the disingenuity of his Cavils and that is all that is needful in answer to his way of proceeding which you see was not to confute but to pervert my Discourse And if I should pursue all Advantages examine all Miscarriages and lay open all Follies and Impertinencies I should presume too much upon the Publick Patience and swell my Reply to too unreasonable a Bulk so many so vain and so impertinent are his Topicks of Cavil However the remainder of his Talk is built upon the supposition of the Truth and Reality of these Falsifications and therefore by what I have already discoursed in answer to their Forgery I have made it altogether needless to take any farther notice of his wild and rambling Harangues For if they are pertinent to their Premises they are impertinent to my Discourse if they are not they are impertinent to his own Though the truth is should I grant him the priviledge he is resolved to take of falsifying yet he deduceâ— things so loosly and incoherently that I might easily make good my Cause against him if I should undertake the defence of those Untruths and Monstrous Absurdities he fastens on me I might demand of him to what purpose he here acquaints us with that solemn and systematick distinction of the Declaration of Gods Will either by the Light of Nature or by the Light of Revelation unless it be to inform the World of this new and important Mystery that a positive Command of God may as to any particular instance suspend the Obligation of the greatest Command of the Law of Nature and so it actually did in the Precept given to Abraham for sacrificing his Son For whatever any School-men may determine in this case 't is apparent here neither was nor could be any suspension of the Law of Nature whose Obligation is so eternal and unchangeable that nothing can suspend it for one moment without doing violence to the antecedent Reasons of Good and Evil but onely a positive Command to execute a Divine Decree by vertue of a Divine Commission i. e. to put his Son to death by his Authority that is absolute Lord of Life a matter against which the Law of Nature never had or could have any Prohibition For though possibly it restrained Abraham from attempting his Sons Life by vertue of his own Dominion yet when he was warranted to it by a special Command of God himself to have refused its execution had been to remonstrate to the Justice of one of the most Fundamental Laws of Nature so that there was no suspension of the Law but an alteration of the Case and a Command to do something which that neither did nor could forbid To what purpose does he twit me for asserting Magistratical Omnipotency rather than the Divine Right of Episcopacy I am at Age and Liberty as young as he would make me to chuse my own Theme and perhaps the next Book I publish that shall be the Argument of my Discourse and then I doubt not but he will as much correct me for leaving the pursuit of my former subject as he does now for pursuing it To what purpose does he preach to Soveraign Princes not to take upon themselves that absolute Power I have for my own advantage ascribed to them unless he had also proved it is not for theirs 'T is a strong Motive no doubt to encourage his Majesty to listen to his advice by informing him it was not the Acclamation of the Multitude unto Herod The Voice of God and not of Man but his own arrogant satisfaction in that Blasphemous Assignation of Divine Glory to him that exposed him to the Iudgments and Vengeance of God For certainly Princes will require more forcible Reasons to part with the absoluteness of their Soveraign Power than such Preaching Impertinencies To what purpose does he add That never any Magistrate unless Nebuchadnezzar Caligula Domitian and persons like to them ever pretended to exercise the Power here assign'd unto them I will not be so froward as to tell him that now he is as much too free in his Concessions as he is at other times too stingy for should I put him upon the proof he would want Records to make it good that all these Princes ever claimed such a bold and unlimited Jurisdiction though perhaps others have for what thinks he of Artaxerxes's Commission to Ezra Whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of the King let Iudgment be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto Death or to Banishment or to Confiscation of Goods or to Imprisonment I know not how any Prince can challenge or assume a more severe absolute and uncontroulable Power than this granted in this Commission and yet Ezra reflects upon it as a special and immediate issue of Divine Providence To what purpose does he tell us the Power I ascribe to Magistrates is none other but that which is claimed by the Pope of Rome That may be his Usurpation upon the Rights of Princes but 't is no proof that they may not challenge the Supremacy over the Consciences of their own Subjects because he usurps it To what purpose does he tell us That the Mormo here made use of is the same in substance that has been set up by the Papists ever since the Reformation When nothing can be justly pleaded in behalf of lawful Government but what may be unjustly pretended to by Tyrants and Usurpers and in the happy days of Oliver Cromwel the same Arguments and Texts of Scripture were prest for Obedience and Subjection to the Rebel as were onely design'd to secure Loyalty to rightful Soveraigns Let the Romanists make out the Justice of their Title of Supremacy over the Kingdom of England and the Equity of their Cause in the due management of their Power and then we will listen to their Pretences but in the mean while from the necessity of an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction to plead the Right of a Papal Soveraignty is an impertinency onely wild enough to serve our Authors turn and signifies no more than because there is Tyranny practised in the World under fair and plausible Pretences that therefore there must be no just Grounds and Principles for lawful Government To what purpose does he waste so many Pages to enquire wherefore the Power of the Magistrate should not be extended to the inward Thoughts and Apprehensions of Men about the Worship of God as well as to Expressions of them in pure spiritual Acts of that Worship For not to catch at the ridiculous canting and mysterious Non-sense of the Expression of our inward Thoughts in pure spiritual Acts when all Expression of them is outward and corporal 't is sufficient that God has not been pleased to vest them with any Power over our Thoughts but for what cause himself best knows and therefore though I could give no account for his so doing that would not cast the least shadow of an
2. The full casting out and rejecting of all Will-worship and their attendant Abominations 3. A most glorious and dreadful breaking of all that rise in Opposition unto him never such Desolations So that we see nothing will ever satisfie their desires and demands unless all Gospel-Ordinances be reformed to their primitive power and purity according to the appointment and unto the acceptation of the Lord Iesus Or as the same Author expresses himself more fully in his Sermon of April 29. 1646. p. 29. The darling Errours of late years of the Bishops were all of them stones of the old Babel closing and coupling with that tremendous Fabrick which the Man of Sin had erected to dethrone Jesus Christ came out of the belly of that Trojan Horse that fatal Engine which was framed to betray the City of God They were Popish Errours such as whereof that Apostacy did consist which onely is to be looked upon as the great adverse State to the Kingdom of the Lord Christ. Heedless and headless Errours may breed disturbance enough unto the people of God but such as tend to a peace and association â—um Ecclesiâ malignantium tending to a total subversion of the sacred State are far more dangerous Now such were the Innovations of the late Hierarchists in Worship their Paintings Crossings Crucifixes Bowings Cringings Altars Tapers Wafers Organs Anthems Litany Rails Images Copes Vestments what were they but Roman Varnish an Italian Dress for our Devotion to draw on Conformity with that Enemy of the Lord Jesus In Doctrine the Divinity of Episcopacy a notable piece of Popery that Auricular Confession Free-will Predestination on Faith yea Works foreseen what Antichristian Doctrine is that too Limbus Patrum Justification by Works falling from Grace Authority of a Church which none knew what it was Canonical Obedience Holiness of Churches and the like innumerable what were they but helps to Sancta Clara to make all our Articles of Religion speak good Roman-Catholique How did their old Father of Rome refresh his spirit to see such Chariots as those provided to bring England again unto him This closing with Popery was the sting in the Errours of those days which caused pining if not death in the Episcopal Pot. § 15. Here is no shuffling nor any shifting pretences 't is plain dealing and plain English Antichrist and all its Adherents must be destroyed by Wars and horrid Desolations This is the way that the Lord Christ has chalkt out to his people both by his Promises and his Providences to introduce the purity and beauty of his Ordinances The Prelatists are Members of the Whore and the Beast and imitate the Antichristian Apostacy both from the Worship and the Doctrine of the Gospel nay the Vial of Popery is poured out upon the very Throne it self as it was when Charles the First sate in it And now what is the result of all this Gibberish but that the Saints when-ever Providence alarms or as he manageth the business opportunity invites them to the great and glorious Work of a more Thorough Godly Reformation may and ought to shake and subvert the establish't Government of the Nation that is combined with the Interest of Antichrist to set up their way of Gospel-worship or the purity and beauty of Christs Ordinances which is the onely thing urged and pleaded for by our Author You see Sir to bate him some worse Inferences what stout Patrons these Men are of the Indulgence they plead for when every Opinion that they judge erroneous must be branded for a Popish and Antichristian Errour when every slight Difference shall be resolved into Atheism and Blasphemy when a Scholastick Nicety about the unaccountable workings of Eternal Providence shall be made an eminent instance of Antichristian Apostacy and when to dissent from him in a thing of no greater importance then a Metaphysical Speculation shall amount to no less Charge then of betraying the Gospel of Christ and hewing at the very root of Christianity as he speaks of some Systematick Niceties that he is pleased to call Arminian Heterodoxes and whose Abettors he denounces with the Confidence of an Apostolical Authority uncapable of our Church-Communion Nay his Zeal against them did not confine it self to his own Native Country but extended its fervours as himself informs us to a Foreign Commonwealth and vented its heats against their Indulgence and plea for Toleration and a Liberty of prophesying beyond the Seas To what party of Dissenters is it that this tender-hearted Man would extend the favour of his Indulgence that resolves every petty dissent into an inexpiable Apostacy from the Gospel and has branded all parties with such foul names as render them unworthy the Compassion of the State and uncapable of the Communion of the Church 'T is true many Pamphlets he has publish't in behalf of Toleration and Liberty of Conscience but yet he still so orders the matter as to exclude all Men whatsoever from claiming any benefit or advantage from that pretence excepting onely the salvage and the frantick Sectaries of the Army And that is the whole mystery of his Good-Nature The Independents had vanquish't the Royalists and supplanted the Presbyterians and were perkt up into a Supremacy of Power and Interest But being unable either to secure or to support their Tyranny unless by the assistance of those Religious Miscreants who were the onely faithful Adherents to their Godly Interest they must sooth and treat them with all brotherly love and tenderness and all their Fanatick Frekes and horrid Blasphemies must be winkt at as pitiable Mistakes and Miscarriages of weak Brethren For if we exasperate them by giving check to their Exorbitances we lose our Friends and Confederates abate our Power and endanger our Interest and 't is more eligible for humble and self-denying Men to bear with all the wild and Fanatick Enormities in the World rather then part with the delicious sweets of Government and Sovereign Authority What other imaginable account can be given of this Mans Zeal for Toleration when he has so peremptorily stript all Parties of their right to it excepting onely those Sons of Anarchy and Confusion For not onely the Papists the Prelatists and the Arminians but even their dear Brethren of the Presbytery were transformed into Limbs of the Antichristian Lâ—viathan so that not to pursue this advantage too far you see the naked and undisguised Truth of these Mens Perswasions maugre all their demure Concessions and jugling Pretensions All the World are fallen short of the Truth of God but themselves and out of the Churches of their Pale there is none Orthodox no not one We have all revolted from the Kingdom of the Lord Christ to the Corruptions and Superstitious Idolatries of Antichrist and therefore we are all to be accounted and treated as Members of that Whore whom the Saints hate and shall make desolate and naked and shall eat her Flesh and suck her Blood This is the true state of
though it cost him the making his Bow quite naked Thus were all the Promises in the Bible engaged in the Parliament Service and not a Text left to attend his Majesty beside Threatnings and Judgments And there is not a remarkable Prophesie relating to the Jewish Nation or the adjacent Kingdoms that they have not accommodated by faith and boldness for both together can do much to the posture of Affairs in our late Troubles Thus were the Essex Committee delivered from the Cavaliers at Colchester It was foretold i. e. after their deliverance Hab. 3.3 7. God came from Teman and the Holy One from mount Paran Selah i. e. from Naseby and Marston-moor I saw the Tents of Cushan in Affliction and the Curtains of the Land of Midian did tremble i. e. the Enemy gathered at Chelmsford upon the coming of Fairfax his Army abated their Confidence Were the Parishioners of Coggeshal once in great danger of the Enemy The snares of death compassed us and the flouds of ungodly men made us afraid But the Lord thundred from Heaven the Highest gave his voice hailstones and coles of Fire yea he sent out his Arrows and scattered them and he shot out lightning and discomfited them he sent from above he took us he drew us out of many waters he delivered us from our strong Enemy and from them which hated us for they were too strong for us Do any Professours doubt the Event of the War Fear not thou worm Iacob and ye few men of Israel behold I will make thee a new sharp Instrument having Teeth thou shalt thresh the Mountains and beat them small and shalt make the hills as chaff thou shalt fan them c. Isa. 41.14 15. Are the Officers of the Kings Forces divided or irresolved in their Counsels The Princes of Zoan are become fools the Princes of Noph are deceived they have seduced the People even they that are the stay of their Tribes the Lord hath mingled a perverse Spirit in the midst of them they have caused the People to err in every work as a drunken man staggereth in his Vomit Isa. 19.13 14. Were the Rump to be encouraged in their design of altering the Government after the Murther of the late King against the Apostacy of the Presbyterians and the Attempts of the Royalists The Text was pat to the purpose Let them return to thee but return not thou to them And I will make thee unto this People a fenced brazen wall and they shall fight against thee but they shall not prevail against thee for I am with thee to save thee and deliver thee saith the Lord Jer. 15.19 20. Is Monarchy to be for ever abolish'd and the new Common-wealth establish'd Behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former shall not be remembred nor come into my mind Isa. 65.17 But the Kingdom and Dominion and Greatness of the Kingdom under the whole Heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the most High whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and all Dominions shall serve and obey him Hitherto is the end of the matter Dan. 7.27 Do the Protestants covenanted Protestants that had sworn in the presence of the great God to extirpate Popery and Prelacy Do others that counted themselves under no less sacred bond for the maintenance of Prelates Service-book and the like as the whole Party of Ormonds Adherents it is a favour or rather a chance it was not plain Butler joyn with a mighty number that had for eight years together sealed their Vows to the Romish Religion with our bloud and their own If all these combine together against Sion shall they prosper No saith the Lord Iehovah and I. O. If Rezin and the Son of Remalia Syria and Ephraim old Adversaries combine together for a new enmity against Iudah if Covenant and Prelacy Popery and Treachery Bloud and as to that Innocency joyn hand in hand to stand in the way of the Promise yet I will not in this joyn with them says the Lord. Is the Royal Family together with the ancient Nobility to be for ever cashier'd upon his Majesties defeat at Worcester and are the Brewers and Coblers of the Army to commence new Lords All the Trees of the Field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree and have exalted the low tree have dried up the green tree drawn out its sap by sequestrations and have made the dry tree to flourish by plunder and sacriledge I the Lord have spoken it and have done it Ezek. 17.24 This was the Text to the Thanksgiving Sermon before the Parliament for their Victory at Worcester And now is it possible for these men to be at a loss for Scripture to countenance their proceedings after this rate of imposing upon the Word of God If such loose and prophane Accommodations of Prophetick passages to present Affairs be sufficient to support Faith in its expectations of success I leave it to you to judge whether it can ever want grounds and encouragements for Rebellion as long as the Prophesies against Gog and Magog the Whore and the Beast the Pope and the Man of sin are not blotted out of the Bible But this is not all Faith has other Topicks to bottom its confidence upon And therefore 2. It has right to all Gods mercies and deliverances of his People in all past and present Ages It makes all Joshuahs victories present to every true Believer so that if O. Cromwel had but boldness or Enthusiasm enough to presume that the Almighty had as great favour for his Highness as he had for Ioshuah he was bound to enable him and his Army to dispatch Kings and Canaanites with as great expedition as Ioshuah and the Children of Israel did For the Good-will Free Grace and loving Kindness of God is the same towards all his People And the infinite Fountains of the Deity can never be sunk one hairs bredth by everlastingly flowing blessings So that past blessings and deliverances of Gods People are store mercies laid up for Believers against a rainy day and when we want present Refreshments what a comfort is it to chew the Cud upon the blessings of former Ages And thus they use the Records of sacred Story just as Don Quixot used his Books of Chivalry in accommodating the Exploits of the Knights of yore to his own ridiculous Adventures And here lay the folly of his Errantry in chewing the cud upon the Prodigies of old Romances And I am sure he had as wise and reasonable a ground for his folly when he besotted himself with a conceit of vying Adventures with the famous Knight Valdovinos as they had for their faith when they expected to equal the successes of Ioshuah But however by this means it was easie to befool and inveigle the Common-people and if they represented to them any act of Bloud and Cruelty with Allusion to Scripture Language and Story
O. once meeting with this word in his Text Hab. 3.1 He thus reasons upon it and he is able to raise Edification out of a pair of Bagpipes Are not Gods variable Dispensations towards his held out under these variable Tunes not all fitted to one string Not all alike pleasant and easie Are not the several Tunes of mercy and judgment in these Songs Is not here Affliction and deliverance desertion and recovery darkness and light in this variously Doubtless it is so God often calls his People to Songs upon Sigionoth This is the Doctrine on which he descants and so applies it to the present Case We may rejoyce at the Conquest of our Enemies and mourn at the loss of our Harvest that was their Song upon Sigionoth that though they had miss'd their Harvest they had mowed down the Cavaliers From whom Gods People were sure to reap a plentiful Crop of Plunder and Sequestration And that is as delicious Musick to the Saints below as the Harmony of the Spheres or a Consort of Angels to the Saints above and 't is wonderful how exactly the Hearts yea and Fingers too of Gods People were set to such a sweet and comfortable Tune 4. But if Believers should ever fail of all these supports they are able to build their Confidence upon flat presumption and downright Enthusiasm and when they trample upon all the Obligations of Oaths and all the Laws of Nature Government and Religion they can easily justifie the wickedness of their Proceedings by bold pretences of immediate Impulse and Revelation from Heaven For when God is doing great things he gives glorious manifestations of his Excellencies to his secret ones So that he that is called to serve Providence in high things without some especial discovery of God works in the dark and knows not whither he goes and what he does such an one travels in the Wilderness without a directing Cloud Clear shining from God must be at the bottom of deep labouring with God What is the reason that so many in our days set their hands to the Plow and look back again Begin to serve Providence in great things but cannot finish Give over in the heat of the day They never had any such Revelation of the mind of God upon their spirits such a discovery of his Excellencies as might serve for a Bottom of such Undertakings Men must know that if God hath not appeared to them in brightness and shewn them the horns in his hand hid from others though they think highly of themselves they 'l deny God twice and thrice before the close of the work of this Age. Hence is the suiting of great light and great work in our days Let new light be derided whilst men please he will and 't is too true never serve the will of God in this Generation who sees not beyond the line of foregoing Ages Now what was this new and this great Light that God held forth as the horns in his hand to the Believers of that Generation To this Enquiry we have a plain and positive Answer Plainly the peculiar Light of this Generation is that discovery which the Lord hath made to his People of the mystery of Civil and Ecclesiastical Tyranny Now this new Light joyn'd with this new Doctrine that Good Principles become abominable when taken up or pursued against the Providence of God is such a rank and desperate piece of Enthusiasm as must of necessity cancel all the Laws of Society and overthrow all the Governments in the World but I must not stay to descant upon its intolerable Mischiefs neither indeed need I seeing it is apparently the utmost emprovement of all Phanatick Folly and Madness And now the People of God being arm'd with such Principles and inflamed by such Preachers with what Briskness did they march under the conduct of Providence till at length it led the warmest and most forward Heads of them to the Top of Westminster Hall London Bridge and the City Gates or in the Language of I. O. to the high places of Armageddon And there fix'd them for Monuments of their own Hypocrisie and sad Examples of Rebellion But thence Astrea took her flight to Heaven and now publick Affairs are transacted by a Providential permissive Commission as our Author I remember somewhere words it and 't is but what they allow to all the wickednesses in the World So that whilst the Eye of Providence shined upon them they were flowers of the Sun and which way soever they address'd themselves it was to court Providence When they complied with every rising Interest it was to close with the mind of the Lord in the work of this Generation When they plaid fast and loose with all Parties as the Complexion of Affairs suggested to them that was the Lords glorious Discoveries and Manifestations of his mind to his secret ones And then to boggle at the wickedness of any design that prosper'd was to flinch from the work of the Lord. As I. O. encourages the Rumpers the day immediately after the Kings death Iacta est Alea the Providence of God must be served according to the discovery made of his own unchangeable will and not the mutable Interests and Passions of the Sons of men i. e. the Presbyterians whose Apostasie he is there upbraiding For verily the Lord of Hosts hath purposed to pollute the pride of all Glory and to bring into contempt all the honourable of the Earth Isa. 23.9 And then to renounce their old Principles and falsifie their old Engagements was to knock off with Providence for be your Principles never so good in themselves they become wicked and abominable when taken up against the Providence of God And this was the sad Apostasie of the Presbyterians from the work of the Lord They fools as they were fix on Principles though they were tied to them by Oaths and Covenants old bounds must not be broken up order must not be disturbed Let God appear never so eminently so mightily they will keep to their Principle and their Oaths and Covenants too What is this but judicial hardness What think you Sir is it not a mighty security that these men are able to give of their Faith and Allegiance when Providence or the Turn of Affairs shall untie all the Bands of Oaths and Success over-rule all the Obligations of Conscience So that as long as Loyalty is forced to be in fashion they are peaceable and obedient Subjects but if Rebellion prosper it is not for them to oppose Providence When God has a Controversie with the Royal Family he absolves Subjects of all their Oaths and Obligations to Allegiance and though the Presbyterians had loaded themselves with chains and multiplied Engagements to his late Majesty and his lawful Successours yet not to joyn with the Independents in the subversion of the Government by the murther of one Prince and the Banishment of another was Iudicial hardness Did you ever read of