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book_n	church_n	great_a	read_v	2,510	5	6.0813	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A86612	The pagan preacher silenced. Or, an answer to a treatise of Mr. John Goodwin, entituled, the pagans debt & dowry. Wherein is discovered the weaknesse of his arguments, and that it doth not yet appear by scripture, reason, or the testimony of the best of his own side, that the heathen who never heard of the letter of the Gospel, are either obliged to, or enabled for the believing in Christ; and that they are either engaged to matrimonial debt, or admitted to a matrimonial dowry. Wherein also is historically discovered, and polemically discussed the doctrin of Universal grace, with the original, growth and fall thereof; as it hath been held forth by the most rigid patrons of it. / By Obadiah Howe, A.M. and pastor of Horne-Castle in Lincolnshire. With a verdict on the case depending between Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Howe, by the learned George Kendal, DD.	Howe, Obadiah, 1615 or 16-1683.; Kendall, George, 1610-1663.	1655 (1655)	Wing H3051; Thomason E851_16; ESTC R207423	163,028	140

our Saviour himself did speak With many others which it cannot but be as unpleasing to refel as to repeat In all which he doth magnifie Nature and exceedingly depreciate Christ and his personal discoveries and so brings him to open shame which are all of them called to the test and examined in the following Treatise which I commend to thy candid oversight First granting me the civility of passing over the Typographicall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which needs must happen in the printing by reason of the non acquaintance of the Printer with my Manuscript To prevent the incursions of men of Mr. Goodwin's humour who rather contend about Words then Reason I have hinted some of them in the ensuing page the rest supply if thou meetest with them and I commit thee and us all to God who is able to lead us into all truth Thine OBADIAH HOW ERRATA In the Body of the Book PAg. 3. lin 1. for is not r. is it not p. 16. l 34. r. figuratively p. 21. l. 3. r. Ephes 2.12 p. 28. l 18 for challenge r. charge p. 32. l. 3. r. Willet p. 33 l. 43. r. of Christ p. 36. l. 5. for heavens r. hearing p. 43. l 33. for only more r. no more p. 48. l 19. r. omne e●s p. 50. l. 15. r. certai●lie he must p. 56. l. 3. r. Impostor p. 52 l. 1. r under sin p 79 l. 28. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 83 l. 23. r. that God p. 85 l. 31 r cannot be elected p. 88 l. 7. r. Improvement of abilities p. 106 l. 15. r. in his own circle p. 114 l. 32. r. whilest it is it necessarily is In the Margin Pag. 5. e pro ad lege f after sufficit l. ad p. 12 b l. dolere l. petere p. 13. e l. obediendas p. 23 l. juxta id quod ipsi p. 52. l. sibi data p. 53. c l. ut virtutes l. quidem p. 62 c l. impediri p. 79 c l. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 85. l. praestari p. 93 a l. invenit b l. ab iis p. 94 d l. ●errenis A VERDICT In the Case depending between Master J. Goodwin and Master Howe concerning the Heavens Preaching the Gospel maintained by Master Goodwin in his Pagans Debt and Dowry as well as his Redemption redeemed BY GEORGE KENDALL D. D. To the READER MAY it please him to know that though J doe not presume to look upon my self as one vvhose testimony can adde any value to those worthy Discourses which are here presented him yet J esteem it some honour to my poor judgement that J have been earnestly solicited to spend it upon them Accordingly J shall assume the boldnesse to say that the Pamphlet which is here taken to task vvhile it flily pretends to sue the Pagans for an unknown debt secretly releaseth Christians from a great part of those sweet obligations wherein they justly rejoice to be bound and must in all humble thankfulnesse acknowledge they can never satisfie them No lesse then the honour of the Ministery the Scriptures the goodnesse of God in blessing our ears with the joyful sound of them and bowing our hearts quite against their native posture to an humble submission unto them lies at the stake in this Controversie And 1. Master Goodwins n●w licensing the Sun Moon and Stars to Prea●h the Doctrine of the Gospel is an apparent encroachment upon the Commission granted to the Apostles and us their unworthy successors in that honourable Office of dispensing these sacred Mysteries And who knows but Master Goodwin long noted for a back-friend to our publick Preachers had a subtile design to obscure the Lights of our Churches by bringing in the Sun to out-shine them 2. Nor yet have the Ministers more cause to complain of the injuries done them by those audacious Papers then have the Scriptures themselves If the Pagans may so easily read the great Mysteries of the Gospel written with the Sun-beams the Book of God must be content to be set at a lower rate then David was wont even in his time to put upon it Alas multitudes of Christians have much adoe after many years teaching to read any considerable part of the Doctrine of Christ in that Obscurer Volume while the Pagans in the mean time are indoctrinated by Master Goodwin to run and read all in the Sun The Jews had small cause it seems to talk of their Priviledge in having the Oracles of God committed to them Rom. 3. I wis the Sun proclaimed all as much to the Heathens as any of the Jews could and more then most of them did pick out of their Moses and the Prophets And therefore Paul might have forborn to have told his Country-men so solemnly of the great advantage they had above his new Disciples the Gentiles There were none of them all but might have seen Christ as clearly in the Sunne as ever Moses did God in the Cloud Nay howbeit Christ were pleased to say that salvation was of the Jews Joh. 4.22 yet Master Goodwin hath concluded upon a more serious debate that the Gentiles were every way as near to it and the partition wall was no considerable inconvenience to them nor the plucking down of this wall any visible enlargement of the Courts of Gods house which were all along of the same dimensions with the Globe of the Earth I fear this short Pamphlet of Master Goodwins hath done much more against the honour of the Scriptures then his Bulkier Volume for the Authority of them will in haste make amends for notwithstanding (a) In his Notes on the six Book-sellers p. 28. he pleaseth to tell us of (b) As I am credibly informed the Reverend Doctour Whichcote one known to be at learned grave and judicious as any English born at this day who said it was as good a Book as any was written since the Apostles dayes It had need to be so to make any tolerable satisfaction for these improvident pleadings for the pretended sufficiency of the Sunne Moon and Starres to deliver all the chief contents of the Gospel 3. How doth this blemish and sully the singular graciousnesse of our good God to us poor Christians and give occasion to too many to slake their thankfulnesse to his heavenly Majesty for his Letters Patents and the Oral Proclamations of the Gospel vouchsafed to themselves so far is it from inflaming their zeal in the propagation of it to others What reckon we so much upon our being called out of d●tknesse into his marvellous light 1 Pet. 2.9 The Pagans eyes indeed are blind but the light of the Gospel shines clearly upon them and makes no difference between England and India yea the Indians have some advantage as lying nearer the Sunne whose Sermons it is therefore probable they may hear somewhat the more distinctly And if we have so little to blesse God for more then the Pagans what need we give him too many thanks for our supposed happinesse above the

Papists we in vain dream of too much felicity in our superfluous Reformation Heaven is at no greater distance from Rome then London And the poor Popish Laicks though interdicted the Scriptures in their Vulgar tongue yet may read enough to save them in the Sunnes Catechisme written in the Catholick Language What meant our rash Martyrs to be so prodigal of their bloud at the stake They needed not have feared any danger of that Egyptian darknesse as long as they might have enjoyed Gospel-light enough with a sufficient Gods blessing on their hearts in a warm Sun What an unnecessary quoil did many good men lately make against some imperious Prelates for silencing a few setled Ministers The danger was none or very small as long as the Sunne that grand Itinerant Preacher was in no peril of being suspended Master Goodwins dumb Preachers would have exercised in spight of them all and that upon the very house-tops Onwards what a needlesse quarter do the Adventurers for New England keep about erecting Schools and training up Preachers for the Natives Had they ten thousand Hiacomesses they could all say little more then the Sun doth every day of the Gospel of Christ in a Language much like the Vniversal Character which the late Examiner of the Vniversities to use his own words is about to excogitate as his Responsions doe make probation Si Cloaca esset magna esset Nay what talk we so much of the vain advancement of Learning at home in order to bringing men to be better qualified for the Preaching of the Gospel All the Books in the Publick Library at Oxford are not of half the use that Will Lillies Almanacks are wherein the Sunne Preacheth in his Pontificalibus Who would have thought it Master Goodwins six penny Pamphlet beats down all Pulpits and Libraries and affords the Sunnes Lectures at such a rate that most other Books may goe for waste paper and think themselves happy in being employed to defend Roste Bief from the furie of the fire Thus hath he made which who could ever have suspected the superiour Lights to Eclipse the inferiour and the Sunne by advantage belike of his nearnesse to the Church Triumphant in Heaven to darken all the lower Stars of the Church Miiitant here on Earth Such are the consequences of Master Goodwins Discourses 4. Yea more whereas all good Christians have ever been wont to blesse God for being pleased to distinguish them from many other professed Christians who enjoy the Books of Scriptures and the Oral Ministery of the Gospel as far forth as themselves but are not so happily breathed on by the Spirit of grace which alone makes them effectual to conversion Master Goodwins Book would bear them in hand that there is little more owing to God from the best of Christians then the worst of Pagans and that these have equal means of salvation at least in a Geometrical proportion Red. Red. P. Vlt. The truth is having taken so much worthy pains in his Redemption Redeemed to shew that Christ died equally for all men he was of course to assert that he procured equal means of that equally intended salvation of all men and to make good these equal means of salvation afforded to all men he was of necessity to run on one of these two rocks either to deny that the Preaching of the Gospel is necessary to salvation or to affirm that the Sunne Moon and Stars who alone visit all the world are sufficient Preachers of it I am so much Master Goodwins friend what ever he think of me as seriously to advise him as he tenders his safety to have a special care while he layes himself out for an Vniversal toleration of all Religions that he set himself against Poperie to the utmost of his power For however he speed through the highly deserved favour of all other Sectaries that may chance to get the moderation of Ecclesiastical causes yet should ever the Papists rule the roste Master Goodwin must look to be cast into the fire So severely would the Papists handle him for this piece of new Doctrine not as a Protestant but an Anti-Scripturist The Pope himself though he pretend to be the Oecumenical Pastor would not endure the thought of such an Vniversal Preacher as Master Goodwin is pleased to ordain the Sun to the disparagement of the Scriptures And yet that I may give the Sunne and his Patron their due I readily confesse the Sunne Preacheth enough to condemn all the world though not a word to purpose for the saving of any single soul The Sunne rarely sets forth the power of God enabling so vast a body for so swift a course and making so swift a course to bee all as regular The Sunne never stumbling nor tripping since his first setting out as a Giant to runne his race never stopping but once in above five thousand yeares and that only upon a command to attend the motion of Joshuahs army never retreating but once and that upon a like order to assure Hezekiah of an unexpected setting back of the Clock of his days The Sunne displayes the glory of Gods power no lesse every year in reviving plants and trees after a whole Winters Epilepsie whence we conclude beyond contradiction that God can raise our bodies out of the bosome of the Earth with more facility then the Sunne re-quickens any vegetables upon the face of it The Sunne as openly Preacheth the same power of God in its occulter operations upon Minerals which it so curiously works where we would not think it did look and doth a kind of stupendious miracles by invisible influences Shortly the Sunne tells all the world so plainly that there is God Omnipotent that too many Pagans have taken the Sunne for that God So children are apt to look on a King at Arms as King of the Realm The Sunne Preacheth that God in its face which too too many men every where deny in their heart but of Christ the Lord it had never a word to say unlesse perhaps once when it muffled its face as blushing at the monstrous indignities offered by poor worms on Earth to the great Prince of Heaven But even then the Sunne spake so low under its mask that the Jews themselves did not hear much lesse did the Heathens understand it And though one of their Philosophers be said to have cried out aut Deus naturae patitur aut mundi machina dissolvetur yet I believe that speech of his well examined carries more in it against the honour of the Almighty Creator then for the glory of our Merciful Redeemer Alas they who have been the most diligent and curious Auditours of the Sunne never learned any thing of that Starre which was a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel God manifested in the flesh was a Mystery which the Angels stooped down to look into so little could the Pagans discover it in the Heavens over their heads It was the Apostles wonder to

obliged by a positive Law to repent and believe and he proves it by this text the sense whereof is this That the obligation to repent in former times was but faint and obscure and without authority in comparison to that obligation which God layeth upon the world to an express command under the time of the Gospel As if there were such a difference betwixt an express command and a positive command and now it seems all men without exception and all ages were obliged to repent by a positive Law and proved by this text that sheweth that the express command to repent is given but now in the times of the Gospel and is not this handsomly proved it seems that positive Law that breeds in all men to repent is not an express command 4 How injuriously doth he proceed injuriously to God himself for he is to prove a positive Law of God by which man are bound to repent and doth it by a Scripture that sheweth no command or obligation but what is weak and faint and obscure and without authority in comparison of that command in the Gospel as if that Law that is positively given by God should in its obligation be but weak and faint and obscure and without authority in comparison of that which is but positive let him produce such commands positive that are so weak obscure and without authority are not all the commands positive of God of equal Authority 5 How slenderly is he backed with proof he saith the obligation to repent in former times was but weak and faint and obscure I believe it so obscure as that he cannot produce one Scripture to prove it I shall be glad to see one Scripture which cleerby evinceth any obligation at all as lying on the Heathen that never had more then the light of nature 6 For his Scriptures which he produceth to fortifie his temperature of this Antithesis in the text they are all of them impertinent because they have not any of them such direct full terms of an Antithesis in them no not that text Luk. 24.44 which he alone produceth under the notion of an Antithesis For Christ doth not at all oppose his being present with them before that after his Resurrection nor speaks he any thing at all in that Verse of his being then present but barely telleth them that when he was with them he told them that all things must be fulfilled which were said by Moses the Prophets 7 Whereas he saith that his is the genuine sense of the text from the condition of the world and all mankinde under the times of ignorance and before the dayes of the Gospel which was this that the world was generally under the comand to repent he here doth but beg the question and repeat what he had asserted before and so proves nothing for I say on the other hand it is most clear they were not under any command to repent but he proves by several expressions which seem to carry the face of Arguments 1 Then their impenitency and obduracy in ways contrary to the Law of God and Nature had been no sin in them nor obligatory to punishment But doth he think this any way coercive I say that their sin commeth not under the notion of impenitency again that such as have only the light of nature cannot be said to have any positive Law of God Thirdly I also say that the sins of the Heathen though they have no command to repent are yet sins against the law of nature and they are a law to themselves and shall be judg'd by that law of nature and so without any positive law as the Apostle saith which helpeth us to understand the Apostle in that text Rom. 4.15 The law worketh wrath if we will take it thus generally Every law worketh wrath proportionable to it self the law of nature worketh wrath proportionable to it the law of God positive to it the law of the Gospel to it not that by every law men shall incur wrath for non-repentance except Mr. Goodwin can prove that all men without exception are condemned for not repenting as a transgression of a command which proof I demand therefore that doth not affright me for it is easily answered although they be not under a command to repent yet they are not therefore left lawless and may commit and do what they list without any guilt or punishment this is fondly alledged for the solution is easie they have a law of nature and are a law to themselves and so having a law they may sin and their consciences shall condemn them yea and God shall condemn them also these I know Mr. Goodwin could not but consider therefore how he could think of mens being lawless or Gods not taking account of the Heathen for sinning although we do grant and prove it too that the Heathen are under no obligation to repent for that law may conclude us under sin that cannot command us repentance for sinning the one is a priviledge of the law the other of the Gospel which makes way for his second Reason which is this 2 Because to all even in the times before the Gospel he gave so much means that they might seek the Lord and finde him Acts 17.26 27. Therefore all men are under a command to repent But this is far from binding for we seek the Lord. 1 In obedience 2 In repentance for not obeying Adam in his integrity was bound to seek God but not to repent now that God doth so much for the Heathen that they might seek him in a way of obedience and so far as to serve and worship him as the true God I grant but that God intendeth that by that which God doth for every man they should seek him in a way of repentance I put him to prove Thus have I followed him step by step and if I have run into unpleasing and extravagant notions I have this fair excuse that I was necessarily led thereinto and I have considered and examined every parcel of his Treatise and to close up all this is the result of all All men are not bound by any Law Positive or of nature to repent and believe neither are all the Heathen in a capacity of believing much less in a mediate sufficiency but much less in an immediate sufficiency of believing in Christ and so by consequence the whole and adequate subject of this his Treatise rendred dissonant both to Scripture and Reason And before I close up this my work and make my due and legitimate claim I cannot but let him and his Church know that I take notice as all the world may of their Improvident boldness in that Book entituled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or The Agreement and distance of Brethren wherein they undertake to excude and thrust into the world their indigested thoughts upon the five controverted Articles In the third Article they pretend they cannot agree with their brethren in the confinement of