free of such, what great
marvel if we be not? 4. Before he objected promiscuous communicating. This
being cleared to be a calumny, now he objecteth that there are such as are
unfit to communicate. But while he thus seeketh a quarrel against church
government, he doth upon the matter quarrel the preaching of the gospel
itself; for he that imputeth it as a fault to the church government that
there are still divers thousands who, by reason of ignorance or scandal,
are unfit to communicate, doth, by consequence, yea, much more, impute it
as a fault to the preaching of the gospel in England, Scotland, Ireland,
France, Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland,--that in
all these, and other reformed churches, after fourscore years' constant
preaching of the gospel (which is appointed of God to turn unconverted and
unregenerate persons from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
to God), there are not only divers thousands, but divers millions, who, by
reason of ignorance or scandal, are yet unfit to communicate. If the word
do not open the eyes of the ignorant, and convert the scandalous, what
marvel that church government cannot do it? Church government is not an
illuminating and regenerating ordinance as the word is. But this church
government can and will do, yea, hath done, where it is duly executed: It
is a most blessed means for keeping the ordinances from visible and known
pollution, which doth very much honour God, shame sin, and commend piety;
it putteth a visible difference between the precious and the vile, the
clean and the unclean, the silver and the dross; and may well be,
therefore, called a church-refining ordinance.

Secondly, The second calumny was this, "I myself (said he) did hear the
presbytery of Edinburgh censure a woman to be banished out of the gates of
the city." I answered him in his own language, "It is at the best a most
uncharitable slander:" and told him there is no banishment in Scotland but
by the civil magistrate; and that he ought to have inquired and informed
himself better.

Now he doth neither adhere to his calumny, or offer to make it good, nor
yet quit it, or confess he was mistaken, but propoundeth three new queries
(_Male Dicis_, p. 21), still forgetting his own rule of keeping to the
laws of disputation and matter in hand. For the particular in hand he only
saith thus much, "I did make inquiry, and from the presbytery itself I
received information, but not sati