Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A65532
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The antapology of the melancholy stander-by in answer to the dean of St. Paul's late book, falsly stiled, An apology for writing against the Socinians, &c.
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Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.
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1693
(1693)
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Wing W1487; ESTC R8064
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73,692
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117
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Dean thinks fit to deal with me I am not ashamed of any Part of what I said My Argument then stood thus As indeed all Controversies amongst Protestants are most unseasonable in such a Juncture wherein under God nothing but an Union of Counsels and joining Hands and Hearts can preserve the Reformation and scarce any thing more credit and justify it than an Union in Doctrinals so above all other Controversies none can well be thought of worse tim'd than this Of which ill timing it I gave a very particular Proof too warm it seems for him to touch upon and therefore he slipp'd it away between his Fingers as if it had not been But how answers he my Argument First he disjoints it then answers to what Parts of it he pleases and to those Parts in what Order he pleases And finally never considers the Parts as connected and together adding Strength to the main Conclusion Indeed such dealing as this with some Scorn interlaced is his usual way of confuting What he says worth notice I shall reflect upon The first Member of my Argument he thinks fit to ampliate and will say a little more that they i. e. all Controversies amongst Protestants which was the Subject of my Proposition are always unseasonable for there is no Juncture seasonable to broach Heresies and oppose Truth But may there be no Controversies especially amongst Protestants which broach not Heresies The Denial of the Trinity duly stated I allow to be Heresy But we in the first Member of the Argument speak of all Controversies amongst Protestants Now do all Dissensions amongst Protestants arise to Heresy on one side or other God forbid Again in times of publick Peace may there not be very seasonably amicable Conferences and Arguings between those who dissent from one another in order to clearing Difficulties and so to brotherly Accord Even those Treaties are certainly some kind of Controversies though some Men may be very unfit for them and therefore have little Kindness for them and those I stand to it ought to be held in due Season But at present I did not think even these kind of Arguings seasonable but would have them also suspended and was of Opinion that as things stand all Protestants suffering each other to worship God in his own way according to the Conscience of each should join against a common Enemy What I said may be Truth and advisable and as far as I yet see is so What Mr. Dean adds is not true and his Proof of it is very insufficient to say no worse For he would prove all Controversies to be always unseasonable because some are so I will not tell him that even Heresies may be and daily are in University-Disputations and like Theological Exercises strongly argued for and Truth opposed not only for exercising and ripening Scholars but that all the Strength Heresies have may be detected and enervated and the weaker Side of Truth secured so that thus also all Controversies asserting Heresy and opposing Truth are not always unseasonable So great a Disputant as Mr. Dean ought not to have advanced so universal a Proposition without more Caution As to his defending Fundamental Truths I have already spoken However seasonable the defending them may always be I say in a word the changing of them can be never so Next he repeats two other Members of my Argument and begins with carping at the last thus Is the Vnion in Doctrinals ever the greater that Socinians boldly and publickly affront the Faith of the Church and no body appears to defend it I answer that I am not for any Affronts in what Cause soever for I seldom see they do good but most of all am I against Affronts to the publick Faith of the Church The Socinians I am informed were silent some while upon my Paper till others blew the Coals afresh It is utterly against my Mind and grieves my Soul if they do affront the establish'd Church and 't is more than I know God forbid I should excuse them for it I would have them and all Men to be peaceable meek and humble But in case of such Affronts the Church God be blessed has better Ways to vindicate the Faith and her own Honour than the Fancies and new Notions of private Doctors who consult her not but run perfectly upon their own Heads and advance their own Principles being busy and intermeddling in every Controversy that is moved I boldly aver less would be said against the Truth did not such Persons appearing for it by their pretended Defences of it and by the haughty Stile and Manner of penning them give new Matter to the Adversary Those daily fresh Provocations and the Effects of them are what I did in part and must still insist upon as one main Reason for my Suit for Forbearance But will the World think that we are all of one Mind because there is §. 22. disputing but on one side Then they will think us all Socinians c. I answer Let us go on in Conformity to our Church-Doctrine and especially in an holy humble peaceable obliging Conversation and touching our Judgment in Doctrinals the World will sooner credit our Practice and the Articles or Confession the Liturgy Catechism Homilies Constitutions and such publick Acts of our Church than twenty little Vindications of private Doctors And as for the Pamphlets of some obscure and anonymous Persons I still say again 't is Opposition for the main that gives them Celebrity and Life Heresies have from Age to Age still been transmitted to Posterity by sundry Consutations they have received Had we had only the Holy Scripture and our Creed with a few practical and devotional Books delivered down to us we should have been united in a plain Faith in Charity and Holiness built thereupon and the very Names as well as the Errors of the antient Hereticks had been long since buried and unknown Whereas every Age now by what has been writ against Heresies know how to refine and new vamp them What further are in my poor Opinion the meetest Ways to provide against Socinianism as well as all the other isms or dissenting Parties I shall speak perhaps anon In the mean time I must not let pass a very signal Favour of Mr. Dean's to render me if he could obnoxious to the Government in making me privy to a very dangerous Secret or great Truth fit for all Governments to Pag. 23. consider truly their Majesties Chaplain in ordinary ought to admonish the Government of their Oversights a Truth he says which I have unwarily confess'd and he is in the right of it for I thought not of it nay I neither before knew nor do I now believe it to be generally a Truth that every Schism in the Church is a new Party and Faction in the State which are always troublesom to Government when it wants their Help This may be true of every vast or multitudinous Schism when the Number infected come to
Whereas therefore he is pleased to charge me with want of School-Divinity touching which I shall say more anon I who have no great Confidence or Opinion of my own Learning in any kind but am an Admirer of all kinds of useful Learning where-ever I find it would have been glad to have had occasion for Admiration at his Skill in the more useful Part of the Divinity of the Schools I mean in their Morals which had his Reverence better read or better remembred he would not have defended his fine new Notions with Calumny The Angelical Doctor and the several Commentators on his Text would have taught him better Non licitum esse calumniose se defendere 2dâ 2dae qu. 69. a 2. The Dean's way of dealing with me enforces me so particularly to cite the Place lest hereafter again he should take occasion to tell the World as so often he does in other Cases with equal Truth and Modesty that I have not read the Author With a Plea of this Nature I mean calumnious it is that he begins what he calls his Apology for writing against the Socinians excusing himself for his long Silence more truly the Impossibility of the thing in not vindicating his late Vindication His Excuse is a Pretence of a long and patient Expectation what the learned Writers of some Controversies at present would bring forth and the learned Writers he will have to be the Character given by me of the Socinians How far he is sincere in this Pretence of Patience I will not venture so much as to guess but his own Conscience tells him and God who is not mocked knows As to his pretending that by the late learned Writers of Controversies I mean the Socinians not to expose him for this as an Excuse doubly wanting Art first in the Choice of it then in the putting it off with no better a Gloss it lies grosly open and whosoever runs and reads may see the Prevarication I take it as a wilful Mistake and in a word a down-right Calumny I prove it a Mistake by solemnly protesting I meant no such thing and surely to this my Protestation Belief cannot be denied for could a Man have so little Sense as to desire the Socinians not to write against themselves And I prove it a wilful Mistake by his own Text for after he has said twice pag. 1. lin 2. p. 2. l. 4. that I meant the Socinians by those Terms he as in the same Breath p. 2. l. 10. complains himself and Dr. Wallis to be more immediately concerned in this Suit for Forbearance This last he spoke true and knew it to be so Therefore the other is a wilful Mistake or what I will not name And again he cites and repeats p. 24. a different Character I gave the Socinians whom I represented not as learned and as far as I know any of them I have found them rather to affect the Reputation of Religious Simplicity than Learning Now though I acknowledg Dr. Sherlock and Dr. Wallis I should for all Reasons except that of Preferments have said Dr. Wallis and Dr. Sherlock to be learned Writers Yet God forbid I should insinuate to the World touching them what one of them has done touching me that they are Socinians Further if he had had any Thoughts that hereby I meant the Socinians why does he tax me p. 18. for not telling the Socinians what Injuries they do by their writing in this Controversy If this Term be interpreted equally to belong to both Sides I have told one as much as the other of the Mischief they do This then because it is said falsly and contrary to his own Sense against me And further as far as I can perceive with a Design to render me odious or to confute my Paper by drawing its Author under Reproach as an Extoller and Applauder of Socinians I challenge as a Calumny and say it is such a Defence as shews no Skill in School-Divinity nor in the fair Laws of Disputation By this Beginning it may easily be guessed what Candour and Sincerity I am treated with in the Progress Body and even Conclusion of his Apology Waving therefore many Instances of like Disingenuity I shall as a fit Preparatory to all Particulars present here the main State of the Cause betwixt us The Author of the Suit for Forbearance had desired that the Disputes §. 2. touching the Controversies of the Holy Trinity might be at present let alone till fit Time and Place What he meant by fit Time and Place he will shew anon And to perswade to this he had said This particular Controversy is of all others at present most unreasonable most dangerous and most unseasonable And as he took the Name of the melancholy Stander-by merely to insinuate a peaceable Temper so he endeavoured to write as a Peace-maker and to that purpose would appear under the fittest Qualification of such namely as a Person violent on neither side notwithstanding he conceives in what he wrote there is much more Tenderness shewn and more said in favour of the establish'd Church of which he all along in his Discourse professes himself what he really and cordially is a Member than the most uncharitable Logick can force from any thing he has said or desired in reference to the Socinians And where is the Mischief of all this Is it Treason in Divinity or is it Heresy to move for Peace at least for a Truce till both Parties are calmed and may calmly treat This was most plainly all that that Author designed or moved for And he is so far from repenting his Motion notwithstanding the Treatment he has received that he now renews it and thinks in Conscience he ought so to do he beseeches as upon his Knees that Protestants agreeing in the common Rule of a holy Life the sure way to Heaven and keeping to the Holy Scripture and the common Creed usually called the Apostles as the Summary of Faith contained in Scripture would give over making Hereticks of one another That those who have private Opinions of their own different from what is commonly accounted and called Orthodox would keep their Singularities to themselves Hast thou Faith have it to thy self that if any have so little Temper as to contend for private Opinions others at present would either for the sake of Peace and Holiness wink at the Errors and impotent Spirits of such Men or at least not exaggerate at this Juncture of Time any Points in Difference amongst us He declares himself not to be without Hopes that Posterity may in no long Time find some Expedients for uniting Protestants though it be true many things must first be done preliminary hereto If he be mistaken in these his Sentiments prove him so and then call him imprudent weak shallow in his Judgment Counsels and Opinion of things unfit to say any thing by way of publick Advice and what else of that Nature you please This in such case would