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
But what maketh you think I commend all the Answers in your Catechisme that I passed by and did not mention I pray do not abuse your self and me so far as to imagine it But that I should commend this Answer that contains the same Errour and falshood that the other did because I took it not in among them is the most idle fancie that could come into your head Sect. 4. The humblest souls are usually best at seeing Even as there be many poor despised illiterate men that see more into Christ and heaven than many proud ministers scholars and Universitie men that swell with conceits of their science and despise them He that will beleeve readily what you say take it upon your word though it be weak and unsound shall have the commendation of an humble Christian Papists are brought to think that when they renounce their own understanding and blindfold follow their guides it is a high act of humilitie and you would have it thought that all they who question what you deliver do swell with pride and self conceit and a high opinion of their own knowledge But as worldly want doth not always make men humble nor penury starve pride according to what Solomon saith in the twelfth of the Proverbs There is that honoureth himself and lacketh bread and as Gregory in his Pastoral enlargeth the observation Plerumque personarum ordinem permutat qualitas morum ut dives humilis sit pauper elatus that is Mens qualities and demeanours for the most part run quite a cross their estates and degrees the richer sort being in their carriage low and gentle while the poor are stiff and loftie So there be many ignorant and illiterate people that are intolerably proud undervaluing disdainfully all knowledge and knowing men and on the other side there are many men as eminent and as much above others in humilitie as they are in learning and parts and promotion You tell us somewhere who bred the Quakers but who is most like to do it who talketh most like them their name is new but their manner S. Jerom thus taxeth to Marcella Crassam rusticitatem pro sanctitate habent quasâ—â—dcirco sancti sint si nihil scierint Down-right rudeness they count is holiness as if because they knew nothing they must be therefore more holy than others are There be some lay-men whom perhaps you may think to gain upon and to gain to you while you complie with them and joyn with them in reproaching the Clergie But as love that is caused by undue means doth not long continue but is unstable and fastidious like fishes saith Plutarch that being taken with medicated baits are unwholsome and nothing worth So when you have pleased some ill-disposed people in reviling their Ministers your example hath taught them to do the like by your self as well as others and of this you have had experience But after that conference came abroad wherein G. W. produced your self against your self reading out of your book the testimonie you gave against the Ministers although you reasonably well shifted off one of the particulars from your self at that time yet I thought you might have been more warie of your words afterwards but I finde it otherwise One of the badges you there bestow upon your brethren is That they are more mindfull of the fleece than the flock Whether it be true or false that you said it was verie rashly spoken of you because it is a hard matter for you to know what others minde and what they minde most But do you well know what you meant by the fleece If you meant not the fleece of the flock it is scarce tolerable sense and if you did it is a manifest falshood and injurie For in England the maintenance of the Clergy is theirs by the same law by which any man holdeth what he hath and enjoyeth And is your understanding so extremely superficial as to think it is theirs who pay it and not theirs who take it or that the Laws of the Land should enforce any man to give away that which is his own to another though never so much against his will Another may come and out-go you but in your own way and bewail the iniquitie of the times that creditours should fleece their debters so as daily they do when they take what is due to them and complain of the Nobility and Gentrie of the land for fleecing their Tenants twice a year It may be you are troubled with an noise you have heard of some Minister that is compelled to sue at Law some of his neighbours for taking away some of the fleece from his back hazarding the loss of all the rest for being so litigious But whether he be more troubled and more grieved at his own loss and charge or at the dishonestie of the people that put him to it That you know not and till you do know you are bound in civilitie and charitie to think the best But you proceed further in this vein I remember my reverend Tutour M. Henry Hall of Trinitie Colledge once said to us his pupils We sit here speaking of the Universitie-fellows poring on our books and filling our selves with notions or to that purpose when the poor countrey-men or Ministers run away with the true and heavenly understanding With your good leave I should think that he did not speak of persons absent which had been to little purpose but as he spake to his pupils so he spake of them too who might be so disposed as to need such caution and advice or howsoever it was good that they should know that sanctifying grace is not attained always nor onely by learning and studie and it is good likewise for all men whatsoever to know that it is sooner and more probably attained by knowledge and reading than by lasiness and ignorance But why do you not speak against other vocations and employments as well as against that of scholars and learned men It is their profession to pore on books if you will needs call it so and fill their heads with notions it is their particular calling and it sets them never the further off from Religion nor out of the way to the general calling of Christianitie Why will you not let every one abide in his calling according to the Apostles appointment Why do you not speak aginst manufactures and merchandizing against navigation against building and rigging of ships against rearing fair houses and providing costly furniture Why not against keeping Courts and surveying lands for a poor countrey-man that never busied himself about any of these matters may run away with the true understanding But howsoever the world goes you must have your years minde of flinging at Universities and Philosophy and humane learning without any colour of good reason but not without a great suspicion of an ill intent For suppose that these things were merely secular and worldly nevertheless to the pure all things are pure and we may use
the world and all things therein so we abuse them not but all Arts and sciences may be and they are serviceable to the true Religion and the worship of the onely true God provided that they do not over-rule but be kept in good order and subjection If you would refuse to joyn with those that will prove man hath Free-will to good out of Aristotles Ethicks or with those that conclude a Christian is justified by doing just actions out of the principles of moral Philosophy it were commendably done of you But when you take delight and a small occasion to inveigh against these peculiar and appointed places where nature and natural faculties are polished and perfected by accession of art and studie for the better service of God in the State and in the Church and when to maintain the sufficiency of Scripture-doctrine for preaching the Gospel against the incroachment of Philosophie you bring such arguments as will hold as much against lips and lungs as against Logick and Metaphysicks This is no good humour of yours and it may be a very bad one And in you especially it is the more absurd and incongruous who promote the New Light That the works of Creation preach the Doctrine of the Gospel yea who say Essay pag. 14. The works of God are true preachers of God but the force of their voice is taken off by many of these Ministers that run without Gods message You that speak so much of the open school that is in the creatures praising Gods name and declaring his glorie and goodness do but destroy what you build in girding thus at schools of learning For Arts and Sciences and the studie of them do serve for lectures or for commentaries upon the great book of the world Who can search out and contemplate the influences and motions of the heavenly bodies Who can set forth the Historie of Plants Stones Metals Meteors Fishes Birds and Beasts and the works of the six-days-Creation but such men as have their education in places dedicated to learning and studie You talk of a School that God hath opened and you do what you can to seal up the doors of it One thing I must tell you further that the greatest enemies that Christians ever had most opposed and sought to hinder Christian schools and the most pestilent hereticks that have arisen since the Reformation have most of all declaimed against Scholastical and Academical knowledge And you will never perswade indifferent persons to beleeve any otherwise but that you speak against learning and learned men to this end that your errours and abuses that you put upon the people may not be discovered for always among the blinde he that is half-sighted is king I am sure many lay-men that cannot read Latine could see the faults of M. H. arguings when both himself and if I may credit reports divers Universitiemen were not so good at seeing them overmuch light makes some men almost if not altogether blinde If want of Latine be a good help to see by it may be this was the designe of the new method to make experiment in curing by contraries and to put out our lights the better to clear up our ey-sight It is verie well that you have declared your self in your seventh chapter against Impositions of Opinions I may therefore freely dissent from you in this matter and I will give you some reason There is difference betwixt the light of the Sun and that light which enlightens the minde because the sensitive power and the organ of the bodie are but weak and narrow and if there be an undue application or proportion of outward light all will be spoiled But humane understanding after Gods image being of vast capacitie or comprehension there is no fear that the intellectual light which is so sparingly dispensed in this life whether by acquisition or infusion should oppress or any way corrupt the facultie of the minde How it fares with you I know not but as for others in all ages the more they have waded into the abyss of knowledge the more they have confessed their own ignorance This light doth discover darkness but that it should cause any or make some men blinde is a blinde and blundering conceit of your own And now we will return to the particular controversie of this chapter Sect. 6. You will not grant that the Sun did shine upon Adam after he was fallen as it did before or if it did yet it spake not the same language because it spake God kinde to sinners which it could not do before man sinned It is pitie to interrupt you in these your deep speculations Go on I pray to prove that when you turn homeward the winde blows not as it did and that the Sun doth not shine alike upon the dial but speaks a new language everie hour of the day with plentie of the like never heretofore thought reasonable or credible He brings the saying of the scoffers to confirm his assertion and justifies the truth of it when the Apostle tells us that saying proceeded out of their wilfull ignorance and minds them that since the creation of the world all things did not continue alike for God overflowed the creation with a floud Thus did the impostours argue If the world hath lasted for so many ages then it will always last But it hath lasted for so many ages Therefore it will always last Now the Apostle doth not denie the Assumption or second proposition but directs his answer to the Connexion as if he had said thus It is too great ignorance to think the world must always continue because it hath continued so long for know they not that God is the Lord of nature know they not that he made this earth as standing and emergent out of the waters and that after so many years the waters were let loose upon it and wasted it The course of nature therefore doth not abide constant and unmoved but the power of God countermands it at his own will 2 Pet. 3.7 The heavens and the earth which now are by the same word are kept in store the Apostle confuteth them not from the change or alteration that was upon the floud but from the word or power of God that caused the floud The same hand or power or word that drowned the world shall when time cometh put an end to it by fire So that when the scoffers said All things continue alike from the first creation it was true as they meant it namely of a continued course of the heavenly motions and of the seasons of the year winter and summer day and night These and the like abide as they were at the first notwithstanding the deluge according to Gods promise Gen. 8. The earth had long ere S. Peters time out-worn the floud and the Psalmist saith as much psal 119.91 They continue this day according to thine ordinances Sect. 7. Evident it is they preach God mercifull to sinners as well as just