a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one we are not to keep Company No not to eat I grant indeed S. Paul sayes so and doe think it very fit that S. Paul should be obeyed But how doth this prove that they are to forsake our Congregations That there are such men among us as S. Paul doth there describe is a Truth too cleare to be denyed But are our whole Congregations composed of such men Are all Drunkards Are all Fornicatours Are all Raylers Are all Extortioners Are all both Priests and People so like one another that when they meete they make not a Church Assembly but a Congregation of such sinners Or are they onely some And they perhaps the lesser part who are guilty of those sinnes Nay suppose they should be farre the greater part who are guilty of these sinnes yet you know our Saviour Christ compares the Church to a Field sowne with good seed But then he tells us too That to the Worlds end among the good seed there shall still grow Weeds and Tares Againe in the 13. chapter of S. Mathew at the 47. and 48. verses of that Chapter he compares the Kingdome of God here in this World to a Net cast into the Sea which inclosed Fishes of all sorts Bad as well as Good And what the meaning of this draught of mingled Fishes is I shall desire you to read at the 49. and 50. verses of that chapter where he sayes That at the End of the world and not till then the Angels shall go forth and shall separate the wicked from among the Iust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Originall Greek They shall separate the wicked from the midst of the Iust which clearely doth prove to us That till this finall Separation in the Church of God here on earth there will alwayes be a mixture To divide or separate therefore from the whole Congregation because some wicked men are in it is a course so unreasonable as if they should refuse a Field of Corne because there grew some weeds or should renounce a Field of Wheat because it beares some Tares Besides I would faine know how farre they will extend the meaning of that Text where S. Paul sayes That they are not to eat with a Brother who is a Drunkard or Adulterer or Rayler or Extortioner Will they extend it to all sorts of persons who are such If they will Then if a Woman have a Drunkard to her Husband she must separate from him because he is a Drunkard if she doe not every time she eats with him she disobeyes S. Paul and in every meale she makes with him she commits a Scripture sinne By the same reason also If the Sonne have a Drunkard to his Father he must remove Tables and not dyet with his Father And so there will be one Division more then those the Scripture speakes of For that onely tells us that the time shall come when the Sonne shall be divided from the Father and the Mother from the Daughter But if this Interpretation be true the Wife must divide and break her selfe from her distemper'd Husband too Nay give me leave to goe one step farther yet If the sinnes of a part be a just sufficient Ground to separate from the whole Why doe not they who separate divide and fall assunder For here let me ask them and let me ask without offence Are they all so Innocent so pure so free so voyd of sinne that there is not one disorderly Brother among them Is their place of private Meetings so much the New Ierusalem That no Drunkard no Adulterer nor Rayler enters there I wish there did not my Brethren We Ministers should not then so oft be called Dumb Doggs Idol shepheards Limbs of Antichrist Baals Priests by Tongues wich if S. Iames say true are set on fire of Hell If then it be not the meaning of S. Paul in that place that we should separate from all because some of those All are wicked upon what other just Ground doe they break Communion with us Is it because we preach in Churches They are Gods House of prayer Made his by the Piety and Devotion of our Fathers who if they lived now would hardly call them Saints who preferre a Barne nay a Hog-stye before a consecrated Temple Or is it because there is Haeresie or Superstition mixt with our once Common Forme of prayer If there had been you see that scandall is removed Or doe we persecute or force or drive them from our Congregations We are so farre from that that you see they are ready to require that our publick Congregations should stoope and bow the Knee to their private Meetings What other secret reason t is which thus divides them from us I can by no meanes think unlesse it be wrapt up in the Mystery and cloud of the 18. chap. of the Revelations which is their other strong Herculean place of Scripture which hath been urged to me to make good their Separation From which dark place of Scripture when I have removed the veyle and Curtaine I will put a period and conclusion to this Sermon T is there said that S. Iohn heard an Angel proclaime aloud and say Babylon the Great is fallen is fallen and is become the Habitation of Divels the Hold of every uncleane Spirit and a Cage of every uncleane and hatefull Bird As you may read at the 2. verse of that chapter T is farther said That he heard another voice from heaven saying Come out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues As you may read at the 4. verse of that chapter where by Babylon fallen they understand the Church of England falne By the Habitation of Divels the Hold of foule Spirits and Cage of uncleane Birds They understand our Parish Churches and Congregations which meet there which they say are so much a Cage of uncleane Birds places so corrupt so full of wickednesse and sinne that God by his Spirit as it were by a voice from the Clouds hath said unto them Come out of them my people divide your selves from them lest ye be partakers of their sinnes and go sharers in their plagues This is or must be their Interpretation of that place or else 't will no way serve to uphold their Separation If I say by the Habitation of Divells and Cage of uncleane Birds be not meant our Church Assemblyes from which they doe divide they doe but build a House of straw and choose the sand for a Foundation I am sure I have been told that this was the very Interpretation which the Gentleman gave of this place who just now disputed with me at a dispute which not long since he had with Mr. Gibson of Chinner But now will you heare my censure of this wilde Interpretation Take it then thus Among the severall Expounders of the Revelation I once met with one who when he came to interpret the
Apollos to divide us I know not whether it will be seasonable for me to speake it in this Assembly But we for some late yeares have chosen to our selves names more moderne and fallible to divide our selves by whilest some have said We are of Calvin others We are of Arminius others VVe are of Socinus These to the blemish and reproach of Christian Religion have been made names of strife and faction Yet they have been great and learned names though some of them I must confesse have been lyable to humane Errours But if you consider the many rents and separations into which the ordinary sort of people have for some years divided themselves either you will find no names at all for them or names so unlearned so obscure so altogether mechanick and unconsiderable that it will be your wonder how such vulgar rude untaught Teachers should draw Disciples after them It would pose me very much to tell you by any Monument of learning or piety which he hath left behind him to be knowne by who was the Father or first bringer up of the Sect of the Brownists or who was the first Author of the Sect of the Anabaptists I know there were Anabaptists in divers of the Fathers times and I know too that the Parent of that Sect then though he were an Hereticke yet hee was a Scholler But as for the Author of the Sect of the Anabaptists of our times I cannot well say what he was One who hath written the History of their wilde proceedings at Munster where they begun with the Reformation of the Church of Jesus Christ and proceeded at length to three wives a piece saies hee was a Dutch Botcher one who repaird old Germents under a stall at Leyden in the Low-Countries Another sayes he was a Garmane Cobler A third that hee was a Westphalia Needle-maker But another controlls that and saies he was a Westphalia Baker But whatever hee were have not we in our times seene Patriarches and Prophets as vulgar and mechanick as unlearned and base as he Men who have invaded the Pulpit I will not say from mending old breeches or cobling old shooes pardon the homelinesse of the expression I beseech you it is but the Historians Latine translated into my English but from Trades so meane so dis-ingenuous so illiberall that I should defile your eares and the Pulpit to describe them And yet have not these moderne shades of Muntzer Iohn of Leyden Rotman Knippenburge Knipperdolling Melchior Hoffman the great Enthusiasts and disturbers of Germany to the Astonishment of all Judging men drawn Disciples after them I wish I could only say as meane and base and vulgar as themselves Certainly my brethren consider the parallel well betweene the inspired Troublers of our Kingdome and those who by their wild Doctrines did set Westphalia Saxony Munster and all the noblest parts of the Germane Empire in a flame and you will finde that in this sad Eclipse of Monarchy among us there wants onely a Sarcinator or botcher to assume to himselfe the Crowne and to be called by a Sanedrim or privy Councell of the like Trades Rex Iustitiae novae Ierusalem Imperator King of Righteousnesse and Emperour of the new Jerusalem to make our case the very same with theirs Againe in this diversitie of Guides and pastors Pastors scarce fit to be Overseers of unreasonable Flocks do we not also hear as great a diversity of language spoken The Lay-Preacher accuseth the University-man with want of the Spirit and we of the University doe backe again account such Lay-men mad Nay among us Schollars they who pretend to Calvins Doctrine doe banish all those out of the state of salvation who deny absolute Predestination Or hold not that from all eternity without any respect of their workes or actions whether they be good or bad God hath past this sad irreversible sentence and decree That some shall necessarily be saved others shall as necessarily be damned They who thinke this a piece of Stoicisme or a Doctrine brought into the world to drive People to despaire doe equally banish those from the state of salvation who thus uncharitably banish others But what speake I to you of this Congregation of such high schollarly dissentions or discourse to you of disputes and controversies not in the power of Scripture Synods or Generall Councells to decide That which hath more troubled the peace of our distracted Kingdome hath been a strife of words about things as small as Cummin or Annise And about that part of the Kingdome of heaven which lies not wrapt up in an unsearchable Decree or an eternall sentence of Gods concealed Will but in a grain of mustard-seed A little sleight indifferent Ceremony or piece of Church-Discipline One hath called it an Idolatry to make an obeysance in the Church another hath call'd it a piece of Gods outward worship to doe so One hath stiled the Crosse in Baptisme a signe of Superstition another hath stiled it the marke and badge and embleme of his Christianity and profession One calls all Pictures in Church windowes Idols another looks on them as so much holy story brought into Imagery and Colours The very garments we weare have not escaped contradiction One calls the Surplice a Romish vesture another calls it a white robe of Innocence and Decencie Nay our very Prayers and Devotions have not been free from quarrels Whilst some have called the Lords Prayer A perfect forme enjoyned by Christ to be said as it is others most irreverently have called it a Taylors Measure fit onely to cut out other Petitions by In this miserable diversity of sides thâ—…n where Countrymen and men of the same speech doe so ordinarily speak divers languages What way is there left to beget a peace and union among us Truly my brethren I know none so fit as that which Saint Paul here prescribes in this Text a way which if it were well practised or if men would either have more charity or lesse gall in them would in time beget an union and agreement between all Churches that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that we all speake the same thing That is first that wee lay aside all those odious hatefull names and words of reproach which serve onely to Provoke and engender strifes and to beget a dislike of one mans conversation with another that the honest strict regular heedfull conscientious man be no longer called a Puritane nor his wife a holy Sister Nor the free sociable affable open harmlesly unscrupulous man be any longer called a Papist or Atheist or by way of reproach a Cavallier I speak not now of the adulterous swearing riotous lying drinking covetous man these are such that one of the wayes to reforme them is to call them by their right names Next that we no longer as our interest or affections or prejudices or education or customes sway us pin our beleefe or faith upon any one Particular Guide or Teacher so irremoveably as without
but as a Delegary of power to examine my studies life and manners I shall bring all the submission with mewhich can be expected from one subject to the tryall and examination of such a power Being withall very confident that when that time comes however you may perhaps finde an old Cope or two in our Colledge yet you will never bring Logick enough with you to prove that they are either Idolatrous or have been put to a superstitious use And therefore Sir in this particular you have lost your friendly counsell there being no need at all that we should against that time study for an Answer In your next Fascicle you say that I maintaine that some things in the Excellency and Height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and the Evidence of their Truth upon the Authority of Christs Miracles convey'd along in Tradition and Story And therefore conclude that my Religion leaues too hard and too heavy upon Tradition Sir though I have alwayes lookt upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New as two glorious lampes which to all eyes that have not lost the use of seeing by being kept sequestred from the sunne too long in the darke mutually give light to one another so that a vigilant Reader by comparing Prophecies with their Accomplishments will have very great reason to beleeve that both are true yet because this amounts but to the discourses and perswasions of a single mans reason if I prefer Tradition which is the constant universall consent of all Ages as a fuller medium to prove doctrines by which are hardly otherwise demonstrable doe I any more I pray then prefer the universall Testimony and Report of the Church of all Times before the more fallible suggestions of a private spirit Your next Paragraph is perfectly the Hydra with repullulating Heads which I warned you of in my first Letter And multiplies so many causeless questions as make it nothing but a heape partly of such doubts partly of untruths as would make it one of Hercules labours to examine them First you bid me prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination in the hand of a Prelate Sir if the practice of the Apostles in the Scripture in this point were not cleare yet the practice and opinion of the Church for 1500 yeeres ought to be of too great Authority with you to make this a scruple Knowing that no Church in the world thought otherwise till the Presbyterian Modell crept forth of Calvins fancie nor any good Protestant in the Church of England till such as you recalled Aerius from his grave and Dust to oppose Bishops Next you bid me justifie that no Church that ever the sunne lookt upon hath beene more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it or better establisht for the Government and Discipline of it then the Church of England hath Sir you repeat not the words of my Sermon so faithfully as you should I am not so extravagant as to say that no Church that ever the Sunne lookt upon but that the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many many yeeres that is in my sense for many Ages saw not a purer Church then ours was both for the Doctrines and Discipline of it Against this you wildly object I know not what Doctrines publiquely countenanced but tell me not what these Doctrines were speake of certaine superstitious practices and Prelaticall usurpations but doe not prove them to be either superstitious or usurpt quarrell with the Delegation of Bishops power to Chancellors then proceed to the tyrannie of the High-Commission-Court and at last conclude with I know not what Imaginary corruptions and Innovations introduced into the State Church and University Sir if I should grant this long-winded Charge of yours to be true as truly I think it is onely a seeing of vanity yet my confident Assertion is not hereby enfeebled I hope when I spoke of the purity of our Church you did not think I freed it from all blemishes or spots The Primitive Church it selfe had some in it who broacht strange doctrines Saint Iohn had not else written his Gospell against the Gnosticks nor Saint Paul his Epistle to the Galatians against those that held the necessity of Circumcision The next Ages of the Church have not been more distinguisht by their Martyrs then Heretiques yet the Primitive Church ceased not to be Apostolically pure because it had a Cerinthus or Nicolaitans in it nor the succeeding Churches to be the Spouse of Christ because one brought forth an Apelles another a Marcion a third a Nestorius a fourth an Eutiches a fift an Arius Sir as long as the best Church in the world consists of men not infallible there will be errors But then you must not charge the Heterodox opinions or Doctrines of particular men though perhaps countenanced by some in publique authority upon the Church Besides Sir every Innovation is not necessarily a Corruption unless it displace or lay an Ostracisme upon some other thing more worthy and better then it selfe You your selfe say that the corruptions introduced were brought in by a prevailing faction who were not the Church If they were not my Assertion holds good that notwithstanding such corruptions yet our Church in its time was the purest Church in the world This then being so me thinks Sir you in your pursuit of Reformation by making Root Branch your Rule of proceeding have beene more severe then the lawes of right Reason will allow you If there were such a tyrannie as you speake of streaming it selfe from the High Commission Court why could not the tyrannie be supprest without the abolishment of the Court Or if there were such a thing as Prelaticall usurpation why could not the usurpations be taken away and Episcopacie left to stand Sir if you be Logician enough to be able to distinguish betweene the faults of persons and the sacredness of functions you cannot but pronounce with me that to extirpate an order of the Church ancient as the Christian Church it selfe and made venerable by the never-interrupted Reception of it in all the Ages of the Church but ours for the irregular carriage of a Prelate or two if any such have beene among us is a course like theirs who thought there was no way left to reforme drunkenness in their State but utterly to root up and extirpate and banish Vines The remainder of your Paragraph is very politically orderd which is that because you finde it hard for you to confute my Sermon by your Arguments you will endeavour to make the Parliament my Adversary who you thinke are able to confute it by their power And bid me prove that the proceedings of the Parliament are Turkish Here Sir methinks being a Poet I see a piece of Ben Iohnson's best Comedy the Fox presented to me that is you a Politique Would-be the second sheltring your self under a capacious Tortoise-shell Why Sir can you perswade
and my Alacrity to comply with the Conclusion of the precedent Letter I returned this following Answer Sir When I had open'd the Letter you sent me on Saturday night last Ian. 30. and found by the first period of it that as your first Letter shew'd you a great Master in Detraction so in this you had learnt the Art to make the Scripture revile me too and taught two of Solomons Proverbs to call me Fool Finding also in the next period how naturally and uncompelled ill language flows from you who do here confess that you did let loose your pen that I might see how easily and with what an unforc'd Dexterity in the less serious part of the Day without premeditation or the expence of Study you could revile me And withall that you did let flye so many quibbles as the exercise of your Recreation I presume to minde me of my more industrious Trifles I must confess I not onely look't upon you as a Person fit to sit in the Seat of the Scornfull but as one very capable to be requited with a Proverb which the same Chapter which you quoted presented to me at the 18. 19. Verses where 't is said That as a mad-man who casteth firebrands Arrows and death so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith he is in sport Sir I should not have applyed this peice of Scripture to you by way of Retaliation which may seem to have some bitterness in it had you not at the very threshold and first unlocking of your Letter verified this Proverb upon your self by casting firebrands and Arrows first and thereby deceiving me who upon your promise that I should be spiritually dealt with that is as a Divine ingaged in a needless Controversie with a Divine ought to be unsuccesfully flattered my self that for the future though I could not expect much Reason or proof or Argument from you yet you would certainly bind your self to the Laws of Sobriety and good Language How you have made good your promise will appear to any who besides the reproachfull proverb with which you begin your Letter and for which a greater then Solomon hath said you shall be in Danger of Hell-fire shall read the puddle of your letter which streams from the first foul Spring and Head of it where having first charged me in my writing to you with Elaborate Folly you make it an Excuse to the Dirt and mire of your pen that I set you the Copy and was foul in my Expressions first Sir Though the saying of Tacitus be one of the best confutations of Detraction Convitia spreta exolescunt and though I have alwaies thought that to enter combate with a Dunghill is the way to come off more defiled yet finding my self engaged like one of the poeticall Knights errant with an Adversary that will not onely provoke me to fight but whos best weapon is to defile me out of the field I shal for once apply as good perfume to the stench you speak of as can possibly in such times make me walk the streets in my own Oxford uncondens'd not by you made foggy Ayre And shall make it evident first to your self next to the world if you will consent that what thus secretly passeth between us shall be made publike and Printed that you are not onely fallible in your most sad and melancholy considerations but in those more pleasant mirthful chymes of quibbling for which I before placed you in the Chaire First sir you bid me read over my two Sermons and the two letters which I have sent you as if they were yours and then impartially tell you whether I am not to pass sentence upon them as you do That they are Difficiles Nugae Elaborate Follies To which my Reply is First that there is so much loyalty and so little self-interest in them that my imagination can never be strong enough to Suppose them to be yours Next That what Folly soever betrayes it self in your expressions yet the matter is built upon such sure rocks of the Scripture that 't is not all the waves or Tempest which you can raise against them wil be able to reduce them to the fate of a House built upon the Sand. Thirdly since all Disputes as wel as wit are like a Rest Kept up at Tennis where good players do the best with the best Gamsters I do sadly promise you that when ever you shal either write or urge to me such Arguments of serious Consideration that I shal not have reason to think St. Pauls saying verified in my Expressions that my Foolish things are sufficient to confound and bring to nought your wise I wil lay aside the Folly you tax me withal In the mean time if you think my Letters to you By what Glass soever my Sermons were made are elaborate pray compare the Dates and Receipts of them with the No-dates and uncertain Receipts of yours And you wil find that the longest letter I have yet written to you was but the creature of two days when your unelaborate answer to it back again was the Birth and Travell of a whole week Having said this Sir by way of Answer to your ungospel-like preface I shal next confining my self once more to your own method address my self to the examination of the rest of your letter A hard task I confess It being so much a Twinn-brother to your former where your evasions and little escapes are so many and your true substantiall solid disproofes of any one thing which I have sayd either in my Sermons or Letters so few that to deal freely with you my Conflict with you hitherto hath been and for ought I yet foresee is like to prove like the Fight between Hercules and the River Achelous which when 't was foyled in one shape could tire the Conquerour and presently provoke him to a fresh encounter in another Sir I could wish without your strange endless multiplycation of Questions you would assume to your self some constant figure wherein I might say I grappled with a bodyed Adversary But changing Form as you do and putting me stil to prove that which you have not yet so much as seemingly confuted pardon me I beseech you if I say that my combate with you is not only like the combate of Hercules with that River but like his who thought he had entered Duell with a Gyant and after much toyl found himself encountred by a cloud First you conceive that I preacht in defence of all Images set up in any Chappell within this Vniversity Sir This is but your conceipt of which you not I am guilty My sermon if you mark it is not so confined either to Vanlings Draughts or any other mans pencil as to defend what ever their Irregular Fancies shal draw or not to defend what ever either heer or any where else they shal regularly limb But if your conceipt were true what doth your Logick infer That because some Chappels are