2. You do not believe it. And if fo, then have you dealt very unfincerely with them, and instead of Defending, or Excufing, you have but Mock'd them, which is a little more unchriftian and ungenteel, than to have left them to their own defence, and never have pretended to have advocated a Cause which in heart you condemn. And fo you had been as good you had yielded filently to the Horn of my first Dilemma, as to be caught again upon this. For either you have juftified the Calvinists by a Divine Call and Apoftolical Commiffion; and what then will become of your own Church, let the plain/ and necessary confequence fay; or elfe, as I told you in my former Letter, you throw us altogether into the fame Pit of Condemnation for Schifmaticks.

But now that I may, if poffible, fet you a little righter, as to their own true Sentiments of the Extraordinary Call they pretend to, and that Afflatus by which they were acted in it, I muft of neceffity produce their own Interpretations, unless you will pretend to know their Minds better than themfelves.

As for Monfieur Turretin, whom I quoted in my firft Letter to you, it feems he is a Man (compar'd with you) whofe Senfe doth not fignifie very much, tho' by all the rest of the Proteftant Learned World, he be defervedly valued for a Perfon of General Learning, and of extraordinary clearness and Acumen in Controverfial Divinity: And he feems truly to have ftated what was Beza's Senfe of the Extraordinary Call, when he fays, Datur vocatio quædam, &c. There is a Call, which tho' it be Ordinary in reSpect of the Function it felf, and of the "Election and Ordination to it, which may be done by Men according to the received Order; yet may be faid to be Extraordinary in refpect of the ex imicus, and fingular Gifts wherewith thofe that are call'd to the

Turret. Theol.
Elench.Vol.3.

P. 242.

"Office

LE

Voet. Defp.
Cauf. Papal.
P. 307.

Office are extraordinarily endued, and in refpect of "the wonderful Succefs and extraordinary Effects perform'd by them; and this was the Call of our First Reformers. So that the Extraordinarinefs of their Call, imply'd no new way of Acceffion to the Office, but that Spirit of Wifdom, Faith, Patience, Zeal and Self-denial, wherewith they were Divinely and Extraordinarily influenced in their Reformation, as I told you in my Letter, p. 36. So Voet in his Vindication of the Reformers, as to their Call, against Janfenius the Papift, who makes much the fame Objection against the Reformers, as you do against us; To whom he thus replies, "Confundis perpetuo ufum, feu Exercitium Minifterii cum Vocatione ad Minifterium. You always confound their Exercife of the Miniftry with their Call to it. Their Call to the Office was the Ordinary Call, but their Call to the Exercife, in fome refpects, Extraordinary. And that Beza's Senfe of their Extraordinary Call was no other, is confequentially plain, because he always held the Ordination by Presbyters to be valid, and the Ordinary Scripture way to the Office,and pleads againft Saravia, that the Bishop and the Presbyter is the fame Office. But is it Beza's Senfe, as you reprefent it, that this Extraordinary Afflatus only takes place where the Ordinary Call is not to be had, Ubi nullus eft Legitime Vocationis ufus? What can he here mean by the Legitima l'ocatio, which he oppofes to his Afflatus? Is it not either that Ordinary way of Calling to the Ministry, which had been used and legitimated by the Laws of the Church of Rome, from which they were now call'd to depart, and not that way which this Afflatus directed them to, unless you can fuppofe him to illegitimate their own Fundamental Rule of their Reformation? Or else rather the Legitima Vocatio, is that Cali which is agreeable to the Law and Rule of the Holy Scriptures

Scriptures, but had not been of a long time ufed in that degenerate Church of Rome, and unto which the Divine Afflatus now directed them to return? And that this is his very Senfe, would appear to every one that can but conftrue fo many of the eafieft Latin words, Ibi demum fit ei locus, ubi nullus eft legitime Vocationis ufus. i. e. Where the Regular Scripture way of Ordination is rejected and difufed, as it had been by the Church of Rome, there is a Call from Heaven to reform these Abuses, and to restore the Church to its first Inftitutions, which by their own Practices appears to be, in their Judgments, the Presbyterial, and not the Epifcopal, which was the Popish Way. And thus Beza agrees very well both with himself, and with us; and he feems to add these laft words only as a Caution against the Anabaptifts, and other Enthufiafts and Schifmaticks of his Days, that denied the great Ordinance of the Ministry, and Ordination by the hands of Men, falfly pretending to a like Afflatus, where a Lawful and Scriptural Ordination may be had. And now, Sir, in fome of your cooler Intervals, you may fit down and confider how far you have found your account from the Acute and Learned Beza, as you call him on this occafion.

Again, as to your Citation of Calvin,

in an Epiftle of his to the King of Po- ̈ Vind. p. 70. land, where all that you quote of him

is this, "The Office that the Lord bath conferr'd on as is Extraordinary. His own words are thefe, Atque omnino Extraordinarium fuit hoc munus, quod "Dominus nobis injunxit, dum opera noftra ad colli"gendas Ecclefias ufus eft. That the Work which God "bad enjoyn'd and given them to do, was very Extra"ordinary, while he was pleafed to make use of their "labour to gather bis Churches, and to recover them from the abominable Defection of the Church of Rome. The Senfe whereof can be stretch'd no

higher than this, That their Office, the Munus, or Charge of the Office, was Extraordinary, in that their Call to it (tho' not immediately from Heaven, but from Scripture) was fo very different from that Ufe and Manner which had fo long obtain'd in the Church of Rome, as I had told you before from Monfieur Turretin, and to which Calvin's following words feem to agree, "Qui ergo ita præter fpem in folito “modo repente apparuerunt fincera Pietatis Vindices, 66 corum Vocatio a communi Regula eftimari non debet. 66 Therefore the Call of thofe, who beyond the hope of Man in an unusual manner fo fuddenly appear'd to vindicate the fincere Religion, ought not to be eftimated by the Common Rule, i. e. the Rule then in commor ufe; their Work being not properly to Plant, but to Cleanfe and Replant upon the Original Bottom, what was by the length of Time, and the Corruptions of Men, grown fo intolerably Irregular and Offenfive. This was an Extraordinary Work, not only as that which was Rare, and not to be done every Year, nor every Pajon.Exam. Age, as Monfieur Pajon fays, but on the p. 234. account of the Difficulty of the Work, and the Extraordinary Gifts and Divine Affiftances that are neceffary to carry on fuch an Undertaking. Therefore adds Calvin, "Talibus "enim, qui Ecclefiam ab Antichrifti defectione reduce-.

ἐσ

rent, opus fuit. There was need of fuch Men, who in "fome refpects refembled the Apostles and Evangelifts, "to reduce the Church from the Antichriftian Defe"&ion. And of the External Formality of whose Call to the Miniftry there was, in Extraordinary cafes, no abfolute need; but a Call from the People or from the Prince (fo that the Perfons were duly qualified with Minifterial Gifts) was in a prefent Exigence fufficient. And therefore he goes on in that Epistle, to encourage the King to fet up fuch Faithful Paftors over his People by his own Autho

rity. Quicquid de hæreditario facerdotii jure garriat "Papalis Cleris, i e. Whatever the Popish Clergy prate "of an Hereditary Right, or Succeffion to the Priesthood. And answers the Objection of Remedium Violentum, that this would be judg'd too violent a Remedy for the King to create Paftors by his fole Authority. "Effet tamen (fays he) boc temporale munus quan"tifper res incompofita manent & fufpenfa. That this "would ferve as a Temporary Office, as long as things "continued in the Interim of an unfettled

tr

State. Therefore where you obferv'd, Vindic. p.66. that there have been but thefe Two

ways of advancing Perfons to the Sacred Function, The one by Succeffion to thofe that were poffeffed of it before, which indeed hath been the Ordinary Way; Instead of the other, which, you fay, is by an Extraordinary Call immediately from God Himself, and which, you fay, but have not yet prov'd, was the Foundation of these Foreigners Title to their Paftoral Office; you should rather have made this your other, and Extraordinary way, viz. The Call from the People, as in cafes of neceffity they did, and where the Ordinary Call is not to be had, which hath fometimes been the cafe, as it was of Frumentius and his Brother Edefius, when they first began to preach the Gospel to the Indians and we find in Scripture, that 5 Micha himfelf, in a cafe of neceffity, confecrated firft his own Son, and afterward (which was a little more proper) the Levite, to be his Prieft. But to say that it was by a Divine Afflatus, without any Ordination by Men that had Authority to ordain, whether in the Ordinary or Extraordinary Cafe, that thefe Foreign Reformers receiv'd their Paftoral Offices, is but a Fiction of your own,and not Beza's Words or Senfe.

Socrat. Hift..

€.XV. L. 1.

Judges 19.

And yet, fhould I grant you the Senfe that you would fo unreafonably impofe on Beza's Words,

how