A common apologie of the Church of England against the vniust challenges of the ouer-iust sect, commonly called Brownists. Wherein the grounds and defences, of the separation are largely discussed: occasioned, by a late pamphlet published vnder the name, of an answer to a censorious epistle, which the reader shall finde in the margent. By I.H.

SECTION. II. The Answerers Preamble.

IT is a hard thing euen for those which would seem sober minded men in cases of controuersie,1. Retorted. S • p. to vse soberly the frownes and disaduantages of causes and times:It is a hard thing euen for sober minded men in cases of controuersie, to vse soberly the aduantages of the times: vpon which whilst men are mounted on high, they vse to behold such as they oppose too ouerlie, and not without contempt; and so are oft times emboldened to roule vpon them as from aloft very weake and weightlesse discourses, thinking any sleight and slender opposition sufficient to oppresse those vnderlings, whom they haue (as they suppose) at so great an aduantage. Vpon this very presumption it commeth to passe, that this Author vndertaketh thus solemnly and seuerely to censure a cause, whereof (as appeareth in the sequell of the discourse) hee is vtterly ignorant: which had he beene but halfe so carefull to haue vnderstood, as hee hath beene forward to censure, hee would either haue beene (I doubt not) more equall towards it, or more weightie against it. whereby whiles men are dei • cted and troden downe, they vse to behold their opposites mounted on high, too repiningly, and not without desperate enuie: & so are oftentimes moued, to shoote vp at them as from below, the bitter arrowes of spightfull and splenish discourses, thinking any hatefull opposition sufficiently charitable, to oppugne those aduersaries, which haue them (as they feele) at so great an aduantage: vpon this impotent malitiousnesse, it commeth to passe that this aunswerer vndertaketh thus seuerely and peremptorily, to censure that charitable censure of ignorance, which (as shall appeare in the sequell) he either simply, or willingly vnderstood not: and to brand a deare Church of Christ with Apostacy, Rebellion, Antichristianisme: What can bee more easie then to returne accusations?

2. Confuted. Your Preamble (with a graue bitternes) charges me with 1. Presumption vpon aduantages, 2. Weake and weightlesse discourse, 3. Ignorance of the cause censured: It had beene madnesse in me to write, if I had not presumed vpon aduantages, but of the cause, of the truth, not of the times: Though (blessed bee God) the times fauour the truth, and vs: if you scorn them and their fauours, complaine not to be an vnderling: Thinke that the times are wiser, then to bestow their fauours vpon willfull aduersaries; but in spight of times, you are not more vnder vs in estate, then in conceipt aboue vs: so wee say the Sunne is vnder a cloud, we know it is aboue it.Hier. Marco. presbyt. De cauernis cellularum damnamus orbem; in sacco & cinere volutati de Episcopis sententiam ferimus: Quid facit sub tunica paenitentis regius animus? Would God ouerlinesse and contempt were not yours, euen to them which are mounted highest vpon best desert;Cypr. l. 3. Ep. 9. Haec sunt initia haereticorum, vt sibi placean:, vt praepositum superbo tumore contemnant. Harison once theirs, in Psal. 122. of Brown. Antichristian pride and bitternes. Bredw. pref. M Brinsly his pref. to the 2. part of the VVatch. Optat. Mil. de Donat. Collegae non eritis, si • o litis, fratres estis &c. and now you that haue not learned sobrietie in iust disaduantages, taxe vs, not to vse soberly the aduantages of time: there was no gall in my penne, no insultation, I wrote to you as brethren, and wish't you companions: there was more danger of flattery in my stile, then bitternesse: wherein vsed I not my aduantages soberly? Not in that I said too much, but not enough; Not in that I was too sharpe, but not weighty enough; My opposition was not too vehement, but too sleight and slender: So, strong Champions blame their aduersary, for striking too easily: you might haue forborne this fault, it was my fauour that I did not my worst: you are worthy of more weight, that complaine of ease. The discourse that I rol'd downe vpon you, was weake and weightlesse; you shall well finde this was my lenitie,Disclaimed by themselues. Answer against Broughton page. 21. not my impotence. The fault hereof is partly in your expectation, not in my letter: I meant but a short Epistle, you look't belike for a volume, or nothing; I meant onely a generall monition; you look't for a solide prosecution of particulars: It is not for you to giue taskes to others pennes. By what Lawe must wee write, nothing but large Scholasticall Discourses? Such Tomes as yours: May we not touch your sore vnlesse wee will launce, and search it? I was not enough your enemie; forgiue me this errour, and you shall smart more: But not onely my omissions were of ignorance, but my censures, though seuere and solemne: An easie imputation from so great a Controuler: I pardon you, and take this as the common lot of enemies. I neuer yet could see any Scribler so vnlearned, as that he durst not charge his opposite with ignorance;Separat. schism. M. Giff. an ignorant Priest. Barr. p. 64. Confer. of D. And. & M. Huchius. with Barrow. If Dr. Whitaker, M. Perkins, M. Gyfford, and that Oracle of our present times, Dr. Andrewes, went away content with this liuerie from yours; how can I repine? If I haue censured what cause I knew not, let me bee censured for more then ignorance, impudencie: but if you know not what I censured (let all my trust lie on this issue) take both ignorance, boldnesse, and malice to your selfe: Is your cause so mysticall▪ that you can feare any mans ignorance? What Cobler or Spinster hath not heard of the maine holds of Brownisme? Am I only a stranger in Hierusalem? If I know not all your opinions, pardon me: Your owne haue not receiued this illumination; M. Spr. 3. 〈◊〉 . siderat. I speake boldly, not your selfe; Euery day brings new conceites, and not one day teaches, but corrects another,Iren. l. 1. Per singulos. dies nouum aliquod adsectant. &c. you must be more constant to your selues, ere you can vpbraide ignorance or auoide it: But whether I knew your prime fancies, appeares sufficiently by a particular discourse, which aboue a yeare since was in the hands of some of your Clients, and I wonder if not in yours: Shortly; am I ignorant? If I were obstinate too, you might hope (with the next gale) for me, your more equall aduersarie, at Amsterdam. As I am; my want of care and skil, shal (I hope) loose nothing of the trueth by you, nor suffer any of your foule aspersions vpon the face of Gods Church and ours.

But whiles we striue; who shall be our Iudge? The Christian Readers: who are those? Presume not, yee more zealous and forward Countrey men, that you are admitted to this Bench: so farre are wee meere English, from being allowed Iudges of them; that they haue already iudged vs to be noBar. Confer. with Hutchins. fo. 1. Browne estat • of true Christians Defence of true Christians against the Doct. of Oxford. Iohnson (against Iacob.) passim. Barr. against Gyfford. Christians: We are Goates and Swine, no Sheepe of God: since then none but your Parlour in the West, and Amsterdam, must bee our Iudges, who (I beseech you) shall be our aduersaries? God be iudge betwixt you and vs, and correct this your vnchristian vncharitablenesse. Sepa. As this Epistle is come to mine hands, so I wish the answere of it may come to the hands of him that occasioned it: Intreating the Christian Reader, in the name of the Lord, vnpartially to behold without either preiudice of cause, or respect of person, what is written on both sides, and so from the Court of a sound conscience to giue iust iudgement.

SECTION. III▪ The parties written to, and their Crime.

I Wrote not to you alone:To M. Smith and M. Rob. Ring-leaders of the late separation at Amsterd. what is become of your partner, yea, your guide? Woe is me, he hath renounced our Christendome with our Church: and hath wash't of his former water, with new: and now condemnes you all, for not separating further, no lesse then we condemne you for separating so far. As if you could not be enough out of Babylon, vnlesse you be out of your selues.Charact. of the Beast, written by M. Smith. Pref. Be it knowne therefore to all the separation, that we account them in respect of their constitution to be as very an Harlot, as either her Mother the Church of England, or her Grandmother Rome is &c. Iterato Baptizatus scienter, it erato Dominum crucifigit. De consecr. dist. 4. Qui vis &c. Alas miserable countrimen, whither runne you? Religion hath but his height, beyond which is errour and madnesse: Hee telles you true, your station is vnsafe, either you must forward to him, or backe to vs.

The crime of separation, how great. I obiected separation to you: yet not so extreame as your answere bewrayes: a late separation, not the first; my charity hoped you lesse ill, then you will needes deserue: you graunt it odious, because it casts imputation of euil vpon the forsaken: Of euill? Yea of the worst, an estate incurable and desperate. He is an ill Phisitian that will leaue his patient vpon euery distemper, his departure argues the disease helpelesse; were wee but faulty, as your Landlord Churches, your owne Rules would not abide your flight: Hence the Church of England iustly matches Separatists with the vilest persons: GOD himselfe doth so: who are more vile then Patrons of evill?Sep. yet no greater woe, is to them that speake good of euill,The crime here obiected is separation, a thing very odious in the eyes of all them from whom it is made: as euermore casting vpon them the imputation of euill, whereof all men are impatient: And hence it commeth to pass • that the Church of England can better brooke the vilest persons continuing communion with it, then any whomsoeuer separating from it, though vpon neuer so▪ iust and well grounded reasons. Vid. Iohnson Preface to his Inquirie. Esay. 5. 20. then those that speake euill of good: So, wise Generalls punish mutinous persons, worse then Robbers or Adulterers:M. Penry in his Disc. of this subiect. So Corah and his companie (a Storie cunningly turned vpon vs by your Martyr) for their opposition to Moses were more fearefully plagued then the Idolatrous Israelites:Num. 16 31. • xod. 32. 30. These sinnes are more directly against common societie, the other more personall: and if both haue like iniquitie: yet the former haue both more offence and more danger: And if not so, yet who cannot rather brooke a lewd • seruant, then an vnduetifull sonne, though pretending faire colours for his disobedience? At least, you thinke the Church of England thinkes her selfe Gods Church, as wel as your Saints of Amsterdam: You that so accurse Apostacie in others, could yee expect shee should brooke it in you?

But your reasons are iust and well grounded: euery way of a man is right in his owne eyes: Said wee not well,Prou. 21. 2. that thou art a Samaritane, and hast a Diuell, say the Iewes? What Schisme euer did not thinke well of it selfe? For vs: wee call heauen and earth to record, your cause hath no more iustice then your selues haue charitie.

SECTION. IIII. The kinds of separation, and which is iust.

YEt there is a commendable and happie separation, Sepa. And yet separation from the world, and so from the men of the world, and so from the Prince of the world that raigneth in them, and so from whatsoeuer is contrarie to God, is the first steppe to our communion with God, and Angels, and good men, as the first steppe to a Ladder, is to leaue the earth. from the world, from the Prince, and men of the world, and whatsoeuer is contrarie to God: who doubts it? 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . There were no heauen for vs without this, no Church; which hath her name giuen by her father and husband of calling out from other. Out of the Egypt of the world dooth God call his sonnes: But this separation is into the visible Church from the world, not (as yours) out of the Church, because of some particular mixtures with the world: or (if you had rather take it of profession) out of the world of Pagans and Infidels, into the visible Church, not out of the world of true (though • aultie) Christians into a purer Church. That I may here at once for all giue light to this point of separation: we finde in Scripture a separation either to good, or from euill: To good,Num. 18. 14: so the Leuites were separated from among the children of Israel to beare the Arke,Num. 16. 9. and to minister:Deut. 10. 1. so the first borne,Exod. 13. 12. first fruites, and Cities of refuge:Leuit. 15. 21. So Paul was ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) separated, which some would haue allude to his Pharisaisme,Deut. 4. 41. but hath plaine reference to Gods owne words (Act. 13. 2.) separate me Barnabas and Saul: Rom. 1. 1. Though this is rather a destination to some worthy purpose, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . then a properly called separation.

From euill, whither sinne or sinners: From sinne, so euery soule must eschew euill, whether of doctrine or manners, and disclaime all fellowship with the vnfruitfull workes of darknesse, whither in himselfe or others.1. Thess. vlt. ad fin. Iere. 15. 19. Vide Tremel▪ & Iun. So S. Paul charges vs to holde that which is good, and abstaine from all appearance of euill: so Ieremie is charged to separate the pretious (doctrine or practise) from the vile. From sinners, not onely practised by God himselfe (to omit his eternall and secret Decree whereby the elect are separated from the Reprobate) both in his gratious vocation, sequestring them from nature and sinne, as also in his execution of iudgment, whether particular, as of the Israelites from the Tabernacles of Corah, or Vniuersall, Num. 16. and finall, of the Sheepe from the Goates; But also inioyned from God to men,Mat. 15. ad fin. 2. Chro. 19 2. 1. Cor. 6. ad fin. Nulla cum malis Conuivia vel colloquia misceantur, simus que ab ijs tam separati, quam sunt illi ab Ecclesia Dei profugi. Cypr. l. 1. Epist. ad Cornel. 2. in respect either of our affection, or of our yoake, and familiar society, whereof Saint Paul: Be not vnequally yoaked with Infidels, Come out from among them, and seperate your selues. In all this we agree: In the latitude of this last onely we differ: I finde you call for a double separation, A first separation in the gathering of the Church: A second, in the managing of it: The first at our entrance into the Church, the second in our continuance: the first of the Church, from Pagans & Worldlings, by an initiatory profession: The second of leud men from the Church by iust censures: You speake confusedly of your own separation, one while of both, another while of either single. For the first, either confesse it done by our Baptisme, or else you shall be forced to hold we must rebaptise:Char act. of Beast praef. But of this Constitu • ine separation anone. For the second, of sinners, whether in iudgement or life, some are more grosse, haynous, incorrigible: others lesse notorious, and more tractable: those other must be separated by iust censures: not these: Which censures if they be neglected, the Church is foule and (in your Pastors word) faultie, and therefore calles for our teares,Iohns. Inquir. not for our flight. Now of Churches faulty and corrupted, some race the foundation, others, on the true foundation build Timber, hay, Stubble: Frō those we must separate, from these we may not. Peters is eternall,Ioh. 6. 68. Whither shall we goe from thee, thou hast the wordes of eternall life: where these wordes are found, wo be to vs if we be not found. Amongst many good separations then, yours cannot be separated from euill, for that we should so farre separate from the euill, that therefore wee should separate from Gods children in the communion of the holy thinges of God, that for some (after your worst done) not fundamentall corruptions, wee should separate from that Church, in whose wombe we were conceiued, and from betwixt whose knees wee fell to God:H. Cl. Epistle before Treatis of sinne ag. Holy Gh. in a word (as one of yours once said) to separate not only from visible euill, but from visible good, as all Antichristian: who but yours can thinke lesse then absurd and impious? Grant we should be cleane separated from the world, yet if we be not, must you be separated from vs?Ne que propter paleam relinquim are am Domini, ne que propter pisces malos rumpimus retia Domini. August. Ep. 48. Doe but stay till God haue separated vs from himselfe: will the wise husbandman cast away his Corne-heape for the chaffe and dust? Shall the Fisher cast away a good draught because his drag-net hath weedes? Doth God separate from the faithfull soule, because it hath some corruptions, her Inmates, though not her commaunders? Certainely, if you could throughly separate the world from you, you would neuer thus separate your selues from vs: Beginne at home, separate all selfe-loue, and selfe-will, and vncharitablenesse from your heart,Answ. Counterpoyson p. 2. and you cannot but ioyne with that Church, from which you haue separated: Your Doctor would perswade vs you separate from nothing but our corruptions: you are honester, and graunt it from our Church: it were happie for you, if he lied not: who in the next page confutes himselfe, shewing that you separate from vs,Counter p. p. 7 & 8. &c as Christ from the Samaritans, namely from the Church, not the corruptions only; and not as hee did from the Iewes, namely from their corruptions, not from their Church: His memory saues our labour, and marres his Discourse.

SECTION. V. The antiquity and examples of separation.

YEt if not equity, it were well you could pleade age: This your separation in the nature and causes of it (you say) is no lesse auncient then the first institution of enmity betwixt the two seedes, you might haue gone a little higher, and haue said, then our first parents running from God in the Garden, Sep. The separation we haue made in respect of our knowledge, and obedience, is indeed late, and new yet is it in the nature and causes thereof as auncient as the Gospell, which was first founded in the enmity which God himselfe put betwixt the seede of the woman, and the seede of the serpent, Gen. 3, 15 or their separation from GOD by their sinne: But wee take your time, and easily beleeue that this your late separation was founded vpon that auncient enmity of the seede of the serpent, • useb: h • st Eccl: with the womans. That subtile Diuell when he saw the Church breath from the persecutions of Tyrants, vexed her no lesse with her owne diuisions: seeking that by fraude, which by violence he could not effect. Hence all the fearefull Schismes of the Church, whereof yours is part. This enm • ty hath not onely beene successiuely contiuued, but also too visibly manifested by the actuall (but wilfull) separation of heretickes and Sectaries from the Chuch in all ages: But I mistake you, yours is as auncient as the Gospel: What? that Euangelium aeternum of the Friers?Hen: Steph. Ap • l. Herod. Fo • A • t & monum. H. N. his booke Gal. 1. 6. Eph. 6. 17. Colos. 1 5. 1. Tin. 1. 11. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . whose name they accursedly borrowed from Reuel. 14. 6. Or that Euangelium regni of the Familists? Or that Euangelium aliud, whereof Saint Paul taxeth his Galatians? None of all these, you say; but as that Gospell of Peace, of Truth, of Glory; so auncient, and neuer knowne till Bolton, Barrow, and Browne? Could it escape all the holy Prophets, Apostles, Doctors of the old, middle, and later world, and light onely vpon these your three Patriarchs? Perhaps Nouatus or Donatus (those Saints) with their Schooles had some little glimpse of it; but this perfection of knowledge is but late and new: So, many rich mines haue lien long vnknown, and great parts of the world haue been discouered by late Venturers. If this course haue come late to your knowledge and obedience, not so to others: For loe, it was practised successiuely in the constitution and collection of all t • ue Churches, Sep. Which enmity hath not onely beene successiuely continued, but also visibly manifested by the actuall separation of all true Churches, from the world in their collection and constitution, before the law, vnder the law, and vnder the Gospell, Gen. 4: 13, 14, 16 & 6. 1, 2, & 7: 1, 7. with 1 Pet: 3, 20, 21 & 12. 2 I •• 20, 24, 26 Neh: 9, 2 Ioh: 17, 14, 16, Act. 2, 40, & 19, 9, 1: Cor 6, 17: through al times, before the law, vnder the law, after it: Wee haue acknowledged many separations: but as soone shall you finde the time past in the present, as your late separation, in the auncient and approued You quote Scriptures, though (to your praise) more dainty indeed then your fellowes.Iren. de Valentin. l. 1. Who cannot doe so?Ianumerabil • multitudin • m scripturarum quas ipsi sin • erunt afferunt ad stuporem insensatorum. Who hath not? Euen Sathan himselfe cytes the word against him which was the word of his Father. Let vs not number, but weigh your texts: The rather, for that I finde these as your Master-proofes, Vid. Preface to Master Iacobs and Iohnsons Confer. & Barr. pass. set as Challengers in euery of your defences: In Gen. 4. 13. Caine a bloody Fratricide is excommunicated: In Gen. 6. 1. 2. The sonnes of God married the daughters of men. In Gen. 7. 1. & 7. Noah is approued as righteous, and enters the Arke: In 1. Pet. 3. 20, 21. The rest in Noahs time were disobedient, and perished: What of all this? Alas, what mockage is this of the Reader, and Scriptures: Surely, you euen ioyne Scriptures, as you separate your selues: This is right as your Pastor, to proue all members of the visible Church,Descript, of true visib. Ch: elect and pretious stones, cytes 1. K. 7. 9. where is speech only of Salomons house in the Forest of Lebanon, his Porch for his Throne, his Hall, his Pallace for Pharachs daughter, and when hee comes to describe the office of his imaginary doctor thwacks fourteene Scriptures into the margent,Nihil autem • irum fi & ex ipsius instrumento a • tentur argumenta, cum oporteat haereses esse, quae esse non possent si non & perperam scripturae intelligi possent. Tertull. de resur. whereof not any one hath any iust colour of inference to his purpose: and in his discourse of the power of the Church (that hee might seeme to honour his margent with shew of textes) hath repeated sixe places twise ouer in the space of sixe lines.Ibid: For these of yovrs: you might obiect the first to the Cainites not to vs:So Barrow tearmes Mast. Gyff. Re • ut. p. 102. Cain was cast out worthily. Doe wee either denie, or vtterly forbeare this censure? Take heed you follow him not in your voluntary exile to the land of Nod. The second you might obiect to those mungrell Christians that match with Turkes and Pagans. There are sonnes of God, that is, members of the visible Church, and daughters of men, which are without the bounds, meere Infidels; it is sinne for those sonnes to yoake themselues with those daughters. What is this to vs? Noah was righteous, Si Christianus Iudaicae praeuaricanti carnaliter coniungatur, a commumone Ecclesiaesegregetur. the multitude disobedient: Who denies it? yet Noah separated not from that corrupted Church till the flood separated him from the earth, but continued an auncient Preacher of righteousnesse, euen to that peruerse and rebellious generation. But it sufficeth you that Caine and the Giants were separated from the rest:Dist. 28. q. 1 Caue. & cap. si quis Iudaicae, &c. 1. Pet. 3. 19. 2. Pet. 2. 5. We yeelde it: what will follow hence saue onely that notorious malefactors must be cast out, and professed Heathen not let into the Chruch? VVe hold, and wish no lesse: your places euince no more. These, before the law: In Leuit. 20. 24. 26. God chose out Israel from other people: This was Gods act, not theirs: a sequestring of his Israelites from the Gentiles, not of Israel from it selfe: yours is your owne, and from men, in all maine points, of your owne profession: But therefore Israel must be holy: If any man denie holinesse to be required of euery Christian, let him feele your Maranatha. In Nehem. 9. 2. The Israelites separated themselues from the strangers, which were Infidels: whether in their marriage, or deuotion: Neither Gods seruice, nor an Israelites bedde was for Heathens. This was not the constituting of a new Church, but reforming of the olde: If therefore you can parallell vs with Pagans, and your selues will bee Iewes, this place fittes you. Lastly, what if there be an hatred betwixt the world & Christs true Disciples, Ioh. 17. 14. 16? what if Peter charged his auditors to saue themselues from the errours and practise of that froward generation, whose handes were yet freshly imbrued with the blood of Christ, Act. 2. 40.? What if the same which Peter taught, Paul practised, in separating his followers from hearing some obstinate and blasphemous Iewes, Act. 19. 9? VVhat if the Church of Corinth, were Saints by calling, 1. Cor. 1. 2? and therfore must be separated from the yoake of Infidels, 2. Cor. 6. 17? Are these your patternes? Are these fit matches for your brethren, baptized in the same water and name, professing euery point of the same true faith, vsing (for substance) the same worshippe with you? Hee that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkenesse, 1. Ioh. 2. 9.

SECTION. VI. What separation is to be made by Churches in their planting, or restauration.

BVT all these examples perhappes are not so much to warrant what you haue done, as to condemne the Church of England for what shee hath not done: for such a separation she neither hath made nor doth make, Sep. Which separation the Church of England neither hath made, nor doth make, but stands actually one with althat part of the world within the kingdom, without separation: for which cause amongst others, we haue chosen by the grace of God, rather to separate our selues to the Lord from it, then with it from him, in the visible constitution of it. but standes actually one with all that part of the world within the kingdome without separation. Loe here the maine ground of this Schisme, which your Proto-Martyr Barrow hammers vpon in euery page;In his Preface to the Reader, and in his causes of separ defended p. 4 Eiusdem p. 10 Resutat. of M. Gyff. p 22. & 2. Transgress. p 51, 52. & 55. 66 & 70. 85. & 86. &c. an ill constitution: Thus he comments vpon your wordes: For where such prophane confuse multitudes without any exception, separation, or choice were all of them from publique idolatrie, at one instant receiued or rather compel'd to be members of the Church, in some parish or other, where they inhabited, without any due calling to the faith by the preaching of the Gospell going before, or orderly ioyning together in the faith, there being no voluntarie or particular confession of their owne faith and dueties made, or required of any, and lastly no holy walking in the faith amongst them: who can say that these Churches consisting of this people were euer rightly gathered or built, according to the rule of Christs Testament. In his words and yours I finde both a mis-collection, and a wronge charge. For the former: the want of noting one poore distinction breedes all this confusion of doctrine, and separation of men: for there is one case of a new Church to be called from Heathenisme to Christianity, another of a former Church to be reformed from errours, to more sincere Christianity; In the first of these is required indeede a solemne initiation by Baptisme, and before that, a voluntarie and particular confession of faith, and therefore a cleare separation, and exception of the Christian, from the Infidell: In the latter neither is new Baptisme lawfull (though some of you belike of olde were in hand with a rebaptization:Inconstanc • of Brown p. • o. Inquiry into M. White, confessed by Fr. Iohnson p. 63. which not then speeding, succeedeth now to your shame) nor a new voluntary and particular confession of Faith besides that in Baptisme (though very commendable) will

euer be prooued simply necessary to the being of a Church; so long as the erring parties doe actually renounce their doctrines, and in open profession imbrace the truth; and (as generally in the publique confession) so particularly vpon good occasion giue iust testimonies of their repentance: This is our case, we did not make a new Church, but mended an old: your Clifton is driuen to this hold by necessity of argument; Passag. 'twixt Clifton and Smith: And concerning the constitution of the Churches, &c. But the constituting of Churches now after the defection of Antichrist may more properly be called a repairing then a constituting, &c. p. 60. Otherwise he sees there is no auoiding of Anabaptisme: Mended, saith your Doctor, and yet admitted the miscelline rabble of the prophane? Say now that such separation were not made: Let some few be holy, and the more part prophane: Shall the lewdnesse of some disanul Gods couenant with others? This is your mercy; Gods is more: who still held Israel for his, when but fewe held his pure seruice:psal. 106. Let that diuine Psalmist teach you how full the Tents of Israel were of mutinous rebels in the desert; yet the piller by day & night forsooke them not; and Moses was so farre from reiecting them; that he would not indure God should reiect them to his owne aduantage: Looke into the blacke censures, and bitter complaints of all the Prophets, & wonder that they separated not: Looke into the increased masse of corruptions in that declined Church: whereof the blessed eyes of our Sauiour were witnesses, and maruell at his silent and sociable incuriousnesse:Matth. 23. yea his charge of not separating; yee knowe not of what spirite you are: Nowe you flye to constitution, as if notorious euils were more to tollerable in the continuance, then in the collection of assembles: Sar di had but a few names that had not defiled their garments;Reuel: 34. God praises these, biddes them not separate from the rest; Thyatir • suffers a false Prophetesse? the rest that haue not this learning,Reuel. • . 24. yet are bidden but to hold their owne; not to separate from the Angell, which hath not separated Iezebel from the Church.

SECTION. VII. What separation the Church of England hath made.

YOur charge is no lesse iniurious; that the Church of England hath made no separation: Concerning which, you haue learned of your Martyr, and Ouerseers so to speake, Bar. p. 22. & 55. Fr. Iohns. ag. M. H. as if before her late disclamation of Popery, in Queene Elizabeths time, she had not beene. Her Monuments could haue taught you better, and haue ledde you to her auncient Pedigree not much below the Apostolike daies, and in many discents haue shew'd you not a few worthy witnesses and Patrons of Truth;Act. & Mon. passim. all which with their holy and constant of-spring it might haue pleased you to haue separated from this imputation of not separating: Will you know therefore how the Church of England hath separated? In her first conuersion she separated her selfe from Pagans; in her continuance she separated her selfe from grosse heretiques, and sealed her separation with blood: in her reformation she separated her selfe from wilfull Papists by her publique profession of Truth, and proclaimed hatred of errour; and she daily doth separate the notoriously euil by suspensions by excommunications, though not so many as yours: Besides the particular separations of many from the acknowledged corruptions,Troubl. and excom. pa. 191 M. Spr. p. 1. in iudgement, profession, practise. All these will be auowed in spight of all contradiction: with what forehead then can you say; the whole Church of England hath not at all separated?

After all your shifts and idle tales of constitution, you haue separated from this Church against the Lord, not with the Lord, from it: If there be Christ with vs, if the spirit of God in vs, if Assemblies, if calling by the word:Fr. Iun. lib. de Eccles. whatsoeuer is, or is not else in the Constitution, there is whatsoeuer is required to the essence of a Church, no corruption eyther in gathering or continuance can destroy the truth of being, but the grace of being well: If Christ haue taken away his word and spirit, you haue iustly subduced▪ els you haue gone from him in vs.

And when you haue al done, the Separatists Idol, visible Constitution, will proue but an appendance of an externall forme, no part of the essence of a true Church: and therefore your separation no lesse vain then the ground, then the Authours. Lastly, if our bounty should (which it cannot) grant, that our collection was at first deepely faulty: cannot the Ra • ihabition (as the Lawyers speake) bee drawne backe?Ratihabitio retroha •• , &c. Subsequens consensus Iacob in Leam fecit cos coniuges, d. 29. q 1. S. sed obijcitur In contracts (your owne similitude) a following consent iustifies an act done before consent, and why not in the contract betwixt GOD, and his visible Church? Loe, he hath confirm'd it by his gratious benedictions, and as much as may bee in silence, giuen vs abundant proofes of his acceptation: That after-act, Barr. ag. Gyff which makes your baptisme lawfull, why can it not make our Church?

SECTION. VIII. Constitution of a Church.

BBut for as much as Constitution is the very state of Brownisme, Let vs (I beseech you) inquire a little into the Complexion of your Constitution: Whether Physicke, or Lawe, or Architecture haue lent you it: sure I am, it is in this vse, Apocryphall: Neuer man vsed it thus scrupulously till your times: Though, what neede you the helpe of Fathers or Schooles, new words must expresse new Paradoxes. It is no treason to coyne tearmes: What then is Constitution? Your Doctor can best tell vs: As the Constitution of a Common-wealth,H. Answ. Counter p. p. 17 • or of a City is a gathering or vniting of people together into a ciuill policy: So (saith he) the Constitution of the Common-wealth of Israel, and of the City of God, the new Ierusalem, is a gathering and vniting of people into a Diuine Politie: The forme of which Polity, is Order: which Order is requisite in all actions, and Administrations of the Church, as the Apostle sheweth, and specially in the Constitution thereof: So that next vnto faith in God, it is to be esteemed most necessary for all holy societies.Colos. 2. 5. Hence Paul reioyced in the Colossians order and faith: To this Constitution therefore, belong a people as the matter, secondly, a calling or gathering together as the form, wherof the Church consisteth. The Constitution of the Church of England is false in both: VVhy so? Ha •• we not a people? Are not those people called together? To preuent this, you say our Constitution is false, not none: VVhy false? Because those people haue neither faith,Tertull. de Prescript. nor order. For faith first: VVho are you, that dare thus boldy breake into the Closets of God,Tu vt homo extrimsecus vitumquem que nosti, putas quod vides, vides autem quons que oculos habes, sed oculi Domini sunt alti, Homo in faciem, Deus in praecordiae contemplatur. the hearts of men? and condemne them to want that, which cannot be seene by any but Diuine eies? how dare you intrude thus into the throne of your Maker? Consider, and conferre seriously: VVhat faith is it, that is thus necessarily required to each member in this Constitution? Your owne Doctor shall define it: Faith required to the receiuing in of members, is the knowledge of the doctrine of saluation by Christ 1. Cor. 12. 9. Gal. 3. 2. Now I beseech you in the feare of God,Principles & inferences concerning the visible Ch. An. 1607, p: 13 lay by a while all vnchristian preiudice, and peremptory verdicts of those soules, which cost Christ as much blood as your owne: and tell mee ingenuously, whether you dare say, that not onely your Christian brethren with whom you lately conuersed, but euen your forefathers, which liued vnder Queene Elizabeths? first confused reformation, knew not the doctrine of saluation by Christ: if you say they did not, your 〈◊〉 iudgement shalbe punished fearefully, by him whose office you vsurpe. As you looke to answere before him that would not breake the bruised Reede; nor quench the smoaking Flaxe, presume not thus aboue men and Angels: If they did, then had they sufficient clayme both to true Constitution and Church: But this faith must be testified by obedience, so it was: If you thinke not so, yours is not testified by loue: Both were weake, both were true: Weakenes in any grace or worke, takes not away truth: Their sinnes of ignorance could no more 〈◊〉 Gods couenant with them, them multiplicity of wiues with the Patriarches.

SECTION. IX. Secondly▪ Order.

VVHat wanted they then? Nothing but Order; Part of Constitution, how farr requisite, and whether hindred by Constraint. and not all Order, but yours: Order, a thing requisite and excellent, but let the world indge whether essentiall: Consider now, I beseech you in the bowels of Christ Iesus, whither this be a matter for which heauen and earth should be mixed: whether for want of your Order, all the world must be put out of all Order, and the Church out of life and being: Nothing (say we) can be more disorderly, then the confusion of your Democracy, or popular state (if not Anarchy • ) Where all (in a sort) ordaine and excommunicate; We condemne you not for no true members of the Church: what can be more order 〈◊〉 (by your owne confusions) then the 〈◊〉 ▪ D. 〈…〉 Brownists. Brow • 〈◊〉 of true Christians Inquir into M. White. Church at Amsterdam, which yet you graunt but faulty, If there be disproportion and dislocation of some parts, is it no true humane bodie? will you rise from the feast, vnlesse the dishes be set on in your owne fashion? Is it no City, if there be mud-walles halfe-broken, low Cottages vnequally built, no state house? But your order hath more essence, then you can expresse; and is the same which Politicians in their trade call ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) an incorporating into one common ciuill body;Answ. ibid. Arist. Pol. 3: c: 1. by a voluntary vnion, and that vnder a lawfull gouernment: Our Church wants both: wherein there is both constraint, and false office. Take your owne resemblance and your owne asking: Say that some tyrant (as Basilius of Russia) shall forceably compell a certaine number of subiects into Mosco, and shall hold them in, by an awfull Garison, forcing them to new lawes and Magistrates, perhappes hard and bloody: They yeeld, and making the best of all, liue together in a cheerefull communion, with due commerce, louing conuersation, submissiue execution of the inioyned lawes: In such case, Whether is Mosco a true City, or not? Since your Doctor cytes Aristotle; let it not irke him to learne of that Philosopher, Arist. Pol: 3: c. 1: who can teach him, that when Clisthenes had driuen out the Tyrants from Athens, and set vp a new Gouernement,Edesius & Frumentius pueri a Meropio Tyrio-Philosoph • in Indian deportati, postea ibi Christianam religionem plantarunt. Ruffin. l. 1. • 9. Faemina i • ter Iberos. and receiued many strangers, and bondmen into the Tribes, it was doubted, not which of them were citizens, but whither they were made Citizens vniustly. If you should finde a company of true Christians in vtmost India, would you stand vpon tearmes, and inquire how they became so? VVhiles they haue what is necessary for that heauenly profession; what need your curiosity trouble it selfe with the meanes?

SECTION. X. Constraint requisite.

YOu see then what an idle plea constraint is in the Constitution of a City, the ground of all your exception: But it is otherwise in Gods Citie, the Church; why then doth his Doctor shippe parallell these two? And why may not euen constraint it selfe haue place in the lawfull constitution or reformation of a Church? Did not Manisses after his comming home to God,2. Chron. 33. 16 charge and commaund 〈◊〉 to serue the Lord God of Israel? Did not worthy Iosiah when he had made a couenant before the Lord,2. Chr. 34. 32. 33 cause all that were found in Ierusalem, and Beniamin to stand to it, and compelled all that were found in Israel, to serue the Lord their God? What haue Queene Elizabeth, 2. Chron. • 5. 13: or King Iames done more? or what other? Did not Asa vpon Obeds prophesie, gather both Iudae and Beniamin, and al the strangers from Ephraim, Manasses, and Simeon, and enact with them, that whosoeuer would not seeke the Lord God should be slaine?Barr. ag. Ciff. Brow. Reform. without. tarry: Greene wood Confer with Cooper. Brow. refor: without tar. Confer. with D. And▪ M. Hutch▪ Confer. with D. An. Refor. without tar. What meanes this perue • snesse? You that teach we may not stay Princes leasure to reforme, will you not allow Princes to vrge others to reforme? What crime is this, that men were not suffered to be open Idolaters, that they were forced to yeeld submission to Gods ordinances? Euen your owne teach that Magistrates may compell infidelles to heare the doctrine of the Church; and Papists, you say elsewhere (though too roughly) are infidells: But you say, not to be members of the Church: Gods people are of the willing sort: True, Neither did they compell them to this: They were before entred into the visible Church by true Baptisme,Ber. Fides Suadenda non: cogenda. Counterpois. though miserably corrupted. They were not now initiated, but purged: Your 〈◊〉 Doctor 〈◊〉 vs from Bernard that faith is to be 〈…〉 , to bee compelled yet let him 〈◊〉 that the guests must bee compelled to come in,Dixit Paterfamilias seruis Quoscun que inueneritis, cogite intrare &c. Aug. • p. 48. though not to eat when they are come. Compelled, not by perswasions; for these were the first inuitation • , therfore by further meanes; Though this conceit hath no place with vs; where men were vrged not to receiue a new faith, but to performe the old;Pless. de Eccles. c. 10 to abandon that wicked Idolatry which had defiled them;Augustin. Quod si cogiper legem aliquem vel ad bona licuisset, vos ipsi miseri 〈◊〉 nobis ad fidem purissimam cogi debuistis, sed absit a nostra conscientia, vt ad 〈…〉 . and to entertaine but that truth, which the very power of their Baptisme challenge that their hand▪ But this was the old song of the Donatists; Far bee it from our conscience to compell any man to the faith. If God did not draw vs, and by asweat violence bend our wils to his, when should we follow him? Either you haue not read, or not cared for the practise of the auncient Church, and Augustines resolution concerning the sharpe penalties, imposed vpon the Donatists (would God none of your kindred) in his time,August. Epist. 48. 〈◊〉 . 68. Qui freneticum ligat, & qui 〈…〉 Quod 〈◊〉 umus sanctum est. with his excellent defences of these proceedings.

SECTION. XI. Constitution of the Church of England.

BVt tell vs then, what should haue beene done? The Gospell should haue beene euery where preached;Bar. and Greenew. pas • im: All conuer • s should haue been singled out, and haue gi • en a voluntary and particular confession of their faith, and repentance: I answere you: The Gospell was long and worthily preached in the dayes of King Edward; enough to yeeld both Martyres to the stake, and professors to the succeeding times: Were their holy Sermons, their learned writings, and their pretious blood (which was no lesse vocall) of no force? Afterwards, in the beginning of famous Queene Elizabeths reparation, what confluence was there of zealous Confessors returning now from their late exile? How painefully and Diuinely did they labour in this Vineyard of God? How did they (with their many holy Partners, which had shrowded themselues during that storme of persecution, in a dangerous secrecy) spread themselues ouer this land, and each-where drew flockes of hearers to them, and with them? Is all this nothing to their ingrateful posterity? If you murmure that there was no more, take heede least you forget there were so many: for vs, wee doe seriously blesse God for these, and triumph in them.

All this premised; now comes a Christian Edict from the State, that euery man shall yeelde obedience to this truth, wherein they had beene thus instructed: It was performed by the most, whose submission, what was it but an actuall profession of their faith, and repentance? And since such was their face, who dares iudge of their hearts? More then this, if euer can bee shewed absolutely necessary in such a state of the Church to the very Constitution, and repaired. Beeing thereof, I do here vow neuer to take the Church of England for my mother.

We know,H. answ. Counterp. and grieue to see how scornfully your whole Sect, and amongst the rest, your resolute Dr. turnes ouer these gratious entrances and proceedings of these two royall and blessed Reformers; and whom should he finde to raise his scoffes vpon, but that Saint-like Historian Master Foxe? Act & Monum. Edit. 5. p. 1180. Now (saies Master Foxe) a new face of things began to appeare, as it were in a Stage, new Players comming in, the olde thrust out:Counterp. 226. Now (saieth your Doctors Comment) new Bishoppes came in, as Players vpon the olde Stage of the Popish Church, as if the Church were no whit altered, but the men: Shall we say this is too much malice, or too little wit, and conscience? Euen in the Lord Protectors daies, that holy man reports, that after the Scriptures restored, and Masses abolished, greater thinges followed these softer beginnings, in the reformation of the Churches: Learned and godly Diuines were called for from forraine parts,P. Martyr. P. Fagius. Bucer. &c. a separation was made (though not so much willing, as wilfull) of open and manifest aduersaries from Professors, whether true or dissembled: Commissioners were appointed to visite euery seuerall Diocesse. Euery Bench of them had seuerall godly and learned Preachers to instruct the people in the truth, and to disswade them from Idolatry and Superstition. The Popes Supremacy not thrust, but taught downe: All wil-worshippe whatsoeuer, oppugned by publique Sermons: Images destroyed, Pilgrimages forbidden, the Sacraments inioyned to be reuerently, and holily ministred, Ecclesiastical persons reformed in life, in doctrine: Processions laide downe, Presence and attendance vpon Gods word commanded, the holy expending of Sabboth dayes appointed, due preparation to Gods table called for, set times of teaching inioyened to Bishoppes and other Ministers, all shr • nes and Monuments of Idolatry required to be vtterly taken from publique and priuate houses:Sixe Arti. 1547 All this, before his Parliament: By that, all bloody lawes against Gods trueth were repealed, zealous Preachers encouraged, so as (saith that worthy Historian) God was much glorified,Pag. 1182. Col. 2. 60. and the people in many places greatly edified: What neede I goe further then this first yeare? Heare this and be ashamed, and assure your selues that no man can euer read those holy Monuments of the Church but must needes spit at your separation. After that sweete and hopefull Prince, what his renowmed sister Queene Elizabeth did, the present times doe speake and the future shall speake, when all these Murmurers shall sleepe in the dust. The publique disputations, zealous Preachings, restaurations of banished religion and men, extirpations of Idolatry, Christian lawes, wise and holy proceedings, and renewed couenants with God, are still fresh in the memories of some, and in the eares of all, so as all the world wil iustly say, you haue lost shame with truth, in denying it: Yea to fetch the matter yet further, If the Reader shall looke backe to the daies of their Puissant Father King Henry the eight,Act. &. Monum Pag. 999. & 1000. he cannot but acknowledge (especially during the time of Queene Anne, and before those sixe bloody Articles) a true face of a Church (though ouer-spreade with some morphue of corruptions) and some commendable forwardnesse of Reformation: for both the Popes Supremacy was abrogated, the true doctrine of Iustification commonly taught, confidence in Saints vntaught, the vanity of Pardons declared, worshippe of Images and Pilgrimages forbidden, learned and godly Ministers required, their absences and mis-demeaners inhibited, the Scriptures translated, publickly and priuately inioyned to be read, and receiued, the word of God commaunded to be sincerely and carefully preached:Act & Monum Edit. 5. p. 1002. and to all this, holy Master Foxe addeth for my conclusion, such a vigilant care was then in the King and his Councell, how by all wayes and meanes to redresse Religion, to reforme errours, to correct corrupt customes, to helpe ignorance, and to reduce the mis-leadings of Christs Flocke, drowned in blinde Popery, superstitious customes, and Idolatry to some better forme of Reformation, whereunto he prouided not onely these Articles, Precepts, Iniunctions aboue specified, to inform the rude people, but also procured the Bishops to helpe forward the same cause of decayed doctrine,Bar. ag. Gyff. Conference. with Sperin. & M. Egerton. with their diligent preaching, and teaching of the people. Goe now & say, that suddenly in one day, by Queen Elizabeths trumpet,Greenw. & Bar. Arg. to M. Car. twr. M. Trauers, M. Chark. or by the sound of a Bell, in the name of Antichrist, all were called to the Church: Goe, say with your Patriarch that wee erect Religions by Proclamations,Browne Reform. without. tarrying. and Parliaments.

Vpon these premises I dare conclude, and doubt not to maintaine against all Separatists in the world that England (to goe no higher) had in the daies of King Henry the eight, a true visible Church of God, and so by consequent their succeeding seede was by true Baptisme iustly admitted into the bosome therof, and therefore that euen of them without any further profession, Gods Church was truly constituted: If you shall say that the following Idolatrie of some of them in Queene Maries daies excluded them: Consider how hard it will be to prooue that Gods couenant with any people, is presently disanulled by the sinnes of the most, whether of ignorance, or weakenesse; and if they had herein renounced GOD, yet that GOD also mutually renounced them. To shut vppe your Constitution then: There is no remedy: Eyther you must goe forward to Anabaptisme,M. Smith ag. R. Clifton. or come backe to vs: All your Rabbines ca • not aunswere that charge of your rebaptized brother: If wee bee a true Church, you must returne, If wee bee not (as a false Church is no Church of GOD) you must rebaptise: If our Baptisme be good,Principl. & I • fer. pag. 11. then is our constitution good. Thus your owne Principles teach. The outward parte of the true visible Church is a Vowe, Promise, Oathe or Couenant betwixt GOD and the Saints: Now I aske, Is this made by vs in Baptisme, or noe? If it be, then we haue (by your Confession (for so much as is outwardly required) a true visible Church: so your separation is vniust: If it be not, then you must rebaptise: for the first Baptisme is a nullity: and (if ours be not) you were neuer thereby as yet entred into any visible Church.

SECTION. XII. The Aunswerers title.

AS for the title of Ring-leader, wherewith I stiled this pamphleter; if I haue giuen him too much honour in his Sect, I am sory: Perhappes I should haue put him (pardon an homely, but in this sense, not vnusall word) in the taile of this Traine: Perhaps I should haue endorsed my Letter to Master Smith, Separ. To the Title of Ring-leader, wherewith it pleaseth this Pistler to stile me, I answere that if the thing I haue done be good, it is good and commendable to haue beene forward in it; if it be euill, let it be reproued by the light of Gods word, and that God to whom I haue done that I haue done, will (I doubt not) giue me both to see, and to heale mine errour by speedy repentance: if I haue fledde away on foote, I shall returne on Horse-backe: But as I durst neuer s • t foote into this way, but vpon a most sound and vnresist able conuiction of conscience by the word and his shadow; So I perceiue he was: Whatsoeuer, whither he lead or follow, God meetes with him: If hee lead: Behold I will come against them that prophesie false dreames (saith the Lorde) and doe tell them, Ier. 23. 32. and cause my people to erre by their lies. If he come behinde; Thou shalt not follow a multitude in euill (saith God). Ezech. 13. 2. of God (as I was perswaded) so must my retyring be wrought by more solide reasons from the same word then are to be found in a thousand such pretty pamphlets and formall flourishes as this is If either, or both, or neither, If he will goe alone; Woe vnto the foolish Prophets (saith the Lord) which follow their owne spirits, and haue seene nothing. Howsoeuer, your euill shall bee reproued by the light of Gods word: Your coni •• ction I cannot promise, your reproofe I dare, If therupon you shall finde grace to see and heale your errours, we should with all brotherly humblenesse attend on foote vpon your returne on Horse-backe; but if the sway of your mis-resolued conscience bee heady and vnresistable, and your retyring hopelesse; these not solide reasons, these pretty pamphlets, these formall flourishes shall one day be fearefull and materiall euidences against you before that awefull Iudge, which hath already sayd, That iudgements are prepared for the scorners,Pro. 9. 21. and stripes for the backe of fooles.

SECTION. XIII. The Apostacie of the Church of England.

I professed to bestow pitie and sorrow vpon you and your wrong: Separ. Your pitying of vs, and sorrowing for vs, especially for the wrong, done by vs, were in you commendable affections, if by vs iustly occasio • ed; but if your Church bee deepelye drencht in Apostacie, and you crie Peace Peace, when suddaine and certaine desolation is at hand, it is you that do wrong, though you make the complaint: and so being cruell towards your selues, & your owne, whome you flatter: you cannot be truely pitifull towards others whom you bewaile. You entertaine both harshly, and with a churlish repulse: What should a man do with such dispositions? Let him stroke them on the backe, they snarle at him; and show their teeth: Let him shew them a Cudgell, they flie in his face: You allow not our actions, and returne our wrong; Ours is both the iniurie and complaint: How can this be? You are the agents, we sit still, and suffer in this rent: Yet (since the cause makes the Schisme) let vs inquire, not whose the action is, but whose the desert: Our Church is deepe drencht in Apostacie; and wee crie Peace, Peace: No lesse then a whole Church at once, & that not sprinkled, or wetshod, but drencht in Apostacie? What, did we fall off from you, or you from vs? Tell me, were we euer the true Church of God? And were we then yours? We cannot fall vnlesse we once stood: Was your Church before this Apostacie? Show vs your ancestours in opinion: Name me but one that euer taught as you doe; and I vow to separate: Was it not? Then we fell not from you: Euery Apostacie of a Church must needs be from the true Church; A true Church, and not yours? And yet can there be but one true; See now whether in branding vs with Apostasie, you haue not proued yours to be no true Church:A Treatise of the Ministery of England, against M. H pag. 125. Still I am ignorant: Queene Maries dayes (you say) had a true Church, which separated from Poperie, chose them Ministers, serued God holily, from thence was our Apostacie: But, were not the same also (for the most part) Christians in King EDVVARDS dayes? Did they then, in that confused allowance of the Gospel, separate? Or (I pray you) were Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper and the rest, parts of that Church, or no? Was there any other ordination of Ministers then from them? Reiect these, and all the world will hisse at you; Receiue them, and where is our Apostacie? What Antichristianisme haue we, whereof these were freed? But you leape backe (if I vrge you farre) from hence to the Apostles times, to fe • ch our once true Church from farre, that it might bee deare: You shall not carue for vs: we like not these bold ouer-leapes of so many Centuries: I speake boldly, you dare not stand to the trial of any Church, since theirs: Now, I heare your Doctor say this Challenge sauors of Rome: Antiquitie is with you, a Popish plea:H. Amsworth in his fore-speech to his Count. We haue willingly taken vp our aduersaries, at this (by pretence, their owne) weapon: You debarre it in the conscience of your owne nouell singularitie: Yet your Pastor can be content to make vse of Tertullian alone against all Fathers; That such things are iustly to be charged with vanitie,Inqu. into VVh. Tertul. l. de Orat as are done without any precept either of the Lord or of the Apostles:Tert. l. de praescript. And, the Apostles did faithfully deliuer to the nations the Discipline they receiued of Christ,So de Virginib, Veland. That no contin • ance of time can prejudice T • uth. which we must beleeue to be the tumultuary Discipline of the refined house-full at Amster dam: What? all in all ages, and places till now Apostates? Say if you can, that those famous Churches, wherein Cyprian, Athanasius, Ambrose, Hierome, Austen, Chrysostome, Sime reprehendas errantem, patere me quae so errare cum talibus, Aug. Hi • r. and the rest of those blessed lights liued, were lesse deepe in this Apostacy then ours? O Apostaticall Fathers, that separated not! yea, say if you dare, that other reformed Churches are not ouer the Ankles with vs in this Apostacy? What hard newes is this to vs, when as, your Oracle dare say not much lesse, of the Reformed Churches of Netherlands, with whom you liue? Thus he writes: For not hearing of them in other Congregations in these countries; this I answer, That seeing by the mercie of God,Fr. Iohnsonin his An • w. to T. VVh p. 26. we haue seene and forsaken the corruptions yet remayning in the publique Ministration, and condition of these Churches (if they be all like to these of this Citie), we cannot therfore partake with them, in such case, without declining and Apostasie from the truth, which we haue our selues already receiued, and professed. See here, to partake with them in Gods seruice is Apostacy;Aunsw ag. Broughton, p. 17 These Dutch Ch. offend not only in practicall disorders, but in their Constitution, Gouerament w •• sh p, &c. If so in the accessoryes, Alas, what crime is in the principall? It were but Apostasie to heare an English Sermon; a Dutch is no lesse: Woe is you that you dwell still in Meshech: Good men; it were not more happy for you then the Church, that you were well in heauen. No lesse then Apostasie? Let no Reader bee appalled at so fearefull a word, this is one of the tearmes of Arte familiar to this way: Find but any one page of a Duch printed volume without Apostasie, Excommunication, Commingling, Constitution, and suspect it not theirs: Heresie is not more frequent at Rome, then Apostacy at Amsterdam, nor Indulgences more ordinary there, then here Excommunications. Common vse makes terrible thinges easie: Their owne Master Sl. for holding with the Dutch Baptisme, and read-prayers is acknowledged to be cast our for an Apostate:Troubl. and Excom. at Amsterd. p. 10. yea their Doctor Mr. A • nsworth is noted with this marke from themselues: there is much latitude (as happy is) in their Apostasie: For when Stanshall Mercer and Iacob Iohnson were to be chosen Officers in their Church,Brown charged with it by Barr. Letter. to M. Egert. and exception was taken by some at their Apostacy, answere was made, It was not such Apostacy as debarred them from office, it was but aslippe. • . Iohnson ibid. p. 194. Iohn Marke (whether, as Isychius and Theophilact think, the blessed Euangelist, or some other holy Minister) is by the whole Parlour at Amsterdam, branded with this same Apostasie; who departed indeed, but from Paul in his iourney, not from Christ in his faith,Fr. Iohnson Inq. and therefore his ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) is expounded by ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) Act. 15. 38. why do we think much to drinke of an Euangelists cuppe?Act. 15. 38. Departing. • . not going with them Yet let this ignorant Epistler teach his censorious answerer one point of his owne (that is the Separatists) skill: and tell him that hee obiects two crimes to one poore Church, which are incompatible; want of Constitution and Apostasie. Thus writes your Master of vs: If it were admitted (which can neuer bee proued) that they sometimes had beene true established Churches.Barr. Pres. to the Separation d • fend. In his obseruations p. 251. VVe doe not there condemne the parish Assemblies as separated from Christ, but tr • ue them not as yet gathered to Christ. So Conser. •• th Sperin. p. 9. Fr. Iohnson. Inquir. pag. 36. Loe here, we neuer had true Constitution, therefore we are not capable of Apostasie: If we once had it, and so were true Churches, heare, what your Pastor saith: As Christ giueth to all true Churches their being, so wee must leaue it vnto him to take it away, when, and as he pleaseth. And therefore since he hath not remoued his Candlesticke,H. Bar. Obseruat. 242. nor taken away his Kingdome,No faults disanull the being of a Church, vntill contempt of Gods word be added thereunto after due conuiction▪ The faults & errors of a Church may be seuerely reproued and conuinced according to the quality thereof, and yet the Church not be condemned. N. B. Iob. • 4. 19. in spight of all obiected Apostasies, we still continue so: and by consequent your separation vpon this ground is most vniust. An Apostate had wont to bee the fearefull surname of damned Iulian: Tortus was an easie accusar, to whom yet, we may say with Elihu, Num dicis regi, Apostata? Behold now so many Apostates as men: Holy Cyprian describes him by forsaking Christs colors, & taking vp arms for Gentilisme in life, or herefie in iudgment: And Augustine telles vs, there cannot bee a greater sinne then Apostasie; making else-where this sinner, worse then the Infidell And the olde vulgar can giue no worse tearme to ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) where he findes it, yea to ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) rebels themselues. What doth this brand to a Church,Vulg. edit. C • pr. Epi ad Cornel. Non est maius pechcaatum quam Apostat are a Deo. Aug. in Ps. 18. not Christian onely (though you denie it) but famous: Of whom is truely verefied (after all your splene) that which the spirit writes to the Angel of Ephesus: Laborasti & non Defecisti: Say if you can, what Article of the Christian, and Apostolike faith haue we renounced? What heresie maintaine wee?Prou. 6. 12. Iob 34. 18. Ezec 2. 3. Apocal. 2. 3, Thou hast laboured, and not giuen in. Wherein haue wee runne from the tents of Christ? What hold we that may not stand with life in Christ, and saluation? VVe challenge all men and Diuels in this point, for our innocence: Distinguish, for starke shame of so foule a word; or (which is better) eate it whole; and let not this blemish be left vpon your soule and name in the Records of God,Tert • l. de Pat, Si hominibus Pla •• t • r, Dominus offenditur, sivero illud entimur & laboramus vt 〈◊〉 dco piacere, & 〈◊〉 & maledicta debemus humana contemnere. and the world; that you once said of a Church too good for yours, Drencht in apostacy. If we crie Peace, whiles you crie Apostasie; surely we flatter, whiles you rayle: betwixt these two dangerous extremes, wee know an wholsome meane,confessed by M. Ioh • s. loc. seq. so to approue that we foster not security: so to censure, that we neither reuile, nor separate: and in one word, to doe that which your Pastor could exhort the separators from your Separation (for euen this Schisme hath Schismes) If we should mislike, yet to rest in our differences of iudgement,Inq. of Th. VVhite p. 65. and notwithstanding peaceably to continue with the Church: Had you taken this course, you should neither haue needed to expect our pitie, nor to complaine of our cruelty. Surely, whether our loue be cruell, or not, your hatred is, whereof, take heede least you heare from old Iacob, Gen 49. 7. Cursed be their wrath for it was fierce, and their rage for it was cruell.

How can you expect compassion,Sep. when you breath fire,But I will not discourage you in this affection, least we find few in the same fault: the most in stead of pitty and compassion, affoording vs nothing but fury and indignation. Cypr. de s ••• plic. prael. Quid facit in corde Christiano luporum seritas & canum rabies? August. Confess. l. 9. c. 9. Qual • a solet eructare turgens indigesta discordia? and write gall? Neuer mention the fury of others indignation, till the venemous and desperate writings of Barrow and Greenwood bee evther worne out with time, or by the Thunder-bolts of your (not rare) censures be strucke downe to hell, whence their maliciousnesse came. I forbeare to recapitulate, how much rather had I helpe to burie, then to reuiue such vn-christian exprobrations?

SECTION. XIIII. The Separatists acknowledgements of the graces of the Church of England.

INgratitude and vnnaturalnesse to your Mother is obiected,Se • . In that you flie from her,The first action laid against vs, is of vnnaturalnes and ingratitude towards our mother the Church of England, for our causelesse separation from her: to which vniust accusation, and triuiall querimony, our most iust defence hath beene, and is, that to our knowledge we haue done her no wrong: we do freely, and with all thankfulnesse acknowledge euery good thing she hath and which our selues haue there receiued. yea now (wo is me) that you spit in her face, and mark her for an harlot: VVould God the accusation were as farre from being iust, as from being triuiall: Yet perhappes you intend it not in the lightnesse of this charge, but the commonnesse: you haue caused me to smart for my charity, yet I forbeare it not: VVhat is your defence? That you haue done her no wrong, to your knowledge. Modestly spoken, but doubtfully: we know your wrong, but we know not your knowledge: it is well if your wrong be not wilful: an ignorant wrong is both in more hope of amends, and of mercie: But is not this caution added, rather for that you thinke no hard measure can possibly be a wrong to so vile a Church? I aske, and would be denied: No, you doe freely, and with all thankefulnesse acknowledge euery good thing she hath: VVhatsoeuer you doe to vs, I will not any more in fauour of you, wilfully wrong my selfe: you haue bidden men now to take you as a complete Separatist: and speake this for your selfe and yours. Let the Reader now iudge, whether the wrong of your Sect be wilful; and acknowledgment of our good, free and thankfull. Your first false-named Martyr shall giue the first witnes of the titles of our Church:H. Barr. Praef. to the separ. defended, VVho (saith he) that were not drunke and intoxicate with the VVhores cuppe; could affirme this confuse Babell, these cages of vncleane Birds,Causes of separ. def. p. 12. Confer. with D. Andr. these prisons of foule and hatefull spirits, to be the Spouse of Christ? And else-where, he calles the people of our Church Goates and Swine. Is this any wrong to your knowledge? The same Author: They haue not (saith he) in their Churches any one thing in their practise and proceedings, not one pin, naile,Praef. to separ. def. or hooke according to the true patterne: Doe you not now freely and thankefully acknowledge our Churches good things? VVhat is more ordinary with him, and his brother in euill I. Greenewood, then to call our worthie Ministers Baals Priests,Gyff. refuted touch Donat. Obseruat. of M. H. Bar. p. 239. Cainites, the marked seruants of Antichrist, sellers of the VVhores wares, worshippers of the Beast. Is this yet any wrong to your knowledge? Pastor Iohnson sticks not to say, that the Ministerie and worshippe of the Church of England were taken out of the VVhores cuppe:Fr. Iohns. Reas. 9, ag. M. Iac. p. 74. and plainely stiles our Church (as which of you doe not?) daughter of the great Babilon, that mother of whoredomes and abhominations of the earth:Iohns. ag. M. Iac. Except. 3. Nota Bene. yet more; That Hierarchy, Worshippe, Constitution and Gouernement, which they professe and practise, being directly Antichristian, doe vtterly destroy true Christianity, so as their people and Churches, cannot in that estate be iudged true Christians: Do you not now freely and thankfully acknowledge our good things? What can any Diuell of hell say worse against vs then this, That we are no Christians? Or what good can there be in vs, if no true Christianity? Ibid. If wee denied euery Article of the Christian Creed: if we were Mahumetans (as your good Pastor stickes not to compare vs), if the most damned Heretiques vnder heauen, what could he say but no Christians? Your teacher and Pastour (which is a wonder) agree: For your Doctor Ainsworth makes this one head of his poysonous Counterpoyson,Counterpoys. pag. 127. & 131. that Christ is not the head, Mediatour, Prophet, Priest, King of the Church of England: You, their Disciple are not yet promoted to this height of immodestie; yet what are your good things? Euen to you, we are Apostates, Traytors, Rebels, Babylonish: This is well for a learner: Hereafter (if you will heare me) keepe our good things to your selfe, and report our euill.

Yea, that your vncharitablenesse may bee aboue all examples, monstrous; You doe not onely denie vs any interest in the Church of Christ, but exclude vs (what you may) from all hope and possibilitie of attaining the honour of Christendome: For when a godly Minister protested to Master Barrow, the trueth of his ministerie; vpon the approbation also of his people, hee receiued this answere from him:Barr. Confer. With M. Sperm as Bar hims hath written it. pag. 9 Though you had such allowance, it could nothing auaile, but rather ouerthrow your Ministerie; they being as yet vngathered to Christ, and therefore neither may not in this estate chuse them a Minister, nor any exercise a Ministerie vnto them, without hainous sacriledge, O desperate iudgement; we neither are Christians, nor can be: No Christianitie without faith, no faith without the Ministerie of the word, no word to vs without sacriledge: What are we,Fr. Iob. 7. Reas. aga. Iac p. 64. G. Iohns. Praef. to the Pastor. that the very offer of bringing vs to God should be criminall? These are your acknowledgements of our good: Who haue learned of your Pastour to kisse and kill all at once: to blesse and curse with one breath: your mercies are cruell.

SECTION. XV. The vnnaturalnesse of some principall Separatists.

BVT who can wonder at your vnnaturalnesse to the Church,Russin. l. 2. Eccl. hist. c, 3. that heares what measure you mete to your owne? Errour is commonly ioyned with cruelty:Aug. Epist. & Possid. in vita Aug. The outragious demeanures of the Circumcelliones in Augustines time; and more then barbarous tyranny of the Arrians before him are wel knowen by all Histories,Euseb hist. eccl. Damnis grauissimis & caedibus afficiebant, armati diuersis telis. and not enough by any: God forbid, that I should compare you to these. Heare rather of Nouatus, the father of a not-vnlike Sect, of whom Cyprian reports,Socrates l. 2. c. 22. & 30. that he would neither bestow bread on his father aliue, nor buriall on him deade, but suffred him both to starue and stinke in the street:Cypr. l. 2. Ep. 8. Nouati pater in vico fame mortuns nec postea ab illo sepultus. Sic Optat. l. 1. Purpurus Donatista occidit sororis filios &c. G. Iohns. Discourse of troubles and Excommunications at Amsterdam printed 1603 and for his wife (least he should be mercifull to any) hee spurned her with his heele, and slew his owne childe in her bodie: What need I seeke so far? I grieue to thinke and report, that your owne Pastor hath paralleled this cruelty: His owne brother (which is no lesse sauadge) though one of your Sect, is the publick accuser and condemner of him in this crime to all the world: who after a pittifull relation of his eight yeares quarrels with him, and foure years excommunication, in his Epistle before a large volume to this purpose, writes thus:Ibid. p. 5.

After all these, hath not our kind, carefull, and old Father come a long iourney to make Peace? Hath he not laboured with you, the Elders and the Church, to bring you to peace? Hath hee not vsed the helpe and counsell of the Reformed Churches herein? Yet will you not be reclaimed, but adding that sinne aboue all, haue also ••• strously excommunicated your father, the peace-seeker, &c. and straight; How oft desired he you (as if he had beene the sonne, and you the father) euen with teares, that you would repent. In a word, how came he and I to your doore, shewing you that it might bee (vpon his departing) you should see his face no more, &c. Yet you forced him by your ill dealing, still to leaue vpon you, his curse, and all the curses writen in Gods booke against vnthankfull and disobedient children. Thus farre a brother concerning a brother, against father and brother; Other strangely-vnkind vsages of both, I had rather leaue to the discouery of Master White, and this miserable plaintiue,Discouery of Brownisme. Vid. G. Iohns. booke. who haue written enough to make an enemy ashamed: But whereupon was all this fearefull broile in a pure Church? For nothing but a little lace, and whale-bone in his wiues sleeue. The Troian warre could not be slaundered with so weighty a beginning.Inq. into Th. VVh. Discou. As for your Elder, Daniel Studly (whom your Pastor so much extolleth) if Master Whites Apostasie may be your shift against his relation; let him speake who should haue beene a fellow-elder with him, banished for your trueth, though erected by your censure:Same Epist. p. 15 Marke (saith G. Iohns. of this Studly) how the Lord hath iudged him with vnnaturalnesse to his owne children, suffering them to lie at other mens feete, and hang on other mens hands,They say Fi •• a • ponsae. whiles he, his wife, and her daughter fared daintily, and went prankingly in apparell, euen in this place of banishment. It is no ioy to me to blazen these,Mihi accusatio etiam vera contra fratrem displ • cet Hieron. aduersus Ruffin. or your othersins; would God they were fewer, and lesse in vs all. Onely it was fit the world should know, as how vndutiful you are to your common parent, so that Father, Brother, Children beare part with your mother in these your cruelties.

SECTION. XVI. what the Separatists thinke themselues beholden to the Church of England for.

IF then such bee the good things of our Church; What good can you acknowledge to haue receiued from her?Bar. exam. before the Archb. and L. Anderson Browne state of Christians d. 39 Qui non habet quod det, quomodo det? vox Donat. Opta. l. 1 Nothing giues what it hath not: A Baptisme perhaps; Alas, but no true Sacrament, you say: yea the seale of gracelesnesse and mischiefe; As little are you beholden to the Church for that, as the Church to you, for your good acceptation: Why are you not rebaptized? You that cannot abide a false Church, why doe you content your selues with a false Sacrament? especially, since our Church, being not yet gathered to Christ is no Church, and therefore her baptisme a nullity.Barrow. supra.

What else doe you owe to the liberality of this Step-dame? You are close; your Pastor is lauish for you both; who thus speakes of himselfe, and you, and vs:Fr. •• hns. ag. M. I • cob p. 41. 〈◊〉 . 2. I confesse that whiles I was Minister in your Church of England, I stood in an Antichristian estate, yet doubt I not, but euen then, being of the Elect of God I was partaker through faith, of the mercy of God in Christ to saluation, but as for you (Master Iacob and his fellow-Christians) whiles you thus remaine, you cannot in that estate approue your selues to haue the promise of saluation. Behold here, the Church of England gaue you but an Antichristian estate; if God giue secret mercy, what is that to her?

Gods superabundant grace dooth neither abate ought of her Antichristianisme,Sep. nor moue you to follow him in couering,The superabundant grace of God couering and passing by the manifolde enormiti • s in that Church wherewith these good things are inseparably commingled, and wherein we also through ignorance and infirmity were inwrapp ed. and passing by the manifold enormities in our Church, wherewith those good things are inseparably commingled: Your owne mouth shall condemne you: Doth God passe ouer our enormites, and doe you stick, yea separate? Doth his grace couer them, and do you display them? Haue you learned to be more iust then your Maker? Or if you be not aboue his iustice, Why are you against his mercie? God hath not disclaimed vs by your owne confession; you haue preuented him. If Princes leisures may not be stayed in reforming, yet shall not Gods in reiecting? Your ignorance inwrapped you in our errours: his infinite wisedome sees them, and yet his infinite mercie forbeares them: so might you at once haue seene, disliked, stayed: If you did not herein goe contrary to the courses of our common God, how happy should both sides haue beene? yea how should there be no sides? How should wee be more inseparably commingled, then our good and euill?

But should you haue continued still in sinne that grace might haue abounded?Sep. God forbid:But what thē? should we still haue continued in sinne, that grace might haue abounded? If God haue caused a further truth like a light in a darke place, to shine in our hearts, should wee still haue mingled that light with darkenesse, contrary to the Lords owne practise? Ge. 1. 4. and expresse precept, 2. Cor. 6. 14. you might haue continued here without sinne (saue your owne) and then grace would no lesse haue abounded to you, then now your sinne abounds in not continuing: What neede you to surfet of another mans Trencher? Others sinnes neede no more to infect you, then your graces can sanctifie them. As for your further light, suspect it not of God: suspect it to be meere darkenesse: and if the light in you be darknesse, Gen. 1. 2. how great is that darkenesse? What? so true and glorious a light of God, and neuer seene til now? No worlds, times, Churches, Patriarches, Prophets, Apostles,Es. 5. 20. VVoe to them that put darknesse for light. Martyrs, Fathers, Doctors, Christians euer saw this truth looke foorth besides you, vntill you? Externall light was Gods first creature, and shall this spirituall light,Es. 59. 9. whereby all Churches should be discerned come thus late? Mistrust therefore your eyes, and your light: and feare Isayes woe, and the Iewes miserable disappointment: we wait for light, but loe it is darkenesse, for brightnesse, but we walke in obscuritie.

SECTION. XVII. The Motherhood of the Church of England, how farre it obligeth vs.

THE Church of England is your mother, to her small comfort; she hath borne you, and repented. Alas, you haue giuen her cause to powre out Iobs curses vpon your birth-day, by your not onely forsaking but cursing her: Stand not vpon her faults, which you shall neuer proue capitall:Deu. 21. 22▪ 23. Note only the best Parent might haue brought forth are bellious sonne to be stoned. What then?Sep. Doe we preferre duetie to piety,But the Church of England (say you) is our Mother, and so ought not to be auoided▪ But say I, we must not so cleaue to holy mother Church, as we neglect our heauenly father, and his commandements, which we know in that estate we could not but transgresse, and that heynously, and against our consciences, not onely in the want of many Christian Ordinances, to which we are most straightly bound, both by Gods word and our owne necessities. and so plead for our holy mother Church, that we neglect our heauenly Father, yea offend him? See what you say: It must needes be an holy mother that cannot be pleased without the displeasure of God: A good wife, that opposes such an husband: a good sonne that vpbraides this vniustly: Therfore is she a Church, your mother, holy, because she bred you to God, cleaues to him, obeyes his commaundements, and commaunds them. And so farre is shee from this desperate contradiction, that she voweth not to hold you for her sonne, vnlesse you honour God as a father. It is a wilful slaunder, that you could not but heynously transgresse vnder her: I dare take it vpon my soule, that all your transgression which you should necessarily haue incurred by her obedience, is nothing so heynous, as your vnchariblenesse in your censures and disobedience. Conscience is a common plea euen to those you hate: we inquire not how strong it is, but how well informed: not whether it suggest this, but whereuppon. To goe against the conscience is sinne, to follow a mis-informed conscience is sinne also: If you do not the first, we know you are faulty in the second: He that is greater then the conscience will not take this for an excuse: But wherein should haue beene this transgression:Mater Ecclesia, mater est etiam matris nostrae. so vnauoidable, heynous, against conscience? First in the want of many Ordinances, to which we are most strictly bound,Aug. Ep. 38. both by Gods word, and our owne necessities.

SECTION. XVIII. The want of pretended Ordinances of God, whether sinfull to vs: and whether they are to be set vp without Princes.

CAn you thinke this hangs well together? You should here want many of Gods ordinances: why should you want them? Because you are not suffered to inioy them: who hinders it? Superior powers: Did euer man willfully and heynously offend, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . for wanting of that which he could not haue? What hath conscience to doe with that which is out of our power? Is necessity with you become a sinne, and that haynous? Dauid is driuen to lurke in the wildernesse, and forced to want the vse of many diuine Ordinances:Nemo per exteriorem violentiam corrumpitur: si interior innocentia custodiatur. c. • . q. 3. Custodi. &c. It was his sorrow, not his transgression, He complaines of this, but doth he accuse himselfe of sinne? Not to desire them had beene sinne, no sin to be debat'd them: Well might this be Sauls sin but not his. Haue you not sinnes enow of your owne, that you must needes borrow of others? But I see your ground: You are bound to haue these Ordinances; and therefore without Princes, yea against them: so it is your transgression to want them in spight of Magistrates,Ad docendum populum Israeliticum, omnipotens deus prophetis praeconium dedi▪, non regibus imperauit. Aug. l. 2. contr. Gau. c. 11. Barr. causes of scpera, def. p. 6. Gaudentius the Donatist taught you this of old; And this is one of the Hebrew songs which Master B • rrow sings to vs in Babylon, that we care not to make Christ attend vpon Princes, and to be subiect to their lawes, and gouernment: and his Predecessor (the roote of your sect) tels vs in this sense the kingdome of heauen must suffer violence; and that it comes not with obseruation; that men may say,Brow. Reform: without tarrying. Loe the Parliament or loe the Bishops decrees: and in the same treatise. The Lords kingdome must wait on your policy,Aug. contr. Petilia n. l. 2. forsooth; and his Church must be framed to your ciuill state &c. Iust as that Donatist of old,Optatus Mileuit. lib. 3 • in Augustine, Quid vobis &c. What haue you to doe with worldly Emperours? and as that other in Optatus: Quid Imperatori cum Ecclesia? What hath the Emperour to doe with the Church? Yea your Martyr feares not to teach vs,Barr. 2. Exa •• i • nation before the L. Archb. and L. Chiefe-Iustice. compar. with his reply to M. Gyff. Art. 5. that Gods seruants being as yet priuate men, may and must together build his Church, though all the Princes of the world should prohibit the same vpon paine of death: Belike then you should sin haynously, if you should not be rebels: The question is not, whether we shold aske leaue of Princes to be Christians; but whether of Christian Princes wee should aske leaue to establish circumstances of gouernment: God must be serued, thogh we suffer; our blood is wel bestowed vpon our maker, but in patience, not in violence. Priuate profession is one thing; Publique reformation & iniunction is another; Euery man must doe that in the maine: none may doe this, but they of whom God saies, I haue said, ye are Gods: and of them: There is difference betwixt Christian and Heathen Princes: If (at least) al Princes were not to you Heathen: If these should haue beene altogether stayed for, Religion had come late: If the other should not be stayed for: Religion would soone be ouer layd with confusion: Lastly, the body of Religion is one thing, the skyrts of outward gouernment another: that may not depend on men to be imbraced, or (with loyalty) prosecuted: these (vpon those generall rules Christ) both may, • Sam. 24. 6. and doe, and must: If you cut off but one lappe of these with Dauid, you shall be touched: To denie this power to Gods Deputies on earth, what is it,Num. 16. 3. but ye take too much vpon you Mo • es and Aaron, all the Congregation is holy: wherefore lift ye your selues aboue the Congregation of the Lord? See, if herein you come not too neere the walles of that Rome which ye so abhorre and accurse,Counter poys. p. 230. in ascribing such power to the Church,2. Chr. 13. none to Princes. Let your Doctor tell you,2. Chr. 14. & 15▪ whether the best Israelites in the times of Abijah, 2. Chr. 29. Asa, Iehosaphat, Ezekiah, Iosiah, tooke vpon them to reforme without,2. Chr. 30. or before,2. Chr. 34. or against their Princes? Yea did Nehemiah himselfe without Artahshaht (though an heathen King) set vpon the walles of Gods City? Or what did Zerubbabel, and Ieshua without Cyrus? Ezr. 2. & 3. 2. In whose time Haggai and Zechariah prophesied indeede, but built not: And when contrary Letters came from aboue, they laid by both Trowels and Swords: They would bee Iewes still, they would not be rebels for God:Ezr. 4. 23. 24▪ Had those Letters inioyned Swines flesh, or Idolatry, or forbidden the vse of the law, those which now yeelded, had suffered, and at once testified their obedience to authority, and piety to him that sittes in the assembly of these earthen Gods. I vrge no more: Perhaps you are more wise or lesse mutinous: you might easily therefore purge your conscience from this sinne, of wanting what you might not perforce enioy.

Say that your Church should imploy you backe to this our Babylon, for the calling out of more Proselites: you are intercepted, imprisoned: Shall it bee sinne in you not to heare the Prophesies at Amsterdam? The Clinke is a lawfull excuse: If your feete be bound, your conscience is not bound. In these negatiues, outward force takes away both sinne and blame, and alters them from the patient to the actor: so that now you see your straight bonds (if they were such) loosed by obedience, and ouer-ruling power.

SECTION. XIX. The bonds of Gods word vniustly pleaded by the Separ.

BVT what bonds were these straight ones? Gods word and your owne necessity: Both strong and indissoluble where God hath bidden, God forbid that we should care for the forbiddance of men: I reuerence from my soule (so doth our Church their deare Sister) those worthy forraine Churches which haue chosen and followed those formes of outward gouernment that are euery way fittest for their owne condition. It is enough for your Sect, to censure them: I touch nothing common to them with you:August. Ep. 58▪ Pastores autem & doctores qu • s maxime vt discernerem voluisti eosdem puto esse sicut & tibi visum est, vt non alios Pastores, alios Doctores intelligeremus, sed ideo cum praedixisset Pastores, subiunxisse Doctores, vt intelligerent Pastores ad officium suum pertinere doctrinam Barr. ag. Gyff. inueighs for this cause against the Consistory of Gene • a. Fr▪ Iohns. complaints of the Dutch and Fr. Churches. Discription of a visible Church, cannot make a Distinct. in the Definition of their Offices. While the world standeth, where will it euer be shewed out of the sacred booke of God, that hee hath charged. Let there be perpetuall Lay-Elders in euery Congregation: Let euery Assembly haue a Pastor and Doctor, distinct in their charge and offices: Let all decisions, excommunications, ordinations be performed by the whole multitude: Let priuate Christians (aboue the first turne, in extremity) agree to set ouer themselues a Pastor, chosen from amongst them and receiue him with prayer,State of Christians 119. and (vnlesse that ceremony be turned to pompe and superstition) by imposition of hands.Descript. of vis. Ch. H. Clap. Epist before his treatise of sinne ag: the holy Ghost. Brownists fourth Position. Let there be Widdowers (which you call relieuers) appointed euery where to the Church-seruice Let certaine discreete and able men which are not Ministers be appointed to preach the Gospell and whole truth of God to the people.

All the learned Diuines of other Churches are in these left, yea in the most of them censured by you: Hath God spoken these things to you alone? Pleade not Reuelations, and wee feare you not: Pardon so homely an example: As soone and by the same illumination shal G. Iohns. proue to your Consistory the lace of the Pastors wiues sleeue,Trouble and • xcom. at Amsterdam. or rings, or Whalebones, or other amongst you (as your Pastor confesseth) knit stockings, or Cork-shooes forbidden flatly by Scriptures,Fr. Iohns. in a Letter to M. Smith. as these commanded. We see the letter of the Scriptures with you: you shall fetch blood of them with strayning, ere you shal wring out this sēse: No, no▪ (M. R.) neuer make God your stale: Many of your ordinances came from no • ier then your own braine: Others of them though God acknowledges yet he imposed not: Pretend what you will: These are but the cords of your owne conceit, not bonds of Christian obedience.

SECTION. XX. The necessity of their pretended Ordinances.

THE first of these then is easily vntwisted: your second is necessity: Then which, what can bee stronger? what law, or what remedy is against necessity? What we must haue, we cannot want: Oppose but the publique necessitie to yours: your necessity of hauing, to the publique necessity of withholding: and let one of these necessities (like two nailes) driue out another: So they haue done, and your owne necessity (as the stronger) hath preuailed; for that other necessity might bee eluded by flight: you haue sought and found else-where, what the necessity of our lawes denied, and the necessity of your conscience required.Nulla necessitas maior est charitate. H • eron. Beware lest vniustly: Sinne is as strong bond to a good heart as impossibility; Christians can not doe what they ought not:Apol. ad Ruff. Contrary to the lawes of your Prince and Countrie, you haue fledde not onely from vs, but from our Communion. Either is disobedience no sinne, or might you do this euil that good may come of it? But what necessity is this? simple and absolute, or conditional? Is there no remedy but you must needes haue such Elders,Fr. Iun. de Eccl. Sed accidunt persaepe tempora quibus aut noua Ecclesia generatur, aut altera pars interumpitur (scilicet 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) et tamen Ecclesia esse non d • sinit, formà nimirum essentiali adhuc permanente. Pastors, Doctors, Relieuers, such Offices, such executions? Can there be no Church, no Christians without them? What shall we say of the families of the Patriarkes, of the Iewish Congregations vnder the law, yea of Christ and his Apostles? Either denie them to haue beene visible Churches, or shew vs your distinct Offices amongst them: But as yet (you say) they were not: Therefore God hath had a true Church (thousands of yeares) without them: Therefore they are not of the essence of the Church: You call me to the times since Christ: I demand then, was there not a worthy Church of God in Hierusalem from the time of Christs Ascension, till the election of the seauen Deacons. Those hundred and twentie Disciples, Act. 1. 15. and three thousand Conuerts, Act. 2. 41. Those continuall Troupes that flocked to the Apostles, were they no true Church? Let the Apostles and Euangelists bee Pastors and Doctors:Act 7. beg. Cypr. l. 3. Ep. 9. Meminisse diaconi debent quoniam Apostolos (id est) Episcopos & praepositos Dominus elegit, Diaconos autem post ascensum Domini in caelos Apostoli sibi constituerunt Episcopatus su & Ecclesiae ministros. where were their Elders, Deacons, Relieuers? Afterwards, when Deacons were ordained, yet what news is there of Elders, till Act. 11? yet that of Hierusalem was more forward then the rest: We will not (as you are wont) argue from scriptures negatiuely: no proofe yet much probability is in Saint Paules silence: Hee writes to Rome, Corinth, and other Churches: those his Diuine letters in a sweet Christian ciuility salute euen Ordinary Christians: And would hee haue vtterly passed by all mention of these Church-Officers amongst his so precise acknowledgment of lesser titles in others,Rom. 1. 8. if they had beene ere this ordained? yet all these more then true Churches,1. Cor. 1. 5. famous some of them, rich, forward, and exemplary.1. Thess. 1. 7. Onely the Philippian Church is stiled with Bishops and Deacons, but no Elders besides them.Gal▪ 4. 15. The Churches of Christ since these,Phil. 1. 2. (if at least you will graunt that Christ had any Church till now) haue continued in a recorded succession through many hundreds of yeares: Search the Monuments of her Histories: Shew vs where euer in particular Congregations all these your necessary Offices (as you describe them) were either found or required. It was therefore a new-no-Necessity that bound you to this course, or (if you had rather) a Necessity of Fallibility: If with these God may be well serued, he may be well serued without them. This is not that Vnum necessarium that Christ commends in Mary: you might haue sate still with lesse trouble, and more thanks.

SECTION. XXII. The Church of England, is the Spouse of Christ.

SHE may be your Mother (you say) and not the Lords Wife.Sep. It is a good Mother that hath Children and no husband:She is our Mother▪ o may she be, and yet not the Lords wife, euery mother of children is not a wife. Ammi and Ruhae • ah were bidden to plead with their mother Apostate Israel, & plead that she was not the Lords wife, nor he her husband. Ho. 2. 1. 2. Cypr. de simpli • . Praelator, Adulterari non potest sponsa Christi, incorrupta est & Pudica. 1. Kin. 12. 29. Hos. 2. 16. 2. 13. Why did you not call her plaine whore? Your old Embleme is, As is the Mother, so is the Daughter. These are the modest circumlocutions of a good sonne; who cares not to proue himselfe a bastard, that his mother may bee mark't for an Harlot: Be you a true Lo-ammi, but England shall neuer (I hope) proue an Apostate Israel: We haue no Calues in our Dan and Bethel none of Iero • oams Idolatry: VVee haue still called God Ishi, and neuer burnt incense to Baalim: It is your sinagogue that hath fallen away from vs, as Israel from Iuda: But these children were bidden to plead: Gods command shields them from the note of vngracious. Abraham must sacrifice his sonne and this sonne must condemne his Mother; shew vs either our equall desert, or your equall warrant. VVhere hath God proclamed our Church not his? By whose hand hath he published her diuorce?Sep. You haue shamed her wombe,And though you forbid vs a thousand times, yet must we plead: not to exccuse our fault, but to iustify our innocency: And that not only nor so much in respect of our selues, as of the truth which without sacriledge we maynot suffer to be condēned vnheard. And if you yet heare her not, rather blame yourselues as deafe, then vs as dumb. Hierom. ad Eustoch. Epitaph Paulae ex Psal 67. not she her bed, not God her demeanure.

Your tongues are your owne, who can forbid you? VVe know you will plead and excuse, and censure, and defend, till all the world be weary: we may pray with Hierome to this sense that of the Psalmist Increpa Domine bestias calami: yet wee see your pens, tongues, and presses, busie and violent. I will not apply to you that which Augustine of his Donatists.August. contr. Epist. Parmen. li. 1. Though truth compell you to be dumbe, yet iniquitie will not suffer you to be silent. But if you write whole Marts and worlds of volumes, you shall neuer be able either to iustifie your innocence, or excuse your fault: In the meane time the noyse of your contentions is so great that your truth cannot bee heard: Learned Iunius, and our learnedst Diuines, and neighbour Churches,Epistol. Iuni. ad Separ. haue oft heard your clamors, neuer your truth: So little haue you of this and so much of the other, that we are ready to wish (as he of old) either our selues deafe or you dumb.

SECTION. XXIII. How the Church of England, hath separated from Babylon.

THe spirit of your Proto-Martyr would hardly haue digested this Title of Babylon,Giff. refut. 2. transg. Mother of Gods people;Sep. a murdering Step-mother,Is not babylon the mother of Gods people, whom he therefore commandeth to depart out of her, least being partakers of her sinnes, they also partake of her plagues. Reuel. 18. 2. Answ. for • speach to Counter poys. rather: She cannot be a Mother of Chil • ren to God, and no Church of God: Notwithstanding, Gods people (would he say) may be in her, not of her. So Babylon bore them not, but Sion in Babylon, But I feare not your excesse of charity: You fly to your Doctors challenge; and aske what we say against you for vs, which Rome wil not say for her selfe against vs: Will you iustifie this plea of Rome, or not? If you will; why doe you reuile her? If you will not: why doe you obiect it?

Heare then what we say both to you and them,Sep. our enemies both:And to conclude, what say you more against vs, for your mother the Church of England, then the Papists do for their mother and your mothers mother, the Church of Rome, against you, whom they condemn as vn-naturall bastards and impious Patricides in your separations from her, A Simone Zelota Niceph. Alij a Ios. Arimath, cuius hic sepulchrum cernitur. Angli Pascha Graeco more celebrarunt. Iacob Armin. Disp Cant. 8. 8. Fr. Iun. lib▪ sing. de Eccle. and yet the enemies of our enemies: First we disclaime, and defie your Pedigree and theirs. The Church of Rome was neuer our Mothers Mother: Our Christian faith came not from the seuen-hilles: Neither was deriued either from Augustine the Monke, or Pope Gregory. Britanny had a worthy Church before either of them look't into the world: It is true that the ancient Roman Church was Sister to ours: here was neare kindred, no dependance: And not more consanguinitie, then (while she continued faithfull) Christian loue: Now she is gone a whoring, her chast Sister iustly spitteth at her: yet euen still (if you distinguish, as your learned Antagonist hath taught you, betwixt the Church and Papacy) Shee acknowledges her Sisterhood, though she refraines her cōuersation: as she hath many slauish and factious abettors of her knowne and grosse errors (to whom we deny this title) affirming them the body whereof Antichrist is the head, the great whore, and mother of abhominations; so againe how many thousands hath shee, which retayning the foundation according to their knowledge, (as our learned Whitakers had wont to say of Bernard) follow Absolom with a simple heart: all which to reiect from Gods Church, were no better thē presumptuous cruelty. It were well for you before God & the world, if you could as easiely wash your hands of vn-naturall impiety, and trecherousnesse, as we of bastardy & vniust sequestration. There can be no bastardy, where was neuer any motherhood, wee were nephews to that Church, neuer sons: vnlesse as Rome was the Mother citie of the world, so by humane institution, we suffered our selues to bee ranged vnder her Patriarchall authority, as being the most famous Church of the West: a matter of courtesie, and pretended Order; no necessity, no spirituall obligation. As for our sequestration, your mouth and theirs may be stopt with this answer: As all corrupted Churches, so some things the Church of Rome still holds aright; a true God in three persons, true Scriptures, though with addition, a true Christ, though mangled with foule and erroneous consequences; true Baptisme though shamefully deformed with rotten traditions; & many other vndenyable truths of God: some other things (and too many) her wicked Apostasie hath deuised and maintained abhominably amisse; the body of her Antichristianisme, grosse errours, and (by iust sequel) heresies; their Popes supremacy, infallibility, illimitation, transubstantiation, idolatrous and superstitious worshippe, and a thousand other of this branne: In regard of all these latter, we professe to the world a iust and auncient separation from this false faith and deuotion of the Romish Church; which neither you will say, nor they shall euer proue, faulty: yea rather they haue in all these separated from vs, who stil irrefragably professe to hold with the auncient, from whom they are departed. In regard of the other we are stil with them, holding and embracing with them what they holde with Christ: neither will you (I thinke) euer prooue that in these we should differ: As for our communion, they haue separated vs by their proude and foolish excommunications: if they had not, wee would iustly haue begunne: from their Tyranny and Antichristianisme, from their miserable Idolatrie: but as for the bodie of their poore seduced Christians, which remaine amongst them vpon the true foundation (as doubtlesse there are thousands of them which laugh at their Pardons, Miracles, Superstitions and their trust in merites, reposing only vpon Christ) we adhere to them in loue and pitty, and haue testified our affection by our blood, ready vpon any iust call to doe it more; neither would feare to ioyne with them in any true seruice of our common God: But the full discourse of this point,Phil. Morn du Plesses. Lib. de Eccles. cap. 10. that honourable and learned plesses hath so forstalled, that whatsoeuer 〈◊〉 say, would seeme but borrowed. Vnto his rich Treatise I referre my Reader, for full satisfaction: Would God this point were throughly known, and well weighed on all partes. The neglect or ignorance whereof hath both bred and nursed your separation, and driuen the weake and inconsiderate into strange extremities.

This say we for our selues in no more charity then truth: But for you; how dare you make this shamelesse Comparison? Can your heart suffer your tong to say, that there is no more diffrence betwixt Rome and vs, then there is betwixt vs and you? How many hundred errours, how many damnable heresies haue we euinced with you, in that (so compounded) Church? shew vs but one mis-opinion in our Church that you can proue within the ken of the foundation? Let not zeale make you impudent:Counterp. p. 171. Your Doctor could say (ingenuously sure) that in the doctrines which she professeth, she is farr better and purer then that Whore mother of Rome, and your last Martyr yet better:1. P • nry. Exam. before M. Fanshaw & Iust. Yong. If you mean (saith he) by a Church (as the most doe) that publique profession whereby men do professe saluation to be had by the death and righteousnesse of Iesus Christ, I am free from denying any Church of Christ to be in this land: for I know the Doctrine touching the holy Trinity, the natures and Offices of the Lord Iesus, free iustification by him; both the Sacraments, &c. published by her Maiesties authority, and commanded by her lawes, to be the Lords blessed and vndoubted truthes, without the knowledge and profession whereof no saluation is to be had: Thus he with some honesty, though little sense. If therfore your will do not stand in your light, you may well see, why we should thus forsake their Communion,Fr. Iun. l. de Eccles. M. Hooker Eccles. pol. Du Plesses. l. de Eccl Iacob. Armin. disput. D. Reynolds Thes. D. Feild of the Ch. Reuel. 3. & 2. and yet not you ours. Yet though their corruptions be incomparably more, wee haue not dared to separate so farre from them, as you haue done from vs for lesse: Still wee holde them euen a visible Church, but vnsound, sicke, dying; sicke not of a consumption onely, but of a leprosie or plague (so is the Papacy to the Church) diseases, not more deadly then infectious. If they be not rather in Sardies taking; of whom the spirit of God saieth, Thou hast a name that thou liuest, but thou art dead; and yet in the next words bidds them awake, and strengthen the things which are ready to die. And though our iudgement and practise haue forsaken their erroneous doctrines and seruice, yet our charity (if you take that former distinction) hath not vtterly forsaken and condemned their persons. This is not our coolenesse, but equality: your reprobation of vs for them, hath not more zeale then headstrong vncharitablenesse.

SECTION. XXV. What separation England hath made.

THE Church of England dooth not now wash her hands of Babilonish abhominations,Sep. but rather shewes they are cleane.But here in the name of the Church of England, you wash your hands of all Babylonish abominations, which you pretend you haue forsaken, and her for, and with them. And in this regard you speake thus: The Reformation you haue made of the many and maine corruptions of the Romish Ch. we do ingenuously acknowledge, and de • withall imbrace with you all the truths which to our knowledge you haue receiued in stead of them▪ But Rome was not built all in a day. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Hierom. Apol. aduers. Ruffi. 1. l. 1. • tissa est mihi • audatio tua, id est accusatio mea. Bonum ex integra natura, malum ex singulari defectu. Would God they were no more foule with your slander then her owne Antichristianisme. Here will bee found not pretences but proofes of our forsaking Babylon; of your forsaking vs, not so much as wel-coloured pretences: You beginne to be ingenuous; while you confesse a reformation in the Church of England: not of some corruptions, but many, and those many not sleight, but maine.

The gifts of aduersaries are thankelesse: As Ierom said of his Ruffinus, so may we of you, that you wrong vs with praises: This is no more praise then your next page giues to Antichrist himselfe. Leaue out Many, and though your commendations be more vncertaine, we shall accept it: so your indefinite proposition shall sound to vs as generall▪ That we haue reformed the maine corruptions of the Romish Church: None therefore remaine vpon vs; but sleight and superficiall blemishes, so you haue forsaken a Church of a foule skinne, but of a sound heart, for want of beauty, not of truth.

But you say many, not All, that if you can picke a quarrell with one, you might reiect all: yet shewe vs that one maine and substantiall error, which we haue not reformed: and you doe not more embrace those truths with vs which we haue receiued, then we will condemne that falshood which you haue reiected: and imbrace the truth of that Separation which you haue practised.

The degrees whereby that strumpet of Babylon got on Horse-back you haue learned of vs,Sep. who haue both learned and taught,The mistery of iniquity did aduance it selfe by degrees, and as the rise was, so must the fall be. That man of sinne, and lawlesse man, must languish and die away of a consumption. 2. Thes. 2 8. And what though manie of the highest Towers of Babel, and of the strongest Pillers also be demolished, & pulled down, yet may the building stand still, though tottering to and fro (as it doth) and only vnderpropped and vpheld with the shoulder and arme of flesh, without which in a very moment it would fall flat vpon, and lie leuell with the earth. that as Christ came not abruptly into the world, but with many presages and prefigurations (The day was long dawning ere this Sunne arose). so his aduersary (that Antichrist) breaks not suddenly vpon the Church, but comes with much preparation, and long expectance: and as his rise, so his fall must be graduall, and leisurely: Why say you then, that the whole Church euery where must at once vtterly fall off from that Church where that man of sinne sitteth? His fall depends on the fall of others, or rather their rising from vnder him: If neither of these must be sudden, why is your hast? But this must not be, yet ought: as there must be heresies, yet there ought not: It is one thing what God hath secretly decreede, another what must be desired of vs: If we could pull that Harlot from her seate, and put her to Iezebels death, it were happy: Haue we not endeuoured it? VVhat speake you of the hyest Towers, and strongest pillers, or tottering remainders of Babylon: we shew you all her roofes bare, her walles raced, her vaults diged vp, her monuments defaced, her altars sacrificed to desolation: Shortly al her buildings demolished, not a stone vpon a stone saue in rude heapes, to tell that here once was Babylon: Your strife goes about to build againe that her tower of confusion. God deuides your languages: It wil be wel, if yet you build not more then we haue reserued.

SECTION. XXVI. The maine grounds of separation.

YOV will now be free both in your profession and gift,Bar. & Gr. ag. Giff. Confer. & Eam. passim, Pe •• y in his exa. You giue vs to haue renounced many false Doctrins in Popery: and to haue imbraced so many truths: We take it vntill more:Sep. You professe where you sticke,You haue renounced many false Doctrines in Popery, and in theire plac • s embraced the truth. what you mislike: In those foure famous heades, which you haue learned by heart from all your predecessors: An hatefull Prelacy, A deuised Ministery, a confused and prophane communion, and lastly the intermixture of grieuous errors.

What if this truth were taught vnder an hatefull Prelacy?Exod. 1. 2. 3. &c. Ier. 20. 1. Suppose it were so? Must I not imbrace the truth because I hate the Prelacy?Ier. 5. vlt. But what if this truth bee taught vnder the same hatefull Prelacy, in the same deuised office of Ministery: and confused communion of the prophane multitude, and that mingled with many greeuous errors. What if Israel liue vnder the hatefull Egyptians? What if Ieremy liue vnder hatefull Pashur? What if the Iewes liue vnder an hateful Priesthood? What if the disciples liue vnder hatefull Scribes? What are others persons to my profession. If I may be freely allowed to be a true professed Christian, what care I vnder whose hands? But why is our Prelacy hatefull? Actiuely to you, or passiuely from you? In that it hates you? Would God you were not more your owne enemies: Or rather because you hate it? Your hatred is neither any newes, nor paine: Who or what of ours is not hatefull to you? Our Churches, Belles, Clothes, Sacraments, Preachings, Prayers, Singings, Catechismes, Courts, Meetings, Burialles, Mariages: It is maruell that our aire infects not: and that our heauen and earth (as Optatus said of the Donatists) escape your hatred: Not the forwardest of our Preachers (as you tearme thē) haue found any other entertainment;Iohns. Pres. to his 7. Reas. no enemy could be more spightfull, I speake it to your shame. Rome it selfe in diuers controuersary discourses hath bewrayed lesse gall, then Amsterdam: The better they are to others,Iohns. 7. Reas. p. 66. you professe they are the worse: yea would to God that of Paule were not verified of you:Tit. 3. 4. hatefull, and hating one another: But we haue learned, that of wise Christians not the measure of hatred should be respected,Psal. 69. 4. but the desert: Dauid is hatred for no cause,: Michaiah for a good cause: Your causes shall be examined in their places: onwards it were happy if you hated your owne sinnes more, and peace lesse: our prelacy would trouble you lesse, and you the Church.

SECTION. XXVII. The truth and warrant of the Ministery of England.

FOr our deuised office of Ministery, you haue giuen it a true title.Mat 28. 19. It was deuised indeed by our Sauiour when he said,Eph. 4. 11. go teach all Nations and Baptise; and performed in continuance when hee gaue some to be Pastors and Teachers;2 Tim. 2. 2. and not only the office of Ministery in generall,1, Tim. 3. 1. but ours whom hee hath made both able to teach,Act. 13. and desirous, seperated vs for this cause to the worke,1. Tim. 3. 9. vpon due tryall admitted vs,1. Tim. 5. 22. ordayned vs by imposition of handes of the Eldershippe,2 Tim. 2. 15. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . and prayer, directed vs in the right diuision of the word, committed a charge to vs; followed our Ministery with power, and blessed our labours with gratious successe, euen in the hearts of those whose tongues are thus busie to denie the truth of our vocation:Discourse of the Trouble & excem. at Amst. Certaine Arg. ag the Com. with the Minist. of England. Behold here the deuised Office of • our Ministery: What can you deuise against this? Your Pastor, who (as his brother writes) hopes to worke wonders by his Logicall skill, hath killed vs with seuen Arguments, which hee professeth the quintessence of his owne, and Penryes extractions, whereto your Doctor referres vs as absolute. I would it were not tedious or worth a Readers labour to see them scanned.Counterpoys. I protest before, God and the world, I neuer read more grosse stuffe so boldly and peremptorily faced out: so full of Tautologies and beggings of the Question neuer to bee yeelded. Let mee yet mention the maine heads of them, and for the rest be sory that I may not be endlesse.

To proue therefore that no communion may be had with the Ministery of the Church of England, he vses these seuen Demonstrations First, Because it is not that Ministery which Christ gaue, and set in his Church: Secondly, Because it is the ministerie of Antichrists Apostasie: Thirdly, Because none can communicate with the ministery of England, but he worshippes the beasts Image, and yeeldeth spirituall subiection to Antichrist: Fourthly, Because this ministery deriueth not their power and functions from Christ: Fiftly, Because they minister the holy things of God by vertue of a false spirituall calling: Sixthly, Because i • is a strange ministery, not appointed by God in his word: Seuenthly, Because it is not from heauen, but from men.

Now I beseech thee Christian Reader, iudge whether that which this man was wont so oft to obiect to his brother (a crack't braine) appeare not plainely in this goodly equipage of reasons, for what is al this but one, and the same thing tumbled seuen times ouer? which yet with seuen thousand times babling shall neuer be the more probable. That our ministery was not giuen and set in the Church by Christ, but Antichristian, what is it else to be from men, to bee strange, to be a false spirituall calling, not to bee deriued from Christ, to worship the Image of the beast? So this great Challenger that hath abridged his nine Arguments to seuen, might aswell haue abridged his seuen to one and a halfe. Here would haue beene as much substance, but lesse glory: As for his maine defence: First, wee may not either haue, or expect now in the Church that ministery which Christ set: Where are our Apostles, prophets, Euangelists? If we must alwayes looke for the very same administration of the Church which our Sauiour left, why doe wee not challenge these extraordinary functions? Doe we not rather thinke, since it pleased him to beginne with those Offices which should not continue, that herein he purposely intended to teach vs, that if wee haue the same heauenly busines done we should not be curious in the circumstances of the persons: But for those ordinary callings of Pastors and Doctors (intended to perpetuity) with what forehead can hee denie them to bee in our Church? How many haue we that conscionably teach and feede, or rather feede by teaching? Call them what you please, Superintendents (that is) Bishoppes, Prelates, Priests, Lecturers, Parsons, Vicars, &c. If they preach Christ truly, vpon true inward abilities, vpon a sufficient (if not perfect) outward vocation: such a one (let all Histories witnesse) for the substance, as hath bin euer in the Church since the Apostles times: they are Pastors and Doctors allowed by Christ:Vbires convenit quis non verba contemnat,? August. de Ordin. 2. We stand not vpon circumstances and appendances of the fashions of ordination, manner of choyce, attire, titles, maintenance: but if for substance these be not true Pastors and Doctors Christ had neuer any in his Church, since the Apostles left the earth. All the difficulty is in our outward calling: Let the Reader graunt our graue and learned Bishoppes to be but Christians, and this will easily be euinced lawfull, euen by their rules: For, if with them euery plebeian artificer hath power to elect and ordaine by vertue of his Christian profession (the act of the worthiest standing for all) how can they deny this right to persons qualified (besides common graces) with wisedome,Brow. state of Christians. learning, experience, authority)? Eyther their Bishoppricke makes them no Christians (a position which of all the world, besides this Secte, would be hissed at) or else their handes imposed are thus farr (by their rules of Separatists) effectual. Now your best course is (like to an Hare that runnes backe from whence she was started) to flye to your first hold: No Church, therefore no Ministery: So now, not the Church hath deuised the Ministery, but the Ministery hath deuised the Church: I follow you not in that idle Circle: Thence you haue beene hunted already: But now, since I haue giuen account of ours: I pray you tell me seriously, Who deuised your Office of Ministery? I dare say, not Christ, not his Apostles, not their Successors: What Church euer in the world can be produced (vnlesse in case of extremity for one turn) whose conspiring multitude made themselues ministers at pleasure? what rule of Christ prescribes it? What Reformed Church euer did, or doth practise it? VVhat example warrants it? where haue the inferiors laid hands vpon their Superiors? VVhat Congregation of Christendome in all records affoorded you the necessary patterne of an vnteaching Pastor, or an vnfeeding Teacher?

It is an old policy of the faulty to complaine first: Certainely there was neuer Popish Legend a more errand deuise of man then some parts of this ministery of yours, so much gloried in for sincere correspondence to the first institution.

SECTION. XXVIII. Confused Communion of the prophane.

YOVR scornefull exception at the confused communion of the prophane multitude sauors strong of a Pharisee, who thought it sinne to conuerse (cum terrae filijs) the base vulgar,Perplexae sunt istae duae (initates in hoc seculo inuicem que permixtae donec vltimo iudicto dirimantur. and whose very Phylacteries did say, Touch me not, for I am cleaner then thou. This multitude is prophane (you say) and this communion confused: If some be prophane, yet not all, for then could be no confusion in the mixture: If some be not prophane,Aug. de Ciuit. d. l. 1. 33. why do you not loue them as much as you hate the other? If all maine truthes be taught amongst some godly, some prophane: why will you more shunn those prophane, then cleaue to those truths, and those godly? If you haue duely admonished him, and detested and bewailed his sinne; what is another mans prophanenesse to you? If prophanenesse be not punished, or confusion be tolerated, it is their sinne,Eze. 18. 20. Orig. whome it concerneth to redresse them:Vnusquis que propter proprium peccatum morietur, in proprid iusticiâ viuet, &c. If the Officers sinne, must we runne from the Church? It is a famous and pregnant protestation of God by Ezechiell: The righteousnesse of the righteous shall be vpon him, and the wickednesse of the wicked shall be vpon himself. And if the fathers sower Grapes cannot hurt the childrens teeth,Fr. Iohns. Artic. ag. the Dutch & Fr. how much lesse shall the neighbours?Answ. ag. Brough ton. But whither will you runne from this communion of the prophane? The same fault you find with the Dutch and French;Discouer. of Brown. yea in your owne. How well you haue auoided it in your separation,Troubles and excom. at Amst. Charact. pres. Cypr. Ep. 2. let Master White, George Iohnson, Master Smith be sufficient witnesses, whose plentifull reports of your knowne vncleannesses,Iidem in publico accusatores in occulto rei, in semetipsos censores pariter & nocentes: Damnant foris, quod intus operantur, smothered mischiefes, malitious proceedings, corrupt packings, communicating with knowne offenders, bolstering of sinns, and willing conniuences, as they are shamefull to relate, so might well haue stopt your mouth from excepting at our confused Communion of the prophane.

SECTION. XXIX. Our Errours intermingled with Truth.

HOw many and grieuous errors are mingled with our Truths shall appeare sufficiently in the sequell; If any want, • arr. Conser. with M. Hutchins. &c. & D. • ndr. let it be the fault of the accuser, it is enough for the Church of Amsterdam to haue no errors. But ours are grieuous: Name them, that our shame may be equall to your griefe:Sep. So many they are,Shall some generall truth • s (yea though few of them in the particulars may bee foundly practised) sweeten and sanctifie the other errours? doth not one heresie make an hereticke, and doth not a little leauen, whether in Doctrine or manners le • uen the whol lumpe? 1. Cor. 5. 6. Gal. 5 9. Hag. 2 13. If Antichrist held not many truthes, wherewith should he countenance so many forgeries, or how could his work be a mistery of iniquitie? which in Rome is more grosse, and palpable, but in England spun with a finer threed, and so more hardly discouered. But to wade no further in vniuersalities; wee will take a little time to examine such particulars, as you your selfe haue picked out for your most aduantage, to see whether you bee so cleare of Babels Towers in your owne euidence, as you beare the world in hand. Inquir. into M. white p. 35. Mat. 13. 33. and so grieuous that your Martyr, when he was vrged to instance, could find none but our opinion concerning Christs descent into hell; and except hee had ouer-reached, not that. Call you our Doctrines some generall truthes? Looke into our Confessions, Apologies, Articles, and compare them with any, with all other Churches, and if you finde a more particular, found, Christian, absolute profession of all fundamētall truths in any Church since Christ ascēded into heauen, renounce vs, as you do, & we wil seperate vnto you: But these truths are not soundly practised: Let your Pastor teach you, that if errours of practise should be stood vpon, there could bee no true Church vpon earth: Pull out your owne beame first: we willingly yeeld this to be one of your truths, that no truth can sanctifie errour: That one heresie makes an Hereticke: but learne withall, that euery error doth not pollute all truthes: That there is hay and stubble which may burne, yet both the foundation stand, and the builder be saued: Such is ours at the worst, why doe you condemne where God will saue? No Scripture is more worne with your tongus and pennes, then that of the leauen. 1. Cor. 5. 6. If you would compare Christs leauen with Pauls, you should satisfie your selfe. Christ sayes the kingdome of heauen is as leauen; Paule saies grosse sin is leauen: Both leauens the whole lumpe: neither may be taken precisely, but in resemblance: not of equalitie, (as he said well) but of qualitie: For notwithstanding the leauen of the kingdome,M. Bredwell. some part you grant is vnsanctified; So notwithstanding the leauen of sinne, some (which haue striuen against it to their vtmost) are not sowred: The leauening in both places must extend onely to whom it is intended: the subiects of regeneration in the one; the partners of sinne in the other: So our Sauiour saith, Yee are the salt of the earth; Yet too much of the earth is vnseasoned: The trueth of the effect must bee regarded in these speeches not the quantity: It was enough for Saint Paule to shew them by this similitude,Hierom. In hoc Ignoratis, quia malo exemplo possunt plurimi interire? Sed & per vnius delictum in omne populum Indaeorum iram dei legimus adue nisse. that grosse sins where they are tollerated haue a power to infect others: whether it be (as Hierome interprets it) by ill example, or by procurement of iudgements: and thereupon the incestuous must be cast out: All this tends to the excōmunicating of the euill, not to the seperating of the good: Did euer Paule say, if the incestuous be not cast out, seperate from the Church. Show vs this, and wee are yours: Else it is a shame for you that you are not ours: If Antichrist holde many truths, and we but many, we must needes bee proud of your prayses: We holde all his truths, and haue showed you, how we hate all his forgeries, no lesse then you hate vs: Yet the mistery of iniquity is still spun in the Church of England; but with a siner threed: So fine that the very eyes of your malice cannot see it, yet none of our least motes haue escaped you: Thankes bee to our good God, wee haue the great mistery of godlinesse so fairely and happily spunne amongst vs,1. Tim. 3. 16. as all, but you, blesse God with vs, and for vs: As soone shall you finde charity and peace in your English Church, as heresie in our Church of England.

SECTION. XXX. Whether our Prelacy be Antichristian.

TO the particular instances:Sep. I aske where are the proud towers of their Vniuersall Hierarchy:Where (say you) are those proud towers of their Vniuersall Hierarchie? You answere roundly: One in Lambeth, another in Fulham, &c. What Vniuersall? Did euer any of our Prelates challenge all the world as his Diocesse? Is this simplicitie,One in Lambeth, another in Fulham, and wheresoeuer a pontificall: Prelate is, or his Chauncellor, Commissary, or other subordinate, there is a Tower of Babel vnruinated. To this end I desire to know of you whether the office of Arch-bishoppes, Bishoppes, and the rest of that ranke, were not parts of that accursed Hierarchie in queene Maries dayes, and members of that man of sinne? If they were then as shoulders and armes vnder that head the Pope, and ouer the inferiour members; and haue now the same Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction deriued and continued vpon them, wherof they were possessed in the time of Popery (as it is plaine they haue by the first Parliament of queene Elizabeth) Why are they not still members of that body, though the head the Pope be cut off? 7. Arg. 1. Answ. Counterpoys. or malice? If your Pastor tell vs that as well a world as a Prouince, Let me returne it; If he may be Pastor ouer a Parlour full: Why not of a Citie: And if of a Citie, why not of a Nation? But these you will proue vnruinated Towers of that Babell: You aske therefore whether the office of Archbishops, Bishops, and the rest of that ranke, were not in Queene Maries daies, partes of that accursed Hierarchy, and members of that man of sin. Doubtlesse they were: Who can deny it? But now (say you) they haue the same Ecclesiasticall iurisdiction continued: This is your miserable Sophistry: Those Popish Arch-bishoppes, and Bishoppes and Clergie were members of Antichrist; not as Church-Gouernours, but as Popish: While they swore subiection to him, while they defended him, whiles they worshipt him aboue all that is called God, and extorted this homage from others, how could they be other but limmes of that man of sinne: shall others therefore which defie him, resist, trample vpon him, spend their liues and labours in oppugnation of him be necessarily in the same case, because in the same roome? Let me helpe your Anabaptists with a sound Argument: The Princes, Peeres and Magistrates of the land in Queene Maries dayes were shoulders and armes of Antichrist; their calling is still the same; therefore now they are such: Your Master Smith vppon no other ground disclaimeth Infants Baptisme, crying out that this is the maine relique of Antichristianisme. Character of the beast ag. R. Clifton. But see how like a wise Master you confute your selfe: They are still members of the bodie, though the head (the Pope) bee cutte off: The head is Antichrist, therefore the body without the head is no part of Antichrist: Hee that is without the head Christ, is no member of Christ; so contrarily: I heare you say, the very Iurisdiction and office is here Antichristian, not the abuse: What? in them, and not in al Bishops since, and in the Apostles times? Alas, who are you that you should oppose al Churches & times? ignorance of Church-story, & not distinguishing betwixt substances and appendances, personall abuses, and callings, hath ledde you to this errour: Yet since you haue reckoned vp so many Popes, let me helpe you with more: Was there not one in Lambeth when Doctor Cranmer was there? One in Fulham when Ridly was there:Arch-deacon. One in Worcester when Latimer was there? One at Winchester when Philpot was there? We will goe higher; Was not Hilarius at Arles,Beatissimus Papa passi • n in Epist. Paulinus at Nola. Primasius at Vtica, Eucherius at Lyons, Cyrill at Alexandria, Chrysostome at Constantinople,Ignat. ad Trallian. Euseb. l. 3. Augustine at Hippo, Ambrose at Milaine? What should I be infinite? Was not Cyprian at Carthage? Euodius and after him Ignatius in S. Iohns time at Antioch, Polycarpus at Smyrna, Philip at Cesarea, Iames and Simeon and Cleophas at Hierusalem, Ex Euseb. Hier. Catalog script. Epiph. • nio, &c. Cal. Instit l. 4. Hieron. Euagrio Heming. Potest. Eccles. clas. 3. c. 10. and (by much consent of Antiquity) Titus in Creet, Timothy at Ephesus, Marke at Alexandria: yea to be short, was there not euery where in all ages, an allowed superiority of Church-Gouernours vnder this title? Looke into the frequent Subscriptions of all Councels, and their Canons? Looke into the Registers of all times,Hinc Ecclesia purior secuta tempora Apostolorum, fecit alios Patriarchas, quorum erat curare vt Episcupi cuius que d • ocescos rite eligerentur, vt suum munus Episcopi singuli probe administrarent &c. Arist. Pol. 7. Potentia diuitiarum, & pauper tatis humilitas vel humiliorem vel inferiorem Episcopum non facit. and finde your selfe aunswered: Let reuerend Caluin be our Aduocate: I would desire no other words to confute you, but his: He shall tell you that euen in the Primitiue Church, the Presbiters chose one out of their number in euery City, whom they titled their Bishop, least dissention should arise from equality. Let Hemingius teach you that this was the practise of the purest Church: Thus it was euer, and if Princes haue pleased to annexe either large maintenances, or stiles of higher dignity, and respect vnto these, doe their additions annihilate them? Hath their double honour made voide their callings? Why more then extreme needinesse? If Aristotle would not allow a Priest to be a tradesman, yet Paul could yeeld to homely Tent-making, if your Elders grow rich or noble,Hieron. Euagr. doe they cease to bee, or beginne to be vnlawfull? But in how many volumes hath this point beene fully discussed? I list not to gleane after their full Carts.

SECTION. XXXI. The iudgement and practise of other Reformed Churches.

FRom your owne Verdict you descend to the testimonies of all reformed Churches: I blush to see so wilfull a slaunder fall from the penne of a Christian.Sep. That all Reformed Churches renounce our Prelacy as Antichristian,And so do all the Reformed Churches in the world (of whose testimony you boast so loud) renounce the Prelacy of England, as part of that Pseudo-Clergie, and Antichristian Hierarchie deriued from Rome. Answ. Counterpoys. 3 Consid. Ps. 10. 7. what one hath done it? Yea, what one forraine Diuine of note, hath not giuen to our Clergy the right hand of fellowshippe? so farre is it from this, that I. Alasco was the allowed Bishoppe of our first Reformed strangers in this land, so farre that when your Doctor found himselfe vrged (by M. Spr.) with a cloud of witnesses for our Church and ministery, as Bucer, Martyr, Fagius, Alasco, Caluin, Beza, Bullinger, Gualter, Simler, Zanchius, Iunius, Rollocus, and others, he had nothing to say for himselfe, but Though you come against vs with Horse-men and Chariots, yet wee will remember the name of the Lord our God, and turnes it off with the accusation of a Popish plea, and reference to the practise of the Reformed: And if therefore they haue so renounced it, because their practise receiues it not: VVhy like a true make-bate doe you not say, that our Churches haue so renounced their Gouernement? These sisters haue learned to differ, and yet to loue, and reuerence each other: and in these cases to enioy their owne formes, without prescription of necessity, or censure. Let reuerend Beza bee the Trumpet of all the rest; who tells you that the Reformed English Churches cōtinue,Bez. de ministr. Euang. c. 18. Cited also by D. Down p. 29. Heming. Iudicat caeteros ministros suis Episcopis obtem perare debere. Potest. Eccles. c. 10. vpheld by the authority of Bishops, & Archbishopps, that they haue had men of that ranke, both famous martyrs, and worthy Pastors and Doctors: and lastly congratulates this blessing to our Church: or let Hemingius tell you the iudgement of the Danish Church: Iudicat caeteros ministros &c. it iudgeth saith he, that other ministers should obey their Bishoppes in all things, which make to the edification of the Church, &c. But what doe I oppose any to his name-lesse, All? his owne silence confutes him enough in my silence.

SECTION. XXXII. Our Synodes determination of things indifferent.

THere was neuer a more idle and beggerly cauill then your next: your Christian Reader must needs thinke you hard driuen for quarrels,Article. 21 when you are faine to fetch the Popes infallibility out of our Synode,Sep. whose flat decree it was of old: That euen general Councels may erre, Infallibility of iudgement. It seemes the sacred (so called) Synode, assumeth little lesse vnto her selfe in her determinations: otherwise, how durst she decree so absolutely as she doth touching things reputed indifferent, viz. that all men in all places must submit vnto them without exception, or limitation. Except she could infallibly determine, that these her ceremonies thus absolutely imposed, should edifie all men at all times, how durst she thus impose them? To exact obedience in and vnto them, whether they offend or offend not, whether they edifie or destroy, were intollerable presumption. & haue erred: But wherin doth our facred Synod assume this infallibility, in her determinations? VVherefore is a Synode, if not to determine? But, of thinges reputed indifferent? VVhat else are subiect to the constitutions of men? Good and euill are either directly, or by necessarie sequell ordered by God: these are aboue humane power. VVhat haue men to doe, if not with things indifferent? All necessary thinges are determined by God indifferent by men from God, which are as so many particulars, extracts from the generals of God: These things (saith learned Caluin) are indifferent, and in the power of the Church:Obligatio fine coercione nalla. Reg. Iur. Either you must allow the Church this, or nothing. But these decrees are absolute, what lawes can be without a commaund?Non iura dicenda sunt, &c. de Ciuitat. l. 19. Answ. to the Admon. p. 279. cited also by D. Sparkes. p. 14. The law that ties not, is no law: No more then that (saith Austen) which tyes vs to euill. But for all men, and all times? How for all? For none (I hope) but our owne, And why not for them? but without exception, and limitation: Do not thus wrong our Church: Our late Archbishopp (if it were not piacular for you to reade ought of his) could haue taught you in his publique writings, these fiue limitations of inioyned ceremonies: First, that they be not against the word of God:Aug. Ep. 86. Secondly, that iustification or remission of sinnes be not attributed to them:In his enim rebus, de quibus nih •• certi statuit scriptura diuina, mos populi Dei vel instituta maiorum pro lege tenenda sunt. Thirdly, That the Church bee not troubled with their multitude: Fourthly, that they be not decreede as necessary, and not to be changed: And lastly, that men be not so tyed to them, but that by occasion they may be omitted so it be without offence and contempt, you see our limits:Li • ius Decad. 4. l. 4. but your feare is in this last, contrary to his. He stands vpon offence in omitting, you in vsing: As if it were a iust offence to displease a beholder,Nulla lex satis commoda omnibus est, id▪ modo quaeritur, si maiori parti & in summa prodest. no offence to displease and violate authority: VVhat law could euer be made to offend none? Wise Cato might haue taught you this, in Liuie, that no lawe can bee commodious to all: Those lippes which preserue knowledge, must impart so much of it to their hearers, as to preuent their offence: Neither must Lawgiuers, euer fore-see what constructions will bee of their laws, but what ought to be: Those thin •• which your consistory imposes, may you keepe them if you list? Is not the willing neglect of your owne Parlor-decrees punished with excommunication? And now what is all this to infallibilitie? The sacred Synod determines these indifferent rites for decency and comlinesse to be vsed of those, whom it concernes, therefore it arrogates to it selfe infallibilitie: A conclusion fit for a separatist.

You stumble at the title of sacred: euery straw lies in your way; your Calepine could haue taught you • hat houses, Castles, religious businesses, olde age it selfe,Cum consedissent sancti & religiosi Episcopi. Bin. Tom. 1. p. 239. Sancta Synod. Carthagi. 4. sub Anastasio. 553. Sancta & Pacifica Synod Antiocben. 1. p. 420. haue this stile giuen them: And Virgill (vittasque resoluit, sacrati capitis) no Epithete is more ordinary to Councelles and Synods: The reason whereof may be fetched from that inscription of the Elibertine Synode; of those nineteene Bishops is said: VVhen the holy and religious Bishops were set: How fewe Councels haue not had this Title? To omit the late; The holy Synod of Carthage, vnder Anastasius: Sancta dei & Apostolica Synodus 413. The holy and peaceable Synode at Antioch: The holy Synode of God and Apostolicall, Peruenit ad sanctam synodum can. Nic. 18. 309. at Rome vnder Iulius. The holy and great Sinode at Nice: And not to be endlesse: The holy Synod of Laodicea (though but prouinciall). VVhat doe these Idle exceptions argue but want of greater?Sancta synod. La • dicena. 288.

SECTION. XXXIII. Sinnes sold in our Courts.

SOme great men when they haue done ill, outface their shame with enacting Lawes to make their sinnes lawfull.Sep. While you thus charge our practise, you bewray your owne:Dispensations with the lawes of God and sins of men. Who hauing seperated from Gods Church,To let passe your Ecclesiasticall consistories wherein sins and absolutions from them, are as venall and saleable as at Rome. Is it not a law of the Eternall God, that the Ministers of the Gospell, the Bishops or Elders should be apt and able to teach? 1. Tim 3▪ 2. Tit. 1. 9. and is it not their greeuous sin to be vnapt hereunto. Esa 56. 10 11. And. yet who know-not that the Patrons amongst you present, that the Bishops institute, the Archdeacons induct, the Churces recei • e and the Lawes both Ciuill and Ecclesiasticall allow and iustify Ministers vnapt and v • able to teach. G. Ioh. Trou. and Exco. at Amste. Insufficiency & 〈◊〉 reside • cy of Ministers. deuise slaunders to colour your sinne: Wee must bee shamefull, that you may bee innocent: You load our Ecclesiasticall consistories with a shameles reproach: Farre bee it from vs to iustifie any mans personall sinnes; yet it is safer sinning to the better part: Fie on these odious comparisons: sinnes as saleable as at Rome? who knowes not that, to be the Mart of all the world? Periuries, murders, treasons are there bought & sold: when euer in ours? The Popes Cofers can easily confute you alone: What tell you vs of these, let me tell you: Mony is as fit an aduocate in a consistory, as fauour or malice: These, some of yours haue complained of, as bitterly, as you of ours. As if we liked the abuses in Courts: as if corrupt executions of wholesome lawes must be imputed to the Church, whose wrongs they are. No lesse haynous, nor more true is that which followeth. True Elders (not yours) should bee indeede 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : This we call for, as vehemently (not so tumultuously) as your selues.

That they should feede their flockes with word and doctrine, we require more then you: That Patrons present,Insufficiency & non residency of Ministers. Bishoppes institute, Arch-deacons induct some, which are vnable, we graunt and bewaile: But that our Church-lawes iustifie them,Sep. wee denie, and you slaunder?Is it not a law of the eternall God that the Elders should feede the flocke ouer which they are set, labouring amongst them in the word and doctrine? Act. 20. 28. 1. Pet: 5. 1. 2. and is it not sinne to omit this duety? For our law (if you know not) requires, that euery one to be admitted to the Ministery, should vnderstand the Articles of Religion, not onely as they are compendiously set downe in the Creede, but as they are at large in our booke of Articles; neither vnderstand them onely, but be able to proue them sufficiently out of the scripture, and that not in English onely, but in Latine also: This competency would proue him (for knowledge) 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 : If this be not performed, blame the persons, cleare the law. Profound Master Hooker telles you, that both arguments from light of nature,Can. 34. lawes, and statutes of Scripture,M. Hooker 5. b. the Canons that are taken out of ancient Synodes,Eccles. Pol. the Decrees and constitutions of sincerest times, the sentences of all Antiquity, and in a word, euery mans full consent and conscience, is against ignorance in them that haue charge and cure of soules. And in the same booke; Did any thing more aggrauate the crime of Ieroboams Apostasie,Pag. 26. 3. then that hee chose to haue his Clergie the scumme and refuse of his whole land: Let no man spare to te • l it them, they are not faithfull towards God; that burden wilfully his Church, with such swarmes of vnworthie creatures: Neither is it long, since a zealous and learned Sermon dedicated to our present Lord Arch-bishoppe by his owne Chaplaine,D. Down. of the office and dignity of the Mi • ist. hath no lesse taxed this abuse, whether of insufficiency, or negligence (though with more discretion) then can be expected from your malicious penne: Learne henceforth not to diffuse crimes to the innocent.

For the rest:Dispensations for pluralities. your Baal in our dispensations for pluralities, would thus pleade for himselfe: First hee would bidde you learne of your Doctor to distinguish of sinnes:Sep. sinnes (saith he) are either controuertible, or manifest:Plead not for Baall. Your dispensations for Non-residency & pluralities of Benefices, as for two, three, or more; yea tot quot, as many as a man will hau • e or can get are so many dispensations with the lawes of God, and sinnes of men. These things are too impious to be defended, and too manifest to be denyed. Counterpoys. p. 179. if controuertible or doubtfull, men ought to bear one with anothers different iudgment; if they doe not, &c. they sinne: such is this: if some be resolued, others doubt: and in whole volumes plead, whether conuenience, or necessity: how could your charity compare these with sinnes euicted? Secondly, he would tell you that these dispensations are intended and directed, not against the offence of God, but the danger of humane lawes: not securing from sinne, but from losse: But, for both these points of Non-residence and insufficiency, if you sought not rather strife then satisfaction: his Maiesties speech in the Confer. at Hampton Court, might haue staied the course of your quarrelous pen: No reasonable minde, but would rest in that gratious and Royall determination. Lastly, Why looke you not to your owne Elders at home?Dist. 34. Can. lector. euen your handfull hath not auoided this crime of Non-residency: What wonder is it,Papa potest contra Apostolum dispensare. & Caus. 25. q. 1. Can. sunt quidam. Dispensatin Euangelio &c. De concess. praebend. Tit. 8. Can. Proposuit Secundum plenitu • inem potestatis de iure possumus supra ius dispensare. & Glossa paulo insr. Papa contra Apostolum dispensat. &c. Sum. confer. p. 52. M. VVhites discou. if our world of men haue not escaped?

SECTION. XXXIIII. Our loyaltie to Princes cleared, theirs questioned.

YOV that confesse our wisedome and honesty, must now pleade for your owne: your hope is not more of vs, then our feare of you. To depose Kings and dispose Kingdomes is a proud worke:Bar. ag. Gyff. Inconst. of Brow. p. 113 you want power, but what is your will? For excommunication it is cleare enough: While you fully holde that euery priuate man hath as much power in this censure, as the Pastor; and that Princes must bee equally subiect with them to these their censures: Let any man now deuise, if the Brownists could haue a King, how that King could stand one day vnexcommunicated? Or if this censure meddle onely with his soule, not with his Scepter: How more then credible is it,Ibid. that some of your assemblies in Queene Elizabeths daies concluded,Inquir. into Th. that shee was not (euen in our sense) supreame head of the Church,VVhite. neither had authority to make lawes Ecclesiasticall in the Church:Sep. It is well if you wil disclaime it:Disposition of Kingdomes and Deposition of Princes. But you know your receiued position; That no one Church is superior to other:You are wiser and I hope honester then thus to attempt, thogh that receiued maxime amongst you No ceremony, no Bishoppe; no Bishoppe, no King; sauors too strongly of that weed▪ but what though you be loyall to earthly Kings and their crownes, and Kingdomes, yet if you be Traytors and rebels against the King of his Church Iesus Christ, and the scepter of his Kingdome, not suffering him y his lawes and officers to reigne ouer you, but in stead of them do stoupe to Antichrist in his offices and ordinances: shall your loyaltie towards men excuse your treasons against the Lord? though you now crie neuer so lowd we haue no King, but Caesar, Ioh. 19. 15. yet is there an other King, one Iesus, which shall returne, and passe a heauy doome vpon the rebellious, Luc. 19. 27. These enemies which would not haue me reigne ouer them, bring them and slay them before me. No authority therefore can reuerse this Decree; your will may doe it: yea what better then rebellion appeares in your next clause? While you accuse our loyaltie to an earthly King, as treasonable to the King of the Church, Christ Iesus: If our loyaltie bee a sinne, where is yours? If we be traytors in our obedience: what doe you make of him that commands it? VVhether you would haue vs each man to play the Rex, and erect a new gouernement, or whether you accuse vs as rebels to Christ in obeying the old:P. 36. God blesse King Iames from such subiects. But whose is that so vnsauorie weede; No Bishoppe, no King? Know you whom you accuse? let me shew you your aduersary; it is King Iames himselfe in his Hampton Conference: is there not now suspition in the word? surely you had cause to feare that the King would proue no good subiect: Belike, not to Christ: VVhat doe you else in the next, but proclaime his opposition to the King of KINGS? or ours in not opposing his? As if we might say with the Israelites.Es. 36. 13. O Lord our God, other Lords besides thee haue ruled vs: If we would admit each of your Elders to bee so many Kings in the Church, wee should stoope vnder Christs ordinances: Shewe vs your Commission, and let it appeare, whether we be enemies, or you vsurpers; Alas, you both refuse the rule of his true Deputy, and set vp false; Let this fearefull doome of Christ light where it is most due: Euen so let thine enemies perish O Lord.

SECTION. XXXVI. Kneeling at the Sacrament of the Lords Supper.

OVR Kneeling you deriue (like a good Herald) from the errour of Transubstantiation: but to set downe the descent of this pedigree; will trouble you: wee doe vtterly denie it, and challenge your proofe:De Consecr. d. 2. Ego Bereng. Apol. How new a fiction Transubstantiation is, appeares out of Berengaries recantation to Pope Nicholas: Sep. The errour was then so young, it had not learned to speake;Where (say you) are those rotten heapes of Transubstantiating of bread? shew vs the same noueltie in our kneeling: Till of late men held not the bread to be God; of old they haue held it sacred: This is the gesture of reuerence in our prayer at the receite, as Master Burgesse well interpreted it, not of Idolatrous adoration of the bread.And where, say I, learned you your deuout kneeling to or before the bread, but from that error of Transubstantiatiō? Yea what lesse can it insinuate, then eyther that, or some other the like Idolatrous conceipt. If there were not something more in the bread and wine then in the water at Baptisme, or in the word read or preached, Why should such solemne kneeling be so seuerely pressed at that time, rather then vpon the other occasions: And well and truely haue your own men affirmed that it were farre lesse sinne, and appeareance of an Idolatry that is nothing so grosse, to tye men in their prayers, to kneele before a Crucifixe then before the bread and wine, and the reason followeth, for that, papists commit an Idolatry farre▪ more grosse and odious in worshipping the bread, then in worshipping any other of their Images or Idols whatsoeuer. Apol of the Min. of Lincoln. Dioc. part. 1. pag. 66. This was most-what in the eleuation: the abolishing wherof cleares vs of this imputation: you know we hate this conceit, why doe you thus force wrongs vpon the innocent? Neither are we alone in this vse: The Church of Bohemie allowes, and practises it: and why is this errour lesse palpable in the wafers of Geneua? If the King should offer vs his hand to kisse, we take it vpon our kneees: how much more when the King of heauen giues vs his sonne in these pledges? But if there were not something more then iust reuerence, why do we solemnely kneel at the Communion not at Baptisme? Can you find no difference? In this (besides that there is both a more liuely and feeling signification of the thing represented) we are the parties, but in the other, witnesses: This therefore I dare boldly say; that if your partner M. Smith should euer (which God forbid) perswade you to rebaptise, your fittest gesture (or any others at full age) would be to receiue that Sacramentall water, kneeling: How glad you are to take all scraps, that fall from any of ours for your aduantage? would to God this obseruation of your malitious gatherings would make all our reuerend bretheren w • ary of their censures: Surely, no idolatry can be worse then that Popish 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . The Bread, and the Crucifixe, striue for the hier place; if we should therefore be so tyed to kneele before the bread, as they are tyed to kneele before the Crucifixe, their sentence were iust: They adore the Crucifixe, not wee the bread; they pray to the Crucifixe, not we to the bread, they direct their deuotions (at the best) by the Crucifixe to their Sauiour, wee doe not so by the bread, wee kneele no more to the bread, then to the Pulpit when we ioyne our prayers with the Ministers: But our quarrell is not with them; you that can approue their iudgments in dislike, might learne to followe them in approbation, and peaceable Communion with the Church: if there be a galled place you will be sure to light vpon that, Your charitie is good: whatsoeuer your wisedome be.

SECTION. XXXVII. Whether our Ordinary and Seruice-Booke, be made Idolles by vs.

YET more Idolatry?Sep. And which is more, New, and strange;Adoring of Images. such (I dare say) as wil neuer be found in the two first Commandements,To let passe your deuout kneeling vnto your Ordinary when you take the Oath of Canonicall obedience, or receiue absolution at his hands, which (as the maine actions are religious) must needes be religious adoration, what is the adoring of your truely humane (though called Diuine) seruice-booke in and by which you worship God, as the Papists doe by their Images? If the Lord Iesus in his testament haue not commanded any such book, it is accursed and abhominable if you thinke he haue, shew vs the place where, that we may know it with you. or manyfest vnto vs that euer the Apostles vsed themselues or commended to the Churches after them any such seruice-booke. Was not the Lord in the Apostles time, and Apostolicke Churches purely and perfectly worshipped, when the Officers of the Church in their ministration manifested the spririt of prayer which they had receiued according to the present necessities and occasions of the Church, before the least parcell of this patchery came into the world. And might not the Lord now be also purely and perfecty worshipped though this printed Image, with the painted and carued Images, were sent backe to Rome, yea or cast to hell from whence both they and it came? Speake in your selfe, might not the Lord be intirely worshipped with pure & holy worship, thogh none other book but ye holy Scriptures were brought into the Church: If yea (as who can deny it that knowes what the worship of God meaneth) what then doth your seruice-booke there. The word of God is perfect and admitteth of none addition. Cursed be he that addeth to the word of the Lord, and cursed be that which is added, and so bee your great Idoll the Communion Booke, though like Nabuchadnezzars Image some parte of the matter be gold and siluer, which is also so much the more detestable by how much it is the more highly aduanced amongst you. Behold here two new Idols, Our Ordinary, and our Seruice-booke, a speaking Idoll, and a written Idoll. Calecute hath one strange Deity the diuell, Siberia many, whose people worship euery day what they see first. Rome hath many merry Saints: but Saint Ordinary, and Saint Seruice-booke, were neuer heard of till your Canonization. In earnest, doe you thinke wee make our Ordinary an Idoll? what else? You kneele deuoutly to him when you receiue either the Oath or absolution. 〈1 page duplicate〉〈1 page duplicate〉 This must needs be religious adoration: is there no remedie? You haue twise kneeled to our Vice-Chauncellour, when you were admitted to your degree; you haue oft kneeled to your parents, and Godfathers to receiue a blessing, did you make Idols of them? the partie to be ordained kneeles vnder the hand of the presbitery: dooth hee religiously adore them? Of olde they were wont to kisse the handes of these Bishoppes, so they did to Baal: God and our Superiours haue had euer one and the same outward gesture:Paulus. in vitae Ambros. Though here, not the Agent is so much regarded; as the action: if your Ordinary would haue suffered you to haue done this peece of Idolatrie, you had neuer separated.

But the true God-Bell and Dragon of England is the humane-Diuine-Seruice-Booke: Let vs see what ashes or lumpes of pitch this Daniel brings: Wee worship God in and by it, as Papists doe by their Images: In deed we worship God in, and by the prayers contayned in it: Why should we not? Tell mee why is it more idolatry for a man to worship God in, and by a praier read, or got by hart, then by a praier conceiued? I vtter both, they are both mine, if the heart speake them both, feelingly and deuoutly, where lies the Idoll? In a conceiued prayer, is it not possible for a mans thought to stray from his tongue? in a prayer learned by heart, or read, is it not possible for the heart to ioyne with the tongue? If I pray therfore in spirit, and hartely vtter my desires to God, whether in mine owne wordes, or borrowed (and so made mine) what is the offence? But (say you) if the Lord Iesus in his Testament haue not commanded any such Booke, it is accursed, and abhominable: But say I: if the Lord Iesus hath not any where forbidden such a booke, it is not accursed nor abhominable: Shew vs the place where, that we may know it with you: Nay, but I must shew you where the Apostles vsed any such seruice-booke: shew you mee, where the Apostles baptized in a Basen: or where they receiued women to the Lords table:Passag. twixt clifton an • Smith. (for your 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 1. Cor. II. will not serue) shew me that the Bible was distinguish't into Chapters and verses in the Apostles time:AEgypti • vbi lautè epulati sunt, post caenam id faciunt. shewe mee that they euer celebrated the Sacrament of the Supper at any other time then euening, Socr. l. 5. 21. as your Anabaptists now doe: shew me that they vsed one prayer before their Sermons alwaies, another after, that they preached euer vpon a Text: where they preached ouer a Table: or lastly, shewe me where the Apostles vsed that prayer which you made before your last prophecy; and a thousand such circumstances, What an idle plea is this from the Apostolike times? And if I should tell you that Saint Peter celebrated with the Lords prayer, you will not beleeue it:Platia. initio. yet you know the Historie. But let the Reader know that your quarrell is not against the matter, but against the booke, not as they are prayers, but as stinted, or prescribed: Wherein, all the world besides your selues are Idolaters: Behold all Churches that were, or are, are partners with vs in this crime. Oh Idolatrous Geneua, and all French, Scottish, Caluin. Ep. ad Protect. Angl. Ep. 87. Danish, Dutch Churches: All which both haue their set prayers with vs, and approue them. Quod ad formulam, &c. as concerning a forme of pra • ers and rites Ecclesiastical (saith reuerend Caluin): I do greatly allow that it should bee set and certaine, from which it should not bee lawfull for Pastors in their function to depart. Iudge now of the spirit of these bold controllers, that dare thus condemne all Gods Churches, through the world as Idolatrous: but since you call for Apostolike examples: did not the Apostle Paul vse one set forme of apprecations, of benedictions? What were these but lesser prayers? The quantitie varies not the kinde: Will you haue yet auncienter precedents? The Priest was appointed of olde to vse a set forme vnder the law, Num. 6. 23. so the people, Deut. 26. 3. 4, 5. &c. 15. Both of them a stinted Psalme for the Sabboth, Ps. 92. What saith your Doctor to these? Because the Lorde (saith he) gaue formes of prayers and Psalmes,Answ. to the Minist. Counterp 237. therefore the Prelates may: Can we thinke that Ieroboam had so slender a reason for his Calues? Marke (good Reader) the shifts of these men: This aunswerer calles for examples, and will abide no stinting of prayers, because we shew no patternes from Scripture: We do shew patternes from Scripture, and now their Doctor saith, God appointed it to them of olde, must we therefore doe it? So, whether we bring examples or none, we are condemned: But Mast. Doctor, whom I beseech you should we follow, but God in his own seruices? If God haue not appointed it, you crie out vpon inuentions: if God haue appointed it, 〈…〉 , we may not follow it: shew then where 〈…〉 inioyned an ordinary seruice to himselfe, that was not ceremoniall (as this plainly is not): which should not be a direction for vs? But if stinting our prayers be a fault (for as yet you meddle not with our blasphemousCounterp 236. Collects) it is well that the Lords prayer it selfe beareth vs company, and is no small part of our Idolatrie:Omnibus aricubus gr • gis (id est) Apostolis suis dedit morem orandi, dimitte nob • s &c. Aug. Ep. 89. VVhich, though it were giuen principally as a rule to our prayers, yet since the matter is so heauenly, a • d most wisely framed to the necessity of all Christian hearts, to denie that it may be vsed intirely in our Sauiours wordes, is no better then a fanaticall curiousnesse: yeelde one and all; for if the matter be more diuine, yet the stint is no lesse faulty: This is not the lest part of our patcherie: except you vnrip this, the rest you cannot. But might not God be purely and perfectly worshipped without it? Tell mee, Might not God bee purely and perfectly worshipped without Churches, without houses, without garments, yea without handes or feete? In a word, could not God bee purely worshipped, if you were not? Yet would you not seeme a superfluous creature: speake in your selfe: Might not God be intirely worshipped with pure and holy worship, though there were no other bookes in the world, but the Scripture? If yea, as who can denie it, that knowes what the worshippe of God meaneth? VVhat then doe the Fathers and Doctors, and learned Interpreters? To the fire with all those curious artes and volumes, as your Predecessors called them: Yea let me put you in minde, that God was purely and perfectly worshipped by the Apostolicke Church before euer 〈…〉 Testament was written: See therefore the idlenesse of your proofes; God may be serued without a prescription of prayer, but (if all Reformed Churches in Christendome erre not) better with it: The word of God is perfect, and admits no addition: Cursed were we, if we should add ought to it: Cursed were that which should be added: But cursed be they that take ought from it, and dare say, ye shall not pray thus, OVR FATHER, &c. Doe we offer to make our prayers Canonicall, do we obtrude them as parts of Gods word? VVhy cauill you thus? VVhy doth the same prayer written adde to the worde, which spoken addeth not? Because conceiued prayer is commanded, not the other: But first, not your particular prayer: Secondly, without mention either of conception, or memorie, God commaunds vs to pray in spirit, and with the heart: These circumstances onely as they are deduced from his Generals, so are ours: But whence soeuer it please you to fetch our Booke of publique Prayer, from Rome or Hell; or to what Image soeuer you please to resemble it: Let moderate spirits heare what the pretious Iewell of England saith of it: VVee haue come as neere as we could to the Church of the Apostles,Apolog. p. 170. Accessimus &c. &c. neither onely haue we framed our doctrine, but also our Sacraments, and the forme of publique prayers according to their Rites and Institutions.H Bar. ag. Gyff. Let no Iewe now obiect Swines-flesh to vs: Hee is no iudicious man (that I may omit the mention of Cranmer, Buc • r Ridley, Taylor, &c. some of whose handes were in it, all whose voices were for it) with whome one Iewell will not ouer-weigh tenne thousand Separatists.

SECTION. XXXVIII. Marriage not made a Sacrament by the Church of England.

HOw did confirmation escape this number? how did Ordination?Sep. it was your ouer-sight, Multitudes of Sacraments. The number of sacraments seemes greater amongst you by one at the least, then Christ hath left in his Testament, and that is Marriage; which howsoeuer you doe not in expresse tearmes call a sacrament, (no more did Christ and the Apostles call Baptisme and the supper sacraments,) yet do you in truth create it a sacrament, in the administration and vse of it. There are the parties to be married and their marriage, representing Christ and his Church, and their spirituall Vnion: to which mysterie, saith the Oracle of your seruice-Booke expresly, God hath consecrated them: there is the Ring hallowed by the said s • ruice-Booke, (whereon it must be laid) for the Element; there are the wordes of consecration; In the name of the Father, and of the Sonne, and of the holy Ghost; there is the place, the Church; the time vsually, the Lords day; the Minister, the Parish-Priest. And being made as it is, a part of Gods worship, and of the Ministers office, what is it if it be not a sacrament? It is no part of prayer, or preaching, and with a sacrament it hath the greatest consimilitude, but an Idoll I am sure it is in the celebration of it, being made a Ministeriall duty and part of Gods worshippe, without warrant, call it by what name you will. I feare, not your charity: some things seeme, and are not: such is this your number of our Sacraments: you wil needes haue vs take in marriage into this ranke: why so? wee doe not (you confesse) call it a Sacrament as the vulgar, mis-interpreting Pauls Mysterium, Ep. 5. why should we not if we so esteemed it? wherefore serue names, but to denotate the nature of things? If we were not ashamed of the opinion, wee could not be ashamed of the worde: No more (say you) did Christ and his Apostles call Baptisme and the Supper, Sacraments; but we doe, and you with vs: See now whether this clause doe not confute your last: where hath Christ euer said, There are two Sacraments? Yet you dare say so: what is this but in your sense an addition to the word: yea, we say flatly, there are but two: yet we doe (you say) in truth create it a Sacrament: how oft, and how resolutely hath our Church maintained against Rome, that none but Christ immediatly can create Sacraments? If they had this aduantage against vs, how could wee stand? How wrongfull is this force, to fasten an opinion vpon our Church which shee hath condemned? But wherein stands this our creation? It is true, the partyes to bee married, and their marriage represent Christ, and his Church, and their spirituall vnion: Beware least you strike God through our sides: what hath Gods spirit said, either lesse, or other then this? Ephe. 5. 25. 26. 27. &. 32. Doth he not make Christ the husband, the Church his spouse? Doth he not from that sweet coniunction, and the effects of it: argue the deere respects that should bee in marriage? Or what doth the Apostle allude elesewhere vnto, when he saies (as Moses of Eue) we are flesh of Christs flesh, and bone of his bone? And how famous amongst the ancient is that resemblance of Eue taken out of Adams side sleeping, to the Church taken out of Christs side sleeping on the Crosse? Since marriage therefore so clearely represents this mistery: and this vse is holy and sacred: what error is it, to say that mariage is consecrated to this mistery? But what is the Element: the Ring; These things agree not; you had before made the two parties to be the matter of this Sacrament? What is the matter of the Sacrament, but the Element? If they be the matter, they are the Element; and so not the Ring; both cannot be; if you will make the two parties to bee but the receiuers; how doth all the mistery lie in their representation? Or if the Ring bee the Element, then all the mistery must be in the Ring, not in the parties: Labour to bee more perfect, ere you make any more newe Sacraments: but this Ring is laide vpon the seruice-booke: why not? For readinesse, not for holinesse: Nay, but it is hallowed (you say) by the booke: If it be a Sacramentall Element, it rather hallowes the booke, then the booke it: you are not mindful enough for this trade: But what exorcismes are vsed in this hallowing? Or who euer held it any other then a ciuill pledge of fidelitie? Then follow the wordes of consecration: I pray you, what difference is there betwixt hallowing, and consecration? The Ring was hallowed before by the booke; now it must be consecrated: How idlely? by what wordes? In the name of the Father, &c. These words you know are spoken after the Ring is put on: was it euer heard of, that a Sacramentall Element was consecrated after it was applyed? see how ill your slaunders are digested by you: The place is the Church, the time the Lords day, the minister is the actor, and is it not thus in all other reformed Churches aswell as ours. Behod, we are not alone: al Churches in the world (if this wil do it) are guilty of three Sacraments: Tell me, would you not haue marriage solemnized publiquely?Br. state of Christians. 172. You cannot mislike: though your founder seemes to require nothing here but notice giuen to witnesses, and then to bed: Well, if publique; you account it withall, a graue and weighty businesse: therefore such, as must be sanctified by publike prayer: What place is fitter for publicke prayer then the Church? Who is fitter to offer vp the publike prayer, then the Minister? who should rather ioyne the parties in marriage, then the publique deputie of that God, who solemnly ioyned the first couple? who rather then he which in the name of God may best blesse them? The prayers which accompany this solemnity are parts of Gods worshippe, not the contract it selfe: This is a mixt action, therefore compounded of Ecclesiasticall and ciuill: imposed on the Minister, not vpon necessity but expedience: neither essentiall to him, but accidentally, annexed, for greater conuenience. These two friuolous grounds haue made your cauill eyther very simple, or very wilfull.

SECTION. XL. Oath ex officio.

I Aske of auricular Confession; you send mee to our High Commission Court:Sep. these two are much alike: Necessity of Confessions. In your high Commission Court very absolute, wher by the Oath Ex Officio men are constrained to accuse themselues of such things as whereof no man will or can accuse thē; what necessity is laid vpon men in this case, let your prisons witnes D. Cosens his Apol. But here is also very absolute necessity of confession: True; but as in a case of iustice. not of strife to cleare a truth, not to obtaine absolution: to a bench of Iudges, not to a Priests eare; Here are too many ghostly Fathers for an auricular Confession: But you wil mistake; it is enough against vs, that men are constrained in these Courts to confesse against themselues: why name you these Courts onely? Euen in others also oathes are vrged, not onely (ex officio merclnario, but nobili): The honourablest Court of Starre-Chamber giues an oath in a Criminall case to the Defendant; So doth the Chancerie, & Court of Requests: Shortly to omit forraine examples how many instāces haue you of this like proceeding in the cōmon laws of this land? But withal you might learn that no Enquiry Ex officio may be thus made but vpō good grounds, as fame, scandal, vehement presumption, &c. going before, and giuing iust cause of suspition: Secondly,D. Andr. determ. de Iure iurando 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . that this proceeding is not allowed in any case of crime, whereby the life, or limmes of the examined partie, may be endangered: nor yet, where there is a iust suspition of future periury vpon such inforcement:Num. 5. 12. Thus is the suspected wife vrged to cleare her honesty by oath:Iosh. 7. 19. Thus the Master of the house must cleare his truth,1. Sam. 14 43. Exod. 22. 8. Thus Achan and Ionathan are vrged to bee their owne accusers,G. Iohns. & M. Crud. Trouble at Amsterd p. 132. though not by Oath: But if perhappes any sinister course be taken by any corrupt Iusticer in their proceedings: must this be imputed to the Church? Look you to your petty-Courts at home;Non potest quis in vna causa •• dem momento duas portare personas, vt in eodem iudicio & accusator sit & i • dex. Optat. Mileuit. l. 7. which some of your owne haue compared in these courses, not only to the Commission-Court of England, but to the Inquisition of Spaine: See there your Pastor defending himselfe to be both an accuser and Iudge in the same cause: See their proceedings Ex Officio without Commission: and if your prisons cannot witnes it, your excommunications may.

SECTION. XLI. Holy-daies how obserued in the Church of England.

WE haue not lost, but cast away the Idolatrous shrines of Saints:Sep. their daies wee retaine; theirs, Prosite of Pilgr • mages. Though you haue lost the shrines of saints, yet you reteine their daies and those holy as the Lords day, and that with good profit to your spirituall carnall Courts, from such as prophane them with the least & most lawfull labour, notwithstanding the libertie of the six daies labor, which the Lord hath giuē: & as much would the Masters of these Courts be stirred at the casting of these saints daies out of the Calender, as were the masters of the possessed maid, whē the spirit of diuinatiō was cast out of her, Act. 16. 19. not for worshippe of them, which our Church condemneth, but partly for commemoration of their high deserts, and excellent examples: partly for distinction: indeede therefore Gods daies, not theirs: their praises redound to him: shew vs where we implore them, where wee consecrate daies to their seruice: The maine end of Holy-daies is for the seruice of God,Socr. l. 5. c. 21. and some,Est. 9. 17. as Socrates sets downe of olde (quo se a laborum contentione relaxent) for relaxation from labor:Nehem. 12. 27. if such daies may be appointed by the Church (as were the Holy-daies of Purim, 1. Mac. 4 29. of the dedication of the wall of Ierusalem,Ioh. 10 23. the dedication of the Temple) whose names should they rather beare (though but for mere distinction) then the blessed Apostles of Christ:August. Ep. 44. But this is a color only:Sc • as a Christianis Catholicis n • llum col • mortuorum, nihil dem que vt numen adorari quod sit factum & conditum a Deo for you equally condemne those daies of Christs birth, Ascension, Circumcision, Resurrection, Annunciation, which the Church hath beyond all memory celebrated: what then is our fault? We keepe these holy as the Lords daie: in the same manner, though not in the same degree:Quae toto orbe terrarum, &c. sicuti quo que Do •• ini passio & resurrectio & in caelum ascensus & aduentus spiritus sancti an niuersaria solemnitate celebrantur. Aug. Ep. 118. Indeede, we come to the Church, and worshippe the God of the Martyrs and Saints: is this yet our offence? No: but wee abstayne from our most lawfull labor in them; True, yet not in conscience of the day, but in obedience to the Church: If the Church shall indict a solemne fast: do not you hold it contemptuous to spend that day in lawful labour; notwithstanding that liberty of the sixe daies which God hath giuen? Why shall that be lawfull in a case of deiection, which may not in praise and exultation? If you had not loued to cauil, you would rather haue accepted the Apologie, or excuse of our fister Churches in this behalfe,Churches of Fr. & Flanders in Harm. confes. Th. VVhites Discouer. p. 19. then aggrauated these vncharitable pleas of your owne: yet euen in this your owne Synagogue at Amsterdame (if we may beleeue your owne) is not altogether guiltlesse: your handes are still and your shoppes shut vpon festiuall daies; But we accuse you not: would God this were your worst: The Masters of our Courts would tell you, that they would not care so much for this dispossession, as that it should be done by such coniurers as your selfe.

SECTION. XLII. Our approbation of an vnlearned Ministery disproued.

YOur want of quarrels makes you still runne ouer the same complaints:Sep. which if you redouble a thousand times will not become iust,Constrained and approued ignorance. may become tedious: God knowes how farre we are from approuing an vnleared Ministery:If an ignorant and vnpreaching Ministery be approued amongst you, and the people constrained by all kinde of violence to submit vnto it, & therewith to rest (as what is more vsuall throughout the whole Kingdome) then let no modest man once open his mouth to deny that ignorance is constrained and approued amongst you. Confer. at Hampt. The protestations of our gratious King, our Bishoppes, our greatest Patrons of conformity in their publique writings, might make you ashamed of this bold assertion: we do not allow that it should be, we bewaile that it will be: our number of Parishes compared with our number of Diuines, will soone shew, that either many Parishes must haue none, or some Diuines must haue manie Congregations, or too many Congregations must haue scarce Diuine-incumbents: Our Dread Soueraigne hath promised a medicine for this disease: But withall tels you that Ierusalem was not built all on a day. The violence you speake of is commonly in case of wilful contempt, not of honest and peaceable desire of further instruction, or in supposall of some tolerable ability in the ministery forsaken: wee doe heartily pray for labourers into this haruest: we doe wish that all Israell could prophesie: we publish the Scriptures, we Preach, Catechize, Write, and (Lorde thou knowest) how manie of vs▪ would doe more, if we knew what more could be done, for the information of thy people,English seruice. and remedy of this ignorance which this aduersary reproues vs to approue.Sep.

We doubt not but the seruice said in our Parish-Churches,Vnknowne deuotion. is as good a seruice to God,If the seruice said or sung in the parish Church may be called deuotion, then sure there is good store of vnknowne deuotion, the greatest part in most parishes, neither knowing nor regarding what is said, nor wherfore. as the extemporarie deuotions in your Parlors: But it is an vnknowne deuotion, you say: Through whose fault? The Readers, or the Hearers, or the matter? Distinct reading you cannot denie to the most Parishes: the matter, is easie Praiers, and English Scriptures: if the hearers be regardlesse, or in some things dull of conceite, lay the fault from the seruice to the men: All yours are free from ignorance, free from wandering conceits: we annoy you not, some knowledge is no better then some ignorance, and carelesnesse is no worse then mis-regard.

SECTION. XLIIII. The practises of the Church of England, concerning the Funerals of the dead.

YOur next accusation is more ingeniously malicious;Sep. our Doctrine you graunt contrarie to Purgatorie:Touching Purgatory, though you deny the Doctrine of it and teach the contrary, yet how wel your practise sutes with it, let it be considered in these particulars. Your absoluing of men dying excommunicate after they bee dead, and before they may haue Christian buriall. but you will fetch it out of our practise, that we may build that which we destroy: Let vs therefore purge our selues from your Purgatorie: Wee absolue men dying Excommunicate; A rare practise, and which yet I haue not liued to see: but if Law-makers contemne rare occurrents, surely accusers do not: Once is too much of an euill: Marke then, Doe we absolue his Soule after the departure? No, what hath the body to doe with Purgatorie? Yet for the body: doe we by any absolution seeke to quit it from sinne? Nothing lesse, reason it selfe giues vs that it is vncapable either of sinne or pardon; To lye vnburied or to be buried vnseemely, is so much a punishment, that the Heathens obiected it (though vpon the hauocke and furie of Warre) to the Christians:Aug. de Ciuitat. l. 1. as an argument of Gods neglect. All that authoritie can do to the dead Rebell, is to put his carkasse to shame, and denie him the honour of seemely sepulture:Athenienses decreuerunt ne siquis Se intersecisset sepeliretur in agro Attico. &c. Thus doth the Church to those which will die in wilfull contempt. Those Grecian Virgines that feared not death, were yet restrained with the feare of shame after death: it was a reall not imaginarie curse of Iezabel. The dogges shall eate Iezabel. Now the absolution (as you call it, by an vnproper, but malicious name) is nothing else, but a libertie giuen by the Church (vpon repentance signified of the fault of the late offender) of all those externall rites of decent Funerall: Death it selfe is capable of inequalitie, and vnseemelinesse: Suppose a iust Excommunication: What reason is it, that he which in his life and death would be as a Pagan, should be as a Christian in his buriall?Sep. What is any, or all this to Purgatorie.

The next intimation of our Purgatorie,Your Christian Buriall in holy ground (if the party will bee at the charges;) your ringing of hallowed bels for the soule: your singing the Corpes to the graue from the Church style; your praying ouer or for the dead especially in these words, That God wold hasten his kingdome, that we with this our brother (though his life were neuer so wretched and death desperate) and all other departed in the true faith of thy holy name may haue our perfect consummation both in body and soule. is our Christian buriall, in the place, in the maner: The place Holy ground, the Church, Church-yard, &c. The manner Ringing, Singing, Praying ouer the Corps. Thus therefore you argue, we burie the body in the Church, or Church-yard, &c. therefore we hold a Purgatorie of the Soule; a proofe not lesse strange then the opinion: We doe neither scorne the carkasses of our friends, as the old Troglodites: nor with the olde Egyptians respect them more, then when they were informed with a liuing soule: But we keepe a meane course betwixt both, vsing them as the remainders of dead men, yet as dead Christians: and as those which we hope one day to see glorious:Sleeping-places Caemiteria. Wee haue learned to call no place holy in it selfe (since the Temple) but some more holy in their vse,Euseb. l. 7. c. 12. then others. 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 The old ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) of the Christians, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 wherein their bodies slept in peace, were not lesse esteemed of them, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 Splendid ssimae sepulturae tradidit. Eus. l. 7. c. 15 Curatio funeris, conditio sepulturae, pompa exequiarum, magis sunt viuorum solatia quam subsidia mortuorum. then they are scorned of you. Galienus thought he did them a great fauour (and so they tooke it) when he gaue them the liberty not only of their Churches, but of their former burying-places. In the same booke Eusebius commends Astyrius a noble Senatour for his care, and cost of Marinus his buriall. Of all these Rites of Funerall, and choice of place, we professe to hold with Augustine, that they are onely the comforts of the liuing,Aug. de Ciuit l. 1. c. 12. not helpes of the dead: yet as Origen also teacheth vs, we haue learned to honour a reasonable (much more a Christian) soule;Si enim paterna vestis & annulus anto char. est posteris, nullo modo ipsa spernenda sunt corpora. Aug de Ciuit. l. 1. c. 13. and to commit the instrument or case of it honourably to the graue. All this might haue taught our answerer, that wee make account of an heauen, of a resurrection; not of a Purgatory: But we ring hallowed belles for the soule: Do not those belles hange in hallowed Steeples too?Orig. contr. Cels. l. 8. and do we not ring them with hallowed ropes?Rationolem animam honorare didicimus, &c. What fancie is this? If Papists were so fond of olde: their folly and their belles (for the most part) are both out of date; we call them soule-bels, for that they signifie the departure of the soule, not for that they helpe the passage of the soule. This is mere boyes-play: But wee pray over, or for the dead; Doe wee not sing to him also? Pardon me, I must needs tell you, here is much spight, and little wit. To pray for the consummation of the glorie of all Gods elect: What is it, but Thy Kingdome come? How vainely doe you seeke a knot in a rush, while you cauil at so holy a petition? Goe and learne how much better it is, to call them our Brothers, which are not, in an harmelesse ouerweening, and ouer-hoping of charity: then to call them no brothers, which are in a proud and censorious vncharitablenesse: you cannot be content to tel an vntruth, but you must face it out: Let any Reader iudge how farre our practise in this, hath dissented from our doctrine; would to God in nothing more: Yes (saith this good friend) in the most other things; our wordes professe, our deeds denie: at once you make vs hypocrites, and your selues Pharises. Let all the world know, that the English Church at Amsterdam professeth nothing which it practiseth not: we may not be so holy, or so happy.

Generality is a notable shelter of vntruth:Sep. Manie moe,Your generall doctrines and your particular practises agree in this, as in the most other things, like Harpe and Harrow. In word you professe many truthes, which in deede you denie. These and many mo popish deuises (by others at large discouered to the world) both for pompe and profite, are not onely not rased and buried in the dust, but are aduanced amongst you, aboue all that is called God. you say, Popish deuises, yet name none, No, you cannot. Aduanced aboue al that is called God? surely this is a paradoxe of slaunders: you meant at once to shame vs with falshoode, and to appose vs with Riddles: we say to the highest, whom haue wee in heauen but thee? and for earth, your selfe haue granted we giue too much to Princes, (which are earthen Gods) and may come vnder Pauls ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ). Eyther name our Deity, or craue mercy for your wrong: certainely, though you haue not remorse, yet you shall haue shame.

SECTION. XLV. The Churches still retained in England.

THe Maiesty of the Romish Petty-gods (I truely told you) was long agone with Mythra and Serapis, Sep. exposed to the laughter of the vulgar:You are farre from doing to the Romish Idols, as was done to the Aegyptian Idols Mythra and Serapis, whole prie •• s were expelled their Ministery and Monuments exposed to vtter scorn and desolation, their Temples demolished and raced to the very foundation. you straine the comparison too farre; yet we follow you: Their Priests were expelled: for (as your Doctor yeeldeth) other Actors came vpon the same Stage: others in religion, else it had beene no change: Their Ministery and Monuments exposed to vtter scorne: Their Masses, their oblations, their adorations, their inuocations, their anoylings, their exorcizings, their shrift their absolutions, their Images, roode loftes, and whatsoeuer else of this kind: But the Temples of those olde Heathens were demolished and raced: Here is the quarrell: ours stand still in their proude Maiesty: Can you see no difference betwixt our Churches and their Temples?Socrat. Hist. The very name it selfe (if at least you haue vnderstood it) Kirke or Church (which is nothing but an abbreuiation of ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) the Lords house) might haue taught you,Eccles. l. 5. c. 16. 7. that ours were dedicated to God,Bed. h • st. Eccl. l. 1. Cit. Gregor. Ep. Aug suoc. 30. & Edilbe • toregi c. 32. Contra sibi &c. Sed & H • r • ticorū templa vastata a Constantino. Euseb. l. 3. c. 63. and theirs to the Diuel, in their false gods: Augustine answeres you, as directly, as if he were in my roome: The Gentiles (saith he) to their Gods erected Temples,Aug. de ciuit. l. 8 c. 27. we not Temples vnto our Martyrs,Hocker 5. b. c. 13 Id Aug. contr. Max • min. as vnto Gods, but memorials as vnto dead men, whose spirits with God are still liuing: These then if they were abused by Popish Idolatrie,Arian. is there no way,Nonne sitemplum &c. but downe with them, downe with them to the ground?Optat. Mileuit • n lib. 6. I. auistis proculdubi • pallas, Iudicate quid de codic • bus secistis: Aut vtr • m que lauate aut, &c. S • quod tangit aspectus lauandum est, vt parietes. &c. Videmus rectum, videmus & coelū &c. haec a vobis lauari non possunt. Well fare the Donatists yet, your olde friends; they but washed the walles that were polluted by the Orthodoxe. By the same token that Optatus askes them, why they did not wash the bookes, which ours touched, and the heauens which they look't vpon: What, are the very stones sinfull? what can be done with them? The very earth where they should lie on heapes would be vncleane: But not their pollution angers you more, then their proud Maiesty: What house can be too good for the maker of all Things? As God is not affected with state, so is he not delighted in basenesse. If the pompe of the Temple were ceremoniall, yet it leaues this morality behinde it, that Gods house should be decent, and what if goodly? If we did put holines in the stones, as you doe vncleanenesse, it might be sinne to be costly: Let mee tell you, there may bee as much pride in a clay wall as in a carued: Proude Maiestie is better then proud basenesse: The stone or clay will offend in neither,Athanas. Apol. Euseb. de vita Const. we may in both: If you loue Cottages, the auncient Christians with vs, loued to haue Gods house stately, as appeares by the example of that worthie Bishoppe of Alexandria, and that gratious Constantine, in whose daies these sacred piles began to lift vp their heads vnto this enuyed height:Otho Fri • ing. l. • . c. 3. Take you your owne choice, giue vs ours: let vs neither repine, nor scorne at each other.

SECTION. XLVI. The Founders and Furnitures of our Churches.

ALl this while I feared you had beene in Popish Idolatrie,Sep. now I finde you in Heathenish:

But your temples especially your Cathedrall and mother Churches stand still in their proude Maiestie possessed by Arch Bishops, and Lordbishops like the Flamins and Archssamins amongst the Gentiles, from whom they were deriued Lumb. lib. 4. d • st. 24. Isid. l. 7. E • imol. cap 12 and furnished with all manner of pompous and superstitious monuments, as • arued and paynted Images, massing Copes and surplices, chaunting and Organmusicke, and many other glorious ornaments of the Romish Harlot, by which her Maiesty is commended to, and admired by the vulgar, so farr are you in these respects for being gon, or fl • d, yea or crept either, out of Babylon.

Theuphilus Ep • s • . cum • aeteras s •• tuas deorum confi • ngeret, v • am integram seruari i •• sst. eam que in loco publico e • exit vt Gentiles tempore progrediente non inficiarentur se • umsm • di D • us col • sse. 〈◊〉 Grammat • us hac dere valded scruciatus Dixit grauem plagam religioni Gr • corum inct ••• m, quod illa vna statcia no • euerteretur. Socrat. l. 5. c. 16.

These our Churches are still possessed by their Flamins, and Arch-Flamins: I had thought none of our Temples had beene so auncient: Certainely I finde but one poore tuinous building, reported to haue worne out this long tyranny of time: For the most, you might haue read their age, and their Founders in open Records: But these were deriued from those: surely, the Churches as much as the men: It is true, the Flamins, and what euer other heathen Priests, were put down, Christian Bishoppes were set vp: Are these therfore deriued from those? Christianity came in the roome of Iudaisme, was it therefore deriued from it? Before you tolde vs, that our Prelacy came from that Antichrist of Rome, now from the Flamins of the Heathen: Both no lesse, then either: If you cannot bee true, yet learne to be constant. But what meane you to charge our Churches with carued and painted Images? It is wel you write to those that know them; Why did you not say wee bow our knees to them, and offer incense? perhaps you haue espied, some old dustie statue in an obscure corner, couer'd ouer with Cob-webs, with halfe a face, and that miserably blemished, or perhappes halfe a Crucifixe inuerted in a Church-window, and these you surely noted for English Idols: no lesse dangerous glasse you might haue seene at Geneua, a Church that hates Idolatrie, as much as you doe vs: What more? Massing copes and Surplices: some copes (if you will) more Surplices, no Massing: Search your Bookes againe; you shall finde Albes in the Masse, no Surplices: As for Organ-musicke, you should not haue fetch't it from Rome, but from Ierusalem: In the Reformed Church at Middleburgh,Sep. you might haue found this skirt of the Harlot:Now if you be thus▪ Babylonish where you repute your selues most Syonlike, and thus confounded in your owne euidence, what defence could you make in the things wherof an aduersary would challenge you: If your light be darkenesse, how great is your darknes? which yet you grant at least crept out of Babylon; Iudge now (Christian reader) of the weight of these grand exceptions: and see whether ten thousand such were able to make vs no Church, and argue vs not only in Babilon, but to be Babilon it selfe: Thus Babilonish we are to you, and thus Sion-like to God: euerie true Church is Gods Sion: euerie Church that holdes the foundation is true, according to that golden rule, Ephes. 2. 21. Euery building that is coupled together in this corner stone, groweth vnto an holy Temple in the Lord: No aduersarie either man or Diuell can confound vs, either in our euidences, or their owne Challenges: wee may be faulty, but we are true: And if the darknes you finde in vs be light, how great is our light?

SECTION. XLVII. On what ground separation or Ceremonies was obiected.

HE that leaues the whole Church in a grosse and wilfull error,Sep. is an hereticke; he that leaues a particular Church for appendances is a schismaticke:

But for that not the separation but the cause makes the schismaticke; and least you should seeme to speak euill of the thing you know not, and to condemne a cause vnheard, you lay downe in the next place the supposed cause of our separation, against which you deale as insufficiently. And that you pretend to bee, none other then your consorting with the Papist in certaine Ceremonies: touching which and our separation in regard of them thus you write.

M. H. If you haue taken but the least knowledge of the grounds of our iudgement and practise, how dare you thus abuse both vs and the reader, as if the onely or chiefe groūd of our separatiō were your popish ceremonies▪ but if you go only by guesse hauing neuer so much as read ouer one treatise published in our defēce, & yet stick not to passe this your censorious doom both vpon vs & it; I leaue it to the reader to iudge whether you haue beene more lauish of your censure or credit. Most vniust is the censure of a cause vnknowne, though in it selfe neuer so blame-worthy, which neuerthelesse may be prais-worthy, for ought he knowes that censures it.

such are you, both in the action, and cause: The act is yeelded, the cause hath beene in part scanned, shall be more: This I vainely pretended, to be our consorting in ceremonies with the papists: Behold here the groūd of your loude challenge of my ignorance: Ignorance of your iudgement and practise: Here is my abuse of you, of my Reader: and, how durst I? Good words (M. R.) What I haue erred, I will confesse: I haue wronged you indeed: but in my charity: I knew the cause of Brownisme, but I knew not you: For (to say ingenuously) I had heard and hoped, that your case had beene lesse desperate; My intelligence was, that in dislike of these ceremonies obtruded, and an hopelesnes of future libertie, you and your fellowes had made a secession, rather then a separation from our Church; to a place, where you might haue scope to professe, and opportunity to inioy your owne conceites: whence it was, that I tearmed you Ringleaders of the late separation, not followers of the first, and made your plea against our Church, imperfection, not falshood: I hoped you, as not ours, so not theirs: not ours in place, so not quite theirs in pieuish opinion: I knew it to be no new thing for men inclining to these fancies, to beginne new Churches at Amsterdam, seuerall from the rest: witnesse the letters of some (sometimes yours) cited by your owne pastor:Inq into M. VVhite. I knew the former separation, and hated it; I hoped better of the latter separation and pittyed it: My knowledge both ofVVhich vpon the Lords prayer hath confuted some positions of that sect. Master Smith whome you followed, and your selfe, would not let mee thinke of you, as you deserued: How durst I charge you with that, which perhaps you might disauow? It was my charity therefore, that made my accusations easie: it is your vncharitablenes that accuses them of ignorance. I knew why a Brownist is a true schismaticke; I knew not you were so true a Brownist. But why then did I write? Taking your seperation at best: I knew how iustly I might take occasion by it to disswade from seperation: to others good, though not to yours: Now I know you better, or worse rather, I thinke you heare more: Forgiue me my charity, and make the worst of my ignorance. I knew that this separation (which now I know yours) stands vpon foure grounds: as some beast vpon foure feete. First, God worshipped after a false manner, Secondly, Prophane multitude receiued,Bar. &. Grecu • , passim. Pen • . Exam. Thirdly, Antichristian Ministery imposed, Fourthly, subiection to Antichristian Gouernement: The ceremonies are but as some one paw in euery foote: yet if wee extend the word to the largest vse, diuiding all Religion into ceremonie, and substance: I may yet, and do auerre, that your separation is meerely grounded vppon Ceremonies.

SECTION. XLVIII. Estimation of Ceremonies, and subiection to the Prelates.

AND touching ceremonies; you refused them formerly, but not long: and when you did refuse them, you knew not wherefore; for immediately before your suspension,Sep. you acknowledged them to be things indifferent,And touching the ceremonies here spoken of, howsoeuer we haue formerly refused them, submitting (as all others did and d • e) to the Prelates spirituall Iurisdiction, (herein through ignorance strayning at Gnats and swallowing Camels) yet are we verily perswaded of them, and so were before we separated, that they are but as leaues of that tree, and as badges of that man of sinne, whereof the Pope is head, and the prelates shoulders. And so we for our parts see no reason why any of the Bishops sworne seruants (as all the Ministers in the Church of England are Canonically) should make nice to weare their Lords liueryes. Which ceremonies notwithstanding wee know wel enough, howsoeuer you for aduantage extenuate, and debase them vnto vs, to be aduanced, and preferred in your Church, before the preaching of the Gospell. and for matter of scandall by them you had not informed your selfe (by your own confession) of a whole quarter of a yeare after: Why refused you then, but as the Poet made his playes, to please the people, or as Simon Magus was baptized for company? But refusing them, you submitted to the Prelates spirituall Iurisdiction: there was your crime; this was your Camell, the other your Gnats: Did euer any Prelate challenge spirituall rule ouer your conscience?

This they all appropriate to the great Bishoppe of our soules: and if other; graunt them as your malice faineth: what sinne is it to be the subiect of a Tyrant? now vpon more grace, refusing the Prelacy, you haue branded the ceremonies: So you did before your separation: Tell vs how long was it after your suspension, and before your departure, that you could haue beene content (vpon condition) to haue worne this linnen badge of your man of sinne? Was not this your resolution, when you went from Norwich to Lincoln-shire, after your suspension? Denie it not; my witnesses are too strong. But let vs take you as you are: these ceremonies, though too vile for you, yet are good enough for our Ministers of England: As if you said, Lord, I thanke thee, I am not as this Publican: Why, for our Ministers? Because, those are the Liueries, and these the sworne seruants of the Antichristian Bishoppes: We haue indeede sworne obedience to our Ordinarie, in honest and lawfull commaundements, but seruice to Christ: But dooth all obedience imply seruitude? This obedience is, as to spirituall Fathers, not to Masters: yet so are wee the seruants of Christ,1. Cor. 4. 1. Hierom. in Ps. 44. that we are ready to giue our seruice to the least of his Saints: Thus vile will wee be for God:Heming. Class. 3 Potest. Eccles. c. 10. How much more to those whom God hath made (as Hierom saies) Principes Ecclesiae: whiles they command for God:Vtcui que suus clerus & sua plebs in his quae Domini sunt, piè obsequerentur. Ignat. Epi. ad Tarsens. What doe we herein, but that which Epiphanius vrged of olde against Aerius; What but the same which Ignatius (that holy and old Martyr) requires (not once) of all Presbyters, and offers the ingagement of his owne soule for vs in this acte.

As for our ceremonies,Sep. aggrauate them how you can for your aduantage,It is much that they being not so much as Reede nor any part of the building (as you pretend) should ouerturne the best builders amongst you as they doe. they are but ceremonies to vs: and such, as wherein we put no holinesse, but order, decency, conuenience: But they are preferred (you say) in our Church, before the preaching of the Gospell: A most wrongfull vntruth; VVee holde preaching an essentiall part of Gods seruice, ceremonies none at all: The Gospell preached we holde the life and soule of the Church, Ceremonies eyther the Garment, or the lace of the Garment: The Gospell preached we hold the Foundation and VVals, Ceremonies hardly so much as Reede, or Tile: But how then (say you) haue they ouerturned our best builders? This is a word of rare fauor: I had thought you had held vs all ruiners, not builders: Or if builders; of Babel, not of Hierusalem: in which worke, the best builders are the worst. Those whose hand hath beene in this act would tel you, that not so much the Ceremonies are stood vpon, as obedience: If God please to trie Adam but with an Apple, it is enough: VVhat doe we quarrel at the value of the fruit, when we haue a prohibition? Shimei is slaine: what merely for going out of the Citie? the act was little, the bond was great: what is commaunded matters not so much, as by whom; insult not, wee may thanke your outrage for this losse.

For your retortion of my Zoar and Sodome:Sep. I can giue you leaue to be wittie,The proportion betwixt Zoar & them holdes well: Zoar was a neighbour vnto Sodome both in place and sinne, and obnoxious to the same destruction with it: and it was • ots errour to desire to haue it spared, Gen. 19. 15, 18, 19, 20 and so he neuer found rest nor peace in it, but forsooke it for feare of the same iust iudgement, which had ouertaken the rest of the Cities, vers. 30. The application of this to your ceremonies I leaue to your selfe, and them to that destruction, to which they are deuoted by the Lord. you vse it so seldome: but when you haue played with the allusion what you list, I must tell you that hee which will needes vrge a Comparison to goe on foure feete, is not worthy to goe vpon two: Zoar was neere to Sodome, not part of it: Zoar was reserued when Sodome was destroyed:Fidem Domino habere debuerat quise cam seruaturum propter cumdixerat. Mercer. in Genes. Zoars neerenesse to the place where Sodome stood, needed not haue giuen Lot cause of remoueall. Zoar might safely haue beene the harbour of Lot: his feare was for want of faith: God promised him and the place security: the far-fetcht application therfore of the wickednesse of Zoar to our Ceremonies might wel haue been forborne and kept to your selfe: much lesse needed you (like some Anti-Lot) to call for fire and Brimstone from heauen vpon your Zoar.

SECTION. XLIX. The state of the Temple, and of our Church in resemblance.

HOw you would haue behaued your selfe in the Temple to the mony-changers:Sep. you will aunswer when we proue our Church to be Gods Temple, How we wold haue behaued our selues in the Temple, where the mony-changers were, and they that solde Doues, we shal answere you, when you proue your Church to be the Temple of God, compiled and built of spiritually-hewen and liuely stones 1. Kin. 5. 17. 18 & 6. 7. 1. pet: 2. 5. and of the Cedars, Firs, and Thyne trees of Lebanon. 2. Chr. 2. 8. framed and set together in that comely order which a greater then Salomon hath prescri • ed: vnto which God hath promised his presence. But whilst we take it to be (as it is) a confused heape of dead and defiled, and polluted stones, and of all rubbish, of Bryers and brambles of the wildernesse, for the most part, fitter for burning then building, we take our selues rather bound to shew our obedience in departing from it, then our valour in purging it, and to follow the prophets councel in flying out of Babylon, as the hee goats before the flock, Ie • . 50. 8 built of that matter, and in that form which God hath prescribed: and here you send vs to 1. K. 5. 17. & 2. Chr. 2. 8. Ignorantly; as if Salomons Temple had stood till Christs time: when neither the first, nor second (though called Beth Gnolam) out lasted more then foure hundred yeares: Or as if the Market had beene vnder the very roofe of that Temple: whether Herods were built of the same matter with Salomons, and in full corespondence to it, I dispute not: it was certainely dedicated to Gods seruice, and that (which you would hardly digest) in a solemne anniuersary holy-day; though not erected vpon the word of any Prophet. But to let passe Allegories: we must proue our selues the true Church of God: Thus we doe it: VVe are true Christians, for we were baptized into the name of Christ; we truely professe our continuance in the same faith, into which we were baptized: we ioyne together in the publique seruices of God: we maintain euery point of the most ancient Creeds: wee ouerthrowe not the foundation by any consequence, therefore what euer is wanting to vs, what euer is superfluous, in spight of all the gates of Hell, we are the true Church of God. Let me aske you: Were not the people of the Iewes in the Prophets and in Christs time a confused heape of dead and defiled, and (for I will vse your Tautologies) polluted stones, and of all rubbish, of Bryers and brambles of the VVildernesse, for the most part fitter for burning then building? Can we be worse then they? If wickednesse can defile a Church, they shal iustifie vs: did either those Prophets or our Sauiour, rather shewe their obedience to God in departing from it, then their valour in purging it: you haue well imitated these heauenly patternes, But what? Can your charity finde nothing but rubbish? Not one square stone, not one liuing? You will bee iudging till God iudge you: if you take not heede of these courses, you will so runn with the Hee goates, that you wil stand with the Goates on the left hand: That God, whose place you haue vsurped, giue you more wisedome and loue.

SECTION. L. Whether Ministers should endure themselues silenced.

THe valour of our most zealous Reformers hath truely shewed it selfe in yeeldance: As in Duels, so here, he is the most valiant that can so master himselfe as not to fight: you according to the common opinion of Swaggerers,Sep. blame the peaceable of cowardise, And what I pray you is the valour which the best hearted and most zealous Reformers amongst you, haue manifested in driuing out the Mony-changers? doth it not appeare in this, that they suffer▪ themselues to be driuen out with the two stringed Whippe of. Ceremonies, and subscription, by the Mony-changers, the Chancellers and Officials, which sell. sinnes like Doues; and by the chiefe priests the Bishoppes which set them on worke? so farre are the most zealous amongst you from driuing out the Mony-changers, as they themselues are driuen out by them, because they will not change with them to the vtmost farthing. Bar. Refor, without Tar. and accuse them of suffering. Behold a newe crime: That they suffer themselues to be driuen out: VVhat should they haue done? Should they haue taken armes, and crie the sword of God, and Gedion? You that wil not allow a Prince to compell subiects, VVill you allow subiects to compell Princes? God forbidde: This were high Treason against Gods annointed: what then? Should they approue the Ceremonies by subscription, by practise? This you exclaime vppon as high Treason against the highest: VVhat yet more? Should they haue preached with their mouthes stop't? This is it, which you haue learned of your founder, and through not many handes receiued, and required with no lesse violence: Clamour and tumult is that you desire; still let our sinne be peaceable obedience, yours fury and opposition Your headstrong conceit is, that it is a sinne to be silenced: Men must preach euen when they may not: all times, before you, would haue wondred at this Paradoxe: For how euer the Apostles, which had not their calling from men, would not be silenced by men, yet wee finde that all their successours held that those hands which were layd vpon their heads, might be laid vpon their mouthes: looke into all Histories: Those Constitutions (which though not Apostolike (yet were auncient) in the seuenth Canon punish a Bishop or Presbiter, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 . that vpon pretence of Religion separates from his wife, with deposition: and if any Presbiter shall shift his charge without licence ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ) and lastly inflicts the same penalty vpon fornication,VVee charge him not to serue any more. So Can. 15. Can. 25. Cum compertū fuerit deponatur. Can. 10. De Clericatus honore periclitabitur. Can. 2. E clero deponatur & sit alienus a Canone. Can. 17. et Can. 18. A ministerio cessare debuerit Concil. Sardic. c. 4. Cōcil. Carth. 4. c. 48. & 56. 57. Leo. Ep. 1. Sect. 5. Cypr. l. 3. Ep. 9. S • cr. l. 2. c. 21. adulterie, periury.

The great Nicene Councels take the same order with some misliked Bishops, and Presbiters in diuers Canons: Gaudentius in the Councell of Sardi, takes it for graunted, that a Bishop may by Bishops be deposed: so the second Councell of Carthage, Can. 13. so the fourth Councell of Carthage more then once imposes degradation: so Leo the first threats to put some offending persons from the office of their Ministrie: so (that I may not be endlesse) blessed Cyprian aduises Rogatianus a good olde Bishop, which was abused by a malapert Deacon, by the authority of his Chaire to right himselfe, and either to depose, or suspend the offender. Leontius in Socrates, is depriued of his Priesthood: yea, what Councell or Father giues not both rules and instances, of this practise? See how farre the auncient Church was from these tumultuous fancies: No, no, (M. R.) we well finde, it is doing that vndoes the Church, not suffering: If your fellowes could haue suffered more, and done lesse, the Church had bin happy: As for our Church officers, you may raile vpon them with a lawlesse safety: there is a great ditch betwixt you and them: else you might pay deare for this sinne of slandering them with their cheape peny-worths: How idly doe you insult ouer those, whom your Mony-changers haue driuen out of their Pulpits: When you confesse (after all your valour) that they haue driuen you both out of Church and Country: who can pitty a miserable insulter?

SECTION. LI. Power of reforming abuses giuen to the Church: and the issue of the neglect of it.

YOu that can graunt there will be corruptions in all other Churches, will endure none in ours: If England should haue either vnleauened Wafers, or drunken Loue-feasts (though no other blemishes) she could not but be Babilon: Wee enuie not your fauours: These, or whatsoeuer like enormities, Christ hath giuen power vnto his Church to reforme: but what if the Church neglect to vse it? What if those euils, which are brought in, by humane frailty, will not by diuine authority be purged out? Now the errour (by your doctrine) is growne fundamentall; so Christ is lost,Bar▪ ag. Gyff p. 27. & 88. and the foundation raced: if wee shall then assume (against our friends, to conuince our enemies) The Church of Geneua hath been seriously dealt with,Sep. in this corruption, and disswaded by vehement importunity,For the Wafers in Geneua, and disorders in Corinth, they were corruptions which may and doe (or the like vnto them) creep into the purest Churches in the world: for the reformation wherof Christ hath giuen his power vnto his Church, that such euils as are brought in by humane frailty, may by diuine authority bee purged out. yet still persisteth: How can you free them, and charge vs? see how we loue to be miserable, with cōpany. This power to purge out all corruptions, Christ hath not giuen vs: if he hath giuē it you; you must first begin to purge out your selues: you haue done it; but still there remaine some: would God wee had as much execution as power: Our Church should be as cleane as yours is schismaticall: if you should measure faculties by their exercise: Naturall rest should be the greatest enemie to vertue: and the solitarie Christian should be miserable: This power of ours is not dead, but sleepeth: When it awaketh vnto more frequent vse, (which we earnestly pray for) looke you for the first handsell of it: None can be more worthy: as it is; we offend not more in defect then you in excesse: Of whom that your Lazarello of Amsterdam G. I. could say, that you haue excommunications as ready as a Prelate hath a prison: Christ is in many that feele him not; but wee want not the power onely,This power and presence of Christ you want, holding all by homage (or rather by vilenage) vnder the Prelates, vnto whose sinfull yoake you stoup in more then Babylonish bondage, bearing and approuing by personall communion, infinite abhominations. Troubl. & Excom. at Amsterd. An tu solus Ecclesia es? Et qui te offenderit a Christo excluditur. Hieron. Eriphan. Cypr. Solus in caelum ascend. Pupianus? Et ad Acesium Nouatianum Constant. Erigito tibi scalam Acesi, & ad caelum solus ascendito. Socr. l. 1. C. 7. but the presence of Christ: How so? He was with vs while you were here: Did he depart with you? will the separatists engrosse our Sauiour to themselues, and (as Cyprian said of Pupianus) goe to heauen alone? yea, confine the God of heauen to Amsterdam? What insolence in this? we haue him in his Word: wee haue him in his Sacraments: we haue him in our hearts: we haue him in our profession, yet this enemie dare say we want him: Wherein? I suppose in our censures: VVe haue Peters keyes (as his true successours both in office, and doctrine):Bar. Gyff. ref. So some of their owne haue termed their excommunication. Confess. by M. Iohns. Inqu. p. 65 our fault is; that we vse them not, as you would: VVhat Church doth so? your first Martyr doth as zealously inueigh against the practise of Geneua, and all other reformed Congregations in this point, as against vs: both for the wooden dagger (as he termes it) of suspension, and for their Consistoriall excommunications: VVoe were to all the world, if Christ should limit his presence onely to your fashions: Heere you found him, and heere you left him: VVould to God wee did no more grieue him with our sinnes, then you please him in your presumptuous censures: in the rest you raile against our Prelates and vs: Can any man think that Christ hath left peaceable spirits, to goe dwell with railers? Indeed, yours is free-hold: so you wold haue it: free from subiection, free from obedience: This is loosenesse, more then liberty: You haue broken the bonds, and cast the cordes from you: but you miscall our Tenure: VVe hate villenage no lesse then you hate peace; and hold (in capite) of him,Col. 1. 18. that is the head of his body, the Church: vnder whose easie yoake wee doe willingly stoope in a sweet Christian freedome;Sep. abhorring, And in these two last respects principally, your Babylonish confusion of all sorts of people in the body of your Church, without separation, and your Babylonish bondage vnder your spirituall Lords the Prelates, we account you Babylon, and flie from you. and reprouing (and therefore notwithstanding our personall communion auoiding) all abhominations: In these two respects therefore of our confusion, and bondage, wee haue well seene in this discourse, how iustly your Sion accounts vs Babylon: since it is apparent for the one, that here is neither confusion, nor Babylonish, nor without separation: For the other, no bondage, no seruility: Our Prelats being our Fathers, not our Masters: and if Lords for their external dignity,Amari Parens & Episcopus debet, non timeri. Hier. ad Theophilum. yet not Lords of our Faith: and if both these your respects were so, yet so long as we doe inviolably hold the foundation, both directly, and by necessary sequell: any railer may terme vs, but no Seperatist shall proue vs Babylon: you may flye whether you list: would God yet further, vnlesse you had more loue.

SECTION. LII. The view of the sinnes and disorders of others, whereupon obiected: and how farre it should affect vs.

I Neede no better Analyser then your selfe, saue that you doe not onely resolue my parts,Sep. but adde more:M. H hauing formerly expostulated with vs our supposed impietie in forsaking a ceremonious Babylon in England, proceeds in the next place to lay downe our madnesse in chusing a substantiall Babylon in Amsterdam: and if it be so found by due trial, as he suggesteth, it is hard to say, whether our impiety or madnes be the greater. whereas euery motion hath a double terme: from whence, and whither: both these could not but fall into our discourse; hauing therefore formerly expostulated with you for your (since you will so terme it) impiety, in forsaking a ceremonious Babylon of your owne making in England: I thought it not vnfit to compare your choice with your refusall: England with Amsterdam, which it pleaseth you to intitle a substantiall Babylon: impiety and madnes are titles of your owne choice, let your guiltinesse be your owne accuser: The truth is, my charity and your vncharitablenes haue caused vs to mistake each other: my charity thus: Hearing both at Middleburgh, and here, that certaine companies from the parts of Nottingham and Lincolne (whose Harbinger had beene newly in Zeland before me) meant to retyre themselues to Amsterdam, for their full libertie, not for the full approbation of your Church: not fauouring your maine opinions, but emulating your freedome in too much hate of our ceremonies, and too much accordance to some grounds of your hatred: I hoped you had beene one of their guides; both because Lincoln-shire was your Country, and Master Smith your Oracle, and Generall: Not daring therefore to charge you with perfect Brownisme, what could I thinke might bee a greater motiue to this your supposed change, then the view of our (so oft proclaimed) wickednesse, and the hope of lesse cause of offence in those forraine parts: this I vrged, fearing to goe deeper then I might bee sure to warrant: Now comes my charitable answerer, and imputes this easines of my challenge, to my ignorance; and therefore will needes perswade his Christian reader, that I knew nothing of the first separation, because I obiected so little to the second.

It were strange if I should thinke,Sep. you gather Churches there by Town-rowes (as we in England) who know that some one prison might hold all your refined flocke:

Belike M. H. thinkes we gather churches here by towne-rowes, as they doe in England, and that all within the parish procession are of the same Church. Wherefore else tels hee vs of Iewes, Arrians, and Anabaptists, with whom we haue nothing common but the streetes and market-place? It i • the condition of the Church to liue in the world, and to haue ciuill society with the men of this world, 1. Cor. 5. 10. Ioh. 17. 13.

But what is this to that spirituall communion of the saints, in the fellowshippe of the Gospell, wherin they are separated, and sanctified from the world vnto the Lord? Ioh▪ 17. 16. 1. Cor. 1. 2. Cor. 6. 17. 18.

you gathered here by Hedge-rowes; but there it is easier to tell how you diuide, then how you gather: let your Church be an intire body, inioying her owne spirituall communion, yet if it be not a corrasiue to your heart to conuerse in the same streetes, and to be ranged in the same Towne-rowes with Iewes, Arians, Anabaptists, &c. you are no whit of kinne to him, that vexed his righteous soule with the vncleanenesses of foule Sodom. That good man had nothing but ciuill society with those impure neighbours: he differed from them in Religion, in practise, yet could hee not so carelesly turne off this torment: His house was Gods Church; wherein they had the spirituall communion of the Saints: yet whiles the Citie was so vncleane, his heart was vnquiet:Separation from the world, how required. We may (you graunt) haue ciuill society with ill men, spirituall communion onely with Saints: Those must be accounted the world, these onely the Church: your owne allegations shall condemne you.Ioh. 17. 16. They are not of the world (saith Christ) as I am not of the world: Both Christ, and they were partes of the Iewish Church: The Iewish Church was not so sanctified, but the most were extreamely▪ vncleane: therefore wee may bee partes of a visible vnsanctified Church; and yet be separate from the world. Saint Paul writes to his Corinthians, sanctified in Christ,1. Cor. 1. 2. 1. Cor. 3. 3. Saints by calling: True, but not long after, he can say, ye are yet carnall. In his second Epistle: Come out (saith he) from among them: But, from whom? From Infidels by profession, not corrupted Christians.

SECTION. LIII. The nearenesse of the State and Church, and the great errours found by the Separatists in the French and Dutch Churches.

THE Church and State,Sep. if they be two,We indeed haue much wickednes in the Citie where we liue; you in the Church. • ut in earnest, doe you imagine we account the Kingdome of England Babylon, or the citie of Amsterdam Syon▪ It is the Church of England, or state Ecclesiasticall, which we account Babylon, and from which we withdraw in spirituall communion: • ut for the common-wealth and Kingdome, as we honor it aboue all the states in the world, so wold we thankfully embrace the meanest corner in it, at the extreamest conditions of any people in the Kingdome▪ yet they are twins, and that so, as eithers euill proues mutuall: The sinnes of the Citie not reformed, blemish the Church; where the Church hath power and in a sort comprehends the State, she cannot wash her hands of tollerated disorders in the Cōmon-wealth: hence is my comparison of the Church (if you could haue seene it, not the Kingdome) of England, with that of Amsterdam: I doubt not, but you could be content to sing the old song of vs, Bona terra, mala gens: Our land you could like well, if you might be Lordes alone, Thankes be to God it likes not you, and iustly thinkes the meanest corner too good for so mutinous a generation: when it is weary of peace it will recall you: you that neither in prison, nor on the Seas, nor in the Coasts of Virginea, nor in your way, nor in Netherland could liue in peace, What shall we hope of your ease at home? Where ye are, all you thankful Tenants cannot in a powerful Christian state moue God to distinguish betwixt the knowen sinnes of the Citie, and the Church: How oft hath our gratious Soueraigne, and how importunately beene solicited for a tolleration of Religions? It is pittie that the Papists hyred not your aduocation: who in this pointe are those true Cassanders, which reuerend Caluin long since confuted: Their wishes herein are yours:Cassand. de Offic boni viri. Bellar. de Laicis To our shame and their excuse: his Christian heart held that tolleration vnchristian and intollerable, which you either neglect or magnifie: Good Constantine wink't at it in his beginning, Euseb. in vita Const. but as Dauid at the house of Zeruiah: Succeeding times found these Canaanites to be prickes and thornes, and therefore both by mulctes and banishments sought eyther their yeeldance or voydance. If your Magistrates hauing once given their names to the Church, indevour not to purge this Augean stable; how can you preferre their Communion to ours?

But howsoeuer now, least we should thinke your Land-lords haue too iust cause to pack you away for wranglers, you turne ouer all the blame from the Church to the City; yet your Pastor and Church haue so found the Citie in the Church, and branded it with so blacke markes, as that all your smooth extenuations cannot make it a lesse Babylon then the Church of England: Beholde now by your owne Confessions either Amsterdam shall be, or England shall not be Babylon: These eleuen crimes you haue found and proclaimed in those Dutch and French Churches:Fr. Iohns. Articles ag. the Fr • and Dutch Churches. First, That the assembles are so contriued that the whole Church comes not together in one: So that the Ministers cannot together with the flock sanctifie the Lords day; The presence of the members of the Church cannot be knowne, and finally no publique action, whether excommunication, or any other can rightly be performed. Could you say worse of vs? Where neither Sabboth can be rightly sanctified; nor presence or absence knowne, nor any holy action rightly performed, what can there be but mere confusion?

Secondly, That they baptise the seede of them who are no members of any visible Church; of whom moreouer they haue not care as of members, neither admit their parents to the Lordes Supper: Mere Babylonisme, and sinne in constitution, yea the same that makes vs no Church: for what separation can there be in such admittance? what other but a sinfull commixture? How is the Church of Amsterdam now gathered from the world?

Thirdly, That in the publique worshippe of God they haue deuised, and vsed another forme of prayer, besides that which Christ our Lord hath prescribed, Mat. 6. reading out of a booke certain prayers inuented and imposed by man. Beholde here our fellow Idolaters: and (as followes) a daily Sacrifice of a set Seruice-booke, which in stead of the sweete incense of spirituall prayers is offered to God, very Swines-flesh, Bar. ag. Gyss. a new Por • uise, and an equal participation with vs of the curse of addition to the word.

Fourthly, That rule and commandement of Christ, Matth. 18. 15. they neither obserue, nor suffer rightly to be obserued among them. How oft haue you said that there can bee no sound Church without this course, because no separation? Beholde the maine blemish of England in the face of Amsterdam!

Fiftly, That they worship God in the Idoll Temples of Antichrist: so the Wine is mar'd with the vessell, their seruice abhomination with ours: neyther doe these Antichristian stones want all glorious ornaments of the Romish harlot, yet more.

Sixtly, That their Ministers haue their set maintenance after another manner then Christ hath ordained, 1. Chr. 14. and that also such, as by which any Ministery at all, whether Popish or other might bee maintained: Either tithes, or as ill: Beholde one of the maine Arguments wherby our Ministery is condemned as false and Antichristian, falling heauie vppon our neighbours.

Seuenthly, That their Elders change yearely, and do not continue in their office, according to the doctrine of the Apostles and practise of the Primitiue Church: What can our Church haue worse then false Gouernours? Both annuall and perpetual they cannot be: VVhat is (if not this) a wrong in Constitution?

Eightly, that they celebrate mariage in the Church, as if it were a part of the Ecclesiasticall administration: a foule shame and sinne: and what better then our third Sacrament?

Ninthly, That they vse a new censure of suspension which Christ hath not appointed: no lesse then English presumption.

Tenthly, That they obserue daies and times, consecrating certaine daies in the yeare to the Natiuity, Resurrection, Ascension of Christ: Beholde their Calender as truely possessed: Two Commaundements solemnely broken at once; and we not Idolaters alone.

Eleuenth, which is last and worst, that they receiue vnrepentant excommunicates to bee members of their Church, which by this meanes becomes one one body with such as be deliuered vnto Sathan; therefore none of Christs bodie:Counrtepoys. England can be but a miscelline rabble of prophane men; The Dutch and French Churches are belike no better, who can be worse then an vnrepentant excommunicate? Goe now and say, It is the Apostasie of Antichrist to haue communion with the world in the holy things of God, which are the peculiars of the Church, and cannot without great Sacriledge be so prostituted and prophaned; Goe say, that the plaguy-spirituall-leprosie of sinne rising vp in the foreheads of many in that Church, vnshut vp, vncouered (yea wilfully let loose) infects all both persons and things amongst them: Goe now and flie out of this Babylon also, as the Hee-goates before the flocke, or returne to ours: But howeuer these errours bee grosse, perhappes they are tractable; Not the sinne vndoes the Church, but obstinacy; here is no euasion: For behold, you do no more accuse those Churches of corruption, then of wilfulnesse: for diuers times haue you dealt with them about these fearefull enormities: yea you haue often de • ired, that knowledge thereof might be by themselues giuen to the whole body of their Church, or that (at least) they would take order that it might be done by you: They haue refused both; What remaines, but they be our fellow-Heathens and Publicanes? And not they alone, but all reformed Churches besides in Christendome, which doe ioyntly partake in all these (except one or two personall) abhominations: will you neuer leaue til you haue wrangled your selues out of the world?

But now I feare I haue drawne you to say, that the hellish impieties both in the Citie,Sep. and Church of Amsterdam are but frogges,The hellish impieties in the citie of Amsterdam doe no more preiudice our heauenly communion in the Church of Christ, then the frogs, lyce, flyes, moraine, and other plagues ouerspreading Egypt, did the Israelites when Goshen the portion of their inheritance was free Exod 8. 19. nor then the deluge, wherewith the whole world was couered did Noah, when he and his family were safe in the Arke, Gen. 7. nor then sathans throne did the Church of Pergamus being established in the same citie with it, Re • . 2. 12, 13. lyce, flies, moraine and other Egiptian plagues, not preiudicing your Goshen: Say so if you dare; I feare they would soone make the Ocean your redde Sea, and Virginia your Wildernesse.

The Church is Noahs Arke, which gaue safetie to her Guests, whereof ye are part; but remember that it had vncleane beasts also, and some sauage: If the waues drowne you not, yet (me thinkes) you should complaine of noysome society: Sathans throne could not preiudice the Church of Pergamus, but did not the Balaamites (the Nicolaitanes?) Yet their heauenly communion stood, and the Angell is sent away with but threates.

SECTION. LV. The impure mixtures of the Church of England.

AS there is no element which is not through many mixtures departed from the first simplicitie:Sep. So no Church euer breathed in so pure an Ayre,The ayre of the Gospell which you draw in is nothing so free and cleare as you make shevv: it is only because you are vsed to it, that makes you so iudge. as that it might not iustly complaine of some thicke and vnwholsome euaporations of errour and sinne. If you challenge an immunity, you are herein the true broode of the auncient Puritanes: But if too many sinnes in practise haue thickened the Ayre of our Church, yet not one heresie: that smoake of the bottomlesse pit hath neuer corrupted it: and therefore iustly may I auerre, that here you might drawe in the cleare Ayre of the Gospell: No wherevpon earth more freely: And if this be but the opinion of custome, you whom absence hath helped with a more nice and dainty sent, speake your worst: Shew vs our heresies, and shame vs: you haue done it, and behold foure maine infections of our English ayre: The first,1. Canons. the smoake of our Canons: Wittily: I feare the great Ordinances of the Church,Sep. haue troubled you more with the blow,The thicke smoake of your Canons, especially of such as are planted against the Kingdome of Christ the visible Church, and the administration of it, do both obscure and poyson the ayre, which you all draw in, and wherein you breath. then the smoake: For you tell vs of their Plantation against the Kingdome of Christ: What Kingdome? The Visible Church: Which is that? Not the Reformedst peece of ours, whole best are but Goats and Swine: Not the close Nicodemians of your owne Sect amongst vs, which would be loath to be visible: Not forrainers, to them they extend not: None therefore in all the world, but the English Parlour-full at Amsterdam: Can there be any truer Donatisme? Crie you still out of their poysoning the Ayre: We hold it the best clensed by the batteries of your idle fancies, by ridding you from our Ayre, and by making this your Church inuisible to vs; smart you thus, till we complaine.

The second is the plague or Leprosie of sinne vnshut vp and vncouered:2. Sinne vncensured. Wee knowe that sinne is as ill,Sep. as the Diuill can make it,The plaguy-spirituall-leprosie of sinne rising vp in the foreheads of so many thousands in the Church, vnshut vp, vncouered, infects all both persons and things amongst you. Leu. 13. 45. 46. 47. 2. cor. 6, 17. a most loathsome thing in the eies of God, and his Angels, and Saints: and we grant to our griefe that among so many millions of men, there may be found some thousands of Lepers: Good lawes and censures meete with some, others escape: It is not so much our fault, as our griefe: But that this Leprosie infects all persons, and things, is shamefully ouer-reach't: Plague and Leprosie haue their limits, beyond which, is no contagion; Certe nullius crimen maculat nescientem. If a man come not neare them, if hee take the winde in an open ayre, they infect not: such is sinne: It can infect none but the guiltie: Those which acte or assent to,Aug. Ep. 48. or bear with it, or detest it not, are in this pollution: But those which can mourne for it, and cannot redresse it, are free from infection: How many foule Lepers spiritually did our Sauiour see in the publique Ayre of the Iewish Church? wherewith yet he ioyned, and his, not fearing infection so much, as gracing the remnants of their ruinous Church: Were those seuen thousand Israelites whose knees bowed not to Baal, 1. Reg. 19. 18. infected with the Idolatrie of their neighbours? yet continued they still partes of the same Church.

But this yet exceedes: Not onely all persons, but all thinges? What? Our Gospell? Our heauen, earth, Sea? Our Bookes; Coyne, Commodities? Beholde, you see the same heauen with vs, you haue no Bibles but ours: our Ayre in his circular motion comes to bee yours: the water that washeth our Iland, perhappes washeth your handes: Our vncleane Siluer (I feare) maintaines you: Our Commodities (in parte) inrich your Land-lords: and yet all things amongst vs infected? you are content to take some euil from your neighbors.

The third is our blasting Hierarchie, which suffers no good thing,3. Heirarchy. (that is no Brownist,Sep. no singular fancy) (for what good things haue we but yours?)The blasting Hierarchie suffers no good thing to grow, or prosper, but withers all both budde and branch. to grow, or prosper amongst vs, but withers all both budde and branch, would to God the root also: The last, is the daily sacrifice of a seruice-booke: an incense, how euer vnsauorie to you,4. Seruice-booke. yet such as all Churches in Christendome hold sweete,Sep. and offer vp as fitte for the nostrils of the Almightie;The daily sacrifice of the seruice-booke which in stead of spirituall prayer sweete as incense, you offer vp morning and euening, smels so strong of the Popes Portuise, as it makes many hundreds amongst your selues stop their noses at it; and yet you boast of the free and clear ayre of the Gospell wherin you breath. we are not alone thus tainted; al Christian Churches that are, or haue bin, present the same Censers vnto God: But ours smels strong of the Popes Portuise: See whether this be any better then triuiall cauilling: If either an ill man, or a Diuill shall speake that which is good; may not a good man vse it? If a good Angell, or man shall speake that which is euill, is it euer the better for the Deliuerer? If Sathan himselfe shall say of Christ; Thou art the sonne of the liuing God, shall I feare to repeate it? Not the Authour but the matter, in these things is worthie of regard: As Ierome speakes of the poysoned workes of Origen, and other dangerous Treatisours, Good things may be receiued from ill handes; If the matter of any prayer be Popish, fault it for what it containes, not for whence it came: what say you against vs in this, more then Master Smith (your stout Anabaptist) saith of our baptizing of Infants:Patres nostri non solum ante Cyprianum vel Agrippinum, sed postea, saluberrimam consuetudinem tenuerunt, vt quicquid diuinum at que legitimum in aliqua haeresi vel schismate integrum reperirent approbarent potius quam negarent. August. Both of them equally condemned for Antichristian: Still therefore wee boast of the free, and cleare ayre of the Gospell, if it be annoyed with some practicall euils, we may be foule, the Gospel is it selfe, and our profession holy, neither can we complaine of all euils, while we want you.

SECTION. LVI. The iudgement of our owne, and our neighbours of our Church.

THat which followeth is but wordes, a short answere is too much: That all Christendome magnifies the worthinesse of our Church,Sep. in so cleare euidences of their own voyces you cannot denie;That all Christendome should so magnifie your happinesse (as you say) is much, and yet your selues, and the best amongst you, complain so much both in word, and writing, of your miserable condition, vnder the imperious and superstitious impositions of the Prelates, yea and suffer so much also vnder them, as at this day you do for seeking the same Church-gouernment and Ministery, which is in vse in all other Churches saue your owne. Socrat. l. 1. c. 4. Constant. Alex. & Ario. Ac tamet si vos inter vos vic • ssim de re qu • piam minimi momenti dissent • tis (siquidem ne que omnes de omnibus rebus idem sentimus nihilom • nus tan • fi • ri p • terit, vt eximia concordia sincerè inter vos, integr • que s • ru • tur, & vna inter omnes communio & consociatio custodiatur. and now when you see such testimonies abroad (lest you should say nothing) you fetch cauils from home: Those men which (you say) complaine so much of their miserable condition vnder the Prelates impositions, haue notwithstanding with the same pens and tongues not onely iustified our Church but extold it: you haue found no sharper aduersaries in this verie accusation, for which you malitiously cyte them: How freely, how sully haue they euinced the truth? yea the happinesse of the Church of England against your false challenges: and yet your forehead dare challenge them for Authors: So hath their moderation opposed some appendances, that they haue both acknowledged and defended the substance with equall vehemence to your opposition: neither doe they suffer (as you traduce them) for seeking another Church-gouernement: looke into the Millenaries petition (the common voyce of that part) I am deceiued, if ought of their complaints sound that way, much lesse of their sufferings: deformitie in practise is obiected to them, not indeuour of innouation; That quarrell hath beene long silent, your motion cannot reuiue it: would God you could as much follow those men in moderate and charitable carriage, as you haue out-run them in complaint.

It pleaseth you to deuise vs,Sep. like pictures vpon course Canuasse,The truth is, you are best liked where you are worst knowen. Your next neighbours of Scotland know your Bishops Gouernment so well, as they rather chuse to vndergoe all the miserie, of bonds and banishment, then to partake with you in your happinesse this way, so highly doe they magnifie and applaud the same Which choice I doubt not other Churches also would make, if the same necessitie were laid vpon them. which shew fairest at farthest; attributing forraine approbation (which you cannot denie) to distance, more then to desert. How is it then, that (besides strange witnesses) we which looke vpon this face without preiudice, commend it (God knowes) without flatterie: we can at once acknowledge her infirmities, and blesse God for her graces: Our neighbours, (yea our selues) of Scotland, know our Church so well, that they doe with one consent praise her for one of Gods best daughters; neither doe the most rigorous amongst them, more dislike our Episcopall Gouernement, then embrace our Church: what fraud is this, to flie from the Church in common, to one circumstance? wee can honour that noble Church in Scotland, may we not dislike their alienations of Church-liuings? If one thing offend, doe all displease? Yet euen this Gouernment, which you would haue them resist to bonds and banishment (who knowes not?) begins to find both fauour and place: what choice other Churches would make, as you doubt not, so you care not: If you regarded their sentence: How durst your reuile her as a false harlot, whom they honour as a deere sister? If you were more theirs then we, you might vpbraide vs: Now you tell vs what perhaps they would doe, we tell you what they doe, and will doe: Euen with one voyce, blesse God for England, as the most famous and flourishing Church in Christendome:Sep. your handfull onely makes faces,And for your graces, we despise them not nor any good thing amongst you, no more then you doe such graces and good things as are to be found in the Church of Rome, from which you separate notwithstanding. We haue by Gods mercie the pure and right vse of the good gifts and graces of God in Christs Ordinance which you want. Neither the Lords people, nor the holy vessels could make Babylon Syon, though both the one and the other were captiued for a time. Lastly, it is thus written, and we thus aduised. M. Smiths. retort vpon M. Cliston. p. 50,. and enuies this true glorie; Who yet (you say) despise not our graces, no more then we those of Rome: See how you despise vs while you say, you are free from despight: How malicious is this Comparison, as if we were to you, as Rome to vs: and yet you despise vs more: Wee graunt Rome a true Baptisme, true Visibilitie of a Church, though monstrously corrupted: you giue not vs so much: Thankes be to God, wee care lesse for your censure, then you doe for our Church: We haue by Gods mercy the true and right vse of the word, and Sacraments, and all other essentiall giftes and graces of God; if there might bee some further helpes in execution, to make these more effectual, we resist not: But those your other imaginary ordinances, as wee haue not, so wee want not: Neither the Chaldeans, nor any Idolatrous enemies could make Sion Babylon, nor the holy vessels prophane; so as they should cease to be fitte for Gods vse: but they were brought backe at the returne of the captiuitie to Ierusalem: Such were our worshippe, ministery, Sacraments, and those manifold subiects of your cauils, which whiles you disgrace for their former abuse, you call our good euill, and willingly despise our graces.

SECTION. LVII. The issue of Separation.

ALL the sequell of my answerer is meerely sententious:Sep. it is fitter for vs to learne,Where the truth is a gayner, the Lord (which is truth) cannot be a looser. Neither is the thankes of ancient fauours lost amongst them, which still presse on towards new mercies. Vnthankfull are they vnto the blessed maiestie of God, and vnfaithfull also, which Inter licet vestrum & non licet nostrum, nutant ac remigant animae Christianorum. Optat contr. Parm. then replie: Where the truth gaines (say you) God looseth not▪ I tell you againe, where God looseth, the truth gaineth not, and where the Church looseth, God (which indowed her) cannot but loose: Alas what can the truth either get or saue by such vnkinde quarrels? Surely suspicion on some handes, on others reiection: for (as Optatus of his Donatists) Betwixt our Licet, and your Non licet many poore soules wauer and doubt: neither will settle, because wee agree not: Thankes are not lost, where new fauours are called for, but where olde are denied, while your Posie is: Such as the mother such is the daughter; where are our olde, our any mercies? They are vnthankfull, which know what God hath done, and confesse it not: They are vnfaithfull to God and his Deputie, which knowing themselues made to obey, presume to ouer-rule, and vpon their priuate authoritie, obtrude to the Church those ordinances to bee obserued, which neuer had being but in their owne idle speculation.

Your Sequestration and our confusion,Sep. are both of them beneficial,

knowing the will of their Master do it not, but go on p • esumptuously in disobedience to many the holy ordinances of the Lord, and of his Christ, which they know, and in word also acknowledge, he hath giuen to his Church to be obserued, and not for idle speculation, and disputation without obedience.

It is not by our sequestration, but by your confusion, that Rome and Hell gaines.

where they should not: and as you pretend our confusion for the cause of your Separation; So is your Separation the true cause of too much trouble, and confusion in the Church: Your odious tale of commixture hath cloyed and surfeited your reader already, and receiued aunswere to satietie: This one dish so oft brought foorth, argues your pouertie:Sep. The visible Church is Gods drag-net,

Your odious commixture of all sorts of people in the body of your Church, in whose lappe the vilest miscreants are dandled, sucking her brests, as her naturall children, and are be-blest by her (as hauing right thereunto) with all her holy things as prayer, sacraments, and other ceremonies, is that which aduantageth hell, in the finall obduration and perdition of the wicked, whom by these meanes you flatter and deceiue. Non enim propter malos boni des • rendi, sed propter bonos mali tolerandi sunt, &c. Sicut tolerau • runt Prophetae &c. Aug. Ep. 48. Bar. ag. Gyff.

Sep. The Romish Prelacie and Priesthood amongst you, with the appurtenances for their maintenance and ministrations are Romes aduantage. Which therefore she challengeth as her owne, and by which shee also still holdes possession amongst you, vnder the hope of regayning her full inheritance at one time or other.

and field, and floore, and Arke, here will be euer at her best, sedge, tares, chaffe, vncleane Creatures: yet is this no pretence for her neglect: The notoriously euill she casts from her brest, and knee, denying them the vse of her prayers, and (which your leaders mislike) of her Sacrament; If diuers through corruption of vnfaithfull officers, escape censure; yet let not the transgressions of some, redound to the condemnation of the whole Church: In Gods iudgement it shall not, wee care little, if in yours. Wee tell wicked men, they may goe to hell-with the water of Baptisme in their faces, with the Church in their mouthes, we denounce Gods iudgements vnpartially against their sinnes, and them: Thus we flatter, thus wee deceiue, if yet they will needs run to perdition: Perditio tua ex te Israel.

Our Clergie is so Romish as our Baptisme: If therefore Romish, because they came thence, wee haue disproued it: If therefore Romish because they haue beene vsed there, we graunt and iustifie it, That auncient confession of their faith which was famous thorough the world we receiue with them: If they hold one God, one Baptisme, one heauen, one Christ shall we renounce it? Why should wee not cast off our Christendome and humanitie, because the Romanes had both? How much Rome can either challenge, or hope to gaine in our Clergie and Ministration is well witnessed by the blood of those Martyrs, eminent in the Prelacie, which in the fresh memories of many was shed for God, against that Harlot: and by the excellent labours of others, both Bishops and Doctors: whose learned pens haue pulled downe more of the wals of Rome, then all the corner-creeping Brownists in the world shall euer be able to doe, while Amsterdam standeth. It is you that furnish these aduersaries with aduantages,Sep. through your wilfull diuisions:And if the Papists take aduantange at our condemnation of you, and separation from you: it concerns you, well to see where the blame is, and there to lay it, least through light, and inconsiderate iudgement, you iustifie the wicked, and condemne the righteous. Take Scilurus his arrowes, single out of the sheafe, the least finger breakes them, while the whole bundle feares no stresse: wee know well where the blame is, our deseruings can be no protection to you: you went from vs, not we from you. Plead not our constraint, you should not haue beene compelled to forsake vs, while Christ is with vs: But who compels you not to call vs brethren? to denie vs Christians? your zeale is so farre from iustifying the wicked, that it condemnes the righteous.

SECTION. LIX. The conclusion from the fearefull answere of Separation.

MY last threat, of the easier aunsweres of whoredomes, & adulteries then Separation, you think to skoffe out of countenance. I feare your conscience will not alwayes allow this mirth; Our Consistories haue spared you ynough:Troub. & excom at Amster. G. Iohns. professes he found better dealing in the B • shops Consistories; and might haue found better in the Inquisition. let those which haue tryed, say, whether your corrupt Eldership be more safe iudges: If ours imprison iustly, yours excommunicate vniustly; To be in Custodie is lesse grieuous, then out of the Church: at least, if your censures were worth any thing, but contempt: As Hierom said of the like: It is well that malice hath not so great power as will:Hieron. Cypr. de simplic. praelat. Ad pacis praemium ven • re non polerunt, qui pacem domini discordiae furore ruperunt. you shall one day (I feare) finde the Consistorie of heauen more rigorous, if you wash not this wrong with your teares; That tribunall shall find your confidence, presumption; your zeale, furie: you are bold, surely more then wise: To proclame, we haue no need of such criers: doubtlesse your head hath made Proclamations long,Ibid. now your hand begins:Inexpiabilis & g • auis culpa discordiae nec passione purgatur. What proclaime yee? Separation from the Communion, Gouernment, Ministery and worship of the Church of England:Sep what needed it? Your act might haue saued your voice:Lastly the terr • ble threat you vtter against vs, that euen whoredomes and murders shall abide an easier answere then separation, would certainly fall heauy vpon vs, if this answere were to bee made in your Consistory Courts; or before any of your Ecclesiasticall iudges; but because we know, that not Antichrist, but Christ shalbe our iudge, we are hold vpon the warrant of his word and testament, (which being sealed with his blood may not bee altered) to proclaim to all the world separation frō whatsoeuer riseth vp rebelliously, against the scepter of his kingdome, as we are vndoubtedly perswaded, the Communion, gouernment, ministery, and worship of the Church of England doe. what should our eyes and eares be troubled with one bad obiect?

But why separate you from these?Iohn Robinson. Because they rise vp rebelliously against the Scepter of Christ: The Scepter of Christ is his word: he holdes it out, we touch and kisse it: What one sentence of it, doe we wilfully oppose? away with these foolish impieties, you thrust a Reed into your Sauiors hand, & say, Haile King of the Iewes, and will needes perswade vs none but this is his rodde of Iron: Lastly, vpon what warrant? Of his will and Testament: you may wrong vs; But how dare you fasten your lies vpon your Redeemer and Iudge? What clause of his hath bid you separate? We haue the true Copies. As we hope or desire to be saued, we can find no sentence that soundeth toward the fauour of this your act: Must God be accused of your wilfulnesse? Before that God and his blessed Angels, and Saints, we feare not to protest that we are vndoubtedly perswaded, that whosoeuer wilfully forsakes the Communion, Gouernement, Ministerie, or worshippe of the Church of England are enemies to the Scepter of Christ, and rebels against his Church and annointed: neither doubt we to say, that the Mastershippe of the Hospitall at Norwich, or a lease from that Citie (sued for, with repulse) might haue procured that this separation from the Communion, Gouernement, and worshippe of the Church of England, should not haue beene made by

Iohn Robinson. FINIS.