these In the mean time Sr You may do well to Consider who began the Fray and how much easier 't is to begin one than to end it Next you proceed to some grave Advice commended to our Acceptation from the Test of much and so much Experience of your own and that in effect is not to conclude difference in Doctrine from different Terms Orders or Methods of Expression digesting of Conceptions c. and withall give us timely notice you are resolved to the utmost of your skill and opportunity to 〈◊〉 them that think a different name or method is a different Doctrine And 't is a very Charitable undertakeing where ever such sad creatures can be found who know not the Some Thing may be express'd in Different Names or Languages But I pray Sr let 's fall a little closer to our Business speak in good sadness would you not have your friends with the Glib swallow conclude upon this Admonition that all the Difference betwixt you and me or others of the same judgement in the point of Justification is meerly Verbal nothing but a strife about Words and Forms of Expression and that in the Maine we are agreed 'T is clear enough I think you would But not so fast Sr my weak legs cannot hear your company at this rate What Perfect Contradictionâ— no more than a Difference in words Faith alone and no Faith alone Faith with and without works one and the same thing Excuse our dulness here I see it is not for nothing that to an Objection against your Doctrine as Popist you return this Heroique Answer FRIGHTEN NOT ME WITH THE NAME OF PAPIST when I speak the Truth It seems you would be taken for a stout Protestant and so you are All no doubt in the Point before Us is a meer Logomachy with which no Man of Mettle ought now to be frighted though Our White-liver'd Progenitors in the Reformed Churches durst not take the note so high Sr you have taught me to guess What Answer you would return to This which very likely would be to this effect What would you have me frighted from owning a Truth because a Papist owns it too Then I must not believe there is a God or a Jesus c. and so on for two or three pages together * Pref. p. 52. Is this Doctrine fit for an Academical Doctor and a Master of a literate society And having run on a while so pertinently and withall so modestly then wo to some Sr most if not all the Differences betwixt Us and the Romish Church were ever held with your good leave by as wise and learned Protestants as ever you or I are like to be for more than Triflings of words and above all in the Article of Justification which you seem to place amongst your Logomachies or Logicall notions Let any discerning Reader compare the 48. Sect. of this Preface with the words in p. 5. of your Appeal to the Light and 't is likely he will concurr with me let him be never so Aiery in that Melancholy Phantasm or Fear For 't is worth the noting how in that dark Appeal where you distinguish of Popish points i. e. some where the Difference is irreconcileable others in effect but in words We have no direction upon which Rank we must bestow Justification nothing of it at all from you Name or Thing But why next to the allseeing God you should know best your self Sr pile one Distinction or Evasion upon another as long as you please as many severall Faiths and works and Justifications as you can name all this will never make the two Poles meet your Doctrine I mean of Justification with that of the Reformed Churches But seeing you are so busie in turning Our greatest Controversies with the Papists c. into a childish Contest of words to undeceive some of your Readers who dream of no harm from such a Name as yours but in the simplicity of their hearts go along wherever you lead them we must give it a little farther Examination And a little will serve the turn Words Sr as they are enfranchis'd into Language are but the Agents and Factors of Things for which they continually negotiate with our minds conveighing errands upon all occasions from one soul to another Whence it follows that their Vse and signification is unalterable but by the stamp of the like publick Vsage and Imposition from whence at first they receiv'd their being and therefore if I may here accommodate the holy phrase of no private Interpretation What all others call a Tree you must not call a Stone and pretend the difference is but in a name or Words For although the same thing may be sufficiently represented by different words 't is only when they are synonymous and agreeing in sense It cannot be otherwise no more than a Stone can be represented to the eye by the Image of a Tree Now as keeping close to tâ—is common Usage of words is necessary in all affairs of humane life 't is so especially in the concerns of Faith and Religion 'T is not sure for nothing that Paul advis'd Timothy to hold fast the FORME of sound words non solùm quoad substantiam sed 2. Tim. 1. 13. quoad ipsam orationis figuram saith Calvin For as the wise and learned Melanchton has minded Praefat. in Luth. Op. Tom. â— us well Amissâ verborum proprietate quae rerum notae sunt alias confingi res necesse est That is when once we lay aside the propriety of words which are the notes or Symbols of things We pass undoubtedly to the minting of new Things themselves The old Primitive Doctors and Churches were sufficiently aware of this and therefore would not dispense with the Intrusion of one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 much less of one novel word in any Article or head of Faith where Custome and the Vsage of the Church had authoriz'd another And this they did upon the great and cogent reason Melanchton gave us but now vz. because they were not to learn that such as thought with the Church would be content to speak as she did and that the Contrary Practice never boded good to the Vnity Peace and Doctrine betrusted to her care Of which I think we of this Age have had Instances enough amongst our selves to our cost so that to return your kindness It is not the part of a Good man to set â— 7. Churches by the Ears together and to make Our silly Credulous Admirers believe that the Vast gulph which was ever fix'd between Us and the severall branded Corrupters of the Truth is now so neer upon the close that if a man do but goe back a little to take his feeze he may easily jump over it Nor is it the part of a wise Teacher to think himself that Men are agreed where every eye may see them dealing blowes and Deaths about As for the Difference of Method Ordering Digesting and expressing our Conceptions of
are to be expected your selfe have taught us in remarkeaable words I like them so well that I hope the Reader will not think them unworthy my transcribing If say you you have a Friend that errs whose recovery you desire be sure you write not a Confutation Disput 5. of Right to sacraments p. 481. 482. of his Errours for ordinarily that 's the way to fasten them in him and to make him worse Some will think this is a hard Censure to pass upon learned Godly Men. But there 's no reasoning against Common unquestionable Experience Of all the Cartloads of Controversial writings that swarm in the world how many can you name that convinc'd the Antagonist and brought him to a Recantation And anon Assoon as you speak to men in the hearing of the World they presently apprehend their Reputation to be so engaged that they are excited to defend it with all their might and instead of an impartial Consideration of your Arguments and a ready Entertainment of the Truth they bend their Wits to study how to make good what once they deliver'd THAT THE WORLD MAY NOT THINKE THEM SO WEAKE AS TO HAVE MISTAKEN Nay they who doe PROFESS TO LOVE THE TRUTH as Truth yet this SELFE is so near them and so potent with them c. Words full of truth with the sad experience of all Ages to confirm them and you that have given us the Adviso have a particular obligation to observe them punctually for your selfe upon all occasions But Sr to deal plainly and Christianly with you 'T is not only my own fear but of divers knowing persons who pretend at least to be your very Friends and to have a fair Respect for your Parts and sincerity that you fall too near the reach of the description you here give of others I have a particular reason to fear it A great Outcry you have made of Me as chargeing you with things you have retracted which if true I hope is no inexcusable crime on my part for I 'm sure it will amount to no more than a fault of unwillfull Ignorance I knew not it was my duty to read all the books your fruitfull pen has brought into the world much less to look for Retractations where I had no Encouragement to Expect nor any Inscription of your numerous Treatises hinted the least promise of so noble a self-denial and let me assure you I have not been negligent in my Enquiries of those that might know better than my self what you have retracted All I have met with profess to be as ignorant as my self of this Your very late Preface to the Discourse of the two Covenants shews us little of Retractation And to come closer to you if I have wrong'd you in this matter as you allwaies charge me what 's the reason you have not hitherto directed us to the particulars of your Recantation what when where but throw a general roving Accusation against me without offer of proof You direct me indeed to a small Book above twenty years ago as you say retracted Preface to the two disput of Orig. Sin p. 44. I suppose you mean your Aphorisms the most scholar-like and elaborate though erroneous Book in Controversy you ever compos'd excepting it's numerous Oracular Dictates and thence Appeal especially to your Disputations about Justification and some others But truly Sr I cannot trudge up and down to every place you would send me my legs at present are too weak Had you a mind to satisfy your Reader what would it have cost you to save him a labour with one point of your finger to the particular places All I can pick up of any seeming Retractation where I have happen'd to be is that you some where say after your wary deliberate manner that works are necessary AT LEAST to the Continuation of Our justification But Sr AT LEAST sounds no alteration of Judgement but an Haesitation or suspension at most nor have you me for your Antagonist in that sano sensu in the known Reformed notion Our Question Sr with your good leave disguise and darken it as you please is not what is necessary to the justified Person or to the continuance of his Justification but what to the primary Justification it's self in which if you disclaim your Works the Controversy will shrink into a narrow point and then you may in time be oblig'd to unravell all your entangled Threds of Justification again come to the Penance of speaking as your Neighbours doe Only you cannot blame me if I wish you would goe about your farther explanations to some better purpose than hitherto you have done that you would not raise clamours of being grosly misreported by me for I doubt all the gross Misreports will come to some other door at last that you would make good your smooth suffestion that such Teachers as oppose you think that Agreeing Men in P. 7. these points are not agreed In short that in a few plain undisguis'd words you would let us know where We are agreed and where not and deliver your Reader from the Jealousy you have rais'd that there is no such Agreement So that if the fear be just and true He may not be surpriz'd if false he may give it over Si verus Ne opprimar sin falsus ut tandem aliquando timere desinam Cic. in Catil I have done with your first Attacque and proceed to the next in your CATHOLIQUE THEOLOGY fol. 255. There it seems you are pleas'd again not only to arraign and condemn me for my Doctrine but to put me also in the Cubb with divers mean and contemptible Malefactours such as wild Saltmarsh P. Hobson and the Marrow of modern Divinity whose Author out of great kindness no doubt to some body you industriously tell us in the margin is reported to have been an honest Barber a note which many think you might have spar'd as well as any that ever traded so busily in Controversies of Religion Thus you think fit to mark out my poor name to Posterity But good Sr one word with you before we goe off from this suggestion so full of Truth and Civility Had you no other names in your memory had you not many scores of greatest Eminence and repute in the Christian World of the same Judgement with me that you could find no better Fellowes for me then such as these Know you not I speak the same thing with all the Reformed Churches where they have occasion and generally with all the Old Reformed Writers This sure would be too gross an Imputation of Ignorance to a Person of your Parts Fame Industry and Reading Do you know it Then you have made me Reparation enough by joining me in that very scandalous Reflexion with such numerous Worthies as those For shame let it be no longer Dr. Tully Saltmarsh c. But the Church of England with all the rest of the Reformed and their severall old renown'd Writers these be your
A LETTER TO Mr RICHARD BAXTER Occasioned by several injurious Reflexions of His upon a Treatise entituled Justificatio Paulina For the better Information of his weake or Credulous Readers By THOMAS TVLLY D. D. Prov. 18. 17. He that is first in his own Cause seemeth Just but his neighbour cometh and SEARCHETH Him OXFORD Printed by Hen. Hall for John Wilmot Ann. D. 1675. Mr BAXTER I have latelie from three several publicke messengers of yours the later treading still upon the heels of the former received your expected Salutations all of them much resembling Ahimaaz both for the swiftness of their pace and that they had nothing to say when 2. Sam. 18. 19. they came The two first indeed approached me as if they had a mind to lye Incognito's for they took up their lodgings where none would enquire for them the one in a little corner of a Preface to Mr Danvers the other in the wide open field of your Catholicke Theologie where yet he stood plac'd so cunningly that a man might traverse about three parts of that large Champian before he could gaine the Satisfaction to see him Your 3d. is of a freer Conversation Preface to two Disput about Orig. Sin and though He brought the face of warr with him and seem'd to threaten much yet I found him civil and good natur'd and he went off fairely without doing any harme In your Preface to Mr. Danvers I am beholding to you for the trouble you have sav'd me of transcribing that very little I have of your new Original Sin vz Vnum vero praetereundum non censeo c. p. 2. only I beg your leave to English it for the sake of your un-latine Readers and thus it sounds One thing I judge ought not to be wav'd which is a novelty amongst the newest though it may seem a little more remote from the Argument before Vs that the Prefacer I know not by what fortunate Mercury has found Vs another Original Sin of a much later Date then that which claims from Adam O blind Divines who ever went before This is my charge and the whole of it to a word which I intreat the Reader for his better satisfaction to keep carefully in his mind Now Sr that I doe not praevaricate or misreport you in a syllable your Selfe I doubt not will be my Compurgator in your PREFACE to a Treatise of another mans concerning the nature Ends and Difference of the two Covenants Your words are these most writers if not most Christians doe greatly darken the sacred Doctrine by over-looking the Interest of children in the Actions of their neerer Parents and thinke they participate of no Guilt and suffer for NO ORIGINAL SIN but ADAMS ONLY Any that is not blind and understands the langauge may see I fasten upon the last clause alone the new Original SIN I meddle with no other INTERESTS of Children this is the All of my charge A new or as you pleasantly call it a SECONDARY Original Sin that is a secondary first of All. Now let us compare your Answer which in the same Preface is clearly to this effect that I charge you only for holding some guilt of children in their neerer Parents sins For although in the close of that period you shuffle in your secondary Original Sin that comes in but by the By not as any words of mine but as an Ex abundanti a private whisper of your own where it would not by All be so easily minded as any Part much less as the whole of my Charge I appeale now to your selfe whether this was done as a faire ingenuous Antagonist or to use your own words as an Impartial Friend of sacred Dedic before the Pref of Orig. Sin Truth who is above the Dominion of Carnal Interest faction and false prejudice and is cur'd of the malady of praesidence hasty Judging c. Will any unbyass'd Reader think you have done me right here and not rather be tempted to beleive you sought a Quarrel you should have prov'd that some before your selfe had own'd another Original Sin and that under the very terms for I doe not desire you should give your self the trouble to make any Consequences for my use instead of which you present me with some Interest of children in their Parents Sins which neither I nor any Body Else I know off denies as to the thing though as to the Extent and other circumstances all are not agreed and you may in that enjoy your Opinion for me Sr Austin has a sharp rebuke for him qui verba supprimit quaestionis and bidds us have an eye to him but I forbeare You goe on there to tell your Reader I would hope not to expose my Ignorance I know not your new Original Sin was Austins judgment and many other antient and modern writers wherein you have done me but right for indeed I did not know it and despaire I ever shall but more of that anon You might have spar'd your objecting the Litany against me with i'ts flourish that I am less for it then you which is another peece of newes to me I admire the mystery so much the more for the notable proofe you have annexed to perswade me and others to beleive it viz because you pray heartily Remember not Lord our offences c. Good Sr what would you have me to subsume I can find nothing but this hard chapter that I am not so happy as to pray so heartily c. Ergo you are more for the Litany then I. Who will be able to stand before you if you fight with such weapons as these I have heard of some weake or unquiet men whose fancies or ferments have found in this passage of the Litany a way to Purgatory but never any till now that discovered by it the Nova Atlantis of a new Original Sin Why was I not as well attaqu'd with the second Commandment what need of going any farther In the close of the same * To Mr Danvers Preface you promise us fuller satisfaction to both these points Justification by works and the Secondary Original Sin Truly Sr I crave your pardon if I thinke your fullest Satisfaction would be a full entire Retractation of both of the latter as you give it the new stamp of another Original Sin farther I am not engag'd at present against it 'T is a pity but those good words of yours should be turn'd into Real Actions where you profess Appeal to the Light p. 4. your readiness to buy the Truth at a dearer Rate then the Recantation of your Error O for more Austins more Exemplars of that admirable modesty which enamell'd all the Gold in his other excellent writings more of that generous Love to sacred Truth which should make us lay all our poor concerns and reputations at it's feet and value one Euge of a good Conscience above all the shouts and acclamations of a Triumph But alas Sr how faintly such heroicke selfe-abasements