A late Printed SERMON AGAINST False Prophets, Vindicated by LETTER, From the causeless Aspersions of Mr. FRANCIS CHEYNELL.  
By Jasper maine, D.D. the misunderstood Author of it.  LUKE 21.19. 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
Printed in the Year, MDCXLVII.   

A late printed SERMON against FALSE PROPHETS, Vindicated by Letter, from the causeless Aspersions of Mr. FRANCIS CHEYNELL.  
AS often as I have, for some years, considered the sad Distractions of this Kingdom, methinks, thus divided against it self, it hath verified upon itself the Fable of the People sown of Serpent's Teeth; where, without any known Cause of a Quarrel, Brother started up suddenly armed against Brother, and making the place of their Nativity the Field, and Scene of their Conflicts, every one fell by the Spear of the next, upon the turf, and furrow which hatched and brought him forth. 'Tis true, indeed, some have preached, and others have printed, that the Superstitions of our Church were grown so high, that they could not possibly be purged but by a Civil War. But finding, upon my most sober and impartial Inquiries, that these Superstitions were only the misconceipts of some men's sick Fancies, who called certain sleight harmless pieces of Church Ceremony Superstition, I thought it a piece of Charity to them and the deluded people, to let them no longer remain in the Case of the distracted Midi●●ites in the Book of 
* c. 7. v.  judges; where, upon a Dream told by a man to his Neighbour, and upon the sight of such inconsiderable things as lamps, and broken pitchers, every man's sword was against his fellow; and a well-ordered Host of friends, struck with an imaginary fear, became a confused and disordered heap, and rout of enemies. This desire to rectify mistakes, and withal to show upon what slender threads of vanity their Sermons hang, whose accidental, misguided Arguments, under certain false colours, have strived to prove things indifferent to be unlawful; and then, that thus by them pronounced unlawful, they are to be extirpated by the Sword, caused me at first to preach a Sermon against False Prophets, which hath since past the Travel of a more public Birth: wherein, what a cold Advocate I am in my plead for Superstition, will appear to any, who with an unclouded understanding shall read it: yet M. Cheynell, (one of the Preachers sent down by the Parliament to Oxford) in a morning Sermon of his preached at S. Mary's Jan. 17. upon Esay. 40.27. Having directed the Doctrinal part of it against one M. Yerbury, an Independent, (who publicly in a Dispute with him held, that the Fullness of the Godhead dwells in the Saints bodily, in the same measure that it did in Christ) not without much violence offered to his Text, He directed the use and Application of it to me; whom (after some characteristical reproaches of my person, and defamations of my Sermon) He challenged to a public Disputation with him. This (after two days) coming to my knowledge, I disputed with myself what I was to do in such a case: To return reproaches for reproaches, or to vindicate myself in the place where I was thus publicly reviled, had been to make myself Second in a fault, which the whole Congregation condemned in him as the First. Besides if I could have dispensed with myself for being so unchristianly revengeful, as to remove part of the Civil War, which hath too long imbrued our Fields, into the Temple, and there to answer Challenges, and fight Duels from the pulpit, this licence was denied me; who have for divers months been compelled to be a speechless member of this silenced University. Again, To sleep over my infamy, and to dissemble my disgrace, had been to beget an opinion in the minds of those that heard him, that either I wanted a good cause, or else my good cause wants a Defender. At length (something contrary I confess, to the peaceableness of my studies, which never delighted much in those quarrelsome parts of Learning, which raise tempests between men) following the Scripture counsel, which is, to take my offending Brother aside in private, and to tell him of his fault, I resolved by the secrecy of writing to wipe off those Calumnies for the future, and to answer the bold Challenge for the present, which he hurled at me in the Pulpit; and having first banished all gall, and Bitterness from my pen, sent him this following Letter.  
SIR,  
THat a Text of Scripture in your handling should wear two faces, and the Doctrine of it should be made to look one way, and the use of it another, is at all no wonder to me. But that pretending so much to Holiness, and Christianity as you do, you should think the Pulpit a fit place to revile me in, would hardly enter into my belief, were not the Congregation that heard you on Sunday morning last at S. mary's, my cloud of Witnesses. From some of which I am informed, that you solemnly charged me with imprudence and impudence, for publishing a late Sermon against false Prophets. SIR, Though report, and my name perfixt in the Title-Page might probably persuade you, that I am the Author of it; yet to assure you, that I caused it to be published, or consented to the printing of it, will certainly require a more infallible illumination, then, I presume, you have. Besides, if I should grant you that 'twas printed with my consent, (which yet I shall not) yet certainly the seasonableness of it in a time where godliness is made the engine to arrive to so much unlawful gain, will excuse me from imprudence, though perhaps not from an unthriving, in your sense, wart of policy. And as for the impudence you charged me withal, I am confident that all they who heard you with impartial Ears, and have read that Sermon with impartial Eyes, have, by this time, assigned that want of modesty a place in a more capable forehead. I hear farther that having in a kind of pleasant disdain shuffled pipes, Surplices, pictures in Church-windowes, Liturgy, and Prelacy together in one period, and styled them the musty Relics of an at-length-banisht Superstition, you were pleased out of that heap to select Images, and to call them Idols, and then to charge me as a defender of them.  
SIR, Had you done me but the ordinary Justice to pluck my Sermon out of your pocket, as you did the Practical Catechism, and had faithfully read to your Auditory what I have there said of Images, I make no question, but they would all have presently discerned that I defend not Pictures in Church windows as they are Idols, or have at any time been made so, but that 'tis unreasonable to banish them out of the Church as long as they stand there merely as Ornaments of the place. From which innocent use having not hitherto digressed, for you to call them Idols, and then to charge me as if I had made them equal with God, by my defence of them so formallized, will I fear, endanger you in the minds of your Hearers, and beget an Opinion in them, that you are one of the Prophets who use to see Vanity. I hear farther, that when you had traduced me as a Defender of the  musty Relics of Superstition, you said, that this was the Religion to which I professed myself ready to fall a sacrifice. Certainly, Sir, This is not fair dealing. For if, once more, you had plucked my Sermon out of your pocket, and had read to the Congregation that passage of it which endeavours to prove that 'tis not lawful to propagate Religion, (how pure soever it be) by the sword, they would have heard from your mouth, as they once did from mine, that the Religion to which I there profess myself ready to fall a Sacrifice, is that defamed, true, Protestant Religion, for which the holy Fathers of our Reformation died before me. In saying, therefore, that I profess myself ready to fall a sacrifice in the defence of Surplices, the Common Prayer Book, or Church Ornaments, (things which I have always held not necessary, unless made so, by right Authority) you have incurred one danger more, which is, not only to be thought to see Vanity, but to be guilty of the next part of the Text. I am farther told, that to deliver yourself from the number of the false Prophets there preached against, you prophesied in the Pulpit; and chose for the subject of your prediction, a thing which is possible enough for you to bring to pass; which was, that you will have my Sermon burnt.  
Sir I have, for your sake, once more severely considered it. And can neither find Socinianism, or any other Poland Doctrine there which should deserve that doom. But if it must die like Bishop Ridley or Hooper, for its adhaesion to the best Religion that this Kingdom ever enjoyed, I must repeat the words of my Sermon, and tell you, that (without the fear of being thought by you a Pseudomartyr) I shall account it one of the happiest passages to Heaven, to be dissolved to ashes with it in the same funerall-pile.  
Lastly, Sir, having, with all the sober detraction, which might probably beget a dislike in the minds of your Hearers, of me and my Sermon, sufficiently defamed both, I hear you did beat up a Drum against me in the Pulpit, and challenged me to a public dispute with you. If by a dispute you meant a pen-combate, I shall be as ready to enter the lists with you, as you have been to summon me to it, if you will grant me two things. The one is, that, if we engage ourselves in a Conference of that nature, you will confine yourself to the particulars in my Sermon which you quarrelled at; and not use your strange, wild Art of multiplying Questions upon Questions; or like another Hydra, what ever the Hercules be, make three heads spring up in the place where you find one convincingly lopped of. The other is, that, when you have made your Charge, and I my Resistance, you will consent that the debate of every question, thus disputed, may be made public and printed. But if by a Dispute, you meant that I should fight a Duel with you upon the same stage, and in the same Theatre of men and women, before whom you, and Mr. Yerbury played your prize, I doubt very much, if I should accept of your Callenge in that sense; whether all discreet men would not count this a spice of the frenzy in me, which you complained of in the Pulpit, for being imputed to you by Him that wrote the Conference at your late Scruple-House; and say I deserved to be cured by the Discipline, and Physic of a dark room. To deal freely with you, Sir, I by no means can approve of an English Disputation in a University. But because you shall not lose your challenge, nor I be thought to desert the cause, which I profess to defend, so you will choose the Divinity School, and Latin weapons, I shall not refuse (as well as God shall enable me) to give you a meeting there, and to sustain the Answerers' part in the defence of the lawfulness of white Surplices, Church Ornaments; the Common Prayer Book, and Prelacy; which are the particulars in my Sermon, which you called Relics of Superstition. To one of these two offers I shall patiently expect your answer; unless without troubling me any further, you will let me quietly retire bacl again into the shade, from whence you have too importunately called me: Who, never the less, have learned so much Charity, as to pray God to forgive you the wrong which you intended towards  
From my chamber this evening. Jan. 19 1646. The Author of the Sermon against False Prophets. J. maine.  
To this letter (in which (as briefly as the laws of a Letter would permit) I endeavoured to wash out the spots, with which M. Cheynell in his Sermon strove to defile and sully mine, and withal to comply with him in any sober way of Dispute, which might befit two Vniversitymen) after two days was returned an Answer: First, strange for the messenger's sake that brought it, which was One Jellyman (some say) a preaching Cobbler; who from repairing the decays of Vniversity-mens' shoes was now thought fit to have a part in the conveyance of their disputes. Next, for the double Super scription of it, which without, on the side of the first paper that enclosed it, was as fair and full of Candour as the whited sepulchre in the Gospel, and was directed, To D. maine AT . But this outward stone was no sooner rolled away, but another Inscription, very unlike the first appeared, which ran thus. FOR M. JASPER maine (ONE OF THE NEW DOCTORS) STUDENT AT . By which parenthesis, it seems M. Cheynell, thought it an error in the University, to make me a Doctor. And truly (if I may be believed upon my own report) as often as I compare my unworthiness with my degree, I am of his opinion; and think I am a Doctor, fit only to stand in a parenthesis; and, without any injustice done me, to be left out of the sentence. This second Superscription was underwritten with a kind of a preamble Letter to the more inward Letter; with the lock and guard of a seal upon it; and ran thus.  
SIR,  
I have sent several times to your lodging this day to answer your challenge yesterday; if you cannot meet to morrow, let me understand your mind to night. For I have a great deal of business, since the University was silenced for your sake.  
What kind of meeting was here meant, or whether I (having I thank God, the use of my understanding) could consent to it, will appear by the Letter it self; which (being an Answer to mine) was verbatim this.  
SIR, I use to spend my morning thoughts upon a better subject than a pot of dead drink, that hath a little froth at top, and dregs at bottom;  
SIR, It appears by your Letter, that you do not understand my Text, and the learned Scribe, or Intelligencer, did not understand my plain, very plain English Sermon. I am not at leisure to repeat every Sermon that I preach, (preaching so often as I do sometimes twice, and upon just occasion thrice a day) to every one that is at leisure to cavil at that which they heard but at second hand; yet to show how much you are mistaken, I will give you a brief, but satisfactory account.  
My Text stands upon record, Isa. 40.25. the Doctrine I raised from the words, was as followeth.  
Doct. There is no creature in heaven, or earth, like God in all things, or equal to God in any thing.  
The first Corollary I deduced from thence, when I came to make application, was briefly this.  
That no picture can be made of God, because there was nothing like him in heaven or earth. All nations are less than vanity in comparison of God; to whom then will ye liken God, or what likeness will ye compare unto him? Isay. 40.17.18. The Prophet urgeth this Argument, against all manner of images which are made to represent God, who sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and stretcheth out the heavens from the 19 v. of the same chap: to the 23. ver. and he enforceth this Argument vers. 21. have ye not known— have ye not understood? etc. as if he had said, ye are ignorant sots, irrational, and inconsiderate men, if ye apprehend not the strength of this Argument. Now, SIR, be pleased to produce your strong reasons, and overthrow, if you can, the Doctrine or the Corollary: Your, Intelligencer was (if not a false Prophet yet) a false Historian, when he told you that I accused you of making images equal with God. SIR, I said, that images were not like unto God; and thereupon wondered that you took upon you to plead for the retaining of those images which have been too often turned into idols, not by the piety, but superstition of form times. You say, that by the same reason there should be no Sun in the firmament. Whence I collect, that you will be forced to maintain, that images are as necessary in the Church, as the Sun in heaven; be pleased to read the 22. page of the false Prophet.  
Moreover, you plead for Copes, and for those parts of the Common-Prayer Book which were borrowed from Rome pag. 21, 22. The Visitors will ere long inquire, whether there hath not been a Superstitious use of Copes at Christ-Church? and therefore I did not make any such enquiry in my Sermon, but as a Friend I give you and your adherents timely notice of it, because I believe you had need study for an Answer.  
You maintain, that some things in the excellencies and height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit and evidence of their truth upon the authority of Christ's miracles conveyed along in tradition and story, pag. 16. and therefore I say your Religion leans too hard and too heavy upon Tradition.  
You are offended that I spoke not distinctly concerning Prelacy, you may (if you please) try your strength, and endeavour to prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction in the hand of a Prelate. 2. You may (if you can) justify, that no Church that ever the Sun looked upon hath been more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrine of it, or better established for the Government and Discipline of it, than the Church of England, pag. 17. if you believe this confident assertion, you may proceed and justify all the Doctrines, which were publicly countenanced, or approved; all the superstitious practices, and prelatical usurpations, nay, the delegation of the Prelates, usurped power to Chancellors and all the Tyranny of the high Commission, together with all the corruptions and innovations introduced into the State, Church, University from the year 1630. till 1640. by a prevailing faction, who were not the Church or University, but the disease, indeed the plague of both. If you dare not undertake so sad a task, you cannot justify the 17.18.22, 23.27.35. pages of the False Prophet; you must prove that the proceed of the Parliament are Turkish, pag. 15. 1●. that none of the Members of either House of Parliament (who complain of the blemishes of the Church) are transformed good Protestants, pag. 18. that the Reformation which they have made is 〈◊〉 vanities, pag. 20. that they are guided by no other principles but such as are contrary to all rules of right judgement, either common to men or Christians, pag. 21. that the Ministers who have appeared for the Parliament, are all of them False Prophets, who have encouraged the Parliament to oppression, sacrilege, murder, and to make all names that are great and sacred, cheap and odious in the ears of the people. That the Ministers are the liars, and the Parliament-men the compliers, as appears by all your unworthy insinuations, hints, intimations, quite throughout your Scurrilous Libel, falsely called a Sermon: let any prudent man judge whether this be not your main drift and scope, à carceribus usque ad metam.  
You talk of a Religion, in which you were borne, were you borne in a Surplice or a Cope? Christiani non nascunt●r sed fiunt. Sir, the Parliament doth not defame nor will they suppress the true Protestant Religion, and therefore if you fall in this quarrel, I said, that you must be sacrificed in the defence of Tyranny, Prelacy, Popery: if you put not Religion in Copes, Images, Prelates, or Service-Booke, quorsum haec perdito? why do you talk of being Martyred? say, that (if the King will give you leave) you will burn your Copes and Surplices, throw off the Bishops and Common-Prayer Book, you'll break your windows, and take the Covenant, and make it evident that you are and ever will be of the King's Religion; for you hold none of these things necessary now, (whatever you have said heretofore) unless they be made necessary by right Authority.  
Sir, if I made any prediction, it was that your Sermon would be confuted, before it was burnt; you know Paraeus was burnt before he was confuted; and if you be not guilty of any doctrine received in Poland, I wonder, First, why you did endeavour to incense an Officer of this Garrison against me, because I had refuted M. Yerburies' blasphemous errors. 2. Why you did maintain those damnable Doctrines on the last Sabbath: forgive me this injury, for I hear you did but vent them, and were no way able to maintain them.  
Sir, I acknowledge that I do contend for the restitution of the true Protestant Religion, and contend for the civil right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion: we were in manifest danger to lose our right, by the force and violence of potent Enemies, whereupon the high Court of Parliament judged it fit to repel force by forces: be pleased to show how the Parliament doth hereby canonize the Koran, or declare themselves to be of the Mahometan persuasion; the Parliament will not compel you to be happy, only take heed that you do not compel them to make you miserable. Though you renounce all Doctrines that M. Yerberie maintains, yet I think you are too great a friend to the Rebels in Ireland; you contend for a Vorstian liberty, not for a liberty of conscience, for you desire a liberty for men that have no conscience, such as turn from being Protestants to be Infidels. There is one of M. Yerburies' opinion, who saith, that the righteous are at liberty, [he that is righteous let him be righteous still] and the wicked are at liberty, [he that is wicked let him be wicked still,] but you are of a more dangerous opinion, the wicked as (as you think) are at liberty to kill and slay, but the godly are not at liberty to defend themselves by the power of the highest Court of Justice in the Kingdom from illegal and unjust oppression, violence. I am convinced by many passages in your Sermon, especially the 15, 16, 17. pages, that you think we ought not to fight against the Rebels in Ireland, because it is part of their Religion (as it was of your brethren the Cavaliers) to put all Roundheads (as you term them) to the sword; missajam mordet, the Mass may be armed, but the Gospel must not: What think you of the War foretell in the book of the Revelation? Sir, you abuse your betters when you talk of the Scruple-house. You are not worthy to carry the books of those Reverend Ministers after them, nor could your Carfax-Sermon have ever silenced the ungifted Preachers; you would have found them gifted Disputants: if you think otherwise try one or two of them in some of their beaten points; Sir, I speak thus freely, because I was not present at the famous meeting, Novemb. 12. but I see you can cite one of your own Prophets, Poets I should say, but he is no truer a Prophet than you are like to prove a Martyr, a Cretian Prophet. Sir, the knowledge of my brethren's worth, and your famous pride and self-conceitedness hath provoked me to let my pen lose, that I might disabuse and humble you.  
It seems you are unwilling to come upon the stage (though that be a fit place for you then the pulpit) to appear before a Theatre of men and women: Sir, you love the stage too well, take heed you do not love women too ill, there is a friend of yours that doth entreat you to beware of dark rooms and light women; for though a great Physician doth advise you to the use of such pleasing physic, yet the Frenchmen will assure you, that it is not wholesome for the body, and the English can assure you, that it is not good for the soul; your kind of phrenfie must be cured by more severe remedies, your devil will be better cast out with prayer and fasting. You are misinformed when you say, that I did beat up my drum. No Sir, you did sound a charge and made a challenge, my acceptance of it was but the echo which answered the 17. and 21. pages of the False Prophet. In the 17. you seem prepared to enter into dispute presently with the greatest Champion that appears for the Parliament, Sir, one of the meanest that appears for them, takes up that Gauntlet which you threw forth with so much scorn and confidence.  
In your 21. page you threaten to press us in a rational logical way; Sir, do your best, you shall find that we have neither lost our reason nor our logic. We can distinguish between demonstration and superstition; and truly Sir, if you had not put more Poetry than Logic into your Sermon, though your Sermon might have been longer, yet your Libel would have been shorter; if you please to blot out those few places of Scripture which you have abused by misapplication and imprudent insertion of them into so profane and wild a stamp, you may do well to turn your Libel into Verse, and then it may pass currant amongst the Ballad-mongers for a triobolar Ballad, and you will be ranked in the number of those who are reputed the most excellent Authors, next to them that writ in Prose. If you are offended that I did not show you so much respect, as I have showed towards the learned Author of the Practical Catechism, consider the difference, nay, distance between his person, education, learning, civility, writings and yours, and you will see a very sufficient and satisfactory reason. Sir, if that Author did overlook your Letter, I believe he did advise you to contend only for the lawfulness of Prelacy, because I see that is interlined, and he was present at the sad debate at Uxbridge; if that learned Doctor hath any thing to object against me, he knows my mind, habet aetatem, he is able to speak for himself, the Orator needs not borrow eloquence of so profane a Poet.  
You are unwilling to dispute in English, to which I answer:  
First, your Sermon is English. Secondly, many of the persons whom you have abused and deceived by your printed Sermon, understand not Latin. Thirdly, you have been too much addicted to English Plays, and English Verses, and you have with a pleasant kind of ignorance shuffled them (with other Verses published in more learned languages) in the same book printed by the Vniversity-Printer, and therefore I believe you are most able, and most engaged to dispute in English, for the disabusing & undeceiving of those whom you have seduced by a Sermon preached and printed in English. Be pleased to perform that task to morrow at two of the clock at S. Mary's Church, where your Sermon was preached, and I will meet you; and if you dare examine your Sermon by the Word of God, I shall be the Opponent, because you have chosen to be the Respondent.  
If when the Doctor of the Chair comes home, you please to dispute in the Divinity Schools, let us agree upon the state of the questions in controversy, and I will accept your challenge at your own weapon, which will I fear have more false Latin, then true steel.  
SIR, You make a dishonourable retreat, when you say that Prelacy is lawful; you have cried it up jure divino, & assured the King, that he cannot in conscience pass the Bill against Prelacy, because it is a Government instituted by the will and appointment of Jesus Christ. Now stand your ground, or confess your error, acknowledge that you and your adherents have persuaded the King to destroy so many thousand of his loving and gallant subjects, that Prelacy might be established in its tyrannical height and rigour; and now the God of heaven and Lord of hosts hath broken all your forces, you tell us that the Parliament must not pursue their victory; but we must in charity bear with those malignant, Prelatical, and Antichristian errors, which will not consist with faith; be pleased to return such an answer as will endure the public test and touchstone, and you shallbe rationally, nay spiritually dealt with by  
The Prior opponent of the false Prophet, Francis Cheynell.  
To this letter (which (as all the world may judge) declines that part of intercourse, which obligeth one man's letter to carry some correspondence to another's, and instead of a confutation, only multiplies questions, and urgeth me to prove divers passages of my Sermon, which M. Cheynell's part was to convince) because the superscription of it darkly, and the close of it more clearly required me to meet him at an English disputation the next day at S. Mary's before the Townsmen and their wives, (very unfit moderators, certainly, in the points there to be discused) I for the present (to divert that meeting) returned him this short Answer.  
SIR,  
THough in the Letter you sent me yesterday by (I think) Jellyman the Cobbler, you have given me such a taste of your Logic as well as civility, that I have small encouragement to meddle any farther with you, (unless you will promise hereafter to write with better consequence, and less distemper) yet, Sir, lest you should triumph over me, as one beaten by your Arguments, not by your rudeness, I have thought fit for once to return you this answer. First, that without the danger of a dark room (as I told you before) I cannot consent to meet you at S. Mary's at two a clock. Next, that I do embrace your offer to meet me at Latin weapons in the Divinity School, when the Doctor of the Chair comes to town. Thirdly, that if your Syllogisms be no better than your wit, (which I perceive strived to be facete, when it adventured to say, that you fear my weapon will have more false Latin then true steel) I doubt the Poet you contemn so much, will go equal with you in the conquest. Lastly, not being engaged (I confess) to preach thrice a day) I will with as much dispatch as I can, put order to your chaos, and return a fuller answer to your strange letter; wherein I know not whether you have less satisfied, or more reviled  
From my Chamber this morning Jan. 22. 1646. The Author of the Sermon against false Prophets, J. maine.  
This Letter might have been lengthened with many other reasons (besides those already set down) to show how unfit 'twas for me to meet M. Cheynell at an English disputation at S. Mary's, as M. Yerbury did. As first, because the frame and carriage of the whole dispute between us, in all probability would have been as irregular and tumultuous as the other was; where, because neither of them kept themselves to the laws of disputation, which enjoin the Disputants to confine themselves to Syllogism, raised from the strict rules of Mood and Figure, which admit not of extravagancy: In the judgement of all Scholars who were present, it was not a Dispute, but a wild conflict, where neither answered one another, but with some mixture of ill language, were both Opponents by turns. Next, because the greatest part of the Auditory would have consisted of such a confluence of Townsmen and women, as understood good Arguments and Replies as little as they do Latin; and so the issue of this Disputation would probably have been the same with the former; where M. Cheynell was thought to have the better by one Sex, and M. Yerbury by the other. Loath, therefore to forfeit my discretion before such an Incompetent Assembly of witnesses, with as much dispatch as one engaged by promise could make, I returned to his Letter this fuller Answer.  
SIR,  
Among the other praises, which greater friends to the Muses than I perceive you are, have bestowed upon Virgil, he hath been called the Virgin Poet. Yet Ausonius ordering his Verses another way, hath raised one of the most lose lascivious Poems from him that I think ever wore the name of a Marriage-song. Me thinks Sir (and I doubt not but all they who shall compare them together will be of my opinion) you in your Letter have just dealt so with my Sermon; it went from my hands forth a sober Virgin, but falling into yours, it returns to me so strumpeted, so distorted in the sense, and misapplied in the expressions, that what I preached a Sermon, you by translating whatever I have said of false Prophets to the Parliament, have with the dexterity of a falsification, transformed and changed into a Libel. This I do not wonder at, when I remember what the Physician was, who said, that where the Recipient is distempered, the most wholesome food turns into his disease; just as we see in those harmful creatures, whose whole essence and composition is made up of sting and poison, the juice which they suck from flowers and roses, concocts into venom and becomes poison too. Having said this by way of Preface to my following Reply, first, Sir, (confining myself to your method) how you spend your morning thoughts, being impossible for me outright to know, unless your thoughts were either visible or you transparent; I desire you will not think me overcurious, if I open a door upon you, and proceed by conjecture. You say, you use to spend them upon a better subject than a pot of dead drink that hath a little froth at top, and dregs at bottom. To what passage of my Letter this refers, or why a language which I do not understand, should possess the porch & entrance to yours, I am not Oedipus enough to unriddle. But if I may guests what your morning thoughts were, when (as you confess) you did let them lose by your pen to discharge themselves upon me in a shower of rude, untheologicall, flat, downright detraction, though they were not employed upon a frothy subject, yet they show that you were at that time in his distemper in the Gospel, a piece of whose raging and distraction 'twas to foam at mouth.  
Next Sir, had I been present at your Sermon, (as I am glad I was not, for I desire not to be an Auditor where I must hear myself libelled from the pulpit) I shall easily grant, by the taste which you have given me in this short Conference with you of the perspicuity of your stile, and the clearness of your matter, that it was possible enough for me not to understand it. I do, therefore, acknowledge it as a favour from you, that you will let me no longer wander in uncertainties, or write to you upon the misreport of a fallible Intelligencer; but will yourself be my Clue to guide me to what you said. Which favour, you have much heightened, by robbing your weightier employments of so much time to convey it in, as might have been spent in providing yourself to preach thrice a day, and yet not do it so hastily, or with such a running negligence, as to be thought to preach but once a week.  
As for your Text, and the Doctrine built upon it, at whom soever it was shot, I shall not quarrel with it. But how your Corollary should concern any thing that I have said in my Sermon contrary to your Doctrine, I cannot possibly imagine; who do there only speak of the vanity of some of our Modern Prophets, who can see Idolatry in a Church-window: And do only strive to prove that for people to refrain the Church (as you know who did) because some (though perhaps not of our age) paid worship to the windows, was a fear as unreasonable as theirs was, who refused to go to Sea, because there was a Painter in the City who limned shipwrecks.  
Sir, had you a mind to deal pertinently or ingennously with me, you would witness for me, that though I speak in defence of the Ornamental use of Images, yet I in no passage of my Sermon do defend any Image or pourtraicture made of the Deity. Sir, 'tis not your saying, That no picture can be made of God, because there is nothing like him in Heaven or Earth, or the following proofs of your letter (which I conceive to be a piece of your Sermon at St. Mary's, which because I came not to it, you in charity have sent home to me) that persuades me that any such picture is unlawful: Nature, as well as the numerous places of Scripture, which you have quoted to prove that which I never yet denied, have long since taught me, that to make, or draw any picture, or Image of God is not only a breach of the second Commandment, which is built upon the invisibility of his Essence, and Nature, but that the Attempt would be much more vain, then if a Painter should endeavour to limn a soul or mind, which not affording any Idea, or resemblance to his fancy to be taken by, cannot possibly by him be expressed in Colours. The Task, therefore, to make any Draught or Figure of God (pray Sir, being misled by your example, do not think me superfluous in my pursuit of an Argument, to which I was not bound to reply) is (besides the sinfulness of it) much more impossible. For, First, Sir, if the Schoolmen (which I hear you once said you had long studied to little purpose) may be Judges, He cannot be limned or drawn, because he is a Spirit: Therefore not capable to be represented by any gross, material Thing. Next, because He is Infinite; and therefore not capable to fall under Symmetry, or be circumscribed within the finite lines which stream from a Painter's pencil. Thirdly, because He is Simple, that is, (as your Schoolmen say, for you know Sir, I am but an English poet) All in All, and All in every part: Or, in other Terms, a Thing entirely uniform, and indivisible within itself, which admits not of any false representation of itself by limbs or parts. Lastly, Sir, (because I will not be tedious, and go over all his other Attributes) who shall paint his Omaiscience, who his Omnipotence, who his Eternity, who his ubiquity? Knowing this Sir, and much more of him (not by the Help of a borrowed Illumination) I could not trespass so much against my own studies, and Conscience as to allow of any picture of God. And therefore, in this particular, challenging me, (as you impertinently do) to produce my strong reasons, and overthrow, if I can, your Doctrine, or Corollary, deduced from Esay 40.25. where God by his Prophet says, To whom will ye liken me, or shall I be equal saith the Holy One? You would fain have me be your Adversary in an undefensible Cause, that your conquest of me might be the easier. In short, you would have me profess myself to be an Anthropomorphite, that you might have the advantage to confute me for an Heretic.  
Sir, since you deny that you said in your Sermon, that I made Images equal with God (which if you had said, my Sermon without any new confutation, would have disproved you) I am in that particular satisfied, and shall think it was, though not a wilful one, yet a mistake in the reporter. But, then, Sir, I must tell you, that I am not at all satisfied with that which follows. Where you say, that Images are not like unto God, and Thereupon wonder that I took upon me to plead for the retaining of those Images which have been too often turned into Idols, not by the piety, but superstition of former times: For here, Sir, if I would take the advantage of expression not well considered, upon you, in saying that Images are not like unto God, and thereupon that I did ill to plead for the retaining of other Images not of God, a Sophister would make the world believe, that you think all Images superstitious, and therefore fit to be banished out of the Church, but only such Images as are made of God; which would expose you to the opinion of being thought very subject to speak contradictions. But being a mere poet, Sir, whose ability, you know, lies not in making use of Aristotle's Eleuches, but in the soft, harmless composure of an Elegy or Ode, I shall deal more gently with you; That is, take you in the most advantageous sense which you possibly, upon your better morning thoughts can put to your words, & believe, that the fault you find with me for the retainment of Images, is, because by the superstition of former times they have been turned into Idols. Sir, if I be not deceived, my Sermon, in this particular, is able to save me the labour of a reply. Where I have once for all said that which you will never be able to control (how poetically (that is not dully) soever you may think it expressed) that by the same reason that Ornaments are to be turned out of the Church, because some out of a misguided devotion have adored them, we should not have a Sun, or Moon, or Stars in the firmament, but they should long since have been banished the skies, because some of the deluded Heathen worshipped them. The little fallacy with which you think to entrap me, when you say, that hence you collect that I will be forced to maintain that Images are as necessary in the Church, as the Sun in the Firmament, will expire, like all other thin Sophisms, in vanity & smoke, when I have shown the weakness and infirmity of it, which will be briefly done by repeating only the sense of my Sermon in other words, and saying, that if Images do agree with the Sun, in that they have both been made Idols, though one be no necessary part of the Church, and the other be a necessary part of the building of the world, yet if for that reason wherein they agree, one must be banished, any man that hath Logic (though he be a Poet) may infer, that t' will be as reasonable that the other should be banished too.  
In your next Paragraph, or farthel of I know not what, you say that I plead for Copes, and for those parts of the common-prayer-book which were borrowed from Rome: And then confute me with the threats of an erelong Visitation. Sir, there is neither Logic, nor School-Divinity in this. As for Copes, you know I join them with Surplices in my Sermon; and say that by the same reason that the false Prophets of our times would persuade the people that Surplices are unlawful because Papists wear them, they may endeavour to persuade them, that Linen is also unlawful, because Papists shift; and so conclude Cleanliness to be as superstitious as Surplices or Copes. Sir, you may call this Poetry, but there is a Logic in it, which I hope doth not cease to be Logic, which you cannot resist, because 'tis not watrishly or flegmatickly expressed. As for those parts of the common-prayer-book, which I do not say were borrowed from Rome, (as you impose upon me) but are to be found in the Rubric of the Church: if I had said they had been borrowed from that Church, yet you have said nothing to prove, that upon this supposition 'tis Popery to use those Prayers in Ours. Foreseeing, I believe, that if you had offered to maintain that what ever is in the Popish liturgy is Popery, that is, superstitious, and fit to be proscribed out of the Church, you would (meeting with a good Disputant, and one not addicted to Poetry) have been compelled to confess, that the Lords Prayer, and David's Psalms are Popery too, (though the one were delivered by Christ, the other by one who lived long before Antichrist) because they are bound up in the same volume with the Mass. Sir, if this be your Logic, 'tis Socrate ambulante coruscavit, and will be a false fire to lead you for ever out of the way. But here, Sir, though I need not take the pains to confute the Nothings you have said against me, in this particular, yet whenever you shall call upon me to make good my undertaking, I do promise to make it evident to you, that all the ancient parts of the common-prayer-book, which I plead for, I do not plead for because they are used by the Church of Rome, but because they were part of the liturgy of those Churches which were thought primitively pure, and not superstitious, and were in the world long before Popery, or Antichrist was borne. I must, therefore, for ought you have yet said to alter my opinion, still stand to my former conclusion; which is, that by the same reason that either the whole, or any part of our Common-prayer-book is to be turned out of the Church, because in some things it agrees with the liturgy of the Church of Rome, Italy, and Rome itself is to be turned out of the world, (& so a new Map to be made of it where these places are not) because they are the Pope's Territories, and lie under his Jurisdiction. Lastly, Sir, as for the Visitors you threaten both me and Christ-Church withal, (of whom some report that you are one) when you come to execute your Commission, so you will not urge it as a Topicke to convince my understanding, but as a Delegacy of power to examine my studies, life, and manners, I shall bring all the submission with me which can be expected from one subject to the trial. and examination of such a power. Being withal very confident, that when that time comes, however you may perhaps find an old Cope or two in our College, yet you will never bring Logic enough with you to prove, that they are either Idolatrous, or have been put to a superstitious use. And therefore, Sir, in this particular you have lost your friendly counsel, there being no need at all that we should against that time study for an Answer.  
In your next Fascicle, you say, that I maintain that some things in the Excellency, and Height of the Doctrines of Christian Religion depend for their credit, and the Evidence of their Truth, upon the Authority of Christ's Miracles conveyed along in Tradition, and Story; And, therefore, conclude that my Religion leans too hard, and too heavy upon Tradition. Sir, though I have always looked upon the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, as two glorious lamps, which to all eyes (that have not lost the use of seeing, by being kept sequestered from the sun too long in the dark) mutually give light to one another, so that a vigilant Reader, by comparing Prophecies with their Accomplishments, will have very great reason to believe that both are true, yet because this amounts but to the discourses and persuasions of a single man's reason, if I prefer Tradition, which is the constant, universal consent of all Ages, as a fuller medium to prove doctrines by which are hardly otherwise demonstrable, do I any more, I pray, then prefer the universal Testimony, and Report of the Church of all Times, before the more fallible suggestions of a private spirit?  
Your next Paragraph, is perfectly the Hydra with repullulating Heads which I warned you of in my first Letter; And multiplies so many causeless questions as make it nothing but a heap, partly of such doubts, partly of untruths, as would make it one of Hercules labours to examine them. First, you bid me prove that Christ hath put the sole power of Ordination in the hand of a Prelate. Sir, if the practice of the Apostles in the Scripture in this point were not clear, yet the practice and opinion of the Church for 1500 years ought to be of too great Authority with you to make this a scruple. Knowing that no Church in the world thought otherwise, till the Presbyterian Model crept forth of calvin's fancy; nor any good Protestant in the Church of England, till such as you recalled Aërius from his grave, and Dust to oppose Bishops. Next, you bid me justify, that no Church that ever the sun looked upon hath been more blest with purity of Religion for the Doctrines of it, or better established for the Government, and Discipline of it, than the Church of England hath. Sir, you repeat not the words of my Sermon so faithfully as you should. I am not so extravagant as to say, that no Church that ever the Sun looked upon, but that the Sun in all his heavenly course for so many, many years, that is, (in my sense) for many Ages, saw not a purer Church than ours was, both for the Doctrines, and Discipline of it. Against this you wildly object, I know not what Doctrines publicly countenanced, but tell me not what these Doctrines were, speak of certain superstitious practices, and Prelatical usurpations, but do not prove them to be either superstitious, or usurped; quarrel with the Delegation of Bishop's power to Chancellors, then proceed to the tyranny of the High-Commission-Court, and at last conclude with I know not what Imaginary corruptions and Innovations introduced into the State, Church, and University. Sir, if I should grant this longwinded Charge of yours to be true, (as truly I think it is only a seeing of vanity) yet my confident Assertion is not hereby enfeebled I hope, when I spoke of the purity of our Church, you did not think I freed it from all blemishes or spots. The Primitive Church itself had some in it who broached strange doctrines; Saint John had not else written his Gospel against the Gnostics, nor Saint Paul his Epistle to the Galatians against those that held the necessity of Circumcision. The next Ages of the Church have not been more distinguished by their Martyrs, than Heretics; yet the Primitive Church ceased not to be Apostolically pure, because it had a Cerinthus, or Nicolaitans in it; nor the succeeding Churches to be the Spouse of Christ, because one brought forth an Apelles, another a Martion, a third a Nestorius, a fourth an Eutiches, a fift an Arius. Sir, as long as the best Church in the world consists of men not infallible there will be errors. But than you must not charge the Heterodox opinions or Doctrines of particular men, though, perhaps, countenanced by some in public authority upon the Church. Besides, Sir, every Innovation is not necessarily a Corruption, unless it displace, or lay an Ostracism upon some other thing more worthy and better than it self. You yourself say, that the corruptions introduced were brought in by a prevailing faction, who were not the Church. If they were not, my Assertion holds good, that notwithstanding such corruptions, yet our Church in its time was the purest Church in the world. This, then, being so, me thinks, Sir, you in your pursuit of Reformation, by making Root & Branch your Rule of proceeding, have been more severe than the laws of right Reason will allow you. If there were such a tyranny as you speak of streaming itself from the High Commission Court, why could not the tyranny be suppressed, without the abolishment of the Court? Or if there were such a thing as Prelatical usurpation, why could not the usurpations be taken away, and Episcopacy left to stand? Sir, if you be Logician enough to be able to distinguish between the faults of persons and the sacredness of functions, you cannot but pronounce with me, that to extirpate an order of the Church, ancient as the Christian Church itself, and made venerable by the never-interrupted Reception of it in all the Ages of the Church but ours, for the irregular carriage of a Prelate or two, (if any such have been among us) is a course like theirs, who thought there was no way left to reform drunkenness in their State, but utterly to root up, and extirpate, and banish Vines.  
The remainder of your Paragraph is very politically ordered; which is, that because you find it hard for you to confute my Sermon by your Arguments, you will endeavour to make the Parliament my Adversary, who, you think, are able to confute it by their power: And bid me prove that the proceed of the Parliament are Turkish.  
Here, Sir, methinks, being a Poet, I see a piece of Ben Johnson's best Comedy, the Fox, presented to me; that is, you, a Politic Would_be the second, sheltering yourself under a capacious Tortoise-shell. Why, Sir, can you persuade yourself that the great Council of the Kingdom, by whom you are employed, if they will vouchsafe to read my Sermon, will not presently discern your Art? And withal perceive, that though the Text, upon which I, out of the Integrity of my soul, preached that Sermon, stick as close to False Prophets, as the Centaur's shirt did to Hercules, and set them a raging, yet that they having never Parliamentarily professed to propagate Religion by their spear, can no way be concerned, when I say that such a persuasion in us Christians would be Mahometan; and we thereby should translate a piece of the Koran into a piece of the Gospel. Sir, I am so confident of the wisdom of that Honourable Assembly, of my own innocent meaning, and of your guilt, (who have been one of those Turkish Prophets, (and in your Letter to me still are) who have preached that piece of the Koran for good doctrine) that for answer to all your sly, impotently-malicious misapplications and shift off that which I have said only of such as yourself to the Parliament, I shall only appeal to my Sermon. And by that, if you please to undertake the Devil's part, and be my Accuser, shall be content to stand or fall. In the mean time, Sir, I must repeat what I said before, that if it be read, or looked on through those refractions, with which you have mis-shaped, and crooked it, I shall consent to what you say in the end of your filthy Paragraph; That 'twas once a Sermon, but you almost à Carceribus usque ad metam have made it a Libel.  
In your next (what shall I call it?) you are very Critically pleasant; And because I talk of a Religion wherein I was borne, ask me, whether I were borne in a Surplice, or Cope; and then very distinguishingly proceed, and say, Christiani non nascuntur, sed fiunt.  
To the first, I reply, that it had been as unnatural for me to be borne in a Surplice, or Cope, as for you to come into the world, with a little Geneva set-ruffe about your neck.  
Next, Sir, for your sharp distinction, I hope, though the Muses be your Stepdames, yet you think not the figures of Rhetoric to be so superstitious, that it shall be Popery in me, to make use of a Metonymy, and to express myself by the Adjunct, when I mean the place, and Country. I grant, Sir, that men are not borne, but reborn Christians; yet 'twill be no great Error in speech for a man to say he is born in Christianity, if he be a Christian, and were born in the place where Christianity is established. Sir, I doubt you begin to think secular learning to be a profane thing; And that you are bound to persecute Tropes out of Expression, as you have Liturgy out of the Church. If you do, Sir, we shall in time, (if we proceed in this conflict) fulfil a piece of one of Saint Paul's Epistles between us; I become a Barbarian to you, and you to me.  
I am glad to hear you say, That the Parliament will not suppress the true Protestant Religion; Sir, I never thought they would. But, than 'twill be no harm to you, if I pray, That whilst you pursue such a through Reformation of it, as of late years hath left it doubtful in the minds of the people what the true Protestant Religion is, you let not in Popery at that Gate, by which they strive to shut it out. If Queen Mary's days do once more break in upon us through the sluice which we open to them by our unsetledness, and Distractions, and if I then fall a sacrifice in defence of the same Religion for which I now contend, I hope you then will think yourself confuted; And no longer believe that I am such an ill Judge of Religions, or so profusely prodigal of my life, that I would make it a Holocaust, or Oblation, either to Tyranny, or Popery.  
In short, Sir, let the King and Parliament agree to burn Copes, and Surplices, to throw away the Common-Prayer-Book, or to break our Windows, I shall not place so much Religion in them, as not to think them alterable, and this done by Right Authority. But as for the Covenant, 'tis a pill, Sir, which no secular interest can so sweeten to me, that I should think myself obliged to be so far of any man's Religion, as to swallow both parts of a contradiction in an Oath, if it appear to me to be such.  
Your promise that my Sermon should be first confuted before it be burnt, gives me hope it will be longer lived, then upon the first report I thought it would. But then I wonder you should pass that sentence on it, and choose Paraeus for your precedent. I must confess to you Sir, had I written so destructively of Parliaments as He did of Kings, I should think it no injustice from that High Court, if they should doom me the Author to be sacrificed on the same Altar with my Book. But having (upon the highest warrant that can possibly lend courage to a good action) directed it wholly against False Prophets, and no where reflected upon the Members of either House, but where I maintain it to be unlawful to speak evil of dignities, to condemn it to the flame for speaking such Truths, as I could not leave unspoken, unless I had prevaricated with the Scripture, will be so far from the reproach of a punishment, that 'twill increase the esteem and value of it from its sufferings; and make it ascend to heaven as the Angel in the Book of Judges did, in the breath, and air, and perfume of an acceptable sacrifice to God.  
Sir, As your she-Disciple did very much mis-inform you, if she told you that I endeavoured to incense an Officer of this Garrison against you, so 'twas one Error more in her (as upon just occasion I shall demonstrate to you) to tell you that I vented damnable Doctrines in her Company, which I was not able to maintain. She is my Gentle Adversary, and I desire she should know, that as I desire not to fight serious duels with that unequal Sex, so when ever she will again provoke me to a Dispute (so it be not at Saint Maries, for S. Paul forbids women to argue in the Church) she shall return with prizes, and I will confess myself conquered. In the mean time, Sir, whither she came to you, or you went to her, Her Sex puts me in mind of some false Teachers, not mentioned in my Sermon, but branded by Saint Paul, 
2 Tim 3.6  * for creeping into houses, and leading captive silly Women. If your Intelligencer be one of these (as I shrewdly suspect she is) I should be sorry for those Friend's sake in whose Acquaintance we both meet, that she should be liable to the Character of such silly women in the next verse; where 'tis said, That they were ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth.  
You proceed, and say, That you were in manifest Danger to lose your Right to the Exercise of the Protestant Religion, whereupon the High Court of Parliament thought it fit to repel force by force. Sir, do not entertain me with your own false fears, and jealousies; but demonstrate to me that the King (for Him I presume you mean) meant to extirpate the true Protestant Religion by the sword, and to plant Popery in its stead, And you shall not more falsely charge me that I make the Parliament by such a Resistance to Denizon the Koran, than I shall truly pronounce the King's party, in fight for him to that end, guilty of a Mahometan persuasion. In saying this, you exceedingly mistake me if you think I contend for a Vorstian Liberty, or am hereby a Friend to the Rebels in Ireland. Sir, I hope you can distinguish between mens Disloyalty and Religion. As Rebels I hold it fit, if they will not otherway return to their Allegiance, that they be reduced by force. There is a right to their subjection pursued by such a War, which makes all Arms warrantable which are employed for the recovery of such a loss. But to think, that as they are Papists, nay, (Sir, I shall not shrink from my word) if they were outright Infidels, that the Protestant Religion is to be imposed upon them by force, is to make ourselves guilty of all the hard Censures which have passed upon the Spaniards Conquest of the Indians, where their Silver Mines were the true cause, and Religion the pretence. Notwithstanding your Holy War, therefore, mentioned in the Revelation (which place I have considered, and find it as mysterious, as the pale or black Horse) for ought you have said in disproof of it, I find not myself tempted to desert my Opinion: which is, That to come into the field with an Armed Gospel, is not the way chosen by Christ to make Proselytes. And, therefore Sir, I will not so much distrust the Wisdom, or Justice of the Parliament, that upon your bare Assertion, they will make me miserable, because I maintain that they cannot warrantably compel any man to be happy.  
Why the bare mention of your Scruple-house should put you into such a fit of ill language, as to pronounce me unworthy to carry the Books of the Reverend Divines after them, who met there to heal Doubts, or why my Carfax-Sermon should contribute to the raging of that fit, I cannot reasonably imagine. Sir, I have no mind to fight many Duels at Once; nor, (having received a challenge from no other but yourself) to engage myself with them by whom I have not been provoked.  
Wither they be ungifted preachers, or Gifted Disputants, is best known to themselves. But, certainly, Sir, if the Report which was made to me (by some who brought both their understandings as well as Ears with t 'em to the famous meeting November 12.) be true, there was nothing so demonstratively by them either objected, or replied as might encourage them, or their Hearers, to believe this piece of Popery, that they are unerring, and infallible in the chair: pray, Sir, do not think my Famous pride, or self-conceitedness (which you say hath provoked you to break your chains, and to let lose your pen, that you might whip me into Humility) hath prompted me to say this.  
Had you named the Reverend persons whose Books I am not worthy to carry after them, so they be Greek or Latin Books, and those well understood by them, perhaps I should have expressed a greater Act of Humility than you are ware of, and have been content (though one of the new Doctors yet by the second Subscription of your Letter but a Master of Art) to sit a while at the feet of such learned Gamaliel's. But speaking indefinitely as you do, I hope Sir, for twenty years' study sake in this University, (where I have learned to distinguish the letters of the Greek Alphabet, and at first sight do know that it would beget a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or quarrel among the vowels, if 〈◊〉 in a word should usurp the place of 〈◊〉) you will find me a nobler employment then to carry Books after Them who count Liberaries Superfluous, humane, Secular Things; And think a Minister, not Minister of Gospel, (as your Scribe hath twice erred in the transcription of your letter, in a vowel very fatal to you) needs no other furniture but the Spirit, Cottons Concordance, and the English Bible without the Apocrypha.  
Sir, I am sorry the Fit which the mention of the Scruple-house did put you into, should be increased by the mention of a Dark Room. There goes a Story of one who had tasted a while of Bedlam, and was at length, by the help of Discipline, diet, and Physic, cured of his Distraction; yet not so perfectly, but that still when he came within the sight of the place, his fancy remembered him of his old Distemper, and tempted him to do something which required a second cure. I speak not this parable to upbraid any with an infirmity which is avoidable natural to them, and no way contracted from the pride, or irregularity of their own Wills; But if you have read Tully's Paradoxes, you may remember, Sir, that he there maintains the Opinion of the Stoics, that not only they whose chains and fetters, proclaim them distempered, but that all foolish, over passionate men are to be reckoned into the number of those who are to be cured by manacles, and chains: pray Sir, do not take it ill, if (being as you say a Poet) I cite a Poet who was of this Opinion; but maintains it like a Philosopher, (I will not say a School Divine.) And having insisted in verse upon Covetousness as one, Ambition as another, The love of beauty either in real or painted faces, as another Species of Madness, He concludes in Anger, and says, Ira furor brevis est; that is, That the Choleric man, during the fit of his choler, is in a short frenzy. That which Seneca, Tully, and Horace, called madness, (though not the other more natural, (which I should be uncharitable to object to you) you by this letter (especially the angry part of it) have given me very justifiable cause to apply to you, who (as all dispassionated men may judge) have fulfilled the Poet's definition of Madness upon yourself in all the parts of it but one, which is, that your Anger against me is not furor Brevis, a short distraction, but extends from the word Scruple-house to the End of your Letter. For first, Sir, in Language almost as unclean, as the sin of uncleanness itself, you endeavour to raise a Suspicion upon me in the world as if I had been more familiar than I should with light Women in dark Rooms: Sir, besides the poverty of your wit, and quibbling Antitheses of Expression, (to which I find you in other places of your letter very subject) I am not afraid (with all the confidence of an Innocent man) to tell you, That as I never was an Enemy to that Sex, so I never conversed with any of them single, or in a dark Congregation, so loosely, to deserve to have the slander fastened upon me, which Tertullian, and Minutius Faelix from him, say was laboured to be stuck upon the Christians of those Times, which was, That they used to meet in Conventicles, where their custom was, after the end of the Sermon, to put out the Candles, and then to commit Folly, the holy with the holy. Sir, in plain Terms, (How  soever other Errors, or vanities of my life may make me stand in the presence of God, who upon a true Repentance, Sir, is not so Fatally tied to the Spindle of absolute Reprobation, as not to keep his promise, and to seal merciful pardons, yet) in this particular, my known Conversation in this University, and all other places, bids me defy you; And challenge not only yourself, but the precisest of your Informers, either here, or any where else, (who use not to suffer the looks, Gestures, or thoughts of any who are not of their Tribe, much less notorious matter of Fact, to scape unquestioned) to appear in an accusation against me; where it shall be probably, not conjecturally proved, that I have been frail with the frail Sex either holy or profane.  
Sir, all they of that soft Sex, with whom I have conversed, have accused me of too great severity, and ruggedness, towards them, but you are the first, who ever endeavoured to make me guilty of being too amorously affected.  
Next, sir, However you may tell me that you have not so lost your Reason, or Logic, but that you, (the meanest who appears for the Parliament) are ready to take up the Gauntlet which I threw down, and to answer the challenge which I first sounded in the Pulpit; yet, certainly, They who shall read that passage of my Sermon, where I say, That if I were presently to enter into a dispute with the greatest Patriarch among these Prophets, who (notwithstanding that which I said before) will still perversely strive to prove that our Church stood in such need of Reformation, that the growing superstitions of it could not possibly be expiated, but by so much Civil War, I should not doubt with modesty enough to prove to him back again, that all such irrational Arguments, as have only his zeal for their Logic are composed of untempered Mortar: And shall compare the wild Torrent of ill language, with which the furious remainder of your paragraph overflows, with the Sober Web, and Composition of my Sermon, which you there think no worthier of, then of a Triobolar Ballad, They will find that you have said nothing in the progress of at least forty Folio-lines together, which shows not that your Reason assisted not your pen. One passage I confess (like a lucide Interval) hath some taste of sobriety, and not short fury in it; which is, that how meanly so ever you think you may speak of me, yet you think you are to make a more honourable mention of the Author of the Practical Catechism. That learned Doctor, Sir, I am acquainted with, but not so inwardly as that he should contribute to the interlining any letter I writ to you; or should suggest to me what he, not I, think fit to be maintained. I wish your lucid interval had been as long as your fit; For, than I persuade myself you would never have suspected that he did overlook my letter, or advised me to contend for the lawfulness of Prelacy, because he was present at the sad debate at Uxbridge.  
What you mean when you say, That if the learned Doctor hath any thing to object against you, He knows your mind, and (being none of the new Doctors, who you presume are Infants) is able to speak for Himself, I cannot possibly divine: unless by this Oraculous Expression, you would have him understand you ready to enter into a second conflict with him, and would put me to the mean employment to convey your challenge. Sir, if I know that Doctor well, you had best content yourself with me, who am a more poetical adversary; & whose weapons, you know, when they strike most, being sheathed in Roses, aught to be terrible to none but such, whose buying & selling Consciences (like the money-changers in the Gospel) will drive them out of the Temple at the sight of a whip made of straws and rushes. Nevertheless, Sir, if you be so fruitfully quarrelsome, that you think your leisure will serve you to hold combat with us both, let me desire you to hold this Opinion of us, that as I shall at no time recruit myself from him as an Orator, so he is too good a scholar to need my assistance as a Poet. This word Poet, I do observe, through the whole frenzy of your letter, you strive to make use of in a disgraceful sense; And object it to me as a Reproach that the Muses are my Friends. In one place you call me a Cretian Prophet, That is, (according to your Comment) a Poet; In another place you tell me, that only the few places of scripture which I have misapplied in my Sermon, can preserve it from passing among the penny-merchandizes of those that sell Ballads. In your next paragraph, (where you challenge me to dispute with you in English at St. Maries, as Mr Erbury did) one of your Arguments to move me to that frantic enterprise is, because I am an English Poet, and have been not only addicted to Plays, but have shuffled my Mother-tongue Verses, with other Verses published in more learned languages, in the same Book Printed by the Vniversity-Printer. First, sir, though the ungentleness of your stile, and Expressions, do sufficiently testify that neither the Muses, nor Graces assisted at your Birth, yet I hope you are not such an enemy to numbers, to think poetry Superstitious, and therefore to be turned with Imagery out of the Church. If you do, you will compel me to call Nazianzen in to my Aid; who, besides his writing of a Play (if Erasmus have not misnumbered them) hath written thirty thousand Heroic, Jambick, Hendecasyllable, Elegiac, and other verses. Tertullian, Sir, you know hath confuted Martion in Verse; and Synesius thought it as great a glory to be called a good Poet, as some who wrote in prose did to be called fathers of the Church. I will not repeat a piece of Prosper to you nor tell you what S. Austin hath said in the praif of Virgil. To be a Cretian Prophet, that is in your sense, a lying Poet, but in all theirs who understand the first C. of Titus, an Evil Beast, and a false Prophet) Is I confess a crime. But then, sir, as one excellently says in his Defence of Poesy, This is a kind of Poetry which belongs to those who lie in prose as well as those who fain in Verse. For Pliny, when he speaks of men with one foot, whose breadth interposed between them and the sun, shades their whole body, to be as great a poet as Ovid, when he speaks of a Virgin transformed into a Laurel, so, Sir, when you, (contrary to the direct mind, and Expressions of my Sermon) feign that to be spoken of the Parliament, which is only spoken against False Prophets. you are a far greater Poet than I have yet shown myself either upon the Stage at Blackfriars, or in any University Book here in Oxford. Next, sir, I was never so addicted to English Poetry, but that in the same University Book I had Latin Verses too; And the Reason why I wrote in both Languages was, because I was prompted to it by my Obedience to their Commands, who had Authority over me, and thought English the fit Language for that part of the Court, whose Sex doth make it a Solecism to be written to in Latin.  
Lastly, Sir, As for your Arguments to give you one of Mr Yerbury's Meetings, at Saint Maries; I. Because my Sermon Preached there is English, next, because you conceive that to be the readiest course to undeceive the people who understand not Latin; thirdly, because I am an English Poet; if you think I have not sufficiently answered them in my two former letters to you, I desire you once more to consider, if I should have consented to that course, whither you, as well as I, in the opinion of discreet men, might not have endangered ourselves to have that half verse in Horace applied to us, Aut insanit Home, aut versus facit, That either we are both mad, or both Poets,  
The way to avoid such an Imputation, in a Time of liberty, where every body may say what they list, is for us to stand constantly to the more Academical Proposition I made you; which was, to meet at Latin Weapons in the Divinity School. Where; sir, not agreeing upon the true state of the Questions before hand, (For if we agree before hand, nothing will be left us to dispute) if you please, the Question shall be that which concludes your Letter; That is, Prelacy, which, how far 'tis, or 'tis not to be defended to be Jure divino shall then appear. In the mean time, sir, as I can by no means allow that victory, and Success, are always the true signs of a Right cause, (Because, The Lord of Hosts, who, you say, hath broken all our forces, is sometimes falsely thought to assist, when in truth he doth only permit) so, Sir when you write next to me, let me request you to keep your promise; which is, to deal with me rationally for the Matter, and Spiritually, that is, like a Divine for the language and form. Otherwise, sir, though I have long since learned from the best Master, that when I am reviled, I am not to revile again, yet, instead of a Conference, meeting with nothing but Invectives, 'tis possible you may so fare provoke me from my mild temper, that the Philosopher's expression in Lucian's Nigrinus may be verified upon me; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. The English of it will endure the public test; to which if you will be pleased to submit your Letters with the same readiness that I am content to submit mine, I doubt not but the world will judge, that as you have not yet confuted, so you have very unchristianly injured  
From my Chamber, Jan. 23. 1646. The Author of the Sermon against False Prophets, J. maine.  
To this Answer (in which the Reader may see, I have not much digressed from the copy which was before me, but have proportioned my Defence to every considerable particular of M. Cheynels' Charge) at the end of six days was returned this Reply.  
SIR,  
If I had not answered you according to your folly, you would have been wife in your own conceit; but if I should again answer you according to your folly, I fear I should become too like unto you, Prov. 26.4, 5. I told you that I did let lose my pen, that you might see how easy it is to answer you with a running pen, nay a running negligence in the less serious part of the day; I did let fly so many quibbles that you might smell the stench of your own elaborate folly; glad I am that you have censured me for imitating of you, I hope you will now be at leisure to censure your self, for setting me so foul a copy; do but read over your own Sermons and Letters, and suppose they were mine, and then seriously and impartially pass your sentence on them, and I dare say you will be a gainer by this conflict.  
I am very much pleased with your fair condescension to have all things in controversy rationally and spiritually examined.  
1. Sir, you did as I conceive preach in defence of all images set up in any Chapel in the University; you know there are divers Images of some persons in the glorious Trinity set up in some Chapels within this University: You must then acknowledge all Images of that sort ought to be taken down.  

Imago nos tantism●t memoriale excitat uti Jesuitae passim. Dico non esse tam certum in Ecclesiâ an sint faciendae imagenes Dei, sive Trin●tatis, q●â Ch●●sti & sancto is hoc ●nim ad sidem ●ertin●t, tilud e●t in opi●one. B●lla. deim g l. 2 c. 8 J●animata sp●ritualem quandam virt●●em exconsecratione adipiscuntu●, etc. Tho. p. 3. q. 83. art 3. Deum imaginibus inhabitantè colunt, Deum cut●m virtu●e ●stam sp●●●tua●● ret●●he●e alquando sive ●●●●be es●t●n●m. Casetanus hac in re●nc Gentilibus quidem sanientio● hab●tur.  You are not persuaded by any Scriptures which I have cited, but nature hath taught you (so pure is your nature) that it is a breach of the second Commandment to draw a picture of God: (revise that fancy) the Schoolmen whom you prefer before the testimonies cited out of the Word, have taught you that it is not only sinful, but impossible to draw any picture of God. But, be pleased to consider that the Scriptures are a perfect (nay indeed the only All-sufficient perfect) Rule, & therefore you need not go about to patch up the rule with the low general dictates of nature & Schoolmen, you may study the L●llian Art. & fill your brain with Sebund's fancies, but my Schoolmen (as you call them) are the best Tutors, & the best Scholars. If you prove that is is impossible to picture God, you do not touch the point in Controversy, for vain men will fancy and endeavour to do, that which is impossible for to be done. Believe it Sir, they who had consulted as many Muses, and courted as many Graces as you have done, and were able to demonstrate out of their Poets that we are God's offspring, yet were not able without the help of divine Revelation to infer, from thence, that the Godhead is not like to Gold, as you may see it convincingly proved; Act 17.29. For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like to Gold or Silver, or stone graven by Art or man's device, I dare not therefore make the Schoolmen my Judges in this weighty point, and I believe you cannot prove them to be Judges in any point which concerns the Mystery of faith or the power of godliness, but enough of that.  
3. The word (thereupon) is sometimes Illative, sometimes Ordinative, you are sufficiently answered; but let me add, that if no Image is like God, then sure those Images, which are not made to represent God, and yet are by Idolatours turned into Idols, and worshipped as if they were divine, cannot reasonably be defended. Sir, I must guests at your meaning, because I believe you have omitted two or three words (such is your running negligence) which should help to make your sophistical criticism perfect sense.  
Truly Sir, if it be so high a fault to picture God: I may justly wonder that any picture of a Saint turned into an Idol should be retained and pleaded for by any man that pretends to be a Protestant, and if it be impossible to picture God, it is also impossible to picture God-man. And I believe that you will acknowledge our Mediator to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  
4. That the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of a comparison in point of fitness to be preserved, is a truth written with a Sunbeam; Sir, I never durst argue from the abuse of a thing against the use of it, if the thing be necessary; But the Sun is necessary, and Images are not necessary, ergo there is no parity of reason between the terms of your comparison.  
5. It appears to me by your shifting fallacy, that you make Copes as necessary as clean Linen.  
6. You will never be able to prove, that all, that the prelate's and their Faction have borrowed out of the Missal, rituals, Breviary Pontifical of Rome are to be found in any liturgy received by the Primitive Church; And I would entreat you to consider, whether they, who do profess a separation from the Church of Rome, can in reason receive and embrace such trash and trumpery. And yet though you would willingly be esteemed a Protestant, I find you very unwilling to part with any thing which the Prelates have borrowed from the Court (rather the Church) of Rome.  
7. Your next Paragraph doth concern Tradition; I shall give you leave to prefer the constant and universal consent of the Church of Christ in all ages, before the reason of any single man; but Sir, you do very ill to call the testimony of the spirit speaking in the word to the Conscience of private men, a private spirit; I think you are more profane in the stating of this point than Bellarmine himself.  
8. You have not yet proved that any Prelate can challenge the Sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction Jure divino.  
9 I should be glad to know for how many years you will justify the purity of the Doctrine, Discipline and Government in England. I believe the Doctrine, Discipline and Government of the Prelatical faction whom you call the Church, was not excellent, if you reckon from 1630. to 1640. and that is time enough for men of our time for to examine. I believe that you will acknowledge that the Prelates did lay an Ostracism upon those who did oppose them; who were in the right both in the point of Doctrine and Discipline, we shall in due time dispute. Though Prelacy itself be an usurpation, yet there were many other encroachments which may justly be called Prelatical usurpations, and the Parliament hath sufficiently declared its judgement in this point, they have clearly proved that Prelacy had taken such a deep root in England, and had such a destructive influence, not only into the pernicious evils of the Church, but Civil State, that the Law of right reason (even Salus populi quae suprema lex est) did command and compel them to take away both root and branch; you may dispute that point with them; Sir, you cannot prove that Prelacy is an Order of the Church, as ancient as the Christian Church itself, and made venerable by the never interrupted reception of it in all Ages of the Church but ours.  
10. I am no Turkish Prophet, I never preached any piece of the Koran for good Doctrine, much less did I ever make it a piece of the Gospel; all that I say is this, that Christians incorporated in a Civil State may make use of Civil and natural means for their outward safety. And that the Parliament hath a Legal power more than sufficient to prevent and restrain Tyranny. Finally, the Parliament hath power to defend that Civil right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion, this last point is sure of highest consequence because it concerns Gods immediate honour, and the People's temporal and eternal good. Pray Sir, show me if you can, why, he who saith the Protestants in Ireland may defend their Civil right for the free exercise of their Religion, against the furious assaults of the bloody Rebels, doth by that assertion proclaim himself a Turk, and Denison the Koran; you talk of the Papists Religion, Sir, their faith is faction, their Religion is Rebellion, they think they are obliged in conscience, to put Heretics to the sword, this Religion is destructive to every Civil State into which true Protestants are incorporated, & therefore I cannot but wonder at your extravagancy in this point. Sir, Who was it that would have imposed a Popish Service Book upon Scotland by force of Arms? You presume that I conceive the King had an intent to extirpate the Protestant Religion; Sir, I am sure that they who did seduce or over-awe the King, had such a design. I do not believe that the Queen and her Agents (the Papists in England who were certainly confederate with the Irish Rebels) had any intent to settle the true Protestant Religion; & you cannot but believe that their intent was, to extirpate the Protestant Religion by the sword, and to plant Popery inits stead; I know Christ doth make proselytes, and break the spiritual power of Antichrist, by his word and spirit, for Antichrist is cast out of the hearts and consciences of men by the spirit of the Lord Jesus; but Christ is King of Nations as well as King of Saints, and will break the temporal power of Antichrist by Civil and natural means. If Papists and Delinquents are in readiness to resist or assault the Parliament by Arms, how can the Parliament be defended or Delinquents punished but by force of Arms? I know men must be converted by a spiritual persuasion, but they may be terrified by force of Arms from persecution. All that I say, is, the Parliament may repel force with force, and if men were afraid to profess the truth because of the Queen's Army. and are now as fearful to maintain errors for fear of the Parliament, the scales are even, and we may (by study, conference, disputation, and prayer for a blessing upon all) be convinced, and converted by the undeniable demonstrations of the Spirit; Sir, this is my persuasion, and therefore I am sure far from that Mahometan persuasion of which I am unjustly accused.  
11. I am glad that you speak out, and give light to your dark room; I did not accuse you of Convenicles. I believe you hate those Christian meetings which Tertullian & Minutius, Pliny and others speak of; we had lights and witnesses good store at our meetings. And as for your conceit, that I deserve to be in Bedlam, because of the predominancy of my pride and passion, and the irregularity of my will; Sir, I confess that I deserve to be in Hell, a worse place than Bedlam; and if you scoff at me for this acknowledgement, I shall say as Augustine did, Irrideant me arrogantes, & nondum salubritèr prostrati, & elisi à te Deus meus, ega tamen confiteor dedecora mea in laude tua. Sir, be not too confident of the strength of your wit, make a good use of it, or else you may quickly come to have as little wit as you conceive, God hath bestowed on me. 1. Do you believe that your nature is corrupt? 2. And doth not a wanton wit make the heart effeminate? 3. Did you never converse with any woman of light behaviour? rub up your memory. 4. Superstitious persons are usually lascivious, I could tell you more, but I spare you. 5. Are you more temperate than the Disciples to whom Christ gave that caveat, Luk. 21.34? you may then apply yourself to Prayer and Fasting; do not say that this is a filthy Caveat, but beware of that filthy sin, and acknowledge that the Caveat is given you, upon sad considerations.  
12. You tell me that God is not so fatally tied to the Spindle of an absolute Reprobation, but that upon your Repentance he will seal your Pardon. Sir, Reprobatio est tremendum Mysterium; how dare you jest upon such a Subject, at the thought of which each Christian trembles? Can any man repent, that is given up to a reprobate mind, and an impenitent heart? And is not every man finally impenitent, save those few to whom God gives repentance, freely, powerfully, effectually? See what it is for a man to come from Ben. Johnson, or Lucian, to treat immediately of the ●igh and stupendidious mysteries of Religion; the Lord God pardon this wicked thought of your heart, that you may not perish in the bond of iniquity and gall of bitterness; be pleased to study the 9 Chapter to the Romans.  
You say if we agree upon the true state of the Questions before hand, nothing will be left us to dispute. Sir, it is 1. one thing to state a question for debate, so that you may undertake the affirmative, I the Negative, or è contrat: 2. another thing to state a question in a supposition as the Respondent usually doth, and a third business to state a question after the debate in a prudent and convincing determination, as the Moderator should do; I speak of agreeing upon the state of the question in the first sense, that the Question may be propounded in such terms as do so fare state the point in Controversy, that you and I may know which port to take, the Affirmative or Negative.  
The questions as I conceive are these that follow.  

1. Whether all that our Prelates have borrowed of the Church of Rome, and imposed upon the people, aught to be still retained in the Church of England?  
2. Whether the Images of our Mediator, and the Saints are useful Ornaments in Protestant Churches?  
3. Whether any Prelate be endued with the power of sole Ordination and Jurisdiction Jure divine?  
4. Whether they who defend the Protestants of Ireland against the Rebels by force of Arms, are therefore to be esteemed Mahometans?  
5. Whether that faith which is grounded only upon Tradition, aught to be esteemed a Divine faith?  
6. Whether the spirit speaking in the word to the conscience of private men ought to be esteemed a private Spirit?  
7. Whether any Reprobate can ever be converted or saved?  
8. Whether the Papists of England, & Rebels of Ireland with their Confederates did endeavour to extirpate the Protestant Religion and plant Popery in its stead?  
9 Whether they who endeavoured to impose a Popish Service-Booke upon Scotland by force of Arms, were of the Mahometan persuasion?  
10. Whether the Schoolmen are Competent judges in any point which concerns the Mystery of Faith or Power of Godliness?  
11. Whether the Nationall Covenant contradict itself?   
Sir, if you please to answer upon the three first questions in the Schools, and hold them as you seem to hold them all Affirmatively, I shall endeavour to prove the Negative.  
To all your scoffs and abuses I have nothing to reply; if God bids you revile or curse me, I shall submit to God; you call me Fool, Bedlam, Turk, Dog, Devil, because I give you seasonable advice: Sure Sir, Nazianzen, Prosper, etc. were not guilty of such Poetry, nor did Prudentius teach you any such strains.  
I did very honestly forewarn you of a visitation; it is I think proper enough to inquire into matters of fact at a visitation. Now whether Copes have been put to a superstitious use is not a question to be determined by any but Inartificiall Arguments, I mean by sufficient witnesses. To that which you Prophesy of, that I am like to be a Visitor; I answer 1. I think you have little ground for such a Prophecy: I call it a Prophecy, for I am sure the Houses of Parliament have not yet named any Visitor. 2. You talk much of the wisdom of the High Court of Parliament; and can you imagine that so wise a Court or (as you term it) Council will make choice of a Bedlam, a Turk, Dog, etc. to visit so many prudent and learned Doctors?  
Sir, you say you are not satisfied with my Arguments, you might have considered that I do reserve my arguments till we meet at Schools, our work for the present is to draw up the Points in Controversy into formal questions; I have you see form some questions, if you please to add more, you may, I shall be ready to give you the best satisfaction I can, after these are discussed, if I be not called away to some better employment by those who have power to dispose of  
Your humble Monitor, FRAN: CHEYNELL.  
An 

Omnia è Missali Breviario necnon Pontificali Romano à Prelat is nostris decerpta, populoque obstrusa in Ecclesiam recipienda sint?  
Christi Sanctorumque imagines Reformatorum Templis utili sint ornatui?  
Soli Praelato potestas Ordinationis nec non Jurisdictionis Jure divino competat?    
In hisce quaestionibus animi tui sententiam expectat FRANCISCUS CHEYNELL.  
Having read over this Letter, I felt two contrary Affections move within myself. First, I was sorry, that it began in that kind of bitterness, which useth to have the same mischievous effect upon minds not addicted to quarrel, as blear eyes have upon other eyes more sound. Which find themselves insensibly infected by beholding; And in the presence of those that are bleared unawares learn their imperfections, and become bleared too. Next, I was glad, that the Controversies between us, (which like the original of mankind, began in two, and in a short time had multiplied themselves past number) were at length reduced to three latin questions, and those to be disputed in the Divinity School; where that part of Oxford, which understands no other Tongue, but that in which they daily utter their commodities, if they had been present towards the making of a throng, had yet been absent to the dispute. Thus divided, therefore, between my provocations to Answer the reproachful Preface, and my Alacrity to comply with the Conclusion of the precedent Letter, I returned this following Answer.  
Sir,  
When I had opened the Letter you sent me on Saturday night last, Jan. 30. and found by the first period of it, that as your first Letter showed you a great Master in Detraction, so in this you had learned the Art to make the Scripture revile me too, and taught two of Solomon's 
* Pro. 26. 4, 5.  Proverbs to call me Fool; Finding also in the next period how naturally and uncompelled ill language flows from you; who do here confess that you did let lose your pen that I might see, how easily, and with what an unforced Dexterity, in the less serious part of the Day, without premeditation, or the expense of Study, you could revile me; And withal, that you did let fly so many quibbles (as the exercise of your Recreation, I presume) to mind me of my more industrious Trifles, I must confess I not only looked upon you as a Person fit to sit in the 
* Psa. i. 1●  Seat of the Scornful, but as one very capable to be requited with a Proverb; which the same 
* Pro. 26.18.19.  Chapter which you quoted, presented to me at the 18. & 19 Verses; where 'tis said, That as a madman who casteth-firebrands, Arrows, and death, so as the man that deceiveth his neighbour and saith he is in sport.  
Sir, I should not have applied this price of Scripture to you by way of Retaliation, (which may seem to have some bitterness in it) had you not at the very threshold and first unlocking of your Letter, verified this Proverb upon yourself, by casting firebrands and Arrows first, and thereby deceiving me, who (upon your promise that I should be spiritually dealt with, that is, as a Divine engaged in a needless Controversy with a Divine aught to be) unsuccessfully flattered myself, that for the future, though I could not expect much Reason or proof or Argument from you, yet you would certainly bind yourself to the Laws of Sobriety, and good Language. How you have made good your promise, will appear to any, who (besides the reproachful proverb with which you begin your Letter, and for which, a greater than Solomon hath said you shall be in 
* Mat. 5.22  Danger of Hell-fire) shall read the puddle of your letter which streams from the first foul Spring, and Head of it; where, having first charged me in my writing to you with Elaborate Folly, you make it an Excuse to the Dirt and mire of your pen, that I set you the Copy, and was foul in my Expressions first.  
Sir, Though the saying of Tacitus be one of the best confutations of Detraction, Convitia spreta exolescunt, and though I have always thought that to enter combat with a Dunghill is the way to come off more defiled, yet finding myself engaged (like one of the poetical Knights errand) with an Adversary that will not only provoke me to fight, but, who's best weapon is to defile me out of the field, I shall for once apply as good perfume to the stench you speak of, as can possibly in such times make me walk the streets in my own Oxford, uncondensed not by you made foggy, Air; And shall make it evident, first to yourself, next to the world, (if you will consent that what thus secretly passeth between us shall be made public, and Printed) that you are not only fallible in your most sad, and melancholy considerations, but in those more pleasant, mirthful chymes of quibbling, for which I before placed you in the Chair.  
First, sir, you bid me read over my two Sermons and the two letters which I have sent you, as if they were yours, and then impartially tell you, whether I am not to pass sentence upon them as you do; That they are Diffoiles Nugae, Elaborate Follies.  
To which my Reply is; First, that there is so much loyalty, and so little self-interest in them, that my imagination can never be strong enough to Suppose them to be yours, Next, That what Folly soever betrays itself in your expressions, yet the matter is built upon such sure rocks of the Scripture, that 'tis not all the waves or Tempest which you can raise against them, will be able to reduce them to the fate of a House built upon the Sand. Thirdly, (since all Disputes, as well as wit, are like a Rest Kept up at Tennis, where good players do the best with the best Gamesters) I do sadly promise you, that when ever you shall either write or urge to me such Arguments of serious Consideration, that I shall not have reason to think St. Paul's saying verified in thy Expressions, that my Foolish things are sufficient to confound, and bring to nought your wise; I will lay aside the Folly you tax me withal. In the mean time, if you think my Letters to you By what Glass soever my Sermons were made) are elaborate, pray compare the Dates, and Receipts of them, with the No-d●●es, and uncertain Receipts of yours; And you will find that the longest letter, I have yet written to you, was but the creature of two days, when your unelaborate answer to it back again was the Birth, and Travel of a whole week.  
Having said this, Sir, by way of Answer to your ungospellike preface, I shall next, (confining myself once more to your own method) address myself to the examination of the rest of your letter. A hard task, I confess; It being so much a Twinn-brother to your former▪ where your evasions, and little escapes are so many, and your true substantial, solid disproofes of any one thing which I have said either in my Sermons or Letters, so few, that, to deal freely with you, my Conflict with you hitherto hath been (and for aught I yet foresee is like to prove) like the Fight between Hercules, and the River Achelous; which when 'twas foiled in one shape, could tyre the Conqueror, and presently provoke him to a fresh encounter in another. Sir, I could wish (without your strange endless multiplication of Questions) you would assume to yourself some constant figure, wherein I might say, I grappled with a bodied Adversary. But changing Form, as you do, and putting me still to prove that which you have not yet so much as seemingly confuted, pardon me (I beseech you) if I say, that my combat with you is not only like the combat of Hercules with that River, but like his, who thought he had entered Duel with a Giant, and after much toil found himself encountered by a cloud.  
First, you conceive, that I preached in defence of all Images set up in any Chapel within this University. Sir, This is but your conceit, of which you, not I am guilty. My sermon, if you mark it, is not so confined either to Vanlings Draughts, or any other man's pencil, as to defend what ever their Irregular Fancies shall draw, or not to defend what ever, either here, or any where else, they shall regularly limb. But if your conceit were true, what doth your Logic infer, That because some Chapels are adorned with the Images of some of the persons in the Glorious Trinity, therefore I must acknowledge all Images of that sort ought to be taken down? Pray, Sir, how long hath the single- Topick of your mere Assertion been of such forcible Authority, that without any other proof, you should think me obliged to hold such Images worthy of expulsion, because you say they are? Had you either from Scripture (the most perfect Rule for the Decision of Controversies) or from Reason, (Though in your esteem but a piece of nature corrupted) urged any one necessary Argument to prove them unlawful, or things which deserve to be called the Idolatry or Superstition of the place, perhaps being a servant to Demonstration, (though a favourite of the muses) I should have been one of the first that should have cried out for Reformation. But this not being done by you, nor indeed, possible to be done by any other, though my sermon speak not of any Image of any person in the Trinity, yet I conceive all Arguments, which shall strive to prove, that no picture of any person in the Trinity ought to be the Ornaments of a Church, or Chapel Window, will be as frail and brittle as the Glass in which they stand. Sir, I have said in my last Letter, and shall repeat it in this, that 'tis not you, but nature and the numerous places of Scripture, which forbidden to make any picture of God, (either taken for the Divine essence common to all the three persons, or for the person of God the Father distinct from the other two) which persuade me that any such picture (besides the impossibility) is unlawful. And therefore you need not have put yourself to the uncecessary trouble to hang your Margin with quotations taken out of Bellarmine, or Aquinas; since all such quotations applied to that which I have said and you have cited, which is, That all pictures of God are a breach of the second Commandent, do strike me no more, then if I should enter conflict with those dead Arras-Captains, which in hang threaten to assault the spectator with imaginary, woven Lunces. Much less need you so superflously have called S. Paul from the third heaven to prove, that (because he once quoted this Greek Hemistick out of Aratas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that we are the Offspring of God) God is not like to gold, silver, or stone, graven by the art of man's device. Since by that which I have said of him in my former Letter, you are obliged to testify for me, that I have urged convincing reasons to prove he cannot be: which Reason's, as borrowed from nature and the schoolmen (with whom, sir, I hope you are not implacably fallen out) I do not urge as the supre●● Judges of what I there prove, but as subservient mediums, which carry a music and consent to that which God hath said of himself in the more perfect Rule of his Word. So that for doing this, to charge me (as you do) with the Study of the Lullian Art, is either nonsense in your Letter, or an Illation which resolus itself into a contemptible mistake; which is, That because Lullius, who wrote of Chemistry, was ca●●ed Raymundus, I, who have read another Raymundus who wrote of Natural Theology, am to be called a Lullianist, which is a Logic as wretched, as if I should say, Mr Cheynell hath read Caserane, and hath made him a marginal note, Therefore he is a seeker of the Philosopher's Stone, and studies to convert the Ore and Tin of the kingdom into Gold. Sir, Your Logic is not much mended when you say, That the Word (thereupon) is sometimes Illative, sometimes Ordinative. For ●●ke it which way you will, As it stands in your last letter, you are bound to give me thanks as a Poet, that I deal● not with you as a Sophister, and proclaimed your infirmity for having uttered a contradiction. Which contradiction, I confess, might have been avoided by the insertion of the ●●●itled worder two, for w●●● of which, yo● say my sophistical Crititis●● is abortive, and came but with one leg into the World.  
In answer to your next Paragraph, I shall most readly grant, That 'tis a high fault to picture God. Because, any such Draught not being possible to be made of him, but by resembling of him to something w●● is able to afford a Species or Idea to the sense, would, (besides the Falseness of it, where a gross material figure should represent a Pur● invisible Essence) degrade him from the honour which he ought to hold in our Minds which are his Temple; in which Temple if he should hang up in a frame or table, which should contract and shrink him to the finite Model of a man o● any other creature, 'twere the way to convert him into an Idol; and so (as I have often said) to sin against the second Commandment, which as it may be broken by spending our Worship upon false Gods; so it may also be broken by our false portraitures, and apprehensions, and venerations of the True.  
The case of the Saints is far otherwise. For whose pictures turned into Idols, as I have not where pleaded, (For as Idols I acknowledge they are the crime of those who worship them) so, as Orndments, you will never be able convincingly to prove but that they may be innocently retained, and be looked on by those who do only count them speechless Colours. The like may be said of Pictures made of Christ, which pretend to express no more of him then is capable of Represontation, and exceed not the lines and symmetry of his Body and flesh. For I shall grant you that to Limb his Divinity, or to draw him in both his Natures, as he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God as well as man, is altogether impossible, and not in the power of any Painter, though we should recall Apelles, or Parrhasius from their Graves, and once more put Pencils into their Hand. You know, sir, if a man should have his picture drawn, 'twould be an impossible task, if he should enjoin the Painter to limb his soul, as well as the proportion and feature of his Body, since the Soul is a thing so unexpressible to the sense, that it scarce affods any Idea to be understood by the mind. Sir, if you have read Aristotle's Books 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, you will there find, that the proper Objects of all the senses besides those of the Eye (though much grosser than Spirits or Souls) cannot be brought into picture. A Painter may draw a flower but he cannot limb a scent. He may paint fire, but he cannot draw heat. He may furnish a table with an imaginary banquet, but he that should offer to razed of this banquet would find himself cozened. The Reason is, because Nature itself makes it impossible for the proper Object of one sense to be the Object of another; And finds not art or col●●●s for any thing invisible; But only for those Superficie's, Symetry's, and sensible parts of Things, which are first capable to be seen, and then to be transcribed into a picture. But why that part of Christ, which after his Resurrection, (when it began to cease to be any longer a part of this visible World) was seen of above five hundred brethren at once, may not be painted; Nay, why the figure of a Dove, or of cloven Tongues of fire (wherein the third person in the glorious Trinity appeared, when he descended upon our Mediator Christ, and sat upon the heads of the Apostles) may not be brought into imagery, I must confess to you, I am not sharpwitted enough to perceive. Though this I shall freely say to you, (and pray do not call it Poetry) That to maintain that Christ thus in picture may be worshipped, is such a piece of Superstition, as not only teaches the simple to commit Idolatry, but endeavours to verify upon him in colours the reproach which the calumniating Jews stuck upon his person and to make him thus painted, a Seducer of people.  
As for your fourth paragraph, (which assaults me the second time with an Argument without an Edge, which is, that the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of comparison in point of fitness to be preserved) having in my former Letter already answered you, I shall not put myself to the needless trouble, the second time to confute it.  
For answer to your Fifth, pray, Sir, read that part of my Sermon which you have corrupted into a quibble; And there you shall find, that what I say of clean linen is not, as you say, a shifting Fallacy. But I there say that which you will never be able to control; which is, That by the same reason that you make Surplices to be superstitious because papists wear them, you may make Linen also to be superstitious because papists shift; And so conclude cleanliness to be as unlawful as Surplices or Copes. Sir, this is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉; I confess, the same Answer twice served in to you, not out of scarcity or barrenness, or for want of another Reply, but because much of your Letter is but cram repetita, a carrot twice boiled.  
Your sixth paragraph is a faggot bound up with more sticks in it, than you, without poetical Licence, can possibly gather from my Letter; where, Sir, I only promise you, (when ever you shall call upon me) to derive to you all the ancient parts of our English Liturgy from Liturgies which were in the Church before popery was born. Of which if any part be to be found in the Rubrics of the Church of Rom● your logic will never be able to prove, that therefore 'tis to be rejected as trash and trumpery in ●●●rs. Good things, Sir, lose not their goodness, because they are in some places mingled with superstitious. Nor, as I told you before, do David's Psalms cease to be a piece of Galenical Scripture, because they are to be found bound up in the volumn with the Mass. Sir, if what ever is made use of by the Pope, or touches upon Rome, should be superstitious, the River Tiber would be the most  river in the World. What you mean by a prelatical Faction here in England, or what they borrowed from the Rituals or pontifical of Rome, is expressed to me in such a mist of words (which sound big to the common people, and signify nothing to the wise) that I must confess my dulness, I do not understand you. If you mean, that they inserted any new pieces into the old garment of our Common-prayer-book; and those borrowed from the Missal, or Breviary of Rome, I believe, Sir, (abstracting from those alterations made in the prayers for the King, Queen, and Royal issue, which the Death of Princes exacted, (unless, for constancy sake, you would have them allow of prayers for the dead; and in King Charles and Queen Mary's days, to pray still for King James and Queen Anne, which would be a piece of popery equal to the invocations of saints) you will find nothing medern or of such new contrivance, as passed not Bucers' examen in the reign of Edward the sixth; And was confirmed b● Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In saying this in their defence, who had the ordering of such changes, I hope Sir, you will not so uncharitably think me embarked in their Faction (which truly to me still presented itself like the concealed Horses under ground, a fiction made to walk the streets, to terrify the people) as to persuade yourself, after my so many professions to fall a sacrifice to the Protestant Religion, that it can be either in the power of the Church or court of Rome, to tempt me from my Resolution: Which is, to go out of the world, in the same Religion I came in.  
Sir, I gave warning in my last letter not to venture your writings upon the Argument, which deceives none but very vulgar understandings, and which I in my Ser●on call the Mother of mistakes; which is, from an accidental concurrence in some things to infer an outright similitude and agreement in all. Because Bellarmine says tradition is a better medium to prove somethings by, than a private spirit, and because I in this particular have said so too, you tacitly infer that I and Bellarmine are of the same Religion; which is the same, as if a Turk and a Christian saying that the Sun shines, you should infer, that the Christian is a Mahometan, and for saying so, a Turk. I confess, you do not say we are both of the same Religion: but that I, in preferring Tradition, which you yourself, in your s●●●●●h paragraph, t●ow to be the Constant and universal Report of the Church) befo●● he Testimony of the Spirit, speaking in the Word to the Consci●●ce● of private men, am more profane than he. Heer, sir, you must not take it ill, if I expose you to the censure of being deservedly thought guilty of a double mistake. The one is, that if Bellarmine in this particular were in an Error, and if I had out-spoken him in his Error, yet the Laws of speech will not allow you to say, That in an unprofane subject, either of us is profane; more heretical, or mistaken you might perhaps have said: and this, though a false Assertion, might yet have passed for right Expression. But to call him positively, and me comparatively more profane, because we both hold, That a Drop is more liable to corruption then the Ocean, or the testimony of all ages of the Church is a fuller proof of the meaning of a text in Scripture, than the solitary Exposition of a man who can persuade none but himself, is as incongruous, as if you should say, that because Bellanmine wrote but three Volumn●, and Abulensis twelve, therefore Abulensis was: a greater Adulterer then Herald Your other mistake is, That you confound the Spirit of God speaking in the Scripture with the private Spirit (that is) Reason, Humour, or Fancy of the person spoken to. Sir, let that blessed Spirit decide this controversy between us. He says 
* 2 Pet. 1.20  that no Prophecy of the Scripture is of private Interpretation. That is, so calculated, or Meriduanized to some select mind & understandings, that it shall hold the candle to them only, and leave All others in the Dark. But, if you will consent to the Comment of the most primitive Fathers on that Text, The meaning of it is, That as God by his Spirit did at first dictate the scripture, so he dictated it in those things which are necessary to Salvation, intelligible to all the world of M●n, who will addict their minds to read it. It being therefore a Rule held out to all mankind, for them to order their lives and actions by and therefore universally intelligible to them, (it should else cease to be either Revelation or a Rule) for you to hold that is ●●●not be understand without a second Revelation, made by the same Spirit that wrote it, to the private spirit of you the more-Cabinet Reader, is as if you should enclose and impale to yourself the Air, or Sunbeams; And should maintain that God hath placed the Sun in the firmament, and given you only eyes to see him In short, sir, 'tis to make as word, which was ordained to give light to all the World, a Dark Lantern, In which a candle shines to the use of none but him that bears it.  
Your Eighth Paragraph being the third of your eleven Questions as also the close of your ninth, shall receive a latin Answer from me in the Divinity School.  
Your next Paragraph is again the Hydra with repullulating Heads: Where, first, you put me to prove the purity of the Doctrine, Discipline, and Government in England. Which, being managed by a Prelatical faction, whom, you say, I call the Church, was not excellent, if I reckon from the year 1630. to 1640. As for the Doctrine, Sir, I told you before, that the Primitive Church itself was not free from Heresies. If therefore I should grant you (which I never shall, till you particularly tell me what those erroneous doctrines were) that some men in our Church were heterodox, nay heretical in their opinions, yet I conceive it to be a very near neighbour to heresy in you to charge the doctrines of persons upon the Kingdom or Church. Such Doctrines might be in England, (as you whether out of Choice or Luck have said) yet not by the Tenets or Doctrines of the Land: No more, then if you should say, that because M. Yerbury and some few others hold the Equality of the Saints with Christ, the whole Kingdom is a blasphemer, and was by you confuted at S. Mary's. The public doctrine of the Church of England I call none but that which was allowed to be so by an Act of Pa liament of England; and that, Sir, was contained in the 39 Articles. If any Prelate or inferior Priest, for the Cycle of years you speak of, either held or taught any thing contrary to these, (as it will be hard I believe for you to instance in any of that side who did) you shall have my consent, in that particular, to count them no part of our Church. In the mean time, Sir, I beseech you be favourable to this Island; and think not that for ten year's space 'twas heretical in all the parts of it on this side Berwick. Withal, Sir, I desire (since you have assigned me an Epocha to reckon from) that you will compare the worst doctrines which wore the date of the Trojan War amongst us, with those which have since broke lose in the space of a War not half so long, and you will find, that our Church for those ten years you speak of wore a garment, I will not say, as seamless and undivided as Christ's coat: But since the Soldiers did cast lots upon it, so much heresy, as well as schism, hath torn it asunder, that 'tis now become like joseph's coat imbrued in blood, where no one piece carries colour or resemblance to another. As for the Discipl ne and Government of our Church, (if you would speak your conscience, and not your gall) you would confess, that the frame and structure of it was raised from the most Primitive Model that any Modern Church under the Sun was governed by. A Government so well sized and fitted to the Civil Government of the Kingdom, that till the insurrection of some false Prophets, who presumed to offer strange fire before the Lord, and reduced a Land which flowed with milk and honey, into a wilderness; they agreed together like the two Scripture-brothers, Moses and Aaron; and were the two banks which shut up schism within its channel, and suffered not heresy or sedition to overflow their bounds. In short, Sir, I know not into what new form this Kingdom may be moulded, or what new creation may creep forth from the strifefull heap of things, into which, as into a second Chaos, we are fallen; But if the Civil State do ever return to its former self again, your Presbyterian Government, which was brought forth at Geneva, and was since nursed up in Scotland, mingled with it, (if I be not deceived in the principles of that Government) will be but a wild Vine engrafted into a true. Upon which unequal, disproportioned Incorporation, we may as well expect to gather Figs of Thistles, or grapes of thorns, as that the one should grow so Southern, the other so Northern; that one harmonious, musical Body should arise from them thus joined. What Errors in Government or Discipline were committed by the Prelates, I know not; neither have you proved them hitherto chargeable with any; unless this were an error, that they laid an Ostracism (as you say) upon those that opposed your Government. I believe, Sir, when Presbytery is set up, and you placed in your Consistory with your Spiritual and Lay-brethrens, you will not be so negligent, or so much asleep in your place, as not to find an Ostracism for those, who shall oppose you in your office. In the mean time, Sir, to call them, or those, who submitted to their Government, A Prelatical faction, because the than wheels of their Government moved with an unanimous undisturbance, is, I believe, a calumny, which you would feign fasten upon them, provoked (I suppose) by the description which I have made of the conspiracy of the False Prophets of Jerusalem in my Sermon. I must deal freely with you, Sir, do but probably make it appear to me, that this Faction in your letter was like the Conspiracy in my Sermon; Do but prove to me, that the Prelates devoured souls; That they took to themselves the Treasure, and precious things of the Land; That to effect this, they kindled the first spark towards a Civil War; & then blew it into such a flame, as could not be quenched but with the blood of Husbands ravished from their Wives, and the slaughter of parents pressed and ravished from their children: Do but prove to me that they made one widow, or built their Honours upon the ruin or calamity of one Orphan; Lastly, do but prove to me that the Priests (whom you make to be the lower orb of their Faction) did so mingle, and confound the services of the Church, as to put no difference between the holy, and profane, or that in compliance with them, they saw vanity, and divined lies to the people, and I shall think them capable of all the hard language, which you or others have for some years heaped upon them. Till then, Sir, pray mistake not Concrets for their Abstracts; nor charge the faults of persons, upon the innocency of their functions. Prelacy is an Order so well rooted in the Scripture, though now deprived of all its Branches in this Kingdom, that I verily persuade myself, that as Caiaphas in the Gospel when he spoke Prophecy, perceived not himself at that time to be a Prophet; so you (overruled by the guidance of a higher power) have in this Paragraph exceedingly praised Prelacy, whilst you laboured to revile it. For either it must be Nonsense, or a very great Encomium of it, when you say, that as long as it enjoyed a root here in this Kingdom, it had not only a destructive influence into the evils of the Church, but of the Civil State too. If the Influence of it were so destructive of evils, (as indeed it was) pray with what Logic can you say, that Salus populi quae suprema lex est, did compel the Parliament to extirpate a thing so preservative and full of Antidote both to Church and State?  
Sir, if men's styles & denominations be to be given to them by the place & climate where they are borne & bred, I shall grant you are an English, nay an Oxford Christian. But if you preach, & maintain, that Religion as to be propagated by the Sword, I must tell you, that an English Presbyter may in this case be a Turkish Prophet; and that though his Text be chosen from the Gospel, yet the Doctrine raised from it, may be a piece of the Koran. I shall allow you to say that the Protestants in Ireland had a Right to the defence of the free exercise of their Religion against the furious assaults of the bloody Rebels. But when you tell me that Christ is King of Nations as well as King of Saints, (which I shall grant you) and say, that as one of his ways to make Proselytes is by the persuasion of his Word and Spirit; so, if that will not do, his other way to break the power of Antichrist, that is, (as I conceive you mean) to convert men from Popery, is by civil and natural means that is, (if you mean any thing) to compel them to be Protestants by the Sword; Methinks I am at Mecha, and hear a piece of Turkism preached to me by one of Mahomet's Priests. In short, Sir, whether the Papists in England were confederate with the Irish Rebels I know not: But do you prove demonstratively, not jealously, to me, that the Queen and her Agents had an intent to extirpate the Protestant Religion, and to plant Popery by the Sword; and the Army that should bring that design to pass, shall, in my opinion, be styled an Army, not of Papists, but of baptised Janissaries. As for your bidding me dispute the right of taking up Arms in such a case, with the Parliament; First, I must desire you to accept the Answer which Fauroinus the Philosopher gave to a friend of his, who asked him, why he would let Adrian the Emperor have the better of him in a Dispute; I am loath to enter into an Argumentation with those who command Thirty Legions. Next, Sir, if I were of consideration enough to be heard to speak publicly to that Great Assembly, having first kissed my weapon, I should not doubt, with all the respective liberty, which might witness to them that I strive not to diminish the rights of their power, but to defend the truth of my cause, to tell them, that to come into the field with an armed Gospel, is not the way chosen by Christ to make Proselytes. If this be an error or mis-perswasion in me, show me but one undeniable demonstration of the Spirit to disprove it, besides your unto picall persuasion of yourself to the contrary, and, without any farther conference, or dispute in this point, I shall acknowledge myself your convert, and be most glad to be convinced. In the mean time, Sir, you are obliged, (though I be in your opinion in an error) to think more nobly of me, then of those Cowards of your side, who durst not speak Truth in a time of danger, when you see me, in the like time, such a resolute Champion (as you conceive) for the wrong.  
Sir, 'tis one of the praises of a good picture to be drawn so livingly, that every one in the room that beholds it, shall think it looks only on him; 'Tis just so with some Texts in Scripture, and some parts of moral Philosophy; which when they speak very Characterizingly of an irregular passion, or vice, if they meet with a man Conscious, and one subject to such passions, remember him of his guilt, and prick his mind as if he only were signified by that which was writ to all the World. By your charging me that I dealt more sharply with you then I should, you give me cause to suspect, that my Letter proved such a picture to you; and you to your guilty self seemed a person so concerned. The words of bitterness which you have laid together in one heap, are composed of such Language, as upon your twentieth perufall you will never be able to find in my Letter. Sir, Christianity, and my profession (however you in your letter forgot both) have taught me not to return Vomit for Vomit. And the love which I bear to to the Civility of expression, would never suffer me to be so revilingly broad. If I made use of one of Seneca's Epistles, or of Tully's Paradoxes, or Horace's poetical Controversies, and if you would apply what they said of Ambition, Pride, or Choler to yourself, certainly, Sir, you have no reason to call this the Luxuriancy of my wit. And thereupon to infer these provocative conclusious; that my wit is wanton, therefore I am effeminate. That I am superstitious, therefore lascivious too. Sir, as my wit is so poor that I shall observe your Council, that is, never wax proud upon the strength of it, or despise those that are more weak, so (without sparing me at all) I do once more challenge you to prove, that the wantonness of it hath betrayed me to the lose Conversation of any that are light. Lastly, Sir, I hope you do not thing I have so much of the vain glory, or selfe-conceitedness of those Reverend Hypocrites in the Gospel in me, who were able to boast of their long Prayers, and broad phylactaries, and of their fasting twice a week, that I will offer to think myself more temperate than the Apostles. Yet, Sir, I dare once more challenge you, & the precisest of your inspired informers, to prove me at any time guilty of the breach of the Text you quote against Surfeiting, and Drunkenness. Luk. 21.34. That part of your Paragraph, therefore, which ends in exhortation, is a piece of Homily, which returns to you, to be made use of towards some other on the next last Wednesday of the month, where Fasting, and Sobriety will be seasonable The●ams.  
I grant, Sir, that Reprobation is a Mystery to be trembled at. Yet Sir, all they who (maintaining it to be absolute) do revive the fiction of the three destinies, where one holds the Distaff on which the Thread of every man's Fate is spun, and do preach a piece of Zeno's Philosophy for a piece of Saint Paul's Epistles, can have no reason to accuse me of a jest, because I applied a spindle to the Distaff, on which men's fates are rolled. Sir, in plainer terms, as absolute Reprobation, is a piece of Stoicism, which was never held to be Christian, till it crept forth into the Church from the same fancy, which was the womb in which the Presbyterian Government was form, so me thinks, Lucian, Sir, (how cheaply soever you think of him, or me, for having closed my last letter to you with a piece of his Nigrinus) in his confutation of this Heathenish Error (which hath made so many hang themselves) urgeth Arguments which would become one of the Fathers of the Church. I know not whether you have read his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. But if you have, he there tells you, that if there be such a thing as the fatal Decree, you speak of; 1. That all they who lie under the Inflexibility of it, being tied by an unalterable necessity to do what they do, can in no reason be rewarded if they do well, nor with any Justice be punished if they do ill. Next, that the Sins which they commit, (if they cannot but commit them) are not to be called their Sins, but the Sins of that Decree which laid this necessity upon them. And, therefore, Thirdly, that a murderer (thus predestined) if he should be arraigned, may say to any Judge thus stoically persuaded. Why do you accuse me? Pray call my Destiny to the Bar; and do not sentence me, but my fate to the Rack and Wheel. I was but an overswayed Instrument in this Murder; and was but such an Engine to my Destiny, as my Sword was to me. Though this were spoken by a Heathen, only in disproof of Fate, yet since Saint chrysostom in more than three Sermons had said the same things in disproof of absolute Reprobation, I hope, sir, neither Calvin, nor Piscator, have so mistaught you to understand Saint Paul, as from any Epistler of his to conclude peremptorily, that any without their desert, are given up to a Reprobate mind, and finally struck & necessitated to a remediless impenitence. The 9 Chap. of the Romans, I have long since considered, and studied it by the most sere●e, impartial lights which might uncloud the great Mystery to me which lies so obscurely there wrapped up. And to deal freely with you, the best Commentator I ever yet met with to lead me through the darkness of it, was another place of Scripture or two set in presence, and scale with this, both which joined, me thought, made perfectly the Cloud which guided the Jews through the Wilderness, which was a Cloud to the Egyptians, but a pillar of fire to the Israelites. Sir, I know that neither Saint Paul hath written Contradictions, nor any other of the Apostles written that which is Contradictory to Saint Paul, Sir, I presume, also, that Aristotle's Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath not so forsaken your memory, but you know that an Universal Affirmative, and a particular Negative are a perfect Contradiction, and cannot both be true. Here, then, stands the case. You, building your Opinion upon the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or great depth of the ninth Chapter to the Romans, infer from thence that God gives Repentance only to some few, whose peremptory will 'tis that they only shall be saved. Saint Paul in his first Epistle to Timothy, Chapter 2. vers. 4. gives us a line and plummet to sound this Depth; and saves expressly, That 'tis the will of God that all men should be saved. Between these propositions, 'tis his will that all shall, and 'tis his will that only a few shall be saved, there is no Medium, in which they may be reconciled; but one of them must necessarily be true, the other false. This, then, being so, I have always held it safer to build my Faith upon those clear places of the Scripture, which have no veil before their face, than those which are mysterious, and lead me to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over which I stand amazed, but cannot from thence infer. I do farther profess to you, that I am not so wedded to this or any other Speculative Opinion, but that, if you will show more convincing Scripture for the contrary, I shall most readily renounce my own thoughts, and espouse myself to yours.  
Your premonition or forewarning of me that we at  would e'er long taste of a visitation, hath since come to pass, and in part approved itself to be true Prophecy. Whether impaired by you or no, I know not, but there have been two with us, who have taken away as many Copes and guilt can lesticks, as if they had been superstitious. Sir, 'tis no wonder to me that in our times silver should be Popery; Or that Church utensils if they be Gold should be called superstition. But certainly, Sir, 'twas a great misinformation to send them to search for Copes or things of value to my poor Protestant Chamber; where there never was a Cope, though, perhaps, they might have found a long-difused Surplice, there. And as for Idols of price, if they had searched my purse, I believe that all the popery, which, in these impoverishing Times, they could have found in it, cast into the fire, like the Jewish Earrings, would neither have come forth a Silver Crucifix; much less so wealthy an Idol as a Golden Calf.  
Sir, since at length I understand you, that by agreeing upon the true state of the questions before we dispute them, you mean that we should agree upon the terms in which they are to be held, I am very ready to comply with you in that reasonable particular. But to accept of any, either of your eleven English, or your three Latin questions, in the terms in which you have form them, I can by no means consent. First, Sir, Because I find a piece of Artifice in the Web, and contrivance of them, which hath something of a Trap, and Snare, and Engine in it. Which is, that by making them as Popish questions as you can, (especially one of them) where you insert the words Missal, Breviary, and Pontifical) words odious to the people, and part of the dismal spell which for six years hath raised the spirit of discord to walk among us; if I should hold it affirmatively under these terms of hatred, 'tis possible it may beget an opinion in the minds of those that know me not, that, though I have more than once professed myself ready to fall a sacrifice in the defence of the Protestant Religion, yet that this was but a disguise which concealed my hypocrisy, till provoked I were put to defend the superstitions of the Church of Rome. Sir, I know upon what lesser ground● than this, some in our credulous times have been unjustly called Papists. Next, Sir, if I should hold them affirmatively, with their fares thus looking towards Popery, and should bring them thus clothed in your terms of superstition into the Divinity School, I doubt very much whether the publickness of the Defence may not draw an aspersion not only upon me, and the Moderator, (if he will vouchsafe to sit in the Chair whilst we quarrel) but upon the Whole already too much defame University, which such as you have from numerous Pulpits called long since Ropishly affected; But if it should allow of such a Dispute, 'twould lend fuel to your calumnies, and be endangered to be no longer thought P●pish, but 〈◊〉 right a Papist. Thirdly, Sir, your first and last Question (if they were purged of their odious terms) cannot publicly be maintained without some affront to the Parliament, who by one Ordina●●● have put down the Common-prayer-book, by another Episcopacy. If therefore, under your terms, I should p●l●●quely stand up in defence of them, you had need procure a third Ordinance, which when I have done may keep me safe. Yet, Sir, to as●●●e you that this is no evasion in me to decline a dispute, because my Sermon ●as the occasion of your challenge of me in the Pulpit, and of this private conference between ●s since; Since also you allow me the liberty of alteration, and to add my stroke to the A●●ill on which the questions to be disputed on between us are to receive the last form, and shape, in which, with least offence, and scannell, they may walk into the public. Lastly, since the three Latin Questions you sent me are dree passages of my Sermon, but so corrupted from themselves, as show them to have been once p●r●●y P●●●●stant, but passing through your hands have degenerated, and ●●●●ed themselves with a to-be-suspected robe of Popery, the nearest way I knew for us to agree upon their true state, is to deal with them as the Bishops at the Reformation dealt with the Religion of the Church of Rome; that is, p●rge them from their corruptions, and restore them to the Primitive rule from whence they have digressed. Which Ride, being my Sermon, (if you read it with open eyes) presents you with your three questions, in this more ge●●i●e form.  
An 

Liturgia Ang●ican● ideò elimin●●da sie, qui●●●●●ullas partes ab Ecclesiâ 〈◊〉 na●â 〈◊〉 est, Neg.  
Christi, Sa●●t●rumque imagines in Reformater. Eccles●is ●●itè r●ti●eri p●ssi●t, Aff.  
Regimen Ecclesia Anglic●na per Epis●●p●s s●t Antichristianum, ex eo quòd Ecclesia Romana (quam nonnulli sedem Antichristi statuunt) sic gubernatur, Neg.    
Upon these three Questions (which are but three periods of my Sermon cast into a problematical form) if you approve of them, and, like a generous Adversary, will promise me, that neither for sen●ing of them to you now, nor for defending them hereafter, I shall be questioned, (for this I require no other security but your word) I will not fail (God assisting me) to meet you in the Divinity School at University weapons, when ever you shall think fit to call upon me; and to bring with you those Arguments, which, you say, you reserve for that place, and in your two letters have not vouchsafed to afford me, who do daily pray (for I begin to be weary of fight with shades) that this unnecessary conflict may at length end in a Christian peace between you the opponent, and me the defender of  
From my Chamber this Afternoon, Feb. 4. 1646. The Sermon against False Prophets, J. maine.  
In the evening to the afternoon, in which this Letter was sent, M. Cheynell returned an Answer, not so large, I confess, as I expected; but composed of Language, so complying with my desires, that I unfeignedly felt a new strife within myself, how, having hitherto tolerably borne his rougher assaults, I should preserve myself from being conquered by his civilities. Which I confess, have such a forcible charm upon my nature, softend, and tutored to it by Religion; that the World cannot afford an Enemy, who shall raise such a tempest of persecution against me, but that I shall be ready to afford him my Embraces, and Arms, if he will be content to be received there in a calm. I do farther confess, that M. Cheynell, by undertaking to secure me against the danger which might have followed a public dispute, hath not only verified my expression, and shown himself a generous adversary, but by that engagement of himself, hath made me see, what reason I have to complain of my hard fortune, which hath left me only the will, and not the power, to be in the like kind, as generous to Him back again. His Letter was to a syllable this.  
SIR,  
You may be confident that the Messenger was not sent by me, because he returned without you and without his fees. I never writ up one Letter to London that did in the least measure reflect upon you; if your Sermon had not been printed, I had not spoke one word against it. I desire to deal with you in a rational way, and therefore I do accept of your Academical proposition or challenge so often sent me; and because I find my prayers in some measure answered, and you more civil than heretofore, I shall deal freely with you. I do here under my 〈◊〉 b●nd assure you, that if you be questioned for defending these Propositions in a Scholastical way, (you know reproaches are not Scholastic) in the public Schools, I will answer for you; the Parliament will not question you for any learned national debate about Prelates or the common-prayer-book, for the satisfaction of yourself and others.  
I will meet you if you please, at the Doctor of the Chair his lodgings to morrow about two of the clock in the afternoon; I doubt not but by his advice we shall, agree upon terms fit to express the points in Controversy; if you like the proposal be pleased to send your approbation of it in two lines by this bearer to▪  
Mert. Coll. Feb. 4. 1646. Your friend to serve you, FRAN: CHEYNELL.  
To this Letter (which was the last I received from him) by the same Messenger that brought it, I returned this Answer, which was the last he received from me.  
SIR,  
I shall (God willing) meet you to morrow at your hour, at the Doctor of the Chairs Lodging. Where if you be as willing to submit to the terms which he shall think fit to put the Questions in, which we are to dispute upon as I shall be, there will be no variance▪ between us there, nor shall we I hope, bring any with us from the Divinity School. Where Sir, you shall meet one who is so great a lover of truth, that if you can convince me for being all this while in an Error, I shall think myself indeed, a gainer by this conflict. And no longer style myself the defender of the Sermon against False Prophets, but one, who for being confuted by you ought to remain  
From my Chamber, Feb. 4. 1646. Your Affectionate friend and Servant, J●SPE● maine.  
Here, if any be curious to know how this last act of our conf●●●nce ended, or what Catastrophe did sh●● up the conflict between us, which had so much busy Epitasis and expectation in it, I could wish Master Cheynell himself were the Historian. Nevertheless, none will have reason to think me partial or unfaithful in my Report, having not only Master Wilkinson, if I deliver false story, but the Doctor of the Chair to disprove, and contradict me. At whose lodging in  when we met, First, with a prudence becoming the gravity of his person, and the Dignity of his pl●●e, he told us, that he could not think it fit to fit moderator to any disputation which was not either preformâ, and conduced to the taking of a degree, or pro T●●mi●●, which is a Di●●●ity exercise, at which the University Statutes require his presence in the chair. Next, if we resolved to meet in the Schools without a moderator, his advice was, that Master Cheynell should have his scribe and I mine, to write down faithfully his Arguments and my Replies: which thus taken and compared, would not be so liable to the variations of report, as when the ears and memories of the h●●●ers are their only Register.  
There remained but one difficulty, which was, how to make us agree upon questions fit to be disputed in such a public way. M. Cheynell utterly refused Mine, and the Doctor of the Chair thought it no way reasonable, that in the dangerous attire they wore, I should accept of his; especially the first: Which upon M. Cheynells' unlocking of the full extent and meaning of the terms, revealed itself to be a kind of Trojan horse; consecrated indeed to Pallas without, but lined with an Ambush of Armed enemies within. For, besides the Words Missal, Breviary, and Pontifical (against which I before gave in my exceptions) by A pr●●●●is decerpta, popidoque, obtrufa, Master Cheynell said, he not only meant those parts of our English liturgy which have been borrowed from the Church of Rome, but the Scotch liturgy too, as it was imposed upon that Nation by the Sword. Which, though it were a mistake in him to say it was imposed by the sword, (since the date of the reception of it in that Church was the year 1637. At which time the Sword of both Nations lodged peaceably in the Scabbard) and though upon the perusal of it since, Earned it the same in all points with ours, but only in the contraction of the form of the Administration of the L●rds Supper, and so for the matter of it as defensible as ours, ye having been turned out of that Kingdom, and Church as solemnly as it was at first introduced, that is, by an Act of Parliament; To whose birth the King and Houses concurred, for me to have disputed publicly for the second reception of it, had been the way not only to raise a Northern Army of men against myself, (who would, doubtless, have thought it a very bold piece of insolence in me to disallow in a public dispute, the proceed of a whole State) but of such Northern Women too, whose zeal upon the first reading of that innocent liturgy, mistook it for the Mass book, and thereupon converted their Joynt-stools, upon which they sat, into Weapons, with which they invaded the Reader, and chased him, with his Newborn Popery in his hand, out of the Church. These Reasons being laid to those other, which in my last letter but one, produced to show how scandalous, as well as unsafe, it would in all likelihood, prove both to the University and myself, if I should publicly maintain a question which carried so much danger with it, I pressed M. Cheynell with the intimation which he gave me in his last letter, which was, to stand to that frame of Questions which the Doctor of the Chair should contrive for us. To whose Ordering of the term of his first Question if he would submit, I promised him to accept of his other t●●, (th●● 〈◊〉 in the D●●t●● 〈◊〉 the Chairs opinion, the terms of his third Question were something hard) in th●●● 〈◊〉 ●orm● into which he ●●d ●ast them. To this his reply was, that after the Words p●pulo obtrusa, in his first Question, he would allow me to insert these two words of Mitigation, ut fertur. Whereto my answer was, that this addition would so little deserve the name of a Mitigation, that it very much increased my burden, and hung more weights upon me. Since hereby I obliged myself, not only to stand up for the Readmission of the Scotch liturgy; which could not be done without an affront offered to the Act of State that banished it, but for the Justification of all the unknown practices of the Prelates, who had the contrivance of that liturgy, against the Sinister reports, and Calumnies of the incensed people. Who, as for some years, they have been falsely taught to think the Order of Bishops Antichristian, so looking upon their persons through the mist cast by some False Prophets before their eyes, it ought to be no wonder if their best Actions have seemed Popery. The Conclusion of all was this. M. Cheynell at length, without any farther Clouds of discourse, told me plainly, that to any other alterations than this he could not consent; being bound up by his instructions to hold this Question only in the latitude & sense, which was signified by the terms in which he had Arrayed it. Whereupon, the long expected scene between us closed, and the Curtain to this Controversy was let fall. And we, after some mutual exchanges of Civility, parted, I hope like two Divines, in perfect Charity with one another.  
THE END.