further adds I am sure it hath been opposed in the Church of England otherwise taught and professed in the Schools when I was an Auditor there It hath been prohibited to be enjoyned and tendred or maintained as the authentical Doctrine of our Church by supreme authority with sharp reproof unto those that went about to have it tendred than when those conclusions or assertions of Lambeth which you mention were upon sending down to the University of Cambridge This is sufficient sure to convince you of your error or if it be not let me add that Bishop Davenant himself who you do but hope reduced Mr. Hoord to a sounder mind for I can prove the contrary in his Lent Sermon before the King and the last I think that he preached declared his opinion to be as for Vniversal Redemption so for Vniversal Grace within the Church Which I doubt the Calvinians will-not allow I am sure those that are called Arminians desire no more You may find this if you please in Dr. Hammond's Letters to Bishop Sanderson concerning Gods Grace and Decrees p. 27. and I hope you will take his word in a matter of Fact for a greater thing than this But if all this will not be regarded yet I presume the Church it self will be allowed to understand its own sense which hath directly and in express words saith the forenamed Bishop Mountague in that Book Licensed by the Kings Authority overthrown the ground of Calvinisme in Teaching thus that a justified man and therefore predestinate in your Doctrine may fall from God and therefore become not the Child of God p. 59. which he repeats again p. 73. The Church holdeth and teacheth punctually and that in the opinion and with the dislike of the Learnedst of your side that Faith true justifying Faith once had may be lost and recovered again that a man endued with Gods Holy Spirit may lose that HOLY SPIRIT have that Light put out become like unto SAVL and JVDAS c. How can the Church of England then be thought even in your own understanding to be Calvinian which teaches things so cross to Mr. Calvins Hypothesis that they utterly overturn it And it had been very happy if they that endeavoured to bend some other Articles of our Church to his sense had rather studied as they ought to have done to frame their sense in all other things to this Article which is directed so expressy against what he teaches This Church then would have been in a better condition than it is being now in danger to be destroyed by those who were never quiet till with the Doctrine they had brought in the Discipline too of Mr. Calvin among us Those are memorable words of Bishop Mountagues whom if he had been yours you would have gone near upon such an occasion to have stiled a Prophet which we meet with in the Fifth Chapter of the First Part of his Appeal where he charges those that informed against him with waving the Doctrine of our Church Preaching against it Teaching contrary to what they had subscribed that so saith he through FORRAIN DOCTRINE being infused secretly and instilled cunningly and pretended craftily to be the Churches at length you may wind in with FORRAIN DISCIPLINE also and so fill Christendom with Popes in every Parish for the Church and with popular Democracies and Democratical Anarchies in the State If you please to reflect upon our late confusions and compare them with this Prediction perhaps you may hereafter love Bishop Mountague better as a person of some judgement and sagacity in other things as well as in this But I list not to trouble the Reader with any unpleasant reflections upon those dismal times I will rather upon this occasion refresh him with a tale as King James called it in the Conference at Hampton Court p. 82. There was a time saith he when Mr. Knox writes to the Queen Regent of Scotland telling her that she was Supream head of the Church and charged her as she would answer it before God's Tribunal to take care of Christs Evangel and of suppressing the Popish Prelates who withstood the same But how long trow ye did this continue even so long till by her authority the Popish Bishops were repressed he himself and his adherents were brought in and well setled and thereby made strong enough to undertake the matters of Reformation themselves Then loe they began to make small account of her Supremacy nor would longer rest on her Authority but took the Cause into their own hand c. I will apply it thus And then putting his Hand to his Hat His Majesty said My Lords the Bishops I may thank you that these Men thus plead for my Supremacy they think they cannot make their party good against you but by appealing to it as if you or some that adhere unto you were not well affected towards it But if once you were out and they in place I know what would become of my Supremacy With the like reason I may apply it again to our present business there are certain men that ring perpetually in our ears the Doctrine of the Church of England the Doctrine of the Church of England as if they were the most afraid of innovations in it and were the most zealous assertors and strongest supporters of it Whereas the truth is they are beat from all other holds and hope to shelter themselves a little by appealing to it as if some among us were not well-affected towards it But if once their opponents were out and they in their places with a power to settle matters among us I know what would become of the Doctrine of the Church of England which they would no more value than an old Almanack quite out of date But I intend not to make a Book of this and therefore have said enough to demonstrate the First part of your assertion is not true that an Episcopal Calvinist is the rightest Son or Father of the Church of England As for the Second That he is if a good man the best Christian I have far more to say than I am willing to Print It is sufficient to tell you that I have known indeed sundry good men of that way who I verily believe would have been much better if they had not been of it And others I have known who have stained their gooodness with such irregular actions and sinister practices and dealings as I believe they would not have been guilty of had not their Principles betrayed them into them And lastly I am apt to think that you your self would have been more charitable in your censures more indifferent in your judgement concerning Men and things more civil and courteous in your treatment of those you oppose less captious less partial and not so peremptory as you are in many places of your Book if you had not been a Calvinian but I will not dispute on which side would to God we could use no such word but as
presumptions of some one man delighting commonly to oppose and thwart the stream of antiquity but according to the sense and meaning of those times that drew water nearer unto the Well-head that is to the Apostles and their successors immediately Upon which score it is certain that the Doctrine of this Church cannot be Calvinian For the first and purest ages by which it is guided you your self are sensible was not so only you think it sufficient to smile at those who pretend their Authority and say It is little less than ridiculous to talk of the Fathers before St. Austin's time in reference to those questions p. 25. Why so I beseech you Because they lived say you before the Controversie was started and so did not nor could intend to speak appositely to the points of Original sin the power of Grace c By which reason we must not appeal to them in the points about Popery for then the pretences of St. Peter were not on foot c. and then they could not intend to speak appositely to such matters I should think those great Lights of the Church ought not to be thus slighted in a matter of such moment And an indifferent person would for your reason conclude the quite contiany that they are the more to be heeded because they are the more likely to have delivered purely their sense without any bias when they were not engaged among themselves in the heats of controversy which too oft pervert the understanding And those Doctrines which subvert Mr. Calvins Systeme were so certainly believed by them that they made no controversy of them but with one consent rejected the Doctrine of Fate which was then no less rife among the Pagans against whom they were careful no doubt to write appositely than the absolute irrespective Decrees are now among Christians But besides this I am also certain that the Sons and Fathers of the Church of England have opposed this Doctrine long before Mr. Hoord appeared who you say was the first that ventured to give our Brittish world new notions of Gods love to Mankind This is so palpable an untruth that Bishop Hoopers Works shew these notions which you call New are as Old as the Reformation And a Sermon Preached at St. Pauls Cross PLACE = marg See Mr. Bull. on the 27 of October as the Title Page informs me Anno Reginae Elizabethae 26. by Samuel Harsnet is such an illustrious testimony against you that there cannot be a greater He was then but Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge but afterward promoted to be one of the Fathers of the Church in King James his time and at last advanced to be one of our Primates for he dyed Arch-Bishop of York I supose Sir a Person of your Reading who undertakes to trace the crooked muddy stream as you call it to its first weak ebullitions cannot be ignorant of the strong efforts to use your own word made by this Preacher Who expressly makes the Doctrine which Mr. Hoord long after opposed a daring enemy risen up against our Israel For he expresly calls it a Goliah which was grown huge and monstrous reviling not the Host of the living God but the Lord of Hosts And mentioning those words of St. Paul God would have all men to be saved tells that numerous Auditory the Genevian conceit hath dealt with this Gracious bounty of God and this blessed saying God would have all men to be saved as Hanun did with the Ambassadors of David He cut off their Garments to the Hips and this hath curtail'd the Grace of God to the stumps For it saith it must not be meant that God would have every living soul to come to Heaven but one or two perhaps out of every order and occupation But the Spirit of St. Peter a great deal wiser than that of Geneva saith plainly God would not have any one perish c. I trust we shall have Grace to believe him since himself can better tell what himself would have than the men of Geneva can What think you now after this downright Declaration which I have transcribed a small scrap of out of that Sermon on 33 Ezek. 11. was Mr. Hoord the first man that ventured to teach Gods love to Mankind in a way quite opposite to that of the Calvinians Is not here a man that boldly tells the British world in the greatest Assembly it had that your beloved Doctrine is a stranger nay an enemy to our Church strutting indeed about at that time and bearing it self high as you speak of Dr. Heylins Arminianisme so that Men trembled and shak'd at it but by him resolutely endeavoured to be cast down as a forreign conceit which ought not to be admitted here We know very well how it came to spread and grow so huge and monstrous but it was then no more the sense of the Church of England than Arianisme was the sense of the Church Catholique when all places were over-run with it There were still more than one who had the same resolution with Athanasius to bear witness against it as I could show out of good Authors And I can see no cause why Bishop Mountague whom as becomes a true course Calvinian you call bare Mountague and therefore the rest by the way need not take it ill they are no better treated should be quite struck out of the number of those from whom we may learn the notions of our Church in his dayes For I can find no State-Politicks in his Book which you pretend for his rejection but as he assures us the proper true and antient tenents of the Church of England such as be without any doubt or question legitimate and genuine such as she will both acknowledge and maintain for her own So he avows in his Epistle Dedicatory to His late Majesty before his Apello Caesarem And there is no reason to think him partial in this case since Dr. Francis White then Dean of Carlisle no mean Champion sure of our Church testified as much after he had been authorized by King James to read that Book over duely and give his judgement of it which is this as you may see in his Approbation or License of it for the Press 1624. that having diligently perused it he found nothing therein but what is agreeable to the Publique Faith Doctrine and Discipline established in the Church of England Now mark what this Writer saith to those that informed against him You would make the world believe as you Sir indeavour also to do That the Church of England Calvinizes shew me good warrant for it and I yield I may rather say that the Church of England hath opposed this Doctrine because that many of the Learned your selves will not deny in that Church and most conformable unto the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church have mainly opposed it You may find this lively testimony against you in the First Part the Seventh Chapter towards the conclusion of which he
we are one Body so were indeed all One the best Christians are nor which Principles are apt to make the best Let us all sincerely endeavour to excell in Vertue and be glad that any can outstrip us though they be not in all things of our mind which will be far better than contending about precedency or about any thing else whatsoever Here now we might fairly part but that I believe you will be apt to think either I have nothing to say or dare say nothing of that about which you make so many sad complaints if I should wholly pass by the points of justification by Faith and the imputed Righteousness of Christ With the same provision therefore that you will not accuse me for medling with that which did not concern me I will add a few words about those matters And I assure you I abhorr the man as much as you can do who shall teach me otherwise than our Church doth Artic. XI that we are accounted righteous before God only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own Works or Deservings And therefore it is a most wholesome Doctrine and full af Comfort that we are justified by Faith only But I verily think there are none that teach otherwise but you have wholly mistaken those Persons whose Writings have given you the trouble of making this Book For though we are justified by Faith only yet you acknowledge p. 37. that all Christian Vertues are connate with that Faith Which grants all that Mr. Bull contends for whose position is that the Faith which justifies contains in it a sincere purpose of a new life O but none of those vertues you add pass into the cause of justification No nor is Faith it self any cause of it not so much as an instrumental cause and therefore you ought not to have quarrelled with Mr. Bull about this matter who detests any such thoughts as you impose on him that our good Works are required casually and antecedently to our justification p. 39. No such absurd Notion is to be found I will stand to it in his Book nor lyes I am sure in his Head He is not so weak so unstudied a Divine as to make any thing that we can do the cause of that which God alone can bestow upon us He doth not so much as require good Works antecedently to our entrance into the state or Justification but only the purpose of them which you your self acknowledge to be included together with all Christian Vertues in that Faith which justifies And indeed Bishop Davenant whom you deservedly applaud affirms as he shows that those internal good Works are necessary to our justification though not as efficient or meritorious causes yet as concurring or previous conditions There is but one clause which can bring you off and excuse you in this business which you wisely insert when you speak of Mr. Bulls Doctrine if at least say you I can understand him I know not what you can do but I am sure you do not understand him And therefore ought to have suspected also that you did not rightly understand Bishop Nicholson's Books rather than have said so confidently as you do doubtless Mr. Bull imposes very far upon the Bishop when he saith the Bishop read approved commended his Book and wish'd him to publish it This is very uncivil and hardly to be reconciled with Christian Charity which teaches us to think no evil to believe all things and to hope all things when the contrary doth not evidently appear It would have been but bare modesty in you to have thought you did not apprehend the meaning of a Writer in matters of controversie about Faith rather than have accused a Divine of no mean credit I assure you in his Countrey of falsifying so impudently in a matter of Fact which he avows to the world and to the Bishop himself to whom he dedicates his Work to be a most real Truth When you consider it you will acknowledge I hope between God and your own Soul this was too rash and peremptory to speak gently and not becoming one of the best sort of Christians Which if you and I too will both of us study to be I think verily it is best for us not to trouble our selves with nice disquisitions about these matters wherein we find Divines cannot well agree about the way I mean of Faith's justifying us It may suffice us I should think to know what our Liturgy teaches us plainly in both the Absolutions that God pardoneth and absolveth all them that truely repent and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel as it is in the Absolution pronounced every day having promised forgiveness of sins to all them that with hearty repentance and true Faith turn to him as it is in that at the Holy Communion Let us receive this glad tidings upon our bended knees and with most joyful hearts thankfully devoted to his service and leave those that list to dispute about the particular act of Faith that justifies and how it is instrumental as they speak in the business of Justification and whether there be such a thing as a passive Instrument and what Repentance hath to do in this matter No body shall ever perswade me but we shall have the benefit of the Absolution though we be not able to resolve these questions or though we never think of them If we truely repent and unfeignedly believe Christs Holy Gospel or which is the same With hearty Repentance and true Faith turn to him And in like manner to speak a word or two in the other point we are sufficiently instructed in our Litanie as I understand it to expect to be delivered from our sins I suppose and the punishment due to them by the whole Humiliation and exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ when it teaches us to pray By the mystery of thy Holy Incarnation by thy Holy Nativity and Circumcision by thy Baptisme Fasting and Temptation by thine Agony and Bloudy sweat by thy Cross and Passion by thy precious Death and Burial by thy Glorious Resurrection and Ascension and by the coming of the Holy Ghost Good Lord deliver us It is plain that whosoever minds what he prays trusts to be delivered by Christ alone who impetrated this Mercy for us and bestows it on us by his Incarnation Nativity Circumcision and all the rest now mentioned But what hand each of these hath distinct from the other in procuring our deliverance and how each of them merits for us and makes us to be accounted righteous before God and wherein the merit of his life differs from that of his Death and Passion and is applied to us by his Resurrection Ascension and coming of the Holy Ghost we need not I hope very solicitously enquire For Justification is not a Blessing that belongs only to Scholars and subtil Wits but to the plainest Countreyman of us all who pray and hope to be delivered by all that