together you will see that this must be your meaning or you did not mind what you wrote about but having something in your Head concerning innovations in our Religion regarded not how you applyed it Look over the earnest request to Mr. Standish read the character of the Men a List of whom I desire him to communicate and then apply it to Dr. Hammond and Bishop Taylor and you will very hardly hold to speak your own language again from asking your self that question which you observe p. 29. Sir John Sucklin ask'd when he found Sir Toby Matthews in the Session of Poets What do they here Perhaps you will as earnestly reply have I not alledged a strange passage out of one of Bishop Taylors Prayers What do you say to it I say I have taken notice of it my self and do not know what he meant but I am sure he was no Socinian and that there is no Socinianism in the words you quote whatsoever there be else and therefore I know not what you meant to thrust them in here where they have nothing to doe There is no man of the Church of England I believe that will answer for every word in that great Mans Writings But no more will any discreet Man of your way answer for all the hard sayings that are in Mr. Calvins I am sure I find in my small Reading the greatest Men who have undertaken his defence absolutely disclaiming their being bound to make good every thing that he said and therefore had it been more pertinent than it is you might have let it pass and not have disturbed Dr. Taylors ashes as they speak but suffered a person of his merit to sleep in peace But some of those that follow perhaps may be of the Racovian stamp though these two be found as innocent as all you have said about them is impertinent Let us try if you please what you have to say to St. George Champion who next follows If we should allow him to have been as you doubt his Dragon too we shall never find him spitting any such venome as that mentioned in Mr. Standish's Sermon You your self cannot charge him with any such thing but detain your Reader only with along tedious reflection in XVII Particulars upon his Cyprianus Anglicus or The Life of our Great Archbishop Laud which still shows that you are beside the Cushion and without question expert as you say of him that Readers should rest upon your Dictates without any searching whether you write to the purpose or no or else you would never have so determinately called your Book a Vindication of Mr. Standish's his Sermon which in truth is far otherwise It would have saved you a great deal of needless pains if you would but have minded the last words of my Request to him which are not mine but the wise Son of Syrach's 11 Ecclus. 7. Vnderstand first and then rebuke You would not have troubled us if you had heeded this good counsel with a story of his Arminianisme strutting through all the pages of his Book which is no more to the Vindication you undertake than the mysterious agency of Panzani and Con which you talk or afterward and that which was a doing I know not when at Clerken well and behind Drury-lane Nor hath the Ghost of Tilenus whom you bring in next any thing to say about the business It is only a dumb apparition and we have nothing but your word for it that it makes very irregular glances and would let out the hearts bloud of sundry truly Protestant Doctrines All that follows it likewise is but wind against Parker Hickringale and sweet Mr. Sherlock as you are pleased in much civility to term him whose Writings you say contain not much more than Sophistical Harangues Perspicuous Calumnies and Prodigious Drolleries What that much more is you will not let us know It is like that as little as you think it it contains a confutation of your accusations For one of those persons whom you rank with them Georgius Bull I am acquainted withall and know him to be both an Holy and a very Learned person who hath in his last Book thrown off this charge of Socinianisme with as much indignation as you can do the Writings of any of the New speaking Gentlemen And there is no body that knows him but is assured he most sincerely declares his inmost thoughts and would not for a world embrace any Doctrine contrary to what hath been taught by the Catholick Church with which he is certain the Church of England is not at odds But why do I make so many words about this sort of Writers Our Books of Devotion will not down with you neither but upon this that is no occasion fall under your lash If they do but omit any thing which you would have in them straitway you quarrel and think it a sufficient reason for your displeasure at them The method and direction for private Devotion is not for your Tooth And which is more the Whole Duty of Man is not secure from your impotent assaults p. 29. and 32. We must use no other Books but such as you like or else quit our Title to the name of the right Sons of the Church of England Instead of the excellent Book last named we must buy the Practice of Piety though far more liable to exceptions in many wise mens judgements than any Book of Devotion you have mentioned or else you will not be in a good humor What an imperious dictating Spirit is this which rules in Men of this strain who will not allow us so much as to speak out of their phrase Is this the Spirit of true genuine Calvinisme which you so highly commend p. 28 Are those that carp at every thing and can relish nothing but what is of their dressing nor fancy any body but those that are exactly of their own cutt the rightest Sons and Fathers of the Church of England Why will you here I fancy interrupt me and be apt to say what have you to object against what I have writ That an Episcopal Calvinist is the rightest Son or Father of the Church of England the best Protestant and if a good man the best Christian p. 28. I answer if you will not count me impertinent for medling with that which was not my present business with you I have very much to object And first I say that no right Son much less Father of the Church of England will endure to be called or thought either a Calvinist or an Arminian for our Church follows no particular man though never so great neither Calvin nor Luther nor Arminius None of these are the founders of its Faith which is not taught by Calvin's or any other Institutions but by the Holy Scriptures interpreted by the Church of Christ in the best ages of it Or to give it you in the words of an once Father of this Church interpreted not according to the fancies and most what
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
Christ hath done and suffered for us whose righteousness in both regards was so pure and perfect that God in consideration of it or for its merits was pleased Graciously to grant us forgiveness of sins and him a power to bestow it on all those that believe on his name which is as much as to say that we are accounted righteous for the sake of Christs merits or for the merits if you will of Christs righteousness the effects and fruits of which we are made partakers of by Faith So the Church teaches us to understand Christ's imputed righteousness which all good Christians rejoyce in For righteousness imputed is our being accounted righteous before God though we are not so in our selves and we are accounted righteous before God saith the 11 Artic. only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own works and deserving If you will trouble your self with notions beyond this you may but do not trouble others with them who profess they cannot understand how the Righteousness of Christ can be so accounted ours which is the modern notion of it as if in him we had performed perfect obedience to God He performed perfect Obedience for us that we believe and hope to be saved by the merit of it but we did not perform perfect obedience in him that is contrary I have been taught to the very principles of Christianity For if we did then by that perfect obedience performed in him we become perfectly righteous free that is not only from all punishment but from fault and then we have no need of pardon nor of any inherent righteousness and we have merited a reward For my part I believe the honest people of the Church of England who devoutly say the Litanie never think of any such thing but humbly address themselves to God for mercy through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ who hath purchased pardon for penitent sinners by the intire righteousness of his life and death They mean no more when they pray to be delivered by his wonderful condescension in being incarnate for our sake which was the beginning of his humiliation and by his bloudy death and burial in which it was finished but that they may be freed from the guilt of their sins and the punishment due to them by the merits of these and all other parts of his humiliation which they know by his exaltation into the heavens and the coming of the Holy Ghost was highly acceptable to God being the fulsilling of all his Will in what he required for our redemption and having obtained for our Saviour all power in Heaven and Earth to dispense the Blessings which he purchased And thus other Churches understand this business the French for instance who say We believe that our righteousness consists in remission of sins c. and therefore casting away all opinion of our own vertues and merits we rest only in the obedience of Christ Jesus which is imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and also that we may obtain Grace before God Here they plainly tell us that their righteousness which is procured by Christs obedience consists in remission of sins and therefore that obedience of his is imputed only in this sense that for its sake we may obtain remission of sins and be accepted with God I beseech you Sir do not accuse me of Heterodoxy if I do not jump with your thoughts in these matters for I protest I have no inclinations to fasten a sense upon the Churches words out of my own head but would most gladly receive it from those that can inform me better about it And I have a great respect also for all good men that are of a different mind in these matters and reverence Mr. Calvin very much though I do not think my self bound to follow his opinions All I desire is that neither you nor any body else would keep a pudder and a stirr as if Christianity were in danger to be lost by I know not what new notions when Mr. Bull and all that I have heard of his way preach the Grace of God in such a manner as I have declared which makes me confident our Religion and the Church is safe if they have no worse enemies than he But I much fear they are none of the Churches friends though they may design its good who make such a noise as if all our antient most fundamental Doctrines were subverted For the love of God Sir Let as hear no more of this from your hand if you bear any good will to it Let us have no more discourses of innovations in our Doctrines no more Truths unveiled though you think your self never so well acquainted with them no more Vindications nor mention of Mr. Standish who being the only person concerned hath as became an honest and good man acknowledged his error by silence I pray Sir do not you therefore revive that which he thinks fit should dye and be no more heard of I dare say for him he will give you no thanks for your kind intentions to serve him and therefore do not study how to oblige him any further in this matter He honours several of those persons I make no doubt as true Sons of the Church of England whom you have loaded with the reproach of departing from its Doctrine You have done him a great deal of injury in endeavouring to make the world believe that he struck at Dr. Hammond Bishop Taylor or Bishop Mountague either Nothing I am confident was further from his thoughts and he wishes I am of opinion that he had been as far out of yours For it was untowardly done to bring him upon the stage again right or wrong when he had no mind to persist in making a breach among us as he had in an heat begun to do But he will take it kindly I am apt to think if you will not seek to make him any reparation for this wrong but leave him to justify himself his own way He may well forgive you all that is past for one considerable service you have done him and the only one that I can find which is that I hope you have opened his eyes to see that I was in the right when I told him in my request to him what sort of men he would gratify by those passages in his Sermon Even such as accuse our late great Archbishop of Canterbury for being an incourager of the Romish Faction as you do in express terms p. 28. i. e. betraying his Trust and this Church which he so affectionately served that it cost him his life It was not enough it seems that they brought him in his life time under the Prophets affliction as he complains to our late Martyred Soveraign in his Epistle before his admirable Book against Fisher between the mouth that speaks wickedness and the tongue that sets forth deceit and slandered him as thick as if he were