FALSHOOD UNMASKT In ANSWER to a BOOK CALLED TRUTH UNVEIL'D Which vainly pretends to justify the Charge of M R STANDISH Against some Persons in the Church OF ENGLAND By a Dutiful SON of that CHURCH LONDON Printed for James Magnes and Richard Bentley at the Post-Office in Russel-street in Covent-Garden 1676. Imprimatur Ab. Campion Novemb. 3. 1676. To the AVTHOR OF THE VINDICATION OF Mr. STANDISH'S SERMON c. SIR BEing at this time not far from London I have met with a little Pamphlet called The Truth unveiled c. which you pretend to be a Vindication of Mr. Standish's Sermon a great deal sooner than otherwise I should have done The Pamphlet it self doth not seem to me to be worthy of any regard but to your self who seem to be much concerned for the safety of our Religion there is a great one due and therefore in mere charity to you I have once more set Pen to Paper briefly to demonstrate that you wrong your self exceedingly in imploying your time about works of this nature for which you are not at all fitted You are a Person of Quality I make no doubt because I have your word for it but I must take the boldness to tell you that whatsoever other qualities you have you are not qualified to imitate a little your way of writing to pass a censure on Men and on Books as you have taken the liberty to do You will be apt it is like by this blunt beginning to make the same judgement concerning me but I trust I shall evidently show it is no rashness or presumption in me to undertake this task which is so easy that it requires no great abilities to make good this charge viz That there is a notorious defect either in your Will and Affections or else in your Mind and Judgement either of which make you unmeet to meddle with these matters The former of these I dare not suspect because you profess down-right Honesty though no Arts and in many passages speak very piously Though I cannot forbear to say thus much that the constant affectation of little strains of the lowest and poorest sort of witty reflexions is no good sign of that serious inside Piety whose Heart-bloud you say is now letting out by a Generation of Men for whom you cannot find a name bad enough Who can read without some disdain such pittiful punns as you have made upon the names of several persons which I doubt you would not allow in another while you take a great liberty this way your self You would call it I have reason to think flurting and fleering or lightness and vanity if not jeering and abusiveness in those whom you take to task which you practice without any scruple from the beginning of the Book to the end Mr. Bull comes first with his Horns and eager pushes pag. 33. having lately pusht apiece into the World p. 37. Then Mr. Baxter is described by the character of one who hath spoiled in his time many good Bakings And elsewhere Dr. Heylin passes under the name of St. George his Champion and you doubt his Dragon too And there is another I am confident you aim at when upon the mention of Dr. Owen and Mr. Jenkins you tell us of the groveling outeries that are made Nor can I devise any other reason why you contracted the name of your Book in the entrance with an c. when it stands at length enough in the Title Page but only to bring in the far-fetcht conceit of the Oath c. Sure Sir this trifling is not to be a practitioner of Piety in Baley's way nor to watch over your actions according to Brinsley's Rules and as you direct us p. 30. If it be those Books and the rest you commend to our use do not surpass so far as you would have the world believe the labours of the New Speaking Gentlemen So you call the Writers you oppose though that excellent Man Dr. Hammond after whom follows Bishop Taylor leads the Van as you speak and was the Forelorn Hope Who deserved sure to be treated with more Reverence especially by a Person of Quality who ought not to have stooped to so low so paultry a way of writing nor to have comprehended so great a Divine and so Holy a Man under no better Name than that of a New-Speaking Gentleman But you do not deny but there are abundance of excellent useful seasonable well-said things in his Practical Catechisme and therefore notwithstanding all this I doubt not but you are though I know not who you are no more than the Man in the Moon a Pious Serious Honest Gentleman or Person of greater Quality who intends to do service to Religion though you are not well skilled in the business you go about For that there is an exceeding great defect in your judgement it is apparent from hence That pretending a Vindication of Mr. Standish his Sermon you have not writ one syllable to the purpose For the Men whom he informs against and whose names I desired we might know are such as impiously deny both our Lord and his Holy Spirit who make Reason Reason Reason their only Trinity who preach up Natural and Moral Religion without the Grace of God and Faith in Christ and in effect say There is no such thing as supernatural Grace That is in plain terms rank Socinians or worse if worse can be for the Socinians do not advance Natural Religion against the Christian nor deny all Supernatural Grace Now I did not nor do believe that there is a man to be named among our Clergy who is guilty of these foul detestable Heresies Yes say you or you say nothing since you call so loudly and importunately for a Bill of particulars you shall have it And the first Names you give in are Dr. Hammond and Bishop Taylor Who must therefore be the Ring-leaders of those deceitful Workers those false Apostles Mr. Standish speaks of or else to speak mildly in one of your own phrases you have mist the Quishion Chuse you which of these you will it is certain you will be found to be an incompetent person to interpose your self in those differences though I doubt not you are as in humility you stile your self p. 34 A well-meaning Scribler Do you really intend to charge those great Men with the crime of Socinianisme Is the Practical Catechisme in effect but the Cracovian in which Mr. Standish feared we might live to see our Youth trained up Hath any one more effectually established the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity than the ever memorable Dr. Hammond upon the 1 Epistle of S. John the fifth Chapter and the sixth Verse I believe I may answer for you that you did not mean to impute any such Heresies to either of them And therefore it remains if you acquit them that you condemn your self of the grossest impertinency and heedlessness in naming these as the Heads of that black Faction For if you can lay things
presumptions of some one man delighting commonly to oppose and thwart the stream of antiquity but according to the sense and meaning of those times that drew water nearer unto the Well-head that is to the Apostles and their successors immediately Upon which score it is certain that the Doctrine of this Church cannot be Calvinian For the first and purest ages by which it is guided you your self are sensible was not so only you think it sufficient to smile at those who pretend their Authority and say It is little less than ridiculous to talk of the Fathers before St. Austin's time in reference to those questions p. 25. Why so I beseech you Because they lived say you before the Controversie was started and so did not nor could intend to speak appositely to the points of Original sin the power of Grace c By which reason we must not appeal to them in the points about Popery for then the pretences of St. Peter were not on foot c. and then they could not intend to speak appositely to such matters I should think those great Lights of the Church ought not to be thus slighted in a matter of such moment And an indifferent person would for your reason conclude the quite contiany that they are the more to be heeded because they are the more likely to have delivered purely their sense without any bias when they were not engaged among themselves in the heats of controversy which too oft pervert the understanding And those Doctrines which subvert Mr. Calvins Systeme were so certainly believed by them that they made no controversy of them but with one consent rejected the Doctrine of Fate which was then no less rife among the Pagans against whom they were careful no doubt to write appositely than the absolute irrespective Decrees are now among Christians But besides this I am also certain that the Sons and Fathers of the Church of England have opposed this Doctrine long before Mr. Hoord appeared who you say was the first that ventured to give our Brittish world new notions of Gods love to Mankind This is so palpable an untruth that Bishop Hoopers Works shew these notions which you call New are as Old as the Reformation And a Sermon Preached at St. Pauls Cross PLACE = marg See Mr. Bull. on the 27 of October as the Title Page informs me Anno Reginae Elizabethae 26. by Samuel Harsnet is such an illustrious testimony against you that there cannot be a greater He was then but Fellow of Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge but afterward promoted to be one of the Fathers of the Church in King James his time and at last advanced to be one of our Primates for he dyed Arch-Bishop of York I supose Sir a Person of your Reading who undertakes to trace the crooked muddy stream as you call it to its first weak ebullitions cannot be ignorant of the strong efforts to use your own word made by this Preacher Who expressly makes the Doctrine which Mr. Hoord long after opposed a daring enemy risen up against our Israel For he expresly calls it a Goliah which was grown huge and monstrous reviling not the Host of the living God but the Lord of Hosts And mentioning those words of St. Paul God would have all men to be saved tells that numerous Auditory the Genevian conceit hath dealt with this Gracious bounty of God and this blessed saying God would have all men to be saved as Hanun did with the Ambassadors of David He cut off their Garments to the Hips and this hath curtail'd the Grace of God to the stumps For it saith it must not be meant that God would have every living soul to come to Heaven but one or two perhaps out of every order and occupation But the Spirit of St. Peter a great deal wiser than that of Geneva saith plainly God would not have any one perish c. I trust we shall have Grace to believe him since himself can better tell what himself would have than the men of Geneva can What think you now after this downright Declaration which I have transcribed a small scrap of out of that Sermon on 33 Ezek. 11. was Mr. Hoord the first man that ventured to teach Gods love to Mankind in a way quite opposite to that of the Calvinians Is not here a man that boldly tells the British world in the greatest Assembly it had that your beloved Doctrine is a stranger nay an enemy to our Church strutting indeed about at that time and bearing it self high as you speak of Dr. Heylins Arminianisme so that Men trembled and shak'd at it but by him resolutely endeavoured to be cast down as a forreign conceit which ought not to be admitted here We know very well how it came to spread and grow so huge and monstrous but it was then no more the sense of the Church of England than Arianisme was the sense of the Church Catholique when all places were over-run with it There were still more than one who had the same resolution with Athanasius to bear witness against it as I could show out of good Authors And I can see no cause why Bishop Mountague whom as becomes a true course Calvinian you call bare Mountague and therefore the rest by the way need not take it ill they are no better treated should be quite struck out of the number of those from whom we may learn the notions of our Church in his dayes For I can find no State-Politicks in his Book which you pretend for his rejection but as he assures us the proper true and antient tenents of the Church of England such as be without any doubt or question legitimate and genuine such as she will both acknowledge and maintain for her own So he avows in his Epistle Dedicatory to His late Majesty before his Apello Caesarem And there is no reason to think him partial in this case since Dr. Francis White then Dean of Carlisle no mean Champion sure of our Church testified as much after he had been authorized by King James to read that Book over duely and give his judgement of it which is this as you may see in his Approbation or License of it for the Press 1624. that having diligently perused it he found nothing therein but what is agreeable to the Publique Faith Doctrine and Discipline established in the Church of England Now mark what this Writer saith to those that informed against him You would make the world believe as you Sir indeavour also to do That the Church of England Calvinizes shew me good warrant for it and I yield I may rather say that the Church of England hath opposed this Doctrine because that many of the Learned your selves will not deny in that Church and most conformable unto the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church have mainly opposed it You may find this lively testimony against you in the First Part the Seventh Chapter towards the conclusion of which he
further adds I am sure it hath been opposed in the Church of England otherwise taught and professed in the Schools when I was an Auditor there It hath been prohibited to be enjoyned and tendred or maintained as the authentical Doctrine of our Church by supreme authority with sharp reproof unto those that went about to have it tendred than when those conclusions or assertions of Lambeth which you mention were upon sending down to the University of Cambridge This is sufficient sure to convince you of your error or if it be not let me add that Bishop Davenant himself who you do but hope reduced Mr. Hoord to a sounder mind for I can prove the contrary in his Lent Sermon before the King and the last I think that he preached declared his opinion to be as for Vniversal Redemption so for Vniversal Grace within the Church Which I doubt the Calvinians will-not allow I am sure those that are called Arminians desire no more You may find this if you please in Dr. Hammond's Letters to Bishop Sanderson concerning Gods Grace and Decrees p. 27. and I hope you will take his word in a matter of Fact for a greater thing than this But if all this will not be regarded yet I presume the Church it self will be allowed to understand its own sense which hath directly and in express words saith the forenamed Bishop Mountague in that Book Licensed by the Kings Authority overthrown the ground of Calvinisme in Teaching thus that a justified man and therefore predestinate in your Doctrine may fall from God and therefore become not the Child of God p. 59. which he repeats again p. 73. The Church holdeth and teacheth punctually and that in the opinion and with the dislike of the Learnedst of your side that Faith true justifying Faith once had may be lost and recovered again that a man endued with Gods Holy Spirit may lose that HOLY SPIRIT have that Light put out become like unto SAVL and JVDAS c. How can the Church of England then be thought even in your own understanding to be Calvinian which teaches things so cross to Mr. Calvins Hypothesis that they utterly overturn it And it had been very happy if they that endeavoured to bend some other Articles of our Church to his sense had rather studied as they ought to have done to frame their sense in all other things to this Article which is directed so expressy against what he teaches This Church then would have been in a better condition than it is being now in danger to be destroyed by those who were never quiet till with the Doctrine they had brought in the Discipline too of Mr. Calvin among us Those are memorable words of Bishop Mountagues whom if he had been yours you would have gone near upon such an occasion to have stiled a Prophet which we meet with in the Fifth Chapter of the First Part of his Appeal where he charges those that informed against him with waving the Doctrine of our Church Preaching against it Teaching contrary to what they had subscribed that so saith he through FORRAIN DOCTRINE being infused secretly and instilled cunningly and pretended craftily to be the Churches at length you may wind in with FORRAIN DISCIPLINE also and so fill Christendom with Popes in every Parish for the Church and with popular Democracies and Democratical Anarchies in the State If you please to reflect upon our late confusions and compare them with this Prediction perhaps you may hereafter love Bishop Mountague better as a person of some judgement and sagacity in other things as well as in this But I list not to trouble the Reader with any unpleasant reflections upon those dismal times I will rather upon this occasion refresh him with a tale as King James called it in the Conference at Hampton Court p. 82. There was a time saith he when Mr. Knox writes to the Queen Regent of Scotland telling her that she was Supream head of the Church and charged her as she would answer it before God's Tribunal to take care of Christs Evangel and of suppressing the Popish Prelates who withstood the same But how long trow ye did this continue even so long till by her authority the Popish Bishops were repressed he himself and his adherents were brought in and well setled and thereby made strong enough to undertake the matters of Reformation themselves Then loe they began to make small account of her Supremacy nor would longer rest on her Authority but took the Cause into their own hand c. I will apply it thus And then putting his Hand to his Hat His Majesty said My Lords the Bishops I may thank you that these Men thus plead for my Supremacy they think they cannot make their party good against you but by appealing to it as if you or some that adhere unto you were not well affected towards it But if once you were out and they in place I know what would become of my Supremacy With the like reason I may apply it again to our present business there are certain men that ring perpetually in our ears the Doctrine of the Church of England the Doctrine of the Church of England as if they were the most afraid of innovations in it and were the most zealous assertors and strongest supporters of it Whereas the truth is they are beat from all other holds and hope to shelter themselves a little by appealing to it as if some among us were not well-affected towards it But if once their opponents were out and they in their places with a power to settle matters among us I know what would become of the Doctrine of the Church of England which they would no more value than an old Almanack quite out of date But I intend not to make a Book of this and therefore have said enough to demonstrate the First part of your assertion is not true that an Episcopal Calvinist is the rightest Son or Father of the Church of England As for the Second That he is if a good man the best Christian I have far more to say than I am willing to Print It is sufficient to tell you that I have known indeed sundry good men of that way who I verily believe would have been much better if they had not been of it And others I have known who have stained their gooodness with such irregular actions and sinister practices and dealings as I believe they would not have been guilty of had not their Principles betrayed them into them And lastly I am apt to think that you your self would have been more charitable in your censures more indifferent in your judgement concerning Men and things more civil and courteous in your treatment of those you oppose less captious less partial and not so peremptory as you are in many places of your Book if you had not been a Calvinian but I will not dispute on which side would to God we could use no such word but as
Christ hath done and suffered for us whose righteousness in both regards was so pure and perfect that God in consideration of it or for its merits was pleased Graciously to grant us forgiveness of sins and him a power to bestow it on all those that believe on his name which is as much as to say that we are accounted righteous for the sake of Christs merits or for the merits if you will of Christs righteousness the effects and fruits of which we are made partakers of by Faith So the Church teaches us to understand Christ's imputed righteousness which all good Christians rejoyce in For righteousness imputed is our being accounted righteous before God though we are not so in our selves and we are accounted righteous before God saith the 11 Artic. only for the merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith and not for our own works and deserving If you will trouble your self with notions beyond this you may but do not trouble others with them who profess they cannot understand how the Righteousness of Christ can be so accounted ours which is the modern notion of it as if in him we had performed perfect obedience to God He performed perfect Obedience for us that we believe and hope to be saved by the merit of it but we did not perform perfect obedience in him that is contrary I have been taught to the very principles of Christianity For if we did then by that perfect obedience performed in him we become perfectly righteous free that is not only from all punishment but from fault and then we have no need of pardon nor of any inherent righteousness and we have merited a reward For my part I believe the honest people of the Church of England who devoutly say the Litanie never think of any such thing but humbly address themselves to God for mercy through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ who hath purchased pardon for penitent sinners by the intire righteousness of his life and death They mean no more when they pray to be delivered by his wonderful condescension in being incarnate for our sake which was the beginning of his humiliation and by his bloudy death and burial in which it was finished but that they may be freed from the guilt of their sins and the punishment due to them by the merits of these and all other parts of his humiliation which they know by his exaltation into the heavens and the coming of the Holy Ghost was highly acceptable to God being the fulsilling of all his Will in what he required for our redemption and having obtained for our Saviour all power in Heaven and Earth to dispense the Blessings which he purchased And thus other Churches understand this business the French for instance who say We believe that our righteousness consists in remission of sins c. and therefore casting away all opinion of our own vertues and merits we rest only in the obedience of Christ Jesus which is imputed to us both that all our sins may be covered and also that we may obtain Grace before God Here they plainly tell us that their righteousness which is procured by Christs obedience consists in remission of sins and therefore that obedience of his is imputed only in this sense that for its sake we may obtain remission of sins and be accepted with God I beseech you Sir do not accuse me of Heterodoxy if I do not jump with your thoughts in these matters for I protest I have no inclinations to fasten a sense upon the Churches words out of my own head but would most gladly receive it from those that can inform me better about it And I have a great respect also for all good men that are of a different mind in these matters and reverence Mr. Calvin very much though I do not think my self bound to follow his opinions All I desire is that neither you nor any body else would keep a pudder and a stirr as if Christianity were in danger to be lost by I know not what new notions when Mr. Bull and all that I have heard of his way preach the Grace of God in such a manner as I have declared which makes me confident our Religion and the Church is safe if they have no worse enemies than he But I much fear they are none of the Churches friends though they may design its good who make such a noise as if all our antient most fundamental Doctrines were subverted For the love of God Sir Let as hear no more of this from your hand if you bear any good will to it Let us have no more discourses of innovations in our Doctrines no more Truths unveiled though you think your self never so well acquainted with them no more Vindications nor mention of Mr. Standish who being the only person concerned hath as became an honest and good man acknowledged his error by silence I pray Sir do not you therefore revive that which he thinks fit should dye and be no more heard of I dare say for him he will give you no thanks for your kind intentions to serve him and therefore do not study how to oblige him any further in this matter He honours several of those persons I make no doubt as true Sons of the Church of England whom you have loaded with the reproach of departing from its Doctrine You have done him a great deal of injury in endeavouring to make the world believe that he struck at Dr. Hammond Bishop Taylor or Bishop Mountague either Nothing I am confident was further from his thoughts and he wishes I am of opinion that he had been as far out of yours For it was untowardly done to bring him upon the stage again right or wrong when he had no mind to persist in making a breach among us as he had in an heat begun to do But he will take it kindly I am apt to think if you will not seek to make him any reparation for this wrong but leave him to justify himself his own way He may well forgive you all that is past for one considerable service you have done him and the only one that I can find which is that I hope you have opened his eyes to see that I was in the right when I told him in my request to him what sort of men he would gratify by those passages in his Sermon Even such as accuse our late great Archbishop of Canterbury for being an incourager of the Romish Faction as you do in express terms p. 28. i. e. betraying his Trust and this Church which he so affectionately served that it cost him his life It was not enough it seems that they brought him in his life time under the Prophets affliction as he complains to our late Martyred Soveraign in his Epistle before his admirable Book against Fisher between the mouth that speaks wickedness and the tongue that sets forth deceit and slandered him as thick as if he were