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THE Last is the Daily Sacrifice of a Service-Book:-an incense, bowever unsavoury to you, yet such as all Churches in Christendom hold sweet, and offer up as fit for the nostrils of the Almighty. We are not alone thus tainted: all Christian Churches, that are or have been, present the same censers unto God. But ours smells strong of the Pope's Portuise:- -see whether this be any better than trivial cavilling. If either an ill man or a devil shall speak that which is good, may not a good man use it? If a good angel or man shall speak that which is evil, is it ever the better for the deliverer? If Satan himself shall say of Christ, Thou art the Son of the Living God, shall I fear to repeat it? Not the author, but the matter, in these things is worthy of regard. As Jerome speaks of the poisoned works of Origen, and other dangerous Treatisors, "Good things may be received from ill hands." If the matter of any prayer be Popish, fault it, for what it contains; not, for whence it came. What say you against us, in this, more than Master Smith, your stout Anabaptist, saith of our baptizing of infants? Both of them equally condemned for Antichristian.

Still, therefore, we boast of the free and clear air of the Gospel, if it be annoyed with some practical evils: we may be foul; the Gospel is itself, and our profession holy: neither can we complain of all evils, while we want you.

SECT. 55.

The Judginent of our own and our Neighbours of our Church. Sep.-"That all Christendom should so magnify your happiness, as you say, is much; and yet yourselves, and the best amongst you, complain so much, both in word and writing, of your mi serable condition under the imperious and superstitious impositions of the Prelates; yea, and suffer so much also under them, as at this day you do, for seeking the same Church-Government and Ministry, which is in use in all other Churches, save your own!"

THAT, which followeth, is but words. A short answer is too much. That all Christendom magnifies the worthiness of our Church, in so clear evidences of their own voices, you cannot deny.

And now, when you see such testimonies abroad, lest you should say nothing, you fetch cavils from home. Those men, which, you say, complain so much of their miserable condition under the Prelates' impositions, have, notwithstanding, with the same pens and

* Patres nostri, non solùm ante Cyprianum vel Agrippinum, sed postea, saluberrimam consuetudinem tenuerunt, ut, quicquid divinum atque legitimum in aliquá hæresi vel schismate integrum reperirent, approbarent potiùs quàm negarent. August

tongues not only justified our Church, but extolled it. You have found no sharper adversaries in this very accusation, for which you maliciously cite them. How freely, how fully have they evinced the truth! yea, the happiness 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 have both acknowledged and defended the substance with equal vehemence to your opposition *.

Neither do they suffer, as you traduce them, for seeking another Church-Government. Look into the Millenaries' petition (the common voice of that part) I am deceived, if ought of their complaints so und that way; much less, of their sufferings. Deformity in practice is objected to them, not endeavour of innovation. That quarrel hath been long silent: your motion cannot revive it. Would God you could as much follow those men, in moderate and charitable carriage; as you have outrun them, in complaint !

Sep.-"The truth is, you are best liked, where you are worst known. Your next neighbours of Scotland know your Bishop's government so well, as they rather choose to undergo all the miseries of bonds and banishment, than to partake with you in your happiness this way; so highly do they magnify and applaud the same: which choice, I doubt not, other Churches also would make, if the same necessity were laid upon them."

IT pleaseth you to devise us, like pictures upon coarse canvass, which shew fairest at farthest: attributing foreign approbation, which you cannot deny, to distance more than to desert. How is it then, that, besides strange witnesses, we, which look upon this face without prejudice, commend it, God knows, without flattery? We can, at once, acknowledge her infirmities, and bless God for her graces. Our neighbours (yea, ourselves) of Scotland know our Church sowell, that they do, with one consent, praise her for one of God's best Daughters: neither do the most rigorous amongst them, more dislike our Episcopal Government, than embrace our Church. What fraud is this; to fly from the Church in common, to one circumstance! We can honour that noble Church in Scotland: may we not dislike their alienations of Church-Livings? If one thing offend, do all displease?

Yet even this government, which you would have them resist to bonds and banishment + (who knows not?) begins to find both favour and place. What choice other Churches would make, as you doubt not, so you care not. If you regarded their sentence, how durst you revile her as a false Harlot, whom they honour as a dear Sis

Socrat. lib. i. c. 4. Constant. Alex. et Ario. Ac, tametsi vos inter vos vicissim de re quapiam minimi momenti dissentitis, siquidem neque omnes de omnibus rebus idem sentimus, nihilominus tamen fieri poterit, ut eximia concordia sincerè inter vos integrèque servetur, et una inter omnes communio et consociatio custodiatur.

"Lastly, It is thus written, and we thus advised." M. Smith's Retort upon M. Clifton. p. 50.

ter? If you were more theirs than we, you might upbraid us. Now you tell us what perhaps they would do: we tell you what they do, and will do; even with one voice, bless God for England, as the most famous and flourishing Church in Christendom: your bandful only makes faces, and envies this true glory.

Sep." And, for your graces, we despise them not, nor any good thing amongst you; no more than you do such graces and good things as are to be found in the Church of Rome, from which you separate notwithstanding. We have, by God's mercy, the pure and right use of the good gifts and graces of God, in Christ's Ordinance, which you want. Neither the Lord's people nor the holy vessels could make Babylon Sion, though both the one and the other were captived for a time."

WHO yet, you say, despise not our graces, no more than we those of Rome:-See how you despise us, while you say you are free from despite! How malicious is this comparison: as if we were to you, as Rome to us and yet you despise us more. We grant Rome a true Baptism; true Visibility of a Church, though monstrously corrupted: you give us not so much. Thanks be to God, we care less for your censure, than you do for our Church. We have, by God's mercy, the true and right use of the Word and Sacraments, and all other essential gifts and graces of God: if there might be some further helps in execution, to make these more effectual, we resist not: but those your other imaginary Ordinances, as we have not, so we want not. Neither the Chaldeans, nor any idolatrous enemies, could make Sion Babylon, nor the holy vessels profane; so as they should cease to be fit for God's use: but they were brought back, at the return of the Captivity, to Jerusalem. Such were our Worship, Ministry, Sacraments; and those manifold subjects of your cavils, which whilst you disgrace for their former abuse, you call our good evil, and willingly despise our graces.

SECT. 56.

The Issue of Separation.

Sep.-"Where the truth is a gainer, the Lord, which is Truth, cannot be a loser. Neither is the thanks of ancient favours lost amongst them, which still press on towards new mercies. Unthankful are they unto the blessed Majesty of God, and unfaithful also, which, knowing the will of their Master, do it not; but go on presumptuously, in disobedience to many the Holy Ordinances of the Lord and of his Christ, which they know, and in word also acknowledge, he hath given to his Church to be observed, and not for idle speculation, and disputation without obedience."

ALL the sequel of my Answerer is merely sententious. It is fitter for us to learn, than reply.

Where the truth gains, say you, God loseth not:-I tell you again, where God loseth, the truth gaineth not; and where the Church loseth, God, which endowed her, cannot but lose. Alas, what can the truth either get or save by such unkind quarrels ? Surely, suspicion, on some hands; on others', rejection: for, as Optatus of his Donatists *, betwixt our licet and your non licet, many poor souls waver and doubt; neither will settle, because we agree not. Thanks are not lost, where new favours are called for, but where old are denied. While your posy is, "Such as the mother, such is the daughter;" where are our old, our any mercies? They are unthankful, which know what God hath done, and confess it not: they are unthankful to God and his deputy, which, knowing themselves made to obey, presume to overrule; and, upon their private authority, obtrude to the Church those ordinances to be observed, which never had being but in their own idle speculation.

Sep." It is not by our sequestration, but by your confusion, that Rome, and Hell, gains. Your odious commixture of all sorts of people in the body of your Church, in whose lap the vilest miscreants are dandled; sucking her breasts as her natural children, and are be-blest by her, as having right thereunto, with all her holy things, as Prayer, Sacraments, and other Ceremonies; is that, which advantageth Hell, in the final obduration and perdition of the wicked; whom, by these means, you flatter and deceive."

YOUR sequestration and our confusion, are both of them beneficial, 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 received answer to satiety: this one dish, so oft brought forth, argues your poverty. The Visible Church is God's drag-net, and field, and floor, and ark: here will be ever, at her best, sedge, tares, chaff, unclean creatures: yet is this no pretence for her neglect +: the notoriously evil she casts from her breast and knee, denying them the use of her prayers; and, which your leaders mislike, of her sacrament. If divers, through corruption of unfaithful officers, escape censure; yet let not the transgressions of some, redound to the condemnation of the whole Church. In God's judgment, it shall not we care little, if in yours . We tell wicked men, they may go to hell with the water of baptism in their faces, with the Church in their mouths we denounce God's judgments unpartially, against

* Inter licet vestrum, et non licet nostrum, nutant ac remigant animæ Christianorum. Optat, contr. Parm.

+ Non enim propter malos boni deserendi, sed propter bonos mali tolerandi sunt, &c. Sicut toleraverunt Prophetæ, &c. Aug. Ep. 48.

Barr. against Gyff.

their sins, and them. Thus we flatter: thus we deceive! If yet they will needs run to perdition; Perditio tua ex te, Israel.

Sep.-"The Romish Prelacy and Priesthood amongst you, with the appurtenances for their maintenance and ministrations, are Rome's advantage: which, therefore, she challengeth as her own, and by which she also still holds possession amongst you, under the hope of regaining her full inheritance at one time or other."

OUR Clergy is so Romish as our Baptism:-If therefore Romish, because they came thence, we have disproved it: if therefore Romish, because they have been used there, we grant and justify it. That ancient Confession of their Faith, which was famous through the world, we receive with them. If they hold one God, one Baptism, one Heaven, one Christ, shall we renounce it? Why should we not cast off our Christendom and Humanity, because the Romans had both? How much Rome can either challenge or hope to gain in our Clergy and Ministration, is well witnessed by the blood of those Martyrs, eminent in the Prelacy, 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 have pulled down more of the walls of Rome, than all the corner-creeping Brownists in the world shall ever be able to do, while Amsterdam standeth.

Sep.-"And, if the Papists take advantage at our condemnation of you and separation from you, it concerns you, well to see where the blame is, and there to lay it; lest, through light and inconsiderate judgment, you justify the wicked, and condemn the righteous.'

IT is you, that furnish these adversaries with advantages, through your wilful divisions. Take Scilurus's arrows, single out of the sheaf, the least finger breaks them; while the whole bundle fears no stress. We know well, where the blame is. Our deservings can be no protection to you: you went from us, not we from you. Plead not our constraint: you should not have been compelled to forsake us, while Christ is with us. But who compels you not to call us brethren? to deny us Christians? Your zeal is so far from justifying the wicked, that it condemns the righteous.

SECT. 57.

The Brownists' scornful Opinion of our People.

Sep.-" And, for the suspicion of the rude multitude, you need not much fear it. They will suspect nothing, that comes under the King's broad seal: they are ignorant of this fault. Though it were the Mass, that came with authority of the magistrate, they,

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