The tryal of spirits both in teachers & hearers wherein is held forth the clear discovery and certain downfal of the carnal and antichristian clergie of these nations / testified from the Word of God to the university-congregation in Cambridge by William Dell ; whereunto is added A plain and necessary confutation of divers gross errors delivered by Mr. Sydrach Simpson in a sermon preached to the same congregation at the commencement, Anno 1653 ; wherein (among other things) is declared, that the vniversities (according to their present statutes and practices) are not (as he affirmed) answerable to the schools of the prophets in the time of the law, but rather to the idolatrous high places ...

The Seventh Sign.* 1.1

The true Prophets, and Ministers of Christ, do not force* 1.2 any body to hear them, and obey their Doctrine against their Wils, neither do they vex and trouble them with Secular Power, who will not obey them, and be subject to them; but they leave all such People as they found them, lest they should seem by their Doctrine, to seek any Worldly thing.

Thus Christ when he taught the Gospel, still cryed out, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear; and he that had not ears to hear, he did not punish him: and again saith Christ, If any man Will be my Disciple, let him deny Himself, and take up his cross and follow Me; and still left men to their own Freedom, whether they would be his Disciples or no.

And as Christ did thus Himself, so he left the same thing in command with all his true Disciples; and when he sent them forth to Preach, Matth. 10. he charged them saying, Whoever will not receive You, nor hear Your Words, when you depart out of that house or City, shake off the dust of your feet, as a Testimony against them; he doth not bid them if they be refused, to betake themselves to the Secular Power, to get Authority from thence to stay and abide there, whether

they will or no, or otherwise to punish them, but bids them only to shake off the dust of their feet, that they might know, they came not to them for the Love of Earthly things. And when the Apostles out of a false zeal would have had Christ to have commanded fire to have come down from Heaven to have destroyed them that would not receive Him; he plain∣ly reproved them, saying, Ye know not of what Spirit ye are; for the Son of Man is not come to destroy mens Lives, but to save them.

It is recorded in the life of Simon and Jude the Apostles, as both Gulielmus de sancto Amore, and John Hus relate, That when the Chief Ruler was very angry with those who de∣famed the Doctrine of those Apostles, and in great zeal com∣manded a great Fire to be made, that such Opposers might be cast into it, The Apostles fell down before the Emperour, saying, We beseech you (Sir) let not Us be the Authors or Causers of this Destruction, who are come to publish the Doctrine of eternal Salvation; neither let Us who are sent to Revive those who are Dead through sin, become the Killers of those who are Alive.

Wherefore those Teachers who for Worldly Advantage* 1.3 sake, will force Themselves upon those men against their Wills, who will not Willingly receive them; and will pro∣voke the Worldly Powers and Magistrates to punish those who will not hear and receive Them and their Doctrine, they all are false Prophets and Ministers of Antichrist.

Notes

• * 1.1

  7.
• * 1.2

  The true Pro∣phets force no body to hear them against their wills.
• * 1.3

  The false force men by the power of the Magi∣strate.