rections to the younger Ministers, in their dealing with the more ignorant or carnal sort of persons.

As for them that are under fears and troubles of mind, who yet give us hopes of the work of saving grace on their souls, though it deserve a full discourse to direct us in dealing with them, yet I shall not meddle with it now; because I intended this discourse for another end, and because I have done so much as I think necessary already in my "Directions for Peace of Conscience."

CHAPTER VIII.

ANOTHER Sort there are, that we may have occasion of conference with, though they will scarcely stoop to be catechised; and that is, opinionative questionists, that being tainted with pride and self-conceitedness, are readier to teach, than to be taught, and to vent their own conceits, and quarrel with you, as being ignorant or erroneous yourselves, than to receive instruction: and if they are tainted with any notable error or schismatical dispositions, they will seek to waste time in vain janglings, and to dispute, rather than to learn. I am not now directing you what to do with those men at other times (of that I shall give a touch anon); but only in case they come to you at this time which is appointed for catechising and edifying instruction: nor is it my thought to presume to direct any but the weaker sort of Ministers in this, any more than in the former.

It is likely you will have some come to you amongst the rest, that when they should give an account of their faith, will fall into a teaching and contentious discourse: one will tell you, that you have no true Church, because you have such bad members; another will ask you, by what authority you baptize infants; another will ask you, how you can be a true Minister, if you had your ordination from Prelates; and another will tell you, that you are no true Minister, because you had not your ordination from Prelates; another will ask you, what Scripture you have for praying or singing psalms in a mixed assembly; and another will quarrel with you, because you administer not the Lord's-supper to them, in the gesture and manner as they desire, and were wont to receive it; or because you exercise any discipline among

them. If any such person should come to you, and thus seek to divert your better discourse, I should think it best to take this course with them :

1. Let them know that this Meeting is appointed for instructing the people in the Principles of Religion, and you think it very unmeet to pervert it from that use; it being a sin to do God's work disorderly, or to be doing a lesser work, when you should be doing a greater: and therefore as you durst not turn God's Public Worship on the Lord's-day into vain or contentious disputing, which discompose men's minds, and spoil a greater work; so neither do you think it lawful to abuse these times to lower uses, which are appointed for higher.

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2. Yet let him know that you do not this to avoid any trial of the Truth; and therefore that you will at any other fit season, endeavour to give him full satisfaction; or you as willingly receive instruction from him, if he be able, and have the truth, as you desire he should receive instruction from you and if it must be so, you will yield to his desire before you part, if there be but time when you have dispatched the greater work: but upon condition only, that he will submit to the greater first.

3. Then desire him first to give you some account of the Principles in the Catechism: and if he deny it, convince him before all of the iniquity of his course.-(1.) In that it is the first principles that salvation most dependeth on, and therefore being of greatest excellency and necessity, are first to be taken into consideration.—(2.) In that it is the appointed business of this day.-(3.) It is orderly to begin with the fundamentals, because they bear up the rest, which suppose them, flow from them, and cannot be understood without them.-(4.) It is the note of a proud, vainglorious hypocrite, to make a flourish about lesser things, and yet either to be ignorant of the greater, or to scorn to give that account of his knowledge, which the people, whom he despiseth, refuse not to give.

If he yield to you, ask him only such questions as are of great weight, and yet strain him up a little higher than you do the common people; and especially put him most. upon defining or distinguishing, or expounding some terms or sentences of Scripture. As such questions as these may

be put to him, which call for definitions, wherein it is ten to one but you will find him ignorant. What is God? What is Jesus Christ? What is the Holy Ghost? What is Person in the Trinity? How many Natures hath Christ? Was Christ a Creature before his Incarnation or the Creation? Is he called the Firstborn of all Creatures as God, or as man? Is he called the Image of the invisible God, and the Express Image of the Father's person or subsistence as a creature, or as God? Was Adam bound to believe in Christ? Was one or two Covenants made with Adam before his fall? Did the first Covenant of Nature make any promise of everlasting celestial Glory? Did it threaten hell-fire or temporal death? Did it threaten eternal torment to the soul only, or to the body also? Should there have been any Resurrection of the body, if Christ had not come to procure it? Should Christ have come, or have been our head, or have brought us to glory, if man had not fallen? What is the first Covenant? What its conditions? What the second Covenant, and its conditions? What was the difference between the Covenant with Adam, and that by Moses? Was it a Covenant of works or of grace, that was made by Moses? What were the Conditions of salvation before Christ's incarnation? What is forgiveness of sin? What is justification? How are we said to be justified by faith? How by works? What is faith? What repentance? What sanctification, vocation, regeneration? Is the Covenant of grace made with the elect only, or with all; or with whom? What is freewill? Is there any conversion without the Word? What is the true nature of special grace; and what is the proper difference of a regenerate man from all others? What is the Catholic Church? How will you know the true Church? How know you the Scripture to be the word of God? What is Christ's priestly, prophetical, kingly office? Be they three offices, or but one; and be they all?'-with abundancc of the like.

If it be Sacrament controversies which he raiseth, tell him it is necessary that you be first agreed, what Baptism and the Lord's-supper are; before you dispute who should be baptized; and it is twenty to one, he is not able truly to tell you what the Sacraments themselves are. A true definition of Baptism or the Lord's-supper is not so commonly given, as is pretended.

4. If he discover his ignorance in the cases propounded, endeavour to humble him in the sense of his pride and presumption; and let him know what it is, and what it signifieth to go about with a contentious, proud behaviour, while he is indeed so ignorant in things of greater moment.

5. See that you are able to give him better information yourselves in the points wherein you find him ignorant.

6. But especially take care that you discern the spirit of the man; and if he be a settled, perverse Schismatic, or Heretic, so that you see him peremptory, and quite transported with pride, and have no great hopes of his recovery; then do all this that I have before said openly before all that are present, that he may be humbled or shamed, and the rest confirmed. But if you find him godly and temperate, and that there is any hope of his reduction, then see that you do all this privately, between him and you only; let not fall any bitter words that tend to his disparagement. And thus I advise, both because we must be as tender of the reputation of all good men, as fidelity to them, and to the truth, will permit; we must bear one another's burdens, and not increase them, and we must restore those with a spirit of meekness that fall through infirmity, remembering that we ourselves also may be tempted; and also because there is small hope that you should ever do them good, if once you exasperate them, and disaffect them towards you.

7. See that to such erring persons as you have any hopes of, you carry yourselves with as much tenderness and love as will consist with your duty to the Church of God: for most of them, when they are once tainted this way, are so selfish and high-minded, that they are much more impatient of reproof than many of the profaner sort of people.

This way did Musculus take with the Anabaptists, visiting them in person, and relieving them, even while they railed at him as antichristian, and so continued without disputing with them, till they were convinced that he loved them, and then they sought to him for advice themselves, and many of them were reclaimed by him.

8. Either in the conclusion of your meeting, or at an appointed time, when you come to debate their controversy with them, tell them, That seeing they think you unable to teach them, and think themselves able to teach you, it is your desire to learn; you suppose disputing, as tending usually

to exasperate men's minds, rather than to satisfy them, is to be used as the last remedy; therefore you are here ready, if they are able to teach you, to learn of them and desire them to speak their minds.' If they refuse, tell them, you think it the humblest and most Christian edifying way for him that hath most knowledge to teach, and the other to learn; and therefore your purpose is to be either a learner or a teacher, and not be a disputant, till they make it to be necessary. When they have declared their minds to you in a teaching way, if it be nothing but the common pleas of the seduced, as it is likely it will not, tell them, That this is no new thing to you; it is not the first time that you have heard it, or considered of it, and if you had found a Divine evidence in it, you had received it long ago: you are truly willing to receive all truth, but you have received that which is contrary to this doctrine, with far better evidence than they bring for it, &c.' If they desire to hear what your evidence is, tell them, if they will hear as learners, you shall communicate your evidence in the meetest way you can, which if they promise to do, let them know that this promise obligeth them to impartiality and an humble, free entertainment of the truth, and that they do not turn back in rash carping and contention, but take what shall be delivered into serious consideration: which if they promise, if you are so far versed in the point in hand, as to manage it well 'ex tempore,' or the person be temperate and fit for such debates, then come in with your evidence in a way of discourse, first shewing your reasons against the grossest imperfections of his own discourse, and then giving him your grounds from Scripture; not many, but rather a few of the clearest and best approved. When you have done, (or without verbal teaching if you find him unfit to learn that way) give him some book that most effectually defendeth the questioned truth, and tell him, 'That it is a vain thing to say that over so often, which is so fully said already, and a man may better consider of what he hath before his eyes, than of that which slideth through his ears, and is mistaken or forgotten: and therefore you desire him as an humble learner to peruse that book with mature consideration; because there are the same things that you would say to him, and desire him to bring you in a sober and solid answer to the chief strength of it, if after perusal he judge it to be unsound,' and if possible, fasten some one of the most striking evi