by the free disposition of a gift Scotus holdeth our acts are called Merit as relating to Gods free Covenant or Promise to reward them and not otherwise but he absolutely denyeth yet that God is thereby made our Debtor 4. d. 46. Major 2. d. 27. not only followeth him but saith God may deny Glory to good works but he meaneth as the rest Richard 2. d. 27. q. 3. a. 2. ad 3. seemeth to deny even Debt upon the title of promise Bonâ—vent 2. d. 27. a. 2. q. 3. saith but that God is quodammodo in some sort obliged to glorifie them that love him Ruiz who is against all this and maketh Gods Promises to be proper promises and Covenants and more than bare assertions and that God is become a kind of Debtor by his Promise and so it is not his Veracity only that is our security as Suarez thinketh yet holdeth that It is but the Things promised that are Due or obliged to us and that Gods obligation is properly to Himself that he hath indeed true Governing or Legal Justice but tanquam objectum Formale primarium respicit universalissimum bonum praestantissimum quod est Ipse tanquam Materiale secundarium objectum respicit universale bonum totius mundi constantem ex omnibus creaturis quod praeponit particularibus bonis singularum creaturarum Indeed he saith that this Justice in God is that Quae solo naturâ— lumine demonstrari potest ac proinde nullam supponit liberam Dei promissionem aut pactum nullumque supernaturalem concursum aut gratiam But this is meer confusion by ambiguous words These men talk as if they considered not that Creation was a free act of God and made man a Law in the Nature of himself and the circumstant creatures And in this Law of Nature is a signification of Gods will to do good to the good and reward the obedient and this is a Natural promise There could be no obedience and so no merits were there no Law And if there be a Law of Nature and so God even by making us Rational free Governable Creatures was himself our Governour these things supposed to be done by the very act of Creating it is a contradiction to say that God is our Governour and not a Just Governour being perfect as he is God or to be Just and yet not Resolved to use the obedient better than the disobedient To be Governour is to be the Orderer of Moral Agents And what Moral Order is there where the good and bad are not differenced in retributions But the Papists conceits of all Promises to Adam and his merits being meerly supernatural confound them in many such dispuâ—atiâ—â—s L. But do they not hold that a man may merit the remission of his own sins yea and of the sins of others and justification also R. Let Medina answer you in 12. q. 113. a. 1. p. 651. Ad authoritates sonantes quod non meremur Remissionem peccatorum nec vero justificationem non oportet satisfacere Nam omnes convenimus in hanc sententiam Catholicam irrefragabilem quod non meremur remissionem peccatorum ut Augustin Nulláne sunt merita justorum Sunt plane quia justi sunt sed ut justi fierent merita non fuere None merit Remission or Justification with them L. Not by merit of Condignity but they say that by merit of Congruity a man may merit Remission and Conversion and Justification R. Medina ibid. p. 652. Sed cum Meritum de Congruo non innitatur Justitiae sed Congruentiâ— proprie appellationem meriti non meretur And so say many others of them L. But at least they hold that we may prepare our selves for Justification or Conversion without Grace or special Grace R. Preparatory Grace is not the same that the Grace to which it prepareth us But let the same Medina answer you q. 109. p. 592. Deus expectat nostrum consensum inquit Pelagius ut nos convertat ergo ex parte voluntatis nostra est prâ—paratio ad gratiam suscipiendam Sed hâ—c sententia est haeretica contra Scripturas Concilia Veritas Catholica est quod Gratia Justificans datur sine meritis quod nemo se valet ad â—am praeparare sine auxilio speciali Et p. 593. Ultima dispositio ad gratiam ad quam infallibiliter se quitur Gratia non habetur ex facultate naturae sed tantum dono Dei speciali Do you say any more against Preparation for Grace without Grace or against mans power to prepare himself or against merit than all this L. But sure Luther and his fellow Reformers had never so much inveighed against the Papists in the point of Works Merits and Justification if they had all taught no worse than these which you have cited There are sure many others that say worse R. No question but the Ignorance of the Priests was so great and the carnal ends so powerful with covetous proud men which were served by the abuse of the Doctrine of Merits and Good Works that multitudes of such did ordinarily abuse it If all Protestants taught the Protestant Doctrine uncorruptly we should not have had so many differences and divisions as we have had nor would one condemn another as you do us L. But though the old Schoolmen might mean better those that Luther had to do with did sure speak much worse R. I tell you the Carnal and Ignorant sort of Priests and Fryers did each man talk according to his model and so do all Sects Few had the Wit and Skill to open aright the common Doctrine But 1. Our Dr. Field of the Church undertaketh to prove that excepting the tyrannical Papal faction and the carnal and ignorant that served their ends and by violence bore down the rest the chief of the Doctors in the Church of Rome it self did hold the great Doctrines which the Protestants against the Papists do assert 2. To tire you now with no more I will cite but two of Luthers own adversaries in his dayes 1. The first is the Learned Cardinal Contacenus who lived in the time of Luthers Reformation Read but his Notes on Luthers Articles and his Tract of Justification Free-will and Predestination and you will see that he saith almost as much for what you plead as you would do your self I am loth to tire the Reader with the citation of his words at large Turn to them and read them and see where he differeth from us I confess the man was moderate but never accused as differing herein from the Church of Rome as in an Article determined of by their Councils But their Doctors variously express themselves The other is Fisher Bishop of Rochester one of the chief Martyrs of the Roman Cause beheaded by Henry the Eighth for denying his Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical who in Opuscul de fiducia misericordia Dei Printed Colon. 1556. speaketh as much and plainly for the interest of Faith and
tempted to doubt of the certainty of this or that Book words or reading it followeth not that he must therefore doubt of the Christian Faith 11. A thousand Texts of Scripture may be not known and understood by one that is Justified but all the Baptismal Articles and Covenant must be understood competently by all that will be saved 12. Those Church-Tyrants Dogmatists or superstitious ones who deny the sufficiency of this Test and Symbol made by Christ and his Spirit to its proper use to be the Symbol of such as in Love and Communion we are to take for Christians do subvert the summ of Christs Gospel and Law and do worse than they that add to or alter the lesser parts of the Word of God 13. Therefore our further Additional Confessions must be only to other subordinate ends As 1. To satisfie other Churches that doubt of our right understanding the faith 2. To be an enumeration of Verities which Preachers shall not have leave to preach against though they subscribe them not 14. Object Hereticks may profess the Baptismal Creed Answ 1. And Hereticks may profess any words that you can impose on them taking them in their own sense All the Councils are not large enough to keep out subscribing Hereticks We must not make new Symbols Rules and Laws as oft as Knaves will falsly profess or break the old ones there being none that may not be falsly professed and violated 2. Many subscribe to the whole Scriptures that yet are Hereticks 3. Church Governours are for this to cast out those or punish them who preach teach and live contrary to the certain and sufficient Rule which they profess Judicatures are not to make new Laws but to punish men for breaking Laws A heart-Heretick-only is no Heretick in foro Ecclesiae He that teacheth Heresie must be proved so to do and judged upon proof which may be done without new additional Symbols Rules or Laws of faith So that all this contradicts not the sufficiency of the Baptismal Creed as the Symbol of Christian Love Communion and Concord I thought meet to add this more fully to what I said in the Epistle to convince men of the true terms of Union and of the heinous sin of all the sorts of Adding and Corrupting overdoers that divide us THE PREFACE AGAINST CLERGIE MENS Contentions AND Church-distracting Controversies THAT the Churches of Christ are dolefully tempted and distracted by Divisions no man will deny that knoweth them That the Clergie is not only greatly culpable herein but the chief cause cannot be hid But which part of the Clergie it is and what be their dividing Errors and Crimes and how they should be cured is indeed easie for the truly faithful and impartial Spectators to perceive but exceeding hard as experience tells us to make the Guilty throughly know and harder to do much effectually for the cure For the error and sin which is the true cause is its own defence and repelleth and frustrateth the Remedies And so each party layeth it from themselves on others and hate all that accuse them while they are the sharpest and perhaps most unjust accusers of the rest I shall here freely tell the Reader the History of my own Conceptions of these matters and then my present thoughts of the Causes of all these Calamities and the Cure I. I was born and bred of Parents piously affected but of no such knowledge or acquaintance as might engage them in any Controversies or disaffect them to the present Government of the Church or cause them to scruple Conformity to its Doctrine Worship or Discipline In this way I was bred my self but taught by my Parents and God himself to make conscience of sin and to fear God and to discern between the Godly and the notoriously wicked For which my Parents and I were commonly derided as Puritans the Spirit of the Vulgar being commonly then fired with hatred and scorn of serious godliness and using that name as their instrument of reproach which was first forged against the Nonconformists only And the Clergie where I lived being mostly only Readers of the Liturgie and some others that rather countenanced than reproved this course I soon confined my Reverence to a very few among them that were Learned and Godly but Conformists and for going out of my Parish to hear them my reproach increased About eighteen or nineteen years of age I fell acquainted with some persons half Conformists and half Non-conformists who for fear of severities against private Meetings met with great secresie only to repeat the publick Sermons and Pray and by Pious Conference edifie each other Their Spirits and Practice was so savoury to me that it kindled in me a distaste of the Prelates as Persecutors who troubled and ruined such persons while ignorant Drunkards and Worldlings were tolerated in so many Churches yea and countenanced for crying down such persons and crying up Bishops Liturgie and Conformity Before I was aware my affections began to solicite my understanding to judge of the Things and Causes by the Persons where the difference was very great But yet my first Teachers kept my judgement for Conformity as Lawful though not Desirable had we Liberty till I was ordained But soon after a new acquaintance provoked me to a deeper study of the whole Controversie than I had undertaken before which left me perswaded that the use of Liturgie and Ceremonies was lawful in that case of necessity except the Baptismal use of the Cross and the subscription to all things c. But in 1640. the Oath called Et Caetera being offered the Ministry forced me to a yet more searching Study of the case of our Diocesane Prelacie which else I had never been like to have gainsaid At a meeting of Ministers to debate the case it fell to Mr. Christopher Cartwrights lot and mine to be the Disputers and the issue of all that and my studies was that I setled in the approbation of the Episcopacy asserted by Ignatius yea and Cyprian but such a dissent from the English frame as I have given account of in my Disputations of Church Government My genius was inquisitive and earnestly desirous to know the truth my helps for Piety were greater than my helps for Learning of which I had not much besides Books sickness helpt my seriousness keeping me still in expectation of death All my reverenced acquaintance save one cryed down Arminianism as the Pelagian Heresie and the Enemy of Grace I quickly plunged my self into the study of Dr. Twisse and Amesius and Camero and Pemble and others on that subject By which my mind was setled in prejudice against Arminianism without a clear understanding of the case whereupon I felt presently in my mind a judgement of those that were for Arminianism as bad or dangerous adversaries to the Church and specially of the then ruling Bishops which yet I think I had not-entertained had I not taken them withal for the great Persecutors of Godly able
delusion to pretend that you are accused for making God a sinner We charge no such thing on you But only for making him the chief insuperable cause of all the sins of men and Devils 655. Pag. 400. he plainly professeth that the Will as a physical agent is the cause of the act as physical and as under a Law and that act is against the Law so he is the cause of the Malitia actûs and culpablo So that God causing by his own confession both Act and Law there is no modest subtersuge left for his not openly professing that he asserteth God to be the cause of all sin the principal cause both as to matter and form 656. The rest of that Disputation striketh me with such horror in the reading that I confess I have not the patience to proceed any further â—n it nor shall further thus exercise my Readers patience The case is plain Either Hobbs or Free-will permitted must carry the cause in the case of sin There is no middle way He that will read Ruiz and Rutherfords answer impartially needeth no more of mine for the confutation of his vain responses 657. But cap. 29. p. 484. he falleth also on our most Learned and Judicious Dr. Field because in his lib. 3. c. 3. of the Church he contradicteth his opinion and it must move just indignation in the Reader that he addeth idque probare conatur contra reformatas Ecclesias Unworthy injury to the Reformed Churches more than to the worthy Dr. Field How falsly are they interessed in your unhappy cause See the Synod of Dort where there is not a word for it Is one Twiss with his Rutherford or Maccovius or a few such the Reformed Churches Let the Reader peruse the Articles of the Churches of England Scotland France and all the rest and see where he can find your Doctrine of Predetermination unto sin Even Jansenius himself is against it among the Papists when his Dominican Predecessors are the Fathers of it Nothing more common with English Divines than as you did before your self to explicate Gods causing the acts of sinners by the similitude of the Riders spurring a halting Horse or the Suns making a Dunghill stink which only speak the cause which we call universal and is the very thing which we assert And it is most unsavourily done to get into the Chair and magisterially say Fieldus vir alioqui doctus in his controversiis minime se versatâ—â— esse prodit Zumelem * * * Zumel in Disp 1. Thom. de Voluntat hom lib. arb pag. 219 220. Quod Dâ—â—s non sit causa peccati though he speak cautesously and as in other mens names yet concludeth plainly that God is but the Causa Universalis of sin and that man is the specifying determining cause even que universalem determinat ad speciem concursus actus ipsius sive solum determinet eam formaliter ad speciem c. Yet this is a high Thomist and defender of absolute grace non satis intelligit quippe non satis gâ—â—rus controversiarum Arminianarum scripsit dum aulam Arminiâ—â— plus aequo faventem haberent †††Thus magisterially did good Dr. Twisse censure Junius and Vossius his Son-in-law as men unskilled in Scholastick Divinity who were both most excellent men and hit upon the reconciling truth above most in their age Junius his Discourse of predetermination is one of the first that ever I found that excellency in and with his Irenicon is most worthy of great esteem But how easie is it for a man to overvalue himself and contemn another I highly value the piety in Mr. â—â—therfords Letters I am no fit arbiter ingeniorum But when I hear other men say that one Field was more Judicious than many Rutherfords I câ—â—fess by reading their several writings I find no temptation to deny it And why should Field and consequently Davenant Usher Carlton Mâ—ton Hall the Synod of Dort and I think the far greatest part of Protestants I verily think fifty if not an hundred for one who are against you be made odious by the supposition of being not far enough from Arminians rather than Maceovius Twisse and Rutherford take it for a disgrace to hold the same opinions against Gods Holiness which the Dâ—â—nican Fryars hold who have been the bloody Masters of the Inquisition and murdered so many thousand Protestants or Waldenses and Alligenses And that which he saith of Fields writing when the Court favoured Arminianism is notoriously false and such insinuations unworthy of so good a man as the speaker Fields Works were printed singly before they were printed together in Folio And his fifth Book was printed Aâ—no 1610. and the words cited are in the third printed before And the Synod of Dort was called An. 1618. and sate 1619. also And King James was a zealous suppressor of Arminianism and sent five or six Divines thither to that end And long after in King Charles his dayes Pet. Heylin in the life of Archbishop Laud will tell you that the Arminiâ—â— Bishops then were but five Neale Laud Buckeridge Corbet and Howsâ—â— to whom Learned Montague was after added So that they durst not trust their Cause with a Convocation Field then shall be a most Judicion worthy Divine when partiality hath said its worst 658. And what is his error Why he saith that it 's a contradiction to say that God causeth the Act in all its state which is the Materialâ— peccati and causeth not the formale which is inseparable A foul error indeed to tell you that he that causeth the subjectum fundamentâ—â— rationem fundandi terminum causeth the relation and that he that maketh an European white and an African black causeth the dissimilitâ—de and so doth he that maketh the straight Rule and the crooked line thâ— forbidding Law and the forbidden act 659. Were it not that the necessity requireth such work because such Books are in mens hands I should think I had injured the Reader by thâ—â— much For my work is not to confute Books but to assert sure reconciling truths Otherwise the confutation of the rest of that Book for Gods willing and causing all forbidden acts in their full state and the existence of sin is most easily answered SECT XX. The old Reconciling Doctrine of Augustine Prosper and Fulgentius And first Prosper ad Gallorum Qu. 660. IT is a strange thing to me that when Pelagius Julian Faustus c. thought Augustine a Novelist and as Usher asserteth would have fastned the title of Predestination-Hereticks on his followers and almost all confess that Augustine was if not the first yet the most notable publick Vindicator of absolute Predestination and Grace yet the Judgement of Austin with his Disciples Prosper and Fulgentius doth not serve turn to quiet if not to end these controversies among those who profess to be their followers when as they have so copiously and plainly written upon the
being superstitious by a great deal of self-made Duty and Sin only theirs and yours are not in the same things They say Touch not taste not handle not some things and you other things while you say that God hath forbidden forms of prayer and many lawful circumstances of Worship and other such like And I now intreat you and all the servants of Christ soberly to consider whether a wild injudicious calling sound Doctrine and Practices Antichristian and using that name as a bugbear for want of solid argument and an injudicious running from Papists into the contrary errors and extreams hath not brought on many the guilt and misery which in all the following particulars I shall open to you 1. Such men have corrupted the Gospel of Christ by bringing in many doctrinal errors and opening a door to the heretical to bring in more Almost all the Libertine Antinomian errors have come in by an injudicious opposition to Popery as if they were the Vindication of Election Free Grace Christs Righteousness Justification by faith Perseverance against mans Works and Merits And it is not to be denyed that the said Libertine Doctrines do more contradict the Doctrine of the Gospel even Christianity it self than the Doctrine of the Papists about the same subjects do I know this to be true who ever is offended at it Aquinas Scotus Gabriel Bellarmine Pererids Tolet yea Vasquez Suarez and Molina are not near so erroneous about Justification Grace Faith and good works as Richardson Randal Sympson Towne Crispe Saltmarsh and many such others are Yet how many Religious people have I known that have gloried in these errors as the sweet discoveries of free grace 2. Such erroneous extreams in opposition to Popery have greatly dishonoured the Reformers and Reformation When it cannot be denyed but such and such errors are found among them it maketh all the Reformation suspected as Illyricus his Doctrine of the substantiality of sin and the non-necessity of Good works to salvation and as Andr. Osianders Doctrine of Justification by Gods essential righteousness did and as many harsh passages in Piscator and Maccovins do to name no more besides those before named What a stir have our later Divines still with the Papists in defending some few harsh sayings of Luther Calvin and Beza about the Cause of sin and some such subjects But downright errors cannot be defended 3. Your injudicious opposition greatly hardneth the Papists and hindereth their conviction When they find some errours in your writings as that all are bound to believe that they are elected and Justified that this is the sense of the Article I believe the forgiveness of sin that this is sides divina that we are Reputed of God to have fulfilled all the Law of Innocency habitually and actually in and by Christ c. and then when they read that such men lay the great stress of the Reformation upon these as the very cause of our rejecting Rome and the artiouli stantisaut cadentis Ecclesiae what can more harden them to a confidence that we are hereticks and that they are in the right As I have known the persons that had been in danger of turning Papists if the errour of Transubstantiation and some few more had not been so palpable as to resolve them These men cannot be in the right even so many Papists were like to have turned Protestants had they not met with some notorious errours in such injudicious adversaries 4. Yea we too very well know that your extremities have occasioned divers Protestants to turn Papists Yea some Learned men and such as have zealously run through many Sects in opposition to Popery themselves And some of my acquaintance that went as far in the profession of Godliness as most that I have known They have been so confounded to find partly palpable errours taken for sound doctrine and sound doctrine railed at as Popery and partly to see the shameful diversity and contentions of all the Sects among themselves that it hath drawn them to think that there is no prosperity of the Church and Godliness to be expected but where there is unity and Concord and no Unity and Concord to be hoped for among Protestants And therefore they must return for it to Rome And Grotius professeth that it was this that moved him to go so far towards them as he did And I must needs say that I believe from my very heart that the shameful divisions contentions backbitings revilings censurings persecutions errours and scandals of Protestants among themselves is a far stronger temptation to turn men to Popery than any thing that is to be found among the Papists to turn men to it and that many are thus driven to it that would not have been drawn 5. And by calling good and lawful if not necessary things Antichristian and Popish you have made Religious people ridiculous and a scorn to many that have more wit than Conscience as if we were all such humorous Novices as would run mad by being frightned with the name of Antichrist And as they deride you for it as Fanatical so they the less fear Popery it self 6. And by these extremities you corrupt the peoples minds with a wrathful and contentious kind of Religion which â—s easily taken up in comparison of a holy and heavenly mind When you should kindle in them a zeal for Love and Good Works the mark of Gods peculiar people you are killing Love and kindling wrath Gunpowder may be set on fire without so much blowing of the coal Long experience assureth us that a siding angry contentious zeal is easily kindled but a lively faith a confirmed hope of Glory a Love to God and man needs more ado S. Stay a little in the midst of your reproofs Would you perswade us to a Union with Antichrist and to live in Love and Concord with the members of the Devil Are not the Papists such Have you no way to reconcile us to Rome but by pleading for Love and peace Must we not contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints and not be Lukewarm to the doctrines of Jezabel that seduceth the people of God to Idolatry P. 1. Were you perswadable I would perswade you not ignorantly to contradict the truth of God and call it Popery nor to set up certain false or incongruous notions and pretend them great and necessary verities nor to make a stir for some odd unsound opinions received upon trust from those that you thought best of and to buzz abroad suspicious of Popery against those that have more understanding and conscience than to imitate you nor to fly in the faces of Gods faithfullest servants much less to use your tongues to backbite them as if they were Antichristian because they are not as shamefully ignorant and deceived as you are And I would perswade you to study and digest well what you take the boldness to speak against and not to talk confidently and furiously against that which you never
Ministers and serious Christians not only for Ceremonies but for holy practices of life Being under these apprehensions when the Wars began though the Cause it self lay in Civil Controversies between King and Parliament yet the thoughts that the Church and Godliness it self was deeply in danger by Persecution and Arminianism did much more to byass me to the Parliaments side than the Civil interest which at the heart I little regarded At last after two years abode in a quiet Garrison upon the Invitation of some Orthodox Commanders in Fairfax's Army and by the Mission of an Assembly of Divines I went after Naseby Fight into that Army as the profest Antagonist of the Sectaries and Innovators who we all then too late saw designed those changes in the Church and State which they after made I there met with some Arminians and more Antinomians These printed and preached as the Doctrine of Free Grace that all men must presently believe that they are Elect and Justified and that Christ Repented and Believed for them as Saltmarsh writeth I had a little before engaged my self as a Disputer against Universal Redemption against two antient Ministers in Coventry Mr. Cradock and Mr. Diamond that were for it But these new notions called me to new thoughts which clearly shewed me the difference between Christs part and Mans the Covenant of Innocency with its required Righteousness and the Covenant of Grace with its required and imputed righteousness I had never read one Socinian nor much of any Arminians but I laid by prejudice and I went to the Scripture where its whole current but especially Matth. 25. did quickly satisfie me in the Doctrine of Justification and I remembred two or three things in Dr. Twisse whom I most esteemed which inclined me to moderation in the five Articles 1. That he every where professeth that Christ so far dyed for all as to purchase them Justification and Salvation conditionally to be given them if they believe 2. That he reduceth all the Decrees to two de fine de mediis as the healing way 3. That he professeth that Arminius and we and all the Schoolmen are agreed that there is no necessity consequentis laid on us by God in Predestination but only necessity consequentiae or Logical but in Election I shall here suspend 4. That the Ratio Reatus in our Original Sin is first founded in our Natural propagation from Adam and but secondarily from the positive Covenant of God 5. That Faith is but Causa dispositiva Justificationis and so is Repentance These and such things more I easilier received from him than I could have done from another But his Doctrine of Permission and Predetermination and Causa Mali quickly frightned me from assent And though Camero's moderation and great clearness took much with me I soon perceived that his Resolving the cause of sin into necessitating objects and temptations laid it as much on God in another way as the Predeterminants do And I found all godly mens Prayers and Sermons run quite in another strain when they chose not the Controversie as pre-engaged In this case I wrote my first Book called Aphorisms of Justification and the Covenants c. And being young and unexercised in writing and my thoughts yet undigested I put into it many uncautelous words as young Writers use to do though I think the main doctrine of it sound I intended it only against the Antinomians But it sounded as new and strange to many Upon whose dissent or doubtings I printed my desire of my friends Animadversions and my suspension of the Book as not owned by me nor any more to be printed till further considered and corrected Hereupon I had the great benefit of Animadversions from many whom I accounted the most judicious and worthy persons that I had heard of First my friend Mr. John Warren began next came Mr. G. Lawson's the most judicious Divine that ever I was acquainted with in my judgement yet living and from whom I learned more than from any man next came Mr. Christopher Cartwright's then of York the Author of the Rabbinical Comment on Gen. chap. 1 2 3. and of the Defence of King Charles against the Marquess of Worcester Answers and Rejoinders to these took me up much time next came a most judicious and friendly MS. from Dr. John Wallis and another from Mr. Tombes and somewhat I extorted from Mr. Burges the answers to which two last are published To all these Learned men I owe very great thanks and I never more owned or published my Aphorisms but the Cambridge Printer stole an Impression without my knowledge And though most of these differed as much from one another at least as from me yet the great Learning of their various Writings and the long Study which I was thereby engaged in in answering and rejoyning to the most was a greater advantage to me to receive accurate and digested conceptions on these subjects than private Students can expect My mind being thus many years immerst in studies of this nature and I having also long wearied my self in searching what Fathers and Schoolmen have said of such things before us and my Genius abhorring Confusion and Equivocals I came by many years longer study to perceive that most of the Doctrinal Controversies among Protestants that I say not in the Christian World are far more about equivocal words than matter and it wounded my soul to perceive what work both Tyrannical and unskilful Disputing Clergie-men had made these thirteen hundred years in the world And experience since the year 1643. till this year 1675. hath loudly called to me to Repent of my own prejudices sidings and censurings of causes and persons not understood and of all the miscarriages of my Ministry and life which have been thereby caused and to make it my chief work to call men that are within my hearing to more peaceable thoughts affections and practices And my endeavours have not been in vain in that the Ministers of the Countrey where I lived were very many of such a peaceable temper though since cast out and a great number more through the Land by Gods Grace rather than any endeavours of mine are so minded But the Sons of the Coal were exasperated the more against me and accounted him to be against every man that called all men to Love and Peace and was for no man as in a contrary way And now looking daily in this posture when God calleth me hence summoned by an incurable Disease to hasten all that ever I will do in this World being uncapable of prevailing with the present Church disturbers I do apply my self to posterity leaving them the sad warning of their Ancestors distractions as a Pillar of Salt and acquainting them what I have found to be the cause of our Calamities and therein they will find the Cure themselves II. I Have oft taken the boldness constrainedly to say that I doubt not but the Contentions of the Clergie have done far more