Objection 1

1. Obj. Your own preciseness and censoriousness maketh the common people seem mostly ignorant and profane to you; and then you pretend a necessity of your Preaching, when you do but feign it, by setting your selves more above your neighbours than there is cause.

1. Obj. Your own preciseness and censoriousness maketh the common people seem mostly ignorant and prophane to you; and then you pretend a necessity of your Preaching, when you do but feign it, by setting your selves more above your neighbours than there is cause.

Ans. 1. I confess that many of the Separatists are truly guilty of what you here object. For when they have Unchurched whole Parishes of men whom they know not, nor ever heard speak for themselves, we that have come after them have found abundance of the people much better than they imagined. But one error or extreme will not justify another: Remember that we are not now talking of mens qualifications for visible Communion in the Church, but of their necessity of being taught. And we censure none beyond such cogent evidence as is not in our power now to be ignorant of. I beseech you deal openly with us, and answer us these few Questions, and all the matter will be ended.

Ans. 1. I confess that many of the Separatists are truly guilty of what you here object. For when they have Unchurched whole Parishes of men whom they know not, nor ever heard speak for themselves, we that have come after them have found abundance of the people much better than they imagined. But one error or extream will not justifie another: Remember that we are not now talking of mens qualifications for visible Communion in the Church, but of their necessity of being taught. And we censure none beyond such cogent evidence as is not in our power now to be ignorant of. I beseech you deal openly with us, and answer us these few Questions, and all the matter will be ended.

1. If men do not know who Christ is, or what he came into the world for, nor what he hath done for us, nor what the Holy Ghost is, nor what he is to do for us, nor what a Saviour or a Sanctifier is, nor what is the plain sense of most Articles of the Creed, or Petitions in the Lords-prayer, have such men need of Teaching to save their souls, or not?