they require is less grateful and will be less profitable And first for Mr. Robertson he that thinks such a book doth need a Reply is like to profit little by any of mine and so I leave him to be of what opinion the winde and tide shall drive him to I have read over a M. S. Book of Mr. Hotchkis which is his vindication against Mr. Robertson wherein he hath sufficiently and easily done a needless work To reciprocate gain-sayings with that kinde of men is an unprofitable and unpleasing thing The sons of contention in their greatest darkness are more zealous and unwearied in their generation and work than the Children of light and peace in theirs It s not desirable to match them in violence in selfconceitedness in rashness or false accusations in scorns or lowdness or length of speech And as peaceable Readers are grieved with such disputes so usually the Antagonist is more hardened in his mistakes If you have a friend that erreth whose recovery you desire be sure that you write not a confutation of his errors for ordinarily that 's the way to fasten him in them and make him worse Some will think this a hard censure to pass on learned godly men whose hearts should be devoted to truth and who pretend to love the light that doth disclose it But there 's no reasoning against common unquestionable experience Who will doubt whether it can be so when he sees it is so Of all the Cart-loads of controversal writings that swarm in the world how many can you name that convinced the Antagonist and brought him to a recantation Bethink your selves how many you can name Nay how many that did not provoke and harden them By secret explications and loving debate the mindes of many have been changed and many by positive Asserting and proving the truth and I confess some by controversal writings that were written against others els I would never meddle that way but how few by those that are written in confutation of themselves As soon as you speak to men in the hearing of the world they presently apprehend their reputation to be so engaged that they are excieted to defend it with all their might and instead of an impartial consideration of your arguments and a ready entertainment of the truth they bend their wits to study how to make good what once they have delivered and to prove that true that once hath past their pens that the world may not think them so weak as to have mistaken Nay when they do profess to love the truth as truth and to be willing to receive it yet this Self is so neer them and so potent with them that they cannot easily suspect that which is their own and especially if they have espoused it with any extraordinary endearment It hath still a lovely aspect in their eyes and they think so intentively what may be said for it that they have scarce leisure or room or life to apprehend the force of that which is said against it The first eyes which they cast on your writings is with a desire to finde some such weaknesses in them which may be matter of reproach or insulting for them and their endeavours are suited to their first intentions and thus are they byassed in their reading from end to end You therefore multiply their temptations to err when you discover their error For now you so involve the interest of their error with their own that they see they cannot confess but with some disgrace nor receive the truth without being so base as to confess themselves overcome And therefore they muster up all their forces to maintain their opinions for the maintenance of their honour It must be therefore for other mens sakes more then for their own that you must enterprise such works Unless you meet with those eminently humble self-denying Divines they say there are some such in the world that are most jealous of their own through consciousness of their darkness and take it for the greatest victory to be conquered by the truth I doubt not but there are some such humble souls where the window standeth open to the light though pride and prejudice shut it with the most Of whom if you please to esteem me one I shall not much contradict you but shall thence suppose that you will rather permit me to speak plainly against the sin because I have suffered by it my self And as to those other Reverend persons Dr. Owen and Mr. Blake whose displeasure hath been so much kindled against me I shall give you a brief account of my Reasons from the quality of their writings why I think that it is not to be done at least by any particular examination of their words By the effects of what hath been said to them already you may strongly conjecture what good it would do them to be contradicted again In the former writings there appeared so much calmness that one would have thought they had been men that could have endured a Reply But for their second they so much differ from the first as if the men were not the same If you judged by the storms that arise in these writings would you not think that I had somewhere reproached their persons or done some hainous thing against them But whether it be so I am content that the indifferent judge For the former Dr. Owen I desire that any of his tenderest friends will peruse those few lines in which I contradicted him and if they can finde a word that is uncivil or abusive I shall be ready to disown it and to profess that I was guilty of provoking him to such an impatient entertainment If I can understand my self and him and may judge by his complaints and by the complexion of his dispute the hainous injury that I have done him is that I have gain-said him And I had thought that half the humility which some of his professions of himself do intimate that he is possessed of would have caused a man to have judged this a pardonable fault As long as his person is not once medled with but onely his words examined and cause set against cause and reason against reason what harm is done to him what bone is broken or what one feather is plucked from his plume Nay rather it hath occasioned the reparation of his honor with some For some that before judged that he meant as he spoke do now begin to believe that he meant better since he so earnestly contendeth that he meant as the Orthodox and seems to disclaim the Absolution of Unbelievers And I must confess I do somwhat the less repent of those disputes that so much offend men when they have so good an issue for the matter though some accidental evils are occasioned by them When a bad cause is disowned I have the thing that I intended And though it be very angrily that we agree and close with somewhat a sharp collision yet it s well that we
by reading Dr Twiss and meditating of it and had in print so long ago professed these things whether this Learned man should after all this publish to the world that I am Amyraldus proselyte I speak but as to the truth of the report for as to the reputation of the thing I should think it a great benefit if I had the opportunity of sitting at the feet of so judicious a man as I perceive Amyraldus to be 10. Whether is Calovius a competent witness of the judgement of the Lutherans in general or a witness capable of dishonouring Amyraldus when he so unpeaceably and voluminously poureth out his fiery indignation against the moderate Lutherans themselves that are but willing of Peace under the name of Calixtians seeking to make them odious from the honorable name of Georgius Calixtus who went with them in that peaceable way 11. If it be David Blondell that he means when he saith of Daile's Book Obstetricante magno illìc Viro sed Armimianorum cultore and Blondell only prefaceth to it Whether any that hath read the Writings of Blondell and heard of his fame should believe this accusation or rather 12. Is it a certain Truth or a Calumny that is thus expressed of Dallaeus Certum est tamen hâc Apologiâ maluisse Arminianorum ordinibus inseri quà m sedem inter contrà -remonstrantes tenere And is it certain that Dr Molin knows the mind of Dallaeus better then he doth his own or is sooner then himself to be believed in the report of it 13. Whether the desire which he expresseth that Camero had been expelled and the words that he poureth forth against him do more dishonour Camero or himself And if that Article of Justification were sufficient ground of his condemnation and expulsion and consequently Olevian Scultetus Vrsinus Paraeus Piscator Alstedius Wendeline Gataker and abundance more should have tasted of the same sauce Whether these persecuting principles savour not of too high an esteem of their own judgements and tend not either to force an implicite faith in the Ministery or to depopulate the Church and break all in pieces And whether more credit is to be given to the judgement of this Learned man against Camero or to the general applause of the Learned Pious and Peaceable Divines of most Protestant Churches For instance such as B p Hall's who in his Peace-maker p. 49. saith of him that he was the Learnedst Divine be it spoken without envy that the Church of Scotland hath afforded in this last age 14. Whether this Learned man had not forgotten his former Triumph in the supposed unsuccessfulness of Amyralds Method and the paucity of his partakers or approvers when he wrote this in deep sorrow for the Churches of France Seriò ingemisco Patriae Ecclesiis in ea reformatis quod jam totos viginti annos Methodus Amyraldi impunè regna verit nemine intrà Galliam hiscere audente aut ullo vindice veritatis ibi exurgente do these words shew his desire of Peace or Contention in the Church 15. Whether it be truth that he saith that all the Divines of the Assembly at Westminster were against Amyraldus Method when Mr Vines hath often and openly owned Davenant's way of Universal Redemption and others yet living are known to be for it 16. Whether it be proved from the cited words of their Confession c. 8. § 5. that such was their judgement when they express no such thing And I have spoken with an eminent Divine yet living that was of the Assembly who assured me that they purposely avoided determining that Controversie and some of them profest themselves for the middle way of Universal Redemption 17. Is there one man in Oxford or Cambridge besides himself that believes his next words pari obelo confodiunt hanc Methodum quotquot sunt bodie Doctores Professores Oxoniae Cantabrigiae except on supposition that the foregoing words be untrue which pari relateth to 18. Is it probable that Dr Twiss was an enemy to that doctrine of Redemption which he hath so often asserted viz That Christ dyed for all men so far as to purchase them pardon and salvation on condition they would repent and believe and for the Elect so far further as to procure them faith and repentance it self which he hath oft in many Writings as to Mr Cranford's charge concerning his severe accusation of Dallaeus and judging his very heart to be guilty of such dissimulation as that he wrote not seriously but contrary to what he thought and that nothing could be more illiterate I shall not put the question whether it be probable that these words could pass from such a man because he is alive to vindicate himself if the report be false or to own it if true 19. Do all the contemptuous expressions of a Dissenter so much dishonour the judgement of Dallaeus as this Dissenters own praise of his former Writings doth honour it when he saith of him A quo nihil hactenus prodii◠quod non esset judicii acerrimi eruditionis reconditissimae dostrinae sanctissimae aut candidissimum pectus non referret in quo nulla suspicio malignitatis insideret multò minùs eâ aetate seriâ serâ erupturae cùm lenit albescens animos capillus This is enough to make a stranger conjecture that the man is not grown either such a fool as to err so grosly as is pretended or such a knave as to write in the matters of God against his own judgement And indeed he that will prove himself a wiser a much wiser man in these matters then Dallaeus Blondel Amyrald c. must bring another kind of evidence for the honor of his Wisdom then Dr Molin's Preface or Paraenesis is 20. Is it not an indignity to the dead which the living should hear with a pious indignation for this Learned man to feign that B p Vsher thought so contemptuously of Amyraldus Method Whatever he might say of him in any other respect it s well known that he owned the substance of his doctrine of Redemption The high praises therefore which Dr Molin doth give to this reverend Bishop do dishonour his own judgement that makes the Bishops doctrine so contemptible and gross The like dealing I understand some Arminian Divines I am loath to name them have used against this reverend man One of them of great note hath given out that he heard him preach for universal Redemption and afterwards spoke to him and found him owning it therefore he was an Arminian and I hear a Northamptonshire Arminian hath so published him in print O the unfaithfulness of men seeming pious The good Bishop must be what every one will say of him Though one feigneth him to be of one extream and the other of the other extream when alas his judgement hath been commonly known in the world about this 30 years to be neither for the one nor the other but for the middle way Do you call for proof If
to give up his name to Christ as his servant and souldier and to fight manfully against the World the Flesh and the Devil c. we need add no more Mr Blake 's mistake lies in this that the ground of Baptism is either a Dogmatical faith or a true justifying faith which because no Minister can certainly know he must only require a Dogmatical faith But we conceive neither of them to be the ground of Baptism but the profession of a true justifying faith or Acceptance of the Covenant So far these Brethren And whether it be not the Promise of a justifying faith that Mr Blake takes up with besides his faith short of justifying read his Books and censure as you find cause But yet if Mr Blake be really of my mind I have no mind to perswade the world that he is not nor reason so to do but when I know it from himself I shall heartily rejoyce in the closure For I am confident it is in love of Truth that both of us do dispute and therefore if Truth get by it we have our ends For my part I must still say that if I took a Dogmatical faith it self or any short of justifying for the Title and necessary qualifications of them that I must admit I would baptize none because I cannot know who hath that Dogmatical faith and who not And I still find that even wise and pious men are oft as far to seek for the truth of their Assent as of their Consent and would give a world that they were but certain that they truly Believe the truth of the Gospel And I am sure that I am as far to seek for assurance of the one as of the other in those that I examine in order to the baptizing of their Infants There is newly come forth a Book of William Morrice Esquire which seems by the Title page to plead for the sufficiency of this Dogmatical faith When I saw the Book made up of so much reading and expressing so much industry and learning I much rejoyced that England had such a Gentleman and I look on the Book as a shaming reprehension of the idleness and ignorance of the multitude of the Gentry that spend that time in hawking and hunting and complementing which if better spent might make a blessing and not a burden to the Land But out of that learned Volume I am not able to find any clear discovery what the Author means by a Dogmatical faith But I conjecture that it is somewhat that must be conjunct with the Profession of a saving faith For pag. 215. he saith because it is not only probable to Charity they may have found faith but And pag. 2â—4 He that receives the Seals of the Covenant seals back a Counter-part to God accepts of the Terms and assents to the Condition which as Mr Vines before shews is justifying faith And I desire it may be observed what he saith p. 247. to prove Baptism and the Lords Supper to be administred on the like grounds And what he saith in p. 248 249. against Baptizing the children of the Excommunicate and what he citeth out of Rich. Hooker Eccl. Pol. l. 3. p. 87. to that end and that the Child 's right is rooted in the immediate parents And that which he citeth out of Goodwins Mos. Aar l. 5. c. 2. p. 223. that Among the Iews the male-children of those that were but under Niddui were not circumcised And if any think that this learned Gentleman would have Ministers feed the humors of the carnal unruly multitude by giving them the Lords Supper while they obstinately refuse to be ruled or to live a godly life let them observe that it is only Church-members not living scandalously and still professing the Christian faith that he pleads for And no doubt but he will confess that our Parishioners cannot by us be made Church-members against their wils he distinguisheth between the Universal and a Particular Church and well knows that all the Christian world belongs not to my pastoral charge and that I am not bound to deliver the Sacraments to all that have a right to them And therefore if upon just reasons I desire of the whole Parish to know whether they own their membership in that particular Church or not and take me for their Pastor and consent to the duty of members and some deny it and others will give me no answer by word or writing no not after I have waited a year or two and I told them that I must take their silence for a denial but they will continue silently to hear and will not once say they own the relation nor will submit to the unquestionable acts of Discipline I am confident that it is not in the thoughts of this learned Gentleman that I must needs take these persons for part of my charge that will not tell me they take themselves for such or take me for their Pastor no more then he will think himself bound to take a woman for his wife and estate her in his Lands and perform conjugal offices to her that will not once say She consenteth that he shall be her husband And this is the case of most of our people The most Godly Ministers about us that gather not new Churches but on sufficient reasons and joint agreement do only call the whole Parish to know whether they own their membership and them for their Pastors do find almost none but a few Godly that will own it for fear of being troubled by Discipline If all the Parish therefore be our Church it must be against their wils And if any think that several passages in that Learned Volumn do make against the power and consequently the labor of the Ministry and the Edification of the Church I propound to their consideration 1. That all the applicatory passages of the Discourse must be expounded as they relate to that controversie which occasioned them which must be understood by the help of former writings 2. It s not unusual with wise men in length and heat of Disputation to make the face of Truth it self to seem sometimes to look awry in the application 3. And other passages in the same Book may help you to a fair exposition of the offensive As e.g. p. 85. he saith Were a Pastor so familiarly conversant with his flock as he ought to be and is some think implyed not only in Paul 's preaching from house to house but also by those alike used idioms the Church in or among you and you in the Church or did not deem the feeding of the Lambs by Catechizing to be beneath his magistery and greatness he would need no other marks or signs to know his sheep by then such as he might take from common conversation And you need not question but this Learned Author would reckon them among the scandalous that would not speak with a Minister if he desire it but get away when they know he will come to
the Credit of their wordâ— hath Evidence of Credibility therefore they ought to be believed The Major is undeniable taking the measure of belief to be according to the measure of that Evidence The Mâ—nor I prove 1. From the ordination of nature 2. From the consent of the world and certain experience 1. Nature hath not given one man an inspection into the breast of another nor hath God made any Minister a searcher of hearts and beholder of mens thoughts 2. God hath made man capable of knowing in his own thoughts though its true that the heart is so deceitful that there is a great difficulty of knowing them of our selves yet the meaning of that Text Jer. 17 9 10. is concerning others who can know it that is who can know anothers heart But yet for all the deceitfulness a certain measure of knowledge may be had For 3. Man hath a certain knowledge of the Evil of lying and so a certain credibility naturally or by the light of nature as the examples of the very Heathens can witness 4. The tongue was created to be the Index of the mind Though mans actual language be acquired yet his tongue was made for that use All this set together shews ex natura rei that though the Evidence be imperfect yet an Evidence it is Moreover if there be such a thing as fides humana due among men then there is such a thing as Evidence of Credibility But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the Consequent He that denyeth the Antecedent 1. I suppose will consent that no man believes him 2. And would not sure have any more converse used in the world 3. And I would put it to the consideration of the contrary-minded whether if ordinarily there be no Evidence of Credibility in mens word and Professions be not to be taken as signs of the thing professed it were not best either to cut out mens tongues or else forbear teaching our children to speak and so let language perish from the earth For if it be ordinarily understood as meer lying it would seem the best way to extirpate it by this means 2. And I have also the consent and experience of the world on my side of the Credibility of the words even of common men in general 1. All Societies are established on the credit of mens words Princes and people enter their Covenants upon the credit and confidence in each others words 2. All affairs are managed on this Supposition The freest men in England do hold all their Estates and Lives upon the credit of the words and common fidelity that it is even in unregenerate men They are sufficient Witnesses at any Bar. Two of these by a false oath might put a man to death and yet how seldom are such things done Moreover how much doth all History depend upon the word of of man Yea how much of humane credit do we make use of to assure us that these which we now have are the same Scriptures that the Apostles writ and that they are uncorrupted and how far and that these only are Cannonical c. Argum. 5. It is most suitable to the End of Baptism that the Adult should be Baptized upon a bare Profession For Baptism is to be the Sign and means of their solemn Entrance into the Church and reception of a Sealed pardon of sin c. Now if you would stay till men prove their sincerity by their holy lives you will have them grow before they are well planted and give you full Evidence of Church membership before they are rightly entred Members And sure this is not like to be a regular course Argum. 6. My last Argument is from the continued Custom of the Church of God which with Paul was somewhat I confess the Churches after the Apostles daies did for divers ages prepare men long before they baptized them True they were Catechumeni before they were fideles or baptized But 1. That was not that they might have experience of the sanctity of their lives as the necessary qualification of the persons to be baptized but it was that they might instruct them in the Christian Faith that they might know what they did and be fit to make an acceptable Profession and then when they were prepared for such a Profession they took the bare Profession it self as the evidence of the truth of the thing professed still supposing that it was such a Profession as is before described and were not invalidate by contradiction or the like and therefore they did indeed expect that those that lived in notorious scandalous sins should stop their course and forbear the committing of them as well as profess Repentance for them because that it would have nullified their Profession if they had commited the sin even when they professed to repent of it Therefore Austin in his Tractate de fide operibus on that subject would have none baptized that were guilty of living with Concubines in fornication unless they would actually put them away and then promise to forsake them for the time to come but he did not advise that they should after all this delay yet longer to see whether they would make good that promise by their performance I conclude therefore that the Apostles and all the Church having so long accepted of a bare verbal Profession we must do so too Objection 1. If we shall believe the Professions of all or most men we shall believe that to be true which is not true and we shall believe more Lyes than Truths for there are more that make false Profession then a true and moreover we shall administer the Ordinances of God upon the credit of a Lye which seemeth a prophaning them Answ. 1. A known Lye you may not you cannot believe and should you administer the Ordinances upon a Profession which is notorious false you should prophane them 2. But if I believe a Lyer when I cannot prove him such that 's none of my sin nay its mâ— duty God made mens tongues to shew their minds and so I am to take their words but if they will abuse them to lying that 's their own sin and not mine 3. If you would believe no man till you are sure that he saith true then you must believe no man in the world For though you may know the thing to be true by other Evidence yet belâ—eving him can give you no certainly of thâ— truth for belief dependeth on the credit of the speaker Your Argument therefore tendeth to the destroying of all humane faith which is not to be endured 4. It is but with a humane faith that we believe them and therefore we believe them but as deceitful fallible men who may possibly deceive us It is not with such a faith as we owe to God wherein we conclude the thing revealed to be so unquestionably true as that it cannot possibly be false because God cannot Lye yea it is with a divers degree of Faith that
his house and was baptized that same hour of the night or straight way It is here evident that he professed the same faith which Paul required or else the equivocation would make the text not intelligible And that which was required was a saving faith Acts 18 8. Crispus the chief ruler of the Synagouge believed on the Lord with all his house and many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized Here we have two proofs that it is saving faith that is mentioned One in that it is called a believing on the Lord which expresseth saving faith Another in that it is the faith which related to the doctrine preached to them as is expressed in the word Hearing that which they heard they believed but they heard the promise as well as the History of the Gospel and they heard of the Goodness as well as the Truth and they heard Christ offered to them as their only Saviour for Paul never preached Christ but in this manner and to these ends even as might tend to their Justification and Salvation and it was a saving faith that he still exhorted men to Those in Acts 19.5 were baptized as Believers in Jesus Christ which is saving faith whether it were by John's Baptism or by Paul or others I now enquire not And what all the Churches were supposed to be to whom the Apostles wrote I have shewed before In a word I know of no one word in Scripture that giveth us the least intimation that ever man was baptized without the Profession of a saving faith or that giveth the least encouragement to baptize any upon another faith But before we proceed Mr. Blake's exceptions against some of these â—rguments from the forecited texts must come under consideration how little soever they deserve it pag. 166. To what I said from Mat. 28.29 I am very sory to hear the constitution of visible Churches to suffer the brand of making of counterfeit and half Christians Answ. For all that I will not be moved with pity to err because you are sorry to hear the truth 1. Church constitutions make not Christians of one sort or other but contain them when made 2. And my arguing was to prove that every faithful Pastor must intend the making of sincere Christians and not only counterfeit or half-Christians This is a truth that so good a man should not have been sorry to hear 3. If you mean that visible Churches contain not counterfeit and half-Christians you might have been sorry long before this to hear both Protestants and Papists say the contrary You add Its well known whose language it is that all charging duty on unregenerate persons is only to bring them to hypocrisie Answ. And if the end of that duty were no higher than to bring men to be counterfeit Christians they had not said amiss When we hear that charge it is for perswading men to hear pray c. for sincere faith But if I perswade men to become Christians and mean only the Professors of faith without the thing professed or the believing with another sort of faith then I might well be charged with perswading some to hypocrisie and the other to be half-Christians 2. You have not yet proved that Baptizing the Professors of a lower faith is the appointed means to bring them to saving faith You say In order to make men sincere Disciples they must be made visible professing Disciples Answ. If there be not a palpable equivocation you must mean that it is the same Discipleship which some have sincerely and others but visibly by profession and then it must be the same faith And then you say to this effect that in order to make men sincere they must profess seem to be so before they are so that is a lie is the appointed means to make the thing spoken become true But if according to the current of your doctrine you mean in the later branch of your distinction those only that profess another sort of faith and so equivocate in the word Disciples then I answ 1. Your Disciples are no Disciples nor so called once in Scripture 2. Nor is that any thing to baptism till you have proved that baptism also annexed to your Discipleship is a means appointed to bring them to a higher saving faith You tell us that men may be half Christians in order to be whole Christians Answ. But not baptized to that end nor must the Preacher intend the making of any half-Christians and no more What you mention out of Ames of taking stones out of the quarry to polish c. is nothing to the purpose Baptizing them is not polishing them that is preparing them for conversion according to the Institution but it s the placing polished stones in the building To polish them for the building is to make them true Disciples and not Professors of another kind of faith Pâ—g 168. When I say that to be Christs Disciples is to be one that unfeignedly takes him for his Master c. You answer that This is true as to the inheritance of Heaven but not as to the ininheritance of Ordinances The Jew outwardly was not thus qualified Repl. 1. Our question is what is a Disciple and what 's your answer to that unless you distinguish of two sorts and mean that another sort there are that inherite Ordinances 2. And then I say further some Ordinances are without the Church and those may have them that are no Disciples and fâ—r those proper to the Church none have right to them but who at least profess the foresaid Discipleship I wonder what your three sorts of Disciples will prove that do not profess to take Christ for their Master Next where Mr. Blake would have proved the Text not to be meant of sound Believers because they are such Disciples as a whole Nation is capable to be I answered that whole Nations are capable of saving faith and proved it to which he mentioneth the capacity of stones to be made Children As if men had no more then stones And as if God could not make all in a Nation believers by the same means us he makes some such He turns to the question what a Nation is capable of to what may be expected â—nd argueth as if they were capable of no more than we may eventually expect and saith this that is a doctrine so clear that proof needs not Where there never shal be any futurity we may well and safely speak of an incapacity Ans. As if omne possibâ—le esset futurum and men should have every thing good or bad which they are capable of A sad world when among learned Divines such sayings are Truths that need no proofs as if the contradictories of our Principles were become Principles It s added Capacity is vain when it is known coâ—fest that existence shall never follow Answ. Hath such an assertion bin usually heard among the worshippers of the Creator the admirers of his works If one of
infidelity and doubting and have so much Belief of the truth of Scripture as prevaileth with them to resolve to trust their everlasting happiness only on that bottom though with the forsaking of all earthly things yet are they far short of a full assurance or certainty of the truth of the Gospel and are principally in doubt of the sincerity of this act of their faith Now I would know what Mr. Blake would have these Godly persons do that are not assured of their Dogmatical faith but are oft ready to say I shall one day perish by this Unbelief If he would have them receive the Sacraments without assurance of a Dogmatical faith we have reason to think that they may receive them without assurance of a justifying faith though we make this the condition of their Title as they do the other 3. It is a great controversie among the Reformed Divines whether an unconverted man can have that faith which we call Dogmatical I know but two or three Divines to be of Mr. Blake's opinion though its like enough there may be more And one of them thinks that the nature of justifying faith lieth only in Assent another I have heard in conference maintain that wicked men or the unconverted do not indeed Believe God nor that the word of God is true And if this be so then sure a Dogmatical faith is a justifying faith and he that must be sure of the one must be sure of the other when it is not really another but the same or an essential part of the same This also is the judgement of many Protestant Divines as Bishop Downam Camero and his followers and many more viz. that faith lieth in Assent or a perswasion of the truth of the word and the common opinion of Protestants is that this Assent is one essential part of justifying faith and that it is in the understanding as well as the will I remember scarce any of note besides Amesius that placeth it in the will only and make the act of the Intellect to be but Integral or preparatory And if there be any such thing as Grace or Holiness and Rectitude in the Intellect I do not yet conceive wherein it can consist if not in Light procuring knowledge of and Assent to the truth And how much of this jure vel injuria Mr. Blake yields to the unregenerate see him on sacr pag. 179. As in these words And therefore though the wicked match the Regenerate in assent in their understandings it will not follow that their understandings therefore are truly sanctified I am far from believing that the wicked do match the Regenerate in assent in their understandings But if he can prove this I would fain know what the Rectitude or Sanctity of the understanding is seeing he supposeth that this is not it He that with a deep habitual assent doth Believe that God is the chief good and that for him and that Heaven is more desirable than earth and that there is no salvation but by Christ received as our Priest Prophet and King c. I think he hath a sanctified understanding or else I know not who hath nor what it is But in such great points as this if Mr. Blake have made any new discovery of the nature of sanctity or rectitude in the intellect as a thing differing from assent he might have dealt charitably to have told us what it is and not to have left the world at a loss 4. And I still think that at best if the wicked have a true Dogmatical Belief of the essentials of Religion it is as hard or harder for them to attain assurance of the truth of that Dogmatical Belief in its kinde as it is for the Regenerate to attain assurance of the truth of saving faith in its kind Therefore if the wicked may lawfully claim a Right in both Sacraments without assurance that they are sincere in their kind of faith why may not the Godly claim a Right without assurance of sincerity in their kind of faith And if Mr. Blake will say that neither assurance nor perswasion that we have either the one or the other is necessary to a claim or Right but only a promise of them for the future then Heathens and Infidels have right and may lay a claim For they can promise to be Christians and yet remain Heathens Obj. 3. If you take none to have such a right as may warrant their claim and receiving but only sound Believers then you make election and the covenant and seals to by commensurate which is not to be done Answ. The terms are ambiguous Supposing that we understand each other as to the sence of the word Election I say of the word Covenant that it may mean three differing things 1. If you mean the conditional promise of Christ and life to all that will Believe I say that this is not commensurate with Election For as to the tenor it belongs to all the world and as to the promulgation to all that hear it This is sometime called a covenant in the sense as all Divine constitutions be about our life and sometime as it is the offer of a mutual covenant and sometime as it is seemingly accepted But still God is but conditionally obliged And this is no sufficient Title to the seal For then it were due to open Infidels if not to all 2. If by the word Covenant you mean mans own promise to God or consent to his offer so I say it is either sincere or not sincere Sincere consent to Gods offer is commensurate with election unless you can prove that such fall away totally and finally But unsincere consent as when it only to half the offer or unsincere promising with the tongue without the sincere consent of the heart is not commensurate with election nor doth it warrant the Hypocrite to claim the Sacraments though it may warrant me to give them if he claim them 3. If by the Covenant you mean Gods actual obligation which followeth mans acceptance which is the performance of the condition of Gods promise then I say it is commensurate with election unless you could prove the foresaid doctrine of Apostacy For when God hath promised us Christ and life on condition of our acceptance or consent and we hereupon do sincerely consent then Gods promise doth induce on him as we may speak after our manner an actual obligation and give us an actual Right to the benefits and is equivalent as to that present benefit to an absolute promise And it is only this that will warrant our claim to any of the benefits Obj. 4. Saith Mr. Blake pag. 121. And whereas he so peremptorily determines that though wicked men oblige themselves yet God still remaineth disobliged let him consider whether God be not some way obliged to all that he voucheth to be his people If this be denyed there will be found no great happiness to a people to have the Lord for their God But God avoucheth
upon lying fame as it is This is the way to discredit all history when Godly men dare publish that of so many in a County which the whole Country almost that are capable of understanding such marters do know to be false 3. Have we groaned and prayed and suffered so long in hope of Discipline and yet are there Godly Ministers among us that have the hearts to calumniate and reproach the attempts of it where they never had the face to acquaint us with the least mistake or miscarriage in our way Ah what wonder if the poor Church consume away in its corruptions and divisions when this is the friendship and assistance of its guides But of this before The other summary of Mr. Blakes oppositions is pag. 550 551. in his introduction where he thus declares his minde Mr. Blake And truly Sir if I should have a thought of changing my opinion I know not how to look to the end of the danger that will follow I must first necessarily engage my self in an everlasting Schism being not able to find out a Church in the world of any interest in which I shall dare in this account to hold communion Answ. O the power of prejudice What Church in all the world was ever of your Judgement And would you have separated from all the Churches in the world But le ts hear the reasons of your fear Mr. Blake I shall see in many members too clear symptoms of non-Regeneration and Vnbelief Answ. 1. Do not those persons profess a Justifying faith 2. Or is it Infallible symptoms of the contrary which you mean or which are sufficient to nullifie or invalidate that Profession if not you say nothing if so then 3. Dare you hold communion with no Church that hath some members that in your own Judgement are unfit to be there How oft hath this opinion been confuted in the Separatists But you add your reason Mr. Blake Though this will not bear a separation yet this consideration of their non-baptism will necessarily enforce it Answ. 1. The Enemy of the Church needs no hands to do a great part of his work but our own The Anabaptists take us to be all unbaptized and thence infer a necessity of Separation Their Separation troubleth the Church much more than their opinion for re-baptizing Our endeavour is at least to bring them to this that being re-baptized they would rest satisfied and live in peaceable communion with the Church Mr. Blake steps in and confirmeth them in their consequence on supposition of the Antecedent which we cannot satisfie them in and so frustrateth all our labour and gives them the day in that and considereth not I fear the danger of promoting such a schism But he would do well first to answer the many Reasons that Mr. John Goodwin hath brought against that opinion and take his work clean before him If I knew a Church or whole Nation of men that thought verily they were truly baptized and I thought that it was not so if yet they profest true Faith and Holiness I durst not separate from them 2. But how irksom must it needs be to your Judicious Readers to have such conclusions tost up and down with meer confidence upon suppositions which you disdain or deign not to prove One Argument to have proved that our Principles infer the Nullity of the Baptism of the Unregenerate had been more worth than all this kind of talk I say that Deo Judice such men have no Title by any Grant or Gift of God to claim or receive the Sacraments though the Minister have Commission to give it to some unjust claimers This opinion professeth the Nullity of the Title which is denyed Do you prove that it also inferreth the Nullity of the external Baptism it self which was justly administred though unjustly demanded It s tedious to read voluminous Disputes where that which requireth proof is still taken for granted But if all this were so I think you must still be a Separatist on your own Principles For where would you find a Church among us where there be not many that have not a Dogmatical faith which you say must give them Title to Baptism Mr. Blake And if I be holpen out as indeed I utterly despair by any distinction of forum Dei and forum Ecclesiae Vnivocal and Equivocal what thought then shall I entertain of the Holy Scripture Answ. I cannot tell what thoughts you will have of it but I can partly tell what thoughts you should have of it Will you deny that the Scripture most commonly speaks of God himself himself in equivocal terms I hope you will not And how should it speak otherwise to mans understanding And yet what thoughts will you entertain of the Scripture You will not I hope take on you to know no difference between Jesuitical dissembling equivocation which is to deceive and the use of equivocal terms either necessarily for want of other words in being or Rhetorically for ornament or when custome of Speech hath made them the most apt Will you so far equivocate with equivocal terms as to confound the culpable equivocation with the laudable and then say What thoughts shall I have of the holy Scriptures this doth not beseem an Expositor of the Scriptures And whereas you next add the many titles given to the unregenerate I have answered it before and more may do in the next Dispute besides what you had even now from Mr. Rutherford These titles were never given to any of your Professors of a faith short of that which Justifyeth And yet there is no passage in your Book that amazeth me more than your frequent and confident Assertions of the contrary and pretenses of the common Judgement of the Church to be on your side Pag. 116 117. When I had said that Dr. Ward would not have found a second to undertake his cause you say How this passage fell from his pen may well be to very intelligent Reader matter of admiration that a man of such multiplicity of reading should think that Dr. Ward in this opinion would not have found a second when if he had perused our approved Authors about the question especially since it came to a punctual just debate he may soon see that he hath almost every one to appear for him if this which he mentions be his opinion unless perhaps he hath been so held in reading the Fathers and other Writers for the first thirteen or fourteen hundred years in which few will I think come out and vie with him that he hath not regarded what hath been said this 1500 years in this corner of the world Answ. 1. Your groundless insipid scorn about reading the Fathers of the first 1400 years doth no whit clear the Truth nor strengthen your Cause nor I think tend to the pleasing of God 2. One of us have certainly exposed our selves to the Readers when we stand wondering thus at each other and profess our understanding to be at so great
while he was destitute of the faith which by his action was professed Receiving the Sacrament as a Sacrament is an actual profession oâ— faith And you can never prove that Christ commanded Juda to lye by professing the faith which he had not but only that he commanded him at once to Believe and thus profess it He that will have men compelled to come in to the Church intendeth that they must bring a wedding garment or else they shall hear how camest thou hither You apprehend John Timpsons words to be apposite which imply a contradiction or touch not the point If the right Object be really believed even that which is the full Object of saving faith that very belief is saving and proveth the holiness of the person To the Twelfth I answer General and special Grace I resolvedly maintain But when will you prove that it is a part of General Grace to have a proper Title given by God to the Sacraments which seal up the pardon of sin actually where there is such Title To have the universal conditional promise or covenant ex parte Dei enacted and promulgate and offered the world with many incitements to entertain it is General Grace But so is not either our actual heart-covenanting the Remission of our sin nor such a proper Title to the sign of both When you tell us of the Worlds Potential and the visible Churches actual Interest in General Grace you give us pardon the truth a meer sound of words that signifie nothing or nothing to purpose You cannot call it General Grace Objectively as if the Saints had a particular Objective Grace the rest a General For Generals exist not but in the individuals It is therefore the General conditional promise or gift which you must mean by General Grace This is to the world without indeed but an offer But is it any more to any of the unbelievers or unregenerate within what can be the meaning of an actual Interest in a conditional promise which all the hearers have not and yet is short of the true actual Interest of them that perform the condition I feel no substance in this notion nor see any light in it I confess there is a certain possession that one such man may have more then others but as that is nothing to proper Title so it is not the thing that Sacraments are to seal I have not Mr. Hudsons book now by me but your solution by the two sives had need of some sifting It s one thing to ask what is the end of Sacraments quoad intentionem praecepti and another thing to tell what eventually they produce I do not believe that the sive that brings men into a state of Grace is in the hands of God only so as if he used not Ministers thereto Ministers are said in Scripture to convert and heal and deliver and save men To your 13th and 14th and last I answer That we easily confess that the covenant under the new Testament is better than the old but this makes nothing for you nor do you prove that it doth the force of the first section of your book as it may be the matter of an Objection I have answered before As to your Authorities I say 1. Mr. Vines saith nothing which proveth any approbation of your opinion whether Mr. Burgess do I leave to himself for I know not certainly All that I know of since Dr. Ward is Mr. Blake Mr. Humphrey and John Timpson and John Timpson Mr. Humphrey and Mr. Blake Your 3d and 4th Sections need no more answer I think than what is already given You needed not these pillars to support that point which is the design of your Treatise To these I find you add another the greatest of all pag. 611. which you say sinks deep into you but if reason will do it I will pluck it up by the roots partly by desiring you to peruse what I have twice or thrice before answered to it and partly by adding as followeth That 1. If a man by mistaken doubtings shall keep himself away from a Sacrament that doth not destroy his Title to it or the Grace signified nor is it any ones fault but his own I therefore deny your Minor It is not this doctrine that cuts off doubting Christians from the Sacrament but themselves that do culpably withdraw To your Prosyllogism I deny the Major that doctrine which concludes it sin in the doubtful Christian to Receive doth not cut him off For it concludeth it not his sin to Receive in it self but to Receive doubtingly so that it is not Receiving but Doubting that is properly his sin and withall we say that it is his Duty to Receive and his greater Sin not to Receive than to Receive And though an erring Conscience doth alwaies ensnare and so create a necessity of sinning which way soever we go till it be rectified yet it s a greater sin to trespass against a plain precept than against an erring Conscience in many cases But the main stress lyeth on your proof which is from Rom. 14.23 Whatsoever is not of faith is sin But I could wish you would consider it better before you press home that Text to the same sence against all other duties as you do against this lest you leave God but little service from the Church 1. It is one thing to doubt about indifferent matters such as Paul speaks of as eating c. For there he is condemned if he eat because he is sure it is lawful to forbear but not sure that it is lawful to eat But press not this upon us in case of necessary duty If God command me to pray praise or communicate my doubt will not justifie my forbearance and though it entangle me in sin it cannot disoblige me from duty but I shall sin more if I forbear You say If it be sin for the unregenerate to Receive then cannot the doubting Christian be perswaded and consequently sinneth Ans. True but that 's not long of the doctrine but of his error and it is the case of all practical errors which will not therefore justifie you in blaming the doctrine it s the unavoidable effect of an erring Conscience And again I say he sinneth more in forbearing Whereas you conclude this Argument to be convincing I have told you before why it convinceth not me but to your selves I would ask whether it do not also convince you that your own doctrine is as unsufferable For I am past doubt that not only most Christians but even most doubting Christians have more knowledge that they have true justifying faith than the rest of the world have that they have true Dogmatical faith Though the wicked doubt less because they believe and regard it less yet indeed they have not only far more cause to doubt of the truth of their Dogmatical faith but have less true knowledge of it At least many of them it s thus with when so many true Christians do as much
agree Though I must say that it is so usual for men to love those of their own opinions that I marvailed to finde a man with such high indignation endeavouring to prove himself of his Opponents minde and that we should agree more passionately then we seemed to differ As I little thought that Dr. Twisse had been of the same minde with my self and others in this point But Mr. Iessop hath peaceably and temperately proved it and I therein rejoyce so I less thought that Dr. Owen had been of the same minde but he hath hotly and haughtily proved it and therein also I rejoyce As long as we come neerer and error goeth away with the disgrace we may the better bear the displeasure of the Reconciled As for the great pains he hath taken about my Person for the cause found him not work enough to prove from my writings that I am so hypocritically proud I know not well what return to make him that will be acceptable Should I as faithfully admonish him it would seem but a recrimination and its like he hath those that are nearer him that do it who need not take their ground from fame and whose words may meet with less indignation Should I tell him that a Minister is not to be prodigal of his reputation because it is not his own and that a man that is voluminously slandered and that is Calumniated by the off-spring which such Reverend men as he hath midwived into the world may possibly open his mouth against the Calumniator and clear his innocency and the truth without a predominant degree of pride I should probably incurr the censure of being yet more proud by denying any thing that is charged upon me though it were that Heresie it self which his parallel doth seem to his Readers to accuse me of If I should tell him that I do unfeignedly confess the truth of his accusation and that I was aware of Pride and Hypocrisie in my heart before he told me of them and that the subduing of them is the business of my desires and care it s ten to one but I shall be proud in seeming so humble as to confess my pride and that these as he speaks are but good words to cover it But yet confess it I must and will how proud soever I be in the confession One evidence of it which I have heard from the apprehension of others viz. because I gave him not his due Titles of honour is no whit cogent with me that know the case and I think my justification is unanswerable viz. that when my papers were written he was not Doctor though he was when they came out of the press Whether it be not harder measure that I have met with at his hand I desire you to judge by two or three particulars 1. Though I did purposely again and again profess that I reckoned not all to be Antinomians that held only some one or few of their opinions that are not the worst and in particular not all that held the very same opinion against which I argued with him and withall entitle him The most sober and learned man that I know of that writes that way even for that opinion yet doth he think meet to publish to the world that I enroll him into the Troop of Antinomians when he is unable to produce a syllable of mine that hath such a signification I think this dealing is not fair 2. He untruly chargeth me with traducing him for maintaining and giving countenance to the Propositions which I mentioned pag. 189. on his pag. 9. and 3. and thereupon groundeth his tragical exclamations I mentioned him as the author of these particular words which I annexed to his name which I judged indeed unsound but will it thence follow that I fasten on him all the errors that I mention in the precedent or subsequent pages Having read my words inconsiderately he exclaims against supposed injuries which were caused by the mistakes of his own imagination and are not to be found in any of my expressions A stranger that reads his passionate scorns upon such occasions and had not read the words which did offend him would little think that so learned a man should make such a stir upon the pretence of a charge that was never brought against him but only against others a leaf before the mention of his name If he ask Why then did I there mention his name I answer As he defendeth that particular opinion which his words express and not as defending all that other men are charged with and I mentioned his because it is too like to theirs and they are encouraged by it as Mr. Eyres allegations may evince 3. When in the close of my confession pag. 462. I called so large a recital of other mens words a spending of much time to little purpose even to satisfie those that look too much at the names of men he feigneth me to speak this in reference to the matter and manner of the Book 4. His splendid fiction of the terrible conditions which I put upon my answerer and his insultings thereupon are only the effects of his inadvertency and mistakes pag. 45. as I shall shew anon Pag. 5. His pretended knowledge of me as if it were upon much acquaintance and experience doth argue much sagacity I think I have seen him as oft as he hath seen me and yet my knowledge of him is very small In his anatomizing of my pride pag. 6 he playes the after-game more plausibly than his Brethren played the fore-game They go before and partly by his help and publish abundance of Calumnies of me to the world telling them not only that I am a Papist but what books they were that made me a Papist and what Emissaries I have in all parts of the Land with much more of the like When my discovery of their abuse did frustrate much of their design this Learned man comes after them and at last will prove me proud for contradicting them forsooth for talking so much of my self As if one of the Doctors friends should accuse me of theft or murder at the Assize and when I have justified my innocency the Doctor should come after him and tell how much I had spoken for my self and prove me thereby to be proud and selfish The truth is I am conscious of so much of these sins and so far believe the odiousness and danger of them that I take such books as this Doctors for a great mercy as knowing that strong corruptions must have something that is strong to work the cure and a hard knot must have a sharp wedge a Shimei may be sent of God for good and how unrighteous soever the monitor may be I am abundantly beholden to God that doth permit it I had rather have a Messenger of Satan to buffet me than be exalted above measure I confess my pride needs sharper reprehensions than friends have ever used about me and therefore they are better
from any body than from no body But I must say that I despair of speaking writing or doing any thing so exactly but that ingenious malice may plausibly put it into as odious a dress as this Reverend man I hope with a better mind hath there cloathed the passages with which he refers to Pag. 7. His passion quite conquereth his ingenuity while he is not contented to ease his spleen on me alone but must fall upon the Worcestershire profession of faith and therein pick quarrels with the plainest passages contrary to the sence that I had told him in my explication we took the words in and can find that in sundry particulars therein we give too great a countenance to the Socinian abominations when we have professed that we believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and then that we consent to take this God for our God and chief Good this Christ for our only Saviour c. he can find us directly answering Mr. Biddle and distinguishing the Lord Jesus our Redeemer as our Lord from that one true God as if we did not include the three persons in the first Article of our consent and in the second respect the office of Christ rather than the pure Godhead considered in it self whiâ—h was expressed before Or as if we had not plainly prevented such exceptions As God is offered so is he to be accepted and therefore our consent must respect the benefits and offices and not only the persons in the Trinity as such And did this Reverend man forget how oft Paul hath given him the very same cause to suspect his words of countenancing Socinianism excepting the difference of the authors as we have done I mean how oft he doth as plainly distinguish as we here do But because such eyes will not look at an explication in the distant leaves we have since tryed a further remedy against such Calumniations by putting our exposition in the margent that he that will see the words themselves may see them But when all is done you see what dealing you must expect I look not to scape the fangs of such excepters if I say that I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for no doubt but some of them can find heresie or somewhat that countenanceth it in this But the hardest measure of all that I have from him is in his Socinian parallel in 11. Articles page 11.12 c. I never met with Reader but understood without doubt that he mentioned the words in the English Letter as mine But he was wiser than to say so much more to quote the places where they are all found Indeed part of them are the common Protestant doctrine and part of them never fell from my pen nor came into my thoughts with any approbation Yet hath he so prudently managed the business that his Readers shall generally think he chargeth them on me and who will not believe him rather then search he knows not where to disprove him and yet he may deny it when ever he is blamed for it Having thus given you an account of the quality of that Appendix I hope you see sufficient Reason why I should forbear a more particular Reply Nor will I vie with him in poetical shreds and adages though a Polyanthea or Erasmus Apopthegms would furnish me without any further travel And next as to Mr. Blake I find more cause in his last writings to deter me from all Disputations where pious men may think themselves concerned than to encourage me to proceed in the justest defence And I confess it repenteth me for his own sake that ever I defended my self against his accusations and that I did not silently suffer him to say what he would though yet I am willing that the equity of the Reasons which I gave for my Replying to him in that Apologie be censured by any impartial man even those that I have expressed in my preface to that Book But I could not then see the consequents as to himself I am heartily sorry that I have become by my defence an occasion or temptation of so much offence and of so much distemper and injustice to a man whom I so much love and honour should I speak any further for that which I am confident is the truth of God how much more might I offend and tempt him I well hoped that he that made the assault on his Brother would have patiently heard an answer and have been glad of such a collation of our several thoughts as might tend in any measure to beat out the truth As he thought it was for God that he assaulted me so I as verily think it was for God and his certain truth that I wrote my defence And if I be mistaken why should he be so angry at it when I know he takes not himself to be infallible When I wrote 〈◊〉 the Index the contents of one section thus whether it be virtually written in Scripture that Mr. Blake is justified and whether it is de fide he saith pag. 336. that he did not without trembling of spirit read nor without tears think upon this thus put to the question And what 's the reason why saith he Who would not believe that I had directly asserted it or made some unsavooy vaunts about it Truly no man would believe it from these words that knows what an Index is but would understand that it tels him the matter that is contained in the page that it referreth him to and not the matter directly asserted by another And must we not dispute against that also which is indirectly asserted I profess it never came into my thoughts that the most render passionate man that was not melancholy could have so much matter of offence in those words as to tremble or weep at them It is a case wherein I must speak of some individual or I could not speake to the purpose For it s granted that it is not every mans justification that is de fide nor every justified mans and yet some mens was Had I instanced in Peter or Paul it had been nothing to out business For I confess that Scripture declareth them to be justified Titius and Sompronius I knew not and therefore could not instance in them Should I have instanced in my self he might have taken it for sophistical For the disproof of my own certainty of justification is no disproof of another mans whom then could I more reasonably and fitly instance in than the Opponent himself especially being a man of whose sincerity I am so confident It never entered into my apprehension that this was any more wrong to him than it would have been to have put this question Whether Mr. Blake's Soul be in loco if I had been disputing with him whether anima humana sit in loco I profess if it were to do again I know not how more fitly to express it But if I have not skill enough to draw the index of a Section
to be inconsistent if reduced into practice with the Purity of the Church and such as is unworthy the patronage of Godly learned men Yet in this I perceive his writings have success For I hear that some Reverend Godly men of his acquaintance are so confident that he is in the right that they marvel that ever I should hold the contrary and blame me as defending a principal point in the Independent cause The Lord enlighten us and pardon it to us which soever of us it be that is mistaken and doth wrong the Church of God There are four several Titles that are or may be produced to Baptism The first is sincere Saving Faith The second is the profession of such sincere Faith The third is a Dogmatical Faith short of Justifying Faith The fourth is a profession of that Dogmatical Faith I say that only they that have the Justifying Faith have a Promise-Right to Baptism properly so called which I called a Right Coram Deo but that the professors of such a Faith and their seed have an Analogical Consequential Right which followeth on Gods Precept to a Minister to Baptize them This I called Right Coram Ecclesiâ and is less properly a Right And that the bare word Right might be no occasion of quarrel I distinguished of Right and shewed how far I affirmed or denyed it But such distinctions and conclusions are nothing to the business with Mr. Blake but fittest to be passed by I conclude in a word that every professor of a Justifying Faith that doth not invalidate his own profession hath such a claim to Baptism for himself if unbaptized and his seed as the Church must admit But only the sincere Believer hath a Right from the Promise and shall be taken by God for one to whom he is actually as it were obliged by his Covenant But for the two later pretended Titles viz. A Dogmatical Faith not Justifying and the Profession of such a Faith I say they are no just Titles at all Not but that a man who hath meerly a Dogmatical Faith within may have a Title in Foro Ecclesiae but this Faith is not his Title but the profession of a Saving Faith so that if he profess only his Dogmatical Faith and not a Saving Faith the Minister ought not to Baptize him This is the brief of the state of the Controversie between Master Blake and me And did I think that any such Reverend Brethren would ever have approved his Judgement in such a cause Yea and some of them plead from the same effectual mediums which are alone sufficient to prove the contrary It s the course of Hilary and others against the Arrians Hierome Augustine and many more against the Pelagians and other hereticks to call them to the constant practice of the Church in Baptizing for the proving of the nature of that Belief that we are Baptized into and the quality of the subject I appeal to Christs institution of Baptism and the uninterrupted practice of all Churches that ever I read of on the face of the earth to this day and to the continued practice of the Churches in England and all the Reformed parties and all the rest of the Christian world If they do not generally Ethiopians Greeks Papists Protestants with one consent require the profession of a Justifying Faith I will quit this cause and tell Mr. Blake that I have been mistaken and cry him mercy Nay if Mr. Blake himself do not require the profession of a Justifying Faith in the Parent of all that he admits to Baptism I shall think him the only singular man I know alive in this business But if he practice contrary to all his confident Argumentations which shall we have respect to his opinion or his practice Where is the Church on earth that doth not Baptize into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and require in the adult or the Parent of Infants that they profess themselves at present to Believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost and to renounce the World the Flesh and the Devil And therefore they commonly cause them to profess the Articles of the ancient Creed before they do Baptize them which though it hath been lately disused by some I gladly heard some Reverend Ministers in London yet use which Creed as Parker de Descensu hath learnedly shewed is the exposition of the words of the Baptismal Institution and the sum of it is I Believe in the Father Son and Holy Ghost I think not only Perkins but our Divines commonly against the Papists have proved sufficiently that the words I Believe in God the Father in Jesus Christ in the Holy Ghost do signifie Affiance as well as Assent And I should hope that I need not be put to maintain it that to Believe with Assent and Affiance in God the Father Christ the Redeemer the Holy Ghost the witness and Sanctifier renouncing the Devil the World and the Flesh is certainly Justifying Faith at least If they that say they thus Believe do so indeed I dare not be he that shall tell them they are yet condemned and deny them to be the justifyed members of Christ. If they will not so much as profess thus to Believe yea and to Repent I will never Baptize them or theirs upon theâ—r account Will Mr. Blake himself Baptize them that will not thus profess would ever the Church of Christ Baptize any but such and yet some Reverend Brethren tell us that the Church universally hath gone Mr. Blakes way against that which I insist on Now the Lord have mercy upon all our infirmities and pity his poor Church and bring his servants to so much Unity that the universal practice of the Church in all ages and Nations even among our selves which we daily hear and see and our own selves practise may not be among us a matter of controversie for then what are we likely to be agreed in Again I must crave pardon of this confidence but if it seem to them to come from self-conceitedness and pride of my own judgement or a loathness to let go what I have once received as I willingly confess that I find such sins within me and am no Christian if I blame them not and hate them not in my self so I will be bold to tell Mr. Blake and the world the very truth in this business which is that the partiality that I have felt in the study of this point hath been for Mr. Blakes opinion against my own and I had rather a great while till the light convinced me have found his opinion true than my own As I knew I should be taken for a defender of the Independants which is a censure that I little regard so I thought that I should the better comply with some Texts of the old Testament which Mr. Blake much urgeth and some other reasons did cause Mr. Blakes opinion sometime so far to smile upon me that I strove against the contrary truth and studied