doubt that disobedience to their lawful commands in lawful things tends to the Rom 13. 3. damnation of souls Object I will then submit to the punishment inflicted according to Law Answ But what if that is not sufficient in point of conscience for Laws made of things just and profitable for humane societies intend the subjects obedience in doing them and are confirmed with a double bond the wrath of the Magistrate and conscience towards God by undergoing the punishment the injury done to man is satisfied but by resisting the Magistrate in intention and breaking a profitable Law a man remains under the pollution of sin before God from whom none can discharge The Law enjoyns publick Worship and forbids such private Meetings you neglect the publick Worship and extol your private Meetings as the only way you condemn the Law as unjust and commend your so doing as good whereas the Law tending to settle preserve and keep unity peace order and concord must needs be good And being so consider whether such Meetings can be so 1. Confronting and disobeying lawful Authority 2. Casting dirt and disgrace upon the face and form of Government proclaiming it persecuting and tyrannical compelling such good people as you would be accounted to creep into Barns and Houses as if you wanted the truth publickly taught in our publick Meetings 3. Do you not in so doing condemn our Church as false if not Antichristian 4. Do you not condemn all the allowed Clergy as unprofitable and naught 5. Do you not neglect and draw others to neglect the publick Ordinances of Christ 6. Do you not cause people to slight their Teachers and to question whether there be such a thing as Religion and so to turn Atheists 7. Do you not hereby cause people to think our Laws are but scare-crows and our Law-makers to be such men who regard not what they do so to undervalue the one and other 8. Do you not encourage your Teachers to do that they have no warrant to do from God or man For what warrant have they to exercise the Ministerial function since the same Authority which enabled them to disinables them from preaching It is the Law which inables us to and allows us where and when to preach which Law hath power to disinable also To this end see the judgment of the old Nonconformists in a Book put forth by Mr. William Rathband in which they prove against Separatists that the Church of England is a true Church and that separation from it is unlawful Amongst many other things they answer the Separatists objecting against them their yielding to suspensions and deprivations thus That so long as the Bishops suspend and deprive according to the Law of the Land we account of the action herein as of the act of the Church which we may and ought to reverence and yield unto if they do otherwise we have liberty given us by the same Law to appeal from them Object If it be said that the Church is not to be obeyed when it suspends and deprives us for such causes as we in our consciences know to be insufficient Answ We answer say they That it lyeth in them to depose that may ordain and they may shut that may open and that as he may with a good conscience execute a Ministry by the ordination and calling of the Church who is privy to himself of some unfitness if the Church will press him to it so may he who is privy to himself of no fault that deserveth deprivation cease from the execution of his Ministery when he is pressed thereunto by the Church And if a guiltless person put out of his charge by the Churches authority may yet continue in it what proceeding can there be against guilty persons who in their own conceits are alwayes guiltless or will at least pretend so to be seeing they also will be ready alwayes to object against the Churches judgment that they are called of God and may not therefore give over the execution of their Ministry at the will of man Object And to the speech of the Apostles objected Act. 4. 19 20. Answ They shew it is most unskilfully alledged there being three differences between their case and the Apostles 1. They who inhibited the Apostles were known and professed enemies to the Gospel 2. The Apostles were charged not to teach in the name of Christ nor to publish any part of the Doctrine of the Gospel which commandement might be more hardly yielded unto than this Our Bishops are not only content that the Gospel should be preached but are also Preachers of it themselves 3. The Apostles received not their calling and authority from men nor by the hands of men but immediately from God himself and therefore also might not be restrained or deposed by men Whereas we although we exercise a function whereof God is the Author and we also called of God to it yet are we called and ordained by the hands and Ministry of men and may therefore by man be also deposed and restrained from the exercise of our Ministry Thus they See also Mr. Bals tryal of the grounds of separation a solid work 9. Do not such Meetings asperse all the penal Laws of the Land and the judicial proceedings which have been since the Reformation against Papists Priests and Jesuits or any other justly suffering for their Religion as acts of highest injustice 10. Do they not endeavour the rending and crumbling our Church to nothing 11. Are they not a menas to fill the Kingdom full of factions and tumults 12. Yea and are they not against your so much cryed up Covenant which was to bring the Church of God in the three Kingdoms to the neerest uniformity in Religion whereas you by thus doing go about to divide and subdivide not being ignorant what fruits our Saviour shews to come Mat. 12. 25. from division saying A Kingdom divided against it self political good Laws and constitutions Ecclesiastical as doctrine and discipline brings desolation probably and very often Look but to the Church of Corinth what desolations Their preaching an empty thing when one for this anther 1 Cor. 1. 12. 1. Cor. 11. 20. for that Their Communions became desolate and by such means and doings St. Paul became their enemy who gave them their very being in faith and was their spiritual father And what desolation such divisions bring with us is evident what casting off your Preachers their old precepts and your old practises until at length some grow from something to nothing Is it not so when some noted for parts and piety long since a long time talk so Atheistically as to profess a readiness to hear the one and the other with a resolution to believe neither the one preaching against the other and that there was never any sound preaching since Christ's time Are these good fruits and would not such have objected the same against the Prophets Apostles and Christ himself false Prophets and Apostles
preaching against the true Christ preaching against the Scribes and Pharisees and they affirming him to be a deceiver And I dare maintain that what they preach contrary to what we preach in publick if they do to be contrary to sound doctrine Object You say you do nothing but what is good you set open the great doors and little doors not caring who sees who heareth you Answ 1. Admit that what is preached is good yet it is not well done good things should be well done according to rule and order 2. The Tree is known by the fruits and by your such Meetings we see the publick Ordinances slighted neglected contemned 3. I cannot accuse what is delivered in your Meetings but if it is contrary to what we preach in publick it is not good doctrine And let me tell you that John of Leyden infused his dangerous opinions in private Meetings and how our Mr. Thrask in publick preached sound truths but in his private Meetings he did indoctrinate his followers with his pernicious principles Object They who preach to us in private Meetings are pious men the other are profane vicious scandalous Answ 1. If this be true that some of us are such we are sorry for it yea such we will not justifie and when was it otherwise nor is all done by the other justifiable 2. There are more sins than swearing and drunkenness who can forget the swarms of sins in our late Tragedies and who were actors of many of them in it 3. For the present Are not despising of Authority disobedience Cobler of Gloc. to wholsom Laws sins from which are these men free 4. Blessed be God although we all are proclaimed to be profane and naught yet there are very many as free from idleness drunkenness swearing and such like vices and as painful pious charitable and inoffensive as the strictest in your commanded company 5. But to be plain with you All professions whilst kept under it is their interest to be orderly but when these men of late had their liberty we are able to prove the profane excesses of some of them even to publick scandal by Epicurism intemperance and uncleanness to say no more For my part I cannot think but that the respect such who are in Authority bear to themselves their care to have their Laws and Religion upholden their obedient Clergy not vilified and people kept from Atheism and rebellion will awaken them in time strictly and by severity to do that which their clemency will not do You cry out much against Popery yet your doings endeavour to bring it in and set it up it is a Jesuitical plot to sow division amongst us to make our Religion odious and that they may fish in troubled waters From a good Author I will tell you a story which is this Before our troubles one Meridith an ancient Dr. Nicols and learned Jesuit told one reconciled to the Church of Rome that in England they had been long and industrious about the work of conversion but it went on slowly and so would do until they took a wiser course Two things there were that must be done before they should bring their business to a full effect they must first find a way to remove the Bishops and Ministers in whose rooms they must bring it so about that all should have liberty to preach Then secondly they must get down the Common-prayer-Book and suffer every man to use what prayer he list And we cannot but remember how far they effected this in our sad troubles Besides if you expect such priviledge why may not they expect the same They being Christians they being subjects they and some of you being Recusants why not they their Mass as well as you your Meetings Object Why Those you hear in your Meetings have rare gifts they are pious and precious men Answ I envy no mans gifts but bless God for other mens parts and piety 2. Comparisons are odious otherwise we could say as St. Paul of the false Apostles in his time Are they thus and so so are we 3. The forbidden fruit without doubt was excellent yet it had been good for our first Parents to have contented themselves with their allowed Trees and fruits Many mens Wives and Diet come short of other mens yet it is fit their own should content them 4. Blessed be God your allowance is large you may hear every week three Sermons in an approved way and none of them to be contemned And as for Popish Priests do you not think theâ— will say for their Priests and Jesuits the same that you do for your Preachers you say yours are rarely gifted men great Scholars pious painful and what you will more They will not conform to the Book of Common-prayer nor observe the Orders appointed by the Church of England they will not assent and consent They can and will say the same of theirs If you say yours will take no Livings they can say the same and add not Wives neither If you say that yours live by providence going about to do good they can say theirs have no setled abiding but are sometimes here and there to promote and spread the Catholick cause and are maintained by the peoples bounty We acknowledge that we and Papists are Christians agreeing in many things for we and they acknowledge unity in Trinity but we with them acknowledge no Queen of heaven to pray unto We and they acknowledge the Scriptures to be the Word of God but we with them make not the Apocrypha Canonical We with them make the Word of God the ground of faith but we with them make not unwritten traditions of equal authority We and they agree in admitting doctrinal traditions agreeing with Scripture or thence deduced yea ritual for order and decency left to the disposition of the Church although but of positive and humane right they not being childish nor accounted parts of God's Worship nor with opinion of merit nor burdensom for multitude But we with them believe not traditions obtruded as Articles of Religion grounds of faith and parts of God's Worship they not being deduced from Scripture by inference nor expresly commanded such we reject We and they receive and believe the three Creeds but we with them receive not the Creed of Trent We and they believe the true God is to be worshipped in Spirit and truth we with them believe not that he is to be worshipped by Images We and they believe that we are to pray with fervency and sincerity but we with them pray not in an unknown tongue We and they pray to God but we with them do not pray to Saints and Angels We and they acknowledge Christ to be our Mediator of redemption and intercession but we with them do not at all rely upon the intercession and merits of Saints and Angels We and they do honour Saints departed but we with them do not worship them We and they do urge to good works we as necessary
effects of justifying grace they as causes we as the way wherein we must walk unto they as the meritorious cause of eternal felicity We with them believe two Sacraments but we with them believe not seven We and they believe a real presence so in the Sacrament that the worthy Communicant really partakes of Christ's body and blood spiritually but we with them do not believe that the bread is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ so that dogs and mice may eat it We and they believe there is an heaven and hell but we with them believe not Purgatory Christians therefore they are Object But they are Idolaters Answ 1. And they say we are Hereticks and Schismaticks Saying only proves nothing 2. Call them Idolaters I think they are so and what you please yet I am sure as in many things you differ from them for whereas they make seven Sacraments some of you will not make use of two They ascribe too much to Sacraments you too little They keep too many holydayes some of you keep none They are blamed for saying the Lords prayer too often some of you for not at all So in some things you agree namely in Separation and Recusancy They forsake our Church as Heretical some of you as Antichristian I fear since you are come to say our Church and yours Object Say we not right that your Church is Antichristian since your Common-prayer-Book is Popery taken out of the Mass-Book how can we then abide it may we not justly leave it and for it your Assemblies Answ 1. Take heed what you say the first offence is an hundred marks the second four hundred marks and imprisonment the third is loss of all a mans goods and imprisonment duing life Laws which sleep a while may be awakened 2. But what one word or syllable is in it savouring of Popery Is there any praying to Saints for the dead Is there any allowance of merits of Purgatory name any one point of Popery if you can 3. Whereas you say it was taken out of the Mass-Book who told you so did you or they ever see the Mass-Book do you or they know what it is But admit it is taken out of it and that the Mass-Book is bad as it is Is it the worse Is gold refined from dross wheat cleansed from chaff at all the worse for the dross and chaff As for the Mass I abhor it as injurious to the Priesthood of Christ to the sacrifice or death of Christ as an hindrance to an holy life and contrary to Gods will and therefore I am far from defending it The word Missa or Mass by some is derived of Missoth or Mincha an Oblation by some from the Latins who used these words Missus Missa c. The ancient Roman Idolaters dismissed the people from their sacrâ—fices with these words I licet Missa est Depart it is permitted and so the Assembly was dismissed And these words are now pronounced Ite Missa est scilicet concio sive Ecclesiâ— signifying a leave given to the company to depart Let it be what it will or come from this or that we have it not neither name nor thing Demand of them I desire you who inform you that our Common-prayer-Book is taken out of the Mass-Book so Popery If ever they saw and read the Mass-Book And if they have seen and read it demand of them then 1. Whether all the Mass-Book is in our Common-prayer-Book They must say no. 2. Whether all our Common-prayer-Book is in the Mass-Book They must say no. 3. Whether that which is in our Common-prayer and in the Mass-Book is good or bad They cannot but say it is all good I am perswaded they can prove none of it to be bad 4. Whether it being good the being of it in the mass-Mass-Book can make it bad or whether we are to reject all the good in Popery as the name of Christian with much more Mr. William Rathband who put forth a modest confutation of Separatists agreed upon long before as he saith by the joint consent of the godly and learned Ministers of this Kingdom who stood out and suffered in the case of Uniformity They in it shewing the Church of England to be a true Church of Christ and therefore separation from it to be unlawful He with Mr. Thomas Langley Mr. Simeon Ash Mr. Francis Woodcock and Mr. George Crosse all so far as I can conjecture Non-conformists put forth a Book of Mr. Joâ—n Ball a Non-conformist wherein he writes learnedly and The tryal of the grounds of separation he put forth himself piously against Separation he writes in defence of sett forms of prayer and that men are not to separate from the Church because of ours He saith many are the Objections which are made against sett forms of prayers and particularly against our Book of Common-prayer all which I have endeavoured saith he to answer severally not because they are of so great weight but because I desired to satisfie fully every doubt And whereas it was objected The Common-prayer-Book was taken out of the Mass-Book He saith It followeth not that therefore it is a Pag. 8. false worship for many things in the Mass-Book are good a pearl may be found upon a dunghil 2. If out of the Mass-Book How cometh it to pass then saith he that it hath those things directly contrary to the Mass-Book He instanceth in many Further he saith It is more proper to say the Mass was taken out of our Common-prayer for Pag. 10. most things in our Common-prayer were to be found in Liturgies long before the Mass The prayers and truths of God taught in that Book pertain to the Church as her prerogative Pag. 11. the Church of God may lawfully make claim to those holy things which Antichrist hath unjustly usurped Now since I find that erroneous opinions once entertained are not easily gotten out of the heads and hearts of men for they quickly root deep take strong hold and cannot easily be pull'd up as we see in Christ's time The Pharisees held corrupt opinions about (a) Mat. 15. 2. working (b) Mat. 7. 11. dispencing with childrens obedience about (c) Mat. 23. 32 33. swearing (d) Luk. 15. 12. fasting and many errors about the (e) Mat. 5. Law Did Christ get these errors out of them He brought the cleerest light that ever any did they for all that lived in darkness The Sadduces denyed the (f) Mat. 22. 23. resurrection Christ laboured to convince them they held their errors in St. Pauls (g) Act. 23. 8. time (h) 1 Tim. 1. 20. 2 Tim. 2. 18. Hymineus and Philetus and Alexander had rather be delivered to Satan than to deliver up their corrupt and damnable opinions Therefore as all of us should be careful to take heed what opinions we receive to this end to try the spirits not take things on trust for the learning seeming holiness and
manners Some ignorantly say you have no power you can do nothing That you have power this meeting shews you calling us hither and I hope for some good end Let your power and authority I beseech you be exercised as St. Pauls was 2 Cor. 10. 8. for edification That it may appear we live in a flourishing Christian Church where good Laws are and they well observed and executed where Religion is professed and practised where the youth are catechised and principeled in Religion where the Sacraments are duly and orderly administred where the houses of God are solemnly frequented where Schisms and Factions are discountenanced where vice is punished and vertue encouraged where mens lives are reformed so that obedience to Governours charity and righteousness to men may and do appear and according to this Scripture Canon all things are done decently and in order The POSTSCRIPT I Reading in Mr. Howel Engl. speaking thus I that have Englands Tears pag. 2. been accounted the Queen of Isles the darling of Nature and Neptunes minion I that have been stiled by the character of the first Daughter of the Church that have converted eight several Nations I that made the morning beams of Christianity shine upon Scotland upon Ireland and a good part of France I that did irradiate Denmark Swedland and Norway with the light thereof I that brought the Saxons with other Germanes high and low from Paganism to the knowledge of the Cospel I that had the first Christian King that ever was Lucius and the first reformed King the eight Henry to reign over me I out of whose bowels sprung the first Christian Emperor that ever was Constantine I that had five several Kings viz. John King of France David King of Scotland Peter King of Bohemia and two Irish Kings my captives in less than one year I under whose Banner that great Emperor Maximilian took it an honour to serve in person and receive pay from me I that did so abound with Bullion c. Behold behold I am now become the object of pity to some of scorn to others of laughter to all people my children abroad are driven to disavow me for fear of being jeered they dare not own me their Mother upon the Rialto of Venice the Borle of Auspurge the New-bridge of Paris the Cambios of Spain or upon the Quoys of Holland for fear of being bafled and hooted at I reading in Mr. Vines what we had been a people His last Sermon March 10. 1646. of as powerful godliness as any in the world that practical divinity was improved to a great height of clearness and sweetness and his lamenting our miserable declination in the same Sermon from the life and power of godliness which is come to pass within these few years so that our practicals our inward and close wayes of walking with God in faith and love are sublimed into fancies and vapours into fumes of new opinions and which is worst of all we take this Dropsie to be growth and conceive our selves more spiritual Page 56. and refined because more airy and notional Liberty of Religions is become the golden calf of the times And Page 2. the Ministers are laid low in order to a twofold liberty the one of prophesying every one to set up Trade who is Page 23. able and liberty of lusts and ways of looseness I considering In his Fast Sermon March 10 1646. what Mr. Hodges saith we have long enjoyed as clear light and as full discoveries of fundamental truths as any Church others have lighted their Tapers more at our flame than we at theirs our Church once the great eye-sore to Hereticks envy of Papists refuge of Orthodox glorious for Doctrine a praise in the earth the Mother of many Stars of the first magnitude faithful Martyrs famous Confessors and innumerable souls in Heaven c. and yet after his preaching in his Epistle he saith the Prince of flies hath raised such swarms of flies in every corner of our Land that many of our Congregations and Families are miserably fly blown with Heresies and corrupt Tenets I reâ—â—mbring some passages in Sir Edward Deerings Speeches Octob. 23. pag. 23. in Parliament at the beginning of it saying if we let forth the Government into a lose liberty for all Religions we shall have none Libertinism will beget Atheism a little after Men upon whose merit let my credit stand or fall in this House complain with grief of heart to see their now infected sheep after long pastoral vigilance and faithful Ministery to run and straggle from them more in these ten Nov. 20. pag. 98. moneths than in twenty years before in another he saith there is at present such an all-daring liberty such a lewd licentiousness for all mens venting their several senses sensless senses in Matters of Religion as never was in any Age or any Nation until this Parliament was met together Thus the Church of England once the glory of the Reformed Religion is miserably torn and distracted so that you can hardly say which is the Church of England c. These shew what we have lost and what we have found And I living in the best times that ever England had and seeing what I see cannot but wish with Jeremy That my eyes were a Jer. 9. 1 2. fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the divisions and destractions in England I now seeing the truth of Mr. Burtons saying superstition will run along like a Murrain Melanch pag. 606. in Cattel scab on sheep nulla scabies superstitione scabiosior He who is bit of a Mad dog bites others and all in the end become mad either out of affection of novelty simplicity blind zeal hope fear the giddy headed multitude will embrace it So he Mahomet was but a poor Orphan he Mr. Alexand Rosse History of the World p. 109. marryed his Mistriss Chediga whom he made believe that his falling sickness proceeded from the sight of Angels which appeared to him yet he was the beginner of the Mahumetans which are so multiplyed some following Alli some Endocar some Acmar and some Ozimen Mahomets successors whose followers are subdivided into seventy two Melanc p. 582. Englished by Sir Rob. Stapelton sorts as Leo Affricanus reports saith Mr. Burton and also that Poland is a receptacle for all Religions No marvel then if Fabianus Strada calls heresie the School of Pride and affirms that for a man to be an Heretick and a good subject is impossible and saith it is with less difficulty kept out than shut up And sad experience doth fully demonstrate how errors and heresies swarm amongst us so that Mr. Saltmâ—â—sh in his groans for liberty pleads Whether an hundred and fourscore Opinions are more to be cast into the face of Religion Groans p. 13. l. 1. c. 2. p. 15. than six hundred in the dayes of Nazianzen and a little after because of our many Opinions and divisions he crys out where is the Church now not
in the Assembly saith he they are but consulting how to build the Church not in the Presbytery for that is a Church unbuilt as yet not among the Parishes they are not Scripture Congregations as Smectymnus saith where is the Church of England Dr. Field of the Church will tell you Mr. Saltmarsh That there are some who profess the truth described by the Son of God but not wholly and entirely as Hereticks some who profess the whole saving truth but not in Unity as Schismaticks Some who profess the whole truth in unity not in sincerity and singleness of a good and sanctifyed mind as hypocrites and wicked men outwardly Some who profess the whole saving truth in unity and simplicity of a sanctified and good heart and I hope you will say they are the Church not excluding the other from the visible Church a net a field c. The old Non-conformists in a book set forth by Mr. William Rathband will shew you that the Church of England as formerly established was the true Church of Christ and that you should not separate from it Mr. Ball a Non-conformist writing against Can a Separatist Page 75. shews you that the Church of England is a true Church of Christ a people in Covenant with Christ to whom he hath committed his heavenly Oracles and Seals of the Covenant c. and in the second Chapter he shews the Church of England governed by Bishops to be the true Church of Page 79. Christ Sir Edward Deering in one of his Speecâ—â—s to the like purpose saying I am bold to forbid any man from this Page 125. house for 1600 years and upward to name any one age nay any one year wherein Episcopacy was out of date in Christendom in another Speech he saith I am none of those men that 1600 years after my Saviour came to plant his Church will consent to give a new Rule a new invented Government to his Church never known untill this age yet Mr. Howel tells us that the holy Titles of Bishops and Page 138. Priests are grown odious amongst poor Sciolists who scarce In his addition Letters p. 5. In Vind. of King ch 1. p. 49. know the notions of things And we have amongst us as Mr. Symonds saith such who love strife and although they have already offered most wrong yet still are most full of clamours and as another saith who cry out much against the Pope to whom they do better service than they are aware so that he saith it is a thousand pities that our Sectaries Regum Sacr Sancto Majest by J. A. pretending such zeal against Popery who no less maliciously than confidently rub upon sound Protestants the aspersions of Popery and malignancy do joyn with the worst of Papists in the worst at least in the most pernicious Doctrine Page 70. of Papists At the beginning of as in our troubles His Majesties Declaration of Aug. 12. 1642. shews us Page 18. that nothing was discountenanced and reproached but a dutiful regard to us i. e. the King and our honour and a sober esteem and application to the Laws of the kingdom and may it not prove so again if not prevented and so be more advantage to run the contrary course if a good conscience â— A. Reg. Sac. San. Maj. to the Reader could allow as one saith for if the conforming obedient Clergy must lie under the lash of being prophane and scandalous and the irregular and disobedient accounted and cryed up for the pious powerful and precious men was Mr. Burton now alive he might better say than when he wrote thus What father after a while will be so improvident Mel. p. 126. to bring up his sons to his great charge to necessary beggary what Christian will be so irreligious as to bring up his sons in that course of life which by all probability and necessity will entail on him symony and perjury for he might now add scorn and contempt if he be an obedient son of the Church for what in regard of pretended conscience to that Idol Covenant which Lilâ—urn calls the make-bate persecuting soul-destroying Englands dividing and undoing Engl. Birth-right p. 29 Covenant what in regard of the boldness of some-daring people and the connivence of some in Authority it had been better for conscientious subjects that some Laws had not been made than that being made their obedience to them should be their disgrace and the disobedience of others to them their honour and dignity I know that some mens natures are easiest cured by lenities and that if violence be offered they will struggle they being easier led than driven but it is not so with all for since his Majesties happy Restauration some now daring people began to be tractable and orderly but feeling the reins of Government somewhat loose like unruly horses they get the bit into their teeth they kick and think to run away with and throw their Rider Amongst certain passages I have read in the reign of King James this I remember he who deceives Regum Sacr. Sanc. Majest me once it is his fault but if twice it is my fault What these men have done cannot be forgotten if it is let J. A. remember them that the best of Kings in whom malice it self how quick-sighted soever could not find any thing blame-worthy except it be a crime to be too good and transcendently clement forced to flee his Royal Consort necessitated to flee beyond sea the Royal family divided one from another his Revenue seized his forts and holds Curia Politiae employed to destroy him and another speaking to them thus you have violated all sorts of right in the person of your King you have raised a war against him you have often assaulted and imprisoned him you have abused the confidence Page 12. he had in you and destroyed him with great cruelty and insolency when such men have acted so vigorously against the Lords anointed and some of them not so wary as their fellows say they cannot repent and are such of whom Mr. Edw. Sparks writing of Primitive devotion saith This Page 106. stolid disobedient age contemns their devotions and are so Pâ—â—e 53. immodest as to grudge God the hat the knee whatcan we hope for from such men we may remember the moral of the Country-mans snake which would take away life from him who preserved hers and not forget that of the young mans beloved Cat turn'd into a Maid which soon shewed again her cattish disposition having an opportunity by the sight of a Mouse Some think I wish they be mistaken that in regard of the speech and carriage of some that they have a second part to act after the same or a more doleful tune however it cannot but be good with the snake in the fable who thought her self not secure in that house wherein the great hatchet was which had almost slain her not to give too much credit to such who have formerly dealt as they have done error being obstinate and making men so Religio Medici shews the obstinacy of the Jews in all fortunes that the persecution of 1500 years hath but confirmed them in Page 49. their errors that they have already endured whatsoever may be inflicted and have suffered abundance even to the condemnation of their enemies concludes persecution to be a bad and indirect way to plant Religion It is so but means must be used to preserve Religion that we loose it not Society of Saints p. 29. p. 244. in an Assize Sermon Some I suppose will blame me for writing thus now having formerly pleaded for Puritans I own what I have written and wish these were such for which I and Mr. Bolton plead for namely practising Protestants loyal to Princes obedient to Laws just pious charitable labouring to be in truth what they seem to be we plead not for factious irregular disorderly followers of Barrow and Greenwood the old Puritans being their great opposers I judging with Mr. Howel that the itching of scriblers is the scab of the times Page 62. purposed no publication of these notes which made me careless in naming of my Authors but considering that Nicholas Causin had learned to regard the works of the worst Writers and not to censure them and seeing the flame to increase at home and abroad and those who have much water in their deep wells and buckets to vent it lie in a sleep I have presumed with my pitcher to shew mine endeavour to stop and extinguish this fire of error some perhaps impute it to dotage I being well-near such years which are labour and sorrow and scarce able to go with Crutches let men think as they please my desire is to cure error and to procure order for which end I will conclude with a passage in Mr. Vines fore-named Sermon which is this If conscience Page 60. be warrant for practises and opinions and liberty of conscience be a sufficient license to vent or act them I cannot see but the judicatories either of Church or State may shut up their shop and be resolved into the judicatorie of every mans private conscience and put the case that the Magistrate should conceive himself bound in conscience to draw forth his Authority against false teachers and their damnable heresies and upon that supposed error should challenge a liberty of judging as we do of acting would our liberty give us any ease so long as he had his and were it not better for him to judge and for us to walk by a known Rule and if we should say that his liberty of judging is unlawful it is as easie for him to say our liberty of Preaching or professing errors is so too FINIS