by Scripture or sufficient reason Liber Prop. p. 89. Pacif. Points of good concernment not determinable by Scriptures nor yet by Reason How contrary is this to what is quoted out of Chrysostom and Fulgentius in the Homlly Exhorting to the reading of the holy Scripture p. 2. Besides such an assertion doth very much tend to discourage men from making enquiry into Truth for if such points are not determinable by either Scripture or Reason how shall they be determined If by the Church I say the Church in her determinations must be guided by Scripture and Reason or else her members are not obliged to regard her determinations Laud I must negatively conclude that all things necessary to the Salvation of all are not of themselves clear in the Scripture to all understandings whereby I say not that all such things are not contained in the Scriptures as if some things necessary to the salvation of all were to be received by Tradition alone Nor that being in the Scriptures they are not clear and discernable to the understandings of those that are furnished with means requisite to discern the meaning of Scripture But that which I stand upon is that it is not nor ought to be a presumption that this or that is not necessary to Salvation because it is not clear in the Scriptures which if it were admitted whosoever were able to make such an argument against any Article of Faith as all understandings interessed in salvation could not dissolve should have gained this that though it may be true yet it cannot be an Article of Faith Principles of Christian Truth p. 25. Pacif. It is beyond all dispute that all things contained in Scripture are not clear to all understandings there are some understandings to which nothing is clear it is also past dispute that they who understand Scriptures must be first furnished with all means necessarily requisite for the understanding of Scriptures and which is more they must make use of those means and pray to God for a blessing upon them but this is said by Protestants against Papists that God hath made nothing necessary for the Salvation of all men Necessitate praecepti medii but such things as are so clearly laid down in the Word that all who will make use of the abilities God hath vouchsafed may find them out and that men may safely conclude that is not a necessary Article of Religion which is not clear in some place or other of Scripture clear I say with such a clearness as may satisfie the conscience though not with such as may satisfie curiosity Laud The holy Scriptures in the first time of the Christian Church were not communicated to all men all at once for the Primitive Fathers wisely considered how extreamly perillous it might be to expose the whole Scripture unto ignorant mens use and judgement or indeed abuse rather and want of judgement surely more dangerous and pernicious it might prove unto mens souls then to leave a whole Apothecaries shop open to a diseased person who might as well choose and take deadly poyson to his destruction as a Soveraign medicine to the recovery of his health Had the souls of men been so carefully watched over by their Governors and such portions of Scripture wisely and fatherly dispensed unto them as might with such holy reservedness have met with mens proficiency surely such prodigious Monsters had not been counterfeited out of the Word of God by the spirit of Opinion as in these later dayes we have seen and lament to see Dr. Gell. Preface to his Essay about the amendment of our English Translation Pacif. That by the free reading of the Holy Scriptures some very dangerous Opinions have been occasioned accidentally is no question but that therefore any part of the Scripture should be locked up in an unknown Tongue from the Vulgar is no stronger an inference then if one should argue because some have burned their fingers and houses with candle and fire therefore the free use of those creatures is not to be vouchsafed in a Common-wealth And as I think the conclusion to be absurd so I am sure 'T is quite contrary to the whole scope and design of the Homilies called an Information of them that take offence at certain places of Holy Scripture Laud The further we proceed in the survey of the Scripture the Translation is the more faulty as the Hagiographa more then the Historical Scripture and the Prophets more then the Hagiographa and the Apocrypha most of all and generally the New-Testament more then the Old Idem near the end of his Preface Pacif. Such a censure might have been born from the pen of the Rhemish and Doway Divines but who can bear it from one pretending to be an English Protestant the Translation is Vsque ad invidiam aliarum gentium elaborata Translatio It was sufficiently defended in the parts that you find most fault with by Dr. Fulk and Cartwright against the Cavils of the Rhemists and may more easily be defended against the exceptions taken to it by you But there is another thing that offends me in your former words viz. That you seem to make the Apocrypha part of the Scripture which word when it is taken absolutely and without addition should suppose only for Canonical Scripture and I do the more doubt that you advance the Apocrypha higher then do our Reformed Divines because I find you ascribing the Book of Wisdom to Solomon p. 51. whereas that Book was sure written by one of a spirit far inferior to that which acted Solomon in his writings Laud Such is the boldness and ignorance of some that they have left out of their impressions the Apocryphal Scriptures whereby they have gotten this whereof to glory that they have done that which no wise or honest man hath done before them so far as I have yet known or I hope will adventure to do after them Dr. Gell Pref. Pacif. To devest all those who had an hand in leaving the Apocrypha out of our English Bibles of all wisdom and honesty is very hard for what if those Apocryphal writings be of some good use yet there 's nothing in them should make it necessary or expedient to bind them up with the Canon why may they not be kept in a Volume by themselves or indeed how can they be read by private Christians at all without apparent hazard and scandal seeing some of them contain notorious lyes some of them justifie such things as God Law and the Law of Nature too do condemn But before we proceed any further suffer me to know your mind about Reason and Councils Laud All Controversies are reducible to two heads Goodness or Truth so that the question is Whether right reason can infallibly judge what is good or bad true or false for a thing to be morally good for Metaphysical Goodness is all one with Truth depends by sure connexion from that Eternal Justice which is primarily in God
be observed in that work annexed unto Herodotus and translated by Jungermanuus Thus Eratosthenes wholly translated Timotheus de infulis not reserving the very Preface The same doth Strabo report of Eudorus and Ariston in a Treatise Eutituled de Nilo Clemens Alexandrinus hath observed many examples hereof among the Greeks and Plinie in his Preface spcaketh very plainly that conferring his Authors and comparing their works together he generally found those that went before verbatim transcribed by those that followed after and their original never so much as mentioned To omit how much the wittiest peece of Ovid is beholding unto Parthenius Chius even the magnified Virgil hath borrowed almost in all his works in his Eclogues from Theocritus his Georgicks from Hesiod and Aratus his AEneads from Homer the second Book whereof containing the exploit of Sinon and the Troian Horse as Macrobius observeth he hath Verbatim derived from Pisander Our own prosession is not excusable herein Thus Oribasus Etius and AEgineta have in a manner transcribed Galen But Marcellus Empiricus who hath left a famous work de medicamentis hath word for word transcribed all Scribonius Largus de compositione Medicamentorum and not left out his very Peroration Thus Plagiary had not its Nativity with Printing but began in times when thefts difficult and the paucity of Books scarce wanted that invention Rhodiginus a famous writer is chastised by the Varro of our age Gerh. Vossius de Orig. Idol lib. 3. c. 84. for not relating the names of those to whose labours he had been beholden Unde ista hauserit non addit Quam facile fuerat Athaenei nomen apposuisse Nempe hoc actum Rhodigino passim ut dissimulatis scriptoribus unde sua hausisser non alius quam ipse testis laudaretur hic nos etiam fontes unde quidque hauserint dissimulandi summis aliquot viris saeculo nostro est perfamiliaris And the learned and pious Barthol Keckerman telleth us in his praecognita Logica that the admired piece of Peter Hispan is not Hispan's own but taken out of Psellus an Author ancienter then himself yea and that the very doctrine of Supposition which we look upon as a School invention is by him handled in a whole Chapter The same Keckerman also somwhere tells us the censures passed upon Aristodes Logick by Ramus are most of them taken out of Ludovicus Vives and that the Methodus Theologiae made by Hyperius was reprinted under the name of Laurentius Villavincentius an Augustinian Monk It is a most undoubted truth that the commentaries of the Papists especially of the Jesuits do owe very much to Bucer Mercer Bullinger Lavater Beza Calvin Martir yet these men are never mentioned except with censure and blame Bishop Laud stands charged by Mr. Prynne for having stoln all his supposition out of Bellarmine and that with so little Art that the whole school could not but take notice of it The learned Dr. Downham is said by his answerer to have taken his arguments for Episcopacy out of Bishop Bilson Mr. Mountague indeed hath told us that the day was yet to come in the which he ever read word of any of Arminius his works but his antagonists have shewed the same Testimonies and Authorities commended by one and the other and not to disturb the ashes of men in their graves Mr. Bagshaw hath vontured to call Dr. Hamond Grotius his Interpreter how justly the Dr. best knows yet thus far I will venture to say that the learned Annotator hath ploughed more with Grotius his heyfer and made more use of his labours then I have done of any or of all the men with stealing from whom Mr. P. hath charged me Dr. Jer. Taylor is a great master of Language and one of vast reading and yet he borroweth sufficiently from Mr. Hales in his Preface to Liber of Prophe. from Episcopius he borroweth almost every thing in his unhappy Tract of Original sin but sure Dr. Heylin who hath cast so many stones at Mr. Hickm for filching is frce from that fault nay if ever man was guilty of that crime he is I will not blot Paper with making parallels in many particulars take him but in his master peece his Fides veterum his whole p. 16. and half the 17. is almost Verbatim transcribed out of Dr. Thom. Jackson his Original of unbelief as any one may easily see who will but be at pains to compare them and how much he hath made use of the same Author in the Articles of our Saviours Resurrection Ascension Session at the right hand he is not ignorant so that if he were so willing to shew his reader a Plagiary he needed not to have sent him so far as Mag. Col. he might have found one as near as Seneca was wont to find a fool the truth is this Dr. is Felo de se he robbeth his own Preface to adorn his Book In the Preface to the Reader he serveth us up these words My opinions as they are but opinions so they are but mine as opinions I am not bound to stand to them my self as mine I have no reason to obtrude them on another man c. and these he brings a second time to the Table in his Book p. 283. and yet he thrasonically enough tells us in the Preface That whatsoever other censure might be laid upon his Book that of nil dictum est quod non dictum fuit prius could find no place But we need not much trouble our selves that what he takes out of others he carryeth as if it were his own seeing that he is so unhappy when he doth quote an Author Quis nescit qualia demens AEgyptus portenta colat He ascribes to Lucan in his Pharsal lib. 10. And yet I believe there 's many a boy in M. School who knows that it was Juven. and not Lucan who in those words upbraided the AEgyptians with their Idolatry I have sufficiently proved that if I am guilty of what Mr. P. and Dr. H. charge me with yet I am not the first that did offend in this kind But I farther plead Not guilty to the accusation and do here confidently aver That what he chargeth me to have borrowed from Mr. Prynne I borrowed not from him but took from the books that I quote them out of those questions and answers in the Bible printed 1607. I saw and read before I knew there was such a Tract in the world as Mr. Prynnes Anti-Armin and all my Fathers house can bear me witness that they are in the very Bible that we constantly made use of as oft as we read Chapters in the Family And I must now inform Dr. Heylin That he is much mistaken if he think what he would feign have others think that those questions and answers are no older then 1607. for I my self can direct him to a Bible printed twenty years before that time that hath them and how many Bibles there may be older than that I know
not as for the Act Quest Dr. Wallis knows and so did Mr. Whittingh when alive that I took them out of the Congregation books and that I had the sight of Pounols Catechism it self long before I printed my book Mr. Cooper Fellow of N. C. knows for he lent it me Mr. Burscough of B. C. will witness that I did read that cheat of putting out Champneys book and that I shewed him the opinion that Crowley had of that patron of Free-will not out of Mr. Prynne but out of Crowley himself I also profess that I read Dr. John Bridges and took not his words upon Mr. Prynnes credit and so I did the works of T. F. and B. Balaeus also I consulted about our Ancient Protestant Divines thence I had their Characters and this as it proves our Library-keeper can witness for I came to him to direct me to that book having searched for it among the Divinity whereas it is placed among the Humanity books Now after I had taken all this pains and trusted nothing but my own eyes was I bound to tell the world that such quotations might be found in Mr. Prynne Yet I have made use of his History of the Tr. of the A. and have acknowledged my self so to have done or if I had made no such acknowledgment yet all would have thought that I had lighted my candle at his Historie no man having written those transactions but himself As for what he chargeth me to have stolen from Dr. W. or Mr. M. or Mr. Good I am told that they are but sentences or Apothegmes and truly it is hard that a man should be bound if he have read a sentence or Apothegme twenty times to quote the last Author Let any one in the behalf of those Gentlemen implead me and if it be made appear that I have used any thing that is properly theirs and not given them the credit I shall soon acknowledg my fault and cry them pardon As for a phrase or expression I labour not to acquit my self knowing that it is not possible to read an Author but that something of his stile will stick upon the memory and ming'e it self with whatever a man shall write till those impressions are blotted out I thank God that whatever I am defective in yet I did never find my self at any great loss for sit and apt words to express the conceptions of my mind Perhaps the world may expect that I should take notice of a late Whifler who notifieth himself by two letters M. O. and because else he would have been taken to be but a mechanick tels us That he is a Batchelor of Arts but his lewd Pamphlet I did never read nor did ever meet with that Scholar who thought it worth my reading All Brackley knows that I had relinquished the profits of that place long before I came to St. Aldates in Oxon and all Oxford knows that St. Aldates is not worth 150 l. per annum And there are but few in Magdalen Colledge who know not that Mr. P. his book did never put me into a fit of the toothach and all my Scholars will say That I never forewarned any of them from reading of Mr. P. his book The Printer and Stationer know that the Review was never intended to come forth in my name yea that it was almost off the Press before Mr. P. his book came to Oxon. And therefore that poor Creature hath done nothing but only gratified the Devil by raising groundless calumnies and I heartily wish he may have time and grace to see how much he hath abused not only me but himself in so unfortunate an attempt As for the following Tract the Lord knows and some men do know that I send it into the world with a very unwilling mind For I know they are mostly my superiours upon whose writings I have made Animadversions I know that my undertaking may possibly be interpreted a sounding of an Alarum to War whereas it becomes us to study all possible wayes and means of accord and reconciliation that so our pens and hearts may be united against the common adversaries of Christianity Papists and Atheists c. But I consider that well-meaning people are drawn into opinions Diametrically opposite to the Doctrine by Law and Authority established among us and that by those who esteeme themselves the only obedient sons of the Church of England and therefore thought it not amiss to let our Country-men understand that the plants they so greedily feed upon are exotick not planted by our first Reformers and that it is a sad sign their temper and constitution is altered if they can digest such Positions as I have manifested old Protestants would have nauseated All along thou hearest men speaking in their own words and therefore certainly no wrong is done them if their meaning be mistaken I hope it will teach them to express themselves more warily and to abstain not only from that which is Popery but also from every thing that hath the appearance of it If any of them will so far take notice of what I have done as to give a fair reconciliation of their sayings to our Artic. Homil. c. I shall therein rejoyce having this testimony within me That I never desired to make differences where I found none But alas it is but too evident that some of our Canterburians I call them so not to disgrace but to distinguish them have removed the old Land-marks placed by our Protestant Forefathers and are gone over into the Tents and Camps of our adversaries It was of old reckoned Popery to hold That the Virgin Mary was borbn free of Original sin we have now one risen up among us who holds that and holds also that every one else is born so too Who also maintains That she ever kept a dominion over her Passions which never had been taught to rebel beyond the meer possibilities of Natural imperfection Gr. Ex. p. 13. cap. 19. He entitleth her To a Faith that had no scruple And that Though she was Espoused to an honest and just person of her Kinred and Family and so might not dispair to become a Mother yet she was a person of so rare sanctity and so mortified a Spirit that for all this desponsation of her according to the desires of her parents and the Custome of the Nation she had not set one step forward toward the consummation of her Marriage so much as in thought and possibly had set her self back from it by a Vow of Chastity and holy celibate p. 14. p. 19. We are further told Of her being brought up in the Temple eleven years in her childhood p. 22. Of her body being Aery and Vegete and of the burden which she bare not hindring her And p. 26. That she had no pain in the production for to her alone did not the punishment of Eve extend That in sorrow she should bring forth and that as He came from the Grave with a stone
and signature and into the Colledge of Apostles the doors being shut and into the glories of his Father through the solid orbs of all the Firmament so he came also into the world without doing violence to the Virginal and pure body of his Mother He contents not himself to assert the perpetual Virginity of Mary which is not denyed by any Protestant but will abuse Scripture to prove it viz. that of Ezek. 44. 2. p. 27. Ibid. He adopts the uncertain conceit of Christs being laid in a Manger between Sheep and Oxen and for this quotes Hab. 3. 4. whence no such thing is deducible And p. 28. he writes in favour of Vows of Poverty for he saith That many wise men make such Vows whereas no wise man did ever make such a Vow or if he did the making of the Vow was no part of his Wisdom I le not follow that Author any further though seeing his books are so greedily bought up by our Gentry it would be pains well spent if some one who abounds with leisure would pick up his Popish passages that the world might see what a kind of man he is whom they so much admire For my part I think I could produce hundreds of Papists that were less Popish then he though I do not take him to be a perfect through-paced Tridentine Papist Nor would I be thought to impute all his opinions to every one with whom I deal in the ensuing Tract they are not all of a mind in all things But they have all if I mistake not departed more or less from the Protestant Doctrine by which means the Papists will be hardned in their errors and some scandal be cast on our Reformation Reader I shall finish thy trouble when I have only minded thee of two or three things relating to the temper of those Divines whose Opinions I relate 1. I have observed they are hugely nncharitable to those that are of a different mind from them though in smaller matters 'T is notorious that they have unchurched all the Transmarine Churches for want of such an Officer as they are not convinced that Christ did ever Institute And 't is also well known that Mr. Montague condemns those Churches of great impiety which do not observe Christmas 2. They do pretend great Antiquity for their Opinions whereas if all things were well observed and examined no such Antiquity could be pleaded I had thought to exemplisie this in Mr. Montagues Discourse about the time of Christs Nativity but that is already done to my hand by Gisber Voetius whom if thou wilt consult thou wilt be abundantly satisfied Let me instance in the observation of the Lent Fast concerning which Dr. Heylin Fid. Veter p. 163. thus declares himself The Lent Fast was not alone of special use to the advancement of true godliness and increase of Piety but also of such reverend Antiquity that it hath good right and title to be reckoned among the Apostolical Traditions which have been recommended to the Church of God To prove this he alledgeth the Canons of the Apost. Can. 69. and Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philippians But he might have done well to consider that of August Epist. 86. ad Casul As for the authorities he quoteth they are both spurious as is proved by the most learned Usher Tertullian also is by the Doctour produced But what Tertullian not Tertullian the Orthodox Father but Tertullian turned Montanist and grown to such a degree of pride that he ventured to call the Orthodox Psychicos and it may well be questioned whether his magnifying the quadragesimal Fast had not in it a spice of Montanism for we find in Eusebius Hist. Eccl. lib. 5. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in That Montanus is by Apollonius branded for an Heretick because he was {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Let any one who counts it worth his labour consult Eusebius lib. 5. cap. 25 26. Socrates lib. 5. cap. 21 Sozom. lib. 7. cap. 19. Nic. Calis lib. 4. cap. 39. he will see that the Primitive Church did not impose the observation of the forty dayes Fast as a matter of necessity yea he will be of the mind of Cassian Collat. 21. cap. 30. Observantiam quadragesimae quamdiu Ecclesiae illius primitivae perfectio inviolata permansit penitus non fuisse c. If any one think that the example of Christs fasting doth oblige us to imitation let him pause upon that of Chris {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} In Mathae Homil. 47. Therefore when ever thou findest Antiquity pleaded mark well and by comparing Editions enquire whether that which is brought be as ancient as is pretended and not something foisted into the writings of the Ancients by men of later times See also whether the Testimonies do prove that for which they are produced for it would be great weakness to think that every Father who mentioneth or commendeth Episcopacy doth presently allow or approve of such an Episcopacy as did here obtain in England and as some would fain have restored The question is not whether Antiquity had Bishops but whether Antiquity did believe a Bishop to be of a superior order to a Presbyter and if that were proved it would be a second question whether that superiority of order were founded on humane or Divine institution and if it could be proved that there is a Divine Institution of and for a Bishop it may still be questioned whether that divine institution do make him so necessary and essential to Ordination that any Ordination which is made by meer Presbyters is in naturâ rei null and void I am fully convinced that Imposition of hands is a Rite no way to be omitted in Ordination yet if any apprehending that Ceremony to have been proper and peculiar to the Apostolical times should omit it I should be loath to say that the person Ordained without it was no true Minister there are examples for many things in Scripture for which there is no precept and there may be necessitas praecepti for many things which yet are not necessary necessitate medii multa fieri non debuerunt quae tamen facta valuerunt I conclude all with an earnest desire and prayer That such a spirit of Love may be poured out upon us as that whereunto we have already attained we may walk by the same rule and bear with one another in those lesser things in which we differ fer and that we may have them in high esteem who first sealed our Reformation with the loss of their lives and not meddle with those who are given to changes Vnto which ends if what I have done may contribute any thing I shall account I haue not laboured in vain H. H. ERRATA PAge 3. l. 28. read Gret p. 5. l. 5. r. scrutemur l. 16. r. tractatum p. 10. l. 17. r. that whole narrative he that will read p. 11. l. 27.
printed what he did in this matter and if Dr. Ham who so much decryeth any thing that hath but the appearance of bitterness in others can not only brook but also admire the writings of Dr. Heylin notwithstanding all the bitterness that is in them I must needs say that Ployden is not the only man with whom the case doth alter for sure the tartness which he blameth in Dr. Owen is not comparable to that which runneth through all the veins of Dr. Heylins books But I must not count my self engaged to believe any thing of this nature till I see something testified under Dr. Ham his own hand then the world shall know who told the story Laud But the Doctor hopeth he hath made it appear that Calvinism was not the Native and Original doctrine of the Church of England though in a short time it overspread a great part thereof Pres. to His. Quin. Artic. Pacif. He may hope where no hope is and that he doth so in this particular Theophilus Churchman hath evinced in his Review of the Certam Epistolare which was bnt an Epitome of this Historia quin Artic. the Doctor all along using the very same shifts and almost the very same words in one book that he doth in the other and herein he doth but antiquum obtinere for so in his Resp. Pet. he tels the very same tale that he did in the History of the Sab. not vouchsafing to take any notice that two learned men had in print many years before answered all his Subterfuges And he that can thus bring an old book upon the Stage under a new Title and rob his former writings to fill up the bulk of his latter doth but declare that he hath got an itch of scribling which I am not so good a Physician as to be able to cure As for the indignities that he hath offered to the Belgick Churches I leave him to be chastized by the pens of some of their owm Members who will easily manifest that the Synod of Dort was not so ugly a creature as he hath made it and that the proceedings against the Remonstrants were neither unjust nor yet rigorous Mean while I refer the reader to what Hornebeck hath said in his Summa Contr. I must only take leave to say something in vindication of T. C. in throwing reproaches upon whom the Doctor is so very not only liberal but also profuse He tels us that the gentleman whom he did strive to prefer to Mag. was none of his blood T. C. never said that he was and that he was a singular good Scholar T. C. never denyed it As for Mr. Hickman he was one of the means of procuring him an exhibition of fifteen pound per annum to help towards his subsistence in the Universitie till he should be able to provide himself of some such place as might alone suffice to keep him But sure Dr. Heylin when he sought to bring in this his friend a friend I hope is relatum did not take the Colledge to be a nest of Cuckoos he would not sure have took a courtesie from Mr. Praesi if he had not judged him to have power sufficient to bestow it And had his friend been made Fellow of the Colledg he would sure for his sake have been so civil as not to have used so ugly a similitude Indeed if singing alway the same note and tune make a Cuckoo all the Cuckoos do not lodg at Mag. Colledge Next the Doctor labours to prove that it was no slander to say That the new Sabbath speculations of Dr. Bound had been more passionately embraced of late then any one Article of Religion here by Law established But this he proveth by such an argument as I perswade my self he himself takes not to have any colour of truth in it Because impunity is indulged by them to all Anabaptists Familists Ranters By them whom meaneth the Doctor if he mean by any that deserve the name of Calvinists his Conscience cannot but flie in his face if by them he mean the Souldiers whose violence prevailed so far as to seclude the Members of that Parliament which was if any the Presbyterian Parliament then his Argument must run thus The Souldiers many of whom are Anabaptists and Arminians all of them Anticalvinists have procured impunity to Familists Ranters Quakers and yet not for those who transgress the Laws about the Sabbath therefore the Calvinists are more zealous about the Sabbath speculations then about any one Article of Religion by Law established If the world will be cheated with such arguments let it be cheated yet dare not I imitate the Doctour in despising of authority or speaking evil of dignities I dare not leave it in print That the Justice used cursed rigor who made a Victualler pay ten shillings for selling a half-penny loaf to a poor man in time of Sermon I rather think it was cursed rigor to Excommunicate Mr. Paul Bains for withdrawing to drink a little Wine or Beer after he had spent himself in Preaching a Sermon yet this I find practised The Doctor next proceedeth to make some Apology for his calling himself His Majesties Creature and the workmanship of his hands One while he seems to say no such thing dropped from his Pen another while that if it had the expression might have been justified He hath been told where and by whom it was averred that he did use those expressions I only now tell him The Gentleman was fasting when he so said and that M. C. Bursery is not a place in which men are or I hope ever were suffered to inflame themselves with wine and strong drink so as to make them talk that which they would be ashamed to own afterwards As to the expression it self I had well hoped that if a Courtier could have stooped so low in flattery yet no Divine whose work is to be Kings remembrancer that they are but Mortal Creatures and Creeping Dust durst have used any such language if the Doctor dare he shall pardon me if I do not take him to be the tenderest Conscienced Theologue in Christendome As for what concerneth Dr. Barlow I say but this That both Mr. John Martin Fellow of C. C. C. Ox. and also Dr. Henry Wilkinson will witness that Mr. Sparks did assert all that to be truth which T. C. hath published and that Mr. Sparks was both a learned man and a good man all the University will witness but as for the aged person who related this to Mr. Sparks he either is or very lately was alive In a word the book written by T. C. never was answered never will be answered except by such an Animal as M. O. whose eyes Mr. P. and Dr. Heylin have put out that he might the more easily grind in their mill The book was made by one whom the Vic. of Oxon loves and respects and that a sheet or two were printed ar London was by the Authors own consent meerly to avoid that clamour which else the Dr. might have raised upon the Vice who loveth not to meddle with those Salamanders that are never in their Element but when they are in the fire of contention The Doctor complaineth much of ribaldry obscenity c. but let him first pull out the beam that is in his own eye Loripedem rectus derideat AEthiopem Albus There 's a pretty story of a Cardinal and the Abbot of Fulda travelling together towards Ulma either of them attended with 30. horsemen compleatly armed My Lord saith the Cardinal do you think St. Bennet who was the Author of your Order went thus attended The Abbot presently replyed upon him and demanded If St. Peter ever rode in that state as his Fatherhood did If Dr. Heylin blame T. C. for one unseemly passage and that 's all he can charge him with which had been expunged also had not the Impression been so suddenly took off the Stationers hand T. C. will not be at a loss to find one as bad or far worse to lay in the Doctors dish I must spare neither and therefore say They both have so worded matters now and then that they have reason to beg the charity of men to excuse them and the mercy of God to pardon them and that the world may learn by their example more to mind the Doctrine which is according to godliness and less and more rarely to engage in Controversies is the prayer of The Lords most unworthy creature March 20. 1659. FINIS Meipsum invenio Bell de ver. Dei lib. 3. cap. 10. See worse language than this in the writings of Dr. Heylin and Mr. Tho. P. Vide C. P. Part. 1.