath or rest of Gods as from a more glorious worke of a more glorious Creation we Christians also should have kept that seventh day that the Jewes kept But that this more glorious day of a more glorious rest of God from a more glorious worke being come then the same 4 th Commandement commands us Christians to keep this new Day of Rest of the Lord our God So as though the Day be changed yet the Commandement is the same It binds us still to sanctifie the Sabbath of the Lord our God Secondly for the application of the 4 th Commandement to us
non sinit esse sui Some secret sweetnesse in mans native home Draws him to mind it still where ere become L. Ibid. In a corrupt Time or Place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate truth Indeed this latter can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an affirmative verity being ever included in the negative to a falshood P. Then I hope in a corrupt Time and Place is it not necessary in Religion to deny your falshoods and to assert and vindicate the Truth by you so undermined and oppugned And your own Words here are sufficient to leave your Deeds without excuse L. p. 157. If it be a Cause common to both parties a third must judge and that is the Scripture or if there be jealousie or doubt of the sense of the Scripture they must either both repaire to the exposition of the Primitive Church and submit to that or both call and submit to a Generall Councel P. The Scripture That 's honest as I noted before Yea and submit to and rest in that which you say not But of the Scripture the onely Judge of all Controversies we have spoken sufficiently before and so for matters of jealousie or doubt and not either to your Primitive Church or to a Generall Councel For further Answere we shall have further occasion L. p. 171. Pope Urban 2 at the Councel held at Bari in Apâ—lia accounted my Worthy Predecessor S. Augustine as his own compâ—â—â—e and said He was as the Apostolicke and Patriarch of the other world so he then turned this Iland P. As worthy as your predecessor Anselme was and though now one of Romes Saints yet he was against your Priests Marriage But perhaps therfore the more worthy And he was so holy it seems that he said he never repented him of any thing in all his life but about the eating of some Fish one time But if the Pope gave your Worthy Predecessor the Title of Apostolicke and Patriarch of the other world of England why should not the same Title descend to his successors And it seems you are not a little affected with it For you say A Primate is greater then a Metropolitan and a Patriarch then a Primate And none were above Patriarch but Pope If then you succeed Anselme in his Patriarchate of the other world you are in the next degree to succeed him that is Papa totius Orbis But how ever you glory in these titles I assure you for my part I shall ever preferre a good honest Cobler that feares God above them all For he hath an honest calling you none And you all are persecuters of them that truly feare God and so enemies of Christ. And though you would be called Apostolicke yet to be Metropolitan Primate Patriarch Pope are all swelling Titles of pride which the Apostles never knew and which Christ expresly forbids as hath been noted and will be more As followeth L. p. 175. The calling and Authority of Bishops over the Inferiour Clergy that was a thing of known use and benefit for preservation of unity and peace in the Church P. For this you cite Hierome But you omit his other words where he saith That your Diocesan Bishops for of such onely the Question is were brought in but humana praesumptione non Institutione Divina by humane Presumption not by Divine Institution or Gods Ordinance and this as men presumed in Schismata remedia for a remedy of Schisme But it proved to be Schisma magnum the Great Schisme that made up the body of Antichrist the Great Rent from Christ filling up the Mystery of Iniquity as hath been shewed And out of Ieromes Sacerdos Priest where he saith No Priest no Church you conclude in the Margent so even with him No Bishop no Church As if to be a Priest must needs be a Bishop And idid you say This was to settle in the minds of men from the very Infancy of the Christian Church as that it had not been to that time contradicted by any In the very Infancy of the Church But your Prelacy was but an Infant then and Innocent in comparison to the Giants now We shewed before how this Mystery wrought even in the Apostles times which they knockt down yet still Satan kept it afoot The use of it hath great Antiquity but the Apostles condemned it as a meere abuse and Christ as Heathenish And you talke here of use but you are not able to shew us any Authority from Scripture either from Apostolik Ordinance and Example The Apostles indeed before Christs Resurrection were blindly ambitious of being chief in Christs Kingdome and Christ told his two kinsmen Iames and Iohn They asked they knew not what and yet Mark tells us that Christ asking them what they reasoned of by the way they were ashamed to tell him as being selfe-guilty of pride and ambition and still when he had but newly told them of his Passion to be at Ierusalem they not understanding what it meant were still at it afresh who should be the chiefe but after that Christ was risen again and his holy Spirit was breathed into them then they were of another mind they never after contended who should be chiefest but rather who should be â—umblest and hoâ—yest and most painfull and faithfull in the spirituall Kingdome of Christ in the execution of their Apostolicall Charge Which argues plainly that the Prelacy is a meere carnall thing a temporall Kingdome contrary to Christs Kingdome which carnall men voyd of Christs Spirit and Grace are blindly ambitious of calling their Prelacy an Hierarchy or hoâ—y Government or Kingdome but know not what holinesse or Christs Kingdome meaneth And doe we see any men in the world of any ranke whatsoever more Lordly more proud more ambitious more covetous more profane more corrupt then those of the Hierarchy Take the best of them now in England the most learned of them have they any zeale or courage for the truth now when they see Religion and the Faith of Christ turned topsie-turvie Doe they not all seeke their own not that which is Iesus Christs And when your Chapleins gueld their Works have they any virility left in them to maintain the truth of that which they have written If their Metropolitan doe but speake the word is it not with them as in the Comedy of the Parasite Ait quis Aio Negat Nego But what say I of those Prelates that are fallen upon the very Lees and Dregges of the worst and last times Alas in the first Generall Councell of Nece under Constantine in the Infancy of the Church as you call it what hot contentions among the Prelates one against another What bundels and fardels of complaints brought they into the Councel before Constantine Enough to set all in a combustion had not the Emperour the more wisely put all their Bills and mutuall complaints in a combustion by burning them in a faire fire
Primitive Church and Generall Councels is the Iudge of Controversies whereunto you professe to submit in all humility Thus these 12 Conclusions be as the 12 Articles of your Faith But now let 's a little examine what Truth or Force there is in all these I confesse some of them are somwhat coincident and like Brookes fall one into another but all have their Confluence into your Generall Councel as one maine Ocean But we will take a say of each as they run along For the first and so the rest which have any generall concurrence with it I deny that a Generall Councel is a sufficient and competent Iudge of Controversies in matters of Faith My Reasons are these First Because Generall Councels consisting of Prelates and more especially in these latter times are so much the unabler to judge of the sense of Scripture where 't is deep or doubtfull As Nicolaus de Clemangus in his Tract De Concilus Generalibus discourseth very largely and pregnantly of this very Circumstance shewing that Prelates are none of those to whom God doth reveale the mysteries of his will in his Word which are altogether spirituall but Prelates are carnall proud ambitious covetous minding the things of the world His whole Discourse is worth the Reading And Arelatensis Arch-Bishop of Arles in France in the Councel of Basil said that they had no zeale nor love nor knowledge of the Truth but every one would be of his Kings Religion and was ready to say as his King would have him and that the poore Priests were those by whom the Truth was upholden And not to goe farre from home If a Generall Councel were assemblâ—d of such Prelates as you are who have no savour of and lesse favour to the Truth having bewrayd in this your Book besides your usuall practises how contrary your spirit is to Christs spirit and wisdome Certainly asmuch as in you were you would bring utter confusion upon the world in seting up and establishing your Babilonish Faith and Religion And I have noted before how the poore in spirit such as feare the Lord are those Eagles Christ speaks of whose eyes are sharpest to pierce into the Mysteries of the Scriptures as having Gods holy Spirit to guide them into all Truth Heare what the wiseman saith The rich man is wise in his own conceit but the poore that hath understanding searcheth him out I leave it to your Application And Christ rejoycing in Spirit saith I thanke thee ô Father Lord of heaven and earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes even so Father for it seemed good in thy sight Againe Prelates especially such as your selfe are taken up with State-matters and all of them generally with their worldly affaires and great Revenues so as they have little leasure so much as to thinke of Divine matters or to care for the state of mens soules or to seek to advance Christs Kingdome as being a'pellotriomenoi tes politeÃas tou Israèl as the Apostle speakes Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel Yea even those that have good learning and judgement in Divinity which they had before they were Prelates after they come once to be Prelates they are so choked with the world and so over-awed with the servile feare of man that they dare doe nothing for the Truth especially in a time wherein it is openly opposed and oppressed but are willing to sleep in a whole skin and to let Religion and Faith sinke or swimme so they may injoy their Lordships and fill their Coffers Againe suppose a Generall Councel of Prelates were called for the purpose to judge and determine of the Controvesie about the Calling of Prelates whether it be Iure divino by Divine Authority or no as it was in Question and agitation in the Councel of Trent would not such a Councel trow you be Partiall in their own Cause and Define with one voyce That Prelates are an Order and of a Calling Jure divino and that Christ thought it fittest to governe his Church by such visible Iudges and Vice-roys Or if the Controversie were whether the Church alwayes collective in the Prelates have power to ordaine Ceremonies in Gods service to the Obedience and conformity whereof all mens Consciences are bound by which Imposition Gods people come to loose that liberty which Christ hath purchased for them and Christ should lose his Royall soveraignty as King in his Church as before is shewed it is not easie to Divine what the Difinition of such a Councel would be Or is there any Question to be made but that without any more adoe they would Order Determine Define and Conclude that Prelates the Church Collective have power to ordaine what Ceremonies they please in the worship and service of God which shall bind all mens Consciences to the necessary obedience and observation therof Would they herein have any respect to Christian liberty or Christs Prerogative Would they not with the Scribes and Pharisees and High Priests in their Councel condemn Christ for his Title of King of the Iews And because you are so much for a Generall Councel as Iudge in Controversies What say you to the first Generall Councel of Nice wherein there were above 300 Prelates as I remember Had they not all consented to the making of a Decree for the establishing of a Doctrine of Devils to wit forbidding Marriage to all Ecclesiasticall Persons had not one man Paphnutius and he an unmarried man too stood up and withstood such a Decree shewing by many Reasons and Arguments from Scripture and otherwise how wicked and cruel such a Decree were So early began the Mystery of Iniquity to bud forth and that in the most Ancients and in the very Prime or first Generall Councel wherein these Fathers the Prelates were so piously zealous though ignorantly to lay the foundation of a generall Aposticie from the Faith in establishing such a Doctrine of Devils as the Apostle calls it of which suffciently before Yet by your Doctrine If that Generall Councel of so many Prelates had determined it and ratified it by Decree all Priests then were bound to obedience untill another Generall Councell equall to that should reverse it which should have been long enough when every Age grew successively worse then other And thus in the very first and best Generall Councel after the Apostles a Doctrine of Devils should have been ratified and therein an Apostacie from the Faith and all men must have yeelded obedience at least externall enough to keep all your Priests from Marriage and so all Prelates and Priests should so quickly have proved a Generation of Apostates from the Faith Againe if you have a Generall Councel you must not according to the Councel of Frier Franciscus à S. Clara admit of any Puritans or the precise Party of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas no not such as you call Puritan Bishops For you see
to the Testimony if they speake not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Art thou not Christs Spouse Then heare Christs voyce the Scripture Say with the Spouse in the Canticles Tell me O thou whom my soule loveth where thou feedest where thou causest thy flocks to rest at noone For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions To whom Christ her beloved Spouse answereth If thou know not O thou fairest among women goe thy way to the footsteps of the Flocke and feed thy Kiddes besides the shepheards Tents Here the true Church Christs Spouse in her perplexities and doubts wherein she is like to loose her selfe goes to Christ to her shepheard and asks of him where he feedeth where he causeth his Flocks to rest at Noon where his Congregations may find a shady layre rest and refreshing from the meridian heat of Persecutions or her Faith find rest in doubtfull cases of Faith or Conscience For why saies she should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions Why should I be uncertain and unsettled in depending upon the guidanâ—â— and conduct of false shepheards such as pretend to be as thy fellow-shepheards that sit as God in the Temple of God shewing themselves to be God equall to thee in power and Regall Authority over thy Kingdome and Church making what Laws they please in binding our Consciences and that even to their erronious Decrees To whom Christ Answereth If thou know not O thou fairest among women although despised by men goe thy way forth by the footsteps of the Flocke to the green Pastures and the waters of comfort the Scriptures where my flocke doth ordinarily find pasture For man liveth not by bread onely but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God there thou shalt find the true Pasture by the footsteps of the flocke by the continuall treading of my sheep which know no other pasture but this For here my sheep heare my voyce even here by the shepheards Tents my Ministers whom I have set over the flocks to feed them with understanding and knowledge Here be those waters for every one that thirsteth here is the milke and wine that 's to be had without money Hearken diligently unto me incline thine Eare and come unto me and thy soule shall live search the Scriptures for in them is eternall life and they are they that testifie of me These are the onely light which I have left to be a lampe for thy feet and a light for thy steps These are the onely Oracles of God which shall clearly resolve thee in all thy perplexed doubts These are my onely faithfull witnesses which I have left to witnesse the truth and to establish thy heart in the faith in me if any man teach otherwise and consenteth not to the wholsome words of Scripture which are mine own lâ—vely voyce and which containe all things pertaining to faith and godlinesse he is puft up and knoweth nothing he is a false Prophet a false shepheard a blind Guide a seducer an Antichrist Thus Christ speaketh to his Spouse in the Scripture his owne voyce the onely true living and infallible Iudge And to this Judge Christs voyce in the Scripture the true Spouse of Christ in all Ages hath still resorted and therein been resolved in her doubts and comforted in her distresse For here is that wisdome which is justified of all her Children And whatsoever is therein written is written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Nothing can comfort us in our calamities nothing can confirm and establish our faith and hope in all our perplexed doubtings but this Before we shewed how all the Fathers with one voyce took this sanctuary came to this Iudge made this the onely Rule to determine all doubts and disputes by so Augustine so Tertullian so the incertain Author upon Mat. 24. in Chrysostome saith that in the times of Antichrist even in these our Times one cannot know the true Church but by the Scripture because Antichrist with his wicked Clergy make such a faire shew and pretence that they are the Catholicke Church just as your Lordship doth Therfore let all true Christians in these perillous times of Antichrist and Antichristian Prelates which cry down the Scriptures as an insufficient Iudge in Controversies of faith and cry up their own usurped Authority as the supreme Iudge of the Scripture at least in all doubtfull cases though they confesse their Judgement not to be of Infallible Credit fly to the Mountaines and to the Fountaines the Scriptures the lively voyce of Christ they they onely will resolve us and settle our faith in all doubts and difficulties and will discover unto us the true Church of Christ from all false pretended counterfeit Antichristian Prelaticall Hierarchicall Churches and Synagogues Now seeing though you arrogate but are not able to prove that Christ hath left your Catholicke Church an Infallible certainty which yet you confesse to be uncertaine give us leave though we touched this before now againe upon a fresh occasion to vindicate the Truth of Christ that he not onely intended but indeed hath left unto his true Church an infallible certainty of his Spirit which by the rule of his word doth guide his Elect into all truth in all ages successively unto the end of the world When he took his long Farewell of his Apostles and Disciples as concerning his bodily presence with them upon earth he left them this Promise yet to comfort them concerning his perpetuall spirituall presence with them saying Lo I am with you alwayes unto the end of the world To the end of the world Ergo with all those that are his true Disciples unto the end of the world So as wheresoever Christs Churches and Congregations be there his Spirt is This Spirit leads his into all Truth into all necessary and saving Truth infallibly and most certainly This is that Anoynting of which before He that hath not this Spirit of Christ this Spirit of truth is none of his And he that hath it is preserved from the seducements of false Prophets which come in Christs Name and shall deceive many but not the Elect for that 's not possible Every true beleever cannot will not willingly erre in any point of faith and truth necessary to Salvation I say not wittingly For many of Gods deare Children doe that ignorantly whereby Christ is denyed as in yeelding obedience to mans devices in Gods worship and that through custome wheras if they were rowsed and put to it and asked if they beleeved not that Christ is the onely King of his Church and Lord over the Conscience oh they beleeve and acknowledge none other King Aske them againe whether they beleeve that any man may exercise this Authority over them oh
they shall interpret the same unto you And so I leave you to your faith wherein you declare your selfe to be quite from the true Catholicke Church of Christ whose Faith is built upon the onely foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ being the Chiefe corner stone without any depending upon humane testimony and Authority And so here an end of your Generall Councels But yet one thing remains unresolved on your part for you have told us that Generall Councels may erre even in fundamentall truths but whether at any time they doe actually so erre you resolve us not Nay in some places you make it so ambiguous whether they can erre or no that we know not what to make of it fish or flesh For pag. 223. you propound the Question saying whether a Generall Councel may erre or not is a Question of great consequence in the Church of Christ. To say it cannot erre leaves the Church not onely without remedy against an errour once determined but also without sense that it may need a remedy and so without care to seeke it which is the mystery of the Church of Rome at this day To say it can erre seems to expose the members of the Church to an uncertainty and wavering in the Faith to make unquiet spirits not onely to disrespect former Councels of the Church but also to slight and contemn whatsoever it may now determine into which errour some opposes of the Church of Rome have fallen Thus you Now this Question of so great consequence and that in utramque partem on both sides pro con you seem in your last words here to resolve and determine as if to say it can erre were an errour into which some opposers of the Church of Rome have fallen Now the Church of Rome hath had many opposes many Protestant Learned and Judicicious Divines of former times in the Church of England who have clearly proved that Generall Councels can erre as we have shewed before Now then do you prove they erred in so saying Or which is all one how do you prove that a Generall Councel cannot erre For if it be an errour to hold they can erre 't is no errour in you to hold they cannot erre Thus I find you fast upon the hooks get off and quit your selfe as well as you can But pag. 239 you distinguish which in summe is That all those Popish Authors alledged by Bellarmine for Generall Councels not erring either speake of the Church including the Apostles as all of them doe and then all grant the voyce of the Church is Gods voyce and infallible Or also they are Generall unlimited and appliable to private Assemblies as well as Generall Councels which none grant to be infallible but some madde Enthusiasts Or else they are limited not simply into all truth but all necessary to salvation In which I shall easily grant a Generall Councel cannot erre suffering it selfe to be led by this spirit of Truth in the Scripture and not taking upon it to load both the Scripture and the spirit Thus there Now here I would aske the most perspications and Judicious Reader that reads these lines and ponders them well'-what certain conclusions or resolutions he can picke or deduce out of your words either for Infallibility or not First That all grant The voyce of the Church is Gods voyce divine and infallible if you speake of the Church including the Apostels Whence your conclusion should be this That Generall Councels being the Church representative are infallible their voyce is Gods voyce divine and infallible understanding the Church whereof they are the Representative to include the Apostels Ergo by vertue of the Apostles understood to be included in the Church wherof Gen. Councels are the Representative their voyce is Gods voyce divine and infallible and so can not erre in any age unto the end of the world still understanding that in the name of the Church the Apostles are included can any rationable man or reasonable creature make hereof any other conclusion Secondly In all truth necessary to salvation you easily grant a Generall Councel cannot erre suffering it selfe to be led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture This is just as Arminius said in answere to that place in Iohn for the certaine Perseverance of Gods Saints Whosoever is borne of God doth not commit sinne for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sinne because he is borne of God Now how doth that Heretick avoyd so cleare a Testimony and evidence That is saith he so long as the seed of God remaineth in him but it may depart But the Apostle gives this as a reason why the Saints cannot fall away Because seed of God abideth in them being Regenerate Ergo it ever abideth in them and therfore they cannot fall away And as he so you here A Generall Councel is infallible while it suffers it selfe to be led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture As if you said A Generall Councel while it doth not erre it doth not erre but in that iâ— infalliblepunc as you told us before But what if a Generall Councel doe not suffer it selfe to be led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture That is what if a Generall Councel have not this spirit of Truth in it to keep it that it suffer it selfe to be led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture What is your Resolution here you leave us still upon uncertainties concerning Generall Councels infallibility And you seem to grant that a Generall Councel may take upon it to lead both the Scripture and the spirit O miserable perplexities of a man whose spirit itcheth to speak somthing which he dare not But tell us ingeniously and plainly if there be any ingenuity in you Hath a Generall Councel this spirit of Truth in the Scripture alwaies to make it Infallible in all necessary Truths or not That 's the point But this you doe not dare not grant Yet thus much you are bold to say That the Assistance of the Holy Ghost is without Errour That 's no Question and as little there is that a Councel hath it How Is there as little Question to be made that a Councel of Prelates hath the Assistance of the Holy Ghost as That the Assistance of the Holy Ghost is without errour No more Question I Question whether a Generall Councel have the Assistance of the Holy Ghost will you therfore as well question whether the Assistance of the Holy Ghost is without errour Nay I am so farre from making question that I am confident and that upon cleare evidence that your Generall Councels of later times especially under Antichrist neither have had â—or have beene capable of the Assistance of the Holy Ghost to preserve them from errour For they have been still assembled against Christ and his Truth and the true Church and Children of God and either for the decreeing of wicked errours in in Faith or
confirming of them and establishing of the throne of the Beast and power of Antichrists Kingdome against Iesus Christ. Nor were it a hard matter to demonstrate this by many instanecs which for the present I omit In the meane time How prove you here your As little Question Or how come you to name This spirit of Truth in the Scripture What after all that you have said before of the Scripture that it is not bright enough that it hath no light till it be lighted by the Authority of the present Church and the like come you now to confesse that The spirit of Truth is in the Scripture Told you us not a while agoe That the Scripture is no living Iudge What not living when the spirit of Truth breaths in it Is not the spirit in the Scripture living And is not a Iudge a living Iudge when and while his spirit is in him What nothing but absurd and sencelesse contradictions with you Nothing but Babilonish language But thus we may see into what gulfes of perplexities they plunge themselves that presume and undertake to exalt their high imaginations against the Truth of God And you say againe A Generall Councel hath not this Assistance to Infallibility but as it keeps to the whole Church and Spouse of Christ whose it is to heare his word and determine by it As it keeps closse Why is it not your Catholicke Churches Representative How can it then but keep closse being of the same Body and spirit with your Church Secondly speaking here of the whole Church the Spouse of Christ you doe equivocate applying that to a false Church which is univocè univocally proper and peculiar to the misticall body of Christ. For your whole is Prelaâ—icall that of the Hierarchy and none other which we have before proved to be the Synagogue of Antichrist which heareth not Christs voyce but as your Church is pleased to interpret it and to give it Authority And that which you say of your Generall Councâ—ls may be truly said of any particular Assembly two or three met in Christs name which doth not erre being led by the spirit of Truth in the Scripture Christ himselfe according to his Promise being in the midst of them No nor yet any particular single Beleever erreth being so led So as you speake to no purpose when you say A Generall Councel cannot erre in that wherin it hath already determined according to the Scripture the vanity wherof we shewed before But the conclusion is you still leave the the Infallibility of your Generall Councel unresolved upon yea and nay sometimes affirming somtimes denying except your negative be according to that Rule in Logicke That one Negative is of more Force then a thousand Affirmatives L. p. 213. Sect. 27. My Answere was That the Councel of Trent was not onely not legall in the necessary conditions to be observed in a Generall Councel but also that it was no Generall Councel P. Though this be true you say yet the Councel of Trent was so legall according to Romes own Law that it wanted no conditions observable to make it in that behalfe not onely a legall but a Generall Councel too And secondly so Generall for the Romane Catholicke Church of Rome that all the Decrees thereof doe bind all Papists to a necessary obedience and conformity unto them and that under Anathema And your Rule is That a Generall Councells Decrees and Canons bind all Christians and a Provinciall Councels Decrees bind all of that Province And therfore I hope you will grant that the Papall Councel of Trent is of force to bind all Papists who acknowledge and accept the Pope for their Head or Primate So as though it were not a Generall Councel in the largest sense yet it was a Generall Councel for the Roman Catholicke Church which say they is the onely Catholicke Church And with which say you the Church of England is one and the same Now this I doe here touch by the way as whereof I shall have occasion to make some use anon though perhaps your thus Arguing against the generallity of Trents Councels is one of those Passages which you think may be an ingredience of the salve of your Reputation But this I say by the way L. p. 227. It may seem very fit and necessary for the Peace of Christendome that a Generall Councel thus Erring should stand in force till evidence of Scripture or c. P. This passage I cited before upon occasion among sundry other of like nature and now I repeat it onely for this to shew how your zeale for Peace made you forget Truth For still you are telling us of Peace and Truth or Truth and Peace But here your Peace stands single without Truth What Peace without Truth For you say It may seem very fit and necessary for the Peace of Christendome that a Generall Councell erring should stand in force What will you force a Peace against Truth by an Authorised errour O blush for shame L. p. 254. Suppose they Key of Doctine be to let in Truth and shut out errour and suppose the Key rightly used infallible in this yet this infallibility is primeâ—y in the Church in whose person not strictly in his own S. Peter received the Keys P. Suppose Do you make it but a supposit on that the key of Doctrine is to let in Truth and shut out Errour So it seems with you when you use that Key of your Doctrine to shut out Truth and let in errour as both your Practises and writings do shew But what is this Key of Doctrine Is it not the sincere Preaching of Gods word And then this Key is rightly used and here is the use therof Infallible But say you this Infallibility is primely in the Church How Can we get no other language from you Still all Primely in the Church Certainly not at all in your Antichristian Church where the spirit of errour raigneth and where the whole bunch of Keys hangeth at the Prelates gâ—râ—le As Pope Paschall 2. when he rode in Pompe had his seven Keys hanging at his girdle the Chiefe wherof was to open and shut Paradise to whom he pleased But we say still that this infallibility is primely in the Scripture and not in the Church not in Christs own Church For the Scripture containes that infallible Truth which the Ministeriall key Christs own ordinance and voyce openeth to the Church or Congregation of Gods people And this Ministeriall key Christ committed to Peter not simply as sustaining the person of the whole Church but chiefly and properly as he was an Apostle and Minister of Christ to preach the Gospel in which respect also he might represent the person of all faithfull Ministers of the Gâ—spel rightly and truly called to the Function to whom Christ did in Peter as afterward he did in all the Apostles commit and entrust the key of knowledge of the Doctrine of Christ to be used and imployed to that end to
professed in the Church of England is nearest of any Church now in Beeing to the Primitive Church Therfore not a Religion known to be false And thus I both doe and can prove were not the deafnesse of the Aspe upon the eares of seduced Christians in all humane and divided Parties whatsoever P. You doe wisely to put it to the judgement of the indifferent Reader who unlesse he be a most indifferent man between your Church of England and that of Rome and so undifferent from you both in judgement and affection to whom this which you say shall appeare to be true For no such thing can appeare to any Reader that is not so affected as to beleeve your bare word so soon as ever it sounds in his eare or whose eyes doe not looke through the false glasse of your Perspective Indeed you have proved to all men sufficiently both by this your Discourse and by your Practises that you and Rome do not set up a different Religion We all beleeve it And consequently we beleeve that herein you come full as neare to the Primitive Church as Rome doth alwayes excepted Romes lineall Pedegree from Peter and you know you are a Degree once removed And how neare you both come to the Primitive Church of the Apostles especially the primest and purest we have before shewed sufficiently And if you come nearest who I pray you are furthest off Surely the most pious the most religious the most zealous the most painfull and faithfull preachers of the Gospel the greatest contemners of the world the most humble and meeke the most patient in suffering persecution for the truth the most pure and precise in their life and conversation the most exact conformist to the onely Rule of Faith and true Religion the word of God such as are not ambitious covetous carnall and worldly minded envious malicious cruel haters and persecuters of Gods word of his Ministers and people Such such I say must be furthest off from the Doctrine and practise of the Apostles and of the most pure and Primitive Church in their time if you the Prelates and Churches of England and Rome come the nearest unto them L. p. 377. But is there no superstition in Adoration of Images None in Invocation of Saints None in Adoration of the Sacrament P. Yes and grosse Heathenish Idolatry too yea and infidelity to boote though you would mince it never so small into a matter of superstition onely And may not I say to you But is there no superstition yea no Idolâ—try in your Adoration of Altars yea and worse then that of the Papisâ—s for they worship their God you the Altar None in your Adoration of the Name IESVS None in bowing before your Crucifixes over your Altars No inducement at least to Idolatry in your goodly Images erected in your Churches No 〈◊〉 smell of Popish superstition and Idolatry in yâ—ur Adorations in the presence of such Imâ—geâ— The Iewes would not â—o much as stoop to tye the latchet of their shooe in the place where an Image was least their bowing might seem to be to the Image And who knoweth with what mind you do your humble and lowly Dâ—votion before such sacred Reliques And to summe up all together is there no superstion yea no Idolatry in all that will-worship of yours and of the Church of Rome attended with so many Rites and Ceremonies of mans invention For what is all Will-worship but Idolatry yea and the highest kind of Idolatry As Vincentius saith What are strange Gods but strange errours for that Hereticks reverence their Opinions no lesse then the Gentiles doe their Gods And Augustine saith It is the vilest and 〈◊〉 kind of Idolatry when mâ—n worship their own fancies observing that for a Religion which their erronious and swelling minds imagine Thus we see as a learned Divine of the Church of England and of great Eminencie said that a corrupt and vicious Religion such as Popery is and such as you have made yours of the Church of England not a different Religion 〈◊〉 an inward and ghostly worship of Idols which saith he Prince ought not to 〈◊〉 at or tolerate seeing no man and therfore no Prince can 〈◊〉 two Masters For saith he if God be truth they which presume to worship him with lyes as in contrary faith must needs come to passe serve now not God but the Devil a lyer himselfe and the faâ—her of 〈◊〉 whose service no Christian Prince may so much as 〈◊〉 so he Thus our Divines of the Church of England in former ages shall 〈◊〉 up as witnesses to condemn you in the day of Judgement who teach and maintain things contrary to that truth which they delivered L. p. 378. What not prove any superstition any errour at Rome but by pride and that intolerable Truly I would to God A.C. saw my heart and all the pride that lodgeth in it P. This you speake to A.C. as to a Jesuite or some Frier or some Priest All is one such a one being a Ghostly Father you may safely sub sigillo Confâ—ssionis or sub stola under the seale of Confession or under the Friers frocke under the Rose as we say open the windows of your Brest and let him look in and view all the Roomes and corners of your heart to see what pride hath taken up her lodging there and so the world shal be never a whiâ— the wiser for it But you need not to wish any such thing The pride of your heart cannot so easily be hid as that you need wish with Momus if there were a glasse window in your Brest for men to look in and see it much lesse a subtile prying Jesuite Alas though the glaring light of it blind your own eyes that you cannot see it your selfe yet any other that is but purblind may through the Glasse or spectacles of this your Book see the monstrous multiformious shape of it had they not seen it before expressed in the Capitall Characters of your most insolent and all daring practises And that you yet see it not there is not a more infallible argument or signe of a more monstrous proud heart which is ever selfe blinded But look to it What saith Ieremie The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it I the Lord search the heart and try the reynes even to give every man according to his wayes and according to the fruit of his doingâ—s L. p. 379. I hope God hath given the Lady mercy P. Namely that same Lady who formerly had been either brought unto or confirmed in that Romish Religion by that which you resolved her in namely That she might be saved living and dying in the Roman faith and Religion wherein it seems as she lived so she dyed Now truly my Lord If God did give her mercy it is little God hamercy to you But what ground have you for this your hope Even as much as for
giving her hope that she might be saved living and dying in the Roman faith Is it so easie trow you to send such a Lady to heaven securely wrapped in the Mantle-lap of her silly ignorance But what if she be now in hell Are not you guilty of her damnation by muzzling her in her blind ignorance as wherein onely you taught her to place the hope of her salvation But you told her of some danger But you did not possesse her with such a feare of the danger as both there was cause and you should have done as you puffed her up with the hope of safety and that in the onely confidence of her silly ignorance so as her vain hope overcame just feare And if now by this meanes she be in hell as you set her in the ready high way look you to it Paries cum proximus ardâ—t Tunc tua res â—gitur if she by your leading be fallen into the pit what is like to befall you the leader when the blind leading the blind both fall into the pit But if God hath had mercy on her it was not since her death by delivering her out of Purgatory iâ— she dyed a Papist but before her death by delivering her from her Popery worse then any Purgatory causing her to renounce and repent of that and to beleeve in his mercy and Christs merit onely for salvâ—tion without which faith of Christ â—here is no hope of mercy And we shewed before that this faith of Christ is not the Roman faith but quite opposit unto it L. p. â—88 But 't is time to end especially for me that have so many things of weight lying upon me and disabling me from these Polemâ—ck â—isccurses besides the burthen of sixty five yeares compleat which draw on a pace to the period set by the Prophet David Psal. â—0 and to the Time that I must goe and give God and Christ an account of the Talent committed to my Charge in which God for Christ Iesus sake be mercifull to me who knows that however in many weaknesses yet I have with a faithfull and single heart bound to 〈◊〉 free Grace for it laboured the meeting the blessed meeting of Truth and Peace in his Church and which God in his own good time will I hope effect To him be all Honour and Prayse for ever Amen P. How fitly doth this your Conclusion suit with and succeed that which was last mentioned as matter for your more serious and sad meditation and which I cannot but tremble 〈◊〉 And well weighing also the words of this your Conclusion with all that you have written in this your Booke and with all your Practises in your life all so uniforme and sutable I am surprized with great astonishment The reasons hereof will further appeare in the more particular animadversions upon your words asunder And because we use to take most speciall notice of a mans last words give me lâ—ave to take a full and particular view of yours here as being though not the last words of a dying man yet the finall Conclusion of this your Booke which so soon as I have read over it passeth away tanquam Fabula as the Prophet speaks of a mans life as a taâ—â— thâ— is told And as we looke thaâ— however you have dealt in your Book yet in the close of all you should deale candidly ingeniously and cordially and not dubble with God and the world and with your own Conscience yet for my part as the Spirit of sincerity and truth without flattery or respect of Persons where the truth is wronged hath rnd doth run through all the veines of this my Reply to your Relation so I shall by Gods grace close all with the same spirit not sparing you to the last where still you give just cause And the truth cannot better nor more seasonably be spoken home then as to a dying man who though he have been never so notorious an hypocrite and desperate man in the Course of his life yet when he lyes upon his death-bed and utters some words which seem to savour of some sensiblenesse of his Condition then if ever there may be some hope of working upon him as when the yron is hot by putting home unto him and laying before him his former life that so at the last though late as the Thiefe on the Crosse he may through Gods mercy be brought to repentance and so to salvation Although examples of such penitents indeed and in truth be very rare For as one observeth One Thiefe was saved on the Crosse that none should dâ—spaire and but one that none should presume â—or the saying too ordinarily proves true Qualis vita finis itâ— As a man lives so he dyes And Paenitentia sera rarò vera Late Repentance is seldome true And the Prophet gives the reason of it Can the Ethiopian change his hew or skin Or the Leopard his spots Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to doe evil For as one â—aith Consuetudo peccandi tollit sensum peccaâ—i Custome of sinning takes away the sense of sin And where there is noâ— sense of sin there can be no Repentance for sin And therfore commonly when a man that hath lived wickedly and hath been used to lying and dissembling all his life comes to â—ay on his death bed or at the last gaspe Lord have mercy upon me however we may not judge him leaving him to his Judge yet this is no sufficient argument to perswade us that this is 〈◊〉 Repentance For lightly when such men promising and vowing it God restore them to reforme their life do recover they â—â—turn â—s the Scripture speaks with the dog to his vomit and with 〈…〉 that is washed to her wallowing in the mire According to that 〈◊〉 or Apologie 〈◊〉 Daemon Monachus tunc esse volebat 〈◊〉 Daemon nec tamen est Monachus Which 〈…〉 thus 〈…〉 was 〈◊〉 the Deâ—il a Monke would be 〈…〉 was well the â—evil a Monke was he But I must not doe you wrong in applying of these things to you or that I have any hope of doing good upon you even now at last in the close of all seeing you give me no incouragement of hope at all this way For in all this your Closse not a word expressing the least sorrow for your most enormious iniquites but on the contrary you justifie them and glory in them Wherein you shew the pride of your heart to be out of measure desperate and not to be named with the pride of that Pharisee For though he gloryed in himselfe yet he gloryed not in his evil but in those things that were in themselves good and commendable and for which he gave God thanks as the Author of them but here I find a proud Prelate vaunting in his impiety and in all his wicked practises the ayme whereof is to reconcile the Church of England and that of the Whore of Babylon together and all under a faire pretence