unless you fancy also their station and motion equally at least Corespondent But by this and what follows you seem your self a little affected with the Vertigo For you provide these with other Antidotes least I faign them to have News-books Gazets and Post-letters hence But Sir this Caution belongs rather to those who will needs have them so exactly knowing of our Concerns here below and you seem to be in some danger of in since you have already begun the Correspondence by a thing in the form of an Epistle from Dr. Owen in Heaven in your Postscript to your Answer to the twelve Arguments Of much the same humour is your sorrow and desperation of my change of my Opinion of the uncertainty of the Saints knowing what and when we pray for so I expressed my Opinion to be my best Weapon against the Popish Superstition of praying to Saints Yet for all this you will hope that I do not pray to Dr. Owen for so much as I believe he knoweth Answ No nor to Mr. Baxter neither if he were in Heavon and as knowing as he For though I shall still retain this Weapon as our best we have store of others good enough against that Foppery I presume you will hold me excused for answering you in your kind Hanc veniam petimusque vicissim That the Saints in Heaven have displeasure which you affirm in Contradiction to me I am now to consider You begin very warily page 16. and confine it to Displicence the contrary to that Complacence which is in the will saying As pleasedness and dis-pleasedness are in the Passions and signifie joy and trouble you have here nothing to do with them having expresly excluded sorrow but in the Will. So that it seems we are agreed that there is no displeasure as in the Passions which is the same sence with the vulgar Word Affections But here you first suppose that I must not imagine you should Contradict your self For this I crave you pardon 't is more than possible To make sure work you fetch your arm about and will prove that in God himself there is displeasure which is the word you must allow or you contradict not me and then the Consequence is undeniable that gloryfied Souls are not less but more capable of it While you bring Scripture to prove this who dare contradict it and in this you are not sparing for you fill up your nineteenth page with Scripture Quotations to Convince me that the Scripture saith God is displeased A Child in his Psalter knows this your Concordance would without much pains-taking have furnished you with five times as many But what earnings do you make of all these Scripture Quotations Do any of them say that this displeasure is Confin'd to his Will and hath nothing to do with sorrow the Affections or Passions Doth not the Scripture say that God was grieved pained at the very Heart angry yea in fury do not these express displeasure or displicence as in the Passions contrary to joy and Peace The Scripture also speaks of Gods Eyes Arm Hand you cannot make these flourishes of Scripture but only to make a shew to the most ignorant You know Sir that 't is not to be taken in proprio sensu God speaks to men therefore speaks after the manner of men make your inference now and what will you get by it God speaks of himself to men after the manner of men Ergo we may speak of men after the manner of God. To as much purpose you tell us of all the forreign Reformers and of Hildersham Dod Greenham Bolton Rogers Sibbs Preston page 20. All these said God was displeased in the Scripture Sence not one of them that you prove said it in your sence nor can you I believe produce one of them that ever said that the Saints are displeased in Heaven As to these Expressions of Gods Displeasure Grief Anger c. they relate to the Acts of Gods Providence which are ad extra which in men are the Signs and Effects of such Affections or Passions But it follows not that they are indications of the same things in God which if they are in him must be infinitely and essentially so As for School mens Disputes and the Notions of Metaphysical Authors of this matter if I were better acquainted with them than I am I should not here concern my self much with them who too often do insanire cum ratione about little things much more about God whose Perfections are so above humane Comprehension But to reduce this dispute to a narrow Compass I agree with you that as in the Divine Understanding all Sin is evil and disapproved or disliked so there is in the Will of God somewhat answerable to it But by what Name to call it I am not resolved by all the Conduct I have yet met with Nor am I satisfied to call it milling which you make univocal or near it with Displicerve as many of the School-men do because it sounds too harshly as if that might be the being of which God doth will and so Gods Volition or Will by Consequence be Crossed or Contradicted And if you Construe your displeased by displicence and that by Nolition except as Nolition may be in the Understanding I can see no reason pardon my dulness to receive it And whereas you say page 19. The. Hebrew Phrase which we transtate by displeasing to God or man is oft it was Evil in his Eyes which speakoth a Positive Act of the Vnderstanding de malo And that there was no answerable Act of the Will let him say that dares I am not so daring as to say by what name it must or may be called yet seeing I have said in the Book and place you here oppose tho' in Heaven there is dislike and dis-approbation which you your self agree to be much of your sence of displeasure you might have abated very many of your Reflections And I now say that God willing the Punishments of Sin is an Act of his Will and the Punishments Executed the Effects of that willing or Act of his Will. And I hope you will not deny but this is very answerable to the Act of Gods Understanding de malo and I may be excused saying more as to the Act of Gods will de malo Thus far we shall not much fall out All your discourse here of displeasure in God hath been to make way for this Consequence that a glorisied Soul in Heaven may be displeased exempli gratia Dr. Owen's But what if it appear that you have mistaken yea expresly excluded the Question you ought to have put hither to And you your self mistook in your Expression and not I in my Exposition I think this will appear by your Comparative You say I doubt not but by defending it the Doctors Mistake you far more displease him than me Here is only term without Explication by which the Apprehensions of an evil by Dr. Owen in Meaven and Mr.
VINDICIAE REVINDICATAE BEING AN ANSWER TO Mr. Baxters Book INTITULED Catholick Communion doubly Defended by Dr. Owen 's Vindicator and Richard Baxter AND Mr. Baxter's Notions OF THE Saints Repentance AND Displeasure in Heaven Considered By a Lover of Truth and Peace in Sincerity Sicut noxium est si unitas desit bonis ita Perniciosum est si sit in malis Greg. mor. Lib. 33. Non tam Authoritas in Disputando quam rationis momenta querenda sunt Cicero LONDON Printed by George Larkin at the lower End of Broad-street next to London-Wall 1684. AN EPISTLE TO THE READER Reader IT is none of the business of this Epistle to beg thy favourable and indulgent Respects for the Author and his Work which is almost as beggarly as beging the Question But least of all to crave that thou wouldest not be so suspicious and severe as not to take all Citations by which I represent my Author upon my own word without giving thy self the Trouble and me the sad Apprehensions of a diligent Scrutineer that will see with his own Eyes I am not much in love with Apologies in Epistles to the Reader But if I must in civility treat thee a little that way it shall be only to tell thee that if I could have found any particular faults in the following Tract deserving thy Censure before their Printing off thou shouldest not have found them there And that I suppose thou wilt read me as a man liable to Mistakes and Passions of which thy self art not altogether uncapable and yet neither nthee nor me to be justified As to the Reverend and Learned Author with whom I have here to do and for whom I have a Veneration for his real worth and many of his Works sake I doubt not but he knows how to put a difference betwixt the Liberty of the Pulpit and the Press and the Countenance of a Complement and a Controversy If this have somewhat in the manner that is almost necessary to ease my weariness in writing and thine in reading it and I do a little indulgere genio pardon me this wrong I intended to have joyned with this Tract my thoughts of Mr. Baxters Notions of a Parochial Assembly being a particular Church organical of Divine Institution independant on the Diocesan and as such to be Communicated with But this I have reserved for a Tract by it self and ' til I have seen Mr. Baxters Answer which I hear is in the Press to a Book intituled Mr. Baxters Judgment and Reasons c. which hath matter in it worthy perusal relating to the same Argument ERRATA Page 9. l. 25. read in the Pew p. 9. l. 36. read may go to p. 17. l. 8. read may not be said p. 31 32. for 5th dispute read 5 Disputations AN ANSVVER TO Mr. Baxters Book INTITULED Catholick Communion doubly Defended by Dr. Owens Vindicator and Richard Baxter SECT I. No Consent of Dr. Owens Vindicator to the Catholick Communion defended by Mr. Baxter Reverend Sir I Having read your answer to a Book Intituled A VINDICATION of the late Dr. Owen c. though I am not over strongly addicted to the Scribling Humour yet Considering all Circumstances according to my small Prudentials I was determined after some Hesitations to a publick reply And some Passages in your Answer look as if you expected it The Title of your book in the Frontispiece Scil. CATHOLICK COMMVNION DOVBLY DEFENDED BY DR OWENS VINDICATOR AND RICHARD BAXTER has so much of Riddle in it that I confess I am not the Oedipus who can reconcile it Nor did that manner of â—ign at the door direct me to look for an Answer much less a â—ontroversial Answer to my Vindication as the Entertainment â—â—thin But however Singular you have been in mis-matching the â—â—â—le and the Book Mr. Baxter and Dr. Owens Vindicator as â—o-authors I shall digest them as they come to hand as well as I can And in the mean time You might hold me excused if I should in my Title have followed so great an Example only that it be with somewhat more of Congruity But I am not disposed to make my Reader gaze at such an unusual Spectacle I have Sir no light Quibling Design in this Reply nor to put Tricks upon a Person I so much Reverence and in a cause so serious Nor did I expect from the Gravity and Sincerity of Mr. Baxter such a stumble at the Threshold CATHOLICK COMMVNION are two great words and in plâ—in downright Construction are the epitomy of two Articles of our Christian Creed the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints And were you as plainly to be understood I must acknowledge that in Intituling me to the defence of it you put an honour upon me which I am more ambitious than capable of deserving But 't is a hard Case that while we agree herein and applaud the terms Catholick Communion when you explain your sence I think at least that it goes beyond Catholick Communion tho' that seem a contradiction in adjecto by excess as Roman Catholick by defect For the genuine sence of Communion I leave to you and Dr. Sherlock to beat out after such a dust raised wherein 't is vanished out of sight I wish you had treated him more calmly it would have been never the less Christian or promotive of Catholick Communion But the Catholicism of our Communion you will needs have extending to an actual pressential joyning with the Parochial Assemblies in their Worship by the Lyturgy the Office of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper included yet not according to the National Diocesan Constitution established by Law but as with a particular divnely instituted and compleat Church independant on the Diocesan I am sure Sir that the defence of such a Catholick Communion was none of my intention and I am as sure that you find no such sence in my expressions But if I must be for a while a felâ— de se and represented as one who under the pretence of vindicating Dr. Owen have betrayed the cause I pretended to defend by siding with his opposite in the very Case Controverted a little patience will discover another scene wherein Mr. Baxter and the Vindicator will appear as if Mr. Baxter had forgotten his Title and had a priviledge to dispose of me according to his present fancy Having gotten over your general Title I have the prospect of another which seems to be restrained to your first section And it is The Consent of Dr. Owens Vindicator to the Catholick Communion defended by Richard Baxter Here Sir you make a very hopeful abatement of what you stood upon in your general Title there you will have me defend here you come down to Consent This is at least half a retractation at the next word yet when I have examined what you have to shew for the latter it will appear to be a meer ungrounded Chimaera You are pleased to distribute the matter of my Book under four
heads I shall pass by the first at present and consider the second as most proper for me to do in this place and that you word thus II. Your Consent to the main of the Cause which I defend and your dissent from the persons whose words I confute of this I shall thankfully take notice Here is not Assent and Consent but Consent and Dissent The last was certainly not Argumentandi but ornandi gratia for if I consent to what you defend I must needs dissent so far from what you Confute but in fine it will be neither the one nor the other in what you express Yet I must observe how the Market falls from defend to Consent to the Catholick Communion defended by Richard Baxter And now 't is come to Consent to the main of the Cause which you defend Yet Sir though I take no pleasure in difference and contradiction I fear 't is not yet an agreement Of this Consent you say you shall thankfully take notice and accordingly in a few words following you thank me again and again for the particulars of my aforesaid Concession or Consent But worthy Sir considering how courtly and friendly you have committed a rape upon my sence and words and then come off so handsome and smoothly with thanks for my Consent I call to mind a much parallel Case in the History of the Council of Trent by Fryar Paul the Venetian mihi page 322. Lib. 4. Christopher Strassen one of the Ambassadours from the Elector of Branderburg a Protestant Prince to the Council of Trent made a long Oration shewing the good affection and reverence of his Prince toward the Fathers without declaring what his opinion was in point of Religion The Synod answered that is the Speaker in its name That it heard with great Content the Embassadours discourse especially in that part where that Prince doth submit himself to the Council and promiseth to observe the Decrees The answer which the Council gave was much marvelled at in regard of the fair and advantagious manner of Contracting pretending ten thousand by vertue of the promise when the bargain was but of ten for there was no more proportion than between these two numbers in the reverence promised by the Elector and the obedience pretended by the Synod to be given It was replyed for defence That the Council did not regard what was but what should have been said And that this is an usual and pious allurement of the Holy Church of Rome which yielding to the infirmity of her Children maketh shew to believe that they have performed their duty Now to your proofs page 1. you say That you thank me that I say page 3. I do not pretend in what follows to maintain against you that it is unlawful to use a Form of Prayer or comply with an imposed Lyturgy or under some Circumstances to joyn in the use of ou◠〈…〉 Neither shall I undertake to justify altogether the Twelve Arguments you have Printed as Dr. Owens in order to refuting them I pray Sir compare your premises with your Conclusion I do not in such a Book maintain such and such things against you Ergo I Consent to them I defend them I can tell you where you have resented such a gross fallacy against your self very highly And unless you winked hard and very opportunely you could not but see in my Book such other reasons given for my not maintaining those things against you in that Book as would have more then sufficiently have prevented or cured you of such a mistake And you cannot but know that they were in the midst between those words you cite For you left out seven lines containing those reasons and then patched together what went before and what followed after the said reasons immediately as if it had been my continued discourse But whatever my Sentiments be of the above-said I shall hardly declare my assent and consent to all of them or the rest of their fellows 'till it be to better purpose or by the temptation of a Benesice You say also in the same page that you are pleased with my exposition of the Doctors words and that upon the account of my restrictions of their sence I have no reason to be displeased with this yet I think it very sit for me to say that they will not bear the improvement you make of them scil I only here desire the men and women that have been with me and profest that they thought the Doctors Arguments unanswerable against the lawfulness of joyning in the use of the Liturgy to take notice of what his worthy Vindicator saith Sir I must desire those persons to take notice also of what I have said that you think not fit to repeat and they will find my sence of another Countenance Some People will take the meer Title Page of some answers for a sufficient determination others will look only into the Answerer and it may be no further than a few pages or passages If such be mistaken let them thank themselves I see 't is necessary to look into what both Parties say let them be who they will if a Baxter and some other men of fame so far mistake But so far as your last passage cited is grounded upon the restriction I put on the sense of the said Doctors Position It is so far from warranted thereby that it is greatly weakned For if that Position and the Arguments be taken with those restrictions I said may be put upon them they are much the more unanswerable for that You say page 3 But I think ten to one of the people commonly accounted Dissenters throughout England are of my mind and are for Parish-Worship rather than either none or worse But by Dissenters I suppose you mean those of the Doctors mind or your own I believe Sir notwithstanding your thanks for my Charity and Reconciliation you give in the next words your Censure is too hard and uncharitable of those of the Doctors mind and mine I cannot imagine they should be so atheistieally or maliciously disposed as to chuse no worship or worse all circumstances considered rather than that of the Parish If any adhere to a worse rather than that by mistake I cannot call that their Choice Dear Sir I wish also you would either use more Accuracy your self especially in the case of Censures or sorbear exacting it from others under the penalty of I know not how many distinctions to discover their confusion though they are well enough understood by the willing I beseech you Sir who can tell what you mean by Parish-Worship If all Parish Worship I believe you are not for it your self rather than none pro hic nunc Scil. the faults you say are in the Lyturgy and more especially in the Offices of Baptism and Burial the bowing at the pronouncing the word Jesus and toward the Altar or the East If of some part of the Parish Worship I am sure they are not of my mind