Pre-determination 3. Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are meerly verbal and if they were anatomized would appear to be no more Of which sort are far more I speak it confidently upon certain knowledge that now make a great noise in the world and tear the Church then almost any of the eager contenders that ever I spoke with do seem to discern or are like to believe 4. Lay not too much on any point of faith which was disowned of or unknown to the whole Church of Christ in any age since the Scriptures were delivered us 5. Much less should you lay too much on those which any of the more pure or judicious ages were wholly ignorant of 6. And least of all should you lay too much on any point which no one age since the Apostles did ever receive but all commonly hold the contrary For to make such an error which all the Church held to be such as is damning were to unchurch all the Church of Christ and to make it such as must exclude them from our Communion 1. Doth make the whole Church excommunicable which is absurd 2. And doth shew that iâ— we had lived in that age you would it seems have separated from the whole Church To give an instance of the difference among errors That any elect person shall fall away totally and finally is a palpable condemned error of dangerous consequence But that there are some justified ones not elect that shall fall away and perish is an errour of a lower nature which may not break the Communion of Christians For otherwise we must renounce Communion with the Catholike Church in Augustines daies and much more before as is said before What then Shall I take this therefore for a truth which the Church then held some will think me immodest to say No as if I were wiser then all the Church and that in so learned an age if not for so many But yet I must be so immodest as long as Scripture seemeth to me to warrant it Why might not Augustine Prosper and all the rest mistake in such a thing as that But then I am not so immodest nor unchristian as to unchurch all the Church on that account Nor would I have separated from Austin and all the Church if I had then lived Nor will do now from any man on that account Both sides will be displeased with this resolution one that I suppose all the Church to err and our selves to be in the right and the other that I take it for no greater an error but what remedy it will it must be so Read Prospers Respad Capit. Gall. and you may quickly know both Austins mind and his He that shall live to that happy time when God will heal his broken Churches shall see all this that I am now pleading for reduced to practice and this moderation take place of the new dividing zeal and Scripture-sufficiency take place and all mens Confessions and Comments to be valued only as subservient helps and not to be the test of Church-Communion any further then they are exactly the same with Scripture And till the healing Age come we cannot expect that healing truths be entertained because there are not healing spirits in the Leaders of the Church But when the work is to be done the workmen will be fitted for it and blessed will be the agents of so glorious a work But because the Love of Unity and Verity Peace and Purity must be conjunctly manifested we must avoid the extreams both in Doctrine and Communion The extreams in Doctrine are on one side by Innovating Additions on the other side by envying or hindring the progress of the light The former is the most dangerous of which men are guilty these waies 1. By making new points of faith or duty 2. By making those points to be fundamental or necessary to salvation that are not so 3. By pretending of Prophetical and other obscurer passages of the Scriptures that they have a greater objective Evidence and we a greater certainty of their meaning then indeed is so As I have met with some so confident of their right understanding of the Revelation which Calvin durst not expound and profest he understood it not that they have framed part of their Confessions or Articles of faith out of it and grounded the weightyest actions of their lives upon their exposition and could confidently tell in our late changes and differences which side was in the right and which in the wrong and all from the Revelation and thence would fetch such arguments as would carry all if you would but grant the soundness of their expositions but if you put them to prove that you marr'd all And these corruptions of sacred Doctrine by their Additions are of two sorts some that are the first Inventers and others that are the propagators and maintainers and these when Additions grow old do commonly maintain them under the notion of antient verities and oppose the antient verities under the notion of Novelty as is before said The other extream about Doctrine is by hindring the progress of knowledge and this is commonly on pretence of avoiding the Innovating extream It must be considered therefore how far we may grow and not be culpable Innovaters And 1. Our Knowledge must increase extensively ad plura we must know more verities then we knew before though we may not feign more There is much of Scripture that will remain unknown to us when we have done our best Though we shall find out no more Articles of faith which must be explicitly believed by all that will be saved yet we may find out the sense of more particular Texts and several Doctrinal Truths not contrary to the former but such as befriend them and are connexed with them And we may find out more the Order of Truths and how they are placed in respect to one another and so see more of the true method of Theologie then we did which will give us a very great light into the matter it self and its consectaries 2. Our knowledge also must grow subâ—ectively intensively and in the manner as well as in the matter of it And this is our principal growth to be sought after To know the same great and necessary truths with a sounder and clearer knâ—wledge then we did which is done 1. By getting strong Evidence and Reasons in stead of the weak ones which we trusted to before for many young ones receive Truths on some unsound grounds 2. By multiplying our Evidence and Reasons for the same truth 3. By a clearer and deeper apprehension of the same Evidence and Reasons which before we had but superficially received For one that is strong in knowledge seeth the same truth as in the clear light which the weak do see but as in the twi light To all this must be added also the fuller Improvement of the Truth received to its ends I shall give you the summe of my meaning in
attestante veritate primas salutationes in foro primos recubitus in coenis primas cathedras in conventibus quaerunt qui susceptum curae pastoralis officium ministrare digne tanto magis nequeunt quanto ad hujus humilitatis magisterium ex sola elatione pervenernat ipsa quippe in Magisterio lingua confunditur quando aliud discitur aliud docetur Hactenus Gregorius ipse nimis magnus But I have stood longer upon this sin then is proportionable to the rest of my work I shall be the shorter in the confession of some of the rest SECT III. 2. ANother sin the Ministers of England and much more of many other Churches are sadly guilty of is An undervaluing the Unity and Peace of the whole Church Though I scarce ever met with any that will not speak for Unity and Peace or at least that will expresly speak against it yet is it not common to meet with those that are addicted to promote it but too commonly do we find men averse to it and jealous of it if not themselves the instruments of division The Papists have so long abused the name of the Catholike Church that in opposition to them many do either put it out of their Creeds or only fill up a room with the name while they understand not or consider not the nature of the thing or think it enough to believe that there is such a Body though they behave not themselves as sensible members of it If the Papists will Idolize the Church shall we therefore deny it disregard it or divide it It is a great and common sin through the Christian world to take up Religion in a way of faction and instead of a love and tender care of the Universal Church to confine that love and respect to a party Not but that we must prefer in our estimation and Communion the purer parts before the impure and refuse to participate with any in their sins but the most infirm and diseased part should be compassionated and assisted to our utmost power and communion must be held as far as is lawful and nowhere avoided but upon the urgency of necessity As we must love those of our neighbourhood that have the plague or leprosie and afford them all the relief we can and acknowledge all our just relations to them and communicate to them though we may not have local Communion with them and in other diseases which are not so infectious we may be the more with them for their help by how much the more they need it Of the multitude that say they are of the Catholike Church it is too rare to meet with men of a Catholike Spirit Men have not an Universal consideration of and respect to the whole Church but look upon their own party as if it were the whole If there be some called Lutherans some Calvinists some among these of subordinate divisions and so of other parties among us most of them will pray hard for the prosperity of their party and rejoyce and give thanks accordingly when it goes well with them but if any other party suffer they little regard it as if it were no loss at all to the Church If it be the smallest parcel that possesseth not many Nations no nor Cities on earth they are ready to carry it as if they were the whole Church and as if it went well with the Church when it gots well with them We cry down the Pope as Antichrist for including the Church in the Romish pale and no doubt but it is an abominable schism But alas how many do imitate them too far while we reprove them And as they foist the word Roman into their Creed and turn the Catholike Church into the Roman Catholike Church as if there were no other Catholikes and the Church were of no larger extent so is it with many others as to their several parties Some will have it to be the Lutheran Catholike Church and some the Reformed Catholike Church as if it were all reformed some the Anabaptist Catholike Church and so of some others And if they differ not among themselves they are little troubled at differing from others though it be from almost all the Christian world The Peace of their party they take for the Peace of the Church No wonder therefore if they carry it no further How rare is it to meet with a man that smarteth or bleedeth with the Churches wounds or sensibly taketh them to heart as his own or that ever had solicitous thoughts of a cure No but almost every Party thinks that the happiness of the rest consisteth only in turning to them and because they be not of their mind they cry Down with them and are glad to hear of their fall as thinking that is the way to the Churches rising that is their own How few be there that understand the true state of Controversies between the several parties or that ever well discerned how many of them are but Verbal and how many are Real And if those that understand it do in order to right information and accommodation disclose it to others it s taken as an extenuation of their error and a carnal complyance with them in their sin Few men grow zealous of Peace till they grow old or have much experience of mens spirits and principles and see better the true state of the Church and the several differences then they did before And then they begin to write their Irenicon's and many such are extant at this day Pareus Iunius and many more have done their parts as our Davenant Morton Hall whose excellent Treatise called the Peace-maker and his Pax terris deserve to be transcribed upon all our hearts Hattonus Amyraldus also have done But recipiuntur ad modum recipientis As a young man in his heat of lust and passion was judged to be no fit auditor of Moral Philosophy so we find that those same young men who may be zealous for Peace and Unity when they are grown more experienced are zealous for their factions against these in their youthful heat And therefore such as these before mentioned and Duraeus who hath made it the business of his life do seldom do much greater good then to quiet their own consciences in the discharge of so great a duty and to moderate some few and save them from further guilt and to leave behind them when they are dead a witness against a wilful self-conceited and unpeaceable world Nay commonly it bringeth a man under suspition either of favouring some heresie or abating his zeal if he do but attempt a pacificatory work As if there were no zeal necessary for the great fundamental verities for the Churches Unity and Peace but only for parties and some particular truths And a great advantage the Devil hath got this way by imploying his own Agents the unhappy Socinians in writing so many Treatises for Catholike and Arch-catholike Unity and Peace which they did for their own ends and
of Ancient things will seem novelty to those that know not what was Anciently and the expulsion of prevailing novelties will seem a novelty to them that known not what is such indeed So the Papists censure us as Novelists for casting out many of their Innovations and our common people tell us we bring up new Customs if we do not kneel at the receiving of the Lords Supper A notorious Novelty Even in the sixth General Council at Trull in Constantinop this was the ninth Canon Ne Dominicis diebus genua flectamus à Divinis Patribus nostris Canonice accepimus Quare post vespertinum ingressum Sacerdotum in Sabbato ad Altare ut more observatum est nemo genu flectii usque ad sequentem vesperem post dominicam It is that which is indeed Novelty that I disswade you from and not the demolishing of Novelties Some have already introduced such New Phrases at least even about the great points of faith lustification and the like that there may be reason to reduce them to the Primitive Patterns A great stir is made in the world about the test of a Christian and true Church with whom we may have Communion and about that true Center and Cement of the Unity of the Church in and by which our Common calamitous breaches must be healed And indeed the true Cause of our Contrived divisions and misery is for want of discerning the center of our unity and the terms on which it must be done which is great pity when it was once so easie a matter till the ancient test was thought insufficient If any of the Ancient Creeds might serve we might be soon agreed If Vincâ—ntius Lirineus test might serve we might yet make some good shift viz. To believe explicitly all that quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus creditum est For as he addeth hoc est etenim verè proprièque Catholicum But then we must come 1. That the first age may not be excluded which gave the rule to the rest 2. And that this extend not to every Ceremony which never was taken for unalterable but to matters of faith and that the acts and Canons of Councils which were not about such matters of faith but meer variable order and which newly constituted those things which the Apostolike Age knew not and therefore were not properly Credita much less semper ab omnibus may have no hand in this work I say if either the ancient Western or Eastern Creed or this Catholick faith of Vincentius might be taken as the test for explicit saith or else rather all those Scripture texts that express the Credenda with a note of necessity and the the whole Scripture moreover be confessed to be Gods word and so believed in other points at least implicitly this Course might produce a more general Communion and agreement and more lines would meet in this Center then otherwise are like to meet And indeed till men can be again content to make the Scripture the sufficient Rule in Necessaries to be explicitly believed and in all the rest implicitly we are never like to see a Catholike Christian durable Peace If we must needs make the Council of Trent or the Papal Judgement our test or if we must make a blind bargain with the Papists to come as near them as ever we dare and so to compass another Interim and make that a test when God never made it so and all Christians never be of a mind in it but some dare go nearer Rome then others dare and that in several degrees or if we must thrust in all the Canons of the former Councils about matters of order discipline and ceremonies into our test or gather up all the opinions of the Fathers for the three or four first ages and make them our test None of all these will ever seem to do the business and a Catholike Union will never be founded in them It is an easie matter infallibly to foretel this Much less can the writings of any single man as Austin Aquinas Luther Calvin Beza c. or yet the late Confessors of any Churches that add to the ancient test be ever capable of this use and honour I know it is said that a man may subscribe the Scripture and the ancient Creeds and yet maintain Socinianism or other heresies To which I answer 1. So he may another test which your own brains shall contrive and while you make a snare to catch hereticks instead of a test for the Churches Communion you will miss your end and the heretick by the slipperyness of his conscience will break through and the tender Christian may possibly be ensnared And by your new Creed the Church is like to have new divisions if you keep not close to the words of Scripture 2. In such cases when hereticks contradict the Scripture which they have subscribed this calls not for a new or more sufficient test but the Church must take notice of it and call him to account and if he be impenitent exclude him their Communion What I must we have new Laws made every time the old ones are broken as if the Law were not sufficient because men break it Or rather must not the penalty of the violated Law be executed It is a most sad case that such reasons as these should prevail with so many learned godly men to deny the sufficiency of Scripture as a test for Church-Communion and to be still framing new ones that depart at least from Scripture-phrase as if this were necessary to obviate heresies Two things are necessary to obviate heresies the Law and good execution God hath made the former and his Rule and Law is both for sense and phrase translated sufficient and all their additional inventions as to the foresaid use are as spiders webs Let us but do our part in the Due execution of the Laws of Christ by questioning offenders in orderly Synods for the breaking of these Laws and let us avoid Communion with the impenitent and what can the Church do more The rest belongs to the Magistrate to restrain him from seducing his subjects and not to us Well! this is the thing that I would recommend therefore to all my Brethren as the most necessary thing to the Churches peace that you Unite in necessary truths and tolerate tolerable failings and bear with one another in things that may be born with and do not make a larger Creed and more necessaries then God hath done And to that end let no mans writings nor the judgement of any party though right be taken as a test or made that rule And I Lay not too great a stress upon controverted opinions which have godly men and specially whole Churches on both sides 2. Lay not too great a stress on those Controversies that are ultimately resolved into Philosophical uncertainties as some unprofitable controversies are about Free-will and the manner of the spirits operation of Grace and the Divine Decrees and
the true Church How know you the Scripture to be the word of God What is Christs Priestly Prophetical Kingly office Be they three offices or but one and be they all with abundance the like And if it be Sacrament Controversies which he raiseth tell him it is necessary that you be first agreed what Baptism is what the Lords Supper is before you dispute who should be Baptized c. And its twenty to one he is not able truly to tell you what the Sacrament it self is A true Definition of Baptism or the Lords Supper is not so commonly given as pretended to be given 4. If he discover his Ignorance in the cases propounded endeavour to humble him in the sense of his pride and presumption And let him know what it is and what it signifieth to go about with a Teaching Contentious proud behaviour while he is indeed so ignorant in things of greater moment 5. But see that you are able to give him better information your selves in the points wherein you find him ignorant 6. But specially take care that you discern the spirit of the man And if he be a setled perverse Schismatick or Heretick so that you see him peremptory and resolved and quite transported with pride and have no great hopes of his recovery then do all this that I have before said openly before all that are present that he may be humbled or shamed before all and the rest may be confirmed But if you find him godly and temperate and that there is any hope of his reduction then see that you do all this privately between him and you only and let not fall any bitter words nor that tend to his disparagement And thus I advise both because we must be as tender of the reputation of all good men as fidelity to them and to the truth will permit we must bear one anothers burdens and not encrease them and we must restore those with a spirit of meekness that fall through infirmity remembring that we our selves also may be tempted and also because there is small hope that you should ever do them good if once you exasperate them and dis-affect them towards you And therefore 7. See that to such erring persons as you have any hopes of you carry your selves with as much tenderness and love as will consist with your duty to the Church of God For most of them when they are once tainted this way are so selfish and high-minded that they are much more impatient of reproof then many of the prophaner sort of people This way did Musculus take with the Anabaptists visiting them in Prison and relieving them even while they railed at him as Antichristian and so continued without disputing with them till they were convinced that he loved them and then they sought to him for advice themselves many of them were reclaimed by him 8 Either in the Conclusion of your meeting or at another appointed time when you come to debate their Controversie with them tell them That seeing they think you unable to teach them and think themselves able to teach you it is your desire to learn You suppose disputing as tending usually to exâ—sperate mens minds rather then to satisfie them is to be used as the last remedy Therefore you are here ready if they are able to Teach you to learn of them and desire them to speak their minds Which if they refuse tell them you think it the humblest and most Christian edifying way for him that hath most knowledge to Teach and the other to Learn and therefore your purpose is to be either a Learner or a Teacher and not be Disputant till they make it to be Necessary When they have declared their minds to you in a teaching way if it be nothing but the common pleas of the seduced as its like it will not till then that this is no new thing to you it is not the first time that you have heard it or Considered of it and if you had found a Divine Evidence in it you had received it long ago You are truly willing to receive all truth but you have received that which is contrarie to this doctrine with far better Evidence then they bring for it c. If they desire to hear what your Evidence is tell them if they will hear as learners you shall communicate your Evidence in the meetest way you can which if they promise to do let them know that this promise obligeth them to impartialitie and an humble free entertainment of the truth and that they do not turn back in cash carping and contention but take what shall be delivered into sober Consideration which if they promise 1. If you are so far vers't in the point in hand as to mannage it well ex tempore or the person be temperate and fit for such debates then come in with your evidence in a discoursive way first shewing your reasons against the grossest imperfections of his own discourse and then giving him your grounds from Scripture not many but rather a few of the clearest best improved And 2. When you have done or without verbal teaching if you find him unfit to learn that way give him some book that most effectually defendeth the questioned truth and tell him that it is a vain thing to say that over so oft which is so fully said alreadie and a man may better consider of what he hath before his eyes then of that which slideth through his ears and is mistaken or forgotten and therefore you desire him as an humble learner to peruse that Book with leisurely consideration because there are the same things that you would say to him and desire him to bring you in a sober and solid answer to the chief strength of it if after perusal he judge it to be unsound But if it may be fasten some one of the most sticking Evidences on him before you leave him If he refuse to read the book endeavour to convince him of his unfaithfulness to the Truth and his own soul Doth he think that Gods truth is not worth his study or will he venture his soul as the ungodly do and the Churches peace with it and all to save himself so small a labour Is it not just with God to give him over to delusion that will not be at a little pains to be informed nor afford the truth an equal hearing 9. But above all before you part yea or before you debate the Controversie see that you do sum up the precedent Truths wherein you are both agreed 1. Know whether he agree to all that is in the Catechism which you teach the people 2. Whether he suppose that you may attain salvation if you be true to so much as you are agreed in 3. Whether they that are so far agreed as you are should not live in Love and Peace as children of the same God and members of the same Christ and heirs of the same Kingdom 4. Whether you are not
bound notwithstanding your smaller difference to be helpers in the main work of the Gospel for the conversion and saving of souls 5. Whether then they are not bound to mannage the private difference so as they may not hinder the main work and therefore to let the lesser stoop to the greater 6 Whether they ought not to hold communion in publike worship and Church-relation with those that are so far agreed and walk in the fear of God 7. And whether it be not schism to separate from them for the sake of that small disagreement themselves being not necessitated by Communion to any actual sin I speak all this only of the tolerable differences that are among men fearing God And in that case if the person be sober and understanding he must needs yield to the affirmative of these Questions Which if he do or to any of them let him subscribe it or openly averr it And then let all the standers by be made apprehensive that none of the great matters that you deal with them about are questioned but all yielded unquestionable And the affixed Scripture leaves them so therefore there is no cause for them to receive the least discouragement in their way I conceive its past doubt that differing brethren may well joyn in recommending the truths that they are agreed in to the ignorant people Bishop Usher told King James in his Sermon at Wansted on the Churches Unity that he made this motion even to the Papists Priests themselves that they might joyn in teaching the people of that barbarous Nation the Common Principles that both were agreed in A motion too Christian for sullen factious Zeal to entertain I will repeat his own words pag. 33. The danger then of this ignorance being by the Confession of the most judicious Divines of both sides acknowledged to be so great the woful estate of the poor Countrey wherein I live is much to be lamented where the people generally are suffered to perish for want of knowledge he meant the Papists the vulgar superstitions of Poperie not doing them half that hurt that the ignorance of those Common principles of the faith doth which all true Christians are bound to learn The consideration whereof hath sometime drawn me to treat with those of the opposite party to move them that however in other things we did differ one from another yet we should joyn together in teaching those main points the knowledge whereof was so necessary to salvation and of the truth whereof there was no Controversie betwixt us But what for the Jealousies which these distractions in matters of Religion have bred among us and what for other respects the motion took small effect and so betwixt us both the poor people are kept still in miserable ignorance neither knowing the grounds of the one Religion nor of the other So far this learned Christian Bishop And what wonder if Popish Priests refuse this motion when now among us it is so rare a matter to find any in England though he differ only in the point of Infant-Baptism that will calmly and without fraudalent designs of secret promoting his own opinions by it entertain and prosecute such a motion for the common good As if they had rather that Christianitie were thrust out of the world or kept under then Infants should be admitted into the Church well let any party or person pretend what they will of Zeal or Holiness I will ever take the Dividatur for an ill sign The true Mother abhorrs the Division of the Child and the true Christian doth prefer the Common interest of Christianity before the Interest of a faction or an opinion and would not have the whole building endangered rather then one peg should not be driven in as he would have it he had rather a particular Truth if we suppose it a truth should suffer then the whole or the main And having given you this advice what to do with this kind of men in your Conference on the occasion now in question so I shall add a word or two of advice how to carry your self towards them at other times For the preservation of the Unity and Peace of your Congregations doth much depend on your right dealing with such as these For alas for grief and shame it is most commonly men that profess more then ordinary Religiousness they are the dividers of these 1. I must premise that the chief part of your work to preserve the Church from such doth consist in the prevention of their fall seeing when they are once throughly infected be the error what it will they are but seldom recovered but if they be beaten out of the error which they first fell into they go to another and perhaps thence to another but through a just excecation they seldom return to the truth 2. To which end it is most desirable that the Minister should be of Parts above the people so far as to be able to teach them and awe them and manifest their weaknesses to themselves or to all The truth is for it cannot be hid it is much long of the Ministers that our poor people are run into so many factions and particularly the weakness of too many is not the least cause when a proud Seducer shall have a nimble tongue and a Minister be dull or ignorant so that such a one can baffle him or play upon him in the ears of others it brings him into contempt and overthrows the weak For they commonly judge him to have the best cause that hath the most confident plausible triumphant tongue But when a Minister is able to open their shame to all it mightily preserveth the Church from their infection 3. It is necessary also to this end that you frequently and throughly possess your people with the nature necessity and daily use of the great unquestionable Principles of Religion and of the great sin and danger of a perverse zeal about the lower points before the greater are well laid and let them be made sensible how it is the Principles and not their smaller Controversies that life or death doth depend upon 4. Make them sensible of the mischiefs of Schism and the great and certain obligations that lie upon us all to maintain the Churches Unity and Peace 5. When a fire is kindled resist it in the beginning and make not light of the smallest spark and therefore go presently to the infected person and follow him by the means hereafter mentioned till he be recovered 6. Specially use a fit diversion when a small Controversie begins to endanger the Church raise a greater your self which you have better advantage to mannage and which is not like to make a division That is let them know that there are far greater difficulties then theirs to be first resolved such as some of the Questions before mentioned and so give them a Catalogue of them and set them a work upon them that they may be matter of avocation from that fore where
them but I think too many of us have cause to fear lest we do but publikely proclaim our own shame in the guilt of our negligence or imprudent weaknesses and lest in Condemning them and Testifying against them we Testifie against and Condemn our selves 13. If you be not well able to deal with them do as I before advised Give them the best book on that subject to peruse 14. If all this will not do get the fittest neighbour Minister that you know to come over and help you Not in Publike nor as a set Disputation without necessity but let him come as occasionally and ex improviso come upon them in one of their private meetings as desirous to see and hear them and so take the opportunity to deal with them And if after that there be any Disputations appointed be sure to observe the old rule fight with them on their own ground and keep up the war in their quarters and let it come as little as you can into your own and therefore go to their Assemblies but let them not come into yours For with them you can lose little and may gain much but at home you can gain little but it s two to one will lose some let the error be never so gross The Sectaries commonly observe this course themselves and therefore you will have much ado to get their consent to bring your disputations into their own Assemblies 15. Let not the authors of the Schism out-do you or go beyond you in any thing that is good For as truth should be more effectual for sanctification then errour so if you give them this advantage you give them the day and all your disputation will do but little good For the weaker people judge all by the outward appearance and by the effects and be not so able to judge of the Doctrine in it self They think that he hath the best cause whom they take to be the best man I extend this rule both to Doctrine and Life E. G. If a Libertine preach for Free-grace do you preach it up more effectually then he be much upon it and make it more glorious on right grounds then he can do on his wrong If on the like pretences he magnifie the Grace of Love and in order to cry down fear and humiliation be all for living in pure Love to God do not contradict him in the assertive but only in the negative and destructive part but out-go him and preach up the Love of God with its motives and effects more fully and effectually then he can do on the corrupt grounds on which he doth proceed Or else you will make all the silly people believe that this is the difference between you that he is for Free-Grace and the Love of God and you are against it For if you dwell not upon it in your preaching as well as he they will not take notice of a short concession of profession So if an Enthusiast do talk all of the Holy-Ghost and the light and witness and Law within us Fall you upon that subject too do that well which they did ill and preach up the office of the Holy-Ghost his indwelling and operations and the light and testimony and Law within us better then they This is the most effectual way of setling your people against their seductions So if you be assaulted by Pelagians if they make a long story to prove that God is not the Author of sin do you fall upon the proof of it too If they plead for Free-will do you plead for that Free-will which we have the natural liberty which none deny consisting in a self-determining power and supposing actual indetermination and deny only that Liberty which the will hath not that is 1. Either a freedom from Gods Government 2. Or from the necessary guidance of the Intellect and Moral force of the object 3. Or that true Spiritual Ethical freedom from vicious inclinations which consisteth in the Right Disposition of the will though the sanctified indeed have this in part and that predominantly So if any Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian will go about industriously to prove mans power or rather impotency to will or do evil do it as effectually as he For this is indeed but to prove a man a sinner under pretence of proving him free or at least to prove him defectible if it be not the ill inclination but the possibility of sinning that they defend in which case we can say more then they So if they go about laboriously to prove that Christ dyed for all I would endeavour to do it as effectually as they that it might appear to the people that the difference between us is not in this that they would magnifie the riches of grace above me or that I would leave sinners hopeless and remediless and without an object for faith any more then they nor that I abuse or reject express Scriptures when they own them in their proper sense But I would let them know that the Controversie lyeth elsewhere viz. Whether Christ in offering himself a sacrifice for sin had not a special Intention or Resolution in complyance with his Fathers predestinating will infallibly and effectually to save his chosen even such and such by name in making his blood applyed effectual to the pardon of all their sins and to give them his spirit to seal them unto glory having no such Will Intention Resolution in dying no more then his Father had in predestinateing as to the rest of the world So if one that is for private mens preaching come and inveigh against Ministers for inhibiting them to use the gifts of God for the edification of the Church I would not presently set to thwart him but I would rather fall a perswading private men to use their gifts in all the waies that I even now mentioned and sharply chide them for using them no more and then among my Cautions or reprehensions meet with his desired abuse in the end And what I have said by way of instance in these few points I mean in all others Preaching truth is the most successful way of confuting error and I would have no Seducer to have the glory of out-going us in any good and so not in befriending or defending any truth Once more E. G. If a Socinian should fall a pleading for the Churches Peace and for Unity upon the antient simplicity of faith I would labour to out-go him in it and then would shew that the antient simple faith condemned him If he would plead Reason for Scripture or the Christian Religion I would endeavour to out-go him in it and he should not have opportunity to glory that he only had Reason for what he held and I had none But I would shew that as I have Reason to believe the Scripture so that Scripture condemneth his errors If a Separatist will plead for the Necessity of Church-order and Discipline so would I as well as he and shew him that it is only