The Dippers Dipped, Dedication 2
TO MY REVEREND, and much esteemed Friend, Mr. JOHN DOWNAM.
Worthy Sir,
I Have now finished my Polemicall Tractate against the Anabaptists; which had slept securely by me in a whole skin of Parchment, had not the clamours of the Adversaries awaked it, who cry downe Paedobaptisme, and cry up Anabaptisme, not onelyonly in the Pulpit, but also from the*See A. Bar… his Treatise Dipping: F… Cornwell his Pamphlet, entituled, The Commission of King Iesus: A. Ritter his Libell, calle… The Vanity of Childish Baptisme: Ch: Blockwood, The storming of Antichrist, and the Confesse of the Anabap…ists, printed at London, 1644. Presse, to the great offence of godly minds, and the scandall of the Church.
You will peradventure returne me an Answer in the words of the Poet, Ole quid ad te? What doth this concerne me, whose Restraint is a necessary Supersedeas from proceeding aga…nst these presumptuous and daring Sectaries? And the unfurnishing me of all Books, and helps of mine owne Notes and Collections lately taken from me) furnisheth me with too just an excuse for not writing. I confesse to my griefe it doth, but what will you have me doe, Situ & otio torpescere? Such a rest would be most restlesse and tedious; The lesse I doe, the more I must needs suffer; and the more I doe, the lesse I suffer. And beleeve me, Sir, it is not an ambition to be seene in the Presse, but a desire for the time to forget my unsufferable pressures, which hath now set me on worke. As when we have the world at will, and can give our Mind her vagaries at pleasure, to fixe or thoughts on any certaine subject, is a kind of incarceration of the spirit; so when our Estate is sequestred, and our person confined, and no theame is given us daily to enlarge upon, but the valuing of our unvaluable losses, and the present supplying of our importunate wants, to divert our minds from commenting upon our deplorate estate, and forcibly confining our meditations to a more pleasant subject, is a great ease and kind of liberty to immured thoughts.
But this is not all, for as S. Jerome thought wheresoever he was, whatsoever he did, he heard the sound of the last Trumpet, and the summons of the Archangel, Surgite mortui, & venite ad judicium: So me thinks wheresoever I am, and whatsoever my businesse is, I heare that Vae of the Apostle, Woe be unto me if I preach not the Gospel: And preach the Gospel I can now no otherwise then from the Presse, for both my Pulpits are taken from me, and possest by others, and I cannot obtaine (though by my selfe and friends I earnestly sough… it) that liberty which S. Paul enjoyed when he was imprisoned at Rome, to preach the Gospel to my fellow prisoners. Now therefore sith I cannot lingua, I must be content as I am able evangelizare calamo, to preach with my Pen; which I can hardly dip into any other liquor, then the juice of Gall, in regard of the malignity of the times, and the insolencies of the enemies of the truth. As Adders, Efts, and other venemous serpents breed in old broken walls: so all sorts of Heretiques and Schismatiques breed and are exceedingly multiplyed by reason of the ruptu…es in State, and distraction of the time. Among all these the Papists and the Anabaptists are most dangerous and pestilent enemies, the one to the Church, the other to the State; These above all others having bestirred themselves, since the waters were troubled; and they boast in secret of their great draughts of fish, the Papists of 20000. Proselytes, the Anabaptists of 47. Churches.
Si natura negat facit, indignatio versum.
As well Indignation as Zeale hath stirred up my drooping spirit,See Romar… printed by Bourne at th… old Exchan… and encouraged me, though (as I said before) unarmed, to fall upon both; the former, in my Answer to a Popish Challenge; the latter, in this my Catabaptistarum Catacrisis. Jerom comforting a young Hermite, bade him look up to heaven, & Paradisum mente deambulare, assuring him that so long as he had Paradise in his mind, and heaven in his thoughts, tamdiu in eremo no eris so long he was not in the wildernesse. So verily it seemes to me, so long as I can draw the sword of the spirit, and pursue freely the enemies of the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, and beat them out of their trenches, so long me thinks I am not in bonds. The Lord in mercy look upon the Convul…ions in the State, and Distractions in the Church, and turne our Baptisme of blood into a Baptisme of tears: in which we may and ought all to be Anabaptists. This is the hearty wish of him, who loveth the truth for it selfe, and you for the truths sake,
Dan: Featley.