Years last past is full of such Follies c. Then the conclusion followeth by clear consequence viz. that therefore the Preaching usual in the Church of England for an Hundred Years last past is such as is at present usual therein and consequently by your own position a hinderance of Salvation rather then the means to it the Preachers Fools and the Preaching Murther That is to say the Faith and Doctrine usually Preached yea and Printed too for both Press Pulpit Writings as well as Sermons are by you charged contended for lived and dyed in yea and by many of them sealing with their Blood what they professed by Tongue or Pen dyed for by our first Reformadoes Protestant-Champions and Church-Worthies our Marian Martyrs all our Orthodox Learned Pious Painful Preachers under the Reign of Q. Elizab. K. James Charles the first in times past and what hath been still is under our present Soveraign King Charles the II. usually Preached published is a hindrance of Salvation rather then the means to it consequently the Church of England since the Sun of Righteousness arose in it with his healing wing of Reformation no true Church for as extra Ecclesiam nulla salus there is no ordinary Salvation without the Line of Church-Communion so there is no true Church without the appropriated meanes of Salvation and then according to your Divinity Ichabod farewell Church of England And now Sir what do you think of your self upon recollection or what will your Reader think of you have I not here convincingly made out against you from your own Principles and positions a base unworthy pestilent designe upon the Reformed Religion and Clergy and in them upon our Church to what in you lies the utter subverting and nullifying of the whole And what you mean by your mysterious reserves namely that what you intend by usual Preaching Lett. 1. p. 81. Lett. 2. p. 101. you will not here go about to explain and the reasons of your Letters might be further explained when occasion should require but I have done it to your hand in a paraphrase very congruous to the original what you mean I say by such Reserves and shrew'd hints as those are we may by this time very plainly perceive especially with the additional help of a short Glosse of your own dropt from you it seemes unawares a great way off from the Text where you explain the good time by those despaired of dayes of vertue Lett. 1. p. 124. of having the Tithes restored to the Church most unjustly robb'd of them by the Sacrilegious Church-Publican Henry the Eight to wit when like a wise Man he rejected the Yoak of Papal Supremacy Anglia non patitur duos Caesares which other Christian Princes Issachar like couch and crouch under and forraged its Antichristian supports Monkish Nests and Nurseries with which the Nation was at that time much more over-stock'd then now it is with an Orthodox Clergy though in so doing he onely kill'd the Pope's Body as Luther said of him in the mean time saving his Soul c. Encrease of Church-Patrimony Sir I do as heartily wish and pray for as your self but I 'll be sure that it be a Reformed Church which upon any such score I enter into my Litany but this you aim to subvert But good Sir pray tell me how comes it to pass that you adventure to explain the good time in the plausible circumstance of Church-Tyth which you doe so mysteriously conceal in the concern of usual-Church Preaching 'T is very odd here you are express but in the case of Preaching you treat your Reader with Morose Reserves what I intend by usual Preaching I shall not here go about to explain the reasons of my Writing may be further explained when occasion shal require Sir I doe not like these odd hints of your hic nunc I understood by your last Lett. 2. p. 200. that you was gon into Devonshire to secure the World from your being ever troublesom in this kind any more Amen said I a good riddance and what other kind of trouble you design for it the God of Heaven knowes your reticentiae's of time place and occasion when where and upon what account you intend it may be by Letters of Credence to be produced in a good time further to explain to us the reasons of your Enquiry and what you understand by usual Preaching in the Church of England I must tell you are very suspicious what do you mean to comment upon it with the sensible gloss of Fire and Faggott or a second dose of the Jesuite's Powder or the new game of Trapp-Law or t'other Coal from the Altar because the first did not the business and thus of Inquisitor turn Executioner In the name of God Father Son and Holy Ghost we defie the Divel and all his Works Being that your Charge Sir is commenced from and coextended with Englands Evangelick Century and blessed Aera of Reformation the hundred Yeares last past whereas had it been limited to the last twenty or thirty we had less suspected your morals and consequently Vulpes Bovem agit the Reformed Religion and Clergy therein attacted and what in you lies subverted insomuch that it is plainly manifest that the Christian Religion founded and fixed in the Nation is with you the Apple of contention who therefore criminates Ministers being two bent upon Preaching of it Lett. 2. p. 72. index sufficient of yours It highly concerns the Church of England to stand in Justification of her first Reformation her original Protestancy and remonstrance against and separation from the Church of Rome the Religion by her professed her Clergy the official Preachers and Publishers of that Religion and the usual Preaching of that Clergy which in her name as her Advocate I have vouch'd to doe Well then The Essentials constitutive of a true Church Sir of the Mystical aswell as of the natural Body being these three namely the Head the Body and intimate Vnion and Communion between both the onely Head of the Christian Church being Jesus Christ God and Man in one Person appointed and anointed by God the Father King Priest and Prophet thereof the only mystical Ligament and bond of Community in this holy Corporation being the Divine Spirit originally derived from the Head through the whole Body the Church as Heiress thereof being the common foundation of that Sacred patronymick Christian under the New Testament as well as of that other Meschiahim as Eusebius notes under the Old or the Catholick Faith the product of that Spirit or both whence it comes to pass that the Founder Foundation Superstructure and medium or instrument of conjunction are all in Holy Scripture propounded as so many Vnites admitting of no consort or collateral One God and Father of all One onely Lord Mediator Saviour Foundation Name Way c. One Body One Spirit Faith Hope and Religion And being that the Religion professed and practised in and by the Church of
Rome especially since Trent-Council assembled and ended above your hundred years ago is inconsistent with and destructive of this individual Headship true Faith and Church-constitution being nothing else but an Anti-christian miscellany and compound oppositum in apposito of God and the Creature God-man and meer-man in the most material points and principles of Christianity the Persons of both in point of Worship the Power and Authority of both in matters of Faith the Righteousness and Merit of both in point of Satisfaction and Justification the Wills of both in the act of Conversion the Intercession of both in the great office of Mediation yea an universal co-equivalency or equal concurrence of Worth Vertue and Efficacy from both throughout the whole business of Redemption and Salvation especially from Christ and the Virgin Mary constituted therein Corredemptress with her Son and Saviouress a latere as if her Brests as well as his Sides had been no less then sacramental and the Mothers Milk and the Son's Blood equally saving Moreover to prosecute this Religious medley God and the Creature in the Decalogue Christ and the Church in the Creed Scripture and Tradition in the Canon Pater-Noster and Ave-Maria in the Litany Sacrament and Sacrifice in the Supper c. all so many Riddles in the Mystery of Iniquity A Religion consisting of such Trent-Forge-Principles and Practices as these viz. In point of Doctrine Papal Supremacy and Authotity Church Infallibility unwritten Traditions equall'd in authority with the Holy Scriptures the doctrine of Man's free-Will in opposition to God's Free-Grace the Doctrine of Perfection of Merits Pardons and Indulgences redounding from a surplusage of Works of super-erogation and satisfaction as they are termed as if any meer Man could fullfill in obedience beyond what the Law requires and satisfy in penance beyond what Sin deserves a rare Religion the doctrine of Purgatory and Souls Departed the doctrine of Mass-service and Transubstantiation the Consecrating Priestling turning a petty Creator as is supposed converting sacramental Forms into real Substance and Commemoration into Expiation celebrating Christ's Death with his death as well as with his own in destroying instead of discerning the Lord's Body yea both Saviour and Sacrament at once the doctrine of Ministration in an unknown Tongue by means whereof they do most sacrilegiously robb the Children of their Bread in the Scriptures as they do of the Cup in the Supper and many more such like Doctrines not of men onely but of Divels which I list not to dwell upon the Subject being so Frightful In point of Worship Idolatry and Imagery Superstition Saint-Worship c. In point of Polity absolute Tyranny the Keys turned into a Sword sufficiently exercised and dearly experienced throughout the World upon Princes-Crowns their Subjects-Consciences and Protestant-Blood in sanguinary Lawes a bloody Inquisition direful Anathemaes execrable Massacres rageing Persecutions c. the violent Calentures of that Torrid Zone The Religion in fine of that Church which is in Doctrine damnably Heretical in Worship grossely Idolatrous in Polity and Government intollerably Tyrannical in all palpably Antichristian opposite to and virtually destructive of Christs fundamentality and headship in his Person or Natures in his Offices in all their parts in his States in his vertues merits graces priviledges Institutions and ordinances c. in one or more or all of those and consequently destruction of the Catholick Faith and Religion by Himself and his Apostles and the whole successive series of Christians throughout the World professed and practised and finally of the truth of a Christian Church his Body all in effect nullified thereby yea and a false head other foundation and another name being substituted in opposition to the true the Religion I say professed and practised in the Church of Rome and that Church her self especially since Trent-Council being such as is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 described it followeth by necessary consequence that the separation of the Church of England both primitive in her first Reformers and present in their Successours persisting in that happy divorce from her and embodyed into a contradistinct but true Church under Christ the onely true Head in a Joynt profession of his Faith the true Religion is so far from being Schismatical this being ever a causeless and groundless separation in or from matter of true Religion in a true Church that on the contrary it is righteous and Justifyable yea absolutely necessary by the authority of that Law whereby we are strictly commanded to renounce and abjure her society upon peril of sharing in her Plagues from which Good Lord deliver us Sir if in this short defence of our Reformation which it is like may seem a kind of morose Tragedy to an airy Mercurius but that I aim at a further goal you think I have falsified or misrepresented any principle of the Romish Church charge me with it and spare not and if I do not Justify what I have asserted brand me for as great a slanderer as your self Again Sir True Religion being that onely of which the Holy Ghost the Spirit of Truth is the Author the Holy Scriptures the Word of Truth is the Rule and the Holy Church whereof our Church of England is part the Pillar and Ground of Truth is the publick Trustee Keeper and Conservatory as Pillars or Tables are of affix'd Papers and Proclamations to wit modo forensi non architectonico derived and delivered as is above-said to her from the Apostles and to them by Christ from God himself And the Reformed Religion Faith Doctrine and substantial Worship professed and practised in and by the Church of England being such as may appear from her publick tests and monuments especially the three Creeds Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian and her doctrinal Articles unanimously agreed upon in two several Convocations viz An. Dom. 1562 and 1604 c. compared with the Sacred Canon whose test and trial in the Case she is willing to undergo It follows that the Reformed and onely reforming Religion professed and practised in and by the Church of England is the onely true Religion which when you assault with Argument as now you undermine by Stratagem you shall be dealt withall Moreover Sir The Church of England is no less satisfied in her Clergy then in her Religion that as God hath by a Law of as long duration as that of Sun and Moon in the ordinary course of his Providence appointed to publish and propagate his Truth and instruct his Church by a constant series and succession of persons of holy Order and Office authorised and qualified thereunto so her Clergy is such having derived their orders together with their Religion ex traduce Apostolica from the original Seminary Founders of Christianity in England who are recorded in History the monumental Memory and best Intelligencer in such cases to have been Apostles or Men Apostolical whether Philip or Joseph of Arimathea sent by him as Tertullian
Hieragonisticon OR CORAH'S DOOM BEING AN ANSWER To Two Letters of Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion In Vindication of the Contemned By way of Epistle to the Author of the said Enquiry Contra Rationem nemo sobrius contra Scripturam nemo Christianus contra Ecclesiam nemo pacificus London Printed by Tho. Milbourn for Dorman Newman at the Kings-Armes in the Poultry 1672. An Answer to two Letters of Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion in Vindication of the Contemned By way of Epistle c. SIR THe Reformed Religion and Clergy England's Glory being by you betrayed to Contempt under pretence of an amicable Enquiry into the Grounds and Occasions of it which I here offer to make good I cannot conceive how I may better manage my vouch'd Vindication of both then 1. By Vnriddling the mystery of your Inquest to the Laity and 2. By answering to your Process form'd in it against Religion and Clergy This therefore is the method which I will observe in the present Contest which had I reckoned it Certamen de Oleastro a debate about matters of no greater consequence than are Achilles's Toes the Graecian's Boots or Neapolitan Chesnuts c. I had never I assure you contrasted you in to your the worlds or my own trouble As touching the First General viz. the Vnriddling of the Mystery and detecting of the stratagem project and imposture of your Inquisition and that in order to the prepossessing and guarding of the Laity against it This Sir I will endeavour by way of distinct gradual paragraphs commenced not a Nannaco from Adam or the Prae-adamites nor yet from your great Mormo Belshazzar but from the very Genealogy of the Christian Religion by you impeached thence proceeding ab Equis ad Asinos till in fine Sphinx do upon the matter become his own Oedipus and your Riddle whether one in the Mystery of Iniquity or not the Reader shall be Judge as legible as that plain truth as great a one as any that occurrs throughout your whole Rhapsody namely Let. 2. pag. 10 that there is a near relation between Atheisme and Contempt of the Clergy wherein let me tell you you have in a manner prophesied your own doom as Caiaphas did our Saviour's unawares First then Sir The Christian Faith or Religion is That which God the Father the original Author of Truth as well as Being hath delivered to his Son his Son to his Apostles his Apostles to his Church the primitive to succeeding Churches and all to their respective Members and Matriculates This is a prescript of the learnedst Apologist and Defender of the Faith that ever the Church enjoyed namely the great Tertullian and with me a grand piece of Orthodoxy Again Sir This Religion thus conveyed from God the Father by his Son to his Apostles and by the intermediation of both to his Church hath been in all the successive Ages thereof from the Apostles downwards to this present time and will be to the end of the world published preached and propagated by a constituted Hierarchy or continual Series of persons of holy Order and Office duly authorized and qualified thereunto stiled the Lights of the World the Stewards of Divine Mysteries the Embassadours of Christ the Pastors Teachers Guides Angels and Overseers of the Church For this Sir besides its congruity to the principles of general Equity I would produce Scripture-Arguments but that I fear lest they might share in the common lot of sacred Promises Precepts Narratives c. by your over-daring Witt facetiously abused sacra sacris Hence Sir it follows Thirdly There cannot be a more compendious method or stratagem devised for propagating of any sinister innovation or revolution Pagan or Papal in matter of Religion and the most Atheistick Idolatrous loose licentious principles and practices whatsoever even to an universal re-paganizing of a Nation than either by utterly subverting of an Orthodox Clergy therein or else by rendering it useless and unserviceable For if either the Persons of those Sacred Stewards Teachers Guides and Supervisers be removed or which is all one as to use and serviceableness in the Church their authority rebated and infringed those Lights either quite exstinct or at leastwise eclipsed those sacred Pipes cut or stop't c. what other can the sequel be then gross Ignorance And what may not be obtruded upon an Ignorant Laity of all that the arbitrary Lawes and lusts of their new Masters to whose service and blind obedience they are now most humbly envassal'd shall impose their swallow being sufficiently prepared by this time not for their Gnats only Tushâ— that 's ordinary with the blind to a proverb but for their Camel the Beast himself for a nauseous deadly Crambe a blasted Nehushtan for Stocks Stones Idols Images and what you will even to an unknown God! which undoubtedly is the reason why Satan his Accomplices have in most of the Catastrophes that have befallen the Church still commenced the tragedy from the Ministry witness both history and experience addressing all their power and policy to an utter either extirpation or exauctoration of the same This Sir I have likewise adopted into my Creed as following consequentially from the former Fourthly The most artificial and expedite way either to destroy the Clergy or which is much the same to render it useless and unserviceable to the Church as this is to destroy Religion is to expose and betray it to misprision and Contempt in the Laity This Sir I take to be as high a strain of Politicks as ever Socinian Loyolite or Jesuited Pandor throughout the world could write himself master of and indeed a very sacra anchora in the Romish Sea for all other artifices failing Enchantments Arguments Anathemaes Menaces Massacres Altar-Coals the Learned Quill the Charming Cup the sacred Key the thirsty Sword c. inter sacrum saxum Ahab's prejudice will do the business The Jesuite's Powder-Plot An. Dom. 88. was a shrewd stratagem as being levelled at the Community in Ruler and Representative where each unite stands for thousands universally devoted to a tout a coup such an epitomised stroke upon the English as the enraged Caligula imprecated to his offending Romanes without the trouble of a repetition But now those Ghostly Politicians are taught by experience that sacred enterprizes never luck more prosperously then when managed surdo verbere and that the Serpent is far more serviceable in the cause then the Dragon as acting with less noise greater execution Once throughly leaven an ungovernable Laity with contempt and prejudice against their Clergy and what the consequents hereof might prove may be perceived without a prospective-glass this active ferment will doubtless by degrees foment the whole mass of Blood and Spirit with which it once incorporates to an utter rejection of that which it ought if call'd for to be expended in defence of and thus
to understand that Sacred Truth might have been easily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by tradition from father to son conveyed preserved all that time pure entire and incorrupt free from the above-named Inconveniencies yea one single Trinmvirate might have performed this for the whole Two thousand years mentioned namely Adam Methuselah and Shem Methuselah living above Two hundred years with Adam and Shem who lived to the Fiftieth of Isaack's Age which was about the Two thousandth one hundredth and Fiftieth of the Age of the World about a hundred with Methuselah But now being that the Church-Line hath been since far extended her constitution advancing from Domestical to National and from That to Oecumenick and Vniversal Japhet perswaded to co-tabernacle with Shem and moreover the Life of Man very much since curtail'd being contracted by Sacred Horoscope to seventy or at most eighty years yea very rarely protracted to that insomuch that many successive Sages of the Church would not suffice to perform that now which that one single ternion did before and thus the case infinitely altered It followeth that for a preventive expedient against the Three-fold Inconveniency above-specified namely oblivion corruption and suppression a scriptural and written Rule is most Convenient And lastly that it is most congruous to the Nature and Honour of GOD to indulge his Creatures such a Revelation Rule and Directory is most convincingly manifest from his own infinite Perfections partly and partly from the concerns of his Glory and Honour in his own Worship being rightly performed and his Creature 's Happiness being fully secured for to urge but one argument in this one piece of Sacred Oeconomy which is Nemesius's concerning a Divine Providence in general should not God in condescention to his Creatures necessity and conveniency mentioned as well as in compliance with the Interest of his own Honour therein concerned afford him such a Revelation of his Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life this non-indulgence or refusal must necessarily proceed either from want of Wisdom or of will or of power and sufficiency in God as if either he were not Wise enough to understand how to gratifie his Creature or indeed consult his own interest herein or not Good Gracious and Kind enough to his Creature or Faithful enough to his own interest to do it or else in case of both Skill and Will yet not Able or Sufficient enough hereunto But now being that God as is evident by the very light of Nature is infinitely Wise infinitely Good and All-sufficient it were desperate treasonable Blaspemy committed against Heaven to assert any of those Defects and therefore in fine by the best of consequence as a special supernatural Revelation of the divine Mind and Will and Rule of Faith and Life is to the Creature absolutely Necessary and a Scriptural and Written one most Convenient So it is most congruous and suitable to the Divine both nature and honour to afford and indulge his Creature this most needful useful Scriptural Rule and Revelation Lastly Sir That this necessary-expedient Revelation of God and his Will this Canon Rule and Directory of Divine Doctrine and Worship and Christian Faith and Life c. is no other then what is contained in that System of Sacred Truth the Volume of the Scripures of the Old and New Testament as approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is as rationally demonstrable as either of the former This being that only Revelation to which the necessary properties and conditions of such a Canon do appertain which are summarily these two namely Divine Authority in respect of the Original and universal sufficiency in respect of the end it being absolutely requisite that such a Rule should both proceed from not Man Church or Angel but God himself as its Author and also by due proportion correspond to the ends and intendments specified as a plain and plenary description of and direction to the true God true Worship true Happiness and the appropriated means of the acceptable performance of that Worship and infallible attainment of that Happiness what more Rational and may that Instrument Method and Model of Revelation be for ever exploded the Church of God as apocryphal which is devoid of either property The one is a compound of infallible Veracity and authoritative Power expressed in the Revelation as being by its Sacred Author whose essential properties those are both inspired and instituted for the only authentick and unalterable Canon of his Church the former requiring our Faith the latter our Obedience Both in their respective analysis ultimately resolvable into the same as their very formal and Fundamentall Reason a principle of natural Conscience as well as that of the Authors eternal Power and God Head So that the Christian Religion framed by this Canon is of all others the most rational as being founded partly upon the Veracity of that God who can neither deceive nor be deceived partly upon his Supremacy or potestative Right by vertue whereof quicquid libet licet he may as the Creature 's Soveraign Proprietary enjoyn and exact of him whatsoever Worship or Service his own absolute but righteous Will shall dictate or direct and if any of the English Clergy offer to court your assent or obedience hereunto as other let them for ever inherit your Contempt The other property again by me considered as relating to both matter and manner of Revelation is the absolute perfection of the Canon whereby it is conceived as a Sacred Pandect or Ecyclopoedy expressely or implicitely directly or consequentially to comprehend the whole Counsel of God concerning all things necessary to be either known and believed or observed and practised in order to God's Glory and Man's happiness with so much clearness and perspicuity as that all both literate and illiterate may in a due and diligent perusal of the same attain to a competent skill and knowledg therein So that that onely Revelation must necessarily be the authentick Organ and Instrument Canon and Rule of Divine Doctrine and Worship Christian Faith and Obedience to which those two Canonical properties and conditions agree viz. that authority in respect both of inspiration and institution and that all-sufficiency in respect both of matter and manner of discovery so as that all Faith and Obedience yielded to the Revelation must be resolved into the veracity and supremacy of its Author expressed therein as the formal object or objective Reason of both aswell as into the universally perfect and all-sufficient Testimony it self as the material one and not into the testimony either of Church with the Papist or of Spirit with the Enthysiast both committing a most absurd and putid Circle in giving the reason of their hope asserting the truth and authority of the Canon by those respective testimonies and again in a reversed method the truth of those testimonies as being no other way known to be true by the Canon therefore to be equally declined Now that the Revelation of
that I single out such matchless instances of your extemporal and occasional Witt which let me tell you none but some unsanctified Humster for your Hector will ever afford an Amen to or reckon other then facetious villany remember for a check to it though Noah's Flood mentioned in your Hector's Litany be past yet St. Peter's Fire is still to come which all your holy Water cannot quench Ignorant-Poor Clergy indeed if a profligate Hector-Rampant shall out-vie them in their faculty being no further hallowed then with your outside consecration of a double Cap Cassock and Girdle Again As touching the other grand part of the Ministerial Office namely Preaching It is your peremptory assertion Sir in the Words of some great Patron an Intimado possibly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom you adopt for your mouth that such Preaching as is usual in the Church of England is a hinderance of Salvation Lett. 1. p. 81. rather then the means to it and the explication of what you intend by the epithete usual you reserve to the good time c. but what I will give the World to understand presently and yet plough with no other then your own Heiffer That Preaching of the Word of God by persons of Holy Order duly authorised and qualified hereunto is a Divine Institution that such Preaching is the ordinary meanes of Salvation and that the Preaching usual in the Church of England of which a fuller vindication hereafter is such She and I in her is obliged to believe till She see better Authority for altering of her Creed or Clergy then you or your Masters are like to produce in haste But the emphasis of your assertion lyeth in the adjunct viz. usual with which you epithet the Preaching by you tax'd and what you intend by usual Preaching in the Church of England must be traced by its extreams or opposites Now then the extream or opposite of usual Preaching must either be 1. Extraordinary high performed in the Holy Tongues Hebrew and Greek through an immediate illapse and inspiration of an infallible Spirit and if so Christus corpore Paulus ore nothing less will serve your turn then then St. Augustine's wish the audible Preaching of Christ or an Apostle in person visibly re-incorporated into the Church or else 2. Extraordinary low and mean possibly by way of prescribed Homily the Church speaking in this as the Spirit in the former but this you know is performable by the meanest Desk-Man one of your Contemptibles though never Master of other Language or Literature then what he may owe to a Mothers Nurses or School-Dames discipline or 3. Extraordinary in respect of Church Office order and degree as being performed onely by Primates or Prelates c. but neither do I take this to be the meaning of your unusual Preaching for besides the great breach of charity implied in it as if all the Preachers in the Church of England were Hinderers of Salvation except onely two saving Graces and twenty four Dominical Vertues if once the inferiour order and Body of the Clergy be brought into Contempt I am sure the Most and Right Reverend must look to share in the Destiny Or else lastly but of that anon It is not a little observable Sir I hope your Reader will sense you accordingly that while you expose our Preachers to the contempt of the Laity you amuse them with dark Reserves touching their Preaching The Clergy and Religion is the very Theme Argument and subject-matter of your Letters those you presuppose a contempt of the Grounds and Occasions of this Contempt you have engaged in an Enquiry into with pretence of friendly redress those grounds and occasions you summarily reduce to two viz the ignorance and Poverty of the Clergy of which anon in the explication and demonstration of those two characters the Preachers are plainly described whose Preaching you averr to be a hinderance of Salvation Now then the usual Preachers of the Church of England are plainly described by you and in them the usual Preaching what then can be the meaning or Mystery of your Reserve that the usual preaching that hinders Salvation which one would think you have sufficiently explained yet you will not here goe about to explain Lett. 1. p. 81. Lett. 2. p. 101. and that the reasons of your scrible might be further explained when occasion should require undoubtedly profound all naught and that I may unmask and detect you according to my promise I will spell out the Original by your own Copy for therein as God would have it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your speech bewrayeth you and by good consequence draw a summary conclusion touching the designe charged upon you from your own premises and that in A third assault made by you upon both Doctrinal and Ministerial foundation joyntly the Reformed Religion and Clergy more expressely Ad hominem then All such preaching as is at present usual in the Church of England is a hinderance of Salvation rather then the meanes to it But the Preaching used in the Church of England for an hundred Yeares last past is such as is at present usual therein Therefore the Preaching used in the Church of England for an hundred Yeares last past is a hinderance of Salvation c. Sir of this Categorick Syllogisme for form unexceptionable as you must needs know if your Logicks match your Ethicks the premisses are your own and I hope you will not deny the conclusion which is a compendious glosse and Comment upon the pestilent designe of your Letters of Enquiry The Major proposition Consists of your own express words above scann'd onely your indefinite is by me turn'd into an universal which you know the Rules of School will justify me in as well as the matter in debate such preaching and all such Preaching are equivalent The minor proposition or assumption is your own too as appears partly by express words partly by the scope series tenour and contexture of your Discourse disown it if you can Lett. 1. p. 58 59 It would be an endless thing Sir say you to your Correspondent to count up all the Follies that have been for an hundred Yeares last past Preached and Printed of this kind Now what kind of Follies you mean is plain from your foregoing Narrative concerning ridiculous Preaching by way of impertinent nay Lett. 1. p. 32 38 45 c. sometimes Blasphemous Metaphor Similitude Tales or such as is apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and that Religion which he professeth of which afterwards when I come to enquire into matter of Fact so that the argument standeth thus That Preaching which is full of Follies or such useless and ridiculous things as are apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed is such as is at present usual in the Church of England and therefore by you supposing it such exposed to Contempt But the Preaching usual in the Church of England for an Hundred
I see to have any for themselves But to return thither from whence I have digressed Must not then your inquisitive Method needs appear to any discerning Reader very wild and irrational For if only some or other of the Clergy be ignorant or poor how comes it to pass that the only some or other of the Clergy instead of the Generality is not by you endited and enquired into as contemptible Or if upon the slender foundation of such Premises the Ignorance of some and the Poverty of others you must needs erect an Inquisition of Contempt why of all other Orders and Professions is the Clergy singled out for the subject matter hereof why not for instance Lawyers and Physitians Especially since you confess that in both those Professions there be not some or other but many a Contemptible Creature and it is true Let. 1. p. 80 81. and for ought you know I am one of those Contemptibles but if so how comes it to pass that they luck to escape your Inquest Is it because you are afraid of theirs if occasion should be as in case of Over-intimacy with your Hects in the one or Cozen Abigail in the other For he must be an Ignoramus himself that knows not that what you charge upon the Clergy reigns in both Faculties Nor can you be insensible that in Physick in particular a Plush Jacquet is of that authority to Dubb with a Doctorato as never was Black-Coat in the Spiritual-ship though you cannot be a greater stranger to the Mysteries of Grace than this Master Doctor is to those of Nature devoid of all the Magisterial Accomplishmenns of that Noble Profession especially if our man in Plush do but luck upon as good a Knack of unriddling the Neapolitan Mystery one of greater iniquity than that of Chesnuts as your Gentlemen of the Inns of Court those Nurseries of Law and Lawyers have of knowing the four Terms the Porter's Name and eating without a Trencher yet is your Contempt poured wholly upon the Clergy But Sir to proceed That notwithstanding your Particularities here of some or others Ignorant and Poor c. the very Body and Generality of the Clergy is to be understood as co-involved crimine in uno Besides what hath been already said it will appear to your Reader from the third and last Observable viz. That your Charge is co-extended to Times both Past and Present Whatever say you hath heretofore or doth at present lessen the valuableness or serviceableness of the Clergy may be referred to Ignorance and Poverty Now Sir the Extent of Time best proves the Extent of Persons charged and what this Extent of Time past and present is doth best appear from your own Comment which hath been sufficiently scann'd namely that it is not a Decade or two ten twenty or thirty years but a whole Century the age of our Reformation though not of our Religion which is as ancient as God himself viz. the hundred years last past Let. 1. p. 59. the usual Doctrine Preached yea and Printed during which time and consequently the Reformed Religion it self is by you charged with Folly Let. 1. p. 38. and such ridiculous and impertinent Matter as is apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed and therefore doom'd by you as a hinderance of Salvation Let. 1. p. 81. rather than a Means conducing to it From all which Sir it is abundantly manifest your Reader be Judge that the very first Reformers of the Church of England and their Successors to and at this day as touching the Generality of them are understood in and by the Clergy in your Letters of Enquiry which is charged how justly is to be tried with Ignorance and Poverty Which Charge being a kind of complex Theme but what doth like your Ministers Text untwist it self containing two Articles Ignorance and Poverty shall in my Answer thereunto be distinctly considered As touching the Ignorance of the Clergy I will briefly enquire into these Particulars viz. 1. What particular kind of Knowledge is requisite in the Clergy so as to free them from the just imputation of its opposite Ignorance 2. Whether the Clergy of the Church of England be justly chargeable with the want of that Knowledge And lastly 3. I will give a Formal Answer to your Charge and Allegations in the Particular for I have vouch'd it though it cost me more Pen Ink and Paper than both the other two As touching the first Knowledge Sir is a matter of very large extent indeed an Encyclopoedy comprehensive of Divine Angelical and Humane Diabolical we excommunicate and yours if such Humane again first Natural-Moral the Original Habits of first Principles and connate Notions that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or universal Seminary which Anaxagoras dream'd of but what every Son of Adam is more or less possess'd of Secondly Artificial and acquired both Mechanick as inferiour Arts Mysteries and Manufacture and Magistral Mental and Principal namely Natural-Moral parts and principles advanced polished and improved by all the Accessary and Artificial helps and advantages of Education Experience Discourse Converse with Men or Books c. but especially that of Literature or all concurring fam'd throughout the world in case of considerable proficiency in it under the notion of Learning the Lucriferous Profession of many the distinguishing Accomplishment of all that are ennobled herewith justly valuable amongst men partly by the excellency of its Obâ—ect partly by its necessity in point of use and humane exigency comprehensive of all the several Acquists of Knowledge Natural Moral Civil Divine c. both of Philosophy in all its parts the Liberal Arts and Sciences Logick Rhetorick Physicks Metaphysicks Mathematicks Astronomy Geometry Opticks c. Ethicks Politicks Oeconomicks c. and of the Learned Languages the Deferents and Vâ—hâ—cles of Knowledge both Western and Oriental Latine Greek Hebrew Syriack Arabick c. And of the noble Professions whereunto all these are subservient particularly Law Physick and Divinity Theology or Divinity again the only Profession concern d in your Enquiry Dogmatical Polemical Acroamatical or Concional Casuistical c. that the Man of God may be an accomplished Artist in Positives and Raiser of Doctrine Confounder of Heresies Interpreter of Scripture Resolver of Cases of Conscience c. to use your own Idiom as that which happily will like you best And what is an Appendant hereupon Skill in Jewish Learning Ecclesiastical History Chronology Heresiology Martyrology Practicals and the like And Thirdly and lastly Knowledge supernatural immediately infused by God whether extraordinary or ordinary common or special c. Now Sir I hope it is not required of the Clergy that they all or the generality of them by you arraigned be upon peril of imputation of Ignorance from you or Contempt from the Laity Masters of Solomons Encyclopoedy noted by a little acquaintance of yours Pineda or Justinian's Pandects or yet which hath a nearer relation to their Faculty
The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Treasure h d in a Field which you would call a going far and deep and add possibly but we soon come above 〈◊〉 again for the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Merchant-man c. And again which hath very little or no resemblance of the former Likenesses the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Net c. So that if a Mortal might dare to presume upon facetious disporting with Sacred Scripture it were easie to recapitulate viz. that in a very little compass namely that of one short Sermon the Kingdom of Heaven is a Sower a Grain of Mustard-seed Leaven a Treasure a Merchant-man a Net Now Sir if you reckon this matter of Contempt in our Saviour declare your self streight be no longer Atheist in disguise If not then neither is it such in his Ministers conforming to such a Pattern or in your own Language guided by his Preaching and Directions therefore ab absurdo if my reason may not convince you let your own upon recollection but if you be neither convicted by argument nor confounded otherwise for my own part I expect no other but that the world at leastwise this part of it England will experience your Enquiry into the grounds and occasions of the contempt of Religion and Clergy alias an exposal of both to it to have been but a prologue to a higher or further Province There are two Books Sir which in laboris compendium you refer your Reader to the one entituled a Friendly Debate the other Flames and Discoveries your Oracles possibly but 't is all one what your other Readers may do herein I know not but for my self I think I shall hardly dare to meddle with them I have so much of you As for the former I understand there is a Cerberus in the case and I list not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for the latter Flamma fumo proxima and sire and smoak are terrible things especially when more from the Pit then from the middle Region more plague then meteor But Sir if your ignis fatuus must have sacred fuel to feed it withal why is it the English Clergy and their Preaching rather then the Romish which is known to abound with all manner of blasphemy folly and impertinencies witness their own Innocent the third his misteries of the Mass Durand's Rational Tolet and Titleman c Did ever English or Resormed Divine commit such a ridiculous impertinent blasphemous gloss upon Holy Scripture as is that to instance but in one for I long to be rid of them and you both of one of their very Cardinals Barronius by name upon those verses in the eight 〈◊〉 relating to the Messiah Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thine hands thou hast put all things under his feet all Sheep and Oxon y a and the Beasts of the Field the Fowles of the Air and the Fish of the Sea c. Now observe Reader Cardinal Points Thou hast put all things under his feet that is under the seet of the Pope of Rome Sheep that is Christians Oxen that is Jews and Hereticks Beasts of the Field that is Pagaus Fowles of the Air that is Angels Fishes of the Sea that is Souls in purgatory Do more artificial and ingenious 〈◊〉 occurr in all your Rhâ—psody then these but I am weary of them and you both Therefore Sir by way of recapitulation which is the other thing that I propounded to sum up the whole The Clergy of the Church of England hath been by you charged with Ignorance as the just ground of Contempt that you might prove them ignorant you criminate something in the Grammar Schools something in the Vniversities something in the Pulpits in Grammar-Schools the not reading of English Authors and the not reading of Philosophical Authors and Mathematicks c. the former whereof is fitter for a Domestick nursery the latter fitter for an Academy In Vniversities want of English that is nothing but Latine Greek c. exercises and the delicacies of Academick Wit In the Pulpit and Minister's last Edition either superlatively cloquent or profoundly learned Preaching partly partly Preaching by way of ridiculous impertinent Metaphor Similies and such like things as might procure Contempt to the Preacher and the Religion by him professed Of the allegations produced in matter of fact two parts of three are acquitted as either at least justifiable or highly laudable and matter of applause rather then of Contempt yea and the tertia third or only one part that is confessed peccant and faulty not customary neither and besides attended with vertues which may procure more credit and honour than the defects can possibly disparagement or contempt all which duely considered your Reader be judge what do all your arguings reprove The other part of my Province I will quickly dispatch As touching the Poverty of the Clergy I will briefly enquire Sir 1. Whether Poverty be a ust ground of the contempt of the Clergy 2. Whether Poverty be an actual occasion of this Contempt And 3. VVhether Poverty and Contempt may admit of any redress As for the former That the Clergy is upon the account of poverty therefore de â—ure Contemptible is most justly denied else Christ himself the Antesignan and Head of the Clergy and the Apostles his Associates had been de jure contemptible for the former though Lord of all had not where to lay his head insomuch that when he had occasion to pay a little Tribut e he was fain to be at the expence of a miracle for it the latter by the very Laws and Terms of Discipleship nor Silver nor Brass to buy necessaries for themselves nor yet Scrip to receive the charitable benevolence of others both briefly in extraction relations possessions c. very poor What and therefore justly contemptible nay on the contrary 2. It hath ever been matter of sacred veneration towards the Christian Religion glory to its Author and Promoters and wonder to a perfect consternation and amazement in its Adversaries that it hath been founded and propagated preserved and maintained by the poorer predicament and order of mankind who would ever have thought that a poor Duo-decemvirate poor in extraction relations possessions number power and policy Twelve inconsiderable Mechanicks within the space of Forty years would have proved such absolute conquerours of the greatest part of the known world in subduing the same to and by the Christian Faith Though their opponents were numerous potent and politick Verba leguntur piscatorum colla subduntur Oratorum said St. Augustine Fisher-men prove Fishers of men a canting quibble but that it is warranted by a jure Divino catching Imperial necks in their book subduing Scepters to Christs Standard the Cross I shall not need here to mention the succeeding Propagators of the same Faith Primitive nor Modern the poor of Lyons Paterius Humilists Waldenses Albigenses c. Nor yet our own siâ—seâ— Reformers in whom a Divine
that it is most observable in the support preservation and maintenance of a poorer Clergy and that a poor Clergy is no just object of Contempt in the Laity else Christ himself and his Apostles and both Primitive and Modern most eminent propagators of the Christian Faith might pari jure share therein As touching the second Sir It is soon resolved that the poorer sort of the Reformed Clergy is partly through the corruption of Man's heart partly through instigation from Satan and Hell-inspired Atheists Socinians Jesuits and Jesuited persons and all such Cinifloes using ostentative braggs and insinuations about the full Coffers spread Tables costly Apparel Honorary Titles Grandure and Magnificence not only of the Primates and Optimates of Church and State but of most orders of men but especially amongst their Simiae in purpura beyond the Channel over and above what the inferiour Clergy hath de facto which is matter of grief and condolency exposed to contempt in the Laity but quid ad Rhombum Sir Doth matter of fact prove right in either Law or Logick or are they therefore to yours or suppose they were blessed with the splendour and magnificence here mentioned would this secure them from yours or a Laicks lash no! flegm would then ferment into choler contempt into grudge emulation and your Inquisition re-authorised for inspection into the grounds and occasions of the envy as now of the contempt of the Clergy there is a remarkable instance of this amongst our Neighbours where a Franciscan Hackney that is in plain English Sir good bare Ten-Toes was once a Proverb but now forsooth the Gentlemen of that order instead of vowed bare footing of it as heretofore in journying are mounted upon the best Horses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with attendance better befitting their Nobless than a Monkish Tenebrio to a most rancide grudge and inveteracy both in the Laity and other Religious orders But since you can only understand matter of fact here not matter of right that as ignorance is a just ground of Contempt of the Clergy so poverty is a tempting occasion to it I proceed As touching the last particular Sir The poverty of the Clergy and upon this occasion actual but wicked and unjust contempt in the Laity being both supposed the next thing to be enquired into is whether this same Poverty and Contempt the disease and symptome be capable of a remedy now That it is most congruous to the Law of God Nature and Nations that some competent provisions be made for the Ministers of the Gospel is I think a generally confessed case though I will not dispute the mortality of a decimal provision or tithe yet I assert the natural equity of a competent one as the holy Scripture hath before me in that very natural principle The Labourer is worthy of his hire And what ample provisions were made by God for the Priests and Levites of old is sufficiently attested in holy Writ and by you well asserted utinam sic semper errasset Bellarminus together with the reasons thereof which I am sure are moral however the particular definite way of raising of those provisions be ceremonial and antiquated viz. that they might closely and composedly attend the Service of God and his Church and studies relating thereunto without distracting cares and solicitude about the urgent concerns of back and belly and necessary supports of humane life and you may guess Sir what a miserable pinching thing that is res angusta domi and also that they might be capable of administring to the necessities of others in charitable offices as occasion should offer or require a great both encouragement and ornament of piety I add a third reason peculiarly suited to the Horizon of our Church namely that after domestick exigencies and charitable offices satisfied some little surplusage might accrue for a petite subsistence to a surviving Consort Sir my Muse flaggs my heart akes when I consider that in England England a Land of plenty a poor Ministers Widow is become a very Proverb bâ—â— what will no lesssuit Jeremiahs Lamentations then Solomons Parables now what a sad thing is it that he who devotes himself to spend and be spent in the service of God his Church and the Souls of others should be able to entitle the companion of his own life that ended to no more than an Ecclesiastick plea for an Alms a poor Ministers Widow and that the surviver of him who serves at the Altar should be enforced to beg at the Door a Lamentation and let it be for a lamentation Now for a remedy and redress of the whole the Poverty of the Clergy male and female and contempt of them hereby too truely though unjustly occasioned in the Laity whom can or ought we to make applications to but our State-Physicians namely his Majesty in conjunction with a wise prudent considerate Parliament all joyntly spirited hereunto from a generous zeal for the glory honour and renown here endangered of their Clergy and Religion that Church of whom they own themselves Sons and that Faith of which they profess themselves Defenders what the method of redress or expedient in the case should be must as reason good be left to their own prudential contrivance but I presume I may use the same liberty so I do the modesty that your self Well then The Lucrative Arts and Stratagems of the Church of Rome as the Ghostly authority and infallibility of the Pope their fundament al cheat their monopoly of merits and indulgences miracles auricular confession absolutions pardons penance purgatory canonization of Saints the Wafer-God for there they can make not only Saints but a God Let. 1. p. 98 99 100. c. at pleasure vowed Celibacy the denial of marriage to their Clergy and such like artifices some whereof are by you recounted all sacrificed to Mammon or the Money-God those and the like I say are and I hope will be by both Church and State of England eternally adjudged antichristian which if you or any advocate in your behalf will undertake to disprove me in so it be with more argument and less flashy Theatrical wit then you use in your Letters it is like I may procure some who pro tenui tate your Academick Youngster's conge will try it out with you at the two-edged Sword Again the method of reducing and levelling Episcopal and Cathedral or Collegiate Revenues and all other Ecclesiastical preferments and possessions to a commonmage were such a motion as nothing less then the Acts of the Apostles could render unpardonable besides the danger of an Ignis sacer in the case and I am terribly afraid of St Anthony Once more your Astraea's return or restitution of such Tithes and Church-Rents as former Kings and Parliaments especially the great Church-Publican King Henry the Eight thought good upon what prudential considerations it is not meet that you or I should dispute to impropriate to the Crown or State which might happily prove as
is such a near relation by your own confession and that else your politicks were as faulty as your cause under the disguise of a friendly pretence It is a grand maxime in Law but only with a Civilian non defendere videtur qui latitat very silence or non-appearance for the accused c. much more publication without vindication as in the present case is an implicite charge so that the very negative your non-vindicating of Religion and Clergy from that Contempt which you both too truly presuppose and divulge is an indirect proscription and exposal of both to a further degree and confirmation of it your Inquisition interpretative though there were no express accusation and hence according to this rule the properest paraphrase upon your Text and I dare say most congruous to the original must be this The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt and Contemptibility both of the Clergy Person and Function and of Religion under Colour of Friendly Enquiry into the same and pretence of Redress of the present Gâ—â—tempt but with a real intent of fomenting and propagating a further and firmer Prejudice and what hath a near relation thereunto Atheisme c. alledged or administred and in perpetuam rei memoriam published to the world by Oath ex officio c. And now ex ungue Leonem But Sir to subsume a fortiori in stead of Vindication of Religion and Clergy or the pretended redress of popular contempt of both by you both supposed and divulged you have exposed and betrayed both to what you have fowly bewrayed in your self accumulative prejudice and a confirmed contempt and in order to the more effectual propagation hereof and your Atheistick Antichristian design herein in a a most defamatory reproachful and blasphemous manner traduced and abused the doctrinal foundation of both viz. the Holy Scriptures to the infringing and subverting what you can the sacred authority and consequently the necessity and utility of the same and therein the Christian Faith founded thereupon for which you must be accountable As touching your first and cheif assault Sir This being made as is said upon the doctrinal foundation of both Religion and Clergy the Holy Scriptures and in them the personal God and his Christ or rather this complex God in Christ if those phrases may not be offensive to you and thus at once antiscriptural antichristian atheistical I Judge it necessary that I first by way of defence prepossess the Reader against it and then for conviction in a few instances amongst many a litle exemplify it As for the former I cannot better prepossess the Reader nor counter-work you then by asserting from the very principles of Reason the onely significant topick in this case the authority by you debased and disparaged namely That of the Holy Scriptures which I will briefly perform in these few ensuing paragraphs wherein I consult not so much his judgment as his memory the reality as the rationality of his Faith as being rather prompter hereof then founder hoping that I have not herein to do with more Atheists then one nor fearing in defence of such a rational interest to encounter them all First then Sir That there is an One only true and living God that to this God is due from the Creature all possible worship and service that upon the right performance of this worship depends all true and certain happiness are all truths demonstrable from principles of common Reason else I am willing to take shame for my assertion viz. That of a true Deity partly from natural Conscience as being in its latitude both Conservatory of common connate notions and principles of which that of a Deity divine worship and concomitant Reward are the chief the very Light and Law of nature and also witness and judge by way of domestick process in matters of fact vitious or vertuous accusing or excusing according to the tenour of that Law hence called by Gregory Nazianzen the Souls-paedagogess which would you become tractable disciple to I should not yet despair of you for none such ever died Atheist or Infidel and by Basile the Great a natural Judicatory most certainly authorised from a supream Law and Law-giver who can be no other than the true God whose authentick and righteous Will is therein exemplified Partly again by rational collection or conclusion of one absolute first Cause and Principle from obvious effects that being the production of the Creatures can neither be infinite that is of one by another the present by a former those again by a former and so still on far beyond Adam and the Prae-adamites even in infinitum by way of a direct unbounded procession nor yet Circular that is of a second by a first a third by a second another by that and so round to the first again producing and reproducing each other by way of continual circulation both those wayes being palpably inconsistent absurd and irrational it must of necessity be Original proceeding from one only universal supream absolute and independent Being the Original Author of all things which is no other then Jehovah the onely true God Deny this Sir and unman your self Again that of Religious Worship is evicted from the former the very same principle convincing of the truth of a Godhead and of Religious Worship due from Man as natural Tribute and Homage to this God as being not only a superexcellent nature in Himself but absolute soveraign Proprietary in Benefactor to his Creature more especially Man his Vsufructuary for life and being Himself independent upon any thing all things necessary dependants upon him Insomuch that there was never person or people in the world who did not alwayes Joyn with their sense and conscience of a Deity Religious and devotional acknowledgments witness sacred Rituals Temples Altars Sacrifices Festivals c. amongst the most Barbarous of Nations and thus it is observable that the Gentiles are not tax'd by their Doctor in his Letter to the Old Romans with a total neglect of Worship but with defect in the manner of it as being unsuitable and incongruous to the Divine Nature and Will Lastly that of a certain Reward and Happiness attending upon the due performance of this Worship as opposite misery upon the neglect of it is no less congruous to the Principles of Natural Reason than either of the former as being convincingly manifest partly from the infinite goodness and righteousness of God being equally disposed to reward Vertue and punish Vice partly from the intrinseck Equity and Justice of the thing it self In fine then Sir The truth of a Godhead Religious Worship due to this God true Happiness and Reward depending upon this Worship are all Articles of a very Heathen's Creed as well as of that of a Christian as being the dictates of Nature as well as of Scripture Read by the Light of Sun Moon and Stars common principles of Reason as well as Articles of Faith perspicuous to the World in general in
common with that impropriated part of it the Church and therefore in the business of Religion supposed as general Preliminaries and as it is in all other Arts and Sciences confessed Principles for he that cometh unto God as Candidate in this Sacred Profession must believe that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him A Godhead Religion Concomitant Reward and Happiness Common-Creed wherein all Heathens and Pagans Jews Mahometans c. whose several Testimonies I must not here insert as well as Christians universally throughout the world are Joynt Confessors save here and there a Protagoras Diagoras Lucian the Author of the Contempt of the Clergy c. and such like Desperadoes who yet never durst out of a Feaver expresly deny any of all the Three a GOD his WORSHIP or a FVTVRE STATE or suppose they live the Pope's Life questioning what they dare not cannot deny Clement the Seventh is the Man I mean his Three Dying-Resolves will be their certain though too late Conviction viz. Whether there be a God Whether the Soul be Immortal Whether there be a Heaven and Hell Again Sir That in order to the due knowledg of this God the right and acceptable performance of this worship and the discovery and attainment of this happiness a special Revelation of the Divine Mind Will and Rule of Faith Life is to the creature absolutely necessary that a scriptural Rule and Revelation is most convenient and that to afford the creature such a Rule is most congruous to the sacred nature honour of God are all rational truths aswell as the former For Sir as touching the necessity of such a Rule and Revelation although a person might by the conduct of the Light and Law of Nature emproved by the accessary help of the works of Nature discover and learn That there is a God yea and in some degree what He is both in his negative Attributes independency infinity immutability c. and in his affirmative-goodness wisdom power c. yea and those in their very eminencies omnisciency omnipotency c. and the like as the necessary and essential properties of the first Cause Likewise that there is religious worship due to this God yea and that he ought to be worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a way and manner most acceptable to himself Lastly that reward and happiness attends and depends upon that Worship yea and in some respect what objective happiness chief good is viz. God himself qui omnis beatitudinis fastigium meta finis as said the Divine Plato like as his Master Socrates the former the very sum adequate measure and boundary of all real blessedness yet notwithstanding all this What Vnity of Essence in Trinity of Persons is One in Three without division Three in One without confusion God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost all one individual Spirit the proper object of divine Worship What the right and acceptable manner of performing that Worship Wherein that true formal happiness consists which attends thereupon and by what means attainble c. Those Sir believe it are not at all discoverable by that common Light by reason of that infinite disproportion which is between such a defective medium and the object and hence in the Academy the Lyceum the Stoa and other Athenian Phrontisteries would have found no more credit then the doctrine usually preached for a hundred yeares last past in the Church of England hath in your books Follies Lett. 1. pag. 59. else what mean't the Heathenish polytheisme and great Armado of mock-Deities alias Mortals bewrayed by the Tombs they had aswell as Temples thirty thousand strong as it is in Hesiod's muster-roll copied by St. Augustine of whom three thousand amongst the very Graecians as it is in Homer's whose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if with you as Canonical as belike his Iliades and Odysses are then we know at once what is your Creed your Bible and Practice of Piety six thousand amongst the Romanes as it is in Varro's more Gods then there are of Contemned Clergy all England over what mean't their monstrous Idolatries their two hundred eighty eight Beatitudes recounted by the learned Roman now mentioned and such like stuff of which to speak with the Father me piget quod illos non puduit and that not amongst the ruder Plebeians only but even persons of more defecated intellectuals their polished Sophies Ingeniosoes Vertuosoes and the most refined of all Nations and professions the Egyptian Priests the Persian Magi the wisest Graecian Philosophers Stoicks Peripateticks Platonicks c. the most inquisitive Roman Naturalists the Graecian and Roman both Orators and Poets even the very Princes in either Faculty Demosthenes and Tully in the one and in the other which your Reader may chance to wonder at Protestant-Homer Let. 2. pag. 43 45 46. and which is yet stranger Virgil the undoubted Nonconformist had he but held out to Bartholomew the Famous the onely persons of either Perswasion I assure you that I ever read or dream'd of to have come from Rome or Athens What I say can the Pagan Mock-deities Idolatries and imaginary Beatitudes in the very judgement of the most strenuous Advocates of pure Naturals portend other then an utter Insufficiency of natural light for the ends and purposes above specified namely the administring of the due Knowledge of the True God True Worship and True Happiness Therefore a New Light or supernatural Rule and Revelation is absolutely necessary Again Sir the expediency of a scriptural or written Rule may appear from a three-fold danger and inconveniency which an unwritten one is liable to namely that of oblivion and forgetfulness that of depravation and corruption by unjust additions detractions falsifications and forgery and lastly that of utter destruction and suppression the first through the treachery of Humane memory the two last through the implacable enmity of Satan and his Accomplices against God his Truth and Church From all which a written Rule and Revelation is more secure as being a publick Record and Repertory whereunto recourse may be had upon all occasions as well for relief to Memory as for trial or redress of questioned and impeached Truth hence called by St. Peter a surer word of Prophecy than Vocal or Vnwritten to wit not by a certainty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of veracity for all Divine Revelation is equally sure in this sense because equally true but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of security upon the accounts mentioned True it is God was pleased to instruct his Church for the first Two thousand years and upwards onely viva voce by a vocal Revelation of his Mind and Will for ought certainly known to the contrary but then Sir the constitution of the Church was during that long Aera onely domestical confined within the Line and Limits of particular Families which compared with the longaevity and great age of the Aborigines of the World gives us plainly
God and his Will contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament as they are approved and received throughout the Reformed Churches is that one only Revelation which is thus both inspired and also by eternal sanction instituted and appointed of God for the all-sufficient and absolutely perfect Canon of his Church and that both as touching the Doctrine therein contained and its accessary mode of scription it being wholly committed to writing by God's Holy Prophets Apostles and Evangelists being all by the Holy Ghost as his immediate Actuaries extraordinarily qualified for irresistibly incited to and infallibly guided and actéd in the work commenced by Moses the first and finally concluded and perfected by St. John the last of Canonical Writers may be very rationally evicted and that to an utter exclusion not only of the Jewish Talmud the Turkish Alchoran Popish Traditions Enthsiastick Fancies c. from having part or lot in the Sacred Canon but of matters of a higher predicament namely all vocal Revelation such as was that whereby God instructed his Church for the first two thousand Yeares and upwards and the many Sermons of Christ and his Apostles not recorded though equally inspired of God with the Scriptural as also several Prophecies as those of Gad Nathan Iddo and others which were not only equally inspired but likewise recorded yet irrecoverably lost as being only accommodated pro tunc to some particular state condition exigency of the Church which once satisfied they were judged unnecessary to be incorporated into the universal Canon Where I advertise the Reader that the sufficiency of the Scriptures is evicted in their authority for it being once agreed upon that the Revelation contained therein is of a truth the Word of God we cannot more question its sufficiency then its testimony whereof this is a signal part namely that It is as inspired of God so as his Sacred Institutes profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for Instruction c. sufficient to perfect every individual Man and the whole Church of God That whatsoever things were written were written for our Learning c. That this word must be indeclinably observed without turning to the right hand or to the left That nothing must be added to this Word or diminished from it upon peril of accumulative misery denounced by St. John the last and longest liver of Canonical Writers as hath been said in the very last of his writings namely the very close of the Canon by way of penal sanction and ratification of the whole So that the very crisis of this weighty concern of stating and setling our Faith obedience in and to the Holy Scriptures lyeth in the evidence of the Divine Authority thereof after this discursive method That which is the Word of God ought necessarily to be believed and obeyed But the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New-Testament is the Word of God Therefore this Revelation ought necessarily to be believed and obeyed The major or first proposition is a conclusion of natural Reason founded and following upon God's essential veracity and supremacy as hath been said the dictates of the very Light and Law of Nature as well as that of a Deity it self The minor or assumption namely that the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is the very Word of God is apparent upon a threefold testimony namely that of the Church that of the Scriptures themselves and that of the Holy Ghost of which the two former onely are argumentative the one as Humane and Ministerial the other as Divine and Canonical as for that of the Holy Ghost He being the efficient cause of our Faith and obedience his testimony indeed is most certainly perswasive to a person 's own Conscience but this testimony being private and internal like the Hidden Manna which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it and the truth or divinity hereof being with all opponents equally questionable with that of the Word it self it can be no wayes convictive to others Well then to urge only the two former and that very briefly As touching the first of those namely the testimony of the Church which I here consider and observe it Sir not under the notion of a Church for as such it is onely knowable by the Scriptures not they by it but as a collective Body or society of prudent and honest faithful Witnesses professing and attesting the Holy Scriptures and the Religion therein prescribed so that the Argument standeth thus That Revelation which is by a society of prudent honest and faithful Witnesses who are neither deceived themselves nor deceivers of others professed and attested to be the Word of God in all rational construction and evidence is such But the Revelation contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament is by such a society of prudent honest and faithful Witnesses c. professed and attested to be the Word of God Ergo c. The major or first proposition Sir I reckon unquestionable with all Atheists and Infidels throughout the world for certainly as essential infallibility in God by vertue whereof in genere entis he can neither deceive nor be deceived is the ground of an infallible assurance in matters of Divine testimony so a rational infallibility in a society of prudent honest and faithful men who therefore cannot be suspected to be in genere moris either deceived in themselves or deceivers of others is a sufficient ground of rational assurance in matter of humane testimony as is that in question viz a humane testimony of a divine Revelation for what more can be required in the case As for the roof of the minor or assumtion all that is required hereunto is the eviction of the prudence honesty and faithfulness of those Witnesses or the rational infallibility of themselves and and their testimony namely that they are such as can neither be suspected of being deceived in themselves nor yet of any imposture or intent of deceiving others where I understand as to our immediate concern in the case the present Testifiers especially without a perplexing recourse had to the first being that the credit of the preceeding is still successively secured in the subsequent Churches thus being once perswaded of the prudence and honesty of the present Church namely that she is so wise and prudent as not to have been deceived by the next preceeding from whom she received the Scriptures and so honest and ingenuous as not to deceive the Reader or my self or the next ensuing we are accordingly assured of the same both prudence and honesty and consequently rational infallibility in the former and so in the next to that and so on to the very Apostles and first witnesses Now then Let the intellectuals and morals the wisdom prudence and discretion the honesty fidelity and integrity of the present Witnesses of the Divinity of the Scriptures be impartially scann'd and all compared with the multitude of
the Testifiers a wise man may sometimes both be deceived and deceive but a multitude can hardly if ever in regard of choice of direction in case of errour or detection in case of forgery the publicity and openness of the testimony and consequently its lyableness to conviction if false or fraudulent the hazard of loss of peace ease and quiet honour credit and reputation profits pleasures and wordly delights means of subsistence liberty yea life it self which that Testimony and Profession exposeth to a practice quite contrary to the Law of Nature which obligeth to self-preservation but that it is warranted by those higher severe lawes of Mortification and Self-denial c. as to all those endearments prescribed in the Scriptures by them attested which whether observed or not observed is a certain conviction of a faithful testimony the observance being matter of credit thereunto non-observance of disgrace which by fore-going the profession might be avoided and lastly the vigilancy subtilty and potency of Enemies and opponents past and present for whom it was and is easie in case of imposture at once both to detect and to destroy who yet either have been wholly silent under the publick attestations of Sacred Truth or have added thereunto their own acknowledgments instances whereof History abounds withal or lastly have disputed the same with the sword rather then with argument though the Gates of Hell never could nor shall prevail herein Let those I say and the like be all duly scann'd and compared together and then undoubtedly the conclusion can be no other then that the Testifiers and Witnesses of the Revelation or Doctrine confirmed by Miracles contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are and have been a prudent honest and faithful Society which can or could neither be suspected of Errour or of being deceived in themselves nor yet of imposture or intent of deceiving others and consequently that this same Word or Revelation by them thus attested and professed is of a truth the Word of God At leastwise the whole may be of such vertue and influence as to beget in us that veneration and reverend esteem for those Testifiers and the Scriptures by them testified together with the Religion which according to the prescript thereof they profess as to bring us to the Bible and to perswade us to a research of the Scriptures with the applauded Bereans whether things be so as is reported without which take notice my testimony for the Scriptures ought to be of more force with you then yours against them can be expected to be with me mine being with you onely of suspected partiality yours with me of manifest prejudice and then are we half-Proselytes already for Sir the Divine Authority of the Scriptures may convincingly appear to one thus prepared by the subordinate and introductory attestation of the Church from the superiour Testimony of the Scriptures themselves the second thing propounded to be spoken to namely that evidence which may be collected from the intrinseck characters and cognizances of Divinity as so many dignifying prerogatives enstamp'd upon the Word it self as that which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as saith Athanasius as in a manner self-manifestative and hence which is remarkable frequently likened to the objects or mediums of our natural senses as light voice and sound smell savour and taste fire and heat c. whence any that hath his senses exercised to the discerning hereof may gather that as the things mentioned doe indemonstrably discover themselves to be what they are so the Holy Scriptures whereof those are figurative resemblances doe infallibly prove themselves to be Divine Now these three or four Characters of the Scriptures seem of all others to be more especially argumentative and convictive of their Divinity to natural Conscience namely 1. the majesty of their stile witness those many majestick Titles of Divinity which the Author doth therein assume to himself which I must not hear recount importing either independency of being or universality of perfection or absolute power and authority or excellency of operation c. but all no less then Divinity and amongst other particulars that magisterial affidavit Thus saith the Lord familiar to the Holy Scriptures and pretended to in no writings in the world besides 2. The transcendency spirituality and sanctity of the matter and contents both in doctrines and duties the great mysteries of the Godhead and godliness three distinct persons in one nature in the one two distinct natures in one person in the other the mystery of diverse yea adverse both natures and persons united in one Covenant the mystery of Regeneration the mystery of the Resurrection c. and other Doctrines Duties as opposite to man's corrupt Will as these are to his Reason as the doctrines of original sin the impotency of pure naturals in spirituals the servitude and Bondage of Free-Will c. the duties of mortification of the Flesh self-denial and that strange retaliation of evil with good and hatred with returnes of Love c. infallible marks of Sanctity as is also finally the universal tendency and intendment of the whole contexture namely the exaltation and advancement of God and debasement of the Creature peculiar to Holy Writ beyond all other whatsoever 3. The sincerity and impartiality of the Writers and Compilers who appear to be so far from concealing that on the contrary they have faithfully divulged upon Record each other 's nay almost each his own defaults and infirmities Moses his Grand-father Levi's iniquity his Brother Aaron's Idolatry his and his sister Miriams sedition and his own faulty precipitancy David Mose's rashness and inconsideracy and his own Murther and Vncleanness the Evangelists their very Master's humane infirmities as hunger thirst weariness fear c. and their own dulness of understanding impertinent Queries St. John's and Jame's ambition Thomas's incredulity Peter's triple denial of his Lord and Master recorded by St. Mark his own Disciple Paul's dissention with Barnabas and accessary guilt of Stephen's Death recorded by St. Luke his own Follower St. Paul Peter's Judaizing and his own Blasphemy and Persecution c. an unquestionable conviction of the faithfulness and truth of their Testimony not to be match'd by any Writers whatsoever besides 4. And lastly the jnfallibility and veracity of their predictions the predictions themselves are recorded in the Holy Scriptures the accomplishment of them is sufficiently attested partly by Humane History partly by experience and to argue with Bellarmine if Scriptural predictions of things to come be true as is approved by the event why not scriptural attestations of things present All which duly considered what peruser of those Sacred Digests will not assent to and conclude upon the Divine Authority of the same till this same assent introduced by the Testimony of the Church as the preparative medium by which per non propter our Faith and obedience in and to the Holy Scriptures is first in order of time though not of
means methods helps c. conducing hereunto with due explication and application of the same accoâ—â—â—ng to the acroamatick rules of that Divine art must needs be in foro Ecclesiae saving Preachers at leastwise no Hinderers of Salvation As That the condition of all mankind by nature is a state of sin and misery consisting in the loss of beatifick friendly union and communion with God the sum of all created happiness and the incursion of his wrath curse and all the accumulative misery attending his violated Law both in this world and that which is to come That there is no possible way of escape or recovery out of this condition without a Mediator or Redeemer interposing as a third person between God and the Delinquent partly by reason of that infinite both disproportion and opposition distance and repugnance between the two parties and partly by reason of the Sinners own invincible insufficiency hereunto That this only Mediator Redeemer and Saviour is the Christian 's Messias and Immanuel the Son of God incarnate in a true Humane Nature assumed into personal subsistence with the Godhead as being of all persons in Heaven and Earth and indeed a kind of compend of both alone qualified for such a negotiation his twofold-Nature Divine and Humane his threefold Office Kingly Priestly and Prophetical his twofold state of Humiliation and Exaltation his manifold Vertues especially his Spirit and Merit his Laws Ordinances and Institutions c. all co-effectual herein That true Faith namely that sacred principle and habit whereby we not only assent to Christ's Revelation of himself but receive and embrace his Person upon his own terms as therein offered and revealed together with true Repentance another pious qualification in turning from sin to God out of a due sense of the hainousness as well as danger of the Offence and Mercy through Christ in the Offended with firm resolutions and endeavours of amendment are the conditions necessarily required in and of all that partake of this Saviour and Salvation That Good Works or the acts of sincere and conscionable Obedience performed to the Moral Law are the necessary and inseparable testificats proofs and evidences of that Faith and Repentance the Decalogue being ever the best justification of the Creed That the Word Sacraments Prayer but your Heathen's touch of Devotion will not serve turn and the like are to be pursued as the ordinary means and methods instituted and appointed of God for the producing of that Faith Repentance and Obedience And Methinks I have waded through great Mysteries in a little time and if I gain a Proselyte by the means my labour is well bestowed Amen say I 't is pity Witt should perish The Publican two I say of such fundamental truths as these represented in this Scheam with due explication and application of the same must needs I think if there be any such in the world be an edifying and saving way of preaching not a hinderance but furtherance of Salvation And to apply That the usual preaching in the Church of England is such saving preaching as well as her Preachers both her first Refromers and their Successors infinitely emproved Answ pag. 25. since the High-Sheriff's Sermon in St. Marie's Pulpit at Oxford in point of Order and Office sufficiently authorised and the Religion by them purged and preached and in community with the People joyntly professed and practised truly Catholick-Apostolick She Sir is very well satisfyed and like to be dayly more and more confirmed in it I hope unless better Authority be offered for an innovation in either Creed or Clergy than what hath ever as yet appeared on this side the Sea or to some of us beyond it from the Learned'st either Men or Books But I 'll assure you for your comfort you have little reason to hope ever to see such days of vertue What! and yet our usual Preaching Folly and a hinderance of Salvation God forbid Sir If I have failed in the premisses disprove them if not pray deny not the conclusion but this is antiquated game 't is ordinary with the Old Serpent to act the Diabolus where he cannot be Apolyon accuse what he cannot destroy when as after a great expence of Venom and Subtilty he cannot thanks be to God either Vnminister our Clergy nor Vn-church our Laity to the ruine of the whole he cunningly playes his after-game in traducing all our Church as Apostate our Religion as Heresy our Discipline as Schism our usual Preaching as Folly and a hinderance of Salvation and Sir supposing I grant part of your charge that the Preaching of the first Reformers of our Church and what is usual in it at present was is the foolishness of preaching what then such was that of the very Apostles yet saving to them that believed and why not ours theirs notwithstanding the Folly charged upon it by the Greeks saving and ours because of the same charge from a Grecizer damning destructive a hinderance of Salvation Segnior no but to read your destiny in theirs by the same Oracle if the usual preaching in our Church be Foolishness it is to them that perish Foolishness and between Convert and Castaway I know and you will find no middle Limbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then who fool twice or worse Your own dear Minion with whom I will conclude this particular hath told you the same upon the matter in a more intelligible language plain English instead of Greek and that in a cornute and thereby indeed he pusheth you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but fool-hardy takes no warning Answ pag. 80. either you expect saith he that your Reader should believe nothing of what you say throughout your Letters and then you play the Fool and write to no purpose or you would have him believe all and then you do little better than 'twere almost actionable had I not a precedent for it play the Knave And now Sir By way of reflection upon the whole in order to a conclusion of this general What Reader that is not either prepossest with your poysonous Principles and prejudiced or else wholly stupified and insatuated when he shall recollect within himself and duly weigh the premisses What Reader I say thus qualified and considerate will not readily Joyn issues with me in this conclusion viz. that the scope project and designe of your Letters of Enquity can be no other then instead of the pretended redress of the Contempt of the Reformed Religion and Clergy to expose and betray both to it and by meanes thereof propagate what your Rhapsody abounds withall most pestilent and licentious Principles and Practices Atheisme Libertinisme preparatives to Popery Sensuality and what not to the utter subversion of both though you have Politician-like for cautelous Guards to the designe observable throughout your Epistles which I here note once for all cunningly interwoven Sly insinuations with dextrous retrieves prologues from Pilate and Epilogues from the Harlot washing your Hands with the one as if
dull obtuse emasculate c. quick Mercurial brisk acute witty pregnant Spirits and all Specimens of Ingenuity and Sagacity to the honour of the Academy the Church the Nation and emulation of Forreigners and I believe the prudent Governours of either Vniversity will hardly be perswaded by all your flexanimous Rhetorick as your dear Amasio accoasts you or Logick either to alter their Method in the former or not to cherish the latter But to render you more ridiculous Sir than you can the Clergy contemptible English Exercises in an Academick Diatribe pudeat haec opprobria nobis What though the Clergy preach in English to their people Must therefore that choice time or any considerable part of it which should be to the greatest advantage husbanded and improved in the acquiry of their due Ministerial preparatives and provisions of Literature be spent upon their Mother-Tongue Impertinent The Rules and Methods of Oratory the Arts and Arguments of perswasion are by you confessed to be the same in all Languages And surely he hath but a very incompetent Dose and use of Reason who cannot accommodate the same to any Scope Theme or purpose pro re nata upon all emergent occasions in any Language whatsoever he is once Master of And as for those Strains and Delicacies of Wit you speak of they are 1. Juvenile Elaes the laudable products of a Youthful Fancy 2. The frequent Preludes of more than ordinary sagacity and pregnancy of Spirit in the years of maturer consistency and 3. In case at any time over-luxuriant beyond the bounds of Modesty and a Trespass in Ethicks yet easily corrigible by a riper discretion and all to the greater experienced advantage in the whole Trinity of Professions Law Physick and Divinity and what expence and exhaustion of Academick Spirit must needs ensue upon the draining of this Cephalick Vein is easily discernable For that Axion of yours that Rope-Dancers in the Schools Let. 2. p. 104. oft-times prove Jack-puddings in the Pulpit I suspend a Reply till I be better informed from the Doctor of the Stage to whom you do so often refer me and his Puppet But to go on what a strange hysteron-proteron like the rest of your ribble-rabble have you committed in recommending the teaching and learning of Mathematicks and Philosophical Lectures the prime Delicacies of Wit to the lower-Form Grammar-Schools and English Exercises nay a Caput mortuum and dispirited Muse to the Vniversities Yea and a Solâ—cisme in Morals to boot in a petulant criminating of the want of both ridiculous Again what more obvious than a wicked project of destroying those grand Seminaries of Learning and consequentially Religion the Clergy in the Academy the Mother in the Nurse the Church of England in her Vniversities c. A compendious way I confess For to what purpose as to the Concern of the Clergy are Vniversities either founded or resorted to if English Exercise must be their great Academick Discipline and emprovement in their Native tongue the highest Acquist which the world be Judge doth nothing so well beseem an Alma Mater Academia as your little house by the Church-yard or the Ferula of your pitiful construing Master I am ashamed to say Nurse Mother or School-dame So that your Ironick Conjugates Vniversity-Scholar Vniversity-Learning Academick Youngster c. I take to be but verbal tests of your Weigelian project whereby you study to drain and exhaust those Fountains which your Masters tell you upon experience you cannot so immediately poyson till at last like bemudded low-water-Nilus they produce nothing but Monsters like your self and Enemies to Learning Religion Church and State who I hope may be by Sword or Key in due time animadverted upon accordingly if the School-Fry or the Academick Youngsters as you call them prevent not that piece of Justice and then Asinus inter Apes Lastly Sir ad hominem as before one ground of the Contempt of the Clergy you alledge to be their Ignorance that you may demonstrate their Ignorance in the Church you quarrel their Education in the Vniversity here all that you criminate is want of English Exercises and Delicacies of Wit or which is all one too much Wit Latine and Greek c. in Academick Exercises now your Argument then the Clergy is both too much exercised and expert in Latine and Greek c. or too little in the English and also too witty in the Vniversity ergo ignorant in the Pulpit Rare Consequence There they are Sophies but here very Morio's I promise you Sir if by your Logick you can prove Ignorance by its opposite Wit and Learning I would advise you to Hackney out your Cerebellum to better advantage than here you have done and so I have passed your second Stage We are now arrived at your ultima Thule Master Inquisitor the very last and chief Stage in your whole Circuit namely the Pulpit where I find the poor Clergy empannell'd in Wainscot and their supposed Ignorance charged from Effects as before from its Causes especially in the prime Ministerial Act and Exercise of Preaching which though together with that of Prayer I have before sufficiently vindicated yet I will now give brief Answer to your chief Allegations in matter of Fact Your First Exception Sir is formed against such Preaching as is either mountingly eloquent Let. 1. p. 38 c. or profoundly learned where ad hominem I must be your Monitor at the very first Oportet Mendacemesse memorem Remind your self Sir that the grand design of your Inquest is to detect the Ground and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy alias to betray them to it the chief ground hereof by you alledged is their Ignorance and thus you attaint them de capite especially in the chief Official Act of Preaching as that which is chiefly apt to bring Contempt upon the Preacher and the Religion by him professed And yet is your first Exception this dis unctive Preaching either mountingly eloquent or profoundly learned What! the Preaching both eloquent and learned nay in both superlative and yet the Preacher ignorant How inconsistent are you with your self Unless you understand St. Paul's Antiperistasis in the case as if much Learning and Eloquence had caused a Dotage in the Clergy but as I said above Tongue-trip is Gods Will your own Speech all along bewraying of you as the Ass you know as well as his Master spoke against his own Genius But now what Reader can so far prostitute or debauch his Reason as to reckon your Ishmael-like Tongue any Slander in anothers Credit since you all along do so foully betray your own Under this Head you criminate the checkering and besprinkling of Sermons with Greek Latine and Hebrew which yet provided the Citations be pertinent not over-numerous and pro hic nunc conducive to the magnifying of the Office more than of the Person is justifiable by the same Authority that the Apostle Paul quoted Heathen-Greek out of Aratus to the Athenians out of