Reply ibid. Consider say you what straits you bring the Gospel into first yâ—u make life appearing to be had in the covenant of grace as at first in the covenant of works do this live so believe repent obey and live thus runs your doctrine nor can you with all your distinctions make faith in this consideration lesse then a work and so put salvation upon a condition of works again Is this free-grace I passe by your first here without a second we shall meet with the like again hereafter as also that to say believe and be saved repent and be saved is to put salvation upon a condition of works again t Qâ—d ille aâ—ud Coâ—â—icum Aâ—lul 1. Pactum non pactum est pâ—ctum non pactum ubi vobis lubâ—t A condition is a condition when it pleaseth you and may seem to make for you it is no condition when you list to mislike it because it will not serve your turn But 1. Sir you should do well or ill rather if you dare be so bold to tell our Saviour he hath brought the Gospel into straits by saying a Mark 16.16 whosoever doth not believe shall be damned and b Ioh. â— 24 unlesse you believe in me ye shall dy in your sinnes and c Luk. 13.3.5 unlesse you repent you shall perish and d Ioh. 6.53 unlesse ye eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you and e Math. 18.3 unlesse ye be converted you shall not enter into the Kingdome of heaven and f Math. 7.21 none shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father in heaven according whereunto also the Apostle g Heb. 5.9 He is Author of salvation to all that obey him Now suppose Sir we were not able to answer all your cavils yet were we bound to stick close to these truths so expresly delivered and taught us by Christ and not suffer our selves to be beaten off from them by any exceptions that any froward heart or wanton wit should to puzzel us make against them Be pleased therefore Sir to set us a while aside and if you lust to be contending with Christ advise or request whither you please him to consider a litle better of the businesse what streights he hath brought the Gospel into by these and other the like assertions for we have no cause to doubt but that he will own his own words tho you may well have just cause to doubt what thank you shall have from him for qarelling with and cavilling in this manner against them 2. You say that thus runns our doctrine but we demand of you whither Christs doctrine run so or no whereunto you dare not return any direct answer for you cannot deny it onely you tell us of a further mystery that is of late reveiled unto your self and I know not who which is all nothing to the purpose nor doth any thing that out of Scripture you have alleadged at all crosse or contradict that which you here call our doctrine but is indeed Christs as unlesse you have so brazed your brow that you have rubd all shame off it you cannot but acknowledge but whither you do or no others seeing it thus laid in precise termes before you will thereby easily know what to deem of you unlesse you so do 3. But h Reply ibid. we cannot say you with all our distinctions make faith in this consideration lesse then a work and so put salvation upon a condition of works again 1. The Apostle could distinguish and doth distinguish between faith and works and we know therfore that in this businesse they may be distinguished and are distinct and tho we were not able to shew how they are to be distinguished yet would not that prove that distinguished they could not be But Sir you are not able with all your Sophistry for Logick you renounce and fond flourishes to take off that aspersion which you have cast upon the Apostle as if he therefore preached life to be had in the covenant of grace 〈◊〉 otherwise then as before in the covenant of works because he presseth faith as n cessary to the attaining of salvation by Christ whereas he thereby in expresse terms distinguisheth the two covenants the one from the other not by rejecting or excluding faith but by taking it in as opposed to works in that manner as in the former they were exacted for these are his words i Rom. 10.5 6 9. Moses discribeth the righteousnesse which is of the Law that the man which doeth these things shall live by them But the righteousnesse which is of faith speaketh on this wise If thou confesse with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe with thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved and the words are so cleere to evince his acknowledgment of that that you would fain fasten as an aspersion upon us that if the aspersion be just it must of necessity light as well on him as on us and k Cernis nempe cum qâ—buâ— tua maledicta sustineamus cernis cum qibus nobis sit causa communis qam nulla consideratione sobria pulsare calumniis expugnare conaris cernis qam tibi pernici sum sit tam horribile crimen objicere talibus qam nobis gloriosum sit qodlibet crimen audire cum talibus Aug ad Iul. l. 1. c. 2. we are not unwilling with him to beare it 2. Nor yet is this spoken as if according to your vain and peremptory sentence past upon us we were unable to distinguish between the act of faith reqired in the latter covenant and works exacted in the former For we might stop your mouth with your own words in your next paragraph where you tell us that faith is the glorious Gospel work and so point us to a distinction that we might make some use of in this argument but that we find you so flagging and fluttering too and fro that we scarce know where to have you or how to lay hold on you The difference between these hath by our writers been long since observed whereof from their writings you might easily have been enformed had you deigned to consult them to wit that in the Covenant of workes works are considered as in themselves performed by the parties to be justified and to live without reference unto ought done or to be done for them by any other whereas in the Covenan of grace Faith is required and considered not as a work barely done by us but as an instrument or mean whereby Christ is apprehended received in whom is found by whom that is done whereby Gods justice is satisfied and life eternall meritoriously procured for us that which carieth the power and efficacy of all home to Christ Now Sir what a vast difference there is between these two may appear if you will be but pleased to consider how farre these
two propositions are asunder Pay your debt of a thousand pounds and be free and Rely on such a friends satisfaction made for it and be as free as if you had made full payment and satisfaction your self He is either very dim-sighted or wilfully wincks that sees not what distance there is between these two agreements and how they suit with the two Covenants that we to are distinguish which Mr S. would here make to be a matter of so great difficulty that we must needs be non-plussed in it As for repentance and new obedience there is as much difference between them and faith in regard of its peculiar office in this latter Covenant so much more between them and works in the former 1. Between them and faith in the point of justification or the discharge of a sinner from the guilt of his sinnes for that howsoever they are both reqired as conditions to be necessarily performed by all those that expect life or pardon of sin and salvation by Christ yet neither of them comes in as having any hand in the businesse of our justification or discharge of us from the guilt of our sin because that neither do they cast ought in toward the discharge of our debt nor have they any peculiar act in the application of or speciall relation unto that whereby our debt is discharged Whereas our faith tho it afford not the least mite of it self toward the making up of that price wherewith our debt is to be discharged yet it is that whereby we h Ioh. 1.12 receive Jesus Christ and in him and with him the price by him paid for us and whereby we trust to him and rely upon him for the discharge of our debt by the merit of his sufferings in regard whereof it is called as i Act. 20.21 26.18 faith on Christ so more specially k Rom. 3.25 on his blood 2. Between repentance and new obedience in the latter Covenant and works in the former for works in the former are required as fully and exactly answering Gods justice and the utmost rigour of the Law whereas in the latter they are reqired tho as necessary duties and such as without which none can expect salvation by Christ yet not as any way answering Gods jstice but as finding gracious acceptance with God notwithstanding their manifold defects through his mercy in Iesus Christ Thus Sir you see that such sely novices as we are esteemed by you yet are able to distinguish those things which you presume impossible to be distinguished by such shallow wits at least as you conceive or conceit ours to be Now what hath been said being duly weighed will meet with all that is by you here further objected For 4. to your first demand l 〈◊〉 ibid. is this free grace I shall crave leave to return you a counter-demand Suppose a King be content at the suit either of the parties themselves or some friend of theirs to grant his gratious pardon to a company of notorious rebels that had risen against him set up some base desperate rogue in his roome done him all the despight and mischeif they were able to do and being apprehended arraigned and condemned to such death as by their wicked demerits they had most justly deserved upon condition that they aknowledge their offence and their sorrow for it with purpose and promise of living loyally for time to come whether you would deem this to be free grace or no Or because I may well doubt that you would little regard what you say to put off ought for the present I shall not stick to referre it to any indifferent Reader whatsoever to determine whether he were not a most ungratious wretch that having his pardon on such termes granted and signed him should in regard of those conditions deny it to be of free grace and whether they do not blaspheme Gods free-grace that deny it to be free grace if it be propounded on terms of belief repentance and amendement of life Sir whatsoever you say of us take heed how you tell Christ that he doth not freely save you if hee will not save you unlesse you believe And for your next Qere m Reply ibid. concerning faith granted to be a gift of God whether this bee more free grace respectively to what we do then the Covenant of works had since that all the works wrought in us then were freely of God and of free gift to as Arminius you say well observes and we wrought only from a free-gift given To passe by many differences that might be observed between the one Covenant and the other not to stand to discusse what Arminius saith who I suppose would deliver his minde there cleerly then you here relate him It is not denyed but that whatsoever Adam wrought or was reqired to be wrought by him did proceed and was to proceed from such power and ability as God together with his reasonable soul at first freely conferred on him but yet this proves not that there was no other difference between the one Covenant and the other or that life promised is no more of free-grace in the one then in the other since that such exact working as might fully answer the justice of God was to life reqired in the one whereas that which comes farre short of it is in and for Christ unto life accepted in the other And not frivolous only but scandalous also is that which you further subjoyn n Reply ibid. Either place salvation upon a free botome or else you make the New Covenant but an old covenant in new terms instead of Do this and live Believe this and live repent and live obey and live and all this is for want of reveiling the mystery more fully This I say is frivolous because as hath been shewed salvations free botome is no way impeached by such conditions as these reqired scandalous because therein the Apostles doctrine is not covertly but directly challenged as overthrowing and razing the very foundation of free-grace For what is o Act. 16.32 Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved but Believe and live or what is p Act. 3.19 Repent that your sinnes may be done away but Repent and live or what is q Heb. 5.9 He is the Author of salvation to all that obey him but obey and live And I demand then what this amounts unto and whither it be any better then blasphemy to say that the Apostles by such their doctrine did not place salvation upon a free-botome but brought in the old Covenant again in new termes Sir dare you say in your new reveiled mystery Believe not and yet live Repent not and yet live Obey not and yet live or believe repent and obey and yet be damned understanding such belief repentance and obedience as the Apostels speak of If you dare speak it out that we may understand from you what your mysteries are and together with us give the
do I omit that which you close with concerning u Answ p. 11. the peculiar office of faith Concerning which this may further be added that that howsoever the sweete and comfortable effects of faith here mentioned may evince the beneficialnesse of that grace unto our selves yet they argue not any excellency or eminency above other graces simply considered which in regard of their proper nature and peculiar employments make us more beneficiall and usefull to others Faith is as the houswife Love as the Almoner Faith brings all in Love layeth all out faith brings God and Christ home to us love carieth us out and x Act. 20.24 21 13. Phil. 1.20 â—1 2.17 2 Cor. 12.15 expends us in all pious offices unto the glory of God and good of man Now this adde I the rather to take off your ensuing complaint of that from which your self here are not wholly free to wit that a Reply ibid. Faith hath so much put upon it as becomes a stumbling stone and a rock of offence to many Just fication Imputation of Righteousnesse is put upon faith Salvation upon Faith as Christs bloud is put upon the wine b 1 Cor. 10 16. the Cup that we blesse is it not the Communion of the blood of Christ and Christs body upon the bread c Ibâ—d the bread that we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ and yet neither the wine nor the bread is his bloud or his body no more then faith is either justification or righteousnesse but such a work as goes out most into him and caryes the soule into him who is righteousnesse and Justification to us The word were no mystery if it were not thus ordered and things so mingled that t e Spirit onely could discern and distinguish the Papists stumble at works because they see not faith for works and others stumble at faith because they s e not Christ for faith What all this ayms at is hard to say It concerns nothing I am sure that Mrs S. and I had in debate But let us rove a litle to beare him company and go along out with him into his impertinent excursions and his intricate discourses 1. Truly Sir I dissent as much if not much more then your self from any that put too much upon faith as some of the Ancients have done making it d Chrys st in Rom. 4. a matter of more worth and excellency then the keeping of all Gods commandements from whom I have also therein e Animadv in â—ud â—ucii Scrip. de Iustif part 1. Sect 9 n. 7. elsewhere testified my dissent But Sir it is your selfe rather then any of us that trip at this stone when you would have faith so much pressed in the doctrine of salvation in regard of the gloriousnesse and eminency of the grace it self which to assert is not sound 2. As for the putting of justification and imputation to righteousnesse and salvation upon faith as Christs bloud is put upon the Cup and Christs body upon the bread I mislike not much the resemblance tho it bee nothing exact nor conceive well what it drives at But Sir who of us ever affirmed faith to bee either justification or imputation to righteousnesse or salvation wee affirm with the Apostle that f Rom. 5.1 wee are justified by Faith and g Eph 2.8 wee are saved by Faith and that h Râ—m 4.9 Faith is imputed to righteousnesse And in all this wee say no more then the Apostle himselfe in expresse tearmes doth Yea even those of us who maintain Faith to bee taken in a proper Sense and not by a Metonymicall Trope as well in any one of those phrases as in another do not say any more then may well bee justified nor do they differ at all in doctrine so farre as I am able to conceive and I love not to make differences where I apprehend none that say the one or the other but contend onely about the Analysis of the Text and the Grammaticall acception of one term in it to make this clear by some instances of the like kinde when it is said This Childe is fed not by the breast but by hand if one shall hold that the hand is in such speech taken in a proper sense without trope or scheme for the hand of the dry Nurse wherewith the child is fed it being the instrument whereby meat is conveyed into the mouth of it and another shall maintain that the hand is there taken not properly but by a trope or a metonymie for the meat wherewith the child is indeed fed because the hand of it selfe hath no power to feed the child but is said to feed it as it hath relation to the meat would any understanding man from hence conclude that they were of divers minds concerning the thing it selfe and not rather that they dissented in a qestion of Schoole-learning concerning the Analysing of an Axiom and the Grammaticall interpretation of a word in it Or when it is said The mouth feeds the body if one should contend that the mouth were taken for the meat that goeth into the mouth another for the mouth it selfe whereat the meat goes in what difference were there in matter of judgement here between the one and the other concerning the thing it selfe Or to make use of an instance given by k â—ubbert collat cum Bert. § 57. an eager stickler in this Argument who l Ibid. § 58. reckons up for his party a larger bead-roll of Writers then I suppose he is able to produce Suppose a Painter holding out a Pencill shall say m Si dicis Pencillum dealbare parietem This Pencill drew that Picture if one shall affirm that the word Pencill in such a sentence must not be taken properly for the Pencill it self but for the Picture-drawer himselfe that made use of that pencill in the drawing of that picture or for his hand that guided it in that work or for the colours wherewith the picture was drawn another that the word pencill is to be taken properly as well as the word picture the one for that very instrument which the artist held in his hand the other for the work he pointed to when he so said I suppose it would not be deemed that there were any difference at all between them concerning the thing intended notwithstanding the controversie between them about the phrase or form of speech In like manner concerning the word Faith in the fore mentioned forms * Phrases sum aeqipollentes Paraeus ad Rom. 4.3 Obs 3. which in effect come all to one when some shall say that the word is taken properly for that grace or that act of grace whereby wee apprehend Christ and his sufferings n Vide Calvin Lubbert insra the meritorious cause or subject matter term it whether you please of our justification or that whatsoever it be in Christ for which wee are justified
or partakers of salvation but by faith And if no conditions at all be reqired for obtaining salvation by Christ as was formerly affirmed by you then neither Faith also Yea to this you come fully home where you say that r Ibid. p. 15â— 153. The Covenant now under the Gospel is such a kind of Covenant as was established with Noah Gen. 9.11 clear against the strain of the old wherein man was to have his life upon condition And in this your Reply you deny Å¿ Reply p. 14. § 8. the receiving of Christ to be acknowledged by you as a condition And indeed if the promise of salvation by Christ be as absolute and free from all condition as that Covenant made with Noah then may a man be saved by Christ tho he never know or look after Christ as he is sure never to perish by an oecumenicall deluge tho he neither know nor believe nor do ever heare of such a Covenant concerning it Whereunto also t Answ p. 8. 9. 24. 25. where it came to be scanned whence you might have informed your self what this shorter cut meant as a thing materiall you have returned nothing at all But thus the Reader may be pleased to take notice of that shorter cut and more compendious way and easier passage to heaven that your self have cut out as well as those other of your way not without onely but contrary to all warrant of Gods Word 3. For what you add of the Popish way by works whereby men are said to merit heaven we abhorre and detest it as much as you do Of some protestants by Iesus Christ and works Sir when you set Iesus Christ and works as cheek by joull the one with the other you wrong those whom you would by such an expression aspers They teach Christ Iesus to be the only purchaser and procurer of our Iustification and salvation and his bloud to be the only price that was laid down and paid for the purchase thereof But they hold withall that faith and repentance and self-deniall and new obedience are necessarily required in the Gospel as conditions to be performed by all those that will have part and interest in Christ or look for salvation by Christ and that none shall without these ever attain to that salvation so deerly purchased by Christ And for this Sir we have the Scriptures pregnant and plentifull as your self can not be ignorant and as in the Answer to your book hath sufficiently u Answ p. 11. 15. been shewed which how you seek either to shift off or to slubber over shall appeer when we come to that part of your Reply Lastly for taxing me x Reply p. 2. § 3. with frowardnesse and qarrelsomnesse which yet you impute partly to mine age and partly to the remainders of my disease rather then my judgment and the infirmity of my body not the strengh of my Spirit but withall demand of me why I chose not a better time to try truth in when I were not so much in the body 1. Sir froward or qarrelsome I have not shewd my selfe in this businesse The beginner of the qarell here was your self who as an insolent Golias first entred the feild with a flag of defiance y Treat p. 40. to the Divinity both of this age and former times reproaching in base and scurrilous manner Gods faithful Ministers men many of them much better then your self and endeavouring by your unchristian charges and vile calumnies to bring shame and contempt upon them and their Ministery and were pleased to single me out and draw me forth among others whom tho comming all within verge of your magisteriall censure you call in for seconds as complying in part with you and the party you fight for acknowledging litle difference at least between us and them nor doth it argue any frowardnesse or qarelsomnesse in one so engaged to endevour z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Menander Olynth Chaeremon Ther 's Svid Principium non est â m qi me vindico Et Achaus apud Athen. l. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nâ—n haec ego ultro diâ—o sed me vindicans to vindicate himself and those with himself whom he finds to be so abused 2. For my yeers Sir scof not at old age you may live if God pleas to come to it your self and for the remainders of my sicknesse which I am not yet freed from nor am like to be in hast a Eccles 3. 1 2 c. Vide Iuâ— Coch. sicknesse and health are passages of Gods providence above mans power to dispose of nor was it therefore in mine hand to make choyse of my time for this tryall of truth but was necessitated to take it as the wrong offred by your self occasioned it and as God had pleased to dispose Besides that the triall of truth in this cause was not now to be first new taken up by me but had formerly been laboured in as by b Gods Eye on his Israel my other work may in part appear in time of better health and you may see if you please thereby to understand that my judgement then was the same that now still it is Nor is sicknesse I suppose wont to make men much in the body as you seem here to imply but lesse rather Howbeit Sir I seem to understand your jeer and to conceive what spirit and body you intend such spirit and body as may be justly suspected notwithstanding all your vauntings of such a glorious spirit and light that you have litle yet of the one but too much still of the other otherwise being c 2 Cor. 4.16 12.10 much in bodily weaknesse is not wont to be deemed any means of impeaching the work of grace in the soul And thus farre shall suffice to all that you have replyed either to my Preface or to the former part of mine Answer all in effect as good as nought Passe we now to consider of your Reply to the latter part concerning divers Passages in your Treatise Here at the very entrance into this Part of your Reply you manifest your self to be of that qarelsome disposition that you pleased even now to fasten on me For to pick out matter for a new qarell to begin with you d Reply p ◠§ 1. relate my words thus That our Antinomian free-grace is not the same with the Prophets in the Old Testament and the Apostles in the New And then you fall as one in a chafing heat to chide and demand Why do you tell us of Antinomian of Prophets and Apostles free grace It is not the free grace of any of these I could as easily say Mr Gatakers free-grace and the Legalists free-grace as he the Antinomians free-grace but such words and repoaches make neither you nor I speak better truth Good Sir e Ne saevi magâ—e Sacerdâ—s have patience awhile I pray you be not so hot and eager in your first
opinions and libertie for every one in matter of religion to professe vent and practice what he please without check or controll by censure either Ecclesiasticall or Civill What else means b Reasons for c. Sect. 4. severall spirits consciences opinions judgements without limitation or exception of any But what you return Answer to or reply upon that you make very short work of here a snatch and there a snatch c Qod canis in Nilo bibit fugit Constat enim in regionibus illis canes raptu crocodilorum exterritos currere bibere Macrob. Sat. l. 2. c. 2. De hoc Aelian l. 1. c. 4. Plin. l. 8. c. 40. as the Egyptian dog lapping in Nilus and as Antonie in his flight after his discomfiture by Augustus d Letter to Mr. Ley p. 3. After-reckon p. 7. Seventeen sheets posted over in a sheet and an half e Repl p. 9. See Rejoynder whole pages in a line and an half f Answ to Mr. Edwards and After-reckoner two large books in little more then two pages forty five pages here in seventeen and yet by-matters sometime in the way plentifully enough prosecuted and additionals prefixed to detain and take up the Reader that your failings in the matter that concerns you may the lesse be looked after and your dealing haltingly and by halvs or by snips and shreds rather the lesse regarded Yet in the Front of your writings you pretend and promise to do great matters but in the works themselves there is so little perfâ—rmed of what is looked for that the old saying may not unfitly be applied unto them being verified in them g Plus habet rubium qam nigrum There is more in the Title then in the Text. 2. In stead of what you should have done you tell me h Conclus Ibid. what I might have done Indeed I suppose you would rather have had mee done any thing then have medled with the ulcerous sores of your book But Sir you are not to cut mee out my work And for the Argument you would here have put mee upon such an one as those of your strain every-where condemn and cry out against I have somewhat largely i Meditation on Psal 97.11 in Signs of sincerity done elsewhere already and that I blesse God for it with some good successe as I understand from those who having made use of it professe to have received much comfort thereby 3. Yet to quit mee of that labour in way of kindnesse no doubt you tell mee that k Conclus Ibid. I say of my self how becoming such a one you leave that I am an old Steed that neighs and prances but is past service so as you must take this of mine age and infirmitie as a fuller answer or supplement of what I have failed in against you True It is Sir in regard of mine age being now upon seventy two complete and infirmitie by a late sore sicknesse accrewing having never been of much strength and finding my naturall abilities as well inward as outward l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aristot Physiogn cap. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. cap. 1. Animus languente corpore nec membris nec sensibus uti potest Cicer. de Divin Animo qi aegrotat videmus corpore hunc signum dare Tum doloribus confectum corpus animo obsistere Lucil. lib. 26. the one usually suffering with the other memory especially much impaired I am willing rather to set others of younger yeers fresher parts and better endowments on work to prosecute the discovery and discomfiture of these monsters which the Sectaries of these our times daily produce and to undertake some further and larger survey of your Treatise which but upon occasion of being called in by you to attest for you I had not at all taken notice of it may be had never seen and doe therefore in acknowledging mine own inability to undertake such an over-burdensome employment compare my self not as hee in the Tragick Scene onely but as one of the Greek Fathers to an old Steed who tho past yeers of such service as the field and fight reqires yet by bestirring himself as well as he may incites others to do that which himself is not able to do And this is that which Mr. S. is so much pleased to play upon and to make sport with that hee began with it in his Introduction and returns now again to it in his Conclusion as being bare and barren of better matter to make up his Reply with and enforced therefore with renewed patches to piece it out But Sir neither doe I suppose it any uncomely thing for any Minister of the Gospel much broken with age and sicknesse to acknowledge himself either well neer or wholly past some kind of service m Num. 8.24 25. God himself was after some term of yeers content to discharge his Attendants in the Tabernacle and Temple of some more laborious employments Nor do I plead either of these in way of excuse for or as you speak which to me seems little better then non-sense as a supplement to what I have failed in against you which if in ought I have done it is your part to shew not barely to say but to declare why I took no further pains with you but contented my self with such parcels of your broken wares as I thought good to deal with at present And truly Sir unlesse you can better discharge and defend your self and your Assertions in the things objected and excepted against either then in this your Reply hitherto you have done there will be little need to wade further into your work there is folly and unsoundnesse enough discovered in it already to make it worthily to be abhorred 4. Howbeit n Concl. Ibid. two or three things you say there are in that rif-raf of so many pages which you told us even now had not any matter of substance in them more observable then the rest But you repented you it seems again of what you had said or you had no great lust to deal much with any observable matter For instead of two or three you present us as I remember a great o Bellarm. de sac Euchar. l. 3. cap. 19. Cardinall sometime with a first without second or third so that your first must be such a first as the Lawyers speak of in some cases such a first as p Primus est qem nemo praecedit etiamsi nullus seqatur Reg. Jur. none follows and must therefore goe for both first and last for it is all you produce q Conclus Ib. First therefore you say that I tax you for saying The marks in the Epistles of John and James where Sir you leave out r Treat p. 32. your c. are delivered rather as marks for others then our selves to know us by And this say you I affirm again not excluding that other of our selves but rather for others To
which purpose you instance 1. in James 2.24 18 21. where works you say are made a sign rather to others then our selves Which how I ſ Answ p. 29. shew to be not agreeable to the Apostles main scope who directs his speech there to the partie thereby to undeceive him in himself you passe by and return no answer unto 2. In 1 John 3.14 concerning which passage how absurd and senselesse it is so to say how directly contrary both to the Apostles scope in that Epistle and to his expresse words in that very place tho the bare reading of the Text be sufficient to make evident yet I shall refer my Reader to t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suid. in Pythag. avoid needlesse prolixitie and unnecessary repetitions to what I have said u Ans ubi supr in mine Answer whereunto there is no one word here replied And much lesse to that of Peter which ought to come within compasse of your caetera but you have no mind at all to take notice of and that the rather because with it this your rather wherewith you would evade could have no colour as here also it hath no truth And Sir for what being enforced by evidence of truth shining forth so strongly and brightly in your face that in spite of your teeth it strikes through your eye-lids tho you close them as fast as you can possibly against it you doe in a scanty and malignant manner elsewhere x Treat p. 81. acknowledge which also I conceal not but y Ans p. 27 28. give it expresly in your own words after you have spent all your fleam and spittle upon it to bespatter it and throw so much dirt and filth on the face of it to deface and disgrace it it neither makes amends for your former abuse of it nor doth it take off ought that is herein charged on you And for your pitifull complaint therefore of a Concl. Ibid. my pulling your Treatise in pieces to make my self work and then binding it up again after mine own fashion It is so poor as might b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suid. vel Priamo miseranda Mar. l. 12. move even a professed adversary to pity you and shews indeed how inconsistent your Work is one part of it with another But Sir I want not work at home that I should with c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suid. Zenob Plut. ad Colot the Lydian go to seek some abroad much lesse wanted I any then when my work rather wanted me I being neither fit almost for any work at all and wanting workmen for that work which God had at that time disabled me unto Nor had I any reason to undertake that task that then I did had I not conceived a kind of necessitie in it Yet neither have I pulled your book in peeces nor have I bound it up again after my fashion Your book lies by me still intire bound up in the same manner as it was brought mee at first onely I have made bold to pick out of it and lay open some neither sound nor savoury passages of it and have dressed them indeed as they deserved but representing them no otherwise then as I found them in the book the precise words whereof you have not hitherto shewed that I have any where swarved from nor suppose I that I did amisse in so doing for neither did I undertake to deal with the whole book but to give some tast of what it contained nor if any thing be sound in it will that serve to excuse and justifie ought that is rotten and unsound As for d Concl. p. 16 17. the story of the Ladie what you except against my speech to her it is alredy answered elsewhere where the proper place of it was and where all this might have come in more seasonably then it doth here But in steed of it Sir you might have done well not to say over the same things again but to have asserted and confirmed by Scripture that way of assurance that e Treat p. 84 85. you propound as the only Scripture way and in regard whereof all other assurances those that Peter James and John hold out not excepted are affirmed to be but rotten stuffe to wit That we are to beleive that Christ hath beleived for us and we have beleived in him that he hath repented for us and we have repented in him For this Sir being one of your main shores yea the onely main shore in effect your immediate enthusiasm excepted erected and set up by you for the support of poor afflicted Spirits when you have beaten them off from all other ought not to have been deserted by you where you found it opposed much lesse dissembled and shifted off and shuffled or shoveled away as a thing not worthy of any notice among the rubble and rubbish wherin you say there is nothing of any substance And the truth is I am therein of the same mind with you if you think as you speak as concerning this particular that it is a meer shadow without substance and such therfore as is no more able to afford any true stay or sound satisfaction to a wavering soul or a wearied spirit then f Aesopi fab the shadow of the sheeps shoulder that the dog catched at in the water or some delineation of the like on the wall to releive and refresh an hungry body Take heed Sir how whilst you dally and delight your self with such sublimated notions distilled through the limbeck of your own qaint invention you delude Gods people and cause them as Jonas spake while they g Jon. 2.8 follow lying vanities to forsake their own mercy and so attract a greater guilt then you are aware of or at least consider well of at present But to what end spend I words and wast wind unto one who in plain termes professeth that should he so sin yea sin never to much being a beleiver as I doubt not but he beleives himself to be especially glorying and vaunting so much as he doth of the glorious light and spirit that he is now possessed of he never looks to be called to any acount for it and scoffs at those as silly souls drowned in melancholie that doe ever so imagine In the last place a little to ease your stomack and empty your h Jecur pro felle cujus vesicula jecori adhaeret Job 16.13 Lam. 2.11 liver you take ocasion at parting to spend out of your gall some of your bitter choler upon me by demanding of me i Conclus p. 17. now I am an old man for you are oft playing upon mine age how if I were to account to you I would gather up my assurance whether it would be of such a measure of faith so much obedience so much love to the brethern so much zeal prayer repentance and all of unqestionable evidence then you proceed to qestion me concerning my faillings when I