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
have some certain qualitie which in this Metaphor of the book of life plainly is answerable to their proper names You who have gone so far with them or after them are in danger to go further What irreligious principles they that plead for their libertie of will are forced to maintain I know not That you might soon have seen by that which follows there By Their libertie I mean such libertie as they plead for and such as cannot stand with certaintie of Prescience Say they For any one to exhort another to do that which he knoweth before hand he will not do is to dissemble such libertie as must be free not onely from coaction or compulsion but from necessitie of infallibilitie as to the event which necessitie is incident to things contingent and fortuitous for events necessarie contingent chanceable are called so and differenced so in respect of their second causes not in respect of the first or supreme cause for Quicquid est quando est necessariò est any thing that is must needs be so then when it is so That Saul after he was wearied with seeking up and down the countrey for his fathers cattel should on such a day and such an hour of the day meet with the Prophet Samuel was to Saul then when it came to pass as certain as that the sun should set that night or did rise that day that is it was most certain because it was present But to God all things are certain and present that shall be as certain to him though future as to us though present Socinus therefore was driven and if he had not been driven and enforced to it he would never have done it to denie and impugne Divine Prescience and that in order to denial of Divine Decrees and to maintain Quod non est certum non est scibile nec futurum whatsoever comes to pass and doth not certainly come to pass is not capable of being known no more than factum infectum fieri is capable to be done And the Socinians in Compendiolo Negant admissa infallabili omnium futurorm Praescientiâ refelli posse dogma de Praedestinatione and whether they speak reason or no Ger. Vossius can tell whose words are these Hist Pelag. c. 6. Th. 15. Nisi negarc volumus Deum praescire quid homo pro quibusque circumstantiis sit acturus fateri etiam COGIMUR Deum certis hominibus Gratiam praeparâsse quâ certo infallibiliter salventur aliis verò hujusmodi Gratiam non praeparâsse that is Unless we will say that God doth not foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances we cannot but of necessitie confess that he hath for some certain men prepared such grace whereby they shall certainly and infallibly be saved and not prepared such grace for others If Faith be Gods gift and if he will give it to whom he will give it this is that predestination which you endeavour what you can to fright the world withall That therefore which you call in this chapter a horrible errour and I called an irreligious principle you must fall to and defend by rational consequence unless you give over your horrible and irreligious manner of reviling Gods decrees I fear this Gentleman is so far from thinking that God did not know before that he thinks he decreed necessitated Adam to sin Would I follow his course in fastening upon him the sayings and judgements of other men of his minde I might finde passages enough to that purpose in many of them to render him and his opinions odious but Mr P. hath done it so fully that I shall but actum agere do what is done already and therefore I shall leave the Reader for that to him Although I do think that you have more minde to slander than cause to fear yet I will now tell you 1. I do not beleeve God did decree sin but I think you beleeve that he did decree the permission of sin 2. In those things which are decreed to come to pass Gods decree inferreth no necessitie upon inferiour causes or agents because he decreeth all things to come to pass according to their kinde natural agents to act naturally voluntarie agents voluntarily So of necessary contingent and casual agents I pray suffer your self to be informed a little better by Dr. P. Baro pag. 321. in explication of this position Dei Decretum pravae voluntatis libertatem non tollit Therefore I shall leave you for that to him But if you have so much leasure as to trouble your self about others and what it is that they think and that you would not be afraid there where no fear is I pray let all your fear in this matter be for them that call it A gross solecism to imagine that there should be one cause of the act and another of the obliquitie or sinfulness of the act and that think it is as impossible to separate the wickedness of the act from the act that is wicked as it is to distinguish the roundness of the globe from the globe that is round So that he which is the Authour of the one must be the Authour of the other also yet the Apostle Paul said Acts 17.28 In him we live and move Let it be for them who tell you it must be a Metaphysical head that can determine how God should work by evil instruments and not be guiltie of the evil and yet the Apostle said Acts 3.18 He hath So fulfilled Let it be for them that think he who withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event and in whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done and he that withdraweth the light is the cause of that which followeth for want of the light And yet no man that hath his reason left entire to him can imagine that the sun which is all light having no darkness in it can be the cause when it setteth of the shadow of the night It is an easie matter to make any opinions seem odious to those men that are full gorged with prejudice against them Every thing feeds according to the kinde and constitution Torva leaena alupum scquitur I can tell of some who in the doctrines of the Church of England wherein they have been educated have been verie much confirmed by the matter and the manner of some mens writings against them And as for those men that take such pains to make the opinions you speak of to be odious I do wish and if it might be I would advise them that they would at last forbear and not please themselves in so odious a practise whether these opinions be true or false is uncertain it is at least probable that they are the Truth and upon these reasons First it because very many of these men by their own confession were of the verie same minde in these points of doctrine and held that
faith in the kinde of it hath a true being and is of good use and benefit and it is best for them that have it to hold what they have and not think of losing it for a better for though it be not justifying faith nor a part of it nor yet a degree of it yet is it a step towards it according to Gods ordinarie way of proceeding in the conversion of sinners and as a stock whereupon is engrafted saving Faith when God is pleased to make that Christian a member of the Church invisible who was before but a member of the Church visible And as in the vision of the great tree that figured the estate of Nebuchadnezzar the stump of it was left in the ground because God intended to restore him So there is more hope of good intentions towards him who preserveth in himself found principles of Religion though he be unsanctified than another who goeth aside in the by-ways of unbelief or misbelief And secondly as for faith temporarie it is not so called because it never endures but for a time but because it is apt in the nature and constitution of it to abide but a while and then to fail For in two cases a temporarie beleever doth not fall away 1. When persecution doth not arise nor any temptation on either hand for then he may persevere in his faith during his life 2. When it pleaseth God to make use of this common Grace as preparatorie to saving Grace and to indue the temporarie beleever with true justifying faith which is his meer gift not produced by the utmost of natural and civil persections but bestowed onely upon the heirs of life In a visible constituted Church God bringeth men home to himself ordinarily by Degrees working in them first that which is natural and that which is moral and then that which is spiritual And they which quench the spirit even in the common gifts thereof forsake their own mercies and are no friends to their own salvation though you seem to advise all men that are not as they ought to be to turn Atheists or Pagans for so they must do if they lose all their faith Pag. 135. Such were the Galatians they ran well were the sons of God by faith Yet the Apostle saith so manie of them as were justified by the Law were fallen from Grace In that place the word Grace doth signifie the Doctrine of Grace as 1 Pet. 5.12 This is the true Grace of God wherein ye stand in other places also where Grace is opposed to the Law and it is as much as if he had said You that are justified by Law are fallen from the Gospel or Doctrine of Faith You are revolted from the Covenant of Grace to the Covenant of works I answer therefore first The defection of a particular Church from sound Doctrine to errour or unbelief is no good argument to prove the revolt of a particular beleever from the habit of saving Grace no not so much as of any one individual person from sound doctrine for an erroneous generation might rise up in the stead of these who held the truth to their dying day And secondly It doth not appear that those Galatians who stood in Grace did now fall from Grace They did run well and now they did intermit their course not forsaking the right way but halting or stumbling in the way and doubtless were recovered by the Apostles admonition as he was perswaded they would be ch 5. v. 10. I have confidence in you that you will be no otherwise minded than yon have been Neither doth he speak absolutely in the words you bring but rather conditionally as if he had said thus if ye be justified by the Law ye are fallen from Grace as he saith v. 2. if ye be circumcised So that from the Galatians there is no such abundant proof as you speak of The temporarie beleever is not said to have wanted truth of faith but root If they had no root then they had no truth of Faith but onely leaves of profession which Simon Magus had and many other who yet are said to beleeve But it is a heart of unbelief that causeth to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 It was the last sort of hearers and they onely that did receive the word in an honest and good heart that is the difference of this fourth kinde of hearers from the other three and must therefore be in the fourth onely and without such a heart they might have some faith but they could never have a justifying faith of which onely the question is The foolish virgins had oyl in their lamps else how could their lamps have burned or gone out But they took not oyl in their vessels to supplie their lamps they treasured not up the word of God in their hearts A Parable is as an instrument of Musick it is unskilfulness to strike besides the strings Oyl in their lamps is the profession of Christiantie in outward works and words Oyl in their vessels is inward Grace or Faith whence outward professon is maintained and supplied There was a difference from the beginning between the foolish and the wise and between their lamps which were not alike provided for and thence it was that the one sort went out and the other continued burning That it was true oyl that was quite spent and burnt out as good as that which the other virgins had to feed their lamps withall is a consideration belonging not to the scope or intention of the Parable but to the frame or constitution of it But have you the confidence to maintain that they had truth of faith when yet you say The word of God was not in their hearts The house that fell had no good foundation because they did not do what they heard You might rather have said they did not what they heard because they had no good foundation Action is rather the superstructure than a ground-work But if they did not do what they heard then they had not true faith for true faith is always operative and attended with works otherwise it is but the counterfeit of faith What need of warning true beleevers to take heed of falling or of fearing offence taking if they were out of all danger of taking offence and falling the Apostles implie no such impossibilitie of their falling Exhortations to a mixt societie or congregation must be so delivered as to fit one sort of hearers as well as another and to be usefull to all In the Epistles that the Apostles wrote to the Churches in which were good and bad when they speak to the good they speak as if they were all such and when they direct their speech to the bad they often speak so as if they were all bad I desire you would remember this rule whensoever you fetch any argument of this kinde from the manner of the Apostles writing to any societie of Christians and if you had thought of it now you would
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
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
said When the more worthy is to be baptized then he that is less worthy if he be called to it and in place for it may and ought to baptize him this is right and just decent and orderly It may so fall out that an auditour or person of private capacitie is of so good endowments industrie and learning as that his Teacher publickly authorized may well be taught many things by him even such things as belong to his own profession and may say I have need to be taught by you yet the private person must not usurp the publick place because he is the more able and the better fitted of the two Remember the Apostles rule Let all things be done decently and in order CHAP. VIII The Law Sect. 2. VVAs there ever such a Non-sensicall thing found he faults those answers as denying that which he proves out of them You are not the first that hath spoken contradictions nor shall I be the last that confuteth an Adversarie out of his own words You assigned five uses of the Law To be a Rule of life was none of the five yet I proved it to be a rule by consequence from your first use To shew what is sin You taught it not directly and everie one could no gather so much from your words But they who held the Law to be neither ruling nor binding might nevertheless continue in that minde still But I have gained thus much and like wise so may others that you have spoken out and confessed the truth and I am glad to hear it I pray you keep your self to it for the time to come Sect. 3 I know no reason for your loud challenge of wrong and dishonestie you faulted Ministers for being Teachers of the Law to such as were not well principled for duties If there be some men so unqualified that we must not preach the law to them then it is no rule to the unconverted which was all I said and I might well say it from you According to your Divinitie so far as I can perceive the principles are not many There is one To beleeve that God loves us and he that beleevs this is in a manner converted But as I think we may talk of duties to those that have not principles not any principle to perform them that so they may know what need they have of a principle which might enable them to perform them and that in the mean time they may do ea quasunt Legis what the Law commandeth for the substance of it though not as they ought for the manner In your Sect. 4. I shall not need to take notice of any thing saving how you justifie your answer to your Question 290. If I say in making Latine according to Tullyes or Quintilians style a man observs all the rules of Grammar and Rhetorick is it all one as to say that gives a supersedeas to all Grammar and Rhetorick and teaches them to have no use or need of them Who ever had to deal with an unhappier Reviser But first when you asked the childe the question Oughtest thou not to walk in the observation of the ten Commandments why did you not teach him to answer plainly and positively Yes whereas the Answer that you framed for him amounts to a Negative In acting forth Faith and Love I do observe also those Commandments which is as much as if you had told him that he shall not need to observe the ten Commandments otherwise than by acting forth Faith and Love And secondly for your similitude from Grammar-learning I answer He that hath attained Tullyes or Quintilians style may well lay aside and neglect all Grammar-rules and rules of Rhetorick and needeth them no more than an ordinary countrey-man that hath by custome learned to speak true English doth stand in need of an English Grammar which he never yet looked into it may be never heard of As he that can swim well throws away his bladders and the lame man that hath recovered his legs at the Bath leavs his crutches there that helped him thither And will you say or dare any man say that he who hath attained the highest degree of Faith and Love that is attained in this world may neglect forget or not give heed to the ten Commandments Where is our obedience to Gods Law if our eye be not upon his Law or what is obedience but as it is in Psal 119.6 To have respect to all Gods Commandments So you have mended the matter well with your similitude you teach children even children at their first to observe the ten Commandments as Cicero observed the rules of Rhetorick who was himself a rule to Rhetorick The fifth Section is full of heavy complaints and charges I shewed how you as well as some others did mistake the Apostles words of The Law being a Schoolmaster to christ because he speaketh not comparatively of a beleever with an unbeleever but of the state of the Gospel with the state of the Old Testament Here you say That I have merely slandered you and you have been for many years of my minde for all these things Answ 1. It being an ordinary mistake of others who recede from the Antinomians more then you do I had no reason to leave you out 2. If you were indeed of that minde then and so had been for many years you did not hold so long for after not many leavs turned over I finde you of another minde pag. 83. The Apostles did not bring men under servitude as Moses formerly but to Sonship You make an opposition betwixt Servitude and Sonship whereas it should be betwixt manhood and minoritie of age or the like if you had continued in that minde you were of Our Reader must now do his part to judge who is wronged and how far And as for the satisfaction you would have of me it is in your power to clear and set right with others your own reputation And so long as you charge your pretended Orthodox with seeking Gods promises by the works of the Law and with establishing their own righteousness and while you say that Teachers of the Law do they know not what you will be thought to be an Antinomian whether you be one or no. He adds some pretty stories of what manner of Schoolmasters some had That proverbial form Velut Epicitharisma post fabulam Rhenanus explaineth by the custome of the preachers in his time which was after some deep discourse of dark points in Divinitie to tell some fine and pleasant storie of some Saint or other our of the legend to keep the people from falling sleep If the Reader thought so well of my stories as you do they might somewhat serve to refresh him being possibly though it were but early grown dull and heavie with reading But I rather think that you grew dull betimes for the instances that I alledged were not to shew what school-masters some had but to shew that a Pedagogue which is S. Pauls
the world and all things therein so we abuse them not but all Arts and sciences may be and they are serviceable to the true Religion and the worship of the onely true God provided that they do not over-rule but be kept in good order and subjection If you would refuse to joyn with those that will prove man hath Free-will to good out of Aristotles Ethicks or with those that conclude a Christian is justified by doing just actions out of the principles of moral Philosophy it were commendably done of you But when you take delight and a small occasion to inveigh against these peculiar and appointed places where nature and natural faculties are polished and perfected by accession of art and studie for the better service of God in the State and in the Church and when to maintain the sufficiency of Scripture-doctrine for preaching the Gospel against the incroachment of Philosophie you bring such arguments as will hold as much against lips and lungs as against Logick and Metaphysicks This is no good humour of yours and it may be a very bad one And in you especially it is the more absurd and incongruous who promote the New Light That the works of Creation preach the Doctrine of the Gospel yea who say Essay pag. 14. The works of God are true preachers of God but the force of their voice is taken off by many of these Ministers that run without Gods message You that speak so much of the open school that is in the creatures praising Gods name and declaring his glorie and goodness do but destroy what you build in girding thus at schools of learning For Arts and Sciences and the studie of them do serve for lectures or for commentaries upon the great book of the world Who can search out and contemplate the influences and motions of the heavenly bodies Who can set forth the Historie of Plants Stones Metals Meteors Fishes Birds and Beasts and the works of the six-days-Creation but such men as have their education in places dedicated to learning and studie You talk of a School that God hath opened and you do what you can to seal up the doors of it One thing I must tell you further that the greatest enemies that Christians ever had most opposed and sought to hinder Christian schools and the most pestilent hereticks that have arisen since the Reformation have most of all declaimed against Scholastical and Academical knowledge And you will never perswade indifferent persons to beleeve any otherwise but that you speak against learning and learned men to this end that your errours and abuses that you put upon the people may not be discovered for always among the blinde he that is half-sighted is king I am sure many lay-men that cannot read Latine could see the faults of M. H. arguings when both himself and if I may credit reports divers Universitiemen were not so good at seeing them overmuch light makes some men almost if not altogether blinde If want of Latine be a good help to see by it may be this was the designe of the new method to make experiment in curing by contraries and to put out our lights the better to clear up our ey-sight It is verie well that you have declared your self in your seventh chapter against Impositions of Opinions I may therefore freely dissent from you in this matter and I will give you some reason There is difference betwixt the light of the Sun and that light which enlightens the minde because the sensitive power and the organ of the bodie are but weak and narrow and if there be an undue application or proportion of outward light all will be spoiled But humane understanding after Gods image being of vast capacitie or comprehension there is no fear that the intellectual light which is so sparingly dispensed in this life whether by acquisition or infusion should oppress or any way corrupt the facultie of the minde How it fares with you I know not but as for others in all ages the more they have waded into the abyss of knowledge the more they have confessed their own ignorance This light doth discover darkness but that it should cause any or make some men blinde is a blinde and blundering conceit of your own And now we will return to the particular controversie of this chapter Sect. 6. You will not grant that the Sun did shine upon Adam after he was fallen as it did before or if it did yet it spake not the same language because it spake God kinde to sinners which it could not do before man sinned It is pitie to interrupt you in these your deep speculations Go on I pray to prove that when you turn homeward the winde blows not as it did and that the Sun doth not shine alike upon the dial but speaks a new language everie hour of the day with plentie of the like never heretofore thought reasonable or credible He brings the saying of the scoffers to confirm his assertion and justifies the truth of it when the Apostle tells us that saying proceeded out of their wilfull ignorance and minds them that since the creation of the world all things did not continue alike for God overflowed the creation with a floud Thus did the impostours argue If the world hath lasted for so many ages then it will always last But it hath lasted for so many ages Therefore it will always last Now the Apostle doth not denie the Assumption or second proposition but directs his answer to the Connexion as if he had said thus It is too great ignorance to think the world must always continue because it hath continued so long for know they not that God is the Lord of nature know they not that he made this earth as standing and emergent out of the waters and that after so many years the waters were let loose upon it and wasted it The course of nature therefore doth not abide constant and unmoved but the power of God countermands it at his own will 2 Pet. 3.7 The heavens and the earth which now are by the same word are kept in store the Apostle confuteth them not from the change or alteration that was upon the floud but from the word or power of God that caused the floud The same hand or power or word that drowned the world shall when time cometh put an end to it by fire So that when the scoffers said All things continue alike from the first creation it was true as they meant it namely of a continued course of the heavenly motions and of the seasons of the year winter and summer day and night These and the like abide as they were at the first notwithstanding the deluge according to Gods promise Gen. 8. The earth had long ere S. Peters time out-worn the floud and the Psalmist saith as much psal 119.91 They continue this day according to thine ordinances Sect. 7. Evident it is they preach God mercifull to sinners as well as just