should make him for that time seem religiously distracted or beside himselfe Or because his Prayer or Sermon hath been premeditated and hath not flowne from him in such an Ex-tempore loose careere of devout emptinesses and nothings as serve onely to entertaine the people as Bubbles doe children with a thin unsolid brittle painted blast of wind and ayre Or because perhaps the sands of his Glasse have not fleeted for two tedious houres together with nothing but the bold insolent defamation and reviling of his Prince Againe have there not been some who have thought our Temples unholy because the Common-Prayer Booke hath been read there And have renounced the Congregation where part of the Service hath been tuned through an Organ Hath not a dumb Picture in the window driven some from the Church And in exchange of the Oratories have not some in the heat and zeale of their Separation turned their Parlours Chambers and Dining-roomes into Temples and Houses of Prayer Nay hath not Christ been worshipt in places yet more vile and mean In places which have reduced him the second time to a Stable If I should aske the people of both Sexes who are thus given to separation and with whom a Repetition in a Chamber edifies more then a learned Sermon in the Church upon what religious grounds or motives either taken from the Word of God which is so much in their mouthes or from reason which is so little in their practice they thus affect to single and divide themselves from others I believe it would pose them very much to give a satisfying Answer Is it because the persons from whom they thus separate themselves are irreligious wicked men Men who are Christians onely in forme and whose conversation carries nothing but evill example and pollution with it If I should grant this to be true and should allow them to be out-right what they call themselves The Elect and Godly and Holy ones of the earth and other men to be outright what they call them The Reprobate the wicked the ungodly and prophane yet is not this warrant enough to divide or separate themselves from them Nor are they competent Judges of this but God only who by the mouth of his Son hath told us in the Parable that the wheat and corne is not to be separated from the chaffe and tares when we list but that both are to grow together till the great harvest of the world Till then 't is a piece of the building of it that there bee a commixture of good and bad Besides let me put this Christian Dilemma to them either the persons from whom they divide themselves are holy or unholy If they be holy they are not to separate themselves from them because they are like themselves If they be unholy they are in charity to converse with them that they may reforme and make them better Did not our Saviour Christ and certainely his example is too great to be refused usually converse with Publicans and sinners Did he forsake the Table because a Pharisee made the Feast Or did he refuse a perfume because a harlot powred it on his head Or did he refuse to goe up into the Temple because buyers and sellers were there men who had turned it into a den of Theeves Certainely my Brethren we may like Christ keep company with Harlots and Hypocrites and Publicans and Sinners and yet retaine our innocence 'T is a weake excuse to say I will never consort my selfe with a swearer lest I learne to blaspheme Or I will utterly renounce all familiarity and acquaintance with such and such an Adulterer or with such and such a Drunkard lest I learne to commit Fornication from the one or Intemperance from the other In all such conversations we are to imitate the Sun who shines into the foulest puddles and yet returnes from thence with a pure untainted Ray. If mens vices then and corruptions bee not a sufficient cause to warrant a separation what else can be Is it the place of meeting or Church or the things done there which hath made them shun our ordinary Congregations Yes say some we have held it very unlawfull as we conceive to assemble in such a place where we have seen Altars and Windowes worshipped superstitious garments worne and have heard the more superstitious Common-Prayer Booke read that great bolster to slothfull Ministers and twin-brother to the Mass and Liturgie of Rome Were this Charge true a very heavy one I confess had there been any among us so unreasonably stupid as to spend their devotion on a pane of glass or pay worship to the dumb sensless creature of the Painter or adore the Communion-Table the wooden issue of the Axe and Carpenter as I think there were none had there I say been very Idolaters among us yet unlesse they would have compelled them to be Idolaters too I after all the impartiall Objections which my weake understanding can frame can see no reason why they should not communicate with them in other things wherein they were no Idolaters I am sure if S. Paul had not kept company with Idolaters we to this day for ought I know had remained Infidels My Brethren deceive not your selves with a fallacy which every child is able to discover If such superstitio ns had been publikely practised among us it is not necessary that every one that is a spectator to anothers mans sin should presently be an offender Nor are all offences so like the Pestilence that he that comes within the breath and ayre of them must needs depart infected Thou seest one out of a blind zeale pay reverence to a picture he hath the more to answer for But why dost thou out of a zeale altogether as blind thinke thy selfe so interested in his errour as to thinke thy self a partaker of his fault unless thou excommunicate thy selfe from his conversation Againe tell me thou who callest Separation security what seest thou in a Surplice or hearest in the Common-Prayer Booke which should make thee forbeare the Congregation where these are retained Is it the web or matter or colour or fashion of the garment or is it the frame or forme or indevotion of the Book which offends thee Or art thou troubled because they have both beene borrowed from the Church of Rome That indeed is the great argument of exception which under the stile of Popery hath almost turned Religion it selfe out of the Church But then it is so weake so accidentall so vulgar an Argument an Argument so fit for none to urge but silly women with whom the first impression of things alwaies takes strongliest that I must say in replie to it That by the same reason that thou poore tender-conscienc'd man who art not yet past milke or the food of infants in the Church makest such an innocent decent vesture as Surplices unlawfull because Papists weare them thou mayest make eating and drinking unlawfull because Papists dine and sup The subject is not high or
noble enough to deserve a more serious confutation That therefore which I shall say by way of Repetition is onely this If to weare or do whatever Papists weare or doe be unlawfull as it will presently concerne us all to throw off our garments and turne Adamites so it will very neerely concern us too to lay aside our Tables and betake our selves to fasting as the ready way to famine Then to reject the Common-Prayer Book because some of the Prayers in it resemble the Prayers in the Romish Liturgie is as unreasonable as if thou shouldst make piety and devotion in generall unlawfull because Papists say their Prayers And so in opposition to whatever they do shouldst think thou art to turne Athiest because most in that Church do confess there is a God The time wil not give me leave to say much in the defence of that excellent Book Or if I should t is in any thing I presume which can fall from my imperfect mouth which wil be able to recover the use of it back again into this Church Yet thus much out of the just sense and apprehension which I have of the wisedome as well as piety and devotion of it I shall adventure to say That I cannot think that ever any Christian Church since the time that that name first came into the world had a publique forme of Gods Worship more Primitively pure more Religiously grave and more agreeable in all points to the Scripture then that is To which I shall only add this one praise of it more that there is not any Ancient Classically condemned Heresie to be found in the Records of Councells Church-Histories or the Confutations of Fathers which is not by some clause or other in that most Orthodox Book excluded Here then if there be any in this Assembly of that il-perswaded mind that he would not at this present make one of the Congregation if the Common-prayers were read let me once more ask him what that great Antipathie between him and that admirable Book is which should make them quarrel one another out of the Church Is it because it prescribes a Ring iâ—… marriage or a Cross in Baptisme over-scrupulous man who would'st rather choose to make a rent and schisme and division in the Church then be spectatour to thâ—…ngs so harmless and indifferent But thy weak Conscience is wounded Weak indeed when a piece of marriage-Gold or a little water sprinkled in the signe and figure of a cross the Type and Emblem of thy Christianity shall drive thee from the Church I must confess to you freely if such things as the veneration of images or adorations of Altars or sacrifices for the dead or the worshiping of the Hoste or the mass-Mass-book with all the unsignificant Ave Maryes and superstitious prayers which use to trauell round the Circle of a numerous set of Beads had been establisht among us by publique Authority And had beâ—…n enforced upon the practice and Consciences of men and no Liberty of person or freedome of estates allow'd them unless they would conform to the present Golden Calf of superstition set up before them a separation had not only been allowable but necessary We would have offended God very much to be partakers of such dross And our best Answer would have been the Answer of the Three Children when the King would have had them fall down to the huge image and Colossus which he had set up O King we are not carefull to observe thee in this matter But where no such things were enjoyned where every one was left to the full use and exercise of his Christian liberty where nothing was blameable among us but the ridiculous over-acted postures and gestures of some few busie fantasticall men whose Popery lay in makeing discreet men laugh to see them so artificially devout and so affectedly ceremonious to divide and separate or to give us over for a lost Church because the Psalmes of David after his own Musicall way used to be sung to an Organ As innocently certainly as if they had been tuned through his own loud Cymball or had more softly been sung and vowell'd to his Harpe Or to renounce our solemne Assemblies for such sleight indifferent things as a piece of holy story in a glass window or because the Minister wears white or because marryed people come together by a Ring or because the Lords Prayer is more then once repeated is not only Schisme and I may safely say Schisme upon scandall taken not giuen but t is directly contrary to S Pauls advice here in this Text who is so far from tolerating any such needless divisions and separations of presences and bodies that he will not allow in the same Church and Congregation the least dissent or division of minds But makes it the least part of his Petition to his disagreeing Corinthians that they would not only meet together in the same place of Gods Worship but that they would be perfectly joyned together in the same mind and in the same judg-ment which is the last part of the Text. To which I shall only adde some brief Application of some things in this Sermon to you my hearers and so commend you to God 'T was well said of one of the Philosophers which saying of his hath since almost grown into a Prouerb of truth Nihil est in Intellectu quod non fuit priùs in sensu That there is nothing in the understanding or mind within which was not first in the sense without T is as great and measured a Truth that there is nothing in our speech or words or actions without which was not first in our mind or wil or affections within For what our Saviour Christ said that Out of the heart proceed evill thoughts murthers adulteries thefts false witness blasphemies and the like to every one of which sins without belongs some secret invisible spring within As I say to every Adultery without belongs some hidden lust within and the uncleannesse of the body is but the foul issue and off-spring of the soul And as to every murther without belongs some secret envy or hatred or thirst of revenge within and the rancour of the heart only clothes it self in the violence and bloud-shed of the hand so we may say of our Divisions and Disagreements too All those odious words and names of mutuall infamy and reproach all those perverse crossings and thwartings and contradictions of speech all this duell and skirmish and quarrelsomeness of language Lastly all this shunning and lothing of one anothers company all this separation and denyall of communion which we so ordinarily see exercised and practiced without are but so many unchristian behaviours which take their originall and birth from as unchristian grudges and prejudices and jealousies and mis-apprehensions within Never man yet dissented from another in speech but he first dissented from him in opinion And never man yet separated from another in communion but he first separated
obtaine pardon for them I doe professe that I cannot thinke the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many yeares beheld a Church more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it or better establisht for the Government and Discipline of it then ours was And therefore if I were presently to enter into dispute with the greatest Patriarch among these Prophets who even against the Testimony of sense it selfe will yet perversely strive to prove that our Church stood in such need of Reformation that the growing Superstitions of it could not possibly be expiated but by so much Civill Warre I should not doubt with modesty enough to prove back again to him that all such weak irrationall Arguments as have onely his zeale for their Logick are not onely composed of untempered Morter But that in seeing those spots and blemishes in our Church which no good Protestants else could ever see 't will be no unreasonable inference to conclude him in the number of those erroneous Prophets here in the Text. Who to the great Scandall and abuse of their Office and Function did not onely palliate and gild over the publique sins of their times but did it like Prophets and saw Vanity too Which is the next part of the Text And is next to succeed in your attentions If the Philâ—…sophers rule be true that things admit of definitions according to their essences and that the nearer they approach to nothing the nearer they dâ—…aw to no Description to goe about to give you an exact definition of a thing impossible to be defined or to endeavour to describe a thing to you which hath been so much disputed whether it be a thing were to be like those Prophets here in the Text first to see Vanity my selfe and then to perswade you that there is a Reality and Substance in it Yet to let you see by the best lights I can what is here meant by Vanity I will joyne an inspired to a Heathen Philosopher Solomon whose whole Book of Ecclesiastes is but a Tract of Vanity as we may gather from the instances there set downe places vanity in mutability and change And because all things of this lower world consist in vicissitude change so farre that as Seneca said of Rivers Bis in idem flumen non descendimus we cannot step twice into the same stream so we may say of most Sublunarie things whose very beings do so resemble streams ut vix idem bis conspiciamus that we can scarce behold some things twice that wisest among the sonnes of men whose Philosophy was as spacious as there were things in nature to bee knowne calls all things under the Sunne vanity because all things under the Sunne are so lyable to inconstancy and change that they fleet away and vanish whilst they are considered and hasten to their decay whilst we are in the Contemplation of them Aristotle desines vanity to bee 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing which hath not some reasonable end or purpose belonging to it For this reason he calls emptinesse and vacuity vanity Because there is so little use of it in nature that to expell it things have an inclination placed in them to performe actions against their kinde Earth to shut out a vacuity is taught to flie up like fire and fire to destroy emptinesse is taught to fall downe like earth And for this reason another Philosopher hath said that colours had there not been made eyes to see them and sounds had there not beene eares made to heare them had been vanities and to no purpose And what they said of sounds and colours we may say of all things else not onely all things under the Sun but the Sun it selfe who is the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the eye of the world without another eye to behold him or to know him to be so had been one of Aristotles vanities As then in Nature those things have deserved the name of vanities which either have no reasonable end or purpose belonging to them or else are altogether subject to Mutability and change so 't is in policy and Religion too To doe things by weake unreasonable inconstant principles principles altogether unable to support and upold the weight and structure of publique businesse built upon them or to doe things with no true substantiall solid usefull but a meere imaginary good end belonging to them As for example to alter the whole frame and Government of a State not that things may be mended but that they may run in another course then they did before or to change the universally received Government of a Church meerely for change sake and that things may be new not that they may bee better is a vanity of which I know not whether these Prophets here in the Text were guilty but when I consider the unreasonable changes already procured and the yet farther endlesse changes as unreasonably still pursued by the Prophets of our times I finde so much vacuity and emptinesse in their desires so much interested zeale and so little dis-interested reason so much novelty mistaken for reformation and withall so much confusion preferred before so much decency and order that I cannot but apply the Wise mans Ingemination to them and call their proceedings Vanity of vanities For if we may call weak groundlesse improbable surmises and conjectures vanities have not these Prophets dealt with the mindes of vuâ—…gar people as Melancholy men use to deale with the clouds raised monstrous formes and shapes to fright them where no feare was Have they not presented strange visions to them Idolatrie in a Church window Superstition in a white Surplice Masse in our Common-prayer Booke and Antichrist in our Bishops Have they not also to make things seem hideous in the State cast them into strange fantasticall Chymera figures And have they not like the fabulous walking Spirits wee read of created imaginary Apparitions to the people from such things flight unsolid melting Bodies as Ayre And for all this if you enquire upon what true stable principle or ground either taken from reason which is now preacht to be a saecular prophane heathen thing or from Scripture which is now made to submit to the more unerring rule of fancy they have proceeded or what hath been the true cause of their so vaine imaginations you will finde that contrary to all the rules of right judgement either common to men or Christians they have been guided meerely by that Causa per accidens that fallible erroneous accidentall cause which hath alwayes been the mother of mistakes Socrate ambulante coruscavit Because it lightned when Socrates took the Ayre one in the company thought that his walking was the occasion of the flash this certainly was a very vaine and foolish inference yet not more vaine and foolish then theirs who have â—…right people to conclude that all pictures in Church-windowes are â—…dols because some out of a misguided devotion have worshipt â—…hem or that
Surplices and the like Church Vestures are superstitious because some superstitious men weare them or that our Commâ—…â—…rayer booke is Poperie because part of it is to bee found in the 〈◊〉 of that Church or that the government of the Church 〈◊〉 bishops is Antichristian because in their beleefe Antichrist alâ—…ady is or when he comes into the world shall be a Bishop For here if I should presse them in a rationall logicall way unâ—…sie they will call Argument and Logick and Superstiâ—…â—…oo â—…oo and banish Reason as well as Liturgy out of the Church â—…o think as they doe that Churches are unhallowed by reason of their ornaments or to perswade people to refrain them because some out of a blind zeale have paid worship to the Windows is to me a feareâ—…s â—…s on reasonable as theirs was who refused to goe to Sea because â—…ere was a Painter in the City who limned Shipwracks For certainly if that be all the reason they have to banish Images out of thâ—… Church because some if yet there have been any so stupid have made them Idols by the same reason we should not now have a Sun or Moon or Stars in the Firmament but they should long sinâ—… have dropt from Heaven because some of the deluded Heathen worshipt them And if that be all the reason they have to prove Surplices or white vestments superstitious because Papists wear them pardon the meannesse of the subject I beseech you which is scoreâ—… worthy of a confutation why doe not they also conclude Linnes to be superstitious because Papists shift and so make cleanlinesse to be as unlawfull as Surplices or Copes Thirdly to say our Coâ—… prayer-booke is Popish because 't is so good that some in the Church of Rome have praised it is to mee an accusation as sencelesse as theirs who accused the Generall of their Army of treason against the State because his enemies out of the admiration of his vertues erected a Statue to him Lastly to call the government of our Church by Bishops Antichristian because that Church which they make to be the seat of Antichrist is so governed is to me such a weak Imputation as by the same reason makes all the Christian Governments of the world pagan And therefore to be utterly extirpated and banisht out of the world because in some points of Government they resemble the Common-wealths of Infidels To all which vain unlearned impotent shallow objections raised against the Church when I have added their vain improbable conjectures and objections raised against the State too Where things possible nay in a civill politick way almost impossible have beene urged and cited as things present and done Where because some Princes have been Tyrants and grievous to their Subjects people in serene easie halcyon times have bin made beleeve that an Aegyptian bondage and Thraldome was ready to fall upon them And where because there was a time when a bunch of Grapes or two extraordinary was gathered for the publicke people after so many reparations so many acts of recompence have been entertained that those few irregular Grapes were but the prologues and fore-runners to the intended rape which should in time have been committed upon the whole future following vine I cannot look upon the Prophets who have thus preacht vanity to them thus amuzed them with false imaginary dangers but under that description which the Prophet Ieremy hath made of them in his 23. chap. at the 26. verse where he calls them Prophets of the deceit of their owne hearts Seers who coyne their owne visions Men who relying wholly upon the uncertaine illumination of their own fancies which they call the Spirit and having never acquainted themselves with the true wayes and principles either of reason or Religion which should cleare their mindes and take off the grosse filme which beclouds their understandings make it their businesse and profession to deceive themselves and others Building false conclusions upon weak irrationall premisses and supporting improbable conjectures by fictions and untruths Which suggests to me the second abuse of the Ministery and function of these Prophets here in the Text. Which was that they not onely saw vanity but divined lyes too The thing in nature which makes the expression hold true that man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sociable creature is that we are able to repay conversation with conversation and have a privilege bestowed upon us beyond that of beasts that wee can unite and joyne our selves to one another by speech Without which we who now make rationall assemblies and Common-wealths had been only a rude discomposed multitude and Herd of men Nay without Language to expresse our selves and to associate our selves to one another in Discourse every man had been thus like the first that he had been alone and solitary in the world For where commerce and entercourse and exchange of minds is denyed and where all that passeth between us of men is that we are Alter alteri spectaculum onely a dumbe speechlesse shew and spectacle to one another meetings and numerous Assemblies are but so many unpeopled Wildernesses and desarts And where all that we enjoy of one anothers company is onely the dull sight and presence every one of us may reckon himselfe single in a full theatre and crowd As speech then was at first bestowed upon us that we might hold conversation and discourse with one another so there was a Law imposed upon us too that wee should not deceive one another by our sppeech * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is Aristotlâ—…s definition of speech which hath a piece of commutative Iustice in it Words sayes he are the images of thoughts That is sayes the Divine they alwayes ought or should be so The minde is thereby enabled to walke forth of the Body and to make visits to another separated divided mind Our Soules also assisted by Speech are able to meet and converse and hold entercourse with other Soules Nay you must not wonder at the expression if I say that as God at first conveyed our minds and Soules into us by breathing into us the breath of Life so by Speech he hath enabled us as often as we discourse to breath them reciprocally back againe into each other For never man yet spoke Truth to another and heard that other speake Truth back againe to him but for that time the saying of Minutius Felix was fulfilled Crederes duas esse animas in eodem corpore there were enterchangeably two mindes in one Body But this as I said before is onely when Truth is spoken Otherwise as the Question was askt of fire Igne quid utilius What more usefull gift did God ever bestow upon us then Fire And yet the same Poet tells us that some have imployed it to burne Houses So we may say of Words Sermone quid utilius What more beneficiall gift of nature did God ever bestow upon us then Speech 'T is the thing which doth outwardly distinguish
any unlearned unstudied man assisted with the Spirit and his English Bible is sufficiently gifted for a Preacher Nor doe I send you to them to be taught their bad Arts or that you should learn of them to dawbe the publique sinnes of your times or comply with the insatiable itching Eares of those whom St. Paul describes in the fourth Chapter of his second Epistle to Timothy at the third verse where he sayes that the time should come when men should not endure sound Doctrin but after their owne lusts should heap to themselves teachers A prophecie which I wish were not too truely come to passe among us where Studies and learning and all those other excellent helpes which tend to the right understanding of the Scripture and thereby to the preaching of sound Doctrine are thought so unnecessary by some Mechanicke vulgar men that no Teachers suit with their sicke queasie Palats who preach not that stuffe for which all good Schâ—…llers deservedly count them mad I do not I say send you to them for any of these reasons But certainly something there is which you may learne of them which St. Paul himself commends to you in the second verse of the fore-mentioned Chapter If you desire to know what it is 't is an unwearied frequent sedulous diligence of Preaching the Word of God if need be as they doe In season out of season with reproofe of sin where ever you finde it and with exhortation to goodnesse where ever you find it too and this to be done at all times though not in all places For certainly as long as there are Churches to be had I cannot thinke the next heap of Turfes or the next pile of Stones to be a very decent Pulpit or the next Rabble of People who will finde eares to such a Pulpit to be a very seemly Congregation For let me tell you my brethren that the power of these mens industries never defatigated hath been so great that I cannot thinke the milde Conquerour whose Captives we now are and to whose praise for his civill usage of this afflicted University I as the unworthiest member of it cannot but apply that Epithet owes more to the Sword and courage of all his other Souldiers for the obtaining of this or any other Garrison then to the Sweats and active Tongues of these doubly armed Prophets who have never failed to hold a Sword in one hand and a Bible in the other There remaine then but one way for us to take off the present reproach and imputation throwne upon us Which is to confute all flie sinister clancular reports and to out-doe these active men hereafter in their owne industrious way To preach Truth and Peace and sound Doctrine to the People with the same sedulity and care as they preach Discord Variance and Strife If this course be taken and be with fidelity pursued it will not onely bee in our power to dis-inchant the People who of late by what Spell or Charme I know not have unawares begun to entertaine a piece of Popery amongst them and to think ignorance the onely Mother of Devotion But it will be no hard matter for us towards the effecting of so charitable a worke as the undeceiving of so many well-minded but mis-guided Soules to make our true Arts deale with their false as the Rod of Moses dealt with the Magicians Serpents first shew them to be onely so much fantasticall Forme and Aire then consume and eate them up in the presence of their Beleevers To which for a conclusion of all I shall onely adde this That if this course bee taken and bee reduced to practice assisted with those great advantages which are to most of them unknown of Study Learning Tongues the use of Libraries and Books besides those other helpes of opportunity time and leisure to render our selves able which they too immaturely ingaged to a Family or Fortune cannot haue we shall not onely comply with the ends and intentions of those Founders who built us Colledges which they certainly intended should be Schools of vertue not Nurseries of slâ—…th but our despised Mother the University shall reap more honour by us our Countrey more service and God more glory To whom with his Son and the Holy Spirit of truth be ascribed all honour and praise Amen FINIS A late Printed SERMON AGAINST False Prophets Vindicated by LETTER From the causeless Aspersions of Mr. FRANCIS CHEYNELL By Iasper Mayne D. D. the mis-understood Author of it LUKE 21. 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Printed in the Yeare M DC XLVII A late printed SERMON against FALSE PROPHETS Vindicated by Letter from the causelesse Aspersions of Mr. FRANCIS CHEYNELL AS often as I have for some yeares considered the sad Distractions of this Kingdome methinkes thus divided against it selfe it hath verified upon it selfe the Fable of the People sowne of Serpents Tâ—…eth where without any knowne Cause of a Quarrell Brother started up suddenly armed against Brother and making the place of their Nativity the Field and Scene of their Conflicts every one fell by the Speare of the next upon the turfe and furrow which hatcht and brought him forth 'T is true indeed some have preacht and others have printed that the Superstitions of our Church were growne so high that they could not possibly be purged but by a Civill Warre But finding upon my most sober and impartiall Inquiries that these Superstitions were onely the misconceipts of some mens sicke Fancies who called certaine sleight harmlesse peeces of Church Ceremony Superstition I thought it a peece of Charity to them and the deluded people to let them no longer remaine in the Case of the distracted Midianites in the Booke of Iudges where upon a Dreame told by a man to his Neighbour and upon the sight of such inconsiderable things as lamps and broken pitchers every mans sword was against his fellow and a well-order'd Host of freinds struck with an imaginary feare became a confused and disorder'd heape and rout of enemies This desire to rectifie mistakes and withall to shew upon what slender threds of vanity their Sermons hang whose accidentall misguided Arguments under certaine false colours have strived to prove things indifferent to be unlawfull and then that thus by them pronounced unlawfull they are to be extirpated by the Sword caused me at first to preach a Sermon against False Prophets which hath since past the Travell of a more publique Birth wherein what a cold Advocate I am in my pleadings for Superstition will appeare to any who with an unclouded understanding shall read it yet M. Cheynell one of the Preachers sent downe by the Parliament to Oxford in a morning Sermon of his preacht at S. Maries Jan. 17. upon Esay 40. 27. Having directed the Doctrinall part of it against one M. Yerbury an Independent who publikely in a Dispute with him held that the Fulness of the Godhead dwells in the Saints bodily in the same measure that it did in Christ
your strange wilde Art of multiplying Questions upon Questions or like another Hydra what ever the Hercules be make three heads spring up in the place where you finde one convincingly lopt of The other is that when you have made your Charge and I my Resistance you will consent that the debate of every question thus disputed may bee made publike and printed But if by a Dispute you meant that I should fight a Duell with you upon the same stage and in the same Theater of men and women before whom you and Mr. Yerbury played your prize I doubt very much if I should accept of your Callenge in that sense whether all discreet men would not count this a spice of the phrenzy in me which you complained of in the Pulpit for being imputed to you by Him that wrote the Conference at your late Scruple-House and say I deserved to be cured by the Discipline and Physicke of a darke roome To deale freely with you Sir I by no meanes can approve of an English Disputation in a University But because you shall not loose your challenge nor I be thought to desert the cause which I professe to defend so you will choose the Divinity Schoole and Latine weapons I shall not refuse as well as God shall enable me to give you a meeting there and to sustaine the Answerers part in the defence of the lawfulnesse of white Surplices Church Ornaments the Common-Prayer Booke and Prelacy which are the particulars in my Sermon which you called Relicts of Superstition To one of these two offers I shall patiently expect your answer unlesse without troubling me any further you will let me quietly retire backe againe into the shade from whence you have too importunately called me Who neuer the less have learnt so much Charity as to pray God to forgive you the wrong which you intended towards From my chamber this evening Ian. 19. 1646. The Author of the Sermon against False Prophets J. MAYNE To this letter in which as briefly as the lawes of a Letter would permit I indeavour'd to wash out the spots with which M. Cheynell in his Sermon strived to defile and sully mine and withall to comply with him in any sober way of Dispute which might befit two University-men after two dayes was returned an Answer First strange for the messenger's sake that brought it which was One Iellyman some say a preaching Cobler who from repairing the decayes of University-mens shooes was now thought fit to have a part in the conveyance of their disputes Next for the double Superscription of it which without on the side of the first paper that enclosed it was as faire and full of Candor as the whited sepulcher in the Gospell and was directed To D. MAYNE AT CHRIST-CHURCH But this outward stone was no sooner rolled away but another Inscription very unlike the first appear'd which ran thus FOR M. JASPER MAYNE ONE OF THE NEVV DOCTORS STUDENT AT CHRIST-CHURCH By which parenthesis it seemes M. Cheynell thought it an errour in the University to make me a Doctor And truely if I may be believed upon my owne report as often as I compare my unworthiness with my degree I am of his opinion and thinke I am a Doctor fit only to stand in a parenthesis and without any iniustice done me to be left out of the sentence This second Superscription was underwritten with a kind of a preamble Letter to the more inward Letter with the lock and guard of a scale upon it and ran thus SIR I have sent severall times to your lodging this day to answer your challenge yesterday if you cannot meet to morrow let me understand your minde to night For I have a great deale of business since the University was silenced for your sake What kinde of meeting was here meant or whether I having I thanke God the use of my understanding could consent to it will appeare by the Letter it selfe which being an Answer to mine was verbatim this SIR I use to spend my morning thoughts upon a better subiect then a pot of dead drinke that hath a litle froth at top and dreggs at bottom SIR It appeares by your Letter that you doe not understand my Text and the learned Scribe or Intelligencer did not vnderstand my plaine very plaine English Sermon I am not at leisure to repeat every Sermon that I preach preaching soe often as I doe sometimes twice and upon just occasion thrice a day to every one that is at leisure to cavill at that which thay heard but at second hand yet to shew how much you are mistaken I will give you a breife but satisfactorie account My Text stands upon record Isa. 40. 25. the Doctrine I raised from the words was as followeth Doct. There is no creature in heaven or earth like God in all things or equall to God in any thing The first Corollarie I deduced from thence when I came to make application was breifly this That no picture can be made of God because there was nothing like him in heaven or earth All nations are less then vanity in comparison of God to whom then will ye liken God or what likeness will ye compare unto him Isay. 40. 17. 18. The Prophet urgeth this Argument against all manner of images which are made to represent God who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and stretcheth out the heavens from the 19. v. of the same chap. to the 23. ver and he enforceth this Argument vers 21. have yee not knowne have ye not understood c. as if he had say'd yee are ignorant sotts irrationall and inconsiderate men if yee apprehend not the strength of this Argument Now SIR be pleased to produce your strong reasons and overthrow if you can the Doctrine or the Corollary Your Intelligencer was if not a false Prophet yet a false Historian when he told you that I accused you of making images equall with God SIR I said that images were not like unto God and thereupon wondered that you tooke upon you to pleade for the retaining of those images which have beene too often turn'd into idolls not by the piety but superstition of former times You say that by the same reason there should be no Sun in the firmament Whence I collect that you will be forc'd to maintaine that images are as necessary in the Church as the Sun in heaven be pleased to read the 22. page of the false Prophet Moreover you plead for Copes and for those parts of the Common-Prayer Booke which were borrowed from Rome pag. 21 22. The Uisitors will ere long enquire whether there hath not beene a Superstitious use of Copes at Christ-Church and therfore I did not make any such enquirie in my Sermon but as a Freind I give you and your adherents timely notice of it because I believe you had need study for an Answer You maintaine that some things in the excellencies and height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion