honour them and love them with my whole Soul Quid verba audiam cum facta videam Neither would I have attempted this Vindication but that not only to the Loss of my Reputation by calling me Antinomian but to my Life and Liberty by calling me a Jesuit and that in such a time when so many of that Faction have been found plotting the Nations Ruin and the Kings Majesties Life Had not their Envy struck also though most falsely and intestinely malicious at my Life and the Honour of the Gospel of Christ Sardis me auribus accepisse nisi propter veritatem Riv. Epist ad Balsac I assuredly would have passed all by in Silence which now I publish to the World for the sake of well minded Christians and the Interest of Christ Even so many of ours cry out the Gospel the Gospel and teach their Pupills to paratize like Caesar's Parrot that could cry out nothing but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God save Caesar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so these can cry nothing but Our Gospel Ministers our Gospel Ministers like Parrots that speak by Roat what they are taught when these Disciples truly unless they have learned their Catechism by Head can say nothing by Experience or by Heart for their Teachers are truly nothing less in both Principle and Life having no more Love in their Lives than the Scribes and Pharisees had who gilded the Sepulchres of the Martyrs whom their Fathers killed whose Writings and Preachments are filled up with as bad Doctrine and as like as an Apple to a Pomewater as any is in Bellarmine Scotus Aquinas Huberus Hemingius or any of the Jesuits and Papists yet I will not betray my Folly to say they are Papists or my Knavery to say they are Jesuits but this I think of them that they ignorantly like the Jews and Pharisees of old teach and preach Popery and write it because they know not the Gospel Rom. 10.1 2 3 4. and herein their Pride also appears because they hate all that differ or dissent from their false Principles Hugo Grotius Papizat sic ejus Discipuli founding themselves upon Arminiasnism Grotianism and Papism rather pinning their Historical Faith upon mens humane Arguments than the pure infallible Word of God which is able to cut and hamstring all their Sophistry and false Phillosophy Col. 2.8 though guarded with the dialectical Spears of Aquinas Scotus or all the Popish Schoolmen as Rivetus in his Epist to Prince Frederick in Vindication of the Gospel against the Jesuits Gladium verbi Divini tractent cujus aciem merito reformidant unde est quodicam retundere conantur excogitatis varii generis sophismatibus quibus incautos deripiunt And I do the more wonder that I who have published my self to the World by two or three Tracts in open Hostility against the Doctrine of the Romanists and Arminians and also Socinians and plainly discovered my self to the World to be so great an Anti-arminian Papist Socinian should be by these Gospel Ministers called a Jesuit especially when I consider that in the Writings of some worthy men who like James Cephas and John Gal. 2.4 5 6 7 8 9. are supposed to be Pillars there is so much stuff as like Popish Doctrine as an Italian is like a Roman born and yet which adds to my Admiration their Readers and Hearers admires them with as great Confidence as if Paul were preaching or they were reading one of his Epistles My Proof for what I now say shall be notorious * See Mr. Baxters Saints Rest part 3. chap 8. p. 270. And this is the Doctrine that all men may be saved if they will and then I am sure that all men are not dead in Sins and Trespasses Ephes 2. as the Apostle affirms and the Psalmist Psalms 110.3 that Gods People even the Elect are not a willing People till by his Power he makes them so And that Testimony of Jerem 4. 22. V. My People are wife to do Evil but to do Good they have no Knowledge But may be some may credit Mr. B. before the Apostle and the Prophet or take his Interpretation before the plain Words of Scripture ‖ Part 3. chap. 11. Sect. 3. p. 445. And in the same Chapter that infallible Knowledge is not a Certainty of Faith now if Gods Promise to a Sinner be infallible then may a Sinner by Faith infallibly know it as John 6.37 Rev. 22.17 as his Portion Bellarmine can say nor does say no more than Mr. B. and Mr. B. in the same place says that he likes Bellarmine the Better You may if you will hang your Faith on Mr. Baxters Sleeve but I will not so long as Gods Word is unburnt and in the same Chapter he playes the Arminian neatly and in the last Sheet of the Book by affirming that common Grace in all men and special Grace in the regenerate differs not naturally or physically as he said but by a moral Specification that is in the comparative Degree And he says that Divines make special Grace to lye in four things 1. The Love of God whereby the Redeemer Justifies Elects and Saves these being immanent Acts in God as the Means extended for all to have the Benefit if they will 2. The Spirits act working and infusing the saving Act into the Soul or habitual Acts called Gratia Operans 3. The Effects of the Spirits work the new Creature the Seed remaining or real Holiness 4. The Exercise of these Habits and in it lies the Question about the Sincerity of Grace and the Difference between common and special Grace being as he saith in the Comparative Degree that is not Quality but Quantity No Divines but Papists Arminians and Grotians and Socinians ever held this Phaenomena in Divinity except him So that men may be elected loved of God justified redeemed and the Spirit may apply and infuse Habits and Dispositions at least and a new Creature may be regenerated and yet in the Acts and Exercise of these Habits there be not a Comparative Degree of Excellency that man may be an Hypocrite so then God may Love Justifie and Redeem Hypocrites Did ever Bellarmine or any of the Schoolmen or Jesuitical Tribe ever speak more to the Purpose see Sect. 8. chap. 11. and Sect. 6. beside Aug. lib. de fide chap. 14. Bona Opera sequuntur justificatum non precedunt Justificandum Good works follow a Person Justified as Fruits and Justification is an Act of free Grace that whoever hath it cannot perish and by Faith alone it is received and not by Love or any other Grace The Just shall live by Faith not any other Grace though other Graces as Love c. follow true Faith And quomodo saith Rivet qui vitam non habet potest operari who can work that hath no Life The Tryal of the Sincerity and Truth of our Grace should be placed in the Love of God and Acts of free Grace by him in Christ
VINDICIAE VERITATIS A NARRATIVE Vindicating the TRUTH against The Invective Malicious and Slanderous Back-biting Aspersions of certain NON-CONFORMISTS In and about LONDON Passing under the Notion of Presbyterians and others their Pupils and Confederates concerning the Truths published in my little Book of the Covenants and the Personal Reign of Christ lately Printed for Mr. Thomas Pasham in Fleet-lane as also their abusing me in their Synodical Sessions at the Spittle and elsewhere calling and whispering me to the World to be a Jesuit and a Papist and attempting to silence me as well as my Book because of their Avaritious Interest of accumulating the Peoples Charity to themselves under pretence of caring for their Souls and keeping them from Errours And because I refuse to take my Measures from their Arminian Antichristian Classes Published to prevent the Jealousies of the Godly in London as also the Abuse of the Truths of Christ and further my own Liberty Life and Reputation for the Churches and Gospels sake By the Author JOHN HVMPHRYES 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vestri fratres odio habentes vos elongantes vos propter Nomen meum dixerunt gloriosus fit Dominus Your Brethren that hated you for my Names sake cast you out or said Stand farther off us and said The Lord be glorified in what we do Isa 66.5 Mont. Obsequium amicos Veritas odium parit Flattery gets Friends and Truth gets Foes April the 9th 1680. LONDON Printed in the Year 1680. A Word to the Christian Intelligent Reader IN short I am traduced for a Jesuit who have taken my self this twenty years to be the greatest Antipapist in the World Who my Accusers are originally I cannot tell they that have thus aspersed me have made me the worst of Mankind Reader dost thou know a Jesuit Let me give thee some real Marks of a real Jesuit though 't is hard to do in this Age yet possible 1. A Jesuit is one bred up properly in Jesus-Colledge in Rome a place I never saw in all my Life 2. They are brought up to some Trade or other that they may the better insinuate their Errours this I confess I had never the Happiness to be of and so the more uncapable of gaining a Living in these hard Times though St. Paul was a Tent-maker as well as a Civilian 3. a Jesuit is always shaved on the Crown 't is true I have a Periwig and but little Hair on my Crown but yet I was never shaven there 4. A Jesuit will not cannot preach up the free Grace of God but he must hang his Pipes on some Arminian String by propping up the Creature in some Power that in his fallen State he hath not or else when he tells you of Christs Merits he minces them and tells you that Christs Righteousness and Holiness is by the Spirit communicated into us and to our Nature infused like the Heresie of old Osyander honest Calvin speaks of but he will as soon be hanged at Tyborn as to confess that it is the very Righteousness and Holiness that Christ as Mediator God-man wrought in this individual Person is by an Act of Grace given and by Promise imputed to us and received by Faith alone without Works wrought in us or by us And he cannot tell that Faith and Repentance and new Obedience are Fruits and Effects of our free Justification but he will readily tell you that they are Causes and Acts of ours preceding it or Conditions of it 5. He is a met amorphosied Creature now a Quaker now a Presbyterian now a Church of England man a Baptist finally any thing but a true Evangelist and that he can as soon be hanged as be he can pretend to outward Pharisaical Holiness well enough and says 't is of the Spirit yea he can be a Separatist too but to believe that Jesus in his Person and in his Room and Stead did all for him as to his Righteousness before God this he cannot swallow he is an old Pharisee in a finical spiritual pretended new Dress 6. He allows lying with other mens Wives if they please him and calls Adultery and Fornication but a venial Sin and when his Lust is hot and the Creature weak and tender of Conscience 't is no Sin at all 7. No Creature hath more Confidence even to the Extremity of Impudence than he for if it be but for papal Interest he can Murder Regiscide or commit any horrid Act with the Confidence of meriting Salvation thereby yea he can look another mans Wife in the Face and demand a Nights Lodging of her and if she deny him and detect him he can as confidently put it off with a Jest as if he meant no such thing really All his Confessees are his Children but especially if they be of the Foeminine Gender 8. He is very demure when he is about his spiritual Concerns but take him at another time he 's as apt to stumble at a Curtizens Lintel and at a Firkin if he miss the Tavern as any man living 9. He is very zealous of obeying his Superiour and makes it the chiefest Article of his Creed to be very obedient to them whilst in the Method and Course of his Life he horridly violates the Command of God Q. Whether some that look for Attention from others like Diotrephes be not infected with the Itch of the Jesuits 10. He hates Marriage and living with a Wife as his Master does Holy-water but a Whore is the best spoke in 's Cart at some times Farewel VINDICIAE VERITATIS IT was the frequent Cry of the Jews of old in their greatest Discrtions from God and his Covenant The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord thereby thinking to blind the World and their Consciences with their outward formal Services and ignorant Zeal while they and their Children made Cakes and offered them to the Queen of Heaven and were found treading the Steps of Idolators proud Boasters fiery Zealots Oppressors Covetous Proud hating and persecuting all that did not pin their Faith on their Sleeves and draw their Measures from their Lines though never so corrupt and false Jerem. 7.8 9 10.18 Jerem. 5.20 21. Jerem. 20.10.11 Of the same Spirit were the Scribes and Pharisees in our Lords Days and the furious zealous Jews in the Apostles times Mat. 23.5 8 9 10 11 12 13. and to the end 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5. 1 Tim. 4.12 And of the same Stamp are many of our zealous and Jehu-like Presbyterians in this our day who would truly have done the Church of Christ more Service and the Lord less Dishonour if they had upon their black Bartholomew day conformed to the present times and he that varies from me in this Particular either like the Mole is blind or else like a K. is a Respector of mens Persons The Holy humble tender hearted and truly evangelically principled that have the Apostles Spirit Phil. 3.13.14.15 by what ever Names they are called or distinguish'd I truly
and tendred in the Promises and received by Faith For Grace is savingly true though it may not grow as said David 2 Sam. 23.5 why then should Mr. Baxter place the sincere Degree in the Quantity and Exercise and Growth of Grace Frendeat usque licet Satanas dira minetur Terreat inferni conscia corda metu Vnica Justificat nitens in sanguine Christi Fructibus ipsa suis justificata fides When Satan his hellish Tooth doth gnash And when Fear of Hell the wounded Conscience lash 'T is Faith alone in his Blood Justifies And Fruits of Love to men it verifies And the Power of the Gospel consists not in the Fruits of Faith but in Faith it self 2 Thes 1.8 Acts 16.7 John 6.26 Gal. 3.9 John 3.16 5.24 20.31 Rom. 1.5 1 Cor. 15.2 2 Cor. 13 5. Dominus per Evangelium nos vocat nos vocanti per fidem respondemus Calv. fides propria est per quam obeditur Evangelium ut fide obediant Evangelio bomines Mela. on Rom. 1.5 The Power of the Gospel consists in believing in the Son for our Justification and Sanctification too yea for all without us and within us By the Gospel we are called by Faith we are sure not by Works faith Reverend Calvin Faith is that properly by which we obey the Gospel saith Mela and not works at all And saith Brentius unto Justification and Salvation no Work is required of God from us except Faith alone in Jesus Christ yet Mr. B. in the same Chapter tells you that no man can be justified before certain Acts and Conditions performed by the Creature I will not say this is Popery in a Fryers weed Ad Justitiam Salutem parandum nullum opus aliud efflagitat Deus praeterque fidem Jolam in Jesu Christo in Joh but I am sure 't is Popery in a Presbyterians weed which I am sorry for Mr. B. saith also in the same Chapter that a Woman may love her Husband and yet prostitute her self to twenty other men and her Love in the Sincerity of it differs not in the natural Act but Degree Comparative whether she love her Husband or these men more And first I think such kind of Creatures would be beholding to Mr. B. if he can perswade their Husbands If any object why I mention these things now let them know that for these Abuses of the Grace of God in Christ all these Miseries now impendent and hanging o're ours and the Nations Head because we have corrupted the pure Gospel of Christ by immixing Popish Errours under Pretence of Piety and Holiness that they may love them truly and yet play the Whore with others Besides this is such Divinity that is fitter for a Curtizans Intrigue than a Christian Commonwealth Now If I should hold and defend such Errours it would be Heresie in me but I dare not say 't is so in Mr. B. because some men may break an House before some may draw the Latch I shall give the World an Accout of 1. my Birth and Breeding Negative and Affirmative 2. Of my Religion 3. Of my coming up to London and present Juncture of Affairs 4. As touching the Objection against my Book 5. My Reasons for my Non-appearance before certain Ministers 6. The Conclusion 1. I was born of honest Parents in the County of Salop in the Parish of Neen Savage Anno Dom. 1637 brought up there and in English Schools all my Days and to some competent Degrees in Learning attained but through the late Civil Wars my Friends being impoverished and my Studies were prohibited I never was in any Popish Dominions nor in France Spain Italy or Germany in all my Life About eighteen years of Age I went a Voyage into the West-Indies and being somewhat more than twenty years old was ordained in Litchfield to the Function of the Ministry My whole Life was given to Study in the days of my Minority I attained to some Knowledge in the Tongues but being kept short of this Worlds Good could not attain to that Perfection I aimed at In the further Progress of my days I addicted my self to the Study of some parts of Philosophy Mathematicks and Arithmetick to Physick and unto Divinity in all which I confess my Ignorance too too much and bewail that I have not been more laborious being subject to the English-man's Humour to be aliquid in singulis sed nihil in toto 2. As to my Religion I was never a Papist but my Friends being of the common Protestant Profession I was the same de forma in which I was bred till about twenty years of Age and a little more God in infinite Mercy convinced me of Sin and Wrath and Hell and so I was many Months in a despairing State till he shewed me by his Grace my Interest in the Blood of Christ and gave me Faith to enclasp about him since which I humbly confess I have dishonoured his Name many ways but yet throw Grace beleive I shall not be totally cast off because he hath loved me with an everlasting Love Jer. 31.3 So by his Grace I am what I am now Gal. 2. ult I have been a Chaplain to the Lord Ward dead long since and to a Knight in Worcester shire and for Conscience sake Non-conformed at that Juncture when I might have had an 100 and 20 l. by the year Burmingham in the County of Worcester was offered me and many other Preferments which I all refused and by Faith cast my self on the bare Providence of God near this twenty years I have been in Gloucester and Worcester Goals for the Testimony of my Conscience and for preaching the Gospel I have taken the Oath of Supremacy in the Sense it was given out by Queen Elizabeth as may be testified in the County of Gloucester and have since preached up and down in many Counties of England and sometimes taught Children for my Lively-hood and to maintain my Wife and Children having a Wife and three Children now alive in Oxford-shire 3. My coming up to London was providentially the last year I preached at Bednal Green at Mr. Howels Meeting and many times at Mr. Sharps in Beech Lane at the Morning Lecture there before divers Ministers and by name Mr. Franklin and was never attainted for Jesuitism or Popery or any other Heresie At Michaelmas I went in the Country and Mr. Farrington by one Mr. Million wrote three Letters for me to come and assist him and promised me a Comfortable Maintenance I left a good School then and came up near the end of October 1679. We drew Articles to this Purpose and sealed them and he promised me that Quarter and told me it would be ten Pounds he did believe but I received at Christmas 3 pound odd Money that was all I ever had upon the Account of him and have in Pursuance of the Articles preached since the last Quarter except a little time I was in the Country for Nothing and when I