faith of men is formally and ultimately resolved into so that what ever Propositions that are made unto them they may reject unless they do it with a non obstante for its supposed Revelation the whole Revelation abides unshaken and their saith founded thereon But as to the Persons who first bring unto any the tidings of the Gospel seeing the faith of them that receive it is not resolved into their Authority or Infallibility they may they ought to examine their proposals by that unerring word which they ultimately rest upon as did the Beraeans and receive or reject them at first or afterwards as they see cause and this without the least impeachment of the truth or Authority of the Gospel its self which under this formal consideration as revealed of God they absolutely believe Let us now see what you except hereunto First you ask What love of Christs dictates what commission of Christ allows you to choose and reject at your own pleasure Ans. None nor was that at all in question nor do you speak like a man that durst look upon the true state of the Controversie between us You proclaim your cause desperate by this perpetual tergiversation The Question is whither when men preach the Gospel unto others as a Revelation from God and bring along the Scripture with them wherein they say that Revelation is comprized when that is received as such and hath its authority confirmed in the minds of them that receive it whither are they not bound to try all the teaching in particular of them that first bring it unto them or afterwards continue the preaching of it whither it be consonant to that Rule or Word wherein they believe the whole Revelation of the will of God relating to the Gospel declared unto them to be contained and to embrace what is suitable thereunto and to reject any thing that in particular may be by the mistakes of the teachers imposed upon them Instead of believing what the Scripture teacheth and rejecting what it condemns you substitute choosing or rejecting at your own pleasure a thing wherein our discourse is not at all concerned You adde What Heretick was ever so much a fool as not to pretend the Love of Christ and Commission of Christ for what he did What then I pray may not others do a thing really upon such grounds as some pretend to do them on falsly may not a Judge have his Commission from the King because some have counterfeited the great Seal May not you sincerely seek the good and peace of your Country upon the Principles of your Religion though some pretending the same Principles have sought its disturbance and ruine If there be any force in this exception it overthrows the Authority and Efficacy of every thing that any man may falsly pretend unto which is to shut out all order Rule Government and vertue out of the world You proceed How shall any one know you do it out of any such Love or Commission sith those who delivered the Articles of saith now rejected pretended equal love to Christ and Commission of Christ for the delivery of them as any other I wonder you should proceed with such impertinent enquiries How can any man manifest that he doth any thing by the Commission of another but by his producing and manifesting his Commission to be his and how can be prove that the doth it out of Love to him but by his diligence care and conscience in the discharge of his Duty as our Saviour tells us saying if you love me keep my Commandments which is the proper effect of love unto him and open evidence or manifestation of it Now how should a man prove that he doth any thing by the Commission of Christ but by producing that Commission that is in the things about whâ—ch we treat by declaring and evidencing that the things he proposeth to be believed are revealed by his spirit in his word and that things which he rejects are contrary thereunto And what ever men may pretend Christ gives out no adverse Commissions his word is every way and everywhere the same at perfect harmony and consistency with its self so that if it come to that that several Persons do teach contrary doctrines either before or after one another or together under the same pretence of receiving them from Christ as was the case between the Pharises of old that believed and the Apostles they that attend unto them have a perfect guide to direct them in their choice a perfect Rule to judge of the things proposed As in the Church of the Jews the Pharises had taught the people many things as from God for their Traditions or Oral Law they pretended to be from God Our Saviour comes really a teacher from God and he disproves their false Doctrines which they had prepossessed the people withall and all this he doth by the Scripture the Word of Truth which they had before received And this Example hath he left unto his Church unto the end of the world But you yet proceed Why may we not at length reject all the rest for love of something else when this Love of Christ which is now crept into the very out side of our lips is slipt off from thence Do you think men cannot find a cavil against him as well as his Law delivered unto us with the first news of him and as easily dig up the root as cut up the branches You are the pleasantest man at a disputation that ever I met withal haud ulli veterum virtute secundus you outgo your masters in palpable Sophistry If we may and ought for the Love of Christ reject errours and untruths taught by fallible men then we may reject him also for the love of other things Who doubts it but men may if they will if they have a mind to do so they may do so Physically but may they do so Morally may they do so upon the same or as good grounds and reasons as they reject errours and false worship for the sake of Christ With such kind of arguing is the Roman Cause supported Again you suppose the Law of Christ to be rejected and therefore say that his Person may be so also But this contains an application of the general Thesis unto your particular case and thereupon the begging of the thing in Question Our enquiry was general Whither things at first delivered by any Persons that preach the Gospel may not be rejected without any impeachment of the Authority of the Gospel it self Here that you may insinuate that to be the case between you and us you suppose the things rejected to be the Law of Christ when indeed they are things rejected because they are contrary to the Law of Christ and so affirmed in the Assertion which you seek to oppose For nothing may be rejected by the Commission of Christ but what is contrary to his Law The truth is he that rejects the Law of Christ as it is his
Faith is bounded by the confines of your wranglements and your agreement is the Rule of it This it may be you think suits your turn but whether it be so well suited unto the Interest of the Gospell and of Truth you must give men leave to enquire or they will do it ingrati whether you will or no. But if by the Unity of Faith you intend the substantiall Doctrines of the Gospell proposed in the Scripture to be believed on necessity unto Salvation it is unquestionably among all the Churches in the world and might possibly be brought forth into some tolerable communion in Profession and Practice did not your Schismaticall Interest and Principles interpose themselves to the contrary The fifth Supposition in your Fiat observed in the Animadversions is That the first Reformers were most of them contemptible Persons their Means indirect and their Ends sinister To which you reply Where is it S t where is it that I meddle with any mens persons or say they are contemptible what and how many are those Persons and where did they live But this you adde of your own is in a vast universall notion to the end you may bring in the Apostles and Prophets and some Kings into the list of Persons by mesur named contemptible and liken my speech who never spake any such thing to the Sarcasms of Celsus Lucian Porphyry Julian and other Pagans So you begin but ne savi magne Sacerdos Have a little patience and I will direct you to the places where you display in many words that which in a few I represented They are in your Fiat Chap. 4. § 18. 2. edit from pag. 239 unto § 20. p. 251. Had you lost your Fiat that you make such an outcry after that which in a moment he could have supplyed you withall Calvin and a Taylors Widdow Luther and Catherine Bore pleased with a naked Vnicorn swarms of Reformers as thick as Grashoppers fallen Priests and Votaries ambitious heads emulating one another if not the worst yet none of the best that ever were so eagerly quarrelling among themselves that a sober man would not have patience to hear their Sermons or read their Books with much more to the same purpose you will find in the places which I have now directed you unto But I see you love to say what you please but not to hear of it again But he that can in no more words more truely express the full and genuine sense of your eighteenth and nineteenth Chapter than I have done in the Assertion you so cry out against shall have my thanks for his pains Only I must mind you that you have perverted it in placing the last words as if they referred unto the Reformers you talk of that they did their work for sinister Ends when I only said that their Doctrine according to their Insinuations was received for sinister Ends wherein I comprized your foul reflections upon King Henry the Eighth and Queen Elizabeth his Daughter not placing them as you now faign among the number of them whom I affirmed to be reported by you as a company of Contemptible Persons But now upon a confidence that you have shifted your hands of a necessity to re-inforce this Assertion which you find it may be in your self an incompetency for you reflect back upon some former passages in the Animadversions wherein the generall Objections that you lay against Protestancy are observed to be the same for substance that long ago were by Celsus objected unto Christianity And say So likewise in the very beginning of this your second Chapter you spend four leaves in a parallel betwixt mee and the Pagan Celsus where of there is not any member of it true Doth Fiat Lux say you lay the cause of all the troubles disorders tumults warres within the Nations of Europe upon Protestants doth he charge the Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make a way for other revolts doth he gather a Rhapsody of insignificant words doth he insist upon their divisions doth he mannage the Arguments of the jews against Christ c so doth Celsus who is confuted by Origen Where does Fiat Lux where does does he does he any such thing Are you not ashamed to talk at this rate I give a hint indeed of the Divisions that be amongst us and the frequent argumentations that are made to embroyl and pusle one another with our much evil and little appearance of any good in order unto unity and peace which is the end of my discourse But must I therefore be Celsus Did Celsus any such thing to such an end It is the end that moralizeth and specifies the action To diminish Christianity by upbraiding our frailties is paganish to exhort to unity by representing the inconvenience of faction is a Christian and pious work When honest Protestants in the Pulpit speak ten times more full and vehemently against the divisions warres and contentions that be amongst us than ever came into my thoughts must they therefore every one of them be a Celsus a Pagan Celsus What stuff is this But it is not only my defamation you aym at your own glory comes in the reer If I be Celsus the Pagan Celsus you then forsooth must be Origen that wrote against him honest Origen that is the thing Pray S t it is but a word let me advise you by the way that you do not forget your self in your heat and give your Wife occasion to fall out with you However you may yet will not your Wife like it perhaps so well that her Husband should be Origen Such trash as this must he consider who is forced to have to do with you These it seems are the meditations you are conversant with in your retirements What little regard you have in them unto Truth or honesty shall quickly be discovered unto you 1. Do I compare you with Celsus or do I make you to be Celsus I had certainly been very much mistaken if I had done so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to compare a Person of so small abilities in literature as you discover your self so to be with so learned a Philosopher had been a great Mistake And I wish you give me not occasion to think you as much Inferiour unto him in morals as I know you are in your intellectuals But S r I no where compare you unto him but only shew a co-incidence of your objections against Protestancy with some of his against Christianity which the likeness of your Cause and interest cast you upon 2. I did not say You had the same end with him I expressed my thoughts to the contrary nor did compare your act and his in point of Morality but only shewed as I said before a Co-incidence in your Reasonings This you saw and read and now in an open defiance of Truth and Ingenuity express the contrary Celsus would not have done so But I must tell you S r you are mistaken if you suppose that the
fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam major majorem maxima maximam Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo And again Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Natur â sublimius idest inspiratio facta divinitus divinae irradiation is influxus certus But whence are wee perswaded that it is from the First Verity but from it Self It s own Authority draws us to believe it But whence obtains it this Authority â— we see not God preaching writing teaching but yet as if we had seen him we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering unto it that the Truth in it is more solid though not more clear than in any other way of proposall and all truth hath a power to incline unto belief the greater the Truth the greater its power and the greatest Truth must have the greatest power so to incline us But why then do not all believe the Gospell I answer because all are not drawn of God There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than Nature that is the Divine Inspiration from whence it is and the Divine Irradiation wherewith it is accompanied This is the Principle of Protestants The Sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first Verity this it manifests by its own Light and Efficacy and we are enabled to believe it by the effectuall working of the Spirit of God in our hearts Whence our Saviour asks the Jews Joh 5. If you believe not the writing of Moses how will you believe my words They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture upon the Authority that it hath in its self would not believe if Christ should personally speak unto them So saith Theophylact on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Protestants believe and profess that the End wherefore God gave forth his Word by Inspiration was that it might be a stable Infallible Revelation of his mind and will as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him with that Worship and Obedience which he requireth of them that so they may please him in this world and come unto the fruition of him unto all eternity God who is the formal object is also the prime Cause of all Religious worship What is due unto him as the first Cause last End and Soveraign Lord of all as to the substance of it and what he further appoints himself as to the manner of its performance suited unto his own Holiness and the Condition wherein in reference unto our Last end we stand and are making up the whâ—le of it That he hath given his Word to reveal these things unto us to be our Rule Guide and Direction in our wayes walkings and universal deportment before him is as I take it a fundamentall Principle of our Christian Profession Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it I shall not need therefore to adde any thing in its Confirmation but only mind you again that the calling of it into question is directly against the very heart of all Religion and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians or ever were so Yea and it must be granted or the whole Scripture esteemed a Fable because it frequently declares that it is given unto us of God for this End and Purpose And hence do Protestants inferre two other Conclusions on which they build their Perswasion concerning the Vnity of Faith and the proper means of their Settlement therein 1. That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way compleat namely with respect unto that end whereunto of God it is designed A Perfect and compleat Revelation of the Will of God as to his Worship and our Obedience And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned should not have that sacred Reverence for the Wisdome Goodness and Love of its Author unto mankind as freely to assent unto this Inference and Conclusion He is our Rock and his work is perfect And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word by a supply unto it he hath strictly forbidden them any such addition Deut. 4. 2. 12. 12. Prov. 30. 6. Which if it were not compleat in reference unto its proper End would hold no great correspondency with that Love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him I suppose you know with how many express Testimonies of Scripture its self this Truth is confirmed which added unto that light and evidence which as a deduction from the former fundamental Truth it hath in its self is very sufficient to render it unquestionable You may at your leasure besides these forenamed consult Psal. 19. 8. Esa. 8. 20. Ezek. 28. 18. Mat. 15. 6. Luk. 1. 3 4. ch 16. 29 31. ch 24. 25 27. Job 5. 39. ch 20. 10 Act. 1. 11. ch 17. 2 3. ch 20. 27. chapt 26. 22. Rom. 10. 17. ch 15. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gal. 1. 8. Eph. 2. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Rev 22. 18. For though Texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one anothers heads as you talk in your Fiat yet they are for us to use and insist on in the Confirmation of the Truth if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles for our warrant And it were endless to recite the full and plain Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Councels to this purpose Neither is that my present design though I did somwehat occasionally that way upon the former Principle It shall suffice me to shew that the deny all of this Assertion also as it is inferred from the foregoing Principle is Prejudiciall if not pernicious to Christian Religion in Generall The whole of our Faith and Profession is resolved into the known Excellencies and Perfections of the Nature of God Amongst these there are none that have a more immediate and quickning influence into them than his Wisdom Goodness Grace Care and Love towards them unto whom he is pleased to reveal himself Nor is there any property of his Nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony unto And all of them doth he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signall manner in that Revelation which he hath made of himself his Mind and Will therein I suppose this cannot be denied by any who hath the least sense of the importance of the things revealed Now if the Revelation made for the End before proposed be not perfect
Totilas Besides if we that are now Inhabitants of England must be thought to have first received the Gospel then when it was first preached unto our own Progenitors in a direct line ascending this will be found a matter so dubious and uncertain as not possibly to be a thing of any concernment in Christian Religion and moreover will exempt most of the chief families of England from your enclosure seeing one way or other they derive themselves from the Antient Britains Such pittifull trifles are you forced to make use of to give countenance unto your cause But let it be granted that Christianity was first communicated unto the Saxons from Rome in the dayes of Pope Gregory which yet indeed is not true neither for Queen Berta with her Bishop Luidhardus had both practised the worship of Christ in England before his coming and so prepared the people that Gregory sayes in one of his Epistles Anglorum gentem voluisse fieri Christianam What will thence ensue why plainly that we must be all Papists or Atheists and esteem the whole Gospel a Romance But why so I pray Why the Categorick Assertions are both clear namely that the Pâ—pist first brought us the news of Christianity and that Papists are now odious But how comes this about we were talking of Gregory and some that came from Rome in his dayes And if you take them for Papists you are much deceived Prove that there was one Papist at Rome in the dayes of that Gregory and I will be another I mean such a Papist as your present Pope is or as your self are Do you think that Gregory believed the Catholick Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope the doing whereof in an especial manner constitutes a man a Papist If you have any such thoughts you are an utter stranger â—o the state of things in those dayes as also to the writings of Gregory himself For your better information you may do well to consult him lib. 4. Epist. 32 36 38. And sundry other instances may be given out of his own writings how remote he was from your present Popery Irregularities and superstitious observations were not a few in his dayes crept into the Church of Rome which you still pertinaciously adhere unto as you have the happiness to adhere firmely unto any thing that you once irregularly embrace But that the main Doctrines Principles Practices and Modes of Worship which constitute Popery were known admitted practised or received at Rome in the dayes of Gregory I know full well that you are not able to prove And by this you may see the Truth of your first Assertion that Papists brought us the first news of Christianity which you do not in the least endeavour to prove but take it hand over head to be the same with this that some from Rome preached the Gospel to the Saxons in the dayes of Gregory which it hath no manner of affinity withall Your second true Assertion is that the Papist is now become odious unto us but yet neither will this be granted you Popery we dislike but that the Papists are become odious unto us we absolutely deny Though we like not the Popery they have admitted yet we love them for the Christianity which they have retained And must not that needs be a doubty Consequence that is enduced out of Principles where in there is not a word of truth Besides I have already in part manifested unto you that supposing both of them to be true as neither of them is yet your Consequence is altogether inconsequent and will by no means follow upon them And this will yet more fully appear in an examination of your ensuing Discourse That which you fix upon to accept against is towards the close of my Discourse to this purpose in these words as set down by you pag. 40. Many things delivered us at first with the first news of Christianity may be afterwards rejected for the love of Christ and by the Commission of Christ. The truth of this Assertion I have newly proved again unto you and have exemplified it in the instance of Papists bringing the first news of Christianity to any place which is not impossible but they may do though to this Nation they did not I had also before confirmed it with such reasons as you judged it best to take no notice of which is your way with things that are too hard for you to grapple withall I must I see drive these things through the thick obstacles of your prejudices with more instances or you will not be sensible of them What think you then of those who received the first news of Christianity by believers of the circumcision who at the same time taught them the necessity of being circumcised and of keeping Moses Law were they not bound afterwards upon the discovery of the mistake of their teachers to retain the Gospel and the truth thereof taught by them and to reject the observation of Mosaical rites and observations or were they free upon the discovery of their mistake to esteem the whole Gospel a Romance What think you of those that were converted by Arians which were great multitudes and some whole Nations were not those Nations bound for the Love of Christ by his word to retain their Christianity and reject their Arianisme or must they needs account the whole Gospel a fable when they were convinced of the Errour of their first teachers denying Christ Jesus in his Divine nature to be of the same substance with his Father or essentially God! To give you an instance that it may be will please you better There are very many Indians in New England or elsewhere Converted unto Christianity by Prote stants without whose instruction they had never received the least rumor or report of it Tell me your judgement if you were now amongst them would you not endeavour to perswade them that Christian Religion indeed was true but that their first Instructers in it had deceived them as to many particulars of it which you would undeceive them in and yet keep them close to their Christianity And do you not know that many who have in former dayes been by Hereticks converted to Christianity from Paganism have afterwards from the Principles of their Christianity been convinced of their heresie and retaining the one have rejected the other It is not for your advantage to maintain an opposition against so evident a Truth and exemplified by so many instances in all ages I know well enough the ground of your pertinaciousness in your mistake it is that men who receive the Gospel do resolve their faith into the Authority of them that first preach it unto them Now this supposition is openly false and universally as to all persons what ever not divinely inspired yea as to the Apostles themselves but only with respect unto their working of Miracles which gave Testimony unto the Doctrine that they taught Otherwise Gods Revelation contained in the Scriptures is that which the
needs no other inducement to reject his Person for he hath done it already in the rejection of his Law but yet it may not be granted though it belong not unto our present discourse that every one that rejects any part of the Law of Christ must therefore be in a propensity to reject Christ himself provided that he do it only because he doth not believe it to be any part of his Law For whilest a man abides firm and constant in his faith in Christ and love unto him with a resolution to submit himself to his whole Word Law and Institutions his misapprehensions of this or that particular in them is no impeachment of his faith or Love Of the same importance is that which you add namely Did not the Jews by pretence of their love to the immortal God whom their forefathers served reject the whole Gospel at once and why may not we possibly by piece meale You do only cavil at the expression I used of doing the thing mentioned for the love of Christ but I used it not alone as knowing how casie a thing it was to pretend it and how unwarrantable a ground of any actings in Religion such a pretence would prove whereâ—ore I added unto it his Commission that is his Word And so I desire to know of you whither the Jews out of love to God and by the direrection of his word did reject the Gospel or no. This you must assert if you intend by this instance to oppose my assertion Besides indeed the Jews did scarce pretend to reject the Gospel out of love to God but to their old Church-State and Traditions on which very account your selves at this day reject many important truths of it But it is one thing vainly to pretend the Love of God another so to love him indeed as to keep his Commandments and in â—o doing to cleave unto the Truth and to reject that which is contrary thereunto You add as the issue of these enquiries Let us leave cavils grant my supposition which you cannot deny then speak to my Consequence which I deem most strong and good to inter a Conclusion which neither you nor I can grant Answ. I wish you had thought before of leaving Cavils that we might have been eased of the consideration of the foregoing Queries which are nothing else and those very trivial Your supposition which is that Papists first brought the Gospel into England you say I cannot deny but Sir I do deny it and challenge you or any man in the world to make it good or to give any colour of Truth unto it Then your Consequence you say you deem strong and good I doubt not but you do so so did Suffenus of his Poems but another was not of the same mind who says of him Qui modo scurra Aut si quid hâ—c re tritius or hoc re tritius videbatur Idem inficeto est inficetior rure Simul poeâ—ata attigit neque idem unquam Aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit Tam gaudâ—t in se temque se ipse miratur You may for ought I know have a good faculty at some other things but you very unhappily please your self in drawing of Consequences which for the most part are very infirm and naught as in particular I have abundantly manifested that to be which you now speak of But you conclude I tell you plainly and without tergiversation before God and all his holy Angels what I should think if I descended unto any Conclusion in this affair And it is this Either the Papist who holds at this day all these Articles of faith which were delivered at the first Conversion of this land by St. Austin is unjustly become odieus amongst us or else my honest Parsons threw of your Cassocks and resign your benefices and 〈…〉 into the hands of your neighbours whose they were 〈…〉 My Consequence is irrefragable And I 〈◊〉 you plâ—iâ—ly that I greatly pitty you for your di courte and that on many accounts First That in the same breath wherein you so solemnly protest before God and his holy Angels you should so openly prevaricate as to intimate that you descend unto no conclusions in this affair wherein notwithstanding your pretences you really dogmatize and that with as much confidence as it is possible I think for any man to do And 2. That you cast before God and his holy Angels the light froth of your scoffing expressions my honest Parsons c. a sign with what conscience you are converâ—ant in these things And 3. That undertaking to write and declare your mind in things of the nature and importance that these are of you should have no more judgement in them or about them then so solemnly to entitle such a trifling Sophism by the name of irrefragable Consequence As also 4. That in the Solemnity of your Protestation you for got to express your mind in sober sense for aiming to make a disjunctive conclusion you make the parts of it not at all disparate but coincident as to your intention the one of them bring the direct consequent of the other 5. That you so much make naked your desires after Benefices and gleab lands as though they were the great matter in contest amongst us which reflects no small shame and stain on Christian Religion and all the Professors of it 6. Your Irrefragable Consequence is a most pittiful piece of Sophistâ—y built upon I know not how many false suppositions as 1. That Papists are become odious unto us where as we only reject your Popery love your Persons and approve of your Christianity 2. That Papists brought us the first tidings of the Gospel which hath been sufficiently before disproved 3. That Papists hold all things in Religion that they did and as they did who first brought us the news of Christianity which we have also manifested to be otherwise in the signal instance of the opinion of Pope Gregory about your Papal Power and titles 4. That we have no occasion of exception against Papists but only their holding the things that those did who first preached the Gospel here when that is no cause at all of our exceptions but their multitude of pretended Articles of faith and idolatrous superstitious practises in worship superadded by them since that time are the things they stand charged withall Now your Consequent being built on all these suppositions fit to hold a principal place in Lucians vera historia must needs be irrefragable What you add farther on this subject is but a repetition in other words of what you had said before with an application of your false and groundless supposition unto our present differences but yet least you should flatter your self or your Disciples deceive themselves with thoughts that there is any thing of weight or moment in it shall also be considered You adde then that if any part much more if any parts great substantial parts of Religion brought into the Land with
your communion whilest you impose upon them a necessity of Celebrating the worship of God in a tongue unknown unto them amongst whom and for whose sâ—ke it is publickly celebrated The reasons you subjoyn to the concession you mention I presume are your own they are like to many others that you make use of The best sense of the entrance of your words that I can make is in that description they afford us of the worship of your Church as to the peoples concernment in it The words of it may â—it perching upon your lips as on the tongue of a Parrot or it may be may be got by heart or as we say without Book when the sense of them affects not your minds nor understandings at all If in these vain loose expressions you design any thing else it seems to be an opposition between reading and studying the Scriptures or joyning with understanding in the prayers of the Church the things under Consideration and the getting of the power of the word of God to dwell in the heart which is skilfully to oppose the means and the end and those placed in that relation not only by their natural aptitude but also by Gods express appointment and command So wisely also do you oppose reading and doing in general as though reading were not doing and a part of that obedience which God requires at our hands and a blessed means of helping and furthering us in the remainder of it For certainly that we may do the will of God it is required that we know it And what better way there is to come to the knowledge of the will of God then by reading and me litating in and upon the word of Truth wherein he hath revealed it with the advantage of the other means of his appointment for the same end in the publick preaching or proposition of it I am not as yet informed And I wish you had acquainted us with those two words of our Saviour and that one of the Apostle wherein they give us a Compendius of all Divine Truths For if it be so I am perswaded you will be to seek for your warrant in imposing your long Creeds and almost Volumes of Propositions to be believed as such But you cannot avoid mistakes in things that you might omit as not at all to your purpose Our Saviour indeed gives us the two general heads of those duties of Obedience which are required at our hands towards God and our Neighbours and the Apostle shews the Perfection of it to consist in Love with its due exercise but where in two or three words they give us the Compendium of all Divine Truths which we are to believe that we may acceptably perform the Obedidience that in general they describe we are yet to seek and shall be so for any information you are able to give us In your following Discourse you make a florish with what your Church hath in Gospels Epistles Good books Anniversary observations and I know not what besides But Sir we discourse not about what you have but what you have not nor will have though God command you to have it and threaten you for not having it You have not the Scripture ordinarily in a language that they can understand who if they are the Disciples of Christ are bound to read study and meditate in it continually which are therefore hindred by you in the discharge of their duty whilest you neither enter into the Kingdom of heaven your selves nor suffer them that would Nâ—y you have burned men and their Bibles together for attempting to discharge that duty which God requireth of them and wherein so much of their spiritual advantage is enwrapped Neither have you the entire worship of God in a tongue known to the people whereby they might joyn in it and pray with understanding and be edified by what they hear which the Apostle makes the end of all things done or to be done in publick Assemblies but are left to have their brutish affections led up and down by dumb shews pestures and gestures whereunto the Scripture and Antiquity are utter strangers These things you have not and which renders your Condition so much the worse you refuâ—e to have them though you may though you are entreated by God and man to make use of them yea where great and populous nations under your power have humbly petitioned you that by your leave and permission they might enjoy the Bible and that Service of God which they could understand you have chosen rather to run all things into confusion and to fall upon them with fire and sword then to grant them their request O curvae in terris animae caelestium inanes But you add Besides what you mention what can promote your Salvation for say you What further Good may it do to read the letter of St. Paul ' s Epistles to the Romans for example or Corinthians wherein Questions and Cases and Theological discourses are treated that vulgar people can neither understand nor are at all concerned to know And I pray you tell me ingenuously and without heat what more of Good could acrew to any by the translated letter of a book whereof I will be bold to say that nine parts in ten concern not my particular either to know or practice then by the conceived substance of Gods will unto me and my own duty towards him Sir I shall deal with you without any blameable heat yet so as he deserves to be dealt withall who will not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord. And 1. who taught you to make your apprehensions the measure of other mens faith and practice If you know not of any thing needfull to promote Salvation but what you reckon up in the usage of your Church hinder not them that do It is not so much your own practice as your Imposition of it on others that we are in the consideration of Would it worth suffice you to reject as to your own interest the means appointed of God for the furtherrance of our Salvation and that you would not compell others to joyn with you in the refusal of them Is it possible that a man professing himself a Divine a Priest of the Catholick Church an Instructor of the Ignorant an undertaker to perswade whole Nations to relinquish the way of Religion wherein they are engaged to follow him and his in wayes that they have not known should profess that he knows not of what use unto the promotion of the Salvation of the Souls of men the use of the whole Scripture given by inspiration of God is Be advised not to impose these conceptions of your fancy and mind as it seems unexercised in that heavenly treasury on those who have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses exercised therein so as to be able to discern between good and evil It no other reason can prevail with you I hope experience may give you such a despair of success as to cause
you must if you speak intelligibly why do you oppose these things as inconsistent May not the people have the use of the Scripture and yet have the Word preached unto them by their Teachers Did not Paul preach the substance of the Word unto the Bereans and yet they are commended that they tryed what he delivered unto them by the Scripture its self which they enjoyed And 4. Why do you appropriate this urging of the substance of the Word of God unto your usage and practice giving out as ours the leaving of the letter of the Scripture to the Peoples disposal when we know the former to be done far more effectually among Protestants then among you and your self cannot deny it to be done more frequently 5. You reproach the Scripture by calling it the Letter in opposition to your conceived substance of the Word of God For though the Literal sense of Metaphorical expressions by you yet adhered unto be sometimes called the Flesh John 6. 33. and the carnal sense of the Institutions of the Old Testament be termed the Letter 2 Cor. 3. 6. Rom. 2. 2. yet the Covenant of God is that his Spirit and Word shall ever accompany one another Isa. 59. 21. and our Saviour tells us that his Words are Spirit and life John 6. 63. and the Apostle that the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper then any two-edged sword Heb. 4. 12. There is in the written Word a living and life-giving power and efficacy which believers have experience of and which I should be sorry to conclude you to be unacquainted withal It is the power of God unto salvation the immortal seed whereby we are begotten unto God and the food whereby our souls are nourished And all this is to not only as to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is written but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the writing or Scripture it self which is given by Inspiration from God For though the things themselves written are the Will of God and intended in the writing yet the Writing its self being given out by inspiration is the Word of God and only original means of Communicating the other unto us or the Word of God wherein his will is contained formally so as the other is materially 6. I find you are not well pleased when you are minded of the contemptuous expressions which some of your friends have used concerning the Holy Scripture but I am now enforced to tell you that you your self have equalled in my apprehension the very worst of them in affirming that nine parts in ten of it concerns not your particular either to know or practice For I presume you make the instance only in your self intending all other individual Persons no less then your self The Apostle tells us that all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness You that nine parts in ten of it do not concern us to know or practice that is not at all He informs us that what ever things were written afore time were writttn for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope not above one part of ten of what is so written if you may be believed is useful to any such purpose Do you consider what you say God hath given us his whole Word for our use and benefit Nine parts in ten of it say you do not concern us Can possibly any man break forth into an higher reflection upon the Wisdom and Love of the Holy God Or do you think you could have made a more woful discovery of your unacquaintedness with your own duty the nature of faith and Obedience Evangelical then you have done in these words You will not make thus bold with the Books that Aristotle hath left us in Philosophy or Galen in Medicine But the wisdom of God in that writing which he hath given us for the Revelation of his will it seems may be despised Such fruit in the depraved nature of man will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce The practice we blame in you is not worse then the reasonings you use in its confirmation I pray God neither of them may be ever laid unto your charge Your following words are a Commendation of the zeal and piety of the dayes and times before the Reformation with reflections upon all things amongst us since and this I shall pass by so to avoid the occasion of representing unto you the true state of things both here and elsewhere in the Ages you so much extoll Neither indeed is it to any great purpose to lay open anew that darkness and wickedness which the world groaned under and all sober men complained of You proceed to other Exceptions and say Where Fiat Lux sayes That the Pentateuch or Hagiography was never by any High Priest among the Jews put into a Vulgar Tongue nor the Gospel or Lyturgie out of the Greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or Latin in the Western you sleight this discourse of mine because Hebrew Greek and Latin were Vulgar Tongues themselves I know this well enough but when and how long ago were they so Not for some thousand years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian Lyturgie then put into Vulgar Tongues when those they were first written in ceased to be Vulgar This you should have spoken unto if you had meant to say any thing or gainsay me Nor is it to purpose to tell me that St. Jerom translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it hath been translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Aethiopian and other particular Dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or the Christians either Greeks or Latin ever deliver it so to translated to the generality of People or use it in their Service or command it so to be done as a thing of general Concernment and necessity so far is it from that that they would never permit it I thought you would as little have medled with this matter again as you have done with other things of the like disadvantage unto you For 1. I told you sufficiently before what a vanity it was to enquire after a Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew before the Babylonish Captivity there being no other language but that understood amongst the Generality of the Jewish People And I then manisested unto you and shall do so further immediately that the Translation of the Scripture into Syriak which you enquire after could have had no other design amongst the Jews in those dayes then your keeping of it in Latin hath namely that the People might not understand it For if you shall persist to think that the Jews before the Babylonish Captivity at least had any other vulgar language but the Hebrew you will make all men of understanding smile at you at an extraordinary rate Some while after the return of