THE ETERNAL GOSPEL Once more Testified unto and Vindicated. Against the Ignorance, or Malice of the Bishops and Teachers of the now Church of England.  
This Book proving against their Doctrine, That the Holy Ghost is not ceased, but is still given to all the Faithful, and to some in the same measure as the Apostles and Disciples of Christ had it: Also at the occasion of a late Sermon preached at the Visitation of the Bishop of London, by the Vicar of Westham, that Miracles and other gifts and works of the Holy Ghost, are not ceased in the Church; and that the School-Learning helps no man to understand Scripture, and the Mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven, nor the knowledge of Nature: where, by the way, the true cause of the so much perplexed and famous Phoenomenon, taken for a Weatherglass, is by Experiments cleared and demonstrated, against the Hypothesis of the New Virtuosos.  John 5.44.— 12.43. Luk. 7.35. 
How can they believe who seek for the honour of one another, and love the praise of men more than that which comes from God? But wisdom is justified (or known) of all her Children.  
LONDON: Printed for Allen Banks, and are to be sold by most Booksellers in London. 1681.   

HAving received this Book from the Author, in order to its Printing; I do hereby appoint Allen Banks to print the same. Witness my Hand,  
HENRY SCARLOT.   

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS JAMES Duke of YORK.  
Patroni valeant. Ecquis proteggere Verum,  
Luci aut optatae fautor adesse potest?  
Qui Lux, qui Verum est; qui Verum in saecula servat,  
I liber; ille tuus nempe Patronus erit.  
THis is not therefore, Great Sir, to beg your Patronage for this Book, nor for myself: but rather to direct you to the Light of salvation, Luk. 1.17. and to make it shine to you, 2 Cor. 4.4. lest you lose here your Earthly, and after your Heavenly Kingdom, for lack of knowledge, Hos. 4.6. for though I seem angry with some men for Religion, I am so far from hating a man for his Religion, that I look upon him, as he whom the Son of man came to save, Mat. 18.11. a fit object of my love and charity; and as a wounded man, who needs me (that am neither Priest, Minister, nor Levite) for his Friend, Luk. 10.30, 37. and Physician, Mat. 9.12. And therefore I am so much farther from being concerned against Your Highness for yours, with the Epidemical distemper, though it wants not a Precedent in Scripture, 2 Kings 3.13, 14. that Your Highness is one of the powers of this Land, whom I am bound to honour, and that for the Oath of God, Rom. 13.1, 2. Eccl. 8.2. and that looking upon you not only as a wounded, but as such wounded man, who (though fallen unhappily into the hands of those Thiefs, John 10.1.— 20.21, 22. that are stripping Your Highness both of the Triple Earthly Crown you might else enjoy one day, and of your chiefest Kingly Heavenly Prerogative, the Holy Unction, whereby Christ makes all those Kings indeed, Prov. 16.32.— 25.28. that do obey his commands, Rev. 1.6. Exod. 19.5, 6.) may not only recover; but be a great instrument to promote Gods Spiritual Kingdom; and therefore as such, Dan. 12.3. deserve one the first Thrones and Crowns among the twelve Tribes of Israel in Heaven, Luk. 13.30.— 7.43, 47. I tender your safety more than that of any man: wishing with all my heart that, like the Samaritan, I might pour Oil and Wine into your Highness' wounds, set you on my Beast, bring you to an Inn, your Throne; and thence to an everlasting Kingdom, where may your Highness reign for evermore. Amen.  
But how can I do this, except you own and believe that you are wounded and sick? and how can you believe it, except you come to know it? and how shall you come to know, except one doth show it you, and except you attend to the things that shall be showed? Act. 16.14 Rom. 10.14, 15, 17. If you will be pleased therefore to peruse this Book, it shows you, and you may easily gather from it, that all men generally, Christians as well as Gentiles, are by birth bruised and sick, Gen. 3.15. Rom. 3.23.— 1. Cor. 11.7. that the way to recover from the said sickness and bruise, and to become whole again as to the Kingdom of God, which is in the Holy Ghost; Rom. 14.17. being by the said new birth of the Holy Ghost, who is then renewed within them, Tit. 3.5. all men must, to be saved, be thus regenerated, and receive the Holy Ghost therefore as well and as much as the Primitive Christians: and that the said renewing or new birth of the Spirit, being a reformation: to the same Image of God Adam was created to; which doth consist in knowledge, Coloss. 3.10. as well as in righteousness, Ephes. 4.24. (the Spirit of the Father that doth create us anew to his Image and likeness, teaching all things, John 14.26.— 16.13. 1 John 2.20, 27. 1 Cor. 2.10. as well as he is the power of Christ, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.8. God's arm revealed to us, and the blood of the Lamb whereby sin is overcome, and righteousness fulfilled, Rev. 12.11.) is inconsistent therefore with a despondent relying on other men, for what we are to know, to believe and to practise; and is not attained to by a change or conversion from Popery, for instance, to another Religion, which knows Christ as much after the flesh, 2 Cor. 5.16. worships the Father as little in spirit and truth, John 4.24. a●● grieves the Holy Spirit no less than the Popish Church: and which under the pretence of Reforming, makes a Schism, which is a far greater sin than to bear with some few erroneous opinions: but by a true conversion from sin to righteousness, by knocking and by waiting at the posts of Wisdoms doors, Prov. 8.34. Jam. 1.5. by perusing daily, and keeping diligently the precepts of that wisdom contained in the Scriptures, & in vitam & lucem assurgendo ourselves. For such conversion, is to know me, saith the Lord, Jer. 22.16.— 9.3. and such knowledge of God is, saith Christ, John 17.3. life Eternal. Verily, such knowledge, and not an implicit Faith, is both Salvation itself, and the cause of Temporal and Worldly felicity! for when a man meditates daily in the Law of God, and observeth to do according to all the words that are written therein, he makes his way prosperous and successful in all things, Josh. 1.8. Deut. 28.1, to 14. and when his ways please the Lord, even the worst Enemies he hath are at peace with him, Prov. 16.7.  
But, Sir, as such knowledge is our summum bonum, both in this and the next World; so extremum malum est non recognoscere Deum in the said manner: for though God for a great while winketh at this ignorance; Act. 17.30. yet he will be known at last, and felt, specially of those that either forget to know, or having the means offered to know him, do neglect them: see Judg. 2.10, 11, 14. And the Egyptians shall know when I stretch forth my hand, that I am ●he Lord, saith he, Exod. 7.5. and whether men will or no they shall give glory to God, 1 Sam. 6.5. and acknowledge that their breath and their ways are in his hand, Dan. 5.23. that he rules in the kingdom of men, v. 21.— 4.25, 32. and that no Evil, whether against a Nation, or against a man only, Job 24.29. is done and sent but by him, Amos 3.6. Read the Scriptures, and see there how all those Kings that followed the way of Jeroboam, (knew God no better than he) and their People for their sake, were severely punished: and how Manasseb, having paid dear for his ignorance, came to understand at last, and know that the Lord was God, 2 Chron. 33.11, 12, 13. and thereupon was restored again from Captivity to a flourishing State, and a glorious Kingdom. Nay, the most prosperous King that ever was, Solomon, found true by experience, that when a Prince forgets God, and goes a whoring after another Worship of God than that which is agreeable to that in Spirit and truth, Judg. 2.17. than his anger waxeth hot, and he doth deliver him into his Enemy's hands, and stirreth up not only Adversaries against him, 1 Kings 11.8, 9, 10, 14, 23. but also his own Subjects, who lift their hands against him, v. 26.— 12.18. whilst those whom he trusted to, help him not, but forsake him, 2 Chron. 11.4. for this thing is done of me, and neither understanding, strength nor counsel against me, can avail you, saith the Lord, Prov. 21.30. In vain is safety hoped for from the hills, and from the abundance of strong holds, Jer. 3.23. In vain are Garrisons kept, and a new Army raised, for all will work together to the destruction of those that know and believe not God, Rom. 8.28.  
At the presence of the Ark the waters of Jordan were divided and heaped up; the walls of Jericho fell down, and the heart of all the Kings of the Canaanites melted before Israel, whilst they believed in God, Josh. 5.1. Judg. 2.7. but when they had forgot him, at the presence of the Ark, they whose heart melted before, receive vigour and courage; and Israel that shouted is overcome and smitten, 1 Sam. 4.5, 7, 9 and that when they fled to it, as to their Anchora sacra, or their sure refuge. And because men of the World are very unwilling to acknowledge that it is the immediate hand of God, the first time they are smitten, and attribute the cause to some fault or accident; as the men of Benhadad when they had been defeated, 1 Kings 20.23. who said, their Gods being Gods of the hills, have given them this advantage in the hills, but if we fight with them in the plain, or the Valleys, we shall be stronger than they; therefore God, to make them know that it is he that doth it, brings (as upon Benhadad) upon them the second time an entire destruction.  
Sir, There is no greater sin laid to the charge of a Prince, (who is born in, and pretends to the Covenant of God) than that of his ignorance and ungratefulness to God; which is properly the sin and way of Jeroboam, who thought by establishing in his Kingdom a worship altogether repugnant to the true worship of God, 1 Kings 12.28. John 4.24. to preserve it for himself and for his Posterity, but lost it, and destroyed his Posterity by it. The same thing got Gideon by the Ephod which he made; for it became (saith Esdras, Judg. 8.27.) such snare unto his house, that his threescore and ten Sons were all at once caught in it, ch. 9.5. and such an evil Spirit of misunderstanding (as is now between your Highness, and the English People) was sent between his Bastard, and those who had chose him King, v. 23. that they carried it not far, but were soon after so fast entangled in the same snare, that they utterly cut off and destroyed one another. By the revolts of Subjects, the Prince's sins against God are commonly punished: and nothing makes Princes more potent and absolute, than when they themselves serve God, their King and Master, in Truth.  
Do so then; rise from darkness to light; convert yourself, Sir, to the true God of all flesh; and when you are converted, set up a strong purpose to promote his Spiritual Kingdom, with all your power: and those very Enemies that would not have you to reign over them, shall be your Friends: and shall, as they did before at your former return, meet you with Acclamations, and become your dutiful Subjects; and continue such as long as you continue dutiful to your Maker. God give you understanding that you may serve him and live: as it was the prayer of a wise King for himself, Psal. 119.34, 144. so it shall be mine for you: and that the Earth may be full of the knowledge of the Lord, Isa. 11.9. under you, if you outlive and succeed his Majesty.   

The Reader is desired, before he reads this Book, to correct it as followeth: viz.  

PAg. 4. l. 13. for and the old, read and that the old.  
Pag. 31. l. 18. for and I cannot pray, read and I can pray.  
Pag. 32. l. 8. for availeth, read availing.  
Pag. 38. l. 1, for impudientes, read impedientes.  
Pag. 49. l. 6. for mirarles, read miracles.  
Pag. 104. l. 20. for these, read this.  
Pag. 106. l. 9 for undestand, read understand.  
Pag 108. l. 5. for also the Column is very low, read also though the Column is as low.  
Pag 108. l. 7, 8, 9 for whereas the Air flowing then laterally hath no such pressure upon the Stagnum as it would in still weather, if it had any at all: read, yet the Air flowing then laterally aught to have no pressure on the Stagnum: which I prove, etc.  
Pag 108. l. 24, for the Air would likewise abate, read the Air ought likewise to lose.  
Pag. 108. l. 26. for of the descent, read all the descent:  
Pag. 117. l. 23. for disjoins the Fluids, read divides the Fluid.  
Pag. 124. l. 8. for casc read case.  
Pag. 126. l. 25. for in D C A, read in D C E.  
Pag. 149. l. 18. for said an Author, read saith a Modern Author.  
Pag. 212. l. 6. for him, read him.    


THE ETERNAL GOSPEL Once more Testified unto, and Vindicated, etc.  
GOD forbidden that I should revile or censure the least of the Ministers of God, Mat. 18.10. (as some will with the Vicar of Westham, pag. 22. be apt to say I do) for then I could not but fear some such punishment as fallen upon those Children who reviled Elisha, 2 Kings 2.25. But God forbidden also that I should look upon some men as God's Ministers, because they count themselves such, Job 32.21, 22. for then I must needs be sitting in the same shadow of death, (ignorance of God, John 17.3.) and in danger to lie down at last in the same sorrow, Isa. 50.11. as they that know God only by hear-say, and worship him, in shows, with their mouth and lips. The means to avoid mistakes in this, is the discerning and trying of the Spirits: which being a faculty, that St. John takes for granted all those he writ his first general Epistle to, that is, all true Believers, have already, or may have, chap. 4.1. (and they being made by Christ, Priests, etc. Revel. 1.6.— 5.10. may pretend to the Priests right to discern and to pronounce what is clean, and what unclean, Levit. 13.17, 23.) I hope, by the mercy of God, it belongs to me. And therefore I hope, that if after having tried and found that some men have not in them the Spirit of Christ, and shown sufficient reasons and very good grounds for it, I pronounce them to be none of the Ministers of God, I shall not go for a Reviler of such.  
And truly I have tried and found, that not only some few men among Christians have not the Spirit of Christ, but that so many are the false seducing Spirits gone abroad into the World, 1 John 4.1. to deny that Christ cometh to men whilst yet in the flesh, which Spirits are not of God, v. 3. and to speak, as St. Paul saith, 1 Tim. 4.2. their lies in Hypocrisy: that the true Doctrine of Christ, and the two Witnesses that do testify of him, seem like to be overcome, Revel. 11.7. nay to be killed by them; nothing but their carcases, the dead letter of Scripture, and a dead ineffectual notion of the Holy Ghost, seeming now left unburied, lying in the Streets of the Spiritual Sodom, that is, the present Christian Churches, v. 8. For what else is allowed them, and dispensed among their Members by their own Prophets? for instance, by the Author of a late Sermon preached at the Visitation of the Bishop of London, and by all them that approve, hold and teach the same Doctrine? who are come to that height of insolence in denying the power and existence of God's Spirit in his Church, in changing the truth of God concerning it into lies, holding in unrighteousness that which may be known of it, Rom. 1.18, 19, 25. that I think it high time for them who make mention of the Lord, not to keep silence, Isa. 62.6. but with the Rod of their mouth to smite all these Seducers by whom offences do come, that the simple may beware, and learn to come without them to the knowledge of the truth, Prov. 19.25.  
For my part I declare, that reading the said Sermon my Spirit was so stirred up, Acts 17.16. that, having (like Flihu, Job 32.11.) given ear to their reasons whilst they searched out what to say, and waited a good while for an answer to them from some wiser than myself, I could hold no longer; and seeing none appeared to convince them of falsehood, I thought it my duty to do it myself, lest they should think that they are the people, v. 13.— 12.2. and lest error should triumph over Christian light and truth. Though indeed as a Novice I might have been afraid to proffer my opinion, v. 6. against so many grave, learned and Right Reverend Fathers in God, (so called) had I not, as well as Elihu, v. 9 (after having thought, like him, that Days should speak, and the old standing Professors should teach wisdom, v. 7.) found that the famous Doctors are not always the wisest, and that these Aged Fathers are not they that understand the Art of discerning best: For note, It was but a little that I had passed from the Watchmen of the City, saith the Soul in the Canticle 3.4. but I found my wishes: That is, so soon as we pass from the Watchmen, or leave them, and not whilst we spend the time in consulting and seeking to learn of them, as v. 3. our Soul comes to attain to that which it longs after, it's own summum bonum, the knowledge of God and Christ, John 17.3. for it is the gift of God, the Watchmen cannot give it, since they seldom enter in themselves, and keep from others the key of truth and knowledge, Luk. 11.52. But on the contrary, that they may, as St. Paul saith, Gal. 4.17. though they exclude others, be by them affected, cried up, followed after, endeavour (as for instance, this Preacher) to suppress it. Whence they that rely on them, that seek for truth at their mouth, that dig for it in their works, (Nemo dat quod non habet) find nothing but vain knowledge, and that their bellies are fed, as Job saith, with the East wind. But besides, having also found out, like Elihu, v. 8. that there is a Spirit in man, and that the inspiration of the Almighty is that which gives him understanding, without respect to his Age, or to his Humane Learning; and believing that the mouth and wisdom promised Luk. 21.15. Mat. 10.20. which all the Adversaries are not able to resist, is given in time of need, why should I be afraid to give my testimony, and to stand against them all for the truth of the Gospel.  
Therefore though I am neither a Prophet nor Prophet's Son, Amos 7.14. (not so much as a Graduate in the Schools and High places of your Watchmen and Prophets) but a poor obscure Tradesman, who am not so much as known among any Christian Sects, and am tied, and supported, to none, and by none of them; though briers and thorns be with me, and I dwell among Scorpions, Ezek. 2.6. yet, worthy Master Vicar, I am so far from being dismayed at your, and your Bishop's supercilious looks, that I will make bold here, with the help of God's Spirit, not only to answer you in very different terms from those, who, seeking for praise and applause from other men, endeavour to please all men, and take care to displease none; but to try both your Spirit, and of your Lords Spiritual, (who by their approbation of your Doctrine of Spirits, give me cause enough to think that they are of the same mind) and to judge and to pronounce (call it never so much pragmatical censuring, reviling of dignities, and rebelling against them) that the reason and the cause why you discourse so strangely concerning the Spirit of God, is because you are very great strangers to it; and mere natural men still, who being not able therefore to discern the things of God, 1 Cor. 2.14. are much less able to teach others what belongs to them. Let your reason be never so well improved at your Seminaries of Learning, and be you never so much guided by the clue of it, (they are your words, pag. 15.) yet, except you be born again of the Holy Ghost, you are without God's Kingdom, John 3.5. Rom. 14.17. and therefore the mysteries thereof are nothing to you but mere Aenigmas, Mark 4.11. and you can be nothing but blind leaders of the blind people that hear you.  
There is a Spirit in man: And without being Quaker, Enthusiast or Fanatic, (and suppose I were one, must men reject truth, because they or the Quakers teach it?) I say, that God's Spirit, which inspires man with all knowledge and understanding, is given to all Christians, 1 Cor. 12.7. to guide them into all truth; so that searching by the Light of this Spirit, even the deep and hidden things of God, ch. 2. 10. Rom. 1.20. and growing in grace by it, they may 
* Note that the English. Translation of this place of 1 John 2.20. which reads you shall know all things, is false, for the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, signifies not, you shall know, but having known▪ you know still: for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used instead of the Present Tense, as the Latin Verb N●vi.  know, John 14.26. 1 John 2.20, 27. and do all things, Mark 9.23. Phil. 4.13. and thus being taught of God, John 6.45. need not that any man teach them.  
But the Question is, Whether this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Unction, the Holy Ghost, be given to all true Believers, or good Christians, as unto the Apostles: For that it is given to them all in some measure, their very name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (in English, anointed one's, and being made Kings and Priests, Revel. 1.6.— 5.10. they must needs be anointed) shows, and that they partake of the true Oil of gladness with the Messiah, or Christ, called so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by reason that he had not the Spirit, like the other anointed ones, by measure, John 3.34. Hebr. 1.9. for both Christ and Messiah signify the anointed: and not the Faithful only, but all men, Jews and Gentiles, partake of the Holy Ghost, a certain portion of it being distributed to every man living, and allowed to all mankind, as appeareth,  
1. Because Christ, by the Light of his Spirit, enlighteneth every man that cometh into the World, John 1.9. and not the Faithful only.  
2. Then, from the spiraculum breathed into man's nostrils, Gen. 2.7. being still, since Adam lost the Holy Ghost by his Fall, to the days of Solomon, and likewise in our days, the Lamp of the Lord in man, Prov. 20.27.  
3. Next, from the reason given by him who is perfect in knowledge, the most wise God, Gen. 9.6. why man should not shed man's blood, to wit, because he is made after the image of God: which shows that man had not yet quite lost the image of God, (for if he had, this reason had ceased at the same time, and as being of no force, God had not made use of it) therefore hath some of it still, for we find not where that since Noah's time he hath lost it. And this Image consisting in the Spirit of promise, (for by the receipt of it men are, according to the promise made to Abraham, of their being restored or renewed to the same Image of God Adam had, which all are fallen short from, Rom. 3.23. (God's promise to Abraham being but the same as that which he had made to Adam presently after his loss, Gen. 3.15. which, what is it else but a bruising of what made him creep, a rising from the beastly dark state he was fallen into, and so a recovery from his said sickness and loss?) created a new (saith Paul, Eph. 4.24. Colos. 3.10.) after the image of God, Acts 2.33, 38, 39 Tit. 3.5, 6. Heb. 11.39, 40.) since man hath still some portion of the said Image left him, he hath likewise some relics of the said Holy Spirit which forms and constitutes it: as from the words renewing, and newness of the Spirit, frequently used by Paul (as Rom. 7.6.— 12.2. Tit. 3 5.) upon this account, may further be understood.  
4. Again, The kingdom of God being like unto a man travelling from his Estate into some remote Country, who delivered to his Servants his goods, or good gifts, Mat. 25.14. that is, the Holy Spirit, (confer Mat. 7.11. with Luk. 11.13) it follows that God giveth his Spirit to all mankind, (for all men are God's Servants, the being Lord and Master) and the Holy Ghost is (saith Paul alluding to this, 1 Cor. 12.7.) given to every man, to trade, use and improve him for his own best advantage.  
5. Lastly, The Kingdom of God (which is within man, Luk. 17.21.) being like leaven put into meal, Mat. 13.33. a thing of the same nature, but so heavy of itself, that it must be fermented with Leaven to become Bread; it appears that, though all men have with Adam lost some part, and (note well) come short only, Rom. 3.23. of the whole Image of God, 1 Cor. 11.7. yet all men, (some more, some less) and not only those few that are born of the Spirit, have still remaining in them some old ruinous fragments, or a certain smoking Flax which is of the same nature as the Spirit of promise, which renews and reforms man, but which was not given till Christ was glorified, John 7.39. Quicquid in hominibus (saith the thrice great and learned Author of the Pymander) videt & audit, verbum Domini, that is to say, is from the Word of wisdom, or Spirit of the great God, 1 Cor. 12.8.  
Neither do any of the Christian Sects, I know of, deny the said allowance of the Spirit to themselves, though some exclude other men, such as the Jews and Heathen: And Master Vicar himself is so far from denying and arguing against it, that he makes it his business by a new distinction of an extraordinary and ordinary Spirit, to show that though the former is ceased, as he disputes, yet the Christian Church always receives and hath the latter of the two continued. His words are these, pag. 6. viz. The Apostles extraordinary Spirit continued more or less about 400 years in God's Church, and men wrought Miracles, and thereby convinced Gainsayers, though about that time they were not so numerous and plentiful as they were before; and the reason was, because there was no such need of them, and a little after they ceased: For when the occasion and reason of working Miracles ceased, as Kings proving Nursing-fathers' to the Church, the Gospel being a National Religion in most Countries, than God in his wisdom suspended that great and mighty power wherewith he had accompanied good men before: Therefore men are now to look for no other Spirit but what is necessary for their needs, as they are Christians. Having said, pag. 4. that the Primitive Christians stood in need as Apostles of their extraordinary Spirit, upon the account of both the Jews and Gentiles, there being great reason that such as were the immediate Instruments of so great an undertaking as making void a Law, to wit, the Law of Moses, which had been settled by God, and convincing the prejudiced Gentiles of the truth of their persons, as well as of their doctrine, should have a proportionable commission and strength to do it with. Alas! (adds he, pag. 5.) had it not been for this, the Gospel would have been nipped in its first budding forth; and it would have been a downright impossibility for so great a part of the World to have been imposed upon, by such a company of illiterate persons, as the Apostles, before the descent of the Holy Ghost, were. Can you imagine that such learned men as Dionysius, and other persons brought up in the Schools at Athens, who well understood the principles and connexion of things, would have submitted to the pretences of such bold and rude persons, who could show no reason at all, beyond their own confident assertions, for what they said? No, it was impossible; and by the way this one thing shows the great necessity of humane Learning, and is a sufficient confutation of all those Enthusiasts who do revile it; to wit, that what the Apostles wanted of it upon the score of Education, God supplied by Miracle. But for their extraordinary Spirit, it is a plain case, because we daily experience it, that it is ceased, and that no man can now pretend to it; for he that pretends to the same Spirit the Apostles had, must do the same things, or else he is mighty vain, and argues his understanding to be much impaired.  
Now judge ye who is more vain than this Vicar, who denies Scripture, and the experience of several sober, learned, pious, godly men, who have been Eye-witnesses, and testify and relate the Miracles wrought upon some faithful believing men, since his four hundred years, as shall be showed hereafter. Judge also whether his own experience can teach him, that the said Spirit is ceased: For the gift of Miracles being but one of many belonging to that Spirit, and all the gifts being not given to every one of those that truly believe, but one or two gifts to each, as in page— appears; he must needs be acquainted with all the true Believers that live all the World over, to say that his Experience, and that of his acquaintance, (who are as well informed as himself, of what passeth daily among the faithful) shows him that none of them can at present pretend to it: when the Prophet Elijah (who was as noted a man, I hope, as the Vicar) knew not one of the seven thousand faithful men who lived in his time in Israel, 1 Kings 19.14, 18. and they that can do these things, do not seek to show themselves and to be known openly, John 5.44.— 7.4, 6. Luk. 8.56. But though they did, and wrought some Miracles every day in the sight of all the World, yet they that say that Miracles are ceased so long ago, would believe them no sooner than their fellow Pharisees, who though blasphemous enough to ascribe the glory of them to Beelzebub, were not so silly as to pretend that they were ceased.  
Then, observe from his own words, that what God by Miracle supplied of Humane Learning, being wanted upon the score of Education, might by Education have been got without Miracle: and so what need was there God should supply by Miracle, what he might have had and done plentifully without it? For there lived at the time that Christ chose the Apostles, many other men, who had by their Education got Humane Learning enough to hold out an Argument against the learned Heathen. And St. Paul, who had enough, Acts 22.3. needed not, I presume, (to supply his want of it) receive the same fullness of Spirit as the other twelve: yet he received it, and that with as extraordinary circumstance as all the rest, Acts 9.17, 18. 2 Cor. 11.5.— 12.4. Gal. 2.6, 8. Besides, the necessity of Humane Learning (Logic, Metaphysic, etc.) to convince Dionysius and other learned Gentiles, whose conviction the Vicar said before was the hard task that required such an extraordinary Spirit, implys that Humane Learning was the means the Apostles made use of to convince them, contrary to 1 Cor. 2.6, 8. Col. 2.8. Mat. 11.25. And if so, may not they that are now great Masters in it, (although by Education) and say they make use of it, (as the Divines of these times against their Adversaries) pretend to do the same things, and to have therefore the same Spirit the Apostles had? Verhum sat sapienti; this being but by the way to give the sober Reader a hint of what the Learning of those wise men will produce, 1 Cor. 1.19, 20. And they have ill luck, who whilst they seek for honour and praise for their Learning and Wisdom, not only get no credit, but forfeit, by what they were in great hopes to procure some, that which they were looked upon to have already gotten.  
But O that they were as wise and learned as they pretend, and as they would seem to be! for than they might do some good, and had saved me the trouble of declaring now for them; that the Apostles Spirit continues still in the Church, that all men have the same right, and as good pretences to the extraordinary Spirit the Apostles had, as the Apostles themselves; and that they may now have it, and, if they will make use of the same means they used, Acts 1.14.— 2.1.— 15.7, 8. John 14.23. Luk. 18.1. receive it, and be filled with it, as much as they were. For the gift of that Spirit, (if we will but take Christ's word, and solemn promise for it, Mark 16.17. John 14.12.) wait upon the Church of God, all them that believe in him, of any nation and tongue, and of any profession, Acts 10.35, 44, 46. and that, not for about 400 years only, but until now, at present, and to the end of the World, Mat. 28.20. for, that I may not leave them comfortless, saith Christ, John 14.18, 23. I will come (by what can comfort, refresh, and give life and joy, (viz. by my Spirit) v. 26.— 6.63. Jam. 2.26. Acts 3.19, 20.) and make my abode with them, or within them, (for the Church being the body of Christ, 1 Cor. 12.27. Eph. 4.12. he must like the Soul in man, dwell in the Members that make the said body) for ever, John 14.16, 13. and, to you and your children, and to as many as God shall ever call, saith Peter, Act. 2.38, 39 the promise of the same blessing (to wit, the receipt of the same Holy Spirit, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.4, 8. Gen. 22.18. Gal. 3.14.) belongs. And, saith he further, Act. 10.47.— 11.15. not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, as he confirms it, ch. 15.8. according to the same measure as we the first have received the Holy Ghost, you may receive, be filled with him, and have him likewise; (Which words show that St. Peter did not arrogate either to himself, or to the rest of his fellow Apostles, the extraordinary Spirit ascribed to them: viz. a more peculiar gift, and a greater share of God's Spirit than all other true Believers have, or may have; and that he did not then dream of being more infallible than they be, and of his Church, and Church-mens prerogatives: as men do before they have received the Holy Ghost, witness Mark 9.38. conferred with Luk 24.49. Numb. 11.28, 29.) And so, from these words of Christ and Peter, that it appears that the Apostles Spirit, or the same Spirit they had, never ceaseth in the Church, nor in any National Religion, Sect, or party, until it ceaseth to be the Church and the Flock of Christ: for then, not only the gift of Miracles, (to which, and to their skill in Humane Learning got without Education, he seems chief to confine the Apostolical gift) but all other gifts also, which do infallibly wait upon that of the Spirit, (such as wisdom and knowledge, 1 Cor. 12.8.) are removed and taken away from that Sect, in God's wrath, Revel. 2.5. (rather than wisdom, as the wise Vicar, measuring it by his own shallow brains and dull fancy, as shall be showed in its place, saith God did suspend the same) that Church becomes desolate, and remains according to the Prophecy of Daniel 9.27. and the construction thereof by St. Matthew 24.15. and St. Luke 21.20. compassed (instead of Christ's presence by the Holy Ghost) with abominable armies and companies of Churchmen.  
Only, as there are divers administrations and gifts of the same Divine Spirit, 1 Cor 12.4, 6. such as wisdom and knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, tongues, prophecy, and discerning of Spirits; which are not all to be found in one member, or Paul is much mistaken, v. 6, 29, 30. so, I must here further declare for Master Vicar, and all his fellow Watchmen, that though one man doth not do all the same operations that all the Apostles did, yet if he doth some of them, he may pretend to the same Spirit the Apostles had: for if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body, is it not of it therefore? v. 16. that is, if he that hath but the discerning of Spirits, should say because I am not a Teacher or a Prophet, I have none of the same extraordinary Spirit as the Prophets have, hath he not therefore been made to drink of the same Spirit? v. 13. for if the whole spiritual body were prophecy, where were the gift of knowledge and discerning of Spirits? v. 17. and if they were all Prophets, or all workers of Miracles, where were the several members, and operations that constitute or make up the said spiritual body? v. 19 Thus, do I from St. Paul speak here for Master Vicar; and will yet further instance St. Paul, (a chief Apostle, Gal. 2.6, 7.) during the time of whose preaching and stay at Antioch, arrived certain Prophets, one of which did prophesy that there should be a great dearth or famine throughout the World, Act. 11.26, 27, 28. to whom the Disciples, who were doubtless directed by Paul and by Barnabas, gave credit; and Paul himself, though he had a greater gift of the Spirit, did not say or object that he wondered that his inferior should have this thing revealed to him, when he knew nothing of it. And elsewhere that same Prophet foretold Paul, what Paul himself foresaw not in his own case, Act. 21.10. (or he had (what he did not) foreseen that he had been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar, Act. 25.26.— 26.31, 32.) to wit, that he should be taken at Jerusalem: and, thus saith the Holy Ghost, said then that certain Prophet, (for so the Scripture calls him) ch. 21.11. Whence I ask the Vicar, since St. Paul could pretend to as good a share at least of the same holy Spirit, as that certain Prophet did, why did not the Holy Ghost reveal the same things to him? Because, though he had knowledge, and understood mysteries, as he was an Apostle, yet he was not a Prophet; for, are all Prophets, saith he, 1 Cor. 12.29, 30. are all workers of Miracles? as all are not Apostles, v. 28. so I cannot work all the said other gifts in me: it being God alone that doth work them all (and note) in all, and not in one man, v. 6. Likewise I ask, if he that hath the gift to discern the Spirit of the Vicar, and some portion of knowledge, hath not the gift of Miracles, hath he not therefore the same Spirit as the Apostles? But what say you, Vicar, to what Paul himself doth stile yet a more excellent way than Miracles and Prophecy, and the best of the said gifts, viz. Charity? v. 31.— 13.2. is that ceased in your Church? I dare say you are not willing to acknowledge it: and so like the Chief Priests, Mat. 21.25, 26. you are hedged in on both sides: for if you say that this more extraordinary gift is not ceased in the Church, neither, by your Argument, are the other gifts also, which are counted by St. Paul not so excellent as this, ceased, as you teach, from it: and if you say that it is ceased there, then judge whether you are still a faithful Church: for do they believe in Christ that omit one of the first and chiefest of his precepts, Mat. 22.39. John 13.34. 1 John 3.11. and take quite another way than that which he hath showed them?  
And this last, your Argument, that he must do the same things who pretends to the same Spirit the Apostles had, proves further, or you must yield that it is of no force and validity at all, (which dilemma, as likewise the other, your great Learning could not foresee, and prevent your being now put to them) for the Apostles were sent to do, what? Signs and Miracles? No sure; but to preach, and win or gain Souls, by teaching them the way to their conversion, 1 Cor. 9.19. Mat. 28.19. Mark 16.15. This they did in all places, but preached in many places, nay they convinced many, and Dionysius himself, and established Churches, without working of Miracles, as may be seen by their Acts: and their Miracles were not always wrought to convince the gainsayers of the Faith, (which you say was the reason and the occasion of them) since they wrought them sometimes in their private Meetings by night, amongst the faithful, as for instance, at Troas, Act. 20.7, 8, 9, 10. Now you will grant that it is incumbent upon the Church to preach, exhort and win Souls, 2 Tim. 4.12. and you pretend you do it: so that if you do it not, you are not a faithful Church, but burdensome hypocrites, & inutilia hujus pondera terrae; and if you do it, you do the works of the Apostles; therefore, by your Argument, have the same Spirit they had, and so it is not ceased; but it is your Argument that ceaseth to be in force, if that can be said to cease, which had never any true existence, but in a false and erroneous fancy. He that winneth Souls is wise, Prov. 11.30. Dan. 12.3. wisdom is by Paul, counted the first gift of the Spirit, 1 Cor. 12.8, 31. If therefore you win some Souls, (as it is pretended that some of your number do, or else what reason is there why you should be imposed upon a Christian Nation as necessary to them?) have you not a greater gift of the Spirit than Miracles, which are, according to Paul, v. 29. but the fourth in order? and do you not do a greater thing than Miracles, and so as great a thing as any of the Apostles? He that hath as much faith as a grain of Mustardseed, may do all wonders, Mat. 17.20. and yet, witness Paul, 1 Cor. 13.2. he is nothing. And there is a greater need of the best gift, Charity, and a greater strength of Faith requisite to do like Paul, (that he might help to save some) to become all things to all, 1 Cor. 9.22. to be contented to be needy, hungry, despised, Phil. 4.12. and seeing a way filled up with nothing but misery and crosses every where, most freely to enter it; and to bury one self alive to all worldly joy, (as Christ teacheth we must do, if we will be believers, Mat. 16.24, 25.) and thus to overcome the whole World and its power, 1 John 5.4. John 16.33. Coloss. 2.15. than to suspend or infringe some particular circumstance in its order, by doing some such thing above its natural course, as the swimming of Iron: the Spirits forcing their way again through the Optic Nerves, (when they are stopped, or withered) to bring the blind to their sight: and the wholesome virtue, that issues Mark 5.30. from the healthful body of a faithful man, (whose mind and will is by his strength of Faith so stirred up, and so much bend and intent upon the poor sick man's cure, that they make his own Spirits in the height of his zeal (like as in another man's passion of anger or lust, they fly to the place proper to exercise, for instance, lust withal, and run from thence towards the object of it) go forth from him, as it were confertim, towards the sick, 2 Sam. 13.39.) working its own simile; and, by prevailing on the spirit of infirmity, Luk. 13.11. setting to rights in the sick his distempered Spirits, which were by the said Evil Spirit of infirmity disordered, and enraged.  
As for instance, (to give the Reader some imperfect hint of what difference there is between the Faith requisite to work all other Miracles but that of man's conversion, and the Faith necessary to work in another man such change as conversion) suppose me a Believer, I know that the virtue or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God is not far from any man, for in him we live and move, Act. 17.27, 28. and lo, he goeth by me though I perceive him not. Job 9.11. and is it not he that fills the whole world with his presence, Jer. 23.24. This I see being sick; to wit, how this Energy (which is the Spirit of God, Gen. 1.2. his arm, and his organum, quo agitantur omnes in hoc mundo species, & quo summus artifex ad suam machinam potissimum utitur) passeth to and fro, pervades, and conveys the breath of life through every one of us. At this Aspect, I say, what is the reason, O Lord, that this thy all sufficient and never-ceasing virtue, John 5.17. is suspended and withheld from my languishing body? Because I have sinned, Jer. 5.25. Job 33.27. but I humble myself, and knowing thy goodness well, I trust that as thou art he that thus chastisest me, so thou art able alone to help and deliver me: O send forth thy Spirit again, Psal. 104.30. help mine unbelief; say the word, and presently he is gracious to me; he opens his hand again, and let's go the influence of his virtue, that was bound, and frozen up as it were, in respect of me, so that it could not vivify me: I am renewed in a trice, my flesh becomes again fresher than that of a child, Job 33.25. Psal. 103.5. and according to my faith I find it done to me, Mat. 8.13.— 9.29. So, if a Serpent, a Bear, or other hurtful creatures should set and fasten on me, I having the Author of my life before mine eyes, Heb. 11.6. and believing steadfastly that none of my hairs doth fall to the ground without his leave, and that these have no power to hurt me, except it be given to them from above, John 19.11. I should not be afraid, Psal. 23.4. but should say, thy will be done; thy gohdness gave me my life, and from thy goodness alone I look for the safety and preservation thereof. In this Faith I am sure that no deadly thing could hurt me, Mar● 16.18. and dare say that, like Daniel, I could stop the mouths of Lions, Heb. 11.33. bea● back the flames; like Paul, Act. 28.5. shak● off a Vicar, with all the poisonous spite i● his long train of Bishops: and through this Faith in the name, or power of our Christ any man, as well as John and Peter, Act. 13.16. can do all sorts of great wonders in the World, Phil. 4.13. except the greatest of all viz. another's conversion: for (as for man's conversion) the same degree of Faith and of Spirit will not serve to work and accomplish it; because the Soul of man being a Divine creature, a radius emaned from God in Eternity, and more excellent therefore than the Earthly body, or any part of the World, it is harder a great deal to work an alteration in it, than in the body, or in the Water and Air: and this same alteration being a new creation (as the Scripture witnesseth) of a corrupted creature, and that hath naturally a strong averseness from it, and a bent and propension quite opposite to God's will, it is a greater Miracle than the creation itself of the World, and of Adam; which brought on their side no such opposition to God's will, and requires therefore the power of God himself; and so that a man should make himself one with God, to have the power to effect it: which union with God is not attained to by the same degree of Faith, and of Works, as that which can cure the sick, and overturn a mountain, for one grain of Faith doth this; whereas it is by keeping the works of Christ to the end, overcoming seven times, that men come to that union, Rev. 2.26.— 3.21.  
Behold I see a Soul in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity, Act. 8.23. (that is, in the fiery, fretful and anxious state, or the wrathful principle, wherein are all natural unregenerated men) and bound with three dreadful chains; first, of the anger of God; secondly, of the corrupt, vain, earthly and mortal flesh, full of evil desires, which are hatred against God, Rom. 8.7. lastly, of the desire and attempts of the Devil, to blow and kindle in the Soul all its evil properties; to keep it in God's anger, and to turn always its will so much the further from God, and to throw it from the Truth of God, into Vanity, viz. Pride, Covetousness, Envy, Anger, and all Lusts; and I wish hearty that I could any way, and by all means do it good. But though my fervour of zeal and contention of Spirit, would thrust even a Mountain from its place to another, as being but a pondus iners, and no way active, endeavouring against me but by a dead and passive quality, gravitation; yet it cannot stir the Soul from its state and position, neither is it sharp enough to penetrate even to the dividing asunder of the Spirit of the Soul, and of the joints and marrow, Heb. 4.12. to cast the Soul into the great gulf, Luk. 16.26. of grief and of despair, which lies between her own natural state or principle, and the new principle or state of Light and of Conversion, much less to bring it over the same safe and entire; because it must be willing and co-work to its own help, but will do neither of them, Mat. 23.37. and though I set my will as fully as it can be upon the thing purposed, and lift up my mind as high as it can rise and extend, and even beyond its source or mother, Eternity; and in fine, stretch out my Soul to such incredible size, as to be greater than all things within ubiquity; yet because a Soul is not to be reduced by force, and taken by a strong hand into the Kingdom of God, (or else the Almighty power and wisdom of God, needed not to have died to reduce men under it; and that is not the Kingdom of God where he reigns by force, but where men yield obedience and subjection to his will, out of love for his goodness, and freely give him up all power, honour, and glory) I cannot for all this transport prevail upon it; but, like the stronger man, Luk. 11.22. I may thereby prevail over the strong armed man (the Devil) that keeps his house, v. 21. and take from him his armour, (his fiery darts) and having cast him out of his strong hold, lose the Soul which he had bound before, Mat. 18.18. and taken captive, as St. Paul saith, at his will, 2 Tim. 2.26. and I can●●● pray to God to appease his fierce wrath by his great fountain of love, (Jesus, his own heart, and Light) to cleave the Rocks, and to shake the Earth as when Christ died; and to shake Heaven also, Heb. 12.26. Luk. 22.44. as it is certainly done in every conversion: (for the powers that are in Heaven must be shaken, before the sign of the Son of man, the bright morning Star, 2 Pet. 1.19. Rev. 3.28.— 22.16. appears in the contrite Souls, (which are the clouds of Heaven, Luk. 17.21.) with his light and great glory, Mat. 24.29, 30. Mark 13.26. Luk. 21.26, 27. and then to send down his Light of Life to convince the Soul, and to give it strength to turn away from its vanity, Act. 3.26. Now the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man, availeth much, as saith James 5.16. the prayer of such Faith as this may convert a Soul, v. 15. procure it some light and grace; which when a man sees it come to pass, he may boldly say, thy sins are forgiven thee.  
Whence, by the way, Conversion being so great a miracle, and so much above the strength of humane capacity; first, how insignificant is all the humane Learning towards effecting of it? (what the Vicar, mistaking Conviction for Conversion, and confounding them, saith both were done by humane Learning in the Areopagite, for they were not only convinced, as the Jews were, by arguments and reasons, Act. 18.28. but believed, which implys conversion; and the Vicar ascribes, without distinction, their belief to the humane Learning of Paul, and the rest.) and secondly, if some men convert still in our days, as it is believed and confessed on all hands, with what truth can the Vicar and his fellow Churchmen say that all Miracles are ceased? with none: Faith, the victory that overcometh the World, 1 John 5.4. being still able to force God, Luk. 18.4. Mark 11.12. to do all the things needful towards a man's conversion; to make of a man, a God, Luk 6.40. John 17.21. Rev. 3.21. and to bring the Believers through all things imaginable, but impossibilities, Phil. 4.13. Mark 9.23.  
But what Faith? that of your Church, and of your Lords Spiritual, who do Lord it over the heritage of the true and only Lord and Master, contrary to his doctrine? 1 Pet. 5.3. 1 Cor. 8.6. Eph. 4.5. Mat. 20.27, 28.— 23.8. No truly, Master Vicar, for a Believer is he that keeps the Precepts of Christ, and shows his Faith by his Works, like the Primitive Christians, Act. 19.18. who confessing their errors and sins past, did forsake them, Mat. 3.6. Prov. 28.13. like Zacheus, Luk. 19.8. and others, who parted with what they did value above any thing, Act. 2.45.— 19.19. before they believed Christ's doctrine: which teacheth, (and that very peremptorily, Mat. 24.35.) that he who leaves not Houses and Lands for the Gospel's sake, Mark 10.29. that hates not Wife and Children, and even his very life, John 12.25. is not worthy of the name of a Christian believer, Mat. 10.37. and which commands us to sell what we have, to give the poor, Luk. 12.33. to invite the poor, and lame, and blind to the feasts we make, ch. 14.33. to seek the kingdom of God: and to take no thought for what we shall eat and drink, and be clothed with, in time to come, Mat. 6.33, 31. These thoughts being not the thoughts of Christians, (who believe, (1.) That God knows that they need all these things, and when they need them. (2.) That God having out of his nature (which is to act, and do always good, for it is summum bonum) bestowed already upon them life and body, a far greater gift than food and raiment, will without doubt, because he never changeth, supply out of the same goodness, the rest of their wants, and give them the lesser gift, which he doth allow even to the Fowls and to the Grass, creatures which are not so much worth his care as Believers. (3.) That all their taking thought and care, can add nothing to their state and condition, and cannot make so much as one of their hairs white or black. (4.) That God is now as able as ever he was to afford all things to them, Heb. 11.6. and therefore rely on God for all their necessaries:) but being the thoughts of the Gentiles, Mat. 6.32. and natural men, who know not these things of God, though they feel his great goodness, Act. 17.27. Mat. 5.45. and therefore dare not rely upon him for any thing. A Believer is he that understanding perfectly wherein lies his chiefest good, or the most happy state of bliss he is capable of, and being convinced that all these tribulations are the only way and means that can lead him into it, Act. 14.22. is notwithstanding the same, so transported and taken with the thoughts and hope of it, that resolving upon them, he takes up the cross of Christ, 1 John 3.3. like a stout Champion, and doth enter the Lists against them, by parting with all he hath to buy this hidden treasure, Mat. 13.44. and without so much as saluting his acquaintance, Luk. 9. 6-10.14. he runs blindfold Gal. 1.16. from his Wife, Children, Parents, and himself, (by leaving, as much as is possible, his eyes, and his hands, that is, denying the lusts which are incident to them, behind him) to sight, and seek to get with less distraction, Mat. 5.29, 30. the said beloved treasure, Prov. 2.4. Mat. 6.21, 33. which he is in pursuit of, and hath still before his eyes.  
But to do as the Bishops, who seek for praise and applause, preach, and do most of their works to be regarded of men; who, like the Rich man in Luke 12.18. hoard up against the morrow, and plead for it from St. Paul, 1 Tim. 5.8. (as though St. Paul's doctrine contradicted that of Christ, Mat. 6.31, 32. and as though his meaning were that men must work to be rich; and not rather that they should work with their hands, as he did, Act. 18.3. for their own and Families subsistence from day to day, Luk. 11.3. his words having reference to widows (speaking of them before and after this verse) which were to serve tables, Act. 6.1, 2. that is take care to buy and dress Victuals; and whose office it was not to provide the means or the money for to procure them, since they were themselves to be provided for, as it may be gathered out of Scripture: and his said words ought therefore to be thus interpreted, viz. But if some of them (widows) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, takes no care, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of her own, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, chief or at least, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, of those of her house, that is, who dwell in the house with her, but minds her pleasure, 1 Tim. 5.6. as most of our London Huswives, instead of continuing in prayer both night and day, v. 5. she hath denied the faith, that teacheth us mutual love and care for one another: whereas the Bishops do thus cunningly translate and fit the same for their own purpose, viz. But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith: But what faith? the Bishop's faith in the God Mammon they serve, Luk. 16.13. and whom they say they can serve together with the true God, blowing, like the covetous Pharisees, their nose (for note the Greek word imports so much, v. 14.) at whoever doth, like Christ, deny that they can do it, v. 13. thus to justify themselves, v. 15. making themselves wiser than Christ; and his perfect Laws, those wholesome commands of God, void by this their tradition:) to do then as these Bishops, who are carried about in pomp, like Shows, or pompae, (quae nullius per se sunt actionis compotes, caeteros vero mole sua impudientes) in their Chariots and Coaches, with Footboys in Liveries, with long Gowns and soft raiments, and all other fine Trappings, (which things they that wear, shall not (as being effeminate, the Text saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, see Mat. 11.8.) enter the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 6.9. who, instead of being contented with what is set before them, Luk. 10.8. that is, with some allowance willingly made sufficient to maintain them, go from house to house, v. 7. that is, get from their first Benefice into another fatter, nay keep both at the same time, and still gape for a better; who (whereas Christ's followers have not where to lay their heads, Luk. 9.57, 58.) have rich and large Palaces, where they keep a continual feast like the feast of a King. 1 Sam. 25.36. for persons of Quality, and their Friends, as Nabal did: but when a poor man cometh for relief, as David did, you are a Stranger to me, many Servants now a days run away from their Masters, v. 10. where is your Certificate? you are some idle Fellow, and why don't you go to work? is all the comfort he finds; or stand thou there in the Hall (or sit under my footstool, Jam. 2.3.) until I have dined, is the greatest favour that he can expect of them: who, when they have got some men into their Inquisition, that is, their Spiriting Court, (which may be so called from Spiriting of Money, and making many poor man's Purse light, and Spirits heavy) condemn all, but inflict no punishment but on the Purse of their Patients, who are those they presume to have money; and that on no better proof, than the bare information of some Whore upon Record: whereas Christ would not condemn the Whore, John 8.11. though she was taken in flagranti delicto, v. 3. for who hath made me a judge (saith he to some, Luk. 12.14.) over you in the kingdom of this World? John 18.36. But Bishops will be the first Judges in order therein, nay will sit as such upon those that are its proper Judges, the Temporal Lords: they will be Lords and Masters, Mat. 23.8. and that not only Worldly or Temporal, as the rest, but Spiritual Lords also; (a brave business, if they could tell how to have dominion over the Spirits of men: what abomination is a Lord Bishop in Christ's Church!) O that my Body could but keep as far from the reach of their Lordships and Mastership's, as my Soul and Spirit are! for I should be as safe from the effects of the kindness they shall have for me, as they may be from any future invective from me, in containing themselves within the bounds prescribed to all Lordship in this World, like all the other sober and modest Temporal Lords. I say, that to do as the Bishops, all the said things, is not to believe in Christ: for do they believe in one, who act point-blank contrary to what he shows and prescribes; and show by their fruits or works, that they are far from good trees, and that they have perverted the righteous ways of the Lord? May. 7.16. Therefore it is no wonder if Miracles, and such other gifts or fruits of the Spirit, are ceased from among them; nay it were a great wonder if they should still wait on such: for how can the Slave of sin, who is taken captive by the devil at his will, 2 Tim. 2.26. and hath not strength to shake off the yoke his evil passions have both subjugated, and keep him still under with, have power to overcome and command evil Spirits, Fire, Water, and the Winds, hurtful Beasts, and deadly things? and why should these obey him, when they see not that in him to which they own obedience, to wit, the Image of God; and whilst the Nations that War against the Spirit in man, Revel. 2.26. Gal. 5.17, 19, 20. deny him all allegiance, are not only revolted, but continue absolute Masters of his mind and will?  
But what sign dost thou show thyself, will some say to me? John 2.18. art thou greater than all these famous Doctors of the Church, John 4.12. that thou thus takest upon thee to tax and find fault with them, as though they made of the house of prayer a Marketplace, of God's Word a mere Story, of his Wisdom great Nonsense, and of his Religion or Worship a Pageantry? I answer, that they are famous according as they lift up hammers and axes to break the Church of God down, Psal 74.5, 6. that I am, I confess, more brutish than any man, Prov. 30.2. 1 Tim. 1.15. pretend not to work Miracles; but though I could do it, yet I could not show them any sign at their request, because of their unbelief, Mat. 13.58 and because it is not done but according to the faith of him that seeketh a sign, ch. 8.3.— 9.29. Signs being besides to wait only on them that believe, Mark 16.17. and to follow their belief of the Word, to confirm it, v. 20. the word confirming, used by Mark, importing some kind of precedent believing, for there must be some belief, before we can suppose a need of confirmation; and so the adulterous and perverse generation may seek long enough for signs, and yet have none given them, but the sign of a Prophet: which what it is, let them that read understand, if they can, and what I mean by it: for truly when men have an evil prejudiced eye, like the old seekers of signs and lack some understanding to pass a righteous judgement, and to discern the Spirit of a man by his knowledge, and to believe at his words, John 4.41. uttered by God's Spirit Act. 2.4. neither would they believe if one arose from the dead, Luk. 16.31. and did work all the wonders they should require of him This is plain from the hardness of heart of the Egyptians, Exod. 7.11, 12. from the blindness of the Jews, John 10.24, 25, 26.— 12.37. and from the blasphemous madness of the Pharisees, Mat. 12.24. notwithstanding the wonders they saw by Moses and Christ. And it is evident from the stupidity wherewith this adulterous and wicked generation hath beheld the Prodigies which have of late appeared, that they would look upon the wonders of Moses and Christ, if one did now show and work some of them in their presence, with the same indifference; that is, behold and wonder, Act. 13.41. and believe them supposed, or false, lying and insignificant wonders: (for who considers and looks upon the said Prodigies as the sad presages of his approaching ruin?) and would no more lay the same to heart, make good use of them, desist from their ill courses, repent and mend thereupon, than Jeroboam who saw his Altar rend in pieces, and his own hand dried up, and afterwards restored, yet returned not from his evil way, that he might be destroyed from off the Earth, 1 Kings 13.33, 34. 1 Sam. 2.25. as are all those Kings likewise, who walk in his ways, that is, who forget that the most high rules in the kingdom of men, Dan. 4.25. and is he that gave them one not only when they had none, but when all the policy, friends, power and interest they had could procure them none; and who, as though their own hand had done this great thing for them, trust to their wit and cunning for the preservation of it in their Family, 1 Kings 12.26, 27. and think, by forsaking the Author of their greatness, and of their life and being, in setting up a Calvish worship of God in Bethel, that is, a Lip-worship, bodily Ceremonies, and outward Formalities, and Shows in the House of God, they strengthen themselves mainly, and secure to themselves the quiet possession of their Kingdom for ever, against all future revolts: But the God against whom there is no counsel and wit, Prov. 21.30. and who judgeth in the earth, Psal. 58.11. laughs at their wise contrivance, and warns them by Prodigies that his hand is stretched out, and ready to strike at them; and tells them before he strikes, 1 Kings 16.2, 3. For as much as I exalted thee out of the dust, and made thee Prince over my people, and thou hast walked in the way of Jeroboam, and hast made my people to sin, and given them great offence; behold I take away thee and thy posterity, and I will make thy house like that of Jeroboam: which God, who turneth the hearts of Princes as he pleaseth, avert in his great mercy, from some Princes in the World. And therefore should the wisdom of God (quae nihil agit frustra, as is confessed, and doth not show her wonders to gratify the humour of unbelieving scorners, Prov. 3.34. but the wishes and prayers of some lowly, humble and meek, as those of Hezekiah, Isa. 38.22, 7, 8. of Gideon, Judg. 6.17, 37, 39 and others that believed what she said, and to make known God's power and his name throughout the earth, Exod. 9.16. John 9.3.) work Miracles at the demand of such unbelieving and perverse generation, it were to their destruction, ●uk. 11.50. which the goodness and patience of God, and the love they that believe have for their Neighbour, keep God, and the believers Spirit from bringing to pass, and from executing yet Judgement upon a Nation. For which cause, Christ, who was come to save, not to destroy men, Luk. 9.56. being the dumb Lamb of God, that did not strive, nor open his mouth and utter his voice, Mat. 12.19. Act. 8.32. like Moses, Numb. 16.15. and Elijah, 2 Kings 1.10, 12. went always away from such, as Mat. 16.4.— 21.17. Mark 8.13. lest by their too long tempting and playing the fool with God, his holy Spirit had been so grieved and provoked, as to stir up the principle of wrath to devour them.  
From whence observe, that the end and occasion of Miracles, is not the conviction of the gainsayers of the Faith, (as our worthy Vicar not only takes for granted, but urgeth the scarceness of gainsayers, by the Gospel becoming a National Religion in most Countries, for an argument of the cessation of all Miracles) seeing they are wrought, first, to confirm the believing of the Word, to establish and encourage believers to continue in the Faith, when they have once received it: and secondly, to punish the scorners and opposers; them that seek to turn away those that are prepared for Salvation, from the Faith; them that blaspheme the Name of God, and that contribute to the dishonour of it, as from Elymas, Act. 13.8, 10. the two Captains of fifty, 2 Kings 1.10, 12. Gehazi, ch. 5.22. Ananias and Saphira, may be learned. Thirdly, that the power, or name, and glory of God, may be declared and known among men throughout the Earth: To which it may be added, that they serve to keep in awe many men, Act. 2.43. as Gamaliel, ch. 5.39. from fight, or declaring for them that fight against God.  
And truly, because Miracles have often been, are, and shall still be done by deceivers, Exod. 7.11, 22.— 8.7. Mark 13.22. 2 Thess. 2.9. Revel. 13.13. they are no full evidence of a true mission from God, nor convincing proofs of the truth of the doctrine set forth by him that shows a wonder, and works some Miracles for it, (though the Vicar saith they are, pag. 6.) For not only we are not, if we believe Christ's advice, Mark 13.21. to believe what he teacheth, but we are to judge of his mission, and of the virtue whereby he works his Miracles, by the doctrine he preacheth; and to set our reason, and the knowledge which we should have of God's will and commands, above the authority of all his signs and wonders, Deut. 13.3. and if his doctrine be found (like that of Master Vicar) contrary to the Divine, contained in the Scriptures, he was, for all his Miracles, by the Law of Moses, before Christ came to save what was lost, to be put to death, v. 5. And indeed it were better for false teachers to be hanged, or cast into the Sea with a stone tied to their neck, Luk. 17.1. than they should give such offence, as that the Vicar's Sermon hath given to many men: for when at the Judgement day one shall accuse the other, that he hath caused him to err, and curse him for the evil do he hath committed, this shall then excuse himself upon his next Superior, and the Superior upon the Supreme Authority, and the Supreme Power upon his false Counsellors; who, having no other plea, shall cast the fault of all these upon their wicked Teachers, who have kept them in darkness; and instead of reproving their courses, to bring them to a righteous and godly life, have for some Preferments sake soothed them up in their sins; then shall the blood of all these be required at their hands, Ezek. 33.6. Deut. 27.18. and this great burden shall lay so heavy on their shoulders, that it were better for them to have been cut off betimes, than to have lived to give the least of those that shall thus complain, cause of offences. And in further evidence that signs are not to convince the gainsayers of the Faith, we do not find any where in Scripture, that any man who was not beforehand prepared and inclined, (like the Proconsul Sergius, Act. 13.7.) was convinced thereupon: for, as for them which John saith 2.23. believed in the name of Christ, seeing the miracle which he had done in Cana, it appears from what he saith in the following verses, 24,25. of Christ not thinking it fit to commit himself to them, knowing what faith was in them; that their faith was such as that of Simon, who believed and wondered (Act. 13.41.) beholding the mirarles which were done, ch. 8.13. but believed not like them, v. 12. who it is said believed at the preaching of Philip, v. 17. for his heart was, saith Peter, v. 21, 23. not right in the sight of God, and he was still in the dark, austere and anxious source, or the gall of bitterness; far from a true faith in Christ, that brings man off of that state. And such as that of the people of Lystra, and of Derbe, who after they had seen the impotent man cured, and taken Paul for a God on the account of this sign, ch. 14.11, 13. stoned him nevertheless, v. 19 what no man would do that hath the least grain of Faith in him: so, though the Barbarians of Maltha said that St. Paul was a God, ch. 28.6. honoured him, and loaded him and the men with him, with necessaries, v. 10. yet there is not one word said of any that believed at the several great things which he did there before them, v. 5, 8, 9   

But without this, it is sure that Christ coming to save man, salva & integra humana creatura, (as St. Peter witnesseth, and as the words of Christ in Luk. 9.56. may be expounded; and he saves by reforming and restoring men unto their first state of perfection; for it being very good, Gen. 1.31. he needs not add, or change it:) he must use some other means than Miracles to convince them: for though a man could believe the words of Christ to be true, because he should have seen him do some wonders and Miracles; yet not understanding the ground and reason thereof, his faith were but implicit, he were not yet convinced, and should still be in the dark, and an imperfect humane creature, Coloss. 3.10. which if saved, such were not saved entire: and therefore whilst man is such, Christ doth not take him hoodwink into his kingdom of Light; but first, (the humane creature consisting chief of these three Essential faculties, Intellectus, Voluntas, & Animus, seu vires & potestas agendi; and the perfect state, wisdom, or summum bonum thereof, of these three well rectified) God works, to make man perfect, upon his understanding, 1 John 5.20. enlightening his mind by his Spirit, and prompting him with reasons fit to convince him, and to make him know himself, that is, find out and perceive that it is as he teacheth, and that he speaks true indeed, John 4.42. Then, when the understanding is perfectly reform, man mistakes no more bonum apparens for the true good, but apprehends wherein his summum bonum doth consist: and Lux intelligendi being the most perfect Law, volendi & agendi, as soon as he perceives this, he will naturally bend his will and desire towards the same, and choose it: and that done, with all the strength of his courage and virtue, which, without the help of the power from on high that doth enable him, is quite helpless, he will avoid and abstain from that which keeps him from it, Act. 3.26. and follow, embrace and use all the means to compass it: and thus may become perfect, and come to be saved whole, or received entirely reform to his first state, whilst others see and wonder, Act. 13.41. and are left, Luk. 17.36, 37. in a broken and imperfect condition, though Christ should have wrought all his Miracles before them, John 12.37. Truly if blessed are they that have not seen, yet believe, John 21.29. (because intelligere being ipsum credere, and there being no belief of what is not understood, they that believe things without seeing them done beforehand, show that they understand the possibility thereof, and have more understanding, and therefore are more blessed than those that must see the same before they can believe them) they that would see some Miracles wrought before they believe, will remain under the curse of God, and in unbelief. And from these things, I think, it is clear and manifest, that Miracles convince no man; and that there is no need of visible and outward signs for the conversion of the gainsayers and unfaithful, but of the sign of the Son of man, the Light of his Star, coming imperceptibly, and shining like the Lightning, Mat. 24.27. in those dark clouds of heaven, v. 30.  
And certainly if Miracles were (as the Vicar saith) the reason of conviction, and if there was great reason that such as were the instruments of so great an undertaking in the first Age of the Church, before the Gospel was a National Religion, and whilst many gainsayers were yet to be convinced, should have a proportionable strength of faith to do it with; there is now in its old Age as great a need of Miracles, and of as great strength of Faith and Spirit, as there was then: First, on the account of the gainsayers of all parties, not only Turks, and Papists, who are fallen from the Faith, and from the purity of Christ's Gospel and Doctrine; and are, by reason of the prejudice they have therefore against the true followers and teachers of a Doctrine which they have departed from, harder to be convinced, and to be brought back again to the obedience of it; but Protestants, who deny the same, whilst they profess it: Secondly, on the account of the self-conceited blindness of all Christian Sects; for they pretend all to see, John 9.41. to know, and understand best Christ, and the oracles of God, Rom. 3.2. we are the strictest Sect of Christians, say most of them, we are wise, and the Law of the Lord is with us, Jer. 8.8. we are of Christ, Mat. 24.5. and lo, he is amongst us, Mark 13.21. and thou wast altogether (would they say to Christ himself, Luk. 10.16. if he came to preach over again the same things he did, and to make them sensible of their neglect of the same, and practices against it) born in sins, or ignorant, (for that phrase imports so much) and dost thou think to teach us, John 9.34. who are ourselves the best Doctors of his purest Church? we know too well the meaning of Scripture to believe thee; and we may choose to credit even an Angel of God, if he came down from Heaven to confirm what thou teachest. These are doctrines of Devils, and it is very probable (saith the Reverend Vicar, pag. 11. lin. 12.) that some worse Sect than that of the Quakers, if a worse can come in their room, will ere long (what if this were a Caiaphas' prophecy? John 11.51.) be at the doors, and disturb the minds of credulous people. Therefore is that party (I speak this for instance) which calleth another, whose doctrine may for all that be far better than its own, the worse Sect of all Christians, like to believe by its means, and to receive from it, even the plain truth itself, without they see some Miracles, and the same power of Faith as the foresaid instruments (to wit, the Apostles) had; whilst, like the proud Pharisees, they thank God that their doctrine, and their way is not like this? Luk. 18.11. No sure, but rather to be, like the self-conceited Jews, Rom. 11.7, 11. made more blind than the Gentiles; and per consequent the conversion of all such, (whom I take to be far from converted Christians) is a more difficult work, and so needs the same, if not a greater Spirit and strength, than that which the Gentiles wanted in the Apostles. Greater abomination of the desolation cannot be found in the Church, than when being made altogether desolate, (that is, brought to the most opposite state to that which constitutes a Christian Church) it yet abominably calls itself, and will be counted the true Church of Christ!  
But I hear some again (of that blessed crew, doubtless, whom no reason without sense can convince and satisfy) saying, though we grant all this, yet the Apostles wrought Miracles, spoke new Languages, and Prophesied; therefore though you cannot do it yourself, yet if their Spirit is not ceased, and seeing these signs wait upon the gift of it to some of the believers, show us who doth now any of those signs, or hath done them within the twelve last Ages, (and up comes Master Vicar with a scrap of his Learning, 
Dic quibus in terris, & eris mihi magnus Apollo,  
Opera jam sanctus tam grandia spiritus edat?)  as Miracles and Prophecy, the great attestation of any truth whatsoever, pag. 3. and per consequent of the truth of the Spirit of the Apostles being continued ever since 1200 years to God's Church? For we daily experience that none of the pretenders to their Spirit do the same: And we may assert (saith he, pag. 6.) that they ceased soon after the said fourth Century, notwithstanding the boasts of the Church of Rome; who indeed instead of confirming men in the Christian Religion by their pretended Miracles, do, if men be considerate, rather expose it to their scorn and censure, so ridiculous are the stories they tell, and upon such slight and pitiful ground do they pretend their Miracles are wrought.  
And here I must confess that the Vicar and his crew have catcht the Bear by the tail: for so, notwithstanding the boasts of another Church, and of what one, whom he will call, as well as the Quakers, one of the worst of Christians, can say and show against him, he may still as boldly assert that they are ceased, and find pretences enough to defend his assertion. But though what he saith of the Miracles of the Roman Church, is too true of most of them, yet have there been all that time no Believers among them? and have none of the signs mentioned Mark 16.17. waited upon some of them? this is a bold assertion, and a very hard thing for Master Vicar to prove: chief, if we consider that Christ by foretelling us that some false Prophets should rise, and show great signs and wonders, Mark 13.13. grants that (seeing even those whose coming is after the working of Satan, saith Paul, have power to work Miracles) some of the true Believers living among the Papists, have done, since that Prophecy, some of those many Miracles which are related of them; and may now (if it were so, and though the Vicar could prove, that they never did any) do some wonders; it being prophesied of time to come, without any restriction to the sour first Ages, Mark 13.13. and of what should come to pass after the Gospel had been published in all Countries, v. 10. then in respect to all men, v. 37. and per consequent, to all times till the World's end. And if not only those false Prophets who work their wonders by the help of the Devil, but the Necromancer also, who acts by the strength alone of humane nature, can effect wonderful things; as by retiring but for one moment within himself, and setting very strongly his will upon a thing, though at a great distance from him, introduce and bring to pass his desire upon it, or at least stamp upon it such mark or impression, as the longing Mother doth upon the fruit in her womb; as appears plain by Balaam cursing or bewitching by Enchantments whom he would, Numb. 22.6.— 24.1. except God by a special providence prevented him, Josh. 24.10. Numb. 23.23. why should the same power be denied to faithful men, though they live among the Turks, or are reputed Papists? especially being more Masters of their own Passions, than such natural men as a Necromancer is; and their minds more abstracted from all lower things, because their conversation is in the heaven above. But to do all parties right, it must needs be confessed that some of the Romish Saints, as Bruno, Lopez, and such, have by their fruits or their works, as by denying themselves, and dying to all the World, and to all the comfort they did enjoy of this life, to follow ever after their Saviour under the cross; wand'ring in deserts, mountains, and dens, Heb. 11.38. without taking thought how they should subsist and live; shown us that they did truly and really believe in Christ: and so we have no reason to think but that he met them, Isa. 64.5. Act. 10.35. made them know of his doctrine, John 7.17. and granted that some wonders were, according to his promise Mark 16.17. wrought by their hands, Act. 5.12. This, and let Master Vicar think what he will otherwise, though I have not seen it, I believe, and honour their name; and make no question but that many such are now living up and down the World, which, as unworthy of them, knows little or nothing of it. And if I can but die the death of those righteous men, to live as they have lived, I shall no way envy Master Vicars, nor any of his Bishop's Paradise. So much for the Roman Church.  
Now, as for the Protestant, they being as good Christians, and as true Believers at least as the Papists are, I know no reason why they should not see, and have seen, as well as the Papists, since their departing from them, which is near 200 years, som● of the same gifts of the Holy Ghost among themselves, if they are not yet ceased; except for want of the same degree of Spiri● and Faith, as those had which have wrought wonders among the Papists: for though i● be confessed that their Doctrine is bette● than that of the Roman Church, and tha● their Notion therefore or Opinion is better, yet neither a Notional, or an Historical Faith, nor crying with our mouth and lips, Lord, Lord, we know thee, Hos. 8.2. Mat. 7.21.— 15.8. (for the Devils know the same as those, and believe, and tremble) but doing the will of God, making men true Believers; it doth not follow from thence that they have more, or even so much Faith as some of those Holy men who have wrought wonders among the papist. Alas, how can they believe, though they cry Lord, or sing it with Organs, never so long, whose heart is set upon all vanities under the Sun! and how can they work Miracles, that deny those works of Faith which make men true Believers, such as dying wholly to all the lusts of the flesh, and all worldly-mindedness, and that believe and assert that all Miracles are ceased? But when the Protestant Church hath yielded such Believers, as some of the Romish Saints have been, the same signs also have then waited upon them, and have been seen and heard of those that say they are ceased; though by reason of their blindness and hardness of heart, they have in seeing seen them no more than the Jews, who saw and wondered, were in amaze, looking upon the wonders Christ and the Apostles did, as a Cow upon the new and painted door of her Stall. As for instance, they have seen the Maid of Bohemia, Kotterus, Drabicius, whose Prophecies are extant, and the unparallelled ever since the Apostles Jacob Behm, the Apostle of this last Age of the Church, who hath, as the other three, appeared to all Europe in Person and by his Books, which are in most of the European Languages: First, the Maid of Bohemia, by purifying her heart by Faith, prophesied of what should come to pass afterwards, falling into Trances, like Abraham, Gen. 15.12. and Balaam, Numb. 24.4. and gave signs several times when certain things should happen, and at what time the next Trance or Fit should come upon her. Kotterus was a Leather-dresser of Silesia, who, when he had prophesied, and set down his prophecies, and given them to be put in Latin to Comenius, gave him this sign, viz. that his Library should be burnt down, if he refused or neglected to do it; which upon Comenius neglecting to execute, came accordingly to pass by a fire from Heaven. Drabicius, who lately got the Crown of Martyrdom in Hungary, by the hands of the most inhuman Anti-Jesu-Jesuits, prophesied, which is a gift and work, or operation of the Holy Ghost, better and more excellent than that of Healing and of Miracles, 1 Cor. 12.28, 31. but because the Jesuits kept him Prisoner for it, we know not what signs he did, and it may be he did none, because of the unbelief of all the unfaithful crew that had some access to him. And as for the Teutonick Philosopher Jacob Behm, who, being brought up at first a Cowkeeper or Herdsman, and after a Shoemaker and Cobbler in a Village, shown himself a Prodigy of all wisdom and knowledge; what wonders had he not done, had he met with fit objects, I mean with Believers whose Faith had reached into, and joined itself with his? But that some were wrought by his Faith, is a plain case, if his being supplied with all manner of Learning, without Education, and the help of any Books, but of a Dutch Bible only, is a Miracle, according to the Vicar's assertion: for what deep Mystery, what great Arcanum is there in Natural, and Moral, and Divine Philosophy, which he hath not been perfectly acquainted with, without the study of Books? as to the single-eyed Readers of his admirable and inestimable Works, it manifestly appears; notwithstanding that it is at first sight a hard matter to apprehend his meaning: and not so hard neither, but to them in whom the God of this world doth blind the mind, lest the light of the glorious Gospel (which Jacob Behm hath of late most lively set out, and cleared from the dark mist which the ignorance of men had offuscated it with) should shine to them, as Paul saith, 2 Cor. 4.3, 4. The difficulties they meet with in perusing his Works, proceeding not from his stile, but from the depth of the things, and from the Readers themselves, who (as mere natural men) receive not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2.14. but (as some of their first fellow disciples objected before to Christ, John 6.59.) say, this is an hard saying: and go back, walk no more, or have no more to do, with him, v. 66. Then, as for new Languages, if he did not speak them all, he spoke and understood that which (like the Apostles new Language) was understood among all Nations and Tongues, viz. the Language of Nature: for note that the Apostles gave but one voice for each word, or did not utter each word, they spoke, in the several dialects of those Nations which heard Peter's first Sermon, Act. 2.9, 14. yet were understood of all, as if they had spoken to each in their own Language, v. 11. And that he spoke this Language, and had really the knowledge of occult Philosophy, his Explication of most of the hard names in the Bible, and in other Writings of some truly learned men; his Mysterium Magnum; his Answer to the 40 Questions of Dr. Walter, about the Soul, and her state, in this life, and after it; his Signatura Rerum, or his reading at first sight when he came into a Field, the most occult properties and virtues of any Plants, by their outward Signature, though he had never before seen, or read, or heard of them; and in a word, all his Works, with King Charles the First (whom you will grant, I hope, to have been as competent a Judge, as any Divine of the Episcopal Church) witness to some part of them, that if the Author thereof was not brought up a Scholar, the Holy Ghost was in him; and his Books, nil humani sonabant, every where betokening and declaring the most abstruse and divine wisdom that ever he read; do sufficiently demonstrate to sober minds. And though some of your Doctors may speak Hebrew far better, and be more ready than he at Sçeva, Hiphil, Phiel, and at finding of your Roots, (as wisely established for such, as the Holy Ghost taken away from Christ's Church) yet without Lexicon, Grammar, Talmud, and Targum, he went so far beyond them, that none of the best of them have ever so much as once dreamt of one word of the most sublime and divine sense which he hath discovered in almost every word of the Book of Genesis. And if you had been pleased but to consult him a little about the meaning of some Hebrew words, as for instance, what means the Scripture by the word Meroz, Judg. 5.23. you had never written, nor suffered to be printed so much Nonsense about it. Curse Meroz, who can that be in the true sense of Scripture, (which is every where Figurative, and besides in this place Prophetical) but the Bishops, and all such Shepherds whom God is against? Ezek. 34.10. for that being (like Meroz) some of the men set apart among the Christian Churches, to help the Spirit of God to fight against the Nations, and the powers of darkness which War against him in man, Gal. 5.17, 19 and oppress the people of God, and lead him away captive, as Judg. 5.12. is said: (for Meroz was a Town of Galilee, and belonging to the Tribe of Naphtali, which with that of Zeb●lon was by the Prophetess appointed in Israel to fight against Jabin the King of the Canaanites, Judg. 4.6.— 5.18. and so typifies a part of those which are chosen from the body of the Church, to set upon the Prince of this World, and his Host in us:) they, instead of thus helping the Lord against these mighty, not only go not about, either for their own private, or public good of their people, to oppose their invasion, but freely become their Slaves, and betray into the hands of those Enemies of God, Rom. 8.7. their Flocks, by suffering them to walk and to run with them in the will of the Gentiles, to wit, Pride, and Drunkenness, excess in Clothes, Patching, Plays, Revellings, etc. 1 Pet. 4.4. which Lusts go uncontrolled: nay instead of exhorting the Magistrate to suppress the Schools of Vice in this Land, viz. all lewd and Playhouses; these dumb Dogs that cannot bark, but for praise, honour, and gain, Isa. 56.10, 11. discourage, by barking at those that find fault with them, (as by applying to them on a Temporal account the curse of Meroz, appears) those few that would go and fight the said Enemies of God. Besides, as Meroz is not mentioned in the portions divided to the twelve Tribes, Josh. 19.32, to 40. among the Cities named throughout the inheritance of the people of Israel, and yet was a Town of one of the Tribes of Israel; so it ought to be applied to those that are in the Church, and yet are not of the true Church of Christ, have neither part nor lot in the Holy Ghost, Act. 8.21. the true inheritance of Saints, and Land of promise, Rom. 14.17. and whose names are not set down or written among the true Israel in Heaven. And who should these be but those who have not the Holy Ghost, and deny the gift of it; and yet, like Simon Magus, would gladly make sale of it; as from their Ordination for money, is manifest. These four were Protestants, viz. of the Lutherans and Valdenses Profession.  
That the other Protestant parties have also seen some of the same wonders and signs done by the power of Faith, upon some among themselves, it is no hard thing to give several instances of, and even out of some of their own Martyrologies: But because they that read them may observe the same themselves, and to avoid, as much as I can prolixity, out of many instances which are come to my knowledge in many parts of Europe, I will give only two, which occur and have been seen in England, not so long time ago but that several sufficient eye witnesses of the one are still living, and ready to attest it; as the other is likewise by the testimony of great many judicious and learned spectators of the same, now deceased.  
The first instance is of a blind man that received his sight; who being a Labourer, by name Robert Lancaster, of Castleacre a Town in the County of Norfolk, had lost one eye by a Thorn, and the other by a Stubble in binding sheaves in Harvest. He was at least five years without the least sight, and all that time earned his living with bunching of Flax and Hemp, being led by his Son, or an Apprentice he had, from one Town to another. He was a constant hearer of the Word; and one Sunday about 30 years ago, being at Church, where hearing that part of the Gospel read or expounded, which we find in the 9 th'. of John, v. 6, 7. viz. that Christ spat on the ground, made clay, and spread it upon the eyes of the man born blind, and sent him to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam, which done, he came thence seeing: God, it seems, who opens men's ears in adversity, by dreams, visions of the night, or by an interpreter, and one among a thousand, to show man his uprightness, that is, the way which he may become righteous and just by, Job 33.15, 16, 23. opened his heart to attend to the things that were spoken, Act. 16.14. and to believe that God being as able and ready as ever to help all those who, trusting to his goodness, call earnestly upon him, the same thing might then be done by him as well as before; and in this confidence, as soon as he came from Church, he caused his Wife to get some clay from the wall of his Cottage, and tempering it with his own spittle, anointed his eyes, and then desired to be led to a Spring which is in a place not far from thence, called Broad Meadow, where washing his eyes, he did presently receive some sight; and washing a second time, he had a very good sight for all his life afterwards, which was about eight years; and used for a great part of that time Threshing, in his, and other Towns round about. All this is certainly affirmed by several yet living in the same Town, who knew Lancaster before and since his recovery; by the Son of him that was then Minister of that Town, who lives now in Snedsham not far from Castleacre, his name is William Turner; by Philip Pagraff of Little Appleton, in Norfolk likewise; Thomas Boot, a Silk-weaver, who dwells now in Goat-Alley, by the Artillery-Ground; Mrs. Marry Gold, dwelling in the Haberdashers-Hall; and by Lancaster's own Son, (who lives within five miles of the said Castleacre) and Daughter, who is married within three miles of London. And this Relation comes from the present Minister of the said Castleacre, Mr. William Briggs, who though a sound Episcopal man, hath sent it in writing to one of my acquaintance.  
The other instance is of one Briggs, a North-Country man, of a competent Estate; which is observable, (1.) for his falling into Trances; (2.) for his great Faith, whereby he overcame the Tempter, and cast him out, or at least, far from himself, when in the fiery trial (which goes usually before an unfeigned conversion) he did (as he never fails to do on such occasion) assault him with all the might and the wiles he hath at hand, to make the despairing Soul fall under his temptation; (3.) for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and strangeness of his disease; and (4.) for his cure and recovery, without the help of all other means, than of a strong Faith in Christ. This same Briggs was a Lawyer of the Temple, a godly man, about 30 years of age, and contemporary to Fox the Author of the English Martyrology: His case, and all that passed between the Tempter and him all the time of his Trances, is in truth so remarkable, that, as it induced then, many pious learned men, both Physicians and Divines, (who resorted to his House all that while every day, to hear the things which he spoke) to put it in writing; so it induceth me to give it at large, as they have left it, to the public; that they may see in seeing, and believe the extraordinary working of the Holy Ghost in good men, to convert them, as well now as heretofore: and so referring myself for the particulars thereof to their Memorial, that shall be, God willing, printed within a short time; I will give over here the discourse of the power of Faith, and of the faithful working Miracles to this day, to follow the main design of this, the demonstration of the Apostles Spirit continuing in Christ's Church as long as the World endures.  
To which end, the distinction of an extraordinary and ordinary Spirit, set up by Master Vicar, is to be considered of; and we are to understand that, though the Apostles had the extraordinary Spirit he ascribes to them, whereby they wrought Miracles; yet it is properly such (that is, extraordinary) in respect only of the Spirit of Lip-Christian-Bishops, and natural men; for the extraordinary circumstances it came and sat with on the Apostles, doth not make it to be the more extraordinary: neither did it presently (though it introduced them into the kingdom of Light, and opened unto them the principle and the centre of all wisdom and knowledge; whence the language of nature, and the wonderful works of God, were at the same time understood and seen of them) show and reveal unto them what they should believe and teach in any doubtful cases, for the time they were to live; but respective to that of true Christian believers, it is but ordinary: for saith Peter again, Act. 15.9. the Lord put no difference between us and them, (meaning those he had said v. 7. believed) but he that knoweth the hearts (and therefore when men believe) bears them witness of their faith, by giving the Holy Ghost to them even as to us, v. 7, 8. Whence follows, that (since God bears witness to them that believe, by giving the Holy Ghost to them, even as he did to the greatest Apostles) all the faithful are sealed, as Paul saith, 2 Cor. 1.22. Ephes. 1.3.— 4.30. with the Spirit of promise, when they believe; and with an equal portion, when they believe equally. Thus, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether Apostles, Teachers, or any men, provided they be believers indeed, being all made to partake, or drink of one and the same extraordinary Spirit, 1 Cor. 12.13. which is further confirmed, Act. 11.17. by Peter pleading that God gave the Gentiles the like gift as he had done unto him: what he durst not have pleaded, if there had been between the Apostles and the converted Gentiles Spirit such difference as the Bishops imagine: for had there been any such difference in their Spirits, they that contended with him, as grudging and repining that the Gentiles should enjoy the same privilege they did, had given him some answer, (which we do not read they did) and not glorified God for it, as we read they did, v. 18. But truly this distinction of an ordinary and extraordinary Spirit among believers, being yet unknown with them, they freely acquiesced: and it being neither found nor grounded upon Scripture, which, on the contrary, asserteth the unity and the identity of Spirit, and speaks no where but of one and the same Spirit all the Church over: we are rather to adhere, like them, to St. Peter's words, denying this difference, than to the newer doctrine of the Episcopal Church, which, to the withstanding of God, Act. 11.17. stands stoutly for it.  
And that you may the better judge and understand yourselves, whether the said difference ought to be admitted of; it will not be amiss to consider the working of the Apostles Spirit, and how much the Apostles themselves ascribed to it; for most of the Lip-Christians attribute so much to it, and have such strange conceits of it, (as for instance, they who say that it is ceased) that they are kept blind thereby from knowing when they see him; and from perceiving when he doth manifest himself, that it is he whom they see, and his virtue which appears: all which might be prevented, and what we ought to think clearly seen and perceived, if in reading we had ears to understand what is said of it in many places: as for instance, out of the 13. chapter of the Acts, v. 52. it is plain and obvious, that Paul, as chief Apostle, Gal. 2.7, 8, 9 and the disciples of Antioch, were filled with the Holy Ghost: and from the 15. chapter, that upon some newcomers teaching against the doctrine which no doubt Paul had preached to them, when they believed, ch. 13.39. and was still present with them to make it out, as he did, ch. 15.2. yet they (the said disciples) notwithstanding their being filled with the Holy Ghost, not only knew not themselves, how to decide the question, but refused to believe to Paul and to Barnabas, (a certain argument that they thought no better of them, than of the said newcomers, and that notwithstanding Paul's extraordinary gift, they thought him not infallible:) and sent them to know the mind of the other Apostles that were at Jerusalem. But (what is more observable) in an Article of so great a consequence as this was, Gal. 5.2. Peter and the rest of the Apostles, and the Elders, when they came to hear of it, were themselves at a great loss; for they met all together to consider, dispute of, and resolve in this matter, v. 6, 7. and after much disputing pro & con, Peter stood up, and giving a good reason against the thing in question, which reason, after that Paul and Barnabas had spoken, being confirmed by James with some addition to it, it pleased the Apostles and Elders, with the whole Church, who gave their assent to it, and sent accordingly Letters by some other men, besides Paul and Barnabas, to the faithful of Antioch. And saith James, my sentence is, v. 19 which sentence or opinion being the result of their disputation and consult, is in v. 28. ascribed with one accord, v. 25. by them to the Holy Ghost, as to him that guided them into this truth by his help; and the convincing reasons suggested and gathered from the said disputations, are looked upon as his work, 1 Cor. 14.37.— 7.25, 40. Now here, first, no immediate afflatus inspires them, and reveals to any of them what they should believe; secondly, they take some time, and meet together with one accord, (not to write an Apostolical decree) but to consult together; and lastly, by disputing, seeking and examining, they come at last to agree, and to resolve upon the best-grounded opinion: which is that all true Christians, with the ordinary Spirit of our Vicar, may lawfully pretend to.  
Again, the Spirit in Paul, saith Luke, Act. 17.16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as he saw the excess of Idolatry in Athens: that is, he had not a mean and ordinary impulse and paroxysm upon him. Well, and what was the effect of this fit or paroxysm? did it make him work Miracles; and, like the man of God, 1 Kings 13.5. rend their Altars, and throw down their Images at his word? or did then the Spirit reveal some new thing to him? Truly no; he disputed daily in the Synagogue, and in the Market, out of that which he knew already; and by reasons which his light and knowledge suggested him were like to work upon them, he shown them their ignorance of God, which raised in some a mind to know him better. And the sum of the reasons he orged to them was, that the God whom they did worship out of their excess of zeal, without knowing him, was he that made the whole World, and could not per consequent be confined to their Temples; that he having made also all things in Heaven and Earth, and giving to all creatures life and breath, we have from him, and in him our being, and so are all his offspring, as they had even been taught by some of their learned men, viz. Aratus, and others; and therefore ought not to think that the Deity is like unto things far worse than we, such as Gold and Silver are, whereof their Idols were made: that their reason told them it was not fit to remain in that state of ignorance; but besides this, he shown them a further necessity to learn the knowledge of God, (which being Life eternal, John 17.3. implys good works, righteousness, and holiness, without which no man shall ever see him, Heb. 12.14.) which was that being to die, they were after this life upon a day appointed, to give an account of their evil works, to him that God had made Judge of all the World, and declared to be such by the power he gave him to overcome temptation, to fulfil all righteousness, and so to rise from the death, Rom. 1.4. no man ever arose from before him, nor since his time, but by him, and by his gift. To which reasons (note not fetched from any Humane Learning, against what the Vicar argues so groundlessly for; for what necessity is there of Mathematics, Logic, and Metaphysic, to convince men that they are a more excellent creature than Gold, or Silver, or Stones?) Dionysius, Damaris, and some others submitted: and this effect of the said impulse of the Holy Ghost in St. Paul, or other Saints, is no more than what some men whom I know now living, have done upon the same occasion in Italy.  
And indeed, we find not where that the Spirit, which was mighty in the Apostles, Gal. 2.8. was such blind afflatus as would immediately, and without previous knowledge, suggest and dictate to them the things which they spoke and did: But rather that it was a renewing of their minds, Rom. 12.2. Ephes. 4 23. by a new Light, which lighting again their smoking Candle, made them capable to see and to discover by it, all that which, standing before in the dark, did then plainly present itself to their view, so that they might have given a full description of it. As when the bright shining of a Candle giveth light to some men in a dark place, Luk. 11.36. 2 Pet. 1.19. they perceive on a sudden what they could not see before, though it stood round about them; and can find out by its meant, if they carry it with them, what lies hidden in the most hidden corners of the room: so, the Daystar arising in the hearts of those disciples, rendered clear and manifest to them what they could not see, and what was not to be seen without it, though with the help of all the Humane Learning: witness, besides St. Paul, 1 Cor. 2.9, 10. the Vicar against himself, in the place he citys pag. 10. out of Hales Golden Remains, saying, that what the Spirit did give them the knowledge of, were great and high mysteries, which had never entered yet in the heart of any man. The gift of the Apostles was the renewing of the Holy Ghost, saith Paul himself, Tit. 3.5. now as the word renewing implys an existency of some decayed, spoilt thing, that receives a new supply of what it lost and lacked; so, the renewing of the Holy Ghost doth signify a recovery of it, and a restauration to the same Image of God breathed into man's nostrils, when the Lord created him, Gen. 1.27.— 2.7. which consisting in knowledge, Coloss. 3.10. they needed no more than he another immediate blind afflatus, to know all things; that is, all they saw, and were to think, to speak, and to do: (for the word thing, being said of all that which dicitur, & cogitatur, & est, the knowledge of all things-promised, John 14.26. implys so much.) And that Adam needed no other new revelation or inspiration, than that of his own native knowledge to understand perfectly the nature of what he saw, etc. appears from that God brought all the Beasts to him, to see what he would name them, Gen. 2.19. (and not to teach him their names) and from that whatsoever he called every Beast, that was, saith Moses, the name thereof: God, who had before given names to other things, Gen. 1.5, 8, 10. seeing these were right and good, and that he had not only a right notion of the things, but that what definition and judgement he made of them, was so much according to truth, so perfect, and so congruous to their nature, that nothing was found amiss therein, he confirmed them: and that was the name thereof, as if God had given it. Therefore when the Apostles were by the Holy Ghost renewed in light and knowledge, they knew all things, like Adam, without new revelation; with this difference only, that whereas Adam had the perfect knowledge of all, from the very first moment after he was created, (for then he was very good, Gen. 1.31.) the Apostles, whilst in the body of this death, Rom. 7.24. and till that which is perfect (to wit, the perfect state of Adam in body and soul, Ephes. 4.13.) is come, knew and saw all things in part, and but as thorough a glass, 1 Cor. 13.9, 10, 12. neither came all that they knew to them at the first moment after their new creation, or new birth of the Spirit, John 3.5. but by degrees; for, saith Paul, 2 Cor. 4.16. their inward man was renewed, and perfected, day by day: the morning, and the daystar going before them further and further, until it came and stood over where lies the young child, or Truth new found, Mat. 2.9. so guided their minds from one consequence to another, as from the lowermost link, through the whole intermediate concatenation, unto the higher end of the Chain, yet in no great space of time, that in following it close, by seeking and by knocking, (for he who will that it should be opened to him, must knock, Luk. 11.10. and rise early and watch at the posts of wisdom's door, Prov. 8.17, 34. and traffic with his talon, but never keep it laid up) they did climb up by degrees into all wisdom and truth; came to some knowledge in all the most hidden things of God, 1 Cor. 2.10. and so did stand in no need of a sudden immediate impulse and inspiration, to declare and speak of them when they saw an occasion: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, he will lead you in the way, John 16.13. now leading one in the way, implies that he walks himself, and neither is carried to, nor the things which he is led into, brought unto him. And the Son of God, saith 1 John 5.20. hath given us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, (note, he saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, the understanding itself, but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, novum lumen in ment, a discerning faculty) that we may, by consulting, judging, and examining, discern to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: where the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or, in English, that we may, shows that the said enquiring and discerning faculty is the way and the means which the Holy Ghost brought St. John and the Apostles to know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Truth by. Also, it is plain from hence, that the gift of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit, bestowed on the Apostles, is first an understanding enlightened and rectified; to which they were left, even in the midst of their Visions, to gather from what they saw, what they were to do and teach, Act. 16.10.— 10.15, 28.  
Whereas the ancient Prophets under the Old Testament, with whom the true Unction, the Comforter or Spirit, made no such constant abode, as Christ promised it would with those that should keep his words thenceforth, or believe in him, John 14.16, 23. had not the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Light constantly shining in their minds, to direct them upon all occurrences: but the word of the Lord came to them, and his Spirit upon them, by intervals. God was not yet Emmanuel, the Tabernacle of the Lord was yet sometimes taken down, Isa. 33.20. and his Oracle, or his Word, the Verbum Domini, that is, his intellectus, voluntas, posse, actus, (nam, cum omnisciens & omnipotens Deus neque consilio, neque voce utatur, scire, velle, agere is still but one thing in him, to wit, his Verbum, or Christ, who is therefore called the wisdom of the Father, by which he knows and willeth; and the arm and the power of the Lord, John 12.38, 41. 1 Cor. 1.24. by which he can, acts, creates, and makes all things, Heb. 1.2. and saves all them that believe) did not as yet dwell in men, John 14.17. 1 Cor. 6.19. for they did not receive the promise of the Father, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.4, 5, 8. till Christ was glorified, John 7.37.— 16.7. Therefore the ancient Seers had not the Oracle in them to consult with at all times, like Christians, whom God speaks to in these last days by his Son, Heb. 1.2. who is the true Mercy-seat, or Propitiatorium, Rom. 3.25. found between the Cherubims, (viz. the Angelical Souls, which have Heaven within them, Luk. 17.21. Phil. 3.20.) from whence God gives his Oracles ever since his first coming or appearance in the flesh. But the Angel of God, Christ, Gen. 48.16.— 18.1, 10, 13, 16, 17. Mal. 3.1. made himself known and spoke to them, (1.) in Visions and Dreams, Numb. 12.6. Gen. 31.11. Dan. 7.1, 2. (2.) or spoke to them by a voice from above the Mercy-seat, between the two Cherubims, as the Lord did with Moses, Exod 25.22. Numb. 7.89.— 9.8, 9 whence to the Testimony, saith Isaiah, 8.20. Numb. 17.4. (because that it was then hidden under the Mercy-seat in the Ark, Exod. 25.16, 21. Heb. 9.4.) to inquire for counsel at the Lords mouth by Vrim, Numb. 27.21. Josh. 9.14. Isa. 30.2. Exod. 28.30, 28. 1 Sam. 30.7, 8. (3.) or the Lord did put his word in their mouth, and in their ears, Numb. 22.38.— 23.16. 1 Sam. 9.15. Jer. 1.9. Ezek. 5.14. Isa. 6.7.— 49.2. (not in their understandings, as by the new Covenant, Jer. 31.33. Heb. 8.7, 8, 13.) (4.) or they were, as Peter saith, 2 Pet. 1.21. transported, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, by some sudden rapture of the Spirit upon them, Numb. 11.26. 1 Sam. 10.6.— 19.20, to 24. 2 Kings 3.15. 1 Chron. 12.18. (5.) or received their Visions falling into Trances, like Abraham, Gen. 15.12. Balaam, Numb. 24.4. Ezechiel, ch. 2.12.— 8.3. and some others, Dan. 10.8, 9 And they were called Seers, 1 Sam. 9.9. because that for the most part they saw what they were to say and to do, represented and described in their Trance, Exod. 25.9. Heb. 8.5. thus having their eyes open, to see the Visions of the Almighty, whilst their body was dead and bereft of sense. But the Apostles of Christ, being one degree higher, understood not by, but from their Visions, (when they had some) by means of their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, what they were to do and speak: and fell not into Trances, which were accompanied with pain, horror and darkness, Gen. 15.12. Dan. 10.8. when they had any Visions; but being in the Spirit often of their own accord, Revel. 1.10. they were in such Ecstasies caught up into Paradise, Rom. 14.17. there to hear and see, without weakness, anguish and horror, the unspeakable words and Visions they received, 2 Cor. 12.4. Whence, if according to Christ, John 20.29. blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed, (because intelligere being ipsum credere, he that can without seeing understand what other men cannot understand, and so believe without they see it, is blessed with a better enlightened understanding, as hath been showed already) the Apostles were blessed with a greater share of that which gives men understanding, and were therefore greater than the said Seers and Prophets. And hence comes that John, till whom the Law and the Prophets were, Luk. 16.16. though the greatest among all them that are born of women, was the least, saith Christ, Mat. 11.11, 12, 13. among all them that are born of God, John 1.13. or the least in the kingdom of God; which, as it began but from the time John lived, Luk. 16.16 so it did not include him: for the Holy Ghost being given but after that Christ ascended to his Father, John dying before was not entirely in God's kingdom, Rom. 14.17. and had not the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dwelling in him; as appears from his doubting whether Christ was the true Messiah that was to come, Luk. 7.19. (for they that have it know that, 1 John 5.20.) and so he was but one and the last of the old Prophets. But notwithstanding this great Prerogative which all the Apostles had above them, they were but men of the like passions and infirmities with them, and with other men, Act. 14.15. as appears by Act. 15.39. and by Peter compelling the Gentiles to do those things, Gal. 2.14. which he himself condemned.  
Alas! (per Antithesin to Master Vicar's alas, which I have mentioned before out of his 5 th'. page) lumen patiebantur & tenebras interdum, to wit, when they did but slack the hand over the body, Mat. 25.13. Rom. 6.6.— 8.13, 23. 1 Cor. 9.27. Jam. 3.2. and had it been but for their extraordinary Spirit and Humane Learning, Dionysius and Damaris had no more cleaved to them, than those that heard the same things that they heard, and yet mocked, Act. 17.33. for what is Peter and Paul but the Ministers by whom Dionysius, Damaris, and the others believed? and that how? not as Paul's extraordinary Spirit prevailed, but as, even as God gave to some of them the grace to believe, 1 Cor. 3.4, 5.  
Quaere. Seeing Damaris is mentioned together with learned Dionysius, preferably to the men that believed at the same time, Act. 17.34. and submitted with him to the School-learned reasons, which (as it follows from what the Vicar saith, pag. 5.) Paul was necessitated to make use of at that time to convince Dionysius; was not the said Damaris a very learned woman, and brought up in the Greek Schools? or else was Dionysius become so much a Changeling, that Paul had no greater need of Learning to convince him, than to convince a woman? Luke, mentioning with a man of great Learning, a woman before any of the rest, seems to hint at the latter: and Christ saying that we must become like little children, to come into his Kingdom, Mat. 18.3. and Paul, that the wise worldlings must become fools to be wise, 1 Cor. 3 18. because not many wise men after the flesh are called, 1 Cor. 1.26. and God hides from such wise men his mysteries, Mat. 11.25. it is plain that the learned Athenian was become so woman-like, that the Bishops must look out elsewhere for another proof of the great necessity of Learning to convince him; and for another better confutation of those Sects, which they say do revile it.  
Alas! had it been but for the pretended supplement of it in the Apostles, the Gospel had been nipped in its very budding forth; the preaching of the Gospel had convinced no more men than it doth now amongst us; the World had continued to be imposed upon, like the people of Samaria, Act. 8.9, 10. and in general all they that heard the Word, had mocked! Is it wisely done therefore of the Lords Bishops to use, or suffer to be used a falsehood in a Pulpit with out check and correction, as an argument of the great necessity of the thing so falsely supposed, viz. School-learning in Preachers, to reduce unbelievers to the obedience of Christ? especially when Paul asserts flat and plain, that he made no use at all of it; God having chosen, saith he, 1 Cor. 1.27. the foolish things of this world, to confound the wise, (whereof you have an instance in me) and he preached not with wisdom of words, (the Humane Learning of the Vicar, which he calls somewhere else, a vain deceit, Col. 2.8.) lest the Cross of Christ, saith he, v. 17. should be made of none effect: for it is to the Cross that the powers of the World (among which Humane Learning and wisdom is not the least) are nailed; and by the Cross, by self-conceited wise men resolving to become fools, (which is a great cross to them) are the proud worldly wiselings, with their imaginations and high conceits, overcome, 2 Cor. 10.5. Col. 2.14, 15. Nay, it is altogether injurious to the power which worketh effectually in the hearts of all converts, Gal. 2.8. to call to help the wisdom of man and the School-learning in the preaching of the Word: and therefore the Apostles spoke not with enticing words of man's wisdom, v. 4. but planted and watered, or preached always with all plainness of speech and simplicity; committing the success to him that gives the increase, and trusting to his Spirit, not to their own industry, the work of man's conversion from sin to righteousness, the means and the way to which, is all that all Preachers ought to treat of in their Sermons. And for all this their plainness, weakness, and infirmities, they seldom preached in vain: and they had better success than our Lords with all their great wisdom that comes to nought, 1 Cor. 2.6. Also, for all their want of Logic and Metaphysic, they did not doubt, as having, saith Paul, 1 Cor. 7.40. obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful, but that they had the Spirit of God that directed them; that what they designed was purposed in that Spirit, Act. 19.21. and would have Christians to know that what they spoke or wrote as their judgement or sentence, was the command of the Lord, 1 Cor. 7.25.— 14.37.  
And here, had I but time enough, I could run down the Bishops so very low, that they would be glad to make of their Sleeves a Moses vail, if they knew what they know not, Zeph. 3.5. and were not so confident, Prov. 14.16. For the fear of God being not only the beginning and instruction of wisdom, Prov. 1.7.— 15.33. but also wisdom itself, Job 28.28. and a whole treasure of it, Isa. 33.6. is not learning the Greek Tongue, Logic, and Metaphy sick, and such like excluded from the means to get wisdom? for what can they contribute and add unto that which yields a whole treasure of wisdom? If a man asketh wisdom in faith, God will give it him, Jam. 1.5, 6. God will give him his good gift; the wisdom of the Father, that is, the Spirit of Truth, Luk. 11.13. to guide him into all Truth: For if any man will do Gods will, John 7.17. keep the words of Christ, ch. 14.23. he and the Father will come to him, by the Holy Ghost, whereby he shall not only know of the doctrine of Christ, but know all things, and all Truth, both Divine and Natural; the word all comprehending omnia scibilia, specially 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, John 3.12. or the knowledge of nature, as done before our eyes. For such an understanding have all they that keep Gods words, Psal. 111.10. that they come of themselves to know and understand more than all their wisest Teachers, Psal. 119.99, 100, 104. and in a word, the Scriptures proclaim almost nothing more than that men grow in knowledge, as fast, and by the same means only as they grow in grace; (to wit, knocking, and praying, Jam. 1.5. rising early, and watching at the posts of wisdoms doors, Prov. 8.34. which exclude Inspiration, or the blind afflatus of our Enthusiasts, which I allow not of (no more than Master Vicar) even in the Apostles:) by knowledge is man saved, Isa. 53.11. Luk. 1.77. 2 Pet. 1.2. by knowledge is the kingdom of God form within us, Luk. 17.21. Col. 1.12.— 3.10. Act. 26.18. whence some promises of it are to feed men with knowledge, Jer. 3.15. and so, since man is saved by knowledge, and salvation never comes but by the fear of God, grace and holiness, the way to obtain knowledge is the same as that whereby man comes unto salvation, which is not by learning Latin, Greek, and Aristotle; and by reading the Critics, Schoolmen, and Commentators. And St. Paul is persuaded that the believing Romans were filled with all knowledge, without going to Athens, Rom. 15.14. Where is therefore any room left here for the School-learning? and how mainly are the poor Enthusiasts confuted from a concatenation of silly suppositions, and refuted by Scripture? as first, that the Learned men among the Greeks and Gentiles, were convinced by the means and help of Humane Learning; secondly, that it was given to the Apostles by a pretended Miracle; and thirdly, that there is therefore a great need of it: but what to do, the Bishops should do very well to tell; for now that the Gospel is a National Religion, and Kings prove Nursing-fathers' to them in particular, what greater occasion have they of this effect of the extraordinary Spirit of the Apostles, than of that which they say is ceased so many years since? and it is very probable, though they will not burn their Books upon the same account as the Primitive Christians, Act. 19.18, 19 that upon the same account as the fat Roman Clergy, they will lay them all aside; and, as soon as they perceive with how little inconvenience they may save themselves the trouble of reading and of studying, suffer all Humane Learning to cease among them likewise, if they have not already made a good step towards it: for to be well versed in the History of what the Scripture saith and teacheth, is part of Humane Learning, and of their own profession; of which part or History it appears manifestly from what is said hitherto, that they are ill informed; or very full of malice, if whilst they know better things, they not only conceal them, but teach falsehood in their stead.  
And since that, contrary to the practice of true Christians, who burned their learned Books, Act. 19.19. they preach so much for Learning, what Learning have they themselves; and what great knowledge have they thereby attained unto, above illiterate men? I am sure I have not met in any of their Works, with any new thing found out by them worth the writing: nor (because I am not well versed in their Writings, as perusing very few of them, and very seldom) have I met one among many of their admirers, whom I have strictly enquired from, if they could indicate in all their Works any of their inventions and discoveries useful to mankind, and worth their while, and the charges they were at for translating and printing, who could, though they know well what their Books contain, show me one. But I have met in those few I have perused, several particular instances of their weakness; and in general, nothing but what (if well confronted with the Books of the Ancient) doth betray their ignorance of what the wise Ancient knew, and the petulant itching they have to show their nonsense, in writing absurdly of things, though they were before truly and discreetly declared by the Ancient.  
For instance, (that this may not be counted gratis dictum) in one of the best piece of their most famous Doctor for Human● Learning, Wallis, concerning Gravitation read before the learned Assembly of Gresh●mists, November 1674. and printed after three months mature deliberation of the●● Council, by order of the Lord Brounker who was at that time their Precedent, in th● 32. and in some other pages, I meet wit● these tokens of their deep reach and wisdom; the first, as the best reason and argument they can urge to defend their opinion of a descent and pressure of the Atmosphere equal to that of a Mercurial Column 3● inches deep, being the cause of Fluids' rising in a closed Pipe, and in the Syphon an● Pump; against that of the Ancient, tha● they rise in the said Pipe by the Fuga vacui is thus descanted upon; (viz.) If Fuga vacu● were the cause of Mercury, Water, and oth●● Fluids' rising in a closed Tube, Pump, or Syphon, than it ought to hold, and to mak● them rise to any height whatever. A P●●● (for instance) must draw Water an hundr●● foot high, and a Syphon convey Water and oth●● Fluids over the highest Mountains: and 〈◊〉 Ancients did not doubt, adds the Reveren● Doctor, but that it would be found so; and it was a surprising discovery, and wholly unexpected, when it was first found out by experience, about the last Century, that Water could not thus be drawn higher than about four or five and thirty foot: which Experiment alone did evidently evince, that the supposed Fuga vacui was not of an infinite, but of a determinate strength: which put Galileo upon the Enquiry, whether it were not from some other cause than Fuga vacui, that it would be drawn so high, but not higher: and he happily lighted on the Hypothesis of the Countergravitation of the incumbent Air. And had the Ancients therefore, been ware of what we find, that the Air hath (though but small) a positive gravity, they would not I presume, saith he, have troubled themselves with a Fuga vacui; but said roundly, that the Air by its weight and gravity, descending upon Fluids', presseth up so much of them into a void Tube or Pipe, as is equivalent to its greater height and bulk, etc.  
To which I say roundly, that I presume so too, had they besides found what the said learned Company finds, that is, taken for granted, or presumed with it, that the Air   

hath a descent in the consistence of Air; and that Fuga vacui implys, that the vacuum is causa efficiens per se, that sucks and draws up the Fluids into itself, and sustains them in the Pipe, Syphon, or Pump, etc. (as from the said Argument, concluding that the greater amplitude of the vacuum ought to make the Column rise higher, and extend unto any height along with it, and printed by their order, and with their approbation, it is plain that they and their Doctor take it in this sense:) for then doubtless they would not have doubted, (as certainly they did, though our Sages who are little acquainted with what they knew, deny it) but that it would have been so. But (whether happily or unhappily for them, let the sober Reader judge) none of them found what these find, that is, did presume with them, that the Fuga vacui implys that a vacuum fugit se, and sucks and pulls to supply and fill itself: and likewise an absolute prevention of the vacuum; for, as by Fuga ma●● it was not meant in their days, that evil i● to eschew, or shun and abhor itself, but tha● some other thing is to avoid and abhor it so by Fuga vacui it was not understood then but that some other thing likewise than the vacuum, is that which doth endeavour the supplying of the same, to prevent and avoid it. Then, as by the Fuga of Runaways in old times, it was not known that all those who run away saved themselves, and obtained the end which they fled for, that is to say, prevented being taken; so, those good men did not know that this Fuga, or active endeavour of that thing which would avoid the vacuum, must make the thing in motion, fugere ad extremum, bring it ad summitatem usque of the empty space, though it were never so high: and implys an end of the said endeavour and motion, (that is to say, Finis, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) equal unto Finis, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; ad quem actio fertur, (viz. a total repletion of the vacuous empty space) also implys an opus far above the force of the agens and operation, which is in all vacuums, great or small, always the same; and proportioned, not to the force of the said agens, but to the thing against which the agens employs its force, (viz. a greater repletion of a greater vacuum.) But if all Fugitives had saved themselves by their flight, and if one could leap higher sub dio, under the Sky, than under the roof of some high Church, or Westminster-Hall; for the Sky being higher, and yielding therefore more space to leap under, than the roof (for the Doctor's argument that Fluids must rise unto any height, according to the void space that they rise in, without regard to the force they rise by, is the same thing) they might perhaps have lighted upon as sublime notions, and drawn conclusions from then as Categorically as this excellent Doctor, whose mind soars so high above common ordinary sense, Prov. 17.24. as to imagine the flight to be in the thing fled from; and the action in the most passive thing in the whole World. Which conceits, I confess, are secrets the wise Ancients have never been ware of, and the discovery thereof the great improvements reserved for our times, and worthy of the wisdom of our modern Sages! There is a time for all things: old wit goes out of fashion, as well as the Lawyers French; and so doth Truth, when it comes to the age of doting people! Happy was Galileo to broach a Notion which is and lasts so long alamode; to influence so many with that which is surprising to all them that know something of the wondrous works of God, Job 37.16. Prov. 20.23. for his being surprised at it, when he first saw it; and to make use of his great head-piece so successfully, as to discover that the Fuga vacui is not of any infinite strength, (for who knew before his time that there is no such space in the circumscribed and finite place of the World, as would need an infinite rising of Fluid Bodies (which are yet of a far less extent than the World itself) to supply its vacancy; that is, an infinite space; and an infinite sphere of activity of things?) and so cannot be the cause of the finite height of the Column of Fluid Bodies: and as to gather from hence, what the wise Sons of Nature, and Nature herself never knew to have a being, or exist, before his time, viz. a descent of the Air upon us, equal in weight to that of a Mercurial cylinder about 30 or 31 inches deep; whilst it remains Air, that is, an aërial, or uncondensed vapour; which would make a weight equal to that of one Tun and half of Lead upon our breasts, when we lie on our backs.  
The truth is, that the Ancients never thought of such things, and were not so diligent in the enquiry thereof, as some are in our Age, (who staring at every trifle or toy that they meet with, as being puzzled with it, make a great wonder of it, and trouble other men with their strange conceits concerning it, crying them up for a great augmentation of knowledge) and yet knew as well as they, without the use of that which is called a Weatherglass, viz. by hot and cold weather, all that such Weatherglass shows, to wit, when the Air is rarefied or condensed. And though they have not treated ex prosesso in one place of the Fuga vacui, and of its limited strength, yet it may be gathered by piece-meal out of their Books, that they were not ignorant of Fluids' rising to their usual height, and no higher; nor of their respective Columns falling and rising afterwards by heat and cold: and that they understood well that these their solution of heavy Fluids' rising into spaces void of Air, to wit, Fuga vacui, implys so much and no less. For they were men of good sense, and good sense shows that Fuga vacui signifies first, the end for which Fluids rise, to wit, a prevention of a vacuum by them: secondly, a prevention as far as the said Fluids are permitted to ascend; which they knew to be no more than the weight of that Fluid Body, in whose stead they come to supply the space left and derelicted by it, amounts to; that is, as much as a cylinder of Air, commensurate unto that of the succeeding Fluid, would weigh were it condensed into as close a texture, as the said succeeding Fluid Body consists of; but weights not, because it is an uncondensed vapour: and lastly, a further rising of the said Columns after they have subsided, unto their usual station, to wit, when the Air which is in the void space above them, (though it be pumped out never so long, and as clean as frequent immersing, and filling the Pipe again after the subsiding of the Column, can do it) becomes by cold weather more condensed than it was when the Pipe was immersed; and thereby ceaseth to fill that space so much as it did, and to keep the cylinder from rising to such height, as the proportion of weight which it is not to exceed doth allow of and permit. And, as for the falling again of the same Column, it being but a ceasing of the cause it did rise by, that is, of the condensing and contraction of the Air; and an easy consequence of the Fuga vacui, (viz. the vacuum prevented by another Body than that of the cylinder, that is, by that of the Air, extending itself further in warm, than in cold weather, and so taking up again that part of the space it had, by its condensation, yielded up to the Column) they could not but understand it well, though without seeing and making trial of it: and understand well also from hence, that since the Column riseth up and falls again by the Airs alternative contraction and extension, (as by applying successively to the space which is above the Column, a Candle lighted, and a wet Sponge or a piece of Ice, this making the Column to rise, and that to subside, it will presently appear) this Phoenomenon serves but to show hot and cold weather: and is no such improvement therefore as our Sages would make of it, if they could, that is, a new Instrument to foretell all the various constitutions of the Air, and changes of the weather; but a bare Thermometer, an old trivial invention, which our great Improvers have at last with much ado happily lighted upon, in this our learned Age.  
And that they cannot make such an Instrument, that is, a true Weatherglass of it, appears first, from that they have bestowed much time and labour upon it these twenty years, with no better success, that is, without improving or making their invention fit for use, than it was when they first went about it: and next, from the consequence which flows necessarily from their own Hypothesis, and the use they make of it to solve the Phoenomenon; by which (besides that it is against both reason and sense) they can never give a true and distinct account of the Phoenomenon, nor therefore bring it thereby into the use they pretend it serves for. For first, (to begin by what flows from their Hypothesis) they gather (and it follows) from thence, pag. 32. that when the Air is lightest, the Column subsides lowest; and when it is most heavy, the Column riseth highest: whereas daily experience teacheth contrary to this, that in settled clear weather, the Air being then lightest, the Column riseth higher, than in dull rainy weather, and sinks to its lowest station in rainy weather, when the Atmosphere being most thick and full of vapours, which crowding and condensing in it, should make it heavier, and press up the Column with greater force, and raise it therefore higher than it was, if the Airs counter pressure were the cause of its rising: In windy weather also the Column is very low, and many times lower at that time than when it reins; whereas the Air, flowing then laterally, hath no such pressure upon the stagnum as it would in still weather, if it had any at all. Which I prove by filling a Porridge-pot with Water, and holding and tossing it by the handle, so that by its swinging forwards and backwards, both the Water may be set in motion, and its motion be determinated in latus; then fetching with the hand a whole turn, that is, describing vertically with the Pot a circle or ring, whereby when the Pot is up at the Zenith of the circle, its mouth be turned downwards; for than none of the Water running down out of the Pot, this experiment alone will evidently evince that the Water losing thus by its motion in latus, its fall and pressure downwards; the Air would likewise abate (by the lateral motion it hath in windy weather) of the descent and pressure it is supposed to have. Secondly, though the Column doth not fall so low in the Winter, as in the Summer, nor riseth so high in the Summer, as in the Winter, (for it never riseth to one and thirty inches, but in cold frosty weather, because then both the outward, and the inward Air (which is in the void space of the Pipe) is most of all condensed) yet they make no distinction of Seasons in their Index: but in Winter and Summer they ascribe the highest place (at one and thirty inches) to clear, settled, fair weather, and the lower to rainy, cloudy, and windy weather; when the Column marks between the same weather in the two foresaid different Seasons, (as settled fair in Winter, and settled fair in Summer) above an inch difference. A likely way to improve, and bring the Phoenomenon to serve for a Weatherglass! for the usefulness of which happy invention of theirs, and for the truth of these few remarks and trials of mine, I appeal to the single-eyed and impartial Judgement of all those who have the said Instrument in their houses: whilst by another easy trial, of no greater charge than of a sealed glass Tube somewhat wider and longer than the ordinary one, I clear all objections, scruples and controversies; and show more true things at once, than all the Experiments they have made these hundred years with a world of apparat, have taught them to discover.  
The Experiment is this: having filled a glass Tube or Pipe, closed at one end, of about six foot in length, with Water up to the brim; and therein immersed another smaller empty glass Tube, eight inches long, nipped likewise, with its open end or orifice downwards; it (being thick of glass, and so, specifically, that is to say, bulk for bulk, heavier than so much Water) sunk to the bottom of the Water in the longer Pipe; yet not so swiftly, but that I could discern how fast the Water got into it: And (whereas when it began to sink, being then but just immersed under water, scarce the sixth part of one inch of water was seen in it) there was, by that time it had descended to the bottom, more than one inch of water (that came in at the lower open end) lodged in it, near its mouth or orifice: because of the greater depth and pressure of the water upon it at the bottom, than when it began to sink; which by compressing closer the Air that took up its whole cavity, or filled it full when it was first immersed, made room for so much water as the said inch to get in. Then, taking out the short Pipe, and filling up, as before, the longer one with water, I immersed again the same short Pipe into it, but with the orifice or open end uppermost: and stopping at the same time the mouth of the longer one close with the palm of my hand, I inverted both Pipes so nimbly, that before the shorter could descend at all, and the water fall in it, its mouth was turned downwards, and it was at the bottom of the Column of water, and so had all the same depth of the Column upon it, as it had before, when more than the said inch of water was seen and lodged therein. And yet, though it had the same depth of water upon it, there was not the same pressure at that time against the Air, (which it held when immersed) as when the orifice of the long Pipe stood open: for all the while it was stopped, no more water got, or was received into this Pipe, than what had got into it, whilst I inverted it, which was not above the sixth or eighth part of an inch: because the pressure of the water was, for want of Air to supply the place it had left void above at the top, if from thence it had moved downwards, suspended and lost. The same thing happened also, when the shorter Pipe, being made somewhat thinner of glass, was light enough not to sink, but to float in the water, and to rise from the bottom thereof towards the surface, when immersed, as was said, with the orifice upwards; and the long Pipe nimbly stopped and inverted thereupon: for it risen, and in rising the pressure of the water, which ought to have been greater when the whole depth of the Column was upon the Pipe, than when but part of the same, by the Pipe rising higher and higher, lay upon it, was no whit diminished, as it was not increased; or never the greater for this shorter Pipe being, when the longer one was overturned under all at the bottom.  
Which easy Experiment convincingly demonstrates, First, that the Column is not pressed up and sustained by any gravitation and counterpressure of the Atmosphere, (as the Sages, in further token of their great wisdom, teach and maintain) since that, when the Air is kept from coming at it, by the Pipe being sealed above, and stopped very close below, we see the pressure of the water suspended and stopped: which could not be if the Air were the thing that doth bear up and hold to its equipoize the Column, by a counterforce equivalent to it. For here there was no Air left between my hand and the Pipe, whose Spring may be pretended (as in the Experiment described in the 35 th'. page of the said piece of Wallis) to bear it up: and though there were such thing as the said supposed Spring of the Sages in this case, yet it being said but just equivalent to a whole Column of water, (whereof the whole pressure is likewise suspended, as may be tried in a Tube 40 foot long) it could but just bear it up, (as did that part of my hand, which by inverting the Pipe, both the Pipe, and the Column within it, rested upon) and not make it move upwards, (as it must do to defeat the contrary motion, viz. the descent or pressure downwards which the water hath; there being no other way but this one to prevent it, as we see done in this case;) for there is a greater force required to give to things heavy a motion upwards, (as to sling up a Stone for instance) than that which (as being but equivalent 〈◊〉 it) is but just capable to bear and sustain them up. Now bearing it up is not enought● suspend and take away its pressure upon th● short Pipe E.A. (see p. 118.) and the Air inch●ded within it; for heavy things lose nothing of their gravitation and pressure upon th● Scale, and Fulcrum they rest upon, for the●● being born up either to an equipoize, 〈◊〉 above their equipoize, or sustained prominent never so high above ground by the●● own, or bearers height; as the Bishop would find out by their own experienc● if they carried as heavy burdens as the●● Sedan-men, and all other Porters, do.  
Secondly, it demonstrates that the Column riseth by the Fuga vacui: since its d●scent and pressure is suspended all the ti●● that the Air (it succeeds to, to fill and supply its place) is kept out from coming 〈◊〉 and so from relieving it. For were the Column only sustained by that part of my ha●● it rested upon, it would not lose its press●● upon it, and against the Air within th● Pipe A.E. because it must, to lose it, ●●ceive a motion upwards, which the fo●● that doth but just bear it up cannot give heavy things losing nothing of their weight, for being born or carried, as I said: and there being no other force foreign to the Column, and no other reason, that we can see or think of, put to it, to give it him, but that of the vacuum; which being a passive thing, can neither draw to itself, nor keep it suspended from the top, as some fancy grave and wise Antiquity, that had her eyes in her head, Eccl. 2.14. not at the ends of the Earth, like our modern Sages, Prov. 17.24. meant by Fuga vacui: it follows that the Column doth move upwards of itself, not by the vacuum, but by a propension to succeed into the room of the displaced Fluid, lest there should be in the World (which is a Plenitudo) a chasma or disjunction; that is, as the Ancients spoke, by a Fuga vacui: and continues by the same reason in that endeavour whilst the displaced Fluid is not permitted to fill, or resume the place it left.  
Thirdly, it demonstrates that the so much agitated and denied (against reason, and without Experiments by our modern Sages, though they proffer some for it, but which show quid pro quo, that is, quite another thing than what they infer from thence) non-gravitation of Fluids upon themselves, and upon Bodies heavier, and as heavy as themselves, is not destroyed, and quite out of doors, (as they teach it is, pag. 11, 18. for another good token of their deep understanding) but stands good nevertheless: as appears from that the weight and pressure of the Column of water was not downward upon the said Pipe A. E. but upward against its mouth, and the Base of the Column of Air included therein, the Air being thrust upwards, and the Pipe raised with i● from the bottom to the top: which would not be (neither could any immersed Body ever rise up and emerge at a great depth o● water) if the incumbent Column gravitated upon it; for a greater depth having 〈◊〉 greater pressure upon the thing that is immersed, it can but cause it to sink the deepe● and so much the faster, the deeper it com● From which non-gravitation it is that th● indolence of a man under water proceed and not from being pressed there uniform and equally, on all sides, as (for another token of wisdom) their most famous Doctor for Mathematics hath happily discover●● and doth declare and assert, pag. 24. notwithstanding that himself had said a little before, in his relation of the Experiment of Gratrix, that, he having contrived a new way of taking breath at a great depth under water, through long Pipes reaching to the top of it, found his breast (as being then the lowermost part, or the Base of his sinking body) so compressed there, (to wit, by the said pressure upwards of the water against it) that he could not well draw breath: a certain proof that he was not uniformly pressed, specially if this pressing (which is the further reason he gives for his assertion) by causing no luxation of parts, is the cause that the man suffers no sense of pain. And besides, this uniform pressing serves to establish the said non-gravitation of Fluids upon themselves, by reason that it implys a pressure downwards, equal unto their pressure upwards; which pressure upwards being confessedly none at all, when there is nothing that sinks in and disjoins the Fluids, their pressure downwards is none, if it be equal to it▪ and so when Fluid Bodies have none but their own Body within and among themselves, they have no gravitation downwards, wards, and per consequent gravitate not on themselves.   labeled woodcut diagram of water pipe 
And lastly, it demonstrates the lightness or levity of the Air: seeing the Air included in the short Pipe not only ascends itself, but riseth with such weight of the glass upon itself, as would sink without the Air, as being bulk for bulk heavier than so much water. And that this Air riseth not by the heavier water thrusting and pressing it up, (as the modern Sages say, pag. 24.) out of the lowermost place, the following trial evinceth manifestly; viz. when the Pipe being full of Mercury or Water, and hanging down by a String, is left open to the Air, by removing the Finger the mouth of it is stopped with; for then the Air rusheth in the Pipe with such impetus, as throws upwards both the Pipe and the cylinder therein, and makes the Pipe to leap up one foot higher, more or less, than the place it rested at before its orifice was opened, as I have said, which would not be if the Air were pressed up by heavier Fluids sinking into it: for than it would only shift places, (as the water doth which you cast Stones, or other sinking materials into) and so just rise and no more, and no higher than the place at which the Pipe rested, and from which the cylinder therein did begin to sink: whereas not only it shifts places, as the water doth, but thrusts upwards both the Pipe, and the cylinder therein; with the weight besides which the incumbent Column of Air is said to have upon it. And though the Air and other heavier vapours rise sometimes by the descent of other heavier Bodies into them, yet they rise more frequently without it: for how could else thick clouds, smoke and vapours rise, that have nothing above them but the Air, which, as lighter, cannot press down into them; and that are besides coarser, thicker, and more condensed when they begin to rise, than when they are got higher: as by the rectifying of Ardent Spirits appears? And as for the experience which the Sages chief ground their Hypothesis upon in their 29. page, of Air compressed into a less room, which they have found on the balance to have some small weight and gravitation; it proving nothing but that Air compressed gravitates, and not that it gravitates in its own ordinary natural constitution, it doth make nothing for them, and against its levity. For to serve their turn, it must gravitate such as it is, without any compression: because by this compression it being condensed into a closer texture rhan it hath naturally, it acquires a degree of specific gravity; which, I am so far from denying in such casc, that I have said it would be as heavy as water and other heavier Fluids, if it were by any means made as dense and as compact, or reduced into as close a texture or parts, or consistence as they have. But as it is confessed that the Air acquires some weight by condensation, so on the other hand no sober man will deny, that, since those heavier Fluids, viz. Spirits, Oil, and Water, and Mercury sublimate itself, lose by their being turned into a vapour, though not so thin as the Air, their actual gravitation all the time they continue so near of kin to the Air, which is but a thin vapour, that is, all the time they are ascending or subliming, and kept rarefied by heat; it (that is to say, the Air) doth, by returning unto its usual constitution, lose also that small degree of acquired gravity, and hath none (sensible at least) all the time it continues to be itself, I mean an aërial, subtle, and uncondensed vapour: as this Experiment of the Sages rather proves and confirms, than otherwise; for it appears plain by it, that the Air which had, after compression, some gravity, was found to have none before, though it was the same Air, and in the same quantity: and thereby they show rather quid pro quo, another thing than they intended to prove, that is, that the cylinder in our Phoenomenon, is not sustained at all by the Airs counterpressure, seeing it hath none in its natural constitution; than that the Air in its said natural constitution hath none of the levity which I ascribe to it. And which the Doctor confutes by such extraordinary Masterpiece of School-learning, which he apprehends to be so great inconveniences, and cogent proofs against it, that I must beg the help of some Mathematician to remove them; and therefore,  
Help Tycho; lend your shoulders Atlas; and Archimedes your Engine; your great Engine; to remove out of its place a Herculean Pillar, a huge and mighty Mountain, which is a non plus ultra to a Mathematician most famous in our Age, who (perhaps the gravity which I thought might exist before in his head only, being come down to his heels) can neither climb up the same, nor see for it what Figure hath the World which he lives in; and therefore thinks it is made like a Cone, or Pyramid: For (saith he, pag. 28.) if levity be the positive Principle of the Air rising upwards, and if this motion upwards of the Air be natural, it must be either an averseness from the Centre, as the terminus à quo, or a propension to some other place, as the terminus ad quem: If they say the former, saith he, it is true that then B. ought to  labeled diagram corresponding to surrounding text move from C. in perpendicular lines, as C. B. A. etc. But if they say that it is an affectation of some higher place, as suppose A. while B. is just between C. and A. the motion ('tis true) would be in the perpendicular C.B.A. (as the straightest way thither) but if it were any where else, as at D. then its motion to A. would not be in D. C. A. the perpendicular, but in D. A. an obliqne line: which is contrary to all Experience.  
And to your Argument likewise, or the consequence that flows necessarily and naturally from it; for from the premises it concludes naturally, (not what you infer from it) but that which is according to sense and experience; viz. that B. being at D. should go to E. not to A. if the cause of its rising be a propension to the higher place, as terminus ad quem of its motion: because A. is not higher than E; for if it were so, the line C. B. A. would be longer than the line C. E. which is contrary to sense, and to the Principles themselves, of what you pretend to be Master, viz. Mathematics; which teach that all the right lines drawn from the centre of a Circle, as suppose A.E.F. to its own circumference, are equal among themselves; and per consequent D. needs not to go towards A. to attain the higher place; but aught to go strait to E. as being as high as A. and the next higher place to D. as just over it: except you show some reason (to make your Argument rational, and more plausible) why the smoke of a Candle, for instance, burning upon the floor at one end of the long Gallery in Oxford, aught to black the ceiling thereof (which you know to be flat and equally distant from the floor every where) at the other further end, rather than at the same end where it burns, over itself: or show that the point A. of the World's circumference, is higher than E. or F. And then, when you have showed this, change (to make your consequence flow necessarily from the premises) one of the terms of the Argument, saying, for and instead of the higher place, (as it saith) the highest point in that place: for if the higher place, not the highest point therein, be terminus ad quem of the natural motion and propension of the Air, you may with as much reason, infer a motion of D. to F. as to the place A. since A. is nothing higher than F. and neither of them higher in the Sphere than E: E. A. F. being all three equidistant from the Spheres centre C. and equally therefore the higher place both of C. and of B. and D. whilst they are at, and begin to move and to rise from C: whereas if you will allow of some order in the World, and that it is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, & omnium rerum ordo & distributio, as Aristotle defines it, wherein both place and motion is distinct and orderly, not uncertain and confuse, you should with much more reason, (and to prevent two greater inconveniences than yours) infer a motion of B. to A. and of D. to E. and so of all that riseth from the centre, to those points of the Spheres circumference, which make its Zenith, that is, are just vertical to it, than of D. in an obliqne and circular line to A. or to any other point or part of the higher place. The great inconveniences of D. and so of all that which moves from the centre C. not rising directly and vertically to E. or the place just over them: but to some particular point A. as the higher place; were first, that all the vapours and refluences rising from the Earth, would go thither; and so reciprocally must come down again from thence in circular obliqne lines, and then the Rain would not fall directly, but obliquely: also no influences and Rain would come from about all that part of Heaven which were opposite to A. Secondly, you make thereby one point highest in the World: which point higher than the rest, being not found in a Sphere, but in a Conical Figure or a Pyramid, you make a Pyramid of the World; which is so great and rare a discovery, that none but such famous Doctor for skill in Nonsense, could ever so readily have made, and thought upon it.  
Another famous Author in the Episcopal Church, who for his much Learning, and making of many Books in Babylonical Divinity, and knowledge, deserves to be a Bishop, or at least to be named with the Bishops and Vicars, the incomparable Boil, among others his many vexations of Learned men, which he calls Experiments, hath given us, to confirm our Sages opinion of a descent and countergravitation of the Air, one of very large glass Bubbles, sealed Hermetically, hung at one end of a Beam, and justly counterpoized with a Metalline counterpoise at the other: which, suspended at a frame, shows not all the various changes of the Air, (saith he) that were conspicuous in another Weatherglass, which he had placed by it; yet confirms ad oculum that the falling and rising of the Mercury, depends upon the varying weight of the Atmosphere, and shows that the Air hath weight, since in this statical Weatherglass (for so he calls these so counterpoized Bubbles) it cannot be pretended that a Fuga vacui, or a Funiculus is the cause of the changes which he observed therein: for I had the pleasure (saith he) to see the Bubbles sometimes in an Aequilibrium with the counterpoise, and sometimes, when the Atmosphere was high, (he means thereby less heavy) preponderate so manifestly that, the Beam being gently stirred, the Cock would play altogether on that side at which the Bubbles were hung; and at other times, (when the Air was heavier) that which was at the first but the counterpoise, would preponderate, and, upon the motion of the Beam, make the Cock vibrate altogether on its side; with so much of pretty sport or satisfaction to so grave and honourable Author, that I am very loath to go about to spoil it; lest I should at one time excitare crabrones in too great a number and multitude against me.  
However getting never the more Enemies for it, I will venture to say that it appears not clearly to my dull apprehension, that because Fuga vacui cannot be counted the cause of the various changes he saw in his statical Baroscope, or Weatherglass, the weight of the Air therefore aught to be the cause of it; chief if the Beam must be stirred, (as he confesseth it was, though gently, adds he, as though this gentle stirring were nothing to such Beam) to make the Cock play on this or that side of the Ansa: because I can assign another cause, as likely at least as either of them, to wit, the condensation and the rarefaction of the Air by heat and cold. For, even according to one Hydrostatical Law, which this Author owns and makes mention of in the same page from which I have taken the things I cite of him, (which Law, as he calls it, is, if the medium wherein two Bodies of equal weight, but unequal bulk, are weighed, be more dense than another; (such as Water, for instance, which is more dense than the Air) the greater Body being specifically lighter, and finding more resistance because of its greater bulk, than the lesser and more compact, as the counterpoise; will lose more of its own weight, or be more easily born up, or buoyed up therein, than in the thinner medium: but if the same medium be thinner than another, or than it was itself before, and at other times, as the Air which is thinner than Water, and at some times more rarefied than before; then the bigger Body, ceasing to be sustained by the former resistance, will sink lower than before, and so outweigh the lesser) the condensed Air being thicker, resists better than when it is more rarefied, and so bears up the large Bubbles better and higher therefore than their lesser counterpoise: so that this rising and fall of his Bubbles, confirms rather the condensation and the rarefaction of the Air, than any such weight thereof as that he asc●ibes to it. For though, as I confess, the thickness of a medium is an argument it hath a greater specific weight, than hath a thinner medium: yet, as it is most certain that vapours have no descent and gravitation, before they condense into a much closer texture than the Air hath at any time with us, though they are not without their positive weight all that while; so we ought not in reason, for the Air being somewhat more dense than it was before, and however much thinner than is vaporized Oil, Water, or Mercury, ascribe to it that sensible descent and gravitation which this learned Author, and other Sages plead for: Who should show that the rising and fall of the Bubbles, comes from the greater or lesser descent of the Atmosphere upon and round about them, before they take it thus for granted; and then likewise show further how, and wherefore it comes to pass that the Air, when it is become somewhat heavier than it was before, doth not gravitate and press upon the larger Body with so much the greater force, by how much the greater Atmospherical Column incumbent upon the same is more increased in weight, than that which is incumbent upon the lesser Body; and so, instead of causing the Bubbles to rise higher, (as the Author saith he had the pleasure to see plainly) cause them to over-bear their Metalline counterpoise, and to fall down much lower than they were before the Airs increase of gravitation: as from the observation of this diligent Author, who being told of a Mist, sent to see whether the Bubbles were buoyed up by the greater heaviness the Air had then, but did not learn that they were, it may be conjectured they did; and if they did not, but kept in the same station, it is however enough to invalidate the consequence he draws from his Hydrostatical Law; for thereby in moist weather, as in misty and foggy, the Air being then heavier than before, they ought to rise.  
Great improvements may be made of this, adds the same Author: as First, that instead of a Brass or Leaden counterpoise, rich men may get one of Gold: Secondly, that if the same counterpoise be made of Pass or of Lead, it will be less subject to rust, than Iron: Thirdly, if this Instrument be placed in a small frame, like a square Lantern, with glass windows about it, it will be more free from dust. To which accommodations divers others (much like them) may be, saith he, suggested; and so this Experiment, and the like, much improved by a consideration of the nature of the thing. Which having therefore taken into consideration, I humbly suggest that these Experiments, being (1.) the Bullis amplissimis, (2.) and ab amplissimo authore BULLA facta, (3.) and considered in themselves, deserve in my opinion the glorious Latin Title of Ter Bullatae (that is, most magnificent) Nugae. A rare invention indeed, and like to do much service, which can neither go alone; nor, when moved and stirred, show, as he doth not deny, so much as the Mercurial Weatherglass, which is itself but a very imperfect and unuseful invention!  
Thus, these Sages on one side, and the Vicars and other Churchmen on the other side, concur and run together blindfold to heap up a deal of Nonsense and confusion, and to feed the stupid World with ignorance and untruth. And yet (which is worse than this) whilst they are thus pulling down the Sanctuary of Truth, to build their new Babel with, they are as famous for it as those were in Ancient times, that brought to light, and found out many useful inventions; and go for great Improvers of all Learning and Knowledge: and this Age is looked upon as the time of restauring all the Arts and Sciences; when, I dare say, it it is the fag end of all Ages, wherein the Reformators being not reform themselves to Truth and Knowledge, and even not to so much as common sense and reason, Arts and Learning under them are like to flourish backwards; and the World to find backwards the Northwest Passage to them, by the skill of such seekers as these are, who not only lose the things they seek after, but the invention others had already made of them; and themselves too, by bringing themselves, in seeking of them, into more difficulties than the things admitted of before they took them in hand. O fortunatam natam, atque Reformatam horum sapientum societate Scholam, ubi qui cum majori apparatu delirant Coryphaei censentur. And this, because no body stands up to contradict them: and that they standing in awe and fear of one another, (for not knowing the Truth, they are not made free by it John 8.32.) dare not speak out their mind freely, with authority, Mat. 7.29. but, like the Scribes, (that receive honour of one another, yet pretend the public good) with some dependence always upon their fellow Watchmen. Propter ignorantiam Anima subjugatur: the Soul of ignorant men must despondently submit to fawning and complaisance, (what a wise man needs not do) that they may pass for Learned: and so, quem admodum scabunt mutua muli, pass by each others Errors, and admire and applaud the Works of one another, that theirs reciprocally may be passed by, and go in the World uncontrolled: whence, as one wave doth follow, and is followed itself of another wave, and this again of another wave; they follow one another, and proceed from one newfound nonsensical position, to a thousand of that kind; concurring all together in raising a whole building of the like materials upon it, as I said. For what a vast collection might be made out of all their voluminous Writings, not only in general of all the absurdities that are contained therein, but in particular of those written upon one subject; as, for instance, this pretended Weatherglass. Whereas, (except some few knacks boil hath bought of other men) I know not, and have not (though I have enquired) learned that any new thing worth the Printing is set forth and contained in their Works; or any material Truth is to be found in the great many Writings and Books that go under boil's name, which he hath not rather defaced, than any way made out and illustrated; whereof some ingenious men whom I am acquainted with, could give instances enough, were it worth their while and mine. But if while they run on thus blindfold, and without control in these their foolish conceits and vain imaginations, Rom. 1.21, 22. they did not detain the Truth of God in unrighteousness, v. 18. not only in changing into a lie and falsehood, what is seen and understood, v. 20. concerning his invisible power from on high, that is, his invisible Spirit, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.4, 8. and depriving man of what makes him the Image of God, and to know more than the beasts, Job. 35.11. but also in devising new Errors to oppose Truth, whenever it breaks out of the holes wherein by the subtlety of the Devil, and man's despondency of mind, it is kept buried; I would still hold my peace, and suffer them to go on without check and correction. But since, though their opinions have been fully refuted, they do still, as I said, out of the pride of their heart, and of the lust of their evil prejudiced eye, continue to study how to make some sleeveless answer; and call the Author himself of Truth, who is clearly seen, being understood from his working in the Believers, the Agent of the Devil, pag. 10 and his Doctrine, a Doctrine of Devils, pag. 11. instead of putting off their Pharisaical eye, to acknowledge their Errors, to convert, and learn to come to the knowledge of the Truth, Prov. 28.13. 2 Tim. 3.7. I will not keep silence, Isa. 62.6. but blow the Trumpet aloud, Ezek. 33.3, 6. and proclaim to the World their malice, their ignorance, their pride, their hypocrisy.  
Do you think, though you cover your transgressions as Adam, Job 31.33. you Shepherds that feed the Flock with Nonsense, not with Knowledge, you Watchmen speakers of lies, though you pretend otherwise, pag. 19 that you shall escape , to give out still that yourselves are the great power of God, Act. 8.9, 10. and that I shall spare you, and pay you the honour due to the Ministers of God? No, no, I will smite you that the simple may beware, Prov. 19.9, 25. I will, though but a worm prepared for this purpose, Jonah 4.7. smite the gourd in whose shadow you sit now so pleasantly; make the top of your Carmel, your pride and fame, to whither: and removing from you your Fig-tree-leaves covering, and plucking off of your backs the Cloak that Doctoratus and making of many Books hid your ignorance under, I will make all the World spectators and witnesses of your shame and nakedness. Ere long your day, and the day of your Visitation will come, Micah 7.4. and at the great day Rome, Mecca, and the Indies shall be more tolerably dealt with, than you and your Church, Mat. 8.11, 12. Mark 12.40. When the Lord roareth from Zion, and uttereth his voice from Jerusalem, (his Church) the habitation of the Shepherds and Watchmen doth mourn, and is desolate, Amos 1.2.  
But, to conclude the discourse concerning the Weatherglass, before I go further, I judge it convenient to add to what hath been said of the cause of the Column rising to its usual height, this more exact account, and further reason of it: to wit, that the World, being a coherent Plenitude, & omnium corporum ordo & distributio, (whence it is called Mundus) admits of no vacuum, and its parts of no chasma within, and between themselves; and not only its said parts (such as the Earth, the Water, and the Air) stand in a due proportion to each other, as Solomon witnesseth, Eccles. 42.25. but all other things likewise are distributed therein in order, that is, by weight, by number, rule, and measure, Prov. 20.10. (without which its fine order cannot be long preserved) from whence, a certain portion of space hath been measured, and a certain proportion of weight assigned to each in their common receptacle and lodging, the place of all created Bodies, the World; which proportion they cannot extend beyond or exceed, without an inconvenience repugnant to their order, and to the perfect wisdom of their Almighty Maker: and so the Air (as being one of the most bulky Bodies and parts of this World) cannot reach beyond the space, nor exceed the pondus molis allowed unto it, nor stretch itself in one place, except part thereof doth shrink and condense in another; nor move from its place, except another Body makes room, and either part of itself, or some other next Fluid follows and succeeds to it: much less can the next Fluid go beyond it in these things, whilst it is ascending like it, to be its Vicar; that is, exceed the pondus molis which the Air should have, if it were condensed into as close a texture as it (the next Fluid) hath; and extend beyond the space which is allowed to the Air: as it would, if what riseth of it to succeed and to supply the place of the Air, that is, the Column thereof, should rise to a greater height than that it usually hath: for than it would have more weight, and (if rarefied into as lose and thin a texture and consistence as the Air) not only take up more room than comes to the share and proportion of the Air, but extend beyond the bounds set to the Sphere of the Air, and with it, to all other more dense and heavy Bodies: which were more inconvenient than such inconsiderable vacuum and disjunction, as that which can be by all the skill and power of man introduced in the World. And therefore, though the World is a coherent Plenitude, which admits naturally of neither vacuity, nor chasma or solution of its continuity; yet, such vacuum being a far less inconvenience than were the rising of the Column higher than it doth, the discreet ordo mundi, which is a Law thereunto, will rather admit of it, as the less, than of the worse; and so, to avoid the worse, it suffers the Column to rise in due proportion to the weight of the Fluid whereof it is a Vicar; and provides at the same time, that the derelicted space shall not be absolutely empty, but only in part; by causing the Air, which is penned up between the Column and the Pipe, to rarefie and to dilate itself so as to supply in part the said derelicted space: (for, note well that when the Pipe is filled with Mercury, the Air is not all driven out of it, but some small bubbles thereof remain included between the Mercury and the Pipe, which may be seen by distinct spots round about, and from the top to the Base of the Mercurial Column; and which, when the Column sinks, subside not along with it, but enter in the void space as fast as the Mercury that penned them against the Pipe leaves it void by subsiding.) And as a greater void space hath a circumference greater than a lesser space, and so yields, ratione suarum diametrorum, more place for the Mercury to penned up more bubbles of Air against it than the lesser, so it is supplied as much: and needs not per consequent (if it were able to draw) draw more, and make the Column rise higher, in proportion to its greater height or depth; as our modern Sages have in their great School-wisdom argued that it ought to do: affirming that the Ancients were so dull and so silly as to think it would do so; and as not to be ware of some weight and gravity in the Air when compressed: though some of the Ancients have showed them that not only they well knew the contrary, but, even without the help of their long kenning Spectacles, saw as far again as they; viz. the aequipondium of Fluids in ascensu, or whilst they are ascending, as the Mercurial Column hath before been showed to do, and their mutual succeeding and relieving each other per necessitatem Divinam; which is a great secret, to our Divine. And to this purpose, saith one, who being but a Heathen, knew God better than they do, to their shame, Hypocrates in libr. de Diaeta; Lex Divina omnia in hoc mundo cohibet, divina & humana sursum & deorsum vicissim distribuens; commeant & transmoventur illa huc, & haec illuc, & omni quidem tempore; illa horum, haec vero illorum res peragunt, & quae quidem faciunt nesciunt, quae vero faciunt scire videntur; & quae quidem vident non cognoseunt, & tamen haec omnia necessitate divina contingunt, & quae volunt & quae nolunt; illis autem huc, his vero illuc commeantibus & invicem commixtis, fatalem suam sortem quodque complete, Divina namque mens edocuit, sua opera imitari, licet quae imitantur ignorent. And one of the old Divines, after he had observed the balancing of the clouds, the wonderful works of him that is perfect in knowledge, Psal. 104.9. Job 37.16. and the proportion God's works stand in against each other, Eccl. 42.25. teacheth our Reverend a more dutiful Lesson, Psal. 104.24.  
O Seigneur Dieu, que tes oevures divers  
Sont merveilleux, par le monde univers!  
O que tu as tout fait par grand ' sagesse!  
La terre en est pleine, & de ta largesse.  
Which wisdom the wise Worldlings, who see not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, much less 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, John 3.12. cannot see and justify, Mat. 11.19. 1 Cor. 2.8. and so give glory for it, like David, who understood it well, Psal. 92.5. to the most wise God, Rom. 1.21. They that regard not the works of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands, Isa. 5.12. do scarce think that his wisdom, which hath dispensed all things by weight, number and measure, and made all things to stand in order and proportion, is so palpable and visible in particular effects and vulgar Phoenomena, as that the rising of the Column no higher than to its ordinary station, should be referred to it.  
Having seen how far your great School-learning hath brought you on your way towards the knowledge of what is done upon Earth, as it were before your eyes; and it appearing also from what hath been said before, that it brings you no further towards the believing and knowledge of what Christ calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that is, true Christian Divinity: it were not amiss to see and examine how much good, Metaphysic and Logic, and the like parts of your School-breeding hath done, and doth you towards the Preaching of Christ. But, lest this discourse should swell to a greater bulk, than that I at first intended, I do refer this to the consideration of all rational Teachers, and all true Authors of Books, appealing even to Boil, and to Wallis himself, and Stillingfleet, and others University-Pillars, and great Princes of their Sect, for the use they make of them, and for the good these do them in composing their Sermons and Books of Divinity. And affirm, that if they had tarried to write, until their skill in Metaphysics had supplied them with method and matter enough for it, and not altogether made use of Commentaries, and of their own natural parts, sense and reason, and wit, they had not yet to this hour finished one single-sheet. Nay, if the best Logicians, when they dispute in the Schools, and have emptied their Quiver of the Syllogisms they had prepared in their Study, did not, laying by their rules, flee for help to common sense, and to what their Experience and their Reason suggests them, they could scarce make up the hour which they are to dispute in; and much less make a whole Book, that would take up two or three days time, or more, to read it; by those their rules of Logic, which, among all the Scholars I have seen, and asked, no man was the better for towards the apprehending and the deciding of any controverted truth, when, from the contemplative part of his tedious Learning, he passed to the practice: thus being ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth, 2 Tim. 3.7. Besides, what use can you make of what is so defective, that it is not only slighted, but quite rejected by some of the greatest Masters of your School-learning? as for instance, by Ramus and his Tribe, by Telesius, Campanella, Verancius, the Lord Bacon, and others, who do utterly condemn Aristotle's Metaphysics, tanquam farraginem quandam & massam inconditam doctrinae ex Theologia Naturali & Physicae parte de anima congestam, & sublimitate quadam Sermonis turgentem, saith the Lord Bacon; and that, ex contrariis sententiis contexta, & tam obscuris tenebris obruta sit, ut nec Daedalus quispiam ejus methodum reperire possit, saith Verancius; adding, excutiamus ergo ex mentibus nostris hanc male conceptam, ut quae nusquam est, chimaeram. The like may be said of your Logic, and à Logica libera nos Domine, saith Austin: And for Ethics, such as they are taught by you, and practised amongst you, such is the advantage and benefit got thereby, that all illiterate men may rather say, the Lord have mercy upon the Masters and Scholars that study them, than wish for the benefit they think to receive by them. Verily, said an Author, the doctrine of the Schoolmen hath allayed and perverted even the desire of knowledge which God hath planted in man; and the many distinctions and divisions translated from thence to Divinity, hath set all Christendom on fire, violated the peace of many Kingdoms, and occasioned more Sects or parties in Religion, than there are opinions and Sects in Philosophy. Which is the good it hath done, and is like to do, so long as it   

shall be preached for, and so much encouraged. The erecting and founding of all Universities and Colleges for Learning, is from a Heathen principle; and begun in Christendom at the decay, and for want of the true knowledge of God.  
Now this, and the like wisdom to that of our Sages, being all the advantage that the School and Scholarship of those who are looked upon as great Masters in Learning, affords us, and produceth; what good are we to expect from the same for ourselves? And since they are forced to lay aside their Learning, and to apply themselves to the use of common sense, and of natural reason in debating and handling a Philosophical and Divinity matter, what reason hath any man of sense, though illiterate, to despond of his own strength, and to rely upon them, because they are Scholars, and have taken their Degrees in the University, for the right understanding of what he is to believe, and for the explication of any place of Scripture? And since they who own themselves to be capacitated for Preaching with nothing else, or very little more than the said Humane Learning, make little or no use of it in composing their Sermons and Books of Divinity, (for stuffing of a Sermon with the various readings of some original word, and the divers opinions of the Authors on a Text, as some of their Learned do, ministering rather questions, scruples and controversies, than a satisfactory and godly edifying, 1 Tim. 1.4. which is found in the bare exposition and knowledge of the meaning of the Text, is not of any use towards sound Gospel-preaching, and so, is not a use made of it towards true Preaching) what reason have they to think that the Apostles of Christ, who they grant had somewhat else than the said ordinary Spirit and Humane Learning, have been necessitated to use it in their Preaching?  
Alas, it is not by much Learning, and by reading more learned Books than another, that we know better than he Christ, and the sense of Scripture! And though we be, like St. Paul, and like Nicodemus, Masters in literature, brought up in Divinity, skilled in the Law, and Gospel, (for Paul being well versed in the controversies of his time, and very deep engaged against Christians, Act. 22.4.— 26.9. cannot rationally be supposed more ignorant of the Gospel-doctrine, before he was converted, than all the Lip-Christians are) yet, until it pleaseth God to reveal his Son in us, as in him, Gal. 1.16. we are as far as he was to seek in the true meaning of the said doctrine of Christ, and as much in the dark, as to his saving knowledge: until it be given us to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, a Turk, a Jew, a Heathen that can read the Old and New Testament, and we Christians, understand Christ all alike, Mat. 13.11. until he that hath the key of David opens Scriptures, no man, saith he, Rev. 3.7. openeth them: till the Son of God doth come, and give us understanding to know him by, 1 John 5.20. the Scriptures speak unto us in Parables, Mark 4.11. and are not capable alone, without the other witness that testifieth of Christ, John 15.26. to suggest us any true and real knowledge of him: till the Comforter doth bring whatsoever Christ hath said unto our remembrance, John 14.26. we neither see in seeing, nor understand in reading, what we read concerning him, Act. 8.30, 31. The Scriptures are unto us a Parable every where, Jo. 16.25. and like an imperfect Tale, and full of contradictions, 1 Cor. 2.14. which we believe no better (though the Lip-Christians persuade themselves to the contrary) than the Turks, the Jews, the Heathen, and all those Sects which we count erroneous, and the worst of all Christians, Mat. 13.13. And the Scriptures are to us like the Book of the Law, lost in the days of Amon and Josiah, 2 Kings 22.8. historicè understood and believed; but neither their full contents, nor the depth of their meaning, better known than they were then: for as the Jews did not think but that the Law was fully known, and duly satisfied by the few Ceremonies and Shows performed all those days wherein the Book was not found, and what it contained perused and considered of, yet after they had found it, and read it attentively, they perceived otherwise, v. 11. so we fancy that we are (by learning some few notions out of our Catechism, and hearing a Chapter read, and a Sermon preached or repeated now and then) well informed of the drift and true meaning of Scripture, and are fully instructed and made wise to Salvation: but when we begin once to mind what we read of them, in hearing to understand, and in seeing to perceive what we hear and see therein, our eyes, which like those of the blind man of Bethsaida, Mark 8.22. did first but spy out or see some few things confusedly, v. 24, are restored, v. 25. and we do then become sensible indeed of our past ignorance, when we find in the Field of Scripture the hidden treasure, Mat. 13.44. the old things of the Vicar, pag. 9 (which yet are all new to us when we come to perceive them, thus being both new and old, v. 52.) which our eyes, like Agars, Gen. 21.19. were held from seeing before, though we had read the same place over and over often, learned without-book, and have of it a full remembrance. He that hath ears to hear, or understand, let him hear; needed not to have been said, and proclaimed so often, if the sense were plain to all, and all the men that can hear and understand, were capable to understand the meaning of what the Scripture saith there. Many great Prophets and Kings have desired to hear what the disciples of Christ hear, and have not heard it, saith Christ, Luk. 10.24. and shall they that are not made Kings and Priests with the Unction of Christ, the only Master, perceive and understand it? God manifest in the flesh, is without controversy so great and deep mystery, 1 Tim. 3.16. that none but the Spirit of God, which searcheth all things, 1 Cor. 2.10. can justify, that is, know and acknowledge this wisdom hidden in a mystery, which none of the Princes of this world did ever know: but those only whose Faith doth stand in the power of God, v. 5, 7, 8. and that are, like St. Stephen, Act. 6.8.— 7.55. perfect and full of Spirit. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man conceived this hidden wisdom of God, which the Angels themselves desire to pry into, 1 Pet. 1.12. but God reveals them unto the faithful by his Spirit, 1 Cor. 2.10. I will get me unto the great men, and speak with them, (saith Jeremy for all times, ch. 5.5) for they have known the way and the judgement of the Lord; but they have altogether broken the yoke, burst the bonds; they steal every one my word from his neighbour's books, ch. 23.30. and seek honour and applause; so that they cannot believe, and the knowledge of Christ is not manifest to them, John 14.21, 23. and so they cannot make it manifest to other men, as I have said before. The true and the only way to have it manifested, is to become humble and meek, Luk. 18 17. Mat. 18.3. and to be born of water with the tears of repentance, John 1.31.— 3.5. Luk. 3.3. confessing and forsaking the sins past, Prov. 28.13. like Zacheus, Luk. 19.8. and then doing righteousness, we shall be accepted of with God, like Cornelius, Act. 10.35, 44. God will love us, John 14.23. and meet us, Isa. 64.5. and make himself manifest (by the understanding he will give us, 1 John 5.20.) unto us: whilst he is neither known nor perceived of the world, John 14.22. The meek will he guide in judgement, and the meek, or lowly in heart, will he teach his way, Psal. 25.9.  
Verily, the first entrance, or initiation into the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven, gins at the singleness of eye and humility usual to a little child, who is not self-conceited, nor prepossessed with any prejudice and opinions, but receives what he is taught, and endeavours both to learn and to understand it well, without murmuring at it, and arguing against it, and deriding his Teachers, as the proud Pharisees did: for as by Pride Adam fell from knowledge and righteousness, (which too the Image of God, or the Heavenly kingdom, doth, saith St. Paul, Ephes. 4.24. Coloss. 3.10. consist in) so by Pride men continue fallen, (think to be as Gods, taking upon themselves to judge both good and evil, Gen. 3.5. not owning their ignorance) and do not embrace the contrary way to Pride, which is the beginning of their rising up again. And as all men are fallen short of the Image of God, Rom. 3.23. 1 Cor. 11.7. and are all guilty of pride, prejudice and self-conceit; as it may be gathered from the aversion all men, the highest and the lowest, from the most learned Doctor, to the silliest Country child, show against all other Sects, and against the Traditions which they do not hold themselves, as not to hear Truth itself, if one of a dissenting party from them show it them; being fully persuaded (though without ever so much as calling into question whether it be so or not) that they are in the right way, and that all wander out of the right way but themselves; so, all that will be saved, or rise again from the fall, or death Adam died of, above 900 years before his temporal death, Gen. 2.17.— 5.5. must come in through this entry, I mean through singleness of heart, and humility. For did any of the proud Pharisees believe in Christ, John 7.48. whilst the more humble vulgar, that pretends to no learning, heard him gladly, saith St. Mark 12.37. and received him readily, Luk. 19.6. The poor and humble vulgar is nearer the kingdom of God, than the most learned, Mat. 5.3. by the mouth of Babes God's praise is still perfected, Mat. 21.16. Blessed be thy Name, O Lord, that thou dost reveal thy Truth, to none but such as receive the same like little Babes, Mat. 11.25. Certainly Pride, and the School-learning which puffs up with Pride, 1 Cor. 8.1. is, and ever was the cause of general and private, Jewish, Romish, and English Protestant Apostasy. Out of pride, Angels and man fell from Heaven into Hell, (which is in outer darkness, whereas the inheritance of Saints in the light, Coloss. 1.12. within, Luk. 17.21. doth begin from a single eye, Mat. 6.22.) and out of pride, Clergymen are the first in all Ages, and among all parties, that reject, and make others reject the counsel of God: and it is to be observed, that upon this same account the Clergy is the Author, and hath ever been Author of all the persecutions that have been for Religion, Act. 13.8, 44, 45. Lam. 4.13. as it was typified, by Levi slaying Hamor and Shechem, with all their men, on no other pretence but, why should he deal with our Sister (that is, our Church) as though she were a Harlot? Gen. 34.31. Which the Protestant Levi, brother in iniquity to the old Christian Levi, that is, the Popish Clergy, is upon the same account as ready to act likewise, that is, to slay any man that makes so bold as to show that their Church is a Harlot, and to speak against that which ever made the Priest's heart glad, Judg. 18.18, 20. Indeed not immediately, no more than Levi their type; but like the Pharisees, (who did not set upon Christ at first sight to destroy him, whence the people thought him mad when he did (because he knew the hearts of the Pharisees, and foresaw what the pride thereof would drive them into, John 2.25.) tax them for it long before they went about to do it, John 7.19, 20.) by degrees, as by calling him first the worst of Christians, the Agent of the Devil, a Fool, an Enthusiast, and (if they cannot answer what he saith) a Blasphemer, a Beelzebub, Mat. 10.25. and at last, persecute him openly: which is what I look for at their hands, when they know me.  
Neither is the said knowledge of Christ, and how to preach him, to be learned out of Books, as from the testimony of the Word of Prophecy, from the relation of Paul, Luke, Matthew, or from reasons or arguments drawn from thence by one man for another; but as in the dark only: they serving us but until the bright and the morning Star, and the Sun of Righteousness, the holy Spirit of Christ, that testifieth of him, John 15.26.— 5.32. and that teacheth men all things, dawns and shines in our hearts, 2 Pet. 1.19. for when that Sun is risen upon earthly-minded Souls, they enter into Zoar, Gen. 19.23. (the turning of the Anger, and the beginning of the Love of God shed in their hearts, by the Spirit of knowledge, Rom. 5.5.) knowing Christ then, not because of the words of other men, but by reason that themselves have also within themselves the same teacher others had; which by enlightening their minds, doth persuade and convince them, by the same reasons he did suggest to those other men, that he is indeed the Christ and the Saviour of the World, John 4.24. Otherwise unto this day, when Christ, or Moses is read, a vail is upon their hearts, which is not taken away but by a true conversion unto the Lord, the Spirit; by the which we are changed from glory and from knowledge, to glory and to knowledge, into the glorious Image of God in knowledge, Coloss. 3.10. 2 Cor. 3.15, 16, 17, 18. and if the Scripture be true, no man comes to the knowledge of the Son, but he to whom the Son will reveal himself, Luk. 10.22. John 10: 30.— 14.9. The Revelation of Christ, (or the knowledge of Christ to be revealed to man) is written unto the seven true Churches only, that is, to the only true members of the Church of Christ, and sealed with seven seals, Rev. 1.1.— 5.1. No man in heaven or earth but the Lamb, who hath and sends the seven Spirits of God, whereby he doth make us Priests, that we need no more be taught of Priests, being taught of God, Isa. 54.13. Jer. 31.34: can open or look therein, Rev. 3.7. Surely, the knowledge of Christ puzzleth the Angels themselves, 1 Pet. 1.12. much more men who are born like the dull Colt of a wild Ass, Job 11.12. and dwell in houses of clay, ch. 4.19. and who having never seen the Father at any time, John 1.18. 1 Tim. 6.16. (for the world hath not known him, John 17.25.) cannot see, or know the Son: for he that hath seen the Son, doth know the Father also, ch. 14.7, 9 So that no natural man, (such as all the Sons of Adam are by nature) as he never saw or knew the invisible Father of all things, the Deity; can see, that is, know the Son who is invisible also, from the bare testimony of the holy men of God: but the spiritual man only, which is born of God, and able therefore, John 6.46. to search even the deep things of God, knows the Father and his Son, and understands this hidden wisdom, the knowledge of them; which is a great foolishness, but indeed a great secret, to the Schoolmen, and other learned Princes of this world, 1 Cor. 2.14. John 14.7. flesh and blood, or all the skill and learning carnal men have, cannot make known unto them the Son of the living God, Mat. 16.17. but the Father: witness those whom the Lord spoke these words to, viz. the Apostles themselves: who, though they were taught of him, for when they were alone he expounded unto them all things, which concerned the mysteries of his kingdom, Mark 4.11, 34. yet not only for some time after they had been with him, Mark 7.18. but even when they had heard all that which he was to preach and teach them by word of mouth, John 16.12.— 17.4. that is, after that he was risen again from the dead, far from understanding it, they understood not so much as that the Scriptures foretold or meant any thing of it, Luk. 24.25, 45. John 20.9. until their understandings were opened by Christ breathing the Holy Ghost upon them, v. 22. And much less therefore can we, who are not only as blind and dull as the Apostles were before their second birth, but never conversed with, and never were taught of Christ, but of such ignorant men as we are; understand Christ, the Gospel of his kingdom, and what the Scripture teacheth, better than the Apostles, before the eyes of our dark minds or understandings are enlightened, as theirs were, by the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation for the acknowledgement of Christ, Ephes. 1.17, 18.  
This is worth observation: and because this very thing was denied by Esquire boil, and some such other learned Scribblers of Divinity, I think it not amiss to observe yet further, that, although the Apostles had seen Christ still the winds and waves, cause the Figtree to whither, and twice multiply the bread, yet they were so slow of heart to understand or believe, Luk. 24.25. that not only they could not do the least sign in his name, but did not believe him able, without taking thought or care for the bread that perisheth, and for the leaven thereof, Mat. 16.11. to preserve them from starving: and that he calls them faithless, v. 8. Mark 9.19. using these expressions almost on all occasions, viz. how is it ye have no faith? Mark 4.40. Are ye also, like the world, so without understanding? ch. 7, 18. Mat. 15.16. perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Mat. 8.17. how is it that ye do not yet understand? v. 21.— 9.32. and are so sensual and gross, that you savour not the things of God, but the things of men? Mat. 16.23. From whence, if they that heard his doctrine out of his own mouth, that were constant beholders of his wonders and miracles, and were to be, what they did become since, great and chief men among the true believers, could understand no better (until they had received the gift of the holy Ghost) the things which they saw and heard; what reason have we to think, that they who are born, nay bred at the Universities, like the Colt of a wild Ass, Job 11.12. do believe and understand the same things better than they, when they can no more than they, Mark 9.19. do the least Christian virtue; and relish the things of God, so much as to deny their vile passions in the least, Mat. 16.24. and leave, upon the account of his promise, Mark 10.30. Houses, Lands, Country, Parents and Children for his sake, and the Gospels? for who among the present Preachers of the English Church, doth leave and venture even the uncertain hope he hath of a mean settlement here, to go and preach the Gospel, not in Turkey, or in Spain, (as Tillotson doth object to some that descent from him) but in Carolina, Virginia, and New-Jersey; where they may do it without danger, and find more hearers ready prepared for them, and willing to allow something for their subsistence, than some of those great many who flock from all parts of the Country to London, as the best Marketplace to make merchandise of their Sermons, and Souls of men in, Rev. 18.13. Gal. 4.17. do meet with in many years. And if for saying these things, some of them should say to me, as the Lawyers said to Christ, Luk. 11.45. thou reproachest us also: let them show me by their deeds, Act. 19.18. how much they believe better than the said spectators of Christ his works of wonders, John 10.38. that they need not to take thought for what they shall eat or drink, and that Christ would be as good as his word, if they did but seek first the kingdom of God, Mat. 6.31, 33. for God is no accepter of persons, and of parties: and whoever doth those things, is no more excusable than they whom my discourse is chief intended against. Nay let them show me that Sect, which is not as ready as those Beholders of Christ, Mark 9.38. to forbid true believers to show by their acts of Faith that they do truly believe, except they follow, that is, become of one Sect with them, and receive from them the same token and name of the Beast, Rev. 13.16, 17.  
Therefore this understanding, knowledge and belief on Christ, being not obtained by the strength of wit and learning, nor from the Scriptures alone, even when preached by Christ himself to the Apostles, but by the help of the light of the holy Spirit of God, which is his free gift, Mat. 13.11. John 6.65. how say the Vicar and Hales, that all Preachers have a great necessity of Learning; and that otherwise than out of the Apostles and other holy men's Books, the Spirit speaks not to men?  
Now (to return to the main subject in hand) it appears from the manner of working of the extraordinary Spirit in the Apostles, that all Christian believers do feel the same in themselves; and that it is no more than what they may pretend to, even the Bishops themselves, or Vicars being Judges: for they say, pag. 13. that whenever any man experiences the genuine operation of the ordinary Spirit under the Gospel, he finds a vast alteration in the state of his mind, his apprehensions of things are far different from their former selves, when he was under the command of lust and prejudice; he then better sees the nature of things, and those several excellencies that are in them: he pitches upon objects which are every way more agreeable to the delights, as well as necessities of his Soul, than the husks he formerly fed upon: and pag. 9 they say, that its business is to enlighten our dark faculties, whereby we may see the beauty and excellency of those divine objects that are proposed to our understandings, to strengthen our good purposes for an holy life, and to excite our affections to a love agreeable, etc. So that even from this same description of the working of the said ordinary Spirit, by Master Vicar, (which makes it almost the same as that which I have showed was seen in the Apostles) it follows, that the same extraordinary Spirit the Apostles had, is found in all Believers; and that therefore in respect of them that believe in Christ, it is but ordinary: and so, that the distinction of an ordinary and extraordinary Spirit among Believers, as not grounded in Scripture, is erroneous and false: and an old Sophism hammered, even from the time of 1 John 4.3. in the shop of Antichrist, who denies the coming of Christ by the Holy Ghost, to us whilst yet in the flesh: binding the strong influence of it in the believers, or limiting its power to the measure of his own Spirit, which is not so great, v. 4. giving out that any but the same he hath, is ceased: and thus by reducing the mighty Spirit some have, to the level of his own mean ordinary Spirit, doth (to the withstanding of the kingdom of Heaven, Act. 11.17. which is in the Holy Ghost, Rom. 14.17. that he may preserve his own Earthly kingdom, which consists in mere beastly affections, and a brutish ignorance) what he can to keep from men the knowledge of their most excellent Prerogative: thereby to make them sit still contented, and without sense of their base despondency, in the shadow of that death all men die of with Adam, from the very first moment of their life, until the time of their regeneration. O that Christians were but left to their reason and Scripture in matters of Religion! for who is he, though never so careless of his future and eternal happiness, that would not be glad, and strive with all his power and might to obtain the gift of that which shows and teacheth all things, if he knew he might have it? But woe be to you Doctors, who, notwithstanding your fair pretence to the contrary, pag. 11. do your endeavour to keep (by imposing upon them your Doctrines and Traditions) from men the key of knowledge, Deut. 27.18. and would scarce have allowed them any such distinction, were not the existence of God's Spirit in the Church so plainly taught in Scripture, that you dare not deny it! But yet a little while, and you will not stick to say, that both your ordinary and extraordinary Spirits are wholly ceased; if the two witnesses of God, (viz. the Holy Ghost that testifieth of him, John 15.26.— 5 32. and the cloud of witnesses, both recorded in Scriptures; and not recorded, to wit, those that have been and are still since the same were written) having already prophesied out near their time of 1260 years, hidden under their sackcloth, do not prevent you quickly, by standing upon their feet, and killing the beast that hath so long made War against them, killed and overcome them; that the kingdoms of this world may at last become the Lords, Rev 11.15. Obad. 21.  
Pray, had not the Jewish Church such Spirit as you say, pag. 7. is continued to Christians, viz. sufficiently helpful to them, suitable to their necessities, and to what God required of them in order to be partakers of his blessings? and did they not understand as much of their Religion, and of the Messiah, as you of yours, and of him? that is, (witness the place above cited out of Hales, viz. that otherwise than out of the Apostles books, the Spirit speaks not to you) as much as was related out of the Law, and of the ancient Prophet's Books to them? and so, what doth the Spirit you pretend to, amount to? what greater privilege have Christians than they by it? what signifies Christ's coming, and their being anointed thereby for his Kings and Priests; dignities granted but to few men in the Jewish Church? what signifies the promise which God made, that all Nations should be blessed by the said coming of the Messiah? and in short, what signifies the Prophecy in your Text? In the last days I will pour my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, (viz. by it) Act. 2.17, 18. Now were the Apostles days more the last days than ours? and were only they and their children meant here by all flesh? or else are as many meant, according to St. Peter, v. 39 as the Lord shall ever call unto the end of the World?  
And to see which of Peter, or your Church, is in the right; that is, which explication, his or yours, is Orthodox: will you be pleased, my Lords, to be tried here by your Peers; (for you will grant, I hope, that the Bishops of Antioch, Jerusalem, etc. were as good men as you are; and that we may as well say, my Lord Paul, my Lord Peter. my Lord St. John, and St. James, Bishop, Archbishop, Primate, Patriarch, and Cardinal, and Pope, (except you grudge them the same honour the Papists allow them, who say Peter was one, and chief amongst them) as say, my Lord of London, Henry the Right Reverend Father in God, to no man) and to allow of their sentence out of Scripture Law, as well as Peter himself, and other Apostles did? Act. 15.19, 15, 22, 28. Hoping which, I say first, that St. John by applying the promises of Christ concerning the Holy Ghost teaching all things, etc. John 14.26, 16, 13. to all those he wrote to, (all Christians generally) 1 John 2.20, 27. shows that they do not belong to the Apostles only, (as Hales, and you out of him, pag. 10. lin. 20. seem to take it for granted) but to all them that believe in Christ, who should, as he saith, John 7.39. receive the holy Spirit after Christ was glorified, which should make the knowledge of all things to rise and spring (like wells of living waters flowing out of their belly) from their heart within themselves. And it is most evident that these Promises of Christ were meant to all his disciples, that is, all that learn of him, since he did speak to them all, as appears by John 15.8. and by his new commandment given them at the same time, ch. 13.34.— 15.12. which no Christian will deny but that it doth belong to all the disciples of Christ, and not to some few of them: and since Christ himself declares, Mark 13 3, 37. that what he spoke to Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, was spoken unto all the Servants of the Son of man, v. 34. and all them that are to watch. And we find accordingly, that not only some few great Believers in some Churches, but that all the Believers, and the whole Christian Churches received the Holy Ghost.  
And first, to begin at the visible descent thereof, and with the first Christian Church: The Apostles were no more than twelve in number, and yet hundred and twenty disciples received the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, Act. 1.14, 15. for, as in the 14 th'. verse, they were all with one accord, and ch. 2.4. all the very same disciples were filled with the Holy Ghost. Besides, v. 14, 15. Peter with the eleven standing up, lift up his voice, and said, these are not drunken; meaning some others, besides the eleven that standing, and saying the same with him, could not say these of themselves, to wit, as many as some had said were full of new wine, v. 13. that is, as many as they heard speak with new Languages; which were not the twelve only, as appears by ch. 10.46.— 19.6. Again, ch. 2.38. repent, saith he, to the whole multitude of Jews that were come together to see them, v. 6. and you shall receive also the gift of the ●oly Ghost; out of which three thousand souls were baptised, v. 41. with Spirit, according to his promise, as appears from that they did continue with one accord, and gladness, and singleness of heart, v. 46. in the fellowship of the Apostles themselves, v. 42. which fellowship they could not have, but by the unity of the same Spirit with them, 1 Cor. 6.16, 17. ●phes. 4.3, 4. 1 John 1.6, 7. Again, repent ye, saith he, Act. 3.19. to another Assembly, (whereof see vers. 11.) that your sins be blotted out, when the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord shall come, and he shall send you Jesus Christ the Comforter, (as he doth call him elsewhere) to refresh and to fill you with the joy, John 15.11. and strength, rising from his true power of life. Next, both the men and women of the Town of Samaria, received the Holy Ghost, Act. 8.12, 16, 17. Then all the Churches throughout Judea and Galilee, walking in the comfort and strength of the Holy Ghost, (whom they must have had therefore) had rest and were multiplied, ch. 9.31.  
Afterwards, the gift of the Holy Ghost was poured out upon the Gentiles likewise, Act. 10.45. as upon Cornelius, and his near Friends and Kindred, v. 24. and all them that heard the Word, v. 44. who magnified God, and spoke with new languages, as well as the Apostles, v. 46. (here note well, that St. Peter applies ch. 11.16. the promise of Christ, mentioned Act. 1.5. to those at whose occasion he spoke, viz. to the Gentiles, ch. 11.1, 17. to confirm what he saith in ch. 15.9. that no such difference as that of ordinary and extraordinary Spirit was put between them; and to show that it belongs to all the present Churches of Christians, if (besides that they were Gentiles heretofore, when the Gospel was brought into their Native Countries) they may pretend to as much privilege as the Gentiles; as they do all, and to more.) And by course all their Churches of Antioch, ch. 13.52. of Ephesus, ch. 19.6. Ephes. 2.17, 18, 19 & 3.6. & 5.18. of Galatia, Gal. 3.2, 3, 5, 14. & 4.6, 7. & 5.5, 16, 25. Corinthus, 1 Cor. 6.11, 19 2 Cor. 11.4. Rome, ch. 5.5. & 8.10, 11, 23. Philippi, ch. 3.3. Colossus, ch. 1.8. & 3.10. and of Thessalonica, 1 Thes. 1.5. & 5.19, 20. 2 Thes. 2.13. received the Holy Ghost. And in fine, the holy Ghost being the blessing that was promised in Abraham, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.4, 8. & 2.33, 38, 39 & 7.17. & 13.32, 33. Rom. 4.13. Gal. 3.14, 29. Heb. 9.15. & 10.36. & 11.39. to all Nations, Gen. 12.3. Rom. 4.16. Ephes. 3.6. whence St. Paul calls him the Holy Spirit of promise, Ephes. 1.13. all their Churches in all Nations and places, if they were believing Churches, received it likewise, although the Scriptures give us no further account of it: and so might our Churches partake of the same blessing, if they would but believe as gladly as the Gentiles did; specially seeing the Son of man comes to save all men, Mat. 18.11. and to save them, as Paul saith, Tit. 3.5. by regenerating, and restoring unto them, what they do all come short of at their birth, Rom. 3.23. the Holy Ghost, John 3.3, 5. coming himself unto as many as will keep his words, John 14.23. as being himself the same with the Comforting Spirit, v. 18. (by which being conceived, Luk. 1.35. according to our Creed, in them; but brought forth by them, Gal. 4.19. Rev. 12.5 they become his Mother therefore, Luk. 8.21. and so he becomes by this means the Son of man:) so that, though the whole Scripture afforded no instances at all of the Holy Ghost being given to other men besides the Apostles; the said promises of Christ coming to bless, and to save all Nations, in turning them away from iniquity, Act. 3.26. by his power from on high, Luk. 24.49. and of his coming to as many as will keep his word by the Spirit, etc. are enough to show that if any man will obey him; though he be no Apostle, he shall receive the same gift.  
But, besides these passages, so many other places of Scripture witness the same, that it is a wonder to me how the great Divines, with all their Humane Learning, in seeing perceive it not: and so much the greater wonder, that after they have been told of it so often, they (whilst they believe Scripture, as they say) believe not this: But their heart is waxed gross; and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see and convert, Mat. 13.15. Some of the other places are, The heavenly Father of all men will give to them the Holy Ghost, much sooner than any Father will give good gifts unto his Children, Luk. 11.13. To as many as receive (or believe on, John 7.39.) Christ, he gives the right to become the Sons of God, ch. 1.12, 13. to be born anew by the said quickening Spirit, ch. 3.5. & 6.63. and no man ascending up to heaven, except the Son of man that came down from thence, ch. 3.13. all the Saints must receive him, before they ascend thither: And they are all baptised by one Spirit into one body, (the Spirit of life that moves the feet or the tail of any living creature, being the same Animal Spirit that actuates the head, and moves all the other parts or members of his body) and made all to drink into one (not therefore into two, extraordinary and ordinary) Spirit, 1 Cor. 12.13. And I would not have you, brethren, ignorant, v. 1. that the manifestation of that Spirit is given unto every man, v. 7. that believes, (as follows from v. 8.) And the Holy Ghost was sent down from heaven, at the time that the Gospel was preached to all those whom St. Peter wrote his Epistles to, 1 Pet. 1.12. which preaching of the Gospel, and mission of the Spirit therefore, have been since the first mission of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, to as many as have believed upon hearing the Gospel preached to them. And, it being impossible for those who were enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and of the powers of the world to come, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, if they shall fall away, to be renewed again into repentance, saith Paul, Heb. 6.4, 5, 6. it appears from these his words, that he took it for granted that some other, besides himself and the Apostles, received not only the Vicar's ordinary gift, but such as brought with it the powers of the world to come; and that, in this very life: seeing there is no place left for repentance after it. And if the Spirits of God are sent into all the Earth, Rev. 5.6. it must not be understood of the first Christians alone, for the first Christians were not all the Earth; and by the Earth, is meant the natural man, who is from the Earth, earthly, Luk. 18.8. John 3.31. 1 Cor. 15.47. (whence to go the way of all the Earth, is a Scripture phrase used instead of to die) for the Spirits of God are not sent into the ground. Also the Prophecies of the Evangelical blessings, by the Holy Ghost, include all, and except none: all thy children shall be taught of the Lord, saith Isaiah 54.13. and they shall all know me from the least to the greatest, Jer. 31.34. (which cannot be but by means of the Holy Ghost, saith Paul, 1 Cor. 12.3.) the Nations shall bless themselves, and also glory in him, ch. 4.2. The strangers, saith Ezechiel in his new Jerusalem, ch. 47.22, 23. (that is to say, the Gentiles) shall have an inheritance among the Tribes of Jacob. And the remnant, saith Micah 5.4. (not some few of that remnant) shall return, and stand, and seed in the strength, or the power, in the name and majesty of the Lord, and shall abide. And in the latter days, the children of Israel, none excepted, shall return, and fear (or serve) the Lord, and David (or Christ, Ezech. 34.24.) their King, Hos. 3 5. which cannot be, but by the power the Holy Ghost gives. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of Priests, and an holy Nation, said Moses, Exod. 19.6. 1 Pet. 2.5, 9 to wit, by the true Unction, whereof that of Exod. 30.23, 30. to anoint the Priests withal, was but a type and figure. And the type of the true blood of the Lamb, the blood of Beasts, being forbidden to both the people and Priests equally, shows that all the Christian people may eat of the antitype, (Christ's vivifying and health-restoring Spirit, John 6.55, 63. Mal. 4.2.) equally with their chief Priests, the Apostles and Prophets. And to you that fear my Name shall the Sun of Righteousness rise with healing in his wings, Mal. 4.2. And if Christ doth give his flesh, which is the bread from Heaven, (not therefore his Humane flesh which he had from the Virgin, John 3.6. & 8.23. Rom. 8.6.) the true and the living bread, the inspiration of God, Gen. 2.7. for the life of the whole world, John 6.33, 50, 51. the whole world may eat of it: and all they that will live indeed for ever by him, must actually and really, as well as the Apostles, eat and drink, or feed on him, v. 53, 55, 57, 58. And if he saved St. Paul, and those he meant (were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise when they believed, Ephes. 1.13.) by the renewing of the Image of God within them, Tit. 3.5. how can any believing man be saved otherwise, since that Salvation is still the same, and by the same means, that is, through the Holy Ghost? Rom. 14.17. and that no man can enter into the kingdom of God, that is, live in righteousness, and receive the peace and joy passing all understanding, which God doth reward it with, except he be born of the Spirit that enables him? John 3.5. Rev. 12.11. The body of man cannot live out its animal life, without natural Spirits, Jam. 2.26. and shall the internal man be made to live for ever an uninterrupted life, without the Eternal Spirit of God that gave him Nischmat chajim, breath of lives, Gen. 2.7. and not of one single life, as the Translator turns it: from whence he doth not, saith Christ, live by earthly bread alone, Mat. 4.4. but by the bread from Heaven, Verbum ab ore Dei, the comforting, refreshing and vivifying Spirit: which is the Father's house, into which Christ receives men; as appears by his saying, that he would come again to receive them to himself, to the place he should be in, John 14.2, 3. for he coming again to them by the Comforter, v. 18. and the gift thereof being the result of his coming, and the only performance and effect of his promise, (that he would bring them into the same place he should be in) it must also be (since Christ cannot lie) the thing and place he promised to be in, and to receive them into: and this place also being (by the account which he gave to Thomas, whither he went to prepare a place for them, v. 6.) with the Father; it follows from thence, that the Holy Ghost is likewise the Father's house, and the Heaven within us, Luk. 17.21. where Christ is in the Father, and we in him, John 14.20. where he is, v. 3. & 17.24. and where all are together one with the Father and Christ, ch. 17.21.  
From all which it most clearly and manifestly appears, that the Holy Ghost is given to all the faithful: and the distinction of the Vicar in the gift of it, to wit, his ordinary and extraordinary gift, appearing no where at all; the Scriptures speaking but of one sort of Spirit given; nay teaching that God being no respecter of persons, Act. 10.34. puts not such difference at all between believers, ch. 15.9. in every Nation he that worketh righteousness being accepted with him, ch. 10.35. and receiving his good gift, Mat. 7.11. Luk. 11.13. even as the Apostles, Act. 10.47. & 15.8. can any impartial man that hath his eyes in his head▪ Eccl. 2.14. not see this; and deny that the Lords Bishops having been fairly tried and condemned by as good men as their Peers, and having had as good Law as the Statutes or Canons of Scripture could afford them, the gift of the Holy Ghost continues still in God's Church; and say that it is ceased, and that no man, ever since 400 years after the times of the Apostles, hath right to pretend to it? But if some still contend for their ordinary Spirit, (thus holding such Gospel as the Saints have not preached, Gal. 1.8) let them have it in God's name, Rev. 22.11. for so, instead of being reform to the Image of God that created man, (not after two Images, to wit, an ordinary and extraordinary one, for God being always the same, hath but one Image) they must remain deformed; and they can have but a mean Salvation accordingly: because Salvation being in and through the Holy Ghost, as was said out of Rom. 14.17. he that hath but a mean and ordinary share of it, hath but an ordinary power to do good works with, and so hath but a mean and ordinary righteousness; and God rendering unto men but according to their works, the peace and joy, or the bliss (which Salvation consists in) that they do receive from thence, cannot therefore be but mean, and very ordinary: like unto the old third state, or Limbus; a reward fit for our Right Reverend Fathers in God; to be it.  
And here I had left them, and finished my discourse, but that hearing some of them à Limbo Patrum crying, alas we did not know that these things were meant of this life, but thought that the promises made to all the believers, concerning the gift of the Spirit conferred on them, were to begin upon the dissolution of their flesh: neither did we understand any thing of a second coming of Christ in Spirit, to men, for their Salvation; but took his second coming to be in Judgement only, at the sound of the last Trump, when he comes with his Angels to judge the quick and the dead! I think it convenient to show likewise that it is in this life, before men die, that the gift of the Spirit is conferred upon them: and secondly, that when the Holy Ghost is sent, or comes, it is the second coming of Christ, Christ comes then himself; that I may both fully discharge the task I have taken upon me this day, and leave them without excuse that are detained, and that keep others in the Limbus of such gross ignorance.  
But first, (to prevent mistakes) I desire the Reader to take notice, that I have said nothing tending to establish the doctrine or opinion of an equality of Spirit among believers; as though every member of Christ's mystical body, or every believer, had an equal share or part of Spirit with those that are instead of eyes, ears, and of the other senses to it. No, I have from St. Paul, 1 Cor. 12. and in some other places of the foregoing pages, inferred the contrary: and I only assert, that the Holy Ghost being given to all the faithful, even in the same manner as unto the Apostles, they may by knocking, ask, praying, and by watching so as to purify themselves, 1 John 3.3. from that which defileth man, Mark 7.21, 22, 23. serve God in such holiness, and walk in such righteousness before him, Luk. 1.74, 75. as to obtain as great a portion and gift thereof, as the Apostles. And this grounded, besides the instances we have of it, Act. 10.35, 46.— 19.6. upon the promises of Christ, Mat. 19.28. Rev. 3.21. that they which shall follow him in the regeneration, and overcome the seventh time, that is to say, to the end, shall sit with him in his Throne, as well as the Apostles; shall partake as much as they of Gods own divine nature, 2 Pet. 1.4. shall be one with God himself, John 17.21. or transibit in Deum, as the Right Reverend Doctor Trismegistus said. For note that, though Christ's promise makes mention but of twelve Thrones, it extends nevertheless further than to the twelve men who were then speaking with him: as appears first, from the words themselves of the said promise, which are, you that follow me, or that shall follow me in the regeneration; and not, you my Apostles that have followed me, as the Translator mistakes; (for none of the Apostles had as yet followed Christ in the regeneration, but were still to do it then; being not till afterwards, when Christ was glorified, born again of the Spirit, John 7.39.) and which show that the promise belongs to the Apostles upon condition only; (for pray, shall Judas sit with the rest upon a Throne?) and so to you Lords Bishops, if you will but die to your Lordship's worldly-mindedness, to follow in the new birth your Lord, and to them likewise that have and shall accomplish and perform that condition: and this appears secondly, from the forementioned place of Rev. 3.21. which saith, not Peter and James, and the other Apostles, but he that overcometh, shall sit with me in my Throne, and so doth confirm this sense: And thirdly, from that Christ would not promise any of them the first seats in his Kingdom; but they shall have them, saith he, Mat. 20.23. for whom such reward is prepared of my Father, as he who knows which of all mankind shall deserve it best. Verily I dare say, that as many as shall wade through the red Sea of their blood, Luk 22.44. and the other deep waters of tribulations with Christ, Act. 14.22. shall sit with him on twelve Thrones, that is, get the brightest Crown of glory, or highest state among the twelve Tribes; that is, among the whole multitude, or the complete number of the Israel of God. And though this is not meant of, nor attainable in this life, yet Salvation being in and through the Holy Ghost, Rom. 14 17. and being rendered to man but according to his works, which he hath done in this life, an adequate proportion, or supply of the Spirit proportionable unto his degree of future glory, and capable to procure it, is required in this life, and must be got before death. Besides, not Peter and the other. Apostles only, but whoever is righteous, shall shine as the Firmament; and if any man should turn more men to righteousness, than the greatest Apostles, he should shine brighter than they, as the Sun above the Stars in the kingdom of Heaven, Dan. 12.3. Mat. 13.43. But because all Believers do not purify themselves to that degree of brightness or holiness that some do, therefore in the Father's house (which is the Holy Ghost, as I have showed before) there be several mansions, John 14.2. distinguishable from the state and the proportion of Faith the faithful shall be found with; and not distinguished by any place assigned, or state beforehand decreed for them, as Babel teacheth: so that any righteous man that will live by Faith indeed, in going from Faith to Faith, mounting up with wings as Eagles, and never being weary of knocking, ask, watching, and of waiting on the Lord, Isa. 40.31. Psal. 84.7. may not only press into Zion, the kingdom of God, Luk. 16.16. but take by force even the highest seat that is in it; as, I doubt not, many have done since the Apostles, and shall do to the World's end.  
That the Holy Ghost is sent and given during this life, or whilst we are in the flesh, and before we taste of death, to them that prepare themselves for Salvation, it appears from John 14.23. Rev. 3.20. where, if we open the door, hear Christ's voice, and keep his Word, (which is done during this life) Christ will come by his Spirit, and make his abode with us. Behold I come quickly, had not been repeated three divers times in the last chapter of all the Scriptures, Rev. 22.7, 12, 20. if that coming were meant of Christ's coming in Judgement; for that, being deferred already near a third part of the age of the World, that is, near two thousand years, is far from a quick coming; and so it is another coming by the Holy Ghost which St. John meant in that place. And the regeneration, or new birth of the Spirit, John 3.3, 5, 8. is performed here upon Earth, v. 12. And verily (doth Christ say, Mat. 16.28. Mark 9.1. Luk. 9.27.) there be some here standing by, which are not to taste of death till they see the Son of man come in his kingdom; that is, as Mark and Luke explain it, the kingdom of God come with the power of the Spirit, Act. 1.8. Luk: 24.49. Which saying could not be true, had it not been fulfilled on the day of Pentecost in many of the disciples, that stood by when Christ spoke it, by their receiving power after that the Holy Ghost was come and sat upon them, Act. 1.8.— 2.3, 4. for all they which stood by Christ when he spoke these words, are dead so long ago, and therefore so long before his coming to receive, and deliver the kingdom to the Father, viz. at the end of the World, Luk. 19.15. 1 Cor. 15.24. that no man can think but that since they did see the kingdom of God before they died; the said coming of the Son of man in his said kingdom is before they, and other disciples of Christ, taste of death: and not when all men are dead. Whence John that doth not tarry till the day of Judgement comes, tarried till God's kingdom came, John 21.22. for he, having received the revelation of Christ (the Holy Ghost, John 15.26.— 14.26. Luk. 17.30.) not only upon that day with the rest, but more particularly, than some of them afterwards in the Island of Patmos, Rev. 1.1, 9 did not die until he had seen the whole kingdom of Christ even in its full power; having seen in the Spirit the holy Jerusalem, having the glory of God, v. 10.— 21.10, 11. And upon the same account, Verily, saith Christ again, Mat. 24.34. to all them that follow him; Mark 13.37. this generation (which lasts no longer than a man's life) shall not pass, till all these things (to wit, the coming of Christ in the dark and clouded Souls, Luk. 21.27. of the Heaven within us, with power and great glory, Mat. 24.30.) be thoroughly fulfilled. And, Verily you shall not have gone over (in your flight to avoid persecution, to which men are exposed here only before they die) the Cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come. And, I will not henceforth drink of the fruit of the Vine, until the kingdom of God shall come, Luk. 22.18. or, as saith Mat. 26.29. till I drink it with you new in my Father's kingdom; which he did with some of them, Luk. 24.43. both before and after that they were by the Holy Ghost come in the kingdom of God, drinking it new together, John 7.39.— 6.57, he himself drinking of it in God's kingdom all the while, I mean as well before as after they were in it; as being he that did still accomplish all righteousness, overcome all the kingdoms of the World, and of the Flesh, Mat. 4.8. John 16.33. by dying himself to them, and thus remaining himself under the kingdom of God, and purchasing by this means and delivering to God the whole power and kingdom, 1 Cor. 15.23, 24. which he could not do but by drinking of the Holy Ghost, and living by the Father, of his power from above. Then if the kingdom of God is within us, like a seed growing into a great Tree, and like a little Leven working in us till we come unto the measure of the stature of the perfect man, the Son of man Jesus Christ, Ephes. 4.13. and like a hidden treasure, which we must, to purchase it, sell all we have in the World, Mat. 13.44. Luk. 14.33. then is this kingdom of God (which is the same thing as the coming of Christ, as appears from Mat. 16.28. Mark 9.1. Luk. 9.27. Rom. 14.17. 1 Cor. 4.20. conferred together) before we are grown unto the measure of that stature, even in this very life, and before we part with it, and with all the things we do enjoy, whilst we enjoy it. God hath saved us, saith Paul, whilst he was yet in the flesh, 2 Tim. 1.9. and that by renewing, or sending the Holy Ghost, Tit. 3.5. and received ye the Spirit, saith he to the Galatians, 3.2. who therefore had received it before they read his Letter, which was sent them in this world: and in a word, as all the Primitive true believers received the Holy Ghost in this world during this life, so must all believers now, since they are to receive it even in the same manner, as I have fully showed, receive it before they taste of death: Every Spirit that confesseth not that Christ comes to us whilst in the flesh, being that Spirit of Antichrist gone into the Wo●ld, whereof see 1 John 4.1, 3. for truly (though flesh and blood inherits not the kingdom of God, 1 Cor. 15.50. because till we have escaped the corruption which is in the World through lust, we cannot, saith 2 Pet. 1.4. partake of Divinity, put on the new man which is (created after God, Ephes. 4.24. and of a divine nature) in the flesh we are saved; in the flesh is the kingdom of God attained unto: although not with all its full glory and Prerogatives, Ephes. 1.14.  
Now, that when the Holy Ghost is sent, or comes unto men, it is Christ that comes himself, it appears from what Paul saith, 2 Cor. 3.17. 1 Cor. 8.6. that the Lord is that Spirit. And to see the days, or the coming of the Son of man, is to have him revealed, compare Mat. 24.27, 37. Luk. 17.22. with v. 30. which revelation is by the coming of the Spirit that doth testify of him, John 15.26.— 16.14. Gal. 1 16. Also, to see the kingdom of God coming with power, Mark 9.1. Luk. 9.27 that is, as Luke saith elsewhere, with the power from above, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.8. 1 Cor. 4.20. Rom. 14.17. is to see the Son of man himself come in his kingdom, Mat. 16.28. And, I will pray (saith Christ to his disciples, John 14.17.) the Father, and he shall give you Another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, who dwelleth with you now, (that is, whilst I am yet dwelling with you in the flesh) and shall be, or dwell in you, (when I am glorified, John 7.39.— 16.7. Ephes. 4.8.) And, I will not leave you comfortless, I will come, v. 18. and I will come again, v. 28. that the other Comforter may dwell with you for ever, v. 16. Where Christ saying Another Comforter, and I come not to leave you comfortless, it appears in the first place that he reckons himself the same with the Comforter, or Spirit that was to come. And secondly, by saying that the other Comforter, which was to be and to dwell in them for ever after, dwelled with them, and they knew him at the time he spoke these words, he shows that he is himself the same with that Comforter; for that it was he only, of all them that dwelled with them, who was able to comfort them, having the fullness of the comforting Spirit in him, Coloss. 1.19.— 2.9. John 3.34. and did really comfort or rejoice them by his presence, ch. 16.5, 6.— 14.1, 2. But more intelligibly, ch. 16.22. he declares himself the same with the comforting Spirit; ye now, saith he, have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; your sorrow shall be turned into that joy thereupon, v. 20. which no man taketh from you. And again, v. 16.— 14.19. yet a little while, saith he, and you shall not see me, and again a little while and you shall see me, because I go to the Father, but the World seethe me no more; viz. when you see me again, or when I make myself manifest to you, v. 22. because it cannot receive and see and know the Spirit of Truth, v. 17.— 1.5. Where note, that from that the World sees Christ no more afterwards, from his first disappearance at his passion and burial; whilst the Apostles see him again, and that by reason that he went to the Father, it is evident that this was not fulfilled upon his apparitions to them after his resurrection; for than he was not as yet ascended to the Father, ch. 20.17. and the World might see him then as well as the disciples did, seeing that he was palpable to Thomas his hands and fingers, v. 25. and visible to the eyes of the disciples that were travelling to Emaus, Luk. 24.15. even whilst their eyes were as much held from knowing him, as those of the World, v. 16, 25, 31. who might therefore see him talk with them, and sit at meat in the house, v. 30. so that this seeing him again, and especially because he should go away, must needs be meant of that sight they had on Pentecost day, Act. 2.11, 17. of the comforting Spirit that shown them plainly of the Father, John 16.25. and of him therefore, ch. 14.9. and that except Christ's body went away, was not to come, ch. 16.7. Then, the other Comforter that dwelled at that time with them, being to abide and stay with them for ever after, ch. 14.16. this seeing of Christ again ought not to be understood of the short transitory abode which he made with them between his resurrection, and his ascension to God: specially he being not yet another Comforter, for he was not glorified with the glory which he had when he vivified all things, John 17.5. Heb. 1.2. until some days afterwards; which it was necessary a Comforter, that is, one that gives life, strength and virtue, and refreshment to all things, (note Christ is the living bread, see John 6.51.) should have, John 16.7. and so he was still but the same that dwelled with them before he was crucified. Moreover, I will give to him that overcometh, saith he that is alive for ever, Rev. 2.28. the morning Star, or the light of the Spirit arising in our hearts, 2 Pet. 1.19. and he is the morning Star himself, ch. 22.16, 20. and cometh quickly to his Bride the Soul of man, which was void of her own form, to wit, the Image of God, to impregnate or inform, and make her conceive, and breed and bring forth the Son of man; who is the Image of God, Heb. 1.3. and is form within us, Gal. 4.19. being by the Holy Ghost conceived, then born of the Virgin, a pure and chaste Soul; thus Christ being himself, and effecting now himself what was, at the creation of man, done by the Holy Spirit breathed into man, Gen. 1.27.— 2.7. whence Christ calls the works and fruits of the Spirit, Gal. 5.22. his own works, Rev. 2.26. and thereby making himself the same with the Holy Ghost. What Peter confirms, saying, Act. 3.19, 20. when the times of refreshing shall come from the Lords presence, and he sends you Jesus Christ, understand to refresh them, or to be their comforter. In fine, if we do allow that it is no robbery in the only Son of God, to make himself equal with God, Philip. 2.6. who is a Spirit, John 4.24. we cannot without robbing him of his Divinity, Coloss. 1.19.— 2.9. and his Spiritual nature, John 3.34. say that he is not the same, and have a different notion and knowledge of him than of the Holy Spirit: specially since he sits now on the right hand of power, in the Majesty on high, or is glorified again with the glory which he had with God before the World was, John 17.5. and before he took the Seed of Abraham upon him. As the Father hath sent me, and in the same manner as I live by the Father, (which is done spritually) so he that will live by me, must eat me and receive me. Heaven (the heavenly Souls, and not the material Heavens that shall pass away, and that cannot contain him, 1 Kings 8.27.) is that which must receive him, and where he dwells, (like the Sun in and through the Vegetables, and the Soul in and through all the members of the body) until the time that all things shall be restored again into the glorious freedom that they had before they fell under the bondage and the curse of corruption, Act. 3.21. Rom. 8.21.  
How absurd it is to think that the Son of any man, or any thing born of flesh and blood, as Christ's body was, John 1.14. can sit in that Majesty which belongs to God alone, as Christ doth, Heb. 1.3. when flesh and blood doth not so much as come in that glory, 1 Cor. 15.50. far from sitting therein in the highest place! And to know after the flesh him that saves us from the flesh; obtaining us eternal redemption from the body, Heb. 9.12. Rom. 8.23.— 7.24. when we must not henceforth know him so! 2 Cor. 5.16. And to worship the Image of the Father of all Spirits in the flesh, John 4.24. when he is no more to be by us dealt with in the flesh! John 20.17. and saith that the flesh of man, otherwise his humane flesh profiteth nothing to man, John 6.63. but his own true flesh and blood, which he had ab aeterno, and came down in tempore from his stillness and rest (his Heaven) to be the bread of life unto all the World! v. 51. and which is the Holy Ghost, whereby he that eats the same shall live; how? even as Christ himself lives by the Father, v. 57 which cannot be by eating and drinking of flesh and blood: and much less by transmuting his flesh in bread to eat it; for bread is eaten only by the flesh, and quickeneth but the fleshly body alone, v. 63. By transmuting, I say, of flesh and blood into bread, and not of bread into flesh, (as some, who heaping nonsense upon their deep ignorance of God, do, by the excess of blind zeal, which usually men have for idolatry, most blasphemously and ridiculously hold, Rom. 1.22, 23, 25, 28.) for as long as we neither see, smell, nor taste any flesh, but still bread as well after as before the pretended miracle of transmutation, it cannot be a change of bread into flesh, but of flesh into that which remains bread; if so be that a change of substances were effected, as nothing but their bare word appears for the proof of it: for the Scripture, though this thing deserves better than many others to be observed, takes not the least notice, and makes no mention of it: Secondly, they cannot show a necessity for it, but rather contrariwise; for what reason is there that our flesh which is death, Rom. 8.6. and can never be saved, 1 Cor. 15.50. and even must he destroyed, 1 Cor. 6.13. and that maketh imperfect, Gal. 3.3. and therefore cannot be made perfect, John 17.23. 1 Cor. 13.10. that is, very good, as man when first created, Gen. 1.31. should be fed and nourished with what gives eternal life, the flesh and the blood of Christ; and that this should be therefore turned into common bread, for our flesh to feed on: And thirdly, no body yet having ever seen any flesh and blood to become bread, and that the Communion-bread was once flesh and blood before this strange transubstantiation, the miracle pretended to do it is invisible, and if it be invisible, it is therefore no miracle: for all miracles are wrought to be seen, that God may show his power, and that his name may be declared thereby among men throughout the Earth, Exod. 9.16. John 9.3. and before the water was turned into blood or wine, Lot's wife in Salt, etc. the water was by some tasted and seen, and the flesh of the body of Lot's wife was seen and felt. Brother, art thou not a fool to stand for that which is both nonsensical, and to no purpose, contrived without reason or necessity, nay repugnant to the end it was instituted for, viz. the breaking of the flesh, 1 Cor. 11.26. and the communicating to Christ's spiritual body, ch. 10.16. which is done in becoming spiritual men ourselves: and a very wicked fool to persecute another, because he will not be as great a fool as thyself? I say, that he who eats of this flesh, shall live by it; and shall by this flesh and blood (the power of our Christ, and from on high, Luk. 24.49. Act. 1.8.) be quickened, and so strengthened that he shall overcome the accuser, or Tempter that tempted Eve, Rev. 12.11. I mean shall bruise the head of the flesh that creeps and makes our Souls to creep with it, Gen. 3.15. like Serpents, v. 14. to cleave unto this vile Earth, Psal. 119.25. and to sink down from God into Hell itself.  
Philip, he that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also, John 14.7, 9 for the Son is his express Image, and represents him, Heb. 1.3. John 1.18. And can therefore the Son of the invisible God, who is a Spirit, saith he, that Son who dwells in the light no man can approach unto, 1 Tim. 6.16. in the bosom, in the throne of the most infinite God, John 1.18. Rev. 3.21. be like unto flesh and blood? and sit there, and come therence, Rev. 3.20. to make us sit there also in the same bodily shape he lived with in the flesh? what, and if you shall see the Son of man ascend up, saith he, John 6.62. where he was before, how can you then think he shall have flesh and blood about him, since when he was there before, he had neither flesh and blood, nor humane shape and body, John 5.37. Deut. 4.12. how can the flesh and blood I had then about me, (which is not my flesh and blood, John 8.23. but the seed of Abraham, Heb. 2.16. which I took upon Earth, in the womb of one of his daughters, that I might die therein to deliver you from it, v. 14, 15. Rom. 8.6.) be the true bread from heaven, and the meat and drink indeed that makes you live for ever? John 6.32, 33, 38, 41, 50, 54, 55, 58. Truly if I had still a body of flesh and blood, I could not quicken you: and the words that I speak being Spirit, v. 63. how can you take them in a carnal sense? but if you understood them, and knew me, saw my glory, John 17.24. whereof that in Mat. 17.2. was but a very weak beam, that body of flesh and blood which you so much dote upon, would vanish out of your sight, Luk. 24.31. Heb. 10.20. 2 Cor. 3.14. and then you would understand that I am risen indeed, Luk. 24.34. from such body of death, Rom. 7.24. and by rising from it, or being no more in it, made the fit author of your eternal salvation, Heb. 5.9. that is, more able to help you, and fit to strengthen you, John 16.7. both against the said body, and him that tempts you by it, 2 Cor. 5.1, 4, 6. by the power I have, in rising unto glory obtained of an endless life, Heb. 2.18.— 7.16. whereby you may rule over the tumultuous Nations, the lusts that war in your flesh; and come out of their bondage into the glorious freedom of the Sons of God, v. 15. Rev. 2.26, 27. which is rising from the dead, and entering in the kingdom of God, or your Salvation. O you house of Israel, both Jews and all Christian Sects, come on now, for the time past aught to have sufficed you, open your eyes, and at last walk in the light of the Lord, Isa. 2.5. Ephes. 5.8. sit no longer in darkness and in your shadow of death, otherwise under the thick umbraculum which your flesh darkneth and deads' your Souls with: learn to know me in Spirit and in truth, according to mine own essence and nature; and look no more upon me as your Antecessors, John 6.42. and as the Mahometans, and even as you yourselves have done, and do to this hour, John 14.7. for the Jews look for nothing but worldly and temporal blessings for their flesh from Christ, to wit, to live in plenty, glory and prosperity in this life under his reign, as when Solomon reigned, 1 Kings 4.20, 21, 24, 25. taking accordingly what the Prophets say of the Spiritual kingdom of the Messiah literally, as Isa. 55.10. and therefore they thought of a visible appearance of God's kingdom in the days of Christ, Luk. 17.20.— 19.11. And the Turks expect to have all fleshly lusts satisfied by the mediation of their Prophet Mahomet, when he comes with God, say they, to save his true Musulmans, or them that truly believe in him, and to judge the World. So that Christians, believing that they shall be one day saved with their flesh and blood, 2 Cor. 5.6. that their Salvation was once performed and perfected in the flesh by Christ as man, by his becoming a man, and by dying in the flesh, (when by his incarnation and death, without ascending, and coming in the Spirit, there is no body saved, John 3.5, 13.— 16.7.) and that the second coming of Christ will be seen of all, appear with observation to the eyes of all the World, Luk. 17.20. look on him with the same eyes, and in the same manner as both the Jews and the Turks, have no higher thoughts of his kingdom than the others have, know him still as the man of sorrows, humiliated; not as sitting from the time of his humiliation on the right hand of power, and coming with great glory, though he tells them so himself, Mat. 26.64. Mark 14.62. and concurring thus with them, in a temporal, worldly, and carnal knowledge of him, they do not only bring back his Spiritual knowledge and worship, introduced by him and the Apostles, to the old bodily and ceremonial worship of God in the Jewish Church: but even to a creature worship, Rom. 1.25, 23. and, like the Heathen, changing the truth of their God into that which he is not, (the shape or Image of man) they set up an Idol made like unto flesh and blood, (the fleshly conceits of him) in the holy place (their heart:) thus, instead of knowing God, as a Spirit, in Spirit; destroying his Spiritual knowledge, and establishing a knowledge after the flesh; and also, per consequent, a worship accordingly, (a downright idolatry) for Lux intelligendi being in mankind the Lex volendi & agendi, man willeth and acteth but according to his knowledge, worship's God as he knows him, & quia ignoti boni nulla cupido, lusts for no more than that which he conceives and knows of him; to wit, a bodily, temporal and carnal good: and so continues to be such as he was at his birth, that is, carnally minded: and this carnal mind being enmity against his God, Rom. 8.7. Jam. 4.4. man, in revolting to it, or siding with that party which is in war against God, he commits adultery (that is, falsehood) against God, Luk. 16.13, 18. with the great whore (worldly lusts, and all carnal-mindedness) that makes all people of the Earth drink of her fornications, Rev. 17.2.— 18.3. And by tasting, like Adam, and drinking continually of this Lethean liquor, (worldly lusts, carnal pleasures) he at last so forgets, and remains ignorant of God, that he falls insensibly under the Antichristian abominable kingdom of darkness, that makes the Church of Christ on Earth desolate; and all the present world to pay the homage is due to the heavenly divine invisible and spiritual power, to the earthly Beast, Rev. 13.7, 8. or, to that which makes men like Beasts, whose knowledge and thoughts are confined unto what they see, (the earthly creatures) and cannot rise up so high as to know spiritual Being's, and their Creator, Job 35.10, 11. that is, spiritual darkness: whence proceed the manifold errors which each Sect respects, submits and burns incense to: and for the which they stand up even against truth itself: doing all that they condemn in others, that is, run mad, some more some less palpably, after their more or less refined idolatry. He that hath ears to hear let him hear, and keep himself from all such Image-worship, 1 John 5.22. for at this very pass all men stick, here stands and falls the faithfulness of the Saints, Rev. 13.10. Mat. 19.22. for, as I said before, cùm ignoti boni nulla nobis cupido, quae novimus haec sola cupimus, prosequimur, & iis adhaerentes atque aequiescentes, si sint falsa bona, à vero bono sumus eo magis remoti, Luk. 16.13.— 12.34. 1 John 21.15. My Brethren, Jews and Christians, the times of ignorance and darkness are over now, Act. 14 16.— 17.30. Rom. 13.12. The second house of the Lord, whereof John 14.2.— 4.21, 23. is higher, Ezra 6.3. 1 Reg. 6.2. and not so much for a show, Ezra 3.12. as the former. And the Body of Moses, a type of the Messiah, as being Mediator betwixt God and Israel, of the former Covenant, and in things which were but types of the kingdom of Christ, was not found after his death; no man knows his sepulchre to this day, God buried him, Deut. 34.6. in a valley of Moab, (in the low creeping conceits bastard Christians have of Christ) over against Beth-peor, (the houses of worship where stiffnecked Israel falls to commit whoredom, falsehood, and idolatry, Numb. 25 1, 3, 18.) to show the true Israel that they should not commit whoredom and idolatry, with the body of the true Mediator Jesus Christ; but have far sublimer and higher conceits of his Spiritual and Eternal kingdom, than other men have, Coloss. 3.1, 2.  
But is not Christ become man, (may some object unto me) did not he take upon him our flesh, was he not made like unto us his Brethren; tempted in all points like we, Heb. 2.17.— 4.15. and even subject to death, and the Mediator still between the sinner and God? why therefore should we know him no more in his flesh and blood? Because St. Paul teacheth so, 2 Cor. 5.16. and God, adds he, v. 19 was in Christ reconciling the World to himself; which words imply that the reconciliation was once made for all mankind, and they may receive the use and the benefit of it, if they come to God by the past sufferances of Christ, as well as if he were yet in the body of this flesh. And as it is appointed unto all men to die once, Christ, to bear their sins, needed to offer himself but once: and (note well) he doth appear the second time without sin, unto them that obey him, Heb. 5.9. to perfect their salvation, ch. 9.27, 28. so that having once offered his undefiled body, as the Lamb without blemish, a ransom for all the World, both for them that were before and that shall be after him, he needs not take a body often, v. 25. and dying no more, needs not keep it any more: and also, since he is now in the Majesty of God, and is glorified again with the glory which he had with God before the World was, John 17.5. the flesh that is a burden which mankind doth groan under, 2 Cor. 5 4. and made Christ here upon earth uncomely and despised, Isa. 53.2, 3. though supposed to be made since never so glorious, yet remaining flesh and blood, cannot consist, saith St. Paul, 1 Cor 15.50, 52. with that glorious, infinite, and wonderful Majesty. Therefore the Children of the resurrection shall, saith Christ, Luk. 20.36. be equal to the Angels, that they may partake of Christ's glory, and sit in his Throne: and what place can an earthly body be but upon Earth? Besides, it is expedient, saith he, that I depart, John 16.7. for if I depart not, the Comforter will not come: now how is he gone away from the Earth, if he hath still his earthly body with him? and how can he go away, but by putting that off which confined him to a place, since he made and fills the world; as well as he did after he had appeared unto Abraham, Gen. 18.2, 16, 22.— 19.1. compared with 18.15, 13, 17, 33. see ch. 14.17, 18. Heb. 7.1, 3, 8. and to some others, as to Jacob, Gen. 48.16. and the rest? And, to conclude, since he comes invisibly to save man, and is God dwelling in man, or Emmanuel, Mat. 1.23. it follows that he hath put off the flesh which he had once about him, for he cannot come or dwell in the Believers with it, without being felt and seen.   
FINIS.