exempt a man from the malignant calumnies of this Judge of the Churches When in one sentence he telleth you how much I have written against the Bishops and in another that I am in the same condemnation with him and yet in another that I dare look no truth in the face that bringeth suffering when he talks of one point that all Christians are agreed in and directly bringeth none And when he chargeth me with Atheistical arguing against the divine and self-evidencing authority of the Scripture and therefore to be Rejected of all as one of the worst sort of Hereticks that under the notion of being a Christian and a Protestant doth with his utmost industry and cunning labour to overthrow our foundation When I know of no one man living in this Age that hath written so much I say not so well for the things in question Scripture and Christianity as I have done May not this man as modestly charge Bishop Downame to be a Papist that hath written so much to prove the Pope to be Antichrist or say any thing else that he hath list to say 12. Doth he not fix upon you by such Libells as these an odious reproach As if he would perswade the world that you that he writeth to are so partial so blind so false to truth and to your own souls and such pernicious enemies to peace as that you will receive that which is thus falsly said to you without ever reading what is said on the other side or against all the evidence that contradicteth it and will believe all these visible untruths of his without any proof upon the bare report of so rash a man 13. Whether following such men and wayes as this is not the likeliest way in the world not only to increase the reproach of the Non-conformists and make them all thought of as we do of the Quakers and so to continue severities against them as a company of furious unsociable persons but also to harden men into a contempt of Religion it self 14. Doth not God permit such a Champion of the Cause of Division thus criminally to miscarry that you may see that you are not better than those you separate from You blame them for subscribing erroneously or falsly And which of them hath put thirty three and forty eight visible untruths deliberatly in print and Impenitently stands in them as your Champion hath done Doth not this shew you that you are not so good but that the Churches of godly Pastors are as worthy of your Communion as you are of theirs If one should admonish one of your Church-members of one single deliberate avowed lye would you not call him to Repentance And will you believe this man and follow him upon his bare word who hath published eighty such falshoods Yet I am not one that think he loveth a lye because it is a lye but one that is thus guilty through proud overvaluing his own unfurnished understanding and through an extraordinary Rashness and want of tenderness of Conscience You have heretofore had better Guides and you have better still I never met with two Ministers that approve his Libell nor any but Mr. Browne alone you have a more peaceable Rule And if you are Christians indeed you have a Peaceable Spirit and a Saviour who is the Prince of peace who hath prayed that all his Disciples may be one John 17. 21. and a God who is the God of peace Follow therefore the Wisdom that is both Pure and Peaceable and not that from beneath which is earthly sensual and devilish and worketh by envious zeal and strife unto confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. To Mr. EDWARD BAGSHAW BROTHER it is not a little troublesome to me and will be troublesome to many peaceable Readers both that these Writings should pass between us and that I should mention your faults so plainly as I do But as I began not with you so I know not how to let you talk on without betraying the peace of the Church the credit of the Non-conformists who are by your self obliged to disown you and the souls of the weak brethren for whom Christ dyed And I am constrained plainly to name your faults 1. Because truth consisteth in speaking of things as they are 2. And because my business is now to summon you to Repentance to which end the opening of your sin is necessary 3. And because these following Scriptures are my ground and your own word seem to me to charge it on me as my necessary duty upon dreadful penalties The Scriptures that I set before me are Lev. 19. 17. after mentioned Rom. 16 17. Mark them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them Jam. 3. 14 15 16 17. But if ye have bitter envying or zeal and strife in your hearts glory not and lye not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish For where envying zeal and strife is there is confusion and every evil work c. 1 Cor. 1. 10 11 12 13. 3. 1 2 3 4. John 17. 21 22. Rom. 14. 15. John 8. 44. When he speaketh a lye he speaketh of his own for he is a lyer and the Father of it Rev. 21. 8. All lyers shall have their part c. 22. 15. Whosoever loveth and maketh a lye Psal 15. 2 3. That speaketh the truth in his heart backbiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour 3 John 9 10. I wrote unto the Church but Diotrephes who loveth to have the preheminence among them receiveth us not wherefore if I come I will remember his deeds which he doth prating against us with malicious words And not content therewith neither doth he himself receive the brethren and forbiddeth them that would and casteth them out of the Church Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14. I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed For he withdrew and separated himself fearing them which were of the circumcision and the other Jews dissembled likewise with him insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation But when I saw that they walked not uprightly c. Tit. 3. 10 11. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject Your own doctrine is as followeth pag. 1. It will be a favour if you look upon me as one that neither desires nor if you believe what your self have writ deserves such expressions of your familiarity Pag. 2. I hope you are not to learn that every untruth is a lye Pag. 11 12. There being little difference in the sight of God between the persecuting of brethren our selves and by not sharply reproving it seeming to approve of it in others And I hope you will say as much against approveing your own sin as other mens Pag. 14. All are commanded to turn aside from them A Church which
on these terms I shall consider of your words and help you better to understand your self Sect. 1. E. B. It will be a favour if I look on you as one that desireth not any such expressions of familiarity as to be called Brother Reply You may suppress your own Charity but not mine you may call me what you please but I will call you what I think my duty requireth me to do As Optatus initio tells the Donatist My warrant is ubi supra Lev. 19. 17. 1 Cor. 5. 11. If any man that is called a Brother be a Railer And 2 Thess 3. 14 15. If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a Brother But it is the Spirit or tendency of your Doctrine and principles to renounce fraternity with all of Christs Church that are not liker to your self than I am Pag. 2. You tell me that I shew how much I am for a middle way neither hot nor cold for a luke warm and neutral indifferency Reply I take your warming in good part I daily beg of God that the decays of my natural spirits and fervour by frigid age and weakness may not abate the true fervour of my soul much less any abatement of the estimation of holy Truth the search of which hath been the unwearied business the almost uninterrupted pleasure of my life And specially that my love to God and Heaven and Holiness may not decay which alas was wofully cold and little at the best But I confess to you that I am for a middle way between fury and stupidity pride and baseness superstition and profaness the love of Anarchy and Tyranny and many such like pernicious extreams And you remember me of the folly of my youthful ignorance in which I presently suspected any man of tepidity and carnal indifferency who wrote for reconciliation of Contenders and for a middle Conciliatory way such as about Arminianism Pet. Molinaeus Vsher Vossius Davenant Hall Preston Fenner Crocius Martinius Camero c. and so in other points O Lord forgive the sins of my ignorant unexperienced age Sect. 2. E B. I hope you are not to learn that every untruth is a lye R. E. I suppose your citation of John 1. 62. 2. 21. is mis-printed for 1 John 1. 6. 2 21. The first of which saith If we say that we have no fellowship with him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth The other saith that No lie is of the truth But do either of these say that every untruth is a lie Is it not enough to hold 1. That every designed untruth which is positively voluntary is a lie 2. And that every rash and carelesly uttered untruth which is privatively voluntary that is where the will omitteth its Office is a lie Sure brother these many will be heavy enough upon you you need not contend by false doctrine for any more And supposing that you are not to learn how singular you are in this assertion is it any sign of your humility to think that so few Divines before you who so little avoid it did know what a Lie is If I had called you a wise a calm a sober and charitable man when I had no evidence of the contrary how can you prove that this had been a lie You tell us anon that Prophets Nathan Samuel and good men have been mistaken And did those Prophets lie You deny not that your Brother Powel was mistaken And yet you would not have it said that he lied Let this go therefore for your first false doctrine when you say that every untruth is a lie Sect. 3. E. B p. 2. You are not afraid to dethrone the Scripture from being a perfect Rule Par. 1. p. 99. 100 101. R. B. Though all untruth be not a lye I cannot say that this is none I have no such word or sense I maintain the Scripture to be a perfect Rule so far as it is a Rule But so far as it is no Rule it is no perfect Rule I do there maintain that it is not a particular Rule for a Watchmaker a Carpenter a Physicion a Mathematician a Musicion c. to do their work by nor what Metre or Tune to sing a Psalm in and such like but only a General Rule for these And because you charge this on me as my error if I can understand you this is your second false doctrine implyed that Scripture is a particular Rule for the things which I there exclude And a third false doctrine implyed that if it were not so it were not a perfect Rule For your words have no sense which I can discern if this be not the sense of them Whosoever denyeth the Scripture to be a particular Rule for the things instanced by R. B. p. 99 100 101. doth dethrone the Scripture from being a perfect Rule But so doth R. B. Ergo your Major includeth the two fore-mentioned false doctrines Sect. 4. E. B. The whole design of your Book was to make your Brethren that have not your latitude and cannot reach the subtilty of your distinctions odiâ—us c. R. B. Here is a former falshood justified and doubled or increased 1. It is false that this was any design of my Book 2. But that it was the whole design what man of Sobriety that ever read it could imagine 3. Yea and that these brethren that I designed to make odious were such as have not my latitude and cannot reach the subtilty of my distinctions Sect. 5. E. B. Many hundreds of sober impartial and unbyassed persons have carefully read your Book as well as my self and they all make the same judgement of it R. B. I will not number this with your bare falshoods Whether many hundreds have told you their judgement of it who have read it I know not But contradictories cannot be true on both parts It is a slander therefore of so many hundred such persons which you utter For if they were indeed sober impartial unbyassed persons and carefully read the Book it is scarce or not at all possible but indeed a contradiction that they should judge it the whole design to make my brethren odious that cannot reach the subtilty of my distinctions Sect. 6. E. B. p. 3. You call separation a crying sin nay the crying sin and you scruple not to insinuate that all the judgements which in this Nation we do either feel or fear were to be charged on separation as the principal procuring cause R. B. Here is your third falshood in matter of fact There is not a word in the places nor any where else in all my Writings if I know what I have written that chargeth all this on separation as the principal procuring cause But the contrary in the comparison is oft and plainly asserted and greater
wonder if others do it by slandering them and perswading all to separate from them And if they say Rom. 3. 7. If the Truth of God hath more abounded through my Lye unto his Glory why yet am I also judged as a sinner But God and Truth may be better served by Truth But falshood must by falshood be upheld But Sir my Reputation is at your service for an honester use but seeing it was but for the destruction of Christian Love and Peace that you designed to make a stepping-stone of it try whether you be not slipt beside it into the dirt Sect. 77. E. B. I thought it my duty to reprove you and to see your sin and error herein in order before you R. B. I have much more sin than you are aware of which all such invitations do call me to renew my sorrow for and vigilancy against But when I once take the Principles of Christian Love and Vnity for sin and the principles and practice of Enmity and Division for my duty I shall then avoid sin as sinfully and lamentably as many in this age have done Sect. 78. E. B. If you will still go on and under pretence of writing for Love do what you can to keep up a mixed disorderly persecuting and imperfect Church-State leaveing us no hope nor possibility of reformation R. B. 1. This is another implyed Untruth that I keep up a persecuting Church-State when I have written so much more than you against it yea that I do what I can to do it as if you thought that we can do no more evil than we do and our power were as small to sin as you make it to be to good But you will find at last that separating from Churches for mixture and imperfection and such disorder as we have now in question and to cloak this with slandering the honest Conforming Ministers with Persecution who lament it in others and never practise it though I am not one that take them to be blameless this will prove a greater hinderance to Reformation than a sober peaceable Christian conversation will be 2. And thus unskilful builders do pull down Did our Separations and Church-divisions these six and twenty years last past promote our Reformation Wonderful That men can yet take that for the reforming way which hath destroyed Reformation and brought us into all the confusions we are in Will all this experience teach us nothing I will cease wondering at the words Luke 16. 31. If they hear not Moses and the Prophets neither will they be perswaded though one rose from the dead And do you not know how your erronious reasonings and practices do occasion men even to scorn at your talk of Reformation and if we did not disown you and renounce your errors and mis-doings the Non-conformists were like to be exposed to common derision for your sake and accounted a sort of men at enmity with sobriety and peace and multitudes were like to be hardened by you into greater evils and enmities than I will name And can any ignorant Mountebanks more mortally and perniciously practise Physick than you thus practise the Reformation of the Churches Which are wounded and torn by such Reformers Sect. 79. E. B. My miscalling you Learned Judicious Mortified is indeed the only untruth which you can justly charge me with R. B. Alas Sir is that sin such a jesting matter Will you end as you begun When you said you had done will you not have done writing untruths When you have no other matter for Vntruths will you make this another to say that no one of thirty three which I named to you can be justly charged on you Ask any sober impartial man who hath read your Book and mine whether you have cleared your self of any one of them or spoken any thing that is considerable and probable to such a purpose Sect. 80. R. B. 23. Mr. Bagshaw having done begins again to call me to recant unseemly abuses of Mr. Brown and one that a Book prefaced by him is written of And he reciteth both their Letters As to Mrs. Letter I give her this account of my thoughts of her and the Book that 's written of her 1. That I make no doubt but all the holy truth which she hath learned all the mortification of sin and reformation of life all the faith in Christ and Love to God and holiness which is in her are the true fruits of the Spirit of God and he is a wretched person that will ascribe these to Melancholy 2. And I doubt not but in a Melancholy distemper as Satan findeth his advantage for some special temptations so God can make his advantage to further the sanctification of such a soul 3. But he that giveth me that Book to read and would have me ignorant that Melancholy had a great hand in her fastings temptations and several conceits there mentioned and this after my experience of multitudes in the like condition yea when I am still wearied out with the Cases of such from time to time doth put an utter impossibility upon me For if my Ignorance herein would gratifie such it is not in my power to be ignorant when I will But I can bear with it in others Therefore her words If this be the effect of Melancholy go on an untrue supposition I have told you what were the effects And her sorrow that I am found deriding the effects she mentioneth is the effect of worse than Melancholly as being founded in her untruth Next this Woman accuseth me with all these following untruths 1. That Brother Browne was the Author of that Book Answ Not a true word I only said that it was published by him as uncontrolled fame affirmed but not that he was the Author I can find no such word in my writings If you can tell me where And doth not his Epistle before it shew that he was one of the Publishers 2. That I was suddenly moved to go hear Mr. Baxter Answ False again I only said was suddenly moved to go into the Church that is As she was passing by in the street not knowing who Preached 3. That ought of his Sermon had any impression upon me which I could not attend to because I was so terrified with the words of the Text Rom. 6. 21. Answ False again I have no such words that ought of my Sermon had any impression on her but only of the Time that before the Sermon was done she oould hardly forbear crying out 4. That I went away resolved upon a holy life Answ Another mistake I said only she went home a changed person Resolved that is did resolve for a holy life That she went home changed she denyeth not for her terrours were some change That she Resolved for a holy life her self and her Book profess But whether as soon as she went home or how many dayes after I never undertook to tell But how could she be Converted without resolving
to a member of the Church to be subject to the Pope Reader Is not this man uncharitable that will neither give us his leave to use our old words nor teach us better but intimate that we speak nonsense and he can speak better if he would We have hitherto been used to call a Governed Church a Political Society as distinct from a meer concourse or community of Christians And why not if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if God hath prepared for them a City whose God he is not ashamed to be called Heb. 11. 16. And if it be well said Phil. 1. 27. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if our Political conversations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be in Heaven why may not a Church at least such a one as the Pope doth claim be called a Political body or society Or at least why may not the Pope be said to lay such a claim We have been used to call that Government Spiritual which is done by the Word and Church Keyes and consequently the Governours Spiritual And why must this be non-sense now We have been used to call that Governour a Constitutive Head without whom the society is not essentiated in specie as a King in a Kingdom O unkind Teacher that will leave us all in this ignorance and not vouchsafe one word to help us out Sect. 72. E. B. And do not think to excuse your self from writing Non-sense by saying you meant a thing objectively and not subjectively R. B. Nay then I despair of scaping non-sense If the Object and the Subject must needs be all one and if sense in the Book or argument and sense or reason in the Reader be all one I am not the first that was deceived No nor if it be all one to say You understand not the sense or reason of my argument and you have no sense or reason But new Lords new Laws Sect. 73. E. B. And do not make Philosophy ridiculous as you do when you tell us That our acts of knowing exterior things are as Philosophers affirm objectively organicall though not efficiently and formally Sir I am sure no wise man talks thus and if Philosophers do its time we left them c. R. B. When you once begin to say you are sure and no wise man is against you I begin to think you talk more ignorantly than when you seem to doubt I will not prophane a point so little understood by you and so much scorned as to dispute it with you Enjoy your ignorance and scorn Sect. 74. E. B. Lastly When truth is to be examined and the nature of a thing strictly to be considered do not argue against it from some ill consequence as what you desperately urge against the Scriptures being a perfect Rule which foundation of faith and practice you labour to overthrow by tragically infisting on the consequences that will follow Sir this in the end will be found perfect folly and madness therefore leave it in time lest the Lord reprove you and you be found a lyar R. B. 1. Alas That your Pen could write the last word without the more prevalent rebuke of your Conscience After so many Untruths yea and when in the same paragraph you are renewing the same sin in saying I deny the Scripture to be a perfect Rule when I still say It is a perfect Rule so far as it is a Rule 2. If you intend sense and truth your argument must run thus He that saith the Scripture is not a particular Rule commanding the thing in particular but only a General Rule for the Metre and Tunes of Psalms for the dividing of it self into Chapters and Verses for the hour and place of meetings for the choice of a Text to preach on and words and method of Sermon and Prayer for the naming or determining the Person that shall be a Pastor for the form of Pulpits Tables Cups c. yea for the making of a Clock or Watch or Hour-glass to measure the time by or for building the House to preach in c. He that saith these are not determined of particularly in Scripture but only under the General Rule of doing all things to Gods Glory to Edification decently and in order c. this man doth deny Scripture to be a perfect Rule and laboureth to overthrow the foundation of faith and practice and proveing what he saith by the ill consequences that else will follow will in the end be found in perfect folly and madness reproved by God and found a lyar But such a one is R. B. Therefore c. Reader if this be sound doctrine if after all Gods warnings of the danger of Levity and Ignorant pride thou canst yet receive such errors and revilings as a defence of the foundation thy case also is to be lamented 3. When Def. par 1. pag. 98 c. I had fully described the opinion which I rejected and had given in fifteen reasons against it what doth this easie confident Disputer but instead of offering an answer to any one of them calls it perfect folly and madness so to confute it by ill consequences Doth this disputing satisfie any sober enquirer after truth Doth he not reproach his followers in the eye of the world about him while he thus openly seemeth to expect that they will rest in such reasonings or replyes as these And really if we prove against the Papists that though they directly deny not Christ and his Office yet that such Consequents will follow upon divers of their errors will this man that talketh so much of Antichristianism say that it is perfect folly and madness to charge such consequents upon them If I prove that any opinion doth consequentially deny God or the souls immortality or subvert all our faith do I deserve no better an answer than that this is my perfect folly and madness and I shall be proved a lyar What need is there of learning reason sobriety or modesty to enable any man to dispute and seem Orthodox at this rate Sect. 75. E. B. You may see by this brief taste how easie it is for me to defend my self R. B. O wonderful blinding power of self-conceit Sect. 76. E. B. p. 21. It is not a lessening of your Reputation that I mainly aim at much less at the advancing of my own upon the ruine of yours But I thought the truth of Christ worth my vindicating And when I saw that your name did stand in the way of it The whole design of this Letter is as to others to perswade all to look upon you not only as a fallible but a mistaken man R. B. I have long ago done wondering that such men as you can deliberately choose and use such means when once they have dared to intitle God and his Glory to their false doctrines For what is it that they will not think lawful to do for God and Truth If some serve him by killing his servants no