spoke forth the scriptures, which were afterwards written and printed. And so ye wolves in sheep's clothing put that for the rule of your dead faith, and have no other, and are killing and mangling one another about it, and so death and destruction talk of the fame of the scriptures, and know not the author of faith, nor would have known that there had been a faith, had not the scripture declared it; the priests confess it.

P. We deny not, that in order to teach people and young ministers to stop the mouths of slanderous adversaries, to cure the jealousies of distempered minds, we all are ready in every Protestant church, to give men a full account of our faith, in plain confession: but with this protestation, that the holy scriptures only are the rule of faith: if any thing in our confession be found disagreeable to that rule, we are ready, when we understand so much, to disown it, and to correct it.'

A. How do you stop their mouths in haling them before magistrates, and casting them into prisons, is this your stopping? is not this your work? Let the jails and the houses of correction witness how you have stopped their mouths, and convinced gainsayers! Now, that which is truth, and they who speak plainly to you, ye call adversaries or slanderers. Now it is not a slander to call a lamb, a lamb, a dog, a dog, or swine, swine; but to say a lamb is a swine, a dog is a sheep, that is a lie; or that a wolf is a sheep, though he hath got a sheep's clothing on him, and therefore would be called a sheep that he may deceive, and would not be called a wolf, though his fruits declare it. Notwithstanding his reviling, devouring, having sheep's clothing, and casting into prison, yet he is offended if ye call him not a sheep, or a minister of the gospel of Christ.

Nay, the truth, the lambs, the sheep cannot do so, but they must speak the truth to you; and though you devour them, and tear them, they will not tear you again: and though you wolves have on the sheep's clothing, you cast into prison because they will not feed you. Did ever the lambs do so, the ministers of Christ? Were not they fed in his pasture? followed him, and knew his voice, and did not want? But how have you cured the jealousies and diseased minds all this while? You have wounded them, made them sick, and filled them full of jealousies; therefore are the people broken into heaps and sects, which are the fruit of jealousies one of another. And how have you been ready, you who are called teachers, who are apostatized from the apostles, to render to every Protestant church a full account of your faith in plain confession, when many hundreds have been moved. of the Lord God to come into those places called churches, and ask you a question, you have cried, Take him away, magistrate; to prison VOL. III.

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ministers of Ireland, who had Christ's and the prophets' and apostles' words, stop the mouths of Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill, but suffered or caused them to be banished out of the nation. You looked upon them to be gainsayers, who are the servants of the Lord; and yet you were not able to stop their mouths, though you had all the sheep's clothing, neither were able to resist their spirit; which shows your spirit, and that you are not fit to send forth ministers, nor make ministers, nor try ministers. And the apostle doth not say, that the letter is the only rule or trial; but if people have not the spirit of Christ, they are none of his, and if they have not Christ in them they are reprobates. And we do witness that the spirit is come, whereby we are ministers of that, not of the letter: for the spirit that once established circumcision, the same spirit ended it again. Now the Jews that tried by the letter, judged the apostle to be a deceiver. And those that have the sheep's clothing, and have not the spirit of Christ Jesus, they are crying, 'lo he is here,' and 'lo he is there.'

P. You tell us of a sacrament, and that the world lies in wickedness, in gross Egyptian darkness, and of false apostles and Jezebel, making herself a prophetess to teach and seduce, and men loving preeminence are to be called masters.'

A. In this state you are called of men masters, loving pre-eminence, Jezebel like, usurping authority, setting up yourselves to teach, keeping your fasts, persecuting and banishing the righteous, you are in the steps of the false apostles, in spiritual Egypt, in gross thick darkness, rejoicing with the world that lies in wickedness, telling people of your sacraments, which you had from your father the pope, and the false apostles your forefathers, who were got up before the apostles' decease, and so you are judged with the life of the apostles and Christ, and by them that are in it; which shall answer the witness of God in you all. And the wickedness of the world declares your fruits, that you have not profited the people at all. And your Jezebel's doings hath declared itself, and your loving pre-eminence, being called of men masters, which the apostle judged, and Christ cried wo against: these marks are found in your foreheads, that all that can read the scripture, may read you to be out of the life of Christ and the apostles.

P. Unless some preacher of righteousness be then living to warn the sinful world of their wickedness.'

A. Such as are the preachers of righteousness, who warn you and the sinful world of their wickedness, you banish, these are your fruits. P. The purest grain hath its chaff, the best needs a fan to cleanse them, the best needs a Nathan, all flesh is liable to fly-blows. To run without office and power argues presumption.'

A. The wheat that is gotten out of the chaff, hath not its chaff, that