therefore left us to the worse Tyranny of mens pretended and corrupted power and deluded imagination God forbid but as the hath set us free for ever so he hath only laid on us his own easie â—â—oke and light burthen of Pure and Evangelick ordinances by which our Liberty is so far from being intringed that it is thereby both preserved and enlarged In the next place you say Since no Allegorie holds it is ridiculous to argue because offices in a Kingdom are named by the King therefor it must be so in the Church It 's answered 1. do you then think that our Lords Kingdom is only Allegorick Or because the symboles and badges usuall in Earthly Kingdoms are in a figure thereto transferred is it therefore wholly a figure but God hath set his King upon his holy Hill of Zion and Know you assuredly that God hath exalted him to be both Lord and Christ bâ—wisâ— therefore and be instructed Kiss the Son lest he be angrâ— and learn to acknowledge his Kingdom in all the parts and privileges thereof by him declared Next it is most evident that not only Christs Kingdom in and over his Church is reall and certain and that Officers truely such vested with his Authority and therefore depending on Christ as King are held forth by the Scripture and to be really found therein but seing he himself hath in the Gospel so expressly founded their mission upon that All power given unto him and Paul so plainly referres the giving of Apostles c unto his Ascension and exaltation are you not ashamed to alledge these things to be only by us concluded from the vain appearance of an Allegory And thus to make your self ridiculous in that scorne you intended for others But poor wretch you adde That we may as wel say that there must be coin stamped by Christ as Officers appointed by him in his Church for this is the runing of your words Lord deliver you from this profane Spirit thinkest thou that the Kingdom of Christ hath need of money as it hath indeed need of Officers Or because money is current and symony a frequent practice in your Church hes it therefore any place in Christs true Church Sir your profane scoffing at the Kingdome of Christ is one passage amongst many that give me Confidence to say arise O God plead thine own cause remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee dayly But I professe I am confounded in my self when I think of my own provocations and on the iniquitie of his Sons and Daughters for if the abuse of the Glorious Gospel shineing amongst us in so much puritie had not been great he would not have given up the dearly beloved of his Soul into the hand of such persecuting adversaries and such scoffers at him who justifie these malicious mockers in Cajaphas Hall with an over-plus of wickednesse O if he would returne he would quicklie emptie Pulpits and Chairs in Universities of such who bend their tongues for lies and make the world see because they have rejected knowledge he hath also rejected them that they shall be no Priests to him The next thing you subjoin is what King will think his prerogative lessened by constituting a Corporation to whom he shall leave a liberty to cast themselves into what mould they please providing they obey the General Laws and hold that liberty of him Thus you will alwayes aspire to enter into the Counsel of God if your vote had been here asked it is very like you would have bestowed large privileges upon that Church where you might have been a sharer But we bless him to whom the Church is committed and on whom the Government is laid who hath provided better and given unto his Church complete Officers perfect Ordinances true Laws and good Statutes and ordered his house in all things and therefore as we are not to enquire what the Lord might have done but humbly and thankfully to acknowledge what he hath done so in these things for men to disown his Authority and deny his bounty and usurp to themselves a power of altering what he hath established and fashioning the worship and Government of Gods house according to the device of their own heart is no doubt no lawful liberty but a licentious invasion of Christ's prerogative and a jealousie-provoking sin of Laese Majestie Divine That thus it stands betuixt you and us the preceeding passages do plainly witness and the faithfulness of Jesus Christ as a Son over his own house so expresly commended and preferred before the faithfulnesse of Moses is an argument which you will never dissolve You say his faithfulnesse consisted in his discharging the Commission given him by his Father Most certain but you ask who told us that it I suppose you mean the appointing the Officers Ordinances and Government of the house of God was in the Fathers Commission Herein is a marvellous thing You know that Jesus Christ whrist was sent by the Father to redeem gather feed guid and Govern his Church and you see that as the things in question are thereto necessarie so in discharge hereof he sends out Apostles and Ministers Ordains Officers vests them with power and Authority instructs them to a Ministerial and lowly administration and deportment defines Censures appoints his Ordinances and Laws liberats the Worship of God from the shadows and types of the Jewish Pedagogie and cleares its true and spiritual exercise and liberty and finally acquits himself faithfully in all his house do you then question if he did these things or doubt you that he did them by Commission it is a hard Dilemma which you will never evade but you adde that if we argue from Moses it will inferre that all particulars must be determined whereupon you urge that as Moses determines the dayes of Separation for a legal uncleannesse why doth not the Gospel the like for spirituall uncleannesse It 's answered if you had taken up the Argument aright and considered the faithfulnesse of Christ and Moses not in order to the same but with relation to their respective Commissions You had not fallen into this mistake but the Scripture parallel is clear Moses as a servant did faithfully completely order Gods house therefore Our Lord much more as a Son hath thus ordered the Church his own house Whence as it doth no wayes follow that whatsoever things were institute by Moses ought to have been in like manner imitate by our Lord so this is most concludent that as Moses as a Servant did diligently and exactly execute his Commission in order to the Tabernacle its service Ministers and all its appurtinents so Christ both by reason of a command received and of his interest and power hath exceeded the faithfulnesse of Moses in the Ordering and appointment of things appertaining to his Church But for the better confirming our Reasoning and the removing of your Mistake I do only recommend to you this obvious truth viz. that the Commendation of our Lord held
regular and peaceable being in it the other the Church and men therein called unto spiritual duties and eternal life And lastly of their different administrations the one grounded on the dictats of reason and using external Magisterial authority and power and sensible rewards and pains the other proceeding on divine revelation and carried on by no such externals save a simple Ministerie and the power internal and spiritual and then I doubt not but you will of your self rectify such aberrations 2. The parallel of Gods Government over the World with the Kingdom of Christ over his Church is so far from concluding that Arbitrary or Architectonick power which you endeavour to set up in Ecclesiasticks equall to that in Civils that the contraire may from thence be sufficiently evinced thus therefore God hath not determined the order of Civil matters either in the World or in his Church because an Architectonick and free disposing Government limited with general rules necessare to its ends was most suitable to that almost absolute right and power which he hath given unto man in and over the things about which it is conversant but so it is that the things of the Church about which our Lord Jesus his Kingdom is exercised being wholly Spiritual are neither committed to our power nor left unto our arbitriment And plainly such whereof the Lord in all times hath reserved to himself the sole determination and therefore it was clearly necessare that all the Ordinances Ministerie and Government thereto pertaining should be also by him alone ordered and appointed which disparity doth not only reject but unanswerably retort your Argument from this pretense 3. Your great error and greater presumption in this question is that apprehending our Argument for the Determined Ordinances and Government of Gods house to be taken from the simple position of his Kingdom and the consequences that by allusion to the Kingdoms of the Earth may be thence deduced you remember not that the Scripture not only holds out his Kingdom and the nature thereof very distinctly but also doth particularly exhibite all the Ordinances necessare unto its ends and appointed to be therein observed So that our reasoning being wholly Scriptural both in its ground and superstructure your redargution from imaginary reason opposed to the clear and positive Counsel of God is plainly irrational if in the dayes of old Israel had changed the Law and Ordinances given and therein disowned Gods particular Kingdom and Government over them and notwithstanding thereof pretended to the liberty of the Nations about seing this their liberty was no wayes determined by but very consistent with the Lord 's high Soveraignity under which all do bow had this poor reasoning justifyed their rebellion certainly not how much less then can it conclude the exemption of the Church from Christs Kingdom in these Ordinances therein by him established of which the Lords peculiar Kingdom over Israel was but a slight adumbration But you say Seing justice is a part of Gods Law as well as devotion why doth not the Lord determine how his Church should be governed in Civils It 's answered Justice is indeed a part of Gods Law and he hath therein determined as particularly as the right which God hath given to man in Civils doth permit or the ends thereof do require but as this your Arithmetical equalizing of Mans liberty in matters of devotion to that power he hath in things Civil doth sadly discover the woful vanity of an unserious Spirit So the Geometrical analogie of Gods determining anent our Devotion wholly dependent upon his prescript unto his general appointment in matters of outward justice accommodate to that power and liberty he hath therein left us in place of inferring an equal power to Man in both doth on the contraire evidently demonstrate that the Lords determination in matters of Religion is as much more particular then his Commandments are in the things of justice as our Liberty in the former is more restricted then our Liberty in the latter if you had but considered thâ— th◠〈◊〉 hath given the Earth unto the Children of Men and that the things thereof being put under his feet an agreeable power of Government thereanent is certainly given unto his hand whereas our Lords Church and People are his peculiar people his chosen Nation redeemed and bought with his precious bloud and not their own let be to have the things concerning their Souls redemption in their power how happily had you been delivered from this strange confounding of things Sacred and prophane And how clearly might you have perceived that Gods Dominion over the World consisting in General Laws suited to its object and swayed by his Soveraign Providence in order to his holy ends doth bear but little likenesse to our Lord Jesus his Rule and Government in his Church as a Son over his own house and also its Ordinances But to inforce your point you adde that you hope we will grant that the Civil Peace is more necessary to the very being of the Church then is Order in Discipline Whence you insinuate that the former as well as the latter requires Chriâ—â—s particular determination Not to Scandalize you by frustrating your hope Sir you know so well that a thing though more necessary Yet if such only by a mediate and consequential necessity may therefore fall under a quite diverse disposition from that which though less necessary by this mediate and extrinsick necessity to the being of the Church then the Sacrament of the Lords Supper do the former therefore aswell and in the same manner with the latter belong to Christs Kingdom As to what you adde That it was for this reason that the things of Civil peace were determined in the Old Law This did so certainly flow from Gods peculiar interest in that People as a Kingdom as well as a Church that I make no answere That which you subjoin for evincing that either the Lords Kingdom over the Earth doth extend to the appointing of Civil Officers or els his Kingdom over his Church imports no such thing is so manifestly repugnant to the very nature of the things and the Lords declared pleasure the best decision Nay this whole discourse doth so foolishly and laxely cast and weigh things Religious and Profane in the same ballance of vain conjecture that I almost repent my noticeing of it so much but see the flatterie of delusion having made your N. C. childishly to decline all Reason as Carnal and in the fright forsooth of your strong reasons retreat to his Ministers and the Bible you ridiculously triumph over him and think your self so much Master of the field of Reason that insinuating your own praise in the description of Sound reason you puff at other mens as pitiful niblings thus being first in your own causeâ— you would seem just how I have Searched you let others judge for Scripture you tell us That to quâ—te it is not to build sure upon it the
that happens to be promoted and that the order or institution it self destitute of divine warrant and promise and clearly occasioned by evil contention and introduced into the house of God by humane invention could not at first have any thing in it recommendable and hath since produced most corrupt â—ruits Neither the existence of Many excellent and great men in this degree nor the laudable yea extraordinary advantages that the Church hath received from them in the concret can now justify and maintain the Order it self in the abstract If this arguing were good able and well qualifyed men vested with such a power or placed in such a condition have proven and may prove notable instruments of Good therefore it is reasonable and expedient that such a constant order should be erected we might not only have Bishops but most of the Monastick Orders of the Roman Church We finde Peter with the singular benefite of the Church exercing a power of Life and Death and that given him from above and not assumed could therefore an order of Church-men pretending to the like Authority be rationally thence maintained in the Church No wayes Accidental advantages do not commend unwarranted institutions much less can they justle out our Lords express constitution But it is he the perfect orderer of his own house who hath positively defined and blessed its Officers and their power and not left the matter Arbitrarie to the probable contrivances of apparent benefite farre less to the dissembling pretenses of mens Lusts and corrupt Interest 8. It is to be noted that although the great measure of Grace given to the Primitive Church and the hard and frequent persecutions wherewith it was exercised did for a time hinder that strange depravation and incredible â—ruption of wickedness whereunto the setting up of the Ancient Prostasia the rudiment of your Prelacie did from its first beginnings secretly and covertly bend Yet this is most evident that so soon as the Church of God obtained the countenance and was favoured by the more fond in many things such as excessive Doâ—ations and Grants of privileges then prudently pious benevolence of Secular Princes this Prelatick order which in its depression had been indeed honoured with many shining lights and Glorious Martyres attaining then to its ascendent did not only debauch the Lords Ministers for the most part unto idleness avarice and luxurie but continually climb up according to its proper Genius of Ambition until the Devils design in its rise and progress was fully discovered and consummate in the revelation of the Son of perdition 9. This being the rise progress and product of Prelacie in the first Churches as may be clearly gathered from the writtings of these times how it was introduced in other Churches thereafter gathered and brought in may be found in their Histories Only this is certain that as in almost no Church it can be shewed to have been coëvous with Christianity and in all the western Churches where it obtained place was ever a sprig of Romes Hierarchie propagate by her ambition and deceit and the like practices So the Church of Scotland in special was in the beginning and for some centuries thereafter instructed and guided by Monks without Bishops until palladius from Rome did set up Prelacie among us as many Authors witness Nay we may finde it on Record that even in the 816. year a Synod in England did prohibite the Scots any function in their Church because they gave no honour to Metropolitans and other Bishops By these observations having in some sort delineate the mysterious and crooked windings of this excrescing Power in its first motions and setting forth and very clearly and naturally traced its progressions and thence deduced that most prodigious production of the Antichristian Papacie as any considerate man may thereby easily perceive not only how it might but how de facto it hath crept into the whole Church without an Apostolicall introduction notwithstanding of all your contrarie insinuations so I am confident that what ever other advantages these primitive times had above our latter dayes yet our discovery made after so full a revelation compared to the obscure appearances of this wickedness in the first ages of the Church cannot be thereby rationally disproved and your scurrile disparaging of the latter times of reformation as the fagg end oâ— sexteen hundred years doth with little less success plead for the Pope and Antichrist then for your Anâ—ichristian Prelacie As for the rest of your discourse wherein you tell your N. C. that though the ancient Bishops were better men then either Bishops or Presbyters alive Yet in Presbyteries Specially in the matter of Ordination they were sine quibus non and what ever be the present abuse of the Episcopall power Yet it is a rational and most necessary thing that the more approven and gifted be peculiarly incharged with the inspection of the Clergie an order of men neâ—ding much to be regulate and seing all humane things and Presbytery also are liable to be abused the common maxime remains to be applied remove the abuse of Bishops but retain their use In answere hereto I need not inlarge he who knows Church History best will easily grant that as for the first Centurie and an half we have no vestige upon record of your Prelatick power So when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had place their concurrence in Presbyteries was only for order as being the Modâ—rators a consideration of the same exigence and effect whether they be fixed or unfixed and not from any peculiar power proper to them as a superior order A thing so certainly disowned by the primitive Church that even after the Bishops thought themselves well stated in their Prelacie and were beginning to contend among themselves for the Papacie Hierom doth plainly deny them any such prerogative above Presbyters and was not therefore contradicted by any How much more then doth this condemn that sole power both of Ordination and Jurisdiction whereunto your Bishops do pretend As for your alledged reason and necessity of promoting the better gifted over the unruly Clâ—rgie whatever application it may have to that naughty Company of your insufficient and profane Curats or Conformity to the Court yea the worlds prejudice against our Lord Jesus his Ministers and all his followers Yet these two things are most evident 1. That as that lowely and ministerial Government appointed by Christ in his own house admitting no superiority or inequality of power among Ministers is not subjected to and alterable at the arbitriment of humane reason so the advantage of Gifts whereupon you would found it doth so little favour your conclusion that the direct contrarie is recommended by our Lord as its best evidence and fruit he that will be chief among you let him be your Servant and that not only as to the grace of humility but in plain opposition to that superior Authority exercised in Secular Rule whereof the imitation in this place is expresty
The true NON-CONFORMIST In Answere To the Modest and free Conference Betwixt a CONFORMIST And a NON-CONFORMIST About the present Distempers Of SCOTLAND By a Lover of Truth And Published by its order HEBR. XII Ver. XIV XV. Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord looking diligently lest any man faile of the grace of God lest any root of bitternes springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled Printed in the Year 1671. To the AUTHOR OF THE CONFERENCE ALthough I judge it no less of my concernment then of yours to be concealed and unseen in this undertaking Yet seeing that I do not captate the empty praise of an affected modesty I am resolved in liew of your Stationer to the Reader and Friend to the Stationer to give the following Sheets this direct and immediate adress And to begin with my self as your Friend doth with you really I think I should have had nothing to say of such a nothing were it not in opposition to that Character wherewith he pretends to honour you He sayes You are a person of extraordinary Moderation and Peaceableness And no doubt these qualities understood in their due mediocrity and subordination are of notable value But that you can allow any difference of opinion but such as is incompatible with the peace quiet of the Chuch is an ampliation so little favourable to truths preference so inconsistent with these Scripture intimations of Heresies and divisions through mans corruption inseparably attending it that I cannot otherwise esteeme it to be extraordinary then as it is excessive If truth do allow nay require a synathletick zeal which error doth no wise warrant to accommodate their contradictions by an easie indifferencie is more agreeable to the love of this World then the love of God And verily your Friends excusing the tartness of some of your expressions from a zeal that he allowes against that uncharitable Spirit which can suffer nothing that is not exactly of its own vvay is not more calumnious in its insinuation against us who desire utterly to disclaime selfe conceit in all thir matters then unjustly restrictive of the true zeal of God no less enemy to an irreligious lukewarmness the apparent measure of your latitude and the extreme now so dreadfully prevalent then an humorous severity so little at present to be apprehended But let all who desire to be found of a true Christian temper seek first the Kingdome of God and his righteousnesse and as his peace and the love of the Brethren cannot be wanting so the quiet of the Church is best submitted to his good pleasure For the occasion of my writing the account which your Friend gives of the occasion of yours doth equally justifie it The English Dialogues please you and I assure you both they and their answer are displeasing to me I reflect not upon the method of Dialogues Nay I am so far from censuring it though I relish it not in thir matters that I am confident that had you and your English pattern managed it sincerily it had proven the ruine and not the support of your design But finding the English man so insolently scornful as not to rest satisfied with an answere which by taking sanctuary in the Act of Indemnity other such fearful fainting shifts did rather bewray then vindicat the commoun cause and perceiving by your little essay the humors of the unquiet Spirit in both Nations as you are pleased to speak evill of the uprightnesse of such who run not with you to the same excess of ungodlinesse not to be more the same then it is the same strange Spirit of Hypocrisie and irreligion that at present abounds so much in these Lands to the perverting of both truth and righteousnesse I was moved by these considerations to make you this free and round reply Your Friend sayes you designed not vanity by your few sheets written almost as hastily as they could be transcribed And the truth is I am so much convinced of it that I am more enclined to apologize for the seriousnesse that I have used in confuting such a trifling bable then to purge my endeavours of any such suspicion Only because he saith You wish that every one may see the weakness of these grounds upon which such specious structures are built which when they come to be examined prove but painted sepulchers I thought it worth my paines by clear descriptions firme demonstrations both of the solidity of the foundations and beauty of the superstructure of the work of God to check the tumor of this insinuat boasting But in the next place we have your great designe in your small Book and it is To let some well-meaning People who have a love to godlinesse see that Religion is not at all concerned in things wherein they do concern themselves very much and that in contending for the shell we are like to lose the Kernel of Religion Why herein is a marvellous thing if I may use the blind mans words since I think you would almost have me to lose that sight which he had then lately received while the things wherein we did concerne our selves were sincerily owned and improven Religion flourished holinesse was in request profanity was ashamed iniquity stopt its mouth and since by you and your partakers they were subverted and decried wickednesse only hath exalted it selfe and its blasphemous Impieties and violences have abounded to the very horrour of every ingenuous man And yet we must believe that Religion is not at all concerned in the change And your Friend doth attribute to you the confidence not only to write but to direct your writing to well-meaning People Lovers of godlinesse For this effect I shall not anticipate my performance in the ensuing answer only as I have singly aimed at the establishment of the Lord 's faithful remnant in this hour of great manifold temptations so I am hopefull that eternal life and the meanes thereof the Gospel and its Ordinances shall never be so divided in this Land as to separate the things that they and I do contend for from Religions real and true interest Your Friend sayes They are but the shell and not the Kernel of Religion And if I may presse his lame similitudes I would enquire whither he call's them so because of their use for conservation or their superfluity when broken off And though it be manifest that this later sense can only warrand his undervalue and is indeed a proper allusion for such who have not stood to devoure that which is holy and after vowes to make enquirie Yet I am assured that unto his second thoughts its absurdity will appear so palpable as by forcing him to the first meaning it will constrain him rather to contradict his asserting of Religious inconcernment in these matters being the special means of its preservation then prophanely to despise them as rejectaneous trifles The language and manner
Clergie is not in the Text Pray you Sir how came this in your head that we apply the title of Gods heritage to the Clergie or own them under this name Know you not that the usurping of this prerogative both by your and the Popish Church-men hath been alwayes esteemed by us an high arrogance As for your pretending to correct our Translation Pray Sir be sober and remember the respect which you bear to the Authors 2. I grant the Greek Verbatim â—â—ndered seemeth to sound neither as exercising Lordly authority over the Lots by which as your interpretation of a tyrannical domination is disproved so even your pretended exactnesse Your being wantingâ— is exceeded 3. Since the Lords People are certainly here meant whether you understand them to be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lots in order to their respective Pastors whoâ—e â—ortitions and divisions they are or as being Gods heritage according to the usuall signification of the singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heritageâ— and the clear Synonymous import of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the following part of the verse but being Ensamples to the flock it matters nothing as to our present business but plainly shews your impertinent curiosity However I wish you to consider that as we condemn the worldly and pompous usurpations of Prelats above their own degree and over their Brethren so we most of all condemn their spiritual Tyranny in Lording over the Consciences of Gods People whom they cease not now as alwayes to vex with their Pharisaick imposing and exacting of implicite obedience to vain Traditions and humane inventions more then obedience to the Commandments of God as will afterward appear Your N. C. proceeds to say that his chief quarrell against Bishops is that they are a function of mans devising and no where instituted by God To this you think fit to answere by way of retortion telling us of our great but vain pretenses to a jus divinum in severall things As first in the matter of Lay Elders thus Sir you deall wittily when you can do no betterâ— seing you cannot confirme your own opinion you endeavour at lest to subvert your adversarie but before I enter with you upon particulars I must tell you first that Presbyterians in pleading for a jus divinum do not pretâ—nd to a posiâ—tive and expresse prescription from Scripture of all the smaller points and circumstances either of decencie or order requisite to their Government and Discipline in as much as the regulation of these being abundantly provided for by the general rules revealed and the things themselves and their use such as ingenuous persons cannot probably mistake the want of express warrants in all or any such particulars cannot be justly cavilled at as a defect 2. That it had better become the sobriety that you require of your N. C. for you to have answered what many worthy Men have written for the jus divinum of Presbyterie then to have passed all with the empty censure of your own airy character of big talking and minding it as little as any could to the effect you may amuse your poor N. C. with a fear of your conceited quiblings but leaving these things with as confident an estimation as your undervaluing is vain and groundlesse to the impartial perusal of judicious Readers I do only here premise that whoever abstractly and seriously considers the clear light and obvious project of the Gospel will of necessity finde 1. That our Lord Jesus by vertue of that Kingdom and All Power given to him in Heaven and in Earth did for the carrying on and prospering of his pleasure the Salvation of sinners appoint in the Persons of his Apostles a perpetual Ministrie in his Church the summe of whose charge is both severally jointly to take heed to oversee and feed the Church of God and the chief part and dutie of which office is to Preach and Teach and consequently to reprove rebuke exhort remit and retain bind and loose c. in which things the heads of Doctrine and Discipline with their immediate power and warrant from Jesus Christ and their connexâ—on and dependence betuixt themselves do certainly consist and are clearly held out 2 As the Apostles were all the Ministers waving the matter of the Seventie whose mission and imployment was only locall and preparatorie unto every Citie and place whether he himself would come and to say the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you and de facto ended at their returne Luk 10. 1. 9. 17. appointed by Christ and in them the order office and full pattern of the Gospel Ministrie established 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even unto the end of the world so they are by our Lord vested with such equall power so expresly prohibited the aspiring to or usurping these degrees lawfull and allowed in secular dignities and so enixely commanded the lowliest humility and submission conceivable not only in their personall conversation but in their Ministrie that to introduce an imparity either of Power Dignity or stated Preheminence amongst Gospel Ministers is plainly to reject and deny our Lords institution and ordinance 3. That although the Apostles were singular above their successors in many respects such as an infallible assistance in the discharge of their Ministrie eminencie of Gifts an unconfined exercise an universall oversight and the privilege not only of our Lords peculiar and chosen Witnesses but of being the spirituall Fathers and Authors of conversion to almost the whole Christian Church yet were these prerogatives only temporary and necessarily requisite and suited to or depending upon the particular exigence of the Gospels first propagation and so far from changing or innovating that equality parity and lowlinesse of Ministers most manifest from our Lords command and appointment that on the contraire these other advantages hindered not the Apostles to respect and acknowledge the Pastors of particular Churches as partakers with them of the same Ministeriall power their fellow-labourers Brethren not in the bare name as your Prelats scorne their Curates and the Pope in his pretended sevus servorum Dei the whole Roman Church Compresbyters and in the Pastoral charge altogether their equals 4. As the power of Government consisting in the Authoritative deciding of Controversies according to the word of God the due application of Ecclesiastick Discipline and Censures and the right regulation of all other things pertaining to the Ministeriall function is clearly imported in the Command of Feeding and Over-seeing beside its naturall inseparability from the conduct of every rational let be Christian institution and Society and consequently only assistent and secondarie to the other offices of the Ministerie so the Lords command of that most lowly submission and simplicity incapable of the very notion of imparity which he opposeth even to that lawfull Authority and dignity allowed in civils doth in such a peculiar manner regard the exercise of this Governing Power that whether it be more absurd to introduce a
contradiction which you alledge it is for fallible men to say it seems good to the Holy Ghost is abundantly salved both by the infallible rule of the word to which they are astricted and by the never-failing promise of him who is the Truth and will be with his own to the end of the world And your lapse in this objection is but the same with your former against Ministers their calling their Preaching the Word of God which I have already fully confuted And thus I hope all impartial Men may see that the jus divinum being in this matter our rule the Independants have not the better of us as you groundlesly give out Next you proceed to challenge our Discipline and what warrant we have for it but seing as to the substance you are satisfyed by your N. C. Answere from the Excommunicating the Incestuous Person and the noteing these that walk disorderly together with his caetera which you may finde very clearly amplifyed by many able Men and do only fall a nibling at the circumstances of publick Repentance Why so many dayes which might be questioned of any number And why in a place of repentance And Why sometimes the use of Sack-cloath all well enough answered by your N. C. his telling you of the power of order in external Circumstances given to the Church for Edification I come to weigh the stollen advantage that you flatter your self to have gained over your poor Adversarie which you carry onâ— with the like questions As 1. Why may the Church impose such days of penitence and not as well order to all for the sins of the year the penitence of Lent 2. Why is a part separate for Penitents and not for communicating and thirdly Why may not a Church-man officiat in a Surplice as-well as a penitent put on Sack-cloth and that the simple may fancie a pungencie in these empty conceits you make your N. C. confess a surprisall and refuge himself in a childish implicite belief of his Ministers ability above his own whereupon you so vainly triumphe that I am ashamed to represent such a mean piece of pageantrie but to the matter dayes are assigned to Penitents because time being a necessary requisite and its lengthening or shortening very conducible for the end of publick Penitence the edification of the Church the deterring of others and the through convincing and gaining of the person according to either the quality of the offence or condition of the Offender its prudent regulation as of a matter therefore left undefined can no more be denyed to the Church then the exacting of Penitence it self but as for your expiatory quarantam of Lent as it bears no parity to the reason by me adduced so it imports such a delay of repentance hardening in sin encrease of Superstition and relaxing again to Licentiousness that it is hard to say whether its appointment be more groundless or its effects pernicious If you object its first rise and occasion from the wel-meaning observance of pious Men I will not tell you that the samine flowed from their mistake of our Lords total and Miraculous abstinence by the space of 40 dayes neither by himself repeated nor by his Apostles imitated Nor what a superstructure of vanity may be built on such foundations but when you consider its great depravation and bad fruits I hope you will easily incline to say What is the chaff to the wheat The invention of Man to the Ordinance of God 2. A place is separate for Penitents that they may be Noted Rebuked and Ashamed that others may fear but to separate a place for Communicating more then is done by us in the time of the Administration what shadow of reason can be adduced for it Specially after the Idolatrous superstition whereunto it hath been abused and from which unto this day mens mindes are not throughly purged Witnes these Superstitious Bowings Cringins and Kneelings which your English Prelatick-Church doth still retain As to the third point I will not say that where the Surplice in tâ—ken of Innocencie is most used the Sack-cloth of Penitence would be more agreeable Nor may I stand to shew you the Usurpation and evils of Mens imposing Significant Ceremonies others have done this already unanswerably but the Disparity which I finde in your inference is that Sack-cloth in Penitence for Grosser sins was by us appointed though not universally and constantly practised not as properly Significant either of the Penitents guilt or remorse seeing it hath to neither any suitable report but as that which being at first the squallid neglect flowing from and thence becoming the customable effect of deep and bitter mourning might be both a humbliâ—ng badge to the delinquent and a mean of fear to others whereas your Surplice is arbitrarily institute and imposed to signify Innocencie without either reall foundation or sufficient warrant wherein whether you do more usurp against God's Prerogative to appoint Sacred and mysterious Signes and that simplicitie in which he hath set forth his Gospel or be more grosly mistaken in the event and fruit of your application is a great question I grant that Necessity or Decence have introduced many things circumstanâ—ial that are rational and consequently upon some real antecâ—dent ground expressive of their use and end as grave apparel in Pastors a becoming covering of Pulpits Tables in sacred use regulation of time postures gestures and the like without which woâ—ship cannot be performed but to ascribe a liberty to the Church of appointing Ceremonies having for reason of their signification the will of the Instituter and their use only in the representation is so manifest an impingement upon Divine Authority and the Sacraments thereby oâ—dained and hath already produced such a mass of Superstitious superfluity in the Romish-Church that I much admire to finde a serious Person pleading for such fopperies specially seing that this once granted and common Resemblances sustained for good warrants not only all Christians might be put to yearâ— at least to assemble alwayes in their whites but all the Allâ—gories in Scripture as the drinking in of the sincere milk of the word stand thereforâ— having your loins girt c. And hundreds more may be turned unto such vain shows yea all Imagerie more probably allowed where you say that both Surplice and sack-cloth were equally practised under the Law I must by the waâ— tell you that I finde not Sack-cloth therein commanded as a solemn significant Ceremonie I say commanded as a solemne Ceremonie for that you finde it not only mentionâ—d as the ordinary concomitant of more grievous mournings nay by the Prophets even literally commanded as also baldnes sitting in the dust â—owling and wallowing in ashes the better to express that serious mourning whereunto the Loâ—d did call is plainly obvious and can only inferre that therefore and after this manner it is the more capable to be still contained And for the Surplice or rather the white linen and the Ephods
Ministerie of the word without usurping a stated superior Order of Governing as their special work let be immixing themselves by privilege in secular Courts and affaires 3. That they should be obeyed is this their power for discipline and Government set down in Scripture not also its rules limites Were the Apostles more then Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the Mysteries of God was not the sure word of Prophecie their great warrant When the Apostle Paul is about to set order in the Church of Coriath hear his Preface by ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ And as in the ordinance of the Lords Supper he only delivers what he had received of the Lord so even as to that smallest of matters the Length and Fashion of the hair doth he use any other Authority then what he seconds with rational persuasion How far was he then from that dominion over our Faith which you ascribe to the Church not only of appointing significant instructing Ceremonies but of abrogating things as expresly ordained in your opinion as the true Sacraments 4 You say That things should be done to Order Edification and Peace keep within these bounds and invert not this Method and we are agreed but if you subsist not in the regulation of the manner but wil impose New things which the Lord requireth not nay which he abhorreth even your own inventions framed to your own lusts and interests or produced by your delusions then make peace your Argument because ye will not allow it to such as in Conscience cannot conforme the Lord who hath founded Zion Reigns in it who hath builded his House rules over it will one day judge Thus you see how these your everlasting obligations do fully conclude all the truths that we assert Where you adde that the other Rules are now altered with the alterable state of things whereunto they were accommodate if you understand it soundly of these things only which are indeed ceased it is a very certain and allowable truth but you remember not that in the very Page preceeding you impute this alteration so groslyâ— to the bare Practice of the Catholick Church a very doubtfull terme and thereby not only unsetle Scripture foundations as to the Sacraments but endeavour to introduce such an arbitrary authority in the Church that in place of establishing true Christian Liberty which you seem here to assert it is evident that you go about plainly to set up an absolute Spiritual tyranny over the Church of God and so to load it with the Ceremonies and innovations a bondage more severe then the old dispensation from which we are liberate but blessed be our Lord Jesus Christ who hath delivered us not only from that old Law of Ordinances but hath made us free that we should be no more the Servants of Men nor liable to be judged in meat or drink or in respect of an holy Day or of the new Moon or of the Sabbath and having blotted out the hand writting of God's Ordinances that was against us hath put no new blank in Mens hands for their own devices and superstitions To conclude then in your own words these things are so rationall and also so clearly deduced from your own concessions that I see nothing either to be excepted against our Conformity to the Scripture pattern and the true Christian liberty both in opinion and practice which we maintain or to be alleaged for your pretended liberty consisting in a Licentious absurd imposing on such whom you acknowledge to be free But in order to this last point viz. your attempt to remove a Scripture rule easie in it self and imparting true Libertie to its observers and to set up an unwarrantable Yoke of Church Authority in its place I conceive it is that here you go about to represent your N. C. as a vain and clamorous boaster of the Crown Throne and Kingdome of our Lord on purpose to prejudicate against our just complaint of your invasion and Robbery but waving your Calumnious Methods I shal only endeavour to speak â—urth the words of truth and sobernesse I shall not here discourse of the Kingdom of Christ in all its parts whereunto we finde in Scripture both the outward Protection of the Church vengeance upon Adversaries and all judgement even the great and last ascrived but in order to our present purpose I affirme plainly that our Lord Jesus as the Redeemer is in a peculiar manner exalted to be Head and King in and over his Church by vertue of which Kingdome he sendeth forth and Authorizeth his Ministers hath defined their Order and Power determined Censures and given and declared Laws to be observed in his house and that in such a manner and in that perfection that in all things properly thereto relating he hath only left to the Officers by himself appointed a Ministerial power of administration so that there is neither place left nor power given to diminish from or adde to the Officers Laws Censures and Orders which he hath therein established that these things are so cannot be better cleared then by remitting you to our larger Catechisme where as you will finde satisfying Scripture proof for their confirmation so really I cannot but by the way recommend to you its more serious study for the curing of that loosenesse in Principles which almost in every thing you discover My part at present shall be to consider your strange discourse on this subject You say then Christ's throne Crown and Kingdom are inward and spirituall not of the World nor as the Kindoms of the World Sir though I acknowledge the Scripture phrase in this matter to be Metaphoricall Yet I wish you had better observed it and forborn the hard and unused expression of an Inward Crown But to the question Christs Kingdom is indeed in its power and effects the restriction a little above premised being remembred internall and Spirituall but doth it therefore follow that its administration is not externall and visible when the Lord declared all power to be given unto him and by vertue thereof sent forth his Apostles and Ministers and gathered Churches having peculiar Rulers Laws and Ordinances was not this both visible and audible Are not all the acts of Discipline and Government properly thereto referable of the same Nature Our Lords Kingdom is truely not of the World nor as the Kingdomes thereof is it therefore not in the World What doth this arguing conclude You proceed a great part of his Kingdom is the liberty whereto he hath called us and I grant that as liberty and deliverance from Sin and Satan are among its choise benefites and therefore the exultation of Zachariah his thanksgiving so our liberation from the yoke of Jewish Ceremonies and all such bondage is that which we readily acknowledge in opposition to youâ— unwarrantable exactions but what would you thence inferre because Christ hes liberate us from the former slavery and Pedagogie hath he
prohibite to Gospel Ministers but the ground of your mistake is that Notwithstanding our Lord hath said of himself and his Ministers that one is your Master and all you are Brethren and fellow-servants among whom an inequality of gifts may well consist with an equality of condition Yet restess and most subtile Ambition for gratiâ—ying its evil lust will even in a plain opposition commanded alleage the affectation and not the thing it self to be discharged and in the low liest state of Service devise superior and inferior degrees The second thing is that though I be â—arre from denying humane infirmities incident to Ministers as well as others and do heartily wish that the of â—nces by them occasioned may be alwayes as the most hurtful to the Gospel most seriously precautioned and regreted Yet I am sure that without regard to our Lords most gracious gifting and most wise ordering of his Ministery for the feeding and ruling of his people to affirme that neverthelesse there is no order of men needs so much to be regulated is a presumptuous and vain imputation against Jesus Christ the Head and King of the Church and his Oeconomie Hath our Lord taken so great paines to Separate Instruct Sanctify and send forth Ministers and promised them so special a presence and assistance for the oversight and conduct of Believers and darre any Christian say that even the order it self for alas I grant the men are but earthen vessels needs more then any other the contrivance of mans invention for its regulation But let none that honoureth Jesus Christ or remembreth the former Beautie Order and Successe of his Ministrie and Courts amongst us be offended this reflection proceeds from the same Spirit that accused our great Master as a Rebell and Usurper and his Apostles as the Troublers and Subverters of the World As to your conclusion when you have disproved the Divine warrant of Presbytrie and shewed both its occasion rise tendencie and proper fruits to be only evil as I have done in the matter of Prelacie then you may equiparat them in the point of abuse but seing the abuse of Presbytrie is only accidental from humane infirmity and that of Prelacie its most native Genius and Product Naâ— seing Presbytrie is indeed the right use of the Churches Government and Prelacie its manifest depravation the maxime which you adduce in its just application doth most clearly say remove the abuse of Prelacie and let the use of Presbyterie be reâ—ained The fourth DIALOGUE Answered SIR since you have said nothing that I have not to my self and I hope to all rational and impartial men satisfyingly answered and seing I can say it in Gods sight that in all the matters hitherto treated I finde in my heart a serious desire to please him in all things and also to comply with his Church and obey the Laws of the Kingdom in what I judge agreeable to his will with as much distrust of my self and charity towards others as humane frailtie doth permit In this perswasion truely and by your own verdict conscientious without either noticing the pitiful shift of a blind conscience which you make your N C. pretend or charging you with that arrogance whereupon you make him weakly to exclaime I shall proceed to consider the grounds which in this place you lay down You say then Private persons have nothing to do with Government submission and not judging is their part I cannot stand to discusse all the ambiguities that may be latent in this General but it is strange 1. That the Government of Gods house â—or that is the point betwixt us should be instituted by him for the Edification and Salvation of private persons and his own Glory as you cannot deny and yet they to have nothing to do with it 2. You say Submission iâ— their dutie And would you have it blind and not rational and conscientious 3. Our Lord hath defined the Government of his Church and did establish the same among us engaging us thereinto by a perpetual Covenant is it then nothing of our concernment But may we breake these sacred tyes and abandone our selves to an implicite compliance with every humane invention I grant that private persons are neither under a righteous constitution to usurpe the part of the Governours nor yet under a sinful unlawfully to solicite and endeavour an alteration but as in the former case both Reason and Religion specially where an Oath hath interveened doth oblige to maintenance so in the latter I am assured that all active owning and approving the thing whereunto we are pressed beyond a providentiall acquiescence is utterly sinful If you require my reasons there is none like your own viz. first because I am perswaded that what ever may be the comparative innocencie of an erring but well-meaning opinion Yet of every Soul who hath seen the Glorious light and work of God in the Lands and engaged himself thereto by solemn Covenant and now of late hath broken these bonds and concurred to change Christs pure Ordinances and set up establish or countenance Prelacie and its wicked Hierarchie God will surely either in this life as we have already seen in the convictions of many or in the last and great Judgement openly require it 2. Because not only perjury manifestly ingredient in the active submission and compliance which you exact hath a plain and direct tendencie to the blotting of the Soul but as the Gospel and all its Ordinances are designed to purify the heart So this of Government so clearly therein appointed and of so necessaire and effectual influence for the conserving of truth edifying of the body of Christ and perfecting of the Saints doth undeniably contribute to the same end And by these two easie rules it is whereby I heartily wish that both you and I and all men may examine our Consciencâ—s In the next place you tell your N. C. That we have no rationall ground to think you wrong in Matters of Religion do you then think that obedience to the Lords Command against swearing falsely and adhering to and owning the Kingdom and Ordinances of Jesus Christ are no Matters of Religion or have you already answered the full and just account that I have given of our differences But supposing there may be error on your side you adde that unless the error be of greater importance then the Communion of Saints is it ought not to unty the bond of the unity of the Catholick Church This is the rule which you gave us before in your first Dialogue and therefore I shall say little to it only if your meaning be that except the conjunction with the erring partie be of greater prejudice then separation upon that account we ought not to unty the unitie of the Church I willingly assent but if there be any other latent sense in your strange weighing the import of error with an article of Faith things quite opposite without all communication of degrees when
Christians ought not to press or judge one another in the performance or forbearance of things in themselves indifferent as acceptable and well-pleasing to God without his warrant and therefore the force and effect of humane Laws ordering and commanding things in order to the Politick ends of Government and in so farre by the Lord commanded to be obeyed are not by this Doctrine in the least demurred Now that your Ceremonies and other impositions being all relative to the service and worship of God wherein as every thing is to be observed with the faith of the Lords acceptation so nothing can be acceptable without his warrant are not of the nature of things as objected to civill commands but plainly such wherein Paul pleads for liberty is manifest Nay you your self know so well that the very things scrupled at by us as enjoyned toward a religious observance would be readily complied with upon any other reasonable occasion and that thousands who detest the Surplice would chearfully engadge in a Camisado for their Prince's service that I add nothing If you say that the things in debate though commanded for religious uses are never the less enjoyned not as acceptable to God and under this formality but are only necessary because commanded You bewray not only a sinful gaudie licentiousness of doing things for and in the house of the God of Heaven not commanded by the God of Heaven wherein even Heathens let be Christians have been tender but expose the purity and simplicity of Religion to all the corruptions of mans vain imagination As to what you adde anent the pretext which this liberty may give to offenders to decline Discipline it is yet less to the purpose in as much as submission to Discipline doth in effect flow from the Lords Authority whereby it becomes necessary and Mens part therein is only a naked ministerial application Lastly if you object that publick Peace and Order require your conforming obedience Your opinion and method in this point is much different from the Apostles he makes it his great argument not only for not judging and censuring Non-conformists but also in the case of offence for complying with them in their forbearance That we ought to follow the things which make for peace and wherewith one may edisie another But you and your partie for all the noise you make for publick Peace before you tolerat a Non-conforming in the greatest indifferencies and howsoever tender and innocuous will sooner both deprive your Brethren of Peace and for your vain trifles destroy the work of God whereas though you had faith in these things yet you ought to have it to your selves before God But Sir it is already too manifest that as in practice you know not the way of Peace so in this discourse by pressing a strict obedience from the free Spirit of Christian liberty which you seem to commend you palpably condemn your self in that which you appear to allow Having thus farre in the pursute of your reasonings digressed in the explanation of true Christian Liberty because of its after use in the perusal of your remaining purposes I shall not stick in the considering of what you make your N. C. add That we forbear the things pressed for avoiding the scandal of others I have already told you that the reasons of our forbearance have no less then the indispensable motive of the will and Oath of God Yea suppose the things required were meere externals and indifferent as they are not yet I have so clearly proven that your abridging of our Christian liberty therein by vertue of your commands is in it self repugnant to the Apostles Doctrine and in its effects pernicious that your requiring to make the restraint of Authority abused to these impositions the warrant of Practice to the forcing of Conscience and the offending of a Christian Brother is a Sophisme no better then if the hardie practiser or proud imposer who is expressly commanded in Christian tenderness to regard his Brothers offence should by a vain pretending of his own offence taken from the others indulged forbearance or recusancie thereby turne the Argument and elude the exhortation to the very scorne of Scripture That which I rather observe is that seing that to give Scandal is not ill defined by you to be a stretching of our liberty to practice to the drawing of others to the like or grieving or making them weak who have not the same clearness why do you not begin your application at Prelats Who having first streatched their practice to the ensâ—aring do also frame unjust decrees to the forcing of such who have no clearness to conform And on the other hand ought you not to indulge such who only desire to reâ—uge their Conscience in the Sanctuary of an allowed forbearance But these are the men whom having first sinfully spoiled of liberty you scornfully abuse by telling they may now act without regard to Scandal since you do permit them no liberty to the contraire But I hasten to your more closs examination of the matter of Conformity And first you ask why do not our Ministers join with your Courts for Church-discipline It 's answered it were tedious to examine the follies of you and your N. C. in this point we join not in your Courts because they are not the Courts of Jesus Christ but of the King and Prelates If this you deny read the Act Par 1. 1661 Sessâ— 1. Concerning Religion and Church-Government the proclamation of Councel thereafter discharging all Presbytries untill Authorized by the Bishops and the Act Par. eod Sess. 2. For the restitution of Bishops where as you will finde that Presbytries were made Precarious as to their continuance not as to their right which is indeed Divine by the first Act and then simpliciter discharged and broken up by the Proclamation so that which returnes in their place by the last Act and what ensued is not the former Presbyteries but only the Exercises of the Brethren having both their regulation and authority from the Bishops who have all their Church-power and Jurisdiction in a dependance upon and subordination unto the soveraign power of the King as Supream So that the Kings Authority and Prerogative Royal is plainly the proper fountain and last resort of all the power and jurisdiction to be found either in your Church or its Meetings Nay further this 〈◊〉 so certain that as his Majesty doth not so much as pretend a Commission from Jesus Christ as the anointed King of his Church for this effect which yet the Pope in his most wicked usurpation did alwayes Judge necessary so if it be Treason as it is dict sess of the same Parliament act 3. to derogat from the prerogative of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and if absolute supremacie in Ecclesiasticks incapable either of superior or conjunct do thereto by the late Act of Supremacie appertain certainly to make our Lord so much as a sharer with the King in
in the wayes and paths of the Lord and more especially in the large and all-searching discoveries of the minde yea of the deep things of God and what strange exercises have been and may be in the experiences of the Saints the result of this liberty and of the variety of our unstable condition Iacob's wrestlings Davids heart commuâ—ings Spirit-searchings overwhelmings and again exultings Ierimiah's mournings and Daniel's supplications do exhibite a few examples Now that the imposing of Forms which are set certain and determined doth stint this liberty and cannot possibly quadrat to all the variety above mentioned needeth no other evidence then that of an ingenuous reflection I have already acknowledged that in the right using of several of your Forms a man may have his heart very deeply affected and now I further suppose for argument that such may be the aptitude of a full and sound composition as may possibly suppeditat petitions and expressions convenient to every exigence but yet that the Spirits free use-making and mens stinting thereof to these Forms do vastly differ cannot be denyed since that notwithstanding of all conceded the enjoining of these impositions is not only inconsistent with the free methods but also doth confine the illimited enlargements of the Spirit as cannot but be obvious to any exercised discerner But that which I suppose doth induce you and many others into an error in this particular is a preposterous observation of certain good motions and sincere and servent devotions which possibly some may feel in the use of your Common-prayer-book whence you inadvertently conclude that the same Forms not appearing obnoxious to the escapes incident to extemporarie expressions may more safely and sufficiently serve to the exciting and signifying the like spirituall motions and devotions in all whereas it is certain that as in the former case these motions were only the free breathings and stirrings of the Spirit and in a manner accidental to these Forms wherein they come to be uttered so to ty the same free influences to the manuduction of a set of words is more absurd then the same words are often found to be incompetent to the setting forth of the singularity that may be in the case of the Supplicant whether a whole Church or single Person Really Sir when I consider that the Lord craves the heart and that men Worship him in Spirit and that it is thence and out of its abundance that the mouth ought to speak and from a beleeving heart that the tongues confession is acceptable I cannot but wonder how this inversion of preceeding and leading Forms should be so much asserted and certainly if we may after the Lord's example Mal. 1. 8. reason in these things from self reflection may not the knowledge we have of our own way in such supplications to or from our Neighbours wherein the heart and not the justice and merit oâ— the sute comes to be regarded teach us to reprobate and nauseate such impositions If in hearty requests we ourselves can neither be confined in the making to a rat of words put in our mouth nor relish the like practice from others and do censure such methods as too cold and indifferent how much more should we stand in awe to obtrude them to the Father of Spirits the searcher and lover of the heart I might arise higher upon this subject and demonstrate to you from the order of nature which certainly the Lord hath principally ordained for his own Worship Service and Glory that the heart and minde and not the eyes common sense or memory unless in so farre as is requisite to the joining of the hearers in Publick prayer ought to preceed in all and without question did preceed in the first acknowledgements rendered to him by his creatures but I neither love nor need to admixe such reasonings to these Scripture-grounds already adduced I shall therefore summe up this argument with answering two objections viz. That I seem 1. to forget that our Ministers in publick prayer do as much preceed and lead the peoples devotions and affections by their conceived words as if they were set and predevised 2. To suppose that all who can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a suteable utterance And to the first it is answered 1. That it is evident that the People may and ought to joine in publick prayers uttered by one as their mouth although the samine be by him conceived and to them unknown until expressedâ— this is clear from the practices of God's People in these publick prayers of David Solomon Iehosophat and others already mentioned and you your self lay it for the ground of an argument viz that the people can joyne and pray by the Spirit though the words be not of their framing 2 That although our Ministers do preceed in words yet seing the people are gathered in the Lords Name and he with the power of his Spirit in the midst of them and the Minister is called and appointed to oversee them know their condition and necessities and to be their mouth toward God and lastly seing there is a promise of the Spirits publick aswell as private assistance whereupon we may assuredly confide both for a due instruction sense and utterance in the Minister of the Peoples state and exigence and a sweet uniting of their hearts in an harmonious concurrence the agreeablenesse and advantages of conceived and not imposed prayer are thereby abundantly conserved and the difference betwixt the Ministers preceeding in free and Spirit-directed words from the manuduction of your restricting forms manifestly held forth Offend not that I say Spirit-directed words for if I should descrive Prayer in the utterance to be the expressing of these desires which through the Spirit we make unto God in the name of Jesus Christ for things agreeable to his will in words directed by the same Spirit and thence draw an argument for reprobating your vain devising and rigid commanding of Forms which practice the Lord hath neither ordered nor blessed I should but define the dutie according to the Precept and Promise which is no more impugned by the mixture of your infirmities then the account given by you either of internal praying by the Spirit or external by a Set-form which as from us do alwayes labour of imperfection are thereby made void As for the second objection that I seem to suppose that all that can or ought to pray in heart are also qualified to a â—uâ—eable utterance I answere 1. That my present discourse of conceived Prayer doth no more suppose all to be thereto qualified then your discourse of internal Prayer by the Spirit doth warrant the like construction how men do pray and how they ought to pray are easie to be distinguished 2. The Spirit of supplication is no doubt promised not only for inward motions but also for outward suteable expressions and the teaching of God is sufficient and may be forthcoming for the one as well as for
above all things plead the necessity and alone sufficiency of the Righteousness of Jesus Christ for our Justification But to restore your words to their own channell you say that since all must be condemned if God enter into judgement therefore God gave his Son unto the death for us that thereby we might obtain Salvation And though by this passage it be clearly enough imported that it is before God and by the sentence of his Law that all men stand condemned and that therefore he hath given his Son whose Death and Bloud is the Propitiation and in whom he is well pleased to be a ransome for liberation and acceptation to all that believe on him whereby Justification by faith in Jesus Christ without the deeds of the Law is in substance granted yet for ushering in your good works to share with faith in Justification by a strange connexion you subjoin And all judgement is committed by the Father to the Son and Iesus Christ hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospell and live according to it But I must take notice 1. That by laying down the commission of judgement given to the Son as a ground to his proposing of the Gospel offer you manifestly repugne to our Lords own words and testimony expressly distinguishing the character of his first coming which was in the form of a servant to minister not to be ministered unto and by performing the Fathers commandment to save the World and not to judge it from that of his second coming which shall be with power and great glory to the Salvation of all that look for him and to judge and to execute judgement upon all that are ungodly 2. By making our Lords commission to judge antecedent to his ministration of the Gospel you invert Truth and plain Scripture-evidence whereby it is clear that our Lord was first sent into the World to preach the Gospel and lay down his life for sinners that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life And then because of his compleat and perfect obedience is exalted to be the Head of all things unto the Church and hath Authority also to execute judgement committed to him because he is the Son of Man But. 3. By this your doctrine you in effect subvert the grace of the Gospel in as much as in the place of the Gospel-covenant offering pardon and peace to poor lost sinners through Christ Jesus and with and in him all grace and glory you introduce our Lord as having by his death indeed merited the privilege of a new offer of life unto sinners but making and renewing the same in no better termes then these of the Law-covenant for as the Law sayeth that the man that doth these things shall live by them so you tell us that the termes of the Gospel-tender are to receive the same and live according to it Now if the Law doth offer life to such as receive and live according to it and our Lords proposal stand in the like termes admit the proposers not to be the same yet the proposals are certainly coincident and therefore although the eternal transaction betwixt the Father and the Son may be of Grace yet it is undeniable that in your opinion the tenders of the Law and Gospel as to us-ward do rune in the same tenor and the condescendence of both prerequiring our works is equally to be reckoned of debt These being the consequences of that Gospel-method by you here contrived and its designe no less evident to make works with saith the condition and procuring cause of our Iustification at least in the sight of Christ as the Judge appointed I add 1. That your attributing of Iustification to Christ as judge ordained over all in the last judgement is contrary to the Scripture that telleth us that it is one God that justifieth it is Christ that died marke the distinction made and no doubt reason it self informing us that it is the Law and Law-giver and not the Judge which define dutie determine paines and condemne the transgressors poenae enim persecution non Iudicis voluntati mandatur sed legis authoritati reservatur It doth also confirm that it appertaines unto God only as the Law-giver to remit the punishment incurred and accept and justify sinners upon an aequipollent satisfaction 2. The Authority to execute judgement being given to our Lord as the Mediator and because he is the Son of Man in which respect he is not the principal Author and efficient but only the meritorious cause of our Iustification not the very act but only the solemn declaration thereof can be ascrived to him in this capacity unless you can conceive that our Lord is not only both the Ransome and the accepter thereof but that by becoming the Propitiation he also becometh the partie to be appeased which are palpably inconsistent 3. The plain Scripture-truth in this point is that our Lord having compleatly obeyed the will of God and being made perfect through suffering is therefore highly exalted above every name and hath all power and judgement committed to him whereby as he doth here in time enrich with all Grace guid support and preserve all that beleeve in him and also over-rule restrain and punish all his and their Adversaries so shal he in the last day appear first to receive and welcome all his redeemed ones formerly justified by his Righteousnesse and sanctified by his Grace unto his Fathers joy And then with them to judge the reprobate and take vengeance on all that know not God and obey not the Gospel by which it is evident that Justification proceeding from God for Christs sake and necessarily preceeding both our Sanctification here and Glorification in the last day cannot be referred unto that judgement which is only declarative and executive according to these words Come ye blessed of my Father nor explicate according to its scheme And therefore although our Lord do therein for our encouragement in well doing and the commendation of the riches of his bountie make mention of our good works and shall certainly in that day also crown his own free grace in us with a reward yet thence to inferre that our Justification before God and in order to his holy justice having for its alone cause the Righteousnes of Jesus Christ and imported in the compellation ye blessed of my Father is founded on our weak love and scant charity which even the Righteous in that day seeme ashamed to owne is both a groundless error and high presumption But I proceed to your next words viz. That Christ Iesus hath proposed life through his death to as many as receive his Gospel and live according to it That this is a manifest perversion of the free Grace of God whereby our Lord Jesus doth freely hold out himself unto us not only for to be our Righteousnesse for Justification but also our Sanctification through his Spirit unto the glory of God and therefore
That being made free from sin and become servants to God we have our fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life Now then if there be a constraint in love and gratitude above the perswasion of fear and if the desire of reward be powerful above the apprehension of punishment these considerations are certainly cumulative and in our way above any thing that yours doth contain That I may therefore summe up this discourse anent the necessity of holiness Know that without holiness none shall see the Lord But hence it doth so ill follow that holiness by way of previous condition is to be joined unto our Faith in order to our Justification that on the contrary as God hath elected us in Christ Jesus to be holy so he also justifieth us through Faith in his Name not because we are but that in and by him we may be partakers of the glorious riches of his free grace in begun holiness here and consummat holinâ—ss in Glory hereafter and hereby is our obligation unto and study of holiness so far from being remitted that it is both promoved by the same standing fierie Law against all sin ungodliness and strengthened by that alsufficiency of grace which is in Christ Jesus for our compleating to whom through Faith we are united And lastly we are bound and encouraged unto it by all that is most binding in the Laws Authority and obliging in Divine bounty To all which this consideration may also be superadded that as the exercise of holiness remaineth with us still under the obligation of Divine precept and is certainly the end and effect of our acceptation in Gods sight so the same being the necessary consequence and inseparable effect of beleeving and thereby becoming its most assured test must upon this ground stirre up as effectually unto the truth and sincerity of Faith whence it flows and which doth again incite to the sincere closs and constant study of holiness by a reciprocal influence as your vain stating of it as a condition in our Justification doth but lamely perswade its persuite But I hasten to the last part of your discourse viz. That it is upon the necessity of holiness that we shall be solemnly judged justified and absolved at the last day I cannot now enlarge upon these mistakes that are again by you crouded into these few words it may here suffice that I tell you that it is without all doubt that on that day all men shall be solemnly judged according to the holy Law of God and therefore seing by the deeds of the Law there shal no flesh be justifyed in his sight The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that beleeve without the mixture or conjunction of our imperfect righteousness in the often forementioned respect is only thereby the more recommended 2. Where you say that it is upon this so understood necessity of holiness or upon our holiness that we shall be in that day solemnly justifyed and absolved you erre and impinge most grosly contrary to Scripture-evidence the value of Christs Righteousnesse the holiness of Gods Justice and the glory of free Grace as I have already demonstrat I grant indeed that in that day when our Lord shal gather into one welcome and appear glorious in all Beleevers he will also confess them before his Father and the holy Angels commemorate their charity and good works and in the exceding riches of his bountie reckon his own grace in them unto the increase of their reward but thence to inferre that it is upon our holiness that we are justifyed and absolved in Gods sight is destitute of all truth and reason Nay the very figure of that judgement wherever represented in Scripture bearing only in order to Beleevers their solemne reception and welcome from our Lord and Saviour as such who are already in him blessed and justifyed and by him redeemed and sanctifyed doth most plainly and powerfully confute it And thus I hope I have evidently demonstrat not in the language of men or in Schoole termes which on purpose I have declined but in the express revelation of the Gospel that that Doctrine of yours which you make your N. C. only to taxe as singular in its phrase and you your self do the more commend as being closely Scriptuâ—al is in effect both vain and antiscriptural in matter as well as expression What you mean by preferring the stile of the Catholick Church to Modern and Scholastical expressions under which the Doctrine of all the Reformed Churches is unavoidably comprised let others judge but as for the abuses which you mention viz. the presumption of such who love to hear of Salvation by the Death of Christâ— provided they be bound to do nothing themselves that they may be saved seing there can be nothing more engaging and effectual unto holiness then that which in Scripture termes we do assert viz. That we are saved and called with an holy calling not according to our works or doings but according to his own purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus the sin thereof remaineth with the Authors and pure and certain truth is neither thereby lessened nor ought to be stumbled at And therefore having fully redargued the falsehood of your Doctrine and the vanity of all your pretenses that I may once for all vindicat this most precious and important truth of Iustification by Faith only from all calumnie and warne all of that delusion which you would very unjustly make proper to our way I plainly and positively affirme that the study of holiness is a most necessary and indispensable dutie unto the justifyed Beleever 1. By the necessity of Divine precept at length above declared 2. By the necessity of loves constraint holiness being both amiable in it self and the high path way leading unto the seeing and enjoying of God who therein delights 3. By the force of fears perswasion in regard of Gods fatherly displeasure against all sin a motive most tenderly perswasive to all that are truely godly 4. By the obligation of gratitude which is indeed the cords of a man and cannot but powerfully engage the Beleever to the constant acknowledgement of God's free love and grace and to walk worthy of him who hath delivered us from death and called us with so heavenly a calling 5. For the manifestation to our selves of our faith and justifyed state to our own peace and comfort 6. For the adorning of the Gospel to the edification of others nay in a word if our felicity be in God if glory be our desire if free grace be the most powerfull attractive and sufficient help and if there be any dread and terror from Gods displeasure the study of holiness is by the united force of all these motives most strongly recommended and by the wonderful free love of God in our Justification through faith in Christ Jesus only yea infinitly intended In the next place your N. C. having acquit
thoughts they appear to be but extrinseck and of little moment so pray Sir whence did they proceed And what have they produced Certainly if either serious reflections upon all the Ages of Christianity especially upon these alterations that have happened amongst us since the Reformation or a just consideration of the present condition and state of affaires could have place as the pride and avarice of corrupt Church-men and consequently of the worst of men assisted since the rejection of the Pope with the same irreligious spirit and practices observed in former times of an aspiring Supremacie moving under the specious pretexts of order and peace will appear to be the only spring and cause so ignorance profanity violence and distraction will be found the woful fruits of these innovations But it is of the Lord for the punishment of our iniquities especially our not receiving and walking worthy of the glorious Gospel that judgement is farre from us neither doth justice overtake us we wait for light but behold obscurity for brightness but we walk in darkness We look for judgement but there is none for salvation but it is farre from us The Lord see to it and let his Arme bring salvation and his name be glorified As for the concluding complement of affection which you do here give your Non-conformist and make him to repay at our cost with the confession of his former unmeasured fury it is but too palpably the wantonnesse of your own extravagant fancie wherein to looke for more truth then you do shew constancie in your resolution to put a point to these matters controverted and never to resume them againe were great weaknesse You add in words Let us provoke therefore one another to charity and good works and yet we know your practice to be to press your trifling conformity and provoke the Powers against such as cannot comply We have indeed a blessed exercise for our tongues even with them to bless God the Father but since you do persist in your maligning the wayes work and people of God your mouth must and shall be stopt if the small endeavours by me used might make you minde the pursuance of truth more then the study of your so often repeated Temper my satisfaction would be little inferior to your advantage but seing both your words and works do shew that thou art neither cold nor hot but lukewarm I counsel the in the words of the great Counseller To be Zealous therefore and repent behold he standeth at the door and knocketh if any man hear his voice and open the door he will come in to him and sup with him and he with him To him that overcometh will he grant to sit with him in his throne even as he also overcame and is set down with his Father in his throne And thus passing your preposterous postscript and your Icarian Pindarick I proceed to your Continuation The Continuation OR The seventh DIALOGUE Answered SIR Beginning this your seventh Dialogue with your ordinary insinuations whereof the slender artifice obvious to the first view needeth no further discovery I only take notice that where your preface affirmeth that the true reason of your consenting to the publishing of the former Dialogues was That since yow had allayed a great deall of the heat you met with in your N. C. upon these matters you presumed it might produce the like good effect in others It is an alledgeance too serious to be groundless and beyond what the license of the fictitious form of your conferences will allow and therefore since any excess of heat that appeares in your N. C. is not ours but purely your own invention your pretense of having allayed it doth both bewray your vanity and shew this to be indeed the true cause of the publication As for the advantages yow reckon upon yow reckon before your Host reckon again and then boast of your Reason But you would also be accouâ—ted a Droll forsooth though you say you have only adhibite somwhat of that not out of humour but for sweetening the transitions according to the manner of all Dialogues certainly you Latitudinarians are all brave comprehensive spirits Masters of all good qualities whether you possesse them or not and yet I dare affirm that a pleasant humorist will laugh more at this passage of your conceitedness then all the drolries that hitherto you have vented But now begins your half-proselited N. C. and without connexion tells you that some charge you with Socinianisme others with Poprie others with Arminianisme and others with Quakerisme though as it seems to him upon very slender grounds Sir what may have moved you after what we have heard in your sixt Dialogue again in this place to resume these things to so small purpose I do not conceive You shew as if you were extremly picked by such reproaches and tell us that you know the arts of such who will tell their people that you are unsound and heteredox and back ther hard words with grave nods and ivry faces Poor man your passion is stirred and I am sorry to find you so impotent as again to relapse in such a childish reflection whereas to have used it once before was too much and unworthy of your gravity Buâ— sure who ever are your accusers who really to me are unknown they have too visible an advantage in this your weakness and if many men be not mistaken no less ground of retortion in your own scenical gesticulations and affected grimaces The thing I am concerned to notice is why being so sharp in your resentment are you so scant in your purgation You ask if they do understand things who charge him with Socinianisme who believeth that Christ is the eternal Son of God and hopes for salvation only through his blood And I grant that these things being truely understood and believed as I hope you do are indeed the truth opposite to the Socinian errors But seeing you know that some Socinians do also very easily admit and acknowledge the same form of words and that the cardinal point of this Controversie is whether or not Iesus Christ the Son of God be indeed essentially naturâ Deus according to that Scripture And we are in him that is true even in his Son Iesus Christ this is the true God and eternal life I wish you had chosen the same positive assertion for your vindication As for your clearing your self of Poprie in the matter of Justification because forsooth that you ascribe all we receive in this life and in that to come to the love and grace of God thorough Iesus Christ. It is so far from being a sufficient test of your orthodoxy that I am confident there is scarce one understanding Papist who would not say it were a calumny to charge them with the contrary Nay you your self in your sexth Dialogue do plainly say that they hold the foundation Jesus Christ and expressly wave their opinion of Justification in the enumeration of
to us further encouragement and punishing us not for Conscience since none hath suffered because he was for Presbytery or against Episcopacy but for unruly humors and practices Sir if our complainings and mournings were according to their just causes viz. our high handed Rebellion against God unparalleled breach of Covenant perjurious subversions and alterations of the Ordinances of God aswel as the Laws of the Land with the profanity ignorance and violence that have thence abounded and filled the whole Land neither should I or any of the fearers of the Lord have eyes to write or read this my vindication It is true all this iniquity and mischief is introduced and established by form of Law and thence you take the impudence to smooth it over as if there were no more in it then the alteration of Laws nay as if what before the Act Law made were righteously refused out of conscience after the accession of an humane injunction could not be forborn but out of humor And as if Conscience and Laws could not inteâ—â—ere you go on to tell us That the reason of our suffering is neither our adhering to Presbytery nor our nonâ— compliance with Episcopacy but only our unruly humors and practices But seing the colour of Law which you pâ—etend is indeed no relief of conscience but the greatest aggravation of that Apostacie and persecution whereof we complain and that notwithstanding of any reproch wherewith you do slander it the true cause of all our sufferings is none other then our stedfastness in the Oath of God binding us to the maintenance of Presbytery and extirpation of your Prelacy And lastly seing that we bemoan no violence either to death banishment bonds or spoile which the taking of your Declaration against the Covenant would not certainly have prevented the witness of our cause and sufferings who is in Heaven heareth and will reprove your lies As for our excess you say We make complaints to to God as if Heaven and Earth were mixed and adapt all the lamentations of Ieremiah to our sorry matters comparing the overthrow of Presbytery to the Babylonish captivity But oh that the causes of our grief were thorowly weighed and the hainousâ—ess of our provocations with the calamities come upon Gods House Ordinances and Servants laid in the balance together certainly then you should more regrete our defect then now you mock at our excess And in asmuch as sin is more grievous then judgment and judgments spiritual heavier then judgments temporal Nay Gospel Ordinances more precious then these of the old dispensation You would judge the overthrow of Presbytery visibly accompanied with breach of Covenant and the rejecting and expelling of the Lords ministry far more important at least in these respects whatever other aggravations there might have been in that distress then the Babylonish captivity To these objections you adde Now were your way what you imagine you should rejoice that you are called to suffer for it and not make such tragical complaints Who ever heard such ridiculous discourse in such a serious purpose Your N. C. doth only plead for a due concerning regard to the state of the Church and the interests of Iesus Christ you your self allow a fervent solicitude to God-ward in behalf of His Glory and the good of His People And we do not only propose for imitation the practice and exercise of Gods Servants who both of old of late in all times have from the love zeal of Gods Glory made the desolation of Gods Sanctuary the corrupting and removing of his Ordinances with the persecutions of his People matter of heavy complaint and deep mourning but do also greatly rejoice in that grace and glory whereby the Lord hath countenanced and beautified the tryals of particular sufferers amongst us no lesse then these of any other his Martyrs upon record And yet after you have confounded the complainings of the Lord's People of old for the desolations of his Sanctuary with their concernment in their own private losses and falsely and vainly distinguished betwixt the duty and deportment of Gods People under the old and under the new dispensation in order to afflictions you say dully without any connexion or regard to the mixtures of the cup of Gods People Our way is not what we imagine els we should rejoice that we are called to suffer for it But the Lord who giveth us both strength and joy in our sufferings doth also know and hear our mournings and will reprove your mocking But you say That our bitternesse against our enemies looks nothing like the mildnesse of Christ or the primitive Sufferers How long will you love vanity and seek after leasing That we approve not bitternesse against our persecutors upon any account is our serious profession whereunto our practices ought to be conform But with all that we hate their way pray that they may lay aside their opposition to the cause and people of God otherwise that such troublers were even cut off and when God enables and calls do stand up for the defence of the Gospell and our selves against evill doers is so far from jarring with primitive precedents that both Scripture Reason and the practice of all times do allow it And really Sir when I consider these your discourses so directly tending to the blunting nay extinguishing of all zeal for God and the perswading of a stupid not patient endurance of all injuries under the pretext of Christian Resignation that wickedness and violence so much at present prevailing may the better be estabilished as I cannot but regrete this point of your conformity to primitive examples not indeed these of Christians but of their persecutors who in the madnesse of their wickedness did often wheâ— their violence and intende their cruelty to the persecuted by their scornful reciting of the gospell precepts to patient suffering So I must tell you my fears that your pretendings to the serene and dove-like spirit are only collours to palliat your deep deceit and malice But making your N. C. decline your instance of the primitive Christians with a vain scoff of your own suggesting that far fowls have â—air feathers and appeal to the practice of late Reformers as such who universally resisted the Magistrate out of an exceding veneration as you pretend to the same Reformers you do undertake from undeniable evidence of History to convince us of the falshood of that vulgar error that the Reformation was carryed on by resistance But here in the entrance you must give me leave though I acknowledge that you take no advantage from it first to rectify your expression that the Reformation in many places where opposed by force was maintained by resistance Is that which we with as plain and full an evidence as can be instanced in any matter of fact do very confidently assert But that it was carried on by resistance Is not only inconsistent resistance sounding rather for the defence then the advance of any cause
the Count of Tholouse was a Peer of France and by Hugo Capetus constitution Peers were rather Vassals then Subjects It is answered ne ultra crepidam if Peers be Vassals as they are indeed being such Peers among themselves only and not with the King that therefore they are of all the most strictly oblidged subjects is notour to all that know the fidelity and gratitude which Vassallage doth import so that whatever priviledge their Peerage may give them over their inferiours yet that in order to their Soveraign and Liedge Lord they are in every respect subjects is uncontroverted But why should I spend time on your triflings Admitting that the Waldenses in this war had not so directly and immediatly resisted the King their Soveraign as not being their direct and immediate Persecutor have we therefore no advantage from this passage And are there not many other precedents in the History of that people which do fully and exactly infer our conclusion And as to the first do we not at least finde even in your own concession the Waldenses persecute for Religion standing to their own defence Now if once you allow to Religion the common priviledge of a defensive resistance the main strength of your arguments founded upon a pretended singularity in the cause of Religion as disowning forsooth all resistance and in a special manner astricted to suffering both by Gospell precept and primitive practice is thereby dissolved and removed I may not here insist on this subject But once for all let me demand you may not Religion be defended aswell as other rights and interests If you say it may but neither that nor any other against the invasion and persecution of the King and soveraign Power This is indeed a consequent but so destitute of all reason that as there is scarce a man in the world so stupid or debauched by flattery that will not in some suppositions grant the lawfulness of resistance so the most precious import of Religion and the atrocity of the injuries whereby it useth to be persecute can not but render it the first and most favourable of all excepted cases But if you say it may not then whether is it your meaning that it may not at all be defended either against Superior equall or inferior And certainly the Scripture and also many of the primitive instances abused to prostrate Religion unto tyranny do seem to run in this latitude without insinuating any distinction so that this generality being manifestly absurd doth of necessity evince them to have an other meaning and to be nothing conclusive to your purpose Or do you understand that in this the cause of Religion is singular that though against persecuting inferiors or equals Religion aswell as other rights doth permit defence yet against the Powers over us it is subject to a special restraint Assigne me for this speciality but any colourable pretext cris mihi magnus Apollo That the Gospel precepts Resist not evill Turn your cheek to the smiter Love your enemies c. Have their holy and Christian use of patience and godliness for all manner of injuries from whatsoâ—ever hand And that these other commands of subjection non-resistance honour and obedience to Kings and all in Authority have also their righteous influence of determining in every occasion our due compliance and submission without the least vestige either in all or any of the places of injoining a singular subjection to Powers persecuting for Religion is obviously evident What speciality you will gather from primitive practices the general mistakes that we find in their opinions as we may understand from Ambrose and Augustine condemning private defence even against Robbers ne dum salutem defendit pietatem contaminet may give us a satisfying conjecture From all which we may assuredly conclude that seing Religion doth lay no speciall prohibition of resistanceâ— in order to Superiors upon Subjects by them persecuted and that the above-written passage of the Waldenses doth at least evince that in other cases it hath the common priviledge your inferring of specâ—al consequences in favours of the Powers from abused generalls is but a politick improving of your lies unto base and selfish flattery Now as to other examples that may be found among the Waldenses Pray Sir was this the only passage in all that History which you conceived did favour our cause or was you loth to follow them over the Alpes unto the valleys of Piemont to meet with instances which indeed you have reason to think can only be best answered by concealing them in the obscurities of the places where acted And really this omission is so grosly supine that you must pardon me to think it designed However the History that I referre you to for a full and particular account aswell of the faith stedfastness and simplicicy of these Waldenses in Piemont as of their many and great persecutions by their own Rulers and Princes and their just and frequent oppositions made against them particularly from the year 1540 to the year 1561. And how in the year 1571 they entered into a League of mutual assistance and from that year did undergo many vicissitudes sometimes of peace and quiet then of cruell and barbarous persecutions wherein they testified great constancy and patience and sometimes of necessary defensive resistances wherein they witnessed no less uprightnesse and courage even until the year 1658 wherein the narration terminates is that of the Evangelical Churches in the valleys of Piemont very faithfully and acuratly collected and written by Mr Morland Where I am confident every ingenuous person will finde the case of defence for the cause of Religion against persecuting Rulers so justly stated so tenderly and submissively proceeded into and lastly so singly and moderatly prosecuted and that not only once or twice but often that as he will be thereby greatly confirmed in the righteousness of this practice so he can not but observe the inexcusable omission of your silence The next instance which you undertake to vindicate is that of the Bohemians under Zisca their fighting and resisting when the chalice was denyed them And for answere to this you bid us consider that the Crown of Boheme is elective in which case certainly the States of a Kingdom share more largely of the Soveraign power But 1. You hereby plainly acknowledge that Religion is not indefendible except by meer subjects against their Soveraign So that again we see it is not from the cause of Religion but from the quality of the persons that you foolishly go about to exclude Religion from defence which yet notwithstanding in several excepted cases all inferior to that of persecution is to subjects against their oppressing Princes by all almost allowed 2. That the States of a Kingdom share more largely of the soveraign Power in an elective then in a successive Kingdom hath no proper dependence upon the way of election but is thereto meerly accidental the Dictators in free Rome were elected and
John his base râ—signation exercise over England a particular authority that after the Reformation and the shaking of the papal voke the Oath of Supremacie was brought in to exclude all forraign Iurisdiction and reinstate the King is his Civill Authority That Henrie the 8th did indeed set up a Civill Papacie but the Reformation of England was never dated from his breach with Rome that the Oath of supremacie was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck Power or to make the power of Ordination of giving Sacraments or of Discipline to flow from the King that however because the generality of the words might suggest scruples they are explained in an Act of Parliament of Q. Elizabeth and in one of the 29. Articles and morefully by B. Usher with King Iames approbation And lastly since we have this oath from England none ought to scruple the words being sufficiently plain and the English meaning ours This is the full and clear account which you promise But who knows not these poor and insignificant pretenses King Iohn's resignation was indeed so base that by all disinterested it was ever held to be invalid and in after times scarce ever mentioned let be pleaded It is therefore the Pop's general tyrannie and what it was and whether abolished in these Kingdomes or in effect only transferred from him to the Prince that we are here to consider And I think I may take it for granted that you judge the Pope's exorbitant usurpation specially his assumming to himselfe not an external assisting oversight which we grant to be the proper right of Princes but by way of an intrinseck and direct power the sole and uncontrolable care of the Church her ministry and ministers with his arrogating an architectonick power in the ordering of Gods Worship so that in all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters therein proposed he may enact what canons he pleases to be parts of the Papal tyranny not only as in him but in all men under our Lord Jesus Christ unwarrantable and antichristian nay some of these are points of so high a nature that the greater part even of the members of the Romish Church do reclaim against them Now questionlesse if this power be to the Pope unlawful and incompetent all secular persons and Princes are therefore much more excluded in asmuch as the Pope being at least in shew a Church-man and according to the hypothese even of your Hierarchy the first Bishop of the westerne if not of the whole Church he is fortified by certain seeming pretenses of which the clame of civil Princes is wholly destitute To come then to our purpose that after the Reformation the Popish yoke not only as to the particulars above mentioned but also as to his forreign Jurisdiction unlawfully usurped over Church-men in civills to the prejudice of the King's Soveraignity was righteously shaken off and the King re-instated in his Civil authority over all Persons and also in all Causes in so far as they are committed to his royal direction and tuition is not at all denyed If that matters had here sisted and upon the abolition of the Papal domination the things of God and of Caesar had been equally restored who could have gain-said it But that on the contrary by the Pop's exclusion and in place of this righteous restitution the King under pretence of the vindication of his own Supremacy did procure to himself a very formal and full translation of what the Pope had not only usurped from him but arrogate from God specially in the things above-specified both the occasion of this change and the manner how this Supremacy hath since been exercised do aboundantly declare And for clearing the occasion it may be remembred 1. That the Peter-pence called in the beginning the King's almes imposed by on Ina King of the West Saxons was discharged by Act of Parliament in the reigne of Edward the Third and the contention anent the exemption of Church-men from the King's Courts most hotly agitate in the reigâ—es of Henry Second and King Iohn was composed many years before the dayes of Henry the Eight So that neither that exaction nor this old debate and far less King Iohn's most invalide resignation not worth the naming could be the cause of King Henry his acclaiming the Supremacy 2. The only motive that we find in History whereby Henry was instigat to reject the Pope and to declare himself to be supreme in causes Ecclesiastick aswell as civil was his purpose of divorce from Queen Katharine wherein finding himself abused by the Pope and his Legates their delayes he discharges all appeals to Rome appointing them to be made from the Comissary to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and from the Archbishop to the King and is thereafter first called by the Clergy and then declared by the Parliament to be Supreme head of the Church in liew of the Pope whose authority was abrogat by the same Act These things then being certain and you your selfe acknowledging that King Henry did set up a civil Papacy It is easy to determine that this change was not a bare exclusion but a plain translation of the Popes usurped power We know the Reformation of England was never dated from that breach with the Bishop of Rome But what then Can you deny that this was both the rise and establishment of the Supremacy which being transmitted to Edvard the sixth and then renounced by Queen Mary and again restored to the Pope was by Queen Elizabeth reassumed and so continueth untill this day It is true that after the breaking up of the more clear light of Reformation whereby not only Rom's Superstition bot also the Popes usurpation and tyranny in many things was upon better reasons rejected and especially after the succession of Queen Elizabeth to whose Sexe the former title of headship for all the smoothings that had been before used was nevertheless construed not to be so agreeable Many explications were adhibite for qualifying the Supremacy both in answer to the opposition of Papists and for removing the offence of the Protestant Churches But the truth is these explications though more sound in their grounds yet in their explication were nothing conclusive as to the present debate and their Authors arguing for the Supremacy from the examples of reforming Kings and Emperours acting not by vertue of an assumed prerogative but only from that extraordinary power which the necessity of the end upon the failzour of other midses doth measure out to Princes first and to others also if in a competent capacity did rather infer the justification of the work then conclude the approbation of the Supremacy notwithstanding it was therein imployed Nay while by these their reasonings they went about from such extraordinary interpositions only warranted by the exigence of necessity and the rectitude of the work thereby effectuat to establish to the Prince a constant setled authority properly conversant about these matters the argument is far more
absurd then if because a Governour may in a manifest incident disorder falling for example in a Family repone the Father and head thereof to his paternal oversight one should thence conclude to the same Governour a proper power and faculty of placeing and displaceing Heads of Families and appointing the Rules thereof at his pleasure Now that thus it fell out in England after the Reformation and that the same if not a more exorbiâ—ant power taken from the Pope was transferred and setled upon the Crown as a perpetual privilege thereof is in the second place by the manner of its exercise and its ensuing fruits veâ—y evidently held out For proofe whereof the office and actings of the Lord Cromwell as Vicare General appointed by Henry the eight over the spirituality though by the good providence of God ordered to be a notable mean for advance of the Reformation is an undeniable argument And as to the continuance of the same usurpation in order to other effects in themselves evill and not to be justified there needeth no curious search the frequent practices of after Princes laying claime to this power namely Elizabeth Iames and Charles in their ecclesiastick medlings but especially of his Majesty now regnant in his interposing in Church-matters and thereby overturning a true Gospe-â—ministry introducing a new model of Church-government absolutely dependent upon himselfe reviving vain groundless and antiqâ—â—â— ceremonies appointing and imposing new Religions Dayes and Forms And lastly giving Rules to Ministers their doctrine what points to preach and what to omit all according to the device of his own heart are an obvious demonstration which things are in themselves so evident that I strange you should accuse Henry the Eight of a civil Papacy and so inconsequently acquit al his Successors Whereas in effect they not only acted in Church-matters after the same method by him observed using the same prerogative in the grant of their High Commissions and in other acts which he exercised in his vicarious deputation but he is the Prince who waving his haltings upon the other side and considering the necessity there was at that time of an extraordinary remedy for the good things that he did seemeth to have employed their usurped Supremacy most excusably and also very advantageously for the promoving of the Reformation Bot you tell us that the Oath of Supremacy was never designed to take away the Churches intrinseck power or to make the power of Ordination of Sacraments and of Discipline flow from the King It is answered seing the many evill effects of this Supremacy do so plaâ—â—ly evince its direct and proper tendency and its late explanation by Act of Parliament doth put its nature and extent beyond all controversy to tell us what at first it was or was not designed for is but a vain suggestion And therefore according to these â—urer grounds I must now tell you 1. That although the King not likely to be tempted by such an empty curiosity hath neither expresly declared in his own favour nor assumed to himselfe the exercise of this power of administration yet that by vertue of his Supremacy as it now stands explained he may do both or either when he pleaseth is not to be doubted I need not reminde you that any Church-power not acknowledging a dependence upon and subordination unto the Soveraign Power of the King as Supreme is abrogate and discharged But pray Sir he who may enact what he thinketh fit concerning all Ecclesiastick meetings and matters may he not if he think fit declare himself to have the power of the ministerial function Nay what may he not do But 2. admitting that this was not meaned by the Parliament in their explanation and that in probability the King will never affect the imployment yet that the intrinseck power of Government belonging to the Church both as to a Society of our Lords erection and by his express gift and concession is by the Supremacy taken away I beleeve it will be so far from being disowned that it is rather vaunted of as its principal end and advantage But referring the truth and evidence of this point anent the power of Government given by our Lord immediatly to his Church to what hath been very fully by others declared and is by me above hinted at I verily think that though we had no other argument save the sad changes that of late have ensued upon the usurpation of this Supremacy the usefulness and excellency of this intrinseck Government is thereby rendered apparent beyond the evidence of any further confirmation And really when together with the authority of its founder I consider the undeniable necessity and expedience of an internal power of Government in the Church as the most significant mean for making all its other gifts powers offices effectual And how much it is commended by the signal usefulness of a proper Government in every Society but more especially to our adversaries by that high yea sacred estimat which they so much inculcat of that Civil-government and all its punctilios whereupon their interest depends and when on the other hand I reflect upon the peâ—â—â—â—ous and woful influences that in all ages have constantly attended either the suppression or usurpation of this great divine ordinance I cannot sufficiently regrete that the pride ambition and vanity of men in setting up and advancing this Supremacy should be so sinfully subservient to the Divell 's great design of crossing the progress of the Gospel and propogating irreligion Which evil is the more to be lamented that nothwithstanding that our own experience of its wretched consequences doth evidently redargue this usurpation yet these men who in the matter of Civil government make every circumstance sacred and exclaime against the smallest innovation as if all confusion were imminent can and do in the business of Ecclesiastick government with a more then Gallio indifferency and coldness slight all its concerns in opposition to their carnal designes as questions of meer outward forms and the skirts and suburbs of Religion far removed from its life and substance Whereas it is very certain that eternal life and salvation the great end is not more preferable to temporal peace and outward tranquillity then our zeal for the government of God's House institute by himselfe in his Church in order to our everlasting welbeing ought to exceed our regard to Civil government which in this respect are but the ordinances of man in order to our temporal interests Nay so apparent is the lukwarmness hypocrisy of mens reasonings in behalfe of this Supremacy that though in the supposition that our Lord had by himselfe immediatly erected in any Kingdom a Society or incorporation with masters laws and a competent jurisdiction in order to some temporal advantage as he hath in the acknowledgement of all institute his Church with Ordinances Officers and Government suited to its great ends all rationâ—â— men let be the members of that Society would judge the
not by laws It is known that all they suffered was after desperate obstinacy to be removed either by Law or Ecclesiastick-censure The next thing whereby you go about to make out your charge of rigor against us is that we purged our Armies And wherefore not That evill men do not by reason of sin forfeit their rights and consequently may lawfully defend them is not denyed But that the Lord having then so lately testified his displeasure against the Malignant courses of the 1648. And we having thereupon so solemnly vowed a detestation thereof and a non-conjunction with all their bettors there was just reason when the necessity was not such as to leave no place for election in the fear of the Lord's displeasure to preferre his Command Deut. 23. v. 9. and our own ingagements unto the then contrary pretensions and to keep us from every wicked thing can not rationally be disproved However these things being now past I love not to rake in them my hearts desire is that the things which have since befallen us and seem to have so clear a dependence upon the unstedfastness insincerity mockery heats and contentions of these bygone transactions may at length lead every serious fearer and seeker of the Lord unto a single and through discovery and the repentance which the Lord requires As for the advantage you would draw from this objection I have already told you that necessity and interest do too visibly influence all your pretended moderation to leave you any matter of boasting in your late abatements But he who pleaseth to turne his eye upon the other side and there with your former Ecclesiastick rigors behold your other methodes in appointing the Declaration as an indispensable condition of State-trusts and in your manifest discountenancing all of a different perswasion will certainly admire to find you so much exceed even in these very evills which you would appeare to condemne Now to your stiffling of jealousies which vexe some of your more weak and malicious Modells We know too well their selfish and cowardly dispositions to impute their not whispering to any true respect to authority more then the compliance of others to your alledged moderation To obey God more then man and therefore to suffer affliction cross to our inclination is indeed a faire accession to the praise of the grace of God in this greater vertue you vaunt of and wherein we desire to be found But as for your submission against certain blind perswasions and peevish fears which you call your inclination to that absolute overswaying devotion which we know you bear to Peace and Ease many of you have so notourly already basely renounced not only your God but your King for whom you do more highly pretend for this interest that you must pardon us neither to applaud your obedience nor submission from such suggestions And so indeed you insinuat more intelligibly then you are awar for you say that if we abuse not this liberty we have got you shall never complaine of it which according to the construction of abuses held out by your lawes and practices doth so plainly sound if you neither offer to reclaime the people from their rebellion against and backsliding from the Lord nor to warne and testify against the courses and tendencies of an antichristian Supremacy and profane Prelacy that the benefite and security which you would obtain by the performance of this condition doth render your pretended acquiescence almost ridiculous But you go on to adde Nay you would rejoice to finde it produce the effects for which it is designed viz. to bring us to a more peaceable temper And who either doubteth this in your sense or refuseth it in a just sense could we exchange a good conscience for Court-compliance or prefer Peace to Truth which do plainly appear to be the termes of difference wherein we stand there is no question of your victory and our agreement But seing this may not be and your designe is at best preposterous I hope I shall more easily obtaine your concurrence in my wish that the Gospel and godliness being by this indulgence advanced true peaceableness and peace may thence ensue The second effect of this Indulgence by you intended Is to make us value and love more one of the noblest and most generous Princes that ever ruled Sir you just now commended your selfe for a better Subject then to criticize upon your Soveraign's pleasure and I think I should at least be so civill as not to controvert his praise but as I do heartily pray that the Lord would make it a hundred times so much truly greater then it is So let me tell you that to state your superlatives of Nobility and Generosity upon the grant of this Licence a very mean and scant act of justice elicit by a visible State-conveniency if not necessity and many degrees inferior to the liberty granted either by the King of France to his Protestants or the great Turk to his Christian Subjects is rather to betray then advance your Prince his reputation I say not this to diminish the just acknowledgement of his Majesties justice that every good subject ought on every occasion to express but this your artifice either to baffle our consciencious non-compliance with your remaining corruptions as ingratitude or to stop the procedure of the King's goodness as being already in the next degree to an excess must not go unnoticed Your third effect designed is to dispose us to a brotherly accomodation with you Which you say the Fathers of the Church are readie to offer on such termes as refused will declare us to be schismatical But seing all along you would have this licence to be a free favour and would thence plead its obligation toward a brotherly Accommodation as I have hitherto told you that I cannot regard it under that character so I hope the insinuation that this pretense may import shall be of no moment to byass any to an Accomodation in the termes of so stated an opposition Sir mistake me not it is not that I love division or studie faction union and peace in the Lord are the earnest desire and prayer of my soul and that not more for the manifestation of the glorious power of the grace of God in turning you from your evill wayes then for that beautie joy and strength wherewith it is accompanied and whereby the pleasure of the Lord might be so effectually promoted But while you continue impenitent yea obstinat in your perjury and rebellion whereby you have overturned the Lord's work with the Ministrie and Government of His House and do own that idol of Jealousie and root of wickedness the Supremacie and its dependent Prelacy wherby under the pretense of peace and order the Kingdome of our Lord aswell over Consciences as in his Church is borne down prophanity popery nay Atheisme and all wickedness connived at and nothing become more odious and persecute then a conscientious acknowledgement of the