Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	church_n	reveal_v	1,904	5	8.6375	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

and thy Fathers house so may I with evidence enough of truth answer you that it is not I but you and your Prophets that are excellent at that kind of Forgery you speak of if you will needs place an excellency in it you or they or both of you together in the inditing of this very Epistle have begotten I know not how many of those Bastard and hard-favoured Monsters you talk of and have layd them at my door But I shall remand them to those who have polluted their consciences with the malicious pleasure of their generation and cause them to bear the shame of them d The shame of staining paper with slanderous cavils is a covering fit for your faces it suiteth not with mine further then by a Christian Sympathy I bear the burthen and shame of your folly in this kind I wish that slanderous cavils were as much beneath you and your Prophets as they are beneath me e Truly you need not put this question to me For I freely confess that I do not know any of those learned men against whom I write who ever asserted the unchangeableness of Gods Love to Apostates or to persons of that Character which you further describe The opinions of those learned men whom I oppose or write against so far as I oppose them are obnoxious more then enough as expressed by themselves so that I have no temptation lying upon me to falsifie or corrupt them yet some of the learned men you speak of and particularly your Prophets about the City do assert the unchangeableness of Gods Love towards all true Beleevers many of which I have evinced both from the Scriptures by pregnant argument and demonstration by a full consort and harmony of Orthodox and learned men both ancient and modern yea by many Testimonies of those persons themselves who are counted pillars of the contrary Faith yea and lastly by experience it self may and do turn Apostates afterwards Book-sellers or Beacon-firers §. III. We have heard of some Arminians who never did read Calvin himself but were wont to read Calvins opinion in a Jesuite and take it for granted that their brother Jesuite was to be trusted We fear that you may be baptized into the same spirit of giddinesse a You put the poor Protestant in a Bear-skin and then set the dogs upon him that you may disport your self and your Confederates with that Tragick Comedy Give us leave to tell all your friends who beleeve as your Church beleeves That they who are false accusers of the brethren are sons of Belial b It is not Calvin but Mr. Goodwin who doth maintain the Apostacy of the Saints in his blasphemous Libels c It is no wonder if Such we shall remember the word Such Apostate Saints are inslaved in Journey-work to Apostate Angels d Be pleased to arm your selfe with patience whilest we tell you a story which runs thus in brief when your Brother Bertius gave his booke De Apostasia Sanctorum to King James the King passed this censure upon him This Heretick saith he deserves to be commended for his wit but hanged for his knavery e Mr. Goodwins Animadversion III. a I can deliver you or if you please you may I conceive with some pains deliver your selves from this fear concerning me For in my reading I never met with any of those citations from Calvin on which I insist in any of my writings in any Jesuit whatsoever and I beleeve that you may travel a long journey in reading these Authors before you meet with any of them You speak so many untruths and these fully known unto me for such in this letter that I know not how to beleeve you when you say We have heard of some Arminians who c. I much doubt whether ever you heard of any such or no especially from any Informer worthy credit I fear you pin your Faith upon the sleeves of many who after the manner of the false Prophets of old make you glad with lies You make the Arminian brother to the Jesuite but the kindred is much neerer between the Jesuite and the Black-Friars b Here again you only vary the phrase but pour out your High-Presbeterian spirits in the same shameless untruths with which you stained both your credits and consciences at once in the former Section You and your Rabbies to use a word of your own are they who put not Protestants only but many the dear children of God themselves into the Bears-skins you speak of and then do as you say As for me I do not remember that I anywhere make use of any Bears Skin but what I have pluck'd off from the backs of those whom I put into them Nor do I set the dogs upon any poor Protestant unless it be upon my self and those few friends by you termed Confederates which God hath given me against these I have exasperated and enraged you know who and how But neither I nor any of my Confederates as far as they are known to me are wont to disport our selves with any mans weakness or shame The truth in this point as in twenty others in your Letter is not at all beholding to you for your courtesie in sparing her You need neither crave leave nor take leave to tell my Friends that they who are false accusers of the Brethren are Sons of Belial they are instructed in this truth to your hand and by the light of it they are able fully to discern who and what manner of persons you are If your meaning be to reflect upon me as a false accuser of the Brethren you act like him who compasseth the Earth to and fro to draw men into the same condemnation with himself You will never be able to prove that I ever accused any man falsely much less a Brother Therefore consider in the fear of God whose Sons you make your selves by this charge Those who beleeve as the Church with me beleeveth beleeve as the Scriptures teacheth you and all other men to beleeve and this you may through the long suffering and bountifulness of God come to know in time although the truth is that you desperately obstruct your way to the knowledge of the truth by entreating those so unworthily who desire to make you partakers of this happiness with themselves But me thinks you of all men should not disparage men for beleeving as their Church beleeveth who suffer your Classique and Synodical Pastors to exercise what dominion over your Faith they please c If by my Libels you mean my little Books for other Libels of mine neither you nor I know any you commit the sin of Falsification in adjuncto in calling them blasphemous Nor need I at all be troubled for being charged with Blasphemy by the sons of High Presbitery for was not the Lord Jesus Christ himself Blessed for ever charged with the same crime by men of a sympathizing spirit Then the High Priest rent his clothes saying he hath spoken blasphemy What further need have we

knowledge of the truth but such who are babes or children in malice who are tractable and teachable and easie to be intreated by the truth though otherwise they be men in understanding d This is an untrue charge like unto many others in your Epistle I do not affirm or say that your Book was written by a Son of Belial but onely suggested that such a thing might possibly be and that you might be abused in it as well as my self e Whereas you seem to extenuate the crime of your falsification by saying because there was one little word SVCH omitted c. I confesse the word Such is no word great of bulk or body but it was the spirit and life of that sentence of which you make a dead corps by separating it from it and without which as specificating that assurance of the unchangeableness of Gods love of which I there speak determinately you represent me as speaking that which is further from my thoughts or sence then possibly from your own And for you to pretend that it is one little word omitted as if it were the lesse in consequence because it is little in bulk or quantity doth it not bewray your great inconsiderateness The words no and not are each of them somewhat lesse then Such yet he that shall leave them out of nine of the ten Commandments of God shall of so many holy and just Commandments of God make alike number of horrid suggestions of the Divel Besides the difference between Sibboleth and Shibboleth consisting onely in an aspiration which as Grammarians inform us is lesse then a letter is farre lesse then that between any assurance and any such assurance yet did it cost many thousand men their lives a But besides the little word SVCH you omit many others in your said Transcription viz. all these in the beginning of the period yea that which is yet more I verily beleeve which words have some considerable influence upon the sentence Yea the truth is had you put in all these and the little word SVCH too unlesse you had moreover interpreted my meaning in this word which you might and ought to have done from what I had said before and from what follows after you had not dealt Christianly or fairly in the transcription For to take a sentence out of the midst of a discourse the meaning and right understanding whereof depends upon what goeth before and what comes after is not to represent the mind or judgement of the Author in such a sentence but with ambiguity and with the greatest probability of mistake Therefore whereas in your words immediately following you go about to justifie your selves from the crime of falsification in any degree the very certain truth is that you are falsifiers in a very high degree f. g It is indeed a righteous Providence that I should accuse you of falsification I beleeve that God put it into my heart to do it for the manifesting of your unworthiness first privately unto your selves and then upon your obduration and impenitency unto the world But that I should do it upon the terms asserted by you is no Providence at all but a broad-faced untruth affirmed by you and such an affirmation from you is indeed to be admired For whether I be a falsifier or no which shall be put to the trial anon it is as certain as certainty it self and hath been already proved in the sight of the Sun and above all contradiction that you are falsifiers according to your charge Therefore not Joseph with his chastity but Josephs Mistresse with her wantonnesse is your parallel You lay claim to innocency as Saul did to obedience when the Prophet Samuel charged him notwithstanding with rebellion 1 Sam. 15. 20 23. And he that taught you to talk of admiring that which you expresse as a righteous Providence taught you to speak prophanely and not as men awfully sensible of the Majestique Holiness and power of God Book-sellers or Beacon-firers §. II. To the first of your three censures then We answer that when you relate the judgement of the reformed Churches concerning the unchangeablenesse of Gods love toward his regenerate Children a You your selfe are guilty of a most notorious falsification which your Letter tempts us b to call forgery because you forge a vile opinion and you are excellent at that kind of forgery c and then lay a bastard of your own begetting at the Churches doors and would perswade the most chast Protestants that they must father your own hard-favoured Monster Are not you ashamed to stain paper with such slanderous Cavils d Did any of those learned men against whom you write ever assert the unchangeablenesse of Gods love to Apostates to men that are never so desperately wicked and prophane in his sight though they continue never so long in their outragious wickednesse e Mr. Goodwins Animadversion II. a Here again you falsifie a fresh laying to my charge that which I know not no nor yet your selves you should have done well to have pointed at the place in my writings where I relate the judgement of the reformed Churches concerning the unchangeablenesse of Gods love towards his regenerate children For I do not remember that I have related the judgement of any of them all touching this head of Doctrine but onely of the reformed Churches of Saxony and this I relate in their own words p. 394. of my Redempt Redeemed In the same page I refer indeed the Reader to another Authour who hath made a collection of the sence and judgment of more of them whose relations and collections in this behalf if you can disprove you may do it if you please but if you discover any thing amisse in him which I presume you cannot you must have a conscience by your selves to lay it to my charge However it had been requisite for you upon such a charge as this to have directed me where I shall find the judgement of the reformed Churches in the point related in conformity to your sence and desire for I am far to seek in this that so I might have compared my report hereof with the said judgement declared and laid down by these Churches themselves For in case I should find that I had mis-reported it I should not consult your example for a justification of my error but the example of David which teacheth me to confesse my sin and to flee to the golden Altar of repentance for my sanctuary So that that most notorious falsification of which you would make me guilty is but another most notorious falsification of your own you can prove nothing of it against me b However I marvel you should say that my Letter tempts you to call it Forgery He that calls a spade a spade doth not tempt another to call an hatchet a spade c No Gentlemen as Elijah answered King Ahab who charged him with troubling Israel I have not saith the Prophet to him troubled Israel but thou

Lord Protector and the Parliament all this while wherein they have established no such Committee allowed men a liberty to blaspheme Jesus Christ or to corrupt his Gospel Therefore doubtlesse you do not understand your selves Nor can any man make sence and truth of your words with the least pertinency to your cause Nor do I well understand what you mean by Blaspheming Jesus Christ and yet lesse what you mean by corrupting his Gospel You and your Prophets have odd notions and conceits about Blasphemy Scarce any truth can be held forth which thwarteth or falleth foul on any of your tenents or Doctrines but this Antipathy by you is turned into Blasphemy And whether by corrupting the Gospel you mean the mingling of any errour though never so light or small with gospel truths or whether such a corrupting it which wholly destroies the nature and blessing intended unto men by it or whether a corrupting it to such or such a degree between these two extreams who can so much as steadily conjecture The truth is that I know very few who are greater corrupters of the Gospel then your greatest Champions When you say that all things are not free in a free Common-wealth do you speak to any purpose Or doth it follow from hence so much as by a dream of a consequence that therefore the Press ought not to be free because all things are not free Behold the natural face of your arguing in a glasse All things are not lawfull for men to do therefore eating when they are an hungry or drinking when they are thirsty are not lawfull b The three thirteenths you here point me unto I have already read at least thrice over respectively and have drawn conclusions from them to my full satisfaction against yours And if you please to see what conclusions I have drawn from them and what grounds I have laid upon which you also may draw the like I shall direct you to my respective arguings and explications of them The first of your three places you shall find examined by me at large in my treatise intituled Hagiomastix from 34. to the end of 41. Your second in a small discourse written upon that text of Scripture onely intituled a Postscript or Appendix to the former discourse Your third and last in the said discourse from the beginning of 45. to the end of 50. Between these Scriptures taken conjunctim and divisim and between your cause you will find a very cold Communion c Your Answer to my sixt reason is very little and yet to less purpose For 1. What do you mean by The Religion which the State owneth 2. What do you mean by the Christian Religion For this latter first The Religion owned and professed by Anti-Christian States is at least in a sence the Christian Religion Yea they have as much confidence if not more of the truth and soundnesse of their Religion as any Protestant State can have of the Religion owned and professed by them Secondly I would know what you mean by the Religion which the State owneth that so it may be considered not so much whether it be but how and how far and in what sence it may be called the Christian Religion First if by the State you mean either all those onely that have part in the Rule and Government of the Nation or else the great Body it self and Bulk of the Nation who can distinctly and in particular tell what Religion it is that is owned or that ever will be owned by either That Religion or that System of Tenents or confession of Faith which was composed and drawn up by the late Assembly of Divines and others at Westminster is not it seems owned or is not like long to be owned by the State in either acception of the word For the State in the former sence is in Travail with another Religion I mean another Confession or Profession of Faith which when they shall have assented unto and Authorized there is little question but the State in the latter sence will more generally own also If a man should repair to every particular member of the State in the former sence and much more in the latter and desire his sence and judgement distinctly touching his Religion and what he particularly holdeth in such and such points there is little question to be made but that in many things at least he should meet with the exemplification of the Proverb quot capita tot sensus quot homines tot sententiae as many men so many minds Yea in case the respective members of the State in the former sence shall joyntly and unanimously subscribe and Authorize any confession of the Faith which shall be formed either by themselves or by any number of Ministers or others this will amount to no proof that therefore the same Religion especially in all points is owned by them For it is a most true saying that Fides est in sensu non in verbis a mans faith consists in that which he meaneth not in the words which he speaketh And who knows not but the same words may have different interpretations and senses put upon them Therefore in case a State shall publiquely own and Authorize a model of Religion or Confession of Faith that shall be presented unto them I shall be very little the neerer hereby to know of what Religion this State is unless each particular member of this State shall further distinctly and particularly explain his sence touching every Article or head of Doctrine therein The truth is that to a State Religion it may be aptly said Belluae multorum es capitum nam quid sequar aut quem A many-headed Beast thou art for what or who May I with peace and safety for my Guide allow I confess men may be very unhappily and beyond the forecast of their own Genius inspired in the composing and drawing up a Catechism or Confession of Faith But I judg that hardly can either be formed or contrived in such words but that in case I may be allowed my own sence and construction of them I can subscribe them Book-Sellers or Beacon-Firers §. XIIII 7. To the seventh You do but repeat the Blasphemy which you darted against Heaven in your first Argument For we never desired the Parliament to suppress any truth revealed by the Spirit of God in the holy Scriptures but to suppress Blasphemies and Heresies a Mr. John Goodwins Animadversion XIIII a What Gentlemen suppose I had charged you with desiring the Parliament to suppress truths revealed by the spirit c. had this been blasphemy darted against Heaven Are you Heaven or any the Inhabitants thereof I cannot but here tell you that such importune and horrid assumings as these on the one hand and such abominable untruths and slanders one following in the neck of another like the waves of the Sea on the other hand are not so much as the way thither but to a far differing place For I know cause to

beleeve that I both am and have been further from charging you with desiring any such thing of the Parliament as that which you here mention then you are from desiring it I onely charge you with desiring that of the Parliament which very possibly may produce the great mischief you speak of viz. the suppression of truth revealed by the Spirit in the Scripture This charge I subscribe and own and have pleaded to it in part and am ready to plead further if you shall require it Book-Sellers or Beacon-Firers §. XV 8. To the Eighth You have been a Tryar these twenty years and you have cause to fear that you will be trying all things so long that you 'l hold fast nothing at last a You are now about sixty years of age and one of us remembring a Verse Dum quid sis dubitas jam potes esse nihil He that cryes all things and holds nothing fast Seems witty at the first prooves at last b Sir we have heard that a Seeker who had run through maemany Forms and Sects when he came to dye cryed out that he had been of all Religions and was now of none Lord saith he I have been seeking thee till I have lost my self O seek and find me now or I am lost for ever Mr. John Goodwins Animadversion §. XV a I confess I have been a Tryar of mens Doctrines and opinions for well nigh twice the number of years which you speak of Therefore here contrary to your wonted manner you undercharge me But my trying of all things as I am commanded by God whom I shall not disobey for your prophane jearings at me because of my obeying him is so far from being any snare or occasion unto me of holding fast nothing that without it I could hold fast nothing like a Christian nor indeed a sober man But you it seems and men of your spirit instead of trying all things as God commandeth you hold fast all things which your Teachers dictate unto you hand over head without trying any thing b You guess somewhat neer the years of my Earthly Pilgrimage I bless the God of Heaven with my whole heart and soul for sparing me so long in life and being on the Earth until I had throughly tryed many the Doctrines and Tenents of your Teachers and found them liars yea and had opportunity to stigmatize them for such publickly and to allarm the world concerning the hatefulnesse and danger of them The story you tell of your Seeker is extreamly insipid and sencelesse yea and irreligious with all For was there ever any man who lost himself by seeking God constantly There is a Letter in print intituled Sal Scyllâ written by one that had been a Seeker for many years out of which you may gather a story worth ten of that reported by you here For your Poetry 1. you see that I hold several things too fast for your stoutest champions to wrest from me Therefore you shoot this arrow at a wrong mark 2. To hold nothing fast and to hold fast nothing that will do a man good are birds much of a feather Booksellers or Beacon-firers §. XVI 9 To the 9th and the full scope of it in its numerous subjunctions We say you are like sin you take occasion by the Commandement to lust after that which is forbidden by the holy Law of God a If your reason be of any force it is of an Antinomian confederacy and spends its strength against the Holy Law of God as well as the good laws of men Vpon this account no law must be made against Theft Murther or Adultery lest all these notorious crimes be promoted by these non-prudential Laws As for spiritual means we joyn with them who say they are most proper to sanctifie all civil helps b and shall ever pray that God would make both effectual for the preventing or suppressing of Errors and Heresies lest the Plague of Egyptian darknesse overspread us We humbly conceive that Magistrates may do much in their places for the preventing of spiritual mischiefs by denying men of corrupt minds and injudicious about matters of Faith any such opportunity as you confesse the Presse affords them for the spreading of their hideous and cursed errors c Mr. Goodwins Animadversion XVI a I know not what you mean when you say that I take occasion by the Commandement to lust after that which is forbidden by the Holy Law of God But if you in no sence at all take the occasion you speak of you are of a better Mold and temper then the great Apostle was For he speaking of himself saith but Sin taking occasion by the Commandement wrought in me all manner of concupiscence for without the Law Sin was dead Rom. 7. 6. You reason not at all against my reason when you say if it be of any force it spends its strength against the Holy Law of God as well as the good Laws of men I think in this as you think it doth spend it self alike against both kinds of Laws i. e. against neither I confesse that my reason notwithstanding good Laws may be made by God and ought to be made by men And further when you say upon this account no Law must be made against Theft Murther c. lest these notorious crimes should be promoted by these non-prudential Laws I confesse that if 1. The onely end of making Laws were to restrein the evil prohibited by them And 2. If the generallity or far greater part of men were of the disposition and temper of some I mean of theirs who are apt to be provoked unto evil by means of the opposition or Barr of the Law prohibiting it it were better that no such Laws as you speak of were made But both these suppositions being evidently false your reasoning here falls to the ground And touching such persons against whom you desire your Law viz. those who are apt or likely to publish such things as you call Errors Blasphemies Heresies c. they are generally of that disposition and spirit which we lately described men I mean that are apt to be admonished and the more provoked to do the evil which you desire should be restreined by occasion of a Law made to oppose them One reason hereof among others may probably be because such persons will hardly ever be perswaded that any Law made to oppose them in such a way is just or Christian b It seems then you join with those who think and in effect say that all the means which the Lord Christ hath afforded or prescribed for the due government of his affairs and Kingdome in the world which are all spiritual are ineffectual or unproportionable for such an end and that he was short in his provisions and prescriptions in this kind not remembring to call in the civil Magistrate with his prudentials and arm of flesh to assist him If you be agreed with men of this notion you may walk together c Those whom you call

it is in Jesus we evidently discern that your judgments and consciences are smitten and blasted for you can beleeve and speak any thing without scruple or regret Whereas your composer calls my Intellectuals and phantasie the glory of my proud self I fear he took measure by his own foot when he made this shoe for me and according to our English Proverb mused as he used I remember what David speaking as some interpret in the Person of God saith to the wicked man Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self Psal. 50. Yet I make no question but that I am proud more then enough but whether you and your Teachers are not in part accessary unto it let others judge For I confess it is not much unlike but that I may have somewhat the better thoughts of my self because of your and their superlative unworthiness Notwithstanding all the ground and reason that you have either to think or call me proud is because I do not bow the knee of my judgment and conscience to the Idol dictates and conceits of men and more especially of your Teachers and this in the presence of that light of the contrary truth which God brightly shineth in the face of my Soul Notwithstanding what I am in humility I am by the Grace of God what I am in pride I am of and from my self If you would but arm your selves with the Apostles resolution rather to obey God then men and look for your credenda beyond your Teachers on Earth you would soon perceive me to be as far from pride as now you think me from humility But the best is I am counted and called proud by strangers and enemies only c If I have any phantastical Admirers which is more then I know I do by these presents resign all my interest in them and consign it over unto your Teachers d If by effectual and gross delusions you mean those importune and sensless opinions which you I fear against your own knowledge and conscience would compel us to own it is not God who smiteth our Intellectuals with them but the Devil by you smiteth our Names and reputations with them Or if by your effectual and gross delusions you mean those Gospel truths which God hath graciously revealed unto us and as yet hidden from you unless you see and will not see how is it that you tremble not to blaspheme these by the name of effectual and gross delusions You are admirers of the Justice of God much of the same kind with your grand Champion Doctor Kendal He also in an ecstasie of devotion much adores the Hand of God for infatuing my parts only because he finds the two words Consequent and Antecedent trans-placed in the Printing of my Book Ye he rejoyceth more impotently over the mistake then he that as David speaketh findeth great spoil Yea he makes as formal as grave as solemn a triumph for the discovery as if it were his master-piece and the first-born service he had performed in the composure of his whole Book or as if the interpretation of the strange Phaenomenon must needs be that God had in an extraordinary way given sentence from Heaven on his side by permitting either the Printer or the Author to shew themselves in so light an oversight to be men Notwithstanding this man is of the two more excuseable then you He makes his Mountain of a Mole-hill but you make yours of a plain But you that are such devout Admirers and Adorers of the Justice of God and Hand of Heaven where neither of them are to be seen are but negligent and loose observers of them in such providences where they are conspicuous and highly considerable If we were set upon the wondering pin with you we might much rather wonder that you take no notice of so many un-Christian and high misdemeanors as by notorious falsifications and untruths you have perpetrated in this one Epistle then that you should wonder that we take no notice of such delusions in our selves which are not to be found in us e For the story of your great Rabbi which your great Doctor brings in here obtorto collo by head and shoulders it seems it is but a Presbyterian here-say If you had seven more as wise stories as this to joyn with it I cannot imagine what service they would all do you Would they make you seem either more wise or more Orthodox or more Religious or else less unworthy less froward less cavilling less calumniating then yet you appear to be Or if your intent be to Theatrize me under the pleasant fiction of your Great Rabbi the conversion you speak of will not accommodate you with truth in respect of either of the tearms either those a quibus or those ad quos First for Cards there have now twenty one years passed over my head since my coming to the City of all this time I never spent so much as half a minute in the recreation and for ten years at least together next before my comming not a whit more In my younger days I confess I did pass some of my precious hours in the vanity yet without scandal or any observation of excess or inordinateness in my addiction or practise that way As for Sack-Possets counting from the first hour that ever I saw the light of the Sun I beleeve there are very few Ministers about the City of London though there be divers that have scarce lived half my days but have fish'd as often in those Ponds as I If I be brought upon the Stage by you as a man of a servile Appetite unto Sack-Possets I beleeve I never came there before upon any such account And for Errors and Heresies whereunto your story if it personates me pretends that I have been converted I confess I have been converted from Errors and Heresies truly so called unto Errors and Heresies by you so called that is unto the knowledge and acknowledgment of many worthy Truths into the secret of which your souls it seems as yet never entred which is the snare upon you to tearm them Errors and Heresies f For your sparing of me I could be content you should spare me less if less may be then you do upon condition you would not spare the Truth so much But if your handling me as you have done in your Epistle be your sparing me what would your inclemential and hard intreatings of me have been Therefore you give testimony against your selves by this saying that you are of that generation of men whose tender mercies are cruel and who are men of this generation you are informed most Authentiquely Prov. 12. 10. Book-sellers or Beacon-firers §. XXII From these Premises we conclude that we have justly accused you both of Blasphemy and Errour a and do by these Presents oblige our selves to make our charge good b before the Lord Protector and Parliament publickly and in print And therefore you may proceed after your weak manner to

this his affection towards him and consequently loveth him with the same love as great as rich as dear under all these horrible pollutions and most accursed abominations as he either would or could have loved him with in case he had all this while walked in the greatest innocency and uprightnesse of heart and life before him Now then this is that which I affirm that to attribute such an unchangeableness of love unto God as this which maketh him to love an obstinate and obdurate sinner a worker of all manner of abominations with the same affection wherewith he loveth a just holy and good man a worker of all righteousnesse is of a blasphemous import to those glorious Attributes of his his Righteousness and Holiness For if the case were thus with God should not the world have cause to demand with those in Malachy Where is the God of judgement a Or what is there or can there be of a more diametrical opposition unto righteousnesse then equally to respect and love the most unrighteous with those that are most righteous or unto Holiness then to honour those that are most polluted and abominable as much as those that are holy Nor can you here pretend that I wrong your Doctrine of Perseverance to the value of the least hair on your head by making it a Patronesse and Protectrix of such an unchangeablenesse of love in God as that now represented because evident it is that without such an unchangeableness supposed the said Doctrine will neither have footing nor foundation to support it For though you and others Patrons of this Doctrine understand your selves and be-friend your Doctrine better then to express or represent it unto the world in those black and dismal colours wherewith I have now drawn the pourtraicture of it or to describe the unchangeableness of love in God which must be the Basis and Pillar of it in such tearms as it hath been described by me yet there is nothing more pregnant and notorious then that your soft and silken and most tender expressions of it being regularly and according to the exigencie of truth interpreted and drawn out of these collusive involutions amount every whit to as much or more in deformity and A theologicalness of notion as any expressions used by me do import For certain it is nor do I remember that I ever met with a denial of it amongst the greatest Defenders of your Faith in the point of Perseverance that he that truly believeth may possibly fall and that within a very short time after this his believing into the greatest and foulest sins that the nature of man is lightly incident into as drunkenness adultery murther envy malice covetousness oppression idolatry c. yea and from the time of his first falling into them may continue and hold on in the practise of them for many years together yea possibly to the very approaches of death without repentance Onely you teach indeed but by humane not divine inspiration neither that such persons I mean once believers in case they fall into such sins as those now mentioned or the like yet never miscarry in the great businesse of Salvation but by an high hand of Grace from God are always brought back unto repentance before their death However upon the former supposition it clearly follows that your Doctrine of Perseverance cannot stand without the rotten prop of a Supposal of such an unchangeableness of love in God which is palpably and in the eye of a very ordinary understanding of an highly disparaging and blasphemous import to his Righteousness and Holiness In what sence the Scriptures hold forth an unchangeableness in God and so in all his Attributes and particularly in his Love I declare once and again upon occasion in my late Book of Redemption page 63 64. And again page 278 279. and page 205 206. c. Elsewhere as viz page 318 319. and p. 330. c. I demonstratively prove your Doctrine of Perseverance to be at open and manifest defiance also with another great Attribute of God his Wisdom Yea when I look narrowly into the purport and tendencies of this your Doctrine I cannot over-rule my thoughts but that they will be very jealous that it is accessary to far the greatest part of those abominations at this day raging amongst us Antinomianism Enthusiasm Familism of the dangerous and vile opinions and practises of those called Seekers and of those bred of the dregs and retriment of all these the Ranters and generally of all the coolings declinings backslidings and of all other foul and sad miscarriages amongst Professors Sir I have looked upon you as the glory of the London Ministery and do so still notwithstanding the contest of your judgment against mine about the Doctrine of Redemption and the questions relating hereunto Yet give him leave who is possibly looked upon by you as by many others as the reproach and shame of this Ministry to say this unto you that those two opinions the one of a peremptory personal Election from Eternity the other of a peremptory and necessitated perseverance of the Saints genuinely interpreted do upon the matter wholly dissolve the usefulness and necessity of your Ministry the former in relation to persons yet unconverted the latter in respect of Beleevers For first if there be a certain number of men peremptorily designed by God to Salvation all others as peremptorily excluded what need either the one or the other regard either your Ministry or any other mans The former shall be infallibly and irresistibly converted and so saved whether you or any man else preach the Gospel unto them or no If so Fortis ubi est Ajax where or what is the necessity of the greatest Preacher under Heaven in respect of them The latter notwithstanding all the possible relief that you by your Ministry can afford them will and must inevitably perish Yea all the good that you are capable of doing unto these by your Ministry is onely to help them deeper into Hell Secondly if those who already beleeve shall certainly and against all possible interveniences persevere in faith unto the end what if the Ministry of the Gospel and they were quite parted They should run no hazard of losing their Crown hereby This great Truth viz. that your Doctrine of Perseverance frustrates the Ministry in reference unto the Saints I prove at large and I suppose beyond all reasonable contradiction Page 301. 302. 339. c. of the book formerly mentioned Where also I tear in pieces the Fig-leaf of that pretence that the Ministry of the Gospel notwithstanding the perseverance of the Saints be supposed absolute and unfrustrable is yet a means for the effecting or procuring of it But Sir concerning the passage recited wherein you pretend to finde so much danger that you judge it necessary to arm your Friends with a Religious caveat against it I verily beleeve that there is scarce any Page in any of those books which either