those Principles in mens minds which cause Divisions in all other Churches as well as that and will never suffer Christians to Unite and Agree where they prevail 2. That I was so far from perswading any Minister to the present Conformity that I perswaded not the Readers 1. Either to use the Ceremonies 2. or to communicate with any Persecutors 3. or to own Diocesans 4. nor to communicate with or own a Diocesan Church 5. nor to communicate with or own any Parish Minister that is intolerable through Insufficiency Heresie or Wickedness 6. nor to speak one false word nor to do one sinful action to obtain Communion with the best Church in the world 7. nor to prefer Communion with a worse Church and Minister before Communion with a better where it may be had without greater loss than benefit 8. nor to forbear any lawful endeavours in private for each others good 9. nor to forsake a lawful faithful Pastor merely because he is cast out of the Tythes and Temple 10. nor to take a man for your Pastor merely because he hath possession of the Tythes and Temple 11. nor that a lawful faithful Minister should give over his Ministerial work or not perform it to the best Edificacation of the Church whoever is displeased by it or whatever it cost him which I take to be downright Perfidiousness against his Ordination and Sacrilege as being the alienation of a devoted consecrated person yea greater Sacrilege than alienating Church Lands 12. Nor did I perswade any Minister that instead of flying to another City as Christ once commanded he must needs fly from all Cities For the Diocesans that think Cities only were the seats of Churches and Bishops might inferr that if it be lawful to desert the souls of all in Cities and Corporations it is but a little step farther to dâ—sert the Villages also 13. Nor did I ever perswade any Minister to go to a Parish Church in City or Corporation who is by Law forbidden to come within five miles of it and who by appearing there doth put himself into prison for six months in the common Jayl 14. Nor did I ever perswade any to hear the common Prayer or go to the Parish Churches merely for fear of punishment and to save themselves None of all these were the matters I that medled with 3. But the things that I perswaded men to were these 1. To disclaim the foresaid Love-killing and Church-dividing Principles 2. Particularly to joyn with a Parish Church that hath a good Minister and that ordinarily in case you can enjoy no better without more loss than the benefit is like to be 3. And extraordinarily to joyn sometimes with such a Parish even when you have a better to shew by what Principles you walk unless when some apparent hurt forbid it which for that time is like to be greater than the good Pardon this Repetition of the state of my Case for without it I cannot be understood and his repeated untruths require it And now to his third Libel called the Review Sect. 1. The Title Page speaks of All my immodest calumnies confuted when 1. He neither proveth one Calumny in my Book nor confuteth one detection of his Untruths Sect. 2. He cunningly tells you in an Advertisement that ten or eleven have read his present citations of my words As if that justified fourscore falshoods before written Sect. 3. Pag. 1. He confesseth it is foolish and wicked to publish fourscore Vntruths in five or six sheets of Paper And yet thinks not himself obliged it seems any farther to vindicate himself by one considerable word but as it were by hoping his Readers will not believe that he was so foolish and wicked Doth Church-discipline require no better defence nor no more repentance for above fourscore published Untruths than this Sect. 4. Instead of Repentance he inviteth his Readers to usurp Gods prerogative as he doth and to judge my Heart that it was never truly humbled and that my Repentance is hypocritical Sect. 5. Thus lying down impenitently under all the crimes false doctrines and untruths which he published he now puts them off as Bye-matters and taketh on him to return to the Question which he saith was first designedly handled between us which he saith is Whether Conformity at this day upon conscientious grounds can be defended by any or at least with any kind of honesty be contended for by you Thus he will play small game no more nor write Untruths by parcels but let you know that it is not one untruth shall be the substance of his discourse If telling the Church be a duty it is not Railing to name the sin I therefore desire the Church to consider whether it be easie among the parties that he separateth from or worse than they to meet with so great Impudency in forgeries I know by equivocation almost any words may be verified But when there is no explication adjoyned the rule of humane speech is that Analogum per se positum stat prosignificato famosiore that is Analogous or equivocal words put alone without an ex exposition are to be taken in the most common or famous sense Now the word Conformity in its old and usual sense doth signifie that Conformity by Subscriptions Oaths and Ceremonies which distinguish the people called Non-conformists from the Conformists who yet were notoriously distinguished from the Separatists It 's true that it may be called Conformity if we are baptized if we profess Christianity if we read the Scriptures if we use the common Translation if we go to hear a Sermon in publick if we use the Lords Prayer c. in all this we do as the Church of England doth But this is not it that is notified by the common use of this name Now do but note the front of the man 1. The world knoweth that I never Conformed as the Law obligeth Ministers to do that I lose my whole Ministerial maintenance much more than ever he did all things considered and which is a thousand times more the liberty of my Ministry in publick because I do not conform 2. He knoweth that I have professed in all the three Books which he writeth against that I neither am for Conformity nor ever wrote for it He knoweth how distinctly I excluded that from the Question and stated the Question far otherwise which I meddle with Yet dare this man make this false profession of our difference 3. Yea when it is separation in plain words and not mere Non-conformity which he undertakes to defend on his very Title Page 4. And that I have oft professed to plead for the same cause that Dod Hildersham Cartwright Paget Bradshaw Brightman Ball Gifford and the other Nonconformists defended against the Separatists of those times â—â—d will you believe him if he say that they pleaded for Confâ—rmity Sect. 6. He again repeateth his most palpable untruth in comparing me in the warrs with any one whomsoever passing over my answers
must bear with unless you will separate from your own leaders Deal but impartially Is there one Parish Minister yea or one Parish Church Member of many that was ever convict of so much sin as Mr. Bagshaw hath published and silently but impertinently lyeth down under Is there many of them that ever defended half so much sin so obstinately without confession and yet so impotently without sence Separate from no Ministers or people that are not proved as guilty as this man and I will never more write against your Separation 2. And now the world and posterity shall see in this mans writings how the cause of unlawful Separation was defended in this age I openly profess that this is a great reason that drew me to Defend my Cure of Church Divisions by three following Defences that Posterity may see what interest and passion will not now suffer some to see I look to the times to come And if there be any wiser men among them that can say more for the Separating-cause they are best set to it For if they leave it on such hands as Mr. Bagshaws it is easie to foresee that it will be shamed for ever Yet do I solemnly profess that to my utmost remembrance I never in my life did venture upon or manage one dispute by word or writing through a confidence in my own ability to make good what I undertook but in a confidence of the goodness of my Cause and of the great advantage which the evidence of plain truth doth give to any man of good reason to defend it even against the cunningest Sophister that shall oppose it Sect. 3. And now I shall add my Admonition to you as not being quite ignorant of Satans Wiles to tell you what a snare is laid for you all in Mr. Bagshaw's Writings and as one that hath no interest but Christs and the Churches to move him to it to tell you how great the danger is if you swallow the bait 1. If he prevail with you he will draw you into the guilt of all those sins of his own fore-mentioned by your approbation consent And how great an addition will that be to your load 2. It would draw you to the entertainment of all those Love-killing Malignant and Dividing Principles which I cast down and he sets up And you little know what an evil it is to have an understanding so blinded and a heart so defiled 3. By this means that true universal Love to Godly men and Christians as such will be destroyed And when you should bear Gods Image who is Love it self you will be made like Satan the enemy of God and Love And instead of loving your neighbour as your self you will take your neighbours yea Christs members for your enemies 4. And as Love is the fulfilling of the Law so your death of Love will be the death of all your true obedience and lead you to the breach of every Law You will deny all the acts of Love in word or deed to others that you owe them to you will censure you will backbite freely you will receive false reports and vend them again to others And Christ may say to you Inasmuch as you did it not to one of the least mark the least of these my brethren you did it not to me 5. You will be tempted into Treason against Christ under pretence of piety denying his interest in almost all his Churches in the world Even as if you should say that the King is King of one or two Towns only in all his Kingdoms on pretence that all the rest are not good enough to be his Subjects I profess openly that nothing in the world more moveth me to do what I do than this That there is much within me that will not suffer me without abhorrence to think of either unchurching all Churches in the world that use a set Liturgy yea that use one worse than ours or yet to hold that they should all be separated from And had I ever Vowed and Covenanted to do this as I did not it had been a sinful Vow 6. And moreover it will possess you with a degenerate and false kind of Religion consisting in sidings and partial opinions and obeying your selves instead of God 7. And it will make you Satans instruments to disturb all Churches that you joyn with if you do not want occasion and temptation For the Principles which I wrote against will let no Church be quiet where they prevail And a Kingdom or house divided cannot stand 8. You will be drawn from true spiritual worshipping of God and your worship and Church-communion will be corrupted Instead of holy and heavenly Sermons Prayers praises c. you will be infected with a contending and envying passion and puffed up with the conceit of your own judgments and grow zealous for your personal opinions and your parties and turn your preaching and praying into a strain that savoureth of this disease and defile them with unsounder passages for your errours or divided interests than any can be found in the Common Prayers which you shun 9. And if you be thus overcome it will heinously aggravate your sin that you will do all this as a part of your Religion and so will father it all on God as if such doing pleased him and proceeded from his spirit and were commanded by his word And as Matth. 12. it is made the unpardonable sin to blaspheme the Holy Ghost by ascribing his Miracles to Satan so though it be pardonable you should easily see that it cannot be small to say that those things which are pleasing to the Devil and proceed from his will and malicious suggestions are pleasing to God and proceed from his spirit and word 10. By these means Satan would make your Churches to do his work against the Lord whom they profess to worship and and to be the very Nests where PRIDE and IGNORANCE shall breed their like and shall cherish sinful Love killing principles and passions and animosities against your brethren And so your Assemblies will be acted too much by his suggestions and become his Work-houses while you think that they are serving God and mens wisdom will be earthly sensual and diabolical when they verily think it is from above Iam. 3 15 16. 11. Thus he would fain bring an odium upon your selves and cause you to go under such a character as the Munster Anabaptists and the Familists Quakers and such others do That men may say of you that while you take on you to be stricter than others it is but in abhorring other mens Prayers and extolling your own And that sin is no sin when you find it in your own party or your selves And that Lyars and most impudent Calumniators and proud Revilers c. go among your selves for Godly persons while the uprightest men that use the Common Prayer do go for Idolaters and Ungodly And if Satan can but get such an odious Character fastened on you what
mischievous advantage will he make of it 12. For then next he will hope to bring all the Non-conformists or the greater part while a few only are excepted under the same Character for your sakes That they may be all thought to be men of irrational uncharitable and unpeaceable principles and spirits whose Religion consisteth but in Fanaticisme and self-conceit and foolish condemning the things which they understand not because their party hath done so before them And if Satan can thus far obtain his ends he hath laid the eggs of a world of farther sin and sufferings 13. Then all that are against them will be exceedingly confirmed in all those things and wayes which I need not name unto you and for which it is that you separate from them And will think that your condemnation of them is but a commendation 14. Yea Ministers of loose and vicious lives will be hardened by you against repentance and will think that they are better than you and that though they sometimes are drunk or idle yet they are pardoned because you that own such greater sins do pass for godly and because chiefly such as you condemn them 15. Yea which will be a doleful mischief you will afford matter for every carnal Preacher to make a Sermon of against those that go for strict and godly and to perswade the people that all that profess much strictness are but such as you and that hypocrisie is the cover for their sins which are worse than other mens Thus while the word Puritan as Fanatick now was first taken up to signifie an errour a conceit of self-perfection c. at last it grew that which Mr. Robert Bolton hath so often told the world a word of scorn in wicked mens mouths against all that truly feared God And thus while you fly from all the Parish Assemblies as desiled you will be the men that will make them far worse when some Pulpits will be made Stages on which the Actors may set forth all those Religious men that in any thing dissent from them in a ridiculous and odious dress to the derision and loathing of the auditors 16. By which means thousands of ignorant people will be tempted into a contempt of piety it self and their conversion wonderfully hindered And prejudice will make them turn from that way with scorn and obloquy which should save them O how many thousands have in England fâ—â—merly been hindred from true repentance by hearing strict Religious people both talk'd and preached against as hypocrites and a sort of proud self-opinioned men 17. And the common people will learn quickly to overgo the Preachers and will make the Godly in streets and Ale-house their common scorn And Satan will have almost as many Preachers to make Piety odious and hinder mens repentance as there be wicked men As when the Preacher by a Puritan heretofore meant a Non-conformist the ignorant rabble expounded and applied it of all that were not such as they 18. And by this means the Devil hopeth to disaffect and exasperate many Learned men that differ from you to turn the strength and reputation of their parts and learning to make you contemptible and vile Bishop Overall Whitgift Mountague c. were very learned men but exasperation set their parts and pens in that military strain as was not pleasing to their Antagonists As it did Mr. Hooker's and many more who by Love and meekness and a peaceable familiarity without sin might have been disarmed I need not go beyond Sea to tell you how the Learned Ios. Scaliger was exasperated to revile the Puritans by Mr. Lidiates opposition vid. Praef. ad Cam. Isagog nor to mention Salmatius Grotius or any others there nor to look back as far as Erasmus much less to many too many of the ancient Bishops and Doctors of the Church 19. Yea while you fear Persecution you will take the readiest way in the world to bring it on your selves and others for your sakes For the consciences of Rulers will perhaps little scruple the hurting of such men as are taken to be so bad They being Gods Ministers to use the sword for a terrour to evil doers and if you once pass for notorious evil doers you will hardly scape And it will be but a foolish fruitless course to do the evil your selves and then lay the blame of all your sufferings on them that tell you of it and that take it to be evil and will not commend your sins as so many acts of piety As if the assumed name of Virtue would hide the odiousness of Vice For nature and Scripture will help men to see your nakedness through so thin a vail and God himself will not suffer sin to keep up its credit by usurped names It is not silencing the Reprovers that will do the work of any sinners It must be the avoiding of the sin it self 20. And if you take this sinful dividing course you will make more Papists and such others as you your selves most fly from and disclaim than almost any other way could do Nothing that I know of in the world doth so strongly tempt some sober consciencious men to think Poperty necessary for the Concord of the Churches and a violent Church Government necessary to our Peace as the woful experience of the errours and schisms the mad and manifold Sects that arise among those that are most against them Thousands have been made Papists in England Scotland and Ireland within these twenty years that have been driven from us by our shameful Sects yea many of the Sectaries themselves when they have run themselves through as many Sects as they could try I am perswaded that Mr. Bagshaws Libels are as powerful writings to cross his own desires and turn many from Non-conformity and others unto Popery as most that have been published in this age Multitudes that read them will say Here you see the spirit of Non conformity though I have proved it a calumny Others will say You see how mad men grow when they unite not with the Cathalick Church and live not under a strict Church Government 21. And by all this Satan hopeth to turn the Non-conformists Sufferings to their shame And to make the world believe that as this man suffereth for refusing the Oath of Allegiance so do the rest for some self-conceits and unwarrantable fancies of their own 22. And he will put hard to bring Church diseipline it self into disgrace and scorn by you that most desire and plead for it For men will say These are they that cry out for Discipline and separate from our Church because it wanteth or corrupteth it When in their own Churches and Leaders such crimes as Bagshaws Books contain are tolerable as consistent with religious zeal and perhaps is all ascribed unto godliness what more effectual way could be devised to make Church-discipline contemptible to the world 23. And all this will tend to disable the Ministers of Christ both conformable and non-conformable from doing
utterly false Sect. 16. pag. 7. In a parenthesis he saith If there be any difference between you and us The Libeller filling three Pamphlets with heinous charges and after and before also questioning Whether indeed there be any difference between him and me Sect. 17. pag. 8 With as insolent ignorance doth he feign me to make that which he calleth Devised Worship viz. the Liturgy to be Idolatry in my foresaid Book and now to repent of and oppose what I held And all because Disp. p. 378. I say to such as they would suspend silence excommunicate punish all such as will not pray to God in the words that they impose on them that if Reasons will not allay their impious distemper but will domineer over mens consciences and the Church of God we must leave them to him that being the Lord and Law-giver of the Church is jealous of his prerogative and abhorreth Idols Remember that I spake of none but the Clergy And is there any man that excelleth not in ignorance and rashness that would have thought here that it is a Form of Prayer or Liturgy that I call Idols or that could not see at the first reading that I call the persons only the Idols that usurp the prerogative of God And will this pittiful man still falsly insinuate or suppose that all the honest Christians or Ministers of all the Parish Churches in England are such usurping imperious Idols yea or all the Bishops either Even Martyn himself as well as Ithacius Thus are poor souls abused by deceivers Yea note that in the same disputation cited by him I largely prove the lawfulness of Liturgies and Forms and the necessity of them in some cases Sect. 18. Ib. Yet doth he again most falsly say that I have unworthily receded from what I wrote and yet addeth that I have not that he knoweth of repented of it Receded from it and yet not repented of What a forgetful self-contradicter is this man And so he thanketh God that I was heretofore stirred up to write so much which now condemneth me even for the same that I there and then did write and never repented of Sect. 19. His next subject where he saith that I argue against the Divine and self-evidencing authority of the holy Scripture is one of the visiblest lyes that ever I saw written by a man When I had not only said the contrary but told where I had voluminously proved it to give me not a word of sense in answer but write as if he had never read my reply Being to Tell the Church I must desire them to consider Whether a more Impudent studied Lye impenitently insisted in after a double detection without an answer was ever presented to their view And whether they can name me a Christian Writer in the world more infamously self-stigmatized with this vice The rest that he writeth of it I cannot perswade my self to tire the Reader with an answer to Only I note that he citeth Mr. Hildersham's words with the false intimation that I contradict them while the same worthy man is both applauded by him and suppositively taken for a Patron of Idolatry as one that perswadeth men not onely to come to Church and Common-prayer but to come to the beginning False speakers do thus ordinarily contradict themselves Sect. 20. When pag. 11. he saith that a Papist is worse than of no Religion I say no more to him but that Overdoing is the Devils last way of undoing and that such men be they that multiply and confirm the Papists Sect. 21. Ibid. p. 11. he would have you know what Religion he is of and how he meaneth to save his Disciples from Idolatry saying Had not I learned the truth of Christian Religion from better arguments and a more certain way of reasoning than any your books afford I had still been plunged in the depths of Atheism Now 1. Note that Reasoning in a certain way preserveth him from Atheism 2. That he seemeth to say that he was an Atheist by saying I had still continued so But you must not expect such base mutability from him as when he hath denied the Living God to confess it plainly and profess repentance 3. Note that he will be an Atheist still and it seems perswade the Separatists to be such till he hath better Reasons than my Books afford Now the Reasons that my Books afford are these note them Reader First from the witness of God the Creator in the frame of Nature Secondly From the witness of God our Redeemer in his supernatural Revelations 3. From the witness of God the Holy Ghost on the Scriptures and in the Soul First Printing on the Scripture the Image of Gods Power Wisdome and Goodness which is its self-evidence And next by the Scripture printing the said Image of Gods Power Wisdom and Goodness on every holy soul which none but God is able to do These three Testimonies of the Father Son and Holy Ghost is the sum of my evidence enlarged Now Mr. Bagshaw will be an Atheist still and it seems perswade the Separatists to be such till he hath better reasons for his faith than the witness of the Creator the Redeemer and the Sanctisier God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is his zeal for the Glory of God and the Cause of Christ and the good of souls Sect. 22. Yet pag. 13. with much railing he insinuateth this abominable falshood and calumny against Christs excellent Servants that Calvin Preston Hildersham Perkins c. would have no more done in asserting a Deity and Christianity than to tell men that all is true that God speaketh in his Word and that propria luce it is evident that the Scripture is his word and that to all Gods elect he will give his spirit to discern it and thus much alone is better than all these disputes and reasonings Whereas 1. These same men have all of them said much more themselves in their writings 2. And Paul preached otherwise to the Athenians Acts 17. and to others 3. And what kind of preaching would this man make among Turks and Heathens that deny the Scriptures You see 1. He will leave out all the Natural evidences of a Deiy and of mans immortal state and so all the Principles in which we are agreed with them 2. He will leave out all the Historical proofs that these Books were written by Christs Apostles and Evangelists and are not altered since And 3. That he will leave out the use of mans Ministry in Translating or Preaching And will let the illiterate Reader look on a Hebrew and Greek Bible till propria luce they know it is of God or at least that the Minister when they say How shall I know that this is Gods Word shall only bid them read it whether they can or not and if they be elect the spirit will cause them to discern that propria luce it will shew it self to be Gods Word but if they be not elect they have
no remedy And what need Preachers to tell men this Bibles may be sent by other hands and will be Bibles whether we preach or not And the elect are elect before we preach to them And if the man know that Light here is but a Metaphor what can he mean by it but Objective Evidence And must we only tell Heathens that the Scriptures have their proper evidence and not tell them what that evidence is Is this his preaching Yet that you may see what such men would bring the Church world to he adds p. 13. If understand anything of the true nature of Religion c. and warneth all persons most earnestly that they go his way And most falsly addeth that I lay my foundation in the corrupt will of man and build my superstructure in the carnal understanding and leave no room for true holiness and mortification but the root of sin within remaineth untouched And is not this like the Pope the most uncharitable man of Infallibility who hath better reasonings against Atheism and for a holy state of souls and unless to forbid all Reasoning be it will not vouchsafe to open them to the Church or bless mankind by a noble communication of them Sect. 23. pag. 14. Having ended he beginneth again with his Witticismes And 1. I speak absurdly and insignificantly for saying of his Rash and carelesly uttered untruth that it 's privatively voluntary that is when the Will omits its office Where saith this Learned man I am much to seek what can be meant by privatively voluntary or how any action can be done where the will omits its office Ans. And I have no mind to take such a person for my Scholar And therefore let me be excused if I leave him and such proud ignorant persons in his beloved ignorance Let him believe that a man is a beast and that his Rational faculties were not made to rule the sensitive or that the Will either never omits its ruling office or if it do the sensitive cannot act or that the Will is not the principle quoad exercitium of humane acts as the Intellect is quoad specificationem or that if the Will omit this imperate act ad exercitium and the sense lead men never so far that yet the Act is not Reputatively Voluntary that is that mans Will not guilty of any privation or omission of loving God of feeding our children of giving to the poor of praying meditating c. or that such omissions are not imputable to the Will as sins when all say that all sin is Voluntary I do not wonder that this man is against Bishops tooth and nail even as they are ordainers For as loose as they are said to be in their ordinations I doubt whether they would not reject him for utter Ignorance and insuâ—â—icience who hath no more knowledge of the nature of sin and no more reason to cure his Atheism Sect. 24. His next high witticisme is that I mention Areceiving obediential power in a carnal Will which receiving you call saith he a passive power where the Comment is harder than the Text. Answ. Reader Dost thou not blush that among men that have been at an University there should be found a man so ignorant and so proud of it as not to know what Potentia obedientialis is in common use of Philosophers and Divines or not to know that every creature is passive in receiving the Divine influx or operation or that Recipere est pati unless when we take the word Recipere analogically and morally If these things were but Hard to the man why is he so proud as to disdain them Sect. 25. The next and last is when he had said that It is not corruption barely nor imposition barely that is a sufficient ground for any to separate I had no rag to cover his barely with but charitably to interpret him as meaning by barely the Quatenus or the Act formally as such without taking in the greatness of the matter of that corruption or imposition that is That it is not Corruption formally as Corruption but the greatness of the matter corrupted Nor Imposition formally as an Act of Imposition but as an imposition of some ill or unsufferable thing I could not have put sense on his words by any other interpretation Yet doth he so disdain my kindness and to have so much sense imputed to him that he pronounceth the sentence that I and the Schools may call these distinctions but indeed they are nothing but Learned Nonsence And if the Reader be not yet convinced that PRIDE is the Father and IGNORANCE the mother of our errours contentions divisions scandals and confusions he shuts his eyes here against a most convincing instance Sect. 26. p. 15. For saying upon the invitation of his Sophistry that I am perswaded if Christ came personally and visibly to demand it the King would yield up his Crown to him Instead of defending his errour which this reason did detect he only sentenceth me to be like the Mockers that deride the promise of his coming Sect. 27. Ib. He next compareth me to Boyes and Children as pretending to know no difference in point of Imposition between one that useth a form of his own and he that is imposed on to use only the form of another P. 119. 120. Thus the man and his ten or eleven friends whom he chargeth in his premonition with attesting his Veracity are all made falsities by him There is not a word of my pretending to know no difference Nor was my comparison at all between one that useth a form of his own and he he meaneth him that is imposed on to use only the form of another as he is himself imposed on by that other but only as both impose upon the people No doubt there is a difference in the Passive part between the Minister that is imposed on and him that is not But I still provoke him to tell me any difference in their several impositions on the people which at all concerneth our present controversie Yes he addeth In the one case the hearer is alwayes at perfect liberty how far and how often he will joyn In the other he is alwayes tied up and must either joyn in such a prescript form of words or none at all and this he knoweth before hand c. Answ. Here are two differences pretended 1. Reader Is there in the first any shadow of the truth at all Yet are there some men that such words will take with contrary to the common sense of mankind As if it were not the Papists only that can believe against all common sense What reason can he give why one that is present is not as free to joyn or not to joyn in heart with any passage in the Common Prayer as in a free prayer of the Minister I do seriously wonder what made the man speak these words When the Minister prayeth freely I may in heart either joyn with him neglect him or
dissent And what hinders me from doing so at Common-Prayer He saith I must joyn in that form or none at all True And so must I when the Minister either prayeth freely or in a stinted form of his own You must joyn in that or none at all for that time I told him of old Mr. Fen a zealous Non-conformist at Coventry that would say Amen loud to every Prayer of the Liturgy save that for the Bishops Did he not use as much liberty here as he could have done at free prayer 2. And for fore knowledge he passeth by all the answer I oft gave to that objection and singeth over the same song again Fore-knowing what will be said doth more enable me to know what clause to forbear my consent to than in sudden Prayer not foreknown And what if by his constant custome I foreknow that Iohn Simpson Randal Iohn Goodwin Saltmarsh Dr. Crisp Canne Iohnson Blackwood or any other tolerable Opinionist will put his opinion into his Prayers Doth not that make them in this all one with an imposed prayer as to fore-knowledge And when I fore-know that the Matter of the Liturgy used on the Lords dayes by the Minister and people is sound this fore-knowledge maketh it not evil in the use Sect. 28. When I gave him no less than twenty Queries containing plain evictions of the falseness of his Doctrine about the Scriptures his answer is that he will answer them when I have satisfied him that I sinned not greatly in raising such mists and doubts and when I give him security that I will not ask him as many more Reader Is not this man an easie disputant Did you ever know any that answered all with less ado than so silly a reason Why he should not answer it Sect. 29. He concludeth by telling us that he is to say no more your best your equal I know what he meaneth though not what he saith And really it was but need that he should tell the world how good or worthy a man he is or else a sober person that had but read one of his three Libels would hardly have believed it Sect. 30. Having ended the second time he begins again with a Postscript to tell us his reasons for his refusing the Oath of Allegiance which he is imprisoned for But I have no mind to meddle with him where I have no call And shall only say that had it been more even the Oath of Supremacy it self if he will regard either Non-conformist Independents or Anabaptist Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Nie and Mr. Tombes have each written enough to teach him better to understand that English CHAP. IV. An Admonition to that part of the Church which is inclined to Mr. Bagshaw's Errours Sect. 1. VVEre it not my present Duty to Tell the Church I should take it to be as inconvenient as unpleasing to open Mr. Bagshaw's sins But as Christ did it by the Pharisees yea and Peter himself and as Paul in his Epistles did it by many so I think it is now become my duty though he and his believers be displeased by it I shall but desire the impartial sober Readers that have perused his Writings and mine to judge 1. Whether so great Ignorance as he discovereth in himself be not scandalous in a Preacher of the Gospel 2. Whether such dangerous errours in Doctrine against the very foundations of our faith with many other proved against him make him not an unsafe Guid for souls And give not incomparably greater occasion for renouncing him as an Heretick to such as are apt to take such occasion than most called Hereticks in the ancient Churches gave 3. Whether it be not rare among the worst of men to meet with so many evidences of Insolent Pride above the common measure of Proud men as his three Libels do contain 4. Whether it be not a hard matter to find among the worst of men on earth two Libels so small containing above fourscore visible Vntruths in matter of fact And a third to follow them substantially constituted of the like Vntruths scarce now to be numbred any more than drops that are aggregate in a Pond 5. Whether it be not rare to meet with more malicious contrived snares to make up his ends upon the person instead of defending of his Cause 6. Whether ever you saw a controversie so managed by any sort of men of what heresie soever that said so little for their Cause as he hath done for his Love-killing Principles I confess I remember not one no not excepting the very Quakers Read over several debates and see whether ever a cause so hotly contended for had so little said for it 7. Whether ever you saw Books so answered as mine are by him In all his three Libels not medling at all with any considerable part of my Books as to any answer But silently passing them over as if he had never read them And yet going on to repeat the same things which I had confuted 8. Whether his Calumny or false accusations of me and of Calvin Perkins Hildersham Preston c. be not an unchristian act 9. Whether it be not rare among the worst to find such footsteps of great Impenitence as he giveth in so silent a passing over his guilt of the fore-mentioned fourscore Vntruths without any considerable Vindication and after Admonition adding so many worse 10. Whether it be not rare to meet with so much audacious impudence in sinning 11. Whether the slandring of so many millions yea almost all Christs Churches on Earth as differ from him in point of Forms c. as guilty of Idolatry be not a most heinous sin against Christ and them as representing them as odious in the world 12. And is it not a sin to draw so many poor souls as will beieve him so far towards the hatred of Christs Churches and â—om Communion with them and to confine all their Communion 〈◊〉 so narrow a compass 13. Whether Fathering all this on God and Religion make â—â—t the sin to be yet greater 14. Whether according to his power he shew not as Cruâ—â— and bloudy and silencing a disposition as any of those that 〈◊〉 he accused of it 15. Whether he do not injuriously to labour by his insiâ—tions to bring many honest well-meaning Christians 〈◊〉 into the same guilt with himself or into the shameâ—â— reputation of it Insomuch that â—lready the common 〈◊〉 dishonoureth many of the Semi-separatists saying that they 〈◊〉 rejoyce at his Writings and so hate my Treatise against Church-dividing Principles as that for the sake of it they will read no other of my Books And if that hurt them no more than me the matter is but small Sect. 2. And when you have well considered of these things I shall next desire you to consider Whether this man hath not brought you as great a Care or Caution against unlawful Separations and Divisions as most men ever did in the world For 1. Here you see how much you