it is not his If you can and will but tell me that you believe it not to be his that I may have but so much to say I will thank you and make it publickly known Either the Cause and Arguments are true or false If true defend them If false are they not dangerous in so great a Cause and at such a time when they tend to drive hundred thousands from all Church Worship and Communion and to persuade Men into scandalous suffering for ill doing I think it laudable in you to honour the Doctor and if you be the Man I conjecture you are I think it 's specially incumbent on you As to your hints of suspicion of my sense of old differences if I know my heart I forgave and fully put up all Personal Quarrel long ago But the National Concerns made so deep a wound in my heart as never will be fully healed in this world But this leads me to the second part of your reproof II. I do but tell you my reasons for naming the Doctor but I undertake not to justify either that or the manner of my writing from mistake imprudence or other such faultiness I suppose you to be a Man whom I take from my heart to be far wiser and better than my self And therefore as I thank you for your gentle friendly reprehension so I profess that my very esteem and reverence of your judgment maketh me suspect that I have done amiss when I see it not in the Cause itself That I could have defended the Cause of Love and Communion against those Arguments without taking notice of the Author and without wronging the Non-conformists who will be charged by his name I did and do wish but I thought it could not well be done If in this I mistook I ask pardon of God and Man for so I must do for my sins known and unknown And as to the manner of my writing again I say I am convinced that all that I do is faulty and cannot but have some favour of the ignorance and imprudence and forgetfulness and other faults of the Author I read over your Animadversions and 1. I see at present some words of my own that I much more blame my self for writing than you for blaming 2. What I yet see not to be faulty your Authority shall make me yet suspect and further consider 3. I see very many passages where I am confident the mistake is yours sometimes mistaking the matter and sometime my words What good will it do the Reader or you or me to give the world an account of all these and to drown the Cause in abundance of self-defending words Indeed I have neither time nor mind to write a Book now for my self-defence The greatest Affliction I have by this Controversy as Personal is this diverting of my thoughts so near my last hours from things more agreeable to my Case And far be it from me to be confident in justifying my faulty writings when I am going to the Judge that will take that for an aggravation of my sin But I durst never forsake publick Communion nor my own work because I cannot have one and do the other without fault I am suspicious there may be more faults in me and my writings than either I discern or you or any such have told me of And if I could prove that your mistakes are the ground of your Accusation I see by your noting my numbring the mistakes in matter of Fact in the private Letter to me how you would take it Therefore instead of writing for my self I will give the Reader this concession and advice Readers I think it is little of thy concern to know whether I be wise or unwise good or bad or whether I did well or ill in naming Dr. O. or whether the manner of my writing be much or little to be blamed On condition you will agree with me in the cause of Love and Concord that I defend Lonly then intreat you that what imprudence unskil fulness rashness or other faults you find in me or my writings you will the more carefully your selves avoid them and do better And if you judge me to do ill when I do my duty and think very hardly of me for being against your way I unfeignedly forgive you and if you forgive not me I can bear that I was aware that I should be ill spoken of by many whom I love And I am not Ambitious to be ill spoken of If Folly make me exercise self-denyal it is for somewhat that I thought had been better then all the Love and Praises which I deny I flatter no Party and I look to gain by none I have gathered no Church to depend on for kindness nor is the fear of displeasing them a by as to my judgment And if it be otherwise with any I think were they like to have need of men in this world as short a time as I they would make as little of mens good or ill thoughts and words as I do except for the sake of other men Therefore Reader think of all the rest what you see cause so you will but agree in the Cause that I am defending That is I. That GOD IS LOVE and he that dwelleth in LOVE dwelleth in GOD and GOD in him 1 Joh. 4. II. It is the Prayer of Christ that all who shall believe may be one that the world may thereby be brought to believe that the Father sent him Jo. 17. 21 22 23. And that they must love one another even as he hath loved them by which it is that all must know that they are his Disciples Jo. 13. 34 35. III. This Love must extend to all that are of one Body one Spirit one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all And this Unity of the Spirit must be kept in the bond of Peace Eph. 4. 3. And if it be possible as much as in us lyeth we must live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. IV. Christians must love one another with a pure heart fervently 1 Pet. 1. 22. with a Love which suffereth long and is kind envieth not is not easily provoked thinketh no evil beareth all things believeth hopeth endureth all things Rom. 13. V. Yet must they not be so tender of each others Honour as of Gods nor justify the sin of any nor make mens names a snare to draw the weak to sin nor think that Love and Peace can be justly vindicated without gain-saying the Errours which oppose them nor that Christ broke the Law of Love by his sharp rebuke of Peter that tempted him to forbear the work of Love nor by rebuking the hurtful zeal of James and John nor by being angry with those that forbad little Children to come to him nor Paul by withstanding Peter in his Separation VI. Christian Love must extend to those that differ from us though faultily in Cases of tolerable infirmity so as not to judge or
praecipientis the Commanders Act The instances before mentioned tell you that this may be obeyed for the Penalty sake when yet the evil of the Command or Law is sinful and so worse than the Penalty or Obedience which are not sin Forgive me for telling you that you should have distinguished the preceptive part of the Law from the matter Commanded by it and the evil of the Law and Law-maker from the evil of the Obeyer and then only have concluded that he that obeyeth a Precept only to avoid the Penalty professeth the Penalty to be worse then his Act of Obedience But he doth not make it worse then the Law or the Law-makers sin If a Law did Command me to appear before a Lay-Civilian who useth the Keys of the Church and this on pain of Death or Imprisonment I may be moved both by Precept and Penalty to appear as being better then either refusal or penalty and yet not think that the Law or Precept is a less evil in itself or its ends to the Law-maker or the publick Whether this thought be right or wrong is nothing to our question so if I were by Law commanded to joyn in the Lyturgy on pain of Death or Imprisonment or being deprived of all other Church Worship I may think this Law worse than my sufferings and yet think my Obedience to it my Duty Yea if a Law bid me play with Childrens Bubbles or any such trisling on pain of Death the Case would be the same And if any should take occasion by your confident judgment to refuse to obey wherever he may not justify the preceptive part of the Law the effect would be worse then of my naming Dr. O. SECT 4. I Told you I have no leisure to write Books for my self now Thus far I have written for Truth and Love and Unity As to all your Charges against my self I say again I will not justify my self My naming Dr. Owen which is so heinously taken I have told you the occasion of To which I truly add 1. I did it as a distinctive note that the Readers might know what it was that I answered 2. And I that use to put my Name to my Writing never dreamt that it would have been taken any worse to name him than to confute a Writing that by common uncontrolled supposition bore his Name Had I thought it would have been taken so ill while the Super-Conformists bear far more it 's two to one but I had forborn it And now it 's done I am yet but little wiser when I think of the publick Cause fore-described I am ready to think it should weigh down all your contrary reasons When I feel in my self an inward averseness to strive with any by ungrateful words and hear from you how ill it 's taken then I dislike it And my own selfish lothness to be the object of the hard thoughts and talk of so many of you is some byass to my judgment I wholly follow the Rule you mention to choose that which doth most good and least hurt And truly the reverence of your own and some others judgment telling me that it doth more hurt than good doth turn the Scales and make me repent that I named the Doctor And I leave your Charges against me to their best advantage to the Reader though my inclination is much to open the mistakes I may give a brief touch to your self for your information which I expect not should affect the Reader suppose your Book to lie open before you Pag. 1. 1. If you thought them not good enough to be his nor intended for publick view why did you wrong him so much and the people much more as to divnlge them with his Name Pag. 2. Do good men take it for a priviledge to hurt the Church uncontradicted 2. The more are displeased with Truth the greater is the disease that needeth it 3. To be zealous for Love against Hatred and its Causes is not so bad as to need to be quenched It is zeal for a Sect against Unity which corrupt nature is for 4. I doubted not but guilt would be impatient 5. It was your Party that wronged his Name by divulging that which you now take for his disgrace Pag. 3. It 's wisely done not to own the Cause I oppose and yet not let men know whether it be for fear of the Law or because you are against it O that I could have fore-known that I might have confuted his Arguments without his Name and displeased no body I thought you had taken them for his Honour and not his Disgrace when so many value them Pag. 4. 1. If they are true they are his Honour If false why should I suffer them to do mischief 2. I named not Mr. Ralphson till all said he openly owned his Books in Prison Had you rather all that Worship God in Parish Churches were persuaded that it is Idolatry than Mr. Ralphson should be confuted by name I hope you have better reasons for concealing your own Name to do mischief un-named is not worth pleading for Pag. 5. If the work be faulty why do you not joyn with me to save men from it And why did your private Letter own it his conjunct with Fame And not one Man yet that I hear of denyeth it 2. I offered you to stop it 3. Is it disingenuity in me to tell you of twenty untruths in your private Letter and many notorious and ingenuity in you to be offended for being told of them rather than for writing them This is to comply with the World that taketh the detecter only for the sinner 4. Is a defensive confutation of Errour dealing severely 5. Agreeing Copies confute you To confute Errour is not worse then to own or defend it Pag. 6. If it be so heinous to confute it why did you divulge it Pag. 7. My Reasons for Love and Concord were long before considered 2. I had heard of them long in many hands though till then I never saw them And you say you saw it a year before 2. It 's strange so knowing a man should think that bad Arguments with a valued Name are not dangerous Yes even against common sense as those for Transubstantiation To confute your self you add that on all sides peoples Opinions are mostly and most strongly mastered by affections and it 's beyond all our power to cure the disorder And yet is there no danger from Names Pag. 8. Must all appearance of Enmity and bitterness be laid aside and Love used c. And yet must we let Men Excommunicate one another and call all to mutual avoidance without contradiction Let Churches and Christians be taught to damn each others Persons and Worship causelesly and take each other for Idolaters for fear of breaking Love and Peace 2. Do you believe that Dr. Owens Name was not known with them before 3. Mr. Warners came out since which I compared with Mr. Ralphsons 4. Can you tell why I was to
about consists wholly in the Institutions and on the Authority of Men and therefore is false Worship and to renounce the Kingly Office of Christ in the Church Nor that It belongs to the faithfulness of Christ to appoint and command all things in the Church that belong to the Worship of God in the Forms and Modes of them Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy Nor that liberty to use gifts in Prayer and Preaching is ridiculously pretended they are excluded in all the solemn Worship of the Church 17. You defend not that This Practice joyning in the Lyturgy condemns the suffering Saints of the present Age renders them false Witnesses of God and the only blameable cause of their own sufferings And if all the Nonconformists that 1660. gave their Testimony for a Reformed Lyturgy were not Saints at least they have been Sufferers And doth not this as much make them false Witnesses And if both you and we were mistaken I am confident you will not justify all that we suffer by and say we are the only blameable Cause As if every such mistake were worthy of all the punishment undergone Nor will you think that every good Mans Opinion must be justifyed which he suffereth for lest he be made the only Cause 18. You defend not that All the Promises Aids of the Holy Spirit with respect to the Prayer of the Church whether as to the matter of them or ability or the manner are rejected and excluded by this Form of Worship 19. You defend not I hope that your Church Covenant is to observe nothing but what Christ commandeth in the Worship of God 20. Nor that The Practice inquired into contains a vertual renunciation of our Church State and of the lawfulness of our Ministry and Ordinances therein If you do it is no renunciation of ours I thank you that you defend none of all these For truly they be not things Indifferent but if they be not true they are of confounding dividing unpeaceable Consequence SECT 2. III. AS to the third thing which taketh up most room viz. your blaming me 1. For using the Doctors name 2. For the manner of my Confutation I say distinctly 1. I confess I think that the name of Christ and Religion and its Honour is to be preferred before all mens And I had many years ago heard a Conformable Preacher before a very honourable and learned Auditory charge the Nonconformists with holding that A thing lawful in itself in Gods Worship becometh unlawful if it be commanded by the Magistrate And that Forms and Liturgies were unlawful because they be not made in Scripture by Christ. And I have read too many such Charges And I always answered that we were slandered 2. I quickly heard that the Manuscript was commonly spread and he that brought it me said he believed a thousand were confirmed by it against going to the Parish Churches and Lyturgy 3. Several of my Friends and Acquaintance had got it and told me they thought it unanswerable And all named the Doctor as the Author 4. I was suddenly told of a very able Conformist that was going to answer it and I feared he would lay it on us all 5. I made no doubt but Pulpits and Press would loudly say these are the Nonconformists Principles and if I denyed it would cite the Doctors Paper and Name 6. I knew divers of his Printed Books have the same Opinion of the unlawfulness of Imposed Forms what now should I say against such reporters of the Nonconformists Opinions Must we all bear the Accusation of so many Errours and be published with Scorn and Contempt to be such to make us odious to all rather than one Man should be Confuted I purposed at first to conceal his Name till I saw that all took notice of it and none denyed it and after I conjecture it is your self that in the Letter to me affirmed it I know that multitudes of Men of Name Learning and Power scorn us as they do the Quakers as believing them that say We make all this noise and Schism as a distinct Party and suffer silencing and Imprisonment because we will not Communicate with the Lyturgy which the Martyrs owned I dare not suffer the Innocent to lie under such a slander for one or many Mans Name we gave them our publick Testimony to the contrary 1660. and 1661. If a few that would not come in then and be seen among them that pleaded the Cause of the old Nonconformists have now by our distempers got so many of their mind as that we must be thought intolerably to wrong them if we necessarily give our reasons against them and shall pass their Excommunicating Sentence against the Cause of the old Non-Conformists and yours I cannot be one that shall betray the Truth and Cause of Catholick Communion by silence at such a time when the Erroneous expect that their Opinion should be so necessary to our Union that none must contradict it Therefore your saying that you have met with none that approveth my writing if it were for the Cause as well as my faultiness will make me see the greater necessity of bearing my Testimony against them Epidemical diseases most need Physicians if not to cure the sick yet to preserve the sound Paul wanted not Love nor Prudence to Peter when he not only reproved his Temporizing Separation to his Face but left it with his Name on Record to all Generations when they were both dead Christ had immediately before abundantly honoured and praised Peter who yet for his miscarriage speaketh to him as he did to the Devil Get thee behind me Satan c. Mat. 16. And yet the miscarriage was done in Love to Christ by a prime and dear Disciple and his name must be thus left under this most sharp reproof to be read from Age to Age by all Iames and Iohn were choice Disciples and yet their Ambition and their Uncharitable Zeal for Christ must be recorded with their Names as men that desired they knew not what and knew not what manner of Spirit they were of We are not so much better than they as the Passions of some Applauders intimate Christ will not be more tender of our Names than of his Cause and the good of Souls If David will cause Gods Enemies to blaspheme his sin shall be punished in the sight of the Sun though the sharpest part of the punishment be pardoned But as for my naming the Dr. and your intimation that it 's long of me that he is named as the Author of those Arguments I further say 1. Is not a Man named openly till his Name be Printed Was not the uncontradicted report still continued a publication Was there no publication of Names till 224 years ago when Printing was invented 2. All that I yet desire is to be able to deny it to be his that the next Man that hits the Non-Conformists in the Teeth with it as the Doctors may but be told
we serve You say When men pray they bid us pray in extempore prayer both are required to what is good True And I may joyn with the good in an extempore prayer without owning any evil in it Indeed you say p. 28. The Mass is not more twisted in all the parts of it by Law than the Lyturgy nor left less to our power to pick and choose If this Union do render the far greater pollutions the Idolatry and Heresy of the Mass infectious to the whole Worship who can prove that the pollutions of other Worship when we are likewise commanded not to distinguish or divide doth not in their kind and degree diffuse the taint alike Ans. God is the Master of his Worship I do what he bids me tho man contradict it If God bid me hear and believe the Scripture and man say hear also and believe the Apocrypha I will openly profess I obey God and you no further than you contradict not God Rather than not hear the Scripture I will hear also the Apocrypha but not believe it to be Gods Word But if they bid me also hear the Alcoran I will withdraw 2. It is not the Conjunction but the kind of the thing joyned that maketh it unlawful An honest weak man an Antinomian an Anabaptist a Presbyterian or whoever you dissent from in tolerable cases may mix his Opinion and faulty expressions and methods with his Prayer and Sermon as intimately as evil is mixt in the Mass and yet you will not refuse Communion with him It is lawful to drink beer that hath bad water mixt rather than none but not to drink that which hath poyson equally mixt To p. 29. I think if a Turk pray against Idolatry Murder c. that Prayer is materially good But as to Goodness from a Holy Principle no Hypocrites is good The insufficiency of my answer you no way manifest till you prove that I must joyn with all that is in publick Worship or with none 6. Pag. 32. You say Doth he say a word of owning Parish Churches and Worship Ans. If you or he say nothing against these we shall leave the Diocesan case to others But if you be the man that I have lately privately written to I doubt not but I have proved to you that Parish Churches that have good Ministers are true particular Churches and those Ministers true Pastors and that any Bishops holding the contrary doth not disprove it 7. When you recite my words describing the Cause I plead viz. I have written over and over that I persuade no man either to or from a publick Church till I know his Circumstances And that I doubt not but it is one mans duty and another mans sin You add I believe dear Sir that though this concession may displease those who may best bear it it may reconcile you to most of those that are called Dissenters If so those Dissenters it seems by you do not much differ from me But I think ten to one of the people accounted commonly Dissenters through England are of my mind and are for Parish-Worship rather than either none or worse But by Dissenters I suppose you mean those of the Doctors mind or your own And if so I thank you for your own Charity and Reconciliation But if you did not know them better than I I should doubt that your said Friends are not altogether so reconcileable Sir You add p. 39. And if as you allow the practical determination depends on the circumstances of the Persons you reduce the Controversy to a far narrower room than was by most supposed And every one being best capable of understanding his own circumstances it will not bear great heat or importunity from another But whence came those wrong Suppositions of the most If after 20 years Communion in the Parish Churches I venture on the Censorious so far as to give my Reasons for my own Practice and defend those Reasons and that Practice against contrary Writings and such wise Men as you are so reconcilable and see how narrow the Controversy is whence comes it that most think it to be what it is not against such frequent plain expressions You and I may conjecture at the Cause Your Conclusion is a pious Profession of that Love and the main Principles of that Concord for which I write 10. You wisely leave the Vindication of the Doctors words when it cometh to the case which I oppose him in As That neither God nor good men will allow of judging our Profession and Practice by any reserves of our own when I have proved that our reserves against owning mixtures of evil are necessary in all Communion 11. You vindicate not his words that He that joyns in the Worship of the Common-Prayer doth by his Practice make Profession that it is wholly agreeable to Gods mind and will And that to do it with other reserves is Hypocrisy and worse than the thing itself without them 12. You vindicate not his grand Argument Religious Worship not Divinely Instituted and Appointed is false Worship without excepting any secondary sort of Worship 13. You defend not his saying That there is nothing accidental in the Worship of God and that every thing that belongs to it is part of it or of its subsistence 13. You defend not that Because outward Rites and Modes of Worship Divinely Instituted and determined do become necessary parts of Divine Worship therefore such as are Humanly Instituted and Determined are thereby made parts of false Worship What work would this Argument make If all outward Modes are false Worship when determined by Men if Divine Determination would make them necessary 14. You do not vindicate that All Prayers and Praise in Church-Assemblies meerly as such are prohibited by the Lyturgy unless you do it by denying Parish-Churches 15. You do not defend That the Lyturgick Worship was in its first Contrivance and is in its continuance an Invention or Engine to defeat or render useless the promise of Christ to his Church of sending the Spirit in all Ages to enable it to the due discharge and performance of all Divine Worship in its Assemblies and therefore unlawful to be complyed with That the very being and continuance of the Church without which it is but a dead Machine lyeth on this Doth this speak only of the English Lyturgy which is not 200 years old think you When next he tells us that It 's the way of Worship by a prescribed Lyturgy and that it was insensibly brought in when in several Ages the Church had lived without it and that to render the promise of Christ and the work of the Holy Ghost in the Administration of gifts useless 16. You defend not that Hence followed a total neglect of all the Spirits Gifts in the said Administration Nor that This produced all the Enmity of the said work of the Spirit which the world is now filled withal that it ariseth from hence alone Nor that the Worship Treated
erroneous and uncharitable and sinful yet is not to Excommunicate that Congregation as no Church or no Christians But to say of any Congregation that they want any thing essential to Christianity or to make them capable to be loved as Christians or that their Worship of God is Idolatry or so bad as that God accepteth it not the evil of it being greater than the good as poyson in our food and on this reason to declare that no good Christian should Communicate with them this is to Excommunicate such Congregation as far as one Church may Excommunicate another which is but by such renouncing their Communion XXXVIII There is no History that I have seen or heard that tells us of any Churches on Earth that for many hundred years together did Worship God without a Lyturgy as faulty as ours To make them all Idolaters and such whose Worship God cursed and accepted not is to make them no true Churches and if Christ had no Church he was no Head and King of it and so no Christ. XXXIX The use of faulty Lyturgies is no worse than the use of faulty Translations of the Holy Scripture which yet Christ and his Apostles ordinarily used of which I shall say more anon XL. I have before proved how faulty the Priests Calling was in Christs time and the Temple and Synagogue Worship and the Pharisees long Lyturgies on pretence whereof they devoured Widows Houses and their corrupt Doctrine and how great the faults were in the Churches of Corinth Galatia Ephesus Sardis Laodicea Thyatira Pergamos and those that James wrote to from which none were commanded to depart And to Condemn Christ or his Apostles as favouring or using sinful Communion is worse in Christians than it was in the Pharisees These are the Principles and this is the Cause for which I write And I cannot defend it without opposing those that openly militate against it If the Woman of Tekoah could have told David that any one had held or hindered her Son from killing his Brother she would not have called him unpeaceable It was hard measure that the striving Israelite offered to Moses that said Who made thee a Prince and a Iudge over us Intendest thou to kill me as thou killedst the Aegyptian And all for saying Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow If we could as charitably judge of a godly man that differs from us as of our selves and most esteemed Partners how much sin should we avoid But Reader agree with me in this cause of Christian Love and Concord and then think of me and my Writings what thou seest meet The question is not which of us is the Wisest or hath done best but how we should all please the God of Love and Peace and avoid the Evils which have long threatned us and which with grief I must say our mistakes and miscarriages in Religion have brought upon us and are like to increase Many seem like a Ship of Passengers whose Pilot hath cast them by Errour on the Sands or Rocks and some that pity them as they are sinking tell them that their Pilots mistake hath endangered them and they must take better advice And instead of accepting help they revile the helpers as injurious unpeaceable dishonourers of their wise and faithful Pilot. And if far worse be not yet at hand Free-grace must wonderfully frustrate this prognostick SECT 3. IV. BUt somewhat Reverend Sir you oblige me to say about my supposed Doctrinal Errours which you have found in my praises of Dr. O. Had I dispraised him as much you might have found more I said that I doubt not but his Soul is now with Christ and though Heaven have no sorrow it hath great Repentance and that Dr. O. is now more against the receiving of this mistake than I am and by defending it you far more displease him than me Here my supposed Errours are three I. That I suppose him to know so much in Heaven This being but played with as in jeast I answer the more briefly to it in earnest 1. I am not of the Socinians mind that lay the Soul as in nuda potentia to sleep till the Resurrection Nor do I believe that Souls in Paradise with Christ are more ignorant than they were in the Body 2. And therefore I think the Doctor knoweth what he wrote and did on Earth and is not fallen into forgetfulness 3. And that he knoweth into whose hands he gave those Papers and what mind the men were of and how they were received while he lived if they have been so long extant as you seem to intimate and that they were justifyed then 4. And if the Saints shall judge the world and be like or equal to the Angels I do not think that the concerns of this life are any more below their regard nor more impertinent to them than to the Angels Nor that they live as unconcerned Strangers to Earth when a Sun-beam can reach so far The Souls under the Altar that cryed how long knew that their blood was unrevenged on Earth 5. Nor do I believe that Christ with whom they are and the Angels that here attended them are so strange to them as to tell them nothing of the Earth But lest you feign that I suppose them to have News-books Gazetts or Post-letters hence I only advise you that justly extol his Learning and Wisdom on Earth not to bring him too low in Heaven in comparison of us imprisoned Sinners nor make him an ignoramus And then we will but agree that if he know of our faults here he is against them but if he think you are all changed since he died there is mistake in Heaven It followeth not that Souls in Heaven know nothing by Angels because they know not all things Nor that of themselves they know not what a man here may know by common reason that the effects will be like the Cause and his many Friends that owned his mistake on Earth will some of them yet own them I can but be sorry for I am not so presumptuous as to think to change your Judgment if the contrary supposition be your best Weapon against the Popish Superstition of praying to Saints For all this I will hope that you do not pray to Dr. O. for so much as you believe he knoweth nor yet feign him stark ignorant for fear of praying to him Do you think he hath forgotten the â—ase of England Or will you pray to him to intercede for it II. My second supposed Errour is that the Saints in Heaven have any displeasure And this is said to be a Contradiction to the generally received Opinion of all that you have met with I doubt not but your Acquaintance is large but I perceive it is not with all sorts of men I am sorry they should generally deny so great and clear a truth 1. Let us examine the Controversy as of the Matter and 2. As of the Name Displeasure 1. Complacence is the first act of the
Bishop of Lincoln the Bishop of Hereford Dr. Peter Moulin Dr. Stillingfleet and many more have done is known Your Mr. Mat. Mâ—ad once commended a Conformist for a Benefice to me with these words I take him to be the holiest Man I know I have loved him the better ever since for his Candor Charity and Impartiality SECT 6. An Expository Advertisement about naming faulty Persons AS all men ought to have a just regard of their own and their neighbours reputations so the over-much tenderness of the guilty and the proud doth make it a matter of much difficulty for an impartial man to know whether and when he should name or make known the persons whom he doth oppose or blame Though the resolution seem easie both to them that have no charity to caution them and to them that will do no duty that displeaseth others Being called to review my own practice in this I shall give the World an account First of my Judgment in it and then of my doings I. I take such a nomination to be a duty in these cases following 1. In case of necessary defence of the Truth against some dangerous Errour of some men otherwise pious and tolerable the greatest Pillars of the Church have usually named them I hope all those Iudaizers that Paul so sharply writeth against were not in a state of damnâ—tion Doubtless Peter and Barnabas were not Gal. 2. nor I hope Demas nor all the rest that he saith were not like-minded to Timothy but sought their own and not the things of Jesus Christ And I hope the like of Diotrephes much more assuredly of Iohn that blamed him though that beloved Disciple is thrice named as culpable seeking to be greatest and offering to call for Fire from Heaven and forbidding one to do Miracles in Christs Name And Peter oft and once tremendously Matth. 16. rebuk't by Christ. The sins of Noah and his Sons Lot and his Wife and Daughters Sarah Abraham Isaac Iacob and his Sons Moses Aaron Miriam many Judges Eli David Solomon Rehoboam Asa Hezekiah Iosiah and many more are left on Record in Scripture with their names by him who is LOVE it self and hareth uncharitableness And though we believe not all that Bernard Walaf Strabo and such others though good men believed of Peter Bruis Henricus and other Albigenses Waldenses and Bobemians much less all that Tho. Waldensis saith against Wickliss the wisest Reformers have seen cause to mention some of their mistakes Luthers first mistakes while he disowned not the Papacy and his after sharpness against Carolostadius and Zuinglius are recorded by many that dislike them as he recordeth his distaste of those aforesaid and many more whom he dissented from All that are contradicted by name are not taken by sober men to be graceless or intolerable Swenkfeldius was a man of honour and his Character was that he had an honest heart but not a regulated head and yet the generality of Reformers cryed down his Errours and Sect. The Calvinists write for Communion with the Lutherans and the Moderate Lutherans love the Calvinists yet they write against each other by name as too many Volumes openly shew George Major was a wise and good man though Schlusselburgius and such others number him and his followers as Hereticks as Caâ—â—viâ—â— doth the Calixtines Nicholas Gallus and Amâ—sdorsius were noted Divines and Century Writers though they so used Major and maintained that Good works are not necessary to Salvation for which wiser men did write against them Mat. Flac. Illyricus the chief Century Writer was a Learned Zealous Protestant and yet many more than Melancthon and Beza have left as a blot upon his name that he was so fierce against Ceremonies and unpeaceable and that he maintained that Original Sin is the substance of the Soul Andrew Osiander was a very Learned Protestant high in favour with his Prince yet he and all his followers greatly opposed by the Orthodox Reformers for maintaining that we are justified by Gods Essential Righteousness made ours And Fuâ—ccius sped the worse for following him though it was for State-Councils that he died How high a Character doth Melancthon and many other the greatest Divines give of Hubertus Languetus as an Honourable Learned Pious Excellent Man and yet it 's now scarce denyed but it was he that wrote Iunius Bâ—â—tus though it was long falsly charged on Beza and the Noble â—â— Plessis Doubtless Cassander Erasmus Wicelius and Grâ—tius were men of great worth that yet for peace owned the Roman Church and Corruptions so far as is not to be justified or overlookt All the Germane Prophets or Fanaticks that Chr. Beckmans Exercitations name and copiously confute were not ungodly or intolerable men Whatever the Paâ—â—câ—lsians Weigâ—lians and many of the rest were I know not but sure Thâ—ulerus was a godly man and Grotius commendeth Iohn Arâ—di and his followers as men of piety and peace and notwithstanding his vain affected words Iacob Behmen seemed a pious man and I loved many of his chief Followers in England of my acquaintance because their Spirit and Writings were all for Love and Peace and their difficult Gibberish made me fearless of their multiplying or ever doing any great hurt And the Papists quite out-do us in naming their Opponents and their Errours and yet not renouncing Communion with them but keeping them in the bosom of their Church as whole loads of Books written by the Schoolmen and several Sects and Orders against each other shew And specially the Controversies between the Seculars and Regulars sharply handled by Watson in his Quodlibits and divers others And newly Peter Walsh that calls himself Valesius and Sâ—rjeants and his Blaklows Controversies tell us more But none more than the Jesuists and Jansenists did we differ about half as many and weighty points as are recited in the Iesuites Morals and their Charge against the Iansenists we should scarce think each other fit to be Members of one Communion And naming Opponents is oft necessary to make the Reader know what Books we write against for distinction sake 2. And there is yet another great cause of naming faulty men both otherwise godly and heretical The Duty of a Publick or National Repentance oft requireth the mention of publick sins and sinners specially if they be our own God long forbeareth the publick National sins of Ancestors to see if Posterity who are the same Naâ—ion though not the same Persons will prevent his Judgments by Repentance In which case they must confess their own and their Fore Fathers sins This was the due practice of the Church of Old as Psal. 78. 107. and many other shew and the prayers of Ezra Daniel and others they named many and bewailed more of their National and Fore Fathers sins and if they do not Christ will name them for them as he did the blood shed from Abels till Zachâ—rias and will revenge all together on the Impenitent Generation Matth. 23. It was not to call dead