also unlawfull because Papists shift and so conclude Cleanliness to be as superstitious as Surplices or Copes Sir you may call this Poetry but there is a Logick in it which I hope doth not cease to be Logick which you cannot resist because 't is not watrishly or flegmatickly exprest As for those parts of the Common-Prayer-booke which I doe not say were borrowed from Rome as you impose upon me but are to be found in the Rubrick of the Church if I had said they had been borrowed from that Church yet you have said nothing to prove that upon this supposition 't is Popery to use those Prayers in Ours Foreseeing I beleeve that if you had offered to maintaine that what ever is in the Popish Lyturgie is Popery that is superstitious and fit to be proscribed out of the Church you would meeting with a good Disputant and one not addicted to Poetry have been compelled to confess that the Lords Prayer and Davids Psalmes are Popery too though the one were delivered by Christ the other by one who lived long before Antichrist because they are bound up in the same volumne with the Masse Sir if this be your Logick 't is Socrate ambulante coruscavit and will be a false fire to lead you for ever out of the way But here Sir though I need not take the paines to confute the Nothings you have said against me in this particular yet whenever you shal call upon me to make good my undertaking I doe promise to make it evident to you that all the ancient parts of the Common-Prayer-booke which I plead for I doe not plead for because they are used by the Church of Rome but because they were part of the Lyturgie of those Churches which were thought primitively pure and not superstitious and were in the world long before Popery or Antichrist was borne I must therefore for ought you have yet said to alter my opinion still stand to my former conclusion which is that by the same reason that either the whole or any part of our Cōmon-Prayer-Book is to be turned out of the Church because in some things it agrees with the Lyturgie of the Church of Rome Italy and Rome it self is to be turned out of the world so a new Map to be made of it where these places are not because they are the Popes Territories and lye under his Jurisdiction Lastly Sir as for the Visitors you threaten both me and Christ-Church withall of whom some report that you are one when you come to execute your Commission so you will not urge it as a Topicke to convince my understanding but as a Delegacy of power to examine my studies life and manners I shall bring all the submission with me which can be expected from one subject to the tryal and examination of such a power Being withall very confident that when that time comes however you may perhaps finde an old Cope or two in our Colledge yet you will never bring Logick enough with you to prove that they are either Idolatrous or have been put to a superstitious use And therefore Sir in this particular you have lost your friendly counsell there being no need at all that we should against that time study for an Answer In your next Fascicle you say that I maintaine that some things in the Excellency and Height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and the Evidence of their Truth upon the Authority of Christs Miracles convey'd along in Tradition and Story And therefore conclude that my Religion leanes too hard and too heavy upon Tradition Sir though I have alwayes lookt upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New as two glorious lampes which to all eyes that have not lost the use of seeing by being kept sequestred from the sunne too long in the darke mutually give light to one another so that a vigilant Reader by comparing Prophecies with their Accomplishments will have very great reason to beleeve that both are true yet because this amounts but to the discourses and perswasions of a single mans reason if I prefer Tradition which is the constant universall consent of all Ages as a fuller medium to prove doctrines by which are hardly otherwise demonstrable doe I any more I pray then prefer the universall Testimony and Report of the Church of all Times before the more fallible suggestions of a private spirit Your next Paragraph is perfectly the Hydra with repullulating Heads which I warned you of in my first Letter And multiplies so many causeless questions as make it nothing but a heape partly of such doubts partly of untruths as would make it one of Hercules labours to examine them First you bid me prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination in the hand of a Prelate Sir if the practice of the Apostles in the Scripture in this point were not cleare yet the practice and opinion of the Church for 1500 yeeres ought to be of too great Authority with you to make this a scruple Knowing that no Church in the world thought otherwise till the Presbyterian Modell crept forth of Calvins fancie nor any good Protestant in the Church of England till such as you recalled Aërius from his grave and Dust to oppose Bishops Next you bid me justifie that no Church that ever the sunne lookt upon hath beene more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it or better establisht for the Government and Discipline of it then the Church of England hath Sir you repeat not the words of my Sermon so faithfully as you should I am not so extravagant as to say that no Church that ever the Sunne lookt upon but that the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many many yeeres that is in my sense for many Ages saw not a purer Church then ours was both for the Doctrines and Discipline of it Against this you wildly object I know not what Doctrines publiquely countenanced but tell me not what these Doctrines were speake of certaine superstitious practices and Prelaticall usurpations but doe not prove them to be either superstitious or usurpt quarrell with the Delegation of Bishops power to Chancellors then proceed to the tyrannie of the High-Commission-Court and at last conclude with I know not what Imaginary corruptions and Innovations introduced into the State Church and Vniversity Sir if I should grant this long-winded Charge of yours to be true as truly I think it is onely a seeing of vanity yet my confident Assertion is not hereby enfeebled I hope when I spoke of the purity of our Church you did not think I freed it from all blemishes or spots The Primitive Church it selfe had some in it who broacht strange doctrines Saint John had not else written his Gospell against the Gnosticks nor Saint Paul his Epistle to the Galatians against those that held the necessity of Circumcision The next Ages of the Church have not been more distinguisht by their
constancy sake you would have them allow of prayers for the dead and in King Charls and Queen Mary's days to pray still for King James and Queen Anne which would be a piece of popery equal to the invocations of saints you will find nothing medern or of such new contrivance as past not Bucers â—xamen in the raign of Edward the sixth And was confirmed bâ— Act of Parliament in the raign of Queen Elizabeth In saying this in their defence who had the ordering of such changes I hope Sir you will not so uncharitably think me imbark't in their Faction which truly to me stil presented it self like the conceal'd Horses under ground a fiction made to walk the streets to terrifie the people as to perswade your self after my so many professions to fall a sacrifice to the Protestant Religion that it can be either in the power of the Church or court of Rome to tempt me from my Resolution Which is to go out of the world in the same Religion I came in Sir I gave warning in my last letter not to venture your writings upon the Argâ—ment which deceives none but very vulgar understandings and which I in my Serâ—on cal the Mother of mistakes which is from an accidental concurrence in some things to infer an outright similitude and agreement in all Because Bellarmine says tradition is a better medium to prove somethings by then a private spirit and because I in this particular have said so too you tacitely infer that I and Bellarmine are of the same Religion which is the same as if a Turk and a Christian saying that the Sun shines you should infer that the Christian is a Mahumetan and for saying so a Turk I confess you do not say we are both of the same Religion but that I in preferring Tradition which you your self in your sâ—â—â—â—â—h paragraph tâ—ow to be the Constant and uniâ—ersal Report of the Church befoâ—â— he Testimony of the Spirit speaking in the Word to the Consciâ—â—ceâ— of private men am more profane than he Heer sir you must not take it ill if I expose you to the censure of being deservedly thought guilty of a double mistake The one is that if Bellarmine in this particular were in an Errour and if I had out-spoken him in his Errour yet the Laws of speech will not allow you to say That in an unprofâ—â—â— subject either of us is profane more heretical or mistaken you might perhaps have said and this though a false Assertion might yet have past for right Expression But to call him positively and me comparatively more profane because we both hold That a Drop is more liable to corruption then the Ocean or the testimony of al ages of the Church is a fuller proof of the meaning of a text in Scripture then the solitary Exposition of a man who can perswade none but himself is as incongruous as if you should say that because Bellanmine wrote but three Volumnâ— and Abulensis twelve therefore Abulensis was a greater Adulterer then He. Your other mistake is That you confound the Spirit of God speaking in the Scripture with the private Spirit that is Reason Humour or Fancie of the person spoken to Sir let that blessed Spirit decide this controversie between us He sayes * * 2 Pet. 1.20 that no Prophesie of the Scripture is of private Interpretation That is so calculated or Meriduanized to some select mind understandings that it shall hold the candle to them only and leave All others in the Darke But if you will consent to the Comment of the most primitive Fathers on that Text The meaning of it is That as God by his Spirit did at first dictate the scripture so he dictated it in those things which are necessary to Salvation intelligible to all the world of Mâ—n who will addict their minds to read it It being therefore a Rule held out to all mankind for them to order their lives and actions by and therefore universally intelligible to them it should else cease to be either Revelation or a Rule for you to hold that is â—â—â—not be understand without a second Revelation made by the same Spirit that wrote it to the private spirit of you the more-Cabinet Reader is as if you should inclose and impale to your self the Ayre or Sun-beâ—â—es And should maintain that God hath placed the Sun in the firmament and given you only eyes to see him In short sir 't is to make as word which was ordained to give light to all the World a Dark Lanthorn In which a candle shines to the use of none but him that bears it Your Eighth Paragraph being the third of your eleven Questions as also the close of your ninth shall receive a latine Answer from me in the Divinity School Your next Paragraph is againe the Hydra with repullulating Heads Where first you put me to prove the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England Which being managed by a Prelaticall faction whom you say I call the Church was not excellent if I reckon from the yeare 1630. to 1640. As for the Doctrine Sir I told you before that the Primitive Church it selfe was not free from Heresies If therefore I should grant you which I never shall till you particularly tell me what those erroneous doctrines were that some men in our Church were heterodox nay hereticall in their opinions yet I conceive it to be a very neere neighbour to heresie in you to charge the doctrines of persons upon the Kingdome or Church Such Doctrines might be in England as you whether out of Choice or Luck have said yet not by the Tenets or Doctrines of the Land No more then if you should say that because M. Yerbury and some few others hold the Equâ—lity of the Saints with Christ the whole Kingdome is a blasphemer and was by you confuted at S. Maries The publick doctrine of the Church of England I call none but that which was allowed to be so by an Act of Pa liament of England and that Sir was contained in the 39. Articles If any Prelate or inferiour Priest for the Cicle of yeares you speak of either held or taught any thing contrary to these as it will be hard I beleeve for you to instance in any of that side who did you shall have my consent in that particular to count them no part of our Church In the meane time Sir I beseech you be favourable to this Island and think not that for ten yeares space 't was hereticall in all the parts of it on this side Berwick Withall Sir I desire since you have assigned me an Epocha to reckon from that you will compare the worst doctrines which wore the date of the Trojan Warre amongs us with those which have since broke loose in the space of a Warre not halfe so long and you will find that our Church for those ten yeares you speak of wore a garment I will not say as seamless
Sermon I am not at leisure to repeat every Sermon that I preach preaching soe often as I doe sometimes twice and upon just occasion thrice a day to every one that is at leisure to cavill at that which thay heard but at second hand yet to shew how much you are mistaken I will give you a breife but satisfactorie account My Text stands upon record Isa 40.25 the Doctrine I raised from the words was as followeth Doct. There is no creature in heaven or earth like God in all things or equall to God in any thing The first Corollarie I deduced from thence when I came to make application was breifly this That no picture can be made of God because there was nothing like him in heaven or earth All nations are less then vanity in comparison of God to whom then will ye liken God or what likeness will ye compare unto him Isay 40.17.18 The Prophet urgeth this Argument against all manner of images which are made to represent God who sitteth upon the circle of the earth and stretcheth out the heavens from the 19. v. of the same chap to the 23. ver and he enforceth this Argument vers 21. have yee not knowne have ye not understood c. as if he had say'd yee are ignorant sotts irrationall and inconsiderate men if yee apprehend not the strength of this Argument Now SIR be pleased to produce your strong reasons and overthrow if you can the Doctrine or the Corollary Your Intelligencer was if not a false Prophet yet a false Historian when he told you that I accused you of making images equall with God SIR I said that images were not like unto God and thereupon wondered that you tooke upon you to pleade for the retaining of those images which have beene too often turn'd into idolls not by the piety but superstition of forme times You say that by the same reason there should be no Sun in the firmament Whence I collect that you will be forc'd to maintaine that images are as necessary in the Church as the Sun in heaven be pleased to read the 22. page of the false Prophet Moreover you plead for Copes and for those parts of the Common-Prayer Booke which were borrowed from Rome pag. 21 22. The Visitors will ere long enquire whether there hath not beene a Superstitious use of Copes at christ-Christ-Church and therfore I did not make any such enquirie in my Sermon but as a Freind I give you and your adherents timely notice of it because I believe you had need study for an Answer You maintaine that some things in the excellencies and height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and evidence of their truth upon the authority of Christs miracles conveyed along in tradition and story pag. 16. and therefore I say your Religion leanes too hard and too heavy upon Tradition You are offended that I spoke not distinctly concerning Prelacy you may if you please try your strength and endeavour to prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction in the hand of a Prelate 2. You may if you can justifie that no Church that ever the Sun look'd upon hath been more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrine of it or better establish'd for the Government and Discipline of it then the Church of England pag. 17. if you believe this confident assertion you may proceed and justifie all the Doctrines which were publikely countenanced or approved all the superstitious practises and prelaticall usurpations nay the delegation of the Prelates usurped power to Chancellors and all the Tyranny of the high Commission together with all the corruptions and innovations introduced into the State Church Vniversity from the yeare 1630. till 1640. by a prevailing faction who were not the Church or Vniversity but the disease indeed the plague of both If you dare not undertake so sad a taske you cannot justifie the 17.18.22 23.27.35 pages of the False Prophet you must prove that the proceedings of the Parliament are Turkish pag. 15 1â— that none of the Members of either House of Parliâ—â—ent who complaine of the blemishes of the Church are tâ—â—â—â—â—â—â—med good Protestants pag. 18. that the Reformation which they have made is 〈◊〉 vanities pag. 20. that they are guided by no other principles but such as are contrary to all rules of right judgement either common to men or Christians pag. 21. that the Ministers who have appeared for the Parliament are all of them False Prophets who have encouraged the Parliament to oppression sacriledge murther and to make all names that are great and sacred cheap and odious in the eares of the people That the Ministers are the liars and the Parliament-men the compliers as appears by all your unworthy insinuations hints intimations quite throughout your Scurrillous Libell falsly called a Sermon let any prudent man judge whether this be not your maine drift and scope à carceribus usque ad metam You talke of a Religion in which you were borne were you borne in a Surplice or a Cope Christiani non nascuntâ—r sed fiunt Sir the Parliament doth not defame nor will they suppress the true Protestant Religion and therefore if you fall in this quarrell I said that you must be sacrificed in the defence of Tyranny Prelacy Popery if you put not Religion in Copes Images Prelates or Service-Booke quorsum haec perdito why doe you talk of being Martyr'd say that if the King will give you leave you will burne your Copes and Surplices throw off the Bishops and Common-Prayer Booke you 'l break your windowes and take the Covenant and make it evident that you are and ever will be of the Kings Religion for you hold none of these things necessary now whatever you have said heretofore unless they be made necessary by right Authority Sir if I made any prediction it was that your Sermon would be confuted before it was burnt you know Paraeus was burnt before he was confuted and if you be not guilty of any doctrine received in Poland I wonder First why you did endeavour to incense an Officer of this Garrison against me because I had refuted M. Yerburies blasphemous errors 2. Why you did maintaine those damnable Doctrines on the last Sabbath forgive me this injurie for I heare you did but vent them and were no way able to maintain them Sir I acknowledge that I doe contend for the restitution of the true Protestant Religion and contend for the civill right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion we were in manifest danger to lose our right by the force and violence of potent Enemies whereupon the high Court of Parliament judged it fit to repell force by forces be pleased to shew how the Parliament doth hereby canonize the Alchoran or declare themselves to be of the Mahumetan perswasion the Parliament will not compell you to be happy onely take heed that you do not compell them to make you
Martyrs then Heretiques yet the Primitive Church ceased not to be Apostolically pure because it had a Cerinthus or Nicolaitans in it nor the succeeding Churches to be the Spouse of Christ because one brought forth an Apelles another a Marcion a third a Nestorius a fourth an Eutiches a fift an Arius Sir as long as the best Church in the world consists of men not infallible there will be errors But then you must not charge the Heterodox opinions or Doctrines of particular men though perhaps countenanced by some in publique authority upon the Church Besides Sir every Innovation is not necessarily a Corruption unless it displace or lay an Ostracisme upon some other thing more worthy and better then it selfe You your selfe say that the corruptions introduced were brought in by a prevailing faction who were not the Church If they were not my Assertion holds good that notwithstanding such corruptions yet our Church in its time was the purest Church in the world This then being so me thinks Sir you in your pursuit of Reformation by making Root Branch your Rule of proceeding have beene more severe then the lawes of right Reason will allow you If there were such a tyrannie as you speake of streaming it selfe from the High Commission Court why could not the tyrannie be supprest without the abolishment of the Court Or if there were such a thing as Prelaticall usurpation why could not the usurpations be taken away and Episcopacie left to stand Sir if you be Logician enough to be able to distinguish betweene the faults of persons and the sacredness of functions you cannot but pronounce with me that to extirpate an order of the Church ancient as the Christian Church it selfe and made venerable by the never-interrupted Reception of it in all the Ages of the Church but ours for the irregular carriage of a Prelate or two if any such have beene among us is a course like theirs who thought there was no way left to reforme drunkenness in their State but utterly to root up and extirpate and banish Vines The remainder of your Paragraph is very politically orderd which is that because you finde it hard for you to confute my Sermon by your Arguments you will endeavour to make the Parliament my Adversary who you thinke are able to confute it by their power And bid me prove that the proceedings of the Parliament are Turkish Here Sir methinks being a Poet I see a piece of Ben Johnson's best Comedy the Fox presented to me that is you a Politique Would-be the second sheltring your self under a capacious Tortoise-shell Why Sir can you perswade your selfe that the great Councell of the Kingdome by whom you are imployed if they will vouchsafe to reade my Sermon will not presently discerne your Art And withall perceive that though the Text upon which I out of the Integrity of my soule preacht that Sermon stick as close to False Prophets as the Centaures shirt did to Hercules and set them a raging yet that they having never Parliamentarily profest to propagate Religion by their speare can no way be concerned when I say that such a perswasion in us Christians would be Mahumetan and we thereby should translate a piece of the Alchoran into a piece of the Gospel Sir I am so confident of the wisdome of that Honourable Assembly of my owne innocent meaning and of your guilt who have beene one of those Turkish Prophets and in your Letter to me still are who have preacht that piece of the Alchoran for good doctrine that for answer to all your slye impotently-malicious mis-applications and shiftings off that which I have said onely of such as your selfe to the Parliament I shall onely appeale to my Sermon And by that if you please to undertake the Devils part and be my Accuser shall be content to stand or fall In the meane time Sir I must repeat what I said before that if it be read or lookt on through those refractions with which you have mis-shap'd and crookt it I shall consent to what you say in the end of your filthy Paragraph That 't was once a Sermon but you almost à Carceribus usque ad metam have made it a Libell In your next what shall I call it you are very Critically pleasant And because I talke of a Religion wherein I was borne aske me whether I were borne in a Surplice or Cope and then very distinguishingly proceed and say Christiani non nascuntur sed fiunt To the first I reply that it had been as unnaturall for me to be borne in a Surplice or Cope as for you to come into the world with a little Geneva set-ruffe about your neck Next Sir for your sharpe distinction I hope though the Muses be your Step-dames yet you thinke not the figures of Rhetorick to be so superstitious that it shall be Popery in me to make use of a Metonymy and to express my selfe by the Adjunct when I mean the place and Country I grant Sir that men are not borne but re-born Christians yet 't will be no great Errour in speech for a man to say he is born in Christianity if he be a Christian and were born in the place where Christianity is establish'd Sir I doubt you begin to think secular learning to be a profane thing And that you are bound to persecute Tropes out of Expression as you have Liturgy out of the Church If you do Sir we shall in time if we proceed in this conflict fulfill a peece of one of Saint Paul's Epistles between us I become a Barbarian to you and you to me I am glad to hear you say That the Parliament will not suppress the true Protestant Religion Sir I never thought they would But then 't will be no harm to you if I pray That whilst you pursue such a through Reformation of it as of late years hath left it doubtfull in the minds of the people what the true Protestant Religion is you let not in Popery at that Gate by which they strive to shut it out If Queen Maries dayes do once more break in upon us through the sluce which we open to them by our unsetledness and Distractions and if I then fall a sacrifice in defence of the same Religion for which I now contend I hope you then will think your self confuted And no longer beleeve that I am such an ill Judge of Religions or so profusely prodigall of my life that I would make it a Holocaust or Oblation either to Tyranny or Popery In short Sir let the King and Parliament agree to burn Copes and Surplices to throw away the Common-Prayer-Book or to break our Windows I shall not place so much Religion in them as not to think them alterable and this done by Right Authority But as for the Covenant 't is a pill Sir which no secular interest can so sweeten to me that I should think my self obliged to be so far of any mans Religion as to swallow
and undivided as Christs coat But since the Soldiers did cast lots upon it so much heresie as well as schisme hath torne it asunder that 't is now become like Josephs coat imbrued in bloud where no one piece carryes colour or resemblance to another As for the Discipl ne and Government of our Church if you would speak your conscience and not your gall you would confess that the frame and structure of it was raised from the most Primitive Modell that any Moderne Church under the Sunne was governed by A Government so well sized and fitted to the Civill Government of the Kingdome that till the insurrection of some false Prophets who presumed to offer strange fire before the Lord and reduced a Land which flowed with milk and honey into a wildernesse they agreed together like the two Scripture-brothers Moses and Aaron and were the two banks which shut up schisme within its channell and suffered not heresie or sedition to overflow their bounds In short Sir I know not into what new forme this Kingdome may be moulded or what new creation may creep forth from the strife-full heap of things into which as into a second Chaos we are fallen But if the Civill State doe ever returne to its former selfe againe your Presbyterian Government which was brought forth at Geneva and was since nursed up in Scotland mingled with it if I be not deceived in the principles of that Government will be but a wild Vine ingrafted into a true Vpon which unequall disproportioned Incorporation we may as well expect to gather Figs of Thistles or grapes of thornes as that the one should grow so Southerne the other so Northerne that one harmonious musicall Body should arise from them thus joyned What Errors in Government or Discipline were committed by the Prelates I know not neither have you proved them hitherto chargeable with any unless this were an error that they laid an Ostracisme as you say upon those that opposed your Government I beleeve Sir when Presbytery is set up and you placed in your Consistory with your Spirituall and Lay-Brethren you will not be so negligent or so much asleep in your place as not to find an Ostracisme for those who shall oppose you in your office In the meane time Sir to call them or those who submitted to their Government A Prelaticall faction because the then wheels of their Government moved with an unanimous undisturbance is I beleeve a calumny which you would faine fasten upon them provoked I suppose by the description which I have made of the conspiracy of the False Prophets of Jerusalem in my Sermon I must deal freely with you Sir do but probably make it appear to me that this Faction in your letter was like the Conspiracy in my Sermon Do but prove to me that the Prelates devoured soules That they took to themselves the Treasure and precious things of the Land That to effect this they kindled the first spark towards a Civil War then blew it into such a flame as could not be quencht but with the bloud of Husbands ravisht from their Wives and the slaughter of parents prest and ravisht from their children Doe but prove to me that they made one widdow or built their Honours upon the ruine or calamity of one Orphane Lastly do but prove to me that the Priests whom you make to be the lower orbe of their Faction did so mingle and confound the services of the Church as to put no difference between the holy and profane or that in complyance with them they saw vanity and divined lyes to the people and I shall think them capable of all the hard language which you or others have for some yeares heapt upon them Till then Sir pray mistake not Concrets for their Abstracts nor charge the faults of persons upon the innocency of their functions Prelacy is an Order so well rooted in the Scripture though now deprived of all its Branches in this Kingdome that I verily perswade my selfe that as Caiaphas in the Gospell when he spoke Prophecy perceived not himself at that time to be a Prophet so you over-rul'd by the guidance of a higher power have in this Paragraph exceedingly praised Prelacy whilst you laboured to revile it For either it must be Non-sense or a very great Encomium of it when you say that as long as it enjoyed a root here in this Kingdome it had not onely a destructive influence into the evils of the Church but of the Civill State too If the Influence of it were so destructive of evils as indeed it was pray with what Logick can you say that Salus populi quae suprema lex est did compell the Parliament to extirpate a thing so preservative and full of Antidote both to Church and State Sir if mens styles denominations be to be given to them by the place clymate where they are borne bred I shall grant you are an English nay an Oxford Christian But if you preach maintain that Religion as to be propagated by the Sword I must tell you that an English Presbyter may in this case be a Turkish Prophet and that though his Text be chosen from the Gospel yet the Doctrine raised from it may be a piece of the Alchoran I shall allow you to say that the Protestants in Ireland had a Right to the defence of the free exercise of their Religion against the furious assaults of the bloody Rebels But when you tell me that Christ is King of Nations as well as King of Saints which I shall grant you and say that as one of his wayes to make Proselytes is by the perswasion of his Word and Spirit so if that will not do his other way to break the power of Antichrist that is as I conceive you mean to convert men from Popery is by civill and naturall meanes that is if you meane any thing to compell them to be Protestants by the Sword Me-thinks I am at Mecha and heare a piece of Turcisme preacht to me by one of Mahomets Priests In short Sir whether the Papists in England were confederate with the Irish Rebels I know not But doe you prove demonstratively not jealously to me that the Queene and her Agents had an intent to extirpate the Protestant Religion and to plant Popery by the Sword and the Army that should bring that designe to pass shall in my opinion be styled an Army not of Papists but of baptized Janizaries As for your bidding me dispute the right of taking up Armes in such a case with the Parliament First I must desire you to accept the Answer which Favroinus the Philosopher gave to a friend of his who askt him why he would let Adrian the Emperour have the better of him in a Dispute I am loth to enter into an Argumentation with those who command Thirty Legions Next Sir if I were of consideration enough to be heard to speak publickly to that Great Assembly having first kist my
perfect Contradiction and cannot both be true Here then stands the case You building your Opinion upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or great depth of the ninth Chapter to the Romans inferre from thence that God gives Repentance only to some few whose peremptory will 't is that they only shall be saved Saint Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy Chapter 2. vers 4. gives us a line and plummet to sound this Depth and saves expresly That 't is the will of God that all men should be saved Between these propositions 't is his will that all shall and 't is his will that only a few shall be saved there is no Medium in which they may be reconciled but one of them must necessarily be true the other false This then being so I have alwayes held it safer to build my Faith upon those cleare places of the Scripture which have no vaile before their face then those which are mysterious and lead me to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over which I stand amazed but cannot from thence infer I doe farther profess to you that I am not so wedded to this or any other Speculative Opinion but that if you will shew more convincing Scripture for the contrary I shall most readily renounce my owne thoughts and espouse my self to yours Your premonition or forewarning of me that we at Christ-church would e're long taste of a visitation hath since come to pass and in part approved it self to be true Prophecy Whether imâ—â—ired by you or no I know not but there have been two with us who have taken away as many Copes and guilt can lesticks as if they had been superstitious Sir 't is no wonder to me that in our times silver should be Popery Or that Church utensills if they be Gold should be called superstition But certainly Sir 't was a great misinformation to send them to search for Copes or things of value to my poor Protestant Chamber where there never was a Cope though perhaps they might have found a long-difused Surplice there And as for Idolls of price if they had searcht my purse I beleeve that all the popery which in these impoverishing Times they could have found in it cast into the fire like the Jewish Earerings would neither have come forth a Silver Crucifix much less so wealthy an Idoll as a Golden Calfe Sir since at length I understand you that by agreeing upon the true state of the questions before we dispute them you mean that we should agree upon the termes in which they are to be held I am very ready to comply with you in that reasonable particular But to accept of any either of your eleven English or yout three Latine questions in the terms in which you have formed them I can by no meanes consent First Sir Because I find a piece of Artifice in the Web and contrivance of them which hath something of a Trap and Snare and Engine in it Which is that by making them as Popish questions as you can especially one of them where you insert the words Missall Breviary and Pontificall words odious to the people and part of the dismall spell which for six yeares hath raised the spirit of discord to walk among us if I should hold it affirmatively under these termes of hatred 't is possible it may beget an opinion in the minds of those that know me not that though I have more then once profest my selfe ready to fall a sacrifice in the defence of the Protestant Religion yet that this was but a disguise which concealed my hypocrisie 'till provoked I were put to defend the superstitions of the Church of Rome Sir I know upon what lesser groundâ— then this some in our credulous times have been unjustly called Papists Next Sir if I should hold them affirmatively with their fares thus looking towards Popery and should bring them thus clothed in your termes of superstition into the Divinity Schoole I doubt very much whether the publickness of the Defence may not draw an aspersion not onely upon me and the Moderator if he will vouchsafe to sit in the Chaire whilst we quarrell but upon the Whole already too much defame Vniversity which such as you have from numerous Pulpits called long since Ropishly affected But if it should allow of such a Dispute 't would lend fuell to your calumnies and be endangered to be no longer thought Pâ—pish but 〈◊〉 right a Papist Thirdly Sir your first and last Question if they were purged of their odious termes cannot pâ—â—liquely be maintained without some affront to the Parliament who by one Ordinaâ—â—â— have put down the Common-prayer-book by another Episâ—â—pâ—â—y If therefore under your termes I should pâ—lâ—â—quely stand up in defence of them you had need procure a third Ordinance which when I have done may keep me safe Yet Sir to asâ—â—â—e you that this is no evasion in me to decline a dispute because my Sermon â—as the occasion of your challenge of me in the Pulpit and of this private conference betweene â—s since Since also you allow me the liberty of alteration and to adde my stroke to the Aâ—â—ill on which the questions to be disputed on between us are to receive the last form and shape in which with least offence and scanâ—â—â—l they may walk into the publique Lastly since the three Latine Questions you sent me are dree passages of my Sermon but so corrupted from themselves as shew them to have been once pâ—râ—â—y Pâ—â—â—â—stant but passing through your hands have degenerated and â—â—â—â—ed themselves with a to-be-suspected robe of Popery the nearest way I knew for us to agree upon their true state is to deale with them as the Bishops at the Reformation dealt with the Religion of the Church of Rome that is pâ—rge them from their corruptions and restore them to the Primitive rule from whence they have digrest Which Ride being my Sermon if you read it with open eyes presents you with your three questions in this more geâ—â—iâ—e forme An Liturgia Angâ—icanâ— ideò eliminâ—â—da sie quiâ—â—â—â—â—ullas partes ab Ecclesiâ 〈◊〉 naâ—â 〈◊〉 est Neg. Christi Saâ—â—tâ—rumque imagines in Reformater Ecclesâ—is â—â—itè râ—tiâ—eri pâ—ssiâ—t Aff. Regimen Ecclesia Anglicâ—na per Episâ—â—pâ—s sâ—t Antichristianum ex eo quòd Ecclesia Romana quaÌ„ nonnulli sedem Antichristi statuunt sic gubernatur Neg. Vpon these three Questions which are but three periods of my Sermon cast into a problematicall forme if you approve of them and like a generous Adversary will promise me that neither for senâ—ing of them to you now nor for defending them hereafter I shall be question'd for this I require no other security but your word I will not faile God assisting me to meet you in the Divinity Schoole at Vniversity weapons when ever you shall think fit to call upon me and to bring with you those Arguments which you say you reserve for that place and in your two letters have not vouchsafed to afford