will the juglers say this must not be suffered we must use some course speedily to blacken I say blacken the author and impair the value of his Letter or our trade is gone Join your forces up and be doing truth is strongest ye fight against your Saviour S. Peter and S. Paul to the Corinthians if you quarrel me for this come meddle then if you dare And if you do provoke me I will not only spoil the sale and market of your new-coin'd feigned words but I 'll cry down your market-day too on which you sell your empty sounds to fill your pockets Not that I am against preaching up charity and goodness and faith and hope too in order unto charity and upon the Lords day too if so be that preaching praying or worship hearing or faith doth not hinder better duties viz. works of mercy mercy to my own body to my beast to my family to my neighbour But if keeping any day of worship or performing any duties of worship hinder any of those greater duties then I sin in doing those duties of worship which hinder those greater duties of mercy Yet I say if I can do both both worship God and keep a holy day to him and also perform the greater duties of mercy then both is better God has join'd them together let not man put them asunder faith is a good grace and hope is good and charity good and preaching and prophesying knowledge and mysteries are all good it is a pity they should be parted but if we want charity we want the great accomplishment the greatest of these is charity And if any body think that I herein speak too slightly of keeping the Lords day let them know that if they think so they do but censure amiss and like the Hypocrites and Pharisees condemn me for that that was the very cause why our Saviour himself was accounted a sinner as you may see Jo. 9. 14. 16. 24. The Sabbath day and all other days were made as all things else and as all Commandments were made viz. only for the good of man not for his hurt and dammage if you will believe our Saviour The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath If my neighbours house be on fire as I am going to Church I ought to get my bucket and throw water and help to quench it for all going to a Sermon and God likes me better with my pail in my hand at that time than the Bible in my hand or a prayer in my mouth when charity to my neighbour supersedes my worship of God as being superiour to it as our Saviour tells the Pharisees upon the like occasion Mat. 12. 9. I will have mercy and not sacrifice that is not sacrifice when it hinders the greater duty of mercy And if a flood be coming down ready to flow my meadows when my Hay had need be carried away with my cart or else it will be carried away with the flood I should sin at that time if going to Church or any worship of God should prevent me from harnessing my horse and going to cart on the Lords day and my servants should sin grievously with going to Church when a work of mercy to my poor family and cattle called them another way And though our modern Pharisees and Hypocrites will condemn me herein yet they cannot tell how to confute it by Scripture nor reason and if they had known the true Religion or what this meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice they would not have condemned the guiltless I might give many other instances in making ready food in mercy to my body I mean not only necessary food to keep life and soul togethet as we vulgarly say but such food as is most convenient good hot victuals and good drink on the Lords day for watering a man's Horse and Ass on the Sabbath day is not necessary for life they will live as hunting horses often do a longer time without water but it is not convenient so to make them fast and being a work of mercy though but to your beast therefore does not every one of you think it lawful to do this convenient good on the Sabbath day That is supposing the fourth Commandment had the same force and efficacy that other Ceremonies and Types had in our Saviours time But alas the case is alter'd now those types and shadows are now of no more force than Circumcision and new Moons which in respect of Gospel discoveries are but weak and beggarly elements whereunto our modern Pharisees desire again to be in bondage and lest the hope of their gain should be gone they are wonderful zealous for the morality of the Sabbath and the morality of the fourth Commandment that yet are the most unmannerly sawcy peremptory people under the Heavens endeavouring to shew morality no where but in their market-day where they get much gain with as light frothy ware as ever was sold poor people are cheated and have a hard penny-worth of it as ever men had if they give a penny for these fictitious words such as this the ten moral Commandments and the morality of the fourth Commandment which all the art they have can never prove nor that there is since Christs death any more intrinsecal holiness in one day than another nor any more holiness in the Lords day than any other Holy-day mentioned in the Act of Parliament for that purpose wherein are these words These days shall be kept holy namely every Sunday in the year then follow all the Saints days and holy days to which the King and Parliament may adde more holy-days if they please and as they have done and as they are of humane institution can also take away some if they judge convenient Nor ought any man to keep the Lord's day in conscience or duty more than any other Holy-day And the ground of a man's keeping the Lords-day and all other Holy-days is in obedience to the fifth Commandment not the fourth Commandment Which if it were moral i. e. perpetual in their sence it is not in the power of the Church nor King nor Parliament to alter the day from the seventh to the first but all Sabbath days were like the new-moons and other Jewish festivals mere shadows of things to come but the body is Christ which being come the shadows vanish And those that zealously affect men with this Jewish conceit of keeping days c. do zèalously indeed affect men but not well nor honestly I know men are apt enough to take liberty to themselves in this licentious age to any prophaness but I deny that it is prophaness for me to dress convenient food for my self and family hot and good if I can get it on the Lords-day and Greg. does acknowledge himself and all that he knows of his party to be of this opinion herein in this one thing then we do agree and this is the first particular we have concurr'd in since we
require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God And when the Pharisees that prided themselves so much in looking so carefully after Gods worship and Gods day were offended so highly with the liberty which our Saviour and his disciples took to themselves upon the Sabbath-day in not keeping it so strictly as these Hypocritical Puritans deemed they ought to have done our Saviour tells them of a superiour Law and of far greater concernment than the four first Commandments put together Mat. 12. 7. and that was the Law of charity and mercy which if the Pharisees had understood they would not have condemned the guiltless Even God himself dispenses with his own Law for worship in the old Law when mercy and charity plead against it for sacrifices and offerings were then part of Gods worship which were very chargeable therefore for mercys sake and charitys sake at the Purification whereas the woman by Law ought to offer a Lamb for her cleansing yet if she was a poor woman and not of ability Almighty God abates of his due and is content with what without any great charge or trouble she might easily get in that Country namely two Turtles or two young Pigeons So that the Question is not so much which are Gods Commandments as which are the greatest Commandments and best deserve preferment not the first Table but the second for to do justice and judgement is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice Prov. 21. 3. and to obey is better than sacrifice 1 Sam. 15. 22. Therefore we must conclude That though the worship of God be good yet to do good and communicate good to others is better though to observe the four first Commandments be good yet to observe the six latter is better Though faith in God be good yet charity to our selves and others is better 1 Cor. 13. 13. and all faith and worship without this charity is not worth a pin nay is just nothing at all though a man preach like an Angel 1 Cor. 13. 1 2. This being granted for a great Truth and which all the whining Tribe though they lay all their heads together are not able to disprove or gainsay may silence the Non-conformists Prayers and stop their mouths more than St. Bartholomew yet has done For though to meet together to pray and preach and worship God according to the four first Commandments be good yet to obey the Commands of a Christian Magistrate and submit to his Laws according to the first Commandment in the second Table is better and ought to be preferr'd by every truly Conscienc'd Christian and in so doing he is safe in that submission and obedience But Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God judge ye saith St. Peter Acts 4. 19. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard This Text has been damnably abused and as the same Apostle says of other Texts of Scripture in St. Pauls Epistles wrested put upon the rack as the word signifies and made to speak what it never thought and will never justifie our Non-Conformists either before God or man in the least To whom does the blessed Apostle speak Act. 4. 5 6. to the Rulers and Elders and Scribes and Annas the High-Priest and Caiaphas c. who condemn'd our Lord Jesus to be crucified and if they might have had their wills would have been the death of all Christianity with him And is his Sacred Majesty and his two Houses of Parliament no better in your esteem than Annas and Caiaphas they are mightily beholden to you for your good opinion of them And if that be not your opinion that Text is nothing to your case nor to the purpose but point-blank against you For whether it be right to hearken unto God judge ye God had never given Laws for his own worship to mankind but for the good peace and welfare of mankind God had never made the first Table of the Law but in order to and for the better observance of the duties of the second Table If Subjects would never have been disobedient to their Prince and Governours nor children disobedient to their Parents nor servants to their Masters if men would never have coveted their neighbours goods nor their neighbours wife nor servant nor have rob'd and murdered one another but would have liv'd soberly righteously and therefore godlily in this present world the Allelujahs of Angels had been the great worship of men But since it is otherwise and that the wickedness of man is great in the earth and the imagination of the thoughts of his heart so bent to evil and that continually therefore God establish'd his Laws in the first Table by worship sacrifices c. Typically in the Old Testament for expiation of the guilt of sin and justification and sent his Son who was made a sacrifice for us antitypically in the New Testament for expiation of the guilt of sin and justification as our Priest and to show us how to live well as our Prophet and to exact our obedience as our King But none are benefited by his Priestly Office but such as obey his princely Laws according to his Prophetical Injunctions none are justified but such as are sanctified for this is the great will of God our sanctification Our Sanctification therefore is the grand design of the Law and Gospel Prophets and Apostles and that sanctification being summarily concluded by our Saviour in doing as we would be done by and all lesser holy duties of prayer praising hearing Sacraments being in order to the great holy duty of doing as we would be done by and particularized in and reducible to the second Table prove in all cases of conscience the truly godly must do the greater duty rather than the less and the duties of the second Table rather than the first so that he do but continue his faith in Christ the while and in so doing Now cannot the Non-conformist Preachers continue to be Christians though they do obey the fifth Commandment and submit to their Governors Injunctions nay can they obey God who is the author of the fifth Commandment if they do not obey their Christian Governors does not God prefer the peace and tranquillity and welfare of mankind before his own worship and will not you prefer it In obeying and submitting in quietness to the supream and Christian powers you obey God and that obedience is better than sacrifice and proves evidently that that which Greg. sets down p. 100. for Apochrypha in the Ecclesiastical Politician is an undoubted truth namely that moral vertue being the most material and useful part of all Religion is also the utmost end of all its other duties And all Religion must be resolv'd into Enthusiasme or Morality The former is mâ—…er Imposture and therefore all that is true must be reduced to the latter In an unlawful and forbidden Conventicle you may
met Also I deny that it is unlawful for me but rather a duty incumbent upon me to give my servants lieve to play and recreate themselves with any honest sport upon the Sunday or any other Holy-day at convenient times for I ought in mercy and charity to be merciful to my beasts my oxe or my ass in watering them which is not necessary but only expedient for life Much more ought I to be merciful to my poor Prentice my servant my Hand-maiden that have drudg'd and trudg'd to slave and work for me on working days when Sunday or any other Holy-day comes if I be of Christs true Religion and do as I would be done by Nay I ought if I am able to let them drink better liquor and eat better meat eat the fat and drink the sweet as Nehemiah speaks and send portions thereof to the poor according to my ability on those festivals at least give them what I give my beast ease and rest on those vacation-days a penny-worth of ease is worth a penny And the contrary opinion is hypocritical pharisaical hard-hearted apocryphal and prophane and contrary to the great Law of charity and mercy and contrary to those infallible and unanswerable reasons rendred excellently in that proclamation for lawful sports on Sundays and all other Holy-days published by the Command and well setled judgment of King James King Charles I. to that purpose And agreeable with the opinion and practice of all Christians Nations and Kingdoms in the world and even of Geneva it self and contradicted by none but our senceless hypocritical modern orthodox Rebels that write in this particular after nobody but Knox that grand Rebel and Innovator Oh but did not these fellows arm the rabble against the King and Bishops upon this very account They did so the more prophane wretches they by laying a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which God never imposed through their own superstition or rather perverseness Wheedling the silly rabble with pretence of Religion and Gods-day which is not a day that the Lord has made more than any other day nor more holy than so far forth as the King and Parliament have made it and set it apart for holy uses as they have done other Holy-days namely vacation-days from servile and worldly toil that men might be now at leisure for Gods worship merciful and charitable works to our selves our neighbours our servants our handmaidens our Ox and our Ass and the like which are the proper duties for a Sunday and other holy-days And because we are a trading covetous having worldly minded people if the King and Parliament think fit to allow us no other Holy-days but Sundays and half a dozen more in a year I am content And the late wrethced Rebels might with more right and good reason have taken occasion to rebel as Massinâ—…lla and his mutineers in Naples did by the spilling and overturning of a basket of Apples than from that honest Proclamation for sports published by King James and King Charles I. of blessed memory for lawful refreshments and recreations on Sundays and Holy-days after Divine service So consonant to the doctrine and practice of all Christendom and so agreeable with the great Law of doing as we would be done by And there is never a one of these spleenatick peevâ—…sh morose unsociable and hypocritical Pharisees but in their practice do as much contradict their own doctrine for the Sabbath as that so much talk'd of Proclamation has done every Sunday when they leave their maid at home carefully to look to the pot and the spit that all be ready piping hot precisely against the time that Lungs comes home when his Auditory is tyr'd perhaps more than himself Binding heavy burdens and grievous to be born and laying them on other mens shoulders but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers and saying as John of Leyden did upon the rack confessing the true cause of his Fanaticism and Impostures The people love to he cheated with Superstition and love them hâ—…st that gull them most Thus have I as briefly and as fast as my pen could write given an honest and down-right account why and how true Christians should keep a Sunday or other day holy though not according to the hypocritical and modern orthodox but consentaneous with all the truly Orthodox Christians in the world And in answer to what Father Grey-beard in a different character sets down as the Apocryphal opinion of the Reverend Bishop Bramhall but is an infallible truth p. 38. namely he maintains the publick Sports on the Lords day by the Proclamation to that purpose and the example of the Reformed Churches beyond Sea and for the publick dances of our youth upon Countrey-Greens on Sundays after the duties of the day he sees nothing in them but innocent and agreeable to that under-sort of people And he takes the promiscuous License to unqualified persons to read the Scriptures far more prejudicial nay more pernicious than the over-rigorous restraint of the Romanists And he took it well in so taking it For though no man can have a more sacred esteem and value for the holy Scripture and Gods word than I have knowing that it is profitable for instruction and to make the man of God perfect throughly furnished unto every good work Yet this good work of instructing out of it properly belongs to the man of God it is his province not incumbent upon every man nor possible to be undertaken by every man Because our English Bibles are not in every particular the word of God nor in any one thing the words of the Prophets of Christ and the Apostles who not one of them spoke English except perhaps S. Bartholomew and the modern Orthodox have no great kindness for that Apostle because of a certain Reason But chiefly because neither he nor any other Apostle delivered the mind of God and holy writ in the English tongue The English Bibles in the Translation at best being but a paraphrase or Homily of the word of God nor all that neither for these reasons that are unanswerable and infallible First because the English Bibles are in some places erroneous Secondly They are in some places scarce sence and of dangerous consequences when every pert bold and conceited fellow that only understands English takes upon himself to raise doctrines and opinions thence contrary to the sence and meaning of God in his holy word contrary to the mind and meaning of the Holy-Ghost as well as contrary to the sence of the Church and truly Orthodox I love not this discourse and could wish it were any bodies task and employment rather than mine it is so ungrateful and generally displeasing yet since this bold Greg. has given the occasion by reflecting upon the honest words of the most Reverend and learned Bishop Bramhall in these odde animadversions in things far above his shallow pate apprehension and reach Therefore now my hand is in
questions too if they pleased as the Doctors with our Saviour Luk. 2. 46. So that those worthy cares of the Fathers of Modern Orthodoxy in their Preachments has not so much as the face true form and resemblance of Christ's Sermons but is a whimsey cryed up so long by themselves till it has justled Sacraments Prayers Catechizing quite out of the Church having not the power of godliness in that there are no such villains as I said before as these Sermon-mongers upon the face of the earth as every body must acknowledge and confess except themselves who are always apt to find fault with other men for superstitious when they themselves are the most superstitious people I know in the world as I 'l show more fully on some other occasion superstitious at the best their sermonizing is and has been but that 's not all it has been blasphemous atheistical damnable and prophane as I have shown in their debauch'd interpretations and comments on Holy Writ and I fear it is so yet they do not use to amend And God looks upon these Devotions of theirs that they keep such a puther for but as the cutting off of a dogs neck and will say to them one day who required these things at your hands it is iniquity even your solemn meetings And they may thank the King and Parliament with all their hearts if like careful Parents they will not suffer these wilfull foolish head-strong people have their wills no longer be gull'd by a pack of cheats not permitting the blind Cobler Tinker Weaver Taylor Chimney-sweeper c. nor the wilfully blind but crafty canting Presbyter to lead the blind lest they both fall into the ditch remedilesly If I were to commend a Father it should be him that has a care of his Children and keeps them from hurting themselves spite of their teeth and that chuses rather to do them good than get their good will when they come to discretion which is not likely till they have wiser and honester guides then they 'l thank this good Father for his care Alas if they were in their right mind durst they blaspheme the Holy Ghost when they father their impertinent nonsensical blasphemous ravings in Prayer upon the Holy Ghost calling it the spiritual gift of Prayer and the Spirit of Prayer and I know not what good titles on so ill a deserving faculty obtain'd at best but by custom use confidence and volubility of words which I can speak as experimentally of it and knowingly as any Modern Orthodoxman yet do I not account my self for it a jot the better man being an Art of which every Porter Cobler Chimney-sweeper or Hector may easily be a Master and attainable by every common Billings-gate-scold I say again they lye to the Holy Ghost and blaspheme the Spirit of God that call such pitiful low easie and beggerly gifts the gifts of the Spirit other than of a confident foolish rash impudent blasphemous spirit that is rash with his mouth in uttering any thing before God before whom our words â—…ught to be few Eccles. 5. 2. Which brings to my mind that bold and seditious Petition which a Scotch Minister put up in his Prayer before Sermon in St. Peters Church at Colchester two or three years ago when he was about to pray for his sacred Majesty and our gracious Queen Katherine in these very words Gud Laird bless the King and Queens Majesties and keep them from aw Lownery but confund aw their Images and Idols gud Laird whether having none of the Kings Images in gud white Syller in his awn Pouch he was in hopes to get some amongst the factious crew so much the more by this libelling prayer or having the Kingscoyn in his pocket he never fear'd that God would hear his prayer in confounding those Images of the King sure I am he made a shift to chouce many of the Fops of the King's Images in good coyn and away he run with his Scotch Frow that followed him But yet I cannot think that the extravagancies of bold men in prayer even for the King are to be allowed or trusted to excellently provided against in our Liturgy to which I think all publick Preachers ought strictly to be limited And though many Ministers usually pray for the King in their invented Prayers before Sermons harmlesly one would think at the first blush yet upon stricter examination their Petitions for the King are but a kind of rayling and blasphemy as when they beg of God that he would be pleased to over-rule the Kings heart and make him a chaste pious wise holy just and temperate Prince and a thousand such like expressions and of worse nature not fit here to rehearse but infinuating and hinting as if he was a Prince that needed their Prayers in those particulars and sounds little better than Treason in rendring him to their utmost odious to his people For to pray in the spirit is to pray in the mind or spirit that is to mind what we pray and heartily beg the same of God in my mind or spirit whether I use words or no words in private prayer the matter is not great so that whether with words or without words my mind or spirit intercedes for mercies at the throne of Grace where the spirit of God helps our infirmites other prayer by the spirit there is none but all other than this is pharisaical babling out of ostentation covetousness or some base design unworthy of and inconsistent with so holy a duty whether in words plac'd in wonted order as most certain and profitable or in words of order diverted subject to rash uncouth if not nonsensical sometimes and blasphemous expressions And they that understand not this know not what it is to pray in spirit not knowing what they say nor whereof they affirm whilst these gifted brethren lie to the Holy Ghost as Ananias did how can they escape the judgements of God Father forgive them they know not what they say But when men Pray in Publick as the Church did Acts 4. 24. then they should render him the calves of their lips with one mind and one mouth too Rom. 15. 6. Glorifying God all speaking as in our divine Letany and Liturgy at least all saying Amen lifting up their voyces 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord as the Church did Acts 4. 24. And that you may be assured it was by a Common-prayer-book at that time in set words known to all it is said there they did lift up their voyces with one accord which is impâ—…ssible to be done but by a Liturgy otherwise one of the Church might be praying for faith hope or patience whilst others were praying for charity temperance or chastity c. and one would have done his prayers whilst another was scarcely heated at it or had not half done but to end the Controversie their set form of prayer is there registred upon Record in the 25 26 27 28 29 and 30. verses of that