Pardons declared, Worship of Images and Pilgrimages forbidden, learned and godly Ministers required, their absences and misdemeanours inhibited, the Scriptures translated, publicly and privately enjoined to be read and received, the Word of God commanded to be sincerely and carefully preached. And, to all this, holy Master Fox addeth *, for my conclusion, such a vigilant care was then in the King and his Council, how by all ways and means to redress religion; to reform errors; to correct corrupt customs; to help ignorance; and to reduce the misleadings of Christ's flock, drowned in blind Popery, superstitious customs, and idolatry, to some better form of reformation: whereunto he provided not only these Articles, Precepts, Injunctions above specified, to inform the rude people; but also procured the Bishops to help forward the same cause of decayed doctrine, with their diligent preaching, and teaching of the people. Go now, and say, that suddenly, in one day, by Queen Elizabeth's trumpet, or by the sound of a bell, in the name of Antichrist, all were called to the Church. Go, say with your Patriarch, that we erect religions, by proclamations and parliaments †. Upon these premises I dare conclude, and doubt not to maintain against all Separatists in the world, that England, to go no higher, had, in the days of King Henry the Eighth, a True Visible Church of God: and so, by consequent, their succeeding seed was, by true Baptism, justly admitted into the bosom thereof; and, therefore, that, even of them, without any further profession, God's Church was truly constituted. If you shall say, that the following idolatry of some of them, in Queen Mary's days, excluded them: consider, how hard it will be to prove, that God's covenant with any people is presently disannulled by the sins of the most, whether of ignorance or weakness; and, if they had herein renounced God, yet that God also mutually renounced them. To shut up your Constitution, then, there is no remedy: either you must go forward to Anabaptism, or come back to us. All your Rabbins cannot answer that charge of your rebaptized brother + : If we be a True Church, you must return: if we be not (as a False Church is no Church of God) you must rebaptize. If our Baptism be good, than is our Constitution good. Thus your own principles teach §. The outward part of the True Visible Church is a vow, promise, oath, or covenant betwixt God and the Saints. Now, I ask, Is this made by us in baptism, or no? If it be, then we have by your confession (forsomuch as is outwardly required) a True Visible Church: so your Separation is unjust. If it be not, then you must rebaptize: for the first Bap * Act. & Monum. Edit. 5. p. 1002. + Barr. against Gyff.-Conference with Sperin. and M. Egerton.-Greenw. and Bar. Arg. to Master Cartw. Master Travers, Master Chark.-Brown, Refor mation without Tarrying. M. Smith against R. Clifton. § Principl. and Infer. p. 11. tism is a nullity; and, if ours be not, you were never thereby as yet entered into any Visible Church. SECT. 11. The Answerer's Tille. Sep." To the title of a Ringleader, wherewith it pleaseth this Pistler to style me, I answer, that, if the thing I have done be good, it is good and commendable to have been forward in it; if it be evil, let it be reproved by the light of God's Word: and that God, to whom I have done that I have done, will, I doubt not, give me both to see and to heal mine error by speedy repentance. If I have fled away on foot, I shall return on horseback. But, as I durst never set foot into this way, but upon a most sound and unresistible conviction of conscience by the Word of God, as I was persuaded; so must my retiring be wrought by more solid reasons from the same Word, than are to be found in a thousand such pretty pamphlets and formal flourishes as this is." As for the title of Ringleader, wherewith I styled this pamphleteer; if I have given him too much honour in his sect, I am sorry. Perhaps, I should have put him (pardon a homely, but, in this sense, not unusual word) in the tail of this train. Perhaps, I should have endorsed my Letter "To M. Smith, and his Shadow." So I perceive he was. Whatsoever, whether he lead or follow, God meets with him. If he lead: Behold, I will come against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, Jer. xxiii. 32. If he come behind: Thou shalt not follow a multitude in evil, saith God. If either, or both, or neither; if he will go alone: Woe unto the foolish prophets, saith the Lord, which follow their own spirits, and have seen nothing; Ezek. xiii. 3. Howsoever, your evil shall be reproved by the light of God's Word. Your conjunction, I cannot promise; your reproof, I dare. If, thereupon, you shall find grace to see and heal your errors, we should, with all brotherly humbleness, attend on foot upon your return on horseback: but, if the sway of your mis-resolved conscience be heady and unresistible, and your retiring hopeless; these not solid reasons, these pretty pamphlets, these formal flourishes shall one day be fearful and material evidences against you, before that Awful Judge, which hath already said, that Judgments are prepared for the scorners, and stripes for the back of fools; Prov. xix. 29. SECT. 12. The Apostacy of the Church of England. : Sep.-"Your pitying of us and sorrowing for us, especially for the wrong done by us, were in you commendable affections, if by us justly occasioned but, if your Church be deeply drenched in apostacy, and you cry, you cry, Peace, Peace,' when sudden and certain desolation is at hand, it is you that do wrong, though you make the complaint: and so, being cruel towards yourselves and your own whom you flatter, you cannot be truly pitiful towards others whom you bewail." I PROFESSED to bestow pity and sorrow upon you and your wrong: you entertain both harshly, and with a churlish repulse. What should a man do with such dispositions? Let him stroke them on the back; they snarl at him, and shew their teeth: let him shew them a cudgel; they fly in his face. You allow not our actions, and return our wrong. Ours is both the injury and complaint :-How can this be? You are the we sit still, and suffer in this rent. agents : Yet, since the cause makes the schism, let us enquire, not whose the action is, but whose the desert. Our Church is deep drenched in Apostacy; and we cry, “Peace, peace:" No less than a whole Church at once; and that, not sprinkled, or wetshod, but drenched in apostacy! What, did we fall off from you, or you from us? Tell me, were we ever the True Church of God? and were we then yours? We cannot fall, unless we once stood. Was your Church before this apostacy? shew us your ancestors in opinion: name me but one, that ever taught as you do, and I vow to separate. Was it not? Then we fell not from you: every apostacy 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 us with apostacy, you have not proved yours to be no True Church. Still I am ignorant. Queen Mary's days, you say *, had a True Church, which separated from Popery, chose them Ministers, served God holily from thence was our apostacy : : But, were not the same also, for the most part, Christians in King Edward's days? 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 than from them? Reject these; and all the world will hiss at you: receive them; and where is our * A Treatise of the Ministry of England, against M. H. p. 125 apostacy? What Antichristianism have we, whereof these were freed? But you leap back, if I urge you far, from hence to the Apostles' times, to fetch our once True Church from far, that it might be dear. You shall not carve for us. We like not these bold overleaps of so many centuries. I speak boldly: you dare not stand to the trial of any Church, since theirs. Now I hear your Doctor say *, "This challenge savours of Rome. Antiquity is with you: a Popish plea:". We have willingly taken up our adversaries, at this (by pretence, their own) weapon: you debar it, in the conscience of your own novel singularity. Yet your Pastor can be content to make use of Tertullian alone, against all Fathers +; That such things are justly to be charged with vanity, as are done without any precept, either of the Lord or of the Apostles: and, The Apostles did faithfully deliver to the nations the Discipline they received of Christ; which we must believe to be the tumultuary Discipline of the refined houseful at Amsterdam. What! all, in all ages and places, till now, Apostates? Say, if you can, that those famous Churches, wherein Cyprian, Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome, Austin, Chrysostom, and the rest of those blessed lights lived, were less deep in this apostacy than ours? O Apostatical Fathers, that separated not! Yea, say, if you dare, that other Reformed Churches are not over the ankles with us in this apostacy: what hard news is this to us, when as your Oracle dare say not much less, of the Reformed Churches of Netherlands, with whom you live? Thus he writes §: "For not hearing of them in other congregations in these countries; this I answer, That, seeing, by the mercy of God, we have seen and forsaken the corruptions, yet remaining in the public ministration and condition of these Churches, if they be all like to these of this city; we cannot therefore partake with them, in such case, without declining and apostacy from the truth, which we have ourselves already received and professed." See here, to partake with them in God's service is Apostacy. If so in the accessaries, alas, what crime is in the principal? It were but apostacy, to hear an English sermon; a Dutch is no less | Woe is you, that you dwell still in Meshech! Good men! it were not more happy for you than the Church, that you were well in heaven. No less than Apostacy? Let no reader be appalled at so fearful a word: this is one of the terms of art, familiar to this way. Find but any one page of a Dutch printed volume without Apostacy, H. Ainsworth, in his Fore-speech to his Counterpoison. † Enqu. into Wh. Tertul. I. de Orat. Tertul. I. de Præscript. So, de Virginib. Veland. "That no continuance of time can prejudice truth.' Si me reprehendas errantem, patere me, quæso, errare cum talibus. Aug. Hier. § Fr. Johnson, in his Answ. to T. Wh. p. 26. Ans. against Brough. p. 17. "These Dutch Churches offend, not only is practical disorders, but in their constitution, government, worship, &c." Excommunication, Commingling, Constitution, and suspect it not theirs. Heresy is not more frequent at Rome, than Apostacy at Amsterdam; nor Indulgences more ordinary there, than here Excommunications. Common use makes terrible things easy. Their own Master Sl. for holding with the Dutch Baptisin and Read-Prayers, is acknowledged to be cast out for an apostate*: yea, their Doctor, Master Ainsworth, is noted with this mark from themselves. There is much latitude, as happy is, in their Apostacy: for, when Stanshal, Mercer, and Jacob Johnson were to be chosen officers in their Church, and exception was taken by some at their Apostacy, answer was made †, It was not such Apostacy as debarred them from office: it was but a slip. John Mark (whether, as Isychius and Theophylact think, the blessed Evangelist, or some other holy Minister) is, by the whole parlour at Amsterdam, branded with this same apostacy; who departed indeed, but from Paul in his journey, not from Christ in his faith : and therefore his ἀποςάντα is expounded § by μὴ συνελθόντα ; Acts xv. 38. Why do we think much, to drink of an Evangelist's cup? Yet, let this ignorant Epistler teach his censorious Answerer one point of his own (that is the Separatist's) skill and tell him, that he objects two crimes to one poor Church, which are incompatible; Want of Constitution, and Apostacy. Thus writes your Master of us "If it were admitted, which can never be proved, that they || : sometimes had been true established Churches." Lo here, we never had true Constitution: therefore we are not capable of Apostacy. If we once had it, and so were true Churches, hear what your Pastor saith ¶: "As Christ giveth to all true Churches their being, so we must leave it unto him to take it away, when and as he pleaseth." And therefore, since he hath not removed his candlestick, nor taken away his kingdom; in spite of all objected apostacies, we still continue so and, by consequent, your Separation, upon this ground, is most unjust **. An Apostate had wont to be the fearful surname of damned Julian. Tortus was an easy accuser, 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 Christ's co * Troubles and Excom. at Amsterdam, p. 10. + Brown charged with it by Bar. Letter to Master Egerton. G. Johnson. ibid. p. 194. Fr. Johns. Enqu. Acts xv. 38. "Departing, that is, not going with them." em In his Observations, p. 251. "We do not there condemn the Parish-assem blies, as separated from Christ; but prove them not as yet gathered to Christ." So, Conf. with Sperin, p. 9. Fr. Johnson's Enquiry, p. 36. ** H. Bar. Observation. 242. "No faults disannul the being of a Church, until contempt of God's Word be added thereunto, after due conviction. The faults and errors of a Church may be severely reproved and convinced, according to the quality thereof; and yet the Church not be condemned." N. B. ↑↑ Job xiv. 19. Vulg. Edit. Cyp. Epist. ad Cornel. |