The Great Accuser cast down; OR, A PUBLIC TRIAL OF Mr John Goodwin Of Coleman-street, LONDON, At the BAR of RELIGION & RIGHT REASON.  
IT BEING A full ANSWER to a certain Scandalous Book of his lately published, Entitled, The Triers Tried and Cast, etc.  
Whereupon being found Guilty of High Scandal and Malediction both against the present Authority, and the Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection. He is here sentenced and brought forth to the deserved Execution of the PRESS.  
By Marchamont Nedham, Gent.  Prov. 11. An Hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his Neighbour. Prov. 11. 24. Proud and haughty Scorner is his name. 
Difficile est Satyram non scribere.  
London, Printed by Tho. Newcomb, for George Sawbridge at the Bible on Ludgate-Hill. 1657.   

TO His Most Serene Highness, OLIVER LORD PROTECTOR OF THE Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland etc.  
SIR,  
IT is a Custom in all Countries, when any man hath taken a strange Creature, immediately to present it to the Prince: Whereupon, I having taken one of the strangest that (I think) any part of Your Highness' Dominions hath these many years produced, do with all submissiveness make bold to present him bound hand and foot with his own Cords (as I ought to bring him) to Your Highness. He need not to be sent to the Tower for his mischievousness; there is no danger in him now, nor like to be henceforth, as I have handled him; For, should he break loose again (as who knows what wild Creatures may do!) and get abroad to infest the Stationers, and infect your People, I that have found him out once, may soon meet with him again to keep him in order. He seems to be a Leader of that savage Herd, which would make the Prince or Magistrate but a Man of Straw, or like a Wooden Head, or a Golden Neptune fixed over the Stern only for a show, but not at all concerned in the steering of the Ship.  
I in all humility crave Your Highness' pardon for this Attempt, it being indeed my Adversaries fault, whose example in making bold to trample upon Your good Name and Authority, hath taught me so much confidence, that I presume to set Your great Name before this Book, and to offer you the trouble of perusing it, at such a time, when the Affairs of Three Nations lie all before you. If it be worth the reading at all, it is because the matter concerns you; It defends your Authority, and vindicateth one of your best and most Christian Actions, together with the Reputation of those Honourable and Reverend persons your Commissioners from common prejudice, and from the foulest Imputations that the mouth of Folly and Envy could breathe out into the open air: and though this poor Mite can add nothing to the Treasury of your Highness Princely Wisdom and Knowledge; yet it will serve to call many things to your remembrance, much to your Observation—  
When I heard how industriously this Book of Mr. G. hath been dispersed, and how high a prejudice arose among the more undiscerning sort, by the fine words of the Charmer, I thought this business to be my duty, and I have done it as I could: Where the gravity of the matter merited it, I have observed a Style accordingly serious; in all other places I have treated the man like himself; not that I affect it, but because it was necessary, and the most proper way of Return, for due correction, to intimate unto him, and his admirers, as well the insolency of his Spirit, as the lightness and vanity of his pretended Arguments. In the refuting of them, I have given him his own to the utmost, allowing him fair play, by reciting some of them whole, the rest by parts in their full strength and force, which is more than ever he yet gave to any adversary in Print, it having been his manner upon the like occasion, to trifle about the Outworks, but never fall upon the main Fort, nor take the least notice where the strength indeed of an Argument lay.  
If this Address prove unseasonable, I shall watch to redeem my Error by a more eminent service, upon some happy Occasion, which certainly I cannot want, seeing your Highness proceeds in the noblest paths of Christian Piety, to leave Posterity an Example, what Great Things 'tis possible for man to do with a virtuous mind in the height of Honour and Fortune. May you live long in this State, with the favour of God, and good will among men, to the glory of the most High, and the rejoicing of all the People under your Highness' Protection: So prayeth,  
Your Highness' most humble faithful Subject, and Servant, MAR: NEDHAM. July 8. 1657.   

TO THE READER.  
THough there were no other Reason, yet this alone I thought sufficient to warrant me in the present Undertaking, and quicken me to my duty, That it was necessary the overweening confidence of this turbulent man should be taken down; and that by proposing him a Spectacle (as he is) to men of understanding, he may not hereafter go forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with such an ostentation of words, as formerly he hath done, to deceive the Nations. There are a sort of men that love (as the Apostle saith) to 
* 2 Pet. 2. 18.  speak great swelling words of vanity; in which number if he be reckoned, I do him no injury, but have the general consent of the Pious and Learned to subscribe to the Censure, together with all his own Works to confirm it: And therefore observing him to be a man of so elated a Supercilium, so audacious a Front, that he hath dared to assault even Authority itself, and in his pompous way of Affectation with Strains of Oratory to vilify the most pious of their Ordinances, and trample upon their entrusted Servants, I conceived, now the Swelling is grown to this height, it would be an act of charity both to himself and his Friends, for me to endeavour the Cure; in order whereunto, I make use of no other Lancet but my Pen, that I may meet with him at his own weapon, having sharpened it on purpose to prick the fiery Phlegmon, and let out the Corruption: Which being done, there is hope the man may love the Peace of the Church the better while he lives, and at length go to rest with his Fathers in more peace than yet he is like to do.  
Truly, 'twere high time for him to think of this in good earnest: And he would make us believe he doth so; For, in his Epistle he tells us, that being stricken in years, and near his period, he is by the high and dreadful concernment of his dissolution approaching, importuned to do Feats while his earthly Tabernacle is standing; and among other things, to give a Testimony against the Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection: And in his Title-page he sets himself out to be an Aged Minister. True; and if you look into his Book, you will find it so, being arrived (I will not say to Dotage, but) as one would think, to that Age of Senes bis Pueri, wherein Old men are twice Boys, because he trifleth like any young Lad, priding himself all along from page to page; Ludere par impar, equitare in arundine longa: his whole Work being but a kind of Boys-play: Insomuch as I must profess, in dealing with his Arguments, I was possessed with an equal Temperature of Indignation and Pity; Pity, to see him, an ancient Minister of the Gospel, and one who a good while ago had a reputation of being Conscientious, so plainly to prevaricate in point of Conscience, to the reviling of Authority, and abuse of his Brethren, even while he is (as it were) sounding the trumpet to his own final dissolution, or the great day of Account: how little these things were in his thoughts when he penned his Book, you are left to judge by his carriage, and this my Answer. On the other side, my Indignation arose, to observe that a man, whose Writings show him to be a Scholar, should yet write so unlike a Scholar as he hath done, observing neither Rule nor Mood in matter of Argument; but rambling through a wilderness of Talsities, Tautologies, Slanders, Self-contradictions, and malicious Declamations, instead of Reasons or Instances, to make proof of what he pretends to, he loseth himself, and leads the unwary Reader quite out of the Road of Commons Sense and Honesty.  
I would not willingly be tedious; but I must needs have you a little more intimately acquainted with the Man and his Character. He is worse than a Common Nuisance; for, he doth not only stink, and annoy savoury Christians by his rotten Opinions, but by plain Lies (pardon the expression) and Slanders, endeavoureth to make others of all sorts as unsavoury as himself. His Scribbling Faculty is his disease, which he labours under continually, and happy it were for him if it would turn to the Hand-gout. His Reason usually rides post with pride or passion, and so is the more easily overriden by a vaporing Phantasy; this is it which gives Law to his Understanding, cuts out work for all the other Faculties, makes his Pen a ready writer; and the Windmill in the Brain keeps the Press always going as if it were his Handmill; for, rather than it shall stand still, he travels through all Shops, like a Knight-errant, to find out the Giants in Print, making Adversaries rather than want them, that he may grind them to powder. Of a very Paper-worm, there never was a verier Tyrant in the world: He hath a Tool betwixt the Forefinger and Thumb, with which he screws all things to his purpose; he hath made crooked things straight, and straight things crooked at pleasure; killed all men of same with as little remorse as Domitian didFlies; 
Dan. 5 9  and Nabuchadnezzar like, those whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. It hath been the wretched employment of these his latter days, and is still, to go forth in the glory of this his strength, and either to take or make an occasion to conflict with whatsoever persons or things he lights upon, especially if the men be in any repute or acceptation above himself; Then it is he bends his Bow, makes ready bitter Arrows, and feathers them at the Press, that he may take them down a pin lower. There is not an Instance to be found in this Age of such another Hector, a man so full of Quarrels and Contests with men of Conscience and worth, as this Mr. G. not sparing even such as he himself owneth for such, I mean the Commissioners for Approbation; (as you may see in his Epistle) and tells the world before hand he esteems them such; yet (as if it were because they are such, or at least because they are esteemed by others as such) he lifts up his Pen with all his might against them.  
'Twere pity such a Champion should lose the glory of his Achievements, and therefore to do him right, I shall give you a short Story of his Duels, and his other public Engagements, wherein I am to enlarge a little, and yet no more than needs must. The single persons he hath been in the Field with, i. e in Print, as his Adversaries, and whom he used accordingly when he got them under the Press, are these, Viz. Mr Gataker, Mr Walker, Mr Roborough, Dr William's Bishop of Ossory, Mr Pryn, Sir Francis Nethersole, Mr John Geree, Mr Herbert Palmer, Dr Thomas Goodwin, Mr Resbury, Dr Hammond, Dr Burgess, Dr Hill, Mr Jenkins, Mr Edward's, Mr Barlow, Mr A. Steward, (in particular Books printed) besides several Members of his own Church that he hath written against, and divers others: Thus you see what a notable duelist he hath been.  
But this is not all; for, this Tenth Worthy hath been so adventurous as to engage also with whole Troops and Regiments, in the confidence of his own personal and single valour; viz. The Parliament, the Assembly of Divines, the Ministers of the Province of London, the Ministers of Sion-Colledge, those Ministers that subscribed a Petition to the Lord Fairfax, part of the Company of Stationers, the Assembly of Dort; and in this Treatise he challengeth forth the Commissioners for Approving, and those for Ejecting of Ministers, men of the greatest Eminency and worth His Highness, with the Advice of his Council, could pitch upon in and about the City, and in every Shire throughout the Nation. Nay, he goes further yet, and ventureth hereupon to provoke his Highness and Council in a most uncivil and unchristian manner, causing them to undergo the Ordeal of his fiery flying Pamphlet, turning the edge of his Pen against them, and shamefully reproaching them in the eyes of the People, as he himself, in his Postscript to the Reader, acknowledgeth his words may bear such a Construction, viz. as savouring of an undue liberty, and want of reverence to those that are in Authority; yet instead of excusing the matter, he goeth on in the same Postscript, to justify and exalt himself above all Authority, and undertakes to give several Reasons for it. As 1. Because the great men of the Earth might he in danger, if he should not give them seasonable smitings. 2. That these smitings are more the Reproofs of Jesus Christ than of man; by which you see how he spares not even Christ himself, but endeavours to entitle him as Patron of his lewd extravagancies against our Rulers. 3. Because Kings, Princes, and Rulers, are liable to these Reproofs (or smitings) as well as meaner men. 4. Because Reprovers (or Smiters) in the Name of Christ are not in this to respect persons. 5. Lastly, Because the Author (viz. himself) stands particularly and publicly engaged to this; for he boasts, he hath formerly defended their Authority, and therefore ought now to have a Licence to smite them. Excellent good! He, in the pride of his heart, looks upon himself as the man that is, and aught to be, exalted above all that is called God on earth, being no less than the Pope or Christ's Vicar, in the Name of Christ to censure the proceedings of Princes, and reprove or smite the Potentates, Rulers, & great men of the Earth, they being in their Actions subject to his Judgement and Correction, he being the man out of all the Tribes and Kindred's of the People, separated and set apart (in his own conceit) for the exercise of this Pontifical Authority over his Highness; as if he meant to usurp the Papal Chair, and turn out Pope Alexander the seventh. And yet this is not all; for, as if he meant also to be no less than Alexander the great, it was well observed lately by a Gentleman in my hearing, that as King Alexander having conquered the world, is said to have sighed because there were no more worlds to conquer, so he having (in his own Opinion) triumphed over a world of Penmen, and Powers, wanting work elsewhere, hath now turned his Arms against a greater (in his own eyes) than all these put together; even against his sacred self; most shamefully contradicting himself in many places, and thereby hath given the world to understand what a Shuttlecock this Mr Goodwin is, who hath so set out himself with his own Pen, and in Print too, that the Nation may know he careth not to have his wit, and reason, and honesty, and all obscured together, rather than his sparkling Fancy should not shine in its brightness.  
And these things he hath done, not in Anonymous small Kites and Pamphlets, but in grave and (as he thinks) goodly Treatises, which he hath set his name to in Capital Letters; and out of which I shall give you three or four Instances of the Combats he hath had with himself, upon the open Stage.  
One while you have him for the King; as in that Book of his, called Anticavalierism, page 10, 11. where you may read this following Passage.  
As for offering violence to the person of a King, or attempting to take away his life, we leave the proof of the lawfulness of this to those profound disputers the Jesuits, who stand engaged by the tenure of their professed Doctrine and Practice, either to make good the lawfulness thereof, or else to leave themselves and their Religion and abhorring and hissing to the world. As for us who never traveled with desires or thoughts that way, but abhor both Mother and Daughter, Doctrine and Practice together, we conceive it to be the just Prerogative of the persons of Kings, in what case soever, to be secure from the violence of men, and their lives to be as consecrated Corn, meet to be reaped and gathered only by the hand of God himself. David's Conscience smote him, when he came but so near the life of a King, as the cutting off of the lap of his Garment.  
Not long after, contrary to all this, he wrote that Book entitled, A Defence of the Honourable Sentence passed upon the late King by the High Court of Justice. In the 73 Page whereof, writing against such as would not have had the King put to death, he adviseth them to retract that Inhuman Tenet of exempting Kings from Punishment, whereby they encourage Kings to turn Tyrants, commit murders, and all abominations; that Tenet of theirs (saith he) I mean, wherein they deny unto Kings the help of that Bridle for the ruling of their lusts (more needful for them than for any other sort of men) the fear of death by the Sword of Civil Justice upon any occasion whatsoever.  
At the latter end of the same Book he concludes thus:  
The late wars, wherein the King, by the sword of those men of blood who cast in their lot with him, shed so much innocent blood in the land, being causelessly (and contrary to the frequent obtestations, earnest solicitations, grave advisements of his Great Council the Parliament) commenced by himself, are so far from mediating on his behalf for the bloodshed, that they open the mouth of it the wider, and cause it to cry so much the louder for vengeance upon Him and His, both unto God and men.  Sic idem jungat vulpes, & mulgeat hircos. 
A second Instance may be taken out of a certain Letter of his written to T. G. against Independency, which was printed Anno 1643. condemning Separate Congregations, (so he terms them in his Preface.) I am (saith he) as confident as Confidence itself can make me, that their way of a Covenant is a mere humane Invention, and a strain of that wisdom that desires to exalt itself, not only against men, but against God himself, p. 1.  
And p. 10. (saith he) If you have the Truth with you, woe to my Wits, Reason and Understanding; never poor man so strangely misused by such Friends in this world.  
Again, p. 13. he hath these words, I do profess in the sight of God, and in as great singleness and simplicity of heart as ever man in this world spoke word unto you, that I do as clearly apprehend Error and Mistake throughout the greatest part of your way (that is, Independency) as I do truth in this Conclusion, That twice Two makes Four. A lusty Confidence indeed! Yet notwithstanding, now his twice Two doth not make Four: For, within a few months after, he changed his Judgement from the Presbyterian way wherein he then stood, and professed himself for this way which he had so confidently decried, and took up the practice of it, gathered a Separate Church in Coleman street, and wrote divers Books in defence of this way, and with as much confidence as before, as may be seen in his Books against A. Steward, Mr. Edward's, and other Presbyterians.  
A Third Instance, and which is most pertinent to our purpose, is in reference to these two Commissions which he flies out against with so much fury, the one for Approving, and the other for Ejecting, and which he in this Pamphlet of his, makes the abhorring of his soul, and is angry with his Governors about them, and tells us he ought to be angry and to smite them with as much shame and reproach before the World, as his Pen is able to load upon them. Nevertheless, both these Commissions are no other, not only for substance, but also in each material circumstance, than what was laid down in certain Proposals for propagation of the Gospel, and there distinctly commended one after the other, to a Committee of Parliament appointed to receive such Proposals, Febr. 8. 1651. as may be seen in Mr Scobels Office in these Words;  
We whose Names are subscribed, do, with others, humbly desire, that these Proposals be presented to the Honourable Parliament, etc. To all which Mr. John goodwin's own self, and Mr John Price one of the Elders of his Church, together with divers others, then subscribed: And yet the Tenor of his present Book is against the Magistrate for granting such Commissions, as having (in his opinion) nothing to do with propagating the Gospel; and extreme severe he is in his language against the Commissioners, though the purport of their Commissions to be act according to such Instructions as Mr G. then approved under his hand.  
To these give me leave to add a fourth Instance, and I have done, it being such a one as hath many Instances in the belly of it. First, in his Epistle, you have him giving the Commissioners what indeed is their due, declaring▪ himself concerning them in these Words, [I believe them to be men of Conscience, and worth, fearing God, and lovers of Truth] Now let us take these Particulars in pieces, and see how he agreeth with himself in his Book.  
1. Lovers of Truth. And yet p. 9 he intimates a bloody dominion exercised by them over men for holding the Truth, and saith a little after, That they make the simple owning and professing of the great and important Truths of God a Bar against Preferment, p 12. He calls them Heterodox, insinuating, as if they held Errors against their inward conviction of the contrary, p 17. he makes them Counterworkers against God in the work of sending out Labourers to preach the Truth, p 20. he saith, That what the Names of some of the Commission of Triers presaged they have effected, reducing the said Commission, in the execution of it, to a near affinity with the Spanish Inquisition, which accuseth the Romish Religion of cruelty and blood, and so of a pregnant fiery Antipathy to the Genius and Spirit of the Gospel, p 21. That they are such as grind the faces, and break the bones of men of signal peity and worth, who know more of God and his Gospel than themselves; whom he calls a little after, men of an erroneous and misgrounded Faith, that use men so, because they will not comply with them in Error. p 15. That their judgements are erroneous and destructive to the precious souls of men; yet these are the men whom ere now he styled lovers of truth.  
2. Men of Conscience. Nevertheless, p 3. he tells them of famishing men with their wives and children, only because they will not profess a belief contrary to their Consciences. p 6. he saith, They entrench upon the Spiritual Rights and Privileges of the people of God, keep asunder those whom God would have joined together, and reject men that are worthy. p. 7. That they quarrel men presented, and are not overtender of the practice, whether there be any Christian or reasonable cause for their acting so or no. Such as by their power and subtlety bring about their own ends, and receive the tribute of thanks, if not base Metal, from those who are preferred. p 8. That they are worse in their power and proceedings than the Bishops. Never such a rule-lesse, lawless, controul-lesse generation of men in this Nation. p 9 Such as spread Snares and Temptations in the way of men's Consciences. Page 10. A generation of men that spread snares of death, and lay stumbling blocks in their brethren's way. And Page 16. That use their power to the wring and straining of men's Consciences. Yet these are the men whom he before owned as men of Conscience.  
3. Men of worth. For all this page 5. he calls them an inconsiderable number of men. Page 6. Such as disgracefully reject men, though never so worthy. Page 7. Such as use indirect practices for ends and self-advantage. That Thiefs and Murderers may as soon (or sooner) purchase the Seal of their Approbation to any Benefice, as some others, though never so signally qualified for the Ministry. P. 15. That they use their power to revenge themselves upon their enemies. P. 16. That the day would fail him to insist upon all their erroneous and irregular deportments. P. 22. That they were not conscious of any usefulness in themselves for the service either of God or man. That they are but like the Bramble in Jotham 's Parable, mere Brambles in power▪ Insinuating also, that they are men of unchristian principles of immodest and disingenuous Spirits. Page 23. Men of unhandsome and unhallowed doings in their way, such as grant Passports to the firstborn of undeserving men, but deny them to the deserving. Page 28. English Inquisitors, surnamed Tryers. Page 25. Who respect the vile many times more than the precious. Yet these are the men whom professingly he said he believed to be men of Worth.  
4. Men fearing God. Yet Page 2 and 3. Men who are Lords and Masters over other men's Faith and Consciences. Page 9 Men that exercise a bloody dominion over them, because of their consciences. Men that frequently practise an unchristian demeanour. Page 11. Men who reject such as God and Christ do recommend unto them. Page 15. Such as are Papal in their power, principles, usurpations, practices and spirits. Treacherous and disloyal. Makers and Maintainers of Parties and Factions to multiply disciples to themselves, and revenge themselves upon their Enemies. Page 17. Such who thrust forth Loiterers into the Lord's Vineyard. Pa. 22. Men who have consumed and undone persons of eminent growth in all Christian worth and excellency, and are like to devour more. And that they sell their brethren to poverty and misery. Page 23. Premoters of a Faction, and that it was none otherwise from the very beginning, but that they would steer that crooked Course which they have steered. Page 27. Men of politic reaches, and subtle contrivances, for the bringing about secular Projects, or by ends▪ Page 29. Such as can persecute the innocent and harmless with a good conscience. Page 20, and 21. Brethren in Iniquity, Grinders of men; men of ignorance and ambition, embasing other men's Consciences. Yet these very men whom in his virulent humour he thus stigmatizeth in the Book, he in his Epistle (before the Fit of passionate Fancy was up) seating himself (as it were) under the shadow of death, before the great Tribunal, durst not do otherwise, while a Fit of Conscience was upon him, but give them their due Character, Men of Conscience, and worth, fearing God, Lovers of Truth. Pray see now how the man and his humour and these things suit together!  
quam bene conveniunt, & in unâ sede morentur!  
O Corydon, Corydon, quae te dementia cepit?  
What ails the man, that he should be thus possessed with an Evil Spirit of Self-contradiction! So much for the Commissioners, though it be not one half of the Filth that he vomited up against them. Now—  
Secondly, as in his Epistle▪ he speaks honour of the Commissioners; so there also he professeth all Christian Loyalty, and entireness of his Respects toward the Persons by whose Authority the said Commissions have issued, and been established. And yet before he hath done that very Epistle, he cannot forbear slily intimating, that their two Ordinances (which he otherwhere calleth Commissions) are Apocrythal Statutes or Decrees to vex the Consciences of good men in the Nation. And to the end he may handle them roundly with Authority, he in his Postscript to the Reader, next after his Epistle, tells them in effect (as I have already shown you) that he hath a Commission from Christ to smite them for their misdoings; which out of his great respect to them, he executeth in his Book to some purpose against them. As you may read Page 1. telling the Civil Powers, they have put a great Indignity and Affront upon Jesus Christ by issuing out the said Commissions or Ordinances. Page 2. That thereby they have given the Commissioners an exorbitant power to exercise dominion over the Faith and Consciences of other men. Page 3. That they connive at the Commissioners. Page 4. That they are devisers of new Stratagems, Methods and Inventions to aid the Gospel. Page 5. That the two Commissions are Counter workers against the Orders and Directions left by Christ. Page 6. That the Commissions entrench upon the Spiritual Rights and Privileges of God's People. And that they strike (in effect) at the Civil Rights of many Bodies of People, and particular persons likewise in the Land. Page 8. That our Governors have, in appointing the Commissioners, set up a lawless generation of men over the Lord's People; and that there never was the like unsufferable yoke of slavery fastened about the necks of the freeborn people here, as the power given to these Commissioners. That they have therein done contrary both to Civil policy, and Christian piety. Also p. 11. contrary to Christian policy; and that when they were to choose persons to be Commissioners, they entrusted such as (for the far greater part of them) are, and were, by a true and solid estimate of them (in respect of their Spirits, Principles, and Tenets) like to reject and disallow such men, whom Christ should recommend to them for Approbation. p. 14. That our Governors have erected the Triers with power as superlative, and of the same house and lineage with the Papal. And that they being the Founders, do underhand indulge and connive at the Commissioners exorbitant proceedings. p. 17. That they have an itching desire to be officious unto Christ; insinuating withal, that they, like other professing Powers of the world, obtrude upon him their own projections to help him through the world, etc. p. 19 That they have invested the Commissioners with power to mould and form the Judgements and Consciences of Fellow-Subjects in matters of Faith. p. 20. That They connive at the Commissioners, when they sell their Brethren. p. 20, & 21. That They erected a Consistory as bad as the Spanish Inquisition. And I know not what more: But I am weary, and so I suppose is the Reader by this time, to see a man so shamefully contradict himself over and over, especially if you compare his pretence of fair demeanour towards Authority, with the language that he afterward bestows upon them as well as their Commissioners.  
So that in conclusion, here now you have J. Goodwin against J. Goodwin. proving himself to be of the same spirit with Jannes and his brother Jambres, defying that Authority in the foulest manner, to which he but a little before professeth all Christian loyalty. A wise man he is without question, and stronger than a whole City, because having first conquered or confuted all the World with the help of a Printing-Press, the compleatest Conquest of all is this last, whereby he hath confuted himself. So I commit him to the Press, in part of punishment, that he may know himself mortal, and from thence to his winding-sheet; Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes. Peace be to all the Church. Farewell.  
J. G.   

However (Sir) take these Latin Epigrams along with you, for your own Application, and the Instruction of your Friends in English, before you leave them.  Mar. lib. 2. Epigr. 7. 
Nil bene cum facias, facis attamen omnia bellè;  
Vis dicam, quid sis? magnus es Ardelie.  Lib. 4. Ep. 79. in Afrum. 
Condita cum tibi sit jam sexagesima Messis,  
Et facies multo splendeat alba pilo,  
Discurris totâ vagus urbe.—  
Haec faciant sanè Juvenes; deformius, Afer,  
Omnino nihil est Ardelione Sene.  Lib. 5. Ep. 81. in Mathonem. 
Declamas in Febre, Mathon; have esse Phrenefim  
Si nescis, non es sanus. amice Mathon.  
Declamas aeger, declamas Hemitritaeus;  
Si sudare aliter non potes, est ratio.  
Magna tamen res est; errans cù viscera Febris  
Exurit, res est magna tacere, Mathon.   

THE CONTENTS.  

Mr GOodwin's Character and Temper is to be found in the Epistle, with an Account of all his Duels and combats.  
Christ left no such Rules and Directions (nor was it his intent to leave such) for propagating the Gospel, as exclude the Magistrate from using his wisdom and endeavour in order thereunto. Pages 5. 6.  
Nor did his Apostles. p. 7. 8. 9 10.  
The Sum and Substance of the two Ordinances for Approbation and Ejection. p. 11. 12. 13. 14.  
The Commissioners are no Ecclesiastical Authority, no Power in or over the Church, but a Civil Constitution; nor are the Ordinances any other than mere Civil Acts. p. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19 48.  
Approbation in use in the Apostles time. p. 22. 55.  
It is no exercising a Dominion over men's Faith. p. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 59 60. 93. 115.  
A Course for Approbation settled of old, and of late by the Long Parliament. p. 29. 30. 98. 99  
How that Text [Christ was faithful in all his house, as Moses was in his] aught to be understood. p. 30. 31. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.  
The Commissioners are so prudently constituted, as to prevent Partiality in their Proceedings. p. 40. 41.  
The Public maintenance in Parishes, is for the unholding of a public Profession of Religion. p. 43.  
Power of Presentation and Approbation to Livings ought not to be in Parishes. p. 43. 44. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.  
The Commission for Approbation hath nothing to do with Gathered Churches. p. 45.  
It is no prejudice to the Right of Patrons, but preserves them. p. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.  
Mr G. a Self-Contradicter. Read my Epistle, and p. 40. 47. 49. 50. 52. 60. 61. 98. 102. 107. 117. 123. 124. 130.  
Mr G. proved a Calumniator. p. 47. 112.  
The Quare Impedit now become useless. p. 53. 54.  
The not countenancing of Arminians is the occasion of Mr. G. his violence against Authority, and the Commissioners. p. 56. 93. 77. 115.  
How men are made Heretics. p. 57 58.  
Mr G A self-Condemner. p. 61. p. 100 p. 49.  
A Comparison betwixt the wisdom of the State and of Mr. G. p. 61. 62.  
Faction promoted by Abuse of God's Ordinances. p. 63. 64.  
Mr G. and Mr Roger William's well met. p. 64. 65. 124. 125.  
Mr G. his Arminian Tenets, and the absurd consequences of them, collected out of his Book, Redemption Redeemed. p. 65. 66. 67. 68 69.  
The lewd Consequences of Mr. G. his Opinions, in respect of men's Conversation. p. 73. 74.  
Mr G. of a Papal Spirit. See my Epistle, and p. 78.  
Mr G. wresting of Scriptures. p. 81. 82. 83. 84.  
Titles and Forms of Government Originally derived from the Power of the Sword, in all Nations, De Facto. p. 88 89. 90.  
A true state of the design and purport of the Ordinance for Approbation. p. 91. 92. 93. 94.  
His Highness' Testimony touching the Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection. p. 95. 96.  
His piety in his own personal care about Ministers presented. p. 103.  
Reason's why the Trust of executing a Commission for Approbation ought not be in the several Counties. p. 103. 104. 105. 106.  
A Refutation of Mr G. his Plea for settling the power of Approbation in the Congregated Churches. p. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112. 113. 114. 116. 117.  
Evidence of his malice against the Commissioners. p. 101. 107. 108.  
Mr. G. Mr. Postlethwait, and William Medley the Scribe, well met. p. 5.  
Mr. G. and Mr. Postletwhait at odds. p. 58. 49.  
Mr. G. and Mr. Roger Williams shaking hands. p. 64. 65. 124. 125.  
Mr. G. pretending friendship to those of the Presbyterian way, whom he formerly reviled. p. 118.  
Mr. G. pleading for Malignant Preachers; and his Plea refuted. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130.  
Epigrams upon Mr. G. at the end of the Epistle to the Reader, and at the end of the Book, collected out of Martial.    

The Great Accuser cast down; OR, A PUBLIC TRIAL OF Mr John Goodwin Of Coleman-street, London, AT THE Bar of Religion and right Reason, etc.  

ARGUMENT I.  IT is a great indignity and affront put upon the Lord Jesus Christ, 
Mr. G. his first Argument.  Blessed for ever, to charge or challenge him, whether formally or constructively, with want either of wisdom and understanding, or of care and faithfulness, in making sufficient provision for the due managing of his affairs, or for the propagation and advancement of the Gospel upon the best, and best-becoming terms in the world. Now there being no Order or Direction, nor any jot or tittle of either given by him to the Civil powers, for erecting of any such authority in the Church and over his servants, as that wherewith either Triers or Ejectors, amongst us, are invested by the said Commissions (respectively) They who notwithstanding presumed to do it, I mean to make and establish such an erection in the Church) what do they less than obliquely, yea and by a pregnant and near-hand consequence, impute either oscitancie and forgetfulness, or else weakness and defect of understanding unto the Lord Jesus Christ, in his own greatest and most important affairs? If either the Civil Magistrate, or any other on his behalf, will rise up to plead or show an Order or Commission from Christ for him to grant such Commissions and Authorities as those now impleaded, unto men, (besides that it had been more Christian and proper that this should have been done before the said Commissions had been issued, and exercised, to the great scandal and offence of the far greater part of the godly and understanding people in the Nation.) I fear that neither the credit, nor the conscience of the Undertaker will rejoice over the enterprise, in as much as all attempts in this kind that have been made (as many within the compass of a few years last passed have been) have miscarried, and turned to no account, but of loss and disparagement to their undertakers. Do we provoke the Lord unto jealousy? are we stronger than He, that we dare say we are wiser than He? 

Answer.  
Vex, & praeterea nihil. Had not Mr. John Goodwin owned this Pamphlet, it would have been known to be his by the Air and Emptiness, the boldness of Calumniating, the frequent Mistakes, Self contradictions, groundless Insinuations, vain Flashes, and the abusing of honest-minded Readers, by nauseating them with Scandals, offered instead of Reasons and Arguments. And if these things be made to appear now throughout the whole contexture of this Work of Darkness, than the People of God, if they have not yet a full Discovery of the Man and his Temper by his former Pieces, may here behold this Accuser of the Brethren in his full Pourtraicture, as he hath drawn himself to the Life with his own Pencil; the wicked Spirit of calumniation in this Discourse standing (as it were) upon the cloven foot of two false Suppositions.  
The Discourse (such as it is) consisteth of eighteen several Heads, (as he hath made the Partition) though an upright Heart, and a sober Head not inclined to swelling, would have been confined in a much narrower compass; and those he calls Arguments and Grounds, as well in Reason as Religion: but by the time that you have seen with how much spleen and devotion he hath sacrificed both his Logic and Divinity to envy and vain glory, in a few Rhetorical flourishes (the fruits of an extravagant Fancy) the World will find but little cause to admire him in point of Religion, much less in matter of Argumentation. Now to the Business; in the handling whereof you will (perhaps) see cause to believe what he tells you in the Title-page, that he is an Aged Minister, having indeed lived beyond the use of that way of reasoning, which he had when he was a Boy in the University.  
The Sum of this his first Argument may be reduced to this Syllogism.— It is a great indignity put upon Christ, 
Mr. Goodwin's first Argument reduced into Form.  to charge him either formally or constructively, with want of care in making sufficient provision for the propagation of the Gospel. But, there being no Order or Direction left by Christ for erecting of such an authority in the Church, as that which is given to our Commissioners for approving and ejecting, they who establish such an Erection, do constructively and by consequence, lay such an imputation or charge upon Christ, as if he had been careless, and had not sufficiently provided for the propagation of the Gospel; Ergo, The Civil Powers in England, by erecting the Commissioners for approving, and ejecting, have thereby put a great indignity upon Jesus Christ.  
For Answer know, 
The Answer.  That this Argument of Mr Goodwin is grounded upon several false Suppositions which being by him taken for granted, but not at all proved, it is no other than a mere begging of the Question: For first, 
Mr▪ Goodwin his first false Supposition.  He supposeth, That it was the intendment of the Lord jesus Christ to make such ample provision in his Gospel, by laying down Rules for the propagation thereof in all respects, that now there is nothing left for the Magistrate to do, in point of prudence and discretion, for the promotion of and advancement of it in the world: 2. He supposeth, That the Commissioners for approving and ejecting are an Authority constituted by his Highness and the Council, 
His second false Supposition.  in and over the Church. These are the poor crutches upon which this, and all the rest of his eighteen Arguments do halt. Take away these, all the rest fail, and the Body of the Pamphlet falls to the ground; therefore it will not be amiss to try how these will hold water, in point of Religion and Reason. And hereunto it will be necessary to request the patience of the Reader a little while, in order to his confutation, because if he be found faulty in the laying of his Foundation, it will be an easy matter to bring the whole house down about his ears.  
The first Supposition before mentioned, upon which he builds, is included in the Major Proposition; and in opposition to that his false Supposal, let this Thesis be set down, as that which I purpose in the first place to make good against him; 
A Thesis in opposition to his first false Hypothesis.  Viz. That it was not the Intendment of our blessed Lord and Saviour jesus Christ to make such ample provision in the Gospel, by laying down Rules for the propagation thereof, in all respects and particulars, and so to answer all occasions, that now there is nothing left for the Magistrate to do, in point of prudence and discretion, for the promoting and advancing of it in the World.  
This youthful piece of gravity hath lived so (like a Salamander) the greatest part of his days in the fire of contention, that 'tis now become his most natural Element; and having heretofore had some heats with Mr. Pryn, who gives all to the Magistrate in Gospel-affairs, he cannot keep himself from the other extreme of denying all, and allowing the Magistrate nothing at all to do therein; but thus it always happens, when a controversy falleth into the hands of passionate men. And yet he doth not express himself with so much extravagancy, as some others who are engaged with him in the same quarrel; among whom is one Mr Pastlethwait, who in the Preface to a Pamphlet of his Entitled, A Voice from heaven against the Tryers, hath made open Proclamation, That we ought to accept no Lawgiver but Jesus Christ either in Church or Common wealth, but that this should be our Profession, the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, he is our King, etc. Which being once admitted in the same sense, as Mr Goodwin hath insinuated his own wild Assertion, the Conclusion followeth as naturally from this as from his; That therefore the Magistrate is not at all concerned in the making of Civil Laws and Constitutions for the government of the Commonwealth; which worthy Doctrine, in reference both to Church and State, is in transcendent Terms, more Metaphysically and Hypertheologically expressed in another sad Pamphlet, Entitled, A Standard set up, lately written and published in Order to the raising a bloody Rebellion in this Nation; miserably arrogating the Name of Christ and his people to countenance the design, being subscribed by one William Medley, who jumps even in opinion with Master Goodwin in all points (though he go a little beyond him in some) against the Authority of the Magistrate, and therefore Master Goodwin in such Company, cannot choose but be a man of great credit and reputation.— But it is time I proceed to the proof of my Thesis, the Reason whereof I propose as followeth:  
If it had been the intendment of Christ to do any such thing, as to leave Rules and Directions of so vast a latitude and comprehension, as to take in and answer to all the particular Necessities, Occasions, Contingencies and Circumstances of Affairs, which might arise in the future in all Ages and Nations of the World, concerning every prudent way and means convenient for the promulgation of his Gospel, so that the Magistrate, and all other men, were to be tied up strictly to the peremptory Observation of those Rules, without having recourse (upon any emergency) to the Common principles of Natural Reason and Discretion, to help on the work of propagating it among the Nations; then doubtless the Eagles eye, and active pen of Mr. Goodwin would have spied them out, and transcribed a Copy of them for us: But his autocratorical wisdom is pleased either to leave the Reader to take his word for the truth of it, or else to go look where they may be found. Whereas the truth is, if you make enquiry into the Precepts, and the Acts and Monuments of our Saviour and his Apostles, upon the best search (certainly) no such universal golden Rules and Directions are yet discovered. For, while our Lord and Master walked about clothed with the garment of his Incarnation, we hear of no such matter in the writings of the Evangelists; and after his Resurrection, in all the blessed Interviews and Colloquies which he was pleased to have with his Friends and Disciples, there is not the least mention of it; not at the time of his Ascension, when being ready to clothe himself with the Robes of Glory and Immortality, he took leave of his Apostles, and left them to carry on the work of the everlasting Gospel, both among Jews and Gentiles: Nor are there, after the time of his Glorification, any such Rules and Precepts to be seen in the Acts and proceedings of the Apostles, of so various and universal an influence and import, as in all points, upon all occasions, in all Countries, to serve to the great end beforementioned. Next to the great Act of suffering and Dying for the sins of Mankind, to reconcile Man to God, the special work of Christ, to which he was designed by the Father, was, (as himself hath declared, Luk. 4. 18.) To preach the Gospel to the poor; to heal the brokenhearted; to preach deliverance to the Captives; to recover sight to the Blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised; to preach the acceptable year of the Lord: That is to say, to reveal the way of life and salvation, and to go about doing good to poor Sinners in their concernments both of soul and body. The scope and purpose of his taking Flesh upon him, was to make publication of the New Testament, and sign and seal it with his blood: But we find him not any where dictating Orders and Decrees for the universal and perpetual Practice of men in the communicating of it to succeeding Generations. The only Institutions which were made immediately by himself, are the great Ordinances of Preaching the Word, and the Administration of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Supper. The Supper he instituted a little before his Death, and the other he gave in Commission to his Disciples after the Resurrection, when he commanded them to Go and teach all Nations, baptising them, etc. Those things which are essential to the founding and constituting of a Church, he took a particular care for; but as touching the means and manner of publishing the Gospel, and the way of planting Churches, that (for aught that appears to the contrary in Scripture) was wholly left to the management of the Apostles, whom he promised to endue with an extraordinary spirit for so wonderful and extraordinary a work.  
Now in the next place, it will be very requisite to inquire whether or no, in the Acts or Writings of the Apostles we can find any kind of Canons, Decrees, or Constitutions made by them, to be as standing Rules, whereby men are bound necessarily to frame and direct their designs, so as by no means to use any other Mediums for the planting and propagation of the Gospel: Or, whether the Apostles have left any Examples of their own practice upon Record, which all men are obliged to follow, and not to recede a tittle from them, in the same work of Gospel-propagation: For if so be that Christ neither immediately of himself, nor mediately by his Apostles, established such obligatory Rules and Directions (as are pretended to) exclusive of all other means, by virtue of any Precept, or exemplary Practice; then judge ye whether this bold Assertion of his be like to hold right in conclusion.  
The first observable Medium that the Apostles made use of for the propagation of the Gospel, and augmenting the number of Converts and Professors, was the exercising a Community of Goods; so we may read, Act. 4. 34, 35. That as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the Apostles feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. This is one Instance of Apostolical practice and example; which no man that knows the manner and condition of Mr. Goodwin, will so much as imagine 'tis his opinion, that this is one of the Rules binding himself, or the Magistrate, or any other, to observe in promoting the publication of the Gospel. 'Tis believed, neither the Credit, nor the Conscience of the Man, will rejoice in such an Assertion; and therefore having him herein (I dare say) confitentem reum, and 
* Asturam vapich servat sub pector ulpem.  Marsupio consulentem, it shall be pressed upon him no further.  
Another means that the Apostles made use of for the spreading of the Gospel, was that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or Laying on of hands, whereby the extraordinary Gifts of the Holy Ghost were in those days usually conferred upon such as they converted to the Faith; and these again made use of it in order to the converting of others; that men seeing those miraculous Gifts breaking forth in several Operations, and being thereby convinced of that supernatural and mighty power which then attended the ministration of the Gospel, might be brought in to the Faith of Jesus Christ, and be confirmed in it. But in all the Prints, and grave Determinations hitherto published by Mr. Goodwin, our great Master of Sentences, we do not find that he hath concluded us and all the World under the observance and imitation of the Apostolical practice and example in this particular, as absolutely necessary for the work of Gospel-propagation: And so I pass it over at present, till it be known how his Infallible self will be pleased to pass a Judgement in the matter.  
A third means that the Apostles made use of for promoting the Truth of the Gospel, was, That when occasion of difference did arise among the Primitive Christians, touching Gospel-affairs, to the hindrance of its progress; they, to wit the Apostles and Elders, assembled together, and by Decrees of their own made an authoritative positive decision in the Case, and gave Laws to be observed by all the Churches, as you may read, Act. 15. And it's conceived Mr. Goodwin never yet maintained, (but rather hath openly avowed the contrary) that this Example of the Apostles is to be received as a Rule universally binding all men in all Ages to do the like, and to assume the same power of Legislation and Determination, in the way of Synods or Assemblies, in order to the promoting of the Gospel.  
These are the main observable Practices mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; and some other there were which related to things reputed of an indifferent nature, as the eating or not eating of certain Meats, using or not using of Circumcision, and of divers Rites and Ceremonies of the Mosaical Law, as you may read, Act. 21. and Gal. 2. which sometimes were admitted, sometimes rejected, as may be seen by Paul's circumcising of Timothy, when as the same Paul at another time was stiffly opposing and pleading against the practice of Circumcision. Now we suppose Mr. Goodwin will not say, That this kind of liberty so assumed and practised, is one of the standing Rules which he with so much confidence commends unto the Reader, as necessarily to be observed in the promoting of the Gospel: And therefore unless our Reveernd Author can produce some other Examples and Practices of the Apostles, which yet we have not seen, and with good evidence propound them to the World as universally obligatory upon men to follow, he will seem to be as a man beating the air, and that hath made a noise to no purpose. For, the truth is, whereas in all the Acts of the Apostles, other men can perceive no such Examples of theirs, from whence such positive Rules as he pretends to, are either directly, or by consequence deducible; so among all the Precepts of the Apostles contained either in that Book, or in any of their Epistles, no Rules will be found of so comprehensive a nature, as to give direction in all particulars that may fall out, so as to exclude all use of humane reason and discretion in the Magistrate or any other, towards the advancing so good a work.  
As to the main concernments of Church-Oeconomie and Administration, they are sufficiently provided for by the Precepts and Directions left by the Apostles in Writing; but as to Church-edification, and the gathering in of Believers through the preaching of the Gospel, by employing and encouraging men to that work, there are no Precepts by them recorded to Posterity, but what make in justification of those two Commissions of Approbation and Ejection. which were given out by his Highness and the Council; as will be made evident by and by, when Mr Goodwin comes to fall more directly upon the Commissions, and those reverend and worthy persons that are impowered by them. In the mean time, it is submitted to the Reader, what to think of Mr goodwin's first Hypothesis or Supposal, and whether he can imagine it was the intendment of Christ, either immediately of himself, or mediately by his Apostles to make such large Provision, either by way of Precept or Example, to be as standing Rules in perpetuity, utterly exclusive of the use and assistance of humane prudence, in order to the publication of the Gospel.  
Now to the second false Hypothesis, 
Mr Goodwin his second Supposition refused.  or Supposition, upon which the Argument is founded, and which is implicitly contained in the Minor Proposition, falsely supposing and insinuating, as if our Commissioners for Approving and Ejecting were an Authority constituted by his Highness and the Council in and over the Church and People of Christ. For Confutation of this, the only way is to make enquiry into the nature of the Ordinances or Commissions themselves, by the genuine scope and drift whereof it will be certainly known of what kind they are, and what was the Intent of our Governors in the establishment of them, that thereby they should deserve to be scandalised, and so rudely handled by him, who would be thought a man of Ingeny and most high Ingenuity.  
To this end, that the truth may be cleared, let both the Ordinances speak for themselves.  
The First is, that which he is pleased to call the Commission of Tryers, rightly entitled, An Ordinance appointing Commissioners for approbation of Public Preachers; The true intent and main Scope of this Ordinance, is set down in that part of it which here followeth:  
WHereas for some time past-hitherto, there hath not been any certain course established for the supplying vacant places with able and fit persons to preach the Gospel, by reason whereof not only the Rights and Titles of Patrons are prejudiced, but many weak, scandalous, Popish, and illaffected persons have intruded themselves, or been brought in, to the great grief and trouble of the good People of this Nation; for remedy and prevention whereof, Be it ordained by his Highness the Lord Protector, by and with the consent of his Council, that every person, who shall from and after the five and twentieth day of March instant, be presented, nominated, chosen, or appointed to any Benefice (formerly called a Benefice with Cure of Souls) or to preach any Public settled Lecture in England or Wales, shall before he be admitted into any such Benefice, or Lecture, be judged and approved, by the persons hereafter named, to be a person for the grace of God in him, his holy and unblameable conversation, as also for his knowledge and utterance, able and fit to preach the Gospel; And that after the said five and twentieth day of March, no person, but such as shall upon such Approbation be admitted by the said persons, shall take any public Lecture, having a constant stipend legally annexed and belonging thereunto, or take, or receive any such Benefice as aforesaid, or the profits thereof: And be it further Ordained, That Francis Rous Esq Dr Tho. Goodwin, etc. shall be, and are hereby nominated, constituted and appointed Commissioners for such Approbation and admission as is above said, and upon death, or removal of any of them, others shall from time to time be nominated in their places by the L. Protector and his Successors, by advice of his Council, in the Interval of Parliament; and sitting the Parliament, by the Protector and Parliament. And the said Commissioners or any five or more of them, met together in some certain place in the City of London, or Westminster, as his Highness shall appoint, are hereby authorized to judge and take knowledge of the ability and fitness of any person so presented, nominated, chosen or appointed, according to the qualification above mentitioned, and upon their approbation of such his ability and fitness, to grant unto such person admission to such Benefice or Lecture, by an Instrument in Writing under a Common Seal to be appointed by his Highness, and under the hand of the Register or Registers for the time being, to be also nominated by the Lord Protector and his Successors, which Instrument▪ the said Register or Registers shall cause to be entered in a Book for that purpose, and kept upon Record.  
And it is hereby Declared, That the said person so admitted into any such Benefice, shall be Possessor and Incumbent of the same, and entitled thereby to the Profits, Perquisits, and all Rights and Deuce incident and belonging thereunto, as fully and effectually, as if he had been Instituted and Inducted according to the Laws of this Realm; as also the person that shall be so admitted to any Lecture as aforesaid, shall be thereby enabled, according to the Establishment and Constitution of such Lecture, to preach therein, and to have and receive the stipend or Profits to such Lecture belonging.  
Provided always, That no person who shall tender himself, or be tendered, for approbation as aforesaid, shall be concluded by any Vote of the said Commissioners, which shall pass in the Negative, as to his Approbation, unless Nine or more of the said Commissioners be present at such Vote.  
And the Ordinance Concludes thus. [And it is hereby lastly declared and ordained, that the Approbation or Admittance aforesaid, in such manner as is before prescribed, is not intended, nor shall be construed, to be any solemn or sacred setting apart of a person to any particular office in the Ministry▪ but only by such Trial and Approbation to take care, that places destitute may be supplied with able and faithful Preachers throughout this Nation; And that such fit and approve proved persons faithfully labouring in the work of the Gospel, may be in a Capacity to receive such public stipend and maintenance, as is or shall be allotted to such places.]  
The other is that which he calls the Commission of Ejectors; rightly Entitled An Ordinance for the Ejecting of Scandalous, Ignorant, and Insufficient Ministers and Schoolmasters; the main whereof is as followeth.  
WHereas by the continuance of divers scandalous and insufficient Ministers and Schoolmasters, in many Churches, Chapels, and Public Schools within this Nation, the more effectual propagation of the Gospel, and settlement of a godly and painful Ministry is much obstructed, and no authority now in force for removing such Ministers and Schoolmasters; For remedy thereof, Be it ordained by his Highness the Lord Protector, by and with the consent of his Council, That the persons hereafter named, shall be, and are hereby appointed and constituted Commissioners, for and within the respective Counties within England and Wales, for the ends and purposes hereafter in and by this Ordinance expressed and directed, etc.  
And the said Commissioners for the respective Counties aforesaid, or any Five or more of them, are hereby authorized and impowered to call before them, or any Five of them, any public Preacher, Lecturer, or other persons formerly called Parsons. Vicars or Curates, settled, or which hereafter shall be settled in any Benefice, commonly called; A Benefice with Cure of Souls, or public Lecture, having any stipend or salary legally annexed, or belonging thereunto, and all and every Schoolmasters, who are or shall be ignorant, scandalous, insufficient, or negligent in their several and respective places: and shall and may receive all Articles or charges which shall be exhibited against them, for Ignorance, Insufficiency, scandal in their lives and conversations, or negligence in their respective callings and places, and proceed to Examination and Determination of such offences, according to the Rules and Directions hereafter specified, viz. Such Ministers and Schoolmasters shall be deemed and accounted scandalous in their lives and conversations, as shall be proved guilty of holding or maintaining such Blasphemous and Atheistical Opinions as are punishable by an Act, Entitled, An Act against several Atheistical, Blasphemous, and exercrable Opinions derogatory to the honour of God, and destructive to humane Society, or guilty of profane Cursing or Swearing, Perjury, subordination of Perjury; such as hold, teach, or maintain any of those Popish Opinions, required in the Oath of Abjuration (mentioned in an Ordinance of Parliament August 19 1643) to be abjured, or be guilty of Adultery, Fornication, Drunkenness, common haunting of Taverns or Alehouses, frequent Quarrelling or Fight, frequent playing at Cards or Dice, profaning of the Sabbath Day, and such as do or shall allow the same in their Families, or countenance the same in their Parishioners or Scholars, such as have publicly or frequently read or used the Common-Prayer Book since the first of January last, or shall at any time hereafter do the same; such as do publicly and profanely scoff at, or revile the strict Profession or Professors of Religion or Godliness, or do encourage by word or practice any Whitson-Ales, Wakes, Morris-dances, Maypoles, stageplays, or such like licentious practices, by which men are encouraged in a loose and profane conversation; such as have declared, or shall declare by writing, Preaching, or otherwise publishing their disaffection to the present Government; such Ministers shall be accounted negligent, as omit the public Exercises of Preaching and Praying upon the Lord's Day (not being hindered by necessary absence, or infirmity of body) or that are or shall be Non Resident; such Schoolmasters shall be counted negligent, as absent themselves from their Schools, and do wilfully neglect their duties in teaching their Scholars.  
And such Minister and Schoolmaster shall be accounted ignorant and insufficient, as shall be so declared and adjudged by the Commissioners in every County, or any Five of them, together with any Five or more of the Ministers hereafter nominated in this present Ordinance, to be assistant to the said Commissioners, etc.  
What I have here inserted, gives you the very sum and substance of the two-Ordinances, so far as concerns the Instituted Power of Approbation and Ejection; and though the bare Reading of the Ordinances may be sufficient to satisfy any ingenuous man, so as to wipe off that scandalous imputation, which, by way of false supposition, and peevish Insinuation, hath been darted at the supreme Magistrate, and the persons next him in Authority, in reference to the power by them granted in the said Ordinances; yet it will not be amiss a little to animadvert upon each particular.  
First, as touching the Ordinance for Approbation; how can it be said to constitute an Authority in and over the Church, seeing if the Authority therein given, were such as he pretense, than it must be an Authority exercising either Legislation in making Decrees and Constitutions for the odering of Church-affairs, or Jurisdiction in respect of Church-Censures? But certainly, neither hath his Highness given, nor the Commissioners themselves ever conceived they have, nor can any rational man infer they have, from the Contents of the Ordinance, a faculty of exercising Power in matter of Legislation, or Jurisdiction within, or over the Church in general, or any particular Congregation; and therefore certainly no man that is not sworn to Mr. Goodwin's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, will conclude, that they are constituted (or can in the least measure be reputed) an Authority in and over the Church.  
Secondly, That high and heavenly Ordinance of Preaching the Word, the due promotion whereof is the sole declared scope of the Ordinance of his Highness, was primarily intended by Christ for the instructing and converting of such as were, and are without the Pale of the Church, and for the gathering of them into Church-communion; in the next place, for the edifying and building of them up after they are gathered in. Now the intent of his Highness and the Council was not at all, that by virtue of this Ordinance any should take cognisance of the Qualifications of Pastors or Preachers in private gathered Congregations or Churches, (who, it is known, notwithstanding this Ordinance, remain as much at liberty as before;) but they are Public Preachers, that is, such as have, or would have a Public State-maintenance (be it either in the way of a Benefice, or Lecture) legally annexed to the places where they preach, or otherwise publicly allowed, (these are they) that fall within the reach of this Ordinance. I suppose it would not well suit with Mr. Goodwin's principle and way, to say that such Beneficed men and Lecturers, standing upon a Public Account, and their respective Precincts or Parishes, are (in his opinion) rightly constituted Churches. And if so, how then will this profound man of Science be able (on his part) to make good, in reason or conscience, that the Magistrates authorising persons with a power of Trying such men whether they be qualified for the employment of preaching in Parishes, can be said to be the erecting of a Power in and over the Church?  
Thirdly, Though it would be beside the present business to start that Controversy, whether, or how far the Magistrate may intermeddle in matters of Religion; yet certainly 'tis fit to consider, that the same thing may be a duty incumbent upon a Magistrate, being a Christian, as really as it is a duty upon inferior persons who are Christians. Now if it be the duty of every Christian man, in his sphere, as much as in him lieth, to advance the propagation of the Gospel wherever he hath an opportunity, by communicating, or by procuring the communication of it to others, (which it's supposed neither Mr. G. nor any else will deny) then undoubtedly the Supreme Magistrate of England, being a Christian Professor, by continuing that Public way of Maintenance, which the Laws of the Land, and the Bounty of the State have allowed, to support and encourage the Public Preaching of Jesus Christ, and thereupon by exerting his Magistratical authority, in transferring it by way of Trust into the hands of certain persons whom he sees cause to confide in as Commissioners under him, for the Proving and Trying of men, whether they be fit to be owned upon the Public Account, in order to so high an employment as Preaching to the People, hath therein done his duty, and in so doing kept within his sphere as a Magistrate, and is so far from entrenching thereby upon the Church, or Churches (take which you will) in any kind, that there is rather abundant cause for the Churches of Christ to bless God for the care taken, than to find fault; and to hope, that by this means the number of Believers will be exceedingly increased, and the Lord be pleased to add to the Church daily such as should be saved. All that the Magistrate hath done here by such an Ordinance, is an Act only of State, a mere Civil Constitution, and by virtue thereof the Commissioners not exercising any power of Legislation or Jurisdiction for the ordering and governing of Churches, but only a power of Trial and Inspection concerning such men, whom the Magistrate is to send abroad to publish the Gospel, that the people may become fit matter for Churches: Therefore the said Commissioners must of necessity be reputed only Officers of the Commonwealth in this particular, and not an Authority established (as Mr. G. would have it) in and over the Church.  
This Ordinance for Approbation is in Truth, no more than that other Ordinance of his Highness, whereby certain persons are commissionated under him as trusties for the maintenance of Ministers; that is, for settling of Augmentations for the better maintenance of Ministers in Places where the means is but small. As this Ordinance is to be reputed a mere Civil Act in respect of its Original, so also must the other; for the same hand framed the one which did the other; and being both designed for the same end, Viz. The due distribution of that public Maintenance which is allowed by the Magistrate, according to such Directions as he hath prescribed, they must needs both in respect of their Original, the regulation of their exercise, and their end, be esteemed no other than Acts of the same nature and constitution, both alike flowing from the same fountain of Civil power to the same purpose: And yet Mr Goodwin hath not one Tittle to say against that Ordinance, or Commission of the said trusties, though in the execution thereof, it comes as near his Church-door as the other. But all the spite is it seems at the Commissioners for Approbation; the reason whereof will be better understood anon, when I come to fall upon some of his following Arguments.  
Moreover, as concerning the Ordinance for Ejection, it is also (as appears in the several parts of it) a mere Civil constitution. For (you see) that Ordinance doth vot enable the Commissioners to exercise the power therein given, over any persons whatsoever employed in the work of the Gospel, save only such who are public Preachers, Lecturers, or other persons formerly called Parsons, Vicars, or Curates, enjoying those. Benefices formerly called Benefices with Cure of Souls, or that are settled in public Lectures, having any Stipends or Salaries legally annexed or belonging thereunto. So that it is evident, the Magistrate herein gives a power to animadvert upon no other persons, but those only who are designed by himself to the employment of public preaching, and upon that account have a maintenance derived to them from himself, and the Law of the Land, who as they have their rise, and their Mission from the Civil Power, so they have their dependency upon it, and in this respect can be reputed no other than persons publicly employed in the Commonwealth, on the behalf of the Magistrate, to divulge the Doctrine of the Gospel, in the public assemblies of the people; who if they be found either scandalous in life, or through Ignorance insufficient for the work; surely then the Magistrate who alloweth and secureth them their Wages by Law, must needs look upon it as his duty to see them turned out of their employment, as he is concerned to do in the like case of any other persons whatsoever employed in a public relation to, and dependency upon himself.  
These things being so, the Reader is left to judge whether there be not more of vanity, than either Reason or Religion in Mr goodwin's first Argument, since in the sifting of it, there is nothing to be found, but the chaff of two false Suppositions; upon which he hath built and flourished up the whole structure of his slight Pamphlet. For, it being manifest that neither Christ nor his Apostles, left any such Rules in pepetuity to promote the Preaching of the Gospel, as to answer all future contingent occasions in order thereunto, or to exclude the Magistrate from contributing his assistance, either in the way of Countenance or Prudence, for the publication thereof; And it being clear likewise, from the very scope and intendment of the Ordinances themselves, which have been so injuriously impeached, that they are only Acts of a mere Civil nature, investing men with power upon a Public Civil Account, we must needs come to this Conclusion, in opposition both to the major and minor Propositions of Mr. G. That as it was not the intent of Christ or his Apostles to make so large provision by Rules, in all minute Particulars, for publishing the Gospel, as to exclude the Magistrate from doing what is fit in a way of Reason and Prudence, for promoting so good a work among the People; And that as it was not the intent of his Highness and the Council by their Ordinances to intermeddle with Church-Government, but only to have the Word universally preached by pious and able men, for the People's instruction: So, by erecting the Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection, they have been far from a constructive charging of Christ with want of care in not leaving sufficient Directions to progagate the Gospel (seeing to leave Rules of so universal an extent, and exclusive a nature as is pretended, was no part of his intendment;) nor can they be said to have established any Authority in and over the Church, (as is by him most causelessly insinuated) and consequently they have not put any Indignity thereby at all upon Jesus Christ.    

ARGUMENT II.  
Christ himself never assumed to himself, 
Mr. G. his second Argument.  nor ever exercised any interest of Authority or power so exorbitant or over-bearing, as to give authority and power to any lesser or smaller number of men, at least not of such men, to whom he was not able, his Father's Will standing to the contrary, to give both infallibility of judgement, and intemerable faithfulness, in matters of Faith and supernatural concernment, to exercise any such dominion over the Faith, Judgements, or Consciences of far greater numbers of men, and these every way equal, at least many of them, (if not superior) to them, both in gifts and graces, and all spiritual endowments, as the persons commissioned amongst us by the two Ordinances specified, do by virtue hereof, exercise over the judgements and faith of all the Ministers of the Gospel in this Nation, yea, and over the faith of all those whom God, (as both these Commissioners and others have cause to judge) calleth unto this ministry. For is not this the jurisdiction, lordship, or dominion, which they by virtue of their Commissions (respectively) exercise over the Faith of that great number of worthy persons now mentioned, even to Eject them out of the possession and enjoyment of such livelihoods which the merciful providence of God in conjunction with the Laws of their Nation, have entitled them unto? to cast them out (I say) of the enjoyment of their lawful subsistence to the extreme misery, if not utter affamishing, of themselves, wives and children, only because they will not, or rather, because in conscience they cannot believe or profess as they, being in this case made their Lords and Masters, require them upon the said penalty to believe; the other, upon a like account, shutting against others by the iron bars of their authority, the door of access unto such livelihoods, whereunto both by the providence of God, and the faithfulness of men legally entrusted with such opportunities, yea and their own signal worths and ministerial abilities, do aloud call them? Doubtlese the Lord Jesus Christ never took upon him the exercise of any such Authority, as to appoint a few men for the divesting of any sort of men whatsoever, much less the Ministers of his Gospel, of their temporal rights or enjoyment, only because their faith in matters appertaining unto God, is not the same in all points with the saith of other men.  
If it be replied, that neither sort of Commissioners, Triers or Ejectors, are empowered by the tenor or words of their Commissions, to punish any Minister, either poenâ sensus, or poenâ damni, simply for not believing, or (which is the same in effect) for not professing, or not teaching others to believe as themselves believe; so that when they do any such thing as this, they act besides their Commission. I answer, first, The Commissioners themselves, at least such of them as are generally known to understand their Commissions, as well as, or rather better than their fellows, do so construe and understand them, as giving them power both to reject, and eject for not finding their own sense and belief in those that come before them. Secondly, Their frequent, if not constant practice in this kind, being sufficiently known unto, and connived at, if not approved of by those under whose authority and protection they thus practice, clearly showeth that the sense intended, or at present owned in both the Commissions by those who are in authority, and who have power to declare the sense of either Commission, is that which hath been supposed in the Argument, though deposed or denied in the Reply.  

Answer.  
This second Argument of his to prove the unlawfulness of these Ordinances, 
Answer.  is so stuffed with the Fustian of various Terms, and false suppositions, so confusedly extravagant, that it is not to be reduced into any handsome Syllogistick form; and therefore let us take a view of the Verbosities and Scandals, as they-lie in (or rather out of) order.  
First, 
Answ.  (to omit his obstreperous Impertinencies which lie croaking in the way) he supposeth, That such men so employed as the Commissioners are, aught to have both Infallibility of Judgement, and intemerable Faithfulness, in matters of Faith and supernatural concernment. That they ought to be men of Judgement, I shall not deny; but that (like Mr. Goodwin) they should have an opinion of their own Infallibility, or of necessity be indeed Infallible, before they undertake such a work, sure there is no need. Their Commission (the Ordinance) empowers them to pass their Judgements concerning men, by approving, or not approving them for the work of Preaching, according as they have cause to believe them duly qualified, or not qualified for it, in reference to these three particulars, viz. The Grace of God in them; Their holy and unblameable, Conversation; Their Knowledge and Utterance. What need any Infallible Spirit be required in men to pass a Judgement upon other men in these Respects, before they be sent out to Preach? That which was the Apostles prescript to Timothy, was written doubtless for our instruction and direction; 
2 Tim. 2. 2.  The things (saith he) that thou hast heard of me, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall teach others also. By which Text it appeareth, 1. That men ought to be tried and approved before they be sent to preach the Doctrine of the Gospel. And, 2. That the proving of their Grace and Faithfulness doth not presuppose there aught to be an Infallibility in the persons who are to prove and approve them; because this proving and approving of the Graces of men that were to be employed in any work of the Gospel, was to be a thing of ordinary and continual practice, as is clear by that of the Apostle before cited, it being a Rule of Direction now to succeeding Times and persons, 
1 Tim. 3. 10.  upon occasion, as well as then to Timothy. And by that of the Apostle in another place, where he speaks of the proving and approving of a Deacon, and saith, That before their Approbation, they must be proved whether they hold the mystery of the Faith in a pure Conscience; and then they may use the Employment. Which is no other than a clear Evidence of the lawfulness of the proving and approving of men in point of Grace, before they be sent about Gospel-work: And it being a Rule for constant practice, it carrieth moreover along with it as clear an intimation, that there is no such need of a Spirit of Infallibility, before men can be fit to act in the way of Approbation in respect of the Graces of men. And as to the other Qualifications, viz. Holiness and unblameableness of Conversation, with Knowledge and Utterance; these two Points are cognoscible in Foro externo, by enquiry into men's Lives, and by examination of their Parts, and their experiences of Gods dealing with them in the work of Conversion.  
Secondly, He supposeth, That his Highness and the Council have by the Ordinances impowered the Commisisioners to exercise dominion over the Faith, Judgements, and Consciences of men. To prove this, he saith, The Commissioners for Ejection do eject men out of their places, because they cannot in conscience profess and believe as the Commissioners themselves do believe; and on the other side, the Commissioners for Approbation (he saith) do upon a like account disapprove men, and shut them out from such places of livelihood, to which they are called by Patrons, and fitted by their own signal worths and abilities. For Answer, know, It is no wonder that he who dares fasten so ill and groundless an Imputation upon our Governors, as that they have impower'd persons to exercise an unchristian dominion over men's Faith, whenas there is not a tittle in the Ordinances of any such matter to be found (it is no wonder, I say, that he who presumes to prevaricate so unconscionably against them) should under a pretence of making good the scandal which he casts upon them (to show his emptiness of proof) fall to calumniating of those who are the Commissioners under them, by raising an ill report upon their proceedings. But this hath been his usual way of Argumentation, fortiter calumniari, upon other occasions, and to observe neither Rule in Ratiocination, nor to proceed secundum allegata & probata, to make out an Accusation.  
I suppose, whoever looks into the two Ordinances for Approbation and Ejection, will find that the Commissioners have their work set forth to them by the present Authority, with Rules whereby they are to proceed, and how to behave themselves, as Servants use to have when they are employed by their Masters, so that it appears to be a point of Service, rather than of Lordship or dominion, wherein the Commissioners are exercised. It may with as much reason be said, when a person offers himself to be a Member of a Congregation, and to partake of the Lords Supper, that the trying and examining of him in this case whether he be fit and worthy, is the exercising of a dominion and lordship over him. Then, whereas he saith, they exercise Dominion over the judgements and Faith of all the Ministers of the Gospel; I answer,  
1. That as it is not a Dominion, so neither do they exercise it over all the Ministers of the Nation: Mr. Goodwin can (if he please) confute himself in this; For, I surpose he believeth himself to be a Minister, and yet he knoweth neither of the Commissions have been exercised over him. Alas, he was ejected out of his Parish-Living in Coleman-street by a Committee of Parliament; but that was before the eldest of these Commissions was born.  
2. That it is not over all the Ministers of the Gospel, because 'tis evident by the very letter of the Commissions, that they are not impowered to meddle one way or other with the Ministers or Pastors of Gathered Congregations, but only with such as seek, or do enjoy the Public Maintenance of the State to support them in the Ministry. And this himself afterwards confesseth in express terms in his 5. Argument, where he styleth them Ministers of Parochial Congregations; though here, to the end that this crazy Argument might run the more roundly, he thought fit to let it pass on in general Terms, by omitting the due Distinction.  
3. That it is not over Ministers quatenus Ministers, as they were taken heretofore under the notion and quality of a Sacred Function, but only as they stand in relation to the Magistrate, a Public Ministry upon the Account of a Legal Public Maintenance; and so the Judgement that is passed in the approving and disapproving, or in the ejecting of them by virtue of those Commissions, is only in respect of their being persons fit or unfit to receive or enjoy that Maintenance, and cannot be called a Judgement over their Faith, which they are left to enjoy at their own liberty as much as before; which being allowed them, it is fit the Magistrate should enjoy his liberty also, to refuse them his Maintenance, if their Faith and Persuasions be such, as he cannot in conscience believe he ought to give countenance and support unto. Moreover, whereas he saith, that those Ministers, by virtue of the Ordinance for Ejecting, are put out of the possession and enjoyment of such Livelihoods, which the Laws of the Land have entitled them unto, to the affamishing of themselves, their wives and children, because they cannot believe as the Commissioners require them, upon the said penalty, to believe: The Answer to this is evident (as before;)  
1. That the Commissioners do not eject them, because not of the same Judgement with themselves in matters of Faith, but because their Judgement and Opinions are such as come within the compass of those Tenets and Doctrines, which the Magistrate hath declared he in Conscience cannot, and will not give Maintenance unto. Besides, the power of ejecting is not exercised upon men only because of their Opinions, but it respects also the loose and ill behaviour and conversation of such as are employed in the work of Public Preaching.  
2. That any power which conferreth a livelihood on any person upon certain conditions, to a certain end, aught in all reason to have a right of resuming that livelihood, in case neither the conditions be observed, nor the end of the Collation be answered, while the party continueth in possession of the said Livelihood. Now it was the Magistrate and the Law which conferred livelihoods upon the Minister's beforementioned: The Conditions whereupon they were conferred, were that they should behave themselves in all things as becomes Ministers; the end was, that they should with diligence and sound Doctrine feed and instruct the people under their respective charges. Therefore in case those Ministers do not perform the conditions on their part, but run out into any of the licentious and disorderly practices in matter of behaviour enumerated in the Ordinance; and shall happen to make shipwreck of the Faith, by corrupting the truths of God with false Doctrine, or be ignorant themselves, so that the end (which was that they should instruct the people with sound knowledge) is not answered; certainly the Magistrate in this Case may righteously (and is questionless bound in Conscience to) resume their livelihoods into his own hand, and dispose of them to others, who he conceiveth will better perform the end for which those livelihoods and livings were first by Law appointed. And though the wants and necessities to which themselves and theirs may be reduced to, upon their being ejected, be a matter of Commiseration, yet it holds not water in point of Reason, to prove that they ought to be kept in, rather than there should be a Commission to eject them, unless Mr Goodwin (after his wont way of reasoning) will judge it more reasonable, that the great end of the Gospel-ministration should be lost, and the souls of the people (without any commiseration) be either starved for want of sound Doctrine, or poisoned with false, rather than the false, ignorant, insufficient, or scandalous Ministers should be exposed to run the hazard of an affamishing themselves, (as he calls it) and their wives and children. If this Argument were of any weight, than no man ought to be put out of his Office or Employment in the Commonwealth, for breach of trust, or misdemeanour, or any crime whatsoever, because it may prove the utter undoing of him, and his wife and children.  
Lastly, Whereas in the close of this Argument, he flourisheth, telling us, That doubtless Christ never took upon himself any such authority as to appoint a few men to divest any men, much less Ministers of their rights, because their faith in matters appertaining to God, is not the same with the Faith of other men; 'Tis true, for Christ pretended not to the divesting any men of their rights, because they believed not aright; but what is this to the purpose? Will he infer from hence? Ergo. The Magistrate doth ill, because he requires those who are Officers or Commissioners under him upon a public and civil account, not to permit those persons to enjoy the public maintenance, who in matters of Faith do hold 
* These are the words of the Ordinance for ejecting.  Atheistical, Blasphemous, and execrable Opinions derogatory to the honour of Christ, or who hold, teach, or maintain any of those Popish Opinions, which by the Oath of Abjuration (mentioned in an Ordinance of Parliament of the 19 of August, 1643.) ought to be abjured. Will he infer likewise? ERGO, The Commissioners who put this part of their Commission in execution, do exercise Dominion over the Faith and Consciences of men. Lastly, will he infer, ERGO, rather than seem to do so, both the Magistrate and these Commissioners who act under him, are bound to maintain the men in the promoting of their Execrable, Blasphemous, and Popish Opinions in matters of Faith, rather than withdraw the Public maintenance from them? Or else, that in not admitting them to have the said Maintenance, or by withdrawing it from them, they (according to the invidious sense of Master Goodwin) must needs incur the guilt of Lording it over men's Faiths and Consciences? These are the rare Inferences that must unavoidably be drawn (for no other can be) from his most enigmatical way of arguing, till he please more rationally to furnish us with other Conclusions from those sophisticated Suppositions, and those illogical, antilogical 
* Projicit ampullas, & sesquipedalia verba.  Rodomontades and hard words, wherewith he abounds in this, and all other his Sophisms, circumlocutory to little purpose. By this time I suppose the Reader is sick enough of Mr John's second Argument, and therefore I shall not meddle with that which followeth in the close of it, it being only an iteration of the same scandals against the Commissioners, which in black Characters of envy he had set down once before, and which we shall have occasion to take notice more at large, in another place by and by.    

ARGUMENT III.  THey who devise new stratagems, 
Mr. G. his third Argument  methods, or inventions to aid the Gospel, and to prevent dangers or inconveniencies incident to it, beyond or besides all that Christ either prescribed or directed to be done upon any such account, or for any such end, do in effect deny what the Holy Ghost expressly testifieth of him, viz. that he was faithful to him that appointed him [meaning God the Father] as also Moses was faithful in all his house, Heb. 3. 2. For if it be supposed that the two Commissions specified, be advantageous and benedict to the interest of the Gospel, and that this is more like to run and be glorified in the World, because seconded and assisted by the said Commissions, than was not Jesus Christ faithful unto God in all his house, neglecting or forgetting to give any order to his Apostles or others, concerning the levying or setting on foot any such means as these, for the relief of the Gospel; nor is it easy to imagine (but much more difficult is it to prove) when, unto whom, or by whom Christ directed the making of any such Evangelical Engines, as either of the said Commissions are. 

Answer.  
For Answer to this, First, observe, that this is but a repetition, varying the Phrase of what he (in effect) said before in his first Argument, and grounded upon the same Petitio Principii, a begging of the Question, which we must by no means admit, seeing I suppose we have already made it evident, as a matter out of question; That it was not the intendment of Christ to leave (nor did he or his Apostles leave) any Rules and Directions of such a nature, of so universal an extent, variety, and Influence (as Mr. G. would insinuate he did) as that they will serve in all respect, for the publication of the Gospel, and do positively exclude the Magistrate from doing any thing at all that is conducible thereunto; which indeed, as thus stated, is the sole matter in question between our Superiors, and their Commissioners, and Mr. Goodwin in this business.  
Secondly, Whereas he calls the Commissions new stratagems and inventions; it's a wonder he should be a man so hot against Novelties, whose fancy hath been used to take a flight after all: But certainly (Sir) you are not so old as to account what hath been almost from the beginning, to be unto your gravity and long standing in the world, but a Novelty. If it hath been a constant practice in all Times, that a man should not be admitted to an employment before he be found fit to undertake it, nor continue in it, unless he behave himself therein as he ought, can it be a new thing now to make a Trial and Judgement of men upon the like occasion? The practice you may find both in the old and new Testament. Besides, you yourself do tell us in you eighth Argument, that the Trying of men thus is as old as Episcopacy, and yet now it must be a Novelty; that is no rare matter for you to contradict yourself in all your writings, and particularly in this, as I shall show you again by and by. Furthermore, you may (if you please) remember, it was also a Course practised by the late long Parliament, who when the former way of Trial and Approbation ceased, appointed the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, or a Committee of them, to do the work; as appears by the following Order.  

Die Jovis, 27. Julii, 1643.  
IT is this day Ordered by the Commons House of Parliament, That the Committee for plundered Ministers shall nominate none to any Parsonage or Benefice, but such as shall be examined by the Assembly of Divines, or any Five of them, and approved of by Certificate under their hands.  
H. Elsing, Cler. Parl. D. Com.   
And afterwards, when the meeting of the Assembly was at an end, than the Provision for examining and approving (which you are pleased to represent as a mere novelty) was so ordered; that it was exercised by the same persons (for the most part) which were entrusted with the work before by the Parliament, who thought it (as the present Governors now have done) a duty incumbent upon them, to settle a way for the proving of the Qualifications of such men as offered themselves to them for the work of the Gospel, before they would own and admit them to partake of the Public Maintenance. So that I hope by this time Mr G. is ready to retract, and acknowledge his error, for saying that the practice of Trying and approving men for Gospel-employments is a new Invention. If he please a little to look upward, he will find it as old as St. Paul, and Timothy, and Titus, etc. So far is it from being a Novelty.  
Thirdly, whereas he saith, Those who devise means to aid the Gospel, and prevent Inconveniences incident to it, beyond or beside what Christ hath prescribed and directed, do in effect deny him to be as faithful to God the Father, as Moses was: For Answer to this, observe, That the great stress of his Allegation lieth in the particle [As,] by virtue hereof supposing, that if Christ were as faithful as Moses, than he left as full and clear Directions for the work of the Gospel in all points, as Moses did for the Law. But this cannot be the meaning of the place. For, in the 14. verse of the second Chapter, he is said to be a faithful High Priest in two respects. 1. In things pertaining to God, having approved himself faithful in revealing the Doctrine of the Gospel, according to the mind of him that sent him, (For, that was one part of his Commission, as you may read Luc. 4. 18.) 2. In that he made Reconciliation for the sins of the people. And so in these two regards he was faithful both as a Prophet, and a Priest, or as an Apostle and Priest, as it is expressed a little after in the first verse of the third Chapter; where we are bidden to consider his faithfulness in both those Capacities, who (as it followeth, vers. 2.) was faithful to him that appointed him, as Moses was. Now therefore, the only Inference that can be made from the place is this, That as Moses was faithful to God in what he appointed him to, so also was Christ. God the Father appointed Christ as the great Prophet or Apostle of our Profession, to preach the mind of God in the doctrine of the Gospel; that was one end of his mission: And he appointed him as our Highpriest, to offer up himself a Sacrifice to make an Atonement or Reconciliation for the sins of the people. Which two particulars being the ends of Gods appointing him, and he having fulfilled them according to the appointment, is in this respect said to be faithful as Moses was; not because he had done things in all respects to answer the things done by Moses; for, than he would have left us such Rules and Directions at large (which we cannot yet see) upon Record, as Mr. G saith he hath done, for the Polity or Oeconomie of the Church, and as fully and completely set down in writing▪ as Moses left his; but the genuine meaning of the place must be undeniably this, That he was faithful in all things as Moses was, because he published the Doctrine of the Gospel, and sealed it with his blood for the expiation of sin, and therein did what he was appointed to, as faithfully as Moses formerly did what he was appointed to by God. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Equiparation of the faithfulness of Christ and Moses in this place, respecteth only the reality and exactness of their performance, both of them having alike punctually performed the several Appointments made to them by God; but it doth not infer that there was, or aught to have been a similitude, correspondency, or congruity in the whole manner, extent and fabric of their Institutions. For, to the end of the world, let Mr. G. do what he can with the Scripture, let him wring it by the nose, to turn it which way he please, as the Papists do, or to force blood out of it, as too many in our times do, yet he will never be able to make this Text to serve his purpose: Besides, even in common sense it is manifest to any that is but the least acquainted with the Gospel, that our Lord and Saviour hath not by positive Laws descended so far into particularities with us, as Moses did with the people of Israel. And so you see what is become of the Third Argument, grounded upon a misunderstanding of that part of the Scripture concerning Christ and Moses. We might be far more copious; but this is too much for him.    

ARGUMENT IU.  THe Lord Christ being (as was said) faithful, 
Mr. G. his Fourth Argument.  as Moses also was, in all the house of God, and his wisdom and providence every ways answerable to this his faithfulness, it cannot be conceived but that with his precepts, counsels, and directions for the advancement and prosperity of the Gospel, he hath taken up and filled the whole roomth or space which is capable of receiving Injunctions, Orders, or Directions in that kind. So that no man can add, insert, or thrust in any thing by way of advice, or under the notion of a prudential contrivance for the promoting of the Gospel, but he must justle or thrust out, and (in our Saviour's phrase) make of none effect some or other of those precepts or directions, which have been given by the Lord Christ himself, for the same end. Even as the Pope cannot gratify any new Saint with a day in the Calendar, but only either by turning some of the more ancient out of their long-continued possessions, or else by compelling them to take the other into part and fellowship with them in their honour, because the Calendar is from the one end of it to the other already filled with the Names of the more ancient: In like manner the whole latitude and compass of wisdom and prudence for the due and successful managing of the affairs of the Gospel, being spread with the orders and charges given by Jesus Christ in that behalf, it is not possible for men to devise or set on foot any method, means, or device of theirs for the promoting of this end, but by disauthorizing, or with reflection of disparagement upon some or other, or all, of the said prescriptions of Christ. Nor is it possible for any man to invent or form any projection, or make any provision, which upon a true account will be found in any degree material, or pertinent, for the welfare or success of the Gospel, wherein he hath not been prevented by the Great Author and Father of the Gospel himself. Otherwise it must be supposed that men are, either (as hath been said) wiser then God, and able to supply that which hath been wanting in him; or else, that they are more solicitous and careful over the interest of the Gospel, more intent upon the salvation of the precious Souls of men, than Herald Therefore the two Commissioners we implead, the one of Triers, the other of Ejectors, being neither of them given in charge by Jesus Christ for the promotion of the Gospel, nor holding any true or real Communion with any of his Orders in that behalf, must needs be of another Spirit and tendency from these, and rather counterworkers, than co-workers with them: and this experience itself hath sufficiently discovered. 

Answer.  
Now we are come to that which he calls his fourth Argument, and expecting here to meet with somewhat of Reason or Religion (because he boasts in his Title page, that the whole Dozen and half, are all Arguments of that nature) I am not able in this to find a grain of either, only we have him sitting down in the Reverend chair of Tautology, where he is pleased with much commiseration of the dull heads and weak memories of mankind (tanquam ex Tripod) most oraculously to dictate the same things again over and over, telling us, If Christ was as faithful as Moses in all the house of God, than it cannot be conceived but that with his Precepts, Counsels and Directions, he hath done so much, that no man man can add any thing by way of advice, or prudential contrivance for the promoting of the Gospel, etc.  
Mr Goodwin might have done well to give us a Transcript of those pretended copious Precepts and Directions; and till he doth, he must rest satisfied with the Answer given to his first Argument, in reference to this particular, because we are not at leisure for Repetition. Howbeit, because he seems to lay some weight upon these words, [In all the house of God] some Reply must be made to that for the undeceiving of the Reader. By 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the House of God, is here meant the Church of God universal, as will appear by comparing it with 1 Tim. 3. 15. where the house of God, is plainly called, the Church of the living God. Now it is not to be denied, but that Christ took care with as much faithfulness, as Moses did for the ordering of all this House of God. For, whatsoever was necessary for the founding, building; and ordering of this House, Viz. The Church universal, he very faithfully provided. He laid the foundation of it upon the Prophets and Apostles, these latter▪ viz the Apostles, seconding that Doctrine of the Gospel, which had been first published by the Prophets. Moreover, for the planting and building up of the House of God, it is said, That he set in the Church, first Apostles, secondarily Prophets, thirdly Teachers, after that Miracles, than Gifts of Healings, diversity of Tongues. Lastly, for the ordering of this House of his, he left the great Ordinances and Institutions of Preaching the Word, Baptism, and the Supper, which Things we ought to suppose are all that Christ was appointed to do, in reference to the ordering of the Church, seeing we read of no more, and therefore having fulfilled the appointment of God therein, we ought to believe him as faithful in his house, as Moses was in his, because he omitted nothing for the establishment of it, which the Father thought necessary for him to do in his own person. As for other things, which were necessary to be made use of in aftertime, for the gathering and ordering of particular Churches, in divers Cities, Towns, or Countries, he left them to the ordering of his Apostles, to whom, before his Ascension, he gave a promise of the Spirit, for their Direction and Assistance, which after his Ascension was performed; for, when he ascended up on high, he gave Gifts unto men to that end and purpose; and therefore he was faithful in all his House, as Moses was in his, though he and his Apostles left not Rules and Direction, at such a Latitude, as to answer so many particularities of Affairs and occasions, as Moses did. Nor indeed was there the same Reason for it; for, if it may be lawful to guests at the ground of Gods proceeding thus in this particular, who transacts all things according to the best and most excellent dictates and proportions of wisdom, there appears to be a great deal of Reason, why Christ and his Apostles, having left such Institutions, Rules, and Directions, which are foundational, and absolutely necessary for the Constituting of the Church in general, should not descend to the inferior points of Regulation touching particular Churches, so as to leave Rules for it as amply as Moses did, or to prescribe means and Expedients, unto the use whereof all men should be tied up, who endeavour to propagate or promote the Gospel. For, that Christ did not mean to set down positive and particular Laws of so wide an extent for all things, as Moses did, the very different manner of the delivering of the Laws of Moses, and the Laws of Christ doth plainly show. Moses had command to gather the Ordinances of God together distinctly, that concerned the Jewish Church, and orderly to set them down, according to their several kinds, for each public duty and office the Laws that belong thereunto, as appears in the Books themselves written of purpose to that end. On the other side, the Laws of Christ about the affairs of his Church, we find rather mentioned by occasion in the writings of the Apostles, than any solemn Thing directly written to comprehend and Record them in a Legal method and form; which I mention not (and therefore let no envious eye make such a construction, seeing it cannot be construed) in diminution of the said Gospel-Laws, which with a devout heart I reverence as of the most sacred and most transcendent Divine Authority; but I hint this only to intimate, that the very different manner of the delivery of the Laws of Christ and Moses touching Church-affairs, doth show, that the one had no intent to leave Laws, which might answer the variety of Gospel-occasions in particulars of so large a compass, as the other did to supply Church-occasions in the time of the Law. Besides, be pleased to consider, that when Moses gave those positive Laws and Ordinances both Ceremonial and Judicial, they were intended only for that particular Nation, who then were the sole People, House, or Church of God, and accordingly God in the framing of those Laws, had an eye and regard to the nature of that people for whom they were made, and peculiar and proper Considerations were upon that account respected in the composure, to answer most of the Occasions that might fall out in the administration of the Affairs of that Church and State; which end might indeed easily be attained by prescribing Rules in and to a particular Nation: But when Christ came, the Case was much altered; for whereas the House or Church of God in Moses time, was confined to one single Nation, now it was to be made up out of all Nations: The Laws of the Commonwealth were then made conformable to the Order of Church: But the Church under the Gospel, being to spread through all States and Commonwealths, was so form, as it might without prejudice to the Civil Peace, be entertained in any Nation; and therefore as the framing of positive Laws, Rules, or Directions of the same nature with those of Moses, which might serve to fit the different Tempers and Constitutions, the various necessities, Affairs and Occasions of all the Nations of the World, or of those Remnants which should be first converted in all Nations, and oblige them to a very Puntilio, (as Mr. G. pretends) was in the very nature of the thing altogether impracticable, so it must have proved no less inconvenient, then unnecessary. For, Christ himself having appointed the principal Ordinances before his departure, such as might be conveniently made use of by the Church Universal; and his Apostles having left divers Rules and Directions which are of the same general concernment, and which may indifferently serve to the principal parts of Oeconomy in the Churches, in all the Nations of the world, it's to be supposed he hath (by himself and his Apostles) done all that the Father judged necessary for him to do on the behalf of the Gospel, and thereby approved himself faithful in all his House, as Moses was in his. And whereas I maintain, that in particular matters of lesser Importance, concerning the way of carrying on the Gospel, there are no positive Laws or Rules to be found of so vast a Latitude and comprehension, as to reach all Purposes, Occasions, Accidents, and Emergencies, in all succeeding times all over the world, so as for ever to exclude altogether the use of humane Reason and discretion from assisting about the way and means of publishing the Gospel; this Assertion of mine is so far from occasioning any man thereupon to infer, or imagine any defect of wisdom and providence on the part of our Lord and Saviour, that it is rather a clear Evidence he hath (as becomes his Divine wisdom and faithfulness) therein so ordered the matter, as was most agreeable to right Reason (which is a ray of the Divinity) and to the nature and scope of His and his Fathers own great design and intendment; which was, and is, To gather unto himself a People out of all Nations upon the face of the Earth. So there is an end of his fourth Argument; in the confutation whereof, it was necessary to enlarge thus a little more than ordinary, because as 'tis a supposition too much rooted in the conceptions of men in these times, so he seems to build much upon it, and with many flashes of Ostentation to dazzle the eyes of the Reader. The residue of his Arguments which follow, import little else but matter of scandal, to which, though there be no other Answer due than what Michael the Archangel gave the Devil, yet somewhat must be said to each of them by way of Animadversion.    

ARGUMENT V.  
IT might be wondered why Mr. G. (but that we know the metal of the man and his brow) presumes to call his following Paragraphs by the name of Arguments, when as most of them, if you remove the scandalous materials, do tumble of themselves, and drop into their first nothing. In that which he calls the Fifth Argument, first he insinuateth, That the Commissioners entrusted are an inconsiderable number of men, 
Mr. G. his fifth Argument.  subject to the like errors, passions, weaknesses, and miscarriages with other men; and what a sad business it must be to the godly people, that they should have a Negative voice about the placing, displacing, and disposing of all Ministers over all Parishes in the Nation; which he calls an unchristian and an unheard of Prodigy. That the Commissioners are men subject to failings, as other men, 'tis like they will not deny: But what will this great prodigious Man at Arms in Argumentation from thence infer? Will he say, Ergo, They ought not to be trusted in the Business committed to them? Then, by consequence, neither they nor any other men ought to be trusted with the placing or displacing of Ministers in Parishes, because none of the sons of Adam can be found free from the possibility of falling into some error or miscarriage about the business. If this Arguing hold good, than neither the Magistrate, nor any other Officer ought to be allowed any Trust in the Commonwealth in matters concerning men's lives and estates, because as men they are subject to miscarrying; and by consequence also, neither Patrons nor others who have any right or power to present to Benefices, should enjoy or exercise their right or power of Presenting, because they may, through weakness, err or do amiss therein; which would be a rare acute way of Reasoning indeed, and may serve on the same manner as sufficiently to subvert men's Rights in every thing, destroy Government, and prove that All things in this world ought to be left at random, because men may err in point of Administration.— But the Commissioners (he saith) are an inconsiderable number of men, and have a Negative voice to place, displace, and dispose. How many the Commissioners, and who they are, may be seen by the Ordinances themselves, where the Reader will find they are considerable for number, and for worth remarkable, (over and above their Piety and Learning) for this consideration especially, that they know not how to give the right hand of fellowship to men of his corrupt behaviour and persuasion; and that I shall manifest anon to be the great reason why the man is so angry. And as to the Negative voice, you may see in the Ordinance for Approbation, that no Vote in the Negative shall pass for the disapproving of any man, unless Nine or more of the Commissioners be present: Also, according to the Ordinance for Ejecting, there are to be Ten present and concurring, for the displacing or ejecting of any person. And so now the only question is, whose wisdom is best to be relied on, either that of our Governors, or Mr. Goodwin's, touching the conveniency and sufficiency of the Number for such purposes. As to what he saith about placing and disposing, the Commissioners neither have, nor assume any such power, but Patrons and others do now as inviolably enjoy their respective Rights of Presentation, as heretofore.  
Here before I go any further, I must needs take notice of one thing in this Argument as very observable; and it is this; That he takes upon him to plead for the power of Choice to be in Parishes, or in the well-affected in Parishes; and in regard that they have not the power of Choosing, therein it is that he placeth the greatness of the unchristian and unheard of Prodigy. Now,  
1. Consider, what is this to the Commissioners? They (as I said before) neither have, nor assume any power to choose or dispose of men to Places, nor are they the Cause why Parishes, or the well-affected in Parishes have not all the power of choosing their own Ministers. The most remarkable and prodigious thing is, to see how this mighty man of Reason baffles himself ever and a non with self-contradiction. Here you have him eagerly asserting it to be a prodigious business, that the several Parishes, or the well-affected in them have not the said power of choosing: And then hereafter in the Seventh Argument, we shall find him stiffly pleading on the behalf of the Right and power of Patrons in matter of choosing; tricking it up with many Flowers of Rhetoric, telling us that their Right of Presentation is a Right in Law, a Royal privilege; and looks upon it as a violation offered to their Throne and Dignity, if they may not in the utmost freedom enjoy this Conveniency, as he is pleased to term it. But seeing this is as great an Entrenchment as any can be imagined, upon the power of Parishes by him pleaded for, if Patrons ought to have the power; therefore we have need of another Oedipus to solve this Prodigy or Riddle in Logic, otherwise called a Contradiction; That it ought, and it ought not to be in Parishes.  
2. Consider likewise, in case Parishes were entrusted with the power of choice and nomination, what then would be the consequence? Certainly, those godly and well-affected ones by him mentioned, who are usually the lesser number among them, would have the least stroke in the choice; the truth whereof sufficiently appears in those Parishes who by right of purchase, or some other way have the Patronage vested in themselves. It is sad to consider what woeful divisions and distractions usually arise among them about their Choice (especially if the living be considerable) and common experience showeth, that the godly and well-affected are usually overborne by the profane and more numerous Party. Sure, Mr Goodwin will not easily forget the experience which himself hath had of the truth of this in his own particular.  
But he proceeds to tell us, If the Triers shall be froward, or bear a grudge at a Parish, than the Parish will come to be defeated of the Minister that is presented to the place. This gives me occasion to observe the prudent Constitution of the present Ordinance for Approbation, the power thereby delegated being entrusted not in few, but many hands; and herein it concurs with the ancient prudence of Nations, it being ever thought requisite by Princes and Governors to put a multitude in the same Commission, when they designed to prevent the carrying of matters of high importance in a froward and passionate way. The reason hereof is evident, because right reason and Justice are common Principles which all men have in them more or less, and do bear a reverence thereto by the very light of Nature, and therefore when any thing that is reasonable and just comes to be insisted on, all men do readily assent to it, except some who may be biased to the contrary by Passion. Now on the other side, Passion, though it be an Affect common to all men likewise more or less, yet being an infirmity of nature which either clouds reason, or suspends the use of▪ it in the man, or men so affected, transporting them to do things unjust, it appears so unlovely in the eyes of others who observe it, that instead of consenting with it, other men unconcerned in the causes and occasions of the same Passion, are all ready to pass a sentence of Condemnation upon it; and therefore as touching matters carried by the Commissioners here impeached (who are many) put case that one or two among them should bear such a grudge, as is here insinuated by Mr Goodwin, or be froward because of some private Passion, how will he or they do to prevail over the common Principles of Reason and Justice which are in their fellow Commissioners? who being unconcerned in the private passion of those one or two, as it will be a hard matter for these to persuade them to concur with them, so those one or two will be ashamed to press them upon such a consideration to join with them in suffrage to do injustice one way or other. What think ye then? Is it likely indeed, that all the Triers (as he is pleased to term them) or that the whole nine who are to be of the Quorum in case of disapprovement, should concur in Spleen against a whole Parish? yet upon this extreme improbability, he placeth the force of this part of his Argument, to prove that the entrusting of the Commissioners for Approbation is an Unchristian Prodigy. By this way of Arguing I will overthrow all the Deputations, Delegations, and Commissions of men under heaven, that act in any kind, and subvert the power of Patrons too into the bargain, if you will admit me to make use of Ifs and Ands, and from an Hypothetical Insinuation that they may behave themselves ill in their Trusts, permit me Categorically to infer this positive Conclusion, That therefore they are unlawful, or that it were better to have none at all trusted in any employment, upon any occasion whatsoever. But this is the transcendent Goodwinian way of Argumentation, well known at the Divinity-School in Coleman-University.  
Moreover, to prove that the entrusting of the said Commissioners is an unchristian unheard of Prodigy, he tells us, They may judge a man unsound in the Faith, whom the Congregation shall desire for their Minister, because of some special Opinion, one or more, forwhich (it is possible) the Congregation may in special manner desire him, and can desire and admit of none that is contrary-minded▪ and so a Congregation may never be permitted to enjoy a Minister by whom they can edify. The Commissioners are unchristian, because they may judge a man unsound in the Faith! This is rare stuff both in Reason and Religion, is it not? Suppose the man whom a Congregation or Parish (for they are Parochial Congregations only, which have maintenance by Law, that the Commissioners are concerned to take notice of) should hold some execrable blasphemous Opinion, or some other Opinion dangerous to the Christian verity, though not so formidable at first sight as the other, and that a Congregation should desire him especially for that Opinion, should not the Commissioners reject such a one, whom they find to be so upon examination? Or were it fit to gratify the desires of a Parish by permitting such a man to be their Minister, who would be a means of confirming them in the same condemnable Opinion? Let Christians judge who are most unchristian and prodigious (the Commissioners by disapproving such a man, or Mr. G. by recommending him) in reference to this particular.  
But for a more full Answer, Mr. G. may please to consider, 1. That it never was heretofore, nor is it now agreeable to the purpose or conveniency of this State, to employ the Public Maintenance for the encouraging of this, that, or the other particular Opinion; but it was first intended and settled for the upholding of a Public profession of Religion in the Nation, and for the support of those Ministers that agree with the Magistrate in the same Public profession. And upon this ground it was, that the Statute of Queen Elizabeth required a Subscription to the XXXIX Articles of Religion, which then were established as the Public Profession; otherwise, no man was to be admitted to a Benefice with Cure of Souls; it being most reasonable, that the State should do what they would with their own, and accordingly dispose of the State-maintenance, for the maintaining of such a Public Profession, as they in Conscience believed to be most agreeable to the Word of God. 2. Suppose that both Patrons and Approvers were removed, and all left to Parish-choice, yet I cannot understand that the generality of Parishes are such Opinionists, as to be endeared to some one or two special Opinions; whenas the truth is, they are led by other Considerations, when they have a mind to receive or refuse a Minister. Of all men living, Mr. G. hath least reason to plead for Parishes in this respect. Was he chosen Vicar of Coleman street Parish heretofore, for his one or two special and singular Opinions? Nay rather, did not the Parish, when they had a season and occasion to feel their own strength, and after he had been a painful Labourer among them many years, take the opportunity, because of such Opinions, to eject him, and place another in his Bishopric? The truth is, (and that Mr. Goodwin's own Conscience tells him) if there might be no other supply made for Parishes throughout England, but such as the Parishioners, or a major part of them can cordially reverence and affect, the man so chosen in most Parishes would be a man in a Surplice, with the Common-Prayer-Book, devoutly observing all the Ceremonies and Festivals, and giving Bread and Wine round the Parish respectively: These are the special Opinions and Practices one or more, for which ('tis possible) most Parishes in England and Wales may in special manner desire such a man, and can desire and admit of none that is contrary-minded. Yet perhaps Mr. G. his Arminian special Opinions (one or more) may go far with the Common people, who have a mind to live as they list, and to live so long as they list; because according to those Opinions of Mr. G. so pleasing to flesh and blood, they may when they please set themselves on work to mend their condition. But yet those special Opinions, though pleasing enough, would not please half so well, and open but a few Parish-doors in this Nation, in comparison of those that would be opened to Superstition and malignancy, and one or more of such special Opinions. Nevertheless, provided the door may be large enough (so large is this dying man's Conscience, or the dying Conscience of this man) to let in Arminians into a few Parishes, then, though Popery, Superstition, Profaneness, and the Devil himself should by that means get into the rest of the Parishes, he takes no care, he could notwithstanding die quietly.  
3. The power of Choice and Nomination to Livings was never yet entrusted solely in the hands of Parishes, but it hath remained partly in the hands of the Magistrate as the grand Patron, partly in the hands of private Patrons, who had a Right to it either by Inheritance or Purchase: But yet still the Magistrate and the Law interposed as to the power of Trying and Approving men presented, and settled a Course accordingly for the Trial and Examination of them, before they were admitted to enjoy that Public Maintenance which was legally annexed to the Places to which they had been presented. This hath been the practice from all Antiquity; and yet he is pleased to lash out against the present Course appointed for Approbation, as unchristian and prodigious: And therefore I think rather he (this ill-portending Comet, this wand'ring Star of Error and Falsehood, who would seem to be one of those real ones fixed in the Firmament of the Church, but hangs only in the Air, as if he were to usher some greater Heresies into the world) is himself indeed a most unchristian Prodigy.  
He ends this Argument with telling us, The Commissioners may obtrude a man upon a Congregation (pro libitu suo) be he never so froward, insufficient, or ill-conditioned, or unsound. Read over the Ordinance for Approbation (which is their Commission) and you will find this to be like the rest of his stories: For (as I have said already) if a man that is presented to a place happen to be dis-approved by them upon examination, they have no power of placing any other there in his stead, but such person or persons who have right thereunto.   

ARGUMENT VI.  
NOw to the sixth Argument (much like the former) wherein he saith, The Commissions as they have been and still are acted and administered, do entrench upon the spiritual Rights and Privileges of the people of God, who are invested by Christ Jesus, with power to choose for themselves, and enjoy while they please a man to be over them in the Lord, a spiritual shepherd, the Commissioners rejecting whom they please, and keep asunder them whom God would have joined together, if they will not yea it, and nay it with them from the one end of their faith to the other. This Argument being compared with the former, supposeth two sorts of Congregations in the Nation; which is granted, Viz▪ A Parish Congregation made up (for the most part) of the people of the World, and another sort, sometimes termed a separate, sometimes a gathered Congregation, consisting only (so far as in charity we are able to judge) of persons fearing the Lord in truth and sincerity. The Minister of the one we usually term Parson or Vicar; and the Minister of the other Pastor or Teacher. It is of the latter that in this place he asserts this privilege, but it is with the former only that the Commissioners have to do. Mr Goodwin could himself have solved this doubt without my help. He knoweth, that the Vicar of the Parish Assembly of Stephens Colemanstreet may either be put in or put out, and yet the Pastor of that remnant of sheep (usually assembling in some private house in Colemanstreet) remain in his Pastoral relation still, and neither be put in or out by either of these Commissions. And yet he hath the confidence to speak what he saith, at large, of the people of God in general; whereas 'tis well enough known, that what privilege soever the people of God in gathered Congregations have exercised heretofore in the choosing and retaining of their own spiritual Shepherds, they do still enjoy and exercise with the same Liberty; and those Shepherds of theirs being not at all under the cognisance and examination of the Commissioners, the yeaing and the naying it with them is quirkt in here by Mr Goodwin, to no purpose but to fill up the Page; and so there is the sum of that which he calleth his sixth Argument, though (you see) it amounts to no more but a bold groundless Affirmation.   

ARGUMENT VII.  
THe seventh is just such another. He saith, The Commissioners for Approbation (by him termed the Commission for Tryers) strike at the Civil Rights of Patrons, and all others concerned in presenting, who have a Law-right of presenting men unto Parochial Demesnes, which are called Benefices or Spiritual Promotions. But how can that be, seeing the Ordinance admits the Rights of Patrons and others in this kind? Yes, by a trick that sagacious Master Goodwin hath scented out; for he saith, Thouh Presentations be made by such as have the right to do it, and though the Persons presented be never so deserving, yet they lie at the mercy of the Tryers, whether ever they shall enjoy the Preferments collated upon them, or no. But how comes this about? even by a device of his own forging. For first, he imagineth, (but proveth not a Word) That the Commissioners practice is, to act their power in quarrelling and opposing the Clerk presented; And secondly, By means of their power, in conjunction with their Interest, and subtlety to bring about their ends, they become (effectiuè) the Patrons of all spiritual livings in the Nation These are not all his very words, but the sum and substance of that unmanly scandal, which he calls his seventh Argument, and under the name of an Argument he will needs obtrude it upon the Reader, whereas it is nothing less; for it concerneth an Accuser both in foro externo, and interno, that if he brings in an Accusation of Fact against any man, or number of men, he should produce Instances as an Argument to prove the Accusation, or else he must stand condemned of calumniation, both before the world, and in his own conscience, for want of due proof: But Mr Goodwin brings not so much as one single Instance towards the making of such an Argument; Ergo, He is an errand Calumniator.  
Moreover, if you look a little narrowly into it, you will find this directly contradictory to the two foregoing arguments. In the fifth he pleads, as if it were the Civil Right and Royalty of the People in a Parish to choose. Then in the sixth, he pleads for it, as one of the Spiritual Rights and Privileges of the People of God only to choose. And now again, in this seventh, he forgets both these, and falls stiffly to pleading on the behalf of Patrons, asserting the power of choice to be in them, as a Royal Privilege and matter of Conveniency intended them by the Law, by which means he now thrusts the Rights that he before alleged on the behalf of the other two quite out of the Calendar. Saevis inter se convenit Vrsis, Bears usually agree together, yet these Arguments of his are so wild and savage, that it is not in the power of man to tame them or bring them to consistency and correspondence with each other, so as to apprehend what he intends by either. Only, this is evident, that somewhat he would say against the Commission of Tryers (as he is pleased to term them) and so being in passion cares not what he saith, but utters what makes rather for, than against them. For he acknowledgeth Patrons have a Right; also, that their Right is a Civil legal Right (and upon that account he pretends to defend it against the Commissioners, as violaters of it, though neither their Commission, nor their practice do entrench upon it;) and therefore if by his own Confession it be a Civil Right to choose, then doubtless to examine and judge, whether the man so chosen be fit or no, must needs be a Civil Act; and so the care of examining, and approving accordingly, cannot be denied to the Civil Magistrate now; more than in former times, unless (like your worthy Partner in this Plea, Mr. Postlethwait) you would have no Lawgiver, no Magistrate but Christ in the Commonwealth. Thus you see, by making use of that which Mr. G. himself before confesseth, (viz. that the Right of Presentation stands upon a mere Civil account) it followeth plain, that the Civil Power hath a Right to approve men to those Civil and Temporal (which Mr. G. calleth Spiritual) Demesnes, and that they have done but of what right they ought to do, in entrusting certain persons to act under them, as Commissioners for Approbation.  
But how comes it to pass that Mr. G. is so earnest an Advocate on the behalf of Patrons? By this I perceive, that all the Subjects of the Fifth Monarchy are not of one mind; for his brother Mr. Postlethwait, who hath dipped his Pen likewise against the Triers (so he also calls the Commissioners) is altogether as hot against Patrons, crying out in his 
b Entitled, A Voice from Heaven against the Triers.  Book, page 72, Away with Patrons— those most abominable usurpers; durst Paul and Barnabas exercise such Tyranny, as to impose a Minister upon the People? and he goeth on page 73 thus: Away therefore with these abominable usurpers— Though it be under more restraint now then formerly, this will not salve the matter. What Mr. G. pretends a crime in the Triers, his brother Postlethwait looks upon it as a virtue, and thinks the fault is this, that Patrons are not restrained enough by the Triers, whereas indeed the Triers (so called) do not all straighten Patrons in their Rights, but rather preserve them. However Mr. Postlethwait tells us page 84. he must confess, that at first he was pretty well satisfied with the Ordinance. 'tis true, he was so well satisfied, that he came up and took Approbation from the Commissioners, but afterwards being returned, he, like his brother Goodwin, is blown about to another point in Judgement; And though in Fifth Monarchy-Principles they are the same, and in mutability the same, yet being carried with several winds they vary; for Mr. Postlethwait's next words tells us, he was pretty well satisfied with the Ordinance for the Commissioners sitting, saving that its grounded in part upon the defence of Patron's Rights and Properties. Then saith he, That which satisfied me at first was, that their Commission gives them not power to invest into office; but that will not answer all my scruples now (a very growing man he is in scruples!) for, though they are not to invest into Office, yet they are to take the beginnings of their Proceeding from the Presentation of the Patron, who presents to benefice with Cure of Souls originally; and I know no qualification that is put on his Presentation, but only a care taken to preserve his Right and Property. I cannot but commend this ingenuity of Mr. Postlethwait, which Mr. G. is not willing to imitate. Time was, when Mr. Goodwin used these following words, [The time was I was pretty well satisfied, etc.] which time was just the eighth of Frebruary, 1651. for then you (Sir) and your Elder, Mr. Price, subscribed with others, an humble desire to the Parliament, that two such Ordinances as now you write against, might be established by the Civil Magistrate: But you (Sir) you that have the Staggers in the Brain, it is not for you to remember, or be of one mind long together.  
As to that passage of his before-recited, wherein he saith, the Commissioners are found Patrons (effectiuè) to all the Livings in the Nation, let me add thus much further by way of Answer. 1. Is it likely that his Highness and the Council should so pen an Ordinance, that one part of it should contradict and utterly make avoid another, as Mr. Goodwin's Scribble use to do? This is to let the world know how little he esteems their prudence, and how much his own. But his principal Aim is at the Commissioners; who, he saith, are of Approvers become Patrons; yes, and worse too; for Patrons do not, or should not make a gain of their Presentations. But he dares not speak out; for, his own heart knoweth, he hath not the least pretence for it, yet it seems he could wish it were so, and therefore insinuateth such a baseness, in such Covert terms (which he knows well how to do) as may not amount to a direct charge. Is this a righteous man, who endeavours here to fasten so high and unworthy an Accusation upon the Commissioners? whose known integrity hath extorted another Character concerning them, even from himself, in his Epistle before this very Book, Where he saith, that he believes them to be men of Conscience and worth, fearing God, and lovers of Truth: So that you have waters of Contradiction, bitter and sweet, proceeding from the fame Fountain. And observing this, I resolve to inform myself more fully both from the Ordinance, and by other Inquiries, whether it be possible, that men deserving that high Testimony which he hath given them in his Epistle, should so totally fall from grace, and all ingenuity, as to become such as he makes them in his Book; and this pains I the rather take, that so Mr. G. may appear the more illustrious in his Art of Calumny and self-contradiction. As to what he objects about the Commissioners disposing of Livings, and becoming effectiuè Patrons. 1. Take notice the Ordinance saith no such matter. By it they cannot give Approbation to any person who brings not a Presentation or nomination from a Patron. They give admission to none but it is upon Record, and entered into a Book, with the name of the Patron, the names of those who certify, and the date, etc. Which any man may see that hath a mind to it; and then will be able to say, whether there was ever yet any person put into any Living by them, that was not first presented by the Patron. 2. Observe, If the Person presented be disapproved, it must be by nine, or a greater number; and certainly, for any one Commissioner to compass his end upon such a number, it will not only require great subtlety in him, but great simplicity in the rest, of which crime they seem as yet to stand clear with Mr. Goodwin. But suppose a man should be rejected upon some such design, what are the Commissioners, or any one of them the better for this, if they should have a design to bring a friend in his room? Is it likely the Patron will be so much in love with the Commissioners for this their forwardness in putting by his friend every way worthy, that he will so easily be induced to present a person of their recommending? If he should, certainly he hath little of Mr. goodwin's precious spirit of revenge in him. But Mr. G. saith further, That the Commissioners can put men by, that are presented, toties quoties, until the six months be run out, and the Living lapsed to his Highness; of whom, or from the Lords Commissioners of the great Seal, they will by their Interest obtain the Living for a Friend. But (Mr. G.) can you give Instances of any such practices frequent among them? if you can, it well becomes you to do it. If he could give but one Instance, the world should have heard it loud enough: For can any man that reads this Pamphlet of his, imagine him so much in love with the Commissioners, or so indulgent to their credit, that if he knew any thing this way, he would conceal it for their sakes? Well then, let Mr. Goodwin be Mr. Goodwin, and give me leave to tell the world before his face what I find.— The Commissioners wisely foreseeing what odious necessary work they had undertaken, and how provoking it was like to be to witty unworthy persons, who are able to dress up surmises and jealousies, and in revenge suggest any slander against them that hath but the least colour of Truth, though never so false (I say, the Commissioners foreseeing this) did by joint-consent, among many other Orders, make this; That no Commissioner should endeavour the procuring from his Highness, or from the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, any such Living, for any friend or relation, the vacancy or Lapse whereof hath been occasioned by the insufficiency of a person or persons presented, and refused by them. And I am able with the greatest confidence to affirm, that an Instance cannot be given throughout England or Wales, whereby you can make it appear, that they have not in the greatest severity observed this Order; or that any Commissioner hath, by any such subtlety, or interest, preferred a man since their sitting. He that hath a large Phantasy, and a large Conscience, may irrecoverably wrong the innocentest person in the World.  
Then, whereas he talks (like himself) of the Commissioners receiving the Tribute of thanks and acknowledgement due to Patrons (if no base metal withal) from those whom (as he pretends) they so prefer; He thereby insinuateth and tempts men to believe what he hath not the least ground to assert, namely, that they have not only wrested Patrons Rights out of their hands, but do dispose of them in a way of gain to themselves. By the words [Base Metal] he would give men occasion to suspect, that they receive metal or money in the base way of Bribery; yet in his Epistle he terms them men of Conscience and worth, fearing God. Certainly, this man hath strange Notions, as in other Points, so about the nature of Conscience, and the Fear of God; but if he mean to have himself so thought and judged of in such dealings as these, he had need lend us some other Notion of a Conscionable man fearing God, then as yet we have commonly received. I am sure, if he had but the Conscience of a Moral Man; that is, if he thought it just and honest to prove or give Instances when he accuseth, he would not thus voluntarily have given himself up to his service (with whom he deserves to share in Title) who is indeed the Grand Accuser, nor have sacrificed his Pen a weapon of unrighteousness, as he doth in every page of his Book.   

ARGUMENT VIII.  
THe sum of the eighth is this, 
Mr. G. his eighth Argument.  That in the days of Prelacy when the Bishops were Tryers, if they upon a corrupt or illegal pretence, refused to admit any presented to them, there lay a Quare impedit against them for remedy in Law; but the Commissioners (he saith) have power now, Beyond the Bishops, and above all Law. But how doth he make this out? not with any rational Evidence, but clothes his irrational Insinuations in Scripture-phrase, in hope to make them take the more plausibly, and sink the deeper. In their proceedings (saith he) they esteem all Laws as Leviathan esteems Iron and Brass, who esteemeth Iron as Straw, and Brass as rotten wood. This is baiting the hook with Leviathan to catch a Gudgeon, making a great deal ado to little purpose. For first, there is no use now of the Old Law concerning the Quare impedit, the Reason of it being gone: For, it was the practice of the Bishops heretofore, when a Clerk had been presented to any of them by a Patron, many times to deny him Institution and Induction, and then use sleights to baffle off both the Clerk and his Patron from time to time, that so the time wherein the Patron was to present being Lapsed, the power of Presentation might fall into the Bishops own hands (as by Law it was to do in case of a Lapse) by which means Patrons came to be defeated of their Rights, and the Bishops gained thereby an opportunity to prefer their own Chaplains and creatures into livings: For remedy of this abuse it was, that the Quare impedit was appointed. But now there is no such occasion for the use of it against the present Commissioners, because they have no power to act the same abuse; for in case they reject a man that is presented, the Patron may present another; and in case it shall happen at any time through his own default, that the Presentation be Lapsed, the Commissioners have no power to place another in the living, but the Presentation upon a Lapse devolveth of course into the hands of the Lord Protector. Moreover, he forgets that the Commissioners act by an Ordinance, which at first was equivalent to a Law, and is now become a Law, in the formality of Law, and how then can they be said to be above Law? Besides, he doth not consider, That this Law, called the Ordinance, is much more suitable to the Gospel, because it makes a more Gospel-like and strict provision for the trying of Persons, then former Laws did, such persons having heretofore a greater Indulgence by Law, in respect of the Qualifications required to be in them for undertaking the Ministry, and the Bishops accordingly had a greater latitude of power, as well as Conscience, to give them an easy approbation and admittance to the work of the Gospel; and that was the reason why the Benefices of this Nation became so well stocked with numbers of strange licentious and scandalous Ministers, most of which (if not all) were of Mr goodwin's own Heterodox opinion against the great truths of Gods electing love in Christ, and the Saints perseverance, and held the other contrary coincident Fantasies, which necessitate the Owners in order to the maintaining of them, to torment and subvert the whole Analogy of Scripture. If Mr Goodwin were the pious man indeed that he would be thought to be, he would rather bless God and commend our Governors, who have taken such an especial care by the two Ordinances, that the Rules therein being observed, such brute Beasts cannot enter the Lord's Vineyard in time to come, and that if any should (by accident) enter, they may soon be ejected. But alas, his great business is, to propagate his own opinion, and because some of the Sons of the womb thereof have been brought to the very birth of Preferment, yet have not had strength enough to get abroad into possession, and so have run and complained to him who hath ambition enough to be thought their Father, (though forsooth himself be, like them, but a mere Brat of Arminius, as he was of the more ancient Heretics) it is for the sakes of these Sons of his, that his bowels are moved, especially his Spleen, the dark vapours whereof have so obscured the light of his Conscience and Understanding, that he seeth not the necessity, the equity, and piety of the two Ordinances, which provide against a return of the like men of Belial into the work of the Gospel; and the sharp humours which proceed from an overflowing of the Gall, have so raised his passions, that the use of Reason being lost in the storm, it is the less wonder to see him quite out of all Mood and Figure, foisting out Fictions and Calumnies against his Brethren, and then by virtue of his own reverend Fatherhood imposing them as infallible Arguments upon the belief of the World.  
But he (it seems) is as bold as Leviathan, and having a Brow of Brass, it is he that counts the present Authority and Laws but as straw and rotten wood before him. And (if we may with the good leave of his Fatherhood make a better use of his own Scripture-expressions;) He it is that, with the wild Ass in Jeremy, 
Mr. G. his own expression.  being used to the wilderness, snuffs up the wind at pleasure, and fears not in his reviling occasions to be turned away by any man: But for matter of Argument, as a tame Ass you may easily take him. The Reader must pardon this Levity, if I use it a little now and then; it is borrowed from him out of his Book; and indeed there can no suitable Reply be made to him without it, who in stead of Argument, spends the main of this Paragraph in Quips and Taunts against the Commissioners, calling them A rule-less, lawless, controlless generation of men, the like whereof were never set over the Lord's people in this Nation; And the Commission he terms the like insufferable yoke about the necks of the Freeborn people. And all this (forsooth) he vomits up against the present Authority, because they have given Rules and Directions by a Law to prove men whether they be sound in the Faith, before they be sent to preach the Faith; and against the Commissioners because they act under them to the same purpose, and take care to do that which Paul commanded Timothy, which was, To commit the Word of the Gospel to faithful men; and to follow the counsel of John in refusing such as are false Teachers, and not bidding them God speed by giving them Approbation. How then are these so lawless, who have the Law of God and man to direct and justify them? Never was a pious public work so impiously and shamefully traduced by any man who had the least face of Christianity. And what is the reason of all this barking and snarling? even for no other reason, but because some of the same Litter with himself have been denied the State-maintenance, and not permitted to hunt for the precious souls of men, at the charges and expense of the Public Hinc illae lachrymae. This you shall see him as good as confessing by and by: But enough of it at present.   

ARGUMENT IX.  
THe next he calls his Ninth Argument, 
Mr. G. his Ninth Argument.  which I wonder we had not hint of in his painting the porch of his Title-page; for, there he makes Proclamation of no other but Arguments in Religion and Reason; but here now the man is more liberal than his word, and out of the riches of an overflowing fantasy, hath been so bountiful (after long experience in affairs of State) as to open his Pack and Pedlery of Politics, to furnish out an Argument in Policy for the better instruction of the present Authority: So that though he do only wrong and abuse them in other places, yet in this he abuseth them and endeavours to make them amends both together. For, he tells them, Where there are great numbers of men in a State, of real worth for Piety on the one hand, and for choiceness of Parts on the other hand, who are divided in Judgement about many great Questions and Controversies in Religion; it is broadly contrary to all approved Principles of state-policy, to set up and arm one of those Parties with power and authority to judge and sentence the other, and this without all remedy or relief, either by Appeal or otherwise; seeing that such a course as this directly tends to beget a spirit of insolency, extravagancy, and oppression in the party thus advanced and impower'd, and on the other side a spirit of discontent, disaffection, etc.  
O most Oraculous! The State is bound to give you thanks (Sir) and have reason to consider your Political wisdom and deservings. In the mean time, I that am their Servant shall give you part of your payment. That there are in this Nation men of various Judgements in divers Points, who are eminent for Parts and Piety, we grant; and it is no little part of our glory that we have such; but 'tis much of sorrow, that Mr. G. seems not to be of the number. Those Parts which he hath, he hath endeavoured to show them to the utmost in the holstering up of that unhappy Controversy, for which he is ambitious to be known. Some men have an itching pride to leave themselves a name famous upon Record, though with infamy: This set a Fellow on work to fire the renowned Temple of Diana; and this only humour hath (I verily believe) stirred up many a vain Heretic to kindle and blow a fire of Controversy in the Church. Far be it from us to think that Mr. G. is so itchy; yet in all the Ink that he hath scratched and scribbled with about that Question, or any other, Ostentation is one of the principal Ingredients; upon which Account I have observed, when many a man hath been engaged, that it hath drawn a cloud over his Intellectuals, so that being in the dark, Reason hath been soon led Captive out of the right way by an active and victorious Phantasy, which easily enforceth any thing that offers itself (though it be but to build, or maintain an Interest) upon the Understanding. An Intellect that is bribed with Interest, will go far to own and uphold a matter even against Conscience; but yet there is hope such a one may be rectified, when Interest altereth in such a manner, that the man's ends may as well be served by owning the Truth; and upon this account many a Heretic hath of himself renounced his Error, and embraced the Truth. But when an Intellect is once baffled, subdued, and (as it were) enslaved to a lofty, luxuriant, Lordly Phantasy, then in such a Phantasy it is that Satan erects his throne, rules and reigns there; then there is never any taking the man off by all the offers that can be made either of Reason or Advantage: Nothing less than the mighty power of the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, can rescue such a man out of the power of darkness, and restore him to a right Apprehension. By the one, or the other of those two ways it is, (viz. either by Satan's bribing the Intellect with Interest, or by his seating himself upon a towering Phantasy to control and befool the Intellectual Faculty) that all the Heretics in the world have been made. I shall not apply this to Mr. G. nor judge him so far as to fasten the odious name of Heretic upon him: But this I will take leave to acknowledge as his due, (because all his Works do manifest it) that he is a man of a working, capering, stately Phantasy; and so the best of his Parts lying therein, he might (as we find by this Piece of his) have made a notable Poet, or a Painter: But, as a good Poet and a good Divine, a good Poet and a good Logician, a good Poet and a good Statesman do very seldom meet in one, (because in every Profession where the use of a sober Reason is requisite, the more sober and solid it will be, if the Phantasy be the less brisk and frisking to disturb it) so Mr. G. hath verified this abundantly throughout his present discourse: The luxuriancie of a flourishing Phantasy manifested in the dress and super-abundance of his Fictions, do show him to be a ready Poet and Painter both; but for a Divine, as to sound knowledge in affairs respecting Religion and the Gospel; and for a Logician, as to matter of Reason and Argumentation, you may perceive already by what is past, I have no reason to allow him: And now being to see how he will play his part in the Politics as a Statesman, I fear I shall find but playing-work, as little of Reason & Religion in this his 9th Arg. as in any of the other; and that his grey head, though powdered by Time, is as poetical and fantastical as any young Boy's in the Town. Thus having rambled a little in a digression, 'tis high time to return to the matter, in hope the Phantsiful man (who was not wont to be long of an opinion) is not yet so desperately given to Opiniastrie, but that he may be brought to see and retract his Errors.— 'Tis well (I say) that we have in this Nation so many pious and able men, though differing in some Points from each other: But what have they in Authority done to make one Part Judges over the other? Can any man in his senses infer, That because the Commissioners are vested with a power to examine and try whether men be fitly qualified for the work of the public Ministry before they enter upon it, therefore they are made Judges over all men of parts and piety in the Nation that are not of the same Judgement with them? This Charge stretcheth wide, and with a great noise, because 'tis empty; for, it is only those particular men's Gifts and Graces that they are Commissionated to inquire into, who come to them, in order to that public Maintenance which the Magistrate and the Law alloweth; and they neither have, nor do they assume any power to refuse men because of the several ways and forms wherein they walk, or because of their Opinions, provided they in their ways be not licentious nor disorderly, nor their Opinions contrary to Faith and sound Doctrine; of which certainly 'tis but reason that the Magistrate, or those men whom he thinks fit to trust for the purpose, should be Judges, that he in conscience may be satisfied either mediately or immediately, of the Fitness of those men, before he give them his Maintenance. Moreover, lest it should be thought that the way to this Maintenance should not be open to any but men of some one particular persuasion or form, one would think the very Tenor of the former Constitution of Government, and of the present, might serve to stop the mouth of Mr. G. it being apparent both in the one and the other, that an equal regard was and is had to all the people of God under different persuasions and several forms: And as this hath been, and is the scope of the Government in general, so particularly in those two Businesses of Approbation and Ejection, to the end that no partiality may be used in the execution of either, towards any man, in any kind, because of his private Opinion, (if it be not destructive to this Public, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the great and glorious Truths therein contained) or because of the Form under which he walks, so special a regard hath been had in the choice of the Commissioners, that pious, sober and learned men of several ways and persuasions are taken into the number, who being entrusted to execute the Ordinances, are so balanced in this respect among themselves, that it were absurd to imagine they should agree to design an inthroning of any one Way or Opinion, for the oppressing of all the other; or that any pious and sober man of sufficient parts, who comes to them, should suffer because of his particular Way or Opinion. And that this is the truth of the matter, any one may be satisfied that will but consider the quality, constitution, and constant practice of the Commissioners. And in the next place, whereas he suggests that there is no remedy by way of Appeal against them, in case they should abuse their power, He himself by his own experience knows knows the contrary, having not long ago made an Appeal upon such a pretence against the Commissioners, on the behalf of another, to his Highness the Lord Protector, before whom the Appeal was admitted, and the Business heard.  
Besides, in this Accusation touching Non-Appeal, he doth not only gainsay what his own doings, but also what his own sayings do confirm; and there is neither of these but are as dear to him (except Revenge) as any thing in the world. And yet he is pleased to contradict himself also in refeence to this particular. For, he who is so audacious here, as to say men are without remedy or relief either by Appeal or otherwise, hath forgotten what he affirms in other places of his Book, where he acknowledgeth such a Power in being, as may, and (if it be faithful) will relieve such as may have occasion to appeal. Cases of Appeal to a higher Power are occasioned, in respect either of misinterpreting the Law, or of maladministration, though the mind of the Law be rightly understood: Now, if so be it shall fall out, that wrong be done to any by wresting the sense of the Ordinances, then, as himself hath said (pag. 4.) in plain terms, Those who are in Authority have power to declare the sense of either Commission, Viz. Of either Ordinance: And on the other side, if the Commissioners shall behave themselves otherwise than they ought in the administration or execution of the Ordinances; He tells us in his page 20. The Commissioners are (its greatly feared) more than connived at, by those who have power to restrain them from their evil. If by his own confession there be a power to whom application may be made in case of misinterpretation of the Ordinances, or in case of mis-behaviour to restrain the Commissioners from evil, pray you then what can be wanting to a remedy by appeal against them? Both these Particulars are you see now in terminis acknowledged by this miserable, self condemned creature; so that I cannot but propose him to the World, especially to those who are in Authority, as a Subject of Pity, rather than of my Triumph, or their displeasure. Thus you see what his Politics amount to, his Political advice being of the same nature with his Theological Discourse, the one running upon false Suppositions concerning Gospel-verity, the other being grounded upon Suppositions of Scandal which he takes a privilege at pleasure to cast upon the Civil Government; which being proved to be false, his Argument in Policy (whereby he is pleased to tell our Governors how impolitic it is for them to do what they never did, nor ever thought to do) is much of the same sort with his other Arguments, (as he calls them) in Religion and Reason.  
Now because by the wisdom and favour of Mr Goodwin, here is an occasion ministered to discuss a point of policy, pray let me have a little leave to lay his high prudence and charity in one balance, and the prudence and bounty of the State in the other, that so I may do him right (as it becomes his Grandeur) by comparing him and our Superiors together. 
A true State of the design and purport of the Ordinance for Approbation.  The State have been pleased to settle and confirm a public maintenance by Law for the public preaching of the Gospel; and because it is not like that a work of so high and heavenly a concernment should take so good an effect as is to be desired and sought for among the people, if so be that a course be not taken to commit it into the hands of faithful and able men, therefore they for the satisfying of their own consciences in discharge of their duty and concern, in Order to the promoting of the work, have thought fit to select a number of men, whom for the opinion they have of their piety, faithfulness and knowledge in the things of God, they conceive they may safely trust with the trying and examining of all persons who desire the State maintenance to support them in that work, whether they have gifts and Parts answerable to the employment; and accordingly they have established that selected number of persons as Commissioners, with a power either to reject men, if they find them not qualified for the work, or if they find they have fit qualifications, then to approve them being presented or recommended, and give them a legal Title, to possess and enjoy all the Rights and Profits which are legally annexed to the places for their maintenance in so good a Work as the Preaching of the Gospel. This on the State's part, so far as concerns their Bounty and Prudence in this particular.— On the other side, let us counterpoise them with the better charity, and discretion of Mr. G. His Charity is seen in this, that he would have the Magistrate without any more ado, to give a public maintenance to any man that offers himself to the work of the Gospel; for if such a course be not to be taken, as is before mentioned, for the approving of men for the work and maintenance, than the consequence is clear in the sense of Mr G. that the Magistrate is bound to maintain them, whatever their Qualifications and Designs be, rather than leave them (as Mr G. hath expressed the matter with much compassion) to the doom of Micaiah, to be fed with the bread of affliction, and water of affliction, or to suffer hunger and cold, and nakedness, and all extremity, if God will not look after them, and provide better than so for them. A tender man (you see) he is, that neither erroneous, ignorant, nor profane persons should want if they will but preach, and that there should be no care at all taken by the Magistrate, but rather that he should distribute his Bread at random, for fear lest pretending Gospelers should be starved out of their designs and projects, usually laid to propagate their own ends and opinions by infecting the people. This is the sum of the charitable part of his Argument. Then, as to the politic and prudential part, whereas he tells us, that as the impowering of the Commissioners is of a manifest tendency to beget in them a spirit of insolency and oppression over other men, so in the party oppressed a spirit of discontent, disaffection, &c: the occasioning whereof he looks on as most impolitic. But certainly, Mr. G. his Politics have very little of Divinity, that in his Commonwealth he would not have the Magistrate discharge his Conscience in respect to the Particular before-expressed; and all (forsooth) because it may work up a supposed spirit of discontent and disaffection among some in the Nation. This profound man may do well rather to consider what it is that is the true Cause why there are so many spirits up abroad, not only of discontent and disaffection, but also of Faction among the People. Have they not been conjured up by men of his own loose temper, that would not allow the Magistrate the least power to make use of his Interest and Authority for the promoting of the Gospel, nor of his own Understanding and Discretion for the ordering of affairs in such a manner as might be for the encouraging of sound Preachers, and the discountenancing of men of corrupt minds, and of airy Fanatic Notions? How many of this sort of Teachers have we lately seen (under pretence of zeal and high devotion) openly sacrificing the Truths of God, and the Affairs of Religion, to serve and advance some small Design, or petty Party, while their Hearers have had their persons in admiration because of advantage, viz. because too many of them thereby came to get well; which others seeing, have stricken in the same way, till the number of the Party increasing, they have been able to let the Magistrate understand by dumb signs, and an active temper, that he ought to remember them in good time, or else he may hazard the high displeasure of a formidable Faction? How often hath the present Authority been put to a stand by such Demagogues, who have abused the Pulpit, and the Ordinances of God, to make them serve their purposes by bidding defiance to all Rule and Authority? And how many are there abroad still upon the same design? and it's not impossible but Mr. G. may strike in among them. Doubtless, he will deserve to be a principal man with them, if he can but perfect what he hath begun, to levelly the Commissioners, and lay the Public Maintenance in Common for all sorts of Stray-cattels to enter, and by that means be enabled to lead the people out of the way, to the disturbance of the Commonwealth, and their own destruction. By this you may apprehend the more than probable effect and tendency of Mr. G. his Charity and Policy; which being laid in the scales with the wisdom and liberality of our Superiors, in reference to the Particular under question, the judicious Reader is left to turn them at his own discretion. Only, for a Farewell, let me have leave to tell Mr. Goodwin, That these and the like Conclusions of his may stand well in tune with the Policy and Principles of his Brother Williams, though indeed Mr. G. hath more policy then to vent them with the same plainness: For, Mr. Roger Williams speaks out with a full mouth in a Book of his printed Anno 1652. pag. 24. I humbly conceive (saith he) that the great duty of the Magistrate as to Spirituals will turn upon these two hinges. 1. In removing the Civil bars, etc. the payment of Tithes, and the maintenance of Ministers, &c 2. In a free and absolute permission of the Consciences of all men in what is merely spiritual; not the very Consciences of the Jews, nor the Consciences of the Turks, or Papists, or Pagan's themselves excepted. By Conscience he doth not mean the Faith a man hath to himself, but a Liberty to profess, and teach others accordingly: And indeed, this is the natural consequence, and the very Fundamental of this Ninth Argument of Mr. Goodwin's; and he may as well close with Mr. Williams in the full latitude of every point: For the same Gentleman in the Book beforementioned, saith, If a world of Arrians deny the Deity of Christ Jesus; if a Manichee his Humane nature; if the Jews deny both, and blasphemously call our Christ a Deceiver; nay, if the mahometans, the Turks prefer their cheating Mahomet before him: What now? must we cry out Blasphemers! Heretics! & c.? Must we run to Cities or Senates, and cry, Help you Magistrates! Or, must we fly up to Heaven by Prayer?— This is a brave Latitude indeed; and there being elbow-room enough, Mr. Goodwin and he must needs shake hands, if he means to maintain this his Ninth Argument. And so I leave them together.   

ARGUMENT X.  
BEing now arrived at the Tenth Argument of this Author, 
Mr. G. his Tenth Argument.  I am come to the main matter, and shall have an occasion to launce the Tumour, and let out all the Corruption which disturbed his Stomach, and that his Head, and caused him to talk idly, as men use to do in great and hot distempers. The sum of the story in short is this; For he speaks out now, and tells us at large why he is so virulent angry at his Highness and the Council, and the Commissioners; even for no other cause, but that neither maintenance nor countenance is like to be given to such as are tainted with his spurious, heterodoxal, pseudo-theological Fantasies. For (saith he) is not the simple professing and owning of those great and important Truths of God, 
Mr. G. his Arminian Tenets.  That Christ died, or gave himself a Ransom for all men; That God reprobated no man under a personal consideration, nor intended so to reprobate any man, from eternity; That he vouchsafeth a sufficiency of means unto all men to repent and be saved; That he vouchsafeth a sufficiency of means unto all men to repent and be saved: That he neither constraineth, nor necessitateth any man to believe, or to be saved; And that those who at present truly believe, may put or thrust away a good Conscience from them, and thereby make shipwreck of their Faith, and perish: Is not (saith he) the professing and owning of these most worthy Truths (with others confederate with them) a Bar against all Spiritual or Ecclesiastic promotion, in the course of the Commissioners proceedings?  
Before I make Reply to the Main, let the Reader observe this by the way; that I cannot admit one thing which he insinuates here in the Conclusion; Viz. That the approving of men by the Commissioners for the Public Maintenance should be reckoned an Ecclesiastical promotion, when as I have already made it evident (and the very nature of the thing speaks out for itself) that it is a mere Civil Act and Provision. But to proceed;  
It is not a Business proper upon the present occasion, to enter upon the disquisition of those Arminian Points by him enumerated; and if there were an occasion, it were but Actum agere, seeing all in a manner that is necessary to be known for the confutation of them may be found in the Works of the late Reverend and Learned Dr Twisse, and of these two Learned, Reverend Doctors, Dr Owen, and Dr Kendal, who yet live, the Honour and Ornaments of the University of Oxford. However, because he hath clothed and presented them here in the plausible phrase of Scripture, thus much may be said in general terms by way of return.  
1. That Christ died, 
Gospel Truths, in opposition to Mr G his Arminian Te●ers.  and gave himself a ransom for All, 'tis true; but than it ought to be understood in a Gospel, not in a Universal sense, as if all men were ransomed into such a State, that they may save themselves if they will. 2. That seeing from all eternity God was pleased to take some (as it were) out of the lump and common mass of Mankind, and design them to become vessels of honour, and leave others as vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, therefore questionless there are a sort of particular persons, whom he never loved in Christ, & so consequently are concluded under a state of Reprobation. 3. That he doth vouchsafe a sufficiency of means to all men to repent, and believe; but not so, that the means should be so far in their own power, that they should be able to believe and repent when it pleaseth themselves. Lastly, That he neither constraineth nor necessitateth any man to believe, or be saved; yet having by the power of his own Spirit so wrought and framed the heart of a man, that it becomes pliant to the purpose of his grace, than the heart is of itself induced and disposed, not constrained to believe, and by the same power of the Spirit is enabled to persevere in believing, being sustained by continual supplies of Grace, (through the Spirit) from Christ, by virtue of the union with him through faith, so that they cannot make shipwreck of Faith and a good Conscience, so far as to perish; forasmuch as being the Sons of God, they are kindly led and conducted by the Spirit of God, and kept by his mighty power to Salvation. Now whereas Mr G. is pleased to understand these great and important Truths, and the other which depend upon them, not in the same genuine sense that the Scriptures hold them forth, but hath set the whole Canon of Scripture upon the Rack to extort another meaning from them than was in all times confessed by the precious Saints of God in all the Churches, I must needs make bold to brand his Tenets upon his own forehead with the black Characteristic Notes of great and most important Errors. Errors indeed they are of the first Magnitude, such as have spawned a numerous brood of most monstrous Anti-scriptural Absurdities into the World, seemingly to support a miserable reputation, by eating out the very bowels of Christian Verity; as appears by Dr Kendal's Answer to that strange Book of his called Redemption Redeemed. But because 'tis very requisite the Reader should have a Taste of them here, I will transcribe some few out of those many consequential Absurdities, which have been collected by the Doctor, and thereupon leave the Reader to judge, whether the Sons of Mr goodwin's delight, whom he hath adopted into the same unhappy Cause and Opinion, aught in reason to be allowed Maintenance or Countenance by any Christians in Authority. Some of the Notions are as followeth. The Places of that Book of his from whence they are cited, I have noted here in the Margin.  


1. That the ordinary Effects, 
Chap. 1. sect. 11. Miserable Absurdities which Mr. G. hath been necessitated to broach to bottles up his Arminian Tenets.  Acts, and Operations in the Sublunary parts, are not so or upon any such terms attributed unto God, but that they have their second Causes also respectively producing them whereunto they may as truly, and perhaps more properly be ascribed than unto God  
2. That Periods of particular Being's are not determined by God.  
3. That Periods of men's lives are not fixed by God. 
Chap. 2. sect. 1.   
4. Christ's actual dying not determined by God. 
Ibid sect 2   
5. Christ's death not necessary for our salvation, 
Chap 2 sect 12.  though upon sundry other accounts. 
ibid.   
6. For acknowledge not properly attributable to God, 
Chap. 3 sect. 1.  otherwise then as hands and eyes.  
7. Knowledge not properly attributable to God. 
Chap. 3. sect. 3   
8. God intends many things, 
Ibid. sect. 7.  which shall never come to pass.  
9 God acts nothing in time. 
Chap 4. sect 23.   
10. God made all things at once, by one act. 
Ibid. sect. 21.   
11. By this Act Peter was made a Believer. 
Sect 18.   
12. This Act was God himself; 
Sect. 17.  yea, all God's actions are nothing really but himself.  
13. Yea▪ 
Chap 16. s. 14.  all things were God himself from Eternity.  
14. That God, 
Chap. 4. sect 8.  if he reprobated any Creature, must needs reprobate himself.  
15. For, 
Chap. 18. sec. 37.  all Creatures were nothing but God from Eternity; according to the most true and common Maxim of Divines, Quicquid in Deo est, Deus est.  
16. Election, 
Chap. 4. sect. 30.  not of Individuals, but of Species.  
17. It was not in God's power to have done more towards the preventing of wicked men's abuse of his gifts, 
Chap. 16. sec. 15.  than he did.  
18. Men not saved are as much obliged to God, 
Chap. 16. sect. ult.  as they should have been in case they had been saved. Then, by consequence, those who are saved, owe him no more than they should have done had they been damned.  
19 For, 
Ibid.  God doth as much to render the means of Grace effectual to those that perish, as it is possible for him to do.  
20. The Doctrine of Apostasy more comfotable than that of Perseverance.  
21. Such Doctrines as these, All men without exception shall be saved, whether they believe or not. No man shall be punished for any sin whatsoever, either in this world, or that to come. Men are as much approved of God in the committing of the greatest sin, 
Chap 9 sect 16.  as in the performance of the greatest duty. Such Doctrines (saith Mr. Goodwin) as these are much more sweet and comfortable in respect of their frame, constitution, and import, that that which affirms a necessity of the Saints perseverance.  
22. Yea (saith Mr. Goodwin) which is yet more. 
Chap. 13. sec. 33  I verily believe▪ that in case any such unchangeableness of God's love were to be found in, or could be regularly deduced from the Scriptures, it were a just ground to any considering man to question their Authority, and whether they were from God, or no.    
Other stuff there is; but I am weary of it. How do you like the man now? Hath he not drawn his own picture with most lovely lines and features? When a man is once out of the way, see how he runs out of one By-path into another, before he comes to the end of his rambling! These are Doctrines that would make a tender Conscience melt, and tremble at hearing them. No wonder then if the Commissioners be startled, and think it concerns them to do what Mr. G. chargeth upon them here in this Argument of his as a Crime; which is (as he is pleased to express it) to dive as far and as deep as they know, into the Judgements of those that come before them, to discover whether there be not some Touch or Tincture (at least) of some propension of Judgement towards those Opinions; those Opinions, I say, which draw such a horrible Train of Absurdities after them, as directly tend to the utter subverting of the Doctrine of the Gospel.  
But Mr. G. saith, The Commissioners lay snares and stumbling Blocks in the way of the Young men of these Opinions, because when they come before them to be examined, they are put to this Dilemma either to lose the hopes of their Preferment, or get through by dissembling their Opinions; As many of them have done, if their own Boastings may be credited; They will tell you of many throughout England, and more than two or three now in London, that have gone through this Test. By such dissimulation it must needs be, or else the Commissioners deserve not to be blamed by you for being so over-strict. But what do you infer from this wild Assertion? even as wild a Conclusion. Ergo, It is unchristian for the Commissioners to sift them touching those Opinions: And they (forsooth) who lay such a stumbling-block as this in the way of their Brethren will not (he saith) escape the revenging hand of God more than Balaam did, who taught Balack to cast a stumbling block before the Children of Israel. This is like leaping over Blocks, and a running over Hedge and Ditch in matter of Argumentation, as if Balaam were alive again and had bewitched him: Certainly if Balaam's Beast should revive, and recover the use of his Tongue, he would frame somewhat more like an Argument than this, or else he would deserve his Master's cudgel. But these things we must pardon; for the old Man-and-Boy is very angry on the behalf of those his Sons, whom he hath begotten through his perverting of the Gospel. And so I leave him, passing on to the Eleventh Argument.   

ARGUMENT XI.  
I Find him here too continuing in his angry fit; 
Mr. G. his eleventh Argument.  yet the same good nature of his that was pleased a little before to furnish us with some of his deep speculations in state-policy, hath condescended likewise to acquaint us with a point of Christian Policy, that (as he thinks) may be of high concernment; but I fear he will upon Examination be found as errand a Pedlar in this kind of Politics as in the former. He saith, According to the best Principles of Christian Policy, such men who are like to thrust the best of those back from working in the Lord's Harvest, whom the Lord of the Harvest thrusts forward to his work there, are not to be invested with any such power and authority by which they shall be enabled to do such d●s-service both unto God and men. But such are the persons, at least the far greater part of them (and such they were before their Intrustment) who by the Commissions aforesaid, are made the authorized Judges of the judgements of all the public Ministers of the Nation, though they are and were (in respect of their Spirit, Principles, and Tenets) not only like to presume and undertake to prescribe unto God and Jesus Christ, who, and what manner of Persons, they should do well to employ in the public Ministry, and again▪ who and what manner of persons, it would be expedient for them to reject and put by from that employment; but, further, more generally to recommend and order unto them (that I say not, obtrude upon them) for the service, men far less competent, than many of those whom they (God I mean, saith he, and the Lord Christ) do recommend daily and providentially send unto them for their Approbation and yet are disallowed and rejected by them.  
Well said Mr. G. If these things be so, they in Authority have great reason to ken you thanks (Sir) for the discovery; but had ill luck they had not so foreseeing a Politician to advise with in the Council, because you (it seems) like a wise Aruspex, are able to make an inspection into the inward parts, and from thence collect a Judgement: You (it seems) could beforehand have acquainted them with the hearts of those whom they chose to be Commissioners, and told them, before the Instrument, what a sort of men they were like to prove. Indeed, it was a mighty oversight, that you were not advised with about the Choice of them; then doubtless the Ordinances or Commissions had been good, and all would have been well, had the Commissioners been of your own grave Opinion and Appointment. In the mean time, the Commissioners are such as are all well known to the people of God throughout the Nations; and if they were not, yet it is Argument enough on their behalf, that they were thought fit to be entrusted by a Prince and his Council, most renowned for piety throughout the Reformed Churches; and it is not the least part of their vindication, that your Greatness hath been pleased to cast so many Revile and Reproaches upon them, which (knowing who, and what you are) they are willing to wear as Garlands and Crowns of honour about their heads.  
But Mr. G. would seem to have some Reason for his displeasure against them, because he saith they take upon them to prescribe unto God and Jesus Christ who and what manner of persons THEY should do well to employ in the work of the Ministry, and whom to reject; and to obtrude others upon THEM, viz upon God, and the Lord Christ, who are less able and fit for this work. This is the sum of the business; wherein I cannot but take notice of the manner of Mr. G. his expression in these words, [God, and the Lord Jesus Christ] They (in the plural) being twice repeated at length, as if he intended some more than ordinary Emphasis thereby. I shall not make a business of it to insist further upon the Expression; nor should I have stood still at it by the way, if any other kind of man had used it: But when I consider who penned it, and how he hath dipped himself in other desperate Opinions and Fantasies, a little matter may give an occasion to fear lest he be ready to take some other new Vagary (being already upon the way) and run over to Arius and Socinus, with the rest of his Brother-Wits, whose ambition it was to have their Names stand upon Record, as the great Masters of Reason in the Mysteries of Religion. But to the business in hand.  
Whereas he saith, The Commissioners prescribe unto God whom he should employ in the work of the Ministry, and whom he should reject, and obtrude others upon him who are less able; he gives us no more for the proof of this than of the rest of his Arguments. The Commissioners are so far from prescribing unto God, that they follow the prescript of God's Word in employing or rejecting men, and make that their Rule, the Rules given them by our Governors in the two Ordinances being all either set down in, or derived from and grounded upon the Word by necessary and undeniable Consequence, as is evident to any man that doth but read the Particulars enumerated in the Ordinances: And you may be sure it is so; otherwise Mr. G. being straightened in his Arguments for want of real and solid matter against the Commissioners and their Commissions, would have taken occasion to enlarge himself upon them all, rather than have recourse (as he hath done all along) to feeble and groundless Allegations of Falsehood and Scandal, to fortify himself in his design against them. But the Commissioners are (he saith) to blame for approving men that are less competent, and disallowing others whom God and Christ do recommend unto them for approbation, and who are more competent for the work of the Gospel. But who are those whom God recommends as more competent? Even those persons, he tells us, who are qualified to teach the just compass and extent of the grace of God in the death and Gospel of his Son. That is to say, those who teach the extent of the grace of God in the death of Christ according to his sense, just as he himself hath calculated it for the Meridian of Coleman-street, yet so as that the Influence of it may (in his conceit) indifferently serve for all the sons of Adam without distinction throughout the world; which is indeed of such an extent and compass, that it will stretch any man's brains, and the whole Scripture too, (as Mr. G. very well knoweth) to bring the grace of God to such a latitude, as that it shall reach to all men alike. They that can do this, are not only men of competent, but reaching Parts and Pates indeed; and a pleasing Doctrine it is to the carnal part of the world, who thereupon presuming that it is in the power of their own Wills to return and repent, and lay hold (at any time when themselves please) upon the grace of God, are by such doctrine encouraged to make use of their young days at their own liberty, and to stretch their Consciences to the full compass and extent of their own lusts, having this comfortable Reserve within their thoughts, That they can leave it off when they are old, and take their own time to think of Christ (having an interest in his death already) and grow better at leisure; and (having the word of so reverend and learned a Preacher as Mr. G. to bear them out) that it must be their own fault, if for all this they do miscarry in the business. This doctrine is of a brave latitude indeed, it including virtually as the Root, all the Fruits of Ungodliness and Unrighteousness that break forth into the world: For, when men grow audacious and continue in the commission of sins, it is generally upon this account, that by some secret suggestion of Satan and their own corrupt hearts, they are induced to flatter themselves thus, that they will mend and do otherwise ere long, thereby posting off repentance from time to time, upon a vain supposition, that Redemption by the blood of Christ is so comprehensive and of such a latitude, that all men are interested therein alike; so that the work being done on Christ's part already, there remains nothing now on their part, but to claim an interest in it, which they can do a year or two, or seven, or twenty, forty years hence, as well as now, seeing there wants nothing but their own good will to the business; and rather than be wanting in that, they can set their Wills on work when they will themselves, unless you can imagine they would be so foolish as to neglect their own salvation, and tumble voluntarily into hell when it is in their own power to avoid it. This is a Doctrine of a rare Extent indeed, that fetcheth all manner of wickednesses (more or less) into the world: It helps to people Bridewell, stock Newgate, and feed Tyborn, under the protection and instruction of the Pens and Pulpits of Mr. G. and those more competent Sons of his whom he baptizeth into that wretched Opinion of the Universal extent of Redemption, (viz. of the Benefits of the death of Christ) to all the world, to wit, every individual person. And therefore certainly, the Magistrate and the Commissioners for Approbation cannot choose but conceive it much concerns them to assign maintenance to men on purpose to propagate it, and the other attendant Fantasies, by preaching for the encouragement, exceeding consolation and conveniency of all the impious, dissolute, and profane persons in the world: Especially Mr. G. having passed his word, that they are Preachers of Gods own recommendation. And so I leave this commendable Argument, passing on to the Twelfth.   

ARGUMENT XII.  
THe Twelfth is nothing else but a Repetition of the Plea on the behalf of Patrons, 
Mr. G. his 12th Argument.  as if he meant meritoriously to purchase their good will towards himself and men of his own opinion. For, saith he, In case a man be Orthodox in the great Doctrines of Universal Atonements by Christ, of Conditional Perseverance, and the rest of the same Band of Association, and a Patron should present such a one to the Commissioners for Approbation, as a man whom in conscience he conceives be aught to present, and that it were unlawful for him to present any man otherwise minded, and hereupon the Commissioners disapprove him; by this means he insinuates, that the Parish comes to suffer prejudice for want of a Minister the space of six months, and at the six month's end the Patron becomes nonsuited of his privilege of Presentation; and so some Favourite of the Times wearing Black, in stead of a Minister, comes to be thrust upon the Parish, or else they must remain spiritually waste and desolate. This is the sum of the Argument, which being put in the balance, is of the same weight with the rest. As for the Doctrine of Universal Atonement, and the rest of the black Guard of Errors which follow it at the heels, it seems to be of the same nature with the Tail of the Dragon, mentioned Rev. 12. which drew down the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. For, more than a third part of those glorious Truths of the Gospel, which shine as so many stars in the eyes of all, except those who are held in chains of interest, or of darkness and delusion, are (so far as Satan's power can prevail) drawn out of the Firmament of the Church, and cast upon the Earth by that corrupt Doctrine, and the whole Train of Consequential Absurdities hanging thereupon. And yet, for the sake of this Doctrine (you see) it is, and because the Magistrate seeth no reason to countenance and maintain it, that all this storm is raised against the Commissioners. Otherwise, we had never heard Mr. G. make a needless Plea on the behalf of Patrons, and such persons and Parishes as have power of Presentation; for they still enjoy that power notwithstanding the Commissioners. But we know he wants matter to fill up the pages, and so any thing shall be foisted in that may be an occasion of saying somewhat, though to no purpose, against the Commissioners. And therefore upon this ground it is, that (wanting other materials) he falls to bespattering them and the present Authority, under pretence of pleading for Patrons and Parishes, whereas there was never yet any such injury done, as might either defeat any Patron of his Right, or prejudice any Parish for want of a Preacher, or force any Favourite in Black upon them. Sir, Be persuaded even to give over this black work of scandalising your Superiors and your Brethren; it would be more suitable for a dying man to exercise himself in some better devotion than to be scribbling thus instead of arguing; and not make good any thing by Instance, or otherwise: You were never right for the Polemical part of Divinity, and never worse than now. 'Tis somewhat too nimble a work for an old man; the gauderies of a little rambling Rhetoric will not serve to dress out such a discourse; and therefore 'twere high time you would end your days with repenting and praying (you have cause and work enough of that nature before you, if you reflect upon what is passed) and not spin out the small Remainder in reproaching yourself and others.   

ARGUMENT XIII.  
MAster G. having in some of his other Arguments, 
Mr G. h●s 13th Argument.  presumed to correct and instruct his and our Superiors, in points of Civil and Christian Policy, (and that very gravely, as he not humbly conceives) he now comes to produce a Maxim of State to convince them of their Error; and it is this, Nulla potentia est fida, si sit nimia, the English whereof is this, That No Power is Trusty, if it be overgreat; he saith, and such, is the Power of the Commissioners, an unlimited exorbitant power, of the same house and lineage with the Papal. But how doth he prove this? even after his usual manner, with a few flashie strains of Oratory to amuse the Reader. 1. He saith, The Pope holds himself infallible. 2. The Lawlessness of the Pope is such, that no man may judge or question him. 3. The Popes assume to themselves plenitudinem potestatis & scientiae; they suffer none to buy or sell (as the Scripture speaks) but only those that wonder after them. There is an eye (saith he) of the same principles, practices, usurpations, in the Spirits and Practices of our Tryers (so he calls the Commissioners.) But where is the proof? 1. He saith, If any one that comes before them shall dispute, or call into question their judgements though never so erronesus, as in the points of Election and Reprobation; the death of Christ, etc.) the door of preferment is shut up against him. This is a stout Argument indeed, and if rightly stated, the force of it would amount to this; The Commissioners cannot approve of men that are of the Goodwinian miserable Foundation-destroying doctrine concerning Election, and Reprobation, etc. nor judge them fit to be owned by the Magistrate in a way of maintenance, according to such Rules as the Magistrate himself hath given them to judge by; Ergo they do as the Pope doth▪ hold themselves to be infallible. A man might from this rather infer this Consequence, That they do not conceive themselves infallible, because they are willing to judge as the Magistrate directs them, and that Mr G conceiveth himself infallible, implying as if the Commissioners were bound to follow his judgement, and make that their Rule whereby to try and approve men, rather than by those Rules and Directions which have been given them by the Magistrate. Here (it seems) lieth the core of all the evil, and the Occasion of all this Rancour, that the Commissioners are not (hujus jurati in verba Magistri) sworn to follow this great Master, and to approve such men as have shaken hands with him in the bearing up of that Un-evangelical Opinion, against God's electing love in Christ, in the behalf whereof, he would compass even Sea and Land to make a Proselyte. 2. Whereas he insinuateth, that the Commissioners are as lawless as the Pope, because none may question or judge of them, and because they will approve of none but those that will wonder after their Learning and Tenets; and though he divides these Particulars under a second and third head, as if they were distinct, and this on purpose to make his Pamphlet swell, yet this short Reply may serve in return to both his hold and frothy Imputations; how is it possible that the Commissioners should be accounted lawless in their proceedings as the Pope is, when as it is known (and Mr. G. himself here hath said it) that the Pope makes himself above all Law and Power that is without himself? and hereupon by virtue of such another Autocrasie, as Mr Goodwin taketh to himself upon all occasions, he proceeds in the same manner as Mr Goodwin constantly doth; what he doth by his Bulls, Mr G. doth by his Pen and Pamphlets, who takes upon him at pleasure to control, censure and defy Acts of the Civil Power, and doth what in him lies by reproaches and scandals almost to Anathematise them, and to dissolve the bond of the Subjects obedience, by rendering the Government odious and contemptible, and to overthrow it by stirring up. Discontents and Factions among the People; and all this forsooth, because he cannot impose upon his Highness and the Council in matter of Faith, so as to make them the public Patrons and Promoters of his private Opinion; if this be not Papal, I know not what is: But now, the Commissioners are so far from imitating him and the Pope, in any of their lawless humours, that they in their proceedings are under the Law and direction of another, Viz. the present Authority, and can do neither more nor less than what the same Authority hath by a Law prescribed them; if they should, Mr G. knows by experience Authority is ready to hear a complaint, and that Law doth not enable them to set men a wondering after their Learning and Tenets; for what Tenets or Opinions soever in points of the lesser importance may be among themselves, they are not to estimate, nor do they measure a Judgement concerning any man according to them, nor do they disapprove any men because of their opinions, provided they be not of the Goodwinian strain beforementioned, Errores in Fundamentalibus, which tend to a rending of that very Foundation which was laid upon the Prophets and Apostles, and a demolishing of the glorious super-structure of all the main truths which are built thereupon. Moreover, there is not the least affinity between the Pope's power and theirs: For the Pope arrogates to himself a power in the Church, under a pretence of being the sole Deputy or Commissioner for the Government of it under Jesus Christ, and thereupon styleth himself his Vicar; but the Commissioners have neither assumed any power to themselves, it being a matter entrusted to them, nor is it derived to them in any such way as from Christ, much less from him in order to Church-Government, but they have received it in trust from the Magistrate, whose Deputies they are, to a civil end and purpose, Viz. to see that the public State-Maintenance, allowed for the Preaching of the Gospel to the people, may be disposed of according to the Magistrates own appointment and direction; in any of which respects there is not the least resemblance betwixt the Pope's transcendent spiritual, and their limited temporal Power; and therefore Mr Goodwin hath not injured them so much as himself, who though his Bishopric be not very large, might a great deal sooner be taken for the Pope (as appears) in all his actings. The rest of this pretended Argument is a mere idle repetition of Scandals, and of other matter already refuted. It's a sad thing to see a man of his garb and grave pretence, so liberal in Aspersions throughout his Pamphlet, and yet not make so much as an Instance to prove any one Particular.   

ARGUMENT XIV.  
THe Fourteenth I find to be only a acquaint piece of Tautology flourished over with a new dress: 
Mr. G. his 14th Argument.  For, abstract the Rhetorical levitieses, and there remains nothing but the same Crambe, which was served up again and again in the First, Third, and Fourth Arguments; and that small Addition which he brings in here as an Auxiliary to the other, doth but help to make him and his design the more ridiculous. For, whereas he tells us again, that the Gospel stands in no need of any Commission or Constitution of humane device and contrivance to carry on the interest of it in the world, but that Christ hath left Rules and Directions in perspicuous terms in the Gospel, sufficient to render the state of the Gospel flourishing and prosperous, so as not to leave so important an affair to the care and management, and contrivance of the Secular Powers; I shall not make repetition of any thing that I have discoursed before to answer this, but refer the Reader to be satisfied at large in the former part of the Book, where I have fully answered his other Arguments relating to this particular. Only I shall examine what he offers more to prove that Christ hath left perspicuous Rules and Directions, in all Circumstances, for the promoting of the Gospel, so as that the Magistrate ought not to devise or contrive any thing in order to the setting forward of that good work. But alas, among all those pretended perspicuous Rules and Directions, his perspicacious eye hath not been able yet to find out and afford us so much as one (which might easily have been done, had there been any such) but in stead of that he brings in a Text by head and shoulders, and offers it as such a Rule. The words are these; 
* Mat. 9 38. Luc. 10. 2.  Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest. Well; but what doth he infer from this? 1. Ergo, Laborers sent or thrust forth, will, with God's ordinary blessing upon their labours, advance the interest of the Gospel among men; else, why did Christ pray for their sending forth? 2. From the words, Pray ye, he inferreth, That Christ prescribed no other (and consequently, according to his sense and scope it must be, that use ought to be made of no other) course or means for the obtaining this high favour from God, but Prayer only.  
For answer to these (after a smile or two, in consideration of the rare ingeny of this reaching Commentator) give me leave to wonder a little at the confidence of the man, that his gravity should have time to trifle thus in so serious a business. 1. As to the first Inference, It is not to be denied, That the sending forth of Laborers, and Gods ordinary blessing upon their labours, will advance the interest of the Gospel among men: But what is this to the point in hand? Surely, it cannot be concluded hence, because Christ would have Laborers sent out, therefore they should not, before they are sent abroad, be tried and examined whether they be fit for so high and blessed a labour or work, for which few among many Pretenders are found sufficient; as Paul said, Who is sufficient for these things? Or that the Magistrate, or any other, ought not to take a convenient course for their Trial and Approbation; but leave all to go that gape for public maintenance, or that in case he should take a course, it ought to be looked upon as an humane invention and contrivance, derogatory to the wisdom of Christ: Till Mr. G. be able rationally to draw such Conclusions as these from that Text, he might have spared the labour of citing it to no purpose. 2. As to his second Inference drawn from the words, Pray ye; it is readily acknowledged, that Prayer is an excellent means to procure that great Blessing of the propagation of the Gospel by the hands of such Laborers as are sent abroad: But is it thence to be concluded, that because Christ in this Text speaks of no other means but Prayer, therefore he recommended Prayer exclusively, so that no other course ought to be taken for the promotion of the Gospel but only Prayer? Mr. G. might as well say, when Christ saith, Pray ye that ye enter not into temptation, that we need only to pray, and do no more, not do so much as to use wisdom and discretion for the avoiding of temptations; 
1 Cor. 9 27.  nor have recourse to S. Paul's remedy, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, for the crucifying of those lusts, or the mortifying of those earthly members, which dispose us to the entertaining of temptations. Prayer is indeed a general means ordained for the procuring of Blessings upon all Occasions: And therefore when he sent forth the Seventy Disciples to preach, and bade them pray for more Labourers in the Lord's vineyard, I suppose Mr. G. will not undertake to prove that Christ's intent therein was, that they should only pray, and not use the least point of industry or discretion (as occasion offered itself) for augmenting the number of Laborers. But till he be able to make that good, I cannot see how we can admit, that Christ's commanding his Disciples to pray upon that occasion, is such an Institution for propagating the Gospel, as that it excludes the use of ordinary prudent means or endeavour (as in other humane actions) on the part of the Magistrate, or any other, upon any occasion whatsoever. Certainly if we are bound to pray that Laborers may be sent forth, it clearly implieth also, that utmost endeavour in all other ways and means should be used, as well as Prayer, for the sending of them forth fitly qualified. And so this Text being rightly improved, makes rather for, than against the care and means which is and aught to be exercised in all Christian Commonwealths in upholding Universities the Schools of the Prophets, Provision of liberal maintenance, that they which so labour, and are worthy, may have their reward, as it is expressed 1 Tim. 5. 18. And that this, or the like course be taken, that such Laborers or Workmen be sent forth, as the Magistrate need not be ashamed of, and so ably dividing the Word of Truth, that themselves need not be ashamed; according as it is expressed by the Apostle, 2 Tim. 2. 15. Unless perhaps Mr. G. will say, that we may pray for a thing, and yet use no other means to attain it. But if he have not forgotten all his School-boy-Learning, there is a Fable in Aesop that will better instruct him, where the discourse between Jupiter and the Carter will show him, that if the wain be in the ditch, 'tis in vain for the Carter to lie on his back, and pray for help, without setting his shoulder to the work of heaving it out. Wheresoever God directs man to the pursuing of an end, it is ever implied that man ought to use all means which in right reason are conducible, if he will attain thereto. Mr. G. is the first man I have heard of that scruples at this matter; this Sovereign Penman, or absolute Pen-and-Inkhorn-Prince, may presume to do any thing in print. But if ever he appear in print again, he may do well to set out his new Art of Logic, that the world may not want an Instrument to fetch any thing from Scripture, and make lucky Conclusions.  
In the mean time, as if he thought this Text would but little avail him against the present Authority and their Commissioners, he hath recourse again to his old refuge, and raiseth a new Battery of Slander to shoot his bitter arrows at them; saying, They are so far from being Co-workers with God in thrusting forth Laborers, that they are rather Counterworkers, thrusting those back whom God thrusts forward, and thrusting loiterers and unworthy men upon him in their stead. Here are the Plague-tokens of Envy; but where is the Proof? Alas, that is reserved for some other season; in the mean time it serves his turn well enough to chime and jingle upon these words, Co-workers and Counterworkers, thrusting forward and thrusting backward, in and out, Laborers and Loiterers; knicking and knacking it with such kind of Knacks and Play-games as make a rattling noise in Rhetoric, to please childish fancy; but what are these things to men of solidity and sobriety, that would inform their understandings? But 'tis all one with him; he is every jot as light and toyish also in managing matter of Argument. And this appears by his trifling with another Scripture, which he hath drawn in (I know not how) to prove, that Christ hath left Rules enough of such a nature, as there needs no help of any prudence to promote the preaching of the Gospel. But what, trow ye, is the proof? Even such another Text, save only it makes less (if that were possible) to his purpose than the former. It is Luk. 12. 49. I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled? This, he tells us, signifieth, that Christ desired nothing in this world (at least comparatively) before his departure from it, but only to see that fire kindled which he came to send on the earth, that is, to see the Gospel (as it were) to have gotten footing, and taken some hold in the world. Well; admit this be the right interpretation, what doth he infer from it? Ergo, doubtless the Lord Christ, who was desirous to see this, was solicitous and provident enough by himself, or by his Apostles (at least) to order and enjoin all things necessary or meet, for the spreading of the Gospel, upon terms of the best advantage after him, and not to leave so important an affair to the care and contrivance of the Secular Powers. Doubtless, while Christ and his Apostles were upon the earth, they neglected not to order things which were then necessary and meet for the then spreading of the Gospel. So much of Inference may be admitted: But Mr. G. stretcheth it further, and inferreth from this Text what it never intended to import. His Argument stands thus: Christ's great desire was, while he was on earth, to see the fire of the Gospel kindled; Ergo, He by himself, or his Apostles, laid down such Rules and Directions so full in all circumstances, that the Magistrate hath no liberty left to use his discretion for the kindling or promoting of it (upon any occasion) in After-Ages. I shall not now resume the debate whether there are such large Rules and Directions to be found, or whether the Magistrate may exert his Civil power and wisdom, to settle any Course upon a Civil Account for the publication of the Gospel, (the former part of this Discourse having sufficiently cleared the Truth already concerning those Particulars;) but the matter under question here is this, whether from such an Antecedent as this, That Christ desired to see the Gospel take footing while he lived, any such Consequence as this do naturally & clearly follow; Therefore he by himself, or his Apostles, left such universal Rules to promote it, as exclude all endeavour and care of the Magistrate from assisting thereunto in succeeding times and generations. It must be a rare Logical Engine that can serve in such a Consequence without the mighty help of Mr. G. who seems to have an extraordinary faculty of tormenting his own Brains, and the Scripture, to bring about shadowy pretences of Reason and Religion, to cover the peevish designs and odd purposes of an angry spleen.  
But he goeth on to tell us, Experience hath manifested in all Ages, that for men, whoever they be, to compound the wisdom, counsels, and institutions of Christ, for the advancement of the Gospel in the world with their own devices and Inventions, is the next way to obstruct the course of the Gospel. And yet the professing powers of this world have always had itching desires to be officious unto Christ in this kind, to obtrude upon him their own Projections and Inventions, to accommodate and help him through the world with his worship and Gospel. It is readily granted, that the Civil Powers of the world have been too much engaged in mingling their own Inventions with the Institutions of Christ, and Gospel-worship, which hath been the great hindrance to a progress of the Gospel in the Truth and Power of it. But why is this brought in here to be insinuated against the Civil Powers now in England? and why is such a heap of words erouded in here to encumber the Reader, and countenance the Insinuation? Certainly Mr. Goodwin cannot charge the present Governors for mingling their own Inventions with the Institutions and Worship of Christ. Could he have done it, we should have seen him descending to particulars to prove the charge, and have heard of him in a more lofty tune; but knowing in his Conscience there is no such matter, it serveth his turn well enough, by packing and shuffling a company of words together, thereby slily to cheat, and instill an ill Opinion of the present Authority, into the unwary Reader, as if they compounded their own Inventions with Gospel-worship and Institutions. But take away the Boxes, and then what becomes of the Juggler? Remove the deceptio visus, Viz. the Mist of words from before the eyes of the Reader, and then Mr G. his tricks and slights of Insinuation signify nothing at all to the meanest understanding.  
The Ordinances for Approbation and Ejection made by his Highness and the Council are the present Subject of this bold man's discourse; and therefore we are to suppose his meaning is, that by those they have compounded their own devices with Christ's Institution and worship. If it be so, he might have done well to have shown us wherein they have so done by naming to us some Particulars; in the mean time the very Title and Text of the said Ordinances do evince the contrary, there being not the least 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or tittle that so much as mentioneth any thing concerning any Institution of Christ, or concerning Worship, further than this, that the Ordinance for Approbation, is purposedly directed to the encouraging and preserving of that Institution of Christ which is called Preaching, in the power and purity of it, according to the sense and meaning of Christ and his Apostles; and the Ordinance for ejecting takes especial care, beside other things, to preserve the sincere instituted Gospel-worship free from any humane mixtures or additions whatsoever, by appointing the ejection of persons that frequently use the Common-Prayer-Book, or who are superstitious and Popishly minded; which is a manifest evidence not only of this man's licentious boldness against Authority, but also how much his Highness and the Council abhor the mingling of humane Inventions with the Institutions and Worship of the Gospel; and yet such strange stuff he is fain to make use of to fill up the number fourteen.   

ARGUMENT XV.  
THis pious Pretender having in the former Argument, 
Mr. G. his fifteenth Argument.  begun to give us a proof of his extraordinary faculties, in speaking evil of dignities, now in this takes upon him to dispute the Pedigree of their power, and as if he were possessed with the Ghost of Plato or Aristotle, very sagely determines what is the right constitution of a Commonwealth, and what are the Bonds and Bounds of Civil power.  
To this end he tells us, God in these days doth not make supreme Rulers immediately or by Divine dictate, but mediately by those that are to be ruled and governed by them, Viz. The people; now the people have no power from God, which they can entrust unto their Rulers, either by the Law of Nature, or otherwise, to establish any Rule or Law amongst them, unto which they shall all stand bound every man to believe the same things with another in all points of Christian Religion, or that the judgement of any one man, or number of men amongst them, shall be the Standard unto which all the rest shall conform their judgements in matters of Faith or Worship, or else incur some civil punishment: The reason (saith he) is, because God never gives power to any to enslave or subject the consciences of men in matters appertaining unto himself. And it is not probable, that the People of this Land ever gave their Rulers any such power as that now mentioned, that they might invest any one or more of their Subjects with authority, to mould and form the judgements and consciences of their fellow Subjects in matters of Faith or to inflict any civil Mulct or Punishment, or to set any brand of public Infamy and reproach upon them, as by excluding them as unworthy from places of public Trust, yea from all livelihood and maintenance of which they are capable, because they cannot set their judgements by theirs, or make one lip with them in some controverted points of Christian Religion. Therefore, the Commission, by virtue whereof our Triers sell their Brethren into the hand of poverty and disgrace, only because they will not prostitute their judgements to the lust and ambition of theirs, stands not upon any regular foundation of power or Authority. Here is as the Proverb saith, a great deal of Cry and but little Wool.  
This is the sum of this extravagant Argument. And though the vanity and unreasonableness of the most part of it, be of itself evident enough to any man that hath read my Answers to several of the foregoing Arguments, yet wheresoever he is pleased to Tautologise, I have been willing to imitate and trace him in the mystery of wording, lest perhaps himself, or some others whose Faiths are pinned upon the Sleeve of this great Doctor, should cry out, that divers of the Arguments never had any Answer. Let us on therefore to the business.  
1. Whereas he saith, That not God immediately, but the people mediately do make Rulers; though it be but to little purpose to enter upon such discourse as this now, yet the angry man having thought fit to lug it in here by the ears, mihi Cynthius aurem vellit, I must needs say somewhat which may perhaps sink into the consideration of this Mongrel-Polititian, if it find him in a calm, or out of his Currish humour: And it is this; 
* Touching the truth of this, I refer you to a Book written by myself, entitled The State of the Case of the Commonwealth, Anno 1650. wherein this 〈◊〉 is made evident by all the great Instances out 〈…〉.  That however it hath been talked over and over, and printea a thousand times, that there have been no valià Titles to Government, but what were received from the People; yet from the very first time, that the Government called Political was instituted in the World, it is a most undeniable truth, that in all the considerable Nations which have since been under the Sun, Titles to government, and forms of Government, have in all times been de facto dispensed, and devolved from hand to hand, mediately by the power of the Sword. There are but few, or no exceptions that stand upon record to the contrary; and indeed, the only remarkable Instances which are contrary, are those in sacred Story concerning the State of the people of Israel, whose happiness alone it was, above all the Nations upon the face of the earth, to have persons and Families▪ invested with Title to Government many times, by immediate designation from God himself. But this was extraordinary; and excepting only those extraordinary Instances, I am able otherwise at large to make good the Assertion. But because I live in a touchy time, when most men's brains are crowing upon points of Government, I would by no means be mistaken; and do therefore for the Readers more right apprehending of my purpose, take leave here to distinguish betwixt Title to Government, and Administration of Government. I gladly acknowledge that in all times, after Governments have been founded and established by the sword, than they who held the Sword have been contented, and thought it their best security (as indeed it is) to administer Government by Law, and accordingly they have been willing to admit the People to the exercise of their Right (more or less) in the making of those Laws whereby they were to be governed; and so the superstructure in the Administration of Government by Rulers, hath oftentimes been carried on by their contenting themselves to rule according to such Rules or Laws as have been (in a measure) handed out unto them by the Representative Bodies or Assemblies of the People. This hath frequently been the way, after that Governments and Titles have been set up and founded: But in the setting up or founding of them, the People have ever had but little, or no share; Titles and Forms in their original having the facto been cut out and carved by the Sword all over the world, in the more eminent (and I might say, all) Nations. Which being considered, I suppose this Political point of his lies flat upon the ground, and his Assertion may with better reason be turned this way; That God hath been so far from making Rulers mediately by the People, that having ever assumed to himself the disposing of Governments and Kingdoms to whom he pleaseth, as his great prerogative, he hath, in the several turns and variations of his Providence concerning it, generally so ordered the matter, that the People have (for the most part) had least to do in founding Governments, or in making their own Rulers; but that the only wise God having permitted the Sword many times to be drawn for the executing of his justice upon Nations for their sins and for the bringing about his own great designs in the world, hath mediately by the Sword exercised that his own Prerogative in setting up Governors and Rulers (at his own pleasure) and in founding new Forms of Government, from time to time: And the same God, who hath constantly overruled the management of Affairs in the hands of men after this manner, for bringing things to a new settlement after warlike commotions, hath also so disposed the hearts of men to acquiesce therein, that the Suffrages and Consent of the People have usually ex pest facto been brought and taken in for Confirmation. This hath been the general course of God's providence in ordering the Governments of this World, as is evident both in Profane and Sacred Story. In the mention whereof take notice by the way, that I dispute not the People's right, but only tell how things have gone de facto. What then becomes of Mr. G. his Position, viz. That God makes Supreme Rulers mediately by the People? Though it was to little purpose for him to start this point upon this occasion; yet it was necessary thus much should be returned, to hint to him his error, notwithstanding it be a Subject fitter for a set Discourse, than that it should be touched only by the way.  
2. As the beginning of this Argument is grounded upon a Mistake in Politics; so the remainder of it runs upon a false supposition of Scandal, which is this; That his Highness and the Council have by the Ordinance for Approbation, established a Law, authorising the Judgements of a certain number of men (meaning the Commissioners) among us, to be as the Standard unto which all other men must conform their Judgements in matters of Faith or Worship, or else incur some Civil punishment, by excluding them from places of Public Trust, and from all Livelihood. For answer whereunto, I conceive it is beside the business to debate the Constitution of the present Powers, or what they may do, or what the People may do; but I think it becomes us rather to consider, That his Highness and the Council have not enthroned the Judgements of the Commissioners (as is pretended) so as to enable them to impose them upon men in Points relating unto Christian Faith or Worship. As to matters of Worship, the Commissioners for Approbation meddle not with them at all, save that Common-Prayer men, and men Popishly or Superstitiously affected they reject, to save the Commissioners of Ejection a labour; and I hope Mr. G. is not of opinion that such as they, though they be generally men of his own doctrine, should be allowed a Support by the Magistrate, No persons are debarred or excluded in respect of their several ways and Forms of Worship, but the door of Admission stands open to them all alike. Moreover his Highness and the Council have been so far from setting up the Judgements of the said Commissioners, that They have in the Ordinances prescribed them certain Rules, whereby to limit and regulate their Proceedings; so that whatever their own Judgements in particular may be, yet it is not in their power to refuse any man of any Way, Opinion, or Judgement, provided his Qualifications for Grace, unblameable Conversation, Knowledge and Utterance, have fitted him to preach the Gospel; and provided, his Opinion be not tending to destroy the Fundamentals of the Gospel. These are the Rules that they are tied up to, and they have nothing more to do, but only to examine and judge how near the qualifications of men of all Judgements do come up to those Rules, before they admit them to partake of that Public Support and Maintenance which is allowed by the State.  
The true and full state of the Business is this in short:— The Magistrate hath in his hand a certain Public Revenue settled by Law to promote that good work of Preaching the Gospel to the People. In the disposing thereof he is willing to discharge a good Conscience. This he conceives he cannot better do, than by sending men abroad to be settled in the several Places of his Dominions; And before they be sent, he thinks he ought to be satisfied, that the men, in respect of Grace and Gifts, are fitted for the Work; otherwise how can he in Conscience conceive the Work will go on as it ought? Now, in regard the Magistrate, being taken up with many great Affairs of State, cannot himself possibly take cognisance of great numbers of men, by proving and trying their qualifications; He hereupon makes choice of certain persons whom he conceives every way fit, and whom he believeth he may safely confide in, to undertake on his behalf the business of examining and trying the qualifications of the men. He conceives also it is his duty to prescribe Rules and give Instructions, whereby the persons entrusted should regulate their Judgement and Proceedings, that so he (viz. the Magistrate) may rest satisfied he hath, on his part, taken order what lieth in him to make as sure as may be of entertaining fit and able men to instruct the people under his government. Then, having resolved upon the said Rules, he next thinks of a way how to convey the Trust of Examination and Trial into the hands of the aforesaid persons. This he doth by a special Ordinance or Commission, wherein, beside the conveyance of Trust, the said Rules also directing and limiting the proceedings of the Commissioners are set down, as also the qualifications which he expects all men should have, that seek to enjoy any part of maintenance from him out of the aforesaid Public Revenue. And in case the due qualifications shall be found in any persons who come to the Commissioners upon the Account of that Public Maintenance, They have also a power by their Commission not only to approve of the men as fit to receive and enjoy it, but also to grant unto them Admission by a Public Instrument in writing under a Common Seal appointed by the Magistrate, whereby they are invested with a Legal Title to possess and enjoy that portion of the Public Maintenance which is by Law annexed to the respective Places unto which they are presented for the preaching of the Gospel; and if upon examination they appear not rightly qualified, they are to have no part of the said Maintenance.— Here now you have (sine suco) the whole and the naked Truth of the matter. The Magistrate hath a Public Revenue in his hand to promote the preaching of the Gospel, and he takes care to dispose of it in such a manner as he conceives he may best satisfy his Conscience in the doing of it. Now it seems it is not thought fit, that men grossly corrupted, and boldly asserting the whole Systeme of Mr. G. his rotten Opinions, should have any portion of it; and this is the only ground of all these causeless Calumnies and Imputations by him cast both upon the Magistrate, and the Commissioners, who are but Deputies under the Magistrate in the business. Hence it is that he cries out upon Lording it over men's Judgements, oppressing the Conscience, constraining it in matters of Faith, selling men to poverty and disgrace, because they cannot believe as the Commissioners believe, and I know not how many light Flourishes and Flashes more, which may serve to dress out an envious Declamation, but fall short of the frame and constitution of a serious Argument; this way of Arguing being in all respects a reproach as well to men of Reason as Religion. In a word, the sum of all is reducible to this: The Magistrate takes a care to discharge his Judgement and Conscience in disposing a Livelihood which belongs to him to dispose of; Ergo (saith Mr. Goodwin) he Lords it over other men's Judgements and Consciences, and deprives them of their Livelihood. Here (Sir) lies the stabbing force of your Argument; Pray send this Logic along with the next grand Volume that you dedicate to the University of Cambridge; and let my Apology go along with it, for spending so much Ink here in repetition of Things, which have been explained already over and over, in my Answers to several of the foregoing Arguments: For, I am willing to do as they do who tend children, not rail, but reel up and down (Sir) as you do, and run in and out in Tautology; not that I love or like it, but because so I must do, if I mean to keep you company.  
But before I part with this Argument, I must needs observe one thing more not yet cited, which is this; That he makes the refusing of men who deserve not Approbation, to be equivalent to a Civil Mulct, because thereby they become excluded from places of public Trust in the matter of Preaching; and thereupon makes an Outcry about it, setting the great Engine of his Pen on work to 〈◊〉 it up to the proportion of some great cruelty or oppression. Now I would fain know how this can be called a Civil 〈…〉, when men who deserve not to be trusted, are denied the enjoying of that reward which is annexed to such place of Tr●●●: Give me leave to put a case; suppose that his Highness appoints Commissioners for Inspection, and gives them authority to make a judgement of the fitness of persons perhaps in matter of vigilance, faithfulness, skill in Merchandise, Accounts, and other necessary Qualifications) to be entrusted with a managing the Excise and Customs of the Nation; Suppose likewise, that upon trial and examination of the Persons, the Commissioners do find cause to judge them not fit for such trust or employment; shall the refusing of such persons, and the denying of them that Salary which is annexed to the employment, be said to be an oppression to them, or a civil Mulct and punishment upon them? For my part, I cannot so apprehend it, nor do I believe any man else can, without the help of Mr G. his more than ordinary understanding. Yet this is the very case of the Commissioners for Approbation; they are appointed by his Highness to judge whether men be fit to undertake the public work of preaching; and when upon Trial they find them otherwise, they are to deny them that public Salary or Maintenance which is annexed to that public work or employment, and not to entrust them therein. And now for doing their duty herein, they are said by him to be Inflicters of a Civil Mulct or punishment, lords over men's Consciences, deprivers of livelihood, and I know not what more: Which how he can reasonably infer (as the case really stands) is beyond the reach of my low apprehension.   

ARGUMENT XVI.  
LOoking here for an Argument, 
Mr G. his 16th Argument.  I find not so much as a pretence to it, unless such strains of Rhetoric and Logic as are in use at the University of Belins-gate, may be called Arguments; for he rails against the Commissioners, as men of the same Spirit and Genius with the Spanish Inquisition; yea, that their exercising of the power given them is so like that of the Inquisition, that not milk to milk, nor egg to egg is more like. But how doth he prove this? Even by playing the Tautologer again, repeating in new Terms, what you have before in other, making us take Eggs for our money, an Egg in stead of an Argument; and well may he do it, his Arguments and Eggs being much at the same rate now, and so like to be hereafter.  
In the mean time, whereas he most unworthily scandalizeth the Commissioners, as if they were as dishonourable to our Religion as the Spanish Inquisition, etc. This stands (as do all the rest of his bold Assertions) upon his own Authority: But, if it may be no disparagement to his Greatness, I desire leave to set against this the Opinions both of his Highness and the Parliament.  
First, Of his Highness, who having occasion to declare his judgement both of the work and persons employed in it, and that experience which he had thereof, did in a Speech of his to the Parliament in the Painted Chamber, on Monday Sept. 4. 1654. speak his sense at large: For, reckoning up divers good things provided for by the Government, he adds (among other Particulars) the erecting Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection, 
The Testimony of his Highness touching the Commissioners for Approbation and Ejection.  in these words; It (Viz. the Government) hath endeavoured to put a stop to that heady way of every man making himself a Minister, and a Preacher. It hath endeavoured to settle a way for the approbation of men of Piety and Ability, for the discharge of that Work. And I think I may say, it hath committed that Work to the Trust of Persons both of the Presbyterian and Independent judgement, men of as known Ability, Piety, and Integrity, as I believe any this Nation hath. And I believe also, that in the care they have taken, they have laboured to approve themselves to Christ, the Nation, and their own Consciences. And indeed I think if there be any thing of Quarrel against them, it is (though I stand not here to justify the proceedings of any) I say it is, that they go upon such a Character as the Scripture warranteth, to put men into that great employment; and to approve men for it, who are men that have received gifts from him that ascended up on high, and gave gifts for the work of the Ministry, and for the edifying of the Body of Christ.  
It hath also taken care (we hope) for the expulsion of all those who may be judged any way unfit for this work, who are scandalous, and who are the common scorn and contempt of that Administration.  
To this give me leave also to add the Opinion of the present Honourable House of Parliament, who at the very time that this railing Print of Mr. goodwin's was put forth, and that of purpose (as himself intimateth in his Epistle) and out of design to have prevented their confirming of the two Ordinances of Ejection and Approbation, nevertheless upon debate thought fit to establish the said Ordinances; which is evidence sufficient of their thoughts touching the Business. But what is the judgement of a Prince, or Parliament, to him who looks upon his own judgement as the only Standard?   

ARGUMENT XVII.  
THe seventeenth is nothing else but a mere Allusion to the Parable of Jotham, 
Mr G. his 17th Argument.  and is indeed a mere delusion fobbed upon the Reader instead of an Argument; for if his memory have not taken a nap, he may be pleased to remember there is an old Axiom among the Logicians, Viz. Argumentum Symbolicum non est Argumentativum. But all is one to him; the seventeenth Argument he will have it be, though like a Conjurer he is fain to cast a Figure to make it appear so, that by the help of Figurative and Tropical expressions, he may prove the Commissioners to be the Bramble in Jothams' Parable, who scratch and rend and tear men; and himself and his Sons of Error to be the Cedars of Lebanon, i. e. Men of eminent growth and stature in all Christian worth and excellency, who are devoured by the Fire that comes out of the Bramble-Commissioners. Alas, poor men! Is not this Scene (think you) well laid for an Argument against them? Here is a cunning man indeed, that can gather grapes off Thorns, Figs off Thistles, and Reasons off Brambles, and fetch rational conclusions from a acquaint Collusion of Tropes and Figures. But Mr. G. is so able a Champion, that he dare do any thing to fill up the number seventeen.  
As touching the latter part of this Argument, which speaks of a pretended burden lying upon men, in being necessitated to come up to London from the remotest parts in order to Approbation, he gives me an occasion to answer it more fitly by and by; and therefore it's waved here, because I would not always lead the Reader up and down (as he presumes to do) with needless Repetitions.   

ARGUMENT XVIII.  
HEre he tells us, 
Mr G. his 18th Argument.  There is no considerable Argument yet alleged for the necessity of that establishment of Triers. The reason is, because among pious men there hath been no need of underpropping the Establishment by Arguments, till now that Mr. G. begins to act the Seducer; for when they were first established, it was thought to be done upon this good ground, (which the practice of the Churches in all Ages hath been grounded upon) Viz. That men ought to be tried and approved before they be sent out to preach the Gospel.  
But (saith Mr G.) what reason can there be for any necessity to exchange, or put by such a way or method which is generally known, for another, which besides that it threatens a disturbance and discontent, through the Novelty of it, is not like to prevent those Inconveniences which are sometimes found in the former, unless it be with introducing, or occasioning greater in their stead? For, what if Patron's of Benefices, (whether Parochial Congregations, or single persons 〈◊〉 have sometimes preferred or recommended unworthy men to some of these Places, have not the Triers been no great or greater Delinquents in this kind, than they? Judge ye now, whether Patrens are not beholding to him; whether they are not bound to gratify him who hath undertaken to be their Patron, and whether they ought not in requital, to cast a favourable eye upon the Sons of his Opinion, as occasion offers by the fall of good Benefices: But withal, Patrons ought to be so good-natured as to forget, (as he himself doth) how in other places of this Pamphlet he is pleased to contradict himself and their privilege of Presentation both together. But that is no wonder in the eye of those who are acquainted with the Works of Mr Goodwin.  
Then whereas he insinuateth, That the settlement of the Commissioners is a new way that puts by another which is generally known; the Reader is to consider, that the old way generally known was the way of the Bishops, who when a Patron made presentation of any to a Benefice, had the power of Approbation, and did exercise it by themselves or their Chaplains, before they granted Institution and Induction. This was the old way generally known, and it was not put aside by the present way; but fell of itself many years ago, together with Episcopacy. The Bishops being gone, and there remaining a necessity still for approving men before they enter upon such places of trust, than (as you may see in the foregoing part of this Discourse) the Parliament settled the power of Approbation in the Assembly of Divines or a Committee of them. And the Assembly ceasing, it was exercised by some of their number till the end of the Long Parliament. Afterwards when his Highness came to the Government, He and His Council finding the great want and necessity of some regular way for approving of men, and how much it concerned him to provide betimes, that the public Maintenance which the Law alloweth for promoting the work of the Gospel, should be conferred upon such men as are rightly qualified for the work, that so pious and sound Preachers might (upon the public Account) be planted in the several parts of the Nation: Hereupon it was, that they resolved on the present Establishment of Commissioners for Approbation; which was so far from justling out any old way generally known and used (as Mr. G. pretends) that it came in when there was no good and regular way left for the carrying on of so good a work. What ground then of discontent can any man have, or pretend, upon the pretended putting by of another way? But Mr. Goodwin's Pen is a Quill taken out of his own highflying Phantasy: If he do but fancy a thing (right or wrong) he dares immediately print it to all the world: But would any man do so, that were not inwardly tempted and set on work to create discontents and disturbances in the minds of the weaker persons, and to deceive and draw them in, upon mistakes and falsehoods, to be offended, and become Instruments in crying down an Establishment? such an Establishment for promoting the preaching of the Gospel, as upon a right enquiry into the matter, cannot in the least measure be offensive to any who are truly godly; against which though Cerberus may bark, because he and his Litter are not like to have an 
* Offa Cerbero.  Offa (so much as a Crust) out of the Public Maintenance; yet the gates of Hell will not prevail.  
No, nor yet all the lewd and scandalous Insinuations which Mr. G. hath here packed together. For, though according to his wont liberty he presume to scratch the faces of the Commissioners with a licentious pen, charging them to have preferred persons as unworthy as ever were presented by any Patrons, yet he hath not been able to produce one Instance to make the least proof of so high and general a Charge in any one particular: But that we must suppose to be the modesty of the man, and his great ingenuity to forbear particulars: So he seems to intimate unto us in the following words, whereby he doth as good as confess he hath no matters of Fact to make good the Charge. For (saith he) I always judged it beneath a spirit of ingenuity to hold intelligence with any man for information of the sinister and undue practices of man, or to give encouragement to those who l●ve to be the messengers of such tidings; nor have I kept a Register either in my Pen or Memory of such Stories. A good-natured man indeed▪ He most wisely (according to the old way, Dolus versatur in generalibus) chargeth his Brethren home and heavily in general terms, but is so full of ingenuity as to tell us why he spares the mention of Particulars, even because he hath none that he knows of, either upon record or in memory. If this be not a man of rare Reason and Religion in matter of Argument, let the World judge; or what credit may be given to him now or hereafter, who hath here by his own confession proved himself to be a mere Calumniator; or whether he ought not to be marked in the Front (if it be soft enough for an Impression) with these Capitals, THE GREAT ACCUSER.  
So there is an end of his Eighteen Arguments, which (after the same rate) might as well have been made up Eighteen hundred.   

But for all this he hath not done yet. 
An Objection on the behalf of the Commissioners, star●ed by Mr. G.  He in the next place is so kind as to start an Argument on the behalf of the Commissioners. If it be argued (saith he) on their behalf, that it is neither meet in point of Conscience or Religion, nor yet prudential or safe in point of Policy, that all Patrons, authorised for such by Law, should be suffered to prefer to the work of the Ministry▪ in all places where they have to do, whom; or what manner of persons they please; For, by this means, a great part of the Parochial Congregations in the Land should (in all likelihood) have either Popish, or ignorant, or ungodly, or Malignant persons set over them in the work of the Lord; the sad Consequence whereof is every man's apprehension. This is an Argument indeed; and there is not so much as the shadow of an Argument in all his Book beside: For, most certain it is, that if there be not a settled Course for the proving and approving of persons presented to Benefices, than Patrons may at random put in what manner of men they please, either insufficient, profane, or malignant; and what the issue of that would be, is obvious to any considering man. But Mr. G. brings not this here as an Argument to any good intent; for he hales it in as an Objection against himself, merely to make way for the purgation of some other odd humours, which he calls Answers to this Objection (seven in number) and hath put them to do service in the Rear, in hope they may do somewhat to win the day: But upon examination, they are like to prove as Forlorn as any of the Eighteen Arguments newly defeated, and serve only to render them the more contemptible, by reason of a certain Figure called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, much used by Mr. Goodwin in his way of Rhetorising.  
1. In his First Answer to the foregoing Objection, 
A Survey of the Answers▪ brought by Mr. G. against the Objection raised by himself.  he implicitly acknowledgeth, that it would be a Disease to the Nation, that persons presented to Livings should pass and possess them, without some previous course for Approbation; and in this Answer he implieth likewise, that the way of Approbation is a Remedy; only this present way of Approbation, now established in the hands of the Commissioners, is (as he saith) a Remedy worse than the Disease. As he here implieth, so by and by he openly expresseth himself in the following Answers, that a Power of Approbation may be requisite to rest somewhere, but he would have it be in other hands; the only spite is at the men who are now invested with that power, and for their sakes 'tis that he is so angry, both at the Magistrate, and at the Course which is by him established. All would do well, if these were but out of Commission; partly because Mr. G. himself is none of their number, and more especially because they cannot approve men high in his monstrous Opinions.  
2. This appears further by what he saith in that which he calls the Second Answer, 
A reply to Mr G. his second Answer.  where, like a wise State-mender, he takes upon him magisterially to censure the Actions of his Superiors, telling them, It is no ways necessary either the same Commissioners should be entrusted with the Inspection of the business throughout the whole Nation, or that those who now occupy the places of Commissioners should put no difference between the vile and the precious in their Decrees of Reprobation. As to this latter Arrow shot at the Persons who are Commissioners, I shall make no other Return but this, That it is a vile Scandal against men whom himself hath commended in his Epistle, and who are esteemed precious in the sight of them that fear God in the Land; and it must be ranked among the rest of his unchristian Calumniations; for so now I may safely call them, seeing in the Close of his Eighteenth Argument (as hath been already shown) he as good as confesseth he is not able to make proof of any one particular: And therefore though in the ensuing Answers he takes occasion all along to be spatter the Commissioners, no notice need be taken of it, because being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a self-condemned man, it will be no injury either to him, or the Reader, to dismiss him with this brief Retort of the Proverb, That his Tongue (his Pen) is no slander. As touching his Censure of the present Establishment, he adds, That it would have been much better to have framed the Commission of Triers, according to the Model and Tenor of the Commission of Ejectors, and to have appointed men for that service in each County respectively, by which means the grandeur of their power and authority would not have been so Hyper-Archiepiscopal, so Super-Metropolitan and Roaming as now it is. Here the Reader hath words for his money, and his Highness and the Council have Advice for nothing, from this Hyperphantastical Metropolitan of Bell-Alley, and all the other By-lanes within the Jurisdiction of Coleman. But before I ken him thanks for his Counsel, I must needs give him the Ferula once more for Contradiction, and this within the narrow compass of three lines; one while acknowledging the work of the Commissioners to be a SERVICE, and then immediately talking idly of the grandeur of their power and Authority, which in other places of his Book he in other Terms calleth a Lordship and Dominion. But this being ordinary with him, we must take the less notice of it, and make him some return for his Counsel, it being his opinion, that men should be appointed for that service of Trial and Approbation in each County. I shall not presume to dive into those Reasons which induced his Highness and the Council to settle that Commission as now it is; yet I think I have somewhat to offer that may satisfy any reasonable man.  
First, It is observable, that his Highness having near one half of the Livings in England (one way or other) in his own immediate disposal by Presentation, He seldom bestoweth one of them upon any man whom himself doth not first examine and make Trial of in person; save only that at such times as his great Affairs happen to be more urgent than ordinary, he useth to appoint some other to do it on his behalf: Which is so rare an example of Piety, that the like is not to be found in the Stories of Princes. This Religious Act of his I take leave to mention, because it stands as an Argument against the County-Project, one Reason whereof by him alleged is, That men may be saved the labour of coming to London for Approbation: For, place the Commission where you will, one half of the Ministers must come to London, that they may have a Presentation: Besides, the First-Fruits-Office, where all are to compound, is only in this place.  
Secondly, It 〈◊〉 to consider, whether his Highness can, in the remote parts of the Nation, find out such men as he may judge to be equally qualified for the Work. God be blessed, this Nation abounds with learned and pious Preachers of the Gospel, and so much the more, by reason of the conscientious care and industry of the present Commissioners; but it's to be feared, not a Number of such will be found, who for Parts and Graces may be sufficient to manage a Trust of so high an Importance.  
Thirdly, Admit a sufficient number of such persons can be found in each County, yet his Highness must put them into Commission, upon recommendation made (for the most part) by others: And surely, his Highness cannot repose that confidence in persons recommended by others, as in them, whose Sufficiencies and Qualifications he is acquainted with upon his own knowledge.  
Fourthly, consider whether it be fit, that the Nation should be filled with so many new Commissions, as to have one erected in each County when there is no necessity for it, and when there cannot be much work in a County for Commissioners to do, seeing (take one County with another) there will be hardly above ten persons in a year to be approved in each County, as might be demonstrated by the Books of the First-fruits Office; and whether meeting so seldom, and being to come together to a certain place at an uncertain time (as men die out of their livings) and this from the remotest parts perhaps of the County, it would be considered also, who shall summon them together; and if they do meet, who shall bear their charges, and defraythe other incident expenses, unless you would have a new charge imposed on each County, and the Formality of an Office and necessary Officers erected, to bring a new unnecessary trouble and burden upon the Counties; and all to pleasure Mr G. who seeing no likelihood of bringing the higher Powers to his Bow, applieth himself by his Insinuations, to the People in Counties; and, as if he were to act that part in the Poet (Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo) would move Hell, were it in his power, to overthrow these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉▪ these Hellish Termenters, for so the word imports, and is in his charity a sufficient reward for their faithful endeavours; for were it not for a Zeal in them to be faithful, they have an opportunity to please All, and that without any Concernment or loss to themselves, unless it be of a good Conscience; which is not much to Mr Goodwin, etc. By the Arminian Black Art, they can at their pleasure find that again.  
Fifthly, It would be considered, whether the distributing of Commissions for Approbation in the Counties, would not be a means to occasion that which Mr Goodwin so much chargeth upon the present Commissioners, Viz. Partiality, rather than amend the matter, if any such thing were: For, it is much more probably to be expected in Counties, where the Approvers and those who are to be approved, will be known to one another, and may be either related to, or acquainted with one another, or perhaps be recommended by Friends, and so upon one of these Accounts men may gain an Approbation though they deserve it not; and on the other side, perhaps others who are deserving, may, because of some particular animosities, happen upon that account to be dis-approved. By this means there will be a greater door opened to Partialities and Corruption (if men made Commissioners in Counties should be prone thereto) than can possibly be feared from Commissioners here above; who not being exposed to the same Temptations through Acquaintance, Relation, or otherwise, in respect of the generality of the persons (being strangers) that come to them, as it is not likely they should (if they were corrupt) prove partial towards many, so it is most probable, that wanting the same Inducements which others will be liable to in the Counties, they will not probably run into the like enormities and corruptions.  
Sixthly, It is worthy consideration, whether that which Mr G. hath fastened as a heavy charge (though falsely as I have before proved) upon the present Commissioners, Viz. as if their power were such that no Appeal could be from it, and so no remedy in case they abuse the Power (whether this, I say, which he unrighteously chargeh upon them) would not in effect be so indeed in the hands of County-Commissioners: For here at London, if men think they have injury done at their Trial or Examination, the remedy of Appeal (as Mr G. well knoweth) is ready at hand; but should the power of Approbation be settled in County-Commissioners, it would be a great way about for any person so injured, before he can get remedy, because it would be one tedious work to come up (suppose, as Mr G. doth, from the remotest part of the Land) to complain and make the Appeal; then that being done, the more tedious work would be to fetch the Commissioners up to London to answer the charge exhibited here against them; or else his Highness and the Council must be put to a new trouble to send another Commission into the Country to other persons, to judge the proceedings of those Commissioners, which by the time that the whole round of the business shall be run out from one to another, will induce a sufficient expense (beside trouble) to the party complaining, who by this means, in stead of once coming up hither for Approbation, may happen to have his journey and expenses doubled and trebled upon him. And what (I pray you) would the Consequence be? Would not men (for the most part) be content rather to sit down by the Injury, then put themselves upon such a tedious and expensive Course for remedy?  
And therefore, 7. lastly, it ought to be considered, whether this difficulty of the remedy by Appeal in case of wrong done by the County-Commissioners, would not prove an occasion of making such as might be that way inclined, presume to become the more corrupt and injurious, when they should see that it would be so tedious a matter for men to get remedy against them. Now therefore let the Reader put all these Considerations together in the Balance with one single journey to London, which is so cried out on by Mr G. and then judge whether it be not more tolerable than these, and many other Inconveniences (not here named) which may happen, and which men must hazard, in case the Business here impleaded were entrusted to Commissioners in the Counties.  
But this is not all I have to say in Reply to Mr G. upon this particular of men's making journeys to London. For though he report the matter so, as if they were necessitated to make journeys ordinarily from the remotest parts of the Land; yet this is most certain (and the known daily practice of the Commissioners doth confirm it) that if any man who is presented to a living be weak or poor, or otherwise not able to take a journey without much prejudice, than the Commissioners here are wont to make a special Reference to three or four able and godly Ministers, neighbours in the County, and according to the return made the Commissioners use to determine the business; they having here always by them a Catalogue of the Names of such choice godly Ministers in each County, whom upon occasion they can safely confide in for that purpose.  
But Mr▪ Godwin is (it seems) a most provoked Adversary to the Commissioners; and though in the foregoing part of his Book he hath been very hot against the Exercise of a Power of Approbation, yet now he is willing to forget himself again, and to admit the exercise of it, provided it be any where but in the hands of these Commissioners; and therefore he turns every stone to exasperate all sorts of People against them. One while, he takes upon him to make a Tender of this Power to the gathered Churches; and fearing lest they should not look after it, he in the next place would cast it upon those of the Presbyterian way, as part of amends for all the Injuries he hath done them formerly; and if they should refuse it, he hath a third Reserve, and is willing to bestow it upon the respective Parishes. He is content any thing should be done with the great Trust of Approbation, let it be disposed any how, or any where, so that he may have his will upon these Commissioners, and overthrow the present Establishment made by Authority. These particular Humours of his I come now to manifest in Order.  
Being come to his third Answer to the Objection that was started by himself on the behalf of the business of Approbation, 
A Reply to Mr G. his third Answer.  I find the Answer fall short of satisfaction; for rather than the present Commissioners should be continued, he pleads here now on the behalf of the Churches; and would have the power vested in them, saying, That the work is more proper for them, Viz. The Congregated Churches throughout the Nation, then for a handful of petty Clergymen (as they are called) unto whom alone it is now upon the matter devolved, sitting in one Angle only of the Nation. It is not to be wondered at, that he who dares presume to vilify and dispute the Authority, and the wisdom of his Prince, should so meanly represent Whitehall, the place of his Residence, as to term it an Angle of the Nation. Had not this been given at our Palace at Colemanstreet, surely the Prince's Court could not have been so mean in the thoughts of this Imperial Penman, as to be reputed but a Corner: But thus it must be, in an Age when we will all be Princes; and can he be less who looks upon his Brethren the Commissioners as but a handful of petty Clergymen? But (high and mighty Sir!) be pleased to tell us who among them doth assume the Title of Clergy, or who ever called them so beside yourself? Nor are they all Clergymen (so called) but there are likewise men of the Laity (if for distinction sake I may say so) among them; there are persons, men of honour, and of greatest Trust in Civil affairs; and therefore for shame away with these poor sly Tricks of odious Insinuation, which are foisted in out of a corrupt design to prejudicated the Reader, and are the infallible Evidences of a corrupt heart; and so they must be judged by all the Congregated Churches who have occasion to take notice of this your behaviour.  
But now let us see what he saith here of the Congregated or Gathered Churches. And before I proceed, know, that the intent is not to diminish or detract any thing from the reputation of the Churches, but only to show, by way of Answer, how inconvenient a Thing that would be which he endeavours to fasten upon them.  
1. For proof that it is a work more proper for the Churches to send men abroad to preach the Gospel, he brings in two Texts out of the Acts, 11. 22. and 13. 3, 4. Which Texts do prove no more but that Barnabas in one place singly, in another place jointly with Paul, was sent out by the Church to preach the Gospel. That this de facto was done, it proveth, and doubtless it was well done of the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch so to do: But will Mr. G. from the occasional Acts of those Churches, which they did as Christians, thereupon infer, that no other Christians whatsoever; whether single persons or collective bodies, aught to do so good an act as to send men abroad to preach the Gospel? Will he, because it was a good Deed done by them, conclude, that no other men whatsoever should look upon it as their duty to promote so good a work? Certainly, in those acts which are of Christian concernment in the general, (that is, which all men who profess Christianity are as Christians bound to do) what example soever we find of them either among the Apostles, the primitive Disciples, or the Churches, that example is so far from being to be made a ground to argue we ought not to do the like, that it rather obligeth all Christians in succession of time for ever to imitate the same upon all good opportunities and occasions. And therefore if the preaching of the Gospel, and the advancement of it in the world, be a work which it concerns every man professing Christianity, quatenus a Christian, to promote, then doubtless the Magistrate, being a Christian, is even from the example of those Churches, here alleged by Mr. Goodwin, bound to send, and use all means convenient to send men abroad, by Preaching to publish and promote the Gospel. Give me leave to illustrate this by an Instance. We read 2 Cor. 8. of a liberal Collection made by the Churches of Macedonia for relief of the poor Saints in Judaea: Now, according to Mr. Goodwin's deep way of arguing, it ought to be concluded thence, that because the Churches did it, therefore no particular person or persons whatsoever (whether Magistrates or others) professing Christianity, aught to make a collection or liberal contribution for the relief of poor Christian Professors. The wild Inference would be upon as good a ground from this, as that made by Mr. G. from the other; because the work of endeavouring to augment the number of Christian Professors, and that of relieving poor Professors, are works or duties both alike incumbent upon all Christians in general, quatenus Christians: So that if from the one example he will infer, that none but Gathered Churches ought to approve and send men abroad to preach, I from the other example can as readily and naturally infer, that none but Gathered Churches ought to exercise liberality towards the poor Saints; yea, that no particular man ought to do it, because it was an act of those primitive Churches. And therefore I conceive 'tis more fit and justifiable to conclude, that when we meet with a noble and illustrious example among the Apostles and primitive Churches, if it be of such a thing as concerns Christian practice, i. e. every Christian, so far as in him lieth, in matter of duty, the nobleness of the example of those extraordinary persons should serve to raise and quicken our affections to imitate them, in matters of ordinary duty, rather than permit ourselves to be deluded by Satan, when he suggests that we ought not to follow them, because they have led us the way.— Thus you see what a proper Divinity-Argument he brings to prove, that sending men abroad to preach, is the proper work of the Churches: But till he be able to prove, that it belongs to a Church omni, soli, & semper, his Argument will fall.  
2. The next particulars he produceth are points of Prudence, to prove the said Churches ought to have the power of approving and sending Preachers abroad. One point is this; Because the Churches are more like to be considerate what they should do in this kind, than the sealed Knot of Triers; these all being but a few, and making but one Consistory, and so the whole business of Trying throughout the Nation lying on their hands, they are in no capacity (especially meeting so seldom Consistory-wise, as they do) to allow a meet proportion of time for the regular traversing of matters committed unto them, at least not without constraining many of their Suitors to dance a troublesome Attendance upon them for their dispatch; whereas the Churches being many, the work and business of Trying being disributed among them (as it is like it would be, if it were committed to them) would have leisure to make a due enquiry into matters that should come before them, and this without any tedious or chargeable delay unto the persons. It is not my business to determine who would be most considerate, the said Churches, or others, in the managing of this business; but to consider, whether the way by him propounded for placing the power in the Churches, be in reason likely to answer the end of his Highness and the Council in the carrying on of the work, with such conveniency, for the honour of God, the good of the Commonwealth, and the interest and encouragement of Preachers themselves. Not but that I believe the Churches would to their power discharge a good conscience in the business, and are sufficient both for grace and knowledge to do it; only I conceive, that they are Bodies, both in respect of the manner of their constitution, and divers other respects, not in a capacity meet to answer the Magistrates expectation in the transacting of such an Affair; as I shall manifest by and by. In the mean time, whereas he saith here, the Commissioners are but few, but one Consistory, and that the work lies upon their hands, they not having time to traverse matters, without making Suitors attend long; the Reader is to take notice, that the Commissioners are such a number as Authority hath judged convenient; and if there were need of more, the same hands who placed these, are not so straightened, but that upon occasion they have added, and are ready to add unto their number. Only they are wise otherwise than Mr. Goodwin, and are willing to tread in the steps of ancient prudence, confirmed by the experience of all Ages. But how this point of prudence should be better answered by placing the power in the Churches, I do not understand. Which of them (I pray) shall undertake the business in a County? Or, 1. Admit some one Congregational or gathered Church should have the power, would it not displease all the rest of a County which are not of that Church, or not of the same Opinions with that Church? 2. Whereas you say now, Congregational Churches, than it must belong to them either as Congregational, or as Churches. If as a Congregation, than the power rests well where it is; for, the Commissioners are a Congregation made up of Forty persons at least, and all of them Elders of Churches, or fit for it. If as Churches, then surely, Presbyterial or Parochial, so far as they have the essence of a Church, ought also to be trusted. 3. Besides, it would be considered, whether you would have the whole Body of a gathered Church, or only some part of it to be entrusted with the said power in a County. If you say, some part should have it; then, as it will be displeasing to the other part neglected, so you lose your intent (Sir) because you say it ought to be in, not parts of Churches, but Churches; and to this purpose your before-cited Texts out of the Acts do speak, which you brought to prove that Churches sent Paul and Barnabas to preach the Gospel; for in those Texts it was the Act of whole Bodies of Churches. On the other side then, if you say the whole Body of a Church, or a Church as a Body, should act therein, than I suppose that things being carried in that Body by common Suffrage, the matter will be so far from being mended that way in point of quick dispatch, that delays must needs be more tedious than ever: As for the Commissioners they have their meetings constantly two days in a week, which they find sufficient to do the work, and yet put men to no more attendance than the necessity of the insufficiency and doubtfulness of divers persons doth require. But saith he, how oft the Triers have dashed their feet at these and such like stones, is known unto, and lamented by many. To such unworthy Provocations whereof your Book is full, I make no other Return but this, that you have all along proved yourself a mere Calumniator, never daring to make one Instance (which your sweet spirit of revenge could not have omitted, had you had any thing of Fact, though but upon surmise;) and in the Conclusion of all your Arguments (as hath been declared sufficiently already) you are so ingenuous as to shame the Devil, when you confess you have no particulars of proof, either upon record, or in memory. Which certainly ought to be a lamentation to yourself, when you consider, it being a matter of grief and lamentation to others who have had occasion to observe your demeanour.  
A Third Reason is (he saith) Because the Church Bodies are not accomplished with any such Politic reaches, deep methods, subtle Contrivances for the bringing about of secular Projects, or By-ends, as our Triers are. Still this is matter of scandal against the Commissioners, and little better against the Churches: For, as he calls his own a company of Sheep, so he seems to make all the rest but sheep indeed; representing them as weak heads in the general, and implying that they may have reaches, and methods, and contrivances to bring about by-Ends, as well as the Commissioners, only they have not such deep Reaches and contrivances; which is in effect to say, they may be corrupt as well as the Commissioners, only they have not so much wit as the Commissioners have to bring ends about. Now on the other side, put case that the Commissioners be godly conscientious men (as Mr Goodwin in his Epistle saith they are) and suppose it be admitted (as I have no reason to the contrary) that the Churches also are, for the most part, godly conscientious people, yet certainly Mr Goodwin having declared his opinion, that the Commissioners have the better Brains to manage a business, than I hope the Churches have reason to consider him, and ken him thanks for his kindness, and the Magistrate must needs rest better satisfied to trust a select company of known able and good men, than to commit this business of Approbation to the Churches in general, who though they may have as much good meaning, yet Mr G. saith, they have not so deep a reach as the present Commissioners. Moreover, the Churches (he saith) are not, in respect of their numbers, and complicated variety of Interests and Conditions in their respective Members, very capable of conspiring or combining so much as in the proposal of any undue or unworthy ends to themselves, and so are like to be more sincere and plainhearted in their proceedings. 'Tis like they will not be forward to propose any thing tending to an unworthy end; but on the other side, it ought to be considered, whether that Account which Mr G. hath here given touching their constitution, be not rather an Argument to prove that it will be a hard matter for them to come to any end or Conclusion at all, in convenient time for the dispatching of this Business which himself hath said ought not to take up too much attendance. For, 1. In respect of their numbers, the general Maxim is, That great Bodies move but slowly. 2. In respect of their complicated variety of Interests and Conditions in their respective Members; certain it is, that always according to the variety of men's Interests and Conditions, they come to be variously disposed, they will debate a matter round, and they will too often debate for victory, too often to gratify a friend, too often to gratify a spleen, and too long to do any business, in manner or time convenient as it ought to be; which is sufficiently evident, by the experience of all Ages, where various interests and conditions of men have met in numerous popular Assemblies.  
A fourth Reason is, he saith, Because the Churches being of different judgements touching Discipline and Worship, and some other opinions much controverted and debated among godly, sober, and worthy men in the Nation, may amongst them▪ and this with a full concurrence and consent of their judgements, and without the least regret or check of conscience, accommodate all pious and godly persons, of what judgement soever otherwise, in all their just desires or requests. I am very loath to rip up Sores, because it is to be done in public, and it may more gratify the common Enemy, the Papist, than benefit ourselves; but seeing it is a matter too well known already, I may touch it a little, and shall but lightly. Do we not know how far the minds of men have been from accommodating upon points of Discipline and Worship, and all other Opinions, that though (some of them) religious and sober in all other things, yet they have been at daggers drawing in this? Have not too many in the Churches been drawn out by a misguided zeal, even to the anathematising of their brethren who walk not in the same Churchway with them, about points of Discipline and Worship? And is not the same humour too predominant still among too many? I shall (for Religion and Honour's sake) forbear a running out into the large field of Particulars: But certainly, when it is known, that divers of the Churches have divided among themselves, and broken that unity of the Spirit which ought to be in the Bond of Peace, and this merely upon difference of judgement concerning some Points not Fundamental and that some have proceeded so far, even against their fellow-members in one and the same Church, so as to un-faint one another round, and make a Schism in the Body, it would be a strange thing if the Supreme Magistrate understanding this, and having undertaken the protection of the people of God in general, who walk under several Forms and Persuasions, should venture the Trust of Approbation in so great a latitude as the hands of the gathered Churches throughout England and Wales, seeing the generality of men in Churches are so much disposed to favour men, some one way, some another, according to their various Inclinations, that the measure of Approbation (were the power of it in the Churches) is not like to be taken so often from the proportions of Grace and sound Knowledge of Fundamentals of Faith in men to be approved, as from the correspondence and consent which they may have with this, that, or the other Opinion held by the Majority of those who are to approve them.— But Mr. G. layeth this as a blame upon the Commissioners, saying, that they express wrath against men, because dissenting in Judgement from themselves, and have laced their Consciences so straight, that themselves profess they cannot without sin open the door of entrance into the Ministry to any man, but those whose thoughts are their thoughts, and one judgement with them in matters of Christian faith. This groundless imputation I have wiped off already divers times, upon several occasions given as I passed through his Book; where I have shown, that the Commissioners, by the very constitution of the Ordinance, have no such power, nor do they use any such practice, nor can they if they would, because themselves are men of the various Ways and Persuasions received among us, but agree in this, that they hold fast the Foundation, Fundamental Truths, and reject none but such as hold the contrary, in which number Mr. Goodwin's exploded. Arminian Tenets are justly reckoned: And as it is the glory of the Commissioners, that they profess they cannot approve such as hold them, so it is the sole ground of all his clamour against them. He would muster up men, raise Batteries, and plant his great Guns in all the Pulpits of England, against the GRACE OF GOD, which I may call the Fort-Royal of Christian verity; but not being able to get Commissions for his men, he is fain to play at small game, shooting Paper-pellets and Squibs of Slander in Pamphlets against the said Commissioners, not sparing even his Highness and the Council, for their great love to the Lord Jesus, manifested in so religious a Constitution.  
His fifth and last reason is, Because the Churches are commodiously dispersed throughout the Nation, for persons from all quarters to repair unto one or other of them, witbout the charge or trouble of long journeys; whereas the Triers (whom also he is pleased to term Inquisitors) have their Chamber of Audience fixed some hundreds of miles off from the skirts of the Nation, so that men must make tedious and chargeable journeys to them. Thus you have him playing the Tautologer again; therefore I must send you back to the Answer given him in another place about long journeys, where you will find that care is sufficiently taken to prevent long Journeys; and I have shown, that men would be constrained to endure many far worse inconveniences, and the longest Journeys perhaps over and over, and to little purpose, in case but one Chamber of Audience were settled in a County, much more when he would have as many as there are gathered Churches in every County. Moreover, the same Reasons which I have before alleged against settling the power of Approbation in County-Commissioners, do much more make against settling it in the said Churches in each County: For, is it imaginable, that the generality of Gathered Churches can yield men of Parts and Piety fitted for the work of Trying and Approving, in all respects equal to the persons now employed by his Highness? It would be fit also to consider, whether whole Churches, or parts of Churches; or, there being perhaps many gathered Churches in a County, whether all of them, or some few, or some one of them, or part of all, or few, or some one of them, shall be entrusted; and how either of these can be employed, without displeasing all the rest? If you say all those Churches are to be entrusted; that would breed a most ridiculous confusion in Counties where there are many such Churches; and if some parts of Churches, or only a part of some one Church, than it would be work enough for his Highness and the Council to inform themselves aright who among them all are most fit, and who unfit for the managing of such a Trust: And when all is done, what satisfaction would it be to those of the Presbyterian way, to see only the Gathered Churches, or some part of them only employed, and themselves excluded from a share in so great a Trust, and the men of their way left (as to the matter of Approving or Disapproving) wholly to the disposition of the said Churches? Which certainly ought not to be, seeing Mr. Goodwin hath in his very next Paragraph pleaded on their behalf, as men fit to be made Judges in the matter of Approbation, forgetting (as in other cases he hath done the like) that in this Paragraph he produceth it, as meet only for the said Churches; but 'tis no wonder he should propound contradictory courses in matter of Practice, whose sad hap it is to have his crazy Intellect labouring under the continual distempers of self-contradiction in matter of Reason. But waving this, it would be worthy consideration next (as touching the entrusting of the Churches, whether whole or in part) what certain place they shall meet at, who shall summon them, who shall bear their charges, and defray other incident expenses, how their Records shall be kept, how their Register and other necessary Officers shall be maintained, and by whom; and how other things can be done with convenience, for the conveying of a Legal title to Preachers, in those Livings to which they are presented, in so secure and regular a course of proceeding, as is observed by the present Commissioners? And what if a Church break to pieces? And what shall be done with the Records of such an Office?— But by this time, I suppose the Reader hath enough of Mr. Goodwin's Five Reasons, wherefore he would have the power of Approbation settled in the Gathered Churches of the several Counties; and so by my foregoing Discourse I leave you to consider, whether it be not a matter both imprudent and unpracticable. I now come to his Fourth Answer made to the Objection raised by himself.  
4. If (saith he) a Trial of Ministers before Admission to a place of public service be admitted as necessary, 
A Reply to Mr. G. his fourth Answer.  and the Churches not deemed competent to take, or make a regular Trial of them, yet why should not those who are Authorized as competent for the Ordination, or Creation of Ministers, be judged competent for their Trial? Whom he means by the persons authorized for Ordination, is evident by the beginning of his next Paragraph, where he expounds them to be the several Presbyteries.  
Quo tencam nodo mutantem Protea vultus?  
— Risum teneatis amici?  
What a deal of shifting is here, in hope to shift away the Commissioners? It seems I have an Eel by the Tail, whom I no sooner worm out of one hole, but he slips to another. But would not any man smile to see Mr Goodwin, whose pride it was heretofore to be pulling down all the Presbyteries in England, now to become a pretended Advocate on their behalf? He that cried (almost) Sword and Faggot against them, and would with a good will have pulled down Sion-Colledge about their ears? He that hath written and printed as many invective Pamphlets against them, as might serve to stock most of the Tobacco-shops? Is it not strange that he should seem now to be for them? But he is like my neighbours little Dog, who barks at all Passengers that appear upon the Public Road, and when some are passed and gone, leaves them, and spends his mouth again at the next who come in sight, (for he must be barking;) and therefore this is no Thanks to them of the Presbytery, because they very well know the man and his humour, and that Caninus Appetitus which he hath to Printing; nor do they need many words to give them an understanding of his restless disturbing Temper, which (like some others that might be named) is ever flying out at any thing that is uppermost, or that hath but the face of an Establishment.  
5. That which he brings in as his Fifth Answer, offers nothing of Reason, but spends about half a Page in matter of Expostulation against the Commissioner, thus: Why should these men be made Triers? Is no vein of men meet to make Triers but these? He is in great pain because of these; Any Tooth good Barber, let me have any thing rather than these, who (as he saith) keep Labourers out of the Vineyard. By all means (I pray you) down with these that keep the Romish Boars out from rooting up the vines, and the Arminian Foxes from spoiling the tender grapes.  
6. And therefore in the sixth place, rather than endure these any longer, he is content there should be either no Approbation at all, or else that it should be left in the hands of the several Parishes of the Nation; which (all things prepended) would be a worthy way, especially considering the Faction of some, the Ignorance of many, and the Malignancy and Profaneness of too many of the Parishes. Of this I have said somewhat in the foregoing part of my Discourse, where, though you will find Reasons enough against it, and that Mr Goodwin (of all other men) hath the least reason to plead for a Parochial Power, yet seeing he hath, in his giddy fit of Scribbling, been willing to run the round, to court all Parties and Orders of men to join with him against the Establishment of the Commissioners, now confirmed by Authority of his Highness and the Parliament; therefore I shall take a little pains more to see what is further alleged by this popular Advocate on the behalf of the Parishes; which though it be but Folly in me to do, yet for fear the Man's Followers should say his Book had no full Answer, I shall deal with him according to his Folly, lest he grow too wise in his own conceit.  
If (saith he) it be against Reason, that the Magistrate should restrain men from hiring or entertaining Servants, such as they conceive would be most serviceable and useful to them in their affairs; or that he should appoint others to assign them what servants they please; much more unreasonable is it, that greater Bodies and Societies of men should not be permitted to have such to serve them in spiritual Affairs, as they are persuaded are most like to build them up in sound knowledge, and promote the interest of their Souls. Is not this, think ye, a singular Argument? But for Answer in brief. 1. I cannot but note the comparison as odious, betwixt Domestic and Spiritual Servants, seeing these latter are called Overseers Pastors, and Spiritual Fathers, (with other terms of honour) as well as Servants (which they are in a sense too) for the sake of Christ and his Gospel; and as they have Titles of honour, so they have Privileges correspondent, which ordinary Servants have not. 2. The Comparison will by no means hold in reason, because the meanest of men have usually skill enough to make choice of ordinary Servants fit for their Turn: But there are but few men in the best Parishes, and in most of them not one of skill and knowledge sufficient to judge of a man, whether he be qualified with Spiritual gifts and graces to enable him to serve them in Spiritual things. 3. Suppose some men in some Parishes may be of ability in matter of knowledge to judge, yet those that are able to judge in matter of understanding, and most men that have knowledge in the notion, do yet want grace in the heart, and so it will be seldom that they will have the Will to approve an able or a gracious man to be a Preacher. 4. Suppose yet further, that the knowing men of a Parish should be willing to approve a knowing and a gracious man; yet the rest of the Parish, who have a share in the Suffrage, may be of another mind, for some respects of their own, and pretend it would be more for the Interest of their souls to have another person. 5. Consider, that Parishes being Bodies and Societies of men, the Magistrate hath an Interest in them as they are a Corporation or Community, and though men have a right to do as they will at home in Private Affairs, yet he may (according to the laudable Constitution of all Commonweals) interpose so far in all those things wherein they Act by Suffrage as a Community; as to restrain them from, or limit them in Acting in such matters, which are of more immediate concernment to himself. 6. And therefore lastly, though the Minister or Preacher to be approved be to be in some sense a Servant, a Servant to the Parish, in things Spiritual; yet he is not to be so much their Servant, as the Servant of Christ in the first place; Then, being not in a private, but in a Public Relation to the whole Parish, and upon a Public account, he in the next place is also to be reputed the Servant of the Magistrate; partly as he is to officiate on the Magistrate's behalf towards the Community of the Parish, and partly because he is to have a Public Maintenance from the Magistrate: For, though Tithes and other Duties arise out of the Parishes, yet they are not of the Legal Propriety of the Parishioners, because the Propriety hath been otherwise anciently disposed of, and settled by the Law of the Land, to enable the Magistrate to hold forth and uphold a Public Profession of the Christian Faith within the several places of the Nation. So that these things being considered, it is vain for Mr Goodwin to plead for a Right of Power in Parishes to Approve, upon a supposition that the Minister or Preacher to be Approved is to be their Servant, seeing though in one sense (viz. Spiritually) he is to serve them, yet by reason of his Civil Relation and dependency, he is not their, but the Public Servant of the State, for the good of the Parish, in that Employment.  
But Mr Goodwin, to fright the Magistrate, tells him, that it is a Crime in him to be meddling with such sacred Edge-tools, as the Authoritative forcible imposing of Ministers upon Parishes. All this will not take off the Edge of a Religious Magistrate, who knows that having a Revenue in his hand to promote the preaching of the Gospel, it is his duty, as he is a Christian man, to do his utmost to see it well bestowed that way, by maintaining able and gracious men in doing the work, and when any of them is sent to a Parish, it cannot be so said, that the settling of him there is an Authoritative forcing of the Parish to receive him, but rather that it is a Pious Provision for the Parish by the Care of Authority. Nor let any man deceive his own heart by thinking thus; That because when a Minister or Preacher is so sent and settled, the Parish have no power to refuse him, therefore the not having power to refuse him, is all one as if he were forced upon them: For if such a Construction might be made, then by the same way it might be argued, that when his Highness sends down persons into the Country to perform any office of Trust, the execution whereof is warranted by Law, suppose it be in the several Counties, as when he sends down Sheriffs; you know then the Counties have no power to refuse them; and yet this never was, nor can it be reputed a forcing of Sheriffs upon the Counties; because as his Highness hath a lawful power to send and settle such Officers as Sheriffs, so the Counties are by Law concerned to receive, and by Law cannot refuse them, because their liberty of refusal is determined by that lawful obedience which they owe to his Highness: So in this case of his Highness sending Preachers legally presented and approved to Parishes, the Parishes not having liberty to refuse them, cannot be reputed equivalent to a forcing men upon them, because their liberty of Refusal is determined by the Law, which obligeth them to receive them, and so no injury is done them by force or constraint; forasmuch as no man or company of men ought to presume or pretend any further liberty in any Nation, than the Laws of that Nation do allow. 'Tis pity so much Ink and Time should be lost about the clearing of so plain a business: But 'tis for the sake of Mr. G. and his Admirers, that he may not too much admire himself, nor they believe him impregnable, when they see his Arguments are no Edge tools.  
He goeth on to present another scruple to the Magistrate, telling him, If he send Ministers to Parishes, and they prove either insufficient, negligent, or wicked; then the blood of the souls in those Parishes which perish, will fall upon his head: whereas if the souls of the people perish through the insufficiency or unfaithfulness of a Ministry of their own choice and approbation, their blood will be required of their Ministers, in case the people did at the time of approving them use their best care and circumspection in the business. This is the sum of the story; and a shrewd one it is indeed, that carrieth its own confutation in the belly: For, if he would lay the guilt of the blood of the People's souls upon the Ministers chosen and approved by the said People, if so be they (to wit the People) did their best to judge aright of them when they chose and approved them; then, upon the same account of Reason, I can acquit the Magistrate from the danger of incurring a guilt of the blood of souls, if he did his best, by himself or his Deputies, to judge aright of the Ministers by due Trial and Examination, before he sent them to their respective Parishes; and must cast it upon the Ministers, if they shall, notwithstanding the care of the Magistrate or his Deputies, afterwards degenerate, and prove unfit, or unfaithful in their places.  
In the last place (saith he) if it be alleged, that danger be likely to befall the State or Government, by allowing Parishes the Approbation of their own Ministers, the truth is, the danger is like to be greater by their being denied it. And why so forsooth? He like a wise Statesman (for no less he takes himself to be) tells us, Because States never suffered by indulging their people in things reasonable and just; but their withholding from them their due rights, hath still been exasperating and provoking. Thus you see how he endeavoureth to exasperate the people against the State, about this business; insinuating into vulgar minds a supposition of a Right of choosing and approving public Ministers and Preachers to be in themselves. This is to indulge the discontented humours of some men, by filling their heads with Falsehoods and unreasonable Phantsies, that have no other ground but his bare suggestion: which is so much the more vile, because attended by so many self-contradictions. For (as I have already told you) in some places of his Book he endeavoureth to fasten the Right both of Choosing and Approving only upon Patrons, in opposition to the present Commissioners for Approbation. Then flitting thence, he pleads for it as the better Right of the Gathered Churches. Afterwards he brings it in head and shoulder for the Presbyteries. In another place, he would bestow it upon some new County-Commissioners; and not slicking there, he becomes a stiff pleader for the whole Right to be in Parishes. So that what he hath denied in several places, intimating that there ought to be no Approbation at all, call it a Project in one place, a Device, a Contrivance, a Stratagem, a Politic Engine, and I know not what more; yet he grants it in other places, and hath been pleased to allow of it here at the latter end of his Book, and would once again stick it as a feather in the Cap of his best Friends, the Churches; and if they take it not, than he would bestow it upon his Adversaries, or strangers, or any where, so it might not rest in the hands of the Commissioners, whom he is pleased to pursue with a whole Army of Slanders and Abuses, as his greatest Adversaries, though implicitly he justifies the right and necessity of their Employment.  
But admit that the power he pretends to plead for in Parishes, were so settled, is it not worthy consideration what might be the consequence?  
1. The Legal Right of Patrons (that of the Magistrate as Patron Paramount, and of all inferior Patrons, whose cause he hath so earnestly defended elsewhere) must be yielded up and destroyed.  
2. The way of securing and upholding a Public Profession of the Gospel in the Nation by the Magistrate, will be utterly lost.  
3. In stead of a public Profession, there will be no other but a private Profession of every particular Parish; So that if (according to Mr. Roger Williams) Judaisme, Turcism, Papism, or any thing else come in, what remedy? For, suppose it should please the Parish, and be brought in among them to justle out the Profession of Christianity, who can help it? seeing their Patron Mr. Goodwin saith, they ought to exercise a Right to choose and enjoy whom they please; and therefore he may even shake hands again here with his brother Williams, and as well leave them to choose what Religion they please into all the Parishes of England and Wales. This is it both their wisdoms tend to: For, saith the same Mr. Williams, in that Book of his containing Proposals for propagating the Gospel: Is it not more conducible a thousand-fold to the people's eternal welfare, that each Town and Division of people in the Land be impartially permitted to make a Stand, to examine and choose their way of Worship, Ministry, and Maintenance? Yea, whether or no is it not absolutely better, that they did freely choose rather a false Religion (Jewish, Popish, Turkish, etc.) than without their free choice, to be ●●s●ed up in a way of Traditional and Customary Religion?  
4. If Parishes should have Right to choose and approve, than they ought also to have a power to eject; else what would the other signify? seeing otherwise after a Choice once made, they would during that man's days, be without remedy, though afterwards they should believe they have committed an Error in choosing him, or have a desire to be rid of him: Besides, if Parishes had or were to have such a Right, what a pickle would most of the godly Ministers of Parishes be in throughout England? What security could they have for any long enjoyment of their Places, seeing that men's minds in Parishes are mutable? and though when they first came among them, they were perhaps willing enough to have them, yet in case those Pious men that first occasioned their coming, shall remove from the Parish to live elsewhere, or die, than perhaps men of another Temper may be the prevailing party of a Parish, and think fit to eject them, to make room for others more suitable to their own disposition; and so, if the Law and the Magistrate were once concerned no further than to look on, with his hands in his Pocket, who then could help them? What would become of the pious Ministry of England, after a little season?  
5. If Parishes had such a Right, that their Ministers were solely to depend upon them both for choice and Approbation, as it would be a great Temptation upon many to turn men-pleasers that were once otherwise, so it would be an occasion to fill Parishes with such Preachers only as would sow Pillows under the elbows of their Parishioners, and not disoblige them by any such Doctrines as might unsettle them in their Lees, and disturb their Corruptions; Preachers that would be slaves to the very Vassals of Satan, rather than Ministers or Servants of Jesus Christ.  
6. As the generally of Parishes are too ignorant, so had they a power to do in this case what they please, it would soon be found they would like none but such as themselves. The High-Sh●on loves his Penny better than his Pater Noster, and had he once the power pleaded for by Mr Goodwin, the next News we should hear of him would be, that he is seeking out for some miserable Levite to contract underhand with him for Half-Tithes or Quarter-Tithes, or what other Maintenance soever it be, before he will admit him; and so instead of having a generous public maintenance for a Learned and Pious Ministry, there would be hardmeat, hardly an allowance of Po●r John, for a Sir John in every Parish; by which means, the poverty and insufficiency of the Ministry would soon be reduced to an equal Standard, and men might be sure to run headlong towards Hell at an easy rate, and have no body to stop them.  
7. Lastly, I suppose 'tis well known to Mr G. that the generality of Parishes, as they are profane and ignorant, so they are no less Malignant against Authority; and he (in effect) acknowledgeth it.  
For, in the last place (and with it he closeth up his Book) rather than Parishes should not exercise such a Power, 
Mr G. his plead for Malignant P●●achers.  he cares not though they were all stocked with Ministers and Preachers of the same Character throughout the Nation, and therefore pleads aloud on their behalf; which doubtless he hath reason to do, he and they being generally allied to each other, in one common cause of Arminianism, whereof that sort of men have been the great Defenders. For (saith he) admit a Minister allowed by the People of a Parish prove of a Malignant humour; so may a Minister, though with the Triers, pass. This is no Amulet or Charm against malignancy. 'tis not denied, but 'tis possible that a Malignant may give the Commissioners a slip through Trial and Approbation: But then he must be very cunning, and a man of a very concealed conversation, that no knowledge should be had of him; otherwise, though they have neither Amulet nor Charm, they are usually able enough to spell him, as well as other Friends of Mr Goodwin, and keep the Devil of malignancy from running to possess the Swine of the Parish, and hurry them to destruction.  
Moreover (saith he) If a Minister's Tongue prove at any time Malignant in the Pulpit, there is another Minister, the Magistrate, at hand to restrain him. 'tis well he will allow the Magistrate may do something: This is indeed a good Argument for putting Malignant Preachers into Parishes to find work for the Magistrate to restrain them, or put them out (it seems the Magistrate wants work:) But is it likely, that the Parish who chose their Preacher in, & upon that Account may be conceived to be all of his own humour, will inform against him? Or is it convenient for the Magistrate to maintain Spies in every Parish to bring him information? Or must the correction of the said Malignant be left to that Magistrate called the Constable, or High Constable, or the Justice of Peace, who may perhaps be an Inhabitant of the Parish, or of some Neighbour-Parish, where they also and their Preacher may (by Mr Goodwin's favour also) be all of the same Complexion? Pray (Sir) resolve us of these Points in your next Plea for Malignancy.  
But he adds further, that the greatest danger threatening the State from Malignant Ministers, is not by the opportunity they may have of Public Preaching, clandestine Insinuations, Consultations, Irritations▪ etc. for the plotting and practising whereof they may have more leisure and opportunities by being tak●n off, or put by their Employment of Preaching. Thus you see what malice against the Commissioners hath brought him to. He, in other places of his Book, hath manifested a spleen sufficiently against his Highness, for erecting of the Commissioners; now than what remains in the next place to be expected, but that he who would knock down the Commissioners, to make room in Parisnes for Charles Stuart's Chaplains, may ere long be of a mind to print down his Highness, to make room for their Master.— Would any man, whose Senses were not sodden in the very dregs of discontent, plead thus openly for them, in a matter that might be of apparent prejudice to the Public safety For whence is it that Plottings usually arise? is it not from false conceptions, mistakes, and misapprehensions of Affairs instilled into People's minds? And what more ready way to poison the judgements and affections of the People touching the Prince's Actions and Concernments, than that their Teachers should be dis-affected to him and his Proceedings? Is it not from hence, that the people may be easily made fit matter for Insurrections, and malleable to the designs of men averse to the Government? What though they should be so wise as to forbear open expressions in Pulpits? yet is it not known, a discourse may be so artificially and craftily contrived, that by remote oblique hints and secrets wipes, (which tickle more than downright language) the vulgar sort are soon charmed out of their good affections? Have we not seen this by experience? and admit this were not; yet do we not know the generality to be led by the example of their Minister? Whom if they know to be Malignant, they usually take after him, and his very ordinary converse from house to house is more than a thousand Sermons. Would any man than that were not as illaffected as they, plead for the maintaining of them in all the Parishes of the Nation? Good Sir, let the Magistrate have leave to dispose of the Public maintenance in Parishes to persons well-affected; and be you yourself pleased, with the other Sheep-masters of your own complexion, to leave playing the Foxes, and love the Peace of the Church, more than your own private ends and proud humours, than your Malignants will be less confident in their ways, and so on all sides there will be little cause to fear any further plottings, or practices of Insurrection among the people.  
But Mr G. hath not done yet; for, as it is one point of his anger, that his Highness will not maintain them; so he makes it the last ground of his quarrel, that the Commissioners will not approve of them; and with this he shuts his Book; for, saith he, when persons somewhat (it may be) malignantly inclined, shall be contumeliously entreated by the State, or by their Officers, as suppose any of them should be made to drink of the Triers' Cup of reprobation, is not this a direct way or means to awaken and set on work such an Inclination? Here you see, his care is not so much for the Government, as for them; and by this judge, whether he be not more for Them than for the Government. What if through malignancy, they be inclined to Treat the State contumeliously? That is a small matter in the eye of Mr G. because therein himself may shake hands with them as a brother, having in this Book made as bold that way as any of them, and therefore 'tis contumeliously done of the State to animadvert upon their Malignancy, and a crime in the Commissioners, because they will not break their Trust by giving an Approbation, to enable them to Treat the State with contumely in public before all the People. This is the Inference; and the sum of his Discourse about the matter amounts to this: When Preachers are inclined to the highest mischief that may be in a Nation, if the State, or their Officers, do take a reasonable Course to prevent the mischief, they thereby contumeliously handle those Preachers, and it were better to let them be actually doing mischief, than irritate their malignant Inclinations, by depriving them of the opportunity to rob the State of the hearts of the People. This would make an Argument to prove as well, that Robbers should be let alone upon the Road, and Cutthroats in the City, rather than the Inclinations of them and their Companions should be provoked, by a contumelious sending them to Gaol, to keep them from doing further mischief. It would be every jot as wise a Conclusion for the toleration of them, and all other Offenders, as that of Mr G. on the behalf of Malignant Preachers.  
Nevertheless, he breathes the utmost of his Conclusion in these words, (ERGO) Therefore the Politic Consideration suggested in the Argument in Countenance of the Triers, and their Constitution, is clearly anti-politick, and frowns rather than smiles upon their Consistory. And so (saith he) if Policy having weighed them in her Balance, find them wanting; and Religion having weighed them in the Balance of the Sanctuary, hath found them yet wan●ing more: let their Kingdom be divided, and given to the Congregations of the Land. That is to say, to the Parishes; for, these are the Congregations he intends in this Place: By which it is evident, that as many of the former Passages of his Book are contradictory to each other; so what pretences soever he made before, on the behalf of Patrons, the Gathered Churches, Presbyteries, and others, he contradicteth all now; 'twas not out of any respect to them, but only to colour his corrupt design of exasperating all sorts of men, for an overthrowing the present Establishment of Commissioners for Approbation, seeing after all he looks over the left shoulder, with Scorn and Contempt upon the other Parties, and in opposition to them all, concludeth on the behalf of Parishes, whom in gross he would prefer as the most competent Approvers. But notwithstanding all that ever he hath said, the foregoing Argument or Objection raised by himself, on the behalf of the Commissioners, stands yet far more considerable than all his pretended Answers thereunto, which being found so mean, surely no man will look so low as to frown at them, though many may smile; but especially at his Eighteen Arguments, in the managing whereof, he hath (you see) proved himself no less scandalous than vain in reference to Religion, and carried the matter as illogically in this, as in most of his other Scripts, which whosoever reads with a judicious eye, will hardly believe the man was ever acquainted with the Schools of Reason, and will (I dare say) readily subscribe to this Censure; That they are  
— Thus, Piper, & Scombros metuentia Scripta,  
Such a sort of writings, which might be most Politicly preferred, if they were duly divided betwixt the Grocers and the Tipling-Schools of the Land.    

A Postscript to the learned Reader concerning Mr J. Goodwin's Temper.  Mart. l. 5. Ep. 59 In Mamercum. 
UT bene loquatur, sentiatque Mamercus,  
Efficere nullis, Aule, moribus possis:  
Pietate fratres Curios licèt vincas,  
Quiet Nervas, comitate Rufones,  
Probitate Marcos, aequitate Mauricos,  
Oratione Regulos, jocis Paulos,  
Rubiginosis cuncta dentibus rodit.  
Hominem Malignum forsan esse tu credas;  
Ego esse miserum credo, cui placet nemo.  
FINIS.