up Sion but by bloud or to serve Religion but by sanguinary persecution for the Nation to establish Religion is a kinde of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an improper speaking Here you begin your game to play on both hands you say no such matter and yet you justifie it you seem to be very angry and yet you seem not to be in earnest when you thus make sport with the word all which might as well have been by me left out and your charge had been as full without it When I said all establishment I meant not as you might well think all both Humane and Divine but my intent was to note that you mislike the establishment even of that Religion which you do now like well and profess The Door must be left open lest any Truth be in danger to be shut out though some errours in the mean time enter that so the growth of Christians be not hindered as you said euen now When the Supreme power of any Nation establisheth Religion in that Nation this is National establishment and if it be the true Religion then doth God nationally estabish it What you mean by Gods establishment of the true Religion in a Nation I know not unless it be a libertie for every one to beleeve and profess as he will without restraint But this is an improper speaking indeed 1 to call this the true Religion which is schisme and 2 to call it establishment which unsettleth all things and introduceth a licentious wildness Endeavouring onely by instruction conference and other spiritual weapons to convince and further one another in the truth and keep out errour Your cousel comes too late after that it hath for many years been weighed and tried and found too light upon the scales and too pernicious to the Church of God and his true Religion nationally established Experience hath taught us by what we have seen how much good is like still to be done by the edge of spiritual weapons onely there is little hope of silencing such persons as have a facultie of a maladie called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multum loquaces dicentes nihil that say nothing and yet cannot hold their peace The Devils scholars are like himself who being twice repulsed by our Saviour set on him the third time and would not leave him yet till he was commanded away and bid be gone by way of Authority To dispute with an obstinate heretick keeps him in breath and exercise and the falls that he takes upon the ground do but help to recover his strength Think you the German Anabaptists would have been charmed with instructions and conquered with your conferences it is true some few of them might and were so therefore it is good to use both kinde of weapons not the spiritual onely as you advise When the Apostle Paul gave order to Titus that the hereticks mouths should be stopped chap. 1. v. 2. he meant not by conviction of argument onely it should be done and endless discourse but by suspension and censure therefore in the third chapter ver 10. They must have but a first and second Admonition no more and then be rejected And in a Christian State if the censure spiritual be not backed and seconded by the temporal arm the wanton and profane ones of the world will count it but as stubble and the shaking of this spear contemptible If this be the onely way you can think of to keep out errour I pray keep this your errour to your self Under pretence of establishing Religion to compell all men to beleeve or profess and practise the same things whether God hath revealed it to them or not and for not doing so though otherwise sober pious and peaceable the persecuting and punishing them and pressing and binding burthens of humane ceremonies and traditions and so exercising a lordly Domination in the Church of God is such beastly doing under pretence of Church-power that I pray God enlighten all mens eyes to see the mistake and mischief of it As for the case of compulsion in matters of faith you know though you be content that others should understand it otherwise before whom you declaim against settling of Religion that the Question among us is not about compelling strangers Jews Turks or Americans to a new belief but of compelling people to conform to their own laws agreed upon Every mans consent is involved in every Law that is made so that a Law being enacted for the uniformity of Religion if any man suffers he suffers not injuriously but by his own consent Clergy-men especially whose consent is more express than any other mens is Tertullian is often alledged as speaking against constraint in Religion but it is there where he pleads the Christians case against the Ethnicks in his Apologetick and to Scapula But in the Church no man more servent for Discipline than he is and where he deals against hereticks as in his Scorpiaco or Antidote against the Gnosticks where his words are these cap. 2. Ad officium hereticos compelli non inlici dignum est duritia vincenda est non suadenda that is It is fit that hereticks should be compelled not allured to do what they should do and being obstinate they are not to be perswaed but subdued Though otherwise sober pious and peaceable This is as much as if you should say quite contrary to what our Saviour saith Matth. 7.15 Take no heed of false teachers let them alone do not hinder them nor molest them though they be ravening wolves so they come to you in sheeps clothing Your qualities of Sober Pious Peaceable in outward shew and further we cannot judge are the sheeps clothing under which Sectaries are wont to shroud themselves that they may infect others before they be discerned What Tertullus called Paul Act. 24.5 a Pestilence is true enough in Thes◠though misapplyed to Paul every Seducer is a very Pest and therefore to be looked to that he spreads not his contagion And another may come and plead for Homicides Traytours false Coiners of money that are otherwise pious and peaceable as well as you plead for Seducers But by the providence of God all mens eyes that will see are opened to see the mischief of them That passage of my deprecating all nationall establishment of Religion perhaps was one of those passages that in a letter to me he cryed peccavi in and therefore I forgive it for as Seneca says Quem poenitet peccasse penè est innocens He that repents that he hath done amiss A faultless man almost he is There was very little likelihood that this should be one of the passages I meant and I said no more of you then than you now say of your self nor so much He is ill advised that chooseth you for his Confessor who are so ready to cry it out when he cryes Peccavi for me resolved I am never to put either wine or ought else that is worth ought into that vessel that I
end of the controversie to be the surest which now they load with unworthy mockings and reproaches And if They were so then were their Teachers so likewise because it was for want of better companie that they changed no sooner Secondly because a verie great proportion of the Churches Christian heretofore and lately hath in the main and leading parts of the controversie gone that way which these now forsake and would perswade the world to follow them For the days of old let Ger. Vossius speak never suspected for a partiarie while he wrote his Historie unlelss it were for their side After all his search the brief of all he gives in is this De Histor Lat. in Cassiano Celeberrimi quique occidentalis Ecclesiae Doctores sequebantur Augustinum Prosperum Nec enim sudicio meo B. Augustinus prioribus Patribus repugnat sed quod de Praedestinatione priores ferè Patres praeteribant hoc addit Atque ubi illi de Gratia incautiùs essent locuti hoc explicat that is The most famous and most renowned Doctours that were in the Western Churches followed Augustine and Prosper neither in my judgement was S. Augustine contrarie to those Fathers that went before him but that which they omitted about Predestination he added and that which they uttered somewhat negligently and unwarily he explained It is true that Poelenburgh in confutation of Hornbeks eighth chapter Sum. Controv. produceth Vossius to the contrarie lib 6. Th. 8. testifying that all the Greek and Latine Fathers before Augustine held that those were predestinate who God foresaw would live well but he left out what follows because it made clearly against him Verùm intellexere praescientiam eorum quae homo esset facturus ex viribus Gratiae tum praevenientis tum subsequentis eóque antiquitatis ille consensus nihil vel Pelagianos vel Scmipelagianos juvat They understood the foreknowledge of what they would do by the strength of Grace their consent therefore nothing avails either Pelagians or Semipelagians For late ages Popish Schoolmen are generally for the upper way it is communis sententia against Massa corrupt'a as the object so witnesseth Estius in Epist p. 112. Yea the Remonstrants who were not of that opinion do testifie Apol. p. 63. There is no doubt to be made but the Popish Doctours and most of the Schoolmen were Patrons of that opinion For which their opinion Calvin wrote against them in divers places I name these Instit 3.23 § 2. Neque tamen commentum ingerimus absolutae potentiae quòd sicuti Profanum cst it à meritò detestabile nobis esse debet In Isai c. 23. v. 9. Commentumillud de absolut a potentia Dei quod Scholastici invexerunt execranda blasphemia est Opusc p. 1006. Commentum de absoluta Dei potentia detestabile est quia ab aeterna Dci supientia justitia separari non debeat potestas I shall thank you therefore if you can help me to understand the meaning of Hist Qu. part 1. pag. 38. where the doctrine of the Supralapsarians is said to be first broach'd by Calvin Surely those Papists could not follow him in that for which he reprehended them who were long before him And the Council of Trent goes no further than to forbid men to presume themselves to be of the number of the predestinate not denying the Decree but onely affirming it to be secret and hidden unless by special Revelation In Popish countreys ea opinio maximè viget saith the Preface to Castellio's pieces And if these opinions be so odious and pernicious what think you might be the reason why the Pope could be brought no sooner to declare against them And if a great partie of Papists do still hold them it is a great probability they are true because it concerns their advantage and worldly gain that they should not be true For what freedom of Grace doth gain that merit of works doth loose and merit it is that bringeth in their profit The learned Dr. J. by his Publisher was entituled The Divine with these two restrictions of his Rank and of his Age I may add a third of his partie and then his testimonie is without exception Pag. 3712. If as good a scholar as Bellarmine would take the pains to examine his opinion as strictly as he hath done Calvins touching reprobation it would quickly appear to be for qualitic the very same if not worse And the Church of England teacheth the Doctrine of Predestination yet knew it to be A dangerous downfall to carnal minds Artic. 17. I am not speaking now of the Truth or of the certaintie of these matters nor at this time perswading any man to be of this judgement touching these opinions whether they be certain or no or whether they be true or no this is certain they are probable to be true and that may be enougn to perswade men not to reproach them though they beleeve them not Prudentibus faith Sidonius cordicitùs insitum est vitare fortuita Wisemen use to be deeply rooted in this principle not to run a great hazzard or capital adventure upon any thing that is dubious and uncertain Good men out of a principle of conscience toward God will not engage against their Sovereign Prince and bad men if they be not too bad and forsaken of God dare not partake with them that are given to change because of the wrath of man foreseen as possible though against common expectation and because of that which vicissitude or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the turn of a present state and and posture may bring upon them The opinions furthermore which your Reader must be directed where he shall finde them made so odious besides the Authority of a most considerable part of Christians receive some probability from Gods dealing in this present world his ways being not like ours nor his thoughts like our thoughts therefore are his works rightly counted wonderfull Was there ever found any man who was well satisfied and contented with what God hath done and doeth upon earth unless it were by laying to heart that it was his doing I speak not now of Cato or Socrates but of David Solomon and Jeremy How many things come to pass contrary to mans wisdome yea which is more to our present purpose contrary to mans goodness that is to say the goodness that is in man and the goodness ness that ought to be in man And if there be so much left in this world to our admiration it is possible yea it is likely there is much more in the other Hic est fidei summus gradus saith Luther de servo arbitrio credere illum esse clementem qui tam paucos salvat tam multos damnat This is the highest degree of faith to beleeve that God is mercifull who yet condemneth so many and saveth so few And if we give allowance to our reason to come up so far as to keep even pace with our faith we may perhaps a
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
more then you here tell them you would make beleeve leeve thus speaking that it is merely arbitrary no way limited or regulated But you cannot be so ignorant as not to know thus much that none are punished for non-conformity to the Bishops will What penaltie any man suffereth is for not observing the Laws of the land and the Canons of the Church which Laws and Canons are not made but by such persons as are assembled by vertue of the Kings Writ nor are they taken notice of unless they be approved by the Royal assent Here therefore you either speak unadvisedly or else against the Kings Authoritie in matters Ecclesiastical Impositions of forms If forms be lawfull as I am sure they are imposition cannot make them unlawfull What you may do of your own libertie you may do likewise when you are enjoyned to do it Unless as some place holiness in observing mens precepts you place holiness in breaking of them He may see that the Apostles practises in not imposing in things indifferent yea decreeing against the practise of such as could not practise without offence as Acts 15.28 29. be observed First The Apostles did impose in things indifferent Eating meats offered to idols was lawfull in it self or indifferent else S. Paul would not have taught and resolved the Corinthians that they might buy them and eat them without question as Gods creatures with thanksgiving provided that they did not eat them formally or religiously with conscience of the idol yet the Apostle by a decree commanded to abstain from them but I pray observe well in what manner that was done for that decree was 1 Temporary lasting but for a time and 2 Local not Universal or all the Christian world over but concerning onely the Church of Antioch and the Churches depending on it where many of the Jews had their abode Secondly Other things which they found indifferent so they left them though they did not decree the practise of them they did not decree against the practise of them as you say they did Thirdly It is a very vain imagination of yours that the Apostles had such regard to them that could not practise without offence those things that were imposed and that therefore they would impose onely things necessary The particulars excepted Abstinence from fornication were necessary how not in themselves but for the peace of the Church at that time It was thought requisite to compose and settle some differences and prevent some offences by enjoyning forbearance froâ— some few things for a while Those whom you call Dissatisfied in Conscience and persons of different apprehensions may be such as the Apostle calleth Ignorant If any man be ignorant that is wilfully ignorant when sufficient care hath been taken for his information let him be ignorant and such he calleth contentious and if any man be contentious the Custome much more the Law of the Church is enough to silence him And he faith further Mark them which cause divisions and offences Never would there be any order or constitution of a Church but mere confusion if nothing must be decreed to be practised that cannot without offence be practised by those that are ready to cause divisions and offences He may send forth his Princes to teach the truth as Jehoshaphat did with some Levites yea and preach it himself as David and Solomon did if thereto fitted c. You have drawn a kinde of vail over three severall places or parts of this your picture the vail of c. I will not attempt any where to strike it lest I be served as Zeuxis was in Pliny when he hastened upon the stage to look what it was that might be underneath the curtain that his Antagonist had painted Yet would I gladly know whether within this last any such thing as CALLING be couched or no for my part I think it is contained under Fitness and that no man is fitted to officiate in publick that is not called and that there is Ecclesiastical Idoneitie as well as Moral and the one requisite in a preacher as well as the other But if I guess aright by your words you are not of that minde but think with some others that walk disorderly that Abilities Competencie of knowledge Boldness Volubilitie of language and what else there is of that kinde without an outward Call do sufficiently furnish any man to be a publick preacher But the examples you bring are no proofs Jehoshaphat sent out preachers ad docendum that the people might be taught and with them he sent Priests and Levites who taught the people 2 Chron. 17.9 The Princes did and spake what was proper to them and the Priests and Levites likewise did their part and theirs was to Teach Deut. 33.10 They the tribe of Levi shall teach Jacob thy judgements and Israel thy law And as the case was at that time when the people were to be reclaimed and brought back to the God of their fathers had the Priests and Levites gone forth alone without civil Authoritie directive coercive and coactive they might probably have been mocked and contemned as the messengers were that Hezekiah sent to give warning of keeping the Pass-over Yea preach it himself as Ddvid and Solomon did David and Solomon were Kings but with-all they were Prophets extraordinarily inspired Pen-men of holy Scripture and may all Kings be preachers because Solomon was so If you have done the supreme Christian Magistrate any injurie in what you have now written here if it be compensation you make it in giving him more than is his own or than of right belongeth to him Artic the 37 of the Church of England We give not our Princes the ministring of Gods word To which Article rather than you will conform you choose to give countenance to the slanders of the Papists and so far as you can to make them good Calvinistis in Angliamulier quadam est summus Pontifex so said Bellarmine during the Queens reign and we are quit with them now for the story of the woman Pope which they tell us of so cried Sancta clara And to that purpose you seem to close with the Anabaptists teaching that gifts do fit for ministerial duties without any other door of entrance extending this libertie particularly and expresly to Kings and Princes The leaven of which doctrine if it be encouraged may attempt Magistracie as well as Ministerie that every one may take upon him the office of ruling and judging that is thereto fitted When John the Baptist refused to baptize our Saviour Jesus Christ who was without all comparison more excellent than himself our Saviour willed him to forbear and not to insist upon the worthiness or unworthiness of their persons but to do at that time what was decent and behovefull to be done and to fulfill all righteousness namely of good order and of that vocation which each of them had taken upon him to perform answering his reason to this effect as if he had