Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	faith_n	true_a	word_n	2,531	5	4.4807	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85393	A fresh discovery of the high-Presbyterian spirit. Or The quenching of the second beacon fired. Declaring I. The un-Christian dealings of the authors of a pamphlet, entituled, A second beacon fired, &c. In presenting unto the Lord Protector and Parlament, a falsified passage out of one of Mr John Goodwins books, as containing, either blasphemie, or error, or both. II. The evil of their petition for subjecting the libertie of the press to the arbitrariness and will of a few men. III. The Christian equity, that satisfaction be given to the person so notoriously and publickly wronged. Together with the responsatory epistle of the said beacon firers, to the said Mr Goodwin, fraught with further revilings, falsifications, scurrilous language, &c. insteed of a Christian acknowledgment of their errour. Upon which epistle some animadversions are made, / by John Goodwin, a servant of God in the Gospel of his dear Son. Also two letters written some years since, the one by the said John Goodwin to Mr. J. Caryl; the other, by Mr Caryl in answer hereunto; both relating to the passage above hinted.	Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.; Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.	1655 (1655)	Wing G1167; Thomason E821_18; ESTC R202307	68,987	94

of witnesses Behold now ye have heard his Blasphemy Mat. 26. 65. Be you more confident if you can or more zealous in the expressions of your confidence that there is Blasphemy in my Books then the High Priest with his Associates were that that Lamb of God blasphemed Nor doth Mr. Goodwin in any of his Books maintain the Apostafie of the Saints but condemneth it as a most hideous sin Or if your meaning be that in some of his Books he evinceth by the Scriptures by arguments impregnable by Authorities numerous and these of the best by frequent experiments a possibility of the Saints Apostatizing I subscribe the charge and shall not put you to prove it In the mean time whether Calvin doth not maintain the Apostasie of the Saints as well as Mr. Goodwin let himself be consulted in those few places and passages in his writings which are transcribed by me Page 387. 388. 389. of Redemption Redeemed Therefore here again you are out of the way of speaking truth d Who you mean by SVCH Apostate Saints You remember the word SVCH to very little purpose here for you had spoken of none before and who you say it is no wonder if they be enslaved in journey-work to Apostate Angels when you tell us it is like we may consider of the saying mean while it shall pass for a nihil significat and so escape upon better tearms then all your Letter besides Onely I cannot but wonder a little that YOV should talke of SVCH Apostate Saints who deny all possibility that Saints should turn Apostates e I have more need to put on bowels of pitty then arme my self with patience to hear you tell a story with a conceit of lifting up your cause to Heaven by it of which first you have no knowledge whether a word of it be true or no Secondly which if it were true from first to last would rather be a blot and prejudice to your cause then any matter of honour For first If you remember who made King James the Defender of your Faith you have small cause to like your Faith the better for his Defending it Secondly Nero's hatred and enmity to the Christian Religion turned rather to a Testimony unto it then to any matter of disparagement or disrepute But you are I perceive of that generation of men who love to be of the Kings Religion be He or it what they will I wish for your sakes that your honesty may turn to as good an account unto you before God another day as that in my Brother Bertius as you call him which your story calls knavery And as for the Hanging you speak of I beleeve that some of your Arch-Teachers I will not say the Architect of your Epistle-Fabrique for Carolizing and Scotizing and playing yea and nay with the Parliament was far deeper in the merit of such a penance call it by the name of knavery or what you please then Bertius was Book-Sellers or Be Firers §. IV. Be pleased in cool blood to consider that the Protestants do maintain That the chosen people of God are Elected to Faith and Godliness a and to Perseverance in both and Such is the unchangeableness of Gods Love towards them that they are kept by the Power of God through Faith unto Salvation 1 Pet. 1. 5. The purpose of God according to Election shall stand b and therefore they shall stand Rom. 9. 11. We depend upon Gods Faithfulness and not upon our own Heb. 10. 23. The Gifts and Calling of God are without Repentance Rom. 11. 29. Mr. Goodwins Animadversions IV. a It seems you think you have over-het my blood by making me to bear your burthens of unjust revilings and reproaches But if this be your thought surely you judge your request here made unto me viz. to consider in cool bloud c. very difficult of performance But I have been so long a Bearer of the burthens of men that the work doth not much trouble or distemper me Therefore I shall here hearken unto you consider with the best of my understanding what the Protestants do maintain But I fear that neither you nor your Prophets are competent to inform me Besides if I were never so well satisfied herein yet I must cleave to and profess what Paul and Peter the rest of the Hagiography maintain not what this or that Protestant maintain For that there is not idem sensus eadem mens amongst Protestants about the point you here speak of is too well known to be any knowing mans question If there be some that hold as you say that Gods chosen people are elected to Faith and Godlinesse they are none of the best considerate unlesse by Faith and Godlinesse they understand increase in Faith and Godlinesse in which sence the word beleeving is used 1 Joh. 5. 13. and frequently elsewhere and so holy for further holy or perseveringly holy Eph. 1. 4. with many the like and by being chosen to these and to perseverance in them such a kind of chusing on Gods part which doth neither necessitate nor include or suppose any thing that doth in time necessitate those who are thus chosen either to a progresse or increase much less to a perseverance in them With such Protestants who thus conceive of Gods Election unto Faith and Godlinesse and perseverance in them I fully concur in judgement so far If your Prophets tell you that there are no Protestants of this judgement they either bewray their ignorance herein or a much worse principle As for the two texts of Scripture 1 Pet. 1. 5 and Rom. 9. 11. how irrelative they are to your cause unlesse it be by way of opposition and consequently how impertinently they are here cited by you I have sufficiently declared and proved elsewhere the former pag. 185 186. c. of my Redempt Redeemed the latter pag. 97 98 and again pag. 132 133. c. of my Exposition of the 9th to the Romans Whereas you say you depend upon Gods Faithfulnesse if your sub-meaning be that I do otherwise as it must be if you write by the same Law by which you censure and condemn me in my writings you put me into a Bears-skin and lay a Bastard of your own begetting at my door I trust the language pleaseth you well being your own But whereas you adde and not upon our own if by your own Faithfulness you mean either your own Faith or your perseverance in it if you have no kind of dependance upon it it seemeth your judgement is that you may be as well saved without it as with it If this be your sence I confesse I am not herein of your mind You may be rectified in your judgements if you please about the mind of the Holy Ghost in Rom. 11. 29 by perusing the 55. of chap 8. of my book of Redemption and reading forward to the end of this chapter Booksellers or Beacon-sirers §. V. We are assured of the unchangeableness of Gods counsels by

them with this Majesty carries the print of a false singer in it as was lately said Nor is it any better then a putid of silly cavil not worthy the Genius of a School-Boy of ten or twelve years old to charge me with the grossest Blasphemy because I ascribe unto the University an Autocratorical majesty over Books and opinions in such a sence as I declare and explain in the period immediately following at large Nor would your Committee of Licensers should the Parliament indulge you in your Anti-Christian a request about them which I trust is found among the Absits of all considering men be able to accommodate you in your expectations or desires if they should not invest them with such an Autocratorical Majesty over Books and Opinions as I ascribe to the Doctors of Cambridge Should then the Parliament be guilty either of base flattery or of the grossest Blasphemy in case they should invest them with such a power over Books and Opinions as that which I Rhetorically term an Autocratorical Majesty Or have not I every whit as much ground of hope that there will be found none at least no wise men who will take that power and glory to themselves without which Licensers of the Presse cannot be established to do their work effectually and with authority as you have to hope that the Cambridge Doctors will not take that glory to themselves which I ascribe to them When you insinnuate indeed as good as say right-down that I my self ascribe unto God that Autocratorical Majesty which I ascribe unto men vestratim facitis you do like your selves and not like unto men honestly considerate Do I anywhere ascribe unto God an Autocratorical Majesty over Books and Opinions But he that commits sin I see is the servant of sin e Whereas you wish me a better memory then that which I have I fear you would be better satisfied if it were worse But I shall not burthen you with this jealousie Nay if you be reall and Christian in your wish I most heartily concur with you in it And by way of recompence for your good affections to me most cordially wish you a better understanding which I know will accommodate you as much as a better memory will do me f Your Prophets are they who aspire above the Order of second Causes when they claim a Lordship and Dominion over mens faith and undertake to prescribe what must be taught and beleeved by men And if your notion here be true this probably may be the cause why they are in your affectate Metaphor so Wormeaten in their intellectuals Booksellers or Beacon-firers §. XII 3. To your 3 reason concerning Qualifications the Holy Ghost doth set down such Qualifications both Negatively and Positively as would fit men to oversee a Presse though printing was not invented some hundreds of years after the Canon was perfected 1. Negatively They are not fit to oversee the Presse who are men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth a void of judgement or delivered over to areprobate sence 2. Positively they are fit who hold fast the wholesome form of sound words the mystery of faith and Godlinesse and have their sences exercised to discern both good and evill b Mr. Goodwins Animadversion XII a If men of corrupt minds or destitute of the truth be not fit men to oversee a Presse I doubt you must contract the number of your Committee of Six or else admit of men not fit according to your own rule for the service b Again if they and onely they be fit who hold fast the wholesome form of sound words certain I am that your Committee of Six are not fit for they hold fast an unwholsome form of words and teach many unsound Doctrines which are not according to Godlinesse the unsoundnesse and ill consistency of several of these Doctrines with the interest of Godlinesse I have demonstratively shewed and proved in sundry places of my writings Nor have all the Mercury water that hath been applied nor all the scrapings and scratchings and scrubbings that have been used been able to cleanse or clear those Doctrines from these stains and blots By the way though it be true that the Scripture doth mention such qualifications and characters of men both negative and positive as you speak of in reference to other occasions and imployments yet by what authority or warrant do you make them competent to qualifie for such an Apocryphal office as you call the over-seeing of a Presse Are not you men who abhominate to make use of your own wits reasons or judgements in matters of Religion especially to trust unto them Or can you prove from the Scriptures that your qualifications were ever intended or meant by the Holy Ghost for the designation or characterizing of persons meet to make Oversee-ers of Presses Or is your Office of Presse-over-sight an alien to Religion and irrelative to it Besides what warrant have you but onely from your selves and your own reasons when you undertake to qualifie your Presse-masters with those qualifications from the Scriptures which you expresse to lay aside and leave out others which are delivered there upon the same or like account with those insisted on by you Why do you not require in your Overseers of the Presse that they be as well blamelesse husbands of one wife given to Hospitality not given to wine not greedy of filthy lucre not covetous c. as men who hold fast the wholesome form of sound words which by the way is no Scripture qualification this no where termeth forms wholesome but words or Doctrines onely Notwithstanding this Section of your Letter hath this that it is the calmest of all the 22. Book-sellers or Beacon-firers §. XIII 4. To your 4th all things are not free in a free Common-wealth that Christian Commonwealth must expect to be ruined which allows men a liberty to blaspheme Jesus Christ or corrupt his Gospel a 5. To your 5th be pleased to read the 13th of Deuter. the 13th of Zachary and the 13th to the Romans and draw conclusions from thence for your satisfaction b 6. To your 6th The Religion owned by our State is the Christian Religion c Mr. Goodwins Animadversion XIII a What you mean by a Christian Commonwealth what by this Commonwealths allowing men a liberty to blaspheme Jesus Christ or corrupt his Gospel I professe ingeniously I understand not If by the former you mean a Nation or State wherein Christianity at large is more generally professed that which you speak here of a Christian Commonwealth you might as well have spoken of an Anti-Christian But I pray tell me did you ever know or hear of a Commonwealth which was either Christian or Anti-Christian that did allow men a liberty to blaspheme Jesus Christ or to corrupt his Gospel Or doth it follow that unlesse a Committee of Presse-Masters be established in a Commonwealth this Common-wealth must needs allow men a liberty to blaspheme or corrupt as you say Or have the

Ordinary effects here below such as victory to the strong are perhaps more properly ascribed unto the second Causes then unto God They are the last words of your first Chapter It seems then that victory may be rather ascribed to a potent Army then to an Omnipotent God Mr. Goodwins Animadversion VII a You should have done well to have directed me to the place where I say as you say that this sentence whosoever beleeves shall be saved is the onely decree of election for substance That 1. I might know whether you do not falsifie here also 2. That I might consider upon what occasion I thus express my self I rather judge that my saying is this or however my meaning plainly enough is none other that the Sentence of Scripture you mention contains the onely Decree of Election that I know of You will I presume please to understand me as speaking of Election to salvation and not of any Election of another kind Whereas you add that yet I say that the decree of Election is really and simply God himself I suppose that in this you are of the same mind with me unlesse you either think to find the Decree of Election out of God or else something in God which is not really himself b. c. And whereas you charge me further with saying that the Decree of Election and also of Reprobation expressed in that saying Whosoever beleeves not shall be damned as well as all other decrees attributeable unto God are really and simply God himself and from hence in your weakness as your selves truly speak these two sentences of Scripture not being as you say for sence or substance really or simply the same sentence insultingly demand Tell us then whether you have not set up two Gods really distinct I answer distinctly and plainly no For as justice and mercy and there is the same consideration of all his other divine properties or Attributes though they import very different properties or Attributes in God yet are they really the same in him nor do they plurifie or diversifie his Essence or Being in like manner the two Decrees you speak of though different and expressed in two different sentences of Scripture yet are they really one and the same thing in God Yea do not you your selves at least your Prophets ascribe both Decrees the one of Election the other of Reprobation unto God without so much as once dreaming that hereby they incur the crime of setting up two Gods These then are but frivolous and childish cavils and unto which your own Teachers with their Doctrines lie altogether as open as I or any of my sayings Whereas you further deridingly like your selves say That if the wise Doctor of Swan-Alley make so many Gods Really we are afraid the fool hath already said in his heart That there is no God Surely in case this be so it is no matter of fear either to you or to me Yea I had reason to like my Heart the worse and so had you if the Fool did not say there as you express The Trasgression of the wicked saith David Psal. 36. 1. Saith within my heart that there is no Fear of God before his eyes Was Davids Heart the worse or less holy and not rather much the better and the more enlightened because the Transgression of the wicked spake as he declareth in it If the Fool saith not in your Heart That there is no God the silence argues the darkness of it But it is a thing very incident to your weakness to make obloquies and reproaches of things commendable and worthy d You go on beating the Air very fiercely with the rod of your anger Nay have you not advanced to a more impudent folly it seems you measure me by your selves as commonly men use to serve their neighbors and so are in a grand mistake and said as much by clear consequence in some of your Books It seems then that your former consequence by which you made me speak as much was obscure and dark But I perceive that a cleer consequence and a dark consequence to you are both alike and a consequence which is no consequence but a broad non sequitur as good as either Well let us be instructed in your clear consequence In the first Chapter of my redemp. Redeemed you tell me Oh that you would learn to tell truth that I tell you that the ordinary effects here below such as victory to the strong this Parenthesis is a Bastard of your own begetting as your selves speak layd at my door you find no such in the place you here pretend to transcribe are perhaps more properly ascribed unto the second causes then unto God Neither are these the last words of my first Chapter as you suggest it seems you are resolved not to give over the trade of falsifying the Tenor of the last period in the said Chapter is this 2. That the ordinary effects acts and operations produced in these sublunary parts are not so or upon any such terms attributeable unto God but that they have their second causes also respectively producing them whereunto they may as truly and perhaps more properly be ascribed as unto God himself This position I lay down as the latter of the two consequents naturally flowing from this assertion of the Apostle In God we move Here you do not onely falsifie by addition inserting the Parenthesis mentioned of your selves but by substraction also leaving out my Parenthesis at least the form of it and somewhat of the matter also and over and besides both these you do not onely mangle and deface my period transcribing such words of it as you please and suppressing what others you please but further turn my MAY perhaps more properly into your own ARE perhaps more properly It seems you must keep your hand in ure and practise Falsification at every turn least you forget it But suppose your words had been mine and I had said as you charge me that ordinary effects here below are perhaps more properly ascribed unto the second causes then unto God is this an hard much less an erroneous saying is it not more proper to say that Abraham begat Isaac then to say that God begat him Or is it more proper to say that God warmed Peter at the fire in the High Priests Hall then to say with the Holy Ghost Joh. 18. 18. that Peter warmed himself Your exceptions and cavils all along are so childishly ridiculous that it is scarce worthy a man to take knowledge of them And suppose your exceptions in this Section had been material or considerable how impertinent notwithstanding had they been to the cause depending between you and me Book-Sellers or Beacon-Firers §. VIII 2. You say if God reprobated any from Eternity it must be himself a 3. You say that neither Knowledge nor Fore-knowledge are attributed unto God any otherwise then hands or eyes b in the third Chapter of the same Book 4. We meet with so many passages

in all those particulars in which I complain of your unworthy dealings in my Animadversions upon the first Section of your Letter under the letters d e I fear you are not so much servants to the Commonwealth of learning as slaves to your own wealth and upon this account to those also whom you judge to be the Grand-masters in this Common-wealth as men that are likeliest to serve your turn and befriend you I am both able and ready thorough the grace of God to make good the Assertion you speak of not onely against you who I fear had rather trust men with your Religion then with your books but against him also in whom you so much glory yea let him take unto him Dr. Kendal and Dr. Owen the one for his right hand man and the other for his left together with a Totquot of as many as you count pillars of your cause The said Assertion then being interpreted according to the plain and best known signification of the words and phrases therein amounts to nothing more or lesse or worse then this viz. that if there were any thing to be found in the Scripture which rightly understood should represent God as unholy unjust a lover of wickednesse a respecter of persons or should charge him with any thing contumelious or reproachfull to the most transcendent excellency and perfection of his being it were a just ground to any intelligent man to demur about their authority and to bethink himself again and again whether they proceeded from God himself or no The reason of such an Assertion as this is evident and near at hand as viz. because it is not lightly incident to any intelligent mans thoughts that God should defame himself or speak any such thing of himself unto the world which should be a just ground unto men to think unworthily of him or of making him like to the vilest or worst of men Whether this be presumptuous Blasphemy or most Orthodox Doctrine let any man who in Mr. Fishers parable hath not his sences sodden into Trapezuntius his temper judge and determine I confesse you and your Tutors are somewhat the more veniable under your zeal in attempting to cavil and quarrel down such notions and sayings as that of mine misused by you For many of your opinions and Doctrines concerning God his counsels intentions and dispensations being so enormously dishonourable to him as they are and you pretending to build them on the Scriptures in case any thing found in the Scriptures of a defaming import against God were enough to shake the foundations of their authority in the minds and consciences of intelligent men you must needs fall under the condemnation not onely of men speaking most unworthily of God but of such men also who teach and tempt the most considering men and in part others also to suspect and question the Authority of the Scriptures And if the case were thus with you and them how should their Kingdome and consequently your interest therein stand You may be informed for you had need to plead information with many untruths to ease your credit a little for telling so many that Mr. Caryl stigmatized my presumptuous Blasphemy But I was never informed no not by Mr. Caryl himself though he wrote unto me about the passage that he stigmatized it for presumptuous Blasphemy no not for Blasphemy in any the lowest degree Yea when as in my Letter to him Lonely expostulated with him for stigmatizing it with a brand of ignominy in his answer he disowns any stigmatizing it at all save onely in a very qualified sence as is to be seen in the Letter it self printed verbatim at the end of these papers But whereas you affirm that in his letter to me he gave such satisfactory reasons which did effectually silence me you do your accustomed Devotions to the Goddesse Mendacina There was nothing at all in this Letter in any degree satisfactory unto me nor doth he argue the point I mean the subject matter of the passage little or much in it And so far was this Letter from effectually silencing me that my mouth hath ever since been as wide open in the defence of the truth contained in the passage as ever before and is like to be so still c Whereas in the swelling vanity of your spirits you challenge me in the Name of your two strangers Truth and Piety to print his Letters and to return an answer to them threatning me withall as if you meant to put me to the trouble before I should be aware if did it not I I must 1. Appologize for my self upon somewhat like terms with him who being conscienciously devoted to his Idol comming towards him upon an Assesback and so having occasion to bow down to it that the standers-by might not think that he worshipped the Asse said to the Beast in the Act of his Adoration Non tibi sed Religioni so being charged by the sacred Names of Truth and Piety to print Mr. Caryls Letters c. though I know no reason why I should gratifie the persons adjuring me by these Names yet for the reverence I bear to the Names themselves I shall herewith print the Letters and return an answer when either I shall see my time to do it or Mr. Caryl see his to require it But good Gentlemen you seem to threaten me with some sore trouble if I will not do as you say and this before I am aware If you could cause the great Fabrick of the whole world to fall like an old rotten House upon my head Impavidum ferient ruinae The fall should smite a dreadlesse fearlesse man There is nothing to be gained at my hand by threatnings d As for Doctor Kendal and Doctor Owen two other of your Champions their folly may look them in the face in due time Or if they shall turn their backs upon it it will present it self with never the more disadvantage unto the world The first of these you say hath charged me home to the life You are mistaken in the method of Doctor Kendals warfare he fights more by the Stratagem and go-by then by the charge Or if by charging home to the life you mean for you are wont to cant speaking great words to small purpose I acknowledge your Encomium of him And if by taxing me smartly for the passage you speak of you mean that he would very fain make somewhat of it if he knew what for the honor of his wit and the ingratiating of himself with his party I must confess that you speak the truth in this also Whereas you imperiously demand of me Why I do not answer his challenge Why do you not ask your great Champion Doctor Owen why he hath not all this while answered Mr. Horn As Charity so Discipline should begin at whome Yet I think I may in part excuse the Doctor at this turn For doubtless Mr. Horns {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Open doore is too hard

and cite madly They who speak maliciously and contrary to the light of their own consciences against their brother are very near neighbours to him that shall speak against the Holy Ghost Therefore it concerns you as well if not much more to take the advice you give then to give it Booksellers or Beacon-firers §. XI As for your Committee a of three Orthodox Pastors Edmund Arthur and William we will inlarge them if you please with three more John George and Joseph and then there is a Committee of Six make your exceptions against them if you can and take you your Joshuah Peter and Tobiah into your own consociation We wonder at your boldness in calling the power of the Protector Parliament a Nebuchadnezzarean power b but we wonder more that you should invest Doctor Whichcote Doctor Cudworth and the rest of the Doctors of Cambridge with a Nebuchadnezzarean power over Bookes and Opinions c and yet deny it to the Protector and the Parliament you cannot answer that to a Committee And we wonder most of all at your boldnesse and sawcinesse with the God of Heaven when you invest the Doctors of Cambridge with an Autocratorical Majesty d and affirm that Nebuchadnezzar had the self-same investiture 1. Consider that this is the basest kind of Flattery 2. The grossest Blasphemy to attribute that which is proper to God to the greatest or best of men for you your self do acknowledge that Autocratorical Majesty is peculiar to God onely where you deny second Causes to be Autocratorical Wee wish that you had a better heart and a better memory e Wee hope the Cambridge Doctors will not take that glory to themselves which you ascribe to them least they be as Wormeaten in their intellectuals as Herod was in his body if they aspire above the order of second Causes f Mr. Goodwins Animadversion XI a Nay stay a while you Ante-date the power of the men whom it seems you would have for your Presse-masters in stiling them a Committee God in his just judgement upon a sinfull Nation may permit them to be invested with such a power too soon but as yet I suppose you have not procured a Dedimus potestatem for them Whereas you challenge me to except against them I suppose they are not Exception-lesse unlesse their perfection be Hyper-angelical But as to a Magistrality over the Press my exception against them is 1. That they know but in part and therefore must needs be ignorant if not of many yet of some of the things of God and which concern the eternal salvation of men In which respect they are likely to obstruct the publishing of truths of highest concernment unto the world in case they be ignorant of them 2. Their present judgement considered I judge them ignorant of or at least declared enemies unto many grand and important truths of the Gospel And that my judgement in this particular is according to truth I have satisfied many and said enough to satisfie you and all your party were you not so near of kin to him who having inconsiderately affirmed that there are twelve Commandements and being admonished of his mistake and prompted to say there are ten replyed I have said there are twelve and I will say so still But thirdly and lasty and somewhat more particularly what think ye of him formerly touched with Carolizing Scotizing and playing fast and loose with the Parliament Is not he one of the six if not of the three I know you would have your Committee Honorable and untainted from the one end of it to the other The Emperour Augustus was very tender in admitting any person to enjoy the least degree of the Romane liberty who had ever been in bands or upon the rack a If you do not like this tang of the Bell you must not blame me but your selves who pull'd the Rope so hard by the hand of your challenge sent unto me to make my exceptions if I could. I fear some body forgot the old saying Ipse crimine vacare debet qui in alterum paratus est dicere I may have cause indeed to wonder at your boldness in sining but have you any cause to wonder at that which is not I no where call the Power of the Protector and Parliament a Nebuchadnezzarean Power And yet understanding the word Power of an executive Power onely which the Latines more properly call potentia and not of an Authoritative regulated or juridical power commonly signified by the word Potestas he that shall not estimate their Power to be Nebuchadnezzarean in my sence of the word under-valueth it You pretend here again to wonder and this with a greater wonderment then your former at what no wise man would wonder at all Do you not wonder that men should speak or understand any thing Or that all men are not either Horses or Mules Or do you wonder that men in speech should sometimes use metaphors Are there no such doings in those parts of your Common-wealth of learning which you are wont to frequent and visit do none of your Prophets speak Metaphors at any time Your Cavil at my investing Doctor Whichcote Doctor Cudwoth c. with a Nebuchadnezzarean Power over books and opinions is extreamly childish and futile It may be I should not be able to Answer the high misdemeanor of using a Metaphor to such a Committee as you would obtrude upon me and others But before a Committee of wiser mens chusing I make little question of my purgation But in saying that I Invest the Doctors you speak of with a Nebuchadnezzarean Power over books and opinions you falsifie by retail though not by whole-sale For 1. I do not anywhere use the expression of a Nebuchadnezzarean Power in all my Epistle to them Nor secondly do I invest them with any power priviledge prerogative or the like but only declare or affirm them to be invested already d It seems you are set upon the pin of wondering a seat whereon wise men do not ordinarily sit and the first-born of all your wonderments is at a very strange thing indeed were it not in the retinue of things that are not viz. my boldness and sauciness with the God of Heaven when I invest the Doctors of Cambridge with an Autocratorical Majesty But will ye not next wonder at the boldness and sauciness of David with the God of Heaven for ascribing unto Magistrates the name of Gods Psal. 82. 1. Psal. 86. 8. and much more of those other Penmen of the Scriptures who so frequently call the Idols of the Heathens by the name of Gods also Or is it more boldness or sauciness with God as your unbandsome or ill-sounding expression is to ascribe unto men not simply as you after your manner suggest an Autocratorical majesty but with limitation and explication an Autocratorical majesty OVER BOOKS AND OPINIONS then it is to ascribe unto them the plain and express Title and Name of Gods Besides your charge of my investing

testimony also of several Divines of the Protestant party as considerable as well for piety and parts of learning and sound judgement as any of their fellows You may see somewhat more then a little upon this account in my Redempt Redeemed pag. 397 398 399 400. d This is a most notorious slander I never taught any man to renounce all interest in the active obedience of Christ Yea I have constantly taught and asserted the absolute necessity of it to render him a justifier of the ungodly and Savior of men My sence in this point is plainly laid down in several places of my Treatise of Justification a Nor are you Christian in the latter part of your charge I no where affirm that Christ needed not to have shed one drop of his bloud for us these are words of your falsification My words in pag. 16. of my Redemption Redeemed to which you refer me are these The Salvation of the world doubtlesse did not depend upon the actualor literal dying or cruoifying of Christ but partly upon the Councel and good pleasure of God to deliver him up unto death in order to this end partly upon the readinesse and perfect submission of will in Christ to suffer death in case any man or men should be found that would inflict it upon him Of this my Assertion I give a sober and Christian account at large in the sequel of the discourse How wide the difference is between the notion and import of these words and that affirmation which you unworthily charge upon me an intelligent person may readily apprehend e This also is a most wretched and daring calumny Never in my daies did I deny the imputation of Christs all sufficient satisfaction I onely denied that most sencelesse and Anti-Scriptural sence of this imputation which was taught by some Ministers about the City but in a regular and true sence I alwaies affirmed it and accordingly declare my self in the second part of my book of Justification pag. 53. 57. f If you had prayed Davids prayer Psal. 119. 29. before your drawing up of this Article I judge that God would have heard you and removed from you the way of lying For certainly never did any word passe from my lips of any such tendency or sound as here you are not afraid to fasten on me That Catholique {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} credere you speak of I alwaies abhorr'd and set my self with the best of my strength and understanding against it Yea I argued against that opinion from time to time which maketh Faith to justifie by vertue of the relation which it hath to Christ upon this very account and ground viz. because of that affinity it hath with the notion of a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} credere Nor did I ever teach men to trust in their own trusting It is very like I may have taught them to trust that upon their beleeving or trusting in God thorough Christ they should be saved you are unsatiable in traducing g All my Anti-Scriptural Blasphemies may have been detected by Mr. Jenkin and yet nothing to be seen by any man Mr. Jenkin according to the Proverb when he went about to detect my Scripture Blasphemies sperans fragili den tem illidere in Solidum impegit thinking to strike his teeth into that which soft met with that which was too hard for them to enter Poor man instead of detecting my Anti-Scriptural blasphemies he detected his own ignorance and perverseness of spirit h Mr. Jenkins Detections and the two Doctors Discoveries are birds of the same feather or rather feathers of the same bird The Grashopper weighs a Talent of Lead in comparison of them They may for a time serve to build up men in errour and obduration against the truth But he that captived captivity a will detect all such detections and discover all such discoveries in his season Book-sellers or Beacon-firers §. XXI 8. The Agreement subscribed by your Church which saith that our faith and repentance is the cause of our Election a is such an absurd Disagreement to sense reason and Scripture that we cannot but adore the Justice of God who hath smitten your intellectuals and your phantasie the glory of your proud felf b and phantastical admirers c with such effectual and grosse delusions d that we wonder you your self do not take notice of it You see your Errors are so innumerable that we can scarce find heads enough whereunto they may be commodiously reduced And we have heard of a great Rabbi who was converted from Cards and Sack Possets to Errors and Blasphemies e but we spare you f Mr. Goodwins Animadversion XXII a You begin this Section with another Sacrifice unto the Father of lies instead of sacrificing to the Father of Lights The Agreement you speak of doth no where say that our Faith and Repentance are THE CAVSE of our Election But what saith it as to this point it speaketh on this wise Our Brethren holding with us as hath been noted that there is no Election of persons but in time though the Decree of Election be from Eternity we cannot conceive what should or can reasonably determine the time when this Election should be made at least in persons living to years of discretion but onely their Faith in the first raising it in the soul and that VPON their beleeving and not before they are numbred amongst the Elect of God Is here any thing that sounds like a making our Faith and Repentance the cause of our Election No both the compilers and subscribers of this Agreement resolved the Election of all those who are Elected into the gracious and good pleasure and Will of God Only we are taught by the Holy Ghost to look upon our selves as Elect according to the foreknowledg of God the Father through the Sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ 1 Pet. 1. 2. and that God from the beginning hath chosen us unto Salvation through Sanctification of the Spirit and beleif of the truth 2 Thes. 2. 13. But though we look upon our selves as Elect or chosen by God through Sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth yet we judg not either the work of Sanctification wrought by the Spirit of God in us or our Faith or belief of the Truth to be either the the ground or meritorious cause of our Election but the condition only We acknowledg no cause taking the notion of causality properly of our Election but the Grace Wisdom and good pleasure of our good God onely as we suppose your selves do b You charge us with horrid untruths and with such Tenents which never came neer us and then pretend to adore the Justice of God in smiting our Intellectuals Is not this an horrid prophanation and taking the most Sacred Name of God in vain Our Intellectuals through the Grace of God have been opened enlightened and enlarged to see the truth as