Catholick Church as described by Arch-Bishop Bramhall Bishop Gunning Dr. Saywell Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell Mr. Sherlocke and the French Papists p. 193. Some notes on Dr. Saywell's Communion p. 198. More on Dr. Sherlocke's p. 203 Chap. 6. What is the Vnion and necessary Communion of the Catholick Church according to this accusing Defender p. 207. His unsatisfactory solutions manifested and Dr. Isaac Barrow's excellent Treatise of Church-Vnity published by Dr. Tillotson defended against his vain exceptions Chap. 7. Of the rest of his book p. 228. A late Letter from Mr. Dodwell calling for more Answer with the Answer to it written since the rest was Printed though it be here placed Reverend Sir I Am now in the Country and as yet in so unsetled a condition as obliges me to be a Stranger to new Works However by the short view I have when I come into Shops I find you put me off for a Reply to Mr. Clarksons little Pamphlet concerning Diocesan Jurisdiction I have got it and perused it and the design of my writing at present is to acquaint you with the reason why I think my self unconcerned in it if that be all I must expect from you in Answer to my yet unanswered Letters You must excuse me if I cannot think that Book an Answer which as it was written before them by your own confession so neither doth it foresee the accounts given in those Letters nor provide against them Whether it do so let the Reader judge But to return to the account intended why I cannot think my self concerned in this new Pamphlet of Mr. Clarkson's be pleased to understand that the excellent Dean of St. Pauls being engaged against you on the same Argument of my Letters was pleased to put himself to the trouble of perusing my Papers as they came from the Press purposely that he might avoid repeating what had been said by me This being so you may easily understand how far I am concerned in what is said to him when it was indeed wholly distinct from mine Not that I should have been unwilling to serve that great Person but that I know he is in much better hands already Mr. Clarkson in this Pamphlet as he has only mentioned Dr. Stillingfleets name so he hath confined himself to his Arguments and hath taken notice of nothing in my Letters not considered by the Doctor If he will be pleased to engage further I confess I like his temper better than any I have seen of your late Brethren except Dr. Owen Such an Adversary I should desire as would confine himself to the Cause without digressing to personal Slanders There is one mistake in him which you may be pleased to acquaint him with and that is his translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thousands more than once and sometimes where his Argument is grounded on it that it may appear to be his mistake rather than the Printers The mistake is small and separable from the main Cause but withal is very evident But according to his candour in acknowledging it so I shall see what candour I may expect from him in the main Cause if he think fit to engage with me in it As to your Answers to my Objections against your Ministry in our Oral Debates had they been unproved Assertions I should then have thought them sufficiently answered with Denials But you know the Assertions are proved in the body of my Book and till I see my Principles unravelled and Answers more distinctly applied to the junctures where the proof may seem to fail I am not likely to see any reason to change my minde Till you attempt this I am content the Reader judg whether what you have done or shall hereafter do in the like way deserve the name of a Confutation If I must never expect any further satisfaction from you for the Slanders you have raised against me all the return I intend is my hearty Prayer to God to qualifie you for your forgiveness not only of that sin but of the many others of your late writings by your re-union to the Church from which you are fallen on which account alone I have proved that you can expect forgiveness I am obliged not only on my own account but to the Publick to which you have shewn your self an Enemy on this occasion to reflect on you but I desire to leave no monuments against you to Posterity God may yet have mercy on you and let you see the mischief you are doing before it be too late That he will do so is the most unfeigned request of him who notwithstanding your many and great provocations will still endeavour to approve himself Shrewsbury Sept. 19 1681. Yours as far as is consistent with his Duty to the Publick Henry Dodwell When you have occasion to write to me send your Lettrs to be left with Mr. Took Sir I Received not yours of Septemb. 19 1681. till Octob. 21. through the miscarriage of one that should have delivered it What you have to say to Mr. Clarkson write to himself and not to me As to your call for more Answer to your Books you shall have more I had wrote one long ago and cast it by Men are weary of our Controversies and had rather all of us gave over But if I should shew the errour and impertinency of every such word in your great Book it might be a years work when I look not to live so long and it might make so great a Volume in Folio that few I think would buy or read And what great good will it do the world to tell them how grossly you abuse the Chuch and how confidently and voluminously you err As to your charge of Slandering you and wronging the Church and being unqualified for forgiveness I have the same Accusations from Quakers Anabaptists Antinomians and Papists almost in the same words Within these two hours an ancient Doctor sent me as hard words As being a self condemned person to be forsaken as opposing the Commands of God and the Faith of Iesus for not yielding to his asserting of the Seventh-day-Sabbath and condemning the Lords-days observation I have these thirty six years lived under such Accusations It is no new thing for Seducers to use affrighting words instead of proof and to say Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses you cannot be saved It 's the cry of most Sects You cannot be saved but in our way Sir No man living hath more cause to be loath to err and to be willing to know the Truth I am as sure as I can be if I know any thing of my own minde that I am not only willing to know the Truth but to know it at a far dearer rate than it was ever like to cost me in this world I am sure that I have not been slothful in seeking it I am sure that I would joyfully recant any Errour that you or any man can convince me of with hearty thanks for so great a
benefit I have considered your Books you are confident of my erring and wronging the Church and I am as confident of yours that you are a Misleader of an extraordinary size that would set up an Vniversal humane Supreme Government which Protestants have taken for Popery and Treason against Christ and who falsly unchurch the Reformed Churches and deny them all Covenant-right to Salvation while you tolâ— me your self that It is not for the Christian Interest to hold thâ—â— the Roman Bishops Ordination as you require it hath had an intercision Is it a crime to speak truth of you or a slander to say That the Doctrine of an Humane Absolute Vniversal Soveraignty is the most Fundamental part of Popery And is it no Sin or Slander for you to condemn so many Millions falsly even the purest and holiest of the Churches on Earth if not the whole by self-contradiction is it a damning sin not to feed cloath and visit in Prison one of Christ's little ones And is it a meritorious virtue in Mr. Dodwell to unchurch or unchristen or degrade if not condemn to Hell all the Reformed Churches nominally but not really excepting England Yea and to go about with a persecuting Spirit and Diligence to provoke Magistrates to lay them in Jayls with Rogues because they dare not give over Preaching the Gospel to which they were devoted in their Ordition Reproachâ—ng those Magistrates as Contemners of Religion who will not punish us as Deceivers as if it were not you that is the Deceiver Should I presume to judge that so many and such men through Christendom as you condemn were all so ignorant and so bad as not to know the common Verities necessary to the essence of the Ministry and to Salvation and that 't is I that can teach it them by such media as Mr Dodwell useth while he knoweth that Voetius hath answered a far abler Defender of his Cause I should sure be reputed a man so extremely proud as that no complemental humble deportment would excuse As for the Question Whether you are a Papist what obligation lieth on me to decide it Why should you expect that I should say you are none Do you not better know your self And is not your own word fitter to tell your minde I do but tell what your Doctrine is And I will speak so much plainer than I did as to say That 1. to hold a humane Universal Church-Supremacy Aristocratical or Monarchical 2. And that this Power is so absolute that there is no Appeal from it to Scripture or Gods Judgment 3. And that this Power doth make universal Laws for all the Church by General Councils 4. And that the Pope hath the Primacy or Presidentship in those Councils ordinarily 5. And that he is the Principium Vnitatis 6. And that it belongs to the President antecedently to call Councils and to him alone so that they are but unlawful Routs or rebellious if they assemble without his Call And that they are Schismaticks who dissent and disobey this Supremacy 8. And that the Reformed Churches for want of your Episcopal Ordination uninterrupted from the Apostles times are no true Churches have no true Ministry or Sacraments or Covenant-right to Salvation but by pretending them do sin against the Holy Ghost 9 But that the Church of Rome by vertue of an uninterrupted Episcopal Succession is a true Church hath a true Ministry and Sacraments and Covenant right to Salvation 10. And that the French-Church which we call Papists are safer than the Protestants there 11. And imply that the said French Clergy and the Councils of Constance and Basil were no Papists 12. And that the said Protestants being Schismaticks and sinning against the Holy Ghost the Magistrates that will not be Contemners of Religion are bound to punish them As if in England and France your bellows were needful to blow the fire These things asserted among you by Bishop Bramhall Heylin Mr. Thorndike and you and such others the Protestants have been hitherto used to call Popery But I will not dispute with you a mere question of the fitness of the name If you had rather call it Church Tyranny Cruelty or Diabolism And is all this a Virtue in you And is it a sin in me to defend Christ's flock and the true Unity of his Church and to detect such Deceivers and bear my testimony for Truth Love and Concord against such Dividers and Destroyers It 's a hard case then that such as â— are in that the more unfeignedly we desire to know God's Will and the more diligently and impartially we study it and the more it costeth us the greater sinners we are And no sins have been so loudly charged on me as Praying and Preaching the Gospel and laborious vindicating God's Truth and Servants It doth not follow if you hate them or would have them ruined that every man sinneth that doth not as you do And whereas you would get some countenance to your Writings by the name of Dr. Stillingfleet as having perused them c. Either he is or is not of your mind If not this doth but adde to your deceit If he be your Cause will do more against the Conscience and Reputation of Dr. Stillingfleet than far greater Parts and Reputation than his can do for your Cause And Sir what should I get should I give a Voluminous Answer to all your books When I have confuted you as far as I have done I have but lost my labour The Church-men that I hear from despise it and say What is Mr. Dodwell to us He is an unordained man he knoweth why and his book was rejected by the Bishop of London His opinions are odd and the Church of England is not of his mind Yea Mr. Cheny would perswade us that you are a singular contemned fellow But it 's a useful way to set such an one as you to do mens business and to boast as Dr Sherlocke and Mr. Morrice do of your performance and yet to disown you when their cause requireth it But it is an abuse of us that dissent from you to connive only at your published Books and then to boast of them as unanswerable And when we have lost our precious time in shewing their deceit and schismatical Love-destroying tendency then to say to us You have done nothing VVhat is this to us Mr. Dodwell is an odd disowned man and none of the English Clergy If God and Conscience would give me leave I could presently be a good man and a pardoned sinner with you It is but honouring you and saying as you say I could so be extoll'd by almost any Sect Papist Quaker c. But it must be but by one for all the rest would nevertheless revile accuse me and condemn me as you do the Protestant Churches And the Quakers like you say we sin against the Holy Ghost The old Sabbatarian Dr. before-named in his first Letter accused me as aforesaid and when I profest my self
willing to learn of him as his Disciple I was in his next The unwearied Labourer in Christs harvest and his marvellous joy c. And in the rest when I could not receive his reasonings I became worse and more mâ—serable than ever It 's a wonderful meritoriouâ— excellency with such men to become their Proselytes and admirers As true Charity and Piety would fain propagate Truâ—h Goodness and happiness so Pride Self-conceit and a Sectarian Spirit are like the inordinate lust of fornicators impatient longer than they are propagating their spurious kind And indeed the inordinate height of your self-conceitedness and confidence in gross confounding error will make chast souls afraid of your procacious sollicitations Had you sought my corporal destruction and not the Churches ruin for which you profess a zeal I might silently have let you take your course But the sober world so well knoweth that Satan and Papists are so much against the plain and serious preaching of the Gospel and so much for blood or cruelty towards Dissenters how faithful and truly religious soever that if you go on to be like them 1. In laâ—bouring us to cease preaching And 2. To call for punishment we know what to those that will not cease you will cherish men in the opinion that you are a Papist more than all your friends and talk can make them believe that you are not Sir when sin groweth crying and common I am one that dare not preach impenitency by hiding it and saying it is a doubtful or a little thing though I expect that guilt should be impatient and some Doctors should go on to say behind my back that less than this is unchristian and intemperate passion or abuse Methinks you who judg millions of true believers and lovers of God and holiness to damnation and by Printing this go about to have all men think them such and consequently to love them no better than the damnable should be loved should never be so partially tender as not to endure to be but told what you say and do And will you be angry with sober Christians for startling at such a Doctrine that All our other qualifications though we believe and love God c. will not save us unless we have the Sacrament from a Minister ordained by a Bishop of your described species and he from such another c. to the beginning Can Christian ears relish the description of such a Hell as containeth the believing Christian lovers of God and Holiness who call'd upon his name and sought first his Kingdom and Righteousness and forsook all for Christ but were damned for want of an uninterrupted Diocesan Ordination of the Priest that gave them the Sacrament and all his predecessors Sure Christians hitherto han't believed that Diocesans Sacraments will make a Heaven of wicked ungodly men nor the want of them make a Hell of Saints And will you be angry with me for not believing that God is such a one as will for ever hate and damn in Hell the souls that loved him above all Will he take that love from them when they die Or do they continue in Hell to love him while he hateth and tormenteth them Were not that to call him worse than the Devil whom they do not love You only tell us that they cannot be saved for want of your species of Sacramenters But if you meant not by this their Damnation but a Purgatory or Annihilation it 's meet you should deal plainly and tell us what it is They are Articles of our Faith and Religion That whoever believeth sincerely in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life And that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth And that eye hath not seen c. what God hath prepared for them that love him When Dr. VVilkins once preached in Pauls Church an excellent Sermon for peace and concord on mutual forbearance on Rom. 14.17 The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is accepted of God and approved of men he accosted me at the Pulpit foot with these true words I am sure this Sermon pleased you If Dr. Tillotson will publish that Sermon as he hath done Dr. Isaac Barrow's those two books will more shame your love-killing schismatical doctrine than all that I have said against you And if the fore-mentioned moderating Doctors go on to publish me to be a man of unpeaceable provoking language for saying that such doctrines and practices are great sins they will seem to me to take the preaching of Repentance for reviling and that he is the sinner that tells men of sin and that the Laity are far happier men who may be called to Repentance for their vices than the Clergy or Church-corrupters who are heinously wronged if their sins be named and they be but intreated to consider and repent yea if we but tell the reason why we dare not do as they in a time when we have cause to study such Texts as Ezek. 9.4 Perhaps God may permit your principles to get the upper hand But if he do I shall love them never the better but the worse and shall better love the world which forsake not God nor is forsaken by him Mr. DODWEL's LEVIATHAN or Absolute Destructive Prelacy the Son of ABADDON APOLLYON and not of IESVS CHRIST c. CHAP. I. Of Mr. Dodwel's displeasure against me as if I accused him to be a Papist and accused unjustly the Councils of Bishops § 1. WHEN Mr. Dodwell in a tedious Volume did null the Reformed Churches their Ministry Sacraments and Covenant-title to salvation meerly for want of uninterrupted succession down from the Apostles of Ordination by such as he appropriateth the name of Bishops to I aggravated his fault as being one that professeth himself a Protestant He took this to be an accusation of Popery I Published to satisfie him that I meant no such thing but de nomine will call him what he calls himself and de re will be no judg of any thing but his books and words to which I leave the Reader to know him This satisfieth him not but he continueth so much concerned that I doubt he will make men think there is some tender place that is so impatient of a mis-supposed touch I have nothing to do with him or his Religion as his further than he assaulteth us by his Writings And he is the Accuser and the Accusation is of no less moment than aforesaid and sinning against the Holy Ghost and of Schism and subverting all Government if we do but practice differently from the Prelates will and alledg Scripture and Gods Authority for it and appeal to Christ. I am but on the Defence against all this § 2. I profess it is not meer education prejudices custom or worldly interest which keep me from Popery or his way of absolute obedience to Prelates I have studied what may
it from the Bishop himself that Bishop Sanderson who was a Member of your Conference interposed those words in the Act of Parliament where it is required that Ministers declare their unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the Book of Common-Prayer c. designedly that this Objection might be prevented The new Article of Faith inserted in the Rubrick I do not know nor can I now get the Books that past betwixt you at the Conference to find what you mean That Lay-Chancellors were put down and that the Bishops did more consult their Presbyteries I could for my own part hâ—artily wish But â— cannot think abuses momentous enough to warrant a Schism and I know your self are for bearing with some things that are not so wâ—ll liked of rather than that the Church of God should be divided for them In brief I do not understand any of the Six Particulars mentioned as the Reasons that keep you off though indeed you disapprove them both because you do not undertake to determine what they might be to others but only what they are to persons of your mind though I confess this may be understood as a modest declining to judg of others and because you conceive piety the most likely means to unite us which could not be if we imposed any thing on you against your Consciences So that the only one may be presumed to have been thought sufficient by you to this purpose seems to have been another which because you intimate somewhat obscurely I do not know whether you would be willing that it should be taken notice of But however I suppose that it self does I suppose only deprive us of your Clerical not your Laical Communion God give us all to discern the things that belong to peace As for other Questions we may patiently await our Lords leisure who when he comes shall tell us all things and in the mean time preserve Charity and be wise unto sobriety I hope Sir you will excuse my freedom and let me know whether I may in any thing be serviceable to you and above all things reserve a portion in your Prayers for Trin. Col. near Dublin Decemb. 14. 1672. Your unfeigned Well-wisher HENRY DODWELL For the Worthy and much Honoured Mr. Henry Dodwell at Trinity Colledg near Dublin in Ireland Worthy Sir I Heartily thank you for your patience with my free expressions and for your grave and kind reply As to the main cause of the Nonconformists should I enter upon that which I cannot prosecute I should greatly injure it my self and you I must again crave your patience with my freedom The sins which they fear whether justly is the question are so heinous that they dare not mention them lest their condemners and afflicters cannot bear it and so many that to open them justly will require a great Volume and therefore not by me to be done in a Letter Only to what you have said let me mind you in transitu 1. That you mistake me if you think that I excepted against your Preface as medling with me any otherwise than as I am one of those Nonconformists with whom I am acquainted who are mostly of my mind And I suppose you would take it for no honour to be thought to be better acquainted with the most of them in England than I am 2. That your intimations about the old Nonconformists are not to our business seeing the name of Nonconformists maketh not nor proveth all or many so named to be of the same mind Nor is your mention of our Treaty or Papers of 1660 more pertinent it being the old Cause only that we had to do with the new Laws of Conformity being not then existent which have made it quite another thing Only I assure you if my superiours would not take it for a crime and injâ—ry to do what Iustin 〈…〉 for their mistaken Cause 〈…〉 it I would endeavour to shew another 〈…〉 and Nonconformity than is commonly taken 〈…〉 also to give you who so well understand Antiquity 〈…〉 evidence of our Conformity to the ancient 〈…〉 300 and mostly for 600 years after Christ. 〈◊〉 â—hat I may not say nothing to you 〈…〉 only employ 〈◊〉 lines about your sugâ—â—â—tions concerning the possibility of truâ— Discâ—pline by Dâ—â—â—esans as they are with us And still you mâ—st pardon my 〈◊〉 of speech I must say that it is the câ—â—amity of Churches when their Prelates and Pastors are men that never were acquainted with the flocks but spend one half 〈◊〉 their days in Schools and Colleâ—ges and the other in Noblenâ—â—â—â— or Gentlemens houses and then talk confidently of the pâ—or people whom they know not and the Discipline which they â—â—ver tryed Even you whom I honour as a person of extraordinary worth constrain me by this your Letter to think that I diâ—pute as about war with one that never stormed a Garison nor fought a battel or as about Navigation with one that was never one month at â—ea I. Our first question is What the Pastoral Office is and especially Discipline II Our next is Whether it may be delegated to or done by one that is not of Gods Institution for the doing of it III. And then we shall soon see whether it be possible for our Diocesans to do it or any considerable part of it I. If the Erastians be in the right that none of our Discipline is necessary besides that by the Sword and our Preaching then we may put up the Controversie on both sides But if that be the work of Bishops now which was so in Scripture-times the matter will hold no long dispute To shorten thâ—t work I desire you to peruse its like you have done Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase on all the Texts that mention Bishops and Presbyters with his Treatise of the Keys where he will tell you that it was the Bishops Office to be the ordinary Preacher to Pray to celebrate the Eucharist to visit the Sick to keep and distribute the alms and offerings of the Church as Curators for the Poor with much more work And that every single Congregation had such a Bishop that ever met to celebrate Gods publick Worship and that there was not a meeâ—ing of a Christian Church without such for the said Worship in Scripture-times for he saith that there is no proof that there were any other Presbyters in Scripture-times And for Discipline it is past doubt 1. That as to the matter of 〈◊〉 iâ— must consist of a personal watch over each member of â—he 〈◊〉 that every one in it that liveth in gross sin or Infidel or Heathenish or Herâ—tical error and ignorance be orderly admonished first mâ—re privately afterward more openly and lastâ—y most 〈◊〉 and that he be by convincing reasons and â—xhortations perswaded to repentance That the penitent muâ—t be 〈◊〉 and confirmed the obstinately impenitent rejected as uâ—meet for the Communion of the Church And for the manner it is agreed that it must be done with
to say I supposed in it but a single Pastor You are not accountable to me for such errors be they never so causless in my opinion It may be you had Reason to write against the old Nonconformists that are in another world and to think that for the Names sake it concerned us and to plead that Conformity to all the present Covenants and Oaths and Subscriptions is necessary because you could wish the Discipline more Regular as if we were to Subscribe to what is in your wishes It may be you had Reason to suppose the Parish-Priests to have the Government of the People even the power of the Church-Keys and yet sometimes to unsay it again without answering my Proof to the contrary when I take it for the chief supposition that causeth my Nonconformity And to prove copiously that a Bishop may govern a Diocess when he hath a Governor under him in every Parish without answering my Proofs that he hath no such under him but hath quantum in se half degraded the Presbyters And when I said that Discipline is not possible under such Diocesans as are with us you might have Reason that I know not of to leave out as are with us and to prove it possible with other Diocesans that have governing Presbyters under them Perhaps you had Reason to confound the Convincing Perswasive Declarative Power of a Iudg with that of a private man and thence to raise the supposition which you raise Perhaps you know some Medium between corporal force and Mulcts proper to the Magistrate and Authoritative perswasion and prevailing on the Conscience by the Reverence of Gods Laws though I know none And you were not bound to teach me what you know Perhaps you had Reason to think that I may Subscribe That no man in Three Kingdoms that hath Vowed it is bound to endeavour to alter our Church-Government by Lay-Chancellors because you defend it not but wish it altered And it may be you have Reasons unknown to me that none but Irregular endeavours are there disclaimed and that our Lawgivers spake universally and would be interpreted particularly with many such like But abscondita quae supra nos nihil ad nos What I may not pretend to understand I will not presume to censure but only say That I am uncapable of being informed by them This I am satisfied of that my Schismatical Principles take into Church-Communion such as you and those that are in knowledg below not only you but me even the weakest true Christians But upon your Catholick terms no man of my measure of knowledg must be tolerated to be a Preacher or a Christian in Church-Communion nor live at least out of Goal or some such penalty And if one at Muscovy can get a Courtier to make him a Bishop he and such other are the Church which why you still put it in the feminine Gender when it consisteth of Masculine Court-Bishops I know not And if he command us to do that which we account the most inhumane perjury if he think it to be but the renunciation of an unlawful Oath as I understand you we are Schismaticks if we obey him not Whether in cases of commanded blasphemy and all other crimes we must accordingly renounce our understandings I know not Though there be somewhat of Irony in all this there is nothing but what is consistent with the high estimation of your extraordinary worth And I must say that our different Educations I doubt not is a great cause of our different sentiments Had I never been a Pastor nor lived out of a Colledg and had met with such a taking Orator I might have thought as you do And had you converst with as many Country-people as I have done and such I think you would have thought as I do My great deceiver is Sense and Experience I am inclined to look near me in judging of present matters of fact As if our Controversie were Whether one Schoolmaster can govern a thousand Schools without any but Monitors under him and Teachers that have no Government And your way is from old Histories to prove that some body did so 1400 years ago or a thousand in some places of the world if stories deceive us not and therefore it may be so now Though none of those excellent men do it who are put into the places of the silenced Schismatical Ministers nor none of the excellent Bishops that are over us who are so good that one of them no doubt would do it were it possible But seriously I take it for a great mercy of God that honest Christians of little learning have that experience in the Practicals of Religion which the studied accurate plausible Orations of contradictors cannot overcome though they are not so well skill'd at the same weapons as to answer them Sir pardon and accept this short and thankful acknowledgment that I have received your Learned Tractate till I take the leisure if I so long live to return you an answer suitable to your discourse and expectations I rest Aug. 5. 1673. Your Servant RICH. BAXTER Mr. Dodwell desiring me not to make haste in answering him I sent him only this intending more but want of time and the quality of the task being put but to answer a multitude of words delayed it till he came to London and then I thought we might talk it out which we oft tried to little purpose His great proof of large Churches of many Altars from the only two that swelled first Rome and Alexandria are so fully answered in this annexed Letter which worthy Mr. Clerkson wrote to me that I think he needs no other answer since published by me As is a fâ—ll discourse on the Subject by Mr. Clerkson himself against Dr. Stâ—llingfleet A Copy of the Letter to Mr. Dodwell March 12. 1681. SIR SInce your Speech with me I have thought again of what you insisted on and find it consist of these four Points 1. Whether I charge you with Popery or at least do not vindicate you when so accused 2. Your reasons against answering Voetius and me 3. Your desire to know my terms of concord 4. Your perswading me to give over Preaching Lest words be mis-understood or forgotten I send you my Answer to each of these I. I take it to be none of my business to tell what Religion other men are of till I am called to it And then I take my self bound to judg every man what he professeth to be till I can disprove it 2. I distinguish the Name e. g. of Protestant or Papist from the Thing Accordingly 1. I am sure you deny your self to be a Papist and I believe you 2. What you mean by the word I refer all men that talk of it to your Books which are fitter to tell your mind than I am that know no mans heart Grotius took a Papist to be one that flattered Popes taking all to be just which they said and did and not one that