other men to beleeve onely implicitly as the Church beleevs which is the thing I lead my parishioners from Three Symbols or Creeds were wont to be proof sufficient of a good Christian and Catholick You here would have but one and that one the word of God as every man shall differently understand it And I do not remember that ever I heard before now the word of God called a Creed Because I named Removers of land-marks that their fore-fathers had set you said I condemned you for such you seem now to acknowledge your self such for certainly no limits there are of the Christian Churches if the Creeds be not The implicite Faith of the Romanists is a Resolution and Profession to be of the Churches belief though in the mean time it be unknown what that is An assent in gross to all that the Church propoundeth to be beleeved and though Faith be in Scripture called Knowledge yet say they it is better defined by Ignorance than by Knowledge This implicite Faith being upon the matter nothing but a good opinion we have of our teachers may be a good disposition or preparation to Faith but Faith it self it cannot be And can your conscience suffer you to make the world beleeve that when a Church shall compose a Confession of Faith taking care the people be taught it and exacting conformitie thereto and imposing penalties upon such as shall depart therefrom that this is onely the implicite Faith of the Romanists Or to tell a good Christian that hath been instructed in the Doctrine of the Church of England who knows it and beleevs it to be the Truth That it is a point of Popery to beleeve as the Church beleevs I hope there are but few that will not soon discern the mischief and the consequence and the fallacy of such instruction Sect. 9. I told you formerly that you used this word all as a helve or handle wherewithall to cut down the trees of the forrest To this say you now Sect. 9. An acute charge like helves or handles that use to cut I thought you might be so acute as to take my meaning without my further rehearsal of the Fable that is so well known A man that wanted a helve for his ax came and begged one of a certain goodly wood or tuft of trees promising to trim and prune them having obtained it did therewithall cut the trees down to the ground He could not cut them down without a helve but with an helve or handle he did it For there is no remedy but you must give us leave to put this particle with to any thing that is an instrument whether conjunct or separate or that is instrumental He that felleth an oak doth it with his arm and with the strength of his arm as well as with his ax You write with your ink and with your hand and with your pen the ploughman will tell you that he turns up the soyl with his oxen and will you tell him again that oxen do not use to turn up the soyl Thus while you hunt after such minutes and minims as these are and miss them too thinking you have caught a flie when it is but the shadow of it you let pass the substance of the accusation which I brought against you and that is this You come to Scripture and thence you take this word all pretending by the help of that to preach the Gospel more sincerely and more profitably than others generally do running without their message But you frame it and stretch and wrench it in such a manner that you corrupt and overturn the chief points of the Covenant of Grace Tertull. de Pudic. cap. 16. Est hoc solenne perversis alicujus capituli ancipitis occasione adversus exercilum sententiarum instrumentitotius armari that is With one place or sentence or point of belief that is of various and doubtfull acception perverse men think themselves sufficiently armed and furnished to oppose the greatest part of the Bible Sect. 10. I said that we may not think that Luke meant contrary to Pauls doctrine That he fraudulently suppressed Your discourse tending to accord the words of Luke with Pauls doctrine because it was somewhat tedious and vain as I thought it and especially because it belonged to another place I did onely note by the way in brief But that you did in seeming-satisfaction to your self at least make them agree well together I did not omit to give notice in these words though he thinketh he can reconcile them And when I said thus much it is most evident that I did not fraudulently suppress what you did though I did not needlesly express how you did it But when you said It is safer to stick to Paul than to Luke it was scandalously spoken of you and an odious comparison if you do indeed beleeve all holy Scripture to be divinely inspired why should you prefer one writer of it before another You appeal to me Whether in case Luke doth disagree with Paul if it be not safer to stick to Paul who says If we or an angel from heaven preach any other Gospel than we have preached let him be accursed But the Apostle doth not make comparison betwixt himself and any other Apostle or pen-man of holy Scripture for he joyns himself with them if we he sets not himself above others but names himself together with others the better to establish that Gospel which he together with others had taught Here is nothing of sticking to Paul more than to Luke but of sticking to the doctrine once delivered against any other doctrine that should be taught by any whosoever upon what pretence soever imaginable Sect. 11. May I not stick to his sayings and yet say they be hard to be understood But when you answer the arguments brought against you out of such chapters by saying those chapters are hard to be understood then you do not stick to his sayings so as by them to be concluded or to suffer an end to be put to the Controversie That which is urged out of those places against the Universalists is easie and evident you make use of the difficultie of them for an answer to put off and elude that which is plain and not obscure or difficult The matters of doctrine delivered by S. Paul may be hard to be understood that is hard to be received digested and entertained by loose unsettled persons many difficulties and intricacies there may be not easily cleared shall this render the proof invalid that such doctrines there are If you should out of S. Pauls Epistles defend Justification by Faith against a Papist you would not accept it for an answer if he should say thus That is one of those things the Apostle Peter speaketh of hard to be understood which some hereticks have wrested towards libertie and profaneness as if therefore there were no necessity of godliness or good works The rejection of the Jews and calling of the Gentiles The abolition of
perceive will hold no water But I am like to loose the benefit of Seneca's sentence because it repenteth me that I made any such acknowledgment now that I see what use you make of it and what interpretation and yet I doubt not to salve my innocence well enough because what I said was true yet was spoken out of fair comport and not from conscience of any wrong I did you for I did you none as I more perceive now I am more acquainted with you Sect. 4. That phrase as may best serve the capacity of children was not joyned with the great Mysteries but with what went before But may not children learn the great Mysteries The instructions by your Title were in the first place for children though not unusefull for men also if you intended not that the great Mysteries should be for the capacitie of children why did you direct the children at the end of your catechisme to get the Answers to all the Questions by heart some at the first time some at the second your meaning was clear as if you had said Because these instructions for children contain these great mysteries therefore they are not unusefull for men also Sect. 5. What more rise with them then the odious names of Pelagian Semipelagian Arminian the Enemies of Gods Grace and what not These names may be odious to others but they are not odious to you or if the names be the opinions are not no not the Pelagian One of your party makes it Pelagianisme to be offended with the Surplice another saith that the errour of Pelagius was that he held perfection in this life I would gladly know how you shift it off from your self for I know no difference of any moment betwixt him and you in the main He was an enemie to Grace no further than thus that he held Grace was given to all sufficient to salvation and that it was given according to mans works will or preparations And whereas you joyn the Semi-pelagian and the Arminian together I think you do Arminius no wrong for every man knows his own minde best and his minde you may know by his words Oper. p. 143. Adjunxi disquiri posse an Semipelagianismus non sit verus Christianismus I said indeed saith he it might be questioned whether Semipelagianism were not the true Christianity because That is as the Mean so he addeth duly receding from each extreme namely the Pelagian on the one hand and the Manichean on the other whereas I suppose Semipelagianism hath been taken hitherto to be a degree of one extreme and not the golden mean between the two extreems any more than the Papist is in the right between the Jesuite and the Anabaptist Sect. 6. He says Vote and the Rule of Gods word may be not contrary but subordinate Reply Be it so yet would I not walk by vote but by the word stil though in walking by the word I should in that case walk with the vote A man that travelleth from Lin to Aylesham may go much of his way in Norwich road yet he goes not in it because it is Norwich road but because it is the way to Aylesham The wisdome from above is first pure then peaceable So may your Religion be in the first place Pure because it accordeth with Gods word and in the next place peaceable because it accordeth with the Churches Confession But as you handle the matter in your similitude of travelling from Lin to Aylesham you regard not the Church at all no not in the least But what if it be a matter of difficultie that you know not what to think will you not suffer the Churches Authority being put into the scale to cast it on either side so as to make one part more probable than the other Or if in matter of practice you doubt whether you may lawfully do what you are by the Church enjoyned will you not think it better to doubt and obey than to doubt and disobey Or if it be in a matter of small consequence wherein without all doubt you think your self in the right and others in errour will you not keep it to your self rather than so to propound it as to hazard the continuance of the Churches peace If to these you answer No then you regard not much the Apostles charge To be of one minde Philip. 2.2 To be perfectly joyned in the same judgement 1 Cor. 1.10 To give no offence to the Church of God chap. 10.32 If all Protestants had been of your minde the labour might have been spared of putting forth the Harmony of Confessions as being of very little use When Abraham commanded his children to keep the way of the Lord and when Joshua undertook for himself and his houshold that they should serve the Lord had they of their several families been of your resolution they might have returned this answer We will serve the Lord and keep his way but not because you command us for then Gods fear should be taught by mans precept which must not be God Almightie would not have given Ministers and Pastours for teaching and edifying his Church if he intended them no more respect and authority than you seem willing should be given them In the Preface to your Catechisme you would have your people not walk by Vote because ths is to be taught by mens precepts said I again They that learn a Catechisme framed by a single Pastour are taught by the precept of man as much as they that walk by the vote of an Assembly To this you answer now That you suspend none for not following you neither do you enjoyn your sayings by compulsive force But this alters not the case at all For that which is indeed superstition is so whether it be imposed by violence and enforced or whether it be voluntarily assumed and put in practice Their Fear is taught by the precept of men whose Religion is Superstition consisting in wil-worship and in observation of humane traditions and inventions And what is this to a Catechisme or Articles of Faith framed by an Afsembly or a Convocation You take up a Scripture-saying before you have learned what it meaneth and so the sound of it may serve your present purpose You little consider in what principles you breed your scholars and how you teach them to contemn all teaching and the whole ministery of Gods word And as for compulsion for ought I know you use all the force you can use which is not much Those who will not follow your directions you will not encourage as your disciples and this is as great force and violence within your narrow sphear as that which is used in a larger compass Sect. 7. pag. 7. While we are instructed all of us not to have our fear toward God taught by the precepts of men we are instructed to have all but one Faith or Creed that is the word of God and not to have our Faith like that of the Romanists depend on
up Sion but by bloud or to serve Religion but by sanguinary persecution for the Nation to establish Religion is a kinde of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an improper speaking Here you begin your game to play on both hands you say no such matter and yet you justifie it you seem to be very angry and yet you seem not to be in earnest when you thus make sport with the word all which might as well have been by me left out and your charge had been as full without it When I said all establishment I meant not as you might well think all both Humane and Divine but my intent was to note that you mislike the establishment even of that Religion which you do now like well and profess The Door must be left open lest any Truth be in danger to be shut out though some errours in the mean time enter that so the growth of Christians be not hindered as you said euen now When the Supreme power of any Nation establisheth Religion in that Nation this is National establishment and if it be the true Religion then doth God nationally estabish it What you mean by Gods establishment of the true Religion in a Nation I know not unless it be a libertie for every one to beleeve and profess as he will without restraint But this is an improper speaking indeed 1 to call this the true Religion which is schisme and 2 to call it establishment which unsettleth all things and introduceth a licentious wildness Endeavouring onely by instruction conference and other spiritual weapons to convince and further one another in the truth and keep out errour Your cousel comes too late after that it hath for many years been weighed and tried and found too light upon the scales and too pernicious to the Church of God and his true Religion nationally established Experience hath taught us by what we have seen how much good is like still to be done by the edge of spiritual weapons onely there is little hope of silencing such persons as have a facultie of a maladie called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multum loquaces dicentes nihil that say nothing and yet cannot hold their peace The Devils scholars are like himself who being twice repulsed by our Saviour set on him the third time and would not leave him yet till he was commanded away and bid be gone by way of Authority To dispute with an obstinate heretick keeps him in breath and exercise and the falls that he takes upon the ground do but help to recover his strength Think you the German Anabaptists would have been charmed with instructions and conquered with your conferences it is true some few of them might and were so therefore it is good to use both kinde of weapons not the spiritual onely as you advise When the Apostle Paul gave order to Titus that the hereticks mouths should be stopped chap. 1. v. 2. he meant not by conviction of argument onely it should be done and endless discourse but by suspension and censure therefore in the third chapter ver 10. They must have but a first and second Admonition no more and then be rejected And in a Christian State if the censure spiritual be not backed and seconded by the temporal arm the wanton and profane ones of the world will count it but as stubble and the shaking of this spear contemptible If this be the onely way you can think of to keep out errour I pray keep this your errour to your self Under pretence of establishing Religion to compell all men to beleeve or profess and practise the same things whether God hath revealed it to them or not and for not doing so though otherwise sober pious and peaceable the persecuting and punishing them and pressing and binding burthens of humane ceremonies and traditions and so exercising a lordly Domination in the Church of God is such beastly doing under pretence of Church-power that I pray God enlighten all mens eyes to see the mistake and mischief of it As for the case of compulsion in matters of faith you know though you be content that others should understand it otherwise before whom you declaim against settling of Religion that the Question among us is not about compelling strangers Jews Turks or Americans to a new belief but of compelling people to conform to their own laws agreed upon Every mans consent is involved in every Law that is made so that a Law being enacted for the uniformity of Religion if any man suffers he suffers not injuriously but by his own consent Clergy-men especially whose consent is more express than any other mens is Tertullian is often alledged as speaking against constraint in Religion but it is there where he pleads the Christians case against the Ethnicks in his Apologetick and to Scapula But in the Church no man more servent for Discipline than he is and where he deals against hereticks as in his Scorpiaco or Antidote against the Gnosticks where his words are these cap. 2. Ad officium hereticos compelli non inlici dignum est duritia vincenda est non suadenda that is It is fit that hereticks should be compelled not allured to do what they should do and being obstinate they are not to be perswaed but subdued Though otherwise sober pious and peaceable This is as much as if you should say quite contrary to what our Saviour saith Matth. 7.15 Take no heed of false teachers let them alone do not hinder them nor molest them though they be ravening wolves so they come to you in sheeps clothing Your qualities of Sober Pious Peaceable in outward shew and further we cannot judge are the sheeps clothing under which Sectaries are wont to shroud themselves that they may infect others before they be discerned What Tertullus called Paul Act. 24.5 a Pestilence is true enough in Thes◠though misapplyed to Paul every Seducer is a very Pest and therefore to be looked to that he spreads not his contagion And another may come and plead for Homicides Traytours false Coiners of money that are otherwise pious and peaceable as well as you plead for Seducers But by the providence of God all mens eyes that will see are opened to see the mischief of them That passage of my deprecating all nationall establishment of Religion perhaps was one of those passages that in a letter to me he cryed peccavi in and therefore I forgive it for as Seneca says Quem poenitet peccasse penè est innocens He that repents that he hath done amiss A faultless man almost he is There was very little likelihood that this should be one of the passages I meant and I said no more of you then than you now say of your self nor so much He is ill advised that chooseth you for his Confessor who are so ready to cry it out when he cryes Peccavi for me resolved I am never to put either wine or ought else that is worth ought into that vessel that I
their own freedome and to their own power of Beleeving and repenting and Persevering and then it may readily be decided to which doctrine the world is most beholden we are on both sides agreed that Christ died for all men on condition of their faith in him we say that every man shall be pardoned that beleeveth and you will not say that any man shall be pardoned and saved whether he beleeve or no. Thus far we differ not But when it cometh to the question on Whether the Son of God did merit for us the grace of Faith and Regeneration and Perseverance we maintain that he merited these for his elect and you utterly denie that he merited these for any and then it may easily be decided after all the idle and emprie words that are commonly taken up who they are that most straiten the merits of Christ and who are most forward to denie the benefits of his passion But the Text in Isai 5. is often alledged and insisted on and by you twice in this chapter What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done Where First you are to note that it is an enclosure it is a vineyard that is spoken of there fore no Universalist must draw this beyond the bounds of the Church or make use of it to prove that all men have sufficient help to salvation The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel and he dealeth not so with every nation as he did with that nation Secondly It is granted there could no more be done then was done for external means and helps exhibited to a visible national constituted Church namely for Doctrine Sacraments Prophets Pastours Miracles and manifold mercies and encouragements But is there nothing more to be done or could there nothing more be done towards the bringing forth fruit to life eternal Paul may plant Apollos may water but God giveth the encrease If it pleased God whose will is always just though it may be secret to us at that time by the ministerie of his servants and mercies of divers kinds to plant and to water the Church of Judah and Ierusalem and not to give encrease must it needs be indeed because he could not do it yes at least so we are told He may be allowed to be able to force an ordinarie natural vineyard to bring forth good grapes but to a Rational vineyard he could not do it So that the Question is not now what God doeth or hath done for his Church or lost mankinde that is a modest inquiry but it is affirmed broadly He could not do more than he hath done I think we may boldly say A few such propositions as this is are competent to blast and dcfame any cause that stands in need of such supporters We have often heard it affirmed to this purpose That God could not create Adam in a state free from danger and possibilitie of falling into sin because this had been to make him unchangeable which God onely is Whereas there is nothing can be imagined but God can do it if it please him to do it both in heaven and earth unless such things as do import either impotence in the Creatour or contradiction in the creature but what had there been of the one or the other if by his Grace and Power he had kept the understanding of Adam from being overclouded with errour his will and affections in perfect and entire obedience no more than there was in the Angels that fell not or than there shall be in preserving the elect for ever in heaven God is onely wise and onely hath immortality we may add and immutability of himself and independently perfectly and infinitely yet he hath by Communication made the Angels and spirits of men wise and immortal so he might have made Adam unchangeably good though not unchangeable as He himself is And such Doctrine as you here deliver and some others teach agreeably hereunto is no way consonant to Christian belief for as it doth too plainly denie Gods omnipotence contained in the first Article of our Creed so doth it also directly â—run counter to those many promises where God hath said he will do that which you say he cannot do as namely that in Ieremy 32.40 I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me At the end of this chapter You desire to adore Gods goodness power and wisdome There be other Attributes of God to be thought on and to be adored as his unchangeableness and his justice commonly called in Scripture Wrath whereby he punisheth sinners Which though you named not here yet you might well have named them in your Catechisme where I scarce finde any more than these three in that description of God which you set down Qu. 12. What souldst thou remember minde or consider in God A. His Power Wisdome and Goodness exercised for and about me his will concerning me and end to which he made me There be few Catechists if there be any that speaking of Gods Attributes reckon up so few as these or that make mention of Goodness but none of Justice or some thing equivalent The Apostle Rom. 11.22 propoundeth the Goodness and the Severity of God equally to be considered and adored and Marcion as Tertullian witnesseth lib. 1. â—25 Removit à Deo severitates considered onely in God his Goodness and nothing over against it all Goodness no Severity I lay not this opinion to you but thus much I say This dealing of yours looks more like Marcion than any thing your Adversaries have said doth look like the Manichees CHAP. XII Of Universal Redemption IN the differences that are about the point of Universal Redemption I had some hope that you and I should have been upon a reasonable good accord But it falls out quite otherwise for as you tell me page 60. that I beleeve it because the Church beleeves it for the veneration of the Church So now you will not hold it because I hold it but you argue diversly against it page 57. But if you bring arguments against your own opinion you must answer them yourself because I know no bodie will do it for you and then the solutions will please you the better because they are your own Sect. 3. In adding that as the reason why the ransome is not profitable to all men to eternal life because it is not given to all men to beleeve he innovates from the Scripture which no where assignes that as the cause but mens not receiving the grace of God Divers things may concur to one effect and it may be said because one of them is wanting the effect is not produced A souldier may die of a dangerous but curable wound received in the field that is the true cause of his death but may it not be said truly that he lost his life because he wanted a Chirurgeon and a traytour is executed because he wanted a pardon Mans infidelitie is the