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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88105	Light for smoke: or, A cleare and distinct reply by Iohn Ley, one of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, to a darke and confused answer in a booke made, and intituled The smoke in the temple, by Iohn Saltmarsh, late preacher at Brasteed in Kent, now revolted both from his pastorall calling and charge. Whereto is added, Novello-mastix, or a scourge for a scurrilous news-monger.	Ley, John, 1583-1662.; C. D. Novello-mastix.	1646 (1646)	Wing L1883; Thomason E333_2; Thomason E333_3; ESTC R200742	90,377	128

power upon them as to appoint them to punish any one nor if they doe punish accompt them Deputies to any but doers of their own worke Nay who is the Satan to whom the excommunicate are delivered The Magistrate as you imply and impose that reproach upon Presbyterians For you say it is an expression not farre beside your principles and who disparages the Magistrate in that But stay good Sir what Presbyterians expound those words of delivery unto Satan 1 Corinth 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 with an application to the Magistrate neither Calvin Beza Marl●rat Piscator Deodate nor d In his late Booke against Erastus cap. 11. q. 7. pag. 354 355. Mr. Rutherford nor any Presbyterian that ever I read make the Magistrate the Devill in these Texts no nor Vatablus nor Aquinas of the Popish Church and I thinke it will be hard for you to finde any Authour of note of what Religion so ever that so takes or rather mis-takes the words as you doe and impossible to produce any Presbyterian principles which with any colour or probabilitie may be drawn or by any violence and importunitie be drag'd to such a sense of disparagement of the Magistrate as you have suggested and so the calumny and contempt of their calling must be laid at your doore to father it as an ill-favoured brat of your own begetting SECT XXV The Magistrates assistance to the Ecclesiasticall Government no argument to prove it no Gospel Government the sword of God and of Gideon of Church Discipline and civill severitie how lawfull and usefull zeale against toleration of evill commended connivence at it blameable Smoke Pag. 57. YOu say you cannot divide discipline from his assistance who can make it effectuall that is from the Magistrate this is a signe without further argument that you doe not hold your government for Christs because it cannot be effectuall of it selfe without helpe below Light Here as in many other places you shew little ingenuitie in repeating my words which are not as you cite them but thus e Examination of the New Quere Sect. 12. pag. 42. We cannot thinke it meet to divide subservient meanes from the supreme power nor the exercise of Discipline and government from his Assistance who can make it effectuall that is say you from the Magistrate and that is say I your maledicta glossa which corrupts the Text my words import not the inferiour efficacy of the Magistrate but the superiour of God and therefore your inference upon it is a second injury and violence you commit against my saying and sence and yet though the Discipline be Christs we must crave the consent and sanction of the Civill Magistrates that we may put it in practice as the Presbyterians of the Dutch and French Churches in London and with their assistance it may be more effectuall then without it it can be as the Magistrates antheritie may have a more awfull operation upon the people if assisted by the Ministers in their Sermons and popular exhortations and yet you will not deny but that Magistracy is the ordinance of God Rom. 13.1 Smoke Pag. 57. Nor is the sword of God and Gideon any faire or iust proofe for ioyning Presbytery and Magistracy it onely ioynes God and the Magistrates Light I joyne the sword of God and Gideon not as a proofe for uniting Presbytery and Magistracy but as an illustration of association of different meanes to the same end or of concurrent operations to the same purpose and yet if the cause of God in the hands of the Presbytery doe need and have aide in the hand of the Magistrate to help it forward there the sword of the Spirit which is the sword of the Lord in the mouth of his Ministers and the sword of Gideon that is the sword of the Magistrate may be said to be joyned Smoke Pag. 57. You say your godly it alousie will set up as many securities as may be But then they are warrantable and Gospel wayes of securitie that is no godly iealousie which sets up other wayes as Herod killing all the young children to secure his kingdome David dissembling to escape Iacob to get a blessing Light To that you said f New Quere pag. 8. It is the Papists and Prolates iealousie to keep up their supposed truths by suspecting every thing that appeares for an enemy My Answer was g Examination of the New Quere Sect. 12. pag. 42. There is a iealousie which the Apostle cal● godly iealousie and such a one is that which would set up as many securities as may be against heresie and impiety among them Church-government is one of which they that stand for it are not afraid to let it go● abread but have made it publique and exposed it to the view of all eyes To this you put in a Reply with a condition of warrantable and Gospel wayes of securitie and an exception of wicked wayes such as Herods killing all the young children c. I instanced onely in the Church-government which the Presbyterians propound and plead for as a Gospel way you bring in Herods bloody businesse as if there were neere consanguinitie betwixt the Presbytery and his barbarous crueltie this is though not to slay innocents as he did yet to wound and blast innocence as much as may be and to bring it under an evill suspicion to make it odious this is no Gospel way Mr. Sa●●m but a very wide aberration from it Smoke Pag. 57. You say that some feare Gods anger for communion with heretiques c. you know all such feare is onely warrantable in the Church not in the world you have liberate to withdraw and separate as they from you if it be nationall or civill communion then you plucke up the tares before the time of harvest Light You still give me cause to complaine of your unfaithfull dealing with my words by such alteration or omission of them as may make them more obvious to your exception then as I set them downe for they are thus in my Booke a Exam. of the New Quere Sect. 12. p. 43. But there is it feare which we professe and I hope without offence it is a feare of Gods anger and of imminent danger for communion with and connivence towards hereticall and wicked men and I brought examples and sayings of John the Evangelist of Polycarpe Hilary and Ierome to that purpose which you take no notice of at all but say such feare is onely warrantable in the Church not in the world but for that there is a remedy that men may separate from church-Church-Communion but what if many will not as the weaker and looser sort are as ready to runne to hereticall Teachers where they exercise as the people of Israel to the Idolamous worship of the golden Calves and shall such be suffered to 〈◊〉 them that through the ignorance of their minds or unrulinesse of then lusts are willing to be seduced Will your conscience with the Papists tolerate the

gathered by the Word and Spirit into Gospel fellowship as you state the case may consist of such godly and ungodly members as were in the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 11.21 then for all your pretence of your Gospel way you have no warrant for such a separation as you take upon you to make Besides Sr. the separation of people is not to be varied in regard of the Church way of gathering into fellowship which is extrinsecall but in regard of the difference of persons as they are holy or profane but with you it seemes if the manner of gathering be such as you call a Gospel way it matters not much whether the matter of the Church be holy or unholy and indeed though you exclude from coming into your Churches some kind of wicked ones you admit of those whom without repentance God will never account of the communion of Saints such as are notoriously covetous proud slanderous and malicious who have no more visible interest in Christ then a fornicator or drunkard a swearer or Sabbath-breaker SECT XIII To whom Christ is an Head and how of his rod of Iron and his Golden Scepter and of his being a Lord and a servant gentle yet terrible Smoke Pag. 34. IT is true Christ is an head but he is not an head to every body he will have a body proportionable to his head is a Nation of all sorts a fit body for such an head is he not a pure holy and glorious head in his Gospel dispensation and is a body so leprous so wicked so formall so traditionally and Antichristianly corrupted a fit body Shall I take the members of my body saith Paul and joyne them to an barlot to make one flesh God forbid what then shall the head doe with such members Light It is true Christ is an head and not an head to every body but is he not an head to his owne integrall members because the wicked mingle with them in an outward profession have hypocrites any more consanguinity with the pure blood of Christ then profane persons have yet Christ is head of that Church where reprobates are reputed to bee members and are there not some branches of the Vine which beare no fruit and are to be taken away Joh. 15.2 who cannot for all that hinder the vitall influence into other branches as in the example of the Church of Corinth And for that you say of a body so leprous so wicked as applied to our Reformation in furi or in facte it is very falsly reprod chfull and savours of ungratitude to God and of Pharisaicall disdaine of purer Churches then those you stand for wherein you grosly digresse from the moderation whereto you protend Smoke Pag. 34. To that of his ruling with a rod of iron as well as a golden Se●p●er I answer And doth he rule any in his Church with his rod of iron who were not called in first by his golden Scepter And for that of his iron rod in Psal 2. it is spoken of Christ not as King of his Church but of the Nations Light By this Answer you seeme to forget your owne Argument which was to prove an unsutablenesse of the Presbyteriall Government to the Person of Christ and when I have shewed that the Person of Christ is not onely amiable as a Saviour but formidable to offenders as a Lord having an iron Rod as well as a golden Seepter you say by way of distinction that he hath his iron scepter as King of the Nations not as King of the Church but if his Church consist of golden Saints and gilded Hypocrites for you say it consists at least * Smoke p. 31. of such as visibly and formally appeare so and hypocrites appeare so and the appearance of Saintship is the most that is in them he hath and useth an iron rod to drive away and to crush as well as a golden Scepter to invite and call to his presence for were not Ananias and Saphira members of the Church after a Gospel dispensation and were they not ruined as well as ruled when they were both of them suddenly smitten dead for their hypocriticall profession what could an iron rod have done more if they had taken up heathenish hostilitie against the Church and was not this exemplary punishment laid upon them that the Church might feare Christ as a Lord as well as love him as a Saviour of his Church that they might feare his iron rod as well as love his golden Scepter sure I am it wrought that effect upon Christians in generall for feare came upon all the Church and upon at many as heard these things Act. 5.11 Smoke Pag. 34. For your other Texts of Christs being a servant and a Lord a Lambe and terrible you onely prove what I grant that he is more a King and a Lordin his Government then in any other of his Gospel dispensations Light In this particular you give me occasion to returne a piece of your owne Rhetorick upon you and to call you as you doe me * Pag. 17. a faire enemy for you repeat my proofes so fully here though else-where you miserably maime and mangle them that you may be thought to have done as Bellarmine is said to doe in his Controversies viz. to bring in more of the Protestants Objections then he is able to answer But when you say that I prove onely what you grant that he is more a King and Lord in his Government then in any other of his Gospel dispensations you invert the order of the words you should observe for you should have rather said You now grant what I have proved for I never knew so much of your mind in this matter before and you grant so much as might have spared a great part of your Reply to me for the Lordship of his Government was the matter in question and that being granted by you the Presbyteriall Government is not so inconsistent or unsutable with the condition of Christs description of himselfe as you would make it SECT XIV The Presbyteriall Government not unsutable to the condition of Christ the prevailing of Independents and of the Sects that meet in Independencie much more terrible then the Presbyteriall Government can be Smoke Pag. 34 35. BVt all this will not prove the Lordship of such a Presbytery or Government cert ainely you intend a terrible government because you bring in these Texts that have judgement and severitie in them which Christ threatens to the Nations and Kings of the earth and not to his Churches will you make Christ rule in his Church as he doth in the World well let your Presbytery enjoy the iron scepter while the Churches of Christ enjoy the golden and try if you ruine not more then you rule Light These proofes were not brought to prove a Presbyterial Government but dato sed non concesso that it was severe it was not sounsutable to the condition of Christ as you pretended And for that you

their Tenets Smoke Pag. 50. The Bishops had a better prescription even by Law for their Government then we i. then Independents But how is this is a legall prescription better hold the a Gospel prescription Light In this and some lines next following you take that for granted which we cannot yeeld nor can you ever prove viz. that your Independency is purely Evangelicall which if you can make good but the Texts you have crowded together at the end of your opening of Mr. Prinnes Vindication will not doe it you shall make me of your Religion when you let me know which it is you will choose and stand to when you have chosen SECT XIX Of the pretended modesty and humilitie of the Independents by way of comparison with the Presbyterians Smoke Pag. 50. BVt there is one Government set up already a Civill Parliamentary Government and will you set up another above that or co-ordinate with it will you set up one government to rule another or tutor another Light And if your Independent Government were set up which you accompt an Evangelicall and Scripture Government Christs golden Scepter Christ upon his Throne should that Government be above the Civill Government or coordinate with it would you set up this government to rule the other or tutor the other when you have answered these Queries put upon Independency you will see it will not be difficult to answer the like concerning Presbytery yet it is evident to all that make any serious observation on both wayes that the Presbyteriall Government is more moderate more subordinate to the Parliamentary Government then the Independent because that is humbly submitted to the debate of the Parliament for approbation of it and waiteth for their Civill establishment before any part of it is put into execution and practise the Independent Government in this respect Independent on the Parliament as well as on Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Assemblies comes under no such triall of them but is set up without any authoritie from them Smoke Pag. 50. And must you needs set up as large a dominion as the civill power hath must your Presbytery be as ample as high as supreme as the Parliament will no lesse territory or kingdome serve it but all England whole Nations must Christs government be iust as long as broad as the worlds Light Here is a great deale of aggravating Rhetoricke to bring in a suspicion of a vast and unlimited domination of the Presbytery and I pray you Sr if Independency were the Parliaments darling as you desire it would nor you wish it and if you could procure it to be set up in every Citie and Towne in England would not you that think it a good government the best government advance your good opinion of it well-wishings to it according to the maxime Bonum que communius comelius Every good thing the more common the more commendable We observe your sedulitie in spreading your opinions into remote regions and cannot but conceive by your zeale and activitie for your cause that you are ambitious like the Spaniard to enlarge your Religion as he his Dominions whereof * Myraeus Comment de bello Bohemic p. 7. Myraeus saith that the Sunne never sets but alwayes shines in some place or other where he raignes Smoke Pag. 50. Now Reader iudge which government affects dominion which brings in whole nations under the scepter of it poore Scripture government can be content to sit downe in a village To the Church in thy house saith the Spirit in a Citie as Corinth and over but a few there the Saints onely in fellowship to the Church in Corinth in a Countrey not over a Countrey To the seven Churches in Asia not of Asia not the Church of Asia or the Church Asia a Church taking in halfe part of the world Light And let the Reader judge how much of roving fancie and fond affection how little judgement is in this paragraph Which Government say you affects dominion c. speake properly Sir and the truth will better appeare and be more ready for sentence and judgement and then your question will be which sort of those that stand for Government for the government as abstracted from them hath no affections at all affect dominion more You say poore Scripture government can be content to sit down in a village to the Church in thy house c. where you assume and presuppose which I deny that Independency is a government either poore or pure according to the Scriptures And for Independent Ministers when you see them so placed in the Citie in the chiefe Citie of the Kingdome culling out of mens charges the fairest and fattest of their flocks to be the materials and members of their new-gathered Churches and so ordering their Sermons and covenanting with their hearers that they have the most populous congregations all sects coming to heare them and adhering to them as to their Patrons who will not come to the Sermons of the most Orthodox and able Preachers of the Presbyteriall way When you know or may know that most of them are eminently richer then other Ministers how can you how dare you bragge of the humilitie and povertie of Independency sitting down contented with a village especially when none of those who set up Independency in England planted themselves in a village except in vicinitie to some great Citie where they might have the profit and comfort and the best accommodations of Citie and Countrey And for the small Church in a house or a particular Citie in a Countrey not over a Countrey in Asia not the Church of Asia This makes no more for Independency then for Presbytery when there were too few professing the faith to be sorted into Congregations Classicall Provinciall and Nationall Assemblies and so your instance cannot be a fit patterne for these times wherein the profession of the Gospel is received all over the Kingdome SECT XX. Whether Christ if he would have a nationall comprehensive Church was bound to have begun the practise of it over whole Kingdomes as Mr. Saltm saith and whether importeth more pride to desire a subordination of Assemblies Parochiall Classicall c. then to be adverse to it Smoke Pag. 50 51. SVre if Christ would have had such a nationall comprehensive Church he would have converted Kings and Princes first and they should have given up their Kingdomes to Iesus Christ in the way of a Presbyterian Light To this I oppose your own words both in your a New Querie repeated in my Examination Sect. 12. p. 38. Querie and in your Smoke in both which places you tell your Reader that the publication of the Gospel and the proposall of Church government were brought in at distance heresies say you might have growne from Iohns first Sermon to Pauls Epistles and the sending of the Spirit but you see there was no government setled till afterwards upon the people of Gods and in your last you tell me that

b Smoke p. 54. you shewed me that no government began with the Gospel manifestation by which say you I made it appeare that if government had been of such morall necessitie why was it not given out with the Gospels first giving out Albeit then the Gospel began not with the conversion of Kings and whole Kingdomes yet the progresse of it hath been so prosperous as to prevaile so farre and with the extent of it may the government of the Gospel be extended also and it may be set up after it by your own confession rather then with it Smoke Pag. 51. Nay it ought to have been so Iesus Christ was bound in the way of righteousnesse to have begun the practice and modell to us over whole Kingdomes having not left it in precept in the whole Gospel and we ought either to have practice or precept to order and command us in what we obey Light What ought Christ or was he bound in the way of righteousnesse to begin the Gospel with conversion of Kings and whole Kingdomes if he meant to have such a Nationall and comprehensive Church as the Presbyterians plead for was he not free to begin the publication of it where he pleased in the wildernesse of Iudea rather then in the Citie Ierusalem and to whom he pleased to Shepheards in the field rather then to Augustus in the Court If it had begun there First It might have been suspected as a Politicke devise like that which c Machiav disp lib. 1. cap. 11. p. 63. Machiavel commends in Romulus and Numa setting up religion by fained revelation Secondly Then the Doctrine of the Gospel condemned as folly by supercilious and secular wise men 1 Cor. 1.23 had not appeared so wise and powerfull as it was vers 18 19 20. of the same Chapter nor Thirdly Had it had so many illustrious confirmations both by miracles and martyrdomes as we find upon record both in the Scriptures and Ecclesiasticall Histories And was it not in his own choice to make his own pace for the proceeding both of Gospel and Government If you will so confine Christ to your wayes of working you make him Dependent while you claime an Independent priviledge to your selfe And for that you say for practice or precept to order and command us in what we obey we have both in the Gospels of our Saviour and Epistles of the Apostles and the History of their Acts according to which the Assembly have given up their advice to the Parliament warrant for Church Government and so we hope it will come down from them by a Parliamentary approbation and constitution for the establishment thereof throughout the whole Kingdome And yet is not the Presbyteriall Government more ambitious or domineering then the Independent Nay let the Indifferent Reader observe and consider the difference and let him then resolve whether the Presbyterian or Independent be more affected to preeminence or more willing to come under rule and government First The Presbyterians carnestly desire the union whereto the Apostle emphatically exhorteth the Christian Corinthians Now I beseech you brethren by the Name of our Lord Iesus Christ that ye all speake the same thing and that there be no divisions among you but that ye be perfectly ioyned together in the same minde and in the same iudgement 1 Cor. 1.10 Secondly This union cannot be without a rule of consent the rule of consent cannot be of any force unlesse it have the power and obligation of a law this law requireth as well subordination as union and this subordination is agreeable not onely to reason but to Religion and Scripture for the spirits of the Prophets are subiect to the Prophets 1 Cor. 14.32 Thirdly The Presbyterians who yeeld to this subordination especially to the Superiour Assemblies not knowing and the most of them not expecting to be members either of Provinciall or Nationall Assemblies doe all of them in their allowance of graduall appeales submit themselves to the consures of others which is an act not of dominion but of subjection But the Independents will be as diffusive in their Church-way and grow on from Cities to Countries from Countries to Kingdomes and will be like little Kings or Free States in their own Congregations and will admit of no subordination or submission to any Ecclesiasticall Assembly whatsoever though there be many cases which reach beyond the limits of their covenanted meetings to occasions of common concernment to many Churches yea some of them are so comprehensive as to belong to all the Churches of a Kingdome which can neither be sufficiently considered nor ordered for the generall good without a more generall convention and consultation of Church governours The Pope though hated and scorned by you as an Antichristian Caiaphas is a great and I may say the supreme Independent in the Christian world and his Independencie consisteth in this that he will be judged of none and herein truly Sr. you symbolize too much with the Papall ambition in that as much as you can you free your selves from all Ecclesiasticall subjection and this being a chief part of his Antichristian exaltation Independencie is rather Antichristian then Presbyterie There is another part of the Papall pride which is to require that all be subject unto him that he may censure and judge of all and if I should straine your words as you sometimes doe mine I should say you are flown so high in your fancie as to be got above the high pitch of the Popes Mitre for he tooke not upon him to judge or give lawes to Christ though to all Christians as you doe where you say that Christ ought and was bound in the way of righteousnesse to have begun the practise and modell to us over whole Kingdomes c. SECT XXI Mr. Saltm his mistake touching the building of the Temple Of the difference of the patterne of the Temple and the patterne of the Government of the Gospel Mr. Saltm confusedly jumbleth them together Smoke Pag. 52. TO the difference I made of the materiall and Gospel patterne you say nothing and that is the onely considerable It may be as you said of me you are best able to deale with the other Light I confesse I passed over somewhat in your Quere more in your last Booke but nothing in either wherein I conceived there was any thing of weight or pertinencie to the cause in difference betwixt us Yet to that difference a Sect. 11. p. 37. I said something in its proper place and b Sect. 5. p. 16 17. referred you to another Section where I observed more differences then you brought in and whether I owe you any thing for that particular the Reader shall judge and if he find I was in your debt he shall see I shall make ready payment of what is behinde and it may be by that time I have done with your objection you will thinke it better you had taken no notice of this omission then

Stews not in the Church but in the Citie it is not so broad nor loose I hope no more should it be so indulgent as to allow of inducements to spirituall whoredome 〈…〉 which is as dangerous to men and more dishonourable to God The Angel of the Church of Ephesus I am sure is commended by the Holy Ghost because he could not beare them which were evill Revel 2.2 and for h●ting the deeds of the Nicolaitans vers 6. as on the contrary the Angel of the Church of P●●ga●●● is blamed for suffering such as held the Doctrine of Bala●m and those that held the Doctrine of the Nicolaitans vers 12.14 15. and so is the Angel of the Church of Thyatir● for suffering the woman J●●●bal which ●●lleth her selfe a Prophetesse to teach and seduce the servants of the Lord vers 18.20 and if such seducement may be as dangerous to many where heretiques teach in corners as where they are admitted to officiate in publique Churches that must be no more endured then the other And for that you say of plucking up the tares before the harvest it makes nothing against the caution I meane which is not to extirpate all heretiques out of the world but to put such a restraint upon them that they may not have power to seduce simple soules to such pernicious errours as may endanger them upon eternall damnation and yet I hope you doe not meane but some wicked men may be so wicked and so destructive in their principles and practices to Religion and States that it may be lawfull not onely to keepe or put them out of all Church-Communion but to take them quite out of all communion in the world by capitall punishment else you will have the Civill Magistrate to beare the Sword for naught against the determination of the Apostle Rom. 13. SECT XXVI Mr. Saltm his dangerous supposition of equality of Number and power with diversitie of Religion of incorporation of two powers and what may be expected should the Sectaries prevaile Smoke Pag. 58. SVppose those you call hereticks and who as you say a little a Smoke p. 57. before thinke they have as good Scriptures to esteeme you so were of equall number to you and both of you equally numbred with Magistrates Light What cause or need in this difference betwixt you and me to take up such a terrible supposition as you make for there would have beene no ground of suspition if there had not been too much indulgence shewed to hereticall and schismaticall seducers and what doe you meane by supposing equalitie in number power and spirit for contestation about contrary opinions is it to make the Presbyterians beleeve that the partie they take to be hereticall is or is like to be so many and masterfull that they will not suffer the Church Government to be settled without clashing of swords and bloody doings Truly your courting of militarie men as you do and others solicitations of them and brags of their power and purpose may be a just ground of suspitiō of so bad an intention in some of your side which now plead for liberty of conscience that if they had might to their minds they would assert it with other instruments and would secure it with circumscription if not prescription of the Civill power as the King of Spaine did the liberty of election of the Emperour at Frankford against King Francis the first King of France his competitor for the Empire who sent thither an Army of 30000 men that the choosers might be free and not forced Guicciard whereby he so overawed them that they durst not make their choice but in the family of the house of Austria Smoke Pag. 58. This is an image of your Incorporation of your two powers that you so plead for in this kind Light Now truly Sr. you are a very sorry image-maker that draw your picture so imperfectly so grosly like the rude Painters of old who were fain to their mishapen pourtraitures to adde an Inscription this is a man and this is an horse or else a man could tell no more then a horse what the pictures resembled If you had not told your Reader this is an image of your Incorporation c. he would never have thought you meant any such thing by what you have said and now you have made your description and set your subscription to it it is yet so smokie and obscure that I doubt he cannot understand it I am sure I cannot perceive any truth or sence in it for what incorporation of powers doe we make and plead for you should have shewed what powers you meane what incorporation of them we make where and by what arguments we plead for it till you doe this I shall thinke your image a meere imagination and a fantasticall Chimera Smoke Pag. 58. If we were equally principled for persecution as you are and alled by your spirit ah what a Kingdome would here be Light What principles of persecution doe Presbyterians hold set which they have not warrant from the word of God all with you is persecution which in any sort opposeth your lavish toleration of all Religions though never so dishonourable to God and damnable to man the godly party in the time of the Prelates cried out upon pluralities and soule-murdering Non-residencie accounting it an high and hainous crime in those who withheld spirituall food from the soules of the people and held that the State was bound to doe them right to see them supplied with necessary provision for their salvation and is there not a soule murdering by poysoning the peoples soules with pernicious principles as well as by withholding from them found and salutary Doctrine and is not the State bound to provide against this spirituall perill as well as the other which if it may be done without drawing of a drop of blood it is so much more pleasing to consciencious Presbyterians as it is lesse grievous to hereticall seducers the wild beast may be kept and fedde within the grate and the Fox confined to the length of a chaine though they be not suffered to range abroad and make havock on the flock And how are they armed for persecution of their adversaries when they not onely live but thrive and flourish and are advanced to places of honour and trust all over the Kingdome If the Presbyterians were so spirited and so armed with power as you pretend how came the Independents to enjoy such a prosperous condition as they doe And for the persecution of the Tongue and Pen for there may be words as keene and cutting as very swords was there ever any so sharpe and bitter as theirs who pretending to hate and persecute persecution jeere and revile Presbyterie and Presbyters with so much virulence that all the scoffing Ishmaelites Lucians Martin Marprelates of which last a Josias Nichols in his Book called the Plea of the Innocent Iosias Nichols a godly Nonconformist said he was stirred up

Synodicall Assemblies Thirdly That by this later way that is the way of association and subordination in and to both Classes and Synods the libertie of particular Churches seemes to be more diminished where he speaketh cautelously saying it seemeth to be more diminished it may seeme and yet not be as it seemes but if the libertie be more diminished the safetie of it by that meanes is more assured and the authoritie of it the more strengthened while it governeth aright in that if the censures of it be slighted while they are just they will be ratified by the superiour Assembly and the contumacy of offenders the more kept down Fourthly That what from the beginning was Arbitrary afterward was made necessary as a law this law truly is Positive Ecclesiasticall and Humane not Divine It might be arbitrary from the beginning while there were few Christians for Churches few Churches for union and those perhaps not so situate that they could with convenience or safetie come under such a combination or subordination as was requisite for the Churches securitie against heresie and schisme but if after the beginning how long or little a while is hard to know it were thought so necessary as to be formed up into a law though it were not divine but humane positive and Ecclesiasticall and coming under no complaint for impietie against God or injury to man and withall conducing directly to such ends as but now I noted it is more for subordinate Presbytery then that which hath been alleadged for the Independency which you and your party so importunately plead for All this considered that you have produced in the name of Salmasius for the Independent and against the Presbyteriall way will doe you little good especially if it be known what he writeth against Independency of which since you silently smother it I will make some supply An expresse and cleare Testimony of Salmasius against Independency h Quod tamen nullo modo iis suffragatur qui censent unamquamque Ecclesiam habere potestatem Independentem nec probant plurium Ecclesiarum conjunctionem sub directione Classium ut vocant vel Synodorum paulo post Which notwithstanding makes nothing for them who thinke every Church hath an Independent power and approve not the uniting of many Churches under the direction of Classes or Synods And a little after he saith i Totalis inquit Indepenentia earum ab omni alia Ecclesia minime laudanda nec recipienda Salmal Apparat. ad lib. de Primat Pap. p. 265. Their totall Independency upon any other Church is neither worthy of praise nor of acceptation And again he saith k Si eo tempore cum Spiritus Christi Ecclesias per Apostolos suos regeret ac dirigeret non tamen eae Independentes fuere quanto minus nunc in hac Seculorum extrema colluvie cum tot haeresibus quasi loliis Zizaniis Ecclesia tota inquinata sit admitti oportet hanc Ecclesiarum singularum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absolutam qua non debeant ad vicinos referre conventus cum nodus apud sc vi●dice dignus inciderit nec a concilio plurium Ecclesiarum simul junctarum ex viciniae commoditate gubernari sustineant Vnit●s omnium toto orbe dispersarum Ecclesiarum sub uno Pastore Christo in unam Doctrinam consentientium non potest constare absque communione nec communio absque communicatione communicatio autem nulla esse potest ubiom●●s inter se sunt Independentes Salmas Apparat. ad lib. de Primatu Papae p. 267. If the Churches were not Independent at that time when the Spirit of Christ by his Apostles ruled and governed them how much lesse in this last colluvies of ages when the whole Church is p●stered with so much cockle and tares of heresies should this absolute self-ruling of all Churches be admitted● according to which if they meet with a knotty difficultie they may not referre it to their neighbouring conventions nor will they be governed by an Assembly of divers Churches which vicinitie hath commodiously united The unitie of all the Churches dispersed through the world under one Shepherd Christ and consenting to one Doctrine cannot stand without communion nor that communion without communica●ation which can be none where all are Independent on each other And that this is the minde of Salmasius without imposing any thing upon him or wresting his words to any other sence then he in●ended as you doe I am assured by the Testimony of a godly and learned Divine of great integritie and reputation with those that know him who had conference with Salmasius in Holland while his Booke was at Presse and where counting the time of printing and accidentall pawses it l Prodit ecce tandem noster de Frimatu Papae Tractatus prima quidem tantum sui parte diu a multis expectat● quia diu sub praelo mor●s traxit ob varias Sonticas causas mode absentiae meae modo valetudinis interdum aliarum occupationum saepius interruptus Ante quinquenuium excudi coeptus hoc demum tempore lucem videt Salmas initio Epist Lect. praefix Apparat. ad lib. de Primatu Papae continued five yeares together and told me that his scope in that Booke was to oppose the extreames Popery on the one side and Independency on the other and to assert the middle and moderate way of Presbyteriall Government These two quotations out of Salmasius the one a little before the other the next page after the Testimony produced by you may give just cause of suspition that you meant to delude your Reader with a maimed allegation omitting what made against you by a fraudulent Apharesis and Apocope of the precedent and subsequent words unlesse it be more like that you never saw the Booke but had the Testimony sent you in some piece of paper which contained no more then you have made use of Which we may the rather beleeve because the mistakes were so many in Salmasius his Text as could hardly have been if you had taken your Testimony at the first hand FINIS