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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
word_n	proper_a	sense_n	signification_n	2,806	5	9.7840	5	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85386	Calumny arraign'd and cast. Or A briefe answer to some extravagant and rank passages, lately fallen from the pen of William Prynne, Esquire, in a late discourse, entituled, Truth triumphing over falshood, &c. against Mr John Goodwin, Minister of the Gospel. Wherein the loyall, unfeigned and unstained affection of the said John Goodwin to the Parliament, and civill magistracie, is irrefragably and fully vindicated and asserted against those broad and unchristian imputations, most untruly suggested in the said discourse against him. By the said John Goodvvin. Licensed entered and printed according to order.	Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.	1645 (1645)	Wing G1153; Thomason E26_18; ESTC R12923	51,593	64

portraictures and sets out tends in the nature and constitution of it to the benefit safety or good of the Parliament I shall soone be his convert and cause my present apprehensions in the point to bowe downe at the feet of his This for the second head propounded For the third and last the insufficiencie or to speak the dialect of his own pen the impotencie of those few exceptions which he makes against some few particulars in my Innocencies Triumph such as he conceives it seems to be more soft and tractable under his exceptious pen First to salve a sore that will never be perfectly healed to justifie I meane his Indictment against me that I did not only or simply undermine the undoubted priviledges of Parliament by the very roots this being not a charge as it seems worthy the indignation or discontent of Mr. Prynnes pen but that I perpetrated this high misdemeanour PRESVMPTVOVSLY he informes us as matter of high concernment to his cause and honour that Grammarians Lawyers and Divines informe us that the word Presumptuous comes from the verb Praesumo which verb he presumes will accommodate him with one or other of those various significations which with great care and circumspection that none be wanting he there musters and enumerates And because the honour and validitie of this his purgation rests altogether upon such significations or acceptions of his verb as are most mens mysteries therefore in his margent he calls in Thomas Aquinas Calepine with some others for his compurgators But Good Sir did you either expect or intend that either the Parliament or your other readers should be so above measure tender either of your reputation or of mine as that meeting with the word PRESVMPTVOVSLY in your indictment against me they would goe and search Calepine Thomas Aquinas Holy-oake Media-villa and I know not how many more to informe themselves in how many senses or significations the word might be taken lest otherwise they should take you tardy with an unjust crimination or me with a foule crime What you may conceive them likely to doe in this kind out of tendernesse of respect to your reputation I will not prejudge but to deale plainly with you I expect no such quarter from any of your Readers for the preservation of mine They that have a mind to beleeve you in that point of your charge yea and indeed any other considering other expressions of yours of the like importance are like to take the word Presumptuously according to the vulgar and most familiar signification of it in common parlance and that which is next at hand in which signification it doth nothing lesse then import all that varietie you speak of but a plaine wilfull as your word elsewhere is perpetration of an evill and as for the three last significations which you fasten upon it as that it signifies against Authoritie or Lawes or upon hopes of impunitie though I have not the Authors by me upon whom you father the proprietie of these significations to examine the truth of what in this you affirme yet am I very strong of Faith that men of learning and judgement as most of the Authors you cite were never assigned any of these three senses or importances as the proper and legitimate acceptions or significations of the word When John the Baptist told Herod a man in great Authoritie to his face that it was not lawfull for him to have Herodias his Brother Philips wife a was this done PRESVMPTVOVSLY especially in the proper signification of the word Againe when Shadrach Meshach and Abednego refus'd to submit to that Decree or Law which Nebuchadnezzar and his Nobles had made which commanded all to fall downe and worship the golden image which the King had set up b and so when Daniel trangress'd that Law or Statute which Darius and his Nobles had decreed and established according to the Law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not c by kneeling upon his knees three times a day praying unto and praising God with his chamber-window open towards Jerusalem did either of these sin or doe any thing under the Interpretation aforesaid PRESVMPTVOVSLY Mr. Prynne himself I presume dedicated these his Lucubrations to the Parliament upon hopes yea upon more then hopes of impunitie upon hopes of Grace and Acceptation hath he therefore done PRESVMPTVOVSLY I am content in this sense to own the word PRESVMPTVOVSLY in my prementioned charge and confesse that I did that which he calling it quite out of its name calls an undermining of the undoubted Priviledges of Parliament c. PRESVMPTVOVSLY i. I did upon hopes yea and somewhat more then upon hopes of impunitie upon hopes of acceptation both with God and men And if Mr. Prynne would have pleas'd but to have declar'd in his margent or otherwise that in the aforesaid indictment he meant the word PRESVMPTVOVSLY in this sense and no other he had saved me a double and himself a single labour if not a double also for I should not have lift up so much as a word of exception against it But let us see a little how like a man he quits himself in vindicating the truth and equitie of his so-dearly-beloved terme PRESVMPTVOVSLY as it stands or lies which you will in the controverted indictment His first signification of the verb PRAESVMO is to forestall and to prove that in this sense of the word I committed the capitall crime objected PRESVMPTVOVSLY he reasons or rather talks thus First you preached and printed those passages of purpose to forestall the Parliaments and Assemblies pious resolutions c. But Mr. Prynne there is a rule in the civill Law and because there is so much reason in it I conceive your Common Law complyes with it which sounds thus Non esse non appaerere aequiparantur in Jure How will you doe for witnesse or evidences competent in Law to make it appeare that I printed and preached the passages you speak of for such a purpose as you pretend can you find the present thoughts or purposes of all particular men in this age in the ancient Records which beare date from the darkest times of Popery Or hath the Omniscient anointed your eyes with any such eye-salve which makes you able to see into the hearts and reins and spirits of men or have I acknowledged either in writing or otherwise any such intent or purpose as you speak of in those passages or is it beyond the upper region of possibilities that I should have any other purpose in them then what you affirme When you print that I printed the passages you mention of purpose to forestall the pious resolutions of the Parliament doe you print this OF PVRPOSE to forestall the pious inclinations or resolutions of the Parliament not to make more offenders by punishment then were made such before by delinquencie Or when you printed that Christ hath delegated his Kingly Office unto Kings Magistrates and highest civill powers a

of God 3. And lastly whereas he brands me for an incorrigible Delinquent and elswhere for one impenitent after censure a I answer and confesse 1. That I am incorrigible indeed by a crooked rule as the Apostles themselves were when being charged and commanded by a whole Councell not to speak at all or teach in the Name of Jesus they notwithstanding professed that they could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard b Rectitude is alwayes unrectifiable i. incorrigible And 2. I answer and confesse yet further that I am impenitent also in respect of that wherein I know no unrighteousnes or sin The truth is I am conscious to my self of too many sinnes and failings in my selfe to cast away my Repentance upon such things as need it not If I can find repentance for all my finnes I shall leave all my other actions to be lamented and mourned over by the world If Mr. Prynne will indict me for such incorrigiblenesse and impenitency as these so be it I know the great Judge of heaven and earth will acquit me And thus you see that Mr. Pryn still stands as a man convicted of an unrighteous charge in the word PRESUMPTUOUSLY haeret lateri lathalis arundo the arrow sticks still in his sides and all his wringling and wresting and pulling cannot get it out His last charge and contest against me in this peece is that the Authors which I cite to justifie my selfe are miserably wrested and mistaken for the most part The common saying is That it 's ill halting before a creeple The Proverb seems to import some dexterousness of faculty in him that halts continually to take those tardy who onely counterfeit and doe that by way of designe which himselfe doth out of necessitie The truth is though Mr. Prynne may reasonably be conceived to have a more sagacious facultie then other men of taking those with the very manner who wrest Authors and mistake their meaning as being a man so familiarly exercised in the practise himself I speak of his writings against my self yet either his skill fails him or his will stands too fast by him in the sentence pronounced against me in this kind as will appear presently In the mean while I cannot but take notice of that expression mistaken for the most part as an expression of the greatest caution and care that to my best remembrance I have met with in all that he hath written against me It is very rare to find any of his uncharitable assertions concerning me at all bridled or corrected with any allay of any diminutive lenitive limitation or restraint but the saying I remember is that he goes farre that never returns But let us hearken unto his complaint of the behalf of those Authors whom he so bewaileth as being miserably wrested by me The first is his Friend Mr. Edwards from whose unaunswerable a piece of Presbyterie I cite this passage The Parliament interposeth no Authority to determine what Government shall be and gather upon it thus therefore his opinion APPEARS to be not as Mr. Prynne whose pen I see loves to play at small game in mis-reports rather then sit out recites it soon after Therefore his opinion is either that the Parliament hath no Authoritie or at least intends not to make use of it it determining a Government How miserably this good well-meaning Author is by me wrested he declares thus It was written onely with reference to the present time the Parliament having at that time when he writ during the Assemblies debate and consultation interposed no Authority is determine what Government shall be But good Sir though you it may be hit the meaning of the Author better then I having and the opportunity to consult with him about it which I have not yet I am sure I hit the meaning of his words better then you If men and their words will be of two different minds and meanings I confesse their meanings may very easily be mistaken not by me onely but by those that are wiser and farre more able then I to understand stand the force and proper import of words And yet now I come upon this occasion to review my expression I find it more cautions and warie then I can remember my self to have been in the calculation or inditing of it and altogether free even from that cavilling and shifting exception which is here made against it For I do not absolutely say or conclude that his opinion was or is either so or so as Mr. Prynne pro more suo chargeth me to do but onely that it appears to be either the one or the other and I think there is scarce any that understands English from the child that hath new learn'd his Primer to the greatest Master in the language but will acknowledge an appearance at least of one or other of those opinions in the words And how anomalous and sharking that interpretation of the words which Mr. Prynne would force upon them is will best appear by comparing the words and interpretation with other expressions of the same Grammaticall character and construction both in the same Author and in others When p. 170. of his Antapologie he cites this saying out of Zanchie that which doth not disturbe the publique peace the Magistrate PROCEEDETH not against doth he imagine that the meaning of this Author was to confine that non-proceeding of the Magistrate he speaks of to the particular and precise time of his writing as if then indeed he did not so proceed but at all other times he did So again when himself p. 169. of the same Tract saith thus the power of the Magistrate by which he punisheth sin doth not subserve to the Kingdom of Christ the Mediator can any reasonable man think that his meaning onely should be that this power of the Magistrate which he speaks of doth not thus subserve whilest he is in speaking or writing it but that afterwards it may or doth subserve in such a kind Apagè nugas when the Evangelist John speaking of Christ saith thus This was the true light that LIGHTETH every man that cometh into the world b is his meaning that Christ performed that act of grace he speaks of enlightened men coming into the world onely whilest he was writing his Gospel and that afterwards he suspended it In such constructions of speech as this the common Rule of Divines touching matter of Interpretation is that verbum praesentis notat actum continuum seu consuetum i. a verb of the present tense noteth a continued or still accustomed act So that whilest Mr. Prynne goes about to prove that I miserably wrest his Author how favourably soever he may deal with his Author in comparison of my dealing with him certain I am that he miserably wrests his words with which I deal as favourably as their genuine and native signification according to all rules both of Grammaticall and Rhetoricall construction will bear As for that

had little or no cause to glorie in that priviledge But Quod defertur non anfectur Quicquid sub terrâ est in apricum proferet aetas Having as you have heard befriended Mr. Edwards his fellow-labourer in the Presbyterian cause with the best accommodation he could to make one piece of him hang to another but alas who is able to comprimize between fire and water he proceeds and tels me behind my back and yet with an intent I presume that all the world should take notice of it that my passages out of Mr. Hayward Bishop Jewel Mr. Fox Mr. Calvin Jacobus Acontius c. make nothing at all against the legislative Authority of Parliaments in matters of Religion and Church Government and have no affinity with my passages words most of them propugning the very Ecclesiasticall power of Parliaments which I oppugne And yet in the very next words adds that indeed some of their words seem to diminish the coercive power of Magistrates and enforcing of mens consciences in matters of Religion as if I ever oppugned or denied any other Authority or power in Magistrates then this If he will please but to peruse my Innocencies triumph pag. 8. and my Innocency and Truth triumphing together pag. 72. 73. 78. with severall other passages in these and other my writings he will or at least very easily may see that I oppugne deny no other Authority power in Parliaments Civill Magistrates but onely that which is enforcing of mens consciences in matters of Religion Whereas he promiseth or undertakes that he shall in due place answer these words of theirs which as he saith seem to diminish the coercive power of Magistrates in matters of Religion and manifest how I abuse the Authors herein as well as Mr. Edwards My answer onely is that he may indeed soon answer them after that rate of answering at which he hath answered any thing of mine hitherto and he may shew how i. say that I abuse them and without writing or speaking as well as by either manifest that I abuse their Authors herein as well as I do Mr. Edwards But for this last particular I am willing to save him the labour and pains of writing for the manifestation of it For I here freely confesse that I have abused these Authors in what he speaks of just as I have abused Mr. Edwards and both of them just as much as amounts to no abuse at all I wonder by what art or way the Gentleman means to go to work to prove that I have miserably wrested or abused the Authors he here speaks of or their words when as I have put no construction at all or interpretation upon their words nor drawn any inference or deduction from them but onely transcribed them with as much diligence and faithfulnesse as I could and presented them cleerly as they stand in their respective Authors If his meaning be that I have miserably wrested and abused them by my quotation of them as subservient to my cause or purpose a deed of folly which himself commits with the holy Scriptures themselves many a time and often my answer is that were this assertion true that they are not subservient to my cause or purpose yet my recourse unto them for aid to my purpose were no miserable wresting or abusing of them Our Saviour being an hungry did not abuse the fig-tree by repairing to it though there prov'd nothing upon it for his purpose Nor should Mr. Prynne abuse a Tavern by going into it to drink a cup of wine that pleaseth him though he shold be disappointed in his expectation when he comes there Nay in this case would he not rather think and that much more reasonably of the two that the Taverne had abused him then he it In like manner if those Authors and sayings which I have produced and which Mr. Prynne speaks of have no affinity with my passages and purpose I may much more truly and reasonably say that they have abused me then Mr. Prynne can either say or ever prove that I have abused them For the truth is if they do fall me or refuse to stand by me in the defence of those passages spoken of when Mr. Prynne hath done his worst to them they are the greatest dissemblers that ever wore the livery of paper and inke Never were there sentences or sayings that more fully and freely complied with any mans notions whatsoever in terms and words then farre the greatest part of these do with my passages and purpose If Mr. Prynne can dissolve or abrogate the Authoritie of Grammar rules and destroy the naturall and proper signification of words then may I have some cause to fear that he may possibly evict me to be a miserable wrester and abuser of Authors and their sayings But if words be able to defend themselves and make good the possession of their known significations and rules of construction their both ancient and moderne interest in the understandings of men against the Authority or violence of Mr. Prynnes pen I defie all his interminations and threatnings of manifesting me either a miserable wrester or abuser of my Authors The last parcell of his high contest against me in this Discourse is that I pervert the meaning of the Divines of Scotland in one or more or I know not he knows not how many or how few of those passages which I cite from them whereas I meddle not little or much with any sense or meaning of any of them but onely barely tender them unto the Reader leaving it free unto him to judge of the sense and meaning of them and whether they consort with my apprehensions or no And though he be doubtfull of that interpretation or meaning which himself however adventures to put upon them as there is reason more then enough why he should delivering himself with this sub-modest caution If I mistake not yet am I rated and chidden at no lower rate then this you may THEREFORE blush at this I wonder which your perverting of their meaning as if they held that the Parliaments of England or Scotland had no power to make Ecclestasticall Laws for Religion and Church Government THEREFORE may I blush wherefore what because Mr. Prynne hath put such a sense and interpretation upon the passages in hand of which he knows not it seems what to make but suspects a mistake in it Blush in this respect I confesse I may but what cause have I to blush at my perverting of their meaning when as 1. I do not interpose to put any meaning I mean any particular or speciall meaning upon any of them 2. Why should I blush upon Mr. Prynnes injunction at any meaning which I put upon them when as that very meaning which himself puts upon them by way of confutation and disparagement of that which he pretends to be mine is by himself little lesse then suspected for a mistake The tax of blushing which Mr. Prynne imposeth upon me should in reason be

that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ d to doe that which I did in the passages excepted against I charge thee therefore saith the Apostle to Timothy a Minister of the Gospel before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing and his Kingdome Preach the Word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long-suffering and Doctrine For e c. Peruse the other Scriptures presented unto you in the margent f behold they lift up their voyces together calling crying out amaine for all diligence faithfulnesse zeale undauntednesse of courage and resolution in those who are entrusted with that great dispensation of the mind and counsell of God in the behalf of the world in the discharge of this most high and honourable trust committed unto them And therefore for Mr. Prynne to charge me with boldnesse daringnesse audaciousnesse c. for sticking to standing by and maintaining what I have said and done out of faithfulnesse both unto God and men and according to the true tenor and intent of my Commission from Heaven is as childish and weak as if I should charge him with boldnesse daringnesse audaciousnesse for eating his bread or pleading the righteous cause of his honest client He mistakes his mark day and way if he thinks either to rayle I might truely say or threaten me out of the way and course of my dutie by his great words Through Christ strengthning me it is as easie for me to beare all his unjust and hard sayings as it is for him to speak them to stand under and carry the greatest burthen of infamie and reproach as it is for him to lay it on yea to suffer the worst and hardest of sufferings as it is for him to procure them He that cannot {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and that at any rate whatsoever will never make good Souldier indeed for Jesus Christ His pen I hope you see hath not prospered hitherto in pleading the cause of his client PRESUMPTUOUSLY he cannot finde any one signification of the word that will stick or fasten The fift and last signification which he insists upon is this The verb ye wot of PRAESVMO yet further signifies to doe a thing boldly confidently or rashly without good grounds c. To help himself at the dead lift he is now at by this signification of his verb he sets on thus After you were questioned before a Committee of Parliament for those very passages in your first Sermon as exceeding scandalous and derogatory to the Members and Privileges of Parliament yet you in a daring manner whilst you were under examination audaciously preached over the same againe for substance in your Pulpit on a solemne Fast day and published them with additions in no lesse then two printed books yea since your very censure by the Committee for them you have in a higher straine then ever gone on to justifie them in print once more in your Innocencies Triumph like an incorrigible Delinquent wherein you slander the Parliament more then before c. Where before I answer observe 1. That the signification here insisted upon is lower then the charge it signifies to doe boldly c. but his charge is that I did it presumptuously 2. In this great Muster-roll of the severall significations of his verb Praesumo he passes over and forgets to list the common or generall acceptation of the word as it is usually taken amongst us and as any Author that writes English uses to be understood viz. for a wilfull and high-handed commission of some wicked thing But for answer 1. What Logick is there in all this Rhetorick to prove that what I did in the passages under contest I did rashly or without good grounds Here is nothing so much as in pretence in reality no where else to disable those grounds upon which those passages stand 2. How unkindly he deales with the truth in affirming 1. That I preached over the same again for substance or a solemne Fast day 2. That I published them with additions in no lesse then two printed books whilst I was under examination hath been already presented to view towards the beginning of this Discourse And here wee have yet more besides these ejusdem farinae seu potius furfaris as 1. That the passages in my first Sermon were exceeding scandalous and derogatory to the members and privileges of Parliament There hath been nothing yet proved nor I beleeve ever will or can be proved that there was any thing in this Sermon not only not exceeding scandalous and derogatory c. but not scandalous or derogatory in the least or lightest manner or degree either to any member or any privilege of Parliament whatsoever 2. That since my very censure by the Committee for them I have gone on to justifie them in an HIGHER STRAIN then ever in my Innocencies Triumph Mr. Prynne I see is no Astronomer to take the altitude or elevation of a strain in Rhetorick if hee were he would be ashamed of this calculation that in my Innocencies Triumph I justifie my passages in a HIGHER STRAINE then ever Whosoever reads this little peece cannot lightly but see and confesse that all along I creep as neere the ground as any man lightly can goe 3. That in my said Innocencies Triumph I slander the Parliament more then before Here wee have untruth upon untruth position upon supposition and both vanity For this assertion 1. supposeth that I had slandered the Parliament before wherein I am certain Mr. Prynne slanders me And 2. i affirmeth that I slander it a second time more then I did before If he had contented himself only to have said that in my Innocencies Triumph I slander the Parliament as much as I did before he had spoke a kind of truth though of very slender importance 4. That I was censured by the Committee for the passages in my Sermon If by censured he means sequestred as by the tenor of all he writes concerning me in this discourse it should seem he doth granting the truth of the act or censure it selfe which yet to me is very questionable upon the reasons formerly mentioned yet I cannot beleeve but that Mr. Prynnes pen faulters in assigning the grounds or reasons of the censure It will not enter into me to conceive a thought so dishonorable to that honorable Committee as that they should suspend or sequester a Minister of Jesus Christ who hath in all things from the first to the last approved himselfe faithfull unto them and to that honorable cause wherein they are ingaged for preaching his judgement and conscience in a point of doctrine having such substantiall and weighty grounds both from the Scriptures themselves and otherwise which I then in part accounted unto them and am still ready to perfect the account if called to it to conceive and judge is none other but the very truth

reason which Mr. Prynne alledgeth to countenance the sense which he puts upon the words now contested about to the disparagement of mine viz. that be maintains point-blank against me throughout his Treatise a legislative and coercive power in Parliaments and that the inference which I draw from the said words is quite contrarie to the next ensuing words and pages I answer 1. To the former part of the Reason that it is most untrue he doth not maintain point-blank against me throughout his Treatise a legislative and coercive power in Parliaments and civill Magistrates I every where acknowledge and assert a civill legislative power in both therefore Mr. Edwards maintaining such a power in them maintains nothing point-blank against me And whether he maintains a spirituall or Ecclesiasticall legislative power in them especially throughout his Treatise let this passage be witnesse between me and my Adversarie There is nothing more common in the writings of the learned and orthodox then to shew that the civill power and Government of the Magistrate and the Ecclesiasticall Government of the Church are to genere disjoyned and thereupon the power of the Magistrate by which he deals with the corrupt manners and disorders of his people it in the nature and specificall reason distinct from Ecclesiasticall discipline a I know not what artificiall construction and meaning Mr. Prynne may possibly find out for these words but surely he that hath not affirm'd the contrarie as Mr. Prynne very inconsiderately that I say not PRESUMPTUOUSLY hath done will not affirm that Mr. Edw. in this passage maintains an Ecclesiasticall legislative power in Parliaments or civill Magistrates but the contrary yea and affirms this to be the common judgement of men learned and orthodox So again when he affirms p. 282. that it is their duty speaking of the Parliament by their power and Authority to bind men to the Decrees of the Assembly he doth not doubtlesse maintain an Ecclesiasticall legislative power in the Parliament for they that have such a power cannot be bound in dutie to own the Laws or Decrees of others much lesse to bind others to subjection to them I omit many other passages in this book of like importance The truth is that Mr. Prynnes opinion concerning an Ecclesiasticall spirituall Jurisdiction in the Civill Magistrate which yet is his grand notion in all that he hath written upon the subject of Presbyterie overthrows the main grounds and principall foundations upon which the Doctrine of Presbyterie is built by all her ablest and most skilfull workmen Insomuch that I wonder not a little that the Masters of that way and Judgement have not appeared at another manner of rate then yet they have done for the vindication of their principles against him that hath made so sore a breach upon them and laid their honour in the dust Somewhat I know some of them have done in this kind but the Prophet Elisha reproved the King of Israel for smiting thrice onely upon the ground and then ceasing telling him that he should have smitten five or six times 2. To the latter part of the Reason I answer and confesse that the inference I draw from the words mentioned may very possibly be quite contrarie to the next ensuing words and pages and yet the sense of them no wayes wrested nor mistaken by me because it is familiar in the Discourse for the Author to contradict himself as well as other men according to one of the ingredients in that most true and happie character of the Discourse given by a woman who describes it to be wrangling-insinuating-contradictory-revengefull storie b And the truth is that in the eye of an unpartiall and disengaged Reader there is scarce any passage or period throughout the whole Discourse but may be commodiously enough reduced under one of these 4. heads And therefore whereas Mr. Prynne gives this elogium of it that it is in truth unanswerable c I confesse that unanswerable it is in severall respects and sundrie wayes First it is unanswerable to that esteeme which my self with many others had of the Author formerly Secondly unanswerable it is to that opinion which he would have the world conceive of his parts and learning and in speciall manner of his abilities to deal in the particular controversie Thirdly it is unanswerable to his profession as he is a Christian Fourthly much more unanswerable is it to his calling as he is a Minister of Jesus Christ and of the Gospel And fifthly and lastly most unanswerable it is to those frequent solemn and large professions which he makes both in his Epistle and elsewhere of his love to the Apologists and candor and fairnesse in writing But for any such unanswerablenesse as Mr. Prynne intends the one part of it will not indure that such a thing should be spoken of the other there being enough in the Discourse it self to answer whatsoever is to be found in it of any materiall consideration against the Congregationall way as will in time convenient be made manifest in the sight of the Sun God not preventing by more then an ordinarie or at least expected hand And whereas Mr. Prynne glorieth and that twice over at least for failing that it hath not been hitherto answered by the Independents d I answer three things First that neither hath Mris Katharine Chidleys Answer to Mr. Edwards his Reasons against Independencie and Toleration been yet replyed unto or answered either by Mr. Edwards himself or any other of his partie notwithstanding the said Answer be but a small piece in comparison of the Antapologie and besides hath been some yeers longer abroad then this Besides this there are many other Tractates and Discourses extant and so have been a long time in defence of the Congregationall way which as yet have not been so much as attempted by any Classique Author whatsoever A particular of some of these you may see p. 65. of my Innocencie and Truth triumphing together in the Margent As for that which A. S. or in words at large Adam Steuart hath lift up his pen to do against M. S. if men will needs vote it for an Answer an Answer so called let it be * but doubtlesse he that wants either will or skill to distinguish between the persons and the distempers of men is in an ill capacitie or incapacitie rather of framing any sober answer to a sober Discourse Secondly Mr. Edwards himself the smallnesse of the content of the Apologeticall Narration considered took not a whit lesse time to give answer to it then hath yet been taken by the Independents to answer the Antapologie But thirdly and lastly if Mr. Prynne knew and considered who it was that hath hindered the Independents and that once and again from answering it as yet viz. he that sometimes hindred Pauls coming to the Thessalonians e though in Mr. Edwards apprehension he both hastened and furthered the coming back of the Apologists into England f he