indeed who thought they told news when they did but carry herbs to Ephrata as the Jewish Proverb hath it And although it be very little that I know in comparison to what I ought yet I have scarce had patience enough sometimes in hearing such punies documentizing me in obvious things which because new to them they thought had been so to me although I had known them from my childehood as familiarly as mine own name But because we erre not so much by ignorance as incogitancy I will suppose that you have given us this instruction for the help of our memory rather then of our understanding but on this condition that you will from hence take occasion of considering what necessary use we have of a constant Ministry for although men know as much or more then the Preacher can tell them yet have they still great need of hearing He that is of God as well in facto as in fieri heareth Gods Word which is the means of growing as well as of begetting 1 Pet. 2.2 And as the body hath still need of nourishment although it be come to its full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which it will have supplied by a slovenly Cook rather then perish with famine So the soul even of a strong-grown Christian is not kept by the power of God unto salvation otherwise then by his Ordinances where they are exhibited of Sacraments and Preaching We know in generall Publicorum cura est minor and if there be not men enough appointed for that sacred imploiment it is like to be but badly performed Many an unregenerate Master hath a gratious servant many an irreligious parent a pious childe by Gods blessing on the publique Ordinances who had had small means of enlightning otherwise And since the rains of Government have lien but loosely on the peoples neck how many Churches stand like deserted Abbies appointed to demolition We thought much in time of Bishops to have had no other afternoons exercise in some places but Praier and Catechising but many Parishes have now nor one nor other They who can procure means will not they who would cannot and so in conclusion Et succus pecori lac subducitur agnis Besides it is to be considered that although things absolutely necessary to be beleeved are but few yet there are many things to be done the greater part by far of the word of God contains direction for a godly conversation For although Love be the fulfilling of the Law yet this Charity hath so many objects and by reason of corruption from within and temptation from without so many impediments that it requires many rules of direction and of them because of our many infirmities a frequent inculcation But what need other reasons we are sure it's Gods command and therefore must needs be our duty 'T was not the inestimableness of the fruit but the Infiniteness of the Prohibitant that gave hainousness to the sin of Adam nor are the Ordinances of God necessary for the efficacie of the outward Action but in regard to the authority of Divine institution It pleaseth God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 while to others it is said Behold ye despisers wonder and perish In p. 20. you tell us that for solution of questions in Religion you have somewhat more to say then ever you heard or read from these men Now if you have a better key to open the Scriptures with then other men how dare you be so injurious to the Church of God as to conceal it seeing Qui novit neque id quod sentit exprineit perinde est ac si nesciret And if it be one of the things which people cannot yet bear for such things you speak of p. 5 6. how unjustly do you blame the Clergy for not laying such an unsupportable burden on them What you know more then others is to others unknown but I am sure knowledge unsanctified is but like a sword in a mad mans hand and many a mans learning may be to himself but a candle to light him to hell Multos nasci omni scientia egere satius fuisset quam sic in propriam perniciem insanire In p. 24. you tell us of our nearess to the Papists in expressions I suppose you mean which are most expanse for otherwise the world knows we are at sufficient distance But concerning this my opinion is that we have gone farther from the Papists then we need in some things although not so far as they have gone from the truth in other For resolution to your instance p. 25. They say that a man hath power to do good works but we say he hath not I answer that Although it be God that worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure and every Christian may truly say of his graces and all operations from them proceeding as Jacob of his children They are they which God hath graciously given to his servant yet THE REGENERATED MAN IS IN ABLED BY THE GRACE OF GOD ASSISTING HIM TO DO GOD MORE AND BETTER SERVICE THEN THAT WHICH HE DOTH Which Proposition well considered may much extricate a minde infetterd with seeming oppositions of this nature And the same refutes that gross speech of your When we are humbled for our sins we do tell God Almighty news that he would have had us walk more holily then we have done but we had not power so to walk And what you there speak of faiths being a work we must understand of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 credere for otherwise it is not true But who of our Preachers ever said that faith was a meritorious cause of salvation and did not rather acknowledge the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be from Christ and if so they affirm no more of faith then they do of obedience as to this particular But p. 26. The Papists say good works are meritorious but we say No and yet I have heard it said if we believe repent c. it is Gods duty to give us heaven The word Duty seems somewhat too harsh but sith we cannot understand Gods acting toward us but according to the slender model of our apprehension we may with due reverence to his glorious Majesty affirm That although our works do not by any merit in them oblige God to reward them yet we having his promise for our assurance are as truly ascertained of the accomplishment thereof as if God were Debtor and we Creditors The summe whereof is That the true Beleever hath the Justice as well as the Mercy of God for his Asylum and may pray with the Psalmist Deliver me in thy righteousnesse For Christ having satisfied the Justice of God for him and imputed his own Righteousness to him he may expect from God that fruition of himself which Christ hath purchased for him of which the present grace of God inabling him to beleeve and endeavour to obey gives testimony For they do
he never work with them It was well foreseen of you therefore while you made an exception in your instance saying some of the Prophets and many Apostles but why you should put our Saviour Christ into your illiterate catalogue I know not unless that when it shall be proved impertinent to the main question in this particular you may limit it to your immediatly-foregoing assertion to which you have it may be for that cause sophistically annexed it And as for all those you speak of recorded by Mr Fox in his Acts and Monuments although they were children in Learning yet they stood on mens shoulders and might therefore see further then a Popish Polyphemus For I hope you cannot deny God made use of many famous lights of Learning for illumination of the unlearned people of that time some of which went to heaven in fiery Charets with them Christ called indeed unlearned men but he taught them what was necessary to their Apostleship while they preached only to the Jews and that within the limits of their own Country where the Hebrew tongue was well enough understood as appears Acts 21.40 although they used the Syrian Dialect But after our Saviour his Ascention when they were to teach all Nations the gift of Tongues as thereto requisite was conferred upon them And as Manna ceased when the children of Israel came into the Land of Canaan so extraordinary gifts ceased when God had by ordinary provided for the propagation of Religion So that to inhibit the use of learning in our Preachers of the Gospel were as irrational as to have forbidden the Israelites eating the fruits of Canaan because they had Manna in the Wilderness Presently after you make an odious parallel with Romish Wolves and Presbyterian Pastors affirming that as they so these hold it dangerous for such people to breath by whom their pomp and gallantry is like to fall Now Sir I require you to prove this bloudy accusation and to make it appear that the Grandees of the Presbyterian faction as you call them bare such mortall hatred against any people in England for Religions sake as the Popish Priests in Q. Maries daies had against all people of reformed Religion or else I shall hold you guilty of a malicious untruth for so speaking And yet as if this were a small matter to make them homicides you would make them murderers of souls too by affirming that As the Popish Clergie debard the common people from reading the Scriptures so these had rather people spent their time in reading of tales or following their worldly affairs but when they are hearing them speaking contradictions c. Now I am sure that I am compassed about with clouds of witnesses who will testifie with me that we never found cause of such suspition but the Ministers of the Gospel do alwaies exhort to reading and meditation of the Word of God or if any such had been we have not wanted time and means enough to displace them since the beginning of this Parliament Yet still your charge runs generally against the Clergy as if quatenus Clergy they were the greatest enemies to the Church of God And yet if you were not over-biassed with prejudice you would confess with me that the same men you inveigh against have been the instruments of what good God hath wrought in your soul either by their word or writings Good Sir do but examine when did you first come out of nature and by what means and do not with Themistocles his Hart crop that bush in a calm that sheltred you in a storm Or if it be not true by your self yet sure it is that multitudes of gracious souls will acknowledge men of that calling for their ghostly Fathers And what greater seal of an Apostleship can be desired then what the Apostle speaks of 1 Cor. 9.2 in these words If I am not an Apostle to others doubtless I am one to you for the seal of my Apostleship are ye in the Lord. As therefore that Potentate said of his government Call it what you will but by it I keep the people in good order So may I say of the calling of the Ministers amongst us Call it you what you please I am sure the word in their mouth is by the grace of God accompanying it made the power of God unto salvation This is it that excited me otherwise studious of obscurity to make my self I know not yet how publique spectacle and Aegles-like to force nature upon the sight of injurious dealing for I am neither Parson Vicar nor Curate and might notwithstanding any private interest have been silent but the Cause is Gods on whom I depend and may therefore say with the Lepers 2 King 7.9 I do not well to hold my peace And indeed should the redeemed of the Lord that have had the knowledge and love of God wrought in them by our publique Ministry be silent when such indignities are cast upon it it were enough to make as our Saviour saith in the Gospel the stones to cry that I may not say to cry out against them and to condemn their ingratitude In page 4. you carp at the distinction of Clergie and Laity but for what reason we may go look though things in themselves be distinct by nature yet they cannot in discourse be distinguished without several names whereof your own practice gives experience in the title of your Book viz. The Clergie in their Colours which if you say was done for distinctions sake that we might know of whom you speak as p. 45. grant us the same liberty and we ask no more It 's a question whether you know how the first of your family came by his name and yet you will think it cannot with justice be taken from you But the Clergy have besides Antiquity Etymologie for their name being so called from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Lot because they are instead of the Levites the Lot of Gods and God of their Inheritance in especial manner for in a larger sense it is applied to all the faithfull 1 Pet. 5.3 and so are the Saints called Priests too although not by their particular but general calling of Christianity and so all the Lords people might without offence be called holy but yet when these same words were usurped by Korah in opposition to the holiness of the Priests Office God punished that schism of his with a stranger schism of the earth that swallowed him up Nor is the word therefore less pertinent because Clergy-men are not now chosen by a sortilegium as was Matthias for Apostles were a distinct degree of Ministers and to be chosen by God himself But however we are not so much in usuall words to regard a quo as ad quid and in every Art we must keep the same terms it hath been exprest in aforetime or else we can neither understand nor be understood My lot is faln to me in a fair ground saith David Psal 16. alluding to the manner
would abate the heat of Parsons kitchens and hinder their families from following fashions c. And would it not also abate the heat of charity in giving and of nature in many indigent receivers who from the Parsons most commonly receive most liberall contributions The Apostle saith A Bishop must be given to hospitality but you are so far from consenting to his exercise of hospitality that you allow not other men to be hospitable to him And as for fashions I think no man but in some causes extraordinary ought to be singular the fault is therefore chiefly in the first inventer But the Clergy the Clergy for there be but few of them Parsons in comparison with the rest they are in all the fault As the Heathens were used to say of the Christians when any generall calamity befell them Away with the Christians to the wilde beasts their motes be beams their mole-hils mountains their flies be Eagles and yet all England knows that there is scarce one to ten of your insolent humour who may not as easily be known from a sober-minded Christian as a sligering Morrice-dancer from an ordinary spectator by his phantastick habit and behaviour In the same p. 13. I have heard Papists say c. And I have heard Papists upbraiding us with dissention not for any mans being divided from himself but some of us from others by contrariety of opinion and how well soever you agree with your self you are not the least fomenter of that division What p. 14. you declaim against peoples taking Religion upon trust is worthy acknowledgement and not unfrequently do we hear from this Clergy which you look so despitefully on the same doctrine Many time have I heard them exhort to imitation of the Bereans and prest that precept of our Saviour Joh. 5.39 Search the Scriptures that so they might at length tell the Church as the Samaritans did the woman Now we beleeve not because of thy word c. that so if a new Religion come in fashion and the stream of the times turn they may have bank to hold by ground of their own to stand on and not be carried away with every blast of vain doctrine But if constancy in perillous times and stability in Religion signifie a sure foundation whether shall your fickleness or other mens perseverance most commend them to the Church of God For you say you were sometime of the same minde sick as you call it of the same disease and I wish for your everlasting healths sake you were Sermon-sick in another sense then you are If your meaning be you were one of them that have no more but an implicit faith I will yield you sick of a dangerous disease indeed but if you apply it to the condition of all them you write against I think you may be answered as the Emperour who having read over the summe of Christian Religion and saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was replied unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or rather in the words of St John You went out from us because you were not of us if you had bâ—en of us you would have continued with us In p. 15. And therefore men cannot justly be taxed of immodesty c. To tax people of immodesty for bare questioning will not suit with the fore-mentioned doctrine It is the duty of Ministers to endeavour their doubting peoples resolution to many of whom I may apply for their commendation what of Sempronia is recorded to her infamy Vt saepius peteret viros quam peteret For I know them publiquely to incourage and privately to invite men to this duty and yet I must tell you that it 's oftentimes seen that where duty may leade a man to make question there may be immodesty used in manner of propounding and maintaining Men that have not learned to deny themselves may pertinaciously persist in an erroneous opinion to which self-love hath so married that nothing but death can separate them Men many times defend their opinions as they do their Countries not because true but because their own And I am perswaded that not only many a bastard-Christian but some even of the truly regenerated are of such peevish and cross-grained disposition that an Angel from heaven could scarce give them satisfaction What clue was woond up in your discourse p. 16 17 18 19 20. is by your self unravel'd again p. 21. for by producing some texts of Scripture sounding free-grace and some free-will you endeavour to evince what before you have asserted concerning contradictions in Religion as our Pulpit-men exhibit it But in p. 21. you confess Can and Cannot in a divers respect may consist well enough as 2 Cor. 3.5 Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but all our sufficiency is of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For God doth not nolentes vi trahere and draw men to heaven as Cacus drew beasts into his den backward but by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes them willing and God by his word commanding what we must do gives us power to do what he commandeth But if you say this is not sufficiently distinguisht in teaching I answer that you do not consider how the same subject should be differently handled by a Rhetorician and a bare Logician If Preachers should use in their publique Sermons nothing but definitions and divisions what impress were they like to make on the peoples affections And yet in regard to peoples infirmity I could wish that Gospel-truths were by some men at some times held out more distinctly then they are But he that is acquainted with the body of Divinity need not alwaies be poring on a Skeleton but using an ingenuous candor in hearing he can discern the joints and nerves of distinctions and Aporisms thereto belonging under the flesh and outmost ornaments of amplification And what is said to this may likewise be applied to p. 22. where you would seem to make contradictory things in themselves subordinate viz. Gods election and mans accepting the means of salvation for God hath ordained to the end by the means So also concerning the perseverance of the faithfull and their seeming possibility of falling for I may not be allowed here to state the questions it is done largely enough already by others In all which allegations you translate the pretended crime from the Ministers to the Scriptures for whatsoever oppositions you gather out of their Sermons are either the same totidem verbis or at most but a Paraphrase on the holy Scriptures To your rule p. 23. I give my approbation and the rather not because new but for that it 's common Bonum quo communius eo melius For as without use of the common elements no man can continue is his being so neither without this rule did any man ever reade the Scriptures with understanding It is much therefore that you should deigne to insert it in this your supercilious insultation I have known many self-conceited Scioli