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
FALSHOOD UNMASKT In ANSWER to a BOOK CALLED TRUTH UNVEIL'D Which vainly pretends to justify the Charge of M R STANDISH Against some Persons in the Church OF ENGLAND By a Dutiful SON of that CHURCH LONDON Printed for James Magnes and Richard Bentley at the Post-Office in Russel-street in Covent-Garden 1676. Imprimatur Ab. Campion Novemb. 3. 1676. To the AVTHOR OF THE VINDICATION OF Mr. STANDISH'S SERMON c. SIR BEing at this time not far from London I have met with a little Pamphlet called The Truth unveiled c. which you pretend to be a Vindication of Mr. Standish's Sermon a great deal sooner than otherwise I should have done The Pamphlet it self doth not seem to me to be worthy of any regard but to your self who seem to be much concerned for the safety of our Religion there is a great one due and therefore in mere charity to you I have once more set Pen to Paper briefly to demonstrate that you wrong your self exceedingly in imploying your time about works of this nature for which you are not at all fitted You are a Person of Quality I make no doubt because I have your word for it but I must take the boldness to tell you that whatsoever other qualities you have you are not qualified to imitate a little your way of writing to pass a censure on Men and on Books as you have taken the liberty to do You will be apt it is like by this blunt beginning to make the same judgement concerning me but I trust I shall evidently show it is no rashness or presumption in me to undertake this task which is so easy that it requires no great abilities to make good this charge viz That there is a notorious defect either in your Will and Affections or else in your Mind and Judgement either of which make you unmeet to meddle with these matters The former of these I dare not suspect because you profess down-right Honesty though no Arts and in many passages speak very piously Though I cannot forbear to say thus much that the constant affectation of little strains of the lowest and poorest sort of witty reflexions is no good sign of that serious inside Piety whose Heart-bloud you say is now letting out by a Generation of Men for whom you cannot find a name bad enough Who can read without some disdain such pittiful punns as you have made upon the names of several persons which I doubt you would not allow in another while you take a great liberty this way your self You would call it I have reason to think flurting and fleering or lightness and vanity if not jeering and abusiveness in those whom you take to task which you practice without any scruple from the beginning of the Book to the end Mr. Bull comes first with his Horns and eager pushes pag. 33. having lately pusht apiece into the World p. 37. Then Mr. Baxter is described by the character of one who hath spoiled in his time many good Bakings And elsewhere Dr. Heylin passes under the name of St. George his Champion and you doubt his Dragon too And there is another I am confident you aim at when upon the mention of Dr. Owen and Mr. Jenkins you tell us of the groveling outeries that are made Nor can I devise any other reason why you contracted the name of your Book in the entrance with an c. when it stands at length enough in the Title Page but only to bring in the far-fetcht conceit of the Oath c. Sure Sir this trifling is not to be a practitioner of Piety in Baley's way nor to watch over your actions according to Brinsley's Rules and as you direct us p. 30. If it be those Books and the rest you commend to our use do not surpass so far as you would have the world believe the labours of the New Speaking Gentlemen So you call the Writers you oppose though that excellent Man Dr. Hammond after whom follows Bishop Taylor leads the Van as you speak and was the Forelorn Hope Who deserved sure to be treated with more Reverence especially by a Person of Quality who ought not to have stooped to so low so paultry a way of writing nor to have comprehended so great a Divine and so Holy a Man under no better Name than that of a New-Speaking Gentleman But you do not deny but there are abundance of excellent useful seasonable well-said things in his Practical Catechisme and therefore notwithstanding all this I doubt not but you are though I know not who you are no more than the Man in the Moon a Pious Serious Honest Gentleman or Person of greater Quality who intends to do service to Religion though you are not well skilled in the business you go about For that there is an exceeding great defect in your judgement it is apparent from hence That pretending a Vindication of Mr. Standish his Sermon you have not writ one syllable to the purpose For the Men whom he informs against and whose names I desired we might know are such as impiously deny both our Lord and his Holy Spirit who make Reason Reason Reason their only Trinity who preach up Natural and Moral Religion without the Grace of God and Faith in Christ and in effect say There is no such thing as supernatural Grace That is in plain terms rank Socinians or worse if worse can be for the Socinians do not advance Natural Religion against the Christian nor deny all Supernatural Grace Now I did not nor do believe that there is a man to be named among our Clergy who is guilty of these foul detestable Heresies Yes say you or you say nothing since you call so loudly and importunately for a Bill of particulars you shall have it And the first Names you give in are Dr. Hammond and Bishop Taylor Who must therefore be the Ring-leaders of those deceitful Workers those false Apostles Mr. Standish speaks of or else to speak mildly in one of your own phrases you have mist the Quishion Chuse you which of these you will it is certain you will be found to be an incompetent person to interpose your self in those differences though I doubt not you are as in humility you stile your self p. 34 A well-meaning Scribler Do you really intend to charge those great Men with the crime of Socinianisme Is the Practical Catechisme in effect but the Cracovian in which Mr. Standish feared we might live to see our Youth trained up Hath any one more effectually established the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity than the ever memorable Dr. Hammond upon the 1 Epistle of S. John the fifth Chapter and the sixth Verse I believe I may answer for you that you did not mean to impute any such Heresies to either of them And therefore it remains if you acquit them that you condemn your self of the grossest impertinency and heedlessness in naming these as the Heads of that black Faction For if you can lay things
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