An Epistle Unto Two Daughters of Warwick, Response to letter · Response 15 – Excerpt from letter 16
H. A.
IT had been wel in deed if H. N. who so extolleth himself before the simple, & sayth that he is a preacher of Christ, (yea Godded with God / ) would first have learned to know Christ, before he hade made him self a minister of him. For now being ignorant of the principles of religion / and a meer stranger from the life of God; he hath perverted al things to his own and ther mens perdition. Witnes this his corrupt doctrine about the forsaking of our own life. Wherin he first and generally seeketh to colour his iniquity with deceit and fraud. For / to perswade that we need not give our lives / our natural & elementish lives, for Christs cause / at any tyme; which is a doctrine of the serpent: he maketh a discourse of our spiritual life in synn / and the old man corrupted with vices / that we ought to lay down and forsake; which we al acknowledge to be a truth. And from this he gathereth a great overshooting and misunderstanding, of such as say Christ meant the natural or elementish man; which is a false and deceitful conclusion. We know that these both are required at our hands; the one (which is the mortifying of lusts and synful affections / ) of al men / if they would be saved: the other (which is a suffering of natural death for Christs sake / ) of so many as God calleth thervnto / in times of persecution. But H. N. vrgeth the one / that he might abolish the other; with as good reason / as if one should perswade vsus not to serv or worship God with body, because Christ|Iohn. 4. sayth / we must worship him in spirit; or as if to defend fleshly filthynes / he should reason in this manner. The wordome which God condemneth, is the whoring with mens own inventions, Psal. 106. 39. the fornication, with stones and stocks, Ier. 3. 9. the going a whoring after other Gods. Deut. 31. 16. Is not this then a great overshooting or misunderstanding, that the children of mē can say & teach of that commandement, Thou shalt not comit whordom, Deut. 5. 18. that God meant hereby fleshly whordom, done by the natural or elemētish man? Loe this is the mould of H. Ns argument / and may as truly be alleged for defence of carnal fornication / as he allegeth it for defēce of carnal idolatry / which he would perswade these two daughters to commit with the man of syn, rather then to suffer bands or death for the witnesse of Christs truth. Neyther is it to be thought but he thus vnderstandeth in deed the 7. commandement; who so erroneously vnderstandeth / and expoundeth the second / for the maintenance of his fleshly ease. But Oh he woulde have vsus vnderstand advisedly what he doth write of the forsaking of our own life. God (sayth H. N.) had created the man, that he should be of one Life, one Being, one spirit, and of one nature with God; this he meaneth / as before we have seen / to be godded with God, and that the man should be al that God was. Which blasphemous error / I have before by the scriptures refuted. Neither doth H. N. confirm his cursed doctrine here by any scripture; because in deed he cannot. For al that the scripture sayth is / that God created man in his own image and likenes, Gen. 1 26. & 5. 2. but that the man should be of one Being with him; it sayth not / but H. N. hath forged it out of his arrogant mind / who would thrust himself into Gods throne. The image of God, is expounded by the Apostle to be in|Col. 3. 10. Eph. 4. 24. knowledge, righteousnes and true holynes: and H. N. addeth / to be of one Being. which if it had been true / then could not man have fallen any more then God himself; and if he had had the same life essentially with God; then should he have ben immortal / and incorruptible / death could never hav seised on him / 1. Tim. 6. 16. So H. N. must eyther deny the fal and corruption of man / wherof not onelyonly the word of God / but nature it self and dayly experience wil convince him / and himself yeeldeth: or els / he must hold a God subject to corruption and mortalitie. Which if he doe / then is he a monster among men / and a wonderment to the very hethen. For wheras the Stoiks of old / esteemed their Gods subject to al humane changes and corruption; a hethen man writing against them sayth;*Plutarch. advers. Stoic. It may be one may meet with some barbarous and savage men, that think ther is no god: but ther hath not been any one man found, who thought their was a God, and yet the same not free from corruption, and eternal. Let this errour therfore (which draweth such hethenish and blasphemous consequences after it / ) returne into H. Ns. bosome wher first the Serpent hatched it.
The next deceit wherwith he would beguile his reader / lieth in this word Life; wherby he meaneth mans cariage or conversation / according as the Apostle speaketh of walking in newnes of Life, Rom. 6. 4.: wheras the Life which Christ telleth vsus we must be ready to lay down for his sake / is an other thing / both for Name and signification; For the Name, is|foreign. Psuche, the sowl, Luk. 17. 33. & 9. 23. 24. which word howsoever we may translate Life, because the sowl is the life of the body; yet can we not take it for a Life or conversation, whch the Apostle in Rom. 6. caleth†foreign. Zoe, Wheras therfore H. N. speaketh of the Life of God, and then of mans own life, and life of the Divil; (as if Christ spake or meant of it / when he speaketh and meaneth of the Sowl and natural life;) herein he vseth fraud / and not Christian simplicity; or ells / bewrayeth grosse ignorance. Which may yet further be thus proved. Our saviour speaketh of such a Life as himself layd-down for vsus / saying / |Iohn. 10. 15.I lay down my †foreignlife for my sheep; now let H. N. say what life that was; whither it were not his very natural and elementish life; (as he caleth it) for I hope he wil not be so wretched as to say that Christ had any wicked synful life or life of the Divil in him / to lay down; seing we know that in Christ ther never was synn; or if he should be so absurd as to say it / yet Christ him self wil convince him saying|Iohn. 10. 17. I lay down my life, that I might take it agayn; for was he to take agayn a synful life? far be it from Christian thoughts. Now from this example of Christ the Apostle reasoneth thus / †1. Iohn. 3. 16Hereby have we perceived love, that he layd down his Life for vsus: therfore we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren. So then what Life or Sowl Christ layd down for vsus; the like ar we to lay down for our brethren; and for Christ himself / (as Peter|Iohn. 13. 37 sayd he would;) but that was no synful life or conversation / but the natural life which he did lay down; therfore ours must be the like. Agayn this is further confirmed by Christs words saying / he *Mat. 16. 25.that looseth his life (or sowl) for my sake shal find it; meaning in the world or life to come; but I hope we shal there find no synful life, such as H. N. fansieth Christ here to mean. Agayn the words folowing make it more playn / Christ saying†Vers. 26. For what should it profit a man though he should win the whole world, if he loose his own life (or sowl.) But it is our greatest profit / to loose our synful life. Of that therfore Christ speaketh not / as any reasonable man may perceiv. So the Psyche sowl or life, which we must be ready at Gods pleasure to lay down for Christs cause / is not onelyonly the synful life, but also the natural life of the natural or elementish man; and H. N. is but a carnal worldling to love his elementish life more then Christ / and teach men so; vnderunder colour of forsaking our own wicked life and life of the Divil.
If the prophets and Apostles had known this deep vnderstanding which H. N. conceiveth, and had not thought they were also bound to lay down the natural and elementish man, they would never have endured such things in their flesh as is witnessed of them. What needed|Dan. 3. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, to have changed the kings commandement / and yielded their bodies to the fyre / rather then they would serv or worship his image; or*Dan. 6. Daniel have jeoparded his life among the Lions; or†Act. 7. Stephen have been stoned to death for confessing of Christ; or|Heb. 11. 35. 36. &c. others to have been racked / scourged / prisoned / hewen asunder / slayn with the sword &c? or what meant the Apostles / to shew vsus these patterns / and wil vsus to†Iam. 5. 10. take the prophets for an example of suffering adversity? Was is not (thinketh H. N.) a great overshooting or misunderstanding in al these / to teach both by word and practise / that afflictions should be suffred in the natural or elementish man? Or rather had not al these holy martyrs / first layd down the spiritual synful life, and then gave vp the natural life also? How cōtrary then is this H. N. to al holy men that ever were or wrote / that thus disswadeth frō the outward crosse / vnderunder pretence of inward holynes? Therfore let vsus al yt lov the Lord Jesus / say|Gal. 1. 9. Anathema to such false prophets / as thus teach doctrine cō trary to the scriptures / for to favor the flesh / & avoid afflictiō / as is best pleasing to their sēsual minds. Let the same*Phil. 2. 5. 8. mind be in vsus that was in Christ Jesus / who (besides the troubles and anguishes in his hart) humbled himself and became obedient vntounto the death / evē the death of the crosse. And he which suffred these things for vsus / hath|1. Pet. 2. 21. left vsus an ensample (as sayth the Apostle) that we should folow his steps; who his own self bare our synns in†Vers. 24. his body on the tree. And let vsus learn with Paul, to take‡2. Cor. 12. 10. & 11. 23. 24. &c. pleasures in infirmities / in reproches / in necessities / in persecutions / in scripes and prisonment / in hunger and thirst / in cold and nakednes / and al other anguish for Christs sake; for when we are weak / then are we strong; and this is a part of our mortification and denyal of our selves: vntounto which when true faith and obedience in the spirit is adjoyned / Gods work goeth forward in vsus towards perfection / the end wherof wilbe everlasting life.
H. N.
25. Oh comprehend I beseech yow, the vnderstanding. We our selves have not made the natural mā: wherfore he cannot belong vntounto vsus. For the heaven with the earth and al that is therin, belongeth vntounto God; and it is Gods pleasure and will; that al shaped creatures, so wel the manly creature as any other of al those which God hath created, should live, and that it mought goe wel with them.
26. What shal the man then forsake, that he mought be reconciled to God? not any thing els but his own life, that is the man of syn, which hath so long lien hidd in the hart of man, which is the temple of God, and hath sayd that he was God. 2. Thes. 2.