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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91809	A looking glasse for the Anabaptists and the rest of the separatists: wherein they may clearly behold a brief confutation of a certain un-licensed, scandelous pamphlet, intituled, The remonstrance of the Anabaptists, by way of vindication of their separation. The impertinancies, incongruities, non-consequences, falsities, and obstinacy of William Kiffen, the author, and grand ring leader of that seduced sect is discovered and laid open to the view of every indifferent eyed reader that will not shut his eyes against the truth. With certaine queries, vindicated from Anabaptisticall glosses, together with others propounded, for the information and conviction, (if possible) the reformation of the said William Kiffen and his prosylites. / By Josiah Ricraft, a well willer to the truth. Published by authority.	Ricraft, Josiah, fl. 1645-1679.	1645 (1645)	Wing R1430; Thomason E299_9; ESTC R200250	22,283	33

in the faith a pure lump of beleivers we I hope shall joyne with you in the same Congregations and fellowshipe and nothing shall separate us but death but tel then we shall present those Scriptures as an adition to those formely quoted wherein we have sufficient testimony from you comparing them with your practice that the word and Sacraments are not purely dispensed among you 2 Thes 3 6 Eph 5 3 4.5 11 Gall 5 9 12 2 Cor 6 14 15 1 Cor 5 4 5 6 Asts 2 40. The Reply of JOSIAH RICRAFT to W. K. his Answer FOR your Answer to this my First Queare which you affirme seemes to import thus much that from such Congregations where the word and sacraments are purely dispensed men ought not to seperate but that men are and ought to seperate from such where the word and sacraments are not purely dispensed It is well you used that evasion seemes which you doe twice in one sentence yet many things seemes to be which are not And if I should take the advantadge of falling upon every passage of your discourse I might shew you how my Queare in many respects though it doth impley as in the case of our Church the unlawfulnes of all Seperation from out Congregations where the Word and Sacraments are purely dispensed yet it doth not impley that men are and ought for to seperate from such a Church where the word and Sacraments are not so purely dispensed because there are differant degrees of purity and reformation of Churches and whilest the Word and the Sacraments are dispensed according to the institution for the maine though there may not in some Axedentalls and Cercumstances and Concometents be that purenesse which ought to be and is desired Yet to seperate from such Churches hath neither ground in the Word nor the approved Iudgement of godly and learned Devines Yea further a Church may come to be so corrupted as that the Word and the Sacraments in somethings of Substance may be corrupted and yet it is not lawfull for men presently to seperate There is something else to be done before they leave such a Church for they ought to try and use all meanes and ways to sée if the Church may not be healed In this kinde I could give you many instances of the unlawfullnesse of a sudden seperation from a corrupted Church God will not have his people come out of Babylon untill they have used all meanes to heale her as is evident 51. Jeremiah verse 9. Wee would have healed Babylon but she is not healed Forsake her and let us go every one into his own Country Which shewes Babylon must not be left till first meanes habe been used for her healing And if you had read aney thing in this point you would know that as there is an unjust and an un-nessessary Seperation which is upon leight and small causes so there is a rash and unadvised seperation in forsaking a Church suddenly and willingly without wayting in the use of all meanes for Reformation but I shall spare to speake further of this and now come to speak to the maine of your discourse to this my first Queare namly to shew our Congregations are such as where the Word and Sacraments are purely dispensed and then according to your own confession you sin and are justly charged with Schism for Seperating from us All the Scriptures that are coated by you in the beginning of your discourse and the close to this Queare doe none of them in the least prove the Seperation from such a Church as ours is where there is a profession of the true Faith the most essentiall noate of a visible Church as is confessed not onely by great reformed Devines but even by some Seperatists themselves as Mr. Robinson and we have also the Word of God powerfully preached professed and maintained and the right administration of the two Sacraments As for your Scriptures they onely prove a lawfull Seperation from Heathen Idolators and Blaspheming Jewes and Antichristian Idolators Familiar and volentary unnecessary private society with wicked men or the casting out of evill men by those that have the power in the Church And if you look over the Scriptures again and God give you grace to consider you will finde all this to be true as for those grounds by which you would prove that the Sacraments are not purely dispensed amongst us and so you may lowfully Seperate from us namely in regard that wicked persons are admitted and suffered amongst us to come to the Lords Table and that Children are Baptized amongst us I answer these are noe grounds and I dare challenge you and all the Anabaptists in England of your way to bring any Scripture wherein you have any precept or example to Seperate from a Church for some wicked persons mingled with good or because Baptisme is administred to Infants Is any man so ignorant as to deny the Church of Corinth to be a true Church Yet I say there was wanting Discipline and more horible abuses of the Sacraments and many vicious persons uncast out 1. Cor. 5.1 2. 1. Cor. 11.17 18 19 20 21 22.30 also 1. Cor. 15.12 with the 2. Cor. 12.20 21. Yet Paul writes to them as a true Church Many such instances I could give you as also that of the Israellites where there wanted Discipline and the Ordinances most grossely abused yet we account of them to have béene a true Church 1. Sam. 2.16 17.22.29 And in this case the Apostle Paul speaks of many loose and uncleane persons and yet in many of his Epistles though he blames the not casting out of such yet he blames not those that continued in the Church with such and in all his Exhortations about purging out the old Leaven putting away the wicked persons from among them never exhorts private persons in case his Apostallicall commands were not obeyed that then they should Seperate and in particular he gives not any directions to the house of Cloe to Seperate from the Church although they had made their addresse to the Apostle 1. Cor. 1.11 And for our Baptizing of Children which in scorn you call one of the great Sacraments amongst us Know we have ground in the Scripture for our practises therein and do not go into the durty pudle of mens Inventions as you say but from the Covenant made to beléevers Gen. 17.7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. with Acts 7.8 and Rom. 4.11 also Levit. 12.3 with Luke 2.21 and 1. Cor. 12.13 likewise Gal. 3.26.27.28.29 Baptisme it succéeds Cercumcision Coll. 2.11.12 〈◊〉 it did not the condition of Christian Infants in this time of the Gospel were worse then the condition of Iewish Infants under the Lu●● First in regard of their age if Baptisme may not be conferred upon them now as Circumcision was upon the Iewish Children Secondly if Baptisme belongs not to Infants then the Grace and Favour of GOD by Iesus Christ his coming is more obscure strait

were marvelous silly when they were received members amongst you and it should seeme they have received by your owne words little eddification in their so long membership with you and therefore it doth behove them whom you say are so silly to look also where to be better instructed who have received so little benefit in so long time by your ministers least they perish in their owne ignorance and blindnes and therefore herein you would doe-well to take our saviours advice Math 7 3 4 5. we know it is noe strange thing for those that desire to walk in the strait wayes of the Lord to heare themselves despised and reproched with these and far greater aspersians but however that such as are so esteemed of by you have a right to be received into the fellowship of the Saints these Scriptures prove which I pray you examine P●o 9 1 to 7. Isa 14 32 and 18 7 1 Cor 1 26 27 28. Rom 14 1. The Reply FOr your Answer to this my fourth Querie in stead of positive laying downe your Ground What warrant you have to admit filly seduced servants or children or people into your Congregations Which question implyes in it thus much What ground you have to take away them that by the laws of God and Nature are not in their owne powers but under the powers of others In this you answer nothing but wholly wave it and runne according to your former method into a tedious heterogeneall discourse of a people whom God out of his infinite love hath redéemed to himselfe And here you quote severall places of Scripture all which are meant of the invisible Church of Christ and belong not to the question of Congregations This is commonly your error and the error of all in your separated way to apply that to the visible Church which is spoken of an invisible Church and so it is nothing to the purpose And whereas after this long and impertinent answer you gather from it that if wee can prove our selves to be such Congregations as are before spoken of which by way of reply I tell you that you cannot prove your Congregations to be such they being invisible and so knowne only to God The foundation of God standeth sure having this seale 2 Timoth 2.19 for of such you speake of in your discourse In the former part of your answer to this my fourth Querie namely a people out of infinite love redéemed and if you could prove your selves to be such reall Saints and not hypocrites yet I must tell you that the people of God have no warrant to leave the Church to which they are or were joined where there is a profession of the true faith and the preaching of the word to goe joine themselves to a company of people though they should be true Saints because there goes more to the making of a visible Church then that there bee many Saints gathered together And besides there may bee many such Saints you speake of that have put off the old man and put on the new man and are Kings and Priests to God which yet may neither have office nor gifts of preaching and so such Christians shall sinne against God and their owne soules many waies as forsake visible Churches to joine with such Saints only And in this sense I professe to despise such gathering of Saints together as to forsake a visible Church where there are Word and Sacraments to goe to joine with them they wanting the publike Ordinances and the due managing of them by persons fitly qualified and orderly called according to the Scriptures to that end and purpose QUERIE V. HOw can you vindicate by the word of God your Anabaptisticall way from the sinfull guilt of notorious Schisme and defection from all the Reformed Churches Kiff Ans They that runn may read what fire this pen and heart was inflamed withall in the writing and inditing this Querie but first of all that by reformed Churches you meane those Churches planted by the Apostles in the Primitive time which are the platforme for all Churches in all ages to looke unto to be guided by those apostolicall rules left them we then shall vindicate by the word of GOD our Anabaptists way as you are pleased to call it from that guilt and first although we confesse our selves ignorant of many things which we ought to know and desire to waight daily for the farther ciscoveries of light and truth from him which is the only giver of it to his Poore people yet so far as we are come we desire to walke by the same rule they did and first of all we baptize none into Christ Iesus but such as professe faith in Christ Iesus Rom 6 3 by which faith they are made So●ns of God and so having put on Christ are baptized into Christ G●l 3 26 27 and that Christ hath commanded this and no other way of b●p●izme see Mat 28 19. Mark 1 4 5. Luk 3 7 8. and that this also was the practice of the Apostles see Acts 2.41 8 12 36 37 10 47 48. and that being thus bap●ized upon profession of faith they then are added to the Church Acts 2 41. and being added to the Church we conceive ourselves bound to watch over one another in case of sin to dease faithfully one with another according to these Scriptures Lev. 19 17 1● Mat● 18 1● and that they remaine obstina● to cast them out as 〈◊〉 that are not fit to live in the Church according to the rule 1 Cor 5 4 5. Math 18 19 20 by all which and mony other perticulars I might ●am it apears that through mercy we can free our selves from th●● gu●l● and truly if your eyes were turned to peruse your own practises wayes you would then see we could better free our selves from that gu●le of ●ch●sme from those reformed Churches then you your selves from ●he notorious guile of schisming from Rome for first you hould their baptisme true their ordination of ministers true their maintenance by tithes and offerings true there people all fi● ma●ter for a church so true and yet you will seperate from them for some corruption now for you par●s we deny all and every one of these amongst you to be true and therefore doe seperate from you so then when you have made sati●faction for your notorious schisme and returne as dutifull sons to their Mother or else have cast off all her filthy Rubies of her abominations which are amongst you we will returne to you or shew our best grounds to the contrary Yet I would not be understood as to suppresse that none of the people in your Assemblies of England to be fit matter for a Church of Christ in respect of the graces and qualifications of the Spirit which we see to be in many But I speake of all the multitude which are forced in amongst you to be members with you though they never manifest Faith so that by this

and greater judgments then was inflicted upon the breaches of the same as Heb 2 15 c 3 1 to 9 CHAP 10 21 to 31 12 Col. 22. to the end do declare and therefore we cannot nay we dare not but continew in these our practices and witnes the truth of it even by suffering though others oppose it The Reply AS for your Answer to this my third Querie in stead of shewing what grounds you have from the word of God to be A member much lesse a Minister of such Congregations as yours are In stead of giving reasons from the word of God in such materiall points and practices which might satisfie the consciences of men you run out into extravagant exclaimings against our Church and Congregations about the power of the Civill Magistrate superstitious consecrations of Tithes and Offerings of the people despising of Prophesie and disobedient to commands rejecting of the word of God concerning the purging of the wicked from the godly which were they all true according to your relation and further supposing them to be so it were not a sufficient ground of leaving our Church yet you need further grounds from the word of God for your positive separation and for making and erecting such Churches as yours are or joyning to be a member of any such Church I doe not deny but there may be some causes as many learned Divines shew wherein Christians may lawfully separate negatively and may goe and joine themselves as the case may fall out to some other publike Reformed church when as yet to erect and set up a new separated church is schisme And I doe in the fcare of God more particularly renew my former Querie What Scripture warrant or example have you as a private man to take upon you a publike worke namely one of the most publike and solemne works the building of a Church of Christ a worke that in all the New Testament where Christian Churches are recorded was never taken in hand but by eminent publike persons both for office and gifis Apostles or other eminent Ministers at least so that it is evident you are without all call and a meere intruder upon other mens offices and to speake to you in your owne words and phrases which you use You goe not according to the patterne in the Mount And for the other branch of the Querie What ground you have to be a Minister of any such congregation You did wisely to passe over that wholly in silence as being too hard for you to answer and in stead of that to fill up your pages with other rabble in which you hope the Reader might quite lose the sent of that question But I will now renew that branch of the Querie and in stead of putting it by way of question to you now I doe positively declare to you That you are so far from having any warrant to be a Minister of any such congregation as that you have not the least warrant to be a Minister of any at all But your taking upon you to bee a Minister to dispence the Word and Sacraments is a greater sinne and disorder then ever any was in the constitution of the Church of England since Reformation And for ignorant illiterate men the lowest of the people such as your self to take upon you to be a Minister of God a guide of soules is such an intolerable usurpation prophanation of Gods name that without great repentance you will finde one day to your cost that fulfilled of our Saviour The blinde lead the blinde and both fall into the ditch Paul that great Apostle speaking of the ministeriall calling saith Who is sufficient for these things now if such persons as you are may be Ministers Who is not sufficient for these things The sin of Ieroboam cleaves to you and to your Tribe that you make Priests of the lowest of the people which were not of the sonnes of Levi and whosoever will hee consecrates himself and becomes a Priest of your way I wish you with feare and trembling to reade and God give you grace to consider 1 King 12.31 and 1 King 13.33.34 with Hosea 4.6 and Rom. 10.15 wherein you will finde that in stead of a warrant for your selfe and such as you are to he Ministers your Ministery will become sinne unto you to cut you off and to destroy you from the face of the earth God rejects you that you shall be no Minister to him and that you should not preach he never fending you for the most wise God never sends fooles on his errand But now those things which you would charge our Churches with as grounds to justifie your separation are not truth For the fr●st of your charges wee answer That in the very times of the Bishops by the Orders of the Church there were rules for purging the wicked from the godly and separating the precious from the vile both in their Rubrickes and Canons as namely to keepe away ignorant and scandalous persons from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and many godly Ministers even in these daies did in severall Congregations notwithstanding the illegall and tyrannicall carriage of the Prelates practise the same But any ingenious man would marvell what bold face you had at the time of writing of that you call your Remonstrance to charge upon us the rejecting of the Word of God given by Christ for the purging of the wi●k●d from the godly and our remaining obstinate to him When as your conscience must tell you that hundreds of Ministers at this very time doe kéepe away ignorant and scandalous persons from the Lords Supper and that the Assembly of Divines called by authoritie of Parliament for reformation of the Church have long agoe agreed on the separating the precious from the vile according to these Scriptures Matth. 18. and 1 Cor. 5 Yea and you know that the godly Ministers of England generally and the people are daily labouring for Reformation in this way As for your second extravagancie know you slander the Civill Magistrate which is no strange thing for you to doe it being one of the Characters of Anabaptists to despise dominions and speake evill of dignities in saying They are so hasty to command all both rich and poor to subject to their worship whether their conscience be brought over to see whether it be a truth or no or else they may not live amongst them or use any traffique with them To this there needs no other confutation but the suffering of you and your fellowes to goe on in your separated Churches without subiection to their Worships as you phrase it And the Civill Magistrate may do well to take notice of your unthankfulnesse and unkind requitall to belye them thus considering their great long-suffering and patience towards you But know when the Civill Magistrate shall be pleased by Lawes and Ordinances to command all to submit to the true worship of God and the true government of the Church

townéere a hin to wicked Sanbalat and Tobias Neh. 4.1 2 3. who mocked at the beginning of the building of Jerusalem and we may iustly against the whole sect of you Anabaptists make that prayer of Nehemiah Neb. 4.4 Heare O our God for we are dupised and turne their reproach upon their own heads for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders and I may speak the words of Zac. 4.10 For who hath despised the day of small things And know that however your eyes are blind and you drunke with your own conceits and will not sée what the great change is of Episcopacy into Presbytry and the Book of common prayer into a Directory yet all the Reformed Churches sée it and wonder at it and blesse GOD for it yea they looke upon that you count Reformation as a Deformation who instead of Ministers gifted and called by GOD to dispence the Word and Sacraments have Jeroboams Priests of the lowest and basest of men to be your Priests and such whom God Himselfe rejects for want of knowledge And whereas you thinke you are sled out of Babilon you are come into Babell of confusion and errours and your churches ministers and people are like a Bedlam sit to receive none but brainsick distracted santastick persons and wholly unsuietable for all sober godly and conscientious Christians I shall conclude my Reply to your discourse upon this Querie in reference to your Seperate méettings with that prayer of good old Jacob in another ●ase Gen. 49.6 O my soule come not thou into their secrets unto their Assemblies my honour be not thou anited QUERIE III. VVHat warrant have you either to be a Member much lesse a Minister of any such separate Congregation Kiff Ans This Querie as I conceive is added more for number then for waight for who can be so ignorant as to think a congregation can be without members therefore that we can prove our congregations true our membership must needs be true I would not speak any more to this Querie but that I see you pinch so hard upon our seperation in foure of your Queries to which I shall give a more full answer to prove our seperation true from your assemblyes and first it cannot be denyed but Iesus Christ is of the Father Anoynred to be the head of the Church which is his body Eph 1.20.22.23 Coll 1.18 and that we are commanded only to here him Deut 18.15 Acts 3.22 and 7.37 Math 17 5 Pet 1 17 and that whosoever will not heare and obey him the Lord will require it at his hands Deut 18 19. Acts 3 27. Math 7.26.27 and hereby we know we love God and he loves us when we keepe his Commandements 1. Iob 2.3 5.2 3. now then that we can not keep faith and a good Consciencein obeying all the Commands of CHRIST so long as we assemble our selves with you then are we necessitated to seperate our selves from you btu that we cannot keep faith a good conscience so with you these scriptures prove compared with your practice 2 Thess 3 6. 1 Cor 5 11 2 Tim. 2 21 3 5 Eph. 5 1. to the 14. with many other scriptures but in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses every trueth shall stand now then so long as you deny to follow the rule of Iesus Christ and are not obedient to his comands reject the word of God which is given by Christ for the separating of wicked from the godly seperating the pretious from the vile as Mat 18.15.16.17 1 Cor 5.4.5.11.13 we are bound in obedience to Iesus Christ to leave you whilest you remaine obstina●e to him and as it is with a naturall body which receives in all and wants power to voyde the excrements must needs become a rotten filthy uncleane body even so it is with all false spirituall states who by power and authority given to them by the civill magistrate they command all both rich and poor to subject to their worship whether their consciences be brought over to see it a truth or no or else they may not live amongst them or use any traffique with them Rev 13 16 17 and so become the hold of all soule spirits and a cage for every uncleane birde Rev 18 7. now I would but appeale to any reasonable religious men whether England hath not at this time in her as hatefull birds as any nation whatsoever and whether there be not at this day an authority to force in al to worship the d●ily experience of this may be seene by the practice of those which would be counted the most knowing learned men of our times who will have men to worship with them against their wills and soe makes them as the formall hipocrites and therefore when these things doe so appear is it not high time to harken to the voyce of the Apostle Acts 2 40. to save our selves from such a generation and to come out from them Rev 18 4. now that these spoken of with many other which might be brought as the quenching of the spirit and despising prophesie so that no man may speake in your publicke exercises but one that hath the same call and power as those whom you now have cast off contrary to these scriptures 1 Pet 4 10. Heb 10 25. Coll. 3 16. Eph 4 15 16. 1 Cor 12 7 8 14 24 26 31 39. as also all superstitious consecrations to the great deluding of poor ignorant people inraging them against those which worship any where save in your high places contrary to these expresse texts of Scripture Iob 4 20 24. As also continuing of tithes offerings of the people as that Christ were not come in the flesh as that the Clergie of the Kingdome were the tenth parte of the Kingdome for number when as they themselves will tell God in their praiers that the harvest is great but the laborers are but few an act so unjust by them to bee demanded that reason would abhor that a few men in a Kingdome should have the tenth part of the riches of the Kingdome and yet so eagerly persued by them that though the paying of it bee the undoing of men they will have it and therefore pursue men in au●hority at bed and board in pulpit and privat chamber to have power put into their hands to that end as likewise their cruelty in refusing a place of Buriall in their consecrated ground except they have so much mony as perhaps the parties have not in all the world to give them all which considered wi●h many more I desire you to consider of and that yet it be not a sufficient ground to you for the confirmation of our Iust separation yet know it is to us and unlesse you can show us that Christ Iesus is not to be harkened to as well in these Scriptures given for the establishment of the new testament as Moses was in the establishment of the ould and under the penalty of the same

you may see the Net you lay for others your self is caught in The Reply FOr your answer to this my fift Querie in stead of giving of positive grounds for the vindication of your way from the sinful guilt of notorious schisme and defection from all the Reformed Churches you still according to your old wont relate your own practice and course you use in your Churches and in stead of freeing your selves from Schisme you put us to free our selves from the guilt of Schisme from Rome now the Reader may easily observe in stead of answer you make diversions and run into other matters but something for the first of these two the relation of your practice in your way the question will be supposing the matter of your way were justifiable As to baptize none but such as professe faith in their owne persons yet still the question will bee By what warrant or authoritie you doe all this Who gave you authoritie being such a private person to make Churches and Ministers to preach the Word and administer the Sacraments and exercise the power of censures My question was not to you Whether it were lawfull to baptize children or no or whether Christians are bound to watch over one another or whether such as remaine obstinate are to be cast out and not fit to live in the Church Suppose some private persons in this Citie should take upon them the acts of the Lord Maior and Aldermen and should do the things which for the matter are just and lawfull whether would this justifie their leaving of their callings and places wherein they were set and taking upon them to exercise that power I aske whether by the Law of the Land they were blamelesse And now I leave you to make the application As for your discourse you runne into About the baptizing of such as professe faith in Christ Jesus the places brought by you doe prove such were baptize as professed faith in their owne persons yet they doe not prove nor assert that none else were baptized the reason is evident why in your Scriptures quoted many that professed the faith were baptized because they were the first in their families that beleeved in Jesus Christ and were not the children of beleevers And besides they being growne to yeares and come to a knowledge and beleefe in Christ it is not strange that they desired to be partakers of ●hat Ordinance of Christ And in some of your Scriptures quoted Math. 28 19. there is a ground of baptizing of infants as well as growne men and were it worth the while to speake more at large in answer of such a weake Pamphlet I might out of the Act. 2.39 and 2 Col. 11.12 lay downe that for baptisme of children which I am confident all the Teachers of your seven Churches before whom you are first ranked as Metropolitan could never answer But I have spoke sufficiently alreadie in my Replie to your discourse upon my first Querie and my other occasions cause me to contract my selfe And as for your turning of the guilt of your Schisme from all the Reformed Churches by your bidding us free our selves from the guilt of Schisme from Rome in this you betray either your great ignorance or impudent malice in it for we have all the just grounds laid downe in the word of God for a separation from the Church of Rome as grosse idolatry damnable herefie intolerable tyranny the discovery of Antichrist sitting in it and so have cleare Scriptures in all these cases besides the example of all the reformed Churches that have left Rome when as they found she would not be healed But now we defie you and all the Sects in England in this Reformation begunne and further doing to shew either idolatrie in the worship of God or heresie in the doctrine or any other crimes forementioned And for any circumstantiall corruptions which may be we are willing to heare of them and are in a way of reforming of them which whilest we are a labouring after you and your faction are most busie to make separation and division and goe about compassing the earth to seduce Prosylites and draw away members from our Churches And in respect of some small failing in matter of discipline and externall order you draw them into Churches guiltie of Heresie and Schisme and in point of Discipline full of Anarchie and confusion and it will prove a hard taske for you judiciously to remonstrate that either your Church or any such separate Church as yours is have the necessary essentials and substantials required to the constitution of a true visible Church in them And therefore I thinke without any wrong we may count yours no true visible Churches of Christ at all but méere carnall Conventicles set up onely of men and not of God which you magnifie as the only Churches on earth And to conclude let me warne all those who in simplicitie of heart follow you as many of the people did Absolon to separate from your Assemblies because of the heresies and false-doctrines that are held in all the Conventicles of the Anabaptists QUERIE VI. VVHether you and such like pretended Teachers as you are be not the persons characterized and condemned in these and such like Scriptures following Mat. 7.15 Acts 20.29 30. Rom. 16.17.18 2 Tim. 3.6 7 8 9. 2 Pet. 2.1 3. 17.18 19. Jude verse 4 8 10 12 13 16. Kiff Answ Although as far as I am acquainted with my own heart neither I nor such as I am thirst after revenge yet we could desire that the Lord would be pleased to manifest the innocency of our spirits and uprightnesse of our intentions in all such our Actions against such false suppositions or rather calumnie cast upon us I shall only quot one of those Texts and comment a little upon it Mat. 7.15 16. the words are these Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps clothing but inwardly they are ravening Wolves you shall know them by their fruit Christ Jesus himself makes the best discription how those false Prophets may be known which is by the observation of the Fruit Christ in these words compares implicity a true Prophet to a Sheep Now it s the nature of Sheep to be harmlesse silent and to feede in the commons where the shortest pasture usially is So is it the property of a true Prophet of Christ to be harmelesse in his conversation silent under all his sufferings that he meets withall from unreasonable men and to be contented with the meanest injoyments of this world so he may honour Jesus Christ in his condition no way warring after great matters in compelling men by a Law to feede in the fattest pasture in the Land And as the Apostle Paul saith 2 Cor. 10.3 Though we are in the flesh we do not war after the flesh But a Wolfe even in Sheeps clothing to which false Prophets are compared even while they are thus clad may be known by their fruit which will appear

in these two things 1. By their ravenous disposition and 2. By their often snarling with their teeth So you shall sinde false Prophets in Sheeps clothing they are alwayes raveming after honours and therefore like Dogs creep into Kings houses that they may be looked upon as followers with the best of the Kings houshould-Servants and ravening after riches to feede in the fairest pastures of a Kingdome crying Give give and therefore run from living to living where they may have the greatest injoyments of the world and 2 ly they will be alwayes snarling with their teeth that is ready to devoure and persecute all that shall in a way that is more holy then their own derogate from their honours and names and fat injoyments in the world I cease to apply this but desire the Lord to give you discerning eyes to see between light and darknesse Thus at present have I given you a breif Answer to your Queries leaving them to the tryall of Truth and you in the perusall of them to the direction of him that leads into all truth ever resting Yours so far as be shall know his duty William Kiffen The Reply FOr your Answer to this my sixt Querie you labour and indeavour to put off from your selfe and the rest of your Teachers those Characters expressed in those Scriptures quoted by passing by all save one and insisting a little upon that by a glosse of your owne and the truth is all the other Scriptures doe so fully decipher you that the verie reading of them without anie comment at all shewes you to be one of those men meant in those Scriptures And if the Reader will take the paines to turne to them he will confesse as much I will but point at two or thrée of them Acts 20.30 Rom. 16.17.18 and 2 Pet 2.1 2 3 17 18 19. For how evident is it that you make it your worke to draw disciples after you and that you serve your owne bely when you could not live on your owne trade contentedly but you must take this course to serve your belly And for your owne description of true Prophets from false which you say Christ compared true Prophets to Sheepe and that it is the nature of Sheepe to feed in the shortest commons It is evident that you and your faction are not silent under your sufferings nor contented with the meanest imployments and shortest commons of this world but seeke to get the best you can and are capable of and that you are not silent under your sufferings witnesse your master whom you served John L●lborne whose railings and revilings against the high Court of Parliament and the Assembly and those two pious and worthie Gentlemen Master Prin and Doctor Bastwicke And for further conviction of you that you are like false Prophets according to your owne description in ravening after honour and riches call to minde the examples of your predecessors recorded so much in many histories as of John of Leyden Munster c. and though some of you now pretend that you will suffer and that you are contented with a meane condition just as the Fox loves no grapes but it is onely then when he cannot reach them but there is alreadie so much discovered of your faction in this kingdome that if they could get anie power in their hands it is evident they would be ravening wolves after the lives and estates of those that are not of their way even as they now raven after the seducing of soules Thus I have done with your replies to my six Queries wherein I have beene the larger that I might give you and your mis-led disciples the more full satisfaction with all the rest of your poore mis-led Anabaptists in England and in so doing it is for truth and not for victorie and I pray God both you and they may more séek peace and love truth then erroneous crueltie I shall advise all of you to studie conscience more then controversies that are above your reach he that hewes above his head makes the chips fall into his owne eies and more to busie your selves at home then abroad in faulting your owne soules rather then the Church of Christ in studying a true constitution or grace in your own hearts rather then in quarrelling at the constitution of our visible Churches so shall you doe lesse harme to others more good to your selves ANd now to shur up all though you have given no satisfaction at all to any one of my six Queries propounded as I have made it to appeare to an capable and impartiall judgement yet that I may bring you to some conviction of your errour and apprehension of the truth I desire you to bestow your most serious and composed thoughts upon these further Queries ensuing and to give me if you are able A bri●fe per●inent rationall resolution to the same without vagaries invectives and improper circumlocutions such as may become a man that hath the use of reason the feare of God and familiar acquaintance with the holy Scriptures Querie 1. Vpon what Scripture ground can you satisfie your conscience that you did not greatly sinne against Christ the Church and your owne soule in leaping from your private secular vocation into a publike Ecclesiasticall office Querie 2. By what authoritie doe you take the honour to your selfe to become Pastor of a Church without proportionall qualifications for that office and regular vocation to that function seeing none may take such honour to himselfe except he be called as was Aaron nor did Iesus Christ glorifie himselfe to be made a High Priest without unction from the Father Heb. 5.4 5 6. Querie 3. How can you chuse but broach errours deceive soules pervert the Scriptures belie the Spirit of God and build abundance of hay stubble and such like trash upon Gods foundation whilest you presume to expound the Scriptures to others your selfe wanting the necessarie helpes of the Originall Tongues wherein the Scripture was written and of the Liberall Arts requisite for the interpreting of everie line in Scripture without which you wholy preach and your followers beléeve by an implicit faith Querie 4. Whether doe not you contract upon your selfe the dreadfull guilt of the blood of all those soules which you have seduced unto or abetted in you Anabaptisticall and schismaticall errors and when Iesus Christ the great Shepheard of the Sheepe shall appeare what will you answer him Querie 5. How can you make it appeare by anie probable colour of Scripture that either our Ministers are false and Antichristian or our Churches false and unchristian as your partie are often vaunting Quetie 6. Whether have not you and the rest of the separation more really and perniciously opposed and retarded the reforming of our Church which you crie downe for her corruption then all the Prelaticall Papisticall Atheisticall opposites of the Antichristian faction and is not this a high offence against the Church of God for which you ought to be déeply humbled Querie 7. By what light of Scripture or sound reason can you oppose the supreme Parliamentarie authoritie in restraining of prophanenesse schisme and heresie in punishing of incorrigible obstinacie in reforming a Church corrupted in protecting a Church reformed and in conveening of an Assemblie of godly Orthodor Ministers to draw up their advice according to the ●ord of God for such ends and purposes and strengthning their determinations with their civill sanction Querie 8. Whether is not the government and discipline of the Church according to the dependant Presbyterian way undoubtedly held forth in the Word of God as Christs New Lestament-government and all other governments méere humane invention or what can you produce out of the Scripture to the contrary Querie 9. What Scripture can you produce which either in expresse termes or by cléere infallible consequence disallowes the baptizing of Infants of one or both faith-professing parents and by what warrant dare you presume to rebaptize any persons whose Infant-baptisme no Scripture condemnes whose rebaptizing no Scripture allowes Querie 10. By what Scripture grounds can you prove that stinted formes of Praise and Prayer to God are simply and absolutely in themselves unlawfull and if they bee not in themselves intrinsecally evill why may not Christians sometimes comfortably use them according to Christian prudence and liberty Love the truth and peace Zach. 8.19 Doe nothing against the truth but for the truth 2 Cor. 13.8 It is the advice of him who although he abhorres your errours yet wisheth well to your soules Iosiah Ricraft FINIS

and not suffer you and such like to goe on in your Schismes and Heresies they doe no more then they may lawfully doe yea then what is their duty to doe and this is so farre from being any lawfull ground of forsaking our Church that on the contrary the not suppressing of Sects and Schisms by their power and authority were a juster ground of separation For it is apparent by the example of the godly kings and Magistrates as Asa Josiah and others that they looke to it that the worship and house of God were reformed according to the word and commanded and caused all the people to stand to it 2 Chron. 34.31 32. As for your third ground brought to justifie your separating from us in that we quench the Spirit and despise Prophesie know it is your ignorance in not understanding the Scripture makes you say so for your selves will be found to be the men that quench the Spirit and despise Prophesie in despising the publike Ministery of the word and you could not have quoted a place against your selves more then that is for by the interpretation of learned men upon that Scripture 1. Thess 5.20 is meant the publique ministery of the word as being the great Ordinance of God against the quenching of the Spirit and your Sect of all others is knowne to be a despiser of the publique ministery And as for a fourth ground brought by you to name no more they being so frivolous The maintenance of Ministers by Tithes I wish you to consider of that Scripture 1 Cor. 9.13 14. where the Apostle shews that they that minister about holy things live of the things of the Temple and they that wait upon the Altar are partakers of the Altar which is meant of Tithes And the Apostle speaking of the maintenance of the Ministers under the Gospel saith Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel Now observe the Apostles words he doth not say The Lord hath ordained but even so the Lord hath ordained how so but as he speakes in the 13. vers namely of Tithes and Offerings as you call it if you say not by Tithes and by Offerings then it concernes you to make it appeare either out of the old or New Testament where ever God hath ordained that they that preach the Gospel should have any other fixed maintenance but Tithes And it is certaine by this place that God hath somewhere in the word ordained their maintenance And for conclusion to your Answer to my Third Querie supposing that through want of discipline we had not nor should not have a purging of the wicked from the godly yet for private persons to forsake our Churches were not justifiable neither the want of prophesying take it in your own sense suppose it were a defect of something of an Ordinance yet it would not justifie your separation and so I might say of all the rest And were it not that I had beene so large already I might shew you how that the suffering of evill persons in the Church yea the neglect of somewhat commanded being an affirmative duty could no way warrant your becomming a member much lesse a Minister of any such separate congregation And let me make it your owne case whether your suffering of many of your members to live in disobedience as wives to their husbands children to their parents and servants to their masters lawfull commands and further living in backbiting railing and reviling not of private persons only as they have some of them to their shame beene convicted of but also of the high Court of Parliament of England with our Brethren of Scotland with the Ministery of both Kingdomes and all the Reformed Churches which sinnes are as great as drunkennesse and are put by the Holy Ghost in the Catalogue of vilest sinnes Rom. 1.30 backbiters disobedient to parents And in the 1 Cor. 5.11 the plact brought by you for not comming to the Lords Supper in our Churches because of drunkards doth as expresly forbid to eat with railers which you and your members are notorious enough for and this by your rule were a sufficient ground for your members to forsake your Churches and set up new in their roomes QUERIE IV. WHat warrant have you to admit into your separate Congregations silly seduced servants children or people Kiff Ans I see our separated Congregations stick very hard upon your stomacks therefore as I have laboured to helpe you to digest our separation so I hope I shall give you something from the word of truth that may remove your imbitterednesse of spirit against our Congregations And first know this that infinite love which hath redeemed a people to God out of Nations Tongues and Kindred hath also made them Kings and Priests unto God to reigne with him in his spirituall Kingdome here on the earth Rev. 5.9 10. and that all those which are begotten by the immortall seed 1 Pet. 1.23 even those new borne Babes that have tasted of the Lords bounty and come to that living and precious stone the Lord Jesus being themselves living stones are built up a spirituall house being made a holy Priesthood to offer up spirituall sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ 1 Pet 2.1 to the 11. verse and being quickned by Christ are raised with him to sit together in heavenly places Eph. 2.5.6 being by one spirit baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12 13. the old man being buried with him Rom. 6.4 and the new man put on Gal. 3.27 Col. 3.10 thus having an entrance to the Father the building being thus coupled together by the same spirit groweth to an holy Temple and so becomes an habitation to the Lord Eph. 2.18 to 22. which assembly we are not to forsake Hebr. 10.25 but to exhort one another daily Hebr. 3.12 13. having received gifts by the same spirit we are to dispence them for edification 1 Cor. 12.47 1 Pet. 5.10 Rom. 12.3 to 9. to these congregations hath Christ promised his presence Mat. 28.19.20 and 18.19 20. Rev. 7.13 14 15. and 21.2 3. and 22.13 Now then that we can prove our selves to be such congregations as are before spoken of or at least wise such as doe sincerely and truly strive according to that light wee have to be such then I hope you will be so farre from despising such gatherings of the Saints together as that you will not deny them to receive in members and to dispence such gifts for the edifying one of another as the Lord hath given us and this I shall labour to doe in the answere to your next Querie and wheras you demand what warrant we have to receive sillie seduced servants c. we answer it is well knowne to you we receive in none as members with us but such as has beene members of your Church at the least 16 20 or 30. yeers and that they be sillie when they are received members among us surely they