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
witnesseth lib. vers Jud. or Simon Zelotes as Nicephorus or St. Peter as Baronius seemes some times to incline or the great Doctor of the Gentiles himself St. Paul as Theodoret c. not Monk Austine as your friends would have it I here dispute not being 't is generally agreed amongst ancient Writers as Origen and the above named Tertullian and Theodoret and others that England's first Conversion and consequently Ministerial constitution was contemporary with the very primitive Church and though both Religion and Clergy thus founded was under a long and dark Eclipse of interposed Popery in the Nation much obscured and suppressed yet out of the sacred Seed-Plot of those who in that interval would afford nor heart nor tongue nor knee to Baal both were happily afterwards Phenix-like revived rescued out of the Antichristian rubbish and successively hitherto propagated And supposing Sir 2. That the ordination and deputation of the English Clergy to the sacred Function had its rise not from Jerusalem immediately but from or rather through Rome Jure devoluto where is the inconveniency or what prejudice accrueth to the Protestant interest or particularly to that of the English Clergy by receiving ordination from Rome more then by receiving Baptisme from her which is as well as order interchangeably esteemed valid between Papists and Protestants order then ordinances a lineal then a doctrinal succession Moreover being that Ministerial Ordination is onely matter of Polity unconcerned with morals how corrupt soever the Church person or medium of conveyance be yet notwithstanding it can be nothing derogatory to succession c. more then the lineal descent and extraction of our Saviour's Humanity from Adam through the intervention of an impure Thamar Rachab Bathsheba c. Harlots or the reception of the doctrine of the New Testament from a treacherous Judas who betrayed our Saviour or a Judaizing Peter who denied him the dark-side of that Pillar or of that of the Old from malicious Jewes that crucified him or the successive transmition of Priestly orders from the Calf to the Martyr from Idolatrous Aaron through a prophane Hophni and Phinehas c. Law-nullifying Superstitionaries Scribes Pharisees c. who yet you know sate in Moses's Chair as sure as you do in that of the scornful to Caiaphas himself who had a negative vote in our Saviours's death yet owned for High Priest after it more I say then such mediums and methods of reception are defamatory to that Sacred Humanity that doctrine those Orders c. this then considered I cannot reckon the succession or transmission of Orders by means of through the polluted and adulterated Church of Rome more disparagement to the Protestant interest then the derivation of Order and Religion as is pretended from St. Peter who you know Sir denied and renounced the Head and in that the Body is to the Popish Yea Sir supposing 3 lastly which yet I will not yeild you more then the other that the Case of our first Reformers had been punctum indivisibile one of that extraordinary nature and necessity that they must either by way of mutual consent the major part with some Sacred Solemnity selecting one or more for that purpose mutually ordain each other or else preach and prosecute the work unordained either opportunity of ordination from others not offering or else Violence obstructing c. doubtless Sir God who is so provident a Guardian to his Church hath not left her destitute of a lawfull warrantable expedient under such an extraordinary case and extremity as that which can be no other then one of those two now mentioned and justifyable by the like practises in the like emergent Cases by a dispensation from above that of Aedesius and Frumentius though private persons yet instigated and iufluënced by the same Spirit amongst the Indians of whom they are said by Preaching of the Gospel to have converted a great Nation as Eldad and Medad amongst the Jewes is by Ruffinus and Theodoret fam'd throughout the World and were it not but that I fear a Church-Dame and a School-Dame may be treated with the like civility by you I would instance in one who you must needs confess employed her ferula to good purpose namely a poor Captive Woman whom Nicephorus affirms to have converted the Nation of the Iberians and amongst the rest their King and Queen the Scepter yielding to the Distaff who became two Royal Ecclesiastes's Preachers to their Subjects this is a case the more extraordinary because the sex is such there are more examples of this kind which I forbear for 't is a generally confessed matter that in such cases both Preaching is warrantable in persons unordained and also mutual ordination by joynt-consent amongst Preachers other opportunity or remedy failing And now Sir for Scory's consecration but I shall commit a mortal solecisme by and by and deserve at least to be excommunicated though I should not in all my Letter besides but tush I am a great way off a Jove a Fulmine The story makes such notorious May-game amongst our Neighbours especially arayed in its formalities that I think they would go neer as you do to scorn and jeer us down ex cathedra but that and 't is well as it lucks we can confront our Scory with their Joanne consecration with procession and if we add succession too we are absolute Victors in the brize but laugh or frown Sir in hypothesi in such an exigency as that mentioned ordination and consecration in the manner above specified equally justifyable in India and in Jury or to come a little nearer in London and in Rome though bearing no truer mark of the Beast than that of the sign of a Nagg's head c. and now 't is out do your worst In a word in all cases extraordinary as this which I speak of is supposed to be all Law in the world of Nature Nations Canonical Civil yea that of God himself alloweth a warrantable latitude scope sufficient for justification of the Orders both of our first and succeeding Clergy Englands usual Preachers Now once more of their usual preaching by you charged both with folly and cruelty as hereafter their persons with ignorance and poverty as though both ridiculous-full of follies and a hinderance of salvation Insomuch that I cannot but wonder that instead of terming your self or your Parson making Hercules's twelve labours of his yearly preachments to such a Sermon once a month Lett. 1. pag. 107 you did not rather resolve never to hear one all your life time a severe censure Sir Being that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salvation according to its universally received notion in the Church is a recovery of mankind out of a condition of sin and misery into a state of grace and glory it followeth that those Preachers and Publishers of the Divine Will concerning it who preach publish and declare to the Church the nature the Author and Procurer the termes and conditions and the proper
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
World to your commendation Sir and of what influence such Wild-fire as this is may have upon a pre-disposed Laity which is you know titio ad ignem is of easie conjecture Lastly Sir This contempt of the Clergy and Religion you stily insinuate into and foment in the Laity under colour and pretence of a friendly Enquiry into the grounds and occasions of it giving the world till better acquainted with you to hope that you mean no other God knows your heart not you then as a fast-friend to both parties to redress the same if Just in the Clergy or if Vnjust in the Laity whereas on the contrary Sir to the common damage of both having prefaced your Inquisition as Pilate did his with washen hands you have joyned issues with him in the sequel of Inquisitor turning Accuser of the brethren as if in coyning of your facetious Religion you had been prompted and inspired by that Gentleman 's Ghost like as the Trent-Councel was in theirs by the Pope's 't is a known story posted thither from Rome in a Cloak-Bagg or as a senior Impostor Mahomet was in his by his Hellish Monk I deny not Sir but that there are scattered here and there throughout your Letters several cunning retrieves and healing Expressions like you know whose as it were's and as I may say soes which some Myops that cannot see beyond the Channel may happily reckon salve sufficient in the case but latet anguis should your asseverations countervail a peremptory flat remonstrance in terminis against Pope and Popery and that accented with all the high rhetorical alias Hectorical amplifications of oathing swearing and cursing that you know not the Beast all this is no more Segnior which I hope your Reader will make a right use of then what the most devout Popeling that ever trudg'd on bare Ten-toes to kiss his Paw is pro re nata especially when the grand propagating work is concern'd tolerated authorised yea oblig'd to do and yet by a certain mysterious kind of antiperistasis remain good Catholick still such an universal help at maw is that canonical salvo of Equivocation and mental reserves all Justifyable by that odd maxime in the Civil Law adopted into their Canon for fundamental authoritas Majorum in illicitis excusat of which I 'll palate our Reader with one litle gusto for all in the business of Confession and that from an ingenuous Papist himself Catalina Cethegum namely the Learned Divinity-Reader in Salmantica Francisco a Victoria whose words are these in the name of all the Romish Doctors I would quote book and page but that it is out of fashion Sed quid faciet Confessor cum interrogatur de peccato c. What shall a Confessor doe saith he if he be asked of a sin that he hath heard in confession may he say that he knowes not of it I answer according to all our Doctors that he may But what if he be compell'd to swear I say that he may and ought to swear that he knows it not in that it is understood that he knowes it not besides confession and so he swears true But suppose that the Judge or Prelate shall malitiously require of him upon his oath whether he know it in confession or no I answer that a man thus urged may still swear that he knows it not in confession in that it is understood that he knowes it not to reveal it or so as that he may tell And thus much of their matter of confession and that in anothers concern too test and taste sufficient of what we may make of them in their other methods and mysteries the impartial be Judge so then should I hear confess you Sir Lupum auribus I see what I must trust to till such time as the Heavens bless us with a witty Convict tuning the Instrument ad canendam palinodiam that is plainly Sir till you exchange your seat of the scornful for a stool of repentance and give the world as publick testimony and assurance of your awful respects honour and veneration for both Clergy and Religion for the future as you have already of Contempt And what if I suppose Sir what I will not yeild that you had no formal intent or the least design in the world to betray either Clergy and Religion to Contempt on the one side or the Laity to Atheisme Popery or the like on the other and that all the mischief and execution committed or committible by either edge of Ishonael's sword were meer chance-medley finis openis non operantis yet this being the immediate direct concurrent tendency of both your Letters as may appear from the general fram scope series tenour and contexure of the whole for your speech bewrayeth you Segnior your self the world yea very Nature may Justify the Church of England in guarding and securing her self both in her Clergy and Laity and in both her endeared Religion against the pernicious influences and growing mischiefs of your Pestilent Rhapsody 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 namely those two near correlates by your own confession the contempt of the one and atheisme c. in the other and what dismal train those may carry with them ut Caecias nubes as also in animadverting upon you as no better then Heathen or Heretick without what as your friend I advise you at your first return from Devonshire a publick recantation And thus Sir I have made the way to my text as your contemned Clergy use to do by theirs as smooth and plain as any thing with a Preface as you may remember not from Adam but from Alpha the Ancient of dayes himself though my business in part your doom ly at the farther end almost the very last verses of all the Bible so that it now remaines that I turn allegata into probata and make good what I have here charged your Letters withall that I may not seem to speak without-book The first thing then that offers it self in your Letters Sir is the very theam and title thereof viz. The Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion enquired into Being then that Religion and Clergy an individual Conjugate in themselves as well as in your Epistles is the subject-matter of your Inquest being that a previous contempt of both de facto is by you but too truly supposed and the redress hereof de futuro by you pretended It will necessarily follow that if instead of redressing of this contempt either by removing to your power the grounds and occasions of it if Just and deserved in the Clergy or by removing it if unjust and undeserved in the Laity your Letters administer false and unrighteous grounds and occasions of additional contempt c. If so I say it will necessarily follow that the project and designe of your Enquiry can be nothing less nothing else then that of propagating Atheisme c. in the Laity by means of a confirm'd unjust Contempt of their Clergy between which there
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
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
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
where he shall find such a Scheam of facetious Atheism as I believe he never read the like of all his life-time and this exemplified in a supposed Gentlman personating your self in shewing extemporary and occasional witt Lett. 2. p. 187 188 189 190. in abusing the Holy Scriptures in your own words as is plain much resembling some a la mode Spark or one of your high-bred Hects dextrous in the gentile strain in a breath to damn himself and humble-servant others a Bartholomew-Gentleman I dare say least of all as being known to be no affecter of ceremonies of State which this Generoso abounds in more than of Church his education not serving him for the one more than his judgment for the other's Well this same Gentleman alias the Author of the contempt of Religion is supposed to be intended for dinner probably a feast of luxurious barrioadoes and esculadoes in some good house or other and how ingenious to give him your own epithet he acquits himself both in going and returning and his demeanour there quoting Canon for all his addresses with suddenness of apprehension and experienental skill as you there call it in the application of Scripture the Reader after perusal of your narrative be judge Straight is the Gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it said our Saviour prophanely applyed and prostituted to your narrow Alley a bad omen I assure you of the broad way The Psalmist's Lift up your heads O ye Gates and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors to knocking at the Gate in the Porters absence The Prophet's Besome of destruction and desolation of Babylon to a servants sweeping away a little dirt out of a Court-yard Our Saviour's the first shall be last and the last shall be first to the straining of a complement of precedency with shruggings and beg-pardons If ye have faith like a grain of mustard-seed ye shall remove Mountains to the removing of a little of the mountain of mustard upon the Table O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest the Prophets how often would I have gathered thee as a Hen gathereth her Chickens c. an instance whereupon one would have thought you should rather have spent tears as Himself did then costly jests to a dish of Chickens commended for a dish of fat Jerusalems c. The Apostle's Tabitha arise to every child Boy or Girl that drops in the street Our Saviour's invitation of relief Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest to every Porter easing himself of his burden The Apostle's Paul may plant and Apollos may water but it is God who gives the encroase to every water-bearer c. I am resolved to add one more but what is enough to turn my Gentlemans dinner into Belshazzars feast celebrated with sacred utensils as this is with greater cost sacred texts and the whole into a Tragedy you can by no means endure that the Minister should preface from Belshazzar and you tearm your Parson-Antagonist inviting you to here him preach and promising you the best sermon in his budget that he forbear the name of Belshazzar but how will you like to end with him whom you can so little endure the Minister should begin with though you have not a Kingdom to lose yet you have that which is or ought to be equally or more dear to you therefore capable of as fatal a Peres O full of all subtilty and mischief thou Child of the Devil thou Enemy of all Righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right wayes of the Lord most justly applicable to all Scripture-vilifiers and what son of Belial or Bartesus himself What Celsus or Julian What Faustus or Manes himself What invidious Jew Papist or Pagan doth more deserve to be ranked into that predicament than doth the Author of the contempt of the Clergy and Religion personated by that parabolical Gentleman What more abusive ignominious blasphemous predicates did ever the Father of Lies or Child of that Father stigmatize the word of truth withall then he hath Aven-Gilion◠Lesbian Rule Livius's Decades Aesop's Fables Nose of wax Inky Divinity mute Doctress Dumb dead killing Letter and a thousand such reproachful epithets have not reflected a greater affront ignominy and disparagement upon the Holy-Scriptures to the infringing and nullifiing what Man or Devil can their sacred authority then hath your debasing prostitution thereof and again what greater instance or argument of Atheism For opposition and exaltation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against Religion and against God or a Deity it self is a matter individual and inseparable in it self as well as in Antichrist's character so that you may upon equal terms commence a process or enquiry of contempt against both I leave the application to the Reader But I had almost forgot that you may probably be one of those that hold no other canon than Homer's Iliades and Odysses Let. 1. pag. 9. or Virgil's Evangelical and Prophetical writings the former as containing mystically both Law and Gospel as his works are owned by you in general for a practice of piety Lett. 2. pag. 43. wherein you tell your Correspondent he may find all practical Divinity sum'd up cases of Conscience resolved controversies decided c. no wonder you tearm him Christian and Protestant the other as comprehending a body of Divinity exactly agreeing with the primitive Doctrine and intentions of our Saviour Lett. 2. p. 45.46 father'd upon a Nonc alias your Hec or self for I dare say there is an agreement in unitertio indeed I have read of one converted by Virgil's fourth Eclogue but have suspended my beliefe of it hitherto it may be you are the man and from such a Bible such a practice of piety such a body of Divinity such a Convert what can the world expect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I proceed Another assault of yours Sir is made upon the Ministerial foundation as the former was upon the Doctrinal namely your Gorah-like Rebellion against the Clergy of the Church of England and those both in person and function As touching the person 's of the Clergy two things you except against viz. number and qualification their qualification is reserved for an enquiry under the second general propounded As to their number your exception is that they are supernumerary whereof you betray deep sense and sorrow the Nation say you is perfectly over-stock'd with professors of Divinity Lett. 1.115 thus Aaron's fruitful Rod is Corah's grudge and for a remedy to this prevailing spirituality that you may lop what you cannot fell you propound a double expedient One is an anniversary vent namely a yearly Transport beyond the Seas of so many Tunn of Divines as well as of other commodities with which the Nation is over-stock'd Lett. 1. p. 119. the other is a spiritual press upon Professors and Pulpiteers as you are sometimes pleased to stile them an Expedition to another holy-war
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
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
of Origen's Hexapla or the Polyglott Bible otherwise than to be possessors of them in the little Hole over the Oven provided it be large enough to hold it or that they be able to preach with Cloven Tongues or to offer good Hypotheses about the Longitude the Quadrature of the Circle a perpetuum mobile besides Non-residents a Vacuum in Nature besides what you alledg to be in themselves or that they be skill'd in the Circulation Fermentation and all the various Phaenomena of the Blood and in reading of Lectures of Anatomy besides that of the Heart and least of all that they skill in the Mysteries of your approved-of Cobler and Tinker nor yet which comes nearer to Primitive example in the employ of a Customehouse-man or Fisher-man or the like In a word that they be absolute Linguists Orators Philosophers Naturalists Mathematicians Astronomers Civilians Canonists Politicians c. qualified for the Academy as well as for the Church the Chair as the Pulpit and the Bench or Cabal as for either and all this I say upon peril of the censure of Ignorance from you or of Contempt from the Laity else Sir you might as well have extended your charge to the whole sixteen hundreds of years last past as to the last single Century and have quarrell'd the Apostles themselves for their little skill in Politicks or Mathematicks and other Parts of Philosophy and that they were not as dexterous in Squaring of the Circle as many of them were in casting of a Net that they have not left us as exact a Description of the World in the Moon as of that beyond it and especially the Fathers of the Church both Eastern and Western in that of the whole Paternity only one single Duumvirate one for each Climate Origen and Jerome those Christian Masorites were Masters of the Holy Tongue the Hebrew the knowledge whereof is so necessary to that Holy Profession Well then there is a singular sort of Knowledge requisite in the Clergy as such and what that is must as I conceive be determined partly by the respective Exigencies of the Church whose Lights and Guides the Clergy are or ought to be partly by those particular Services which the All-wise Founder of the Society hath appointed and apportioned to each of them therein and both the one and the other again partly by the respective Constitutions of the Church and partly by the Successive Revolutions and Interchanges as corruptions in Doctrine or Life or both Apostacy Captivity and Persecution c. incident thereunto though the Quotient or particular Dimensum and definite proportion of Knowledge res ectively necessary in each Minister for each piece of Service incumbent upon him under each Constitution or Condition of the Church or each emergent exigency thereof is hardly I think determinable by any ordinary Mortal unless he had been with S. Paul in the third Heavens or could see beyond the Firmament and read by that Light which I understand is in accessible Now then the Constitution of the Church being as hath been declared above first Domestical impropriated within the Confines of one Family as from Adam downwards during the Patriarchy from thence advanced to National and at last to Oecumenick or Vniversal as may appear if you turn your Bible backward to the First Adam and then in a reversed order downward again to the Second the great Continent of both Jew and Gentile founded by Christ and his Apostles This Christian Church again being considerable both as originally founded and as successively propagated and both the Jewish and Christian Church being subject to yea frequently the Subjects of Heresie Idolatry Captivity Persecution Contempt c. It is rational to believe that the wise God hath all along appropriated and apportioned persons furnished with sutable Knowledge and necessary Qualifications to all those respective Constitutions Revolutions and emergent Exigencies of his Church Yea in matter of Fact it is certain from History both Sacred and Prophane and very observable amongst other provisions was both the Confusion of Languages preparatory to a National extent in the Jewish Church and the sacred Effusion of them in order to an Oecumenick and Vniversal one in the Christian the chief Subject of this Enquiry The Architect and chief Founder of the Christian Church is Jesus Christ in whom is the fulness both of the Godhead and of Godliness Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge accumulative measures of the Divine Spirit the Apostles his Associates and Ministerial Co-operaries with him in the Plantation were furnished with an extraordinary share in the same Spirit joyntly demonstrating the Divinity of the Word in their mouths by infallible Signs and Seals of it in their hands Oracles with Miracles Again the Church being founded and the chief Founder removed from his Colony and the rest ready to follow the same God who appointed Prophets Apostles and Evangelists for the Original Foundation and Gathering of his Church provides Pastors and Teachers a constant and inviolable Order and Series of Ecclesiastical persons for the successive edification and perfecting thereof in propagating and preserving the received Religion all Copartners in the same hereditary Spirit though with the difference of ordinary and extraordinary between them and their Predecessors and also some considerable diversification amongst themselves as touching particular Gifts or particular set Forms and Degrees of those Gifts or their usefulness and serviceableness in the Church being all universally suted to her particular emergent States Conditions and Exigencies thus in case of carnal Security there is a Boanerges in case of Persecution and Calamity a Barnabas in case of Neutrality and Lukewarmness a Zelotes in case of Heresie or Corruption in Doctrine Champion-Defenders of the Faith Origen against a Celsus Jerome against a Helvidius Jovinian Vigilantius c. Augustine against an Arrius as also Athanasius a Donatus a Manichean a Pelagius c. Basil against an Eunomius Cyprian against a Novatus Hilary against a Constantius Arnobius and Lactantius against obstinate Gentiles nay whole Councils and Consistories of Orthodox Fathers against the prevailing Heresies of their Times successively the Nicene Constantinopolitan Epâ—esine and Chalcedonian against the same number of Arch-Hereticks Arrius Macedonius Nestorius and Eutyches so that the Church is never left without a witness of Gods Truth more than the World is of his Power Moreover in case of Defamation Reproach or Contempt of Religion or Clergy still some or other strenuous Apologist for a Tertullus a Tertullian c. Briefly Sir in this Mystical Body like as it is in the Natural S. Pauls Simile else I durst not use it some of her Official Members are eminent for one gift others for another some for Tongues others for Interpretation of Scripture others for Prophecy or Preaching some for Positives others for Controversie others for a dexterous resolution of Cases of Conscience others again not all for you know Sir a double Cap may fit a Head which a Mitre will not for
Ecclesiastick Polity and Government c. But the whole as I said before universally accommodated to all the respective States Conditions and emergent Exigencies of the Church whose Pastors Teachers Guides and Overseers they are by eternal sanction constituted and established In fine Sir There be two grand Official Acts necessarily incumbent upon the Clergy as the publick Guides Teachers and Instructors of the Church namely the propagation the preservation the delivery and the security of Divine Truth and Religion the revelation of it to the Church and the defence of it being revealed against its and her Enemies Now in order to a laudable performance of these Offices there is 1. absolutely pre-required in point of priviledge the derivation and reception of that Religion from God himself the Author of all Truth as well as being and 2. ordinarily by way of necessary antecedent and preparative to all a competent knowledge of and skill in the Latine Greek and Hebrew Tongues those at least the first being of general use as in the pursuit of all manner of knowledge in general so of Divine in particular both the other two being the Original Languages of that only Authentick Revelation of God and his Will the Holy Scriptures co-inspired of God together with the Doctrine therein contained and thereby conveyed and the last Test of Sacred Truth in all Appeals in Logical Methods of Ratiocination and Discourse in Natural and Moral Philosophy in Metaphysicks and the other more useful parts of Humane Literature that Naturals being polished and somewhat refined by these the Divine being founded in the Man our Ecclesiastick Candidate may be the better prepared for his sacred Province and Mystery for Theology in all its parts Dogmatical Polemical Acroamatical and Concional c. for the reception of Sacred Truth from God ordinarily conveyed in the use of Means namely as to Ministerial accomplishment Learning and Learned Languages the great deferents of knowledge whence is observable the Divine Providence in the successive circulation of Learning and Religion together in the world viz. from its very Aborigines and the Chaldeans to the Egyptians from them to the Grecians from them to the Romans till at last arrived in this Island to the rescuing of it from its Original Darkness for the propagating of this Truth being received whether by way of sacred Orthotomy in a due explication and application thereof or a dextrous resolution of cases of Conscience or writing or otherwise and lastly for the preserving and securing of it when published or propagated partly by a polemick defence of and contending for the Faith partly by a due regular Pastoral conduct and Church-Discipline c. Now Sir as imperitia culpae adnumeratur as saith the Aquilian Law Ignorance by you charged is a great crime in the Clergy and no less plague to the Laity for if their very Light be Darkness how great must be that Darkness So on the contrary the Qualifications mentioned concurring with other Supernatural Gifts and Ecclesiastick Order and managed with competent wisdom prudence and discretion I conceive sufficient in foro Ecclesiae to denominate a person an able Minister of the New Testament and then Ambasciator non protapena Let. 1. p. 123. which very thing is happily confirmed by your own little authority for though it be not necessary say you for every Guide of a Parish to understand all the Oriental Languages or to make exactly elegant or profound Discourses for the Pulpit both which ib. p. 38. by your own confession our Clergy do and therefore instead of defect super-erogate yet most certainly it is very requisite that he should be so far learned and udicious as prudently to advise direct inform and satisfie the people in holy matters c. And if the Author of the Contempt of our Clergy once prove their incompetency of Qualification and insufficiency to these Ministerial Act sand Offices he is I must needs say a most dextrous Ingenioso else which had not his own Minion said Ans p. 80 I durst not Fool or Knave As touching the Second Particular That the Clergy of the Church of England Sir is justly chargeable with the want of that Ministerial Knowledge as explained or with Ignorance and Insufficiency I do in their name and behalf peremptorily deny That in the Twilight indeed and early days of the Reformation Preaching like the constitution of the Church it self was rude and impolite is confess'd Yea nor is it denied but that there be here and there coecus coeco dux such as your Booty-Antagonist may be or some others of his Brother-Levites whose only Manna is a Homily and Incense Liturgy Dutiful Sons of the Church who can speak as an indulgent Mother hath taught them and here and there a Sixth-Rate-Non-conformist a choice Vessel possibly but poorly fraughted Such I deny not but there be of both Predicaments who to their own shame and ignominy but that is the least and to the disparagement in tantum of their Function Doctrine and Church wherein they live are devoid not only of the Ornamental part of Learning we could abate them that but even of what is absolutely requisite to render them apt to teach or workmen that need not to be ashamed who may therefore be most justly contemned for Logick Rhetorick and other necessary parts of Philosophy those they left behind them in the Vniversity if they were ever there from whence they came ut canis e Nilo For Languages a little Latine serves turn and it were well for Priscian that there were none at all less Greek and as to the Hebrew that is a Holy of Holies unapproachable by ordinary Priests a Disgrace to themselves to the Church to the Ministry and Religion May Authority for ever doom such to the Desk but that I bethink my self it is too near to the Pulpit c. You see Sir you cannot be more severe than my self where there is occasion for it But now Sir will you draw your Argument from the Day-star to the Meridian or because only here and there a dim Light in it disparage our Candlestick What is the rude impolite yea impertinent Ministrations and Insufficiency of a few to a polished generality or indeed Plurality Nay rather will not the accomplishment and renown of the generality make abundant recompence for the defects and disgrace of a few So that there is greater reason for publishing the Credit than the Contempt of the English Clergy a Clergy that deserves more a Panegyrick than needs my Apology or fears your Inquest Two things I will be bold to assert here 1. There is no Profession in the world wherein there have been so many persons eminent for all the several parts in the whole Encyclopoedy of Learning as the Clergy especially the English Again 2. There is no Hierarchy or Clergy in the world wherein there have been so many persons eminent for Theological accomplishments as the Clergy of the Church of England What!
and yet ignorant yet contemptible History may to all Memory to many and impartial observation at present save the labour of a List or Catalogue of such Worthies in the Brittish Church as might have rivall'd it in competitorship with any Clergy in the world since the Apostolical it self But frustra Herculem For Orthodoxy and practical Divinity for a solid and clear Exposition of Scripture for acute decision of Controversie for admirable dexterity in resolving of Cases of Conscience for an incomparable faculty in preaching and praying even to an emulation in Transmarine Divines all attended with a correspondent course of Life the Vrim with the Thummim for these I say the Brittish Ministry hath been even to a wonder renowned all the world over Stupor mundi Clerus Britannicus But to Matter of Fact As touching the Third and last Particular relating to the Ignorance of the Clergy viz. your Charge and Allegations in the Case which I have vouch'd to give answer to Your Inquisition Sir I find to be like a Country-Assize circular nimbly pursued by several Stages as if your self in riding the Circuit not your Votive Parson had rid Sun and Moon both down and up again viz. inferiour Schools the Academy the Pulpit for that you may convict the Clergy in the last you criminate both the former undermining as is plain the Church in the School Religion in its great defence Learning Bold Pursuivant whom neither an ungovernable School-Fry nor Academical Splendour nor the dread of an Ecclesiastick Key no nor the reverence of a Mitre hath deterr'd from the Attempt But I prepare to follow you Sir 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vindicating the Schools the Vniversities and the Clergy of England all by you criminated submitting all to the Readers Vmpirage Your Process then is commenced and prosecuted ab ovo ad mala from the very first Initials and Rudiments of Literature the beginnings of Education Let. 1. p. 3 4. in your own phrase in the first Trivial Schools 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the first thing you criminate herein is the old fashion'd Methods and Discipline of Schooling it self as undoubtedly chargeable with a great part of our Misfortunes alledging very remarkable and mischievous loss of time and abuse of Youth by means thereof A great Charge especially if we consider that the loss or abuse of our tender and more disciplinable time the Morning of our Age wherein knowledge is aptest to incorporate with our very Constitution is like an Errour in the first concoction hardly if ever rectifiable But to proof Sir Generalia non pungunt for my part I perceive none but a Magisterial Adviso of some cheering Alleviative to Lads kept to sixteen or sevemeen years of age Let. 1. ib. in pure slavery to a few Latine and Greek words Sir I wonder not that he who is an enemy to our Clergy and Religion is such to our Literature and Knowledge likewise or that he who is an enemy to Knowledge is such to those Learned and universally useful Languages its great Vehicles and means of Conveyance which the English Nation especially the Church stock'd and stor'd out of the younger Nurseries the Schools is become beyond any in the world the greatest Mistress of and that not out of veneration to Rome or Athens neither but from a sense of their universal usefulness and subserviency to higher Professions in Church and State to a great emulation and grudge in the Romish Church wherein an Vrban-Professor and here and there a Padro-Latino for whom yet a Westminster-Lad who never saw a second Climacterical would serve for a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are believed to influence much further than Newcastle And of this your grudge and enmity against those Languages your scornful Diminutive is test sufficient a few Latine and Greek words say you and those usher'd in with your debasing term of Vassalage and Drudgery pure Slavery and follow'd with usual Sarcasmes which yet Scholars usually upon reflection account delectable But it is evident throughout your Letters which I advertise the Reader of once for all that by frightful Mormoes and vilifying representations you study to deter and discourage both Parents from sending and Youth from going to either School or Vniversity but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As touching the Latine and Greek and those other Learned Languages I assert that both in regard those are the Parasceuastick part of Learning and the general preparatives to Knowledge and also that the Acquist of them in their respective Orthography Prosody Etymology Syntax various Idioms copious Significancy due use and Elegancy c. is a purchase of long time it being so I say they must therefore be early attempted closely pursued or believe it never perfected But to go on And good Sir I pray what is that new-Model your Wisdom offers instead of the antiquated one as an alleviative or expedient under this same Grammatical Drudgery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You propound it disjunctively for the greater choice one is Reading of some innocent English Authors for some part of the time English Authors by Latine and Greek Scholars till they can write themselves sixteen or seventeen Howbeit your Reader may the less wonder at this whenas you do afterwards advise the very same to the flourishing Vniversity-Youth But remember Sir that all this while you are processing of the Clergy those you condemn and contemn as ignorant that you may prove them such in the Church you criminate their Education in School and Vniversity in both those you reprehend not Want but Excess of Learning for ought I see Latine and Greek too much and for English not enough Strange Argument The Clergy is too much knowing and learned in the School and Vniversity ergo too little knowing and ignorant in the Pulpit Risum tencatis amici But what English what innocent Authors do you mean Prophets Apostles and Evangelists The Bible is used by them but that I dare say and swear is not your Meaning What then Historians Leave that Province to the History-Readers in the Vniversities Besides the Remedy would prove worse than any Disease you can apprehend in the case it being sufficiently known that such Youths as have bended their early Genius's to charming History have forestalled all their future hopes and perfectly lost the Scholar in the Historian Moreover if English must be the Study such an emasculated Muse were fitter for your School-Dames Ferula than for that of your little mighty Governours of Paul's School or Westminster c. You had done well Sir to have specified your innocent English Authors that we might have known your Meaning as now we suspect it Another Expedient in case the former do not take is the teaching Lads Let. 1. pag. 5. the Principles of Arithmetick and Geometry and such like parts of Learning as what they might be much more easily taught say you than what is commonly offered to them A necessary Qualification for a Clergy-man pre-required of him
offensive to the State as the former would to the richer Clergy I should not have the confidence once to offer at unless you will promise to secure me Antidotum adversus Caesarem But Sir I will presume to offer what with submission to the wiser especially my Governours I am strongly perswaded might be a considerable expedient in the case estimated by a threefold inconveniency observable in the rich-poor Church of England namely 1. A great inequality of Parochial distributions 2. A great disproportion of Pastoral provisions in those Parishes and 3. An incommodious way of collecting receiving of those provisions Now those inequalities are several wayes determinable as in respect of extent of Parishes number or quality of Inhabitants c. and accordingly the value of Livings and Benefices thus you shall observe some Livings of double and tripple the value of what others are of in Parishes of double and tripple the extent of bounds number and quality of Inhabitants again nearness to or distance from the Metropolis is considerable it being certain that an hundred pound per an will go farther in York shire Lancashire c. where yet generally the greatest Livings are viz. of 200. 300. 400. 500. c. l. per annum then two or three in or about London where yet one is reckoned a tolerable competency a great odds Again the Incumbent's or Beneficiary's own collecting and receiving of the benefits is greatly inconvenient for first it involves him in worldly incumbrances and distractions which we desire to have remedied next it renders him lyable either to be defrauded in his right or else to litigious Law-suites and contests with the inhabitants in pursuit of it enkindling of such mutual grudges and animosities between Pastor and People as will most certainly obstruct all proficiency under and success of his Ministery Now Sir I have a great temptation within my self to believe that if the Parliament pleased to contrive some more equal and proportionable distributions of those Livings and Benefices J meddle not here with Collegiacies both as to extent of parochial bounds and number and quality of Inhabitants and which is the chief of Pastoral provisions therein with regard had to their respective nearness to or distance from the City of London the greater reduced the lesser augmented this might prove some considerable expedient in the case and remedy to the poverty of the Clergy a respective competency being all England over by this means and method apportioned to them But the incorporating of the whole in the State and the Clâ—rgy made State-Pensioners a certain number being constituted Tribuni cleritatus Fide-commissaries Church-Tribunes and Trustees for a faithful management of the affair seemes to many to be a very compendious way both for securing of competent provisions to the Clergy and additional peace and quiet withall and possibly besides this some redounding emolument and subsistence to their surviving Consorts as in other reformed Churches beyond the Seas which far be it from me to propound as other than motive not pattern not for imitation but generous emulation worthy of an English Parliament but I doubt I have been too bold if I have my Betters I hope will pardon me and as for others the equity of the interest which I plead may excuse me and if it do not I rest unconcerned Thus Sir I have shewed that though Poverty in the Clergy be partly through inbred corruption partly through Satan's and your co-instigation an occasion of contempt in the Laity yet the same is no just ground of Contempt in it self and besides that both poverty and contempt are capable of a remedy which I hope our prudent State-Physicians may in due time administer therefore once more What doth your arguing reprove But Doomsday is a coming Sir you have here erected an Inquisition wherein you have charged the Clergy with ignorance and poverty as the just grounds and occasions of Contempt of them and their Religion in the Laity but now your Charge and both Articles of indictment have been utterly defeated the Clergy of the Church of England hath appeared to be a wise able learned Clergy as any in the VVorld and therefore most unjustly and unworthily by you charged and traduced as ignorant and as such betrayed to Contempt the same Clergy though supposed to be poor yet not Contemptible In fine the Religion Clergy and Church of England such as that nor Sophister nor Ingenioso nor Fashion-monger nor Hobbist a catalogue of your own nor Hector nor Clergy-Contemner no nor the gates of Hell it self shall ever prevail against them In the mean time what have you done Sir Read fact and demerit in a Cardinal 's own words Cum Mose pugnant cum Prophetis cum Apostolis cum Christo ipso ac Deo Patre Spiritu sancto qui Sacras Literas Oracula Divina contemnunt said Bellarmine himself I 'll English it to you for I do not know how you should do it your self if in Schools and Vniversities bred up to English onely Contemners of the Holy Scriptures and Divine Oracles such as you have fowly bewrayed your self to be the Reader be judge are Enemies to Moses to the Prophets to the Apostles to Christ himself and God the Father and the Holy Ghost what a formidable party have you encountered then If these be your Enemies who will be your Friends I must tell you I have vouch'd to be your Doomster as well as the Clergy's Advocate a small office which I was but very lately overperswaded to execute wherein I had done my severer Muse some right had I found you as great a Master of Reason as of Fancy and here I will not frighten you with School-Boyes nor School-Dames though you know both are unlucky enough in their kind but methinks a Grammarian-Ferula an Academick-Expulsion an Ecclesiastick Key and Caesars Sword c. should all-arm you to purpose in the sense of your own guilt as being an enemy to Schools Vniversities Clergy Religion Church and State I hope the next Gazette after publication of my Letter will inform us of justice done upon you and Ill be sure to observe what news from Cambridge or Devonshire and suppose you escape all humane vengeance do you think you shall Divine too Sir be not deceived the quarrel of a contemned Clergy and Religion attends you the quarrel of abused Scriptures and Scripture-Institutions c and therefore for your Doom I denounce to you St John's anathema-maranatha that facred Thunder-bolt dispatch'd against all Detractors and depravers of Holy Record which assure your self it must be another sort of prayers teares then those of your weeping Hect that can prevent the execution of but in regard you have pattern'd a Rebel-Triumvirate in their daring insurrection against Aaron yea as much as ever you durst in that against Moses too I cannot sentence you with a more proportionable talio or temporal doom then that of Corah whose Grave would be our much better security then Devonshire unless that prove the place for your never being troublesome more and thither do I doom you and what though you shun his Sepulchre You shall not your own Fate Shall Contempt of the Clergy and Religion go unpunished Surely no Consider what hath been said already and remember further who knows but that I may rate you into a conviction at last we read of Hell opening of her mouth as well as of the Earth opening of hers and Esay's authority I take to be as good as Moses's and I am sure both you cannot avoid without a serious recantation which as before so now before we part I earnestly re-advise to you as being in charity almost to a super-erogation a wellwisher to your better part D. T. FINIS ERRATA Which together with some smaller literal faults and the miss-accenting of some Greek words the Reader is desired to excute PAge 12. Line 17. Read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 38. l. 5 r. Encyclopoeâ—y p 67 l. 6. r hear p. 68. l. 13. r. 〈◊〉 Jâ—sus p. 81 l. 6. â—â—premâ—sses p. 90. l. 8 r. one Fath. p 93 l 20 r. destructive p. 95. l. â—8 r principle or practice p. 98. l. â—6 r. tâ—ansmission p. 102. l. 3. r. is equally p. 105. l. 24. r. mary and deep p. 105. l. 27. r. publication p. 100. l. 13 r influenced p. 106. l. 9 r. Reformers p 99 l 4 5. r. Mâ—â—asseh against Ephraim and Ephraim against Maâ—essâ—h and both against Jud. h. p. 99. l. 1â— r. might well serve p. 101. l 14 r. indefinitely 〈◊〉 p 102. l. 6. r. Noblesse p. 102. l 23. r. precedent p. 103. l 22. r. that onely some or others p. 104. l. 1 r. why of all orders p. 104. l. 4. r. Lawyers or Physicians p. 146. l. 21. r. For Sir by the first p. 15â— l. 28. r. retrieve p 175. l. 25 26. r. could within the space of Forty years have proved p. 176 l 24 25. r. the Clergy by name p 181 l. 10. r. even in p 181. l 14 r. Sanctuary p. 186. r. morality p 1â—9 l. 18 19. r. proâ—â—enuitate p. 189. l. 24. r. commonage